[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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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.]
2297.—Christ and the Ten Commandments.
Did Christ bring all the Ten Commandments down to the New Testament, and if so, where did He say, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy"?
It was not Christ's object to enact new laws or reenact old laws; He did not come for that purpose. Just as long as that false idea is in the minds of men, men will go astray. God is unchangeable; Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and His whole purpose in giving Himself, and God's purpose in giving His Son, was to redeem men from all iniquity, all law-breaking, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Jesus did not come to excuse sin, but to save from sin, and sin is the transgression of the law. See John 3:16; Titus 2:14; 1 John 3:4; Matt. 1:21. Christ's relation to the law is shown in Matt. 5:17-21; Luke 16:17; John 15:10. He obeyed the law. His character was the law personified. He presented to the world and to all who would observe Him the law of God in living character, and He transmutes the evil, sinful character of man into the character which He Himself possesses, and which He Himself demonstrated while here on earth, to all who would receive Him. Nowhere can it be found that Christ enacted a new law. Anticipating all that men would say, He declared, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets." His whole object was to bring men back to God, to take away the carnal heart which is at enmity with God, and to write God's law in all its entirety and fulness in the hearts of men. If we so receive Christ, we find a beautiful harmony in all the word of God, but if we reject Him as the Saviour from sin, the Saviour to obedience, we set aside in our own lives the very mission on which He came.
The writer of Hebrews simply declares that Christ had obtained a ministry more excellent than the ministry of priests who offered the blood of bulls and goats because He Himself served by virtue of His own sacrifice, which could really take away sin, while they only served to "the example and shadow of heavenly things." Moses was the mediator of the old covenant, a national covenant, a covenant of human works, a covenant which could not save; Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant, based not on human promises, but upon the promises of God.
2299.—"Presseth into It."
Kindly explain Luke 16:16, especially the last part, "And every man presseth into it."
Supplying the ellipsis, or the words that are wanting to complete the sense, in the first part of the verse, it would read: "The law and the prophets were [preached] until John; from that time [the Gospel of] the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it." The thought is that there is an earnestness, a determination, a zeal that was not manifest under the old preaching. "The violent take it by force," some render it. Jesus expressed the thought elsewhere, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate," literally, agonize to enter in.
Were Adam and Eve spiritual beings, and did their bodies contain blood before the fall?
As to the first part of the question, we do not know. They certainly had not developed character, as in the first test that came to them they fell and became carnal. The spiritual being is the man who follows the law of the Spirit, the spiritual life dominates the lower life. Man normally possessed the spirit-life and the soul-life. If the soul-life, the body-life, had been held under the control of the spirit-life, he certainly would have been a spiritual being, controlled by the Spirit. But He brought the spiritual in his nature under the control of the soulical, and sinned, and became carnal, subject to the laws and life of the flesh. Adam and Eve possessed blood, of course, but in the change that is to take place we have this statement in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians, verse 45, "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening [or life-giving] spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural," literally, that which is "soulical." Those who are born in all its fulness into the kingdom of God will be spiritual beings in the fullest sense of its meaning.
2301.—Astrology.
Will you explain what it means when it says, "Listen to the learned astrologers"? I have consulted astrologers who told nearly everything correctly, including character.
Where does it say, "Listen to the learned astrologers"? There certainly is nothing of that kind in the Bible. There are a great many things which can be told by a shrewd person in a general way. There are very many who can read character, and especially the character of those who are continually seeking for information; such persons are generally very open and easy to read, and a certain amount of general information, based on shrewd observation, could be given by any one, entirely apart from astrology. The ancient heathen astrologers, longing to know the future, endeavored to find it by the stars; and sets of rules and general principles have been developed by them. There are certain influences which the heavenly bodies have upon the earth, but to determine one's character or one's course, because such an one was born under a certain star, or when a certain star was in the ascendancy or descendency, or certain combinations of stars were manifest, is utter nonsense, and denies the truth of Christianity. "Our times are in His hands," and it is His promise that "I will guide thee." He will hold all and He will lead all into the way they should go, if they will trust Him. If we will not trust Him, all the beneficent influences of the star suppositions will have no effect, but if we will trust Him, all the malefic influences which certain stars are said to exert will have no power over us. The Bible does enjoin us not to seek after all these influences.
