A SICK UNIVERSE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 3, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 14.

A SICK UNIVERSE.

IN another column will be found an article from a well-known (in astronomical circles) Christian astronomer. He shows, from the view-point of present astronomical facts and hypotheses, that the destruction and burning of our earth, as predicted by the Word of inspiration, is highly reasonable. From all that astronomers can learn, other worlds or suns have been destroyed or burned; why not ours? Just how the great Arbiter of the universe may do this, we know not. “Gamma Beta” presents two theories; but we are sure that he is willing to concede there may be others. Either of his hypotheses are plausible; and he presents them as nothing else.

The subject of a burning-out, or dying, sun awakens many thoughts. What does it mean? Did God, the Lord of life and existence, create to destroy? We can not conceive this to be true. Yet these dying worlds, this dying earth, are witnesses that something is wrong. What is it?

Here are the words of the apostle, which will give us light:—

“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Rom. 8: 19–23, R.V.

Note the facts here stated, or clearly implied:—

1. The creation is waiting in earnest expectancy for something better. “Earnest expectation” implies dissatisfaction with the present, a longing for something better than is now possessed. The original term is one word compounded of three, signifying “a watching with the head outstretched,” a “waiting in suspense.” This is what the whole creation is represented as doing. The object and time for which it longingly waits we will consider later.

2. The whole creation was made subject to vanity, “aimlessness,” “fruitlessness.” It is out of course. It is running contrary to the law of its Creator, and is liable to accident and collision. Nay, more; it is in “the bondage of corruption.” It is in slavery to ruin; for so the word rendered “corruption” means. The cause of all this the apostle has previously shown, in this wonderful epistle, to be sin. In his own organization, a miniature universe, he had found the law which was ordained to life to be unto death. Rom. 7: 10. Sin had come in and perverted that which was created good.

The root idea of sin is missing the mark. It is fitly represented by the swerved arrow, the perverted current of electricity or water, the misapplication of that which is good. Character can be formed only by free choice, and free choice involves the risk of sin. God’s plan in the beginning was such that sin might have been forever avoided; but even tho sin should enter, no soul need share in its ruin. But having entered, and entered as an improvement on God’s plan, it must be allowed to work out the evil that is in it as a vindication of the character of God, and the eternal safety of the universe thereafter; that is, when sin had manifested its power and character, and had perished in the ruin it had wrought.

The universe is involved in that sin, but not of its own will. Sin did not come by God’s creation, but by perversion of God’s creation. The infinitely loving, long-suffering God has permitted sin to work its evil, to mar creation, but not to eternity. It is subjected in hope. It is a prisoner of expectancy.

Being subject to sin, aimless in its own workings, it is in the “bondage of corruption,” or “ruin.” “Sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death.” James 1: 15, R.V. Death, ruin, is the finished fruit of sin, and is of no more use; and that which is of no further use is worthy only to perish. But God reveals to the subjects of vanity—to those in the bondage of corruption—that they are prisoners of hope thru His mighty power.

The Creation One.

3. During this time of sin, since the highest of all created beings selfishly aspired to dethrone Infinite Love since God’s law of wisdom and love was perverted, the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain. The word rendered “groaneth” means to “groan jointly” as experiencing a common calamity. The word translated “travaileth” means pangs, in company with, to sympathize. What a wondrous revelation is here!

God is one, the Lord of all life, the Fountain of all good. His universe is one. When it came from His hand it was throbbing with His life, revealing His love. The life-currents were opened everywhere. The nerves were normal. Communication with the Head was perfect and complete.

But sin entered. With sin came suffering and pain. It was small at first, but all creation felt it, or was affected by it. See that strong man writhing in pain. He finds no rest day nor night. He has mighty, important work before him to accomplish. It may be the penning of a message which affects a nation, or which will change the geography of the earth. But he can not write it. Why?—Because of a pain in an insignificant tooth. It is ulcerated. It aches. The pain may be in the little toe. The member is small, but it completely upsets the strong man. Every member of his universe of body sympathizes with the affected part. They groan and are in pain together. The man is told that at such a time the arrival of a physician will relieve him; and he is in eager expectancy in every overstrained, sympathetic member of his being.

