We can know that Deity united with humanity in the person of Jesus, though we cannot understand just how the two natures were united. But we can believe what the Bible says and adjust our lives to its teaching. Herein lies our salvation.
We can know that there are three persons in the Godhead, though we cannot comprehend their nature and unity. The finite cannot understand the infinite.
THE FUTURE-KINGDOM PERVERSIONS AND DISLOCATIONS OF PROPHECY
Much is said these days about modernism and fundamentalism. I hope to be allowed to live in a modern world without being called a “modernist” and to hold to fundamental truths without being dubbed a “fundamentalist.” These “fundamentalists” have formed a program for the Lord, mixed in a few truths, and named the mixture “fundamentalism,” and its advocates “fundamentalists.” If their theory is as old as the Bible, why the new names for it and its advocates? Old ideas and doctrines do not require new names: anything new requires a new name. Now, “modernism” and “modernist” are older words than “fundamentalism” and “fundamentalist.” Religiously, I am no “modernist”; and the term “fundamentalism” is too new for a Bible lover to accept. It is even newer than the term “modernism.” It would be interesting to hear Mr. Rice explain how his doctrine is so ancient, since the name of it is more modern than is the term “modernism.” In name, they out modern the modernists! When a doctrine is more modern than modernism, it is too modern for me.
In Mr. Rice’s tract, “Christ’s Literal Reign on Earth from David’s Throne at Jerusalem,” he claims to prove “from the Scriptures the premillennial coming of Christ; that he has not yet set up his kingdom on earth, but that he will reign from a literal throne at Jerusalem, in his literal human body, over the entire earth.” He assumes much, argues little, and makes many scattering assertions. It would be easier to review his tract, if more care and thought had gone into its making.
The trouble with him and his future-kingdom advocates, is not speculating about unfulfilled prophecies, but a perversion and dislocation of prophecies that have been fulfilled. When a man takes prophecies that have been fulfilled and makes them do service in some future program, he is not speculating about unfulfilled prophecies. To call such perversion “speculation about unfulfilled prophecies” is to yield to him his claim that they have not been fulfilled. This is not, therefore, a discussion on “unfulfilled prophecies,” but an effort to show that Mr. Rice and others have, in the interest of a theory, dislocated promises and prophecies, some of which have been fulfilled.