By F. BETTEX
English Translation by
ANDREAS BARD
BURLINGTON. IOWA
THE GERMAN LITERARY BOARD
1914
COPYRIGHT 1914
ATHEISM seems to be "in the air." Some hundred years ago it was generally believed that there was a Creator of heaven and earth. Have we made progress since? Yes, but not toward God! Proclaiming the eternity of Matter and Force, preachers and theologians as well as monists and socialists deny the existence of the Supreme Being. They know not the Father, reject the Son and have no use for the Holy Spirit, resembling a blind man giving instructions about the rays of the sun. Can they teach us? I know not. Ho ye, still worthy to be called Christians! Behold the glory of the triune God and, beholding it, rise to a vision more spiritual!
PROF. F. BETTEX.
Ueberlingen, May 1911.
CONTENTS
1. Great Is the Lord; and His Greatness Is Unsearchable
2. Great Also Is the Son
3. I Believe In the Holy Ghost Who Spoke By the Prophets
Great Is the Lord; and His Greatness Is Unsearchable
GOD IS GREAT! A fact beyond dispute to those who believe. And still, how few who mark, learn and inwardly digest it! Why do they sigh and sorrow, weep and worry, if they truly believe? Why discord and discussion of doctrine among "the children of God?" Why pride and prejudice? The truth is that their God is TOO LITTLE. But, never mind, I am guilty myself.
God's greatness overwhelms us. What indeed is man, this tiny grain of dust, that he dare speak of it? Whether he trembles at the thought of His justice which some day will cause the universe to quake; or ponders the mystery of His love which gave the Savior to a dying world; or meditates on the unfathomable wisdom poured out upon creation; everywhere he is forced to confess: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him!" And yet God rejoices in our attitude of reverence and adoration which is infinitely more reasonable than the spirit of those who, forgetful of the greatness of their Maker, waste time on the glorification of their own littleness.
Let us gather some fragments of His grandeur, starting with the Alphabet, given to us for that purpose, and gradually climbing the ladder of Jacob.
First comes that which is natural and afterwards that which is spiritual. Our soul-life has a material foundation. The eyes of the child are opened that it may discover in the visible universe the idea of its Maker. Whatever we call dark or light, big or small, near or far, aye our conceptions of good and evil are made clear to us through some material manifestation. And because of our tiny view-point, our weak and insufficient vision, God "who made the world and all that is therein," has given us a revelation of his grandeur, a universe wonderful to behold. "God bath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made" (Rom. 1, 19 and 20).
This natural revelation which serves as the first spiritual lesson for the growing child is also given to the Gentiles 'that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him." In fact they will be judged according to this "law of nature" as the apostle calls it. Have not many of them sincerely sought the Creator in this manner and found Him? God's order is immutable and the revelation of nature is given to all as the outer court of truth; it is part of that "light which lighted every man that is born into the world" and therefore is not to be underestimated or ignored.
God does things in due season and after having provided mankind with the daily bread of intelligence, has at this time, when millions are turning from the truth, allowed us to catch unexpected glimpses of His glory. The discovery of radium, for instance, and its concomitant phenomena have practically revolutionized theories of matter, hitherto generally accepted. Our servants are puzzled. They ponder God's problems. When microscope and telescope were invented they were dazzled by the miracles in a drop of water and by the sublimity of the starry sky! But they misused the truth. They proceeded to tell us that astronomy, revealing a universe so magnificent, made it unthinkable that God should have singled out our tiny earth for the advent of His Son! (A son of Jove, a pagan would have argued, must come at least from Babylon or Memphis, from Rome or Athens to impress the world with any new legislation; he must appear as a Pharaoh or Caesar, as a heroic youth to command any attention; the son of a carpenter born in an obscure village will never prove his divine origin). The microscope, on the other hand, by which proto-plasma were found in the tiniest seed misled scientists into the assertion that the universe had made itself, ascending automatically from a cell to man.
They omitted from the program of creation the very power of God.
We are not dealing with these gentlemen at present. We appeal to those who, while believing in the Creator, have not given a sufficient thought to His incomparable glory.
There are Christians who assume that Paul's reference to a "natural revelation" merely concerns the pagans. They hold that they have outgrown evidences gathered from the voices of Nature and limit their appreciation to an occasional outburst of sentimentalism, when aroused by the spectacles of the snow-clad Alps or the display of thunder and lightning over storm-tossed seas. However they place no spiritual significance upon such phenomena. They may feel a mood of elevation when gazing upon the star-lit sky and exclaim with David: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him!" But the moment you enter more deeply into the discussion of the wonders of heaven, you find them indifferent listeners. Should you tell them that the Almighty, the Lord of Eternity, has been creating in periods beyond our imagination millions of shining worlds, planets, moons and whole solar systems, aye that even the smaller streaks of light are forever being transformed into comets whose tail extends through millions of miles; tell them that according to our calculations of gravity there are numberless worlds, void of all light, and that around one hundred and twenty million of enormous suns millions of invisible worlds are describing their circle; tell them that the beams, flung from the pole star, when man is thirty, will only reach his eyes, when at four score he is about to close them in death—then your complacent Christian will get uneasy. He scents "Materialism" or the personal infidelity of a Laplace, while others insist that our little earth must surely be the astronomical center of the universe (!) and that the idea of people living on other stars is utterly preposterous. The truth is that their conception of God is so primitive that the idea of the boundless universe lies altogether beyond their horizon. "All the stars," said a noted theologian, "are extinct volcanoes." Surely a compliment to the Creator! Our pity for those who were never thrilled with the thought that God's very breath is permeating infinitude with its innumerable worlds!
But the glory of the Creator is not confined to his manifestation of celestial grandeur. Even from the one thousandth particle of dust He can create miracles of art and life as marvelous as the most gigantic fire-worlds hurled through space.
Take a microscope magnifying only about thirty times and look at the humblest flower, aye at the weed by the wayside. What do you see? A structure of colored cells, radiant as a ruby! Columns of ivory! And above them chalices full of golden balls! But only the stronger glass will reveal the true secret of the flower. Take the almost invisible white spot you find on the algae of Helgoland and view it through a powerful microscope. Instantly you will see a wonderfully delicate little crawfish, almost transparent, and equipped with multitudinous limbs, tentacles, hairs, elegantly finished in the minutest detail. Enlarge the vision a million times and you will discover structural perfections beyond the architectural glories of the Cathedral of Cologne or of Notre Dame de Paris. Why all these complicated organs? What did the Creator mean to reveal to the astonished angelic host long before the creation of man or the invention of the microscope? Or does He do things thoughtlessly and without purpose? What is the lesson we are to derive from the marvelous construction of the most insignificant creatures? Or has He accidentally created more organs than necessary, being over busy with the infinite diversity of His task?
Even smaller creatures are those fascinating animalcules of the sea, generally known as phosphorescence. Some scientists have been so captivated by the beauty of these luminous denizens of the deep that they have considered them the very masterpiece of nature. They rise, fall, play, flash, live, die. What kind of a soul do they have? What view of things? What purpose and aim? Raoul France has proven that even these infinitesimal creatures choose their prey and pursue it intelligently. They see, even without eyes; they think, even without brains; desire, even without a heart; do they also experience pleasure and pain?
Some of these tiniest beings have an eye and perhaps an optic nerve leading into the brain. Thus we must assign to them a vision, magnifying objects at least three hundred times. The little creature would therefore see the world ninety thousand times larger than we see it and would discover what remains unseen by our eyes. This means: A VIEW OF LIFE! Why else the eye? And what kind of eyes? And impressions? What kind of impressions? Science knows nothing of the biology, physiology or psychology of these animalcules. Here thought remains ship-wrecked, lost on an unknown shore, surrounded by the misty sea of the origin of life; for more awe-inspiring than the leviathan of the deep and the Bethemoth of the Nile are the innumerable creatures of the sea with their untold history, extending over a nameless period of time.
And yet there are Christians who confronted with these facts seem almost shocked that their God should take such a vital interest in curious creatures of this kind. They may admire the lower creation in a superficial way like children amused with automatic toys, but they decline to grow serious on the subject. They do not comprehend that it is the very greatness of God which explains His care for that which seems small. He in whose presence the solar system is but dust and all mankind but a drop in the bucket, considers worthy of His wisdom and power the wing of a mosquito and the invisible atom. We, on the other hand, are too small, to grasp His greatness in little things and find nothing in them of the power of the Eternal!
Even in the very humblest we can find footprints of the Creator. Thousands of delicately microscopic diatoms which in untold numbers fill stream, lake and sea and of whose existence mankind for more than five thousand years has remained in utter ignorance, reveal the law of central radiation which is apparent in the flower as well as in the solar system and which may serve as a very symbol of the Deity. Symmetry everywhere! Who explains the mysterious law which creates the same pattern on either wing of the butterfly or the pheasant? Who marks the leopard with unerring pencil? As far as I know science has never ventured an explanation. The idea of symmetry can be traced through the entire universe; it is apparent in flower and fish and fowl, culminating in that marvelous creature called man. How unsearchable are His counsels! Who can imagine billions of molecules, atoms and electrons circulating around each other swifter than the sun in their orbs and being attracted or repelled by immutable laws from which they cannot escape even for the fraction of a second!
Just stop and think what simple means God employs to produce miraculous results. Shifting about three straight lines He creates the world of crystals, some of which have as many as three hundred different forms. Assembling around a stem proportions of foliage, He makes this simple law evoke the sun-flower, the pine, the palm and two hundred thousand varieties of plants and trees. Three sections of the cone suggest the unbroken course of innumerable stars. Even skeptical astronomers like Dr. Klein, dazzled by this manifestation of wisdom, are forced to exclaim: "We admit that our world is so marvelously constructed that it seems to have been made by a Supreme Intelligence, endowed with unlimited creative power," adding, "this has been recognized by the thinkers of all ages!"
