(On the Nature of the Resurrection)
"So the metaphor of resurrection is to be spiritually taken, and cannot be cited to prove that this prophet or the Israelites of his time believed in the doctrine of a resurrection of the body" (Biblical Dogmatics)

"These dead ones who shall live are the deceased ones of Jehovah’s people and nation; they are conceived as one body, the collective Israel, of which the prophet considers himself a part and calls it “my body.” (Biblical Dogmatics)

"Psalm 17:15. As an example of vagueness and uncertainty in a text often cited in proof of bodily resurrection we may note the different interpretations of Psalm 17:15. The common version is most familiar: "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." On this Adam Clarke thus comments: "I do not think that he refers to the resurrection of the body, but to the resurrection of the soul in this life; to the regaining of the image which Adam lost." The Anglo-American revisers carry the idea of beholding God, given in the first member of the parallelism, into the second member thus: "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with beholding thy form." But the Polychrome Bible renders it, "I shall be refreshed at thine awaking, with a vision of thee." This follows the Septuagint and the Vulgate, which read, "I shall be satisfied when thy glory appears." Thus the awaking is understood of the awaking of Jehovah, not of the psalmist. The writer of the psalm is one in great trouble because of "deadly enemies that compass him about" (ver. 9), and he calls on Jehovah to arise and deliver him from Their power (ver. 13), confident that when God's glorious form appears, he himself will behold it and be satisfied. All these are possible explanations of the text, and show that the thought intended is too uncertain for the passage to be of any value as a proof-text of the doctrine of resurrection." (Biblical Dogmatics)



(On the shaking of Heaven and Earth and Psalm 18)
"The simplest reader of this psalm observes that, in answer to the prayer of the one in distress, Jehovah reveals himself in marvelous power and glory. He disturbs for his sake all the elements of the earth and the heavens. He descends from the lofty sky as if bending down the visible clouds and making a pathway of massive darkness under his feet. He seems to ride upon a chariot, borne along by cherubims, and moving swiftly as the winds... In the psalmist's thought winds, fire, hail, smoke, clouds, waters, lightenings, and earthquake are conceived as immediately subservient to Jehovah, who interposes for the rescue of his devout servant." (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 25)

Terry gave a footnote on this by Perowne which said:
"David's deliverance was, of course, not really accompanied by such convulsions of nature, by earthquake, and fire, and tempest; but his deliverance, or rather his manifold deliverance, gathered into one, as he thinks of them, appear to him as marvelous a proof of the divine power, as verily effected by the immediate presence and finger of God, as if he had come down in visible form to accomplish them. - The Book of Psalms, new translation, vol. i. p. 186, 1876 (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 25)


(On Matthew 24:34)
"But we can find no word or sentence which appears designated to impress anyone with the idea that the destruction in question and the parousia would be far separate as to time. The one, it is said, will immediately follow the other, and all will take place before that generation shall pass away" (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 439)

"On what valid hermeneutical principle, then, can it be fairly claimed that this discourse of Jesus comprehends all futurity? Why should we look for the revelations of far distant ages and millenniums of human history in a prophecy expressly limited to the generation in which it was uttered? (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 443)

"We are driven, then, by every sound principle of hermeneutics, to conclude that Matt. xxiv, 29-31, must be included within the time-limits of the discourse of which it forms an essential part, and cannot be legitimately applied to events far separate from the final catastrophe of the Jewish State." (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 449)


(On Matthew 24:30-31)
"Some expositors fall into the error of identifying the coming of the Son of man with the destruction of Jerusalem. These events are rather to be spoken of as coincident, in that the Messianic reign is conceived as following immediately after the tribulation of those days. The overthrow of Jerusalem was only one act of judgment of the King of glory, and should be so distinguished." (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 242)


(On Matthew 24:1)
"... all these sayings of Jesus are capable of a self-consistent and satisfactory explanation of a prophecy of what was in the near future when he uttered them. The overthrow of the Jewish temple and the subsequent going forth of the new kingdom of Christ in the world are the main subject. We adopt this hypothesis as the only tenable explanation of the language which all tree synoptists ascribe to Jesus on this occasion of his concluding his teaching in the temple" (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 218)


