p. 84 | THE FAITH OF JESUS by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 2, 1860

THE FAITH OF JESUS.

By Editor

To THE EDITOR OF THE Review: It is with great pleasure that I take this opportunity of addressing you who are striving to "keep all the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." I have for some time, say a year or more, been a constant reader of the Review, and have longed for it from week to week. I approve of many of its points, and especially the point of Sabbath-keeping. I noticed in your paper recently an article from M. Hull, with a note attached, in which you said, "Bro. H. has passed over the Seventh-day Baptists, who profess to keep both the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, although we cannot regard them, as a people, as coming up to the standard of the latter."

I have been a member of the Seventh-day Baptist church some time, and have always kept the Sabbath, and will you state wherein the Seventh-day Baptists do not keep the faith of Jesus? I am a seeker after truth, and if I am in an error, please point that error out to me, and I will at once reject it. I was never acquainted fully with the principles of the Seventh-day Second Adventists, and would like to have them, wherein they differ from other Seventh-day Christians.

You are aware, of course, that we have a small congregation in New York city, consisting probably of fifty or seventy-five regular attendants. Our pastor is a good old man. He preaches the real, genuine gospel; not the popular topics of the day, but Christ and him crucified. The reasons you know, why we do not have a larger congregation of Sabbath-keepers in a city, especially such a money-seeking city as New York. Many young men have left their country residences and come to New York to make their fortunes, and not finding it so easy to get worldly goods by keeping the Sabbath, they stretch their consciences to anything, and abandon the holy day. "May my right hand lose his cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth," ere I forsake the commands of God for worldly lusts.

Yours in love of truth.

JOHN M. MOSHER.

N. Y. City, Jan. 21st, 1860.

REMARKS. We meant to assert nothing dogmatically in the note above referred to; and by the insertion of the clause "as a people," we intentionally left open a wide door for many noble exceptions as we trust there are. By the faith of Jesus we mean the doctrine inculcated by him and his apostles in the New Testament; and if we rightly understand, many of the tenets held by the S. D. Baptists as a denomination, if weighed in that balance would be found wanting. We speak now simply of matters of belief, and not of failures in daily life to come up to that standard which all would admit to be binding, and to which we all should many times have to plead guilty.

Wherein then does the belief of this people differ from the teaching of the Saviour and his apostles? We need not specify every point wherein we think a difference exists; a few only will be sufficient for our purpose, if they shall justify the position we have taken.

First. The Saviour pointed his disciples, as the great object of their hope, to the time when he should personally return. "Let not your heart be troubled," said he as he was about to leave his church, "I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also." Thus the only hope he ever held out to his disciples of being with him was through the medium of his personal return. But the theology of modern times would have us reach this result in a far different manner. Through death, by which a deathless spirit rises to a higher life, that would usher the righteous into their heaven of bliss, and the wicked to their place of doom. But the Bible too plainly connects the saints' reward with the coming of Christ, to be ignored or overlooked; and therefore to restore an apparent harmony between the great text-book of belief and the thing believed, we are told by some that death is the coming of Christ.

But can this be so? We can state on the authority of angels that he is to come in the same manner as he went into heaven. He went up bodily and visibly, and a literal cloud received him out of their sight. Acts i, 9-11. Visibly and bodily, then, in the clouds of heaven, must he return. When he comes his appearance is to be like the lightning flashing from the east even unto the west, and every eye shall see him, and the great trump of the archangel shall sound, and the angels shall be sent to gather the elect from the four winds of heaven, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of him. Is it such a scene as this that transpires in the darkened chamber of a dying man, when the pulse of life is slowly ebbing out, and nothing is to be seen either going or coming? But more than this, we are directly told how the disciples understood this matter; and it would seem that with every Protestant, their decision should be final. Speaking of one of his disciples, the Saviour said, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." The disciples immediately passed their judgment upon the import of these words; and we read that the saying went abroad among them [what? that that disciple should die, and so experience the coming of his Lord? No, but] that that disciple should not die. So the disciples believed that whosoever should tarry till the Lord should come, would not die. If we err in taking the same position, we have at least the consolation of being in illustrious company.

