L. A. S by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 20, 1903

L. A. S

By L. A. S.

A “new interpretation of the second coming of Christ,” is described by the Literary Digest of January 3. There have, says the Digest, been very many, including some of the foremost Christian teachers of our day, such as Spurgeon, Moody, A. J. Gordon, Newman Hall, etc., who have believed that Christ will come again personally and visibly. The “new interpretation” of the prophecy of this event is presented by the Rev. Dr. I. K. Funk, of New York City, in a pamphlet entitled “The Next Step in Evolution.” It is an application of the doctrine of evolution to the Scripture doctrine of the second advent. The nature of the view which is thus produced appears in the following statement by this author: “Christ came the first time into men’s vision by coming on the plane of their senses; he comes the second time into men’s vision by lifting them up into his plane of spiritual comprehension.” He then proceeds to a description of the successive steps, or stages, involved in the supposed evolution from inorganic matter, through the plant and animal spheres, to the present state of man’s existence, from which the next state of his being, representing the fulfilled prophecy of the second coming, is to be evolved. “The spiritual man,” he says, “that is, the physical basis of the life of the spiritual man, comes from the natural man and the kingdoms below him.” This is exactly the opposite of the process described in the Scripture, which, with one voice throughout, declares positively that the spiritual man is from above, and not from beneath, and that the natural man cannot possibly give birth to anything spiritual, but on the contrary, that it is of the earth, and is destined to perish forever with earthly things. Dr. Funk’s view is logical from the evolutionary standpoint, and shows us what sort of view of the great doctrine of Christ’s second coming is made necessary by a belief in evolution, as now so generally taught. Happily, we do not hold to this doctrine of “science falsely so called,” and are at liberty to believe that Christ’s second coming will be a visible, glorious event, which will bring to all his followers immediate and complete deliverance from all things that have opposed and oppressed them in this life.