(On Matthew 24:30)
"The language of Matt. xxiv, 30, concerning 'the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and much glory," is taken from Daniel's night vision (Daniel vii, 13) in which he saw the Son of man coming to the Ancient of Days and receiving from him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom. That vision was a part of the compost of world-empire, and signified that "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him' (Dan vii,27). The kingdom received from the Ancient of Days is no other than the kingdom symbolized by the stone cut out of the mountain, in chap 22,34,35, which 'became a great mountain and filled all the land.' This is the kingdom of the Messiah, which the Chialists believe to be be yet future, but which is more generally believe to be the Gospel dispensation, a kingdom not of this world, and not inaugurated with phenomenal splendor visible to mortal eyes. Like the stone cut out of the mountain, and the mustard seed, it is small and comparatively unimportant at its beginning, but it grows so as to fill the earth. This kingdom, according to Jesus' own testimony (Luke xvii,20), 'comes not with observation;' that is, says Meyer, 'the coming of the Messiah's kingdom is not so conditioned that this coming could be observed as a visible development, or that it could be said, in consequence of such observation, that here or there is the kingdom.' It may safely be affirmed, therefore, that this language concerning the Son of man in the clouds means no more on the lips of Jesus than in the writings of Daniel. It denotes in both places a sublime and glorious reality, the grandest event in human history, but not a visible display in the heavens of such a nature as to be a matter of scenic observation. The Son of man came in heavenly power to supplant Judaism by a better covenant, and to make the kingdoms of the world his own, and that parousia dates from the fall of Judaism and its temple. The mourning of 'all the tribes of the land' (not all nations of the globe) was coincident with the desolation of Zion, and our Lord appropriately foretold it in language taken from Zech. xii, 11,12" (Biblical Hermeneutics,p. 446-447)


(On Matthew 24:30)
"'the sign of the Son of man' may mean the ruin of the Jewish temple, considered as a sign or token that the old aeon thereby is ended, and the new Messianic aeon is begun. 'The sign of the prophet Jonah' (Matt. xii, 39; xvi, 4) was no miraculous phenomenon in the heavens. The analogy between Christ and Jonah for three days and three nights (Matt. xii,40) may be compared with John ii, 19-21 as suggesting that 'the temple of his body,' which was raised up in three days, was a prophetic sign that upon the ruin of Judaism and its temple there would rise that nobler 'spiritual house' (I Peter ii,5) 'which is his body, the fulness of him who filleth all in all' (Eph. i,23)" (Biblical Hermeneutics, p.452).


(On Matthew 24:29-31)
The language is appropriated in the main from the books of Isaiah and Daniel, but also from other prophets. The following passages are particularly in point:

For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. (Isa. 13:10)

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. (Isa. 34:4)

I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13,14)

In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart; The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. (Zech. 12:11-14)

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem. (Isa. 27:13)

If thy dispersion be from extremity of the heaven to extremity of the heaven, Thence shall the Lord thy God gather thee. (Sept. of Deut. 30:4)

For from the four winds of the heaven will I gather you, Saith the Lord (Sept. of Zech. 2:6)

From these quotation it is apparent that there is scarcely an expression employed in Matthew and Luke which has not been taken from the Old Testament Scriptures.

Such apocalyptic forms of speech are not to be assumed to convey in the New Testament a meaning different from that which they bear in the Hebrew Scriptures. They are part and parcel of the genius of prophetic language. The language of Isaiah 13:10, is used in a prophecy of the overthrow of Babylon. That of Isaiah 34:4, refers to the desolation of Edom. The ideal of "the Son of man coming in the clouds" is taken from a prophecy of the Messianic kingdom, which kingdom, as depicted in Daniel 7:13,14, is no other than the one symbolized in the same book by a stone cut out of the mountain (Dan. 2:34,35). It is the same kingdom of heaven which Jesus liken to a grain of mustard seed and to the working of leaven in the meal (Matt. 13:31-33). The other citations we have given above show with equal clearness how both Jesus and his disciples were wont to express themselves in language which must have been very familiar to those who from childhood heard the law and the prophets "read in the synagogues every Sabbath" (Acts 13:27; 15:21). A strictly literal interpretation of such pictorial modes of thought leads only to absurdity. Their import must be studied in the light of the numerous parallels in the Old Testament writers, which have been extensively presented in the foregoing part of this volume. But with what show of reason, or on what principle of "interpreting Scripture by Scripture," can it be maintained that the language of Isaiah, Joel, and Daniel, allowed by all the best exegetes to be metaphorical when employed in the Hebrew Scriptures, must be literally understood when appropriated by Jesus or his apostles?

