1979.—Laying on of Hands.
By Editor
Please explain thru your Question Department Heb. 6:2; Acts 8:15-17. It seems from these verses that laying on of hands is an ordinance which should be observed the same as baptism, on each convert. The passage in Acts 8:15-17 records one instance of the laying on of hands, in which the apostles had the power of imparting the Spirit to those who had been baptized. Baptism was, however, commanded of the Lord in the great commission, but nowhere in the Scriptures is the Christian ministry commanded to lay on hands. That seems to have been a matter for the Spirit of God itself to teach at the time, and that is in perfect harmony with the history of the Christian church from that day to this. In Acts 6:6 we learn that the seven deacons chosen were set apart and hands were laid upon them, even as the same ceremony is carried out in the ordination of ministers in the Christian church to the present time. But in Acts 10 we have the record of the Holy Spirit's falling upon the believers without the intervention of the laying on of hands, and even before baptism. Evidently there were certain teachings concerning it, but that teaching seems to be of the Spirit of God as occasion demands. It is only a reference to such a teaching that is referred to in Heb. 6:2. As the church of Jesus Christ cuts loose from the world and from sin, and yields herself wholly to His service, we shall see more and more of the manifestation of the power of the Spirit as in primitive times. 1980.—The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Please explain Matt. 16:19. It has been used to me as against the Sabbath, and I can not see anything about the Sabbath in it. Matt. 16:19 is a part of the promise of the Lord to Peter. In the sixteenth verse we have Peter's confession of Jesus, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." In verse seventeen Jesus tells him that he is blessed because of this, that this did not come thru any earthly knowledge which he himself had, but that God had revealed it to him. In the eighteenth verse He tells him that because of that He made him a stone, Peter, a living stone, built into the Rock, Christ Jesus. See 1 Peter 2:4, 5; Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Cor 3:11. Christ Jesus is the Rock. Peter by that conversion became a living stone, grafted, so to speak, into the living Rock, being one with the foundation. The Rock is Christ Jesus; upon that He will build His church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. Peter, because of his conversion, is to have a part in that; and because of his peculiar talents was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven. What is meant by this is told by Peter himself in the fifteenth chapter of Acts: "Brethren, ye know that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe." Verse 7. Peter was the first also who preached to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2. In other words, God honored him by giving him the glorious privilege of preaching the great, living Gospel of a resurrected Christ to both the Jews and the Gentiles, opening the door of salvation to them. The effect of the Gospel: "Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Let Mark 16:16 explain this, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; and he that disbelieveth shall be condemned." The binding and the loosing, the saving and the condemning, are not in the man, but in the message that he bears. Of course we know that Catholics use this text to try to show that Peter is the head of the Catholic Church, and that the one who succeeds him in that church has power to bind or loose, to cast down the Sabbath or any part of God's law and to substitute for it the traditions or imaginations of men. God's word teaches nothing of that kind. Just as soon as God's messenger, let him be prophet, apostle, priest, or preacher, departs from the message which God gives him to carry, he takes himself out of the direction of God and is no longer an ambassador of the Most High. Please explain in Question Department 2 Peter 1:18, 19. What do the words, "a more sure word" have reference to? If prophecy is sure, what can be more sure? or what is it that is "more sure"? Please read from the sixteenth verse. Peter is giving evidences of Christ's second coming. As proof of this he relates his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration when Christ revealed Himself in glory, as He will at His second coming. First, he says, "We were eye-witnesses of His majesty." We saw it with our own eyes. Second, we listened to the voice of the Father with our own ears, when He declared, "This is My well-beloved Son." But stronger than the evidence of our own eyes, stronger than the evidence of our own ears, he tells us, is God's "more sure word of prophecy," which he has given of Christ's second coming. This is what the apostle means by the "more sure word of prophecy." Nothing could be more sure than that; for that is more sure than the evidence of our own senses. The text reads, "Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." All there is of it is special, particular instruction which the apostle Paul gave to Timothy. He had been with the apostle much; he evidently was not a well man; the apostle knew what he needed. When the Bible condemns drunkenness as it does, and tells us to "look not upon the wine when it is red," we have no idea that the apostle Paul instructed Timothy to drunkenness. A common-sense view of this is that he told Timothy not to drink so much water, which, in the locality where he was, may have been anything but pure, but to take a little wine. He did not tell him to become a wine drinker, even tho the wine was doubtless unfermented. There is in this passage no excuse whatever for drunkenness, nor the drinking of intoxicating liquors. I write you with reference to question No. 1927 in your issue of Nov. 14, 1906. Please harmonize this with page 267, first paragraph on the two witnesses in "Great Controversy." There is no inharmony. The answer in the Question Corner carried the thought farther, that is all. Primarily God's witness is His word. In the days of our Lord Jesus Christ, it was the Scriptures which had gone before and the Scriptures worked out in His life and the lives of His children. The Scriptures are still His witness, but He has also the living witness in the church, has had, and will have all the way thru, preeminently so in the very last days. There is very much more for earnest students of the Scriptures in the two witnesses than has yet been developed.