Can we fathom the idea of the Infinite who having created the universe, now witnesses the course of innumerable suns as well as the hosanna of His angels, the prattling of babes, the hum of the bee, the whisper of pines; who watches over the eight hundred million human beings asleep and the eight hundred million people awake, guiding, directing and inspiring them every second! "O Lord, how great are Thy works! Thy thoughts are very deep!"
However, it is not necessary to find God in the tempestuous wave or in the rolling of thunder; wheresoever we look we discover His wisdom, His power and wealth of thought. "Where shall I go from Thy spirit; and whither shall I flee from Thy countenance!"
With incomparable delight I looked through the catalogue of a gardener which presented pictures of a vast variety of flowers. Viewing these delicately beautiful, ever changing types of floral development I felt impelled to exclaim, "Father, what an artist Thou art!" Passing through a field covered with all shades and grades of shrubbery, I was impressed with the absurdity of some Christians who are ever striving to put all human minds into the same mold. Is not every flower beautiful "after its own kind" and should not God welcome a variety of opinions? And if I behold a tree, which, in seasonable progress, without rest, without haste is nearing its completion, I am reminded of some folk, who forgetful of God's law, desire to see blossoms in winter time and get the full grown ear, ere the fields are green. O Christian men, be strong as the oak, rooted firmly in the ground of God's truth, though storms be hissing through the boughs! O Christian women, be like roses of Sharon and lilies of the field, submissive to the divine law of the Father!
Ever fair is the world of God. How the heart rejoices while the trees are in bloom, the larks are singing and the sun pours o'er the earth its greetings of gold! What calm in the soul while the stars awake in the dreamland of heaven! What sacred emotions when we watch the advent of the day-stars! How glorious the mighty, foaming wave! The golden sunset proclaims: God is great! The boundless sea: He is infinite! The lofty hills: He is eternal! The shepherding clouds tell of the changes of life and also of His mercy that endures forever; the tempest reveals His majesty; Niagara comes thundering along like the word of the risen Lord; even the brooklet murmurs songs without words, while the birds in the air and the lilies of the field remind us of a Father's loving care. All things about us are grand, deep, a part of God's world; my heart, too, is expanding and like the sea gull which, lighting upon a wave, is serenely rocked to and fro, unmindful of the storm, I feel secure in the thought that underneath are the everlasting arms! A man born blind and suddenly acquiring his sight is dazzled by the beauty of the universe. Like the lad of Altdorf, whose sight was restored by J. Stilling, he exclaims: "I see the glory of the Lord." But many there are who have eyes that see not.
I know Christians who say, "One thing is needful." They insist that they do not need nature for their soul's salvation. I admit this. We are healed through the blood of Christ. He forgives us our sins. However, after we have grown well and become acceptable in the sight of God, we should not sit at the highway of life and relate to all passers-by the history of our disease. The time has come, when we should walk heavenward, develop the inner man and-utilize God's method of inspiration. It surely is not His will that we should close our eyes toward His glorious work, which we are so apt to use for personal gain, for the acquiring of fame, wealth and comfort. Should not the grandeur of the universe, pleasing even to the Creator, (Psalm 104), be also pleasing to the creature? Should not the Christian have an open ear for "the groaning of the whole creation which waited for the manifestation of the Sons of God?" We are to blame ourselves, if nature fails to inspire us. Whatsoever the world offers in food and raiment, whatsoever broadens our horizon and deepens our power of thought—and is there anything more stimulating to the mind than the contemplation of the universe?—will help also the Christian in the knowledge of truth and in the reflection of the same in words and action. If the true greatness of the Lord dwells within you, you will radiate His light. It will make luminous your daily work, will resound in your voice and edify those around you. As He increases within you, you will decrease in your own eyes. That is the true gain, wisdom, temperance, peace! Hebrew scholars called God "El Shaddai," that means, "the Moderate." He sets boundaries to the ocean and says "it is enough." Recognize His greatness and He will heal you from your mad desire to be great. What kind of a senseless universe we should have made, had God transferred His power to us! Everything in it would have suggested exaggeration and lack of proportion.
It is just because we close our eyes toward the glory of God that we fail to grow beyond our narrow views. A clergyman, whom I told of the beauty of the Rhine, especially at the Falls, was bigoted enough to say that he "would not take two steps to see anything like that." He failed to understand that the same Power which thunders from the foaming wave emanates from Him to whom he says: "Thine is the Power." What other force can there possibly be? Or is this Pantheism? Yes, if Paul is a Pantheist when he says, "in Him we live and move and have our being." Without God there is no life, not even the life of Satan in hell.
Others there are who are apt to underestimate the importance of matter. Their spirituality is greater than that of God. For did not God endow us with a physical body? Does not the Bible speak of a new earth and our creed of the resurrection of the body? If there is to be naught but spirituality, why did the risen Lord reveal hands and feet to His astonished disciples and eat with them honey and fish?
Just because we know so little of nature, and take such a superior attitude toward her revelations, our Christianity savors of artificiality. We should heed the word of the Master, "Except ye he converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Not long ago I read this bit of necrology: "During his last years he sought after holiness and even considered it sinful to smile." What a delusion! The Psalmist says, "He that sits in the heavens, shall laugh," and again, "your mouth shall be full of laughter." Long faces and pessimism, despair and despondency belong to the children of darkness, who know not God, and who may justly have an anticipation of the gloom which they daily approach. But Christians have a right to laugh "in the natural holiness and the holy naturalness which belong to the children and heirs of the Creator."
Because we are ignorant of the majestic repose of nature we hasten and hurry on our path; we run after new fads and fashions as if we could not afford to wait. Because we have no clear picture of universal law in our mind, our religious thinking is obscure and wavering, even illogical. The children of this world are wiser than we. Look over the "questions and answers" column in the Christian press and blush at the ignorance, the confusion, the chaotic mentality of so-called followers of Jesus.
Brethren let us have a worthy idea of God! Pray that a ray of His glory may lighten your soul! Then the discords will vanish like fog at the break of day. Grasp His power and your cares will disappear. Use His wisdom and you need not seek the sophistries of the servants. Trust His guidance and you will place the reins in the strong hands of a Father who alone can manage the wild steeds of life, while you, His child, move safely on, with light in your eye and a great calm in your heart!
Such a faith would also revolutionize your idea of prayer. You would no longer hold that every time you ask anything, the Almighty would have to interfere in the plan of the universe to grant your petition. I am thinking of a venerable clergyman who ordered his servant to set the table, although there was nothing to eat. Just at that time a wealthy neighbor sent a basket of food and the housekeeper ventured the ejaculation: "Dear pastor, you should fall on your knees and praise the Lord for the wonderful fulfillment of your prayer.” The minister simply said: "I have always known that God looks after His children." What caused my going to Germany, my activity there, my subsequent marriage, the birth of my children, etc.? One evening, while still at Nizza, my father asked me if I wished to make a call with him. Just as we arrived a letter came from Germany, and my course of life was determined. Was this a special Providence? No, a commonplace in the kingdom of heaven. How often were things arranged otherwise than I had planned! It is better, however, to experience these things than to relate them. A child of God knows that all prayers are answered. You ask for health and receive additional suffering, but God is healing your soul. You ask for money and lose what little you have, but you learn to pray "Give us this day our daily bread!" You ask for truth and find great darkness, but we must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."
Furthermore this faith would keep us out of useless quibbles about questions which no one can answer. We would not waste words on Predestination and Free Will. If, for instance, some author writes on "The Origin of Evil," and another on "The Fall of Satan," I denounce such dogmatic arrogance as an unbecoming presumption of morals in dealing with the unfathomable mysteries of God (Isaiah 45, 15). They resemble the little boy who tried to dip the ocean into a sand-hole. How love and justice are harmonized in the heart of God, no human mind is able to say. If you remind me of the words, "away from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!" I call your attention to the prophecy that God shall be "all in all." Let us bow before this mystery. I leave it with God. Not only because our little notions can in no sense alter His plans, but because His will is evermore supreme and altogether perfect. This blessed assurance gives me peace.
O, for the majesty of silence! How little we realize it! Even the worldly-minded prefer the man of silence to the babbler. When Hannibal and Scipio met, immediately before the decisive battle, they confronted each other silently for a long time. Imagine the two greatest strategists of ancient times. The hot-blooded, dark-browed soldier of Carthage on the one hand; the calm, deliberate Roman on the other. Both realized that the morrow would decide as to whether Europe or Africa, Zeus or Moloch would attain supremacy. Both knew that one of them would perish with the glory of his fatherland. Both were silent. Both thought highly of their opponent. It was a manly encounter. Do Christians meet that way?
Even more imposing is the silence of the Bible. Moses was silent for forty years tending the flock of Jethro, before he proclaimed from Mount Sinai the law of God. Elijah wrapped himself in silence for a long time (1 Kings, 18, 1), before his voice called from heaven a rain of fire upon the priests of Baal. Christ, though knowing that He must be about His Father's business, was silent for thirty years. And just as Moses was silent concerning what he saw with Jehovah for twice forty days—a divine period—so also Paul never spoke of what he saw in the "third heaven" and in Paradise.
