Lord Jesus and the divinity of his person. In this statement the writer seems to be raising a note of warning against the Gnostic heresy which was then beginning to trouble the Church and to pervert the true doctrine of the relations of "the Father and the Son." In 2 John, 7, we find the language even more explicit: "Many deceivers are gone forth into the world, even they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh. This is the deceiver (ó πλávos), and the Antichrist." That is, in the spirit and operations of the many deceivers who are abroad in the world, denying the truth of "God the Father, and of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father" (vers. 3 and 9), we must recognize the arch-deceiver and the Antichrist. These antichrists are apostates from the Christian body, for "they went out from us, but they were not of us" (1 John ii, 19). Their apostasy made it manifest that they possessed not the Spirit of the Lord Jesus nor the love of God the Father. In all essentials, however, this general concept of the Antichrist is in thorough harmony with that of Paul in 2 Thess. ii, 1-12. According to both these views the revelation of Antichrist is preceded and accompanied by a great apostasy, and the spirit of Antichrist is the spirit of presumptuous opposition to Jesus Christ and to "all that is called God, or that is worshipped." All false teaching and deceptive prophesying is of the evil one, and every malicious and blasphemous enemy of the gospel of Jesus is an embodiment of the Antichrist. To the same effect we read in 2 Pet. ii, 1: "Among you also there shall be false teachers, who shall privily bring in destructive heresies, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." This agrees also with what we have already cited from 1 Tim. iv, 1, 2, and Matt. xxiv, 5, 11, and with what is written in 2 Pet. iii, 3, and Jude 18. Wheresoever such a spirit of opposition to the truth of God prevails, there is the Antichrist.

19. General Conclusion. In all the scriptures bearing on this doctrine of Antichrist one may recognize a portraiture of Satan, the great enemy and opposer of God. He manifests his working and his spirit in manifold ways, and we are so advised of his wiles, and power, and signs, and lying wonders as not to be taken unawares in his crafty deceptions. According to our Lord's teaching in John viii, 14, "the devil was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father thereof." Here we have, in the style of the fourth gospel, a noteworthy statement of the whole New Testament doctrine of Antichrist. The various portraitures of the great adversary by the different biblical writers are to be studied as so

many individual modes of conception peculiar to men of different mental characteristics, while amid sundry diversities of expression there is a common substance of doctrine. All these writers contemplate a great antagonist of God and his people. The conflict deepens in intensity at certain extraordinary crises of the ages; but, in the ultimate struggle, all antichristian evils must perish before the irresistible power of God. Most of these teachings are cast in apocalyptic form, and we may distinguish between the form and the essential truth within the form. When we have the picture of Michael and his angels at war with the dragon and his angels we observe at once the mythical character of the imagery, and two courses of inquiry open before us: one is to trace the origin of the imagery and compare its analogies in the various religious cults and literatures of the nations; another, and the one we are concerned with, is to seek the essential truth that is hidden under the pictorial forms of thought. Whether there be an actual host of personal spirits of wickedness, led on by a mighty prince of the demons; or whether these terms are to be explained as figurative but necessary modes of speech by means of which we express ideas of the terrible power of physical and moral evil in the world of men, may be left an open question. There can be no reasonable doubt that the biblical writers conceived and spoke of the devil and his angels as real beings, working in the sons of disobedience, and often possessing them and rushing them to their own destruction. Much of that which is written touching the Antichrist implies such a realistic view on the part of the writers. Each interpreter of the scripture must determine for himself this question of the invisible "principalities and powers." But of this much we may speak with the greatest assurance, and affirm as an unquestionable fact of the moral world that the good and the evil are mighty realities with men. Whatever their strongholds among invisible spirits in high positions or in low, they may well be conceived and spoken of as essentially antagonistic kingdoms, and as the kingdom and coming of Christ have been shown to be most glorious facts of revelation and experience, so, too, the oppositions of the kingdom of Satan are continuously showing their power "with all deceit of unrighteousness," and in manifold delusions of error. This is the great conflict of the ages, but, to use biblical terms of thought, the woman's seed shall bruise the old serpent's head, the God of peace shall bruise Satan under the feet of his saints, and in his own times the Lord Jesus shall slay and consume the lawless son of perdition, and bring him to naught by the manifestation of his presence.

CHAPTER III

CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST

1. Christ to Overcome the World. Both the nature and the coming of the kingdom of Christ have further illustration in a study of those scriptures which relate to his spiritual conquest of the world. We are told in 1 Cor. xv, 25, that Christ "must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet," but this is simply a Pauline way of expressing the psalmist's ideal of the Messiah, who obtains from Jehovah the nations and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession (Psa. ii, 8), and sits enthroned at his right hand until his enemies are made his footstool (cx, 1). From another point of view the workers and witnesses for Christ share in these Messianic triumphs. Paul spoke of himself and his Christian brethren as "God's fellow-workers" (1 Cor. iii, 9; comp. 2 Cor. vi, 1; Mark xvi, 20). According to 1 John v, 4, 5, the victory that overcomes the world is to be recognized as inherent in the faith that Jesus is the Son of God; for it is affirmed of every one who has this faith that "God abideth in him and he in God" (iv, 15). He suffers with Christ, and shares with him in the kingdom and the power and the glory. If any of these witnesses lay down their lives for the truth, they are caught up unto God and unto his throne. In such self-sacrifice, according to the apocalyptic mode of thought, "the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ" are advanced and enhanced when his martyrs love not their lives even unto death, but overcome the evil one by reason of the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (Rev. xii, 10, 11). Manifold, therefore, must be the aspects of the kingdom of Christ in connection with the innumerable agencies of its continuous spread and triumph in the world.

