Posted by Steven Benjamin on April 11, 2009, 6:22 pm, in reply to "Re: Shepherds Rod: TRACT No. 3 (pt 17)"
Now we see that by testimony of prophets, by parable, and by ceremonial type, God has wrought the towering structure of fact that (1) the judgment is the harvest, -- the separation of the tares from the wheat -- the end of the world; that (2) the judgment, the harvest, embraces two phases, two periods: the former for the dead, the latter for the living; that (3) the one takes place according to the records in the books in the heavenly sanctuary, whereas the other takes place simultaneously in the church on earth and in the books in heaven; and that (4) the very fact that the subject is now being revealed in its fullness testifies that we are just on the verge of passing out of the former and into the latter phase and period, and that we are therefore living in the last days of earth's history.
This fourfold view of the judgment, the harvest, thus exalts the truth of it as a pearl of great price, and reveals that the depths of God's Word are unfathomable; Its wisdom inscrutable and infinite -- without beginning and without end; Its fund of knowledge a perpetual fountain of truth; Its presence ever abiding; and Its beauty ineffable!
Now that the reader may be strengthened to hold fast to this fundamental and all-important truth, as well as to all other truths, we urge him to follow God's method (Inspiration) in studying the Scriptures, that he may thereby
Avoid the Many Snares.
Perhaps foremost among the multitudes who are snared while doing all they can to run away from inspired interpretation of the Scriptures are the extremists, of whom there are at least two classes: one with the tendency to literalize, the other with the tendency to spiritualize.
Take for example the Revelator's statement: ". . . I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God,. . . and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood?" Rev. 6:9, 10.
The literalist on the one hand, would interpret this scripture to mean that the souls were conscious and actually crying out, though the Bible is very explicit that "the dead know not anything. " Eccles. 9:5. And, too, were the souls under the altar literally crying out for vengeance on their murderers, then, to be consistent, the Lord's statement, "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground" (Gen. 4:10), also the statement, "all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" (Isa. 55:12), likewise must be interpreted literally in spite of the fact that it is impossible physically for blood to cry out and for trees to clap hands.
If all, however, are obliged to admit that Abel's blood could not literally cry out, and that trees can only figuratively clap hands, then, again to be consistent, the person given to extreme literalizing should easily take hold of the actuality that "the dead know not anything," and that they are "asleep" -- unconscious. He ought easily, too, to perceive that the souls of the martyrs crying for vengeance on their murderers, and that the blood of Abel crying for vengeance on his murderer, are cases virtually identical in circumstance and condition. Both of these find pointed illustration in the poetic utterance: "I hear a voice crying out, the voice of the withering field: O, Lord, pity Thou me. Let showers fall from heaven. Quench Thou my burning soul. "
For one's soul to be imprisoned consciously under something for hundreds of years, with nothing to do but groaningly to languish in waiting for the resurrection morning, the while crying out for vengeance on them that spilled one's blood, -- what an inexpressibly unbearable state for one's soul to be in!
The doctrine, though, of the unconscious state of the dead not only puts at peace the worried human mind but also ascribes to God mercy and love toward helpless human beings, thus being the only position on the subject that can lead the sinner rationally to love God and to trust in Him.
To the one who on the other hand is inclined oppositely, to spiritualize the souls, the slaughter, the heavens, the new earth, etc. , -- to him these have neither individuality nor reality. And when concerning the doctrine of the slaughter he is asked the simple question, What kind of slaughter would a spiritual one be? he is at a loss to answer!
For all, there exists in this connection one great need: the Spirit of Truth, Whose right alone it is to interpret the Scriptures.
The most common cause of doctrinal confusion among Bible students lies in their so very frequently failing to view a subject in full perspective from the writer's point of view, -- a failing which results in their seeing it from some foreign standpoint so narrowing their view that instead of gaining the writer's idea on the subject, they gain a false idea on it. And if the idea be to their liking, they magnify and zealously promote it as truth, whereas if it be not to their liking, they vigorously oppose it, and then lay it to the responsibility of the writer!
To illustrate thus getting a wrong idea of a thing from a wrong view of it: a child who accompanies his mother to a zoo, and who has never seen a peacock, suddenly comes upon one in full tail-spread going away from him, and creating to his uninitiated eyes the illusion of a large walking fan!
Picture of peacock goes here
Thrilled with the illusory wonder before him he excitedly exclaims the sight, only to have his mother disenchant him with the disillusioning assurance that it is only a peacock! On another occasion, however, when accompanying his father to the zoo, the child again sees a peacock, but this time in full front view presenting a sight apparently entirely new and different. Quickly he turns with excited questions to his father, who tells him that it is a peacock!
Picture of peacock goes here
Whereupon the argument begins, with the son protesting that the peacock which he and his mother had seen, looked nothing like this one. And unable to reconcile, as simply major and minor aspects of the same thing, that which he now sees from the front, or main point of view, and that which he before saw from the rear, or foreign point of view, his mind gropes in confusion wondering whether to believe Father or Mother.
So it is with the Bible when one looks at a subject from a standpoint foreign to the author's. He finds discrepancies in the position held by the one who sees the subject through the author's eyes. In order consequently, to maintain the false idea resulting from his foreign point of view, he is led to resort to outside sources: to one commentator or the other; to this version or to that; to technicalities and inferences of language: in the Greek, in the Hebrew, in this, in that, or in the other (languages, none of which it is likely he himself either reads or writes); or to referring to this or that so-called original manuscript (which in all probability he has never seen).
At the end of this long winding road, he has succeeded only in magnifying from a mole hill to a mountain one passage of scripture, and in reducing from a mountain to a mole hill, or entirely setting aside, another passage of scripture, all because the Bible, which the Lord has placed in his hands, does not support his idea. These pretentious procedures are calculated to demonstrate his scholarly attainments in the hope of lending to his false idea such an appearance of authority as to compel their acceptance by all who come in contact with his theory.
(CONTD)
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