2302.—The Old Covenant.
How much of the old covenant did Christ approve? Did Christ approve of the Ten Commandments? Deut. 4:13. What part of the old covenant Christ reiterated I will keep, for by so doing I shall abide in His love. My faith is not written on tables of stone, but on the fleshly tables of the heart.
Our inquirer has an altogether wrong idea regarding the covenants. Deut. 4:13 does not call the Ten Commandments the old covenant, but simply "His covenant," God's covenant. There are several things in the word called covenants. The old covenant consisted in mutual promises between God and Israel, recorded in Exodus 19. The conditions of that covenant were that Israel should keep the Ten Commandments. This they utterly failed to do. But does the breaking of a law abolish the law? That were among the most fallacious of conclusions. No government or law ever given could stand if such were the case. It is God's design that the law should be written on the heart, and every object-lesson that He gave to Israel of old was to impress that one thought, that He wanted to dwell with them and be in them. It is a poor place in which our inquirer lodges his faith, but that must ever be the case when one turns from God's word. The Lord never designed that our faith should be in tables of stone or in ourselves. That is the characteristic of every false religion. Our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God and the Gospel is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." But that Gospel writes the same law of God on the heart that is written in the tables of stone, and which Jesus Christ confirmed by His death upon the cross; so that "no man disannueth or addeth thereto." Follow the studies in Romans and this will be seen clearly.
2303.—Law of Bondage and Liberty.
How can the Ten Commandments be the law of bondage and the law of liberty also?
As to whether the Ten Commandments shall be a law of bondage to us or a law of liberty depends on our attitude toward the commandments. The policeman to the just and law-abiding citizen is a guardian of liberty; to the criminal he stands as a symbol of restraint and bondage. God's law condemns the sinner and holds him a prisoner under condemnation; that law is to him a yoke of bondage. It binds him in sin and death. See Romans 7. But to the man who is free in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation. Rom. 8:1. That man by the Spirit fulfils the requirements of the law. Rom. 8:4. The law is therefore no longer made a yoke of bondage but a witness to the pleasures of liberty which he has in Christ Jesus. It is to him a law of liberty. James 2:12. If the law of God is only an outward thing to us, it is bound to condemn us. Its tables of stone will rest with dead weight upon the heart, but if it is thru Jesus Christ received into our hearts and written there, every one of His commandments will be enabling acts, giving us power and strength thru Christ to do His will.
2304.—On the Seventh Day God Finished His Work. Gen. 2:2.
What about the quotation of Dr. Clarke's that it should read the sixth day?
We fully agree with our inquirer that there is a splendid thought in the scripture just as it stands in the Common Version and in both revised versions, that God's work was making a week for mankind, that the closing, crowning part of that week was the seventh day, and that God finished His work of the week in the making, blessing, and sanctifying of the Sabbath, an example for us of religious duties on His holy day. And our correspondent truly says, "The week was not complete until the seventh day was made the Sabbath."
2305.—Two Witnesses.
Will you please explain thru the SIGNS what are the two witnesses, two olive-trees, and the two candlesticks of Rev. 11:3, 4?
Our inquirer is asking too large a question for this department. In brief we would say they are the word of God. See the chapter on that subject in "Great Controversy," if the book is accessible, or in "Daniel and Revelation." Access to either one of these volumes will furnish our inquirer with an explanation of chapter 11 of Revelation. Later on it will be considered in the SIGNS more fully.
2306.—A Confederacy.
What is a confederacy?
The Standard Dictionary defines confederacy to be a number of states or persons in compact or league with each other; a league; a confederation; and it defines confederate, to join in a confederacy, as for advantage or defense. In law it is considered an unlawful combination, a conspiracy. It is a combining together to effect certain purposes.