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 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
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 Presented by OV) e^ oA mVV^ O YT 
 
 BS 525 .L3 1916 
 Lansing, John A. 
 Bible interpretation, or. 
 The Bible its own 
 
BIBLE INTERPRETATION 
 
 OB 
 
 THE BIBLE ITS OWN 
 INTERPRETER 
 
 S i MAY 24 1910 
 
 WORD STUDIES 
 JOHN A. LANSING 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 
 
JesiLS said, My teaching is not mine, hut his that sent me. 
 If any man mlleth to do his will, he shall know of the teach- 
 ing, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself. 
 
 They received the word with all readiness of mind, search- 
 ing the scriptures daily, whether these things were so. 
 
 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my 
 path. 
 
 Copyright, 1916 
 Bt John A. Lansing 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Foreword 5 
 
 Death, Sleep 7 
 
 Good 12 
 
 Evil 15 
 
 Life 18 
 
 Love, Hate 21 
 
 The Creative Days 24 
 
 Eternal, Everlasting, For Ever 27 
 
 Eternal Life 29 
 
 God, Creator 32 
 
 Jehovah God 33 
 
 The Son of God, Jesus Christ 36 
 
 Glory, Cloud 38 
 
 The Voice of the Lord (Jehovah) 41 
 
 The Repenting of God and Man 44 
 
 Temptation 47 
 
 Miracle 49 
 
 The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, The 
 
 Tree of Life 52 
 
 The Old Serpent Called the Devil and Satan . . 54 
 
 Unquenchable Fire, Everlasting Burnings .... 56 
 
 Gehenna or Hell 60 
 
 Hades 64 
 
 The First Adam, The Last Adam 67 
 
 The Image and Likeness of God in Man 69 
 
 Bible Begettings 71 
 
 Body, Soul, and Spirit 74 
 
 3 
 
Page 
 
 The Loss of the Soul 77 
 
 Sin 81 
 
 Prophecy 85 
 
 A Time, Times, and Half a Time 87 
 
 The Son of Man, The Thousand Years 99 
 
 The Lamb of God 103 
 
 National Righteousness 106 
 
 World Righteousness Ill 
 
 Personal, or Individual, and Universal Righteous- 
 ness 114 
 
 A Consuming Fire, Judgments 119 
 
 The New Heavens and the New Earth 124 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 THE Bible is a book for all men. It is not for the exclusive 
 use of scholars, educated persons, or any single class. 
 Its message is for our daily life, for it is our one Book of Life. 
 There are many ways of approach to the Bible, many methods 
 of study. But for those who desire to know what the funda- 
 mental teachings are, there is a plain path that any one can 
 follow. Make the Bible its own interpreter. The object of 
 this book is to give those readers of the Bible who are more 
 or less puzzled over vital truths which deeply concern them a 
 basis and a method of study by which they may get a clear and 
 consistent sense of the Bible as a whole and of its teaching 
 along many Unes. This little volume illustrates this method, 
 and the way that the writer has found it of value in the study 
 of the Scriptures. The ''word studies" are at their best simply 
 suggestive. It is hoped that they will open new fountains of 
 living waters to many Bible lovers. 
 
 The Bible uses words that are of universal interest, as death 
 and life, good and evil, love and hate, sin and righteousness, 
 God and man, angels and demons. It must be that these fun- 
 damental words and others like them should be viewed from 
 some common standpoint, should have some consistent mean- 
 ing. If in a book made up of sixty-six different books, written 
 by many authors who lived at different times during a period 
 of fifteen hundred years, these fundamental words have one 
 steady meaning, it shows clearly that the Bible is the work of 
 one mind, of men of one sequence of thought, inspired by the 
 Holy Spirit. The object of the writer is to illustrate the truth 
 of this premise, that the fundamental words of the Bible find 
 their real interpretation in the Bible itself; and that in this re- 
 spect the Book authenticates itself, a premise the importance 
 of which is apparent only when its far-reaching effect on per- 
 sonal investigation and behef is perceived. 
 
 5 
 
The scholars have prepared the way. By a critical compari- 
 son and study of ancient texts they have provided for our use 
 a Bible with exact phraseology and careful marginal readings. 
 With the Authorized Version, the American Revision, and a 
 good concordance in his possession, the reader is equipped with 
 the tools with which he may go far in the region of Bible inter- 
 pretation, a field unequalled in interest and reward. 
 
 The method, in brief, rests upon the fact that the Bible 
 rarely if ever defines its terms, but always illustrates them; 
 that the root meaning can be traced; and that this root mean- 
 ing obtains in all its sixty-six books and with its many writers 
 wherever the term is used; and that, furthermore, whenever 
 there are derived words, or even different ones for the same truth 
 or fact, this fundamental sense is never absent. 
 
 The studies here presented take a few of the words found in 
 the Old and New Testaments, words that are fundamental, and 
 trace them through the Scriptures showing how, in each case, 
 what is beheved to be the root meaning carries through all the 
 passages in which it is used. This is the fair way to treat the 
 Bible, to judge it as a whole on its great basic words; it is a 
 wonderfully suggestive way as it leads us ever anew to the 
 conviction that this book is indeed the Word of God, written 
 by men led and inspired of God, dealing with universal prob- 
 lems, consistent with itself, and intelligible to us all. 
 
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DEATH 
 
 NO word touches more vitally the universal human experi- 
 ence than the word death. Here is a fact with which we are 
 all concerned, a mystery on which we are all seeking light. It 
 is characteristic of the fundamentally human character of the 
 Bible that we meet this word in the opening chapter of its first 
 book and the closing words of its last book. It is equally char- 
 acteristic of the unity of the Bible that the use of this word in 
 Genesis and Revelation and in the many passages which inter- 
 vene is mutually self-interpretative. 
 
 Let us consider together the word death, with its parallel sleep, 
 as we meet them in the Bible narrative and exposition. The 
 word die occurs first in the Eden story, in the word of God to 
 Adam and Eve that they shall not eat of the fruit of the tree 
 of the knowledge of good and evil, *'ye shall not eat of it, neither 
 shall ye touch it lest ye die.'' ^'That old serpent," called later 
 the Devil and Satan, says to 'Hhe mother of aU living,'' "Ye 
 shall not surely die/' adding that God knows this. The man 
 and the woman ate. Did they, in our sense of the word, die 
 on that day? No. Adam hved to be nine hundred and thirty 
 years of age, and then died. But if the word of God stood, he 
 died also when he disobeyed. 
 
 How then shall we define the word death, as it is used in the 
 Bible? The Bible rarely defines its terms. It illustrates them. 
 Words in themselves are pictures, and the picture tells what the 
 word signifies. What happened in Eden when the first parents 
 went counter to God's will? ''The man and his wife hid them- 
 selves from the presence of the Lord God." They had done 
 what had been forbidden, and as a result had a keen sense of 
 separation from God. They may not have had a clear under- 
 standing of why they felt thus, though they gave reasons; but 
 the voice of the Lord God which before had been welcome, now 
 sent Adam and Eve from Him instead of drawing them to E^m. 
 
 7 
 
Since the word of the Creator was that in that day they should 
 surely die, they must have died. Is not this then the Biblical 
 meaning of the word deaths separation where it was not before, 
 a new experience? 
 
 Let us test this idea of death as separation^ and see whether it 
 meets the Bible use of the word and of the thought, and our own 
 use as well. If it does, from Genesis to Revelation, we have a 
 Biblical interpretation of the word death. If by it we can unlock 
 the many passages where the word is found, difficult passages 
 as well as easy ones, we shall have found it not only the key to 
 this one word study, but the symbol of many more along the 
 same line. 
 
 Adam died at nine hundred and thirty years of age; the soul 
 left the body, a separation. The body returned to the dust 
 from which it had been made, separated itself into its original 
 elements or particles. The [Scriptures speak of one as being 
 dead to sin, that is, separated from sin; and of being dead in tres- 
 passes and sins, that is, separated from God by disobedience, 
 as was Adam. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be 
 made alive.'' That this is true all know, for all experience a 
 sense of separation from God. The son who played the part of 
 the Prodigal returns to his father, and we are told that he "was 
 dead, and is aHve again." He had separated himself from his 
 father's house and all that pertained thereto. He returned, 
 "and was alive again." 
 
 You can traverse the whole Scripture story from Genesis to 
 Revelation and find appUcations. Passages such as "whoso- 
 ever hveth and beUeveth on me shall never die,'' become 
 luminous; such shall never be separated from God. The separa- 
 rateness all vanishes when you are told that death cannot 
 "separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
 Lord." You see a Hght from Heaven leaping in upon that 
 wonderful passage in Revelation, loved of us all, "And there 
 shall be no more death," for a time has come when the order of 
 the world has changed. The sorrow, the crying, the pain which 
 always. Biblically speaking, spring from sin cease, and never- 
 
 8 
 
more will there be aught but what there was in the Garden of 
 Eden. God tabernacles or lives with men; as once with Adam, 
 so now with the race redeemed, individually and collectively. 
 You read understandingly that triumphant passage in Hebrews 
 that Jesus suffered death, the separation of soul from body, his 
 soul in Hades, his body in the sepulchre, that He might destroy 
 "him that had the power of death.'' You understand that the 
 last enemy that shall be abohshed is death, separateness from 
 God. You know what Jesus meant when He said, "I have the 
 keys of death and Hades,*' for He it is who has ended all this 
 separation from God. You even approach that word, so 
 strange and solemn, the second death, and see the Beast (world 
 powers), the False Prophet (false rehgious teaching), and 
 Hades (that has had power to hold the soul separated from the 
 body), all passing with those who are of their train where under 
 the symbol of Fire our God who is a consuming fire enters 
 upon the final stage of His plans for subduing all things unto 
 Himself. (In studies of the words fire and jicdgment the second 
 death finds its proper setting.) 
 
 SLEEP 
 
 As an illustration of the use of a different word to express 
 the same truth because the root meaning is the same, take the 
 word sleep, used for death so freely in the New Testament but 
 found equally in the first books of the Bible. Physically as well 
 as spiritually, in its Hteral everyday usage as well as in its Bibli- 
 cal interchange with the word death, sleep involves a separation. 
 It is one of the most conspicuous properties of this unexplained 
 physical phenomenon that it makes a break in our fives. We 
 are separated in our sleep from our work, our friends, our con- 
 scious existence. We are, as it were, absent though we are 
 alive. 
 
 The Bibfical use of the word sleep as a parallel with death 
 begins with Jehovah's words to Moses, "Behold, thou shalt 
 sleep with thy fathers." To Abraham it had been said, "Thou 
 
 9 
 
shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good 
 old age," and to Moses himself that he should die in the mount 
 and be gathered unto his people. Only once since does the Bible 
 tell of his presence on earth, when Peter, James, and John saw 
 Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus, and "He was transfigured 
 before them." From the time of Moses ^' slept with his fathers" 
 becomes the common phrase recording the death of rulers in the 
 books of Kings and Chronicles, used aUke for those who did evil 
 like Ahab and Manasseh, and for David and Jehoshaphat who 
 served the Lord. 
 
 Its use, then, by Jesus, in the story of the raising of Lazarus 
 has a background of customary Hebrew phraseology, gaining 
 on His Ups, as Old Testament language so frequently did, a 
 new power and a new significance. "Our friend Lazarus sleep- 
 eth/' He said. They, taking it as a good omen, said, "Lord, if 
 he is fallen asleep, he will recover." " Now Jesus," the narrative 
 continues, "had spoken of his death; but they thought that he 
 spake of taking rest in sleep." Then Jesus said to them plainly, 
 "Lazarus is dead.'' But to Martha when He met her. He said, 
 "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth on me, 
 though he die, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and be- 
 lieveth on me shall never die," The word sleep takes from 
 death its tragic sense and replaces it with a sense of rest and 
 quiet. It takes on an added significance as it appears in St. 
 PauFs phrase when he speaks of those who are fallen asleep in 
 Christ, adding, "But now hath Christ been raised from the 
 dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep.'' "We shall not all 
 sleep," he writes, and again, "But we would not have you igno- 
 rant, brethren, concerning them that /aZZ asleep; that ye sorrow 
 not, even as the rest, which have no hope. For if we beheve that 
 Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen 
 asleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 
 
 Sleep is but the door to waking, as every night and day bear 
 witness; falling asleep in Christ is but the prelude to being no 
 more separated from Him, but being with Him where He is. 
 It was David who said when his child died, "I shall go to him." 
 
 10 
 
In Hebrews we read of the men and women of the olden time 
 who ''died in faith" and learn that we are compassed about by 
 this great cloud of witnesses as we go our homeward way. To 
 questioners of to-day, as to those whose thought of what fol- 
 lowed death had been clouded by the Sadduccees and Pharisees, 
 Jesus says, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the 
 power of God. . . . Have ye not read that which was spoken 
 unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the 
 God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the 
 dead but of the living ... for all live unto him." 
 
 DEATH-SLEEP: Gen. 2:17, thou shalt surely die; 3:2-5, lest 
 ye die, ye shall not surely die; 5:5, Adam . . . died; Rom. 
 6:2, we who died to sin; I Pet. 2:24, having died unto sins; 
 Eph. 2 : 1, dead in trespasses and sins; I Cor. 15: 22, as in Adam 
 all die; Luke 15:24, this my son was dead; John 11:26, shall 
 never die; Rom. 8:38, neither death, nor hfe . . . separate 
 us; Rev. 21:4, no more death; Heb. 2:14, him that had 
 the power of death; Rev. 1:18, keys of death; Rev. 2:11, 
 20:6, 14; 21:8, second death. 
 
 Deut. 31:16, sleep with thy fathers; Gen. 15:15, go to thy 
 fathers in peace ; Deut. 32 : 50, die in the mount . . . and be 
 gathered unto thy people, also Num. 27:13; I Kings 2:10; 
 11:21,43; 14:20,31; 15:8,24; 16:6, 28, etc., etc., slept with 
 his fathers; John 11:11, 14, Lazarus sleepeth ... is dead; 
 11:25, though he die, yet shall he live; I Cor. 15:18, fallen 
 asleep in Christ; 15:20, firstfruits of them that are asleep; 
 15:51, we shall not all sleep; I Thess. 4:13, them that fall 
 asleep. 
 
 II Sam. 12:23, I shall go to him; Heb. 11:13, died in faith; 
 12:1, compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses; 
 Matt. 22:32, Luke 20:38, not the God of the dead, but of the 
 living. 
 
 11 
 
GOOD 
 
 THE word good is first found in the story of Creation when 
 the waters were gathered into one place, and God saw 
 that it was good. As the creative work goes on, the same word 
 is used with all that grows upon the earth, all that is in the sea, 
 and every Uving thing upon the land, as well as in the appoint- 
 ment of the sun, moon, and stars, for signs, seasons, days, and 
 years, till finally man is made. Then over everything that He 
 had made God looked, as in review, and behold it was very good. 
 
 The plain sense of good is that all that had been done was so 
 planned and ordered as to work out the purpose of the Maker. 
 This, then, is the fundamental idea of the word good. The 
 question is, Does this sense continue all through the Bible? 
 Can we follow this clue, and thus come, each one of us, to a 
 right understanding of God, man, things? Will this explain to 
 us Scripture passages that have been puzzling, and make clearer 
 the meaning of hundreds of texts where this word occurs, so 
 that our reason and our heart aUke will be at rest? 
 
 It is interesting to note that we use the word good constantly 
 with the same thought in mind. A good watch is one that keeps 
 good time; a good season is one that favors sowing and reaping; 
 a good day is one that harmonizes with our plans. 
 
 Good is the word of harmony, where all moves in unity and 
 without friction, in a way that neither upsets nor interferes 
 with the thought of him who says "good'^ over it. If there is a 
 drought, rain is good; if it is over-wet, sunshine is good; if 
 there is work to do, health and strength count as good. Now 
 this is the changeless use of the word good in the Bible. 
 
 Jehovah God said, "It is not good that man should be alone." 
 So the woman was made. Apply this method of interpretation 
 to St. Paul's quotation from the Psalms, "There is none that 
 doeth good, no, not so much as one." Does this mean that there 
 is no good in men taken as they are, or that their doing is all 
 
 12 
 
ill? This cannot be, for Jesus in telling the disciples the parable 
 of the sower, says as he explains it to them, that the one who 
 brought forth thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold, re- 
 ceived the Word into a "good and honest heart." What does 
 that signify but that this honest soul responded to what he 
 understood to be the way and call of God as good soil answers 
 with a good harvest. There was good there, goodness, if you 
 please. 
 
 But when we take men as they live their human hves, it is 
 plain that in them there is no abiding thought of God's way 
 or wish or plan. So it is true that there is not one good, not one 
 who conforms in all things to the will of God, and thus keeps 
 the perfect harmony. It was as true in St. Paul's day as it was 
 in the day of the Psalmist, and as it is to-day. 
 
 Man was to be fruitful, to multiply, and to replenish the earth; 
 he was to subdue it. This puts the divine sanction on a thou- 
 sand things men do and have to do in hving their human Hves. 
 They must sow their seed in God's seedtime if they would reap 
 a harvest. They must Hve in families and work humanly to- 
 gether to bring into subjection to their needs the things that 
 earth and sea and air offer for their food and raiment and 
 homemaking. To fail here is to fail to be in harmony with 
 God's plan. 
 
 Take the case of the Young Ruler who came to Jesus and 
 kneehng said: "Good Master [Teacher], what shall I do that I 
 may inherit eternal life?" "Why askest thou me," said Jesus, 
 "concerning that which is goodf^' Or "Why callest thou me 
 good? None is good save one, God." Was Jesus not good? 
 Why was He good? Because as Master [Teacher] he could say 
 in His teaching, "All things that I have heard from my 
 Father, I have made known unto you." Because of His doing, 
 He could say, "I do always the things that please him." His 
 was the life and His the words that were ever in unity with 
 God's plan, and so were good, as God was good. So "the good 
 man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that 
 which is good." 
 
 13 
 
If one would rightly interpret the varied ups and downs of 
 life and see the outcome, let him recall the story of Joseph, see 
 him sold into Egypt, in prison and released, hear him as he 
 interprets to Pharaoh his dreams, see him gathering in the seven 
 years of plenty for the seven years of leanness that were to 
 follow. Then follow his brethren who sold him to the hour 
 when they stand alone with him in the royal residence in Egypt 
 and hear him as he sums up his and their lives in these words: 
 ''And Joseph said unto them, Fear not; for am I in the place of 
 God? And as for you, ye meant evil against me, hut God meant 
 it for good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people 
 alive. . . . I will nourish you and your little ones. And he com- 
 forted them and spake kindly unto them," as God does to us. 
 
 In the light of the great historic facts set forth in this story of 
 Joseph and of what followed in the history of the nations, 
 Egypt and Israel, as we read of it four centuries later in the time 
 of Moses, we are quite prepared to hear St. Paul say, "All things 
 work together for good to them that love God," for the good pur- 
 pose of God, he tells us, was that we might be "conformed to 
 the image of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among 
 many brethren." 
 
 GOOD: Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, it was good, 31, very good; 
 2:18, not good that man should be alone; Ps. 14:3, Rom. 
 3:12, none that doeth good; Luke 8:15, an honest and good 
 heart; Mark 4:8, good ground; Matt. 19:16, good Master; 
 19: 17, why callest thou me good? None is good; Matt. 12: 35, 
 the good man, out of the good treasure; Gen. 50:20, God 
 meant it for good; Rom. 8:28, work together for good. 
 
 14 
 
EVIL 
 
 THIS word of ill omen occurs first in connection with the 
 prohibition to Adam and Eve as to eating or touching the 
 fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What 
 followed ? The withdrawal of their right to eat of the Tree of 
 Life. This was a withdrawal of blessing. Does this sense of 
 the word evil hold through the Scriptures, or some sense 
 plainly similar, as the absence or lack or want of good? 
 
 The word comes to us again in the story of the wickedness of 
 man in the time of Noah. Jehovah saw that "every imagina- 
 tion of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." 
 Only Noah found favor with God. Here followed again the 
 withdrawal of God's favor and the judgment which overwhelmed 
 the world that then was. 
 
 On a scale that was national with the chosen people we get 
 the same word illustrated as Moses at the command of Jehovah 
 repeats the blessings and the curses that will follow their walk- 
 ing or not walking in the statutes and ordinances that had been 
 given them, which curses and blessings the people repeated 
 later as they stood on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and 
 covenanted again to be true to Jehovah. 
 
 Hundreds of years later, in the time of the good king Josiah, 
 the book of the law was recovered and read to the king. He 
 sent a messenger to Huldah the prophetess to inquire concern- 
 ing the law and what would befall Israel. The answer was, 
 "Thus saith Jehovah, ^Behold I will bring evil upon this place, 
 . . . evenall the words of the bookwhich the king of Judah hath 
 read." These are recorded in the twenty-eighth chapter of 
 Deuteronomy. After a recital in detail of all the blessings, 
 which cover in detail everything that is desirable, the cursings, 
 which are covered by the one word evil reverse in every case 
 the blessings promised to obedience. Then evil, which is here 
 blessings withdrawn, covers the whole field of what may come 
 
 15 
 
to us if we disregard the word of Jehovah. Of this truth Israersj 
 history is the standing witness. 
 
 We are here then in an order of things that is subject to change 
 by God's will and a part of His purpose concerning us. " Dehver 
 us from evil,^^ the prayer taught the disciples by Jesus, assumes 
 new meaning; "overcome evil with good" becomes the only way 
 to blessing for ourselves or others; " thinketh no eviV^ is charged 
 with the choice for us of always seeking to see the good in others, 
 and not their lack. The evil beast that Jacob exclaimed had 
 devoured his Joseph, when the brothers brought him the bloody 
 coat, becomes evil because he had brought this great sorrow to the 
 father. "Few and evil have been the days of my pilgrimage," 
 as addressed to Pharaoh by Jacob, recalls the long hst of troubles 
 that had come upon him in the loss of his beloved Rachel, his 
 favorite son Joseph, and through other ruthless acts of his sons. 
 
 We begin to see the significance of such phrases, spoken of 
 rebellious Israel, as "I will watch over them for evily^ or "I will 
 set my face against you for mZ," and once more, "wherefore 
 hath Jehovah pronounced all this great evil against us?" 
 
 The Bible answer is clear and sure. When Amos prophesies 
 of the downfall of the great cities of Damascus and Tyre, he 
 asks, "Shall evil befall a city and Jehovah hath not done it?" 
 When Isaiah begins his prophecies as to Cyrus, he writes, 
 " Thus saith Jehovah . . . I form the Ught and create darkness. 
 I make peace and create evil. I am Jehovah that doeth all 
 these things." What things? Read the forty-fifth chapter of 
 Isaiah and we are answered. Whether the sentence, "I create 
 eviV^ puts this word in contrast with peace and so refers to the 
 conquest and overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus, or whether it 
 stands in contrast to peace as covering all the discords that 
 come where good is absent, is not material. The sentence 
 stands. Peace and evil are as light and darkness. The absence 
 of light creates darkness; the lack of peace creates evil. This 
 is not unreasonable to us who make and create. We look for 
 wear and tear, for fracture and breakage, and we know full well 
 that with free beings this going counter to the Creator's plan 
 
 16 
 
is ever going on. In the study later of what transpired in Eden 
 we may find the secret of this. 
 
 Just how in the administering of things evil comes upon us, 
 is not material and may vary. For example, a drought brings 
 out of the earth, *' which was cursed for man's sake," pests, as 
 caterpillars, grasshoppers, or other destroyers of what Httle is 
 left for man or beast. That is an evil. Overmuch rain may 
 bring out other destructive forces from Mother Earth. The 
 Bible, especially in the Old Testament history of Israel, illus- 
 trates very fully the idea that it is God's restraining hand upon 
 earth's destructive forces, and His blessing upon other forces 
 which makes the land a good land, fruitful and plenteous. 
 The same thought of evil as a lack or withdrawal of good is equally 
 plain in such passages as those in the eleventh chapter of Luke, 
 "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
 children," evil standing for lack of good rather than a positive, 
 vicious element, and ''when thine eye is single, thy whole body 
 also is full of Ught; but when it is evil, thy body also is full of 
 darkness," Ught withdrawn. The evil generation of the days 
 of Jesus and the evil generation of the days of Moses have this 
 in common: they went counter to the will of God for their 
 time. The result with the one was that all save two died in 
 the wilderness; that with the other is summed up in the words, 
 ''Behold your house is left unto you desolate." 
 
 Further studies in sin, Hades, temptation, prayer will show 
 more clearly the uses in the Bible of these two words, good and 
 evil, so closely joined yet so widely severed. 
 
 EVIL: Gen. 6:5, every imagination was only evil; II Kings 22: 16, 
 bring evil upon this place; Matt. 6:13, deUver us from evil; 
 Rom. 12:21, overcome evil with good; I Cor. 13:5, thinketh 
 no evil; Gen. 37:33, an evil beast; 47:9, few and evil; Jer. 
 44: 27, watch over them for evil; 44 : 11, my face against you for 
 evil; 16:10, pronounced all this evil; Amos 3:6, evil befall] a 
 city; Isaiah 45:7, I . . . create evil; Luke 11:13, If ye then, 
 being evil; 11 : 34, when it is evil, thy body also is full of darkness; 
 Deut. 1 : 35, Matt. 12 : 39, evil generation; Matt. 23 : 38, left desolate. 
 
 17 
 
LIFE 
 
 THE Bible is a book of lifey the life of God, men, angels, 
 demons, spirits, and living things in their mutual rela- 
 tions. It tells the story of its origin with God, not of its mys- 
 tery as it is hidden in Him, but of God as its source, its upholder 
 in its many forms of expressions, and of the way it operates in 
 its manifold productive and reproductive unfolding. 
 
 In the pictorial first chapter of Genesis we read, "Let the 
 earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit tree bearing 
 fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof. '' Again, "God 
 created the great sea-monsters, and every living thing that 
 moveth wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and 
 every winged bird, after its kind. . . . And God blessed them, 
 saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the sea, 
 and let birds multiply in the earth.'* Once more God said, 
 * * Let the earth bring forth H ving creatures after their kind. ' ' The 
 land and the sea were thus peopled with their many forms of life. 
 The source of their life was God, the manner of its continuance 
 was named, each after its kind. Then man was made, and into 
 his nostrils God breathed the breath of life. Is there any word 
 that could more clearly and simply join together the life of God 
 and of man than this single statement, "Jehovah God breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living souV* ? 
 
 In this statement we have the two broad lines on which life 
 is treated in the Old and New Testaments, the former life in 
 its broadest sense, the Hebrew word chai, the breath of life, the 
 latter nephesh, used in the first chapter of Genesis of every beast 
 of the earth and every fowl of the air, and everything that 
 creepeth upon the earth, the same word which appears later in 
 the phrase, " and man became a living souV^ (For both these 
 readings see the margin of the American Revision.) In New 
 Testament Greek the word used for life in general is zo'6, while 
 that for soul life is psuch6. In this study we trace the words 
 
 18 
 
chai and zo'^; in a later study we trace in the same suggestive 
 way the life of the soul. 
 
 Our first mention of man's life is of Jehovah breathing into 
 his nostrils the breath of life, a union of the life of God and man. 
 With death and life contrasted in our reading, the thought 
 comes at once that as death separates, so life unites. Let us 
 see how this word that can never be defined is illustrated and 
 note if we are right in thinking that it will be the word of union 
 with God, a word of jointness with the source of our Hfe and all 
 lives. Such words as union and unity prove to he at the base 
 of all that the Scriptures teach us as to life in its relation to Him. 
 The emphasis Hes throughout on the Bible fact that the Maker 
 never takes Himself away from that which He has made. His 
 relation to all life is personal and immediate. 
 
 Take the life of earth. Sun, moon, and stars are given to us 
 for days and years and signs and seasons; seedtime and har- 
 vest are appointed. But hear the word that Jehovah spoke to 
 the chosen people in the twenty-eighth and thirtieth chapters 
 of Deuteronomy, when He set before them '' life and good, and 
 death and evil." Read the history of the Israelites and see 
 how it all came true. Read how if they do not hearken to the 
 voice of the Lord their God the seasons shall fail them. They 
 will plant vineyards and dress them, but they shall neither 
 drink of the vine nor eat of the grapes, for the worm shall eat 
 them. They will have olive trees throughout their borders, but 
 will not anoint themselves with the oil, for the oHve shall cast its 
 fruit. And so on through the statement of that which would be 
 their portion if they should forsake Jehovah and His ways. It is 
 always as the Psalmist says, " He openeth His hand and satisfieth 
 the desire of every living thing. . . . Thou hidest Thy face, 
 they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, they die." 
 
