By treacherous meteors led: And as with power, Thou saidst of old, Amid the signs by seers foretold, To Thee, my changeless Friend. Oh! in that hour, to man unknown, When Thou, blest Saviour, shalt come down To gather Thine elect, In tender pity think of me, Who now am wont to trust in Thee, And Thy return expect. W. F. SMITH. "WHE THE ASSIZE OF THE NATIONS. WHEN the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."-Matt. xxv. 31-46. Having a conviction that the scene described in the foregoing quotation is seldom correctly apprehended; and having of late read several comments upon it, which seem to us to have missed the mark, we have sought, through these pages, to submit a statement of what we believe to be the true import of the picture. The reader will compare and judge, while we call his attention to the following observations : I. The time of the scene. It is, When the Son of Man shall have come in his glory. That coming will be as real as his coming without his glory was. That same Jesus who was born in Bethlehem, and died on Calvary for your sins and mine; who rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father; he who is our Great High Priest and Advocate with the Father; he, himself, is coming back to this world, and shall be bodily present, and visible to the eyes of men. Formerly he came a lowly man-despised, rejected, put to shame and death; but at the time of the scene before us he has come in his glory; and in the glory of the Father, accompanied by all the holy angels. The times of the restitution of all things spoken of by all God's holy prophets of old has come; God has sent his only begotten Son to bless the earth with his presence and his rule. acceptable year of the Lord has begun. II. The parties introduced. The At There is first, the Son of Man, seated on the throne of his glory. present he sits on the throne of his Father; then he shall sit upon his own throne. Himself has taught us so. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I overcame and am set down with my Father upon his throne." (Rev. iii. 21.) III. Before the throne there stand "All nations." It is commonly thought that these parties include believers, the Church, or members of the body of Christ; faithful and unfaithful, living and resurrected. Now there is no mention or indication in the language used by our Lord of resurrection; there is no hint that the parties before the throne are other than the nations who are alive, when the Son of Man shall come in his glory. And that these cannot include the saints who are in Christ Jesus is plain from the consideration that they, by the very act of becoming Christ's, have been chosen out from the nations. God is now taking out from among the nations a people for his name. (Acts xv. 14.) Moreover, when the Christ sits on the throne of his glory, his Church shall reign with him, sit with him on his throne, and shall with him judge the nations." He that overcometh and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers, even as I received of my Father." (Rev. ii. 26.) "Know ye not," says Paul, "that the saints shall judge the world?" (1 Cor. vi. 2.) True, those who are in Christ must all appear before his judgment seat, to receive according to their works; but before he executes judgment upon the nations, the faithful in Christ Jesus shall have received their crowns and places of honour in the kingdom of God. The joint-heirs of his throne and inheritance shall, like the Son of God, have become possessors. The parties, then, before the throne are not the Church; they are all nations. Exactly translated, the words are, "All the nations." Sometimes they are rendered, "The Gentiles; sometimes "The heathen." The terms "The heathen," "The Gentiles," and "The nations," are identical in the original, and always denote nations distinct from Israelall nations except Israel. The parties, then, before the throne for judgment are not the Church, neither are they Israel; but they are all the Gentile nations (as we say) alive on the earth when the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him. These nations before the throne are separated by the Judge into two companies; one company stands at his right hand, the other company at his left, waiting his decision. To those on his right hand-styled "the sheep"-he says, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" to those on his left hand he says, " Depart, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Before remarking on the character of the reward and punishment, let us notice the ground on which these are awarded (see vers. 35-45). It is because of the manner in which these nations had treated his brethren. The nations on his right hand are awarded "life eternal" because of showing kindness to his brethren. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." Those nations on his left hand are sent to "everlasting punishment," because they had refused to perform acts of kindness to his brethren. "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." There is not a word about faith on the one hand, or unbelief on the other. No charge of apostasy is brought against the cursed ones, a circumstance which does not at all assort with the notion that these accursed ones are unfaithful Christians. The sole crime charged against them is their withholding the offices of kindness from his brethren when they were in distress. Let us now pay some attention to the parties styled his brethren. Who are these? To this question we can get no positive reply, and are therefore shut up to the necessity of resorting to inference. There are only two classes of persons to whom we can conceive of the term brethren in this case being applied, namely, those who are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and the people of Israel, of whom is Christ according to the flesh. In our judgment it is the latter. It should be noticed, however, that these brethren, whoever they be, are not the subjects of judg ment in the scene before us. The only parties under judgment here are, "the nations" called "sheep" and " goats," from both of which the brethren are spoken of as being distinct. "Inasmuch as ye have done it (or did it not) to one of the least of THESE my brethren, ye did it (or did it not) to me." These latter words recall to our memory, and seem but the echo of the description of Jehovah's love for Israel, by the prophet Isaiah. "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them and carried them all the days of old." (Isa. Ixiii. 