With Our Inquirers by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 9, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 41.

With Our Inquirers

By Editor

"If ye will inquire, inquire ye."

[All questions to this department will be answered which to the editors will seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. The same question can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. It is well always to enclose a stamp for reply.]

2248.—Sufficiency of Punishment.

Can it be sufficient punishment for the villainous wicked, who, successful thru life in covering up his misdeeds, will have nothing worse to fear after a life of sinful gratification than a perfect and absolute obliteration of self, utter nonentity?

The Bible text is that "the wages of sin is death." Rom. 6:23. Death is certainly cessation of existence. That can not be called death which never ends in cessation of life. He who is in misery without end has eternal life just as truly as he who is in happiness without end. Life persists, and eternal life persists ages without end. Eternal death is death which knows no life, age without end, or, in other words, absolute non-existence, "who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." 2 Thess. 1:7-9. "Whose end is destruction." Phil. 3:19. The death mentioned includes the dying. How long a time that may take we do not know. The word of God presents before us in the 20th chapter of Revelation somewhat of the punishment of the wicked. We are there informed, in connection with Zech. 14:4, that our Lord Jesus Christ shall come at the end of the thousand years, that when He touches the Mount of Olives, it will open; a great valley will be formed; the touch of His presence will purify the place where the Holy City, the capital of the new earth, shall rest. The saints will come with Him, the Holy City will descend in their midst, clothed with all the glory of God, manifesting the superior beauty of righteousness alone, before the hosts of the wicked who are raised from the dead of every age and clime. They will see then what they have lost, will see acquaintances and countrymen whom they despised in life clothed with immortality. The more responsible they are, the stronger and the clearer will be their minds to comprehend these things, and these will be a part of the sufferings prior to the time when the outshining of the glory of God will consume them. Their spirit of enmity against God will still be shown in their attempt, under the great adversary, to take the city and bring destruction to the only thing on earth that is worth preserving, the city with its inhabitants. But then the presence of God will set on fire the very foundations of the earth, the elements will melt with fervent heat, the works that are in the earth will be burned up, all identified with sin will be consumed, and there will be an absolute exactitude of punishment meted out to those who are worthy of it. In Gen. 18:25 we read the question of the father of the faithful, with direct reference to the punishment of a wicked city, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" At the close of the great controversy with sin, God's redeemed people, having had the privilege of understanding and knowing the reason of all His operations and judgments, which by faith they had believed to be equitable, will see fulfilled what they had accepted by faith, and will sing in the light of perfect knowledge, "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." Rev. 15:2, 3.

2249.—The Laws of Moses.

You state under question No. 2165 that the law of Ten Commandments is included in the law of Moses. How do you harmonize this with such scriptures as Acts 15: 5-12, 24; Gal. 3:10; Heb. 10:1?

There will be no trouble in the mind of our inquirer if she will but remember that the fact that Moses' law included the Ten Commandments does not make the Ten Commandments include all the laws of Moses. In a very general sense the law of Moses includes Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, taking in the four last books of Moses, and of course in that sense includes all the moral precepts which God had given. All those precepts became laws in the Israelitish commonwealth, and yet the Ten-Commandment law was distinct from all those other laws, tho the laws of Moses included that law, because every principle of Moses' law was the outgrowth of some precept of the Ten Commandments. But the Ten-Commandment law does not include all the ceremonial precepts or police regulations of that time. There is no inharmony between this and the statement referred to.

2250.—Unknown Tongues.

Did the apostles speak in several tongues, or did the different nationalities understand when the apostles spoke the one language, as recorded in Acts 2?

