Centre of the Divine Revelation
is Jesus Christ.

THE PULPIT.
A SCHOLARLY SUNDAY SERMON BY
PASTOR C. T. RUSSELL
Subject: Centre of the Divine Revelation
is Jesus Christ.
Providence, R. I.—Pastor C. T. Russell, of Allegheny, Pa., preached twice here Sunday in
Infantry Hall to large audiences. His evening discourse follows:
The Bible may be said to be a revelation of Jesus, who in turn is a revelation of the Father. Its
opening pages tell us of the fall of the first human son of God, Adam, point to the death penalty
upon him, and indicate the need of a Saviour and Redeemer; and, more than this, inferentially
promise such a one as the seed of the woman who ultimately shall bruise the serpent’s head—
crush, subdue all evil. Its intermediate pages are prophecies and types respecting Jesus and
the work He would accomplish as a Redeemer, and later as a deliverer of the race. And further,
in its records His birth, His ministries, His death, resurrection, glorification, and the messages
He gave to all who would become His followers, including His promise to come again and
receive them unto Himself. The closing pages of the Bible picture in symbolical language the
completion of the present age, the inauguration of the millennial age, the work that it will
accomplish, the blessing and uplifting of the human family and the ultimate purging of the earth
from all sin, imperfection, evil, when every voice in heaven and earth shall be heard praising the
Lord.
The teachings of higher criticism are very misleading on this subject. They would have us
consider that all miracles are impossible; that our Lord was not born of a virgin, and by the
direct power of God; that He was born as other men; that He happened to be a rather superior
type of man; that He never had a prehuman existence. The Scriptures teach to the contrary of
this, most explicitly, that “He left the glory which He had with the Father before the world was;”
that “He who was rich for our sakes became poor,” taking a human form for a particular,
specific purpose—“for the suffering of death;” that He might be our Redeemer. (John xvii, 5; II.
Cor. viii, 9; Heb. ii., 9.)
The inspired writers go further and declare, “All things were made by Him, and without Him
was not one thing made that was made.” The context tells us that He was in the beginning with
the Father, and was the Word, or mouthpiece, and personal representative of the Father in all
the work of the creation of all the remainder of the works of God.
We should not in passing the consistency of the Scriptures in respect to the supremacy of
Jehovah God. From first to last with one voice the Scriptures declare that there is but one
supreme in the universe.
How comes it then that the record is that Jesus our Master, in His pre-human condition, was
the logos, a God with the God? Is this testimony out of accord with the remainder of scriptural
testimony? We answer, No! The name Jehovah was never permitted to any but the one, the
Father supreme; but the title God, which in the Hebrew is Elohim, and sometimes abbreviated
El, signifies a mighty one, and might be applied to any mighty one in authority and power,
Jehovah Himself being superior to all Elohim.
An examination of the scriptural uses of the word Elohim substantiates the foregoing. We find,
for instance, that it has not only been applied to the Father and to the special representative
and prime minister, the logos, the Son of God manifest in the flesh, but we find also that the
word is used in respect to angels when they directly represented the Lord as His special
messengers, they who are His mighty ones. We find also that this title Elohim was used in the
respect to angels when they directly represented the Lord as His special messengers, they who
are His mighty ones. We find also this title Elohim was used in respect to the first elders of
Israel when God recognized them as His representatives in judging their brethren.
It will be remembered that the Jews were angry with our Lord Jesus, not because He called
Himself Jehovah or intimated any usurpation of the Father’s place, honors or prerogatives, but
simply because He called Himself the Son of God and referred to Jehovah God as His Father.
On one occasion when they were about to stone Him Jesus inquired why, and the answer was
that in calling Himself the Son of God He was affecting to be superior to them and to others of
mankind; and affecting a relationship with the great Jehovah, which they termed blasphemy,
because they said it was affecting an equality with Jehovah; but our Lord contradicted that
thought and pointed out to them that the claim to be the Son of God was not to put Himself on
an equality with Jehovah, but that the Scriptures fully sanctioned such a title as the Son of
God.
The Jews never claimed the title Sons of God for themselves, nor would it have been proper for
them to have done so. Not until the great sacrifice for sins was offered by the Redeemer could
the Father so justify any members of the fallen race as to receive them back into the close, the
dear relationship represented by the word Son, but since the redemptive work of Jesus,
spiritual Israelites are termed sons of God, as the Apostle declares, “Now are we the sons of
God, though it doth not yet appear what we shall be (how great our glory and exaltation in the
resurrection change), but we know that when He shall appear (our Lord and Master, the only
begotten Son) we shall be like Him and see Him as He is.” (I. John, iii., 2). The Scriptures
clearly show that the followers of Christ were accepted of the Father as sons when begotten of
the Spirit at Pentecost and since. (John, i., 12-13).
The divine announcement of our Lord Jesus before His birth was, “Thou shalt call His name
Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give
unto Him the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever;
and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” In explanation of His miraculous birth we read, “The
power of the highest shall overshadow thee (Mary); therefore also that holy thing that shall be
born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke, i., 31-35).
