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Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 13.

The Print of the Nails

Review and Herald

Apr 1, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Apr 1, 1909

The Print of the Nails

By David Reed Miller

When you speak with the love of the Lord on your lips, And the cross with your conscience prevails; When your song with the pathos of Calvary drips, Can you show Him the print of the nails? For the print of the nails is the Nazarene's test Of your service as well as His own; 'Tis the unfailing test that excels all the rest, As you work from the cross to the throne.
His voice calls to-day for the true and the tried, For the service that evil assails; For the friends who are willing to stand by His side, But He calls for the print of the nails! O the print of the nails is the Nazarene's test, 'Tis the proof of your fellowship dear; Can you go to the cross with the things you love best And show Him the marks of the spear?
I know that you long to be true to His name, And to serve with a faith that ne'er fails; To stand in your lot, be it glory or shame, Though it bring you the print of the nails.
Then tell me, my friend, what is that in thine hands? Are the scars of your sacrifice there? Have you yielded your life to the Saviour's commands? Are you true to the name that you bear?
O the print of the nails is the mark that ne'er fails! Is thy fellowship true? Has His blood won for you? Then where is the print of the nails? — David Reed Miller, in the United Presbyterian.

The Work and the Workers

By Editor

A SECOND edition of the “1909 Year Book” is on the press. Place your order at once. Price, 25 cents.
“CHRIST’S SECOND COMING” is one of the best tracts which we publish on the signs of Christ’s soon coming, from a Bible view-point. Price, $2 a hundred; 24 cents a dozen; post-paid.
THE retail value of our periodical sales during the year 1908 amounted to over one hundred forty-three thousand dollars, an amount nearly equal to the value of our subscription and trade book sales.
EARLY in April the Young People’s Missionary Volunteer Reading Course enters upon the study of “Daybreak in the Dark Continent.” Have you purchased your copy? Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 40 cents.
ONE thing we know! you will be delighted with the Liberty magazine for the second quarter, in its new, two-color dress. And its contents are better than ever. After reading it, you will want to give it a wide circulation.
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JUST before going to press, we received a telegram from one of our general agents, ordering twenty-two hundred fifty copies of the Liberty magazine for the first quarter, to be sent ahead of him to ten different cities. This brother has contracted to sell fifteen thousand copies of every issue of this magazine.
Two hundred seven pages is a good deal for 19 cents. Yet this is precisely what is given in the “Health Library,” a set of fifteen tracts, consisting of ten “Life and Health Leaflets” and five “Life and Health Series.” Remember, only 19 cents. Why not send a few sets to your friends?
FROM far-off California we have just received an order for one thousand copies of Liberty magazine and five hundred copies of the April Life and Health, to be sold during their first camp-meeting, soon to be held at Chico, California. Michigan, Colorado, and Iowa at present lead all other States in the number of agents selling our periodicals.
HEREAFTER please do not send less than 50 cents when subscribing for the Review, the Youth’s Instructor, or Life and Health. According to a recent action of the Review and Herald Board, subscriptions for these three periodicals must be accompanied by not less than 50 cents. This, of course, does not apply to subscriptions sent in for Liberty magazine, the Protestant Magazine, or the Sabbath School Worker, the yearly subscription prices of these being less than 50 cents.
THE “Millennial Dawn Theory” is well handled in the tract, “False Hope of a Second Probation,” W. T. S. 48. Price, 2 cents each; $2 a hundred.
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THE Review and Herald book department shows a gain for the first two months of 1909 of 36 per cent over the same period last year. We praise the Lord for the prosperity he is giving.
ALTHOUGH it is only the twenty-fourth of March, our orders for the April issue of Life and Health amount to several thousand. The Northern Illinois Tract Society has just telegraphed for three thousand copies.
“THY love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women,” said David in speaking of Jonathan. You will appreciate the Old Testament record of David and Jonathan doubly, after reading “A Man of Valor.” Order to-day. Cloth, 75 cents, post-paid.
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NEARLY two thousand people have availed themselves of the opportunity offered in “The Speaker’s Manual of Pronunciation.” Have you? No one need to pronounce incorrectly who devotes a little time to a study of the list of words found in “The Speaker’s Manual.” The book lists over two thousand words commonly mispronounced. Cloth, 25 cents; leather, 50 cents.
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MOODY said that there were two books every Christian should have,—a good Bible and a concordance. We can supply the former, in a large variety of styles, ranging in price from 50 cents to $17. For the latter, we suggest Cruden’s Concordance; price, post-paid, $1.
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“I WORKED only three hours and thirty minutes, and sold one hundred six copies of the March Life and Health,” writes M. V. M., from a Southern State. “The president of the Georgia Northern Railway bought one, and through his influence I sold a copy to every one in the office.” Nearly every mail brings us just such good reports as this one, which arrived last week.
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SOME very startling statements are found in Liberty magazine for the first quarter. Have you read them? Have you called the attention of your friends to the present situation in religious liberty matters? Note the following partial contents of this splendid number, copies of which we can still supply:—
Illustrations: Frontispiece cartoon, “Temptation of the Church.” Also twenty-five other illustrations.
Editorials: Our Position Defined — The Federal Council of Churches — Religion by Edict in England — The Truth About Magna Charta, a reply to Hon. Bourke Cockran — American Church and American Sabbath — Opening of Parliament in Turkey — Possibility of a Roman Catholic President.
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Public Opinion: An Impending Peril — Religion in Politics — The True Protestant Position.
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Editorial

