THINGS by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1881

THINGS.

By Uriah Smith

THE word things, when used otherwise than to denote actions or events, signifies, according to Webster, "any substance, that which is created, any particular article or commodity." A thing, then, is something which has substance; it has length, breadth, and thickness; it occupies space; it can be measured, seen, felt, and handled. It is matter, and possesses all the properties of matter. Among every people on the earth, thing means something material and tangible; and in every book on the face of the globe when the reader meets with this word, he attaches to it, and correctly, too, a similar meaning. I said every book; perhaps one must be excepted; for there is a book which in common with all others uses this word, and in which it is made to mean something entirely different, or rather, nothing. That book is the Bible; and whether it is lawful to thus change the meaning of this word, when found in this book, from that which is given to it in all other books, and under all other circumstances, is the point in question.

To illustrate, see Col. 3:1: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." Things above! What! are there things above? No, says the rarefied theology of the present day; there is immateriality above and nothing more. There is an immaterial heaven, an immaterial God and Christ, immaterial angels, and immaterial spirits of dead people. But the text speaks of things above. Can these things by any process be evaporated into the immateriality which the popular belief attaches to them? It cannot certainly be done by the definition of the word; for that signifies any substance, something actual and real, and it cannot be done by its use as applied to any object on this earth; for here it always means something material, something that has body and parts. There seems then to be no reason for the meaning that is attached to the word things when applied to objects above, save the mysterious belief that substance and reality are incompatible with the state of the blessed; and no reason can be given for this belief except the fact of its own existence; but behind this fact it thus entrenches itself; and while it forbids all questioning as to the right of its existence, it holds the theological world in slavery to its mystical demands.

Perhaps, however, this theory is wrong, and the Bible right. Perhaps the word things, when found in that book, with no conceivable reason to affect its signification, may mean the same as in any other book. The arbitrary claim of the popular view is set forth still more strikingly in the following verse, which reads: "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Things above and things on the earth. What do we understand by things on the earth? Anything immaterial and invisible? None will so claim; but things real and tangible. By what principle, therefore, can things above, in the antithetical portion of the sentence, be construed to mean just the reverse? When things means something in one place, how can it in just three words from where it is so used, mean nothing at all. Let every lover of consistency who is troubled with the mysticism that has been thrown over the word of God, consider this point.

Other scriptures bear testimony to the reality of heavenly things. Peter, in his first epistle, 1:4, speaks of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, reserved in Heaven for us. In Heb. 10:34, Paul says, "For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves, that ye have in heaven, a better and an enduring substance." This language is unmistakable: we have in Heaven not immateriality and nonentity, but a substance. And when Paul would set before us the hope that inspired the worthies of old, he speaks of it in contrast with this earth, as "a country," a "better country," a "heavenly country." Strange language if this earth is the only real and substantial thing of the two. He also tells us that they looked for, not an airy nothing, but a tangible city; not founded on nothing, but one which had foundations, whose builder and maker was God.

Yes, there are things above. We can rejoice in the glorious hope of something real, something upon which a scriptural, sober, and intelligent faith can lay hold, an inheritance as literal as the earth upon which we now tread, glorified as infinite power, exerted in infinite wisdom can alone do it, where we shall know as we are known, and with the fine-strung sensibilities of the redeemed, be enabled to appreciate the exquisite joys that dwell in the presence of God, and at his right hand forevermore.

Things above. But perhaps some one may ask, May there not be things somewhere above, and yet Heaven itself be the intangible, spiritual place it is commonly supposed? Let the apostle answer. He tells us in the very text under notice, the definite location of these things; he tells us just where they are: "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." That is sufficient. The things above are just where God and Christ have their glorious abode. There is the holy city, New Jerusalem, with its rainbow of precious foundation stones underlying its jasper wall; there are its gates of pearl, and its streets of gold; there is the tree of life, and the river of the water of life; there is the true tabernacle, pitched not by man, but by the living God, where our great High Priest is now ministering; there is the great original of the ark, the mercy-seat, and the tables of testimony, inscribed with the great law of Jehovah; there is the throne of God and the Lamb, and there the many mansions of the Father's house, made ready for those who are found prepared when the Lord shall return, to be taken with him.

It is the things above that we are to seek. How shall we seek them? The next verse explains: Set your affection, your mind, your earnest desire, upon things above. And is it necessary for the apostle to exhort us to do this? Must a people so prone as we are to set our affections upon the blighted and perishing things of this earth, when we have revealed to us the incorruptible, the surpassing, and unfading glories of Heaven, which may be had by seeking—must such a people be exhorted before we will turn our attention to them? Not when faith in the reality and certainty of these things is lively and strong. Lord, increase our faith, and give us an earnest of the inheritance prepared for thy faithful followers. Uriah Smith