Your ShelfYour Projects

THE TWO ABSURDITIES

17%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 19, 1869

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 33, No. 4.

Read the full edition

THE TWO ABSURDITIES.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

All believers in the mortality of man and the sleep of the dead, agree that it is a great absurdity to teach that the righteous are taken to Heaven at death, and the wicked sent to hell, and then after hundreds of years are called back, the saints from Heaven, and the wicked from hell, to be judged! What can be the use of such a judgment? Is there danger that God has made a mistake in taking some to Heaven who ought not to have gone there, and has sent others to hell who ought to have been in Heaven? Such a judgment must be only a mockery. Hence we say, that theory must be false. God will not reward men till he has judged them to ascertain what each should have.
But there is another theory equally absurd and false, which is held by some Adventists. Paul teaches, and they believe, that the dead saints will be “raised incorruptible” and immortal. But the wicked will be raised as mortal and as corruptible as they went into the grave. Gal. vi, 8. Then they tell us that the Judgment will set after that. But here again comes up the very objection which they urge against others, viz.: What is the use of a judgment now? Has God made a mistake and raised some immortal who are not worthy of it? Have some been left to come up in corruption who ought to have been raised incorruptible? My friends, something is out of joint in this theory. God does not work that way. The fact that the saints are raised incorruptible, shows that the judgment upon them is passed before they are raised.
Again, as soon as Christ appears in the clouds, the living saints are “changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” 1 Cor. xv, 51, 52, and “caught up to meet the Lord in the air.” 1 Thess. iv, 17. At the same time the wicked are consumed by the brightness of his coming. 2 Thess. i, 7-9; ii, 8. Where is the propriety of having a general Judgment after that? The idea is both absurd and contrary to the teaching of the Bible.
D. M. CANRIGHT.
Richmond, Mo.