Otis Q. Sellers – Page 4 – Anthony G. Flood

Having become flesh on 25 December, 5 BC, He began tabernacling among us on 29 September, 4 BC.

“And the Word became (ἐγένετο, egeneto) flesh (σάρξ, sarx) and dwelt (ἐσκήνωσεν, eskēnōsēn) among us . . . .” John 1:14

In “The Divine Purpose,” Otis Q. Sellers wrote:

In all the work that God has done for mankind, is now doing for mankind, and will yet do for mankind, there is a definite goal, a fixed purpose. To state it as simply as possible, His object in all His work is to produce a people who know Him, who understand Him, who love and appreciate Him, a people with whom He can joyfully dwell, and among whom He can center Himself in view of a greater program for the universe.

If the Bible is read carefully from Genesis to Revelation, it will be found that this end is reached and becomes a reality in Revelation 21. There under a new order of things described as “a New Heaven and New Earth,” the tabernacle of God is seen as being with men, He is dwelling (tabernacling) with them, they are His people, and He is their God. This is as far as Revelation takes us, yet we can rightfully go a step beyond this and envision a great divine program in which mankind will be vitally involved as those who are working and not those upon whom God is working. A tabernacle (skenos) in Scripture when used figuratively always denotes a center of activity, and it could not be that God would bring about such a center and then not use it.[1]

To “become flesh” is to be, not born, but rather “begotten,” that is, conceived. The root of ἐγένετο (egeneto) is γίνομαι (ginomai), to come into existence.

The one who is born, who exits the womb, is already flesh, which precedes “dwelling among us.”[2] (She who “can’t bring a baby into this world” and so procures an abortion only achieves the death of an already begotten and in-the-world baby.)

The English “to dwell” doesn’t capture the Greek ἐσκήνωσεν (eskēnōsēn), the form of σκηνόω (skēnoō) in John 1:14. The root is σκηνή (skēne), originally the hut or tent where players changed masks and costumes behind the stage; later, the stage itself. (Our “scene” descends from this.)

When Jerome translated into Latin the Hebrew הַסֻּכּ֛וֹת (hasukkoth) of, say, Deuteronomy 16:16, he used tabernaculum, the diminutive of taberna. (Our “tavern” echoes this.) He rendered that verse’s Hebrew as in solemnitate tabernaculorum, that is, “in the feast of the tabernacles.”

Tabernacles are booths. Annually, Jews today set up booths where they commemorate סֻכּוֹת‎, Sukkot, one of three Torah-commanded pilgrimages to the Temple which was destroyed in 70 A.D. (The other two are פסח, Pesach, “Passover” and שבועות, Shavous, “Pentecost.”)

In 5 BC, the angel Gabriel announced two conceptions, that of John (the “Forerunner”: Luke 1:13), and then of his cousin, Jesus (Luke 1:31). Gabriel addressed the first to John’s father, Zacharias; the second to Jesus’ mother, Mary. According to E. W. Bullinger: Continue reading “Having become flesh on 25 December, 5 BC, He began tabernacling among us on 29 September, 4 BC.”

The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 5

[See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 of this series.]

If, as Otis Q. Sellers held, the divine administration covered in the Book of Acts came to an end—marked by the Apostle Paul’s proclaiming the salvation-bringing message of God to be freely authorized to the Gentiles (Acts 28:28)—what did God replace it with?

The answer is the dispensation of grace (Ephesians 3:2), which corresponds to the time of God’s silence, which gave Sir Robert Anderson’s book its title. The preceding dispensation was not characterized by either silence or grace.

What is the meaning of “dispensation,” the word that traditionally translates the Greek of Ephesians 3:2, οἰκονομία (oikonomia). Let’s hear Sellers as he introduces the subject.

When the Lord Jesus sent forth His twelve disciples, He commanded them not to take any road that would lead them to the [non-Israelite] nations, not to enter into any Samaritan city, to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, to herald as they went that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, to heal the sick, to cleanse the leper, to raise the dead, to cast out devils, to do it all without charge, and to take no money of any kind with them (Matthew 10:5-10).

In my own ministry I travel quite a bit; and each time I go forth, I ignore or violate all these commands. Furthermore, it is my personal knowledge that most ministers do the same; and, yet, we feel no guilt in so doing. This is because we believe in and practice dispensational truth. Although, many simply practice it while at the same time ridiculing it and denying any belief in it.[1]

The Gospel cannot simultaneously be both off-limits to non-Israelite nations (Matthew 10:5) and freely authorized to them (Acts 28:28), at least not coherently. Between the events marked by those verses must be a change in God’s manner of dealing with humanity—a dispensational change.

