| VOL. XXX | MAY 1 | NO. 9 |
"I will stand upon my watch, and set my foot upon the Tower, and will watch to see what He shall say unto me, and what answer I shall make to them that oppose me." Hab. 2:1
Upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity: the sea and the waves (the restless, discontented) roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking forward to the things coming upon the earth (society): for the powers of the heavens (ecclestiasticism) shall be shaken. . . .When ye see these things come to pass, then know that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Look up, lift up your heads, rejoice, for your redemption draweth nigh. – Luke 21:25-28, 32.
Our "Berean Lessons" are topical rehearsals or reviews of our Society's published "Studies," most entertainingly arranged, and very helpful to all who would merit the only honorary degree which the Society accords, viz., Verbi Dei Minister (V.D.M.), which translated into English is, Minister of the Divine Word. Our treatment of the International S.S. Lessons is specially for the older Bible Students and Teachers. By some this feature is considered indispensable.
This Journal stands firmly for the defence of the only true foundation of the Christian's hope now being so generally repudiated, – Redemption through the precious blood of "the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom [a corresponding price, a substitute] for all." (I Pet. 1:19; I Tim. 2:6.) Building up on this sure foundation the gold, silver and precious stones (I Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Pet. 1:5-11) of the Word of God, its further mission is to – "Make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which...has been hid in God,...to the intent that now might be made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God" – "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed." – Eph. 3:5-9,10.
It stands free from all parties, sects and creeds of men, while it seeks more and more to bring its every utterance into fullest subjection to the will of God in Christ, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures. It is thus free to declare boldly whatsoever the Lord hath spoken; – according to the divine wisdom granted unto us, to understand. Its attitude is not dogmatical, but confident; for we know whereof we affirm, treading with implicit faith upon the sure promises of God. It is held as a trust, to be used only in his service; hence our decisions relative to what may and what may not appear in its columns must be according to our judgment of his good pleasure, the teaching of his Word, for the upbuilding of his people in grace and knowledge. And we not only invite but urge our readers to prove all its utterances by the infallible Word to which reference is constantly made, to facilitate such testing.
Terms to the Lord's Poor as Follows: – All Bible Students who, by reason of old age, or other infirmity or adversity, are unable to pay for this Journal, will be supplied Free if they send a Postal Card each May stating their case and requesting its continuance. We are not only willing, but anxious, that all such be on our list continually and in touch with the Studies, etc.
We are surprised that we have not had a more general response for the above paper – intended to supercede the Old Theology Quarterly. Surely some of our friends fail to comprehend the situation. PEOPLES PULPIT will contain Brother Russell's writings and be very suitable for use as Tracts. It desires entry as Second-Class Mail and to get it must be able to show its lists of actual subscriptions.
We shall be gratified if our Tract Fund contributors will send the Society postal-card orders for 10 copies to 100 copies, each for one year (according to the needs of themselves and neighbors), with instructions to charge the price to your Tract Fund contributions. [R4393 : page 130]
The number of newspapers publishing Brother Russell's sermons weekly continues to increase. We advise these be given the preference and every way encouraged. If any paper cuts down the space below three columns or fails to publish the sermon, write the editor a kind card telling of your interest in the sermons and that you subscribe for his paper largely on account of the sermons. If you subscribed through us drop us a card of explanation also. page 130
India "Studies" Vols. 4 and 5 temporarily out of stock. page 130
SERIES I., "The Plan of the Ages." gives an outline of the divine plan revealed in the Bible, relating to man's redemption and restitution: 386 pages, in embossed cloth, 25c. (1s. ½d.) India paper edition, 75c. (3s. 1½d.).
This volume has been published as a special issue of our journal – at the extremely low price of 5c. a copy, in any quantity, postage included. (To foreign countries, 9c.) This enables people of slender purse to herald far and wide the good tidings in a most helpful form.
SERIES II., "The Time is at Hand," treats of the manner and time of the Lord's second coming, considering the Bible Testimony on this subject: 370 pages, in embossed cloth, 25c. (1s. ½d.) India paper edition, 75c. (3s. 1½d.)
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SERIES IV., "The Day of Vengeance," shows that the dissolution of the present order of things is in progress, and that all the panaceas offered are valueless to avert the predicted end. It marks in these events the fulfilment of prophecy, noting specially our Lord's great prophecy of Matt. 24 and Zech. 14:1-9: 660 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.). India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
SERIES V., "The At-one-ment Between God and Man," treats an all-important subject – the hub, the center around which all the features of divine grace revolve. Its topic deserves the most careful and prayerful consideration on the part of all true Christians: 507 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.) India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
SERIES VI., "The New Creation," deals with the Creative Week (Genesis 1 and 2), and with the Church, God's "New Creation." It examines the personnel, organization, rites, ceremonies, obligations and hopes appertaining to those called and accepted as members of the Body under the Head: 740 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.) India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
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"The labor riots at Meru, which now lies quiet under martial law maintained by half a dozen squadrons of cavalry, have made a profound impression throughout France following, as they did, the great hippodrome assembly at which civil service employes announced adhesion to the program of the Confederation Generale du Travail and authorized a secret committee of twelve to prepare for a general strike.
"This has been a week of general depression which even perfect Easter weather and four days of feastmaking did not dissipate. Now it is generally felt and admitted that the republican government in its present form is going through the most critical period of its existence. That the tide of revolution has already risen above the danger point nobody denies.
"Conservative opinion is that while nothing immediately threatens, the situation is one which calls for the highest degree of sagacity and decision on the part of leaders of the nation. Unfortunately, neither of these qualities has been recently manifested by the Clemenceau government, whose truculence, before threats by the postal strikers, brought on the present wider and more serious unrest.
NO TROUBLE ON MAY 1"Revolutions do not announce themselves as a rule, so the wide circulation of the report that general strikes would be ordered by May 1 may be accepted as a guarantee that none will take place then. It takes time to organize a movement as vast as that contemplated by the Confederation Generale du Travail.
"But what is preparing for the future? There has grown up in France an authority which looms as large as that of the government itself – labor unions, and their powers, already developed beyond anything known in America, are now immensely augmented by consolidation with civil service unions. The story of the origin and evolution of Syndicate de Fonctionnaires is sure to be an important chapter in the future history of France. Under the law of March 21, 1884, various groups of public servants, school teachers, postmen, postal clerks, telegraphers, bureau clerks, government architects, engineers, mechanics, etc., began to organize mutual benefit associations, which have developed into the revolutionary army of today.
"Now we have the spectacle in France of the entire public service down to prison-wardens, who publicly promise to open the cells of any brothers committed to their charge, in the hands of organizations which are planning a universal strike and demanding the overthrow of the present parliamentary system. This can be described only as anarchy. At present it is a well-behaved anarchy. It is well behaved because the labor leaders believe – so easy has been their success thus far – that the revolution will be of little violence when the moment comes.
NEWS FROM MERU DISQUIETING"But the scenes at Meru are disquieting. There was something so diabolical in the deliberation with which the strikers, wheeling barrows of stones, marched through the darkness to the factories they had deserted and wrecked and pillaged them and their employers' homes that the people are recalling the sinister processions and sackings which preceded the Revolution. Not then could there have been more hate of the aristocracy than exists today toward the bureaucracy and the wealthy.
"'We are animated by the same hatred of the capitalistic regime,'" cried Pataud, the strike leader, the other day at a meeting of clubs and workmen.
"'We have no country save where we find a brother.' 'The republic is in danger; what do we care?' 'Why should the state be regarded as different from any other employer?' were among the sentiments cheered by uniformed government employes this week."
While the world has been congratulating itself on the possibilities of an era of peace by means of the Hague Conferences and National Arbitration Courts the war trumpet is being heard. Men were supposing that they might usher in the time of peace without our Lord's second coming and the Millennial reign. The Bible, however, seems to imply a very great war as the precursor of the great reign of peace at our Lord's second coming.
Note the following extracts from the public press on this subject: –
"In Britain the House of Commons met last week to hear the most disquieting statement with regard to the strength of its navy and the progress of Germany ever laid before it. It was called upon to vote Navy Estimates [R4383 : page 132] showing an increase of only £2,800,000. It met to consider a program of shipbuilding which provided only four Dreadnoughts and a sum of but £10,200,000 for new construction and armaments. For one day recriminations were hushed by the sense of danger. The voice of patriotism was heard. But the effort was too great to maintain, and during the past week faction and ignorance have reasserted themselves. The danger is being derided, though on the showing of ministers Germany in 1912 may have seventeen Dreadnoughts to the British sixteen. The German number may be even greater than ministers allow. Three Dreadnoughts are to be laid down by Germany's ally, Austria. Three more, it is believed, are to be built in Germany for foreign Powers. If they were added to the German force – and there is nothing to prevent this – then Germany in 1912 might have a force of twenty-three of these ships, a preponderance which would [R4384 : page 132] wipe out all our advantage in ships of the King Edward class, and which would foreshadow the loss of the command of the sea. But though such is the emergency, one member of the House of Commons demanded a rapid reduction in British naval expenditure; a second declared that the Labor party would unswervingly oppose a program of eight Dreadnoughts; and a third moved to reduce the small pay of our naval officers and to cut down the personnel of the fleet by 20,000 men. The parallel throughout is poignantly close to the attitude of Germany and France on the eve and outbreak of the Franco-German war." – London Daily Mail.
"Germany believes that she need not wait for a paper equality or superiority. We hold that this fact is one which we are bound to take into consideration in making our calculations as to how to prepare against war. The more men dread an outbreak of war on moral and humanitarian grounds, the more necessary it is for them to do their best to make our preparations adequate. Only preparations so complete and on so vast a scale as to make even the ardent men who control German naval policy consider that the game is not worth the candle can prevent war in the future. That is our firm belief. We have still the time in which to make such preparations, but no time to waste in sleep or doubt." – London Spectator.
"It is this public sentiment which constitutes the most dangerous factor in the present strained relations between Great Britain and Germany. Its peril lies largely in the fact that it is so unaccountable. There is no knowing at what time it will burst forth or what particular form the outbreak will take. That the kaiser, his responsible ministers, the principal statesmen, and the leading captains of industry, commerce and finance in his empire, are anxious for a war with England, nobody for one moment believes. But there has been so much talk in England of the necessity of smashing the Teuton navy before it is permitted to attain proportions large enough to rival the British supremacy of the seas, that both William and his people consider it necessary to provide for the maritime defenses of the empire and to endow the latter with a sufficient number of ships to admit of Germany being able to hold her own with England in all questions relating to the sea. The creation of a big German navy rivaling in size that of England is not necessarily meant for offense, but for defense of Teuton interests, and to enable the Berlin government to speak with the same weight and authority in maritime affairs as its magnificent army enables it to do by land.
"On the other hand, England, which always has regarded not merely her wealth and her prosperity, but even her national existence, as based upon her maritime supremacy, is naturally profoundly alarmed at the extent to which the latter is threatened by Germany. And there are many in Great Britain who, holding these views, insist both in speech and in print, that it is a mistake to allow Germany time to build the ships planned in her naval program, and that it would be much better to fight her now and to frustrate her ambitions of maritime supremacy before she had been able to realize them. They urge that, whereas England is now vastly superior to Germany in naval strength, she may not be so two or three years hence. In Germany, on the other hand, there are patriots who clamor for their government to take advantage of the present complete disorganization of the British army, and of the virtual chaos that prevails in England's military affairs to precipitate a conflict for which the enemy may be better prepared in two or three years' time.
"These opinions, voiced by the German press, are re-echoed far and wide, tending to excite popular sentiment against England to a dangerous degree. In fact, a favorite topic of discussion in Germany is the capture of London by a coup, possibly without a preliminary declaration of war, and it is pointed out that with the British metropolis in the hands of the invaders pretty well the whole vast British empire would be at the latter's mercy. For London is not merely the capital of the united kingdom, but the administrative, and, above all, the economic heart of the whole empire, besides being in matters of finance and of trade the chief brokerage and exchange mart and center of the civilized and uncivilized world. England's financial credit is at the present moment colossal; superior probably to that of any other nation in the world save perhaps the United States. But where would that credit be, with London, its headquarters, in the hands of a German enemy? What is to be feared, then, in the present situation, is not that England and Germany may deliberately and cold-bloodedly declare war upon one another, but that public feeling, perpetually excited by demagogues and by their newspapers, will be led to some excess, some outrage, some public manifestation of hostility, that the people on the other side of the North sea will find themselves compelled to resent. This, then, is the real danger of the present state of affairs, and it is all the more grave since it is impossible to foresee when and where it will occur, or how it can be averted, though it means war." – Chicago Tribune.
The below clipping is certainly a straw in the wind, as it were, and in accord with our expectations:
"Dr. Riza Tewfik, a member of the Chamber of Deputies and one of the foremost leaders of the Young Turk party, delivered a lecture on the Jewish question recently in Constantinople....In reply to an inquiry whether a good Ottoman could be a Zionist, he replied: 'Certainly, I myself am a Zionist. The methods of Zionism are exclusively peaceful. Palestine is your land more than it is ours; we only became rulers of the country many centuries later than you. A service would be rendered to our common fatherland by undertaking the colonization of that uncultivated land, Palestine. Your nation has incomparable qualifications for trade; your fellow Jews are sober and industrious. They would restore this desolate land. They would devote all their energies to the service of our dear fatherland, and I assure you that my co-operation will never fail you in order to attain this aim.'" – Detroit News Tribune.
We answer, No, not exactly. These two types were put at opposite ends of the year; the one at the beginning of the religious year and the other at the beginning of the secular year. The secular year began in the fall and the religious year in the spring. The Passover sacrifice in the [R4384 : page 133] beginning of the religious year represented particularly the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus on behalf of the Church only, while the Atonement Day sacrifice in the beginning of the secular year illustrated the sacrifice of Christ and also the sacrifice of the Church, the "royal priesthood," and the broader work thereby accomplished "for all the people."
The Passover lamb did not represent Jesus the Head and the Church his Body. It represented specifically our Lord Jesus, "The Lamb of God." It was prophesied of our Lord that not a bone of him should be broken. And the same was commanded respecting the Passover lamb. It was to be roasted whole, and not a bone of it was to be broken in the eating. Furthermore, the Passover lamb and its blood affected, preserved, "passed over," the firstborn ones only, representatives of the Church of the Firstborns only. The deliverance of the others is no part of the Passover picture.
In the Atonement Day sacrifice, there is a distinct difference. Two sacrifices were offered – one for the high priest's body and his family and the other sacrifice "for all the people." The first, as we have already seen (in Tabernacle Shadows, published twenty-nine years ago), represents our Lord's death on behalf of the Church and the entire "household of faith." The second sacrifice on the Day of Atonement represents the death of the Church as the antitype of the Lord's goat "for the sins of all the people." The same high priest offered both, and typified our Lord Jesus and his work of first performing his own sacrifice; and secondly offering us, whom he accepts as his members.
In the account of the consecration of the priests a bullock only is shown as the sin-offering (no goat, because it was not "for the people"). Then a burnt-offering is shown, which represents both the Lord and the Church in their united and yet divided position and relationship. A ram was killed and divided into pieces and washed, and then the pieces were laid in order, in relationship to the head, upon the Lord's altar; and the entire lamb was the burnt-offering. This represents the relationship of the Church, the members of the Body with the Lord, the Head of the Body. – Ex. 29:10-18.
Another item connected with the sin-offering of the Atonement Day sacrifice is well worthy of notice as totally different from that of the Passover; namely, that they alone were to be burned outside the camp. The bullock [R4385 : page 133] was burned first and secondly the goat. (Lev. 16:27; Ex. 29:14.) The burning represented the gradual destruction of the flesh. Outside the camp signified ostracism, rejection of men, dishonor. The Apostle says that our Lord thus suffered outside the camp and that we should arm ourselves with the same mind, with the full intention of suffering with him as his members. St. Paul emphasizes this fact saying, "For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin (offering), are burned outside the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore [as the Lord's goat] unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach." – Heb. 13:11-13.
Notice that here the Apostle is pointing back to the typical sacrifices and comparing them with the better sacrifices of Christ and the Church; and that he exhorts us to share in Christ's sacrifice – to recognize ourselves as members of the Lord's goat class who go through experiences outside the camp similar to those which our Lord endured – he typified by the bullock, we by the goat.
Some who were once of us, but who have gone out from us, are doing all in their power to shake the faith of any with whom they have influence. Although they have professed for years to see eye to eye with us (the fulfilment of this type and the fellowship of the Church with her Lord in these very sufferings of the present time), they now seem to have gone blind as respects these things and to be anxious to blind and confuse as many others as possible. What we have presented above is what we have been presenting for the past twenty-nine years to the best of our ability – showing, proving the Mystery of this Gospel Age to be that the elect Church is privileged to suffer with Christ as his members, and, by and by, to be glorified with him as members of the one Body, of which he is the Head.
Nothing in this, nor in anything we have ever written, controverts the idea that our Lord Jesus gave his own blood as our sacrifice and that he finished the sacrifice for us at Calvary in his own Body on the cross. Then it was, according to the Apostle, that the time came for his exaltation to be the spiritual Head over the spiritual Body. He was not that spiritual Head in the flesh. It was after his resurrection that he became the Head of the Church, his Body. And the Church become his members only as spirit-begotten New Creatures, when their mortal bodies have been presented in sacrifice and accepted. In accepting us as New Creatures the High Priest accepts our sacrificed wills and then tests us respecting the accomplishment of it, counting the blood of our sacrifice as his own, because it was his that justified ours and made ours possible.
