Since the second edition of The Christ Has Come was published the author's belief on the subject of the past Second Advent has undergone certain changes. These changes he now proceeds to indicate, and he is not without hope that they will help to commend to a much larger number of Christian people the main truth for which be contends.

The Translation of the Saints.-St. Paul predicted that at the "Parousia," or Second Advent of the Lord Jesus, the saints who had remained on earth until that time would pass straight to Heaven. The apostle also declared that this statement was no mere opinion of his own, but that it rested on divine authority - the fact had been definitely revealed to him by Christ. " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord : that WE (necessarily including some at least of those to whom he was writing) that are alive that are left unto the coming of the Lord . . . shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be. with the Lord" 1 Thess. iv. 15, 17). Jesus also had expressly declared that before the generation of men to whom He spoke had passed away the Son of man would send forth His angels with the sound of a great trumpet, and that they Would gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. On that day, two men, for example, would be at work in the field, or two women would be grinding at the. mill : one would be taken, and one would be left (Matt. xxiv. 31, 34, 40, 41).

So too when our Lord's apostles were saddened by the announcement that He was soon going to leave them, He comforted them with the certainty that His visible presence would only be withdrawn from them for a short time, and that when He had fully prepared a home for them in the Father's house of many mansions He would Himself come back to fetch them away from the earth. ("And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto Myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also "John xiv. 3.) In the first two editions of The Christ Has Come, it was assumed that this removal of watchful and consecrated believers to Heaven at the time of the Parousia in 70 A.D. necessarily involved a great physical miracle in the sudden and total disappearance of their earthly bodies. This, in itself, would have been quite as possible and credible an event as the translation of Enoch and Elijah (Gen. v. 24; Heb. ix. 5; 2 Kings ii. 11), and the ascension of the Lord Jesus (Mark xvi. 19 ; Luke xxiv. 51 ; Acts i. 9). Only the most saintly Christians (corresponding to the Wise Virgins of the parable, Matt. xxiv.) were then to be withdrawn from the world. The early church was composed mainly of women, of slaves, and of the poor, in that age of fierce social and political tumult, when human life was held very cheap, the act that in every part of the known world a few members of a despised and hated religious sect were thus suddenly missing from their homes might easily escape record by the secular historian, while the break or gap which undoubtedly occurs at this point in the Christian annals would go far to explain the silence of Church history. But in the present day the progress of Science has created so keen a prejudice against physical miracles that the idea of the disappearance of the bodies of these early believers is altogether repugnant even to the majority of Christian people. It is therefore with no small sense of relief that the author has now reached the conviction that the teaching of Jesus and his apostles does not necessarily imply that any such a physical miracle was to take place. In other words, in all likelihood the "rapture" or "translation" of the saints presented, to those left behind, the outward appearance of sudden death. They (i.e. their spirits) were suddenly caught up to meet the Lord, but their earthly bodies perished. These believers did not " sleep," for surviving as they did till the coming of the Lord they were entirely exempted from the intermediate state of Hades or Paradise into which God's people had hitherto passed at death (Luke xvi. 22; xxiii. 43; John iii. 13; Acts ii. 34; Heb. xi. 39, 40). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a great change came over them (1 Cor. xv. 52). And then, without interval or delay, they passed with Jesus away from earth to share the glory and blessedness of His heavenly Kingdom. Revelation xii. illustrates the true meaning of the words "caught up," if, as Dr. Stuart Russell, the author of The Parousia, believed, the man-child who was "caught up unto God and unto His throne" denotes the martyrs of the Jewish-Christian Church.

They, of course, did not escape physical death. And St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians xii. 2-4, manifestly regards it as a possible thing that a man should be "caught up " into Paradise, without his body sharing in the rapture. "Whether in the body or apart from the body, I know not," he says. It is also an historical fact that at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the mortality among both Jews and Christians throughout the known world was very great. And thus it may well be that physical death completely hid, from those left behind, the solemn truth that in accordance with His oft-repeated promises Jesus personally and visibly returned to the earth to deliver His saints and judge His foes, ere the generation of men to whom He spoke had passed away. Until He came, and until they had seen Him coming, many of them did not taste of death (Matt. xvi. 28), but immediately afterwards they did. (1)

