p. 9 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 37.

Question Corner.

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

No. 419. To What Does Rom. 7:15-25 Apply?

Does Rom. 7:15-25 apply to the condition of Paul previous to his conversion or after it? O. A. V.

Let the reader include the fourteenth verse: “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.” This, it seems to us, ought to settle the question. The whole passage shows that the apostle was describing himself, as a convicted, not a converted, sinner, one who wished to do right, but found no strength in himself. The twenty-fifth verse shows how he was made free from his bonds. It is through such an experience, to a greater or less extent, that every adult passes on his way from the bondage of sin to the service of Christ. The converted man is described in Romans 8.

No. 420. The Zeal of Thine House.

PLEASE explain the seventeenth verse of the second chapter of St. John. O. A. V.

“The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up,” means, to put it in other words, that the zeal and earnestness of Christ for the holiness and honor of God’s house and people was all-absorbing and consuming. The American Revised Version reads: “Zeal for thine house shall eat me up.” It is a quotation from Ps. 69:9.

No. 421. Heb. 4:1-10.

PLEASE explain Heb. 4:1-10. J. B. V.

Our correspondent asks too much for this department. Only the briefest explanation can be here given, and for a long passage like the first ten verses of Hebrews 4 much might be said, and yet the point desired explained not touched upon. In brief, however, we will say that the subject is the rest which Christ gives all believers in him. Those who do God’s works may know God’s rest—rest from sin, and rest in any condition in which he permits us to be, save that of sin. Faith works the works of God, and faith enters into his rest. Unbelief does not know God’s works, hence unbelief will not enter into God’s rest, even as the unbelieving Hebrews did not. The rest which God gives to the soul in Christ is a pledge of the eternal rest of his glorious kingdom. But to know that rest, of which the Sabbath is a pledge, we must know the spiritual rest of soul in Christ Jesus. Man might have entered this rest at the beginning; for it was all completed from the foundation of the world, and of this the Sabbath was a pledge. But Adam would not work God’s works, hence did not enter God’s rest. The Lord has offered the same rest to his people all the way through the world’s history. But they would not believe, and of this unbelief the Hebrews of old are a typical illustration. But God’s rich mercy did not cease to be offered because Israel would not believe. Their unbelief could not make of none effect the promises of God. See Rom. 3:3. And now God calls, “To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Those of unbelief have passed away, but the rest remains to the faithful, to those who have ceased from their own works and by faith accepted of God’s works. He who thus labors faithfully to the end in God’s works will know his blessed rest here and enjoy the eternal rest to come. See the first article in Signs of September 10.