Saturday, January 31, 2009

Why I Believe in Conditional Immortality

WHY I BELIEVE IN CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY
by Sidney A. Hatch

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. Conditional Immortality Explains What Man Is

Chapter 2. Conditional Immortality Explains Where Man Goes at Death

Chapter 3. Conditional Immortality Explains What the Gospel Is

Chapter 4. Conditional Immortality Explains What God Is

Chapter 5. Conditional Immortality Explains Why Christ Must Return

Conclusion



Why I Believe in Conditional Immortality

Preface


The purpose of these remarks is to give a personal testimony as to why this writer believes in conditional immortality. No attempt has been made to completely cover the subject of conditionalism. It is hoped that – in addition to being a witness – the words written herein will prove to be a stimulus to further study.

Certain portions of this testimony are necessarily autobiographical, but an effort has been made to avoid mentioning names and places. The desire is admittedly to propagate – but not to “answer back” (or reply to) critics.

As the writer looks back (over the last decade especially), he can only thank and praise God for the way in which he has led.


Introduction

I placed my faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ when in high school. A godly pastor schooled us in the fundamentals of the faith. This included a confidence that at death a man’s “soul” went either to heaven or to hell. (I was confident that mine would go to heaven because of the decision which I had made.) It also included a belief that all men would spend eternity alive either in heaven or in hell.
Upon graduation from university, I felt that God was calling me to the ministry. Training for this work was begun and then completed after military service during World War II. Graduation from theological seminary took place in 1948. The Lord made it possible, however, to obtain further schooling and in 1953 an advanced theological degree was secured. This, in turn, was followed by two years of resident graduate study in Hebrew. With the exception of university, all of this work was done in thoroughly evangelical schools.
Despite this training, however, my childhood concept of the nature and destiny of man remained practically unchanged. I still thought of man as a creature who possessed an “immortal soul” or “immortal spirit.” This, supposedly, distinguished him from the other animals which did not possess an “immortal soul.” Hence this soul, because it was immortal, had to be assigned to spend all time and eternity somewhere, and the choice was limited to the above-mentioned two places, heaven or hell!
However, two things occurred in seminary that later were to influence my thinking. One was a question asked by a student; the other was a realization of my desire to learn all the Hebrew possible while still in the classroom.
One day in a theology class one of the school’s leading professors was asked if it were really necessary as ministers of the gospel to believe in the eternal hell-fire torment of the lost. I was surprised that the student would dare to ask such a question, and expected a firm, solid, scriptural answer squelching its heretical implications.
But the answer proved more surprising than the question. The gist of the professor’s reply was that, admittedly, there were problems, and the traditional view did seem harsh, but, after all, it was the orthodox view and the most practical one to hold. Suffice to say I left the class with a seed of doubt in my heart; small, yes, but it was there just the same.
The study of Hebrew led to a determination upon graduation to prepare all Old Testament lessons and messages, so much as God enabled me, directly from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than from any English translation. At that time I was conducting a mid-week, verse-by-verse study in Genesis, and following this method of preparation. Needless to say, it did not take long to see that the Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, was used for all other living creatures as well as for man.
In connection with this the original text of Leviticus 17:11 had been studied. Here, along with Genesis 9:4, it is clearly stated that the soul or life of the flesh is in the blood. To be more explicit, Leviticus 17:14 makes it quite clear that the soul or life of all flesh is the blood thereof. Thus my view as to soul and the nature of man had collapsed. No longer could I believe and teach that man was an immortal soul living for the moment in a temple of clay, and that this separable soul could and would leave him at death. Help and new light upon the Scriptures were needed.
As has been well said, God is never too early, but neither is he ever too late. A new acquaintance handed me some literature published by the Conditional Immortality Mission of London, England. There I read of everlasting life only in Christ, sometimes called “conditional immortality.” This presented a solution to the problems at hand which I found to be thoroughly scriptural.
Let it be said at this point that conditional immortality is a very simple and clear doctrine. It resorts to no difficult theological or philosophical gyrations. It is the belief that man may become immortal on one condition and that is that he believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. This immortality, or everlasting life, shall then be put on at the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the believers, not before.
On the negative side it is the belief, in the light of Scripture, that man does not posses any innate, inborn immortality of his own. Such can only be “the gift of God.” This precious doctrine is sometimes simply called “life only in Christ.”
The presentation of life only in Christ subsequently became a vital part of my ministry. Ultimately it led to several things: a change of pulpits, a change of denominations, a change of friends, and the misunderstanding of many people. For a time, it even meant a change of vocation.
But it also meant new light on the word, a clearer grasp of the gospel, a greater appreciation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and a greater dependence on him. It brought into my experience a new and increased fervor to preach this true gospel, as well as new friends, new fellowship, and a newly opened door of ministry. And, through it all, never for a moment did I doubt the truth of this glorious message; rather, faith and devotion to it became stronger.
With the circumstances associated with the discovery of this truth explained, the following sets forth the basis for my acceptance of conditional immortality as a teaching of the Word of God.

Sidney A. Hatch


Chapter One
Conditional Immortality Explains What Man Is

Conditional immortality does not attempt to speculate as to what man is. It does not attempt to read into the biblical account any more than what is there. It does not attempt to see or argue whether man is two parts, three parts, or any number of component parts. This precious doctrine takes Genesis 2:7 at face value. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
What is man? The word of God says he is a creature formed from the dust of the ground into which God breathed the breath of life. The result of this creative action is “a living soul” or “a living being.” Not an “immortal soul”! Nowhere is this expression found in Scripture.
Nor does it say that God breathed into Adam a soul, whether immortal or not. The verse must be read carefully. God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
It may be suggested by some that “the breath of life” is an immortal soul or immortal spirit. Again we must insist on a careful reading of Scripture. This verse does not say such, nor does any verse of the Bible say that “breath of life” is an “immortal soul” or “immortal spirit,” a separate and conscious entity in itself, apart from man’s flesh.
The expression “breath of life” is in Hebrew “breath of lives.” The word “life” is plural in form. I have heard it taught that this plural form – “lives” – indicates that God put into man his components, such as body, soul, and spirit. However, the fact that the word “lives” is plural in form proves nothing of the kind. Grammatically, it is an abstract plural; but the reader does not need to find in grammar the solution to the problem. A quick check of “life” in Young’s Analytical Concordance, pages 603-604, will reveal that the plural (“lives”) is used in many passages, including that of the animals going into the ark two by two. “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of lives” (Genesis 7:15). Hence animals also possess this “breath of life” from God. One would hardly say that this proves that they are body, soul and spirit in the popular sense of these terms.
A most revealing and helpful fact, discovered in my own personal study, is the fact that the Hebrew word for “soul” (nephesh) is used not only of man in Genesis 2:7 but also of all the other living creatures mentioned in Genesis 1 and 2. The waters swarm with “soul of life” or “living souls” (Genesis 1:20), and God also created the sea monsters and all “the creeping living souls” with which the waters abound (Genesis 1:21). God also said that the earth should bring forth “the living creature after his kind,” or more literally, “the soul of life after its kind.” This included all of the animals from the stately creatures of the forest to the reptiles and worms of the soil (Genesis 1:24-25). The Creator calls them all “living souls.”
Genesis 1:30 and 2:19 provide excellent summaries of the abovementioned fact. “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life [nephesh], I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so” (Genesis 1:30). “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature [soul of life, or living soul], that was the name thereof” (Genesis 2:19).
It is for this reason that John Nelson Darby, in his translation of the Bible, consistently uses the word “soul” in these verses. We certainly are not to infer from this that these animals are “immortal souls.”
If it be argued from Genesis 2:7 that men possess immortality, the same argument would apply to the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fish of the sea; for they too are “living souls” possessing “breath of lives.”
Although this writer does not know with certainty why they felt as they did, it should be mentioned that there are distinguished names which have encouraged a belief in animal immortality: Bishop Joseph Butler, John Wesley, Augustus Toplady, and Louis Agassiz. St. Francis of Assisi preached to the birds (Cf. Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology. Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1945, pp. 984-985). Certainly these men have as much justification in this as others have in reading human immortality into the Genesis account.
Conditional immortality, however, accepts the scriptural definition of man as a “living soul” or “living being,” but never as an “immortal soul” or “immortal being.” The latter condition shall come about only at the resurrection of the just.