Here we perceive the advantage of those who have wisely improved their time in the study of these truths which God caused to be prepared for their nourishment. Those who have been faithful in the study, and who lived according to it, are now strong. Others are now weak and liable to be carried about with every wind of doctrine. We cannot too strongly urge, dear friends, the necessity for spiritual nourishments – through meetings and particularly through reading. No amount of hearing can take the place of reading. Moreover, we advise connected, consecutive reading – especially the six volumes of the Dawn-Studies. We remind you afresh that many are now following the suggestions of a mother and her daughter who some time ago wrote a letter to the Tower telling that they had found that they could read the entire six volumes within a year by reading twelve pages per day. They had followed this course for one year and had begun it for the next. The suggestion has been taken up by several with excellent results and we commend it to you all. Our minds are leaky vessels and many who have read the Dawn-Study series several times find that their later readings reveal to them matters which they did not see earlier.
The chapter under consideration is one of the masterpieces of holy writ. Indeed, the entire book of Hebrews occupies a very commanding position in the Bible. Some, indeed, have questioned its authorship, but to us there seems no room for doubt that it was written by St. Paul. It is marked throughout by his masterful logic, reverence and personal humility. It gives insight into the Divine Plan of the Ages, which fully comports with St. Paul's other epistles and which far transcends in this respect all the other writings of the Bible. It has been noted by some that its style is more lofty than that of some others of St. Paul's epistles; but this may [R4385 : page 134] be easily accounted for. Those other epistles, although full of sound reasoning and logic, are written in a simple and fatherly style for the general reader. This one was written particularly for the benefit of the other eleven apostles and other learned Hebrews who were slow to discern the change of dispensation. Naturally, therefore, it was St. Paul's masterpiece, because upon it he evidently expended the greater labor – demonstrating the typical character of the Jewish Dispensation and indicating the antitypes of the Gospel Dispensation, as well as some reaching well into the Millennium. The references in the thirteenth chapter to Timothy and the statement, "They of Italy salute you," imply that St. Paul wrote this epistle from Rome, where he was in prison.
It should not be thought strange, however, that the Lord used this great but humble man, St. Paul, as his mouthpiece in presenting many of the "deep things" of the Divine Plan. His early education and his association with the Gentiles combined with his deep spirituality – and fulness of consecration to the Lord well qualified him to be, as was foretold, the Lord's "chosen vessel." Let us remember, too, the order stated: –
(1) To bear my name to the Gentiles;
St. Paul's missionary efforts were first directed of the Lord to the Gentiles. It was later on that he stood before King Agrippa and other notables of Palestine – still later that he was sent a prisoner to Rome, and to some extent doubtless bore witness there before the Court. Later through this epistle to the Hebrews God's message through this Prince of the Apostles did much for "Israelites indeed" who were trammeled by the things of the Law Covenant and unable to disentangle themselves so as to rightly discern between the shadows in the types and the eternal verities antityped in the Christ, Head and Body, and his great work as the "antitypical Priest," "antitypical Prophet," "antitypical Judge" and "antitypical Mediator" of the New (Law) Covenant.
Strictly speaking hope is unsubstantial – not a reality. It furnishes no genuine foundation – it is merely a hope. It will not sustain weight. But faith is more than hope. Faith implies a promise. And when a promise is made by the Almighty God, who changes not and who is as omnipotent as he is unchangeable, then faith can firmly trust him, come what may. Hope finds a foundation – finds in faith a substance, because the faith rests upon a Divine promise. Whoever, therefore, has hope that is without such a Divine promise has a foundationless hope. Thus we see the heathen with hopes and fears full of uncertainty; yea, many Christians, hoping for certain things, have uncertainty, fear and doubt, because they have not faith. And they have not faith because they are hoping for something which God has not promised and to many of them the things which he has promised are not known, not understood, and, therefore, not a basis for faith, nor a foundation for hope. Realizing these things, how careful we should be that our hopes should not soar away to uncertain fantasy, but build solidly upon the faith foundation of Divine promise. Such as have this proper faith must of necessity be students of the Divine Word and the greater their studies the more their faith; and the greater their faith the more their studies of the promises.
The Apostle brings before our minds from the past a galaxy of faith heroes. He holds them up for our admiration, so that they shine and sparkle and excite our admiration and, we trust, stimulate us to similar faith-heroism. None of these enumerated by the Apostle was a heathen vagarist feeling after God and hoping against hope and soaring off in imagination. They were all positive, forceful characters, who knew in whom they believed and testified their faith by their obedience to God.
"Eternal life is promised to us, but after death. We are told of a blessed resurrection, but we meantime become the prey of decay; we are promised righteousness, and yet sin dwells in us; we hear ourselves called blessed, and meantime are overwhelmed in infinite miseries; we [R4386 : page 134] are promised affluence of all good things, but are all our days in hunger and thirst; God proclaims that he will be ever present to help us, but seems deaf to our cries. What would become of us if we leaned not to hope, and unless our mind, guided by the Word and the Spirit of God, emerged through the midst of the shades, above this present world?"
The Apostle briefly sums up the matter of the Christian's present lessons in faith, saying, "We walk by faith and not by sight." The more carefully we walk with God the more peaceful and the more joyful may be our Pilgrim journey towards the New Jerusalem. Outwardly the world, the flesh and the Adversary may harass us, but no grief, no tribulation can shake our inmost joy, if it be well founded upon the faith foundation of Divine assurances that we are children of God, in touch with the Infinite, beloved by our Redeemer, who assures us that "The Father himself loveth you," and the Apostle, that "all things shall work together for good to them that love God, to the called ones according to his purpose."
"By it (faith) the Elders obtained a good report." Not all the Elders or ancients received a testimony that they pleased God – the "report" here referred to. No, the number who received this witness of God is comparatively small, and, in every instance, they were commended, not for perfect works, but for their faith. Their "faith was counted unto them for righteousness." The Divine intention was that those whose reverence for their Creator and obedience to his Word of promise shaped and moulded a human life under present conditions of imperfection and world-enmity to God thus implied that they had hearts so full of trust and the proper spirit that God could count it righteousness, count it perfection; because when in the resurrection such should receive perfect bodies under perfect conditions they would surely do the Divine will thoroughly. Hence their faith in God and his promises, attested by imperfect works, justified them to that Divine fellowship which they will fully enjoy when the things hoped for shall be realized.
Thus in few words the Apostle summarizes what he afterwards proceeds to amplify respecting the Ancient Worthies. Then he begins a specification of faith. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God – in obedience to Divine direction. We believe this equally true, whether we understand the seven days of creation mentioned in Genesis to be twenty-four hour days or to be longer epochs – seven-thousand-year days. The fact that Divine energy is exercised through various channels and agencies and that worlds are not spoken into existence in a moment of time matters not. While God could speak worlds into existence, as our Lord by his word turned water into wine, as a matter of fact this is not his usual proceeding, even as the fruit of the vine is usually produced by sunshine and rain falling upon the earth in which the vine has been planted. It is, nevertheless, a matter of faith with us that what we see was miraculously formed, even though gradually.
The Genesis account of creation does not go back to the forming of our world out of the elements, but begins with the statement, "Now the earth was, but was without form and void (empty)." As the seven days or epochs were consumed in a gradual lifting of mountains and sinking of oceans and bringing forth of fish and reptiles, fowl and beast and herbage, so we may well suppose that the formation of the earth itself was a gradual accomplishment of a still more remote period in which the [R4386 : page 135] various strata of the earth's surface were formed – limestone, shale, coal, etc. A godly man wrote, "Ever all things are Divinely directed, and in the uniformity of nature we see the work of God; or (else) we see about us that which is impossible, unthinkable, – power, wisdom, a plan without mind; infinite intelligence in a godless, scopeless world."
Well did the Psalmist write, "For the heavens declare the glory of the Lord. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no place where their voice is not heard" – by those who have a hearing ear.
Particularizing the heroes of faith the Apostle begins with the first martyr, Abel, who is mentioned four times in the New Testament and three of the times particularly styled "the righteous." It was in his death that he spoke – in the fact that he died because of his devotion to the Lord. And has it not been so with many of God's saints – that their lives spoke more earnestly to their neighbors, friends and children after their death than while they lived? We know of many instances which have exemplified this. So Abel, the first martyr for righteousness in the world's history, yet speaks of his devotion to God and to principle.
Figuratively his blood is said to cry out to God for vengeance. Divine Justice is supposed eventually to see to it that every crime, every injustice committed shall somehow and somewhere receive a just recompense of punishment, whether in the present or in the future life. The Apostle calls our attention to the fact that the blood of Christ, on the contrary, speaks the very reverse, and, instead of calling for justice, vengeance, upon those who crucified Jesus and have persecuted the members of his Body, will eventually call for mercy. Our Lord was the great sin-offering for mankind, and all whom he accepts as members are specifically styled sacrificers – on behalf of sinners – to seal for Israel the New Covenant, through which all the families of the earth may receive the blessing of Divine forgiveness.
The testimony respecting Enoch was that his was a life of faith; that he walked with God and not with the world; that he sought to walk righteously, in harmony with the Divine will. The testimony is that all that approach God must believe that he is (else they would not seek to approach him), and must believe that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him, else they would not deny themselves the things highly esteemed amongst men and seek at the cost of sacrifice to do the things pleasing to the heavenly Father. The record respecting Enoch is very meager, but we do know that he was a prophet and that through him the message came that Messiah would come eventually with ten thousand of his holy ones to execute righteousness, judgment, in the earth – to overthrow sin and set up Divine standards amongst men. "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all." – Jude 14,15.
Enoch not only prophesied this but he believed it and it stamped his entire character and made him separate from the world and drew him nearer to the Lord. Similarly faith in the coming of our Redeemer and the establishment of his Kingdom and the reward of his faithfulness and the judgment or trial of the world during the Millennium, in which every man will receive a just recompense of reward, whether good or bad – this faith still has a sanctifying power. Let us cultivate daily, hourly, the setting of our affections on things above, the things which God hath in store for them that love him, for which we pray, "Thy Kingdom come."
Noah is the third of these faith heroes held up for our inspection. None of these was righteous in the absolute sense, for the Scriptures declare, "There is none righteous, no, not one." Of Noah it is written, "Now Noah was perfect in his generation" – he and his family were separate, free from the contamination of their time, from improper intercourse with the angels, which kept not their first estate. – Gen. 6:4.
Noah's faith in God was manifested in his building of the Ark in obedience to the Divine instruction that a great rain and flood of waters would come, which would destroy every living thing and wipe out the corrupted race. This was no slight test of faith either, for we are to remember that the Scriptures declare that up to that time there had been no rain on the earth. It was moistened by irrigation and by mists and fogs. "For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth....But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." – Gen. 2:5,6.
For a long period Noah's faith was tested even unto the entering of the Ark and the closing of the door before the rains descended and the floods came. Of him it is well declared, therefore, "He became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." God is pleased to call Noah and all others who thoroughly, genuinely trust him, friends. He recognizes them as separate and distinct from the world in general. Their faith is their distinguishing quality. Nevertheless a manifestation of the faith and the testing of it by works of obedience is required. Blessed is the man who has much and strong faith in the Lord, which will stand trial, testing; for subsequently will be granted to him a corresponding blessing. Nay, more than this, the Lord has guaranteed us that he "will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able" and he informs us that he knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are but dust.
Next in the list of Ancient Worthies is Abraham, styled "The Father of the Faithful" – not because Noah and Enoch and Abel had not been faithful, but because with Abraham God started a faith family to whom were given many and great promises. That family became known as the nation of Israel, and latterly as Spiritual Israel. Again, Abraham was the father of the faithful, because while the heroes that preceded him exercised faith in [R4387 : page 135] God, it was more along abstract lines, whereas the Divine revelation to Abraham was the Gospel, the good tidings in definite form – that in and through his Seed all the families of the earth should receive a blessing. Thus the Apostle declares that God preached in advance the Gospel to Abraham, and thus all who believe that Gospel, of which redemption by Messiah is the essential, all such are called "the children of Abraham," and he is spoken of as their father, the one through whom this Gospel hope was caused to descend.
But in still another sense Abraham was the Father of the Faithful: in the sense that he typified the heavenly Father, as Isaac typified our Lord Jesus, and as Isaac's bride, Rebecca, typified the elect Gospel Church.
Abraham's call of God was the result of his having faith in God and because he lived at an appropriate time for the Divine purposes to begin to be expressed. First his faith was tested by the Divine command that he leave his native country to wander up and down through Palestine as a shepherd, dwelling in tents without any fixed habitation, without any attempt to take possession of the land and to establish himself in it by building fortresses, etc. The promise was that in after times God would bring his posterity to this land and give it to them for a possession.
The promise went further and declared that if obedient the Lord's blessing would continue and that the seed of Abraham would become great and influential and that through it all nations would receive a blessing – and by implication all would come under its control. It required great faith to believe all this under the circumstances. And the test continued, as, year by year, Abraham's wife [R4387 : page 136] grew older, until the time of motherhood was long past. Still we read that Abraham's faith "wavered not."
Still later, after Isaac the son of promise had been born and had grown to manhood, the Lord tested the faith of this wonderful man by telling him to offer his son as a sacrifice. We are not to assume that this instruction was given by any mere impression of the mind, nor would it have been proper for Abraham to have accepted and acted upon anything short of an absolute demonstration of the Divine will in such a matter. The father love, the hopes of years, and apparently the Divine Word and Oath were all about to be wrecked. Yet his faith "faltered not," for he accounted that God was able to raise his son from the dead and that surely God would fulfil his every promise to which he had bound himself, not only by his Word, but also by his Oath.
While we exclaim, Wonderful faith! let us remember that this was the very quality of Abraham which specially commended him to the Almighty as his particular friend. And let us remember that if we would have the particular friendship and blessing and fellowship of the Lord this is the channel through which it is to be sought – the channel of faith, of trust, of obedience. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." The more faith we have the more pleasing we shall be in the Lord's sight and the more we may be used of him as channels of blessing to others – however imperfect we may be in other respects.
And here it is worthy of note that Abraham was not perfect in every respect. On two occasions he was reproved by heathen kings and shown in some respects to have less lofty ideals, in one particular at least, than they would have given him credit for. Nevertheless, God did not reject Abraham because of those imperfections. Indeed, possibly those imperfections were partially the result of Abraham's endeavor to hold on to the Divine promises and to do everything in his power to bring them to fruition. He knew that the Divine promise was that his child, who should be the channel of God's blessings to the world, would be the son of Sarah; hence he felt that he must not jeopardize either her life or his own. This very desire to do nothing to interfere with the Divine promise may have had something to do with apparent weaknesses. – Gen. 20.
When the Apostle declares that Abraham "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God," we must not think this to mean that in his journeying throughout Palestine, he expected some day to come upon a newly-built city of divine construction. Nor should we think with some others that Abraham was looking for the New Jerusalem to come down from heaven – a city built of literal precious stones with gates of literal pearls. No, Abraham knew nothing about that city, for nothing respecting it had yet been revealed.
A city, in olden times, stood for and represented a fortification, a government, a rule of authority. Abraham realized that the earth was full of sin and violence and out of harmony with God. He knew that Enoch, his ancestor, a man of God, had already prophetically declared that Messiah would come, the representative of Jehovah, and establish a Government, a Kingdom, a City of Righteousness. He longed for that righteous government and realized that its foundation of righteousness would be deeply laid, and that it would be an everlasting Kingdom. He knew that occasionally a monarch came to an earthly throne possessed of good intentions and partially able to exercise these, but that soon his throne, his kingdom, crumbled and passed to others.
Abraham, therefore, was not in sympathy with any in his day, nor since, in looking for an earthly kingdom, but he was looking beyond all these for the Kingdom of God's dear Son – the Millennial Kingdom. His eye of faith looked down and beheld Messiah and the exaltation of Israel and the blessing of all the families of the earth during the Millennial day. Our Lord Jesus attested this, saying, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day (the Millennial day of Christ's reign) and he saw it and was glad." The Jews misunderstood our Lord to mean that he had been with Abraham. Others misunderstand him to mean that Abraham saw by faith his work of sacrifice. It is true that our Lord did appear to Abraham. It is true that in a certain sense Abraham foresaw the sacrifice of Christ in the typical sacrifice of Isaac, but it is also true that "the Day of Christ" is the Millennial day for the world's blessing and that it was that which Abraham saw and which gladdened his eye of faith.
We also see the same; and, sharing the same faith, we share the same joy and gladness of hope and expectancy. We indeed discern still more clearly than Abraham of what that city or Kingdom consists – that our Lord will be the great King, the Head over the Church his Body (his Members, his Bride) and that this Bride, the Lamb's Wife, is pictured symbolically in the New Jerusalem, whose foundation stones in glory will be "the twelve apostles of the Lamb." (Rev. 21:2,11-14.) We see more clearly than did Abraham (because guided by the holy Spirit through the Word) that the Ancient Worthies will be the earthly channels or agents through which this Heavenly City will send forth its blessings to Israel and to all the families of the earth. As it is written, "Ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom." Christ and his elect spiritual Bride will not be seen by men except as we now see our Lord, with the eye of faith.
We are glad that Abraham's wife is specifically mentioned in this list of faith heroes. It helps us to thoroughly grasp the Apostle's thought that the distinction of sex does not operate to the disadvantage of either male or female in connection with the Divine promises. Perhaps it cannot be said that Sarah's faith did not falter, but if it wavered for a time it certainly was recovered. Although she was past the age of motherhood she believed God. "She judged him faithful who had promised." Thus she was counted in with the noble list of whom the Apostle says, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises (the things promised), but having seen them afar off (with the eye of faith) and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers in the earth."
Ah, yes, here is an important feature. It is not sufficient that we see glorious things of the Divine purpose, not sufficient that we believe them, not sufficient that we rejoice in them. We must be willing also to stand the test of being strangers and pilgrims in the present time. Those who cannot stand this test will not be accounted worthy of a share in those glorious things. Those Ancient Worthies, unsatisfied with any of the earthly prospects, sought the heavenly – not in the sense that we are seeking the heavenly, the spiritual things – in the sense of hoping for the completion of a change of nature from earthly to spiritual. They sought or desired the heavenly in the sense expressed in our Lord's prayer. They wished God's Kingdom to come, to be established in the earth – a heavenly rule of righteousness, a heavenly city or government. "Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he hath prepared for them a city" – he has planned such a heavenly Kingdom or dominion as they hoped for. That Kingdom, the Scriptures assure us, will eventually be the "desire of all nations." – Hag. 2:7.
