HARVEST
GATHERING AND SIFTINGS.
ZION’S
WATCH TOWER VOL. XI. ALLEGHENY, PA., MAY, 1890. NO. 6.
R1214
...However, we were then
merely getting the general outlines of God’s plan, and unlearning many
long-cherished errors, the time for a clear discernment of the minutiae having
not yet fully come. And here we should
and do gratefully mention assistance rendered by Brothers George Stetson and George Storrs, both now deceased, the latter the
editor of The Bible Examiner. The study
of the Word of God with these dear brethren led, step by step, into greener
pastures and brighter hopes for the world, though it was not until 1872, when I
gained a clear view of our Lord’s work as our ransom price, that I found the
strength and foundation of all hope of restitution to lie in that doctrine. Up
to that time, when I read the testimony that all in their graves shall come
forth, etc., I yet doubted the full provision-whether it should be understood
to include idiots or infants who had died without reaching any degree of
understanding, beings to whom the present life and its experiences would seem
to be of little or no advantage. But
when, in 1873, I came to examine the subject of restitution from the standpoint
of the ransom price given by our Lord Jesus for Adam, and consequently for all
lost in Adam, it settled the matter of restitution completely, and gave fullest
assurance that ALL must come forth from Adamic death and be brought to a clear
knowledge of the truth and to fullest opportunity of everlasting life in
Christ.
Thus passed the years
1869-1872, and the years following, to 1876, were years of continued growth in
grace and knowledge on the part of the handful of Bible students with whom I
met regularly in Allegheny. We progressed from our first crude and indefinite
ideas of restitution to clearer understanding of the details, God’s due time
for clearer light not having come until 1874...
C.T.R.
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS DATE (?-1861)
...On the Sonship I should have no controversy with Brother Grew but on the point of ‘being made like,’ it strikes me there is a principle involved that we should look to. If true in the first sense, it would not, but parity of reason, prove immortality, because Paul says, ‘it was Christ that died;’ therefore we (in spirit) might also dies. But would it not be a very strong inferential argument of the condition of man’s spirit between death and the judgment, and have a direct bearing on the case of the thief on the cross, Stephen, Paul’s being unclothed,’ ‘desire to depart,’ ‘be with Christ,’ etc.
G. W. STETSON
Olens, Ohio
———-
REPLY
TO G. W. STETSON
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS DATE (?-1861)
In reply to the question of
Bro. G. W. Stetson, I remark that I understand that the union of the
pre-existent Spirit, (denominated the Son of God, Ro 1:4) with the body
prepared him, qualified or capacitated him for that actual participation of
‘our feelings and infirmities,’ which constituted him a faithful High Priest,
whose offering and mediation were acceptable to God.
The fact that the divine
Spirit of the Son of God existed anterior and independently of the body
prepared him, involves no proof that mere human spirits can exist independently
of the body. The Son of God was a peculiar being. Although, in his incarnate
state of humiliation, he ‘was made like unto his brethren’; in his original
‘begotten’ divine nature, he was made ‘much better than the angels,’ Heb 1:4,
whose nature is superior to ours. Heb 2:7.
As the Son of God, in his divine nature, was ‘begotten of the Father,’ Joh 1:14, his declaration, ‘I live by the Father,’ Joh 6:58, must be understood as referring to his highest nature, and consequently, the words, ‘thou shalt make his soul (life) an offering for sin,’ Isa 53:10, may be referred to the same nature. I understand that it was the voluntary offering of the heights and entire life of the Son of God, in conformity with the will of the Father, in connection with his general obedience, which constituted and adequate ‘propitiation for the sins of the whole world’; so that God might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’ 1Jo 2:2 Ro 8:2. I appears to me, that both the Trinitarian and simple Humanitarian theories are open to the serious charge of diminishing the efficacy of the great sacrifice by limiting the actual death of the Son of God to simple humanity. I understand that my brother S. is not an advocate of either of these theories.
HENRY GREW
DOCTRINES
OF STETSON’S CHURCH
January 18, 1863. (1) They
believe in the personal coming and reign of Christ on the earth during the
Millennium, as taught in Re 20
(2) At the beginning of
which period the righteous dead will be raised, the living saints changed from
mortal to immortality, and will reign with Christ during the thousand years.
(3) They now believe the
intermediate state between death and the resurrection of both the righteous and
the wicked is that of unconsciousness.
(4) They believe, as the
wicked do not lay hold of Christ as their Life-giver, and neglect to seek for
immortality, they fail of that attribute, and consequently will be raised up at
the end of the one thousand years to a mortal life, and will fall under the
power of the Second Death, being the wages of sin, which will be an extinction
of being, and eternal in its results.
(5) Some believe that as
all the family of man that have "died in Adam" will be raised up in
the resurrection to another life, that all who have lived and died in
unavoidable ignorance of a saving knowledge of God’s plan of salvation, in this
or previous dispensations, will then have the opportunity of hearing of Him who
died for all and tasted death for every man, and of accepting or rejecting
Christ for themselves; then their due time for hearing of Him will have come.
(6) The belief in or the
rejection of these doctrines or any part of them is not made a test of
fellowship. The only test is Christian character.
(7) Their creed is simply
this: ‘We, whose names are hereto attached, do hereby associate ourselves
together as the Church of Christ in Norwalk and vicinity, and agree to take the
Bible as our only rule of faith and practice."
THE WORLD's CRISIS
(Wednesday, August 3, 18..)
A recent reading of this declaration of the Evangelist, and a careful comparison of his words with those of the other New Testament writers, as also his own comments thereon in his epistles, has led me to suspect that the phrase "In the beginning," like many other Scriptures, has been very generally misapprehended, and consequently misapplied. It is most frequently referred to the beginning of the creation of the material worlds, of the heavens and the earth, as recorded by Moses in Genesis, and outside of the record I do not recollect of having seen any other.
But is it even probably that John, is giving his
"treatise of all that Jesus began to do and teach," would in his
narration of events take some other and different starting point than that
assumed by all the other evangelists and apostles, widely differing also from
his own other statement, as made and recorded by himself in his first epistle
(1:1-2)? We think not. Let us, then, collate the different writers on this
point, and note the unity of testimony among them as given upon this subject.
Matthew introduces his narrative with -- "The
book of the generation of Jesus Christ," and goes no further back than
Abraham, fourteen generations. Then, "The birth of Jesus Christ was on
this wise." (Statement of events follows.)
The record by Mark opens with -- "The beginning
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God." - 1:1. The preface of Luke
is more explicit; thus: "Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth
in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
even as they delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eye witnesses,
and ministers of the word [i.e., the word of testimony, or the word testified];
it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from
the very first, to write unto thee in order, more excellent Theophilus, that
thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein, thou has been
instructed." Luke goes no further back for "the very first of this beginning"
than to a "certain priest called Zacharias, in the days of Herod." --
1:5.
Now in contradistinction to this beginning, Peter
introduces a secondary, in Acts 1:22; "Wherefore of these men who have
companied with us all the time the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John." Again (10:36-37), "the word
which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ. .
. . throughout all Judea, and began form Galilee, after the baptism which John
preached." (See also Mark 1:14.) Paul refers to the same when he says in
Heb. 2:3, "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation which at
the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them
that heard him?" but this secondary beginning was only the manifestation
of that word to which John refers when he says, "The word was with
God." (John 1:1); i.e., the word of life; the word which God sent to
Israel, preaching peach by Jesus Christ; the word which at the first began to
be spoken by the Lord; the word of promise ("for this is the promise that
he hath promised us, even eternal life; and this life is in his Son");
this word was in the beginning at the very first with God, and this word was
God; became it constitute the utterance of the Spirit's voice, and God is
spirit. So John in his epistle (1:1-3)
is in perfect harmony with the primary, declaration when he says, "That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
(For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and
shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father [of whom are all
things], and was manifested unto us."
Next, let us turn to the record that God has given us
concerning his Son, and see if this view is in harmony with that.
1. -- The word of promise. Matthew, in his narrative,
goes back to Abraham; and Paul says, in Rom. 9:9, "For this is the word of
promise"; then he quotes that which constitutes that word: "At this
time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son"; and, in verse 7, "In
Isaac shall thy seed be called." In Gal. 3:8, Paul says the gospel was
comprehended in this promise of blessing to Abraham; and in ver. 16 he affirms
that the seed of promise referred to Christ. So far, then, what was said of and
done to Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac, was only the shadow of (foreshowing) the
good things to come; but the body (substance) was of Christ. Leaven, then, the
shadow, let us come at once to the substance of the word of promise, which
"in the beginning was with God."
1. Gal. 4:4. "But when the fullness of the time
was come God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law."
How? In fulfillment of the promise. At this time, or at the set time, will I
come. Where? Luke 1:26-55. "And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was
sent from God, unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to
a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was
Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly
favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women. And the angel
said unto her, Fear not Mary: for thu has found favor with God. And, behold,
thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the
Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his Father David; and he shall reign
over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end...
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the hightest shall
overshadow thee; therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath
also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who
was called barren. (see Gal. 4:2) For with God nothing shall be impossible. And
Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy
word. And the angel departed from her. And Mary arose in those days, and went
into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And entered into the
house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth. And it came to pass, that, when
Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and
Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: And she spake out with a loud voice,
and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? . . .
And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those
things which were told her from the Lord. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify
the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded
the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations
shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and
holy is his name. . . He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his
mercy; As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever."
In the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Mark),
the word (of promise -- Paul) of life (John), spoken (Peter), was with God.
Came from God by the angel, sent to Mary in Nazareth, when God promised by the
angel that she should have a son and call his name Jesus. (Luke.) "and the
word [of promise] was made flesh, and dwelt among us." John 1:14. When in
the fullness of the set time, Jesus was made of a woman, made under the law.
(Gal. 4:4), "and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14. -- "For he received
from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice from the
excellent glory, . . . and this voice . .. we heard, when we (Peter, James and
John) were with him in the holy mount." 1 Peter 1:18.
Lastly, "The word spoken by our Lord" was
"In the beginning" with God. John 17:5-22. "And now, O Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before
the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out
of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy
word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of
thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have
received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world,
but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are
thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in
the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep
through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as
we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that
thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition;
that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things
I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I
have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not
of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through
thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have
I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that
they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That
they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the
glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we
are one."
Most assuredly the word of faith which we preach is
the word of God, and was in the beginning with God. "And this is life
eternal, that we may know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath
sent."
Olena, OH. G.W. STETSON.
WHO WAS IT?
World's Crisis
Boston, Tuesday, May 24, 1864
"OF whom it was said,
"Thou madest him a little lower than the angels." Heb. 2:7; Ps 8:3.
Our question is an important
one if we consider that its definite, positive, and unequivocal answer must of
necessity determine the application of the prophet, Micah 4:8, as to what is
meant by the "first dominion." Should it appear as spoken of the
"first Adam," who was of the earth, simply an animal or fleshly man,
then the "first dominion" is spoken of in an ORDINAL sense; but if
spoken of CHRIST, then it is used cardinally, i.e., as being
pre-eminent, superior to, etc., answering to Paul's Jerusalem which now
is, . . . in bondage with her children." Gal. 4:25; which "shall be trodden
down of the Gentiles," (Luke 21:24,); and Jerusalem which is above,
Gal. 4:26, i.e., uppermost, superior, having gotten the advantage of her
adversary, who has heretofore led her a captive and had her foot upon the neck
of the "free woman's" children, but now the time has come when
"the tables are turned," and she that was first in order herself
becomes subjugated, the children of the "free woman" having gained
the ascension and the victory over their "persecutor," rising
"above" the oppressor, obtain the "first" or superior
"dominion," and the former oppressor becomes the
"foot-stool" of the once oppressed.
But as the first Adam
"was the figure of Him who was to come" (Rom 5:14) so the Jerusalem
"that now is," is the figure of that which is to be
"above," "free;" which is our mother." Gal.
4:24-25. Hence, says the apostle, "unto the angels hath He (the Father)
not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak." If my memory
be correct the phrae here is, "oi koumene," the habitable globe.
After declaring that he is speaking of "the world to come," and not
of "the heavens and the earth which now are," or "The earthly
house of this tabernacle," he proceeds to quote the Psalmist (Psalm
8:4-8), "What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the Son of man that
thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst
him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the work of thy hands. Thou
hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that HE put all in
subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him."
Now comes Paul's exposition
of the same." "But now, we see not yet all things put
under him, but we (do) see JESUS, who was made a little lower than
the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he
by the grace of God should taste death for every man, for it became him,
for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto
glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."
Thus we find the language supplied by the "one Spirit" through the
apostle of the Gentiles to JESUS, the anointed of God, and "is his times
he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and
Lord of lords."
"Now if any many build
upon this foundation . . . hay, wood, stubble; . . . if any man's work
shall be burned, he shall suffer loss." May the Lord help us
all to build thereon, "gold, silver, precious (and living)
stones," that our work may "abide" the fiery ordeal.
G. W. STETSON
World's Crisis
Boston, Tuesday, May 31, 1864
"By the one offense judgment came upon all
men." -- Rom. 5:18
The sentence of condemnation fell not upon man only;
the ground, or earth, was also cursed "for man's sake;" or, as De
Sola's, Lindenthal's, and Raphall's version give it, better, I think, "cursed
be the ground because of thee."
Man was made "dust of the ground," and now
this living dust had sinned, and by the penalty of the law was, according to
its judgment given, to return "to the dust;" and, as if his MOTHER, earth,
was in sympathy with him, groaning for deliverance from death, the source from
whence man came is embraced in the curse, on account of his sin, as being a
portion of himself; hence Paul in Romans 8:22 tropically represents the
"whole creation" as groaning and travailing "in pain,"
anxious to "be delivered from the bondage of corruption," as we that
are in this tabernacle, -- being constituent parts of the same building upon
which the curse has fallen, and of the same "cursed" material -- do
groan, being burdened -- with the curse pronounced upon the "whole
creation," or ground, out of which we have our formation, and from which
-- cursed corruption -- we would have deliverance, "that mortality might
be swallowed up of life."
Death on account of sin, is in the ground from whence
we came and wither we return. It is in the good we eat, the water we drink, the
air we breathe, the fire we warm by, the cold we suffer from, the healing
medicine we take; in the sunlight that invigorates, and the darkness that
appalls; in the tempestuous storm and in the calm, alike we find death, on
sin's account, by the curse that has fallen upon the whole creation, groaning
"in pain." Oh! Who would not hope for the time when there shall be "no
more curse?"
No sooner had man, by eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, become like the Elohim, that he was sent
forth from the garden to till the ground from whence he was taken, and having
been driven thence, the attribute of God's justice under the allegorical
representation of a "cherubim and a flaming sword," was placed
between man and the tree of life, "lest," said Jehovah of the
Elohim, "he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat
and life forever."
So long as man had remained in obedience he had free
access to that tree, but it seems from the word, "also," that he
never had eaten of it, for the declaration of God is, that if he ate of it, as
he had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the result would be
that he would live forever; and we are told that he had partaken of the
forbidden fruit but once, became it is called by Paul, in Romans 5, the
"one offense." This, God's goodness, compassion and justice, would
not permit; he could create him knowing that he might transgress, and he is
just, for he knew that if man became evil by his own act of disobedience, he
could redeem him from that evil; but to give him unconditional access to the
source of immortality after he had become evil, by which grant of right will
would be eternally perfected by not living forever in evil, he could not do,
and be persistent with his own attributes; for this would man have not, the
other of evil, but of eternal perpetuation, and thereby contradict his
word, which says that he will make and end of evil, it shall not rise up the
second time.
Had man been permitted to eat of that tree subsequent
to his fall, what a scene would this earth have presented for all time. I have
listened to and read some graphic descriptions of imaginary hells gotten up for
effect, but nothing human has ever begun to paint the living horrors that
would have been witnessed on this planet, and never will, had sinful man only
been permitted to taste of immortal life in disobedience. We see
the dearest loved ones sicken and languish; painful, acute, agonizing suffering
is added to disease; day after day, night after night, wear away, till days and
nights pass into weeks, and weeks roll into months, and months are making
years, and still the stricken ones are moaning, wasting, suffering in anguish,
until bond after bond is sundered, tie after tie is loosed, hope after hope is
extinguished; the sympathizing heart is beginning to desire that the suffering
one may be released from all the ills of life, and be at peace; willing at last
to part company, that the loved one may be at rest, for --
"There is rest for the weary;"
the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken,
the pitcher also at the fountain and the wheel broken at the cistern, the
throbbing heart lies still, and the weary are at rest, -- and the living thank
a merciful God that men do not seek death, and are "not able to find
it." We all come to it at last, and it is well it is so, for if it were
otherwise, worn out nature and exhausted humanity overburdened with grief,
sinking in despair, would only find relief in lunacy, and the world would be
converted into one vast "mad house," filled with raging maniacs.
