QUESTION CORNER by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 18, 1916

QUESTION CORNER

By Editor

CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to the editors to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

213 — NOT RULES FOR EATING

Please explain Matt. 15:17. It seems very plain on what we should eat or drink. J. P. C.

Our correspondent would receive help upon this if he would but take into consideration this fact,—that all the instruction given in the fifteenth chapter of Matthew, verses 11-20, is not as to what we should eat or drink, but as to what is ceremonially unclean and clean. There was no question between Jesus and the Jews over the matter of diet. The Jews, however, looked upon their divers washings and baths as means of saving them from sin; but what our Lord shows is this,—that none of these things change the nature of man; that the sin is in the heart itself, and whatever ceremonies we pass through, unless the heart is changed, the person is defiled still. We are not saved by what we eat or drink. We are saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in that alone.

214 — ARE THE DEAD CONSCIOUS?

Referring to an article in a recent number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES under the above title, and taking in connection with that some statements of the Bible, I am confused; for the Bible speaks of the thief dying on the cross as having the promise of Jesus that “to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” It also declares that Enoch was translated, and Elijah was taken to heaven. How are these statements to be reconciled with the one that “the dead know not anything”? Are we to believe that the thief in Paradise, Enoch translated, and Elijah taken up into heaven, are all unconscious? x.

Our correspondent has evidently confused the popular idea of soul and spirit, with the resurrection. Those who are raised from the dead, or those who are translated to heaven from among the living, are certainly not unconscious. Both Enoch and Elijah were translated to heaven without seeing death, therefore they are not among the unconscious ones. Moses was raised from the dead. He therefore is not unconscious. Jesus our Lord was raised from the dead. He exists in bodily form in heaven just the same as do these others above named.

The question regarding the thief on the cross is another matter. Note the request of the thief in Luke 23:42. It was not, “Lord, remember me when Thou goest to heaven,” but, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Doubtless the thief had heard Jesus preach, as He did preach, that the kingdom of heaven was like a man taking a journey into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. Jesus takes His kingdom when He returns. (See Matt. 25:31, and many other scriptures.) It was to that time that the thief looked,—when Jesus was coming again, when He would raise the dead at His second coming, as stated in 1 Cor. 15:51-54 and in 1 Thess. 4:16, 17. Then those who had been sleeping in Him through all the centuries of the past would be raised from their unconscious sleeping, and be made immortal. Then would the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour be inhabited by the subjects who had been faithful to Him in their time of probation here.

The thief, believing in Jesus as He was dying upon the cross, asked the Lord to remember him. But did not Jesus say, “This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”? Let us see. Paradise is where God dwells, in what is called the third heaven. 2 Cor. 12:2, 4; Rev. 2:7; 22:1, 2. We learn, by these scriptures, that in the midst of Paradise is the tree of life; that the tree of life is on either side of the river of life; that the river of life flows from the throne of God. Consequently, to be in Paradise is to be directly in the presence of God. Yet the third day after His death, our Lord tells Mary, “Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father.” John 20:17.

What, then, did He mean when He said to the thief, “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise”? Simply transpose the comma — which is only the work of man, for the original Greek copies are written without any punctuation at all — from after the pronoun “thee,” to after the adverbial phrase “to-day.” The adverbial phrase “to-day” may modify either “say” or “shalt be.” If we make it modify “shalt be,” we bring confusion into the scripture immediately, because Jesus did not go to Paradise on that day, and consequently the promise could not be fulfilled; but if we make it modify “say,” all is perfect harmony. It would read then, “Verily I say unto thee to-day, Thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”

“Thou shalt” and “shalt thou” have really the same meaning, an emphatic form of declaration. See Rev. 2:17.

There was a wonderful meaning in the fact that Jesus gave the promise that day. His own people had put Him to death. His own disciples had forsaken Him. Yet the man dying by His side upon the cross could look through all the discouragements and darkness, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and so Jesus said to him, “I say unto thee to-day, when seemingly I can fulfill no promise; to-day, when My own nation has nailed Me to the cross; to-day, when even My disciples are doubting,—to-day do I say to thee, that as thou hast asked Me to remember thee, I will remember thee, and thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”

All these seemingly contradictory scriptures will be very plain and clear to us if we will but remember that only by resurrection can man live, and those who are raised from the dead are not simply existing in their “immortal souls,” but are there because God has given them the resurrection life.

215 — HOW WE ARE SAVED

A correspondent incloses a tract, and asks us to comment on “question 3.” Here are other questions that cover the same ground, so we need not take time to dwell upon what is asked for in the tract. Please explain, through the SIGNS, Eph. 2:14, 15, 16; Col. 2:16. O. H. S.

