The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

XII. Stockholm’s Bolander-Deliverance Not Through Death, but Resurrection

Of similar import was the word of Bishop NILS FREDERIK BOLANDER, ⁷³ in Stockholm’s Tidningen, in 1952. CFF2 860.1

“At times one encounters a vague piety which speaks of death as a redemption and a release. In the deliverance through death, they say, man goes home to God. But this is not true. In any case, the Bible does not teach it. It states clearly and definitely that it is not death but the day of Jesus Christ which comes with the resurrection from the dead and redemption.... CFF2 860.2

“Death is our enemy, together with sin.... Death followed sin. The sinner who was driven out of paradise was told by the Lord: ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’ ⁷⁴ CFF2 860.3

But Christ takes the sting out of death. Christ is with us through the dark valley of the shadow. Thus:
“Death is a cruel majesty, and we shudder to get him as a guest in our home.... Man before the unscrupulous king of corruption is a very lonely person. But this is not the whole truth. There is Someone besides death at a person’s deathbed-Christ, the Prince of life, the King of the resurrection. CFF2 860.4

“Death is painful and unnatural for a Christian, but he knows something that fills his heart with songs of victory in the valley,of the shadow of death. Death can take his life, but death cannot rob him of God and His grace.... CFF2 860.5

“We must attain to a personal faith in Christ. Jesus says: ‘I am the resurrection and the life: He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’... Where this simple, artless, and blessed faith flames up in a lonely human heart, a new light falls upon one’s being.” ⁷⁵ CFF2 860.6

Such was Bishop Bolander’s witness, and his break with Platonism. (Photo on page 856.) CFF2 860.7