Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 11.

“Enquire, and make search, and ask diligently.”

[From time to time we will reply under this head, if deemed advisable, to such candid inquiries as may be sent us. Correspondents wishing a reply to their questions must give their full name and address, not for publication unless they wish, but as an evidence of good faith on their part, and to give us opportunity to reply by letter if deemed best. It is always well to inclose stamp. Let the questions be short and pointed, and such as may be answered in limited space. The questions will be numbered continuously.]

No. 506. Death of Moses.

HAVE we any record of the death of Moses? E.

Yes, in Deut. 34:5–7. That does not tell us just how he died, but it tells us when he died, with whom he died, and who buried him.

No. 507. Genesis 6:3.

WILL you please explain Gen. 6:3? E.

The text reads as follows: “And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” This text is generally understood to express this,—that the time of that generation was limited to the period named in the text, that during that 120 years God would, by the preaching of his servant and the sending forth of his Spirit, endeavor to bring men to repentance, before the flood came upon the earth. The Lord never brings judgment upon men unwarned. Amos 3:7. It was not his desire that the antediluvian world should perish; but their wickedness had become so great that either one of two things was necessary, the truth of God would be lost to the earth, and sin would completely triumph, or the judgment of God must fall upon those who were wicked and sweep them from the earth. It is not the Lord’s plan that righteousness shall perish from the earth or that sin shall eternally triumph, and he therefore gave that generation the privilege of turning to him. He sent out Noah, “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5), who preached the righteousness of Christ by faith (Heb. 11:7), by the power of the Spirit of God (1 Peter 3:19, 20), for 120 years. At the end of this time all upon the earth had either accepted or rejected the message of the Gospel. Those who rejected, identified themselves with sin and chose to perish. Those who accepted, were carried over the flood by the ark. So it will be in the last days before Jesus Christ shall come again. God’s “Spirit shall not always strive with man,” for “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days when the Son of man shall be revealed.” The Lord has not now, however, set the time, but that day of judgment will as surely come as it did in the days of Noah.

No. 508. Eternal Life Now.

DOES 1 John 5:13 teach that we have eternal life now? J. W. L.

It does; and verses 11 and 12 are equally emphatic: “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” John, in his Gospel, chapter 17:3, records these words of Jesus: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Many people find difficulty in grasping this idea because they confound eternal life with immortality. Paul shows plainly that we can not have immortality until the resurrection: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.” “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” 1 Cor. 15:42, 53. But with the eternal life it is different; if we have Christ now, as stated by John, if we know God now, we have the eternal life now; for Christ is our life; “in him is life.” Paul says, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.” Gal. 2:20. Again he says, “To be spiritually minded is life.” Rom. 8:6. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” 2 Cor. 5:17; see also Col. 3:2–4. This “new creature” has the life of Christ, which is eternal life. The grave could not hold Christ (Acts 2:24); and “if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Then it is because of possessing the eternal life of Christ that the righteous are endowed with immortality at the resurrection, in contradistinction to those who die the second death. But this does not militate against the fact that we may lay down this life and “sleep” till the coming of the Lord. See 1 Thess. 4:13–17. Having the life now in Christ, it is ours, and nothing can take it away from us if we endure faithful to the end. If we are laid away to rest awhile, it is laid up for us in safe hands. So Paul says: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” 2 Tim. 4:7, 8.