I am not dogmatic on these things. I was raised up a Darbyite, but as I searched the Scriptures, I found that Darby's doctrine just didn't fit together with the total context of Scripture. I have one study on Matthew 24 alone which covers 76 typed, single spaced pages (it is posted); another 30 page study on the Second Advent, and another lengthy study in Isaiah. Though the following comes from Mat and Second Advent study, it primally comes from the Isaiah study. I went verse by verse from 1:1, and the part from Isaiah is from P 24ff. in Isa 13. My primary source is Scripture.
The following is gleaned from many hundreds of pages of research, and is a brief overview from many hours of study over the past 12 years.
INTERDICTION:
As an introductory statement, let me mention that prophecy is from the time it is written, NOT FROM THE TIME IT IS READ.
This makes the purpose of The Revelation the same as was Isaiah's prophecy. It was to see the faithful people of God through the extremely difficult times ahead as their then known world was going to be shaken to its very foundation by the judgment of God against Babylon.
God clearly tells them that He had raised Babylon up for a reason. After Babylon has accomplished God's purpose, He brought her down.
The understanding of this opens Revelation up tremendously. In Revelation, the Lord Jesus Christ, who had just been put to death maybe 30 years previously, is presented to the church which He founded and left, as the risen Lord and King over all of creation, chapter 1.
He is then presented as the all knowing Lord and King over the Seven basic churches, chapters 2, 3. He knows all about them, and they are close to His heart even in the coming judgment. He tells them to get the sin in the church taken care of because there is this tremendous judgment on its way. He then tells of the great destruction which is about to come upon the center of the known world for both the Hebrews and the new church, the Christians: the destruction of Jerusalem and the old established method of worship.
Remember, Jerusalem was the center of the world, both for the now apostate Jews and for the new church: both obviously expected God's continued care for the physical center of worship, Jerusalem and the temple.
The Lord, through John, tells the new Christians - and Jews if they would listen - of the quickly approaching judgment against those who put Christ to death, the destruction of the wicked city, which was close at hand, even within a few years. He tells them this for the same reason that Isaiah (and other prophets) tells the faithful of the fall of Babylon, i.e. to show them that God is in total control, that nothing is happening that He is not in charge of, and the result will be the glorious exaltation of the Kingdom of God.
[We should not forget that the Lord Jesus told the high priest that Christ personally would return to judge him for his evil deed].
In all of the terrible 'trembling' that is coming, it is God that has put it in the heart of the wicked to accomplish His propose, Revelation 17:7.
The last chapter of Revelation, 22, points out:
1. the time is very near for this judgment spoken of in Revelation to come.
2. the prophecy was not sealed (v.10). Therefore, it was for the immediate future, not 2000 years away. This is quite unlike the prophecy given to Daniel, which could not be understood until the time was near, 12:4.
3. even after the judgments described in this Book are complete, there are still unjust people in the world, Rev. 22:11, 15.
4. many times throughout this Book, as well as throughout the NT, the nearness of this coming judgment against Babylon is noted, v. 20. This is unlike the prophecies of Isaiah that spoke of the future.
We do not find Isaiah's warning of the fulfillment of the coming judgment against Babylon being referred to as quickly coming, and the destruction he foretold was only 170 or so years away. How could the Holy Spirit change His definition of Quickly from the O.T. to the NT? In light of the O.T., quickly cannot be identified as a period of an excess of 2000 years, as modern expositors seek to make it.
Another point about the not sealing of this book. The readers of the period understood that it would very soon come to pass, which it did within probably 10 years. Thus it was unsealed to them. They read and readily understood what the Lord was telling them of in this Book.
The readers of the present, who are 2000 years away, have a difficult time understanding that it was to very soon come to pass upon the ones to whom it was addressed: it is, therefore, sealed to them, which is why there is such a huge amount of speculation from this book, including 3:20 being used as a salvation verse.
The churches mentioned in Rev Chapters 2 & 3, had to be able to read this prophecy and understand it because the great tribulation which Christ spoke of in Matthew 24 was almost upon them. Notice Christ's comparison in Mt. 24:29 with Isaiah 13:1-10. Christ clearly identifies the time spoken of by HIMSELF of the overthrow of Jerusalem with the overthrow of Babylon as described by both Isaiah and Jeremiah. Those who heard Him knew immediately what He was talking about. They would have known the context of Isaiah and the meaning of these terms. There was no need to say any more, for it spoke so clearly of the whole of the destruction of the Babylon of the Chaldees.
