HOLINESS AND THE ADVENT
By
D. M. PANTON, M.A.
The divorce between the teaching of consecration and the heralding of the
Second Advent is a painful and dangerous development of the moment.
The Keswick Convention, the foremost
platform for the teaching of holiness in England, now has (we understand) no
meeting on its programme for the Advent; and since it might be difficult to
find an Advent Testimony meeting up and down the land where warnings are given to any but the unsaved, Advent truth has
lost its grip, and seems to the outsider little more than an unreal,
speculative, academic forecast of events and dates. The
Judge standing before the doors is no longer the dynamic truth that shook the
CHRIST
Now
our Lord's own statement of the duel effect of Advent's announcement is
designed to have is, in this trenchancy (sharpness of speech), altogether
unsurpassed. Of the faithful and
wise steward whom He sets over the Household to feed it, Jesus says: "Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall
find so doing: of a truth I say unto you, that he will set him over all that he
hath" (Luke 12: 43). The
exaltation of a teacher's office, the responsibility of the trust, and the
conspicuousness of the example combine to make the Saviour put the double truth
in its sharpest form.* But if that servant - that is, the same
man: therefore regenerate, for our Lord does not set the unregenerate over His
Household, and the servant's reward, if faithful, proves him to be
regenerate shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth
his coming, and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidservants, and to
eat and drink, and to be drunken, the lord of that servant shall appoint his
portion with the unfaithful. The Lord's summary is now as
appalling for the unfaithful servant as it is inconceivably joyous for the
faithful: That servant, which knew his lord's
will, and made not ready - for the Advent shall
be beaten with many stripes. The Saviour thus establishes for
ever that it is not the fact of the Advent, standing by itself, but
the Advent finding us obedient, which will be
overwhelming joy. Enter into the joy of
thy Lord is made conditional on multiplied talents.
To change a
conditional promise into an unconditional is a very daring act; for it
is altering the Word of God, and putting into His mouth sentiments He has never
expressed, and which are not His.
[*
James stresses the same consequence of responsibility: "Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we [teachers] shall receive
heavier judgment" (James 3: 1) -
that is, higher awards, and severer penalties, in accordance with the more exacting
standard.]
PETER
The
Apostle Peter, to whom these words of Christ were addressed, enforces the truth
only less than the Lord. He cries the words that thrill us to the soul: The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore of
sound mind - let your thought-life be sane, balanced, Scriptural and be sober - un-intoxicated, alert, watchful: we
must not imagine that because the end is near we may be fanatical, extravagant,
forgetful of the practical unto prayers (1 Pet. 4: 7) - self-watchful, as we immerse
ourselves in frequent praying, and constant gatherings for prayer. Seeing that these things are thus all to be dissolved,
he cries again, what manner of persons ought ye to be
in all holy living and godliness!
(2 Pet. 3: 11). As Dean Wace puts it:
"We have the more reason to fear that the worst
and most terrible of those predictions will be verified, and that we ought to
live in preparation for those supreme conflicts which both our Lord and His
apostles prophesied would conclude the present dispensation. But our
preparation is our own, and how the Lord finds us is a responsibility we cannot
cast upon Him. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give
diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his
sight (2 Peter 3: 14). Anyone who imagines that even the
majority of the saved are conforming to these conditions is living in a world
of unreality.
JOHN
For
the Apostle John now reveals that the same may overwhelm the child of God in
that day. Now, my little children, abide in him;
that, if he shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before
him at his coming (1 John 2: 28).
Had our Lord returned in A.D. 96, as He might have done,* words which have
already actually addressed to a God-appointed chief officer of a God-recognised
church by the Lord Himself would hardly have been an unmixed joy: Thou knowest not that thou
art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked
(Rev. 3: 17). It is not even a
question of what our Lord will say: it is a question of what He has
said. Therefore John presses the truth home. As Archbishop
Alexander, aptly using the pregnant example of Samson, urged the young men of
[*Christ
"must remain in heaven until the time comes for
God to restore everything" (Acts 3: 21):
the Tribulation events must first take place before He will return, (Matt. 24: 15; 2 Thess. 2: 3-6).]
