NO. 655 THOUGHTS ON THE MEMORIAL FROM THAT SERVANT

“And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” (1 Cor. 11:24-26)

It was in harmony with this type of the killing of the Passover lamb on the 14th day of the first month, the day preceding the seven days’ Feast of the Passover, celebrated by the Jews—that our Lord died, as the antitypical Passover Lamb, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” At no other time was it possible for our Lord to have finished in death the sacrifice which he began when he was thirty years of age, in his baptism unto death. Hence it was that, although the Jews many times sought to take him, no man laid hands on him, because “his hour was not yet fully come.” (John 7:8:30)

As the Jews were commanded to select the lamb of sacrifice on the tenth day of the first month, and to receive it into their houses on that date, the Lord appropriately offered himself to them on that date, when, five days before the Passover, he rode into the city on the ass, the multitude crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” “He came unto his own, and his own [as a nation] received him not, but as many as received him [individually] to them gave he liberty to become sons of God.” The nation, through its representatives, the rulers, instead of receiving him, rejected him, and thus identified themselves for the time with the Adversary. Nevertheless, by God’s grace the blood of the New Covenant is efficacious for the house of Jacob also, and upon all who desire harmony with God, and they were partakers of the merits of the Lamb—yet they refused to eat of the antitypical Lamb—they lost the opportunity of becoming as a nation the first-born ones, the Royal Priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar people of Messiah—they lost the opportunity of passing over and becoming mem­bers of the New Creation, with life more abundant in glory, honor and immortality; but we are glad to be informed elsewhere in the Scripture that they will, nevertheless, have a glorious opportunity of accepting the Lamb of God, of eating, appro-priating, his flesh, his sacrifice, and of thus escaping the bondage of sin and death, under the leadership of the Lord and of his faithful brethren, spiritual Israel, the antitypical Church of the First-born (Rom. 11:11-26).

It was at the close of our Lord’s ministry, on the 14th day of the first month, in “the same night in which he was betrayed,” and in the same day, therefore, in which he died, as the antitypical Lamb, that he celebrated with his disciples the typical Passover of the Jews—eating, with his twelve apostles, the typical lamb which represented himself, his own sacrifice for the sins of the world and the “meat indeed,” in the strength of which the life, the liberties and the blessings of the sons of God are alone obtained. The eating of this supper on the night preceding our Lord’s death, and yet the same day, was made possible by the Jewish custom, which began each day, not at midnight, but in the evening. The Lord evidently arranged all the affairs of Israel in conformity with the types which they were to express.

As Jews “born under the Law,” it was obligatory upon our Lord and his apostles to celebrate this type, and at its proper time; and it was after they had thus observed the Jewish Supper, eating the lamb with unleavened bread and herbs, and probably also, as was customary, with “fruit of the vine,” that the Lord—taking part of the unleavened bread and of the fruit of the vine remaining over from the Jewish Supper, the type—instituted amongst his disciples and for his entire Church, whom they represented (John 17:20), a new thing, that with them, as the spiritual Israel, the Church of the First-born, the New Creation, should take the place of, and supplant, the Jewish Passover Supper. Our Lord was not instituting another and a higher type of the Passover. On the contrary, the type was about to begin its fulfillment, and, hence, would be no longer appropriate to those who accepted the fulfillment. Our Lord, as the antitypical Lamb, was about to be slain, as the Apostle expresses it in the text at the head of this chapter: “Christ our Passover [Lamb] is slain.”

None accepting Christ as the Passover Lamb, and thus accepting the antitype as taking the place of the type, could any longer with propriety prepare a typical lamb and eat it in commemoration of the typical deliverance. The appropriate thing thenceforth for all believers in Jesus as the true Passover Lamb would be the sprinkling of the doorposts of the heart with his blood: “Having their hearts sprinkled from a consciousness of evil” [from present condem­nation— realizing their sins propitiated through his blood, and that through his blood they now have forgiveness of sins]. These henceforth must eat, or appropriate to themselves, the merits of their Redeemer—the merits of the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all. By faith they must partake of those merits, and realize that as their sins were laid upon the Lord, and he died for them, so his merits and righteousness are imputed to them. These things they eat, or appropriate by faith.

If, then, our Lord’s Supper took the place of the Passover Supper, yet not as a higher type—the antitype having commenced—what was it? We answer that it was a Memorial of the antitype—a remembrance for his followers of the beginning of the fulfillment of the antitypical Passover.

Thus to accept our Lamb, and so to commemorate his death for us, means expectancy regarding the promised deliverance of the people of God, and therefore signifies that those appreciating and memorializing intelligently while in the world shall not be of the world; but shall be as pilgrims and as strangers, who seek more desirable conditions, free from the blights and sorrows and bondage of the present time of the reign of Sin and Death. These partake of the true, the antitypical unleavened bread: they seek to have it in its purity, without the corruption (leaven) of human theory, blight, ambitions, selfishness, etc., that they may be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. They partake also of the bitter herbs of persecution, in accord with the Master’s word, that the servant is not above his Lord, and that if the Lord himself was reviled and persecuted and rejected, they must expect similar treatment, because the world knoweth them not, even as it knew him not. Yea, his testimony is that none will be acceptable to him whose faithfulness will not draw upon them the world’s disfavor. His words are, “Whosoever will live godly shall suffer persecution.” “They shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.” (Matt. 5:11,12; 2 Tim. 3:12)

When our Lord instituted his Memorial Supper, called the Last Supper, it was, as above stated, a new symbol, built upon and related to the old Passover type, though not a part of it, being a commemoration, or memorial of the antitype. As we read, he “took bread, and when he had given thanks he brake it, and said, Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you [this represents me, the antitypical Lamb; it represents my flesh]. This do in remembrance of me.” Our Lord’s evident intention was to fix in the minds of his followers the fact that he is the antitypical Lamb to the antitypical first-borns and household of faith. The expression, “This do in remembrance of me,” implies that this new institution should take the place with his followers of the former one, which must now become obsolete by reason of fulfillment. “After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, this cup is the new testament [covenant] in my blood”—the blood of the covenant—the blood which seals the New Covenant. “This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” We would not understand this to imply the doing of it without respect to time and place, etc., but as signifying that when this cup and unleavened bread thenceforth were used as a celebration of the Passover, it should on every occasion be considered a celebration, not of the type but of the antitype. As it would not have been lawful, proper or typical to celebrate the Passover at any other time than that appointed of the Lord, likewise it is still not appropriate to celebrate the antitype at any other time than its anniversary (1 Cor. 11:23-25).

The Apostle adds, “For as oft as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show forth the Lord’s death till he come.” (1 Cor. 11:26) This shows us that the disciples clearly understood that thenceforth to all of the Lord’s followers the annual Passover celebration must have a new meaning: the broken loaf representing the Lord’s flesh, the cup representing his blood. Although this new institution was not laid upon his followers as a law, and although no penalties were attached for failure of its proper observance, nevertheless the Lord knew well that all trusting in him and appreciating him as the antitypical Passover Lamb would be glad to take up the Memorial which he thus suggested to them.

And so it is still. Faith in the ransom continues to find its illustration in this simple memorial, “till he come”—not only until our Lord’s parousia, or presence, in the harvest or end of this age, but until during his parousia one by one his faithful ones have been gathered to him, beyond the “Veil,” there to participate to a still fuller degree, and, as our Lord declared, partake of it “anew in the Kingdom.”

“WE, BEING MANY, ARE ONE LOAF”

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread [loaf]—one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.” (1 Cor. 10:16,17)

The Apostle, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, here sets before us an additional thought respecting this Memorial instituted by our Lord. He does not deny, but affirms, that primarily the bread represents our Lord’s broken body, sacrificed on our behalf; and that the cup represents his blood, which seals our pardon. But now, in addition, he shows that we, as members of the Ecclesia, members of the body of Christ, the prospective First-borns, the New Creation, become participators with our Lord in his death, sharers in his sacrifice; and, as he has elsewhere stated, it is a part of our covenant to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ.” (Col. 1:24) The thought here is the same as that expressed by the words, “We are baptized into his death.” (Rom. 6:3) Thus, while our Lord’s flesh was the loaf broken for the world, the believers of this Gospel Age, the faithful, the elect, the New Creation, are counted in as parts of that one loaf, “members of the body of Christ”; and hence, in the breaking of the loaf, after recognizing it as the sacrifice of our Lord on our behalf, we are to recognize it, further, as the breaking or sacrificing of the whole Church, of all those consecrated to be dead with him, to be broken with him, to share his sufferings.

This is the exact thought contained in the word “communion” —common-union, common participation. Hence, with every annual celebration of this Memorial we not only recognize the foundation of all our hopes as resting in the dear Redeemer’s sacrifice for our sins, but we revive and renew our own consecration to “be dead with him, that we may also live with him”—to “suffer with him, that we may also reign with him.” How grandly comprehensive is the meaning of this divinely instituted celebration! We are not putting the symbols instead of the reality; nothing surely could be further from our Lord’s intention, nor further from propriety on our part. The heart-communion with him, the heart-feeding upon him, the heart-communion with the fellow-members of the body, and the heart-realization of the meaning of our covenant of sacrifice, is the real com­munion, which, if we are faithful, we will carry out day by day throughout the year—being daily broken with our Lord, and continually feeding upon his merit, growing strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. What a blessing comes to us with the celebration of this Memorial! What a burning of heart for further appreciation and growth in  grace and  knowledge,  and  for  further participation in the privileges of the service to which we are called, not only as respects the present but also as respects the future!

It will be noticed that the Apostle includes the cup for which we praise God. “Is it not the communion, [common-union, common-participa­tion] of the blood of Christ?” Oh, what a thought—that the truly consecrated, faithful “little flock” of the New Creation throughout this Gospel Age, has been Christ in the flesh; and that the suffering and trials and ignominy and death of these whom the Lord has accepted and recognized as “members of his body” in the flesh, are all counted in as parts of his sacrifice, because associated with, and under him who is our Head, our Chief Priest! Who that understands the situation, who that appreciates the invitation of God to membership in this Ecclesia, and the consequent participation in the sacrifice unto death now, and in the glorious work of the future, does not rejoice to be accounted worthy to suffer reproaches for the name of Christ, and to lay down his life in the service of the Truth, as members of his flesh and of his bones? What matters it to these that the world knows us not, even as it knew him not? (1 John 3:1) What matters it to these, though they should suffer the loss of the choicest of earthly blessings and advantages, if they as the body of Christ may but be counted worthy of a share with the Redeemer in his future glories?

As these grow in grace and knowledge and zeal they are everyone enabled to weigh and judge the matter from the standpoint of the Apostle, when he said, respecting earthly favors and advantages, “I count all things but loss and dross.” “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” (Phil. 3:8; Rom. 8:18)

Another thought is in respect to the mutual love, sympathy and interest which should prevail amongst all the members of this “one body” of the Lord. As the Lord’s Spirit comes more and more to rule in our hearts it will cause us to rejoice in every occasion to do good unto all men as we have opportunity, but especially unto the household of faith. As our sympathies grow and go out toward the whole world of mankind, they must grow especially toward the Lord, and, consequently, especially also toward those whom he recognizes, who have his Spirit, and who are seeking to walk in his footsteps. The Apostle indicates that the measure of our love for the Lord will be indicated by our love for the brethren, the fellow-members of his body. If our love is to be such as will endure all things and bear all things in respect to others, how much more will this be true as respects these fellow-members of the same body, so closely united to us through our Head! No wonder the Apostle John declares that one of the prominent evidences of our having passed from death unto life is that we love the brethren (1 John 3:14). Indeed, we remember that in speaking of our filling up the measure of the afflictions of Christ, the Apostle Paul adds, “for his body’s sake, which is the Church.” (Col. 1:24)

The same thought is again expressed in the words, “We ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16) What a brotherhood is thus implied! Where else could we hope to find such love for the brethren as would lay down life itself on their behalf? We are not now speaking of how the Lord may be pleased to apply the sacrifice of the Church, represented in the “Lord’s goat” as a part of the Atonement Day sacrifices. *(Tabernacle Shadows of the Better Sacrifices, p. 59.) We merely, with the Apostle, note the fact that, so far as we are concerned, the sacrifice, the laying down of life, is to be done in the main for the brethren—in their service; the service for the world belongs chiefly to the Age to come, the Millennium. Under present conditions, our time and talents and influence and means are, more or less, mortgaged to others (the wife or children or aged parents or others depend­ing on us), and we are obligated also to the provision of “things needful,” “decent,” and “honest in the sight of all men” for ourselves. Hence, we find comparatively little left at our disposal for sacrifice, comparatively little to lay down for the brethren, and this little the world and the flesh and the devil are continually attempting to claim from us, and to divert from the sacrificing to which we have consecrated it.

The Lord’s selection of the Church, during this time when evil prevails, is to the intent that surrounding circumstances may prove the measure of the love and loyalty of each to him and his. If our love be cool, the claims of the world, the flesh and the Adversary will be too much for us, and attract our time, our influence, our money. On the other hand, in proportion as our love for the Lord is strong and warm, in that same proportion we will delight to sacrifice these to him— not only to give our surplus of energy and influence and means, laying these down as we find opportunity in the service of the brethren, but additionally, this spirit of devotion to the Lord will prompt us to curtail within reasonable, economical limits the demands of the home and family, and especially of self, that we may have the more to sacrifice upon the Lord’s altar.

As our Lord was for three and a half years breaking his body, and for three and a half years giving his blood, his life, and only finished these sacrifices at Calvary, so with us: the laying down of our lives for the brethren is in small affairs of service, either temporal or spiritual, the spiritual being the higher, and hence the more important, though he who would shut up his compassion toward a brother having temporal need would give evidence that he did not have the Spirit of the Lord ruling in his heart in any proper degree.

THE MEMORIAL STILL APPROPRIATE

The original celebration of the Memorial of our dear Redeemer’s death (with the still larger meaning attached to it by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle, as including our participation or communion with him in his sacrifice) was, as we have seen, upon a particular date—the fourteenth day of the first month, Jewish reckoning.*

[The Hebrew year begins in the spring, with the first appearance of a new moon after the Spring Equinox. The 14th day is easily reckoned, but should not be confounded with Feast Week, which began on the 15th and continued for a week following it—the Jewish celebration. That week of unleavened bread, celebrated by the Jews with rejoicing, corresponds to the entire future of a Christian—especially representing the entire year until his next celebration of the Memorial Supper. With the Jew the sacrifice of the lamb was a means to the end; a start for the feast of the week, which had his special attention. Our Memorial relates to the killing of the Lamb, and hence belongs to the 14th of Nisan (the first month). Moreover, we are to remember that with the change of counting the hours of the day, the night of the 14th of Nisan would correspond to what we would now call the evening of the 13th.]

And the same date, reached by the same method of counting, is still appropriate, and will appeal to all who are inquiring for the “old paths” and desirous of walking therein. This annual commemoration of the Lord’s death, etc., as instituted by our Lord and observed by the early Church, has been revived of late amongst those coming into the light of Present Truth.