We pass along the aisles of the hall of faith-fame and note the pictures to which the Apostle calls our attention – of Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. Each one has distinctions, characteristics and peculiar traits; but the quality of faith foundation in them all is that which makes them the people of God – those he is well pleased to acknowledge and to whom he has already promised blessings in the future because of their faith. If anything would inspire God's people to a cultivation of the grace of faith [R4388 : page 137] it surely would be a walk through this portrait gallery of the Faith Heroes of the past.
Isaac showed his faith in the Abrahamic promise in that he conveyed with full confidence the Abrahamic blessing to his son Jacob; and none the less did he manifest faith in that promise when he gave a blessing also to Esau, realizing that under that original promise all the families of the earth to be blessed must include the family of Esau also. Jacob, exercised by faith in the promise made to his grandfather Abraham, manifested it in the ordering of all of the affairs of his life. Especially was it manifested on his death-bed when, after giving special blessings to the sons of Joseph, he worshipped God, leaning upon the headpost of his bed (translated staff in the common version). He recognized that the blessings that were to come to his family were all under Divine supervision and all included in the original promise made to Abraham. He further signified his faith by giving directions respecting his burial, that it should not be in Egypt, but in Canaan, the Land of Promise, which was Israel's by faith only.
Joseph gave many manifestations of his faith in God. Not only as a boy, but also while in Egypt he clearly demonstrated his faith in the promise of God that Israel was to be the blessed people through whom the blessing of the Lord would eventually, in co-operation with Messiah, reach all the nations of the world. By faith he gave direction that when Israel would leave the land of Egypt for Canaan they should not forget to take with them his bones. This does not necessarily imply that he thought the bones and the dust that had once constituted his entity would be necessary to God in his resurrection, but it does signify that he would thus testify his faith in a resurrection of the dead – his faith that he would participate in the blessings that would come to Israel through the Messiah.
In various ways did Moses testify his faith in God, but in none of them, perhaps, in a more remarkable fashion than in renouncing the privileges of the throne of Egypt, to which he was by adoption the heir. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of the Abrahamic promise than to dwell in luxury with the others. The people of Israel were the people of the Messiah, the people of Christ; hence in associating himself with them he was showing his esteem for the reproaches of the Anointed. Indeed, faith marks every step of the progress of Moses in Divine favor and service.
"He endured as seeing him who is invisible." How graphically this describes the matter and how true it is to-day as well as then that the endurance of trials and testings is only possible to those who have the eye of faith – to those who can see invisible things, things invisible to others: especially those who can see the invisible King of glory and his, as yet, invisible Kingdom! It was through faith also that he instituted with Israel the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, though we have no reason to suppose that to any considerable extent it was possible for him to comprehend the real meaning of the passover and the antitypical significance of the blood and its sprinkling. His faith again was demonstrated in the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea. His obedience matched his faith in all these matters.
While we stand in awe at the presence of so great faith, nevertheless we are encouraged thereby, because we realize that perfect faith is possible to us, although perfect works are not. Let us, then, hold fast by faith to the Divine promises and continue to walk by faith and not by sight, until, by and by, our change shall come and we shall enter into the realities of which now we have only the promises.
It is incomprehensible to the world, and an astonishment to the saints, that in so many ways the Scriptures show that God is no respecter of persons – that he has not been choosing out exclusively the great or the wise or the good, but, on the contrary, has been choosing the sincere, the honest, the faithful, notwithstanding lowliness of birth, natural blemishes and imperfections. Truly does the Lord say, "My ways are not as your ways, nor my plans as your plans." And truly did our Redeemer say that publicans and harlots should go into the Kingdom in preference to faithless, self-righteous Pharisees. How glad we are that in God's providence the Apostle mentions Rahab and her faith, and how the Lord appreciated it and rewarded it! Surely there is a lesson here that should be well marked and inwardly digested by every one of us, not only for our own encouragement, but also for our guidance in respect to others. It is in full conformity with the Apostle's statement that God is choosing some of the "mean things of the world" in the present time to ultimately confound some of the greater and mightier and less faithful and obedient.
After giving us this wonderful galaxy the Apostle seems to realize that he has only well begun the list. He declares that time would fail him to mention other faithful characters which have had God's approval, such as Gideon, Barak, Sampson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith won victories, wrought righteousness, secured promises, etc. In every case the faith was tried, sometimes by cruel mockings and scourgings and sometimes by bonds and imprisonments. Some were stoned. Some were sawn asunder. Some were homeless wanderers, desolate of earthly comforts, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy.
After pointing us to these glorious heroes the Apostle intimates that they are a different class from ourselves, the disciples of Christ of this Gospel Age. They all died in faith, not receiving the things promised them, because God had provided something still better for us and had arranged that they could not get their blessing until we should first have received ours.
What is this wonderful thing that belongs to us, separate and distinct from what belongs to them? We answer that our blessing, like theirs, is a faith blessing and reward and not a reward of works. Our blessing is superior to theirs because Jesus the Messiah has come, has given his life, has been highly exalted – and because we are now being called to membership in his Body, the Body of Christ, the Body of the great High Priest, the Body of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Body of the Mediator between God and mankind. This matter of our call to another plane of being as the associates of the great Messiah is the "hidden mystery" not previously revealed. It is indeed "some better thing for us" – as much better as the heavenly inheritance is better than the earthly one. The Ancient Worthies, whose glorious career we have been considering and praising, must wait until the spirit-begotten class shall be born from the dead in the First Resurrection; then they shall receive their blessing of resurrection to the earthly plane, to be the earthly representatives of the Heavenly City, Heavenly Kingdom, and to share in a very particular way in the bestowment of God's blessing to Israel and to all the families of the earth.
They all through the fall were imperfect and hence "children of wrath, even as others," and so are we. But they and we are willingly and intentionally and at heart in accord with the Lord and his righteousness as the majority of mankind are not: hence they and we have been enabled to hear God's voice, speaking peace and blessings to the willingly obedient. The Ancient Worthies responded to the extent of the privileges and blessings that were then tendered, proffered, available. And we of this Gospel Age have heard and responded to the still higher blessings and privileges of the high calling of this Gospel Age.
The Ancient Worthies were not justified by a Covenant nor by a Mediator. Neither were we. Both they and [R4388 : page 138] we are justified by faith. They with ourselves come under the Abrahamic Covenant, which had no mediator and needed none, because made only with those of similar faith and heart desires to those of father Abraham. Although some of these heroes lived during the Jewish Age they were not justified by their Law Covenant but by their faith, for the Law Covenant made nothing perfect because of the inefficiency of its mediator; neither were any of them justified by Israel's New (Law) Covenant, for it has not yet been inaugurated.
The selection of the members of the Mediator of Israel's New Covenant is now in progress. The Anointed (Christ, head and members) is the Mediator of the New Covenant. The Law Covenant was between God and the one nation of Israel, which it was proposed should first be blessed and made holy and granted eternal life and then become the channel of blessing to all other nations who would come into harmony with God by an acceptance of Israelitish obligations. That Covenant failed because its mediator Moses was unable to give life to anyone except in a typical sense temporarily. The New Covenant is to be between God and Israel and the world – between God and men. The Mediator is spiritual, but he does not mediate between God and a spirit-begotten class. He is a mediator for men with God. Hence the Church has no mediator, needs none, for the Church is not composed of those who are of human nature, but only of those who are begotten of the holy Spirit and members of the New Creation. These are Members of the Mediator that need no mediator. Because of their imperfections of the flesh, because they cannot do the things that they would, they need an Advocate, and they have one, "Jesus Christ the Righteous." [R4389 : page 138]
As soon as all the Body members of the great Mediator Christ shall have been called and chosen and found faithful; then will come the time for the blessing of the Ancient Worthies, to whom will come the privileges and blessings of Abraham's seed according to the flesh. Through them God's blessing of the New Covenant will proceed, during the Millennial Age, to every creature: granting to all the fullest opportunities of reconciliation and eternal life.
Throughout the Millennial Age those Ancient Worthies, as the earthly representatives of the heavenly Mediator, will in a sense be deprived of the bliss which would properly belong to those tried and found worthy. For a thousand years they will serve the imperfect race as rulers, instructors, uplifting priests, in contact with imperfect humanity, assisting them back to harmony with God and to all that was lost.
Is it asked what reward will be granted to these Ancient Worthies for the labor accomplished during the Millennium in the uplifting of the world? We reply that the privileges of such a labor for mankind would of itself be quite a sufficient reward; but certain things in the Scriptures seem to imply that these Ancient Worthies will at the close of the Millennium receive a still further blessing, namely, that they will be changed from human to spirit nature.
This is not distinctly stated in the Bible, but merely may be inferred. We have already seen that these faith heroes who preceded this Gospel Age were typically represented by "the red heifer" which was burned without the camp and whose ashes served to sprinkle the unclean. We have also seen that as a class these were represented as members of the tribe of Levi. In other words, the household of faith, as typified in the tribe of Levi, was represented in times past as well as now. And it was from that "household of faith" that during this Gospel Age the antitypical priests are being called, chosen and found faithful. We have seen that all who will constitute the "Royal Priesthood" and all who will constitute the "great company" were originally represented in this "household of faith," typified by the Levites.
We have seen that the "little flock" and the "great company" both make consecration with a view to becoming sacrificing priests, but that only the few who have lived up to the terms and conditions of self-sacrifice will win the prize of membership in the High Priest's Body – membership in The Christ – membership in the Mediator of the New (Law) Covenant. Of the remainder, some will draw back completely and die the Second Death, while others, neither drawing back into perdition nor going forward into voluntary sacrifice, will be developed, proven, tested by the judgments of the Lord and be found worthy of life on the spirit plane as conquerors with palm branches, but not as "more than conquerors" with crowns. The justified who fail to go on to consecration pass back and become part of the world, while the consecrated who fail to go on to voluntary sacrifice nevertheless maintain their justification as New Creatures because in their testing they prove true.
Thus the "great company" of this Gospel Age and the faith heroes of preceding times still remain members of the "household of faith," the antitypical Levites; while the "little flock" of crown-wearers, belonging to the same household of antitypical Levites, passes on to the position of "royal priesthood" in glory. During the Millennium some of those antitypical Levites (the "great company") will serve on the spirit plane, while others, the Ancient Worthies, the faith heroes of ancient times, will be serving on the earthly plane. What is more reasonable than to suppose that when their service upon the earthly plane shall have ended the latter class also will be received to the heavenly plane? This thought is confirmed by the fact that the typical Levites were granted no inheritance in the land – the earth. Thus in advance God intimated that they were to have no earthly inheritance – but a spiritual one.
In Revelation 20:7-9 we are informed that at the close of the Millennial Age Satan will be released from restraint and permitted to bring temptation upon the restored world; and that some of mankind under his false teaching will become rebellious against the Divine authority and "go up and encompass the camp of the saints and the beloved city." This camp of the saints seems to symbolically tell us that even at the close of the Millennial Age, when all mankind shall have reached perfection of human nature (or, failing to do so, shall have been destroyed in the Second Death), there will still be a distinction between this camp of the Holy Ones and mankind in general? Why the distinction when all are perfected? Because, we believe, the Divine intention was to show that even when mankind shall have reached perfection the Ancient Worthies will still in some sense be separate and apart from the remainder of the perfect race. It is at that time that we understand the Ancient Worthies will be changed from earthly to heavenly organism.
The moral of our lesson is summed up in the first verse of Hebrews 12th chapter, in which the Apostle says, "Wherefore, seeing that we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses (martyrs), let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith."
What a grand exhortation! Let us heed it! Let us give faith its proper place. Let us feed our faith upon the Word of God and upon all the Divine providences of our experiences in life as they daily come to us! Let us thus follow in the footsteps of our great High Priest, the Captain of our salvation, our Leader, our Forerunner, whose sacrifice is the foundation for our faith and whose power in glory is to be its consummation, when he shall receive us unto himself in the First Resurrection, "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."
Question – (1) From Exodus 24th it appears that it was the blood of the peace-offerings and of burnt-offerings (not of sin-offerings) which sealed the Law Covenant. Should we not understand the same to hold in regard to the New Covenant?
Answer – The sin-offering, burnt-offering and peace-offering evidently pictured the same sacrifices, but from different standpoints. In every case we would understand the bullocks to represent our Lord Jesus and the goats to represent the Church, the under-priesthood. The sin-offerings represented the sufferings of Christ and of all who walk in his footsteps as respects their relationship to the Lord, "Outside the camp," and their course as New Creatures inside the holy and ultimately beyond the second vail in the most holy. And it shows the merit of the sacrifice eventually applied on the mercy-seat, and for whom applied – the blood of the bullock first, for the Church; the blood of the goat afterward, for all the people.
The burnt-offering shows the same sacrifices but from a different standpoint – that of Divine acceptance. It shows that the offering was made to God and accepted by God as a whole, even though, as shown in the sin-offering, the sufferings were inflicted by men and the services rendered unto men.
The peace-offering (Lev. 3) would appear to be another view or picture of the same sacrifices, representing the willingness of the individual who sacrificed – that nothing was of compulsion, so far as God was concerned; and that there was peace between God and the sacrificer, so that the offering was not made for his own sins.
So then, it seems very appropriate that, as described in Exodus 24, it was the blood of peace-offerings and burnt-offerings that sealed the Law Covenant. The sin-offering feature has to do with the satisfaction, but the burnt-offering and peace-offering imply that the sacrificers voluntarily lay down their earthly rights in the interest of those who will be blessed under the New Covenant and that God accepts these sacrifices as sealing that New Covenant – entirely aside from the Atonement for Adamic sin, accomplished by the same sacrifices, viewed from the standpoint of the sin-offering.
Question – (2) The children of Israel, whom God called his firstborn, his own people, etc., had and needed a mediator. Should we not correspondingly expect that Spiritual Israel would require a mediator?
Answer – The children of Israel, from God's standpoint, were a typical people – they represented typically all who would ever become Abraham's seed, on the heavenly and the earthly planes. Thus it is written, "I have made thee a father of many nations." All who will ultimately be saved to relationship with God out of many nations were well represented in the many tribes of Israel.
God took one of those tribes, the tribe of Levi, and separated it from the others for his own special use and as a channel for the blessing and instruction of the other tribes, which represented all the families of the earth. That tribe of Levi, as we have already seen, typified the "household of faith" – all those who will be brought into harmony with God through the Sarah division of the Abrahamic Covenant. These all, as a household of faith, are together styled the firstborn and are developed under the Faith or Grace Covenant, and not under the New (Law) Covenant. [R4390 : page 139]
The tribe of Levi itself was divided, a priestly class being selected, and the remainder of the tribe assisting or serving under them. So in the antitype – a "little flock," a priestly class, is selected for the pre-eminent position and constitutes "Abraham's Seed" on the highest plane, the Divine nature. This class, The Christ, is composed of Jesus, the Head, and the Church, his members. As the center of the Divine blessing this Royal Priesthood, of which the Redeemer is the Head, has a variety of titles and of offices – King, Priest, Judge, Law-Giver, Mediator, Father – and each of these titles indicates a special feature of its service as the Seed of Abraham in blessing all the families of the earth, represented by the remaining tribes.
The other tribes of natural Israel did need a mediator and the mediator was in the specially set apart tribe, Moses represented the entire priestly class and the tribe of Levi in his various functions as mediator between God and the nation.
It is true that God did sometimes speak of natural Israel as his first-born, and similarly Ishmael was the first-born of Abraham. The Apostle Paul calls our attention to this very matter, telling us that natural Israel corresponds to Ishmael, the son of Hagar, who represented the Covenant of bondage. Spiritual Israel constitutes the Church of the First-Born, the Body of Christ, and was never in bondage, being a child of the free woman, "the Heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of us all." The Covenant of Grace was represented by Sarah. It had no mediator and needed none. Why does it need no mediator? Because those chosen under this Covenant of Grace are all at heart loyal to God, lovers of righteousness and haters of iniquity. These the Father was pleased to receive into his family, in response to their faith and consecration. They became members of the Body of the Mediator, who, during the Millennial Age, will represent God to mankind, enforcing his laws and in his name uplifting the willing and obedient.
As the Father prepared a special body for our Lord Jesus, that was holy, harmless and undefiled and suitable as our sin-offering, so he has provided also a Body of Christ in the flesh, on a larger scale, for sacrifice; by providing for our justification through his blood. As the Apostle says, "Being justified freely by his grace we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then he adds, "By which also we have access into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." – Rom. 5:1.
We get into this grace – into this sharing in the glory of Christ in his Kingdom, in his nature, by reason of the opportunity which our justification gives us of becoming members of the High Priest, sharers in his sacrifice. St. Paul refers to this elsewhere, saying to the justified ones, "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God (your justification), that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, and your reasonable service." (Rom. 12:1.) Here we have the declaration that we are participants in this sacrifice and that our sacrifice is acceptable to God and counted of him holy because of our faith in and relationship to the Great High Priest who has adopted us as his members and is sacrificing us as members or parts of himself. In harmony with this we read with our text, "By the which will we are [R4390 : page 140] sanctified (set apart as holy and consecrated joint-sacrificers with our Lord) through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ."
The Apostle's argument is that by one offering Christ has perfected forever them that are sanctified. Through his merit there is naught against us now and nothing to hinder us from accepting the gracious invitation to suffer with him as his members, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices through the merit of his sacrifice.
Under the New Covenant God will remove the sins of Israel and Judah and all that come into relationship with him under that Covenant and when that remission of sins shall come it will be an evidence that the sin-offerings of the Atonement Day are at an end, as the Apostle stated in verse eighteen. The remission of sins has not yet come for Israel and the world, because the offering for sins is not completed – Christ is still offering up himself. The great Day of Atonement is not yet closed, though nearly so.