It is interesting that those who insist that this verse in Mat. 24 (and
similar verses in the Revelation) must be literal, do not insist that the
exact same verse in Isaiah 13:10 [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.] must be literal. It is this kind of Bible interpretation that
leads to the huge amount of false teaching which we have all around us
today. If it is figurative in one place, it must be figurative in the other,
unless we are clearly told differently by the context.
NOTICE REV 18:20, IS CLEARLY SPEAKING OF JERUSALEM, MAT 23:37. I must admit that most of the reformers considered the Babylon of Revelation the city and church of Rome, but that understanding does not fit into the context of Mat 23:37. We should not forget the totality of Jerusalem's destruction: Titus plowed the foundations of the walls with a yoke of oxen. What is seen over there today is several feet above the streets upon which Christ and the apostles walked
These new Christians and the new church needed the strength to stand in the coming horror. Nothing had ever happened like this before, whereas today tribulation against the church has happened many times since the first move against her. In fact, our Lord said that there had been and will be nothing like it in the history of the world, v. 21. With this statement to His hearers, He identified the coming fall of Jerusalem as far worse than even the fall of Babylon of which Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke.
Which brings us back to Revelation 1:3: The prophecy was unsealed. Any child of God could read it and understand the warnings, threats and promises contained therein. Thus the promised blessing to all who read it. This promise was an encouragement for the people of God to read this book. They had to in order that they might be prepared for what was soon to take place so they would not be shaken in their faith.
I must say that when Revelation is strained to cover something it does not, it closes its teachings, it seals itself to those straining over its understanding.
This encouragement was as much needed by the people of God before this terrible time spoken of by our Lord in Mat. 24, if not more so, as was the encouragement needed in Isaiah's time. Without the explanation of what was soon to take place, the people of God would have been at wits end, thinking that the promises of God had failed.
That promise from the time of Abraham on is for the exaltation of the King and His Kingdom. The Messiah was the personification of this promise: EVERYTHING, EVERY FULFILLMENT, ALL HINGED UPON THE MESSIAH, and He was going to be killed. To the natural mind, Christ's murder would make the spirit of rebellion more powerful than the King. Remember, even the Apostles lost hope until the risen Lord appeared to them on the sea shore. Therefore, He is warning them, both in Mat. 24 and in Revelation, that the resulting judgment and overthrow of the Babylon which put the Son of God to death would be more violent than anything since the foundation of the earth. Therefore, they were not to lose hope in the promise of the exaltation and victory of the Kingdom of God over the spirit of the world which put Him to death.
Isaiah and Jeremiah prepared the people of God for the coming destruction of Babylon of the Chaldees and the glorious Kingdom of God after it.
The prophet John (Revelation) prepared the people of God for the coming destruction of the Babylon of apostate Israel and the glorious Kingdom of God after it. (Note the overall parallel between the NT Babylon and the O.T. Babylon: It was not by mistake that the Lord calls the city which killed the Son BABYLON. Anyone who read John's prophecy back then would immediately identify what John was talking about. Remember these 7 churches would have been largely Jewish and would be very familiar with both Isaiah and Jeremiah, and their warning against Babylon.
Though the primary purpose of Revelation was to prepare the new church for the then soon coming destruction of Jerusalem [which is seen from passages such as Rev. 18:20 when compared with Mat. 23:34], let me give 5 points:
1. keep in mind that even though much of the book spoke of the destruction of Jerusalem, and was fulfilled when that took place, it is not all fulfilled. It continues to describe the conflict between the forces of the antiChristian spirit and the kingdom of God.
It holds for us the same promise as it did for the first church, the promise of the ultimate victory of the King and His kingdom, no matter how victorious the powers of darkness appear to be.
2. This conflict will continue until Rev. 20:10-15 is fulfilled. Obviously it has not been.
3. Note that the next chapter, ch. 21 starts with And. That does not necessary mean that this is the next event. All John does here is tell what he saw next, not necessary the order in which they were to take place. This also is obvious in other places of this Book.