It is not surprising that, as more and more the real meaning of the Lord’s symbolical supper was lost sight of, the proprieties attaching to its annual observance were also neglected. This becomes plainer of comprehension as we come to understand the history of the matter, as follows:

After the apostles and their immediate suc­cessors had fallen asleep—somewhere about the third century—Roman Catholicism was becoming influential in the Church. One of its false doctrines was to the effect that while Christ’s death secured a cancellation of the past guilt, it could not offset personal transgressions after the believer had come into relationship with Christ—after baptism; but that a fresh sacrifice was necessary for such sins. On the basis of this error was built the doctrine of the Mass, which, as we have heretofore explained in some detail, was considered a fresh sacrifice of Christ for the particular sins of the individual for whom the Mass is offered, or sacrificed—the fresh sacrifice of Christ being made to appear reasonable by the claim that the officiating priest had the power to turn the bread and wine into the actual body and actual blood of Christ; and then, by breaking the wafer, to break or sacrifice the Lord afresh for the sins of the individual for whom the Mass is performed. We have already shown that from the Divine standpoint this teaching and practice was an abhorrence in the sight of the Lord—‘the abomination which maketh desolate.” Dan. 11:31; 12:11* [Vol. II, Chap. ix, and Vol. III, Chap. iv.]

That false doctrine did make desolate, and in its wake came the Church’s multitudinous errors, the great falling away or apostasy which constituted the Roman system—the chiefest of all anti-Christs. Century after century rolled around, with this view the predominating one, the controlling one throughout Christendom, until, in the sixteenth century, the Great Reformation movement began to stir up an opposition and, proportionately, began to find the truths which had been hidden during the Dark Ages under the false doctrines and false practices of anti-Christ. As the Reformers were granted additional light respecting the entire testimony of God’s Word, that light included clearer views of the sacrifice of Christ, and they began to see that the Papal theory and practice of the Mass was indeed the “abomination of desolation,” and they disavowed it, with varying degrees of positiveness. The Church of England revised its Prayer-book in 1552 and excluded the word Mass.

The custom of the Mass practically took the place of the annual celebrations of the Lord’s Memorial Supper; for the Masses were said at frequent intervals, with a view to cleansing the people repeatedly from sin. As the Reformers saw the error of this, they attempted to come back to the original simplicity of the first institution, and disowned the Romish Mass as being an improper celebration of the Lord’s Memorial Supper. However, not seeing the close relationship between the type of the Passover and the antitype of our Lord’s death, and the Supper as a memorial of the antitype, they did not grasp the thought of the propriety of its observance on its annual recur­rence. Hence, we find that amongst Protes­tants some celebrate monthly, others every three months, and some every four months—each denom­­ination using its own judgment—the “Disciples” celebrating weekly, through a misun­der­standing of the Scriptures somewhat similar to their misunderstanding respecting bap­tism. They base their weekly celebration of the supper on the statements of the Acts of the Apostles to the effect that the early Church came together on the first day of the week, and at such meetings had “breaking of bread.” (Acts 2:42,46; 20:7)

We have already observed [See previous Chapter] that these weekly celebrations were not commemorations of the Lord’s death; but, on the contrary, were love-feasts, commemorative of his resurrection, and of the number of breakings of bread which they enjoyed with him on several first-days during the forty days before his ascension. The remembrance of these breakings of bread, in which their eyes were opened and they knew him, probably led them to meet on each first day of the week thereafter, and, not improperly, led them to have together a social meal, a breaking of bread. As we have already noticed, the cup is never mentioned in connection with these, while in every mention of the Lord’s Memorial Supper it occupies fully as important a place as does the loaf.

WHO MAY CELEBRATE?

First of all, that none should commune who do not trust in the precious blood of Christ as the sacrifice for sins. None should commune except by faith he have on the doorposts and lintel of his earthly tabernacle the blood of sprinkling that speaketh peace for us, instead of calling for vengeance, as did the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24). None should celebrate the symbolical feast unless in his heart he [See previous chapter.] has the true feast, and has accepted Christ as his Life-giver. Further, none should commune unless he is a member of the one body, the one loaf, and unless he has reckoned his life, his blood, sacrificed with the Lord’s in the same chalice, or cup. There is here a clearly drawn line of distinction, not only between the believers and unbelievers, but also between the consecrated and the unconsecrated. However, the line is to be drawn by each individual for himself—so long as his professions are good and reasonably attested by his outward conduct. It is not for one member to be the judge of another, nor even for the Church to judge, unless, as already pointed out, the matter has come before it in some definite form, according to the prescribed regulations.

Otherwise the elders, or representatives of the Church, should set before those who assemble themselves these terms and conditions:

(1) faith in the blood; and (2) consecration to the Lord and his service, even unto death. They should then invite all who are thus minded and thus consecrated to join in celebrating the Lord’s death and their own. This, and all invitations connected with this celebration, should be so comprehensively stated as to leave no thought of sectar­­­ianism. All should be welcomed to par­ticipate, regardless of their faith and harmony on other subjects, if they are in full accord in respect to these foundation truths—the redemption through the precious blood, and a full consecration unto death, giving them justification.

It is appropriate here to consider the words of the Apostle:

“Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh condem­nation to himself, if he discern not the Lord’s body.” (1 Cor. 11:27-29)

The Apostle’s warning here seems to be against a careless celebration of this Memorial, which would make of it a feast, and against inviting persons to it in a promiscuous manner. It is not such a feast. It is a solemn Memorial, intended only for the members of the Lord’s “body”; and whoever does not discern this, whoever does not discern that the loaf represents the flesh of Jesus, and that the cup represents his blood, would, in partaking of it, properly come under condemnation—not “damnation” as in the common version, but a condemnation in the Lord’s sight, and a condemnation also in his own conscience. Before partaking of these emblems each individual, therefore, should decide for himself whether or not he believes and trusts in the broken body and shed blood of our Lord as being his ransom price; and secondly, whether or not he has made the consecration of his all that he may thus be counted in as a member of that “one body.”

Having noted who are excluded, and who properly have access to the Lord’s table, we see that every true member of the Ecclesia has the right to participate, unless that right has been debarred by a public action of the whole Church, according to the rule therefore laid down by the Lord (Mat 18:15-17). All such may celebrate - will surely desire to celebrate and surely desire to conform to the Master’s dying admon­ition, “Eat ye all of it; drink ye all of it.” They will realize that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, we have no life in us; and that if they have in heart and mind partaken of the merits of the Lord’s sacrifice really, and of his life, that it is both a privilege and a pleasure to memorialize and to confess it before each other and the Lord.

WHO MAY OFFICIATE

The false doctrine of the Mass, and the creation of a class in the Church called the clergy, to administer this and similar services, has created so deep an impression upon the public mind that Protestants even to this day generally hold that the presence of “an ordained minister,” to ask a blessing and to officiate in such a memorial service, is of absolute necessity, and that any other procedure would be sacrilegious. How utterly wrong this whole theory is will be very readily recognized when we remember that all who have the privilege of partaking of this Memorial are consecrated members of the “Royal Priesthood”—each fully commissioned of the Lord to preach his Word according to their talents and opportunities, and fully ordained also to perform any service or ministry of which they are capable to him and the members of his body, and, in his name, to others. “All ye are brethren,” is the Lord’s standard, and is not to be forgotten when we hold communion with him, and celebrate his redemptive work, and our common-union with him and with each other as members of his body.

Nevertheless, in every little group of the Lord’s people, in every little Ecclesia, or body of Christ, as we have already pointed out, the Scriptures indicate that there should be order, and that a part of that order is that there should be “elders in every Church.” While each member of the Ecclesia, the New Creation, has a sufficient ordination of the Lord to permit him to take any part in connection with the Memorial Supper, yet the Church, in electing elders, indicates that they should be representatives of the entire Ecclesia in respect to such matters as this. Therefore, the duty of arranging and ministering this Memorial would devolve upon them as a service to which they have already been selected by the Church.

Our Lord’s declaration, “Where two or three of you are met together in my name, there am I in the midst”—shows us conclusively that, wherever it is possible, this memorial should be celebrated in company with fellow-members of the body. The blessing attached was intended to draw the mem­bers one toward the other, not only in this annual gathering, but whenever possible. Wherever even two or three may meet to claim this promise, it being impossible or inconvenient to meet with a larger group, they are privileged to celebrate as a Church, as an Ecclesia, complete; and even where an individual may be so circumstanced that he cannot possibly meet with others, we suggest that his faith go out with sufficient strength to the Lord to claim the promise—regarding the Lord and himself as the two. We advise that such unavoidable isolation be not permitted to hinder any from the annual celebration of the great sacrifice for sin, and of our participation in it with our Lord; that the solitary individual provide bread— (un-leavened bread, if obtainable—such as soda biscuit or water cracker) and fruit of the vine (raisin juice or grape juice or wine*) and that he celebrate in communion of spirit with the Lord and with the fellow-members of the body, from whom he is of necessity separated.

*[So far as we are able to judge, the Lord used fermented wine when he instituted this Memorial. Nevertheless, in view of his not specify­ing wine, but simply “fruit of the vine,” and in view also of the fact that the alcoholic habit has obtained so great and so evil a power in our day, we believe we have the Lord’s approval in the use of unfermented grape juice, or raisin juice, to which, if convenient, a few drops of fermented wine may be added, so as to satisfy the con­sciences of any who might be inclined to consider that obedience to the Lord’s example would require the use of fermented wine. In this manner there will be no danger to any of the Lord’s brethren, even the weakest in the flesh.]

This entire paper was taken from Study XI, “The New Creation, Volume 6, Studies in the Scriptures. We know that Pastor Russell was That Servant, primarily to The Little Flock, the 144,000 Bride of Christ and the door to that High Calling closed a few years after his death. However, we know that he was aware of Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 “...your old men shall dream dreams and young men shall see visions.” He knew that the “old men” consisted of the prophets and some others from Abel to Abraham, Job and later to John the Immerser, who was the last of the Ancient Worthies.

   The Saints are invited to eat the bread of justification and drink the wine as participating with Christ in His suffering. To be broken with Him.

But the Youthful Worthies partake of the bread as their tentative justification. And the wine as their participation in following in the footsteps of our Savior - for His sake. They make the same kind of consecration that the Saints made, although they are not on trial for their lives - only for faith and obedience. They are typed by the strangers in Leviticus 24 verse 22 which says,

“Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the Lord your God.”

This is one commandment of our Lord that we should keep annually, just as the type of the Jews deliverance from Egypt were to keep annually on the proper date - the 14th of Nisan. So we are to keep this annually just as the Jews kept it, as the Lord's Supper is the antitype of their Passover.

LETTER OF GENERAL INTEREST

Dear Sister Marjorie: Col. 1:2,3

            Enclosed is a few dollars to help you all. I don’t want to MISS one issue of the magazine, not one.

            I heard that the LHMM, Bible House has come out with a new idea. Not in line with the line with the truth as we know it.

            I send my Christian love to each of you.                                            Sincerely in Christ, ___  (TEXAS)

The Epiphany Bible Students will celebrate the Memorial on April 5, 2012.

NO. 654 PROSPECT

the battle of armageddon

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (Rev 16:12-16)

“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” (Rev 17:5)

Babylon was built on the River Euphrates, which represents the People who built Babylon with their money and influence. The waters of this great river are a type of the people who, by their influence and money, support Papacy, from which Babylon the Great draws her revenues.

“...The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues.” (Rev 17:15)

These waters of that river signify revenues from all nations. Literal Babylon was built upon the river Euphrates. Its wealth, supplies and sus­tenance came largely from this source. It had immense walls and strong gates over the river.

The sixth plague is upon Great Babylon, the mother. While the other systems have other chan­nels or rivers, the mother of harlots system is built upon the “great river.” This is not the generally accepted interpretation, which refers to the Mus­lims; and the Ottoman empire, which is included under the sixth trumpet as “the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.” (Rev 9:14)

The river dried up, calling our attention to the typical Babylon when Cyrus’ army turned aside the river into a new channel, leaving the old channel dry and enabling him to march his army under the gates. While these events were occur­ring, the princes of Babylon, corresponding to the notables of Chris­ten­dom, were holding high carni­val, rejoicing in their security, boasting of the strength of their walls, the impregnability of their gates and the sureness of their waters. Mystic Baby­­­lon sits upon and is supported by many waters (peoples, nations), and its fall is predicted, through the turning aside of its supporters and sustainers, the people. The turning aside of the “waters” would represent the alienation of the people, and the alienation of the people would be indicated by their withholding of financial support.

The implication is a cessation of the revenues of Babylon, a decline in the contri­butions which heretofore have made her wealthy. The “drying up” will probably require many years for its ac­complishment. That Servant points out, there will be a large falling off.

Waters also represent truth. The truth will be turned aside and no longer will flow through Babylon, that is “the voice of the Bridegroom and the voice of the Bride” shall no longer be heard in her. (Rev. 18:23)

As the typical Cyrus encouraged the Jews to return from Babylonian captivity, so the anti­typical Lord, has already seen to Israel’s return to the land of Abraham. (Compare Jer. 50:38.)

Kings — The kings of Christ’s Kingdom, who are also priests, the Body of Christ, the Royal Priesthood of the east from the sun rising. They come, not to the sun rising, but from the sun rising. They come bringing light with them. The name Cyrus signifies “the sun.” In his name he reminds us of the prophecy of Christ; “The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his beams.” (Mal. 4:2)

Three — The harmonious teaching in which these can all unite are the dogmas of “the divine right of kings,” “the authority of the clergy,” and the claim that mankind is bound to submit to these and be controlled by them. They are unclean spirits, impure and erroneous teaching. The spirit is a doctrine, an unclean doctrine, a false doctrine and each of these systems will utter the same things. The divine authority of the church, and the divine right of kings, aside from the church, will not be permitted to conflict. Satan will be forced to appear “as an angel of light” in order to perpetuate the delusions wherewith he has so long deceived the whole world by putting light for darkness, and darkness for light.

Like frogs, croaking from pulpits and plat­forms, and through the religious and secular press. The three most prominent characteristics of a frog are pomposity, an air of superior wisdom and knowledge, and a continual croaking. The spirit of all will be boastful; an air of superior knowledge and wisdom will be assumed; all will foretell dire results to follow any failure to obey their counsels. Indicating that when these systems give forth these unclean spirits it will be with boastfulness, an attempt to overawe with dignity and with contin­ual allusions to disasters which must attend any change of present arrangements.

We are not to think that these frog spirits, or doctrines, are all bad, but rather that they are doctrines of bombast and pomposity - doctrines of demons. The various “sectaries” have built little mud dams along the stream of truth, claiming this secured all the truth, so that what should have been a well of life became a veritable frog pond. Out of the mouth of – frogs came the utterances of the combined power of church and state.

It is the dragon or civil government espe­cially that which once constituted civil Rome. Practically all Bible exegetes agree that this dragon represents purely civil power. Political parties all declare that if any change should come, the direct cause of the drying will be the relationship existing between Papacy and the nations of earth. When tendencies produce a closer affiliation of religion and state, it will cause the people to throw off the yoke of the church as well as the state, since both will be in league against their cherished ideas of liberty and equality. And out of the mouth of the civil power, the Catholic Church and the Federation of Pro­testant Churches will go forth with the same teach­ings.