Continue reading “The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 5”

The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 4

[See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of this series.]

In Part 2, I wrote: “Otis Q. Sellers’s reconsideration of the Acts period sprung from pastoral need, not theological speculation.”

Since receiving Christ in November of 1919, he had been an avid Bible student, spending eleven months of 1921 absorbing the details of the Darby-Scofield system of interpretation at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, settling down with Mildred in 1922, and being ordained a Baptist minister in 1923.

He was, however, no theoretician, or at least the conditions of the unleashing of his theoretical side would not be met until the mid-1930s.

The Sellers’s home, 1932, when he pastored Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Newport, Kentucky

Public speaking came easily to him; writing did not. For five years he preached at every opportunity before being appointed pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of Newport, Kentucky in 1928. (His writing wouldn’t begin in earnest for another seven years.) Early in his pastorate he found himself on the receiving end of questions from truth-hungry congregants, like:

Do Christians today have the ability to preach the Good News in languages in which they were neither raised nor trained?

What about the other gifts Christ promised to the apostles—like being sprung from jail by angels or being immune to poisoning (Mark 16:16-18). Peter even raised the dead! (Acts 9:36-42)

Is baptism a sufficient condition of being saved? If so, where does that leave faith in Jesus Christ? Continue reading “The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 4”

The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 3

Sir Robert Anderson (1841-1918); credit Walter Stoneman for James Russell & Sons 1916

[See Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.]

Among late 19th—early 20th century Anglophone Bible students, there is one learned, eloquent, and prolific public figure who stands out: Sir Robert Anderson, KCB[1] (29 May 1841–15 November 1918). Within the ambit of a blog post, I can do justice neither to the man nor to the book that profoundly affected Otis Q. Sellers’s progress in and toward the truth. The following is the briefest of sketches.

A Dubliner by birth, Anderson was New Scotland Yard’s expert on the Irish Republican Brotherhood (the Fenians), serving as the Assistant Commissioner (Crime) of the London Metropolitan Police (1888-1901) during the investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders.

His heart, however, lay in searching out the truth of what God revealed in His Word, a search that yielded 21 books, including The Silence of God.[2]

Anderson befriended, worked, and corresponded with such Scripture scholars and Bible conference leaders such as Horatius Bonar (1808-1889; Scottish premillennial covenant theologian), Ethelbert William Bullinger (1837-1913; Anglican “ultradispenationalist” compiler of The Companion Bible), Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921; organizer of the study Bible bearing his name), James Martin Gray (1851-1935; Reformed Episcopal teacher of Otis Q. Sellers at Moody), and Amzi Clarence Dixon (1854-1925; publisher of The Fundamentals).

Most notably, he preached with the “great-grandfather” of modern dispensationalism John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) in Ireland.[3]

A member of the Plymouth Brethren, first with Darby then with the Open Brethren, Anderson returned to the Presbyterianism in which he was raised.

* * *

It is not that there is mercy for some men, but that God has now made a public declaration of His grace, “salvation-bringing to all men.”[4]

In quoting Titus 2:11 and citing its Greek in a footnote—σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις (sotērios pasin anthrōpois)—Anderson highlights σωτήριος, which he rightly renders “salvation-bringing.” It’s an adjective, so: salvation-bringing what?, we ask. Continue reading “The Silence of God: Anderson’s book, Sellers’s turning point—Part 3”

“The Silence of God”: Anderson’s 1897 book, Otis Q. Sellers’s 1929 turning point—Part 2

Part 1 is here.

Fort Thomas, Kentucky, newspaper notice, November 12, 1928, of the purchase of a home by “the Rev. Otis Q. Sellers, pastor of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, Newport.” It also notes that “Dr. [sic] Sellers and family have been residing in Mariemont, O[hio]” in Hamilton, Ohio’s southwestern county.

Otis Q. Sellers’s reconsideration of the Acts period sprung from pastoral need, not theological speculation.

In 1929, he had been pastoring a Baptist church in Newport, Kentucky for about a year.[1] He was with them from 1928 to 1932.[2] In 1952, he recalled that members of his congregation had been asking him questions he couldn’t answer, forcing him to reconsider what he had been taking for granted for almost a decade.[3]

They were asking, for example, about the spiritual endowments we read about in Acts. Can we be so endowed? If not, why not? If we can, or if we cannot, is that a barometer of our faith (or lack thereof)?