Chapter Two
Conditional Immortality Explains Where Man Goes at Death

It has long been my conviction that the first four chapters of Genesis are the theological seed-plot of the Bible. Genesis 3:15 is an illustration of this. In Genesis 3:19, we find a clear statement to the first man as to where he would go at death: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Conditional immortality chooses to believe this verse. It believes that here God spoke to Adam the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It does not for a moment intimate that God told Adam only half the story, half the truth; for there can be no guile or deceit in the words of God.
There is nothing in this verse, or in any of God’s dealings with Adam, to suggest that he or any part of him would go anywhere but “unto the ground” – “unto dust.” There is nothing here to suggest that Adam would find himself, after death (and much to his surprise), in some sort of spirit world.
The conditionalist believes that God has never abrogated this verse. He prefers to believe the Bible rather than Homer’s The Odyssey as to the intermediate state between death and resurrection. (This writer has read both.)
Jacob, in his great moment of anguish, thinking Joseph to be dead, confirmed the truth of Genesis 3:19, when he cried, “I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning” (Genesis 37:35). (The King James translators have here correctly rendered sheol as “the grave.”) In such an hour of heartbreak, of crushing sorrow and grief, when the human heart is laid bare, the great patriarch held on to no Babylonian or Egyptian hope of life after death, of life in a spirit world.
This condition – to be in the grave, in the dust of the earth – is often spoken of in the Scriptures as “sleep.” Thus the Lord spoke candidly when he said to David, “When thy days be fulfilled… thou shalt sleep with they fathers” (2 Samuel 7:12). We may believe that the Scripture was fulfilled when it says, “David slept with his fathers” (1 Kings 2:10; Cf. Acts 13:36).
Daniel writes “of them that sleep in the dust of the earth” (Daniel 12:2). There is nothing vague or obscure in this statement. Language could not be more definite. There is neither the slightest hint nor the remotest allusion to the dead being anywhere else. Such clear and unmistakable wording cannot be dismissed as only the language of appearance.
Matthew writes of “the saints which slept” (Matthew 27:52). Our Lord speaks of the little maid sleeping (Matthew 9:24; Mark 6:39; Luke 8:52). Of Lazarus he said, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth” (John 11:11). When the disciples failed to understand his meaning, John tells us, “Then said Jesus unto them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead’” (John 11:14).
Luke tells us that the martyr Stephen “fell asleep” (Acts 7:60). Paul gives great comfort – the coming of the Lord and resurrection from the dead – concerning them when are asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15). In 2 Peter 3:4, we read that, “the fathers fell asleep.” In no case are we told that they went anywhere else except “to sleep.”
Finally, it should be noted that our Lord said, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice” (John 5:28). It is in the graves, not somewhere else, that his voice is heard.
Doubtless some will immediately think of the account of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. A careful reading of both Luke 15 and 16 will show that this is one of several parables given there. To demonstrate its parabolic nature the rather facetious question might be asked, “Where was ‘Abraham’s bosom’ before Abraham?” Or, “Do souls in torment have tongues that taste water?”
The Scripture had already declared, “In death there is no remembrance of thee” (Psalm 6:5), and also, regarding man, “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish” (Psalm 146:4); but the Pharisees made void the word of God by believing that dead men could communicate with one another. The Lord thus shows them that even if one rose from the dead they would not believe. This was proven by the desire to put to death the real Lazarus of Bethany for “by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus” (John 12:11). The events of Matthew 28:11-15 also demonstrate the attempt to suppress the fact of the resurrection.
Others of our readers may cite our Lord’s reply to the thief on the cross (Luke 23:43). But his words must be interpreted in the light of the thief’s request to be remembered by the Lord whenever he comes into his kingdom. This can only be when Christ returns to establish his kingdom. Hence Christ tells the thief that he shall be with him in paradise to be established in the next age, not at death. It should be considered that our Lord did not leave this earth to go anywhere until 43 days after his crucifixion.
Still others may cite 2 Corinthians 5:8, where Paul says, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.” This expression, “to be present with the Lord,” or to be “at home” or “living” with him, can only be realized when Jesus comes. This is indicated by the context. 2 Corinthians 5:1 says that we have a body which is “eternal in the heavens.” Therefore Paul cannot be speaking here of a temporary body or state, to be put on at death and to last only until resurrection.
Furthermore, in 2 Corinthians 5:4, Paul speaks of “the mortal” being swallowed up by “the life” (compare the Greek here). This can only refer to mortal man, dust, being invested with “the life” (immortal resurrection life) at the coming of the Lord, when “this mortal shall have put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:54). Mortality cannot be swallowed up by the resurrection life before the resurrection.
Finally note that in the same context Paul tells us that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). This occurs, not at death, but at the coming of the Lord.
A last redoubt of many brethren may be Philippians 1:23, “Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” The Greek verb translated “depart” here is analuo. Its only other occurrence is in Luke 12:36, where it is translated “return.” “And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return from the wedding.”
It is fair to ask, “Why is it not so translated in Philippians?” The reader familiar with Greek will note that a more literal rendering would be, “Having the desire for the return.” Certainly the return of the Lord from heaven is “far better.”
The noun form of this same word is analusis. Its proper meaning is to loose or to dissolve. From it comes our English word “analysis” which means, basically, the separation or anything into its parts or elements. Analusis occurs once in Scripture, in 2 Timothy 4:6: “The time of my departure is at hand.” We would certainly come closer to the sense of Paul’s statement if we rendered it, “The time of my analysis [that is, the dissolution of his body] is at hand.” The translation “departure” is surely acceptable, however, if we see in it “departure” from life and a “return” to that place of which God told Adam in Genesis 3:19. We are confident that Paul, in his final hour, did not abandon that glorious hope of resurrection, outlined to the Thessalonians and the Corinthians, for the Platonic idea of departure to a spirit world.
It has been the observation of this writer that all those arguments which contend that man goes somewhere else at death besides the grave are based on the assumption that there exists such a thing as “an immortal human soul.” For this supposition there is not one verse of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.
Conditional immortality, therefore, accepts the scriptural teaching that at death a man returns to the ground out of which he was taken, and that he sleeps there until the resurrection.


Chapter Three
Conditional Immortality Explains What the Gospel Is

Conditional immortality clarifies the gospel; it does not complicate it. Again it takes scriptural language in its simplest sense. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Here “death” means “death,” and “life” means “life.” But in the popular way of presenting this verse, “death” is said to mean “life somewhere in time or space in separation from God,” and “life” is said to mean “life in the presence of God.”
But the issue in Romans 6:23 is not life in one place or life in another place. The issue is life or death, the complete possession of life or the complete absence of life. The definition that eternal death is a form of eternal life in separation from God is not in the Bible.
Conditional immortality takes John 3:16 at face value. The issue therein is “perish” or “everlasting life.” Again conditional immortality believes that perish means the utter loss and destruction of any form of life; hence, death. Shall we read into this word some pagan notion of life in a spirit world of the damned? The Greek word here is apollumi, which means to kill, or to destroy, or to utterly destroy. It has secondary meanings, of course, and this writer is aware of them. But why destroy the splendid simplicity of the gospel by imposing here upon the word some secondary meaning?
It should be mentioned that Hebrews 1:11 speaks of the heavens and the earth perishing and uses this same Greek word. Are we to think that the heavens and the earth are to be kept somewhere and tortured forever?
Hence, according to conditional immortality the gospel is very simple: Life or death. To say that it is life in one place or eternity in another place is to reduce “the good news” to little more than the offer of an opportunity to live in the comforts of the new heavens and the new earth rather than in the wretched conditions of the traditional hell.
Furthermore, to say that the issue before men is life in one place or eternity in another location is to deny the claim of the Lord Jesus that he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), for every man would already have life that is unending. In short, it is to succumb to the Satanic lies, first uttered in Eden, that men do not really die and that they may be “as gods” (Genesis 3:4-5).
I therefore also believe in conditional immortality because it preserves the clear-cut gospel issue from Genesis to Revelation. For example, if eternal torment, not death, is the penalty of sin, then the great promise of Genesis 3:15 should read, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall torture forever thy head, and thou shalt torture forever his heel.”
If eternal torment, not death, is the penalty for sin, many types, illustrations, and parables would have to be changed. The sacrificial animals of the Old Testament should never have been slain and burned; rather they should have been kept alive, caged up, and subjected to some kind of unending torment, perhaps burnings. David should never have slain Goliath and cut off his head. He should have brought him back alive, imprisoned him somewhere, and tortured him indefinitely. In the parables of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), the tares should not have been bound in bundles to be burned up; they should simply have been bound.
If the penalty for sin is eternal torment, not death, then who has paid that penalty? Who has suffered unending, everlasting torture or torment for our sins? The Word of God says, “Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6), “Christ died for us” (Romans 6:8), “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3), and, “that he by the grace of God should taste death [not eternal torment] for every man” (Hebrews 2:9).
Furthermore, Romans 14:9 says, “Christ both died and rose,” and 1 Thessalonians 4:14 says, “Jesus died and rose again.” Only evasive theological sophistry will attempt to say that death, cruel as it was, and the three days and three nights in the grave, were the equivalent of eternal torment. It may also be pointed out that Christ was not, according to the word, in the flame of hell-fire during those three days of death. He was in the grave (Cf. Matthew 12:40 and 28:6).
Thus we see that conditional immortality preserves the sharply defined, concise issue of the gospel and of the ages, life or death. It also avoids the unscriptural extremes of universal or final reconciliation on the left and eternal torment on the right. Life is life and death is death. And, it should be added, everlasting punishment remains punishment, not everlasting punishing.


Chapter Four
Conditional Immortality Explains What God Is

Conditional immortality rejoices in the truth of 1 John 4:8: “God is love.” The man who accepts the plain biblical statement that the end of the wicked is “destruction” (Philippians 3:19) is not faced with the ever-present question, “How can a God of love maintain a chamber of horrors somewhere in the universe throughout eternity?”
What would we think of a parent who punished his child by holding even the tip of its finger in searing flame for a few minutes or a few seconds? Such an individual would certainly be regarded as bestial and demented. Nevertheless we are asked to believe that the Scriptures teach that God will thus torture “immortal human souls” for all time and eternity.
Yet the Christian who believes in conditional immortality also believes that God is just and righteous. He rejoices in “just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4). He believes in “the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5). He sees that the justice of God requires the punishment of sin.
Recognizing that there are in God the two attributes of love and justice, the conditionalist notes first that “Herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He is aware that “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
But he is also aware that those who “obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ… shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). Hence the wicked are destroyed with an everlasting destruction, or they are destroyed once and for all forever. “Everlasting destruction” does not mean “everlasting torment” for then nothing is destroyed; it is simply preserved, kept alive, in torment. “Let ‘destruction’ mean ‘destruction,’” is the plea of the conditionalist.
It should be said that this position has God vindicating his holiness and his perfect law, but it in no way makes him vindictive. In short, our heavenly Father is a just judge (Psalm 7:9-12; 1 Peter 1:16), but he is neither a monster nor a fiend.
While discussing this point – that conditional immortality accepts what the Bible says as to the nature of God – there is one other often-heard argument that should be considered. This writer has frequently been told, orally and in writing, that by believing in the destruction of the wicked he is aligning himself with many and various cults, which are then named.
Now the evangelical Christian who brings this charge against the conditionalist is forgetting that the issue is not what any group believes, but what the word of God says. He immediately reveals in himself a party spirit and a reluctance to put the word of God ahead of the word of man.
He also forgets that it is still true that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. For example, the Christian who persists in clinging to the eternal torment theory is aligning himself with the Muslims’ Qur’an. The reader need only go to a bookstore or library, secure a copy of the Qur’an, and glance through it, to see the correctness of this fact.
He might note the second surah (chapter), where it is said that those who misbelieve are fellows of the fire and shall dwell therein forever (The Koran, translated by E.H. Palmer, [Vol. 328, The World’s Classics. London: Oxford University Press, 1953], pp. 5,10,20). He should note the close of surah 44, in which the Qur’an says that the sinful shall be dragged into the midst of hell and the torment of hot water poured over his head (Ibid., p. 429).
He should consider surah 47, which speaks of the wicked not only dwelling in the fire forever but also being given boiling water to drink that shall rend their bowels asunder (Ibid., p. 438). Finally, he may observe surah 111, a very brief chapter, where the Qur’an describes the fate of Abu Laheb who, the footnote informs us, was an uncle of Mohammed and a bitter opponent of Islam. Here we read that Uncle Abu Laheb shall broil in a fire that flames, with his wife carrying faggots (Ibid., p. 537).
Such may be a part of the Qur’an but it is not a part of the old original gospel of John 3:16.
Finally, let the evangelical Christian consider that if he persists in his eternal torment theory he must also, of necessity, include in his thinking the unscriptural idea of the immortality of the soul. In this way he opens the door to all sorts of vagaries such as the invocation of saints, prayers for the dead, purgatorial theories, reincarnation, transmigration of souls, spiritism, and universal reconciliation. The foundation of all is the word of the serpent, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4).
Let it be recognized once and for all that conditional immortality is the true message that proclaims both the love of God and the judgment of God, without compromising either.

