The Healing Message by Prof. L. A. Reed

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 18, 1910

The Healing Message

By Prof. L. A. Reed

It is a matter of history that during the Dark Ages God's church was not at all the power she had been in the days of the apostles. As predicted in prophecy, the woman, the church, had been driven into the wilderness, to remain there in seclusion 1260 years.

But at length the light broke amidst the darkness. True to the promise of God, the two witnesses, the Word of God composed of Old and New Testament, were again to be exalted to heaven. God had a message for His humiliated, overburdened church — a message of hope, a message of healing.

Babylon

The church which had been corrupted during these ages of oppression God calls Babylon. This name had been given to the people of the earth at the time of the confusion of the tongues at the building of the tower of Babel. The word means "confusion," and aptly designated the confused condition when the workmen, not understanding one another, had to cease the united work of building.

So in figure the word Babylon is applied to the church in which a confusion of religious belief and conduct exists. This is plain enough from the one scripture, "Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great. . . . Come forth, My people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." Rev. 18:2, 4. It is thus apparent that God's people are in Babylon, and that He calls them forth; that it is a place where sin exists, and in time God's judgments will be visited upon it. There is no city or nation by the name of Babylon that could be meant by this prophecy; for Babylon the city and nation have been inconsequential for ages, and even years antedating the Christian era.

The Reformation Message

And so to the Lord's sin-laden church comes the message of reformation. It began in the time of Luther and other noble men of God who took their stand upon the pure Word of God. Had the good work thus begun continued until our day, Babylon would have been healed, unity would have taken the place of confusion, harmony would have conquered discord.

But the work did not continue. The message from God's Word was not followed out in all its fulness. Men became followers of men and of men's teachings rather than the followers of the Word. "We would have healed Babylon," says the Lord, "but she is not healed; forsake her." Jer. 51:9.

To heal Babylon could mean only to bring unity out of her confusion. But to unify Babylon means to bring all God's children to a unity of the faith. And this unity of the faith can come only by all accepting the standard given in the Word.

Thus we get unity in the commercial world when all accept the standard weights and measures, and all buy and sell by the one standard.

The Only Standard Requisite

And similarly we can have unity of belief and practise in the church, only by one standard. Manifestly this standard can not emanate from any human being. We can not take the standard of even a Luther and call ourselves Lutherans, for example, without being in confusion. Luther followed the light he had, but he did not have all the light. He came out, far out, from the darkness of the Dark Ages, the errors of the Papacy; but there was to be continual advancement by his disciples until they arrived at a pure faith.

Practically all that the adherents of Luther and Wesley and others saw of light from the Word, was the great doctrine of righteousness by faith. And while in a sense this is all the light, yet, so understood, it comprehends all the Word of God. And the followers of that doctrine did not follow out all its meanings into all parts of the great Book of God.

That message, that healing message, comprehended much that God's people have failed to receive. They have not walked out in the full light of the Gospel message. We will enumerate some of the points which that message covers. We will enumerate some of the conditions which God by this Word would have healed.

Healing Is Needed

1. First there is the great light which the Word sheds upon the creative act. God made the world in six days. So viewed, we see the almightiness of God's Word which speaks the world and all therein into existence. This truth fully grasped and fully kept is the bulwark against all scientific speculation and agnosticism whatsoever.

2. This truth is directly connected with a memorial that can not be ignored if the first truth would be retained. God made this world in six ordinary days, and, that man might never forget it, set His Sabbath, the seventh day, to mark off all future six days, and end these six days by a weekly cycle. Thus time forever bears impression from God of what He did in time at the beginning of the world. Not to observe the day which memorializes God's creative power is to question, sooner or later, the might of that creative power. In refusing to observe the day thus sanctified by the work and Word of God, the people of God, vast hosts of them, are turning from that Word and that mighty power that worked then and works still, and are turning to the fables of science and false philosophy.

3. But the world at large, the vast majority of God's professed children included, have taken the word of scientists who say that God did not make the world in six ordinary days; that the world was ages in progressive building, and power at any time exercised was therefore proportionately less. And so there is by them seen no need to observe the seventh day, which alone commemorates that power. But this has brought them a step further, where, having rejected the miracle of creation, they are ready to reject all miracles and all miraculous working. This means the rejection of the divinity of Christ, and the failure to receive His sin-conquering power into the life. And all these errors the acceptance of the Gospel message would have prevented.

4. And the Gospel, in presenting the divinity of Christ, presents Him as Creator and as Redeemer; and thus the creative power of God and His redeeming power are seen to be one and the same. And thus the Gospel message brings healing and unity to all who receive it.

5. This light upon the work and nature of Christ, fully followed, leads us to the knowledge of His present office and work in the heavenly sanctuary. This leads away from the error of placing the complete atonement at the cross, and saves from the two extremes of Universalism and Calvinism. God neither saves all sinners nor does He elect any for damnation. Even so we are saved from confusion; that is, from Babylon.

6. But this light upon the office and work of Christ in the heavenly sanctuary saves from the mistake of supposing that the saints are rewarded at death. And this in turn shows us that death is not an entrance immediately into life. Thus the nature of man is comprehended. Thus the fact of immortality only through Christ is discerned. Thus the punishment of the wicked is comprehended.

7. And we may further say, out of this understanding of the recompense of saints and sinners, which is but a full understanding of the sacrificial work of Christ, a right understanding of the second advent is gained, and the true setting of all events connected with it are closely and distinctly arrayed before the mind. Thus wrong teachings regarding the millennium and regarding Jewish restoration and age-to-come teachings are eradicated.

The One Remedy

By this view of God's work and Word as presented by the Gospel, we see the unity of that Word and work for every age. The first advent was not an abrupt change in the work of God, but an unfolding of His work. The appearance of Christ was the fulfillment, the budding flower from the Old Testament stem. And this same unity of thought and purpose comes into the lives of the believers. The unity of the Word and the unity of the Spirit are exemplified in a unity of belief and conduct.

And this unity of belief and conduct on the part of God's children — this oneness of mind and character, the oneness of Christ's mind and character — puts them at once out of Babylon, which is confusion, into Christ, who is unity and harmony forevermore.

"We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her." "Come forth, my people, out of her." "Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be to you a Father, and ye shall be to Me sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."