Joseph Rotherham, the translator of the Emphasized Bible which many Bible Students use frequently, was the editor of a journal titled The Rainbow. In Volume 23, 1886, appeared his 10-page review of the first Volume of Millennial Dawn, The Plan of the Ages. Though Rotherham held some of the conventional misinterpretations concerning the nature of man, the Trinity, Rev. 20:5, and the identity of the Antichrist (and he criticized the book on those points), he evidently did embrace a hope of future probation after death for the unsaved. Perhaps readers will be interested to see a few excerpts.

“This is a notable book – bold, broad, and breezy; very refreshing after the stereotyped dogmas and platitudes which pass current in the theological world. It is a book for men and not for children …”

“. . . The one leading thought of this book . . . in a single word … is RESTITUTION or RESTORATION: Restoration, sharply and constantly distinguished from Universalism. The author is not a Universalist, nor anything near it. With him the second death is total and final. From it there is no redemption and no recovery. But he is a restorationist out and out. He holds that all men will rise from the dead – all be delivered from Adam’s sin and all its consequences sooner or later – all be put afresh and individually on trial, under new and improved conditions, with a fair chance of obtaining eternal life – so that none shall fail of the prize save by his own inexcusable crime. He holds that this restoration of the race as a whole – distinguished from the little flock, the elect, the Church, the bride of Christ, who will have been previously raised from the dead and exalted to be sharers of Christ’s own glory – will take place during the Millennial Age; progressively, if we mistake not, at any rate within or during the Thousand Years; and that at the close of that period, the incorrigible will be utterly destroyed for ever, and sin and sorrow thenceforward be no more. The author is strong upon the point that all loss through Adam’s sin will be more than made up to every man through Christ. Adam was created perfect.

Every man must be restored to the like perfection, and then decide for himself his eternal destiny….”

“… It cannot be denied that there is to be a restitution; and very likely it is to be larger and grander than most of us have dreamed. For, though the word apokatastasis in Acts 3:21 might be satisfied by the rendering “due accomplishment” (of the prophecies, that is), and so merely send us to the old prophecies to see what therein we can find to be fulfilled, yet still, when we get to the prophets, it is undeniable that they descry in the Messianic Age such an enormous amount of restoration than our poor systems can no way find room for it. If Elijah is to restore all things, depend upon it, it must be a restitution to Moses whose counterpart he is (Mal. 4). The only Messiah that Elijah knows must honor the Law before he delivers from it. So here is a great, even if only temporary, work of restitution to make room for. Then, again, there is the restoring of Israel, to her saving shame (Ezekiel 16); and if this includes her dead generations, as it surely must, who of us can find room for that in our “little systems,” to say nothing of the restoring of Samaria and the restoring of Sodom itself; yes, of Sodom itself – for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it, and when we tremble at His word as we ought, and at the same time have an adequate apprehension of what fair interpretation really is, we shall blush even to begin to explain and mystify it away as we have done all too long. So that, up to this point, we can have no quarrel with Mr. Russell; nor can we doubt that there is much more of restitution in the Old Testament than even he has formally pointed out: there, in the sacred text itself, if we only knew how to read it …”

“…The Chapter on ‘The Permission of Evil’ is alone more than worth the price of the whole volume, and is the fullest discussion of this great mystery, and the nearest approximation to a probably correct solution of it, with which we are acquainted.”

Incidentally, Rotherham’s criticism of Bro. Russell’s treatment of Daniel and Revelation – “He goes in the beaten track. Babylon is Rome, and all the rest of it .. .” – is evidence that main-line Protestant thought had once been clear in the historical view of Revelation and the proper identification of Antichrist.

— Contributed

Download PDF