The Sure Word of Prophecy
By Editor
ELSEWHERE in this issue is a Bible reading on Christ's coming and what it means in the light of prophecy respecting this earth. Our cover page emphasizes the importance of prophecy. The old ruins and monuments of Babylon, of Egypt, of Assyria, of Greece, of Judea, of Rome, bear mighty tho mute witness to the truth of God's Word. More than one hundred years before Babylon, the queen city of Chaldea, reached the height of her glory under her greatest monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, God foretold her doom by His prophet Isaiah: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation." It should be a habitation of wild beasts and noisome creatures. The superstitious Arab would not through fear pitch his tent over its buried palaces; it would be a desolation forever. See Isa. 13:19-22. The very conqueror of the empire is called by name before he is born, and a wealth of particulars is given concerning the doom of that then flourishing kingdom and city. (See Isa. 44:26-28; 45:1-6; Jeremiah 51.) The great heap of ruins by the river Euphrates has borne long and eloquent witness to the truth of prophecy. Not the less true have been the prophecies concerning Nineveh, the great rival of Babylon; and as decidedly have they been fulfilled. Egypt, the fruitful land, fed by the abundance of the Nile, was for centuries the center of world civilization. Her monuments speak of her power, her greatness, her fame, her wealth, her art, her fearful idolatry, her cruelty and wickedness. But the prophet of God declared that the rivers of her great delta would be dried up, her idols would be abolished, her native princes would no more reign over her, and she would become "the basest of kingdoms." Eze. 30:12, 13; 29:15. For centuries Egypt has affirmed in her humiliation the truth of prophecy. So too has Tyre, the merchant city of the older days; and Greece, which fell before the iron monarchy of Rome; and Rome, a prey to Northern barbarians; and Jerusalem, for so long the center of Jehovah's worship, where taught and died the Son of God;—all these and many more, bear witness in their death, their destruction, their decadence, their eloquent ruins, to the truthfulness of prophecy, of its importance to us. For not alone of the past has God spoken; He has spoken of these times and these days; of the present kingdoms of earth and their proud cities. The "sure word of prophecy" is God's light in the midst of uncertain darkness. Shall we, according to the apostles' injunction, give it heed? Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth
A LEAFLET has been sent me containing certain statements to which I am asked to reply. These statements assume to point out errors in our teaching. The most important of these are as follows: 1. That "the Tree of Life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil were literal trees bearing literal fruit, and that the Tree of Life has been taken up into heaven, and will eventually be replaced on the earth a literal tree." 2. That "the river that watered the Garden of Eden was a literal stream of water with its four natural branches." Gen. 2:8-17. Not very serious charges, surely. Now in the first place the earth was literal, the man was literal, the garden out of which grew every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food was literal, as indeed were the man's sight, appetite, and food. It would be an utterly incongruous thing to put a spiritual tree in the midst of literal ones. God uses parables and metaphors, and a hundred other figures of speech, but they are consistent. While it is not expressly said that the Tree of Life, etc., were planted in Eden, it is clearly implied. They were among the trees. The "also" does not mean that the Tree of Life was placed there also, but that this tree was singled out as in the midst of the garden with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In the second place, we find trees with wonderful potencies for good and evil now. If God wished to place in one tree that which would prolong physical life to the obedient, we see no reason in the world why He could not do so, and the Bible clearly teaches that He did. So with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is utterly impossible, and so highly preposterous, for mortal, sinful man to reason what could not be before sin entered. In the third place, the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not God's law; God's command was concerning that tree, not the tree. The laity among the children of Israel were forbidden to eat of the holy things, but the holy things were not the law. God wished men to learn what was good and what was evil solely by His commands and prohibitions, not by experience in evil. The evil came because of man's disobedience. According to our critic the eating of God's law brought sin. So have not His children found the eating of the bread of life. The test was very simple yet comprehensive; but it was as effective, as decisive as one much more elaborate. It involved almost every principle, if not every principle, of the Decalogue. In the fourth place, the second chapter of Genesis is just as literal as the first. The first is general from beginning to the third verse of chapter 2. Chapter 2:4-24 is particular as regards the first pair. Lastly, upon this point, the tradition of the Jews seems to be that the Garden of Eden was translated to heaven. See 2 Esdras 7:26. There is but one Tree of Life mentioned in the Bible, and everywhere it is "the Tree of Life." It is not unreasonable to believe that God removed it to His holy heaven, whence it will come again, the center of a sinless earth. Regarding the river of Eden, there is every reason to believe it as literal as the earth and the Garden of Eden. Of course it did not flow the way rivers do now. Our kind of rivers, since the Deluge, begin away up in the hills and mountains, grow larger by numerous tributaries as they flow on; and while they do much good, yet they do evil also by taking much of the richness of the soil and depositing it finally in the great salt sea. Not so the original stream. It welled up at earth's center, divided into four streams, and kept continually subdividing, somewhat as man seeks to imitate in his best irrigating systems, till the whole earth was watered, and waste there was none. At the Deluge the whole cosmos, or arrangement, of the world was changed. "Whereby [the Deluge] the world [cosmos] that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." 2 Peter 3:6. Therefore it is utterly impossible for men now to fix the place of the Garden of Eden. In the new earth we shall return to the divine system of irrigation. Up from the throne of God on Mount Zion will well the perennial fountain, parting into different streams, till all the earth is watered in its onward flow. All our critic's objections may be as easily answered. He wrongly divides the Word of Truth.