Letters    

TO ONE WHO BELIEVES IN ANNIHILATIONISM

Dear R. W.                                                                                                         May 11, 1988

     ...First, the Scriptures contend they are "not of any private interpretation," i.e., they are to be interpreted as the Holy Spirit has given believers to understand them through the ages. Since "in the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom" does your exegesis of Scripture bear up according to the way godly men have interpreted it throughout the centuries? Is your handling of eschatology the same as John Gill, for instance, or Adam Clarke, or Matthew Henry, John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Trapp, John Brown, Thomas Watson, etc.?

    Second, your equating the word "torment" with "torture" is absurd. The former can be the product of the latter, but is not necessarily so. Your caricaturizing those who believe in the everlasting torment of the damned with believing God tortures the damned is like John R. Rice depicting Calvinists as believing that God forces the non-elect against their will into eternal perdition, or like Jefferson equating trinitarians with believing in tri-theism.

    I suspect that you are an Adventist at heart. I must go. You are in our heart.

Dear R. W.                                                                                                      August 22, 1988

      ...In Matthew 22:32, we read, "I am ..." (the present tense, meaning "right now, this moment and forever"); "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" (yet they were buried in the cave at Machpelah before Mamre). Jesus testifies, nevertheless, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, etc. are living now. Their bodies will rise, however, when their breath and soul reunite with the body.

    In Matthew 25:46, we read, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Calvin says of "everlasting life" that it "ever-lasts, or it is not everlasting." The same is true here.

    Some years ago, an outlawed army captured a missionary. For several days the missionary preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to the soldiers. At last, the order was received that the missionary must be put to death so that he could not disclose their location. As an act of mercy, the soldiers drugged the missionary so that his death would be an easy one. You see, where there is no consciousness, there can be no torment, and hence there can be no punishment.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE JEWS

Dear D. W.                                                                                              December 16, 1987

      ...Instead of trying to think up some new thing, you ought to receive the Scriptures as "Thus saith the Lord." Your unwillingness to do so has placed you in rational and spiritual straits. "Remove not the ancient landmark" (Proverbs 22:28) for "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do" (Psalm 11:3)

    Jesus is clearly identified as a Jew in John 4:9: "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans." And, in Hebrews 7:14, we read, "It is evident that our Lord sprang out of Juda; of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood." To argue that all Jews are "antichrist" is as fallacious as saying that all Baptists are Christians. The Bible calls Barnabas a Jew for he was a Levite (Acts 4:36). And, in Acts 10:28, we read, "Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company or to come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." Peter is the Jew here speaking.

     Apollos was a Jew according to Acts 18:24, and in Acts 21:39, Paul declares, "I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus ..." (See: II Corinthians 11:22 and Philippians 3:5). And, in Acts 16:20, Silas is also identified as being a Jew.

     The argument that the Jews no longer exist won't wash. "Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin" (Romans 11:1). While you attempt to make a distinction between being a "Jew" and being an "Israelite," and declare believers today to be Israelites, remember we are the wild olive tree that was grafted in—we are by faith children of Abraham, but not in a national sense. That there is a difference is clear from the fact that Paul enunciates what tribe he is from.

    The prophetess Anna (Luke 2:36) tells us she is from the tribe of Asshur. Zachariah (Luke 1:5) was of the tribe of Levi. Paul declares he was of the tribe of Benjamin (Philippians 3:5). And, we have already seen that Scripture declares Jesus to have been of the tribe of Judah. The point is, you cannot have 10 tribes supposedly lost since the Babylonian Captivity when we have here 5 of the tribes here identified. To recapitulate: we are by faith the children of Israel, with Abraham as our father—but not in the physical sense. Must go.

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