To Correspondents

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 8, 1874

To Correspondents.

1. Doughts, Whitney asks the following questions:

1. Do you consider it right to have lightning rods put up on your dwelling houses?

This we consider a question of philosophy rather than of morals. There could be nothing wrong in it, if lightning rods would afford any protection against damage by lightning, any more than there could be any wrong in protecting our property against damage by wind or rain. But are lightning rods of any benefit? Despite all the persistent assertions of lightning rod peddlers, we believe facts are still wanting to demonstrate that said rods are of any sort of utility whatever.

2. How shall we harmonize 1 Cor. 15:50, with Isa. 66:23?

1 Cor. 15:50 declares that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” and Isa. 66:23 declares that in the new earth, when the kingdom of God is established under the whole heavens, all flesh shall come up from month to month and from Sabbath to Sabbath to worship before the Lord. Now, although this latter text speaks of “all flesh,” we do not consider that it contradicts 1 Cor. 15:50, inasmuch as it does not speak of “blood” in connection with the flesh. “Flesh and blood,” as associated together in 1 Cor. 15:50, we take to be an expression denoting the complete mortality of our present condition. As we are now organized, the blood, a substance which, when taken from the body, passes into a condition of the most speedy and deadly corruption, is the vehicle of life; Lev. 17:11, 14; Deut. 12:23; but in the immortal state, it is said that we are to have “spiritual bodies,” 1 Cor. 15:44; and that the life of these spiritual bodies is caused by the Spirit of God by which they are quickened. Rom. 8:11. So in the change that awaits us from mortal to immortality, the blood gives place to the Spirit, but the flesh remains, only raised to a higher condition as it will of necessity be, when incorruptible spirit instead of corruptible blood is the vehicle of its life. We can therefore see how flesh quickened as it then will be, can inherit the kingdom of God, while flesh and blood cannot. Thus 1 Cor. 15:50 is cleared of difficulty, and the discrepancy which at first sight might seem to exist between that text and Isa. 66:23 is found to be only apparent, not real.

Will you please tell us what the “shew-bread” was, also the “manna;” and describe them.

A. A. J., Ridott, Ill.

A description of the manna, as to its substance, color, taste, time of falling and preservation, is found in Ex. 16:14–36, and Num. 11:7–9. As to the meaning of the word, we find the following in Smith’s unabridged Bible Dictionary:— “The etymology and meaning of the word manna are best given by the old authorities, the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and Josephus. The Septuagint translation of Ex. 16:15, is this: ‘But the children of Israel, seeing it, said one to another, what is this? for they knew not what it was.’ The Vulgate with a very careful reference to the Hebrew, thus: ‘Which when the children of Israel saw, they said one to another, man hu, which signifies, what is this? for they knew not what it was.’ In Josephus (Ant. iii, 1, §6) we have the following: ‘Now the Hebrews called this food man-na, for the particle man, in our language, is the asking of a question What is this?’ “According to all these authorities, with which the Syriac also agrees, the Hebrew word man, by which this substance is always designated in the Hebrew scriptures, is the neuter interrogative pronoun (What?), and the name is derived from the inquiry (man hu, what is this?), which the Hebrews made when they first saw it upon the ground.”

The shew-bread is described in Lev. 24:5–9. It was placed fresh upon the table in the holy place every Sabbath, where it remained during the week. That which was removed each week to make way for the fresh, was eaten by the priests. The name signifies literally (Smith’s Dic.) “bread of the face” or “faces,” as being continually in the presence of God, and is supposed to have been a symbol of that life for which we are continually dependent on God. The name in our English version is derived from the German schau-brote, as given in the translation of Luther.