| VOL. XXIII. | SEPTEMBER 1, 1902. | No. 17. |
'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.
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.
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HAVING BEEN obliged in the past to criticize the teachings of the celebrated Baptist preacher, P. S. Henson, in respect to the eternal torment of the large proportion of our race being the divine program, we are the more pleased now to be able to quote with approval his public utterances respecting original sin – the Fall of man – from the image and likeness of his Creator. He says:
"The Bible does not declare how old are the heavens and the earth, but only that in the 'beginning,' whenever that was, the Lord created them. How long were the creative processes we are not informed, for the word translated, 'day' in Genesis is often employed in the Bible to denote great tracts of time.
"As to the method of creation the Scriptures make no explicit statement, though an evolutionist might imagine that he found some shadow of support for his theory when he reads that the Lord said: 'Let the waters bring forth such creatures as live in the water, and let the earth bring forth such creatures as live on the land.' As to man, indeed, a different formula entirely is used, for God said: 'Let us make man in our image after our likeness.'
THE FIRST MAN."But whether He made man by direct creative act or by the slow evolutionary processes of the ages, the great fact remains that He made him, and this is all that the Bible directly declares. But whenever made and however made there must have been a first man, and as he had a name, or ought to have had, at least, for the purposes of history, there would seem to be no valid objection, save that which arises from the 'odium theologicum' to the traditionary name of 'Adam.' So far, then, there would seem to be no reasons for controversy between the foremost scientist and the most literal Scripturalist.
"The great battle ground is rather to be found in the third chapter of Genesis, which gives an account of that tremendous transaction which by common consent through all the ages has been denominated 'the fall of man.' And never was there a more widely prevalent disposition than there is to-day to discredit the whole Scripture narrative and to brand it as preposterous and absurd. And many timid souls have been so overawed by the toploftiness of the modern critics that they scarcely dare affirm their belief in the substantial verity of the Bible story.
FACTS FOR DOUBTERS."Now, for the confirmation and the consolation of such quaking Elis there are a few things it may be helpful to remember. The opening and the closing scenes of man's 'strange, eventful history' as portrayed in the Bible are each laid in a garden – the one in Eden and the other in Paradise. Whether the trees and rivers described in both stand for literal trees and rivers, such as we are accustomed to, does not concern our present purpose. But they stand for something, and no doubt the real fact will at last be found to be far beyond the figure.
ARGUMENT PROVING FALL."Now, whatever may be said of the figurative character of the language of Genesis, some things loom up as indubitably true unless the whole story be discredited as a tissue of lies.
"One is that man's original state was a state of innocence. Of course it was if he came fresh from the hand of God by direct creative act. And the like might be affirmed if the life he wore was the last result of evolution from the brute creation. No brute is a sinner, for he always acts up to the nature that is in him, but man is a sinner, and therefore some time, somehow he must have fallen, for now he consciously lives below his proper level. His very nature is depraved in its propensities, and therefore now 'when he would do good evil is present with him.'
"We excuse the sinner of to-day on the ground of bad heredity; but how came he by the bad heredity? We only dodge the difficulty by removing it farther back. And yet we cannot help asking whence flows the filthy stream that befouls all human history? The Scriptures locate the fountain. Has philosophy been able to do any better? [R3065 : page 260]
INTERDICT AGAINST EVIL."The second indubitable thing is that God laid upon man an interdict. What a pity and a shame, cries the horrified critic, that God should set a snare by which to entrap the unsuspecting creature of His hand!
"And yet if man were to be a subject and not a sovereign it must some day and in some way be determined whose will was to be law upon this planet. If that matter once for all were to be tested, can any complainant conceive of a test more wise, more considerate, more conclusive than the one that was adopted? But what an outrage to interdict knowledge! and the devil has rung the changes on that outrage all down the ages. But he lies about this, as is his wont about everything else. It was not the tree of knowledge about which God drew a cordon, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – such knowledge of good and evil as comes from experience in evil doing. And the very words employed suggest their symbolic significance.
MAN'S NATURE POLLUTED."The third great fact that looms up darkly is that man transgressed the interdict and went beyond the bounds that God in wisdom and in love, and from the very necessities of being, had appointed, and so laid himself liable to the penalty which the Sovereign of the universe must needs attach to violated law. Not only so, but in the act of transgression he did violence to his own nature as well as to the law of God, and so became crippled and depraved. That nature he transmitted to his posterity; for the Word reads that 'he begat a son in his own likeness.' God never made a thing like Cain. Humanity in its totality was in Adam, and therefore in a very true sense what was done by Adam was done by us all, for the nature that was in Adam is in us all. It is not then without reason that we speak of the 'old man' in us, for it comes down to us from the very fountain head of humanity, and if the fountain head be foul nothing but the salt of the grace of God can purify the stream that flows from it.
THE BIBLICAL REMEDY."However much the language may be abused, there is such a thing as 'the solidarity of society' and the 'unity of race.' It is true that 'God hath made of one blood all nations to dwell on the face of the earth,' and hence if one member suffer all the members suffer with it, and being partakers of a common nature and all its heritage of pain and penalty, up from the depth of the sin and sorrow into which the first Adam has plunged us, we need to look to the Second Adam through whose atoning death we have redemption from the curse of sin, and through identification with whose risen life we are made partakers of the divine nature and are reinstated in the relationship of sonship to God.
"Such we believe to be substantially the Scripture doctrine of the fall of man through Adam and the restoration of man through Jesus Christ."
The foregoing is good – Scriptural and logical; but Brother Henson should carry the question farther on the same Scriptural and logical plane if he would have the whole truth. For instance:
(1) Where does the Doctor get his theory of eternal torment? Answer. Undoubtedly from this doctrine of the Fall where all other "orthodox" people claim to find it. The claim is that our Creator not only meant all that he said in his threat to our first parents, and in the curse or sentence following it, but unutterably and infernally more: that when he said, "Dying thou shalt die," and, "Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," he meant not only all the degradation and pain and anguish and dying of the past 6,000 years, referred to above by Dr. Henson, but included also an eternity of anguish beyond this mentioned dying – for the disobedient pair and for all their unfortunate offspring who would not be so blessed as to escape it by being of the "elect," – brought to a knowledge of the Lord, assisted to faith and obedience and sanctification of spirit, and to correct views of baptism and obedience thereto.
Where in the Scripture will the Doctor find for us this diabolical plan set forth as the divine plan of the ages which our Heavenly Father purposed in himself before the world was? Nowhere! Where will he find logic or reason to support such a theory? Nowhere!
Logic and all the facts known to men corroborate the Scripture teachings that God declared the whole truth in the death sentence promulgated against our first parents when they sinned, and inherited by their posterity in a natural way. This sentence includes mental, moral and physical degeneracy, as Brother [R3066 : page 260] Henson in the foregoing statement admits; and both logic and Scripture declare that death, the total absence of life, is the climax of this course of degeneracy. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." (Ezek. 18:4,20.) "The wages of sin is death." (Rom. 6:23.) Eternal life is a gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, to be given only to the believing and obedient. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." I Jno. 5:12.
(2) Brother Henson also lacks the appreciation of "The Biblical Remedy" as he states it.
He perceives the solidarity of the race in the first Adam, – in the prevalence of his condemnation upon all his posterity. Why can he not see the solidarity of the race in respect to the sacrifice of Christ, that he "by the grace of God tasted death for every man." (Heb. 2:9.) Why can he not see that divine provision of a remedy for sinners is co-extensive with the blight of sin? Why does he fail to give weight to the clear Scriptural declaration that – Christ's sacrifice is "a propitiation [satisfaction] for our sins [the church's sins] and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world"? (I Jno. 2:2.) If under the gloomy shadowings of creeds and theories formulated in "dark ages" or in the haze just following them, the Doctor has been in the habit of applying all these texts which so clearly specify "the whole world" to merely the elect church, it is surely time to see the error and to note the fact that our Heavenly Father's plan centered in Christ Jesus our Lord, is so high and so deep, so long and so broad, as to provide not only the special heavenly salvation of the elect church of this age, to "the divine nature," but also to provide through this elect church, the spiritual seed of Abraham, a general salvation, – [R3066 : page 261] which, beginning with fleshly Israel, shall extend through the Millennial age to "all the families of the earth" – as God's promise reads. – Rom. 11:25-32; Gal. 3:29.
In this time when Evolutionism and Higher Criticism are making void the Word of God we are trusting that the true believers who hold fast to the Word may get still more widely opened "the eyes of their understanding," that they and we may be thus enabled to see "eye to eye," by being enabled to comprehend with all saints the true dimensions of our gracious Father's wonderful plans. (Eph. 3:18.) We are trusting in the same Savior and in the same Father; but by their grace our eyes have been opened a little wider, a little sooner than those of some of our brethren whom we sincerely love and long to assist out of darkness into the wonderful light of the Millennial dawn, now streaming in upon all who are awake and looking in the right direction to see the glorious Sunrise of the new dispensation – now being ushered in by our Lord's parousia.
(3) As degradation even unto death was the penalty of sin, so God's provision is that restitution even unto life is the remedy. As the penalty was world-wide through Adam, so the remedy is to be world-wide through Christ; – an opportunity for reconciliation to God has been secured for every member of Adam's race by the sacrifice of Christ, who did not go to eternal torment for our sins, because eternal torment was not the penalty for sin; but who did pay the full penalty against Adam (and incidentally against his race) in that "he died for our sins" he "died the just for the unjust." – I Cor. 15:3; I Pet. 3:18.
We agree to this: we are not arguing for a glorification of sinners: we are prepared to go with the Scriptures farther along this line than Dr. Henson may be willing to follow. We hold that the above quoted words of the Apostle (Acts 16:31) are meant to teach not only that none but believers in Christ can be saved, but that, beyond believing, full consecration to the Lord is necessary to eternal salvation – eternal life. Dare the Doctor go so far and interpret this Scripture at its face value, realizing as he does so that it would cut off from salvation the vast majority of Baptists and of all other denominations of Christendom and the heathen world almost entirely? Dare any do this, having in mind the "orthodox view" that all not saved now must spend eternity with demons and in torture? To their credit be it said that they cannot so apply this Scripture. To their credit be it noted that they hope there is some great blunder somewhere, and that it will not come true as it seems to them to teach. But their great danger is, that the Adversary will prejudice and blind them against the only interpretation of God's Word which can harmonize the Bible and satisfy reason, until they shall have rejected the Bible in toto, because viewed from their wrong standpoint its teachings must more and more appear unreasonable, nonsense.
Accepting this declaration as inspired and true, wherein is the hope for the world, not one-twentieth of whom have ever heard of this only name? We answer in the Apostle's language that it is "The hope of the resurrection of the dead." Only the saints of this Gospel age may hope to have share in the "First Resurrection" – to "glory, honor and immortality" and to joint heirship with their Lord in the Kingdom; but there is hope for almost all others of our race in the after-resurrection, which our Lord calls "the resurrection by judgment." (John 5:28,29, see Revised Version.) That resurrection will be for all the "unjust" (unjustified by faith and obedience); it will be for all the "evil," – all who have not been approved of God in Christ as "good" – all who have not escaped "the condemnation that is on the world."
That resurrection, open to earth's billions, will require a thousand years for its accomplishment – the Millennium – and the attainment of it at the close of the Millennium will require the development of meekness, patience, perseverance, gentleness, brotherly kindness, love on the part of all who would receive its blessing; all others being hopelessly cut off in the Second Death. To participate in this grand resurrection privilege will necessitate the awakening of all who "sleep in the dust of the earth," or as our Lord expressed it, all that are in their graves shall hear his mandate and come forth before they can share in the privileges of the "resurrection by judgment." The expression "by judgment" signifies (harmoniously with other Scriptures), that the Millennial age arrangements will differ from those of the present and past ages, in that while now judgments (rewards and punishments) are deferred then they will follow immediately each act and word of obedience or disobedience. "When the judgments of the Lord are abroad in the earth (as they will then be) the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness." And the Lord through the Prophet assures us that in that blessed day every sinner refusing for one hundred years to make progress shall be accounted irreconcilable and shall be cut off forever – even though as compared with the life privileges of that time he would be but an infant at one hundred years of age – as in the antediluvian age. Isa. 26:9; 65:20.
The only exceptions to the privileges of that "resurrection by judgments" will be the few who in the present life commit the sin unto death – "Second Death." These as described by the Apostle can be only such as by faith and consecration as true Christians, have received the blessings of special knowledge and the holy spirit, and then fall away either by turning heartily into wilful sin or by rejecting the wedding garment of Christ's imputed righteousness.
We long to assist all the true "brethren" and urge any reading this and still finding any obstacles to faith and obedience to the "only name" to correspond with us. We will take pleasure in lending you a helping hand to the Heavenly Kingdom, and will gladly loan you the "Bible Keys," through the [R3066 : page 262] faithful and prayerful use of which the Bible will become to you "a new book" – the best of all books.
The Chicago Record Herald recently devoted a column article to a farewell sermon of Rev. W. T. Euster at Wheadon M.E. Church, Evanston, Ind., exposing the religious teaching of professors at "Garrett Biblical Institute" in that city. Following are some extracts.
