QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS by Uriah Smith

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 29, 1862

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

By Uriah Smith

LORD JESUS, RECEIVE MY SPIRIT.

Acts vii, 59. "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." My query is, Who said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit; Stephen, or they that stoned him?

E. Styles.

Answer. Stephen. The Greek language is much more definite in its construction than the English. In our version, the participle, calling, so far as the grammatical construction is concerned, might relate to either, they, or Stephen; but the Greek is liable to no such uncertainty, as will be readily understood from the following facts: The case and number of nouns are determined by difference in termination. The word, Stephen, is in the accusative case and singular number. The word, they, is in the nominative case and plural number. Participles must be put in the same case and number as the words to which they relate. If then the participle, calling, relates to those who stoned Stephen, it must be in the nominative case and plural number; if it relates to Stephen, it must be in the accusative case and singular number. It is in the accusative case and singular number, and hence cannot refer to the word, they, but to Stephen. It is certain, then, that Stephen used this language, if we can rely on the integrity of the Greek text. But if any should claim that, as a matter of fact, those who stoned Stephen used the same language, I could see no objection to that, as it would be very natural to suppose that in their rage against the holy man, they would repeat in mockery the language by which he expressed his blessed hope. This language of Stephen does not in the least conflict with the testimony of Scripture in other places that the dead are unconscious. The Saviour, when expiring upon the cross, used similar language. Luke xxiii, 46. The word rendered spirit is pneuma, and means life. And when the Lord Jesus receives the lives of his martyrs as Stephen prayed that his might be received, their lives are then, as expressed by Paul in Col. iii, 3, 4, hid with Christ in God; and when Christ who is their life shall appear, then they also will appear with him in glory.

EPHESIANS v, 27.

Shall we understand Eph. v, 27, to say that Jesus is to present to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, &c.?

J. G. Wood.

Ans. The word rendered, present, is paristeemi, which is defined as follows: "To place near or at hand; i. e., have in readiness; provide; to present, offer, i. e., cause to be present," &c., Greenfield. "To cause to stand near, to place near by."—Robinson. "To place near by, or beside; to bring to one's side, make one's own."—Liddell & Scott.

The meaning of the passage in the light of these definitions seems to be this: that Christ will place beside, or near by, himself a glorious church, &c. I consider it a parallel to Christ's language in John xiv, 3: "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also."

THE SABBATH.

Is it true that the words the Sabbath, as found in the writings of Moses, might with equal propriety be rendered a Sabbath? This question, with the one published from me on Matt. xxviii, 1, in No. 9, present

volume, is suggested by reading a Sabbath Manual which is quite popular in my neighborhood, and which conveys the above idea.

T. K. Henry.

Ans. It is not. The testimony of the Scriptures relative to the Sabbath, in Hebrew, Greek, and English, is as definite as it is possible for language to express. We all know how definite the testimony of our English version is, relative to this subject; and we may just assured that the translators understood the laws of language sufficiently well not to have expressed it in this definite manner, if the original had not been equally definite. Mr. Wm. B. Taylor, in a discussion upon the Sabbath question with J. N. Brown, D. D., thus comments upon the Hebrew of the fourth commandment: "The command is not to keep a seventh proportion of our time, but to remember the Sabbath-DAY, which is yom ha-shibingi, day the seventh, the day in which God rested; the only day that can be the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, as the Bible tells not that he even kept any other Sabbath. The fourth commandment is not general in description: it is as specific as language can make it. It designates a particular day by its proper name, and by the only name it had. 'Day ha-shibingi is the Sabbath.' Frequently as the Sabbath law is repeated, in no single instance does it describe a seventh portion of time, or even a Sabbath-day as its object: day the seventh is its inexorable demand."

The Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament from the original Hebrew into Greek, made by seventy-two learned Jews, six from each tribe, about 285 years before Christ, is probably the best expression of the sense of the original Hebrew that has ever been given. It was highly esteemed in the time of Christ, most of the quotations which he and the apostles made from the Old Testament, being taken from this version. A literal translation of the fourth commandment as found in this book, would read as follows:

"Remember the day of the Sabbath to hallow it. Six days you shall labor and perform all your works; but the day the seventh is the Sabbath to the Lord your God: you shall not do in it any work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, your servant, nor your maid-servant, your ox, nor beast of burden, nor any of your cattle, nor the stranger sojourning with you. For in six days the Lord made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all the things in them, and rested on the day the seventh; for which reason the Lord spake well of the day the seventh, and consecrated it."

It is easy to see, therefore, that nothing can be further from the truth than to represent the testimony of the word of God respecting the Sabbath, as in any degree indefinite; and no one will do it, unless to serve some unworthy purpose.