By Editor

THE record of Jesus is that he “went about doing good,” “leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
IN the determination of truth, we should always seek to distinguish between men and principles. The truthfulness or falsity of a doctrine is not determined by the men who believe it or who disbelieve it, whatever their station or numbers. In the history of the world, truth has often found its only conservators among the lowly and oppressed, while error has often been heralded with popular acclaim. Truth should be received on account of its own intrinsic merit, while the character of error should determine its rejection.
WHILE we ask God for daily blessings, we should not be unmindful to thank him for the continual favor he shows us. We are indebted to his mercy for all that we have in this life of temporal blessing, and for the hope of life beyond. Cultivating an appreciation of divine goodness will lead to tenderness of heart and deeper consecration. The apostle Paul says that the goodness of God leads to repentance, and the more we contemplate his goodness, the more completely shall we realize our own unworthiness and utter dependence on him, and his exceeding mercy and kindness to us. We shall learn to love him, as we realize that he first loved us.

The Christian Sabbath

ONE is often astonished to find what vitality there is in an absolutely untenable argument which has been invented to bolster up a weak cause. Assertions which have no foundation in fact, and which have been disproved over and over again, are yet repeated with the utmost assurance, and are accepted as bona fide proof by those who are seeking excuses for a practise already determined upon, rather than making an earnest search after truth.
We have been reminded of this by the reappearance of the argument in behalf of the Sunday sabbath based upon the claim of an incorrect translation of Matt. 28: 1. A leaflet which has recently fallen into our hands asserts with great positiveness Scriptural authority for the change of the Sabbath, and declares that a proper rendering of the Greek text would show as much authority in the New Testament for the so-called Christian sabbath as is found in the Old Testament for the seventh-day Sabbath. We will permit this writer to speak for himself:—
If the Scriptures had been properly translated, there need never have been any confusion concerning the proper Christian sabbath, and it seems perfectly inexcusable that the translators should have put the word week as a translation for the Greek word sabbath in so many places. In summing up, in brief, the proofs that the first day of the week is the Christian sabbath, we may notice the following points:—
1. In all the places in the New Testament where our common version reads, “The first day of the week,” the Greek has it, “The first-day sabbath,” and there is no more reason why the word week should be used as a translation of the word sabbath than why the word January should be used for it. In Matt. 28: 1, where the translation reads, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week,” the Greek reads, “In the end of the Sabbath, as it was getting dusk, toward the first-day sabbath, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulcher,” the Greek words being mian sabbaton. From this we see most positively that the Holy Spirit himself settled the first-day sabbath as over against the last-day Sabbath of the Jewish age. People often ask, Is there no real Scriptural proof for changing the Sabbath from the last day of the week to the first day of the week? I answer, We have abundant and positive proof; for the Holy Spirit in this passage refers to the last-day sabbath of the Jews, and then the first-day sabbath, the day of Christ’s resurrection, and he calls the first day sabbath just as positively as the last day sabbath. Also in Mark 16: 1, 2, where we read, “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulcher,” Greek mian sabbaton. Here again the translators made the terrible blunder of translating the word sabbath by the word week. We see here that the Holy Spirit referred to the Jewish sabbath, and says that it was past, and then just as emphatically speaks of the first-day sabbath, recognizing it as the Christian sabbath, and as truly the sabbath of the New Testament as the seventh day was the Sabbath of the Old Testament.
