THE MOST PRECIOUS TEXT IN THE BIBLE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 20 September 1913, Page 3

THE MOST PRECIOUS TEXT IN THE BIBLE.

LIGHT SHINES THROUGH THE FO.G. (Inserted by Arrangement.) Pastor Russell, of the London Tabernacle, addressed a thoroughly representative audience last Sunday. His afternoon topic was "Beyond the Grace." His evening discourse we report. His text was, "God so loved the world that he gave his 'only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John iii. 16). The Pastor said this has been called by some "The most precious text in the Bible." To read it is to be filled with the thought of the sin which has marred God's fair creation, including every member of our race. Then comes the reviving anneuacement of mercy—not directly, but indirectly—through the Son of God, our Saviour, by a work which he alone could accomplish for us, as a race of sinners condemned to death. Forcefully the Pastor pointed out that once Christian people—even Bible students misunderstood this text, and read it as though it said that God so loved the world as to keep them from perishing, in order that the few, the saintly elect, might attain to. glory, and look over the battlements of Heaven and see all the remainder writhing in torture to all eternity—unable to perish—forcecTto live.

What right did we ever have, said ; the,Pas|t6r, to thus puS into the, mouth of our Saviour, as our creeds' have dpne v Avords, which beineyer uiterldr—word!s..which a'rs , very untrite. —indeedV a blasphemy against our Maker!. , •..■.: ~'■ !', '..We are not. faulting our forefathers. Had we been, in their place, doubtless we would have been as confused as they, and might also have indulged in heretic-burning, etc. Had they lived in our wonderful day of great light, opportunity, education,. Bibles, etc., doubtless they would have had' as noble ideals as ourselves) respecting the--.proprieties of Christ-* iari conduct, of Divine conduct, :of Love and Justice. The Bible tells us that Satan ,and his fallen angels are responsible 1 for those terrible "doctrines of demons," which have driven so 7 ' many away from God and the Bible into unbelief, agnosticism, and even atheism. The Scriptures portray, the darkness of the past and the present, and assure us that a new day is about to dawn. Weeping has endured fpr the night of ignorance and superstition, sighing, crying, and dying; but joy «ometh in - the morning of Messiah's kingdom, with the awaken 7 ing of the dead, and raising them up, out of sin and death condition to perfection. Hark to St. Peters words, We have a more sure word of prophecy-,- to which we do well, ,io take heed, until the day dawn (11, Pet. i. 19); Surely the wonders v of s our time indicate' that the new day ie .upon us, that the sunlight of Messiah's kingdom will soon break forth through every cloud. W r HAT THE WORD "PERISH"

MEANS. When we come to think of it, the word' "perish"- contains not the' remotest suggestion of fire or torture. In our ignorance, we read all that into the text, and into other texts !of similar import. How some of !us rang the changes on Bible terms .ina vain attempt to drive men towards God through fear, when God declares that he does not want such to come, and has no pleasure whatever "in their worship and service! Did not Jesus tell us that the Father seeketh such to worship Him as worship Him in spirit and in truth? (John. iv. 23). Our perversions of the Divine Word and plan only helped men away from God to such misunderstanding of Him that they at most could worship only in form and' ceremony. The Pastor told of ani experience he had in India. Some of the highW caste Hindus, wholly unapproachable by the missionaries, heard that the Pastor was preaching a more reasonable message. They came entreating him for further meetings, declaring that they could not believe the doc trines usually preached. They could not believe in a God so unjust, so Unmerciful, so wicked that He would torment them and their forefathers to all eternity because they did not believe in Jesus, when they had not so much as heard of. him! -

They said that their godis were not | so unjust, that they forbade :open to 1 torture even dumb animals. "They ! preferred to hold on to the reasoni able gods of their forefathers rather than believe in the unjust ones preached by the missionaries. Can we blame them? asked the Pastor. He urged his hearers to study the Bible itself and to ignore the unreasonable teachings which are driving men from the Bible and the God which it presents. Pastor Russell found that the heathen dq not really worship the idols, but through the idols seek to worship an unseen deity. At first he wondered that they could bow before such hideous images. . Then the thought came to him that those poor heathen had formulated their gods of clay, stone, bronze, etc., but that we Christians had formulated ours differently—instead of using material 6ubstances, we merely constructed ideals and described them, and that from this viewpoint, the creedai pictures of j the God of Love are further astray than the images of stone, wood 1 , etc. IMPORT OF THE-TEXT.

Look critically at our text. It corroborates the account in Gen. ii., as explained by St. Paul in Bom. v. 1% 18.By one man's disobedience sin entered into" the world and death as the result of sin, and death passed upon all men because all men are sinners—by heredity. The death penalty has been carrying down our race to the tomb for 6000 years. The declaration of the Bible is that these all would have perished—would have had no future existence any more than, the brutes-had it not been for God's compassionate mercy, "The great" love wherewith He loved us while we were**yet sinners" (Eph. 'ii. 4). Our text comes in here and' assures us that this salvation of mankind from .perishing comes only through God's Love and Mercy, operating by our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask, What did our* Lord Jesus do for the race? The Bible promptly v "Christ ) 'aied for. our. sins, according to .Christ'by til© Gipd tasted death,for ev- : ''He'poured out his soul •."jjnjto'.#»W!j'.'He "soul an of-

Ju&b ua notice carefully that as perishing does not mean everlasting torture, so the Redemption price which Jesus gave is not everlasting torture, nor purgatorial suffering, but death. "Christ died for the ungodly." Other Scriptures tell ua that the death of J ecus was a Ransom-price, or price corresponding to the penalty that was upon father Adam and inherited by his race. The Bible thus explains that God by providing an equivalent price for the sin-penalty against Adam and inherited by his race. The Bible thus explains that God by providing an equivalent price for the sin-penalty against Adam can be just in releasing us from the death penalty. The simple proposition of the Bible is that as Adam and ail of his race legally perished, so they have all been legally redeemed from that perished condition —the death of Jesus being the satisfaction-price. It is because of this redemption that the Bible assures us there is to be "a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust," because all were redeemed from the perished condition. Hence the Bible lays great stress upon the resurrection of the dead; and further, it assures us tha"t the resurrection of mankind must wait until the completion of the Church. Then the Second Coming of Christ will be in order, that he may exalt his Church with himself as a reigning Power, the Spiritual Seed of Abraham, which God for 4000 years has promised shall be exalted to glory for the very purpose of blessing all the families of the earth—the non-elect.