NO. 646 "IN THE BEGINNING" - PART TWO

THE FOURTH CREATIVE EPOCH-DAY

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament [expanse, atmosphere] of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and let them be for lights in the expanse [atmosphere] to give light upon the earth; and it was so. God made [or caused to shine—a different verb not meaning created] two great lights; the greater light for the rule of the day [to indicate the time of day] and the lesser light, the night; the stars also.

The achievements of one epoch-day were carried over into the next, and we are justified in supposing that the light of the first day became more and more distinct during the next two, as ring after ring came down from the waters above the firmament to the waters below it, until by the fourth epoch-day the sun and moon and stars could be seen; not so clearly as now on a bright day, until after Noah’s flood—the last of the “rings”; but clearly discernible, nevertheless, through the translucent veil of waters —as now on a misty day or night. Sun, moon and stars had long been shining on the outer veil of the earth, but now the time came to let these lights in the firmament be seen; to let the days—previously marked by a dull, grayish light, such as we see some rainy mornings when the sun, moon and stars are invisible for clouds—become more distinct, so that the orb of day might by its course mark time for man and beast when created, and meantime begin to oxygenize the air, thus to prepare it for breathing animals. Later on in the same 7,000-year day, the moon and stars also appeared—to influence the tides and to be ready to mark time in the night for man’s convenience.

We are not to suppose that the development of plant life ceased during the fourth day, but rather that it progressed —the increased influence of sun and moon serving to bring forward still other varieties of grass and shrubs and trees. Geology shows advances, too, at this period—insects, snails, crabs, etc. Fish-bones and scales are found in coal seams, too; but this does not disturb the order; for the formation of coal-beds evidently continued after the third day—thus running into the Reptilian period. This “day” corresponds most closely with what geology designates the “Trias” period. Evening and morning—Day Four of seven thousand years, or 28,000 years from the starting of this work—closed, witnessing great progress in the earth’s preparation for man.

THE FIFTH CREATIVE EPOCH‑DAy

“And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let fowl fly above the earth in the open atmosphere of heaven. And God created great whales and every living creature that moveth, with which the waters swarm, after their KIND and every winged fowl after its KIND. And it was as God designed.”

How the warm oceans of the earth swarmed with living creatures, from the Jellyfish to the whale, may be judged by the profusion of life in the warm southern seas at the present time. Reptiles, living partly in the water and partly on the land (amphibious) belong also to this period, during which present continents and islands were gradually rising and again subsiding, at one time deluged by larger or smaller rings coming down, and at another washed by tidal waves. No wonder the remains of shell‑fish, etc., are found in the highest mountains. And no wonder the immense beds of limestone in all parts of the world are sometimes called “shell‑fish cemeteries,” because composed almost exclusively of conglomerate shells. What a swarming there must have been when those untellable trillions of little creatures were born, and, dying, dropped one by one their little shells! We read that God blessed them in multiplying. Yes, even so lowly an existence and for so brief a time is a favor, a blessing.

Let us not contend for more than the Scripture record demands. The Bible does not assert that God created separately and individually the myriad kinds of fish and reptiles; but merely that divine influence, or spirit, brooded, and by divine purpose the sea brought forth its creatures of various kinds. The processes are not declared, one species may, under different conditions, have developed into another; or from the same original protoplasm different orders of creatures may have developed under differing conditions. No man knoweth, and it is unwise to be dogmatic. It is not for us to dispute that even the protoplasm of the Paleozoic slime may not have come into existence through chemical action of the highly mineralized waters of those seas. What we do claim is that all came about as results of divine intention and arrangement, and, hence, were divine creations, whatever were the channels and agencies. And we claim that this is shown by the facts of nature no less than by the words of Genesis, that however the creatures of the sea were produced, they were brought to the condition in which each is of its own kind, where the lines of species cannot be overridden. This is God’s work, by whatever means brought about.

This day, or epoch, corresponds very well to the Reptilian age of the scientist. Evening and morning of Day Five was 35,000 years from the commencement of the work of ordering the earth as man’s home and kingdom.

THE SIXTH CREATIVE EPOCH‑DAY

“And God said; Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind. And it was so; God made the beast of the earth after its kind and cattle after their kind and earth‑reptiles after their kind. And God saw it was so done and approved.”

By this time matters on this earth were becoming more settled; the crust was thicker by hundreds of feet of sand and clays and shells and coal, and various other minerals gathered, some from crumbling rocks thrown up by earthquakes, some from the “rings” once surrounding the earth, and some from animal and vegetable deposits; besides, the earth itself must have cooled considerably during those 35,000 years. A sufficiency of earth’s surface was now above the sea, and well drained by mountain ranges and valleys to be ready for the lower animals, which are here divided into three kinds: (1) earth‑reptiles, cold‑blooded, breathing creatures – lizards, snakes, etc.; (2) beasts of the earth, or wild beasts, as differentiated from domestic animals, specially suited to be companions for man, and here referred to as (3) cattle. The air also by this time would be purified of elements unsuited to breathing animals, absorbed from it by the rank vegetation of the carboniferous period, as the excessive hydrocarbons had been absorbed from the oceans by the minute shell‑fish, preparatory to the swarming of sea creatures which breathe.

Here, again, we need not quarrel needlessly with Evolutionists. We will concede that, if God chose, He could have brought all the different species of animal life into being by a development of one from the other, or he could have developed each species separately from the original protozoan slime. We know not what method He adopted, for it is revealed neither in the Bible nor in the rocks. It is, however, clearly revealed that in whatever way God chose to accomplish it, He has fixed animal species, each “after his kind” in such a manner that they do not change; in such a manner that the ingenuity of the human mind has not succeeded in assisting them to change. Here is the stamp of the intelligent Creator upon His handiwork; for had “Nature” or “blind force” been the creator, we would still see it plodding blindly on, at times evolving and at times retrograding; we would see no such fixity of species as we behold all about us in nature.

We may reasonably assume that it was Just at the close of the sixth epoch‑day that God created man; because his creation was the last, and it is distinctly stated that God finished His creative work, not on the sixth, but “on the seventh day,” the division of the man into two persons, two sexes, being, evidently, the final act.

“And God said, We will make man in our image; and after our likeness let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every reptile that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them, and God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and control it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the heavens and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

In view of our remarks, foregoing, that the Scripture language does not forbid the possibility of the plants, water‑creatures and land‑creatures being more or less developed, or evolved, in their various kinds, it may be well for us to note the wide difference in the language used when referring to man’s creation. The latter is a specific declaration of the direct exercise of divine creative power, while the others are not, but rather imply a development:

“And the earth brought forth grass,” etc.

“Let the waters bring forth the creeping creature,” etc.

“Let the earth bring forth living creature after his kind, cattle,” etc.

There are two accounts of the creation – the one we have just been considering, which treats the matter briefly and in its epochal order, and another which follows it in Genesis 2:4‑25. In other words, the division of the chapters was at a wrong place – the two accounts should each constitute a chapter. The second one is a com on the first, explanatory of details. “These are the generations,” or developments, of the heavens and the earth and their creatures, from a time before there was any plant or herb. The first and principal account gives the word “God” when speaking of the Creator; and the second, or commentary account, points out that it was Yahweh God who did the entire work, “in the day” that He made the heavens and the earth – thus grasping the whole as one still larger epoch‑day, including the work of the six already enumerated.

The word God in the first chapter is from the common Hebrew word Elohim, a plural word which might be translated Gods, and which, as we have already seen, signifies “mighty ones.” The “Only Begotten” of the Father was surely His active agent in this creative work, and He may have had associated with Him in the execution of its details a host of angels to whom also the word Elohim would be applicable here as elsewhere in the Scriptures. It is appropriate; therefore, that the second, or commentary, account should call our attention to the fact that Yahweh the Father of all was the Creator, whoever may have been used as His honored representatives and instruments. The added particulars of the second account respecting man’s creation may properly be considered here.

It declares: “Yahweh God formed man of dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and the man became a living being.”

God was glorified in all His previous works and in every creature, however insignificant, even though none of them could properly render Him thanks or appreciate Him or even know Him. The divine purpose had foreseen all this from the beginning, and was preparing for man, who was intended to be the masterpiece of the earthly, or animal, creation. It is not said of man as of the sea creatures, “Let the seas swarm,” nor as with the lower earthly animals, “Let the earth bring forth”; but it is recorded, on the contrary, that he was a special creation by his Maker, “made in his own image.” It matters not whether the image of the Elohim be understood or the image of Yahweh, for were not the Elohim “sons of God,” and in His likeness in respect to reasoning power and moral intelligence?

We are not to understand this “image” to be one of physical shape; but, rather, a moral and intellectual image of the Great Spirit, fashioned appropriately to his earthly conditions and nature. And as for the “likeness,” it doubtless relates to man’s dominion – he was to be king of earth and its teeming creatures, like as God is the King of the entire universe. Here is the battlefield between God’s Word and so‑called Modern Science, to which the whole world, especially the learned including the leaders of thought in most theological seminaries, and the ministers in most of the prominent pulpits, are bowing down. To worship the scientific God called “Evolution.” The two theories are squarely at issue: if the Evolution theory be true, the Bible is false from Genesis to Revelation. If the Bible be true, as we hold, the Evolution theory is utterly false in all its deductions as respects man.

It is not alone the Genesis account of man’s creation in the Divine image that must determine the matter, strong as are the declaration of the Word: the entire theory of the Bible supports the Genesis record, and stands or falls with it. For, if man was created otherwise than pure and perfect and mentally well endowed, he could not, truthfully, have been called an “image of” God; nor could his Creator have placed him on trial in Eden to test his fitness for everlasting life; nor could his disobedience in the eating of the forbidden fruit have been accounted sin and punishable as it was, by a death sentence; nor would it have been necessary to have redeemed him from that sentence.

Moreover, “the man Christ Jesus” is declared to have been the “anti‑lutron,” the ransom‑price (or corresponding price) for this first man’s guilt, and He must, therefore, be considered a sample, or illustration, of what the first man was, before he sinned and passed under the Divine condemnation of death.

We know, too, that there are today, as there have been in the past, many noble natural men, all of whom God declares are sinners, and, as such, unrecognizable by Yahweh, except as they penitently approach Him in the merit of Christ’s sacrifice and obtain His forgive­ness. The standing of all who thus come unto God is declared to be only of His grace, under the robe of Christ’s righteousness. The outcome, we are inform­ed, must be a resurrection, or restitution, to perfection ere any can be personally and entirely satisfactory to the Creator. And yet it was this same Creator who communed with Adam before his transgression and called him His son, and who declared that Adam and we, His children, became “children of wrath” and passed under condemnation because of sin, which Adam did not have when created a “son of God.” (Luke 3:38)

As surely as “all the holy prophets since the world began” have declared the coming Millennium to be “times of restitution of all things spoken,” so surely the Evolution theory is in violent antagonism to the utterances of God through all the holy prophets. For restitution, so far from being a blessing to the race would be a crime against it, if the Evolution theory be correct. If by blind force or other evolutionary pro­cesses, man has been climbing up by tedious endeavors and laborious efforts, from protoplasm to oyster – from oyster to fish –from fish to reptile – and from reptile to monkey. From monkey to lowest man, and from lowest man to what we are. It would be a fearful injury to the race for God to restore it to what Adam was, or possibly to force the restitution further back to protoplasm. There is no middle ground on this question; and the sooner God’s people decide posi­tively in accord with His Word the better it will be for them, and the more sure they will be of not falling into some of the no‑ransom and evolutionary theories now afloat and seeking to deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. Let God be true, though it prove every Evolutionist a liar. (Rom. 3:4)

We cannot here go into the details of Adam’s creation, to discuss his organism, or body, his spirit, or breath of life, and how these united constituted him a living being, or soul. This has already been presented in a different connection.

Their fruitfulness in posterity was evidently in no manner connected with the transgression, as some have assumed, but was a part of the Divine blessing. The only relationship of the fall and its curse, or penalty, in this respect was, as stated, an increase of the mother’s conceptions and sorrows, corresponding to the man’s labor and sweat of face. These have borne the more heavily in proportion as the race has become degenerate and weak, mentally and physically. The object of the fruitfulness will have been attained when a sufficient progeny has been born ultimately to fill (not replenish) the earth. True, an immense number have already been born – possibly twenty thousand millions – and are now asleep in the great prison‑house of death; but these are none too many; for the present land surface of earth, if all made fit for man, as it ultimately will be, would hold two or three times this number, without taking into consideration the pos­sibility of other continents being raised from the depths of the seas as the present ones were in the past.

Scientists of a skeptical turn of mind have for a long time been seeking to prove that man was on the earth long before the period assigned in Genesis, and every bone found in the lower clays or gravels is scrutinized with a view to making the scientist a world‑wide reputation as the man who has given the lie to the Word of God. We have already referred to the unreliability of such evidences,[1] as the finding of arrow‑heads amongst the gravel of an early period. In some cases at least these have been proven to have been the work of modern Indians, who had shaped them near the spot where they found the suitable flint‑stones.╂

At a meeting of the Victoria Philosophical Institute not very long ago it was stated that “a careful analysis had been undertaken by Professor Stokes, FRS, Sir J. R. Bennett, Vice‑Pres. RS, Professor Beale, FRS, and others, of the various theories of Evolution, and it was reported that, as yet, no scientific evidence had been met with giving countenance to the theory that man had been evolved from a lower order of animals; and Professor Virchow had declared that there was a complete absence of any fossil type of a lower stage in the development of man; and that any positive advance in the province of prehistoric anthropology has actually removed us further from proofs of such connection, namely, with the rest of the animal kingdom. In this, Professor Barraude, the great paleontologist, had concurred, declaring that in none of his investigations had he found any one fossil species develop into another. In fact, it would seem that no scientific man had yet discovered a link between man and the ape, between fish and frog, or between the vertebrate and the invertebrate animals; further, there was no evidence of any one species, fossil or other, losing its peculiar characteristics to acquire new ones belonging to other species; for instance, however similar the dog to the wolf, there was no connecting link, and among extinct species the same was the case; there was no gradual passage from one to another. Moreover, the first animals that existed on the earth were by no means to be considered as inferior or degraded.”

We quote briefly from Sir J. W. Dawson, LL.D., FRS, from his summary of his recent findings respecting “The Meeting Place of Geology and History.” He says:

“We have found no link of derivation connecting man with the lower animals which preceded him. He appears before us as a new departure in creation, without any direct relation to the instinctive life or the lower animals. The earliest men are no less men than their descendants, and up to the extent of their means, inventors, innovators, and introducers of new modes of life, just as much as they. We have not even been able yet to trace man back to the harmless golden age [of Paradise]. As we find him in the caves and gravels he is already a fallen man, out of harmony with his environment and the foe of his fellow creatures, contriving against them instruments of destruction more fatal than those furnished by nature to the carnivorous wild beasts... Man, as to his body, is confessedly an animal, of the earth earthy. He is also a member of the province vertebrata, and the class mammalia; but in that class he constitutes not only a direct species and genus, but even a distinct family, or order. In other words, he is the sole species of his genus, and of his family, or order. He is thus separated by a great gap from all the animals nearest to him; and even if we admit the doctrine, as yet unproved, of the derivation of one species from another in the case of lower animals, we are unable to supply the ‘missing links’ which would be required to connect man with any group of inferior animals...

“No fact of science is more certainly established than the recentness of man in geological time. Not only do we find no trace of his remains in the older geological formations, but we find no remains of the animals nearest to him; and the conditions of the world in those periods seem to unfit it for the residence of man. If, following the usual geological system, we divide the whole history of the earth into four great periods, extending from the oldest rocks known to us, the eozoic, or Archaean, up to the modern, we find remains of man, or of his works, only in the latest of the four, and in the latter part of this. In point of fact, there is no indisputable proof of the presence of man until we reach the early modern period... There is but one species of man, though many races and varieties; and these races, or varieties, seem to have developed themselves at a very early time, and have shown a remarkable fixity in their later discovery... The history in Genesis has anticipated modern history. This ancient book is in every way trustworthy, and as remote as possible from the myths and legends of ancient heathenism.”

Prof. Pasteur, the great bacteriologist, was an outspoken opponent of Darwinism; and expressed himself as follows: “Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of the modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the works of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged in my work in the laboratory.”

