Page 216 - NOTES ON EZEKIEL

210 NOTES ON EZEKIEL.
past. But the traditional unbelief of Christendom
puts souls so as to cloud the true grace of God wherein
we stand; and this alike among Protestants and Catho­
lics, while the latter add the further error of antedating
and appropriating to the church that place of earthly
honour and ease which is reserved for Israel under the
Messiah when the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall
be established in the top of the mountains and shall be
exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto
it. Some Protestants indeed are so dark as to follow
Romanists even in this error, though they in general
put it before them as a millennial hope rather than as
a present claim. But, assume it as they may, the effect
of the error is to degrade the church from heaven to
earth, and either to deny the hopes of Israel or to make
those who hold it inconsistent if they own them.
We may add that, though the Spirit is assuredly to
he poured out on Israel when the new age begins,
there will then be no baptizing the saints into one body.
By One Spirit have been all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free, and
have been all made to drink into one Spirit. 1 Corinth­
ians xii. So in Colossians iii. it is laid down that
Christ is all and in all; and in Ephesians ii. that
the middle wall of the partition is broken down,
and the two formed in Himself into one new man.
But it will not be so then here below. On the
contrary, in the millennium the Jewish saints will
be in a nearer and more honoured position than the
Gentiles on the earth. It is a state in contrast with
the assembly now, where such distinctions are un­
known : the cross has ended them for heaven.