We do not know. By some it is understood that the apostles spoke in the different tongues, and by others that the Holy Spirit interpreted what the apostles spoke to each one of the nationalities there present. At least those nationalities said, "How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?" It seems as tho the Holy Spirit translated the words into the tongues of those who heard, and yet it is possible that they spoke in the tongues of those who heard. Certainly the New Testament intimates that the messengers of God at times spoke with tongues. There evidently was not any such disorder, however, as we find manifest in some of these modern movements of speaking with tongues. It is contrary to the whole economy of God's work to bestow unneeded gifts. They are given for use. He gave tongues for a particular purpose stated in 1 Cor. 14:22, "Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not;" while "prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe." The apostle intimates that if there are those who speak in a language that the company does not understand, there should also be some interpreter, and instructs that, "Let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret." If this is not the case and the "whole church be come together . . . and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned and unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?" 1 Cor. 14:23. The writer has not witnessed any of the modern phases of speaking with tongues, but credible eye witnesses have informed him that in most cases the tongue was not understood by either the one who spoke or by any of those present. The most that they could do was to guess at it. Yet those guesses seem to have proved utterly untrue. For instance, one man was given, as he thought, a Hindu tongue, and went to India for the purpose of preaching the "tongue" which he spoke, but when he reached there, instead of finding that people, he was preaching in English. God bestows His gifts that the church may be edified, built up, and profited; and good, straightforward teaching of God's word is worth all the tongues in existence without any meaning. "If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"

2251.—Creature. 1 Tim. 4: 3-6.

In a recent issue of the SIGNS you say that the word "meats" means any kind of food, of which I am aware; but this passage tells us plainly that "every creature of God is good," and is created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth." Nothing is said of other food than that which is created, that is, animal food. Am I not right?

Does our correspondent wish to intimate that she does not believe that anything but animals were created? The Greek word is ktisma. It comes from the verb ktizo, which is rendered create, creator, and make. The kindred word ktisis is rendered building, creation, creature, ordinance, and the original word from which creature comes in the text in question is defined as production or created thing. The kindred words take in the whole creation, not only animate but inanimate. See Eph. 3:9, where the verb is used, "Created all things by Jesus." Col. 1:16, "By Him were all things created." 1 Tim. 4:3, "Hath created to be received." Rev. 4:11, "Thou hast created all things." Rev. 10:6, "Who created heaven, and the things that therein are." And in the fourth verse of the text above it is simply the same, every creature, that is, everything created of God. Because it is generally used of animate creatures, does it preclude its applying to inanimate? The term itself is modified by "sanctified by the word of God and prayer," that is, such as God has set apart.

2252.—What Is Man? Ps. 8: 4.

(1) What distinction, if any, exists between the soul of man and his body or "house of this tabernacle"? (2) Is the soul of man merely the flesh or body? (3) The present life "is soon cut off, and we fly away;" the flesh returns unto dust; where do we fly away? Is it not the soul of man (See 1 Kings 17:17-23) that leaves the body at death?

Soul is used in at least three different senses in the Scriptures:

The entire man,—"Man became a living soul." Gen. 2:7. The same expression is used repeatedly in Joshua 10. All the souls were slain in various cities, that is, all the persons. "Eight souls were saved by water" (1 Peter 3:20), that is, eight persons. The term living soul is applied in the original to the very lowest kinds of creatures possessing animal life.
The life, or the breath, as in 1 Kings 17:17, 21, 22; Mat. 16:25, 26, and many other places where the same word which is rendered life is rendered soul, simply the animal life which all creatures possess alike.
The mental powers, as in Ps. 103:1, "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name."

Under these three heads we believe that all the uses of soul in the Scriptures can be classed. It is impossible to give any one definition which will include its entire use.

2253.—The Inner and Outer Man.

"I delight in the law of God after the inward man." Rom. 7:22. "To be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." Eph. 3:16, and others. What is the meaning of these expressions?

The whole context shows that the thought of the apostle is not one man that lives outside and another man that lives inside; it is not two men that he is speaking about, that is, two individuals, but of two natures in the one man; the one spiritual, the other carnal, referred to in the fifth chapter of Galatians as the flesh and the spirit, the spiritual desires of man in bondage to the flesh of man in his natural condition, but triumphing over the flesh when man is yielded to God. When man is yielded to God, Christ comes in and dwells in the heart, and unites His Spirit with the spiritual man.

2254.—Rev. 17: 8-18.

Please explain this passage in the columns of your paper.

We have not space in this department to explain this scripture. Will say, however, that the subject will be considered within the year to come, and if our correspondent is a reader of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES he will get a full explanation by waiting a little longer.

2255.—Sunday Laws.

Will you kindly tell me how many and which States have Sunday laws?

All the States in the union, with the exception of California, now have Sunday laws. Some of these are quite mild; others are modeled after the Dark Ages. Many of them are dead letters, no regard being paid to them at all, as in Nevada.