Virchow, the Russian savant, though not a professed Christian was similarly opposed to the Darwinian theory of the development of organic beings from inorganic, and declared: “Any attempt to find the transition from animal to man has ended in a total failure. The middle link has not been found and will not be found. Man is not descended from the ape. It has been proved beyond a doubt that during the past five thousand years there has been no noticeable change in mankind.”

Other naturalists have also raised their voices against the Darwinian views.

In view of these facts how foolish appear the occasional essays of “Doctors” or “Professors” who feign learning by discussing “missing links” or suggesting that the little toes of human feet are becoming useless and will soon be “dropped by nature” as “monkey tails have already been dropped.” Have we not mummies well preserved nearly four thousand years old? Have we not life‑sized, nude statuary nearly as old? Are tails shown on any of these? Are their little toes anywise different from ours of today? Is not the whole tendency of all nature downward? With plants and the lower animals is not man’s wisdom and aid necessary to the maintenance of highest types? And with men is not the grace of God necessary to his uplift, and to hinder gross degeneracy such as we see in “Darkest Africa”? And is not this in accord with Scripture? (Rom. 1:21, 24, 28)

It is appropriate that the Lord’s people keep well in mind the caution bestowed on Timothy by the Apostle Paul: “O Timothy... avoid profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so‑called.” (1 Tim. 6:20) To see any truth clearly we must look from the standpoint of the Divine revelation. We must “See light in His light.” Then looking abroad through nature under the guidance of nature’s God, the effect will be to expand both heart and intellect, and to fill us with admiration and adoration as we catch panoramic glimpses of the glory, majesty and power of our Almighty Creator.

Evening and morning, Day Six, at its close, 42,000 years after “work” began, found the earth ready for man to subdue it, yet still, as a whole, unfit for him. Knowing in advance of His creature’s disobedience (and of His entire plan connected with His sentence of death, His redemption and the ultimate recovery from sin and death of all rightly exercised by their exper­iences), God did not wait the creation of man until the earth would all be ready for him, but merely prepared a Paradise, a garden in Eden, perfecting it in every way for the brief trial of the perfect pair, leaving to mankind, as convict laborers, the work of “sub­duing” the earth and at the same time gaining thereby valuable lessons and experiences.

THE SEVENTH EPOCH‑DAY OF THE CREATIVE WEEK

“And on the Seventh day God ended the work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.”

Noting the upward, progression sequence of the six days, and keeping in memory the fact that the number seven of itself implies completion and per­fection, we naturally would expect the Seventh Epoch‑day to be more marvelous than its predecessors. And so we find it: only that its important part is for a time – until the “due time” – shut to our mental eyes of understanding by the general statement that God rested on the seventh day from all His work. How strange that He should rest the creative work at a point where it seemed just ready for completion, as though a workman should prepare all the materials for a structure and then desist from further activities without accomplishing his original intentions!

But the whole matter opens grandly before us when we perceive that Yahweh God rested His work of creation, ceased to prosecute it, because in His wisdom He foresaw that His designs could best be executed by another means. God saw best to permit His creature Adam to exercise his free will and fall under temptation into sin and its legitimate penalty, death ‑ including a long period, 6,000 years of dying and battling, as a convict, with evil environment. God saw best to permit him thus as a convict to do a part of the subduing of the earth; that to bring it as a whole toward its foretold Paradisiac condition would be profitable to man under the circumstances; that it would be expedient that man realize the principles underlying Divine righteousness and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and be thus prepared for the grace to be brought to the world in due time.

However, one of the chief reasons for Yahweh’s cessation of the creative work undoubtedly was that it might be accomplished by another ‑ by His Only Begotten ‑ in a manner that would not only glorify the Son, but glorify the Father also, by displaying the perfections of the Divine attributes as no other course could do. This was by the giving of His Son to be man’s redeemer – an exhibition not only of Divine Justice, which could by no means violate the decree that “the wages of sin is death,” but which simul­taneously illustrated Divine Love – compassion for His fallen creatures to the extent of the death of His Son on man’s behalf. Divine Wisdom and Power will also ultimately be exhibited in every feature of the arrangement when completed.

It may be suggested that for the Father to desist from the perfecting of the creative plan in order that the Son might do this work during the Millennium, by processes of restitution, would be no different from the previous creative operations, all of which were of the Father and by the Son – without whom was not anything made that was made. But we answer, no. The relationship of the Son to the work of restitution, with which this Seventh Epoch‑Day will close and bring terrestrial perfection, will be wholly different from any of His —previous works. In all the previous creations the Son simply acted for Yahweh, using powers and energies not in any sense His own; but in this grand work to come He will be using a power and authority that are His own – which cost Him 34 years of humiliation, culminating in His crucifixion. By that transaction, which the Father’s wisdom and love planned for Him, He buys the world, buys Father Adam and all his progeny, and his estate, the earth, with all his title to it as its monarch “in the likeness of God.” The Father delighted to honor the “First Begotten,” and therefore planned it thus, and rested, or ceased from creative processes, that the Son might thus honor Him and be honored by Him.

God rested, not in the sense of recuperating from weariness, but in the sense of ceasing to create. He beheld the ruin and falls of His noblest earthly creation through sin, yet put forth no power to stay the course of the death sentence and started no restitution procedures. Indeed, by the law which He imposed, He precluded any opportunity for His exercise of mercy and clemency toward Adam and his race, except through a ransomer. The penalty being death, and that without limit, everlasting death, “everlasting destruct­tion,” and it being impossible for God to lie, impossible for the Supreme Judge of the universe to reverse His own righteous decree, it was thus rendered impossible for the Creator to become directly the restorer of the race, or in any sense or degree to continue His creative work in the condemned man or in his estate, the earth.

Thus did Yahweh God manifest His confidence in His own great plan of the ages, and in His Only Begotten Son to whom He has committed its full accomplishment. This confidence of the Father in the Son is used by the Apostle as an illustration of how our faith should so grasp the Anointed One that we also can trust every interest and concern to Him, as respects ourselves and our dear friends and the world of mankind in general: the Apostle’s declaration is, “We who have believed do enter into rest... He that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his.” Believers, like God, have perfect confidence in Christ’s ability and willingness to carry out all of Yahweh’s great projects in respect to our race, and therefore rest, not from physical weariness, but from concern, from anxiety, from any desire to take the matter out of Christ’s charge, or to attempt to secure the result by any other means.

If our Creator’s resting, or desisting from coming promptly to the relief of His fallen creatures, has in any degree the appearance of indifference or neglect, it was not really so, but merely the outworking of the wisest and best means for man’s assistance – through a Mediator. If it is suggested that the restitution work should have commenced sooner, we reply that the period of the reign of Sin and Death, 6,000 years, has been none too long for the bringing forth by births of a race sufficient in number to “fill the earth”; none too long to give all a lesson in the “exceeding sinfulness of sin” and the severe wages it pays; none too long to let men try their own devices for their own uplift and note their futility. Our Lord’s First Advent to provide the ransom price for the world so that He would have a just, equitable right to come again to bless, uplift and restore all who will accept His grace, although it was more than 4,000 years after the blight of sin and death entered, is, nevertheless, declared in Scripture to have been in God’s due time: “In due time God sent forth his Son.” Indeed, we see that it would not even then have been due time, except for the Divine purpose to call and gather and polish and make ready the elect Church to share with the Redeemer in the great Millennial work of blessing the world; God foreseeing that it would require this entire Gospel Age for this election, sent His Son for the redemptive work just long enough in advance to accomplish it.

THE PERIOD OF DIVINE REST, FROM CREATIVE AND ENERGIZING ACTIVITY IN CONNECTION WITH THE EARTH

How long is it since Yahweh ceased, or rested in, His creative work? We reply that it is now a little more than six thousand years. How long will His rest, or cessation, continue? We answer that it will continue throughout the Millennium, the thousand years of the reign of the great Mediator, effecting “the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:21) Will the confidence of Yahweh in the outworking of His plan, which led Him thus to rest it all in the care of Jesus prove to have been fully justified? Will the conclusion be satisfactory? Yahweh God, who knows the end from the beginning, assures us that it will, and that the Son, at whose cost the plan is being executed, “shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.” (Is. 53:11) Yea, all believers who are resting by faith in their Redeemer’s work – past and to come – may have full assurance of faith that “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath in reservation for those who love him,” specially for the Church; but also the lengths and breadths and heights and depths of love and mercy and restitution blessings, for all those of the non‑elect world, who in their Millennial day of grace shall heartily accept the wonderful Divine provisions on the Divine terms.

Six thousand years past and one thousand years future, seven thousand years of Yahweh’s “rest,” will carry us to the time when the Son’s Millennial reign shall cease because of having accomplished its design: the restitution of the willing and obedient of mankind to the Divine image, and the subjugation of the earth under man, as his estate, his kingdom. Then the Mediatorial throne and reign having served their purpose, and all corrupters of the earth having been destroyed, “the Son shall deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father,” by delivering it to mankind for whom it was originally designed, as it is written. (Matt. 25:31,34) “Then shall the King say unto them... Come, ye blessed [approved] of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” mundane creation. (1Cor 15:25-28)

It is the length of this Seventh Epoch‑Day, so distinctly marked by history and prophecy, which furnishes us the clue to the length of all the other epoch‑days of the creative Week. And the whole period of seven times seven thousand years, or forty‑nine thousand years, when complete, will lead up to and introduce the great Fiftieth, which we have already noted as prominent in the Scriptures, as mark­ing grand climaxes in the Divine Plan; Israel’s day Sabbaths culminating in 7x7=49, leading to and in­troducing the fiftieth, or Pentecost, with its rest of faith; their year Sabbaths 7x7=49, introducing the fif­tieth, or Jubilee, year; the still larger cycle of 50x50, marking the Millennium as Earth’s great Jubilee. And now, finally, we find the Sabbath, or seven day system, on a still larger scale measuring earth’s creation, from its inception to its perfection, to be 7 times 7,000 years – 49,000 years, ushering in the grand epoch when there shall be no more sighing, no more crying, no more pain and no more dying, because God’s work of creation shall then have been completed so far as this earth is concerned. No wonder that that date should be marked as a Jubilee date!

Continued to Part Three – “In The Beginning”

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╂We are not ignorant of the theory of a pre‑Adamite man and the attempt thus to account for the different races of the human family. But we stick to the Bible as God’s revelation and, hence, superior to all human conjectures. It declares the solidarity of the human family in no uncertain terms, saying: “God made of one blood all nations of men.” (Acts 17:26) And again that Adam was “the first man.” (1 Cor. 15:45,47) Again the story of the deluge is most explicit to the effect that only eight human beings were saved in the ark, and they, as Noah’s family, descended from Adam. The variety of human types, or races, must be accounted for along the lines of climate, customs, food, etc., and especially along the lines of the seclusion of the various peoples in various quarters from each other, by which peculiarities became fixed. This is illustrated by the fact that Europeans living for a long time amongst the people of India or China gain a measure of resemblance to their neighbors, while their children, born in those lands, bear a still stronger resemblance in skin and features – affected no doubt by the mother’s surroundings during the period of gestation. An illustration of such assimilation is furnished by the Chinese of one district, who identify themselves with the Israelites scattered by the troubles which closed the Jewish Age – about AD 70. These Jews have become so thoroughly Chinese as to be undistinguishable as Jews – the hardiest of races.

NO. 645 "IN THE BEGINNING" - PART ONE

Many are Yahweh’s agents, and innum­erable His agencies, connected with one or more features of His creation; but back of them all are His own creative wisdom and power. He alone is the Creator and as the Scriptures affirm, “All His work is perfect.” He may permit evil angels and men to pervert and misuse His perfect work; but he assures us that evil shall not for long be per­mit­­ted to blight and injury. Eventually He shall restrain and destroy evil, and we shall discern that he permitted it only to test, prove refine, polish and make His own holiness, gra­cious character and plan the more resplendent in the sight of all of His intelligent creatures.

When in Genesis we read, “In a beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” we are to remember that this beginning relates not to the universe, but only to our planet. Then it was that “the morning stars sang together” and all the angelic sons of God “shouted for joy” when the Lord laid the foundations of the earth and “made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness its swaddling band.” (Job 38:4‑11) But a still earlier beginning is men­tion­ed in the Bible; a beginning before the creation of those angelic sons of God. We read: “In a beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Logos was with the God and the Logos was a God: the same was in the begin­ning with the God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1‑3) Since Yahweh Him­self is from everlasting to everlasting, He had no begin­­ning: the “Only Begotten” has the high dis­­­tinc­tion above all others of being “The be­ginning of the creation of God”, “firstborn of every creature.” (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:15) Other begin­nings came in turn as the various angelic orders were one by one created; and these beginnings were in the past, so that their hosts could shout for joy when our earth’s creations, related in Genesis, had their beginning.

Examining the Genesis expressions cri­tical­ly, we see that a distinction is made between creation of the heaven and the earth (v. 1) and the subsequent regulations, or order­ing of these, and the further creations of vegetable and animal life. It is these subsequent operations that are describ­ed as the Divine work of six epochal days. V. 2 tells us that in the very beginning of the first day of that creative week the earth was, though with­out form (order), and void (empty), waste, empty and dark. This im­portant item should be distinctly noted. If recognized, it at once cor­rob­orates the testi­mony of geology thus far; and, as we shall be obliged to dispute the deductions of geologists on some points, it is well that we promptly acknowl­edge and dis­miss whatever does not need to be con­tended for in defense of the Bible. The Bible does not say how long a period elapsed between the beginning when God creat­ed the heaven and the earth, and the beginning of the creative week used in perfecting it for man: nor do geologists agree amongst themselves as to the per­iod of this interval; a few extremists indulge in specula­tions of millions of years.

Coming then to the creative period: the ordering of affairs in our heaven and earth in preparation of the Paradise of God for man’s everlasting home; we note that these “days” are nowhere declared to be twenty‑four‑hour days. Hence, we are not obliged thus to limit them. We find in the Bible that the word day stands for an epoch, or period. The fact that it is most fre­quently used in reference to a 24-hour period matters nothing, so long as we have the record of the forty years day of temptation in the wil­derness.(Ps. 95:8‑10),  and some­times a “day” or “time” represents a year period (Num. 14:33, 34; Ezek. 4:1‑8), and also the Apostle’s statement, “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” (2 Pet. 3:8) Most assuredly these epoch‑days were not sun days; for the record is that the sun was not visible until the fourth day, the fourth epoch.

We believe that although the length of these epoch‑days is not indicated, we will be justified to assume they were uniform periods, because of close identity as members of the one creative week. Hence, if we can gain reasonable proof of the length of one of these days, we will be fully justified in assuming that the others were of the same duration. We do then; find satisfactory evi­dence that one of these creative “days” was a period of seven thousand years and hence, that the entire creative week would be 7,000 x 7 = 49,000 years. And although this period is infini­tesimal when compared with some geological guesses, it is we believe, quite reasonably ample for the work represented as being accomplished there­in, the ordering and filling of the earth which already “was” in existence, but “without form (order), and void (empty).”

Professor James Dwight Dana (1813-1895), commenting on the date from which scien­tists draws their conjectures, and the method of rec­koning employed by them, says:

 “In calculations of elapsed time from the thickness of formations there is always great uncer­tainty, arising from the dependence of this thickness on a progressing subsidence [reg­ular sinking of the land]. In estimates made from al­luvial deposits [soil depos­ited from water], when the data are based on the thickness of the ac­cumulations in a given number of years – say the last 2,000 years, this source of doubt affects the whole calculation from its foundation and renders it almost, if not quite, worthless... When the estimate... is based on the amount of detritus [fine scouring] discharged by a stream it is of more value; but even here there is a source of great doubt.”

Let us examine the matter from the stand­point of the Bible, as we believe it to be the Divine revelation, and are fully persuaded that whatever discrepancies may be found between the Bible testi­mony and the guesses of geologists are the errors of the latter, whose philo­sophies have not yet reached a thorough­ly scientific basis or develop­ment.