Chapter Five
Conditional Immortality Explains Why Christ Must Return

The scriptural position of conditional immortality recognizes the biblical truth that the only hope of the world is the Second Coming of Christ. This is because his return brings about the resurrection of the saints of the ages and the establishment of his kingdom upon the earth.
Paul tells us that at the resurrection we shall put on immortality, not before (1 Corinthians 15:49-55). Hence Christ must return to raise his own in order that they many rule and reign with him.
If at death the righteous go immediately into his presence and immediately to their reward, then what need is there for the return of Christ and the resurrection of his people? It is no wonder that the preaching of these great doctrines became passé in some areas for many years.
The Second Coming of our Lord culminates in the judgment of the wicked dead, the lost. However, if at death they have already gone to the traditional hell, then what need is there later of a great judgment day? It would become hardly more than an empty procedure, for judgment would actually have been imposed at death.
The Scripture, however, speaks of judgment as occurring at a particular time in the future, not at death. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). So our Lord spoke of “the resurrection of damnation (judgment)” (John 5:29). The scriptural order is death, resurrection, then judgment – not death, partial judgment, resurrection, then more judgment.
It may be argued that the sentence imposed in the Day of Judgment only increases and renders permanent the punishment entered into at death. But this still violates the scriptural principles “once to die, but after this the judgment” and “resurrection unto judgment.” Furthermore, this would have a sentence being executed long before the case had entered the divine court. To have a sentence imposed at the moment of death is to deprive the Son of Man of his particular prerogative for a time to come. “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22). “And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man” (John 5:27).
The problem belongs to the adherent of eternal torment. He has on his hands “disembodied immortal souls” which must be consigned somewhere until a future day. Where to put them and what to do with them is for him a perplexing question requiring a solution. The conditionalist, however, is content to let men sleep until their resurrection, being aware that “the judgment to come” (Acts 24:25) shall satisfy the demands of divine justice (compare Romans 2:3-8).
Conditional immortality, therefore, recognizes the absolute necessity of the return of Christ. Without it there can be no resurrection, no immortality, no judgment, and no kingdom of God upon the earth. In its faith and message these truths retain their proper place.


Conclusion

I, therefore, believe in conditional immortality because it enables one to say, “Thus saith the Lord.” It explains what man is, it explains where man goes at death, it explains what the gospel is, it explains what God is, and finally, it explains why Christ must come back. In other words, conditional immortality accepts the simple scriptural definition of these matters, nothing more. It does not embellish them with the ornaments of tradition or philosophy.
It is the conviction of this writer that conditional immortality has been the hope of saints of the ages. The coming of the redeemer and the resurrection of the dead was certainly the hope of Job (19:25-26). Joseph gave instructions concerning his bones, not his “immortal soul,” and this despite the years in Egypt (Genesis 50:25).
Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22), but rejected it for the hope of God’s people (Hebrews 11:24-26). David said, “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15).
Isaiah sang this song, “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust…” (Isaiah 26:19). Ezekiel prophesied, “Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel” (Ezekiel 37:12). Daniel wrote, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). Such was also the hope of Martha (John 11:24), of John (1 John 3:2), of Paul (1 Corinthians 15:51-54), and of Peter (2 Peter 3:4-7).
Since the days of the apostles, other saints of God have held fervently to a simple and pure hope: The sleep of the dead, Christ’s return, and the resurrection of his people. A.J. Mills, in his work, “Earlier Life-Truth Exponents” (London: Elliot Stock, 1925), pages 2-15, mentions various groups that have held conditionalist views: Early Arabian Christians of the third century, whose views persisted in southwest India until the arrival of the Portuguese about 1500; the Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the Anabaptists of Reformation days; and the Flemish Baptists who fled to England in the sixteenth century. Two of the latter, Hendrik Terwoort and Jan Pieters, were burned at the stake on July 22, 1575, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (Ibid., pp. 13-15).
John H. Pettingell, in his book, “The Unspeakable Gift” (Malvern and London: “The Faith” Press, 1898), pages 260-292, cites as conditionalists such distinguished names as William Tyndale, Lyman Abbott, John Locke, Richard Francis Weymouth, Archbishop Whately, and Edward White. The great poet, John Milton, was also a believer in the sleep of the dead during the intermediate state (Cf. Augustus Hopkins Strong, “The Great Poets and Their Theology.” Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1897. pp 266-67. Mills, op. cit., pp. 33-34).
The name William Whiston (1667-1752) is familiar to many, for it was he who translated the complete works of Josephus. He was a mathematician, writer, preacher, and deputy to Sir Isaac Newton at Cambridge, whom he later succeeded (Cf. Encyclopedia Britannica, article “William Whiston”). But it is little known that in his works he vigorously opposed the teaching of eternal torment, pointing out that the wicked, like chaff, will be entirely burned up, utterly consumed, rather than preserved and subjected to never-ending pains (Mills, op. cit., pp. 40-41).
In more recent times, Oscar Cullman, theological professor at the University of Basel and the Sorbonne in Paris, took his stand on the side of conditionalism. In his book, “Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?” (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1958), he pointed out that the answer of the New Testament is clear; the true Christian hope is the resurrection of the dead, not the immortality of the soul.
The late William Temple (1882-1944), Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke out in favor of conditional immortality and against the endless torment of the lost (Bernard L. Bateson, “Archbishop Temple and Conditional Immortality,” Words of Life, The Organ of the Conditional Immortality Mission, February, 1959, pp. 28-32). So also has Professor Norman H. Snaith of Leeds University, a name familiar to many seminarians and theologians. He has written that the immortality of the soul is not a Christian doctrine, that it comes from Plato, and that he finds no suggestion of it in the Bible. Then, in the same article, he has written that God holds out to mortal man the hope and promise of immortality, of a life in Christ, and that this is a free gift to every repentant sinner who comes in faith (Norman H. Snaith, “Easter and Spring,” Words of Life, June, 1960, pp. 136-138. With acknowledgment to Church of England New Life Monthly). Many other prominent names might be mentioned and are indeed mentioned and quoted in a recent and learned work, “Modern Discussions of Man’s Immortality,” by Moses C. Crouse (Concord, N.H.: Advent Christian Publications, 1960).
As we close, we again remind ourselves that what men outside the canon of Scripture have believed or written is not the final determinant of truth. We thank God for their testimony, and we pray for more like them. But we are well aware that the truth of God’s word has never been reached by majority vote. If the words written here serve no other purpose than to incite the reader to search the Scripture, then they have achieved a measure of true success.
To a world steeped in Platonic tradition, the plea of the man who believes in conditional immortality, or life only in Christ, is the plea of the Apostle Paul as he stood before Agrippa, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8).


About the Author

Sidney A. Hatch was born in Glendale, Arizona. His parents later moved to La Puente, California, where his father conducted a citrus ranch.
He received his A.B. degree from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1940. During the years 1942-46 he served as sergeant in the 86th Infantry Division which saw action in Europe and the Philippines. Following this, he studied in the California Baptist Theological Seminary and received the degree of B.D. in 1948. Graduate study continued at Dallas Theological Seminary where he received the Th.M. degree in 1953. In the two years following, he studied Semitics at Dallas Seminary, which completed the residence work for a Th.D. Studies continued at the University of Southern California.
Ordained into the Baptist ministry, Mr. Hatch served several churches in California and Texas. A conviction of the biblical basis for conditional immortality led Mr. Hatch in 1961 to accept a call to the pulpit of the First Advent Christian Church of Portland, Oregon.


For more information, contact:
Dr. John H. Roller
5847 Brookstone Dr.
Concord, NC, USA 28027-2535
704-782-9574
johnroller@faithbiblechristian.com

Truth and Error about the Coming of Christ

Truth and Error about the Coming of Christ

A History of the Development of Prophetic Interpretations

A Comparison of Various Systems of Prophetic Interpretations: Their Origins and Development

By Edwin K. Gedney


A History of Prophetic Interpretation

1. In the Pre-Reformation Church
In the early days of the Church, after the time of the Apostles, there were few (if any) organized schools of interpretation of prophecy as we think of them today. Essentially, most of the early Fathers were Futurist in their interpretation in the sense that at that time most prophetic fulfillment lay in the future. However, some were not; for example, John (1 John 2:18, 2 John 7), who wrote of antichrist as working in his day, and others, who found fulfillment of tribulations in their persecutions under the Roman Emperors.
Some of the Fathers were what we would call pre-millennial, looking for a literal reign of Christ for 1,000 years after his return. Others, notably St. Augustine, thought of the millennium as the church age, and the Holy City as the Church – Christ ruling through the Church. This view precipitated a brief “Lord’s coming” movement about 1000 AD, and eventually became the more or less settled view of the medieval Church.
After Augustine’s fourth-century synthesis of Christian thought with Hellenistic philosophy and anthropology – basically, that of Plato, rather than that of Aristotle – little change in prophetic thought occurred in the medieval Church until the time of the Reformation. Thomas Aquinas made a further synthesis of Augustinian Christian thought with Hellenistic philosophy when the works of Aristotle were brought into the western world from the Arabic universities. His synthesis (known as Thomian philosophy) added a dimension of reason and logic to Christian thought, but it had little influence on the traditional Augustinian prophetic outlook – with the millennium and the church age being the same.
With the rise of a strongly authoritarian Church with a tightly organized doctrine, Augustinian theology, doctrine and prophetic insights tended to stabilize as the primary tenets. Occasionally, sporadic (and usually abortive) reform movements – such as those of Peter Waldo, Savonarola, and John Huss – occurred, but they were consistently repressed.

