, neither the Son, but the
Father" (Mark 13: 32[6]). It is best that we should interpret these
words frankly, and instead of saying, with some, that he did not know
in the sense that he was not permitted to disclose, admit it possible
that while in his humiliation and under the veil of his incarnation,
this secret was hidden from his eyes.

But is it not presumptuous for us to reason, that {48} therefore he
does not now know the day of his coming? How constantly is that text
quoted as a decisive and final prohibition of all inquiry into the
proximate time of our Lord's return in glory. But they who so use this
saying simply remand us to the childhood of the church, to the
spiritual nonage of the ante-Pentecostal days. Have we forgotten that
since our Lord ascended to the Father he has given us a further
revelation, that wondrous book of the Apocalypse, which opens and
closes with a beatitude upon those who read and faithfully keep the
words of this prophecy? And one characteristic feature of this book is
its chronological predictions concerning the time of the end, its
mystical dates, which have led many sober searchers of the word of God
to inquire diligently "what and what manner of time" the Spirit did
signify in giving us these way-marks in the wilderness. This being so,
we may ask: If we are not irreverent in concluding with many devout
expositors that our Saviour meant what he said in declaring that he did
"not yet" know the time of his advent, are we presumptuous in taking
literally the opening words of the Apocalypse?: "The Revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants the
things which must shortly come to pass." It was because of his going
unto the Father that greater works and greater riches were to attend
the church after Pentecost. Why may we not assign to the same {49}
cause also the fuller revelation of the future and the leading into
completer truth concerning the blessed hope of the church? In other
words, if we may think of Christ as entering into larger revelation as
he returns to the glory which he had with the Father must we not think
of larger communications of truth by the blessed Paraclete?

Have we not learned something of the nature and offices of the Spirit
by this study of his new name, and of all that the departing Lord says
in the wondrous discourse wherein he introduces him to his disciples?
At least the study should enable us to distinguish two in