It is everywhere evident in the Scriptures that God continually invites and incites us to act in our own interest, while at the same time commanding self-denial----even to the extent of forsaking all that I have and hating my own life also. This naturally raises the question, How can these things be? How can I thus deny myself, while at the same time acting universally upon the principle of self-interest? The answer is really very simple: I must deny myself in order to secure my own good. God requires us to give up our own will and our own way, but not our own interest. He asks us to give up our own way precisely to secure our own interest. “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” (Ezek. 18:31-32). This is giving up our own way in order to secure our own good. This is self-denial and self-interest.

We see exactly the same in the course which Moses took. “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.”(Heb. 11:24-26). Self-denial is evident here. His position, his pleasures, and his possessions were all given up, forsaken for good and all. Self-interest is also plainly evident, for he did all of this “because [this is the meaning of `for'] he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” He did not pamper the flesh, or any way compromise with it, but gave up treasures and pleasures for affliction and reproach. But he did not do this purely for the glory of God, without any motive of personal gain, but because he looked to the reward. He gave up the present to secure the future. He gave up the temporal to secure the eternal. He gave up the seen in order to secure the unseen. He gave up the earthly in order to secure the heavenly. This is the universal way of faith, which is the real and only foundation of the self-denial which the gospel requires of us.

All of this is clearly seen also in the apostles of Christ. “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and have followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” (Matt. 19:27). Here is self-denial and self-interest, as plain as words can make it. Peter had not learned with the modern church to expect the future reward without the present self-denial, and neither was he so hyperspiritual as to pretend that he acted purely for the glory of God, without motives of personal gain. He, with Moses, had respect unto the recompense of the reward. Did the Lord rebuke him for this? Not in the least, though it would have been the perfect opportunity. The Lord might have told him, as some of our hyperspiritual philosophers would, that all of his self-denial upon such a motive was only selfishness, and therefore the essence and epitome of sin. But not a word of this do we hear from the Lord, but only a simple assurance that he would indeed have his reward----a hundredfold even in this life, a throne of glory in the coming regeneration of the earth, and in the world to come, eternal life. This scripture shows beyond doubt that the self-denial required of us by the gospel is completely consistent with self-interest, as well as that such self-denial is the way to secure our own interest. Those who deny themselves and follow Christ with a view to the coming reward, will certainly receive that reward. To those who seek for glory and honour and immortality he will render eternal life (Rom. 2:6-7).

Paul pursued the same course, with the same motive, as Peter did. “So run,” he says, “that ye may obtain. And every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.” (I Cor. 9:24-25). This plainly sets forth the principle of self-denial with a view to self-interest, and Paul goes immediately on to affirm that he lived by that principle: “I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air. But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (Vss. 26-27). Self-denial is the course. Self-interest is the end, or motive.

Paul elsewhere sets forth the same principles at greater length. “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead. . . . forgetting those things which are behind [the things which were gain to him, which he had given up for Christ], and reaching forth unto those things which are before [in the resurrection glory], I press toward the mark FOR THE PRIZE of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:7-14). Self-denial is the course, self-interest the end.

This is the way of faith. Faith always gives up the present to secure the future----gives up the pleasures of sin for a season to secure the pleasures at God's right hand for evermore----gives up its own will and way in order to secure the “better thing” which God has promised. Faith is confidence in God, and it therefore apprehends the way of God to be better (though it may be painful in the extreme to the flesh) than the way of the world, the flesh, or the devil. Seeing thus, it gives up the good, the gain, the happiness, which the world and the flesh can provide, in order to secure that which is promised by God. Unbelief views things exactly the opposite. Having no confidence in God, it expects more happiness from sin and the world----and thus from the devil----than it expects from God. It therefore clings to the world and sin. It expects more good, more pleasure, more gain, more happiness, more fulfillment, in its own way, than in the ways of God, and therefore clings to its own way. Herein we see, by the way, the heinous evil of unbelief. At bottom unbelief is neither more nor less than attributing more goodness to the devil than to God. Thus plainly did Eve in the garden, expecting to receive greater good from the devil than God would give to her, and therefore forsaking the way of God and yielding to the way of the devil. Thus man fell from God by self-indulgence founded upon unbelief, and thus he must return to God by self-denial founded upon faith.

Faith reckons the way of God to be better than the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil, precisely because God is God, and faith has confidence in him as God----glorifies him as God----attributes to him the goodness and wisdom which actually belong to him. Seeing thus, faith gives up the easy way of self-pleasing and self-indulgence, and embraces the hard way of self-denial, on the principle of self-interest, trusting that the hard way must lead to the greater good, merely because it is the way of God. Thus faith gives up the broad way of self-indulgence because it “leadeth to destruction.” It pursues the narrow way of self-denial because it “leadeth unto life.” Thus faith overcomes the world, denies its claims, relinquishes its pleasures and profits, and escapes its snares.

These principles are everywhere in the Bible, and when once they are understood it becomes as clear as the day that many of the fundamentalists of our day, who prate so much about salvation by faith, know just nothing about the matter. The faith which they preach expects to win the race without ever setting foot upon the course. It expects to find eternal life at the end of the broad way. It expects to secure its own good without giving up its own way. By continuing in its own way, by clinging to the world and its ways, by continuing in sin, it says practically that the devil is better than God, and that greater good is to be found in the ways which he has devised than in the ways which God has prescribed. And this men have the effrontery to call faith.

The faith of the Bible is a different thing. The self-denial is as much a part of Bible faith as is the self-interest. This is plain enough in the case of Moses, already cited, who “by faith” not only looked to the recompense of the reward, but also gave up the position and pleasures and treasures which he had in Egypt. “By faith he forsook Egypt” (Heb. 11:27)----as did the rest of the people of Israel. They forsook Egypt in order to secure Canaan. The modern church expects to secure the land which flows with milk and honey without giving up the land of cucumbers and melons and leeks and onions and garlic, and this they are so infatuated as to call “salvation by faith,” while they decry the self-denial which belongs to the essence of real faith, as legalism and salvation by works. If they would know the nature of real faith, let them study Hebrews 11, the great “faith chapter” of the Bible, and they will find that Moses was not alone in the way of self-denial and self-interest.

“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” (Heb. 11:8). He “went out.” He gave up his present place and portion, that he might secure the promised inheritance. “Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.” (Heb. 11:35). Here is self-denial and self-interest, plain and simple. Here is losing their life in this world, that they might keep it to life eternal.

