The Kingdom Is Come Nigh.
Zion's Advocate, Vol. 42, No. 10, October 1903.
But into whatever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you; notwithstanding, be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. Luke x. 10, 11.
To treat this passage as Arminians do is to do violence to the plain teaching of God's word. They insist that the kingdom of God had come nigh to those cities which rejected it in the sense of offering an opportunity to their inhabitants to repent and accept the gospel which they failed to avail themselves of. They claim that such cities were to be abandoned with the idea that they might have escaped the final judgment of God and banishment in hell if they had only repented and believed. The above passage and its context are use by them in supposed proof that there are degrees of torment in hell. They say that the punishment of the finally lost will be proportional to the opportunities they have had and the amount of light and knowledge they have rejected. An appeal is made to the ungodly that they will suffer a greater doom at the final judgment for their rejection of the gospel than the impenitent inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, though the latter are reserved in chains of darkness unto judgment, cast down to hell, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. How any can suffer a more severe punishment than to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire is impossible to conceive. They are called on to fear God and work righteousness, with the idea that only those who do this are accepted of the Lord, and that they will be accepted if they do. It is thus taught that the inhabitants of those cities, to whom the kingdom of heaven has come nigh, and who reject that offered kingdom, will be forever lost and punished in hell for their rejection of that kingdom with greater punishment than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah will have to suffer in the eternal fire. If such appeals don't bring impenitent sinners to their knees we can't see how man can reach them at all.All this teaching is a shameful perversion of this passage and its connection. This scripture, when correctly interpreted, forms no basis for such Arminian notions and appeals. The Saviour was instructing the seventy, whom he was sending out, in regard to the way they should set toward cities that received them and toward those that rejected them. In the former case he instructed them to eat such things as were set before them, heal the sick, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. By the kingdom coming nigh he meant that it was in their midst as a church. The reception of those disciples by a city is no proof that all the inhabitants were penitent believers. The fact is the heralds of the cross are sometimes received and hospitably entertained by people who are not the children of God and are not religiously inclined. It is a blessing to any home or city to thus receive and entertain the true servants of God, for in the providence of God they shall be blessed who show such kindness to his people.
Jesus then instructed his seventy disciples to say to any city that might reject them, "Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." These were Jewish cities. Those who refused to receive the disciples showed that they did not believe Christ was the Messiah and that his church was the kingdom of God. On departing the disciples were to tell them that the church they were opposing was the true kingdom of God and that it had actually come nigh to them; that is, it had come to be set up in their midst.
There is then given a few contrasts. Sodom is mentioned as not being so severely punished as that city which should reject the disciples. This does not imply that all the inhabitants of Sodom and of the rebellious city would finally be banished to hell, the latter suffering more intensely than the former. The punishment referred to is of a temporal nature. A severe punishment was inflicted upon Sodom, but it was sudden and brief, whereas the Jewish cities that rejected the gospel of Christ and refused to admit his servants were to be punished with a lasting judgment which would not only destroy those cities but scatter their inhabitants and break up their government.
Jesus then pronounced a woe upon Chorazin and Bethsaida, and threatened them with a judgment more severe than had been inflicted upon Tyre and Sidon. Sidon was, in ancient times, the principal city of Phoenicia. It stood one hundred and twenty-three miles north of Jerusalem. Tyre was founded as a colony from Sidon about two thousand years before Christ. It stood twenty miles south of Sidon. These ancient cities were very hostile to the Israelites and were wholly given up to idolatry, for which they were spoken of severely by the prophets. Tyre met with some severe sieges, and was taken finally by Alexander the Great, after a siege of seven months, and destroyed and the inhabitants were sold into slavery. Sidon came under Turkish rule toward the close of the thirteenth century, and gradually sank into insignificance. This was a severe judgment, but Chorazin and Bethsaida were destroyed and were never rebuilt, their ruins today testifying of the awful judgment inflicted upon them.
Capernaum is spoken of as being exalted to heaven. This is not the literal heaven of ultimate glory, to be sure. This was a city of Galilee, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, and had a custom-house and a noted synagogue. Its prosperity and the haughtiness of its inhabitants caused the Saviour to say it was exalted to heaven. But he declares it shall be thrust down to hell. He does not mean the literal hell where the wicked are finally punished, but the destruction which would be visited upon it in time. Extensive ruins mark its sight today in proof of the fulfilment of the Saviour's declaration.
To draw conclusions from such circumstances as a warrant for making appeals and exhortations to the world of ungodly sinners is characteristic of the weakness of the Arminian cause. Such has been the course of those who believe in conditional salvation. No one who believes in salvation by grace should drift into that channel the fallacy of which is so easily shown. We should not allow our hostility to Antinomianism to drive us to the errors of Arminianism. The natural tendency of the human heart is toward Arminianism much more than toward Antinomianism, so our greater danger is from the destructive errors of Arminianism. Arminian exhortations will tend to cultivate the errors of that pernicious doctrine and encourage believers in that doctrine to come into the church. This will gradually obliterate the distinguishing line between the true church and the false churches around her. Let all Old Baptist preachers blow the trumpet aright, "for if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle." Uncertain sounds of the trumpet never fail to produce commotion in the army. Then let us sound forth the sweet old gospel music which never fails to draw the saints together.
J. R. D.
Copyright c. 2005. All rights reserved. The Primitive Baptist Library.