"What I say about the results and influence of 'higher criticism' here in this field may startle some, but no one can adequately realize this without living here for some length of time. I have in my ministry here taken every occasion to converse and argue with every theological student I could get acquainted with. Many of them have lived on the same street with me, and many have attended on my ministry. I have asked them all sorts of questions. I have not found one who would say that he accepted the miracles of the Old Testament as declared there: only four have I found in all this number who had enough faith in the Bible as it is, to stand the test of the discipline; many of them I found Unitarian and infidel in belief; not one could I find that would say that Jesus Christ knew more or as much about the Old Testament as some of these Unitarian professors.
"The saddest thing is the number of bright young men and women whose faith is utterly wrecked here each year. Many of these young men say they never would have taken any interest in destructive criticism of the Bible had it not been forced upon them by those who are employed to teach the doctrines of the church.
"It is sad, indeed, when young men come to the place where they feel that modern infidel professors know more about the Old Testament than did Jesus Christ! I have not been able to find one theological student here that would contradict this.
"I am not a pessimist. I believe God will bring order out of this confusion, and that many of these preachers who go out of here Unitarian and infidel will be honest enough [R3067 : page 262] to step out of the Methodist pulpits unless they can get back to faith and loyalty to the church which has educated them.
Vienna, Aug. 7. – Dr. Theodore Herzl, founder of the Zionist movement and head of the Palestine association and Dr. Wolffson, president of the Jewish colonial trust, have returned here from Constantinople. They report that their conference with representatives of the sultan with reference to the proposed settlement of Zionists in Palestine has been without result.
In reply to Dr. Herzl's written statements on the subject the sultan expressed sympathy with the Jews in their purposes and named certain concessions which he would grant. These, however, did not meet the requirements of the Zionists.
Dr. Herzl says he still has hopes of being able to convince the porte of the beneficial results which would result from the settlement of Jews in Palestine.
This set-back is of course only a temporary one: prophecy must eventually be fulfilled. Jews are still (since 1892) deprived of permission to settle in the Holy Land, and may only visit it by special permit for from 30 to 90 days. Ere long it will be different.
In the Royal Priesthood of that age the world is to have the same comfort in its priesthood that we in our present infirmities find in Christ. For this cause, chiefly, we apprehend that the priesthood is chosen from among men – that redeemed men who were once in the same plight with all the rest of humanity, being thus exalted to the divine nature with all its power to bless, might also, from their past experience and observations while they were men amongst men, be qualified to be very wise and merciful priests, knowing well how to deal with the poor sin-sick world; and that the world might find comfort and consolation in the realization of such sympathy.
Such being the mission of the Church in the not far distant future, all who expect to be of its approved membership in glory should now be cultivating a broad and generous sympathy for all their fellows of the "groaning creation" – a sympathy which considers the weaknesses and temptations – mental, moral and physical, – of fallen men, and which is ready to forgive and to help the repentant erring; a sympathy illustrated by the verse –
It is not enough that we know the truth and rejoice in hope of a future personal exaltation: we must not forget the very object of that exaltation – the blessing of all the families of the earth – and the present duty of conformity to the word and example of our Lord, that thus by his Word and Providence he may fit us for the duties and honors to which he has called us. Only by so doing can we make our calling and election sure.
If we turn our eyes to the pattern, we see in our Lord Jesus one who was deeply moved at the sight of human degradation, moral and physical. So must [R3067 : page 263] it be with all his followers. We must be in sympathy with every impulse of the world which is toward righteousness and reformation of character and life; we must rejoice at every movement that is made in this direction; and our sympathies should go out toward all who are laboring for the common uplifting as well as for all the oppressed everywhere. And so we trust they do. We sympathize with the temperance work and would not have one abandon the ranks of its laborers, except to engage in the higher work of this harvest time, to which the elect, consecrated sons of God are now specially called. And we say, God bless every truly philanthropic heart and hand that is trying to rescue the unfortunate victims of strong drink! We would have all such go on until the Master, noting their zeal, where it springs from love to him, shall say, "It is enough; come up higher" – to the higher work, the harvesting or gathering together of his elect from the four winds. – Matt. 24:31.
We sympathize also with the social purity movement, which aims at the emancipation of woman and the elevation of man, and which eloquently appeals to the conscience of the present generation for the prenatal rights of the yet unborn generations of the twentieth century – their right to be well born and bred – with as little of the taint of hereditary evil as the present generation can give. It, however, grapples with an evil so deep-seated that little can be hoped for from it, except the creating of a more healthful sentiment on the part of thoughtful and well disposed people, and a greater realization on the part of many of the giant proportions and exceeding hatefulness of sin.
We sympathize, too, with the demand of another class of reformers for a single standard of virtue for men and women alike – that public sentiment should be no more lenient toward the sins of men than toward the sins of women; and believe that a single standard of virtue, which would as completely ostracize a guilty man from society as a guilty woman, would be a safeguard to many a young man to whom the path of vice is made, alas! too easy.
We sympathize with Law and Order Societies in their efforts to enforce laws, although their methods are not always the wisest.
We have much sympathy with the Salvation Army in its attempts to rescue the submerged victims of the world's selfishness and wickedness.
We are glad, too, to see the evidences of philanthropy and moral reform in some heathen lands, though we know how necessarily feeble must be the resistance to the mighty waves of corruption against which they battle.
And so with every good work and with every noble sentiment our hearts are and should be in accord; and we rejoice with them over every victory they gain for righteousness and truth, however small, although we are not with them on the same plane of endeavor; for God has given us the higher commission. The priesthood may not despise the Levites, nor even the children of the camp. We rejoice that there are Levites – hewers of wood and drawers of water*, and that even in the world's great camp there are some who not only incline to righteousness, but who are bravely endeavoring to stem the overwhelming tide of evil. But we rejoice more in the fact that it will ere long be our privilege to take hold of all these much needed reforms with energy and power, and push them forward to glorious success, when in God's due time we shall be endued with power from on high. – Matt. 13:43; Gal. 3:29.
Dearly beloved of the consecrated household, let us not forget to keep in touch with the groaning creation; to sympathize with its sorrows and its woes; to realize its deep degradation and misery; to remember its frailties, its awful burden of hereditary taints and consequent weaknesses; its present environments of ignorance and superstition; and its long established errors of public sentiment; remembering that we too are still in the sinful flesh, and that the motions of sin are still often painfully manifest in us, in some directions, at least, if not in many. And as the cries of the groaning creation come up into the ears of the Lord of hosts (Jas. 5:4) with strong and pathetic pleading to his loving heart, so let them come into our ears and gain our sympathies, and quicken our zeal to co-operate with our Heavenly Father's plan for the establishment of his Kingdom of righteousness and peace.
But let us bear in mind that a real pity for the world, a full sympathy with every good work of reform, and an active co-operation with God in the necessary preparation for our great future work, imply also that we have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and that our lives be a standing rebuke to them. "How," says the Apostle, "shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?... Our old man [our justified human nature] is crucified with Christ that the body [organization] of Sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve Sin" – nor in any sense recognize Sin as our master. – Rom. 6:2-6.
It should be our constant effort, therefore, to seek to discern the course of righteousness on every question of moral obligation, and to see to it that our conduct, our sympathies and our influence, however small, are on the side of righteousness. In this day of searching judgment it should be observed that every principle of moral obligation is being brought forward [R3068 : page 263] for searching examination. One cannot thoughtfully read the daily press without observing this tendency of the times in which we live. No matter how long and firmly established have been the old ideas, nothing can escape this scrutiny. And the principles of righteousness are being boldly set forth – here on one subject, and there on another; and that in defiance of the thundering anathemas from all the old fortresses of sin, iniquity and superstition.
But right and truth must and shall prevail when our Kingdom has been established (Matt. 6:10; Luke 12:32; 22:29), however feeble now may be the voices lifted in their defense. Let our sentiments and our course of action always be noble and pure, and on the right side of every subject that comes forward for ventilation and investigation; for we should be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." – Titus 2:14.
Paul sped along in that race, not in his own strength, but in the strength which God supplied. And the promise of such aid is none the less ours than it was his. The divine grace is imparted to us through the exceeding great and precious promises of God inspiring us with new and glorious hopes beyond the wreck and ruin of the present order of things. Permitting our minds to dwell upon these we see in the now rapidly approaching dawn of the day of Christ a new heavens and a new earth; and by faith we sit together with Christ in the heavenly places of glory and honor, and together with him are crowned with immortality. By faith we see also the blessed privileges of such an exalted station, and the divinely appointed work in which we will be engaged together with Christ.
A weary, groaning creation awaits our ministry of power; and in the proportion that we partake of the loving, pitiful spirit of our Master will we be able to appreciate such a privilege. If we are cold and selfish and untouched with the feeling of earth's infirmities; if the woes of our fellow-men awaken in us no feelings of sympathy and of desire to help, we can have no appreciation of the prize of our high calling. But if, on the contrary, we love our fellow-men as God and Christ loved them; if we pity their weakness and remember the hereditary cause, we will lay not all [R3070 : page 264] their sins and short-comings to their personal charge. We will be anxious to clear their minds from the mists of ignorance and superstition and the bias of prejudices; and to help them to more rational modes of thought and action, and to better ideas of life and its relationships and responsibilities. We will seek to gather out of their pathway all the stumbling stones whereby so many are now precipitated into a course of vice; and to cast up a highway of holiness upon which no lion of intemperance or other evil thing may be found. We will be ready to declare to them all the everlasting gospel of salvation, and to open their deaf ears to hear and their blind eyes to see the salvation of God. If such are our sympathies toward the world of sinners which God so loved, then we are able to appreciate to some extent the privileges of our high calling, when, as joint-heirs with Christ in His Kingdom and power, we shall be able to put into actual execution all our benevolent desires for the uplifting and healing of our sin-sick world.
Any who have ever experienced the joy of converting even one sinner from the error of his ways, or of establishing the feet of one of Christ's little ones, may have some idea of the joy that will attend the ministry of the saints when they are fully endued with divine power for the great work of their Millennial reign; for they will not be hampered as now, but every effort put forth will be a success.
The privilege of such a blessed work, even aside from the precious thought of association with Christ and of our blessed relationship to the Father, is a wonderful inspiration to every benevolent heart which, even now, would fain take upon itself the burdens which it sees oppressing others whom they love and pity.
But though inspired with such a hope of benevolent service for the whole world in God's appointed time, and of blessed association with Christ in it, we must remember that we have yet to "strive" for the prize of our high calling; and not only so, but we must strive "lawfully." We must run our race, not only with diligence, energy, patience and perseverance, but we must run according to the prescribed rules, as otherwise our labor will be in vain. First of all we must enter into this course by the "strait gate" – by a full consecration of our all to the Lord, after exercising faith in the precious blood of Christ as our ransom price. If we do not enter by this door, we are not counted in the race for the prize, no matter how zealously we run. This is the first rule for those who would so run as to obtain. "Enter ye at the strait gate;...because strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
Having so entered, the Apostle now urges that we be filled with the Spirit of Christ, that we may not be led by the desires of the flesh away from God and from the course which he has marked out. Then the body, the human nature, must be kept under the control of the new mind, the spirit of Christ in us. Its ambitions and hopes and desires must be kept down; and the only way to do this is to keep filled with the spirit. "Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the desires of the flesh." – Gal. 5:16.
If we are filled with the spirit – with the same mind that was in Jesus Christ – we will act from the same motives: it will be our meat and drink to do the Father's will. We will engage in his work because we love to do it, even aside from the inspiring prize at the end of our course. Christ was so full of sympathy with humanity, and so thoroughly of one mind with the Father, that he could not do otherwise than to devote his life to the good of others. Yet in all his labors he strictly observed the divine plan. Though, like the Father, he loved the whole world, he did not go beyond Israel to bless the Gentiles with his ministry, [R3070 : page 265] because the appointed time for that work had not yet come.
He observed God's times and seasons and methods. He never recklessly exposed his life until from the prophets he recognized that his hour had come to be delivered into the hands of his enemies. He taught his disciples not to go into the way of the Gentiles until the due time; and then he sent them forth. He did not make long prayers on the street corners to be heard of men, nor exhort the multitude with noisy harangue; as the prophet indicated, he did not lift up his voice nor cry aloud in the streets. (Isa. 42:2.) He chose God's methods which are rational and wise, and which are effective in selecting out from among men the class which he desires to be heirs of the promised Kingdom. Let those who would so run as to obtain the prize, mark these footprints of the Master, and be filled more and more with his spirit.
If so filled with the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, we, like him, will desire to be as free as possible from entangling earthly affairs, and to have our time as free as possible for the Lord's service, and then to devote all energy, ability and effort to that service.
To have the mind of Christ is indeed the one requirement of lawful striving – a mind which humbly and faithfully submits itself to the will of God as expressed in his great plan of the ages, and which devotes all energy to the accomplishment of his will, because of an intelligent appreciation of the ends he has in view.
Justice is sometimes represented by a pair of evenly poised balances, and sometimes by the square and compass, both of which are fitting emblems of its character. Justice knows no compromise and no deviation from its fixed rule of action. It is mathematically precise. It gives nothing over for "good weight" or "good measure:" there is no grace in it, no heart, no love, no sympathy, no favor of any kind. It is the cold, calculating, exact measure of truth and righteousness. When justice is done, there is no thanks due to the one who metes it out: such a one has only done a duty, the neglect of which would have been culpable, and the doing of which merits no favor or praise. And yet, cold, firm and relentless as this principle is, it is declared to be the very foundation of God's throne. It is the principle which underlies all his dealings with all his creatures: it is his unchangeable business principle. And how firmly he adheres to it is manifest to every one acquainted with the plan of salvation, the first step of which was to satisfy the claims of justice against our race. Though it cost the life of his only begotten and well beloved Son to do this, so important was this principle that he freely gave him up for us all – to satisfy its legal claims against us.
