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It will be observed that our brother does not even PRETEND to give Scriptural proof
for this statement, and we therefore cannot seek to examine patiently his proofs, for there
are none. What we will do however is to tell his readers that the very same Hebrew word
is used by the same prophet in the words, "He shall prepare the way before Me", in
Mal. 3: 1, and trust that they will judge for themselves as to the character of the
criticism which complains of those who do not even pretend to bring forward Scripture in
proof. Continuing our quotation:--
"And furthermore it is in accordance with Old Testament prophecy to disregard the
length of time of this dispensation, and to speak of events belonging to the second coming
of Christ AS IF THEY FOLLOWED CLOSELY upon the events of His first coming."
Could a clearer demonstration be given of the Scriptural fact of the "gap", "break",
or "postponement" theory? Is Scripture so elastic? The word "before" which literally
means "in the face of" means according to our brother "a very long way off", and then
after having stretched this word, he compresses the whole of the present dispensation
within the compass of a comma. We urge out critic to study II Tim. 2: 15 in view of
"that day". It seems manifest to us that "M." is beating the air. Those who have never
grasped the truth of the Mystery or of a rightly divided Word, and whose time and
capacity are too limited to enable them to do their own study of the Word, may be led
away by "M.'s" arguments, but no true BEREAN can be satisfied by such methods, and
so far from shaking their faith in the wondrous truth of the Mystery the very attacks only
revealed its foundation principles to be impregnable.
#6.
The "Offering" of the Kingdom.
pp. 84, 85
We do not feel our readers will disagree with us in thinking that no good purpose will
be served by occupying much more space with this examination. We will just touch upon
one or two further fallacies and conclude.
A proper man of straw which "M." erects and overthrows is the idea that Christ, or
John the Baptist, offered the kingdom to Israel, and he states that if this had been his
ministry instead of baptizing unto repentance, John should have opened up negotiations
with the leaders of the nation. "To offer an earthly kingdom to the nation of Israel is a
very different thing from turning `many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God',"
states "M.", and we agree. It is a very different thing indeed, and had Israel "repented",
the times of restitution and restoration would have commenced, the king being present
and the kingdom heralded as "at hand". Christ was the King, not the "leaders of the
nation". They were offered nothing, but were bidden to repent in order that the Spiritual
Kingdom of Prophecy might be set up. This fallacy of the "offer" is associated with
another. "M." writes:--