p. 2 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 17, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 24.

Question Corner

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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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

4099 — Obedience to God and to Parents

Will you please tell me, would children under and over the age of twenty-one years, but still living with their parents, be breaking the fifth commandment by keeping the seventh-day Sabbath instead of Sunday, when the parents request them to keep Sunday? Eph. 6:1 reads: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right.” If parents compel a child to work on the Sabbath of our Lord, when the child believes the truth, would the child be breaking the fourth or Sabbath commandment? S. S. S.

It is pretty difficult to fix the age of accountability of a child. The Jews had a rule among them that at twelve years of age the child became a “son of the law.” Previous to that time he was wholly under the power and control of his parents. But at that time, having been educated for that purpose, he became a “son of the law,” and went to Jerusalem, and was so recorded in the temple. This is what our Lord did, as recorded in the second chapter of Luke. When He was twelve years of age He went up to present Himself at the temple, and according to the Jewish system became a son of the law. He was then responsible to God. Normally, according to that rule, it was His duty to fulfil and obey conscientiously just what God taught Him to do. Yet we read of Jesus after this, that He was subject to His parents in all things. Of course with His parents this simply meant the fullest service of God, because His parents were godly parents. As to the application which should be made of that to children under age and under the control of their parents, it is almost impossible to say. If that child really understood and knew, in the full, clear sense, just what his duty was to God, that is one thing; but many times children really do not know their own mind. They would not have strength to stand alone; and until the child did have that strength to stand alone, or was in circumstances or environments where he would be helped on in the Christian life for which conversion has formed a true basis, I would say that they had better stay with their parents, and let the parents meet the account in the great day of God. But if that child is old enough to become indeed a son of the law, and is truly converted to God, God’s claim lies first. But there ought to be no spirit of rebellion in the doing of the Lord’s will.

4100 — Predestination

What is meant by predestination to the elect?—that some vessels are made to honor, and some to dishonor? I can not find these verses, or I would refer to them. G. W. O.

“Elect” means to choose; “predestination,” to mark out beforehand. God calls every responsible soul in this world, calls them to a crown, to a name, to a character, to eternal life. It is for these individuals to choose what God calls, or reject it if they will. Some of these, of course, God sees will choose; but the choosing must be on their part, and faithfulness on their part must abide with them, in order that they may obtain, at the end, the thing that they have chosen. And so Peter exhorts us, “Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble.” 2 Peter 1:10. We have the predestination suggested in Eph. 1:5,—“Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” In the Revised Version it is “having foreordained”—having marked us out. It is for us to say whether we will let God develop the character which His marking out indicated. He calls us to a definite thing; He brings us through just such experiences as will develop the character within us to which He calls us.

See the tract which explains this more fully, entitled “Bible Election,” No. 67, Bible Students’ Library, the price of which is two cents by mail. It is a comforting subject if we study it aright.

The mention of vessels unto honor and dishonor is found in 2 Tim. 2:20, and there are other references also; but we are told in verse 21 that if a man will purge himself from these—that is, from the wrong things named before—he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the Master’s use, prepared unto every good work. The vessels unto dishonor are those that have made themselves such by rejecting the One who would cleanse them.

4101 — Animals

Are animals created, or recreated, or resurrected? D. P.

Ps. 104:30 would seem to indicate that they are created. Verses 29 and 30 say: “Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth.” Of course, that is practically true in the resurrection of God’s children who sleep. It is creative power that brings them back to life. The Bible, however, does not minister to our curiosity. Whether they are the same animals that lived here or not, God doesn’t inform us. Insofar as we know anything about animals at the present time, it would matter very little. As to their multiplication in the new earth, we may be assured of this,—that there will be no greater population than the earth will support. It will not be crowded, neither will it be underpopulated. Of this we may be sure,—that God’s plan will be perfect. We can leave all the details with Him.

4102 — Do Angels Propagate?

Do angels propagate? So it is claimed by one. D. P.

