Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 34.

“IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE.”

This Inquirer's Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer these questions does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.

4164 — Who Wrote the Law on the Tables of Stone?

Who wrote the second two tables of the covenant, Moses or the Lord? J. L. L. and others.

You are correct in stating that the Lord wrote both. Verse 28 of Exodus 34 would seem to indicate that Moses wrote them; but the “He” in the sentence, “And He wrote upon the tables,” certainly must refer to the promise in the first verse. The first verse reads: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.” Now did God fulfil that? Did He do what He said He would do? Verse 28 shows that He did, and the “He” refers to the Lord. This is clearly confirmed by Moses in Deut. 10:1-4: “At that time Jehovah said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and come up unto Me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. And I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.” That is the Lord’s instruction. Now in carrying it out, Moses says: “And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine hand. And He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments.” It is Moses’ declaration that God wrote the words. Certainly this ought to be conclusive.

4165 — The Penalty of Sin

If Adam and Eve paid the penalty of their sin by death, labor, and losing their home, why should the penalty be paid again by Christ four thousand years afterward? W. H. D.

The death and the labor and the loss of home came to Adam as a consequence of his sin. Just as soon as he departed from the law of his life, he departed from the law of his life. “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.” If man had continued in obedience to God, he never would have died. But just as soon as he transgressed the law of his life, he brought himself within the dominion of death. It came as an actual consequence. If no gospel had come in, it would have been eternal death. But God brought the gospel in; and through that gospel all men, irrespective of character, are redeemed from that Adamic death. That is not the penalty of sin. Christ has redeemed all from that, and placed man on a new probation; and now when man utterly refuses that, of course he will die. If he rejects it, he will meet the penalty of his own sin, which is eternal death. We read in 1 Cor. 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Because of Adam’s sin, death passed upon all men (Rom. 5:12); but to those who will accept of the one Offering for sin, Christ Jesus, there is abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness and the reigning in life by Him. Rom. 5:17, 18. Under the gospel, the death through Adam becomes a consequence of Adam’s sin. Christ meets all of that, places us on a new probation, and asks us to accept of the abundance of grace to save us from our sinful condition. Rejecting that, we must meet the penalty and consequence, death.

4166 — Change of the Day’s Beginning

Will you tell me when and by whom the beginning of the day was changed from sundown to midnight? P. W.

It is really impossible to learn the time when the change of the day took place. It is generally agreed that the Egyptians were among those who started the day at midnight, and it came from them through Rome to the civilized nations of the world. The custom seems to have grown out of the four night-watches, and the day began between the two watches. Hales says (“Analysis of Chronology,” volume 1, pages 15, 16): “The inconveniences resulting from a variable beginning of the civil day, earlier or later, according to the different seasons of the year, induced several ancient nations,—the Egyptians (according to Pliny, ‘Natural History,’ book 2, page 77); the Ausonians, the most ancient inhabitants of Italy; the Roman pontifices; Hipparchus, the Grecian astronomer; and the Chinese astronomers of Cathai and Oighur, etc.,—to reckon their civil day from midnight to midnight, as from a fixed, invariable point; and this usage has been adopted by most of the modern nations of Europe.” It evidently runs far back into antiquity. And yet it is also true that the early Greeks began the day as did the Scripture, with sunset. Hales quotes Solon as saying that the twelfth hour ended at sunset,—“Let the sun setting upon the mountains be the last hour;” and this was copied in the laws of the twelve tables at Rome: “Solis occasus suprema tempestas esto.” Some of our readers may have more definite data than this.

4167 — Rebaptism

John the Baptist was a messenger from God, and was commissioned to baptize. Why was it necessary for the disciples to be rebaptized, as recorded in Acts 19:3-5? W. A. M.

Simply because those disciples had been imperfectly instructed, and did not see all that the gospel meant. When Paul found them at Ephesus, he asked them, “Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?” They said to him, “Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given.” And he said, “Into what then were ye baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on Him that should come after him, that is, on Jesus.” These disciples evidently had not understood all that their baptism stood for. They had been imperfectly instructed. They did not know about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They evidently did not understand the promises of Jesus, that He would bestow His Spirit when He went away. Really, they had come into possession of great and marvelous light. The commission which Jesus gave for baptism was, “baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (see Matt. 28:19, 20), which, in other words, would mean baptism into righteousness (including repentance, of course); baptism into absolute self-emptying, as did our Lord; and baptism into service—into the Holy Spirit. It is just as proper in these days, if one has been baptized in faith in Jesus, when he sees that that means so very much more than he saw when he was baptized, and that first baptism was a mere formal baptism, and the soul sees so much larger vision of duty and responsibility to God, to be rebaptized. At least it seems to us very fitting that this should be, and that those to whom such light had come would be glad to be rebaptized, just the same as were those disciples at Ephesus. It was large additional light, which practically meant a new birth into the kingdom of God.

4168 — Baptism

Has baptism any history before John the Baptist? If so, how, and when, and for what purpose, was it used? Were the disciples baptized after the crucifixion? and if not, why not, if they were baptized for the same reason that we do now, that is, to commemorate the death and resurrection of Christ? O. F. F.

See the article in this week’s “Signs” on baptism, by Mr. Starr. That will help you regarding baptism before the time of John the Baptist, or baptism as brought out in the Septuagint Greek Old Testament. However, baptism for the purpose of expressing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, of course, did not originate until John the Baptist. John the Baptist baptized in view of Him who was to come. The disciples instructed by our Saviour found that sufficient, doubtless, because He led them on from step to step. They were joined to Him, and He taught them all that that meant. Therefore they were not baptized after the crucifixion, save into the Holy Spirit. They were baptized for the same reason we are now,—they were baptized for faith in Jesus; but they were in Him brought into the fullest communion and knowledge of all that it meant. Evidently there were others baptized after John’s baptism who did not see all of this. This is shown in the nineteenth chapter of Acts. They did not know that the Holy Spirit had been given. They had not been instructed regarding these things in the fullest sense. But this we can not believe regarding the disciples of Jesus. But as to our duty, and to the duty of believers from that time forward, we can have no question. We have our Lord’s own command in Matthew 28 and Mark 16, as well as the instruction found in the Acts of the Apostles.

4169 — His Will, Luke 12:47

Please explain Luke 12:47. Which will does it really mean, the lord’s will or his own (the servant’s)? R. F. H.

The servant was condemned. He knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, nor did according to it,—that is, according to the will that he ought to do. It was the business of that servant to do his lord’s will. He had been hired for that purpose. That was his duty, and he knew it, but he did not prepare himself, nor did he do according to that will. Consequently the punishment. Rotherham renders, “And that servant who had come to know the will of his lord, and neither prepared nor wrought unto his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.”

4170 — J. L. C.

For explanation of Gal. 4:2 see question 4140 in the “Signs” for July 25.