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Overland Monthly / OV165 - Pastor Russell and the Monitor (Part II)
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OV165 PASTOR RUSSELL AND THE MONITOR
BY C. T. RUSSELL Pastor Brooklyn and London Tabernacles
PART II.
The Jewish nation consisted of twelve
tribes. Some of all were at Jerusalem in Palestine, the center of their
national life. But two tribes, mainly, were represented there—Judah and
Benjamin. These two, therefore, may be specially considered as the rich
man in the parable. His five brethren mentioned would correspond to the
remaining ten tribes residing in the countries round about. The parable
shows that no special favor would be shown to those brethren—"They have
Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." These words clearly
identify the rich man and his brethren as the twelve tribes of Israel
to whom GodÂ’s favors and blessings came through Moses and the Prophets.
Cannot all see clearly that this parable, which is the mainstay of all
the eternal torment doctrines and teachings, has been misunderstood?
Its teachings are beautiful and in entire accord with the facts of
history and revelation.
II.—The Goats in Everlasting Fire.
This, also, is a parable, and not a
literal statement. Besides, it applies not to people now living, but to
people who will be living in the world during the thousand years of
ChristÂ’s reign following His second advent. The context tells us this.
We read, When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and all His holy
angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the Throne of His glory, and
before Him will be gathered all nations.—#Mt 25:31-46.
The Son of Man has not yet come in His glory. He is waiting for the
development of the Church, His saintly Bride class, which is to sit
with Him in His Throne and share His glory, and, with Him, participate
in the judging of the world—"Know ye not that the saints shall judge
the world?"—(#1Co 6:2.)
This parable, then, belongs not to the
Church, nor to this Gospel Age, but to the worldÂ’s Judgment Day or
trial time in the coming Age, the thousand years of MessiahÂ’s reign.
Mankind are represented as sheep and goats. Surely these are
symbolical. Surely mankind will not turn into sheep and goats! We must
interpret it symbolically. Like a shepherd the great Messiah will,
during the thousand years, instruct, uplift and enlighten humanity.
Such as receive the instructions and come into full accord with Him are
styled sheep, symbolically, of course. And they are placed at His right
hand, symbolically, of course, signifying a place of favor. The others,
the wayward, not developing the graces of character under these
instructions, will be goats, in a symbolical sense, of course, and will
be gathered to MessiahÂ’s left hand of disfavor. At the conclusion of
that glorious thousand years of Divine favor, uplifting, restitution (#Ac 3:19-21),
the consummation of the matter will have been reached. The sheep class,
perfect, glorious, will be ushered into life everlasting. The goat
class, wilful rejectors of Divine favor on the Divine terms, will
receive death everlasting! their everlasting punishment. But what kind
of punishment will it be? St. Paul answers, "They shall be
OV166 punished with everlasting
destruction." Destruction will be their punishment, just as death is
the capital punishment in the State of New York, California and
elsewhere.
St. Peter says of each: They shall be destroyed from amongst the people." (#Ac 3:23.) Again, he tells us that they will perish like natural brute beasts. (#2Pe 2:12.)
What could be plainer or simpler than this? The word used by our Lord,
in the Greek rendered punishment, is kolasin. It signifies restraint,
cutting off. It has no thought of torment connected with it. The
question may arise, Why did our Lord use the words, "Depart, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels?" Fire is
here used as a symbol of destruction, and the word everlasting has its
full import, as St. Paul expressed it, "everlasting destruction." Is
not fire as good a symbol of destruction as a sheep is a symbol of a
child of God, or a goat a symbol of a follower of Satan?
We can think of no better symbol of
destruction than fire—nothing more destructive. But the Monitor raises
the suggestion that matter is indestructible. Very true. The burning of
a human body in a literal flame or the burning of the same body by the
chemical action of the atmosphere, more slowly, would reduce it to dust
and gases. Nothing would be lost. But man is more than a body. The
intelligent will, thought, etc., which constitutes a human soul or
human being, is something more than a body, and is not subject to the
same conditions. The soul can be destroyed. Intelligence can be blotted
out. The human will perishes when the spark of animal life quits the
body. And it is the soul that the Bible declares is responsible for
sin, and not the body. It was Adam, a soul, that was condemned to
death. It was Adam and the souls of all his children that were redeemed
by JesusÂ’ sacrifice. As it is written, He redeemeth thy soul (life,
being) from destruction.—Psalm 103:4  . The death or destruction of
AdamÂ’s soul would have meant annihilation had not the Almighty provided
the redemption. The redemption price was the death of JesusÂ’ soul; as
we read, "He poured out His soul unto death; He made His soul an
offering for sin." Likewise it was JesusÂ’ soul that was raised from the
dead; as we read, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol, hades, the
grave," etc. (#Ac 2:27.)