Nor is it necessary to suppose that the writer of Genesis knew all about the matter he recorded, the length of those days and their pre­­cise results. We accept the Genesis account as a part of the great Divine Revelation – The Bible – and we find its sublime statement in few sen­tences most remarkably corrob­orated by the most critical scientific researches. Con­trarily, none of the “religious books” of the heathen contain any­thing but absurd statements on this subject.

There is grandeur of simplicity in that opening statement of revelation, “In the begin­ning God created.” It answers the first inquiry of reason, from whence came I, and to whom am I responsible? It is unfortunate indeed that some of the bright­est minds of our bright day have been turned from this thought of an intelligent Creator to the recognition of a blind force operating under a law of evolution and survival of the fittest. And, alas; this theory has not only found general acceptance in the highest institu­tions of learning, but is gradually being in­corporated into the text­books of our common schools. God’s in­spired Word is the only true science we have and the Bible says God created the first man on earth, but the Bible is not al­lowed to be taught in the schools.

There now are growing numbers of intel­ligent Creator and Bible deniers. Best­selling books on the subject are blatantly and gleefully flaunted. Science so-called is now the religion du jour. Even the devout, are undermining the fabric of their own faith, as well as that of others, when they claim that creation is merely the reign of Natural Law. Not to go further back, they surmise that our sun ejected immense volumes of gases which finally became consol­­idated, forming our earth.

By and by protoplasm formed, a small maggot, a microbe, got a start they know not how. They must concede a Divine power necessary to give even this small start of life; but they are industriously looking for some Natural Law on this also, so as to have no need at all for a God‑Creator. It is claimed that this discovery is now almost accomplished. These “savants” think and talk about Nature as instead of God,  her works, her laws, her retributions, etc., a blind and deaf God indeed!

These so-called scientists claim that un­­der Nature’s regulations protoplasm evolv­­ed mi­crobe, or maggot, which squirm­ed and twisted and repro­duced its own species, and then finding use for a tail, developed one. Later on, one of its still more intelligent offspring concluded that oars, or fins, would be useful, and develop­ed them. An­other, later on, got chased by a hungry brother and, jumping clear out of the water, got the idea that the fins further developed would be wings, and liked the new style, so that he stayed out of the water, and then decided that legs and toes would be a convenience and developed them. Others of the family followed other “notions,” of which they seemingly had an inexhaust­ible sup­ply, as evidenced by the great variety of animals we see about us. However, in due time one of these des­cen­dants of the first maggot which had reached the monkey degree of develop­ment, got a noble ideal before his mind: he said to himself, I will discard my tail, and cease using my hands as feet, and will shed my coat of hair, and will develop a nose and a forehead and a brain with moral and reflective organs. I will wear tailor made clothing and a high silk hat, and call myself Darwin, LL.D., and write a record of my evolution.

The devout child of God who has confidence in a personal Creator, and who is not ready hastily to discard the Bible as His revel­ation, will soon be able to see the sophistry of Darwin’s theory. It is not suf­ficient that Mr. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) conceived his “theory” of natural selection in 1838 and wrote it up in 1858; should note that amongst his pigeons he was able to develop certain breeds with peculiar fea­tures. Others have done the same with poultry, dogs, horses, etc., and florists have experi­mented upon flowers and shrubs, etc., with similar results. The new thing with Mr. Darwin was the theory that all forms of life were evolved from a common beginning.

But Mr. Darwin’s experiences with his pi­geons, like those of every other fancy breeder, must only have cor­rob­orated the Bible statement, that God created every creature after its kind. There are wonderful possibilities of variety in each kind; but kinds cannot be mixed nor new kinds formed. The nearest approach is called “mule‑in” and all know that new species thus formed lack ability to perpet­uate their kind. Mr. Dar­win must have noted, as others have done, that his “fancy” pigeons needed to be kept carefully separate from others of their kind, else they would speedily de­ter­i­o­rate to the common level. But in nature we see the various species, “each after its kind,” entirely separate from each other, and kept so without any artificial fencing, etc., – kept so by the law of their Creator. As believers in the personal Creator, we may rest assured that human speculation has missed the truth to the extent that it has ignored our God, His Wisdom and His Power, as outlined in Genesis.

Nothing, perhaps, has done more to becloud and undermine faith in God as the Creator and in the Genesis account as His revelation, than has the error of under­standing the epoch‑days of Genesis to be twenty‑four‑hour days. The various strati­fi­­cations of rock and clay prove beyond all controversy that long periods were con­­­sumed in the mighty changes they repre­­­­sent. And when we find that the Bible teaches an epoch‑day we are prepar­ed to hear the rocks giving testi­mony in exact accord with the Bible record, and our faith in the latter is greatly streng­thened; we feel that we are not trusting to our own or other men’s guesses, but to the Word of the Creator, abundantly attested by the facts of nature.

A THEORY OF COSMOGONY

For the benefit of some of our readers, we will briefly state one of the views of the creative period, known as “The Valian Theory,” or “Canopy Theory,” which specially appeals to the author; subsequently we will endeavor to trace a harmony between this view and the narrative of Genesis 1:1 – 2:3.

Starting with the condition men­tioned in Gen. 1:2, “Now the earth was,” waste and empty and dark, the wise will not attempt to guess that which God has not revealed respecting how He pre­viously gathered together earth’s atoms. Things unrevealed belong to God, and we do well to wait patiently for His further revelations in due time. Taking pick and shovel and a critical eye, man has found that the earth’s crust is composed of various layers, or strata, one over the other, all of which give evidence of having once been soft and moist, except the basic rocks upon which these layers, or strata, are with more or less regularity built. These basic rocks in­dicate clearly that they were once soft and fluid from intense heat; and scientists generally agree that not a great way below the “crust” the earth is still hot and molten.

Since these basic, igneous rocks – granite, basalt, etc. – must at one time have been so hot as to drive out of them all combustible elements, and since they are the bottom rocks, we are safe in concluding that there was a period when the whole earth was at a white heat. At that time, it is reasoned, water and minerals (now found in the upper layers, or strata, laid down in water) must have been driven off as gases; and must have constituted an impenetrable canopy ex­tend­ing for miles around the earth in every direction. The motion of the earth upon its axis would extend to these gases surrounding it, and the effect would be to concentrate them, more particularly over the earth’s equator. As the earth cooled these would cool, and thus be resolved from gases into solids and liquids, the weightier minerals grav­itating in strata toward the bottom. The earth at that period probably resembled the present appearance of Saturn with his “rings.”

As the cooling process advanced, these detached and distant rings would gradually acquire a different rotative motion from that of the earth, and thus gravitate closer and closer to her. One after another these were precipitated upon the earth’s surface. After the formation of the “firmament,” or “ex­panse,” or “atmos­phere,” these deluges from descending “rings” would naturally reach the earth from the direction of the two poles, where there would be least resistance, because farthest from the equator, the center of the centrifugal force of the earth’s motion. The breaking down of these “rings,” long periods apart, furnished numerous deluges, and piled strata upon strata over the earth’s surface. The rush of waters from the poles to­ward the equator would distribute variously the sand and mud and minerals, the water strongly mineralized thus covering the entire surface of the earth, just as described at the beginning of the narrative of Genesis.

During each of these long “days,” of seven thousand years each, a certain work progressed, as told in Genesis: each possibly ending with a deluge which worked radical changes and prepared the way for still further steps of creation and preparation for man. This Valian theory assumes that the last of these “rings” was freest from minerals and all im­purities, pure water; that it had not yet broken and come down in the day of Adam’s creation, but that it completely over­spread the earth as a translucent veil above the atmos­phere. It served, as does the whitened glass of a hot‑house, to equalize the temperature so that the cli­mate at the poles would be little, if any, different from that at the equator. Under such equable con­ditions, tropical plants would grow everywhere, as geol­ogy shows that they did; and storms which result from rapid changes of tem­perature must then have been un­known; and for similar reasons there could then have been no rain.

The Scriptural account agrees with this; declaring that there was no rain on the earth until the deluge; that vegetation was watered by a mist raising from the earth a moist, or humid, hot‑house‑like condition. (Gen. 2:5, 6) Following the deluge in Noah’s day there were great changes, accompanied by a great short­ening of the span of human life. With the breaking of the watery veil the hot‑house con­dition ceased: the equato­rial path of the sun became hotter, while at the poles the change must have been terrific; an almost instan­taneous transition from a hot‑house temp­erature to arctic coldness.

Corroboration of this sudden change of temperature has been found in the arctic region: Two complete mastodons have been found em­bedded in clear, solid ice which evidently froze them in quickly. Tons of ele­phant tusks have been found in the same frozen Siberia, too inhospitably cold within the range of history for elephants, mastodons, etc. An antelope was found similarly embedded in a huge block of ice in that arctic reg­­ion. That it was suddenly over­whelmed is clearly demon­strated by the fact that grass was found in its stomach undi­gested, indicating that the animal had eaten it only a few minutes before being frozen to death; and that in a location where no grass could now grow.

This sudden downpour of water, the sudden breaking of the envelope which held the warmth of the earth and sun equably produced the great ice‑fields and ice‑mountains of the arctic regions, from which every year hundreds of icebergs break loose and float southward toward the equator. So far as we can judge, this has been the procedure for centuries, but is continually growing less. Here we see the Ice Age, or Glacial Period, of the geologists, when great icebergs, borne by swift currents, cut deep crevasses throughout North America, distinctly traceable in the hills; north­western Europe, too, bears the same testimony in its hills. But this is not true in southeastern Europe, Armenia and vicinity, the cradle of our race. Where also the ark was built, and near which, on Mount Ararat, it finally rested. The testimony of Prof. Wright and Sir J. W. Dawson LL.D., FRS, is that in the vicinity of Arabia a general sinking of the earth and a subsequent rise occurred. The testimony in general would seem to imply that the ark floated in a comparatively quiet eddy, aside from the general rush of the waters. This is indicated by the exceedingly heavy alluvial deposit declared to be present in that entire region. Evidently the whole earth was deluged by waters from the North and South Poles, while the cradle of the race was specially dealt with by first depressing, and then at the proper time elevating it. On this, note the words of the celebrated geologist, Prof. G. F. Wright, of Oberlin, Ohio College, as reported in the New York Journal, March 30, 1901, as follows:—

THE FLOOD CORROBORATED

“Prof. George Frederick Wright, of Oberlin Col­lege, a distinguished geologist, has returned from Europe. He wrote ‘The Ice of North America’ and other geological works, studying and describing the glacial period. He has been on a scientific tour around the globe. He passed most of his time studying the geological formations and signs in Siberia, although his explorations took him to other parts of Asia and to Africa.

“Prof. Wright’s main object was to answer, if possible, a long‑disputed question among geologists: namely, whether Siberia had ever been covered with ice, as North America and parts of Europe had been, during the glacial period.

“A great many geologists, including many eminent Russian savants, believe Siberia was covered with ice.

“As the result of his present studies, Prof. Wright firmly believes that, at the remote time that North America was covered with ice, Siberia was covered with water [ice].

“And the water and the ice were practically phases of the Biblical flood.

“First read a description of the flood in Genesis, much abbreviated:

“‘And the flood was forty days upon the earth and the waters increased and bore up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth.

“‘And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth: and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered.

“‘Fifteen cubits upward did the waters pre­vail and the mountains were covered.

“‘All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died... And Noah only remained alive and those that were with him in the ark.

“‘And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.’ (Gen. 7:17-24)

“Now hear what Prof. Wright is quoted as saying:

“‘I found no sign of glacial phenomena south of the 56th degree. North of that I did not go, but from other things I am convinced that the land was covered with ice, as was our own, where signs of it are now found as far south as New York.

“‘We did not find indications of an extensive subsidence of that entire region, which puts a new light on everything here.

“‘At Trebizond, on the shore of the Black Sea, there was evidence of a depression of 700 feet. This was shown by gravel deposits on the hills.

“‘In the center of Turkestan the waters reached their greatest height, for there we found these deposits over 2,000 feet above the sea level.

“‘Southern Russia is covered with the same black earth deposit that we found in Turkestan.

“‘There were still other evidences of the waters having covered this portion of the globe. One of these is the presence yet of seals in Lake Baikal, in Siberia, 1,600 feet above sea level. The seals which we found are of the Arctic species, and are the same species as those found in the Caspian Sea.

“‘The only theory, therefore, is that they were caught there when the waters receded. Perhaps the most wonderful discovery of all was at the town of Kief, on the Nippur River, where stone implements were found fifty‑three feet below the black earth deposit, showing that the water came there after the age of man.

“‘This enabled us, therefore, to determine the age of this depression. It shows that since man came there, there has been a depression of 750 feet at Trebizond, and in Southern Turkestan the waters were over 2,000 feet deep. The imple­ments found were such as those made in North America before the glacial period, which gives good ground for believing that the depression was made there when the glacial avalanche occurred here.

“‘In fact, it was, practically, the flood.’”

Knowing the end from the beginning, Yahweh so timed the introduction of man upon the earth that the last of the rings came down in a deluge just at the proper time to destroy the corrupted race in Noah’s day, and thus to intro­duce the present dispensation, known in the Scriptures as “this present evil world.” The removal of the watery envelope not only gave changing seasons of summer and winter, and opened the way for violent storms, but it also made possible the rainbow, which was first seen after the flood, because previously the direct rays of the sun could not so penetrate the watery canopy as to give the rainbow effect. (Gen. 9:12‑17)

Since writing the foregoing, we clipped from the Scientific American the following suc­cinct statement from Prof. Vail’s own pen:

THAT FROZEN MAMMOTH

“To the Editor of the Scientific American:

“I have read with great interest in your issue of April 12 the note on the recent discovery of the body of a mammoth, in cold storage, by Dr. Herz, in the ice‑bound region of Eastern Siberia. This, it seems to me, is more than a ‘Rosetta Stone’ in the path of the geologist. It offers the strongest testimony in support of the claim that all the glacial epochs and all the deluges the earth ever saw were caused by the progressive and successive decline of primitive earth vapors, lingering about our planet as the cloud vapors of the planets Jupiter and Saturn linger about those bodies today.

“Allow me to suggest to my brother geol­ogists that remnants of the terrestrial watery vapors may have revolved about the earth as a Jupiter‑like canopy, even down to very recent geologic times. Such vapors must fall chiefly in polar lands, through the channel of least resist­ance and greatest attraction, and certainly as vast avalanches of tellurio‑cosmic snows. Then, too, such a canopy, or world‑roof, must have tem­pered the climate up to the poles, and thus af­forded pasturage to the mammoth and his con­geners of the Arctic world, which made a greenhouse earth under a greenhouse roof. If this be admitted, we can place no limits to the mag­nitude and efficiency of canopy avalanches to desolate a world of exuberant life. It seems that Dr. Herz’s mammoth, like many others found buried in glacier ice, with their food undigested in their stomachs, and proves that it was sud­denly overtaken with a crushing fall of snow. In this case, with grass in its mouth unmasticated, it tells an unerring tale of death in a snowy grave. If this be conceded, we have what may have been an all‑competent source of glacial snows, and we may gladly escape, the un-philosophical altern­ative that the earth grew cold in order to get its casement of snow, while, as I see it, it got its snows and grew cold.

“During the igneous age the oceans went to the skies, along with a measureless fund of mineral and metallic sublimations; and if we concede these vapors formed into an annular system, and returned during the ages in grand installments, some of them lingering even down to the age of man, we may explain many things that are dark and perplexing today.

“As far back as 1874 I published some of these thoughts in pamphlet form, and it is with the hope that the thinkers of this twentieth century will look after them that I again call up the ‘Canopy Theory.’ Isaac N. Vail”

THE CREATIVE WEEK

With this general view of creation before our minds, let us now turn to the Genesis account, and endeavor to harmonize these conjectures with its statements. First of all we notice that the Creative Week is divided into four parts: (1) Two days, or epochs (in our reckoning 2 x 7,000 = 14,000 years), were devoted to the ordering of the earth prep­aratory for animal life. (2) The next two days, or epochs (in our reckoning another 2 x 7,000 = 14,000 years additional), were devoted to bringing forward vege­tation and the lowest forms of life, shell‑fish, etc., and laying down lime­stone, coal and other minerals. (3) The next two epoch‑days (in our reckoning 2 x 7,000 = 14,000 years) brought forward living creatures that move in the sea and on the land, vegetation, etc., still progressing, and all preparing for the introduction of man, the earthly image of his Creator, “crowned with glory and honor,” to be the king of earth. (4) Man’s creation, the final work, came in the close of the sixth day, or epoch, and the beginning of the seventh: as it is written, “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He made, and He rested.”