Matthew xxiv. 29, 30. The astronomical marvels recorded by Josephus (War vi. 5. 2), as having been witnessed at the destruction of Jerusalem, appear to afford an adequate explanation of our Lord's prediction in Luke xxi. 25, that at that time there would be "signs in sun and moon and stars." But it now seems probable that Matthew xxiv. 29, 30 describes what Christ's watchful saints and Christ's inveterate foes subjectively experienced in their own consciousness in articulo mortis at His coming -- an event which primarily and directly concerned them, and them alone. The Kingdom of God being thus strictly within them (Luke xvii. 20), its advent could have no merely outside spectators and reporters, and was independent of any particular locality. In that case, Matthew xxiv. 29 ("the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken") denotes the complete darkness which came over these persons, In the moment of death, as the result of the closing up of all their ordinary, earthly senses. Verse 30, on the other hand, describes the opening of their spiritual eyes to behold the Lord when He then came. (Compare Mark. xiii. 24, 25.) As they were dying, but before their spirits were actually parted from their bodies, the faith of His people gave place to sight, and His enemies also saw Him. The interpretation, now suggested, of verse 29, appears to be the more feasible because it is equally applicable to the parallel predictions in Isaiah xiii. 10, 13 ; xxxiv. 4 ;-passages which describe the overthrow of the inhabitants of Babylon and Edom in the utter darkness of death.

In issuing this edition of The Christ Has Come, the author asks the reader's special attention to pages 93-96, where a chapter has been inserted, dealing with the question of why all knowledge of the past Second Advent has hitherto been hidden from the vast majority of mankind. Chapter iv. is also an entirely new one, and is made up of quotations from three writers who express in vigorous and eloquent language conclusions which for the most part are identical with those arrived at in the present volume.

(1) See also Note on John xxi. 21--23, page 92. b

E. H. C.

October 1904.



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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION



This book has been issued as a humble contribution to the cause of truth and of social and practical Christianity. Two thousand copies are already in circulation. The demand for a second edition is gratifying as an indication of the deep and wide-spread interest which is being awakened in the great subject of the past Second Advent. The author tenders his thanks to the many critics who have reviewed the book in the newspaper press and elsewhere. He also avails himself of the present opportunity briefly to restate certain points in the argument, and to endeavour to answer certain objections.

The Christ Has Come is an appeal on the one hand to undoubted facts, and on the other hand to a reasonable Christian faith. The Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are not poetry, but plain, practical prose. Common-sense, therefore, requires that their language should be interpreted not indeed literally, but in accordance with the usages of every-day life. Not a few of the unhappy divisions of Christendom may be directly traced to the neglect of this principle. For endless diversity of religious opinion has arisen, because, by processes of 'allegorising' and 'spiritualizing,' men have found it possible to explain away whatever ran counter to their own beliefs, and to read into Scripture almost any meaning which fancy or prejudice may have suggested. Systems of 'double' interpretation, and of 'partial' and 'complete' fulfilments, have been at once the delight and the shame of traditional theology. It is surely time for such systems to be renounced, as being utterly foreign to the real meaning and intention of the original speakers or writers. 'Far be it from us to make God speak with two tongues, or to attach a variety of senses to His word, in which we ought rather to behold the simplicity of its divine author reflected as In a clear mirror.' (Maresius.)

History, of course, is constantly repeating itself, and great events may present a striking analogy to one another. Yet, although the illustrations of a passage of scripture may be many, the meaning intended to be conveyed by it is in every case direct and simple. 'The judgment of Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem, may be a type of every other similar judgment, and is a warning to all nations and ages. But this is very different from saying that the language in which that judgment was predicted was fulfilled only partially when Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem fell, and is yet awaiting its complete fulfilment.' (Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 385.) 'Scripture, like other books, has one meaning - [that] which it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote it to the hearers or readers who first received it. [This meaning] is to be gathered from [the Scripture] itself without reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines, and without regard to a priori notions about its nature and origin. The office of the interpreter is not to add another [signification], but to recover the original one : the meaning, that is, of the words as they struck on the ears, or flashed before the eyes, of those, who first heard and read them.' (Jowett Interpretation of Scripture, 1. 3, 4.) Now, unless words do not mean what they say, it is certain that not only in the Apocalypse and the Epistles, but also in the Gospels, the Second Coming of Jesus had very narrow limits of time assigned to it. These coincide unmistakably with the winding up of the Jewish age, at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The New Testament writers were entirely of one mind as to the speedy advent of the heavenly King and the heavenly kingdom. In the four gospels Christ's own predictions on the subject are numerous and emphatic, and are expressed in great variety of language The words attributed to Him are free from all ambiguity. To deny (as some do) that His utterances are correctly reported is to strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the Gospel records, and to make it uncertain what His real teaching on any subject was.

Therefore, to begin with, the following pages call attention to the undoubted fact that throughout the New Testament the Second Advent is represented as an event which 1860 years ago was near at hand. If the New Testament records are trustworthy it is certain that this was the teaching not only of the apostles but also of Jesus Christ. On such lofty and unimpeachable authority we may reasonably believe that the event took place within the time previously specified for its accomplishment.