This is St. PeterÂ’s explanation not ours.
Because Adam, a soul, and all his childrenÂ’s souls have thus been
redeemed (not from torment, but from sheol, hades, the tomb, the state
of death), therefore we have the MasterÂ’s own words, "All that are in
their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man and come forth."
The First Resurrection will consist only of the holy, the saintly,
whose trial is in the present time, and who will be awakened to their
reward to sit with Messiah in His Throne. During the thousand years all
the remainder of the dead will be awakened and given the opportunity of
resurrection or raising up out of sin and death. That will be a
resurrection, of judgment, or trial, or testing for them, because only
those who will conform to the tests of that time will ever be fully
raised up. The others, the goat class, will be destroyed in the Second
Death.
III.—Looking Upon the Carcasses.
The MonitorÂ’s third proof-text of eternal torment is found in St. #Mr 9:42-48.
The Lord advised all rather to cut off
their right hand or pluck out their eye than to go into gehenna fire
"where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." We read
recently of a poor man in Sweden who took the MonitorÂ’s literal view of
this step and chopped off his right hand. He thought the statement
literal and acted according to his faith. We doubt if the MonitorÂ’s
editor has done the same, or would be likely to take this passage
literally if the conditions were ever so favorable. It is worthy of
note that the word here rendered hell fire, is not the same Greek
OV167 word that is generally rendered
hell and which signifies the tomb. The word here is gehenna. It refers
not to some place beyond the bounds of time and space, but to a valley
just outside of the walls of Jerusalem. As Jerusalem typically
represented the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, and harmony with
God, so this Valley of Hinnom, called in the Greek gehenna, symbolized
the utter destruction of all finally impenitent and contumacious
sinners in the Second Death—"everlasting destruction." This is
acknowledged by the Monitor, which says: "Gehenna originally stood for
‘the valley of the sons of Hinnom.’ It was notorious as the scene in
earlier days of the horrible worship of Moloch. Later, when the Jews
fell away from the true worship of God, they even went so far as to
burn their own children to the demons of that region. It was a place
that had been defiled by Josiah, cursed by Jeremias, and for these
associations held in abomination by the Jews, who according to the
course of time, used it to signify also the fiery and cursed abode of
the damned. This is the very usage of the term that Christ Himself
adopted." The Monitor styles it the abode of the damned. But what is
the real meaning of the word damned? All will agree that it signifies
condemned. So we say that gehenna will be the abode of all condemned to
the Second Death as the filth and offscouring of the earth, unfit for
the Divine favor and blessing of life everlasting. The Valley of Hinnom
(gehenna), in our LordÂ’s day, was deep and was used as a garbage place
for the destruction of valueless things. No living things were ever
cast into it—only dead carcasses, rats, mice, dogs, etc. Many of these,
falling along the sides of the Valley would gradually decompose.
Maggots would breed in them and speedily reduce them to dust. These are
the worms mentioned by Jesus, that died not. These worms are not alive
now; they were like any other worms. Jesus meant that, as the worms
surely accomplished the destruction of the refuse cast therein, so,
complete destruction awaits the wilfully wicked. No one thought of
killing those worms or stopping their ravages. They were doing good
work. When Jesus spoke of the fire that was not quenched, he referred
to the burning of brimstone in the bottom of this gehenna. Its use was
intended to destroy bacteria, the germs of disease, and help to
preserve the health of the city. Those.who heard Jesus had no thought
that he meant for them to cut off their hands or their feet, or pluck
out their eyes. Neither did they understand Him to mean that the wicked
would be literally cast into that or any similar gehenna. They
interpreted the parable properly to mean that any sin we may cherish,
be it as precious to us as a right hand, a right foot, or a right eye,
would be too costly to continue if it were to lose for us the
everlasting life and harmony with God symbolized by the New
Jerusalem—if it would win for us the Second Death, symbolized by
gehenna and its worms and fire. The Monitor evidently knew about the
prophecy which corresponds exactly to JesusÂ’ words, but it does not
cite it. We will do so. It is found in #Isa 66:24 .
The context shows us that the prophecy relates to the future—to the
period of MessiahÂ’s Kingdom, when all will be expected to worship God
and to obey, under the assistance of the great Mediator between God and
men. Then, however, transgressors will perish, and the righteous will
look upon the carcasses of them that transgressed against God, whose
worms shall not die, whose fire shall not be quenched. It will be the
carcasses that will be in evidence, and the worms and the fire, and the
people will see these. It will not be a roasting of souls by devils
with pitchforks to all eternity! A little Scripture helps to dissolve
much of the confusion of the "dark ages."
