The Bible Students Congregation of New Brunswick
What Is Its Doctrinal Lineage?
We occasionally receive inquiries concerning our doctrinal lineage. Therefore, this article will broad stroke the doctrinal lineage of the church from the Apostles’ day until now. First note this startling fact: Jesus’ parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43) warned that down through church history, the majority of professed Christians would be just that, not real Christians. The Apostle Paul warned that shortly after his death (Acts 20:28-30; 1 Tim. 4:1-3) false teachers would assault the true church. Jude and 2 Peter 2 predicted this prevalence of false doctrine down through the Christian Age.
What Actually Happened?
During the first three centuries, Greek intellectuals brought Hellenist concepts into the church. The phrases “immortal soul” and “immortality of the soul” do not appear in scripture. Nevertheless, Plato’s “immortality of the soul” was successfully planted in the Christian church by these Grecians. Noted 2nd century pastors like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tatian and Theophilus fought this error but lost. Eternal torment was born. If souls were only mortal they would die at the death of the person. All would wait in death for the resurrection and their trial and final rewarding. But if souls cannot die, evil souls must be punished and good souls rewarded.
Triune and triad gods permeated worship in the pagan world. The great influx of pagans into the church soon resulted in a large “Trinity” caucus. The battle over the Trinity was long and bitter with little brotherly love in the worldly church. Doctrinal battles were often fought on the streets. Finally, in AD 381 at Constantinople, a rigged council of bishops declared the doctrine of the Trinity a dogma of the church. Evangelical scholars agree that Trinitarian copyists corrupted 1John 5:7 in the 5th century by adding the words in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one.
Reality check. If the Trinity was taught by the Apostles, why did it take nearly 300 years before even a purported majority of the church believed in the Trinity?
The Biblical teachings on the “Ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5), the “Restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21) in the thousand year Kingdom of Christ (Rev. 20:6), and other doctrines experienced the same gradual corrupting.
The Reformation
Once Augustine (AD 410) declared the Roman Empire ruled by Papacy to be the Kingdom of God, the Bible was banned from the people. Doctrine was dictated by a pope. Things did not begin to significantly change until the 16th century Reformation. In 1517 Martin Luther declared that Justification was solely “by faith” (Rom. 5:1)—not by the mass, indulgences, or works of penance. In 1520 Luther blasted the false doctrine of the immortality of the soul as one of the “monstrous fictions” of the pope (The Works of Martin Luther, Vol. 7, pages 131, 132). Luther taught that when a man died his soul neither went to heaven or hell fire. Rather, he slept until the resurrection. No wonder Luther whimsically said, “It would take a foolish soul to desire a body when it was already in heaven.” (Paul Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther).
But the Reformation was hampered by Calvin’s revival of Augustine’s gross error of individual immortality. What an abomination! The vast majority of humankind was supposedly damned to eternal torment before they were born, including some who even professed to accept Christ. But a few were lucky, and Calvin believed it was just plain luck. Before they were born they were predestinated to enjoy eternal bliss.
Do you feel a little smug that you are one of Calvin’s few predestinated to eternal bliss? Think again! If you do not believe in infant baptism, you are in trouble. Calvin taught that infant baptism leads to salvation. Therefore, those that do not believe in infant baptism are damned to eternal torment.
Remember, Calvin ordered Servitus to be burned at the stake for two reasons—he didn’t believe in either the trinity or infant baptism. By the way, Calvin ordered that the firewood be green oak. Why? The slow burn of green wood allowed Servitus to scream in excruciating pain for thirty minutes before he lost consciousness. Yet Servitus mustered enough physical strength and spiritual fortitude to pray for Calvin’s forgiveness.
Unfortunately, Luther’s teachings on predestination and infant baptism were little better than Calvin’s. That is why Luther so bitterly persecuted the Anabaptists—those who believe baptism was meaningless unless a person was mature enough to understand it.
Daniel 11:34 (NIV) predicted correctly, the Reformation would be but a “little help” because many “insincere Christians” (“tares”) would join it.
Calvinism Spreads
Notwithstanding the later opposition of Jacobus Arminius and John Wesley, Calvinism spread like wildfire in Western Europe. By 1750 it was a majority concept in the American colonies. Although our fledgling nation threw off the tyranny of the British, the people were being terrorized by another tyranny—the tyranny of fear—fear of Calvin’s predestination.
In 1741 Jonathan Edwards, in Enfield, Connecticut, set the tone for this conquest of fear. His sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” sought to convey the justice of eternal torment of the wicked, whom Calvin claimed God made wicked and doomed to unrelenting torture. In reality, Edwards was portraying his own sadistic concept of a vicious vindictive God who relished in every possible fiendish torture. Thank God such a god does not exist!
Preachers of Edwards’ caliber were terrorizing the majority who, according to Calvinism, were doomed to the agony of flames searing their wicked souls eternally. A reaction set in. By 1750 Universal Salvation (God will eventually save all mankind) was spreading across the country. Scriptures certainly teach a universal opportunity for salvation, but do not guarantee salvation for all. Universalists are wrong.