Most imposing of all the silence of God. When He rested of His labors on the seventh day, His rest was sublimer than all His work. He hallowed this day. Do you grasp this? Again He is silent, while humanity is reveling in sin and shame. What burden of guilt on the shoulders of Christian nations which through a Cortez or Pizarro exterminated the natives of Mexico and Peru! We force opium and booze down the throats of barbarians, import into their midst the vices of Europe and America, depopulate whole areas along the banks of the Congo. Arabian merchants while crying, "Allah is merciful," drive through the burning sands of the deserts long trains of slaves whose backs are bleeding under pitiless lashes. But God is silent. "Christian" cities surpass Nineveh and Babylon in cruelty and moral corruption, but God remains silent, even while His name is being blasphemed and His altars sink into ruins. His Excellency, Ernest von Haeckel, explains to some thousand students that the world has made itself and calls God a "gaseous vertebrate." Evangelical clergymen, pledged upon the Augsburg Confession, mount their pulpit with stole and surplice and assure their communicants that to believe in God or devil, in heaven and hell is utter folly. And God is silent.
There is a hidden terror in this silence. It resembles the dead calm which precedes a violent storm. We are awed, when reading of the silence of Ulysses who, unknown to Penelope's wooers, refused to reply to their abuse and "swore vengeance in his soul." But what of the silence of the Infinite who, while witnessing the ever growing heap of human iniquities, remains silent, though it was He who said: "Vengeance is mine!"
"There was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour" (Rev. 8, 1). The seven seals which, for seven thousand years, had held the material and spiritual book of creation, were opened; but before judgment was passed, silence reigned supreme. The voices of the heavenly host are hushed. No clap of thunder. Stillness all around. Hark, the sound of a trumpet! Prepare for the final act of the drama of history! Who shall escape from the wrath of God? Even now Michael leading the army of light prepares for the utter defeat and destruction of Satan and his angels!
This silence of God overwhelms us. We bow our heads and adore. O well for those who can put their trust in Him, not as servants, but as children and heirs of life everlasting! Christ died for us and heaven is ours.
But woe to those who have lost their God! Vainly they seek Him among the tombs of Egypt and Babylon; they find Him not. No wonder they look for something to replace their loss, worship the monkey, seek the origin of life in a jellyfish, gratify the flesh and proclaim the eternity of matter. Meanwhile hysterical women are preaching Theosophy and "Christian Sci- ence." The world seems wrapped in spiritual gloom. People have ceased to believe, to love, to hope. The very foundations crumble under their feet. Others rise in open rebellion against established morality. Let us rend their bonds asunder! They would have intoxicating orgies and then pass into nothingness. But even the thought of nothingness offers no peace for they must carry with them scars of memory never to be erased, and the worm that cannot die?
God is Love indeed, but He is also Justice. He has given us this earth as a trust. For more than six thousand years He has been a silent witness to our transactions. He has given us full charge. In spite of all our misuse and unworthiness He has allowed His sun to rise on the just and on the unjust. But there is to be an end to human mismanagement. "If then I be a father where is mine honor? And if I be a master where is my fear?" (Mal. 1:16.) God gave us the world and the splendid revelation of nature that we should find in them His presence and power. Surely we shall have to give an account of our attitude, when He shall appear in the fullness of His glory at a time known only to Himself. He will then open the books of final judgment and square the debit and credit of the mismanaged trust. He will revise false entries and inaccurate bookkeeping. Woe to the unjust householders! What have you done with the trust given in your charge? How have you dealt with my creation, with the gold, the silver, the planets, the animals, aye with your fellowmen? I gave you the earth that you should dwell thereon in peace and concord, but you have mingled with its dust the ashes of the slain. The ground on which you walk is saturated with the tears and the blood of the tortured and sup-pressed. The cry for vengeance ascends to me from millions who perish in dungeons and slavery, on scaffolds and on the field of battle. Did I not give you the universe that you should seek and find Him who made it? Have your civilizations, your arts and sciences contributed to the glory of My name?"
"The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Psalm 14, 2, 3).
This is the final word of God to man: "And I saw an angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory to Him that made heaven and earth, and the sea and the fountains of water" (Rev 14, 6, 7). How generously God passes over the unnumbered shortcomings and sins of mankind, trying to square all accounts, if we would merely believe in the first great statement that "in the beginning God made heaven and earth!" He will be satisfied with this simple confession of faith. This is "the fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom" which proves that we are not hopelessly lost. Whether or not we have "seen the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world," will be the final test.
However, even now, there are millions of His own creatures who refuse to find Him. As in the days of Noah people did not heed the warning of God but continued in their quarrels and sins, their blasphemies and dissipations, so even today the world mocks the truth. What do they care about the wrath of God? What is to them the judgment to come? Far more interested they are in Rock Island stock, in Panama bonds, in election returns and tariff legislation! This is the carcass that attracts the eagle of judgment!
"All things are transitory"—so runs the refrain of our poetry. Alas, it is not true! If human words and deeds, if vice and sin and shame could be dissolved into nothingness, we might well lay us down to eternal sleep, while Lethe would end the troubled dream of earth. The fact is that nothing perishes. No atom drops out of God's universe and well may we tremble when we think of the resurrection of our sins! Even, while you are reading, a picture of yourself as well as of the entire earth is being photographed by rays of light which, with flash like speed, carry it through the Milky Way toward unknown regions to be searched by all-seeing eyes. Egyptian priests called ether "the archives of the gods." How awful the truth! The invisible scribes of God are keeping the records of whatever is taking place. These records may be temporarily shelved. But whenever the Almighty will shake the foundations of the universe, we shall hear the accurate echo of all words ever spoken, be they curses or blessings, blasphemies or prayers; all treaties of peace and declarations of war; all speeches of flattery and seduction, of boasting and braggadocio accurately reproduced by the universal phonograph of God! Every second electric waves, floating around the universe, preserve the record of the race. Nothing has perished, not even the voice of your yesterdays; you shall hear again every word you have ever spoken. Just as vapor and fog ascend to come down again in the form of thunder and hail, so our energies, misused for the purpose of sin, will descend in torrents of fire and blood so that we literally reap what we have sown. "For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and Thou bast given them blood to drink" (Rev. 16, 6). Aye, even the dead, of whom the hangman said laughingly, "they will never return." They will rise to raise accusing hands and no power of man shall ever again banish them from sight and memory. If after the seven great periods of woe the judge of the universe will appear, we shall be overawed by the great glory of His majesty. Even the "great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman and every free man" (Rev. 6, 15) shall then know the greatness of God. They will see that "the day of His wrath has come."
"LACRIMOSA DIES ILLA!" Tearful indeed the day, when man rises over his ashes, merely to receive the verdict. Therefore "CHRISTE ELEISON! DONA NOBIS REQUIEM!" Christ have mercy upon us! Grant us Thy peace!
But after the day of judgment the Creator will call into existence a new heaven and a new earth, while the choirs of the angelic host will mingle with the songs of the redeemed hosannas to the Most High: "Praise God from whom all blessings flow!"
"THOU ART WORTHY, O LORD, TO RECEIVE GLORY AND HONOR AND POWER; FOR THOU HAST CREATED ALL THINGS, AND FOR THY PLEASURE THEY ARE AND WERE CREATED!" (Rev. 4, 11).
Great Also Is the Son
“LOOKING for the blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2, 13). "In the beginning was the Word . . . . and the Word was God" (John 1, 1). This divine Son, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, has been with God throughout eternity. Unfathomable mystery before which we stand in awe and adoration!
But is not the picture of Father and Son purely human and dare we apply it to the deity? Let us consider this question. Whenever our eyes are being opened toward reality, we detect behind that which is transient and visible a prototype eternal. Moreover we discover that the invisible, eternal is just as tangible and real as the visible. Finally we observe that the invisible is the truth of things and the world of appearances merely the symbol of an eternal thought. Thus heaven is gradually becoming a tangible fact and whatever the earth presents merely the shadow of divine realities. Therefore, instead of asserting that we humanize God by speaking of Him as Father and Son, we should rather seek the divine prototype for the earthly relation between parent and child. If there were not a Father in heaven, there never could have been a father on earth! If there were no thrones, nor crowns, nor harps, nor songs in heaven, they would never have appeared on earth. If no rivers flowed in the world beyond, if trees and flowers did not grow on the fields of heaven, we should never have found them here. This is the true, the biblical point of view. It also explains our unquenchable thirst after the eternal, after the waters of truth and the flower that does not fade. It is the evil spirit within us which persists in telling us that eternity is a mere shadow and that beyond the grave there is naught but a spiritual existence, a sort of an everlasting fog.
Long before the dawn of time the divine son partook of the ideas of the deity. At the decree of Elohim that a world should be called into being, he voiced the thought and thereby became the "Word." "Without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1, 3). Creation is the utterance of the "Word" by which all things were created. What was this Word, spoken by the divine Son? Nothing but the GREAT NAME in which lies upgathered the source and secret of all beings. Before the creation of the universe there was naught. When the great name was spoken, thoughts assumed visibility.
Then the Son became "the firstborn of every creature," and made the heavens of heavens, cherubim’s and the angelic host. He, "by whom God made the worlds," (Hebrew 1, 2) is the great cause of all things visible and invisible, "whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him" (Col. 1, 6).
Every creature is therefore but one letter of the divine name. In this letter it has the secret of its individuality. In this letter lies the possibility of its evolution for the time and space and all eternity. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded from the mouth of God. This truth was emphasized by Moses, when he applied it not primarily to the law of Sinai, but rather to the heavenly manna. Strictly speaking man lives by a variety of divine words, whether they appear in the shape of material things or in ideas derived therefrom; whether they furnish food for the body or food for the mind. The whole world is manna for mankind.
