# The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated/Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.
THE OCCASION AND PURPOSE OF THE LORD'S FIRST ADVENT.
From the Scriptures we learn that the Lord has always interposed in the affairs of men when some extraordinary occurrences in their spiritual condition have required cor​rection. As men have strayed from His fold, He has mercifully endeavoured to arrest their dangerous progress; and when they have reached some perilous point in their bad career, the Lord has come by some providential visitation, to stop their course, and bring it to an end. This may be evident from the cases of the flood, the confusion of tongues, and some other circumstances referred to in the preceding chapter. Throughout the Word, every Divine coming is intimately associated with judgments, and with subsequent acts of beneficence. They were as storms required to clear a corrupted atmosphere, behind which there has always been a genial sunshine to fit it for the better respiration of healthy life. It is, then, the transgressions of men which have been the special causes of the Divine coming—with the innocent He is always present—and the purpose of such coming has always been to remove those causes and prepare the way for a more genial influence to descend for the acceptance of the people. Those causes were not simply the common wilfulness of men to disobey the Divine commands; in this, indeed, those causes found a plane for carrying out the purposes at which they aimed; but they lived as it were behind it, and really consisted in the secret activity of wicked spirits. That men are the subjects of such influences is plainly taught in the Word; and how few are they who have escaped such painful experiences? How frequently has it happened that some evil thought has been suddenly injected into the mind, at the enormity of which every superior sentiment has felt dismay. This has occurred to most persons, not only without any conscious effort on their part to evoke it, but at times when the mind has been voluntarily turned some other way. To what other than spiritual causes can such experiences be attributed? Such facts cannot be rea​sonably explained upon any other principle; and there have been periods in our history when the ascendency of some evil influences has been evident. Without deliverance and protection from those influences, no merely external impression for good can find an abiding place with men. To destroy the weed, the root must be dug up. It is necessary to "cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also." A wound externally healed when corruption is beneath, is always in danger of fresh suppuration. The malady of the patient cannot be removed so long as the source of it is active. The wise physician applies his remedy to the cause of the disease; when that is reached he knows that a cure may follow. And this has been the Lord's purpose whenever He has visited His people. He has come when men were suffering from "wounds and bruises and putrefying sores," and mercifully removed the wicked causes by which those maladies were induced; and the result has always been some improvement in the spiritual health of the people. Such, specially, were the occasion and purpose of the Lord's first advent. He came to "destroy the works of the devil;" "that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
But we will endeavour to open out these facts with a few additional considerations. It is commonly admitted that the Lord came, into the world in consequence of the fall of man, and that Redemption was the purpose of that coming. The opinions entertained upon those subjects are, that the fall of man was completed in Adam's transgression, and that Redemption consisted in the deliverance of man from the wrath of God, which that transgression had incurred. ​We cannot believe that these are correct views of the subject. They are said to be "mysteries" by those who hold them; therefore no one can know that they are true, and every one feels that they are eminently embarrassing to all rational thought. We consider them to be mistakes; still we shall not stop to discuss or to expose them: to us there can be no doubt that they are the fabrications of men, and we prefer to rest our views on the Scripture history of the events themselves.
That the fall of man had its beginning in Adam's transgression is very evident: it is the first recorded act of disobedience, but all which that enormity involved was not completed until the Lord God of Israel visited and redeemed His people; and the "wrath" from which Jesus dellvered them was not the wrath of God, but the wicked influences of an infernal crew. To what else can the debasing influence of wrath belong? The extreme of the Divine mercy was displayed when the extreme of human necessity had arrived. It was when the Lord "came unto His own, and His own received Him not," that the measure of man's iniquity was filled.
We may be reminded that the world had become extremely wicked at the time of the flood; and, also, that after that catastrophe the enormities of men, indicated in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, were exceedingly revolting; and from these facts it may be argued that men had fallen at those periods quite as low as any degradation observable in their history at the time of the Lord's advent into the world. But those who adopt that conclusion are not yet in possession of all the facts and circumstances which relate to the subject. The fall of man is not to be considered simply as a fall into criminal acts, but chiefly as the cor​ruption and paralysis of all his human principles, and thus as the perversion of all his original inclination to receive and retain the spiritual sentiments of purity and heaven.
