July 2, 1919
see page 10, afternoon session, where questions are entertained.
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PRESCOTT
I understand that these are to be Bible studies, and not sermons. I shall ask you to join with me in the study, in the reading, and hope you will have Bibles at hand, and will be present to read at any time any scripture that may be called for, and if so, we may enter into the work not as preachers, but as those who are to study simply under a leader.
I have been asked to lead in the study upon the person of Christ. I have been much embarrassed to know how to deal with this subject in the brief time that is necessarily allotted to the field. It can at best be only suggestive, but I would like to say this at the start, that my purpose in my own study of this theme and in anything I may present, will not be to present a theory about the person of Christ, but to come to a knowledge of him, to learn how we shall deal with him, and to see how this viewpoint will effect our study of the Bible and our teaching and preaching of the Bible. I ask that you will bear that in mind that this viewpoint may have a very decided bearing upon the question of our own personal study of the Bible, and then necessarily upon our method of presenting the gospel. I ask you to bear that in mind.
Revelation 14:6: give the foundation of this message. Reading from the Revised Version:
“And I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having eternal good tiding to proclaim unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people.”
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What follows is a development of the everlasting gospel and what conditions are created by the everlasting gospel, both for and against it, the fall of Babylon, the people who keep the commandments of God. But what I want to emphasize is that the message that we are to proclaim is the everlasting gospel.
Romans 1:1, 3, omitting, I think, the second verse.
“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God…concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.”
A definition, as it were, of the gospel. “The gospel of God concerning his Son.” We have other definitions of the gospel—“The power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth”—but that grows out of this. This I take to be a fundamental statement. The gospel is the good news concerning his son, and our experience in the gospel depends upon our personal attitude toward his son. That is the primary thing. Out of that will come all doctrines, all experiences, but primarily the gospel is the good news to this world concerning his son. Our acceptance of the gospel is our acceptance of that good news, and that means actually the acceptance of the person of the one this good news speaks. But I want to emphasize those things. The everlasting gospel is this message. The same gospel as of old, the gospel is the gospel concerning his son.br>
Now let us read another scripture, 1 Cor. 15:1-4 (R.V.)
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Now what is the primary thing, a thing that he received and that he delivered to them first of all? It was facts concerning the person of Christ. The death of Christ, the fact that he was buried and knew he was dead. The fact that he was raised from the dead. Christ died and rose from the dead. That is what he delivered to them first. This is fundamental in the gospel, and in his letter to the Galatians in the fifth chapter, you remember the purpose of this epistle. He came and set forth Christ openly crucified among them. Some one else came and wished to add on something to that gospel, and their message was Christ and . That was the message from Jerusalem too, from the leaders. Paul withstood that message because he said it was contrary to the truth of the gospel. He even withstood Peter to his face because he went not according to the truth of the gospel of the son of God. Now summing up at the end, fifth chapter second verse:
“Behold, I Paul say unto you, that, if ye receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.”
Now when he came to sum up the situation in these chapters, what was it? It was a question whether they had Christ or whether he profited them nothing. Whether they were in fellowship with Christ or severed from Christ. If they submitted to this new gospel of Christ and—they were severed from Christ, and that is the end of the gospel when they are severed from that person.
I wanted this as introductory to the subject. I feel that this subject is fundamental, and I believe it should have a very
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definite influence upon our personal study of the scriptures and upon our writing, preaching, teaching, and that it should have a very definite bearing upon the influence of our courses of Bible study in our schools.
Now let us consider this question of Christ in the gospel as a part of a larger field. Personally I have found great help in looking at it in this way. I look at it this way: Here is this period of sin. We will say it is represented for us by this ruler. It comes in between two eternities. During this period, no new principles of the character of God are introduced, nothing new concerning the character, the purpose of God, are introduced. The same principles that belong in this eternity and that will be true in this eternity are true in this limited portion of time. It is simply a question of the application of those principles to peculiar circumstances during this time. That is what constituted the application of the good news concerning the son of God. During a part of this time eternity he himself was manifested in time. The most remarkable mystery of the gospel, that he who is from eternity to eternity should actually be manifest in time, so that finite creatures could deal with him as manifested in time out of those double eternities.
Let us read in the epistle of Colossians. It is upon this foundation that the Apostle places his gospel of salvation. Col. 1:12: “Giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.” Note that he uses the word
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Son here, not the kingdom of Christ nor the kingdom of God. This particular expression has its force here, as the use of the word Son in Romans, as we read, “The gospel of God concerning his Son.” Not Jesus Christ, but his Son. “Were translated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of his love. In whom”—observe the expression—“we have our redemption.” That is sufficient. That covers it all. And that redemption we have in him has a distinction from a doctrine about him. That redemption is in him. “In whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins.” “Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation.” For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him.” (Revised Version, Col 1:15-17)
“In him.” The distinction is worthy of careful attention. “In him.” “Through him,” “unto him,” all things are created. Seventeenth verse: “And he is before all things, and in him all things consist,” or subsist, or hold together, or maintain their existence. In the 17th verse the expression is “before all things.” This is more than an expression of time. It is an expression of time, but it is much more than that. Time grows out of the other. In the person of his Son, all things have their existence and upon his pre-existence the existence of all visible things depend. We have the expression in the third of Revelation, “The beginning of the Creation of God.” Some have used that text to prove that Christ was a created being,
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trying to parry the force of the text by saying we should say beginning. No. “He is before all things.” There would be no visible things except for his pre-existence, and when the only-begotten came into the world, all manifestations that have appeared since that time were potentially in him.
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And all visible things are but the manifestation to finite beings capable of being comprehended by the senses granted to created beings, or what was really in Him before He appeared in these visible forms. In Him all things hold together, subsist, have their existence. That is, His pre-existence is the existence of all things that now exist, that are visible to us. His continued existence is the condition upon which all present things continue to exist.
Now, why is that of any importance to us? That is the very foundation upon which he rested the statement. The existence of all things that now exist in material forms,--things visible and things invisible,--are base upon the pre-existence of Christ. The Son existed before all these things existed in time, and as an absolute essential condition of their existence. Why should we emphasize that? That is what He lays down here as the foundation of His gospel. That is why in Him we have redemption, for in Him this is true.
First “in Him,” then “through Him,” then “unto Him”: “Through Him”: He was the agent through whom all things came into being. “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” That is the very foundation of our hope of the gospel, of salvation.