The principle of love, unlike that of justice, overflows with tenderness and longs to bless. It is full of grace, and delights in the bestowment of favor. It is manifest, however, that no action can be regarded as a favor or a manifestation of love, which has not underneath it the substantial foundation of justice. Thus, for instance, if one comes to you with a gift, and at the same time disregards a just debt to you, the gift falls far short of appreciation as an expression of love; and you say, We should be just before we attempt to be generous.
And this is right: if justice is the foundation principle in all of God's dealings, it should be in ours also; and none the less so among brethren in Christ than among those of the world. As brethren in Christ, we have no right to presume upon the favor of one another. All that we have a right to claim from one another is simple justice – justice in the payment of our honest debts to each other, justice in our judgment one of another (which must make due allowance for frailties, etc., because we realize in ourselves some measure of similar imperfection), and justice in fair and friendly treatment one of another. This is all we have any right to claim; and we must also bear in mind that while we have a right to claim this for ourselves from others, we are just as fully obligated to render the same to them.
But while we may claim justice – though there is no obligation to demand it for ourselves, and we may if we choose even suffer injustice uncomplainingly – we must, if we are Christ's, render it. In other words, we are not responsible for the actions of others in these respects, but we are responsible for our own. And, therefore, we must see to it that all our actions are squared by the exact rule of justice, before we ever present a single act as an expression of love.
The principle of love is not an exact principle to be measured and weighed like that of justice. It is three-fold in its character, being pitiful, sympathetic or reverential, according to the object upon which it is centered. The love of pity is the lowest form of love: it takes cognizance of even the vile and degraded, and is active in measures of relief. The love of sympathy rises higher, and proffers fellowship. But the love of reverence rises above all these, and delights in the contemplation of the good, the pure and the beautiful. In this latter sense we may indeed love God supremely, as the personification of all that is truly worthy of admiration and reverence, and our fellow men in proportion as they bear his likeness. [R3071 : page 266]
Although we owe to every man the duty of love in some one of these senses, we may not demand it one of another, as we may the principle of justice; for love is the overflow of justice. Justice fills the measure full, but love shakes it, presses it down, heaps it up and overflows justice. It is therefore something not to be demanded, nor its lack to be complained of, but to be gratefully appreciated as a favor and to be generously reciprocated. Every one who craves it at all should crave it in its highest sense – the sense of admiration and reverence. But this sort of love is the most costly, and the only way to secure it is to manifest that nobility of character which calls it forth from others who are truly noble.
The love of sympathy and fellowship is also very precious; but, if it come merely in response to a demand, it comes robbed of its choicest aroma: therefore never demand it, but rather by manifestation of it toward others court its reciprocation.
The love of pity is not called out by the nobility of the subject, but rather by the nobility of the bestower, who is so full of the principle of love that it overflows in its generous impulses toward even the unworthy. All of the objects of pity are not, however, unworthy of love in the higher senses; and some such often draw upon our love in all the senses.
To demand love's overflow of blessing – which is beyond the claims of justice – is only an exhibition of covetousness. We may act on this principle of love ourselves, but we may not claim it from others. The reverse of this exhibits a manifest lack of love and a considerable measure of selfishness.
Thus, for instance, two of the Lord's children were once rooming together and, through a failure to rightly consider the relative claims of love and justice, one presumed upon the brotherly love of the other to the extent of expecting him to pay the entire rent; and when the other urged the claims of justice, he pushed the claim of brotherly love, and the former reluctantly yielded to it, not knowing how to refute the claim, yet feeling that somehow some Christians had less principle than many worldly people. How strange that any of God's children should take so narrow and one-sided a view! Cannot all see that love and justice should work both ways and that it is the business of each not to oversee others in these respects, but to look well to his own course, and, if he would teach others, let it be rather by example than by precept?
Let us beware of a disposition to covetousness, and let each remember that he is steward over his own goods, and not over his neighbor's, and that each is accountable to the Lord, and not to his brother, for the right use of that which the Master has entrusted to him. There is nothing much more unlovely and unbecoming to the children of God than a disposition to petty criticism of the individual affairs of one another. It is a business too small for the saints, and manifests a sad lack of that brotherly love which should be specially manifest in broad and generous consideration, which would rather cover a multitude of sins than magnify one.
May love and justice find their proper and relative places in the hearts of all of God's people, that so the enemy may have no occasion to glory! The Psalmist says, "Oh, how love I thy law [the law of love, whose foundation is justice]! it is my meditation all the day." (Psa. 119:97.) Surely, if it were the constant meditation of all, there would be fewer and less glaring mistakes than we often see. Let us watch and be sober, that the enemy may not gain an advantage over us. [R3068 : page 266]
By this time Israel had reached the borders of Palestine on the east of the river Jordan, and had conquered the Amorites and the forces of Og, king of Bashan, – famous in the Psalms, – the giant of the noted iron bedstead. Moses, now one hundred and twenty years old, being forewarned of the Lord that his mission was at an end and that because of his transgression in the matter of striking the rock the second time he could not enter into the land of promise, had called the Israelites to deliver to them a closing message – a valedictory, as it were.
Our lesson is a part of that valedictory address which, we may presume, was delivered in the great teacher's most impressive style, and represented his most solicitous thought in the interests of the people in whose behalf he had sacrificed the honors of Egypt and for whom he had spent his life. For forty years the people had been trained and disciplined in the ways of the Lord, and yet their great leader realized that they needed special guarding against the evils which had degraded the people of Canaan; – the besetments of Satan, and the fallen angels operating through human agents and mediums. Wherever we may look, amongst all the heathen nations, we find that the evil spirits have had much to do with the degradation of the human family. Operating along the lines of man's natural and religious instincts, they have perverted these to sensualities of various kinds and have diverted his worship from God, sometimes directly to themselves and devils, and sometimes to four-footed beasts and creeping things and idols of wood and stone, as the Apostle declare. – Rom. 1:23; Rev. 9:20; I Cor. 10:20.
Those who investigate the matter will find no room, we believe, to doubt our statement that the fallen spirits are at the bottom of all the religious delusions of the world, – their ability to deceive and mislead being correspondingly less in proportion as the gospel of Christ has shined into a heart or a community or a nation.*
The great lawgiver enumerates here eight different forms of spirit-deception and miracle-working; (1) Divination, the receiving of information from occult sources, from the spirits by means of omens, oracles, etc. (2) Augury, the fixing of lucky and unlucky periods and the observance of these which tends to bring the mind into bondage to the evil spirits. At the present time amongst many, Friday is considered an unlucky day, as also certain stages of the moon. (3) An enchanter, one able to exercise superior mental control, known to-day as hypnotism. (4) A witch or sorcerer, one who claims to be able to exercise a power over the affairs of others, and in many cases does so, though not to the degree he has frequently gotten credit for, and certainly never in opposition to divine power. (5) A charmer – serpent charmers, etc., including also those who claim to be able to put spells upon people and animals, to tie magic knots, etc., by a power something akin to hypnotism. (6) Consulters with familiar spirits, amongst spiritualists to-day there are mediums who claim to have their special familiar spirit while others claim a general intercourse with the spirits. (7) A wizard, one who claims to be wise in hidden or occult wisdom – possibly as some suggest, describing one who has general intercourse with the spirits as in contradistinction to one who has intercourse only with the "familiar spirit." (8) A necromancer, one who professes to hold communion with the dead – as do spirit mediums of to-day. Moses declared that all who take part in such proceedings are an abomination to the Lord and that the nations already inhabitating Canaan were being dispossessed and their land given to Israel, in large measure because they had gone over to these doctrines of devils and communion with devils. The Israelites in this respect were to be perfectly free from everything of this kind – were to obtain their information, not from fallen spirits personating the dead or otherwise, but from God through his appointed oracles, laws, commands, etc.
We feel that we cannot too strongly impress upon spiritual Israelites everywhere the necessity of having nothing whatever to do with the present day representatives of these evils. It is not a light thing, therefore, for one who has heard the message of the Lord on this subject, to attend spiritualistic seances, to visit a fortune-teller, or to practice or be practiced upon in any manner by hypnotists, or any other representatives of Satan and the fallen angels and the black arts, or to use any of the various implements of divination now in vogue, such as planchets, etc. In olden times as well as now many of these villainies were practiced by the same individual, as for instance, the witch of [R3068 : page 268] Endor was also a necromancer. So stringent were the laws of ancient times that not only the practitioners of these wrongs were condemned to death, but also those who encouraged them by seeking their counsels, etc. Had it not been for these drastic laws no doubt Israel would have come under these debasing influences to a much larger extent than it did, and would have been correspondingly degraded like the heathen nations whose worship is, as the Apostle declares, divergent from the worship of God to the worship of devils, and their instructions instead of being from the Lord are from devils, evil spirits, "seducing spirits."
We have no hesitation whatever in saying that these evil spirits which ever since the flood have been seeking to gain power over humanity through deceptions and through the operation of various occult powers, have enticed them, bewitched them, brought them under the influence of fear and superstition, and into mental slavery so that they can be and are guided by falsehood instead of by the truth. This is one of the ways in which, as the Apostle states, "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believed not," and has hindered the light of the goodness of God in the face of Jesus Christ from shining into the hearts of men. As already intimated this same power is still at work even in Christendom, operating through spiritism, theosophy, hypnotism and Christian Science – yea, and we believe also operating deceptively in some who claim to be filled with, and moved by, the holy spirit, producing trance conditions, the vagaries of the "Holy Rollers" and various unseemly things done by people who mistakenly claim that they are filled with the holy spirit, but who are in fact, filled with and controlled by the evil spirits, – for their works they do. Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles were filled with the holy spirit and we may be sure that its character and its manifestations have not changed since their day: we may be sure, therefore, that spirits that cause people to behave [R3069 : page 268] themselves unseemly are "lying spirits."
It was under the teaching of these evil spirits that the people of Canaan first established the valley of Hinnom as a place of torture. This valley outside the city of Jerusalem, now known in the Greek language as Gehenna, had erected in it a brass figure of the god Moloch which, being hollow was heated intensely and then into its outstretched arms were occasionally placed children offered thus in sacrifice. God forewarned his people against this and every form of cruelty and also against the evil spirits which would so seduce them and pervert their minds as to lead them to such horrible and insane practices and beliefs. With Israel, therefore, this valley instead of being a valley of sacrifice, became the symbol of the Second Death in that it was made a crematory for the carcasses of dead animals, and for the bodies of certain vile criminals not deemed worthy of honorable burial. Under the Lord's arrangement, however, no torture was permitted in this valley or elsewhere in Israel – not the living, but the dead were consumed in it.
We are glad that we are living in a day when this Moloch torture is detested, a day in which civilized people, at least, look upon all such practices with abhorrence; nevertheless, the evil spirits operating upon the higher plane to suit the higher conditions of the spiritual Israel, have introduced false doctrines among them to such an extent that for centuries the masses of Christendom have attributed to the Almighty God of love a character and disposition far worse than that of Moloch. These false theories have cast into the fire not only a few sacrifices to satisfy Jehovah, but have made the whole human family to occupy this position, to be subjects of eternal torture – except a comparative few who with sincerity of heart and faith and obedience, lay hold upon Christ in this present life and are thus saved from an eternity of suffering. This doctrine of devils was introduced amongst spiritual Israel during the period which we denominate the Dark Ages; it finds no countenance whatever in the Word of God, neither in the Law nor in the prophets, nor in all the dissertations of the apostles of the New Testament; at very most it claims to base itself upon certain misunderstood parables of our Lord and upon certain misunderstood symbolical figures of speech in the Apocalypse. Yet, so completely have the evil spirits done their work, that the masses of Christendom thoroughly believe that the Bible is the authority and groundwork for that awful doctrine of eternal torment, – this Moloch cruelty ascribed to the God of Love, and now that their minds are becoming emancipated so that they can no longer believe such doctrines, they are disposed to reject the entire Bible, the Word of the Lord, because they think that it is the foundation for this awful, blasphemous error. Thus the fallen spirits again mislead many into new devices – Christian Science, Theosophy, Spiritism, etc., anything, everything to get them away from the simplicity, beauty and grandeur of the divine Word and plan.
Having thus forewarned the people, Moses reminds them that he is only a type of the greater Prophet whom the Lord had previously promised. The previous promise was at Mt. Sinai in Horeb, when God typically represented the giving of the New Covenant and when the people saw the lightnings, heard the thunderings, and felt the tremblings of the earth, which represented the great time of trouble in the end of this age; then they cried out unto the Lord entreating that instead of directly communicating with them he would do so through Moses as mediator. It was there that the Lord intimated that in the introduction of the antitypical New Covenant it would be at the hands of a still greater Mediator than Moses, – that great Prophet whom the Lord would raise up.
