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It is clear from this passage that there will be a judgment of "quick and dead" before
the Millennium, but "the rest of the dead" will not live again until the thousand years are
finished, and these stand before the great white throne. Are we to understand that the
"blessed hope" before the church will find its glorious consummation at the great white
throne? Assuredly not, and no reader of the Berean Expositor will wish space to be
occupied in confuting such a notion.
"His appearing" is identical with "His kingdom", and not a thousand years afterwards.
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that have
loved His appearing" (II Tim. 4: 7, 8).
If the believer of the earlier dispensation of the Acts knew that he would appear before
the judgment seat of Christ (which, by all the teaching of Scripture, will be set up before,
as the great white throne will be set up after, the Millennium), it is inconceivable that the
apostle of the highest calling of all shall be made to wait a thousand years longer than
they of I Corinthians or Romans, before he shall receive his crown. These passages are
all in line with Col. 3: 3, 4, which speaks of the hope of the Church, and "the
manifestation with Him in glory" which is the first moment and movement of what, as a
whole, we speak of as "the second coming".
There are three great spheres of blessing, each being marked off from the other by the
exclusive word "adoption". There is the earthly sphere, where Israel has the adoption
(Rom. 9: 1-9). There is the heavenly phase of the Kingdom, where the seed of Abraham
is formed of both Jew and Gentile who have their adoption, and where Jerusalem that is
above is the city (Gal. 3: 14, 4: 5) and there is the super-heavenly sphere, where the
Church of the Mystery is seated in the heavenlies far above all, where Christ sitteth at the
right hand of God; these also have their particular calling, consequently the hope of the
Church of Ephesians must be realized where that Church is already "by faith", and that is
nowhere else and nowhere lower than "in glory".
There will doubtless occur to the reader many other points of contact that could have
been taken up in the consideration of "Things Above"; we have indicated but a few that
seem of outstanding importance. We trust that with these, as a start, the reader will find
incentive to go more fully into a passage that lies so near the heart of all his hopes.
"Things Above" associates doctrine, practice, dispensational truth, hope and prize. These
at least we have seen, and, if anything of their fullness shall be appreciated as a result of
our studies, may He Who is our Life be abundantly glorified now, even before His glory
is manifested, as one day it will be, and we with Him.