REVIEW OF ELDER RUSSELL'S REMARKS
By M. Hull
SOMETIMES we would gladly shrink from duty, and especially when the performance of a duty would bring our fellow-beings into an unenviable position. Such is the case on the present occasion. Mr. R. affirms that the kingdom spoken of in Dan. ii and vii, was set up on the day of pentecost. This he calls the great entering wedge between Disciples and Adventists. The pentecostal kingdom, then, is the wedge that separates us. Let us examine the testimony produced in its behalf. Allow me to say first that 1. There is no prophecy in the Old Testament which locates the setting up of the kingdom at pentecost. 2. There is no testimony in the New Testament which says that a kingdom was established at that time. 3. But the New Testament most positively contradicts such an idea, by representing the kingdom as yet in the future, this side of the day of pentecost. See Acts xiv, 22. "Ye must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." I greatly marvel how Mr. Russell dare to say that at this time the disciples were in the kingdom, yet he does say so. But I cannot settle questions between him and the apostles. I can only decide that I believe the apostles are on the right side of the question. Again, in 2 Pet. i, 5, 10, the church is admonished to add to their faith virtue, knowledge, temperance, &c., in order to place them on ground where they may never fall. Verse 10. In verse 11, Peter gives the result of adding the things of which he had been speaking, "For so an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." We are not surprised to see Mr. R. rally around this point, and bring all of his artillery to bear here; for with him much is depending upon it. Hear him [Christ. Rec., vol. 4, p. 35]: "If it be true that the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ is already set up, then a certain people called [Dan. v, 18], 'The saints of the Most High,' shall take and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. Again, the kingdom 'shall not be left to other people.' Death causes an entire separation between man and the things of this world. Here the owners of the thrones and kingdoms of this world, of them the possessors, are dispossessed by death. We leave them. Others obtain them. Thus they are left to other people. But this kingdom was not to be 'left to other people.' Very well. Then death is not, and cannot be, an entire cessation of conscious existence with man; else he would, at least for the period between his death and resurrection be dispossessed; for nothing short of consciousness can possess, and being dispossessed for a time, he could not be said to possess it 'forever and ever.'" We have given this lengthy extract in order that Mr. R. might speak for himself. His position is fairly before us. Admitting our position on the kingdom, brings danger from another source: it wrests from his hands a weapon with which he fain would stay the doctrine that "the dead know not anything." Thus more than one of his positions is in jeopardy, through the admission that at the sound of the seventh trumpet "the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ." Rev. xi, 15–18. The position is this: If the kingdom was set up at the day of pentecost, the dead must be alive, or the kingdom would be left to another people. Mr. R. has obtained a great reputation as a logician; but if his is a fair specimen of his logic, he wears laurels to which he is not entitled. This country nearly a century ago was owned by Republicans. Republicans own it now, notwithstanding those who first owned it are dead. Query. Has it been left to other people? Again, according to Mr. R. the kingdom of God was set up at the day of pentecost, and "given to the saints" at that time; and (although those saints have died) the saints possess it yet. Then it could not have been left to other people. The people to whom the kingdom is (or will be) given is the saints [Dan. vii, 18]; and as long as no one but saints is admitted into it, though thousands of saints may die, it cannot be left to other people. So if Mr. R. should succeed in proving that the kingdom was set up at the day of pentecost, it could not affect the question concerning the state of man in death. Eld. R.'s arguments are mainly drawn from a necessity which he supposes he sees for the kingdom to have been established, and not from any positive evidence that the kingdom has been established. Thus he says on p. 36, "If the kingdom is not yet established, then God has no people on earth." Again he says (p. 37), "The kingdom was established in the days of the Roman Cæsars." When we put the two positions together, we can but come to the following conclusion: God had no people on earth prior to the Roman Cæsars. Mr. R. argues that the descendants of Israel were God's people prior to their having been cast off as a nation. Very well. When were they cast off? Ans. At the time that Christ says, "Your house is left unto you desolate." Matt. xxiii, 37, 38. Then, to say the least, from the time Christ uttered the above declaration until the setting up of the kingdom, God "had no people on earth;" for Mr. R. says, "If no men, nation, or kingdom has been established, then God is left without a people." Then until there was a new nation raised