The human principles are celestial, spiritual, and natural; it is these which distinguish humanity from the brute creation, and the two former were rendered inactive by the depravity of the people, before the latter was entirely corrupted. They are distinct degrees of human life, to which respectively belong the sentiments of Love, Faith, and Duty; and that which was pre-eminent in each principle stood out as a characteristic of the people in the best times of the Adamic, Noetic, and Israelitish periods. In each of those periods a Divine dispensation was established, suited to the prevailing genius and requirements of the people to whom it was vouchsafed. The first, however, was associated with a more interior life, even in its visible character, than the intermediate and the last. How plain is it that the condition of religion which was begun with Adam, was much more eminent than that which had its commencement with Noah; and how certain is it that that which was originated with Noah was superior to that which was established with Abraham and his descendants! The reason is, because the first was adapted more to the loving, or celestial principle of mankind; the second to the believing, or spiritual principle; and the third to the obeying, or natural principle. It is well known that each of the three Churches referred to, declined and fell; but the peculiar nature of their fall consisted in the people of each Church successively perverting that principle in themselves to which its teachings were specifically adapted. Thus the celestial principle was perverted when the Divine things proper to the Adamic dispensation ceased to be perceived; and the rain which followed is revealed to us by the calamity of the flood. The ​spiritual principle was perverted, when the Divine things proper to the Noetic dispensation ceased to be acknowledged; the wreck and disorder which resulted are represented to us by the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of mankind. The natural principle was perverted when the obedience proper to the Israelitish economy ceased to be observed: it was then that the fall of man became complete; this is shown in the termination of that external economy by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, by the advent of Jehovah in His humanity.
Hence we learn that the cessation of each Church resulted from the perversion of that distinctive principle in man, for the development and maintenance of which the teachings of each Church had been mercifully provided; consequently the fall consisted in man successively perverting in himself the orderly use of each distinctive principle and purpose of human life. Thus, although the criminal acts which were perpetrated in the early ages of mankind were quite as bad as any that were committed in subsequent periods, yet, as in each of those periods such acts proceeded from the perversion of the different principles which were peculiar to each period, it is certain that there must have been a difference in the moral quallty of the enormities which prevailed; and, consequently, the evils perpetrated by the people of the first dispensation must have been more atrocious than those committed in succeeding times: the people sinned with more open eyes, and perverted the uses of a more interior principle than any enjoyed by their successors: hence the first dispensation perished by a catastrophe more terrible than that of any of the others. When then it is said that the fall of man was not completed until the Lord God of Israel visited to redeem His people, the meaning is that, at that time the orderly uses of all the ​human principles had been perverted, so that darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people. And then it was that the Lord so pointedly said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." To be born again is to have those human principles of which we have been treating, brought again into a state of living and orderly activity.
When the Lord came into the world, all the sentiments and affections of true religion had been abandoned, and their restoration was one of the objects for which that advent was undertaken. The civilization of the nations at that period was a gilded rottenness. They had a theology, but it was paganism; they had a religion, but it was selfishness; the one knew nothing of the true God; the other knew nothing of spiritual faith and virtue. The governments were debased by ambition, wantonness, and cruelty; the people were enslaved by pride, ignorance, and vice. Revelation, which is the magnet through which the influences of heaven are brought down to men, had no place among them. Sismondi, speaking of the Roman power at that period, says that "it exhibited all that was shameful and perfidious in man; everything that was atrocious in the abuse of absolute power. Never had the world been astounded with such a variety of enormity and crime; never had so fatal an attack been made upon every virtue which men had been accustomed to hold in reverence. Nature was outraged." This evil power received a check by the establishiment of Christianity, because thereby some of its spiritual sources were arrested.
But every one knows something of the fearful character which Jesus drew of the Jewish nation. The scribes, ​Pharisees, and lawyers were all denounced as bands of hypocrites, who strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel; who made void the law and substituted the tradition of men for the word of God; who turned the temple into a den of thieves, and neglected mercy and judgment; who were of their father the devil, and the works of their father they would do; who were full of ravening and wickedness; made prayer for a pretence, and compassed sea and land to make a proselyte, whom they made twofold more a child of hell than themselves. In short, they were a wicked and an adulterous generation; a generation of serpents and vipers, of whom it was asked, how they could escape the damnation of hell. And of the Sadducees, it is said that they did not believe in the resurrection, nor in angels, or spirits. This awful picture of Jewish profligacy, drawn by One who knoweth what is in man, is corroborated by Josephus, an historian of their own time. He says, "Such was the impudence and boldness that had seized on the high-priests, that they had the hardness to send their servants into the threshing floors to take away those tithes that were due to the priests; insomuch that it so fell out that the poorest sort of the priests died for want." During the reign of Alexandra, "the Pharisees artfully insinuated themselves into her favour by little and little, and became themselves the real administrators of the public affairs; they banished and reduced whom they pleased; they bound and loosed (men) at their pleasure; and to say all at once, they had the enjoyment of royal authority, whilst the expenses and difiiculties of it belonged to Alexandra." "The behaviour of the Sadducees one towards another is in some degree wild, and their conversation with those of ​their own party is as barbarous as if they were strangers to them." Nor were these things true of the Jews only. Similar evils had broken out among mankind in general, wherefore the apostle said, "the whole world lieth in wickedness." Surely no one can fail to see from these facts that a dreadfal precipice had been reached, and that the people must have fallen over it into an eternal ruin, if some merciful measures had not been adopted to hinder such a catastrophe.