“Unto Him”: As “in Him,” “through Him,” so “unto Him.” All things return unto Him, and you have, as it were, the circle in creation. It is the very same as we have it in the whole Bible, because when you have gone through the whole Scripture to the 22nd chapter of Revelation, you come back to the first chapter of Genesis and when you have gone the circle of creation, you come back to the beginning. He is the beginning and the ending. We read in the first
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chapter of John’s gospel, “In the beginning the Word was.” There is a great difference in the way you read that. We have to have the beginning of things. To us, there is a beginning; but when you strike that which to us was the beginning, you can look back and say the word was, with no time limit at all. It is because the Word was at that time that we call the beginning, that the beginning came, and that all things have come since the beginning, and that all things are now in our period of existence that we measure by time as finite beings must do.
It is because He was at that time that we call the beginning that we can rest our confidence upon Him as our Saviour, and upon no other basis. Therefore, in writing to the Colossians, where this error of Gnosticism was creeping in,--a false interpretation of this question of creation,--that He pointed out to them that the foundation of the gospel, rested there, and that a perfection of that was a perversion of the gospel.
We face the same thing today. It has been true all the time, that any error concerning the literal creation of the world led to an error concerning the gospel. That is the basis of Gnosticism—new ideas concerning the relation of the Son of God to creation. And therefore He points out in this chapter that the Son of God is not a created being.
He does not use the term Gnosticism, but he is meeting that error. We have the same situation today—that is, such theories concerning the relation of God to material things; and we need to come back to this very same truth, that an error concerning creation is a certain error concerning the gospel; and for
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this reason this period of this during which sin appears in the world is not a separate period to be taken apart from the two eternities, but must be considered in the light of those eternities, and the principles that applied before this period must be applied here, and the principles that applied before will be applied to all eternity.
Therefore, I regard this question of the person of Christ as fundamental to the whole question of the truth of the gospel, and notably so now in the situation that we face and the crisis that we have to deal with.
Not dwelling upon that further, but turning now to Luke 19:10: “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Here is a period of time during which a special work is done. Something has been lost. That which was lost is to be regained, and for that purpose the Son of man—notice the term—comes to seek and save that which was lost.” Now we have in some places, as in 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested.” Now it is the “Son of man,” and there is a difference in the use of the term. “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Now refer to Eph. 1:9, 10. We have to break into this sentence: “Making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in heavens, and the things upon the earth;” Now, if you will read this epistle to the Ephesians right through, and just note the number of times this expression occurs—“In Christ,”
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“in Him,” “in Whom,”—you will find this whole epistle to be an exposition of the the third verse: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
The point I want to especially emphasize is the 10th verse. The expression used here is “to sum up all things in Christ.” You have the Greek Testament, Brother Howell, and you see that that word means “to head up.” We take the Latin word capit, which means head, and we put it into the verb, and we say “recapitulate” when we mean to sum up the whole argument. That does not exactly bring out the idea. If we could use the word to re-head all things in Christ, it would express the idea.
The first Adam was placed as the head of creation, the vice-gerent of God. He was crowned as king, crowned with glory and honor. He lost that place; but the purpose of God that a man shall be the head of this world in creation is not set aside at all, but in order that that purpose shall be carried out, His own Son becomes the man, the second Adam; and now it is His purpose to re-head all things in Christ, the person.
Our relation to Him, as to whether we acknowledge Him as the new bead or whether we accept the god of this world who has obtained the headship, is wholly a question of our personal experience. It is not a question of assenting to some doctrines or some creed. Here is God’s eternal purpose. Our relation to that eternal purpose as He is working it out in the person of His Son, is the whole question of our religion. If we acknowledge Christ to be the new head, and therefore accept Him as our head,
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and accept the Scriptures statement, “Christ is the head of every man,” that gives Him His place in this scheme. To do that means absolute surrender of self, absolute denial of the god of this world, absolute rejection of all the principles of the kingdom of this world, and a practical adoption in the life of the principles of the kingdom of which He is the head. That is religion. That means a very definite personal experience in this question of relation to God’s eternal purpose.
Passing on now, turn to Acts 10:36. When Peter is preaching for the first time to the Gentiles, what does he set forth? This is the first going out of the gospel to the Gentiles, also to Cornelius. Verse 36: “The word which he sent unto the children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)”—Note the double force of that statement: First, his lordship; second, the extent of his lordship. Peter is preaching to the Gentiles. It is a question as to whether the gospel is to go to the Gentiles. Christ is the new head, but not of the Jews only,--He is Lord of all. That is the gospel, that is the good news.
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2 Cor 4:5: Here we have a little touch that I like in the Revised version. “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord”—who, who is Lord of all.” We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord.
Now there are various phases of preaching Christ. This one is fundamental. This is the foundation truth. He is Lord of all. To submit to his rule is to be a Christian. To refuse his rule is to belong to the synagogue of Satan. There are two camps, just as real as in any war here upon earth. We are to view these things not as theoretical theories, but as actual facts in which we act a apart; and that is what will settle the whole question of, our personal experience. “We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord.”
Phil. 2: --This brings us to the triumphs. In the early part of the chapter, after he has spoken of Christ having taken the flesh, humanity—9th to 11lth verse. “Wherefore”—because he became obedient even unto death, even the death on the cross, “wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him the name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus”—why Jesus rather than Christ? Why in the name of Jesus? It is not now in the name of Christ, in the name of the Son. It is in the name of Jesus Christ—Why? He has just told of his humility, being made in the likeness of man. Now the same one who was made in the likeness of man, the same One that thought it not a prize to be grasped to remain on equality with God, who emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant—that is Jesus; that is the name of that very person, Jesus, “every knee should bow…and every tongue
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confess” that Jesus the Christ, “Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
Now from these simple Scriptures that I have read we see the field that I am leading to. The everlasting gospel, the gospel of God concerning his Son. His purpose is to reconcile all things in Christ, because in him all things are created. Now we must bear in mind that until he came into the world in this form there was not that distinction which we make between nature and grace, between natural and spiritual. It is sin that has brought that distinction to us. Before that all things were spiritual. All things were natural, but all things were spiritual, and there was not that distinction to be drawn between nature and grace, between natural and spiritual. Sin brought in that gap, that distinction. Now we have to recognize that distinction. Now he proposes to reconcile all things in Christ, and when that purpose is accomplished all things will be spiritual, All things will be natural, too, but they will be spiritual. There will not be that distinction to draw between them.
