Five Negatives by Nevins

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 20, 1863

Five Negatives.

By Nevins

It is known that two negatives in English are equivalent to an affirmative. They destroy each other. But it is not so in Greek. They strengthen the negation; and a third negative makes it stronger still, and so a fourth and a fifth. How strong five negatives must make a negation! But do five ever occur? Whether they ever occur in the Greek classics, I do not know; but in the Greek of the New Testament there is an instance of the kind. And what is that? Are the five negatives used to strengthen any threatening? No. They are connected with a promise, one of the "exceeding great and precious promises," which are given unto us. The case occurs in Heb. xiii, 5, "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." There five negatives are employed. We translate but two of them; but there they all are, as any one may see who looks into his Greek Testament. Now, they need not all have been there. They are not all necessary to express the simple idea that God will never forsake his people. There must have been design in multiplying negatives so. I do not believe the phraseology was accidental, and I think it not difficult to guess the design. God meant to be believed in that thing. He would secure the confidence of his children in that particular. He knew how prone they were to doubt his constancy—how strongly inclined to that form of unbelief—and how liable to be harassed by the dread of being forsaken by him; and he would therefore have assurance more than doubly sure. So, instead of saying simply, "I will not leave thee," which alone would have been enough, he adds, "nor forsake thee;" and instead of leaving it thus, "I will not leave thee, I will not forsake thee," he uses language equivalent to the following: "I will not, I will not leave thee; I will never, never, never forsake thee." There is a stanza, which very faithfully as well as beautifully, expresses it:

"The soul that on Jesus hath lean'd for repose, I will not, I will not desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, no never forsake."

How in earnest God appears to be in this matter! How unworthy it is in his children, after such an assurance as this, to suspect that he will forsake them! He cannot. It is impossible for God to lie. Here one who was never known to break his word, assures his people, each of them individually, and five times over in a single sentence, of his continued presence with them. Under similar circumstances, what man of reputed veracity would be discredited? and shall not the God of truth be believed in a like case?—Nevins.