CONTENTS
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It is the antecedent blessings; or those which are essential to put man in a condition to obtain eternal life by improvement, that man needs in his helpless state. These God has provided, richly and freely, in the Son of his love: but the provision itself would prove no blessing if never known, and no opportunity ever given to improve it. God, therefore has pledged himself, by promise and oath, that "all the families of the earth shall be blessed." In Abraham and his seed: that is, they shall have those antecedent blessings which are necessary to enable them to secure eternal life; making that further blessing dependent upon improvement-or, conditional.
"Faith" is the first and principal condition. "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." - Ga 3:8. Is he a preacher of the gospel who does not give the same testimony, or who denies that all nations, not excepting the heathen, are to have the gospel proclaimed to them, and an opportunity to secure eternal life? "All nations" includes all the families of the earth; and "all families" includes every individual of those families; hence, Jesus said, "Preach the gospel to every creature." That commission, or command, as we have said, embraces all that the promise and oath of God to Abraham embraces, and is a pledge of the fulfillment of it; and God gave Jesus "power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as" God had "given him." - Joh 17:2. "All flesh" -"all the families of the earth" then, are to have an opportunity, or the means granted them to secure that provision in Jesus, His only begotten Son, "he that believeth and is baptized shall have life;" that is "eternal life." "He that believeth not shall be condemned;" i.e., to death; or, "not to see life."
Our Lord thus fixes the final doom of the sinner on unbelief; which would be no sin, if the individual had never heard the proclamation of a provision made for him: hence, in order to a final condemnation to death, men must have been blessed with a knowledge of God's merciful provision for them; a rejection of that provision fixes their destiny in the dominion of death.
But the idea of a provision made, yet never proclaimed to men, and death eternal inflicted for a sin of which they never could have been guilty, is too much like the administration of an ancient tyrant, who causes his laws to be placed so high as to make it impossible for the people to read them, and yet punish them for not conforming to them. Such an administration is not to be attributed to the God who gave his Son up unto death for us "all, to be testified in due time." - 1Ti 2:6. God's time is not so limited as our finite minds may suppose: and His time will surely come, if not in this age, it will surely come in "the ages to come," - { Eph 2:7}, when "all the families of the earth will be blessed in Abraham and his seed;" which "seed is Christ;" and "if ye be Christ's, then are ye," also Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." - Ga 3:29. Hence, Abraham, personally, and all his seed, by faith, will be concerned in carrying out God's promise and oath of blessing all the families of the earth: therefore, if this present age is soon to end, another age, or ages, is inevitable to complete the work of the promise and oath.
It seems to us that Christians, generally, do not yet understand for what the present age was given. It was not given to "convert the world;" for God well knew it would be a wicked and corrupt age; "evil man and seducers waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived;" { 2Ti 3:13}; and that "the time would come when" men would "not endure sound doctrine; but, after their own lusts," would "heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and... turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables." - 2Ti 4:3,4. Such is the history of the present age; and God foresaw that it would be so. Hence, He provided for "ages to come." { Eph 3:7}, "that He might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
The nation of Israel having failed to become "a kingdom of priests," { Ex 19:6}, by rejecting their King, God determined to "visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name;" { Ac 15:14}; a people to do the work that ancient Israel was called and set apart to do, but utterly failed by their unbelief and final rejection of God's chosen King and Leader in the work of blessing "all the families of the earth." From the time, the grand privilege of doing this work was taken from the nation of Israel, "according to the flesh," and thereafter a people taken "out of the Gentiles" were to constitute the "kingdom of priests," at the head of whom, Jesus was to be placed, as their King and High Priest, to carry out "God's promise and oath to Abraham," that, "In thee and in they seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
The present age or dispensation has been, and still is, the age in which God is gathering that seed of Abraham, of whom Christ was and is the "first-fruits," and preparing them for their work of blessing "all nations and "kindred's of the earth." This dispensation, or age, in which we now live, was not designed to witness the fulfillment of the promise and oath of God, but to prepare a people, freed from carnal and selfish designs, earnestly desiring not only to see God's promise and oath to Abraham carried out, but a like one to Moses, by the same God, viz., "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD." - Nu 14:21.
