To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 3, 1870

To Correspondents.

H. S. GUILFORD: The green and dry trees of Luke 23:31, doubtless are intended to represent good and bad persons; as commentators tell us that it was common among the Jews to liken a righteous person to a green tree, and the wicked to dry and dead trees. See Ps. 1:3. In the previous verse we are evidently carried down to the visitations of God's wrath upon the wicked at the opening of the great day of the Lord. And the sense seems to be that if the righteous are treated on earth, as they were then treating Christ, of what tribulation and punishment would the dry trees, the wicked, be thought worthy, when the great day of retribution should come.

J. WHITE, Leelanaw Co., Mich.: For an exposition of Heb. 12: 22–24, the only verses which are a source of difficulty in the chapter, see, Which? Mortal or Immortal? pp. 67–70.

M. E. CHURCH: For an explanation of the expressions, “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” and the “Vengeance of eternal fire,” see Which? Mortal or Immortal? pp. 97–100.