When Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18), what did He mean by the words “gates of hell”? The Roman Catholic Church says this means that, beginning with Peter, the “apostolic succession” would not be interrupted, and on this basis they attempt to prove that the Roman Catholic Church is the true church. Is this what Jesus had in mind when He said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it”?
The word “hell” in this text is from the Greek “Hades,” which word, all informed people know, means the grave. What Jesus meant was that although the members of the church may die and go into the grave, the time would come when, by a resurrection, they would be released and no longer held there. If they should never be released, then the “gates of hell” would “prevail.”
ALLEN WALKER
In Isaiah 38:10 the king said that if he should die he would go to “the gates of the grave,” which is the same as “the gates of hell.” The resurrection of Jesus is the pledge that those who have “fallen asleep” “in Christ” will be raised from the dead when He comes again. Jesus declares: “I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” Revelation 1:18. So with these “keys” of resurrection power Christ will unlock the “gates of hell” (“Hades”) and let the prisoners go free. As they come forth on that glad resurrection morn, they in triumph will exclaim, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” 1 Corinthians 15:55.
A WONDERFUL PROMISE
Becoming members of the church did not mean that they would be immune from physical death. Many of them would die a martyr’s death for their faith and loyalty to Christ. But they were to “fear none of those things.” For the day will come when “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.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16. It is because of the certainty of the resurrection that “the gates of hell” will not “prevail.” The promise is, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.” Hosea 13:14.
ETERNAL TORMENT
A. W. Clem of Texas asks for an explanation of Mark 9:48.
It will not be difficult to catch the meaning of Christ's words in Mark 9:48, “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched,” if we learn what the “where” refers to. This is shown in the previous verses, 43-47, to be “hell,” which in Greek is Gehenna, as noted in the margin of the American Revised Version. Gehenna is the equivalent of the Hebrew valley of Hinnom, also called Topheth (see Jeremiah 19:2, 6, 11, 12), which was south of Jerusalem.
Once used as a place where were observed the cruel rites of the worship of the heathen god Moloch, this valley later became a public incinerator, so to speak, where the Jews kept fire burning constantly, in which they threw the refuse of the city, also the carcasses of animals and the dead bodies of malefactors. Such material as this incinerator did not consume by reason of its being beyond reach of the flames, would, of course, be consumed by the maggots, worms, always attached to dead bodies. There was no possible escape from destruction. What the fire did not destroy the ever-present worm consumed.
Because, therefore, Gehenna was a concrete demonstration of complete destruction to anything put into it, our Lord used it as a forceful illustration, an image, of the complete destruction coming to the finally impenitent in their hell of punishment. There would be no escape for them, for in God's retributive judgments “their worm” would not die and their “fire” would not be quenched.
The word “worm” is not used in any subjective sense of the soul or spirit of the destroyed wicked. It is employed in an objective, figurative sense of the punitive consuming forces of a just God operating upon the wicked.
The “SIGNS” QUESTION CORNER
By William G. Wirth
Conducted by WILLIAM G. WIRTH, 5447 EL VERANO AVENUE, EAGLE ROCK, CALIFORNIA
If you have a question regarding Bible doctrine and Christian living, or on other subjects apropos to the field of the “Signs of the Times,” write out your question and send it in, preferably direct to Dr. Wirth. Anonymous questions will not be answered. Do not become impatient if your question is not answered immediately, for Dr. Wirth has scores of questions in waiting, and yours will be answered in order.
THE VEILS OF THE SANCTUARY
A minister asks for a critical discussion of the word “veil” in relation to the sanctuary of the Old Testament.
In all the twenty-odd times that the word “veil” (Hebrew, paroketh) is used in the Old Testament,—whether alone or in the phrases “within the veil,” “without the veil,” or “before the veil,”—it is quite clear that it refers to the curtain at the entrance of the second apartment of the sanctuary, the most holy place. When the veil at the entrance of the first apartment, or holy place, is mentioned, another word (Hebrew, masak) is used, translated “hanging” in the King James Version; as “screen” in the American Revised Version.
This would seem to make the problem of “veil” in the New Testament very simple,—that wherever it is found it means the curtain before the most holy place. However, when we consult the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, with which the New Testament writers were very familiar and from which they drew heavily in their terminology, phraseology, Old Testament quotations,—naturally so, because of the common language medium, the Greek,—we find that the Septuagint employs one word at times, katapetasma, for all the veils of the sanctuary. In the greater number of instances katapetasma is used in the Septuagint for the veil before the most holy place; in fewer cases it is used in the Septuagint for the veil before the holy place (Exodus 26:37; 37:5; 39:20; 40:5, 19); and in a few references in the Septuagint it stands for the veil of the door of the sanctuary court (Exodus 37:16; Numbers 3:26; 4:32). This threefold usage of katapetasma in the Old Testament makes it clear that its use in the New Testament cannot be made dogmatically to apply to one particular veil and only that veil. The setting, the background, of the context in which it occurs, the thought in the New Testament writer’s mind, can alone determine which veil it is.
