p. 5 | Question Corner

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 18, 1906

Question Corner

1806.—The Bride of Christ.

What is the bride of Christ? Where do you get the name of Adventist?

1. The bride of Christ specifically and primarily, as expressly stated in His Word, is the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, capital of the everlasting kingdom and standing for that kingdom. See Rev. 21: 2, 9, 10; Gal. 4: 26; Isa. 54: 13; 62: 1-5. 2. The two great neglected truths expressly taught in the Word of God and most strongly emphasized by Christ and the apostles, are the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the seventh-day Sabbath. Around the former group all the great truths of redemption and salvation through Jesus, and around the latter, obligation to God's law and His great power in creation and redemption; and the name expressive of these two things has been used by a class of God's children to bring before the world prominently these great truths and what they mean.

Many of the terms used in the Bible to mean the people of God, as Israel, Disciples, Christians, etc., have been taken by various rival sects and bodies. They really mean nothing. Let the Lord call us by what name He will. The name Seventh-day Adventist simply carries on its face, in a comprehensive way, the last great threefold Gospel message of the Bible. Rev. 14: 6-14.

Our correspondent suggests the name “Saints,” but nowhere do we find God's people calling themselves saints. Nowhere do we find the apostles calling themselves saints or holy ones; but we do find them calling themselves “servants” of the Lord; and God calls His people saints. The distinction is very clear. The thing which God demands is character. It is character which is written in heaven; it is the names of character which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and God calls people in this world to those characters. If they refuse, some one takes their place; if they go on, the names of the characters will sometime be given as the new names. It is all-important in the last great day to have one's name written in heaven. It is not so important to have the name recorded in some church book on earth. Nevertheless it is God's plan that His children shall associate themselves together here in church relationship in order to the formation of right character.

1807.—Books Omitted from the Bible.

Why do our Bibles contain seven books less than the old Bibles? O. M.

Our querist evidently refers to the Apocrypha which consists not of seven books, but of fourteen. These fourteen books are called the Apocrypha, as they are not considered canonical by Protestants, altho the Catholic Church admits them as canonical. By this we mean that they are not considered by Protestants to be inspired books; they are not in harmony with the inspired books of the Scriptures. They were written by different men as history or books of instruction between the time of Malachi and the time of Christ. They are not written in the Hebrew as the rest of the Old Testament is, but in Greek. Some of them, like Maccabees, give us good instruction in history. Others point out quite clearly what the theological views of the Jews were. 2 Esdras by some is considered to be an inspired book. The Apocrypha can be obtained bound in a volume by itself of any of the great Bible houses, and there are many Bibles published at the present time which contain these books.

1808.—“Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna.”

Are the three words “Hades,” “Gehenna,” and “Sheol” of one meaning? and what do they signify or represent as to the hereafter?

Sheol in Hebrew is the same as Hades in Greek (compare Ps. 16: 10, with Acts 2: 27, 31); they represent the abode or condition of the dead, both righteous and wicked. Hades never means the place of future punishment. It is rendered in our common English version “hell” and “grave.” Gehenna, from the valley of Hinnon (2 Kings 23: 10), was a place south of Jerusalem, once celebrated for the worship of Moloch, and afterward polluted with every species of filth, carcasses of dead animals, and bodies of malefactors, upon which worms preyed, and to consume which constant fires were kept burning. The Saviour used the term to mean the absolute destruction of the incorrigibly wicked. Matt. 10: 28; Mark 9: 43, etc.

1809.—The Dark Ages.

At what period of time were the Dark Ages, so called, and when did that period end?

Say from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, when superstition held sway.