BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND.
By M. E. Kellogg
On one occasion, when Christ was questioned by certain ones upon the subject which involved the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, he prefaced his reply to their question by saying, “Ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God.” This first statement, “Ye know not the Scriptures,” is an explanation not only of the errors into which they fell, but also the errors into which thousands are falling continually. The writer once had a conversation with a chance acquaintance, a student in the college preparing for the ministry. In the course of our conversation we spoke of prophecies in the Scriptures which predict an apostasy in the church, and the rise of the man of sin, or of the Papacy,—things which we had at that time supposed were thoroughly understood by every Protestant student, especially those who were preparing for the ministry. He replied that he did not know anything about that matter, for he had not yet studied theology. Really, it was not necessary for him to study theology to know this; a study of the Bible would have made it clear to him. The same dependence upon theology and neglect of the Bible is responsible for the numerous errors which are believed and advocated from thousands of pulpits. In relation to the great questions of religion it is seldom asked, What does the Bible teach? but, What is taught in this college or that university?—in a word, theology, and not the Scriptures, settles these questions, and often with very little reference to the Bible. But one may ask, Do not theologians study the Bible?—Certainly they do. They study it very intently and often to find something to prove a theory which they have embraced. Go back to the day of Christ’s first advent. The Jews whom Christ charged with not knowing the Scriptures were very diligent students of those same Scriptures. Those Scriptures contained a prophetic declaration of Christ’s birth, descriptions of his character, work, teachings, sufferings, and death. But the Jews did not see these things. Why?—Because they had imbibed a wrong idea of his coming. They had a theory of their own; they looked for a Messiah to come in glory and power, to subdue their enemies, and to exalt Israel above the nations. Bound up in this theological theory so pleasing to them, and believing that all the glorious things predicted of the reign of the Messiah were to be fulfilled in connection with the Jewish nation upon his manifestation as the Messiah, their eyes were shut, their ears closed, and their hearts obdurate to any other ideas than those they had adopted. They read the Scriptures, but they knew them not, and in their blindness they fulfilled them in rejecting and crucifying their Saviour. “For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him.” Acts 13:27. That failure to understand God’s word, and fulfilling prophecy, marked the close of one of the great epochs in the history of God’s dealings with men. As we look back at it, we see a sacked and burning city, a broken and scattered nation, and, above all, we hear a voice which declares, “Your house is left unto you desolate.” More than eighteen hundred years have passed away since this disastrous experience, and again we are approaching, not an epoch, but the epoch,—the end of all things,—and it becomes us to inquire whether it is possible that the Christian world of to-day have not some theory of their own which they are holding as tenaciously as did the Jews of old. We submit evidence that this is the case. To-day the theory of the world’s conversion, and a good time coming, before the advent, is quite generally believed, and, indeed, with many, the second advent of Christ, so fully described in the Scriptures, is explained away as meaning nothing but a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. As an illustration of the common teaching upon this subject, the rosy hue which our latter-day popular teachers are trying to cast upon the future, we here insert the closing part of an article from the Union Signal, organ of the W. C. T. U., written by Frances E. Willard, the president of the organization. Let it be clearly understood that we would not speak a disparaging word of this lady, or decry her work in all rightful lines. But when a theory is put forth by one in so responsible a position as she holds which we feel confident is well calculated to lull souls to sleep, and close the eyes of thousands to imminent danger, duty suggests that that danger be pointed out. The following is the passage referred to:— For my part I believe the world will progress until time and space will be practically annihilated. We shall know each other’s thoughts by telepathy; we shall live as one great family; we shall have control of the weather and everything else, all of which our heavenly Father is only waiting to give us until we have the wit to manage it. We shall pay attention to the lower animals, and teach them to talk, and shall bring them up to a high plane; we shall find in records now unknown the history of the past, and shall know a hundred things about it where we now know one. We shall gain communication with the stars, and in time be able to travel through the ether from one to another. The world will be surrounded by a railroad, but only for purposes of freight, even as we now use the canal, that was once considered the grand highway. The flying machine will have attained such perfection