Now it is his purpose that the Son shall be the head; that he shall be Lord, and it shall be to the glory of God the Father. The question of our religion is not the question of our defending a creed; it is not a question of our proving that we teach doctrines in harmony with this book. Religion is a question of personal relation to a person. Out of that all doctrines will come. Upon that we have a living creed, and a living creed is always quivering—you cannot put it into a mold. A living creed means growth, advancement
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constantly. And when one grows he does not nullify what he was born with. Because a boy increases in weight, he does not spoil what he has grown before. So with a person who grows in the Christian life—he does not repudiate the growth already made, but he will be more than he was before of the same kind, and not contradict himself. The new growth created will not contradict itself, will not set aside fundamental things and get a new foundation. It will be a growth, it will be a life. The problem, of course, is how shall we deal with this question from this standpoint. This will govern the whole question of our personal study, of our teaching, of our writing, of our preaching—just how we relate ourselves to these simple facts that I have stated will determine whether we view things from the standpoint of doctrine, or whether we view it from this one standpoint, the person of Christ and our relation to that person; and that out of that all doctrines shall be developed, and upon that all teachings shall be based. Now we will try to develop the same and more as we proceed.
Now let me call attention to another simple Scripture so familiar—John 14:6. This is the answer of Jesus. “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not wither you goest; and how know we the way? Jesus saith unto him, I”—I “am the way, the truth, and the life.” That is, the way is not a path apart from the person. The person is the way. Through him we have access to one spirit unto the Father., and He is our only way to God. He was the only way out for God. If we can conceive this idea: When God the Father went forth he went
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forth in the person of his Son. He himself is the way, and there is no other way back to God than by the way He manifested himself. He is the way. “I am the truth.” Truth is more than a statement of fact. If I say, “I release my hand upon this ruler and it drops upon the table,” that is a fact. That statement is true. That is not truth as spoken of in the Scriptures. That is not truth as it is in Jesus, because truth is a living reality. The law was given by Moses, but grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. Truth is a personality. All truth is in Him, and apart from Him all is false. That is the difference between semblance and reality. Sin is semblance. Satan is a semblance, an appearance, a shadow. Christ is reality. That is the contrast. It is in the person and what goes out from this person. To apprehend Christ as the person of truth, the reality, not a sham, not a mere appearance, not a shell that when one takes hold of it it will break and be found empty; but in him as a person is found all that is real.
Now it immediately follows from this that any one who pretends to have any truth outside of Christ is caught in a lie. That is the basis of all heathenism. They exchange the truth of God for a lie. If you look at that text in Romans—you look at it, Brother Howell. Romans 1:25 is the philosophy of all heathenism, whether in China or in the United States. You look, Brother Howell, and see if you do not find the definite article _ τῷ_ (Greek word mentioned) (Professor Howell: Yes.) Now, instead of “they changed the truth of God into a lie, “they changed the truth of God
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into the lie.” What is the lie? 2 Thess. 3: After setting forth this description of the man of sin who sets himself up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God, Then what?—Ninth and tenth verses: “Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error that they should believe the lie. Isn’t it—Answer, Yes Sir. What is the lie? It is putting something else in the place of God. The lie that has caught the world is described here as the man who sets himself forth as God. That is the lie. What is the truth? That Christ is God. Here we face the message against the beast and his image. What is the lie? Some one else in the place of the manifestation of God according to Christ. What is the truth? Christ is the manifestation of God. Does not that attach something else to our message against the beast and his image? We are not to magnify the lie, but we are to magnify Him who is the truth; and that will be the answer to the lie. All lies or falsehoods are summed up there. Isaiah says the one that has the mark of the image in his right hand is a lie. He is the truth. We are to magnify Him, the person, as the truth. And then we are to reveal the truth in our life. It is not sufficient to know what is truth. The truth is to be revealed in our lives. The truth is that Christ is Lord of all—Lord of me. That is the truth. That truth must be revealed in my life before that person can be revealed in my life; and the only way that that truth can be revealed in my life is that the
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person who is the truth shall be there himself and reveal it. “I am the way, the truth, the life.” The person is Christ. Amen.
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PRINCIPLES OF PROPHETIC INTERPRETATION
by M. C. Wilcox
Principles are greater than facts. They are to the student of the Holy Scriptures what the “blue print” is to the builder. The “blue print” enables the builder to place the many parts—often puzzling, individually and collectively considered, many quite similar—just where they belong in the finished structure. One timber is ten feet two and one-eighth inches long; another ten feet two and five-eights inches long. Otherwise their dimensions are the same. The difference is the mere matter of half an inch, but in accurate measurement in a perfect structure, the little difference is vital. The blue print shows the place of each and both. We might crowd, hammer, and bolt them in out of place, but the frame is warped, its perfection marred, and the structure is inharmonious. The builder himself deteriorates in character by doing such faulty work. The following of the accurate measurements of the “blue print” would have saved him the fatal blunder.
There are many facts of scripture which do not place themselves. Left to mere human conjecture, unguided by true principles of interpretation, men are liable to go astray in the placing of the fact. The fact is helpful in its own place. It is embarrassing if out of place, and its wrong application blinds the judgment and obscures the vision of him who so errs.
I will not attempt to enumerate all the great principles of interpretation. The task would be too great, and we would not have time to consider them. These which follow will perhaps be sufficient
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to illustrate at least the importance of the blue print in the study of doctrinal questions.
1. The Unity of the Word
The sixty-six books, or tracts, as they have been called, are one book and have one author. They were given, it is true, through two score channels—more or less—and these books are stamped with the individual characteristics of the respective writers, but the author is divine. It was the eternal Word by the Spirit moving upon the men who wrote. These books are written in the words used by Moses, Samuel, Nathan, Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Matthew, Joh, Paul, and the others; nevertheless the collection of these books are “the Word of Jehovah,” “the Scriptures of Truth,” “the Holy Scriptures.” “The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me,” said David, “and his word was upon my tongue.” 2Sam. 23:2. “Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth,” says Paul. 1Cor 2:13. “Which the Holy Spirit spake before by the mouth of David concerning Jesus,” says Peter. Acts 1:16. See also 1Peter 1:11, 2Peter 2:21; 2Tim 3:16, et al. It is not the opinion of Moses or Isaiah or Jeremiah or Paul or Peter, or what these men think; it is the word of God.
It is the great Master Musician using all the various instruments on which to give to the world the harmonies of God. It may be a Jews’ harp, a trombone, an organ, a piano; The music is that of the Master Musician speaking through the various instruments; or, to use another figure, the Master Architect building the temple of divine revelation by the different builders.
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2. One Teaching
The Bible is one doctrine, one teaching, with its correlated parts. Sometimes we make these parts stand out as almost separate and unrelated doctrines, but they are all one and are ever known as one doctrine, or better, perhaps, as one teaching of God. “Doctrines”—plural—is left to error. Jehovah is one, “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever,” one omniscient, omnipresent, all-wise God of love and justice and mercy. He has one moral standard of righteousness, of character. The Bible knows but one all-sufficient Sacrifice and Saviour. The great divine plan binds together with the crimson and golden cords of truth and love—the whole structure of His Word. It is divine and human even as its Giver, Christ Jesus, is divine and human.
