The Way They Prove It

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 1, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 14

The Way They Prove It.

The Restitution teaches that the wicked dead will never be raised to life again. But Paul, in Acts 24:15, said that he had “hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.” This is almost too unwieldy a camel for them to swallow, but a correspondent, one J. A. Simonds, in the Restitution of March 24, 1880, attempts to gulp it down in the following theatrical manner. After quoting the text, he says: “This text as it stands here, seems to teach the resurrection of the unjust. But there must be some mistake about it”!

Oh, yes! Happy thought! We have made up our minds, they seem to say, that there will not be any resurrection of the unjust; and so though Paul plainly says that there will be a resurrection of that class, we will set that over to the “mistake” account, and pass it by on that ground. It does not strain some men’s egotism half so much to claim that the apostle Paul made a mistake, as to admit that they make one. And as if they were the lords and regulators of his inspiration, they proceed with the utmost nonchalance to tell us what the apostle meant to say, as this writer does further on.

“He evidently meant to say this,” says Mr. S. in the next paragraph; but unfortunately he didn’t say what he meant to, and so our modern paragon of humility steps forward to set him right before the world.

We had intended only to present that first most astonishing declaration to the reader, and leave it there; for one such declaration is sufficient to brand with everlasting condemnation any theory which drives its advocates to such a resort. But there are other points which we can hardly let pass, not because there is anything which deserves an answer, but because the blindness and falsity of the reasoning should be exposed.

Of the text, Acts 24:15, he says, “It has no parallels in all the writings of Paul or of the other apostles. There are no passages like it.” Will he then tell us what Christ “meant” to say, when he declared that the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation? John 5:28, 29. And what about Matt. 25:41–46? Absurd to suppose that only the wicked that happen to be alive when Christ comes, fall under that sentence. See also 1 Cor. 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 1:7; 20:5, 12–15. No passages like it forsooth!

Our writer says that Paul was only expressing the hope of his accusers? Could perversion go further? Read the passage, verse 14: “But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets; and have hope toward God [who? the same I, Paul; I have hope toward God] which they themselves also allow [here they agree with me] that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and unjust.”

He claims that the resurrection is conditional, depending on the righteousness and holy character of those who are to share in it. This is a great mistake. A universal resurrection of the race is decreed without respect to character. The plan of salvation itself involves this: “In Christ shall all [who die in Adam] be made alive.” And after that they will live or die on their own account, and not on Adam’s, according as they are righteous or wicked. But this resurrection is in two divisions, the first and second—the first to eternal life, the second to eternal condemnation and death. And to the first there are conditions: a man must be holy to have a part in that. Rev. 5:6. Being unholy, they are left to the second. This is all the condition there is.