p. 12 | QUESTION CORNER by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 26, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 42.

QUESTION CORNER

By Milton C. Wilcox

CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible except as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as space permits to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

183 — NATURE OF GOD

Please explain John 4:24 and Rom. 8:14. MRS. E. C.

The first scripture reads in the Revised Version as follows: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The margin is, “God is spirit.”

The second scripture reads thus: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

The first scripture is instruction from our Lord to the Samaritan woman. God is a spiritual being. The Samaritans had so confused the nature of God with idolatry, that they looked upon God as merely a little in advance of other heathen deities. They had come to believe that an absolute place was necessary to worship Him. Jesus wished to disabuse their minds of that. He taught that God can be worshiped everywhere; because God is a spiritual being; and they who worship Him must also worship Him in a spiritual way, must appreciate somewhat of His nature; must conform their own minds to that; must recognize that not the bare, outward material is the essential thing, but the very soul and life of the thing which they do. And so the living God demands a living worship, and a worship in truth, not a mere form, not a make believe so, but that which is genuine in every respect.

The second scripture is simply a statement as to who are the sons of God. The sons of God are led by His Spirit. The sons of the world would be led by the spirit of the world. Compare Eph. 2:2, 3. Those who are of the world walk “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience,” and therefore are by nature children of wrath.

God’s children have been changed, born again, born of the Spirit. Being born of the Spirit, they have the same nature as the Spirit of God, and therefore are led by that Spirit; and the fact that they are led by the Spirit of God, or the word of God, which was inspired by His Spirit, proves that they are genuine sons of God.

184 — COMMANDING TO ABSTAIN FROM MEATS

Please explain 1 Tim. 4:4. H. O. B.

The scripture should be taken in connection with its context. The preceding verses in the chapter tell us of a class of people that should arise in times subsequent to the apostle’s day. “The Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith.” They do this by “giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.” They are led to do this “through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies,” men who are “branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron,” who have so turned away from God that their conscience has become hardened. And this very spirit leads them to lay down rules — man-made rules — for the guidance and direction of God’s children. That is, they forbid to marry, they command to abstain from meats — or properly, foods — things which God gave to every one to use to His glory. In other words, it indicates a class of teachers, or a system, which commands fasts, and aims to control the individual soul, who ought to be under the control of his Master, Christ.

Then the apostle declares that “every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.” Now, God’s word has told us what foods are good and what foods are not good. It has even given us a classification in the animal kingdom itself, as in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. It is no arbitrary distinction which the Lord there draws between clean and unclean animals. In the very nature of things, the unclean animals are unfit for food. Clean animals are better; but in these last days, when disease is everywhere abroad, when the animal kingdom is affected as truly as the human race, man finds his better, purer foods, in fruits and grains, nuts and vegetables. If God’s children would eat and drink to His glory, as we are instructed in 1 Cor. 10:31 — eat that which is sanctified by God’s word, or set apart through His word, and prayer on our part to do just what He would have us do — there would be little trouble on the food question.

185 — FAITH AND UNCLEANNESS

Please explain Rom. 14:14. H. O. B.

The scripture reads: “I know, and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean of itself: save that to him who accounteth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.” This scripture must be read in connection with its context. It does not stand out alone. Read verse 13: “Let us not therefore judge one another any more.” That is the real subject of the scripture — judgment. In its strong instruction against those who would judge or condemn each other, it points to the great fact that all must stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Man is not to put himself in the place of God. He is not to set himself in judgment upon his brother.

There are some who eat herbs. Others think they can eat all things. The judge of the motive is God. One may be doing wrong who eats all things; but the one who decides the matter at last is God, before whose judgment seat all shall appear.

Now, there would be in the church of Christ those uninstructed, those to whom nothing whatever seemed unclean; and their faith would allow them to eat many things. But to one who was better instructed, who had learned from God’s word that there were clean and unclean things, if he esteemed anything to be unclean, if his conscience condemned him, if he did not regard his convictions in this respect, it would be unclean, and he himself would be condemned in eating it; while the man who knew nothing about it, or did not understand, might be justified, because he did not know.

The whole diet question is not a matter of mere texts, or prohibitions, of petty, irritating laws and rules. That is not the thought of the thing in the instruction the apostle has given in Romans 14 and elsewhere. The great thought is this: First of all, we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are not our own. We are to live not for ourselves, but for God; and in living for Him, whatever we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we should do all to His glory. Our brother may not look upon the thing as we do. We should not judge him nor condemn him. He stands or falls to his own Master, and not to us.

If we would look upon the matter in this way, we would find far less hardship in denying ourselves the thing which our better knowledge and conscience tell us is wrong. We would eat and drink that which would give us better bodies, stronger, clearer minds, and souls better fitted to do the Lord’s will.

186 — THE LORD OF DEATH

In Rom. 6:23, we read that the wages of sin is death; in Rom. 5:12, that death entered into the world by sin; and Ezek. 18:32 and 33:11, that the Lord saw no pleasure in the death of the wicked; and therefore that death came into the world in consequence of sin, and sin was introduced by Satan. In Heb. 2:14, we read that Jesus came to destroy him who had the power of death; yet elsewhere in the Bible we read of the Lord’s direction that certain ones should be slain. How can it be shown that God does not exercise the power of death, which power is vested in the devil? O. O. P.

It is well for us to get the meaning of these terms. Rotherham’s translation will throw a little light upon Heb. 2:14. He renders it “dominion of death.” In other words, Satan is lord of death. That kingdom belongs to him; for everything that he does, tends toward death, and all the fruitage of his work is the fruitage of death. All the issues of his actions are issues of death. Therefore he is spoken of as having dominion over death. That does not mean that he can exercise the power of death so as to destroy every one whom he will. That does not belong to him. There is only one Being in all the universe who can exercise power over death. Satan himself cannot do that. He reigns in the dominion of death; but he does not say that the dead shall do this or that or the other thing, for the very realm in which he reigns will at last come to him with its final fruitage—death.

God has the power over all things. Death comes because men have transgressed God’s law. “The wages of sin is death,” but “the strength of sin is the law.” It is the perverted law of God which kills, not because the Lord wants it so, but because men will transgress the law. And in that realm to which the dead go, Satan is preeminent. However, as before remarked, it does not mean that he has the power to inflict death, or the power to use death, only as men may yield to his will. He is the cause of it, but not the master.