again, is the appeal to the physical by men who have lost faith in the spiritual. The Jesus of the Gospels who saw in the lust for signs the mark of an evil and adulterous generation, who bade men be silent when he healed them, who wanted a faith that sprang from inner conviction, gives place here to one who seeks to win by dazzling the eyes and overwhelming by physical splendor. Paul's position must be reversed; the world is to be saved, not by Christ crucified, but by the signs which the Jews sought, and salvation is no longer by faith but by sight.

THE MILLENNIUM-A JEWISH STATE

The discussion of means has brought us now to the final issue, that of the end. What kind of a kingdom is this to which millennialism looks forward? The question is one upon which we rarely get definite statements. We are told in general terms that it is to be a kingdom of universal peace and righteousness, in which all the hopes of mankind are to be satisfied. A closer examination of premillennial teaching, however, reveals something quite different.

First of all, this millennial kingdom is a political institution. It is an earthly, visible, political throne which Jesus takes. Jesus is to be the world's supreme civil ruler, reigning just as Saul and David did.23 We are to expect exactly what the Jews looked forward to, their mistake being simply a matter of date. The essence of the kingdom is not anything spiritual, not "forgiveness of sins, conversion, the gift of the Holy Spirit"; it is just that political state of which the Old 23 Prophetic Studies, p. 143.

Testament speaks, "a literal kingdom, which has for its seat Jerusalem."'24

The kingdom will be a Jewish state. The promises made to the Jews in the Old Testament are absolute and unconditioned, and will all be literally fulfilled. Jesus himself is to "fight for them in the day of battle and slay all their enemies."25 The nations that are not destroyed are to be subject to the Jews. Dr. Torrey insists that all prophecy is to be "exactly and literally fulfilled," and refers specifically to passages like Isa. 49. 22, 23, and 66. 20. According to this, the Jews (good and bad, no distinction is made) are to be brought back to Jerusalem upon horses and mules and dromedaries, in litters and chariots, the nations all helping. Then the kings and the queens from all these lands (democracy apparently is but a temporary stage) will offer themselves as personal servants and nurse-maids to the returning Jews, and, indeed, will bow down and lick the dust of their feet. After this we are not surprised that in 1917 Dr. J. M. Gray, passing by Belgium and Serbia and France and all the rest, declared that "the trouble in the whole Gentile world to-day is attributable to the treatment of the Jew."

With this Jewish state goes naturally a Jewish religion, or at least a Judaized Christianity. While some earlier chiliasts were more cautious here, the leaders of the modern movement are outspoken; whether their followers realize what this position means is another matter. The distinctive elements of Christianity as we know it are dropped: the church disappears, there is no preaching of the gospel, but Judaism in all its ancient practices is 24 Gaebelein, Harmony, p. 160.

25 Seiss, Last Times, p. 224.

restored. The temple is to be rebuilt at Jerusalem, altars are to smoke again, and the blood of victims innumerable is to flow. "There can be no doubt about the restoration of the Sabbath (meaning the Jewish Sabbath) during the millennial age," writes Dr. C. I. Scofield with the approbation of the editors in the journal which officially represents the Moody Bible School, at the same time predicting "the restoration of all the fundamental institutions of Israel."26 Indeed, the ceremonial and sacrifice are to exceed anything that Israel ever knew in the old days, for most of these writers hold that the elaborate provisions of Ezekiel 40 to 48 are to be literally carried out. So Dr. Scofield, W. E. B. in Jesus Is Coming, Professor Russell of the Moody School at the Prophetic Conference of 1914, A. C. Gaebelein, and others assert. Dr. Torrey holds to the same renewal of sacrifices and insists, as others do, that once a year all the people of the earth are to travel to Jerusalem and keep the feast of tabernacles.

Clearly, the revival of Judaism is not conceived as an incidental matter concerning the Jews alone. It is a divinely intended consummation, and for the whole race. Jerusalem is the world-center of religion as of politics. The supreme religious event in this millennial kingdom, the occasion which is to bring the whole world together every year for a whole week, is the feast of tabernacles, whose central feature is the daily slaughter of kids and rams, lambs and bullocks. The Christian age, the age of the gospel, becomes an "interregnum,' an "incident,"27 with scorn and contempt heaped equally 26 Christian Workers Magazine, XVI, 471.

27 West, The Thousand Years.

upon Christian Church and the state. 28 Christianity as we have it is not the complete fulfillment of the Old Testament, 29 ,29 The higher stage is not Christianity but this completed Judaism, in which the distinctive Jewish elements, political and religious, come to the fore. In the place of a religion that is universal and spiritual, we have the nationalism which Jesus repudiated and the ceremonialism which Paul denounced.

Finally, the kingdom of these modern millennialists represents the triumph of force and the principle of autocracy. That judgment is not changed by the fact that this is supposed to be divine force and the rule a divine autocracy. We have seen that, having discredited every ethical and spiritual agency, millennialism had recourse to external means to bring in the new age. But physical force cannot produce spiritual results; only that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The kingdom which "does not come by spiritual means" cannot be spiritual. There is only one kingdom (rule) of Christ, and that is the rule of an indwelling and controlling spirit. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." And what is true in the case of one man is true in relation to government or society. It is true that millennialists speak occasionally of an effusion of the Spirit in the new age, but the one new power that comes into play, the one instrument to which appeal is constantly made, is visible manifestation and physical force.

This character of the kingdom is clearly indicated by recognized premillennial leaders. Dr. C. I. Scofield speaks of Christ as "reigning with a rod of iron." "There

28 West, The Thousand Years, Part XI.

20 Griffith-Thomas in Christian Workers Magazine, XVII, 13.

...

cannot in that age be any 'unbelievers' on earth. . . . But there will be those who, hating God, sullenly obey Christ the king."30 "We may say we need a great democracy.... What we need is an emperor that will bring peace, and that is not Kaiser Wilhelm, it is Kaiser Jesus," says Dr. Torrey. Here again the issue is plain. Democracy stands for the rule of principles in the free life of the people; Dr. Torrey's only hope is in the compulsion of autocratic power. Quite consistently he suggests a return to the theocratic organization of Israel with judges as rulers.31 With Dean Gray of the Moody School we find the same idea. "The fundamental idea of a reign, according to God, is the repression of evil. ... While during that period Christ will be obeyed and served by the nations, yet to no small extent it will be on their part a feigned obedience and an unwilling service." Dr. Gray's reference to Zech. 14. 16-19 indicates his idea: The nations will all go to Jerusalem for the annual feasts of tabernacles, yet it will be largely religious pretense due to their fear of famine and plague.32 There will, of course, be true saints in the earth, men born of the Spirit, but the new and distinctive element again is not a new spirit of love and righteousness overcoming evil, but, instead, mere external power repressing it.

This, then, is the kingdom to which chiliasm bids us look forward. It is not the reign of an inner spirit which has transformed the hearts of men. There is no real overthrow of sin, for that can only come by a spiritual

30 Sunday School Times, June 17, 1916.

31 Christian Workers Magazine, XVII, 554, 471. 32 Mountain Peaks of Prophecy, pp. 53-55.