This is the way everywhere preached by the Saviour of the world. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 16:25). “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” (John 12:25). All of this is just as plain as the sunshine to those who will cast the modern notions of faith to the winds, and receive the simple testimony of the Bible. These doctrines are not hidden away in some obscure corner of the Bible, but are written everywhere on the face of it, so that it is a great wonder that they are not preached from the housetops by the whole church of God. But the scriptures which set them forth are more often ignored or explained away than believed, and thus the modern church has come to the place that its very doctrine of faith is little more than systematic unbelief.

Chats from my Library
By Glenn Conjurske

Books on Healing

The earliest book I have on healing is An Address on Supposed Miracles, by J. M. Buckley, published in 1875, and having 54 pages. It is an address to a Methodist ministers' meeting, and is rationalistic in tendency, implying that “supposed miracles” are in reality the results of natural causes, or that the persons healed only imagined that they were sick. Buckley has written other things on the subject, which I have not seen. A. B. Simpson characterizes one of them as follows: “To the cause of Divine Healing it is by far the least harmful of any of the attacks that have been made; but to the cause of true and pure religion it is a real blow.”

Faith Cures, by Charles Cullis was published in 1879, has 109 pages, and is subtitled “Answers to Prayer in the Healing of the Sick.” Cullis had previously been impressed by the work of Dorothea Trudel, of Switzerland, had visited her institution, and had published an account of her life and work. He then followed her example of praying for the sick, along with his medical work (for he was a physician), and this book recounts some of the results. We do not care for Cullis's continual reference to “Jesus,” after the manner of the modern Pentecostals, (though not by any means confined to them). A biography of Cullis, entitled Dr. Cullis and his Work, was written by W. H. Daniels and published in 1885. It has 364 pages.

In 1882 A. J. Gordon published The Ministry of Healing, a book of 249 pages, subtitled “Miracles of Cure in All Ages.” Later writers have disputed, apparently with good reason, the reality of one of his miracles, but I suppose that most of them will stand. The book is not a mere rehearsal of miraculous cures, but deals with the subject in depth from Scripture and history. Gordon strongly suggests, while refusing to be dogmatic, that Christ vicariously bore our sicknesses as well as our sins.

A. B. Simpson did not fear to be dogmatic on this point. His doctrine of “healing in the atonement” is set forth in The Gospel of Healing, first published, I believe, in 1888. I have only the revised edition, published in 1915. He treats bodily healing as a virtual right, to be claimed by faith, as surely secured by the cross of Christ as the forgiveness of sins. Abandon the doctor and all medicines, believe you are healed, and ignore the symptoms which remain. The book gives Simpson's own testimony, which we have no desire to dispute. Neither do we dispute the fact that many others were healed by his prayers. His doctrines I do dispute. Another book by Simpson, very scarce and very interesting, is Inquiries and Answers, published in 1887, and containing two parts----30 pages of answers to practical questions, and 107 pages of answers to opponents of healing, including Buckley and Charles Hodge.

In 1897 R. Kelso Carter published “Faith Healing” Reviewed After Twenty Years, a small but good book in which he takes to task the whole system of A. B. Simpson and the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which Simpson founded. He does a good job of it, being himself a former believer in the doctrines of the Alliance. The book contains some good information on Simpson, the Alliance, and some other proponents of faith healing.

Modern Miracles, by H. T. Davis, is a book of 157 pages, published in 1901 by God's Revivalist Office. Along with the Wesleyan doctrine of perfection common to that school, the author stands very forcefully for Simpson's doctrine of healing in the atonement. The book contains incidents from the past, statements from well known men, and some of the author's own experiences, along with some precious accounts of evident real miracles.

In 1921 came The Bible and the Body, by Rowland V. Bingham, the founder of the Sudan Interior Mission. This is an interesting book, containing good information on “healers” and the healing movement. Bingham believes in healing by prayer, but also insists on the use of proper diet and medicine (while admitting the “stupendous mistakes” of medical science). He contrasts the comparatively high death rate of the Christian and Missionary Alliance missionaries with the low death rate of those of the Sudan Interior Mission, attributing the former to their mistaken theory, and the latter to the devoted services of a good medical doctor.

Christ the Healer, being “Sermons on Divine Healing,” by F. F. Bosworth, was published in 1924. Bosworth was a Pentecostal. He follows Simpson's doctrine of “healing in the atonement.” The book generally manifests shallow thinking and doctrinal confusion.

Also published in 1924 was R. A. Torrey's Divine Healing, a very small book, but one of the sanest and soundest on the subject. He censures those who are so occupied with healing that they see it everywhere in the Bible, as well as those who think they are healed in spite of the fact that their “symptoms” remain. He affirms that many die for lack of medicine, but adds that he has little confidence in much of what is called medicine, and says, “I am sure that many of the Christian Science cures are due to the people being induced to give up doping themselves with all sorts of drugs and nostrums that were making them chronic invalids.” He properly applies Romans 8:11 to the future resurrection, not to healing in the present life. He believes in the prayer of faith, and in anointing with oil, as well as in miracles of healing in the present day, but insists that his main business is to preach the gospel, not to heal the sick.

A. C. Gaebelein's The Healing Question, which has 132 pages, was published in 1925. Gaebelein is so bent on discrediting the false that he denies the true also. Anointing with oil is medicinal only, the promised “greater works” are spiritual only, Mark 16 is for the apostles only, the prayer of faith may go unanswered, and miracles have ceased----though there are genuine miracles among modern papists! The book contains some good historical information.

Divine Healing in Scripture and Life, by John Roach Straton (a leader of Baptist fundamentalists), was published in 1927. It contains ten sermons in 154 closely-printed pages. It is dedicated “To the Cherished Memory of A. B. Simpson” and the workers of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Straton adheres to Simpson's system. Doctors, he says, are for the natural man, and for those who do not know the truth. Divine healing is for those who fully trust the Lord. “Anyone taking medicine,” he says, “in the very nature of things, cannot trust Christ as fully and freely as the one who lays aside all remedies and trusts the supernatural divine power only.” He might have added, anyone who works for his living cannot fully trust God for his daily bread. It seems never to have entered the minds of these men that to abandon legitimate and proper natural means, for the sole purpose of trusting God, is as much tempting God as it would have been for Christ to have abandoned the natural support of the pinnacle of the temple. In the case of modern drugs and medical procedures, many of which do more harm than good, besides being far beyond the limits of our financial ability, the matter may be altogether different. Faith may stand me in good stead if I accidentally take up a venomous serpent, as Paul did, but to take one up on purpose, for the mere purpose of trusting God, is neither more nor less than tempting him.

The Man of Mercy, by Paul Rader (who was Simpson's successor as head of the Christian and Missionary Alliance), came out in 1928. Its main purpose is to exhort folks to believe, and to that end he insists over and over that it is the will of God to heal.

