henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteous-
ness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall
give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all
them also that love His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:
7, 8. How very plain that he had his hopes fixed on
Herbert Photos, Inc.
The Turret of Death at Bokhara, Russia, where
many political prisoners were imprisoned and exe-
cuted. But the world is full of reminders of the
death that inevitably awaits the human race
MARCH, 1929
“the day of His appearing.” If he was to be with
Christ in some disembodied, spirit form, he never
prized such an existence very much. If there was
such an existence, it is plain indeed that according
to the interest Paul had in the second coming it
would be a great relief to get out of that disembodied
state into the raised “body.” He speaks of the Lord’s
return as ‘‘that blessed hope.” (Titus 2:13.) Would
it still be to him ‘“that blessed hope” after he died
and was with Christ in that existence without the
“body’’? Would he up in heaven with Christ still
be longing for the second coming of Christ and
thinking of it as ‘‘ that blessed hope”? If so, that dis-
embodied existence must be a burden from which
he would eagerly await deliverance. The fact is
that Paul expected to sleep until ‘His appearing,’
and then the day will come when “the Lord him-
self” will “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,” and
it was after this event that we shall be ‘with the
Lord.” 1 Thessalonians 4: 16, 17. So whatever Paul
said about being * with Christ” or ‘with the Lord”
after death he certainly meant that there would be a
period of time intervening that would be until
“the day of His appearing.” Since the Scriptures
plainly state that ‘‘the dead know not anything”
(Ecclesiastes 9: 5), there is no recognition of the
passing of time and to Paul it would be just as
though he had fallen asleep one minute and had
awakened the next instant ‘‘ with Christ.”
PERVERSION OF THE ‘‘BLESSED HOPE"
[Ef us picture the second coming of our Lord
according to the theory of being ‘‘ with Christ”
immediately after death as disembodied spirits.
We are told (by man, not God) that an immaterial
something comes out of the body at death and goes
on at once to be with Christ. This, they say, is true
of all the millions who have died “in Christ.” They
are up there in heaven with Christ now awaiting
the day of “His appearing” when the “body” shall
be raised. So then the day will come when Christ
will announce to these myriads of ‘‘spirits’ that
the day of His return to the earth has arrived. Then
Christ with all these ‘spirits’ will leave heaven and
descend to the earth. As they near the earth the
Lord raises lifeless bodies, millions of them. Then
Peter in “spirit” form will go down, enter one of
these bodies, and return back up “in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air.” At the same time these
other millions of disembodied saints will come down
to the ground, enter into these lifeless bodies, and go
back up to Christ in the “clouds” and then they
will all return to heaven, and that is ‘‘that blessed
hope”! What an ugly perversion of the second
coming of our Lord! According to such a theory
there can be no importance to it, or no “blessed hope”
about it, unless it is to get relief from that dis-
embodied state and again (Continued from page 33)
PAGE TWENTY-THREE