II. OBJECT OF HIS COMING

On this part of the subject, we may not be all agreed. I would therefore recommend that we give every friend of the cause the privilege of giving his own opinions and reasons why he believes, with meekness and fear. Let us have fervent charity one for another, and let our object be light; while we do nothing for vain glory. What if my brother, through his influence or art, should seem to conquer my arguments, will it make truth any the less true? No; by no means. Then, my brethren, let us have this single object in view, truth.MWV3 80.3

Then let us inquire, for what purpose doth Christ descend to our earth the second time? The Bible answers, “To receive his kingdom.” See Luke 19:15; 2 Timothy 4:1. “Who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.” Then he comes to receive his kingdom; and this kingdom is to be an everlasting kingdom, never to be destroyed, nor given to another people. See Daniel 7:14, 27: “And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” You may inquire what the apostle meant by 1 Corinthians 15:23-28; for if at the coming of Christ he should give up the kingdom to God the Father, and he himself become subject to God, how can it be said that the kingdom given to the Son should stand forever, and “my servant David (meaning Christ) shall be their prince forever?”MWV3 81.1

Ezekiel 37:25. I answer, there are evidently two kingdoms spoken of in Scripture. One I shall denominate the gospel or mediatorial kingdom, into which flesh and blood may enter, tares may grow, and foolish virgins slumber and sleep. The other is the kingdom of immortality and glory, into which flesh and blood can never enter, nor mortality ever inherit; he only who is pure can see it, the children of God are the only heirs to it, the tares are gathered and burned before it is set up, and all that work iniquity or offend are excluded from it. The foolish virgin may cry and knock, yet find no admittance. The carnal Jew will have no claim to this kingdom, nor enemies of God can trouble the subjects thereof. It is the kingdom which God gives to his Son after he (his Son) has given up the mediatorial kingdom, and presented his bride to the Father without spot or wrinkle, having put all enemies under his feet, and destroyed the last enemy to his bride, which is death. Therefore, at the time the immortal and glorified kingdom is set up, must be the resurrection of the just, and the glorification of the whole family of heaven; as also the destruction of all the wicked, the enemies of God, of Christ, and the church. Then, “God will be all in all.” All the kingdoms of the world are broken to pieces and carried away, so that no place is found for them on earth. The kingdom of God will “fill the whole earth,” under “the whole heaven,” and God will be in all dominion, as in heaven, so in earth. Then too God will have answered all prayers which have been indited by the Holy Spirit or taught by the blessed Savior. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as in heaven.” Then, too, God will be “in all.” He will be in our King. “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” John 14:10. He will be “in all” the subjects of his kingdom. “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you;” verse 20. In what day shall we know this? In the day of his second coming. See 18th and 19th verses. We see by these scriptures, that when Christ shall come the second time he will finish the work of salvation, give up the gospel or mediatorial kingdom to his Father, receive the glorified kingdom from his Father, glorify his own people with the same glory he had of his Father, and enter into the rest prepared for him and his, which of course must be eternal, because it is immortal, or, which is as really proved by Scripture, must be an immortal kingdom, because it is eternal.MWV3 82.1

How then, may we not inquire, can the view of the English literalists of the kingdom of Christ be correct? Can this kingdom fill the whole earth, and the carnal Jew inherit Palestine, and the heathen possess three fourths of the rest of the earth? Can death be swallowed up in victory in this kingdom, and yet a large majority of the subjects live and die in a state of mortality? Can Christ gather out of this kingdom all that offend or work iniquity, and yet the unbelieving Jew and idolatrous heathen be subjects of the same? Can it be called a “harvest,” and “end of the world,” and not a fourth part of the field harvested, nor an end come to but few inhabitants? Can Christ give up his mediatorial kingdom and finish the work of redemption, cease from his labors, and enter into his rest with his bride, and at the same time continue his mediatorial office, redeem millions ages after he has finished redemption, and labor after he has completed his work, and enter into his kingdom with one half of his bride, while the other moiety is not born of the first Adam? These are questions which I am not able to solve, nor have I ever seen any satisfactory explanation by our brethren of the English views, how these things can be. The more I have examined the subject, the more I am convinced there is no soundness in the theory. For if we will examine the Scriptures, we shall find abundance of proof that the things so opposite to this notion of some of our English and American brethren, are all accomplished at the second advent, when the eternal and immortal kingdom is set up, and the glory of God fills the whole earth. He comes too to take vengeance on the wicked, who are banished from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power, when he comes to be glorified in his saints. We are told, Proverbs 2:21, 22, “For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.” Also, 10:30: “The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.” Psalm 37:34: “Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.” Not until the wicked are cut off, which will be when Christ shall come. “Then shall that wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume by the spirit of his mouth, and destroy by the brightness of his coming.” He will come “in flaming fire;” 2 Thessalonians 1:8. And as the flood destroyed the antediluvians, so will the fire the present heavens and earth, with all the inhabitants who are not sheltered in the ark prepared of God for salvation to his people. Were not all the inhabitants destroyed in the flood, except those saved in the ark? “So shall it be in the coming of the Son of man.” None can be saved only in Christ. Yet Pharisees and Judaizing teachers have always been trying to climb up some other way - to save the Jew by his blood relation to Abraham, and the heathen for his ignorance. Yet God says, not of blood, nor because they are the seed of Abraham, but in Christ. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now he commandeth all men everywhere (Jew and heathen) to repent.” And “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” (Jew and Gentile.) And those who teach any other way for men to be saved, when “Christ shall come the second time without sin unto salvation,” than by faith in Christ and repentance towards God, are, according to John 10:1, “thieves and robbers.”MWV3 83.1