But the Infinite before whom there is neither past nor present but only an eternal Now, saw the fall of man. He saw the Prince of darkness, that element of discord which by placing into spheres of light a tiny black spot soon overclouded the whole human race. Incomprehensible mystery! The Father said to the Son: "The world which thou made has swung out of its appointed course. Reconcile it to me and reclaim the lost." "And the Word was flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1, 14). Who can fathom the thought? None save Elohim.
However, we note a significant correspondence between the fact that the world was created by the son and that the son was charged to restore it to the truth. How gloriously obedient was Jesus to the divine decree, accomplishing his mission with the exclamation: "It is finished!" For that reason the Father gave to Him "all power in heaven and earth," made Him the eternal heir of all creation and placed Him on the throne of judgment. "The Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son." (John 5,22).
While stating these fundamental facts, we disclaim any interest in recent attempts of Christian apologists to rationalize God's mysteries by writing and lecturing on "The Historical Christ," or on "The Mission of the Nazarene." Such efforts, provoked either by the assertions of bold atheists or by the queries of skeptical sophists, lead to nothing. We pity those who analyze the light of the sun under the candle of human reasoning. We care not about the atheists and their rambling talk. They are "the wise and prudent" from whom the Father has hidden the divine truth. They are the scribes and pharisees who "err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God." We are addressing the publicans and sinners, including ourselves, into whose house came salvation (Luke 19, .9) who received the kingdom and forgiveness of sins. With them let us consider the glory of the divine Son.
The current belief that God made the world and Jesus saved it, appears to us one-sided and inaccurate. It is true that in the beginning Elohim, that is Father, Son and Holy Ghost combined, created the universe. But it is also true that the Son was authorized by the Father to be the architect of the great plan and to give it shape and form. Read John 1, 3; Col. 1, 16; Rom. 11, 36; Eph. 3, 9. It was Jesus therefore who in the presence of adoring angels pronounced the six creative words, each calling a world into existence, while all around Him the morning-stars sang together and Seraphim lauded his glory.
How many fail to appreciate the fact that Jesus is the Jehovah of the Old Testament! It is written that "no one hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son hath declared Him." Jesus also says "who sees me, sees the Father," and we conclude that it was the second person of the Trinity, not the first who called in the garden of Eden "Adam, where art thou?"; who communed with Abram in the plains of Mamre, ate the crude meal of Sarah's kitchen and, as the risen Lord, two thousand years later, divided fish and honey with the disciples. He, the "Word" that was with God, gave the commandments out of the clouds on Mt. Sinai, spoke face to face with Moses and was the spiritual rock of which Israel drank in the desert. It was he whom "some of them tempted and were destroyed by serpents" (1 Cor. 10, 9). He is the "Word of Jehovah," which came to the prophets. He warned his enemies that they would suffer upon his return in glory. "Jehovah with all his saints" (Deuteronomy 33, 2) is "Christ with all his saints" (1 Thess. 3, 13).
Accept this truth and your horizon will be infinitely broadened. God comes nearer to man. You learn to know the significance of Israel. This great people has been hidden under the cover of Moses. We now see why Jesus first appeared to the Hebrews and emphasized the thought of divine justice. We also understand more clearly the prophecies given to this peculiar people and refute as untenable the current belief that the church is the spiritual continuation of Israel.
Or does this conception of Christ as Creator and Jehovah detract from the glory of the Father? "I and the Father are one," said Jesus, thereby suggesting the infinite Oneness of the deity. Again "whosoever sees me, sees the Father"—an awe-inspiring revelation to the disciples! Whosoever honors the Son, honors the Father! Do we fully grasp this? Do we realize there is no service, adoration, reverence or prayer offered to Christ in which the Father does not equally share? Nor can we worship the Father without also praising the Son. Jesus is "the beginning of the creation of God." Rev. 3, 14. He is the union between man and his maker, between the temporal and the eternal. He is the link between matter and mind, the great harmonizer, the mediator. God the Father is the Deity of shoreless eternity; the Son created time: "In the beginning." Within him lies the origin of eons, of centuries, of immeasurable periods, of the eternity for which we are created. He is the evolution of the divine thought. Through Him the idea of God became manifest to man. Christ is God and God is Christ. For this reason we can apply all the marvelous revelations of divine power in Nature to the Son as well as to the Father. "The Father that dwelleth in me doeth the works," said Jesus. We are witnessing a love so wonderfully harmonious between Father and Son, a unity so complete, that our reason staggers. The Son beholding the Father in his illimitable glory exclaims "The Father is Greater." The Father beholding the Son, responds: "My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!” The fullness of divine perfection emanates from both.
No wonder Christ will ever remain a miracle to man! His coming and going; his words and deeds, his whole career until his departure amid the clouds is more marvelous that any of the wonders and signs he performed on earth. No matter how much you may revere him, if you fail to find in him the mystery of the Divine, you may as well worship a wooden crucifix. You resemble the ignoramus who professes to believe in God, yet denies all miracles, as if the idea of a God and the idea of a miracle were not altogether inseparable. And yet there are those who would claim for such an unparalleled stupidity the height of enlightenment.
Christ is also that which we are apt to call "law." Not merely the law of Moses which, by the way, contains a wealth of divine ideas hitherto undiscovered. But Christ is more than that. He is the law of the universe. His thought is the equilibrium of creation. In our natural blindness we fail to recognize the divine principle underlying our very existence. We assume that the world moves about in a slip-shod fashion. We talk of chance. Last year we had a rainy summer; this year it will probably be dry. A cornet appeared in the heavens, perhaps we'll have another. Questioning as to whether there is to be peace or war, or progress or retrogression, prosperity or adversity we still adhere to the idea of accident. The truth is that not only the shining orbs of heaven, but every atom, every cowslip and orchid-flower, every drop of water, as well as ourselves, are constantly being sustained by a supreme law. What is the soul of this law, aye of all the laws of the universe? The Bible tells us that the whole cosmos is nothing but the continuous thought and will of Christ. He "upholds all things by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3). His word sustains the firmament and causes the stars to swing in their orbits. All life has its source and secret in him. By Him and through Him winds and waves circulate around the earth. He causes the blood to course through our veins, and the sap through the leaves of the tiniest plant. Behind every activity of nature, like a soul behind the body, is his infinite intelligence, wise, just and firm of purpose.
This Jesus, "yesterday, to-day and forever," rules the kingdom of nature. Before Adam was made, he arranged the hoarding of sunlight in vegetation that it might afterwards furnish fuel for railroads and steamers by which missionaries could reach foreign lands in search of souls. He caused the saurians of the Jura-sea to gather explosive oil that we might by means of motorboats, autos or airplanes display our vanity and misery before all the world. He originated the great inventions and discoveries of history in due season, reserving for himself the final hour, when he will inscribe on the consciences of unjust stewards: "Weighed in the balances and found wanting." And many there are who while dreaming of Napoleon's empires, will meet their Waterloo!
Meanwhile we little people argue on earth as to whether or not His word is compatible with the enlightenment of our age. O depth of darkness! Know ye not that in the presence of the Christ our systems and theories are but as the prattling of babes?
Consciously or unconsciously the iniquitous world hates the Divine law and government: "Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us!" (Psalm 2, 3). But it might as well shake the stars out of their orbits and dictate new principles of cause and effect!
Christians, on the other hand, have clung too tenaciously to a narrow view of Christ and seen in Him simply a religious teacher. Jesus is the mainspring and fountain-head of all life. Out of Him, as a tree out of the root, rise all the laws of creation, whether they pertain to matter or mind, to heaven or hell, to atoms or plants! His thought is the underlying principle of chemistry and physics. He creates and sustains the universe. We are too apt to find in Christ merely a suffering Savior or, going to another extreme, worship Him as sitting in His heaven as if forgetful of the realm of nature. For this reason our ideas lack organic coherence. They are not properly fused. In fact we have no adequate view of things (Weltanschauung). It is a grievous fault.
Did not Christ say "To me is given all power in heaven and earth?" Once recognize in Him the Divine law of nature and your life and lore will enormously grow in clearness and logical unity. It will radiate power and truth and also liberty! For the divine law means true liberty, a fact fully understood by those who live in Him (2 Cor. 3, 17). "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law!" (Psalm 119, 18).
Christ is not only the prophet, but all the prophets. (Luke 24, 19; Deut. 18, 15). In Him is hidden all wisdom; in Him the first and last thought of all eternities. Clear to Him are all the plans and purposes of the Father, even from the very beginning to the grand consummation, when God shall be "all in all." He weaves into the web of history every thought and word of His children until the white garment of holiness is completed. Just as innumerable rays of light, flashing through space, cross each other without collision, and create in passing multitudinous images of perfect construction, so whatever man or devil may design, whatever may appear as answered prayer must serve at last as a part of His ever-harmonious wisdom. No wonder, therefore, that this all-seeing Christ can give revelations to David and Daniel, to Isaiah and John, for He is "the God of the holy prophets." (Rev. 22, 6). "New things do I declare and the former things are come to pass." (Isaiah 42, 9). Because He is "King of Kings and Lord of Lords;" because He guides human thought like the waters of a brook, powers and principalities are unconsciously subservient to His will. He is ever present in the deliberations of the world's leaders, even when they "take counsel together and come to naught, for His name is Immanuel." (Isaiah 8, 10).
Jesus refused to accept the kingdoms of this earth and it is for that very reason that God gave them to Him. Now He controls the realm of the spirits in land and sea and air. He guards His people against "the gates of hell." Because He holds the rudder of history, "the scriptures cannot be broken."
May God increase within us the knowledge of Christ, the prophet! Not that we should venture into any untimely interpretations of divine mysteries whose meaning is still hidden. (Dan. 8, 26; 12, 4, 19). But that we should rise into a loftier view of God and His wondrous purposes for humanity, for Israel and for the church.