Our Golden Text points us to the Man Christ Jesus as this great Prophet! but the people who made this declaration did not fully comprehend the situation. Had they done so they would not a few days after have crucified the Lord. As a matter of fact, Jesus in the flesh was not the great Prophet, though his work in the sealing of the New Covenant with his blood at Calvary was necessary before he could be made alive in the spirit – as the new creature, put to death in the flesh but quickened in the spirit; put to death in weakness [R3069 : page 269] but raised in power; put to death in dishonor, but raised in glory, put to death in the flesh, an animal or human body, but raised a spiritual body on a plane of glory, honor, immortality. This great Prophet that God has promised is not a man, not of the human nature; but is the Lord of glory who has bought the whole world at the cost of his own life and shortly is to be its great Prophet, Priest, and King, to lead, to direct, to rule, to correct, to uplift and to ultimately bring to perfection whosoever wills to be in harmony with God – and the remainder will be cut off in the Second Death. The Apostle Peter brings out this feature of the ultimate end of all who will not obey the great Prophet, in his discourse recorded in Acts 3:23, "It shall come to pass that every soul which will not hear [obey] that Prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people" – the Second Death.
But still more wonderful than this is the divine plan: from the divine standpoint our glorified Lord Jesus is to be the Head, and the faithful of his Church are to constitute the members of this great Prophet. The Lord God raised up our Lord Jesus as the Head of this Prophet more than eighteen centuries ago, and since then he has been finding amongst the redeemed children of men, those who shall ultimately be counted worthy through him to be reckoned in as joint-heirs of the Kingdom, members of the body of this great Prophet. Although in all a little flock, 144,000, the calling has been so special and the testing or approving and disciplining, so thorough, that it requires the entire Gospel age to find and to perfect these members, and when all shall have been found, and all shall have been raised up by first resurrection power to glory, honor and immortality and joint-heirship with their Lord and Head, then the great Prophet shall have come and then his great work will be before him. Then will come the deliverance of all who are God's people, who desire to sacrifice to him, to worship him and to be separate from sin; all such will have an opportunity for deliverance and for leading and guidance into Millennial Canaan under this great Prophet. Praise God on behalf of the world for such a glorious outlook! praise God for the privilege of our present blessings of invitation and opportunity to become identified with this great Prophet, by faithfulness to him who bought us with his own precious blood!
Here the words of our lesson come in and seem to apply specially to Israel restored under the new conditions of grace. Even the most faithful under the Law were obliged continually to say, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this death-condemnation" in which I am, under this Law? – Behold the Law of God is just and good and right, and I approve the same with my heart, but am unable to comply with its conditions because of weakness, – death working in my mortal body! The time of Israel's return to divine favor at the close of the Gospel age is the period mentioned by the Lord through the Prophet Jeremiah; saying, "After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." – Jer. 31:33,34.
Under that blessed arrangement of the New Covenant, established in the hands of the greater Mediator, the Christ, the great Prophet, the desires and intentions of the heart, accompanied with the best endeavors of the flesh, will be accepted, even tho the latter be imperfect for a time, and require the blessed influences of the "times of restitution" to bring them to perfection. Moses' prophecy looks down to this time, grasps the new situation, sees Israel turned to the Lord with new hearts, enabled to keep his Law perfectly; it will not be too difficult for them, but new and plain and possible.
That this is the proper thought to be attached to this prophecy of Moses, is shown by the Apostle Paul. (Rom. 10:4-10.) He applies these words to the Church during this Gospel age, as in contrast to the conditions of the Jewish age, which had just closed. The Gospel Church enters into the privileges and opportunities of the New Covenant now, in advance of Israel and the world in general. It is the privilege of the spiritual Israelite now, beforehand, by the exercise of faith to realize in himself acceptance with God, justification by faith; to realize further that the merit of Christ covering all his imperfections, which are not of the heart, continues him in this justified relationship with God, notwithstanding the imperfections of his flesh and of his works – for we "are not under the Law but under grace." To those who can now exercise the faith, all the blessings that will come to the world in the Millennial age are possible – and more. To such these greater blessings are not hidden, but may be seen with the eye of faith. To such they are not far off – pertaining to another age – but are possibilities of the present time, through the [R3071 : page 270] operation of faith. Such, having the ear of faith, are not saying, We cannot know the mind of the Lord, for he is afar off in heaven; who shall bring us a clear, definite statement of his will? These already have this declaration of the divine will in the person of Christ, in his teachings, personally and through the apostles. Neither will such say, Christ indeed has come, has died, has gone into the sleep of death; who shall now bring him forth that he may instruct us? For with the same eye and ear of faith they both hear and see that he is no longer dead, but is risen, glorified, empowered of the Father, and that he ever lives to be the blesser and High-priest for all those who approach the Father through him.
What then is this message which can thus be heard with the ear and recognized by the eye of faith? The prophet as well as the Apostle declares that it is possible for us to have this salvation, an ever-present power within us, in our hearts and in our mouths. The Apostle declares that this which Moses prophesied is the Gospel which he preached, which we have received; viz., the confession of the Lord with our mouths and faith in him in our hearts.
It is noteworthy that both the Prophet Moses and the Apostle Paul state the matter in the same manner; first, the confession with the mouth; second, the belief in the heart. This form of statement is probably not of accident, either. The confession with the mouth is the first outward evidence given of a faith in the heart; and indeed it seems to be a part of the divine arrangement that all confession of the truth is necessary to a full appreciation of it. True, we cannot properly confess what we do not believe; hence a belief must have precedence to a confession; but the confession is necessary to the expanding, enlarging and completing of faith in the heart. Who ever thinks that the light he has received in his heart can be maintained without a public confession of it is deceived, and hence it is declared, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." The righteousness started by faith cannot go on and reach the completion which will mean eternal salvation, [R3072 : page 270] unless it be accompanied by acts of faith, most prominent of which is the confession of the lips.
We would like to impress this feature of the divine truth upon all of the Lord's dear people everywhere; realizing that many are weak, puny, sickly, in their spiritual health, because of their failure to follow the Lord's direction – to declare courageously – and as wisely and lovingly as possible – what great things the Lord hath done for our souls. It is not sufficient that we confess the first blessing received, tho that is necessary before we can receive additional blessing. But each blessing as received should be promptly confessed, to the praise of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. This is the law of spiritual development. This is the command to the spiritual Israelite. If he is not obedient, that which was nigh, in his heart and in his mouth, will ere long become far off to him; – the eye of his understanding will cease to see clearly; the ear of faith will cease to distinguish plainly and he will gradually go further and further away from the glorious privileges which are ours, as new creatures in Christ under the New Covenant.
To Spiritual Israelites, who have been begotten of the spirit, adopted into the family of sons of God, and made prospective joint-heirs with Jesus Christ their Lord, the message is the same that it will be during the Millennial age to the world of mankind; viz., choose life or death. Thank God we have gotten free from that horrible doctrine of Moloch which, perverting the plain Word of God, would declare to us that God has set before us eternal blessing or eternal torment! Not so; his Word is most explicit; the rewards are life or death. Thus our Lord positively announced, "He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son shall not see life" – and those not seeing life, of course could not experience eternal torment. Nevertheless, this proposition of life or death is a very serious one; much more potent in its influence than any other, because we can believe it; because we can see its reasonableness. How reasonable it is that God should declare to his spiritual Israel of this Gospel age that if, after they come to know him, taste of his good Word, experience the power of the age to come; after they have had the eyes of their understanding opened; after they have heard, seen, appreciated, the divine plan – if after all this they do not love the Lord their God, and trust him in their hearts, and sufficiently, too, to confess him with their mouths, they are unworthy of eternal blessing which he has to give – their lack of appreciation of divine mercy means their unworthiness of life!
How reasonable, too, is this declaration as respects the world of mankind during the Millennial age! Life and death will be the alternatives set before them also. The great Prophet, the Christ, Head and body, as representative of the Father and of his Law, will make matters very clear, very plain, to all those who, when they know the Lord's goodness, have any desire or appreciation thereof. But they too must learn to acknowledge the Lord in their lives, in their hearts, and to confess him with their mouths, else they will be unworthy of the future life. The difference between the two classes, – we of the Gospel age, they of the Millennial age, – will not be as respects the question of life and death. The penalty in either case will be Second Death; the reward in either case will be eternal life. The difference in the reward will be that the faithful overcomers of spiritual Israel will be granted joint-heirship with their Lord on a higher plane of life, sharing with him his glory, honor, immortality; while the faithful of the world, tho blessed in lower degree with a restoration of human perfection and life, will, nevertheless, be blessed fully and completely up to their very highest ability to appreciate and desire.
The essence of this command, now applicable to the Gospel Church, by and by to be applicable to restored Israel and all who, under the favorable conditions [R3072 : page 271] of that Millennial age, will be accepted as the children of Abraham, is the Law of Love. "I command thee this day to observe the Law of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways and keep his statutes, and his commandments and his judgements." It is the correct thought that love to God must be from the heart, – voluntary, in order to be of the kind which he desires and will appreciate. "He seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth." Why, then, does Moses say, "I command you"? Why does the Lord command love, through the Prophet, since a commanded love would not come up to the standard of voluntary love?
We answer that the Lord sets before us the standard of love necessary to be attained if we would enjoy the blessings which he purposes to give. He commands, in the sense of laying before us plainly and distinctly His only terms for life eternal. As previously pointed out, love is a matter of development and begins with a kind of duty love, which gradually growing out as we grow in grace and in knowledge, expands into gratitude, then into admiration, and finally ridding itself of all dross and selfishness, becomes pure and fervent love. The Lord is pleased if in our hearts he sees this endeavor to approach in truth the way of life which he has opened through the death of his Son. He is pleased to note our expansion and development under the light of his favor. He is pleased to grant us the covering of the Lord Jesus' merit, and to reckon to us perfection, and to adopt us from the very beginning of our love and consecration; and he will be pleased when we have finished our course, when we have attained the mark, when we have come up to the standard he has set – perfect love – to grant us the blessing of life eternal, which He cannot grant upon any other condition.
These things, really intended for spiritual Israelites, were spoken to natural Israel, as were all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Hearing, Israel heard but did not understand, as now it is our privilege to understand, because we are of the "house of sons," adopted and begotten of the spirit; whereas they were of the "house of servants," for "Moses verily, as a servant, was faithful over all his house; but Christ as a son, over his own house, whose house are we, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end." To the extent that any natural Israelite comprehended even in part this Law of Love, and endeavored to grasp it, in that proportion he was blessed, notwithstanding the fact that he was under the Law and bound by the Law, and thus a servant and unable to become a Son. We see noble illustrations of these faithful ones of the past, in Moses himself, Joshua, Caleb, Samuel, David, and all the prophets, whose faithfulness the Apostle records, as having been pleasing to God, and who shall have corresponding rewards, altho they will not have the reward that is promised to the Church – "they without us shall not be made perfect." – Heb. 11:39,40.
In the closing words of this grand oration, the Prophet cautioned his brethren again concerning any disposition to leave the Lord and accept instead other gods. His words are specially applicable to spiritual Israelites, and we do well to give them earnest heed. We are already by faith in this blessed condition; we have heard the words of eternal life. We already have entered the Canaan-rest condition by faith in our Lord. We, therefore, are in danger from the besetments of our own flesh and from the besetments of sin abounding and from the Adversary – in danger of making other gods, and turning our hearts away from the proper center of their affections, either to the god of wealth or the god of fame or the lesser gods of the family circle and home, or to the most ignoble of all, self. We are not to be drawn away by any of these from our loyalty to God, nor to render worship or service in any sense to any of these. To do so would mean to turn away from the hopes and joys and blessings now ours. To resist these temptations, and to abide in the Lord's favor, on the other hand, will mean to continue in the joys and blessings and rest of our present state of grace. Thus the Lord sets before us the blessings and the curses, the advantages and the disadvantages, the right course and the wrong course, life and death.
Our choosing of life and blessing and righteousness and God are not merely the choice of a moment; the daily trials and testings of life prove whom we love and whom we serve. Let us examine our hearts and our daily course of life, and note for what we are spending life's energies, what fills our affections, what "satisfies our longings as nothing else could do." To the extent that we find the Lord the center of our lives, our hopes, our aims, and his will the ruling law in every affair of life, in that same proportion we find joy and peace and blessing and growth spiritually. If we thus, under present conditions and trials and oppositions of the world, the flesh and the devil, separate from them and cleave to the Lord, we are choosing the better part, the part of blessing, choosing life, and we shall live and shall inherit the goodly land of promise, the Millennial Canaan, and there be joint-participators with our Master in bringing God's promised blessing to the world, that they also may hear and know and obey his voice, and cleave to him and thus have life, and inherit the other, the earthly, features of the Abrahamic blessing.
Our Golden Text is quite appropriate to this lesson. It is in vain that we say we love the Lord if we do not seek to do those things pleasing in his sight. He is not seeking those who merely give outward allegiance, but those who at heart love him and his righteous arrangements. He is satisfied, indeed, to accept us at the beginning, largely upon our professions of faith and devotion, under the robe of Christ's righteousness, knowing that in our imperfect development [R3073 : page 271] we could not love perfectly; but he expects us to grow in grace, knowledge and love, and only by so doing can we abide in his love, and only by abiding in his love can we hope to attain the glorious things which he has in reservation only for those who love him.
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September 1st
| VOL. XXIII. | SEPTEMBER 15, 1902. | No. 18. |
'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.
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.
