Your ShelfYour Projects

THE ONE HOPE

3%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 1, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 42, No. 3.

Read the full edition

THE ONE HOPE.

By James White

(Concluded.)
TEXT.—“There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Eph. 4:4–6.
God is the same in every age. He has ever been ready to make sinners holy. He is no more ready in the nineteenth century than in the first. The devil is not changed, only, shall I be permitted to say, that he is a very dull scholar, if he has not advanced in skill during eighteen hundred years. It is just as hard to wrench sinners from his grasp as it was eighteen hundred years ago, if not a little harder. Human nature has not changed, only for the worse. Man’s moral sense of heavenly things is becoming weaker and more blunted, and the task of making men believe and turn to Christ is growing harder. And here we are, with all these difficulties, plodding our way along in that portion of the world represented by the feet and toes of iron and clay; and yet the church is singing the world asleep with this song of the golden age and the world’s conversion.
Please view the gospel as an experiment. Abraham had the gospel. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. The patriarchs preached to the world, and lived godly in the world. Was the experiment tried of the conversion of men? And what has it done? A few were saved. The prophets received their light direct from Heaven, and had as mighty a testimony to bear as any men that have lived since that time. Daniel stood forth as a man of God aided of Heaven. Behold him in the lion’s den. What a miracle of preserving grace! See the three worthies passing through the fiery furnace. It was enough to strike the world with awe! They came out without the smell of fire upon their garments! Has there been anything more wonderful since Christ? God was with Noah in the ark. What an everlasting check we might suppose was there made to sin. Only a few saved in the ark! Only a few! Lot was a righteous man. And when commanded to flee, as God was about to destroy Sodom, we hear the plea raised, Would not the city be saved if there were fifty righteous persons found there? Yes. If forty-five be found? Yes. If forty be found? Yes. Can the city be saved if thirty be found? Yes. Twenty? Yes. Ten? Yes. But there were not ten righteous persons in Sodom. There was not salt enough in Sodom to save it. Lot had to flee.
We might refer to the wonders wrought in the past. See the children of Israel, as the Red Sea opens before them. See them pass over Jordan dry shod. See them march around Jericho, blowing their simple rams’ horns. Myriads of unseen angels are sent down to prostrate the mighty walls of Jericho.
Notwithstanding the prophets were mighty, the patriarchs and prophets were endowed with power from on high, and their works, their teachings, and the truths which they taught, were demonstrated with miracles, but few would believe.
In due time, the great Teacher comes. Never man spoke like this man. Never were such miracles seen as were wrought by him. Never such preaching heard as he uttered! Never was there such a minister as he! What power attended him! See him, as he goes into the temple with a scourge of small cords. See the buyers and sellers rush out, overturning the tables of the money-changers and those that sold doves. Were they frightened at this Nazarene with the simple whip in his hand? No. It was the power of God that attended him that caused them to flee. They cared no more for his whip than they would for this pointer in my hand. But divine power was with him.
Behold him in all the tenderness of his soul weeping at the grave of Lazarus. You hear his voice, “Lazarus, come forth;” and he that had been dead four days came forth. What a proof of divine power was that! We might suppose that the country all around would have been converted at once, if conversion of all men were possible. But after he had borne his testimony, and after he had wrought his miracles, the result of all his preaching was only a handful of disciples. Behold him sitting upon the eminence of the mount of Olives, looking down upon the city. The divine Son of God, in tears, gives utterance to his grief in these words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.” Matt. 23:37, 38.
They might have come to him; but they would not. They heard his teaching, but followed him not. The masses rejected him. The gospel, says Paul, is a savor of death unto death, or of life unto life. The gospel will save a few, and the gospel will condemn the masses and seal them to destruction.
Behold the Son of God, as in tenderness he wept at the grave of Lazarus! With what pleasure he ministered to his handful of disciples. He works miracles. He feeds the multitude in the liberality of his soul. His work was done. How oft would he have gathered his people! All Jerusalem might have been gathered, but they would not. Then said Christ, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate.”
The apostles were sent out with a commission from their Leader. They received power from on high. Gifts, and mighty signs, and wonders of the Holy Ghost, were to follow them during their ministry. Now, if it were possible to convert the world in any age, why do we not find, with this grand experiment of the gospel, that it succeeded in the days of the apostles? They come to this village and preach. They go to that place and labor. Signs and miracles follow, but few believe.
If it is possible to convert the world at any time, then why not possible to convert some one town, some one city, some one hamlet, some one village? But did the apostles succeed in this? You cannot point, in the history of the church, to any one city, any one village, or any one town, where all were converted.
Martin Luther and his associates were men of power. God was with Luther. He was enabled to bring over some to Christ. But look over old Germany to-day. Pass into England, and over all Protestant Europe, and can you point out one city, one village, or one town, where all have become Christ’s? In this grand experiment of the gospel, in which all the means and agencies of Heaven are employed, we do not find that in any one locality has it succeeded in converting all the people. My dear friends, if the gospel was designed to convert all men, then, thus far, it has proved a failure, with dubious prospects for the future.