Taking up the first three references in the New Testament containing katapetasma (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45), all Bible students are agreed that the “veil” of the temple here, properly so from its temple background, is the one between the first and the second apartment.
The remaining places where katapetasma is used are all in the epistle to the Hebrews (6:19; 9:3; 10:20). When careful study is given these, a most significant fact is noted. In chapter 9:3 the New Testament writer puts the word “second” before the “veil” that leads into the “holy of holies.” This indisputably shows that the author of Hebrews, who saturates his epistle with the literary form of the Septuagint, is using katapetasma, as the Septuagint uses it, to cover more than one particular sanctuary veil. Had he restricted himself to the Hebrew literary form of the Old Testament, he would simply have said “veil” in referring to this curtain before the most holy place. without any qualifying word such as “second.” It is this Septuagintal use of katapetasma that shows how dangerous it is to hold that “veil” in Hebrews must mean only one thing, the curtain before the second apartment. This would be true if the writer of the epistle were following exclusively Hebrew thought; but he is not. Let me again emphasize that the New Testament writers had two Old Testaments at their disposal, the Hebrew and the Greek, and that both were used to express literary form and thought vehicle. Bible students who follow only the Hebrew Old Testament literary form will be very likely to get a one-sided idea of New Testament terms, which will lead them to half-truths and wrong theological conclusions. Both Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments must be studied to arrive at the New Testament writer’s meaning.
Because of this varied use of katapetasma, there is only one safe rule in determining which apartment “veil” is to be understood in Hebrews, and that is by the context, as I indicated in a former question on the writer of Hebrews’ use of hagion (holy) for “sanctuary.” Here in chapter 9:3 it definitely indicates it by the word “second.” As the purpose of the author of Hebrews is to show that we have a High Priest in heaven, who is ministering there in our behalf as did the priests for the people under the earthly sanctuary order, Hebrews 6:19 (read also the twentieth verse) simply affirms that our Lord after His ascension began this ministry in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary, “entering into that which is within the veil” of the holy place. The fact that Hebrews 9:3 indicates a “second veil,” proves conclusively the first veil at the entrance of the first apartment, referred to in Hebrews 6:19, in which apartment Christ would naturally begin His work.
What Hebrews 10:20 means by the “new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh,” is that in Christ we have a heavenly priesthood taking the place of the Old Testament earthly priesthood of the Levitical system. Under the old priesthood the believer entered the veil of the sanctuary through the ministration of those who had sinful flesh. Now access is open to the believer “through the veil” of the heavenly sanctuary through the “flesh” of the sinless God-man, Christ. See Hebrews 2:9-18; 4:15; 5:7-10; 9:11-14; 10:5-14. Hence, katapetasma here refers to the curtain at the entrance of the holy place.
WHEN THE BODY DIES, WHAT OF THE SOUL?
F. W. Cochran of Arizona would like to know about the killing of the soul, spoken of in Matthew 10:28.
In many instances in the New Testament, in both the King James and the American Revised Version, the Greek word psuche is translated life and not soul; as, for example, in Matthew 2:20; 6:25; 16:25, 26. See especially the margin of Luke 12:19, 20, 22, 23; 21:19 in the American Revised. Psuche should appear as life and not soul in Matthew 10:28; for what Jesus is positing is that men may “kill the body,” our purely temporal physical life, but they cannot kill our future everlasting life, that real life (psuche) which rests with God. Only God can deprive us of this eternal life, which certainly proves the soul to be not immortal.
The fact that God can destroy the soul is further shown by the word “hell,” which in the original is Gehenna (see margin of American Revised). As the place near Jerusalem where the Jews burned up and finally disposed of their refuse, Gehenna afforded Jesus an apt illustration of the complete destruction of the wicked in their “Gehenna” of punishment.
There is no living survival of any part of an individual after his death, until the resurrection brings him forth again to being. The very fact that there must be a resurrection shows there can be no soul or spirit as an entity apart from the whole person. Therefore, the soul cannot be said to live in the interval between death and the resurrection.
The WORLD'S PULSE
Silk produced in the world last year weighed 100,000,000 pounds.
The most densely populated tract of land in the world is the island of Java, with a population of 690 to a square mile.
The cancer menace is on the increase; in 1920 it stood twentieth on the list of mortal diseases in registered areas. By 1929 it had risen to second place.
Thirty-one thousand Americans were killed and more than one million injured by automobiles in the United States in 1929, fatalities having increased eight and two-thirds per cent over 1928.
The province of Szechwan, in China, with a population of sixty million people, has only twenty-seven motion-picture theaters, while Arabia, with five million persons in the peninsula, has only one.
A report from the Ministry of Commerce and Labor of Nanking, China, says that volunteer instructors from the Kuomintang societies are teaching the coolies in the principal cities to read and write. Perhaps China will have an educated labor class after all.