9.) And also that expression of peculiar love and care of God toward his chosen. people in the prophecy of Zechariah, "He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye." (Zech. ii. 8.) The righteous nations standing on the right hand of the King on his glorious throne, in the picture before us, are thus nations which have showed kindness to Israel in the day of her calamity, as Moab was enjoined to do. "Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler." (Isa. xvi. 4.) So also the inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, and anticipated the wants of the fugitives with bread. (Isa. xxi. 14.) Israel's day of calamity is not yet over; a great day of trouble for Jacob is still to come; and in that dark and cloudy day, when the hosts of the Assyrian come into the land "like a storm," and like a cloud covering the land, some of the nations shall stand in the way and befriend Israel, hitherto a people scattered and peeled. (Isa. xviii., Ezek. xxxviii. 13.) These friendly nations shall be blessed of God, but all those who spoil and ill-treat Israel shall perish, yea, be utterly wasted. The scene before us will be better appreciated placed alongside of that one depicted in the Book of Joel, chap. iii. :-"In those days, and at that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations (Heb. all the nations), and will bring them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land." (vers. 1, 2.) "The valley of Jehoshaphat," literally rendered into English, is "The valley of Jehovah's judgment; and there are good reasons for believing that the appellation is not derived from Jehoshaphat, one of the kings of Israel, but that it is applied because of the transactions predicted to be done in that place at the time specified in the prophecy. The same place is called "The valley of decision," in ver. 14. 66 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." The reader is requested to open his Bible at the place we have partially quoted from, and judge whether we are right in regarding the scenes described there and in Matthew xxv. as being the same. That the Judge is the same person in both cases will, we presume, be admitted; and that the subjects of judgment in both cases bear the same designation cannot be denied. In both cases they are styled "All the nations." We have said that the words, "The nations," "The Gentiles," and "The heathen," are only varied renderings of the same terms in the original, and that in Scripture they are used in reference to all nations distinct from God's nation, Israel. In the third chapter of Joel we have these various translations used: Thus, in verse 2, "I will also gather all the nations; in verse 9, "Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; " in verse 11, "Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen;" and considering the similarity of the scene, and the common usage of the terms, we have no hesitancy in concluding that the parties on the right hand and on the left hand of the Judge, termed "All the nations" in Matthew xxv., are, as well as in Joel iii., all the nations, in distinction from Israel, living on the earth at the time specified. Manifestly, the crime charged against the nations assembled in the valley of Jehovah's judgment is their ill-treatment of Israel, the heritage of the Lord; and the similarity of the circumstances, along with other considerations mentioned at the outset, lead us to the conclusion that "the brethren" avenged in Matthew xxv. are also Israel. To this view of the subject it may be objected that the declaration, "These shall go into life eternal," cannot apply to nations as such, for how can a nation have eternal life? Further reflection will, we think, show this objection to be very superficial, for if the existence of a nation as such be admitted, the continuance of that existence for evermore is surely conceivable. The privation of nationality and civic rights and privileges is no new thing in the earth; and considering that there are to be nations on the earth-subject, indeed, to Israel, but yet distinct from it in the age to come; and considering that the restoration of nationality to the house of Jacob is a striking feature of its future glory, we submit that the objection entirely misses the mark. An objection of a similar nature is brought against our view of the passage in the words, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." This language is held to be inapplicable to nations. To those who believe that all the nations are to be destroyed at the coming of the Lord-Israel and those not Israel and that the Church is to remain sole occupant of this green earth, the objection must appear formidable enough. But it is surely for want of thought that any, whose hope is, as the associates of the Messiah, to rule over, and be blessers of the nations in the kingdom of God, can consider it to be of any weight. It is no new thing for God to prepare, or appoint nations a place in the earth. Not only did he give a land to Israel, and Edom, and Moab, and Ammon; but the Apostle Paul has declared that God "hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." (Acts xvii. 26.) Since there are to be nations in the kingdom of God-and these are "the left" who have escaped the just judgments of God-and as we cannot suppose they occupy their place in the kingdom by accident, but according to the purpose of him who sees the end from the beginning, and worketh all things according to the counsel of his will, we are shut up to acknowledge the applicability of the language to those nations who are to be the subjects of the future kingdom of God. It is true that the blessed nations are invited to "Inherit the kingdom prepared" for them; and that we are assured elsewhere that "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." In the latter case there can be no doubt that the term inherit is employed in the high sense of inheriting as proprietors; but it is not doing violence to the common usage of language to understand the term inherit in Matthew xxv. 34 in the lower sense of inheriting as tenants or subjects. It is only in this inferior sense that the nation of Israel can inherit the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As occupants of that land, they shall have a share of the kingdom of God. The great Proprietor has appointed all the land promised to Abraham for a dwelling place for Israel-to each tribe its allotted share-and while the seed of Abraham, The Christ, and those who are accounted one with him, have the rule over that and all other lands, the sons and daughters of the house of Israel shall possess that |