These classes influence and encourage each other with this impure doctrine of Satan. Were it not for this harmony, each of these classes would have felt the weakness of their claims, but in their union they find strength and hope for retaining their hold upon the people. The beast — Papacy. The same beast is mentioned in Rev. 13:2, where it is described as resembling a spotted leopard. It refers to the Papal system as a whole, on which the woman sat. The Catholic Church says, “Do not look behind! Do not question anything about the Church!” The Beast and Prophet are symbols of false systems which will be cast into a great consuming trouble in the close of this Gospel age. The false prophet is the religious element.

Another name for the system elsewhere called “the Image of the Beast,” a very exact representation of the Beast, which we understand to mean the Protestant Churches. Protestantism says, “We are great, we are wise, we know a great deal. Keep quiet! No one will then know that you know nothing.”

To prevent individual Bible study which seemed to them a loss of power, religious leaders planned a union of Protestants in a system called the Evangelical Alliance. Then and there they made an Image of the Beast.

Another representation of the Image, the vitalized product of the Evangelical Alliance, has taken the form of Church Federation. A new symbol takes the place of both the “two-horned beast” and “the Image of the Beast,” and represents all systems teaching error— “orthodox” as well as many considered heterodox.

It is the spirits of devils, Doctrines of devils, the devil’s theory relative to present evil governments. The spirit of revolution and anarchism in the world is generating a boiling, seething, condition of affairs. Working miracles and working signs. They will give evidences and seemingly plausible reasons for the rights of civil leaders and clergy.

Spiritualism has not yet reached the climax of its power. Its powers are to increase won­derfully.

Unto the kings, not only kings but princes, generals, also the financial kings and merchant princes, and the great among religious teachers. To gather them, the croaking of the frog spirits, or doctrines, will gather the kings and princes, finan­cial, political, religious and industrial into one great army. Ecclesiastical kings and princes will be gathered in solid phalanx—Protestant and Catholic. Political kings, financial kings and mer­ch­ant princes will join the same side.

The nations of the earth are already gathered together; associated by the modern methods of communication—wireless telephones, radio, com­puters, the world-wide-web and the United Nations. The gathering of the armies is plainly visible from the standpoint of God’s Word. They do not realize, however, that they are coming to Armageddon. To the battle — the general conflict between priest and people, rulers and ruled, capital and labor. Organized capital on the one hand and organized labor on the other are the two forces arrayed against each other in deadly conflict. The Armageddon forces have been mustering for both sides of the conflict.

In proportion as men are aiding error and wrong, they have been battling against the New Ruler; and in proportion as their tongues, pens and hands were used to support the right and truth on any subject, they have been fighting on the Lord’s side. It will end with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulers. The battle has already commenced. The lines of battle are becoming more distinctly marked.

Prophecy requires a wealthy and prosperous Israel before the Armageddon crisis and we see it now. “Jacob’s trouble” in the Holy Land will come at the very close of Armageddon. This battle is the seventh plague, and is a result of the six plagues which precede it. To war, the conflict between right and wrong. The Millennium is preceded by the most terrible judgments on the nations; but in consequence of these judgments, the people are turned to a pure worship. It is typified by Gideon’s battle.

God Almighty — The omnipotent God.

“Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” (Rev 16:15)

The position of this declaration of the 15th verse is thrown in disconnectedly and it is signi­ficant. It teaches that our Lord will be present before the impure teaching begins to gather them to their destruction. I come – At the time when this evil doctrine will apparently be uniting all upon the side of law and order, our Lord will be present, but secretly and unknown except to the watching ones. He comes more than once. At the first advent “Behold, thy king cometh.” At his second advent: “The Bridegroom came” and he comes when he “returns from the wedding.” He comes for his saints, and he comes with his saints.

He will be present unseen, doing a work of which the world for a time will be unaware. His arrival, therefore, must be in a quiet manner, un­observed, and entirely unknown to the world – As A Thief. Such endorsements for truth as miracle-working power, so necessary in the Jewish harvest to the confirmation of truth, would be out of har­mony with the thief-like presence and mis­sion of the Lord here. This coming as a thief extends over the whole period from his coming until the judgments on Babylon are complete.

Blessed Is he – Any one of the Church who complies with the conditions. The other class [Great Company] is recommended, even under the sixth plague, to watch and keep their garments, lest they walk naked. That watcheth – Those believers who are taking heed to the sure word of prophecy, as to a light in a dark place, shall, because of its light, not be in darkness that that day should overtake them as a thief. And keepeth – The danger of losing it is implied in this statement, made after six of the seven last plagues are poured out. No man is absolutely above danger of falling until he is immortal. His garments – The robe signifies that share of Christ’s merit which has been freely appropriated to us by him with the Father’s consent. Since our sins were laid upon Jesus, and we by faith accept him as our Redeemer, his right­eousness has been laid upon us. His righteousness is our glorious dress. He – The Lord of hosts himself mustereth the hosts of the battle. God will be represented by the great Messiah. He will be on the side of the masses. “At that time shall Michael stand up [That is assume authority.].”(Dan. 12:1)

Gathered them together — The turmoil of speech and the conflict between classes are hur­rying us toward the vortex of the great Arma­geddon. Warring political factions, militant suf­fragettes, socialists, nihilists, anarchists, labor organizations, capitalistic combinations, the ec­cles­i­­as­tical system, all in opposition to each and all; are rushing headlong to Armageddon.

Armageddon – Symbolizing the great con­troversy between truth and error, right and wrong, God and mammon. Armageddon means mount of destruction; and this describes what will be the result of their doctrine. This signifies the Hill of Megiddo, which occupied a very marked position on the southern edge of the Plain of Esdraelon, and commanded an important pass into the hill country.

Megiddo was the great battle-ground of Israel. Many famous Old Testament battles were fought there: Gideon vs. Midian, King Saul vs. the Philistines, King Josiah vs. Pharaoh Necho; and there Ahab and Jezebel lived, Jezebel meeting a horrible death there.

It is pure speculation to attempt to say just when it will begin. We are not to expect any gathering of the people literally to the Hill of Megiddo. The Scriptures abound with allusions to Armageddon. Our Lord calls it “great tribulation.” (Matt. 24:21); Daniel describes it as “a time of trouble.” (Dan. 12:1)

GOD’S FOOTSTOOL MADE GLORIOUS.

“Thus saith the LORD, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” “I will make the place [footstool] of my feet glorious.” “His [God’s] feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives.”― Isa. 66:1; 60:13; Zech. 14:4; Matt. 5:35; Acts 7:49.

God’s footstool has been far from glorious for the past six thousand years: sin, pain, crying, mental and physical suffering and death have made it one vast charnel house.

Now, conservatively estimated, at least twen­­ty billions of humanity wait for the time to come when the curse of divine justice shall be lifted; and the light of divine favor, shining in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord, shall rise as the Sun of righteousness­ ―

“Chase away sin’s dismal shadows,

Light the gloom with healing ray.”

To this end God has made abundant prov­ision. The ransom for Adam and all who suffered loss through him as his children, buys the whole world, and secures for each one of our race an opportunity of a trial for ever­lasting life under favorable conditions. It does more; it buys back Adam’s Paradise home (lost by his transgres­sion), and his dominion as earth’s king, representative of God, his Creator and Father.

Hence we read, “Thou, O Tower of the flock [Christ], the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion.” (Micah 4:8) Paul also, speaks of the “redemption of the purchased possession.” (Eph. 1:14) Our Lord in one of his parables referred to this also, showing that he purchases not only mankind, the treasure, but also the field, the world, the earth from under the curse: and that all who join with him, as members of the Kingdom class, share in that purchase of the field and the treasure. (Matt. 13:44)

The entire work of the Millennium will consist in or­dering and making glorious God’s footstool. Paradise, when lost through sin, was but a garden in a corner of the earth; but inasmuch as the race of Adam has multiplied to fill the earth, in accordance with the divine intention (Gen. 1: 28) and since they all have been redeemed, it will be necessary to provide a Paradise large enough to accommodate all. This will imply that the entire earth shall become as the Garden of Eden for fruitfulness and beauty and perfection. And all this is promised as the grand future consummation of the Divine lan. (Acts 3:20, 21; Rev. 2:7; 2 Cor. 12: 4)

But the richest jewel of the Lord’s glorified footstool in the close of the Millennium will be mankind, in whose perfection, liberty, and likeness to God, in moral and in­tellectual graces, will be reflected the very image of Di­vinity.

Most gloriously will the perfect man reflect honor upon his Maker and his wondrous plan for his creation, redemption and restitution. And with that wonder­ful plan will always be intimately identified first the Lord Jesus, GOD’S “Word,” and second the Bride, the Lamb’s wife and joint-heir in disbursing the blessings secured by the ransom.

This beautifying and glorifying of the Lord’s “foot­stool” will not be completed until our Lord Jesus, as the Father’s honored agent, “shall have put down all [con­flicting] rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet,” before he delivers up the Kingdom at the close of the Millen­nium. (1 Cor. 15:24-28)

The period of the reign of Sin and Death is described as the time when God “remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger.” (Lam. 2:1) But following the start of the Millennium, the people are prophetically called upon to “Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool, for he is worthy.” (Ps. 99:5.) And this thought, that the establishment of the New Jerusalem, the Church of God glorified, as the new government in the earth, will mean the beginning of the restoration of divine favor to GOD’S footstool, is clearly set forth through the Prophet Zechariah (14:4, 5)

The lord God’s FEET ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

This prophecy is generally misunderstood, and applied to the feet of our Lord Jesus, at his Second Advent. In­deed, those who thus err gener­ally go farther and assert that it will be the feet of flesh, pierced with the nails of Calvary. They fail to realize that our Lord gave his human na­ture, complete and forever, as our ransom; and that he was raised from the dead, by the Father’s power, a glorious spirit being, the express image of the Father’s person. A glance at Zech. 14:3,4 shows that the Prophet speaks of the return of God’s feet; for the verse (referring to the trouble by which the Kingdom will be established) is: “Then shall GOD go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle [anciently for Israel]. And his feet will stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be divided in its center, from east to west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove northward and half southward.”

As soon as any see the fact that the feet mentioned are GOD’S feet, they will not dispute that this language is symbolic. It refers to the Lord’s re-establishment of his dominion in the earth, that has long been comparatively abandoned to the “god of this world” Satan. Except as the Lord was represented first by the typical Taber­nacle, secondly by the Temple at Jerusalem, and lastly by the present tabernacle condition of the Church of Christ, during this Gospel Age. Surely, no one will err and get the thought that GOD literally rests his feet upon this earth as a “footstool.”

And if the placing and resting of GOD’S feet is symbolic, and signifies the return of divine favor and do­minion to earth, so, we may be sure, other features con­nected in the same prophecy are symbolic. The Mount of Olives, its peculiar division, its valley, the flight of the people, the waters of life from Jerusalem (Compare v. 8 with Ezek. 47: 1-9), etc., are all symbolic statements – pictures of grand spiritual truths.

The olive is a meaningful symbol: in olden times it was the source of artificial light, its oil being generally used for this purpose (Ex. 27:20). Indeed, in the Hebrew the olive tree was called shemen or oil tree. Olive oil was also used as the basis of many of the precious ointments of olden time – such as that used in anointing the priests and kings, typing the Holy Spirit upon the anti­typical “royal priesthood.” (Ex. 30:25) And from time immemorial the olive branch has been used as a symbol of peace. (­Gen. 8:11; Neh. 8:15)

If then the olive will be the symbol of light, peace and divine blessing through the holy spirit, and if mountain be considered as elsewhere the symbol for a Kingdom, the significant hue of the term Mount of Olives is easily seen to be the Kingdom of Light, Peace and Divine Bless­ing. And the standing or establishment or fixing of GOD’S “feet” upon it, signifies that the divine favor and law will be reestablished in the earth by and through the holy Kingdom.

This application of the term Mount of Olives is in full accord with Paul’s statement (Rom. 11:17,24) in which he compares Fleshly Israel with the original cultivated olive tree, and Gentile converts to wild olive branches grafted in where the natural branches had been broken off. (Com­pare Jer. 11:16,17) He explains that the root of the tree is in the promise of God, the Abrahamic promise, that the seed of Abraham should finally bless all the fam­ilies of the earth, etc. This same root or promise will bear two kinds of branches, the engrafted wild olive branches, and the re-engrafted natural branches: when Israel shall have his blindness turned away, and shall look with the eye of faith on the Savior crucified and pierced eighteen centuries ago, a sacrifice for sin. We re­member also that fleshly Israel was God’s typical Kingdom or mountain for a long time, and that spiritual Israel of this age is called to be the real Kingdom of God. As Jesus said, “Fear not, Little Flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

Further, from these two Kingdoms (even before THE LORD’S glory rests on them to make them his channels of blessings to all mankind) has proceeded all “the light of the world” during all the darkness of the past. These are the repre­sentatives of the Old and the New Testa­ments, the two parts of the oath-bound Covenant. Are not these related to the Lord’s two witnesses and to the two olive trees of Zech. 4:3,11,12, distinctly mentioned also in Rev. 11:4 – in that these two parts of the mountain symbolize the outcome of that covenant, the results of the witnessing – the Kingdom in its heavenly and its earthly phases?

Here we see, then, that the two halves of the Mount of Olives mean the two parts of the Kingdom of God, dis­tinctly separated according to a divine order or arrangement. The separation indicates no opposition between the two parts of the Kingdom. It is, on the contrary, for the purpose of making the “Valley of Blessing” between – to which all who desire divine aid may flee and find suc­cor under the blessed protection of both the heavenly and the earthly phases of the Kingdom.

The Prophet David (Psa. 84) seems to have been given a view of this great “Valley of Bles­sings,” close to The Lord God’s “feet,” when he sings first of the saints of the Gospel Age and then of those blessed in the next age, saying: “…no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”

The Eighty-fifth Psalm also pictures the return of di­vine clemency and blessing under the Millennial Kingdom, the Olive Mountain (King­dom) of two parts.

The removal of one part of the mountain to the north and the other to the south is significant. The North is the direction of the Pleiades, the celestial center of the uni­verse, the supposed seat of divine empire. This would seem to indicate the “change” of the Gospel Church at this time, from human to spirit conditions as it partakes of the divine nature. The removal of the other half of the mountain would seem to signify the complete restitution, to perfect human condi­tions, of those Ancient Worthies accounted worthy to constitute the earthly representatives of God’s Kingdom.

The valley thus produced would be one full of light – free from shadows: for the sun would stream through it from east to west. This speaks pictorially of the Sun of Right­eousness and its full light of divine truth and bless­ing scattering the shadows of sin, ignorance, superstition and death, and healing and restoring the willingly obedient of men who will flee to this valley of blessings, the valley of mercy. The valley of mercy, between and under the care of the spiritual and human phases of the Kingdom of Light and Peace (the standing of GOD’S feet) will surely be a “Valley of Blessings” to all who enter it with broken and contrite hearts.

