BULLINGER'S BLUNDERS

By Pastor Art Watkins of Coden Bible Church (Coden, Alabama)

April 14, 2010

This is from Alexander Reese's book: The Approaching Advent of Christ. He wrote: Into the wild dispensational theories of Dr. Bullinger it is not my intention to enter; one must draw the line somewhere in investigating the labyrinth of prophetic fads and theories. Anyone who has read Ten Sermons on the Second Advent (in many respects a valuable book), The Apocalypse or The Day of The Lord, The Church Epistles, The Mystery, The Companion Bible, and the "Questions and Answers column of his magazine "Things to Come" (London), knows that the most destructive critic of Bullinger’s theories on prophecy, the Church, and N.T. literature was Bullinger himself. Today he would give out a set of novelties with the recommendation, "They are not mere sentiments or opinions. They are the subjects of Divine revelation." Tomorrow (or the day after) the novelties would be forgotten, and another worthless set given out in their place. And all was paraded with immense dogmatism as the offspring of a new and superior enlightenment unattained by any of the great expositors of the Church.

The author’s method and spirit recall Franz Delitzsch’s characterization of Ewald, the famous O.T. scholar: It is provoking to observe the self-sufficiency with which he ignores nearly all his predecessors, the dictatorial confidence of his criticism the false and often nebulous pathos, and the complete identification of his opinions with truth itself (p. 43).

Bullinger saw very clearly that the OT., and our Lord, had located the resurrection of the saints at the Day of the Lord, not a generation before it. He also saw that that fact was fatal to the pre-tribs view of the prophetic future. Instead of abandoning it as unscriptural, he would save it by a line of defense that had hitherto passed the wit of man to devise.

Here it is. When Paul gave the order of the resurrection in the well-known words (1 Cor. 15:23), "Christ the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God," there was more in what he said than appears on the surface; but Bullinger claims that he can see far into the millstone, and this is what he reads:

"Christ the first-fruits;" this is not Christ the Lord, but Christ mystical, which includes all saints converted since Saul of Tarsus, who was the beginning of the Church, the body of Christ. These will be raised at the approaching advent of Christ, on dispensationalists presuppositions.

"Afterward they that are Christ’s, at His Coming." These are O.T. saints, the Apostles, and others converted before Paul, and the "tribulation" saints of Revelation 7:9-17; these will all be raised at the Day of the Lord, a generation (more or less) after the mystical Body of Christ. It didn’t inconvenience Bullinger one little bit that in his revised scheme the "coming" of 1 Cor.15:23 synchronized with the "day" of the Lord; that was a trifling concession to the enemy.

What shall we say of this new-fangled scheme? Simply that it is so extremely singular that we should not waste a moment of time on it except that so good a student as Miss Ada Habershon, an outstanding teacher among pre-tribs toyed with it as a good defense of pre-trib views of the End. See Payables, p. 96: and "The Morning Star," August 15th, 1914.

A moment’s consideration will show that the positron is utterly untenable;

1. Paul himself interprets for us the expression, "Christ the first-fruits." It is the Lord Jesus Christ and none other. Here is what he says: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." That occurs but two verses before the verse that Bullinger wrests to his own confusion. Of course he passed it by as unworthy of notice.

2. The expression "they that are Christ’s," so far from being applicable merely to supposedly inferior saints like the O.T. worthies, the Apostles, the saints of the "Pentecostal Dispensation," and the martyrs of the End-time in Revelation 7:9-17, is applied again and again by the Apostle Paul to the saved of this dispensation. "If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). "They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh" (Gal. 5:24). See also 1 Corinthians 3:22-23, 1:12, 15:23; 2 Corinthians 10:7; cf. Mark 9:41.

Bullinger, be it noted, staked his scheme on a single verse of scripture, which is always a risky thing to do, for as sagacious old Benjamin Whichcote used to say, "If you have but one text in Scripture to support you, you will soon have none at all." But Bullinger’s attitude realized for us the wish of the ancient tyrant that all his enemies had but one neck, for with a single blow the whole contest would be won. That is what happens here. On the housetops Bullinger proclaimed that in the O.T. the saints are raised at the Day of the Lord that is the honest interpretation of Isaiah 25:8, 26:19; Daniel 12:2, 13. The Lord in Luke 15:14-15, 20:34-36, and John 6:39-54, 11:24; Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:54; and John in Revelation 11:15-18 and 20:4-6, confirmed the O.T. teaching. But Bullinger challenged us to a contest on the single text, 1 Corinthians 15:23: with ruinous results to himself, for Paul is against him at every step; ruinous also to the whole school.

Pre-trib writers as a rule think hardly of Bullinger. And naturally; by his damaging admissions he exposed the perilous condition of a pillar that supported their new and pretentious edifice, and, without laughing, offered to substitute a pillar of sand.

Some time ago a group of English-speaking people from England, America, and the overseas Dominions of the Empire, met at a Britisher’s residence in a South American Republic. During dinner the conversation turned to English politics, and a lively discussion ensued. As one of the speakers was monopolizing most of the time, it was decided to set up a Mock Parliament with a Speaker, who, watch in hand, would control the debate on Home Rule for Ireland. On ranging sides it was found that the leader of a historic English party had no followers. Thereupon the hostess, a woman missionary with a versatile turn of mind, and a keen sense of humor, changed sides so as to help the lonely leader in debate. But when it came to her turn to address the "House" she contrived to make so many inconvenient and damaging admissions that, before she was half-way through, the embarrassed leader was begging her to cross to the other side.

And regular pre-trib advocates, who smooth over a thousand difficulties in their program of the prophetic future by judiciously keeping silent on inconvenient texts, and hoping for the best, resent the perverse candor, even bluntness, with which Bullinger proclaimed that in the Prophets, Gospels, and the Apocalypse, as well as in 1 Corinthians 15:23 and 54, the resurrection of Israel’s holy dead, and of those "that are Christ’s," takes place at the Day of the Lord. Better a thousand times if he had held his peace, or crossed to the other side.