Miraculous Healing, by Henry W. Frost, was first published in 1931. It is subtitled “A Personal Testimony and Biblical Study.” It is generally sane and characterized by common sense, following the same lines as others who reject Simpson's system of “healing in the atonement,” yet believe in miraculous healing.

Whipping-Post Theology, by W. E. Biederwolf, is a large book of 305 pages, published in 1934. It opposes “healing in the atonement.” The title refers to the doctrine of Aimee Semple McPherson and others, that Christ atoned for sicknesses at the whipping-post (“by his stripes we are healed”). This book contains a chapter of 60 pages on “The History of Healing,” which contains good historical information.

All of these books are scarce, and I have never seen but one copy of most of them. Straton's I found at an antique shop in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and paid a quarter for it.

I mention also a couple of pamphlets. The first is by Harry Ironside, called “Divine Healing”----So Called, and contains only six pages of type. Ironside dwells upon the cases of Christians who were sick in the New Testament, and deals out a number of typical Plymouth Brethren denials, namely, that any of the Christian's blessings are anything but spiritual, and in the heavenly places, that it is possible in the present state of the church to call for the elders of the church, and that the passage in James has any proper reference to Christians (though he grants that James 5:16 may apply to all). Another pamphlet is by I. M. Haldeman (another Baptist fundamentalist), entitled Did Our Lord Jesus Christ By His Death On The Cross Atone For Bodily Sickness And Disease? No! Never!! This has 31 pages, and is mainly devoted to discrediting false doctrines, false teachers, and false miracles. He seems to imply that all miracles in the present day are false----that is, done by Satanic power.

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Myles Coverdale, Translator of First Printed English Bible, on Books

Now I begyne to taste of Holy Schryptures; now (honor be to God) I am sett to the most swete smell of holy lettyres1, with the godly savour of holy and awncyent2 Doctours, unto whose knowlege I can not attayne, without dyversyte3 of bookys, as is not unknowne to your most excellent wysdome. Nothyng in the world I desyre, but books[,] as concerning my lernyng; they onse4 had, I do not dowte5, but Allmighty God schall perfourme that in me, whych He, of Hys most plentyfull favour and grace, haith begone.6 ----Letter to Thos. Cromwell. Memorials of Myles Coverdale, London: Samuel Bagster, 1838, pg. 7.

lletters 2ancient 3diversity 4once 5doubt 6begun

“Easter” in the English Bible

Explanations and Comments

(by the editor)

The accompanying table lists every place where the Greek word pavsca (pascha) occurs in the Greek New Testament, along with its translation in the various early English versions. The word pavsca means “passover,” referring either to the passover lamb, the feast of the passover, or the day of the feast. That the word has not always been properly translated in the English Bible will be evident from a glance at the table, and it is hoped that the table, along with these few comments, will give to the reader a clear understanding as to why the word “Easter” stands in the common English version.

As the reader may see in the table, the word “Easter” appears only one time in the King James Bible. In that place it is so translated from the same Greek word which is everywhere else properly translated “passover.” But the King James Bible was not a translation at all, but only a revision of the former English versions. The word “Easter” no doubt stands in the King James Version because it stood in the Bishops' Bible, and the King James revisers did not change it. Why they did not change it we might be hard pressed even to conjecture, for they did change it in the other two places where it stood in the Bishops' Bible. It stood in the Bishops' Bible because it stood in the Great Bible. It stood in the great Bible because it stood in Thomas Matthew's Bible. It stood in Matthew's Bible because it stood in Tyndale's New Testament.

But let us review the whole case from the beginning. In the old Anglo-Saxon Gospels, which were translated from the Latin, and which were in circulation in England a thousand years and more ago, the word is always rendered by some form of the word “easter”----eastre, eastren, eastro, eastron, eastra, eastres----the variations dictated either by the inflections of the language, or by the capricious spelling which prevailed in those times. It means Easter. In Wycliffe's Bible, first translated about 1380, the word is invariably rendered “pask” or “paske,” which is no more than a transliteration of the Latin word, both the Latin and the Greek words being transliterations of the Hebrew word. Stratmann's Middle English dictionary defines this as meaning Passover, but the Oxford Universal Dictionary gives the Middle English meaning as either Passover or Easter. Neither of these versions had any organic connection with the protestant translations which are listed in our table, and they cannot be supposed to have exercised any influence upon them, except only as they may have influenced the thought and language of the English people.

The first protestant New Testament in English was the work of William Tyndale. Though his was generally a good translation, much of which survives to this day in the King James Version, yet he did not translate so literally and faithfully as we could wish. We might excuse him for this, on the ground that he was translating for a people who had little or no previous acquaintance with the Bible, and he may have therefore felt some necessity at times to explain rather than merely translate----or, in the case before us, to replace a term which they might not understand with a term which they would. We do not justify this. We do not think it was either right or wise. We only offer it as a possible explanation as to why he may have substituted the word “Easter” for the proper translation “passover.” But beyond this, there can be no question that Tyndale was influenced by Luther's German version, which always has Oster, Osterfest (once only), or Osterlamm----that is, Easter, Easterfest, or Easterlamb----for Tyndale follows Luther not only in the use of these terms, but in the exact places where Luther uses them, varying from him only a couple of times in this. The striking parallelism between Luther's version and Tyndale's English New Testament, which the reader may plainly see in the table, cannot be mere coincidence. And though German dictionaries define Ostern as meaning Easter to the Christian, and Passover to the Jew, Luther evidently meant “Easter” by it, for he usually uses Passah in the Old Testament (though Ostern, Osterfestes, and Osterlamm appear here and there). Tyndale evidently also meant “Easter” in his New Testament, for he uniformly uses “passeouer” (or “passeover”) in his Pentateuch (published in 1530), and introduces it with the marginal note, “The lambe vvas called passeover that the very name itself shuld put them in remembraunce vvhat it signified”----yet he retains “ester” and “ester lambe” in his last revision of the New Testament, published four or five years after his Pentateuch.

But let us clearly understand, whatever Tyndale's reasons or motives may have been, he was wrong. The word means passover, not Easter. It never did nor can mean Easter. The passover is “a feast of the Jews” (John 6:4). When was Easter ever “a feast of the Jews”? Ask a Jew! Yet apparently nothing daunted by this, Tyndale gave us such anomalies as “ester, a feast of the Iewes” in John 6:4, and “the Iewes ester” in John 2:13 and 11:55. Tyndale's translation became the basis of all of the revisions which followed, down to the King James Version, and his “ester” was largely retained by his successors. Myles Coverdale varied but little in this particular from Tyndale. Thomas Matthew's Bible, in this particular, varied nothing at all from Tyndale's last revision, except only in a couple cases of spelling, which was always capricious at that time.