In fact, the context requires this view because there is still sin present in ch. 21, 22. To make it even more difficult is 22:3, no more curse, yet in v. 11 sin is still present.
4. I have not done word studies in this book like I have in several others. Some one mentioned the passage in Rev. 18:10, 17, 19 and the word Hour. What will we do with this word in its context. When I looked at it, I knew what I felt it refereed to, but I was not sure. I checked several ideas, none of which worked out. Then as a last resort, which I should have done first, I searched the word out, which gives us an interesting fact.
This exact word - hour - is only used 5 other times in the NT. Jn. 5:35; 2 Cor. 7:8; Gal. 2:5; Philim. 15 and 1 Thes. 2:17. In every case except in Rev. it is translated as a season. It rightfully means 'a very short time,' and is not referring to a fixed time such as one hour as we would think of it, 60 min.
5. And one more point. Even though I am giving you some things to think and talk about, I do not have the answers. Nor does anyone. I have not done a study in Revelation itself, nor have I found any good books in this area since I had to give up Scofieldism. All I really have is bits and pieces which I have gathered from other passages. The more I study in other areas, the more of the pieces fall together in this Book of Revelation. I am covering some of these bits and pieces here with you.
The Apostles Creed (dated by the church historian, Schaff, as early as 100 AD.) contains the earliest of Church statements about the Second Advent: it rules out any premillennial advent of Christ which holds for two resurrections;
1. the first consisting of only the righteous (supposed to be taught in Rev.20:4, 5);
2. the second consisting of both the righteous and the wicked at the end of the world, supposedly taught in Mat.25:31-46. This also teaches a space of a thousand years between the two, with Christ reigning bodily on a remodeled earth.
This doctrine was the revival of a Jewish doctrine of the Messianic kingdom, which was formed in the later period of Jewish history by corrupted study of the O.T. It flourished the most between A.D. 150 and 250, and its presence in the Church at that time has been exaggerated.
James Hastings, in his DICTIONARY OF RELIGION (1924), says, "In presenting the NT doctrine of the Kingdom of God we should notice (1) the prevalent expectation of the Messiah at the time Jesus was born. There was no exact uniformity of belief or of expectation. some enthusiasts looked for a war-like chieftain, gifted with an ability of leadership, to cast off the Roman yoke and restore the kingdom of Israel to some such splendour as it had in the days of Solomon."
This is also called the Futurist view of the Revelation. This view insisted that all of Revelation from ch. 4 on was yet to be fulfilled. This view was made popular by "Sixteenth-century Roman Catholic commentators [who] countered Protestant attacks upon the papacy as the Antichrist by insisting that none of the events relating to Antichrist had yet occurred." Roots, pg. 37.
(Even though these Protestants understood that Rev. was primally speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, they also saw it as a record of the ongoing conflict between the Kingdom of God and the forces of the Antichrist, led by the Pope.)
We saw from the Apostles Creed that this thinking had no part in the early church, and was rejected, even though it was present at the time this creed was put together. I am having to do a study in the early church creeds and none mentioned a two-part coming through 500 A.D.
As we are looking at the 1689 Baptist Confession, we also find that they held to only one general resurrection of the dead, Pg.53, Not Two resurrections.
Rev.20:4-6 is the chief and nearly the sole support for this doctrine of two bodily resurrections. This is the reason we took the amount of time that we did to develop the time-frame of the Book. This is a key in a proper interpretation of it. The passage in Rev. must be understood in the light of Mat. 25 where the Lord Himself describes what is to take place at His second Advent.
In order for Rev. 20 and Mat. to work together, "resurrection" in Rev. needs to be understood in a spiritual since, and not a literal since. Notice John's use of the phrase "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection."
Notice what John did not say. He did not say that he saw the bodies of them that were beheaded. If John had meant that these people were here as a result of a literal, bodily resurrection, he would have said, "I saw the bodies of them that were beheaded." Surely, if he had meant literal bodies reigning with Christ, he would have said bodies.
