p. 93 | QUESTIONS by John Harvey Waggoner

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 18, 1862

QUESTIONS.

By John Harvey Waggoner

ELD. WAGGONER: Will you please answer the following through the Review and Herald, or by letter, and oblige the undersigned?

1. If the righteous are to be translated to heaven at the second coming of Christ, what does Prov. x, 30 mean, which says the righteous shall never be removed?

2. How can Isa. lxv, 20, be harmonized with Rev. xxi, 4? One says that death shall exist in the new earth, the other says it shall not.

3. When is it that Christ is to be a priest upon his throne, as declared in Zech. vi, 13?

Remark. I ask these questions in candor, wishing to know the truth. I am not satisfied with guess-work, as I must be if left to my own judgment in the matter. I am not a member of any religious society, though I have strong Adventist proclivities. I have read your book entitled "The Kingdom of God," but I do not find the above texts treated of, therefore my inquiry.

Yours respectfully. C. N. GILES. Harvard, Ills.

REPLY.

1. I cannot think that Prov. x, 30, indicates that the righteous must be stationary, as a post, as some have inferred. The contrary is directly declared by Paul to the Thessalonians, where he says they shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. I think I have proved in the work to which you allude that when they are caught up they are taken to the mansions on high, where our Saviour is gone, according to his promise John xiii, xiv.

David says, "They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever." Ps. cxxv, 1. This is evidently the idea of the proverb, and denotes their stability on the sure foundation of God's word. The expression, "cannot be removed," can have no more reference to a physical

fact, than the expression, "The Lord is our rock."

2. I am as much at a loss on Isa. lxv, 20, as those who have written on it. In a careful examination of this passage some years since in Wisconsin, with D. P. Hall, who had quoted it in favor of the Age to Come, he frankly said that as it stood in the common version he could not use it for any purpose whatever. I have seen other versions which seem to remove the obscurity, one of which is quoted by Bro. Loughborough in the "Saints' Inheritance," pp. 84, 85, but I am not able to say whether it is reliable or not. In such cases I choose to rest my views on texts that are obvious and undeniable in their import and application.

3. You are mistaken on this point. If you look again you will find that I have treated on Zech. vi, 12, 13, in my work on the kingdom, in the objection examined on pages 59-66. I trust it is made sufficiently clear there, without any additional remark.

I hope that the Spirit of God may be your aid and guide into all truth. J. H. WAGGONER.