The first English Bible to use the correct word “passover” was the Great Bible of 1539, a revision of Matthew's Bible, edited by Myles Coverdale. This version replaced the wrong rendering about half the time, but apparently with as little reason as consistency, for we still find in it “the Iewes Easter” and “easter, a feast of the Iewes.” Richard Taverner's Bible, also published in 1539, and evidently completely independent of the Great Bible, also employed the word “passover,” but much more sparingly, and he also retained those anomalies already mentioned, along with “Christ our Esterlambe” in I Cor. 5:7.

The Geneva New Testament of 1557 made no improvement in this particular (though it did in many others), but the revision of it which went into the Geneva Bible of 1560, in a move which was neither more nor less than simple faithfulness to the Greek original, made a clean sweep, replacing all of the old incorrect renderings with “passover” throughout. It would have been well for us if their successors had followed their example.

But such was not to be. The Bishops' Bible of 1568 was produced precisely for the purpose of counteracting the popularity of the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible was the Bible of the Puritans, and it, especially because of its marginal notes, was disagreeable to Queen Elizabeth and her Episcopal churchmen. Yet the Bible of the Church of England (the Great Bible) could not hold its own against the superior accuracy of the Geneva Bible, and the latter fast became the Bible of the people. It was to deal with this state of things that the bishops of the Church of England produced the Bishops' Bible, which was sometimes nicknamed Queen Elizabeth's “Opposition Bible.” The Bishops' Bible was of course largely influenced by the renderings of the Geneva Bible, but the basis of the Bishops' Bible was not the Geneva Bible, but the Great Bible, of which it was a revision. And so in three places it failed to imitate the consistent faithfulness of the Geneva Bible, and retained “Easter” from the Great Bible. Why it did so in those three places, and not in the rest of the New Testament, is impossible to say, but it should be borne in mind that different men revised different parts of the book.

Last in the line comes the King James Version, which was a revision of the Bishops' Bible. Its editors eliminated two of the remaining three occurrences of the word “Easter,” substituting the correct word “passover.” Why did they not do the same in the third and last instance? No one knows, but we certainly do know that they ought to have done so. Easter was first a pagan holiday, and then a papal. It had no place in Christianity as God gave it, neither had it any place in the Bible as God gave it, and it does not belong in either the one nor the other.

Groaning
by Glenn Conjurske

“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” (II Cor. 5:1-4).

This passage contains two plain assertions that the present portion of Christians is groaning. “In this we groan.” “This” is “our earthly house of this tabernacle” (vs. 1)----that is, our body. Verse 6, “whilst we are at home in the body,” makes this clear enough. And Paul repeats the assertion: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” So long as we “are in this tabernacle,” this body of flesh and blood, “we do groan, being burdened.” There is no art or science of man, no promise of God, no gospel of Christ, no faith, and no “faith healer,” that can eliminate this. “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.” Paul makes no attempt to prove this. Why should he? He merely asserts it as an obvious and unquestioned fact, proved by the experience of the whole human race.

But who is meant by “we”? Everyone who is “in this tabernacle.” “We that are in this tabernacle do groan.” Groaning belongs to everyone who is “in the body.” This groaning will not end until we are either “unclothed” at death, or “clothed upon” with our house from heaven, at the resurrection. And Paul refers particularly to Christians. “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.” (Verse 5). There is thus seen to be no difference in this matter between those who have the Spirit of God, and those who have him not. We all together “do groan, being burdened.” There is no escaping this, and those who deny it must deny the plain Scriptures of God, as well as the manifest experience of the whole human race. Neither is there, or can there be, anything anywhere else in the Bible which any way alters or overturns these plain assertions: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.”

Some however, with little inclination to credit Paul's repeated assertion, or to allow it to have its true force, have brought forward various promises of God in an attempt to set aside the fact which Paul here affirms. One such promise is that found in Romans 8:11, which says, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” On this verse A. B. Simpson writes, “That is not the resurrection, but the quickening of the Spirit in our present or mortal bodies, as the earnest and first fruits of the full redemption then. Divine Healing is a little embryo of the resurrection, a prophetic thrill of the life of immortality.” In this interpretation Simpson has been followed by a myriad of would-be healers and would-be healed. But the interpretation does no justice to the verse itself, and it stands in direct contradiction to the context.

In the verse itself, Simpson's interpretation ignores the change in tense. “If the Spirit...dwell in you.” This is present tense----and indicative, by the way, not subjunctive, as the King James Version would make it to appear. It is “If the Spirit...dwelleth in you,” the statement of a present condition, true in this life, the same as “his Spirit that dwelleth in you” at the end of the same verse. Not so when he says, “he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.” This is future, as in the second half of verse 13 (there is no future tense in the first half, but an infinitive), where we read “If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Here we have the same word “if” with the present indicative in the first clause, followed by the future tense in the second clause, exactly in verse 11. The mortifying of the deeds of the body is a present thing. “Ye shall live,” is future, and refers to nothing in this life, but to eternal life. To attempt to refer “ye shall live” to anything in this life would be to turn it into a manifest falsehood, for those who mortify the deeds of the body die as soon as others, and it may be the sooner. “Ye shall live” cannot refer to anything in this life, and neither can “shall quicken” in verse 11.

And observe further, “quicken” does not mean to heal or invigorate or strengthen or anything of the sort, as Simpson's interpretation must make it mean, but to make alive. The Greek word is a compound of two words, meaning literally “make alive.” Behold how the same word is used elsewhere:

John 5:21. “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them.”

Romans 4:17. “God, who quickeneth the dead.”

I Cor. 15:22. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

I Peter 3:18. “Put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”

The word has nothing to do with communicating health to the ailing, but life to the dead, and except where it refers to spiritual quickening of souls dead in sins, it can refer to nothing but resurrection of dead bodies. And this is obviously what it refers to in Romans 8:11. What the verse says is, “he that raised up Christ from the dead shall ALSO quicken your mortal bodies”----that is, make them alive. At present they are already alive, and there is no occasion to quicken them. This refers to the future resurrection, and to nothing whatever in this life. If people were not so enamored with their doctrine of healing that they see it everywhere in the Bible, they would never have seen it here.

So much for the verse itself. When we turn to the context, the case becomes plainer still. The reader would do well to open to the passage and keep it before him, though I shall quote each verse in its turn, beginning with verse 17, which says, “And if children, then heirs: heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” The suffering is present; the glorification is future, at the resurrection. The next verse (18) is equally clear: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” The sufferings are present; the glory is future. There is no hint here that we have any right to expect relief from our sufferings here and now, but just the contrary.