This faith does not rest merely on the divinity of Jesus. What appears to be a just and rational view of the great eschatological discourse recorded in Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi., may be illustrated as follows. Suppose that thirty or forty years ago a man claiming to be a teacher sent by God had predicted a series of events which were to happen about the present time in some country remote from our own, and with which we have few means of communication. The news now comes to us that very many of his predictions have been strikingly realised. This would at once establish the fact of his superhuman foresight. But when we ask whether on a certain occasion he himself was present and was seen, the country is so remote from our own, and our means of communication are so few, that the sources of our information fail us, we cannot obtain any sort of an answer to our enquiry. Under such circumstances the fact that very many of the predictions had been realised would make it an act of perfectly reasonable faith to believe that they had all been realised.

The Silence of History. - In Chapter IV, certain facts are emphasised which throw light upon the absence of historical proof of the past Second Advent. Stupendous as is the admitted character of the event, there is much in the New Testament to indicate its secrecy and its restriction to a limited number of persons on whom alone were bestowed the faculties competent to take cognizance of it. It is in the highest degree unlikely that men ever have gazed, or ever will gaze, with ordinary mortal eyes upon the unveiled glory of the risen Jesus. As Saul, the persecutor, journeyed to Damascus the light which shone upon him from heaven blinded him. It had a brightness above that of the noon-day sun and be could not see for the glory of that light (Acts ix. 8; xxii. 2; xxvi. 13). "Faint indeed would be the splendour of Christ's divine appearance, and dim the lustre of His glorious advent, were it a splendour of which the perception could be borne - or a lustre of which a glimpse could be caught by any terrestrial eye ! An appeal to the [ordinary] senses, or to history founded on information through them, would be an appeal to evidence perfectly incompetent." (J. A. Stephenson, Christology, vol. ii. p. 132.)

And even if it were otherwise, to disbelieve in the past Parousia because of the lack of historical proof would not be as reasonable as at first sight it might appear to be.

Dr. Stuart Russell, who believed that the "rapture" or translation to Heaven of the saints in 70 A.D. involved the physical miracle of the removal and exemption from death of their earthly bodies, speaking of the event more particularly as it concerned the land of Palestine, has said:

"We have to consider the peculiar circumstances of the time, of the country, and of the people as they then existed. We are apt to measure things by the standard of our own time, and of our own experience, and to suppose that the same rule will apply to all times and circumstances. We naturally enough say, were such an event as the sudden and simultaneous disappearance of a number of prominent persons from our town, or village, or neighbourhood, to take place, what a sensation it would cause, what alarm and consternation. It would be reported all over the land, it would be the topic of conversation in every company. Very true; but suppose all this occured when the country was in the occupation of a foreign army, when the invaders were marching through the land, leaving devastation and ruin everywhere in their track. Suppose the metropolis in a state of siege, captured, burnt to the ground; fire, famine and slaughter raging, in every quarter; all social order convsulsed amid the agonies of an expiring nation.

What sensation would the disappearance of some, of the members of a despised sect excite in such circumstances? Would they be missed? Or if missed would it be thought unaccountable? Amidst the fearful signs and portents of that tremendous crisis the disappearance of the Christians might pass without notice."

Outside of Palestine the early Christian Church was an obscure consisting mainly of women, and of slaves, and of the poor. In the sight of God these were of priceless worth, bid if, amid the terrific confusions and convulsions of the almost uninterrupted wars which characterised that age, the most saintly of them suddenly died, we may be sure that their passing away was little regarded or mourned by the world. Yet in the mysterious hiatus of 70 A.D. to 150 A.D. it has left an indelible mark upon the records of the Church.

In some cases the demand for historical proof of the past Second Advent proceeds from a misconception of the real nature of history, and is based on the unwarrantable assumption that, from the creation onwards, God in His providence has appointed means for the systematic chronicling of all great events, and for the careful preservation of the records. In reality, very much of the world's story has never been written; innumerable records of human affairs have accidentally perished by fire and from other causes; innumerable records have been intentionally destroyed through the folly or bigotry of the persons into whose hands they fell. All history, indeed, and especially ancient history, is more or less accidental in origin, and extremely fragmentary in character.(See Appendix E, page 194.) Often it has been penned with a partisan object in view, and for this and other reasons is strongly biased. In any case it embodies a mere selection of events strung together at the fancy or caprice of the individual writers. As Macaulay (Quoted by Bagehot, Literary Studies, vol. ii. p. 242.) has naively remarked, "By judicious selection, rejection and arrangement [a perfect historian] gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction . . . In [a perfect historians] narrative a due subordination is observed - some transactions are pro - others retire." Certain it is that few historians have been content to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even to the extent to which it has lain in their power so to do. In considering the question of the coming of Jesus in 70 A.D. we have to remember that Josephus was a writer who was far from being pre-disposed to favour Christianity. Instead of demanding, as some do, that the solemn event (if it occurred then) should have been recorded in his history, we ought rather to marvel that, in spite of his bias against his own nation and against the Christian Church, his pages afford such striking evidence of the historical verification of many of the predictions contained in the Apocalypse and the Gospels.

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