It will be charitable to assume that the one who makes this argument is not intentionally deceiving the people, but to one who is acquainted with the Greek text his claims are most astonishing, and indicate such an ignorance of the most elementary principles of the Greek language as to render his efforts to improve upon the translation of the Scriptures not only absurd, but absolutely ludicrous.
This whole question has been well canvassed by those who defend the observance of the first day of the week as the sabbath, but whose scholarship and honesty compel them to bear the plainest kind of testimony against any effort to pervert the texts in question into a testimony in favor of the alleged Christian sabbath. A correspondent of the Bible Record, whose attention had evidently been called to the argument based upon the unwarranted translation of Matt. 28: 1, asked the editor of that magazine this question:—
Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28: 1, opse de sabbaton, te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton, “at the end of the sabbaths as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths”? It seems to me as if we might, and it would be quite an argument in favor of the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week, because the resurrection morning stood between the two classes of sabbaths.
This letter was submitted to Dr. Walter Quincy Scott, one of the instructors in the Bible Teachers’ Training-school, of New York City, of which Dr. Wilbert W. White is the president, who made this reply:—
NEW YORK, Sept. 8, 1904.
MY DEAR DR. WHITE: Your correspondent asks, “Is it allowable to translate the Greek of Matt. 28: 1, opse de sabbaton, te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton, ‘At the end of the sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths’?”
Such a rendering is impossible.
1. Mian is feminine, and sabbaton is neuter. Mian agrees with hameran understood.
Your inquirer remarks on this point (as made by writer in Sunday School Times), “Neither do they [mian and sabbaton] agree in number.” Of course not; a substantive followed by a partitive genitive can not agree with it numerically.
2. It seems idle to add anything to the foregoing grammatical prohibition of the rendering proposed. But I may add that mian sabbaton is a Hebraism corresponding to the rabbinical designation of the days of the week. They called each day of the festal week a “sabbath,” and indicated each day by its proper ordinal prefixed to “sabbath.”
And in Greek, eis is commonly used (as here) instead of protos.
The Septuagint and New Testament alike use ta sabbata in sense of singular—“the Sabbath day,” and also in the meaning “week.” Mian sabbaton in Matt. 28: 1 can not mean anything else than the “first day of the week.” The Revised Version correctly translates the verse.
Your correspondent will find ample scholarly notes in Lange’s “Matthew,” by Schaff.
Yours very truly,
WALTER QUINCY SCOTT.
This letter from Dr. Scott, which most effectually disposes of the foolish claim, growing out of a pitiable ignorance of Greek, that the translators of the Authorized and Revised Versions of the New Testament “made the terrible blunder” charged up against them, was printed in the Bible Record for January, 1905. Another Greek scholar, himself a professor in a theological seminary, took up the matter again in the issue of the Bible Record for May, 1905, in a letter from which we quote:—
Editor of the Bible Record.
DEAR SIR: The query in the issue of January, 1905, as to “Sabbath or Sabbaths” seems to call for a further warning. The querist asks if Matt. 28: 1, opse de sabbaton, te epiphoskouse eis mian sabbaton, may not be rendered, At the end of the [Jewish seventh-day] sabbaths, as it began to dawn toward the first of the [Christian first-day] sabbaths. The superb negative answer given should be heralded far and wide. People of excellent intention and deep piety, but with little knowledge, are making such an interpretation in fortifying themselves against “Saturday-keepers.” I own two books, and have read two others, in which each writer claims to have made the great discovery of said translation, and has based his book thereon.
