WE CANNOT TEAR IT OUT by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 28, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 42.

WE CANNOT TEAR IT OUT.

By Editor

THE Cottage Pulpit is a brave little paper, published at Nashville, Tenn. It is doing good service for the cause of Sabbath truth, and in preaching the gospel as far as it is understood. In its issue of July it has the following:—

Cannot our Seventh-day Adventist friends see that while they are accomplishing a good work for God in the line of Sabbath reform, in contending for the true instead of the false as to the Lord's day, yet in their materialistic, semi-Sadducean, unscriptural doctrine about soul and spirit, their denial of either as possibly separable from the material structure of flesh, bone, and muscle, they practically destroy the new birth, the new being, the Christ? in their effort to head off Rome by making purgatory a moral impossibility, they effectually cut off the Christian's hope in dying, of "departing to be with Christ," as said of the apostle Paul? Peter's assurance that he would shortly "put off this tabernacle," meaning the body and form he received from the earthly Adam? And they make our Lord's promise, "I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am there ye may be also," not to have reference to his being at the bedside of the departing saint to receive—as the dying Stephen said—"my spirit," but to his coming at the end of the world, to "judge the quick and the dead."

1. Now just what our brother means by "materialistic, semi-Sadducean, unscriptural doctrine," we do not know in detail. We will let him define that himself. But that our view—what we believe is the Bible view—of soul and spirit destroys the new birth, we emphatically deny. In fact, the mortality of man, in consequence of sin, is what makes the new birth an absolute necessity. If man is not mortal, if he is by his own inherent powers destined to live forever, why should he need the life of Christ? Why is it necessary that he should be born again? Man sinned, and sin cut him off from God (Isa. 59:1, 2), and, cutting him off from God, it cut him off from the life of God (Eph. 4:18), and doomed him to death, the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23). His only means of obtaining life is through faith in Christ. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life." John 3:36. "And this life is in his Son." 1 John 5:11.

2. This life is inseparably connected with character. All the righteousness we have which is of any worth in God's sight comes through faith in Christ (Rom. 3:22); and this righteousness is wrought in us by the power of his Spirit (Eze. 36:26, 27); and with that righteousness the Spirit brings life (Rom. 8:10). But this Spirit, this new life, is not broken up in various little fragments and distributed among the people of God. God is one. His Spirit is one. His righteousness is one. His life is one. His people are one with him, bound by that one righteousness and life. Eph. 4:3-7; John 17:21-23. And as long as faith holds Christ, it holds the righteousness and life. When the soul dies, his life, his spirit, his character, is committed to God, not, however, as a separate, conscious entity. His character is photographed in his record on high. The care of his sleeping dust rests with God; and when Christ shall come, in whom our life is hid, then will he raise each loved one from the sleep of death, clothe him with immortality, stamp his whole being with his own righteousness, and interfuse his own life. Col. 3:3, 4; Phil. 3:21.

3. We are making no effort to head off Rome. Our work is not negative, but positive. It is to preach the Way, the Truth, the Life, to a world dying in sin. And what makes it more difficult for the world to believe the Truth, the Way, and the Life, is the old falsehood which has been taught from the beginning, that man has life in himself. The great majority, therefore, reason: If we cannot die, if we are destined to live forever, we know that a just and merciful God will not doom us to an eternity of torment for "the deeds done in the body." Truly does the Lord say to those who perpetuate the old prolific falsehood: "Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and [with lies ye have] strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life." And the saddest of all

is that this error should be taught by those who are earnestly endeavoring to teach the precious truth of the gospel.

4. The "being with Christ" was what Paul chose in preference to either life or death. He says of life and death that which he should choose he did not know, but he preferred a third thing, and that was to "be with Christ," which is far better than either life or death. See Phil. 1:21-23. The faithful will be with Christ when he shall come the second time. See 1 Thess. 4:15-17; Matt. 16:27; Phil. 3:20, 21.

5. Yes, we make our Lord's promise, "I will come again and receive you unto myself," just what he made it,—a promise of the coming back again of the "same Jesus" which the disciples saw ascend. See Acts 1:9-11. Christ's coming meant life to Lazarus. "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died," said the mourning sisters. But Jesus came, and he lived again. Death is the fruit of sin and Satan, the enemy of God. Christ does not represent himself in that way. Neither did his disciples understand his coming to mean that. When Jesus intimated that John might abide till he came again, they thought John would never die (John 21:22, 23); they never would have thought thus if they had supposed that Christ's coming meant death.

Says our brother again:—

We pray you, Seventh-day Adventist friends and brethren, as you love truth and hate falsehood, tear out that plank from your platform of faith! We do not say, Stand with Rome, or anywhere near them, or with Protestants who do; but we say, Stand with Peter and Paul, stand with Stephen, the protomartyr, stand with JESUS! Recognize that something called the spirit of a man, as these did, two of them, our Lord and his martyred servant, with their dying breath!

We cannot tear that out. Our faith is in Christ. Our platform is the rock of his truth. The only platform of faith is God's word. He who builds on any other, builds on presumption. We may say, "I believe it not," but the word still stands. Life is not in us, but in Christ. That life is not a conscious entity, but the vital energy of God, which makes his creature, man, a living, conscious, intelligent entity. That life, if we die, we commit to the great Source of life. That life, if we live, blooms into immortality at His coming.