Verses 19 through 22 are somewhat obscured in all the early English versions, from Tyndale on, by the use of the word “creature” instead of the better rendering “creation.” The King James Version very happily replaced “every creature” of the earlier versions with “the whole creation” in verse 22. Why they did not do so through the whole passage is a mystery, for the Greek word is the same throughout. Now examine the passage in this light. “For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” (Vs. 19). The manifestation of the sons of God has nothing to do with anything in this present life, but with the coming glory which he had just spoken of in the preceding verse. “Manifestation” is “apocalypse” in the Greek, the same word as the title, and the first word, of the book of Revelation. It is the revelation of the sons of God which is here spoken of, the same event which Paul elsewhere describes thus: “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” (Col. 3:4). This is the event for which the whole creation earnestly waits. Why?

“For [which means because] the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him [God] who hath subjected the same in hope.” (Vs. 20). When man sinned, God subjected the whole creation to vanity for man's sake, but he subjected it in hope. It is not always to remain in its present marred condition. The curse will yet be lifted from the earth, as other prophecies besides this one declare, and as the next verse clearly teaches. When Christ appears, and we appear with him in glory, “the creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” “Glorious liberty” is a paraphrase, as unnecessary as it is detrimental to the true sense of the verse. This is not the liberty of grace which we now possess, but “the liberty of the glory”----the glory which shall be revealed in us when the sufferings of this present time are ended (vs. 18), the glory in which we shall appear with Christ when he appears. None of this has anything to do with the present life. We do not have the liberty of the glory now, and shall not have it till we reach the resurrection state.

When we are manifested with Christ in that glory, the whole creation shall then be delivered also from the bondage of corruption. “But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Is. 11:4-9). This is that blessed day of glory for which our hearts and our lips sigh in the words which the Saviour taught us, “Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” For all of this the creation itself waits----“in hope”----and meanwhile the whole creation groans.

“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves GROAN WITHIN OURSELVES, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” (Vss. 22-23). We----we Christians----we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit----we stand upon exactly the same ground as the rest of the creation. The whole creation groans together until now, and we ourselves groan within ourselves. The whole creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God in glory, and we wait for the body of glory in which we shall be manifested. “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his body of glory.” (Phil. 3:20-21, Greek).

Meanwhile, we groan, subject to exactly the same bondage of corruption (physical, not moral) which wrings one vast and continuous groan from the whole creation. “We ourselves” groan. We “which have the firstfruits of the Spirit” groan. The assertion that the Spirit who dwells in us so “quickens” us as to give us health and vigor now, and free us from our groaning now, not only empties the word “quicken” of its real meaning, but also stands directly against everything in the passage.

In fairness to Simpson and his school, it should be stated that he has an explanation of this groaning, but it is a very lame one. He says, “We have enough of this life now to make us groan for its completion.” This is wresting the text from its obvious import, and scarcely calls for any more answer than merely to quote the text: “We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together until now. And not only they, but OURSELVES ALSO, which have received the firstfruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves.” This makes it perfectly plain that we who have received the firstfruits of the Spirit groan with the same groaning with which the rest of the creation does. Has the lower creation received enough of the resurrection life to make it groan for more? Nothing of the sort. The creation groans, “being burdened”----and so do we. As for “healing in the atonement,” there is no reason to doubt that. Our deliverance from death, from pain, from sorrow, and from tears, all comes to us through the cross of Christ, the same as our deliverance from hell. Nobody doubts this. The only question is whether we are promised all of this deliverance now in this life, or in the life to come. The passage before us in Romans 8, as well as other scriptures, make it plain enough that it is in the life to come, not in this life, that we receive the promised deliverance. For example, Revelation 21:2-4: “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

And there is yet more in Romans 8. The creation was subjected to the bondage of corruption in hope of a future deliverance, and we also are saved in hope. “For we are saved in hope [same words in the Greek as in verse 20]: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” (Vss. 24-25). The plain teaching of this is that we do not yet see the objects of our hope. We do not yet possess them. The glory, the redemption of our body, the quickening of our mortal body----for all of this we wait, in hope of a future realization of it. And meanwhile, we groan. Our bodies are not redeemed yet. They are not quickened yet, but are subject to the same curse, the same bondage of corruption, that still burdens the rest of the creation.

We have no more right to expect health and vigor----freedom from groaning----here and now, than we have to expect the bees to cease to sting, the mosquitoes to bite, the thistles to grow, the lion to kill, or the abrogation of any other of the fruits of the bondage of corruption to which God has subjected the whole creation. It shall all surely be done, when Christ is revealed, Satan bound, the curse lifted, the kingdom come, and the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven----when “the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients in glory.” (Is. 24:23). “His ancients” will be revealed with him in their resurrection glory. But all of this belongs to the future, and has nothing to do with the present life.

But someone will object that we have no promise of God for the present removal of any other of the effects of the curse, but for bodily healing we do. I know very well that we do, and I believe in that promise as much as anyone else does. But we neither do nor can have any promise of healing which contradicts this plain fact of Scripture and human experience: “we do groan.”

But a promise of healing we do have. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick”----save him, not relieve him of every ache and pain and sneeze and sniffle----“and the Lord shall raise him up”----from the bed of death or disability. (James 5:15). The language employed limits this promise to disabling or fatal illness, and it has nothing to do with relieving us from the groaning which belongs to the bondage of corruption. The dull hearing, the dimming eyes, the aching joints, the decaying teeth, the stooping shoulders, the weary limbs, the general deterioration of the whole body with age----there is no promise of God in the Bible and no faith on the earth which will relieve us of this. I have no doubt that prayer and faith may relieve some of us some of the time from some of the effects of aging, and so may diet and exercise. So indeed may a merry heart, which “doeth good like a medicine.” But there is no faith on earth which can “quicken” a man's mortal body in Simpson's sense, or deliver it from the bondage of corruption before the resurrection day. Every one whom Christ and his apostles raised from the dead must grow old and die again, and so must every one whom they healed of sickness. With all of his faith, and all of his doctrine on this subject, A. B. Simpson must feel the infirmities of old age like other men. He must wear glasses like other men (though he put it off as long as he could). Like all other men, he must “fall sick of his sickness whereof he died” (II Kings 13:14), though the “Official Authorized Edition” of his biography, published by the Alliance which he founded, refuses to tell us about it, or even to mention the fact that he died. Not the promises of God, not the doctrine of healing, nor yet the faith which healed many others, could deliver A. B. Simpson from the bondage of corruption. There is no escaping this till we see Christ as he is, and are glorified together. Till then, “WE GROAN.”