G. W. STETSON.
World's Crisis
Boston, Tuesday, March 8, 1864
"The kingdom of God" (Luke 17:20), "the
days of the Son of man" (Luke 17:22), "the Son of man in his
day" (Luke 17:24) "his times," (1 Tim. 6:15), "his
appearing and his kingdom," (1 Tim. 4:1), "shall appear the second
time" (Heb. 9:28), "the last time" (1 Peter 1:5), "the day
of the Lord" (1 Thess. 5:3 and 2 Peter 3:10), "the day of God"
(2 Peter 3:12), "the dispensation of the fullness of times" (Eph
1:10), "appointed a day in which he will judge the world" (Acts 17:31).
"Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, 'Blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Luke 13:35), "the times of
the restitution of all things" (Acts 3:21), "everlasting kingdom of
our Lord" (2 Peter 1:11), and "thy kingdom come" of our Lord's
prayer, all refer, I apprehend, to one and the same epoch only, with reference
to the events transpiring therein it is relatively like one of our days. Some
things are done at its beginning, then others succeed in their regular order.
Save, perhaps, this difference, that instead of measuring time by hours as now,
it may be measure by events.
But it is urged by those claiming to be
"teachers" among Protestants and Catholics that "the kingdom of
God" was "set up" by the gift of the Spirit on the "day of
Pentecost," and that the church of Christ on earth constitutes that
kingdom, by Christ ruling the the hearts of believers through the Spirit. Now
if this be true, it should be known and seen of all men, that they might not be
deceived by heresies, schisms and false teachers blindly leading the blind, and
if it be untrue then it should also be known, that those who have been deceived
by these "piled up" teachers, "speaking lies in hypocrisy"
may be undeceived and found clothed in their "right mind" by a
knowledge of the truth.
When Christ had done talking to the Pharisees, who had
asked him when the kingdom of God should come, he turned from those children of
iniquity to his disciples, and said unto them (Luke 17:22), "The
days will come, when YE shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of
man, and YE SHALL NOT SEE IT." "For as the lightning that
lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under
heaven, So shall also the Son of man be in his day." Who is ever
deceived or mistaken concerning the bright, vivid, sudden, forked lightning's
flash, as for a moment it lights up the dark and angry vault of heaven,
overspread with rolling, surging, tempest tossed thunder clouds, "black as
Erebus and dark as Hades," like the think canopy of nigh spread over us?
And are we to be told after reading of the "down treading of the children
of the free woman" for eighteen centuries, and have witnessed the
"groanings of earth," the carnage and slaughter, the tears and
sufferings, the despotisms, and oppressions," the "wrongs and
outrages, with which earth is filled," the "carnival of death"
that fills our own land, with lamentation, and weeping, with curses and
blasphemies against God and his Christ, -- I say, are we to be told that ruin
has been so many hundred years of "the kingdom of God" wherein his
"will is done upon the earth as it is now done in heaven"? Do
teachers of heavenly and divine truth expect to (XXXXXX XXX - EDITOR: The
original copy is unreadable at this point) to "pandemonium on earth"
upon lovers of truth (XXXX - EDITOR: The original copy is unreadable at this
point) and righteousness, and seekers after holiness who love the
"glorious appearing of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, and his
peaceable kingdom, and the days of the Son of man, in which "the righteous
flourish and abundance of grace fill the earth so long as the sun and moon
endure," with any hope or expectation of success?" If so, may the
good Lord deliver us, and may they be confounded and most thoroughly disappointed,
is my most devout supplication. (Paul, I think, would have said, improcation,
"anathema maranatha," accursed at the Lord's coming. 1 Cor. 15:22)
Christ himself positively affirmed that before the
kingdom of God, comprehending "one of the days of the Son of man,"
should come, himself must suffer many things and be rejected of that race of
men, the Jews, and they, the disciples, should not see one of his days when
persecutions against his church arose, and they should anxiously long to behold
"one of his days."
Now look at it, the disciples were themselves baptized
with the Holy Spirit, as none are at this day; preached the kingdom of God from
Pentecost until they were killed for their witnessing in its favor. Some of
them coming down over thirty years this side of the destruction of Jerusalem,
making over half a century that some of them were absolutely living in the days
of the Son of man -- if it be true that the kingdom was set up at Pentecost --
and yet Christ told them they should not see one of his days when they should desire
to.
Again, he is still rejected of that race of men, and
the church are still "filling up the measure of his sufferings that were
left behind;" the Gentiles are still "treading down the holy
city," and their times are not yet ended; and until they are, the
"times of the Messiah" cannot begin, and the Jews are not yet crying,
"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" and we in the
kingdom! What infatuation!
Olena, Ohio.
G. W. Stetson
No. 1
World's Crisis
Boston, Date Unknown 1864?
"The things that are seen are temporary,"
(A. Clarke's trans.) "but the things that are not seen are eternal."
Paul, 2 Cor. 4:18.
The visible things of Paul's day of which he was then
writing were the figurative or tropical, and have long since passed away; but
the true temporary, still remain, and constitute the literal "first
tabernacle" referred to by the apostle also in Heb. 9:8.
The unseen eternal, are yet future; but as surely as
the "temporary" that now exist in fact, once, in times past, were
not, so certainly will these things that now only exist in the purposes or
plans of the Deity, be produced in their time and place. The things that now
are, came into existence in their regular order and succession, and very many
of the primary were of a long time completed prior to the commencement of
others, and thus of the unseen, -- part may already exist, possibly incomplete,
but like the "first tabernacle," now existing, shall be carried on to
perfection by the formation and super-addition of the remaining portions, which
as yet have had not beginning.
After this mode was the creation, the deluge, the call
of Abraham, the going down into and the coming up out of Egypt, the giving of
the law and the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness, the coming of the
Just One, the rejection of Israel, the destruction of their house and chief
city, and the calling of the Gentiles. So of all things human and divine, past
and present, and so when he that "sat upon the throne" shall
"make all things new."
The work of reconstruction, nevertheless, though
progressive, is of long time commenced, and ever since the time of reformation,
in the days of Christ and the apostles, has been steadily advancing towards
completion.
A portion of the future, unseen, eternal things, are
already occupied "at the right hand of God where Christ sitteth;"
hence the unseen things of 2 Cor. 4:18, are the same as those of Col. 3:1,
"upon which we are to set out affections," the things of 1 Cor. 2:9-10,
"that God hath revealed to us by his Spirit," as in reserve for them
that love him, the "good things to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle," for which Christ has now the ministration of the office of
the antitypical Aaronic high priesthood by the oath of the Deity."
Not high priest, by a "greater and more perfect tabernacle," -- and
incorruptible body -- but by the oath and after, or through "the power of
an endless life," the Spirit of Deity, that raised him from the dead, and
conveyed him away, beyond or above the vail. (See Heb. 7:16, 20-21; 9:11;
6:19-20; Eph. 1:19-21.)
These unseen but eternal things constitute "our
far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," of 2 Cor. 4:17, the
"exceeding riches of his grace in" Eph. 2:7, the "glory of
Christ" that is to come after "his sufferings," (1 Peter 1:11),
but not until the measure of those sufferings that are left behind are filled
up by the Ecclesia which constitutes his body." Col. 1:24. Then this grace
of God (favor) will be brought unto us by the "revelation of Jesus
Christ," at the end of this dispensation, "when this gospel of the
kingdom has been preached in all the world for a testimony," (1 Peter
1:11, 13; Mat. 24:14), "that in the dispensation of the fullness of times
(completeness) he may gather into one, all things in Christ, both which are in
the heavens (marginal) and which are on earth, that we should be found unto the
praise of his glory, at the redemption of the purchased possession;" on
"the appearing of Jesus Christ," who "loved the church and gave
himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water
by the word," in order "to present it unto himself a glorious church,
[… there is a missing line in the original … ] or any such thing; but
that it should be holy and without blemish;" and having thus "made us
unto our God kings and priests; we shall with him reign on the earth."
Eph. 1:10, 14; Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 5:10; 20:4.
These things constitute the temporary or first
tabernacle in their typical or figurative representation, and an exact counterpart
must constitute the second or true tabernacle "when that which is perfect
is come." 1 Cor. 13:10. It was by a knowledge of these unseen future
things drawn from the visible through the promised Spirit by the word, that
Paul and Peter were enabled to give correlative testimony in relation to them
without collusion. The evidence of this exists in the different style of
narration in the two witnesses. The first, a learned Hebrew, of the Hebrews, schooled
at the feet of one of the doctors of the Levitical law, Gamaliel, taking the
seen temporary and the unseen eternal for his predicate, proceeds in the
figurative and poetic style of the prophets, to rear his superstructure
thereupon, after the model of the tabernacle of Moses reproduced on a grader
scale in Solomon's temple, and then deduces legitimate conclusions from his
promise by contrasting the two by opposition in , [… there is a missing line
in the original … ] "For we
know (by the Spirit), that OUR earthly house (the temporary, that Christ
called, in John 2:16, "my Father's house," , [… there is a missing
line in the original … ] said in Matt. 24:3 "there shall not be left
here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down;) of this tabernacle
(dwelling) were dissolved (taken down, destroyed, abolished, 2 Cor. 3:7-13),
"we have a building of God, an house NOT MADE WITH HANDS (unseen),
eternal, "in the heavens."
It would seem that Paul took it for granted that his
Corinthian brethren were not so dull of apprehension as were those "whose
minds were blinded," (2 Cor. 3:14), and had no need that one "should
teach them again what be the first principles of the oracles of God." Heb.
5:11-12. Moreover, he had just gone over the whole "ground work" of
the abrogation of the law and the introduction of the gospel, -- the typical
end of the "things seen," and the "beginning," (John 1:1; 1
John 1:1) of the unseen, eternal things, that they might e without excuse for
begin "unlearned."
But no sooner does he address himself to those
"whose minds were blinded," and "dull of hearing," unstable
-- not settled in the truth, though he maintains the figurative, how very
careful he is to explain each point in the type as he proceeds step by step.
Beginning with the "house," in Heb. 3, build by Moses under the law,
he contrasts it with the house to be build under the gospel, going through the
whole, progressively, until in Heb. 6:12, he brings his blinded Hebrew brethren
to the perfected antitypical temple or tabernacle, the "Mount Zion, the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the innumerable company of
angels, the general assembly and church of the first born, to God, the Judge of
all, and to the spirits (lives, Clarke) of just men made perfect and to
Jesus, the mediator of the NEW covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."
THESE are the subjects and objects of our faith, represented by the
"figurative tabernacle" and its "appointed divine
services." "For there was a tabernacle made" (Heb. 9:2),
"which was a figure for the time then present," (Heb. 9:9),
"until the time of reformation." (Heb. 9:10). But Christ being come
an high priest of good things, to come by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, -- that is to say, not of this
building" -- (i.e., the building spoken of in verse two that WAS made
with hands, Heb. 9:11); "for Christ is not entered into the holy
places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into the
heaven itself, not to appear in the presence of God for us," Heb. 9:24.
How plain he makes the thing, where in verses one and
two, he says the first "tabernacle," "holy place," where
the people met God, or "tabernacle of the congregation," was the
"world sanctuary;" i.e., the EARTH, in verse six, he says, "The
daily priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the divine
service," named in verse one.
Now we are doing that very thing by faith,
throughout all the earth, wherever the name of Christ is named, as further
shown, 1 Peter 2:5 -- "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual
house, an holy priest hood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable
to God through Jesus Christ."
In Heb. 9:3, Paul says after the second vail
was the holiest of all, and in verse seven, he declares "that the high
priest went ALONE into this "Holiest of all," of verse three. IN
verse twenty four he shows that this "Holiest of all" represented
heaven.
G. W. STETSON
THE FIRST AND SECOND TABERNACLE
No. 2
World's Crisis
Boston, Tuesday, February 16, 1864
In verse 8, Paul tells them that the signification of
the high priest going alone into the second tabernacle (Heb. 9) was that the
way into the holiest of all, heaven, was not yet made manifest (laid open)
while (so long) as the first tabernacle was not yet standing, and in
Hebrews 10:19-20, he says, "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness (margin,
liberty) to enter into the holiest (heaven) by the blood of Jesus, through a
new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the vail, that is
to say, through his flesh," etc. Whence some have concluded that since the
rending of the vail from the top to the bottom (Matt. 27:51) at the
crucifixion, the souls of believers in a conscious state as entities pass
immediately into heaven at death, the king of terrors and the terror of kings,
becomes to them
"The voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms,"
or "the gate to endless joy"; and yet they
"dread to enter there." So also it becomes the "new and dying
instead of living way," and Jesus himself is no longer the "strait
way, the narrow gate," "the door," "the way and the
life," but only the means by which death to them is made the way to life.
Perhaps these notions are the result of not having
duly considered what the Scriptures of truth have said upon this subject.
Nevertheless my apprehension of what is said leads me to quite a different
conclusion; but in consequence of the difference of opinion, it becomes
essential, for an agreement, that the subject of the "vail," the
"living way," which he has consecrated (set apart) for us, should be
a little more closely examined.
The point demanding our attention primarily is the
phrase in Hebrews 9:8; -- "So long as the first tabernacle was yet
standing." Now Paul has expressly stated, that that first, in the
building "made with hands" by Moses, was a figure of the true and the
temporary; and then he shows that the true temporary is the seen, the world,
and the world "that now is" STILL STANDS as the first true
tabernacle. Consequently "the way into the holiest" is not yet laid
open to "the general assembly and church of the first born."
Again, Christ said that "though heaven and earth
should pass away," one jot or tittle of the law should not pass away until
all was (should be) fulfilled; and that law says (Lev. 16:16), speaking of the
high priest and the atonement, "that he shall make an atonement for the
holy place (world, sanctuary) because of the uncleanness of the children of
Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins; and so shall he
do for the tabernacle of the congregation THAT REMAINETH AMONG (or with)
THEM, in the midst of their uncleanness; and there shall be no man in the
tabernacle of the congregation, when he goeth in to make an atonement in the
holy place until he come out."
NOTE -- Robinson's Calmet says that the expiatory
sacrifice offered by our Saviour on Calvary, was the price or ransom, or the
efficacy of which the atonement of the race of mankind depended; but to call
that sacrifice the atonement, is an incorrect application of the word."
Page 118. Consequently those who believe that the "sacrifice" was
"the reconciliation," will have difficulty in understanding Lev.
16:16-17, when they read it; but if the reconciliation comes through the
ministration of the high priest, after he enters the holiest, by the blood of
sacrifice, then our application of the passage (Lev. 16:16-17) is legitimate to
our subject, inasmuch as "the day of atonement" under Christ is not
yet ended.
The idea contained in the words -- "There shall be no man in the
tabernacle of the congregation, etc., until he come out," is in harmony
with 1 Cor. 15:23. "Christ the first-fruits (of them that slept),
AFTERWARD they that are Christ's at his coming." Even those that shall be
alive and remain alive at his coming cannot be permitted to enter the
"tabernacle of the congregation" here spoken of, the "eternal
house," until "those who are sleeping in Jesus are raised from the
dead," THEN those "who believe and shall never die" (John
11:26), will be changed instantly, and conveyed away in clouds to meet the Lord
in the air (Query. In the spirit?); and so will they "ever be with the
Lord," "that where I am (when I come again) there ye may be
also." -- 1 Thess. 4:15, 17; John 14:2. So if there be no resurrection of
the dead, there can be no entering into the tabernacle of the congregation; or
no "being clothed upon with our house which is from heaven." "No
man in," etc.
Once more on this point. Christ said -- alluding to
the little ante-rooms in Solomon's temple, figurative emblems of those in whom
should dwell the "promised spirit" -- "In my Father's house are
many mansions (dwelling places); if it were not so I would have told you. I go
to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will
COME AGAIN and receive you unto myself, that where I am (when I come
again implied), there ye may be also." Well, he has gone "into heaven
itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;" that by the sprinkling
of his blood, that was offered through the eternal Spirit before the mercy
seat, he might prepare us for the heavenly, by taking off the curse placed upon
us because of sin, which is death, and also prepare a place for us by removing
the curse that was pronounced upon the tabernacle of the congregation in the
sentence -- "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," etc. Gen 3:17.
Now there is but one way of removing the consequences
of transgression, and that is through the blood of Jesus; and he has not yet "come
out of the holy," not yet "come again" the second time
"unto salvation," and by parity of reasoning we know that the
"preparation of the place is incomplete"; and consequently he has not
yet received them unto himself, for he said he would do so when the place was
prepared.
It only remains now to look at the "vail."
The vail that was rent in twain was not the true vail but the typical; and just
as that was rent from one extremity to the other, and taken away from between
the holy and the holiest, so must the true temporary vail be destroyed and
taken out of the way, before heaven and earth can be so approximated that the
inmates of the one can have actual access and intercourse with the other. It is
the true vail that bars us all from the heavenly court where "the trees
are all green"; and Christ himself "after the flesh" could only
reach that desire haven by tearing that vail of death asunder by a resurrection
from the dead, and thus set apart the living way, or way of life, through or by
his flesh, when he "counterworked death, and illustrated life and
incorruption by the gospel." 2 Tim. 1:10 (A. Clarke's Trans.) Hence it is
said that "he died for (on account of) our sins, but rose again for (or to
obtain) our justification" unto life; or rose again that we might have
life. Consequently the "entering into life," being at the
resurrection, it cannot be at death.
