THE COMING EARTHQUAKE

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 16, 1869

THE COMING EARTHQUAKE.

We give this week another portion of this work of Eld. Taylor. It will be found in a high degree interesting and instructive. The section relating to “the groaning of creation” is certainly very impressive. That one relating to the “tossings of the ocean” is also full of instruction. We should, perhaps, make the sufferings of the animals inhabiting our earth more conspicuous, as a part of the groaning of the whole creation, yet the statements of this work are well worthy of the reader’s careful attention.—ED.

§ V. THE GROANINGS OF CREATION.

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain.” Rom. viii, 22.

We come now to state the position, that earthquakes, and convulsions of the sea and air, are given not only as tokens of divine anger against sin, but they are also particularly noted as being the labor-pangs or birth-throes of the toiling and groaning creation. These throes, and throbs, the “subterraneous thunder,” as Humboldt styles the deep, internal roar and rumble of an earthquake, these tempestuous storms and cyclones that “preach the general doom,” these tidal waves that are affrighting the godless nations, are the travail-groans of a creation doomed to vanity and corruption on account of man’s fall and sin, and which is moaning and yearning for the epoch of “regeneration,”—the new and glorious birth of this disordered material world. Matt. xix, 28; Acts iii, 21. Not only do they serve as tokens of the era of physical change at hand, but they tell of life, not of utter death; “restitution,” not of utter ruin. They foretell the era of a general and supernatural geological change, just such as Fairbairn, Hitchcock, John Pye Smith, and other Christian and scientific students of the earth, and the Scriptures, announce as yet to come.

And this view is fully sustained by the Apostle Paul, where he says, “We know that the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. viii, 22. In this place the phrase “travaileth in pain together,” is from the Greek συνωδίνει composed of σύν “together,” and ὠδίνω, “to travail in birth.” Literally the passage is, “All the creation groans together and travails together.” Thus the κτίσις, the physical and material creation or globe, now under the subordinate and turbulent domination of the Evil One, the devil, is declared to groan and travail with the pangs and throes of a woman in the anguish of child-birth. It is the earth and air that thus labor and is yet to come to its new Genesis and begin again in a second and fresh birth, which shall continue in gladness through the coming ages.

In similar language Milton represents the earth as “groaning and sighing in all her entrails” at the fall and sin of the first pair. So, too, Cowper writes of “The groans of nature and this nether world, which Heaven has heard for ages.” St. Chrysostom, Charnock, and Dr. H. Bonar, in the same strain, say, “The apostle sets forth the whole world as a person groaning, and the Scriptures are frequent in such metaphors.” That we may not be suspected and charged with novelty in supposing the κτίσις or “creation” here to denote the earth, our ruined planet itself, we produce Chrysostom and Theodoret among ancient Christians,—Erasmus, Grotius, Luther and others of the great reformers,—Charnock, Joseph Benson, Owen, J. Wesley, Horne, Fuller, and other older divines,—and later still, Scott, Rosenmüller, Koppe, Flatt, Hodge, Chalmers, Tholuck, Dr. Cumming, and many others, as holding the same view of the passage.

Furthermore, the opinion that the apostle refers to physical catastrophes to be experienced in the audible convulsions of nature, and which would affect the atmosphere and nations,—all of which exhibit the pangs and throes of creation, is also sustained by our Lord’s words. Matt. xxiv, 7, 8; Luke xxi, 11. Famines, pestilences, fearful sights, great atmospheric signs, and earthquakes, are set forth as “the beginning of sorrows.” In the marginal reading of the Bible, it is said, “The word in the original importeth the pains of travail.” But because the translators have not understood its connection and bearing, they have generally rendered this word “sorrows.” The version is unhappy and obscure, and the commentators furnish no light on it. The Greek is ὠδίνω, the same as that used in Romans viii, 22. In 1 Thess. v, 3, it is properly rendered “travail,” and denotes the labor-pangs of a woman with child. The Emphatic Diaglott translates it “labor pangs.” In Galatians iv, 19, the word is rendered “travail in birth” in a classical sense as expressing great labor or painful effort. And in Gal. iv, 27, we have the expression, “Break forth and cry thou that travailest not,” where the same word occurs. And in Rev. xii, 2, a similar word is rendered “travailing in birth.” The Greek, ὠδίνω, and its derivations are defined by Liddell and Scott as signifying “to have the pains, pangs, or throes of child-birth,” “to be in travail,” while its general use in the classics is to denote any great pain, to work painfully, to be in throes or agonies, as of thought. True, the word implies sorrow and suffering, as in John xvi, 21, but

this is not its whole meaning. It expresses a tremendous effort made to accomplish a desired consummation. It points forward to the joy of new and after life.