TWO LOYAL TESTIMONIES

Professor Silliman declares: “Every great feature in the structure of the planet corresponds with the order of events narrated in the sacred history... This history [the Bible] furnishes a record important alike to philosophy and religion; and we find in the planet itself the proof that the [Bible] record is true.”

Referring to the account of Creation in Genesis, Prof. Dana declares: “In this succession we observe not merely an order of events, like that deduced from science; but there is a system in the arrangement and a far‑reaching prophecy to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.” He adds further: “No human mind was witness of the events; and no such mind in the early age of the world, unless gifted with superhuman intelligence, could have contrived such a scheme, or would have placed the creation of the sun, the source of light to the earth, so long after the creation of light, even on the fourth day; and what is equally singular, between the creation of plants and that of animals, when so important to both; and none could have reached into the depths of philosophy exhibited in the whole plan.”

THE FIRST CREATIVE EPOCH‑DAY

“And the spirit of God was brooding over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.”

The nature and physical cause of light is as yet but imperfectly comprehended; no satis­factory solution of the query, what is light has yet to appear. We do know, however, that it is a prime essential throughout nature; and we are not surprised to find it first in the divine order when the time came for divine energy to operate upon the waste and empty earth to prepare it for man. The nature of the divine energy represented by “brooding” would seem to be vitalizing, possibly electrical energies and lights such as the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Or, possibly the energy brought down some of the heavy rings of aqueous and mineral matter, and thus the light and darkness, day and night, became disting­uishable, though neither stars nor moon nor sun were in the slightest degree dis­cernible through the heavy rings, or swaddling bands, which still enveloped the earth.

“Evening and morning of Day One” as with the Hebrew solar days, so also with these epoch‑days, the evening came first, gradually ac­complishing the divine purpose to its com­pletion, when another 7,000 year day, appor­tioned to another work, would begin darkly, and prog­ress to perfection. This period, or “day,” is scien­tifically described as Azoic, or lifeless

THE SECOND CREATIVE EPOCH‑DAY

“And God said, let there be an ‘expanse’ [firmament, atmosphere] in the midst [between] the waters; and let it divide waters from waters. Thus God divided the waters under the atmosphere from the waters above the atmosphere. And God called the firmament [expanse, or atmosphere] heaven.”

This second epoch‑day of 7,000 years was wholly devoted to the production of an atmos­phere. It was probably developed in a perfectly natural way, as are most of God’s wonderful works, though none the less of His devising, ordering, creating.

The fall of the “ring” of water and minerals, which enabled light to penetrate through to the earth during the first epoch‑day, reaching the still heated earth and its boiling and steaming surface waters, would produce various gases which, rising, would con­sti­­tute a cushion, or firma­ment, or atmos­phere, all around the earth, and tend to hold up the remaining waters of the “rings” off from the period; but geology objects to this, claiming earth. This “day,” so far as Scriptures show, would also belong to the Azoic, or lifeless, that the rocks appropriate to this time show worm trails and immense quan­tities of tiny shell‑fish, the remains of which are eviden­ced in the great beds of limestone. They denominate this the Paleozoic Age of first life the Silurian period. This is not at variance with the Biblical account, which mere­ly ignores these lowest forms of life.

Evening and morning – Day Two – ended with the full accomplishment of the divine intention respecting it; the separation of the clouds and vapors, etc., from the surface waters by an atmos­phere.

THE THIRD CREATIVE EPOCH‑DAY

“And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together in one place, and let dry land appear. And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. And this being accomplished and approved of God, He said; Let the earth bring forth tender grass, and herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, in which is its seed, upon the earth: and it was so.”

Geology fully corroborates this record. It points out to us that, as the earth’s crust cooled, the weight of the waters would tend to make it kink and buckle, some parts being de­pres­sed became the depths of the seas, other por­tions forced up constituted mountain ranges. This was not sudden, but gradual, one range following another. We are not to suppose that all these changes took place even in the seven thousand years of this third epoch‑day; but, rather, that it merely witnessed the begin­ning of the work necessary as preparatory to the beginning of vegetation; for evi­dently geolo­gy is correct in claim­­­ing that some great changes of this nature are of comparatively recent date. Even within a century we have had small examples of this power: and we shall not be surprised if the years to come shall give us further paroxysms of nature; for we are in another transition period, the opening of the Millennial Age, for which changed conditions are requisite.

As the waters drained off into the seas, vege­tation sprang forth each after its own class or kind, with seed in itself to reproduce its own kind only. This matter is so fixed by the laws of the Creator that although horticulture can and does do much to give variety in perfection, yet it cannot change the kind. The different families of vegetables will no more unite and blend than will the various animal families. This shows design, not a Creator only, but an intelligent one.

Geology agrees that vegetation preceded the higher forms of animal life. It agrees, too, that in this early period vegetation was extremely rank; that mosses and ferns and vines grew immensely larger and more rapidly then than now, because the atmosphere was extreme­ly full of carbonic and nitrogenous gases; so full of them that breathing animals could not then have flourished. Plants, which now grow only a few inches or a few feet high even at the equator, then, attained a growth of forty to eighty feet, and sometimes two or three feet in diameter, as is demon­strated by fos­sil remains. Under the conditions known to have then obtained, their growth would not only be immense, but must also have been very rapid.

At this period, geologists claim, our coal beds were formed: plants and mosses, having a great affinity for carbonic acid gas, stored up within themselves the carbon, forming coal, pre­par­ing thus our present coal deposits while purifying the atmosphere for the animal life of the later epoch‑days. These vast peat‑bogs and moss beds, in turn, were covered over by sand, clay, etc., washed over them by further up­heavals and depressions of the earth’s surface, by tidal waves and by other descending “rings” of the waters above the firm­­a­ment. Practically the same pro­cedure must have been oft re­peated, too; for we find coal‑beds one above another with various strata of clay, sand, limestone, etc., between.

Evening and morning, the third 7,000 year epoch‑day, accomplished its part in preparing the world, according to the divine design. In ge­o­logy it is styled the Carboniferous era, because of its deposits of coal, oil, etc.

 The Fourth Creative Epoch-Day - Continued to No. 646 “In The Beginning”

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the word of truth

The word of truth is like a stained-glass window rare

We stand outside and gaze, but see no beauty there,

No fair design, naught but confusion we behold,

“Tis only from within the glory will unfold

And all who fain would enter there the knee must bow

In deep humility, But one inside the light

Of day streams through and makes each color heavenly bright,

The Master’s great design we see, our hands we raise

In reverent ecstasy of wonder, love and praise!

NO. 644 THE TRINITY

“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” —1 John 5:7,8 KJV

Quoted above are the two verses of The King James English version that are most often quoted as proof of the trinity. It is never quoted by true Bible scholars because they know several words were added in the seventh century, which are not found in any New Testament manuscript of earlier date. The added words make these verses as a whole — well – absurd.

These words should be stroked through  and noted as Spurious in the King James Version as follows in verse seven: “the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one”; and verse eight, “and there are three that bear witness in earth.”

We love the King James Version in part because of its beautifully poetic language. However like all translations it is not “The Holy Scriptures” and like others it has translation mistakes.

Tradition attributes the poetry in part to William Shakespeare. It is said the scholars appointed by King James to translate the “orig­inal” language were told to consult with the poet-play­wright for a memor­able and poetic English Bible. The king was impressed with Shakespeare and had designated him as one of “The King’s Men.” There may be some validity to Shakespeare’s contributions, as words from his couplets are some­times mistakenly quoted as from the Bible and vice versa.

Later English translations did not make as many errors. The groups of King James trans­lators had only eight original language manu­scripts from which to work. Now there are more than seven hundred identified and validated.

But be that as it may, errors in some instances were incorporated in the little books by well-meaning editors down through the years. So all the words found in the Scriptures was not inspired.

Yahweh overruled this so that seekers of the Truth would have to rightfully divide the word and seek here a little and there at little to find it and to prove themselves worthy.

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  “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” —2 Tim 3:16,17 KJV. Well known verses much quoted and commented upon.

The American Standard Version of these scriptures omits the first “is” in verse 16. See what difference it makes:

“Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor­rection, for instruction which is in righteousness. That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.”

 Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott is even better. He gives the corresponding English words under and in the order of each of the Greek words and to the right,  gives his version of the correct English:

All Scripture, divinely inspired, is indeed profitable for Teaching, for Conviction, for correction, for that Discipline which is in Righteousness; so that the Man of God may be complete, thoroughly fitted for every good Work. 

After thus eliminating these spurious additions, and because no Scripture can be found to give credence to the “doctrine” of the trinity, then you will be able to read that portion of the Word of God in its purity and simplicity. Then the “mystery” part will be gone from it forever. It will be in full accord with the entire Bible in declaring,

“To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things and we by him.” —1Cor. 8:6.

How absurd the passages of 1John 5:7, 8 as it reads in our Common Version, stating that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are bearing witness in Heaven that Jesus is the Son of God?

The pure Word of God presents simply and beautifully the fact that the great Creator, the Father of all mercies is God, the Creator of all things; and that He has an Only Begotten Son who is yet to be the Savior or Deliverer of the willing of Adam’s entire race who accept the grace of God provided.

The trinity in nominal Christian doctrine is seen as God the Father; the son of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, which appears as “the Holy Ghost” in 88 verses in the King James translation of the New Testament. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, one of the most important in mainstream Christian faith, teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons. It is the featured item of the catechisms in every denomination from the mother of harlots, the Papal System to the harlot daughters. 

How did it start

Roman emperors had always held the notion that affiliation with some relig­ion was essential to their success in ruling. So, when the Christian church had increased in sufficient numbers, Constantine considered it good politics to join with them.

Flavius Valerius Constantinus was born in the Roman province of Moesia (later Serbia) about AD 280. His father, Constantius, the northern ruler under Diocletian, was a member of an important Roman family though his mother, Helena, was the daughter of an inn­keeper.

 This is the St. Helena who became a Christian in AD 313 and is credited by tradition as having found the relic of the True Cross near Calvary. She is also said to have identified the location of the Holy Sepulcher. Popular tradition also has it that she was British and that she converted her son.

In AD 293 the emperor Diocletian made Constantius I Caesar, or emperor, of Gaul and Britain, but young Constantine was kept at the court of Galerius, the Eastern emperor, virtually as a hostage. He escaped in 305 and joined his father, who died the next year. Immediately the army hailed Constantine as Caesar.

For five years Constantine was content with ruling Gaul. Then he invaded Italy and made straight for Rome. Maxentius, the emperor of Rome, came out of the city with his army and met Constantine at the Milvian Bridge. Constantine swept the enemy into the Tiber River, and Maxentius was drowned

 Constantine then entered Rome as sole master of the Western half of the empire. In AD 313 he issued the Edict of Milan, which gave the Christians the right to practice their religion openly. By 323 Constantine had brought the entire Roman world under his rule.

 At the time, a quarrel, growing more and more vitriolic, was threatening to split the Christian church into two camps. Arius, an elder or Bishop of the church at Alexandra, maintained that Christ was not the equal of the Father but was created by Him. Others claimed that the Father and Son, though distinct, were equal, and of the same substance.

To settle the matter, Constantine called together an ecumenical (worldwide) council of bishops at Nicaea, in Asia Minor, in 325. As Pontifex Maximus, he himself ran the meeting.

 Athanasius, secretary to the bishop of Alexandria and 30 years old at the time, distinguished himself by an eloquent opposition to Arius and an overwhelming majority con­demned the Arian view as heresy.

As any good politician would do, Constantine sided with the majority.  Arius was banned from the empire along with the two bishops who sided with him to Illyricum (eastern Yugoslavia) on the Adriatic Sea. He slipped away to North Africa and established a flour­ishing church. His followers were called Arians, Arius was called heretic and the Catholics still do to this day. The Council drew up the Nicene Creed, which included the trinity and it is still accepted as the basic doctrine of most nominal churches.

Let no one delude you by any means, because the Apostasy must come first, and there must be revealed That Man Of Sin, That Son Of Destruction, the Opponent, who indeed lifts himself above everything called Divinity or Majesty; so as to seat himself in the Temple of God, exhibiting himself That he is a God  .—2 Thes. 2:3-4 Dia.

OUR GOD IS ONE

“To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things.” —1 Cor 8:6

Notwithstanding the widespread acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity, we hold closely to the Bible teaching that there is but one God. Jesus called God his Father, and spoke of himself as the Son of God. A father is a life-giver. A son is an offspring, one who receives life from a father. This distinction implies that the father existed first. And so Jesus says of himself, “I proceeded forth and came from God.” —John 8:42. (The Diaglott add to the above, “He sent me.”)

The clear teachings of the Bible, that Jesus in his pre-human condition was the Logos – the Word, or message from the Father; and that as such he was called a god, but not The God – who is the Father.

On so important a question as the equality of the Father and the Son, we must not rely upon any man’s testimony except that of the inspired writers of the Scriptures. We should accept no dictum save that of the divine Word itself. Let us ask Jesus. He replies, “My Father is greater than all; I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God;” this is life eternal; that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” —John 14:28; 5:30; 10:29; l7:3; 20:17

We point out that Jesus was the first of God’s creatures, the only being directly created by Yahweh; and that Yahweh did all subsequent creating through the Son. Thus we read that Jesus was “the beginning of the creation of God,” “the first-born of every creature,” “the Alpha and The Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last of the Father’s direct creation. (Revelation 3:14; 22:13; Colossians 1:15)

The Apostle John declares (John 1:1-3), “In the beginning [not Yahweh’s beginning, for he had no beginning; but the world’s beginning or man’s beginning] was the Word [the Logos], and the Word was with the God and the Word was a god. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” 

Could this subject be made plainer? Why confuse ourselves needlessly? Why fight against the plain statements of God’s Word to uphold a theory which is without Biblical support and was formulated in the dark ages?

We teach, as does the Bible, that the Lord Jesus came from heaven to earth; was born of a virgin mother; that he, “the Logos, was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and his disciples “beheld his glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!” (John 1:14) Jesus had not two natures, but one nature, having changed the higher, the spiritual nature, for the human nature. As the Scriptures declare, “He who was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) And as he grew to manhood he grew in favor with God and men. He was perfect – “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.” —Luke 2:52; Hebrews 7:26.

JESUS BECAME A NEW CREATURE

At thirty years of age, this Perfect One, having reached the perfection of manhood according to the law consecrated, or devoted, his life to God as the great sacrifice for human sin, fulfilling the Scriptures, “a body hast thou pre­pared me,” “for the suffering of death.” (Hebrews 10:5; 2:9) That consecrated sacrifice of the Man Jesus God accepted, indicating his acceptance by the anointing of Jesus with the Holy Spirit at Jordan. Thenceforth he was dual – a perfect human body with a newly begotten mind – spirit-begotten. He then, as a new crea­ture, was to complete the sacrifice of his flesh; and his new mind – the new creature – was to go on to perfection.

He prayed that the Father would restore him to the glory which he had with the Father “before the world was.” (John l7:5) In his humility he asked no higher glory. His sacrifice was finished at Calvary, and his new mind, his spirit-begotten new nature was, in the resur­rection, granted the new body which the Father had promised. “Sown in dishonor,” he was “raised in glory”; “sown in weakness,” he was “raised in power” sown a natural body,” he was “raised a spiritual body.” —l Corinthians 15:43, 44.

Our Lord was not originally created in the way the angels were; for he was the direct creation of the Father, whereas the angels were the indirect creations of God, through the Son. St. Paul declares that all things are of the Father, and all things are through, by the Son. (1 Corinthians 8:6) He was the Father’s honored agent in all other works of creation.