Those of the interested who, by reason of old age, or other infirmity or adversity, are unable to pay for the TOWER, will be supplied FREE, if they send a Postal Card each December, stating their case and requesting the paper. We are not only willing, but anxious, that all such be on our list continually.
The chiefest service we could commend, open to all who are unencumbered and in active use of their faculties, is the colporteur work. It is an honorable form of ministering the truth from house to house, as the apostles served. It is a service which the Lord seems to have blessed as much or more than any other for gathering the "wheat." It is apparent at once to all that to sell such books as the DAWNS at 25 cents each, cannot be for money-making: that it is merely another way of preaching the truth. No other religious books are sold at any such price. Indeed few subscription books sell for less than two to three dollars each. Any who can serve in this work are invited to write to us for "Hints to Colporteurs."
The three dollar grade is gone, except a few which we have agreed to hold until the end of the year. We still have a hundred or two of the two dollar grade, but they will not last long.
We have a few of both grades without pictures, to permit their being sent by mail to foreign countries. We will hold these for the foreign friends until November 15th: after that they will be open to all, for same prices, $2 and $3 postpaid.
"TABERNACLE SHADOWS OF BETTER SACRIFICES" is out of stock temporarily (both English and German), but we hope to have plenty very soon.
WE REGRET inability to supply charts promptly – except the 25c wall chart with metal hangers. Will fill orders for others as quickly as possible. Painters as well as printers in this vicinity are extremely busy at present.
Recently W. F. Clarke, of Wilkesbarre, Pa., addressed to President Baer of the Reading R.R., appealing to him on religious grounds to end the anthracite coal strike. Mr. Baer's reply, which has excited general criticism, follows: –
"My Dear Mr. Clark: I have your letter of the 16th inst.
"I do not know who you are. I see that you are a religious man, but you are evidently biased in favor of the right of the workingman to control a business in which he has no other interest than to secure fair wages for the work he does.
"I beg of you not to be discouraged. The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for – not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country, and upon the successful management of which so much depends. Do not be discouraged. Pray earnestly that right may triumph, always remembering that the Lord God omnipotent still reigns, and that His reign is one of law and order, and not of violence and crime.
"Yours truly,
"GEORGE F. BAER, President."
Now that the world is passing under the dominion of the "giants" (trusts, combines, etc.), it should not surprise us to find the claim advanced that these are of divine creation and have divine rights. Mr. Baer's view is not hypocritical in our opinion; but is the result of failure to discern that Satan is the "prince of this world" or dispensation, who under his law of selfishness is permitted of God to "deceive the whole world:" in order that eventually all may see to what lengths Selfishness would lead – ultimately wrecking the present order – social, political, financial and religious – and thus preparing for the establishment of Christ's Millennial Kingdom of love and righteousness upon the ruins of Satan's dominion and the binding of Satan that he may "deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are ended." – Rev. 20:1-4.
Seeing present conditions foretold in Scripture we can look with sympathy on both parties to the coming conflict. We see the battle between them clearly set forth in God's Word. We see both parties to that struggle awake to certain truths and blind to each other's arguments. From our vantage point we see both right and both wrong – both contending conscientiously for "rights", yet both missing the real standard of right, because blinded by selfishness. We see that the fault lies less with the people on both sides of these controversies, and more with the false selfish standards which constitute the warp and woof of all present institutions: so much so that it cannot be patched, but will be permitted of the Lord to work out its own destruction, as a preparation for the new order of things promised the groaning creation under the glorified Christ and his Kingdom.
The New York Times declares that President Baer's utterance "verged very close upon unconscious blasphemy." The New York Tribune declares:
"Strict-construction theologians have before now insisted upon the close relations between Calvinism and coal. It is something new, however, to find a hardheaded financier setting up as a doctrine of the business world the predestination of the Pennsylvania coal mines to the all-wise control of President Baer and his fellow presidents of coal companies. Doubtless good Calvinists have accepted the management of the coal operators, like everything else that is, as being somehow or other in some mysterious way in harmony with the ultimate designs of a God who endures evil and makes even the wrath of men to praise Him. But few of them have reached the point of considering the so-called 'coal barons,' as shining examples of God's perfect work, in which His loving designs for the welfare of the whole human race were made manifest. It seems, however, that is the true doctrine which all religious men should hold.... [R3073 : page 276]
"It will take a load from the consciences of many earnest people to have this authoritative declaration that God, through the kindness of the coal operators, will be able to manage this strike in accordance with the dictates of infinite wisdom. There have been some persons who believe in law and order, and have no sympathy with riotous strikers or demagogic agitators, who have not hitherto been able to detect infinite wisdom sitting at any of the coal presidents' desks, but doubtless they were mistaken. In their blindness they have said it was the duty of the operators to operate; that they should either meet their men half-way and settle the difficulty, or, under the protection of the State, put other men to work and mine coal. They have had a notion that God put the coal in the earth to furnish heat for men's needs, and thought there was some slip in the cogs of the universe when they could not buy coal because President Baer, God's vicegerent at the mines, would not work them. But if it is a part of the divine order that we should all pay $10 a ton till the surplus stock is worked off, so let it be. Only we should like to ask a question or two. Are the coal operators infallible individually, or only when they are gathered together, like a church council, about an office table to fix rates and say what each retailer must sell his coal for on pain of having his God-given supply cut off? Was the agreement of two years ago, which the operators say was so unwise and has made so much trouble, also dictated by infinite wisdom?"
The New York American & Journal, always extremely caustic in referring to labor troubles, and evidently predisposed to score the wealthy to the extremest limit, uses the following very severe language: –
THE ASTOUNDING BLASPHEMY OF A MODERN PIRATE."'The rights and interests of the laboring man,' writes President Baer, of the Philadelphia & Reading Railway Company, to a correspondent who appealed to him as a Christian to end the coal strike, 'will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of the country.'
"Mr. Baer, as one of the most influential members of the Coal Trust, no doubt sincerely feels that he is especially commissioned to carry out the Divine will as a protector of labor and manager of the property interests of the country. He is so happily constituted that he can see no satire in the old syllogism:
"'The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. His saints shall inherit the earth.
"'Therefore we inherit the earth.'
"Heaven, whose deputy Mr. Baer so ingenuously and modestly declares himself to be, while endowing him with a shark's appetite and capacity for seizing things, has mercifully denied him the sense of humor. Thus is he spared the consciousness of sin when he blasphemes. Indeed, when Mr. Baer blasphemes he does so solemnly, with a warming and uplifting feeling that he is performing a religious rite and doing a virtuous deed. This blessing is vouchsafed only to those who in all things except money-getting are dense beyond the understanding of ordinary men.
"Not since last February has one of the pious plutocracy – who protect the 'rights and interests of the laboring man' and 'to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country' – favored a subject people with a specimen of unconscious blasphemy at all approaching in stupendous insolence and monstrous self-righteousness that of Brother Baer.
"It was in February that young Mr. Rockefeller, heir apparent to the Standard Oil millions, informed the Young Men's Christian Association of Brown University that the trusts are God's work – that it is by the Almighty's design that small competitors are killed off in order that a great monopoly may arise. He soared to flowery illustration, thus:
"'The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. This is not an evil tendency in business. It is merely the working out of a law of nature and a law of God. There is no real difference between business and the Christian life.'
"And the whole history of the Standard Oil monopoly is the history of a crime!
"Brother Baer, proclaimed by himself an agent sent of God to take possession of and care for the property of the rest of us, though blind to blasphemy in himself, has doubtless a hawk's eye for detecting a sacrilegious spirit in others. [R3074 : page 276]
"The Coal Trust, according to Mr. Baer, being, like that American Beauty rose in the commercial garden, the Standard Oil Trust, a Divine institution, it manifestly follows that he regards any meddling with its sacrosanct operations as an affront to Heaven. It is true the Coal Trust violates those human laws which forbid the railroad companies that comprise it to engage in coal mining and to form a combine, but the Coal Trust being of celestial origin and under the direct protection of Deity (President Baer vicegerent), what are human laws to it?
"The pious pirate is no new thing. Often in the old days the prayerful buccaneer imperilled in a stormy sea vowed candles to the Virgin in exchange for a safe deliverance, and to add a wing or a tower to a church was not an unheard of act of gratitude after a voyage in which much booty had been gathered and many passengers and seamen on captured galleons made to walk the plank.
"But President Baer and the relations between a just God and the thieving trusts must be left to the pulpit for adequate treatment. Only the pulpit can deal with blasphemy so crass and horrible as it ought to be dealt with, without seeming to be as blasphemous as Baer himself. And all the privileges and immunities of the sacred desk will be needed for a task which no layman may undertake who would not sin against reverence even in appearance.
"The Lord God Omnipotent still reigns,' exclaims the amazing Baer of the Coal Trust, 'and his reign is one of law and order, and not of violence and crime.'
"And still stands the Commandment, delivered through Moses on awful Sinai to all men:
To avoid extremes of sentiment on questions of this kind which appeal to the favored classes in one light and to the masses in another, it is necessary that we take a broad comprehensive view of the subject – [R3074 : page 277] past and present. Selfishness has been the law of our race ever since Sin and Death gained control; and even where the nobler organs are given a voice in shaping our convictions and conduct, Selfishness, more or less, twists and colors all conclusions. Even amongst those begotten of the Spirit to newness of mind the fact that the new mind must be exercised through the fallen flesh is very sure to pervert its judgment in some measure, for a time, at least, until the new will learns to use the Golden Rule with accuracy.
It was natural that the doctrine of "the divine right of kings" should establish itself – that the favored classes and individuals should claim divine power in attaining and maintaining their authority and power over mankind. Indeed in ancient times the great rulers claimed not only divine favor, but further that they were related to the gods and were, therefore, properly objects of worship: in accordance with this thought the Emperors of Rome were styled Pontifex Maximus (Chief Priest), and their statues were set up for homage and adoration. This view possibly came originally from Israel, whose kings were, indeed, of divine appointment as part of a typical system which foreshadowed the yet to be Kingdom of Heaven established upon earth, for which we still pray, "Thy Kingdom come." With the passing of Israel's Kingdom as a type, all kingdom-types passed away and we now look only for the antitype. Nevertheless, the Czar of Russia and the Pope of Rome are each still accepted as "Pontifex Maximus" by millions; and all kings – especially the German Emperor – like to appeal to their people for obedience and support along this line.
Mr. Baer in a recent interview with Senator Quay on the same subject declared: –
"We are not fighting labor organizations. We fully recognize the right of men to organize to protect themselves from oppression and to benefit themselves in any legitimate way. But we do oppose their unreasonable interference with the discipline and ordinary management of our business. We will not permit them to select our employes. Neither politics, religion, nationality nor membership in labor organizations shall debar any competent man from working for us. We are fighting the battle of freedom for the individual, and his right to labor on his own terms.
"The coal operators say that they cannot mine coal, because the miners make demands which render it impossible to mine coal profitably, and that the state has enacted laws prohibiting the employment of men in the mines unless they have worked two years in the anthracite mines, and therefore they cannot, for the time being, mine coal. How, then, under the circumstances can there be any violation of public duty?
Professor W. G. Moorehead of Xenia College, is well known to readers of Millennial Dawn and Zion's Watch Tower, as the one man in the world found capable of writing a tract against Millennial Dawn that has circulated widely. His has made the Professor famous in heaven and in earth; because no one else being able to write anything on the subject worthy of printers' ink, his tract has been reprinted by the hundreds of thousands by various of our enemies North, South, East and West. The Professor owes something to Millennial Dawn for his earthly fame surely; but alas, we fear he has a contra account in heaven where sophistical "dust" deceives none, and where a man's condemnation corresponds with his misuse of his talents! – Matt. 25:20.
The "Moorehead Tract" may have blinded some, we know not, "God knoweth"; but we feel sure that it has injured and permanently blinded none of "the very elect," and we are giving ourselves no concern about it, but are trusting that the Lord will overrule it and all things to his praise, according to his own wisdom. Those who have seen it will remember that the Professor's chief objection to the Millennial Dawn was that it was being "forced upon the people at the ridiculously low price of 25 cents." Why he should object to this we do not know, unless he has some publications which look dear in comparison. However, he is even with us now, since his tract is absolutely free and being literally forced upon many.
Brother Moorehead is a "Pre-Millennialist," too, by the way; and we presume that his wrath against Millennial Dawn is chiefly on account of our "following not with him." (Mark 9:38,39.) His tract was his method of forbidding us, and stopping us; though he must admit that it has proved a miserable failure; for Millennial Dawn has gone forward amazingly and his opposition and that of his friends has had no evil effect so far as we are aware, except upon those who use it to fight against God, and against the truth.
Why do these so called "Pre-Millennialists" of whom Prof. Moorehead is an acknowledged leader, oppose the truths heralded by Millennial Dawn and Zion's Watch Tower? What different views do they hold? We don't mind advertising their views, and are sure that all of our readers are sufficiently in advance of them to appreciate the distinctions quite clearly.
(1) They are generally members of so-called "Orthodox" sects and hold in common with them that the great mass of mankind have gone to an eternal hell and a small minority to heaven; and that the conditions of all of these are eternally fixed at death, so that "the Kingdom of God's dear Son" (Col. 1:13) will profit them nothing. They hold that all who will be so lucky as to be alive when the Kingdom is established, will be blessed with extravagant opportunities and privileges of which their fellow-members of Adam's race have for six thousand years been deprived, to the eternal torment of almost all of them! True, they accept as true the Lord's words "All that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth," (Jno. 5:28,29) but they explain the transaction a little differently – that all that are in heaven shall come down and all that are in hell shall come up, at the Lord's command. They generally conceive this to be the work of a 24-hour judgment day at the close of the Millennium, and that the poor creatures will merely come forth for a farcical exhibition and be [R3074 : page 278] remanded to heaven and hell, and that at the same time the Lord and the good of earth will go off to heaven and the earth then take fire and burn up.