 Pass from the earth and its life to man and his life. We find 
 that everjrwhere in the Old Testament all life comes from God 
 and is sustained by union with God and the word of God. If 
 you turn to the New Testament this feature becomes so marked 
 that you are ever kept in mind of it. 
 
 19 
 
Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and might! 
 have it more abundantly." It comes from union with Him. He \ 
 it is that makes all the light that comes into our hfe. He is 
 the Word of whom it was said, "All things were made by him. 
 ... In him was life; and the life was the Ught of men. . . . 
 This is the Ught that lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world." No one is omitted, for as St. Paul says, "As in Adam 
 all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.'' It will make a new 
 Bible of the old book to get away from all that separates us from 
 God in the way we think of life, and come back to the teaching 
 of the Scriptures that all life is now, ever has been, and always 
 will be in our union with God, and that He never takes His 
 hand from that direct, present, and personal relation that began 
 in Eden and ends in Revelation with God dweUing with men. 
 
 In the American Revision where the word for life is zoe, no 
 marginal reading is given; where it is psuche, the word soul is 
 commonly given in the marginal reading, though not always and 
 not in some important passages. 
 
 As illustrative, you will find that where the new word eternal 
 is given us by Jesus in connection with life as He speaks of 
 eternal life, everlasting life, it changes the whole outlook if we 
 note that the word He uses is the word for life in general, the 
 life we live because we spring from God. These vital distinc- 
 tions will appear as we study later soul, the loss of the soul, and 
 eternal life. 
 
 As an illustration of the inseparable union between God and 
 man that sustains and makes possible life in its true sense, the 
 sixth chapter of John's Gospel offers an admirable example, 
 where the word zo^ is translated life throughout the whole 
 chapter. Here Jesus declares Himself to be the bread of life. 
 "The bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven 
 and giveth life unto the world. . . . For this is the will of my 
 Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son, and believeth 
 on him, should have eternal life. ... As the living Father 
 sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eateth me, 
 he also shall live because of me." 
 
 20 
 
LOVE - HATE 
 
 LIFE in its broadest sense, including all living creatures and 
 all plant life that has seed and all men, is in union with 
 God, but it is not of choice. We are born into this world by no 
 will of our own. We usually move within narrow Umits during 
 our earthly course. We are not sure of the age or the time at 
 which we shall go out of this world. Indeed no better summary 
 of the fact as to creation as a whole was ever written than that 
 of St. Paul when he said, *'The whole creation is made subject 
 unto vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath sub- 
 jected the same in hope." 
 
 Love, on the other hand, is union by choice, "This is the love 
 of God, that we keep his commandments." This sentence in 
 the first Epistle of St. John comes the nearest to a definition of 
 any passage in the Bible, and carries with it, as does all keep- 
 ing the commandments, the deUberate choice of the obedient 
 one. The word, however, is constantly illustrated, and carries 
 always the thought of union by choice to the person or object 
 loved. 
 
 We meet the word first in God's call to Abraham, "Take now 
 thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou loves f How this 
 father was united to this son the matchless story has told. It 
 was in union with God who had given Isaac to ,him as a child 
 of promise. 
 
 Then comes the story of the love of Jacob for Rachel and how 
 the love of choice over custom gave him Leah first and Rachel 
 after seven more years of service that seemed to the lover but 
 a few days because of his love. The story of David and Jona- 
 than follows, and from that time on this love by choice goes on 
 in ever-widening and ever-deepening circles till at last it is 
 crowned in "God so loved the world that he gave his only 
 begotten Son that whosoever beHeveth on him should not 
 perish (Greek word, lose) but have everlasting life." 
 
 21 
 
Apply this root meaning to ^^Love your enemies.'^ When 
 you have that enemy, you choose to take the attitude of the 
 Father of us all who sends His rain and sunshine on all, whether 
 just or unjust. Turn to the thirteenth chapter of First Corin- 
 thians. You do not need to have a reservoir of the love that is 
 there set forth. You join yourself to each of the words used, the 
 pictures given, because you choosey and thereby lead a loving 
 life, as the occasion calls for it. 
 
 If we take this word love in its Bible sense, we have no trouble 
 with its opposite, hate. We read, for example, "Jacob have I 
 loved, and Esau have I hated/' and this, as we are told, was 
 before they were born, they having done neither good nor evil. 
 All that it signifies is that in the carrying out of His plan of 
 reaching all men with His redemption, God made a choice of 
 a man through whose posterity He would work out the problem. 
 A chosen man, a chosen nation, whose chief glory was to be 
 that to them were committed the oracles of God, and whose 
 crowning glory was to be in the person of Jesus Christ — for 
 this Esau was not chosen. Hate is a divisive word, and that 
 by choice. Esau was not chosen, but he was blessed of his father 
 in the name of Jehovah, and so are his descendants. 
 
 So Jacob loved Rachel and hated Leah, says the Bible story. 
 This but makes Leah the one whom custom and the laws of the 
 family made his wife. She was not Jacob's choice; Rachel was. 
 There is nowhere in the interpretation of the word hate as it is 
 used in the Scriptures any of that malevolence that our use 
 of the word would suggest. Follow out this way of reading. 
 Everywhere the sense of the two words is the same. You 
 love by choice, full-orbed deliberate choice, a choice which 
 appears in the suggestive and illustrative text. So it is set forth 
 in the word of Jesus, "No man can serve two masters: for 
 either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will 
 hold to the one, and despise the other." Take as a clear-cut 
 and perfect expression the passage in the Gospel according to 
 St. Luke, where Jesus says to the multitudes that were follow- 
 ing Him, "If any man cometh unto Me and hateth not his 
 
 22 
 
own father and mother and wife and children and brethren 
 and sisters, yea, and his own soul, he cannot be My disciple." 
 Interpret the word liateth in the Bible way, and how clear and 
 simple is the sense. Jesus was the teacher; the disciples were 
 the learners. To His teaching you join yourself of deUberate 
 and settled choice; by that act you separate yourself by choice 
 and settled purpose from all teaching other than His. You 
 face your own soul with its garnered knowledge. You face all 
 your natural teachers at whose feet you have always sat. Your 
 love of your Chosen Teacher, whose disciple you now are or 
 would be, leads you to test by His words all that you know 
 and have. You say, " This is my Master, my Teacher. All 
 goes to Him for testing." You have hated, you have loved in 
 the Bible sense. 
 
 LIFE: Gen. 1; Gen. 2:7, breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
 life; and man became a living soul; Deut. 30:15, life and 
 good; John 10:10, that they might have life; 1:3-9, in him 
 was life; and the life was the light of men; I Cor. 15:22, in 
 Christ shall all be made alive; John 6:33, 35, 40, 57, giveth 
 life unto the world, bread of life, eternal life. I live because 
 of the Father. 
 
 LOVE-HATE: I John 5:3, the love of God; Gen. 22:2, Isaac, 
 whom thou lovest; 29:20, but a few days, for the love he 
 had to her; John 3:16, God so loved; Matt. 5:44, love your 
 enemies; Mai. 1:3, loved Jacob, hated Esau; Gen. 29:31, 
 Leah was hated ; Matt. 6 : 24, hate the one, and love the other; 
 Luke 14:26, hateth not his own father, and mother. 
 
 23 
 
THE CREATIVE DAYS 
 
 IN the first chapter of Genesis we have the order, the succession 
 of Creation. At the end of each of these creative processes 
 we have these words, ''And there was evening, and there was 
 morning, one day,''^ and so on through six successive days. 
 There this form of statement ends. In the fourth verse of the 
 second chapter of Genesis we read, ''These are the generations 
 of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the 
 day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." Here we have 
 the six days of Creation spoken of as o day. We see at once 
 that we are measuring duration, not by days of our reckoning, 
 but as indefinite periods. The six cycles of God that were named 
 days, from the first to the sixth, are all united and measured as 
 to Creation by the words the day. How long each of the six days 
 was we are not told; no more can we say what is the duration 
 of "the day" which comprises them all. A day becomes an in- 
 definite, unnamed period. By analogy it would appear that we 
 are living in this seventh day. 
 
 But what follows now as to God? He rested the seventh day. 
 Rested from what? He blessed the day and hallowed it, set it 
 apart from all the days that had preceded it. Then He "rested 
 from all his work which God had created and made." It was a 
 finished work. What now follows? A new name, Jehovah. It 
 is the way of the Bible to speak, when God is the One who is 
 doing, in terms like these, "God who quickeneth the dead and 
 calleth things that are not as though they were," or again, after 
 John had written of things which were to be in a far future, he 
 said, "They are come to pass," or, as it is in the Authorized 
 Version, "It is done." 
 
 'v: In this beginning we read that "no plant of the field was yet 
 in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up: for 
 Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there 
 was not a man to till the ground." But in the first chapter of 
 
 24 
 
Genesis man had been made in the image of God, and the earth 
 '' was fruitful." What is this for but to set plainly before us that 
 for humanity there was to be a seventh day as there had been 
 six, and that in that seventh day God's plan and purpose as to 
 man would become history? The duration of that period none 
 could tell. It was hidden. 
 
 A single phase of it Jesus said was known only to the Father, 
 where in connection with the coming of the Son of Man in the 
 clouds of heaven with power and great glory it is said, ''But of 
 that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in 
 heaven, neither the Son, but the Father" (Mark 13:32). Read 
 now the commandment given to Moses (Exod. 20:8-11; Deut. 
 5 : 12-14) in the light of the word day as God sees it and man 
 knows it, and see how they agree. In Exodus the seventh day 
 was to be the rest day, because ''in six days Jehovah made 
 heaven and earth . . . and rested the seventh day: wherefore 
 Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it." From what 
 were they to rest? From all their six days' toil. In Deuteron- 
 omy special emphasis is laid on the work and rest of servants in 
 these words, "And thou shalt remember that thou wast a 
 servant in the land of Egypt, and Jehovah thy God brought thee 
 out thence by a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: 
 therefore Jehovah thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath 
 da?/," that is, the rest day. The repetition of the command- 
 ment in this form links the two records together closely, for in 
 Exodus the giving of the ten commandments is prefaced by the 
 words, "I am Jehovah thy God who brought thee out of the 
 land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." It was to be a 
 memorial day, a memorial both of the fact of Creation and of 
 their great deliverance. Take now into mind the adaptation to 
 man's need of rest every seventh day and what it commemorated, 
 and you see how the word day as we count evening and morn- 
 ing, toil and rest, fit human needs, and you get the things that 
 belong to this sabbath day. Turn to other of the days appointed 
 of Jehovah God. There is a day appointed in which Jehovah 
 God will judge the world (Acts 17:31). It is not, cannot be, a 
 
 25 
 
day like man's day; rather it will be a period whose length we 
 know not. Such a passage is that where Jesus, reading in the 
 synagogue from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, begins, "The 
 Spirit of the Lord is upon me,'* and ends with, "to proclaim 
 the acceptable year of the Lord [or the year of Jehovah's good 
 pleasure, American Revision, marginal reading]. To-day hath 
 this scripture been fulfilled in your ears" (Luke 4:18-22). 
 That acceptable year, how long is it? No one knows. It is one 
 of the days of God. If Jesus had read on, the next sentence 
 from Isaiah would have been, "and the day of vengeance of 
 our God." When does or did that day begin when all the wrongs 
 of earth were to be righted? It is another of the days of God 
 of which there are many named in the Scriptures. 
 
 The rest day of Jehovah God, when He carries out His purpose 
 as to man, and man becomes what the words in the last six 
 verses of the first chapter of Genesis set forth as the creative 
 thought, is an undefined period, as were each of the six days of 
 Creation. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," said 
 Jesus when He was charged with breaking this rest day with 
 His work of healing and mercy. The day of God in the Bible 
 has no known duration. The creative work of the six days, 
 the marvels of the natural world, are but introductory to the 
 greater marvel of the new creation in which man, who is first 
 God's workmanship, is to be a co-worker with Him. One of the 
 signs of the times in these later days is the increasing recognition 
 of this creative power. In the taking of man into this fellow- 
 ship with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ it was pos- 
 sible for Jesus to say, "Greater works than these shall ye do: 
 for I go unto the Father." The length of this seventh creative 
 day has stretched on to our time. Its further duration and 
 work are assured to us by the promises of God. 
 
 26 
 
ETERNAL - EVERLASTING 
 FOR EVER 
 
 THE key to the root meaning of these three words is found 
 in a return to their Greek and Hebrew originals. The He- 
 brew word olam and the Greek word axon are translated ever- 
 lasting, eternal, and for ever. There is no equivalent for the 
 Hebrew word olam in our English language, but for the Greek 
 axon we have the word won, meaning age. In the Greek and 
 Hebrew concordances the meaning given to both olam and 
 axon is age-long, age-lasting, which is therefore the root meaning 
 of the words eternal, everlasting, and for ever. The duration of 
 the age must consequently be determined by the context in 
 each case where the English words are found in either the King 
 James Version or the American Revision. In the latter the word 
 age is usually found as a marginal or explanatory reading. As 
 the discovery of this root meaning in the passages where it be- 
 longs is illuminating in our personal study of many important 
 texts, a Ust of significant passages in which these are the Greek 
 or Hebrew originals is given on page 31. A suggestive grouping 
 in this study of a few of these passages will give a hint of the rich 
 treasures of interpretation which further analysis will reveal. 
 
 The word everlasting occurs first in the ninth chapter of Gene- 
 sis, where Jehovah made an everlasting covenant with the earth, 
 of which the rainbow in the clouds was the sign and the re- 
 minder. It is next found where Jehovah covenanted with Abram 
 that the land in which he was a sojourner was to be given to his 
 seed as an everlasting possession. In the Book of Exodus we 
 read of an everlasting priesthood. That "continuance without 
 end" is not the sense is plain from the Bible itself. The priest- 
 hood of Aaron is no more. The seed of Abram has not been in 
 possession of Palestine for centuries. This was an age-long 
 covenant, lasting as long as did the age in which and for which 
 it was made. The priesthood lasted for the age to which it 
 
 27 
 
belonged. "Blessed be Jehovah, from everlasting and to ever- 
 lasting^' means from age to age. Everlasting salvation is a con- 
 tinuous salvation, not passing as a cloud. Everlasting dominion 
 is a rule that does not change as does world rule; it is stable and 
 righteous. We keep the idea of continuity, but we need not 
 and cannot keep always the thought of perpetuity. The ages of 
 God are known only to Himself. They are not made by our 
 calendars. That a thousand years with Him are as a day when 
 it is past is but an illustration of the Bible thought as to duration. 
 
 In the New Testament we get more light on these ceons, ages. 
 We gain a new insight into the possibilities of this interpretation 
 when we merely substitute, as is so frequently done in the 
 marginal reading, the word age or age-long for the accustomed 
 phrases of our English translations, eternal, everlasting, and for 
 ever. The word world is sometimes used as a translation of 
 this same Greek original, as in the sentence in the text of both 
 our versions, "the harvest is the end of the world/' where the 
 marginal reading is the correct one, "to the consummation of 
 the age.'' A hint at St. PauFs use of this word is found in his 
 reference to the ^'ages to come" in which Christ might show 
 the exceeding riches of His grace. St. Paul also tells the Colos- 
 sians he was made a minister to them according to the dispen- 
 sation of God, "to fulfil the word of God, even the mystery which 
 hath been hid from all ages and generations." Ages and genera- 
 tions in this connection plainly indicate limited periods of 
 human history. 
 
 These few passages will open up the field. In coming studies 
 the words in their relation to sin, righteousness, and prophecy 
 will be treated more in detail. From the list of these and other 
 significant passages, page 31, and the marginal readings of the 
 American Revision, the reader will make his own application. 
 
 28 
 
ETERNAL LIFE 
 
 THE soul of man is restless. In vain does it seek for stable 
 ground on which to plant itself and thereby come to rest. 
 In the midst of this comes One who tells us of eternal life. As 
 applied to life this is a new word in the Scriptures. It begins 
 now in the present, the age in which we live. It is enduring. 
 It passes on into the age which follows, the age to come. It 
 goes steadily on with Jesus Christ into the ages that lie still 
 ahead of this and the coming age. Here is what men desire, 
 that for which the imfettered soul ever cries, and towards which 
 every soul looks at times with longing and hope. 
 
 This life eternal is a gift; it is to be laid hold upon, and it may 
 be lost. That this gift may be accepted, this life laid hold upon, 
 and the soul thus come into its possible possession is the teach- 
 ing of the Bible. The Greek word for life used with the adj ectives 
 eternal and everlasting is zoe. (See pages 18-20.) The use of the 
 words eternal and everlasting by Jesus places them in the present 
 and the future also, as we are not accustomed to do in our com- 
 mon speech. We see them in the immediate present, as when 
 Jesus says, ^'Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth 
 my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and 
 cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into 
 life," or again, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood 
 hath eternal life." These are those who believe and who appro- 
 priate to themselves the teachings of Jesus. They have entered 
 into the knowledge and experience of that which is stable and 
 enduring. This is taught still earlier in this Gospel in the 
 testimony of John the Baptist as to Jesus, ''He that believeth 
 on the Son hath eternal life: but he that obeyeth [believeth] 
 not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on 
 him." To this testimony we may add that of the First Epistle 
 of St. John, where John says, ''And the witness is this, that 
 God gave unto us eternal life^ and this life is in his Son. He 
 
 29 
 
that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of 
 God hath not the Ufe." Here we see plainly that the entrance 
 into and the having of this life is conditional. It is in the first 
 verses of this Epistle that we have the testimony of John, 
 speaking for himself and other witnesses, as to the eternal life as 
 manifested to them in Jesus Christ, *'the life was manifested, 
 and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the 
 life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was mani- 
 fested unto us." The kind of life that came to earth and was the 
 life of the only begotten Son, this is the life that abides, this 
 the eternal life. It is an inner life which neither falters nor fails. 
 It is within us as a well of water springing up and expressing 
 itself in us, so that we know neither hunger nor thirst. We are 
 satisfied. It is a gift to those who know and follow the Good 
 Shepherd, who says, "I give unto them eternal lifeJ^ Its rela- 
 tion to the soul of man and its life is set forth by Jesus when He 
 says, ^'He that hateth his soul in this world shall keep it unto 
 life eternaV* Only as men die to their own doings and do the 
 will of the Father will their souls come to rest. Put before us 
 in another form, these words point the way, "He that soweth 
 unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he 
 that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal life.^' 
 That it is a free gift we are assured by the same apostle, who 
 exhorts his son Timothy to lay hold upon it, for it is Ufe indeed. 
 That it may be missed is the message of God to the world, a 
 message sent with and by the only begotten Son, ''that who- 
 soever believeth on him should not perish [lose] but have eternal 
 life, for God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; 
 but that the world should be saved through him." For this 
 Jesus prayed, "Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that 
 the Son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority 
 over all flesh, that whatsoever thou hast given him, to them he 
 should give eternal life. And this is life eternal, that they should 
 know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, 
 even Jesus Christ." 
 
 30 
 
AGE, AGE-LONG, AGE-LASTING 
 
 {As translated in significant passages) 
 
 AGES: Eph. 2:7, the ages to come; Col. 1:26, mystery hid from all 
 ages; I Cor. 10:11, Heb. 9:26, end of the ages. 
 
 EVERLASTING: Gen. 9: 16, 17:7, 8, everlasting covenant, everlasting 
 possession; Exod. 40:15, Num. 25:13, everlasting priesthood; Ps. 
 106:48, from everlasting to everlasting; Isa. 33:14, 45:17, ever- 
 lasting burnings, everlasting salvation; Dan. 7:14, everlasting 
 dominion. 
 
 EVER, FOR EVER: Gen. 3:22, 13:15, live for ever, to thy seed for 
 ever; Exod. 3: 15, my name for ever; Dan. 7: 18, the kingdom for 
 ever; Matt. 6: 13, the glory for ever; Rev. 4: 9, 14: 11, for ever and 
 ever. 
 
 ETERNAL: Matt. 18:8, 19:29; 25:41, 46, eternal fire, eternal life, 
 eternal punishment; Mark 3:29, 10:17, 30, eternal sin, eternal 
 life; Luke 10:25, 16:9, 18:18, 30, eternal Hfe, eternal tabernacles; 
 John 3:15, 16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:24, 39; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 
 12:25, 50; 17:2, 3, eternal Ufe, Ufe eternal; Acts 13:46, 48, eternal 
 fife; Rom. 2:7, 5:21, 6:22, 23, eternal hfe; Gal. 6:8, 1 Tun. 1:16, 
 6:12,19, Titus 1:2,3:7, eternal Ufe; IJohn 1:2, 2:25, 3:15, 5:11, 
 13, 20, eternal Ufe; II Thess. 1:9, eternal destruction; Heb. 13:20, 
 eternal covenant; Jude 7, eternal fire. 
 
 WORLD: Matt. 12:32, neither in this world; 13:22, care of the 
 world; 13:39,40,49; 24:3, 28:20, end of the world; Mark 4: 19, 
 cares of this world; 10:30, world to come; Luke 16:8, 20:34, sons 
 of this world ; 18 : 30, world to come ; 20 : 35, that world ; Rom. 12 : 2, 
 conformity to this world; I Cor. 2:6, not of this world; 2:7, before 
 the worlds; 3:18, in this world; 10:11, the ends of the world; 
 Gal. 1:4, this present evil world; Eph. 1:21, not only in this world. 
 
 31 
 
GOD -CREATOR 
 
 IN the beginning God created. The creation is our first thought 
 as to God. He creates. Man was made in His image and was 
 given dominion. So for our second thought of God we have 
 power, control, dominion. These two conceptions are always 
 associated in the Bible with the word God. (See also ''The 
 Creative Days/' page 24.) 
 
 In the first chapter of Romans, Paul the apostle, that Hebrew 
 of the Hebrews, tells us that "the invisible things of him since 
 the creation of the world are clearly seen, . . . even his eternal 
 power and Godhead.' ' He later says that ''of him, and through 
 him, and unto him, are all things"; that "there is no power but 
 of God," and that "then cometh the end . . . that God may 
 be all in all." His kingdom will have been established, all rule 
 and authority have been abolished, and the kingdom be de- 
 livered to "God, even the Father," or, by the marginal reading, 
 to "the God and Father," and God will be "all in all." In 
 this glimpse of the future we are where we were in the first 
 verse of the first chapter of Genesis. The resurrection is past, 
 and we are with God who is all in all, the Father as well as the 
 Creator of all, and now in all. In the first chapter of Romans 
 we read, "Knowing God, they glorified him not as God." Now 
 that is all changed. The imfolding of man's history as con- 
 nected therewith is written between the first chapter of Genesis 
 and the last chapter of Revelation. 
 
 In the carrying out of His eternal purpose, "the King eternal 
 [of the ages, marginal reading, American Revision], immortal, 
 invisible, the only God manifests Himself in many ways. In 
 the Old Testament He appears first as God in the creative life 
 and as Jehovah in the subsequent dealing with man on the 
 earth (treated in the following study). The history of the cove- 
 nant people and, measurably, of other peoples passes before 
 us with the name God appearing often, but far more frequently 
 
 32 
 
joined with the name Jehovah. So of these names jointly or 
 singly in prophecy. 
 
 In the wonderful picture of Wisdom in the eighth chapter of 
 Proverbs we are told that Wisdom was present at what we 
 know as Creation. In Colossians we read of the "Father" and 
 the "son of his love . . . who is the image of the invisihle God, 
 the firstborn of all creation,'* and we approach the creation of 
 God from God manifest, as we do in the name Jehovah. We 
 are again in the presence of God in His creative work as we read 
 the first chapter of Hebrews, with the Father and the Son as 
 the only begotten. As God "bringeth in the firstborn into the 
 world" [the inhabited earth, marginal reading, American Re- 
 vision], as this becomes a part of the history on earth of the 
 redemptive plan, He says, "Let all the angels of God worship 
 him." Once more in the manifestation of God in creation we 
 turn to the first chapter of John's Gospel, and we have the 
 Word without whom "was not anything made that hath been 
 made." This name, together with Christ and Jesus Christ, 
 belongs to a later study. (See page 36.) That which is clear 
 is that the name God is throughout the Bible joined to creation 
 and to authority over it, with all which that implies. Further 
 manifestations are associated with other names. 
 
 JEHOVAH GOD 
 
 THE names given to God as He manifested Himself to man 
 can be counted by hundreds in the Bible. A few of these 
 names are ever on our lips, as Father, Son, Holy Spirit from the 
 New Testament, and God and Jehovah God in the Old. To 
 trace out what is done under each manifestation is well worth 
 careful study. 
 
 The name Jehovah first appears in the Scriptures in the sec- 
 ond chapter of Genesis, and is joined there to the name God. 
 This name continues throughout the chapters that tell us of 
 Adam and reappears scores of times in the Old Testament. All 
 through the Old Testament Jehovah in the Hebrew takes the 
 
 33 
 
place of the name Lord as joined to God, it being indicated in 
 the marginal reading of the American Revision that wherever 
 the word LORD appears (put in capitals thus) the word in He- 
 brew is Jehovah. The combination Jehovah God is, indeed, so 
 common that to find it otherwise is the exception. 
 
 What does this name Jehovah signify as thus used? In the 
 second chapter of Genesis we have these words, " In the day that 
 Jehovah God made earth and heavens.'' Here the name is 
 joined to the creative work ascribed to God. Again we read 
 that Jehovah God ''had not caused it to rain upon the earth," 
 the name here being linked to earth's fruitfulness. We are told 
 that Jehovah God formed man, planted a garden, issued a com- 
 mand. Then follows the making of woman, the appearance of 
 the serpent with what came after until Adam and Eve are 
 dispossessed of Eden. In all this record it is Jehovah God that 
 speaks and acts. What does this tell us of the name Jehovah? 
 That man and the earth where he was to live were in the hands of 
 Jehovah. The making of man and his destiny went with this 
 new name. 
 
 Of illuminating significance in the study of any name is the 
 time when it was given. There was always a special time; 
 there were always events with which it was first associated. 
 Names were born, as it were, and held ever after in remem- 
 brance. An example of God's withholding for a time a name by 
 which He was later to be known, and giving a name which would 
 always be used, is recorded in the Book of Exodus in connection 
 with this name Jehovah. "And God spake imto Moses," the 
 narrative runs, ''and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I 
 appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as God 
 Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." 
 So in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis we read, "And when 
 Abram was ninety years old and nine, Jehovah appeared to 
 Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before 
 me, and be thou perfect." The use of the two names Jehovah 
 God, but with Jehovah ever in the lead dealing with Israel, His 
 son, went on steadily until the time of Moses, reaching its point 
 
 34 
 
of revelation as to the meaning and contents of the name when 
 Jehovah said to Moses, ''I know thee by name ... I will 
 make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the 
 name of Jehovah." This was the proclamation, "Jehovah, 
 Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abun- 
 dant in goodness, and truth, keeping mercy for thousands (of 
 generations), forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and 
 that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of 
 the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children 
 upon the third and the fourth generation." Read on in Israel's 
 history and learn of Jehovah. Learn the inner meaning of these 
 words that let Moses, and through him us, into the secret places 
 where God dwells, and from these secret places back into Je- 
 hovah's world of earth and men as He cares for them. Thus you 
 will come into a knowledge of and more personal sense of 
 Jehovah. 
 
 GOD : Gen. 1 : 1, In the beginning God; Rom. 1 : 20, his eternal power 
 and Godhead; 11:36, of him, and through him, and to him; I Cor. 
 15:24-28, then cometh the end . . . that God may be all in all; 
 Rom. 1:21, knowing God, they glorified him not as God; I Tim. 
 1:17, the only God; Prov. 8:22-31; Col. 1:12-15, the invisible 
 God; Heb. 1:1-7, as God bringeth in the firstborn; John 1:1-3, 
 the Word was God. 
 
 JEHOVAH GOD: Gen. 2:4, in the day that Jehovah God made 
 earth and heaven; 2:5, 7, 8, 16, etc., caused rain, formed man, 
 planted a garden, commanded; Ex. 6:2, 3, 1 am Jehovah . . . but 
 by my name Jehovah was I not known; 33: 19, 1 will proclaim the 
 name of Jehovah; 34:6, Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful, etc. 
 
 35 
 
THE SON OF GOD, JESUS CHRIST 
 
 FOR the study of names like these, brief papers are not ade- 
 quate, for the reason that the Bible as a whole is the written 
 record of their manifestation and meaning. To gather, however, 
 strong passages which interpret the names which fall into one 
 group, such as the Son of God, the Only Begotten Son, the Son 
 of His Love, the Word, Jesus, Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, is helpful and suggestive in a study of the unfolding of 
 this progressive revelation. 
 