Thus Paul says that "when this corruptible (body)
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal (soul) shall have put on
immortality (by a resurrection from the dead, 1 Cor. 15:52) THEN shall be
brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up on
victory." And this he quotes from Isa. 25:7; -- "And he will destroy
(margin -- swallow up) in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all
people, and THE VAIL that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up
death in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all
faces."
So according to Paul's application and explanation of
the BIBLE, the "vail" signified death, and its rending the
resurrection, or abolition of death by it; but he shows clearly enough, to my
understanding, that he was not referring to going to heaven at death, but an
act of living faith of the Christina here on earth, when he says, in the succeeding
passage (Heb. 10:22), "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled form an evil conscience, and
our bodies washed with pure water," etc.
If further testimony were needed to show that Paul in
2 Cor. 5:1, when speaking of the "earthly house," made with hands,
did not mean our corruptible bodies, in which "an immortal soul man
is groaning," because it must pass through the gate of death, to reach
eternal life, -- by the way, how will those who believe, and never die, but are
changed at Christ's coming, reach that life, if death be the gate, and they
never pass through it, -- that testimony may be found in his summing up the
argument on the "dissolution of the tabernacle" in Heb. 26:27, in
these words: "But now hath he promised, saying, Yet once more, I shake not
the earth only, (the first true tabernacle, the visible) but heaven also. And
this word "Yet once more," signifieth the removing of those things
that are made that those which cannot be shaken (the future unseen, the
eternal) may remain. Wherefore (in consequence of which) we receiving (we are
to receive,) a kingdom that cannot be moved (therefore), let us serve God
acceptably, with reverence and godly fear."
Before leaving this subject, we must allow the simple
minded and plain spoken fisherman, Peter, to turn the focus of his Spirit lens
upon it, when all metaphors will vanish.
G. W. STETSON.
NUMBER ONE
Hebrews 2:5
World's Crisis
Boston, Tuesday, October 1864
(Exact Date Unknown)
Rabbinical notions -- the days of the Messiah -- the dominion of death -- the nature of man -- the Spirit land -- the world of fact vs. the world of fancy -- modern ideas -- the restitution -- the age to come -- the Christian's hope -- the kingdom of Christ -- the incentive to godliness -- the coming of Christ.
There have been and still are some curious notions in
the world in relation to the world to come. The Jewish rabbis claim, first,
"That the Bible history of the creation begins with the letter beth;
because two worlds were created; this world and the world to come. Secondly,
That the phrase -- the world to come -- hints at or points out the days of
times of Messiah. Thirdly, That the world to come is the state after
death. Fourthly, That it means only the future, or age to come; hence,
when the Pharisees said at the end of their prayers in the temple, ad-olam
-- forever, the Sadducees interrupted, saying there was no age but one, i.e.,
this age. Then it was appointed that the service should be concluded with, min-ha-olam,
voad-ha-olam, i.e., forever and ever; or, both in this age and in the age
to come. -- Bab. Bersooth," fol. 54. "The distinction of olam-hazeh,
this world, and olam-ha-bah, the world to come, may be found almost in
every page of the rabbins." -- A. Clarke's commentary on N.T. p. 122. But
among the Hebrews, as among the Gentiles, it seems there were various opinions
on this subject, some of which without doubt were derived from the Gentiles
during the terms of Jewish captivity at Babylon.
Of the afore named opinions the second and fourth may
be merged in one, for they are the same in fact, being only expressed in
different terms. One thing however is admitted, here and settled beyond
controversy, even by Adam Clarke himself, and that is, the same word rendered
world, is also, rendered age, and is the quotation before as they are used as
synonymous. This is an important item in the consideration of this subject, for
it destroys the philological argument, so much relied upon by many that by the
term world is necessarily implied another sphere than the one we now inhabit
and running parallel with it.
On the same page, the same learned author also admits
that Paul, in the language of our text, uses the phrase "world to come"
as referring to the days of the Messiah. In Matt. 12:32, speaking of the sin
against the Holy Spirit not being forgiven in this world, neither in the world
to come, he says, it should be "dispensation." Not the reason for
this declaration is apparent, for it the world to come be another sphere,
running parallel with our earth habitation into which we enter at death, as an
abode during another state of existence, and the present translation be allowed
to stand as rendered in the text, then by the law of language is enevitably
follows that the doctrine of a future probation and a possible resoration from
all other sins says that against the Holy Spirit, may obtain for [.. the
original is unreadable at this point in the article … ] as this is closely
applied in the [.. the original is unreadable at this point in the article
… ] should fail, and the poor [.. there is one word in the original that is
unreadable at this point in the article … ] have another chance of escaping
such a dire calamity by another trial, the [.. there is one word in the original that is unreadable at this point in
the article … ] prevails, though it
be at the risk of exposing to the common people the great truth that the
"world to come" is only the "age to come," when all things
shall have been subdued unto Christ. So again, in Eph. 1:10, "fullness of
times," "dispensation"; and in 2:7, it is rendered "ages to
come." In 1 Cor. 10:11, "ends of the ages." Hebrews 9:26,
"conclusion of the ages," etc.
The first notion -- creation of two worlds, indicated
by the Bible history, beginning with the letter beth, is simply
ridiculous, for we all know by that same history (and so might these rabbins)
that not only were two worlds created, but a universe of worlds was formed.
The third rabbinical notion -- "the state after
death" corresponds with the more modern and still prevailing phrase and
idea of "spirit land," being universally adopted and believed in by
the Romanists and Greek Catholics, Mohammedans and Mormons, modern
Spiritualists and shaking Quakers, Indians, Africans, Asiatics, and all other
heathen idol worshippers, besides numerous self styled, and sometimes so called
Orthodox, Evangelical, Protestant Christian denominations.
Of these -- the first and third notions -- I do not
intend taking further notice, except by way of contrast in considering the
second and fourth idea of the rabbins corresponds precisely with the teachings
of the prophets, who in times past spake unto the fathers, and of the Son who
in the last days spake unto us. It is also apparent that the apostles in adding
their testimony as witnesses were influenced by the same spirit, for there is
(but) one God and Father, one baptism, one faith, one Lord, one Spirit and one
body, -- and there is uniformity in their teachings; hence Paul's idea in our
text agrees exactly, as will be found -- with that of the rabbis (second and
fourth) drawn from the book of Moses; "For," says the apostle,
"unto the angels hath he (the Father) not put in subjection the world (or
age) to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place (Psalm 8:4-5)
testified, saying, 'What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the Son of
man (Christ Jesus) that thou visitest him? Thou madest him (Christ) a little
lower than the angels, thou crownedst him (in the time of visitation) with
glory and honor, and dist set him over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all
things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under
him (Christ), he (the Father) left nothing (i.e. all sheep and oxen, beasts of
the field, fowls of the air, fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through
the paths of the sea, -- see Psalm 8,) that is not put under him."
(Christ).
This is the testimony of one of the old prophets
(David), spoken beforehand of the glory that should follow the sufferings of
Christ. But is seems from 2 Cor. 4:5-7, Col. 1:24, and some other Scriptures,
that the sufferings of Christ are not yet ended, for there is a filling
"up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ . . . for his body's
sake, which is the church." And this view of the case was held by the
apostle; for having quoted the Psalmist to sustain his position in verses 5 and
6, he by the same Spirit adds his own testimony in corroboration of the former
witness, when he says, "But now (in Paul's time) we see not yet all things
put under him." (Christ). Then it was still future in Paul's time, and
remains so in ours. "But (with Paul) we see Jesus, who was made a little
lower than the angels, for the suffering of death (that he might suffer),
crowned with glory and honor (that is the extent as yet), that he by the grace
(favor) of God should taste death for every man."
We here discover perfect concord between the prophet
and apostle, only Paul says explicitly Christ's reign is over the age to
come."
Olena, O.
G. W. STETSON
IN
A DILEMMA.
The
Herald of Life and Of the Coming Kingdom August 12,1868
Br. Storrs: I am perplexed.
Allow me to tell you how I got into this dilemma. You know I have never been
able to see the non-resurrection of the wicked, though I have always been
kindly disposed toward those who claim to see it. But on April 1, {st} I went
to the Conference at Boston; and on Thursday, P. M., listened to a discourse
from Br. S. G. Mathewson, of Castleton, Vt., which upset all my philosophy and
theology, too; and which, if true, leaves me no alternative, except that of no
resurrection for the wicked. Speaking of ‘LIFE’ and of the State or condition
in which the just or righteous are raised up from death, or out of their
graves, he used the following language:
‘Talk about different kinds
of life! Why, life is life, is it not? I do not know anything about Adamic and
Christ life; about animal life and spiritual life; about temporal and eternal
life; about mortal and immortal life, as differing one from the other in kind.
There is but one kind of life and that was given to Adam; and if he had been
obedient, he would have lived right on forever; and that would have been
eternal life, would it not? But he was cut off from life on account of his
transgression: and so are the wicked. Not this life is given to the righteous
only, on account of their faith in Christ; and Paul says, they are raised INCORRUPTIBLE,
does he not? The wicked do not get the gift of life! ‘For this cause was the
gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they, the dead, might be
judged according to men in the flesh.”
Then leaving the remaining
part of the verse {1Pe 4:6} incomplete in his quotation, he said:
‘Now let us have the right
over again, so that we may fairly understand it.’
He then began again with
Adam’s being cut off from life, etc., ran down to the same point in the
quotation of Peter, and there he left it.
On asking him after sermon
was through, When he came out on the non-resurrection of the wicked? he denied
having done so; and on the query, ‘Why did you preach it, then?’ he denied that
also.
But on calling his
attention to the declarations as made by himself, and desiring to know how he
was going to get the wicked up, if so be there is but one kind of life, and
that one kind never given to the wicked, but to the righteous only? ‘O! (said
he) I will preach another sermon and clear that up.’ Well, I hope you will, for
it needs clearing up. But he did not clear it up; and as the discourse was
before hundreds, and made the same impression on others as on myself, I do
really hope our good brother will ‘preach another discourse’ at Springfield
camp-meeting and help me out of the dilemma that he has been the means of
getting me into. I never had that doctrine put home to me with such telling
power since the question came up as on that occasion. But if it be true, as Br.
M. says, that there is but one kind of life and that kind the wicked never get,
but the righteous only, I declare my poor weak brain can see no escape from the
conclusion that there is no possible chance for any kind of a resurrection for
the finally impenitent sinner.
What say you, Br. Storrs?
Is or is not such a conclusion legitimate to the premise assumed? Please send
me the copy containing your answer and oblige yours in hope of life.
G. W. STETSON-Rutland, VT.,
June 1, 1868.
RESPONSE TO BR. STETSON
Without going in to the
argument of the two kinds of life, it is undeniably true that ‘life is life.’
And further, Br. Stetson is entirely right in his conclusion from Br.
Mathewson’s statements; we see not how it is possible to come to any other. We
trust Br. M. will yet see that it is impossible to reach life and immortality
as the gift of God, without excluding the wicked from any and all life, after
they are once dead.
We never went forward to
our present stand-point, until forced to do so or abandon our foundation
principles. We found we had been preaching the doctrine of no future life out
of Christ ever since we abandoned the doctrine of inherent immortality, and had
to take special pains to keep those who heard us on the Life theme from
thinking we taught that the wicked would not live again. This course we pursued
for years, till we were forced in the midst of a sermon we were preaching
contrasting the two Adams, 1Co 15, to see that there was, in the nature of the
case no life by a resurrection from the dead to any man except in Christ; and
that God had given to his ‘Son power...to give eternal life,’ and no other, ‘at
the last day.’ ‘This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life: and
this life is in his Son: he that hath the Son hath life: he that hath not the
Son of God hath not life.’ 1 john 5:11, 12. This we found agreed with Jesus’
own testimony, ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood
ye have no life in you.’ Joh 6:53. But they had the present life in them,
though they did not partake of Christ. His words, therefore, will bear no other
construction than that of a rejection from being ‘raised up at the last day’
into life.
From these starting points,
we came to see that the general tenor of the Bible, and of the gospel in
particular, was, that salvation from death is the grand theme of revelation
from Genesis to Revelation; and that those who were only partakers of the Adamic
nature inevitably perish in death, and are no more forever; that only by
connection with Christ would any man be delivered from death’s dominion. ‘The
Wages of sin is death.’ ‘The sting of death is sin.’ That sting must be
extracted or death holds un in his eternal dominion: nothing but ‘the blood of
Christ’ will destroy sin: that is the only healing or curative balm; so we see
how forcible is that saying of Christ, ‘Except ye eat my flesh and drink my
blood ye have no life in you.’
To a like result we are
sure all who reject the doctrine of inherent immortality will sooner or later
come, if they do not leave off ‘contending for the faith once delivered to the
saints’ of ‘Christ our life.’ We can afford to wait patiently till their eyes
shall be opened to see this crowning truth of the gospel, viz., ‘Life future
and eternal alone in Christ:’ all out of him perish as if He had never come
into the world, because they would ‘not come unto Me that they might have
life,’ as saith Jesus.
INFANT DAMNATION-No. 1
WORLD’S
CRISIS-September, 6, 1871
About forty-five years ago,
when quite a lad, I went one Sunday morning to a Calvinistic meeting, in Chazy,
Clinton Co., N.Y., where the pastor of the flock stated in his discourse that
"the way to hell was paved with infants not a span long." Now it may
seem strange, yet this same old parson B___n was a good, kind-hearted old man;
and, aside from his theology, everybody loved and respected him; but from that
time forward he never looked so good to me as before. The third finger
on his right hand was cut off just below the second join, and as he made the
affirmation, he was holding up that hand, which brought the excised member
conspicuously into view; and the declaration so horrified me, that the stub-finger
was so ineffaceably impressed on my memory, that for nearly half a century I
have never thought of him, but what that vocative digit, with his infantile
pavement, are as plainly before me as when he uttered the sentiment. It may be
more than probably that there and then was laid the foundation for my
subsequent adoption of Armenians sentiments, little thinking that the theology
held by the latter school involved all the infant race in the same sad destiny,
as a result of their definition of terms.
But having said so much,
more must be said, or my own affirmation will seem to many like a hard saying,
and an untruthful statement. It is also much to be deplored that some of our
most excellent and worthy Second Advent Church brethren, by their
advocacy of certain theological tenants as Bible doctrine, involve themselves
in the same inextricable dilemma, and it is to be hoped they will do one of two
things: either get out of their glass houses, or stop throwing stones. In words
and profession they say and hold that infants are saved; but in teaching they prove
that infants are lost. Let us see how. Well, in Joh 3:3, Jesus said,
"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." In
Joh 3:5, "cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now the word
"man’ in the text is a generic term, and not a specific one;
that is, Jesus is speaking of all or any one of the race, without regard to age
or sex. Some one may say that Nicodemus’ inquiry in Joh 3:4 proves otherwise.
His answer only proves him to have been very ignorant in relation to the entire
subject. Paul makes a like statement with that of Jesus, when he says in 1Co
15:50, that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom." Now,
infants are men and woman not matured, and are as much flesh and blood in nature
as if fully developed. They are also "corruptible" in their nature,
but "corruption cannot inherit incorruption"; therefore, they are
included in the term man, as used in the text by the Savior; therefore,
must be born again, or remain outside of the kingdom.
N.B. The Savior does not
say a man must be born twice more, making three births for the
one person, but again, once more, making two births for each individual prior
to entering into God’s kingdom. The word "again," in Joh 3:3, is just
as significant, just as definite in its application there, as when applied to
Christ’s coming, when he says in Joh 14:3, "I will come again,"
which means, as Paul shows in Heb 9:28, the second time, once more, in
addition to his former and first coming; and I certainly have yet to see the
first believer in that coming who is not very tenacious as to the particular
expressiveness of that word "again," as applied to our Savior’s
advent. Very well; let us be just as precise, just as particular, just as
tenacious, just as critical in its use in Joh 3:3, and note the result.
The claim has been very
general that conversion and the second birth are synonymous terms; and
herein lies the secret spring which sent forth that other claim, that
"born of water," in Joh 3:5, was baptism, and then, in the creeds and
confessions of faith, made that baptism, regeneration, conversion, new birth.
This was done expressly to cover the case of infants, because they saw that the
term man comprehended them, and they knew that infants were not
converted, as a result of faith and obedience in the gospel, like adults. The
Roman Catholic, the Episcopal, and some other churches, still adhere to this
doctrine openly, claiming that all infants not so regenerated (by baptism) are
lost; hence their custom of rantizing (sprinkling) infants. Now, the
question comes to me, "Do I not believe in the damnation of infants?"
to which I give in answer, most decidedly and emphatically, No! but, IF
conversion is being "born again," I can see no chance for them, for
they are not converted; but I do not believe that conversion is the
second birth, nor do I believe that baptism is, either. My scriptural evidence
must await another issue.