In the year 1929 [Sellers writes] a new set of circumstances forced me into the task of making my own independent studies of certain doctrines in order to be able to deal faithfully and honestly with teachings which were being vigorously advocated by influential members of the church of which I was then the pastor.

This teaching in the main was that a “divine healing” program was absolutely essential in the work of any church if it stood complete and perfect in the will of God.

The basis of this argument was that Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians revealed God’s program for the visible church at the present time. Here they found “gifts of healing,” “working of miracles,” and “speaking with tongues.”

I was in an exceedingly difficult spot due to the fact that Scofield headed this section (1 Cor. 12:1-14:40): “Spiritual gifts in relation to the body, the church, and Christian ministry.”

“Gifts” translates no Greek word in the cited passage. There’s the adjective πνευματικῶν (pneumatikōn), “spiritual,” but the reader has to supply the noun it modifies. Sellers preferred “endowments” to “gifts.”

Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921) was a leader of the effort to put in the hands of truth-hungry Christians the fruit of the Bible conference movement[4] in the form of a reference Bible.[5] It was “exceedingly difficult,” at least psychologically and socially, for a young minister who had mastered and taught Scofield’s system of seven dispensations to question it.

Continue reading ““The Silence of God”: Anderson’s 1897 book, Otis Q. Sellers’s 1929 turning point—Part 2”

“The Silence of God”: Anderson’s 1897 book, Otis Q. Sellers’s 1929 turning point—Part 1

Cover of 1932 edition, Sir Robert Anderson, “The Silence of God.” Hodder and Stoughton (London) published its first edition in 1897. I’m privileged to own a copy of the third edition (1898).

This blog’s subtitle is “Helping you navigate this dispensation’s last days (2 Timothy 3; Ephesians 3:2). In this and subsequent posts, I’ll elaborate on its meaning. (But see my “Helping you navigate this dispensation’s last days”: What do I mean?,” November 11, 2020.)

In “Christ, our philosophical GPS,” I argued:

If Christ is the Wisdom as well as the Word of God, then He’s the cosmic GPS [global positioning system] that makes possible the intelligible relating of what is immanent within experience to what transcends it, the prerequisite to any sensible development of map-making and map-using.

Scripture’s data are “mappable.” Where are we denizens of the 21^st century located on the map of God’s prophetic timetable?

Presupposed in what follows is the conviction that history is neither an evolutionary outgrowth of natural history nor an absurd parade of “one damned thing after another,” but a process of divine-human interchange under His control and direction.

This process will culminate in the manifest Kingdom of God on earth, which will continue through millennium-long Parousia of Jesus Christ and, ultimately, the everlasting New Heavens and the New Earth.

Different Dispensational Strokes for Different Folks

God’s has not dealt with humanity in the same way at all times.

Continue reading ““The Silence of God”: Anderson’s 1897 book, Otis Q. Sellers’s 1929 turning point—Part 1”

Soul polemics: Sellers’s unpublished 1950 letter

Otis Q. Sellers on horseback, Grand Canyon, September 20, 1947. (Detail of larger photo given to me by Jane Sellers Hancock.)

We often learn best by contrast. In this long post, I reproduce much of the text of an unpublished letter, dated July 28, 1950, in which Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) laid out his theology of the soul (psychology) and spirit (pneumatology) against the misapprehension of both by Dr. Keith L. Brooks (1888-1954).

In the November 1949 issue of Prophecy, Brooks had analyzed Sellers’s 1939 What Is the Soul?; Sellers thought it merited a reply. (Some of you know the latter publication was the focus of many recent posts, starting with “Spadework on Display: Sellers the Maverick Workman on the Soul—Part I,” December 14, 2021.) The letter contains an excellent summary of his view that the human being is a unity of diverse “aspects,” but not a composite of discrete “parts.”

During his 1978 New York conference at the Holiday Inn on West 57^th Street, Sellers gave that letter to my friend Sam Marrone. “You can have this,” he told Sam, “this” being a twelve-page, single-space typescript.[1] A couple of weeks ago, Sam gave it to me, another of his many contributions to my effort to tell Otis Q. Sellers’s story.

As for Brooks, except for the titles of his books in the Teach Yourself the Bible series, I could find little information about him. Moody Publishers, the publishing arm of Moody Bible Institute (which Sellers attended for the first eleven months of 1921), has this snippet:

Keith L. Brooks founded the American Prophetic League of Los Angeles in 1930. He was the author of numerous Bible study courses, books, and tracts. Although Keith passed away in 1954, his wife, Laura, continued the ministry of the American Prophetic League until 1960. The League’s Prophecy Monthly eventually merged with Moody Bible Institute’s Moody Monthly. The published Bible study became the Teach Yourself the Bible Series from Moody Publishers.