 These names take us into the realm of Sonship which belongs 
 to Him of whom John said, ''God so loved the world that he 
 gave his only begotten Son"; of whom Paul wrote as ''the son 
 of his love," the image of the invisible God, the first born of all 
 creation, in whom, through whom, and unto whom all things 
 were created, who "is before all things, and in him all things 
 consist [hold together]" (Col. 1:13-17). We are brought into 
 the presence of the "Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, 
 through whom also he made the worlds [ages] ; who being the 
 effulgence of his glory and the very image [impress] of his sub- 
 stance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, 
 when he had made purification of sins, sat down at the right 
 hand of the Majesty on high" (Heb. 1:2, 3). We are at the 
 beginning of the Gospel according to St. John, reading that "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. 
 All things were made by him; and without him was not any- 
 thing made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life 
 was the light of men . . . the true light, even the light which 
 lighteth every man coming into the world." In almost the last 
 chapter of the same Gospel we learn not only why these first 
 words were given us, but why the Gospel itself was written: 
 that many of the signs which Jesus did are not written in it, 
 
 36 
 
"but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the 
 Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:30). Add to these words a 
 quotation from the passage in the Epistle to the Philippians 
 (2:4-11), where we ourselves are taught not to look every man 
 to his own things, but each man also to the things of others by 
 the example of Christ Himself, as He, in the heavens and from 
 the heavens, prepares for His entrance as Christ Jesus into our 
 world. " Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 
 who, being [being originally] in the form of God, counted it not 
 a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, 
 taking the form of a servant [bondservant], being made in [be- 
 coming in] the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a 
 man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, 
 yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted 
 him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; 
 that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in 
 heaven and things on earth and things under the earth [of the 
 world below], and that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
 Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father/' 
 
 In the names here set before us we have those that are most 
 familiar in our Christian life, save one, known to us as the Holy 
 Spirit. Holy is the word given in the Old Testament to things 
 devoted to and set apart for God's service. Apply this funda- 
 mental sense to this name and we have God who is Spirit sep- 
 arating Himself as Spirit and devoting Himself to the work of 
 the world's salvation. This makes possible that imiversal and 
 world-wide moving on every man and all men which could not 
 be otherwise accomplished. The name Jehovah of the Old 
 Testament belonged especially to what is recorded there, and 
 has now for its equivalent the Lord and Christ of the New 
 Testament, the two united into one by that Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews, St. Paul, when he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 The manifestations as Jehovah were limited relatively, as re- 
 corded in the Bible, to Israel and other nations as connected 
 with Israel; the ministration of Jesus in the world was of neces- 
 sity locaUzed. The work of the Holy Spirit is universal. All 
 
 37 
 
these manifestations are plainly shown by the succession of 
 passages to be one in a progressive revelation. 
 
 In their presence we look back to the words " Let Us make man 
 in Our image, after Our Ukeness." We see in the ''Us^' and the 
 ^'Our'^ the names under which the plural manifestation of God 
 was to be made. We get a glimpse of the significance of the 
 words spoken concerning man when he had done that which 
 was forbidden, and Jehovah God said, "Behold the man is be- 
 come as one of Us to know good and evil." We may not know 
 the mystery hidden in the word God, but we can see and are 
 invited to look upon these names as its unfolding. 
 
 GLORY -CLOUD 
 
 ONE of the striking things in the language of the Bible is 
 its use of all the things we see in the heavens and upon the 
 earth as pictures by which to teach men what God would have 
 them know. Figurative language is constantly employed for 
 the setting forth of the many things which we need to be taught. 
 None the less does it teach us literal truth. It is simply that 
 form of teaching in which children delight and of which grown 
 people never tire. Above all, it is easily understood. 
 
 The word glory is an illustration. When its real sense is seen, 
 we find hidden in it a proper imderstanding of very many scrip- 
 tures that are strange and mysterious at first sight. We read 
 that "the heavens declare the glory of God . . . day unto day 
 uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." 
 What is meant? Turn to the first use of the word in the Book 
 of Exodus. The congregation had murmured because they had 
 no^flesh to eat. An abundance is promised, and the token of its 
 fulfilment is in these words, "And it came to pass, as Aaron 
 spake . . . the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud." 
 Again, where Moses is told by Jehovah to come up into the Mount 
 of God and receive the tables of the law, this is the record of 
 what came to pass when he went: "And the glory of Jehovah 
 
abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. . . . 
 And the appearance of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring 
 fire ... in the eyes of the children of Israel." In these three 
 representative passages from Holy Writ we have the meaning 
 of the word glory, so often used in the Scriptures. There is a 
 visible showing, a sensible manifestation, of the Invisible. 
 
 Take this thought with you to the glory that appeared over the 
 tabernacle where were the tables of stone which had been given 
 to Moses on the mountain. Go with it to the story of the dedi- 
 cation of the temple built by Solomon, which was filled with the 
 glory of Jehovah. Attach this fundamental sense to the prophecy 
 that the glory of the Lord shall fill the whole earth. What have 
 you? This — that He whom no mortal eyes can see will mani- 
 fest Himself in sensible ways to the children of men. 
 
 Read again of our being changed ''into the same image from 
 glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit,'^ and you see it 
 to be the thought of Him who made us that we should ever more 
 and more make manifest the things of God, the things of the 
 spirit, the things invisible. Light falls upon such an expression 
 as "Israel, my glory, ^' for Israel was set as no other people to 
 show forth the things invisible. You begua to see a special truth 
 hidden away in the declaration that man is ''the image and 
 glory of God." He is to reveal God. All "fall short of the 
 glory of God"; they have failed to make manifest the invisible 
 God. The Bible teaching is that all that is made has its highest, 
 its true expression when showing forth the things invisible, and 
 that for man to show forth God in visible ways is as with Jesus 
 the crown of living. 
 
 The word dond is found in so many of the most highly prized 
 and wonderful of scripture passages and is so closely linked with 
 this word glory that its meaning needs to be kept clearly in mind. 
 Each passage, read in its own setting, will speak for itself. Note, 
 for example, the pillar of cloud, that hung over the children of 
 Israel as they started on their wilderness journey. It stood be- 
 tween them and Pharaoh's armed host as they camped on the 
 borders of the sea; it was overhead, a protection from the sun, 
 
a grateful shade in the treeless waste. A cloud rested upon 
 Mount Sinai when the commandments were given. What was 
 the cloud then? The presence of Jehovah, but a veiled presence. 
 So when Daniel saw in the night visions, he saw the Son of 
 Man coming "with the clouds of heaven." When we read of 
 the coming of the Son of Man as announced by Jesus, it is ''on 
 the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ^^ On the 
 occasion of the disappearance or ascension of Jesus, "a cloud re- 
 ceived him out of their sight. '^ These and other Scriptures all 
 carry the same idea, a presence, but a presence that is veiledj 
 seen in part, hidden in part, not a full manifestation. 
 
 Glory J then, points us always in the Bible to a visible showing 
 of things invisible or of one not seen. Even the glory of God as 
 revealed "in the face of Jesus Christ" awaits a more complete 
 manifestation. When joined to cloud or clouds there is the 
 added thought of a veiling. Read the Scriptures with this in 
 mind, and a harvest will be gathered for your comfort and en- 
 lightenment which it will take many days to reap and store. 
 
 GLORY — CLOUD : Ps. 19: 1, The heavens declare the glory of God; 
 Ex. 16: 10, the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud; Ex. 24: 16, 17, 
 the glory of Jehovah abode on Mount Sinai; Ex. 40: 34, 35, 1 Kings 
 8:11, the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle, filled the house; 
 Hab. 2: 14, the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord; II 
 Cor. 3: 18, into the same image, from glory to glory; Isa. 46: 13, Israel 
 my glory; I Cor. 11:7, as he is the image and glory of God; Rom. 
 3:23, all fall short of the glory of God; Ex. 14: 19, 20, the pillar of 
 cloud came between; 13: 22, pillar of cloud by day; 24: 15, 16, the 
 cloud covered the mount; Dan. 7:13, with the clouds of heaven 
 one like unto a son of man; Matt. 24:30, the Son of man coming 
 on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; Acts 1:9, a 
 cloud received him out of their sight; II Cor. 4:6, the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 40 
 
THE VOICE OF THE LORD 
 (JEHOVAH) 
 
 " A ND they heard the voice of Jehovah God walking in the 
 't\ garden . . . and Jehovah God called unto the man and said 
 unto him, Where art thou?" A voice indicates a presencey the 
 presence of one who would talk with the one who hears. On from 
 the time of the Eden story the Old Testament illustrates the 
 thought that God, Jehovah, talks with man as man with his 
 fellowman. There is a presence, there is speech. 
 
 Jehovah talked with Abram and made a covenant with him; 
 so frequent was the converse between them that this man is 
 known as the Friend of God. Moses talked with Jehovah face to 
 face, and when he came from his forty days spent on the Mount 
 his face so shone that the people could not look upon it, and he 
 veiled it as he talked with them. A presence! The child Samuel 
 ministered unto Jehovah before Eli, ''and the word of Jehovah 
 was precious [rare] in those days.'' Three times Jehovah spoke 
 his name, and at the third call Samuel said, ''Speak; for thy 
 servant heareth." There was a presence, a voice. It might be in 
 vision, or in dream, or as at Sinai where, while the trumpet 
 waxed louder and louder, "Moses spake, and God answered 
 him by a voice. ^^ In a crisis hour in the life of Moses he said to 
 Jehovah, "Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace 
 in thy sight, shew me now thy ways that I may know thee." 
 Jehovah's answer was, "My presence shall go with thee." 
 Jehovah was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, as 
 they passed before Elijah, but there came a "still, small voice," 
 and Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle and went out to hear 
 what Jehovah would say to him. 
 
 Turn now to the Gospels and hear Jesus say, " I am the good 
 shepherd; and I know mine own, and mine own know me, even 
 as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father." It is the 
 
 41 
 
same thought of each knowing the other as Jehovah knew 
 Moses and Moses knew Jehovah. Nothing could be more inti- 
 mate. Prayer is the way to this knowledge, as it was with 
 Moses and Abraham. "I pray thee" was their language. 
 
 Read the sixth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. The Pharisee, 
 praying, has received his reward. You are bidden not to pray 
 thus, but in secret; not to be seen of men. Then come the fa- 
 miliar words, ^' After this manner, therefore, pray ye, Our 
 Father, who art in Heaven." Read on, and you come to the 
 words, "Ask . . . seek . . . knock. . . . How much more shall 
 your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that 
 ask him? " Ask, seek, knock — what is meant? The illustration 
 tells. "Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask 
 him for a loaf, will give him a stone, or if he shall ask for a fish, 
 will give him a serpent? " There is a man, a son, a presence, a 
 prayer. The Father is foimd; then the son can ask. So you 
 are bidden to ask for Him you can name; to seek for Him you 
 would see; to knock that an open door may take you into His 
 presence. Then when you are in the Presence, make your wishes 
 known. To what will the answer be limited? To " good things." 
 
 In the Gospel according to St. Luke the setting is different, 
 but there is the same asking, seeking, knocking. There is the 
 same idea with the friend here as with the father and son, but 
 with an added emphasis. The story of the friend who at the 
 midnight hour would not rise from his bed, but who finally did 
 so, ends with these words, " If ye then, being evil, know how to 
 give good gifts . . . how much more shall your heavenly Father 
 give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" 
 
 The limitation to prayer here is in a presence; the name of the 
 one thus present is the Holy Spirit. Whom did Jesus ever name 
 as He prayed? The Father. To follow His example is the way 
 of ways. His is the Presence we find as we ask, seek, knock. 
 When Jesus, friend, counsellor, teacher, all in all to the twelve, 
 was to depart from them, He said to them, "I will pray [make 
 request of, marginal reading] the Father, and he shall give you 
 another Comforter that he may be with you for ever." The 
 
 42 
 
Greek word is paraclete, adviser, counsellor, called here the 
 ''Spirit of truth," named in a later verse the "Comforter, even 
 the Holy Spirit." "He abideth with you, and shall be in you." 
 Read John 16: 13,14, for a further account of his mission. 
 
 ThiSj then, is our Presence, our inward abiding Presence, the 
 Holy Spirit, to whom we may turn as did the disciples to Jesus, 
 at all hours, in all things. This is our common heritage. His 
 is an indwelling Presence, his an inward Voice. Granted the fact 
 and power of Presence between God and the soul, the further 
 step to a living spoken word, an assurance or direction, while 
 in the nature of the case it cannot be explained, should not be 
 regarded as incredible. It is the secret of the Lord to the one 
 to whom it comes. All down the Christian centuries testimonies 
 have come of such utterances, listened to in moments of stillness. 
 Simple devout souls feel always awe and mystery, but also 
 satisfaction, comfort, and certainty. For when God speaks it 
 is His part to make us hear, as it is our part, when we speak to 
 others, to make sure that they hear. When there is doubt we 
 do well to wait, for no Bible story of God speaking to man left 
 the hearer in doubt as to who was speaking. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE LORD: Gen. 3:8, 9, the voice of Jehovah 
 
 walking in the garden; I Sam. 3: 10, Speak; for thy servant hear- 
 eth; Ex. 19:19, God answered him by a voice; 33:13, 14, that I 
 may know thee; my presence shall go with thee; I Kings 19: 12, a 
 still, small voice; John 10: 14, 15, 1 know mine own; Matt. 6:5, 9; 
 7:7, 11, after this manner pray ye therefore, . . . ask, seek, knock; 
 Luke 11:1-13, give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him; John 
 14:16, 17, 26; 16: 13, 14, He shall give you another Comforter . . . 
 even the Holy Spirit. 
 
 43 
 
THE REPENTING OF GOD AND 
 
 MAN 
 
 JEHOVAH repents; man repents; nations are called to re- 
 pentance. Early in human history this begins; it is to 
 last until the whole world is reached. Till things are right 
 God may repent Him of the good He has purposed and the evil 
 He has threatened. What is the common ground on which all 
 meet in this striking word reyent f Is it simply a change of mind, 
 or does it go deeper? Can we trace its Bible meaning? 
 
 The word occurs first in the story of Noah when "it repenteth 
 Jehovah that he had made man on the earth." Was that all? 
 No. "It grieved him at his heart." And what followed? Man 
 perished from the "face of the ground," and with him beasts, 
 birds, and creeping things, for of them, too, it was said that 
 Jehovah repented that He had made them. But was man de- 
 stroyed, were there no beasts, birds, nor creeping things left? 
 Not at all. For Noah "found grace in the eyes of Jehovah." 
 For one hundred and twenty years this preacher of righteous- 
 ness admonished his generation while he built the ark. The 
 race was to be perpetuated for thousands of generations; the 
 earth was still to have beasts, creeping things, and birds of the 
 air. But the kind of man that then filled the earth with violence 
 was to disappear. Men no longer lived for centuries to do wick- 
 edly. "Yet shall his days be one hundred and twenty years," 
 said Jehovah. There were to be no more Nephilim, no more 
 giants and men of renown such as there had been. These would 
 be but a memory. Only once more does this strange word ap- 
 pear in Bible story. In the Book of Numbers the spies returned 
 and reported to the people, "There we saw the Nephilim, the 
 sons of Anak, which come of the Nephilim : and we were in our 
 own sight as grasshoppers, ^nd so we were in their sight" 
 (Gen. 6:4; Num. 13:33). As we follow the record of the ages 
 of the patriarchs, this one hundred and twenty years prescribed 
 
 44 
 
by Jehovah appears in striking contrast with the ages recorded 
 in the fifth chapter of Genesis. In the ninetieth Psahn we have 
 a new Hmit for men's lives. '^The days of our years are three- 
 score years and ten, or if by reason of strength they be fourscore 
 years, ... it is soon cut off and we fly away." It needs but 
 the most general knowledge of the duration of human life in 
 our times to make plain that the average of man's days on earth 
 now falls far short of this second Bible limit. 
 
 This, then, is our first illustrative look at repentance. Jehovah 
 repented; there followed a change in the plans of Jehovah, but 
 not in His creative plans. We have here an adaptation to the 
 movements of free beings by Him who made them free, and a 
 change of vital import in that the time limit for man's doing 
 either good or ill is so fixed as to alter the currents of all human 
 history. 
 
 The second account of Jehovah's repenting carries with it still 
 other lessons. Moses went up into the Mount. His long ab- 
 sence led to the demand of Israel for a God to worship, and the 
 golden calf was made. Of this fact Jehovah tells Moses, and 
 sends him down the mountain to the camp. In the course of 
 what followed we have Jehovah saying to Moses, *'Now there- 
 fore let me alone . . . that I may consume them: and I will 
 make of thee a great nation." Then Moses besought Jehovah 
 in a prayer of singular force, and we read that Jehovah "re- 
 pented of the evil which he said he would do unto his people." 
 Here was no change in the purpose of Jehovah, no change in the 
 promise to the descendants of Abraham, but a suggestion of a 
 beginning anew \Ndth Moses to carry out the promise. Jehovah 
 not only changes, but changes again as man prays. 
 
 The case of Saul is another striking example of the repenting 
 of Jehovah. Saul had failed to do as he had been instructed 
 with the Amalekites, sinners whose hour had come. Samuel 
 tells Saul plainly that Jehovah hath rent the kingdom from 
 him and hath given it 'Ho a neighbor of thine, who is better 
 than thou." This statement follows after the word of Jehovah 
 had come to Samuel saying, "It repenteth me that I have set 
 
 45 
 
up Saul to be king/' and Samuel had cried unto Jehovah all 
 the night. Then follow these remarkable words, spoken by 
 Samuel to Saul, ''The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: 
 for he is not a man that he should repent." Then Jehovah re- 
 pents, and yet does not repent. 
 
 A very clear instance where Jehovah does not repent is the 
 verse in the Psalms, later quoted in Hebrews, "Jehovah hath 
 sworn, and will not repent. Thou art a priest for ever after the 
 order of Melchizedek." Jehovah repents or does not repent for 
 the good of men. He changes or changes not for their welfare. 
 The call of the Bible upon men to repent is likewise ever for their 
 good. The change is for their well-being both for now and for 
 the hereafter. Further illustrations that are equally suggestive 
 are in the story of Balak (Num. 22) and particularly in the Book 
 of Jeremiah. This is an interesting word to trace throughout its 
 Bible usage. The outstanding fact is that not only does Jehovah 
 change Himself, and calls on men to change, but still further, 
 as may be especially noted in Jeremiah, the thought associated 
 with the first repenting of Jehovah, when "it grieved him at his 
 heart," is always associated with these changes, these repentings, 
 which come because men do evil. It is like that word concern- 
 ing Jesus when it says that he " looked round about on them with 
 anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart." 
 
 John the Baptist began his ministry with a call to repentance. 
 Jesus did the same. Peter at Pentecost made the same call, 
 ^^ Repent and be baptized," and Paul tells his Greek audience 
 that God commands all men everywhere to repent. The thing 
 that is common in all repentings of God and man is that God 
 and man can change. We think easily of man as needing to 
 change his ways, but not so readily of God as changing His 
 mind and His ways to meet changed conditions, as He deals 
 with men. 
 
 REPENT: Gen. 6:6, 7, it repented Jehovah; Exod. 32:12, 14, Jehovah 
 repented of the evil; I Sam. 15:11, 29, 35, it repenteth me . . . 
 will not lie nor repent; Ps. 110:4, will not repent; Matt. 3:2, 
 Mark 1: 15, Matt. 4: 17, Acts 2:38, 17:30, repent 
 
 46 
 
TEMPTATION 
 
 DID you ever note that, in the first use of the word tempt in 
 the Bible, it is God who tempts f "God did tempt Abra- 
 ham," we read; but in the translation of that same verse in 
 the American Revision we get our key to the root meaning of 
 this important word, "God did prove Abraham." Read the 
 story with this in mind; then turn to the eleventh chapter of 
 Hebrews and see how Abraham met this tempting, this proving. 
 "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac." 
 Here we have the same Greek word. Though all things looked 
 to be against the fulfilment of God's promise to the patriarch, 
 his faith held steadily to the word of promise that Isaac should 
 be his heir. 
 
 We are told that Israel tempted Jehovah ten times while 
 journeying in the wilderness. "Your fathers tempted me, 
 proved me, and saw my work," says the Psalmist. They mur- 
 mured, they went astray, they doubted in hours of emergency 
 whether the promise to carry them through would be fulfilled, 
 because they did not see how it could be. And despite their 
 hardness of heart the manna fell from heaven, the waters gushed 
 out of the rock as if it were a spring, the air was darkened with 
 flocks of quails sent to be their meat. Jehovah never failed to 
 keep His promise. 
 
 Other passages carry out the same thought. " Did ever people 
 hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as 
 thou hast heard, and live?" asks Moses in the Book of Deuter- 
 onomy. "Hath God assayed to go and take to him a nation 
 from the midst of another nation, by temptations [marginal 
 reading, trials, or evidences], by signs, and by wonders, . . . 
 according to all that Jehovah God did for you in Egypt before 
 your eyes? Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know 
 that Jehovah he is God." 
 
 "Ask thee a sign of Jehovah thy God," said Jehovah unto 
 
 47 
 
Ahaz, as it is recorded in the Book of Isaiah; "ask it either in 
 the depth or in the height above." But Ahaz said, "I will not 
 ask, neither will I teni'pt Jehovah." 
 
 "What is man," said Job, "that thou shouldest magnify him, 
 and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him, that thou 
 shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment? " 
 
 "In the business of the ambassadors of the princes of Baby- 
 lon," we read, "God left him (Hezekiah), to try him, that he 
 might know all that was in his heart." 
 
 "I will rain bread from heaven for you," said Jehovah to 
 Moses, "and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion 
 every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in 
 my way or no." "That he might humble thee, and that he 
 might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end." Again 
 and again the same two Hebrew words appear, translated thus 
 in their various settings. 
 
 Turn to the New Testament. The same meaning holds in 
 the Greek word as in the Hebrew. "Ye are they which have 
 continued with me in my temptations,^^ says Jesus to the twelve; 
 "ye shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. I 
 app>oint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father appointed 
 imto me." They came, as He had come, to the kingdom ap^ 
 pointed by way of being tempted and holding fast through the 
 proving. 
 
 In the Epistle of St. James we learn how this tempting comes 
 about, how man becomes his own tempter, how temptation is 
 related to evil, and what is the method of God's proving. "Let 
 no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God 
 cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempteth no man." 
 God's method of trying, testing, proving we have seen worked 
 out in the Old and New Testaments. He gives a pledge, makes 
 a promise, enters into a covenant. Then He waits to see if 
 those to whom these pledges are given will hold fast under all 
 circumstances. He tempts no man with evil; His purpose and 
 plan is to "overcome evil with good." What is man's relation 
 to being tempted as he goes his way day by day? The passage 
 
gives the answer, *'But each man is tempted when he is drawn 
 away by his own lust (desire), and enticed." Well may we pray, 
 "Lead us not into temptation,^ ^ but by a simpler way, if it may 
 be; but if we must be tempted, proved, "deliver us from evil." 
 Nevertheless, "Count it all joy when ye fall into manifold 
 temptations; knowing that the proof of your faith worketh 
 patience," and that "blessed is the man that endureth tempta- 
 tion : for when he hath been tried [approved, American Revision], 
 he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised 
 to them that love him." 
 
 Take this simple thought and apply it to the many other 
 verses which will occur to you. Study in your concordance this 
 and the similar words trial and tribulation. The study is one of 
 rare interest. 
 
 TEMPTATION: Gen. 22:1, God did tempt Abraham; Num. 14:22, 
 have tempted me now these ten times; Psa. 95:9, your fathers 
 tempted me, proved me; Deut. 4:34, by temptations, by signs, and 
 by wonders; Isa. 7: 12, neither will I tempt Jehovah; Job 7: 18, try 
 him every moment; II Chron. 32:31, to try him; Ex. 16:4, that I 
 may prove them; Deut. 8: 16, prove thee, to do thee good; Luke 
 22:28, continued with me in my temptations; Jas. 1:13, 14, Let 
 no man say when he is tempted; Matt. 6: 13, lead us not into temp- 
 tation; Jas. 1:2, 12, fall into manifold temptations, the man that 
 endureth temptations. 
 
 MIRACLE 
 
 OUR English word miracle is a New Testament word. It 
 appears only five times in the Authorized Version of the 
 Old Testament and not at all in the American Revision, where 
 it is replaced by the more familiar translations of the original 
 Hebrew words signs, wonders, wondrous works, etc., words 
 which appear hundreds of times in the Old Testament. The 
 same distinction carries over to the New Testament. The word 
 appears in the Gospels a score or so of times, mostly in the 
 
 49 
 
Fourth Gospel, in the Acts and the Epistles a few times, with 
 the marginal reading of the American Revision giving a correct 
 translation of the Greek words, generally as sign, sometimes as 
 power and wonder. Any one who reads the Bible is therefore in 
 possession of all that needs to be said as to the specific acts 
 termed in the text miracles. He has only to remember that 
 the Greek words so translated are the words for either sign or, 
 less frequently, power (used only once with this translation in 
 the Gospels, Mark 9:39), and that while this Greek word for 
 sign is translated miracle fourteen times in the Gospels, it is 
 translated by its more literal meaning, sign, thirty-one times. 
 
 To know this and so to interpret our marginal readings as we 
 read our Bibles is to have the miracles of the Gospels fall into 
 their proper setting in a long line of Biblical records of wonders. 
 The history of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt is a story of 
 signs, wonders, manifestations of power. The manna in the wil- 
 derness, the flowing of waters from the rock, the crossing of the 
 swollen waters of Jordan are but illustrations of what repeats 
 itself again and again in the history of Israel. But the magicians 
 likewise did wonders before Pharaoh, and there have been ma- 
 gicians, soothsayers, astrologists, exorcists, and others with 
 various names and of varied types all along the path of history. 
 The Revelation places before us signs, wonders, and powers 
 that appall us. Jesus Himself said to the disciples, "For there 
 shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great 
 signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the 
 elect." Of the generation in whose midst He taught He said, 
 *'An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and 
 there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the 
 prophet." But why add to the list? The time of wonders has 
 never ceased. 
 
 The reason for noting them in this connection is not to dwell 
 on them as a whole, but to call attention to the fact that all the 
 acts of Jesus which are named as miracles call us back to God. 
 They are works of beneficence and are performed without money 
 and without price. The apostolic thought in regard to this is 
 
 50 
 
set forth in the story of Simon the sorcerer, to whom the people 
 of Samaria all "gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, 
 This man is that power of God which is called Great." When 
 he offered the apostles money for the power he saw was theirs, 
 they answered, *'Thy silver perish with thee, because thou hast 
 thought to obtain the gift of God with money." The apostles 
 were men filled with the Holy Spirit; great signs and wonders 
 were wrought at their hands. St. Paul names among the gifts of 
 the Spirit to the church of God the gifts of healings and the work- 
 ings of miracles [powers]. These and other gifts have never been 
 withdrawn. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 
 And there are diversities of ministrations; and the same Lord. 
 And there are diversities of workings, but the same God, who 
 worketh all things in all. But to each one is given the manifesta- 
 tion of the Spirit to profit withal." Following the enumerations 
 of gifts is the description of the body, with each of its members 
 working for the whole, illustrating the meaning of ''profit withal " 
 in that no gift is for individual use, but all gifts are for the good 
 of all. 
 
 We are invited to believe in many cults and in many persons 
 as givers of light. The Bible teaching is that we prove all 
 things and hold fast to that which is good. There are now, as 
 there were in the times of the apostles, "many antichrists." 
 The mark by which we are to know them is their denial that 
 Jesus is the Christ, their denial of the Father and the Son. The 
 spirits are all to pass this test. "Every spirit which confesseth 
 that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit 
 which confesseth not Jesus is not of God: and this is the spirit 
 of the antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it cometh; and 
 now it is in the world already." (See also study on Body, Soul, 
 and Spirit, page 74.) 
 
 MIRACLE: Matt. 24:24, great signs and wonders; 12:39, seeketh 
 after a sign; Acts 8:9-20, 1 Cor. 12:4-11, 1 John 2: 18, 19; 4: 1-6. 
 
