Volume 6, Number 6
FLIES IN THE OINTMENT
“Go ye into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15, 16.
There is wisdom in the Proverb which says that
dead flies cause precious ointment to stink. This is particularly true in respect to the
Bible. It is a precious ointment of sweet odor, but certain “flies” have gotten
into it whose corruptions have destroyed the perfume of the Divine records in the
estimation of many an intelligent and growing number. Some of these “dead flies”
were mistranslations; some of them misinterpretations, and some of them, including the
text, were interpolations unauthorized additions to the Scriptures as originally written.
MANY USE SPURIOUS
TEXTS
All of the sixteenth chapter of Mark, from the ninth
verse to the end, is now well known to all scholars as an addition made to what St. Mark
wrote. It has been known for years to all Bible scholars that the two oldest Greek
manuscripts known to the world end the Book of Mark with the preceding verse (8). And
these two oldest manuscripts belong to the Fourth Century.
Evidently, therefore, this addition to the Scriptures
was made about four hundred years after St. Mark’s death. Why the ministers of
Christendom fail to inform the Christian public of what they all know or should know we do
not here pretend to say. Why many of them use these spurious verses as texts to sermons
without explaining that they are spurious is not for us to judge. We would say, however,
that some use these verses because they suit their theories as no other verses in the
Bible would do.
Some zealous Christians use this text as a club upon
other Christians, claiming that if they are not baptized with water they will surely be
damned, millions of them even claiming that it must be by an immersion in water. And by
“damned” they mean eternally, everlastingly tormented by fire-proof devils! They
go further and make this spurious addition to God’s Word the basis of the theory that
the Church is responsible for the Christianization of the world, and that every heathen
who does not believe and who is not baptized some say, immersed will be damned to eternal
torture for his unbelief and lack of baptism.
Thus this spurious statement dishonors God,
antagonizes all sensible minds, and makes narrower and harder those who can and do
believe.
ABILITY TO DRINK
POISON
Many Christian people have their faith shaken in
respect to their own relationship to God because of the statements following this text to
the effect that all believers whould have the power to cast out devils, to speak with new
tongues, to handle serpents without injury, to drink deadly poison without injury, and to
lay hands on the sick and cause recovery. Many worldly-minded people, reading these
statements, declare them to be “buncombe,” or else that the Church of Christ has
lost a power which it should still possess. And yet intelligent ministers quote these
spurious words instead of informing the people that they are no part of God’s Message
and that they are not true.
The Scriptures do teach that miracles of tongues,
healings, etc., were permitted in the days of the Apostles for the purpose of establishing
the infant Church. But it is true that such powers were communicated, according to the
Scriptures, by the laying on of the Apostles’ hands; and hence, as soon as the
Apostles were dead and those upon whom they had laid their hands, and consecutively those
who had received the Apostolic blessing and gifts of the Holy Spirit were dead, all those
miracles and healings naturally ceased, as St. Paul foretold. 1 Cor. 13:8
LET HIM THAT HATH AN
EAR HEAR THE GOOD NEWS
While the Gospel is to be
preached in every nation, it is not with a view to converting all of mankind, but, as many
Scriptures show, as a witness to the world and for the selection from among the world of a
“little flock” of saints—"called, chosen and faithful" to
constitute Messiah’s associates in His Mediatorial Kingdom, which shortly is to bless
humanity with glorious opportunities of knowledge and uplifting influences, which will
restore the willing and obedient to full harmony with God, full release from sin and
death, sorrow and pain, to life eternal as perfect men in a world-wide “Paradise
restored.”
The object and purpose of the Gospel everywhere not
to the Jew only, but to every people can be easily demonstrated to all having faith in
God. To claim that God intended the Gospel to convert the world, and to know that it has
not done so, is to destroy faith in God and to destroy hope in respect to any glorious
outcome to the Divine Plan of Salvation; for those who claim that God intended the
preaching of the Gospel to accomplish the world’s conversion must admit that it has
accomplished no such purpose; and if God’s Plan has been a failure for eighteen
centuries what hope could any one have that it ever would be a success?
On the contrary, however, the Scriptures declare that
the purpose and object of the Gospel is to gather out an “elect” or select class
from amongst humanity to test and approve this “little flock” as to their
willingness to follow in the footsteps of their Redeemer, and to glorify these by the
power of the “First Resurrection” in the end of this Age, when the foreordained
number shall have been selected. This, the proper view of the Gospel of Christ, is fully
upheld and substantiated as true by the history of eighteen centuries. Thus we are seeing
fulfilled the Divine Message through the Prophet, “My Word that has gone forth out of
My mouth shall not return unto Me void. It shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent
it.” It is sent to gather the elect and it will accomplish the Divine intention.
WHEN SIN AND DEATH
WILL CEASE
After the Gospel Message shall have selected the
saints, and after God shall have glorified them as joint-heirs with Christ in His Kingdom,
a totally different salvation will begin and operate along quite different lines! No
longer will matters be left to the stammering tongues and to the dull and deaf ears and
blinded eyes of the understanding! No longer will sin and death reign! No longer will
darkness, ignorance and superstition cover the earth! On the contrary, then the Sun of
Righteousness shall arise with healing in His beams. The whole earth shall be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of God. The King shall reign in righteousness on the spirit
plane and His Princes in all the earth.