We must recall further, that while it is said to Israel only, “Ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains,” yet as a name Israel meant “The people blessed of the Lord,” “The people of God,” “The Lord’s people.” (2 Chron. 7:14.) While, as we have seen, the first or spiritual blessing of the Kingdom shall come to spiritual Israel, and the second or earthly blessing shall begin with Israel according to the flesh, yet it will not stop there. For who­soever will may become an Israelite: by exercising the faith and obedience of Abraham, all mankind may become Israelites indeed, “the people of God.” Hence the Prophet Isaiah declares that when Israel is called back to divine favor, at the establishment of the Kingdom, it will include “Every one that is called by my [MY GOD’S] name: for I have created him for my glory; I have formed him, yea, I have made him. [The name Israel will then apply to all who are God’s people.]” (Isa. 43:7; Rom. 9:26,33; 10:13)

“And [thus] will THE LORD MY GOD come in, and all the holy ones shall [thus] be [united] with him.” (Zech. 14:5.) When God’s time shall have come, when the lease of power to the Gentiles shall have run out, when the sacrificing of the Day of Atonement [the Gospel Age] shall have ended, when the High Priest shall have finished atoning, not only for his “body,” the Church, but also for his “house,” and for “all people,” and he shall come forth to bless all the people, then The Creator’s sentence of death shall be lifted from the earth. His footstool abode will again be recog­nized, and its beautifying in righteousness, truth and the holy spirit of love shall begin and progress, until, in the end of the Millennium, all the willingly righteous shall have reached per­fection, reunited with THE LORD, and all the unwilling shall have been destroyed. (Acts 3:23; Rev. 20:9)

Carrying the picture further, the Prophet declares, re­specting that day in which gradually the earth shall be made glorious as The Heavenly Father’s footstool:

“It shall come to pass in that day that the light shall not be bright nor the darkness thick; but the day shall be the one foreknown to the Lord – neither full day nor night: but it shall come to pass that at its close [eve­ning] it shall be [clear] light.” (Zech. 14:6,7)

Some confounded the “day” here described with the “day of Vengeance” which is “a day of clouds and thick darkness with no light in it” (Joel

2:2; Zeph. 1:15) and the translators have, seem­ingly, generally tried to harmon­ize the translations. But not so; the day here referred to by Zechariah as only partially bright is the Millennial day, though in it the Sun of Righteousness will arise and shine, to scatter earth’s miasma of sin, sup­erstition and death.

Yet it will be only partially bright, because it will through­out be dealing with generation after generation of the fallen race as brought from the tomb, “... many shall be last and the last shall be first,” and in various stages of restitution toward perfection. But how refreshing it is to be assured that in that day of the reestab­lishment of GOD’S feet upon his footstool, there shall be no more “thick darkness.” That at the close of the Mil­lennial Day, instead of growing darker, the world will only have reached the high noon of its “light of the knowledge of The Creator”; and that its sun shall never set.

The reference to the rivers of living waters flowing from Jerusalem, during this Millennial Day of the re-establishment of GOD’S feet upon his footstool: (Zech. 14:8,9) We are reminded of the corresponding testimony of Ezekiel (47:1-12) and of John’s Revelation (22:1,2). Under this same symbol of living waters proceeding from the throne of the Millennial Kingdom, we are shown the restitution blessings of “waters of life,” to which whosoever will may come and drink freely, and fruitful trees of life whose leaves will heal repentant peoples of earth of all imperfections.

Ah yes! “In that day the Lord shall be King over the earth”; his Kingdom shall have come as his faithful have long prayed; and by the end of that day his will shall be done on earth even as it is done in heaven. God’s foot­stool shall then be glorious indeed; as it is written:

“As truly as I live, the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of The LORD.” (Num. 14:21; Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14)

NO. 653 RETROSPECT

 “Thou madest man a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honor and didst set him over the works of thy hands. Thou has put all things in subjugation under his feet.” (Psa. 8:6)

 “The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (1Cor 15:47)

The human race has always had miscreants throughout existence, since father Adam sinned by disobedience of God’s law and received the prom­ised death sentence, which the human race inherited. Crimes from jay-walking to petty theft, grand larceny, violent-weapons-bearing-major rob­beries, kidnappings for money, home invasions, single, serial, mass killings and hate driven terrorism are all growing alarmingly in the fast approaching end of The Gospel Age.

The “Good News” Age, the good news is the sacrifice of Christ, who died for us that we may live. The only good news, after the vio­lence at the end of this age is that it will mark the end of The Present Evil World and the begin­ning of Christ’s Kingdom on earth.

Washington DC

Probably, USA’s Capital City has more organ­ized and trained police officers of one kind or another than any other city in the world. There are the DC Metro Police and other police depart­ments in the satellite communi­ties. Add to this the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, US Marshals, DEA, etc., and of course, every government and private office building of any consequence has its own security force.

There are no better police anywhere else in the world, except perhaps in Israel, and certainly in the city of Jerusalem, their capital, which seemingly our govern­ment wants to divide between the Israelis and their enemy, the Arabs. We might as well divide New York City with the El Qaida terrorist.

This is not a complaint, in fact, all these police and more are needed in these troubling times of this time of trouble, and it is quickly growing greater than any since there was a nation (Dan 12:1). But Washington has been known as the murder capital of the USA. All cities of the world are similarly policed and more are needed in each, including USA’s capital city. Still the average resident of those cities is not safe on the streets.

Looking at Washington, DC, it is a good bet that no other city of the world has as many lawyers, judges and law courts, certainly not per capita, and all busier than they should have to be. Also, our capital is the best educated in the nation with more advanced college degrees probably than any other city, in the world.

the american prision system

America’s prison system is in a condition of serious crisis. Since the declaration of the war on drugs 40 years ago, our country has amassed the largest prison population the world has ever seen.

 Overcrowding and unconstitutional condi­tions have gotten so bad that one of the worst offenders, California, was recently ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to either transfer 33,000 people to other jurisdictions or simply let them go.

 Now, former police officer, turned criminal justice professor, Peter Moskos has devised a modest proposal that, he argues, could solve the problem of our congested prisons overnight: give prisoners the option of being flogged instead of being imprisoned.

Born in Jerusalem

If you are an American citizen born in Jerusalem, the United States Government will not include Israel as the place of birth on your pass­port. “One Jerusalem” is involved in an important effort to end this discrimination against Israel.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case brought by an American citizen born in Jerusalem. US citizen Menachem Zivotofsky was born in Jerusalem, Israel in 2002.

The US State Department has refused to list “Jerusalem, Israel” as place of birth on his pass­port and would only write “Jerusalem” in­stead. There are US towns named Jerusalem,   New York, for instance. This is despite the fact that in 2002 Congress instructed the State Department to “record the place of birth as Israel” on passports of American children born in Jerusalem if parents request it.

The present administration urged the Su­preme Court not to hear the case. The justices instead not only agreed to hear the case, but also directed the two sides to address the broad ques­tion of whether the law “impermissibly infrin­ges the president’s power to recognize foreign sove­reign­ties.”

This case is especially important at a time when the US President has effectively endorsed the division of Jerusalem in calling for a return to the 1967 borders, which were extended after the entire Arab world attacked Israel and lost the war. While an over­whelming majority of Congress sup­ports de­fensible borders and a united Jerusa­lem.

(Taken From the “One Jerusalem” News­letter)

Troubling Times and The Time of Trouble

 “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” (Gen. 6:5)

This was at the time of the end of the “world that then was” before the flood. (2 Pet. 3:6) The period in which our earthly father, Adam diso­beyed the one law God had given him – his sin – a deliberate disobedience for which he had been promised the death sentence, “dying thou shalt surely die,” and the eviction from the Garden of Paradise (Eden). See how fast the human race began to degenerate: Adam and Eve had a son, Cain who became a tiller of ground. Then they had Abel who became a sheep-tender. Cain was jealous of Abel and killed him because he offered a more excellent sacrifice to The Heavenly Father.

Then followed a period in which God per­mitted angels to try their hand at recovering man from the conditions imposed by sin. One can imag­­ine how eager these angels were to participate in the exciting acts of the creation they had joy­ously witnessed. They were totally incapable of revers­ing the Creator’s Plan and to restore Adam and Eve to that which was lost – life eternal.

Verse 6 – “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” The word translated repented here is from the Hebrew word nacham [naw-kham], the primitive root of which is to sigh and by implica­tion to be sorry – to pity. There is no indication that the Creator changed his mind or heart in the normal thought of the word repent. All, in fact, was going exactly the way He had foreseen and planned from the beginning. Every­thing was pro­ceeding according to his “eternal purpose [Divine Plan].” (Eph. 5:11) He had pity for man’s growing depravity and it was the set time to bring that world to a halt. All that could be gained in the knowledge of evil for his creatures, both spirit and human, had been accom­plished. Any furtherance of this “world that was” would be counter-productive to mankind and God’s “eternal pur­pose.” It was the due time.

 “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” (Isa. 46:9,10)

What a reassuring message from our Hea­venly Father, “the ancient of days,” whose major character traits are power, wisdom, justice, and love. There is none other with the power to ac­complish all according to an eternal purpose. No other wisdom exists capable of creation with an eternal purpose and to declare the end from the beginning. This is exact justice in whom “judgment is laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.” (Isa. 28:17) All these things equally balanced with perfect, Divine Love, “for God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

With these things in mind, we must take a look at what our Heavenly Father accomplished for us during this period designated by Him as “The World That Was.” He formed a habitat and from the elements thereof created man, a singular creature in HIS own image and HE tells us about it succinctly, clearly and simply in very few words. Yet, man in his “wisdom” has expounded upon it to the extent of literally billions of words. We dispute, argue, fight, theorize, and disregard the teaching of Scripture; and with Satan’s “help,” concoct all manner of [false] religions and science.

The Angels rejoiced at God’s creation of man and were dismayed at man’s sin and con­sequent death penalty. No doubt, they wanted eagerly to help and started out with fervor at the opportunity the Creator permitted. But, bit-by-bit, their every effort failed until finally Satan, the deceiver, implanted the idea that they could begat an entirely new order of earthly creatures.

These deceived angels were led to believe they could assume earthly form and beget a new order, which they commenced to do. “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in ever­lasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” (Jude 1:6) It had been against God’s laws of nature.

Crossbreeding between different species pro­duces “mules” that cannot reproduce, though frequently they are superior to their parents in many respects, such as mental capacity, strength and endur­ance. The products of the union of angels and the daughters of men were “giants.” They were physically and mentally larger and stronger, with a much greater tendency to evil.

Those disobedient of the sinful angels were not given the death sentence as was man, but were confined until the great Day of Judgment so they could not interfere. As with man, these fallen angels who will not be rehabilitated will be elimi­nated. “Know ye not that we (the Saints) shall judge angels…” (1 Cor. 6:3)

But, why did God permit such a thing to happen when in his omniscience, He knew it was inevitable. What good came of it? – A wonderful lesson in the knowledge of evil for both the natural and spiritual creations. The vast majority of the spiritual who did not participate with the few who kept not their first estate, learned by observation of the abject failure of those who did, through their disobedience – sin. Those angels who fell from their first estate and practiced this abomination were con­fined in darkness until the Day of Judg­ment. Mankind learned a further lesson in the extreme sinfulness of sin – disobedience to God’s laws, though still the vast majority has not as yet learned this lesson.

In the meantime in the World that was, there were certain “sons of man” from Seth to Noah who maintained faith in God, even though they were unable to trace him. These are mentioned by name in the chronology of Genesis that establishes the period as 1656 years from the Creation of Adam through the flood.

From the beginning of the Adamic race, there were certain men who reverenced the Creator and had faith in Him. Noah was of this number and because of his faith; he and his wife, three sons and their wives were saved out of the flood. These eight people began a New World (order). In this new order man was on his own, Angels were not allowed to interfere except as directed by the Creator. Man had free will to maintain reverence and faith in his Creator or take the course of sin and degradation – a further step in gaining the knowledge of evil.

After the flood, the Patriarchal Age ensued in which certain individuals starting with Noah were favored because of their faith and reverence. They are the spiritual progenitors of the people of the Kingdom of God.

Of the three sons of Noah, Shem retained the reverence to his Father and it was from this lineage that sprang Abraham 352 years after the flood. Noah lived 350 years after the flood and died 2 years before Abraham [Abram] was born. Noah had to have been greatly venerated by all mankind; after all, he was the grandfather of the new order. This would have been especially true in the line through Shem. So, it’s safe to say, Shem and Abram were greatly influenced by Noah.

Abraham is styled the father of the faithful (Rom. 4:16). God made certain Covenants with him, which were passed on to Isaac, one of his sons. The first of these promises was designed to separate Abraham from the land of his birth and all the evil pagan influences thereof. Abraham was of the Chaldeans who were advanced in the var­ious sciences and even Abraham was said to have been schooled in the celestial sciences. True, there also were pagan influences extant in the Land of Canaan, but Abraham was a stranger there and had no renown as he did in the land of his birth, which made him less likely to be led astray.

Then Abraham showed the depth of his faith by obeying God’s instructions to offer Isaac, the promised son of his old age, on the altar of sacri­fice. Thus, creating a type of the sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God to be the ransom for man. God then made a unilateral covenant with Abraham: “That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.” (Gen. 22:17) The two seeds (stars of the heaven/sands of the seashore) among other things are the purchased offspring of The One Seed, which is Christ. These are the spiritual and earthly houses of the new Adam and Eve (Jesus and his Church) – The Anointed father and mother of all creation.

These promises were re-stated to Isaac and subsequently to one of his sons, Jacob, both having retained their father’s faith.

When Jacob died, his twelve sons formed the nucleus of the nation of Israel to whom God gave His law and made them His people. God gave Jacob the name Israel which means “ruling with God.” There ended the Patriarchal Age and began the Jewish Age.

The Law Covenant given to the twelve tribes in the wilderness after they were led out of Egypt came 857 years after the flood. This nation became the Kingdom of God, as a type of His Universal Kingdom to come in due time. Further promises were extended to them, some conditional and some unconditional.

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be also in the days of the Son of man.” (Luke 17:26–Dia.) In Noah’s day before the flood, God’s earthly creation had reached its extremity. As the present evil world reaches its extremity, God will destroy it, not with a flood of water for He promised not to do that again. But, saved out of this coming destruction will be a remnant, as Noah and his family were at the flood. These eight people saved from the flood were a percentage of the total population of the world at the time and it might be that the remnant saved from the des­truction of the present evil world will be a similar percentage of the current at the time, total popu­lation.

Though the second destruction of the world will not be a flood of water, the results will be the same. The world as we know it will be destroyed just as it was in the flood except for the remnant that will live through it as did Noah and his family. Keep in mind that “the earth abideth forever” as we are told in Eccl. 1:4. Keep in mind also that there are a number of Hebrew and Greek words translated world and earth, meaning land – the physical earth, to ages, meaning the infra­structure or the societal nature of the make-up of life. The latter is what is destroyed of both worlds, though in both, certain changes did and will occur to the physical.