Such is the condition of the whole creation of God at the present time. Sin has entered. Those whom God designed to reign as kings, have made themselves slaves by self-seeking to be gods. Lucifer, the brightest of the host of God, deceived many of the angels, and induced Adam, the king of the earth, to imbibe the same spirit, to gather to himself, giving naught, and so becoming “creation’s blot, creation’s blank.”

In this old, sick earth doubtless we see the member most diseased, tho there may be many uninhabited worlds which God has suffered to proceed to quick decay as object-lessons to the universe. Dead suns and moons and planets there may be, even as there are dead members in the diseased man. Sometimes the divine Surgeon touches them with His electric cautery, and burns out the gangrene; sometimes they have been scattered, and are seen in meteoric fragments. All these perturbations, these abnormal manifestations, these dead, lone suns, these wandering comets, are the results of sin; and we witness their manifestations as the groaning and travailing of the universe of God.

This reveals another great truth, which scientists, who ignore God’s revelation, do not take into their reckoning, namely, that it is impossible to obtain correct results thru perverted media. The atmosphere is marred and misted and hazed on account of sin. The atmosphere of earth may greatly differ from that of other planets because of the greater effects of sin here. There may be different elements, or combinations of elements, in the composition of some bodies than aught we see in this earth. There are so many things which sin has marred and perverted and obscured and ruined, which elsewise would have been perfect and true and gloriously clear and useful. We do not see the normal man in the individual groaning and writhing in pain. We do not see God’s universe in the marred and travailing outlook before us. Yet we do see in all these the truth of the Word of God.

4. Yet there will come deliverance from the bondage of corruption. The sons of God will be revealed. God’s holy laws may be perverted in the creation; they are perfect in the all-powerful, all-sufficient Creator. His life may be perverted into channels of death, but it flows out from the great Fountain as everlasting life. It still feeds a sick and groaning universe. It still sustains even those who are in rebellion against the only Power which can perpetuate life, and maintain government perfect, pure, and beneficent, without end. Long-suffering love is waiting till every sentient, responsible soul shall have either yielded to Him, to become to all eternity a son of God, or has rejected His love, and finally, irrevocably, chosen the way of sin and death.

In the weakness of a perverted physical nature there are sons of God even now. Christ, the Creator, has been born within. “The power of an endless life,” received thru faith from the great Fountain, makes them triumphant over sin, and stamps them with the character of their Master. They are not now revealed. Tho winning mightier battles than Alexander or Cæsar, the world often looks upon them as fanatics or fools. Even so did they upon Him, the Son of God. God has called to them spiritually, and they have responded. They know that outside of it is inharmony, corruption, and death.

When the last loyal soldier is recruited, the last appeal for the impenitent and rebellious made, then will come to pass that of which every earthly judgment, and every heavenly catastrophe, has been prophetic,—the destruction of the useless, the perverted, the ruined, from the universe of God. In that day will God call to all his sons physically, and immortal character shall be united to immortal body, and they will be revealed as they are. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” 1 John 3: 2. “Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself.” Phil. 3: 21, R.V. In that day of Christ’s coming shall be revealed “the liberty of the glory of the children of God,” and the “earnest expectation” of the whole creation shall be satisfied.

In the blazing light of the glory of God, everything that does not possess that glory inwardly shall perish,—be consumed with “the forthshining of His presence.” 2 Thess. 2: 8, literally. When God shall utter His voice from on high, saying, “It is done,” then will He shake the universe. His voice once shook the earth, when He spoke His law, with which earth was not in accord. He declares: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are [“may be,” margin] shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which can not be shaken may remain.” Heb. 12: 26, 27. The things in harmony with the Life of the universe will be ballasted by its power. All not of Him will be shaken, and shaken to be destroyed or created in new forms. Let us heed the exhortation: “Wherefore, we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire.” Verses 28, 29. He consumes only sin. All identified with inharmony of God will perish. All who are His will reign with Him as sons of God, over “the whole creation,” eternally redeemed and glorified, and “affliction shall not rise up the second time.”