 51 
 
THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE 
 OF GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 THE TREE OF LIFE 
 
 THE tragic consequences that have followed the disobedi- 
 ence of man in Eden have strewn his path with wreckage 
 for thousands of years. In twenty-three verses of the story as 
 related to us in the third chapter of Genesis we have depicted 
 before us, first, the struggle between the woman and the serpent 
 and between the woman's seed and the seed of the serpent; 
 second, the history of woman through the long centuries modi- 
 fied in some degree where the Gospel has reached her; and third, 
 man's hfelong toil and labor after he was sent out from the well- 
 watered garden, which he was to tend, into that world in which 
 we live. This is all in epitome, but in its condensed form it 
 tells what has been true for many, many generations. The 
 Tree of Life does not appear again in the Bible until the Reve- 
 lation, save as it was a memory and a tradition with the He- 
 brews, and appears as "a tree of life" in four proverbs. 
 
 Turning now to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and 
 Evil, we see the woman and the serpent, known in the Bible 
 as the Devil and Satan, at the tree. Its fruit was not to be 
 touched or eaten. Jehovah's one word concerning what would 
 follow if it were eaten was that it would bring death where now 
 there was life. The woman was deceived and touched and ate. 
 The fruit was, as she saw it, good for food, a delight to look 
 upon, and would make one wise. The serpent had said, **Ye 
 shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." No other knowledge 
 is named, only that of good and evil. The man was not deceived, 
 but took from the woman and ate also. What do we learn from 
 this story? That the man and the woman singly and together 
 decided to settle for themselves, as they chose, what was good 
 and what was evil. Their descendants have chosen to do the 
 
 52 
 
same until this day. With what result? In the main they have 
 missed the good, have not discerned, or seeing have not followed 
 in, the ways of God. In religion, in government, in all the com- 
 mon walks of life they have come far short of the thought of 
 God when He said, ''Let us make man in our image, after our 
 likeness." A confusion has arisen as to what was good and what 
 was evil. All can see this in the way in which men have stood 
 for slavery, for the sale of liquor, the traffic in souls that goes 
 on regardless of right or ^vrong in men's lives. We talk of neces- 
 sary evils, of evils that cannot be suppressed. Governments are 
 allied to them, draw from them great sums for revenue, utterly 
 ignoring or condoning the imutterable misery bred by them. 
 It is an old, old story, repeated with every generation and in 
 most men's fives. They call good evil and evil good, lacking 
 the clear vision that belongs to man only when he goes out into 
 the world or looks in upon himself with God, seeing with Him 
 and naming as He names. ''Woe unto them," says Isaiah 
 (5:20), "that caU evil good and good evil; that put darkness 
 for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and 
 sweet for bitter. . . . Therefore as the tongue of fire devoureth 
 the stubble, and as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame, so 
 their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up 
 as dust." 
 
 The Tree of Life reappears in the Revelation (2:7; 22:2, 14). 
 To the overcomer, the one who obeys the word given him by 
 Jesus Christ, it shall be given "to eat of the Tree of Life, which 
 is in the Paradise [garden] of God." Once more we hear of 
 this Tree of Life, on either side of the river of the water of life, 
 where it yields its fruit, the leaves being for the healing of the 
 nations. Man ate as he would, in disobedience. Nations as 
 well as individuals chose to name for themselves what was 
 good and what was evil. The shores of time have been literally 
 covered with the desolations that have followed, and the end 
 is not yet. There is but one way for men and nations afike to 
 change this. It is to get back, by obeying God, to the Tree of 
 Life. 
 
 53 
 
THE OLD SERPENT CALLED THE 
 DEVIL AND SATAN 
 
 THE first appearance of this personage is in Eden, the last 
 in the Revelation. Through the whole of human history, 
 as we know it from the Scriptures and in our personal experience 
 and observation, Satan plays a part. The testimony of Jesus 
 concerning Satan is so specific that thoughtful Bible readers 
 cannot dismiss this subject without serious consideration. Jesus, 
 releasing the woman from her infirmity, said that Satan had 
 bound her with it these eighteen years (Luke 13 : 16). He spoke 
 of Himself as beholding ''Satan fallen as lightning from heaven" 
 (Luke 10:18). He was led into the wilderness by the Spirit to 
 be tempted [tested] forty days of the devil. When His casting 
 out of demons was attributed to Beelzebub, the prince of the 
 demons. He said, "If Satan also is divided against himself, how 
 shall his kingdom stand? . . . But if I by the finger of God 
 cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you" 
 (Luke 11 : 15-20). It is recorded that Satan entered into Judas 
 Iscariot and sent him on his mission of betrayal. Jesus tells 
 Peter that Satan asked to have him that he might sift him as 
 wheat, but that He had prayed that his faith fail not (Luke 22 : 3, 
 31). Our Lord told His disciples that the prince of this world 
 was to come, who had nothing in him, and spoke of the devil as 
 a liar and a murderer from the beginning (John 14:31; 8:44). 
 The apostles were not one whit behind Jesus in their testimony 
 concerning Satan. St. Paul writes of the messenger of Satan 
 sent to buffet him lest he be exalted above measure (II Cor. 
 12:7). Writing to Timothy of those who were making ship- 
 wreck of their faith, he mentions the names of two persons, whom, 
 he said, *'I delivered unto Satan that they might be taught not 
 to blaspheme" (I Tim. 1:20). To the church in Corinth who 
 were in trouble over certain persons he wrote that they should 
 gather together and with the power of the Lord Jesus deliver 
 
 54 
 
them "unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the 
 spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus'' (I Cor. 5:5). 
 
 The mark upon Satan in the Old Testament is that he judged 
 men and things from the standpoint of the seen and outward. 
 It was so in the case of Job. Take from Job his temporal bless- 
 ings, and he will curse God, was Satan's look at him. It was 
 so with David when he was tempted of Satan. In his self-will 
 he numbered Israel, as if the victories given him by Jehovah had 
 been won by numbers. Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind 
 me, Satan ... for thou mindest not the things of God, but 
 the things of men" (Matt. 16:23). The judgment of men was 
 liable to be like Satan's, an outward look, not the inward vision 
 of God. 
 
 Considering the different names as they appear, we come, 
 then, to associate the name Satan with this outward look. The 
 name the Devil must ever be associated with the word of Jesus 
 (John 8:44), "He was a murderer from the beginning, and 
 stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." Here 
 Jesus gives us the key to the characteristics of this spirit of evil. 
 There was no inward life that was true, true to God, true to 
 men, true as a teacher and interpreter of the words spoken by 
 God. We see this in the first appearance in the garden when 
 he said, in contradiction of God's word, that the man and the 
 woman should not surely die. His followers are like him. Men 
 are children of their father the Devil, says Jesus, because the 
 lusts [desires] of their father it is their will to do. How differ- 
 ent the word of Peter describing Jesus of Nazareth, anointed 
 by God with the Holy Ghost and with power, "who went about 
 doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil" 
 (Acts 10:38). 
 
 65 
 
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE- 
 EVERLASTING BURNINGS 
 
 ETERNITY, everlasting burnings, unquenchable fire — these 
 three phrases are grouped in our common speech in a way 
 that makes an exact study of phraseology and context neces- 
 sary for us to penetrate below our surface impressions to the real 
 meaning and intention of the Bible teaching concerning them. 
 Eternity can hardly be made a separate word study, for it is 
 found but once in the Bible. In connection with the study of 
 the words eternal and everlasting it is worth while to note that 
 in the use of the word eternity, in its one appearance in the 
 Book of Isaiah, the Hebrew word is not that for age, but for du- 
 ration and continuity, and that it is used in adjective form in 
 the same book in the phrase ''the Everlasting Father, the Prince 
 of Peace." A similar Greek word is used in the New Testament 
 in the reference to His eternal power and Godhead, revealed to 
 all men by the things seen. ''For thus saith the high and lofty 
 One that inhabiteth eternity^' we read in the fifty-seventh chap- 
 ter of the Book of Isaiah. Here and here only do we have the 
 word eternity. "I dwell," the passage continues, "in the high 
 and lofty place, with him also that is of a humble and contrite 
 spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the 
 heart of the contrite ones." The fact that we so often use or 
 hear used the word eternity as though we were resting on the sure 
 word of revelation as to that which we speak of as without be- 
 ginning and without end makes us feel that we would do well 
 to call a halt and see just what is said in the Scriptures. The 
 context in this case can scarcely be said to have any relation 
 to our common use of the word, as when we speak of men at 
 death as "going into eternity." 
 
 In the Old Testament we find in the Book of Isaiah a passage 
 which relates to the thought imbedded in the phrase unquench- 
 
 56 
 
able fire. "The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath sur- 
 prised the godless ones. Who among us shall dwell with the 
 devouring fire ? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burn- 
 ings f He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; 
 ... he shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the 
 munitions of rocks: his bread shall be given him; his waters 
 shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty . . . 
 But there Jehovah will be with us in majesty." This makes the 
 righteous man one who can dwell in everlasting burnings, even 
 as in the passage just quoted, where eternity had been named 
 as the home of the contrite and humble, and also the dwelling 
 place of the high and lofty One who inhabiteth it. This, then, 
 is the first point in our study, the contribution of the two Old 
 Testament passages in which these two phrases occur. We 
 pause also to note that the word everlasting in this passage is the 
 word age-long discussed in a former study. 
 
 In the New Testament the phrase unquenchable fire is found 
 side by side with the word fire and the name Holy Ghost. John 
 the Baptist utters them. ''I indeed," he says, ''baptize you 
 with water ... he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
 with fire." Then, telling what will be the manner of this bap- 
 tism, he adds, "whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly 
 cleanse his threshing-floor; and he will gather his wheat into 
 the garner, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable 
 fire.'^ The same fire that is joined to the Holy Spirit in the first 
 part of the sentence is linked to the word unquenchable at its 
 conclusion. We are reminded of what Jesus said of Himself, 
 "I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I if it is 
 already kindled?" Then follows a setting forth of the lines of 
 division, of cleavage, which (rather than peace) will come to the 
 earth with His coming, five in one house divided, three against 
 two, two against three. This dividing line is found more than 
 once in the Gospels. The listeners to John the Baptist would 
 scarcely have understood the words Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, if 
 they had stood alone, for this name is rare in the Old Testament 
 Scriptures. Joined to fire it was at once intelligible, for their 
 
 57 
 
Scriptures had made familiar Jehovah's manifesting Himself 
 under the appearance of fire. Even so the coming and the bap- 
 tizing of this coming One would be by fire; even so the chaff 
 should be burned with unquenchable fire. 
 
 Turn to the passage in the ninth chapter of Mark's Gospel 
 that speaks of the unquenchable fire. "It is good for thee to 
 enter into life maimed, rather than having thy two hands, to 
 go into hell [Gehenna], into the unquenchable fire" ; and again, 
 "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." 
 All these references are, as Jesus teaches, to the Gehenna fire, 
 the fire of the valley of Hinnom. It is the presence of God and 
 cannot be turned away or gainsaid. It has to do with the things 
 which Jesus has named which must be cut off. It calls upon 
 the man who says, "Thou fool," to halt and change. It looks 
 upon the man whose desire violates the commandment and 
 warns him as to body and soul alike and tells him what is profit- 
 able. Attend to this or the fire that consumes will come straight 
 from Him who cannot be avoided. (See also study on Gehenna, 
 page 60). There was wheat in the disciples; there was chaff. 
 The chaff must go. The two had grown together, the tiny leaves 
 folded about the soft and growing grain; but as with the grain, so 
 with these men. God's hour had come for a change. It was so 
 with Israel. It was so with the world. The lines of division 
 were to run everywhere under the coming of the Holy Spirit as 
 the fire. In accordance with the thought of fire we read that, 
 when the disciples were baptized with the Holy Ghost at Pen- 
 tecost, "there appeared unto them tongues parting asunder, 
 like as of fire; and it sat upon each of them." 
 
 As we study the passage where we are bidden to cut off and 
 pluck out whatever in us causes stumbling, we notice that the 
 word life in the phrase, "it is good for thee (the disciples, in this 
 case) to enter into life maimed," etc., is zoe,the Greek word which 
 stands for life in general, our Ufe as we live it here and now. 
 We do not think of the heavenly life as associated with the word 
 maimed. As we face the other plain facts, that men reap here 
 and now in bodily wreckage as well as soul loss what they sow, 
 
 58 
 
we can see some ground for the thought that these fires are 
 burning now in the movings of the Holy Spirit and in the just 
 judgments of God. 
 
 Following the threefold repetition of the unquenchable fire as 
 set forth in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, as quoted 
 in part above, comes the last word of Jesus concerning this 
 fire. We have seen the disciples rebuked and warned that it 
 were better that a great millstone were hung about the neck 
 of the offender, and he were cast into the sea, than that he should 
 cause one of these little ones to stumble. The picture changes. 
 God as a consuming, an unquenchable fire is seen. "Cast into 
 Gehenna" replaces "cast into the sea." Then come the con- 
 cluding words of Jesus, "For every one shall be salted with 
 ^re." Because of sin none were able to pass before the Jehovah 
 of the Old Covenant, the God who appears as fire, and be saved. 
 None can pass now in these newer times. '^For every one shall 
 be salted with fire." " For " is a word of conclusion, a word that 
 introduces a summing up in a single sentence of all that has been 
 said. To add to the significance of this single sentence would 
 seem impossible. But He who spake as never man spake carries 
 the thought a step further. "Salt is good: but if the salt has 
 lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in 
 yourselves, and be at peace one with another." 
 
 UNQUENCHABLE FIRE: Isa. 57:15, the high and lofty One, that 
 inhabiteth eternity; 9:6, Everlasting Father; Rom. 1:20, eternal 
 power; Isa. 33: 14, dwell with devouring fire . . . everlasting burn- 
 ings; Matt. 3:11, 12, Luke 3:16, 17, burn up with unquenchable 
 fire; Luke 12:49, to cast fire upon the earth; Mark 9:43-50, 
 imquenchable fire, fire is not quenched, salted with fire; Matt. 5: 22, 
 Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire; Acts 2:3, tongues, 
 like as of fire. 
 
 59 
 
GEHENNA OR HELL 
 
 THE Greek word Gehenna divides itself into two parts, GCj 
 meaning valley, and Hinnom^ a proper name, the word 
 being the Greek rendering of the place cited in the Old Testa- 
 ment, in descriptions of the borders of Judah, as the valley of 
 Hinnom, or the valley of the son of Hinnom. Gehenna was 
 the name of a deep gorge or ravine south of Jerusalem where 
 the offal of the city was burned. More than once in the Old 
 Testament days it was used in the worship of Baal for human 
 sacrifice. Ahaz burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom 
 and "burnt his children there, according to the abominations 
 of the heathen.'* Manasseh made his children to pass through 
 fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom. In the Book of Jeremiah 
 we read that Jerusalem has done evil, that they have "built the 
 high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of 
 Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; 
 which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind. There- 
 fore the days come, saith Jehovah, that this place shall no more 
 be called Topheth, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the 
 valley of Slaughter." This is the Gehenna or hell that the 
 disciples who heard Jesus use the word would see, a place where 
 the offal of the city, which must have been enormous at the times 
 of the great festivals, was burned. Burning was the only way 
 of ridding the city of its waste and of the dangers connected 
 therewith, for Jerusalem was without the possibility of such sani- 
 tary systems as are known to us. The great waterworks of Sol- 
 omon and Hezekiah were cisterns, hewn out of the solid rock, 
 on which Jerusalem rested, which, except for tunnels which 
 brought into the city waters from nearby springs, were the whole 
 dependence of the city from a sanitary standpoint. To leave the 
 offal undestroyed, scattered over the city, would be to breed 
 disease and invite pestilence. All this was known to the 
 dweller in Jerusalem, as our local names and customs are 
 
 60 
 
known to us, and would offer a ready interpretation to the 
 teaching of Jesus. 
 
 The word Gehenna^ translated in our Bibles hell, but always 
 cited in the marginal reading of the American Revision as 
 Gehenna, is used eleven times in the New Testament. It should 
 not be confused with the two other words translated in the 
 Authorized Version hell, the Sheol of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 and the Hades of the New Testament, discussed on page 64. 
 It is used only once outside the teachings of Jesus, in a minor 
 reference in the passage in the third chapter of James concern- 
 ing the tongue, ''which setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and 
 is set on fire by hell (Gehenna).'' The Bible teaching, then, con- 
 cerning Gehenna is from the lips of our Lord alone, and is found 
 in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, with a single parallel 
 reference in Luke. 
 
 In the fifth chapter of Matthew we find the complete setting 
 for it and the first use of this word. Anger has kindled one to 
 say to his brother, ''Thou fool," and he is therefore said to be 
 " in danger of the Gehenna of fire." " Thou fool " is an expression 
 which calls into question the piety, the religion of the person 
 addressed. It is the illustration by Jesus of what He would say 
 of the commandment, given in the olden time, "Thou shalt not 
 kill," the penalty of which was death. He next interprets the 
 seventh commandment, saying, concerning this word given to 
 Moses, that desire, "looking on a woman to lust after her," is 
 adultery. Then follow these words, "and if thy right eye caus- 
 eth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it 
 is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, 
 and not thy whole body be cast into Gehenna." The teaching 
 concerning divorce follows. The Greek word translated here 
 "perish" is, it should be noted, a form of the word apollumi, 
 lose. 
 
 The next place where the word Gehenna is found is in the tenth 
 chapter of Matthew. Jesus had sent forth His disciples as 
 sheep among wolves, and had told them of the dangers which 
 awaited them. Then comes this utterance, "And be not afraid 
 
 61 
 
of them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: 
 but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and 
 body in Gehenna." Here the word for destroy is the same one 
 translated perish above and translated lose in a later verse in 
 the same chapter, "He that findeth his life [soul] shall lose it." 
 
 In the eighteenth chapter we find our third utterance con- 
 cerning Gehenna. To get its full significance one needs to recall 
 the question of the disciples concerning who was greatest in the 
 kingdom of heaven, with its answer : the setting of a little child 
 in their midst. The memorable words, that it were better that 
 a great millstone should drown one in the depths of the sea 
 than that he should offend or cause to stumble one of these 
 little ones, follow the teaching concerning the little child and 
 precede this utterance, ''And if thy hand or thy foot causeth 
 thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee : it is good for 
 thee to enter into life maimed or halt, rather than having two 
 hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal [age-lasting] fire." 
 Again, if the eye caused one to stumble, it was to be plucked 
 out, for it was good ''to enter into life with one eye, rather than 
 having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire." Then the 
 Teacher goes on with His teaching as to the little ones and the 
 gravity of the question asked. The perils involved grow with 
 every sentence. 
 
 In the Gospel according to St. Mark, where we have again the 
 hand, the foot, and the eye which cause to offend and must be 
 parted with, the atmosphere is the same, but the setting is 
 different. John had forbidden one casting out demons in the 
 name of Jesus. Jesus had said, "Forbid him not. . . . And 
 whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on 
 me to stumble," it were better for him to enter life maimed, 
 halt, or with one eye rather than to "go into Gehenna, into the 
 unquenchable fire . . . into Gehenna; where their worm dieth 
 not, and the fire is not quenched." 
 
 Once more Jesus uses this word Gehenna, in a chapter of woes 
 pronounced, for reasons given, on the Scribes and Pharisees. Of 
 them He says that they are hypocrites; that they compass sea 
 
 62 
 
and land to make one proselyte; and that *' When he is become 
 so," they make him "twofold more a son of Gehenna'^ than 
 themselves. After a terrible arraignment He concludes, " Ye ser- 
 pents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment 
 of Gehenna?" 
 
 Let us run over quickly these references to see what they 
 contribute to our thought. Fire, unquenchable fire, judgment, 
 and the "worm that dieth not" are all words associated with 
 Gehenna. Of these, unquenchable fire and the undying worm 
 would bring up before the disciples' minds, as did the word 
 itself, the picture of what was taking place on the physical side 
 at that very moment in the valley without the city. What 
 were the danger signals? The disposition to impugn the piety 
 of others is one. Check this spirit if you would escape the Ge- 
 henna of Jesus. Desire, as set forth in looking upon a woman, 
 is another. A measure as drastic as the plucking out of an eye 
 is made the symbol of the treatment one must give himself in 
 order to escape Gehenna. The disciples wish for preeminence; 
 they are insistent as to whether another follows them or not. 
 The remedy lies with them. They must cut out what hinders 
 them or enter into Gehenna. An entering into life maimed, and 
 that by one's own act, is set forth in this and the other passages 
 which use the same symbol. 
 
 What, then, is Gehenna? The Pharisees were its children. 
 It is the place of sanitation, of purification. It is the place 
 where that which would breed disease and spell disaster is dealt 
 with by God under the symbols of fire and unquenchable fire. 
 It is the place of judgment. If the disciples will not deal with 
 those things that need remedy themselves, it will be done in 
 and by Gehenna. The fires of the valley of Hinnom saved the 
 people from what would have resulted, if neglected, in pesti- 
 lence and death. The fire of Gehenna was the way in which 
 things should disappear if they were not cut off, plucked out 
 by the disciples themselves. The Gehenna of Jesus takes men 
 in the body, men as body and soul. The warning is given that 
 they may lose both body and soul in its processes. What this 
 
 63 
 
may mean will be touched upon later in the study of the soul, 
 as related to body, soul, and spirit. The present study is in- 
 tended only to characterize Gehenna as it was known in its 
 physical prototype to dwellers in Jerusalem, and as the teachings 
 of Jesus interpret its function. 
 
 GEHENNA: II Chron. 28:3, 33:6, Jer. 7:31, 32; 19:6, valley of 
 Hinnom, valley of the son of Hinnom; Jas. 3:6, Matt. 5:22-32, 
 10:16-42, 18:1-14, 23:15-33, Mark 9:38-50, Luke 12:4, 5, Ge- 
 henna. 
 
 HADES 
 
 THE word Hades is translated hell in the King James Version 
 of the New Testament; in the American Revision it is 
 transferred bodily from the Greek into our English Bible, leaving 
 the word hell to stand for its Greek original Gehenna, with a mar- 
 ginal reading in each of the eleven instances in which it is used, 
 indicating that Gehenna is the word so translated. 
 
 The word hell in the King James Version of the Old Testa- 
 ment is universally replaced in the American Revision by its 
 Hebrew original Sheol. No single change has contributed more 
 to clearness of distinction in our Bible study than this sorting 
 out, so to speak, of the passages originally referring indis- 
 criminately to hell into the three groups referring to the Sheol 
 of the Hebrew, the Hades, and the Gehenna of the Greek. 
 
 The word Hades appears in the New Testament ten times, 
 four times in the Gospels on the lips of Our Lord, twice in the 
 Book of Acts in quotation from the Psalms (where it is used in 
 translation of the Hebrew word Sheol), and four times in the 
 Book of Revelation. 
 
 It refers to the invisible world. This world Jesus entered in 
 the interval between His death and resurrection "Thou wilt 
 not leave my soul in Hades (Ps. 16:10, thou wilt not leave my 
 soul to Sheol) " we read in the second chapter of the Book of 
 Acts, with its confirmatory, "neither was he left in Hades ^ 
 
 64 
 
"And thou, Capernaum/* Jesus said, "shalt thou be exalted 
 unto heaven? thou shalt go down unto Hades: for if the 
 mighty works had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, 
 it would have remained unto this day." A woe is pronounced 
 upon the city, and the warning is given that it shall be more 
 tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than 
 for Capernaum. A great city is awaiting, in the world beyond 
 our sight, its judgment. 
 
 The sequel to Peter's answer to the question as to who He, 
 Jesus, was comes in Jesus' utterance that this had been revealed 
 to Him by the Father, and that on this rock He should build 
 His church, and "the gates of Hades shall not prevail against 
 it." The phrase "gates of Hades'' adds this to our picture: 
 gates are entrances which open and shut for the entrance and 
 exit of those who come and go. An outpouring through these 
 gates is the picture we get of Hades. 
 
 The other reference in the Gospels comes in the familiar story 
 of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus lying at his gate. Fea- 
 tures of this story shed light on our study. It is practically the 
 one source of such knowledge which we have. The beggar died, 
 "and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom," 
 a picture of felicity and plenty. "The rich man also died, and 
 was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in tor- 
 ments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." 
 Both are in the world that we see not : one miserable, the other 
 blessed. The rich man sees Abraham afar off; he calls and is 
 answered. He asks for what cannot be given, and the reasons 
 why it cannot be given are stated. First, addressing the rich 
 man, Abraham calls him "Son"; then he reminds him that he 
 in his lifetime received his good things, while Lazarus received 
 evil things. Now all is reversed: Lazarus is "comforted," the 
 rich man is "in anguish." "And beside all this," Abraham con- 
 tinues, [or "in all these things], between us and you there is a 
 great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from hence to you 
 may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to 
 us." The time and the place for personal interchange such as 
 
 65 
 
earth afforded is over. The desire for aid and sympathy re- 
 mained; the opportunity to help and comfort has no place in 
 Hades. This was for earth. Accepting this the rich man asks 
 that warning may be sent to his five brethren. This too is re- 
 fused. There is no passage from Hades to earth. And when he 
 pleads that if one went to them from the dead they would re- 
 pent, this Friend of God, Abraham, this one who said *'Son'^ 
 to the man who called him "Father Abraham," says, "If they 
 hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, 
 if one rise from the dead." Here we learn that the good and the 
 evil have their place in Hades. The great gulf relates to the 
 exchanges that are possible on earth, but not permitted in 
 Hades. 
 
 In the first chapter of the Book of Revelation we are told of 
 Him who can say, "I have the keys of death and of Hades J^ 
 The Sheol of the Old Testament, representing the Hebrew teach- 
 ing as to the grave and what follows, has in it extraordinary de- 
 scriptions of the way in which the great ones of the earth are 
 received in their captivity; for to the Bible writers Sheol was 
 a prison house, as it were, where all were held captive who came 
 into this company through death. When Jesus Christ says, 
 "I have the keys of death and of Hades/' it means that this 
 prison is opened at His will. When we read that when He 
 ascended on high He led captivity captive, the reference is to 
 all the captive dead, all who are in Hades, whom He has won 
 for Himself. In the sixth chapter of Revelation we have Death 
 seated on a pale horse," and Hades followed with him"; in 
 the twentieth Death and Hades gave up the dead which were 
 in them, and were cast into the lake of fire. 
 
 HADES: Acts 2:27, 31, leave my soul in Hades, his soul was not left 
 in Hades; Matt. 11:23, Luke 10:15, thou shalt go down unto 
 Hades; Matt. 16:18, the gates of Hades; Luke 16:23, in Hades 
 he hfted up his eyes; Rev. 1 : 18, the keys of Hades; 6:8, 20: 13, 14, 
 death and Hades. 
 
THE FIRST ADAM -THE LAST 
 ADAM 
 
 THE name Adam is generic. It is the word man in Genesis, 
 and this specific name Adam is there applied to the first 
 man and the first woman unitedly, so that as a name it includes 
 both male and female. ''This is the book of the generations of 
 Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of 
 God made he him; male and female created he them; and 
 blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they 
 were created.^' 
 
 Adam was a living soul, a soul man. What this meant is shown 
 in what he did, at least in a measure. "And Out of the ground 
 Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of 
 the air.'^ He brought them *' unto the man to see what he would 
 call them; and whatsoever the man called every living creature, 
 that was the name thereof.'^ There was no help meet for him. 
 When she was formed he named her Eve, the mother of all living, 
 and said, ''This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: 
 she shall be called Woman, '^ and so she is to this day, according 
 to the naming of Adam, as are doubtless all the cattle and the 
 other things he named. It was this first man whose far-away 
 look led him to say, "Therefore shall a man leave his father 
 and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife." He was to 
 subdue the earth; he was to be fruitful and multiply; he was to 
 replenish the earth as it was depleted. He could know God, and 
 he was free. He could obey; he could disobey. The ^rs^ Adam 
 was made a living soul, and the doing of all these things was 
 within his powers. Ahead of this richly endowed man and 
 woman was a race like themselves. 
 
 But death entered in, and for earth the last word was, "dust 
 thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'' All through his 
 days, though they lengthened into centuries, the death mark 
 would be upon him. What could offset this? Only life. And 
 
 67 
 
what is the Bible statement as to this? "The last Adam be- 
 came a Ufe-giving spirit/' The first Adam begets in his likeness; 
 he is a living soul. The last Adam, in His; He is a life-giving 
 spirit. Doubly begotten, men will be quickened by a life-giving 
 spirit. This is by the favor or grace of God. 
 