Gladly and without effort the Son manages creation. He does not groan beneath the gigantic task. Sitting upon the throne of glory He "laughs" (Psalm 2, 4) and His eyes like flames of fire lighten the universe. While His little brothers on earth struggle on with tears, He smiles, for He knows that all things must work together for good. He laughs at the frail efforts of Satan who is evermore being hurled from his rise to heaven like a flash from the sky. Christ is the creative "Word" which inspires Cherubim and Seraphim and illuminates the human soul. This word is forevermore flooding with light the countless spheres of creation. When Christ says "yes" and "Amen," harmonious echoes respond from the blessed host of heaven. When He says "no," the iron gate of hell is shaken and in impotent fury Satan curses his fate. O pour into our souls something of thy majesty and might, wonderful Christ! "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever!" Let us see Thee in spirit, incarnate God, miracle of all miracles! Let us know Thee as the great legislator of the universe! Let us worship Thee as the fulfillment of the law! Thou art the true prophet, aye the sum-total of all that was ever prophesied. Thou hast become "the lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world;" in adoration and praise we revere Thy unfathomable love! Help us to join at last in the grand chorus of the redeemed! Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom and strength, and honor and blessing and glory!" (Rev. 5, 12).
If we truly believe this, we shall cease to think of heaven as a dim and inhabitable zone. We shall no longer talk of "irreparable losses," weep uselessly at tombstones and refuse to be comforted because our loved ones have gone to paradise! Unfortunately we have scores of Christians whose view of things is woefully inadequate. Their spiritual lens is not properly adjusted. Full of incongruities and absurdities is their idea of the beyond. They may assume in a general way that the souls of the just and unjust will continue after death. But their heaven is of peculiar construction. It may have room for the twelve apostles, but the law by which two times two are four does not seem to apply to it.
Can there be a heaven without space, if we are to see the forms and faces of Christ and His disciples? Can there be a heaven without material things, if we are to eat and drink with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? If these "Christians" would understand what is meant by "the resurrection of the body," they would rejoice over the invitation to the table of the Lord around which will be assembled Elijah and Moses, Paul and James and John, the great and good souls of all ages! O listen to the inexhaustible chorus of joy and triumph: "Ave, Christ, Imperator!" Behold the wine of life and the fruits of heaven on the table of the King of kings! Let us be serious in our belief of "the new earth" and cultivate within us the whole-souled appreciation of the glorious kingdom that is to come beyond all dreams of our imperfect earth!
While it is right and meet that we should approach Christ in a spirit of deepest humility, aye even with a degree of affectionate confidence, we should guard against undue familiarity. The Bible tells us that John, the beloved, who used to place his head upon the bosom of the Master, fell as one dead when he saw the radiant countenance of the risen Lord. Will not some Christians who now fancy themselves on "chummy" terms with Jesus, have a similar experience after death?
Just as we have a belittling view of God, the Father, we are apt to put into too small a frame the picture of Jesus. Our religious literature, our songs and prayers are ever placing unbecoming stress on the dear "ego." Everything in the Bible is brought into relation to my own little self, every prophecy, whether pertaining to the nations of the earth, to Israel or the whole creation is apt to be made an appendix to our own exaggerated being. Even so deep a mind as that of Count Zindendorf fell into this error. His followers went even further and by developing an unworthy subjectivism, lost much of the influence which should have emanated from a source so truly spiritual. The presumptuous folly of dragging Christ down to our own level cannot stand the test, when "the rain descends and the floods come and the winds blow and beat upon that house!" The earthquake of skepticism will shake it. The storm of worldliness will raze it to the ground. For this Christ, narrowed down to our prejudice, has ceased to be the infinite Lord who overcomes the powers of darkness. Religious egotism is ever sentimental, resentful, peevish, unsound. It indulges in cant until the soul gets calloused. It fails to see things in proportion. It makes self too large and the Savior too small. It is swayed from extreme to extreme. It is not godliness after the manner of Christ.
On the other hand we should guard against the spirit of a fossilized orthodoxy. We have in mind those bigoted dogmatists who by arbitrary and iron-clad interpretations of the Scripture raise a barrier between the vision of the soul and the Infinitude of Christ. How few of them are capable of appreciating the great prophecy given to Israel in the ninth chapter to the Romans: "Israelites to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises!" Instead of recognizing herein the future of the kingdom of God, these dogmatists apply to it a dull, artificial significance giving it a forced meaning in order to square it with their traditions. That God has ways of reaching "all nations" (Matt. 25, 31, 32); that there will be the "blessed of the Father" among all races; that the gospel is being proclaimed to the dead (Eph. 4, 9); that "the whole creation waited for the manifestation of the sons of God," (Rom. 8, 19); that there is forgiveness of sins even in the Beyond (Matt. 12, 32); that lion and leviathan, trees and flowers are also anticipating the day of the grand restoration, all of this seems foreign to their thought. They do not join in the hallelujah of "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are under the sea and all that are in them." (Rev. 5, 13).
Have a large Savior and you will have a large heart. We limit ourselves too much to the Jesus who walked on the earth. While it is true that "the Word was flesh and dwelt among us," that He suffered and died, we must not lose sight of the fact that He has ceased to be the Man of Sorrows, the lowly Nazarene who was rejected of men. This picture presents but one little chapter of God's eternal Son. He says Himself: "I was dead and am alive; I am Alpha and Omega; the first and the last." (Rev. 1, 8). Christ now sits in ineffable glory at the right hand of Power. He is enthroned as the King of eternity. Believing this we should have a more royal point of view, and instead of continually talking of our miserable sins, experience the thrill of His infinite power and joy.
I believe that "Christian Art" has done much to lower our religious conceptions. Neither God nor Christ desired that there should be either picture or statue of that which lies beyond the imagination. Some artists refer to the fact that Jesus was "the fairest among the children of men;" others like Uhde emphasize that "in Him there was neither comeliness nor beauty." Some have a blond-haired and some a dark-haired Christ, there not being a shadow of evidence for either theory. We are not edified by looking at the halo place on His brow, nor by the toy-flag in the hands of the risen Lord. It is difficult to say which of the varied conceptions is the most grotesque. The old fathers of the church, Augustin, Chrysostom and Tertullian would not tolerate anything but Biblical verses in the sanctuary. But in the fourth century there arose the tendency to present, through painting or sculpture, memories of the earthly life of Jesus. "To picture Christ's agonized countenance beneath the crown of thorns is but a prolongation of the power of darkness," says an English author of modern times. Certain it is that all attempts of tender, but misguided souls, to reproduce Christ in pictures are detrimental to the progress of spiritual thought. They deserve the criticism of St. Paul: "Though we have known Christ after the flesh; yet now, henceforth, know we Him no more." (2 Cor. 5, 16).
There is also a superabundance of religious periodicals, tracts and booklets which do more harm than good because the Christianity, offered in them, lacks masculinity and bold progressiveness. Our faith shines in the borrowed light of human authorities instead of being illuminated by the Son of Righteousness. Where is the religious strength of a Paul and Peter, the defiant assurance so characteristic of early Christianity? Where the complete and unconditional surrender to the truth, the faith that knows no "ifs" and question marks? Instead of it we have a pale, sickly sort of religionism, permeated with Anglo-American fads, or we are swayed like a reed by every breath of Atheism, Adventism, Agnosticism, Christian Science. "Be manly and strong" is the apostle's appeal to us. Do we heed it? We should have in our veins the blood of Puritan and Huguenot, spilled freely on scaffold and battlefield. We should know something of the glory of martyrdom, the quiet and unostentatious devotion of the great Lord, which required no experience meetings to be recognized. True saints endure heroically, because they have the blessed assurance of the living Christ.
Just as the thought of God's greatness enlarges man, so the vision of Christ's glory gives power to the Christian. It is not as important to talk about the dear Savior as it is to prove this fact in our words and actions. Let us remember that there is no better way of bearing witness to the Gospel than to be obedient to the Master's commandments. What is the use of talking religion, of advertising our loyalty to the Lord, if our deeds give the lie to our words? Did Jesus ever appeal to human courts to gain a point or to collect a debt? Did He defend His honor with tongue or pen and defend Himself like a lion against personal attacks? (John 8, 50; 1 Peter 2, 23). Did He ask gifts of charity from His disciples or others, securing for His "children" funds for future emergencies? (Mark 6, 8; Luke 9, 3). Did He solicit endowments for worthy institutions? Did He encourage the signing of pledges, (Matthew 5, 37), the wearing of uniforms, the installation of the mourners' bench and all kinds of religious gymnastics? (Luke 17, 20). Did He caution His disciples against the percentage of alcohol in the wine which he drank at the wedding of Cana? (Luke 10, 17). Did He order the building of expensive cathedrals, which are in no sense imitations of Solomon's temple designed by God, but merely copies of traditional Catholic architecture? Or did He proclaim the religious equality of the sexes selecting twelve female disciples and sending seventy women to preach the gospel?