We, on the contrary, hold that none but the elect have gone into the heavenly condition; that the remainder of mankind are still sleeping in the tomb (sheol, hades) unconscious of the lapse of time or of anything else (see Eccl. 9:5), and that the Millennium is the promised time for the blessing of all with a clear knowledge of the truth and a full opportunity to embrace and obey it under the guidance and assistance of their Redeemer and his Bride; and that wilful rejectors will eventually be destroyed – not tormented. – Acts 3:23. We hold, with the Scriptures, that "the earth abideth forever" and that the "fire" coming is symbolic of the great social, financial and religious trouble which will overwhelm "the present evil world" and usher in the Millennium. – Eccl. 1:4; Zeph. 1:18; 3:8; Gal. 1:4.
(3) They still hold the dark ages view of Trinity – that three times one is one. That Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three names for one God. Hence, that the Father and Holy Spirit died if Christ died. But that since God cannot die, and the universe could not be supposed to go on for even one day without its Creator and Ruler, and since Christ is "the same in substance" with the Father and Holy Spirit, therefore Christ cannot have died really, but merely in appearance [R3075 : page 278] – deceptively. That similarly, to produce an effect, our Lord cried on the cross "My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?" That again for effect and deceptively he said to Mary, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God."
That we may be seen not to misrepresent the subject of three Gods in one, we quote from the Presbyterian "Shorter Catechism:"
"Q.5. Are there more Gods than one?
"A. There is but one only, the living and true God.
"Q.6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
"A. There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory."
Surely it is high time that thinking Christians should repudiate such nonsense for which not a word of Bible testimony can be produced! Will not the Professor, if he still differs with us, take the trouble to publicly meet the editor of this journal in a candid, Christian, brotherly discussion of the disputed points, using for proof the Word of God only? We will bear all the expense, willingly. We suggest to him that in our opinion this would be a much more noble, much more gentlemanly, much more Christian method of procedure than sending out a scurrilous tract full of invectives and appealing only to the prejudices, and calling the writer "hydrophobic" and styling Millennial Dawn "nocturnal hallucination" and "the product of insanity," because it is perhaps too reasonable and logical and Scriptural for him to appreciate it.
We promise not to retaliate but, on the contrary, to treat the Professor as though he were a Christian gentleman in every sense of the word.
(4) They believe with us that Jesus was a spirit-being before he became a man; but they deny that in his resurrection he became a spirit-being as in the beginning. They claim that he is still "the man Christ Jesus" in heaven, altho they admit that all the holy angels are ministering spirits; and would doubtless admit that conditions suitable to spirit beings would be quite unsuited to fleshly beings. They hold that our Lord's second coming will be in flesh and that he and the apostles and all the saints will have thrones and palaces and earthly court and pomp and splendor much as earthly kings now do, only on a more lavish scale, etc., etc.
We object to this as being contrary both to the Scriptures and to sound judgment. It is not reasonable to suppose that our Lord's obedience to the performance of the Father's will even unto death, (Heb. 10:9), should to all eternity cost him the encumbrance of the flesh – and that with scars and wounds, as is claimed. We hold with the Bible that "Now the Lord is that spirit" (2 Cor. 3:17); and that though he was "put to death in the flesh he was quickened in spirit" (I Pet. 3:18); and that "tho we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth, know we him [so] no more." (2 Cor. 5:16.) We hold with the Bible that "flesh and blood can not inherit the Kingdom of God" (I Cor. 15:50), and that when that Kingdom is established it will be spiritual and invisible; and hence that men shall not say, "Lo here" or "Lo there!" for "the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation" (outward show) but shall be in the midst of men unseen. – See Luke 17:20,21.
We hold that Christ and his glorified Church will be as invisible to men as are Satan and his angels now; – because they will be spirit beings; that this is the meaning of the "change" promised; "changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (I Cor. 15:51,52), "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (I Jno. 3:2), and share his glory; and his glory and presence are now like those of the Father, "whom no man hath seen nor can see," "dwelling in light which no man can approach unto." (I Tim. 6:16). Only because of her "change" can the Church behold her Lord's glory and that of the Father.
We will let the Professor tell us of his troubles – how he stared, and rubbed his eyes and felt vexed and annoyed by our "astonishing translation of John 1:1", – the more so because he could not deny its correctness. The clipping (from Watchword and Truth) reads thus: –
A NEW RENDERING OF JOHN 1:1.The publication of the little tract entitled "Brief Review of Millennial Dawn" by the Watchword and Truth seems to have disturbed somewhat the defenders of the heresies of that book. From three different sources there has come to the writer an astonishing translation of Jno. 1:1. One is found in "Zion's Watch Tower," dated April 1, 1902, and received a few days ago. The translation in this paper is [R3075 : page 279] heavily marked with a blue pencil, and on the margin are written in blue pencil the words, "Moorehead should read this." Well, yes; he has read "this," and had read it before with some attention. Here it is: "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and the Logos was a God: the same was in the beginning with the God." (The italics are in the paper referred to above.) When I first read this translation I rubbed my eyes and stared. When the last of the three came with its blue pencil emphasis and the marginal exhortation, I polished my glasses, re-read and stared! Obviously the import of it is, to remove this text from the sphere of testimony to our Lord's pre-incarnate Deity. It is thus employed in the little tract. Therein it is asserted the verse teaches (1), Christ's eternity: (2), His eternal separate existence: (3), His Deity. The Millennial Dawn translation seems intended to exclude this interpretation and to fasten another and a very different meaning on the verse. It makes Christ a God as distinguished from the God!
The Millennial Dawn people may perhaps ask: "but is not our translation of the verse exactly literal?" Yes, surprisingly literal. The reader who is not acquainted with the Greek may be here informed that the definite article the is very often attached (not always) to the term God in the original of the N.T. Its use there is idiomatic. Our English forbids it save in certain well-defined cases, as e.g. "The God of Abraham," etc. Its presence or absence in each is governed by the genius of the two tongues respectively.
But let us follow the example of the above queer rendering of Jno. 1:1, and apply the method to other places of Scripture. In this same first chapter of John four times the Greek word God is found without the definite article the. Let us read these and hear how they sound: verse 6. "There was a man sent from a God whose name was John:" verse 12, "But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the children of a God: verse 13, "Which were born...of a God:" verse 18, "No man hath seen a God at any time." Quite recently I read the eighth chapter of Romans through in the original, and found that ten times the apostle uses the name without the article, and in each instance the name is employed to designate the Supreme God. Let us read but one verse with Dawn-ist translation inserted: verse 14, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of a God, they are the sons of a God." How does it sound, brethren? This silly nonsense is matched only by the Reims version of Heb. 11:21: "By faith Jacob when he was a dying
Nor is this all. One of the commonest rules of Greek Grammar as touching the use of the definite article the is this: In a simple sentence the subject generally takes the article while its predicate omits it. Jno. 1:1, third clause, is a simple, definite statement with a subject and a predicate; the subject is, "the Word" (Logos), and its predicate unquestionably is, "God," and hence the latter word does not take the article. Will some one kindly loan these gentlemen a Greek Grammar?
Furthermore, there is a Greek adjective that expresses exactly the idea of a divine or god-like being, but who is not necessarily himself God. It is the word theios. This word John might have used had he wished to convey the idea that Christ in his pre-incarnate state was like a God. But John does not use this term, instead he employs the supreme title of God and applies it most emphatically to the Lord Jesus Christ in his eternal pre-existent state.
Once more, if John had inserted the article the before the term God in the third clause of the verse, then the word would have embraced the entire Godhead, and a distinction of the Persons in the Trinity would have been obliterated. Had he written (to follow again the example of the Dawn translation), "and the Word was the God," then Christ would have been the whole of the Trinity. He might as well have written, "The Son is the Father," for that would have been the exact equivalent.
But enough of this. The only justification of this brief article lies in the bizarre rendering of Jno. 1:1 which has been offensively thrust upon the writer as a triumphant reply to his use of that text as proof of Christ's everlasting equality with the Father, as himself God; and this, too, with blue pencil emphasis and marginal admonition.
– W. G. Moorehead.
We are sorry that such trifles so worry the Professor, and advise our friends that they hereafter remember that the more head a Professor has the more bother he has in using it, – if the arguments are against him. We reflect, that if the brief reference to John 1:1 made so much rubbing of eyes necessary, it is fortunate that the Professor did not first see the full and extended treatment of this and cognate passages in Millennial Dawn, Vol. V., for then he might have rubbed his eyes out. However, on the other hand, blind eyes need considerable rubbing and washing [R3076 : page 279] and especially anointing before sight comes. We hope and pray that the Professor may have such a blessing in this respect as the Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians. – Eph. 1:17,18; 3:17,18,19.
And now, what about the above? It is certainly an improvement on the "Moorehead Tract" in that it is a little more honest and Christian in its general style, avoiding some of the slang and invective of the latter; yet, we must confess disappointment that ten years of "growth in grace" has accomplished so little improvement: that the Professor is still so willing to "handle the Word of God deceitfully" and to throw "dust" into the eyes of those who have reason to expect better things of him as a minister and a Professor of theology! See what the Lord says respecting such bell-wether professors who befoul the waters of truth so that his sheep cannot drink at the streams of truth. – Ezek. 34:18,19, read also verses 10-16.
The Professor being unable to deny the exactness and literalness of the translation, acknowledges it in such a manner as to mislead those unacquainted with the Greek and who trust to his candor, by effecting irony, saying, "Yes, surprisingly literal" and again referring to it as "this queer rendering of John 1:1." Again, without denying the absolute correctness of the rendering, he throws more "dust" into the eyes of his credulous friends by a little "acting," to deceive; [R3076 : page 280] saying, "Will some one kindly loan these gentlemen a Greek Grammar?" His assurance in this is based upon the fact that only a small minority of his readers have Greek New Testaments or any ability to understand them and to see his trickery.
We make no claim to originality in respect to John 1:1. It was written and printed nearly eighteen centuries before we were born. It is God's Word and not ours – the article showing emphasis and all, and any sport made of it is answerable for to God, and to him who said "Whosoever is ashamed of me and of my words of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed." We do not even claim originality as to the proper translation of John 1:1. Our attention was called to it by The Emphatic Diaglott – an interlineary word for word Greek and English New Testament, in general use and of high repute.
The Professor's quotations from John 1, and Romans 8, "a God" is so much more "dust". We make no claim that the Greek article showing emphasis is used every time the Father is referred to as God; but, on the contrary, that its use in John 1:1 is made necessary to distinguish between God the Father and God the Son, and to show what our Saviour's words fully attested; saying, "My Father is greater than I." "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." "I seek not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." – John 14:28; 6:38; 5:30.
Notice carefully the next to last paragraph of the Professor's article. He here most positively acknowledges the correctness of our translation; – acknowledges that the article (the) in the third clause must be omitted, in order to show that Christ is not the God but a God. The Professor evidently has a Greek grammar and knows how to use it too, if only it suited his theory to tell the whole truth.
What is the real character of our present civilization? We may as well face the facts. It is gigantic in invention, discovery, enterprise, achievement; but it is gigantically worldly; sometimes and somewheres monstrously God-denying and God-defying. This "Christian civilization" has produced giants in these days, men of renown, but they often use their intellect, knowledge and fame only to break down, as with the iron flail of Talus, all Christian faith. Philosophy now blooms into a refined and poetic Pantheism, or a gross, blank Materialism, or a subtle Rationalism, or an absurd Agnosticism. Science constructs its systems of evolution, and leaves out a personal God; Spontaneous Generation becomes the only creator, Natural Law the only determining power, and Natural Selection the only Providence.
"Such men as Strauss and Renan, Hegel and Comte, Goethe and Kant, Mill and Spencer, Darwin and Huxley, Matthew Arnold and Theodore Parker are specimens of men who owe their education, refinement, accomplishment, to the very Christianity they attack. The cubs first nurse the dam, and then turn and strike their fangs into her breast. Civilization itself is turned into the stronghold of unbelief; its imaginations and inventions are high towers that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, and the thoughts of our great thinkers have not been brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
"We have the ripest form of worldly civilization, but the ripeness borders on rottenness; while men boast of the fabric, its foundations are falling into decay, and that awful Anarchy which is the last result of Atheism even now threatens to dissolve society itself. Government is rendered helpless by the destructive forces which science has put into the hands of the ignorant and lawless. The ballot and the bullet alike become weak in competition with dynamite, and wars become impossible until men are ready for mutual extermination.
Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D.
Such of the friends as may be able to afford the expense of travel, but not the expense of entertaining will please write us specially to this effect, and some arrangement will be made for them by our kind entertainers.
On the mornings of the opening of the Conventions (and on preceding evenings if notified) representatives of the home churches will be on hand at the various depots, to assist and direct arriving friends. These may be known by carrying in their hands or other conspicuous place copies of the Watch [R3076 : page 281] Tower, and all visiting friends should likewise display copies of the Watch Tower, that they may be identified. However, should you arrive at another time, or should you fail to meet the watchers, the addresses furnished in the announcement on last page of this issue will be quite sufficient to enable you to reach the convention without trouble.