Our Lord Jesus became the Christ, the Anointed, when he received the anointing of the holy Spirit at his baptism. Ile was perfected as the Christ at his resurrection. He was a god (Mighty One) before he came into the world; he also was a god from the time he received the begetting of the Holy Spirit at Jordan; and he is still a god, set down at the right hand of the Father. But he is not The God; he never was and never will be. Note again his own words after his resurrection, when speaking to Mary Magdalene: “I ascend to mv Father and your Father; to my God and your God.” (John 20:17) Hear what St. Paul says, “To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things… and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by [or through] whom are all things.” (l Corinthians 8:6) Again, in referring to Yahweh, the Apostle calls him, “God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”; and again, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.” —2 Corinthians 1:3; Ephesians 1:3, 17.

A COMMON, BUT UNSCRIPTURAL VIEW

The Lord Jesus is not the second person of a triune God. The word “triune” is unscriptural; so is the thought. St. Paul sets the matter straight in his words quoted above. He also declares that Jesus “thought not of robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation.”  No translation of this passage (Philippians 2:6), save in our Common Version gives the thought that Jesus considered himself equal to God the Father, but all are to the contrary of this. Our Common Version rendering is evidently a mistranslation. The entire argument of the Apostle shows that Christ humiliated himself, not that he claimed equality with Yahweh!

“Who though being in God’s form, yet did not meditate a usurpation to be like God. — Philippians 2:6 (Diaglott)

The word “trinity” is not found in the Bible. The only text which seems in any way to suggest a trinity is acknowledged even by trinitarians themselves to be a forgery, incorporated into the text about the fifth century This interpolation forms apart of 1 John 5:7, 8. We quote the passage with the interpolated words enclosed in brackets: “For there are three that bear record [in Heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness in earth,] the Spirit and the water and the blood: and these three agree in one.” See Revised Version, Emphatic Diaglott, American Standard Union Translation, Young,s translation, etc. This passage is pronounced an interpolation by such eminent author­ities as Sir Isaac Newton, Benson, Adam Clarke, Horne, Griesbach, Tischendorf and Alford.

We have explained in our writings that there was a time when our Lord Jesus did not exist, when Yahweh was  alone. How else could the Bible declare that Jesus was the “beginning of the creation of God”?  (Rev.3:14) What is the value of language, anyway, if we do not give words their manifest meaning? Jesus undoubt­edly had a beginning. This was ages before he came to earth as a human being to die for Adam and his race. Those who denounce us should read our writings before criticizing them. Then they would not criticize at all, if honest; for they would know that there is no ground for criticism on the part of those who hold to the Bible as the word of God.

TRANSFERRED FROM HEAVEN TO EARTH

The Lord Jesus (The Logos) had a heavenly nature before he came into the world. He exchanged that nature, as we have stated, for an earthly one, in order that he might give his flesh, his humanity, a ransom-price for the sins of the whole world. Having accomplished this great work, he was granted by the Father an exaltation still higher than his previous g1orious position and nature, even though his previous station had been second only to Yahweh himself.  St. Paul declares of the position given Christ at his resurrection: “Wherefore God also highly exalt­ed him and given him a name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth [those now in the tomb, but yet to be raised to learn the truth that is in Jesus]; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” —Philippians 2:9-11.

When on earth, Jesus was not a sinful man in any sense. His birth of the Virgin Mary was miraculous. His holy life was transferred to human conditions. He was made a man – “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” and fit, therefore, to be the great Sin offering for Adam and all his posterity. He was simply the Man Jesus up to the time of his immersion in Jordan; but the anointing he there received constituted him the Anointed of God, the Christ, the Messiah.

MADE “PARTAKER OF THE DIVINE NATURE”

 Jesus was a god, a Mighty One, higher than the angels before he became a man. When born a babe, he was not a god at all, but a human being, and as the perfect man of thirty he was not a god at all, but a human being; and as a perfect man he was not a god. But when he received the anointing of the holy Spirit. of divine power, he became a Mighty One, because of this spirit-begetting. And since his resur­rection he is a god greater than ever before, “partaker of the divine nature” for his church is called to this great exaltation and they are called to the obtaining of the glory of their Lord that they may be with him, as his bride, and be like him, members of his glorious body. —2Thes­salonians 2:14; 1John 3:2; Revelations 21:2, 9; 22:17; 1 Corinthians 10:16, 17; 12:12, 13, 27; 2 Peter 1 :4.

Our Lord is the great Head of his church, and Head and Body must partake of the same nature in glory. He gave up his human nature in death to purchase the human race. For parts of three days he lay dead in the tomb – not alive in any sense; for death is the absence of life. He had given up human life never to take it up again. It was the purchase price for the world. He was resurrected to the divine plain, an exaltation never before given to any creature of God. His bride is called to the same glorious nature as her head, whose inheritance she is invited to share. Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of God. —Romans 6:4; 8:11; Acts 2:22, 24. 32, 33.

CONFUSION OF TRINITARIAN VIEW

Notice for a moment the great confusion from which we are saved by following the Bible’s own testimony respecting our Lord Jesus and by throwing out the ridiculous nonsense of the dark ages. We are saved from thinking of our God as three being with only one body or one being with three bodies. Trinitarians do not know which of these creedal statements to take – some say one and some say the other. But both are wholly irrational; three are not one and one is not three. The oneness between the Father and the Son is explained by our Lord himself. He prayed that his disciples might become one in the same sense that he and the Father were one – surely not that his disciples might become one person, but that they might be one in spirit, in mind, in purpose, as were the Father and himself. See John 17:20-23.

The followers of Jesus become one in mind and purpose by each giving up his own will to do God’s will. And Jesus and the Father are one because Jesus surrendered his will to the Father’s will, saying, “Not my will, but thine be done”; “I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”;  “Lo, I come; I delight to do thy will, O my God !” These are the words of the Lord Jesus to the Father.

Touching the rise of the Trinitarian view, Abbott and Conant’s Religious Dictionary,  page 944, says “It was not until the beginning of the fourth century that the Trinitarian view began to be elaborated and formulated into a doctrine and an endeavor made to reconcile it with the belief of the church in ONE GOD.” “Out of the attempt to solve this problem sprang the doctrine of the Trinity.” Trinity “is a very marked feature in Hinduism, and is discernible in Persian, Egyp­tian, Roman, Japanese and the most ancient Grecian mythologies.”

Like some other doctrines received by Protestants from Papacy,, this one is accepted and fully endorsed, although its educated adherents are aware that not  a text of Scripture can he adduced to its support. Yea, more; whoever will not affirm this unscriptural doc­trine as his faith is declared by the articles of the Evangelical Alliance to be non-orthodox – a heretic. Hebrews l:8 has been used by Trini­tarians as a proof text that Jesus is Yahweh, and the fact is cited that the word God here is theos, the same as verse 9 which refers to the Father. They seem not to have noticed that the word god, 2 Corinthians 4:4, which refers to Satan, is also theos in the Greek. Theos is used of any mighty one, the same as Elohim in the Hebrew.

Philippians 2:8, 9 implies that our Lord’s present glory is greater than the glory which he possessed before he became a man; otherwise it could not have been an exaltation. Now having the divine, immortal nature he cannot die. “Christ dieth no more.” How straightforward and simple and reasonable is the Scriptural pre­sen­tation compared with human traditions! In what a jumble of contradictions and confusion do they find themselves who say that Jesus and the Father is one God! This would involve the idea that our Lord Jesus acted the hypocrite when on earth and only pretended to address God in prayer, when he himself was the same God. Such should conclude, too, that since we read that God cannot be tempted of any, it was only a farce when Jesus was tempted of Satan.

 Again, the Father has always been immortal, hence could not die. How then, could Jesus have died? The Apostles are all false witnesses in declaring Jesus’ death and resur­rection if he did not die. The Scriptures declare, however, that he did die – “He poured out his soul [his being] unto death,” not merely his body, as many assert.—Isaiah 53:12.

If they admit that Jesus really died, they take the other horn of the dilemma; for believing that their three Gods are all one person as many do, when Jesus died they must all three have died. If they all died, who raised them to life?  How foolish all this sounds!  Yet if Jesus and the Father are the same person, the same being, then when Jesus died the Father must have died. Shall we thus contradict the apostles and prophets and Jesus himself, and ignore reason and common sense, in order to hold to a dogma handed to us from the dark, superstitious past, by a corrupt apostate church? Nay! “To the law and to the testimony! If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them.”

 SCRIPTURES on the HOLY SPIRIT

We next inquire: What say the Scriptures with regard to the holy Spirit? The nominal churches, Protestant and Catholic, affirm that the holy Spirit is a person, the third person of the Trinity. They claim that all this is “a great mystery.” Yes, truly it is a mystery, such as is characteristic of the confusion of man-made creeds held by Babylon. But to those who turn to the Word of God and let it speak, all is clear and plain. We suggest that whatever definition of the term “holy Spirit” will meet all known condi­tions and harmonize all Scriptures bearing thereon may be understood to be the true meaning of the term. We will first give what we conceive to be such a definition, and then ask the reader to subject every Scripture where this term is used to this definition and see if it does not make harmony of all.

We understand the Bible to teach that the holy Spirit is the divine will, influence, power or disposition, exercised anywhere and for any purpose, at the divine pleasure. God exercises his Spirit or energy in a variety of ways, using various agencies, and accomplishing various results. Whatever God does through agencies is as truly his work as though he were the direct actor, since all his agencies are his creation – created by his own power; just as a contractor for building is said to build a house, though he may never have lifted a tool upon it. He does it with his materials and through his agents.

Thus, when we read that Yahweh God created the heavens and the earth, we are not to suppose that he personally handled them. He used an agent. “He spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.” His holy power was exercised through his Only Begotten. God’s Spirit was exercised in times past through the prophets. “They spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” [power] of God.

The masculine pronoun is often used in our Common Version Bible in referring to the Holy Spirit of God, because God, who is a Spirit, is represented as masculine, as indicative of strength. The pronoun translated he when refer­ring to the Holy Spirit, can with equal consistency be translated it, and is often so rendered.

See Diaglott rendering of John 14:17, 26, as an example.

For further understanding of this subject of the Holy Spirit, we refer the interested reader to our fifth volume of STUDIES IN THE SCRIP­TURES, Page 163; Chapters 8-11, where we have treated the subject at length.

“One reads with father’s specs upon his head,

And sees the thing just as his father did;

Another reads through Campbell or through Scott,

And thinks it means exactly what they thought.  

Some read to prove a pre-adopted creed,

Thus understand but little what they read;

And every passage in the Book they bend

To make it suit that all-important end.

Some people read, as I have often thought,

To teach the Book, instead of to be taught,”

(See Pastor Russell’s Reprints “JEHOVAH OUR GOD IS ONE”– Pages 5747- 5749)

Note: Some minor editing has been done in this article without, we trust, any change in Pastor Russell’s teachings.

For instance, since we are no longer confortable with the popular name given the Heavenly Father for the unpronounceable name, YHVH by adding vowels from the names for Jesus Christ, to wit, ”Jehovah”; we have changed to “Yahweh.”

NO. 643: SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE MEMORIAL

No. 643

Again we come to the Memorial of Him who perished on the cross, the time this year 2011 will be any time after six p.m. the evening of Friday, April 15.

The time is determined as follows: The moon becomes new this year nearest the Spring Equinox (using Jerusalem as the proper location) at 2:33 p.m., April 3, making Nisan 1 at 6 p.m., April 2; and counting from that time, we arrive at six p.m., April 15. We have offered much more detail on this calculation in some of our previous Memorial papers.

“THIS do in remembrance of me.” These are among the last words of Jesus to His Disciples on the evening before He died on the cross; and we believe a clear understand­ing of these words will dissipate much of the cobweb of error that now appears in so many sections regarding the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus made this statement they had just finished eating the Memorial of the great Passover that occurred in Egypt just 3,626 years before this Nisan 14 (April 15, 2011). When Jesus said “this do,” He was telling them that from then on they were to partake of the bread and wine instead of the Jewish Passover Memorial. And how often did the Jews keep that Memorial? Why, of course, once each year! And, if that Memorial was to be replaced with the bread and the wine, then it should be used just once each year.

It is our understanding that there are now about 200 different views in Christendom concerning this ceremony; but, if we accept the clear and concise words of Jesus, there can be but one date on which we should keep it ─ namely, on the same date that the Jews keep the memory of the Passover in Egypt. And the Bible is very clear about this date: “Ye shall keep it [the lamb] up until the fourteenth day of the same month [Nisan]: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening.” (Ex. 12:6) Jesus and the Disciples followed this command by the Lord to the Jews that night in Egypt; and He then told them very clearly that the bread and wine should henceforth be substituted for the Passover lamb. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” (1 Cor. 5:7)

THE BEGINNING OF MONTHS

“The Lord spake unto Moses... This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you.” (Ex. 12:2) In Ex. 13:4 we are told that the name of that month was Abib, meaning “an ear of corn.” The harvest began in it; and the Jewish people began in that month to be a nation separate and distinct ─ set apart ─ from all the nations of the earth. It was not until after the return from the captivity in Babylon, after the Jews had come under Gentile rule, and the Gentile Times had begun, that Abib became known as Nisan (Neh. 2:1); and its meaning is also very sug­gestive ─ opening, or beginning. It approximates our month of March; and is identified by some as the beginning of the Jewish religious year, as opposed to the beginning of the business year, which is about our October 10. To this day the Jews still take some recognition of the month of Tishri, which was the beginning of their year until the time they left Egypt, and the Lord then told them to observe Nisan as the beginning of months.

The feast of unleavened bread ─ or the feast of the Passover ─ began in Nisan; but the Passover itself and the feast of the Passover should not be confused. The entire service lasted eight days; but the real Passover was only the first of those eight days. At the Passover Memorial the roasted lamb was the thing emphasized; whereas, in the following seven days ─ the feast of unleavened bread ─ the unleavened bread was emphasized. During those seven days the Jews were permitted to eat any kind of meat not forbidden by the Law; but it was a grave offense to eat any leavened bread during those seven days.

At one time it was believed that Jesus and the Apostles ate the Passover a day ahead of the Jews in general ─ based upon John 18:28; but the passover mentioned in that text refers to the feast of the passover, and not the actual eating of the Passover lamb.

It is probably well here to mention also that each Jewish month began with the com­ing of the new moon. Thus, the Jewish year is properly styled a lunar year; whereas, our year is known as a solar year, which makes a difference of five days or so between the two years. This has been reconciled by the adoption of the Metonic cycle, which the Pagan philosopher Meton devised about A.D. 360. In his calculation he has seven intercalated months in every nineteen years. This twelfth month of the Jewish year is Adar; and the added month in those seven years of the Metonic cycle is Ve‑Adar. This has reconciled the two methods so closely that the difference between when Jesus was on earth until now is only a few weeks ─ not enough to cause any heated argument.

It might fit in here, also, to state that the Day of Atonement occurs on the tenth day of the seventh month, the month Tishri; although we should bear in mind that the Jews had no Day of Atonement at all until they left Egypt and the ceremony was given to them by God through Moses at Mount Sinai. With this so clearly marked in Bible and secu­lar history, we have a very delicate sympathy with the Jews for not wanting to give up their land in their altercations with the Arabs. The whole foundation for their religion was given to them at Sinai. The same applies to Christians, also, ex­cept that we have built upon the Law and the prophets to form the superstructure of the Christian religion. Without the inspired writings of the Old Testament, Jesus’ disci­ples could not have recognized Him as the Messiah. Jesus Himself said of the Old Testa­ment Scriptures: “They are they which testify of me.” (John 5:39)

As stated foregoing, each Jewish month began when the moon became new; and it was from that new moon that they began the reckoning of the various days. But when the clear command is given that the Passover was to be on the fourteenth day of Nisan, the moon is not even mentioned there. The Jews and some Christians think the moon must be full before the Pass­over is kept, but the moon does not become full on occasion until two or three days after Nisan 14;  but this should not influence us because the record is very clear that the 14th of Nisan is the proper date for the Memorial. And this we ourselves try to follow; and the only way we will go wrong on it is if we fail properly to calculate when Nisan arrives. Since all of this reckoning was given the Jews right there in Israel, it makes no allowance at all for any one to use some other locality for the exact beginning of Nisan 1 and Nisan 14.

