[We are willing to answer all questions in this department that are practical for the department and that would minister to the general good of our readers, but we answer no questions unless the name and address accompany the question. We do not ask this for publication, nor will it be published unless the inquirer so desires; we ask it, however, as an evidence of good faith, and that we may answer by letter if deemed best. Inquirers will please take notice. There is no departure from the rule. Unsigned questions reach the waste basket by the most direct route.]
2012.—Powers of Government.
Will you please explain the first seven verses of Romans 13? Does not the government have a right to legislate upon religious questions and to regulate in religious or ecclesiastical controversies? If not, why not? T. J.
Our Lord Himself draws very sharp and clear distinctions between the government of God and the governments of men. The Jews sought to entrap our Saviour in the very net in which so many have fallen. They said, “Is it lawful to pay tribute to Caesar?” Jesus said, “Show Me the tribute money.” When they brought Him a denarius, a Roman coin, He asked, “Whose is the image and the superscription?” and they said unto Him, “Caesar’s.” And He replied, not only for that time, but for all time, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” Worship belongs to God. Caesar has no right to exact it, modify it, or direct it. “The tithe is the Lord’s.” Leviticus 27. Caesar has no right to lay any claims upon it whatsoever. “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” Ex. 20: 10. It bears God’s image and superscription. Caesar has no right to touch it in any way. The Lord’s Supper, baptism, and all other Christian ordinances and rites bear God’s image and superscription. With them Caesar has nothing to do.
Protecting men in their individual rights, collecting of tribute for the support of the government, belong to the government. With that the church has nothing to do. The Lord chose Nebuchadnezzar, and called him “My servant” (See Jeremiah 27), but when Nebuchadnezzar assumed the right to direct the worship of God’s children (See Daniel 3), they rightly refused to bow to him, and God sanctioned that disobedience by protecting them in the fiery furnace. When the civil polity of the Jews told the disciples to preach no more in Christ’s name, they said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” Therefore when the apostle tells us, “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers,” it is subjection to those powers only in the field FOR WHICH THOSE POWERS ARE ORDAINED OF GOD, and in that field we have no right to resist them, but rather to submit to their ordinances. So “we must needs be in subjection not only because of the punishment [which they might visit upon us], but for conscience’ sake;” but the true conscience will render to God that which is His and to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar. So in that very scripture (Rom. 13: 8) we are told to “render to all their due,” and to God we owe first of all love and service.
2013.—Speaking with Tongues.
Please explain to me a part of 1 Corinthians 12. There are people in this part prophesying and speaking different languages, and they claim they have scripture for it in the chapter I have named. They also prophesy that Eureka, Cal., will be destroyed by earthquake and tidal wave, and that San Francisco is to be destroyed in June. INQUIRER.
The mere speaking with tongues and prophesying or working miracles or doing half a dozen other things, is no evidence that the work is of God. We read in Second Thessalonians 2 that in the last days Satan will “work with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.” We read in Revelation 16 that spirits of devils would go out into the world working miracles. We read in Second Timothy, the third chapter, that as Jannes and Jambres, the old Egyptian magicians, withstood Moses by counter miracles and counterfeit miracles, so these also will resist the truth. And yet it is possible that the ones of whom you speak may be taught of God and have gifts of the Spirit. We should not condemn them because they claim to be the Lord’s people. God has given us one Voice by which we are to judge all doctrine, and that is His voice which spoke His law on Mount Sinai: “To the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” So while among God’s people previous to His coming there will be seen all the gifts of the Spirit, yet when He describes the character of His people who shall welcome Him, He mentions no gifts nor miracles, but “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” The wise man says, “Where there is no vision the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”
2014.—Making and Creating.
In question No. 1992, you say that we do not know how long time the creation of the earth took, but the fourth commandment, in Exodus 20, states that “in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth;” and then in Genesis 1, it says, in enumerating the Creator’s work of the fourth day, “God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night.” As the sun is thirteen thousand times greater than the earth, and made on the fourth day, would it not be more of an effort than to make our little ball? R.
If our inquirer will read again the answer to which he refers, he will see that there is a distinction made between the two words “make” and “create.” Nowhere in the Bible does it say in six days the Lord CREATED the heavens and the earth. For aught we know He may have created it in a moment of time. What the word does declare is that He created it IN THE BEGINNING. Compare with John 1: 1, 2; Ps. 102: 25; Job 38: 4-7. The creation was bringing into existence that which did not before exist. The making was the bringing into the form which appeared at the end of the sixth day, “for in six days the Lord MADE the heavens and the earth.” How far back that “in the beginning” stretches we know nothing. God lived and had His throne and dwelling; angels of God lived and had their dwelling. We put no limit to His power, neither in the mighty work accomplished nor in the time in which it was accomplished. “He spake and it was, He commanded and it stood fast.” But it seems to us quite clear that there is a difference between the two expressions, and that they are worthy of faithful study.
I was taught that what is said in regard to the rich man and Lazarus is a description of what will be after we are dead, but I was told the other day that hell will not always last. J. H.
Without any doubt the story of the rich man and Lazarus is a parable closely connected with other parables of a similar style in the Gospel of Luke. Send for the little tract published by this house, “The Rich Man and Lazarus,” price three cents, which will explain all about it. Suffice to say that it is a representation of the Jews and the Gentiles, the Jews represented by the rich man, the Gentiles by Lazarus; the Jews trusting in their noble, faithful ancestry like Abraham for salvation, the Gentiles, poor and humble, but seeking God.
For the “worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” see Question 2004 in the SIGNS of February 20.
That there will not ever be an ever-burning hell, see Rev. 5: 13.
2016.—Tea and Coffee.
Are tea and coffee injurious, and is there anything in the Bible that forbids them? C. M. S.
The Bible does not mention tea or coffee or opium or alcohol or whisky or absinth or a hundred other drugs and decoctions which are used as stimulants or narcotics by the human race. The Bible is a great book of principles, and those principles are designed to lead the inquirer to avoid sin and follow righteousness. Our own faith and conscience must guide us in the application of those principles, but we must be sure that our conscience is a good conscience, if we would be so guided.
Now, in the first place, tea and coffee are of no benefit. That is shown by the fact that there are thousands upon thousands of people that do not use them who are just as well off, to say the least, as those who do. They have no demand for them, no need of them; therefore they have the amount of money that the tea and coffee would cost to use for other things.
Secondly, it has been demonstrated over and over again in the experience of tea and coffee users, and by medical men, that both tea and coffee are positively harmful, as manifest in the nervous condition of thousands, in the sallow skin, in the lack of appetite, in the sleeplessness, and we might also say in the loquacity and gossip which usually follow an afternoon tea. Thousands of people who had their constant headaches, especially without their strong tea, have for years, on the permanent discontinuance of the drug, known nothing of the headaches of the past. The development of the habit leads to partial intoxication just as surely as does the drinking of intoxicating liquors.
Now, in the light of these two reasons, why should a Christian use either? The admonition of the word is that whether “ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Questions: Does it glorify God to expend money for things which are utterly useless, when there are so many ways in which the money could be used to advantage? Will it glorify God to continue the use of that which is positively harmful in its nature? It seems to us that these questions answer themselves. It is the duty of Christians to keep their bodies, the temples of the Lord, in the very best condition physically, their senses in the clearest condition, so that they may respond to His calls.
