With Our Inquirers by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association

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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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.]

2330.—The Bride of Christ.

I had supposed that the saints, clothed in the robes of Christ's righteousness, would be the bride of Christ, whom He would take home to heaven and present to His Father. Isa. 61:10; Rev. 19:7, 8; 22: 17, first and last part. If the New Jerusalem is Christ's bride, how can something inanimate make itself ready, as stated in Rev. 19:7, or say to Christ's people, ``Come, take of the water of life freely,'' as in Rev. 22:17?

We see noinharmony in these texts at all. The New Jerusalem stands for the kingdom of Christ; He is the King, the new earth the kingdom, the New Jerusalem the capital of that kingdom. In Gal. 4:25 the earthly Jerusalem is represented as being the mother of the children who are in bondage. Verse 26 declares that the ``Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.'' Isa. 54:1 represents her as being barren at that time, longing for her children. Revelation 21 reveals the time when that longing is satisfied and the children all come home; and the figure is carried out in the 19th chapter as the bride of Christ making herself ready, in other words, being prepared for the grand coronation of Christ.

There are three things which may be called the bride of Christ. In Rom. 7:4 the individual believer is said to be married to Him. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 11:2 to the Corinthian church, I `present you as a pure virgin to Christ.'' In Jer. 3:14 the Lord says to His children,

I am a husband unto you.'' But in Revelation 21 another is called the bride which includes all the others. In verse 2 the prophet declares that he saw the New Jerusalem come down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. The ninth verse,

Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb;'' and verse 10, he `showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.'' There certainly is no question as to the application of that scripture to Jerusalem; and this also is plainly taught in Isa. 54:1-8 and 62:1-5. Surely, what could call louder to the poor wayfaring pilgrims of earth than the glorious city prepared for their eternal home? Every joy and blessing there is in it calls for the children of God to come.

2331.—Eating Abominable Things. Isa. 66:17.

Will you please explain, ``In the gardens behind one tree in the midst,'' of Isa. 66: 17, the abomination being so plainly forbidden, as in Leviticus 11, for example? Do you think in the light of this it is wrong to dig and sell clams to the stranger and the alien? H. M. H.

Isaiah 66 presents before us conditions which existed among God's people anciently, and which would evidently exist among them in later ages, and especially down in the very last days of which this is a prophecy. The contrast is drawn between the humble who tremble at God's word and those who have no regard for God's word: `

He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine's blood; he that burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.'' No difference is made between their own way and God's way,

`and their soul delighteth in their abominations;'' and therefore the Lord gives them up to delusions.

In the fifth verse and onward the Lord again encourages those who `

tremble at His word.'' There will come a time when they will rejoice, while those who cast them out will be in sorrow. The fifteenth and sixteenth verses refer to the coming of Christ, and the execution of judgment. It mentions among the classes that will be recipients of those judgments, those that sanctify themselves, belonging evidently to various classes and cults,

`behind one

tree in the midst,'' or as the marginal reading of the Revised Version gives, `one tree, or Asherah,'' a symbol of idolatry; having no regard to the health laws of God, `eating swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, they shall come to an end together.'' That is, the obstinate among God's people shall be classed with the lowest among the heathen who have rejected His will.

Four times over in Lev. 11:9-12 are we told that various sorts of shell-fish are an abomination. As to handling them and selling them to others, the only rule we could give would be the golden rule given by Christ, ``Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.''

2332.—Polygamy.

If David, Jacob, and others did not transgress the seventh commandment by having more than one wife, how is it that the Mormons are considered as transgressors now? H. M. H.

David, Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon, and all the others transgressed God's commandments when they multiplied wives to themselves. God did not make man male and females, but male and female, the one man with the one wife. All that we can say of the men named is that they allowed the customs of the times in which they lived to blind them, and while the Lord winked at their ignorance, He did not accept them as His children because of their transgressions, but in spite of them, because their heart was to do right. Just what such a course as that meant to them is seen in the trouble that Jacob and David and others had who had their plural wives, when the seed-sowing was followed by a harvest of bitterness, jealousy, strife, and trouble. Living in the age that they did, they did not seem to feel condemned for these transgressions; but to make their failures an excuse for our wrong-doing is to endeavor to call evil good.

2333.—``Where Their Worm Dieth Not.''

