REMARKS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 23, 1872

The most that we should care to say in response to the foregoing, was said in the remarks appended to Bro. Griswold’s last preceding article. We there plainly showed, as we conceive, that it is not at all necessary to consider the coming of Christ, and coming of the Son of man, some hidden and mystical event, transpiring in that generation, although it was then spoken of as at hand, because the sacred writers frequently use the present tense, and even the past tense, in describing events that were to take place at a period far in the future from their day. So Paul says, “We which are alive and remain” unto the coming of the Lord, meaning not himself and his personal companions, but those who would be alive when the Lord should come. And Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand,” addressing those who would be alive when this end was about to come. And James, addressing the same class, says that the coming of the Lord draweth nigh and the Judge standeth before the door.

It may be in place to add a few additional thoughts to show further that the transfiguration was a fulfillment of Matt. 16:28; Mark 9:1; and Luke 9:27. Bro. G. thinks it absurd and ridiculous to suppose that Christ would assure an audience that some of them would be alive six days from the time of his speaking to them. Let us then look at a few points as they stand chronologically related to each other, according to Bro. G.’s interpretation. “There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” When did this coming of the Son of man in his kingdom take place? At, or before, the ascension of Christ. How long before his ascension did he speak these words? An elaborate work by Samuel J. Andrews, entitled, “The life of our Lord, considered in its Historical, Chronological and Geographical Relations,” p. 621, places this event in the summer before his crucifixion, which took place the following spring, less than a year from that point. What, then, in relation to time, did our Lord assure the people, on this ground? “There be some standing here which shall not taste of death for nearly a year.” This is the light in which Bro. G.’s view puts it. But is this any less “absurd and ridiculous” than the view to which he objects? Is it not possible to make many a Scripture declaration appear objectionable if we take an incidental fact and make it the principal object of the assertion? For we apprehend that the length of time they were to live, was not an idea which entered into our Lord’s line of thought at all, but the fact that they were to see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. The three evangelists who record this language, then immediately proceed to give an account of the transfiguration.

From the work above referred to, pp. 320, 321, we transcribe the following paragraph on this point:—

“From this time the teaching of Jesus to his disciples, and also to the people at large (see Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23), assumed a new character. Gradually, as they were able to bear it, He showed them how the great purpose of God in the Messiah must be effected through his death, and how his sufferings had been foretold by the prophets. So far from establishing any earthly kingdom, in which they should have distinguished places, he must be put to a most ignominious death, and all who received him as the Messiah, should do it at the peril of their lives. Yet, as a counterpoise to the gloomy picture, he speaks of an hour when he would come again, and then every disciple should have his reward. Thus he confirmed to them the great fact that he was to establish a kingdom in power and glory. To prevent the disciples from seizing upon this fact, and indulging in dreams of a reign corresponding to that of earthly kings, the Lord was pleased to show certain of the apostles, by a momentary transfiguration of his person, the supernatural character of his kingdom, and into what new and higher conditions of being both he and they must be brought ere it could come. The promise that some then standing before him should not taste death till they had seen “the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matt. 16:28), or had seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1), was fulfilled when, after six days, he took Peter, James, and John into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them. These apostles now saw him as he should appear when, having risen from the dead, and glorified, he should come again from heaven to take his great power and to reign. They saw in the ineffable glory of his person, and brightness around them, a foreshadowing of the kingdom of God as it should come with power; and were for a moment “eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). Many errors still remained to be removed from their minds, especially respecting the time of its establishment (Acts 1:6), but the great fact of its supernatural character they could not mistake. Henceforth the phrase “kingdom of God” had to these apostles a significance which it probably had not had to any of the prophets, and certainly had not to any of the Rabbis or priests.”

There would scarcely seem to be any room to question the correctness of this application. It is certain that Peter in his second epistle, 1:16–18, refers to the transfiguration; and it is certain that he considered it a representation of the future position of Christ; for he says they “were eyewitnesses of his majesty,” that is, his magnificence and glory. But his sojourn upon earth was the period of his humiliation, not of his glory; and he endured the cross and despised the shame, for the joy that was set before him; and the prophets testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. Heb. 12:2; 1 Pet. 1:11.

But what does our brother mean by making Peter say in Acts 3:21, “whom the heavens must receive during the times of restitution,” as though the restitution was to be accomplished while Christ remained in Heaven, instead of “until the times of restitution,” which plainly conveys the idea that the restitution would not in reality commence till the heavens no longer received or retained him, but he was sent, on the mission of his second advent, as the prophets have declared?

Nothing that Christ did on earth constituted his second coming; for after his work here was all accomplished, and the clouds had shut from the sight of his sorrowing disciples, his ascending form, the announcement was made (Acts 1:11), that his second coming was still future: “This same Jesus which is taken up from you shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven;” and this, Paul says (Heb. 9:28), will be his second appearing; for unto them that look for him shall he appear [be openly seen] the second time without sin unto salvation.” Some read, without a sin-offering. The first time he came to this world to make himself an offering for sin. The second time he comes to bring salvation to all those who have accepted the blessings which his first coming introduced. And this was future when Paul wrote to the Hebrews in A. D. 64. It was future when Peter wrote in 66. And when the events of the Christian dispensation were opened to the seer on the isle of Patmos, in such lines of symbols as the seven seals and seven trumpets, which commentators generally acknowledge cover this dispensation from its commencement to its close, it is not till the seventh seal is broken, and the seventh trumpet sounds, that the Lord appears in the clouds of heaven and every eye beholds him, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Thus this dispensation is to close with the long-promised return of the nobleman who went to receive a kingdom, and the inauguration of that kingdom of glory which the Jews, overlooking the humiliation and sufferings of Christ, thought should then be established, but which our Lord and his apostles taught could not be set up till the sufferings which were to precede the glory had been fulfilled.