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BIBLE TERMS FOR BIBLE DOCTRINES

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 22, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 17

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BIBLE TERMS FOR BIBLE DOCTRINES.

By R. F. Cottrell

BY ELD. R. F. COTTRELL.
The doctrines of the Scriptures are best expressed in Scripture language; and a doctrine that necessitates the use of other terms, is not to be accepted as a Bible doctrine. Such terms as trinity, transubstantiation, indulgence, penance, and purgatory, are not necessary to express any Bible doctrine. We can believe all that the Scriptures say of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet not believe the strange and contradictory ideas which men wish to convey by the term triune God. We can believe that the Son of God was with the Father before the world was; that by him the Father made the worlds; that he made him equal with himself, calls him God, saying, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever;” that Christ is the everlasting Father of all his children, the redeemed; and that he and his Father are one in creation, redemption, and all their work; and yet not believe that the two are only one person. The Son is an object of worship, because the Father has made him such. “Let all the angels of God worship him.” Therefore, in worshiping and honoring the Son, we worship and honor the Father.
But I took my pen to object to the use of the term “annihilation” to express the Scriptural doctrine of the destruction of the wicked. The terms of the Scriptures, “to die,” “to perish,” “to be lost,” “to be destroyed,” “to be consumed,” “to be burned up, root and branch,” “to be as though they had not been,” “to be punished with everlasting destruction,” etc., are just the very terms that express our belief. We want no stronger. The extreme significance of annihilation, as held by our opponents, is more than we claim; therefore, they always characterize our doctrine as annihilation, and then exhibit their skill in striving to annihilate it, asserting that nothing can be annihilated; a thing which may not be possible with men, though it may be with God.
A man of my acquaintance, some fifty years ago, was cited to answer to the church to which he belonged, on a charge of holding the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked. In reply to the charge he told them he would state his belief on that point by quoting three texts of Scripture. He read those texts which say that the wicked shall be burned up, root and branch, that they shall be punished with everlasting destruction, and that they shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and said that he simply believed what these texts say. The committee, after consultation, decided that “it amounted to annihilation;” and so he was expelled.