Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 25, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 26.

Question Corner

By Editor

1249.—Divinity of Christ.

Will you kindly inform through Question Corner as to the belief of intelligent Seventh-day Adventists regarding the divinity of Christ. Some claim He wholly divested Himself of divinity, being only a man, and further that He laid it aside forever, and would never again occupy the same position of glory as before His sacrifice and life on earth. E. F. G.

We do not know the understanding of the people above mentioned. We suppose they believe the Bible. We have no reason to think otherwise. Our querist has no doubt, evidently, as to Christ's pre-existence, in the form of God, made equal with God, Himself God. To save the fallen and the lost, this Being in purpose emptied Himself in the beginning. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. All that was seen in His career afterward was but the carrying out of that great purpose. He became Jehovah's Angel or Messenger; He became man; He died on the cross; He was buried; He rose again; He ascended on high far above all principality and power, and every name that is named. He is coming again, to receive His own and reign forever. In all this career He is represented as being the Son of God. He is called by Himself the Son of Man; He is called by the Spirit the Son of God. See Matt. 11:27; 12:32, 40; 13:37, 41; 16:13-16; John 1:10-12, 14, 18; 5:20-27. These and a multitude of other texts show that while He was man He was also God, the only-begotten of the Father.

At the same time He never used His power of Deity to save Himself or help Himself, only by faith in God, as every soul can use it. But the mysterious union was there till He poured out His soul in death, and the great purpose to its uttermost bore fruit in deed. He went down to the very lowest that man can go—to death—that He might exalt man to the divine.

His sacrifice was an eternal one. He took human form; He will ever bear it; but He is not the less the Son of God. But the hiding of His power is in the humanity, the faithfulness, to the absolute right of which, the wounds in His hands are symbols. Hab. 3:4. But by His suffering He raised humanity to the throne of the Infinite, and forever by His sacrifice glorified the purchase of His blood.

1250.—G. T. B., 1 Cor. 7:29.

The text and context would teach that there are times when the only safe thing to do at all is to glorify God in everything, and this is especially true as we near the end. Mourning and rejoicing over earthly things, business, social relations, marriage, must all be subject to God's claim upon us. We must use this world as not abusing it. He who makes marriage minister to the lust of lewdness, misses the object of marriage and the blessing of God in it.