Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 47.

1447.—Conversion, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

Please tell me in the Question Corner if it would be wrong for a truly converted person to partake of the Lord’s Supper before being baptized, he not having had any opportunity as yet? Was Peter converted, and had he been baptized before the Lord’s death? J. D.

The regular Gospel order is conversion, baptism, the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is the outward ceremony whereby the individual puts on Christ and is married to Him. Gal. 3:27; Rom. 7:4. That it would be wrong to follow a different order, we do not know. Each soul must be conscience for himself. For ourselves, we would prefer to follow the order indicated in God’s Word.

Yes, Peter was doubtless converted a great deal better than many modern Christians before the Lord’s death. See Matt. 16:15–17. The disciples of Jesus were evidently baptized when they became His disciples. See John 3:22, 26.

1448.—Forgiveness and “the World to Come.”

What do you understand Matt. 12:32 to mean? Is there forgiveness in the next world, or age? What world is here referred to? L. L. W.

Verse 32 is evidently referred to. The word rendered “world” comes from aion, age. The age to come may refer to the age then beginning under the fuller development of the Gospel, in contrast with the Jewish age. The meaning of the expression, “It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world [age], neither in the world to come,” is a strong expression meaning that there is absolutely no forgiveness. See Mark 3:29, “Hath never forgiveness.”

It is true that many persons die who have sinned against God unwittingly, even as Abraham and others in their marriage relations, or as others who have not kept the Fourth Commandment. They have walked in all the light they saw, and God accepted them, not because of their errors, but in spite of them. In the great judgment day, in the age to come, when their cases are called, there will be the record of their errors; but as the heart was perfect toward God, the error is forgiven, and Christ’s perfect righteousness stands for the child of God. But he who sins against the Spirit of God till he no longer knows it, and attributes its working to the devil, is past all hope. His sin is no longer repentable. It is not a sin of ignorance; but against the light and power of God.