QUESTION CORNER by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 23, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 30.

QUESTION CORNER

By Editor

1257. Mark 9: 44.

What is meant by the phrase in Mark 9: 44, "Where their worm dieth not?"

The striking figure used by our Lord to illustrate the place of punishment of the wicked was the valley of Hinnom (in Greek, Ge-henna), south of Jerusalem. Into this valley were cast the offal of the city and the bodies of malefactors. Upon these the worms continually preyed, and constant fires were kept burning to consume what the worms did not devour. The unquenchable fire and the undying worm became the strongest expressions of utter and complete destruction. Compare Jer. 17: 24-27, with 2 Chron. 36: 19, 21, and note how the fire that "shall not be quenched" burned up Jerusalem. See also Isa. 66: 24; 51: 8, and note that the worm preys upon, not living souls, but dead carcasses, and eats them up. The "unquenchable fire" and "the worm that dieth not" are the divine symbols of destructive agencies which can not be checked till their work is done.

1258. 1 Peter 3: 19, 20.

Will you give me light on 1 Peter 3: 19, 20? It appears that Christ preached to the spirits in prison that were alive during the days of Noah. Now most of the scriptures teach that at death the spirit goes to God who gave it, and that the dead know not anything.

The text reads (verses 18-20):—

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit; by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."

The work of the Son of God has been the same in all ages, "to preach good tidings unto the meek," "to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Isa. 61: 1. When on earth He did this personally. Before He came to earth, as after, through His servants by the Spirit. See 1 Peter 1: 10, 11. The prison is the prison-house of sin. The sinner is there "shut up." Gal. 3: 23. Spirits here stand for the men, whose spirits were in bondage to the flesh. Gal. 5: 17; Rom. 7: 14-24. Christ went to preach to the spirits in prison when His Spirit strove with them for one hundred and twenty years, when the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was preparing. See Gen. 6: 3. There is no proof in the text for purgatory or immortal soulism or second probation. The soul that dies in its sins shall die the second death. Eze. 18: 24-26. The Gospel comes to sinning men, when they are sinning, to turn them from their sins to God. All Scripture, rightly understood, teaches that "the dead know not anything."

1259. Who Named the Days?

Who named the days? and what is the right name of the first day of the week?

The common names of the days of the week came to us from different heathen sources, mostly from the Romans and Saxons. The right name of the first day of the week is "First day," or the "First Day to the Sabbath." This is the sacred name. God never gave it any other.