We quote the scriptures from the American Revised Version: Eph. 2:14, 15, 16: “For He is our peace, who made both one, and brake down the middle wall of partition, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; that He might create in Himself of the two one new man, so making peace; and might reconcile them both in one body unto God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.” Col. 2:16: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day.” What the apostle is teaching is that our salvation is through Jesus Christ alone. It is not through the Jews, nor is it through the gentiles;

it is in Christ only. He tells the gentiles that before they were converted, they were "separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world." But in Christ Jesus they had been "made nigh"; for Christ is our peace, and has "made both one." That is, He had taken the gentiles, and had taken the Jews, and had made them one with Him, hence one with each other, so that all the wall there had been between them was broken down. Jesus abolished in the flesh "the enmity." He tells us in Rom. 8:7 that the enmity is the carnal mind. Our Lord abolished that in His flesh. There was no carnal mind admitted or dominant in His life. It was not in converted Jews, and it was not in converted gentiles; but when Jew and gentile accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, the carnal mind was taken away, and the mind of Christ took its place. The carnal Jew trusted in the commandments contained in ordinances. He trusted in his own acts, in the offering of sacrifices, in meats and drinks, etc. He was trying to gain heaven by his own works. Those things showed that his heart was carnal. But in Jesus Christ all are united. In Him alone is the salvation, not by works that man has done or can do, but by the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Consequently both Jew and gentile in Christ are reconciled in one body to God through the cross; and the slain enmity is the carnal mind, which separates man from God, and consequently separates man from his fellows.

These same principles will help us to understand Col. 2:14, 16. The great thought of the apostle is not as to whether these ordinances and laws were obligatory or not. The thought is that we are not saved by them, and consequently we should not be judged by man as to whether we perform them or not. The sabbath day of Col. 2:16 is not the sabbath that is enjoined by God in the fourth commandment. That does not come into the question. The man who is saved through Christ Jesus our Lord will keep God's commandments, and His commandments are not grievous. 1 John 5:3.

But when we are depending upon meat or drink, feast day or new moon, or some ceremonial sabbath, or any other act that we may do, for salvation, we are robbing Christ of what belongs to Him. All those feast days and ceremonial sabbaths of the Old Testament were shadows, which pointed forward to Christ, and He Himself is the body. He Himself is the Saviour. He is the one to whom we are to hold fast; and if we are truly Christ's, we will want to do, and will do, by His Spirit, just what He Himself did. There will be no question on our part of loyalty to God, no question over the keeping of God's commandments. We will keep them because we love to keep them, because we would rather keep them than transgress them. But when people seek to condemn us, and tell us that we ought to do this thing or that thing after their own imaginings, we will not be condemned by them. Our hope will be in Christ Jesus. Then will we seek to eat and drink and do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31.

216 — IS THE BEAST THE POPE?

In an article, "Sunday the True Sabbath of God," is the statement concerning what Adventists teach, "They teach that the 'beast' of the Revelation is the pope of Rome." If this statement is true, my understanding of what you really teach is not correct. So I ask the following question: Does the beast of Revelation 13 or Revelation 17 symbolize the pope? J. B.

No, we do not teach that the beast of Revelation 13 symbolizes the pope. We have stated, over and over again, in the "Question Corner" and elsewhere, that we understand the beast to refer to the great system of church-and-state government from Babylon to the present time. That system exists under different phases, represented by the heads of the beast. The first is that of Babylon, then Medo-Persia, Greece, pagan Rome, papal Rome, apostate Protestantism, and the papacy restored.

There are two essential elements that enter into this beast. The one is civil power; the other, the requirements of religious dogma. The beast cannot refer to the church alone, for the church in and of itself has no power to persecute. It cannot refer to civil government alone, for civil government unconnected with religion has no desire to persecute. There must be a union of the two.

The active head in the application of Revelation 13 is the papacy. Four of the heads had fallen. The papacy existed during the time when the fifth head had its application — during the Dark Ages. In the last of the eighteenth century, that phase of the beast passed away. The Roman Catholic Church exists, but it is not the beast. The pope exists, but he is not the beast. There will come a time, we understand, according to the prophecy, when the kingdoms of the world will reinstate this phase of the beast, when they will place at the very head of religious jurisdiction the papacy, and of course at the head of the papacy is the pope. I am sure that our correspondent can see from this that the pope is not the beast, nor is the Roman Catholic Church the beast. That system, united with the state, forms the beast while that union exists. The beast is the union of that church or any other church with the civil power so as to form a persecuting power.

217 — SUNDAY LAWS AND PROHIBITION

A man said to me: "You say it is wrong for the many to set aside the first day of the week and compel you to abstain from work when you keep the seventh day as the Sabbath. You are right. And I say it is wrong for a lot of psalm-singing hypocrites to vote prohibition. Let every man allow his neighbor to be his own judge of good and evil, and in what he desires to drink or eat, or how he desires to worship." Is this logical? O. H. S.

There are wholly different principles involved in the two questions. First, the question of Sunday or Sabbath laws.

1. Sunday is a religious institution. Sunday laws are demanded because Sunday is a religious institution. Were it not for the religious sentiment behind it, all efforts for Sunday laws would be fruitless.

