Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 4, 1913

“IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE.”

This Inquirers’ 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 them 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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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.

4005 — Christ Coming to Earth

I have heard people say that Christ would never touch the earth again. How would this compare with what is stated in Job 19:25? M. M. M.

When Christ comes the second time, He will not touch the earth. This is quite clearly shown in 1 Thess. 4:15-17. His people will be caught up to meet Him in the air, and will go with Him to the city above; but at the end of the thousand years, when He comes back again, His feet will stand at that day on the Mount of Olives. Zech. 14:4. Then the earth will be made new, and He will receive His kingdom; and Job’s hope included that.

4006 — The Many Mansions

Please explain John 14:2, in connection with Isa. 65:21. In John 14:2 Christ says He goes to prepare a place for us. Why, then, will it be necessary for the righteous to build houses for themselves, according to Isa. 65:21? J. M.

The many mansions that Jesus has gone to prepare are in the holy city, whose Builder and Maker is God, where the children of the Lord go up from Sabbath to Sabbath and from month to month. See Isa. 66:22, 23; also Rev. 21:22. These are the mansions that Jesus has gone to prepare. The expression that Isaiah uses is to show the contrast between that world and this. In this world men build houses, and others inhabit. They plant vineyards, and others eat of the fruit of the vineyard. Man does not continue. It is a strong figurative way of expressing that we shall live forever in that world. We do not anticipate that there will be very much building of houses there. It is not a matter of necessity, as our correspondent would imply, but it is a matter of real pleasure and joy, in which they will twine into beautiful bowers, vines and branches of trees, and make living houses. But these, of course, will be in the country, in different parts of the new world. The mansions refer to the city, and the others to the country.

4007 — Who Sinned?

Please explain John 9:2, 3, which is as follows: “And His disciples asked Him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” The question put to me was this: that man had a previous existence before this life; and to prove it, I was asked how the man could sin before he was born, if he had had no previous existence. He, of course, claimed that the disciples knew what they were talking about, and were asking no foolish questions when they asked, “Who did sin, this man or his parents?” W. D.

Vincent, in his “Word Studies in the New Testament,” on the text says: “It was a common Jewish view that the merits or demerits of the parents would appear in the children, and that the thoughts of the mother might affect the moral state of her unborn offspring. The apostasy of one of the greatest rabbis had, in popular belief, been caused by the sinful delight of his mother in passing through an idol grove. Some contend that the Jews believed in transmigration of souls.” Dunwell’s “Commentary on the Four Gospels” quotes from Lightfoot, that “it appears that the ancient opinion of the Jews was that the infant from its first quickening had some stain upon it.” Nay, they went a little farther, not only that the infant might have some stain of sin in the womb, but that it might in some measure actually sin, and do that which might render it criminal. And therefore the question was, Did this child, before it was born, sin? That it did not have reference to the transmigration of souls, is proved by the fact that in the perversion of truth which the Pharisees had, they believed that the good souls only passed into other bodies. It seems clear to us that the best sense of all is given by Boothroyd’s comment. We quote: “Pearce contends that this question can have no reference to the opinion of the Pharisees, who held something like the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration, as it respected the good only, but supposed the wicked did not enjoy this privilege. Matt. 16:14, etc. He explains, ‘Who sinned? This man that he hath become blind; or if he were born so, was it for the sin of his parents?’”

That is, the question does not imply that they knew that he had been born blind. “Rabbi, did this man sin, so that he became blind? or did his parents sin that he was born blind?” Any of these suppositions would clear the text from the idea that our Lord taught transmigration of souls. The clear Bible teaching regarding the soul has nothing of this.

4008 — Worship of Semiramis

Was not Semiramis, wife of Nimrod, worshiped in Jeremiah’s day as queen of heaven, and as Diana of the Ephesians in Paul’s days? Was she not the first builder of the walls of Babylon? I find history varying in some of these things. C. E. B.