Earthquakes, and heavenly or aerial signals disturbing the atmosphere and occasioning pestilence, famine, and world-wide sorrow, are only the labor-pangs of a world yearning with painful longing for the promised deliverance from the bondage of corruption and fleetingness of time, into a pure and permanent world, and a glorious liberty of the sons of God. Creation sympathizes with the church of Jesus, which likewise groans and travails, waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body, in the resurrection of the just at the coming of the Lord. Thus does our Redeemer himself refer to earth’s upheavals and all the calamities attending the marvelous phenomena to be witnessed during this last age. And, with an eye omniscient as it is pitiful, the grand Deliverer waits and watches the convulsions of poor “Old Mother Earth,” until the happy day of complete, final, and eternal deliverance, when “There shall be no more curse.” Rev. xxii, 3. For the apostle affirms that creation is subject to all this labor and toil—“in hope;” and in view of the two-fold redemption hoped for, the creation is bidden to rejoice with exultant gladness because the great Redeemer is coming to restore all things, and judge and govern the earth righteously.

In an article from Prof. R. D. Hitchcock in the Bibliotheca Sacra, after giving full proof of the coming dissolution of our globe by the elements contained within it, we are told, “the fact that the purification of the present world can render it a beautiful habitation, fit for the residence of a prince, renders probable the belief of many divines, that the redeemed will dwell upon this earth after the day of Judgment.” Indeed, who can doubt it? This doctrine is not only scriptural, but like the bed of Solomon is guarded about with more than “three score valiant men all holding swords, and expert in war.” Before me is a list of more than one hundred of the greatest names in the whole church who have thus believed. It is the ancient and orthodox faith of the church of Jesus Christ.

§ VI. THE TOSSINGS OF THE OCEAN.

The sea and the waves roaring, men’s hearts failing them for fear. Luke xxi, 25.

Having shown that the epoch of the second advent is to be both preceded and accompanied by alarming and destructive terrestrial perturbations, and remarkable signals, it remains to be stated as a natural sequence that these will, in all probability, increase in frequency as the end draws near, agitating the waters of the globe more and more, and creating alarm and fear among the people of the earth. Not only is the ground everywhere to be shaken, but the sea is to be unusually disquieted, its great floor upheaving, its waters tossing about and rolling hither and thither in angry surges and doleful wailings, as if old ocean were sounding a requiem over its coming doom. Of this phenomenon of the sea our Lord specially speaks in the words, “the sea and the waves roaring.” Luke xxi, 25–27. This, with other signs, was to excite fearful apprehensions among men concerning “the things coming on the earth.”

The Greek, θάλασσα, thalasses, is the general word used everywhere to denote all the larger bodies of water on the earth’s surface. In Rev. xx, 13, we have, “and the sea gave up the dead,” etc., also Rev. xxi, 1, “and there was no more sea.” The word ἠχούσης, echouses, “roaring” is in 1 Cor. xiii, 1, rendered “sounding,” in the sentence “I am become as a sounding brass,” while ἦχος is in Acts ii, 2, rendered “a sound from heaven,” and in Heb. xii, 19, it is “And the sound of a trumpet;”—in all which places it would seem to describe a mighty roar like that of a gong, or the rushing of steam. The word is by all the lexicographers explained as meaning “to sound, to roar, to tumultuate, etc.” Homer makes use of the phrase “the sounding main,” while Liddell and Scott derive the term from a word which denotes “to sound, ring, peal,” the term itself signifying “to let sound, to send forth a hymn or wail.”

The word rendered “waves” is the Greek σάλον, salou, and in this form is not elsewhere found in the New Testament. But the verb to which it is related is used sixteen times, and is rendered stirred, shook, shaken. For example: Acts iv, 31, “The place was shaken where they were assembled,” on which occasion, as already shown, an earthquake no doubt occurred. In Heb. xii, 26, “Whose voice then shook the earth,” and also in Acts xvi, 26, “And suddenly there was a great earthquake, σεισμός, seismos, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken.” We have, also, instances where the word is used to describe the commotion occasioned by the quaking of the Mount of Sinai and the earth itself by the power of God. Parkhurst says σάλος comes from two Greek words which together signify “to shake the sea,” while Liddell and Scott also refer σάλος to the sea, and when used thus in the classics, the words mean (1) To move to and fro, roll, toss; (2) To toss like a ship at sea, to be in sore distress; its third and fourth meanings being similar to these; specially does it refer to “the tossing, rolling swell of the sea.” A corresponding word in the Hebrew is, we are told, perhaps found in Ps. lxxxix, 9, “Thou stillest the raging of the sea,” and Dr. Robinson finds a corresponding word in Isa. xxiv, 20, which he says describes “an earthquake,” and where we have the striking sentence, “The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard.” “Robinson’s Greek Lexicon.” With this array of authority before us there is no difficulty whatever in understanding the Saviour to predict a prodigious roaring and wailing, together with a violent tossing and rolling of the sea. Such appears to be the literal meaning of the words, and we are fairly led to infer that this tumult in the ocean would be caused by earthquakes. Indeed, in the terrible commotion, or “tempest,” at the time that the Saviour rebuked the winds and the waves, it is said in the original, “There arose a great earthquake, σεισμὸς μέγας, seismos megas, in the sea.” Matt. viii, 24.

