With Our Inquirers

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 12, 1908

With Our Inquirers

“If ye will inquire, inquire ye.”

[All questions to this department will be answered which to the editors will seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. The same question can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. It is well always to enclose a stamp for reply.]

2382.—Answers to Various Questions.—F. M.

—1. Gen. 12: 3. The word family here doubtless means nations, those who sprang from the families of the sons of Noah. And yet the blessing of Abraham’s Seed has come to every family on the face of the earth. They may have rejected the blessing of Christ, but nevertheless it is because of Christ’s offer that the world has existed.

2. The term “commanded” in Gen. 2: 16 is the proper word.

3. The name of God in Ex. 3: 14, “I am that I am,” denotes self-existence. This was to be God’s name forever, a constant, eternal pledge of His own present existence and His care for His children. This, the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was to be the name forever to the children of Israel.

4. Israel is said to be God’s first-born in contradistinction to Esau who was the first-born in time, just the same as Isaac was the first-born in contradistinction to Ishmael, the Ishmael was the elder, and both were sons of Abraham, as Esau and Jacob were the sons of Isaac.

5. The meaning of the name of Jehovah is best expressed in Ex. 34: 6, 7. It is the covenant name of God, and stands for all His promises. Sometimes we have a term added to Jehovah expressing some special manner of His goodness, as in Ex. 17: 15, “Jehovah-nissi.” The margin there gives the meaning, “Jehovah my Banner;” that is, He had caused Israel to triumph and He it was that should be exalted.

6. Regarding Ex. 21: 21, it is impossible to discuss in this department to any extent the matter of slavery in connection with Israel. The simple fact is that all captives of ancient times were held by all the various nations as slaves. Israel was a long way from a perfect nation; the hardness of their hearts was such that God could not bring them up to the standard that He desired, and give them free will, and therefore He did the best He could with the material He had to work upon. But the system of slavery which was permitted of God, regulated by Him, was so far in advance of that of all other nations around Israel that it was more desirable than citizenship in many of those nations; for the lives of their citizens were many times held at the mercy of the rulers, so that life was not safe anywhere. But according to God’s laws the lives of even the slaves were guarded.

7. The meaning of the showbread is presence-bread. It was the bread of God’s presence, and represented the bread of life of God’s word thru Christ. A burnt-offering represented absolute and full consecration.

8. How much was represented by the stones in the breastplate as given in Exodus 28, we do not know. They were mementos of the tribes. Further than that we can not say.

2383.—Joining with the World.

Is it wise and right for seventh-day Christians to be connected with financial corporations where business is done on the Sabbath, and would it be wisdom to elect a man for elder in a church who is the president of such a corporation where Sabbath work is conducted and where the institution is closed on Sunday?

LOVER OF TRUTH.

The best light which comes to our mind on this question is found in 2 Cor. 6: 14-16, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” etc. Now it certainly is wrong in the light of that passage for Christians to enter into marriage contracts with unbelievers, or for Christians to enter into business contracts with unbelievers where they become compromised thereby. There may be those who are doing it and it may be good for their brethren to suffer them hoping that they will see the true light. Some are so connected with corporations when they accept the truth of God that it is impossible for them to extricate themselves at once. These should be borne with all patience; but to our mind however good or talented these men are they should not be placed in responsible positions in God’s church as long as their business or their connections with the outside continues. It compromises the truth of God; not only are they themselves losers, but the reputation of the church to which they belong and the reputation of the brethren who belong to the church are also concerned. God’s promise to such as are unequally yoked is, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and I will receive you.”

2384.—The Time of Christ’s Birth.

I read last week the statement that it is not known within months or a year when Christ was born. This seems strange that the most momentous event that ever occurred in the world is not recorded. May I ask how this is explained? We read that Christ was twelve years old when He was found in the temple by His parents, that He was thirty-three years old when He finished His mission on earth. How could these figures be given with no knowledge of the date of Christ’s birth? We know that Easter day is the resurrection day of Christ; how could it be of greater importance than the birth of Christ? Must we not admit that if there was no birth of Christ there could be no resurrection?

AN INQUIRER.

1. The birth of Christ is one of the great events in the work of God thru His Son for this world, but it is only one. It is not more important than the day of His baptism, or several other important periods in His earthly work.