(As I have been studying the Book of Isaiah, I have been struck with the consistent misinterpretation of Scriptures by C.I.Scofield. The passages where the context demands a literal understanding, he gives a spiritual meaning. The passages where the context requires a spiritual understanding, he gives a literal. It is strange indeed. I would love to go into these passages some day. His prophetic speculation by this means has turned prophecy and Christianity upside down. To accept his notes on many of these passages, must go contrary to multitudes of commentators. On the one passage alone in Isaiah 14, every commentator and historian that I have went contrary to what he said [6 in all, not counting the early church fathers which I checked].)
John the Revelator, sees the martyrs and other witnesses for Christ as disembodied spirits dwelling in paradise, and describes them not as having been literally raised from the dead at this time. He saw no bodies, yet he saw them as "living and reigning" with Christ for a thousand years. John calls this "living and reigning" the "first resurrection."
They lived with Christ by their faith in Him, and this spiritual life was a spiritual resurrection from "death in trespasses and sins," Eph. 2:1. Paul goes on to tell the believers at Ephesus that having been born again, they have been raised to sit with Christ, Eph. 2:2-6.
Col. 3:1-3 Having thus risen with Christ, they sought those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, and as the reward of their great dedication to Him and His word, even to martyrdom (as we saw in Rev. 20), they now reign in the heavenly paradise with Christ in His spiritual reign. They will then return with Him at the end of all things.
During this remarkable period of time from His ascension to His Father and onto His throne, Eph. 1:20-21, the Scriptures speak of the triumph of the gospel upon earth after a period of apparent defeat. This period of triumph is referred to as the millennium.
Matthew 19:28 was spoken to the Apostles, and must be understood spiritually, because the Saviour speaks of the of the time period as being the regeneration. The cross-reference in my World Bible is 2 Cor. 5:17.
We could not count the times that the NT authors use "resurrection" to speak of regeneration.
Our basic principle or teaching on the two resurrections for the redeemed, the first spiritual and the second literal, would be our Lord's words recorded in John 5:25-29.
We cannot say that the spirit of Babylon is now inoperative since Jerusalem's destruction, for obviously it is still much in operation. Revelation 22 points out that the dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and the ones who love and make a lie, are still very much in action.
But we must admit that the power that was behind the spirit of Babylon (Babylon defined as rebellion in all its shapes and forms, against the Lord and His Christ and the Kingdom of God) was most certainly broken. It was broken on the cross of Christ, Colossians 1:13; 2:15. The spirit of Babylon can only operate as the people of God yield to him.
The spirit of Babylon still lives. Thus, the Revelation give us a history of the continuing conflict between the forces of rebellion and the kingdom of God. This Book holds the same promise to the faithful children of God of the days since the fall of Jerusalem as it did to the ones before the destruction of Jerusalem who it was primarily addressed to. In the midst of this conflict, the Lord assures His faithful people of His sovereignty, His care and provision and the final victory of the kingdom of God over the kingdom of Babylon, no matter how desperate the situation nor how strong Babylon appears to be.
As we mentioned, Revelation 22:15 points out that the dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, murderers, idolaters, and the ones who love and make a lie, are still very much in action.
This is to say that the power which was behind this spirit of Babylon (Babylon defined as rebellion in all its shapes and forms, against the Lord and His Christ and the Kingdom of God) was most certainly broken. It was broken on the cross of Christ, Colossians 1:13; 2:15. The spirit of Babylon can only operate as the people of God yield to him: It is any move that refuses to glorify God as God and especially a united move such as the UN, but not restricted to the UN. It could easily include churches and even patriotic movements. No matter how much this anitgod and man as god might appear to prevail, and oppress the kingdom of God, it's fait is sealed, the King will prevail.
A WORD ABOUT 2 THES CH 2. The following is a quote, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, J.B. Payne, pg. 565.
