p. 96 | QUERIES by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 11, 1859

QUERIES.

By Editor

1. As the altar was the most vital part of the Jewish economy [Matt. xxiii, 19], where are we to look for its antitype?

2. If in the new-earth state we are beyond the reach of sickness and pain, why is there the tree of life, and that, too, for the healing of the nations?

ANSWER. 1. We think that all the altar service of the former dispensation meets its antitype in the antitypical Sanctuary in heaven, where the prayers of saints are represented as coming up from the altar with the smoke of incense before God. Rev. viii, 3, 4.

2. We do not think the word "healing" a good rendering of Rev. xxii, 2. The original word so rendered is ϑεραπείαν [therapeian] and is thus defined by Greenfield: "Service, attendance, aid, help; by implication, relief, healing, cure." Robinson in his Lexicon of the N. T. defines it thus: "A waiting on, service, attendance, ministry, attendance and cure of the sick, hence, relief, cure," &c.

We see then that the leading and primary signification of the word is, service, aid, help. "The leaves of the tree were for the service of the nations." And in the fact that the nations of the saved will thus have access to the tree of life may be found the great spring of those glorious characteristics of the eternal state, freedom from sickness, pain, and death.