3. The Law of First Mention
By this we mean that the first mention of any great or important fact, event, or teaching carries that primary meaning throughout the Word. This must be in order to preserve the divine unity. The rule of the builder must be the same throughout. Elsewise we are left to conjecture ang guess work. To illustrate:
(a) “In the beginning,” that unmeasured period antedating the six days of Genesis, gives the meaning to that expression in all subsequent passages, as in Prov. 8:23,23 (sic); John 1:1. (b) The sanctification of the seventh day, the origin of the Sabbath. Gen. 2:2,3. (c) The marriage relation. Gen. 2:18-24; Matt. 19:3-8. (d) The creation of man, the serpent, the fall of man, the Deluge, are a few other instances of what holds good throughout the Bible. The first mention expresses the divine thought not alone for that passage, but for the future.
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4. The Law of Comparative Mention
The first mention, while revealing the principle of terminology in unity, does not always express the full meaning. This can be learned only by comparing all the passages upon the subject. The primal meaning is not changed, but modified, developed, as the Sabbath question, and the fall of man, for instance. To base all upon one mention only might lead us into extreme position.
5. The Law of Full Mention
The first mention of a fact or event or phase of truth is not always, or perhaps generally, a full mention, especially as so many of the first mentions are found in the marvelously condensed book of Genesis. But somewhere in the Word the thing is more fully developed, as for instane, the Seed of Gen. 3:15, more fully developed in Galations 3. Yet in the fuller development the primary thought holds.
6. The Law of Illustrative Mention
Often times the great thought or phase of truth is illustrated as in the parable of the sower, the wheat and the tares, (Matt. 13), the Good Shepherd (John 10).
7. The Word Paramount
The Word of God must be always paramount. Whatever devout men may hold, or have held, whatever may be the views of politicians, statement, or philosophers, however reasonable or plausible the views or opinions of these men may be, the Word of God is, and must be, paramount, although its verification or fulfillment may seem to human reason far away or humanly improbable. Depending upon the sayings or reasonings of men for the elucidation or fulfillment of
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the Word, there is danger of making men paramount, or of narrowing the crystallizing the meaning of the expanding truth, or God. It has been well said by a recent writer: “It is better to keep within the Bible itself for the settlement of its problems; and to treat the whole Book as the context of all its parts.”—Companion Bible, Note at Beginning of Book of Job. The center and circumference of that word is Christ, the Alpha and Omega, a personal Saviour, Friend, and Guide.
8. Revealed, Not Reasoned Out
Prophecy is given to the children of men that they may know what no human knowledge, reasonings, or teachings can tell them, of what shall come to pass hereafter.
There are many guesses made by the world, many political forecasts made of coming events. Some of them, read in the light of the lesson of causes and effects, in past history are in a general way remarkably correct, but nearly all fall wide of the mark and fail in the crucial test. The things predicted of God are usually the things which the heart of the world does not desire nor its wisdom expect. And therefore, as expressed by the historian, John Clark Ridpath: “The tallest son of the morning can not tell a day before they take place, the events that occur.” If men could know of themselves, we would not need the “more sure word of prophecy, which sineth as a light in a dark place, until the day dawn,” and the day star arise in the hearts of the children of God.
Had the world known what God found it necessary to predict, they would not have crucified the Lord’s Christ, persecuted His followers, nor ever have united church and state.
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9. Aid of the Spirit
The same Spirit that inspires the Word is essential also to the understanding and interpretation of the revelation. Apart from the enlightenment of that Spirit, the wisest of men flounder in human conjecture and uncertainties. It is the definite prophecy, aided by the Spirit, not to the world, we must look for light. But note this, the Spirit does not lead us contrary to the Word. See 1 Cor. 2:6-16.
10. Not of Private Interpretation
It is a declaration of Inspiration that “No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” 2 Peter 1:21. Here are other renderings: “No prophecy of the Scripture becometh self-solving.” Rotherham. “No prophecy is an exposition of its own text.” Syriac. “No prophecy of the Scriptue is of special interpretation” A.R.V. Margin. “No prophecy of the Scripture comes of one’s own interpretation.” Baptist version.
In other words, the same general principles must guide in all prophetic interpretation. In all great prophecies there are found symbols, descriptions, inspired explanations, and terms which will aid in the right understanding of each prophecy. Parallel descriptions and terminology should be given proper weight. Right interpretations and expositions are not inconsistent and contradictory. They do no devour each other. The one Spirit guides them all.
Under this head may be mentioned “Arbitrary Interpretation,” a curse of the ages, which we unsparingly condemn in others, and justly so. When we are told that “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” we believe it to be utterly unjustifiable to say that the Word means a seventh day, or any seventh day, after six of labor. In other words, the Bible must be allowed to
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explain itself. If prophetic, wait for the fulfillment of its predictions instead of looking for some prophecy to fulfil a certain event in our field of vision, but which in God’s plan and purposes is of little import. Let us see things little which God sees little and things great which He sees great. 1 Cor. 1:1.
11. Conditional
Some prophecies are conditional. These conditions, noted in different places, are clearly stated in Jer. 18:7-10. If a nation or people complies with God’s terms, there is blessing, healing, and building. If the nation or people fail, the curse, the decay, the blasting, the destruction follow. Ignoring conditional prophecy, many are led astray regarding the future of the Hebrews, or Jews. Giving heed to the principle, one will be saved from shipwreck. Our boat will be kept clear from the rocks which have wrecked others, and toward which many are drifting to-day.
The prophecies to Israel may be summed up under three heads, as stated many years agao by Elder J.H.Waggoner:
(a) The prophecy is condition, based on Israel’s obedience to God.
(b) Some of the prophecies regarding the Jews were fulfilled in the restoration from the Babylonian captivity.
(c) Those yet to be fulfilled will be and must be fulfilled under new covenant conditions, since our Lord came. Consequently all unfilled prophecies which pertain to national Israel are conditional prophecies that can never be fulfilled to them as such. Heeding this will save us from great blunders.
