p. 698 | Question Corner by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 10, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 44.

Question Corner

By Milton C. Wilcox

Conducted by MILTON C. WILCOX Professor of Biblical Exegesis of the Faculty of the College of Medical Evangelists Loma Linda, California

NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to the editors to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import can not be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to enclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

40 — FEASTS AND SABBATH DAYS, COL. 2: 16

Will you please give me a full exposition of Col. 2: 16? Is the word in the original Greek for "sabbath" the same as that used when referring to the seventh-day Sabbath? S. C.

To answer the last question first, the word "sabbath" in Col. 2: 16 comes from the same Greek word that "Sabbath" is generally translated from. It is also in the same form in the Septuagint in Ex. 20: 8-11. But this does not alter the meaning of the text. The word "sabbath" is used for yearly sabbaths as well as weekly. The real point is just this,—that the seventh-day Sabbath, the weekly Sabbath, God's memorial of creation (Gen. 2: 2, 3), is not "a shadow of things to come." All shadows have to do with sin and the putting away of sin, and have all come in consequence of sin. Before sin entered, man needed no shadow to point forward to something better; and the seventh-day Sabbath was instituted then. But when sin entered, man needed a Saviour; and all the various sacrifices and feasts and symbols and ceremonies which followed sin, came in to point men to the only One who is able to take away sins.

And these sabbaths of which Paul was speaking to the Colossians were shadows of things to come, the body of which was Christ. There were ceremonial sabbaths, days in which no work was done, and ceremonial feast-days in connection with these sabbaths. Read carefully Leviticus 23, where these various yearly sabbaths and feast-days are mentioned. Note also that the third verse has to do with the seventh-day Sabbath. "It is a Sabbath unto Jehovah in all your dwellings." Then Moses goes on and names all the various yearly sabbaths and feast-days till we come to the thirty-eighth verse, and then he tells us all these various days are "besides the Sabbaths of Jehovah." That is, they stand out in contradistinction to the Sabbath of the Lord.

There is another consideration in connection with this passage in Col. 2: 14-17 worthy of note, and that is the real point of the apostle's teaching. He is speaking to Christians, those whom God redeemed and re-created in Christ Jesus. They had been placed upon the true foundation of God's word. It was the apostle's desire that they should be rooted and built up in Christ. Our Lord was that Word personified—a commandment keeper. And those rooted and established in Christ by faith are also commandment keepers. Therefore, being justified by Him and received by Him, sins cleansed by Him, no man should judge them, no man should condemn them. In other words, bringing it home personally, whatever men may say, do not let us feel condemned by them, even though we are not walking in the ordinances of men. God's path of commandments upon which grace has placed us may lead us away from all the traditions of the church in the past, and contrary to all human laws in the present. Let not these things trouble us. Go forward, looking to Christ and to Him alone. We are not to be led away by false philosophy, we are not to be puffed up by the fleshly mind, but the Christian is to hold fast the Head. And he who truly and intelligently holds fast the Head, Christ Jesus our Lord, will be a commandment keeper—not to earn salvation, but because of Christ's life within him. These are the great lessons that we should gather from the passage.

41 — ENCOMPASSING THE CITY OF JERICHO

Did the Israelites encompass the city of Jericho on the Sabbath? L. C. L.

Clearly they did, because they encompassed the city seven days. The last day may have been the Sabbath. We do not know. They were simply worshiping God as they were marching around that

city and obeying God's command. They did not fight. They did not break down the walls of the city. God's invisible armies, the angels, were doing that. It is lawful to do God's work on God's day. The commandment is against doing our own work. See Isa. 58: 13.

42 — "END OF THE LAW FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS," ROM. 10: 4

Please explain Rom. 10: 4 so as to show definitely the meaning of "the end of the law." S. C.