But how was this hindrance accomplished? By what means was this terrible danger averted? Plainly, by "the Lord God of Israel visiting to redeem His people." He came into the ultimates of nature, when transgression sprung from the ultimate principles of man. He did not so come before, because that result had not before been so thoroughly developed. He adopted the extreme measure for the rescue, when the extreme of human necessity bad been reached. And this circumstance, of itself, may be taken as one of the strongest proofs that this must have been the period when the fall had reached its greatest depth. If it had been reached before, surely that advent, which was so requisite to avert its dangers, would not have been delayed. No! the Lord then came into the world that He might have access to men by an external way, because then it was that all the internal ways to man's spiritual life were shut against the Divine approach. In every stage of the process by which the fall was brought to its close, God had mercifully watched over mankind with unabated solicitude and care. He desires nothing so intensely as the happiness of men. He does not withdraw His regard because they may relinquish their obedience. The Divine love is infinite; if it could have been diminished, mankind could not have been ​preserved. It is from this fact that He said, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." "Why will ye die—return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good." "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." To arrest man in the process of his downward career, God mercifully interposed a thousand providences; He could not see His people straying from His fold without putting forth His hand to stop them. The ingratitude of men cannot diminish the love of God; that is an everlasting activity of the Divine nature; and therefore it is written that, "In His love and in His pity He redeemed them."
But from what did He redeem them? Doubtless it was from the extraordinary influences of those wicked spirits who at that time had gained great power in the afiairs of men, and brought about so terrible an issue. The ascendency they had obtained is clearly proved by those numerous cases in which devils and unclean spirits are stated to have taken possession, not merely of the minds, but even of the very bodies of mankind. We do not before read of such revolting facts; and they may be taken as additional evidence of that extremity to which man had fallen. Those spirits had been accumulating, since the period of the flood, in that department of the spiritual world which is the first common receptacle for all who die. Some, indeed, had been removed therefrom at various times by particular judgments, but the mass remained. Peter speaks of some disobedient spirits who had been detained there from the days of Noe to the coming of the Lord; for he said that ​the Lord went and preached to them after His resnrrection. Men dying with corrupted lives, which they had voluntarily fixed upon themselves, proceeded with them into the spiritual world, and there they still retained them. "In the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be." "He that is unjust will be unjust still: he that is filthy will be filthy still." Those spirits, from age to age, increased in number and enormity, until at length they became so multiplied and powerful as to overspread the minds of men with darkness, and urge them to love and adopt those iniquities of which we have been speaking. Thus, when the Lord came into the world, "hell had enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and hell from beneath was moved to meet Him at His coming;" and it was from the influences of this terrible condition that mankind had to be redeemed.
