The advocate. [volume] (Charleston, W. Va.) 1901-1913, 1912-09-12


Creator and lost his right to eternal lifs !
by his disobedience. The sheep class
will represent all Of Adams race
brought back to perfection by the proc
esses Of Restitution during Messiah's
reign. (Acts iii, 1929 10 them will
come the dominion which Adam lost
and which Jesus redeemed at Calvary
and which He will give to the worthy
ones at the conclusion Of His thou
sand-year reign. Next, the fate Of the
goat class is stated-not In literal Ian
Prophet and the Apostle declared of
Jesus that Gle opened His mouth In
parallels" and that without a para
BILE spake He not unto the people,"
In other words, everything that Jesus
said to the people in general was f1g-
urative, in order that only those Of
right condition Of heart might be able
to understand Him. ..... '....,
The message Of the great King to the
goat class will be, Depart from Me,
We cursed, into everlasting fire pre-
(Matthew XIV, 41) We might as we'll
insist that the parable applies to literal
goats as to claim that this penalty Is
literal fire. All who have studied the
subject will freely admit that fire
throughout the Bible is used fgurative-
ly to represent destruction. Fire Is
not used as q symbol for Adamic death,
the sentence upon all Of the race, be-
cause God from the beginning purposed
the setting aside of that sentence
through the redemptive work of Jesus;
hence Adamic death Is not destruc-
ton, but in tho Bible Is styled, SYM
bolically, failing asleep" and resur-
rection Is styled awakening from
Sleep" 3.
But when p1cturing the Second
Death, the Bible uses strong terms,
representing destruction in the fullest
and most absolute sense. Mark the
words used: "Pertsh," ".Second DEATH"
"Ererlasting Destruction" We even
overlooked the plain explanation which
Jesus gave us when He said, "the lake
of fire, which is the Second Death"
Revelation Xxx, 14) st. Peter, sum-
ming up the fate Of the 1ncorrigibly
wicked, says that they shall be destroy
ed like natural brute BEASTS, II Peter
IL, 12) Only a bugaboo Of eternal tor
ment, hundreds Of years old, could have
SO alarmed us that we failed to note
these matters long ago.
Meanwhile, alas, while many Of the
learned have abandoned the doctrine of
eternal torment, they have practically
abandoned everything else in the Bible,
because they supposed the Bible to
teach this inconsistency. Let us not
follow them into Higher Criticism"
infdelity and total rejection of the in
SEPARATION Of Gods Word, but let us
compare Scripture with Scripture and
use our God-given reason within the
boundaries Of Gods Message So doing
we are seeing more and more the glor-
ious perfection Of our Fathers charac-
ter and Of His inspired Word.
Reasoning by Contrast.
J.; Some shallow thinkers have been
thrown off the track Of religious inves-
! tigation, reasoning that If there is q
heaven, there must Of necessity be q
hell Of torment. But the contrast
which the Bible establishes in respect
to the sinner and the saint is life and
dedth-and not heapen and he'll AS a
matter of fact the Bible nowhere
promises heaven to any except the
! Church of the First-borns, who are
now being called out Of the world for
! association with Messiah in His King
! dom. The world Of mankind never
! lost heaven and is nowhere promised
! heaven.
Adams loss was an earthly Eden, a
! human perfection. Jesus declares that
! He "came to seek and to save that
! which was lost" The work Of His
Kingdom for thousand years will be
! the bringing Of earth to q Paradise
! condition. And He will restore all the
willing and obedient Of mankind to all
! that t0as lost bringing them back
again to the image and likeness Of
! God In the flesh. Adam possessed
these qualities when he was declared
! by his Creator very good" and was
: given the dominion OF earth.
! When Adam was placed on trial in
Eden he was endowed with perfection
! Of life and organism as man. God
! said not one word to him about heaven
! or hell, but did set before him Hfe and
death. If he would be obedient he
should be privileged to maintain his
! life and all his projections and bless
! lngs eyerlastingly. If he would rebel
against his Creators laws and be dis
! obedicnt thereto he should die-~be cut
off from life. He was disobedient, and
was expelled from Eden into the &C
cursed, or unfit earth, where he died O
slow death, battling with thorns and
thlstles. This has been the fate Of his
entire e-death-nental, moral and
physical decay to completion.