Millennial Dawn

A counterfeit of Christianity

Part 5

By Professor William G. Moorehead – United Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Xenia, Ohio.
FIRST published in 1886, Millennial Dawn, was the earliest work of Jehovah’s Witness founder Charles Taze Russell.
Although much of the book’s content is an embarrassment to present day Witnesses, it still contained many unscriptural notions and false prophecies.
In 1911, just three years from Armageddon, Professor William G. Moorehead gave his opinion on the book.
Now, in the coming issues of Concern, you can read just what the professor had to say regarding Mr. Russell’s writings.

5. After His resurrection Jesus became Divine. (Series I, pp. 178, 179: Series II pp. 107, 108, 131, 155.) The teaching is, that as a reward for His perfect obedience Jesus was exalted after His death to the highest nature, the Divine. For this Christ-dishonouring doctrine there is not a shred of Scripture. Christ's exaltation is always joined with His bodily resurrection from the dead, and with His glorious person as the God-man Mediator. (Acts 2:32-36; Rom. 8: 34; Eph. 1: 19-23; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Thess. 1:9,10; 1 Tim. 2:5, 6; 3:16; Heb. 1:3,4; 1 Peter 3:21, 22; Rev. 1: 17,18.) The Lord Jesus did not and could not become Divine at His exaltation, for He was Divine from eternity. Can a mere creature become a sharer in the godhead, and be endowed with the infinity and the almightiness of God? Is not the Divine Essence incommunicable? Believers are indeed said to be partakers of the Divine nature, (2 Pet. 1:4) but this does not mean that they partake of the perfections of the Almighty. "Partakers of Christ" (Heb. 3:14) is exactly equivalent.

But, was there a resurrection of Christ at all if Dawnism teaches the truth? His body was not raised: "He is no longer human in any sense or degree", we are told. His human spirit did not die, for He commended it to His Father. He promised the penitent thief that "this day though shalt be with me in Paradise", and it was His spirit that should be in that blessed place. The spirit being He had before His advent was changed into His human spirit, it did not retain a separate existence at all. Well then, who or what was raised up?

The books furnish unmistakable evidence that Mr. Russell holds that a particular class of the saved, called the "little flock", will share with Jesus in the possession of the Divine nature. This notion is taught with caution and reserve, but hints of it are met with here and there in the volumes. One can easily guess who constitute this favoured company. On meeting with it one is instantly reminded of the lie of Satan, "Ye shall be as God" (Gen. 3:5).

6. The Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ took place in October 1874. (Vol. II, 187,199; 234-245). This startling announcement is reached by a process of chronological and mathematical reasoning founded partly on the Hebrew Jubilee years. Of the results of his calculations Mr. Russell entertains no misgiving. He is persuaded, or affirms that he is, the Lord actually came to our earth in the fall of 1874 and He is now present here. (Vol. II, 240.) Accordingly, the glorified Son of God has already been in the world personally and literally for thirty-seven years! In reading this amazing statement which  is made again and again one stares and rubs his eyes and stares again. Old fashioned Christians have for centuries believed that the glorious advent of Christ will be accompanied by the most majestic tokens of the divine presence and the most stupendous changes and revolutions in both earth and sky. They are profoundly convinced that the Word of God warrants such anticipation; nay, it is because of the Lord's own testimony touching this mighty event that they thus believe and expect. But this period in the last five hundred years marked by immensely more tragic events than any of this.

As if to put us on guard against being deceived by plausible arguments and evidences of His presence or Lord has with most solemn words warned us: "Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is the Christ, or Here; believe it not, . . . If therefore they say unto you, Behold, He is in the wilderness; go not forth: Behold, He is in the inner chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh forth from the east and is seen even unto the west; so shall be the coming of the son of Man" (Matt. 24:23-27, R.V.). Mr. Russell refused to accept the word "lightning", and he substitutes for it "bright shining", and makes it refer to the sun's rising. He does so to escape the idea of the suddenness of the advent as symbolised by the lightning's flash, for this rendering would contradict his theory that Christ's "presence" is gradually disclosed, that in these books; nay, the characteristic features of this vicious system betray Biblical perversion at every point.

For example, Paul’s three supernatural accompanistas of the advent, the “shout” the “voice of the archangel”, and the “trump of God” (1 Thess. 4:16) are all symbols and denote the agitation, dissatisfaction, and restlessness everywhere manifest throughout the civilised world since 1874! So we are oraculary told. If this is all the Apostles meant, then we must confess that the “majestic of the prediction is lost in the poverty of its fulfilment.” Let one other text be mentioned – Rev. 6: 16; “Fall on us [cover, protect] and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne.” “The thought is that of protection, not destruction . . . . The real fulfilment is already beginning.”

Furthermore, according to the plain teaching of scripture the resurrection of the saints takes place at the Lord’s coming. (1 Cor. 15:51-57; 1 Thess. 4:13-18.) It appears also that the two events are contemporaneous and simultaneous; the Lord’s Coming, even before He reaches the earth, effects the rising of sleeping saints and the transformation of living believers, when both together are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thess. 4:16,17.) We are assured that this majestic event will occur in “a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51).

Millennial Dawn likewise teaches that the resurrection takes place at the Lord’s advent, but not immediately; four years lie between the Lord’s “presence” on earth and the resurrection of the saints; the one occurs in 1874, the other in 1878. (Vol. III, pp. 234-5; 302-306.)

We read: “That in the spring of 1878 all the holy apostles and other ‘overcomers’ of the Gospel age who slept in Jesus were raised spirit beings, like unto their Lord and Master”. . . . “The Lord Jesus and the risen saints already here (are) engaged in the great harvest work.” . . . “Such is the present situation; the great Judge has come – not as at the first advent, in a body of humiliation, for sacrifice, but in the plenitude of His power as a spirit being”. “And while we conclude that their resurrection is now an accomplished fact, and hence that they as well as the Lord are now present in the earth, the fact that we do not see them is no obstacle to faith when we remember that, like their Lord, they are now spirit beings and like Him, invisible to men”.

Since 1874 Jesus Christ has been dwelling on the earth; since 1878 the risen saints have also been sojourning on the earth; and no mortal has the slightest inkling if it save C.T. Russell and his followers!

All this is sufficiently astounding, but these notions stand not alone. Other marvellous things are encountered in the volumes we are now reviewing.