But, as we have shown, the prophets of the Old Testament have pointed to no such a hope. Jesus Christ and his apostles did not hold out to the church any such hope.
But there is another hope cherished by the church, equally false; and that is, that at death the Christian enters Heaven. Hence, in all the popular sermons of the day, you are pointed to death for your reward, when your joys will commence. “Death,” as the poet sings, “is the gate to endless joy.”
That which the apostle has represented as man’s last enemy, is made his best friend. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Death, the last enemy of the just, is destroyed by the first resurrection. How oft have we heard, on funeral occasions, or when our friends have fallen asleep in Jesus, “They have gotten the victory over death. They have finally come to the point where death, their best friend, has cut the string of mortality, and let the immortal soul free.” This we regard as a false hope. The Scriptures nowhere sustain it. The Scriptures do not represent that the Christian obtains any victory at death. It is true that the Christian, having lived a life of holiness, as he comes nearer to the end of his probation, and to that period of sleep in Jesus, may triumph in hope of the glory of God. It may be for the benefit of surviving friends, and as a matter of comfort in the church, that the evidence be given that the deceased was prepared for such a change. The Spirit of God may rest down upon him, and with his last breath he may shout the high praises of God.
The Christian may rejoice that death is soon to bring his sufferings to an end; but all this does not constitute proof that death lets the supposed immortal part in man free from the body to ascend to the heavenly world, while the body shall be carried to the grave. The experiences of Christians, triumphing in the last hour, does not prove that there is an immortal part in man that at death takes its flight to the glories of the heavenly world. The theology of the church being wrong, the experiences in the church have been mistaken. It is consistent with the character of God that thus our dying friends may leave evidence to show God’s approval of a holy and godly life.
I have said that the Christian does not gain victory over death in the last moments of dissolving nature. To illustrate: A person in middle life becomes diseased from wrong habits. Death threatens him, and he becomes a temperate man, and lives according to the laws of life and health; and, as the result, death is averted for a season. He is now holding the victory over death, in a certain sense. While he is pursuing such a course, death is still struggling for him. But he, by temperate living, is pushing death into the future. Death is compelled to stand back, and let him live to a good old age. So far, he is getting victory over death. But according to the fatal decree, the hour at last comes for his dissolution. Now, says Death, you can put me off no longer. Death advances. It matters not who the person is. It may be Abraham. It may be a holy apostle, a reformer, a Luther, a Wesley. Death advances, and as the holy man of God yields to his power, why not desire that the strife should cease, and, as did the venerable Wesley, exclaim, “When will the weary springs of life stand still?” He had lived a holy life, had finished his course, and now must die. Death claims him as his victim, and lays him in the grave. Death is the victor now.
Instead of the dying Christian getting victory over death, this is the hour of death’s triumph, according to the decree of God on account of sin and man’s fallen condition. But, glory to God in the highest, life and immortality are brought to light through the gospel. The grave will not long hold the sleeping just. We hear Paul proclaim the victories of the Son of God over death, in these triumphant words: “Behold I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
At the last trump, and not at death, victory comes to the Christian. It is then that the Christian gets victory over death, being free, forever free from his power. He then exclaims, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
We hear, by way of Patmos, Rev. 1:18, the Life-giver, saying, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive forevermore, amen, and have the keys of hell [the grave] and of death.” Jesus Christ, crucified on Calvary, passed into the tomb, and was raised by the power of the Father, triumphing over death. As he arose, he seized the keys of death and the grave, and with triumph ascended on high. Death may hold a Luther, a Wesley, a Miller, until the hour when the triumph of sin, and Satan, and death, must cease at the descent of the King of kings in glory, to unlock the tombs, open the graves, and bring forth all the just, who have felt the last sting of death, and over whom the grave holds the victory. Hear that universal shout from the redeemed, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” It is then, and not at death, that the Christian has the victory over death. But the apostle has spoken directly upon this point: “Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.”
There were those in Paul’s day who questioned the resurrection of the dead, the same as the spiritualists and others do at the present time. “But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen.” The apostle makes the one to depend upon the other. If Christ is raised, the dead will be raised; but if Christ is not raised, the dead will not be raised.
The gospel of the resurrection of the dead is all based upon the resurrection of Christ. “Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.”
The apostles took their lives in their hands and went forth to preach the gospel. That gospel was based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ; and Paul reasons, that if Christ had risen, then the dead would be raised; but if the dead were not to be raised, then Christ was not risen. Then their faith and their preaching were vain. But Christ had risen from the dead. The gospel was a reality, because the dead would be raised.
