JANUARY 10TH, 1939
JANUARY 10TH, 1939
BELOVED BROTHER, — I have never ventured to say what proportion of the human family will be brought into blessing, for I do not think that Scripture gives us light on this matter. I have no recollection of ever making the remark which you quote. I remember the subject being mentioned, I believe at a tea table, when I said that I understood that more than half the souls born into the world died before they reached the age of responsibility. And if God were pleased to secure to them in His sovereignty the value of that great redemption [p. 265] wrought by His Son it would mean that the greater part of the human family would be secured for eternal blessing. I do not think anything more than this was said.
It is evident from Scripture that there are different families named of the Father — Old Testament saints, and the different companies in the Revelation — and each family will have its own place in the universe of bliss. I should not like to say that there are different families now, because this is the assembly period, the day of the Spirit, and I am not aware that there is any thought in Scripture of other families having a concurrent place in the ways of God. I think we should be getting off solid ground if we began to speculate on the possibility of there being other families now. “In the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or free, and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”. The Lord’s servants were sent into all the world to preach the glad tidings to all the creation. There is no thought, so far as I see, of any other testimony going forth alongside the glad tidings. Our business is to take account of what is revealed, and to see that those with whom we come in contact truly hear the present testimony of God.
In a certain sense there is a concurrent testimony in the things which are seen (Psalm 19), but it is striking that when Paul quotes this in Romans 10 he applies it to the glad tidings as though to suggest that the former testimony merges in the present. I would not like to say that God will not in any case use the testimony of creation now, and perhaps even where the glad tidings have not gone, but this would be a matter of His sovereign power, and I do not think He has given us any light in Scripture as to His doing so. So that we cannot build anything upon a supposition that He might do. Indeed, I am sure you will agree with me that it is well to avoid all merely speculative questions in regard to the actings of the blessed God. I think that what He does with children who have never come into responsibility must be left to His own perfect and all-wise goodness. It is indeed most happy to leave it there....
With very much love in the Lord,
Yours affectionately in Him,