Question Corner by M. C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 7, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 35.

Question Corner

By M. C. Wilcox

Conducted by M. C. Wilcox

170 — LOVING AND HATING

It is often said that God hates evil. Can we image God in this thing? To put it in few words, does man image God in love and hate toward man in the degree that man embodies good and evil? W. E. F.

God is love, and love includes all good. What is contrary to that is evil, wicked, sinful. In the very nature of the case, God must repudiate evil. He cannot look upon it with any degree of allowance, because it is contrary to everything in His nature. But God does not hate man. In His great love, He is doing all that He can to save humanity from evil. He looks upon sinful humanity, those who are satiated with evil, so to speak, and sees in them the possibility of eternal glory and goodness if they will but yield it all, that He may work in them His own character; and the child of God in whom that character is transplanted will have the same disposition that God has. He will hate evil. In other words, he will supremely love God, and there will be in his mind no place for evil, but he will love the sinner because God loves him and gave His Son to save him.

Never will the time come that God will hate the sinner, until the sinner fully identifies himself with sin, and then he must be destroyed, with all the evil of the universe.

That hatred of evil and everything unlike perfection, of course, will continue not only in God, but in His children. It will not be in their hearts in the sense of an active hatred. That is not the thought of it. Everything unlike God’s character would be repulsive to them; consequently they will never yield to it, nor will they in the eternal kingdom of God ever see it. It will not come into their thoughts.

171 — IN THE WORLD TO COME

Please explain Isa. 65: 25. It seems to indicate that there will be beasts in the new world, and Isa. 35: 9 seems to indicate there will not be. B. G. B.

We will better comprehend all these promises in the Old Testament if we will recognize that they are connected many times with double prophecies—prophecies of what God would do with His children back there if they would not yield to Him. There would have come transformation not only in man, but in the land itself, through that Jewish people, if they had given themselves to God; and the prophecies of some of the seemingly grosser, material things, which to our minds are not consonant with heaven, would have been fulfilled through them upon this earth. But inasmuch as the people did not do their part, God’s promise still holds.

There will be the new inheritance, and He will have a people that will inhabit it. There will be a new heaven and a new earth; and in that new heaven and new earth, there will be perfect peace. The very animal kingdom itself will not know war nor strife. Wolf and lamb, lion and bullock, will feed together, and the destruction of life for food will be forever past. Doubtless there will be animals in the new earth, because they were in the earth when it came from the hands of God. We know that they will not be there with the natures they now possess. To this Isa. 35: 9 refers. There will be no ravenous beast there. Whatever there is of animal life will be in perfect harmony with God’s will.

172 — END OF THE LAW

Please explain Rom. 10: 4, 5. H. H.

We apprehend that the whole difficulty lies in the expression “the end of the law.” “For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby.” The whole book of Romans is set before us to show that man’s only hope is in Jesus Christ and in the righteousness of God through Him. All are lost without Him; all are sinners against God. Rom. 3: 23. It is God’s desire to lead men from that sinful condition to a condition of salvation and righteousness, and He does this through the Lord Jesus Christ. But in order that men may be led to Christ, they must see that they are sinners. The object of the law is to show man that he is a sinner, that he is shut up in sin, that there is no hope for him at all in that sinful condition, and to lead him to seek Christ as the only Saviour. Of course, if man could in and of himself keep the righteousness of the law, he would live by it, because the law “was ordained to life.” Rom. 7: 10. But inasmuch as man cannot do that of himself, as the apostle Paul found in his vain struggles, Christ comes in to help every soul, and to bestow the righteousness of God by faith upon the soul who believes.

The word “end” is used in the text, therefore, in the sense of object or purpose. It does not mean that the law there came to an end, but that Christ is the object of the law, the One to whom the law leads, the One to whom the law brings the sinner. “End” is used in the same way in common conversation, as for instance, “To what end do you do this?” See James 5: 11: “Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord.” This does not mean that the Lord there came to an end, but it has reference to the Lord’s object or purpose in afflicting Job.

This end, or object, of the law is shown in Romans 7—a record of how Paul tried to do the law, but found all his efforts utter failure. At last he came to the place where he saw Jesus Christ. The same God who condemned Paul through the law, through that condemnation led him to Jesus, who was able to save him from it. The same thing is taught in Galatians 3. In verse 22, the apostle says that the Scriptures shut up all things under sin. The thought is of men in a prison house. It shuts them up there in order that they may see that in themselves there is no hope, and “that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.” Before faith comes to the soul, he is, so to speak, kept “under ward.” Therefore the law is become to the sinner a tutor, schoolmaster, pedagogue, “to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” See Gal. 3: 22-24.

The object of God’s law is, then, to bring us to Christ. That is what Rom. 10: 4 teaches. When we are brought to Christ, He places upon us the righteousness which the law demands, and the law becomes our witness, to show that that is the same righteousness that is in the law. Therefore the law cannot condemn us. See Rom. 3: 21, 22: “But now apart from the law a righteousness of God hath been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe; for there is no distinction.”

Thus the soul who is in Christ Jesus is not “under the law.” In other words, the law does not condemn him, does not hold over him the sword of punishment. On the other hand, the law is with him. The Spirit of Christ places it in the believer’s heart, and the believer finds the law a blessed witness that he is in harmony with the righteousness of God.