Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 3, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 38.

Question Corner

By Editor

1895.—The Baptism of Fire.

Can you give me some light on Matt. 3:11? Are there two baptisms, the first one of the Holy Ghost, and the second with fire, or are they both the same?

It seems that the context itself makes it very clear. John is talking to the Jews, both good and bad. Some of them had been baptized in Jordan confessing their sins; others he characterizes as offsprings of vipers, and demands that they should bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. By a striking symbol he tells them what will be the fate of those who do not, and even now God is prepared to strike down the trees. If the tree bringeth not forth good fruit it is hewn down and cast into the fire; those which bring forth good fruit are preserved. Then comes the prophecy concerning Christ: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire;" or, as the Revised Version puts it, "in the Holy Spirit and with fire." That is to say, one class will be baptized in the Holy Spirit, and the other class in the fire. To be baptized is to be whelmed, immersed, swallowed up. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is to be completely brought under the power of God's Spirit that the whole being shall be changed by it. It looks to the glorious culmination, the changing of mortality to immortality, when mortality shall be swallowed up of life. Rom. 8:11; 2 Cor. 5:4. The baptism by fire is the fire which shall compass the very earth itself when all the earth-dwellers, or those who reject God and His truth, will be cast into the lake of fire, or swallowed up of the fire. This will not be the case with the righteous; they will pass through it unharmed. Isa. 33:14; Revelation 20. Certainly the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a thing greatly to be desired. The baptism of fire is something that certainly no one can desire. This same thought is carried out in the twelfth verse of Matthew three: "He will gather His wheat into the garner, but the chaff He will burn with the unquenchable fire."

1896.—What Law?

What law is Paul speaking of in the third chapter of Galatians? Is the work entitled "Glad Tidings" upon this book? Does Paul bring more than one law to view, or is it the same law all the way through the chapter?

It is the same law all through the third chapter of Galatians. The first question Paul asks is, Did they receive the Spirit by the works of the law, by their own doing or the righteousness of their own deeds, or did they get it simply because they had faith in God? Of course there is but one answer to the question—they receive it by faith. We do not do the works in order that we may receive the Spirit; we do the works because we have received the Spirit. God must come into our hearts before His works can be wrought by us; so the worker of miracles does the work by the hearing of faith; and Abraham's righteousness was by faith, altho it is said of him that he kept God's commandments and statutes and laws; but it was not obedience that he might have faith, but the obedience of faith. Sinful man, therefore, can not be justified by the deeds of the law. It is an eternal truth that the righteous shall live by faith. Of course if one ever kept the law by faith his deeds would be constant justification, a witness to his righteousness, but having sinned it is only by believing God that man can be made righteous.

Of what then is the law? What is its purpose? The apostle answers in verse 19. It was added, given, or spoken, in its written form at Mount Sinai "because of transgression;" that is, man had sinned so greatly against God, had so perverted the standard of his own heart, and so obliterated God's image in the soul, that something was necessary to point out in clearer, more positive terms that he was a sinner before God. The apostle expresses the same thought in Rom. 5:20: "Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound," so men could see that the heart is exceedingly sinful. Consequently God's written law is designed to show what great sinners we are, and showing us what great sinners we are and how we sin, to drive us to God for justification; so that the law is become a schoolmaster (tutor) to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now, that faith is come we are no longer under the tutor; the law no longer condemns us; it no longer drives or brings us to Christ, Christ is our all in all, and His righteousness covers our unrighteousness, and we stand complete in Him. Verses 23-25.

How long will the law act in this way? Just as long as sinful men live in the world; till the Seed shall come to whom the promise hath been made. Who is the Seed?—Christ. Verse 16.

What was the promise made to Abraham?—That he should be heir to the world, and his seed would inherit all that God promised him. Rom. 4:13. That promise was not fulfilled at the Lord's first advent; it still waits. Its fulfilment is predicted in Eze. 21:25-27. There the prophet speaks of the last king of Judah: "And thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel, whose day is come, in the time of the iniquity of the end, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Remove the miter, and take off the crown; this shall be no more the same; exalt that which is low, and abase that which is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; this also shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him." Even then Judah was in the hands of Babylon; but Babylon even should be no more. Three overturnings were to follow Judah's—Medo-Persia, Grecia, Rome; but the last overturning would be by the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, at the second coming of Jesus Christ. Till that time God's law shall condemn sinners, and the Spirit will use it to make sin appear exceeding sinful.

1897.—Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Gen. 2: 17.

Is the tree of knowledge of good and evil symbolical or literal?

We have no reason to believe it otherwise than literal. The garden was literal, and God planted every tree that was good for food and pleasant to the eye; and all those things were literal. And in the midst of the garden was the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We believe that there would have come a time when man would have been allowed to eat freely of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but not then. He must learn what was good and what was evil by the instruction of God, by simple faith. It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that the tree in itself held properties which would affect the mentality and clearness of perception of man if taken in the right way; just as the tree of life would; just as there are many herbs and plants to-day which affect human beings variously for ill or good; but man must partake of it aright, only in harmony with the will of His Creator. So when he set aside God's express prohibition, he stepped outside of God's channel of life, walked in his own way, partook of the fruit without God's blessing, and therefore met in himself the consequences of his unrighteous deed. He perverted the law of life and brought death into his system. Separating himself from the life of God because he perverted the law of that life, he cut himself off from the inflow of the Spirit-life of God. It was only because God came in by His blessed Gospel that salvation and life came to man again. Doubtless there will come a time when that garden will be restored on this earth, and among the good things which God planted there, there will be the tree of knowledge of good and evil, partaking of the fruit of which, God's tested children shall ever know instinctively the very beginnings of evil, and so never yield to it. Nevermore will God's law be perverted.