12. Later Light
Some of the prophecies of the Old Testament seem to convey
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the idea that Israelites (the Hebrews) are to be restored as a nation, and that in the last days they will be a separate people from the Gentiles, and that the Lord will use them for the salvation of the Gentiles in the last days. These erroneous views are based upon Old Testament prophecies alone. We will never read them aright until we read them in the light of the meaning of the origin of the name Israel, and the later revelations from God. Upon this we read: “How that by revelation was made known unto me the mystery…that in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men as it hath now been revealed unto us His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, to-wit: that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and fellow-members of the body, and fellow-partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.” Eph 3:3-6.
13. Nations and Persons
God’s judgments on nations and individuals should not be confounded. A nation may and does close its career in God’s plan, while the probation of individuals in that nation continues. When the chiefs of the Jewish nation rejected Jesus, and confirmed that rejection by saying, “We have no king but Caesar,” the right of that nation to exist had ceased. But God was still calling every individual soul, as proved over and over again by the apostle Paul. So when this nation, or any other for that matter, turns from the light that God gives, and exalts itself in place of God, it passes its day of grace, and stands where God can care for it no longer. The destruction of nations in general comes under the plagues and at our Lord’s advent. In the very nature of the case, there will be no individual nations in the resurrection of the unjust.
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The judgment of persons will then occur. Let not the two be confounded.
14. Double Prophecy
Many of the prophecies of the Old Testament are double prophecies in which the local conditions of the prophet’s time are so blended with greater future events that it is impossible to separate them, and we never can get a right understanding unless we recognize the fact that the prophecy is double. In other words, the foreground of the prophet blends with the larger and far future field, so that the objects seem as one. The nearer mountains seem one with the more distant peak or ridge. All blend in the far horizon. But if we were to climb the nearer mountains, we would find, perhaps, great valleys separating us from the higher elevations. The vision does not show the intervening valleys. The prophet sees the smaller, nearer mountain scenery blending with the far distant peak, making one mountain, seeming, of the two. It is only by the aid of the Spirit of God that we can divide between the local and far-reaching prophecies. Sometimes we must wait for fulfillment.
etc.
[Bollman THE TEN KINGDOMS]
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Afternoon Session
A.G.Daniels: The way is now open for any who wish to do so to ask Professor Prescott questions concerning the topic of the morning.
W.E.Howell: I would like to ask Professor Prescott if he is willing to enlarge just a little on the point of the “beginning” as he explained it this morning.
W.W.Prescott: Taking the first chapter of John, the 3d verse: At a certain point where finite beings begin time, it does not mean that that is where the word began. When the scripture says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God,” it does not mean that when you get back to that point that we denominate the beginning, then looking back into eternity, you can point to the time when the word was.
H.C.Lacey: Can we go one step further and say that the word was without beginning?
W.W.Prescott: I was going to raise the question. Are we agreed in such a general statement as this, that the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father? Is that the view that is taught in our schools?
C.M.Sorenson: It is taught in the Bible.
W.W.Prescott: Not to teach that is Arianism. Ought we to continue to circulate in a standard book a statement that the Son is not co-eternal, that the Son is not co-eval or co-eternal with the Father? That makes Him a finite being. Any being whose beginning we can fix is a finite being. We have been circulating for 40 years a standard book which says that the Son is not co-eternal
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with the Father. That is teaching Arianism. Do we want to go on teaching that?
[he is referring to Uriah Smiths “Daniel and the Revelation”. But we as humans are not able to “fix” the Son’s beginning, only to the extent that it is in “the days of eternity”]
G.B.Thompson: “All things were created by him,” Do you understand that to mean more than this earth?
W.W.Prescott: Yes, whether they be thrones or principalities or powers or things visible or things invisible, all were created by him. That is, all existences of every kind depend upon His pre-existence; and all present existences depend upon His present existence. Without Him there would be nothing in existence, and without Him that which is now in existence would fall out of existence.
C.P.Bollman: Isn’t that usually applied to His having existed before the incarnation?
W.W.Prescott: I am using it as applying to His existence previous to the existence of anything else.
C.P.Bollman: I would like to ask, Do you think it is necessary, or even helpful in the defining of Christian doctrine, to go outside of the New Testament for terms to use in the definition?
[he is objecting to the use of co-eternal, coeval…non-scriptural terms]
W.W.Prescott: As to whether or not we shall accept dictionary terms?
C.P.Bollman: No, I do not mean that.
W.W. Prescott: Please illustrate what you mean.
C.P.Bollman: The scripture says Christ is the only begotten of the Father. Why should we go farther than that and say that He was co-eternal with the Father? And also say that to teach otherwise is Arianism?
W.W.Prescott: I do not find in the New Testament expressions
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as “co-eternal,” but I find expressions that are equivalent to that, as I understand it.
C.P.Bollman: Give an example, please.
W.W.Prescott: I think the expression “I am” is the equivalent of eternity. I think these expressions, while they do not use the term co-eternal, are equivalent in their meaning. That brings up the whole question of the relation of the Son to the Father. There is a proper sense, as I view it, according to which the Son is subordinate to the Father, but that subordination is not in the question of attributes or of His existence. It is simply in the fact of the derived existence, as we read in John 5:26: “For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself.” Using terms as we use them, the Son is co-eternal with the Father. That does not prevent His being the only-begotten Son of God. We cannot go back into eternity and say where this eternity commenced, and where that eternity commenced. There is no contradiction to say that the Son is co-eternal with the Father, and yet the Son is the only-begotten of the Father.
[Prescott seems to accept a quasi-co-eternal status to the Father-Son relationship by applying “one eternity” for the Son and “another eternity” for the Father, both “eternal,” the Son is just “essentially” eternal, so that the Son can still be begotten and yet also eternal just not “exactly eternal with the Father. He regards John 5:26 as evidence that the Son has a “derived” existence.]
C.P.Bollman: I think we should hold to the Bible definitions.
W.W.Prescott: We take the expression co-eternal, and that is better.
[Why? Because it is a technical theological term?]
C.P.Bollman: My conception of the matter is this; that at some point in eternity the Father separated a portion of Himself to be the Son. As far as the substance is concerned, He is just as eternal as the Father, but did not have an eternal separate existence. I do not think that approaches any nearer to Arianism than the other does to ________.
[We can only speculate as to what the blank word was, but “Trinitarianism” would be a very logical assumption. Bollman is presenting the standard, traditional Adventist position championed by James White, Waggoner, Uriah Smith, and even Prescott himself in his earlier years: the Son was “brought forth” (Prov 8:24-30), “came out from” (John 16:27, 28; 17:8, “proceeded forth and came from” (John 8:42; Matt 4:4), was “possessed/begat” by the LORD (Prov 8:24), “begotten by” (John 1:14,18;3:16; 1Jn 5:1,18; Heb 1:5) the Father “in the days of eternity” (Micah 5:2 Margin), “from the womb of the morning” (Ps 110:1-4, Isa 49:1-6). Bollman’s description comports with eternity of the stone cut out of the mountain in Daniel 2:45]
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W.W.Prescott: Suppose you say, there is the point where He had His beginning, and that back of that there was a time when the Father went forth in His Son. When you say a point, you conceive of it as a definite place and bring it into finite terms.