Redemption obviously implies deliverance from a state of bondage. This is the idea which the term everywhere expresses in the Scriptures. The rescue of the Israelites from their captivity in Egypt is frequently spoken of as redemption; and that circumstance, as an historical event, was the type of that spiritual deliverance now under consideration. It was the rescue of mankind from the ascendency of that infernal influence by which they were held in bondage, and thereby the restoration of that spiritual liberty in which they might again co-operate with the Lord to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. Hence, the Lord said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
The assumption of humanity by the Lord was essential to this purpose. This may be evident from its adoption; ​for who can attack an enemy unless he approach, towards him, and be furnished with arms requisite for the battle? It was man who had to be redeemed; the assumption of a manhood was therefore indispensable to the work. By that means a suitable plane was provided, in which the Omnipotent could meet those spiritual enemies of His people; cause them to be "dismayed, and turned away back, and their mighty ones beaten down." They attacked that humanity, as they had attacked that of ordinary men, because they found in that humanity a similar plane; but they were met therein, and resisted; fought against, and conquered; and by that conquest mankind were redeemed from the bondage into which they had fallen. It was in reference to those spiritual victories that the Lord is so frequently called "the Redeemer;" also "a mighty man" "a man of war," "the Lord of hosts;" "the Lord strong and mighty in battle." Those against whom He fought were the spiritual enemies of the souls of men, and the object aimed at by the war was to cause the unclean spirit to pass out of the land, to deliver men out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem them out of the hand of the terrible. This was exclusively the Lord's own work; for "He saw, and there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation unto Him; and His righteousness, it sustained Him: for He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon His head; and He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. When the enemy came in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord lifted up a standard against ​him." Tlie frequency with which those Divine combats are spoken of by the prophets is remarkable and prominent. Take, as another instance, the following:—"Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments ft-om Bozrah? This that is glorious in His apparel, travelling in the greatness of His strength? I that speak in righteonsness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garment like him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. And I looked and there was none to help; and I wondered that there were none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me. He said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie; so He was their Saviour. In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them." Other passages of similar significance could readily be cited. It is, indeed, true that many of them have been commonly regarded as having reference to some natural wars among the nations, in which Divine judgments against the enemies of the Church were conspicuous. Still it has always been a matter of great difficulty to find, in the history of nations, facts which could be identified and adopted as the fulfilment of such predictions. Hence there are no settled opinions concerning their application to worldly history; nor can there be, so long as such a political view is taken of those Divine writings. Their true interpretation can only be found in ​the spiritual history, which we are endeavouring to illustrate. The passages quoted above plainly speak of the Lord's combat against the spiritual enemies of Himself and His people, and also of His triumphs in the battle. The same facts are referred to in Joel, under images of a somewhat similar character: thus, "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision; for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Some of the teachings of this prophet are expressly spoken of by Peter, as referring: to events which distinguished the Lord's advent. The reality of His spiritual combats, triumphs, and consequent judgment, is pointed at by several circumstances recorded of Him during His personal presence in the world. It is written, "The Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness, and He was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts: and the angels ministered unto Him. Here, by "the Spirit," "Satan," and "the wild beasts," are clearly denoted evil spirits of various sorts; and this temptation is said to have taken place in the wilderness, because by such a tract of solitude and savageness is represented the desolation and misery to which humanity was reduced. That it was a transaction having special reference to the spiritual world is evident, not only from the circumstance of "the Spirit," and "Satan," being named, but also from the concluding statement, which informs us that "the angels ministered unto Him." Again we read, "the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto Him, If Thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down: for it is written, He shall give His angels ​charge concerning Thee; and in their hands they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thon dash Thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth Him, and behold angels came and ministered unto Him." These, doubtless, were most extraordinary occurrences, and surely it cannot require any argument to prove that the actual scene in which they transpired was the spiritual world. The temptations by wicked spirits, and the comforts of angelic ministration, must each have come from their respective departments in the other life; and when the temptations were removed, illustrations from the latter were displayed. How pointedly did the Lord refer to the spiritual combats He had undertaken, when He said to Peter, who had drawn the sword in His defence, and struck a servant of the high-priest and smote off his ear, "Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" It was through the devil entering into Judas that the Lord was betrayed; and to what else, but the terrible nature of His spiritual conflicts, can be referred the agony which he experienced in Gethsemane, in which "there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him," and when "His sweat was as it were great ​drops of blood, falling down to the ground"? How plainly also did He speak to His disciples concerning the conflicts which He sustained, and the triumphs which He won? When "the seventy returned with joy, saying. Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name, He said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you: but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven." Surely, these were phenomena beyond the scenes of ordinary humanity in the natural world. The narrative plainly recognises the cruel bondages into which mankind had fallen, and the heavenly liberty that was in the process of being restored. "For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil:" Hence Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book, and began to say unto them, this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." Here, among other purposes of His mission, are expressly enumerated the "deliverance of the captive," and the "setting at liberty them that are bound:" but the captivity and bonds referred to were not those of the body; for from these we do not read that he liberated any. He spake of the captivity and bondage of the souls of men; it is these that are precious ​in His sight; and for these He effected spiritual liberty and life, for He said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed:" "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." And how was this accompHshed? This is sufficiently explained by the facts that He cast out devils by the Spirit of God: and that with authority He commanded the unclean spirits and they obeyed Him. These considerations clearly show that the Lord's purpose in the natural world was to redeem men from the power of those wicked influences which had set in upon them from the world of spirits. His humanity was, as it were, the field in which those influences could be met and conquered by the Divinity within. As these conquests were effected, a cloud of evil influences was driven away from the minds of men; a new light from heaven was enabled to descend for their enjoyment; and then a new condition of religious life was begun in the world, of which the establishment of Christianity is the evidence.
