LIFE INSURANCE by O. A. Johnson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 27, 1900

LIFE INSURANCE.

By O. A. Johnson

O. A. JOHNSON.

I PRESUME nearly every person in this country who has arrived at manhood, has been urged to have his life insured, either for his own benefit or for the benefit of his family. No doubt you have heard some plausible arguments, to say the least, in favor of life insurance. Now it is not my intention to consider these arguments, nor to answer them particularly. But I wish to offer some Bible evidence against the principle of life insurance.

No person would for a moment think of undertaking to insure property that he did not own, nor would any insurance company insure property on any such condition. Now God says, to his children, “What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price.” 1 Cor. 6 : 19, 20. Now what right have we to insure our bodies when God has bought them, and when they are the temple of the Holy Ghost? They belong to God. Hence we have no right to insure them.

If we are Christians, we shall live the life of Christ, and not our own. Paul says, “I am crucified: . . . nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Gal. 2 : 20. Now what right have I to insure the life of another, much less the life of Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world? Can not God take care of his own temple, and can not Christ keep and preserve his own life? If so, what right have we to insure our bodies—God’s temple? or our lives, which Christ lives in us if we are truly the children of God? Does it not really seem unreasonable, yes, even wicked, to distrust God’s care for his own to that degree that we must go to the world to insure our lives?

Adventists should not engage in life insurance. This is a commerce with the world which God does not approve. Those who engage in this enterprise are uniting with the world, while God calls his people to come out from among them, and to be separate. Said the angel, “Christ has purchased you by the sacrifice of his life. What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ who is your life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” Here is the only life insurance which Heaven sanctions.

Life insurance is a worldly policy, which leads our brethren who engage in it to depart from the simplicity and purity of the gospel. Every such departure weakens our faith and lessens our spirituality. Said the angel, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” As a people we are in a special sense the Lord’s. Christ has bought us. Angels that excel in strength surround us. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the notice of our Heavenly Father. Even the hairs of our head are numbered. God has made provision for his people. He has a special care for them, and they should not distrust his providence by engaging in a policy with the world.

God designs that we should preserve in simplicity and holiness our peculiarity as a people. Those who engage in this worldly policy invest means which belong to God, which he has intrusted to them to use in his cause to advance his work. But few will realize any returns from life insurance, and without God’s blessing even these will prove an injury instead of a benefit. Those whom God has made his stewards have no right to place in the enemy’s ranks the means which he has intrusted to them to use in his cause.—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, pages 549, 550.