[39]Acts i. 5.
[39]Acts i. 5.
[40]Acts i. 8.
[40]Acts i. 8.
[41]John xvi. 7.
[41]John xvi. 7.
[42]John xvi. 14.
[42]John xvi. 14.
[43]Acts i. 6, 7.
[43]Acts i. 6, 7.
[44]Acts i. 8.
[44]Acts i. 8.
[45]Luke xxiv. 50.
[45]Luke xxiv. 50.
[46]Ps. lxviii. 18.
[46]Ps. lxviii. 18.
[47]Montgomery.
[47]Montgomery.
[48]“Within and Without.”
[48]“Within and Without.”
[49]Acts i. 11.
[49]Acts i. 11.
[50]Is it lawful to think of Bethany in connexion with the Church of the Future? Are there no foreshadowed glories found in the pages of Holy Writ, which include this lowly village—gilding it with the beams of a Millennial Sun? Is it destined to remain as it now is—a wreck of vanished loveliness? and is the crested ridge above it, which was the scene of the great terminating event of the Incarnation, to be associated with no other august displays of the Redeemer’s power and majesty? The following remarkable prediction occurs in the prophet Zechariah:—“And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” Zech. xiv. 4. Were we of the number of those—(perhaps some who read these pages)—who look with firm and joyful confidence to the Personal Reign of the Redeemer on earth, and who in their code of interpretation regarding unfulfilled prophecy, espouse the literal in preference to the spiritual meaning, we might here have an inviting picture presented to us of theBethanyof the future. The Mount of Olives, by some great physical, or rather supernatural agency, is represented as heaving from its foundations, and parting in twain. The middle summit disappears. The remaining two form the steep sides of a new Valley, which, as it is spoken of as opening at Jerusalem (from Gethsemane), eastwards, the Vista must necessarily terminate withBethany; thus connecting the two most memorable spots associated with our Lord’s humiliation. “His feet shall stand in that day on theMount of Olives.”—The once lowly Saviour again “stands” in power and great glory on the very spot over Bethany from which He formerly ascended. A new highway from the “Village of Palms” is made for His triumphal entrance to the Holy City, while the air resounds with the old welcome—“Rejoice, O daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh!” If further we turn with the literalists to the majestic Temple-Visions of Ezekiel, we find the front of the newly-erected structurefacing upthis valley; a new stream—(indeed a mighty river)—gushes down from the temple-colonnade, flowing through the same gorge, and discharging its purifying waters into the Dead Sea. (Verse 8, and Ezekiel xlvii. 1-12; Joel iii. 18. The reader is referred to these passages in full.) From the geographical position, this river must needs, in the course assigned to it, flow nigh to the restored palm-groves ofBethany—thus murmuring by scenes consecrated for centuries by the footsteps and tears of a weeping Saviour.But if we cannot participate in these gorgeous literal picturings, we are abundantly warranted to take the words of the Prophet as delineating the glorious results of the futurerestorationof the Jews to their own Jerusalem. We can think of the City of the Great King raised from her desolation, “her walls salvation, and her gates praise.” The Messiah, once rejected, now owned and welcomed—“the children of Zion joyful in their King.” We can think of the valley which is to divide the Mount ofOlives—(the mountain bedewed with the memory of the Saviour’sprayers)—we can think ofthatvalley, and the stream which flows through it, as emblematic of spiritual blessings. “Ask of Me,” says God, addressing His adorable Son, “and I will give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance.” Is not the symbolic answer here given? The Mountain where the Saviour so “oft resorted” to “ask of His Father,” is rent in sunder—every barrier to the progress of the truth is now swept away—the living stream of Gospel mercy issues from Zion (or rather, from Him who is the True Temple), that it may flow to the remotest nations of the earth! As it enters the bituminous waters of the Asphaltite Lake, it is represented as curing them of their bitterness (Ezek. xlvii. 8, 9); descriptive of the power of the Gospel, whose living streams, like the symbolic “leaves of the tree of life,” are for “the healing of the nations.” Then shall the words of Isaiah be fulfilled, “Every valley shall be exalted, andevery mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” (Isa. xl. 4.) In the prophecy of Zechariah, to which we have just referred, we are told that in that same happy millennial period, the representatives of the world’s nations will go up “year by year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keepthe feast of Tabernacles.” (Zech. xiv. 16.) Who can tell but this may be a literal revival of the old Hebrew festival, only invested with a new Gospel and Christian meaning. “This feast,” says a gifted expositor, “is the only unfulfilled one of the great feasts of Israel.Passoverwas fulfilled at Christ’s death, andPentecostat the outpouring of the Spirit. But this feast represents theLordtabernacling with men, and is only fulfilled when ‘The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.’ On the Transfiguration-Hill, Peter, almost unwittingly, set forth this truth. He seemed to mean to say, ‘Is not this the true joy of the Feast of Tabernacles? Is not the Lord here?’” If this be so, we can think of the palm-groves of Bethany again bared of their branches;—these waved in triumph as a new and nobler “Hosannah” awakes the ancient echoes of Olivet—“Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!” As the regenerated children of Abraham build up the waste places in and around Zion, which for ages have been “without inhabitant,” and whose names are still dear to them—think we, amid other scenes of hallowed interest, they will not love oftentimes to take the old “Sabbath-day’s journey” to the site of “the Home of Mary and her sister Martha.” While seated nigh the reputed burial-place, with the Gospel in their hands, reading, through their tears, the story of their fathers’ impenitency, and of their Saviour’s compassion and sympathy at the grave of His friend, will not a new and impressive truthfulness invest one of the old Bethany utterances, “Thensaid the Jews, Behold how He loved him!”But these, after all, are merely speculative thoughts, on which we can build nothing. We have in these “Memories” to deal with the Bethany of thepast, not with the imagined Bethany of thefuture. However pleasing, in connexion with the Honoured Village, these thoughts of a Millennial day may be, “neverthelesswe, according to His promise, rather look fornewHeavens and anewEarth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