The Monitor Agrees with Pastor Russell.
The Monitor agrees that the literal meaning of the word sheol, the only
OV168 word translated hell in the Old
Testament, is the grave. It says: "Pastor Russell thinks to do away
with the Biblical reason for a hereafter of punishment by calling
attention to the fact that the word sheol, the Hebrew term for hell,
literally means, the grave. It is to be remarked first that the origin
of this word is doubtful. The general agreement among Hebrew scholars
is that it comes from another Hebrew word meaning to be sunk in or to
be hollow; accordingly signifying a cave or place under the earth, and
hence a grave. But as in all other tongues, so in Hebrew, words have
several significations related or connected with their original
meaning."
Very good. No scholar would think of
questioning that the primary meaning of sheol is the grave, and that
the word sheol in the Common Version of the Old Testament is translated
grave and pit more times than it is translated hell, but means grave or
pit every time. The Monitor thinks, however, that it sees an objection,
and that sheol does not always signify the grave. It cites us to
JacobÂ’s lament over the supposed death of Joseph. Jacob said, I will go
down into sheol unto my son mourning. The Monitor argues that, since he
thought his son had been devoured by wild beasts, he could not refer to
going to the grave. The Monitor must take a broader view of the word
grave and consider it the tomb, the death state. Otherwise he would be
forced to the supposition that Jacob expected the same wild beast to
devour him, so that he could go to his son. In order to understand the
Bible we must approach it with free minds, unbiased, and seek to be
taught by it instead of seeking to make it support our own theory or
irrational theories of the past. In old English literature the word
hell was freely used as signifying grave or pit or any covered state or
condition. Thus a man might speak of the helling of his house and mean
the thatching of it with straw, the one-storied buildings of olden
times being buried under the thatch. Farmers in olden times wrote,
telling how many bushels of potatoes they helled in the fall—buried in
pits to keep them from sprouting that they might be dug up for use in
the spring. Whoever will take the trouble to look up every one of the
sixty-six occurrences of the word sheol in the Old Testament may
satisfy himself without a doubt respecting the meaning of the word,
that it refers to the death state, the tomb. Hades in the New Testament
corresponds to this, and is used to translate sheol in #Ac 2:27, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell," and in #1Co 15:55,
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" As before
stated, the only word translated hell which has fire connected with it
in any sense is gehenna, which is a metaphor, as we have already
explained. Whatever sheol is, it is to be destroyed. It is not to last
forever, for the Lord so declares, "O sheol, I will be thy
destruction." (#Ho 13:14.)
The grave, the tomb, the state of death is to be destroyed. The death
penalty which came upon the race through our Father AdamÂ’s disobedience
is to be cancelled, obliterated, as a result of JesusÂ’ sacrificial
death, the Just for the unjust. The thousand years of MessiahÂ’s reign
will be devoted to this very work of destroying Adamic death—the death
which has come upon the human family because of Father AdamÂ’s
disobedience. From the Bible standpoint, the whole human family are
dead, in the sense that they have no right to life because imperfect.
Thus Jesus speaks of them, saying, "Let the dead bury their dead; go
thou and preach the Gospel." During MessiahÂ’s reign, the knowledge of
the Lord will fill the whole earth. Every creature will be enlightened.
All the blind eyes shall be opened. All
the deaf ears shall be unstopped. All that have gone down into sheol
(the tomb) will come up; thus sheol will be destroyed, to be no more.
St. Paul confirms this, declaring that ultimately a great shout will go
up, "O hades, where is thy victory?" Hades now is having a great
victory;
OV169 its captives number ninety thousand
every day. But soon EmanuelÂ’s Kingdom will be established, and instead
of the reign of sin and death will come in the reign of righteousness
unto life—the turning back of the tide—the recovery of the race. By the
close of MessiahÂ’s reign He will have accomplished a great victory over
sin and all opposition, including death, which will be the last enemy
to be fully destroyed. (#1Co 15:25,26.) Then will be brought to pass the saying, "O hades, where is thy victory?" —#1Co 15:54,55.
The Monitor closes with an appeal to believe in eternal torment based on its final text on the subject, St. #Lu 12:4,5:
"I say unto you, my friends: Fear not them that can kill the body, and
after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will show you whom
you shall fear; fear Him who, after He hath killed, hath power to cast
into hell. Yea, I say to you, fear Him." Strange to say, the Monitor
does not perceive that this, its last thunderbolt, shatters its own
argument! The argument is that the LordÂ’s disciples should not fear men
in their loyalty to principle, because men could merely kill the body,
could merely take away the present life and could do no more. Men could
have no power to vitiate or render inoperative that privilege of
everlasting life which God has provided for all mankind through Jesus.