We sometimes, indeed, are meet with a disputant who attempts to evade the force of the above question by the plea that if we interpret one part of Jesus's discourse literally we are bound in consistency to treat the entire prophecy in the same way. So, on the other hand, it is urged that if Matt. 24:29-31, for example, be explained metaphorically, we must carry that same principle through all the rest of the chapter; and if the words "sun, moon, and heavens" in verse 29 are to be taken figuratively, so should the words "Judea," and "mountains," and "housetop," and "field" in other parts of the chapter be explained metaphorically! It is difficult to understand how such a superficial plea can be seriously put forward by one who has made a careful study of the Hebrew prophets. Every one of the Old Testament examples which have been cited above stands connected, like these apocalyptic saying of Jesus, with other statements which all readers and expositors have understood literally. The most proasic writer may at times express himself through a whole series of sentences in figurative term, and incorporate the extended metaphor in the midst of the plain narrative of facts. ...

Our fourth and concluding proposition is that this apocalyptic passage is a sublime symbolic picture of the crisis of ages in the transition from the Old Testament dispensation to the Christian era. The word picture must be taken as a whole, and allowed to convey its grand total impression. The attempt, in a single passage like Mark 13:24,25, to take each metaphor separately and give it a distinct application, ruins the whole picture. ... The picture of a collapsing universe symbolizes the one simple but sublime thought of supernatural interposition in the affairs of the world, involving remarkable revolution and change. The element of time does not appear in the picture. So the Son of man coming on the clouds means here just what it means in Daniel's vision. It is an apocalyptic concept of the Messiah, as King of heaven and earth, executing divine judgment and entering with his people upon the possession and dominion of the kingdoms of the world. Here again the element of time does not enter, except it be the associated thought of Daniel's prophecy that "his dominion is an everlasting dominion" (Dan. 7:14). It is the same coming of the Son of man in his kingdom which is referred to in Matt. 16:27,28, the inception of which was to occur before some of those who heard these words should taste of death. The mourning of all the tribes of the land is the universal wail and lamentation of Judaism over its national overthrow. In the fall of their city and Temple the priests, scribes, and elders saw "the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power" (Matt. 26:64), and thus it was made manifest to all who read the prophecy aright that "Jesus the Galilean" has conquered. The gathering of Christ's elect from the four winds is the true fulfillment of numerous prophecies which promise the chosen people that they shall be gathered out of all lands and established forever in the mountain of God (comp. Amos 9:14,15; Jer. 23:5-8; 32:37-40; Ezek. 37:21-28). The time and manner of this universal ingathering of the elect ones cannot be determined from the language of any of these prophecies. As well might one presume to determine from Jesus's words in John 12:32, where, when, and in what manner, when the Christ is "lifted up out of the earth," he will draw all men unto himself. The point made emphatic, in the eschatological discourse of Jesus, is that all things contemplated in the apocalyptic symbolism employed to depict his coming and reign would follow "immediately after the tribulation of those days" (Matt. 24:29); or, as Mark has it, "in those days, after that tribulation." That is, the coming of the kingdom of the Son of man is coincident with the overthrow of Judaism and its temple, and follows immediately in those very days.

Whatever in this picture necessarily pertains to the continuous administration of the kingdom on the earth must of course be permanent, and continue as long as the nature and purpose of each work requires. When, therefore, it is affirmed that "this generation shall not pass away until all these things be accomplished," no one supposes that the kingdom and the power and the glory of the Son of man are to terminate with that generation. The kingdom itself is to endure for ages of ages. It is to increase like the stone cut from the mountain, which itself "became a great mountain and filled the whole earth." It is to grow and operate like the mustard seed and the leaven until it accomplish its heavenly purpose among men. The entire New Testament teaching concerning the kingdom of Christ comtemplates a long period, and the abolishing of all opposing authority and power; "for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (I Cor. 15:25). The overthrow of Jerusalem was one of the first triumphs of the Messiah's reign, and a sign that he was truly "seated at the right hand of power." ...

But what ought to settle the question of time beyond all controversy is the most emphatic declaration: "This generation shall not pass away until all these things be accomplished." These words are clearly intended to answer the disciples' question, "when shall these things be?" Their meaning is substantially the same as that of Mark 9:1, and the parallels in Matthew and Luke. The words immediately preceding them show the absurdity of applying them to another generation than that of the apostles: "When YOU SEE THESE THINGS coming to pass, YOU KNOW that he is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say UNTO YOU, this generation shall not pass away," etc.