In this connection let us note the Apostle's words that, having confidence in the merit of Christ's sacrifice for us, "we may have boldness (courage) to enter into the holiest." Who entered the holiest in the type? The high priest alone, once every year on the Day of Atonement. Who in the antitype will enter the Most Holy in the end of the antitypical Day of Atonement? The antitypical High Priest – Jesus the Head and the Church his Body. It is because of our faith and obedience along this line that we are accepted as members of the High Priest's Body, whom he is sacrificing, that we have hope to enter in ultimately into the Most Holy as his members; and thither we are already entered by faith.
The witnessing also specially related to our Lord's resurrection as stated by the Golden Text, because a dead [R4391 : page 140] redeemer would be powerless to become the Messiah and to establish the Divine Law amongst those whom he had purchased with his blood. "Jesus and the resurrection" was the general theme of the early Church, to which was added the hope of glory – the Second Coming of Jesus to receive his Bride to himself, to change her to his own nature, to associate her with him in his Kingdom glory and then to begin the Millennial reign of righteousness, to bring all mankind to a knowledge of God. And all this was based upon the precious sacrifice finished at Calvary.
Our text tells us that this witnessing was done with power, great power. It was not made secondary to politics, to social questions, to evolutionary theories or higher critical dissertations. It, and it alone, constituted the apostolic theme. And so it should be with us. The resurrection of the Lord and its value and signification to the Church and the world through the Divine Plan should be ever prominent in our witnessing.
Not only by their words and logical presentations did the apostles witness, but their lives were witnesses. As the Apostle said, "Ye are our epistles, known and read of all men." The lives of the early Church were the special witness to the Lord. Without the consistency of their lives and their consecration to the Lord and to the Truth, it is evident, the message would have had no such import as it bore. So it is with us to-day. It is well that we preach the Word. It is still more important that we live in it. But it is the ideal thing to both preach and live the Truth. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
Our love for the brethren, coupled with our knowledge of the testing strain they are under, will supply the needed incentive for the exercise and cultivation of the graces named. And let us remember, that this is our [R4391 : page 141] testing hour no less than theirs. The test to some may be false teachings; the test to others may be their positiveness and character in dealing with the error, or their love for the brethren and the gentleness with which they will seek to do all in their power to rescue them, even though they feel the task a hopeless one. – Heb. 6:3.
If we fail of love we are failing on the most important point of all. Hence it is important to each of us to take our stand for the right and against the wrong, but lovingly, gently, firmly. For instance, in the matter of the Vow: it is quite proper to explain its Scripturalness, to show that its every provision is in fullest accord with the teachings of the Bible, and to point out its advantages and its blessings to your own heart; but it would not be just or loving to do more than this. Leave the matter for the Lord to deal with by his spirit and providences. If the act be not a voluntary one it loses its value in God's sight. Do not allow the Vow or any other voluntary matter to cause a division amongst the members. Should the division come along other lines it would be different. We must do all in our power to maintain "the unity of the spirit in bonds of peace."
Remember that no charge is made for these services. The Society pays all the Pilgrims' traveling expenses, etc., and takes up no collections. The cost is borne by the general fund, to which many of you are or have been contributors.
It may be too late to include your place if you write when you see that a Pilgrim is headed your way, therefore, cooperate please by at once sending a 1909 post-card request, answering as many of the questions below as possible:
| (a) | How many Bible students reside in your vicinity? |
| (b) | Are weekly meetings held? |
| (c) | How many are usually in attendance? |
| (d) | Where do you now meet? (Give full street address.) |
| (e) | At what hours are the Sunday meetings held? |
| (f) | Was a vote taken on the "Pilgrim" invitation? |
| (g) | How many voted for the invitation to be sent? |
| (h) | How many, if any, voted against the invitation? |
| (i) | Would a suitable place be found for a public meeting? |
| (j) | What attendance do you think could be secured for the public session by such notification and advertising as your class would give? |
| (k) | Would a suitable place be found for semi-private meetings for the interested? |
| (l) | Have the members of your class chosen leaders in accordance with DAWN, Vol. VI., chaps. 5 and 6? |
| (m) | Give full names and full addresses of the two (2) to whom notices of a coming "Pilgrim" should be sent, and notify us as to any change or removal. |
| (n) | If your town is not on a railroad give the name of proper railroad station at which to stop. |
| (o) | How many miles from station is meeting place, and which direction from station? |
| (p) | Would "Pilgrim" be met at station? |
| (q) | If not, how could "Pilgrim" get from said station? |
| (r) | Give writer's full name and address. |
| (s) | Any additional remarks. |
We replied that we certainly would be pleased to have the company and find that the Tourist and Kitchen-car arrangement is feasible. The figures below include the use of the car for twenty-five days and nights and three plain, substantial meals per day with an allowance of 35 cents each for meals not taken. The longer excursion would start from Chicago and take in all of the Convention's stops noted in The Watch Tower except the first and the last named – Piedmont, Ala., and Aberdeen, S.D. Others might join the party in Texas and California at a slightly increased cost for the round trip. All the details of this arrangement are in the hands of Brother L. W. Jones, M.D., No. 2024 Washington Boul., Chicago, Ill. Applications for space on these cars should be made not later than June 15, accompanied by a deposit of not less than fifty ($50) dollars.
Arrangements are being made for a long and a short Western Convention Trip.
This route will take in all the Conventions mentioned in the Tower, with the exception of Aberdeen.
One or more special cars will be used, and meals provided if desired, as follows:
Option No. 1 – This means an entire section in the
sleeper for 25 days, and three meals per day. $96.25
(A refund for meals not eaten on train, 35c.)
Railroad fare from Chicago and return............. 77.25
_______
$173.50
Option No. 2 – This means an entire section in the
sleeper for 25 days and nights, but occupied
by two persons, with three meals daily for
each person. Thus Option No. 2 would cost
each person................................... 61.25
(A refund for meals not eaten on train, 35c.)
Railroad fare from Chicago and return............. 77.25
_______
$138.50
This route would take in Seattle, Spokane, Butte, Denver and St. Joseph. The round trip railroad fare from Chicago will cost $62.50. Sleeper for round trip would be about $15, but this could be cut in half if two persons occupied a berth.
All meals on this short trip would be extra, as would also the hotel accommodations while at the conventions. About $100 ought to cover the expenses of this short trip.
We are sending you a list of names to be recorded as having taken the Vow. This list is our entire class. We enjoyed Brother Sullivan's visit very much. All the class seems to be growing in knowledge and love.
CLASS OF TWENTY-FOUR AT BOAZ, ALA.
I want to tell you that the colored Ecclesia here, numbering fourteen in all, partook of the emblems of our dear Redeemer's flesh and blood. We felt it a very solemn occasion, more especially as we looked at the shortness of the time when we shall drink it new with our dear Redeemer in our Father's Kingdom.
Pray for us, as we do for you, that we may be found faithful. We are receiving untold blessing by reading the Vow along with the HEAVENLY MANNA. With much love in our dear Redeemer,
Yours in the blessed hope,
We gladly improve this opportunity of expressing our deep appreciation of your progressive work along the lines of Present Truth.
The illumination of the entire Plan has been intensified by the clearer light on the Covenants. The Vow has proved especially helpful.
"Meat in due season," "things new and old" from the storehouse are indeed served through your sermons, WATCH TOWER and magazine articles to those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and a knowledge of the Divine program.
We rejoice with the dear ones abroad, joyfully anticipating your presence with them the coming month. Greet for us "those of like precious faith." "God be with you till we meet again."
May the dear Lord richly bless you and "Bethel" family in your new field of labor, is the daily prayer of thousands, including your brother and sister,
In sending you this list of brethren and sisters who wish to signify their appreciation and approval of the Vow as a means of drawing them closer to the Lord and to each other – as well as those of our class who have previously sent in their names – we thought you would be pleased to know that the attitude taken toward the Vow and toward each other from the first has been of such a happy character that all have taken the Vow, except one, without the slightest sign of friction over differences of opinion regarding it. And the one who did not sign it refrained from doing so, not because he was opposed to it, but merely because he thought he was not ready, as yet, for the advanced position he seemed to think the Vow implied. This fortunate outcome has been accomplished by the wisdom and tolerance of those who first took the Vow, in that they did not wish to press their convictions on the others. The others, noting this, were led to a closer and more favorable attitude of mind toward the Vow and toward those who took it. We believe if this attitude had been taken by classes generally much needless friction would have been avoided.
Sincerely yours in the Master's service,
I am sure you will allow one who loves you to intrude a little on your time. How I would love to have an hour's talk with you. I would have told you long ago of my sympathy in the siftings of late, but knew your time was fully occupied.
I want to say that I stand by you with my sympathies, and mention you at least twice each day at the throne of grace. I hope I shall never forget what the Lord has done for me and thousands of others at your willing and faithful hands. My own bodily condition is expressed fairly well in Job 7:3,4.
I have been receiving scores of letters and cards from the dear friends from all parts, and would be glad to answer them all if I could spare the time to do so, but I can do so little in the way of work, that it seems to require about all of the time I can put in to accomplish the little.
I am glad to say that by the Lord's kind favor I have been, and still am, able to earn as much as is needful. I want to tell you also that I still take my stand by "the Vow," and fail to see how any brother or sister in the Truth can find any reason to oppose; also your articles on the Covenants. I am sure you remember me in prayer. May the Lord's blessing ever be with you.
Yours in "the best of bonds,"
I am writing to assure you that for the last year, or year and a half, the dear heavenly Father has continued to manifest his love toward me by one scourging after another, and now I realize at last what his lesson is for me. The rod has been applied harder and harder until at last the wisdom from above is beginning to penetrate this old, thick head of mine. On my bed of sickness I plead earnestly for instruction. And thank God and the dear Saviour the instruction came.
I am very weak yet, and can scarcely pen this, but I am so glad that the precious privilege and joy of contributing to the spread of the harvest message, has not been taken from me entirely, as my lack of appreciation of it deserved. And now, dear brother, I am enclosing you a draft payable to the Tract Society. I desire that this be used in any way that your judgment may deem best, guided by the Lord, as I know you are. Dear brother, I attribute the precious blessings I am receiving, first of all to my God and my dear Master, and then to "the Vow." Praise God, may I be able to sing as never before, "None of self and all of thee."
I humbly ask your forgiveness for the harsh things I have said and written of you. I regret them from the bottom of my heart. I know the dear Master delights to honor you. Surely I can do no less. I can write no more this time. God bless you.
It is my privilege once more to write you concerning the celebration of the Memorial Supper. Seven of us met last night in a quiet room apart from the world, to meditate upon that eventful night, nearly nineteen hundred years ago, when the great sacrifice was offered up to Justice – "Christ our Passover, slain for us"; and we rejoice that we are still "in the house" and that the blood is upon the door-posts. The preciousness of the "Lamb of God" grows upon us and we delight to feed upon it, even though it means that we must also swallow some of the bitter herbs of persecution and sorrow. "Soon the shadows, weary shadows, will forever pass away."
We were impressed also with the thought of our being broken with him as part of the "one Loaf," and of our covenant to drink of the cup of which he drank, "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ," and willingly and gladly renewed our vows to be "dead with him," for our experience with the blessed Lord has taught us that to follow him means gain a "hundred fold," even in this present time, and a calmness and serenity of spirit. His peace, "My peace I give unto you."
Often the flesh shrinks when we come to the bitter part, but it is our earnest desire that the mind of the [R4392 : page 143] flesh have less and less control of the new man – that the "same mind may be in us which was also in Christ Jesus."
We remembered you in prayer, dear Brother, and all the family of God, "scattered abroad," and yet drawn very closely together by the "tie that binds."
Our loving sympathy is ever with you, beloved Brother, in all your many trials and straining of tender ties, and we are so grateful that in it all you continue to bear us (the Lord's people in general) upon your heart, and are so concerned for us, that no harm comes to us. God keep you, dear Brother, and strengthen you unto the last. Your sister in the Lord,
Have just arrived home, after a precious little season together with others of the Lord's consecrated – "In remembrance" of our dear Saviour's sacrifice on our behalf.
Thirteen of the dear friends "assembled themselves together," and one brother, who was ill, was served at home, making fourteen in all participating. Our hearts were saddened as we remembered what "Christ our Passover" endured "for us," and were filled with joy at the other thought of "That day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom." How this event increases in importance to us as we near the Kingdom, and very properly so, as the light of the dawning day sheds its radiance more and more clearly on the path of the just.
Some, whom we loved dearly as brethren in Christ, who have assembled with us in former years, did not meet with us this year, and this fact lent an added tinge of sadness to the occasion, but with our dear Saviour, we say, "Thy will be done."
We cannot help but feel that they missed a wonderful privilege, which in the very near future they will regret. We thank our heavenly Father, that another year finds us still loving the Truth, and with desires to be in harmony with it, and with our God. We thank him also for the precious little "Vow." We know that we have been blessed by taking it, but just how much it may have aided in keeping our hearts in a condition of loyalty and sympathy and obedience to the Truth, we may not know this side the vail. We do know, however, that Satan has gotten the advantage of some who have not taken it, and we learn the lesson of humility and watchfulness and prayerfulness, lest the great Adversary trip us, and stumble us, over some such plain, reasonable and simple requirements as are contained in this "Vow."
I fear that if the "Vow" had been a vow to do some "great work," some of those who have stumbled would have been eager to take it, but since it was a "Vow" to prayer and watchfulness of thought and word and action they stumbled because of its very simplicity. If the dear Lord can use this little "Vow" to make manifest the heart condition of some of these who claim to be his; what may the next test be? Perhaps it may be something seemingly more simple and of less importance than the "Vow," and who shall be able to stand? And the Psalmist answers, "He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." The "heart" is the all important thing. "Keep thy heart with all diligence." "Let us fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you, should seem to come short of it."
Pray for us, dear Brother, that we may never let any "root of bitterness" spring up in our heart, and defile either ourselves or others.
We are glad to say that we are striving daily to keep every feature of the "Vow," and this means that we remember you and all the Brooklyn Bethel family at the throne daily. With Christian love to all,
Your Brother in Christ,
I have been rejoicing in Present Truth since March, 1908, and would have written you sooner had not the greater part of my thirty-six years been spent in the [R4393 : page 143] newspaper, printing and publishing business, which enables me to draw a fair idea of your burdensome duties while serving the Lord in so many different capacities. However, I am impressed that it would be unwise on my part to further delay writing you, hence this letter.
We have a small class here which elected me teacher. Will you and the Bethel family remember me daily at the throne of grace? I want more of the holy Spirit and the spirit of a sound mind. I want to teach with understanding.
Fifteen years ago I joined my wife and the Methodist Church. I knew at the time my wife was the principal magnet, although I firmly believed the Lord would come my way and in due time make me as happy as my brethren professed to be. My blessed Redeemer did not give me the sweet assurance I expected, and after two years I withdrew with more noise and confusion than I commenced with. I resolved to never enter the building again and that resolution has not been broken. I took up Darwin, Hume and Ingersoll. These were later discarded for Confucius, Buddha and Mohammed. None of these things satisfied my hunger for Truth. Then came the Book of Mormonism, which I read with considerable enthusiasm and finally passed it up to a Baptist preacher. About this time Mrs. Eddy made her little bow in my community, beginning with my wife's mother, a very bright and well-disposed lady, whose wealth and social prominence added no little to the Eddy Idea at this place. I studied the proposition hard, but was not permitted to see the point. One day one of the Lord's faithful, Bro. C. S. Livingston, of Enterprise, asked me if I would take pleasure in the Truth if I knew it was Truth. I told him I would. Then he gave me Volume I and asked me to go to my closet and pray for help to understand that book. If there was a God I wanted to know it. Besides I was in the middle of a campaign for an important county office and the election was only six weeks ahead, and I wanted to please Brother Livingston and get his vote. I went on to my closet and tried to pray. It was the first time I had tried to communicate with the Lord in ten or twelve years. My petition was short and remarkably stupid, but the Lord certainly looked at the spirit in which I approached him and not the eloquence or multiplicity of words. One week later I retired from politics forever, thank the Lord. My friends urged and threatened, but I retired from the race. Five weeks later I had read the six volumes, Tabernacle Shadows and several WATCH TOWERS. I went out on the streets and wrangled with every preacher and Sunday School teacher I could find. I thought I was going to be a power among my friends and political followers. But alas, it is sad to relate. They say, and believe, "Much study has wrecked his mind, for a truth he has paresis!"
I have been zealous for the Lord and the doctrine of the Kingdom. On every suitable occasion I pour out all the hail at my command; but they won't listen. If they can't slip away they will try to change the subject – sing, do anything except listen. Not one grain of wheat can be traced to my energies. The real pillar of the Baptist Church at this place for twenty years, Brother J. J. Morris, accepted the Truth four months ago and Babylon charges me with his ruin and destruction. Would to God they told the truth, but they do not; as usual, they err; the Lord did it. And now, since he is not grinding at their mill, they say "he always did have cranky notions."
Enclosed you will please find "the Vow," our Vow. All the "Israelites indeed, in whom there is no guile," will take the Vow. The more I see of it the more I am impressed that it is the Lord's sieve.
Please send us a Pilgrim. The friends want an Alabama Convention at Texasville in the summer. Remember us daily at the Throne of grace.
Yours in the One Hope,
Morning Rally and Testimony Meeting at 10:30 o'clock.
Discourse by Brother Russell at 3:00 p.m. Evening meeting for the interested at 7:30 o'clock; this will be a Question Meeting. Visiting friends cordially invited.
All meetings will be held in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Nos. 13-17 Hicks street. Convenient to all cars and ferries – close to the old bridge terminus.
