While browsing through old issues of The Christadelphian, I found the following from a “H.C.,” a non-Christadelphian who identified the “Ancient of Days” in Daniel 7 with Michael, a very “Mormon” interpretation. Here is the reproduction of his letter to C. C. Walker, the editor of The Christadelphian magazine, from the June 1929 issue:
SOMEONE sent “H.C.,” the writer of the letter on Finger Post No. 43 (see April issue, p.
166) a copy of that issue, which has provoked the following letter:—
Dear Mr. Walker,—I was a little surprised to receive your
magazine the other day, and I opened it and read from the first page to page
166, and then I was more surprised to see my letter on that page. Well, I was
not satisfied with your answer, but if you do not mind we will let it bide for
the present as I would like to say a few words on Daniel 12. On page 154 of
your magazine you say:
“The crisis of the latter days, still future (Dan.
11:40), reveals the final onrush of the King of the North, who shall come
against the King of the South ‘like a whirlwind with chariots and with horsemen
and with many ships.’ Then Michael the Great Prince stands up, the dead are
raised, and Daniel stands in his lot. All these visions are raised up and
revived by the little Cyprian sixpence (4½ piastres) and the postage stamp
depicted herewith.”
Dan. 12:2.—“And many of them that sleep in the dust of
the earth shall awake—some to life of hidden ages, some to shame and lasting
contempt.” Although this text is considered plain and simple, and taken as a
proof text to support the contention of two classes of physically dead men
emerging from their graves termed resurrection, on a careful examination such
characteristic plainness vanishes, and the text seems to teach quite another
thing in harmony with the law and testimony. The prophecies of Daniel, the man
beloved by God, are obscured by parentheses and symbols for purposes best known
of God. We cannot understand this text if disassociated from the chapter; in
fact, the chapter must have jurisdiction, it is part and parcel of other things
termed wonders and of these wonders the prophet himself had not understanding.
We should have some understanding of verse 1. Michael
standing up for the children of God’s people (verse 7). “And I heard the man
clothed in linen which was from above the waters of the river (say) that it
shall be for time and times and a half, and when he shall have accomplished to
scatter the power of the holy people all those things shall be finished.” The
scattering “he” of this chapter is the Papacy—the eleventh or little horn of
the old Roman beast which appeared in heaven (civil and ecclesiastical) A.D.
312 (Apoc. 12:1–5), and commenced evincing his audacious look with impiety, and
successfully enhanced the scattering of the holy people by assistance of the
dragon (A.D. 533 to 608).
Then he presided over the waters of the river (people,
multitudes, nations and tongues), kept them buried in the dust of the earth or
trodden underfoot for the time allotted unto him—time, times and dividing of
time, or forty and two months (1,260 years) (Dan. 7:20, 25). When the lease for
Papacy, the man of sin, to practise was terminated (A.D. 1572 or thereabouts)
the Ancient of Days (Michael) came and effected a breach in the Kingdom
of Antichrist and began with the Spirit of God’s mouth (the Word) to consume
Papacy, the man of sin, even unto the day of his annihilation by the brightness
of Christ’s Parousia (the end).
Many of them (peoples, multitudes, nations and tongues)
that were sleeping in the dust of the earth (birthright, prostituted, drunk
with Papal wine) awoke since 1572. Some came to life—an understanding of the
Word (the gospel of the Kingdom). “The words I speak unto you they are spirit
and they are life” (John 6:63). But others, permitting themselves to be
captivated by flatteries and spiritual lewdness, are overcome and carried away
into Babylon (Christendom), the various sects and denominations apocalyptically
called abominations of the earth. These constitute some to shame and lasting
contempt.
On the one side of the bank of the river are the things
in connection with the Church—the body of the Lord Jesus, the man clothed in
fine linen from above the waters, to the time of the Apostacy, revelations of
the man of sin, the Antichrist. On the other side of the river is to be found
the Reformation, due to commence since 1572 A.D., the outcome of the various
Babylonish sects (mixtures of truth and error).
We are now at the epoch for jurisdiction.—the making
white, separating the good from the bad—and be it known that this purification
will be fraught with serious consequences, much tribulation and persecution,
because none of the unjustified ones shall understand. The resurrection of the
Bible is a moral upstanding, and coming out of a world dead in sins, a
presenting ourselves living sacrifices unto God, a drinking of the cup that
Christ, the Captain of our salvation, drank, a being baptised with the baptism
of which he was baptised.
Under such circumstances physical death can have no
domination over us. Exodus 3:6: “I am the God of thy father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Apart from the utterance of
Jesus Christ that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the place
concerning the bush when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but the God of
the living, for all live unto him. The resurrection as taught in the law was
sealed, and the learned Scribes and Sadducees had not the remotest conception
that the idea of an upstanding or raising again could be extracted from these
words.
Yours truly, H.C. (H.C. “Hell and Daniel,” The
Christadelphian 66, no. 780 [June 1, 1929]: 245-46, emphasis in bold added)
I cannot ascertain the
theological background of this “H.C.” fellow. It does not appear he was a
Latter-day Saint as he approached things in a very “sola scriptura” type of
way. However, here is the previous letter he wrote to C. C. Walker that was
published in the April 1929 issue of The Christadelphian magazine:
A FRIEND writes:—
Dear Sir, —I was looking into this “finger post” the
other day, and saw this quotation, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell” (Psa.
16:10). On which it is commented: “Peter quotes this as a prophecy of Christ’s
resurrection from the grave (Acts
2:27, 32). I do not read it so. ‘Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see
corruption.’ This puts quite a different meaning on it. Why did you not quote
it? When David said, ‘Thou wilt not leave my
Nephesh in Sheol, ’ he was not speaking of his body, and when he said,
‘Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption’ he was not speaking
about Christ’s breath (Luke 23:46). Now you say, ‘This puts it beyond all
question that the Bible hell is the grave, and we all know where that is.’
“But, my dear friend, how can it be hid, Hades, if it was the
grave? And we all know where that is, according to your own words (Luke 16:23).
Not physically dead but very much alive (Apoc. 6:9). Not dead but very much
alive, and so it is to all Christians. It is hid to them who will not look for
it.
“7.—You say, ‘For Christ is the resurrection and the
life. It can have no application to the popular hell.’ No, neither can it to
the grave, because Christ is the Living Way.
“‘Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body
shall they arise’ (Isa. 26:19; Col. 3:3). The apostle Peter also contributed to
the same when he said the like figure where unto even baptism doth also now
save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a
good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ) (1 Pet.
3:21). Peter was contending for holiness, a clean hand and a pure heart. Jesus
Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life, even the Anastasis from the dead. You say, ‘Where is Hell?’ I ask you, which
Hell? The Roman Hell, the Christadelphian Hell or the Bible Hell?—Yours
faithfully, H.C.” (H.C. “Where is Hell,” The Christadelphian 66,
no. 778 [April 1, 1929]: 166)
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