With Our Inquirers by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · May 27, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 22.

With Our Inquirers

By Editor

"If ye will inquire, inquire ye."

This Inquirers' Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the word. Such questions only will be answered which, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply.

2514.—Empty Forms. Isa. 1: 12-14.

Please give me some light on the first chapter of Isaiah, verses 12 to 14.

The whole of the first part of the first chapter of Isaiah is God's setting forth of the spiritual condition of Israel. They had turned from the Lord until from the sole of the foot unto the head there was no soundness in the body of the people. Their desolated country, their burned cities, were all evidence of their departure from God. Their spiritual condition was like Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet they came before the Lord with their burnt offerings and their worship and their ceremonies, the keeping of the Sabbath, and all of that; and the Lord tells them in verses 12 to 14 that all those empty forms and ceremonies were not the things that He asked of them. Their oblations were meaningless; their new moons and Sabbath-keeping and calling of assemblies He did not want. His soul hated them because they were full of hypocrisy. That is all the passage means.

It is just as true in this age as it was in that age. The Lord does not mean by what He says that He would not have His children keep His ordinances. He does not mean by it that He would not have them observe His Sabbath, or offer to Him thankful oblations as tokens of their gratitude to Him. But all these things which He has given to His children, if they are filled with hypocrisy and selfishness, become hateful indeed. It would be better to throw off the very cloak of righteousness than to fill it with that which is evil. If one is going to be a wolf, he had better cast off the sheep's clothing. God does not mean by this that He had rejected His people; altho if they remained in that condition, He would not hear them; yet He pleads with them to put away their evil, learn to do well, and come to Him and have their sins washed away. We have thought by the letter that our inquirer probably referred to the eighth chapter of Isaiah instead of the first, but the letter very clearly says the first chapter.

2515.—The Deception of the Wicked.

You say at Christ's coming the righteous will be raised, all the righteous made immortal, and then taken to heaven, the wicked will be slain, the earth is left desolate, the wicked, dead. At the close of the thousand years the wicked dead are raised and Satan is permitted to deceive them again. Of what use to deceive the man who has already gone beyond redemption. It would almost seem from the reading that the New Jerusalem and the righteous are on earth while it is being burned and melting "with fervent heat." E. P. H.

There are two reasons which appeal to us, among others, as to why the wicked should be raised at the end of the thousand years. Many have gone down in death in their iniquity, yet deceived as to the future; while cherishing the iniquity in their own hearts they have also cherished the idea that they would be saved because they had trusted in their own devices or the devices of men, while their hearts were not really converted to God. In the great and final day of punishment all will be undeceived as regards this. Many of these souls who have thus died have seemed to the righteous who have lived upon the earth to be righteous persons. The Lord wishes to demonstrate to His own people that all His ways are just.

Secondly, one of the great falsehoods of Satan, told in the beginning, and persisted in with an ever-growing following, is that man himself is divine, that he has within himself the potency of everlasting life, and the right formation of character. On the other hand, the Bible teaches that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him; that there is no salvation outside of the Lamb of God; that only by the Spirit of God are men drawn to Him. This will be demonstrated not simply for the future inhabitants of this world, but for all the universe, that men left to themselves still have hearts of enmity against God. Notwithstanding God's power to bring them again from the dead, notwithstanding the presence of the Holy City before them, notwithstanding the multitudinous evidences of God's power, there is in their hearts no repentance or submission to Him, while their selfishness throws them open to the deceptions of the enemy who makes them believe they can take the city of God and become possessors of the eternal throne.

Thirdly, Satan has made them believe that no element of destruction coming against the real man can destroy him; while, on the other hand, God has taught that only in righteousness is persistence of being. Therefore the New Jerusalem and the people of God within it will be unharmed amid all the surrounding fires, while sin and all identified with sin will be consumed.

2516.—At the Resurrection of Christ.

Please explain Matt. 27:50-53. The scripture reads, "Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (a) When did these saints arise? (b) When did they go into the city? (c) What became of them? A. L. M.

1. By a careful reading of the scripture you will see that the graves were opened at the time of the earthquake at Christ's death; but the resurrection of the saints did not take place until after Christ's resurrection. You will notice that there is but a comma separating verses fifty-two and fifty-three, "and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection."

