| News and Views | November 1945 |
Human Destiny
WHERE do we go from here? This question has been asked thousands of times, concerning the many and varied situations in which individuals and groups have found themselves. We are asking it in relation to the human race itself. And well we might, for the wisest men of earth are frank to admit that they do not know. Suddenly there has come upon all mankind a feeling of utter helplessness, something like one senses at a funeral, when he would be so glad to speak some reassuring word to the bereaved, but can’t. Through the long and weary years of the second global war the people were hoping—and trying to believe—that the war would bring, among other good things, freedom from fear. Yet it came to an end leaving the darkest pall of fear hovering over the human race that it has ever been the unhappy lot of man to experience.
Why? You have guessed it, or else you already knew it! The atomic bomb. It brought peace—at least some claim that it did. But it is a fitful, uneasy—we might almost say—a dreadful peace. All that we learn about the destructiveness of those two bombs which were dropped on the Japanese, and all that is revealed concerning the use of atomic energy in future wars, indicates that the human race might yet succeed in destroying itself by the selfish misuse of its own ingenuity. We are told that already the type of atomic bomb which blasted the world into peace is obsolete, and that they would seem like mere firecrackers in comparison with the newer types.
No wonder the world is filled with fear! No wonder that thousands today are wondering if man really has any other destiny than ultimate extinction. History gives no hope, for with every advancement made in education and science, men have become more, rather than less, brutal toward one another. Just as the first crude tools invented by the human mind were employed as weapons of destruction, so the greatest of all scientific achievements—the releasing of atomic energy—has likewise been misused for human slaughter.
Certainly man has precipitated a serious crisis. What will be the outcome? Will that which he now fears come upon him? They say that it is a long road which has no turn. Will the long downhill road of human selfishness make a turn, and if so, will it be soon enough to avoid that great catastrophe which now is so rapidly approaching? Look where we will in the archives of human wisdom, we find no answer, no assurance whatsoever that the worst things the people fear will not come. Following the first World War, the terrible destruction to be wrought by the airplane was freely predicted. Those predictions became tragic realities. Will the predictions concerning the destruction to be wrought by atomic energy also come true? Sobering thoughts indeed are these!
Is it not, then, an appropriate time to examine a source of information which is too often ignored—the Bible? The Bible has been well named the torch of civilization. Now that civilization is threatened with destruction, is it not well to examine its torch to see if it will throw some light on why things appear so hopeless, and if we are justified in expecting something better than the destruction which our scientists are offering us?
There is a very reassuring text in the Bible which might be a good one to start with. It reads: “Thus saith the Lord who created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.”
This is a statement by the Creator himself, the One who designed the atom, and who all along has known how to use and control its power. He tells us that the earth was not created in vain, but was formed to be inhabited. The Psalmist declared that the Creator has given the earth “to the children of men.” (Psalm 115:16) Apparently, then, God does not propose to permit his human creation to destroy itself entirely. If the earth was not created in vain, and it has been given to man, we must assume that it is also true of man that he “was not created in vain. Yes, there is a divine overruling which is shaping the destiny of the human race, although until now man himself has been largely an unwitting tool in helping to shape that destiny.
The Bible is the textbook of Christianity. If it is not true and dependable, then Christianity is a farce; and if Christianity is a farce, scientists may as well complete arrangements for the atomic bomb to destroy the race, for in such an event there is nowhere else to go from here. But the Bible IS dependable! Just as it was the torch of civilization, it is a torch to light our way out of the dark today—that darkness of fear and uncertainty which the selfishness of man has so precipitously brought down upon us. Man may not be able to protect himself from the horrors of atomic energy, but God, who created the atom, can, and has promised that he will do so.
The Bible Says
The Bible tells us that God created man in his own image, and provided a beautiful home for him, “eastward in Eden.” It reveals that man fell into sin—disobedience to divine law. The penalty for sin was death, the Scriptures show; and to enforce that penalty man was driven out of his garden home and away from the trees of life.
But God continued to love his created human children, even though they had transgressed his law. Loving them, he began to make promises of a time coming when he would recover them from death and restore them to their lost inheritance. The scriptural explanation is that man’s restoration from sin and death was to be accomplished by means of a sacrifice which would be made for sin. It turns out in the narrative that Christ, the Founder of Christianity, was the one who gave his own life in sacrifice that the dying race might be recovered from the fall.
A most wonderful arrangement by God then comes to light: Members of the fallen race are chosen, upon the basis of their loyalty to God, to be associated with Christ in the future work of restoration. The set time in the divine plan for the restoration of the human race is shown to be following the second coming of Christ. Christ came the first time to die for the race His second visit to earth is to restore those for whom he died.
The Scriptures reveal that at the time of Christ’s second coming, or shortly thereafter, men and nations would be in a state of distress and chaos. Jesus said that this trouble would be so serious that unless those dreadful days of destruction were cut short no flesh would be saved. It certainly seems as though present world conditions are fulfilling this prophecy. But the Scriptures show that the trouble will be cut short by divine intervention before atomic energy, or any other kind of destructive force, accomplishes the complete annihilation of the race.
Then will follow a thousand years of reconstruction, the Bible shows, which will be accomplished through the administration of the Kingdom of Christ. It is this Kingdom which all Christians have been praying for in that inspired prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” It is God’s will that the race which he created to live on the earth shall be restored to life in order that this divinely fixed destiny for man may be realized.
There was peace and joy and health and life in the Garden of Eden before the law of God was violated. Then there was no fear! But immediately after divine law was flouted, that first human pair began to fear. Fear has not left the hearts of men since. It has been intensified through the centuries, until now it is more blighting to human happiness than ever before. But the Bible says that even fear will be removed during the coming time of reconstruction, “They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,” we read, and “none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.”—Micah 4:4
This is the outline of God’s plan for the human race, as we find it in the Bible. It reveals a glorious ending. It matters little what experiences of suffering have been endured by each generation of mankind if the end result is to be one of eternal peace and joy and health and life. It matters not how many have been killed in war, or have died in bed, if they are all to be restored to life by divine power. This present fitful life of fear and trial will soon be forgotten when the reconversion from selfishness to love, from fear to assurance, and from death to life, has been accomplished.
This is the ultimate destiny of man which God has planned and promised. And we can really have faith in it, because the One who created the atom and designed its energy will certainly be able to raise the dead to life, and fulfill all of his other wonderful promises.