The “days of the Son of Man” began on his return in 1874 with a harvest of his church, His Bride. In 1914, after forty years duration of this Harvest, THE CHRIST began to establish His Kingdom with the commencement of the time of trouble during which Satan and his minions will be dispossessed. This is, at least, circumstantial evi­dence that 1914 marked the close of the door to the High Calling.

When the rain began in the World That Was, Noah was ordered into the Ark and after all the creatures that would avoid the destruction were inside, the door to the Ark was sealed shut. As in the days of Noah, it began symbolic rain in 1914 with the Great War – the first phase (wind) of the time of trouble.

Curiosity abides in all of us and it is a great pleasure to find what appear to be parallels or types, to pin point dates and prognosticate. It is in our fallen human nature to try to reveal things of the future that no one else has “figured out.”

Belying admonition of the Psalmist “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say on the Lord. and keep his way He shall exalt thee to inherit the land.” (Psa 27:14 and 37:14)

AMERICA NEEDS ISRAEL

GEORGE GILDER, The Wall Street  Journal (07/05/11):

America's enemies understand deeply and intuitively that no U.S. goals or resources in the Middle East are remotely as important as Israel. Why don't we?

Israel cruised through the recent global slump with scarcely a down quarter and no deficit or stimulus package. It is steadily increasing its global supremacy, behind only the U.S. In an array of leading-edge technologies, it is the global master of microchip design, network algorithms and medical instruments.

During a period of water crises around the globe, Israel is incontestably the world leader in water recycling and desalinization. During an epoch when all the world’s cities, from Seoul to New York, face a threat of terrorist rockets, Israel's newly battle-tested “Iron Dome” provides a unique answer based on original inventions in microchips that radically reduce the weight and cost of the interceptors.

Israel is also making major advances in longer-range missile defense, robotic warfare, and unmanned aerial vehicles that can stay aloft for days. In the face of a global campaign to boycott its goods, and an ever-ascendant shekel, (The Jewish Dollar.) it raised its exports 19.9% in 2010's fourth quarter and 27.3% in the first quarter of 2011. Investors would be well advised to seek investment in Israel’s leading edge industries.

Israelis supply Intel with many of its ad­vanced microprocessors, from the Pentium and Sandbridge, to the Atom and Centrino. Israeli companies endow Cisco with new core router designs and real-time programmable network pro­cessors for its next-gener­ation systems. They sup­ply Apple with robust miniaturized solid state memory systems for its iPhones, iPods and iPads, and Microsoft with critical user interface designs for the OS7 product line and the Kinect gaming motion-sensor interface, the fastest rising consu­mer electronic product in history.

Vital to the U.S. economy and military capabilities, tiny Israel’s unparalleled achieve­ments in industry and intellect have conjured up the familiar anti-Semitic frenzies among all the eco­nomi­cally and morally failed societies of the socialist and Islamist Third World, from Iran to Venezuela. They all imagine that by delegitim­izing, demoralizing, defeating or even destroying Israel, they could take a major step toward bring­ing down the entire capitalist West. 

To most sophisticated Westerners, the jiha­dist focus on Israel seems bizarre and counter­productive. But on the centrality of Israel the jihadists have it right.

U.S. policy is crippled by a preoccupation with the claimed grievances of the so called “Pales­tinians” and their supposed right to a state of their own on the West Bank and Gaza. But the Palestinian land could not have supported one-tenth as many Palestinians as it does today, without the heroic works of reclamation and agr­icul­tural development by Jewish settlers begin­ning in the 1880s, when Arabs in Palestine numbered a few hundred thousand.

Actions always have consequences. When the Palestinian Liberation Organization launched two murderous Intifadas within a little over a decade, responded to withdrawals from southern Lebanon and Gaza by launching thousands of rockets on Israeli towns, spurned every sacrificial offer of  “Land for Peace” from Oslo through Camp David, and reversed the huge economic gains fostered in the Pales­tinian territories between 1967 and 1990, the die was cast.

Religion in the usa

With all of the consternation about religion in this country, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of just how many anomalies our religiosity is in the world.

A Gallup report issued on Tuesday under­scored just how out of line we are. Gallup surveyed people in more than 100 countries in 2009 and found that religiosity was highly cor­related to poverty.

Richer countries in general are less religious. But that doesn't hold true for the United States.

Sixty-five percent of Americans say that religion is an important part of their daily lives. That is compared with just 30 percent of the French, 27 percent of the British and 24 percent of the Japanese.

I used Gallup’s data to chart religiosity against gross domestic product per capita and to group countries by their size and dominant religions.

(By Charles M. Blow, September 4, 2010)

Ancient date seed from Masada may yield “medicinaL” bounty

 A 2,000-year-old date seed discovered at Masada four decades ago may provide new cures to numerous ailments, Israeli scientists say, after making significant advances, against all odds, in producing fruit from the seed.

   Having been germinated, astoundingly, by an Israeli team more than three years ago, and kept alive since, the ‘Judean date’ sapling appears likely (though not certain) to yield a now-extinct species that was renowned in ancient times as a treatment for heart disease, chest problems, the spitting of blood, weakened memory and other medical conditions, possibly even symptoms of cancer and depression.

   The seed was discovered during the 1960s archeological excavations of Masada by Prof. Vigael Yadin, an eminent archeologist, political leader and the second IDF chief of General Staff.

   The Dead Sea region of Judea was famous for its extensive and high-quality-date-culturing in the first century CE. High summer temperatures and low precipitation at Masada contributed to the seed’s exceptional longevity.

   The plant's location is kept secret because of its great scientific and financial value. It could produce fruit at the age of seven years, according to Dr. Sarah Sallon, a physician and director of Hadassah University Medical Center’s Louis Borick Natural Medicine Research Center (NMRC) in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem. She heads the team that succeeded in planting, germ­inating and growing the date seed, and des­cribes its findings and hopes for it in the June 13 issue of the prestigious journal Science.

The date project is part of the NMRC’s Middle Eastern Medicinal Plant project aimed at conserving, developing and researching the rich legacy of me­dicinal plants in Israel. The extinct “Judean date” is regarded by NMRC as having particular importance.

The ancient seed in Sallon’s experiment was procured from Bar-Ilan University, and germ­ination was handled by Dr. Elaine Soloway, an expert on desert agriculture at the Arava Institute of the Envir­on­ment at Kibbutz Ketura.

When the seedling was 15 months old, direct radio-carbon dating on shell fragments per­formed by Dr. Egli of Zurich University showed an age compatible with the Roman siege of Masada almost 2,000 years ago, thus making it the oldest seed ever to be germinated.

Early genetic analysis of the seedling, performed by Dr. Yuval Cohen of the Volcani Institute at Beit Dagan, shows differences from modern cultivated date species.

Further analysis is planned in the hope of discovering particular genetic characteristics that made the Judean dates famous both as a prized source of food and as a valuable medicine, Sallon told The Jerusalem Post.

 “Our next stage will be to grow more dates, in the hope of better understanding their genetics and possibly breeding the ancient date as a modern one,” she continued.

“We need to reintroduce ancient crops and plants that once flourished in this region and to investigate them scientifically for their properties. As much as Hadassah is involved in the most modern medical technologies, it also promotes our desire to discover new cures for diseases out of ancient sources.”

(Judy Siegel, The Jerusalem Post, June 20-26, 2008)

praise for “the invention of the jewish people”

a BOOK By Shlomo Sand

 “...much reviewed and rebutted, and re­cently translated into English – is provoking the inter­national community by arguing that Jews have never been genetically or otherwise ‘a people’...Sand’s larger point, that Israel needs to become more like other Western democracies and less obsessed with their ethnic purity, is wel­come.”  NEWSWEEK

“The translated version of his polemic has sparked a new wave of coverage in Britain and has provoked spirited debates ... The book has been extravagantly denounced and praised.” Patricia Cohen, New York Times

“Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People is both welcome and, in the case of Israel, much needed exercise in the dismantling of nationalist historical myth and a plea for an Israel that belongs equally to all its inhabitants. Perhaps books combining passion and erudition don’t change political situations, but if they did, this one would count as a landmark.” Eric Hobshawm, Observer, Book of the Year

“A formidable polemic against claims that Israel has a moral right to define itself as an explicitly and exclusively Jewish society, in which non-Jews, such as Palestino-Israelis, are culturally and politically marginalized.” Max Hastings, Sunday Times

“Zionism’s quest for a historical homeland is brilliantly excavated by Shlomo Sand in his recent The Invention of the Jewish People.” Alex Cockburn, The Nation

“I am one of many Jews who would agree with Sand that a decisive factor in the future of Israel will be its capacity to be far more attentive to the narratives and rights of its Palestinian and other non-Jewish citizens.” Jonathan Wittenberg, Guardian

“[Shlomo Sand’s] Quiet earthquake of a book is shaking historical faith in the link between Judaism and Israel.” Rafael Behr, Observer

“It is certainly one of the bravest [books of the year].” Terry Eagleton, Times Library Sup­plement

And many others similar to the above.

Our brief comment

The only true “Palestinian”, if there is such a person, is the Jew. It was their nation “Israel” before it was Palestine and it was much larger than the little plot of ground now determined by the Jews to be Israel, but determined by the Arabs, their jealous brothers, to be added to the vast land they already occupy, even though there seems to be very little oil in the ground of Israel. The Arabs never have done much with their huge portion of the Middle East except to let their rulers get rich from the oil.

What could have attracted these “non-genet­ically connected people, who call themselves Jews” to get together and claim the right to be these dastard and evil people? Maybe it has been a higher level of intelligence that has made them claim a common heritage; even in the face of the Nazis and other haters who were almost successful in efforts to rid the world of them.

However, we know they are mostly the off­spring of Abraham whose progeny was born in Canaan before Abraham’s children took possession of it. They went into Egypt for water because of severe drought in their homeland and were enslaved by the Egyptians.  After some years they escaped, led by Moses with crucial help from their God. They formed the nation of Israel on the land designated as theirs by The Lord God and it was several times larger than what they have claimed today.

This isn’t to say that some Arab’s, Orientals, Caucasians, Black Africans and others have not become Jews. It has happened in every society. After all, we are from the same original pair.

Letter of General Interest

September 4, 2011

Dear Marjorie and All There,

Please forgive me for the lack of correspondence in the last four months. Many have written and sent cards that I have not been able to answer. So I try now to give an update on what 2011 has brought.

Of course we have all been shocked at the world events from the terrible earthquake in Japan to the terrorist attack in Norway! Also our area of the world is in a huge change and everyday uncertainty as governments go in this part of the world.

My year of 2011 started with the news that my landlord wants to sell the house that I had been living in for 13 years in Tiberias. So this was a big change and new season in my life as I have given up doing Bed and Breakfast in my home. This was a huge pleasure meeting guests from many countries, but also a huge work alone without Lev. So, after several months of searching, I found a cozy 2 bedroom, basement apartment in a community outside Tiberius. I was able to move in May.

However, I still have the same address: P.O. Box 1877, Tiberias, as well as the same phone number 04-6712038.

My second big crisis was a health one. I started having trouble with my stomach in February. First it was thought to be a virus, then bacterial infection, but after a CT scan and a colonoscopy it was found I had a tumor in my colon that was cancerous. So after having a removal of a cataract on my right eye on June 14th, I went into the hospital for colon surgery on June 15th. There were complications so I had a 2nd surgery within a week. Also collapsed from pneumonia, so I was in the hospital one month! A long heavy time!!! Now I am trying to recover at home and regain the strength. I had and do have a lot of good help from my friends here, and miracles from the Lord in many ways.

So it has been a heavy Spring/Summer for me. I thank the Lord daily for His care. The oncologist said I had a large tumor in the colon and they had to take a big section out. BUT the 22 lymph nodes in the area were clean, so I don’t need a heavy chemotherapy treatment now. So I praise the Lord for this!! I still need to have the colostomy closed, but I take one day at a time.

I hope all are well there and you have had a blessed summer and hope the hurricanes stay away from your area.

Israel feels like they are awaiting a possible “Hurricane” with the PA going to the UN later this month. We don’t know if that will mean violent demonstrations here! The terrorist attacks in the South two weeks ago, and the many Ground rockets into Beersheva gave us a taste of what can come. So we rest in the Lord’s care daily!

Thanks for your efforts to continue producing and sending out the Epiphany Newsletter. The Lord bless you! Take Care! 

                                                                                                Shalom and love, Hava Bausch        (ISRAEL)

September 1, 2011

Epiphany Bible Students Ass’n

I’m enclosing my contribution for use in furthering your work.

I very much enjoy reading the material you send each month.

Please keep sending.

World conditions worsening — Fast and — More to come just as prophesied.

Sincerely,

Signed -----------------------------

ANNOUNCEMENT: The date of our memorial is April 5, 2012. The moon becomes new this year nearest the Spring Equinox (using Jerusalem as the proper location) at 5:58 p.m., March 22, making Nisan 1 at 6 p.m., March 22 and counting from that time, we arrive at six p.m., April 5. We have offered much more detail on this calculation in some of our previous Memorial papers. 

No. 652 BABE OF BETHLEHEM

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:11,12)

WHY WAS THIS BABE EXPECTED?

Why were all men in expectation of him at the time of his birth? What was to be peculiar about him to lead Israel to expect his birth? The answer to this question is that God had made a certain promise centuries before and the promise had not been ful­filled. This promise contained the thought that a holy child would be born, and that in some way, not explained in the promise, this child would bring the blessing the world needed. Therefore every mother amongst the Israelites was very solicitous that she might be the mother of a son rather than a daughter, that perchance she might be the mother of this promised child. Thus the matter went on for years until, finally, the child was born.

The promise back of the expectation was that which God made to Abraham, saying, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” From that time forward Abraham began to look for the promised Seed – the promised child. He looked first of all to his own children, and was finally informed that it would not be one of his children direct, but through their children, at some remote date, this child should be born – the Seed of Abraham. From that time onward, all the Israelites were waiting for the birth of the child that should bring the blessing.

But why was a Messiah necessary? Why wait at all for the birth of the child? The answer to this question is that sin had come into the world; that God had placed our first parents – holy, pure and free from sin – in the glorious conditions of the Garden of Eden with every favorable prospect and everlasting life at their command if they con­tinued in harmony with God. But by reason of their disobedience they came under Divine displeasure and sentence of death. This sentence of death has brought in its wake aches, pains, sorrows, tears, sighing, crying, dying and death – all of these experiences as the result of sin.

Our Heavenly Father said to our first parents – and this was the first intimation that He gave them of a deliverance – that “The seed of the woman shall bruise the ser­pent’s head.” The serpent in this expression means Satan ‑ all the powers of evil, everything adverse to humanity, everything adverse to the blessings which God had given them, and which they had lost by disobedience. But the promise was vague and they under­stood little about the “seed of the woman” and “bruising the serpent’s head.” It merely meant in an allegorical way a great victory over sin and Satan, without explaining how it should come.

