Treatise on Atonement: sections 161 to 163
The next installment.
161. The “great and dreadful day” to follow John’s coming. This evidently justifies the belief that the great and dreadful day of the Lord, to which the prophet alluded, would soon follow the coming of John the Baptist. Agreeably to this fact we find all which is written in the New Testament on the same subject. By careful attention to the instructions of Jesus, we shall find that all those scriptures were fulfilled in the generation in which he lived in the flesh. Matt. xvi. 27, 28. “For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. 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.” Respecting this passage we desire the reader to notice the following particulars: 1st. Jesus speaks of his coming in glory of his Father with his angels at some time them future. 2d. He is careful to state, as the principal fact communicated in this passage, that when he should so come as he had described, he would render unto every man according to his works.
162. The time still further identified. Here we have a statement of a certain time, which would be a day of Judgment, in which every man would receive according to his works. This day of Judgment is unquestionably the day of Judgment elsewhere spoken of in the teaching of Jesus and his apostles. 3d. Jesus is careful to fix the time of this judgment, not to a day nor to an hour, but emphatically does he limit it within the life-time of some of those to whom he spake. Of this day of trial we read again in Mark viii. 38; ix. 1. “Whosoever, therefore, shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.” Here I again request the reader to observe, that the same particulars, which were notices in respect to the former passage, are found to be contained in this. Luke ix. 26, 27. “For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s , and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.” What I desired the reader to observe in the former passages, he will also notice in this.
163. Not two comings, but one. Should the objector contend, that the coming of Christ, in his glory, with his angels, to reward men according to their works, as set forth in the preceding passages, cannot be the same with his coming at the end of the world, of which mention is made in Matt. xxiv., I reply, by informing him that if he will so far divest himself of the prejudices of his education, as to give this subject a candid investigation, I soberly believe that he will arrive at an entire conviction that the coming of Jesus at the end of the world, of which he speaks in Matt. xxiv., did correspond with his coming as expressed in those passages above quoted, and did take place in the generation in which he lived on the earth.