There are now over 35,000,000 motor vehicles in the world, for at the end of last year, according to facts and figures of the automobile industry just issued by the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, there were 34,876,837. Of this number, 26,501,443, or 76 per cent, were in the United States. This country has the greatest number in proportion to its population,—one to every four and a half persons, while the world average is one to fifty-four and a half persons. Ethiopia may be considered the least motorized country, for its population to one motor vehicle is 17,781.
A recent editorial note remarks that no matter how the stock market may soar and crash, the savings bank deposits in the United States climb steadily. In New York City, for instance, on July 1 savings banks held $3,527,403,120 on deposit, an increase of $180,186,934 in six months. It states further that “it might be well if more persons realized that prosperity not only begins in the savings bank, but generally continues there, if it gets half a chance.” Why not continue just a step further and assure the public that the safest of all investments are in heavenly stocks and bonds, and the safest bank in which to make their deposits is the Bank of Heaven. Maybe the philosopher was right who sagely remarked that “the main reason why so many people are afraid to lay up treasures in heaven is because they are afraid that they will never see them again.” What do you think about it?
A striking statement recently appeared to the effect that 75 per cent of the motion-picture houses in the United States will have fixtures for talkies by the end of 1930. The present attendance at the movies of 115,000,000 people a week has been doubled in the last two and a half years since the appearance of sound pictures.
Blasting and riveting, considered the two loudest noises in the New York bedlam, are nearly 100,000,000 times as intense as the smallest sound that can be detected by the human ear.
Contrary to the general idea that accidents occur oftener in large shops, recent statistics reveal that the frequency rate of accidents is 25 per cent higher in small industrial plants in New York than in those having more than one hundred employees.
Ever since airplanes came to be an important factor in transportation, precocious minds wondered whether the day would ever come when one-way traffic would be required in the lanes of the air. That day has arrived at last. A recent news item declares that one-way traffic in the air has now been introduced by the Air Ministry of London, similar as in certain London street centers for motor traffic. The object is to minimize the risk of collision between airplanes flying between the several airports near London.
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The regions around these airports have been defined as “restricted areas,” around which pilots must fly by the shortest route when leaving. On reaching the edge of another restricted area, the pilot must then fly anticlockwise round it, and similarly turn into the airport of destination from the edge of the area.
Airplanes were recently used to scatter literature, in weight almost half a ton, on the provinces of Florence and Pistoia, Italy. This flood of literature, totaling 350,000 pieces, was for the purpose of urging Italian farmers to increased efforts in the production of wheat. The airplanes traveled approximately 1,309 kilometers [818 miles] in doing this work.
New York has the largest single supply of radium in the world. The state has just purchased an additional $297,000 worth besides accessory equipment.
Caustic remarks are sometimes overheard proceeding from school children who seem to think that traveling to school four or five miles every day is an imposition. Distance, however, does not seem to dampen the ardor to secure an education among the children of the Flinders and Portsea districts, Victoria, Australia, who attend the nearest high school—at Frankston, twenty-eight miles from Melbourne. Some of these young aspirants travel seventy-five miles a day. Special busses subsidized by the Education Department, run from Flinders and Portsea to Frankston, the children paying a small amount a week for the service. In a year, pupils living in the more remote districts cover up to fourteen thousand miles in their journeying to and from school. A number of other children travel more than ten miles on bicycles to the school each day.
Here is a clipping from the Christian Science Monitor, which will doubtless set many to thinking: “Chicago—‘I promise myself that for a period of one week; when discussing business conditions . . . I will emphasize the facts that are favorable and encouraging, rather than those which incite to pessimism.’ This is the pledge of the One-Week Club, started by the American Lumberman, a trade journal, to awaken people to an appreciation of the basic soundness of American business. Although the ‘club’ asks for no enrollment, responses commending the plan have poured in upon the editorial office of the American Lumberman since the publication of the announcement on the front page of the journal May 24. By July 19, from 25,000 to 30,000 reprints of the editorial had been mailed out in response to requests, according to Elmer Hole, editor. The original circulated to about 14,000 subscribers.’
Sounds like a very ideal pledge, doesn’t it? Not only that, but we are sure that it has already benefited many. However, a plan like that should not end there. If a little is good, more will be better. Why not apply the same optimism to all conversation regardless of its nature? Whereas we know that such a Utopian plan could not be carried out to a full consummation, on the other hand, we are positive that in subjects of religion, as well as in all other matters of family, social, political, and national life, there would be such a decided improvement that in a short while newspaper men would have to be hunting other sources than gossip, political scandal, or what-have-you to appease the mental cravings of the reading public.
A temple of business at night. The world's largest building, the Merchandise Mart, is an added beauty to Chicago's already famous night views. If temples of religion were as highly regarded, the nation would soon be on the upward mend.