"Dispensationalism generally affirms that the restraint must be the Holy Spirit of God, in the church, Scofield Reference Bible, p. 1272, and that its being "taken out of the way" refers to the rapture of the church, prior to the lawlessness of the great tribulation. The Thessalonian context, however, suggests nothing about the Holy Spirit, or why such veiled language should be used if He were the one meant. Though he may indeed do so, the Spirit is never mentioned in Scripture with the function of restraining lawlessness; and vv. such as John 16:8, Eph. 6:18, or I John 4:4 cannot be adduced as strictly germane to such an activity, though cf. the effort of J. F. Strombeck. First the Rapture, pg. 101. Scripture, moreover, gives no hint of the Holy Spirit's ever being removed from the world--Strombeck's citation of Gen. 6:3, ibid., pg. 102, misinterprets its reference to the termination of life by the flood; cf. G. Vos, Biblical Theology, pp. 61-62. Modern dispensationalists concede that the Holy Spirit continues in the world after the rapture, convicting men of sin and judgment, and opening their hearts to the message of salvation. Thus the only thing really removed would be His presence as indwelling the church; cf. J. D. Pentecost, Things to Come, pp. 262-263,
In other words, 2 Thes. is interpreted this way because it must be interpreted this way to make the pretribulation rapture theory work, even though they must make it say things that it does not say.
So, this leaves us with an unresolved passage in 2 Thess. 2. What will we do with it?
The best explanation of this chapter that I have come accost and the closest to the context of Scripture is put forth by a brilliant scholar named B.B. Warfield. The was professor of Didactic and Polemic Theology in the Theological Seminary of Princeton from 1887-1921. In his book, BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL STUDIES, he has a chapter on the prophecies of St. Paul. I would love to give you his whole line of thinking on this, but I will not. I will provide you with a copy of this chapter if you like.
In discussing the revelation of the Man of Sin of ch. 2, this is what he says:
In a word, this statement only declares of the Man of Sin what was just before declared of the lesser enemies of the Gospel, and what was in I Thess. v.3 seq. declared of all to whom wrath is appointed--that he shall meet with destruction at the Second Coming of the Lord. The revelation of the Man of Sin is not, then, necessarily to be sought at the end of time: we know of it, only that it will succeed the removal of the "restraint," and precede, by how much we are not told, the coming of the Lord.
After a page of arguments and based on the passage in Dan. 11:36, he then identifies the Man of Sin with the Roman emperor. And not necessarily a single emperor, but the line of emperors which embodied the persecuting power. He reminds us that the emperors of Rome claimed deification as gods and demanded worship as such. I must, however and based upon Rev 13:18, hold that the man of sin had to be a single man, and he was known by those to whom Paul wrote.
As we study Church history from Christ on, we find that it was only the emperors of Rome who claimed to be divine, gods on earth. They demanded worship as such, and persecuted any and all who refused to give them this worship. The emperor Consitine in 313 AD is the one who put a stop to this. We have not had this thinking since.
What developed from Consitine is the Church of Rome which with its pope, calmed to be God's representative on earth. The battle then became over who was the representative of God, the Church of Rome or the state. Both claimed to be equal with God, not God as the Emperors did.
In Warfield's words,
It was Nero, then, the first persecutor of the Church, -and Vespasian the miracle-worker, -and Titus, who introduced his divine-self and his idolatrous insignia into the Holy of Holies, perhaps with a directly anti-Christian intent, -and Domitian, -and the whole line of human monsters whom the world was worshipping as gods, on which, as a nerve-cord of evil, these hideous ganglia gathered, -these and such as these it was that Paul had in mind when he penned this hideous description of the son of perdition, every item of which was fulfilled in the terrible story of the emperors of Rome.
Thus, it was the Jewish state that was the restraining power. As long as Judaism existed, it protected the developing new, young and weak Church from Rome. Judaism had fought for the right to exist, and as the new church developed, it was mistaken for Judaism by Rome, otherwise it would have been declared an illegal religion. And it was persecuted as an illegal religion as soon as Rome found out that Christianity was not Judaism. This protection was left in place by God until the new Church was strong enough to stand on its own.
Also, during this time, the door of salvation was kept open to the Jews until the elect of the Jews were brought into the Body of Christ.
If the restrainer of v. 7 must be identified as a person, which Warfield doubts, he identifies him as James of Jerusalem, "God's chosen instrument in keeping the door of Christianity open for the Jews and by so doing continuing and completing their probation.
2 THES 2:8 Judaism is removed by Rome and now the Wicked one is allowed to move against the church in all of his furry. And he does as the Christians refuse to honour the emperors of Rome as gods on earth. This furry lasted for 300 years.