REMEMBER THIS DAY (EX. 13:3)

It is not necessary that we strain our imaginations to ponder the great grip that the Passover had upon the Jewish mind. The miracle of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage was indeed a living thing to almost all of them ─ after their entry into Canaan and up until their dispersion from that land in the year A.D. 70. And to this day it is a very solemn occasion with the orthodox Jews. When Jesus said to them, “Your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. 23:38), none of them then realized how far‑reaching and absolute this sentence would eventually become. But their High Priest had to come from the Tribe of Levi; and that tribe was so completely lost in the dispersion that they no longer know which of them are of that tribe. Their house is now indeed “desolate.”

Nevertheless, those Jews who still try to keep the Law make strenuous effort to ob­serve the Passover in every intricate detail. “This day shall be unto you for a memor­ial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations.” (Ex. 12:14) “And when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? Then shall ye say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover.” (Ex. 12:26, 27) And to be sure that this injunction was scrupulously observed, the oldest son of each family ─ if he were thirteen years of age or older ─ was required to fast on the day leading up to the Passover table.

And when all were seated at that table, with the food carefully arranged, with the cups or glasses set for wine for each one present, there would be one extra cup “for Elias.”  Had not the last lines of inspired Jewish Scripture warned them, “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord?” (Mal. 4:5, 6)  And not realizing that this was one of those “dark sayings,” every serious‑minded Jew was alerted to the possibility of Elijah’s visitation “in an hour when ye think not” ─ possibly into his own house. Thus, he would not be overtaken unawares.

Then to be sure the question would be asked, “What mean ye by this service?” the eldest son would ask the father the question, at which the father would explain in con­siderable detail those awesome happen­ings that night in Egypt. And by repeating this cere­mony every year, the lesson would be indelibly impressed upon all present that a great miracle from on high had been performed for them that night. And we may be sure of the promise that those faithful orthodox Jews will eventually accept Jesus as their Messiah and be the “first” to receive the blessings of the New Covenant.

But one outstanding difference should here be emphasized between the actual perform­ance in Egypt and the subsequent memorials. There is nothing said in the Bible about anything to drink that night as they feasted upon the lamb, although they would almost cer­tainly need some liquid ─ not only for that night during the eating, but for the day following when they would be travelling afoot in the desert sun. If they drank any wine that night, it is not recorded. But the subsequent memorials were not to be ob­served with doleful face; it was to be a time of rejoicing in memory of their great de­livery from bondage.

And the Jewish fathers reasoned, What could cheer them better than wine? Thus, four cups of wine entered into that memorial ─ one before any food was taken, and the fourth after the entire meal had been completed. If any Jews were too poor to bear such ex­pense, the wine was supplied to them out of the public funds. Thus there would be mea­surably identical ritual in every house; each would rest in the assurance that his brethren throughout Jewry were in physical and heart accord with him that momentous night.

Nor was this arrangement without purpose. After the first cup ─ and before any food ─ the Small Hallel was chanted or sung, after which the meal itself was consumed, with two more cups of wine during the eating. When the eating was done, the fourth cup was had, with the chanting of the Great Hallel. Here it may be well to define the Hal­lel: It was composed of the 113‑118 Psalms. The first two ─ Psalms 113 and 114 ─ are the Small Hallel; and 115 thru 118 the Great Hallel. The word itself is of great sig­nificance: Hal means praise, and El means God ─ the whole meaning being praise to God. It is the root of our English word hallelujah, which, according to Webster, means Praise ye the Lord.

It is also probable that the Jews at the Passover in Egypt ate it standing up ─ “your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste.” (Ex. 12:11)  But when Jesus ate it with them the night before He was crucified, they were reclining on couches, or the like, about the table as becometh free men. Note the record in John 13:23: “There was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples.”  This could not have occurred if they were standing up, or sitting.

In medieval times King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table often set forth in quest of the Holy Grail, the same being that mythical golden cup which Jesus supposedly used as He said to the Disciples: “This cup is the New Testament in my blood.” (Luke 22:20) That Holy Grail was never found, of course; and there exists no real proof that there ever was one. Certainly Jesus used a cup that night, but no place does it say that it was a golden cup. Could that cup be produced with sufficient proof, it would be the most priceless treasure in Christendom. But God did provide that we should be heir to the exact words in Psalms 113‑118; and we do well to include some parts of that Scrip­ture in our Memorial service.

“GO TO HIM WITHOUT THE CAMP”

In Ex. 33:7 we read, “And Moses proceeded to take a tent and pitch it by itself outside the camp afar off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting ─ and so it came to pass that whosoever was seeking Yahweh went out unto the tent of meeting, which was on the outside of the camp.” (Rotherham) Moses in this instance types our Lord as He arranged to remove the Star Members and His fully faithful people from the midst of the measurably faithful and the tare class, beginning in the Pergamos epoch of the Gospel‑Age church, which began in the fourth century A.D.  It was early in that century that Roman Emperor Constantine the Great embraced Christianity because he thought it would help him politically; and it was he who called the Council of Nice in A.D. 325 at which time the Apostles Creed was formulated, and Arius (who held the Truth that there is but one God as opposed to the then growing belief in the Trinity error) was banished from the Roman Empire ─ “afar off from the Camp.”

The stinging charge is recorded against that Pergamos Church (Pergamos means earthly elevation ─ and the church then was certainly elevated when the Roman Emperor him­self openly embraced the Christian religion) is this: “Where Satan’s seat is...thou hast them there that hold the doctrine of Balaam.” (Rev. 2:13, 14) In Num. 22:5‑41 we are told of the mercenary Balaam; and in that episode he was a type of those who teach error for profit in this Gospel Age. This odious practice came very much into evidence during the Pergamos period of the church; and developed very noticeably during the fol­lowing years ─ until A.D. 799, when Charlemagne relinquished his regal power to the Pope of Rome which was the beginning of the real Holy Roman Empire.

It was during the fourth epoch of the church, beginning in 799 that the charge is recorded against them: “Thou sufferest that woman Jezebel [the Roman Church]...to teach and to seduce my servants... to eat things sacrificed unto idols” (Rev. 2:20) ­on the outside of the Camp (apostate Christendom). Following is a quotation from Epi­phany Volume 11, p. 430:

“God had our Lord do another thing indicative of His displeasure with His nominal people, i.e., remove the faithful servants of the Truth and its spirit from places of prominence and influence in the nominal Church ─ caused the symbolic woman, the Covenant promises and the servants who apply them to the brethren to go into the wilderness condition (Rev. 12:6) ─ to the Tent of Meeting (not the Tabernacle, but Moses’ official residence) – and that but not slightly away from erroneous doctrines, organization and disciplines of the nominal church, but very far from these, and made the Truth and the servants who applied it to the brethren, as well as these last, the place where God resided, met with His people and blessed them.

Henceforth everyone who in heart’s loyalty sought fellowship with the Lord in spirit, truth, righteousness and holiness went forth from the nominal church to such truth, its apply­ing servants and the others of His real people, apart from the nominal church (without the camp)... When our Lord busied Himself with Truth matters, its applying servants, etc., the Truth and its spirit as due became manifest (the cloudy pillar descended ─ ­Ex. 33:9), and remained at the entrance, consecration, where God revealed truths to Jesus in the star members.”

The foregoing dovetails so very beautifully with St. Paul’s admonition in Hebrews 13:13 “Let us, then, now go forth to him outside of the Camp, bearing reproach for him.” (Diaglott) And it is such a very clear‑cut and definite course of procedure for all elect “to follow in his steps.” (1 Pet. 2:21) Such indeed is one very appropriate thought for the Memorial. In principle, this arrangement is as true today as it ever was.

"WHAT MEAN YE BY THIS SERVICE?"

As previously stated, all the details of the original Passover in Egypt were prearranged with meticulous care and execution, even to its future remembrance “throughout your generations,” and the instruction of the Jewish children during future observances. It was properly anticipated that inquiring and curious children would ask, “What mean ye by this service?” (Ex. 12:26), thus providing the opportunity to instruct them in the niceties and the solemn responsibility of every Jew participating in it. And this exac­tion so thoroughly gripped the Jewish conscience and imagination that the Passover obser­vance today is almost identical to what it was in the day of Christ, excepting only the temple sacrifices which can no longer be performed. However, they yet make very elab­orate preparations for the festival. After minute search for all leaven in each house was completed into the napkin or cloth, the whole was then cast into the fire, and the master of the house declared in Aramaic that any further leaven that may have been in his house, and of which he was unaware, was to him no more than dust.

As stated, the eldest son of each family (thirteen years old, or more) was required to fast on the day leading to the evening service. Then on the evening of the 14th ­before partaking of the Passover meal and ceremony all the male members of the house betook themselves to the synagogue, attired in their best apparel. On their return they would find the house lit up, and the “Seder” or paschal table in readiness for all to partake. The master of the house took his place at the head of the table, to par­take of the Seder, or Haggadah, as some Jews designate it.

As stated, to be sure the question would properly arise, the oldest son was previously coached to ask, after they were seated at the table, why on this night above all other nights do they eat bitter herbs, unleavened bread, etc., at which the head of the house would relate the story of the original Passover and the deliverance of the Jewish first­born on that fateful night in Egypt.

Then proceeded the feast, which had been elabor­ately and meticulously prepared ─ the bitter herbs such as parsley and horseradish, and a kind of sop with charoseth consisting of various fruits compounded into a sort of mu­cilage and mixed with vinegar and salt water ─ each arranged in its own vessel. At the outset the master took some of the bitter herbs, dipped them into the charoseth, and gave to each one present to be eaten along with the first cup of wine.  Thus the feast continued throughout the evening until the fourth cup of wine and the recitation of the Great Hallel ─ after which, in the case of Jesus and the Disciples, “they went out into the Mount of Olives.” (Matt. 26:30)

Many of the requirements of the original Passover were subsequently ignored, and properly so. The Lord had told them in Egypt, “Thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand ─ so shall ye eat it in haste, it is Yahweh’s passing over.” Every minute detail in these instructions is fraught with grave significance to those who would commemorate the memorial of “Christ our Passover who is sacrificed for us.” The girdle in the Bible symbols represents the serving features of those who would be servants in God’s Household. “He that is chief among you, let him be your servant.” (Matt. 20:27) Jesus Himself illustrated this on His last night by “girding” Himself, taking a towel and washing the Apostles’ feet. “I am among you as one that serveth,”

He had told them. Then, the sandals on their feet were a representation of the Gospel‑Age fact that “we have here no abiding city”; always should God’s people be alert to “move on” as occasion dictated, ever willing to follow the fiery‑cloudy pillar ─ the Truth as due; and to remember always that “The king’s business requires haste” ─ no time to linger and “change clothes” when the occa­sion should arise to journey on. And all this should be done with “your staff in your hand,” the staff typifying God’s precious promises. Without leaning on those promises no one could ever make the journey from antitypical Egypt (the world of sin) to the Heavenly Canaan.

It is in order here to mention that some things in the original Passover were not followed by the Jews in their memorial, nor do we follow them in ours. In the Jewish celebration the lamb was chosen on the tenth day, nor do we now set aside the bread and the wine on the tenth day in readiness for the evening of the fourteenth. It would seem in the original that the Jews were told to do this to bring them into the proper mental attitude for that great miracle that would be performed for them on that awesome night. But we believe it is in order for us to “think on these things” for some days before our Nisan 14 ─ not only thinking, but also reading pertinent scripture on the sub­ject in the days preceding the participation.

Also, in the Jewish memorial the lamb’s blood was not sprinkled on the lintels and door posts, even as in the Lord’s Supper we do nothing to correspond to this. Nor did the Jews “eat it in haste” as we have shown foregoing; they reclined leisurely, but with full mental concentration of the thing they were remembering ─ as we also do as we partake of the bread and the wine.  Thus, “this thing” has special refe­rence to the delivery of the firstborn through the slain lamb, the eating of his flesh, and the sprinkled blood. Hence, the death of the lamb, the feasting on its flesh and the de­liverance of the firstborn, were the things to celebrate in the annual antitypical feast, and the Gospel‑Age antitypes of these by the bread and the wine. It also bespeaks our participation with Him in His sufferings ─ with some a part of the sin offering, and with others a representation of this solemn event. Of course, this is not at all por­trayed in the annual Jewish celebration; it has exclusively a Christian meaning; and thus we consider it. However, it is implied in minor degree by the eating of the bit­ters along with the Jewish meal. And here is solid proof that the lamb typed Jesus only, and not the participants during the Jewish or this Gospel Age. Jesus only is the “Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.”

And, not only was Israel to observe the annual Passover during their wilderness journey (Num. 9:1‑15), but they were to observe it after entering Canaan, which they scrupulously did ─ in like manner as did Jesus and the Apostles on the night before He died. And this we also do in our annual Memorial of “Christ our Passover.”  And in our annual celebration we portray our journey from the wilderness of sin to our anti­typical heavenly Canaan. This is very much empha­sized in Parousia Volume 6, and we commend it to all our readers. The annual Passover supper of the Jews thus types our annual participation in the bread and the wine.

THE TRUE AND THE FALSE

   As most of us know, so  many  features  of  the  true  religion  have  been  counterfeited by Satan, which prompted the Apostle to write, “the whole world lieth in wickedness.” (1 John 5:19) This was even true of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In Ezek. 8:14 it is stated, “There sat women weeping for Tammuz.” Tammuz was the sun god of the Baby­lonians, consort of Ishtar. He was identical with Adonis, the same as Baal of the Canaanites. Tammuz supposedly died each year, descended into the lower world, and was brought back to life by the weeping and lamentation of Ishtar, who was joined in her weeping by the women of Babylon. Thus, as Jesus was being led to the cross and He saw women weeping along His journey, He mildly admonished them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” (Luke 23:28) It is also related in Ezekiel 8:17 that the Jews “put the branch to their nose,” in keeping with the custom of the Persian sun worshipers holding before them a branch of date, pomegranate or tamarisk that their breath might not contaminate the risen deity. All of these sacrilegious practices by the Jews brought forth the scathing denunciation of God by the mouth of His prophets; and is a warning to all God’s people to “have no other Gods before thee.”

Moses charging Israel to remember Nisan 15 (the first day of the Passover Festival) as the day that they went forth from Egypt from the house of servants, types our Lord’s charging the Gospel‑Age Church in general ─ and the Church here in the end of the Age in particular ─ to remember antitypical Nisan 15 as their deliverance time from the house of the servants to sin, and our instruction into the Present Truth. Israel in general remembered their typical deliverance at all times, but especially so in their keeping of the Passover Memorial.

So we, as antitypical Israel, remember our deliverance from the bondage of sin at all times, but especially so as we keep the Memorial of Christ our Passover.

That Wise and Faithful Servant had charge of the gathering “My saints together unto Me, those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice” (Psa. 50:5); and with the help of faithful brethren, we believe that work was completed with his ministry. However, he taught there would be an unbegotten class [which we call Youthful Worthies] gathered “between the ages,” and his teaching to the saints has a secondary application to them ─ edifying and strengthening their faith. Such consecrators who have the faith of Abraham and faithfully serve God while sin is in the ascendancy, will be rewarded in honor and service in the earthly phase of the Kingdom with the Ancient Worthies (Hebrews, Chapter 11) ─ made “Princes in all the earth.” (Psa. 45:16)

Do they partake of the Lord’s Supper? Most certainly they do ─ but with some reservations. They are not “suffering with Christ,” nor will they “reign with Christ”; therefore, they partake of the wine and bread symbolizing our Lord’s death as the Lamb of God, as well as symbolizing their tentative justification. Although their trial is for faith and obedience, and not for life, they make the same kind of consecration as did the spirit-begotten. “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger [the unbegotten], as for one of your own country [the spirit-begotten]. (Lev. 24:22)

Much more could be included here, but we believe the foregoing will suffice to bring forcefully to mind once more our obligations to “do this in remembrance of Me”; and it is our hope and prayer that all our readers may be richly blessed in their prep­aration for and participation in this year’s Memorial as they “consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself.” (Heb 12:3)

This year we shall observe the Memor­ial at 2501 Morningside Drive, Mount Dora, FL, at 7:00 p.m., Friday, April 15, 2011; and we invite all of “like mind”, who may be in our vicinity, to join with us in this service.

