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Poems and Short Features
A Canaan on Earth That the re-establishment of Israel in the land of Palestine is one of the events to be expected in this Day of the Lord, we are fully assured by the expression of the prophet. (Amos 9:11,14,15) Notice, particularly, that the prophecy cannot be interpreted in any symbolic sense. It is not a Canaan in heaven to which they are appointed, but a Canaan on earth. They are to be planted upon “their land,” the land which God says he had given them, the land which he promised to Abraham, saying, “Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. [An intimation of a then far distant period, giving ample time for such a multiplication of his seed.] Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger—all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” (Gen. 13:14-17; 17:8) It is a land into which they were once privileged to enter, and in which they dwelt for centuries. But during that time they were many times plucked up and carried into captivity in other lands, while strangers wasted their cities, drank the wine of their vineyards, and ate the fruit of their gardens. And finally they were completely rooted out, their cities laid waste and desolate, and they were driven as wanderers and exiles from country to country the world over. But when replanted in their land according to this promise, “they shall no more be pulled up out of their land,” which God gave them; and “they shall build the waste cities [cities in which they had formerly lived], and inhabit them.” A scattered, homeless, desolate and persecuted people, they are still a distinct and homogeneous people. United by the strong ties of blood relationship, by common hopes inspired by a common faith in the wonderful promises of God, though they have but dimly comprehended those promises, and still further bound together by the bond of sympathy growing out of their common sufferings and privations as exiles, they, to this day, look and long for the hope of Israel. —Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3, pp. 244, 245
Divine Revelation To us it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, which many prophets and many righteous persons of the past were not privileged to see. Thank God for the light of present truth! Now we can see a plan of God—a plan which covers every detail of history past, and of revelation future; a plan that is complete—lacking and disjointed at no part; a plan that is in strictest conformity with divine justice, wisdom, power and love, and with every text of the divine Word; and which thus proves itself to be not only a reasonable plan, but the plan of God, in comparison with which all other theories and plans are defective and evidently erroneous, out of harmony with the divine attributes and with the divine Word. Those who have come to an understanding of the plan of the ages recognize it as of divine and not of human origination.”
—Reprints,
p. 1867
Through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins. The apostle does not refer to something that was done by our Lord as the archangel before “he was made flesh” (John 1:14), nor does he refer to any work to be done by him in his new, highly exalted condition, “set down with his Father in his throne” and partaker of his divine nature; but he here refers to the work done by “the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5,6). Thus the apostle again emphasizes the fact that “as by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:2). Yes, this is the center of the gospel proclamation that the failure of the first perfect man was fully offset by the sacrifice of the man Christ Jesus, and that it was to this end that it was needful for our Lord to leave the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, to become poor (in the sense of taking our lower nature—but not its blemishes, for he was “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners”); and yielding up this human nature a ransom-price or corresponding price for the life forfeited by father Adam for himself and his race. This is the basis upon which every offer to grace is presented by the Scriptures. And now, he who was the Father’s agent in the redemptive work is to be the Father’s agent also in the work of “blessing” all the redeemed with ample opportunities for return to divine favor—the first step of which is the forgiveness of sins.
—Reprints,
p. 2150.
Spring — Life
Anew How refreshing is the Spring, with its resurgence of life after the cold and barren Winter! Roots that have been lying dormant in the ground are awakened—called forth by their returning lord, the sun. The grasses, flowers and trees all begin to manifest the resurrection. How appropriate that Jehovah God ordained that the Passover should be in the Spring of the year. It was at this season that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. Therefore, every little blade of grass that pushes its way out of its prison-house of death, every blossom that wafts its fragrance on the Spring breezes, and every tree that puts forth its new foliage, is but a mute memorial of that Resurrection and the assurance of the general resurrection of all the countless dead, when, as Jesus declared, “all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth.”—John 5:28,29 —Anton C. Frey, Deep Waters and a Bubbling Brook, p. 234
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