2. The record is quite brief and all can read it. The simple record gives us no definite light upon the question at all. It tells us where He was born, in fulfilment of the prophecies of Him that went before. Those same prophecies point out the very year of His baptism (Dan. 9: 25) which took place in the year A.D. 27, when Christ was thirty years old.

3. It tells us when He was twelve years old for the same reason that it tells us when He was eight days old. When He was eight days old, He was circumcised, according to the law. According to the Jewish law, when a child was twelve years old he became a man, or responsible to God, and therefore He was taken by His parents up to Jerusalem, and we find Him in the temple questioning the doctors.

4. The Lord must Himself know what is best to reveal to us, and what is not. If there had been anything about the birth of Christ which would make it necessary that we should know the day, He would have told us. The great, important fact is that the “Word became flesh and dwelt among us;” and the very most important fact to every soul on earth is that Christ shall be born in him, so that the Son of God will live in the flesh of the Lord’s children as truly as He lived in the flesh of Jesus.

5. The Scripture does not tell us when Jesus was thirty-three years old, but it does tell us that He was thirty years old at the time of His baptism, when He entered on His ministry. That was the age that the priests themselves began service in the temple.

6. We may, however, approximate the time of the year when He was born. All are agreed that He began His ministry in the autumn of A.D. 27, about six months previous to the Passover. His baptism had taken place just previous to this. See Luke 3: 16-23. Thirty years before that, Jesus must have been born; therefore He was born in the autumn of the year instead of the midwinter. He certainly was not born in midwinter, because at that time the shepherds and their flocks are not out in the fields at night. Snow frequently falls in Palestine. The season of Christmas occurs at the very close of the week of the pagan festival formerly called the Saturnalia, celebrated in Rome and other pagan cities, and the period of the shortest days in the year, which occur about December 20 or thereabout. December 25, the last day of the feast, the days had begun to grow a little longer and there was great jubilation, sending of presents one to another; and the greatest looseness and licentiousness were indulged in the celebration of the feast. Some of those same things have come down to us at the present time.

7. The birth of Christ is not for a day, but for every day in the year. God therefore did not give us a day in which to celebrate it. The resurrection of Christ was not for a day, but for every day in the year. God therefore did not give us a day in which to celebrate it. When there are reasons for these things, God in His wisdom has given them, and if we will take His instructions as given in His word and study them, we will see definite and ample reasons for doing. But poor, unwise human solicitude has tried to supplement His wisdom, and always to the exaltation of the human and to the lowering of the divine standard.

2385.—Our Condition by Nature. 1 John 1: 8-10

Please explain verses 8 to 10 of the first chapter of 1 John.

C. D.

We do not know how we can add to the clearness of these verses. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3: 23. Therefore, “if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The man who stands in harmony with truth will say he is a sinner. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Sin means missing the mark, and no one ever lived who reached the mark apart from Christ Jesus, and that is even true of the professed Christian in and of himself. He makes mistakes and blunders and misses the mark. But the maker of mistakes and the Christian may confess their sins and so come into harmony with God; and if they confess their sins, God is faithful and just to forgive their sins and to cleanse them from all unrighteousness, so that in His sight, looking up to Christ, they stand clear. Verse 10 is a stronger affirmation of the truth than verse 8, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” The sinner has the strongest plea in the world in coming to Christ, for “this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” When Satan would discourage us by taunting us with our sins, our strength is in Christ. It is said that the devil came to Martin Luther one time with a long list of sins and said to Luther, “You are guilty of them all.” Luther did not deny it, but admitted that it was so, but he replied, “Right at the bottom of that list is written ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.’”

2386.—Number of Beasts in the Ark. Gen. 7: 2, 8, 9.

Verse 2 seems to contradict verses 8 and 9. Please explain.

H. C. M.

Verse 2 tells us the number of each of the clean and unclean beasts that should be taken into the ark; of the clean beasts there should be taken in fourteen, or two sevens, the simple plural being dual in the Hebrew; and the unclean beasts by twos. Verses 8 and 9 simply tell us how they went into the ark, two and two, the male with his female, without any regard to the number at all, whether of clean or unclean; they went into the ark that way, each male and his mate. There is no contradiction between the accounts.

2387.—Two Enochs.

The record very clearly shows that there were two Enochs, one the descendant of Cain, the other a descendant of Seth. We should not consider that identical names mean identical persons in the Bible, any more than elsewhere.