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Is the Church of Rome the Antichrist?
by Glenn Conjurske

I have received several publications of late which confidently affirm that the papacy is the antichrist, and that there shall be no other. This belief might appear harmless to some, but it is based upon a very careless use of the Scriptures, and leads to further carelessness, especially in its departure from the literal meaning of many of the prophetic scriptures. This is a system of allegorical (falsely called “spiritual”) interpretation, which makes Scripture mean almost anything except what it says. Those who “spiritualize” the reign of antichrist usually “spiritualize” the reign of Christ also, and so of course the binding of Satan, thus veiling the true character of the present age. Thus they fail to recognize the most of the army of the enemy, while they inveigh against one of his detachments.

It is typical of such publications to discourse, on the one hand, on the great spirituality of the Reformers (whose doctrine they follow), and on the other hand, on the supposed evil origin of the doctrine that the antichrist is a man. Of direct appeal to the Scriptures they contain but little----and little wonder, for the Scriptures afford them but little help. I intend to make my appeal directly to the Scriptures, yet I dare not completely ignore these two favorite arguments of the opposing party.

In the first place, I admire the Reformers, and rejoice in all that they were. Yet they were but men, and had weaknesses, and very great ones, both in doctrine and practice. What is the meaning of modern professed Protestants exalting these men to the place of virtual infallibility, and allowing them to determine their faith for them? This is popery in principle, and I utterly repudiate it. Those who teach that the papacy is the antichrist claim to be perpetuating the teaching of the Reformers (which in fact they are). But to me this is beside the point. I am called to teach the Bible, not the teachings of any set of men, no matter how great and good they may have been. The Reformers were men of God, but they were just emerging from the Egyptian darkness of the dark ages, and they certainly did not see all things clearly. None of them (except the Anabaptists) so much as understood what the church is, but followed the Catholic example of baptizing babies, and made the true Church out to be the whole population of the country. Luther was often led astray by Augustine, and under his influence made void the prophetic scriptures in general. It was quite natural for a man in Luther's position, and with his temperament, to declare the papacy to be the antichrist. This we might excuse: but there is less excuse for folks in this day who use the Bible not to learn the whole truth of God, but only to glean support for the teachings of the doctors of the past. This is in fact practically to set aside the Bible, and revert to one of the leading principles of Romanism. With that I will have nothing to do, but will oppose it with all my might.

As for the supposed evil origin (the Jesuits!) of the doctrine for which I stand, they must be either ignorant or dishonest who assert such a thing. That the antichrist is a man----an individual----was the doctrine of the early church, before the existence of papacy or Jesuit, and of course before the existence of the wretched system of “spiritual” interpretation which makes the Bible mean anything or everything or nothing, but never allows it to mean what it says. And if folks wish to speak of the evil origins of things, let them study the origin of that “spiritual” system of interpretation, and they will find it to have been born and bred in worldliness and unbelief of the worst sort. The early church knew nothing of such a system of interpretation, nor of the antichrist being anything other than an individual man.

Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, who was in turn a disciple of the apostle John, writes much of the antichrist, and always treats him as an individual person, who will come upon the scene in the last days, enter the temple in Jerusalem and show himself as Christ, reign over the earth for three years and six months, and be destroyed by Christ at his coming.1 Hippolytus also, a disciple of Irenaeus, speaks in the same vein, in his Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, clearly setting forth that Daniel's “one week” when antichrist flourishes is the last week at the end of the world, before the coming of Christ.

Hippolytus was noted as a vigorous opponent of the bishops of Rome (now called popes) at the beginning of the third century. And yet now we are told that his doctrine was invented by a Jesuit in order to save the papacy from the odium of being antichrist!

I attach no authority to the teachers of the early church. I refer to them only to show the falsity of the statement that the doctrine of an individual antichrist is the invention of a Jesuit. To the Scriptures I will make my appeal. These modern tracts and booklets claim that the Catholic Church must be the antichrist precisely because all of the prophecies concerning the antichrist are fulfilled, or “exhausted” in it, yet the real fact is, these publications simply ignore many of those prophecies, and with others they deal in so loose and careless a manner as in reality to empty them of their meaning. They attach to them a “spiritual” sense which fails altogether to reckon with what the prophecies actually say. This will become very clear as we proceed.

But first let one thing be clearly understood: I affirm without hesitation that the Roman Catholic Church is anti-Christian, having very little in common with true Christianity. No one who knows anything of the Bible and of the Church of Rome can have any doubt of this. Rome is the great whore of Revelation 17, full of filthiness and fornication and abominations and blasphemies, and drunk with the blood of the saints. This is her unchanging character, and the true church of God can have no union, no cooperation, and no fellowship with Rome. In contending that the Church of Rome is not the antichrist, I have not the least thought of commending or exonerating her. She is the implacable enemy of God and the Bible, and always will be. Yet the same may be said of the Moslem religion and the Communist Party, and yet neither of them are the antichrist, though many points of agreement between them and the antichrist might be found.

This much being prefaced, it only remains for us to show that the papacy, the popes, or the Roman Church, cannot be the antichrist, for the simple and conclusive reason that the papacy does not fulfill the scriptural prophecies concerning the antichrist.

In the first place, the antichrist is a man, not a system, nor a succession of men. This, I know, is vehemently denied by those who contend for a papal antichrist, but consider the following: “...as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. They [the many antichrists] went out from us, but they were not of us,” etc. (I John 2:18-19). This scripture plainly distinguishes between “the antichrist” (which is what the Greek says) and “many antichrists” who precede him. Now these “many antichrists” are men, individual persons, who had gone out from among the true saints. They are not systems, nor dynasties, and neither is “the antichrist.” He is “the man of sin, the son of perdition.” (II Thes. 2:3). This latter epithet is applied to the man Judas Iscariot in John 17:12. The antichrist “opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God.” (II Thes. 2:4). Christ says to the Jews concerning him, “I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” (John 5:43). He is a man, the same as Christ is.

“He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (II Thes. 2:4). “And they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.” (Rev. 13:4-5, and so on through verse 8.) In Daniel we read of him, “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” (Daniel 7:25). (This time and times and the dividing of time, by the way, is equal to one time and two times and a half a time, or three and a half years, the precise equivalent of the forty and two months in the verse just quoted from Revelation, and of the 1260 days mentioned elsewhere. It is the latter half of Daniel's seventieth week, which will be ended by the personal coming of Christ, and the destruction of the antichrist. I merely mention this in passing, as the proof of my thesis no way depends upon it.)