JAMES
The
Apostle James next unveils the element in the Advent which is the sobering
fact. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts:
for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Murmur not, brethren, one against
another, that ye be not judged: behold the judge standeth before the doors
(James 5: 8). Here the Advent is
presented as a direct threat for sin - constant mutual criticism - among
believers, and we reach the bedrock truth of the revelation. God never
assumes or sanctions joy in sin: even the sinner, under pure grace, is saved [from its power] only
if he abandons sin; and [regenerate] believers who, in
carnal worldliness or doctrinal rebellion,
accept the current teaching that the Advent is all joy for all the saved will
not thank their teachers in that day. Bishop Handlet Moule
has admirably summed it thus: The preaching of the
Parousia, which shall be fully Scriptural, must include two main
elements. First, the element of awe, the assurance that God has appointed
a day in which He will judge the world; in which the individual must give an
account of himself and his stewardship; that a crisis of judgment, dread and
ineffable, is before us. The warning sense of sin needs the reinforcement
of that warning, now if ever. On the other hand, the true preacher of the
Advent will never forget the radiant aspect of it, which is the ruling aspect
in the Bible. We have to remember the coming of the Bridegroom for the
Bride, the breaking in of the heavenly 'summer'; 'that blissful hope' (to
render Titus 2: 13 literally); the gladness and glory, of resurrection."
PAUL
It
is left to the Apostle Paul to sum up exactly this whole conditional joy which
is embodied in the return of Christ to His Church. Verily in this [earthly
house of our tabernacle] we groan, longing to
be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: IF SO BE
- that is, our longing for the Advent is checked and conditioned by our
personal preparedness that being clothed with
our resurrection body, we shall not be found naked (2 Cor. 5: 2). What this clothing is the Holy Spirit has made
clear. It was given unto her [the Bride at
the Advent] that she should array herself
in fine linen, bright and pure: for fine linen IS THE RIGHTEOUS ACTS OF THE
SAINTS (Rev. 19: 8). Thus
the joy of the Advent, once again, is made contingent on obedience in
the very last warning to the
[*
It is in this sense that our Lord pronounces the Laodicean Angel (messenger) 'naked'; and counsels him to purchase "white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the
shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest" (Rev. 3: 18). That the Angel is a regenerate
man, and so already clothed with the imputed righteousness of his Lord (Isaiah 61: 10), is not only manifest from Christ
maintaining him in full charge of the church, but from the words which immediately
follow: "As many as I love, I rebuke and
chasten."]
JUDE
But,
finally, who shall measure the ecstasy of our possible joy? As actually
the last word before the Judgments, in a doxology perhaps the most exquisite in
the Bible, the Apostle Jude says: "Now unto him that is able" - once more, the point revealed is only
the ability of God, not His arbitrary action, but an ability equal to
the wrestling saint's utmost need - "to
keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the
presence of his glory with EXCEEDING JOY, to the only wise God our
Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power now and ever" (Jude 24). This is a statement profoundly differing
from the current prophetical theology, which runs - Now unto Him who
will keep you from falling, and will present
you faultless. To keep saints in an un-stumbling walk is a greater feat than to keep
the stars in their courses; yet if He has made one Enoch, God can make a
thousand. The doxology rises terrace
over terrace, each interlocked inextricably with the one below: kept from
falling, on earth; consequently, rapt from earth into heaven - 'presented'; found blameless at the Bema; with,
consequently, nothing but 'exceeding joy': all
are facets of one diamond, and that diamond is holiness.
Immediately after his coronation, in the disrobing room, King Edward said to
Cannon Duckworth: This is one of the happiest days, if
not the happiest, of my life. Who can conceive the joy when the
righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father? It
is joy unspeakable and full of glory.
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