T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
137
TKeVirgin Birth a Necessary Fact Dr. W. B. Hinson Pastor of the East Side Baptist Church, Portland, Oregon
1 Timothy 3:16. “Great is the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.” ■ N the dateless beginning God reigned alone— “In the beginning God.” In the dateless consumma tion God alone reigns— “Then cometh the end,” says Paul, “when He shall have subdued all His enemies, and God shall be all in all.” That is the termina tion of this dispensationary series of revelations concern ing God. That is where it ends. All other dispensations have ended in tumult, downtearing and wild strife. This alone ends in victory and undisturbed peace. It will also be the extermination of all evil. Whatsoever is not of God will be consigned to hell then. And in the universe of light which shall be controlled by God, there will not be a single pang in the heart, doubt in the mind, fear in the soul the universe through. It will be the period of exulta tion when all the redeemed hosts of God shall come to Zion with singing, and when everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. That is the end of all ends, the final end; and beyond that there will be nothing but the white light of eternity, the smile of God’s reconciled face, and the living of a life of ceaseless activity as God would have us live it and as we would like to live it in our highest and holiest moods. But what precedes that? The descent from heaven of the King. He is coming again. Coming, as Paul tells us in the Thessalonians, with a sh ou t/w ith the voice of the archangel and the trump of God—whatever that means. I do not know what it means, but my soul glories in it! He is coming, and His voice will roll the whole world over, and never a body of a saint shall be left in the earth, North, South, East or West. And all who are alive and await His appearing, by a spiritual gravitation which includes a trans formation, will rise up to meet Him in the air. Shailer Matthews says we are in the air who talk that. But we are not. We are down here on the earth, though we will be in the air one of these days, meeting and greeting the re turning Lord of light and glory. And when He comes, these bodies that are frail will become strong. And the infinite will put on more of the glory of the Infinite than it has ever dared to; and the corruptible shall have given place to the incorruptible, and the mortal shall have been succeeded by the immortal; and in bodies like unto that which enshrines Christ we shall walk the golden streets of the New Jerusalem and praise the King forever. He is coming before that end can arrive. And that coming is to effect a change in the entire world. After receiving His people unto Himself in that marriage supper of the Lamb, He returns to the earth. And then He commences His program that terminates with what we have already called the end of all the ends. And there shall be wild tumult upon the earth. Oh these folk who cannot abide the mention of the supernatural, it is no marvel to me they start back from this prophecy of future developments of the kingdom of God, when the great beast and false prophet shall rise up and gather together the serried batallions of the dark against the King of the earth. And the day or Armageddon shall have arrived, and the final conflict between the hosts of the dark and the light shall have commenced to go on and on until that end comes
when the last enemy is under the foot of the ajl conquering Son of God. That also is in His program. But what precedes that coming? Why the going up to heaven of Jesus in the ascension from the earth after He had lived His life and died His death? I do not think we have ever made enough of the ascension of Jesus into glory. When He led His disciples out and conversing with them told them of the great things that were coming, among them the descent of the Holy Ghost in marvelous power, and then majestically in His own right He commenced to go upward, and they watched and watched with loving eyes and perhaps aching hearts, until He disappeared when a cloud received Him out of their sight. Now when you and I go to heaven we shall go by virtue of Jesus our Saviour, but He went in His own right. And He went up there to receive gifts for His believing people. And the joy in your heart and the poise in my soul are but the results of the marvelous gifts procured for us by the ascending Lord of life and glory. And you have not a dead Christ this morn ing, but One who of Himself affirmed that the Son of Man was in heaven even while he was in physical form upon the earth; yes, the One of whom John said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He is the One who ascended into the glory. And what He has gone to do we know right well. He has gone to prepare a place for every believing soul. He has not gone to forget us. But if I might use so poor an il lustration, as in the olden day the man went forth to prepare a home for the woman who had pledged to him her love and her life, and who was waiting to receive the summons to go to the prepared place, so Jesus the great Bridegroom of the Church has gone up to heaven to prepare mansions for His own. And when He has prepared the places and the people for the places and has reached the end of His program so far as that is concerned, then the ascended Jesus will call us to Himself. And what preceded that ascension? Why the resurec- tion. Oh, Mrs. Eddy must get out of my way with her blundering blasphemy, for I have no Saviour who was hy pocrite enough to remain three days in a tomb and pretend he was dead while studying Science. If Science originated in that lie, pity help the people who believe in it. For He died, and He died for our sins, according to the Scripture. And we shall never die, because for us the Saviour did die. And you know I looked an hour and a half ago at that little sentence in the Acts of the Apostles which is such a wonderful word. “It was not possible for death to hold Him.” That has the ring I like. Death tried its best. It laid hold of His head, His feet, His heart, His entire body, and strained every nerve to keep Him down. And the stone before the sepulchre is only illustrative of all hell at the door of that sepuplchre to keep the Christ dead. But it could not be done, for He arose. And His resurrec tion is one of the best accredited facts of history— as well as of faith. Never forget that. It is a fact, an accredited fact that you can get more witnesses to the reappearance of Jesus Christ than you can to the death of Julius Caesar. Yet in all schools they believe in the death of Caesar. And every Christian who knows his Bible is aware he has far better reason for belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (Continued on Page 181)
Made with FlippingBook HTML5