Preaching at 3:00 p.m. Praise service at 7:00 p.m.; Berean Bible Study at 7:30 p.m. Convenient to New York via Subway, and Jersey City via P.R.R. Annex Ferry.
page 145
May 1st
| VOL. XXX | MAY 15 | NO. 10 |
"I will stand upon my watch, and set my foot upon the Tower, and will watch to see what He shall say unto me, and what answer I shall make to them that oppose me." Hab. 2:1
Upon the earth distress of nations with perplexity: the sea and the waves (the restless, discontented) roaring: men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking forward to the things coming upon the earth (society): for the powers of the heavens (ecclestiasticism) shall be shaken. . . .When ye see these things come to pass, then know that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Look up, lift up your heads, rejoice, for your redemption draweth nigh. – Luke 21:25-28, 32.
Our "Berean Lessons" are topical rehearsals or reviews of our Society's published "Studies," most entertainingly arranged, and very helpful to all who would merit the only honorary degree which the Society accords, viz., Verbi Dei Minister (V.D.M.), which translated into English is, Minister of the Divine Word. Our treatment of the International S.S. Lessons is specially for the older Bible Students and Teachers. By some this feature is considered indispensable.
This Journal stands firmly for the defence of the only true foundation of the Christian's hope now being so generally repudiated, – Redemption through the precious blood of "the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom [a corresponding price, a substitute] for all." (I Pet. 1:19; I Tim. 2:6.) Building up on this sure foundation the gold, silver and precious stones (I Cor. 3:11-15; 2 Pet. 1:5-11) of the Word of God, its further mission is to – "Make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery which...has been hid in God,...to the intent that now might be made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God" – "which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men as it is now revealed." – Eph. 3:5-9,10.
It stands free from all parties, sects and creeds of men, while it seeks more and more to bring its every utterance into fullest subjection to the will of God in Christ, as expressed in the Holy Scriptures. It is thus free to declare boldly whatsoever the Lord hath spoken; – according to the divine wisdom granted unto us, to understand. Its attitude is not dogmatical, but confident; for we know whereof we affirm, treading with implicit faith upon the sure promises of God. It is held as a trust, to be used only in his service; hence our decisions relative to what may and what may not appear in its columns must be according to our judgment of his good pleasure, the teaching of his Word, for the upbuilding of his people in grace and knowledge. And we not only invite but urge our readers to prove all its utterances by the infallible Word to which reference is constantly made, to facilitate such testing.
Foreign Agencies: – British Branch: 24 Eversholt St., London, N. W. German Branch: Unterdorner Str., 76, Barmen. Australasian Branch: Equitable Building, Collins St., Melbourne.
Terms to the Lord's Poor as Follows: – All Bible Students who, by reason of old age, or other infirmity or adversity, are unable to pay for this Journal, will be supplied Free if they send a Postal Card each May stating their case and requesting its continuance. We are not only willing, but anxious, that all such be on our list continually and in touch with the Studies, etc.
| BROOKLYN BETHEL HYMNS FOR JUNE | |
|---|---|
After the singing of the hymn the Bethel Family listens to the reading of "the Vow" to the Lord, then joins in prayer. At the breakfast table the MANNA text for the date is read and questions and comments considered. Finally, just before leaving the table, the MANNA comment is read. Desiring that all share the blessings, we commend the plan to others. The hymns for June are indicated below to permit all who so desire to join with us: (1) 267; (2) 29; (3) 19; (4) 313; (5) 257; (6) 119; (7) 4; (8) 208; (9) 17; (10) 152; (11) 301; (12) 230; (13) 193; (14) 105; (15) 66; (16) 121; (17) 130; (18) 263; (19) 273; (20) 85; (21) Vow; (22) 8; (23) 71; (24) 291; (25) 258; (26) 312; (27) 191; (28) 169; (29) 120; (30) 279. | |
The Volunteer matter for use among Italians is now ready, and we trust that those having Italian friends or living near Italian sections will recognize the opportunity and order what they can judiciously use.
The cloth and paper editions of the Pocket Hymnals have been unexpectedly delayed in shipment, but we expect to be filling orders by the time this issue reaches you.
page 146
SERIES I., "The Plan of the Ages." gives an outline of the divine plan revealed in the Bible, relating to man's redemption and restitution: 386 pages, in embossed cloth, 25c. (1s. ½d.) India paper edition, 75c. (3s. 1½d.).
This volume has been published as a special issue of our journal – at the extremely low price of 5c. a copy, in any quantity, postage included. (To foreign countries, 9c.) This enables people of slender purse to herald far and wide the good tidings in a most helpful form.
SERIES II., "The Time is at Hand," treats of the manner and time of the Lord's second coming, considering the Bible Testimony on this subject: 370 pages, in embossed cloth, 25c. (1s. ½d.) India paper edition, 75c. (3s. 1½d.)
SERIES III., "Thy Kingdom Come," considers prophecies which mark events connected with the "Time of the End," the glorification of the Church and the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom; it also contains a chapter of the Great Pyramid, showing its corroboration of the dates and other teachings of the Bible: 384 pages, in embossed cloth, 25c. (1s. ½d.) India paper edition, 75c. (3s. 1½d.)
SERIES IV., "The Day of Vengeance," shows that the dissolution of the present order of things is in progress, and that all the panaceas offered are valueless to avert the predicted end. It marks in these events the fulfilment of prophecy, noting specially our Lord's great prophecy of Matt. 24 and Zech. 14:1-9: 660 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.). India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
SERIES V., "The At-one-ment Between God and Man," treats an all-important subject – the hub, the center around which all the features of divine grace revolve. Its topic deserves the most careful and prayerful consideration on the part of all true Christians: 507 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.) India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
SERIES VI., "The New Creation," deals with the Creative Week (Genesis 1 and 2), and with the Church, God's "New Creation." It examines the personnel, organization, rites, ceremonies, obligations and hopes appertaining to those called and accepted as members of the Body under the Head: 740 pages, in embossed cloth, 30c. (1s. 3d.) India paper edition, 85c. (3s. 6½d.)
The above prices include postage.
IN FULL LEATHER BINDING, gilt edges, the set (6 vols.) $3.00, (12s. 6d.), plus postage, 60c. (1s.).
Is also published in foreign languages as follows: German, six vols., in Swedish Vols. 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6; in Dano-Norwegian, three vols.; in Greek, three vols.; in French, two vols.; Hollandish, Spanish, and Italian, one vol. each; bound in cloth, uniform with English edition, prices the same; in Polish, condensed edition, one vol., 10 cents.
In these twenty years we have counselled parents that it is better to give their children less education than to risk the complete wreck of their religious instincts and faith in God and the Bible. Our views were thought to be extreme and rarely heeded. Now parents are writing us of their sad mistake – that the faith of their children is irreparably lost, because they refuse to read the only thing which would enable them to regain the ground of faith lost, namely The Divine Plan of the Ages.
Finally, when the new manhood and womanhood have been thoroughly inoculated with the poison of infidelity others are awakening to the situation; as, for instance, Mr. Harold Bolce, who writes in the "Cosmopolitan," and Hon. S. H. Blake, who has started a good warfare in Canada.
We give below John Temple Graves' note of alarm. He says: –
Out of the curricula of American colleges a dynamic movement is upheaving ancient foundations and making an open way for a revolution in the thought and life of this people. Those who are not in close touch with the great colleges of the country will be astonished, in most cases indignant, to learn the creeds that are being fostered by the strong men in the professors' chairs.
In hundreds of classrooms there is a scholarly repudiation of all solemn authority, and it is being taught daily that "the Decalogue is no more sacred than a syllabus"; that "the home as an institution is doomed"; that "there are no absolute evils"; that "immorality is simply an act in contravention of society's accepted standards"; that "democracy is a failure and the Declaration of Independence only spectacular rhetoric"; that "the change from one religion to another is like getting a new hat"; that "moral precepts are passing shibboleths"; that "conceptions of right and wrong are as unstable as styles of dress"; that "wide stairways are open between social levels, but that to the climber children are encumbrances"; that "the sole effect of prolificacy is to fill tiny graves," and that "there can be and are holier alliances outside the marriage bond than within it!"
Every quoted sentiment is from the spoken or written word of some one of the leading and famous professors of the great colleges.
And the colleges carrying such new and revolutionary creeds are not the minor schools, but those vaster seminaries such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton (shade of Jonathan Edwards behold it!), University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago, Columbia, Syracuse, California, George Washington, William and Mary, Northwestern, the universities of New York, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Cornell, Brown, Leland Stanford, Union, Nebraska and others.
In each of these great institutions some professor, neither infallible nor inspired, but a free thinker rioting in the mere license of opinion, and some, alas, hungering for the notoriety of the utterance, are flinging down daily doctrines like these, not to strong and mature men capable of discrimination and accustomed to disputation, but speaking from responsible stations to youthful and undeveloped minds which are accustomed to receive what comes from the scholar in the chair of authority as the unchallenged gospel of the time.
"Meat for strong men and milk for babes," has no restraining influence upon the riot of opinion among these so-called professors of to-day. If these men really believe the monstrous conceptions which are stirring the age to unwholesome revolution against the doctrines of the ages, they should at least voice them first in serious councils of their peers, and submit them solemnly and primarily to an arena in which orthodoxy can fairly defend [R4394 : page 147] its Gibraltars and stand by its own.
But to strip every shred of reverence from the foot of thought – to march out before unfledged youth of either sex – to dissect God, and Religion and Homage and Home, and Government as if they were mere fossils, or vertebrates or equations – to leave morals afloat upon inclination, and so unsettle standards of virtue that every youth might swing unsmitten of conscience from the classroom to the scarlet woman in the street – this is carrying liberty of thought to the rank license which makes the intellectual commune and presages the revolution which is the beginning of chaos.
The presidents of these great institutions, held in check by boards and councils, are not usually the voices of this amazing propaganda. But college professors, in the enjoyment of apparently too much liberty, and of rarely questioned responsibility, are sowing the seeds of these dangerous doctrines day by day in the minds of a quarter of a million of American young men and women who are going out to make the morals, the manners and the civilization of our country.
I protest the initial exploitation of these "doubtful disputations" upon the great body in whom all of us have such vital concern. I deny the right of teacher or professor [R4394 : page 148] to take such advantage of youth sent by orthodox parents to university halls.
I am neither preacher nor Puritan. I neither cavil nor cant. I am an ordinary man of the world, who, as unworthy as he is, keeps yet in reverence the old orthodox faith of his fathers, and I do not hesitate to say that if I had a son in one of these colleges, and I heard that such doctrines were being fed to him out of the irreverent lips of uninspired thinkers, I would put my hat on my head and walk up to the chancellor's office of that university and demand on behalf of my son, and of other sons of American citizens, that these intellectual banditti of the classroom should practise their license of opinion upon the sunrise clubs or the free thought societies to which they belong, or ought to belong, and to leave unstained to these tender minds those old honored and orthodox creeds by which American fathers and mothers for over a hundred years have led their children up to the honor of the American home and to the responsibility of the American citizen.
Under date of Toronto, March 29th, 1909, the Hon. H. S. Blake of Canada replies to a college student respecting the responsibility of college teachers for the spread of Infidelity amongst the people, under the specious name of "Higher Criticism," thus: –
My Dear Brother: – I have received and thought a great deal over your letter of the 19th inst....
I have not time to reply to all the letters that I have received containing complaints of the teaching given by those who "sit in Moses' seat," but have made the Word of God of none effect."
You will, therefore, excuse me if, while I deal with your difficulty, I also take up some other points that have been presented.
You ask my attention to one of the text-books which is prescribed for you in your course of study for the ministry, namely, "The Life of Christ," by Burton & Matthews (Constructive Studies); and you say as to this, "I have been impressed by the amount of what I consider 'Higher Criticism' that I find there." But this should not surprise you, for this book has the endorsement of "The University of Chicago," which University gives its imprimatur to a work of Professor G. B. Foster on "The Finality of the Christian Religion," in which it is declared at page 130 that to the scientific understanding of the world, and to the intellectual attitude super-induced by science, a miracle cannot be admitted; and again, at page 132, where the anti-supernaturalistic principle is not only admitted, but is paraded, and a man is said not to be a "modern" who does not admit it, Prof. Foster affirms, "An intelligent man who now affirms faith in such stories (miraculous narratives like the Bible) as actual facts can hardly know what intellectual honesty means."
So that you perceive from other books which have the authority of this University that the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus is not to be accepted. You may possibly in due course be led to this book, but in the meantime you refer to page 269 of the text-book, which you are obliged to study, where this comment on verse 33, of chapter XV. of the Gospel of St. Mark, is found: –
"And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour." On which the comment is: "Darkness; if taken literally, it was probably due to a storm of sand....But probably the phrase in its origin is metaphorical." There is no more reason to think that this is metaphorical than that the fact of the crucifixion itself was a mere metaphor. Even as children, we learned that God hung the world in mourning when the creature crucified the Creator. It was fitting and proper that this should be done. Continue to believe it as God's miracle to call the attention of the world, at that time assembled in Jerusalem, to the depth of the crime committed. Second, you call attention to the belittling of the mode in which God called the attention of all to the fact that Jesus Christ was the new and living way into the Holy of Holies. It was intended to strike home to the mind of a Jew the great truth beyond any other means that could be presented. The Jew might well stand awe-struck at the rending of the heavy veil and the throwing open to the gaze of all that which for centuries was regarded as too sacred a place to be entered but once in the year, and that by the High Priest alone, and then not without blood.
To say that, "This rather than a physical fact is perhaps all that the words should be taken to mean," is without any warrant whatever. These two instances to which you refer are simply illustrations of the determination of those who are introducing the new Bible to drive away everything that savors of the miraculous.
Pay no attention to the statements of the Higher Critics "that certain words are apparently an addition to the original narrative, etc." He says it is "apparently" so to him. But in all such cases take my advice and thankfully accept the text that has stood for all these centuries rather than the suggestions of some new light....
It may be helpful to you to read this quotation from Wesley's preface to his explanatory notes of the Bible printed for the "Wesleyan Methodist Bookroom":
"Concerning the Scriptures in general, it may be observed, the word of the living God, which directed the first patriarchs also, was, in the time of Moses, committed to writing. To this were added, in several succeeding generations, the inspired writings of the other prophets. Afterwards, what the Son of God preached, and the Holy Ghost spake by the apostles, the apostles and evangelists wrote. This is what we now style the Holy Scripture. This is that 'Word of God which remaineth forever,' of which, though 'heaven and earth pass away, one jot or tittle shall not pass away.' The Scripture, therefore, of the Old and New Testaments is a most solid and precious system of divine truth. Every part thereof is worthy of God; and all together are one entire body, wherein is no defect, no excess. It is the fountain of heavenly wisdom, which they who are able to taste, prefer to all writings of men, however wise, or learned, or holy."...
But, you will say, Did John Wesley know of the wonderful teachings of "new light," "modern thought," "common sense," "rational views"? Did he know of the infirmities of Genesis, the mistakes of Moses, the childishness of the story of Jonah? And had he recognized that a belief in miracles was a sure mark of superstition to be at once rejected by anyone that pretended to intellectual power?
Why, John Wesley lived in the very centre of this atmosphere when, as one of the "Bible moths" in his Oxford days, he was the perpetual object of attack, ridicule and obloquy by the smart, clever infidel set of the 18th century. He was a contemporary of Thomas Paine, with his "Age of Reason" and "Common Sense," and of Voltaire and Volney.
After quoting Dr. Eakin's words in defense – "It is a significant fact that neither Charles Bradlaugh, in England, nor Colonel Ingersoll, in America, has had any successor" – Mr. Blake concludes: –
How amused these two gentlemen would be if they, revisiting the scenes of their labors, attended some of the lectures of the higher critics in the Toronto Y.M. C.A. and elsewhere, and perused their many volumes! How "significant" to them would be the fact that their labors were not thrown away, and that so-called ministers of God were playing him false, and that schools and colleges rendered their presence unnecessary, as the work commenced by them was being so constantly, efficiently and thoroughly carried on by their ecclesiastical successors!
It is a still more "significant fact" what a wonderful [R4394 : page 149] resemblance the above teaching, sanctioned by Dr. Eakin, bears to the results that we find amongst our students and graduates who have had the disadvantage of his teaching!
One reason urged for preserving such teaching which should trouble every lover of our country is, that the students thus instructed are to be throughout the length and breadth of our land the teachers in our public schools, and are to receive diplomas enabling them to continue to spread abroad the infidelity of this destructive criticism.
Truly, "the plague is begun." How is this plague to be "stayed?" There is no more live question in our [R4395 : page 149] Dominion to-day than is this.
It is not denied that this is the teaching we have in some of our colleges, and that the determination is to proceed with such instruction in order to educate those that are to be the teachers in our land to believe in and to present a mangled edition of the Bible. Remember, my dear friend, that these men do not seek to strengthen faith in the Bible, to build up their pupils in a reverence and love for it and an acceptance of it as God's Word. All the doubts, difficulties, uncertainties, objections, contradictions, imperfections, mistakes, that can be conjured up from minds that have been devoted to this one-sided study are presented. The views of people that do not know how to weigh evidence are given as conclusive.
If a man has his doubts as to the authenticity of the Bible as God's Word, he is to be deeply pitied, and is worthy of great sympathy. If with such doubts he spreads them abroad, pity should end in reproof; but if with such doubts he accepts the position of instructor of youth and spreads abroad the poison with which he is afflicted, he should be found guilty of treason against the State, which he is wounding in its most vital part.
H. S. BLAKE.
Naturally the friends of New York and vicinity have felt a justifiable curiosity and interest in the arrangements, not only in the Tabernacle Auditorium but also in its office and shipping departments, and an additional curiosity in the home which we style Bethel. However, remembering the general interests of the work everywhere, we requested the dear friends in this vicinity to restrain their loving curiosity, assuring them that when we would be in order a general Reception would be arranged. The opportune time for that reception came the night before we took the steamer for the European tour. We want to give you all a little picture of the Reception on that evening, so that those who can never visit the Tabernacle and Bethel actually may enjoy the pleasure of a mental survey of their appointments.