up, governed by a new law, which commenced being proclaimed on the day of pentecost, God was without children; and the disciples themselves, while earnestly praying, "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?" were children of the Devil! Mr. Russel next attempts to find a difficulty for us to solve in the following [p. 36]: "If the kingdom is not set up, Jesus Christ is not yet priest; for the time of his becoming priest was not until the time of his sitting on his throne as ruler, i. e., king, and thus be a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec. See Zech. vi, 12. 'Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne.' Now unless Christ is on his throne, he is not priest, and if his kingdom is not yet set up, then his throne is not yet in existence, and his throne being not in existence, he is not priest. . . . No prospect of eternal life through Christ; for nothing can be obtained through him but by virtue of his priestly office; and this not being yet, the entire gospel scheme is a nullity—Christianity a solemn farce. The world is left without one cheering ray of hope, one spark of glimmering day. Such is the legitimate result of the Adventists' theory." Truly the above is a large conclusion to draw from so small a premise; and I can but doubt whether Mr. R. will be able to sustain it. If this text teaches that Christ is to be a priest on his own throne, and is not to be a priest until he gets his own throne, then verily Christ is not a priest now; for he is not now on his own throne. Rev. iii, 21. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." The above testimony being true, Christ is now on his Father's throne, not on his own: and yet Christ is a priest at this time. Heb. viii, 1–5. Hence he can be a priest without being on his own throne, therefore Mr. R.'s objection exists only in his own imagination. The pronoun his, in Zech. vi, 12, refers to the Lord, not to the Branch, or Christ. This application produces a harmony in scripture which cannot otherwise be produced. Mr. R.'s next effort is to show that the saints are now in the kingdom. This he attempts to prove by Heb. xii, 28, and Col. i, 13. I do not believe that these texts are so out of harmony with the numerous scriptures which present the kingdom of God as the reward of God's people, that they cannot be harmonized with them. Hence after quoting a few texts, which cannot be made to teach that the saints are now in the kingdom of God, I shall examine the passages referred to in the foregoing. 1. When the kingdom is set up, Christ promises that "many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matt. viii, 11, 12. Here permit me to propound a few queries. (1.) Did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob take their seats in the kingdom in the day of the Roman Cæsars? (2.) Who came from the east and west and sat down with the patriarchs in the kingdom of God at that time? (3.) Who wept and gnashed their teeth in outer darkness on that occasion? 2. Christ appoints his disciples a kingdom as his Father had appointed to him, and gives them the privilege of eating and drinking at his table in his kingdom, and sitting on thrones and judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Luke xxii, 29, 30. Questions again. (1.) Did the disciples eat and drink with Christ at his table in his kingdom on the day of pentecost? If not, the statement is false, or it remains to be fulfilled in the future. (2.) Did the apostles take their seats on thrones at that time? (3.) At what period in the history of the pentecostal kingdom did the apostles judge the twelve tribes? (4.) Did not the twelve tribes judge the apostles, and put some of them to death? 3. It is said that at the time the Lord comes in the clouds of heaven, he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, then shall all nations be gathered before him, and he shall separate them, &c. Then shall the king say to those on his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Here "the saints take the kingdom" at the coming of the Lord. I apprehend that if Mr. R. is in that company he will respond, "Lord, I have been in the kingdom, lo these many years." 4. When an inspired apostle would give a dying charge to a young minister, he would do it in view of the fact that both the living and the dead are to be judged "at the appearing and kingdom of Jesus Christ." See 2 Tim. iv, 1–4. 5. According to Mr. R.'s position, the saints are now reigning with Christ; but Paul does not so understand it. He says if we suffer we shall reign with him. 2 Tim. ii, 12. Why does not Paul say, We are suffering and reigning with him? Could Mr. R. write a book fully expressive of his faith without saying that Christians are reigning with Christ? I think not. 6. James does not tell the "saints scattered abroad" that they are in the kingdom; but he says, God hath chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, heirs of the kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him." James ii, 5. 7. This promise will be fulfilled at the coming of the Lord. "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them, and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark in their foreheads nor in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." Rev. xx, 4.