p. 4 | The Nature of God's Sealing Work by J. O. CORLISS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 6, 1915

The Nature of God's Sealing Work

By J. O. CORLISS

The Age-to-Come Doctrine — No. 9

The Nature of God's Sealing Work

J. O. CORLISS

POSITIVE information has gone to the world that God is no respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34; Gal. 2:6), and we are informed that “in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him.” It could not be otherwise according to the infallible law of heaven; for Christ, the favored Son of the Most High, being made righteousness to men (1 Cor. 1:30), it follows that where righteousness is found, there the favor of God must rest in equal proportions.

But one gathers from Pastor Russell’s teachings that these explicit specifications of Scripture must be modified. In order to uphold his favorite theory of a special probation to follow the coming of Christ,

he attempts to avoid certain conclusions plainly drawn from inspired testimony. For instance, on page 195 of Volume III of his writings, when referring to the question put to Christ as to whether few or many would be saved, and the close answer that it was necessary to strive for the prize because, when the Master should rise up to shut the door, no delinquent could afterwards be admitted, he declares that this scripture “has nothing whatever to do with the worldly.”

Thank God, it is not the door of mercy that here closes, not even the door of all favor.” On the following page he says that though the shut door “will never again open to their knock,” but commits them to weep and wail, “it still leaves them in the arms of God’s love and mercy, and even under his favor and special care.” It must be confessed that, to the ordinary mind, such interpretation of plain Scriptural statements is staggering and dissatisfying. When reading these statements, the first question to arise is, What possible object can one have in attempting such apparent evasions? Pastor Russell, while repudiating any conscious endeavor to reason falsely, will, with apparent self-reliance, answer that “the gospel age is merely an intervening parenthesis, during which the bride of Christ is selected, to be associated with her Lord in the great work of restitution which he comes to accomplish.”

The meaning of this unsupported statement, as explained in other isolated expressions, is that the shutting of the door is but the closing of the time of the Gentiles, because then the period has arrived when the number of the special elect is completed, who shall constitute the bride of Christ, to do the work the foregoing extract assigns them; namely, to assist in saving the world of those to be granted a millennium-age probation. The conclusion is therefore drawn that “the Lord’s return is the dawn of hope for the world, the time for the bestowment of the favors secured by the redemption” (the italics and many definite adjectives in the quotation are all his).

The author also undertakes an explanation of prophetic references to the special sealing work for God’s people, saying that it occupies the brief time between the casting off of Babylon (the Gentiles) and the pouring out of the last plagues, as told in Revelation 16. But it is evident from what he says that he does not grasp the import of that great work, in any degree; for he recites in Volume III, page 165, that “the forehead sealing indicates that a mental comprehension of the truth will be the mark, or seal, which will separate and distinguish the servants of God from the servants and votaries of Babylon.” But he affirms also that inasmuch as Babylon fell from favor in 1878, because of the shut door, the sealing work in their behalf is now going on, through the efforts of the elect in conjunction with the returned Saviour. But the tortuous path he chooses, at times, by which to reach conclusions, forbids any attempt to follow him in detail. It will therefore be more enlightening to take up one point at a time and follow each to its legitimate end.

To make the sealing work an effort to reach the Gentile world following the closed door and the second advent of Christ, destroys the force of that work as the Scriptures portray it. But before drawing definite conclusions about the sealing work, it may be said that the original sphragis, from which the word seal is derived, has the force of “impression,” or “inscription.” So in the examination of this sealing performance, one ought to look, not simply for an expressed belief in the plan of salvation, but for some badge of loyalty to the provisional work of Christ in the preparation for his advent.

The first notice in the book of Revelation of anybody or anything bearing God’s seals is a book held in the hand of him who sits on the throne of the universe. Rev. 5:1. The seals closing this book were removed by the Lord Christ, one after another, thus revealing in advance the events to take place in each of the periods of church history represented by the numbered seals (see chapter 6). These occurrences are followed through to a description of the approaching day of the Lord’s coming, at whose appearance the physical earth dissolves, and the rich, mighty men, with all those in lower rank, cry for a covering to hide them from the wrath at hand.

But amid these rapidly recurring signs, and the preparation of four angels commissioned to destroy the works of earth, another commanding angel rises to stay the threatened wrath. His voice is heard calling a halt in the proceedings until the servants of God have been sealed in their foreheads with the seal of God, which he himself is bearing toward them. The implication cannot fail to be conveyed by this language that when the sealing work has been accomplished, the work of earth’s destruction will at once proceed. However, the prophet watched until that effort was accomplished, and the number receiving that distinguishing mark was duly announced to be one hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of Israel. Rev. 7:1-4. The work thus done was not upon the literal, fleshly tribes of Abraham’s progeny, for the record here exhibited excludes both Dan and Ephraim of those tribes. But these are rather those who have become Abraham’s seed, and been made heirs to his inheritance by having given themselves to Christ (Gal. 3:29), who is the intended Seed of the Abrahamic promises. Gal. 3:16.

Then again, the prophet next sees these sealed ones, the entire one hundred and forty-four thousand, standing with Christ on Mount Zion, having his Father’s name in their foreheads. Rev. 14:1. That this transference was to heaven itself, is made manifest from the fact that in that place they sing their victory song “before the throne” of God, in the presence of the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders, all of whom are ever in the presence of God. See verse 2 and chapter 5:8. The earthly sealing of the saints accomplished, the order is then given for the plagues of God’s wrath to fall upon all not having the seal in their foreheads. Rev. 15:1; 16:1.

The nature of this redemptive seal in the forehead is further certified by a second glance at Rev. 14:1. In that place the seal is said to be the “Father’s name.” So then one must conclude that the name of God constitutes his seal, which at the time pointed out in this prophecy, is impressed just prior to the Master’s coming, as the mark of abiding loyalty to God’s law, under deep and strong persecution. Those who refuse this mark of God are said to carry the mark of the beast either in the forehead or in the hand. These two classes thus designated, are presented in Rev. 14:9-12. It is here intimated, too, that this mark of the beast is received through worshiping (yielding obedience to) the beast, that is, the civil power, as symbolized in Revelation 13, whose requirements contravene God’s precepts. But the victory is gained by some, even those who keep God’s commandments and the faith of Jesus. Rev. 14:12. These are they who receive the mark of God’s name, which seals them to abide the day of his coming, and to sing the victor’s song on the “sea of glass.”

To pass the great test, therefore, by which God’s name is so deeply and permanently impressed upon minds, the creative power of Jehovah must be found sufficient to preserve, through the direct tribulation, him who commits the keeping of his soul to him in right doing as unto a faithful Creator. 1 Peter 4:19. Not only must one believe in the Creator to receive the mark of his name in the forehead, but he must also observe the divine sign of that knowledge and belief. Do you ask what that is? Here it is. God says: “I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.” Eze. 20:12. From this text one is well assured that God has provided against the shortness of human memory, and so given one command which, if regarded, would bring his creative power, which saves, distinctly before men each seventh day.

But Pastor Russell has nothing of this sort entering into his sealing work. Moreover, his teaching divests it of every vestige of importance as the closing effort of probation for men. For, as already learned in this study, immediately following the sealing work is the pouring out of the plagues, which fill up the completeness of God’s wrath. Rev. 15:1. These are therefore let fall “without mixture” of mercy, which proves that all probationary work has been completed for the world’s lost, and that Jesus must then come to execute the judgment previously recorded as due to all earth’s inhabitants. Jude 14, 15.