Olena, Ohio
WORLD’S
CRISIS-September, 13, 1871
G.W.
Stetson
We said in our former
article that we could see no way for infants to be saved, if conversion was the
new birth, but we did not believe that either conversion or baptism constituted
the second birth. In Joh 3:5, "born of the water and of the Spirit"
is manifestly synonymous with its equivalent in Joh 3:6 —"That which is
born of the flesh [in the aqueous birth] is flesh" [and this is the first
or natural birth]; but "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,"
and this is the second or new birth, or being "born again." Of
the first, we have a like form of expression in Nu 24:7, where it is said of
Jacob’s descendants, "He shall pour the water out of his buckets, and his
seed shall be in many waters." In Jer 51:13, Re 17:1, 15,
"waters" are again employed to represent men in their natural or
flesh state. Peter, in his second letter, 2Pe 3:5, refers to the same
principle, when he says that water was an agent employed in the primary
creation of the material world, and it is equally true of man’s perpetuation
upon the earth, known as a physiological fact; hence the force and propriety of
our Savior in using it in conversing with Nicodemus; thus avoiding tautology.
Of the second, also, we
have a most glorious sample, and more than once referred to and specifically
pointed out as the second birth, in the case of our Savior. He offers to us in
his own person an exemplification of what he taught Nicodemus. In his own
person he has been the subject of the first and second births. In the first, he
was the word of God made flesh, when in the fulness of the time he was
born of a woman, born of the flesh, and "that which is born of the flesh
is flesh," and in it he was also put to death. But he was never converted.
Do you say, Of course not, he never needed it? Well, we agree. But are you
prepared to say, also, that he never was "born again"? Perhaps not.
In Col 1:18, Paul says he was, and that he was "the beginning, the first
born from the dead." But you may say, That was not the "new
birth." I would like to know why; it certainly was not the old
birth, of which Nicodemus inquired in Joh 3:4. Most assuredly that was the new
birth, for then was Jesus born anew, or again, and was the Son of what,
or whomsoever, brought him forth, which Peter and Paul testify was the Spirit
of God, or God. Ac 3:15; 4:10; 10:40; 13:30; Ro 4:24; 8:11. Hence he was
"born of the Spirit," and was, by being "born again," the
Son of God; and "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
In 1Co 15:23, Paul declares
that Christ is the (a) first fruit. But of what, and from what? Other
scriptures show that he is a first fruit of the Spirit, produced or born
from the dead; and then he proceeds to say that the next fruit of the
Spirit will be those who are Christ’s, who are to be made alive, or born of the
Spirit from the dead, at his coming. Now, in order to prove that this is just
what Paul is here teaching, and that this constitutes the new birth, and is by
the Bible denominated a birth, I will quote from the Bible a parallel passage,
bearing upon this point; and allow me to write plainly, just as plainly as it
is in the Bible; for this is an important matter that we have under
consideration; something more than a theory, more than a theology; it is
a Bible fact, a God given declaration.
Turn if you please to Isa
66:7. The prophet has just been telling us, in Isa 65, what God is about to do
to Jerusalem; that one which Paul in Gal 4:26 says "is the mother of us
all"; i.e., God’s children. Now in Isa 65:7, Isaiah says:
"Before she [Jerusalem above, the free-woman] travailed, she brought
forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a MAN CHILD." All
concede that this refers to Christ, and he (in Joh 16:19-22) applies this
figure to himself. Passing over the inquiry in Isa 66:8, let us find the
solution in Isa 66:9, filling out the ellipsis in fully expressed words, thus:
"Shall I bring to the birth [Christ, "the man child," the
"first fruit," the "first born," the "head of the
body"], and not cause to bring forth [the body of Christ, the Church]?
saith the Lord; shall I cause to bring forth [Christ from the dead], and shut
the womb [and not bring forth afterwards those children that are Christ’s at
his coming]? Saith thy God." We have studiously employed those sentences
or words only, which Paul, by the same Spirit that moved the prophet, used in
relation to the implied portions of the prophecy, lest some one should say we
had done violence to the text, in which the resurrection of Christ and the Church
is called a birth, as David also said in the second Psalm, and Pal also
in Ac 13:33. But inasmuch as all of these persons had been previously born once
of the flesh, this birth spoken of must necessarily have been when they were
"born again" of the Spirit, for there are no more than these
two births spoken of in Scripture—birth of the flesh, and birth of the Spirit,
or (1) born of flesh, and (2) born of Spirit.
Three things are
necessarily involved in order to a birth, whether natural or spiritual: 1st,
the begetting; 2nd, the quickening; 3rd, the bringing forth. In the spiritual
production, adults are subjected to the first, when they are begotten by
"the word of truth" (Jas 1:18), the incorruptible seed, the word of
God (1Pe 1:23), commonly termed "conviction." This transpires when
any one "heareth the word, and understandeth it" (Mt 13:23),
producing the first "the blade." Mr 4:28. The second occurs when the
Spirit is conferred uponthe obedient believer, by which they are quickened from
being "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph 2:1), for "it is the
Spirit that quickeneth" (Joh 6:63), by which they cry, Abba, Father. Ro
8:15. This is the work of the Father, by the Son (Joh 5:21), and
constitutes the guaranty, or earnest, of our ultimate adoption into the
kingdom, when we shall finally come to the birth. Ro 8:23; Eph 1:13-14. This
period in Christian experience is usually called "conversion," and
answers to fruit-bearing of the word (Mt 13:23), or the "earing" (Mr
4:28), or the "fruiting" of the Spirit—joy and peace in the Holy
Ghost. In this quickened state we are called (proleptically) the sons of God;
that is, sons by faith, in anticipation, and not yet in fact, not yet having
Spirit-life of our own, but Christ living in us; and the (Spirit) life which we
now live in the flesh, we live by the faith of the Son of God. Ga 2:20. For
Christ is our Spirit-life, and this Spirit, or eternal life, is in
Christ (1Jo 5:11), not in us, and "is hid with Christ in God";
and "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear
with him in glory" (Col 3:4), at which time we shall be subjects of the third
and final condition, the spiritual birth, being brought forth by the Spirit
FROM the dead (not of the dead), (Ro 8:11); and for this manifestation
of the sons of God, the earnest expectation of the creature is waiting,
"because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God"
(Ro 8:19-21); at which time we shall answer to the "wheat" (Mt
13:30), or the "full corn in the ear" (Mr 4:28), the resurrection
state, the fruiting perfected, after which there will no longer a
liability of "falling away," or "from grace," r sinning, or
being abortives; because God’s seed (incorruption) will remain in us;
giving to, or causing deathless natures in us; being (having been) the
children of God (by faith), and being in fact the children of the resurrection
by birth of the Spirit, or being "born again," made like the angels,
going and coming like the wind, and none able to tell whence we came or whither
we went. So is every one (person) that is born of the Spirit.
G.W. Stetson Olena,
Ohio.
WORLD’S
CRISIS-September, 26, 1871
Our next legitimate
inquire, therefore, must be, how are infants redeemed so as to be heirs of
salvation, and will they be in the next band or company that are to be made
alive at Christ’s coming? Our first proof text is in Joh 1:29.
—"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
Our second is Joh 3:17 —"For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved." But
saved from what, and how? In the light of Scripture, shining unto me in the
face of Jesus Christ, my answer would be, saved from sin and its effects. By Ro
5:12 we learn that "by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all [for in him—Adam] have sinned"; all
are reckoned as sinful, "but not as the fall, so is the gracious gift. For
if by the fall of the one [man—Adam], the many died [the all men of Ro 5:13],
much more the favor of God, even that gracious gift by the one man, Jesus
Christ, abounded to the many."
Paul then proceeds to show
that the free gift is unlike the effects of the one (Adam) having sinned, in a
very essential particular, "For indeed the sentence was from one [sin or
offense] to condemnation; but the gracious gift is [justification] from many
offenses to [unto] righteousness." "Therefore, as through one offense
sentence came on all men to condemnation [of death], so also through one
righteous act, sentence came on all men to [unto] justification of life. For as
through the disobedience of one man the man [the all men of Ro 5:12 again] were
constituted sinners [or sinful], so even through the obedience of the one the
man [the same many] will be constituted righteous." Diaglott Trans.
The words man and men here
in Romans are generic terms, like "a man," in Joh 3:3, and not
specific; hence in 1Co 15:21-22 it is written—"since through a man there
is death, through a man also there is a resurrection of the dead; for as by
Adam all die, so by the Anointed also will all be restored to
life." Now, according to Paul, infants die in consequence of the death
sentence pronounced upon Adam for his one sin, and the entire race being at
that time yet comprehended in Adam, the appointment unto many through him is,
once to die, and after this once (dying), the judgment; and the judgment
written is, that these same many who die through (in consequence of) Adam’s one
sin, shall live again through Christ’s one righteousness, and then the
children’s teeth shall no longer be set on edge in consequence of the sour
grape eaten by the sire. But the soul (person) that sinneth (the sinning one)
shall die.
I know very well that there
are not wanting those who will affirm that Paul was writing of those who are
adults, consequently are justified by faith in the gospel, and say he does not
speak of infants at all. To such it is sufficient to say that Paul affirms that
he was writing to all called saints, and many of these, according to Ac
28:17-29, were Jews with whom Paul labored diligently to prove that the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ was not the God of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles
also, and he "expounded to them, and testified of the kingdom of God,
persuading them concerning Jesus out of the law and out of the prophets."
But what proves too much, proves nothing; and Ro 5:16 proves that the claim of
or to adult-ship only, is certainly erroneous; for in that verse the apostle is
very careful to particularly specify the sins of adult persons, in addition
to the sin of the world, which he introduced and set before us in Ro 5:12;
and the personal sins of adults he terms, in Ro 5:16, "many
offenses." Now I not only concede, but contend, that we can only be
justified from these through faith, repentance, and obedience toward God,
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by the gospel. But "the sin of the
world" came upon us all through the curse pronounced for Adam’s
disobedience, without our agency; and it will be taken away from us all when
the curse is taken off, through the obedience of Jesus Christ independent also
of our agency. In other words, the first Adam by transgression runs the train
down the track to the depot of death, but the second Adam begins just where the
first Adam failed, and by his obedience reverses the engine and brings the
train back again to the depot of life eternal; and when he gets it there, all
who will receive the gift who have not forfeited that gift, as Adam did, by
personal sins (Ro 2:6-11, 16); and among these returned exiles will be found
infants, who have never committed personal sin in transgression, and for whom
also there is no law. And Paul says, in Ro 5:13, that sin is not accounted or
imputed, where there is no law; hence the typical promise in De 1:39
—"Your little ones, which ye said should be a prey; and your children,
which in that day [on account of their youth] had no knowledge between good and
evil, they shall go in thither [into the land of promise], and unto them will I
give it, and they shall possess it." Isa 7:16; Ro 9:11.
But some theorizing,
theological hair-splitter will say—"These children were God’s by covenant,
they having received circumcision, and the promise has no relation to the
children of Gentile unbelievers at all." In Ga 5:2, Paul says—"I say
unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you
nothing." Ga 6:15 —"For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Herein lies
the foundation of infant sprinkling, called regeneration. Assuming that baptism
under the gospel took the place of circumcision under the law, professed
ministers of Christ undertook to do what Christ had already done for the
infants. But the priest under the law, circumcising the child when eight days
old, was not a type of a gospel preacher sprinkling infants down here. That was
a type of the true circumcision, not made with hands, which Christ hath wrought
for them in the reconciliation, by the putting away of the body of the sins of
the flesh, by the Spirit.
Hence under the gospel we
have both circumcision (the true) and baptism. The first is a gift conferred, a
work done for us by our Savior, which we neither could or can do for ourselves.
The second, unlike the first, includes not "all men," but adults
only, and is a duty to be performed as a result of our having heard, understood
and believed the gospel; hence faith and baptism are inseparable. All men
(mankind) receive the benefits of Christ’s death; whereas those who hear,
believe, and obey the gospel, alone receive benefit from his rising again to
act as our mediator and advocate. For if we (all men) were reconciled by his
death, how much more shall we who believe be justified by his life. "Thy
children shall come again from the land of the enemy" is an affirmation
made by Deity, not because they (whose death caused bitter lamentation in
Ramah) were martyrs to or for the truth, for they were not, being victims only
of Herod’s jealous ambition and rapacious cruelty; but because God desire to
lay a foundation for our faith to rest upon, in Christ’s work of atonement for
our race, and that we through the comfort and consolation of the Scriptures might
have hope.
In this coming again from
the land of the enemy these infants will experience the new birth, or be born
again, and then God will put his Spirit in them, and they shall live and go in
and inherit the land.*
*NOTE: In Dr. Wordsworth’s
Greek Testament, we find the subjoined reading of Mt 19:28 —"Verily I say
unto you, who have followed me, In the new birth of the saints, at the
resurrection, in the New Jerusalem, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne
of his glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones."
But what position they will
there and then occupy, I know not. But Paul says as "one star differeth
from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead"; and
I am quite content to heave them thus in the hands of Him who hath done all
things well.
WORLD’S
CRISIS-September, 26, 1871
G.W.
Stetson
2Ti
2:14
How often do we see
brethren engaged in disputations, in which the entire controversy is a result
of misapprehending the terms used by each other, and such, perhaps, to a very
great extent, may be the case in regard to the subject of the "new
birth." Therefore, I would say, let us reason together, and not to
separation. Differences among brethren, however small, even in opinions, not to
say in faith, are not desirable, nor agreeable; but where they do unavoidably
exist, in consequence of our imperfections in the knowledge of the truth, it is
well for the differing ones to be very kindly disposed to each other, and bear
and forbear until we all come to know the way of the Lord more perfectly. Even
in those cases where brethren have a zeal, but not according to truth, and may
be decidedly in error, but think they are right, their exhortations to
amendment, in those whom they judge to be wrong, even though right, should be
kindly and thankfully received; because the motive was good, and intended to
confer, or be the means of conferring, a blessing. To all such, my grateful
acknowledgements are tendered for their kind sympathy in behalf of my spiritual
well being; but dear brethren, it does not follow that because we deny the new
birth as taking place here, that there fore we also deny spiritual
regeneration, or a moral renewing here.
That there is a mighty,
wondrous work of grace wrought upon, in, and for, every true believer by the
eternal Spirit, through the word of truth, by faith in Christ, in this present
life-time, as a means of fitting men for the kingdom of righteousness and
everlasting glory, in blessed immortality, I think can never be called in
question by any who have ever experienced "the love of God our
Savior," and have come to a saving "knowledge of his mercy by the
washing of regeneration, and a renewing of the Holy Spirit, being justified by
his grace, that we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life,
. . . which God (who cannot lie) promised before the world began, . . . and
hath made his Son the depositary of this life for us, in consequence of which
all long to see Jesus as he is, that they may be made like him; and whomsoever
hath such hope in him will purify himself from all iniquity, even as he is
pure, by obeying the truth, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, in consequence
of having been begotten again [anna-gennemenoi], not from corruptible,
but from incorruptible seed, through the living and enduring word of God."
—Diaglott.
To every true believer, no
argument is needed to convince him of the fundamental doctrine in the Christian
religion, that the begetting always precedes the quickening. This
follows the former, but is antecedent to the birth. So teaches the word, and I
claim this order for the word. To the writer, it does seem strange that any
one, professing faith in the holy religion of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ, can for a moment entertain the idea that anything short of an entire
consecration, and sanctification of soul, body and spirit to God, and by him,
so that we live pure and sinless lives before him, will be acceptable to him.
Holiness of life, holiness of heart, cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of
the flesh and of the mind, is what the Spirit that raised up our Lord from the
dead demands of us; and if we come short of this, by the grace of God assisting
us, through the intercession of the eternal Spirit in our behalf, I can find no
assurance of our ever reaching a spiritual birth. Like begets like, and the one
grand object of divine grace in us, is so to fit, fashion, and develop us, by
molding us into the divine likeness, as at last to produce the divine result,
of a divine begetting, divine quickening, and divine nourishing, and
development, in divine manifestation as sons of God in a divine birth.
But now we are called (proleptically) the sons of God, and by the same metaphor
we are spoken of as having been already born of God.
