A History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Chris

by Emil Schurer, vol. 2, 1885, pp 134-34.

With the appearance of Messianic times a new course of the world, a new age is to begin. This future course of the world is however in all respects the entire contrast to the present course of the world. The present is under the rule of the ungodly powers of Satan and his angels, and therefore sunk in sin and sorrow. The future is under the rule of God and His Anointed: and only righteousness and happiness prevail therein. There can scarcely be any connection between the two. By a miraculous act of God the one will be destroyed, the other called into existence. However much this view may be supported by the former representation, the contrast between now and then is much more sharply drawn than in the former view. The latter sees far more the gracious government of God in the present time also. According to the later representation it might almost seem, as if God had for the present given over the government to the Satanic powers, and had reserved for the future world the full exercise of His sway.

Accordingly the future salvation is also more and more regarded as purely transcendental. All the benefits of the future world come down from above, from heaven, where they had pre-existed from all eternity. They are kept there for the saints as an “inheritance,” which will one day be bestowed upon them. In particular does the perfect, the glorious, New Jerusalem, which will at the time of the consummation of all things descend to earth in the place of the old, exist there already. So too the Messiah, the perfect King of Israel, chosen by God from eternity, is already there in communion with God. All that is good and perfect can come only from above, because all that is earthly is in its present condition the direct contrary to the divine.