Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible

Announcer: The Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals presents the timeless teaching of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse.

It must be understood that many Old Testament prophecies have a double fulfillment. On the day of Pentecost, the early part of Joel's prophecy was fulfilled in part, but the great fulfillment of the prophecy awaits the Day of the Lord, when Christ shall come again, and when there shall be the accomplishment of all that God has spoken.

Thus, we can see that the prophecies of the Old Testament have not yet been fulfilled, those which concern the gathering of God's ancient people, the establishment of the throne of David, and the fulfilling of the judgments which introduce the time of peace which is yet to come upon the Earth. There shall be a transformation in the nature of the government of men, a transformation in the animal world, a transformation in the very dust of the Earth, a transformation in the astronomical universe.

The Lord Jesus Christ will come and establish His kingdom on the Earth, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Announcer: Over a half a century ago, the late Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, then pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, saw the need to spread God's Word beyond the hearing of his local congregation. He started the radio ministry, which has become known as Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible. The application of God's Word as taught by Dr. Barnhouse is as relevant today as when he first taught over the radio airwaves decades ago.

The message we will be featuring on today's edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is entitled Christ's Future Kingdom on Earth, Part 1. When Jesus made His way into Jerusalem during the last week of His life, He cursed a fig tree that did not bear any figs. Many theologians and Bible expositors believe this means that the Lord cursed Israel before ushering in the church age.

A number of these teachers then take all of God's promises to national Israel that have yet to be fulfilled and transfer them to the church, believing they no longer apply in any way to God's ancient covenant people. Has God permanently cast off Israel and her people, or do they still play a part in the future literal kingdom of Jesus Christ on Earth?

The scripture text for this edition of Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible, Romans chapter 14 and verse 17. Here again is Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse. With a message entitled, Christ's Future Kingdom on Earth, Part 1.

Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse: Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we come unto Thee our Father and our God, and in the Holy Spirit. Once more, we worship Thee, praise Thee, and acknowledge that Thou alone art our God, and there is none like unto Thee. In this hour, speak to us in Thy Word and use this study to build us in the knowledge of Thy truth, so that we may know Thee better and love Thee more. We ask it in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is still Romans 14:17, the Kingdom of God. In our previous studies, we have seen that in the Bible, the word kingdom has several different meanings. There is the universal kingdom of God, which denotes His rule over all the universe, including Earth, Hell, and Heaven. There is the kingdom of Satan, in which he was established by God at His creation, and which he has perverted through his pride and willfulness.

There are the various kingdoms of men, which we know through history, and which we can observe in the world today. There is the kingdom of David, which God established as a countermeasure to the rebellion of men, and through which He one day intends to govern the Earth in its prophetic aspect. In the meantime, there is the spiritual kingdom, and its secret form, which are mingled in the world today.

Ultimately, all power will be given back to the Father by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal kingdom will be established forever. In this present study, we look at the Bible prophecies concerning the kingdom which will be established upon this Earth, at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

First, let it be said that there are good and true believers, who do not believe that there is to be any future kingdom upon this Earth. They are brothers in Christ, and we love them, but we believe their position is false, and hope to show them the reality of the future kingdom by setting forth many passages from various parts of the Word of God.

One of the arguments that is presented by these a-millenarians, non-millenarians, which means that they do not believe that there is going to be an earthly kingdom, the no kingdom people, is that there is no mention of such a kingdom, they say, except in one place in the Book of Revelation. The true doctrine should not be built on one passage of scripture.

I shall show that there are scores and scores of passages which speak of this future kingdom, although I would be willing to accept its reality on the basis of the one chapter which speaks of it in so much detail. By coincidence, the chapter which outlines the truth of the millennial kingdom is Revelation 20, the third chapter from the end of the Bible. It is interesting to note that the third chapter from the beginning of the Bible, Genesis 3, is the chapter that tells us about the introduction of sin into this world.

We know how the hatred of Satan has been hurled against that chapter, and we realize that many unbelievers in the midst of Christendom refuse to accept the fact of the entrance of sin into this world through the rebellion of Adam, as described in that chapter. Certainly, we can no more reject the doctrine of the literal kingdom of Christ on the grounds of its supposedly single mention, than we can the doctrine of the fall of man because of the place of its description in the Bible.

But just as the Fall is explained theologically in Romans, in 1st Timothy, and in other places in scripture, and is everywhere taken for granted, so I believe it is right to say that the future literal kingdom of Christ on Earth is everywhere taken for granted.

Let us note its specific mention in the Acts of the Apostles. In the 15th chapter of that book, we have the story of the first Church Council. Before His death, Christ had announced to the disciples that He would give to them the power of binding and loosing. To His disciples, through Peter, who had just confessed his faith in the fact that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, Jesus had said, "I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven."

