That which, above all else, marks
the difference between the Church and Israel, and indeed we may say between
the Church and the entire population of the millennial earth, is, that the
Church is blessed in the Lord Jesus Christ and with Him: Israel and the
millennial nations will be blessed by Him and will be under
His reign.
The Church is Christ’s body —
His bride, and participates thus in His exaltation to be head over all things
both in heaven and on earth. As the body partakes with the head of all the
vital energies by which the whole is actuated, so does the Church even now
partake with the Lord Jesus of His risen life, and receive from Him the
anointing of the Holy Spirit: and as the bride participates in all that is
possessed by her husband, so is the Church, the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, to
participate in His inheritance of all things. Her oneness with Him is the
great distinction of the Church.
There are many things in which
those who compose the Church differ not from saints of other dispensations,
whether past or future. True believers between the day of Pentecost and the
descent of the Lord Jesus into the air at the Rapture, constitute "the
church"; and these, in common with the Old Testament saints and
millennial saints, are chosen of God the Father, redeemed by the Blood of the
Saviour, quickened and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and they are all
preserved by almighty grace. In these things the Church differs not from other
saints.
That which distinguishes the
Church is her oneness with the Lord Jesus Christ. "At that day ye shall
know (here, upon earth) that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in
you" (John 14:20). Of none but the Church could these words be spoken. Of
no others could it be said, "And the glory which thou gavest me I have
given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in
me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John
14:22).
Israel and the nations in
millennial times will constitute "the world," who, by seeing the
Church in the same glory as the Lord Jesus, are to know that she is the object
of the same love — loved of the Father as the Lord Jesus Himself is loved.
Israel and the nations will be happy, Israel pre-eminently so, under the reign
of the King and His glorified saints: but no distinction can be more marked,
no contrast more striking, than that which exists between the Bride of the
Lamb and the nations over which she, with her Lord and Bridegroom, is to
reign.
Israel’s distinctive calling is
to earthly blessings. Had they been obedient, wealth, power, fame, and
prosperity, would have been the tokens of God’s approval of their ways. By
their disobedience, their idolatry, and especially their rejection of the
Saviour, they have come under the inflictions of God’s wrath, and that wrath
has been manifested against them in all the heavy temporal judgments which
have overtaken them. We refer now to God’s dealings with them nationally, in
His providential government of the earth. As individuals they are, of course,
in common with all men, amenable to "eternal judgment"; and, if not
saved "by grace" "through faith," that judgment will
result in eternal ruin.
But it is with God’s
dispensational dealings that we are now occupied; the Scripture leaves no room
for doubt that, in this world, the wrath of God against Israel has been, is,
and will yet be, manifested by the infliction of temporal calamities.
Prophecy, on the other hand,
proves that God’s approbation of Israel, when nationally restored and saved,
will be manifested in abundance of temporal prosperity and blessing. Israel’s
is an earthly calling: and with Israel, consequently, adversity on earth is a
token of God’s displeasure- -prosperity a sign of His favor and His smile.
The Church having no present
inheritance, except as one with the Lord Jesus in heaven, present earthly
trials and sufferings are not her token of divine disapproval. Nay, they are
as much her proper portion with Christ on earth, as the glory given by the
Father to the Lord Jesus, and given by Him to the Church, is her portion with
Him in heaven. Hence the sufferings of the Church are her glory. "Who now
rejoiceth in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind in the
afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the
Church" (Col. 1:24). "For unto you it is given on behalf of Christ,
not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake" (Phil.
1:29).
"That I may know him, and
the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being
made conformable to his death" (Phil. 3:10). "And not only so, but
we glory in tribulations also" (Rom. 5:3). The Lord Jesus esteemed it His
highest glory that the Father should be glorified in Him in His endurance of
the Cross (John 14:31), and the Church, being by the Spirit like-minded with
the Lord Jesus, esteems as her highest glory that she should be "counted
worthy to suffer for His name."
Israel’s calling and that of
the Church being so different, it follows of necessity that their hopes also
differ. The Lord Jesus is the hope both of the one and the other; but He is
the hope of the Church as the One who will descend into the air, and receive
her to Himself, and to the full consummation of her blessedness with Himself
in heaven: He is "the hope of Israel," as the One who will further
descend to the earth, delivering them from the yoke of the Gentiles, executing
judgment on all who have opposed them, and setting up on the earth His
glorious kingdom, of which Jerusalem is to be the center, and in which Israel,
forgiven and purified, is to enjoy the most conspicuous, distinguished place.
Such are the hopes held out to
Israel by the Word of God — hopes which, in their fulfillment, are
inseparable from the execution of utter, destroying judgment on all who exalt
themselves against God and oppress His people. "The day of
vengeance" on God’s adversaries is to be the day of Israel’s
deliverance, and the immediate prelude to Israel’s exaltation and full
blessing unto Messiah’s reign. It is impossible, therefore, for an
Israelite, as such, to desire or invoke Jehovah’s interposition, or
Messiah’s coming, for the fulfillment of Israel’s national hopes, without
invoking or desiring judgment on the wicked.
The hopes of the Church, on the
contrary, are quite unconnected with the thought of judgment on the wicked.
She is aware indeed that judgment on the ungodly will ensue on her own removal
from the earth: still, that for which she waits is not a state of earthly
blessedness which judgment on the wicked is to introduce, but her own
translation from amid the scene of evil to meet her Lord in the air, and to be
"for ever with the Lord." This is the hope which the Church, or the
saint, can both cherish and express without a thought of the wicked, or of the
judgments to be executed upon them. These judgments succeed, and probably at
some distance of time, the descent of the Lord Jesus into the air; they are
not the necessary preliminaries of that event, and that even itself is the
Church’s blessed hope.