 St. Paul tells us that Adam ''is a figure of him that was to 
 come." That this coming one was Jesus Christ is made very 
 plain in the succeeding verses: ''For if by the trespass of the one 
 the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift 
 by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto many. 
 . . . So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all 
 men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness 
 the free gift came unto all men to the justification of life; . . . 
 that as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through 
 righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord.'* 
 The Christ of the New Testament is the Jehovah of the Old 
 Testament. As a life-giving spirit that enters into all life the 
 Bible never loses sight of God. He is in us all, a life, a light as 
 we come into our human heritage through our parents. 
 
 This thought of a double head to the race under these two 
 generic names, the first Adam, the last Adam, makes clear and 
 solid ground upon which each one of us can stand. We can 
 follow St. Paul when he says, "The first man is of the earth, 
 earthy." Here we have our earthly heritage. There is light on 
 the words, "the second man (our progenitor, the giver of the 
 spirit) is of heaven." We see the meaning of such phrases as 
 sitting together "in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus." 
 There is no violence in the thought. We begin to have glimpses 
 of a body such as is told of by the apostle that comes into sight 
 as the "earthly house of our tabernacle is dissolved," and we 
 long "to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from 
 heaven," "unclothed and yet clothed upon" as we come into 
 the presence of the Lord. We begin to see how " as we have borne 
 the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the 
 heavenly," for as the first Adam begat in his image and likeness, 
 so the last Adam has begotten us in His, by His quickening spirit. 
 
 68 
 
THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF 
 
 GOD IN MAN 
 
 LET US group together the Scriptures that place before us 
 the truth that is the subject of this word study and gather 
 from them in what the image and likeness consist. This cannot 
 be something beyond our human knowledge, for it should by its 
 very nature appear in our knowledge of ourselves. We are 
 familiar with the verses. *' Let us make man in our image, after 
 our likeness J^ And so God created man "in his own image, in 
 the image of God created he him"; "in the likeness of God made 
 he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, 
 and called their name Adam. . . . And Adam begat a son in 
 his own likeness, after his image. ^' Turn now to the genealogy 
 of Jesus, as recorded in Luke's Gospel, and we find that the list of 
 names goes back to "the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of 
 God.'^ Again, as God blessed Noah and delivered into his hand 
 that which was to be food for him and his, giving him dominion 
 as he had given Adam, He said, "But flesh with the life thereof, 
 which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your 
 blood, the blood of your lives, will I require : and at the hand of 
 man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the 
 life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
 blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." 
 
 Two things are to be noted. The genealogy of Adam makes 
 him the son of God, a sonship that went with his creation. On 
 this basis all are sons of God, for Adam begat in his own like- 
 ness and after his own image. Also we get the underlying reason 
 for the extermination of all animals that take the life of man, a 
 result that always goes with man's inroads into forest wilds, 
 and also the reason why a shedder of his brother's blood is fated 
 to have his own blood shed. The taking of man's blood is, by the 
 method of creation, doing violence to the image of God. The 
 
 69 
 
word life, then, lies at the basis of this word image. The word 
 in the Hebrew is nephesh, soul. (See pages 18, 74.) In the pulsing 
 beats of the blood lies hidden a life that must not be taken by 
 man or beast. This does not mean that the death penalty must 
 always follow, for later, it will be remembered, cities of refuge 
 were provided for those who were pursued by the avenger of 
 blood in cases where murder was not intended. Cain was pro- 
 tected by God during his lifetime lest men take his life. 
 
 The word image occurs frequently in Scripture. The making 
 of any image or likeness was a grave offence. This was because 
 in all idolatries men bow down and worship the idols they have 
 made. Men are sons of God. We are made in His image be- 
 cause we have in us His life, breathed into us that we may become 
 living souls. In its beginnings this cannot be better expressed 
 than in the words of the Psalmist, "My frame was not hidden 
 from thee, when I was made in secret . . . thine eyes did see 
 mine unperfect substance," etc. (Ps. 139:15, 16.) This is the 
 beginning of the life in a coming child who will be a man or 
 woman, made in the image and likeness of God. Of the grown 
 man we read in St. Paul's Epistle that he "is the image and the 
 glory of God." Standing in the presence of those who are 
 blinded by a veil, by the god of this world, and so are in darkness 
 as to the Gospel light, we see Christ, "who is the image of God." 
 Of this Christ, the Son of His Love, we know that He laid down 
 his life for men, and this life which He laid down was the life 
 represented by the Greek word psuche, soul, corresponding to 
 the Hebrew word of the Creation story, the soul referred to in 
 the passage of Isaiah, " He shall see of the travail of his soul, and 
 be satisfied . . . because he poured out his soul unto death." 
 
 Coming to the "new man," who takes the place of the "old 
 man" of St. Paul, we see him being "renewed unto knowledge 
 after the im^ge of him that created him," a striking picture 
 of the saved or living man where the idea of life is fundamental. 
 As the newness of life takes on stable form it is the purpose of 
 God that we be "conformed to the image of his son," who is 
 "the iwaflfe of the invisible God." All this is that the Son, the 
 
 70 
 
firstborn of creation, may be also the firstborn among many 
 brethren. Again we are brought back to the word lifCy the im- 
 perishable life that has its source and origin in God, the breath 
 of God that makes men living souls. There is sonship by adop- 
 tion, sonship by inheritance, the sonship that is begotten of the 
 Spirit; but the image of God is, as our study indicates, in the 
 living soul. That it may be transformed into a still more per- 
 fect image we are taught, for "as we with unveiled face reflect 
 as a mirror the glory of God, we are transformed into the same 
 iw^e from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit." 
 
 BIBLE BEGETTINGS 
 
 IN tLe Old Testament, as we have seen, Adam begat a son in 
 his own likeness, ''after his image." The use of the term 
 throughout the Old Testament is so obvious that no study is 
 needed. But it is different in the New Testament. There the 
 Greek word for begotten is sometimes translated born, and it is 
 to this that the attention of the reader is called, especially in the 
 Gospel and Epistles of St. John. 
 
 The word bm-n gives us a child with all the organs and members 
 of a full-grown person; the words beget and begotten refer to a 
 time when as yet no organs or members have begun to form. 
 When we read in John 3 : 16 of the '' only begotten Son," the word 
 begotten is the same word that was rendered born in the third 
 and fifth verses of the same chapter, when Jesus says to Nico- 
 demus, ''Except a man be born anew," and "except a man be 
 born of water and the Spirit," as also in the thirteenth verse of 
 the first chapter, ^^born [begotten], not of blood [bloods], nor of the 
 will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
 
 How many begettings, beginnings, of life does St. John find 
 in a man, and what are they? The number recorded is five, 
 and in this fact we get a vivid idea of what man's life is or may 
 be. We find it properly classified, too, and answering to our 
 own experience and observation. In the verse just quoted we 
 
 71 
 
have begotten of God, begotten of blood, begotten of the will of the 
 flesh, begotten of the will of man, all affirmed of man. It is not 
 simply Bible truth that the life is in the blood. We speak of 
 having blood in our veins, and we rejoice in it. The blooded 
 cattle and horses tell the same story. We come of a certain an- 
 cestry and are different from others of other blood. The state- 
 ment made in this verse is that this fact is so vital that we have 
 here a begetting, a life that springs from this source. 
 
 ^'Begotten of the will of the flesh'' carries another meaning. 
 "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld 
 his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father)." This 
 gives us the man Jesus, with His will. We are flesh. The will 
 of the flesh is ourselves as we gather ourselves together and 
 will to do this or become that. So vital is this that in the 
 strength of such a purpose men are so changed that they are 
 begotten anew. Everyone knows this. 
 
 And what is '* begotten of the will of man "? We readily under- 
 stand that there is a collective force in masses of men, and in the 
 times in which we live, that so forcibly expresses itself that it is 
 the will of man. Great struggles for a cause make this conspic- 
 uous, as with slavery, intemperance, etc. 
 
 Then there is '^begotten of God." Those who "received him 
 to them gave he the right to become children of God," which 
 were begotten not only in one of the three ways above named, 
 " but of God." Those to whom this right is given are those who 
 " received Him " and that " Him " refers to the Word that became 
 flesh, which "lighteth every man that cometh into the world." 
 
 Four begettings, four possible lines of life and of living, may 
 exist in the same person and all develop at the same time. All 
 that is in ancestry is in one begetting; all that comes to us as 
 we will and work our own way along chosen paths is in another, 
 which takes in all culture, all professions, all our "willed" 
 doing; another bears the stamp of our times and fashions us to 
 its will; and there is yet another, a begetting that comes from 
 God, without whom we should not be here at all, and that lays 
 the foundation for a right given us to become children, the chil- 
 
 72 
 
dren of God. We have accepted and followed the light that came 
 from the life He gives to all, and it has been our guide, for "in 
 him was life; and the life was the light of men." 
 ' ' In the third chapter of John's Gospel we have two births or 
 begettings named by Jesus Himself as He talks with Nicodemus. 
 Nicodemus had said, ** Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher 
 come from God : for no man can do these signs that thou doest, 
 except God be with him." Jesus answered, ''Verily, verily, I 
 say unto thee. Except a man be horn [begotten] anew [from above], 
 he cannot see the kingdom of God." This was the kingdom of 
 which Jesus was teaching. The conversation goes on, and in it 
 Jesus agam uses this word. This is the sentence, '' Except a man 
 be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
 of God." Nicodemus saw, but had not entered. A "begetting 
 of the Spirit" was the way. To Nicodemus the word water was 
 added, for the Spirit was little known. Water was the symbol 
 of life, a symbol that the ruler would readily transfer to the 
 word "begotten of (water and) the Spirit." This is the fifth 
 begetting, found in the Gospel according to John, the begetting 
 referred to in the First Epistle of John (3:9; 5:1, 4, 18). 
 
 FIRST ADAM — LAST ADAM: Gen. 5:2, called theu* name Adam; 
 I Cor. 15:45, the first man Adam became a living soul. The last 
 Adam became a life-giving spirit; Rom. 5: 14, a figiu-e of him that 
 was to come; I Cor. 15:47, the first man is of the earth, earthy: 
 the second man is of heaven. 
 
 IMAGE: Gen. 1:26, 27, man in our image; 5:3, after his image; 
 Luke 3:38, the son of Adam, the son of God; Gen. 9:6, in the 
 image of God; I Cor. 11:7, the image and glory of God; II Cor. 
 4:4, Christ, who is the image of God; Col. 1: 15, the image of the 
 invisible God; 3:10, image of him that created him; Rom. 8:29, 
 image of his son; II Cor. 3: 18, transformed into the same image. 
 
 BEGETTING: Gen. 5:3, Adam . . . begat a son; John 3:16, only 
 begotten Son; 1: 13, bom, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
 nor of the will of man, but of God; 1: 12, right to become the chil- 
 dren of God; 3:3, 5, bom anew, bom of water and the Spirit. 
 
 73 
 
BODY, SOUL, AND SPIRIT 
 
 ST. PAUL prayed for his brethren of the church of the Thes- 
 salonians that "spirit and soul and body^' might be "pre- 
 served entire, blameless unto the coming [presence] of the Lord" 
 (I Thess. 5 : 23). Thus, and thus only, would a man be preserved 
 entire. This was his teaching, the Biblical teaching, concerning 
 the nature of man. To interpret it is our study; to realize this 
 entirety should be our prayer. 
 
 Let us consider first the body. It was formed from material 
 which was in existence prior to its creation, the dust of the earth. 
 Afterwards Jehovah said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt 
 thou return." This is our physical body^ our earthly home. But 
 there is another naming given to our bodies by St. Paul as he 
 tells us of the resurrection and of the body that has gone into 
 the grave. "It is sown a natural [soul] body ; it is raised a spir- 
 itual [spirit] body^^ (I Cor. 15:44). The body has been the 
 home of the soul, the organism through which the soul has ex- 
 pressed itself in its varied life. It is because the body is of the 
 earth that it answers in illness or weakness to remedies born of 
 the earth, and so is helped to recovery. Because it is also a psy- 
 chical or soul body it responds to the call of the soul and rallies 
 in a most wonderful manner in obedience to that call. In these 
 two facts as to the body lies the secret of life and health as they 
 stand related to schools of medicine and schools of thought. 
 Both are true; both answer to the needs of man as a living soul. 
 
 The word life [a living soul] appears in the Creation story as 
 relating to every beast of the earth, every bird of the heavens, 
 and everything that creepeth upon the earth. To such it is said 
 that every green herb was given for food. Of Adam also it is 
 said that he became a living souly the Hebrew word being the 
 same as that used of beasts, birds, and creeping things. (See 
 page 18.) We thus have the man and the beasts, birds, and creep- 
 ing things linked together by this phrase, a living soul. As we 
 
 74 
 
look further in the Bible for the word soul, we find in the Book 
 of Isaiah Jehovah saying, *' Behold my servant, whom I uphold; 
 my chosen, in whom my soul delighteth.'^ In Jeremiah we read 
 of Jehovah, "Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation 
 as this?'' and, once more, *'Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? 
 hath thy soul loathed Zion?" (Isa. 42:1; Jer. 9:9, 14:19). In 
 Leviticus and elsewhere the same use of the word soul as ap- 
 plied to God is found, so that this word soul in the Bible be- 
 longs to God, to men, and to certain living creatures. What is 
 the common root thought here? What does it mean as to the 
 soul f Is it not that it represents that aspect of life which has in 
 it adaptation to the life which is being lived? The bird is adapted 
 to its environment. The soul life within it, by the Creator's 
 will, makes it a bird and gives it all its adaptations to the air 
 in which it flies and the earth where it gathers its food and breeds 
 its young. The same is true of the beasts of the field. Because 
 this is true there is in the beast the intelligence which is needed 
 for the life it lives with its kind and with men. So man because 
 he has a soul and a soul body which has grown with the develop- 
 ing intelligence and powers of the soul is adapted to the earth 
 where he lives. He mates and builds his home. He toils and 
 so furnishes, beautifies, and cares for that home. He can live 
 in all climates and do all sorts of things. His adaptations are 
 boundless as compared with those to whom he is joined, as it 
 were, in a community of earth life. And this is true of God. 
 He has adaptability, so to speak. He changes, as we have seen, 
 to meet the changing lives of men, blessing one man and with- 
 holding for a time something from another as He works on His 
 plan to do good to men. Is not this the key to the language, 
 to the many words that the Bible uses in setting forth God's 
 ways as He deals with men? Is not this key found in that com- 
 munity of life which belongs to His soul life as common with 
 our souls and their life? Does not this explain how in the Bible 
 such words as anger, jealousy, love, hate are His words because 
 they are our words? So of such words as perish and destruction ; 
 they are time words. We know them only as men and things go 
 
 75 
 
out of our sight; God uses them when He speaks of what He 
 does and what He will do, or of what will happen, as when He 
 repented that He had made man upon the earth and it grieved 
 Him at His heart. 
 
 The soul belongs primarily to time and to sensible things and 
 relations. Its vision is limited. It deals with things that are 
 material, from eating and drinking to art and music, for it 
 never hears or sees beyond what the ear and eye of the body 
 allow, unless it is quickened by the spirit. Great as have been 
 the things achieved by men, what an utter failure has the 
 wisdom of this world been when it was not quickened by the 
 spirit, not related to God's wisdom! That leads us to spirit in 
 ourselves and spirits as they are and are to be. 
 
 The spirit of a man takes hold on the invisible, that which 
 lies back of all that appears, that from which all seen things are 
 made. It has as yet no vehicle for its adequate and complete 
 expression. This is a common, everyday experience. So in God's 
 plan we are to be unclothed that we may be clothed upon with 
 a body which is from heaven. Naked spirit is unknown to the 
 Bible; it is not suggested as to be desired. Read for yourself 
 the familiar passage in Second Corinthians (4 : 16-5 : 5) where the 
 experiences which await us when the earthly house of our taber- 
 nacle is dissolved are hinted at, and note that "he that wrought 
 us for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of 
 the Spirit." That there is a difference between soul and spirit 
 is the teaching of the Scriptures. That which is written to the 
 Hebrews discloses to us how this was understood by the readers 
 of the Old Testament: "The word of God is living, and active 
 . . . piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, . . . and 
 quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart" (Heb. 
 4:12). This was the faith of the Hebrew people. We read of 
 Jesus that, "perceiving in his spirit that they so reasoned among 
 themselves," He said unto them, "Why reason ye these things 
 in your hearts?" (Mark 2:8). This was that insight of which 
 St. Paul spoke when he said, "For who among men knoweth the 
 things of a man, save the spirit of a man, which is in him?" (I 
 
 76 
 
Cor. 2:11). When the Pharisees asked for a sign, Jesus "sighed 
 deeply in his spirit' ' and answered that none should be given. 
 They were tempting Him. We read on another occasion that He 
 rejoiced in spirit (Luke 10:21). His last words on the cross were, 
 "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.' ' When He had 
 said this, "he yielded up his spirit." The soul receiveth not the 
 things of the spirit. They are foolishness to the natural (soul) 
 man. Only by the Spirit of God are His things known, and 
 these are known in the spirit of the man. This was the mind of 
 Christ. 
 
 • It is one of the pressing needs of the teaching of to-day that 
 men be taught that the spirit, soul, and body hold together in 
 unity only by the Spirit of God, when the spirit rules the other 
 two as it should. " He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit " 
 (I Cor. 6: 17-20). Men should be taught as to their body that 
 it is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in them, which they 
 have from God. All men should take this fact for their comfort 
 as did the apostle, for as temples of the living God we are those of 
 whom it is written (II Cor. 6:16), "God said, I will dwell in 
 them, and walk in them." 
 
 THE LOSS OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE only teaching concerning the loss of the soul is found 
 in the New Testament, and there only in the Gospels. 
 The word lost by Jesus is applied in other ways than to the soul, 
 as in lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. It is found also in 
 the sentence, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save 
 that which was lost," which follows the story of Zacchaeus, 
 bringing out apparently the teaching (since the words are pref- 
 aced by "for," a word of conclusions) that Zacchaeus was found, 
 restored to his place as a child of Abraham. 
 
 The loss of the soul is spoken of seven times, not all using the 
 word loss exclusively. Three times, in the first three Gospels, 
 it is a repetition, placed in the same setting as an illustration of 
 
 77 
 
what is meant as it is used by Our Lord; in St. John's Gospel 
 the words used are loving and hating the] soul, instead of losing 
 and saving it; twice elsewhere the word saved is replaced by the 
 word found. In every case this word of loss as spoken by Mat- 
 thew, Mark, and Luke of the soul reads thus, "For whosoever 
 will (or would) save his soul shall lose it, and whosoever will (or 
 shall) lose his soul for my sake and the Gospel's [good news, 
 good tidings], the same shall save it." In each Gospel this verse 
 is followed by *'What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the 
 whole world and lose his own soul 9 '' Jesus thus places the word 
 soul over against the world, as it is in the Old Testament, and 
 speaks of it as concerned with the things of sense and time, as 
 we meet them in our usual daily, worldly life, but as capable of 
 better things, for in these there is no profit, no exchange for 
 what is given. Now what does the loss of the soul mean as 
 Jesus used the words? As they are found only on His lips, what 
 did they signify to the Teacher who alone knows what is in man? 
 If you go back a single verse in each of the three Gospels you 
 read, ^* If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, 
 take up his cross, and follow me." Then come the words, 
 **For whosoever would save his soul/' etc. We are carried back, 
 then, to selfhood in every man as it may assert itself in denying, 
 coming after, and following the example of Jesus. If you go 
 back one step further, it is written, ''From that time began 
 Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jeru- 
 salem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and 
 scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up." The reader 
 of these words sees at once a cross, a crucifixion, and catches a 
 glimpse of what following Jesus may mean. Once more you 
 look, and Peter and Jesus stand apart a little while the disciple 
 says, ''This shall never be unto thee." This seems natural 
 enough. Why should they go farther on this journey when it 
 had such an ending? That was a human soul speaking out what 
 any man might say. Jesus recognized this when, after saying, 
 "Get thee behind me, Satan," He added in explanation, "Thou 
 mindest not the things of God but the things of men." This was 
 
 78 
 
a purely human standpoint. Now comes the time to teach the 
 disciples and all men how to save their souls. It was by the way 
 He their Teacher was travelling. Its method was to deny one's 
 self. What self, and how were they and are we to do this? 
 Let the experience of Peter himself be the answer. Jesus had 
 told him that in Jerusalem, whither they were going, he would 
 deny Him. How did he do it? To those who said, ''Thou also 
 wast with Jesus the Galilean," he denied, saying, "I know not 
 the man." To deny one's self is not some practice in self-denial, 
 not the refraining from taking or using something that one de- 
 sires, but the saying to the soul in its self-assertion, "I know 
 you not. Begone; thou shalt not rule me as I go my way." 
 
 What did Jesus teach, then, as to your soul and your losing it? 
 If you set out to save it, it shall be lost. You will attain not 
 to what you desire. Self-saving is futile. But if you lose your 
 soul for Me and My good tidings, you thereby come to all that is 
 signified in a soul saved. This is the law of the souVs life as it 
 expresses itself. Is this a strange thing to us? Not at all. It 
 is the way that is humanly most to be desired; it is a man's 
 way to fulness in his human life. The husband loses himself in 
 his wife, the wife in the husband, and thereby their union is 
 made complete. Parents lose themselves in their children, 
 children in their parents, and we have the home. The teacher 
 loses himself in the pupils, the pupils in their teacher, the man 
 in his work, the preacher in his people, and by this means we 
 are on the road to harmony; by it the best that is in us comes 
 to the front and we attain to God's thought for us in our human, 
 our soul lives. When Jesus said, *'Lose yourselves, your souls, 
 for Me and My cause," He set before us how men always lose 
 themselves in a person or a cause, in this case the person being 
 Himself, who is lifted high above all others, the Cause, the one 
 that includes all causes. Thus are men saved as to their souls, 
 and thus only, as Jesus Christ saves them. 
 
 But what of Jesus and His soul f Let the answer be in His 
 own words. Certain Greeks said to Philip, "We would see 
 Jesus." When He was told, Jesus answered, saying, ''The 
 
 79 
 
hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground 
 and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much 
 fruit." He was facing the death by which He should be glorified. 
 Then He added, "He that loveth his soul loseth it; and he that 
 hateth his soul in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." We 
 have seen the love in Bible language describes union by choice; 
 hate, by choice, divides instead of joining. So here Jesus tells 
 us how the soul stands alone or becomes fruitful. Then He 
 adds, "If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I 
 am there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him 
 will the Father honor." Then come the words that explain what 
 was passing in His soul. "Now is my sowHroubled; and what 
 shall I say? (Shall I say,) Father, save me from this hour. 
 But for this cause came I unto this hour." His answer was, 
 "Father, glorify thy name." He had lost Himself. He had 
 passed from where His soul was troubled as He looked forward: 
 He had not loved, but had hated His own soul. 
 
 Only once besides are we so taken into the soul life of Jesus. 
 It was at Gethsemane. He took with him Peter, who had been 
 the occasion of what He had said as to losing the soul (as recorded 
 in Matthew, Mark, and Luke), and began to be sorrowful, 
 greatly amazed, sorely troubled. Then He said, "My soul is 
 exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Leaving them a little 
 He went forward, fell on His face, and prayed, "0 my Father, 
 if it be possible, let this cup pass away from me: nevertheless, 
 not as I will, but as thou wilt." Three times He thus prayed, 
 the prayer of His soul, and always, "Thy will be done." This 
 is the prayer He taught his disciples, "Thy will be done on 
 earth," the prayer in which we lose our souls, as did He. " Greater 
 love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life [soul] 
 for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do the things which I 
 command you." 
 
 SOUL— LIFE {Psuche) A Partial List: Matt. 10:28, to kill the soul; 
 both body and soul; 10:39, findeth his life, loseth his life; 11:29, 
 rest unto your souls ; 12 : 18, in whom my soul is well pleased ; 16 : 25, 
 
 80 
 
26, save his life, lose his life, forfeit his life, in exchange for his life; 
 20: 28, to give his life; 22: 37, with all thy soul; 26:38, my soul is 
 exceeding sorrowful. Mark 8:35-37, save his life, lose his life, 
 forfeit his life, in exchange for his life; 10:45, to give his life; 
 12 : 30, with all thy soul ; 14 : 34, my soul. Luke 9 : 24, save his life, 
 lose his life; 10:27, with all thy soul; 12:19, 20, 22, 23, say to my 
 soul. Soul, thy soul required of thee; be not anxious for your life, 
 the life is more than the food; 14: 26, yea, and his own life ; 17: 33, 
 gain his life, lose his life shall preserve it [save it ahve]; 21: 19, in 
 your patience ye shall win your souls. John 10: 11, 15, 17, layeth 
 down his life .. . that I may take it again; 12:25, 27, loveth his 
 life, hateth his Hfe, now is my soul troubled; 15:13, that a man 
 lay down his life for his friends. Acts 2 : 27, leave my soul in Hades. 
 Rom. 2:9, every soul of man; 13:1, every soul be in subjection; 
 I Cor. 2: 14, the natxiral man [psuchikds]; 15:44, 45, a natural body 
 [psuchikds], a Hving soul; I Thess. 5:23, your spirit and soul and 
 body; Heb. 4: 12, to the dividing of soul and spirit; 10:38, 39, my 
 soul hath no pleasure in him; unto the saving of the soul; Jas. 1 : 21, 
 able to save your souls; 3:15, wisdom that is . . . sensual [psu- 
 chikds, marginal reading, natural, or animal]; 5:20, save a soul 
 from death; I Pet. 1:9, salvation of your souls; 22, purified your 
 souls; 2: 11, 25, war against the soul, the Shepherd and Bishop of 
 your souls; III John 2, as thy soul prospereth. 
 
 SIN 
 
 SIN is a generic word. As such it breaks upon us in many 
 forms such as transgression, iniquity, and in specific sins, in- 
 dividual, national, and world-wide. In this study we seek for 
 the root meaning and find it in the brief biography of Cain, the 
 firstborn of Adam. Abel and Cain bring offerings to Jehovah. 
 Cain brings of the fruits of the ground; Abel adds to these the 
 firstlings of his flock. (He brought also is the reading of the 
 text.) *'And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offer- 
 ing: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect." 
 Cain was very angry. Jehovah said, *'Why art thou wroth? 
 and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shall it 
 
 81 
 
not be lifted up? and if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the 
 door: and unto thee shall be its desire, but thou shouldest rule 
 over it." Rule over what? Over desire. Man was made to 
 rule, and he who was to have dominion must first be the ruler 
 of himself. The control here was to be over desire. 
 
 In St. John's Gospel we have what carries us far with this 
 conception, "Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant 
 of sin,'^ He is no longer his own master. As Jesus goes on with 
 His teaching He asks, "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" 
 He has spoken of Himself as a son in contrast with the bond- 
 servant, who is the slave of sin. He has given them place as 
 bondservants in the words, "Ye are of your father the devil," 
 and has added as a mark of it, "and the lusts [desires] of your 
 father it is your will to do. " Lust is desire, a fact to hold steadily 
 in mind as we read the Bible. Here again we have desire and 
 sin in their true relation. In the Epistle of St. James we have 
 them coupled again. "Each man is tempted [tested] when he 
 is drawn away by his own lust (desire), and enticed. Then the 
 lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin." 
 
 In these Scriptures we have seen sin in man at its birth. 
 Follow this thought through the Bible. Israel lusted after 
 the fleshpots of Egypt, and so sinned against Jehovah. Read 
 the story of David and see what the ungoverned desire of the 
 monarch had done as he stood self-convicted before the prophet 
 Nathan; then reread the penitential psalms. 
 
