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THE ONE HOPE;

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 9, 1873

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 42, No. 13.

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THE ONE HOPE;

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Or the Promise to the Fathers.
BY ELD. J. H. WAGGONER.
TEXT.—“The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s, but the earth hath he given to the children of men.” Ps. 115:16.
It is written that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Therefore that which is not based on the word of God is not faith; it may be opinion or conjecture, but it is not faith. Even so that is not hope—Bible hope—which is not based on the promise of God. Men may claim to hope for many things, but if there is no promise to sustain the claim, it is clearly invalid. In order to have clear ideas of the Christian’s hope it is necessary to understand God’s revealed purposes of grace toward us.
There is no doctrine of the Bible which stands alone or has its place disconnected from other doctrines. They are all related, so that each one casts light upon all the others; and, therefore, all are important, and none are “non-essential.”
It is the purpose of this writing to examine some of the promises of God, and thus endeavor to determine what is, truly, our hope.
There is no subject of greater interest to man than that of the future destiny of this earth and our relation to it. We find ourselves, not only placed upon the earth, but, so strongly identified with it that we may be said to be a part of it. It is no mere figure of speech which says that God “knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.” Ps. 103:14. Vain philosophy and false science, prompted by human pride, have denied, as far as they possibly can, every statement of the Scriptures which shows man to be a frail, perishable creature. But the declaration of Bible history that “God made man of the dust of the earth,” Gen. 2:7, cannot be denied; for continuous observation convinces us that we are of the dust, and return to dust again.
But so great is the obduracy of the human heart that it will pervert what it cannot deny. Thus it has been claimed that Prov. 11:31, which in its teaching is related to our text, proves that there is no future punishment. But such a claim is seriously defective in several respects. The passage reads: “Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.” 1. This text does not relate to this life, but to the future. 2. If it denies a future punishment to the wicked, it also denies a future reward to the righteous. But 3. The claim is based upon the material error of confounding consequences with penalties. Two men may be burned in the same house; one of them set fire to the house to destroy his neighbor’s life and property, but by some mishap perished in the flames. The other perished also, but he was trying to rescue his neighbor from destruction. Did either of them receive the desert of his action? If the one justly perished, what shall we say of the other? We might multiply illustrations to any extent to show that men are not rewarded in this life; every consideration of justice accepts the declaration that God “hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world.” Acts 17:31.
The question arises whether the reference to the gift of the earth in our text is historic or prophetic. We will first consider it in the light of history.
Turning to Gen. 1:26, we find that it was God’s purpose in the creation of man to give him dominion “over all the earth.” And in verse 28 we learn that this dominion was given to Adam: that he was authorized to bear rule over the earth, and over everything upon the earth.
In consistency with man’s nature he was placed upon probation for the development of his character; and while the tree and the herb of the field were given him for food, one tree was excepted. Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he was not permitted to eat under the severest penalty; the Lord said to him: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Gen. 2:17.
But man did eat of that forbidden fruit; God arraigned him as a transgressor, and cursed both him and his dominion. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;” plainly intimating that his life should end. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Gen. 3:17, 19. And this was no idle threat. Its execution is on record. “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” Gen. 5:5.
A few points of interest and importance are here to be noticed:—
1. Had not man sinned he would not have died; God would have established him in immortality that he would have continued to live forever.
2. But, of course, he would have lived forever on the earth; here he was created; this was his “dominion;” and there is no intimation that any other dominion was to be his, or that he was to be transferred to any other locality.
3. The loss of life is the greatest of all losses; it includes all other losses; for when a man loses his life he has nothing more to lose. It was a knowledge of this truth, and of human nature, that led Satan to say, “All that a man hath will he give for his life;” Job 2:4; “for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” 1 Tim. 6:7. By transgression Adam lost everything.