Some have put forth the silly claim that the beast of the book of Revelation cannot be a man because it is a kingdom. We might with just as much truth assert that the beast cannot be a kingdom because it is a man, but this assertion would be as silly as the other. The beast in fact represents both the antichrist and his kingdom, precisely as the “head of gold” in Daniel 2 represents both the Babylonian kingdom, and its great monarch Nebuchadnezzar. “Thou art this head of gold,” says Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, and yet goes on immediately to add, “and after thee shall arise another kingdom [not king] inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth, and the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron,” etc. (Daniel 2:38-40). Now if the remainder of this great image represents another kingdom, and a third kingdom, and a fourth kingdom, then obviously the head represents the first kingdom----and no interpreter of prophecy doubts this. Yet we are explicitly told that the head represents the king, a man. The beast of the book of Revelation may likewise certainly represent both the kingdom of antichrist and the man who is the head of it.

Now in direct contrast to all of these plain references to the antichrist as a man, the Bible refers to the false church as a woman, and always speaks of her in the female gender. She is “the great whore,” “and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” (Rev. 17:1-2). She is “the mother of harlots,” “the woman drunken with the blood of the saints.” (Verses 5-6). “For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” (Rev. 18:5). “For she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow.” (Verse 7, and so constantly throughout chapters 17 and 18, and the beginning of 19.)

The seventeenth chapter of Revelation also expressly distinguishes between the woman and the beast. But the full and indisputable proof that this woman is not the antichrist is to be found in the end which Scripture assigns to each of them. The antichrist, as all admit, will be taken and destroyed by Christ at his coming: “whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” (II Thes. 2:8). A completely different doom awaits the woman, who represents the Church of Rome, as all admit. She usurps such power over the kings who reign with the beast that they hate and destroy her: “And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.” (Rev. 17:16).

The word “burn” is, in the Greek, to burn up, or consume with fire. Observe its usage in the following passages: Matt. 3:l2----“He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matt. 13:30----“Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them.” Acts 19:19----“Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men.” Heb. 13:11----“For the bodies of those beasts...are burned without the camp.” Rev. 8:7----“The third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.” There could be no stronger word to express the complete destruction of any thing, and in this we see the complete destruction of the Church of Rome. It will be carried out by the ten horns (which are ten kings, Rev. 17:12), and obviously and necessarily before the coming of Christ, for those kings will meet their end when Christ comes.

Other plain scriptures which the papacy cannot fulfill are all those which relate to the mark of the beast. I am, of course, well aware that these are the very scriptures which are most confidently claimed as proving that the papacy is the antichrist, but it is only by using them in the most vague and loose manner that they can be made to lend any appearance of support to the doctrine. If we but carefully examine what those scriptures actually say, they will lead us directly to the opposite conclusion.

To begin with what the mark of the beast actually is. Here there can be no doubt: it is “the name of the beast, or the number of his name,” which is 666. (Rev. 13:17-18). Yet directly in the teeth of this plain declaration of the Bible, there are some who inform us that the mark of the beast is “Latin worship,” or even “the sign of the cross”! Such assertions are mere foolishness, and betray minds governed by prejudice rather than Scripture. However evil the Latin worship or the sign of the cross may be, they have nothing to do with the mark of the beast. The mark is either one of two things: the name of the beast, or the number of his name, which is 666.

As to what the number 666 signifies, there has been great disagreement. Man has exercised his ingenuity upon this number ever since it was given by inspiration of God, with many and curious results. Suffice it to say that it is not too difficult to find epithets in various languages, the numerical value of which is 666, and which may be fastened upon the Church of Rome, or the popes. Some which have been suggested are: in Greek, lateinos (a Latin man), and he latine basileia (the Latin kingdom); in Hebrew, romiti (a Roman man); and in Latin, vicarivs Filii Dei (vicar of the Son of God). The latter is claimed with the utmost confidence, as it is purported to be an inscription in the pope's crown. But all of these theories break down as soon as we consider what the Scriptures actually say. The prophecy plainly tells us that 666 is “the number of a man,” and that it is “the number of his name.” This is individual and personal, and none of the words suggested can fulfill it. Vicarivs Filii Dei may be a title of the popes, but it is no man's name, and it is wresting the language to affirm that it is.

But the complete breakdown of all of these theories comes when we look at what the Bible says about the use of this mark. This part of the question is totally ignored by those who declare the popes to be the antichrist, and no wonder, for the papacy does not begin in any way to fulfill these scriptures. The Bible says, “He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark,” etc. (Rev. 13:16-17). When, where, how has the papacy ever done anything even remotely resembling this? Suppose the pope does wear a title on his crown, the number of which is 666, what is that to the purpose? The Bible says nothing whatsoever about that. It says not a word about the antichrist himself bearing such a mark. What it does say is that he causes all other men to receive it, and that none may buy or sell unless they do so. The papacy has never attempted such a thing, in any sense whatsoever. The number 666 will be a mark of certain identification of the antichrist, but only when it appears as the number of a man's name, and when all men are caused to receive it in order to be able to buy or sell. Till all of these things concur together, this prophecy is not fulfilled, and all the ingenuity exercised over the number 666 is mere idle speculation, which can prove nothing.

This consideration will of course drive the proponents of this doctrine to their usual loose and vague manner of interpreting Scripture. They will insist that these prophecies have a so-called “spiritual” fulfillment in the Church of Rome. Depending upon who is doing the so-called interpreting, to receive the mark of the beast in the right hand or in the forehead will be made out to mean to submit to the Roman worship, to make the sign of the cross, to adore the host, to profess faith in the Roman Church----or any number of other things which Romanism imposes upon its subjects. This is not interpreting prophecy, but wresting it; and by this method any prophecy of Scripture can be made out to mean just about anything under the sun. But waive that, and just suppose that some one of these “spiritual” interpretations is the true one. What will be the consequence? Clearly this: that NO ONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN A ROMAN CATHOLIC COULD EVER BE SAVED. For Scripture plainly tells us, “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” (Rev. 14:9-11). Assign, then, whatever “spiritual” meaning you please to the receiving of the mark of the beast, and this much will remain clear: all who have done it, whatever it is, have thereby sealed their doom, and can never be saved. And this is proof enough that the mark of the beast has nothing to do with the present system of Romanism.

The universal dominion of the antichrist is another point which Romanism does not fulfill. Of antichrist we read, “all the world wondered after the beast,” and “power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:3,7-8). The papacy, it is true, has always aspired to universal dominion, but has never exercised it. The Communist Party has also aspired to the same, and has in fact come closer to it than the papacy ever did in the height of its glory, but neither of them have ever fulfilled this prophecy, and neither of them are the antichrist, though both have much in common with him, for they are all inspired by the same devil.