This binding and loosing had to do with things and not people, and its fulfillment came in the first Church Council. The disciples met to decide which items in the Jewish law were to be imposed upon believers in Christ, and from which ones they were to be free.

We must not forget that the Mosaic law laid out a pattern of life, which included sanitation, diet, what materials Jews could wear in their clothing, how they should plow their fields, and scores of other items in every aspect of life. At this first Church Council, the disciples decided that the church could be loosed from the Law of Moses in all matters except four. They were to abstain from the pollution of idols, from unchastity, from anything strangled, and from blood.

In the course of the discussion, however, there was a most important pronouncement made concerning the difference between the church and the future kingdom. The presiding officer was the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, James, the son of Joseph by Mary, the mother of Jesus.

When Peter had finished recounting what had happened when salvation was first preached to the Gentiles, James summed up the matter and gave his decision. "Simon has related," he began, "how God first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree, as it is written, 'After this, I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David which has fallen. I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up, that the rest of Jewish men may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord, who has made these things known of old.'"

Now this passage should be sufficient to settle the matter completely. God had promised the kingdom to David, and this had been known of old. Now, God was beginning to do a new thing, to take out a people, Jew and Gentile, for His name. The Apostles by this time certainly were aware that the church had broken the boundaries of Israel, and that there were many Gentiles in the people of God.

The Greek word for church is ekklesia, which is formed of a preposition ek, which means out, and a derivative of kaleo, which means to call. The whole word means quite simply to call out of the world. James recognizes that the calling out process has begun, and says that when it is completed, the Lord will fulfill the prophecies which had been known of old.

The Lord has flatly declared then, that He will return and establish the kingdom. "After this calling out of the church, I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David which has fallen." The announcement is all the more important in the fact that it ends with the definite linking of this prophecy with the prophecies of the Old Testament. For this is spoken by none other than the Lord, who has made these things known from old.

In the Old Testament, scores of prophecies speak of the return of the children of Israel to their land, and to their establishment in power and prestige under their Messiah. These prophecies have never been fulfilled, and there is no possible way of making them refer to the church. Indeed, one of the strangest things in the commentary on Isaiah written by John Calvin is the bewildered way in which he attempts to apply to the church the promises that are made to Israel, and to take the curses, which are often in the same verse or paragraph, and apply them to the ancient people of God.

There is no more scandalous way of interpreting the Bible. The idea that the Jews are a sort of wastebasket to collect all the curses of the Bible, while the church is a pantry in which all the good things of the Bible are to be stored, is a selfish, false, and wicked method of interpretation.

Another false way of interpreting the prophecies of the Old Testament is to allege that all the promises are merely exaggerated ways of describing the return of the children of Israel from the 70 years of captivity in Babylon. It is true that the Lord announced that His people would be carried away captive. It is true that at the same time He announced that they would be brought back to the land. But all of this might be compared to a rehearsal of the greater captivity and the greater restoration.

Think of a stereopticon slide and the picture as it's thrown on the screen. If you hold in your hand a tiny square, a film that has been taken, and which has on it lines etched, which show the sun and shadows of the picture that was taken, put it into a machine, and it casts upon the wall a very large picture, which is the same thing. Now, this is somewhat the method in which the prophecies must be understood.

There was a tiny fulfillment of the promises in the restoration of Israel after the captivity, but the great fulfillment is to be cast down by the light of God through the years, coming behind the screen and showing what is going to happen when Jesus Christ comes again. Now, the captivity which has already lasted 1900 years is to be followed by the great restoration.

To me, it is difficult to understand how any interpreter of the Old Testament can fail to see that scores of prophecies of the restoration of Israel were never fulfilled by the return from Babylon. All Jewish commentators recognize this, and they are correct. To study all of these prophecies, it would be necessary to write detailed commentaries on the major and the minor prophets.

But let us open the prophecy of Isaiah, and note a few statements which cannot be interpreted in any possible way as having been fulfilled, either in the captivity return or in the church. In the first chapter of Isaiah, there is a description of the sin of Jerusalem, and then a prophecy of the restoration of that city. Its dross is to be purged, its alloy removed. Its judges are to be restored as at the first, its counselors as at the beginning. It is to be called a city of righteousness, the faithful city.

In the second chapter, we read that it shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountain, the government of the Lord, shall be established as the highest of the mountains, over all other governments, and shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it, and many people shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways, and that we may walk in His paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the law from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore."

