"DO you believe all of God's Word? When I first
came to know God I went to the meetings of the "Plymouth
Brethren" and learned many a precious truth from them which, at
that time, was almost unknown in the nominal churches. The Lord's
coming, the need of "rightly dividing," a little as to the
body of Christ, the difference between the church and the
kingdom - these all found a place in my heart and mind at the very
beginning of my life of faith. But I also received warnings against
"non-eternity," and "soul-sleep," and
"universalism," etc., to which I gave due heed.
At that early date my life course was determined by the acquisition
of Wigram's Concordances. Next to the Scriptures, they have been of the
greatest value in my spiritual development.
These give a list of each word in Greek or Hebrew and all of its
occurrences in English. This has been my lexicon, for the usage of a
word is the only safe index of its meaning. These also showed how
discordant our English translation is and led me to go back to the
original.
The Brethren claimed to be unsectarian, but when I persisted in
having fellowship with all of good conduct in the body of Christ they
put me out, though this was the original basis on which their movement
was founded. This proved a great blessing, for I was now free to believe
what is in God's Word apart from all religious restraint.
I had two objects before me: to believe all of God's Word, and
to suffer the persecution which must necessarily follow. I was conscious
that there were quite a few texts in the Word which made me
uncomfortable. I knew the so-called "explanations," but they
appeared to be only a form of unbelief.
My first real problem was whether the Bride was the church, as the
Brethren taught. A long consideration of the scriptural evidence
convinced me that believing Israel is the Bride. This led to many other
discoveries, until I finally saw that Paul is the apostle of the
Uncircumcision, and that the special truth for today comes through him
alone.
I had heard much about the "Mystery" of the church, or the
body, but the teaching was confused. Here, too, were passages which I
only half believed, because they were not clear. Systematic
investigation resulted in the discovery that "the mystery" is
not the "body," but that it lies in the relation of the
members of the body to each other.
I had been so thoroughly prejudiced in favor of the teaching that the
dead are not dead, that I read the intermediate state into almost
every passage speaking of death. So, for instance, when Paul spoke of
dying as gain, I changed it to the state after dying. But there were
passages which made me uneasy, which I knew I did not really believe. It
seemed almost as if the Scriptures were divided against themselves, and
taught both. It was only when I learned the true nature of the soul and
the Scriptural definition of death, and considered its figurative usage,
that I was able to understand and believe all the passages that deal
with the theme.
The salvation of all troubled me from the very first. The Brethren
changed God wills all men to be saved, to God wishes, but my
concordance showed me that it was the Brethren who wished it so,
not God. He works all things according to the counsel of His will. They
also altered "the Saviour of all" to "the
Preserver of all." Since it was necessary for them to corrupt God's
Word on this theme it was clear that they did not have the truth. Romans
five and First Corinthians fifteen and Colossians one contained
statements which I could not believe because they contradict many other
passages dealing with the fate of unbelievers. It was only after I
unraveled the truth as to the eonian times that I was able to exult in
their glorious unfoldings.
I now found myself able to accept and approve of those statements in
the Bible which stumble so many saints, and cause so much unbelief,
which may be concentrated in the one case of Pharaoh. God hardened his
heart, and will judge him for doing that which he was forced to do.
Perhaps it is even clearer in the case of the rebellion after the
millennium. Satan is bound. The earth has had a thousand years of peace.
Now God deliberately looses Satan in order to deceive the nations and
lead them against Him. Then He sends down fire and devours them. Is this
right? One of my opponents, in New Zealand, claims that God is the
greatest hypocrite in the world, if He does any such thing.
Not only that, but God was greatly glorified by Pharaoh's opposition.
How then can He judge him? A believer in eternal torment finds it
impossible to charge God with such an atrocity, and refuses to believe
it, or "explains" it away. But once we see God's ultimate and
that judgment, in God's Word, sets matters right, all is clear and
acceptable. God's glory demands expression. Pharaoh, earth's highest, is
the best means. He is too soft, so he must be hardened. Eventually, at
the consummation, he will be reconciled. But that is not possible until
he has realized the enormity of his sins, and suffered their just
penalty. Neither he, nor anyone else, will suffer unjustly what is not
right. God is just, but not vindictive.
Those who hold to eternal torment or annihilation as the destiny of
the ungodly will shudder at the thought of God's making men stubborn and
then "punishing" them so fearfully for it. The awfulness of
this teaching does not lie in the fact that God does these things - for
the Scriptures distinctly say that He does - but in the false ideas of
judgment and ultimate destiny which they hold. A God Who forces a man to
sin and dooms him to endless torment or annihilation is a fiend. But a
God Who calls us into the world as sinners, so that we cannot evade the
taint of sin, and redeems those who believe, by His grace, and judges
the rest in righteousness, yet ultimately saves and reconciles all
through the sacrifice of the cross is a God worthy of the name. He has
the right to do it because He is the Potter, His creatures the clay. He
is justified in doing it because it is the only way He can reveal His
glory, and that is the object of creation. It is good of Him to grant us
temporary, light afflictions or we could never enjoy the eonian weight
of glory that lies before us. In that day we will laud Him for providing
the great Sin Offering, for all was of Him, and has brought untold
blessing to us and boundless glory to God.
But even then I was not satisfied. There were still passages in God's
Word which did not receive my hearty acquiescence. I had a horror of
implicating God in sin, so how could I echo the apostle's words
"all is out of Him" (Rom.11:36)? All out of Him - the
evil, the misery, the opposition to His will? Yet the passage itself
insists that He locks up all in stubbornness. Other passages, such as
the sixth of Isaiah, boldly tell us that He blinds men's eyes so that
they cannot see. Pharaoh's is no isolated case. It is very evident that
God uses these things in order that He may glorify Himself. Is it then
God's will that men should sin? That cannot be. What is sin?
Once I found out that sin is failure, I saw that I had been making
God the greatest of all sinners, so long as I believed that He could not
save all, or that He had not been able to keep sin out of the universe,
or, that it was contrary to His purpose. Failure is sin, and if we
imagine that God has failed in any particular we make Him the Sinner of
sinners. God will not fail, and has not failed. The universe today is
exactly where He planned it to be. He made Pharaoh sin against Him. But
He Himself did not sin in doing so, for Pharaoh's hardness was needed in
order for Him to succeed (i.e., not fail or sin) in
glorifying Himself.
The first thought which came to me then was, "shall we, then, do
evil that good may come?" Never! But immediately I was reminded
that this is the very charge that was hurled at Paul! Could there be any
better proof that I was on the right track? God does evil that
good may come, for He is wise and powerful and loving. But men are
foolish and weak and hateful, so cannot use evil, except in the most
limited degree. A father may be trusted to put his child's finger on the
hot stove so as to teach it to fear the fire, for he loves it. Otherwise
it is a most dangerous and erroneous doctrine. But God is not a man.
That is the trouble with theology. It is always deifying man and
humanizing God.
So it was that I arrived at my goal: to believe all of God's Word and
to suffer persecution like Paul. He was falsely charged with teaching
men to do evil (Rom.3:5-8) and he was reproached for saying that God is
the Saviour of all mankind (1 Tim.4:10). This testimony of my enemies is
welcome, and confirms my faith.
But, above all, I now have a real God, Whom I can worship and
adore without the least reservation. He harms, but He heals, and both
together, the harming as well as the healing, is a blessing to His
creatures as well as a glory to Himself.
It is our object to lead our readers to this same goal, where they
can accept all of God's words and give Him all the
adoration of their hearts.