Another scripture which the papacy cannot fulfill is, “I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” (John 5:43). The popes and the Church of Rome do not, and never have, come in their own name. The Church of Rome always claims to be the Church of Christ, and the popes of Rome always claim to be the vicar, or representative, of Christ. The very title which is so confidently claimed to be the mark of the beast (“vicar of the Son of God”) is full proof of this.

Another point in John 5:43 cannot be fulfilled by the papacy, for it was to the Jews that Jesus said, “I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.” When have the Jews ever received the papacy, or the Church of Rome? Nay, it is often the crimes and corruptions of the papacy that keep the Jews from receiving Christ. But antichrist they “will receive.”

Of antichrist we read, “he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every God, and shall speak marvellous things against the God of gods... Neither shall he regard any god, for he shall magnify himself above all.” (Dan. 11:36-37). Further, “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (II Thes. 2:4). Bad as the papacy is, it has never fulfilled these plain prophecies, and as long as the popes claim to be the “vicar of Christ,” it never can. A vicar, in the very nature of the case, claims to be under Christ, as his representative. Though those who ransack history may be able to find a few words of some particular pope by which he claims divine honors or divine prerogatives, still it remains an indisputable fact that the papacy as such has never exalted itself “above all that is called God or that is worshipped.” And it is simply absurd to say of the papacy (full as it is of idolatry, and maintaining always a form of the worship of God and his Christ) that it does not regard any God, or that it magnifies itself above every God. This might be said truly enough of Communism, but certainly not of Romanism. Anyone who can seriously contend that the papacy “exhausts” the meaning of this prophecy only proclaims his own blindness. Words, phrases, grammar, all mean exactly nothing to him, and anything in the Bible may mean anything he pleases.

Again, “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” (I Jn. 2:22). Romanism has never denied that Jesus is the Christ, but has always upheld and taught it, and therefore the popes claim to be his vicar.

In three different places the Scriptures ascribe to the antichrist the working of miracles. The first relates not only to the antichrist himself, but to some of those many antichrists who shall precede him: “For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.” (Matt. 24:24). The others ascribe such power to the antichrist himself. “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders.” (II Thes. 2:9). “And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him...... And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, and deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast.... And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.” (Rev. 13:12-15).

Now the one thing which is perfectly obvious here is that these scriptures speak of real miracles, and cannot be fulfilled as they are claimed to be by the pretended miracles of Romanism. These are real miracles, actually done “in the sight of men”----not the cunningly devised fables of Romanism, miracles which no man ever has seen or can see, mere fabricated reports, which can deceive none but the credulous. The miracles which antichrist does are “with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” (II Thes. 2:10). They do actually “deceive them that dwell on the earth” (Rev. 14:14)----“insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24). But one booklet which I have singles out the term “lying wonders” from II Thes. 2:9, and insists that this refers to pretended miracles. The answer to this is extremely simple. In the first place, the verse says the antichrist comes not merely with lying wonders, but with “all power and signs,” after the working of Satan. Satan is certainly able to work miracles, and so are his servants (Ex.7:11-12,22;8:7). “Signs” are certainly miracles. “All power” is miraculous power, the word “power” itself being often translated “miracles” or “mighty works” (referring to Christ's miracles). Lying wonders are not pretended wonders (such as Romanism abounds in), but real wonders, which are used to deceive men from the truth. But suppose you could prove that “lying wonders” does in fact mean pretended miracles, what do you gain? Nothing, for you must still reckon with the fact that antichrist comes “with all power and signs,” as well as “lying wonders.” Even if you maintain that “lying” actually refers to “all power and signs” as well as “wonders,” still you gain nothing, for you must still reckon with the fact that Revelation 13 records actual miracles which he will do “in the sight of men,” and that it explicitly says he “had power to do” such “miracles.” Romanism does not, and never has, fulfilled these scriptures.

In conclusion we need only say that, in spite of the claim that is made that Romanism “exhausts all of the prophecies” of the Antichrist, when we once pay careful attention to what those prophecies actually say, it immediately becomes evident that Romanism “exhausts” the meaning of none of them. Romanism fulfills none of them. The beast is yet to come. The Church of Rome is the great whore, who will ride and control the beast (as she did to kings and emperors throughout the dark ages), but for that very reason she cannot be the beast.

Finally, let me address a word of exhortation to those who hold this doctrine. Not one in a thousand of you has come to this doctrine by merely studying the Bible. You have been led into this system of doctrine by others----by teachers who make it their business to teach the doctrines of the Reformers rather than the Bible. And the two are by no means identical, though the Reformers did hold much of the truth of the Bible. And in being thus led into this system of doctrine, you have been led at the same time into a system of interpretation which is extremely loose and careless in handling the word of God. It ignores (or is ignorant of) many of the scriptures which relate to the antichrist. Those which it uses are in fact misused. Any kind of vague resemblance is taken for proof, while they continually fail to deal fairly with what those scriptures actually say. The word of God is more precise than that, and deserves more reverence than that. And if you form the habit of using the Scriptures in such a loose and vague manner on this subject, what is to stop you from using them in the same way on other matters of equal or greater importance? This kind of “interpretation” is neither for the glory of God nor the good of your own soul. You need to repent of such a use of the holy word of truth. You need to cease making reckless and confident statements about what the Bible means, and humbly study what it says (for it means what it says). And those of you who have been guilty of it need to cease denouncing as “compromisers with Rome” those who disagree with you. I no more compromise with Rome than you do. If you love Christ and his cause, and hate Romanism (which Christ also hates), then I value your soul. I value your fellowship. I value your zeal. And I am very sorry to see that zeal thrown away upon a system of interpretation which makes void the word of God.

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1 Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book v, chap. xxv.

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NOTE: I learn from a recent issue of the Biblical Evangelist that John L. Bray, who has long been one of the most vocal opponents of premillennialism and pretribulationism, and the author of a number of booklets of the sort mentioned in the preceding article, has now come out against the Bible doctrine of hell. This should not surprise us. Once give up the literal interpretation of the Bible, and there is little security against this. Prophecy then means whatever the “interpreter” thinks it ought to mean, which very easily translates into----whatever he wants it to mean. With many who “spiritualize” prophecy, the future torment of the wicked is one of the few things left in the prophetic Scriptures which they take literally, and why should they not interpret that the same way they do the rest of Bible prophecy?

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The Folly of Federation Between the Church and the World

by R. E. Neighbour

(With commendations by R. A. Torrey, I. M. Haldeman, & C. I. Scofield)

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