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| Meaning of “Until.” No Limitation of Promise.
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34. Meaning of “Until.” No Limitation of
Promise.
But since some one may think that the promise of the
Saviour prescribes a limit of time to their not tasting of death,
namely, that they will not taste of death “until”5770
they see the Son of man coming in His own
kingdom, but after this will taste of it, let us show that according to
the scriptural usage the word “until” signifies that the
time concerning the thing signified is pressing, but is not so defined
that after the “until,” that which is contrary to the thing
signified should at all take place. Now, the Saviour says to the
eleven disciples when He rose from the dead, this among other things,
“Lo, I am with you all the days, even until the consummation of
the age.”5771
When He said
this, did He promise that He was going to be with them until the
consummation of the age, but that after the consummation of the age,
when another age was at hand, which is “called the age to
come,” He would be no longer with them?—so that according
to this, the condition of the disciples would be better before the
consummation of the age than after the consummation of the age?
But I do not think that any one will dare to say, that after the
consummation of the age the Son of God will be no longer with the
disciples, because the expression declares that He will be with them
for so long, until the consummation of the age is at hand; for it is
clear that the matter under inquiry was, whether the Son of God was
forthwith going to be with His disciples before the age to come and the
hoped for promises of God which were given as a recompense. But
there might have been a question—it being granted that He would
be with them—whether sometimes He was present with them, and
sometimes not present. Wherefore setting us free from the
suspicion that might have arisen from doubt, He declared that now and
even all the days He would be with the disciples, and that He would not
leave those who had become His disciples until the consummation of the
age; (because He said “all the days” He did not deny that
by night, when the sun set, He would be present with them.) But
if such is the force of the words, “until the consummation of the
age,” plainly we shall not be compelled to admit that those who
see the Son of man coming in His own kingdom shall taste of death,
after being deemed worthy of beholding Him in such guise. But as
in the case of the passage we brought forward, the urgent necessity was
to teach us that “until the consummation of the age” He
would not leave us but be with us all the days; so also in this case I
think that it is clear to those who know how to look at the logical
coherence of things that He who has seen once for all “the Son of
man coming in His own kingdom,” and seen Him “in His own
glory,” and seen “the kingdom of God come with
power,” could not possibly taste of death after the contemplation
of things so good and great. But apart from the word of the
promise of Jesus, we have conjectured not without reason that we would
taste of death, so long as we were not yet held worthy to see
“the kingdom of God come with power,” and “the Son of
man coming in His own glory and in His own kingdom.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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