(Brother John J. Hoefle, Reprint No.452, March 1994)

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PRIMARY SIGNIFICATION OF THE BREAD AND THE CUP

We recall the circumstances of the first Memorial ─ the blessing of the bread and of the cup, the fruit of the vine; and our Lord’s declaration that these represented his broken body and shed blood, and that all his followers should participate, not only feeding upon him, but being broken with him; not only partaking of the merit of his blood, his sacrifice, but also laying down their lives in his service, in co-operating with him in every and any manner, that they might later share all his honor and glory in the Kingdom. How precious are these thoughts to those who are rightly in tune with our Lord!

In presenting to the disciples the unleavened bread as a memorial Jesus said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” The evident meaning of his words is, This symbolizes or represents, my body. The bread was not actually his body; for in no sense had his body yet been broken. In no sense would it then have been possible for them to have partaken of him actually or antitypically, the sacrifice not being as yet finished. But the picture is complete when we recognize that the unleavened (pure, unfermented) bread represented our Lord’s sinless flesh ─ leaven being a symbol of sin under the law, and especially commanded to be put away at the Passover season. On another occasion Jesus gave a lesson which interprets to us this symbol. He said, “The bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” “I am the bread of life.” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:33, 35,51)

In order to appreciate how we are to eat, or appropriate, this living bread, it is necessary for us to understand just what the bread signifies. According to our Lord’s explanation of the matter, it was his flesh which he sacrificed for us. It was not his prehuman existence as a spirit being that was sacrificed, although that was laid down and its glory laid aside, in order that he might take our human nature. It was the fact that our Lord Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners ─ without any contamination from Father Adam, and hence free from sin ─ that enabled him to become the Redeemer of Adam and his race, that permitted him to give his life “a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” (l Timothy 2:3-6)

When we see that it was the pure, spotless nature of our Lord Jesus that was laid down on behalf of sinners, we see what it is that we are privileged to appropriate. The very thing that he laid down for us we are to “eat,” appropriate to ourselves; that is to say, his perfect human life was given to redeem all the race of man from condemnation to death, to enable them to return to human perfection and everlasting life, if they would; and we are to realize this and accept him as our Savior from death. The Scriptures show us, however, that if God would consider all past sins canceled, and should recognize us as having a right to human perfection, this still would not make us perfect, nor give us the right to eternal life.

In order that any of the race of Adam might profit by the sacrifice of Jesus, it was necessary that he should rise from the tomb on the Divine plane of life, that he should ascend to the Father and deposit the sacrificial merit of his death in the hands of justice, and receive from the Father “all power in heaven and in earth.”

As relates to the world it was necessary also that in the Father’s due time he should come again to earth, a glorious Divine Being, then to be to the whole world a Mediator, Prophet, Priest and King, to assist back to perfection and to harmony with God all who will avail themselves of the wonderful privileges then to be offered. It is this same blessing that the Gospel Church of this Age receive by faith in their Redeemer; namely, nature, which we never had and never lost, and which justification by faith ─ not justification to a spirit Christ did not redeem; but justification to human nature, which Father Adam possessed and lost, and which Christ redeemed by giving his own sinless flesh, his perfect human life, as our ransom-sacrifice.

The partaking of the unleavened bread at the Memorial season, then, means to us primarily the appropriation to ourselves, by faith, of justification to human life-right ─ a right to human life ─ with all its privileges, which our Lord at his own cost procured for us. Likewise the fruit of the vine symbolized primarily our Savior’s life given for us, his human life, his being, his soul, poured out unto death on our behalf; and the appropriation of this by us also signifies, primarily, our acceptance of restitution rights and privileges secured by our Lord’s sacrifice of these.

(Pastor Russell, Reprint 5870, 5871, March 15, 1916)

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THE MEMORIAL SUPPER

In the Lord’s arrangement the moon symbolized the Jewish prospects, while the sun symbolized the prospects of the Gospel Age. The Law Dispensation was a shadow, or reflection, of the things future, as the moon’s light is the reflection of the rays of the sun.

We are near the time of the rising of the Sun of Right­eousness with healing in his beams, to flood the world with the light of the knowledge of God. Seeing this, we lift up our heads and rejoice, as the Master directed. Since all the overcoming members of the Church are included in that Sun of Righteousness, according to our Lord’s parable (Matthew 13:43), it follows that the elect Church must all be gathered, and her glorification must be completed before the full light of the Millennial glory will shine forth upon the world.

In partaking of the Memorial we may look forward with the eye of faith to the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, in contrast with the conditions which prevailed at the time when the first Memorial was observed.

Then, the Moon (the Law Covenant) was at its full; and immediately after the rejection of Jesus and his crucifixion the Jewish polity began to wane. It is worthy of note that the very day on which Jesus was crucified the moon was at its full, and the waning began at once.

EATING AND DRINKING IT WORTHiLY

As from the intelligent appreciation of the fact symbolized by the Memorial Supper a great blessing comes and a joy proportionate to the participator’s faith and obedience, so also a condemnation attaches to an unworthy, improper participation in the Memorial. None are to participate except those who have come into relationship with the Lord by consecration of their hearts – their all – to him and his service. None can come into this consecrated condition except as they have recognized themselves as sinners and the Savior as the Redeemer from sin, whose merit is sufficient to compensate for the defects of all those who would come unto the Father through him. All such should partake with a great deal of joy. Remembering the sufferings of the Master, they are to rejoice in those sufferings and in the blessings that these have brought to their hearts and lives.

 None are to drink of the fruit of the vine on such occasions except those who have appropriated the merit of the sacrifice of Christ and who fully realize that all their blessings are through him. None are to drink of the cup except those who have given up their all to the Lord, for this is what the cup signifies – it is the cup of suffering the cup of death – a full submission to the will of God “Thy will, O God, not mine be done,” was the prayer of the Master, and is to be the sentiment and petition of those who partake of the Memorial Supper.

For other’s to participate in this Memorial Supper would be a farce, would be wrong and would bring more or less of condemnation, disapproval, from God and from their own consciences  – and that in proportion as they realize the impropriety of their course.

But let none think that they should remain away from the Memorial because of imperfections of the flesh. This is a great stumbling block to many. So long as we are in the flesh, imperfection of word, deed and thought are possible – yea, unavoidable. St. Paul says that we cannot do the things that we would. It is because we need divine grace to forgive our daily, unintentional, unwilling trespasses that all whose sins have been forgiven and who have been accepted into fellowship with Christ are encouraged to come to the throne of heavenly grace in prayer, The Apostle says, “Let us come with courage to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16) It was because of our needs that God opened up the way and made this arrangement for us.

By God’s provision for the forgiveness of our sins, of which we have repented and for which we have asked forgiveness in Jesus’ name, we may realize ourselves as no longer sinners under condemnation, but as clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness. This is the thought behind St. Paul’s expression, which, applies to every day: “I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)

All Christians should keep their accounts squared with the Lord. If they come short, they should lose no time in getting the account squared, in obtaining forgiveness through the merit of the Savior’s sacrifice. Such accounts with the Lord should be settled promptly at the time of their occurrence, or not later than the day of their occurrence. They should not be allowed to accumulate; for they will rise as a wall between the soul and the heavenly Father. But whatever has been the condition in the past, the Memorial season, above all others, is the time for making sure that no cloud remains between the Lord and us, to hide us from his eyes.

Thus forgiven, let us keep the feast – the Memorial of our Lord’s death. In it let us afresh acknowledge and impress upon our minds the importance of the merit of his sacrifice and death, and how it represents the grace of God to us, as it will by and by represent the same grace extending through the Millennial Kingdom to the whole world. Let us remember also our devotion of ourselves, our consecration to be dead with our Lord and to participate in partaking of the loaf and the drinking of the cup.

We trust that the celebration of the Memorial this year may be a very deeply impressive one, an occasion of rich blessings to all of the Lord’s consecrated people everywhere. “For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast.” (1 Cor. 5:7, 8)

We trust that each little class, or group of Bible students celebrating the Memorial together will appoint one of their number to write at least a post-card to us stating briefly the interesting facts connected with the celebration, the number present, and the number participating so far as can reasonably be estimated.

(Pastor Russell, Reprint 5420, March 15, 1914)

NO. 642 RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT - PART TWO

JEWS

“For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee.”  (Isa 30:19)

IT IS NOT A TERRITORIAL STRUGGLE

Harvard University Professor Ruth Wisse (Yiddish, comparative literature) is the author of “Jews and Anti-Jews,” published in the Wall Street Journal. Excerpts: “...The attacks of Sept. 11 brought home to [Pres. Bush] similarities between [the U.S. and Israel]... If America is duty-bound to strike the bases of those who threaten its security, no matter how far they are from its shores, then Israel, too, which consti­tutes the fighting front line in the war against terror, must root out the terrorists within and along its borders.

“Yet the White House still cannot bring itself to admit the true nature of the aggression against Israel. It still tends to treat the regional crisis as ‘a conflict of two people over one land’ that can be resolved by the creation of a Pal­estinian state. According to this view, since Jews and Arabs both lay claim to the same territory of Israel-Palestine, some division of the territory between them will bring about a peaceful resolution...

“Unfortunately, the Arab war against Israel is no more a territorial conflict than was Al Qaeda’s strike against America, and it can no more be resolved by a ‘road map’ than anti-Americanism could be appeased by ceding part of the U.S. to an Islamist enclave.

“From the moment in 1947 when Jewish leaders accepted and Arab rulers rejected the UN partition plan of Palestine, the Arab-Israeli conflict bore no fur­ther likeness to more conventional territorial struggles... Arab rulers did not object to Israel because it rendered the Pal­estinians homeless. Rather, they ensured that the Palestinians should remain homeless so that they could organize their politics around opposition to Israel... “[In Arab nations] the Arab obsession with Israel grew in­creasingly destructive not only of its Jewish targets but also of [their own] regimes.

“Attacking Jews consumed energy that should have been directed at alleviating the misery of Arab subjects. Blaming the Jews postponed democrat­ization, which begins with people taking respon­sibility for them... Anti-Semitism morphed into anti-Ameri­canism, not because Amer­ica supported Israel but because America represented the same challenges of an open, democratic, competitive society... America did not so much fight on the side of the Jews as find itself forced to tackle the anti-Jews...

“[U]ntil Arab leaders give up the crutch of anti-Semitism, they can make no real progress toward responsible self-government, and it is futile to pretend that obsession with Israel is compatible with Palestinian independence. (Samir) Rantisi greeted the ‘road map’ by organizing major attacks against Israel, which he calls ‘our land, not the land of the Jews.’

“America can’t hope to win its war against terror while ignoring some of its major perpetrators and propagan­dists.”

ANTI-ZIONISM THE NEW ANTI-SEMI­TISM

 “Anti-Semitism – or Jew-hatred – has been des­cribed by Irwin Cotler, former attorney general of Canada, as ‘the discrimination against, denial of or assault upon the rights of Jews to live as equal members of whatever host society they inhabit.’ Jewish authors Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin start their classic study Why the Jews? With the statement, ‘Hatred of the Jew has been humanity’s greatest hatred. While hatred of other groups has always existed, no hatred has been as universal, as deep, or as permanent as anti-Semitism.

“This deep-rooted hatred of Jewish people – what has been called by many ‘the longest hatred’ – has now morphed into a ‘new anti-Semitism’ that was perhaps not expected after the Second World War. It was widely thought – and hoped – that after the Holocaust, impor­tant lessons had been learned. Following the revelation of the horrors of Nazism, it was hardly appropriate to talk about hating Jewish people. As Rabbi Benjamin Blech puts it succinctly, ‘It’s no longer ‘in’ to attack Jews as Jews or to revile any other religion.’ But tragically nothing really changed.” (Bridges of Peace, November 2010)

ANTI-SEMITISM: DISTURBING TREND

“The result of a recently released report by the Jewish Agency finds that in 2009, there were more reports of anti-Semitism than in any single year since World War II. Furthermore it was revealed that 42 percent of West Europeans believe that ‘Jews exploit the past to extort money’ – a statement that was most widely held in Spain and Poland.

“In France, estimated to have 600,000 Jews and a Muslim population of six million, anti-Semitic outbursts are reportedly rampant. Fueled by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza last year, anti-Semitic acts were said to have directly resulted in eight deaths worldwide in 2009, two of which were in the U.S.: a guard at Washington’s Holocaust Memorial and a female college student in Connecticut were murdered. According to the report, anti-Semitism is a phenomenon of both the political right and the left.” (World Jewry, April 2010)

FOURTH TRY AT A TWO STATE SOLUTION

“Right now there are two Palestinian Muslim mini-states within Israel. That makes it hard to implement a Two State Solution with Three States. Every time there’s trouble in Gaza, it is once again a reminder that it is ruled by Hamas, and the West Bank is ruled by Fatah, two terrorist groups that don’t get along with each other. Naturally every politician who talks about the importance of a Two State Solution completely ignores this minor problem, even though they created it. Or perhaps because they created it…

“Each time the assumption is that if Israel sits down at the table and negotiates with Fatah leader Abbas, and makes enough concessions, there will be a Two State Solution, and the problem will be solved. Which seems easily enough done, when you ignore the fact that Gaza is not only run by Hamas, but that the only reason Hamas isn’t running the West Bank is because the U.S. is propping up Abbas with weapons, and Israel has cut off Gaza from the West Bank. Yet the same people who call for a Two State Solution also demand that Israel stop blockading Gaza ─ when Fatah and their Two State Solution wouldn’t last two weeks if Hamas militias showed up in force in Ramallah.

“As we can see then, there are only one or two or three things standing in the way of a Two State Solution.

1. The fact that it's been repeatedly tried and failed.

2. The fact that there are two Palestinian states already in place and fighting among themselves (not counting Jordan, which was the original Palestinian state, and will join the fight if the Muslim Brotherhood succeeds in taking it over).

3. The fact that Abbas does not want to negotiate.

“Naturally none of this discourages politicians from chanting ‘Two State Solution’ over and over again, or media pundits from suggesting that Israel needs to implement it right now – when the only conceivable way Israel could make that happen is to close the border, throw the keys across the fence, and let anyone who wants to make a Palestinian state fight for it. “But the prospect of turning Hamas and Fatah into part of a state with Israel is about as likely to lead to a united democratic state with protection for anyone’s rights as throwing a hand grenade near a bunch of pots, one of which has a chicken in it, is likely to lead to a chicken in every pot. If the Palestinian Arab Muslims couldn’t form a single united government of their own that respected the rights of even their own Christian minority, or even each other – how exactly would they form one with Israel? Rather than answer the question, proponents will instead blame Israel for that too – which is their answer for absolutely every­thing. And I do mean absolutely everything.

“Which puts us right back where we started, with an unworkable dilemma for which Israel gets all the blame, because it can’t create peace by waving a magic wand and implementing a Two State Solution, a plan that is about as workable as any decent 99 cent magic wand?” (Excerpts by Daniel Greenfield, Out­post, September 2010)  

NO LOVE BOAT

“Hamas is smuggling thousands of Iranian rockets, missiles, and other weaponry – smuggling it into Gaza in order to fire on Israel’s cities… Under international law, and under common sense and common decency, Israel has every right to interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them.

“‘This is not a theoretical challenge or a theoretical threat. We have already interdicted vessels bound for Hezbollah, and for Hamas from Iran, containing hundreds of tons of weapons… Israel simply cannot permit the free flow of weapons and war materials to Hamas from the sea. I will go further than that. Israel cannot permit Iran to establish a Medi­terranean port a few dozen kilometers from Tel Aviv and from Jerusalem. And I would go beyond that too. I say to the responsible leaders of all the nations: The international community cannot afford an Iranian port in the Mediterranean…

“‘Today I warn of this impending willingness to enable Iran to establish a naval port right next to Israel, right next to Europe. The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they will be targeted tomorrow. For this and for many other reasons, we have a right to inspect cargo heading into Gaza. And here’s our policy. It’s very simple: Humanitarian and other goods can go in and weapons and war material cannot. “‘…It is very clear to us that the attackers had prepared their violent action in advance. They were members of an extremist group that has supported international terrorist organizations and today support the terrorist organization called Hamas. They brought with them in advance knives, steel rods, [and] other weapons. They chanted battle cries against the Jews. You can hear this on the tapes that have been released.