The next verse contains a tremendous conclusion, to which I wish to call your attention: “Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.” But, says popular theology, Abraham triumphed in faith, and his immortal soul went home to Heaven. And there is Lazarus in his bosom in Heaven. And should there be no resurrection, Abraham is well enough off; Abraham is saved. The popular view teaches that Abraham, Isaac, and all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and saints of all ages are eternally safe in Heaven. Then, what does Paul mean by saying, If the dead rise not, then is your faith vain and our preaching vain, and that they who have fallen asleep in Jesus are perished? According to this testimony, if there is no second advent of Christ, Abraham, Noah, Lot, and the apostles, and the martyrs have all perished.
A certain minister in Ohio, in speaking of the second advent and the resurrection, said: “I do not see any need of a resurrection, since all the good of past ages have gone to Heaven, where there is fullness of joy.” And if I believed with this Ohio minister, I would say the same. It is not worth while to have our Lord come back here after this body, if all go right to Heaven at death, where there is fullness of joy. Why trouble the old bodies which the dying saints were so glad to get rid of, when death, “the gate to endless joy” (?) freed them from those bodies and let them into Heaven? If there is fullness of joy there, you cannot make it any fuller. If there are pleasures forever, will it be any better to have the old bodies there? Why need the Son of God, attended by all the holy angels, descend from Heaven in matchless grandeur and glory, and the voice of the archangel shake open the grand old sepulchers of the patriarchs, and the graves of the prophets and apostles, martyrs and saints, small and great, simply to call forth old bodies they were so glad to leave behind, when, according to popular orthodoxy, they all went to Heaven at death?
The hope of the gospel, the one hope, the one grand hope to which all the light of revealed truth centers, is the second advent of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection of the dead. If there be no resurrection of the dead, they that have fallen asleep in Christ are perished. That is the last of them. Death, in the last hour of dissolving nature, seized them, took them into its embrace, bore them to the tomb, and there they sleep, and to them death will be an eternal sleep, unless the Lord himself shall descend and wake them to immortality. But the Lord will come and unlock the prison house, and will call forth the righteous dead, clothed with immortality.
This was the hope of Adam, of Abel, of Noah, and of Job, who says, “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet, in my flesh shall I see God.”
This was the hope of the prophet Isaiah, who says, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.”
This was the hope of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul says, “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” This is not one of our blessed hopes, as though we had others; but it is the blessed hope—the one hope, the hope of the gospel, the hope of the church of all ages.
And what a scene that will be, when Jesus, the great Life-giver, comes with all his holy angels. When the graveyards will be shaken, and the graves opened, the dead raised, the living changed! What glory and triumph! Those who have slept, whether it be one, two, three, or four thousand years, will all wake up together. And they will have no more realizing sense of the lapse of time than that person who had lain there only a day.After sleeping perfectly eight hours, we awake, unconscious that any time has elapsed. Some people start back at the idea of unconsciousness in the grave. But is there anything unpleasant in sweet sleep? Why draw back at the thought of sleeping in Jesus? in hope of being awakened to glorious immortality? The Life-giver will come down the blazing vault of heaven to wake up all the just ones. He will appear, leading on his hosts. He comes to a grand halt in mid-heaven. He surveys the earth, that has been receiving the righteous dead for six thousand years. Their names are all written in Heaven. Angels have had their charge to watch over them. A repenting Adam had his angel; Abel, his; Noah, his; and so on, through all succeeding centuries. All the candidates for everlasting life have a guardian angel. Martin Luther had his; Miller, his. Christians of every age have had their guardian angels, to watch them during their lives. But now, the grand controversy is over. The work of watching, guarding, keeping, is done. The hour of triumph is here. Christ is in mid-heaven, and all the holy angels with him. All the guardian angels are there. They survey the earth, with its countless graves of the righteous saints, to be opened with one blast of the trump in the hand of the Son of God. The universe, as it were, stands waiting. The angels then are sent forth. They go to the north, to the south, to the east, and to the west. Each guardian angel is sent to the very grave of the saint he guarded during his life. That angel that stood by Paul in all his trials—how joyfully will he go to the grave of Paul! That angel that guarded the great reformer, Martin Luther, that saved him in perils of his time, will joyfully hasten to the grave of that noble servant of Jesus Christ. And that angel that stood by William Miller, as he labored and suffered—for which he was paid in reproaches—will take his place at the humble grave in Low Hampton, N. Y., waiting for the final summons.
Thus, the angels are detailed in every direction. See them hastening forth on wings of light. They take their position at the grave’s mouth. The voice of the Son of God is heard. It is heard everywhere. The shock is everywhere felt. The graves everywhere open, and the countless millions of saints come forth clothed in immortality. Behold at every grave the guardian angel and the guarded saint! The last thought of the dying saint was that last twinge of death, and fear of the grave.
Have you not witnessed, at the death-bed of the dying saint, that last twinge of pain? But now, they wake up. They resume the current of their thoughts just where they left off at the moment of their death. And they now exclaim, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Victory is upon every immortal tongue, while the angels are bearing them through the air, up to meet their Lord. The whole earth around is ringing with victory, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” Now, the saints have gotten the victory over death.
J. W.