Forgotten Truths 6: The Lord Jesus' Return A FRUITFUL cause both of skepticism and of error is ignorance of what may be described as the ground plan and main purpose of the Old Testament Scriptures. "The whole Scriptures are a testimony to Christ: the whole history of the chosen people, with its types and its law and its prophecies, is a shewing forth of Him."1 This, however, is the spiritu ...read
Forgotten Truths 7: The Gentile Church ON the subject of the Coming of the Lord the First Epistle to the Thessalonians has an altogether exceptional importance. And the more closely we study the condition and circumstances of those to whom it was addressed, our sense of its importance will increase.
The opening clauses of the 17th chapter of the Acts contain all that the narrative re ...read
Forgotten Truths 8: The Second Coming, When? IT is a fact of great significance that the Coming of the Lord is never mentioned in the Epistles of the New Testament save in an incidental manner - never once as a doctrine that needed to be expounded, but only and always as a truth with which every Christian was supposed to be familiar.
This is strikingly exemplified by the passages already c ...read
Forgotten Truths 9: Meantime, the Church Age "MY people doth not consider." Such was the reproach cast upon Israel in the days of Isaiah's prophecy. And surely a like reproach rests upon the people of God today in regard to the promise of the Lord's return. During all His ministry He spoke of His coming again; and He confirmed the promise after His resurrection from the dead. The teaching of ...read
Forgotten Truths 10: Why the Great Delay? FULL well I know that the preceding chapter will give offence and be resented.1 But having regard to the awfully solemn import of the question here at issue, considerations of that kind must be ignored. For what concerns us is whether the lapse of nineteen centuries gives proof that the Lord has been false to His promise, or whether the history of ...read
Forgotten Truths 11: The "Bema" of Christ IN the Apostle Paul's farewell words to Timothy there is nothing more pathetic than his reference to the hope. In the school of grace he had learned to live looking for the Lord's appearing. (Titus 2:11-13) But now he writes, "the time of my departure is at hand." Perhaps it had been revealed to him, as it was revealed to Peter, that he was about t ...read
Forgotten Truths 12: Evangelization of the World THE exegetical system of "old-fashioned orthodoxy," "received by tradition from the Fathers," I once again repeat, leaves the Bible an easy prey to the sceptical attacks of the "Higher Criticism." In view of that movement, the defence of the Bible on the old lines is as hopeless as it would be to meet modern ordnance with the weapons which won the ...read
Forgotten Truths Appendix 1: The Eras of Servitude NOTE CHAPTER 3
THE Divine judgment of the 70 years' Servitude to Babylon fell in 606 B.C., which was the third year of King Jehoiakim, and the year before the accession of Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews refused to bow to the Divine judgment thus inflicted upon them, and in the ninth year of the Servitude they revolted (597 B.C.). This brought upon t ...read
Forgotten Truths Appendix 2: Is the Church the Bride of Christ? NOTE CHAPTER 5
"Is the Church the Bride of Christ?" Let us begin by correcting our terminology. In the Patmos visions we read of "the Bride, the Lamb's wife"; but "the Bride of Christ" is unknown to Scripture. The first mention of the Bride is in John 3:29. In a Jewish marriage the "friend of the bridegroom "answered to our "groomsman." His mo ...read
Forgotten Truths Appendix 3: The Lord's Coming in Greek Words NOTE CHAPTER 6
THERE are three different words used in the Greek Testament in relation to the Lord's Coming.
Parousia means primarily "presence" (see 2 Corinthians 10:10; Philippians 2:12), and it is used of any person's arrival (see, e.g., 1 Corinthians 16:17; 2 Corinthians 7:6, 7; etc.). In secular use it applied specially to any state vi ...read
Forgotten Truths Appendix 4: Philippians 3:8-14 PHILIPPIANS 3:8-141 NOTE CHAPTER 7
IF the commonly received exegesis of Philippians 3:8-14 be correct, we are faced by the astounding fact that the author of the Epistle to the Romans and of the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians -- the Apostle who was in a peculiar sense entrusted with the supreme revelation of grace -- announced when nearing the ...read
Forgotten Truths Appendix 5: Exclusion from Millennial Kingdom. NOTE CHAPTER 12
EXCLUSION from the millennial kingdom, we are told by some, will be the penalty imposed on Christians who lapse into immoral practices. And in proof of this we are referred to such passages as 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Galatians 5:21; Ephesians 5:5; etc. This assumes, however, that "the Kingdom of God" is merely a synonym for the ...read
Grace Reigns "The Gospel of the glory of the blessed God!"3
"Please, show me Your glory," was the prayer of Moses; and God answered, "I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."4 God's highest glory ...read
Sin and the Judgment to Come The Book of Judges records that in evil days when civil war was raging in Israel, the tribe of Benjamin boasted of having 700 men who "could sling stones at a hair breadth and not miss." Nearly two hundred times the Hebrew word chatha, here tranlated "miss," is rendered "sin" in our English Bible ; and this striking fact may teach us that while "al ...read
The Bible or the Church: Preface THE subject of these pages is one of the highest interest, and it is only those who are in some way behind the scenes who can judge aright of its peculiar urgency at the present moment.
"The greatest achievement in English history" is a distinguished historian's estimate of the Reformation ; but in this flippant and shallow age we seem to be let ...read
The Bible or the Church: Chapter 1 "IT was the main purpose of the then rulers of the Church to put prominently forward the supremacy of the Bible."
These words are quoted from the Archbishops' decision in the famous Incense case; and they indicate the chief aim of the leaders of the Reformation in England. For the Reformation was not merely a revival, it was a revolt. And eccles ...read
The Bible or the Church: Chapter 2 UNIVERSALITY OF RELIGION
"AS soon as man grew distinct from the animal he became religious." No one gifted with a sense of humour could have gravely penned a suggestion so grotesque as this. That the remote descendant of an ape might become intelligent, philosophical, mathematical, musical, poetical, scientific - all this possibly we could under ...read
The Bible or the Church: Chapter 3 IS "Christian Religion" True
ONE of the most obvious consequences of the conclusion reached in the preceding chapter is neglected or refused by many who profess to accept that conclusion most unreservedly. If it be the spiritual side of man's complex being that has suffered most by the disaster which has befallen him, it is here that the result ...read
The Bible or the Church: Chapter 4 Dr. Pusey's Teaching
A THEORY, a legend, and a blunder - such, as we have seen, are the pillars upon which rest the proud pretensions of the great Western Church of Christendom. And the discovery may well lead us to distrust that Church's teaching, and fearlessly to investigate the truth of every dogma for which she claims our faith.
Now if t ...read
The Bible or the Church: Chapter 5 "THE extravagances which disfigure the record and practice of Buddhism are to be referred to that inevitable degradation which priesthoods always inflict upon great ideas committed to their charge." Thus writes Sir Edwin Arnold, in the preface to his great Indian poem; and the words may serve to "point a moral" here.
In its origin Buddhism was n ...read
Robert Anderson