Let us now make an
examination of the terms used, and try to get their true signification, so as
to understand them as well as one another. Birth is the act of coming
into life, that which is produced. In a theological sense, regeneration is
called the new birth; but Scott says regeneration is to renew the heart by a
change of affections; to change the heart and affections from natural enmity to
the love of God; to implant holy affections in the heart. Robinson’s Calmet
says: "Regeneration is used in two senses by the sacred authors of the New
Testament: (1) For that spiritual birth received from grace; (2) for that new
life we expect at the resurrection. Properly speaking, there are but two places
where the term occurs; Mt 19:28; Tit 3:5. The first refers to a change of state
(or condition); the second to a change of profession. The term is compounded of
palin, again, and genesia, generation, or origin"; (i.e.,
to originate again). Schleusner applies it to "a renovation of the minds
and characters of the Jews and Gentiles by means of the gospel." Others
refer these words in Matthew to "the grand renovation of all things at
Christ’s second coming (compare Ac 3:21), and particularly to God’s children
being born again, as it were, from their graves; that is, resurrection
is regeneration (compare Ac 13:33). Either way, the passage is
metaphorical." "The second place (Tit 3:5) alludes, beyond all
question, to the rite of baptism" —R.C. (EDITOR: Probably Robinson’s Calmet
mentioned earlier in the paragraph), page 781. "But in Joh 3:4-5, the term
is very different from that in Matthew and Titus, being gennetheanothen
(Joh 3:3) and gennethenai, born again, or, as some prefer, born from
above—Same.
The term used in 1Pe 1:3,
where he thanks God for his abundant mercy, by which he regenerates us (anagennesas),
in a lively or life giving hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead, seems to come very near to the import of palingenesia,
regeneration; but in either of these cases, Joh 3:5 excepted, so far from any
of the reproducing us, which is necessary to our being "born
again," or anew, the idea in all of them seems to be that something is
reproduced in us, which is in perfect harmony with both Old and New Testament
teaching, concerning the regeneration of the Holy Spirit of God in us, through
faith and obedience to God’s word under the gospel. Hence to speak of the
Spirit being born anew, or of a new birth of the Spirit in us, would be
entirely proper and correct; but to apply that work of God’s Spirit wrought
upon us, in our reproduction, by which the Spirit brings us forth the second
time, to the work of God’s grace which is now going on in the heart of
every true follower of Christ, seems to me like an utter confusion of terms,
that carries us into an inextricable labyrinth of difficulties, as connected
with our teaching that man is a unity, instead of duality or triplet. Of the
passage in Joh 1:13, Griesbach notes a different reading. Instead of "who
were," he reads "who was," making the entire connection
thus—"He came to his own domain, and yet his own people received him not;
but to as many as received him, he gave authority to become children of God, to
those believing into His name, who was begotten not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God"; thus referring it
directly to the physical generation of the Messiah by the Spirit of God,
rather than to the moral regeneration of believers—Diaglott.
There are other Bible
reasons for being called sons of God, than those of birthright. There may be,
and I understand there is, such a thing as an adoption of sonship, on the
conditions of faith.
Dr. James Macknight, who
was for forty years President of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, says in
his comment on the epistles—and Dr. Adam Clarke endorses his declaration—that
"there is not in the whole Bible, strictly, such a phrase as born
of God; but in every instance it should have been translated, begotten
of God." I may not have given a verbatim quotation, as I write from
memory, not now having the work before me, but such is the substance of his
stricture.
WORLD’S
CRISIS-February 28, 1872
G.W.
Stetson
Christ the hope of glory
formed in us is one thing, but to create us anew in Christ Jesus is quite
another thing. Paul says in 2Co 5:17 —"If any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature [a new creation, Diaglottold things are passed away; . . . all
things are become new." Still it is evident, from the context and all his
writings on this point, that he neither understood nor desired us to believe
that this creative work was completed in either himself or us (see Php
3:12-14), but everywhere speaks of it as having been commenced, and to be continued
unto completion in the day of our Lord Jesus. In Heb 8:6-13; Gal 5:16-25, he
shows "the old" as those things which pertain to the former covenant,
the law, or the flesh, and particularizes them; but "the new" are the
things comprehended in the second covenant—grace, or the Spirit; and he also
specifies them—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance; nine in all. Now the possession and exercise of these,
with the crucifixion of the old, is what constitutes us new creatures, so far
as a moral regeneration or spiritual renewal is concerned according to
Paul’s gospel. But every one of these are internal, mental endowments, or
qualifications, externally manifested, and now one of them a product of the
brain; for neither it or any other part of the body has been at all changed in
its physical structure by this regeneration.
So far as the material man
proper is concerned he is still the same flesh man that was born of the flesh,
and all the nine new things combined do not satisfactorily show to me a new
birth of the man, or that the man has been born again, unless we at once yield
the point and submit that there is inside of the material structure another
"immaterial man," "the man proper," as claimed by others,
and that it is this "inner man" that has undergone the change
involved by being "born again." But to yield this point is to yield
the entire ground in controversy between the so designated materialists and
immaterialists. But if these nine are not products of the brain (organ of
flesh), what are they, and whence do they come? The apostle comes to our
rescue, and at once relives us of the difficulty into which our theorizing
theological notions would drive us, by saying that these are a fruit (i.e.
product) of the Spirit of Christ, which God hath sent forth into our hearts,
that we might receive (in order to our reception of) the adoption of sons. —Gal
4:5-6. In Ro 8:15 he calls this the adopting spirit (i.e., the spirit
which is ultimately to adopt us as sons, as is proved by Ro 8:23), in which he
says we have not yet received the adoption itself, but we are groaning and
waiting for it. And in Eph 1:13, he informs us that the bestowment of this
spirit secures to us this adoption as sons (or to sonship), which is the
redemption of our body at the time set; when, according to Php 3:21, these vile
bodies will be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious (glorified) body. Then the
substantial man proper will produce these graces of the Spirit, in and of
himself, by virtue of the man himself having been born of the Spririt, the
result of a work of grace wrought upon and in him; but now he has this treasure
in an earthen vessel, and they are produced by virtue of the Spirit of Christ,
begotten or born in him.
To my apprehension, such
are the results of a work done for and in us through grace by the spirit
of God (or mind of Christ), bestowed upon us in consequence of an intense
desire for truth having been begotten in us by the incorruptible seed
(implanted), the word of God, that liveth and abideth forever; and thus creates
a hungering and thirsting after righteousness, which leads us to feed, and
feast too, upon that true bread that came down from heaven, of which if a man
eat he shall live forever; for man doth not live by bread alone, but by every
word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
These processes of
developing us in a new creation, as delineated by Christ and the apostles, is
in complete and perfect harmony with everything in nature. Take for
illustration the chicken. Take an egg from the nest subjected to incubation for
a few days only. Break it into a clear glass; hold it up between yourself and
the sun, and in its center you will see a little red spot with small lines
radiating from it in every direction. Watch that center closely and you will
perceive that it pulsates quite as regularly as your own hear. What is it? Well
may you ask with wonder; but that is the primary process in the development of
a "new creature" in order to a birth of the creature itself. That egg
does not breath, never has breathed; no atmospheric air can reach is center,
yet there is life there, a life germ, a life center; and in putting on
its organism it begins precisely where every other life, whether animal,
vegetable, or Christian, must begin—with the heart; for "out of it
are the issues of life." But the egg existed before the life in it existed
there. True, it existed elsewhere, and had to be begotten there; and so with
us, and the Christ-life in us. And there must be a heart work in it; hence,
"believing with the heart unto righteousness" in absolutely a
necessary pre-requisite of Christ-life in us. A head belief, simply,
will not do; it is not enough; it will not reach the fountain of life; and it
is from and in the deepest innermost and hidden recesses of our being that this
new creative process must begin, if begun at all, and in its beginning Christ
must plan the life-seed in us, through the eternal Sprit, by his truth, and it
must then be watere3d by the dew of his grace, until in its progressive
development it shall find its completion in putting on a glorified body in the
morning of the resurrection, in perfect harmony with and in obedience to
"the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which shall make us
free from the law of sin and death, in full and everlasting redemption, where
faith shall be lost in sight, and hope shall realize a full fruition. Christ,
who has deposited this life-germ in us, will hold us responsible for a faithful
discharge of our trust in the performance of our daily work, until that
life-force in us is fully prepared to be thus arrayed in its heavenly raiment
of immortal beauty and unfading glory, in his everlasting kingdom, when born of
the Spirit.
Olena, Ohio
ADVENT
CHRISTIAN WITNESS—Aug. 27, 1872
It is now ten months since
I was called and came to Pittsburgh, Pa. To labor, and though we have worked
quietly and made no flourish of trumpets, we are able to say ‘the Lord is with
us,’ and the Truth is spreading and taking a deep hold in this city and
Allegheny. We now propose to ‘carry the war into Africa,’ i.e., invade
the strongholds of ‘orthodoxy’ by scattering among them ‘the incorruptible
seed,’ by free distribution of our standard works. The schism in the body is
nearly healed, the fragments gathered up, the marks obliterated, and the
brethren are meeting together in harmony and holding public service regularly
in Quincy Hall, 127 Leacock St., Allegheny, every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30
p.m. Through the week all are busy in disseminating and presenting the truth
among and to others, as they may have opportunity. We might give the names of
some ten or a dozen brethren who are especially assiduous workers, but as
distinctions are invidious and comparisons odious, and all merit commendations,
I forbear.
I had the pleasure, some
weeks since, of seeing Bro. Cherry, now of Chicago, among us, who gave a good
report of the Church there. He will be pleased to learn that several of his old
acquaintances have since he was with us, ‘put on Christ in baptism,’ and now
are ‘booked’ and will soon be ‘planted in the likeness of Christ’s death,’ that
they may be with him in the likeness of his resurrection. The last three
Sabbaths have been seasons of unusual interest and blessedness in our meetings.
That the Lord may prosper, build and establish us in all our work and in his
ways, preserve us from sin and from evil unto his glorious appearing, is our
most earnest supplication to him who is able to keep us from falling, and
present us faultless before his glory. Amen.
G.W. Stetson.
WORLD'S
CRISIS - September 4, 1872
G.W.
STETSON
"Flesh and blood
cannot inherit." -- 1 Cor. 15:50.
The meaning of "flesh
and blood cannot inherit," as commonly given among us, as a people, is
very unsatisfactory, and looks more like a "play upon words" than a
good, clear, open and honest explanation of a passage often quoted against us.
The answer usually given is, "that is true, flesh and blood cannot, but
flesh and bones can." But if it be true that flesh and blood cannot
inherit, then it is equally untrue to say that flesh and bones can; for it is
undeniably a scriptural fact that neither the one or the other of these can
INHERIT the kingdom. But a mighty chorus of voices will at once cry out,
"Did not our Savior say after his resurrection, 'Handle me, and see that
it is I myself, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have"?
and did not he inhabit after he rose from the dead, among them? Yes, that is
all true; but INHERIT is not used in the text in the sense of INHABIT, or
POSSESS, at all, and that is the almost universal error that we fall into.
There is a possibility that this erroneous teaching may be corrected and
reformed, but not much probability that it will be, for when men get a crotchet
in the brain, it is seldom removed except by dissolution.
One man has been at work
faithfully for nearly fifteen years to reform this abuse of language, but
"they" think they know, and so the "stone remains in one end of
the sack." But today, that one man makes an appeal to his preaching
brethren for help in this matter. Come, brethren, to the rescue. Truth is
surely better than error, and more sanctifying. We who preach the gospel to
others are, to some extent, responsible for the opinions formed and views
entertained. Now a dogmatic affirmation that a thing is or is not so and so,
thus and thus, will never make or unmake it so., Let us then look this
Scripture right square in the face, until it can no longer laugh us out of
countenance.
1. We inquire, then, why
cannot flesh and blood inherit the kingdom? We answer (1), because "flesh
and blood" is simply a Hebrew equivalent for mortality; and mortality can
no more result in immortality, than darkness can produce light. But immortality
is an element of the kingdom, as well as of Deity, and flesh, nor blood, nor
bones, has any claim either by inherent title or by promise to either. (2) We
answer, because none but the children can inherit; for the children only are
the heirs, and the heirs only are entitled to the inheritance. Now it is said
of Christ, that he is appointed heir of all things; but he was not made heir by
virtue of his descent from Adam, through David, as the Son of man, the seed of
the woman, flesh and blood, or flesh and bones, as he was "made under the
law." But he was made "heir of all things" by his having been
made the Son of God, and this divine appointment to sonship and consequent
heirship was not through the "begetting of blood, nor the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." John 1:13 -- Diaglott. But
nothing is said about "bones" in the proof. Let us see. After the
flesh, Jesus was born of Mary, and as such was the "seed of the
woman," to whom the promise was made in Gen. 3:15, concerning whose
formation it is said (Gen. 2:21), "He took one of his ribs, and closed up
the flesh instead thereof." Of this rib, transformed into a woman,
"Adam said (Gen. 2:23), "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of
my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man,"
where we find flesh and bones used as equivalents, having one common origin,
subject to one common law, and destined to one common end. Enough on that
point.
Now there are three things
that are involved in making Jesus Son and heir of God. (1) The begetting by the
Spirit; (2) the immersion; (3) his birth by the Spirit, when the Spirit brought
him forth from the dead, as "THE FIRST BORN"; therefore eldest Son
and heir, for to this Son God had given, willed, promised the INHERITANCE, not
through the law, but THROUGH THE SPIRIT. Gal. 3:13-18. In Rom. 2, Paul shows us
how we sin by the law of God; and in Eph. 2, that we are every one of us
(Gentiles) aliens; and in Gal. 5:19-21, he tells us what flesh is heir to; but
in Rom. 8, and Gal. 4, and Eph. 2, he informs us how we cease from being
"in the flesh," and are brought into the Spirit, being no more
servants or aliens, but brought nigh by the blood of Christ; "that we
might receive the adoption of sons, . . . and if a son, then an heir of God
through Christ" (Gal. 4:4-7); "for as many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God; . . . the Spirit itself bearing witness with
our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs
of God (or God's heirs), and joint heirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:14-17); and
the children, through the Spirit, can inherit, being entitled by promise
through faith, and the inheritance, like the enabling cause, is incorruptible,
and undefiled, and is reserved for us in heaven (the title being invested in
Christ the eldest Son and brother), from whence we look for the Lord Jesus, who
will change our vile body, and fashion like unto his own glorious body. In
Judges 2:6 we read, "the children of Israel went every man to his
inheritance, to possess the land," where inheritance and possessing, or
inhabiting, occupying, or dwelling in or on, are not used as synonymous. Just
so of the term inherit; it is not used by Paul in the sense of inhabit or
possess; but purely in a legal sense, as a law phrase, by which he tells the
brethren, that these men who have only got a fleshly descent from, or a blood
relation to Abraham, can never get any place in the kingdom of God; because God
has never had, nor has he now got, any such purpose; and it is not in
accordance with his plan or purpose to make Agar's children heirs with those of
Sarah. Agar's son was born "after the flesh" (illegitimate to plans
and purposes), and therefore cannot inherit the land of promise, which was to
come to Abraham by the Spirit, through a resurrection from the dead; therefore
the legitimate heirs must come in the same way; and hence the promise to Sarah
in her dead state; showing thereby the power and purpose of the Spirit of God
to produce its (or his) own children and heirs of the inheritance by promise
through faith.
That text is one of the
strongest in the Bible as proof of the correctness of the views of those who
entertain the faith of the Abrahamic inheritance through Christ, provided we do
not spoil it by weakening it through barbaric torture.
Olena, Ohio
WORLD’S
CRISIS-December, 18, 1872
G.W.
Stetson
Light shining in dark
places—2Pe 1:19.
The key to the position.
The gates opened. Re 21:25.
Walk while you have the
light—Joh 12:35.
After all the preaching,
writing, printing and disputing, by clergymen, theologians, doctors of
divinity, and the laity, saints, and sinners, in relation to the penalty for
sin, as fixed by the divine Lawgiver, and recorded in the Bible, the question
is still open, and likely to remain so, unless we can obtain light more
resplendent than that which emanates from philosophy, science, nature, or
reason, to shine away the surrounding darkness. Fortunately for all who believe
the record that God has given of his Son, the true light, which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world, shineth, and is to shine more and more unto the
perfect day.
"The entrance of thy
words giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple." Ps 119:130. By
this divine illumination, as a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path, let
us endeavor to walk out of this thick darkness, into the brightness of that
light of the knowledge of the glory of God, shining unto us from the face of
Him who walketh in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, whose countenance
is as the sun shining in its strength, full of grace and truth.
Theories are of no account
here. Preconceived opinions must be given up. Prejudices must be kept out of
the way. Creeds are for sects only. Theologies are for those who make them;
superstitions for the ignorant and the bigot. The truth, and the truth only,
can make us free, and if the Son make us free, we shall be "free
indeed." Error enslaves us. Facts are what we want, and alone can settle
this penal question, and Bible facts at that; nothing else can. "The
secret things belong to God, the things that are revealed belong to us and our
children forever;" and the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness.
The nature of man, the
state of the dead, the penalty for sin, and the final doom of the impenitent
ungodly, are all comprehended in and elucidated by the teachings of Jesus and
his sufferings for the human race, through his work of redemption in their
behalf, when "made a curse for us." Gal 3:13.