2. The Historical System of the Reformation
During the medieval period, many concepts and practices adopted from pagan religions had been added to the doctrine and practice of the Church. The Church of 1500 AD was vastly different from the Church of Apostolic times. The Reformation was essentially a “Back to the Bible” movement. This demanded a revival of a truly “Berean” attitude and inevitably brought to light again important prophetic revelations long neglected. Martin Luther, a former Augustinian monk and professor of Bible at Wittenburg University, was the chief leader of the reform in its early days. Building upon the prophetic views of Augustine, he and his associates gradually developed what may be called the Historical School of Prophetic Interpretation.
This school became that of the Protestant group and – with some change and development – continued to be basic through the succeeding centuries. Essentially, it holds that in the beginning of the Church most prophecy was still future. As time passes, some prophecy will have been fulfilled, some will be in the process of fulfillment and some will be yet to be fulfilled in the future, until the very end of time, when all will be past. The Reformers could not conceive of 1,500 years (including the great persecutions by the Roman Empire, the apostasy of the paganized medieval Church, and the bitter persecutions they themselves were undergoing) as being passed over in silence in prophetic revelation.
Among other then-present fulfillments, they identified the Papacy as the Antichrist of 2 Thessalonians 2:1-10 and Revelation 13:11, and related the Roman church of their day to the Babylon of Revelation 17-18. The corrupt practices of the Church at that time were such that they had much justification for their views. Their widely distributed tracts on these subjects greatly advanced the Protestant cause.
As they began to organize their doctrine in systematic confessions of faith, they included their prophetic views in them. The Helvetic Confession, the Westminster Confession and others clearly identify the Papacy as Antichrist and stress their historical prophetic approach. Today the Historical school has many variants and has greatly broadened its ideas of Antichrist, but has still the same basic approach.
As home Bible study developed in the Protestant group, numerous commentary Bibles with explanatory footnotes to help the home-teacher appeared. These, such as Scott’s Bible, Matthew Henry, and Barnes’ Notes, continued the historical interpretation.

3. The Catholic Counter-Interpretation
The pointing finger of the Reformers, identifying the Papacy with Antichrist, was devastating, and the Roman clerics speedily sought to develop interpretations of the prophecies that would neutralize the charge. The earliest of these was made by Ribera, a Spanish Jesuit, who, in 1585, wrote a treatise pointing toward a future Antichrist, possibly an apostate pope, but certainly not the one present in his day. Later, in 1614, Alcasar, another Spanish Jesuit, published a treatise putting the Antichrist in the past, again not the then-present pope, but the Roman emperors who persecuted the early Church.
These two views are extremely important because not only did they tend to safeguard the Papacy against the Reformers’ accusations, but each became foundational to one of the systems of interpretation recently adopted by many Protestants. The teaching of Alcasar – that the greater part of the Book of Revelation has been fulfilled and the Antichrist found in the Roman emperors and imperial persecutions – was picked up by those of the 19th century liberal Protestants who adopted any significant view of prophecy at all. Among these were Wellhausen and Delitzsch. It is now called the Preterist view.
The concept of Ribera – that the Antichrist and the fulfillment of most of the Book of Revelation lay far in the future – was revived by Maitland in 1826 and became the source of the modern Dispensational Futurist system, recently becoming popular in the fundamentalist Protestant churches.
In any event, the objective of both Jesuits was attained in that they provided an answer to the Reformers’ ascription of Antichrist to the Papacy, and also a foundation for the later Oxford Tractarian movement in England, whereby the Anglo-Catholic group sought a reunion of the Anglican and Roman churches. It is noteworthy that when Maitland revived Ribera’s treatise, and with Irving, Darby and others in the first prophetic conference of the modern day began the dispensational program (1826-1827), they at once began to decry the Reformers’ involvement of the Papacy with the biblical Antichrist. Thus, the efforts of Ribera and Alcasar succeeded in misdirecting the accusations of the Reformers from the then-present pope, either to an Antichrist past and gone, or to one far in the future.

4. Dispensationalism Develops in the Catholic Church
In the 17th and 18th centuries, there came a revival of prophetic preaching in the Roman Church. This occurred particularly among the French clerics. Cardinal Bellarmine also continued Ribera’s concept of a future Antichrist and developed it. These writings and sermons of the clerics were later translated into English by the Anglo-Catholic group in England (a group that desired reunion of the Anglican and Roman Churches). Ribera’s system was adopted by Maitland, the pioneer of Dispensationalism in England, about 1826 and became basic to the prophetic teaching of his splinter group. John Nelson Darby involved it in the establishment of his Plymouth Brethren group.
A most important development occurred about 1790, when another Spanish Jesuit, Lacunza, wrote a famous book (in Spanish), titled, “The Coming of Messiah in Power and Majesty,” under the pen name of Ben Ezra. He reverted from the traditional Catholic view of the Church Age being the Millennium, holding that the Millennium would follow the advent of Christ and be preceded by a future Antichrist. He appears not to have thought of this Antichrist as a personal being, but a negative moral trend, but definitely future. This book was widely debated in the Catholic Church and eventually was brought to England where it came to the attention of Edward Irving, an independent pastor, leader of a small Lord’s Coming movement analogous to (but different from) the Millerite movement then rising in the United States. Lacunza’s book, promoted by Irving, became very influential in the Albury Prophetic conference in 1827, the first modern conference basically Futuristic in thinking.
To provide a time of operation for this future Antichrist, many of these men cut off the last of the 70 weeks (or sevens, usually interpreted as sevens of years) of Daniel 9:24-27, moving it down to the end of time. Most post-Reformation expositors have not done this, as the 70 sevens (or 490 years) from the decree of Artaxerxes in 458-457 BC to rebuild Jerusalem bring one to AD 33-34, with the Messiah being cut off, but not for himself, and causing the sacrifices to cease in effect with his own sacrifice on Calvary in the middle of the last seven-year period, in AD 30. After this, the door was opened to the Gentiles. There seems to be no need to distort this prophecy by separating this last week of years, now by nearly 2,000 years, from the other 69, when there is a much more meaningful fulfillment of it without doing so. However, in this period these new Futurists made room for the revealing of Antichrist, the conversion of the Jews, the restoration of the defunct Roman Empire, and all of the Book of Revelation from chapter 4 through chapter 19.

5. Development of the Dispensational View among Splinter Groups in England
In 1827, Edward Irving translated Lacunza’s “The Coming of Messiah in Power and Great Glory” from Spanish into English and made it foundational to his Lord’s Coming movement. He also set it forth as the only view acceptable and orthodox. Irving’s messages were characterized by various spiritual manifestations such as tongues and predictive prophecies. A prophet in one of his meetings revealed that the Church had been wrong about the coming of the Lord and the rapture of the Church being a public event seen by all. He revealed that the Lord was to come invisibly to any but his own – a secret rapture – at the beginning of the seven-year period when the Jews would be converted and the Antichrist revealed. Then the Lord would be revealed to all when he came to initiate a literal 1,000-year reign.
There is nothing known to the writer, either in or out of the Bible, suggesting such a secret rapture, before this prophet in Edward Irving’s meetings. Tregelles, the Brethren commentator, also finds no earlier source.
The alleged prophet’s interpretation of the word “coming” is opposed to the teaching of Jesus about that event in Matthew 24:24-31. It also distorts the meaning of the Greek word translated “coming.” A reference to the table of “Uses of Key Greek Words” will show how these are used and how distorted to fit the Dispensationalist program. The word “parousia” is used some 24 times in the New Testament, and in no case can or need it mean anything but the visible, personal arrival of someone. In his “Approaching Advent of Christ,” Dr. Alexander Reese demonstrates that this – not a secret thing – was the use of “parousia” in both biblical and classical Greek.
Furthermore, the interpretation of Antichrist as revealed after the parousia of Christ is inconsistent with Paul’s order of events in 2 Thessalonians 2:9, where we read that Antichrist will be destroyed by the brightness (epiphaneia) of Christ’s coming (parousia). It is clear from this that there can be no antichrist after the parousia and rapture.
The whole Dispensationalist program is a confusion of comings and resurrections inconsistent with the biblical order.

6. Dispensationalism in the United States
Irving’s adoption of the Roman Dispensationalist view was patterned by John Nelson Darby of another splinter group, the Plymouth Brethren (although he was opposed by Tregelles and other Brethren). It was also adopted by an adventurer in odd Christian variants, Joseph Seiss. Little has been added since Seiss issued his “Lectures on the Apokalypse” (1830), in which he combined the Catholic and Irvingite views with some minor ideas of his own. This book has been reprinted. His other books, in which he endeavored to use the Great Pyramid as a prophetic device (“A Miracle in Stone”) and relate astrology to the Bible (“The Gospel in the Stars”), have not – for fairly obvious reasons.
The Dispensationalist view first came to America in a small book titled “Jesus Is Coming,” by William E. Blackstone. Later it was emphasized here by Arno Gaebelein and adopted by James Gray, later president of Moody Bible Institute. When Dr. C.I. Schofield was preparing what is really the last of the 19th century commentary Bibles, he was associated with Gray, Gaebelein, and others in preparing the doctrinal and prophetic footnotes. This “Schofield Bible,” partly because it could be carried easily, soon became very popular and in turn popularized the Dispensationalist prophetic view contained in it. There are many fine things about this commentary Bible, but unfortunately some who use it tend, in the pattern of Edward Irving, to regard its footnotes as inspired and equate adherence to them with orthodoxy, often excommunicating those who do not adhere to them.
When the Dispensationalist view was introduced to the United States in the late 19th century, most of the then growing group of Bible institutes adopted it and the “Schofield Bible” as the orthodox view. On the other hand, a majority of the seminaries of the day, after searching out its origins in the Catholic effort to preserve the Papacy, and noting its unreliable interpretations of Scripture, rejected it. In general, this difference still obtains today.
Because it is rare for a Dispensationalist book to give any account of the history of the development of the view, many who hold the view have no idea as to where it came from or how it developed, the books implying that it has always been the standard view of the Church.
The mainline historical interpretation, coming down directly from the Reformers, with modifications to keep it up with the times, is still very widely held in many denominational groups.

