Recently I heard David L. Cooper, who, Dr. Weber said, is the greatest living Bible scholar, answer some questions in a radio speech. In giving answer to a question as to the setting up of the kingdom, he said that the spiritual kingdom which John announced as at hand was set up on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, but that when Christ returns to earth he will set up his visible kingdom, and that there would be no peace on the earth till that was done. In answering another question he said that Christ will not come till national Israel confess their national sin of rejecting him. If this last statement is true, then the coming of Christ is not imminent, but likely it is far in the future, for there are no signs now that the Jews will ever make such a confession. And if Cooper is right the Jews have the peace of the world in their keeping; for according to him the peace of the world depends on Christ’s second coming, and his coming depends on the conversion of the Jews. So Christ’s second coming is not imminent, and the Jews hold the destiny of the world in their hands! And I see no chance for the Jews to act nationally in anything—how can they?
Here is one lesson that Israel never did learn, nor has the world yet learned it: “O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (Jer. 10:23.)
A brother in Tennessee wants to know the difference, if any, between the church and the kingdom of Christ. A brother in Florida writes an article about long enough to fill my page, seeking to prove that the prophets foretold a kingdom yet future. Occasionally a brother over in Arkansas has written me along the same lines. The scheme argued by these two brethren is along the same lines argued by other future-kingdom advocates.
In its broadest sense the church is that body of people who have been called out of sin into the service of Christ. As Jesus rules over this body of people, it is his kingdom.
“Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent his disciples, and said unto him, art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” In similar fashion let us ask, Is Christianity the scheme of redemption that was to come, or look we for another? The future-kingdom advocates have answered, No, we must look for another. On that point they speak in no uncertain terms. It is argued that, though Jesus came to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem and to deliver the Jews from oppression, they rejected him, and he postponed the establishment of his kingdom till the time of his second coming. On this assumption their use of the prophecies is a puzzle. If the prophecies foretold the establishment of his kingdom at his first coming, then they did not foretell its establishment at his second coming; and the future-kingdom advocates discredit the prophets by seeking to make it appear that their prophecies can be shifted from one period to another. And yet they have the audacity to tell us that if things do not work out according to their theory, no dependence can be placed in what the prophets say. Well, half of their theory has failed—the kingdom was not established, we are told, at his first coming! Now they must shift the prophecies to some future date.