These good men had only a rusted smattering of classical Greek, and in their zeal without knowledge they stumbled upon this rendering, with a carelessness that few students of a month would make. “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” And more than that, acquaintance with classical Greek is not enough for the reading of the New Testament Greek. One must have large acquaintance with the grammar and the lexicon of the Greek Old Testament, and behind that, as the key to many of its peculiarities and mysteries, of the Hebrew Old Testament also.
Thus by the testimony of two scholarly men, neither of whom can be accused of being biased in favor of the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, it is clearly established that, as any man capable of rendering simple Greek into English knows, the present reading of Matt. 28: 1 as found in the Authorized and Revised Versions of the New Testament is correct. All who are unwilling to sacrifice the truth even for an argument which will justify their practise ought, after reading these statements, forever to discard the claim that a proper translation of the text in question would furnish a sound Scriptural argument in behalf of the Sunday sabbath.
As being pertinent to this discussion, we note a letter which appeared in the Homiletic Review for January, 1909, and quote from the first paragraph:—
As to the Christian sabbath, we have none if the question is determined by the language of the New Testament as given by the translators. The translators (all of them) of the New Testament have murdered the Christian sabbath, if there is such a sabbath in the Greek New Testament. For depending on the English translation we know nothing of a Christian sabbath. The expression, “The first day of the week,” has nothing in it of a sabbatic character. If the word sabbaton means “week,” then, in the Greek we have no Christian sabbath, and mankind is without a sabbath. But if sabbaton does mean “sabbath,” what a great mistake has been made in rendering sabbaton “week.” Perhaps the destruction of the Christian sabbath came about through the erroneous conception of the Jewish sabbath. Considering Saturday, the day before resurrection day, as the Jewish sabbath, and as the seventh day of the week, would naturally cause one to think that resurrection day was “the first day of the week,” but then, why should mia ton sabbaton be so rendered, when by such an act the Christian sabbath was destroyed? The question is, Why? If sabbaton means “week,” where do we get any sabbatic character for resurrection day?
We find ourselves quite in accord with some of the statements made by this correspondent. It is not only true that “depending on the English translation, we know nothing of a Christian sabbath [Sunday],” but it is equally true that depending on the Greek text, “we know nothing of a Christian sabbath [Sunday].” The fourth commandment plainly states that “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” and there is no statement in Holy Writ which either modifies or annuls the fact so plainly declared.
The reason why mia ton sabbaton should be rendered “the first day of the week” is because that is the proper English equivalent of these Greek words. Translators of the Bible did not give a perverted translation of the text in order to furnish a warrant for an unscriptural religious observance.
The last inquiry of this correspondent is quite to the point: “If sabbaton means ‘week,’ where do we get any sabbatic character for resurrection day?” But sabbaton does mean “week” when used in such an expression as mia ton sabbaton, as we have shown on good testimony. We therefore repeat the question, “Where do we get any sabbatic character for resurrection day?” Where, indeed? The day has no such character. Only the Creator can give a sabbatic character to any day. Such a character he has given to the seventh day of the week, but never to the first day of the week. The more carefully the Scriptures are examined, whether it be in the English translation or in the original languages, the plainer will this fact appear.
Devious are the paths of error; straight are the ways of truth; it is unnecessary to resort to improper translations, to unwarranted inferences, or to verbal quibbles in order to establish on a solid foundation the Sabbath of the Lord, the only Christian sabbath.