How can anyone say that this passage has been fulfilled in history? Have wars ceased? Is God the arbiter between nations, or can this passage be twisted and beaten to apply to the present status of the church? Have the churches brought peace to the Earth? Has there been any time during the past 2,000 years when the churches have controlled the secular governments in which they have become established?

Where they have controlled a government, they have twisted it to sordid uses, and have caused the secular arm as they called it to do great evil. The religious wars of the last centuries have been among the worst in history. And it is a sobering thought to know that all of the great wars of the last 2,000 years have been between nations that wanted to call themselves Christians.

The troops of the last Kaiser of Germany marched into battle with belt buckles which bore the inscription, "Gott mit uns," God with us. And in the opposite trenches, the allies called upon God as the one who would deliver them and do great things for them. The psalms of David were read in churches on both sides of the war, and the passages which spoke of scourging the enemies were applied with equal vehemence against the other.

Another phase of Isaiah's prophecies, which cannot be twisted by those who would see the church as their fulfillment, are those which announce great changes in the animal world. We read in the 11th of Isaiah, "There shall come forth a root from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. He shall smite the Earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he shall slay the wicked."

"Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed. Their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the Earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

Now, can anyone claim that any one of these things has taken place? Have carnivorous animals stopped killing for meat? Have children been able to play with poisonous snakes without being bitten? Can wolves and lambs be put into the same cage? What system of interpretation can account for these things?

Isaiah also has a series of prophecies which speak of the fact that God will change the very surface of the Earth. "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus, it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle."

"And it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign, which shall not be cut off." Ezekiel describes the transformed land of Israel with a river issuing from the sanctuary, and flowing down into what is now the Dead Sea, so that it overflows into the ocean, and thereby becomes fresh water. He adds, "And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail. But they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing." It should go without saying that none of this has been accomplished.

Another line of prophecy can be seen in Isaiah's record that has no hint of fulfillment either in the return of Israel from the captivity, or in the coming of Christ to die and institute the age of the church. We read, "Hark, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude. Hark, an uproar of kingdoms of nations gathering together. The Lord of hosts is mustering a host for battle. They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of His indignation, to destroy the whole Earth. Wail, for the day of the Lord is near. Behold, the day of the Lord comes."

"Cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the Earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. I will make the heavens tremble, and the Earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts, in the day of His fierce anger."

And Joel adds, "I will give portents in the heavens and on Earth, blood, and fire, and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations, and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there, on account of My people and My heritage Israel."

If anyone argues that this passage is fulfilled in the second chapter of Acts, it must be understood that many Old Testament prophecies have a double fulfillment. What might be called a pint-cup fulfillment, and then the whole vast ocean of fulfillment. On the day of Pentecost, the early part of Joel's prophecy, which I have not quoted here, was fulfilled in part. But the great fulfillment of the prophecy awaits the day of the Lord, when Christ shall come again, and when there shall be the accomplishment of all that God has spoken.

Thus, we can see that the prophecies of the Old Testament have not yet been fulfilled, those which concern the gathering of God's ancient people, the establishment of the throne of David, and the fulfilling of the judgments which introduce the time of peace which is yet to come upon the Earth. There shall be a transformation in the nature of the government of men, a transformation in the animal world, a transformation in the very dust of the Earth, a transformation in the astronomical universe.

The Lord Jesus Christ will come and establish His kingdom on the Earth, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. And our God and Father, we ask Thee to bless this teaching to each heart, in the name and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Announcer: God will fulfill all His promises to the nation and people of Israel, and He will surely bring to pass all He has declared about the establishment of the literal future Kingdom of Jesus Christ on Earth. We hope you've benefited from today's message entitled, Christ's Future Kingdom on Earth, Part 1. To listen to additional Bible teaching by Dr. Barnhouse, visit us online at AllianceNet.org.

An audio copy of today's teaching is available by calling us toll-free, 1-800-488-1888. Today's message again is entitled, Christ's Future Kingdom on Earth, Part 1. Or simply request message number R14-35. We would also like to make available to you a free copy of our booklet entitled, How God Saves Men. A Latin poet once said that there were as many opinions as there were men.

You can find a wide variety of ideas about salvation even among Christians. This free booklet clears up the confusion by setting forth God's Word about how He saves people. You will understand God's grace, love, and power in salvation as you read about God's part in salvation, faith, and God's workmanship in your life. Request your free copy of How God Saves Men when you call or write.

Dr. Barnhouse and the Bible is a radio ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We exist to promote a biblical understanding and worldview, drawing upon the insight and wisdom of Reformation theologians from decades and even centuries gone by. We seek to provide contemporary Christian teaching, which will equip believers to understand and meet the challenges and opportunities of our time and place.

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