Three facts are here established: first, the coming of the Lord is to be personal and visible in the clouds of heaven; second, that coming is yet future for nothing of the kind has taken place since the first advent; and third, the saints have no promise of being with him previous to that event. If this is the true "faith of Jesus," it follows that the prevailing belief on these subjects, at the present time, with which we are not aware that the views of the S. D. Baptists greatly differ, cannot be designated by that appellation.

Second. The Saviour has given us the signs of his coming, and told us when we might be looking for that event; and the apostles predicted for the last days a great declension in piety and increase of iniquity, saying that the love of many should wax cold, and wicked men and seducers grow worse and worse, as the immediate precursor of the coming of the Son of man. The signs in the sun, moon and stars which our Saviour foretold have come to pass, and who can look about him and say that the moral and political aspects of the world do not fulfill the remaining predictions to the very letter? We are thus taught to look for this great event as now imminent, being near even at the doors. But what says the church? Are they looking for any such thing? No; for the return of the Jews must first take place, the world must be converted, and a thousand years of peace and prosperity and holiness intervene before that event. The world is thus lulled into the expectation of peace and safety, while destruction cometh upon the wings of the wind [see 1 Thess. v, 3]; effort is directed to an illegitimate object; and by being thus unscripturally and indefinitely applied, is wholly lost when it might be concentrated to the salvation of some. This we consider a great departure from the faith of Jesus.

Again: The great doctrine of the resurrection of the body, upon which the apostles and apostolical Christians hung their only hope of a future life [1 Cor. xv], is rendered wholly useless by the modern teaching of the consciousness of man in death; for if at death the righteous enter the presence of God where there is fullness of joy, and the wicked descend to their place of punishment, what need is there of a resurrection? Let this question be pondered well, and a scriptural reply be given if one can be found. It has many times been asked, and has hitherto gone unanswered. Another departure, if we mistake not, from the faith of Jesus.

We are moreover taught in the word of God to look for a coming and general day of judgment. "He hath appointed a day," says the apostle, "in which he will judge the world in righteousness." Acts xvii, 31. This doctrine is also done away by the prevailing belief; for if the righteous enter upon their reward at death, and the wicked upon their punishment, judgment must have then been passed in their cases; for reward or punishment cannot legitimately follow till judgment has been pronounced. And then the vital query arises, What need is there, in this case, of the future day of judgment which God has appointed? There is none; and the doctrine that such a day will come, can only be defended on the ground that the first judgment was liable to mistakes, and it would require another to correct its errors; which would be blasphemous. Is not here a wide departure from the faith of Jesus?

Again: When Jesus ascended he gave gifts unto men. See Eph. iv; 1 Cor. xii. The gifts of the Spirit were set in the church. These were the only legitimate means for the consolidation of the body, the only legitimate means to bring them into the unity of the faith. But these have been, and still are, ignored by the church. They are held to be exclusive accompaniments of what is called the apostolic age; hence at the present time christendom presents the sad spectacle of about 666 divisions.

There is also an ordinance which our Lord instituted for his church as brought to view in the xiiith of John 1-17, which is now generally neglected by his professed people.

We have thus noticed a few positions differing widely, as we think, from the plain teaching of our Lord and his apostles, and which we believe the S. D. B. church hold in common with other denominations. We regard these doctrines as of the same piece with Sunday-keeping, and have long thought that the glorious truth of the Sabbath of the Lord, was worthy of a purer theology and the companionship of better views. We have therefore been gratified to see the subjects of the coming and reign of Christ, and the nature and destiny of unconverted men, arresting the attention of our brethren of the S. D. Baptists, and to see the scriptural view of them set forth in their organ, the Sabbath Recorder. And if that sheet shall ever be closed against the free utterance of such sentiments we shall view it with deep regret. If we have erroneously attributed any of the views above mentioned to the Seventh-day Baptists as a body, by which we mean the majority of their members, we shall be happy to be corrected.