The family took an early luncheon so as to be prepared to give their entire attention to the visiting friends. The reception was set for from seven to nine o'clock, but, as had been anticipated, some came earlier. On they came, a happy company of about three hundred and sixty – according to some estimates four hundred and fifty. They were received at the entrance, No. 13 Hicks street, in the Sales Room by a brother and three sisters. From there another sister showed them the sisters' cloak room and lavatory. Then a brother showed them the Mailing Department – how the lists are kept; how they are printed upon the wrappers; and how the Towers and People's Pulpit are prepared for mailing. Next they were shown the Subscription Department and the locations occupied by the different helpers and the safes in which the addresses are kept by the card system. Next they were met by a representative of the Colporteur Department, who gave them some explanation respecting that part of the work. Then they had explained to them the method of keeping track of the Pilgrims and the requests for their services by the card system. After this they were shown the desks of the various workers in the Correspondence Department.
When through with this inspection they were referred to another brother, who showed them the files of old Towers and then directed them onward to the Basement. Arriving in the basement a brother took them in charge and showed them the Packing Department. Another showed them the type-setting arrangements. Then they were shown the bins in which the general supplies of "Dawn-Studies" in the various languages, Booklets, Tracts, Charts, Bibles and Mottoes are kept. Then they looked at the furnace. These inspections being finished they were directed to a front stairway which landed them on the street at entrance No. 17 Hicks street. Here they were directed how to find their way to "Brooklyn Bethel," some blocks distant. In the center window in the front of the Tabernacle on plate glass in gold and colors the cross and crown pin, which so many of you have, is reproduced on a large scale – about three feet in diameter. Above it are the words, BROOKLYN TABERNACLE, PEOPLE'S PULPIT. Below the cross and crown design are the words "IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST WE GLORY." Wishing to give to each visitor a memento of trifling value, one of these cross and crown pins was thought most suitable; accordingly one was presented to each before leaving the building.
The constant stream of people occasioned no end of comment in the neighborhood. The Bethel doors stood wide open and one of the sisters receiving the friends as they entered ushered them into the parlor, a fine large room. The parlor is furnished in part with the parlor furniture from the Allegheny Bible House but mainly with furniture purchased with the "surplus" money presented by the Allegheny Congregation to Brother Russell, in connection with the rug and the mahogany desk and chair and stands for his study. Some of the sisters received the friends in the parlor and then passed them along through the double doorway to Brother Russell, who received them in his study. These two splendid rooms with lofty ceilings and heavy stucco work constitute the main floor of Bethel. In the center of the study is an old style, massive chandelier, to the bottom of which is suspended a white dove with pinions spread wide, a present to the study by Sister Seibert. Additional to the articles already described as presented to the Study by the Allegheny Church is a large arm chair presented to Brother Russell some years ago by the Los Angeles Church, also a stenographer's desk, a large photograph cabinet containing pictures of hundreds of Watch Tower friends, including Pilgrims and Colporteurs. There also is a couch where Brother Russell sleeps at night within reach of the telephone and thus within reach of you all, the world over. Finally we must not forget to mention a large walnut book case covering the entire west side of the room – with a capacity [R4395 : page 150] of two thousand volumes – the identical one used for years by that celebrated preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, who may not improperly be said to have made Brooklyn famous.
From the study the visitors were shown upward to the second floor, which is devoted exclusively to the use of the unmarried sisters. This floor has four rooms. Upward still to the third floor they were shown, whose five rooms are occupied by the married couples of the family. This is as high as some of the friends cared to go. But those who desired were shown to the top floor, whose six rooms are occupied by the unmarried brethren.
While inspecting the upper floors the friends were invited to look out of the windows at the rear of the house. There they saw a most enchanting spectacle. To their left was the Harbor and Staten Island and Jersey City, while directly in front of them were scores of the most massive and lofty buildings in the world – lower New York. The electric lights could be seen in the windows in many of these twenty and thirty stories high. The Singer Building, electrically illuminated from base to roof outside and inside (forty-seven stories), was a sight which could not be duplicated elsewhere in the world.
So much walking and sight-seeing served to give the friends some appetite and appropriately they were next invited to the basement of the building, where a dining-room more than fifty feet long was able to accommodate sixty at a time. They were supplied some simple refreshments at the willing hands of members of the family. From the dining-room and its hallway access was had to the street and the dear friends were bidden "Good night!" We hope the visitors enjoyed themselves as much on the occasion as did the household of Brooklyn Tabernacle and Bethel.
No wonder the Scriptures suggest the keeping of the Law of love only to Christians – to those begotten of the holy Spirit and thus have the assistance of the grace of God in daily living, as well as the mercy of God in Christ to cover all of their imperfections, all of their unintentional shortcomings. But it is expected of these consecrated ones that they will keep that Law. Whoever comes short of it in spirit, in heart intention, is unfit for the Kingdom, and will not be of the "little flock." More than this, if he comes short of this standard of heart intention he cannot be in the "great company" either, for God has not provided eternal life for any except such as shall now attain to this condition of love in the heart, the will or intention; and during the Millennial Age only to those who shall attain perfect love actually.
The Apostle next enumerates some of the perspicuous commandments – the one against adultery, the one against murder, the one against theft, the one against false witness, the one against covetousness. All of these commands presuppose a fallen condition of mind, out of harmony with God – a selfish heart. Is it not selfishness that leads any to covet the things which belong to another? Is it not selfishness, the opposite of love, that leads to false witnessing? Is it not selfishness, the opposite of love, that leads to theft? Is it not selfishness that lies back of murder and adultery – self-love, self-gratification? And the essence of all the other commands is Love, the same love to our neighbor that we have for ourselves, the same desire for his welfare, his prosperity, his happiness, his health, etc. Whoever, therefore, attains to this position of full consecration to God, a begetting of the holy Spirit, has before him this great lesson – to learn to love his neighbor as himself.
Well does the Apostle add, "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor," no injury of any sort. Love would prompt us to be as careful of the health of our neighbor as of our own, as careful of his reputation as of our own, as careful of his property as of our own, as careful of his feelings as of our own. What a wonderful world it will be when the Kingdom of God's dear Son in the Millennial Age shall have brought all mankind back, mentally, morally and physically, to the original perfection of human nature, in the image and likeness of the God of Love – having destroyed all refusing to co-operate!
We must bear in memory that the Apostle was addressing Christians in whom the new life had been begun. His language implies what we know is very frequently the case, namely, that after the early Christian experience of turning from sin to righteousness, from ignorance and superstition to faith and knowledge, and from the feelings of the stranger to a realization of adoption and membership in the family of God, there comes later to some a measure of carelessness, drowsiness. A spirit of the world comes in and threatens to overwhelm the New Creature. The beautiful truths lose some of their freshness, crispness, beauty and flavor. Something new is looked for, and is provided by the Adversary, along the lines of more or less self-gratification in earthly things.
The strenuosity of the new experience reacts and spiritual lethargy comes on. The experience of realizing sins forgiven and ourselves adopted into the family of God and the necessity for learning the lessons of the School of Christ is considerably forgotten. Some such occasionally cry out, "Where is the blessedness I knew when first I knew the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view of Jesus and his Word?" Such a cry implies an awakening of the kind which the Apostle wished to encourage. In other words, in this lesson he says, "Knowing the time that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us, therefore, cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." The thought here evidently is a double one: –
(1) We who have accepted Christ should be awake. Each day and week and month and year should find us more awake and more zealous and more appreciative of our wonderful privileges. Our salvation, our resurrection "change," is surely nearing day by day.
(2) From whatever standpoint we view the matter it must be that the night-time of sin is far spent. It must be that the morning of the new dispensation is near. The Apostle wrote after four thousand years had passed and when the fifth was under way. We live when the [R4401 : page 151] entire six thousand-year days are in the past and the seventh, the Millennium of promise, is chronologically already begun.
From both standpoints, with both arguments, it is proper for us to cast off the works of darkness and everything pertaining to sin and error and to put on the armor of light to prepare us for the duties of the new day, the morning light of which shines now.
The exhortation of the Apostle is as appropriate today as it was when written, and we urge its forcefulness upon all. In our estimation the Lord has sent to his people in the present time the exhortation of the Vow we have suggested to wake them up. One dear brother recently said to us, "I have already told you of my ungodly life, before the Truth reached me. When I accepted the Truth and made my full consecration to the Lord I experienced a blessing of great joy and peace. [R4402 : page 151] Afterwards I lost this joyful feeling in considerable measure. At first the loss of it distressed me. I sought it carefully, but found it not. I am more pleased to tell you that since I took that Vow and brought my original Vow of consecration up to date, as it were – since then the joy has returned to me and I have ever precious fellowship and communion with my Lord. I am striving to continue in this relationship and not to 'grieve the holy Spirit, whereby I am sealed, unto the day of redemption.'" We believe that this is the experience of a great many and the lesson for us is not far to seek. Any endeavor to draw near to the Lord by the renunciation of hindrances and the making of straight paths for our feet must surely bring a blessing.
The word here rendered "honestly" might more properly be translated becomingly, in harmony with our faith, our hope, our appreciation of the Lord, our appreciation of the morning light. By way of contrast the Apostle stipulates certain things as belonging to the night which would be unbecoming to us, not only in their grosser sense, but also in the more refined. Live not in intoxication. Surely it would be unbecoming for any saint to become literally intoxicated at a banquet or a revel, but surely, also, there is a more refined sort of reveling and intoxication. One can become intoxicated with a revel in pleasure of any kind, in automobiling, in golfing, cricketing or social whirl. The true Christian must recognize all of these as things that do not belong to the morning of the new dispensation, things that are incompatible with the light of Present Truth, which show us where we stand at the opening of a new dispensation and what wonderful possibilities arise for the sacrificing of the present life and for the attainment of the glories of the Kingdom.
As Christians we should not walk (live) in chambering (unlawful intercourse), wantonness (self-gratification). These experiences apply to some in a gross sense, but to others surely in their refined sense. There is no fellowship or communion between light and darkness on any plane, because the two are opposites. Any intercourse, therefore, with things of darkness, the things of sin, the things occult, the things that are not in fullest harmony with the Lord are an unwarranted, unlawful intercourse or fellowship. Likewise wantonness (selfishness) may apply to a refined kind of selfishness (self-gratification), pampering of appetites and failure to sacrifice earthly pleasures, in harmony with our consecration Vow to engage in the service of the Lord, the Truth and the brethren; or in doing good to all with whom we come in contact and have opportunity.
The Christian should not live (walk) in strife and envying. Here again a coarse and a refined thought may be apparent. To the world the strife may be understood grossly to mean fisticuffs and physical encounters and such bitter jealousies as would lead to evil deeds and murder, actual or in the heart; or we could apply these injunctions in a more refined way to saints as an exhortation that our lives be not strifeful, but that we follow peace, seek to promote the interests of peace everywhere – in our own home, in our neighborhood, amongst the Lord's people far and near. "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Envyings, jealousies, alas, in a refined sense, are to be found with nearly all mankind. Often, unrecognized by the New Creature, jealousy is a fruitful source of much injury in the Church, which is the Body of Christ. No other evil quality can lead to more harm to ourselves and others than envy, jealousy. We are to put off all these things.
Here we have the thought. Our hearts are already consecrated to the Lord. We are already adopted into his family by the begetting of his holy Spirit. But our flesh is not perfect and it continues to love many of the garments of the old nature, which we are to put off. Gradually we are to substitute the new clothing, the livery of heaven, by which all may know us outwardly as well as know us by profession to be children of God, brethren of Christ, "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord."
Putting on the Lord Jesus is not the work of a moment, nor of an hour, nor of a month, nor of a year; it is the work of a life time. But unless it be begun it will never be completed. And indeed we may be sure that we can never fully put on Christ's characteristics. However, the Lord will see our endeavor, our strenuous fighting to put off the old nature, to put off the works of the flesh and to be clothed with the garments of righteousness, suitable to our relationship to him – the livery, the clothing, that will make us separate from the world, sanctified to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Ah, here we have an important point to be remembered. On it will greatly depend our success or our failure as respects the winning of the prize. When as New Creatures we made full consecration to the Lord and surrendered all the rights of the human nature our flesh did not agree to the contract, but protested. Subsequently it found it good policy to reason with the New Creature quietly, calmly, urging moderation in righteousness and self-sacrifice – urging, too, that we should not be more extreme than are others; that we should not make ourselves foolish in the estimation of others, lest this bring contempt upon the cause we desire to serve.
Ah, how shrewd, how cunning, how deceitful is the flesh! If we would give heed to its plausible reasoning we would go out of the race altogether, failing to sacrifice, and hence failing to become members of the "royal priesthood," and to share the Kingdom glory of our Redeemer. Occasionally the New Creature wakes up and purposes energetic, thorough-going measures of self-sacrifice in every direction; but the old nature, the flesh, quietly makes its appeal – You must at least reserve thus and so; and, You cannot cut off thus and so entirely; and, it would be monstrous and unjust to yourself to practise self-denial to such an extent. You must make provision for the flesh! is its claim. "Make no provision for the flesh," urges the Apostle. And the flesh generally has its own way; for that reason the overcoming self-sacrificers will be but a "little flock," while those who will go into the Second Death or into the "Great Company" will be more numerous.
The question, Shall I make provision for the flesh to fulfil its desires, or, shall I not? should be weighed by every saint. Much depends upon the decision. It is at this very juncture that the "Vow to the Lord" which we have been recently advocating as seasonable to all of the "household" of faith is proving a great blessing to many. It is helping them to the point of making absolutely no provision for the flesh to further its desires along any line. It promises, if possible, more careful inspection than ever of each word and thought and act. It raises barricades at various weak points and thus [R4402 : page 152] strengthens the New Creature and confirms its highest resolutions, and it proportionately binds the old nature and mortifies (deadens) it.
The old nature is exceedingly deceitful. It will not admit that it is afraid of the Vow. Rather it will boast that it has no need of it, because it is already dead. The difficulty all the time is that the old nature fears to see the New Creature shut and permanently bar every door to its liberties. It urges that if the New Creature makes no provision for the flesh, it should not at least make such strenuous provision against the flesh and its liberties. Let us hearken to the voice of the Lord through the Apostle and close every avenue whereby the flesh might attack us in a moment of weakness or inattention. Let us throw out the pickets of prayer and watchfulness against every thought and word and act not in fullest harmony with the Spirit of our Lord. Let us thus by the aid of the Vow put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil its desires.
Furthermore we understand that it is through such mental suggestions, etc., that the evil spirits are now attempting to gain, more than ever, control of humanity. In Christian Science we perceive the method to be a confusing of the human judgment, so as to render those under its influence incapable of rational thought along religious lines, so confused do the advocates become through false definitions. We believe that the mind cures, etc., more commonly called hypnotism, and supposed to be merely exercise of the mind, are really attempts of the fallen angels, the demons, to break down the human will, the barrier which God has granted for protection against them: that thus these evil spirits may ultimately gain a much larger control over our poor race than ever since the flood.
Physicians are paying to be taught how to exercise hypnotic influences upon their patients. One large dry goods store in New York City employs, at $8000 a year, a man who was once a minister of the Gospel of Christ and subsequently a lecturer on hypnotism and mental control. His business now is to instruct the clerks of that large establishment how to exercise hypnotic influences upon their customers so as to increase the sales of the establishment.
Finally, in the Emmanuel movement, we believe that these evil spirits are coming still closer and becoming more dangerous and seductive; because the claim is that this hypnotic power in the hands of ministers of the gospel is a duplication of the work of Christ and the apostles in healing the sick nineteen centuries ago. Books have been written explaining to ministers how to introduce this "Emmanuel Movement" into their Churches. Circulars are sent to all ministers everywhere urging the importance of these books and this method. We can imagine no more seductive method for the introduction of the influences of the evil spirits, the fallen angels, in the breaking down of the human will. Lest we should be misunderstood, we repeat that we have no thought that any of these people practise hypnotism with any suspicion that they are in collusion with the fallen angels or doing evil to the fallen race. Rather they are benevolent and desire to "do good to all men." But they do not understand the Word of God. "My people perish for lack of knowledge." They are being ensnared by the very ones who should be their pastors, assistants and protectors, and by reason of their confidence in them.
What the end of the matter will be the Lord only knows. But it is surely the fact that every time a person is hypnotised his will is the weaker. He can the more easily be hypnotised again and thus the brains and nerves of the civilized world are being trained for an onslaught from the evil spirits. Well indeed the Apostle wrote, "We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with wicked spirits in exalted positions."
As we write a clipping is handed us from the "New York Herald" which shows that some others see something of the danger in this direction. We quote the clipping and follow it with an extract from "The Housekeeper" on the same subject, which will be interesting reading.
According to the Rev. Dr. I. M. Haldeman, pastor of the First Baptist Church, Broadway and Seventy-ninth street, if the Emmanuel movement is allowed to continue its work it will ruin the Church.
Mr. Haldeman in his sermon said the only church that would survive would be the Christian Science Church. He added that the Emmanuel Movement is more of a peril than Christian Science because the Christian Scientists had kept apart from the orthodox church, while the Emmanuel movement was born in the Episcopal Church and invaded the Baptist ranks.
Through the practice of hypnotic healing clergymen would be subjected to scandal, Dr. Haldeman said, because of "the tender relationship a minister comes into with his flock."
"I beg you to turn away from the Emmanuel movement," said the minister. "It will give you salvation in time and damnation in eternity. The time has come to rise up and protest against ministers turning themselves into hypnotists and their churches into mental healing hospitals."
Dr. Haldeman declared the Emmanuel movement "one of the most accursed and damnable inventions of the age."
The following is from the "Housekeeper": –
We have been asked why we have not printed something about the "Emmanuel Movement." Like some other questions in this world of ours, the question is easier asked than answered.
It would be a simple matter to print an article showing the historical growth of the movement, and one strongly advocating its principles.