For more information, contact:
Dr. John H. Roller
5847 Brookstone Dr.
Concord, NC, USA 28027-2535
704-782-9574
johnroller@faithbiblechristian.com

Historic vs. Futuristic Interpretation of Prophecy

Historic vs. Futuristic
Interpretation of Prophecy

By
Clarence H. Hewitt

Advent Christian Publications

In considering the Historic and Futuristic systems of interpretation, we are dealing with a dispute among friends. Advocates of both schools of thought with one heart desire and with a single voice proclaim the real, personal, and imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ. The argument over our differences ought, then, to be maintained on a high level of brotherly charity and consideration. Differing as brothers, let us reason as brothers.
But while we Historicists rejoice with our Futurist friends in the unity of the blessed hope of Jesus’ coming, and while we acknowledge the good which they have done in turning the hopes of thousands to the returning Christ, yet we must expostulate with them for what, upon candid examination, seem to us very hurtful and insidious errors in their method of interpreting prophecy. Granting them an equal desire with us to rightly divide the Word, and as great a love of the truth, we must assert the conviction, kindly but firmly, that the method of interpretation which they employ must be rejected as a wrong method, dangerous in its trend and deplorable in its results.
The Historical Interpretation is built upon the belief that “Prophecy is History written beforehand.” Futurism holds that it is Eschatology pictured in detail. This is a very broad distinction, and one that presents some startling contrasts. Futurists hold that the book of Revelation, together with its parallel prophecies, refers almost entirely to events yet future, and is to be fulfilled within a few brief years in immediate connection with the consummation. They believe that the great apostasy (and the man of sin), of which Paul wrote, are yet to come. Historical expositors, on the other hand, regard the Revelation as a progressive, symbolic history of the Church, extending from the time of St. John to the time of the end, and culminating in the glorious triumph of our God and of His Christ. They believe that the predicted apostasy and man of sin are now facts of history.
The Advent Christian people have always been Historicists. They will always continue to be. This denomination was born of the earliest study of men who sought to discern, by the application of prophecy to history, where they were living in the stream of time. It was cradled in the conviction that the great prophetic lines were nearly all run out, the signs for the most part already fulfilled. This people was guided in its youth and until his hour by the rays of that “sure word of prophecy,” which, like a beacon light, shone upon the long, winding path over which the Church had come, and illumined the brief space that still remained ere God’s clock should strike the knell of Time and the dawn of Eternity.
The Historic Interpretation may therefore be called the heart of Adventism. No doctrine held by this people has been so intimately interwoven into its life. Should that heart fail to function, the life of Adventism would be critically endangered. For this body, at this late day, to abandon the understandings of prophecy which gave it birth, would be to deny its past. It would be to question our percentage.
The subject, then, of Historical vs. Futuristic Interpretation, is of intensest interest to every one of us. We are called upon to consider a way of expounding prophecy, which, if true, would undermine the position upon which, more than any other, rests the existence and history of this people.
I. Modern Futurism is certainly in bad odor on account of its origin.

When Luther and his fellow-workers, at the time of the Reformation, charged the Papacy with being the Antichrist of prophecy, and produced such clear and convincing proofs of the identification, they forged a thunderbolt capable of dealing tremendous blows to the Papal empire. It became indispensable to Rome to devise some scheme of warding off this attack. Ribera, a Jesuit, published, in 1585, a commentary on Revelation which set forth the essential points of Futurism. Alcasar, also a Jesuit, not long thereafter sketched the outlines of what is now called the Preterist Interpretation.
Either one of these expositions answered well the purpose for which their authors invented them. One of them made all prophecy stop short of the era of papal Rome, and the other made it leap over that era, and refer only to events in immediate connection with the consummation. In either way, all possible application to Romanism of the prophecies concerning Antichrist and Babylon was eliminated. What subtle skill was manifested by these Jesuitical doctors—how well they calculated the effect of their schemes—may be seen from the fact that today the majority of Protestants are following the piping of one or the other of these pied pipers of Rome.
Understand me. I do not claim that Futurism should be rejected simply because Rome accepts it. You and I believe many things that Rome endorses. They are things which Rome received from the early Catholic Church as established articles of faith. But I do assert that when Rome invents a theory, or garbles an old one and puts it forth as if primitive, in order to serve her own ends in a matter that is vital to her, Protestants would do well to be wary of such a theory.
How different now is the lineage of the Historical Interpretation!
It had the sanction of the Greatest of all the prophets. We appeal to His teachings. “O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times” (Matt. 16: 3)? What did the Saviour mean? He was enunciating a principle; viz., that in the economy of Providence, the times—the ages—have their signs, which the people of God are to discern, in order that they may know the things that are coming upon the earth. Later, His disciples asked Him, saying, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” You are all familiar with the discourse which followed. Now if any one thing is clear about the 24th of Matthew, it is that the signs therein divinely given were intended to serve as indications to the Church of the approach of the end of the age. The events predicted must therefore be events of history which could be observed by the Church prior to the Second Advent. Listen again. “All these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” And again, “All these are the beginnings of sorrows” (Matt. 24:6, 8). What do such statements mean, except that the events signified are to require a long period of time for their unfolding? The Greek word rendered “sorrows,” signifies the recurrent pangs of child-birth. The figure is that of Mother Earth, seized with initial pangs in the signs which would speedily be fulfilled in connection with the fall of Jerusalem, and finally, after an age-long labor, marked by recurrent periods of sign fulfillment, bringing forth the glorious advent of the Son of man. It is therefore evident that the Lord Himself inculcated that principle of prophetical application by which Historicists profess to be guided.
The apostles followed in the steps of their Lord. They taught concurrently and consistently that the Church would be able to discern the approach of the Second Advent by the historic fulfillment of prophecy. “Ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thess. 5:4) “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,” etc. (2 Thess. 2:3). “For we have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn” (2 Pet. 1:19).
In these passages it is pretty evident that the apostles were exhorting the Church to be of good cheer as they should observe the fulfillment of prophetic signs, whereby they would know that the day-dawn was nearing. This fact is significant. Of what possible value could Paul and Peter have thought it would be to the Church to be told things that were to occur, not before the Lord should come for them, but afterward? Of what possible value the great prophetic light if it should not shine in its brilliance save for seven fleeting years, after the Church shall have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air?
Futurists say that the Thessalonians thought they were already in the Tribulation, and were therefore expecting the Revelation, not the Rapture, to soon occur; and that in 2 Thess. 2, Paul was warning them that the Revelation could not take place until the man of sin should be revealed. How absurd! For on Futurist ground the Thessalonians must then have also believed that the Rapture was past, that the saints had already been caught up to meet the Lord, a thing we know they could not have believed, inasmuch as they themselves, with several of the holy apostles, were still abiding upon the solid earth. If, however, the Thessalonians were not looking for the Revelation to soon take place, it must have been the Rapture that they expected; and if that is the case, then the apostle was teaching them that the Rapture could not occur until after the apostasy and the revelation of the man of sin.
No. There is—there can be—no sense in Paul’s express statements that “that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,” except on the ground that the apostle expected these predicted events to be realized in history, prior to the parousia. Remembering that Futurists look for the fulfillment of these things after the parousia, we can readily see that Paul was in line, not with the Futurist, but with the Historical Interpretation.
And what of those great men who followed the apostles? How did the early Fathers line up on this question? They were historical interpreters. Archbishop Cyril of Jerusalem, in his Fifteenth Catechetical Lecture, stated his conviction that the signs of Matt. 24 had largely been fulfilled in events of history in his own day. Cyril may have been mistaken in some of the applications. He certainly however, endorsed the historical principle.
The early Fathers “judged with one consent that Daniel’s Fourth Beast symbolized the Roman Empire; that the Little Horn of that Beast, or its equivalent, the last Head of the Beast of Rev. 13 and 17, symbolized the same Power as St. Paul’s man of sin and St. John’s Antichrist; and that the Roman Empire, in its then existing state, was the let or hindrance, meant by St. Paul, standing in the way of the man of sin’s manifestation. Moreover, they were agreed that this Antichrist was to persecute the Christian Church with a fierceness altogether unparalleled; and that thus there would be a second series of Roman persecutions and a second series of martyrs slain under Roman oppression.”—Prof. Cachemaille, in “Historicist, Prelerist, Futurist; What are These?” p. 9.
Again, the Fathers regarded the Antichrist as a Roman power, which should arise upon the fall and dismemberment of the empire. We quote Archbishop Cyril again. “This aforesaid Antichrist is to come when the time of the Roman empire shall have been fulfilled…There shall rise up together ten kings of the Romans, reigning in different parts perhaps, but all about the same time; and after these an eleventh, the Antichrist, who by his magical craft shall seize upon the Roman power.” Now the empire fell in 476 A.D. It will thus be apparent to the candid inquirer that the early Catholic Church expected the man of sin to emerge at an era not far in the future from their own day, and now far back in history. In other words, they were historical expositors.
And yet again, the primitive Fathers looked for the Antichrist to be a power professedly Christian rather than infidel.
Athanasius taught that he would be a Roman ruler making Christian profession, and that he would claim, “I am the Christ,” thus assuming Christ’s place and character. Hilary of Poictiers denounced Constantine the Great as the forerunner of Antichrist, and asked, “Is it a doubtful thing that Antichrist will sit in Christian churches?” Archbishop Cyril declared, “He will sit in the temple of God; not that which is in Jerusalem, but in the churches everywhere.” And the great Jerome gave it as his belief that the temple in which he would sit is the church. His words were, “in the temple, that is, in the Church.”
Thus we see that the early Fathers manifested the main essentials of the Historic Interpretation. They are to be regarded, together with the apostles, and our blessed Lord Himself, as parents of the Historicist method.
The lineage is continued through the Reformers and early Protestant Martyrs. “The Reformers were Historicists. Their names have left their mark on history: Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingle, Bullinger, Bale, Calvin, Tyndale, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer, Bradford, Jewell, Knox, and many others. All these held that the Papacy was Antichrist, and the Church of Rome, Babylon.” –Cachemaille, “Historicist, Preterist, Futurist; What are These?” p. 23.
Since their day the greatest of Protestant commentators have followed in their steps: such princes of exegesis as Mede, Sir Isaac Newton and Bishop Newton, Vitringa, Faber, Cunningham, Keith, Bickersteth, Wordsworth, Elliott, Tregelles, Birks, and Guinness.
The Protestant Church has made the Historical Interpretation a matter of faith. She has put it in her confessions of faith, that it might be known as a distinguishing mark of true Protestantism. It is found in the Helvetic Confession of 1536. It is included in the Smalcald Confession of 1537, and the Bohemian Confession of 1573. The great Westminster Confession of 1648, which received the sanction of the Presbyterians and Congregationalists both in England and America, also holds it as an article of faith. What are modern Protestant interpreters thinking of, that they abandon a well-worn path of apostolic, primitive, and reformed interpretation such as this, in favor of a theory of no antiquity, little authority, and decidedly suspicious parentage?
Thus a comparison of the two systems from the standpoint of their origin reveals that the apostles, the early church Fathers, and all the great Reformers believed in the continuous application of prophecy to history, and that the Lord Himself intended His great eschatological discourse to be so understood; while on the other hand the Pope of Rome and the Jesuits, together with the Futurists, unite in postponing the fulfillment of the greater part of prophecy to events immediately connected with the second advent. This fact ought to discredit Futurism everywhere. As Guinness well observes, the Reformation rested upon the identification of the Papacy as the man of sin, and to reject this identification is “to reject the foundation of the noblest work which has been wrought in the world since the day of Pentecost.” Are we Adventists ready to reject that work? Are we? Are we prepared to part company with the inspired writers of the New Testament, the Fathers, the Reformers, the founders and sustainers of our Protestant Christianity, who purchased our heritage of religious liberty with the blood of their testimony against Antichristian popery, and to follow the lead of Popes and Jesuits in our understandings of Scripture? God forbid! Indeed, I am persuaded there is little danger of it; unless I sadly mistake the stuff and temper of our solid Protestant manhood.
II. But we leave the matter of origins. The Futuristic system should not be accepted because
it is based upon an incorrect method of interpretation.