In order to know what is to
be redeemed we must know first what was lost, what was forfeit. This should be
authoritative and final. We therefore appeal to Jesus himself. In Lu 19:10 he
says—"The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was
lost." In Lu 9:56 he says—"The Son of man is not come to destroy
men’s lives, but to save them." Save what? That which was lost. What was
lost? That which Christ came to save. What was that? Jesus says men’s lives. In
what sense? In the very same sense in which James and John proposed to destroy
the lives of the Samaritans; and by turning to 2Ki 1:10-14, we find it was in a
literal sense; and by this we also find from Jesus himself that life in
Scripture means life, and death means death. Having found what was lost we
learn what was forfeit; and having learned this, we know what must be paid as a
ransom price, in satisfaction to the demands of the transgressed law, in order
to redeem or save.
Life was forfeit, and life
only can pay the price of ransom in order to redeem from death; and this is in
perfect harmony with God’s law of atonement, as given in Lev 17:10-11 —"I
will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, . . . for the life
of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it [the life] to you upon
the altar, to make atonement for your souls" (or life). Lev 17:14
—"for it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life
thereof." Again, in Ex 21:23, we read—"Thou shalt give life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for
burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." Such is the law of
atonement, of redemption, and such is the price of ransom. Ge 3:17
—"Because thou hast harkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of
the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is
the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou east of it all the days of they
life; . . . in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return;
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
And such was the penalty
for sin. Life was forfeit to the law. The body to the dust, the life to death,
and the Spirit (or breath of life) to God who gave it. And this death, without
redemption, would have been an eternal death. And this is just the penalty
suffered, just the price demanded by the law, and just the sum paid by our
blessed Lord, in order to redeem us from the penalty of the law.
Four fulfilled conditions
are necessary to entitle to the right of redemption.
1. The birthright,
2. Nearness of kin,
3. The blessing,
4. Holding, or being in
possession of, the ransom price.
All of these qualifications
centered in Jesus of Nazareth:
1. "He was the only
begotten of the Father." Joh 1:14, 18.
2. "The word was made
flesh." Joh 1:14. "Made like unto his brethren." Heb 2:17.
"In the likeness of sinful flesh." Ro 8:3. "For both he that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which he is not
ashamed to call them brethren." Heb 2:11.
3. The blessing was eternal
life—"For there the Lord [Jehovah] commanded [bestowed] the blessing, even
life for evermore." Ps 133:3. He was "The firstborn from the
dead." Col 1:18; Ac 26:23. The first "made alive." 1Co 15:23.
"Quickened by the Spirit." 1Pe 3:18. "After [by] the power of an
endless life." Heb 7:16. "The gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord." Ro 6:23. And this eternal life "is in his
Son." 1Jo 5:11. "And having received of the Father the promised Holy
Spirit, he hath shed forth this." Ac 2:33. "If we live in [by] the
Spirit, let us also walk in [by] the Spirit." Gal 5:25. We cannot too
highly prize this Holy Spirit; it is the power of eternal life, it is "the
mighty power of God." Eph 1:13-14; 18-21.
4. The thing forfeited was
a blood life. The redeeming price is its equivalent. "This is he [Jesus]
who came . . . not by water only, but by water, and blood." 1Jo 5:6. This
blood life Jesus had, as the seed of Abraham, the son of David, the seed of the
woman, the Son of man. The Adamic life was forfeited by sin (Ro 5:12), a
life sold under sin; a life upon which the law had a claim, covering the
entirety in its sum.
(To be concluded)
WORLD’S
CRISIS-December, 25, 1872
G.W.
Stetson
Light shining in a dark
place—2Pe 1:19.
The key to the position.
The gates opened—Re 21:25.
Walk while you have the
light—Joh 12:35.
(Concluded)
The life offered in
redemption as a ransom price must be, and was, one unforfeited by sin, one upon
which the law had no claim. But all life, from Adam to Christ, was of
the first kind, under forfeit by sin. Consequently a new blood life had to be
generated, upon which the law had no claim through sin, and this was done when
Jesus was begotten by the Holy Spirit, and this life that was in the
blood, Jesus gave on the cross to death, in sacrifice for sin, in order to
redeem our life from death. But the eternal life is a spirit life, and not a
blood life, and as Jesus voluntarily gave up his blood life, he must be
entitled to another life, or ever remain in death. This other life (the spirit
eternal life) he got by purchase. He brought the birthright by obedience, or
the right to a birth by the Spirit from the dead, which also gave to him the
blessing of an eternal life. Ro 10:4-5.
But the price of ransom
must not only be paid, it must remain with whomsoever or to whatsoever it is
given in full satisfaction of the claim just created in the forfeiture. To
recall or take back (take again) the ransom, is to reestablish the claim by
law, of forfeiture, and the un-ransomed would remain unredeemed.
Illustration. A forfeits
his watch. B holds it. The forfeiture is five dollars. C redeems it by paying
the ransom price (five dollars) into B’s hands, but leaves the watch also with
B for the time being. One hour or more after the transaction C calls again on B
and asks him if he has any objection to his (C’s) taking back that five
dollars, paid as ransom for A’s watch. B says he has not if C desires
it, and C takes it back, and then (subsequently) demands A’s watch as his (C’s)
by right of redemption. Now who is so simple as to affirm that B in justice is
under any obligation to "deliver up" A’s watch to C under such
circumstances, or to say that C has any claim of right by purchase or otherwise
upon the watch?
And this principle of
right, of equity, is just as true when applied to our redemption by Jesus of
Nazareth as when applied to the watch. So that, if Jesus took again that same
life in ransom, he has recalled the purchase price, and no one therefore is
redeemed.
But suppose the forfeiture
on A’s watch is twenty dollars, and C only pays ten to B but does not
recall the ten. In such case redemption of the watch would fail equally as in
the former case, but from different cause, inadequacy or insufficiency of
ransom price. But it is affirmed by theologians that the demand of God’s law
upon the inner as the penalty for sin, is eternal torment in misery. But if
that be the curse or penalty of the law, then Christ must have paid that price
in ransom (suffered eternal torment in misery) for our redemption, and if such
be the penalty or forfeiture, and Christ has not paid that, then nobody is
redeemed, and redemption fails by insufficiency of ransom price.
But "Christ has
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us,"
and yet has not paid the price of eternal torment in misery, therefore eternal
torment is not the penalty of the law for sin. But does not the same difficulty
hold if we make the second (or eternal) death, in an absolute sense, the
penalty for sin? Certainly not, for Jesus made an eternal satisfaction to the
claim of the transgressed law, when he gave to death (his divinely begotten)
blood life, eternally to remain there, in satisfaction of the law as a ransom
price. He was made under (subject to) the law (Gal 4:4-5), the transgression of
which was sin and brought death upon man; and as man he died in obedience to
the law voluntarily. But his power to take it (his life) again, as the Son of
God, was found, not in the righteousness which is of faith, but in that which
resulted from his obedience to the same law, his Father’s commandment (Ro
10:5), through which he acquired a perfected title to eternal life; and in
receiving it he became the Son of God by birth of the Spirit when he through
the Spirit was born from the dead. There is a truth here involved that cannot
be made too plain.
As the Son of man, as the
Son of Mary, the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, Jesus has a life
precisely like that of all other men, except in its begetting and its sinlessness.
But as the Son of God he had an endless life. There never was a time, however,
in which he possessed both kinds at once. From his birth by Mary to the time of
his death, he had "the life that is in the blood," only. From the
time of his resurrection from the dead, he had the spirit or eternal life only,
and both belonged to him by right. But as his baptism, there was superadded to
him the Holy Spirit, constituting him Emmanuel, or God with man, as in Ac
10:38; or "the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh."
1Ti 3:16; Joh 14:10-11.
This Spirit of God that
raised up our Lord Jesus from the dead, and by its being thus given in jointure
to him, as now constituting a part of himself (for "he that is joined to
the Lord is one Spirit, for there is but one Spirit"), is the same Holy
Spirit that "came down from heaven" to quicken the seed of the woman,
that the word of promise spoken in the beginning might be made flesh; and this
Spirit of God that in the beginning moved upon the face of the waters, was the
creative energy by which the worlds were made, and without which there was not
anything made that was made. This is that which was with Noah in his preaching
righteousness to the spirits shut up on prison while the ark was in
preparation. It was with the church in the wilderness; was the glory that was
with the Father before the world was; was the glory of God manifested to Martha
in the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, and will quicken our mortal
bodies as it did that of Jesus, when the time of the redemption of the
purchased possession shall have fully come. This is that glory of the Lord that
shall in fulfillment of his own oath yet fill all the earth. The super abundant
and eternal weight of glory in reserve for us.
This superadded Spirit
remained with and in him until he cried out on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi,
lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At this
point Jesus was left alone as the Son of man, to die for man, to suffer the
penalty of the law, to pay the forfeit, to lay down his life, and then a
"soldier pierced his side with a spear, and forthwith there came out blood
and water." He then made his soul an offering for sin, he poured out his
soul unto death, he laid down his life, and he never took that same life again.
That was sacrificed. That was the ransom. That was the price demanded by the
law in full satisfaction for its transgression, as an equivalent for the life
of the world, redeemed; and having been redeemed, the world in consequence of
redemption is entitled to a resurrection from death.
But if the Savior had
retaken that sacrificed life, then he would have recalled the price paid in
redemption, and the life of the world would have remained in forfeit—lost. He
gave that life obtained in reservation of right to enter*, as the seed of the
woman in man’s behalf to death, in sacrifice for sin, and three days
subsequently, the same Spirit of God given to him at his baptism, that left him
on the cross, returned, and in raising him from the dead, gave him the
purchased eternal life by which he still lives and will live forevermore.
* The reservation of right
to enter (a life in ransom on man’s behalf) was comprehended in the promise of
God (as recorded in Ge 3:15) to the woman’s seed.
Olena, Ohio
G.
W. STETSON.
BRO. GRANT: -- I clipped
the subjoined from the Cleveland (O.) Herald and send to you for
insertion in the Crisis, hoping to see it copied into the Times;
as corroborative testimony, in confirmation of the words of Jesus, that there
"should be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars,"
indicative of the approaching end.
Emanating as it does from
one of our most eminent scientists, it is worthy of our deepest consideration.
Nature and revelation uniting in their testimony should strengthen our faith,
confirm our hope, and increse our diligence and earnestness in that labor of
love that induces us to warn men to turn to God and flee from the wrath to
come.
SUN SPOTS
"Perhaps no subject
relating to astronomy has of late received more attention among scientific men
than the physical constitution of the sun, and certainly none possesses a
greater interest to the inhabitants of the globe, for it is from this luminary
that we derive every life giving influence, and any irregularities in that
body, or notable disturbances in the solar atmosphere are undoubtedly felt upon
the habitable globes of our system. Anything, therefore, that is likely to
throw any more light upon the subject than we now possess will be examined with
interest."
"That these 'sun
spots' have a periodicity -- that is, that they are more abundant at certain
intervals of years -- has been pretty well established by observation, and it
is generally conceded that the planet Jupiter governs this periodicity. This
planet has an annual orbit of 4,332 days -- its year being nearly twelve of
ours--and it happens at much longer intervals; that there is a conjunction of
planets, at which times the solar disturbances are increased. We are not
approaching one of these remarkable periods. There can now be seen in a single
night, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, which, with the earth, makes
six planets (the asteroids are not included) now upon one side of the sun, and
with the exception of the inferior planets, which have short periods, are not
approaching conjunction; and Uranus and Neptune are fast advancing to join
company with this grand constellation -- an event that has not been witnessed
by man in centuries."
"The sun is nearly
nine hundred thousand miles in diameter, and so great is the amount of matter
it contains that should all the planets in our solar system be placed upon one
side of that body (a condition now rapidly drawing near), according to Newton's
law of gravitation, the center of gravity of the whole system would be within
the circumference of the sun, and about one hundred and fifty thousand miles
from its actual center. Now, the sun rotates upon its own axis once in about
twenty five days, and hence it follows that the real center of the solar body
would rotate in an orbit having a mean diameter of about three hundred thousand
miles."
"With the
preponderance of planets now prevailing, the center of the sun must describe an
orbit every twenty five days of nearly two hundred thousand miles in
diameter."
"If the sun possesses
an elastic and fluctuating atmosphere, as modern observation clearly shows,
then, according to the commonly received theory of tides, there must be an
enormous tidal wave in the sun's atmosphere, flowing from east to west, and
this tidal wave would be seen upon that side of the sun's body nearest to the
disturbing elements."
"It is generally
admitted by scientists that the sun spots are due to the openings in the sun's
atmosphere, and this opinion is strengthened from the fact that the spots are
generally situated at some distance form the sun's equator."
"On the 14th of the
present month, the clear and beautiful morning, the first of the kind of a
number of days, enabled me to get a good view of the sun's disc and with a
glass of about eight linear diameters. A very large, irregular spot was seen at
about 50 degrees altitude from the sun's lower limb, and about 20 degrees north
of the sun's equator."
"This spot was
observed every morning form 6h. 30m. to seven o'clock till the 19th, when it
had reached within about 40 degrees of the western limb of the sun, thus
passing through about 80 degrees in six days. No marked changes were observed
in the spot, except what might be due to the spherical body of the sun. Cloudy
weather prevented further observation till the morning of the 21st, when the
spot was no longer visible. Two new spots, however, had just made their
appearance on the eastern limb of the sun -- both nearly round -- the larger
one situated about 20 degrees and the other about 40 degrees north of the sun's
equator."
"Three days'
observation showed the same regular advance, coinciding with the sun's
relation, but the morning of the 24th being cloudy, no observation could be
taken."
"From the fact that no
important changes occur in the sun spots during the half revolution of the
planet, and from the further fact that the same spots do not return to view,
but that new ones are formed, shows that they are at first developed upon that
portion of the sun's face that is turned from us."
"If the present
conjunction of planets is the cause of the present remarkable disturbances in
the solar atmosphere, may we not expect that a corresponding disturbance will
be felt in our own atmosphere? And if so, will it be harmless to the denizens
of earth? There is food for thought and reflection upon this subject. The next
decade will be a marked one in the history of the world." -- Prof. J.
Brainerd.
One of the effects
resulting from this change of the center of gravitation of the entire solar
system (as indicated above), removing that center one hundred fifty thousand
miles form the sun's actual center, or one sixth of its diameter, doubled in
its own revolution, so as to make three hundred thousand miles or one third of
the sun's diameter, would be analogous to a wheel of twelve feet in diameter
having the axle upon which it turned removed two feet from its center towards
the periphery. Such an eccentric would be very irregular in its motion, if the
axle were in rest; but if the wheel were to describe the same orbit at each
revolution, then the axle and all supported by it, would be most tremendously
"shaken." Watch and pray!
Edenboro, Pa.
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, September 10, 1873
G.
W. STETSON
He was born December 25th,
1815, and fell asleep August 14th, 1873. Age fifty seven years, seven months,
and fourteen days. He experienced remission of sins in Syracuse, N.Y., about
1843, and united with the M.E. church. About 1845 he came into the truth of
life and immortality in Christ only, of his soon coming, and reign with the saints
on earth renewed, and the everlasting destruction of the finally impenitent
wicked. He began preaching these views at Syracuse, in 1847, and was
instrumental in bringing Bro. C.B. Turner into the faith. HE was committed to
what has since been called, "the 1854 movement," and was very
sanguine in the correctness of the chronological data given, as reaching to
"the end of the days," and the time of the promised blessing. The
time passing without a realization of the expected event, his "faith
failed him," as a result of overweening confidence in human computations
of time, and human misapplication of data divinely given; and he turned aside
from "the word," and got out of "the way," and for several
years "went astray."
Bro. Turner becoming
acquainted with these facts in his life, moved with true Christian
philanthropy, came to Edenboro in the winter of 1864-1865, and proved
instrumental in Bro. Wendell's recovery and restoration. He resumed
"preaching the word," and his labors were owned and greatly blessed
in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and New England, from 1865 to 1871; since when
he has been in failing health. I had particularly noticed that, for the last
year especially, his powers of life, and memory seemed to be failing him
rapidly; but during the same time his faith, love, purity of life, and
spiritual mindedness, were as markedly and correspondingly increasing. He had
settled on 1873 as the year in which "the hope of seeing Jesus and being
made like him" should be realized by a waiting and expectant church, and
set forth the reasons for his hope in a little work entitle, "Present
truth," or "Meat in Due Season," to which Bro. E. Wolcott (of
Keysport, N. J.), has added an essay on "The End." (I have a supply
of these, for free distribution. Send stamps with orders for mailing.)
From June 15 to July 5th,
Bro. Wendell was with the N. W. Pennsylvania mission tent, conjointly with Bro.