[This is interesting. Prescott moves, without blushing or hesitation, from humanly unknowable infinite eternity to what he labels a “finite” point of time, even though it is still in eternity. I’m surprised Bollman or anyone else didn’t challenge him on this. Just because finite humans can understand the concept of “a definite place” in time, “a point,” we presume to claim understanding and ownership of that point in time despite the undisputed fact that this “point in time” happens to be in eternity, an infinite amount of time in the past, in which we have no capability of understanding. The so-called “finite” point is admittedly “out of bounds” to human thinking—or at least it should be. We have to take off our mental shoes when we dare to delve into God’s eternal territory.]
H.C.Lacey: May I say something on that point? Every year I am brought in touch with this from two points of view—one in the Greek class, and the other in Bible Doctrines. Twice a year, and sometimes more frequently, I am brought face to face with this. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” The eternity of the Word is emphasized in that. When you come to the study of the deity of Christ, the fundamental attribute is eternity of existence. If Jesus is divine, He must have that essential attribute, and so I have dared to say that Christ is absolutely co-eternal with the Father. You can not say that back in some point of duration the Son appeared, and prior to that He had not appeared. I take it that God has no beginning. The Greek does not read, “In the beginning,” but “In beginning,”—any beginning, every beginning. There is no article to it. It means that Christ antedated all beginning. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit antedated all beginning.
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I am just stating what I teach. I want to know whether this is so. That is what this council is for. I say that God was always in existence. Just as the light is always with the sun; the light comes from the sun, and so Jesus was always with God, always reigning with him. I have explained the meaning of the son in this way. A son is always younger than his father. But if we bring into this divine conception the thought of motherhood and fatherhood as humanly understood, I think we are astray. It does not mean that Jesus had a mother, God is a Father. I am trying to explain what is meant by that expression that Michael in his ante-human existence was the son of God. I think those words are human words, used to express to us humanly speaking, the relation existing between the first and second person of the deity, and the priority of rank of the first person. The word is an expression of the relation of that second person to the first. He is as a son to the first. The Lord said of Israel, you are my first born. I will be a father to Israel, for the love that existed between them. To the first and only begotten son was a specially tender feeling, and to indicate the wondrous love of the first person of the Deity to the second, this expression is used. Never to indicate that the son came into existence after the father. Let us say this represents the six thousand years. Now back of this eternity, without end, God the Father spans that eternity.
I think we ought not to teach that there was a time when
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He produced another being who is called the son. I want to know. The son is called eternal with the Father, another person living with him, a second intelligence in that Deity. The relationship between them is expressed by our human words father and son. The one was first in rank, the second, second, and the third third.
[So much for co-equal. Lacey displays his true intentions in this extensive retort. He begins by ignoring Wilcox’s Law of First Mentions that was just discussed in the previous session. “In the beginning” is first introduced by Scripture in the context of the earth’s creation. This is the time frame spoken of by Proverbs 8 (“brought forth”) and Psalm 90 (“from everlasting”). John 1:1 should therefore pertain to the same beginning of the world. He disallows this by observing that the Greek literally reads “in beginning” and equates this with “absolute” eternity. He then demands that the Son must possess the same eternity as the Father only on the basis that both are called God. He apparently is not satisfied with Prescott’s relative co-eternal status but “dares” to insist on their “absolute” co-eternity.
The private, exclusive nature of the 1919 Bible Conference is then explained: it was explicitly called for the purpose of discussing Trinitarianism. He then plunges into overtly Trinitarian language: the Sun and sunlight explain and, apparently to Lacey, proves the essential co-eternal truth around which Trinitarian doctrine is anchored. This is the same example used by Tertullian and denounced by Ellen White just 17 years earlier when dealing with Kellogg’s foray into the Trinity.
Lacey accuses Bollman (and Prescott?) of “bringing in…the thought of motherhood” when, in fact, it is he that introduces that concept. Bollman clearly described an asexual fission of God’s substance. This is not being discussed at all. Instead, Lacey unfairly charges him with imposing on God a human means of producing a Son. Having effectively discredited such notions, he dismisses God’s choice of terminology “Father, Son” as only “human terms” and replaces them with the more favored Trinitarian language: “first and second person of the Godhead.” “Father and Son” are only used to denote “priority of rank” between them and this is better expressed by using “first and second”. But then he resorts to “father and son” because these terms are better at conveying “the love between them.” He appeals to the symbolism that God used in calling “Israel my first born” and stating that God would be “a Father” to Israel. This is reverse logic employed with the intent to minimize the Real by maximizing the Type. This is tantamount to sweeping away the reality of Christ’s crucifixion by stating that it was no more valid than the symbolic sacrificial offerings of the Old Testament. To clinch this argument he boldly states that God’s use of “Father and Son” was “Never” meant to imply that God the Father existed before His Son. He implies that the terms “Father, Son” are merely human terms, used by human writers to convey a human relationship of filial love. Such is the marvelous superiority of the Trinitarian concepts of Divine Love.
Lacey’s not through. He now proposes that the Son was begotten just prior to “the beginning” of the world’s creation, just a little over 6000 years ago. Then he demonstrates how unreasonable this is by comparing this very finite beginning with the Father’s very infinite age. This embarrassing discrepancy should be rejected as untenable, he concludes in triumph. Case settled on a series of straw man arguments.]
PRESCOTT:
I think it well for us instead of attempting to reason out or to explain these things, to read a scripture. I think that will be a better plan than to spend a long time discussing themes, only that we may get the meaning of the scripture. Brother Lacey said eternity is an attribute of Deity. It is proof of the Deity. Now let us see how the scripture deals with it. Hebrews 1. The whole purpose of the chapter is to set forth the exalted character of the Son, and you will observe it is somewhat in harmony with what Brother Lacey has said. “God, having of old times spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. (R.V.) The article is not used. It is the relationship that is emphasized. The chapter is to tell us of the Son. Here we find that expression, “whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.” “Who being the affulgence of his glory,” or the emanation of his glory, the raying forth of his glory, and the very image of his substance, in person. This word person
[Prescott should be commended for his appeal to scripture. He points out God “appointed” His Son heir. This would be consistent with “appointing” roles, i.e., God appointed him His Son. The Son was not “born” as a human son. He “proceeded and came out from” God. The Son is the “outshining” of His glory. Just as Moses’ face shown with the glory of God. But, obviously, Moses was not co-eternal with the source of that glory.]