Our Imperishable Inheritance

By C. M. S.

Earth Conditions and God’s Purpose

There is no cry that pierces the heart of a parent like the cry of his child for life when the curtain of death is about to fall. It breaks heart strings, and crushes hopes and happiness. And the same cry that grips the heart of the parent when the little one is being smitten by the destroyer, reaches the heart of heaven also. The tyrant Death, which entered the realm through the disobedience of man, is the enemy at once of God and man. “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord Jehovah: wherefore turn yourselves, and live.” Eze. 18:32. “The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.” 1 Cor. 15:26. Misguided men have sought to rob it of some of its terrors by calling it the gateway to glory and a friend of the race. God calls it what it is,—an enemy,—and proclaims his purpose to destroy it. “He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more.” Rev. 21:4.
Death is reaping with a swift sickle in every clime. Nowhere under our star-sprinkled sky is there a single locality that has not tasted the bitter cup. The millions that tread the earth to-day are but as a single handful to a great harvest, when compared with the millions on millions who sleep in the dust beneath our feet. When the polished face of the great pyramid was glistening new and fresh in the steady sunlight of ancient Egypt, the same was true. Before the flood of waters had washed sin and the sinner for the time out of the earth, men, women, and children, birds, beasts, fishes, and creeping things had already fallen by the millions under the stroke of death.
By the side of everything that has lived upon the earth there has stood, from the moment of its conception, the specter of death and dissolution. Life and Death have thus walked hand in hand through the earth from the day that Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden. It is not pleasant to contemplate, but that is the picture that has been thrust into the forefront of heaven’s view in looking down upon our unhappy realm.
What an anomaly, what a paradox, that in one corner of the domain of the God of love and light and life we should find conditions so cruel, so mantled in darkness, so full of death! One has well summarized these conditions in this language:—
What strange contrasts this earth of ours presents! Noonday and midnight are not more opposite than the scenes which are constantly passing before our eyes. Truth and falsehood walk side by side through our streets, and vice and virtue meet and pass every hour of the day. The hut of the starving stands in the shadow of the palace of the wealthy, and the carriage of Dives every day throws the dust of its glittering wheels over the tattered garments of Lazarus. Health and sickness lie down in the same apartment; joy and grief look out of the same window; hope and despair dwell under the same roof. The cry of the infant and the groan of the dying arise together from the same dwelling. The funeral procession treads close on the heels of the bridal party, and the tones of the lute and viol have scarcely died away before the requiem for the dead comes swelling after. O, the beautiful and the deformed, pure and corrupt, joy and sorrow, ecstasies and agonies, how strangely blended together on this our restless planet! O, how good and evil, light and darkness, chase each other over the world!
That is the world as we know it; but it is not the world as God purposed it to be; neither is it the world as God purposes that it shall be. A discordant note has been struck in the great symphony of the universe. It is not reasonable to suppose that the Master of the harmony will permit its jarring, riotous discord to go on forever. Neither will he. Jesus said: “Every plant, which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” An indication of what will be included in that process of eradication was given by our Saviour in the work he did. Whatever Jesus Christ set his face against when here in the flesh will be rooted up in the accomplishment of God’s great purpose for this world. He condemned sin—condemned it in his own flesh, and condemned it in our lives; he condemned blindness, and gave light in its place; he condemned sickness, and gave health; he condemned greed, and taught men the grace of benevolence; he condemned covetousness, and inculcated generosity; he condemned lust, and set forth the beauties and rewards of virtue; he condemned falsehood, and established truth; he condemned hatred, and planted the love of God in the hearts of his children; he condemned flattery, and exalted the grace of humility; he condemned self-exaltation, and set forth in its place the blessed gospel of service; and then, that he might show the Father’s purpose to stamp out death itself, he snatched its victims from its very grasp, went through its gates himself, and brought forth the keys of the tomb.
Up to the time of the resurrection of Jesus, the triumph of the Messiah that was to be was a triumph in prospect. From that moment on, it was a triumph accomplished. What wonderful consequences waited upon the continued sleep or the triumphant waking of the smitten Gift of God! Death claimed him; but righteousness could not be holden of iniquity—even of the prince of iniquity himself. The Roman soldiers standing guard over the tomb of the Son of God were typical of Satan’s attitude toward God himself and all God purposed to accomplish for man. But when the Roman guard was smitten by the angel of Jehovah, who broke the seal of the Roman government, and rolled away the stone that shut man’s Mediator in the tomb, Satan had God’s answer to his challenge, and the world saw accomplished that great work through which man was to come again into that inheritance lost in Adam’s disobedience.
God has been pictured as a God of vengeance. He pictures himself as a God of mercy. “The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity.” Num. 14:18. “His mercy endureth forever.” Ps. 106:1. “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.” Ps. 103:17. “He delighteth in mercy.” Micah 7:18. Heathen religions have pictured God as a God of hatred, nursing malevolence toward man, and demanding appeasement from his creatures. But God speaks of his attitude toward man on this wise: “I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.” Jer. 31:3. Again: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him.” John 3:16, 17.
What is death? How and why came it into the world? What had Jesus’ mission in the world to do with it? Is death always to continue its work among the race? Do men really die? Do they sleep forever? Are angels the spirits of the dead? Whence come and who are the spirits that communicate with men in the darkened room, and “materialize” in the secret cabinet? Is man immortal? What is the end of the matter? How these questions come trooping into the mind when we approach the great question of man and his relation to his Maker! These questions and many that grow out of them we will attempt to answer in articles that will follow.
C. M. S.

