Divided Forces | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 30, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 18.

Divided Forces.

—Our neighbor, Messiah's Advocate, remarks:—

What a pity it is that the devil has succeeded in dividing the forces of those who believe in conditional immortality, when there is so great a need for union.

And then it tells us that the worst division among believers in the mortality of man and the need of a real resurrection for future life, is over the Sabbath question; but an agreement seems utterly impossible: we are looking at the question from entirely different standpoints.

But it is no more impossible than it is for those who believe in the immortality of the soul to agree with those who hold to conditional immortality. The cases are parallel. Logically every soul who believes in Jesus Christ as his Saviour, his all in all, ought to be a conditionalist. His future life is dependent upon “Christ our Life.” “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life.” The conditionalist believer ought logically to see that Christ is our Life because He is “our Righteousness.” He is our Life that we may have the same life which He possessed here and ever after. He is our Righteousness that we may have the same righteousness which He possessed here and ever after, the righteousness of entire conformity to God's will, the life which kept all God's commandments,—the Sabbath among the rest. By that “obedience” we are made righteous. By that life we are kept righteous. God is one. He and His Son are one. His law is one. His righteousness is not a thing of era or dispensation, of whim or choice; it is one and unchangeable. It seems to us so clear, so strong, that every true believer in conditional immortality through Jesus Christ ought logically to be a Sabbath-keeper.