Sweet and Ongley, and thence to July 10 at the "Time Conference," in
Rochester, N.Y. From there he came home to adjust some pecuniary matters
preparatory to his return to the Mission Tent. On Aug. 7th, he called to see
Bro. Goodwin at the pump factory in E., and as he was about to pass form the
upper to the lower story, made a misstep at the head, and was precipitated headlong
to the bottom of the stairs, by which he received severe internal injuries,
from which he never fully recovered, and which probably, hastened his
dissolution. But on Wednesday evening, Aug. 13, by request, in absence of the
pastor, he led the prayer and conference meeting, and much edified all present
by his unusual fervency in prayer, exhortation, and singing. "What a
friend we have in Jesus" was the last hymn he ever sung with us. On
Thursday the 14th, he went to the Sabbath School picnic in most excellent
spirits, and seemed to be very happy in the Lord. When time for adjournment
arrived, he got out his horse to return home, but seeing a lad in trouble from
a fickly horse, he went to his assistance, where he overtaxed his physical
strength, and returned to his own buggy quite exhausted. But he got in and took
the lines from his niece, to start home, but immediately loosened his hold,
dropped them, and fell over backward in his seat, dead. He gave but two slight
gasps for breath, and all was over. "He had shed his last tear, and fought
his last battle, his warfare was over, and life's agonies ended."
On Saturday, Aug. 16th, at
2 P.M. his funeral was numerously attended at our chapel, when all the clergy
of our village came to observe his obsequies, sympathize with his bereaved
family, and participate in the services of the occasion. The writer endeavored
to impart instruction to eager listeners, and comfort for mourners by
discoursing from Psalm 27:13014. Medical opinion is divided between apoplexy and
heart disease as cause of death.
Edenboro, Pa.
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS January 28, 1874
G.
W. STETSON.
An imprecation is
pronounced, in De 27:17, for removing landmarks, and not less than four times
was the admonition repeated to Moses that he should make the tabernacle and its
appurtenances like unto the pattern showed to him in the mount. Not less than
twice is this distinctly referred to in the New Testament (Ac 7:44, and Heb
8:5), and king David says, concerning the temple of Solomon (God’s
representative house), in 1Ch 28:11-13,19, when he had given to his son the
pattern of the various parts, ‘All this the Lord made me understand in writing
by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern.’ Paul says that this
service was like unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, —a shadow of
things to come; but the body, i.e., the substance was of Christ. Heb 8:5, Col
2:17.
Here, then, we have God’s
‘waymarks,’ pointing out to us how to work, how to build, whither we are
tending, and how and when we may reach the place of final destination. The
all-important inquiry now is, How many of the plans and devices put forth for
divine teaching, for guides into ‘the world to come,’ are facsimiles of God’s
handwriting? How many are in harmony with the plan given? How few, rather, are
like the patter? How small the number, comparatively, who are studiously
endeavoring to carry out the design and be guided by the waymarks through to
the end. But how vast the number who seem to think—as shown by their work in
teaching—that they can improve upon the original.
Take, by way of
illustration, the temple stones and building, from the quarry to the
dedication, when the house was glorifies. The quarry represents man in a state
of sin. The stones, men individually, —rough and unfit for the builder’s use.
To prepare them, they must be quarried—separated from the ungodly by ‘the word
of truth.’ They must be squared, smoothed, and fitted in shape and size for
their place as designated in the plan. And when fully wrought out and finished,
they must be put aside with their fellows until the remaining stones needed to
complete the building are all quarried and finished for their places. The
stones thus made ready for the building must then be transported (every stone
in its own order, i. E. the foundation or ‘corner stone’ first) to the temple
site. And when all the stones are brought thus together, they are put, every
stone, into their several places in the building, but they are not yet
perfected. One thing is still wanting. That one thing was not in the stone when
quarried or being fitted, but it was with and in him who was to build the
house, and to be imparted to each and every stone after the building should
have been ‘raised up’; and that one thing is the immortal, divine nature, which
is the nature of the agent employed in fitting the stones for their places in
the building; and that agent is the Holy Spirit.
In common parlance a man is
quarried out when he experiences religion, or submits himself to the Lord. That
is the starting point, and from that point it takes all the days of his mortal
life to complete his transformation into a polished stone, ‘fitted for the
Master’s use.’ Then he is numbered with them that rest, —’sleep in
Jesus,’—waiting for the ‘holy convocation on the first day of the seventh
month,’ when they will all be gathered unto the Lord. On the tenth day of the
same month shall the atonement be announced, the blessing conferred, ‘even life
forevermore’; the house of the Lord be glorified, the church be presented by
the Son to the Father. Then will be the feast of dedication, —the marriage
supper of the Lamb.
One by one the stones are
quarried, fitted, and laid aside to rest. But all the stones are gathered and
glorified together.
In our day it has come to
pass that men teach otherwise, —that a stone is fitted when it is only
quarried; that no blowing of trumpets is needed; that there need be no
numbering, nor resting, nor waiting; no gathering together, and no raising up,
before the stones are put into their places in that future temple, —that
beautiful, glorified, spiritual house ‘not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens.’ When the Shekinah descended and entered into that temple of Solomon’s
then, and not till then, did it become the emblem of a living temple. Then, and
only then, was it properly called God’s house.
Of that temple the Savior
said, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.’ His
body was called a temple, for the very same reason that Solomon’s building was
so called, viz., because God himself dwelt in that building and in that body of
Jesus. So is the body of every true Christian called a temple—a house—a tent;
not because the believer himself dwells in that body; not because of an
immortal soul as an entity, another immaterial man dwelling in him; —but so
called as was the temple—as was the body of Christ; because God himself dwells
in the believer by his Holy Spirit; and the believer’s body is the believer
himself; and he—the believer—the body—the temple of God.
Not once in the whole Bible
can it be found where an unregenerate, unsanctified, unholy man’s body is ever
spoken of as a house temple, or tent. Work to the pattern. Remove not the
ancient landmarks.
Edinboro, PA
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, March??, 1874
G.
W. STETSON
On Re 20:14, Dr. Adam Clark
says, ‘The first death consisted in the separation of the soul from the body of
a season; the second death in the separation of body and soul form God forever.
The first death is that from which there may be a resurrection; the second
death is that from which there is no recovery. By the first, the body is
destroyed during time; but the second, body and soul are destroyed
through eternity.’
Now if we take the above
comment as the Doctor has worded and italicized it, and apply the same rule of
exegesis to the second as to the second as to the first member of the sentence,
we shall have good sound Bible doctrine and a correct theology. In the first
death ‘the body was destroyed,’ i.e., the specific thing was completely put out
of existence, nothing but the primary elements of which it was composed, and to
which it was reduced, and returned; remained. There is no good reason for
saying that the same words used in the same way, when applied by the same rule,
do not have the same signification, and will to the soul, as to the body, in
the second case, produce the same or like results, and there is no valid
authority for changing the rule, except the unnatural use of language in order
to teach the traditions of en, instead of the commandments of God.
Philosophy has done, and
continues to do more informing theological opinions, and religious sentiments
as promulgated in the world than does the Word of the living God. What a pity!
James says, ‘there is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.’
Edinboro, Pa., Feb. 12,
1874.
FLESH AND SPIRIT
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, April 22, 1874
G.
W. STETSON
So it must be given up, and
abandoned, must it? After all our turning of leaves, searching the Scriptures
for truth, and investigating man's nature, and "disputing daily with the
Scribes," in relation to man's state in death it turns out that we are
wrong, does it? Well good men say so, and some of our own leaders seem to be
leaning that way quite strongly; and if they are right, and we are wrong, why
not let it go? But have we not shown, time after time, from the bible, that man
is not "a compound being," but a simple uncompounded material
creation of God, formed of the dust, and that he will turn to dust again; --
that he is not a triplet, nor a quality, but a unit. Have we not repeatedly
proved that mind was a product of the brain, and that when God takes away man's
spirit, or breath of life, gathers his spirit and his breath unto himself, that
then men's thoughts, love, hatred, envy, all perish, that man then ceases to be
a "living soul," and unless there shall come a resurrection from and
of the dead, even "them that sleep in Jesus are perished also?" Have
we not done all this, and more in the same direction, by the word of the Lord?
Well, my dear brethren, we thought we had, but if the "inward man" (2
Cor. 4:16), is the Spirit in us changed by the second birth, and if "the
new man" is the heart affections, the spirit renewed, if this be so, then
my brethren we have not done was we supposed we had; for the Spirit of the
living God by the word through Jesus Christ, in its travail of regenerating our
race, does not bring forth nonentities; and John Wesley was not so far wrong
when he said, in his renewed state, "I am an immortal spirit," for
the twice born man cannot die any more, at least, so said our Savior.
But we need not be discouraged nor disheartened, notwithstanding experiences
and compromises are considered and proposed by some, for the Word of our God
will stand forever, and accomplish that whereunto it was sent. There is no middle
ground here. We are either most gloriously right, or ignominiously wrong in
this matter; and if wrong, let us act like and be men, confess our wrong, and
give it up; if right, let us stand to our post, be true to the trust committed
to us, and declare God's Word faithfully. We have nothing whatever to do with
results. God will take care of them, and those also who honor him by honoring
his Word. What we have to do, is to faithfully and truly declare the message
given to us, and if it prove distasteful and repulsive to whomsoever it may be
spoken, the responsibility will not be ours. Let us look to our marching
orders, and not stand on the order of our going. The best way in the world to
curtail a vicious dog is to excise the superfluous member be decapitation; and
the most effectual mode of dealing with error is by the same process, -- cut
off its head!
In reference to what is
called the "new birth," very little, if any importance could attach
to its consideration, as to whether it was here or there -- at conversion or
resurrection, were it not that it is a great fundamental truth governing all
other propositions in relation to man's nature, life in Christ, and the
reception of eternal life as a gift at the second coming of our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, to the believer only. If we are "born again" at
conversion, we get it here; and if we receive it here and now, we do not
receive it there. On the other hand, if we seek it now, and put it on at the
resurrection, we do not get it now; and conversion is not the New Birth. It may
well be doubted if the Divine mind regards these subdivisions as mend do in the
process of regeneration; but looks upon, and speaks of it as one work,
INENTIRETY.
We will now notice two
things, terms and fact, and say of terms that we cannot determine the time of
the new birth definitely, by the terms used only, for the same word is by our
translators rendered into more than one English word in different places; as,
for example, the Greek word prototokos ins rendered first born in Col. 1:18,
and first begotten in Rev. 1:5, in the English version of the King James'
translation. But these two words often mean the same thing, and are used
synonymously in the Bible. In Num. 9:14 we read, "One ordinance for the
stranger, and for him . . . born in the land;" and in Num. 11:12,
"Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them? . . . ?"
where the same sense evidently is, as it is in Col. 1:18, and Rev. 1:5, that of
birth, produced, brought forth. Then again we have different Greek words
rendered by one English word, so that the connection in which a word is used
must very much determine its particular sense and meaning. Webster defines
Beget thus. "To procreate, to generate, also to produce." Born --
brought forth, produced or brought into life, it is followed by of before the
mother, or ancestors. GENERAT. To procreate, also to produce. Regeneration.
Reproduction, the act (process) of forming into a new and better state."
Where passages seem, by terms in them, to the averse to the general tenor of
the Scripture, we have not need to translate, for there are translations, many,
and we man, and should, consult them; then the best, and most faithful
expounder of the Word, will be he who shall have come nearest to, and clearly
brought out the idea, sense, and meaning that was in the mind of the Spirit
when it spoke the word for our instruction. Let us all seek for the mind of the
Spirit, and abide by and in it.
Edinboro, PA
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, April 29, 1874
G.
W. STETSON
We now come to facts; and
it is an undeniable fact that there are many passages in the New Testament in
which believers are spoken of as if they had experienced the second birth, the
new birth; and he been "born again," -- "born from above."
-- "born of the Spirit." But do such passages speak of an existing
fact, or do they speak of a fact proleptically; i.e., in anticipation, --
antedating it? There are many facts also in Scripture in support of such
hypothesis; let us duly examine and consider some of them, and see if they will
not reduce our proposition to a thesis. Of the many passages, the strongest of
all are John 1:12-13; 3:6, and we will begin with these; for if they cannot be satisfactorily
elucidated and harmonized, we need go no farther, and might as well stop here.
Griesbach notes a different
reading of John 4:13, from that of the English version. Instead of
hoe-egenneetheesan, he has egenneethee, the singular pronoun and verb for the
plural; which would make the passage read -- "but to as many as received
him, he gave authority to become children of God, to those believing into HIS
NAME, who was not begotten of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the
will of a man, but of God." Thus referring it directly to the physical
generation of the Messiah, by the Spirit of God, rather than to the moral
regeneration of believers." See Diaglott translation and notes in loc.
This reading is evidently harmonious with John 4:14, 18; with 1 John 4:9; Luke
1:34-35; and entirely so with Rom. 8:23, 28-30, as we shall show directly. John
3:6 -- "That which has been born of the flesh is flesh; and that which has
been born of the Spirit is spirit." In John 3:10-11, he said, "If I
told you of earthly things, and you do not believe, how will you believe if I
tell you of heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven except the Son
of man who descended from heaven." Diaglott Trans.
The best and most
satisfactory, because the most authoritative exposition of the sixth verse of
John 3, is that given by the apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:44-47, agreeing with
our Savior's words in John 3:10-11, already quoted. "IF there is an animal
[flesh] body, there is also a spiritual body, and so it has been written, The
first Adam became a living soul, the last Adam [became] a life giving Spirit.
The spiritual, however, was not the first, but the animal; afterwards the
spiritual. The first man was from the ground, earthy; the second man is from
heaven." In 2 Cor. 3:17, Paul says, "The Lord [Jesus Christ] is the
Spirit," i.e., the spiritual man. Then in 1 Cor. 15:42 he says, "And
thus is the resurrection of the dead; it is sown in corruption, it is raised in
incorruption; . . . . it is sown an animal body [flesh man], it is raised a
spiritual body [spiritual man] . . . . Of what kind the earthy one [i.e., such
in kind as the earthy], such also the earthly ones [will be in the
resurrection]; and of what kind [such in kind as] the heavenly one, such also
the heavenly ones [will also be in the resurrection]. And even as we bore the
likeness of the earthly one, we shall also bear the likeness of the heavenly
one [in the resurrection]." "For our polity [citizenship] begins in
the heavens, from whence also we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform the body of our humiliation into a conformity with his
glorious body." Phil. 3:20-21. "If he should appear, we shall be like
him, because we shall see him as he is." 1 John 3:2. "And ourselves
also, possessing the first fruit of the Spirit, [we] groan within ourselves,
waiting for sonship -- the redemption of our body; . . . . because those whom
he [God] foreknew, he also pre-determined to be copies of the likeness of his
Son, for him to be a FIRST BORN [prototokos] among MANY BRETHREN."
"The FIRST born [prototokos] from the dead." Col. 1:15, 18. The first
born of the dead ones (prototokos). Rev. 1:5.
Joseph B. Rotherham, of
England, is a translator of the New Testament, from the text of Tregelles. And
is his "Exposition of the Gospel," as given in the Rainbow for Oct.
1872, I find the subjoined, and deem it worthy of being reproduced here, as
giving light on the subject before us. He says: -- "Let us consider what
our rising from among the dead implies. It implies the triumphant attainment of
everlasting life. It is characteristically a resurrection of life. John 5:29.
It is the coronation, by virtue of which we are to reign in life. Rom. 5:17. It
is our final entrance into life. Mark 9:43-45. Moreover, it is our admission,
as inheritors and as kings, into the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. 15:50; Rev. 20:6;
Mark 9:47. This last cited passage is valuable as showing that entrance into
life; and entrance into the kingdom, are synonymous. Once more, our resurrection
from among the dead will be the completion and proof of our being sons of God.
'The sons of this age are marrying and being given in marriage; but those
accounted worthy to obtain that age, and the resurrection which is from among
the dead, neither are marrying nor are being given in marriage; for not even to
die any more are they able; for they are equal to messengers, and are sons of
God, being sons of the resurrection.' Luke 20:35-36. So, then, that
resurrection will prove a birth into all the glories of divine sonship! That
resurrection will impart an incapacity of death! That resurrection will usher
into an age not otherwise to be obtained, -- the kingdom, eternal life,
unveiled sonship, all welded into one magnificent promise of a Christ pledged resurrection
from among the dead."
"Marvel not that I
said unto you, Ye must be born again." "Because I live, ye shall live
also." John 3:7; 14:19.
Edinboro, Pa.
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, May 6, 1874
G.
W. STETSON
In all things pertaining to
life and godliness Christ is our example and the pattern. Nowhere does he set
before us more than two births. Like the covenants, they are the old, and the
new. Like his own comings, they are the first and the second, -- the first in
the flesh, to be a sin bearer; the second in the Spirit, to be for salvation;
and both personal and in person. First the flesh man, born of flesh, born of
Mary; and Mary was flesh, and not spirit. But then, he was not generated by
flesh, but by the Holy Spirit, and in death quickened by the Spirit, and then
born of the Spirit from the dead. Thus we see that our Savior was the subject
and illustration of the new, second, Spirit's birth; -- was himself "born
again," and yet not converted; proving that our birth is not at our
conversion, and that our conversion is not the new birth. But the process for
and by which we attain to a birth of the Spirit is analogous to that by which
our living Head attained it.
1. We are regenerated by
the word of truth, -- the incorruptible seed (james 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23) --
anagegennemenoi. "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life." John 6:63. "He that receiveth seed into good ground
is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it, which also beareth
fruit." Matt. 13:23.
