[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 The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable.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.]
2405.—The Wedding-Garment.
According to Matt. 22: 11, 12 a guest seems to have gotten into the wedding who did not have on the wedding-garment. Does it mean that the counterfeit was such that the servants did not detect it? And whom does this man represent?
H. T. H.
The matter of the wedding can be understood only by a knowledge of Christ’s kingdom. The wedding is the taking of the kingdom, the union of Christ with the kingdom, at the close of His mediatorial work. In Dan. 7: 13, 14 we learn that at the time of the investigative judgment, which began in 1844, the Son went before the Father to receive His kingdom, and there was given to Him the kingdom. That time of the reception of the kingdom, and the closing of Christ’s mediatorial work, extends down from 1844 to the time when He shall come again. During that time, many will profess to believe and will take His name; they will be among His people, among those who have faith in His work. The coming in to view the guests is the judgment work. It is not viewing those who have entered heaven, but those who are in Christ’s church upon the earth. Those who have on the wedding-garment are those who are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ; those who do not have on the wedding-garment are those who profess His name and yet are sinners before Him. The righteousness of Christ does not possess their souls. It is true that these things may not be discerned by the servants of God on earth, but when brought before the judgment-seat of Christ they will be seen.
Will you please explain, “But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken”?
P. H. W.
If you will read the context, you will see that the Lord is talking to a backslidden people, to those who would not hear, and yet He is going to teach His truth to them so plainly that there will be no excuse; and therefore He gives it to them in just the way the text indicates, precept upon precept, line upon line. Over and over again God gives them the lessons of instruction and warning, so that when the time comes that judgment is visited upon them, the Lord will be clear of all charge, and the fault will be on the part of those who are rebellious. And so in verse 14 and onward He appeals to them again, endeavoring to show them that all their agreements and plans by which they thought to stand would prove to be utterly worthless, for justice would be the line and righteousness the plummet, and the refuge of lies would be swept away and the hiding-place would be overthrown.
2407.—The Trinity.
We speak of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost; do we understand that the Holy Ghost, or Spirit, is a personal being as God the Father and Jesus the Son? In Christ’s talk with the disciples, in John 14, He uses the personal pronoun in referring to the Comforter.
J. B. J.
There are various interpretations and differences of opinion in regard to the matter. To the mind of the writer, the Spirit is the life of God, or better, the life of the Godhead, common both to the Father and the Son. It is that which makes Deity everywhere present. In Acts 2 it is spoken of as that which came into the room and filled all who were there. In the thirty-third verse Peter speaks of it as the power which Christ had poured forth.
It is spoken of as a person, because by the Spirit the Father and the Son come personally to us. In John 16: 7 Jesus tells us, “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.” Jesus was a person located in one place; the Spirit was that which was shed abroad among all His children, but it brought to every one of those children the presence of Christ. So we read again, “He [the Spirit] shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.”
2408.—Eternal Life and Immortality.
What is the difference between eternal life and immortality?
P.
Eternal life is that which God gives in harmony with His eternal law of right. It is the life of righteousness—“in the way of righteousness is life.” The divine energy by which men live, given thru the Spirit, and always coming from God as eternal life, comes alone thru Jesus Christ, in response to faith. Immortality means deathlessness, incorruptibility, and is indicative of the state or condition applicable only to God now, but which will be bestowed upon those who are His at the resurrection. 1 Tim. 6: 16; 1 Cor. 15: 51-54. God gives us eternal life now by faith in Christ. This is the teaching of John 3: 16, 36; John 6 throuout; and 1 John 5: 11. The Christian has it now by faith; he will hold it absolutely by the ever-living faith throuout the ages to come. He will be given immortality in his physical frame when Jesus Christ comes, as God’s seal of incorruptible character. The word “immortality” in 1 Tim. 6: 16 and 1 Cor. 15: 54 is the same in both English and Greek. The Greek term is athanasia. It comes from thanatos, death, and the negative article a meaning deathlessness. Immortality in Rom. 2: 7 and 2 Tim. 1: 10 comes from aphthasia, meaning incorruptibility, unending existence.
If the Lord knew from the beginning to the end, why did it repent the Lord that He had made man, as in Gen. 6: 6?
No. 704.
In order to make man understand, the Lord uses the language of men. He does not change His mind, for it is His mind always to do good unto His children; but when man does turn from the way of God, we can understand how the great heart of Him who loves righteousness, and loves even the sinner and longs to save him, sorrows on account of it. And so as man turned from God and went into the sin that is described in the 6th chapter of Genesis, God grieved for His disobedient children, grieved so much that, looking at it from a human standpoint, it would seem that it were better that man had not been made; and yet out of all the sin and trouble which Satan has brought, God would still save His children. The conditions upon which God treats men and nations are set forth in Jer. 18: 7-10.
In the verses previous the apostle tells us that there can be no other foundation than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ, and then he tells us of two classes of builders; one class builds on that foundation, gold, silver, costly stones, materials that will endure; another class builds wood, hay, and stubble. In the great testing to come which is by fire the building of the former will stand, and that of the latter will perish. Using this to illustrate the work of the ministry, one obtains converts which will endure; another, those who are not truly grounded in the faith, and in times of temptation fall away. Read the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. The day which shall declare every man’s work will be the judgment day; and it may be true that a man has labored honestly and faithfully and yet insufficiently, and while much of his work shall perish yet he himself shall be saved.
Had the apostles in themselves power to forgive sins and is this power still extended to God’s ministers?
F. N. W.
It will be noticed that what is said in John 20: 23 to the disciples is used of the church in Matt. 18: 18. The same thought is expressed in Matt. 16: 19 to Peter, “Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The authority of the ministers of Jesus Christ rests not in their profession or in the order to which they belong, or in the fact that some one has ordained them, but in their living connection with God, and in the message which they bear. Before the promise given in John 20: 23 Jesus said to the apostles, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” His commission to them was, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel.” His commission, thru the apostles, to the Gentiles, to all Christian ministers, is, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word.” John the Baptist gives us the very core of true ministry in his reply to the scribes and Pharisees who came to him and asked him if he were Elijah, and if he were that prophet, and if he were the Messiah, and receiving no satisfactory answer as to who he was and what lineage and commission he had to present, he replied, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.” The power of the servant of God lies in his message; therefore whosoever believes that message, his sins are remitted; whosoever rejects that message, his sins are retained. And so Jesus said of Himself that He personally came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world thru Him might be saved. He tells us what condemns, “If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath One that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.” John 12: 47-49. It is the word which makes the messenger; it is the word which saves or condemns, and this has always been true.
An excellent illustration of this is given by Jeremiah, when the Lord says, “I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Jer. 1: 10. How this is done is told us in chapter 18: 7-10. If a nation heeds His message, God turns away the evil from them; if the nation will not heed His message, they will be destroyed.
As to the keys of the kingdom of heaven, Peter tells the apostles, in Acts 15, that “God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as He did unto us.” Peter opened the Gospel first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, on the day of Pentecost to the Jews, later on to the Gentiles. At the same time the apostle Paul tells us that he himself was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles. See also 1 Cor. 15: 10; 11: 22, 23; 12: 11. It is Peter himself who tells us that the Foundation-stone is Christ Jesus, and that he and others are living stones built on that Foundation. 1 Peter 2: 2-9. And Paul tells us that “other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus.” 1 Cor. 3: 11.