I will now give a little attention to the expression, “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” and show how it harmonizes with the other expressions in the verse as I have explained them. First, I will quote a reference which you make to that. You say:— “Another argument, a very late invention, designed to avoid the conclusion that the ‘added’ law terminated at the cross, we briefly notice. It is the claim that ‘the seed’ has not yet come, and will not come till the second advent of Christ. It would be hard for the writer to really think that any believer in Christ would take that position, had we not read it in our own beloved Signs of the Times, of July 29, 1886.— p. 46.
If this had been written by some men I should think it was deliberate misrepresentation; for it certainly does woefully misrepresent the view which I take and have published. I have carefully re-read my articles to see if by any unfortunate expression I had conveyed the idea that Christ, the promised seed, has not yet come, and I find no hint of such an idea. I have not, however, the slightest thought that you would willfully misrepresent any person, and I can only attribute your failure to state my position properly, to a too hasty perusal of it. It is not at all surprising to me that in the little time which you had to spare, burdened at the same time with a multitude of cares to distract your mind, you did not grasp the whole of the argument, especially as it was one to which your mind had not been previously directed. But although your misrepresentation was unintentional, it does none the less convey an erroneous impression of my teaching.
The argument which I put forth is not so late an invention as you think. I have held the view for several years, and it was not original with me. But even if it were entirely new, that in itself would be nothing against it; for “every scribe which is instructed into the kingdom of Heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.” Matthew 13:52.
It is true that I held, and still hold, that the coming of the seed spoken of in Galatians 3:19, means the second coming of Christ; but that does not imply that Christ has not already come, or that He is not now the seed. You often preach that the Lord is coming, and you no doubt quote such texts of Scripture as Psalm 50:3, 4; 1 Corinthians 4:5, and scores of others. Now if a man hearing you preach such a sermon, should go off and say that you did not believe that the Lord came 1,900 years ago, he would be no more out of the way than you are in saying that I have taught that Christ has not come. In the Old Testament we have many references to the coming of Christ; some of them mean His first advent, and some His second. The only way we can distinguish between them is by the events mentioned in connection with the references to the coming. And so we must decide here in Galatians 3:19.
There is only one ground on which you can claim that the coming of the seed cannot refer to the second coming of Christ, and that is by claiming that He will not be the seed then; that He is the seed only at the first advent. But such a claim cannot stand for a moment, for Christ is as surely the seed when He bruises the serpent’s head, as when He Himself was bruised. He will be the seed when the promise is fulfilled to Him.
The matter, then, stands just this way: Christ is the seed; therefore to say, “till the seed should come,” is equivalent to saying, “till Christ should come.” Then the next point is, does the expression, “the coming of Christ,” necessarily apply to the first advent alone? Certainly it does not, for there are two advents, and the simple expression, “the coming of Christ,” may apply to either. Therefore, so far as the expression, “till the seed should come,” is concerned, there is no reason why it should not apply to the second advent as well as to the first. Indeed, we might say that there is an antecedent probability that it should refer to the second coming of Christ, for that is the more prominent coming of the two, and it is the one which we always think of when the expression is unqualified. But in every case of this kind, the context must decide what coming is referred to.
The application of Galatians 3:19 to the first advent of Christ arises largely, I think, from a careless reading of it. You argue as though it read, “till the seed should come of whom the promise was made.” But it is, “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”
The apostle is not dealing with the idea that the seed was promised to Abraham, but he is speaking of the promise that was made to Abraham and to his seed, the seed being Christ. Now if you can find a single promise that was fulfilled to Christ at His first advent, there will be some show of reason in applying Galatians 3:19 to the first advent of Christ. But you cannot. There was absolutely nothing that Christ then received; no part of the promise was fulfilled to Him. He received only rebuffs, reproaches, mockings, poverty, weariness, scourging, and death. Moreover, the promise “to Abraham and his seed” is a joint promise; but certainly no promise was fulfilled to Abraham at the first advent of Christ, for Abraham had then been dead 2,000 years.
That the apostle connects the coming of the seed with the fulfillment of the promise to him, is evident from the simple reading of the text. A certain promise had been made to Abraham and his seed, and a certain thing was given for a special purpose, until the seed to whom the promise was made should come. The idea that inevitably follows from the reading of the text, letting each clause have its proper weight, is that at the coming referred to, the seed will inherit the promise. I shall give something more on this point a little further on.
But there is no need of any conjecture as to what the promise is which is referred to in this verse.
The eighteenth verse reads thus: “For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise;” and then the nineteenth verse continues: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.”
This shows most conclusively that the promise referred to is the inheritance. This promised inheritance is the whole world (Romans 4:13); and there is no need of presenting argument to show that the inheritance is still future. Christ has not received it, for we are joint heirs with Him; and when He receives it, Abraham and all those who are His children through faith, will likewise receive it.
This makes of no value your argument that “the promises to this seed, many of them, reach beyond the second advent,—as does this one [Isaiah 9:6, 7 ]—even into eternity. So, according to this reasoning, we may wait to all eternity for the seed to come.”
That argument, if it proved anything in this connection, would simply prove that the promise to Abraham and to his seed will never be fulfilled, which is contrary to the word of God. But, as we have seen, there are not many promises referred to in this nineteenth verse, but only the one promise, the inheritance, and that promised inheritance will be received at the second coming of Christ and not before.