This first step, state, or
condition, in the process of reproduction by ultimate spiritual birth is
commonly denominated conviction for sin by the Word, and leads to repentance
not to be repented of; -- leads us to turn unto God; to return to the Shepherd
and Bishop of our souls (lives). It is said to be of and in the heart, because
"out of the heart are the issues of life" (Prov. 4:23), and is the
beginning of a new life, -- the Christ, the divine, the spiritual life in us,
or, to speak more definitely, it is the implantation of the incorruptible seed
in us, in order to the development of the immortal life by and for us.
2. We are quickened by the
renewing of the Holy Spirit. Eph. 2:1; Titus 3:5-7. This is commonly called
conversion, and is not very generally supposed to be the new birth; but as yet
there has been only a work, -- and a mighty and wonderful work it is , too, --
wrought on, in , and for us, by grace, all looking still ahead, "in
hope," to an ultimate promised consummation, the attainment of sonship by
an entire change of us when the sons of God will be manifested -- brought forth
-- born of the Spirit -- immortal, incorruptible, and imperishable. Then the
believer will have what he has not now got -- and inalienable possession of
eternal life in fact; but now this life is in the Son (1 John 5:11-12); not in
us, except in so far as we by faith have Christ, the hope of glory dwelling in
us by the Holy Spirit imparted to us (Rom. 8:15), as a pledge of our final
attainment to sonship. Hence he is termed in this new relation to us the new,
the inner, the hidden, the incorruptible man; and he is renewed in us day by
day, by giving us "day by day our (super-substantial) daily bread,"
that true "manna," "of which if a man eat he shall live
forever." But as Israel's children gathered manna daily, and ate daily, so
must we day by day continue gathering and eating, in order to a daily renewal
of the Christ life in us.
But not thus will it be
with the sons of God born of the Spirit; for "when Christ, who is our
life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory," as
"the many brethren," among whom he was the first born, when God by
his Spirit "brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus."
It was this renewal of
title to life (forfeited by sin), through "the washing of regeneration and
renewing of the Holy Spirit," that enabled Paul to say, "I live; yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I
live by the faith of the Son of God." By the law he was counted as dead,
because of sin; but in Christ he was reckoned as having life, because of
righteousness (Gal. 2:16-21); and that not his own, but "the righteousness
which is of God by faith." Phil. 3:8-9. He consequently stood in a new and
different relation (position) to God from that in which he was placed under the
law. There he was under condemnation, -- condemned to die; now he was
justified, -- legally acquitted, not by works that he had done, but by God's
grace, through the washing and renewing. Tutus 3:5-7. Therefore, being in
Christ, under grace, and no longer under the law, he was "a new
creature" (margin, "a new creation"). "Old things" --
those under the law -- "are passed away [Heb. 8:13]; behold, all things
are become new." "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature" -- (an new creation).
Gal. 6:15. "For we are his workmanship [God's], created in Christ Jesus
unto good works." Eph. 2:10. "Against such there is no law" (Gal.
5:23); "for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one
that believeth." Rom. 10:4.
Some make "the washing
of regeneration" water baptism; but surely it is more than that, for Paul,
in 1 Cor. 6:11, says -- "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified," --
"washed" in the name of the Lord Jesus, and "sanctified" by
the Spirit of our God. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us
from all sin." 1 John 1:7. "Unto him that loved us, and washed us
from our sins in his own blood," Rev. 1:5. So it would seem that the
washing is a work preparatory to regeneration -- to renewal; for God will not
place his pure mind, his Holy Spirit in an impure, unwashed vessel.
"Therefore, . . . let us cleanse
ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in
the fear of God." 2 Cor. 7:1.
Edinboro, Pa.
HOME-BORN
CITIZENS AND STRANGERS OBJECTIONS
AND DIFFICULTIES
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS WEDNESDAY, May 20, 1874.
G.
W. STETSON.
When our Savior began the
work of redemption for the human race, by which he was to bring many sons unto
glory, he did it by taking on our life, as the ‘seed of the woman,’ to the end
that our human nature in him should be regenerated, i.e., remade into a
likeness of a son of God; and having carried that nature through all its
processes and transformations to perfection, {Heb 5:9} he became the author of
eternal salvation unto all them that obey him. So to speak, the divine nature
stooped down to man, and received gifts in man, as man, for men; and now he
reverses this order to man, and asks man to come to God, and take hold of the
divine life that is now in him; that he may raise man up to God by a divine
begetting, quickening and birth, into the family of God. ‘So is the kingdom of
God; as if a man should cast seed into the ground, ... and the seed should
spring and grow up, ... first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn
in the ear.’ Mr 4:26-28. That last state is of the children in the kingdom,
—the resurrected immortal state, the consummation of the ‘groaning creation,
travailing in pain until now’; but to ‘be delivered from the bondage of
corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God.’ Ro 8:19. ‘For we
that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened. Not for that we would be
unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.’ 2Co
5:4. ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to
be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’ Ro 8:18.
The result of a natural
begetting, quickening and birth was manifested in the product of a natural
body; and the manifested result of a spiritual begetting, quickening and birth
will be a spiritual body.
Allowing this to be true,
how can we properly account for the many expressions in the many passages
spoken of believers, as children, sons, heirs, babes, new-born babes, and son
on? I feel very grateful that God’s Word does not leave us in the dark on the
point, but is full of light and instruction.
The foundation for these
endearing expressions of citizenship and kindred relationship are laid away
back in Genesis, and God at a very early period began to unfold his plans and
purposes in Christ to the children of men, concerning human redemption. In his
covenant with Abraham, the children of Sarah, through Isaac were the children
of promise, and represented the regenerated spiritual seed, or that seed which
was subsequently to be ‘born of the Spirit.’ On the other hand, the children of
Hagar were not counted as the children of promise, being ‘after the flesh’; and
they represented the race in an unregenerate state. These two classes were, in
general terms, designated ‘Israel’ (or Jew) and ‘Gentile.’ The one were (by
terms of the covenant) deemed and called ‘children and citizens’; the other
‘strangers and foreigners,’ ‘aliens.’
When God called Moses to
lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, and gave him the ordinance of the
Passover he said, in Ex 12:48, ‘When a stranger [Gentile] shall sojourn with
thee, and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all the males be circumcised,
and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that it born in
the land...One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger.’
The Gentile here became a citizen by naturalization, and a child by adoption;
but not by birth.
Now Paul says, in Eph 2:12,13, ‘We who were aliens...and strangers...who were far off, are made nigh, by the blood of Christ.’ Verse 19, —’Therefore we are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and [are] of the household of God’; consequently spoken of as ‘children,’ as ‘new-born babes’; but not children by birth, for we are constituted children, citizens, and of the household, by virtue of naturalization through the true ‘circumcision made without hands’ (in Christ), which is of the hearth, spiritual, not literal; having received a spirit of sonship, {Ro 8:15, —Diaglott trans.} but still waiting, looking, hoping and groaning for sonship. V. 23. So it seems we are now children, sons, heirs of God, by the adopting Spirit given us through faith, and are yet to be brought into the possession of the inheritance by actual birth, —by being born again of the Spirit.
To make conversion the ‘new
birth’ of the Spirit is to establish on an immovable foundation the doctrine of
‘once in grace, always in grace’;—to tear up by the roots the very idea of any
possibility of ‘falling away’;—for such a thing as proving to be ‘a castaway’
(literally, an abortion) subsequent to birth is a paradox that needs no
comment. But the worst of all is, the terrible dilemma that little children are
placed in by such application and definition of terms. They have never been
converted, and not any probability that they will be in death. ‘Except a man be
born,’ etc. Joh 3:5. Man, in this sentence, is a generic term, and comprehends
the race, —any and every person, each and all, old or young; so that, look at
it as you may, work at it as you please, it cuts off and casts away all children,
as well as adults not converted. To say they do not need it, is to contradict
the Savior; for he says there is need of being born again, and he makes no
exceptions or limitations, but he has made provision and devised a way in and
by which these sin-atoned-for children may ‘come again from the land of the
enemy, and be brought to their own border,’ through a birth of the Spirit, by a
resurrection from among the dead ones; the same way in and by which he himself
came, —by being ‘brought again from the dead’; by being ‘born again,’ ‘born of
the Spirit,’ even though they have not been converted. But give to children or
adults an immortal birth of the Spirit here, and now, and so long as the world
stands in its present state, there will be plenty of work to do in ‘laying the
ghosts’ raised, by giving them life and beig, by a birth, but which will
neither ‘out’ nor ‘down’ at our bidding. Neither will men believe, nor can they
be made to believe that they have been born, and live, and do not ‘cry’ or
‘sing’ somewhere. The unconsciousness of the dead may be preached, and sung,
and printed, and prayed, —it will amount to just what the effort of the
reformers did when they undertook to ‘squelch’ purgatory by putting souls at
death straight into heaven or hell, if we say they are born in conversion. Oh!
oh! oh!
Edinboro, Pa.
THE
WORLD’S CRISIS Wednesday, April 28, 1875.
G.W.
STETSON.
Those only who are preaching the Second Advent of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment, and the reign in glory, know how often and for what purpose it is said, ‘Christ and him crucified is all that should be preached; that is sufficient; for Paul said that he was determined not to know or preach anything else; and what was enough for Paul to preach is enough for us and all others.’ Of course this statement is intended for reproof, but utterly fails of its object; for those reprimanded generally know very well that the sentiment is as fallacious in theory as it is untrue in fact, band betrays incompetence of judgment or inexcusable ignorance in the world-be-reprovers, relating to the facts in the case as they existed at Corinth, and are set forth by Paul in the Record.
The declaration is false in
theory, because the death of Jesus constitutes but one elemental point out of
several constituting the gospel of salvation; and Christ’s command was ‘Go ye,
therefore, into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature....He
that believeth shall be saved.’ He that believeth what? Why, ‘the gospel,’ of
course; that which Jesus commanded us to preach. Not simply that one simple
fact, out of it, as these grumbling, fault-finding, reproving tyros of the
gospel of Jesus Christ would have us believe, is enough; but the whole of it;
for the gospel, without any qualifying prefix or suffix, means, always, all of
it. But the statement annexed to the declaration is untrue in fact; for Paul
says, in his letter to the Corinthians, that he preached more than that. He
also says that, on account of their carnality, he could not preach to them as
he was in the habit of doing to spiritual men in Christ, but must confine
himself to first principles, and preach to them just as he would to
unbelieving, unrepentant, unregenerate men, —Christ crucified, comprehending
the doctrines of faith, repentance, and obedience. But among the perfect he
spoke ‘God’s wisdom in a mystery,’ revealing to us, by the Spirit, ‘things
which God hath prepared for those who love him.’
In consequence of their
divisions, contentions, strifes, debates, schisms, and litigations, he had
determined to confine himself on that occasion, and under those circumstances,
exclusively to the subject of Christ crucified for our sins, in order to bring
them to repentance. But in another part of his letter he goes beyond this, and
brings out not only the faith, but also the resurrection and translation of the
saints, as the hope of the church. To them he said that he preached what was
essential to salvation the least that could be given and received, in order to
be saved, —the death, burial and resurrection of Christ; but to the
Thessalonians, in addition to what he had preached to the Corinthians (though
he afterwards wrote it to them), that ‘if we believe’ in his death and
resurrection, we ‘must also believe,’ in his coming again, and the resurrection
of the dead; and he then proceeds to give the manner of the one and the order
of the other, with the results which, according to ‘the Word of the Lord,’
would follow.
His usual custom was (as to
Felix, and at Athens,) to cover the ground, and embrace the whole, from the
cross to the crown, from the shame and humiliation to the judgment, from the
sorrow to the rejoicing, and reign in glory; and to dwell largely on ‘the day
of this appearing’ -of his coming again. Hence every chapter in his first
letter to the church at Thessalonica terminates with a reference to Christ’s
second advent, and in the second letter the first and second chapters are
almost exclusively devoted to it.
The men having entered upon
the ministry of the Word, are to be pitied, if they have ‘so learned Christ’
that they can only preach him as the crucified. Paul says, ‘If we were
reconciled by his death, how much more shall we be saved by his life;’ i.e., by
his living to appear the second time, not to make of himself a ‘sin-offering,’
as at the first advent, in his crucifixion, but coming in the second, unto our
salvation.
My prayer to God is, that
it may never be given to me to be pastor of any professedly Christian church,
so carnal, that I cannot, or ought not ‘to preach anything but Christ
crucified.’ To say the least, it would not be very much to their commendation
as—’beloved in the Lord;’ and I cannot but think that the Lord regards all
church ‘ministers,’ as ‘the very poorest sticks that could be selected upon
which to engraft the sacerdotal functions.’ Why, one might just as well try to
span a river, with only one abutment on the hither side, and none in the other
side to support his bridge, as to think of getting men into glory and the
kingdom, on the gospel plan, with the one ‘coming of Christ.’ He had, after
death, to live again, by rising from the dead, and he ascended on high, to act
as a mediator between God and men, for the ‘middle structure;’ and he must,
according to promise, come again the second time unto salvation,’ i.e., his
work of redeeming man does not reach salvation without or until you have his
second coming. That gives to us the abutment on the other side, and spans the
river of death, competes the bridge of eternal life, and as a result, men
(resurrected out of death), will pass over, dry shod.
But, blessed be the Lord
for his faithfulness, mercy and truth. There are a few names, even in Sardis,
who do try to preach a full gospel, and who keep assiduously to the work, who
do ‘meditate on these things,’ and ‘give themselves wholly to them;’ and not
only does their ‘profiting appear unto all men, but they behold most wondrous
things out of God’s holy law, and ‘nothing doth offend them.’ But the days are
few, and the times full of evil; therefore, brethren in the field, keep to the
work! ‘Lift up the standard’ a little higher; fling it’s broad folds,
unsullied, more freely to the breeze! Let it float out on the breath of heaven,
free as the winds, until in victory it shall wave, and most gloriously triumph!
Make your hearts a little bolder, your arms a little stronger, your swords a
little sharper, your aim a little more center! Press the enemy a little closer!
Deal your blows a little harder! Strike more at the heart, and oftener! Blow
your trumpets a little louder, and give a more distinctive blast! Drive the
plowshare of God’s eternal truth into the sub-soil of the fables of error and
human traditions a great deal deeper! ‘There is work to do for Jesus!’ We will
rest, at home in glory in the kingdom when he comes!
Endinboro, Penn.
Our dearly beloved Pastor
has only lain down to rest for a while, having ‘fought the good fight of
faith.’ In hope he awaits the crown of life so soon to be given to all who love
the appearing of the Life-Giver. The church has lost a true friend of God;
nevertheless, faith claims him alive from the dead, when ‘thy dead men shall
live.’ To him religion was no mystery. It was a beaten way for forty years. He
came to Edinboro six years ago, and was recognized as Pastor of the Church of
God (commonly called Adventists), and has been a faithful servant of God and
the church until up to May last, when he was stricken down with spinal fever,
from which he did not wholly recover. During the time he has been with us, the
Lord through his instrumentality has added 58 members to this church who have
heard and believed. May the dear ones who survive follow him as he followed
Christ, remembering his prayers and exhortations which were offered in
demonstration of the Spirit and power. Words of comfort were spoken by Bro.
C.T. Russell, of Pittsburgh, Pa.
N. White, per request.
ZION’S
WATCH TOWER VOL. 1 PITTSBURGH, PA.,
NOVEMBER, 1879 No. 5
[ R46:page 2]
Death has laid our brother
low. He died at his home, Edinboro, Pa., Oct. 9th, 1879. Though an event not entirely unexpected,
since he has been seriously ill for some time, yet his death is a heavy blow to
his many friends abroad as well as at home.
He was beloved and esteemed by his fellow townsmen of all denominations
as well as by the congregation of which he was pastor. He had been a faithful
under-shepherd, ever holding before his hearers, as the great incentive to
holiness and purity of life, that which filled his own soul with joy and peace
and helped him to live ‘above the world’ -viz: The appearing of the Heavenly
Bridegroom-The King of Glory, and our gathering together unto him. Our brother was a man of marked ability, and
surrendered bright prospects of worldly and political honors to be permitted to
preach Christ, when the glories and beauties of the word of God dawned upon his
heart. The truth cost him much yet he
bought it gladly.
The funeral services
(Sunday following) were held at ‘Normal Hall,’ it being more commodious than
any of the churches of the place, which through respect were closed, the
pastors taking part in the services of the occasion.
The brother’s dying
request, that the editor of this paper should preach his funeral sermon, was
complied with. About twelve hundred
persons attended the funeral services, thus giving evidence of the high esteem
in which our brother was held.
His family and congregation
will feel keenly their loss, yet sorrow not as those who have no hope.
"If thou art a vessel
of gold, and thy brother but of wood, be not high-minded. It is God that maketh
thee to differ. The more bounty God shows the more humility he requires. Those
mines that are the richest are deepest."