A Gospel Prophecy by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 4, 1902

A Gospel Prophecy.

By Uriah Smith

The Battle Creek church was treated, on Sabbath, February 1, to a discourse by Elder I. D. Van Horn, on Isa. 65:17-25.

Isaiah has been called the evangelical prophet because his book is a gospel prophecy. The portion of his prophecy taken for the theme of discourse on this occasion is a subject of widespread study, if we may judge from the number of requests which have been sent in for years to this Office for an explanation of Isa. 65:20. The questions have been these: “When is the time from which there shall be no more thence an infant of days? when does the child die an hundred years old? and if this pertains to the eternal state, as some expressions seem to indicate, how is it that the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed?”

According to the view held by Seventh-day Adventists for years, there is just one point at which all the conditions and specifications of the prediction of this prophecy can be harmoniously and forcibly applied. These applications Elder Van Horn, true to his custom of adhering to the old paths, very clearly and beautifully brought out.

It is a peculiarity of Seventh-day Adventist applications of prophecy that they span the whole ground from beginning to end, and adjust all the parts, from the earliest to the latest, to one another, so as to make a consistent harmony in the whole. So, in this case, we look for a time in the world's history when a child could, and did, die a hundred years old; or when one dying a hundred years old was but a child. We find just that state of things in the antediluvians. But in the mass of the antediluvians, who lived to nearly a thousand years, it must have been there were many of these hundred-year-old children. But when the end of the thousand years of Rev. 20:5, 7-9, shall be fulfilled, and the time comes that the second death, apportioned to all sinners, shall be inflicted, all these hundred-year-old antediluvian children who went down in sin shall appear on the scene, to meet their doom. Here the child (the wicked antediluvian child) dies a hundred years old. But the prophecy takes in the last age as well as the first; and now, in the last generation, one who lives to a hundred years is accounted a very old man. But if he is a sinner, he comes up to take his part in the second death, and is accursed.

Remember that we at this point are standing on the line that separates between the execution of the judgment in the second death, and the eternal state, upon which the righteous then enter, and note how harmoniously all the conditions and statements run together. The righteous have been living and reigning with Christ in the Father's house, Jerusalem above (John 14:2, 3; Gal. 4:26; Rev. 20:4) one thousand years. Now the prophecy of Isaiah (65:20) continues: “There shall be no more thence an infant of days,”—all are crowned with immortality; and in the eternal state there are no more newborn infants; for after the resurrection there is no more marriage nor giving in marriage (Luke 20:35), nor any more such specimens as we see here,—“an old man that hath not filled his days;” a premature old man, broken down before his time.

The speaker went on, applying the further statements literally,—as to their building houses and inhabiting them, and planting vineyards, and eating the fruit of them; for they will eat and drink in the kingdom of God. Luke 22:30. “They shall not build, and another inhabit,” and plant, and another eat; “for as the days of a tree [the tree of life] are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long [even forever] enjoying the work of their hands, . . . for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring, [the children raised up to the kingdom] with them.”

A stirring parallel was drawn between this prophecy of Isaiah and John's description of his view of the new earth state and the condition of things that will obtain there. Rev. 21:1-4. The setting forth of these prophecies was mingled with earnest exhortations to all who listened to take the right stand, be on the right side, and so be prepared to be welcomed to all these promised privileges, and share in the glories of that inheritance that is reserved in heaven, pure and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. 1 Peter 1:4. U. S.