Question Corner by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 20, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 16.

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 only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to the editors to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import can not 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 Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best.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.

112—“SEASON” AND “TIME”

Please explain Dan. 7:11, 12, particularly the expression “season” and “time.” C. S.

Dan. 7:11 refers to the judgment of God which falls upon the beast because of his blasphemous words. The prophet sees that from the time the beast utters its blasphemous words, its fate is determined; and as he still beholds, the beast is destroyed, “given to the burning flame.” He then refers to the beasts that preceded this last beast. They did not meet the same end that the last beast met. Their lives were prolonged. There was a process of blending from one into the other. Babylon was not immediately overthrown. Medo-Persia was not; Grecia was not. They were set aside by a gradual process; but in the case of the last beast of apostasy, the end comes at once, right at the very acme of its triumph. The marginal reading of verse 12, you will see, is, “A prolonging in life was given them.” This gives the idea of the “season” and the “time.” It does not mean a particular, definite period.

113—ANCESTRY OF CHRIST

If it was Joseph who was of the lineage of David, how was Christ of David’s seed according to the flesh? B. H. P.

Matthew and Luke give two different lines of ancestry for our Lord. That of Matthew is His royal descent, down through David, and consequently through Joseph. His legal father—Jesus inheriting the kingdom from him because he was His legal father. The kingdom belonged to Him, therefore, according to law. But Luke gives our Lord’s human descent from Adam down through David’s seed to Mary. Joseph is mentioned because all the reckoning is through the male; but there seems to be no question at all but that Heli was the father of Mary, and legally the father of Joseph, because Joseph was Mary’s husband. Therefore the lineage of Matthew traces our Lord back to David, and through David to Abraham, the father of the faithful. But Luke traces His lineage back through Heli to Adam himself. Therefore legally Jesus was a Son of David and heir to the kingdom, and literally He was the Son of David according to the flesh.

114—ARE THE PATRIARCHS LIVING?

Are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob now living? Matt. 22:32. B. H. P.

The text does not say it. The scripture declares: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” That is, they live in God’s purpose, but they live only as the verses before indicate—by the resurrection of the dead. That resurrection has not yet taken place, but in the purpose of God it exists; and as the purpose of God is infinite, it will be carried out. Therefore God counts them as still living. See the parallel passage in Mark 12:26, 27: “And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.” Our Lord uses this very fact to prove that there will be a resurrection of the dead. Now if they were already living without a resurrection, it would make our Lord’s argument foolish. Of course it is not that. It proves just what Jesus designed to prove, that the dead would be raised. See also Luke 20:37, 38: “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him.” In other words, because God is eternal and all-powerful, He “quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Rom. 4:17.

115—THE BURNING OF WEAPONS, Eze. 39:9, 10

Kindly explain Eze. 39:9, 10. When is the time mentioned here? And do not Gog and Magog represent Russia? And in the twelfth verse, when are those seven months? The whole chapter is a mystery to us. A READER.

There are other questioners on the same passage. We answer them all under this head.

First of all, let us say that Ezekiel 38 and 39 are conditional prophecies. Some would include with these Ezekiel 36 and onward to the close of the book. This is certainly true of Ezekiel 40-48.

By conditional prophecies we mean that the fulfillment of these prophecies is based on conditions. These conditions are stated in Jer. 18:7-10:

“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.”

Secondly, at the time of Ezekiel’s prophecy, Israel were scattered. In a short time God was to gather them home to their own land. If they had complied fully with His conditions, He would have restored them in a measure far exceeding any prosperity or power they had dreamed of. The thirty-sixth chapter tells us that He would have forgiven their sins, given them new hearts, built up all their waste cities, and they would have been a “holy flock,” as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts. They should know that He is Jehovah. He would have restored them, and perhaps Israel who were sleeping, as intimated in the figure of the resurrection, in chapter 37, in which figure the dry bones that God clothed with flesh and placed life within are said to be the whole house of Israel. He would have scattered Israel and Judah, and joined them together in one nation, and the seed of David would have ruled over them. The nations north of them—the Scythian nations, spoken of as Gog and Magog—would have been destroyed before them, and there would have been built the wonderful sanctuary in which they would have rendered the blessed worship described in Ezekiel 40-48. God’s glory would have rested upon that city as never before, and the name of it would have been, from that day forward, “Jehovah-shammah,” meaning “Jehovah is there.” See Eze. 48:35, margin.

But Israel failed. They did not comply with the conditions. Consequently there was only the feeblest form of fulfillment of the promises of God. A few of them were gathered back to the Holy Land—less than fifty thousand. The temple was built, but was not at all equal in glory to the temple built by Solomon. Instead of their northern foes being destroyed, they persecuted the children of Israel—preeminently so under Antiochus IV; and finally the people of God fell under the power of the Romans, and continued thus until the nation was destroyed.

Thirdly. Now there are promises in these scriptures that will be fulfilled toward the true Israel of God, but not in this setting. It seems to us impossible that there can be any literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 38 and 39 in the last days. (a) Because the prophecy itself demands that the land of Israel, spoken of as “the mountains of Israel,” shall be inhabited by a people whom God calls His—a people gathered out from all the nations of the world. But the land of Palestine is not inhabited by any such people at the present time. There are Jews there, but they are few in number, and the land is controlled by the Turk. (b) These people shall dwell safely, all of them, in villages without walls; and while in these days we do not have walled towns, certainly it cannot be said that the people are “dwelling safely.” (c) They are represented as having property and cattle and goods, but Palestine is the poorest of all lands. (d) It is this wealth which arouses the cupidity of the northern powers. That is why these combined powers are said to think “an evil thought,” that they will sweep down upon that land of peace and plenty, and take great spoil; but there is no such wealth to tempt them in these days.

These things forbid that the prophecy shall be literally fulfilled in the last days. Then, too, we could mention another point. The powers that would have swept down upon Israel if God had given Israel the prosperity He desired to give them, would have had wooden weapons, shields and bucklers, and hand staves and spears, and these could have been used for fuel by the children of Israel. But the armies of to-day are not equipped with weapons of that kind.

On the other hand, there are certain things mentioned—the plagues, the pestilence, the hailstones, fire and brimstone, which God will pour out upon the wicked who come against His own people. But for the setting of these judgments we shall look not to Ezekiel 38 and 39, but to Revelation 16-19.

There will doubtless be revolutions in the near future, which may include just such combined armies—and doubtless will—as are set forth in Ezekiel 38; and these armies may sweep down over lesser powers, and utterly destroy them, but they will not do it in the setting that is found in these prophecies. Therefore it seems to us that the heart that is seeking after truth would do well to look upon all of these prophecies in the last part of Ezekiel in the light of the fuller, clearer disclosures in the book of Revelation.