It is pretty difficult to tell and trace all of these things. Hislop’s “Two Babylons” spends pages upon them. There seems to be but little question, however, but that Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod, and that she was among those goddesses that were early worshiped. According to Anthon’s “Classical Dictionary,” she herself was the daughter of one who was regarded as a goddess, Derceto. According to the mythical tradition, she was exposed in a desert, but was preserved by doves for a whole year. And then a lot of other things are brought in which would indicate that she may have been connected with Nimrod, and may not. We are also told by this authority that she married Ninus, who may have been the same as Nimrod, afterward putting him to death. He placed the sovereign power in her hands for five days, and during this time he was executed. It also records that she began the building of the great city of Babylon, in which work, tradition tells us, two millions of men were employed. One tradition is that when she passed away she was changed into a dove, and consequently came the worship of doves. But the nature of her worship would seem to connect her with “the queen of heaven,” Venus, Diana of the Ephesians, and other goddesses of the same cult and character. What would seem to connect her with Nimrod is this, that we have traditions from both sides that each was the builder of Babylon. Of course the one who brought Babylon to its highest state of beauty and glory was Nebuchadnezzar. Hislop’s “Two Babylons” will give fuller information upon the question.

4009 — Without Repentance

What is meant by Rom. 11:29: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance”? J. F.

Simply this, that God is never sorry for doing any good thing. He calls every sinner to come to Him. He bestows His gifts upon the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked. Some of them are rejected even by His own children, slighted, neglected; but God is not sorry that He gave them. The gifts and the calling of God are not repented of. Men do repent of them many times. We hear a man saying, “I am sorry I did this for such a one, or that I did this for such another one. They have never been even grateful for it.” But that is not the true spirit of giving, after all. However they regard it, the soul who gives rightly, who has the true spirit of giving, is more blessed than the receiver, for it is the Master Himself who said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

4010 — The Law from Adam to Moses

Will you kindly explain the meaning of Rom. 5:13, 14? Are we to understand there was no law from Adam to Moses? Had the antediluvians no law by which to be guided? C. S. B.

The passage reads as follows: “For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of Him that was to come.” The antediluvians had law because the antediluvians sinned; and it is the word of the apostle himself that “where there is no law, neither is there transgression” (Rom. 4:15); and that “by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). Nay, more, that he had not known what sin was, himself, had it not been for the law. Rom. 7:7. What the apostle is speaking of is the written law, because he is talking to the Jews as well as others. See Rom. 2:17. And they understood by the law, the written law, for until the law was written sin was in the world. What is sin?—“Sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. And the fact that sin was in the world, and that sin is not imputed when there is no law, showed that there was law then, just as truly as though it had been written out. And he further shows that there was law, by saying that death reigned from Adam until Moses. Now death is the result of sin, for “sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15; Rom. 6:23. Some of these had not sinned against the law as Adam did, but they had sinned. What the apostle is showing, is that all men are condemned, in whatever dispensation they lived, and condemned by the law; and that all men are saved, if they are saved at all, under whatever dispensation they lived, by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. “Who is the figure of Him that was to come,” is by some referred to Adam, by some to Moses. Adam, of course, was a figure of Him who was to come, in the sense that as Adam was the head of the first creation, so Christ is the head of the second creation. 1 Cor. 15:22, 45. Moses was also a type of Christ, in the fact that he was God’s prophet, to lead the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt into the promised land. See Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22.

4011 — “Under the Law”

What is the meaning of Rom. 3:19? W. A. K.

The text reads: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God.” (A.R.V.) “Under the law” does not mean here what it does in most other places. “Under the law,” for instance, in Rom. 6:14, “hupo nomon,” is under the condemnation of the law—the law over us; but “under the law” here is “en to nomo,” within the law, subject to the law. That includes every one. The law speaks to those who are subject to it, and as every one who is subject to it in this earth has sinned, it shuts every mouth, and all the world is condemned by it. See Bible Students’ Library, No. 163, “Under the Law” or “Under Grace?” Single copy, by mail, 2 cents.