With Our Inquirers by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 25, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 35, No. 17.

With Our Inquirers

By Editor

"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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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.]

2656.—Unpardonable Because Unrepentable.

Heb. 6: 4-6.

Please explain the 6th chapter of Hebrews, verses 4 to 6.

Such passages as this will be very clearly and easily understood if we will remember that only those sins are unpardonable which are unrepentable. Only those can not be restored to God's favor who are not willing to be restored. The passage reads: "For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance;" the next sentence gives the reason for this, "Seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."

The margin of the Revised Version reads: "Impossible to renew them again unto repentance, the while they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh." Just so long as they hold that disposition of trampling under foot all these glorious blessings which have come to them, it is utterly impossible for them to be renewed unto repentance.

The illustration which follows teaches the same thing. The land which constantly drinks in the rain that falls upon it, and brings forth herbs which are useful, receives blessing, but if the same beneficent rain falls upon it, and it bears nothing but thorns and thistles, it necessarily is rejected and nigh unto a curse. So it is with humanity. How can we expect other than cursing when we pervert all of God's blessings which come to us? If the disposition remains to turn from the sin and from the perversion of God's blessings, there is renewal in Him; there is absolutely no limit to His mercy, either in quantity or in time. Its limitation is determined by our own disposition toward Him. All sins which are repentable are forgivable.

2657.—Matt. 16:18. The Church.

What does the 18th verse of the 16th chapter of Matthew mean? Does the word "church" belong there, or should it be called "assembly" or something else? It seems to give the Catholics ground for argument that their church has power to change laws and seasons.

The verse reads as follows: "And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." The words of our Saviour can only be understood by a consideration of the context. Peter has just confessed Christ. Jesus tells him that that conviction did not come by flesh and blood, but by the revelation of the Father. He had confessed Jesus as Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord said unto him: "I say unto thee, that thou art Peter;" "petros," Greek, meaning a stone; "and upon this Rock" — petra — the Christ whom thou hast just confessed, "I will build My church." Who this Rock is, is elsewhere shown. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 3:11 that there can be no other foundation laid than that which is laid — Christ Jesus. And Peter himself tells us, in the first epistle, that we who believe are living stones, built upon the Foundation, Christ Jesus.

Peter was simply one of the living stones, built upon the Rock whom he confessed. We will see by still other scriptures that everywhere God in Christ is the Rock. It is never applied to His children who build upon the Rock. Therefore, "the gates of Hades can not prevail against it" because it is built upon Christ Jesus, and therefore again it gives the Roman Catholics no ground whatever for the argument that their church has power to change laws or seasons.

The word "church" comes from "ecclesia." The translation is all right if we will give to the term "church" the right meaning. It means "the called out ones," those who heed God's call. Peter had done so, and he became a living stone, builded into Christ Jesus, the Rock, and so it is with every believer.

2658.—The Woman and the Beast.

Please explain Rev. 17:3: "And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness: and I saw a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns." Is the woman the same as in Rev. 18:7, who says, "I sit a queen"?

In brief, the persecuting power of the church of God is represented by three different symbols in the Revelation: in chapter 12, by the great red dragon, the devil; in chapter 13, by his agent, the beast — church and state united; in chapter 17, by a beast which is guided by a woman, the two symbols of church and state being kept separate. In Revelation 12 we have the figure of a woman representing the true church; one who is hunted, persecuted, driven into the wilderness, yet whom God cares for notwithstanding all her misery and sorrow and travail. In Revelation 17 we have the apostate church represented as sitting in triumph upon the powers of the earth during the very time that the true church is suffering persecution. We understand that the woman of the scripture quoted above is the apostasy during the Dark Ages, that the beast is the civil power which the woman guided to do her will. The same apostasy is identical with that of Revelation 18; only Revelation 18 is a further development which will include all the apostasies of the earth finally, before her destruction at the coming of the Lord.

2659.—The Taking of Life.

Does God take the life away, or does the devil? That is, if a man dies, does God take his life, or does Satan?

All death comes in consequence of sin. If sin had never entered the universe, there would never have been death. But when sin entered into the world, death came by sin, and so death passed upon all men; so primarily it is sin which brings death, and Satan brought sin. Of course, it is Satan's object, ever and always, to cause men to die. And therefore he is spoken of as he that has the power of death. Heb. 2:14.

The Lord is gathering out from these death-doomed mortals in this world a people who will glorify Him. He dwells within those who yield to Him, who receive of His Spirit, and gives them of His everlasting life that they may overcome sin. That does not mean that they will not physically die, for, inheriting mortality, they will, and God permits them to die. Sometimes it would seem that in His great mercy, He permits them to die before their time is come to save them from evils to come. It is better for His children that they sleep; for death is but a sleep to him who is in Christ Jesus; yet the original cause of their dying is, as before stated, the mortality which comes in consequence of sin. Therefore, Satan may be said to be the death-bringer, while Jesus is the Life-giver.

2660.—Burying the Dead.

Could a Sabbath-keeper help those who are not in preparing burial clothes for the dead on the Sabbath-day without a violation of the command? Or does what the Saviour said, "Let the dead bury the dead," apply here?

It wholly depends on circumstances. If a neighbor's family were afflicted by death and our help was demanded on the Sabbath, we know no reason why we should not render it in a service more important than the rescuing of a sheep or ox. If others can do it as well as we, if they are willing to do it, we could leave it to them, and perhaps render more important service after the Sabbath closed. Our Lord's words would not apply unless He had called us to more important work.

2661.—Making Water Wine.

When I am talking to a person regarding the use of intoxicating drinks, I am often told that Christ made wine at the marriage of Cana, as recorded in John 2:1-12.

There are two kinds of wine recognized in the Bible; one the wine that "makes glad the heart of man," and the other, the cup that intoxicates, concerning which the Scripture says: "Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." The one wine is not intoxicating; the other is. It would hardly seem that a wine drinker could conceive that our Lord made water into wine that would intoxicate and bestialize as it does at the present time. There was no drunkenness that followed the wine which He made.