Christian Connexion
Around 1800 a remarkable group, the Christians and/or Christian Connexion “sprung up almost simultaneously in different and remote parts of the country.” It anticipated the Bible Student movement by about 75 years. No creed was permitted and individual Bible study was encouraged.
When it began, everyone brought their own creedal beliefs, but within a short time almost all agreed that there was no Trinity. The Heavenly Father was God, Jesus our Savior was the Son of God but not a part of God in any way, and the holy Spirit was the invisible power and influence of God. Also, they believed there was no inherent immortal soul or eternal torment. All believers and unbelievers “soul sleep” at death until the resurrection. Such consoling doctrines proved a magnet to Calvinists.
About 1820 Evangelicals were revaluating the near destruction of Papacy by Napoleon in 1799. At that time all Evangelicals believed Papacy was Antichrist and the destruction of Antichrist meant the imminent return of the Lord. The great Second Advent awakening began. It crossed denominational lines including Baptists, Lutherans, Christian Connexion, Disciples of Christ, etc. Some set dates; many did not.
Inevitably the Second Advent awakening inspired an in-depth scriptural study of the purpose of Christ’s return in the Millennial Kingdom that would follow. As they pondered these prophecies, the same Millennial expectations of the early church impressed their minds.
The faithful church would reign over the earth with Christ a “thousand years,” Rev. 20:6. There would be a “restitution of all things,” Acts 3:19-22. Israel would be restored to their promised land, Amos 9:14,15. The earth would return to its Edenic paradise, Isaiah 35:1,2. The earth would be “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” Isaiah 11:9. The unbelieving Gentiles would receive a knowledge of the Lord, Psalm 46:10.
Beginning in the 1850s, prophetic students like Henry Grew, Isaac Hinton, L. C. Gunn, Charles Fitch, Owen Crozier, Frank Marsh, H. F. Hill, Joseph Seiss, H. F. Carpenter, George Stetson, Daniel Taylor, Henry Dunn and George Storrs became feeders of the doctrines of no eternal torment and the “restitution of all things” within and outside their respective churches. All believed in a future probation beginning with the Millennial Kingdom, but varied as to how many of the non-elect would benefit.
How effective was their proclamation? Who knows? David Millard’s History of The Christian Connextion observed that in 1848, 500,000 believed in the doctrines of the Christian Connexion, one of which he lists was the “restitution of all things.”
Ultra Fundamentalists reacted. Their cherished traditional errors were being challenged. The Evangelical Alliance was formed in 1846 to define orthodoxy and isolate those who did not conform. It uncompromisingly affirmed eternal torment, the immortality of the soul and no future probation. Small Advent Churches conformed or crumbled. Over a period of time the Christian Connexion retreated back into the old errors of tradition and finally merged with the Congregational Church. However, the staunch Christian Biblical scholars listed above dared to continue holding forth the torch of newly rediscovered Scriptural truth.
Bible Students
In the 1870s, a small remnant of the Second Advent awakening who would not buckle under the Evangelical Alliance received this Torch of truth with joy from the few torchbearers that still remained—Stetson, Storrs, Dunn and Seiss. The Bible Student movement was born. Like its forerunner, the Christian Connexion, there is no central head. Each congregation is completely autonomous, they do not believe in the Trinity, eternal torment, or the inherent immortality of the soul.
Soon Bible Students were pondering Rev. 20:5, which seemed to counter many scriptures that clearly taught that the “ransom for all” guarantees future probation for the non-elect. John 5:28,29 and Acts 24:15 speak of two resurrections of both the “good” and “evil” and the “just” and “unjust”—note the apparent close sequence. Yet Rev. 20:5 speaks of the “rest of the dead” (the “evil” and “unjust”) not coming to life until the 1,000 years are finished. Then Vs. 5 says, “this is the first resurrection.” Something is wrong here. The raising of the “rest of the dead” is not the “first resurrection.” The “first resurrection” is the raising of the church at the beginning of the Millennial Age.
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Rev. 20: 4, 5 NIV (4) Then I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. They came back to life and ruled with Christ for a 1,000 years. (5) This is the first resurrection. |
The solution is the same as the Trinity problem in 1 John 5:7,8. (Compare the NIV with the KJV.) Trinitarian scholars finally conceded that most of verses 7 and 8 do not appear in the earliest manuscripts and, therefore, 1 John 5:7,8 does not prove the Trinity. In Rev. 20:5 the words “but the rest of the dead lived not until the thousand years are finished” do not appear in the Sinaitic Codex—the earliest manuscript of the New Testament. Just as Evangelical scholars conceded that 1 John 5:7,8 is spurious, so the same objectivity requires them to admit that most of Rev. 20:5 is spurious. Therefore, future probation starts at the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom with the resurrection of the “evil.”
For over 125 years Bible Students have been proclaiming these Biblical teachings worldwide. Now some prominent Evangelicals no longer believe in eternal torment. Some allow for future probation. The Evangelical Alliance was forced to rule that this is acceptable. (Christianity Today, 10/23/00) The main objection to our teachings comes from Calvinists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. (We respect their sincerity and rejoice that the love of God will embrace them also.)
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