p. 2 | Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, Cal. · Dec 20, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 50.

Question Corner

By Editor

“IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE.”

This Inquirers’ Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.

3309.—The Destruction of the Wicked

Will you please explain Eze. 28:18; Rev. 20:9; Amos 3:6; and Isa. 45:7? I do not see as they are in harmony with each other. G. N.

It will help our inquirer if he will but consider that these are but different phases of the same question. Eze. 28:18 simply shows us the destruction of Satan, here called the king of Tyrus, on account of his own sin and iniquity. Sin has within it the potency of its own destruction. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. That brings the death of Satan. In that great judgment-day Satan and all his branches, responsible moral creatures who have utterly rejected God and His righteousness, and have identified themselves with sin, have by that very course placed themselves among the inflammable things ready for the burning. The fire from the glorious presence of God (Isa. 30:27, 28; Heb. 12:29) shall serve to devour sin, and then burn everything and every one identified with sin, so that it will literally be true that “therefore have I brought forth a fire from the midst of thee; it hath devoured thee, and I have turned thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.” Rev. 20:9 teaches nothing else but that the burning glory of God will devour the wicked, for the wicked themselves are inflammable in the presence of that glory. Amos 3:6 and Isa. 45:7 do not refer to evil in the sense of sin, but in the sense of judgment; and yet in all the judgments which come upon the wicked, they come not from some arbitrary act of God, but as the just and logical result of transgression, in harmony with that profound truth expressed in 1 Cor. 15:56, “The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law.” It is the perverted law of God that slays after all.

3310.—Cain’s Son Enoch

Gen. 4:17 says that Cain had a child by the name of Enoch. Is this the same as that spoken of in Gen. 5:24? B.

No, it is not. The Enoch of Gen. 4:17 lived before the one of Gen. 5:24. Enoch, Cain’s son, had a son named Irad, and a grandson named Mehujael, and other descendants. But Enoch of the fifth chapter was the son of Jared, and his son was Methuselah. Reading the context it will be seen they could not be the same. The Enoch of the fifth chapter is the one referred to in Jude. It will be seen that he is the seventh generation from Adam,—Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch.

3311.—Gentile and Heathen

Do “Gentile” and “heathen” and “stranger” mean the same? Please give Scriptural proof. W. B.

Not always the same, but generally. Almost invariably the term is applied to the nations outside of Israel. Comparison between the Common Version and the Revised Version will help us very materially in this. In nearly all cases where our Common Version reads “Gentile” in the Old Testament, the American Revised Version reads “nations.” Take, for instance, “I will lift up Mine hand to the Gentiles.” Isa. 49:22; 54:3; and many other places. The Hebrew word is gōē, and is defined by Strong, “a foreign nation; hence, a Gentile.” It is also translated in our Common Version “Gentile,” “heathen,” “nation,” “people.” Take, for instance, Lev. 25:44; 26:33, where the Revised Version gives “nations,” and in nearly all the other cases in the Old Testament. It is “nations” in the American Revised Version where it is “heathen” in the Common Version. All are rendered from the same word gōē; that is, peoples outside of Israel. There are a few cases where the American Revised Version renders “heathen.” Of course, these were strangers outside of the fold of Israel.