But not a few expositors presume to nullify the import of these words by affirming that they are glaringly inconsistent with what follows in Mark and Matthew: "But of that day or hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." It is difficult to understand how any interpreter, uninfluenced by a dogmatic prepossession, can insist on making one of these statements contradict or exclude the other. But it is not difficult to see that, when one has it already settled in his mind that the kingdom of Christ is not yet come, that the "Parousia" is an even event yet future, and that "the end of the age" is not the close of the pre-Messianic age, but "the end of the world," such a weight of dogma effectually obliges him to nullify the simply meaning of words as emphatic as Jesus ever spoke. If the language of Mark 13:30, and its parallels in Matthew and Luke are to be so arbitrarily set aside on such ground we see not but it is just as proper a procedure to reject the statement of Jesus's ignorance of the day and the hour, which indeed does not appear in Luke at all. Why not reject Mark 13:32, which has no parallel in Luke, rather than verse 30, which appears in all the synoptic gospels? Such an arbitrary procedure is a two-edged sword which may smite in one direction as well as another. (Biblical Apocalyptics, pp. 238-245)


(On Transition Text Theory)
"When, however, the one school of interpreters attempt to point out the dividing line, there are as many differences of opinion as there are interpreters. In Matt. 24 and 25, for example, the transition from the one subject to the other is placed by Bengel and others at 24:29; by E.J. Meyer at verse 35; by Doddridge at verse 36; by Kuinoel at verse 33; by Eichorn at 25:14, and by Wetstein at 25:31." (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 217)


(On Matthew 26:64)
"Matthew reads (xxvi, 64), 'From this time ... ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.' We maintain that this language cannot be naturally interpreted as a reference to an event belonging to a far distant period of time. It is something that is to take place from this time onward, and something which the high priest and his associates are to see. We quote with great satisfaction the comment of Gould in the International Critical Commentary on Mark (p. 252): 'This settles two things: first, that the coming is not a single event, any more than the sitting on the right hand of power; and second, that it was a thing which was to begin with the very time of our Lord's departure from the world. Moreover, the two things, the sitting on the right hand of power, and the coming are connected in such a way as to mean that he is to assume power in heaven and exercise it here in the world. The period beginning with the departure of Jesus from the world was to be marked by this assumption of heavenly power by the Christ, and by repeated interferences in crises of the world's history, of which the destruction of Jerusalem was the first' " (Milton Terry, Biblical Apocalyptics, pp. 222-223).


(On the man of sin)
"Grotius, Wetstein, Whitby, and others, hold that this prophecy of the man of sin was fulfilled before the destruction of Jerusalem, which event they also regard as coincident with the parousia." (Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 460)


(On II Peter 3's New Heavens and Earth)
"That these texts may intimate or simply foreshadow some such ultimate reconstruction of the physical creation, need not be denied, for we know not the possibilities of the future, nor the purposes of God respecting all things which he has created. but the contexts of these several passages do not authorize such a doctrine. Isaiah 51:16, refers to the resuscitation of Zion and Jerusalem, and is clearly metaphorical. The same is true of Isa. 65:17, and 66:22, for the context in all these places confines the reference to Jerusalem and the people of God, and sets forth the same great prophetic conception of the Messianic future as the closing chapters of Ezekiel. The language of 2 Pet. iii, 10, 12, is taken mainly from Isa. 34:4, and is limited to the parousia, like the language of Matt. 24:29. Then the Lord made 'not only the land but also the heaven' to tremble (Heb 12:26), and removed the things that were shaken in order to establish a kingdom which cannot be moved (Heb. 12:27,28)." (Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 489).


(On Revelation 6:1)
"The true interpretation of these first four seals is that which recognizes them as a symbolic representation of the ‘wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes’ which Jesus declared would be ‘the beginning of sorrows’ in the desolation of Jerusalem (Matt. 24:6-7; Luke 21:10-11, 20). The attempt to identify each separate figure with one specific event misses both the spirit and method of apoca-lyptic symbolism. The aim is to give a fourfold and most im-pressive picture of that terrible war on Jerusalem which was des-tined to avenge the righteous blood of prophets and apostles (Matt. 23:35-37), and to involve a ‘great tribulation,’ the like of which had never been before (Matt. 24:21). Like the four succes-sive but closely connected swarms of locusts in Joel 1:4; like the four riders on different colored horses in Zechariah 1:8, 18, and the four chariots drawn by as many different colored horses in Zechariah 6:1-8, these four sore judgments of Jehovah move forth at the command of the four living creatures by the Throne to execute the will of Him who declared the ‘scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites’ of His time to be ‘serpents and offspring of vipers,’ and assured them that ‘all these things should come upon this generation’ (Matt. 23:33, 36). The writings of Josephus abundantly show how fearfully all these things were fulfilled in the bloody war of Rome against Jerusalem." (pp. 329f.)