Please explain Mark 9:43-49. C. W.

In the first place, verses 44 and 46, which are identical with 48, are omitted by the best Greek authorities. Secondly, the instruction is to those who would truly be children of God, but who might have in their own lives or natures that which was a hindrance in the spiritual life, dear perhaps as the right hand or the right eye, and that if these things did thus hinder or were stumbling-blocks, it were better to have them cut off than to have the whole being destroyed or corrupted by their influence. The passage would have as true an application in matters of church membership.

We gather, however, that the thing desired to be explained above everything else is the reference to hell, `Rather than having thy two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire.'' Verse 43.

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.'' Verse 48. Quotations from A.R.V. The word hell in the New Testament comes from two words, with one exception; (1) *hades*, meaning the abode of the dead whether righteous or wicked, and (2) *gehenna*, the place of punishment at the time of the judgment. It comes from this latter word here. Gehenna comes from the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, an Old Testament term applied to a valley just outside of Jerusalem where the refuse of the city, bodies of dead animals and dead malefactors were cast. Upon these the worms ceaselessly preyed. To avert pestilence, constant fires were kept burning to consume that which was not eaten by the worms.

Gehenna'' therefore became a symbol of complete and utter destruction. Isa. 51:6-8 refers to the same thing, where the worm shall eat them like wool;'' and Isa. 66:24, where the worm is said to prey upon the car-casses'' of the dead. The figure of `unquenchable

fire'' is also borrowed from the Old Testament. In Jer. 17:27 the Lord declares that if the Sabbath were not kept He would kindle a fire in the gates of Jerusalem, `

and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.'' This is fully as strong as the expression,

un-quenchable fire.'' A fulfilment of this is recorded in 2 Chron. 36:19-21, `And they burned the house of God, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, . . . to fulfil the word of Jehovah by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths.'' These striking figures, familiar to the Jews, and which to them meant complete and utter destruction, Jesus used to symbolize the fate of the wicked.

2334.—Proper Foods.

Please explain 1 Tim. 4:4; Rom. 14:14, 20. Does this not say that any meal is good to eat if we are thankful for it? E. E. V.

Hardly. Our inquirer would hardly wish to see the logic of such a statement to its ultimate, for every abominable thing that is eaten by the nations of the world would fall under that. The Chinese are thankful for rat soup, some nations eat snails, lizards, snakes; every conceivable thing almost is eaten by some of the nations of earth, and we suppose they are thankful for them all. To Christians they would be loathsome. To refer to the texts themselves: 1 Tim. 4:4, 5 limits the food there mentioned, ``for it is sanctified thru the word of God and prayer.'' God has told us in the very beginning chapters of the Bible the food that was designed for His people then, the fruits, the grains; later were added the vegetables, and later still, as the people departed more and more, they were permitted to eat animal food; but here also God made a distinction, showing that which was utterly unfit for food and that which was permitted. See Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. Surely the Lord did not make this for any arbitrary reason. The connection shows why it was; He desired His people to be a holy people, a people which would not be corrupted in blood; and the Jews are a testimony to their better living to this day in the far greater average of life.

Romans 14 is not a chapter on meats and drinks, giving dietary instructions; it rises to a plane far above that, and that is that we are not judges of our brother. He may eat meat, we may not; we may eat herbs; his diet may be a more generous one; but we are not to condemn him; God is his judge. Men are not to eat for men, or drink for men; that is, man is not to be the judge as to what another shall eat or drink, for `

we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ.'' And yet it is an important thing that we are not to place a stumbling-block in the way of the weak; so the very conclusion to which the apostle comes is this,

Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling;'' and in the twenty-first verse,

It is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth;'' and then the twenty-second verse,

Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God.'' But faith is not based on human customs or practises or conceptions, but on God's word. There is something underlying the diet question which is above all mere extraneous rules. The great principle which ought to control every Christian is stated in 1 Cor. 10:31,

`Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'' We believe that the united testimony of all would be that all who have lived sparingly, those who have for Christ's sake adopted a clean, strong dietary, according to His word, have, all other things being equal, made themselves better servants of God than those who have lived for the gratification of their stomachs.

2335.—The Leviathan of Job 41.

Did ever such an animal live? H. M. H.

The leviathan is generally considered as being identical with the crocodile, of which there may have been much larger types in the days of Job.