As we continue our studies of Apotelesmatic Truth, many will probably be asking whether Christ was indeed willing to return in the first century. The answer is obvious to anyone who studies the inspired New Testament record. Of course, we must realize that Christ’s return was conditional upon the repentance of the Jewish nation. Wherefore Christ, upholding the text of Hosea 5: 15, solemnly declared: “Ye will not see me henceforth, till ye may say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23: 39).
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter re-affirmed this condition, telling Israel that Christ was now exalted, and ready to return upon the repentance of His people (Acts 3: 19-26). One can hardly understand the events of the Book of Acts properly until this one underlying fact is realized. In this study we shall give more proof that during the first century the “time was at hand” for Christ to return; and that because Israel formally rejected the kingdom, their city was destroyed and His second coming postponed to a future time.
In order to know what the term “restitution of all things” means, it is necessary to understand what the “Kingdom” is all about. This can best be done by tracing the doctrine back to its very source. The kingdom began in the Garden of Eden, and involved Adam’s sovereignty over all creation (Gen. 1: 26-28), which God freely gave Him on the condition of obedience. When Adam fell, however, he and Eve forfeited the kingdom, and were cast out of God’s presence. God promised Adam that the kingdom would be restored by the Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3: 15); but he didn’t tell our first parents when.
Until the Seed of the Woman fully accomplishes His work (and this involves two advents), God has chosen to mediate His kingdom through men. After the eviction of Adam and Eve from Eden, God brought a flood upon the old world, but saved Noah and his house. After the flood God transferred the kingdom to Noah (Gen. 9: 1-2); but as the sequel shows, Noah’s posterity forfeited the kingdom also, and the confusion of tongues ensued (Gen. 11). This ended the Dispensation of Human Government.
As we know, God’s next choice was Israel. However, the intervening Patriarchal Dispensation was necessary to prepare the way for the special nation through which God was to bless mankind. The Legal Dispensation began after God saved Israel from Egyptian bondage. In the wilderness of Sinai he made a covenant with them, promising that they would inherit the kingdom upon the one condition of national obedience.
(Exodus 19: 5-6) “Now therefore if ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine. And ye shall be unto Me a nation of kings and priests, and an holy nation.“
In all of Israel’s history, however, they never acquired permanent possession of the kingdom, because they broke Jehovah’s covenant again and again, defiling His name. Remember, the law can convict of sin, but it gives the sinner no strength to meet its conditions. Therefore, when the promised Seed (Jesus Christ) arrived to fulfill the promises made at the beginning, and supplemented by later promises, the nation rejected Him, and Christ was crucified. Since Messiah’s own people rejected Him, He removed His throne to heaven, and on the basis of His vicarious sacrifice, which was “well pleasing” to the Father, a throne of judgment was exchanged for a throne of grace.
This brings us to Pentecost. Now with the blessings of the Holy Spirit available to regenerate the nation, the time was ready to make Israel that holy nation, if they only would repent and accept Jesus as Messiah. If they did this, He would return and dwell among them, thus fulfilling all the Old Testament prophecies of Israelite restoration. For Christ came to confirm, and not to abrogate, the promises made to the Fathers (Romans 15: 8).
To Peter had been given the keys of the kingdom (not the church), which he first used on Pentecost, preaching that Christ’s return was at hand, and that they must repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for remission of sins (Acts 2: 38-39). But because the leaders of the nation (and later the people) continued to reject Christ, the second coming never materialized.
The Book of Acts is the record of Israel’s final offer of the Kingdom, and the struggle that went on between Christ’s apostles and the Jewish nation, as the former labored to bring about the promised coming of Messiah. Hence, the book begins with the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and Peter’s subsequent admonition to repent and be saved. It ends with Israel’s formal rejection of the kingdom in A.D. 63. After that date the Kingdom was no longer imminent. This fact may be verified by carefully studying the New Testament writings dated after Acts 28. These include Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon, Titus, and 1 & 2 Timothy. All other New Testament writings (including the Book of Revelation) can be proved to have been written prior to A.D. 63.
But that must form the topic of a separate article. What we are dealing with now is the imminent coming of Christ as it was taught and believed during the Acts period. Paul’s epistle to the Romans, written in A.D. 58, affords awesome proof that Christ’s coming was indeed at hand, and would have been brought about if only the Jewish nation had fulfilled the condition of national obedience. Of all texts, one of the most revealing is Romans 8: 22, in which Paul wrote that the creation was then undergoing birth-pains. The deliverance was about to happen!