The Bible, being a book, should be subjected to the recognized principles of literary interpretation. The divinity of the Book is an added reason for this. We cannot reasonably suppose that God would give a written revelation to men unless that revelation should conform to the usages and laws of human language.
Now the Futurists interpret Scripture as though it were more like a disassembled picture puzzle, than the most wonderful of books. They seem to deem it proper to carve out a verse here and there, wrench this passage or that from its context, insert bits of the Old Testament into the middle of verses from the New, and so, by this arbitrary methods, to fit together a picture of eschatology which they exhibit as the solution of the prophetical puzzle.
In a single chapter of one of the standard Futurist works (Jesus is Coming, Blackstone) the learned author uses the following references in the order named. Two verses from 1 John; 1 verse from 2 John; another verse from 1 John; a passage from Hebrews; 1 verse from John’s Gospel; a passage from 2 Thess.; a few verses from Isaiah; 1 verse from 1 Thess.; a part of 2 Thess. 2; 2 verses from 1 Cor.; a single verse from Eph.; 1 verse from the Gospel of John; 1 from 2 Thess.; 1 from Luke; 1 from Rev.; a trio of verses from 1 Thess.; a single verse carved out of the consecutive prophecy in Dan. 11; the author then repeats a passage previously used from 2 Thess.; leaps back into the first part of Isaiah, skips from there to the little epistle of Jude, and finally comes to a stop where he began, in 1 John. When pieced together in this order, these bits of Scripture form the picture of Futurism’s last day Antichrist. A feat of agile exegesis truly remarkable! Not the least remarkable feature of this exhibition is the fact that out of these twenty-three passages, thirteen, upon carefully study in the light of their contexts, and the subjects to which they relate, are discovered to have not the most remote connection with the awful figure of the man of sin. The remaining ten references do apply to him, and would be properly used in an understanding of his character and course. Who cannot see the baleful results of scattering thirteen inappropriate proof-texts, where one may please, among ten appropriate ones? And who can defend such reckless exegesis?
Our Futurist brethren contravene some of the fundamental laws of literary interpretation. There is the Law of Circumstances. This principle holds that every passage should be interpreted in the light of all the attending circumstances: such as the context, the author and his object in writing, the date, the place, the persons to whom written, grammatical form, etc. Surely no one should seek to interpret literature upon any other basis. Yet our Futurist friends are repeated offenders against this very essential law. Take, for example, the use they make of Isa. 28:15: “Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.” This is a prophecy, so they tell us, that when the Jews have returned to their own land, and, following the rapture of the church, Antichrist arises as hell’s representative, they will make a covenant with him. But examine the circumstances. Isaiah was writing to the scornful leaders of Judaism in his own day, and he said, “Because ye have made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell.” Evidently, the covenant to which he referred was one that had already been made in his own day. What has that to do with an Antichrist yet to come, or with the political maneuverings of last day Jews?
Another great principle in understanding literature is the Law of Usage. This law requires that a word or expression of frequent occurrence, standing in a given passage, should be studied in the light of its general usage. For example, Rev. 1:10: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” In this passage, some Futurists want to interpret the expression, “the Lord’s day,” to mean, “the day of the Lord;” and on the basis of this understanding they build the contention that John was carried forward by the Spirit to the great predicted “day of the Lord,” and in the entire Apocalypse saw only events connected with that distant day. What folly! “The Lord’s day” is a phrase commonly used in the New Testament to designate the first day of the week, and it was on this day that the seer of Patmos received his visions.
Notice also John 14:30: “Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” Blackstone sees here a prediction of the coming of Antichrist as the prince of this world. But how is the name, “prince of this world,” used elsewhere in the New Testament? Why, to designate Satan, as every one should know. Why overlook the evident point that Jesus gave the coming of “the prince of this world” as a reason for ceasing conversation with the disciples? The thought of a person who should not come for two thousand years would be no reason for that. But if Jesus meant that Satan was about to come near unto Him, for the final conflict of Gethsemane and the Cross, all becomes plain. The Law of Circumstances and the Law of Usage, if only observed, would prevent many of the childish interpretations of the Futurists.
They seem to forget the first principle of exegesis: the Law of Common Sense.
“Many theorists write into the word of God what is not there. We cannot say that in all cases they do this knowingly or willfully, but the result is just the same. Every passage of scripture should be examined in the most prayerful spirit, and by the aid of the best and most devout scholarship that can be obtained. With even painful self-denial, he who writes about a Scripture text should make sure that he has not put into it the least thing it does not actually say.” –Dr. G.P. Echman, in “When Christ Comes Again,” p. 11.
This is a sensible canon of interpretation. We should not ask, “What may this passage possibly be made to mean?” – but, rather, “What does it actually say?”
Exegesis, or true exposition, is bringing out of a passage what is legitimately and necessarily in it. Eisegesis, or false interpretation, is bringing into a passage a meaning that is not properly there. We are constrained to observe that Futurists have a penchant for this counterfeit exegesis.
A flagrant example—there are many others equally bad—is their treatment of Daniel’s 70 weeks. “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city” (Dan. 9:24). If we ask, “Just what does this passage say?” – we shall have no trouble. The 70-week period is evidently integral and continuous, since nothing is said to the contrary. True, certain subdivisions of it are suggested, such as sixty-two weeks and one week, but there is not even a hint that these subdivisions are to be separated from one another by intervals of time. The seventy weeks are plainly consecutive and should be so applied.
Yet what does Futurism do? It severs the final week from the preceding sixty-nine. It locates the sixty-nine weeks where they belong, back of the first advent of Christ. It then transports the seventieth week to the end of the age, and tacks it on following His second coming. Thus, it pries apart a consecutive chronological measurement, and reads into the hiatus thus arbitrarily and unnaturally created about two millenniums of human history! Is this interpreting Scripture? I charge that it is manipulating Scripture! Is this exegesis? I insist that it is eisegesis. This is not common sense: it is nonsense. It can only discredit the whole system of which it is a part.
III. The Futuristic Interpretation, again, should be rejected because it ignores the proved principle of prophetic time periods: the year-day principle.

Historical expositors regard those chronological periods of Daniel and Revelation which figure out to three and one-half years, or 1260 days, as standing for a period of 1260 years of the history of Antichrist. Futurists, on the contrary, wholly ignoring the year-day law in this very important matter, make the period one of three and one-half literal years. We regard this as condemning their entire system. The year-day principle is abundantly justified by both Revelation and Science, and ought to be applied to the interpretation of these various 1260-day periods.
The reality of this principle is implied by the analogy of prophetic symbolism generally. We believe that as the objects and activities with which prophecy deals are expressed in symbols, so the periods of time are likewise contemplated in a figurative manner; that as great personages and powers are represented under the comparatively diminutive figures of animals, heads, and horns, so the actual length of their existence in history is expressed by greatly shortened periods: time in miniature. There is thus seen to be a fine appropriateness generally to symbolic prophecy in the year-day principle.
This principle was directly revealed by God to the prophet Ezekiel. Ezek. 4:6: “I have appointed thee a day for a year, a day for a year” (marg. Rend.). Jehovah here expressly asserts that He has ordained to the prophet a day for each year. In the context, God reveals to Ezekiel two periods, one of 390 and another of 40 days. The best commentators agree that these periods of days are meant to represent periods of a like number of years in the history of Israel and Judah. Surely a law of prophetic time measurements thus clearly revealed ought to be observed and not disregarded.
Not the least impressive argument for the year-day principle is that it works. Applying the principle to prophetic time periods has yielded such results as to confirm it. For example, take Daniel’s period of 70 weeks or 490 days. Our Futurist brethren themselves confess that it is a measurement of 490 years. That the last week of this period should represent seven years is fundamental in their scheme. The question we would like to ask them is, Upon what logic do they interpret the 490 days period of Dan. 9 in harmony with the year-day law, and the 1260 days period of Dan. 7 in contravention of it? If the one period is symbolic, upon the basis of a day for a year, so must the other be. They are found in the same book. Why should not the mind that meant to typify years by days in the one case, mean to do so in the other? “Time, times, and the dividing of time” (Dan. 7: 25), then, does not mean three years and six months, but 1260 years.
Our confidence that this is true is increased when we discover that 1260 years is the actual length of the supremacy of the papal “little horn.” The Roman Pontiff was elevated to the supreme bishopric in 607 or 610 A.D., and twelve hundred and sixty years later, “judgment sat upon him,” as was predicted by Daniel, in the loss of his temporal “domination,” in the events of 1867-70. Cf. Dan. 7:25, 26.
Thus Scripture plainly reveals the year-day principle. And so does Science reveal it. Dr. H. Grattan Guinness, having made the discovery that the prophetic time periods of Daniel and Revelation are very perfect astronomical cycles, harmonizing solar and lunar years, was able to compute form these sacred numbers, understanding them of years, a series of tables, giving the dates, to the hour and minute, of all the vernal equinoxes and mean and true new moons, for 3,555 years, from the probable date of the Exodus, B.C. 1622 to 1934 A.D. Upon their publication these tables were received by scientists as more accurate than any previously in use. How can we dismiss this astonishing fact as a mere freak of coincidence? But if it was planned—planned by the same Mind that is back of both astronomy and prophecy—then not only do prophetic time numbers, when understood by the year-day principle, aid the calculations of the astronomer, but astronomy interprets the prophet and confirms the principle. We would earnestly ask any who may be attracted by Futurist claims to study Dr. Guinness’ full explanation of this discovery.—History Unveiling Prophecy, Chap. 11, and also Appendix A.
Brethren, let us stop talking about the year-day theory. Let us speak rather of the year-day law. Surely that is what it is, a law of prophetic interpretation: such a law as must be observed by all students of prophecy who would be sound in their conclusions. The Futurists do not observe this law. They proceed to interpret the 1260 days of Daniel and Revelation as though no such principle existed, and consequently wander far, far astray. Thus again, and in what all must admit is an essential and crucial matter, they discredit themselves by their heedless manner of handling the prophecy. They are lawless expositors.
IV. Futurism is not acceptable because it invents an arbitrary, involved, and grotesque
scheme of events, luridly colored and highly improbable, in connection with the second advent of Christ, resulting in that loved doctrine of the early church, and article of the received faith, being made to appear childish, ridiculous, and unworthy of belief to a great proportion of thinking men. Surely here lies a valid objection. Truth is self-confirmatory. There is that about it which commends it to the mind as rational and credible. Its details and ramifications should be such as to commend it. But the astonishing program of events related by Futurists for the consummation is of such a character as to cause men to wonder that rational beings can accept it. We wish that our Futurist friends had a saving sense of humor.