4. Adam could bequeath to his posterity no more than he possessed. He forfeited his dominion and his inheritance, and possessed it but a little while. And accordingly the Scriptures never point us to what was given to Adam as the ground of our hope. Our inheritance from Adam is of death as well as of life; a brief possession of a little of this world, with sorrow and pain, ending in the darkness of the grave. Therefore, if the gift of the earth, referred to in our text, is that granted to Adam, it is a matter in which we have no deep, abiding interest. Historically, it has no hope for us.
But the passage quoted from Proverbs, “The righteous shall be recompensed in the earth,” assures us that another view is to be taken of our text; that it has a prophetic bearing to which the “children of men” may look with hope and confidence.
That our minds may be guided in the proper channel of investigation, we will examine a few texts in the New Testament which speak of our hope and of its foundation. Says Paul to the Hebrews, 6:12–19:
“That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater; and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.”
Several interesting points are here introduced which are well worthy of notice.
1. We are pointed to God’s promise to Abraham as the source of our hope, and of strong consolation.
2. Notice the certainty of the promises: God’s immutable word confirmed by his oath.
3. This hope is “set before us.” Some people outlive their hope; it was a hope of last year, and they think they would be pleased to recover it after it is lost. A hope that is grounded upon our own works, our own experience or feelings, may be outgrown. But when the promises of God are the basis, it is indeed a hope set before us; for we cannot outlive the promises of God. No change of feeling, no vicissitudes of experience, can invalidate the promises of God. Like the polar star, which in all weather and at all times points out the course of the mariner, they stand as the beacon of hope and of safety.
4. This hope is an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast. It is the only hope that never fails, because it alone has an immovable foundation. “The hope of the hypocrite shall perish;” and “his trust shall be as the spider’s web” (Job 8:13, 14), because it does not take hold of God’s unfailing word. When Paul says “there is one hope,” Eph. 4:4, or speaks of those who are “without hope,” Eph. 2:12; 1 Thess. 4:13, he does not mean to say that others are absolutely hopeless and despairing; but their confidence is vain; they have no firm foundation; no hope worthy of the name. This will be readily understood by the figures used: compare the spider’s web with an anchor! or imagine a navigator collecting a quantity of spider’s web, and taking it on board his vessel for an anchor! so foolish is he who rests on anything but the promise of God for the foundation of his hope.
But it may be objected that Paul does not mean that we are to look for consolation and hope to the promise made to Abraham, but only that that promise is set forth as an illustration of the faithfulness of God, who will as surely perform the promises given to us as he did those given to Abraham. This objection, however, is fully met by the following considerations:—
1. In all the Scriptures, God’s people are referred to Abraham as their father in the faith; as the one with whom the covenant was made in which is contained our hope. This is a well-known and acknowledged truth.
2. Paul says: “If ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:29. Here our heirship is directly referred to the promise made to Abraham, and our inheritance is conditioned upon our being his seed, or children. This is very explicit and decisive.
3. When Paul answered his accusers before Agrippa, he said: “And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers; unto which our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.” Paul’s hope was not a new or novel one; it was the hope held by the “twelve tribes;” the promise made to their fathers. And we can be at no loss to whom to refer the term, “the fathers.” What has been quoted from Paul refers us to Abraham, to whom, and to Isaac and Jacob, “the heirs with him of the same promise,” Heb. 11:9, it must apply.
The interesting point of inquiry now is, What is the promise to which he refers? Some have answered this in one way; some, in another; but in this all must agree that the safest way—the way to find out to a certainty what God did promise to Abraham—is to turn to the record and read for ourselves. And now I must ask the indulgence of the reader while quoting at some length from the Old Testament. To some it may be tedious, but all who wish to have settled to a certainty, and by undisputed authority, the important question raised, will doubtless follow, with interest, the chain of testimony which places it beyond a doubt.