Warfield goes on to identify the apostasy or falling away referred to in v.3 as the great apostasy of the Jews, which gradually filled up over the years. The wrath of God is hanging over them like a storm cloud ready to burst forth in overwhelming fury. The presence of God departs from the temple, which is now an apostate temple, and turns the city over to the Roman legions in the war with Rome, around 70 A.D.
Thus, with this prophetic passage in Thessalonians, Paul was preparing the Church for the destruction of their protector, Judaism. He tells them why this is going to take place, the Jew's apostasy is full. He warns them of the new Church's soon coming exposer to the persecuting sword of the Caesars of Rome who considered themselves gods on earth, and killed all who refused to acknowledge this. We have a record of many such slayings, one of the better known, the martyrdom of Policarp.
This terrible persecution against any and all who refused to recognize Caesar as divine, lasted until the conversion of Consitine in 313 AD. Paul himself felt the sharp sword of the Divine Caesars. And in Warfield's words, "all the prophecy had been fulfilled before two decades had passed away."
Let me close this with Warfield's conclusion.
"Let us gather up for the close, in brief recapitulation, the events which Paul predicts in these two Epistles. First of all, and most persistently of all, he predicts the coming of the Lord from heaven unto judgment, with its glorious accompaniments of hosts of angels, the shout, the voice of the archangel and the blast of the trumpet of God that awake the dead. Thus, he predicts the resurrection of Christ's dead to partake in the glory of His coming. Then, he foretells the results of the judgment-eternal destruction from the face of God for the wicked, and everlasting presence with the Lord for His own. Of the time of the Advent the Apostle professes ignorance; he only knows that it will come unexpectedly. But he does know that before it the apostasy of the Jews must be completed, and the persecuting power of the Roman state be revealed. This apostasy and its punishment he sees is immediately ready for completion (I Thess. ii. 16). Finally, he mentions having previously foretold the persecutions under which the Thessalonians were already suffering (I Thess. iii.4)."
I believe there are a few more points that require Revelation's date to be before 70 AD. Mat 10:23, Christ promised He would return before all the cities of Israel were covered with the message of the Kingdom of God.
Mt 16:28* Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Mt 24:27* For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Mt 24:30* And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. Mt 24:48* But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; Mt 25:13* Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. Mt 26:64* Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Mr 13:26* And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. Lu 18:8* I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? Lu 21:27* And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
Mat 10:23, Gill, [a Particular Baptist who preached in CHS's pulpit 100 years before CHS, writing in the early 1700s] till the son of man be come; which is not to be understood of his second coming to judgment, but either of his resurrection from the dead, when he was declared to be the son of God, and when his glorification began; or of the pouring forth of the spirit at the day of Pentecost, when his kingdom began more visibly to take place, and he was made, or manifested to be the Lord and Christ; or of his coming to take vengeance on his enemies, that would not have him to rule over them, and the persecutors of his ministers, at the destruction of Jerusalem.
We should note that it was JND who first gave this verse, and many others, its new meaning, WHICH, according to JND, IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD OF HIS SECOND COMING TO JUDGMENT:
"Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel..." This testimony
of the disciples in Israel extends even to the return of the Lord. Interrupted
by the destruction of Jerusalem, and unfinished, it was to be accomplished.
Another testimony has been raised up of God in the person of Paul.
JND CW 24.103
"till the Son of man be come." The testimony may be resumed in Israel,
whenever they are again in their land and the requisite spiritual power
is sent forth by God.
JND Syn 3.73
By placing a dispensation of an unknown length of time [the church age, which, according to JND, was unknown to the O.T. prophets] in verses like this, Darby was able to teach many new and formerly unheard of theories. This idea, and similar ones, was original with JND, and they came to him after he fell from a horse and struck his head, 1827. [He complained of very sever headaches after the accident. Letters, v. 3, p; 297ff.] When he started presenting his new theories, riots broke out in Europe, and the police had to be called in. He pleaded for religious liberty to present his new theories, but he was very much against other's freedom to counter him.
He brought ideas such as this to America in 1863, and the American Christians rejected them at first. Darby did not quit, and over the years, his new theories became accepted.
The Baptist, especially, stood against him, but Darby won.