The following translations may also serve to throw light on the passage and assist to explain the sentences that stand related to it:—

“And tokens shall be in the sun and in earth overwhelming of folks for confusion of sound of the sea and of floods.”—Wickliff’s Version, 1380.

“And in the earth the people shall be in such perplexity that they shall not tell which way to turn themselves. The sea and the waters shall roar, and men’s hearts shall fail them for fear.”—Tyndale’s Version, 1534.

“And in the earth the people shall be at their wits’ ends through despair. The sea and the water shall roar,” etc.—Cranmer’s Version, 1539.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and the moon, and the stars; and upon earth distress of nations for the confusion of the sound of the sea and waves, men withering for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world.”—Rheim’s Version, 1582.

“And in the earth distress of nations perplexed by a noise and tossing of the sea; men expiring through a fearful expectation of those things that are coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”—Wakefield’s Version, 1791.

“And roarings in the seas and floods.”—Dr. Macknight.

“A roaring and tossing of the sea.”—Prof. Whiting.

“And on the earth anguish of nations in perplexity of a roar of sea and tossing.”—Emphatic Diaglott.

In Archbishop Newcome’s version (1796), he gives in the margin, “Or through perplexity at the roaring of sea and waves,” and in a note observes that this sense is well supported; by which we are given to understand that the national perplexity is caused by the agitations of the ocean. With this view, the Rheim’s version, and those of Wakefield, Sharpe, Sawyer, the Diaglott, and Bible Union, concur, while in Dr. Sawyer’s version the sentence is followed by—“men dying of fear and an expectation of evils to come on the world, for the heavens shall be shaken.”

The result of these criticisms must lead to the inevitable conclusion that while our blessed Lord teaches the occurrence of frequent and great earthquakes during the last age of this world, from some cause the seas, or oceans, would also be rolled about and disturbed in an unusual manner, to the amazement and terror of those living near them, meanwhile sending out loud, trumpet-like wailings, or roaring sounds. We say unusual;—for our Lord deals in results here more than in causes;—but there would be no point to his words if he referred solely to the common or ordinary rolling and roar of the surface waters as witnessed in storms and winds. Such have always occurred. It is true, wind-storms, through some decay of the virtues of the air, and by the constant disturbance of the same, caused by gaseous exhalations from the earth, such as occur in earthquakes, might be manifested in increased frequency and severity, occasioning these ocean-tossings. All this is true of our times, and it may perhaps be meant in the words, “for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken;” the signification of which may be, “extraordinary commotions in the atmospheric world.” But universal earthquakes, both on the land and under the floor of the oceans, would also cause these great tossings. And it is a fact that we have now everywhere in the sea just such phenomena as are here set forth, scientifically termed, “Tidal Waves.” And the sign is very noticeable and marked.

Having written thus far, our eyes for the first time fell upon the following passage by Dr. Thomas Burnett in his “Sacred Theory of the Earth,” 1690. Its coincidence and appropriateness is striking. He says, “Let us then proceed in our explication of this sign, the roaring of the sea, and the waves, applying it to the end of the world. I do not look upon this ominous noise of the sea as the effect of a tempest, for then it would not strike such a terror into the inhabitants of the earth, nor make them apprehensive of some great evil coming upon the world, as this will do; what proceeds from visible causes, and such as may happen in a common course of nature, does not so much amaze nor affright us; therefore it is more likely these disturbances of the sea proceed from below, partly by sympathy and revulsions from the land; by earthquakes there, and exhausting the subterraneous cavities of waters, which will draw again from the seas what supplies they can; and partly by earthquakes in the very sea itself, with exhalations and fiery eruptions from the bottom of it; things indeed that happen at other times more or less; but at this conjuncture, all causes conspiring, they will break out with more violence, and put the whole body of the waters into a tumultuary motion. I do not see any occasion at this time for high winds, neither can I think a superficial agitation of the waves would answer this phenomenon, but it is rather from contortions in the bowels of the ocean, which make it roar as it were for pain. Some causes impelling the waters one way, and some another, make intestine strugglings, and contrary motions, from which proceed unusual noises, and such a troubled state of the waters as does not only make the sea unnavigable, but also strikes terror into all the maritime inhabitants that live within the view or sound of it.” Book III, chap xi.

Burnett is by modern scientists styled “visionary,” but this account of what would be in or near the end, written nearly one hundred and eighty years ago, seems almost prophetic. And when the secular journals are found in our times soberly attesting that, “Later and fuller details are every day increasing the interest with which scientific observers regard the recent earthquakes and tidal disturbances, and confirming our first impression that these convulsions of nature would prove to be among the most remarkable and extensive of which there is any written record,” the conjectures of Burnett and the conclusions of this article may well deserve the serious consideration of thinking and Christian people. With these Scripture predictions before us we come now to notice the stupendous facts that seem related to them. And we propose to enter into a careful examination of the statistics of terrestrial convulsions, with a view to ascertain whether there has been of late such an increase in these alarming phenomena as to warrant us in the belief that the mighty and final earthquake predicted in the Scriptures is at hand.