p. 104 | To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 30, 1876

To Correspondents.

E. A. Hebard: Respecting the position of Christ as Priest-king, see Bro. Waggoner’s work on “The Age to Come.” pp. 116–122.

I. H. Moser: The language of John 20:17, compared with Luke 24:39, would certainly imply that Christ ascended to his Father and returned on the day of his resurrection.

J. Crandall: Don’t take any mere statements on S. B. as “authority,” but decide your duty according to the evidence in the case, and “as God hath prospered you.”

A. A. John: We think the second clause of 1 Tim. 2:12, explains the first: “nor to usurp authority over the man.” One definition of the word teach is to direct, or appoint. 1 John 3:9, evidently has reference to a moral impossibility to sin, not to physical.

What is meant by observing times in Deut. 18:10, 14; 2 Kings 21:6? Did the fathers spoken of in Deut. 5:3 have the ten commandments or not? Who is commanding to abstain from meats? 1 Tim. 4:3. E. H. M.

Ans. By observing times commentators tell us is meant, divining by the motions of the clouds, as the heathen pretended to do with their enchantments.

The fathers did have the ten commandments. All the world had them from Adam down, as can be abundantly shown from the book of Genesis. But the fathers did not have the covenant which was made with Israel as they came out of the land of Egypt, the making of which covenant is recorded in Ex. 19:3–8; which covenant is just as distinct from the ten commandments, as a deed of real estate is distinct from the law of the United States.

The prophecy of 1 Tim. 4 down to, and including, the first clause of verse 3, is most strikingly and accurately fulfilled in the spiritualists of our own time. We expect the one remaining point in regard to abstaining from meats will yet be fulfilled in them also.

How do you harmonize Acts 10:12–15; Rom. 14:14, and Matt. 15:11, 17 with Lev. 11, or your teaching? G. V. V.

Ans. The distinction between meats enjoined under the former dispensation is done away under the present. The objection against eating pork to-day does not rest upon the fact that it was among the meats which the Jews were to regard as unclean; but because physiologically considered, it is not fit to eat. Hence there is no harmonizing called for; inasmuch as those texts in the N. T. which assert the abolition of the distinction in meats, do not assert that they are, considered from a health stand-point, good for food.

A. S. O.: A time is brought to view in Rev. 20:4, when Luke 22:29, 30, and Matt. 19:28, may be fulfilled. At this time the saints reign with Christ judging, or apportioning the judgment upon, the wicked, to be executed at the end of the thousand years. This is when the saints judge the world. 1 Cor. 6:2.

E. Halferty: Bro. L. McCoy, of Sigourney, Iowa, has published an able review of the essay of Jas. Frey, Jr., on the Sabbath question. It is just the thing for you. Send and get a quantity of him.

Answered by Letter. C. K. Drury, F. A. Barlow, J. Lamont, Mrs. F. M. T. Simonson, M. Miller, S. Osborn.