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is one of the evidences of theological controversy that was attempted to be settled by translation. It is the idea of the fundamental. Going on: “Upholding all things by the word of his power.” There we have the existence of all things being dependent upon him. Now it goes on in the fifth chapter, verse one, and proves that he is above angels. “Thou art my son. I will be to him a father.” Eighth verse: “But of the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.” In the tenth verse, “And, Though, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou continuest,”—a much better word than “remainest.” Him it was that continues. That is an eternal presence, simply, “Thou continuest.” That is the attribute of his being as God. He is called God here in this very chapter. As a sort of evidence of the scriptural teaching that he is God, here is this expression, Thou continuest, without regard to beginning or end. In the thirteenth chapter of the same epistle: “He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” When did yesterday commence? Simply yesterday, that’s all. “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” I think that is parallel with the 90th Psalm: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations…From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. I think those statements apply to the same being. The same is true in the Book of Deuteronomy the 33rd chapter.
[Prescott introduces but does not pursue the concept of nature’s dependence on the Son’s existence. This will ultimately lead to the Trinitarian dictum that Christ could not have really died or even left the Father’s presence during the incarnation. Again the proclamations by God of “son” and “father” are emphasized to suggest that the relationship is only metaphorical. Interestingly, he seizes on the word “continuest” as evidence for the Son’s “eternal presence.” This is admittedly true for continuation into the future after “the works” of his hands perish. But Prescott extends this to continuation into the eternal past. To support this he cites Hebrews 13:8, but then admits that “yesterday” commenced “simply yesterday, that’s all” and then asserts that it is parallel to Psalm 90’s “From everlasting to everlasting.” How is that parallel?]
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Deut. 33:28: “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heavens in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy dwelling place and underneath are the everlasting arms.” There is no revelation of God except in the Son, and here where it says that the eternal God is thy dwelling place, it must be the Son. Underneath are the everlasting arms. The only support that we receive is from Christ, and in Christ. The only knowledge we have of God is through the Son, and the only relationship we have to God is through the Son. Every revelation of him of every sort whatsoever is through the Son.
[The eternal God is the Father. The everlasting arms is the Son. Prescott seems determined to make the Son equal to rather than equal with the Father on the philosophical conviction that the Son is the only revelation of God. He believes that somehow the perfect character revelation mandates an eternal substance equality.]
C.P.Bollman: Do you think that all those expressions there refer not to the Father but to the Son?
[Bollman implies that even the “everlasting arms” applies to the Father as well]
W.W.Prescott: They refer to both, but the only revelation of him we have is in the Son, and therefore the Son must be with the Father, co-eternal, and the same expression applies. The Jehovah. Take the word Jehovah. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is manifested in Jesus in the New Testament. It shows in the word itself, as well as in the general teaching. Jehovah—Jesus and Joshua, are the same. Joshua is simply the contraction for Jehovah. (number of root words mentioned) Jehovah manifested for salvation is Jesus, and the Jesus of the New Testament is manifestly a manifestation of the Jehovah of the Old Testament.
[Prescott takes the other extreme and insists that they must refer to both, therefore making both eternal and everlasting. He submits the name Jehovah supports this as it was claimed by both the Jehovah of the OT and Jesus in the NT]
J. Anderson: Did you state that he derived life from the Father?
W.W.Prescott: No. Simply in the fact that equality with the Father is derived equality, but equality is the same.
[This is equally true for the Son who comes out from the Father. He inherently has the Father “in him.” And what the Son “is” is also “in” the Father]
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J.Anderson: I thought you said that he derived life from the Father.
W.W.Prescott: No. I used the Scripture statement—John 5:26: “As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” But the two expressions referred to must apply equally both to the Father and the Son.
[What is equal is the life. The same immortal, self-existent, eternal, everlasting life that is in the Father was “given” by the Father to the Son. Both have the same life. In this, as well as in character, and divine substance they are equal. Having the Father as his origin guarentees the Son’s divinity; he must be absolutely equal in his divine nature. But not in individuality. They are separate, individual persons with different experiences.]
Question: Simply a difference in what respect—that of rank with the Father?
[Perhaps this is referring back to Lacey’s differences between the persons of the Godhead, which he maintains is only rank, not origin]
W.W.Prescott: He himself says that “the Father is greater than I. He also said “I and my Father are one.” And both are true.
[The paradox of comparative difference equals unity. This can only be true if the difference and the unity apply to different attributes. James White, Laughborough, Waggoner all maintained that the Father was “greater” than the Son in that He was first; whereas the Father and Son are “one” in that they have the same character, love, and purpose.]
J.Anderson: If he is inferior in any respect to the Father, how can he be God?
[Anderson assumes that “Greater” requires a corresponding “Lesser” which he equates with “inferior.” This is not the case when Greater means Older. James the son of Alpheus was also known as James the lesser or younger.]
W.W.Prescott: I do not think that I used that term “inferior”
J.Anderson: But others may use that word in some instances—that the Son was inferior to the Father, and my inquiry arises that if it were true that Jesus the Son was inferior in any respect—in age, or in nature, or attributes; if that be so, how could he be God?
W.W.Prescott: I would not say that he was. I do not think I used that expression.
H.C.Lacy: Is it not that he is only inferior to the Father in rank—he is second in rank with the Father, and in all other respects is equal?
[While Anderson cannot accept anything less than perfect equality with God as qualification to be God, Lacey relaxes the criteria to accommodate an inequality in “rank”]
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W.W.Prescott: We must, of course, in our dealing with the question, take his own statement both ways. When he said, “The Father is greater than I,” we deal with that, and when he said, “I and the Father are one,” we deal with that. We must have a conception of each one that will allow his own statement, what he himself says, to be true.
Question: As to Christ’s preexistence, and the fact that he “emptied” himself.
W.W.Prescott: He was still divine.
Question: The question which comes to my mind is, How could Jesus being God, still be inferior to God?
[if “greater than” and “less than” are understood in terms of age and qualifications for God recognize His person then there is no conflict. The Son, coming out of the Father has the same God nature, same divinity, but is lesser than the Father who is greater than the Son, being first. Just what constitutes being divine, the definition of divinity is crucial in expressing correctly and understanding rightly the words of Scripture. If divinity is measured by God’s primary quality: love—divine love, then the Son is just as much God as the Father if they both share the same infinite love, regardless of age. What texts require equal age?