Yes, and no. There is a higher birth than natural birth. There are children who are dearer than blood children. Every true child of God is also a child of Jesus Christ, begotten of God through His word, born of the Spirit. Under Christ, angels may gather souls in this way with man. That is true of God’s children. Paul writes to those whom he has “begotten in the gospel.” He, under God, is their spiritual father. We know of no other way in which there will be propagation of souls in the matured individuals in Christ Jesus. In that world, they neither marry nor are given in marriage—God’s way of propagating physical beings. But there will be brought into the universe, we may well believe, continually new worlds and new populations of the new worlds; and the instructed among God’s servants, angels and men, will minister to these souls as spiritual fathers throughout the endless ages to come. Apart from these great, general truths, God has not revealed. It is an exceedingly dangerous thing to take some of the prophecies of the Old Testament, which were partly conditioned on Israel’s obedience, which were partially fulfilled to Israel in the restoration, and which will in a fuller sense be fulfilled when Christ shall come, and endeavor to make them literal in every sense in the future. One needs to take home to heart and keep before him the words of the apostle Paul in Eph. 3:1-6.

4103 — Working Horses on the Sabbath

Brother F. hired a team to a man who was traveling with a thrashing-machine, for an indefinite time, at $1.50 a day, and later to a lumberman for the winter, at an agreed price per month. The team was worked on the Sabbath, and Brother F. is blamed for it; but he contends that the horses became the property, or servants, of those who hired them, until this term of service expires. A. C. F.

We think that Brother F. is right. He sold that team for that time, and the man who worked them is responsible for them. Had they been working on Brother F.’s own premises, that would have been a different thing. They would have then been under his control. The duty of the Sabbath command lies in our own individual conduct and within our gates.

4104 — Tormented Forever and Ever

Please explain Rev. 20:10, about “tormented day and night forever and ever.”

We would prefer to commend to our inquirer Bible Students’ Library, No. 111, the price of which is one cent, two cents by mail, which takes up all these various texts much more fully than it is possible to do it in this department. In brief, the tract teaches that the word “torment” does not mean necessarily suffering pain, but means a test. It comes from the Greek word “basanos,” meaning the touchstone, which, if spurious metals were rubbed upon it, was supposed to reveal their character. The great touchstone by which God will test all characters in the last great day is the glory of His own presence, the unquenchable fire, and that testing will be forever. So the apostle tells us, in 1 Corinthians 3, that every man’s work shall be tested, yet so as by fire; for the day shall declare it. See 1 Cor. 3:11 and following. Satan has promised men that they can live notwithstanding any physical agency that may be brought against them. The glory of God’s presence will set the world on fire, and there will come the great test of characters. Those who are filled with God’s glory by faith will be among those that can dwell with the devouring fire, even as the three Hebrew children dwelt in the fiery furnace. But those who are not filled with His glory will perish in that fire. See Isa. 33:14, 15. And that testing shall be forever. “They shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away,” we read in the Thirty-seventh Psalm. And they shall be ashes on the face of the earth, Malachi tells us.

The little tract, in connection with this, explains such passages as Matt. 25:41, 46.

4105 — Right to Remarry

Does the Bible teach that it is right to remarry after one has been divorced for any reason, including fornication? What is the meaning of the word “divorce”? R. T.

From Matt. 5:32 and 19:9, it would seem that one has a right to marry after separation from a companion who had been guilty of fornication. “Divorce” comes from the Latin “divortium,” or “diverto,” having the same root as “divert,”—to turn from. In law, “the legal dissolution of a marriage contract; separation of husband and wife from the bonds of matrimony by process of law.” The word comes from two Hebrew words, meaning a cutting and to drive out, or divorce, put away; and in the New Testament, from Greek words which mean that which separates. Our Lord seems to have sanctioned but one proper cause of divorce, and that is fornication.

4106 — Days of Daniel

What of the 1,290 days and 1,335 days of Dan. 12:11, 12? M. H. R.

This department is too crowded to enter into a lengthy explanation of these periods. We will say simply this,—that the 1,290 days are held to begin in 508 and close in 1798. In about the year 508 the Papacy was established in France through the civil power, or at least was placed on a different basis under the influence of Clovis. The days ended in 1798, when papal supremacy came to an end. The 1,335 days evidently begin at the same date, and end in 1843, the time of the great Advent movement.