But religion is a matter of faith and conscience between man and his God alone. It is something with which the state has no right to meddle; and in the very nature of the case, the state must always blunder if it undertakes to meddle with religion. As soon as the state or civil power attempts to control religion — to say how or what or when men shall worship or not worship — it puts itself in the place of God, and becomes intolerant. It discriminates between its own citizens on religious grounds alone, and becomes itself a persecutor of those whom it ought to save from persecution. Therefore it is wrong for the state to establish a religious day and force its observance upon any one, whoever he may be, Sabbath keeper or not. It is wrong for the state to establish any religious institution whatever, or seek to maintain it by civil law.

2. For the state to take such a course makes its courts and magistrates, that might be called to pass sentence, interpreters of God's law, making man a lord over conscience — a thing utterly wrong and indefensible.

3. It wrongly and inconsistently trespasses upon individual liberty. As long as man does not interfere with his fellow men, he has the right to work seven days or six days or five days in the week. That lies between him and God alone. The state has no more right to regulate a man's hours of working than it has his hours of sleeping, the rest of the garments he should wear, or the way in which he should cut his hair.

4. Sunday laws are unjust to the Jew and the seventh-day Christian. The seventh-day man observes one day in answer to his duty to God, the same as does his Sunday neighbor. In this respect, both are equal before the law. Each one should be protected in his right; but after the seventh-day man has done this, the state demands that he shall be idle another day — give one sixth of his time, sixteen and two thirds per cent of his income, in deference to the religious opinions of his neighbor. The law that thus discriminates is unjust, and should be wiped from every statute book in the land.

5. A Sunday law makes a criminal of a just man, of a good neighbor, of a loyal citizen, and it does this solely on religious grounds. In other words, the man becomes a criminal for following Jesus Christ.

Second, prohibition is not a religious question in any way.

1. Man does not have to sell whisky or to drink it to have a clear conscience. No one feels it to be a God-given duty to sell intoxicants. On the contrary, many men feel condemned constantly in doing it. Many saloon keepers will not employ barkeepers who drink.

2. The prohibition question is a political question. That it needs regulation and control is not only admitted but urged on the part of the liquor men. In many communities, liquor men believe in limiting the number of saloons and increasing the license fee. Many saloon men are thus forced out of business. Liquor men do not complain as long as they do it; but the political power that could thus shut out some could as legitimately shut out all, and that would be prohibition.

3. On a purely economic basis, the state is justified in closing the saloons. If those who sold liquor and those who drank harmed only themselves, they could argue for a continuance of their business; but the business creates and fosters poverty, indigency, disease, crime, and, in consequence, necessitates almshouses, police, jails, asylums, courthouses, and the awful expense consequent thereupon. These come because liquor is sold. They are direct consequences of the liquor traffic.

Now it seems a simple statement of common sense to say that the state has the right to do away with a business that is responsible for the catalogue of evils justly chargeable to the liquor traffic. This is not touching the individual man. He may make and drink his own liquor, but he cannot purvey it to others. The vast mass of drinkers would thank God if they could never get it again.

218 — ANOTHER SABBATH

Please explain Heb. 4:8. What is meant by the "another day"? Does it mean another Sabbath day? W. H. N.

The scripture reads, "For if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day."

1. The word "Jesus" ought to be "Joshua." See the margin of any reference Bible, and the revised versions. "Jesus" in the Greek is the same as "Joshua" in the Hebrew.

2. When the Lord led His people out of Egypt into the promised land, He did this that they might have rest — rest not only from Egyptian bondage, but from the bondage of sin; and so God's promise to Moses was, "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Ex. 33:14. Israel passed into the promised land led by Joshua — the one to whom Heb. 4:8 refers. God gave them rest from their enemies, as implied in Deut. 12:10; 25:19; and Joshua 22:4. Yet the Israelites did not get the rest from sin, the holy, spiritual rest, on account of their unbelief. See chapters 3 and 4 of Hebrews.

3. Of that completed rest, the Sabbath was a pledge. God rested on the seventh day from all His works. Heb. 4:4. It was rest from finished creative work. It was rest from slavery, from bondage, from war, from sin, that God wanted to give to His people through Moses and Joshua, but unbelief shut it from them.

4. Then after that opportune time passed, God gave another day, expressed in Ps. 95:7, "To-day if ye will hear His voice." That was the other day, the day that has been appealing to the weary of earth ever since.

5. Now just as long as people are sinning, they have not entered into rest. Just as long as they are trusting in their own works, they have not entered into rest. When they will leave all else, and trust in God's finished work, they will find spiritual rest. Heb. 4:10. And that spiritual rest, held by faith, brings man to the eternal rest and Sabbath keeping of which God's Sabbath is a pledge.

There is absolutely nothing in Hebrews 4 that refers to another Sabbath day. The great plea is for that faith in God which brings peace, rest here, and rest eternal, of which the Sabbath is a pledge.