“Then will the end be, when God the Father delivereth up the kingdom to him, during which he will destroy all dominion, and all authority and power; for he will reign till he hath put every enemy under his feet; and so the enemy death will be destroyed at last.”

Here, then, we perceive that instead of its referring to the end of time, and to the Son’s delivering up the kingdom to the Father, it simply refers to the end of the Jewish dispensation, when the Father delivered to his Son a kingdom, and when he commenced his reign.  This gives harmony, strength and consistency, to the whole connection closing with the 28th verse, and is in perfect agreement with the whole tenor of revelation, which no where speaks of the end of time.  But according to the received translation, he first delivers up the kingdom to God, then commences his reign, subdues all things, destroys death, and is then subject to the Father!  Let it be distinctly noticed that this “end” is at Christ’s coming.  But where, I again ask, is revealed a third coming of our Saviour?

But again—­The Ethiopic version also supports this rendering of the above passage, in agreement with Wakefield, which I consider as sufficient authority to settle the question, at least in my own mind.  But even were there no other authority, than the general tenor of revelation, I should feel justified in my present exposition.  To contend for a general resurrection, we are in the same predicament with the orthodox in contending for a general judgment.

The above harmonizes (in my apprehension) with every other part of divine revelation, which embraces the testimony of the prophets, and of Jesus Christ and his apostles, who all speak of the end as referring exclusively to the termination of the Jewish age, at which time he should come in his kingdom and commence his reign.  They also speak of the glory which should follow, and of the success that should attend it.  But not an instance can be produced, where they speak of the end of time.  He is to destroy the last enemy death; and this work is effected progressively in this last day, as individuals are in succession raised from death, and established in their final and blissful condition affording us no revelation when this order of things will terminate.  If it is a fact, that God the Father, at the sound of the “last trump,” delivered to his Son the kingdom—­if this be the correct rendering of the passage, as the whole tenor of revelation seems to justify, then it was at the commencement of his reign; and our views of the resurrection day are irresistible.  The apostle grasps, in mental vision, the whole subject, and represents it as one great and interesting event, big with sentiments of light and life, in the same sense that he does the judgment of the world, which revolved in his capacious soul as but one single day.  The sudden and interesting change he represents as taking place in the living, has reference to the unexpected manner in which this sublime scene would burst on the world.  In this he but follows the example of his Lord, who declared he would come as a “thief in the night”—­that he would “come quickly,” and in an hour they were not aware, and exhorted his disciples to watch.