“‘This was not a love boat. This was a hate boat. These weren’t pacifists. These weren’t peace activists. These were violent supporters of terrorism… Israel regrets the loss of life, but we will never apologize for defending ourselves. Israel has every right to prevent deadly weapons from entering into hostile territory, and Israeli soldiers have every right to defend their lives and their country.’” (By Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Dispatch From Jerusalem, August 2010)

ISRAEL PLEDGES UNDIVIDED JERUSALEM

“Israel’s prime minister pledged to keep Jerusalem undivided despite Palestinian claims to its eastern half, as Israelis celebrated the 43rd anniver­sary Wednesday of the city’s reunification in the 1967 Mideast War.

“The Jewish section of Jerusalem took on a festive mood Wednesday with parades and speeches by political leaders, touching only lightly on the political explosiveness of the hotly contested city.

“Hundreds of youths, many carrying Israeli flags, marched in the annual Jerusalem Day parade from a main square in Jewish west Jerusalem toward the Old City. Earlier, an extremist Israeli group called the Temple Mount Faithful toted flags and banners through the Old City, demanding that Israel take full control of the hotly disputed holy site where the Al-Aqsa mosque compound sits atop the ruins of the biblical Jewish temples.” (Orlando Sentinel, May 13, 2010)

CRIMINAL ZIONIST REGIME DOOMED?

“The ‘criminal’ state of Israel is doomed, According to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahma­dinejad said as he met with senior Palestinian terror figures in Damascus. During his meeting with senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad members ─ including Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary General Ramadan Shallah ─Ahmadinejad warned that any Israeli attack will be met with stiff resistance. ‘If the Zionists want to repeat their mistake again, they must be uprooted from the source.’ he said. ‘This criminal regime is doomed, and the grand victory is imminent.’

“He promised the terror leaders that Iran would remain by their side and support their armed struggle against Israel. The Iranian president also belittled Israel’s power, likening it to an airplane about to crash. ‘The Zionist regime’s plane engine and arrogant rule have been ruined, and there is no force that can propel this plane forward or upward,’ he said.” (Excerpts of an article by Dudi Cohen, Ynetnews, June 2010)

IF ISRAEL GOES DOWN WE ALL GO DOWN

 For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more un­popular cause to champion.

“In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli com­mandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded... In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organized a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, and risking the wrath of the world.

“In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

“Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

“Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. First it was attacked by its neighbors using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathizers, it faces a campaign of delegit­imisation through international law and diplomacy.

“Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with des­truction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

“For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians...The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfillment of its religious destiny and, simul­taneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large. The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

“Israel is our first line of defense in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

“The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

“This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

“What binds us...is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defense of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

“Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.” (Jose M. Aznar was prime minister of Spain. This is slightly edited from his article in the (London) Times of June 17, 2010)

MODERN-DAY ISRAEL

“Is one of the most compelling proofs that God is still active in human history today: His actions is bringing the Jewish people home to Israel in fulfillment of many prophetic Scriptures are a powerful testimony to His character. He is proving over and over again that He is a faithful, covenant-keeping God, remembering His promises to a thou­sand generations (which in Hebraic thought is like saying forever). A famous story is told of King Louis XIV of France asking Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher, to give him proof of the of the existence of God. Pascal’s response was, ‘Why, the Jews, your Majesty ─ the Jews.’” (Bridges for Peace, September 1, 2010)

KINNERET DROP HAS EXPERTS ALARMED

Experts say the level of water in the Sea of Galilee began to decline this year on May 11, and that it has already dropped some 10.5 cm. This compares with a drop of 7 cm. in the corresponding period of 2009. The lake raised a total of 1.71 m. during the last rainy season.

“The volume of available water in the Kinneret this month was set at around 8 million cubit mil­limeters, and the volume of water flowing into the lake over the last three months was lower than the supply during the same quarter last year.

“One expert described the situation as ‘a shortage catastrophe.’ Meanwhile, the level of water in the Dead Sea declined by 8 cm. in May, following a drop of 12 cm. in the previous month.” (Jerusalem Post, June 18, 2010)

MILITARY OFFICER DEFENDS IDF

 “‘Dark force’ that unfairly criticize the Israeli military and want to harm Israel are often driven by anti-Semitism; so says retired British Army Colonel Richard Kemp. The former senior officer who recently addressed a dinner of the Zionist Federation in London says the international media unfairly single out Israel.

“Noting for example that UK armed forces do not face the same degree of criticism lodged against the IDF, Kemp says that non-governmental organ­izations and international groups such as the United Nations should know better than to level utter condemnation of Israel. The former commander of forces in Afghanistan praised the Israeli army’s restraint and expertise in providing him with invaluable information on thwarting suicide bombers.” (World Jewry, May 2010)

UNICEF SUPPORTS PALESTINIAN HATE AD

 “Donor organizations to the Palestin­ian auth­ority have been challenged for years to prevent their well-intentioned contributions from being directed towards hate promotion by the PA, its institutions, and it’s Non-Government Organizations (NGO).

“An ad by the Palestinian Youth Association for Leadership and Rights Activation [PYALARA], which is funded by UNICEF, shows an axe destroying a Star of David. The UNICEF logo is right on the ad – another example of the misuses of UN funding. The large Star of David that has been destroyed has on it pictures of stars and stripes, presumably representing the USA and an additional smaller Star of David.

“PYALARA has been funded by UNICEF since the year 2000. ‘PYALARA has been chosen by UNICEF as a major strategic partner in Palestine,’ states the PYALARA Web site. On the axe that destroys the Star of David is the word ‘Boycott!’ in the imperative tense. Youth are invited to watch the PA TV program calling for a boycott of Israel.

“The host acknowledges that they are aware that the boycott is illegal, but they have chosen to ignore this. ‘We know that the Palestinian Authority is tied to a number of agreements that prohibit it from completely boycotting Israel...We call upon all the youth, to all the residents, to all businesses and stores, to completely boycott the Israeli goods in their stores.’

The following is information about PYALARA from its Web site: ‘Since December 2000, PYALARA has produced, with the support of UNICEF and the cooperation of Palestine TV, a weekly two-hour TV program called Speak Up. An average of 300,000 Palestinian children and teenagers watch every episode.’” (By Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch)

HARDLY HUMANITARIANS

“It’s baffling to hear such foolishness from academicians (‘Israel attacked ship to stop aid to Gaza.’) Throughout universities across America, there are so-called humanitarians, demanding that Israel end its blockade of Gaza, be held accountable for the deaths of innocent lives and enter into peace negotiations.

“Fact: The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza has one purpose: preventing the Hamas terrorist regime from acquiring additional weapons from Iran to continue its war against Israeli civilians. For more than five years, Hamas fired about 7,000 rockets into southern Israel, aimed at kindergartens, old-age homes and hospitals.

“Every country has the moral and legal obligation to protect its citizens. Those who call for an end of the blockade know that without it, Hamas would have the military supplies to continue such attacks. Apparently, when it comes to the deaths of innocent Israelis, such humanitarians are not so humanitarian.

“Fact: Israel has long sought peace with the Palestinians. Yet, Hamas has no interest in negotiations. Its goal is to destroy the Jewish state. What is there to negotiate when your adversary wants nothing but your annihilation?

“Fact: Should the blockade be lifted, Iran ─ the world’s greatest exporter of terrorism ─ would have a port in the Mediterranean Sea. Hamas forces in Gaza would then be armed similar to Hezbollah troops in southern Lebanon, where some estimate that 60,000 rockets are now aimed at Israel. Who in their right mind would welcome such a development?

“Fact: Hundreds of thousands of tons of humanitarian supplies enter Gaza through Israel. The provisions aboard the recent flotilla also could have reached Gaza without any violence, had its organizers allowed Israel to search its cargo ensuring the absence of weapons.

“In fact, after the Israeli inspection, Hamas refused to even accept that aid. So who is really denying aid to the Palestinians? Who is indifferent to the sufferings of the residents of Gaza?

“The same people who use their own people as human shields when they launch rockets from civilians’ homes, hospitals and mosques. The same monsters who send teenage children strapped with suicide bombs to carry out terrorist attacks and, then, celebrate their deaths, so long as they managed to kill some Jews alongside themselves.

“People, regardless of their academic credentials, who support measures that would enable a regime to continue such bloodthirsty deeds are no humanitarians. Neither are they supporters of peace. They are just very foolish.” (Rabbi Aaron D. Rublinger, Orlando Sentinel, June 13, 2010)

AHMADINEJAD GETS HERO’S WELCOME

“Beirut Lebanon: Iranian and Lebanese officials tried hard Wednesday to depict the visit of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a run-of-the-mill diplomatic affair.

“But in Beirut, Ahmadinejad is no typical president. Iran’s ties to Lebanon are hardly ordinary. And Iran’s relationship with the Shiite militia and political organization Hezbollah, which Tehran finances and arms, drowned out the platitudes.

“Officials from the two countries signed trade agreements, praised one other and ate lunch at the palace of Lebanese   President Michel Suleiman.

“‘Our message is one of unity and cooperation,’ Ahmadinejad said during a joint news conference with Suleiman.

“During an evening appearance in southern Beirut, he said: ‘Lebanon is a green garden with many flowers from many faiths and religions.’

“But the choreography of Ahmadinejad’s trip overshadowed his carefully chosen words. Emphasis was on Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah, which operates as a state within a state and sometimes eclipses the power of the Lebanese government.

“Upon arrival, the Iranian president declined to take an official helicopter from the airport to the presidential palace. Instead he opted for a convoy of SUVs that waded through huge crowds of roaring spectators who gathered to greet him in Beirut’s mostly Shiite southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold.

“After lunch, Ahmadinejad broke from his of­ficial entourage and basked in the adulation of crowds in southern Beirut.

“Referring to Israel, with which Hezbollah fought a war in 2006, he said: ‘The illegitimate Zionist regime is a permanent threat to the region and all the world governments.’

“On Thursday he plans to travel south and give a speech within several miles of the Israeli border. This is a move Israeli officials have denounced as provocative.

“Though Lebanese political leaders of all stripes attended the luncheon in Ahmadinejad’s honor, others not constrained by protocol have described the visit as infringement on Lebanese sovereignty that could aggravate sectarian tensions.” (By Borzou Daragahi and Alexandra Sandels, Tribune Newspapers, October 14, 2010)

SAUDI MONEY

“In the past three decades, Saudi   Arabia has spent over U.S, $70 billion on ‘international aid,’ two-thirds of which has financed the infiltration of Western institutions with a message that is inherently anti-Western and anti-Israeli. In addition to building religious schools and funding other Islamic social and cultural infrastructure in non-Muslin countries, a large portion ended up in the coffers of educational institutions to fund Middle Eastern Studies departments and endow chairs across America and around the world. Author Wahlid Phares suggests that these Saudi dollars have made it possible for Middle East studies to be dominated by anti-Western ideology and endowed chairs to be filled by academics known for pro-Palestinian activism rather than scholarship.”

(By Cheryl Hauer, Dispatch From Jerusalem, October 2010)

RECORD TOURISTS, SHEKELS

“Israel’s Tourism Ministry says that in the first six months of 2010, an estimated 1.6 million travelers visited the Jewish state. Figures for January through June of this year show a 39 percent increase over figures for the same period in 2009. This year’s tourist numbers translate to an equivalent U.S. $1.55 billion going into Israel’s economy.

“According to the Ministry, the record numbers are a reflection of a ‘massive investment in marketing activities around the world with significant budgets, especially against the background of the public diplomacy challenges that Israel is facing.’”

(World Jewry, October 2010)

ISRAEL IS THE WEST’S BEST ALLY

“A European statesman, Jose Maria Aznar, is reminding his fellow continentals that ‘if Israel goes down, we all go down.’ Aznar, the former prime minister of Spain (1996 ─ 2004), opining recently in The London Times, says that Israel should not have to be fighting for its very existence, since it is the Middle East’s only reliable ally to be counted on for regional stability – yet it seems destined never to have ‘a moment’s peace.’

“Forming a coalition of European intellectuals and opinion makers called ‘Friends of Israel,’ Aznar says the new group will be dedicated to emphasizing Israel’s legitimacy, it’s right to exist and defend its sovereignty. He reminds Europeans that radical Islam is still a potent threat, that we must never forget our shared Judeo-Christian roots, adding that the fate of Israel is our (the West’s) fate.” (World Jewry, September 2010)

UNITED NATIONS EVICTS BAYEFSKY

“Anne Bayefsky, indomitable critic of the UN's obsessive hunting down of Israel, was ejected by guards from the UN after she used a microphone outside the General Assembly Hall to offer the only pro-Israel commentary on the resolution then being passed by the Assembly endorsing the infamous Goldstone report accusing Israel of “war crimes.” She called the UN a “laughingstock” for singling out Israel and ignoring human rights violations by Hamas. Bayefsky reports that four guards confis­cated two UN passes issued to her as director of Touro Law Center’s Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

“She is now in what she describes as a Kafkaesque situation with the UN having confiscated her credentials while denying to reporters that her access has been blocked. Her 25 years of monitoring the UN is in jeopardy – in the hands of the Committee on NGOs chaired by the genocidal regime in Sudan.” (By Rael Jean Isaac, Outpost, December 2010)

ISRAEL HATED FOR EXISTING

“Zionism is accepted by Jews worldwide as an integral part of Judaism. According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ‘The establishment of the State of Israel [in 1948] marked the realization of the Zionist goal of attaining an internationally recognized, legally secured home for the Jewish people in its historic homeland, where Jews would be free from persecution and able to develop their own lives and identity.’ As a movement founded in 1887 by a secular Jew from Vienna, Theodore Herzl, Zionism is essentially, and simply, about the return of the Jewish people to their homeland.

“Natan Kellermann, a clinical psychologist from Israel, wrote in 2005: ‘Now we are hated, not despite the fact that we have a homeland, but because we have it and because of what we do in order to live in it and defend it...This hate of Israel is profoundly anti-Semitic’ [emphasis added]. This hatred is accurately described as anti-Zionism ─ the denial of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Cotler quotes Per Ahlmark, Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, who said, ‘In the past, the most dangerous anti-Semites were those who wanted to make the world Judenrein, ‘free of Jews.’ Today, the most dangerous anti-Semites might be those who want to make the world Judenstaatrein, ‘free of a Jewish state.’ Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state is affirmed consistently by Israel’s leaders in the light of relentless denials of that right by its enemies. There are some who argue that anti-Zionism does not amount to anti-Semitism, stating that because Jews are neither a nation nor a people, they have no right to the land of Israel. Anti-Zionists who hold this view claim that they are not motivated by hatred of the Jews. Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin respond by stating that ‘the conse­quences of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism for the Jewish people are the same.’

“It is abundantly clear that anti-Zionism, in advocating the elimination of the state of Israel, is inherently anti-Semitic. Pierre-Andre Taguieff wrote in Rising from tile Muck. ‘Much of what purports to be criticism of Israel and Zionism is demonization, and has led to an international resurgence of attacks on Jew and Jewish symbols and an increased acceptance of anti-Semitic beliefs in public discourse.’” (By Keith Buxton, Bridges for Peace, November 21, 2010

The Divine Promise to Abraham’s Seed

As the very foundation of Israel’s every hope, the mainspring of that people’s courage, the motive power of their energy, their perseverance and their pride, has been the Divine promise made to Abraham, their illustrious ancestor, “the friend of God.” To Abraham, after certain tests of character – obedience, loyalty, and faith – God made a Promise, which constitutes the hope, both of Israel and the rest of mankind. It reads, “In thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 22:18) Abraham’s son Isaac was indicated by the Lord to be the channel through which this blessing should proceed. Later on, Isaac’s son, Jacob, was indicated as a further channel.

His name was changed to Israel, which signifies a prince influential with God – in Divine favor. This name Israel indicative of so much of honor and Divine favor was subsequently applied to the whole nation of Jacob’s descendants, who became known as Israelites, or Children of Israel. At Jacob’s death the Divine blessing passed, by Divine direction, not to a single one of his posterity, but to them all as a whole nation.

It is fitting that the citizens of the modern nation of Israel are known as “Israelis.” The designation “Israelites” indeed, has an entirely different con­notation.