(On Revelation 7:3)
"The purpose of the sealing was to preserve the true Israel of God as a holy seed. It was not designed to save them from tribulation, but to preserve them in the midst of the great tribulation about to come and to glorify them thereby. Though the old Israel be cast off, a new and holy Israel is to be chosen and sealed with the Spirit of the living God.’" (p. 336.)

""an apocalyptic picture of that ‘holy seed’ of which Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 6:13 — that surviving remnant which was destined to remain like the stump of a fallen oak after cities had been laid waste and the whole land had become a des-olation – that ‘remnant of Jacob,’ which was to be preserved from the ‘consumption determined in the midst of all the land’ (Isa. 10:21-23). It is the same ‘remnant according to the election of grace’ of which Paul speaks in Romans 9:27-28; 11:5. God will not destroy Jerusalem and make the once holy places desolate until He first chooses and seals a select number as the beginning of a new Israel. The first Christian Church was formed out of chosen servants of God from ‘the twelve tribes of the dispersion’ (James 1:1), and the end of the Jewish age was not to come until by the ministry of Jewish Christian apostles and prophets the gospel of the kingdom had been preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations (Matt. 24:14)." (pp. 341f.)


(On Babylon, the Great)
"The great red Dragon (12:3) is not to be regarded as different from the angel of the abyss (9:11). The hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Zion (14:1) are the same as the sealed Israelites of 7:4-8. The seven last plagues (chaps. 15 and 16) correspond noticeably to the seven trumpets of doom. ‘Babylon the Great’ is the same as the great city where the Lord was crucified (11:8), and the new Jerusalem, filled with the glory of God and the Lamb, is but another symbol of the temple of God in the heaven (11: 19)."


(On The Date of Revelation)
"the trend of modem criticism is unmistakably toward the adoption of the early date of the Apocalypse." (p. 241n.)

"It is therefore not to be supposed that the language, or style of thought, or type of doctrine must needs resemble those of other production of the same author .. the difference of language is further accounted for by the supposition that the apocalypse was written by the apostle at an early period of his ministry, and the gospel and epistles some thirty or forty years later." (Biblical Apocalyptics, p. 255)

"A fair weighing of the arguments thus far adduced shows that they all excepting the statement of Irenaeus, favor the early rather than later date. The facts appealed to indicate the times before rather than after the destruction of Jerusalem." (ibid.,258)

"Now, there is no contention that Galatians and Hebrews were written before the destruction of Jerusalem, and, to say the least, the most natural explanation of the allusions referred to is to suppose that the Apocalypse was already written, and that Paul and many others of his day were familiar with its contents. Writers who cite passages from the apostolic fathers to prove the priority of the gospel of John are the last persons in the world who should presume to dispute the obvious priority of the Apocalypse of John to Galatians and Hebrews. For in no case are the alleged quotations of Gospel more notable or striking than these allusions to the Apocalypse in the New Testament epistles." (ibid.,260)

"Of all the arguments adduced by Sir Isaac Newton, none appears more cogent to Michaelis than that which is drawn from the Hebrew style of the Revelation, from which Sir Isaac had drawn the conclusion that John must have written the book shortly after his departure from Palestine, and before the destruction of Jerusalem." (ibid. p 154)


(On The Second Coming)
"Is there no other way to understand the words of Paul? Does not the doctrine of our Lord, as we have traced it the Gospel Apocalypse, warrant us in believing that all these sublime events ocurred at that momentous crisis of the ages when Judaism and her temple fell a hopeless ruin ? Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should then have raised many of them that slept in death? Why assume that the rapture of living saints must needs be visible to all mortal eyes ? The parousia, according to the Scriptures, was to take place at the end of an age, and not to involve the cessation of the human race on earth. Our Lord most plainly declared that then some should be taken and some should be left (Matt. xxiv, 40, 41), and as we have already shown (see above, p. 448), there is no sufficient reason for assuming that such a rapture of living saints must have been visible to those who were left.' The ascension of our Lord into heaven was witnessed by no great multitude. (Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 458)

"Chiliastic writers, in claiming that the word parousia, coming, or presence, always means a personal presence, appear to assume that there can be no personal coming or presence of the Lord unless it be literally visible to human eyes. This would exclude the personal presence of God and of angels from the divine government of the world. Will it be pretended that there was no personal coming or presence of Jehovah at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? Comp. Gen. xviii, 21 ; xi x, 24, 25. But the Scriptures give no intimation of any visible appearance of the holy One to the inhabitants of the doomed cities. And so again and again has God come in terrible judgment upon wicked men and nations without any visible display of his person--a sight which no man may behold and live (Exod. xxxiii, 20). (Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 458b)

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