Was Paul Mistaken? by Adelaide D. Wellman

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 13, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 27.

Was Paul Mistaken?

By Adelaide D. Wellman

SOME superficial readers of the Bible have concluded that Paul expected the second advent of Christ in his time. As evidence that the great apostle cherished that fallacious hope, reference is sometimes made to 1 Thess. 4: 15, where he uses the expression, "We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord."

A more correct understanding will be gained of the import of the pronoun "we" in this text, if we note its use in certain other instances. Thus Isaiah, prophesying seven hundred years beforehand of the Saviour's first advent, wrote: "When we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. . . . We hid as it were our faces from Him. . . . We esteemed Him not."

Lest any should be disposed to maintain that both these Bible writers misapprehended the chronology of the events they predicted, let us observe the positive assertion of Paul in 2 Thess. 2: 2, 3, that the coming of Christ was not then near.

It is not unusual for present-day writers and speakers to class themselves with those whom they address. An instance of this sort occurs in the preceding paragraph, where, by way of inviting the attention of the reader to a scripture, the writer says, "Let us observe." ADELAIDE D. WELLMAN.