This age, then, so far from being the final one, is only a preparatory one, to prepare men and women for the great work of blessing "all the families of the earth" in "the ages to come," of which Paul speaks. Let our hearts be enlarged, then, on the subject of God's love to "the world."
"Faith" is the first and principal condition. "The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed." - Ga 3:8. Is he a preacher of the gospel who does not give the same testimony, or who denies that all nations, not excepting the heathen, are to have the gospel proclaimed to them, and an opportunity to secure eternal life? "All nations" includes all the families of the earth; and "all families" includes every individual of those families; hence, Jesus said, "Preach the gospel to every creature." That commission, or command, as we have said, embraces all that the promise and oath of God to Abraham embraces, and is a pledge of the fulfillment of it; and God gave Jesus "power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as" God had "given him." - Joh 17:2. "All flesh" -"all the families of the earth" then, are to have an opportunity, or the means granted them to secure that provision in Jesus, His only begotten Son, "he that believeth and is baptized shall have life;" that is "eternal life." "He that believeth not shall be condemned;" i.e., to death; or, "not to see life."
Our Lord thus fixes the final doom of the sinner on unbelief; which would be no sin, if the individual had never heard the proclamation of a provision made for him: hence, in order to a final condemnation to death, men must have been blessed with a knowledge of God's merciful provision for them; a rejection of that provision fixes their destiny in the dominion of death.
But the idea of a provision made, yet never proclaimed to men, and death eternal inflicted for a sin of which they never could have been guilty, is too much like the administration of an ancient tyrant, who causes his laws to be placed so high as to make it impossible for the people to read them, and yet punish them for not conforming to them. Such an administration is not to be attributed to the God who gave his Son up unto death for us "all, to be testified in due time." - 1Ti 2:6. God's time is not so limited as our finite minds may suppose: and His time will surely come, if not in this age, it will surely come in "the ages to come," - { Eph 2:7}, when "all the families of the earth will be blessed in Abraham and his seed;" which "seed is Christ;" and "if ye be Christ's, then are ye," also Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." - Ga 3:29. Hence, Abraham, personally, and all his seed, by faith, will be concerned in carrying out God's promise and oath of blessing all the families of the earth: therefore, if this present age is soon to end, another age, or ages, is inevitable to complete the work of the promise and oath.
It seems to us that Christians, generally, do not yet understand for what the present age was given. It was not given to "convert the world;" for God well knew it would be a wicked and corrupt age; "evil man and seducers waxing worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived;" { 2Ti 3:13}; and that "the time would come when" men would "not endure sound doctrine; but, after their own lusts," would "heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and... turn away their ears from the truth, and be turned unto fables." - 2Ti 4:3,4. Such is the history of the present age; and God foresaw that it would be so. Hence, He provided for "ages to come." { Eph 3:7}, "that He might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
The nation of Israel having failed to become "a kingdom of priests," { Ex 19:6}, by rejecting their King, God determined to "visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name;" { Ac 15:14}; a people to do the work that ancient Israel was called and set apart to do, but utterly failed by their unbelief and final rejection of God's chosen King and Leader in the work of blessing "all the families of the earth." From the time, the grand privilege of doing this work was taken from the nation of Israel, "according to the flesh," and thereafter a people taken "out of the Gentiles" were to constitute the "kingdom of priests," at the head of whom, Jesus was to be placed, as their King and High Priest, to carry out "God's promise and oath to Abraham," that, "In thee and in they seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
The present age or dispensation has been, and still is, the age in which God is gathering that seed of Abraham, of whom Christ was and is the "first-fruits," and preparing them for their work of blessing "all nations and "kindred's of the earth." This dispensation, or age, in which we now live, was not designed to witness the fulfillment of the promise and oath of God, but to prepare a people, freed from carnal and selfish designs, earnestly desiring not only to see God's promise and oath to Abraham carried out, but a like one to Moses, by the same God, viz., "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD." - Nu 14:21.
This age, then, so far from being the final one, is only a preparatory one, to prepare men and women for the great work of blessing "all the families of the earth" in "the ages to come," of which Paul speaks. Let our hearts be enlarged, then, on the subject of God's love to "the world."
