Waking Up Divinity by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 5, 1912

Waking Up Divinity

By C. M. S.

ONE of the most popular preachers of the present day is Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis; and his utterances receive as much attention as any minister's in America. In an article on the first page of the Examiner (Baptist), under the title "God Abroad," this much-quoted clergyman explains the movements and developments of our day by declaring that "the divinity in man is burning and throbbing. . . . Christ has spoken to the divinity in the peasant's soul, bidden him to awaken from his long slumber, and come forth to his full regency." This is the doctrine of evolution carried to its ultimate. Man has not fallen, but has been struggling upward for ages, and now God is speaking to the divinity in man and waking it up so that man can be like God and take his place among celestial beings. "Ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil," said the great deceiver. "Ye are gods now," says the clerical evolutionist, "only waiting for the arousing of the divinity inherent in you." As Satan's declaration contradicted God and the truth, so does this, which is, in reality, only an echo of his uttered in Eden. On that reef of falsehood, "Ye shall be as God," the human race foundered, and on that same reef in our day Satan would beat to pieces the remnant of the human craft.

Dr. Hillis seems to find no place for the message of God designed for our day. He does not recognize the fulfilled and fulfilling signs which proclaim the end of the age, the dissolution of all things earthly, the coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven, the destruction of the wicked, and the reward of the righteous. These things do not fit into the program of making men into gods. The program of such teachers is this, as expressed by Dr. Hillis:—

"The end of the era has come for the weary, worn millions, and the night of their oppression, too, has passed, and the new day has dawned,—the day of ownership in the land, the day of freedom in labor, the day of open schoolhouse and education, the day of self-government in politics. To-morrow there shall be no more autocrats in Russia, nor bosses in America, but the diffusion of liberty. To-morrow there shall be no more billionaires with special legal privilege, but rather the diffusion of property and bread for all. To-morrow there shall be no more ecclesiastical princes lording it over God's heritage, and holding the keys of death and hell for the ignorant and the weak. No more jails! No more poorhouses! No more saloons, no gallows, and no pauper and suicide! All shall be the sons and daughters of God, who have achieved universal happiness, righteousness, and love in the Father's house, where dwell peace and good will among men."

The Bible presents no such roseate view of our generation. God, who knows the end from the beginning, has warned his children of a time of trouble such as never was. He has faithfully told us of the perils of the last days, when men's hearts will be failing them for fear and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth; when evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived; when the nations will be angry, and the wrath of God will descend; when the heavens and the earth will be on fire, the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein will be burned up; and when the saints of God will enter upon their final reward so long ago promised in Christ. For all these things the clerical evolutionist has no place. To him all centers in man, and through the unfolding of the divinity in man all that is to be will be. Through that deception Satan purposes to blind the eyes of mankind to the real situation, that as many as possible may be caught in his snare and carried to perdition with him. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness." For years the message that would save the people of this generation from that deception has been going to the world; and one by one they are coming out of darkness into the blessed light of the full gospel. One day the dawn will break, the opening heavens will reveal the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The greatest disappointment and sorrow that has ever come into the lives of millions will come into their lives on that day. The summer is past, the harvest is ended, and their souls are not saved.

But into the lives of others will break the greatest joy and rejoicing they have ever known. All the trials of life are ended forever; the conflicts are past; sin, with him who instigated it, is forever swept out of the universe of God; and the angels of the Lord bear the loyal children of God into the presence of the One who laid aside his glory and died to redeem them. That day of separation from all that has caused sorrow and defilement, and of union with all that is good and joyous and enduring, is near at hand. That being true, how important that we refuse to permit ourselves to be deceived by any of the devices of that evil one who has wrought such havoc, and whose end is so soon to be.

C. M. S.