 If now we turn to the Epistle to the Romans, this question 
 faces us, "Is the law sin?" "God forbid," replies the apostle, 
 "howbeit I had not known sm, except through the law: for I 
 had not known coveting [lust], except the law had said. Thou 
 shalt not covet [lust] : but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me 
 through the commandment all manner of coveting [lust]: for 
 apart from the law sin is dead." Here is a prohibition, then 
 an awakened desire for what is forbidden, a choosing to go one's 
 own way, to follow one's own desire, with the outcome sin, 
 which thus becomes our master. This is human experience as 
 set forth in this chapter, the best known and perhaps the most 
 
 82 
 
quoted by those who follow the exhortation to know themselves. 
 We quite understand, out of our experience, the words of the 
 apostle as he ends his argument, ''O wretched man that I am! 
 who shall deliver me out of the body of this death [this body of 
 death] ?'^ We have been there ourselves, and share the relief 
 of Paul as he adds, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our 
 Lord." By His help, the abiding in His word, the truth will 
 become known to us as it did to Paul, the truth that makes us 
 free. (It is worth noting that this teaching of Jesus concerning 
 the truth that shall make us free is in the chapter of St. John's 
 Gospel quoted above. Is not the freedom to be freedom from 
 servitude to sin?) Going on in the same Epistle, we have St. 
 Paul writing, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin.'' The context 
 is the difference between the disciples concerning days and 
 meats. The real point is, are you in doubt? Do you do or 
 refrain from doing because you think it to be the will of God? 
 If you doubt, go not forward. Be sure in your own mind. Let 
 what you do be bom of your faith, or else it is sin. Go back once 
 more to the teachings of St. James and let him illuminate this 
 point further. "To him therefore who knoweth to do good and 
 doeth it not, to him it is sin.'' Once more we have put a mark 
 on the word sin. Where there is light given, it must be followed. 
 The convincing proof of this is the words of Our Lord Himself: 
 once in His condemnation of the Pharisees in their treatment of 
 the man blind from his birth, but restored to sight, "If ye were 
 blind, ye would have no sin : but now ye say. We see : your sin 
 remaineth"; and again, as He spoke to His disciples of the 
 world at whose hands they would suffer, "If I had not come 
 and spoken unto them, they had not had sin : but now they 
 have no excuse for their sin." These words need no comment, 
 but they may suggest to us why men's ears are closed, their 
 eyes shut, and their hearts hardened, lest they should see and 
 hear and not do. It is God's mercy that withholds, even as it 
 is God's mercy that gives light, till His own hour comes. 
 
 St. John gives us our final word on sin. " Every one that doeth 
 sin doeth also lawlessness: and sin is lawlessness." Sin is 
 
 83 
 
here placed before us in its spirit, not in its expression. That 
 takes on many forms, sins, trespasses, transgressions, iniquities, 
 all without the man, all seen in what he does. But sin is lawless- 
 ness. It has no regard to law. Its formal expression is in dis- 
 obedience to law, whether the law is in words or is written in 
 our hearts. ** Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not." The 
 lawless spirit is no more his. *' Whosoever sinneth hath not 
 seen him, neither knoweth him." Here we see the power of 
 Jesus Christ as the Advocate with the Father (Advocate *'if 
 any man sin") and the propitiation for our sins. 
 
 ^*He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is 
 righteous." He has the same spirit of obedience as Jesus 
 Christ the Righteous. He would do the things that please 
 God. "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil 
 sinneth from the beginning." But *Ho this end was the Son 
 of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the 
 devil." As to sin this is the message: ** Whosoever is begotten 
 of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him (the seed 
 planted by the Son of God) : and he cannot sin because he is 
 begotten of God." The life eternal has been planted as a seed. 
 Like any seed it brings forth fruit after its kind. It unfolds 
 and grows till we have the full-grown man. The seed, working 
 after the law of its own life, gives to the one thus begotten a 
 desire and a will to obey God. It rules within him so that sin 
 which is lawlessness has no more dominion over him. 
 
 SIN: Gen. 4:7, sin coucheth at the door; John 8:34, committeth sin 
 is the bondservant of sin; Jas. 1: 15, lust, when it hath conceived, 
 beareth sin; Rom. 8:7-25, is the law sin? had not known sin, sin 
 is dead, the law of sin in my members; 14:23, not of faith is sin; 
 Jas. 4: 17, to him it is sin; John 9:41, if blind, ye would have no 
 sin; 15:22, 24, they had not had sin; I John 3:4-9, sin is lawless- 
 ness, sinneth not, sin is of the devil, cannot sin; 2: 1, if any man 
 sin. 
 
 84 
 
PROPHECY 
 
 ACCORDING to prophecy and in the opinion of all observ- 
 ers, we are in the midst of a world crisis. Men's hearts fail 
 them for fear as they look out upon the general world situation 
 and seek for ways in which to account for the problems which 
 confront our generation. We believe that the Bible does shed 
 light on these questions, and also on what awaits humanity in 
 its onward course. The reader may ask what bearing the 
 knowledge of these prophecies has upon one's life as a Christian 
 in the world. The tracing of God's care and prevision in national 
 as well as personal affairs all down the centuries steadies our 
 faith that the times in which we live are in His keeping and that 
 what remains to become history will be equally under His 
 guiding hand. 
 
 The writer can offer a personal testimony along this line 
 concerning the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, made 
 to His servant John, which begins with those words of peculiar 
 interest, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the 
 words of the prophecy, and keep the things which are written 
 therein: for the time is at hand." He had read these words 
 many times; he had been to a goodly number of prophetic 
 conferences which were held annually in Boston, and had heard 
 many men from at home and abroad give their views as to what 
 the symbols of this marvel among books signified as related to 
 the future and to the past; he had read books devoted to the 
 interpretation of the Revelation. It remained for Dr. Taylor, 
 son of the man whom God raised up to carry the Gospel to 
 inland China, J. Hudson Taylor, to give light by which the 
 writer has walked for these many years as again and again he 
 has pondered this book. This was in substance Dr. Taylor's 
 record of his experience. 
 
 As a pastor he had not had time to study the book. At last 
 he decided to go at the matter systematically and thus, if pos- 
 sible, get some settled views, endeavoring also to sift for himself 
 
 85 
 
the varying and often conflicting views which he had heard ex- 
 pressed. The more he read and studied, the more perplexed 
 and unsettled he became, until one day he noticed, as for the 
 first time, the words, "and keep the things which are written 
 therein." His first thought was, " How can I keep a prophecy? " 
 Then certain pictures came to his recollection, such as "These 
 are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." He 
 said, "I can do that, or strive to do it." He began to read this 
 book, which had so puzzled him, with this one thought in mind, 
 and found such comfort and blessing in keeping the words of 
 the prophecy that it had been since that day a personal expe- 
 rience made true to him. The writer has followed Dr. Taylor's 
 method and had a similar experience with regard to this book 
 of prophecy. 
 
 Before we turn to specific prophecies it is well to give a mo- 
 ment's consideration to the general subject. Prophecy, as it 
 appears in the Bible, has two salient and outstanding marks. 
 On the one hand it is for instruction in righteousness; on the 
 other hand it is essentially predictive. In the teaching of all 
 those who from Moses to Malachi were called of God to be 
 His spokesmen, either to their own times or to all times, prom- 
 ises and warnings are set side by side. The promises are to 
 obedience and are to be fulfilled in the present and future or in 
 both. With the admonitions are equally joined warnings con- 
 cerning what will follow if the hearers depart from the ways in 
 which they are urged to walk. "I will put upon you all the evil 
 diseases of Egypt," said Jehovah to Israel, this evil or judgment 
 being a positive infliction for disobedience. The present and 
 future are in the warnings. The predictive element goes with 
 the call to obey. 
 
 86 
 
A TIME, TIMES, AND HALF A TIME 
 
 WITH the study of this phrase and others like it we come 
 into the realm of Biblical time prophecies. There is a 
 goodly number of these time prophecies where the time element 
 is put into so many actual years, as when Jehovah said to Abram 
 that his seed should be in bondage four hundred years (Gen. 
 15:13), or Israel was told that it would be left forty years in 
 the wilderness (Num. 14:33), or when it was said of Ephraim, 
 ''Within threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken in 
 pieces, that it be not a people" (Isa. 7:8). All these are time 
 prophecies which have been fulfilled in history in the exact 
 periods of years predicted. Ephraim was the ten tribes that 
 revolted from Judah, known to us as "the ten lost tribes.'* 
 Judah remained a kingdom, but Israel was never again a 
 people. 
 
 But beside such prophecies as these there are those that are 
 veiled, notably the one that most concerns us and our day, 
 since we live near its completion, a duration which is hidden 
 away in the word a time, times, and half a time, as found first in 
 DanieFs prophecy and then repeated in the Revelation. With 
 it go prophecies of ''days" and "months" and "years" which 
 make as elements of a veiled revelation an interesting time 
 study. Can we determine the meaning of this phrase, calling 
 upon the Bible to be its own interpreter and summoning history 
 to our aid to verify our conclusions? For the BibUcal test of a 
 true prophet was that history should verify and prove his words. 
 
 All discussion of time prophecies must begin with the words 
 of Jesus as He opens His ministry (Mark 1:15), "The tim^ is 
 fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and 
 believe in the gospel." Here Jesus laid His hand on the clock 
 of time and said, "the time is fulfilled." What time was ful- 
 filled? A prediction of Daniel that the Messiah would come in 
 seventy weeks and be cut off in the seventieth week (Dan. 9:24- 
 
 87 
 
26). It was this prophecy that had raised to the highest point 
 the expectation of the Jews that they were soon to be delivered 
 not only from the yoke of Rome, but also from that of any 
 foreign power. As their leaders had interpreted this seventy 
 weeks, each day stood for a year, as in the warning of Moses 
 each of his forty days stood for a year in the wilderness; 
 seventy weeks would stand for four hundred and ninety years. 
 Jesus laid His hand upon it and said, *'The time is fulfilled.'* 
 This was what Simeon was waiting for. *'It had been revealed 
 unto him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death, be- 
 fore he had seen the Lord's Christ" (Luke 2:26). He saw him 
 in Jesus. In confirming this prophecy as applying to His own 
 coming, Jesus had indicated that the "year-day" interpretation 
 was correct in this instance, the four hundred and ninety years 
 dating back to a point in the period of the Babylonian cap- 
 tivities. 
 
 We have then the "year-day" suggestion to carry over into 
 our study of other time prophecies. There is one thing to be 
 noted before our reckoning as to times begins. The sacred year 
 of the Jews was lunar, for the intervals between the feasts and 
 fasts of the Levitical calendar were all lunar. But the Jews also 
 used a longer tropical year, as did the Babylonians. The differ- 
 ence between the two modes of reckoning would make in a long 
 interval of time an added number of years. So that all time 
 reckonings, even starting from the same date, might end at 
 different times within a limited range of years. This, however, 
 is not material to this study, as exact dates are not sought. 
 It only shows us how they might vary and why writers on these 
 subjects always allow a margin of years, for "the great chro- 
 nometer provided by God for men marks off by its different rev- 
 olutions years of three different lengths, one measured by the 
 sun, one by the moon, and one by the conjoint movements of 
 both orbs, so that we have the calendar year (360 days), the 
 lunar (354 days), and the solar year (365 days)." 
 
 Messiah the Prince was to be cut off in the midst of the sev- 
 entieth week of the prophecy referred to by Jesus when He 
 
 88 
 
said, "The time is fulfilled.'^ This became history at the cruci- 
 fixion. It is interesting to note that this prophecy was fulfilled 
 on both lunar and solar systems of reckoning, dating from two 
 restoration decrees issued by Artaxerxes, the one associated 
 with Ezra, the other with Nehemiah, the latter more specifi- 
 cally conforming to the conditions of the prophecy. The first, 
 given in B.C. 457, makes the four hundred and ninety years run 
 out in A.D. 34; the second, a.d. 32-33. The Messiah was to be 
 cut off in the midst of the seventieth week. History shows that 
 from the month of Nehemiah's departure for Jerusalem, b.c. 
 444, to the Passover season at which Our Lord was crucified, 
 A.D. 29, was exactly four hundred and eighty-six and a half 
 lunar years. In the acceptance by Our Lord of this prophecy 
 it becomes one of many interesting coincidences. 
 
 Once more, near the end of His ministry, Jesus laid His hand 
 upon the clock of prophetic and historic time. He had told the 
 disciples that Jerusalem should be compassed with armies and 
 had warned them to leave the city, "for these are the days of 
 vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 
 . . . And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until 
 the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled " (Luke 21 : 24). What did 
 Jesus mean by the tim^s of the Gentiles? Gentile world rule. 
 From the days when the Roman armies compassed and cap- 
 tured Jerusalem until to-day, Jerusalem has been trodden under 
 foot of the Gentiles. On the site of the temple there stands a 
 Mohammedan mosque; Turks hold the holy city. It is evi- 
 dent that we are living in the times of the Gentiles, though, as 
 we see how the Jew is coming to be recognized by the laws of 
 nations as having the same rights as other men, we can antici- 
 pate a time in the not far distant future when it might be said 
 that Jerusalem was no longer trodden under foot of men. Our 
 present interest is, however, in the relation of the words of 
 Jesus to the tim^, times, and half a tim£ of Daniel and Revela- 
 tion. For this we must turn back to these and accompanying 
 prophecies. 
 
 Gentile world rule, as we take the Bible for our guide, begins 
 
with the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. His reign began in b.c. 605-6; 
 the final destruction of Jerusalem was in b.c. 587, nineteen years 
 later. To this monarch Daniel says, as he interprets his dream 
 concerning the image which he has seen, "Thou art the head of 
 gold." This fixes the identity of the first world-ruHng power, 
 Babylon. "After thee," continues Daniel in his interpretation, 
 "shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee; and another 
 third kingdom of brass which shall bear rule over all the earth." 
 These two are usually interpreted as the kingdom of the Medes 
 and Persians and that of the Greeks. Then follows (Dan. 2) 
 a vivid description of the fourth kingdom with its strength, 
 "strong as iron," and its weakness, "iron and clay mingled in 
 its feet." This kingdom is interpreted to be that of Rome, char- 
 acterized in many interpretations not only as pagan Rome, but 
 also as the Roman Empire as it divided into two Empires, 
 Western and Eastern, one with its capital at Rome, the other 
 at Constantinople, and into the ten or more powers of modern 
 Europe which have stood until our own day. After this there 
 is a glorious picture of the kingdom which was to come, to be 
 set up by God in heaven, never to be destroyed, never to end. 
 "As a stone cut out of the mountain without hands," this king- 
 dom would break in pieces and supersede them all. 
 
 Parallel, as it seems, to this vision comes the dream of Daniel, 
 recorded in the seventh chapter, in which he saw the four beasts, 
 the first three interpreted again as Babylon, Medo-Persia, and 
 Greece, and a fourth beast, representing a fourth kingdom 
 which should devour the whole earth, tread it down, and break 
 it in pieces. This is ascribed by prophetic writers to Rome. But 
 the prophecy goes further. As the image of Nebuchadnezzar^s 
 vision had ten toes, part of clay and part of iron, the fourth 
 beast has ten horns, commonly interpreted, as we have said, as 
 the ten kingdoms into which the Romaij Empire broke up. But 
 while Daniel considered these horns, another, a little one, came 
 up. In this horn were " eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth 
 speaking great things." This horn was for a king or kingdom 
 "diverse from the former," which should "speak words against 
 
 90 
 
the Most High, and wear out the saints of the Most High." 
 He should ''think to change the times and the law; and they 
 shall be given into his hand until a time and times and a half a 
 tim£.'* Here we have the tim£, tim^s, and half a time of our 
 present study. We come to a series of prophecies which have 
 now, in large measure at least, become history, under these 
 words and their parallels of "forty-two months" and ''twelve 
 hundred and sixty days." They profoundly concern us and 
 should be given by all thoughtful persons some measure of the 
 attention which has been given them by students of prophetic 
 predictions. Daniel came to his prophetic utterances as he set 
 himself to study the time predictions of the prophet Jeremiah 
 as to the duration of the captivity of Israel in Babylon. It was 
 as he prayed and confessed the sins of his people, convinced 
 that the hour of their deliverance was at hand, that the visions 
 came to him which have been so strikingly fulfilled. Some things 
 were sealed to him; others were opened. It is only by reading 
 the marvellous words of the Bible itself that we can see in out- 
 line and hold in memory and imagination the events described, 
 but as a setting for each of the passages where the words we 
 are discussing appear, we quote briefly. 
 
 Following the rule of this fourth beast as a single power 
 comes this diverse rule, represented by horns, and especially by 
 this one which shall spring up and be given power for a time and 
 times and half a time. What follows? "They shall take away 
 his dominion to consume and destroy it unto the end. And 
 the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the king- 
 doms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of 
 the saints of the Most High: his kingdom is an everlasting king- 
 dom, and all nations shall serve and obey him." Earlier in the 
 same chapter we read concerning this same fourth beast that 
 Daniel beheld it "till thrones were placed, and one that was 
 ancient of days did sit." He beheld till the beast was slain, and 
 he saw in the night visions, and there came "with the clouds 
 of heaven one like unto a son of man, and he came even to the 
 ancient of days," and there was given to him an everlasting 
 
 91 
 
kingdom. As we read these words we see at once that this "di- 
 verse kingdom '^ is neither that of Babylon, the Medes and 
 Persians, the Greeks, or pagan Rome. It has sprung up and 
 comes into view as between the fourth world power and the 
 fifth or universal world power and dominion that has no end. 
 There were to be no more world kingdoms like those seen by 
 Daniel as the four beasts, but here was an attempt to establish 
 a rule over all the earth that has been given to the Son of Man 
 and the saints. This rule was to last, as we understand it, a 
 time, times, and half a tim£. Once again in the Book of Daniel 
 this phrase is used when in the last chapter a time of trouble 
 is foreseen, "such as never was since there was a nation even to 
 that same time," and Daniel, asking concerning the end of these 
 wonders, was told it shall be for "a time, times, and half a time, 
 and when they have made an end of breaking in pieces the power of 
 the holy people, all these things shall be finished." This is the 
 contribution of the Book of Daniel concerning this period, which 
 is mentioned seven times in prophecy, twice here and five times 
 in the Revelation, and which assumes vital interest to us if we 
 find that history shows such a period, and that we may be living 
 not only in it, but near its conclusion. 
 
 Let us turn to the Revelation and group the descriptions where 
 we find this same measure or its plain prophetic equivalent. 
 They are found in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth chap- 
 ters of the Revelation which God gave to Jesus Christ that He 
 might show unto His servants the things which must shortly 
 come to pass, the same Jesus Christ who had said that Jerusa- 
 lem should be trodden under foot until the times of the Gentiles 
 were fulfilled. The times of the Gentiles had begun with Gentile 
 world rule. When were they to end? St. John was told that 
 he must "prophesy again over many peoples and nations and 
 tongues and kings," and there was given to him a reed (Rev. 11), 
 and he was told to measure the temple and the altar, and those 
 that worshipped therein; but to leave the court without the 
 temple, and measure it not, "for it hath been given unto the 
 Gentiles [nations] : and the holy city shall they tread under foot 
 
 92 
 
forty and two months ^ (The court of the temple was always for 
 Gentiles; the nations in Scripture were called the Gentiles. So 
 here we have the two renderings, one in the Authorized, the 
 other in the Revised version.) The Gentiles, the nations, were 
 to tread the holy city under foot for forty-two months. We read 
 on, in the next verse, "And I will give unto my two witnesses, 
 and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore 
 days, clothed in sackcloth." Forty-two months is twelve hundred 
 and sixty days. Has there been a time since Rome (pagan) 
 ruled the world when the followers of Jesus Christ have held 
 steadily to their testimony, but have been clothed with the 
 garments of mourning? Has it been a set time, not set to a day 
 or an hour or a year, but a period of time that is marked out in 
 history, a part of the record of the last nineteen hundred years? 
 For this kingdom of heaven was ushered in with power during 
 the lives of the first disciples of Jesus the Christ. "The time 
 is fulfilled; the kingdom of God is at hand," said Jesus, and all 
 history had borne witness to His words. 
 
 We turn to the twelfth chapter of the Revelation and read of 
 a great sign seen in heaven, a woman arrayed with the sun, the 
 moon under her feet, and she was with child. There was another 
 sign, a dragon with seven heads and ten horns. The woman in 
 prophecy is always the church. The dragon stood before the 
 woman, that when she was delivered he might devour her child, 
 for when born he was to be "a son, a man child, who was to rule 
 all nations with a rod of iron." When she was delivered the 
 child was caught up unto God and unto His throne. The 
 woman fled into the wilderness, "where she hath a place pre- 
 pared of God, that there they may nourish her a thousand two 
 hundred and threescore days.^' Once more the twelve hundred and 
 sixty days which we are soon to connect with the phrase of our 
 study. As we read on there is war in heaven, Michael and his 
 angels going forth to war with the dragon and his angels. The 
 dragon prevailed not and was cast down to earth, "the old ser- 
 pent," it adds, "he that is called the Devil and Satan, the de- 
 ceiver of the whole world." A great voice is heard saying, 
 
 93 
 
''Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom 
 of our God, and the authority of his Christ." The dragon in 
 great wrath, knowing that "his time was short," persecuted the 
 woman which had brought forth the man child. To her were 
 given the two wings of the eagle, "that she might fly into the 
 wilderness unto her place, where she is nourished for a timef 
 and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent." 
 
 The woman was to be in the wilderness twelve hundred and 
 sixty days; she was to be there, by this second account of the 
 same event, a time, times, and half a time. The two are evidently 
 the same period, and we have our time, times, and half a time de- 
 fined in Bible terms. The twelve hundred and sixty days was by 
 actual computation equal to the forty-two months, during which 
 the holy city was to be trodden under foot. Forty-two literal 
 months (lunar) equals three and a half years (lunar). A time is, 
 therefore, here as elsewhere in prophecy, a year of three hundred 
 and sixty days; times stands for two years; half a time for one 
 hundred and eighty days, the total being a prophetic period of 
 twelve hundred and sixty days, each day standing for a year. 
 The time period for these events is measured, as we should ex- 
 pect it would be, after the pattern of the seventy weeks of 
 Daniel's prophecy as to the coming of the long-looked-for 
 Messiah. 
 
 Once more this period occurs in prophecy, in the thirteenth 
 chapter of Revelation, immediately following, when the beast 
 (world power) comes up out of the sea, having ten horns and 
 seven heads. "And the dragon gave him his power, and his 
 throne, and great authority." In the midst of a portrayal that 
 carries us back to the imagery of Daniel, "the mouth of the 
 beast speaking great things," we read, "And there was given 
 unto him authority to continue [to do his works during] forty 
 and two months.^* This is the seventh and last reference to 
 this period of prophetic time. 
 
 What do these seven utterances contribute towards our 
 understanding of this time, times, and half a time f They mark 
 its length, twelve hundred and sixty years, lunar, solar, or 
 
 94 
 
calendar; they mark its end as coincident with that of the end 
 of the times of the Gentiles, during which the holy city is 
 trodden under foot; they describe it as following on and grow- 
 ing out of the rule of the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, which 
 is interpreted as Rome (pagan) ; they describe it as coincident 
 with a period of trials of the saints and of the church. When 
 did this period begin, we ask, and when will it end? To our 
 thought concerning this, one other group of Bible passages makes 
 contribution. 
 
 Our Study has now covered more than twenty-five centuries 
 of history in prophetic time terms, for we began with Gentile 
 world rule in B.C. 605-6, and we live in the twentieth century. 
 Our particular phrase time, tim^s, and half a tim^ proves to cover 
 only from twelve to thirteen centuries; but the tim£s of the Gen- 
 tiles which end with the end of the special period under discussion 
 have run historically more than twenty-five centuries. Is there 
 any Bible ground for that length of time prophetically? We 
 find that there is, in the use of the word tim^s. The Bible calen- 
 dar moves steadily in sevens, as any reader of Bible history 
 and of the Levitical law well knows. The week of days was set 
 in the Creation; the week of weeks (Lev. 23) measured in the 
 Jewish year the time between Passover and Pentecost; the 
 week of months (Lev. 23) measured the Jewish year, whose fes- 
 tivals occurred in the first seven months of the year; the week 
 of years led to the sabbatic year; the week of weeks of years 
 carried on forty-nine years to the fiftieth year, the year of 
 jubilee. The week of decades is used prophetically by Jeremiah 
 concerning the period of captivity m Babylon (seventy years). 
 We have seen the week of weeks of years (four hundred and 
 ninety years) used in the prophecy concerning the coming of the 
 Messiah. In each case the "week" is the Hebrew word seven. 
 In a remarkable chapter in Leviticus promises to the chosen 
 people are rehearsed, and solemn warnings are given as to what 
 will follow not heeding the word of Jehovah (Lev. 26: 18, 21, 24, 
 28). "If ye will not, I will chastise you seven tim£s for your 
 sins'' is the phrase repeated over and over again. They are to 
 
 95 
 
perish among the nations, and the land of their enemies shall 
 eat them up, as the picture goes on of the ills which will come 
 upon them. It is a strangely interesting fact that, by prophetic 
 Bible chronology (as we have developed it here, and as it works 
 out more fully in the writings of prophetic students), the seven 
 times might be thought to point to a period of a week, each of 
 whose days is a year of years or three hundred and sixty years, 
 the whole being, therefore, seven times three hundred and sixty 
 or twenty-five hundred and twenty years. There is neither 
 space nor reason here for entering into this more in detail. Note 
 simply that the period of our time, times, and half a time is 
 twelve hundred and sixty years, which is half of twenty-five 
 hundred and twenty years. Note also that it is now historically 
 true that the covenant people have been under the Gentile 
 harrow for this length of time, for from the reign of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar to a time in the comparatively near future is approxi- 
 mately twenty-five to twenty-six hundred years, allowing for 
 the variation of limar and solar reckoning. 
 
 See how it all fits together, and we have a glimpse of a mar- 
 vellous prophetic chronology, revealing in some measure the 
 ''times and seasons'' set by the Father. The times of the Gen- 
 tiles, corresponding to the seven times of Levitical prophecy, 
 give an extent of twenty-five to twenty-six hundred years, which, 
 if dating as it must from the time of the beginning of Gentile 
 world rule, will end in the comparatively near future. Within 
 the last half of this time comes the period of our special study, 
 proving to be a period of forty-two months, or twelve hundred 
 and sixty days, interpreted on the year-day suggestion to be 
 twelve or thirteen centuries, during which certain world events 
 will come to pass. Its end is coincident with the end of the 
 times of the Gentiles. From the accuracy with which the earlier 
 prophecies were fulfilled in Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece, 
 we reckon the fourth beast or kingdom to have been Rome, 
 the last world-power of history. The time, times, and half a time 
 begins with the emergence from this power, which has broken 
 up into ten kingdoms, of another power, small, different, yet 
 
 96 
 
becoming great and powerful. The time, times, and half a tims 
 must date historically from the fall of the fourth great united 
 power and the beginning of this last power. Other passages, 
 throwing further light on this period, suggest two great apos- 
 tasies in this period, conforming to two horns of prophecy. We 
 enter here, however, the region of prophecy so closely related 
 to our own times that, as in all such cases, it becomes a matter 
 of controversy. 
 
 Of this much we may feel confident. To answer historically 
 to this prophetic outlook there should be in history three great 
 historic streams flowing in parallel lines : the one, for the Jews, 
 dating from the period of the captivities and looking towards 
 their gradual freedom from persecution; the other two for the 
 church of God, involving two persecuting powers, controlling 
 what was the Roman world, one in the East and one in the West, 
 both beginning at about the same time, and both losing at nearly 
 or quite the same era their power to persecute and war upon 
 God's people. There are in history but two powers that answer 
 to these prophetic demands, the Papacy (considered in such 
 study on the side of its temporal power) and Islam, the Moham- 
 medan rule, in its same political and persecuting power. The 
 two do rise at about the same period (see dates below); they 
 have both begun to wane in recent times, about twelve to thirteen 
 centuries from the probable dates or inclusive periods of their 
 inception in the sixth or seventh centuries, the Papal through 
 the establishment of the Italian kingdom and other events which 
 will readily occur to the reader, the Mohammedan through its 
 loss by international requirements and obligations of its power 
 to persecute. As we see these two great forces of mediaeval and 
 modern history waning, and the right of the Jews to be treated 
 as are other peoples irnder all national governments increas- 
 ingly recognized, may we not feel that we are living in wonderful 
 times, and that the Bible picture and the Bible chronology of 
 these times, while not specific as to our own generation, does 
 point with unmistakable definiteness to our period in the cycle 
 of centuries? 
 
 97 
 
DATES AND PERIODS COLLECTED FROM 
 PROPHETIC WRITERS 
 
 SEVENTY WEEKS: 490 years, b.c. 457-a.d. 34 (solar); b.c. 444- 
 A.D. 32-33 (lunar). 
 