The one who has faithfully studied the book of Romans up to Rom. 10: 4 will have no question about the meaning of "the end of the law." We go back to the very first chapter. Chapter 1 shows that the world is condemned, that the only hope is the gospel of Christ; chapter 2, that the Jews stand with the Gentiles,—that although they have "the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law," still they have transgressed it. Chapter 3 brings both of them together; tells us that all the world is guilty before God, condemned by the law. And that chapter closes with the great thought that only by faith can we be justified, because no law can justify its transgressor. Chapter 4 shows how Abraham found relief by believing in God; chapter 5, that faith brings us peace and justification and hope. Chapter 6 discusses baptism and what it ought to mean to the sinner,—that his sins are buried, but his whole life is yielded to Christ; that now he lives the new life in Christ Jesus. But the new life must be just such a life as Christ led, and Christ kept all God's commandments. Chapter 7 is a further development of it, showing that it is not the law that is bad, but it is the sinner that is bad; and the law, having no salvation in itself, drives the sinner who longs to be saved, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, while the sinner has no hope in the law, he finds it in the grace of Christ.

Chapter 8 is an amplification of that glorious freedom in Christ. It expressly tells us that the only mind that is at enmity with God and against God's law is the carnal mind, which can not be subject to God's law. And it brings before us the acme of Christian experience,—love to God; and love is exemplified in obedience to God's law. I John 5: 3.

Chapter 9 carries the same thought further,—that the Jews sought righteousness by their works, not by faith. And Rom. 10: 4 is a climax to the argument that has been presented before,—that the very thing the Jews sought and could not find, is found in Christ Jesus our Lord; that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. "End" is not used to mean the limit, or the last of a thing. It does not mean that the law is no more when we come to Christ. "End" is used in the sense of object, just as James says, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord" (James 5: 11)—that is, the object of the Lord in afflicting Job.

It is a sad thing, is it not, that the text should be used to justify sin,—to teach that when we reach the Lord Jesus we may disregard His law? But the text does not say that Christ is the end of the law for transgression. It is not the object of the law that we may break the law, but Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. The law drives us to Christ, that in Him may be found the righteousness which the law demands. To that righteousness the law witnesses, as we are told in the twenty-first verse of the third chapter. That is, the righteousness that we have through our Lord Jesus Christ is witnessed by the law to be correct. The man who is made righteous will keep the righteous law.

43 — EZEKIEL 38 AND 39

Can you give us an interpretation of Ezekiel 38 and 39? It seems to picture the last days. W. H. W.

Those chapters do and they do not picture the last days. There are some conditional prophecies in God's word, which would have been fulfilled in the past if God's people had complied with the conditions. All the latter part of Ezekiel is prophecies of this kind. God would have delivered His people from all their enemies, and there would have been built the wonderful sanctuary which is described in the last part of Ezekiel. To our minds, chapters 38 and 39 go with that description.

The conditions on which the Lord makes His promises are stated very fully in Jer. 18: 8-10. There are some things in these prophecies, however, that will without question be fulfilled in the last days, whether the Jews had regard for them or not. Some of the predictions perhaps relate to the end of the thousand years. They can only be fulfilled then. Some of the details will not be fulfilled at all; for instance, the burning of the weapons, the burial of the dead, the cleansing of the land. Eze. 39: 9-16. All that would have been true, of course, in the days of Israel. That was the kind of weapons they used then—wooden arrows and bows, and spears and handstaves. Fires could be made of them; and in the great slaughter that might have followed, the other things would have been fulfilled. That will not be true of modern weapons, or of the last great war; for then, according to Jeremiah 25, the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth to the other, and they shall not be buried.

The best way to get an understanding of these passages is to take into consideration the conditions on which they were made—what would have been done had Israel been faithful to God; secondly, that what of the prophecies remained to be fulfilled must be fulfilled in harmony with the conditions existing upon the earth. Some of the events foretold, will occur before Christ comes the second time, and some of them in the last great battle, which will be fought on the other side of the thousand years, as outlined in Revelation 20. The limits of this department will not allow further development.

44 — WHAT EVENING, JOHN 20: 19?

Does this verse refer to the evening of the first day, such as our present Sunday evening, or the first part of the second day, counting Biblically, or is it the dark part of the first day—on our Saturday night? H. A. B. R.

It clearly refers to the evening of that first day, running from the closing hours of the first day into the first part of the second day. The day began and closed at evening. In order to get an understanding of this it will be necessary to read what the different evangelists say regarding that day, and also to have an understanding of the Bible evenings.