So mankind continued to die; they continued to have aches and pains and sorrows; they continued going down to the tomb. They realized that what they needed was some Savior to come and deliver them from the power of sin, to deliver them from the death penalty of sin – a Savior who would be, in other words, a Life‑giver. They were dying and needed new life. This is the meaning of the word Savior in the language used by our Lord and the apostles. They were hoping and expecting that God would send a Life‑giver.

It was on this account that they were so greatly concerned regarding the promise made to Abraham – “In thee and in thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” – they shall be granted a release from sin and death. In no other way could mankind be blessed. It would be impossible to bless mankind except by releasing them from sin and death. Hence, the Scriptures tell us of God’s sympathy; that God looked down from His holy habitation, and beheld our sorrow, and heard, figuratively, “the groaning of the prisoners” – humanity – all groaning and travailing under this penalty of death – some with few aches and pains, and some with more aches and pains; some with few sorrows and some with greater sorrows, but all groaning and travailing in pain.

But God’s sympathy was manifested; and we read that, “He looked down and beheld that there was no eye to pity and no arm to save” and with “his own arm he brought salvation.” This is what was promised to Abraham, that one should come from his posterity who would be the Savior of the world; and because this promise was made to Abraham and to his seed, they were marked out as separate from all other nations and peoples. To the Jewish nation alone belonged this great honor – that through them should come this salvation. Hence, from that time onward the Jews spoke of themselves as God’s chosen people, the people whom God had promised to bless, and through whom He would bring a blessing to all others. Therefore, all other people were called heathen (or nations, which the word means). Israel was thus separated because God’s covenant was with them, and not with the others. But God’s covenant with Israel was for the blessing of all the others: “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Now we have the “why” of this wonderful babe’s being born.

HOW WAS THIS BABE PECULIAR ‑ HOLY, HARMLESS, UNDEFILED?

How could he be a Savior? In what way could he be different from any other babe? Why not use some other babe as the one through whom salvation should come? The answer of the Bible is that salvation could not come to mankind unless there should be a satisfaction of Justice on account of Original Sin. That must be the first consideration. The penalty, “Dying, thou shalt die,” pronounced against the first man, must be met before the world could be blessed.

Why not let any man die? Because all were under the sentence of the original condemnation, and none could be a ransom‑price or a substitute. Hence was the necessity for a specially born babe, different from any other babe. In what way was this One differently born? The Bible explains to us very distinctly that he was not begotten of an earthly father. Although Joseph was espoused to Mary, yet this child was not the child of Joseph. The Bible explains that this child was specially begotten by Divine Power, in the mother, though she was still a “virgin” when she brought forth the child.

This is the Scriptural proposition; and while it may not seem clear to some, yet the Word of God standeth sure. If the Redeemer was not perfect then He could not be the Savior of the world. The promised redemption implied that Jesus would be perfect; it implied that He would be as the first man was before he sinned. “For since by man came death, by man shall come also the resurrection of the dead”; “As all in Adam die, even so shall all in Christ be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21,22)

So this One must be, as the Apostle declares, “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners.” (Heb. 7:26) He must be entirely distinct and separate from humanity so far as sinful features were concerned. If we had time it would be interesting to go into the scientific features – of how a perfect child could be born from an imperfect mother. If we can have a perfect life germ, we can have a perfect child from an imperfect mother. If a breeder of stock wishes to raise the standard of his stock, he selects a fine bull, a male goat, or a male ram, and thus he improves the entire herd. And so, if we had perfect fathers, we would soon have a perfect race. But there is no father who can produce a perfect child. Hence it was neces­sary in this case (and the Scriptures declare it was accomplished) that God should beget this Son by power from on high. Therefore, that which was born of the “virgin” was separate and distinct from all humanity. His life came not from an earthly father, but from His Heavenly Father.

WHO WAS HE THUS BORN?

It is written that before He became flesh Jesus had an existence; as He declared, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Again, in one of His prayers He said, “Father glorify thou me with the glory that I had with thee before the world was.” The Revelator tells us that “He was the beginning of the creation of God,” and Paul says that “by him all things were made.” And so our Lord Jesus was not only the beginning, but also the active agent of the Father in all the creative work in the angelic world and in the creation of humanity, and in all things that were created.

The whole matter is summed up by the Apostle John. We will give a more literal translation of “In the beginning was the Word.” [This expression, Word, in the Greek is Logos. The thought behind the word Logos is that in olden times a king, instead of speaking his commands directly to his people, sat behind a lattice work, and his Logos, or messenger, or word, or representative, stood before the lattice work, and gave the message of the king to the people in a loud tone of voice. The king himself was not seen.] So this is the picture the Scriptures give us of how Jesus was the express representative of the Heavenly Father, the one through whom the Heavenly Father made Himself known ‑ the Word, or the Logos. So we read in the first chapter of John, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the God, and the Logos was a god. The same was in the beginning with the God. By him were all things made, and without him was not anything made.” (John 1:1, Dia.)

In other words, Jesus was the direct creator of all things. He was the Divine Power, Agent, Word, Messenger, the Logos of Jehovah. He did all the great work of creation; but He Himself was the first of God’s direct creation, the First‑born of all creatures, that in all things He might have the pre‑eminence – the first place.

When the time came that our Heavenly Father made known His great purpose that He would bless the world, He gave opportunity to this First‑begotten One ‑ this One begotten of the Father – to be the servant in this great work He intended to accomplish for mankind. Consequently, the Scriptures state that “for the joy set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.” (Heb.12:2) And now He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He has this great reward because of His obedience even unto death, the death of the cross.

The Apostle speaks of Him as having been rich, but for our sakes becoming poor, that through His poverty we might be made rich. He tells us how He left the glory which He had with the Father and humbled Himself to the human nature. Why? Be­cause, as already stated, it was necessary that some one should become man’s Redeemer, an angel could not redeem man, neither could an animal redeem man.

The Divine law is “an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; a man’s life for a man’s life.” (Matt. 5:38) This was to teach us a great lesson: that perfect human life having been condemned to death, it would require a perfect human life to redeem it. It was therefore necessary that Jesus should become the “Man Christ Jesus,” in order “that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for every man.” (Heb.2:9)

WHAT RESULTS HAVE FOLLOWED?

The results that have followed have been that He Himself proved His own faithfulness. “Being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8) – the most ignominious form of death. It pleased the Father thus to prove Him, not only by death, but by the most ignominious form of death – dying as a culprit, being crucified between two thieves. What a terrible ignominy to die thus!

It would be ignominy enough for us in our
imperfection, but for Him, perfect, “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners,” it must have been a cause for deep and poignant sorrow. Having completed the laying down of His life, at the end of the three and half years, He cried, “It is finished!” What? Not His work, for much of that lay before Him! He merely finished this part of the work, finished laying down His life a ransom‑price.

What next? After His death came His resurrection; and we read that “God raised him from the dead on the third day.” According to the Scrip­tures He was raised up from death a glorious being – “sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spirit body”; “Wherefore God hath highly exalted him and given him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven, and those on earth, and those under the earth; that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11)

But we see not yet all knees bowed to Him. Why not? The Scriptures tell us that before He begins His great work for the world of mankind, He first does a work for the elect, the Church, those who desire to walk in His footsteps, to gather out of the world a bride, to be co‑workers with Him in all the great work of the Father. This is the only work yet in process of accomplishment, and this has been going on now for over eighteen centuries. We see how He gathered out the saintly ones from amongst the Jews, “Israelites, indeed, in whom there was no guile.” Not finding enough to make the desired number, He proceeded to gather them from all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples.

The Apostle tells us that when this bride class is united with Him they shall be parts of the seed of Abraham; as we read, “And if ye be Christ’s then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs of the promise.” (Gal. 3:29) This statement relates to the promise made to Abraham that through him and his Seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Thus we see the work that Christ is accomplishing now.

The invitation to become the bride of Christ is a very special invitation and those who would be His must walk in the “narrow way.” If they will sit in His throne, they must suffer with Him. If they suffer with Him they shall also share His glory. So “the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that shall follow,” were not only to be accomplished in our Lord Jesus, personally, but He was an example for all the Church who are justified through faith in His blood.

They have a share with Him in His sufferings, and will share in His glory; they have also a share in the First Resurrection; as the Revelator declares, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection, on such the second death hath no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” (Rev. 20:6)

Saint Paul says, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord,” “that I might know him and the power of his resurrection" (the special resurrection) to the Divine nature. (Phlp. 3:8,10)

How? By being made conformable to His death; for, “If we suffer with him we shall also reign with him.” (2 Tim. 2:12)

WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?

All families of the earth are to be blessed, as originally promised in Eden: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” Also, as St. Paul states in the 16th chapter of Romans, “The very God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” So, then, the next thing in order in the outworking of God's plan will be to bruise Satan and destroy sin.

When and how will this be done? Just as soon as this Age shall end; because this Age is merely for the development of the bride class; then will come the promised free grace to all the families of the earth. Messiah’s Kingdom shall come. He has promised that when He shall reign, all His faithful shall reign with Him: “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in his throne.” (Rev. 3:21) All the Church will be associated with Him in His great Messianic Kingdom; and “he shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth”; and “Unto him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess, to the glory of God the Father”; “The knowledge of the glory of God shall fill the whole earth.” The whole earth will be­come as the Garden of Eden. Paradise Lost will be Paradise Restored. The Divine image lost in Adam will be restored to man.

Human nature will be brought to perfection. But the glorious reward to the Church will be the Divine nature, to sit at His right hand, and to bless the world of mankind. Man will become not only perfect, having all that Adam had, but will have additional know­ledge and character; and there is every evidence that this shall be an eternal blessing.

SHALL NONE BE LOST?

Yes, the Scriptures tell us that some will be lost, and that the loss they shall sustain will be loss of life, and therefore all the pleasures of life. “They shall be as though they had not been” (Obad. 1:16); “They shall be des­troyed from amongst the people.” St. Peter says, “They shall be destroyed as brute beasts.” (Acts 3:23; 2 Peter 2:12)

When? When the eyes of their understanding shall have been opened to see the Lord and to understand His glorious character, and they shall have had opportunity to appre­ciate and enjoy His blessing. When such intentionally reject the grace of God, they shall die the Second Death, from which there is no resurrection, no hope of recovery. But, thank God, there shall be no knowledge of suffering for them; they shall be de­stroyed as brute beasts.

In proportion as we believe in this babe of Bethlehem shall we rejoice today. In proportion as we believe He was manifested on our behalf; in proportion as we believe He died for our sins; in propor­tion as we recognize Him as the glorified Savior; in proportion as we have surrendered our hearts to Him and seek to do the things well pleasing to Him shall we have the peace of God.

Our hope on behalf of mankind in general is that in God’s due time His blessing shall reach all ‑ not the same as that for the Church, but as St. Peter tells us in Acts 3:19‑21, “Times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you, whom the heavens must retain until the times of restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets."

(Pastor Russell, Reprints 4963‑4965, February 1912)

Nothing is more necessary to the peace and prosperity of the Church of God than that its members should have a clear understanding and appreciation of moral principles, with a full determination to be controlled by them. Even among Christians there are often differences of opinion with reference to princi­ples of action, which greatly in­terfere with spiritual growth and prosperity. Such difficulties most fre­quently arise through failure to distinguish between the relative claims of love and justice. There­fore we consider it profitable to examine these principles and their operation among the children of God.

Justice is sometimes represented by a pair of evenly poised balances, and sometimes by a square and compass, both of which are fitting emblems of its character. Justice knows no compromise and no dev­ia­tion from its fixed rule of action. It is mathemati­cally precise. It gives nothing over for “good weight” or “good measure.” There is no grace in it, no heart, no sympathy, no favor of any kind. It is a calculating, exact measure of truth and righteousness. When justice is done, there are no thanks due to the one who metes it out. Such a one has merely done a duty, the neglect of which would have been culpable, and the doing of which merits no favor or praise. And yet, firm and relentless as this principle is, it is declared to be the very foundation of God’s throne. It is the principle which underlies all His dealings with His creatures. It is His unchangeable business principle; and how firmly He adheres to it is manifest to every one who understands the plan of salvation, the basis of which is the satisfac­tion of justice against our race. Though the arrangement for the satisfaction of jus­tice cost the life of His Only‑begotten and well‑beloved Son, so important was this principle of Divine justice that God freely gave Him up for us all.

JUSTICE, BEFORE GENEROSITY

The principles of love, unlike that of justice, overflows with tenderness, and longs to bless. It is full of grace, and delights in the bestowment of favor. It is manifest, however, that no action can be rewarded as a favor or a manifestation of love which has not underneath it the substantial foundation of justice. Thus, for instance, if one comes to you with a gift, and at the same time disregards a just debt to you, the gift falls far short of appreciation as an expression of love; and you say, “We should be just before we attempt to be generous.”

And this is right; if justice is the foundation principle in all of God's dealings, it should be the same in all of our dealings; and none the less so among brethren in Christ than among those in the world. As brethren in Christ, we have no right to presume upon the favor of one another. All to which we have a right is simple justice, though we may waive those things that are really our rights. But in our own dealings, we should strive always to render justice – justice in the payment of our honest debts to each other, justice in our judgment one of another (which must make due allowance for frailties, etc., because we recognize in ourselves some measure of similar imperfection), and justice in fair and friendly treatment one of another.

As we have just said, there is no obligation to demand justice for ourselves, and we may, if we choose, even suffer injustice uncomplainingly. We must, however, if we are Christ’s, render justice so far as we are enabled to recognize it. In other words, we are not responsible for the action of others in this respect, but are responsible for our own. Therefore we are to endeavor earnestly that all our actions, our words and our thoughts may be squared by the exact rule of justice, before we offer even one single act as an expression of love.

JUSTICE, EQUITY, A CHRISTIAN QUALITY

It would appear that many Christian people spend years of their experience without making any great progress. One difficulty is a failure to recognize the basic principles underlying the Divine laws, which apply to us from the moment we are adopted into the Lord’s family. The first of these basic principles is justice. We need to learn more and more clearly what are our own rights and the rights of our fellow creatures in the Church and out of the Church. We need to learn how to measure the affairs of ourselves and of others with the plummet of justice, and to recognize that we must not under any circumstances or conditions infract the rights, interests or liberties of others, to do so would be wrong, sinful, contrary to the Divine will, and a serious hindrance to our growth in grace.

Secondly, we must learn to esteem love next to justice in importance in the Divine code. By love we mean, not amativeness, nor soft sentimentality, but that principle of kindness, sympathy, consideration and benevolence which we see manifested in our Heavenly Father and in our Lord Jesus.

In proportion as we grow up in the Lord, strong in Him, it must be along the lines of these elements of His character. More and more we must appreciate and sympathize with others in their trials and difficulties and afflictions; more and more we must become gentle, patient, kind towards all, but especially toward the household of faith. All the graces of the spirit are elements of love. God is love; and whoever receives of His spirit receives the spirit of love.