In entering upon this field, we must bear in mind the position occupied by the race at the time to which the record relates. We have seen that man was created to dwell upon, and rule over, the earth; and that, by transgression, he lost his dominion, and sunk into the grave, to molder back to dust. The promise made to the woman that her seed should bruise the head of the serpent, doubtless looked to the restoration of that which man lost; but in what manner this should be effected was not revealed. We know also that this “seed of the woman,” referred to, is Christ. But it is likewise true that the covenant, under which Christ works the great “restitution,” was made with Abraham: that we are “Abraham’s seed” if we are Christ’s. Gal. 3:29. Therefore, whether we follow the condition of man as he stood after the loss of his inheritance, or look at the gospel means of restoration, we shall find that the promises to Abraham contain the substance of the plan of restitution, and offer a solution to the difficulty in the way of carrying out God’s original purpose in the creation of man. Gen. 1:26, 28. After man was driven from Paradise, there is no chain of promises given to him until we come down to Abraham. Here are given promises—here is made a covenant which reaches to the latest hour of human probation, and links our hope to the revealed purpose of God in creation, presenting a unity of design and execution in the work of God, and in his purposes of grace toward man, which fills the soul with admiration and joy.
The first mention of the call of Abraham is in Gen. 12:1–3, as follows:—
“Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
Obedient to this call he came into the land of Canaan, to Sichem—
“And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.” Verse 7.
It will be noticed that from this time onward the promise of the land was largely the burden of every message of blessing that God gave unto “the fathers.” The next word to Abram is found in chap. 13:14–17. Lot had separated himself from him, choosing the fertile and well-watered plains of Sodom.
“And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward,and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.”
In chap. 15, Abram complained to the Lord that he was childless, and feared that he should die without an heir. There is peculiar force in this plea, amounting even to plaintiveness; for the Lord had said unto him that he would give the land unto his seed; and yet he had no son, and if his heir should be one not of his own family, the promise did not bring assurance of a blessing to his house. Then the Lord assured him that he should have an heir, and a multitudinous posterity. Too often has this promise of a seed been considered separate from the previous promise of the land, but it will be noticed that Abram’s plea for a son was in direct reference to the former promise to his seed; for if he died childless how could that promise be fulfilled?
“And behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” Verses 4–7.
By direction he prepared an offering, and “a horror of great darkness fell upon him,” which well represented the darkness and trials which lay between Abram and his seed, and the fulfillment of the promise concerning the inheritance. But the promise itself was renewed:—
“In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” Verse 18.
Chapter 17, where next the promise is renewed, is full of interest.
“And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly. And Abram fell on his face; and God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” Vs. 1–8.
Here are several points of importance. To give force to the promise of a numerous posterity, the name of Abram was changed to Abraham. And after the promise was renewed, as in the verses quoted, circumcision was instituted as a sign or token of the covenant. This was designed as a surety of the promise.
“And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.” Vs. 11.
In chapter 18 is given the account of Abraham entertaining three angels, who acquainted him with the impending destruction of Sodom, and informed him that a son should be born unto him by Sarah, within the year. The promise is referred to, but not reiterated. There is, however, the strong intimation of the conditional nature of the promises, as the faithfulness of Abraham is spoken of as that which would make the fulfillment of the promise possible.
“And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his chil-
dren and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.” Verses 17–19.
Chapter 19 records the birth of Isaac, and the rejection of Ishmael from being co-heir with him. Though Abraham had waited with long patience for a son, the severest test of his faith was that recorded in chapter 22; it was the offering of Isaac. The Lord said unto him:—
“Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Verse 2.
We must bear in mind that the promise, from the very first, was to Abraham and to his seed. And it was distinctly revealed that it should be fulfilled, not only to the son of Sarah, but, to Isaac individually; and Abraham could not fall back upon Ishmael in the event of the loss of Isaac, for Ishmael had been decidedly rejected from being heir. And as if to make the test complete and thorough, he calls him his “only son;” the alone heir to these great promises; and still further he reminds him of his affection for him—“whom thou lovest.”
It has always been true that men who have large inheritances to bequeath have highly prized the privilege of having children. The idea of having great possessions, and dying childless, with no one to perpetuate their names, and their estate falling into the hands of strangers, has always been deeply trying to the feelings of men. It was this that moved Abraham to present such a pathetic lament to the Lord:—
“Lord, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus! And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed; and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir.” Chap. 15:2, 3. (My servant born in my house shall be my heir.—Douay Bible.)
