p. 778 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 23, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 49.

Question Corner

WE can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.

4237 — Questions on Healing

How are we to be healed? By medicine, or chiropractic, osteopathic, and other worldly doctoring? Did Christ use medicine, or drugs of any kind? He taught His disciples to heal through fasting and prayer. Now if we can be healed by prayer, what is the use of sending for a doctor, paying him $5.00 to $10.00 a trip, or going in debt building sanitariums?

J. A. C.

On this question of healing, a great many people seem to think that the infinite God should stand as their orderly servant, and whenever they get anything the matter with them, they should order Him to heal them at once, and expect Him to do it. The Bible teaches divine healing. It plainly says that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick”; but when Christ was here Himself, having anointed the eyes of a blind man with clay, He told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam; and he went and washed, and returned seeing. And when Naaman the leper came to Elisha to be cured of his disease, Elisha told him to go and bathe in the river Jordan.

Luke, one of the apostles of Christ, according to Col. 4:14, was also the “beloved physician.” Then they had doctors right among the early disciples, and they were commended by the apostle Paul. If a man has a broken limb, the sensible thing for him to do is to go to a reputable surgeon and have it properly set; or if he has any other ailment that the science of the physician can remedy, he should avail himself of his services; and it is the privilege of the afflicted one at the same time to pray earnestly for the blessing of God upon the remedies that the skill of the physician provides.

To be sure, there are many quacks and impostors among medical men, the same as there are in all other professions; but the really true physician is working in harmony with God, the Author of nature. And without question, when it is properly understood, all healing is divine healing; for it is really a miracle of creative power, through the manifestation of God’s unchangeable laws, that enables any physician to operate. And when the individual is out of reach of the physician, or when his case is beyond the skill of the physician, the cases are numerous where God has directly interposed, and healed the individual.

There is more fanaticism in the world to-day on this question of divine healing than perhaps on any other subject. A sample case is that of a young woman who had her leg broken. Her mother was an ardent believer in the extreme fanatical notions of divine healing, and refused to send for a physician. The young woman lay upon a bed of pain for month after month, and was left a cripple for the rest of her life, through this absurd folly of so-called divine healing.

God does give us the privilege of coming to Him, and availing ourselves of divine power in healing our diseases. He “healeth all thy diseases,” and the Word is full of promises of that character. But God also gives us divine common sense, and He expects us to use that in connection with divine healing.

4238 — Saved as by Fire

Please explain 1 Cor. 3:15. Some seem to think by this verse that after they have suffered a certain amount, according to their sins, they then have a right to eternal life.

F. L. M.

There are a great many people who are deceiving themselves by this theory. But if those who persuade themselves of such a doctrine from 1 Cor. 3:15 had read a little farther in the chapter, they would have seen their fatal error, for verse 17 says, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” The apostle is talking about man’s work. He said: “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire,” for the fire has burned up all his life-work. Jude, verse 23, speaks of those who are saved by fire, as if pulling them out of the fire. The thief on the cross is a good example of those whom the apostle is evidently talking about in this verse. The thief on the cross was an outlaw. He was deemed by the civil authorities, because of his crimes, as worthy of death; and he himself, while on the cross by the side of Christ, acknowledged, “We receive the due reward of our deeds.” Luke 23:41. But nevertheless, because of the faith that this thief expressed in Christ, and the sincere repentance that he made under the trying circumstances in which he was placed, the Master promised to receive him into Paradise. Now all of the life-work of that thief would have to be burned up. He himself was saved, though as by fire. But what God desires is that we shall come to Him at the earliest moment in life, that we shall receive from Him His power to do works that shall stand the test of the Judgment, so that, in the place of our life-work, like that of the thief on the cross, having to be burned up, our work can stand as a monument of what God can do in winning and helping humanity, through the influence and power that He imparts to His workers.

4239 — Forgiveness in the World to Come

Are we to understand from Matt. 12:32 that there will be a forgiveness of sin in the world to come?

R. R. J.

Most assuredly not. The text is speaking of the sin against the Holy Ghost, and it emphasizes the fact that there is no forgiveness for this sin, either in this world or in the world to come. The text places emphasis upon the hopeless condition of the individual who has continued in sin until he has actually cut himself off from the influences of the Spirit of God. But neither this text nor any other text anywhere in all the word of God promises forgiveness in the world to come. And to try to get such a doctrine on mere inference from such texts as this one in Matthew is a very reckless thing to do. God’s word always says, “Now”—“Now is the day of salvation.” The devil’s plan is to seek to have us wait; and in order to compass our destruction, he tries to get men to believe that they may have forgiveness in the world to come.