The Church in the Wilderness

By William Ambrose Spicer

The Gospel Order—No. 2

“The Church in the Wilderness”

THE organization of “the church in the wilderness,” the people of Israel under the exodus movement, provided for the distribution of responsibility, the sharing of burdens, and the unity of the whole. Individuals were associated together in the small group, the small groups were joined in larger, these into still larger associations, and the larger organizations were united in the general.
Before the people of Israel came to Sinai, Jethro, priest of Midian, visited their camp and saw the burdens pressing upon Moses. He said to Moses:—
“Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee. . . . Provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.” Ex. 18:19-22.
The spirit that was in Moses, of wisdom and judgment and good sense, led him to accept plans that provided for organization of the work. As stated in “Patriarchs and Prophets:”
The Lord had greatly honored Moses, and had wrought wonders by his hand; but the fact that he had been chosen to instruct others did not lead him to conclude that he himself needed no instruction. The chosen leader of Israel listened gladly to the suggestions of the godly priest of Midian, and adopted his plan as a wise arrangement.—Page 301.
At Sinai, under the Lord’s direct instruction through his prophet, the organization was further perfected. As the work developed, showing need of additional features of organization, the Lord gave instruction that additional helpers should be chosen to discharge the duties of oversight that necessarily come wherever multitudes are associated in a common work. After departing from Sinai, Moses found the burdens too heavy, and begged for release. Then the Lord said:—
“Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them; and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; andthey shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.” Num. 11: 16, 17.
Wherever the Lord has called men to a sacred work, he has given them the spirit to organize their forces for the greatest efficiency and harmony of effort. Of these features in Israel the following paragraph gives the briefest summary:—
The government of Israel was characterized by the most thorough organization, wonderful alike for its completeness and its simplicity. The order so strikingly displayed in the perfection and arrangement of all God’s created works was manifest in the Hebrew economy. God was the center of authority and government, the sovereign of Israel. Moses stood as their visible leader, by God’s appointment, to administer the laws in his name. From the elders of the tribes a council of seventy was afterward chosen to assist Moses in the general affairs of the nation. Next came the priests, who consulted the Lord in the sanctuary. Chiefs, or princes, ruled over the tribes. Under these were “captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens;” and, lastly, officers who might be employed for special duties.—“Patriarchs and Prophets,” page 374.
This is a divinely set object-lesson of the importance of the orderly arrangement of the affairs of the cause of God in these last days:—
The travels of the children of Israel are faithfully described; the deliverance which the Lord wrought for them, their perfect organization and special order, their sin in murmuring against Moses and thus against God, their transgressions, their rebellions, their punishments, their carcasses strewn in the wilderness because of their unwillingness to submit to God’s wise arrangements,—this faithful picture is hung up before us as a warning lest we follow their example of disobedience, and fall like them. . . .
“Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” Has God changed from a God of order?—No; he is the same in the present dispensation as in the former. Paul says, “God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.” He is as particular now as then. And he designs that we should learn lessons of order and organization from the perfect order instituted in the days of Moses, for the benefit of the children of Israel.—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. I, pages 652, 653.
Often in Israel men rose in rebellion against the manner in which the Lord led his people forward. The disaffection led by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram illustrates the basis on which elements of opposition, seeking supremacy to carry out their own ideas, have often made complaints against order. Those chosen to the responsibility of leading, whether in local or general organizations, hold no position as a matter of lordship over others, but rather as servants of all, under the Lord. It is the Lord’s arrangement for maintaining the orderly conduct of his work.
Though Moses and Aaron had assumed nothing of themselves, the cry was raised by Korah, Dathan, and Abiram that they were usurping authority. The charge was, “Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?” Num. 16: 3. They preached an individualism and independence that ignored the divine principles of fellowship and mutual relationships in the church of God. Every discordant element in the camp was organized under the leadership of these men to strike at the divinely approved organization which stood in the way of their efforts to secure control of the movement and divert it from God’s purpose. If these men could not have their own way, they were determined to wreck the movement. The Lord vindicated his truth and his servants, and saved his people, though many perished in apostasy.
W. A. S.
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