The man whose lot is one of destitution and suffering, who has nothing to leave to his posterity, and no hope of their lot being more tolerable than his own had been, may be reconciled by these considerations to dying childless. The very greatness of the promise, the vast extent of the possession to which he should be heir, greatly added to the anguish of Abraham’s mind. If Isaac is slain, how will the promise be fulfilled? How will his name and house be perpetuated? Who will be his heir? These questions must have come with great weight to his mind, when he received this soul-trying order.
The record in Genesis is so brief that it notices neither the sorrow nor the hope of Abraham. So far as that is concerned we are left to imagine what were his thoughts and feelings. But Paul relieves our anxiety in this respect. In his letter to the Hebrews, 11:17–19, he says:—
“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
Thus it is evident that Abraham had fully given his son to the Lord. So perfectly was he resigned to the order that Isaac was to him as one already slain, and his being saved to him was as if he had been raised from the dead. His faith grasped the resurrection. He had previously been told (Gen. 15) that affliction and oppression, trials and sorrow, should befall his posterity before they possessed the promised land. And by the offering of his only son, and receiving him as one raised from the dead, he was taught also that death and a resurrection were to take place before his seed received the inheritance. This trial of Abraham’s faith, and the apostle’s comment upon it, forever puts at rest the oft-repeated conjecture that the faith of the patriarchs, and of all the faithful of old, did not look beyond temporal blessings—did not grasp the realities of the life to come.
When this trial of Abraham was complete, and his faith in God fully proved, the Lord renewed his promise to bless him, to multiply his seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the seashore—“and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.”
That Abraham’s faith took strong hold of this promise of the land, and that his hope rested on it, is shown by his own words, spoken to his servant when he sent him to the home of his kindred to find a suitable wife for his son Isaac. To the servant’s questionings, he said:—
“The Lord God of Heaven, which took me from my father’s house, and from the land of my kindred, and which spake unto me, and that sware unto me, saying, Unto thy seed will I give this land; he shall send his angel before thee, and thou shalt take a wife unto my son from thence.” Gen. 24:7.
We have now passed entirely through the history of Abraham, his death being recorded in the next chapter. But it is necessary to ascertain what was said to Isaac and Jacob, inasmuch as Paul says they were “heirs with him of the same promise.” Heb. 11:9.
There was a famine in the land, and it appears that Isaac thought to go to Egypt.
“And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Gen. 26:24.
Here the promise is not only referred to, but renewed to Isaac in the very same terms. To him and to his seed, also, the land should be given; and to him, and through him, the promises to Abraham should be fulfilled.
Jacob, at the solicitation of his mother, was sent to her kindred to take a wife. On his journey, he saw in a dream a ladder reaching from earth to heaven:
“And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth; and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Gen. 28:13, 14.
Here the same promise of the land is given to Jacob and to his seed. And before his death, as he blessed Joseph and his sons, he spoke of the promise, saying:—
“God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people: and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.” Gen. 48:3, 4.
Having now examined the entire record of the promises to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we confidently appeal to the reader that the possession of the land is the burden of the promises made unto these, “the fathers” of the tribes of Israel. And reading these promises carefully we are greatly surprised that this truth has been so generally lost sight of by the Christian world. And, to test the importance of this point, we ask the reader to turn back and read again all the promises to these patriarchs, leaving out all that refers to the gift of the land; and see what there is left. It will then be readily perceived that, in so doing, great injustice has been done to the word of the Lord, and “the covenant of promise” is robbed of an essential element.
But if this course would do violence to the record of the Abrahamic covenant, is it not doing equal violence to the covenant itself, and thereby doing injustice to the faithfulness of God, to reject the promise of the land from the fulfillment of the covenant? We think in this respect there is a fault in the current theology of the age, and a defect in the faith of very many of those who profess to be “the children of Abraham.”
But some suppose there are reasons why this part of the covenant should be passed over in this dispensation. This branch of the subject must next be examined.
(To be Continued.)