p. 2 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 2, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 22.

Question Corner

[To Our Inquirers.—(1) The name and address of all who ask questions must accompany questions, not necessarily for publication, in token of good faith, and that we may reply by letter if thought best. All communications will be considered confidential if so desired, and no name will be published unless requested. But we have no time to give to anonymous or unsigned epistles or articles. (2) Let the questions be to the point. Do not say, “Explain Josh. 7:1-8,” but state the thing upon which help is desired. (3) Questions can not be answered immediately in this department. Sometimes it will mean a month or more of waiting. We can not reply to the same question frequently. Read answers to other questions; you may find reply to yours. (4) Members of the Bible Band will kindly enclose stamp if answer is desired by letter. Others will please enclose ten cents. This does not begin to meet expenses oftentimes. (5) “Foolish . . . questions avoid.”]

2857.—Preaching Through Noah.

Please explain 1 Peter 3:18-20. L.

The passage reads as follows: “Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit; in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, that aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.” We quote from the American Revised Version.

First of all, the text states that Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous. He did this that He might bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh, because He took our sins upon Him. He was made alive by the Spirit, because He was righteous, and in the way of righteousness is life.

That same Spirit that made Him alive is the one Spirit of the Gospel in all ages. It is the same by which He preached to the antediluvians, the sinners of that far-off age. It is assumed sometimes that He did this when He was dead; but that is not the thought of the text. He went and “preached unto the spirits in prison, that aforetime were disobedient, WHEN [at the time] the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah.” And then was the time that He preached unto them, “when the ark was a preparing.” 2 Peter 2:5 tells us that Noah was a “preacher of righteousness.” The Gospel he proclaimed was by faith. We are told in Heb. 11:7 that what Noah then did condemned the world, but it made him an heir of the righteousness which was according to faith. Therefore, Noah’s preaching, or God’s preaching by the Spirit through Noah, was at the time that Noah lived and “when the ark was a preparing.”

2858.—Depart and Return.

I notice in the Question Corner, No. 2806—“Departing and Being with Christ,”—that you have evidently made a mistake. You say that the word rendered “depart” in Phil. 1:23 is the same as rendered “return” in Luke 20:35, but there is no such word in the latter text. A. G. A.

There is a mistake. It should have been Luke 12:36 instead of Luke 20:35: “Be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord, when he shall return from the marriage feast.” The word is analusai, from the verb analuo. Whether the apostle expected special translation himself or whether he looked for the second coming of Christ, the result would have been the same in either way. The whole tenor of his teaching is that we should be clothed upon by the house from heaven at the second coming of our Lord.

2859.—Evil Spirit from the Lord.

In 1 Sam. 16:14 it is said that an evil spirit from the Lord troubled Saul. Do evil spirits come from the Lord, or does He only permit them to come? B. B. No. 1601.

What the Lord permits is spoken of many times as though He did it. When Saul came to that place that the Spirit of God could not influence him aright, the Lord permitted the evil spirits to influence him; and so it is with every wicked soul. God will do everything in His power to get souls, to win them to Him, to keep them from evil; but when that soul will not be led by the Spirit of God, God leaves him to the course which the soul has himself chosen, and then an evil spirit by the permission of the Lord will come in and take possession. The only way to keep ourselves from such influences is to yield ourselves to that Spirit which always leads for our good.

2860.—Genealogy of Christ.

Please explain why Luke in 3:31 in giving the genealogy of Christ says He was descended from Nathan the son of David, while Matt. 1:7 says from Solomon the son of David. In 2 Sam. 3:14 I see they are two different persons, both sons of David. B. B. 971.

The reason is this, that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, carrying it clear back to Adam. Joseph is mentioned in verse 23 because he was the legal head. The male is mentioned instead of the female because the genealogy is given and the heirship descended through the male; while Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph himself through whom the rulership would have come, and who, altho not the literal father of Jesus, was the reputed and legal father. So that on both sides His parents came from the family of David. By comparing the two genealogies it will be seen that the lines cross which would bind absolutely both Mary and Joseph to the royal branch of David.

2861.—Sunday Law.

Would there need to be a Sunday law in operation in California and elsewhere before the prophecies of Rev. 13:15-17 could be fulfilled? J. S.

In its fullest sense, yes; in principle, no. The prophecy, if rightly understood, we believe, shows that there will be a universal Sunday law throughout the dominion of the beasts; the one beast controlling the Old World, the other the New, making the Sunday law itself universal, and yet the principle of beast rule and coercion might be carried out in a local way.