Because the kingdom had been formally passed on to Israel by way of the Mosaic charter, the hope of all creation was (as it still is) bound up with the hope of Israel. Therefore, when we come to study the Book of Romans, it is essential that we read it in its historical and chronological context, as this alone will reveal to us the basis of Paul’s expectation that the kingdom might at any time be manifested. Anyhow, Paul’s statement that the creation was then in “earnest expectation” ought at least to motivate our curiosity. What was he talking about?
Let us examine the historical details. Paul’s epistle to the Romans was written in the Spring of A.D. 58, during his three-month stay in Greece (Acts 20: 3). He had left Ephesus after making quite a stir; and a reading of Acts 18 & 19 will reveal that the Gospel was making serious headway. When Sceva and his seven sons were confounded (Acts 19: 13-16), the name of Jesus was magified insomuch that many who believed “came, and confessed, and showed their deeds” (Acts 19: 18). Books were burned, and witchcrafts repudiated. Conversions were made in unprecedented numbers. “So mightily grew the Word of God, and prevailed” (Acts 19: 20).
Now this was just the sort of crisis that could have tipped the balance, and brought about the repentance of the Jewish nation. But there were powerful forces working to prevent Paul’s labors from reaching fruition. After Demetrius the silversmith and his guild violently opposed the Gospel (Acts 19: 23-41), Paul decided that it was time to go into Macedonia (Acts 20: 20); something he had already purposed while in Ephesus (Acts 19: 21). This resulted in a three-month stay in Greece, where at Corinth, Paul penned his epistle to the Romans.
During this time, the controversy between Paul and the Grecian Jews reached a head, though we don’t know all the details of what happened at Corinth. It must have been along the lines of his previous endeavors, for the Jews “laid wait for him” as he was about to sail into Syria. However, Paul changed his mind, and passed back through Macedonia (Acts 20: 3). This sudden change of itinerary, brought about by Providential design, must have saved his life.
These facts give us something of a historical setting for the “time statements” found in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. Although verses such as 13: 11 and 16: 20 are often taken by Preterists as pointing to the destruction of Jerusalem, the theory is hardly worth our attention. An event twelve years in the distance, and still contingent on whether Israel would accept or reject the Gospel, could hardly have occupied Paul’s thoughts when he wrote his epistle.
No. When Paul said that the creation was groaning in birthpains, the destruction of Jerusalem was the very farthest thing from his mind. Rather, he was thinking of something that concerned his readers at that very time. And this was none other than the impending crisis between Paul and the nation of Israel. Would they obey the apostolic admonition to repent? or wouldn’t they? The matter was still unsettled in A.D. 58.
At that time, the deliverance of the whole creation was about to be wrought! But it could only be accomplished through the nation to which God had transferred His kingdom by way of promise. Already Peter had written to the Jews of the Dispersion to tell them that “salvation was ready to be revealed” (1 Peter 1: 5), and that they had the promise of being that “holy nation” and “royal priesthood” that God had called them to be (1 Peter 2: 9). But this was dependent on an upcoming “fiery trial” (1 Peter 4: 12) by which Israel’s dross would be purged away, that the nation might shine forth as pure gold (Zeph. 3: 13; Mal. 3: 3: 3-4). This trial belongs to the last seven years of Israel’s history, which they forfeited in A.D. 63. Hence, it is now in abeyance.
When Paul wrote Romans the glory was about to be manifested. But fulfillment hinged on the outcome of his labors; and we see the outcome four years later, when Israel formally rejected the kingdom (Acts 28: 23-25). It was then that Paul’s ministry to the Jews ended, and the offer of an imminent coming of Christ was withdrawn. Jeshurun surely “found” his life. But he subsequently “lost” it in the destruction of Jerusalem.
Hence, the then-present [A.D. 58] reality of a creation groaning to be delivered, and entirely dependent upon Israel’s repentance, cannot be understood in the same sense after A.D. 63. There was a deliverance about to take place, but it proved a stillborn birth. If Israel had accepted the apostolic testimony, we are fully persuaded that the 70th week of Daniel would have commenced in accordance with the Apocalyptic prophecies, and Christ would have returned in in A.D. 70.
But since Israel rejected the Gospel, their city was destroyed, and the second coming of Christ postponed to a future time (see Matt. 22: 1-10). The present Dispensation of the Mystery is a parenthetical period that comes in between Israel’s “rejection” and “renewal.” We know not when it will end. But after the church is raptured, the 70th week will begin, and the first-fruits offering of national repentance will be waved before God. And then, after Israel passes through the final affliction of the Great Tribulation, the new birth of the nation will come, Christ will return to save His people, and all the promises made to the Fathers will be fulfilled to the very letter. Maranatha!
End-Times Eschatology 