Translation and Death by W. N. G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 28, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 35.

Translation and Death.

By W. N. G.

It is quite common in these days to refer to people who have died as having been “translated.” It may well be said of those who make such references that they “do err, not knowing the Scriptures.” On June 4 of this year there came to the Methodist mission rooms in New York, this brief message from India: “Bishop Parker ‘translated.’” The reason for sending the telegram was that Bishop Parker had died.

In the Scriptures we read of two men who were translated, only two. But we have accounts of a great many who died. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, and Jared all “died.” Then came Enoch, all of whose days were three hundred sixty and five years. When he passed off the scene of this life, the record says, “He was not, for God ‘took him.’” From Heb. 11:5 we learn that “Enoch was translated ‘that he should not see death;’ that he ‘was not found, because God ‘had translated him.’” Following Enoch, the record in Genesis 5 goes on with Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, all of whom are said to have died. Now if all these faithful patriarchs were “translated” when they “died,” why does the inspired Word make such a distinction between their history and that of Enoch?

From Enoch on down the line, we read of a number of good men who lived and served God, and, without exception, they died, until we come to Elijah. Of him it is said that he “went up by a whirlwind ‘into heaven.’” Further on in the account (2 Kings 2) we learn that he, too, was not found. Just after his ascension, a number of the students in the school of the prophets met Elisha on his return from the scene, and suggested that they go and hunt for Elijah. They said, “Lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up, ‘and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.’” Elisha at first refused the permission, but they insisted so strongly that he at last told them to go. So fifty men spent three days searching for the translated prophet, “but found him not.”

Now let us return to the instance of Bishop Parker. Rev. N. L. Rockey, who sent the message, “Bishop Parker translated,” writes to the Northwestern Christian Advocate: “The writer was with him frequently in those last hours, and has just returned from the beautiful

cemetery where they have laid him to rest in a quiet nook of the Himalaya Mountains, near Naini Tal.”

So Bishop Parker, after being translated according to modern theology, unlike those whom God translated in His way, was “found,” and buried just as were those of whom the Bible says that they died. Another common-place feature of this case of traditionary translation is also shown in the account from which we quote. Mr. Rockey adds: “Bishop Warne, assisted by other missionaries and by native ministers, also by Bishop Clifford of the Church of England, read the burial service, and in the hope of the general resurrection, he was ‘laid to rest.’”

The story of laying away a translated man to rest in a cemetery until the general resurrection no doubt would have been interesting to the Athenians, who “spent their time in nothing else, but either to ‘tell or to hear some new thing.’” Acts 17:21.

The next we hear of Elijah after his translation was his appearance on the mount of transfiguration. But some will ask, Was not Moses there too, of whom it is said that he died?—Yes, Moses was there too, but Moses was not translated. He died, and the Lord “buried him in a valley in the land of Moab.” The exact spot of his sepulcher never was known to man, but it is known that he died and was buried. Yet his body was on the mount of transfiguration with that of Elijah. How could it have been there and alive? Certainly not by a translation, for it had been dead. Certainly not by an inherent immortality, for it had died. There is but one other way in which the body of Moses, who had died in Moab, could be alive, and that is by a resurrection. Moses had been resurrected. We read in Jude 9 that Michael the archangel (Christ) contended with the devil and “disputed about the body of Moses.” There could be but one point of dispute between Christ and Satan over a dead body, namely, the bringing of it to life. Dead people are all within the gates of the enemy, and Satan would naturally dispute the release of a child of God from his prison-house; and in a personal conflict between Christ and Satan, Christ would surely win.

Moses and Elijah stood on the mount with the transfigured Saviour, representing the two classes that will compose the kingdom of heaven,—the righteous dead, who will be resurrected at the coming of the Lord, and the righteous living, who will be “changed,” or translated, at that time. See 1 Thess. 4:13–18. This transfiguration scene (Matthew 17) was in fulfilment of the promise of Christ made to His disciples six days before, when He said, “There be some ‘standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in His kingdom.’” Ch. 16:28. W. N. G.