The most needful thing in our enervated age is a military obedience to the Bible. This is more important than family worship or spasmodic religious advice. "If you obey me," so runs God's refrain throughout "the law and the prophets." The Christian is a man who obeys. He does not judge things merely by results. He listens to orders. King Saul thought that he might please God by sacrificing the oxen of Amalek, but Samuel informed him that obedience was better than sacrifices. (1 Sam. 15, 22). A true child of God is obedient to the word in his daily life; in questions of matrimony and pedagogy, in matters of law and politics. Or are we to set aside the Bible as an antiquated volume and prefer the fashions of the age? Shall we, like the subjects of Eva Booth, bow to the religious leadership of woman? The leadership of woman has been a symptom of religious decline, ever since the fatal event described in Genesis 3, 17. "Women rule over my people; they which lead thee, cause thee to err"—thus cried the ancient prophet. (Isaiah 3, 12). It is written that women should be obedient to their husbands in all things. Read. 1 Cor. 11, 8, 9; 1 Tim. 2, 13, 14. The Bible never concedes to woman the "Jus DOCENDI." "Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak." (1 Cor. 14, 34, 35). Who can doubt that God has good psychological and pedagogical reasons for such a commandment? It is a fact that the teaching of women has ever been disastrous to the race and that her influence in modern Christian literature has helped to make the faith superficial and shallow. With all due respect to the gentler sex, its varied and undisputed attainments along the lines of motherhood and training of children, we must admit that it lacks the clear, logical faculty, the gift of discernment (1 Cor. 12, 10) so essential to the preaching of the Gospel. Now I claim that the Bible teaching is very clear on this point. Either we accept or reject. There is no half-way attitude. All those who endorse the public utterances of women, attend such gatherings, or lend their influence to the feminization of the pulpit offend the law of God.
And what shall we say of weak-kneed Christians who occasionally drop a line into the public press endorsing the truth of the Gospel and lack the courage to sign their name? If you are a man and a Christian, you will identify yourself with the cause of the Master. And what of those who fear a railroad accident when they travel by land, and a marine disaster when they cross the ocean? Read Matthew 8, 26. What of those who carry burglar insurance and lock their door against thieves? "For Thou Lord makes me dwell in safety," says the Bible. (Psalm 4, 8). Little honor for the great Christ, when his followers ask for medical advice and listen with mystified adoration to the oracles of the physician. (2 Cor. 16, 12).
"Healing by prayer" is a popular topic in our time. And while we consider the calling of a doctor permissible and even useful, we must insist that the Christian, living in communion with God, has the privilege of consulting his Father in matters of sickness and health, for it was God who said "I am the Lord, thy physician." And even, if he should receive no response save the assurance that "grace must suffice," he will find comfort in the fact that greater Christians than himself, men like Paul and Luther and Livingstone have also suffered. With gratitude the Christian receives whatever God sends, be it sickness or health. (Rom. 8, 28). Make yourself useful to God and He will preserve you, but should He think best that you be advanced to the higher sphere, go gladly and murmur not! Surely the curse of the apostle, first spoken to Simon (Acts 8, 20) applies fully to these modern women who claiming to pray people into well being demand a compensation in cash. I also deny the right of the Christian to appeal to the courts. Surely you cannot have a strong and omnipresent Lord, if you try to collect debts through the agencies of human law and attempt to square accounts at the bar of earthly justice. "I say this to your shame. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" (1 Cor. 6, 7). I do not believe that a Christian should insure his life, should provide for a rainy day, accumulate wealth. (Matthew 6, 25, 31, 32). We also commit a sin by recognizing any human authority. (Matthew 23, 8).
However, none of us has been without guilt. We sin again and again. The whole career of a Christian is a conflict. The world would lure us with the siren voices of art and science. Temptations of the flesh spring up like weeds in the soil. Conscience awakes and tortures us. However, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous! He forgives -whatever sins and shortcomings are still clinging to us. His mercy has no bounds. Never He reproached for past sins those that appealed to Him. There is but one sin that cannot be forgiven. "Ye say: we see; therefore your sin remains." (John 9, 41). "If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us." (1 John 1, 8).
Ask God for the manifestation of a great Savior. In this age of doubt, when the spirits of evil are literally "in the air," we need clearness, courage, freedom and wisdom. But without Him we can do nothing. Remember His promise: "The truth shall make you free!" WHOSOEVER SHALL CONFESS THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, GOD DWELLETH IN HIM AND HE IN GOD. (1 John 4, 15).
I Believe In the Holy Ghost Who Spoke By the Prophets
F i NTHRONED together with Father and Son, there is a third personality, unfathomable, divine—the Holy Ghost. We have a right to call Him a personality, because Jesus authorized His disciples to baptize "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost," and also tells of "the Comforter who will speak what He hears from the Father." (John 16, 13). To John the Baptist the Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, descending upon the Christ, while the writer of Revelation saw Him as a sevenfold light. (Rev. 4, 5). The Holy Spirit sent a message of peace to the seven congregations and the apostle prays that "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and THE COMMUNION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT" might remain with his brethren. (2 Cor 13 ,13). There is a trinity in man consisting of the body which the Father created, the soul which the Son redeemed and the spirit with which the Holy Ghost holds communion. In an infinitely deeper sense (1 Thess. 5, 23) we find the Trinity in the Godhead.
The Holy Ghost shares omnipotence with the Father and the Son. He was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there was no depth I was brought forth; when there was no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens I was there; I was daily His delight (artist) rejoicing always before Him. (Prov. 8, 22, 30). Elohim made the world of individual spirits entrusting them with the material universe as a means of making themselves manifest. But no created spirit can have manifestation without the Holy Spirit. Nor can any kind of matter exist without spirit. What we call "the forces of Nature" are merely the breath of the Holy Ghost. All force and spirits are emanations of the One, Almighty, Holy Spirit of God.
It is difficult for some Christians to think of the Holy Ghost as a personality, and one of the most miserable results of modern philosophy and of the higher criticism, is the exaggeration of the human personality and a corresponding loss of faith in the personality of the Triune God.
For these critics there is no personal God, neither in heaven above nor in the earth below. The universe appears to them void of divinity. God, the mainspring and author of creation, whose personality is supreme, is fading in the fog of their fancy. Because we are at such close range to things material, we fail to recognize the soul back of them. We speak of fire and water, rain and storm as if these phenomena had an independent existence. The Bible does not recognize such a view-point. It emphasizes the truth that whatever we see and taste and hear is but the expression of a thought, a personality back of it. In the one hundred and fourth Psalm we read that God "makes His angels spirits; His ministers a flaming fire." Out of the absolute, intensely personal, though infinite nature of God, unnumbered personalities are evermore proceeding which are back of the sensuous creation in its varied aspect, even if we fail to see them and speak of mere material things. It is absurd to think of "the good" as an abstract idea, for back of "the good" is a personality: God. It is erroneous to speak of evil as a shapeless conception; back of all evil is a personality: the devil. Whatever is good, comes from God. Whatever is evil, comes from the devil. Man is neither "the good" nor "the evil one." Whatever appears in him as good or evil is caused by outside influences. Not being the author of either sin or holiness, he can merely accept or reject what is offered to him from without. He can choose between God and Satan, heaven and hell. The universe is one grand inspiration, emanating partly from God, partly from the devil. We are living in a world of symbols and results, back of which is the world of causes, of realities, of personalities.
Seven spirits stand before the throne of God. (Rev. 1, 4). The fact that there are seven proves that they differ from each other. And yet the seven are one. Just as there are five fingers and one hand, many branches and one tree, one ray of light and seven colors, one fountain and numerous arches of spray so, corresponding to the principle of nature, there are seven spirits. Note the reference made to this fact in the Old Testament, (Isaiah 11, 2): "The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and understanding; the spirit of counsel and light; the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." It is no easy task to grasp these fine distinctions in the personality of God, but nature makes some helpful suggestions along that line. She gives us the seven hues of the rainbow, seven sounds forming the foundation of all words; the number of tastes and smells emanating from all beings; above all the variety of the senses, those half-darkened windows of the soul, by which we can link ourselves to the seven spirits of God. Every creature is the child of whatever spirit is uppermost in influence; every soul has its peculiar color and vowel, its preeminent taste, be it sharp, mild, bitter, sour, contractive or expansive. All these tendencies determine temperament, physiognomy, character and indicate the influence they will exert on others. And "beneath it all," says Boehme, "is the birth-pang and travail." Painfully the root gathers its constituent parts, but the fruit is sweet.
Christ, speaking of Himself, has told us that unless a grain of wheat die, it must abide alone. Life out of death! Renunciation is the grave over which will rise the sweetness of life, the beauty of speech and the majesty of noble actions. But in the world to come we shall have a "heavenly" existence, caused by the ceaseless activity of the seven spirits, harmonizing the laws of numbers, words, melodies, colors and all the senses.
To the human race God first appeared as the creator, the author of the universe. Again He manifested Himself as the Savior, the beloved Son. Finally He comes as the Holy Spirit, the divine breath which pervades the universe. "Thou sends forth Thy spirit, they are created." (Psalm 104, 30). This breath of God is the unknown force called "life." It beams in the sunshine, hums in the bee, sings in the bird, soars with the eagle, thrills and throbs in the human heart.
And just as a man turning to God, or rather "being turned" to God, will find in the first person of the Trinity a Father and in the second person a loving Savior, so the Holy Ghost comes to him as a Comforter. It is the Holy Spirit who illuminates the mind (Prov. 4) and grants wisdom to those who seek it. (Luke 11, 13). He explains the scriptures and the words of Christ. Because He is "holy" He is gradually winning the soul from unhallowed tendencies, never ceasing in this gracious work until the day of death.
And as the Father is in the Son—"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself"—and the Son in the Father, so the Holy Spirit is in both of them. Separation is impossible. Wherever the Father is, there is the Son, and where the Son is there is the Holy Ghost; and where the Holy Ghost is, there is Father and Son. We are not offering to explain the mystery. We simply state the fact.
One characteristic feature of the Holy Spirit is His freedom: "The wind blows where it lists." We cannot force Him to do our bidding. We may pray to Him. But He will come in His time, not ours, modern revivalists notwithstanding.