2. It was immediately after the resurrection that they went into the city and appeared unto many, or during the forty days that Christ was here upon earth before His ascension.

3. When Christ ascended up on high, He "led captivity captive," or as the margin of Eph. 4:8 reads, "a multitude of captives." They were the trophies of His triumph over sin and death. His ascension with them and His reception at the capital of the universe are described in the last part of the twenty-fourth Psalm.

2517.—The Annual Feasts of the Jews.

Are the three feasts of the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus to be fulfilled in their season? H. S. W.

We do not know to what particular three feasts of the twenty-third of Leviticus our inquirer refers—whether to the feast of the passover, the feast of pentecost, the feast of trumpets, or the feast of tabernacles. These, of course, when the Jews were living as they should before God, were celebrated from year to year. They were all typical of the great fulfilment in Christ. The passover lamb was fulfilled when Christ died; not necessarily, however, the whole passover feast. The feast of pentecost also met a fulfilment in the outpouring of the Spirit. But all of these feasts, in fact, all the ceremonies of the Levitical law, were met in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His work as priest. There will come a time when the day of atonement will be over, and also when the feast of tabernacles will be met in the great antitype of the home-coming in the New Jerusalem. We do not see, however, that these feasts should be celebrated year by year until the time of their complete antitypical fulfilment. These are all met in the ministrations which are given of our Lord Jesus Christ and in a consistent celebration of Him in walking in newness of life.

2518.—Oath-taking.

Is the taking of an oath by witnesses in courts, as before a notary public, as a legal test, a violation of the Lord's command to swear not at all? B.

Very evidently it is not. It refers to those extra-judicial oaths in which so many people indulged very commonly in the days of the Saviour, even more commonly in the heathen world than among the Jews. Men swore by their heads, swore by the altar, swore by various things which they considered sacred. All these added nothing. "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay." But when the law demanded the judicial oath, that was another thing. We know nothing whatsoever in the Scriptures which forbids that. In fact, we have the very best examples of the solemn affirmation by the oath in the fact that God Himself swore to Abraham, by Himself, because there was no higher, as stated in Heb. 6:17; and also the example of our Lord Himself at the time of His trial. To the various questions which were put to Him He answered nothing at first. Finally the priest said to Him, "I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us whether Thou be the Christ, the Son of God." That was the form of taking the oath. Jesus said to him, "Thou hast said."

2519.—The Marriage of Cousins.

What is the meaning of the 37th and 38th verses of Gen. 24? Is it, therefore, right for cousins to marry? M. F. M.

Gen. 24:37, 38 simply give the words of instruction to Abraham's servant, that he was not to take a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites, but that he should go unto Abraham's father's house and to his kindred, and take a wife for his son. He, therefore, went and found Rebekah, a cousin of Isaac's, and brought her to him. There is nothing in the Scriptures, so far as we know, to forbid cousins marrying, and yet constant intermarriage always tends to the degeneracy of the race. The prohibition, however, of Abraham's was not as regards relatives, but religion. The Canaanites were idolaters, and very gross idolaters; therefore not one of their daughters was to be taken as a wife for Isaac. While Abraham's relatives were tinctured, to some extent, with idolatry, they were not to be considered with the Canaanites; and from this class, those who believed in the true God, a wife was to be taken for Isaac.

2520.—Crossing of Diverse Animals is answered in Lev. 19:19. As to what bearing and force that text should have at the present time in either principle or prohibition is for the individual himself to decide. The Lord was very careful with His people anciently in endeavoring to keep all things connected with their administration and national life pure. Idolatry entered into almost every phase of the life of the heathen. The object-lessons which God has given us concerning His own people are that in all their daily avocations and their business relationships, everything should tend to the one great lesson of keeping God continually before them and His worship pure.

2521.—Concubines.—M. F. M.—Regarding Gen. 25:6 and other passages, certainly it was wrong to have concubines, or plurality of wives, for such they were. They were not to be considered as the first wife, whose children heired the property, but they were after all legitimate second-class wives. God suffered these things. Abraham himself did not see the wrong of it clearly, but we do see over and over that it never worked out for good. Abraham's taking Hagar brought trouble into his family; Jacob having two wives brought trouble into his family; David's many wives brought trouble into his family; and Solomon's many wives led him astray. Plural marriages have always been a curse.