Sellers starts off irenically enough—“I wish to commend and thank you for the Christian spirit manifested. We see all too little of this in this day.”—but quickly gets down to business.

Continue reading “Soul polemics: Sellers’s unpublished 1950 letter”

Otis Q. Sellers’s presupposition and his first sermon’s subject

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) was a Bible teacher, not an apologist, although he would defend his faith whenever the occasion demanded it. He presupposed that the Bible was the Word of God in the words of men, but never engaged in the “metapologetics” that vindicates this presupposition against challenges. He left such work to others.[1]

In “The Bible: The Word of God,” the first of his 570 tape-recorded messages (1971-1987), Sellers recalled the occasion of his delivering his first sermon, “about fifty years ago,” he says. As he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1922, I’d date this undated message to 1971, which other evidence suggests is the year he launched his tape recorded “library” series (hence the “TL” series).

In that first sermon Sellers expressed his acceptance, as his epistemological foundation (my word, not his), of the self-representation of the Bible’s human authors as writing under the control of the Holy Spirit, Who safeguarded the original manuscripts from affirming or implying error.[2]

The Holy Spirit not only controlled the writing of the Scriptures, but also has disposed those whom He would enlighten to read them, not merely as the words of men, but as the Word of God.

Continue reading “Otis Q. Sellers’s presupposition and his first sermon’s subject”

Earth: Our future home when His Kingdom comes

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992) in his library/recording studio on the second floor of his home, 339 South Orange Drive, Los Angeles

The conclusion of our 13-part series on Otis Q. Sellers’s study of the Hebrew nephesh and the Greek psyche, traditionally translated “soul” in English-language Bibles, is that the soul doesn’t “go” anywhere upon death: the person with whom the soul is identical will be resurrected on earth when God assumes sovereignty, that is, when His will is being done there as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10):

But one day your soul—you—will be brought back to life, resurrected; if, while you were a living soul, you believed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you will enjoy eonian life (life flowing out of Him; John 3:16) as a subject of the Kingdom of God once He assumes sovereignty. Or you will be alive on that glad day. Either way, your future home is here, on earth. (Anthony G. Flood, “Summing Up Sellers on the Soul: Part XIII,” April 1, 2022)

Sellers had a lot to say about the latter topic. Earth is the venue of the promised and prophesied Kingdom of God. Personal circumstances, however, permit me only to reproduce his words, not comment on his thoughts on this topic. I feel bad about such “cheating”; I hope to be able to make up for that in the future.

For many centuries men have been guilty of discounting or ignoring every declaration that God has made as to the glorious future of the earth. It seems they have been afraid to declare what God has said for fear that men might be attracted to the earth and lose interest in the traditional heaven of hymnology. To them, this planet has no future but to be burned up. In fact, this is a vital principle in one great theological system. It teaches that the time will come when this planet will have ceased to exist, and all mankind will be either in Heaven or Hell. . . .

The objective study of the Word of God is sure to bring the conviction that all of God’s purposes in relationship to man are in some way related to the earth. All the glorious promises of the Bible have the earth as their subject. The earth has a glorious future, and in its future we will have a part.

The first stage of Earth’s glory will begin when God assumes sovereignty, takes to Himself His great power, and governs this planet and all who are upon it. And since Heaven is His throne and the earth is His footstool, we can rest assured that His government will be from the throne and not from the footstool. The redemption, restoration, and renewal of the earth is not in any way related to Jesus Christ coming back again. It is not preceded by the Great Tribulation; and it is not introduced by Armageddon, as so many dispensers of the gospel of fear and frightfulness would have us believe. It could begin at any moment. There is no event that precedes it.

Otis Q. Sellers, “God’s Earth,” Seed & Bread, 70. (Undated, but late ’70s.)

Otis Q. Sellers, Gabriel Monheim, Michael Walko, Los Angeles, December 21st or 22nd, 1973

. . . the first great declaration in the Word (excluding Psalm 25:13) concerning man’s future home is that, if he waits upon the Lord, he will have a place and enjoy a portion in the earth. This declaration is immediately repeated in the same Psalm.

