Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 14.

Question Corner

By Editor

1794.—Destroying Soul and Body. Matt. 10:28.

The text reads, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The text means just what it says. All that man is able to do is to kill the body; the soul, the life, is still with God; and that is all the word "soul" here means, "life." Jesus Christ has power over death and the grave, "and all that are in the grave shall hear His voice, and shall come forth." But if at that time we are not His, we shall come forth to condemnation, and that means the destruction of both soul and body. If we are found His, we shall have His life through all eternity.

1795.—Is Saturday the Seventh Day of the Week?

How can you give Bible proof that Saturday is the seventh day of the week, or, in other words, do you know from the Bible alone that Saturday is the seventh day, any more than we know that Sunday is the seventh day?

Such questions as these are to a certain extent catch questions. It is very easy to prove from the Bible as to which the seventh day is, but we must depend on authentic history and other corroborative evidences this side of the Bible. The Scripture canon closes with the close of the first century. Since that time we must depend on other things. This question has been answered in the Signs often before, but we give, in brief, these facts:

1. God in the beginning set apart the seventh day. Gen. 2:2, 3. Certainly men knew then what day the seventh day was.

2. When He called His people out of Egypt, He marked the seventh day by a threefold miracle by the fall of the manna for forty years. Exodus 16. Men certainly knew then which day was the seventh day and the Sabbath.

3. He commanded that same seventh day from Mount Sinai. Ex. 20:8-11.

4. From that time to the time of Christ, there is no candid Christian scholar but what freely admits that the Jews preserved the knowledge of the seventh-day Sabbath, and those faithful to God kept it.

5. Jesus Himself observed the Sabbath (Luke 4:16), and at the time of His death the holy women who had been with Him in His ministry also observed it "according to the commandment." Luke 23:56. That was the seventh day, for the very next was the first day of the week, and that Sabbath was the Sabbath "according to the commandment," and the commandment taught the seventh day. The first day of the week was the day after the Sabbath.

6. The Jews, scattered all over the world, have preserved the knowledge of that same seventh day to the present time. There has been no dispute among them in regard to the matter.

7. As apostasy came in, Sunday and Sabbath became sister days in the church. They are so recognized in Abyssinian churches to-day.

8. All histories and all the various churches recognize that Sunday is the first day of the week, and many of them keep it in honor of Christ's resurrection on that day.

Now all these things show just as clearly as any evidence can show that we have the same seventh day of the week in order from the Creation to the present time. Do you not think so?

1796.—Keeping Business Open on Sunday.

If a man is arrested for keeping his business open on Sunday, should he keep his store open after his arrest on that day, or should he close it according to the law of the land?

This is a question almost wholly of conscience, and is for the proprietor himself to decide. It is to be hoped that he has a principle in the thing that is not moved by mere arrest or non-arrest, or from any sort of defiance to legal authority. Under God, if he has kept the Sabbath day, he certainly has a right to work six days. If he does this quietly and unobtrusively and his family is needing his income, certainly we do not see why he should not go on keeping his store open; but let him be careful and his advisers be careful that it is not done in any way to spite his enemies or to defy the authority, or in any way bring reproach upon the cause of Christ. God is willing to lead and guide in all these things. Seek Him for guidance to do just right.

1797.—Three Days and Three Nights. Matt. 12:40.

"As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." We are told in the Bible that Christ was buried Friday evening, and early Sunday morning the women came to the sepulcher to anoint Him, and they found that He was risen; so it seems that He could have been in the grave but two nights. Please explain.

1. The term "night and day" as used in the Bible simply means day, because the day was composed of darkness and light, so that a part of a day is counted as a whole day.

2. Matt. 12:40 does not even intimate that Jonah was absolutely seventy-two hours in the sea monster, but he was in the monster for a certain period called "three days and three nights," which might have been simply a part of two days and one whole day. This would be, according to the language of the Scripture's reckoning, three days and three nights.

3. Matt. 12:40 does not say that Jesus was to be in the grave during that time. It is a purely arbitrary interpretation which says that "the heart of the earth" means the grave. Could we not just as truly say that it means the very powers of the earth which were at that time in the hands of the Romans? In speaking of the three days, Jesus invariably associated with His crucifixion and burial the betrayal. Take, for instance, Matt. 16:21 in which suffering the many things of earth may be included in the three days implied in the passage. (Mark 8:31, and other passages.) We also learn that at the very close of the third day, in which Jesus rose on its morning, His disciples themselves say, "It is now the third day since these things came to pass." Luke 24:21. To the mind of the writer, the third day began when Jesus was delivered into the power of the authorities. Until that time came, His work was not done. No man laid hands on Him; but when that time came He said, "When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched not forth your hands against Me, but this is your hour, and the power of darkness." That was on what would be Thursday night, or in the Bible reckoning, sixth-day evening. There would be all of the sixth day, the seventh day, and a part of the first day, that He would be in the hands of the powers of darkness, or in the heart of the earth. At the end of that time God's glorious power was demonstrated in His resurrection.

1798.—Matt. 12:31, 32; 1 John 5:16.

Are the sin against the Holy Spirit and "the sin unto death" one and the same?

The words would seem to indicate that they are both unforgivable sins. Of course in that case they would be the same. They are unforgivable because they are unrepentable. The Spirit of God is the means by which the Lord touches hearts and conscience, but he who persistently refuses to listen to that Spirit finally becomes so hardened that that Spirit can not touch his heart and can not make it repent. Certainly it then must be the "sin unto death."