THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

The Hope of Israel: What Is It? 167
on His right hand in that day have manifested that
they are His sheep by obeying His law of love.
But those on His left hand have manifested by their
conduct that they are not His ;
for they have repudiated
His authority and His law. There is perfect harmony
here with the teaching recorded in Luke 19:11-27; for
the conduct of those whom He here bids "depart from
Me," plainly said "We will not have this Man to reign
over us." There is perfect harmony also with the
teaching of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1 :5-10 (to which
reference will be made more particularly later on)
where he tells of the coming of the Lord to punish.
"with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord, and from the glory of His power," those that
"Know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ." In both passages the occasion
described is the coming of the kingdom in power and
glory; and the eternal blessedness or misery of the
individual man in that day will depend upon whether
or not he has obeyed the gospel. The righteous will
then receive the long promised Kingdom, "the Kingdom
of God for which ye also suffer" (2 Th. 1:5). But for
the rejecters of Christ and His gospel, there is
"everlasting
punishment" (shall be punished with everlasting
destruction"), away "from the presence of the
Lord" (note His own words, "Depart from Me, ye
cursed").
Some have gone far astray in regard to the words :
"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least
of these, My Brethren, ye have done it unto Me." For,
in order to make the passage agree with the doctrine
of a special and judgment-day salvation for the Jewish
nation, the idea has been advanced that, by "My breth-