On the contrary, all should know that God is able to destroy the soul,
the future life, in gehenna. He, and He alone, is to be feared. The
present life is of minor consequence, anyway. It can last but a few
years at most.
The life we are most interested in is the
eternal one, which Jesus has secured for all who will accept it on His
terms, but which will be missed by all those who fear and obey men
rather than God. Compare #Mt 10:28,
remembering the MonitorÂ’s definition of gehenna, to which we agree,
with supplemental explanation respecting the future, antitypical
gehenna.
The MonitorÂ’s Impassioned Appeal.
The Monitor closes with the following
old-fashioned appeal, which many erroneously suppose to be
Scriptural—"To doubt is to be damned." It says: "What a mad act it is
to close oneÂ’s eyes on the edge of an abyss, only to fall into it the
more surely! Better hard truth than false security." The difficulty
with the Monitor and with many others of us in the past has been that
we kept our mental eyes closed and imagined hobgoblins and dreamed
nightmares respecting fireproof devils with horns and forked tails and
cloven feet, etc., which are not only unknown to the Scriptures, but
thoroughly contrary thereto. If the Monitor is still blind,
notwithstanding the eye-salve of exposition which we have endeavored to
apply as gently as possible, we shall consider its case hopeless and
leave it with the masses of the world for that blessed future time
declared through the Prophet when all the blind eyes shall be opened.
Then they will see the hitherto undiscovered length and breadth and
heighth and depth of the love of God. Then they will see that Satan and
his fallen angels, instead of being afar off stoking fires, have been
right here with humanity, posing as angels of light and doctoring our
theology to make it picture the Almighty God as the most horrible and
monstrous Being of the Universe, and His Plan of dealing with humanity
the most diabolical and unjust possible for the human mind to conceive.
These "doctrines of devils," as St. Paul calls them, have had a good,
long trial, and the result is, that those who believe these things most
thoroughly are very generally the worst people in the world.
Rarely do we hear of a murderer being
executed who has not professed faith in these monstrous theories of the
past, still advocated by the Monitor. If preaching bad tidings of
misery to nearly all the people has brought so little good fruitage in
so long a time, would it not be well for the Monitor
OV170 and all who claim to be ambassadors
and mouthpieces for God and for Christ, to preach for a while the
blessed Gospel first announced to Abraham: "In thy seed shall all the
families of the earth be blessed?" The same message was heralded by the
angels who proclaimed JesusÂ’ birth, saying: "Fear not; we bring you
good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people"—all people
from thenceforth and all people who had died during the four thousand
years prior to JesusÂ’ birth. It was the full belief in these "doctrines
of devils" which led our forefathers, as Catholics and Protestants, to
burn each other at the stake. And it is partly because these doctrines
are less believed to-day than then that we have a better, safer, saner
religion, more in accord with the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.
It is the Gospel of GodÂ’s love and mercy that is proving now a blessing
to the saintly few who have ears to hear and hearts to fully respond.
And it will be the Gospel of Divine mercy toward mankind in general,
throughout MessiahÂ’s Kingdom, which will bless, uplift and captivate
the hearts of mankind in general during the Millennium. Whether the
majority of these thousands of millions will become sheep at the right
hand of Messiah and gain eternal life, or whether the majority will be
of the "goat" class, who will fail to get that eternal life, and
instead get everlasting destruction, is not for us to determine. We
can, however, declare with the eye of faith, "True and righteous are
Thy ways, Lord God Almighty! Who shall not come to worship before Thee
when Thy righteous dealings are made manifest?" (#Re 15:3,4.)
The righteous dealings of God will bring
a sure penalty to every one in proportion to his degree of knowledge
and wilfulness, but it will bring a just, and not an unjust penalty,
and it will be remedial—with a view to the recovery of the penitent and
his everlasting blessing. Otherwise it will terminate in his
everlasting destruction.—#2Th 1:8,9.
SWEET DAY OF REST
I KNOW some day my Lord will come, And
stand within my humble home, —His glorious presence in the room Will
make it like a rose in bloom.
His voice, like music on mine ear,
Will banish every thought of fear, HeÂ’ll fold me closely to His breast
And there in peace IÂ’ll sweetly rest.
And, oh, my Lord, on that sweet day I
know the words that Thou wilt say, "It is enough, my child, come home,
Thy work is done, beloved, come."
Then IÂ’ll arise and go with Thee
Across the shining, crystal sea, Until we reach that blissful shore
Where we shall dwell for evermore.
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