Now when we remember that the Lord cast out the spirits with His word; and that it is the word which He speaketh that judgeth; we must at once perceive that the Redemption which He accomplished, implies not only a Divine coming, but also the execution of a judgment. He had authority to execute judgment; and He said, "For judgment I am come into this world." John the Baptist plainly referred to this event when he said, "He that Cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and with fire: whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the ​garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Doubtless this gathering of the wheat, and burning of the chaff, were figures of the judgment for which the Lord came, for it very closely resembles His own description of that event, namely, "In the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." Every one knows that a general judgment is treated of in this figurative language: indeed, it is so explained by the Lord Himself. Besides, He plainly said, "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out." The prince of this world is judged:" "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world:" "I beheld Satan as lightening fall from heaven." Surely it is evident that by "the world," "the prince of this world," and " Satan," are denoted the wicked influence of infernal spirits; and, consequently, the judgment for which the Lord came did not consist merely in the formation of an opinion respecting the condition and deserts of the world, but in the actual severance of the hold which those spirits had gained upon the minds of men, and the removal of them to their final destiny. Without this, that judgment could not have had any practical results. Thus we learn that the Lord came into the world for judgment, and that then was the time of its execution. Did He accomplish this purpose? Most certainly He did! Any other conclusion would imply a failure in His designs; and this cannot be conceded. Now where was the scene of this judgment? and who were its subjects? Doubtless the world of spirits was the scene; and the souls of men were the subjects. There was no occurrence at that time in the ​world of men which can be reasonably translated to mean such a judgment. It is the soul which constitutes the man, and it is in this that vice or virtue is implanted; this, therefore, is the subject of the judgment. The world of spirits is the first common receptacle for the souls of all who die, and it is there where they remain until their time of judgment. Who does not perceive that He who could say of Himself, "The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world: I am the bread of life;" He who could declare that He was present in heaven at the same time that He was visible on earth, could also be present in the world of spirits to execute the judgment for which He came? And so the first advent of the Lord was attended by a last judgment,—the last of several especially referring to the Jewish economy, because thereby that dispensation was brought to its end. It has, indeed, continued as a form, like a ruin in decay, but from that time it ceased to be recognised as a living institution. Men had rendered its teachings of none effect, and therefore He who founded it supplanted it by another. That other is Christianity; which is to be a perpetual institution among mankind. It is true that some corruption of its primitive excellence was foretold in language plain and striking; but it is equally true that their removal is predicted by the execution of a judgment and the second coming of the Lord. These are among the evident teachings of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew.
While, then, the Scripture history of our race is divided into three epochs, each of which has been distinguished by the existence of a Church, called respectively the Adamic, the Noetic, and the Israelitish, we find that as each became corrupt, and so no longer adapted for carrying on the pur​poses for which it was established, it was brought to an end by the execution of a judgment; and thereupon provision was made for the establishment of a successor. So that from the Scriptures we learn that three general judgments have been actually executed; that the world of spirits was the scene of their execution; and also that each has been attended by a Divine coming, in some specific way; of which, however, the Lord's advent in the flesh was the most ultimate, and consequently the judgment then executed reached a lower plane in man's spiritual life than any of the rest.
