Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 15, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 24.

1518.—Conscience a Guide.

Is the conscience a safe guide? L. D. W.

No; it is not a guide at all. If it is good, it is that which the Guide uses in part to direct us. The Lord declares, “I will guide thee.” “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” writes the psalmist. Conscience is like a watch—good when it is regulated and kept regulated by standard time. The Regulator Standard is God’s law; the Regulator, His Spirit. Without these, conscience is worse than worthless, it becomes “an evil conscience,” a “seared conscience.” Conscience alone has been responsible for many awful crimes and sins.

1519.—Matt. 12:40.

Please explain Matt. 12:40, in reference to Christ’s being buried three days and three nights, literal time, as given in the Bible. It does not seem to correspond. Friday night till Sunday morning is not three days and three nights.

Matt. 12:40 reads as follows: “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

In the first place, the term “three days and three nights” is not, according to Bible usage, an exact term, meaning just seventy-two hours. It means, in common Bible usage, three days, when two of those days may be only parts of days. See the use of such expressions in Judges 14:12, 15, 17, 18; Esther 4:16; 5:1. See, also, the use of this very period of our Lord’s sufferings, expressed sometimes as “the third day,” “in three days,” “after three days.” Matt. 16:21; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22; Mark 8:31, etc. Yet we are told in Luke, at the very close of the day on which Jesus rose, “to-day is the third day since these things were done.” Luke 24:21. Therefore, three days do not necessarily mean seventy-two hours, but is a common expression denoting a period reaching into three days.

2. We are not told that Jonah was in the whale seventy-two hours; but as he was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights (only parts of three days, probably), so shall the Son of Man, etc.

3. Jesus does not say three days and three nights in the grave. The expression, “the heart of the earth,” may mean in the hands of the powers of earth. When Jesus was betrayed, He was given up to the authorities of earth. It was then He said, “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” The three days included His betrayal, His scourging, His crucifixion, His burial, including nearly all of the sixth day of the week, the whole of the seventh, and a part of the first. Why try to make the expressions of Scripture mean more than the Bible makes them mean?

1520.—No Standards of Morality.

Will you please explain Isaiah 66:3? G. W.

The whole context shows that the text has application to a time when very few are humble and contrite, and tremble at the word of the Lord. God regards these with special favor. Those who do not so regard God and His Word lose all sense of proportion morally. The beast is exalted to man. “He that killeth an ox is as he that slayeth a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb [a clean beast], as he that breaketh a dog’s neck.” A meal offering to God is the same as swine’s blood, the offering of incense is like blessing an idol. In other words, what God says is nothing. Apostate man puts no difference between the unclean and the clean. “Yea,” the Lord says, “they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.”

1521.—Rom. 11:25, 32.—To W. H. S. and others: See Bible Students’ Library, No. 165, “Fulness of Jew and Gentile,” price one cent.

We are in receipt of a letter simply giving Rom. 14:5; 1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:20. What explanation is desired? The texts are all good.