It would be a simple matter to print an article strongly condemning the movement. [R4396 : page 153]
There are many people, with ability to write, who have made a careful study of the phases of the movement, but who hold diametrically opposite views. A religious movement is perhaps the most difficult phenomenon of human life to study. If we are neither exponents nor opponents, we are the friends of neither and the enemies of both. As with the earliest Christian faith, "He who is not for Me is against Me."
The movement is comparatively new, and thus it is very hard to comprehend its principles, especially as so much has been written about it that one is confused by the mass. Any new movement or faith acquires a large number of disciples who have been waiting for something new. Until these followers leave the ranks in pursuit of something newer, it is difficult to observe the fire for the smoke.
The movement takes its name from a church in Boston whose ministers were the pioneers. Undoubtedly there are a large number of converts to the movement who [R4397 : page 153] have followed the Christian Science ideas more or less closely but have been restrained for certain reasons or beliefs from joining the Christian Science church.
Many of these people have found in the Emmanuel Movement what they have sought, good counsel for a wearied soul, the suggestion from an outside source that there is hope, the balm of spiritual peace, the evidence of optimism and power of mind over body – and have been given medicines for their sick bodies.
But if we are really to consider the movement, we cannot stop at this point. To a lay mind, the Emmanuel movement seems to be a combination of religious faith, mental faith curing, and modern medicine. At first thought this would seem to be an admirable combination, but is it not rather a compromise to salve the prejudices of all?
James M. Buckley, editor of "The Christian Advocate," has written of some "Dangers of the Emmanuel Movement." He has pointed out that hypnotism and suggestion do not always tend to induce a higher, more moral tone, although so stated, in spite of our wish that this might be so. He asks if the time of a servant of a church is not now crowded with the many duties; does he not labor seven days of a week and sigh for more time to administer to the spiritual wants of his flock? This, he suggests, should be considered before ministers enter the ranks of healers.
Consider human nature, American human nature. If ministers become medical advisers and use mental healing, in such cases will we not have experiments in suggestion, hypnosis and untrained diagnosis throughout the land which will be as foreign to the first ideals of the Emmanuel church in Boston as it is possible to imagine. If the mind becomes sick, which is one of the suggestions of the Emmanuel Movement – and a very good one – would it be any less quackery to try experimental cures upon it than upon the body?
"Psychology" is a word which it is becoming necessary to understand. However, we have not really advanced so very far in the study of psychology, only far enough to establish certain premises – and we should be careful not to take wild flights therefrom. Has not the Emmanuel Movement taken a little of psychology and assumed the rest? The very fact that we, that is, our workers, thinkers and experimenters, specialists, have been progressing should lead us to be content to wait until certain conclusions have been more definitely proved. Of course, if we wait, wait, forever wait, and never act, we will be waiting at the millennium. But we have been eating a great deal of mental food of late, and it might be wise to digest a little bit of it.
"The Housekeeper" believes that fresh air, careful diet, good living and good thoughts – the well-rounded life – this is the best physician. But like the servant of old, the physician of medicine is worthy of his hire and a very good hire.
It is well to consider what certain physicians have said of the Emmanuel Movement. In an interview in the "Boston Herald," Dr. J. J. Putnam, professor of nervous diseases at the medical school at Harvard University, said in part: –
"I consider the whole affair an injury to the progress of scientific medicine....When the Rev. Mr. Worcester talked to me he gave me to understand that his idea was to take those of his parishioners who needed suggestive help, and if there were no real physical disturbance in the individuals to lead them along the line of self-control by suggestion. I also agreed with him that many of these unfortunates needed assistance in the way of getting some occupation – something congenial that would take their minds away from themselves – to stop their introspection, the self-worry....
"At the present moment the claims of the Emmanuel people are misleading, if not something else. The public lectures at a dollar admission in other cities, and other well known commercial methods, do not look well in either priest or doctor.
"There are many reasons why this sensational movement – a veritable epidemic – should be limited and controlled. First, the notoriety given it brings out a crowd of morbid individuals who will impulsively jump at any fad which offers new sensations. This state only increases their unstable condition. The marvelous cures reported in the press and from the platform mislead the masses and put hope in the really ill, which is cruel, for many of these will believe until the second shock of disbelief comes, and by this time they have lost faith in the trained physician, in all treatment and suffer on unaided. Many of these unfortunates resort to quack medicines and thus become morphine and alcoholic victims.
"The crowd of untrained and unfitted clergymen who at once jump into the role of medical men and preach and practice what they call psycho-therapeutics is going to do great harm, is an injury to the public welfare....
"This is the whole trouble with the statements now going out to the world from the Emmanuel healers; the public are led to believe that there is a decided line between functional and organic diseases, and that the untrained – the clergymen throughout the country – can mark this line, when in truth the experienced neurologist is not at all certain."
Opinions by other physicians of equal standing reiterated Dr. Putnam's statements.
It is always a sore trial to any sincere person to attempt to criticise or discourage a movement which is noble and generous in its conception, but like mistaken charity, the tree must be known by its fruit.
The first offering of the Day of Atonement was the bullock, which typified the man Jesus. It was because of this offering and by the act of consecration that our Lord became the Anointed One – "the High Priest of our profession." As the spirit-begotten High Priest our Lord for three and a half years offered up himself, his manhood, in sacrifice. He finished that offering, typified by the bullock, at his death. Then, as shown in the type, he took the blood of the bullock and proceeded into the Most Holy, "there to appear in the presence of God for us" – the "household of faith."
In the type the typical high priest, after offering the first sacrifice and after applying its blood on behalf of the body (the under-priest) and his house (the tribe of Levi), laid his hands on the Lord's goat and slew it and did with it as with the bullock, except that its blood when taken into the Most Holy was differently applied – on behalf of the other eleven tribes, who represented all nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues of humanity.
These two offerings and their distinctly separate sprinklings of blood were both parts of the one Atonement Day service – "this he did once." Two deaths are clearly shown and two blood sprinklings; and on behalf of two different classes; but they were parts of the one sin atonement. Just so our Lord, during his earthly ministry, was dying daily, yet it was one sacrifice; so also when we fill up a share of his sufferings, dying daily, it is part of his sufferings and sacrifice, which he is still accomplishing in us once for all – this he does once and will never repeat. All sacrificing of this sort will end with this age – he will accept no further members of the Body of Christ, no additional members to "the royal priesthood."
As we have repeatedly shown, the first Atonement Day sacrifice was our Lord's sacrifice of his own flesh, the man Jesus, and the second sacrifice was that of his adopted members – those justified by his blood and consecrated to his service even unto death. These accepted by the Lord are sacrificed by him as parts or members of himself; and their blood (death) is counted in as a part of the blood of Christ – "dead with him." This is the "Mystery" hidden from previous ages and generations. The "fellowship of this Mystery" was granted to the Jews and Gentiles of the "little flock" of the called and chosen and faithful.
Our Lord as the High Priest laid his hand upon the "Lord's goat" at Pentecost. His power (hand) there came upon his followers accepting their consecration and bringing to them the trying experiences as his members which faithfully endured will, according to the Divine plan, grant them a share with him in his divine [R4398 : page 154] nature and Kingdom. It is not the suffering of the Church that counts, but the sufferings of Christ. It is because we are counted in as members of Christ, "members in particular of the Body of Christ," that we are permitted to be his members on the spirit plane and to share the glories and honors of our Head. "If we suffer with him, we shall reign with him." "If we be dead with him we shall live with him."
Thus the sufferings of Christ, while in the one sense of the word ended at Calvary, in another sense of the word continue in his members; this is a "Mystery" to many. The sufferings of Christ are still in process and his faithful ones are still filling them up. St. Peter tells us that the prophets of old spake of the sufferings of Christ and of the glories that should follow. The sufferings of Christ Jesus were followed by his personal glorification, demonstration of which was given at Pentecost; but the glory mentioned in this text has not yet been accomplished. It awaits the completion of the sufferings of Christ – the sufferings of the members: "For if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." (1 Cor. 12:26.) "When he shall appear in glory, we shall appear with him." We shall be glorified together if we suffer with him as his members.
With the Jews there was a Day of Atonement every year, with its sacrifices repeated year by year continually. But with Christ there is but one antitypical Atonement Day and when its "better sacrifices" shall have been accomplished – when the great antitypical High Priest shall have finished the work of offering up himself, including his members, thereafter there will be no more sufferings of Christ for anybody to fill up. The glory of the Millennial Kingdom will then be ushered in. The sins of the whole world will be blotted out so far as God is concerned and the High Priest of our profession will be a Priest upon his throne (Head and members) after the order of Melchisedec.
The world is to be sought and to be recovered during the Millennium, its period for judging (disciplining) and trial for life eternal. Then the faithful and obedient of all peoples will obtain full Restitution and life eternal. But now, in advance, this "common salvation" comes by faith to a certain class – to those who have the hearing of faith and the eye of faith, and obedient hearts. These, by virtue of the merit of Christ applied to them when Jesus "ascended up on high there to appear in the presence of God for us" – these are reckoned as having all the advantages of restitution imputed to them on account of their faith. They do not get restitution actually, but reckonedly. Their faith is counted to them for righteousness or perfection.
Why is there this discrimination in Divine providence – that some now hear the voice of the Son of Man and live, through Justification of Faith, while others will not hear the voice of the Son of Man and come to life and perfection until the Millennium and then actually and not reckonedly? – "Verily, verily, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear (obey) shall live." – John 5:25.
The answer is that this is a part of the "Mystery" of God; that the Lord is now seeking for and electing a special class to be joint-heirs with his Son – joint-sufferers with him in his sacrifice and joint-sharers in his Kingdom glory, "the Bride, the Lamb's Wife." The special arrangement permitting these to be justified by faith instead of actually justified (or perfected) is with a view to their being privileged to offer a proper sacrifice – "holy, acceptable to God, their reasonable service." (Rom. 12:1.) This Justification by faith is necessary because nothing unholy or unclean may come to the Lord's altar, as the Law clearly taught and the types clearly showed. Every sacrifice for the Lord's altar must be "without spot or blemish." Every member of our race was spotted and blemished by inherited sin and imperfection, and hence the necessity for the Divine [R4398 : page 155] provision of Justification by faith – not faith in Covenants, but faith in the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." This faith grasps the fact that while the sin of the world has not yet been taken away by the Lamb of God, and the world still lies under condemnation, nevertheless the merit of the blood has been applied on behalf of the "household" of faith – and in due time will be made efficacious, under the New Covenant, for the bringing of forgiveness to every creature, with the opportunity of eternal life.
But under which Covenant does God purpose to receive the faith-justified ones as sacrificers? The answer is that the Divine proposal to the Redeemer that he sacrifice and as a reward of his sacrifice be highly exalted to the Divine nature and glory – this blessing (which belongs only to Jesus and was applied only to his sacrifice) has by the gracious plan of God been extended to include all those of this Gospel Age who have the character likeness of the Redeemer. They are invited to share in his sacrifice, and are promised that if faithful they shall share in his glory.
But what sacrifice is this? Could Justice call for more than a life for a life – the death of Jesus as the ransom-price for the death penalty of father Adam? Surely not. Justice has no voice in the present proceeding of Grace. Justice, however, cannot interfere, if it is agreeable to the Great Judge and the Redeemer to accept a "little flock" of justified believers as members under the Redeemer as Head. This very matter pleased the Father and pleased the Son, and is, therefore, a part of the Divine program. These members are "elect according to God's foreknowledge through sanctification of the spirit and the belief of the Truth." (1 Pet. 1:2.) Their selection is not a change in the Divine program, for they were "chosen in him before the foundation of the world." (Eph. 1:4.) Their selection was unexpected of the angels and of men and hence was a "mystery" and still is a "mystery" to mankind. "The world knoweth us not, even as it knew him not." (1 John 3:1.) But the selection of this class was always the Divine purpose. "The God and Father of our Lord Jesus foreknew us also by Jesus."
Whatever, therefore, was the Divine program for the Master, the Forerunner, the Chief-priest, is the Divine program for his members – they must "walk in his steps"; they must "suffer with him"; they must "fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." If any decline so to do, he loses his place as a member of the Body. We know, nevertheless, that the full number of the "elect" will ultimately be found and every one of them will be sacrificers, for none others are members of his Body. It is the spirit of the Head coming upon these that produces the sacrifice of the flesh (the justified flesh) "holy, acceptable to God." – Rom. 12:1.
There is only one object in the sacrifice which God has provided for, the sacrifice which Jesus accomplished, and is accomplishing in all those who will become his members – that is a sacrifice for sin. It is presented to God, holy and acceptable. In this respect it differs from other sacrifices which men make; as, for instance, a father or mother may sacrifice comfort or even sacrifice life, on behalf of their offspring, but such sacrifices, however appropriate, are not the sacrifice of Christ – are not of the "better sacrifices" typified in the sacrifices of the bulls and the goats.
St. Paul calls our attention to the fact that only those sacrifices which were burned outside the camp were a Sin Offering. Next he shows how our Lord was the sin offering. Then he points out how, if faithful members of his Body, we also must suffer outside the camp – as members of the sin-offering – represented in "the Lord's goat." This sacrifice is not yet completed. It is in process. Hence the Apostle's expression, "Let us go to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach" – just as the slain goat was carried outside the camp and there consumed as the bullock had been. (Heb. 13:11-13.) These matters, dear readers, are amongst the "deep things of God which no man knoweth except by the spirit of God." (1 Cor. 2:10.) The world knows nothing about them. "To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to outsiders all these things are spoken in parables." (Matt. 13:11.) Outsiders are in what the Scriptures term "outer darkness" – the darkness which belongs to this present time of ignorance and superstition. (Matt. 25:30.) The few have been permitted to enter into the banqueting halls and to see the glorious beauties of the riches of Divine grace. Blessed are your eyes that see and your ears that hear. As for those who never saw they properly have our sympathy, nor should we expect so much of them as of ourselves who have been blessed with this knowledge of this important sacrifice and of its glorious reward. Furthermore, as we are now in the sifting and testing time, it must not surprise us if some who once saw eye to eye with us in these matters become blind to them and drift into the "outer darkness" as respects these matters and others – we know not how far. Truths so interweave that one lost or perverted injures presently [R4399 : page 155] the beauty of the entire fabric.
Our expectation must be that the differences will increase and that the loss of spiritual sight will ultimately extend to other features of the Divine Plan. We have nothing but sympathy to express for such. Indeed to us their case is most pitiable. It is practically a hopeless case, too, whereas some of those who have never seen and never tasted we may hope will yet see and taste of this grace. But of those who see and who then become blind our Lord says, "If the light that is in thee become darkness, how great is the darkness." (Matt. 6:23.) It would be better not to have known the way of Truth than to have departed from the holy command. It is not for us to judge one another, but to leave all in the Lord's hands, assured that he makes no mistake. We may have thought their hearts all right, when the Lord may have seen them to be all wrong. But the results will show. And what we could not read, and should not have attempted to read of unfaithfulness to the Truth, will be manifest of themselves in the Lord's time and way. Let us not forget that he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified (his members) are all one. He is in us all. In our consecration we lose our humanity and all of its rights, exchanging these for our spiritual membership in the Body of Christ.
After good success in the mission up to this point the Apostle had in mind a journey through Asia Minor, but apparently things went unfavorable until the Apostle concluded that the Lord was hindering their efforts and in perplexity began to think of other fields of labor. His moment of uncertainty was the Lord's opportunity for directing him. He dreamed that he saw a man dressed in the costume of the Macedonians beckoning to him and saying, "Come over and help us." The Apostle accepted this as of Divine leading and promptly began the journey which took him into Europe. We have here an evidence of God's supervision of all the interests of his Church. He was not averse to permitting the message to go into Asia Minor, for it did go there later, possibly at a more opportune time. But this was the time for sending the message to Europe.
Evidently the Lord could have directed his message southward through Africa and away from Europe, but there is a "due time" connected with every feature of the Divine Plan – and now, by Divine arrangement, the message of God's grace in Christ was to go to the Greeks, who at this time were recognized as the foremost people of the world in literature and the arts.
It is supposed that it was about this time that Luke, the physician, became attached to Paul's company. A man of education, a scribe, as well as a physician, the Lord evidently provided him as St. Paul's amanuensis, that thereby the Apostle's letters should reach many of the Churches of that time, as well as the Lord's people from then until now. Thus it came that Luke wrote not only a version of the Gospel, but also the Book of Acts and nearly all of St. Paul's epistles. Here we have another illustration of the privileges of the various members of the Body of Christ. Luke could not be the Apostle Paul nor could he do St. Paul's work; but he could be used of the Lord honorably and efficiently in a greater spread of the Truth.
So it is with us. We cannot be apostles. We cannot do anything very great; but, if filled with the Spirit of the Lord, it is our privilege to be used to some extent in some service of the Truth. And any service for the Lord and for the brethren, even to the washing of feet and any menial service, is, as our Lord shows, honorable and a privilege.
Philippi, one of the chief cities of Macedonia, in Greece, appears to have been the first place for the preaching of the good tidings in Europe. As usual, on the Sabbath day the Apostle and companions sought for some who worshiped God, who hoped for the Kingdom that God had promised, knowing that such would be the better prepared to receive the message he had to deliver; that Jesus had appeared as the Redeemer and had laid the foundation for the Millennial Kingdom in the sacrifice of himself; that the blessings of his sacrifice would ultimately be made available to every creature, but that now, in advance of the dealing with the world in general, the Lord is calling out a Spiritual Israel, a "little flock," to be his kings and priests with Jesus in the administration of the Millennial blessings.
Apparently there was no synagogue in Philippi, and matters may have looked very unfavorable to Paul and his companions. However, they heard of a little religious meeting held every Sabbath by the river side, outside the city gate. It was a prayer meeting principally and place of Divine fellowship. Not having the facilities of a synagogue they probably had no Scripture parchments, and hence no reading of the Law, but merely prayer and worship. All this was favorable to the Gospel message the Apostle had to present. He spoke to those who resorted thither, commending the importance of their worshipful condition of heart and the importance of praise to the Giver of all good. Then he proceeded to declare the good tidings of the sacrifice of Jesus, of his death and resurrection, and his Second Coming in power and great glory. He showed surely that the invitation now being given was for joint-sacrifices with Jesus whose reward would be joint-heirship with him in the Millennial Kingdom, as members of his Body, the Church.
