THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

182 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
idea is negatived, first, by the silence of Scripture in
regard thereto; second, by the testimony of the very
passage from which the interval is inferred, I Thessalonians
4:16-5:9. For it is plainly declared in that
Scripture that what "cometh upon" those who are not
caught away to meet the Lord is not salvation, or
another opportunity to be saved, but "sudden destruction";
which, according to II Thessalonians 1:8,
9, is "everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord." The alternative which the passage presents is
"salvation" or "wrath" (I Th. 5:9); and concerning
those who have not obeyed the gospel it is plainly declared
that "they shall not escape."
The doctrine of another chance for any members of
Adam's race, and of a period, long or short, in which
there will be preached "another gospel," different from
that preached by Paul and all the apostles (I Cor.
15:3, 4, 11), and particularly that of the conversion
and restoration of the Jewish nation, cannot be maintained
without setting aside the very passage upon
which it is supposedly founded, and all other pertinent
Scriptures besides.
Other Scriptures testify quite plainly against the
idea of a special salvation for Jews after Christ shall
have removed His people from the world. Thus Peter,
speaking to a concourse of Jews at Jerusalem, whom he
addressed as "Ye men of Israel," recalled to their minds
the prophecy of Moses of the coming of Christ as a
Prophet like unto himself: concerning Whom Moses
said : "And it shall come to pass that every soul, which
will not hear that Prophet, shall be destroyed from
among the people." This tells us not that after
Christ comes for His believing people the Jews will