The Revealed Mystery and the Responsibility Question

Those who are trying to uphold the absurd and unscriptural “Amendment” of the responsibility question are constantly referring to “The Revealed Mystery” to justify their action in causing discord among brethren. The editor of the “Christadelphian” having referred to this book in his unfriendly remarks regarding the arrival of the editor of the “Christadelphian Advocate” in England, Br. Standeven of Sowerby Bridge wrote him, asking which passage of those scriptures given as proof texts under the proposition referred to did he think would prove the proposition. The only one the editor of the “Christadelphian” referred to is Luke xiii: 27. According to this the textual proof in the case is reduced to one passage. If this is not a clear proof that enlightened unbaptized Gentiles will be raised from the dead to be judged with the household and by the same law (as the “Amendment” asserts), then there is admittedly no proof in any of the texts given under the proposition of the doctor to which such persistent reference is made.

Now a good way to discover whether the words of our Lord in this 27^th verse are spoken to unbaptized Gentiles, is to suppose that it is so and read the context. To get the context we must begin reading at the 24^th verse: “Strive to enter in at the straight gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” The “straight gate” here must signify acceptance into the kingdom at the judgment seat of Christ; and the “many who will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” must be all who will be rejected by the Judge. To all of these the Master of the house says, “I know you not.” If these are unbaptized Gentiles there will be “many” of them and none of the disobedient saints; and these, if they are unbaptized Gentiles, will “strive to enter in, and shall not be able;” and they will, feeling the disappointment of being forbidden entrance, cry out, “Lord, Lord;” and they will “begin to say, we have eaten and drank in Thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.” And as in Matt. vii: 23, they – these supposed unbaptized Gentiles – shall say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy name cast out devils? And in Thy name done many wonderful works?” Just imagine an enlightened Gentile who though enlightened enough for baptism refused or neglected to be baptized. Just imagine such an one making such claims as those at the judgment seat, and the unapplicability of the passage, to any, except those who have expected to be saved and have been disappointed will be irresistibly evident. For one who has compassed land and sea to divide brethren upon a question, in proof of which he could select only this one passage from a list under the proposition he so often refers to as an excuse for his actions only shows how baseless such actions are. If he could have found another passage he doubtless would have given it. The words “I know you not” have deceived some who have taken only a superficial view of the passage, the words having been supposed to mean that those spoken to were strangers to the Master of the House; but this arises from not allowing for what is sometimes called the drapery of the parable. Those who misapply these words to Gentiles would not be willing to use them literally, to the extent that Jesus had not known them at all; for they claim that He “knows” them all to the extent of raising them from the dead and transporting them to the place of judgment. If an old acquaintance has become a degenerate, and obtrudes his offensive personality upon you in respectable company, you say, “Go away; I do not know you.” But you do not mean that you do not know who he is. You mean, “I do not recognize you, or acknowledge you;” and this is how some versions render the verse in question; and surely an editor ought to know this, or he should acquaint himself with it before he throws out deceiving words to his readers.

Every unbaptized enlightened Gentile knows that he has no chance of salvation; and if those who tell him that he will appear at the judgment seat of Christ should convince him, he will never imagine himself standing and knocking at the door of the kingdom and declaring what he has done in the name – a name he knows he never entered, and which he could not enter except by baptism “into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Surely some professed leaders “need that some one teach them again which are the first principles.”

Editor [Thomas Williams]

The Christadelphian Advocate. January 1904, pgs. 337-338.