For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Psalm 37:10-11

These verses with the one that precedes them emphatically declare the fate of the wicked and the future of the righteous. Evildoers will be cut off; but the meek shall have a place and enjoy a portion in the earth, and in the abundance of peace they will find delight.

Otis Q. Sellers, “Inheriting the Earth, Seed & Bread, 73. (Undated, but late ’70s.) Continue reading “Earth: Our future home when His Kingdom comes”

Summing up Sellers on the Soul—Part XIII

Otis Q. Sellers (1901-1992). This portrait was shot in 1921, the “second year of my Christian experience,” when he was “enrolled as a student in a Bible school,” i.e., Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ for over 73 years, he was an assiduous of the Bible. His mission was to study and proclaim God’s Word through radio broadcasts, written and recorded studies, and conferences. He came to his conclusions after weighing all the Biblical and any other material that shed light on the subject. He studied Hebrew and Greek words to bring forth their historical and grammatical meanings. Study would occasionally force him to alter some conclusions, so he implored his readers to take only his latest writing to be his latest light—and to do their own studies! Sellers received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior at age 18 on November 23, 1919. In 1922, after leaving Moody, he was ordained a Baptist minister. Throughout the ’20s he traveled with an evangelistic party and served as pastor in Baptist churches. By 1932, however, after his studies led him away from the rituals and ordinances (e.g., baptism, the Lord’s Supper), he left the Baptist Church, never looked back, and never joined another. He began writing pamphlets in 1935; by 1936, he was publishing The Word of Truth (17 Volumes over the next 20 years). He expanded his ministry with booklets, radio broadcasts, and 570 recorded messages covering most books of the Bible and many doctrinal issues. In 1971 he launched Seed and Bread, a series of four-page leaflets, 196 of which he had produced by the time a stroke incapacitated him. With the cooperation of his daughter, Jane Sellers Hancock (1927-2020) and her son Rusty Hancock and the assistance of Sam Marrone (who remembers Sellers teaching in his home when Sam was a boy in the 1950s), I’ve been researching Sellers’s life and thought for a book whose working title is “Maverick Workman: How Otis Q. Sellers Broke with the Churches, Discovered the Premillennial Kingdom, and Embodied Christian Individualism.” I would be grateful to hear from anyone willing to share information, memories, or photos for this study.—Anthony G. Flood

[Prior installments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII]

Sellers concludes his 1939 study What Is the Soul with observations on psychikos, the adjectival form of psyche which occurs seven times in the New Testament, unlike “soul sleep” and the soul’s alleged “immortality,” two ideas without a shred of scriptural support.

“The English language,” Sellers begins, “really has no adjective that corresponds to the word soul, so the word soulish was coined many years ago in order to express the Greek adjective.” In the following concordance, note the contrast the apostles Paul and Jude draw between soul/soulish and spirit/spiritual:

But the natural man (ψυχικoς, psychikos) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually (πνευματικῶς, pneumatikos) discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14

It is sown a natural (ψυχικόν, psychikon) body; it is raised a spiritual (πνευματικoν, pneumatikon) body. There is a natural (ψυχικόν, psychikon) body, and there is a spiritual (πνευματικoν, pneumatikon) body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul (ψυχήν, psychen); the last Adam was made a quickening spirit (πνεῦμα, pneuma). Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual (πνευματικoν, pneumatikon), but that which is natural (ψυχικoν, psychikon); and afterward that which is spiritual (πνευματικoν, pneumatikon). 1 Corinthians 15:44-46

This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual (ψυχική, psychike) devilish. James 3:15

These be they who separate themselves, sensual (ψυχικοί, psychikoi), having not the Spirit (Πνεῦμα, Pneuma). Jude 19

“It is commonly taught,” Sellers continues, “that the soul is the seat of our highest spiritual faculties, but this is not the testimony of Scripture. Man’s spirit is the seat of his spiritual faculties. . . . ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God’ (Romans 8:16).”

[A] soulish man is . . . dominated by the fact that he is a soul, that is, a sentient being. He is moved by his physical sensations. Things that appeal to his eyes, his ears, his feelings, or his emotions are readily received, but the things which appeal only to his faith, the realm in which the spirit operates, are rejected. He requires incense to please his nose, music to delight his ears, architecture to satisfy his eyes before he can get into what he calls the “spirit of worship.” He knows nothing of worshipping God in spirit and in truth; he knows nothing of the Spirit witnessing to his spirit; he can recognize no witness save those that appeal to his senses; he is a soulish man. Continue reading “Summing up Sellers on the Soul—Part XIII”