that every person will be individually capable of ranging at his own sweet will through the air, even as the swiftest birds do now. There will be no desert place on the earth, but by means of irrigation the waste places will be made to blossom as the rose. It will then be no distinction to be a genius, for everybody will have reached a height greater than has yet been attained by the greatest who ever lived, both in beauty, intelligence, inspiration, and goodness. We shall traverse the depths of the sea and heights of the air as readily as we now do the surface of the earth. We shall no longer believe only, but shall absolutely know that we are immortal, and that the future is to be occupied by us in journeying from life to life, from star to star. “The powers of the world to come” will rest upon us, and we shall be in conscious communication with our translated relatives and friends. We shall know that “the kingdom of God is within us,” and that “in him we live and move and have our being.” This whole statement might be dismissed with one remark,—It appears like a chimerical fancy of an unbalanced mind. But, considering the position and influence of the author, this would not do. So the position will be examined more minutely. Notice that it is all based on “I believe.” No word of God is brought forward as a foundation of this tremendous structure of curious hopes. Take the first statement,—we shall progress until we shall be as “one great family,”—and compare it with the Scriptures as to what the condition of the world will be in its latest phase. Read the following scriptures: Matt. 24:37–51; Luke 17:26–30; 21:25–36; 1 Thess. 4:16–18; 5:1–3; 2 Tim. 3:1–5; 2 Peter 3:1–5; 2 Thess. 1:7–10. These scriptures, and many others which might be cited, teach that wickedness will increase until the end of the world; that there will be a “peace and safety” cry; that the last days will be days of especial danger; that the coming of the Lord will be denied; that his coming will be sudden, unexpected; and that at his coming destruction falls upon the wicked, and that the saints are “caught up” to be with Christ. Thus there is no progress taught, but it is taught that we are drifting onward on an evil tide unto a fearful ending, compared to which the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish age was a small thing. Passing by the teaching of animals to talk, gaining communication with the stars, traveling through the ether from sphere to sphere, and the statement that “everybody will have reached a height greater than has yet been attained by the greatest that ever lived, both in beauty, intelligence, inspiration, and goodness,” all of which are diametrically opposed to the Scripture passages above referred to, we notice the most astonishing statement of all, one which seemingly betrays an entire ignorance of the Scriptures: “We shall . . . know that we are immortal,” shall “journey from life to life [whatever that may mean],” and we “shall be in conscious communication with our translated relatives and friends.” All this reached by progression in our present state! Paul tells us that we shall put on immortality at the coming of Christ, and then both the saints living and the resurrected dead will be caught up together to be forever with the Lord. 1 Thess. 4:16, 17; 1 Cor. 15:51–54. But this popular teacher “believes” that we shall be immortal while in a different condition from our “translated relatives and friends.” This last expression shows that the writer has no idea of the difference between death and translation. But there is a vital difference. If we “believe” the Bible, we are assured that but two persons, Enoch and Elijah, were ever translated. Those living in holiness at Christ’s second coming will also be translated. Some others, like Moses, and other unknown (to us) persons who were raised at the resurrection of Jesus, are in heaven. But the great mass of the saints sleep in Jesus, waiting the voice of the Lifegiver. There will be no communion between us and the translated until we are all translated at the coming of Christ. There is a strong suggestion of Spiritualism in this idea of communion with translated friends. Indeed, the communion with what purports to be the spirits of the departed is the very essence of Spiritualism; and all such communions are condemned by the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments. Any one can believe all this if they want to, but would it not be better to believe what the Bible says upon these subjects, instead of erecting a theory and trying to believe that? Such teaching is paving the way for a general rejection of the doctrine specifically taught in the Scriptures in regard to the coming of Christ and the end of all things; and a belief of theories having no support in the Scriptures, deceptive in their nature, which are best described in the words of Paul when, having referred to those who “received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved,” he says, “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”72 Thess. 2:10–12. God’s word is the truth. Whatever is contrary to that word is a lie, and the belief of a lie leads to destruction and death. May God help us to cling to his word, for surely thousands of teachers (2 Tim. 4:3, 4) are themselves in darkness,—blind leaders of others as blind as they, and repeating over again the same terrible blunders of the Jews, who chose to believe their own theories instead of the word of God.