Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 3, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 14.

1141. J. J.—Read Eph. 5:24 in connection with verses 25-29. If you are a husband, find your duty in the latter passage. If you are a wife, find your duty in God’s instruction to wives. If a husband, learn how Christ loved the church, gave Himself for it, and leads it as a shepherd his flock. If the husband is like Christ, he need not borrow so much trouble about the duty of the wife.

1142. R. A. H., Gal. 6:1.—A truly converted man is a spiritual man, for conversion is wrought by Spirit; but there are degrees in spiritual growth. The apostle gives the instruction he does, that the man who attempts correction may be sure that his course is of the Spirit not the flesh.

1143. C. P., Luke 24:39.—The apostles supposed they had seen a spirit, that is, a spiritual being, such as a demon or angel. There is no evidence whatever to indicate that they thought they saw the spirit of one dead. “Spirit” is sometimes used of Deity, sometimes of angel or demon, a spiritual created being; sometimes it means simply life. The context and use must decide its meaning. There is nothing in the text above referred to which shows the spirit to be either mortal or immortal, dying or deathless. And the words of Jesus simply show that spirits are not composed of the gross material of human beings. When man dies, his spirit or life goes back to God who gave it, not as a new being, a conscious entity, but as life.

1144. E. F. G.—Edom was defeated at different times. See 2 Sam. 8:14; 2 Kings 14:7. They were completely subdued by John Hyrcanus. 1 Maccabees 5:1-3; also Josephus.

1145. B. W.—The Bible nowhere speaks of the chariots of fire and iron and ships to sail in the air. Some one has the accounts of Elijah’s translation in 2 Kings 2:11, and the Valley Canaanites in Judges 1:19, and “Mother Shipton’s” prophecy mixed up. Job 38:35 is considered by many as a prophecy of the telegraph and telephone.