These two basic principles must cover all of our conduct in life. Justice tells us that we must cease to do evil ‑ that we must not speak a word nor do an act that would work injustice to another, nor even by look imply such injustice; that we must be as careful of his or her interest and welfare as of our own. Justice may permit us to give them more than justice could require, but justice demands that we must never give them less than due. No matter if they do not require justice at our hands, no matter if they are willing to take less than justice, no matter if they would say nothing if we should take advantage of them, no matter if they would not appreciate our degree of justice, still our course is the same. We have received of the Lord’s Spirit, and must act from this standpoint and not from the standpoint of others who have not His spirit or who are more or less blinded and disabled from dealing justly.

LOVE AND JUSTICE BOTH CONTROL

If justice must mark our conduct toward others, so love must be used by us in meas­uring the conduct of others toward us. We may not apply to others the strict rules of justice which we acknowledge as our responsibility to them. Love, generosity, demands that we accept from others less than justice, because we realize that they are fallen, imperfect, not only in their flesh, but also in their judgments. Furthermore, we see that the great mass of the world has not received the spirit of the Lord at all, and therefore cannot appre­ciate these basic principles of justice and love as we appreciate them. We must in love look sym­pathetically upon their condition, as we would upon the condition of a sick neighbor, friend, parent or child. We must make allowance for their disordered condition, and think as charitably as possible of their words, conduct, etc.

This does not mean that we are to be blind or oblivious to true conditions, and permit ourselves to be deprived of all that we possess or earn; but it does mean that we should take a kind, sympathetic view of the unrighteousness and injustice of those with whom we have dealings. We should remember that they are fallen, and that they have not received the grace of God as we have received it; and that they are not, therefore, to be measured by the line of strict justice, but rather that their imperfections are to be allowed for reasonably by the elastic cord of love. It is our own conduct that we are to measure by the law of justice, the Golden Rule.

HOW LOVE MAY OVERFLOW THE MEASURE

How clearly the Master sets forth these conditions, urging upon us the Golden Rule as the measure for our conduct toward others, and that in measuring their conduct toward us we shall be as generous as we shall wish our Lord to be in His judgment of ourselves, in harmony with His state­ment, ‘With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged”! A right appreciation of these basic princi­ples, justice and love, by the Lord’s people, and worked out in the daily affairs of life, would lift them above the world. It would save many an altercation, many a law suit, many a quarrel, and would make of the Lord’s people shining examples of kindness, generosity, love, and at the same time examples of justice, right living, sterling honesty, etc.

Love is not, like justice, an exact principle to be measured and weighed. It is three‑fold in character: it is pitiful; it is sympathetic, in the sense of kinship of soul – affectionate; it is reverential. These different forms of love are exercised according to the object upon which love is centered. Pity‑love is the lowest form of love; it takes cognizance of even the vile and degraded, and is active in measures of relief. Sym­pathetic love rises higher, and proffers fellow­ship, comradeship. But the reverential love rises above all these, and delights in the contemplation of the good, the pure and the beautiful. In this latter form we may indeed love God supremely, as the personification of all that is truly worthy of admiration and reverence; and love our fellow men in proportion as they bear His likeness. The Divine law demands love, both to God and to man.

Although we owe to every man, as a duty, love in one of these senses, we may not demand it one of another; but love overflows justice. Love shakes the measure, presses it down, heaps it up. The lack of love is not to be complained of by the Christian, however, but when bestowed it is to be appreciated gratefully and reciprocated gener­ously. Every one who craves love should crave it in its highest sense ‑ in the sense of admiration and reverence. But this form of love is the most costly; and the only way to secure it is to manifest that nobility of character which calls it forth from others who are truly noble, truly like our Lord Jesus.

The love begotten of sympathy and fellowship is also very precious. But any senti­ment that comes merely in response to a demand, is deprived of love’s choicest aroma. Therefore never demand love, but rather by manifestation of it toward others court its reciprocation. The love of pity is not called out by the nobility of the subject, but rather by the nobility of the bestower, whose heart is so full of love that it over­flows in generous impulses toward even the un­wor­thy. All of the objects of pity, however, are not unworthy of love in the higher senses; and some such often draw upon our love in every sense.

A SELFISH, ONE‑SIDED VIEW

To demand love's overflow of blessing – which is beyond the claim of justice ‑ is only an exhibition of covetousness. We may act on this principle of love ourselves, but we may not claim it from others. If we do, we manifest a lack of love and the possession of a considerable measure of selfishness. Some seem to see clearly where brotherly love should be extended to themselves, but are slow to see their own obligations in this respect.

For instance, two brethren were once rooming together, and through a failure to consider the relative claims of both love and justice, one presumed upon the brotherly love of the other to the extent of expecting him to pay the entire rent of the room. When the other urged the claim of justice, the first urged the claim of brotherly‑love, and the former reluctantly yielded, not knowing how to refute the claim, yet feeling that somehow some Christians had less principle than many worldly people. How strange that any of God’’ children should take so narrow, so one‑sided, so selfish a view! Cannot all see that love and justice should work both ways; that it is the duty of each not to oversee others in these respects, but to look well to his own course, to see that he manifests brotherly love; and that if he would teach others, it should be rather by example than by precept?

LET LOVE REIGN SUPREME

Let us beware of a disposition toward covet­ousness. Let us each remember that he is steward over the Lord's goods entrusted to him, and not over those entrusted to his brother; that each is accountable to the Lord, and not to others, for the right use of that which the Master has placed in his hands. There is nothing much more unbecoming and unlovely in the children of God than a disposition to petty criticism of the individual affairs of one another. It is a business too small for the saints, and manifests a sad lack of that brotherly love which should be especially manifest in broad and generous consid­eration, which would rather cover a multitude of sins than to magnify one.

The Christian is to have the loving, generous disposition of heart ‑ a copy of the Heavenly Father’s disposition. In trivial affairs he is to have so much sympathy and love that he will take no notice, just as God for Christ’s sake deals with us and does not impute sin to us, except as it represents knowledge and willfulness. With such a rule operating amongst Christians, a determination not to recognize as an offense anything that is not purposely done, or intended as an offense, would be a great blessing to all, and the proper, God‑like course. The trans­gres­sions to which our Lord refers in Matthew 18:15‑17, are not the trivial affairs of no consequence, are not evil surmisings and imaginings, are not rumors, are not fancied insults, but positive wrongs done us, and on account of which it is our duty, kindly and lovingly and wisely, to give some proper rebuke – some intimation that we recognize the wrong and that it has grieved us and hurt us and needs correction.

The disposition to forgive should be with us always, and should be manifested by us at all times. Our loving generosity, our kindness and our desire to think no evil or as little evil as possible, should be manifest by all the words and acts of life. This is God‑like. God had a kind, benevolent, generous sen­timent toward us even while we were yet sinners. Nor did He wait for the sinners to ask forgiveness, but promptly manifested His desire for harmony and His readiness to forgive. The whole Gospel message is to this effect: “Be ye reconciled to God.” Our hearts should be so full of this disposition toward forgive­ness that our faces would not have a hard look, nor our words of reproof a bitter sting. We should manifest the loving forgiveness that we should have in our hearts at all times.

May love and justice find their proper, relative places in the hearts of all of God’s people, that so the enemy may have no occasion to glory! The Psalmist said, “O how I love thy law [the law of love whose foundation is justice]! It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalms 119:97) Surely, if God’s law were the con­stant meditation of all, there would be fewer and less glaring mistakes than we often see! Let us watch and be sober, that the adversary and our fallen flesh may not gain an advantage over us as new creatures. Let SELF be more and more eliminated and LOVE reign supreme. (Pastor Russell, Reprints 5883‑5885)

NO. 651 MAKE IT YOUR OWN

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim 2:15)

Whatever you hear on Television or Radio; whatever you read in newspapers or books regardless of from whence and from whom it came, it is not yours. If it is from a presenter, speaker, writer, preacher, evangelist, politician, catechism or whatever, even if it appeals to you, it is not yours. No matter how much it may appeal take it under advisement, do not accept it – yet. Do your own carefully organized, in fact scientific investigation until you are thoroughly convinced it is the truth. Only then, consider it a valid theory that you might accept, though it requires further study. Do not be like sheep following a leader right off the cliff – “Ours not to reason why, ours but to do and die.” After you discover the truth, make it your own.

Study the scriptures

“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.” (2 Tim 3:16,17 Diaglott)

Read these verses in the KJV and other translations to compare. Check Comments and at least one of the exhaustive or analytical concord­ances. Remember the Scriptures in your language are not the Holy Scriptures but a translation, and it may contain errors which the Lord God has permitted, so only the truly committed FIND THE TRUTH and make it their own.

“Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” (Gen. 5:2) The family head was the male.

Adam created from the substance of the earth

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7)

He did not say that man came forth as had other living creatures and vegetation of the earth. This shows that man was a special and direct crea­tion of the “LORD God.” The Creator did not install within Adam an Immortal Soul in this text or in any other of the Holy Scriptures. Adam “became” a living soul. The word in Hebrew is Nephesh (mean­ing a breathing creature) derived from naphash meaning to breath. When life goes out of a person, the soul dies and the body decays back to the substance from which it was made. The Creator loses nothing. HE still has the dust from which man was created and the power, wisdom, justice and love to recreate him.

“God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them”. (Gen. 1:27)

Eve was created from the substance of Adam (his rib Gen 2:22) to be his companion and the two combined were “The Adam.”

“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (Gen. 1:28) The English word replenish, which means “to re-fill”, is translated from the Hebrew word mawlay, which means “fill.” God made man the ruler of the earth, one of the aspects of man’s image of his Maker.

Notice that Adam and Eve did not conceive children until after they had received the death sentence from the Creator for disobedience to God’s Law. So Adam’s offspring inherited the dying, thou

shalt die sentence imposed upon him and all of us – his progeny. This death sentence was rendered upon Adam for his disobedience to the one law God gave him. “...in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen 2:17) Surely die? No mention of eternal torment here or anywhere else in the Holy Scriptures.

The single law given to Adam was simple and entirely possible for the inexperienced first man to understand and obey and it had a very clear penalty.

more thoughts on beliefs

The atheist exhibits an amazingly enormous credulity in his belief that there is no God; the uni­verse created itself and the subsequent appearance of intelligent life was simply a biological accident. My how they do light up the sky with their so-called “science”!

Albert Einstein, perhaps the greatest scientist of the 20th century, named “person of the century” by Time Magazine said, “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.” Imagine if this man had devoted his wondrous mind to discovering the truth about God and his plan for mankind?

The United   States is said by some to be the most religious nation in the world, but the most ignorant concerning its beliefs – A slam to religious orthodoxy?

Christopher Hitchens, the famous British auth­or, critic and commen­tator, now a resident of USA, wrote the book God Is Not Great. It was near the top of best sellers’ lists for a number of weeks. We have not read it since assuredly the god he is writing about is the god of “orthodox” religions.

He will not have written about the God of the prophets of the Old Testament nor the God of Jesus and his apostles of the New Testament. These testify to The Heavenly Father’s main characteristics – Power, Wisdom, Justice and Love. We know he didn't write about this God, because he doesn't know anything about him. He has never made a “scientific” study of HIS inspired Books. The god he writes about is not great because he is the god of this present evil world (Gal 1:4) and is designated “...the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” (Eph 2:2)

v24“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is LORD of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.

v25Neither is worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; v26And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; v27That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us

 v28“For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are his offspring. v29Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. V30And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: v31Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he had ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. v32And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.” (Acts 17:24-32)

 “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.”  (2 Tim. 3:16-17, Diaglott)

“For I would not, brethren, [Spiritual Israel] that ye should be ignorant of this mystery,[Secret] lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, [temporary blindness] until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” (Rom 11:25)

“Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God [Ignorance alienates from God] through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:” (Eph 4:18)

WHEN GOD WAS ALONE!

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (Psa. 90:2)

 “I am the LORD: [personal name of the Almighty GOD] that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, [The Son never sought and never will seek to be equal to the Father’s Glory, but always to add to it.]  neither my praise to graven images.” (Isa. 42:8)

“But to us there is but one God, the Father, [Not three] of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.” (1 Cor. 8:6)

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deut. 6:4)

These and other Scriptures tell us of a personal God, the Father or Life-Giver of all, the Great One who inhabiteth Eternity. St. Paul declares that to the heathen “there be gods many, and lords many, but to us there is but one God, the Father,” (1Cor 8:5,6) and one appointed Agent of His in dealing with humanity one Lord Jesus Christ. “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:11)

The Scriptures tell us of “the beginning of the creation of God.” Hence there was a time before that beginning of creation when The Almighty God was alone— “He that inhabiteth Eternity.” Not even the great Michael was with Him, the great Messiah, whom God has so highly honored and whom He declares He will still further honor throughout a glorious eternity. He was not with the Father before the beginning of creation; for He Himself was “the Beginning of the creation of God”— “the First-born of every creature.” (Rev. 3:14; Col. 1:15) He was the first expression or manifestation of the Divine attributes (John 1:18).

DIVINE ATTRIBUTES GLORIOUS

This Almighty God, self-centered, self-contain­ed, is ours; the same yesterday, today and forever, HE changes not. Every attribute of the Divine character is the same today as it was millions of years ago but then that same character was unrevealed.

Every step of creation has tended to display the Divine character more and more, and each successive step and development of creation has brought forth new creatures capable of compre­hending the Eternal One. We deem it not unreas­onable to assume that The Lord God’s creative power will continue to be exercised throughout all the unlimited time to come.

Astronomical photography now reveals nearly 125,000,000 suns, around which circle systems such as the one which circles around our sun, and of which our earth is a part. We deem it not un­reas­onable to assume, from the Scriptures, that the great work of ordering all those hundreds of millions of planets stretches forward into eternity. That the work of Divine grace, begun on the planet “Earth,” will be continued throughout the Universe, not only in conjunction with the planetary systems we can discern, but probably with millions of planetary systems too far removed from us to be discerned.

THE PERMISSION OF EVIL

Doubtless Divine methods in connection with other worlds and other inhabitants will display the manifold wisdom of God. For instance, we under­stand the Bible to indicate that while the permission of evil in the earth was wise, it will not necessarily be wise or expedient for any reason to permit a similar reign of Sin and Death in any other of the millions of worlds. That is with their ordering or development and their peopling with glorious crea­tures that will show forth the praises of the great Creator without their passing through experiences with sin and death such as have been permitted in connection with the humanity of earth.

Can we not see a broad reason for the permission of evil on the earth. for the permission of the reign of Sin and Death, which for six thousand years has apparently disgraced the Creator, degraded humanity, astonished the angels and constituted our race a groaning creation? Only when we discern that Messiah’s Kingdom will surely bring order out of this confusion, do we begin to get the proper focus upon our subject and realize something of the greatness of our God.