[50]Is it lawful to think of Bethany in connexion with the Church of the Future? Are there no foreshadowed glories found in the pages of Holy Writ, which include this lowly village—gilding it with the beams of a Millennial Sun? Is it destined to remain as it now is—a wreck of vanished loveliness? and is the crested ridge above it, which was the scene of the great terminating event of the Incarnation, to be associated with no other august displays of the Redeemer’s power and majesty? The following remarkable prediction occurs in the prophet Zechariah:—“And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” Zech. xiv. 4. Were we of the number of those—(perhaps some who read these pages)—who look with firm and joyful confidence to the Personal Reign of the Redeemer on earth, and who in their code of interpretation regarding unfulfilled prophecy, espouse the literal in preference to the spiritual meaning, we might here have an inviting picture presented to us of theBethanyof the future. The Mount of Olives, by some great physical, or rather supernatural agency, is represented as heaving from its foundations, and parting in twain. The middle summit disappears. The remaining two form the steep sides of a new Valley, which, as it is spoken of as opening at Jerusalem (from Gethsemane), eastwards, the Vista must necessarily terminate withBethany; thus connecting the two most memorable spots associated with our Lord’s humiliation. “His feet shall stand in that day on theMount of Olives.”—The once lowly Saviour again “stands” in power and great glory on the very spot over Bethany from which He formerly ascended. A new highway from the “Village of Palms” is made for His triumphal entrance to the Holy City, while the air resounds with the old welcome—“Rejoice, O daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh!” If further we turn with the literalists to the majestic Temple-Visions of Ezekiel, we find the front of the newly-erected structurefacing upthis valley; a new stream—(indeed a mighty river)—gushes down from the temple-colonnade, flowing through the same gorge, and discharging its purifying waters into the Dead Sea. (Verse 8, and Ezekiel xlvii. 1-12; Joel iii. 18. The reader is referred to these passages in full.) From the geographical position, this river must needs, in the course assigned to it, flow nigh to the restored palm-groves ofBethany—thus murmuring by scenes consecrated for centuries by the footsteps and tears of a weeping Saviour.
But if we cannot participate in these gorgeous literal picturings, we are abundantly warranted to take the words of the Prophet as delineating the glorious results of the futurerestorationof the Jews to their own Jerusalem. We can think of the City of the Great King raised from her desolation, “her walls salvation, and her gates praise.” The Messiah, once rejected, now owned and welcomed—“the children of Zion joyful in their King.” We can think of the valley which is to divide the Mount ofOlives—(the mountain bedewed with the memory of the Saviour’sprayers)—we can think ofthatvalley, and the stream which flows through it, as emblematic of spiritual blessings. “Ask of Me,” says God, addressing His adorable Son, “and I will give Thee the heathen for thine inheritance.” Is not the symbolic answer here given? The Mountain where the Saviour so “oft resorted” to “ask of His Father,” is rent in sunder—every barrier to the progress of the truth is now swept away—the living stream of Gospel mercy issues from Zion (or rather, from Him who is the True Temple), that it may flow to the remotest nations of the earth! As it enters the bituminous waters of the Asphaltite Lake, it is represented as curing them of their bitterness (Ezek. xlvii. 8, 9); descriptive of the power of the Gospel, whose living streams, like the symbolic “leaves of the tree of life,” are for “the healing of the nations.” Then shall the words of Isaiah be fulfilled, “Every valley shall be exalted, andevery mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” (Isa. xl. 4.) In the prophecy of Zechariah, to which we have just referred, we are told that in that same happy millennial period, the representatives of the world’s nations will go up “year by year to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts, and to keepthe feast of Tabernacles.” (Zech. xiv. 16.) Who can tell but this may be a literal revival of the old Hebrew festival, only invested with a new Gospel and Christian meaning. “This feast,” says a gifted expositor, “is the only unfulfilled one of the great feasts of Israel.Passoverwas fulfilled at Christ’s death, andPentecostat the outpouring of the Spirit. But this feast represents theLordtabernacling with men, and is only fulfilled when ‘The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee.’ On the Transfiguration-Hill, Peter, almost unwittingly, set forth this truth. He seemed to mean to say, ‘Is not this the true joy of the Feast of Tabernacles? Is not the Lord here?’” If this be so, we can think of the palm-groves of Bethany again bared of their branches;—these waved in triumph as a new and nobler “Hosannah” awakes the ancient echoes of Olivet—“Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!” As the regenerated children of Abraham build up the waste places in and around Zion, which for ages have been “without inhabitant,” and whose names are still dear to them—think we, amid other scenes of hallowed interest, they will not love oftentimes to take the old “Sabbath-day’s journey” to the site of “the Home of Mary and her sister Martha.” While seated nigh the reputed burial-place, with the Gospel in their hands, reading, through their tears, the story of their fathers’ impenitency, and of their Saviour’s compassion and sympathy at the grave of His friend, will not a new and impressive truthfulness invest one of the old Bethany utterances, “Thensaid the Jews, Behold how He loved him!”
But these, after all, are merely speculative thoughts, on which we can build nothing. We have in these “Memories” to deal with the Bethany of thepast, not with the imagined Bethany of thefuture. However pleasing, in connexion with the Honoured Village, these thoughts of a Millennial day may be, “neverthelesswe, according to His promise, rather look fornewHeavens and anewEarth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”