However many or few were at the meeting there was one present whose heart was in the right condition to receive the message – a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple. Dyes were much more expensive in olden times than now and the secret knowledge of how to make them was turned to financial profit. Thus it is supposed that Lydia was in quite comfortable circumstances financially. Not only did the Truth open her heart, enlightening the eyes of her understanding, but she was prompt to obey it in full consecration; and prompt to symbolize that consecration in water baptism – "She and her household."
It is not always that religious parents have religiously inclined children. Several instances of the kind are mentioned in the Scriptures. Personal experience teaches us also that the parent who is earnestly consecrated to the Lord and guided by his Word has generally a good influence upon those nearest to him and directly under his care. Such an influence should be hoped for, prayed for, sought for by every parent. But it cannot be obtained except by carefulness, circumspection of word and deed. These in subjection imply that the very thoughts of the heart are brought into captivity to the will of God in Christ. Nevertheless parents who have failed to discern the Truth and recognize its responsibilities until their children have outgrown parental instruction must not chide themselves unmercifully if their children do not respect them and their religious convictions. Rather they should remember that the Lord is thoroughly acquainted with the situation and will hold them accountable only for what they do or do not after they have come to know him and to an opportunity for understanding the instructions of his Word respecting their own lives and the training of their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
The fact that Lydia's household believed implies that she was the mother of adult children. And these were so thoroughly under her influence that they worshiped with her the true God, neglecting the idolatries prevalent in Philippi. We may infer that she was a widow, since her husband is not mentioned. Hence it was her right, without conference with anybody, to invite the Apostle and his companions to share the hospitality of her home. She seems properly to have realized that, instead of honoring them, she was honoring herself and her home by having such guests – the ministers of God, the brethren of Christ – under her roof. Note her language when inviting, "She besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us." The latter statement implies that the Apostle was not too ready to force himself upon anybody, that he did not urge, saying, Surely myself and companions who have preached to you should be served by you in temporalities – though [R4400 : page 156] that was the Truth. Rather the Apostle made no reference to temporalities. Indeed, after the suggestion of Lydia had been made it was apparently not too quickly accepted, but with the indication that the disciples of Jesus had no desire to intrude upon others. This is implied in the statement that they were "constrained," gradually drawn or led to accept invitation. How beautiful it is to see God's children wisely exercised in such matters! How much more is their influence upon one another for good! [R4400 : page 157]
This lesson may be considered as specially teaching Divine supervision of the true Gospel and its ministers. Yet how diversified God's dealings and how necessary that his children in ministering the Truth should have fullest confidence in his wisdom, love and power! Note the sharp contrast that, after specially guiding the apostles to this place and then to a very small meeting and apparently one family of converts, the Lord next allows what seems to be a great catastrophe to befall his faithful servants. This trial came through the evil spirits. A young woman, possessed (obsessed) by an evil spirit (one of the fallen angels), was used for fortune-telling, etc., the spirit working through her, divining or giving intelligence of things that were lost, telling fortunes, etc. She was a slave girl and very profitable to her owners – a syndicate apparently of influential men.
For several days, as the Apostle and companions went to and from the home of Lydia attending to the Lord's work, this obsessed girl followed them, shouting in a loud voice, "These be the servants of the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation." Of course, the girl did not know them, but the evil spirits knew them. To what extent they forecasted the results we may not definitely know, but quite possibly what occurred was what they had premeditated, namely, that the Apostle would cast out the evil spirit and that this would bring upon them and any converts a violent attack from the owners of the girl and their friends and all whom they could arouse to a frenzy of excitement, of wrath and rioting. Or the evil spirit may simply have told the truth without considering the possibility of the Apostle commanding it to come out of the woman – possibly supposing that they would be rather pleased with a testimony from any quarter. But we read that St. Paul was grieved as day after day this testimony was made. He was not grieved that a testimony was borne to the Truth, but grieved that it should come from such an evil source, for he knew that it would have no respect for the Truth; for any of the fallen angels who would have respect for God and the principles of righteousness would not seek to obsess humanity when it knew that it would be to their injury and contrary to the Divine will.
The S.S. teachers' instruction books will probably suggest to them that this woman had hysteria or was somewhat demented. But this is out of accord with the facts of the case, as Scripturally set forth, and quite contrary to the words of the Apostle. He said not a word to the young woman, assuming that she was not at all accountable. He addressed the evil spirit as such, and commanded it in the name of Jesus to come out of the woman – just as Jesus and the apostles under his instruction had frequently cast out these spirits.
Just as the owners of the swine were angry with our Lord because of the loss of their swine, when the "legion" of demons cast out of the man entered the swine and the owner suffered loss, so here; while the Apostle and all who had proper hearts would rejoice that the woman was free from the evil spirit's power, her masters, who profited by her sad condition, were made angry. Their pocket-books were touched. They could not legally attack the Apostle because he had done the woman no harm. But they could have revenge and hence raised a riot, claiming that these men with the new religion were interfering with the rights of the people of Philippi, which was a Roman province in Greece.
And the Lord permitted all this; yea, permitted the rioting to reach considerable proportions. Paul and Silas were carried before the rulers at the market-place for the imposition of sentence. The rulers, who held office specially for the preventing of rioting and for preserving order, were greatly excited and rent their garments as an indication of their distress and dissatisfaction that such a disturbance should be brought to their city. The thought was that the men against whom the populace would thus rise up must be guilty of something and deserving of punishment. They knew not that the evil spirits had to do with the arousing of the riot. As St. Paul elsewhere expressed it, "We contend not with flesh and blood merely, but with wicked spirits in influential positions."
To satisfy the mob, to restore peace quickly, the missionaries were publicly beaten, presumably with rods, and then were committed to the prison. Alas, we say, what a reward for missionary effort! What a recompense for sacrificing their lives for the Lord and the Truth – that these men should be evil-spoken of, evil thought of and evilly treated!
Let us remember that the God who changes not is our God, and has supervision of the interests of the Church to-day as then. Let us remember that he requires of us to-day, as of those missionaries, that we be willing to represent him, willing to endure hardness and thus to make full proof of our ministry – of our service for Christ and his message. Would it require faith on the part of the missionaries to accept such experiences as providential and not to think of them as evidences of the Lord's disfavor or neglect? So must we learn similar lessons of faith, in the School of Christ, and be glad to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and the apostles, and learn to rejoice in tribulations, as well as in prosperity.
This does not mean that our clearer sight shows the love of God to be less than we had at first supposed, nor that the provision made will come short and fail to grant a full opportunity of eternal life to every creature. It does mean that daily we are coming to see in a clearer light the high standard which God will require of all who will be granted life eternal at any time and on any plane.
The fact is that God leaves the human will entirely free; that he seeks not the worship of those whom he will be obliged to coerce and restrain, but merely "seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in Truth." God's provision is that with the close of the Millennial Age "there shall be no more crying, no more sighing, no more dying;" because there shall be no more sin; because all the former things of sin shall have passed away. Putting these items together we perceive that the tests to prove who are worthy and who are unworthy of life eternal must be very crucial. None must go beyond the Millennial Age whose heart is not perfect; for if any others should be admitted there it would mean a perpetual danger of recurrence of sin in some form – a menace to the perfect bliss of that blessed state.
The world will have its purgatorial experiences during the Millennial Age – its blessings under the reign of the glorified Messiah, the Mediator of the New Covenant, Head and Body. By lessons, encouragements and chastisements it will learn the lesson of obedience to the Divine will, that thus it may attain to the full perfection of God's likeness and to life eternal. But failing to attain [R4400 : page 158] this blessed state during that time appointed, the only alternative will be Second Death, for no provision is made for sin or sinners beyond the Millennium.
The Church's trial, as we have seen, is now taking place during this Gospel Age. Every justified believer who knowingly and intelligently consecrated himself and whose consecration the Lord has accepted by begetting him of the holy Spirit – every such one is on trial now, for either life or death, and he can have no future opportunity. In other words, the trial of the spirit-begotten ones of this age will eventuate in eternal life on the spirit plane or eternal death, just as the trial of the world in the time of Restitution will eventuate in eternal life on the human plane or in eternal death.
Consider what this means: It means that all who will be saved during the Millennium must attain to a condition of actual perfection and absolute heart loyalty to God, absolute love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity, if they would have eternal life. It means to you and me and all other spirit-begotten ones of this age that, if we do not reach a perfection of heart-development during the period of our trial, we shall die the Second Death. Thank God, it does not mean a perfection of the flesh, which would be impossible to us; but a perfection of the spirit, a perfection of the New Mind, a perfection of the will. But, oh, how much a perfect heart signifies! No wonder our dear Redeemer said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"! Any impurity of heart, of intention; any degree of evil contention, anger, hatred, strife, bitterness of heart, would mean just so much shortage of the Divine standard – perfect love.
We are not competent to judge, however. Some may have perfect love in their hearts who, because of imperfections [R4401 : page 158] in their flesh, make a poor showing of it. In our experience, however, comparatively few even make the claim of perfect love, either for God or for the brethren or for neighbors, not to mention their enemies. We may be sure that of all spirit-begotten ones in such a condition at the time of death there will be no place found amongst those counted worthy of life eternal. The only alternative for them will be Second Death.
They could not be of the "little flock" because God has foreordained that every member of it must be "a copy of his dear Son." "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." (Rom. 8:29.) Can they not, then, be of the "great company"? We answer, No. All who would be of the "great company" must, through tribulation, attain to heart perfection, in order to be accounted worthy of life eternal. The difference between the "great company" of overcomers and the "little flock" of "more than conquerors" is that the former prove faithful under stress, when forced to the decision, while the latter class, the "little flock," possess more zeal, press forward joyfully to do, to be, to suffer, to serve; but both classes, to be overcomers at all, and to get eternal life at all, must reach the mark of perfect love.
Ah, yes, God's ways are wise and just and loving. It would not be to his glory nor in the interests of his faithful ones or others for him to admit to eternal life conditions any deficient in love. Does this alarm us and cause us to fear for our own acceptance and our own attaining of eternal life? The Apostle says, "Let us fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it." (Heb. 4:1.) Let the thought stimulate us to a renewed zeal and energy in conquering self and the old nature and in pressing on from glory to glory and from one degree to another higher degree of likeness to our Lord.
We feel sure that, in the Lord's providence, the Vow, published again in the last issue, is proving a great blessing and great help to many. Let no one take it except after mature consideration, but let all who see it to be thoroughly Scriptural in its every provision take it as a partial expression of their original consecration Vow of baptism into Christ's death. It is proving a blessing to many to daily read it every morning in connection with the Manna text and comment and morning devotion. It helps to impress upon the mind and upon the heart the very things which are most necessary to be remembered and yet most likely to be forgotten in the necessary hurry and push of the present life. Let us with deliberation and determination take all the vows that will assist us to a closer walk with God and to the binding of our sacrifice to the altar. We shall surely need in the trial time which is now upon the Church every assistance which the Lord provides, that we may be able to stand; that we may develop the proper character; that we may make our calling and election sure.
Four-Day Convention, Piedmont, Ala. July 8-11
One " " Memphis, Tenn. " 10
" " " New Orleans, La. " 11
" " " Houston, Tex. " 12
" " " San Antonio, Tex. " 13
Three " " Los Angeles, Cal. " 16-18
" " " Oakland, Cal. " 17-19
One " " Portland, Ore. " 21
Four " " Seattle, Wash. " 22-25
One " " Spokane, Wash. " 26
" " " Butte, Mont. " 27
Two " " Denver, Colo. " 29,30
Five " " St. Joseph, Mo. July 29-Aug. 2
Three " " Aberdeen, S.D. Aug. 1-3
The Convention Committees of the Churches at the places named will please confer with us respecting further details desired.
I do not know if you have any more time now than you ever had to read poor letters, for I know you are always kept busy in the Master's service. But I must tell you about that Vow.
I had always prayed for you and all those who labored with you in the WATCH TOWER office, from the time I first took the TOWER, which was in 1882. And then, when you sent out the Pilgrims to preach God's Grand Plan of the Ages, also the Colporteurs, prayer was added daily. But when the Vow was first brought to my notice, I did not think much about it; but after studying it a while the Lord showed me that it was a binding of the sacrifice closer to the altar that I made when I consecrated, so I took the Vow and sent you word. And oh, what a blessing has been mine since then, for though I am weak and frail and old, the Lord my God has drawn me closer to himself. And I can appreciate more and more the 91st Psalm and John 14:21-23, and though I can do so little in his service, he has promised never to leave nor forsake me, because I trust that he who began the good work in me, is able to finish it. My desire is not to be a stumbling block in my own way; I desire to follow my Lord even unto death.
I enjoy the WATCH TOWER and those sermons in the Cincinnati Enquirer very much. May the Lord keep you faithful even unto death as that servant, is my daily prayer.
Your sister in his service,
(1) In the text, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (2 Tim. 1:7), what is the contrast? What is the antithesis to the spirit of a sound mind? Page 249, par. 1.
(2) In this Scripture are we to understand that the four spirits mentioned are persons? or are any of them persons? or are they merely qualities of mind which might appertain to persons – on the human or on the spirit plane? P. 249, par. 1.
(3) If a Christian has a spirit of fear, to what should it be attributed? What is lacking in him when his mind is under the control of such a spirit or influence? And what is the remedy for such an undesirable condition of spirit or mind? P. 249, par. 2.
(4) Does the spirit of Christ take hold upon the strong-minded or the strong-bodied merely, or upon the weak-minded and weak-bodied merely? What is the result in either case? Give Scripture proofs. P. 250, par. 1,2.
(5) In the text quoted (2 Tim. 1:7) what is meant by the "spirit of power"? Does it refer to physical strength or spiritual strength or what? P. 250, par. 3.
(6) Similarly explain "the spirit of love" in the same text. Is it natural love, or what kind? How does it operate? And does it abide or will it pass away? Cite Scripture. P. 250, par. 3.
(7) Are the Lord's people naturally more sound of mind – better balanced mentally – than the remainder of the world? Or how do they compare on the average? P. 251, par. 1.
(8) What is the effect of the Truth upon the fully consecrated believer begotten of the holy Spirit and taught of God? How does he compare with the average man? P. 251, par. 2.
(9) Explain how it is that there is such diversity of mind and say whether there are many of strictly sound mind. Quote Scriptures. P. 251, par. 3.
(10) What are some of the causes of mental unbalance and in what manner does the holy Spirit rectify natural weaknesses and mental defects? P. 252, par. 1,2.
(11) Give an illustration of the manner in which the spirit of a sound mind rectifies an imperfect judgment. P. 252, par. 2.
(12) Give some illustrations of evidences of mental unsoundness common to the world and often to the Church. P. 252, par. 3.
(13) What is the most general mental ailment as evidenced by asylum statistics, and is the same mental weakness a besetment to Christians? P. 254.
(14) Which is the greater need amongst men, restitution of bodies or of morals or of sound minds? And what would the latter have to do with correcting the two former? P. 254, par. 2.
(15) What quality of mind is the source of the greatest trouble to the world and the greatest to the Christian? What is the antidote or remedy which the Scriptures set forth? P. 254, par. 2.
(16) What is the antidote for that poisoned condition of mind styled "the spirit of fear"? Cite the Scriptural antidote. P. 255, par. 1,2.
(17) Does the spirit of the Truth correct over-confidence and under-confidence? – How? Cite the Scriptures. P. 255, par. 3.
(18) Why is it that the heavenly hopes and promises appeal to some and not to others equally educated and intelligent otherwise? Explain the philosophy. P. 256, 257.
(19) What is the answer of the "spirit of a sound mind" to our Lord's inquiry, "What will a man exchange for his soul" – his being, his existence? P. 258, par. 1.
(20) How were we redeemed from vain conversation and how does the spirit of a sound mind give a new viewpoint to every affair of life? P. 258, par. 2; P. 259, par. 1.
(21) Which ambitions are restrained by the heavenly promises and which are encouraged and developed thereby? Cite Scriptures on the subject and show their application. P. 259, par. 2,3.
(22) Show the philosophy of how the spirit of a sound mind deepens and broadens character. What if anything opposes this? Cite the Scriptures. P. 260, par. 1.
(23) If patience, sympathy, generosity, love, godlikeness are elements of a sound mind, show how these qualities become more developed and appreciated. P. 260, par. 2.
(24) What is the effect of the spirit of a sound mind in the home? How does it operate? What is the motive or mainspring? P. 260, par. 3.
(25) Will the spirit of a sound mind make its possessor the best husband or wife, the best sister or brother, the best parent or the best child? Why so or why not? Give the philosophy of the matter. P. 261.
(26) What is sure to be the effect of this spirit of a sound mind? P. 262, par. 1.
(27) Cite one of the evidences of the unsoundness of human judgment. Cite the Scriptural admonition touching the defect. P. 262, par. 2.
(28) Who may have this spirit now and is there hope that others may have it in the future? Cite the Scriptures. P. 262, par. 3.
(29) Is there anything to suggest or to prove that the spirit of a sound mind, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of common sense, is a spirit being which comes into us, or is it simply an instruction, a basis of proper, sound reason?
The friends of this locality request a General Convention for that section, so it is arranged at the beginning of Brother Russell's Western Tour. He will be there one day; but able speakers are provided for the other sessions. Railroad rates are expected. Further announcement later.
Morning Rally and Testimony Meeting at 10:30 o'clock.
Discourse by Brother Russell at 3:00 p.m. Evening meeting for the interested at 7:30 o'clock; this will be a Question Meeting. Visiting friends cordially invited.
All meetings will be held in the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Nos. 13-17 Hicks street. Convenient to all cars and ferries – close to the old bridge terminus.