 SEVEN TIMES, the TIMES of the Gentiles: 2520 (2x 1260) years, 
 beginning with the captivities of Judah, which covers a period of 
 160 years, b.c. 747-587. To this add (Dan. 12:11, 12) a possible 
 75 years, 30 + 45. 2520 solar years also exceed 2520 lunar years 
 by 75 solar years. By lunar time, from b.c. 747 to 587, 2520 years 
 bring us to a.d. 1699-1859, both crisis years in the history of re- 
 ligious] toleration; by solar time, they bring us to a.d. 1774, the 
 year of the accession of Louis XVI, followed by the French Revolu- 
 tion, to 1934. From B.C. 605-6, 2520 years brings us by solar reck- 
 oning to 1840, by calendar to 1878-79, both important in Papal 
 history, the latter because of the death of the last pope wielding 
 temporal power, and by lunar to 1915. Adding the 30 and 45 sug- 
 gested years gives the date of 1804, of the coronation of Napoleon 
 as emperor, and 1849, a year of terrible European revolution. It 
 is the thought of H. Grattan Guinness, who worked out this par- 
 ticular study thirty and more years ago, that all these dates are likely 
 to prove crisis years in a period of conclusion. For our interest we 
 find 1917, 1923, and 1934 also reckoned as significant. 
 
 A TIME, TIMES, AND HALF A TIME: 1260 years, one half of 
 2520 years, which dated from b.c. 747 to 587. B.C. 747 to a.d. 476 = 
 1260 lunar years: B.C. 587 to a.d. 476= 1260 solar years; b.c. 587 
 to A.D. 637 = 1260 lunar years. The year a.d. 476 marked the end 
 of the Roman Empire; the year a.d. 637 the capture of Jerusalem 
 by the Saracens. Dates from 476, or more commonly from 533 to 
 663, including in 590 the accession of Gregory the Great and marked 
 by decrees estabUshing the temporal power of the Papacy, are usu- 
 ally given as the beginning of this time, times, and half a time, 
 including as they do the announcement by Mohammed of his 
 mission, a.d. 610 and his Hejira, a.d. 622. On the longest reckon- 
 ings the 1260 years carry to 1867-70, the period marking the end of 
 the temporal power of the Papacy, and to 1923. 
 
 98 
 
THE SON OF MAN, THE 
 THOUSAND YEARS 
 
 THE name Son of Man, first given by Jesus to Himself 
 when He talked with Nicodemus, is constantly applied 
 by Him to Himself, as when the high priest said to Him, "Art 
 thou the Christ, the son of the blessed?" Jesus said, ''I am: and 
 ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, 
 and coming with the clouds of heaven." A common and right- 
 ful thought concerning Jesus as the Son of Man is of His kin- 
 ship with our humanity. We think of His compassion as He 
 looked on the multitudes, who had been with Him all day and 
 were hungry, and fed them. We recall His love for children. 
 His deeds of kindness. His human fellowships, and our hearts 
 warm to Him who was the lover of humanity. This is well, 
 but this study approaches the name as one of authority and 
 rule and dominion, who could feed five thousand people with 
 five loaves and two fishes, who could turn water into wine at a 
 marriage feast, who said to the man who was healed, *' Thy sins 
 are forgiven thee," even as He had said, "Take up thy bed and 
 walk," of one who did wonders and signs, and who spoke of 
 Himself prophetically as to come as the judge of the nations. 
 This is the prophetic thought of the Son of Man, who was 
 given in Daniel's vision an unending dominion over all the earth. 
 Between the announcement by the Ancient of Days and the 
 entering by the Son of Man upon His reign with His saints. His 
 kingdom, the kingdom of God, had been set up. But the subjects 
 of that kingdom were to be tested, as Israel had been tested. 
 This testing was to last in all its fury for a long time as we count 
 time, but a short time when measured by the promise that the 
 kingdom should never end. Have we entered upon that era now? 
 Ten great persecutions by pagan Rome came in the three 
 centuries preceding the Edict of Constantine and Licinius (a.d. 
 313) "restoring all forfeited civil and religious rights to the 
 Christians and securing them full. and equal rights throughout 
 
 99 
 
the Roman Empire." In the light of what was suffered in those 
 cruel days we read anew the words of Our Lord as He said to the 
 disciples, "The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one 
 of the days of the Son of Man, and ye shall not see it." Then 
 He adds the words that startle though they comfort us, "For 
 as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under the 
 heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall the 
 Son of Man be in his day." It will be a day that will be, not to 
 one here and one there, but to all. Then follows the picture of 
 His own sufferings, of Noah's days and of Sodom, and He adds, 
 "After the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of 
 Man is revealed" (Luke 17:22-31). So it was in the days of 
 the great persecutions; so it was when the "time, times, and half 
 a time " of the persecutions by the Papacy and Mohanunedanism 
 were to be ended. The judgments of God slowly gathered in the 
 sight of all men. When they finally burst, as in the time of 
 the French Revolution, or when at last the temporal power of the 
 Papacy fell with the entrance of Victor Emmanuel into Rome, 
 the world were onlookers. All men saw it, and what would once 
 have convulsed all Europe provoked no remonstrance even. 
 This has been true of the judgments that have been visited upon 
 the Turks, the guardians of the faith of Islam. The world has 
 looked on, only hoping for a speedy end of their power. The 
 world-wide martyrdom of the saints of God by legal right and 
 by the support of the nations has ended. The world has seen 
 it pass as it sees the lightnings flash. The watchword of the 
 Son of Man as He reigns with His saints is evidently that nothing 
 shall be inconspicuous, there shall be nothing done that cannot 
 be seen by all humanity. 
 
 At the end of the persecutions by pagan Rome, as prophetic 
 students conmionly read it, when St. John s^w the fifth seal 
 opened, he saw "under the altar the souls of them that had 
 been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they 
 held: and they cried with a great voice, saying. How long, O 
 Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our 
 blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6). There was 
 
 100 
 
given to each of them a white robe, and it was said that they 
 should "rest yet for a little time, until their fellow-servants 
 also and their brethren, which should be killed even as they were, 
 should be fulfilled." The nmnber of souls martyred by the 
 imperial power of pagan Rome counted, historians tell us, into 
 the millions. A little time passes. The seals are opened. Trum- 
 pets speak. The vials are poured out. As the tragic scenes 
 unfold, mingled with songs of victory, we come upon a stage of 
 the dreadful period called prophetically the "time, times, and 
 half a time." The persecutions of pagan Rome sink out of sight 
 as we look upon the slaughter of the saints by Papal and Mo- 
 hammedan powers as they are recorded in history. Religion 
 vanishes. Humanity is lost sight of. The victims are num- 
 bered, not by millions, but by tens of millions. This covers 
 twelve centuries. The hour comes for all this carnival of crime 
 to end. The nineteenth chapter of the Revelation gives us a 
 wonderful picture of what, prophetically announced, follows; 
 in the twentieth chapter we come once more to a time prophecy, 
 the thousand years, so often reverently, so often carelessly re- 
 ferred to in our days, but that for which we all hope. 
 
 An angel comes down out of heaven. He lays hold upon 
 "the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan," 
 binds him for a thousand years, casts him into the abyss, shuts it, 
 and seals it over him "that he should deceive the nations no 
 more, until the thousand years should be finished." This is a 
 time prophecy. Time in the Revelation has been, in the his- 
 tory of what the nations had wrought under the leadership of 
 the dragon, a year for a day. On this basis we have before us 
 freedom from "the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan," 
 for three hundred and sixty thousand of our years of time. 
 With such a period in mind we can look back to the time when 
 Jehovah proclaimed His name and gave the commandments, 
 with the familiar words, "visiting the iniquity of the fathers 
 upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth genera- 
 tion of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands 
 (of generations) of them that love me and keep my command- 
 
 101 
 
ments.'^ In this millennium there is time for these thousands of 
 generations to be born, live, and sleep with their fathers. We 
 turn back to the last words of Jesus to the eleven in Galilee 
 when He said, "All authority hath been given unto me in 
 heaven and on earth. . . . Go, disciple the nations. . . . Lo, 
 I am with you alway." Remembering that the abyss holds the 
 deceiver of the nations for a thousand prophetic years, we gather 
 ourselves together and say, "Here is a work, and here is time 
 for it to be done.^^ We repeat "Lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the consummation of the age.'' This is the work, the mis- 
 sion of the disciples for an age; the age will witness its fulfilment. 
 To what may we look forward and for what may we hope? 
 An awakening of the living Church that will send the Gospel 
 "for a witness to all nations'' (Matt. 24:14), perhaps within a 
 generation or a century; the presence of the Holy Spirit to 
 "convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment" 
 (John 16:8-11); a ministry such as will come when the gifts of 
 the Spirit are in exercise as they are named by St. Paul; a 
 fulfilment that shall be in measure correspondent to the trium- 
 phal prophecies of Isaiah; a recognition by the nations of the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that shall answer to the 
 baptizing of the nations into these three names. The parables 
 of the kingdom of God will become reality as not heretofore. 
 All these things may be looked for, since to what has been done 
 the invisible world will add that which may be done by those 
 who once died for Christ, but now live and reign with Him and 
 are priests to God and Christ, ministering as they alone can, 
 while Satan is bound, to the Church which is His body and the 
 world which He has redeemed. 
 
 SON OF MAN: Dan. 7:13, Matt. 8:20, 9:6, 10:23, 11:19, 12:8, 32, 
 40; 13:37, 41; 16:13, 17:9, 22; 20:18, 24:27, 37, 39, 44; 25:31, 
 26:2, 24, 45, Mark 2:10, 28; 8:38, 9:9, 12, 31; 10:33, 13:26, 34; 
 14:21, 41, Luke 5:24, 6:5, 22; 7:34, 9:22, 26, 44, 56, 58; 11:30, 
 12:8, 10, 40; 17:22-26, 18:8, 19:10, 21:27, 36; 22:22, 48; 24:7, 
 John 1:51, 3:13, 14; 5:27, 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28, 12:23, 34; 13:31, 
 Acts 7:56, Rev. 1:13, 14:14. 
 
 102 
 
THE LAMB OF GOD 
 
 THIS study turns at once to the time when John, the fore- 
 runner of Jesus, said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, which 
 taketh away [beareth] the sin of the world." In the use of 
 this phrase as we apply it to Jesus we usually give the lead to 
 the thought of sacrifice, dwelling on such a passage as that in 
 Isaiah, read by the eunuch as Philip overtook him riding in his 
 chariot, ''He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and as a 
 lamb before his shearer is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. '^ 
 This is a picture of a single hour of silence and submission to 
 the will of the Father as Jesus fulfilled what all the Jewish system 
 of sacrifices had signified and annulled all these forms of sacri- 
 fice, a picture of an hour and an act which points to the giving 
 ourselves to doing and suffering the will of God. 
 
 But the thought of helplessness passed with that hour, and 
 from that time on the conception of the Lamb of God is, in Scrip- 
 ture, as clothed with power. In the First Epistle of St. Peter we 
 read of ourselves as redeemed with precious blood, "as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ." 
 As John the Baptist's witness to the Lamb of God had closed 
 with the words, "This is the Son of God," St. Peter's testimony 
 ends with the name of Christ. Both of these names, Christ 
 and Son of God, call our attention to the fact that the use of 
 the word "as" in the three phrases quoted above indicates 
 that this was not to be the ruling or indeed the common thought 
 concerning the Lamb of God that taketh away or beareth the 
 sin of the world. 
 
 What is the sin of the world? For a single word, disobedience 
 would properly characterize it, disobedience to light given. 
 What is to take its place? Obedience. The Lamb of God in 
 taking away the sin of the world takes away disobedience; it 
 follows that men everjrwhere are to obey the voice of God, 
 walking in the light given by God's appointment. 
 
 103 
 
How does the Revelation set before us the Lamb and his 
 work? We are called first to be witnesses of what John saw 
 through an opened door, a book written within and on the 
 back, sealed with seven seals. A strong angel called with a 
 great voice for one who was mighty to open the book. John wept 
 because none was found worthy. As he wept one of the elders 
 said, "Weep not: behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, 
 the Root of David, hath overcome, to open the book and the 
 seven seals thereof.'* And John saw "a Lamb standing, as 
 though it had been slain," who came and took the book out of 
 the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. A new song fol- 
 lowed, as the living creatures and elders worshipped, saying, 
 "Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open the seals 
 thereof. . . . Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to re- 
 ceive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, 
 and glory, and blessing.*' 
 
 What is the book? The book of the future. No one can 
 read the Book of the Revelation from the prefatory words in 
 which its purpose is announced to the New Jerusalem of the 
 closing chapter without being sure, whether he knows about 
 its symbols and the interpretation thereof or not, that here is 
 what is to be history, the history of the church and of the world 
 until its consummation in that new order of things which is 
 named the "new heavens and new earth." No one in heaven 
 or on earth or under the earth was found to open the seals and 
 unroll the writing, no one but the Lamb, standing as though it 
 had been slain. Sacrifice is triumphant. All heaven knows it; 
 all earth will; the imderworld will. In that indescribable scene 
 pictured in the fourth chapter, creation unites by its repre- 
 sentatives in the acceptance of this honoring of sacrifice. 
 
 As one by one the seals are opened we will pause where the 
 Lamb appears. As the Lamb opens one of the seven seals, one 
 of the four living creatures says, as with a voice of thunder, 
 "Come." The panorama unrolls, seal by seal. As the sixth is 
 broken we hear the mighty ones of earth calling on the mountains 
 and the rocks to fall on them and hide them "from the wrath of 
 
 104 
 
the Lamb.^' We pass on and behold "a great multitude, which 
 no man could number, arrayed in white robes, standing before 
 the throne and before the Lamb. They cry with a great voice, 
 "Salvation unto our God which sitteth on the throne, and unto 
 the Lamb.*' There is an answering chorus from the angels, the 
 elders, and the four living creatures. The drama closes with 
 every tear wiped from their eyes. 
 
 Later we hear of those who had overcome the Devil and 
 Satan "because of the blood of the Lam6," who loved not their 
 life even unto death. They had walked as the Lamb walked 
 when He went up to Jerusalem for the last time. In the thir- 
 teenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth, and nineteenth chap- 
 ters the Lamb is again named, but space does not allow the doing 
 more than guiding the reader by references at the close of the 
 study. It is well to remember that all these Biblical references 
 in the Revelation are by the same St. John who recorded in his 
 Gospel the announcement of John the Baptist of the Lamb of 
 God. He was in the Spirit when he saw and heard what is re- 
 corded in this last book of the Bible. In the closing chapters of 
 the book, in the words written of the Lamb and His bride, we 
 get to the place where a new era begins. By the grouping of 
 these references the study calls attention, by way of suggestion, 
 to the Bible picture of the Lamb as the name given to the Son 
 of God, Jesus Christ, whose is the throne with all that it carries 
 with it of power and dominion. It was for but one hour and 
 in one act of obedience that as the Lamb He was helpless. The 
 taking away of the sin of the world, disobedience, and the bring- 
 ing the world to obedience to the will and way of God is to be 
 wrought out in history. This is the testimony of the Scriptures 
 as outlined for us in the Revelation. 
 
 THE LAMB OF GOD: John 1:29, Isa. 53:7, Acts 8:32, 1 Pet. 1:19, 
 Rev. 5:5-13, 6:1, 16; 7:9-17, 12:11, 13:8; 14:1, 4; 15:3, 17:14, 
 19:7,9; 21:14, 22,23; 22:1,3. 
 
 105 
 
NATIONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 THE Bible is concerned with nations as well as with individ- 
 uals. Jehovah chose a nation through which He could 
 work out His purposes. Jesus Christ set standards for national 
 righteousness. The prophecies deal with nations even more 
 than with individuals. To the thoughtful reader the question 
 comes as to how nations differ from the individuals of whom 
 they are made up and what are the standards by which nations 
 should walk. This study is the more vital because in our own 
 day we are concerned about national problems and national ethics. 
 
 A nation is an aggregate of individuals, but its righteousness 
 is not the sum of the righteousness of each of these individuals. 
 That might be true in a pure democracy, but only if the state 
 were small. Even then every one would stand or fall before God 
 by himself alone, while the nation as a whole would be judged 
 otherwise. As a matter of fact the people have had little to say 
 about national laws or national affairs until recent times. They 
 have been ruled by oligarchies or aristocracies or groups of 
 men gathered about kings and emperors, the Caesars of history. 
 
 Yet there are standards for the masses, however they have 
 been made or established. It is the more important that these 
 should be recognized because there are parallel with them na- 
 tional judgments in which the innocent and the guilty — men, 
 women, and children — have suffered. The Bible sets before us 
 three types of national standard: one of the Jew, one of the 
 Gentile, one of the Christian world. 
 
 The standards for Israel, the chosen people, were the ten 
 commandments given to Moses, ten words which should be 
 their national constitution. That decalogue stands to-day, an 
 imperishable monument and an example for all nations. 
 
 In the books of Leviticus and Numbers we have the ampli- 
 fication of these statutes and ordinances, carrying out in detail 
 how the constitution was to be interpreted and administered. 
 
 106 
 
They were given to Moses — the learned Moses, the prophet 
 Moses, who had twice spent forty days alone with the Lord — 
 during the forty years that he was with the chosen people before 
 he went up, with his natural vigor unimpaired, to the mountain 
 to die there. Additions may have been made later to this de- 
 tailed code; but this is a matter of conjecture. A careful read- 
 ing of these books in this light will enable the reader to put in 
 their proper place these matters of detail, as they correspond 
 more or less closely with our Bill of Rights and written consti- 
 tutions, which are the interpretation by our jurists of the basal 
 laws. The ten words are basal ; they lie at the foundation of the 
 national righteousness. This distinction gives an abiding in- 
 terest to all that is written in the first five books of the Bible. 
 This was the standard by which Israel was judged. 
 
 Take the first commandment and the fourth; see how inti- 
 mately the whole body of minor directions is made to bind the 
 people closely to the Lord their God and to the Sabbath Day. 
 A large group of statutes set forth what is to be done when the 
 commandment "Thou shalt not kilV^ is broken, especially as it is 
 indissolubly though indirectly associated with the seventh com- 
 mandment in the relation of the sexes. The many statutes 
 about property gather about the tenth word; those relating to 
 family life about "Honor thy father and thy mother." The 
 ten words are general as well as specific; the variations that 
 fail to carry out their spirit in the lives of those who covenanted 
 to keep them are met by special legislation, as with us, or by 
 judgment. Take, for example, the law of the Sabbath. It was 
 applied even to the land, because broken as to that particular. 
 Israel went into captivity; the land had its rest, its Sabbath. 
 
 This was the standard for Israel, but there was no law for 
 the nations outside of Israel. So far as the Scriptures tell us 
 they were left to themselves save on the broadest lines. What 
 under such conditions would men do? This has always been the 
 question. What would be the relation of men as peoples to 
 the God in whom we all "live and move and have our being"? 
 What would men work out in their relations to one another when 
 
 107 
 
they had not received in formal manner the two great com- 
 mandments to love God and love their neighbor? 
 
 In the Epistle to the Romans that question is answered both 
 as to Jew and Greek, the latter the crown of ancient civiliza- 
 tion. Conscience was their rule. What is conscience? The 
 Greek word signifies "knowing with one's self." But let the 
 apostle to the Gentiles illustrate for us its meaning. "For when 
 Gentiles which have no law do by nature the things of the law, 
 these, having no law, are a law unto themselves; in that they 
 shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience 
 hearing witness therewith, and their thoughts [reasonings] one 
 with another accusing or else excusing them" (Rom. 2:14, 15). 
 They are not left without a witness. Here is their standard 
 for righteousness. The law in their hearts, their thoughts, and 
 theu" reasomngs play the part of accusing or excusing them. 
 Add to this that, knowing God as "manifest in them" ("for 
 God manifested it unto them, for the invisible things of him since 
 the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through 
 the things that are made, even his everlasting power and God- 
 head [divinity]"), they "glorified him not as God, neither gave 
 thanks," and we see why the Gentile world was "without ex- 
 cuse." Of them were demanded two things — precisely what 
 the first commandment called for: that God should be glorified 
 and that thanks should be given (Rom. 1 : 18-23). By this law 
 of national righteousness the Gentile world stands or falls. His- 
 tory is the witness of their weakening or downfall. The ruins 
 of the great capitals of the greatest of their nations are the 
 ground where the explorer with his spade uncovers tablets, 
 parchments, and other memorials of their past, all confirming 
 and strengthening the words of the Scriptures concerning them. 
 The simple law which we all know in ourselves, written in men's 
 hearts, accusing and excusing, was also the law for rulers and na- 
 tions. Therefrom sprang the forms of government and the codes 
 and customs that were imposed upon the peoples, many of which 
 survive still in Europe and Asia, in that Roman Empire which 
 in its Eastern and Western divisions was the field of prophecy. 
 
 108 
 
With the coming of Jesus Christ and the beginnings of the 
 rule of the Son of Man, a new or added standard was set up. 
 This is placed before us in the twenty-fifth chapter of St. 
 Matthew's Gospel in a picture familiar to us all, a picture of 
 national judgment. Its background is in three parables: of 
 the householder and his faithful or evil servant; of the ten 
 virgins, five wise and five foolish; and of the man who, going into 
 another country, delivers to his servants his goods, five talents, 
 two talents, one talent. The first, that of the householder, deals 
 with individual responsibility; the second, that of the virgins, 
 with the church, so often referred to under the name virgin; 
 the third, .that of the talents, with men as they are bound to- 
 gether in the community life of the world, and as each has a 
 certain measure of ability and responsibility. These parables 
 of the kingdom of heaven follow the call to watch for the 
 coming [presence] of the Son of Man. The picture drawn is of this 
 coming of the Son of Man in His glory. His angels are with Him. 
 The nations are placed on the right hand and on the left as He 
 sits upon the throne of His glory. That this is a parable of na- 
 tions, that the word ^' these" in the concluding sentences of the 
 passage refers to nations, is the plain sense of the text. Our 
 English use of the pronoim calls always for the noun for which 
 it stands. This is a picture of nations before the Son of Man, 
 the ruler of the kings of the earth, who says to the nations, 
 ''Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world," or ** Depart from 
 me, ye cursed." The added words are so familiar that they 
 need not be repeated, save the first and last sentences. ''For I 
 was an hungered, and ye gave me meat. ... I was in prison, 
 and ye came unto me." Of what is here stated to have taken 
 place they are unaware, and their answer is, "When saw 
 we thee an hungered ... in prison, and came unto thee?" 
 The King replies, "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did 
 it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it 
 unto me." This is so different from the work we do for Christ 
 that we at once note that we are not on the ground that we as 
 
 109 
 
individuals traverse when we feed the hungry, visit the sick, 
 clothe the naked, etc. We know that we do it, and we do it 
 deliberately and gladly in the name of Our Lord. The other 
 group, those on the left, are equally ignorant and answer, "When 
 saw we thee an hungered ... in prison, and did not minister 
 unto thee?" The answer to these is in the words, "Verily I 
 say unto you. Inasmuch as ye did it not imto one of these least, 
 ye did it not unto me." These are told that they are to depart 
 "into the eternal [age-lasting] fire which is prepared for the devil 
 and his angels." The picture closes with the words, "These 
 shall go away into eternal [age-lasting] punishment: but the 
 righteous into eternal [age-lasting] life." 
 
 We are concerned for the moment with national righteous- 
 ness rather than with national judgments, on which light is shed 
 in other word-groups. It should, however, be noted that the 
 word punishment, the Greek word kolasis, carries two senses: 
 first, that of pruning and of care to see what can be done where 
 there i^ not proper fruitage, as in the pruning and caring for a 
 tree; and second, that of rooting up, destroying, getting rid of 
 what proves unresponsive to this earlier treatment. These 
 processes have been national history since the Son of Man 
 ascended to His throne. Nations are sent the message which 
 Jesus Christ brought to us. As they respond in their national 
 fife, so are they dealt with. If they care for the weak, the needy, 
 the stranger, if they walk in the ways of the Son of Man, the 
 lover of humanity, they prosper. If they fail to answer to this 
 test, their fate is sealed. They will undergo pruning, cutting, 
 correcting in national ways; if they answer not thereto, national 
 ruin awaits them. Work for humanity, in its best and broadest 
 sense, counting men brethren, this is the national duty. Where 
 this spirit and practice prevail the nation moves on its steadfast 
 way with Him whose dominion will not pass away nor His king- 
 dom be destroyed. The key to the standard of righteousness 
 for Christian nations lies in the fact that He who has set the 
 goal and will give the judgment appears not only as King, but 
 as the Son of Man. 
 
 110 
 
WORLD RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 "TJjlOR the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as 
 r the waters cover the sea." This is the concluding sentence 
 of a chapter that begins, ''And there shall come forth a shoot 
 out of the stock of Jesse," which gives one of the most wonderful 
 of descriptions of Him who was bom in Bethlehem. World 
 righteousness as treated in the Bible represents a condition not 
 of one nation, but of all mankind, a universal righteousness which 
 is to come. While both national and personal righteousness are 
 included in it, it is distinct from both. This conception is in that 
 promise to Abram when he was called to leave his home and 
 go into a strange land, "In thee shall all the families of the earth 
 be blessed," and is repeated to Jacob as he slept with a stone 
 for his pillow. St. Paul pours out his soul in prayer to "the 
 Father, from whom every family [Greek, fatherhood] in heaven 
 and on earth is named," and again and again takes the whole 
 world into his vision as he writes and proclaims the Gospel as 
 it had been given to him by revelation. But it is in the words 
 spoken to the eleven disciples in Galilee that we have the teach- 
 ing that makes this study possible, "All authority hath been 
 given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and 
 make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name 
 of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching 
 them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you: and 
 lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world [the 
 consummation of the age]." Here we have placed before us a 
 discipleship of all the nations. They are to be baptized as nations, 
 to be taught to observe all the things commanded the group of 
 disciples. The apostles of this commission are assured, while 
 they do this, of the presence of Him who has all authority. It 
 is to take an "age." The limits of the age are not given in terms 
 of time or duration. The One who had all authority said. Dis- 
 ciple all the nations, teach them, baptize them. In using the 
 
 111 
 
three names of this scripture as a baptismal formula we have 
 missed too much the real sense of the passage, baptizing them 
 (the nations) into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the 
 Holy Spirit in the primal meaning of the words. This baptism 
 has no reference to individual baptism with water, that is, such 
 baptism of every member of a nation. It is rather in the words 
 spoken by John the Baptist, ''He shall baptize you with the 
 Holy Spirit," that we get the true thought. Or again we 
 connect this teaching with the words of Jesus, which the dis- 
 ciples would readily recall, "I have a baptism to be baptized 
 with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." The 
 reference here is to what was about to take place at Jerusalem, 
 His sufferings and His death. Or again these men would most 
 naturally recall what their Lord and Master said when James and 
 John asked of Jesus that they might sit at His right hand and 
 left hand in His kingdom. As a part of the answer Jesus said, 
 "Are ye able to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized 
 with?" To their answer, "We are able," He repeated in part 
 the words just spoken, "With the baptism that I am baptized 
 withal shall ye be baptized." The episode closes with the words, 
 "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to min- 
 ister, and to give his life a ransom for many." This was the 
 background of teaching and experience in the minds of the 
 disciples when they were told that they were to disciple and 
 baptize the nations. The disciples were themselves to be bap- 
 tized in this manner, as was Jesus. 
 
 If we ask how a nation can be baptized, St. Paul answers 
 the question, describing an historical event of the first magni- 
 tude, " For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, how that 
 our fathers were all imder the cloud, and all passed through the 
 sea; and were all baptized unto [into, marginal reading] Moses in 
 the cloud and in the sea." Here we have at the passage of the 
 Red Sea a nation — men, women, and children — every one 
 baptized into a name, the name of Moses. In the call to baptize 
 the nations into the three names of Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit we have a call to a similar baptism into discipleship. 
 
 112 
 
What was this baptism at the Red Sea to the nation? What 
 to Moses? Called of God to deliver Israel, Moses had sought 
 of Pharaoh, by signs and wonders that were known to all Egypt, 
 that Israel might go. Moses had at last prevailed, the ruler of 
 Egypt had yielded. The people were on the seashore. Pharaoh 
 and his host were close behind. At the critical hour Moses 
 cried unto Jehovah, and Jehovah said unto Moses, ''Wherefore 
 criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they 
 go forward. And lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine 
 hand over the sea, and divide it." Never imtil he lifted up his 
 rod, had Israel as a nation looked upon Moses, nor seen with their 
 own eyes this man called of Jehovah to lead them out of bondage. 
 In this hour the nation knew him to be their leader chosen by 
 Jehovah. Thereafter not to do the bidding of Moses and not 
 to recognize bim as the representative of Jehovah was treason 
 to God. Thus was the nation baptized unto Moses. A great 
 deliverance and a heaven-appointed leadership came to them. 
 
