The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-04-07
COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.

COMING OF THE SON OF MAN.
DESTRUCTION.-Ou last Lesson closed
with the declaration of JESUS to the ruling
Jews that their house, probably the Temple,
which was the centre of their national unity
and the hope of their independent kingdom
and future glory, was about to be left unto
them spiritually desolate, shey having proven
themselves to be unworthy guardians of the
sacred place and its Divinely ordained insti-
buttons, and he, the long expected prophet of
COP and deliverer of His people, was being
cast out of his Fathers house-and that they
would not see him again in his Messianic dig
nifty till they should acknowledge him as
their Divinely appointed King. In the even
ing, probably Wednesday evening of Passion
Week (see McClintock Strong's Cyclope-
dia, Art. Jesus Christ; also Lesson Study,
March 11. JESUS left the Temple, where
he had been teaching, never to return
to it again, to go to the Mount of Olives
and to Bethany, where he was accus-
toned to lodge. On the way the disciples
called his attention to the msgDificence and
grandeur of the richly adorned Temple from
which they were departing, when he declared:
"The days will come in which there shall
not be left here one stone upon another that
shall not be thrown down (xxiv. 1, 2; Luke
xxi. 5, g.. When seated upon the Mount of
Olives, the disciples asked: "When will these
things be. and what will be the sign of thy
coming (literally, presence), and the con-
summation of the age [aion, "age," and not
kosnros, "world." See margin of the Revis-
ion1? (3) The Jews expected that the Mes
siah when he should come would end the
then present unsatisfactory state or period
of their national experience and history, and
they looked forward with hope from the
present to the coming age. The disciples in
their thought, and in their question, con-
nected the coming of their Master whom
they believed to be the Messiah with the
contamination of the age, meaning, proba
bly,, the end of the Roman dominion and su-
premacy of their nation. JESUS appeared to
connect his glorious coming with the de-
struction of the Temple in which his author
ity as Teacher had been virtually denied by
its rulers. The disciples asked when all these
things should occur, and by what signs should
it be known that they were about to occur
MARK xiii. A.. Before the true kingdom of
GoD should come in glorious power, not
only its pagan enemies must be overcome,
but the unfaithful and disloyal Jewish ma
tion-whose rulers we're its immediate and
most malignant enemies, and the centre of
whose powerful influence and opposition was
its Holy City, Jerusalem, with its magnif
cent Temple of worship, must be over
thrown. The destruction of these JESUS,
and the prophets before him, plainly pre-
dicted, and it was connected by himself, es-
eecially with his glorious coming, or pres
ence, to rule the world in righteousness and
truth by the authority and power of GoD. AS
the true kingdom of GoD is spiritual, the
acknowledged sovereignty and reign of truth
and righteousness in the soul, the presence
or coming of the Son of man must be con-
ceived of as spiritual, though its operation
may be manifested in outward, material and
worldly conditions, and in the m ovements of
human history. Whatever is seen to pro-
mote the salvation of the individual and the
world is truly the manifestation of the pres
ence and the coming of the Son of man.