To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 14, 1871

To Correspondents.

D. BURDICK: We gave the article from the Tribune on Recognizing God in the Constitution, simply to show that not a few perceive the evil that is to result from the movement, and raise the warning. And we look upon these utterances as not a little providential. They will help to open eyes when the test shall come.

W. J. HAYNES: We think the baptism of fire mentioned in Matt. 3 : 11, refers to the wicked. He [Christ] shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, or [as some translate it] with fire; those baptized with the Holy Ghost, being those who receive his Spirit and are converted to the Lord; and the others, the wicked, who are to be overwhelmed in the lake of fire. Robinson in his Lexicon, under the word βαπτίζω, paraphrases the passage thus: “To overwhelm, richly furnish, with all spiritual gifts, and to overwhelm with fire unquenchable.” The “fan” mentioned in verse 12, would naturally symbolize the means by which the separation is to be accomplished between the righteous and the wicked; the figure being taken from the process of threshing, or of separating the wheat from the chaff, in use among the ancients, in which an instrument called a fan was used. And inasmuch as it is said in immediate connection that he will gather his wheat into his garner, which means the gathering of the righteous into the mansions of the Father’s house, the winnowing or fanning process must denote those events by which this great separation is put between the righteous and the wicked; in other words the events by which the nations are dashed to pieces, and (using the same figure) become like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. Dan. 2 : 35. The second coming of Christ with the judgments which precede it, and the glory which attends it, will accomplish this.

By the term “floor” is probably meant the place where the wheat and chaff now are, mingled together—this earth, which is to be the territory of Christ’s future kingdom, and out of which, as expressed in the parable of the wheat and tares, Matt. 13, are to be gathered all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.

R. J. LAWRENCE: We have forwarded your communication to Bro. H. C. Blanchard.

S. T., of Maine, asks? How will you reconcile 2 Sam. 24 : 24 with 1 Chron. 21 : 25?

ANSWER. The writer of 2 Sam. 24 : 24 speaks simply of the threshing floor, and oxen for sacrifice, for which David gave fifty shekels of silver; while the writer of 1 Chron. 21 : 25 speaks of the “place,” including much more than simply the threshing floor; and for this, David gave six hundred shekels of gold. See Smith’s Bible Dictionary on these passages.