We are hoping for delightful seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, as usual, and trust that all who attend will come seeking to bestow a blessing upon others as well as to receive blessing upon themselves. Let the spirit of love, peace, contentment, joy in the holy spirit, rule in our hearts and make them thus receptive to the blessed influences of the word of grace and truth.
Those who cannot attend, of course, will be many more than the few who will be present; but they will be remembered in our petitions, as we trust we shall be remembered in theirs. We hope that those not in attendance, will, during the sessions of the conventions, let us have their hearts and sympathies, that they too may share the blessing. And our trust is that, as on former occasions, those who do attend the conventions will carry home with them rich measures of the spiritual refreshment poured out upon the assemblies according to divine promise. Let us see to it that we bring our consecrated hearts and powers fully into accord with our Lord and his providential arrangements, that thus we may claim his promise to pour us out a blessing that we will not be able fully to receive, but which will overflow upon others far and near.
We learn that tickets to Washington Convention will not be on sale in season to permit all to get there for the opening. We have therefore added another day.
Some seem to get a wrong impression respecting the purchase of the excursion tickets to these conventions; [R3077 : page 281] they seem to think that it would be wrong for us who are not "Odd Fellows" nor members of the "Grand Army," to avail ourselves of these cheap excursions. This is a decided mistake; the excursions are open to anybody, and probably not more than one-half of those using the tickets will be members of the orders named. There is nothing dishonorable about it. It is fully understood by the railways, and not only ourselves but others make it a habit to hold conventions at the same time with these large conventions, so as to take advantage of the cheap rates granted by the railways – which are only granted because of the large numbers expected to be in attendance. The railways do what they can to get as much travel as possible on these excursion tickets.
The greatness of Moses would be incomprehensible to us from any other standpoint than that which the Scriptures set forth; viz., that he was under special divine direction as God's servant, and that, therefore, being naturally an able, efficient, humble, good man, had these manifold qualities of his character intensified by reason of the Lord's power working in him and through him for the effecting of the divine purposes.
Moses was now 120 years old; 40 years of his life had been spent as an Egyptian prince, in the court of Egypt, educated, trained, and in the public service as a general and a ruler. The second forty years of his life he was a shepherd in the wilderness, because of his love for the Lord, his appreciation of the divine promise, and his preference to share these with his brethren, the Israelites, rather than to continue in the favor of the Egyptians, their enemies and oppressors. We have already seen how this wilderness experience was probably valuable to him, enabling him to transform and transmute the knowledge and experiences already gained into a broad and deep philosophy, the foundation of which was faith in God and respect for his promises. Thus does God sometimes work by natural means to prepare the instruments for his service. The closing forty years of his life were devoted to the exercise of all the knowledge, experience and mental philosophy and faith previously gained, to the service of Israel as their leader, lawgiver, statesman – prophet, priest and king. And now his work was finished – the work which the Lord intended him to do. Another, Joshua, was to take up the work of leader, and he had already, by the Lord's direction, been formally and publicly ordained to this office, and Moses was ready to die.
In considering the fact that Moses was not permitted to go into the promised land, we are to bear in mind that he, as well as the nation of Israel, was being used of the Lord in a typical manner. We are not to go to the extreme of higher criticism, and to think of the deliverance from Egypt as an allegory. It was all true; the history of a series of facts; but truths and facts, under the Lord's guidance, may be so arranged as to be types of still higher facts, illustrations of still higher principles. One of the reasons mentioned why Moses was not permitted to lead Israel into the land of promise was the second smiting of the rock. The smiting the first time (Exod. 17:1-7) was by the Lord's direction, and the waters gushed forth, but the second time (Num. 20:2-12) the Lord said to Moses, "Speak unto the rock," but instead he smote the rock a second time.
In this he spoiled a type, while he made another type. Christ Jesus, the true Rock, was to be smitten but once for our sins, and as a result of that one smiting at Calvary the water of life would be obtained for all true Israelites to all time; and if for a season the flow was stopped it was only necessary that the Rock should be invoked in the name of the Lord, that the waters might again flow forth. Christ dieth no more; death has no dominion over him; therefore in the type the Rock should not have been smitten a second time. But the second smiting, nevertheless, made a new type, because as the Apostle explains, there are some now who crucify Christ afresh, and put him to an open shame – some of his professed followers denying or ignoring the value of the original sacrifice, denying the blood that bought them, are counted as committing the sin unto death – Second Death – and of these Moses became a type, and as a type of a class which would have to do with the antitype of the rock, he was debarred from Canaan. – Heb. 6:4-6.
But even aside from the making of this type, Moses would not have gone into the land of Canaan; because, from another point of view, he was the type of the Law Covenant, which must end before the people can enter into their rest. As Moses was the representative of the Law Covenant, so Joshua became the representative or type of the New Covenant and of its mediator, Jesus, the Deliverer. "The Law came by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." The Law was a pedagogue or guide to prepare and bring the Israelites along to the borders of Canaan, but the Law could never give them rest, could never take them into the land of promise. Christ, the antitype of Joshua, must do that. We are to remember, too, that Moses' error in smiting the Rock, did not involve him in the Second Death, nor will it work any injury to him as respects the future. It was comparatively a trivial matter, and taught him a valuable lesson which he evidently learned to the Lord's pleasement, and his failure to go into the land of promise, therefore, should not indicate a continuance of divine indignation against him, but merely a continuance of the divine purpose in making of him a type of a class who would have to do with the antitypical [R3077 : page 283] Rock, the antitypical water, and the antitypical smiting.
We might remark here, too, that those who smote the Lord the first time, at Calvary, have the promise of full forgiveness. They shall look upon him whom they pierced, and shall mourn for him, and the Lord will pour out upon them the spirit of prayer and supplication, and they shall have full opportunity of recompense and reconciliation. (Zech. 12:10.) It is those who, with greater knowledge, and after they have become partakers of the holy spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the age to come, sin wilfully and count the blood of the covenant a common thing – these are they who commit the real sin unto death, and for whom the Scriptures suggest no hope, or further opportunity, because they have sinned wilfully.
At this time the Israelites were in the land of Moab, at the northern end of the Dead Sea, opposite Jericho, and nearly in line with the city of Jerusalem. They awaited the Lord's direction, by the pillar of cloud, before crossing Jordan to take possession of Canaan. Here, Moses' work being accomplished, the Lord led him up to Mount Pisgah's top, a lofty peak 3,586 feet above the sea-level. From this point an extended panoramic view was possible – is possible today. Here Moses saw much with his natural eyes, but much more with the eye of faith, seeing the promises which God had made to the tribes of Israel, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and by his own mouth. He saw of the travail of his soul, and was satisfied. We hear not a murmur respecting the transfer of leadership and the cessation of his own labors. If God had used him in his service to the extent that he was pleased to do, the servant was thankful and satisfied.
"So Moses, the servant of God, died" – not from weakness and infirmity of age, for "his eye was not dimmed nor his natural force abated"; – he died according to the word of the Lord. Throughout his [R3078 : page 283] life he had been the Lord's servant, used and blessed as such, protected and kept by the power of God through the many vicissitudes of life, and he who thus kept him, buried him in one of the many little inaccessible valleys of this Mount Pisgah. The Lord not only hid Moses in the grave, but hid the grave, so that no man knoweth its place. This also illustrates the divine wisdom; for, (1) had the place of the grave been known it no doubt would have been an object of veneration amongst the Israelites, a Mecca, to which pilgrimages would have been made, and the man Moses would have been honored, rather than the God whom this man represented, and whose servant and mouthpiece he was. (2) Doubtless, also, the hiding of the grave was typical, and represented that the Law Covenant, which died and passed away, was not to be revived; that the New Covenant, not only displaced, but thoroughly replaced it, so that there would never more be need for the Law Covenant in connection with the bringing of Israel to all the precious promises of God.
This great truth, so beautifully expressed by the poet, finds a grand illustration in Moses. His life and character are a noble example, not only for the Lord's saints, but also for natural men. No one can study the life of Moses, and note its purity, its lofty ideals, its humility, its obedience to the Lord, its faithfulness to his fellows, without being bettered, ennobled, by the contemplation. And each one thus bettered himself by contemplating this noble character, should in turn seek to leave noble and enduring footprints for others, that perchance "some forlorn or shipwrecked brother seeing may take heart again."
The Book of Deuteronomy is chiefly composed of addresses by Moses to the Israelites, setting before them the various lessons they had received from the Lord, expounding to them the divine law, their duty to God and to man. It closes with the Song of Moses, and Moses' blessing of the nation, two poems whose beauty and literary merit are acknowledged as being of the highest order. Jacob called his twelve sons when dying and pronounced over them certain blessings. So now Moses, as the father of the nation, in these poems, completes his admonitions respecting them, his warnings and encouragements; and in these prophecies, not only their trials and difficulties and failures are foretold, but also their final victories, as we believe these victories shall ultimately be attained by all the Israel of God – all who will become by faith the children of Abraham – the Jew first and also the Gentile, during the Millennial age. – Rom. 11:11,12,28-32.
This song of Moses was evidently not merely for Israel, but prophetical, and was referred to by our Lord (Rev. 15:3,4), long after that nation had been blinded and given up as respects the high calling of this Gospel age. This is the song of Moses and the Lamb, which the overcomers are to sing, those who, with Christ, shall be members of the body of the great Prophet who shall bless, not only the literal seed of Abraham, but all the true Israel of God; all who shall become Israelites according to the faith and obedience of Abraham. This song, after telling of trying experiences, ends with rejoicing, saying, "Rejoice, all ye nations with his people!" The poem of blessing, which applied most particularly to the tribes of Israel, tho doubtless also typical of the elect 144,000 ends with rejoicing, saying, "Happy art thou, O Israel! Who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord?" – Deut. 32 and 33.
The scribe who wrote the Book of Deuteronomy at Moses' dictation finished its account as a historian, describing the death and burial of Israel's great leader, and declaring the great honor in which he was esteemed, recounting his mighty works, and ascribing these as did Moses himself, not to Moses personally, but to the Lord, who sent him to do them.
Joshua was now eighty years of age, and was accepted by the Israelites as Moses' successor without murmur. They had, doubtless, learned some valuable lessons in their wilderness discipline. Joshua, [R3078 : page 284] it will be remembered, was Moses' companion when he went up into the mountain, Sinai, and there received the Law, and indeed throughout the wilderness journey he seems to have been the one above all others upon whom Moses could thoroughly rely. He and Caleb were the two spies who brought the favorable report, declaring that by the help of the Lord Israel might go up and assuredly take possession. In the change of leadership Israel learned another great lesson; viz., that their confidence and trust must not be in man; that so long as they recognized the Lord as their Leader they might feel safe and confident; because, altho others might pass away, the Lord would abide faithful and could raise them up at any time just such leaders as he saw best.
There is a lesson in this matter for spiritual Israelites as well. We are not to put our trust in leaders, but in the Lord. This does not signify that we are not to trust leaders, and not to acknowledge leaders, for all the history of the Lord's dealings with his people, the typical as well as the antitypical, shows us that he is pleased to use human agencies as his representatives in the teaching and leading of his people from grace to grace, from knowledge to knowledge. The lesson to be learned is that the Lord is thoroughly competent to manage his own work, and that while we may look for his leading through human agencies our trust is not in them, their wisdom, their strength, but in the Lord's wisdom and strength, guiding them and us through them.
Another lesson here set forth is found in the words, "Israel hearkened unto him [Joshua] and did as the Lord commanded Moses." Joshua was to be followed only as the people could realize that he was following God's instructions, given through Moses – through the Law. In the antitype the great Deliverer Jesus, will be the commander of the people, will bless the people during the Millennial age, and they must hear him and must obey him, but all that he will speak and all that he will order will be in full accord with the divine law, as represented by Moses. The Christ, during the Millennial Kingdom, will attempt nothing on behalf of mankind in violation of the laws of righteousness, the laws of God. But everything in the way of lifting mankind up, will be by magnifying the Law of God, and making it honorable, and assisting all to conform their lives thereto, but not by that Law Covenant which is forever dead.
All these events seem to indicate that Joshua was a man of large faith and large courage; moreover, we remember that notwithstanding his high position as Moses' chosen minister, he seems to have been entirely void of that ambition which led to the overthrow of Korah, Dathan and Abiram and many of the princes of Israel, and which previously had affected Miriam and Aaron. Although he is not mentioned as being so meek as Moses, we may from all these considerations, judge that the one whom the Lord chose for Moses' successor was indeed a meek man, and that his courage, exemplified in every feature of his history, was the result of his faith in the Lord and not the result of self-confidence. The lesson to be drawn from this by spiritual Israel is the one mentioned by our Lord; namely, "Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14:11.) In this Joshua was a type of our Lord Jesus who, in turn, is the pattern which must be followed by all those who would be finally acceptable in the Lord. The Apostle's argument along this line, to all the spiritual Israelites, is, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." – I Pet. 5:6.
