THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

244 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
that with Him there is no past and no future. God
speaks habitually of things future as if they were
present before Him ;
and so they undoubtedly are. We
get this conception of God's Being and Nature from
statements such as that He "inhabits eternity," and
that with Him "one day is as a thousand years, and a
thousand years as one day."
Applying this idea to the case of a prophecy whereof
we know of no fulfilment, it is evident that we may
do with it either of two things: (1) we may locate the
fulfilment in another realm of space, or (2) we may
locate it in another era of time. And specifically, we
may either (1) assume its fulfilment to be in this realm
of the natural and visible at a future era of time, or
we may (2)
assume its fulfilment to be at this present
time (or in a time already past) in another region of
space. The first of these alternatives is that which
is usually chosen ; the reason being that it is far easier
for us to conceive of a future era of time where the
same state of things with which we are familiar is still
going on, than to conceive of a realm co-existent with
this where a state of things of a spiritual kind subsists.
Yet the latter explanation is obviously as satisfactory
and sufficient as the former. And what we
claim for it is that it has solid support in the Scripture
; whereas the postponement of the prophecies concerning
Israel, Zion and Jerusalem to a yet future era
is contrary to clear statements of the word of God.
DR. STAFFORD'S STUDY OF THE KINGDOM
I
have lately come upon an explanation of the passage
we are now examining, which, because it takes full
account of the facts noted above, and because also of its