THE MODERN IDEA | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 50.

THE MODERN IDEA.

NO ONE CONVERSANT with the trend of things in the church can be ignorant of the fact that the phase of rationalism called modern thought is playing havoc with those doctrines which have been universally received by the church and upon which the faith and wisdom of the church has set the seal of accredited truth. It is marvelously strange how widespread are false views of Christ, his atonement, the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. These truths, always regarded as fundamental, are feebly held now by many who ought to be rooted and grounded in the faith. Views always rejected by the great body of believers as unscriptural, are deferred to without scrutiny or protest.

Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of the Christian Union and pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, says: "I accept the Apostles' Creed, though I give to the phrase resurrection of the body the modern interpretation."

In explanation of this modern idea he says:—

The modern doctrine repudiates this idea of a literal resurrection of the flesh. Yet it holds that the spirit has in another world some sort of organism through which it acts and by which it has its connection with the material universe. What that organism is and how it operates no one pretends to know. Swedenborg held that there is in the human body a spiritual body, and that this spiritual organism rises at death, so that the soul is not yet clothed with an immortal tabernacle. This is one form of the modern doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In a sentence, then, the modern doctrine of the resurrection of the body, so far as that doctrine is in any form intelligently held, is that the spirit has in the other life a spiritual organism, and that this spiritual organism has some sort of connection, not by us understood, with the material organism which it possessed upon the earth.

It is one of the marvels of this age how the broad, deep, pure current of orthodoxy has, almost in a moment, plunged and lost itself in the shallows and sands of the worst forms of heterodoxy. It is a subject worthy of the profoundest study to ascertain the process and causes of this wonderful metamorphosis. But so it is. Mr. Spurgeon waked up all at once and found that the old reliable Baptist bark in which he had sailed with a through ticket had veered invisibly from her course, changed the port of entrance, and was bearing under a full head of steam and sail into a strange and unfriendly port. He got off at the first point at which they touched, and tacked to get back to the port of his departure, but he had much trouble, had to weather many a big tempest and fearful breaker. He did not propose to be bound hand and foot and delivered over body and soul to rationalism, Unitarianism, or Universalism—though it were immersed.

These modern ideas are not modern, they are as old as Christianity and as heterodox as they are old. But we do not oppose them because they are new, neither do we reject them because they are hoary reprobates. We put no store by the modern idea, no special store by the ancient idea, but we do put store, all the store that we have, by the Bible idea. We measure all that is old and all that is new by that infallible standard, and whatever is old or whatever is new which does not agree with that, we say let it be accursed, and he who bids it Godspeed is partaker in its sin.

Is this modern idea the Bible idea? How vague and intangible this modern idea! How strange that the human mind in its pride should reject as unworthy of credence the Bible idea and yet gulp down with greediness the unintelligible, dreamy vagaries of Swedenborg or those of his modern disciples! The Bible doctrine of a literal resurrection of the body, in contrast with these visionary and super-ethereal views, commends itself to reason as well as to faith. The idea that pervades the Bible is the idea of a literal resurrection of the earthly body. This body that has been a partner with the spirit in its obedience and faith, or its partner in its sin, will be partner in the honors and rewards of the future life, or a partner in its shame and punishment.

The same body laid in the grave is to come forth; the weakness is to put on strength, its corruption put on incorruption. This comforting and hopeful doctrine, which has been the support of martyrs and saints, which has inspired their efforts, quickened their faith, wiped away their tears, relieved the bitterness of death, and triumphed over the grave, is to be relinquished for this modern idea, which for practical Christian use is as profitless and vain as "Æsop's Fables" or The "Arabian Nights."

This modern idea is not the creation of men of faith and prayer; it does not spring from meditation on God's word, but in the creation of no faith, or of a feeble, timid faith which has surrendered its hold on revelation and substituted reason, sentiment, or science for the Bible. Like a rudderless ship, they have broken anchorage and are at the sport of the wind and waves, or like travelers who, having forsaken the springs and rivers that lie along their way, vainly cover their desert with the mirage, which turns the glowing sand into fancied life-giving waters, which attracts only to elude, which shines only to mock, which exists only to deceive, whose waters are bitterness, despair, and death.—St. Louis Christian Advocate, March 26, 1890.