Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 23, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 17.

1228.—Marriage with Unbelievers.

Do the Seventh-day Adventists believe that it is wrong of their church-members to marry worldlings, and members of other religious sects? D. N.

Evidently those Seventh-day Adventists who so marry believe it proper, or else do that which their conscience forbids. We have not interviewed even a small proportion of the nearly hundred thousand Seventh-day Adventists, and therefore do not know what they personally believe. But presumably they believe God’s Word, and that Word is very explicit upon the matter. “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers; for what fellowship have righteousness and iniquity? or what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath a temple of God with idols? for we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” 2 Cor. 6:14-16, R.V. Surely is this very plain, and there are many other scriptures. We can not understand how any one who knows by life union Jesus Christ (and there is no other way of knowing Him) could consent to become one with a person who did not know Him, whose whole aim, aspiration, spirit, and belief was set in an entirely different direction. There could be no true union in the dearest and holiest of all things earthly; no union in prayer; no union in the interchange of sweet, spiritual thoughts and experiences, no union in seeking God’s blessing upon home and offspring. All these things, if experienced with human companionship, must be sought elsewhere. When such have come to the writer to be married, he has refused, and told them frankly and kindly that one of these consequences would inevitably follow: (1) The unbeliever would become a believer; (2) or the believer would lose faith and hold upon God; or (3) that if temporal separation does not result, eternal must eventually ensue. All history shows that the probable outcome of such marriages is the second or third consequence noted above. Of course, if the faithful lost his faith, eternal separation must come in death. Surely in the highest of all things—religion—there should be union between the man and woman before marriage. When conversion of either one comes afterward, it is a different matter. Let the believing one abide, and labor to win the unbeliever. It is proper for Christians to marry, but let them “marry in the Lord.”

1229.—In Heaven while on Earth.

Please explain John 3:13. The text seems to imply that Christ was in heaven while still on earth. J. A. S.

“And no man hath ascended up to heaven [that is, to learn and teach these things] but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven,” reads the text. Physically, of course, this was not so, but spiritually Jesus dwelt in God and God in Him. He had life-connection with heaven. So also he who is born of God and loves God “dwelleth in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:16. And so again it is written that God hath raised us up who believe, and “made us to sit with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.” Eph. 2:6.