 See what a light is thrown upon national discipleship and 
 world righteousness. Three names are to become known 
 throughout the length and breadth of the lands where men dwell, 
 the name of the Father known to us as we get it in the Gospels, 
 the name of the Son of Man as He wrought and saved in the 
 same records, and the name of the Holy Spirit as coming ac- 
 cording to the promise of the Father and in answer to the request 
 of Jesus Christ. There are people living who have seen and been 
 a part in a wonderful change which has come over this genera- 
 tion as they speak of God as Father. More and more is the 
 emphasis placed upon the Fatherhood of God and the Brother- 
 hood of Man. Equally they have seen the name of Jesus Christ 
 lifted high above all names, so that He stands as the One whose 
 words and deeds showed God as the lover of men. They have 
 seen the word spirit take a place never before known. Till 
 these three names have been written on the hearts of the nations, 
 the Great Commission awaits fulfilment. 
 
 WORLD RIGHTEOUSNESS: Isa. ll:9,Gen. 12:3,28:14,Eph.3:15, 
 Matt. 28:18, 19, Luke 12:50, Mark 10:35-45, Matt. 20:20-28, 
 I Cor. 10:1, 2, Exod. 14:15, 16, Num. 16:1-15. 
 
PERSONAL, OR INDIVIDUAL, AND 
 UNIVERSAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 THE first righteous man named in the Bible is Abel. The 
 record concerning him is in these words, "By faith Abel 
 offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through 
 which he had witness borne to him, that he was righteous.^^ 
 The next man so described was Abram, before his name was 
 changed to Abraham. "The word of Jehovah came unto him, 
 saying. This man shall not be thine heir." Then taking him 
 "abroad" Jehovah further said, "Look now toward heaven, and 
 tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. ... So shall thy 
 seed be." And Abram "believed in Jehovah; and he counted 
 it to him for righteousness J ^ Here is our key to the words 
 righteous and righteousness as they apply to the individual 
 man. Faith, with the works growing out of faith, is the one 
 word that from Genesis to Revelation is associated with them. 
 All other righteousness is laid bare before us in the living oracles 
 and is seen to fall short of the righteousness of God. The right- 
 eousness of faith alone stands all tests. 
 
 In the King James Version of our Bibles the same Hebrew 
 and Greek words of the original are interchangeably translated 
 righteous and just. So we must add the word ju^t with its deriv- 
 atives justifier and justified to our study. In the American Re- 
 vision the same form is usually retained except in certain cases 
 where the word righteous is substituted for the word just. But 
 that there may be no mistaking the fact that the words refer to 
 righteousness, the reader finds frequently the marginal reading 
 that indicates it. So in Romans "not the hearers of the law are 
 just [marginal reading, righteous] before God, but the doers of 
 the law shall be justified [marginal reading, accoimted righteous].'* 
 
 We read that "Noah was a righteous man and perfect [blame- 
 less] in his generations : Noah walked with God. ' ' In the Author- 
 ized Version the reading is that "Noah was a just man." In 
 
 114 
 
the dark days in which this blameless man walked with God 
 the single ray of light that is seen comes from Noah's life of 
 faith, ^^^y faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things 
 not seen as yet, moved wiih godly fear, prepared an ark . . . 
 through which he . . . became heir of the righteousness which 
 is according to faiths That "the righteous shall live by faith' ' 
 is, so to speak, the text on which are based the letter of St. Paul 
 to the Romans and to the Galatians. This is almost as true of 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews. Personal righteousness is the 
 righteousness oi faith, for ^'without faith it is impossible to be 
 well-pleasing unto him." 
 
 Universal righteousness finds its first expression in these words 
 spoken by Moses, "Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one 
 Jehovah: and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thine 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." It had 
 been said before in the Book of Leviticus, "Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah." When a scribe, listening 
 to the replies of Jesus, asked Him what commandment was first, 
 Jesus repeated the two passages quoted above, adding, "There 
 is none other commandment greater than these." The scribe's 
 reply led Jesus to add, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of 
 God." When a certain lawyer, tempting (testing) him, asked, 
 "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, 
 " What is written in the law? How readest thou? " The lawyer 
 quoted the two commandments, and Jesus said, "Thou hast 
 answered right: this do, and thou shalt live." Whether this 
 was the lawyer referred to in the Gospel according to St. 
 Matthew we do not know, but this record adds these words, 
 "On these two conmiandments hangeth the whole law, and the 
 prophets." Universal righteou^sness rests on fulfilling these two 
 commandments, made personal and individual in the hearts 
 and lives of men. 
 
 What is love? We have seen in a previous study that it is 
 imion by choice (page 21). Here it would be union with God, 
 one's neighbor, and one's self. All are to be loved. In this love 
 heart, soul, mind are joined to might and strength, showing that 
 
 115 
 
the whole man is taken into this union. Can all meet this 
 threefold standard for righteousness? Are they in their nature 
 and by God's grace prepared to love as commanded? The Bible 
 answer is in the affirmative. 
 
 Take as a plain, straightforward, working basis for loving 
 God these words, ''For this is the love of God, that we keep his 
 commandments." Note the force of the added words, " his com- 
 mandments are not grievous." God is not a hard master. Turn 
 to the words of Jesus Himself and see what a presence and what 
 help is promised that we may love as we should, " He that hath 
 my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: 
 and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will 
 love him, and will manifest myself unto him." This manifesta- 
 tion would be of itself sufficient to the one who received it to 
 insure the walking with the Father, God. 
 
 The love of our neighbor is to be as we love ourselves, so that 
 in this we are ourselves the rule of righteousness. To care for 
 one's self in all the ways that are right and needful and as best 
 we can in our lot is our bounden duty. Those ways are many, 
 and we must meet them daily. To fail here is an error, and may 
 become even a crime. We are body, soul, and spirit. In con- 
 sidering ourselves these must all be reckoned with, and so when 
 we think of others in such a way as to wreck ourselves or in any 
 way do ourselves damage, we are not loving ourselves. The 
 same is true of our neighbor who may be next door or may stretch 
 out hands of pleading from any place on earth. Here, in this 
 love, are born our philanthropies and all manner of good works. 
 But we are to beware lest Satan, or some one, or some thing, 
 urge us on to do simply because there is something to be done, 
 and so we lose the possibility of loving our neighbor at all through 
 our own disability or early death. 
 
 But what of those who have not these words of Jesus and 
 know not the law and the prophets? St. Paul makes answer for 
 all generations, "The times of ignorance therefore God over- 
 looked." The slate is clean. This should be our message to all 
 those peoples to whom we go with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
 
 116 
 
Let this same apostle to the Gentiles set before us the faith he 
 held and taught. Let us look for the foundation facts on which 
 he rested and could proclaim what he did as good news, glad 
 tidings to all men, to men as they looked backward to the times 
 of their fathers and forward to the generations that were to come. 
 It is natural that this teaching appears as he writes to the church 
 at Rome, for Rome was then the centre where men from all the 
 world gathered. "For if by the trespass of the one the many 
 died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace 
 of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many." Who 
 were these "many" who had trespassed? All men. To whom 
 was this grace to abound through Jesus Christ? To the same 
 "many," all men. But not to quote all this extraordinary pas- 
 sage in the fifth chapter of Romans, let us rest with this one 
 word more, leaving the reader to turn to his Bible. "For as 
 through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, 
 even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be 
 made righteous.^' Who are the "many" here? As before, all 
 men. The one who disobeyed, and through whose disobedience 
 the many were made sinners, is Adam; the obedient one, Jesus 
 Christ. How are the many righteous f There is planted in every 
 child bom in the likeness and image of Adam a life, a foundation 
 for the work of Jesus Christ, that "as sin reigned in death, 
 even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal 
 life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 
 
 Adam sinned. Death, the separateness from God, followed, 
 and communion with Him as it had been before departed. A race 
 of men were to follow. What would justify, make it right, that 
 the whole human race should start thus fathered? Adam did 
 not believe God. The race was to be personally and individu- 
 ally counted righteous as they believed God. What of the whole 
 himian brotherhood? One act of righteousness, wrought by Jesus 
 Christ Our Lord, was to free all men from the condemnation 
 that would come upon them through this ancestral disobedience. 
 This is the "free gift" of God to all, St. Paul tells the church 
 at Rome. At Athens, after setting before his hearers how they 
 
 117 
 
had in ignorance inscribed an altar "To an unknown God," he 
 takes away all color of condemnation for their worship of graven 
 images and for their thought that the God who made all things 
 dwelt in temples made with hands, by the simple sentence, 
 quoted earlier, *'the times of ignorance therefore God over- 
 looked." It was as though they had not been. " Where sin had 
 abounded, grace did aboimd more exceedingly." To the church 
 at Corinth he wrote, "But all things are of God, who recon- 
 ciled us to himself through Christ, and gave unto us the min- 
 istry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling 
 the world unto himself, not reckoning unto them their tres- 
 passes." Nothing could be plainer than the way St. Paul viewed 
 the Gentiles, their times of ignorance prolonged through cen- 
 turies, their trespasses innumerable. Free grace through Jesus 
 Christ Our Lord had attended to these times and these tres- 
 passes. His call was ever, "Come to Christ, believe." 
 
 A brief summary may be stated as follows: 
 
 First, that the race comes into the world with a birthmark, 
 so to speak, upon it from the sin of our first parents; that though 
 we may be handicapped thereby, we are as free to choose as 
 were they, but greatly helped by grace. 
 
 ■ Second, that the consequences, including all our disabilities 
 by this inheritance, are met by a free gift by the merciful and 
 gracious God, so that trespasses due to this inheritance do not 
 count against us through Jesus Christ Our Lord. 
 
 Third, that before God we stand righteous, despite our igno- 
 rance and failure, but that as men answer to the life and light 
 within us, so are we judged 
 
 RIGHTEOUSNESS: Heb. 11:4, witness borne to him, that he was 
 righteous; Gen. 15:6, counted it to him for righteousness; Rom. 
 2: 13, just before God . . . justified; Gen. 6:9, Noah was a righteous 
 man; Rom. 1:17, the righteous shall live by faith; Deut. 6:4, 5, 
 Lev. 19:18, Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-29, Matt. 22:34-40, 
 I John 5:3, John 14:21, the two commandments; Acts 17:30, the 
 times of ignorance; Rom. 5: 12-21, II Cor. 5: 18, 19, righteousness, 
 justification. 
 
 118 
 
A CONSUMING FIRE, JUDGMENTS 
 
 THE words that this study has in mind are found in many 
 forms in the Scriptures, but are, as it were, gathered to- 
 gether in the passage (Heb. 12 : 29) which concludes " for our God 
 is a consuming fire" and the equally significant passage (Acts 
 17:31) which declares that God has appointed a day in which 
 He will judge the world by that man whom He hath ordained, 
 even Jesus Christ, whom He had raised from the dead as His 
 witness and seal thereto. Whatever in the present or in the 
 future can be consumed will perish; whatever can stand the 
 test of fire and the shakings of God will remain. ''Yet once 
 more,'' we read, turning to the chapter of which the phrase "a 
 consuming fire" is the conclusion, "yet once more will I make 
 to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven." This 
 word, it adds, signifies ''the removing of those things that are 
 shaken, as of things that have been made, that those things 
 which are not shaken may remain." 
 
 If we would know of the shakings that have been, we go back 
 in the verses that precede this prophetic announcement to Old 
 Testament times and read of a mount that might be touched 
 and that burned with fire, where, with the sound of a trumpet 
 and the voice of words, there is an appearance so fearful that 
 Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Here we are at 
 the beginning of the national life of Israel; the law is being 
 given. Follow that history and see the shaking of the nations, 
 not alone those which were dispossessed of Canaan, but the 
 kingdoms that are seen by Daniel and the prophets, the four 
 kingdoms whose magnificence we have seen in the great image 
 and whose spirit and power was shown in the beasts described 
 by Daniel. Babylon is no more. There have been mighty shak- 
 ings. The last of these world-ruling powers, imperial Rome, 
 has been broken into pieces; first into two parts, then, as to 
 the western half of ancient Rome, into ten kingdoms that but 
 
 119 
 
yesterday were Italy, Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany, 
 England, Holland, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. In the time 
 of the fall of Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of Rome, 
 the Lombards, the Franks, the Burgundians, the Ostrogoths, the 
 Visigoths, the Heruli, the Sueves, the Huns, and the Saxons, 
 ten in all, occupied the same territory. With numbers varying 
 during the "shakings," there have been from this period until 
 now, as a rule, not thirty or forty small kingdoms, but about 
 ten kingdoms in this territory. These kingdoms would well 
 answer to the clay and iron of the feet of the great image seen 
 by Nebuchadnezzar. A stone cut out of the mountain without 
 hands demolishes all these powers, and then comes the vision 
 of the kingdom of the Son of Man. 
 
 "Our God is a consuming fire" says the inspired penman. 
 To whom is he writing? To the Hebrew people scattered far 
 and wide. What has been consumed? Their national existence* 
 their whole religious system with its daily sacrifices and feasts 
 and fasts, the temple — all are gone, consumed by the God by 
 whom they had been appointed. This consuming fire will bum, 
 these shakings will continue, till men as individuals and men as 
 nations live and legislate in conformity to the will of God. Let 
 us have courage to welcome consuming fire. 
 
 The judgment of the world in righteousness awaits the going 
 forth into all lands of those who as messengers of the kingdom 
 that cannot be shaken command all men everywhere to repent. 
 This is but carrjdng out the method of John the Baptist, of Jesus, 
 and of Peter at Pentecost. The times of ignorance which God 
 overlooked pass with this call to repentance, and men will be 
 j udged as they answer to this call . The ' ' appointed day ' ' cannot 
 come till this call has gone forth, and it cannot go save as those 
 are sent who, while they say "Repent," add, as Jesus did, "Be- 
 lieve in the Gospel." The glad news must be told, the kingdom 
 of God must be announced. The day of world judgment has 
 scarcely dawned, since the fact that there is a "Gospel of the 
 kingdom" has not yet reached the multitudes who dwell in 
 the inhabited earth. The fulness of the Gentiles, when all Israel 
 
 120 
 
shall be saved, is to us but a word of prophecy. Its fulfilment 
 can scarcely be said to be in sight, much less to be a reality. 
 
 Turning from this outlook into the future, let us look at 
 the words judge and judgment nearer home. "Judge not," said 
 Jesus, "that ye be not judged" (Matt. 7). To this we often 
 have this dangerous answer made, "By their fruits ye shall 
 know them"; dangerous because this latter is spoken of false 
 prophets or teachers, who come in sheep's clothing, but inwardly 
 are ravening wolves. The former is said to the man who, looking 
 upon his brother with a beam in his own eye, sees a mote in his 
 brother's eye. "Thou hypocrite" is the name given this judge. 
 A judge decides upon evidence; a judgment is a decision reached 
 in view of the facts. Jesus says, "As I hear, I judge: and my 
 judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the 
 will of him that sent me" (John 5:30). Again He says, "Judge 
 not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment" 
 (John 7:24). He is our example and teacher. He will be oiu* 
 Judge. The true sense of the word judge is seen in the choice 
 by Moses of seventy men to whom cases could be referred that 
 need not come to him. Again in the judges of Israel we see men 
 chosen by Jehovah for His people. A perfect illustration is 
 seen when, to one who said to Him (Luke 12: 14), "Master, bid 
 my brother divide the inheritance with me," Jesus said, "Man, 
 who made me a judge or a divider over you? " 
 
 The last words of judgment written in the Revelation lead us 
 to the words, six times recorded, the lake of fire or of fire and 
 brimstone which is also spoken of as the second death. The 
 first mention of the second death comes in the second chapter 
 of Revelation (2:11), where it is said concerning the church at 
 Smyrna, "He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second 
 death." In the concluding chapters concerning judgment (Rev. 
 19:20; 20:6, 10, 14, 15; 21:8) come the other references. The 
 great harlot has been judged; the voice of a great multitude has 
 been heard as in heaven they say, "Hallelujah; Salvation, and 
 glory, and power, belong to our God . . . Hallelujah; and her 
 smoke (the smoke of the great harlot) goeth up for ever and 
 
 121 
 
ever [unto the ages of the ages]," Other scenes follow until the 
 heaven opens and a white horse is seen, with one that sat upon 
 him called "Faithful and True; and in righteousness he doth 
 judge and make war." The armies of heaven follow Him who is 
 again named the Word of God, King op Kings, and Lord of 
 Lords. The beast and the kings of the earth are gathered and 
 go down in defeat. The beast and the false prophet are taken 
 alive. No others survive. They two were cast alive into the 
 " lake of fire that burneth with brimstone." Two great systems, 
 world power and false teaching, have come to judgment in a fire 
 whose flame is intensified by the word brimstone. Again, when 
 the thousand years are finished, Satan, loosed from prison, comes 
 forth to deceive the nations; there is another great struggle, 
 and for the deliverance of the saints and the beloved city, com- 
 passed about by numbers that are as the sand of the sea, "fire 
 came down out of heaven and devoured them; and the devil 
 that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, 
 where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they shall 
 be tormented day and night for ever and ever [unto the ages of 
 the ages]." We have read of those who had part in the first 
 resurrection, over whom, it is said, ''the second death hath no 
 power." Now we read of the great white throne, of those whose 
 names are written in the Lamb's book of life. The sea gives up 
 its dead; death and Hades give up their dead; and they are 
 judged every man according to his works. Then come these 
 words, "And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. 
 This is the second death, even the lake of fire. And if any was 
 not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake 
 of fire." We see the new heaven and the new earth, and those 
 who have overcome shall inherit these things. "But for the 
 fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and 
 fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, their 
 part shall be in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; 
 which is the second death." This second death is "their part" 
 in this picture of judgment. 
 There is no second death that is not preceded by a first death. 
 
 122 
 
This first death, separation from conscious union and fellowship 
 with God, was taken up in our first study; the second death is 
 here symbolized by the lake of fire. Fire in the Scriptures sym- 
 bolizes the judgments and the salvation of God. It can be no 
 different here. When, therefore, we read the list of those who 
 are cast into the lake of fire, we recognize that this must be a 
 picture of judgment, a judgment not other than that pronounced 
 by Jesus on Sodom and Gomorrah. God is a righteous judge. 
 There will be a discrimination in judgment. The fearful will 
 not be given the same judgment as that given to "all [liars." 
 With this thought note also, concerning this judgment repre- 
 sented by the lake of fire, that the words "for ever" or "unto 
 the ages of the ages" are not used save of the Beast, the false 
 prophet, and of him who gave them authority; that is, the dura- 
 tion is not specified. Note once more that those to whom this 
 second death comes are those whose names are not written in the 
 Lamb^s book of life, not those of whom Jesus had said that they 
 that believed on Him come not into judgment, but have passed 
 out of death into life. And note, lastly, that we are told that 
 they have "their part," that which belongs to them as not trust- 
 ing in or obeying God. What that part is we are not told. As 
 we look back upon the study of Gehenna we see that everyone 
 shall be salted with fire. Salt saves from corruption. So as we 
 consider this fire, which differs only in the pictorial use of the 
 word lake from the other pictures where God manifests His pres- 
 ence in fire, we are not justified in reading into it any conception 
 other than that which ever goes with the word fire. It is the 
 presence of God, His presence not as in judgment or as a re- 
 fining agent or in salvation in the whole world, but in a lake, 
 in a spot of earth confined, as it were. Its duration in judg- 
 ment can be known only to God. As all His judgments in the 
 Scriptures have been followed by manifestations of His grace, 
 we have no Biblical ground for thinking otherwise here. As the 
 first death which comes to all was followed by the gift of eternal 
 life, so the second death may be followed by grace. God knoweth. 
 It is the Bible teaching that His mercy endureth for ever. 
 
 123 
 
THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE 
 NEW EARTH 
 
 T^ rE read first of a new heavens and a new earth in the 
 V V prophecy of Isaiah, where it is written, "For, behold, I 
 create new heavens and a new earth: and the former things shall 
 not be remembered, nor come into mind." And again, "For as 
 the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall 
 remain before me, so shall your seed and your name remain" 
 (Isa. 65:17, 18; 66:22). The next reference is in the Second 
 Epistle of Peter, when in response to a mocking inquiry, "Where 
 is the promise of his coming [presence]? for, from the day that 
 the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the 
 beginning of the creation," the apostle makes a reply that re- 
 hearses an event in the past, "that there were heavens from of 
 old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, 
 by the word of God" (II Pet. 3:4-14). Turn to this passage 
 and see how the thought develops, leading up to the concluding 
 words, "But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens 
 and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 We have had in a few words that part of the Creation story 
 which separated the land from the water and placed in the firma- 
 ment the two great lights that were to "rule" the day and the 
 night. By this means, the apostle continues, the world, being 
 overflowed with water, perished, a summary of the flood; but 
 the heavens and earth that now are, by the same word (the word 
 of God), have been stored up for flre, "being reserved against 
 the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." In this 
 passage we have, first, a challenge as to the presence of God 
 in the affairs of men, and, second, a rejoinder showing God's 
 forethought in creating the things seen, which made possible 
 in the hour chosen by His wisdom and mercy a catastrophe of 
 appalling proportions by which He manifested His presence and 
 His control as God Almighty, a flood of waters that has left, 
 we are told, its visible marks on all the continents. A new order 
 
 124 
 
of things was then instituted; a new era began. The ungodly 
 had perished from the earth. The same sun and moon remained 
 in the heavens. The earth was as before the flood the home of 
 men. What next? The heavens and earth are stored with fire 
 against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. 
 If there were no further statement, we should expect to see a 
 world, a universe, in flames in God's day of judgment. But 
 read on. We are told to forget not that one day is with the 
 Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 
 We are out of time reckonings, and so are apart from time days. 
 Looking at the things that have been and are to be, we read 
 that "the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count 
 slackness; but is long-suffering, wishing . . . that all should 
 come to repentance." This is the reason for the long delay in 
 these world-wide matters. The call to repent must go to all 
 men, wherever they are, before they can answer thereto. It is 
 ours to carry to all men the Gospel message, "Repent and be- 
 lieve." But the day of the Lord will come, the apostle con- 
 tinues (the day of judgment and destruction), and when it comes 
 it will come unawares, like a thief in the night. How does a 
 thief come to a house? Not boldly, with observation, but we 
 wake to find him there or know by our losses that his presence 
 has been a reality. Then, in that day, the heavens shall pass 
 away, the elements [heavenly bodies] be dissolved with fervent 
 heat, "and the earth and the works that are therein shall be 
 burned up (or as most ancient manuscripts read, discovered)." 
 This is the picture. The apostle exhorts those to whom he was 
 writing to holy living and godliness, giving as his reason that 
 they should be looking for and earnestly desiring [hastening] 
 the coming of the day of God (that day which should come after 
 the longsuffering of God had come to an end, the day when the 
 call to repentance had gone forth and men had heeded it or 
 heeded it not), "the day of God, by reason of which the heavens 
 being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements [heavenly 
 bodies] shall melt with fervent heat." There is to be a day 
 of fire, a day of discovery of what earth and its works are, a day 
 
 125 
 
of melting and dissolution for heaven and earth. "But, accord- 
 ing to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 As we saw the world of men that then was perish in the judg- 
 ment of the flood, so now we see judgment pending, waiting be- 
 cause of the longsuffering of God. As a symbol of judgment and 
 destruction, fire is to the last degree fitting. It is Biblical. We 
 know well its destructive power. How is the earth stored for 
 judgment? As a single instance, a single method chosen from 
 the Scriptures, read in the prophecy of Joel the first thirty-two 
 verses and you find an answer. The agents for the judgments 
 there described are the palmer-worm, the locust, the canker- 
 worm, and the caterpillar, which cover the land as a devouring 
 fire and leave it desolate. These are all earthborn pests. We 
 know how the sun in the heavens can blight man's harvests, 
 how floods from the clouds can blast his hopes, and with what 
 concern we watch, as the seasons come and go, their changing 
 face. They are stored with what can destroy and devastate. It 
 is not difiicult, then, to see what this sjrmbol would be likely to 
 mean. It is possible to modify our thought from that first con- 
 ception of a universe aflame. The judgments that cannot be 
 mistaken as coming from Him that made the heavens and the 
 earth are being brought home to men in a new period of their 
 history. The outcome is a new order upon the earth according 
 to the promises of God that men shall rule and be ruled and live 
 righteously. It is a new heavens and a new earth where right- 
 eousness has its dwelling and its home. Is that here now? It 
 is in its beginnings, and with the reign of Christ a generation or 
 a century may make changes that in some measure fulfil not 
 only the wonderful imagery of Isaiah, but the words of promise 
 which have been spoken by all the prophets since the world 
 began. As regards the definite promises to Israel, we may look 
 in the new order of things thus symbolized for the fulfilment of 
 the many prophetic announcements concerning this people. 
 Every prophecy concerning them in the Old Testament ends in 
 promise. In the New Testament the future of Israel and of the 
 
 126 
 
Israel of God as interwoven each with the other is set forth in 
 the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of the Epistle to the 
 Romans. 
 
 Turning now to the Revelation we read, "And I saw a new 
 heaven and a new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth 
 were passed away; and there was no more sea" (Rev. 21:1). 
 If we can ask and answer suggestively the reason for the in- 
 sertion of this last sentence as to the sea, we may come to a 
 clearer light as to what is meant by the first heaven and the 
 first earth. The heaven rules the earth by its two great lights. 
 For us everything on earth depends on them. The tides, the 
 air currents, the clouds, the growth of every living creature 
 wait upon these two rulers of our planet. So heaven stands 
 for rulers, earth for those who are ruled, if we take for our anal- 
 ogy people and their rulers. When we turn to Daniel's vision we 
 note that, as he stands upon the shores of the sea, there come 
 out of it the cruel beasts that represent the four great world- 
 ruling dynasties when these dynasties are looked upon apart 
 from the emblems of power with which they surrounded their 
 royal courts and persons. In the same way, as we turn back 
 the pages of the Revelation, we read that one of the seven angels 
 that had the seven bowls said, "Come hither, I will shew thee 
 the judgment of the great harlot that sitteth upon many 
 waters" (Rev. 17:1-15). John saw, and it was said to him, 
 "The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are 
 peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." The 
 words that follow mark for us, according to prophetic interpre- 
 tation, the ten kingdoms of Europe which at first worshipped 
 and served the power that gradually came to supremacy, both 
 temporal and spiritual, in the Papal hierarchy. Later in mod- 
 ern times they rose and stripped this apostate church of her 
 rule. Nothing else in history answers to this description. 
 When we read of the first heaven we see before us the rulers of 
 the world from Babylon to the Papacy, as they ruled the earth. 
 Do not the new heaven and the new earth, where there is no 
 more sea, fitly represent the end of all this worldly control and 
 
 127 
 
the coming in of spiritual control? **The first things are passed 
 away." The peoples, the nations, the multitudes, the tongues 
 are no longer ruled by those who have the spirit of those who 
 have ruled for twenty-five or more centuries. He that sitteth 
 on the throne says, ''Behold, I make all things new. . . . These 
 things are faithful and true. . . . They are come to pass. I 
 am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." These 
 words give us the idea that we are with Him to whom the end 
 is as the beginning. Things that have not yet become history are 
 spoken of as if they had, because His purpose cannot be stayed. 
 In his vision John saw a new heaven and a new earth, and 
 the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from 
 God. He heard a great voice out of the throne sajdng, "Behold, 
 the tabernacle of God is with men." Then comes the city made 
 ready as a bride. As you see the names of the twelve tribes of 
 Israel on the gates, all the history of Israel in its relation to sal- 
 vation's gates rises before you. As you look at the foundation 
 stones and see on them the names of the twelve apostles of the 
 Lamb, the story of the church from apostolic times is recorded. 
 As you see it lifted twelve thousand furloughs high towards 
 heaven, and look at its proportions, length, breadth, and height 
 equal, you begin to realize the measure of the mighty plans of 
 God; but not till you read that the glory of God did lighten it, 
 and that the Lamb is the light [lamp] thereof, are you ready to 
 read that the nations shall walk in the light of it, and the kings 
 of the earth bring their glory into it. This is the pictorial inter- 
 pretation of the word of John, '' God is light," and of the words 
 of Jesus, "I am the light of the world," and the charge to His 
 disciples, "Ye are the light of the world." The nations are now 
 walking in the light of God and of the Lamb. For their healing 
 are the leaves of the tree of life. The thronging multitudes who 
 enter the gates are those whose names are written in the Lamb's 
 book of life. To all these is sent this message, even as the water 
 of life flows from the throne for them, for this is a vision of earth. 
 "And the Spirit and the bride say. Come. And he that heareth, 
 let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he 
 that will, let him take the water of life freely." 
 
 128 
 
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