Israel unquestioningly accepted the Lord's choice of a leader. As a people they were evidently learning something by their experience in the wilderness training school. At the beginning of their sojourn they were scarcely willing to recognize even Moses; but now they had come along so far as to be able to see that the Lord was their real Leader, and that even though Moses had died without bringing them into the promised land, God who had made the promise of Canaan to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and themselves, was abundantly able to accomplish his promise, and hence they were willing to accept whatever leadership the Lord should indicate. Spiritual Israelites, too, are to learn the same lesson; human leaders are important in their way – in so far as they are the divine choice – so far as we can see fulfilled in them the Lord's promised guidance of his people. But we are never to think of human leaders as indispensable; and God is likely to do again as in this case of Moses; namely, to remove a trusted leader and to appoint another in his stead, to the intent that [R3079 : page 285] his people may learn that he is their real Leader, that with him as their Guide they will surely have success, and that without him all earthly leadership would be in vain.
As we have seen, Moses prefigured the Law, the school-master which was to bring God's people to the promised land, to the promised blessing, restitution, etc. We have seen that as Israel was unready to enter in and to possess the land because of lack of faith in the beginning and, therefore, had its wilderness journey extended to forty years, so on account of lack of faith at our Lord's first advent they were prevented from joining with him in the restitution work and were made to wander to gain further experiences and leadings during the past nineteen centuries; and now at the close of these experiences, they, as well as spiritual Israel, are again on the borders of the land of promise – the Millennial Kingdom. This time Joshua will take command, the Jordan will be crossed and the gracious promises begin to have their fulfilment. Meantime, the Joshua class, the Church, has been in process of development, and after the great time of trouble which is near at hand, the world in general will be ready to follow the leadership of Jesus as it is written of that time, "Many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." – Micah 4:2.
As, meantime, Joshua needed encouragement, so now the Lord's consecrated ones, the members of the body of Christ, need encouragement, need to have pointed out to them the sureness of the divine promise, its lengths and breadths and depths, just as the Lord pointed out to Joshua the land of promise, from the wilderness to Mt. Lebanon, and eastward to the river Euphrates and westward to the Mediterranean Sea. Does faith waver and are we inclined to wonder how it will be possible for the new dispensation to accomplish such wonderful things as are necessary to be accomplished for the blessing and uplifting of the world of mankind? If so let us look backward and see how the divine power was exercised in a miraculous manner, not only through Moses at the crossing of the Red Sea and in the giving of the manna, in the victory of the Amalekites and in the water from the rock, but let us also notice how the Lord's providences were miraculously with Israel in various ways during the period of their favor, and let us remember that this same power of God in still larger measure is to be with the antitype of Moses, with the new Leader of the world, the great Messiah – Christ the Head and the Church, his body, in the work of blessing and restitution on behalf of all those who shall, under that full enlightenment, desire to be the people of God. As it was God with Moses and God with Joshua that brought the victories, etc., so it will be the power of God with the Church that will bring the coming victories. "The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath." (Psa. 110:5.) "I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." (Psa. 2:8.) Again the Apostle declares that the Millennial victory of Christ shall be by and through the Father's power. (I Cor. 15:27.) As none were able to stand before Joshua as the Lord's representative, so none of the great forces of evil and the obstructions now in the pathway of the fulfilment of God's promises shall stand; all must fall before the antitypical Joshua. "As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." (Rom. 14:11.) Satan himself shall be amongst these great enemies to be overthrown and utterly destroyed, and all of his works of evil – death itself being finally completely blotted out as an opponent of those in harmony with God and approved by him, – all others having been destroyed in the Second Death, which is not an enemy either to God or to those who are in accord with him or to any principle of righteousness or truth or goodness.
The land of promise is here mentioned as being the "land of the Hittites". Higher Critics were once inclined to think this reference to the Hittites an egregious error because they could find no record of such a people, and because from their standpoint the Bible is to be considered on a lower plane than are the secular histories of the world. However, all this has been changed because in the last few years excavations made in Assyria have disclosed ancient tablets whose testimony fully corroborates the statement that the Hittites were at this time a mighty people. Those who discount the Bible statements are at a disadvantage, while those who accept them are sure to be on the right side and, sooner or later, to have confidence and faith justified by evidences.
Three times in this lesson is Joshua encouraged by the Lord, "Be strong and of a good courage," "Be [R3080 : page 285] thou strong and very courageous," etc. (vs. 6,7,9.) There are different kinds of courage; one sort is begotten of egotism and self-reliance, another kind is begotten of a recklessness which fails to take into account the difficulties of the situation, but the courage which the Lord inculcates and which all the spiritual Israelites are to seek to possess is the one which, while coolly and calmly discerning the trials and difficulties of the way and while humbly realizing its insufficiency for the occasion, is supported by a faith in the Lord – a trust in the divine promises which enables them to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. This was to be Joshua's courage and it is to be ours in respect to all the things of the present life, as well as in respect to all the things of the Kingdom, confidence in the Lord whose servants we are, and whose work he has commissioned us to perform. The expression, "Turn not from it (the Law) to the right hand or to the left" does not signify a turning aside completely, but rather, according to the original, it means, Require neither more nor less than the divine standard; seek to keep as nearly as possible in absolute alignment with the divine Word. We find some Christian people disposed to add to the Law of God in great complacency, feeling that in thus getting in advance of the divine requirement they are showing the Lord a special zeal for righteousness. Some of the Pharisees of the Lord's day [R3080 : page 286] were thus disposed to add to the Word of God and to lay heavy burdens upon the people beyond what the Lord had required of them in the Law. The Lord's faithful ones are not to do this any more than to subtract from the divine requirements. Truth is truth; God's Word is God's Word; we are not authorized to take from it or to add to it. Many today have come to realize that the Bible does not teach an eternity of torment, and yet feeling that this doctrine may possibly help through fear to drive some into church membership, or to deter some from grosser forms of sin, they are rather inclined to favor the doctrine even though they admit it to be a blasphemy against the divine character, and in total violation of all principles of righteousness. Those who would be of the Joshua class are to learn that it is not their right or privilege to make laws or to ignore those already made, but so far as lies within their power to observe the divine principles of righteousness laid down in the divine Word, and to teach the same to others, leaving the consequences with the Lord.
A very profitable review of this quarter's lessons may be found in Deuteronomy, 8th chapter. There Moses, himself, summarizes the experiences of Israel's humiliations, and bases upon them great and important lessons respecting their future. He shows that the lessons properly learned and applied, will bring lasting blessings, riches and divine favor; and these to be rightly enjoyed and really profitable, must continually draw their hearts to God in thankfulness and in acknowledgment of his providential care and guidance. Any neglect of such recognition of divine favor would be sure to lead to pride, and thus more and more toward sin and farther and farther away from the Lord, and ultimately to the cutting off of the supply of blessings because of separation from their fountain.
All of this lesson may well be applied to spiritual Israel. As the poet has expressed it,
Although the entire Pentateuch – the five books of Moses – was designated the law of Moses, the Book of Deuteronomy was in Joshua's day particularly the book of the Law, it being rather a summary of the teachings of the other four books. However, we are not to confine the thought of the Lord's words simply to the Pentateuch, but are rather to remember that "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" is a part of the divine law which we, as the antitypical Joshua are to reverence, to study and, to the extent that we are able, obey. We have already seen that the divine law in this sense speaks more than simply forms and ceremonies and justice, to us, spiritual Israelites; we see that speaking through Jesus Christ, our Lord, God has in our later times spoken mercy and peace and reconciliation and love and adoption into his family. As the antitype of Joshua, our Lord Jesus declares, as represented through the Prophet, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart," and thus it must be with all those who shall be ultimately acceptable as members of Christ's body, the glorified Church, the Royal Priesthood; they, each and all to be of that company, must be in this respect copies of God's dear Son – they must all have the divine law in their hearts, in their wills, in their intentions, and so far as possible each must see to it that this divine law is obeyed in all the affairs of life. As Jesus was to have his success in proportion to his obedience to the divine law, so we will make our calling and election sure in proportion as we shall strive to come into conformity with the regulations of the divine law which has come to us, the sum and substance of which, as our Master declared, is that we love the Lord our God with all our mind, being and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. In proportion as we do these things, we shall have "good success". Not good success as respects earthly prosperity perhaps, earthly fame and name, but good success as respects our real object in life, the attainment of the prize of the high-calling set before us in the gospel, the attainment of joint-heirship with our Master in the Kingdom. And nothing can more thoroughly stimulate us and encourage us in this direction than absolute faith, confidence in the Lord. To battle with the world, the flesh and devil requires more strength than we possess; we need the courage coming to us from the divine assurance given to Joshua, "Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."
The time had come for entering the promised land and Joshua, full of the proper courage, gave the necessary instructions – that the people should prepare victuals for three days during which they would be marshalled as an army and be in process of crossing over Jordan into the promised land. When we remember that our Lord Jesus declared that his flesh which he would give for the life of the world is [R3080 : page 287] the bread which comes down from heaven, and when we remember that the preparation of this bread meant the death of our Lord Jesus, and not only so but his resurrection as a spirit being, and when we remember further that he was in this state of death or preparation, for parts of three days and that he arose on the third day, it gives us the suggestion that quite probably the Lord meant a lesson for us spiritual Israelites in connection with those three days of preparing of victuals as mentioned in our lesson. Our Lord seems to have referred to three larger days also on several occasions; as, for instance, when he said, "I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected," we understand him to have included with himself his Church, and that he spoke respecting large, or thousand year days. He was living in the beginning of the fifth thousand; this would be the first of the three days, then followed the sixth thousand year day, the second, and the third would be the seventh thousand. During the first two of these days the Lord and his Church have done cures, cures of sin, binding up the broken hearted and assisting whoever was willing to a measure of newness of life, and in general doing good to all men as opportunity has been afforded, and on the third day, that is in the seventh great day, or the Millennium, early in the Millennial morning, he shall be perfected, the entire body of Christ complete, and then the great work of restitution will begin. Again the same three days are referred to, and the temple is mentioned as a figure or illustration; our Lord's words were, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up"; the writer adds, "But he spake of the temple of his body." (John 2:19-21.) The Apostle assures us that [R3081 : page 287] the Church is the temple of God, and that it is the body of Christ under Jesus its Head. Various agencies have been in antagonism with the Church, Head and body for the two days mentioned, the fifth thousand year period and the sixth thousand year period, and it still continues while we are in the beginning of the seventh period; but the Lord's promise is that now shortly the temple, the Church, his body, shall be complete and he will raise it up, raise it from ruin, raise it to the perfection and glory of the Millennial Kingdom. It is in harmony with this that we may recognize the Church with her Lord as being a part of the bread which God is preparing. Our Lord Jesus was the bread which came down from heaven, and we have partaken of him, of his merit, and have been thereby transformed; and we, as the Apostle declares, have become part of the one loaf, the one bread, and we also, as part of the one bread, are being broken with our Lord, and thus indirectly this preparation of the Church and her association with her Lord are represented in the three days victualling which is provided for the world of mankind, and necessary to them before they can pass over Jordan and enter into the Millennial Canaan.
Question. – Please state in what respect Prof. C. A. L. Totten is in error concerning the length of our Lord's earthly ministry?
Answer. – One of the points made by Mr. Totten is that the lamb must be of the first year; and on this he builds his conviction that our Lord was in his first year at the time of his death; at the same time you (and so far as we know he also) reckon that our Lord did not die in his first year, but in his second year; that is to say, that his ministry, beginning in the fall, lasted at least for one and a half years. We, with many others, claim three and a half years, on the evidences. In any case it was not the first year, except in the way in which we regard the matter; viz., That our Lord's sacrifice was made when he was exactly thirty years of age: this was his first year, and the very beginning of it. According to our understanding that was where the sacrifice was made and completed. There the human nature, typified by the bullock, was slain in the sense of consecration, by the new creature, typified by the priest. The subsequent work in the three and a half years of ministry was in the types represented by the taking of the blood into the "Holy," the offering of the incense there, while the fat was being burned in the "Court," and the offal outside the Camp, and all this sacrificing ceased when our Lord died at Calvary. But the point is that his death was reckoned to him from the very moment of consecration, just as it is the case with us: "Reckon ye yourselves dead indeed." This is the only sense that we know of in which our Lord can be shown to have been the Lamb of the first year.
Question. – In an old WATCH TOWER the suggestion is made that Satan possesses some special power relating to insect life, etc. Are we to infer from this that your thought is that he has power to create life? and if so, by what authority?
Answer. – We had no thought that anyone would understand us to mean that Satan would have life-giving power, or power to create something out of nothing. The thought which we wished to convey is that just as a mule is hybrid, or a cross between the horse and a donkey, so various mixtures and conglomerations are possible, especially in the lower forms of life – insects, [R3079 : page 287] etc. Satan is probably much better informed on many of these than is mankind, and yet mankind has learned how to develop life in varied forms, and this is one of the studies amongst doctors, scientists, etc. They find various kinds of bacilli, for instance, and learn now that they can propagate these various species, and to some extent modify and alter them under various conditions. For instance, it is claimed by the best scientific men of the schools, that nearly all the diseases to which humanity is exposed are the result of evil species of animalculae. Similarly diseases in plant-life are caused frequently by little creatures, so small as to be only discernible with high-power microscopes.
We suggested that many of the insects of modern times, the pests which so greatly annoy farmers and gardeners, are probably developments of these infinitesimal or microscopic animals – developed into larger kinds and species, along lines which our adversary thoroughly understands.