Questions and Answers
“A sin unto death” (1 John 5:16)
Q. John teaches that there is a “sin unto death” for which prayer would be unavailing. What is that sin?
A. John gives two definitions of sin: one is lawlessness (1 John 3:4) which a true believer never commits; the other is wrongdoing (1 John 5:17), which all are guilty of doing. For the former there is no forgiveness so long as the sinner continues in his lawless state; but for the latter there is forgiveness if the sins are confessed before God with that objective in mind (1 John 1:9). He will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” but He will not justify lawlessness.
“My Father’s house” (John 14:2-3)
Q. A friend of mind quotes these verses in John to support his contention that the righteous are rewarded in heaven. I do not accept his theory, of course, but am unable to satisfactorily explain this passage. Can you assist?
A. Your friend relies on the words: “In my Father’s house are many mansions…. I go to prepare a place for you …. Where I am there ye may be also.” The key words in this passage, however, are the ones usually omitted: “I WILL COME AGAIN”, which clearly show that whatever reward is offered, it is associated with the second coming of Christ, and the notion that the believer enters into his reward at death is instantly destroyed.
Notice that Christ makes no mention of heaven as the place of reward. This is something most people read into the passage. He declares he is going to the Father to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house, and he will “come again” in order that he might bestow that reward.
What constitutes the Father’s house? Paul answers this in Hebrews 3:2-6. He speaks of Moses as a servant in God’s house, and Christ as the son of this house (vv. 5-6), and then he adds: “Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” The “house” in mind, therefore, is the perfected Ecclesia, likened by Paul in Ephesians 2:19-21 as the “household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.” The Lord ascended to the Father to prepare a place for his faithful followers in this “house” to be revealed in the earth in due time. He does this by interceding on their behalf, by mediating between God and the members of his ecclesia, and thus helping them to perfect their characters fit for an “abiding place” (the word “mansion” can be rendered “abiding place”) in the Father’s house when it is completed.
“We shall judge angels” (1Corinthians 6:3)
Q. Please explain this verse in Corinthians.
A. The term “angels” does not relate exclusively to immortals who have been elevated to official positions. For example, the word “messengers” in Luke 7:24 and 9:52 is the same word rendered “angels” in the Greek. In James 2:25, the spies who were sent into the promised land are termed “angels” in the Greek.
In view of this, the term “angels” can apply to mortals placed into positions of authority; and in 1 Cor. 6:3 Paul reminds the brethren of Corinth that inasmuch as they will be placed over such people in the age to come, they should demonstrate their ability to exercise such authority by skill in handling the present things of this life.
Cain’s Offering
Q. Why was not Cain’s offering accepted? (Genesis 4:5)
A. Because it was not offered in faith: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh” (Heb. 11:4). On the other hand, Abel, in faith, looked forward to the offering that God would provide, and which had been promised in the declaration of Genesis 3:15. He recognised that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission” of sins (Heb. 9:22), and being conscious of sin, he carefully sought out what God required of him. Cain did not do this, but apparently felt that God should be well-pleased with the religious worship he condescended to give unto Him. If it were otherwise, he would not have become jealous of his brother and would not have murdered him. He did not mind shedding blood when it came to satisfying his own feelings of anger, but did not see the need to do so in offering to God. There are many in the world like Cain today.
“The spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:18-20)
Q. Peter says that Jesus by the spirit went and preached unto disobedient spirits, and he links this disobedience with the days of Noah. Who were these disobedient spirits?
A. The Scriptures never refer to disembodied spirits; it refers to the angels as spirits and to men as spirits. In 1 John 4:1 John tells the believers to try the spirits because false prophets were in the world. Here, clearly, is a reference to teachers of wrong doctrine or “seducing spirits” (1 Tim 4:1).
Now such were both disobedient and in prison (or in bondage to sin - Romans 6:16) just as all in Adam are in the “bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:21) and “through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:15).
Christ came to “preach deliverance to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). Not, of course, to enter into prisons and release malefactors and evildoers, but to bring salvation from sin and release from death. Did Christ do this in Noah’s day? Christ did not exist then, except in the purpose of God, nor does Peter say that he did. Peter says, “By the spirit Christ preached”. Since Christ could not personally preach to disobedient men of Noah’s day, either during his ministry, nor during his three days in the heart of the earth, not after his ascension, there must be an analogy between Christ’s preaching and Noah’s preaching. Noah preached, but his generation were disobedient spirits and perished in the flood. Christ preached and his generation were mainly disobedient - they were scattered, sold as slaves, and finally died an eternal death. The same spirit was the witness to the disobedient in both ages.
“Present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8)
Q. Do Paul’s words in Corinthians support the teaching of an immortal soul? “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
A. Peter says that Paul wrote “things hard to be understood” which may easily be misunderstood (2 Peter 3:16). Misunderstanding often comes when a sentence or verse is taken out of its context or when the passages of scripture are not brought to bear upon it.
“Absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” is often quoted to support the doctrine of immortal soulism. But the setting of this saying shows that Paul taught something quite different. He says (5:10) that we must be judged and as a result of this be rewarded “in body”. The reward in body which Paul desired was to be “clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” (v2) - to be clothed upon “that mortality might be swallowed up in life” (v4).
However, he had already taught the Corinthians that this change would be when Christ comes (1 Cor 15:23), so that being “present with the Lord” must wait until the second coming. Nevertheless, he desired earnestly for the time to come when this body wherein he groaned being burdened (v4) should be changed, for then he would be present with Christ. For this he laboured so that he might be accepted (v9).
“God was in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
Q. “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.” Does this verse support the doctrine of the Trinity?
A. This verse is often taken from its context to support the trinity, but if God were actually in Christ how was it possible for Christ to say, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” or for it to be said that “he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” ? (Heb 5:7). There are two persons here, and one (the Son of God) wholly dependent on the other. It therefore means that God was working in and through Christ so that the world might be reconciled to Him.
“...without repentance” (Romans 11:29)
Q. Please can you explain what is meant by “without repentance”.
A. The word ‘repentance’ often means ‘a change of mind’ but sometimes another word is used (also translated ‘repentance’) which really means ‘without carefulness’, that is, without ‘limit or meanness’. When Paul wrote in Romans 11:29 that “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” the second word is used, and in verse 10 of chapter 7, both words are used, so that the verse could read: “For godly sorrow worketh a change of mind to a salvation - without limit.”