This fact should be strongly emphasized at a time when Christianity is assuming a sentimental and effeminate physiognomy. Guard against sensational advertising: "Christ is here or there!" "Behold my servant whom I have chosen! He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets." (Matthew 12, 19).
The Bible admonishes us to "purify our souls." (1 Pet. 1, 22). A timely advice, while mankind is rushing after fads and fashions. We should steer clear of all artificial, sensational, hysterical religionism. We should discern with that fine discrimination which is indeed a gift of heaven, what is genuine and what false, what Christianity and what its caricature.
Many so-called revivals, loudly advertised, are naught but fires of straw, though we may hope that some souls, attending them, have been converted. We should never forget that the Holy Spirit is a sane agency for good. I caution against all forms of Christianity which savor of the sensational, producing psychopathetical men and hysterical women. Our great reformers had their faults, but as we review the careers of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, Huss, we find them sane and full-orbed men, defiant in the storm of life; ready to die for the truth. Nor can I see any attempt of sensationalism in the preaching of the apostles. They used no theatrical effects, no moving pictures or musical attractions to reach the human heart. Nothing is deeper or higher than the plain, childlike faith!
What is the mission of the Holy Spirit? "God gives knowledge and wisdom." This we hold is the great task of the Holy Spirit. "He, the spirit of truth, the Comforter, which proceeded from the FATHER WILL GUIDE You INTO ALL TRUTH. HE SHALL TAKE OF MINE AND SHALL SHOW IT UNTO You." (John 14 and 16). How can this be done, since the Holy Spirit is not walking visibly among us? Through infusion, inspiration. He has the power to communicate divine wisdom and divine power to human spirits receptive for it. The soul which is the breath of God, being purified by the inflowing stream of truth, receives not merely religious feelings, but words of truth which become its blessed possession. When God breathed His spirit into Adam He poured into one man the possibility of all human souls. Just so the Holy Spirit produces a variety of results always co-operating with the individuality, the characteristic features of the recipient soul. He is also fire and light and therefore intensifies the dominant hue of every personality. This appears strikingly in the works of the great prophets and apostles. They received the same spirit but reproduced His gift in a variety of ways. Thus we must view the nature of the "verbal inspiration." The. Bible is certainly not "a dictation to automatic writers." It is "spirit and life." Do ye not err, therefore, because ye know not the scriptures neither the power of God? (Mark 12, 24). Only "the poor in spirit" can and will receive the Holy Ghost.
Nowadays we have grown so "wise" that we seem to get along without that wisdom with which God inspired Solomon, even for the affair3 of the present world. We receive second-hand information through the daily press, from atheists and unbelieving theologians. Little we have of the original force and initiative, of direct illumination, of inspiration. The Holy Spirit is ready to enter but we close the door. The result is that we have ceased to believe in the efficacy of prayer, Man, the child of dust, addresses God, the creator of heaven and earth: "Calm the storm, banish disease, fill my net with fishes, provide the daily bread! No matter about the 'laws of nature;' I am not concerned about them. Father, I will!" And the heavenly Father turns his angels into ministering servants. This is the truth, though Nicodemus queries "How can these things be?"
To those who have eyes that see there can be no question that man, the little day-fly, ever surrounded by the elements of light and darkness, of good and evil, is inevitably subjected to the dual kingdom of spirits, and that His words, thoughts and deeds are constantly being inspired from above or from below. Just as in the regions of air strong winds are circulating around the earth, so there are in the spiritual realm spirits that are in the air and their prince. (Eph. 2, 22). The current phrase that "ideas are in the air" is significant. "For we wrestle against the evil spirits of the air." (Eph. 6, 12). There may be inferior minds (inspired by the prince of dark- ness) who remain unconscious of this fact, but superior intellects have recognized it, Goethe expressing it in his "Conversations with Eckermann:" "Productiveness of the highest order, lies beyond our volition and altogether beyond any human effort. In such cases man often becomes a chosen vessel for the reception of a divine influence." Aye, is there a Christian who amid trials and tribulations has not repeatedly experienced suggestions of evil, not of his own creation but clearly coming from without? This kind of inspiration is plainly taught in the Bible, and its recorded results are known as the world's history. Thus only we can explain the annals of Rome and Carthage, of Islam, of the Reformation, of the French Revolution. Spirits of revenge and defiance, of rebellion and conquest take hold of the nations. Consider the vision of Daniel. (Chap. 7, 16; 10, 11). Did Darius and Alexander realize that in whatever they did or omitted, they were controlled by invisible spirits? It is not probable that a single soldier in either the Persian or the Macedonian army had the faintest idea of this great truth. Under the delusion that they were dependent on the blind fortunes of war, they trusted to the skill of their respective leaders. But the fact remains that the great generals and kings were merely fulfilling the will of higher powers (Dan. 4, 14) and that the strength of their arms, the word of their lips or the fire of their eyes was but a reflection of superior inspirations. The world is sustained and its history written by forces of good and evil whose suggestions are the potent and decisive agencies in the drama of man. Take a humble illustration of this marvelous fact. The breath of man in very cold weather turns into tiny particles of ice. Thus, on an infinitely higher scale, the world was made by God's breath or "expiration." And just as the fog will be dispelled by the rising rays of the sun, so this earth, contaminated by the breath of Satan, will dwindle into nothingness before the flaming countenance of Him who sits on the white throne. (Rev. 20, 11). Evident it is that the world was called into existence by a supreme power and it is growing more certain to thoughtful scientists that it will eventually be dissolved.
Note also that spirit is the author of the word. Animals not having the spirit are dumb. Enter a home and the atmosphere of your spirit will immediately create words of welcome, of joy, of hospitality, even before you have uttered a syllable. The same holds true of an audience which feeling the fire, the personality of the orator bursts into enthusiasm and applause. If this can result from the activity of a human spirit, what wonderful response may be aroused by the work of the Holy Ghost! And still there may be those who query: "If He has no mouth, how can He speak? If He has no ears how can He hear our prayers? When will you understand, ye brutish among the people? And, ye fools, when will ye be wise?" (Psalm 94, 7, 8).
The Bible never ceases to tell us not merely that the Holy Spirit communicated thoughts to holy men, but that He literally spoke. "Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near and join thyself to this chariot." (Acts 8, 29). "The Spirit said unto Peter, Arise and go with them, doubting nothing." (Acts 10, 19). "The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul." (Acts 13, 2).
Did not God speak to Balaam? The Holy Spirit penetrated the innermost soul of this prophet, who, though the carrier of a divine revelation was doomed to die. "The Lord put the word in Balaam's mouth," (Numbers 23, 5), truly a "verbal inspiration!" Thus also God spoke to Elijah, (2 Kings 1, 4), also to Isaiah, "Return and tell Hezekiah"—a verbal inspiration! Thus the scriptures call themselves "the Word of God." The whole law of Sinai was a verbal transmission of Jehovah to Moses and Christ assures us that not an iota of it shall perish. "For the prophecy came not by the will of man; but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." (1 Peter 1, 21).
Do we need further evidence? In the grand vision of Isaiah Jehovah asks, "Whom shall I send? And I answer: Here I am, send me. And he said: Go thou and speak to this people: Thus SAITH THE LORD!" (Isaiah 59, 21). God says to the prophet Jeremiah: "Go thou whither I send thee; and WHATSOEVER I COMMAND THEE, THOU SHALT SPEAK." (Jeremiah 1, 7). Of Joel we read: "This is the word of the Lord that came to Joel." (Joel 1, 1).
In the New Testament Jesus asserts that "the scriptures cannot be broken;" Paul puts stress on the fact that the gospel he preaches is of divine origin: "Not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are given of God." (1 Cor. 2, 13). But nothing can bear stronger witness to the nature of "verbal inspiration" than the prophecy of Christ, "Take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit." (Matthew 10, 19).
Sir James G. Brookes has found two thousand repetitions of the scriptural phrases "thus saith the Lord," and "God spoke." We may not be able to analyze the nature of this inspiration, but certain it is that Christ—Jehovah makes Himself known. "If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision and will speak to him in a dream." (Numbers 12, 6). Paul tells us in the first chapter to the Hebrews that God spoke "in divers manners." Why and how this revelation came to certain people is not of prime importance. The fact is that it came. And, if the Bible means nothing by telling us two thousand times that "the Lord spoke," we certainly have no use for it!
Let us make a distinction between those books which we have in the original text and others that have come to us in the form of translations. For everybody knows that any kind of translation, be it ever so accurate, lacks the power of the Hebrew or Greek text. That there are many languages and, therefore, merely an imperfect version of God's word is due not to a divine arrangement, but to human sin which through the erection of the tower of Babel caused the confusion of tongues. For this reason we should bear our loss in humility, instead of arguing about it in a more or less arrogant fashion. What would you think of a child who, upon the receipt of his father's letter, would exclaim: "While the language, the nature, the purpose of this letter seems to indicate that it was written by my father, I notice the want of a comma, blurring ink-spots and misspelled words. I refuse to believe that father dictated this letter. It is a forgery!"
The Bible is a "dictation," our critics notwithstanding. Of Moses it is said, that "he wrote into a book all the words of the law," which Jehovah revealed to him. Seven times Christ gives orders to St. John to "write to the angel of the congregation, what the spirit says to the congregation." We assert that a son receiving instructions from his father relative to his con- duct in life, would be curiously ungrateful, should he reply: "I do not care about such instructions, because they make me "a helpless tool in thy hands." We also insist that, should the Holy Ghost choose us as instruments of His inspiration, we should be profoundly appreciative, and gladly become "ready pens" for His dictation. The fact remains that the Holy Spirit is an active force, communicating His thoughts to souls which are worthy, and that this communication is invariably followed by a state of highest enthusiasm in those receiving it. It is this vital fellowship which is hinted at in Acts 15, 28: "It seems good to the Holy Ghost and to us!"