The Jews recognized two evenings. See Ex. 12: 6, margin. When the sun began to decline, about three o'clock in the afternoon, the first evening began. Of course it closed with the day—the evening belonging to that day; but it merged into the evening of the next day, or the first part of the next day.

That whole first day had been spent in various ways by the disciples. Most of them were still in doubt regarding our Saviour's resurrection. Luke tells us that on the afternoon of that day two of the disciples went down to Emmaus—a distance of seven and one half miles from Jerusalem; that on the way down there Jesus joined them. They did not reach Emmaus until toward evening (Luke 24: 29), when the day was far spent. Jesus went in to eat with them. Just how long He stayed before refreshments were prepared, we do not know; but He sat down to the table with them, took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave to them, and then they knew Him. But He immediately vanished out of their sight. Then "they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem"—seven and one half miles. The first day must have been past then, and the beginning of the second day had come. So when Jesus met with the disciples, as recorded in John, the second day had begun.

The disciples had gathered together in the closing hours of the first day; but when Jesus came to them, the first day had passed, and the second day had begun. Thus His meeting with them was not on Sunday, but on the day which followed. This is evident from Luke 24: 37-39. The night was then on; and when Jesus appeared, they supposed that it was an apparition. Compare also Mark 16: 14.

The disciples had not met together to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. They had met together because that was their common abode (Acts 1: 13), and Jesus upbraided them for their unbelief when He met them. There is nothing in this meeting, or in any other meeting of Christ and His disciples, that established a new Sabbath or made any change in the Sabbath of the Lord.

45 — "COMING" OR "PRESENCE," MATT. 24: 27

I note in a book written by Pastor Russell that he uses the word "presence" in place of the word "coming" in Matt. 24: 27. He says the Greek word parousia has been incorrectly translated as "coming," and should be "presence." C. B. J.

We would advise our correspondent to secure the little tract "The Manner of Christ's Coming," published by the Pacific Press, price 1 cent, in which all these various words that have to do with our Lord's coming are considered. Pastor Russell is right as regards the occurrence of the word, but his use of it is utterly unscriptural. That our Lord has been dwelling here upon the earth, or that His literal presence has been here upon the earth, for a number of years, is utterly contrary to the word of God. Out of the wrong idea of parousia has grown what is called the view of "the secret rapture," in which it is contended that Christ comes in secret before He appears in the clouds of heaven, some contending that during this time He gathers home to Himself His "elect," His bride, and that when He comes He brings these with Him. But there is nothing whatever to indicate that the parousia is a secret coming or a secret presence. Take, for instance, 1 Thess. 4: 15, 16, where the term parousia is used: "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto the coming ["presence," parousia] of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first."

Certainly there is nothing indicative of a secret coming in this passage. "The voice of the Archangel," "the shout," and "the trump of God" clearly show that it is not a coming in the stillness of spirit to a few only. The very heaven will resound with the trumpet, and the surpassing glory will pierce to the very tombs.

Pastor Russell and some others have made the mistake of using the terms which relate to our Lord's coming as distinct events. There are three—parousia, apokalupsis, and epiphaneia, but they all relate to the same event. The first word has to do with His presence—the coming of the Lord Himself. The second means "disclosure," "revelation." The world has known Christ after the flesh. They have looked upon Him as a man. He will be revealed as the Son of God when He comes. The third means "forth-shining"—the wonderful glory that will be manifest when Christ appears. He was here in humility when He came before. His glory was veiled in humanity. There was nothing about Him that men would desire. But when He comes the second time, it will be in all the glory of the Father and the holy angels with Him. His presence will be the revelation of the Son of God, the forth-shining of the eternal glory. There is a wonderful beauty in the use of all these terms as applying to Jesus at His second coming. We have two of them used in 2 Thess. 2: 8 referring to the wicked one. It says, "Whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of His mouth, and bring to naught by the manifestation of His coming"—by the forth-shining of His presence. And that will be His apokalupsis, or disclosure.

The little tract mentioned discusses the subject quite fully.