From the standpoint of the completion of the Divine purposes in connection with humanity, and from that standpoint alone, can we see illustrated Divine Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power. The primary lesson was Justice, which sin brings suffering and eventually death. The second lesson was that of Divine compassion, sympathy-Love. This lesson was mani­fested in the sending of the Redeemer and His subsequent reward of exaltation, and His gathering of an “elect” Church to be His associates in glory and in the blessing of the redeemed race. The Reign of Glory, the Reign of Messiah, soon to be introduced, will lift up poor humanity from sin and sorrow, from degra­dation and death, and give to each and all the fullest opportunity to return to human perfection and to Divine favor and everlasting life. In that work of human resti­tution, which will include the awakening of mankind from the sleep of death, the one great lesson will be the greatness of the Divine Power. It will be exercised through Messiah, the God-like One, the Prince of Life, “the Prince of Glory,” the Redeemer, the Regenerator of Adam and the whole race of mankind, His posterity, who have shared his death sentence.

And finally, from the standpoint of the completion of The Lord God’s great purposes, His dealings with man, will stand revealed the Fore­knowledge and Wisdom of God, who knew the end from the beginning. He foresaw how even the permission of a reign of Sin and Death could be made eventually to work out to His own glory and to the blessing and instruction of His creatures on both the human and the angelic planes. Then will be revealed to all, the glorious character of their Creator, and the necessity for His requirement of absolute righteousness and perfection.

Surely, the result eventually will be as the Scriptures declare, that all shall learn righteousness, and hate iniquity; and that every creature in Heaven and in earth and under the earth shall acclaim both Jehovah, who sitteth upon the Throne of the Universe, and the Lamb, the Redeemer, forever (Rev. 5:13,14).

If we allow ourselves to speculate respecting the future regarding the Divine purposes in relation to the millions of worlds around us, our speculations would run thus: those instructed and used of Yahweh, The Almighty God, in the initial devel­opment of the Divine Plan in the earth, will thereby be fitted and prepared to be the Divine Agents to other worlds. The Great Redeemer and His “elect” associates, after dealing with humanity for their uplift out of sin and death conditions, will surely be qualified for further service in other worlds, to “show forth the praises of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

And what shall we say of humanity when perfected at the end of Messiah’s glorious Reign? Will not all be well prepared, not only to approve righteousness in themselves, but to tell it in other worlds, to other races. The story of the fall and of the reign of Sin and Death resulting; and of the redemption accomplished by God’s love; of the great restitution and of the lessons learned?

THE UNCHANGEABLE ONE

The qualities of the Divine character which we have just considered—Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power—belonged to our Creator in the great eternity preceding creation. But there was no one at that time to appreciate God. It requires a full view of the perfected Plan of the Ages to make known to any and to all the glory of the Lord. As we have just seen, thus far the secret of the Lord and the glories of His character are known only to His “sons,” begotten of His Holy Spirit. But the time nears when “the whole earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the great deep.” He and His glorious government will then be “the desire of all nations”; “The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” (Hag. 2:7; Isa. 40:5)

St. Paul assures us that every feature of the Divine Plan which we see in process of execution was known to The Lord God from before the foundation of the world. He declares that these things God purposed in Himself before the found­ation of the world. The creative processes, which have been operating for thousands of years, were all surely elaborated in the mind of Jehovah before the creative work began. In that purpose angels had a part —of how many grades we may not surely know, but they are variously designated in the Holy Scriptures as “angels, principalities and pow­ers.” Later came the creation of man, “a little lower than the angels” and crowned with earthly honor, dignity and power, in the image and likeness of his glorious Creator.

These creations varied not in degrees of perfection and imperfection. Each was perfect on its own plane. Each intelligent creature was a free, moral agent, and hence, whether on the angelic or human plane, was created in the likeness of God, unblemished, but with different capacities and abil­ities. Almighty God, infinite in Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power, purposed the orderly exercise of His infinite powers, as a great Father, desirous of giving life and happiness to His creatures.

These intelligent ones were designated “Sons of God” so long as they maintained their attitude of perfect loyalty to Him, their Creator and Father. Not only was it the Divine purpose thus to give pleasure to millions of creatures to be created, but it was also the Divine will to manifest to His creatures His own greatness and the perfection of His own goodness that they might enjoy Him and He enjoy them ever­lastingly.

We are not to understand that Almighty God was lonely in that great Eternity before creation began. On the contrary, human loneliness is largely because of human deficiency. What we lack we seek for in others. But the great Yahweh lacked nothing; He was complete in Himself; He needed not companionship to complete or to supplement His happiness. It was His pleasure to create, that His creatures might have joy by reflecting as a whole His Divine qualities implanted in them.

The wreck of the human race produced by sin He well foreknew. Nor did this wrecking of human hopes defeat, nor was it in danger of defeating, the Divine purpose. It merely demonstrates to angels and to men the graces of the Divine character and shows unto all more fully the qualities of God proper to be appreciated and copied by all His intelligent creatures.

THE SEVEN-SEALED SCROLL

Revelation Chapter 5

In which God illustrates to us His own great personality. When He would show to His creatures how He is working all things according to the counsel of His own will, which He pictured sym­bolically in the Book of Revelation. In that vision the Throne of the Eternal One is graphically por­trayed as the seat of Divine power and authority for the Universe, with angels as ministering spirits. Then is described a scroll, in the right hand of The Lord God, in Divine power and keeping. That scroll, written inside and outside, was “sealed with seven seals,” representing the complete secrecy of the Divine purposes related in that scroll. From before the foundation of the world it had been in the hand (in the power) of The Great Eternal. He had given hints respecting it and had caused it to be symbolized in the Law and to some extent to be described by the Prophets. But still it was a Hidden Mystery; for the Prophets understood not the things which they wrote; nor could any understand them until the Father’s “due time.” (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Not only was the Divine Program thus sealed and safely secreted, but it was the Divine determ­ination that it should be given only to the One who would demonstrate His worthiness to be Yahweh’s honored Agent for the carrying out of those pur­poses, predestinated before the world was. The honor of being the Agent, the Representative of The Great Yahweh, to carry out the Divine purposes, should be disclosed in advance only to the One who would demonstrate His worthiness to be the great Messiah, the great Deliverer, Prophet, Priest, Judge, King of Israel.

High as the Redeemer stood in the Divine counsels and fellowship before he came into the world to be man’s Redeemer, it was not then granted even to Him to know all the mysteries of the Divine Program. But by virtue of His high station, His perfection, His obedience, the privilege was given to Him first to become man’s Redeemer, at the cost of personal humiliation and death; and then, if faithful in this redemptive work, it should be His to be glor­ified, exalted to the Divine nature, and to execute the Divine Program to its completion. First, He must manifest His devotion and loyalty to the Father, before he could be trusted even with the knowledge of the Divine Program for blessing the whole world of mankind.

 “WORTHY IS THE LAMB”

All this is declared in the account. (Rev. 5) The proclamation was made, who is worthy to receive the scroll and to break its seals and to execute the wonderful purposes of God? None was found worthy! Finally, one demonstrated His worth­iness. He left the courts of glory; He humbled Himself, He “was made flesh.” More than this, being found in fashion as a man, He consecrated His all to the doing of the Father’s will, even unto death, the death of the cross. Wherefore, says the Apostle, “God also highly exalted Him” and gave Him a standing, a rank, a title above all others. (Phil. 2:7-9) He commissioned Him to execute all the Divine purposes; and to Him He handed over the Scroll with the privilege of opening its seals and compre­hending its message.

hope in this life

“If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable.” (1Cor. 15:19)

In other words, if our hope in Christ is merely dependent upon the circumstances of this present life, we rob ourselves of what little enjoyment and advantage that might be gained here.

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.” (1 Cor 15:20) The Emphatic Diaglott has it “But now Christ has been raised.”

It wasn’t God that had died here. The love of God was manifested toward us, because God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him (1 John 4:9).

Christ was dead, unconscious and not breathing for part of three days. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” (Eccl. 9:10)

“In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was a God.” (John 1:1, Diaglott)

In other words, Christ was the first in the beginning of God’s creation. He was the first-fruit of all creation.

the holy scriptures

“And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which  is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim 3:15)

The early settlers to North America sought religious freedom and some of the current immi­grants seek those same rights. The Constitution and Bill of Rights invoke the name “Almighty God” as does the preamble of nearly every state constitution. All the nation’s legal tender contains the words “In God We Trust.”

The United States is considered to be the most religious of all nations of the world and this might well be true. The Harper San Francisco book catalog (May-August, 2007, Page 15) states that, the annual expenditure for Bibles in America is currently $425 million and the average American household con­tains four Bibles.

Until recent times, the Bible traditionally was used for teaching the basic standards of private and public moral conduct. It has been the “foundation” of our laws and judicial system, as well as the moral standard for federal and state governments.

Why the King james bible endures

By Charles McGrath – April 23, 2011 NY Times

The King James Bible, which was first pub­lished 400 years ago, may be the single best thing ever accomplished by a committee. The KJV translation of the Bible was the work of 54 scholars divided into six groups of nine member sub-committees each called “companies” meeting separately on equal portions of the 66 little books.

In a preface to the new Bible, Miles Smith, one of the translators and a man so impatient that he once walked out of a boring sermon and went to the pub, wrote that anything new inevitably “endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition.” So there must have been disputes, shouting, table pounding, high-ruffed, black-gowned clergymen folding their arms and stomping out of the room, but there is no record of that. And the finished text shows none of the PowerPoint insipidness we associate with committee-speak or with later group translations like the 1961 New English Bible, which T.S. Eliot said did not even rise to “dignified mediocrity.” Far from bland, the King James Bible is one of the great masterpieces of English prose.

The issue of how, or even whether, to translate sacred texts was a fraught one in those days, often with political as well as religious overtones, and it still is. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, recently decided to retranslate the missal used at Mass to make it more formal and less conversa­tional. Critics have complained that the new text is awkward and archaic, while its defenders (some of whom probably still prefer the Mass in Latin) insist that’s just the point — that language a little out of the ordinary is more devotional and inspiring. No one would ever say that the King James Bible is an easy read. And yet its very oddness is part of its power.

From the start, the King James Bible was intended to be not a literary creation but rather a political and theological compromise between the established church and the growing Puritan move­ment. What the king cared about was clarity, simplicity, doctrinal orthodoxy. The translators worked hard on that, going back to the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and yet they also spent a lot of time tweaking the English text in the interest of euphony and musicality. Time and again the language seems to slip almost unconsciously into iambic pentameter. This was the age of Shakespeare, commentators are always reminding us, and right from the beginning the translators embraced the principles of repetition and the dramatic pause: “In the beginning God created the Heaven, and the Earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

The influence of the King James Bible is so great that the list of idioms from it that have slipped into everyday speech is practically endless, taking such deep root that we use them all the time without any awareness of their biblical origin: sour grapes; fatted calf; salt of the earth; drop in a bucket; skin of one’s teeth; apple of one’s eye; girded loins; feet of clay; whited sepulchers; filthy lucre; pearls before swine; fly in the ointment; fight the good fight; eat, drink and be merry.

But what we also love about this Bible is its strangeness; its weird punctuation, odd pronouns (as in “Our Father, which art in heaven”), all those verbs that end in “eth”: “In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.” As Robert Alter has demonstrated in his startling and revealing translations of the Psalms and the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible is even stranger, and in ways that the King James translators may not have entirely comprehended, and yet their text performs the great trick of being at once recognize-ably English and also a little bit foreign. You can hear its distinctive cadences in the speeches of Lincoln, the poetry of Whitman, the novels of Cormac McCarthy.

Even in its time, the King James Bible was deliberately archaic in grammar and phraseology: an expression like “yea, verily,” for example, had gone out of fashion some 50 years before. The translators didn’t want their Bible to sound contemporary, because they knew that contemporaneity quickly goes out of fashion. In his very useful guide, “God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible,” Adam Nicolson points out that when the Victorians came to revise the King James Bible in 1885, they embraced this principle wholeheartedly, and like those people who whack and scratch old furniture to make it look even more ancient, they threw in a lot of extra Jacobeanisms, like “howbeit,” “perad­ven­ture,” “holden” and “behooved.”

This is the opposite, of course, of the procedure followed by most new translations, starting with Good News for Modern Man, a paperback Bible published by the American Bible Society in 1966, whose goal was to reflect not the language of the Bible but its ideas, rendering them into current terms, so that Ezekiel 23:20, for example (“For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses”) becomes “She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.”

There are countless new Bibles available now, many of them specialized: a Bible for couples, for gays and lesbians, for recovering addicts, for surfers, for skaters and skateboarders, not to mention a superheroes Bible for children. They are all “accessible,” but most are a little tone-deaf, lacking in grandeur and majesty, replacing “through a glass, darkly,” for instance, with something along the lines of “like a dim image in a mirror.” But what this modernizing ignores is that the most powerful religious language is often a little elevated and incantatory, even ambiguous or just plain hard to understand. The new Catholic missal, for instance, does not seem to fear the forbidding phrase, replacing the statement that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” with the more complicated idea that he is “consubstantial with the Father.”

Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor. Even some of us who are nonbelievers want a God who speaketh like — well, God. The great achievement of the King James translators is to have arrived at a language that is both ordinary and heightened, that rings in the ear and lingers in the mind. And that all 54 of them were able to agree on every phrase, every comma, without sounding as gassy and evasive as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is little short of amazing, in itself proof of something like divine inspiration.

Not the holy scriptures

Most English speaking Biblical scholars seem to prefer the King James version of the Holy Scriptures. However, it should be understood that all translations of the original languages from the various writers of the “little books” are, in fact, translations and are subject to the translator’s lifetime of learned beliefs and superstitions, no matter how conscientious this person might have been. So the King James version or any other translation is NOT “The Holy Scriptures.”

One of the chief tricks of the Prince of the Power of the Air in this Present Evil World is to create controversy. It gives the adversary better control. The Heavenly Father has permitted this to make it necessary to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Tim. 2:15)

Also it should be noted that the Ancient Aramaic/Hebrew (Old Testament) and Ancient Greek (New Testament) like all languages changed down through the years. Aramaic is a Semitic language belonging to the Afroasiatic language family. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic subfamily, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic group of languages, which also includes Canaanite languages such as Hebrew and Phoenician. Aramaic script was widely adopted for other languages and is ancestral to both the Arabic and modern Hebrew alphabets.

During its 3,000-year written history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires and as a language of divine worship. It was the day-to-day language of Israel in the Second Temple period (539 BCE – 70 CE), was the original language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra; was the language spoken by Jesus, and is the main language of the Talmud.

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic (c. 9th–6th centuries BC), Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (“common”) or Biblical Greek, (New Testament) and its late period mutates imperceptibly into Medieval Greek. Koine is regarded as a separate historical stage of its own, although in its earlier form it closely resembles Classical Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects.

Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of classical Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in Western educational institutions since the Renaissance. Latinized forms of Ancient Greek roots are used in many of the scientific names of species and in scientific terminology.

So, the problem of the Biblical translators of The Holy Scriptures becomes extremely apparent. To the unlearned in languages of the average want-to-be Bible Student, it is nearly impossible. But the Lord allowed this so that we must study to gain his approval.

Some people endeavor to read the entire Bible every year and there are a number of plans published to help the reader do this. Though reading the Script­ures is very ennobling; it is not studying to shew thyself approved.

Perhaps we Americans should donate one or two of our Bibles to needy families and get one of several Exhaustive Concordances to help us study.