The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-26


kept blameleSs until the coming
LETTERS TO THESSALONIANS.
What was the effect of this letter on the
Thessalonian church we do not know. We
have only two sources to guide US in an
swering that question. One is the effect
which a similar faith has had at other
epochs in church history; the other the
second letter which Paul wrote to the Thes-
salonians. In the beginning Of this CEN
fury an enthusiastic and devout man by the
name of Miller, as a result of careful, at
least presumably careful, study of the
prophecies of the Old Testament and the
new, came to the conclusion that Christ
about preaching in the northern states this
coming of the Lord. He also thought that
the secret of the forcefulness of Christians
thought it would come with observation
and men would be able to say, 10 here, 10
there Great numbers of adherents fiocked
about him. Men were not melted by this
expectation to live holy, without blame,
with Wit purity and with industry. but they
they forgot the common duties of life they
were absorbed in the expectation of sud-
den miraculous coming. Wherever that
It bore with it moral and spiritual desola-
ton. The excitement of to-day was fol-
prairie fire it left but burnt grass Some
thing. such. an effort seems to have fol-
They seemed to have stopped their work.
to have given UP their industry, to have
thought, it was enough to fold their hands
and look for the coming of the Lord in
power and clouds and great glory.
And so Paul writes his second letter to
the Thessalonians. 1t is shorter one. 1t is
fallen. He does, indeed, reaffirm what he
said in the first. He reiterates the coming
OF the Messiah He redeclares that lie will
come in power and glory, and that He will
destroy His enemies and He will establish
will not come Immediately. Daniel, living in
the age of Antiochus, Epiphanes, Epi-
names, has painted the picture of a. strange,
mad brilliant king. He has painted Him in
colors none too vivid nor too dark; he has
painted Him as the embodiment of all that
is blasphemous, profane and wicked. Paul
recurs to this picture, and he tells the Thes-
salonlanS that the coming of Christ cannot
pc until such man of sin appears and
growth. 1 wonder if Paul had ever heard
the story of the tares and wheat, and knew
tn that the wheat could not be gathered until
l wonder II he had ever heard the story Of
Christs talk with His disciples, just before
His death, as they sat on the hill overlook
ing Jerusalem, when he told them that not
one stone should be left above another and
warned them not to make a mistake, for
the church must first come? / wonder-but
do not know-whether he had or not. At
all events, in some way or other Paul
reached the conclusion that the kingdom of
God could not come until the kingdom of
evil was itself perfected. And thus he eau
tons the Thessalonians:
ii Thess ii, 10: But we beseech you, breth-
rem for the sake of the coming Of our Lord Jesus
the Messiah and our gathering together unto
sonable Judgment nor thrown into tumuIt; neither
by spiritual ecstasy, nor by traditions Of Jesus
imagine ay Of hg Lord is close at at
Let no one deceive you by any means for that
away in the church first, and the of sin be
unveiled, the son of destruction, who sets him
ali that is called God or ' is an OBJECT
Of worship, so that he stitch in the temple Of
Cod, exhibiting himself that he is God. Re-
member We not that while yet was with you
which holds him back in order that he may be
revealed in his time. For already the mystery of
restraineth now; but when he is taken out of the
b NAY tnen s M be he the @ one
and bring to naught by the glory Of His COM
panied with the supeInal working of Satan. with
ali power and yipg signs and wonders ana With
are perishing because they did not receive the
love of the truth that they might be saved.
He ends this epistle he ended the 9TH
er, with practical cOunsel-that men be
quiet; that they attend to their own bust
ness; that they go on with their industries;
that they do not think they hasten the com
ing of the kingdom by sitting and looking
for it, but by living righteous, holy and
godly lives.
A STUDY OF THE LETTERS.
GAS a simple Interpretation of Pauls let
tiers L might, perhaps, stop here. But 1
think you have right to know what i'm
preston these letters have produced on my
own mind and what L hold respecting the
subject of them-the second coming of
Christ. 1 speak on this subject with great
hesitation Not because L have not studied
it, but if you will pardon me for saying it,
because have, ana the more have studied
the more hesitation 1 feel about speaking
Dramatically upon it. Some things are.
however, very clear to me; some are less
clear. 1t is, in the first place, very clear
to me that Paul believed that the Messiah
was TO come again, and to come in his own
generation. We which are alive he says.
lie speaks in the present tense. He antici-
pates the coming day by day. 1t is equally
certain that this expectation has not been
fulfilled. Even if we suppose, as some do
suppose, that all that which was true in the
prophecy was fulfilled by the destruction of
Jerusalem, certainly that destruction does
not I'LL TO the full PaulS picture of the COM
ing Christ in clouds and glory, Of the de9d
arising and being caught up in the clouds
and or the instant destruction of all sin and
iniquity from the world. But Paul was mis-
taken not only in his conception of the time
of the Messlah's coming he was mistaken
in his conception Of the secret of the power
of the kingdom. The kingdom of God does
not come with observation Men are not to
say, Lo, here, and 10, there The glory
of the kingdom of God is, as Paul told the
Corinthians little later, the glory of the
cross, the glory of self-sacritice, the glory
of an unseltish life. 1t is the glory of
crowned suffering. 1t is not by clouds and
angels and archangels, not by the pomp and
circumstance of war, terrestrial or celestial
that Christ conquers, but by the invisible
might of meekness. All this is true, and yet
It does not follow that there is no truth in
PauIS expectation. 1t does not follow that
there is no meaning in the prophecies of
the Old Testament, the prophetic words of
Christ himself as they are reported
in the gospel, and these prophetic words of
Paul in the epiStle to the TheSsalonians
The Bible looks upon all history as a rev
citation of God. That is the end and object
of 1t. 1t is not what we call civilization; it
is not steam engines and highways and
railroads and telephones; it is not ceiIed
houses and fine clothes and luxurious food:
it IS not a comfortable and an easy time; it
is not even liberty and righteousness only
but 1t is the reVeratiOn of God to the sons
Of men, because they are sons of God In
the Old Testament this revelation of God
is made through divers prophets and patrf-
archS, speaking in various ways that which
God has witnessed to them in their own
consciousness. This revelation of God in
the Old Testament time is ITSELF in the He
brew conception, the preparation for an
other, q. clearer and better revelation OF
Cod which has come to pass in the New
Testament. 1t is in the manger at Bethle-
hem; 1t is In the life that interveneS; it
resurrection But this is not the
contamination of the revelation. This
much seems to me clear in the teachings of
Christ and the apostles. This revelation and
all that has grown out of it, this revelation
and the love that has flowed from it, this
revelation and the brotherhood which it has
helped to cement together: this revelation