But were there any circumstances visible among mankind which may reasonably be considered as the results of this last judgment on the Jewish Church having taken place in the world of spirits? We certainly believe there were. Such an event would necessarily, sooner or later, give forth to the world of men some indications of its occurrence. Such indications appeared in the cases of those judgments which attended the end of preceding dispensations, and to which we have previously referred; and they are found to stand out very distinctly in the history which immediately follows that judgment which we have now before us. From that period the Jewish people gradually sank into a powerless community; and the fig-tree, to which it was said, "Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever," presently withered away. Within seventy years of that judgment Jerusalem was besieged by Titus; its population was reduced to a condition unexampled in the sufferings attending warfare; the survivors of that terrible conflict, with their descendants, were dispersed, and their national existence was destroyed. From that period, too, the decline and fall of Pagan Rome began; and all who are acquainted with its history know something of the idolatry ​which prevailed, the love of dominion which was cherished, the tyranny which was exercised, and of the comparative rapidity with which those evils were checked and moderated. Surely circumstances like these, occurring on so large a scale, may in themselves be regarded as indications of a judgment. But behind those national experiences there must have transpired some spiritual phenomena. These occurrences were not without an adequate cause; and, doubtless, the breaking up of such perverted religious institutions on the one hand, and the termination of such flagitious abuses of political power on the other, could only have been accomplished by a removal from the minds of the people of those influential and spiritual causes by which they had been induced. The circumstances adverted to certainly occurred, and the hand of the Divine providence was as certainly concerned in their production. And is not the removal of the ruling cause of evil from the minds of men in perfect keeping with the merciful providence of Him who came into the world to save His people from the hand of those who hated them? This was done; and, therefore, it implies the execution of a judgment by which the preponderating power of evil spirits was removed from men, and new influences from heaven provided for their enjoyment in the world.
But whether the above historical circumstances be considered as evidences that a Divine judgment had been executed in the world of spirits or not, the fact remains that the Lord came into the world for judgment, and that its immediate subjects were the souls of departed men; for the Lord solemnly declared, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God." There can be no reason ​able doubt that this, among other purposes, was spoken of the judgment then in process of being executed. The dead who were hearing the voice of the Son of God were not only those who had not yet attained spiritual life and who were in process of accepting the teachings of Divine truth for that purpose; they were also those who had passed away from this world, and who were still living in another; they were thus hearing those words of the Divine voice from which they could learn their destiny; for "all judgment is committed unto the Son, and the word which He speaketh the same judgeth."
* ↑ Matt. xxiii. 26.
* ↑ 1 John iii. 8.
* ↑ Titus ii. 14.
* ↑ Luke i. 68.
* ↑ Rom. v. 9.
* ↑ John i. 11.
* ↑ Isa. lx. 2.
* ↑ John iii. 3.
* ↑ See Matt. xxiii, throughout, and in many other places.
* ↑ Matt. xxii. 23; Acts xxiii. 8.
* ↑ Antiquities, book xx., chap, viii., sec. 8.
* ↑ Wars of the Jews, chap. v., sec. 2.
* ↑ Wars of the Jews, chap. viii., sec. 14.
* ↑ 1 John v. 19.
* ↑ Jer. xxxi. 3.
* ↑ Jer. xxvii. 13; xviii. 11.
* ↑ Micah vi. 8.
* ↑ Isa. lxiii. 9.
* ↑ 1 Pet. iii. 18-20.
* ↑ Eccles. xi. 3.
* ↑ Rev. xxii. 11.
* ↑ Isa. v. 14; xiv. 9.
* ↑ Phil. ii. 12.
* ↑ John x. 10.
* ↑ Jer. xlvi. 5.
* ↑ Job xix. 25; Ps. xix. 14; lxxviii. 35; Isa. xli. 14; xliii. 14; xliv. 6, etc.
* ↑ Isa. xlii. 13.
* ↑ Isa. i. 24; ii. 12; vi. 3, etc., etc.
* ↑ Ps. xxiv. 8, 9.
* ↑ Zech. xiii. 2.
* ↑ Jer. xv. 21.
* ↑ Isa. lix. 16, 17, 19.
* ↑ Isa. lxiii. 1—9.
* ↑ Joel iii. 13, 14.
* ↑ Acts ii. 16.
* ↑ Mark i. 12, 13.
* ↑ Matt. iv. 5-11.
* ↑ Matt. xxvi. 51-53.
* ↑ John xiii. 2.
* ↑ Luke xxii. 43, 44.
* ↑ Luke x. 17-20.
* ↑ 1 John iii. 8.
* ↑ Luke iv. 18-21.
* ↑ John viii. 36.
* ↑ John x. 10.
* ↑ Matt. xii. 28; Mark i. 27.
* ↑ Matt. viii. 16.
* ↑ John xii. 48.
* ↑ John v. 27.
* ↑ John ix. 39.
* ↑ Matt. iii. 11, 12.
* ↑ Matt. xiii. 30.
* ↑ John xii. 31.
* ↑ John xvi. 11.
* ↑ John xvi. 33.
* ↑ Luke x. 18.
* ↑ John vi. 33.
* ↑ John iii. 13.
* ↑ Matt. xxi. 19.
* ↑ John v. 25.