The relationship between God and man is naturally much more intimate than any earthly communion between friends or lovers, flowing as it does from the soul of the Most High into humble hearts and ever producing emotions of highest ecstasy. That people who never experienced it are incapable of understanding it, is clear enough. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God." (1 Cor. 2, 14).
The Bible is most certainly inspired. It reveals facts pertaining to the human heart and its sinfulness which, though repugnant to our natural way of thinking, find undeniable confirmations in history and personal experience; it also unveils a truth which never could have been conceived in the mind of man, the glorious fact that "God gave His only Son that all that believe in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." Do you know of any religion which revealed a God dying for His enemies? I call attention to the marvelous prophecies concerning Israel and Christ that have been fulfilled before our very eyes. Did Confucius, Buddha, Ma-hornet venture to prophecy anything at all? There are millions of people who have experienced the truth of Christianity, who have been comforted by it in their suffering, glorified by it in the hour of death. This is so true that thousands of martyrs rather died than denied!
I know that there are people who speak of the "verbal inspiration" as if it were a "difficult, theological problem." Fortunately it is neither "difficult" nor "theological." The word of the Father is received by the trusting child without further argument. It says: "I believe—CREEK)." Whoever refuses to accept verbal inspiration and prefers to look upon the Bible as trustworthy in some respects, and not to be taken seriously in others, openly confesses that he does not believe in the Holy Ghost. We should bear in mind that the modern tendency to deny the reliability of the Biblical record is primarily a denial of THE PERSONALITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, HIS POWER AND FREEDOM. What mental poverty, what arrogance and spiritual blindness to limit the Holy Spirit! To assert that this great "Comforter" and guide of truth, cannot create in the human soul words of eternal life! Have we for- gotten the promise of Christ that His Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth? Think of the folly of man who cannot explain the origin of any idea nor its subsequent formation into words, yet denies the mystery of divine inspiration!
A noted novelist has recently compared the fallibility of science with the fallibility of the scriptures. The comparison is unfortunate. Science is not faulty, but incomplete. If science assures us that a single ray of light is composed of seven colors, the statement is absolutely true. But it is equally true that science does not possess all the facts about the law of light. It seems that the words of Christ, spoken to His disciples, apply also to those who would defend the faith against stubborn unbelief: "O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"
Do you hear the distant rumbling of the storm? Do you see the ripples on the water, forerunners of the approaching typhoon? Do you notice the whirlwind in the streets of our large cities, scattering through the air dust, straw and accumulated waste? Soon the clouds will burst and destructive torrents of the judgment pour another deluge upon our godless generation! Can you see the lightning preceding the final tempest that will raise the universe out of its hinges? How many wilted leaves and barren branches will be swept away? Are there not "Christians" who put their faith in crucifixes, candles, cere- monies, lip service and conventional piety? The thunderbolts of God will blast many a proud oak of Basan, many a cedar of Lebanon, not rooted in the word of truth!
"And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the star; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring!" Decayed timber of hypocrisy, whited sepulchers of bigotry, frail structures of philosophy will go crashing into the abyss! "Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?" (Ezek. 13, 12).
Just as archaeologists discover original inscriptions under the debris and ruins of ancient cities, so the plain and powerful truth shall be revealed and laid bare amid the pile of human rubbish and clap-trap which has been accumulated during centuries of gradual degeneration. "Adam, where art thou?" will be the question of Jehovah to mankind hiding behind all kinds of foliage. Then the royal purple and the clerical robe, the finery of the stage and the glittering gown of society will drop to the ground. Nude and trembling, like Adam and Eve, humanity must appear before the all seeing eye of God. Millions will hear the question, first addressed to Cain: "Where is Abel, thy brother?" Whole pyramids of unjust laws will crumble under the verdict of Eternal Justice: "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life." Commerce and politics, nations and their transactions must abide by the Master's words: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you; do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matthew 7, 12).
The feministic movement will be judged according to the scriptural rule given in Gen. 2, 23, 24 and Tim. 2, 12. Many a philosophy will be stunned by the question, (Psalm 94, 9), "He that made the eye, can He not see; He that made the ear, can He not hear? He that chastises the heathen, shall not He correct?" Aye, much discussion about orthodoxy will be hushed by the words (Micah 6, 8) "Oh man, what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly; and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God!"
How can we gather strength, courage and patience to meet the imminent catastrophe? Surely not by a foolhardy criticism of the Word of God, the only rock which has survived for our comfort and strength during the wreck of civilization! Or are God's promises unreliable? Is it sufficient to listen to a few aesthetical lectures and man-made theories of salvation? Beware of such suggestions which emanate from the spirit "that evermore denies." The rock of ages stands, though bats and owls and ravens fly about it, croaking at its storm-tried sublimity!
And when the Lord will come with the trump of the archangel and "shall gather together the elect from the four winds, from the uttermost parts of the earth," not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble will be received into the kingdom. The radiant host of the redeemed will rise from the depth of the sea, from hospitals, dungeons, attics and dens of loneliness! They will still wear the rags of poverty, their faces emaciated, their shoulders bent, for they come from much tribulation. They were men, who never clamored for earthly recognition or prestige, who sought no high places nor preferments, who had no faith in human philosophies. They, "the poor in spirit" will be made princes of light in the endless realms of eternity.
To sum up. Father, Son and Holy Ghost created the heavenly host, powers, principalities and all things that live and move and have their being. They aimed at perfect harmony between matter and mind. But when Satan caused darkness in the kingdom of light, discord arose between the material and the spiritual, not only affecting the body of Adam, which was doomed to die, but also overcasting his soul with the darkness of sin. All human misery arises from this conflict between flesh and spirit. Since the fall of man, the earth is reluctant in giving up her wealth. The soil is full of thorns and weeds. In the sweat of his brow the toiler gathers food to sustain his wearisome struggle. How much effort it requires to lift the stone from the quarry, the coal from the mine, steel from the bowels of the earth! How futile the human attempt to find lasting delight in the works of His hands! Man cannot escape from final decay. Death will come to terminate his painful struggles. It is the painful separation of spirit and flesh. "The king of terrors" comes to give relief.
Many Christians fail to grasp the significance of the relation between body and soul. All material things to them are more or less undesirable. They would grow so spiritual that the physical would become superfluous. This shows a lack of understanding relative to the creation of man. The body has a divine mission which is by no means ended in death, but continues in the world to come. Does not the Bible speak of our "eating" and "drinking" in heaven? We repeat that the celestial world is the prototype of the terrestrial. There could be no bodies on earth, if there were no bodies in heaven. This is clearly taught in Col. 1, 20. In the world to come the discord between flesh and spirit will revert to its original harmony and perfection.
Take hold of the great truth that Christ conquered death and that His triumph means the glorious consummation of our physical and spiritual selves. "The just shall shine as the sun"—this is the mighty prophecy! The sun is the fairest creation of God. Winds, waves, ebb and flow, are controlled by Him. He -rules Niagara; He causes the gulf stream to circle around the continents. He inspirits the animal kingdom and makes plants to grow. The color of my cheeks, the muscles of my arm, the atoms of my brain, all emanating from sun-power! Thus the redeemed shall become suns of influence, full of creative energy! Just as the beams of the shining sun penetrate into every part of the universe, the just shall fill eternity with oceans of harmony and love!
Heavenly light and power will be transformed into song and sound. Sound means the word and song means music. These are the sublime combinations of matter and mind. Think of the force. of mind which, causing vibrations in the air, can produce sounds which praise, laud and glorify the Creator. "For by thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned! (Matthew 12, 37). Song is the utterance of words according to the law of numbers, for numbers mean time, rhythm, melody, harmony. "Music," said Leibnitz, "is an unconscious calculation of the soul." Wonderful thought! Music the most ethereal art so closely allied to the "prosiest" of sciences: Mathematics! But those who know the significance of numbers and have recognized in their combination the secret of the universe, are not surprised. Elohim, three persons and one God, together with His seven spirits, created the world and arranged it according to weights, dimensions and numbers. To them the cosmos is vibrant with "the music of the sphere." We are still clothed in this muddy vesture of decay and do not hear. "Where was thou," Jehovah asks of Job "when the morning stars sang together?" But over the destruction of the present earth, heavenly choirs will chant the mighty song of judgment. (Rev. 11, 17).
Then the sublime orchestra of all creation, "every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth," led by the Holy Spirit and accompanied by golden harps and innumerable voices of the celestial host, will intone the everlasting ‘TE DEUM LAUDAMUS'—we praise Thee, oh Lord."
O the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of the love of God! Man, the atom, the child of dust, enthroned as the radiant sun of eternity! Striking paradox! The depth of littleness raised to the height of greatness! The poor in spirit exalted as high priests of all nations that are to be healed! (Rev. 22, 2). God, without losing a particle of His grandeur, can confer infinite glory upon every soul: "To Him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down as with my Father in His throne." (Rev. 3, 21). Almighty Father I cannot grasp the thought! Give us power to see Thee as Thou art, the Infinite, the Omnipotent, the Wonderful! Let us not be satisfied to look after individual salvation! Teach us to grow great in the thought of Thy greatness! Let us not merely talk of a personal Savior, a limited inspiration! Let us convince the world that our God is great, all-powerful, eternal! Thus can we silence the arrogance of infidelity and the mockery of the world.
"And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; the love of God; and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be and remain with us all! Amen."