4054 - Repenting by X. X. X.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 29, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 17.

4054 — Repenting

By X. X. X.

1 Sam. 15:29 says, God "is not a man, that He should repent," but verse 35 says that He did repent. X. X. X.

We use words in two senses often. It would not be reasonable to think, for the moment, if the Bible were not inspired at all, that one writing the 15th chapter of Samuel would use words which express identically the same thing in a contrary way. The writer knew that the readers would understand just what was meant. The thought of verse 29 is that when God had given His positive promise He was not going back upon it, but verses 11 and 35 simply express to us God's sorrow that Saul was king. That is, to express it from a human view-point, it was a sad thing that he was made king. Looking at the reign of Saul in and of itself alone, it seemed to have no redeeming feature. It began good and ended in disaster, but God in His great power is able to bring good out of all this evil.