PROFOUND LOGIC by D. A. Robinson

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 10, 1879

PROFOUND LOGIC.

By D. A. Robinson

Dr. Talmage recently preached a sermon on, “Shall we know each other in Heaven?” His text was, “I shall go to him,” being a part of the twenty-third verse of 2 Sam. 12. We make some quotations from it:—

“There is a very sick child in the abode of David the king. Disease, which stalks up the dark lane of the poor, and puts its smothering hand on the lip and nostril of the man and master, also knocks at the palace door, and, bending over the pillow, blows into the face of a young prince the frosts of pain and death. . . . He (David) wipes away the tears from his eyes, and clears the choking grief from his throat, and exclaims, ‘I shall go to him.’ Was David right or wrong?”

Answer: David was right; but Dr. T. is wrong. Hear him again:—

“Why, we are to be taken up to Heaven at last by ministering spirits. Who are they to be? Souls that went up from Madras, or Antioch, or Jerusalem? Oh, no; our glorified kindred are going to troop around us.” Again he says: “We will come down to the river of death, and give a signal to our friends on the other shore, and they will give a signal back to us; and the boat comes, and our departed kindred are the oarsmen.”

This is certainly a flowery description of the last enemy, 1 Cor. 15:26. It seems by this learned man’s arguments that the waters of death are not to touch us after all; for we are to be paddled over by our dead friends, who “troop around us,” as the doctor says. These flowery arguments (?) he afterward denies, however, in the following words:—

“And so I see a Christian soul coming down to the river of death, and he steps into the river, and the water comes to the ankle. He says, ‘Lord Jesus, is this death?’ ‘No,’ says Christ, ‘this is not death.’ And he wades still deeper down into the water until the flood comes to the knee, and he says, ‘Lord Jesus, tell me, tell me, is this death?’ and Christ says, ‘No, no; this is not death.’ And he wades still deeper down until the wave comes to the girdle; and the soul says, ‘Lord Jesus, is this death?’ ‘No,’ says Christ, ‘this is not;’ and deeper he wades the soul till the billow strikes the lip, and the departing one cries, ‘Lord Jesus, is this death?’ ‘No,’ says Christ, ‘this is not.’ But when Christ had lifted this soul upon a throne of glory, and the pomp and joy of Heaven came surging to his feet, then said Christ, ‘This, O trembling soul, this is death!’”

Several queries are suggested to our mind from reading the above:—

1. Which position does the learned doctor regard as the true one? Do the departed ones go over in boats escorted by kindred souls, or must they wade through the billows?

2. Is he in doubt as to which is the true position, and so takes both, to be on the safe side?

3. Is the lifting of a “soul upon a throne of glory,” with “the pomp and joy of Heaven surging at its feet,” death? The doctor says it is. Well, if so, what does Paul mean when he says, “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death”? 1 Cor. 15:26.

4. If our departed kindred “troop around us,” what did David mean in the last clause of the verse from which Dr. T. took his text? Verse 23: “But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” Here we find that the doctor squarely contradicts Inspiration, and that, too, in the very verse from which he selects his text.

5. If Christ has lifted David to a “throne of glory,” who can tell us what Peter meant, when, more than a thousand years after the death of David, he said, “For David is not ascended into the heavens”? Acts 2:34.

6. Why did good king Hezekiah “mourn” and have “great bitterness” at the prospect of death, if death is what the doctor describes? It was after the Lord lengthened out the king’s life that he gave utterance to the following words: “Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption. . . . For the grave cannot praise thee; death cannot celebrate thee.”

We quote one paragraph more:—

“We read in the first book of the Bible that Abraham died, and was gathered to his people. Moses died, and was gathered to his people. What people? Why, their friends, their comrades, their old companions. It cannot mean anything else. So in the very beginning of the Bible four times that is taken for granted.”

We notice first the expression, “gathered to his people.” What people? “Their friends,” the doctor says. Very good, and we will say friends very closely related. Proof: “And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace.” Gen. 15:15. Did Abraham go to his fathers? The promise was that he should. Where were his fathers? Dr. T. would answer, “In Heaven.” There is one remarkable fact we discover in examining the character of Abraham’s ancestors that positively forbids such an answer. It is this: Abraham’s ancestors were idolaters. “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor; and they served other gods.” Paul says, “They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” If souls go to their reward at death, then the souls of Abraham’s ancestors must have gone to a place of punishment; and secondly, Abraham must have gone there too; for he was gathered to his fathers. These conclusions legitimately follow from the supposition that the soul is immortal.

What is meant, then, by being “gathered to his people”? Answer: Going to the grave, the common receptacle for all the dead. The Lord says, “Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.” So again he says to king Josiah, “Behold, therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace.” 2 Kings 22:20.

D. A. ROBINSON.