First Great Deception
453
It is an undeniable fact that the hope of immortal blessedness at
death has led to widespread neglect of the Bible doctrine of the resur-
rection. This tendency was remarked by Dr. Adam Clarke, who, early
in the present century, said: “The doctrine of the resurrection appears
to have been thought of much more consequence among the primitive
Christians than it is now! How is this? The apostles were continu-
ally insisting on it, and exciting the followers of God to diligence,
obedience, and cheerfulness through it. And their successors in the
present day seldom mention it! So apostles preached, and so primitive
Christians believed; so we preach, and so our hearers believe. There is
not a doctrine in the gospel on which more stress is laid; and there is
not a doctrine in the present system of preaching which is treated with
more neglect!”
This has continued until the glorious truth of the resurrection has
been almost wholly obscured, and lost sight of by the Christian world.
Thus a leading religious writer, commenting on the words of Paul in
1
[548]
Thessalonians 4:13-18
, says: “For all practical purposes of comfort
the doctrine of the blessed immortality of the righteous takes the place
for us of any doubtful doctrine of the Lord’s second coming. At our
death the Lord comes for us. That is what we are to wait and watch
for. The dead are already passed into glory. They do not wait for the
trump for their judgment and blessedness.”
But when about to leave his disciples, Jesus did not tell them that
they would soon come to him. “I go to prepare a place for you,” he
said. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and
receive you unto myself.” [
John 14:2, 3
.] And Paul tells us, further,
that “the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with
the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead
in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air;
and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” And he adds, “Comfort one
another with these words.” [
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
.] How wide the
contrast between these words of comfort and those of the Universalist
minister previously quoted. The latter consoled the bereaved friends
with the assurance, that, however sinful the dead might have been,
when he breathed out his life here he was to be received among the
angels. Paul points his brethren to the future coming of the Lord, when