But let’s look at the facts! Futurists have done the truth of the Lord’s return a service in preaching it so zealously that thousands have accepted it in various denominations. This service they have largely compromised, however, by connecting with the hope of seeing Jesus a story of accompanying events so dreadful as to cause other thousands of men to lose faith entirely in the second coming. Such men have said, “If we must swallow all that inconceivable program of melodramatic horrors in order to be counted premillennialists, we will be postmillennialists.”
Now orthodox Adventists object to this. We object to any presentation of the blessed hope of the Lord’s coming which discredits that great truth, and drags it in the mire of the ludicrous. We have seen what has been going on in the religious world. We have seen the storm of protest that has been raised against premillennialism. We have noted the books that have been put forth by reverent and scholarly men, wholly denying—some of them—that our Lord will ever return to this earth. We have smelled the battle from afar. What has brought about this state of affairs?
Brethren, mark my words. It is not because the second coming had been preached in Scriptural beauty, simplicity, and purity—but it is because that doctrine had been presented with such an inter-mixture of error and fancy that men have risen in rebellion. Listen! In Christian circles generally the term Premillennialism today does not suggest what it suggests among the Adventist bodies. It does not suggest the soon coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in power and majesty to reward His people, half so much as it does the soon coming of the awful and terrible Antichrist, to kill, burn, pillage, persecute, and destroy. It is a fact. And I charge that for this reprehensible condition Futurism is directly responsible. For it teaches that before there will be any visible manifestation of Christ—any possibility of earth’s millions knowing that He has come—Antichrist will appear, to initiate the most lawless, cruel, bloody era the world, in all its centuries of sorrow, blood, and death, has ever seen. In all humanity, men recoil. In all reason, men cry, “Away with this unscriptural, ungodlike, and monstrous program!”
V. I would point out further, that in its treatment of the main event, the return of the Lord,
Futurism is clearly incorrect.

Futurists claim that there are to be two stages of Christ’s coming. They distinguish these two phases by the terms “Rapture” and “Revelation.” They say that the Rapture “occurs when the Church is caught up to meet Christ in the air, before the Tribulation and the Revelation occurs when Christ comes, with His saints, to end the tribulation, by the execution of righteous judgment upon the earth. At the Rapture, Christ comes into the air for His saints. At the Revelation He comes to the earth with them.”—Blackstone, “Jesus is Coming,” p. 75.
It is further claimed that in connection with the Rapture the first resurrection will take place, and the living saints will be caught up with those raised to the trysting place in the air in a manner secret and invisible to the world at large. Nor will the world know that Christ has come. The only thing that will be noticeable to men about this first stage of the Second Advent will be the fact that so many good people will have suddenly and inexplicable disappeared.
Seven years later, the mystery will be solved. Christ will descend out of the secret chambers into which the saints were caught up, and will manifest Himself unto the world. This will be the Revelation.
Now is it true that there will be a second and a third coming of Jesus, with seven years between? If so, then the whole Church was in ignorance of it for eighteen hundred years. The doctrine of a secret advent of Christ to secretly steal away His saints is only about a century old. According to the great expositor, Tregelles, this notion was first given form as an “utterance” or “revelation” through one of the “restored” prophets of the early Edward Irving movement in England, while under the supposed influence of the Spirit. Tregelles’ exact words are the following: “I am not aware that there was any definite teaching that there would be a secret rapture of the Church at a secret coming until this was given forth as an utterance in Mr. Irving’s church, from what was there received as the voice of the Spirit; but whether anyone ever asserted such a thing or not, it was from that supposed revelation that the modern doctrine and the modern phraseology arose.”—The Hope of Christ’s Second Coming.
Such an assertion, coming from a man of Dr. Tregelles’ standing and wide acquaintance with the history of exegresis, is worthy to be received. It ought to set the matter in a true light. The “secret rapture” upon which Futurism builds so largely turns out to be, not the teaching of “holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,” but a supposed revelation, uttered by a spurious prophet belonging to a latter-day, fanatical movement. How unlucky Futurism is in the parentage of its leading tenets!
In the New Testament three Greek words are used to designate the second coming of Christ: parousia, epiphaneia, and apokalypsis. Futurists claim that the two last refer to the second state of His coming, or the Revelation; while His secret advent to steal away His Church is indicated by parousia. It will then be pertinent to inquire, Do those passages where parousia is used picture a secret coming? They do not. On the contrary, they speak of the parousia as an open, visible, noisy, and brilliant event: the very antithesis of secrecy.
The Master so described His coming in Matt. 24: 30, 31: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Now these words undoubtedly refer to the parousia. They were spoken in answer to the disciples’ question, “What shall be the sign of they parousia?” and they speak of the gathering together of the elect to meet the Lord in the air. But do they show that the descent of the Lord for the purpose of this rapture or gathering process is to be secret or invisible? By no means! They declare that the parousia will be preceded by a sign in the atmospheric heavens; that the Lord will first come down upon the clouds, with outward manifestations of power and glory, so that the nations of earth shall see Him and be thrown into great mourning; and that after this, the angels will go out to gather the faithful to meet the Lord in the air. First the descent and manifestation of Christ, then the rapture of the waiting saints, not secretly, but evidently in full view of the world; this is the divinely given order of events at the parousia.
The testimony of St. Paul is the same. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the parousia of the Lord shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descent from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then they which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:15-17).
This language is very explicit. The parousia and the rapture of the saints is to be heralded by a trump, a voice, and a shout. This reiterated assertion makes it quite impossible to believe that those events will be secret and unobserved, --unless we accept the naïve theory of Blacktstone, that although the Lord will come down personally into the air, only the saints will notice Him there, and although there will be the noise of a shout, and the voice of the archangel, and the clarion blast that will wake the dead, yet these sounds will all be of such a peculiar quality that only the initiated will hear them. Cf. Jesus is Coming, p. 184, foot-notes d and 3. But we must decline to countenance such trifling with the solemn verbiage of Scripture.
Time fails us to speak of 2 Pet. 3, where the apostle associates the passing away of the heavens with a great noise, the dissolution of the elements with fervent heat, and the destruction of wicked men, with the parousia; or of the fact that the Green nouns parousia, epiphpanera, and apokalypsis are used with but slightly differing shades of meaning to designate one and the same event and are practically interchangeable; or of 2 Thess. 2: 8, where both parousia and epiphaneia are used in a single verse to refer to the same action—“whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the epiphaneia of his parousia,” or as the Syriac has it, “the visibility of his advent.” Notice that this passage also reveals that the man of sin is to be destroyed at the parousia, a fact which Futurists deny. He is to be ruined, not at the Revelation after the Parousia, but by the revelation of the Parousia.
We must take the time to refer to a text that is important above all others in this connection. It is the warning of Jesus Himself that we should never be deceived by any thought of secrecy in connection with His second coming. Matt. 24: 26, 27: “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert, go not forth; behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not. For, as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west, so also shall the parousia of the Son of man be.” Do you call that secret or invisible? The parousia is to flash upon the vision of men like the lightning’s fiery leap across the sky! No theologian said that. No expositor figured that out. No theorist invented that. No deluded fanatic dreamed that. That is the declaration of the Son of God. And mark His words—aye, and forget them not—If anyone shall teach otherwise, “if they shall say, Behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not.” I have no disposition to judge my Futurist brethren. But for myself I could not accept a theory of a secret parousia and a secret rapture which I would have to deliberately adopt in the face of the plain warnings of my Lord Himself to the contrary.
VI. And now, a final and fatal objection to Futurism. It is proved wrong because it overlooks noteworthy and certain fulfillments of prophecy in past history, and projects into the future events that have already transpired. What could more thoroughly overthrow a system of prophetical interpretation than this?

Futurism forgets the historic restoration of the Jews to their own land, and looks for them to be gathered to Palestine for the third time in the interval between the Rapture and the Revelation; although it is not denied that the Jews did return, and that this occurred after the prophecies respecting their restoration were given.

Futurism winks at that great apostasy which turned the Christian Church over to the practice of pagan and idolatrous rites and the belief of unscriptural doctrines, obscuring the Gospel light for centuries, and strains its eyes forward in search of some future, short lived falling away, of whose character it has not the slightest idea.

It overlooks the most terrible tribulation which the Church has ever been called upon to undergo, during which fifty millions of loyal Christians were martyred by the orders of the papal Antichrist, and points instead to an Antichristian tribulation yet to come; into which the Church, strange to say, is not to enter, although every passage in the Word of God which speaks of persecutions under Antichrist shows that the particular objects of his malevolence are “the saints of God” (Dan. 7: 20, 21, 25; Rev. 13: 7; Rev. 17:6; 18:24; 19:2).

And Futurism completely ignores what may reasonably be regarded as the clearest, most undeniable, and most significant fulfillment that sacred prophecy has ever met in all the long centuries of history. I mean the rise and course of the papal man of sin.