Here we have the title, the Son of God, officially applied to the man Christ Jesus before His
birth, and this title He continually approved, saying: “As the Father hath sent Me, even so send
I you.” “I came not into the world to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.” “The
Father worketh hitherto and now I work.” (John, xx., 21; John, v., 34, v., 17).
Let us look back and note the scriptural declaration to the effect that the logos, who
subsequently became the man Christ Jesus, was the beginning of the creation of God. These
are our Lord’s own words and are in full accord with the Apostle Paul’s statement that our Lord
is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature (more literally, the first born of
all creation), for by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible
and invisible; * * * all things were created by Him and for Him, and He was before all things and
by Him all things consist. And He is the head of the church, which is His body; He is the
beginning, the first born from the dead; that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it
pleased the Father (the invisible God) that in Him should all fulness dwell. (Col., i., 15-19).
Our Lord Himself pointed out to us that it is the heavenly Father’s will that we should honor the
Son as we honor the Father—also that we should recognize Him as the Father’s representative,
through whom He is working all things according to the counsel of His own will. The Apostle
explains to us that although our Lord occupied the chief position next to the Father before He
came into the world to be our Redeemer, yet He now occupies a still higher position. He tells
us that He was obedient to the Father and humbled Himself even unto death, even the death of
the cross.
Although the reformers did valiant service in dispelling much of the gross darkness and in lifting
the true light of God’s Word, they evidently overlooked the fallacy called the Trinity. But we
have in the Bible the standard authority by which the reformers were guided, and it is our duty
as well as our privilege to hear what the Lord God hath spoken upon this subject and to
conform our faith thereto. The Scriptures do indeed teach, as we have seen, that there is an
Almighty One, “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Romans, xv., 6). They do also
teach that the only begotten Son of God, highly exalted by the Father, is to be reverenced even
as we reverence the Father; also that the Scriptures do teach that there is a Holy Spirit of God,
which, proceeding from the Father and from the Son, is also to be the Spirit of the sanctified
church.
The few of our day who would stand up in defense of the unreasonable proposition that we
have three gods equal in power and glory, and yet that the three in some incomprehensible
manner are one in person, would like to use the one text of Scripture which has defended this
absurdity for centuries, but which all scholars now agree with no part of the original writings,
but was added about the seventeenth century, at the time when this doctrine of the Trinity, by
persecution, had forced itself into the place of full control.
The passage referred to is omitted in the revised version of the Bible, although all the members
of the committee were professedly trinitarians in their views. They were too conscientious to
give further publicity to that which was recognized as a fraudulent interpolation intended to
deceive and to support the trinitarian view. The words not in the original, added in the seventh
century—not found in any Scriptures of earlier date than the seventh century—you should note
in your Testament by striking them out, namely, beginning with the words, “In heaven, the
Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that bear
witness in earth.” If those fraudulent words be stricken out the passage reads as it did
originally, with beautiful simplicity and clearness: “There are three that bear records, the Spirit,
the water and the blood, and these three agree in one (testimony).”
The absurdity of the passage as it stands in the common version can be seen at a glance. The
interpolation would make the passage say that the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost all
three are one, and that they are bearing record in heaven that Jesus is the Son of God. How
unreasonable to suppose that such a witnessing in heaven should be necessary. Do not the
angels know that Jesus is the Son of God? Why, then, the statement that the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost are witnessing in heaven that Jesus is the Son of God? Every interpolation,
and we are glad that they are few, marks itself as an absurdity, and cannot be harmonized with
the inspired portions of the Word. This is a further evidence to us that the Scriptures as given
by God are of divine inspiration, and that nothing should be added to them nor taken from
them. Evidently, however, it is the duty of every child of God to erase from his Bible any
portion, such as this one, that may be found to be an addition, not the words of the inspired
apostles.
This passage would not suggest to any reasonable mind that the Father and the Son are one in
person were it not that this false doctrine has beclouded judgment on the subject. There are
more ways of being one than merely personally one. Our Lord’s words elsewhere explain His
meaning here. Praying to the Father for His followers He said, after praying for His apostles,
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who will believe on Me through their word,
that they all may be one as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they may be one in us.”
(John xvii., 20-21). Here is the sense of oneness between the Father and the Son, oneness of
spirit, oneness of purpose—not oneness of person.
Joint Heirs With Christ.
A dying judge, the day before his departure to be with Christ, said to his pastor, says Rev. G.
W. Plack, in the Homiletic Review, “Do you know enough about law to understand what is
meant by joint tenancy?” “No,” was the reply. “I know nothing about law, but I know a little
about grace, and that satisfies me.” “Well,” said the judge, “if you and I were joint tenants on a
farm I could not say to you, ‘That is your hill of corn, and this is mine; that is your blade of
grass, and this is mine; but we would have share and share alike in everything on the place. I
have just been lying here and thinking with unspeakable joy that Jesus Christ has nothing apart
from me; that everything He has is mine, and that we will share and share alike through all
eternity.”
One Great Difference.
A little Moslem child accounted for her preference for the Christian religion by saying, “I like
your Jesus because He likes little girls. Our Mohammed did not love little girls.” With unerring
instinct she had seized upon at least one of the great differences between the two religions.