The Unchanging Word

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

The Unchanging Word.

“The word of the Lord endureth forever.”

Our words come and go. We ourselves are always changing, and what was a genuine effusion of our hearts at one period of our history, may be no true index of our feelings afterward. And circumstances vary. We find that we have been deceived in our estimate of character, and people turn out so different from what we took them once to be. The consequence is, that many of our past sayings are now a dead letter; and when reminded of an old promise, we are apt to feel that, were it to be repeated, we should not make that promise now. But not so with the precious word of our Heavenly Father, inviting to repentance and offering pardon; and when he proclaimed the fullest and freest gospel to our world, he did not feel more propitious toward sinners of our race than he is feeling now. No crime has evolved so tremendous as to modify the saying, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin;” so no transgression has arisen so gigantic as to limit the divine forgiveness, or to form an exception in the divine and world-embracing “whosoever.” Among all the utterances of the Most High, and all the declarations of that faithful witness, his incarnate Son, there is not one which has faded into inanity or grown a dead letter; but, like the wise, holy, and unchanging Speaker, each is a faithful saying—a lively oracle—vital with divine significance—like God himself, a word that liveth and endureth forever.