2. Old Testament Messianic Ideals. In order to obtain a full biblical conception of the heavenly kingdom we must revert again to the Old Testament Messianic hopes, and the suggestions they furnish touching the development and duration of the kingdom of the saints of the Most High. For every ideal of growth, prosperity, overthrow of hostile powers, diffusion of truth and peace and righteousness which is traceable in the various Messianic prophecies, may be brought forward to show what is contemplated

in the coming of the kingdom of the Christ. Oracles already cited for other purposes must be again adduced to show that the kingdom foretold is no temporary display of power, but a dominion extending through a long period of growth and expansion.

(1) Ancient Promises. The ancient Abrahamic promises assure the patriarch that his seed shall become a great and mighty nation and be made a blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. xii, 3; xviii, 18; xxii, 18). David is also assured that his house and throne and kingdom shall be established forever (2 Sam. vii, 16), and the Messianic psalms take up the thought and repeat it with poetic embellishment:

Once have I sworn by my holiness;

I will not lie unto David;

His seed shall endure forever,

And his throne as the sun before me.

It shall be established forever as the moon,

And as the faithful witness in the sky. Psa. lxxxix, 35-37.

(2) Psalms cx and lxxii. In Psa. cx the Messianic King sits at the right hand of Jehovah, judges among the nations, and overthrows all the hostile kings. The rod of his power moves forth out of Zion, and his people rally around him like young warriors, numerous as the dewdrops of the morning. He is also a priest like Melchizedek as well as king and conqueror. A similar ideal is also found in Psa. lxxii. The king executes the judgments of God, rules the people in righteousness, shows kindness to the poor, and breaks the cruel oppressor in pieces:

He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass;

As showers that water the earth.

In his days shall the righteous flourish

And abundance of peace, till the moon be no more.

He shall have dominion also from sea to sea,

And from the river unto the ends of the earth.

(3) Isaiah ii, 2-4. So far as these poetic ideals of the kingdom of the Messiah serve to indicate the extent and duration of that dominion, they point to a gradual growth that ultimately fills the habitable world. The same distinguishing feature appears in the triumphs of the Messianic time as portrayed in the prophets. The remarkable oracle of uncertain date, which is found in Isa. ii, 2-4, and Mic. iv, 1-4, may be shown to be a very truthful outline of the origin and progress of Christianity. Jerusalem was the conspicuous starting point of this new law and word of Jehovah. The gospel of the kingdom went forth out of Zion as a new revelation of the righteousness of God, but its spirit and power exalted Zion

into the higher conception of "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (comp. Heb. xii, 22). A going up to this mountain of Jehovah involves no pilgrimage to earthly heights like Zion and Gerizim, as the ignorant Samaritan might vainly imagine (John iv, 20-24), but simply a worshiping of the Father in spirit and in truth. No literal interpretation can be put upon the language which says that the temple mountain shall be elevated above all other hills, and that all the nations shall flow as a stream to that particular place, and that the peoples shall literally beat their swords into plowshares. But when we discern in this figure of supernatural elevation a symbol of "the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and Jesus the mediator of a new covenant" (Heb. xii, 23, 24), we recognize the whole passage as an ideal of the glorious Messianic era, when nations shall learn war no more, and every man shall dwell at peace with his neighbor. But all this implies a long period for its accomplishment, as is also the case with those other oracles of like significance written in Isa. lvi, 6-8; lx, 18-22; lxvi, 18; Zech. viii, 20-23.

(4) Isaiah ix, 1-7, and xi, 1-10. We derive the same necessary inference from the prophecy of the Messianic Child in Isa. ix, 1-7, who bears the wonderful name of manifold significance.' The dominion of this heir of David breaks the yoke and rod of the oppressor, puts an end to bloody wars, introduces peace and righteousness, and continues forever. The Christian expositor sees at once that all these ideals are notably fulfilled in the New Testament kingdom of Christ, when understood of the rule of Jesus in the hearts of men; and in the assurance that he must reign until all things are put in subjection under him. The same teaching is also apparent in the prophecy of Isa. xi, 1-10, which outlines the work and ultimate triumph of the Messianic Son of David. He is represented as a shoot from the stock of Jesse, endued with the wise and holy Spirit of Jehovah, a righteous and holy judge, who effects a universal peace as ideal as that of Eden. This peace is to be accompanied by a universal knowledge of Jehovah, filling the earth as the waters cover the sea, and all the nations shall seek his glorious rest. So, too, in Zech. ix, 9, 10, the king of Zion is portrayed as one who "shall speak peace unto the nations, and

The critical reader may well study the series of symbolical names in Isa. vii, 2, 14; viii, 3; ix, 6: "Shear-jashub, Immanuel, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and Peleyoets-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom. This last, a compound of four double names, is usually translated "Wonderful-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Father of eternity, Prince of Peace." But, except for its length, there appears no more reason for translating it than Maher-shalal-hash-baz. The whole section is a kind of Apocalypse of symbolic names. See Biblical Hermeneutics, pp. 331-334.