Page 136 - Jesus is coming - Class version

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 123

1st. The end is unquestionably the end of the age (ro(i
cuuivos tou aionos) of which the disciples asked in verse 3.
2d. The world (OUCOV/AO^ oikoumenee) means habi-
table, that is, the inhabited earth.
3d. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news, or
glad tidings of the kingdom to come.
it is asserted, shall be proclaimed in
These glad tidings,
all the inhabited earth for a witness unto all nations and
then ( TOTC tote) shall come the end of this age or dis-
It will be noticed that the time, during which
pensation.
the preaching shall continue, is determined entirely by the
qualifying clause "for a witness unto all nations." When
the witness is complete, then shall the end come.
When the Witness Is Complete.
Now, no finite mind can determine when the witness is
complete. If we could, the evidence is to the effect that
it has passed already. For when the gospel was preached
on the day of Pentecost, there were present "devout men
out of every nation under heaven." Acts 2 :5. Afterward
the disciples were scattered abroad and went about preach-
ing the Word. Acts 8 :4. "And they went forth and
preached everywhere." Mark 16 :20.* Paul says, in Rom.
10 :18, "Their sound went into all the earth, and their words
unto the ends of the world,"*f (world here being from the
same word oikoumenee that is used in Mat.
olKovpevr;
24:14).
And again he says in Col. l:23*f that the gospel had
already been "preached to every creature which is under
heaven."
These inspired statements as to the universal preaching
of the gospel ought to be conclusive. Mighty as it makes
the work of the early disciples, I do not see how we can
(See Dr. A. Clarke on Mat. 24:14 as
refuse to accept it.
to the special point of the universality of this preaching,
also the authorities previously cited.) Surely we must
*See Bengell's Gnomon.
tSee Jamieson, Faussett and Brown, aJso Alford.