Adam and Eve appeared on day six of creation week. Eve’s humanity was the same as Adam’s; it had to be: she was taken out of him (Gen 2:23), as such he was her head (1Cor 11:3) for he was not “of the woman” but Eve was “of the man” (1Cor 11:8). And Adam was formed first (1Timothy 2:13). All these details were given “for the angels” (1Cor 11:10).]
W.W.Prescott: Yes, I think we must take that into account. I would not use the word contradictory to any expression of the Scripture. That shuts our minds to any understanding. Take the two statements referred to: “I and my Father are one,” therefore they took up stones to stone him. What were they going to stone him for? “Because thou being man makest thyself God.” He also said, “The Father is great than I,” Now to say these are contradictory shuts up the mind to correct comprehension of the truth. We must not say that. We must not use such expressions. We must not ask, How do you reconcile these two? I do not like to hear that expression, because it implies something that needs explanation or is contradictory. The contradiction is not in the word. The only difficulty is in the ability of the finite mind to comprehend all of God. And we shall always face difficulty. But I try to stay as closely as possible to the Scripture statement, and be careful in the use of words, and I do not try
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to apply to reasoning power that will enable me to explain any Biblical terms. That will be impossible. Rather, as the question rose, as we referred to it this morning, we will get light, not by questioning, but by saying it is so first, then waiting for more. That is the only way we can get it. We know it is true. We know it is so. We know that what the Scripture says is so; there is no contradiction; and now wait till we see further light in regard to it. But if we start with the thought that this is contradictory, the Spirit cannot bring light to bear upon it.
H.C.Lacey: Is not the thought, second in rank, preferable to the term “inferior”?
[Lacey is still lobbying for “second in rank” and places it in a “superior” position for the group’s consideration by pitting it against the pejorative word “inferior”.]
W.W.Prescott: One with the Father, one in authority, in power, in love, in mercy, and all the attributes—equal with him and yet second in nature. I like the word “second” better than “inferior,”—second in rank.
[What scripture uses this term: “second”? Prescott nicely obscures the issue of age and eternality by hiding it in “all the attributes”. He votes for “second” But why second in “nature”? The divine Son of God has the exact same divine nature as God the Father. Ellen White would favor second in “rank” as this is how she described the three highest beings in heaven: Christ is “next to God” Ms90-1910.1; Ms86-1910.29; Ms67-1910.26 which is consistent with Scripture being “on the right hand of God” Heb 1:3; 8:1; 10:12-13; 1Peter 3:22; Mark 16:19; Eph 1:21; Luke 22:69; Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55; Rom 8:34; Col 3:1; Psalm 110:1. And Lucifer/Satan is always “next to Christ” Lt43-1895.38; Lt21-1901.14; Lt114-1903.2; Lt162-1906.6; Lt189-1909.29; EW145.1; GC493.3; PP35.1; PP36.1; RH1898 May3.2; RH1909 Jan14.4; RH1909 Feb4.1,etc 50 times. She never states the Holy Spirit is/was “next to” the Father or the Son.]
C.P.Bollman: Subject to the Father—is not that the meaning of the word?
[he is referring to 1Cor 15:26]
W.W.Prescott: We might speak of many things beyond our comprehension.
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PRESCOTT: Would Brother Wilcox be willing on the last point to state what relation exists between our own view of interpreting scripture and what should be given to what others have taught or written, when we come to the study of Scripture.
[Prescott conveniently dodges Bollman’s reference to 1Cor 15 by changing subjects and shifting the floor to Wilcox who shares his personal testimony.]
WILCOX: I would state, so far as my own personal experience is concerned, I have not accepted of any view easily. I was an infidel when this message reached me and did not believe anybody’s view of things scriptural. Consequently it was hard for me to embrace the truth—it was hard at that time. But when I gave myself to God I made up my mind I would follow any way he led, and I have taken the statement of others who had gone before. I did not have the time to investigate when I heard the message. But I have found real satisfaction in later years as I have studied the Word for myself to find that my view coincided with theirs—that the view I had accepted was in harmony with the Word of God. I can say so far as I know myself I have never departed or tried to find one single new thing—that was contrary to this great message and movement with which I am connected; but that did come to me came because it seemed the only logical outcome there was from the Scripture itself. I would like to say again I have never found anything yet that I studied earnestly and sought
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God earnestly, and followed all the light I could get in every way—still holding to the Word, as the early men of the message did—that had taken me away from the message in any way or made me to look upon it with any less degree of devotion. In fact it has endeared it to me more and more, and I have seen more and more in it and the men connected with the movement, that has increased my confidence in the message and in its triumph.
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F.W.Field: I will ask Brother Wilcox why he did not include the prophecy in Matthew 24 as an example of a prophecy with a double application. Sister White makes that very plain that in this prophecy the Saviour did mingle events with reference to the troubles that were coming upon Jerusalem, closing with the siege and destruction of the city, and events in connection with the persecution that followed.
W.C.Wilcox: That would be, of course, a prophecy to Israel of old.
J.N.Anderson: I had one little thought in my mind in regard to Pentecost. Now it seems to me that that cannot be fulfilled a second time. I understand (I would like to be corrected if I am mistaken) that the Lord promised to send the Holy Spirit as a third person, coming ten days after the ascension of our Lord. And I understand that person has been in the world ever since that time. Now, that person can never be sent from heaven again, for He has never been withdrawn from the world, so that Pentecost can never be fulfilled again. We cannot say that half of the Holy Spirit came then, and the other half will come later, because the third person was sent then, and has been here ever since.
[In spite of the fact that Psalm 139 is used by our fundamental beliefs to establish the omnipresence of God by His Spirit, Anderson limits the Spirit to a “person” who is stuck here in the world, hasn’t been withdrawn, and so can’t be sent again unless “he” returns to heaven to do so. This restrains the capabilities of the Spirit to essentially those of Christ when he said that it was “expedient” that he leave, so he could send the Comforter. The original Adventist understanding of the Spirit is that it is not a person as the Father and Son are persons, but rather their personal presence. Thus it can be “poured out”, “shed abroad”, and sent to “anoint” the people of God on earth as God desires: when, how often, and to what degree.]
W.C.Wilcox: That was the question that Brother Tait raised. Of course, we all agree on the question of the double outpouring, the early and the latter rain.
W.W.Prescott: I think there are some features that should be considered. I would like to have a broader consideration of the question.
A.G.Daniels: We can divide the time tomorrow morning on the study of this question, and it seems to me it is worthy of it. I hope the Bible teachers will be ready, and let us make the hour very valuable. We will now have the discussion of Brother Bollman’s paper presented this morning.