But you say that even this promise is not fulfilled till the end of the thousand years, and that therefore if the coming of the seed is not till the fulfillment of the promise, “the seed cannot come till the end of the one thousand years; for the land is not inherited by Abraham till that time.”
This argument might indeed be called a “late invention.” I am certain it is a new one among our people. It is true that the saints do not dwell on the earth till the close of the one thousand years, but it is not true that they do not possess it, or inherit it, till that time. If they do not, then what does Christ mean in Matthew 25:31-34, where He says that when He comes in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, He shall sit upon the throne of His glory, shall separate the righteous from the wicked, and shall say to the righteous, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
The mistake into which you fall is in supposing that the saints cannot possess the earth till they dwell upon it. If that were true, it would apply equally to Christ, that He cannot possess it until He dwells upon it; but we read, in Psalm 2:8, 9, these words of the Father to the Son: “Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession; Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
We learn from this, as well as from Revelation 11:15-19, and other texts, that Christ receives the kingdom just before He comes to this earth. And it is not until after the uttermost parts of the earth are given to Him for His possession, that He dashes the nations in pieces like a potter’s vessel. If Christ did not possess the earth, He would not have the right to do this. The wicked subjects of Satan now claim possession of the earth, which has been promised to Christ. When that promise is fulfilled, and the earth is given into His possession, then He will rid it of those who have usurped dominion. He inherits the earth while the wicked are still upon it, but He cannot dwell upon it until they are removed. We say He cannot dwell upon it, not because he has not the power, but because He cannot take up His abode upon it while it is so impure. The fact, however, that He does with the nations according to His will, rooting them out of the earth, shows that the earth is in His possession.
This same argument applies to the saints. They are joint heirs with Christ. This means that they receive their inheritance at the same time He does. When He comes to this earth, having received His kingdom, He calls them to inherit it with Him. They do not at once dwell upon the earth, but they dwell in its capital, the New Jerusalem, and possession of the capital of any kingdom is usually considered as evidence of the possession of the kingdom itself.
Moreover, the saints during the thousand years sit upon thrones, judging the wicked, and determining the amount of punishment that shall be given to them. Thus they are sharers with Christ in the work of ridding their common possession of its incumbrances. It is just as though you and I should be joint heirs of a farm. At a certain time we are given possession, but we find that it is entirely overrun with thorns and briars; and so before we take up our abode upon it, we clear off this growth of rubbish and burn it up. The wicked are the tares that cumber the farm that is promised to Abraham and his seed; when Abraham and his seed shall be given possession, they will clear it of this foul growth, and then will dwell upon it. This brief argument shows clearly, what I thought was already established among us, namely, that Christ and the saints possess the kingdom when He comes the second time.
Having settled these points, namely, that the “promise” means the inheritance of the earth, and that this promise to Abraham and his seed is fulfilled at Christ’s second coming, we are prepared to go on. The prominent idea in this chapter is by what means the promise is to be obtained. The promise is the uppermost thought in this verse. The apostle is showing that the inheritance is gained solely by faith, that it is not of the law, but of faith in the promise, and then he carries us down to the time when the promise shall be fulfilled. That the “coming” that is referred to is the second coming of Christ, when the promise shall be fulfilled, is a most natural and easy conclusion, and makes harmony of the text. I think you overlooked a parallel text which I quoted in my articles. It is Ezekiel 21:26, 27: “Thus saith the Lord God: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.
I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.” Here we have unmistakable reference to the seed, in the words, “He whose right it is.” And it is plainly declared that when “He whose right it is” comes, the inheritance will be given Him. These words were written nearly six hundred years before Christ’s first advent, yet it is not necessary for me to enter into an argument to convince you that the first advent of Christ is not referred to here.
In Galatians 3:19 Paul is speaking of the inheritance, and says, “till the seed should come to whom the promise was made;” in the text just quoted from Ezekiel, the prophet is speaking also of the inheritance, and says, “till He come whose right it is.”
Now why is it any more absurd to say that the first expression refers to the second coming of Christ, than to say that the second refers to that event? If you say that the coming of the seed has no reference to the second advent, because when the coming spoken of takes place the ceremonial law is to terminate, you beg the question entirely. If you say, as you do in your pamphlet, that applying that coming to the second advent, and the law which is spoken of to the moral law, would make the moral law terminate at the second coming of Christ, I have already answered that, for I have shown that “till” does not of necessity mean “termination.”
I believe most emphatically that the law referred to is the moral law, and that the coming of the seed is the second advent of Christ, but I do not believe that the moral law is going to terminate when Christ comes; and Galatians 3:19 does not indicate that it will.
In order to establish your point, that the coming of the seed cannot refer to the second advent of Christ, it would be necessary for you to show that Christ was the seed only at the first advent, and that He is not the seed since then. But Genesis 3:15 says not only that the serpent should bruise the heel of the seed (at the first advent), but that the seed should bruise the serpent’s head (at the second advent). When Christ comes the second time He is still the seed. So when Paul says, “till the seed comes,” it need no more be confined to the first advent than when he says, “till the Lord comes.”
Lest it should be objected that Christ does not bruise Satan’s head at His second coming, but only after the close of the 1,000 years, I will remind you that the wicked are not punished until after the close of the 1,000 years; yet they are said to be punished at the coming of the Lord. And so they are; for the second advent, like the first, covers a period of time. The first advent of Christ covered all the time of His earthly ministry; the second advent covers all the time from the appearance of “the sign of the Son of man in heaven,” until the wicked are destroyed out of the earth.