The question of Antichrist is at the heart of this whole problem. That the man of sin should be a last-day ruler that he should not rise to power until after the Church has been taken out of the world at the Rapture, is essential to the Futuristic interpretation. One of their writers says, “To assume that Antichrist has come, necessitates the removal of all premillennial conclusions from popular eschatology.”—H. Pierson King, “The Imperial Hope,” p. 130. We think differently. But to the Futurist, premillennialism is based upon the contention of a future Antichrist. If he is right in that point, the main outlines of the whole scheme follow. But if he is wrong, and the man of sin has already appeared, then the Futurist himself will admit that his system breaks down at a vital point.

The most direct approach to the problem of Antichrist is to settle the question of when the prophets predicted he would appear. The date is the pivot of the argument. If it is not until following the Rapture, Futurism is correct. But if it is at a point already past in history, the Historicist is right. We therefore ask, “Do the prophets help us to fix this date?”

Let us turn to Daniel, the seventh chapter. We remember that the prophet saw the little horn come up on the head of the Roman beast after the ten first horns had appeared, and in their midst. We agree with our Futurist brethren that the little horn is a symbol of Antichrist. And we wish to point out to them that the fact just cited establishes the time at which Antichrist is to be manifested.

What do these symbols mean? In the book of Daniel, horns typify divisions of the government represented by the beast upon whose head they are seen. The proof can be seen in the two-horned ram of Medo-Persia and the four-horned goat of Grecia. The ten horns upon the Roman beast are therefore a prediction of the division of Rome into ten parts. And by the prophetical law that a thing represented with respect to a symbol must be fulfilled during the actual history of the power symbolized (and not before or afterwards), the ten horns must stand for kingdoms that were actually to be made out of the Roman Empire while it was still in existence. They can be no coalition of modern European nations. There are not ten kingdoms in Europe today that can point to an uninterrupted existence from the days of the Roman Empire. No. The ten kingdoms must be looked for back in history at the time of the historic division of the iron empire into many parts, which occurred in the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. We believe, therefore, that Antichrist must be looked for back in the era of the barbarian kingdoms, because the little horn came up after the ten first horns were in place, and in the midst of them; i.e., while the divisions of Rome which they represented were still standing. Antichrist could not come before the partition of Rome. We are convinced that his rise could not be long delayed thereafter.

Now let us turn to Rev. 13. Here we find the familiar prophecy of the great Antichristian beast out the abyss. We read, in verse 2, “And the dragon gave him (the Antichristian beast) his power and his seat and great authority.” In other words, the beast comes up as the dragon goes down. The beast-power is to follow in point of time the dragon-power, and is to succeed to the dragon’s seat and authority. Therefore, to determine when Antichristianity is to arise, we have only to identify the dragon, and to discover when, if ever, the dragon went down, and to whom, if any, he gave his power and seat. This will not be difficult.

We beg leave to submit the following points of identification:

1. The Church of the second, third, and fourth centuries identified the ten-horned wild-beast power of Revelation with the ten-horned, wild-beast power of Daniel; that is to say, with the Roman Empire—Guinness, in “History Unveiling Prophecy,” p. 51.

2. The dragon was a well-known symbol of Rome, being used as an ensign by the imperial armies.—Ibid., p. 52.

3. When the emperors of pagan Rome embraced Christianity, that event was regarded as constituting the fall of this dragon power. And when Julian the Apostate was slain in battle, Bishop Gregory Nazianzen in a sermon referred to that event as “the destruction of the dragon,” and “the breaking of the heads of the dragon in the water” (cf. Rev. 13:15, 16).

4. The dragon is seen as first standing before the woman, who represents the Judeo-Christian Church, to devour her Son, the Messiah, upon His birth; and then as warring against her and her seed. The Roman Empire, both in the person of Herod and of Pontius Pilate, stood ready to put Christ to death. And the Roman Empire, under its pagan rulers warred against the Church and persecuted her seed.

How then can we resist the conclusion that the “great red dragon” symbolizes the Empire of the Cesars? Accepting this as a true identification, we are ready to proceed. When did the Roman dragon go off the stage of history? In the fall and dismemberment of the iron empire! What power, that will answer to the requirements of prophecy, came up in its place, and occupied its seat, the city of Rome?

We will ask a witness no less prejudiced against our case than Pope Pius IX to tell us. “By a singular arrangement of Divine Providence…it happened that, the Roman Empire having fallen, and being divided into many kingdoms and diverse states, the Roman Pontiff, in the midst of such great variety of kingdoms, and in the actual state of human society, was invested with his civil authority.”—Pope’s Allocution of 1866. Listen also to the testimony of Cardinal Manning. “The possession of the pontiffs commences with the abandonment of Rome by the emperors…No sovereign has ever reigned in Rome since except the vicar of Jesus Christ.”

Ah, yes! Rome imperial, the dragon goes down, and Rome papal, the beast, comes up in its place, and exercises authority in its very seat.

Nor should we forget the Pauline picture of the man of sin (2 Thess.2:1-12). According to the apostle, Antichrist would not be revealed until there should be an apostasy in the Church, and until a certain agency that was hindering him should be taken out of the way.

About the apostasy, it is pertinent to inquire, “How would an apostasy in the Church be a preparation for the rise of Antichrist, unless that one was to be associated with the Church?” And how significant that there should occur a very remarkable falling away from primitive faith and practice in the very era in which the Roman Empire was breaking up, and the ten horns were taking their place upon the head of Daniel’s fourth beast! And following that apostasy, that there should emerge, within the circle of the professed Church, a power that answers to Scripture’s picture of the man of sin as exactly as a casting fits the mould from which it came. Surely such coincidences – giving every evidence of design – may not idly be dismissed!

Let us now ask, “What power in Paul’s day was withholding the manifestation of Antichrist?” Paul says, “And now ye know what withholdeth.” If the early Christians did know, and passed the secret from lip to lip, then primitive tradition on this point will settle the matter. Elliott, the great expositor says that “we have the consenting testimony of the early Fathers, from Irenaeus the disciple of St. John, down to Chrysostom and Jerome, that it was understood to be the imperial power ruling and residing at Rome.” This is unimpeachable testimony. And, as we have already shown, the hindering agency was taken out of the way, contemporaneously with the growth of the apostasy, the fall of the dragon, and the emergency of the ten horns, when the imperial power went down, and Rome was divided. How can we doubt that these converging lines of evidence point conclusively to an epoch not far removed from the sixth century of the Christian era? That century witnessed rapid strides in the rise of the papacy. It was not, however, until the dawn of the following century, or in 607 or 610 A.D., that the reign of the popes may be said properly to begin. Note well these dates: 476 A.D., Rome fell; 494 A.D., Roman bishop claimed the supremacy of the Roman See: 607 A.D., supremacy of the Pope was acknowledged and proclaimed by the Emperor Phocas.

But there is another avenue of approach to this question. By comparing Dan. 7 with 2 Thess. 2, it is evident that sometime previous to the Second Advent, a judgment will come upon Antichrist in the loss of his dominion. The temporal dominion of the papacy was lost in 1870. If we begin with that year and count back the 1260 years that Daniel and the Revelator give for the length of Antichrist’s supremacy we arrive again at the year 610 for its beginning.

Such agreement, from every angle of view, of the facts of history with the pictures of prophecy is most remarkable. It amounts to a refutation of the Futurist Interpretation. For if the era for the man of sin to appear lies now sixteen centuries in the past, and if that one has palpably appeared, run his predicted course, and incurred his initial judgment, it is manifestly useless and absurd to be still looking for him to come.

We bring, then, six indictments against Futurism. We charge that Futurism should be avoided on account of its Jesuitical origin, so different from the grand and noble history of primitive and Protestant Historicism. We claim that Futurism should not be accepted because it is supported by a wrong method of interpretation. We declare that it is to be rejected because it ignores the important matter of the year-day law. We claim that it discredits the very doctrine it seeks to defend. We assert that it is fundamentally wrong in its division of the second coming into two separate events. And we affirm that Futurism is refuted by the fact that it overlooks remarkable fulfillments of prophecy in the course of history, and idly invents future fulfillments for these same prophecies. These reasons, among others, we deem sufficiently cognent and weighty to deter us from adopting the Futurist program.

The Historical Interpretation is its own best defense. By showing the harmony of the events of history with the symbols of prophecy it proves its case, and commends itself to rational minds. We Historicists do not half realize the strength of our position. Futurists may point ahead to ingenious fancies. We are able to point back to recorded facts. Facts may point ahead to ingenious fancies. We are able to point back to recorded facts. Facts may not be as alluring as speculations, but they are a much more solid basis for faith and hope.

The whole question may be drawn to a single burning focus. The kingdom of Christ, or the kingdom of Antichrist: which does the future hold as just before us? Do we face the apocalypse of the man of sin, or the revelation of the Son of man? What are we to behold, as the next great development of the chain of prophecy, the cruel, bloodsmeared, diabolical visage of a devil incarnate, ruling over the ten kingdoms of a hypothetical Roman Empire redivivus; or the blessed, gentle, smiling, thorn-kissed, and glorified face of earth’s returning Majesty? If not the former, then the latter! Not the false Christ, but the true Christ! Glorious thought! The day is coming when the Lord Jesus will descent, the dead will stand up, all men will be judged, the wicked will be punished, the Lord’s enemies will perish, this earth will be born again, and clothed in the garb of her eternal Eden-hood, and the triumphant Christ will reign forever, here when the prophecies concerning His kingdom were written into history, here where the battles of His Church were fought and won. All hail, bright day! All hail, true Christ!

Let us then light the lamp of hope at the shrine of that “sure word of prophecy” which shineth in this dark world until the day shall dawn and the star of day appear. Let us press along our homeward way, singing the song of faith:

“We are voyagers on an ocean, and our destiny we know,
For our chart has been pointing out the way,
And our Captain he is cheering us as through the night we go,
Saying, “Courage, sailors, soon you’ll see the day.’

“We have passed the coast of Babylon, and Medo-Persian piers,
We have left the realm of Grecia far behind;
We’ve been sailing down the Roman coast for nineteen hundred years,
And our chart declares the port we soon shall find.

“Then we’ll watch and we’ll pray, as our vessel bears away,
And we’ll never be disheartened any more,
For the port is getting nearer, and I hear the Master say,
‘We shall soon reach the harbor and the shore.’”