OBJECTIONS. A NUMBER of objections to the doctrine of the foregoing pages have already been noticed, and sufficiently replied to, in the progress of our argument. Some, however, I have reserved for separate consideration here. And I begin with the strongest of all,-the only one, indeed, which appears to me to have much force. OBJECTION FIRST:-The coming of Christ is expressly said to be for the destruction of Antichrist; and, as that is confessedly premillennial, so must the coming of Christ be.' The passage on which this argument is founded I shall give in full. 2 Thess. ii. 1-8: "We beseech you, brethren, concerning* the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon moved from [the steadiness of] your mind,+ or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as if the day of Christ were imminent. Let no man deceive you by any means; for [that day shall not come] unless there come the apostasy first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he [as God] + sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that, when I was with you, I told you these * See note, page 43. † Σαλευθῆναι ἀπὸ τ. νοὸς. 'a òv, omitted by nearly all modern editors. things. And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his own time.* For the mystery of iniquity is already working: Only [there is] one who now withholdeth,+ until he be taken out of the way. And then shall the lawless one‡ be revealed, whom the Lord shall destroy with the spirit of his mouth, and shall abolish with the brightness of his coming.' On this passage, I can say with the venerable and acute Mr Faber (now removed from this scene below), that it is "the only apparent evidence for the premillennial advent which, after long thought upon the subject, I have been able to discover." In stating the argument, however, from this passage, in his "Sacred Calendar" (iii. 437), Mr Faber scarcely did it justice. To me it seems manifest that the time of Christ's second personal advent was what excited and unsettled the Thessalonians; and that the apostle brings in the apostasy and the Man of Sin quite incidentally, to show how mistaken was the notion that all things were already ripe for Christ's second coming. In this view of the passage, the argument for the premillennial advent from it will stand thus :- Here is a passage in which the express subject of discourse is the second personal "coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him," (v. 1); and it is to guard against the notion that this "day of Christ "-his personal coming-was "at hand" or "imminent," (v. 2), that we are informed a great apostasy will have to be consummated in the Christian Church, and the Man of Sin to be revealed, ere Christ come (v. 3-8): when, therefore, the apostle adds, of this antichristian power, "whom the Lord shall destroy with the spirit of his mouth, and shall abolish with the brightness of his coming," is it not most natural to take this "coming" to destroy the Man of Sin to be the same personal coming of which the "The time appointed for him.-The loose rendering of iavrou is far from assisting the clearness of the passage."-Scholefield, in the little work referred to, p. 43, note. † Μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι ἕως κ.τ.λ. † Ὁ ἄνομος. apostle was discoursing, and that having told them before what events Christ could not come, he now tells them for what purpose he would come, namely, to destroy Antichrist, and consequently before the millennium?' I think I have put this argument fairly, and with all its force; and I am happy to find that Mr Faber, in his recent work, entitled, "The Many Mansions in the Father's House"-in" replacing his former solution of the difficulty" from this passage "by what he believes to be the true one”— now puts it just as I have done above, and meets it in a way perfectly harmonious with mine, though somewhat dif ferent. Let us then endeavour to weigh it dispassionately. 1. There can be no doubt, that the whole passage admits of a consistent and good explanation on the view of it above given. Nor is this view confined to premillennialists. Those of our elder divines who looked upon the millennium as past already, and considered the destruction of Antichrist as the immediate precursor of the eternal state, understood this coming of the Lord" to destroy Antichrist, of his second personal advent. There are other opponents of the premillennial theory, who explain this coming to destroy the Man of Sin, of Christ's second coming. They make "the apostasy," ""the Man of Sin," "the lawless one" here spoken of, to embrace all the evil, apostasy, and opposition to Christ, which are to exist till the consummation of all things; in which case, the destruction of it will of course not be till the second advent. In neither of these views, however, can I concur. As I do not believe that the millennium is past already, I do not think the destruction of Antichrist will be * Many Mansions, &c., pp. 189-196. Mr Faber does me the honour to say, "The line of argument which I have here followed differs considerably, though it has the same object, from that employed by Mr Brown, in his first-rate work, entitled, Christ's Second Coming, &c. This masterly performance I deem final on the question; nevertheless, the ground on which we both agree may be strengthened, at least, by every independent collateral argument."—(P. 189.) |