This Inquirers' Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.
3089.— Sprinkle Clean Water upon You
Will you please explain Eze. 36:25? Does it have reference to baptism? B.
The text and its context read: "For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do them."
That was God's promise to His backslidden, wayward, idolatrous people. It is also God's promise to all His backslidden children now. It contemplates complete change in life and character. The first requisite in that change is absolute cleansing from all past sins which condemn and hold the soul in bondage. Anciently in cleansing, as in the cleansing of the leper, for example, the priest took a branch of hyssop, and sprinkled the water of cleansing upon the leper seven times, and pronounced him clean. See Lev. 14:1-7. He was judicially clean. It was a sentence of authority. It was not a mere ceremonial form. It was absolute cleansing from his awful disease. For that the psalmist prays in the 51st Psalm: "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." That is, he pleads that God shall pronounce the sentence of cleansing upon him. That is what is meant in the text under consideration. At the time when God's people will return to Him with all their heart, He will pronounce upon them, as He did under that ancient ceremony, absolute cleansing from all their sins. One may be sprinkled a thousand times, or he may follow any other form, and that of itself does not cleanse. The only thing that can cleanse is God's Word saying, "Thou art clean;" and that is what is indicated by the use of the expression which carries us back to the old judicial cleansing of the leper. It has no reference whatever to baptism.
3090.— Not the God of the Dead, but of the Living. Luke 20:37, 38
Will you kindly explain this passage? Does it not show that after the body dies the soul lives? B.
If our inquirer will carefully read the scripture, and note the questions of the Sadducees which led up to our Lord's remark, we think there can be no question about it. See the record in verses 29 to 38. The Sadducees did not come and ask Jesus any question about the intermediate life or where such and such a one would be after death. They did not believe in the resurrection, and they thought they would puzzle Jesus by a question concerning the resurrection, and so they tell the old story which was one of their theological "posers" in those days, and then asked, Master, whose wife shall she be in the resurrection?
Now Jesus starts out to meet the cavil and to prove the resurrection; and yet immortal-soul people would have us believe that instead of proving the resurrection at all, He proved that the soul was immortal and lives during the death of the body, and that hence there is no need of a resurrection. This makes our Lord a pitiful logician, and utterly disproves the resurrection, in which the Sadducees did not believe. In other words, it justifies the Sadducees and condemns our Lord's argument. All believe that God is the God of the living. That was a general truth accepted by the Sadducees as well as all others who believed in God. God has called Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, but Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are dead; and yet as God is the God of the living, and as He has styled Himself their God, in His purpose they must live; therefore they are spoken of as tho they were living, for as Jesus declares, "All live unto Him." This is explained in Rom. 4:17, where it is declared that God "calleth those things which be not as tho they were;" and so God called Abraham and Isaac and Jacob just as tho they were living, because in the resurrection they shall live, and His purpose can not fail. The scripture proves the resurrection, yet in proving the resurrection it certainly does not prove the conscious state of the dead, or the needlessness of a resurrection.
3091.— Authorship of the Psalms
Please explain how the writers of the various psalms may be determined. What authority have we for saying other than David wrote them? I. B. B.
In many cases the psalms themselves are very clear as to authorship, because it is clearly stated in the title of the psalm. Take for instance Psalm 3, "The Psalm of David when he fled from Absalom his son." And that expression is repeated over and over again. In Psalm 50, for instance, we have "A Psalm of Asaph." Asaph was one of the great singers of Israel. The margin reads, "A Psalm for Asaph." It might have been written for Asaph to set to music, by David. We are left in doubt about this in our Common Version. The Revised Version gives, "A Psalm of Asaph," with no marginal reference.
Psalm 72 is a "Psalm of Solomon." Our Common Version, however, reads, "A Psalm for Solomon," with "A Psalm of Solomon" in the margin. It may have been a prophetic psalm of David. What would make it seem to be that is the last verse of that psalm, "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." This may have application, however, to the first two books of the Psalms, including Psalms 1 to 72, because largely composed of the psalms of David.
Many of the psalms seem to have been written by Asaph, one of the great singers of Israel. Psalm 85 is said to be a psalm of the sons of Korah, inspired singers of God in the priestly tribe; also 86; and also psalms of David are found among the latter psalms as well. Psalm 90 is said to be "a prayer of Moses the man of God." Some psalms are not named at all. The authorship of these is simply conjectural. Most of them are attributed to David.
There seems to be good internal evidence that Psalm 119 was composed by Daniel. The whole psalm and the experiences set forth are so in harmony with the experience of the young man in Babylon, that it seems to fit perfectly. Psalm 137 was written by one of the children of God after the restoration from Babylon, who had endured the worst of the captivity.
3092.— When Christ Comes
Will you please give a reason in the Question Corner for believing that there will be no first-day Christians alive at Christ's second coming? W. S.
We do not know what is not revealed. All that, we must leave with God. There is this, however, to be taken into consideration: God's great world-wide message as recorded in Rev. 14:6-14 and Rev. 18:1-4 will go to all the world, and all the world shall see and know and hear of God's last great Gospel proclamation. The heralding of that Gospel develops a class of whom it is said, "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." On the other hand there will be a demand from world-wide powers that men should turn from the worship of God to the worship of the beast; from the seal of God to the mark of the beast. Looking forward to that great time the prophet says, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the great day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Joel 3:14. Surely at such a time as that every Christian in all the earth having knowledge of such a movement, will cast his lot among the ranks of God's children, and will stand a true and faithful soldier in the last great reform under the banner which carries aloft the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Now if that is a right interpretation of God's message—and it seems to us there can be no other conclusion—those who are looking for the Master will be among the faithful, children obedient to His comandments.
3093.—"His Soul within Him Shall Mourn"
Please explain Job 14:22. It does not seem to agree with the 21st verse. T. J. C.
The 20th and 21st verses of Job 14 speak of the man's death. The 22nd verse speaks of his life up till the time that the change takes place. Job is telling of the troubles which come to him. The chapter itself opens with the thought, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." That continues on until at last God prevails forever against him and man passes. "Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them." That is his death; and yet until that time "his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn." This could not be applied to the death state, for even the most ardent advocate to immortal-soul-ism would not believe that man's soul was within his body during the intermediate state. The 22nd verse simply refers to man's life while he is here and before the change comes. It is simply a thought backward after the statement of verses 20 and 21.
3094.— Now in Heaven
Who of the former inhabitants of earth are now in heaven? D. A. V.
First, Enoch, who was translated without seeing death; secondly, there are Moses and Elijah, Moses raised from the dead, Elijah translated, both of them meeting Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration; thirdly, those who were raised from the dead at the time of our Lord's resurrection (Matt. 27:53), and who were taken to heaven when our Lord Jesus Christ ascended. Eph. 4:8. "When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive," or as the margin reads, "a multitude of captives," trophies of His victory. It is to this ascension that the latter part of the 24th Psalm refers. There may have been other special resurrections of individuals in God's providence, but of that we are not informed.
3095.— Time of the Four Gospels
Please tell us in the Question Corner when the four Gospels were written. W. E.
Our Bible Band would have no trouble in answering this, for the book-mark given this year tells the story; not absolutely, but as nearly correct as could be ascertained. Matthew was written about the year 50; Luke, between the years 50 and 60; Mark, between the years 60 and 70; and John about the year 90, ranging all the way from 19 years after Christ's resurrection to 59 years. Referring to other points in our inquirer's question—all of the evangelists ever call the seventh day by the term which God gave—"the Sabbath;" while the first day of the week is simply known by the plain, common term of the "first day of the week."