I. THE REDEEMERS RETURN IS NECESSITATED BY THE DECLARATIONS OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
It is very apparent to any one who has read
thoughtfully through the Old Testament that the First Advent of our Lord did
not exhaust the burden and scope of the numerous predictions which had been
made concerning Him. Many of the things foretold of Israel's Messiah were not
accomplished during the days when He tabernacled among men. Many of the
promises found in God's Word connected with the Person of Christ, still await
their ratification. While it is true that the First Advent of the Lord Jesus
literally and remarkable fulfilled many of the Old Testament prophecies
concerning Him, yet, it is also true that many others were not then
fulfilled.[2] To several of these we shall now
call our readers attention.
"And I will put enmity between thee (the
"serpent") and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise
thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15). There is much in this
remarkable verse which we cannot now consider in detail, yet we will endeavor
to present an outline of its contents. This is not a single prophecy but a
compound one and at least seven separate predictions are included in it:
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First, the woman is to have a seed: as we
know, this pointed forward to our Lord's humanity. Second, He was to be
peculiarly the woman's "seed," not the man's, hence we read, "When the
fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman"
(Gal. 4:4, Greek). Third, the woman's "Seed" was to bruise the Serpent:
in other words, Satan was to be His particular antagonist. Fourth, He was to
bruise the Serpent's head. Fifth, He Himself was to be bruised in the
"heel" by the Serpent; and hence it is written, He was "bruised
for our iniquities" (Is. 53:5). Sixth, there was to be "enmity"
between the Serpent and the one who gave birth to the "Seed," namely
Israel (cf. Rev. 12:1-6). And then, after making mention of the enmity
between the Serpent and the woman, we read, Seventh, "And between thy
seed - the Serpent's "seed," i.e., the Son of Perdition - and her
"Seed." In other words, this agelong "enmity" was to head up in a conflict
between the Antichrist and the true Christ. For our present purpose it is
sufficient to single out the fourth and fifth of the above items, which, in
their historical order, have been reversed.
"Thou shalt bruise His heel." That old Serpent
the Devil was to be permitted to attack the wound the only vulnerable part of
our Lord's person - His humanity, here intimated by the word "heel."
How this portion of the prophecy was fulfilled our readers will know. No
sooner was the Lord Jesus born in Bethlehem of Judaea than the "Dragon" sought
to encompass His destruction (Rev. 12:4). Immediately following His baptism,
which was the inauguration of His public ministry, He was tempted or "tried" by
the Devil for forty days (Mark 1:13). On the eve of His crucifixion our Lord
expressly declared, "This is your hour, and the Power of
Darkness: (Luke 22:53). Thus was Satan allowed to bruise the "heel" of the
woman's Seed.
But we also read, "It shall bruise thy head,"
that is, Christ shall bruise Satan's "head." The head is the seat and source
of power, and in the Scripture we are now considering is placed in sharp
antithesis with the "heel" of the woman's Seed. Stript of its prophetic
symbolism, it can only mean that Christ is to depose Satan and reduce him to a
state of impotency. This interpretation is fully confirmed in Rev. 20 where we
learn that a day is coming when the Devil shall be bound and cast into the
Bottomless Pit to remain there securely confined throughout the Millennial Era.
What we now desire to emphasize particularly is, that,this part of the
Edenic prophecy was not fulfilled when our Lord was upon earth before,
and has not yet been fulfilled. Therefore, if this prediction is be
realized our Lord must return to this earth and deprive the Devil of his
power, for He alone is competent for such a task.
Again; we read in Is. 9:6,7, "For unto us a Child
is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder:
and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the
Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to
order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth
even for ever." Here again we meet with a prophecy which has already received
a partial fulfillment, but which has not yet been completely realized. Unto
Israel a Child was "born," unto Israel a Son was "given;" but,
during the days of His First Advent the "government" for He is not yet seated
upon His own "throne: (see Rev. 3:21). Observe particularly that,
above, it is repeated "of the increase of His government and peace there
shall be no end." His "government" and "peace" are inseparably connected. The
latter part of this prophecy therefore looks forward to the time of His
Second Advent, for "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" (Matt. 25:31). Then will it be that He shall inaugurate a Reign of
Peace, for then it shall be (and not till then) that "He shall judge among many
people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords
into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not
lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Micah
4:3). Thus we see that the declarations of the Prophetic Word require and
necessitate the personal return of Christ to this earth, for only thus and only
then will they be literally and completely fulfilled. Many other Old Testament
predictions could be cited to the same effect, but one more must suffice.
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper,
and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall
be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall
be called, the Lord our Righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith
the Lord, that they shall no more say, the Lord liveth, which brought up the
children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, the Lord liveth, which
brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the North
country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell
in their own land" (Jer. 23: 5-8). In the first place, observe, here, that
unto David (Israel) God promised to raise up a King who should reign and
prosper. Without a doubt this prophecy refers to our Lord Jesus Christ who was
born "King of the Jews" (Matt. 2:2), for it was uttered shortly after the Jews
were carried down into Babylon, since which they have had no human King. It
needs no argument to prove that the terms of this prophecy were certainly
not fulfilled at the time of our Lord's First Advent, for then, the Jews
would not own Him, but demanded His death, and when Pilate inquired of them,
"Shall I crucify your King?" (John 19:15), the leaders of the nation
answered, "We have no king but Caesar." Furthermore, this prophecy was not
fulfilled when our Lord took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
for note, it says that Israel's King shall "execute judgment and justice in
the earth," not "from the heavens." Again; we observe that it declares,
"In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel (the ten tribes) shall dwell
safely" which certainly did not come to pass during the days of our Lord's
humiliation. No; this prophecy, like scores of other Messianic predictions
recorded in the Old Testament, looks forward to the time of our Lord's
Second Advent to the earth, which Advent is imperative if the terms of
this prophecy are to be realized.
[2]It is this very thing which has proven such a
stumbling-block to the Jews and humanly speaking, has been the reason
why so many of them have failed to see in "Jesus of Nazareth" the Messiah of
Israel. But, as we shall show above, those Messianic prophecies found in the
Old Testament which were not fulfilled at His first Advent
will be fulfilled at His Second.