Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 27, 1915

“John’s Revelation Not Revelation”

THIS is a peculiar heading for an article written by a professed Christian worker and published in a professed Christian paper. The article in question was written by Dean W. J. Lhamon, of Drury College, and appeared in the Christian Evangelist of March 4. Dean Lhamon says this of the book of Revelation:—

The last book of the New Testament is not a revelation of church or world history. It does not foretell the far future in the way that is imagined of it. The history of the church of the past does not lie figured in it, nor of the church of the present, nor of the future. The present war may be an Armageddon. It certainly is sufficiently destructive and mournful, and that is about all that the word ever meant. But the book of Revelation has nothing to do with it. As to the future—God only knows how many millenniums, good and bad, await our grandchildren here. The book of Revelation gives no hint at all about it.

The book was a tract for its own times, not for ours.

What a contrast there is between this statement and the statement of the Scriptures of Truth. Regarding this inspired revelation the apostle declares:—

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show unto his servants, even the things which must shortly come to pass: and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John; who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of the prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein: for the time is at hand.”

Which testimony shall we accept, the testimony of man or the testimony of God? Certainly the child of God will not hesitate as to the choice of his authority.