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THIS GOSPEL

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 2, 1878

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 51, No. 18.

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“THIS GOSPEL.”

By Albert Stone

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
Does this text refer to the general preaching of the gospel during the centuries of the past, or to a particular phase of the gospel that would be necessary to meet the requirements of the people of God at a particular time? It seems to us the latter.
The object of the passage is to show the time of the second advent. Taking the former view, its force seems to be lost. The sound of the gospel went into all the world in the days of the apostles. Rom. 10:8. Since that time it has made the circuit of the earth, giving a second and more full testimony. According to the former view, two periods eighteen hundred years apart are given for the advent.
We think the passage applies to the preaching of John the Baptist, and of the twelve and the seventy apostles. They were sent to prepare the way of the Lord’s first advent; but the particular phase of the gospel which they preached, though absolutely necessary at that time, would be inappropriate and unfitting after the death of Christ. Their preaching was limited to Judea and to the Jews, and differed, in many particulars, from the preaching that was to follow the resurrection of Christ. The first was to introduce to the Jewish nation the Messiah of the prophecies; the second was to go into all the world, and carry the good news of a crucified and risen Saviour to the perishing nations of the earth. The teaching of Christ, in this passage, seems to be that the message of John would cease at the cross, having performed its office for that time, but would be taken up again just before the second coming of Christ, and become the voice of him that crieth, not in Judea simply, but in the wilderness of all the world, to prepare the way of the Lord in his second coming to judge the world. John came in the spirit and power of Elijah, to proclaim the first advent of Christ, and is a fitting representative of those who shall go forth in the spirit and power of Elijah, to herald the day of wrath, and the second advent of Christ.
The three angels’ messages of Rev. 14, now being proclaimed, are the Heaven-appointed counterpart of the preaching of John in Judea. As a whole, it is the most dignified and important message that God has ever sent to man. In the first instance it tested the character and decided the fate of the Jews. In the second, it will test the character and decide the fate of the last generation of men.
God did not reject the Jews when they persecuted and killed his prophets, but when, last of all, he sent his Son from Heaven to save them, and they rejected and crucified him, he gave them up to their strong delusions, to believe a lie, and to drink the bitter cup of retribution. Never had unbelief been so bold and defiant. Theirs was the most astounding rejection of God’s revealed truth that ever had been. To them, it was a matter of infinite moment; yet with the proofs before them, they incurred the guilt of setting them aside. No other people had rejected so great light, no other people have endured so great punishment.
Such was the experience of the Jews in rejecting the first edition of the gospel of the kingdom.
What shall be the experience of the church and people of the Gentile world under the second edition? The history of the Jews is revealed as a warning to us upon whom the ends of the world are come. They would not improve upon the light given them, but instead, endeavored to extinguish it. They found an unequal warfare in fighting against God. Will a repetition of this warfare, under greater light, be more successful? If they fell through unbelief, can we stand without faith? Will not the same law that condemned them, condemn us if we are guilty of the same sins?
The Jews, as a nation, had their last call. Will not the world have their last call? What if the present call, as it purports, should prove to be the last? What valid evidence is there that it is not? Is the fact that the majority disbelieve, good evidence? Then the warning given through Noah to the Old World was a false alarm; and the preaching of John to the Jews was a myth. After the examples of the past, have men yet to learn that unbelief is not a saving ordinance? If not, then let us no longer practically regard it as such.
ALBERT STONE.