A correspondent has sent us, with a few introductory words, a series of fourteen questions, prefacing each with the inquiry, "Do you believe?"
Before answering them in detail, we wish to say that what we or anybody else may or may not believe is a matter of no consequence to anybody except the individual believer himself; for nobody's belief of a thing makes it more worthy of credence, and unbelief by anybody in the world does not make the thing disbelieved less worthy of belief.
In short, it is a waste of time either to inquire or to tell what this one or that one believes; for our faith must not be based upon some other person's faith, nor be in any way affected by it; but solely on the Word of God.
So in answering these questions we shall make no reference to what we believe, but tell simply what we know from God's Word. Of course it will be understood that we do not write anything that we do not firmly believe; but the fact that it is so, and not that we believe it, is the reason for setting it forth. We shall answer the questions in order as they come:
The Divinity of Christ
1. Do you believe that Christ was a God, and the Son of God, or that He was only a good man?
What does the Bible say of Him? and what did He say of himself? "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us." (John 1:1,14)
He was in the form of God, and equality with God was His by right. (Philippians 2:5-6) He is "the Christ, the Son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16)
He frequently declared that God was His Father, saying on one occasion, "He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how do you say then, Show us the Father?" (John 14:9)
The Jews charged Him with making himself God, and He did not deny it, but defended the claim. (John 10:30-38) Finally read what God the Father himself has called Him: "Of the angels He says, Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire. But unto the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. ... And, You Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands: They shall perish; but You remain; and they shall all wax old asdoes a garment; And as a vesture shall You fold them up, and they shall be changed: but You are the same, and your years shall not fail." (Hebrews 1:7-8,10-12)
These words God the Father addresses to Jesus Christ. I believe all that; if anybody does not, I shall have to leave him to settle it with the Lord.
The Personality of God
2. Do you believe that God is a personality, who interferes in human affairs?
A personality certainly; but He does not "interfere" in human affairs; for human affairs are God's own affairs, since "we are His offspring." (Acts 17:28)
A father is not interfering when he provides for the wants of his children, and directs their actions.
How do we know that God is a personality? From the fact that we know that we ourselves are personalities; and God is our Creator. The creature is not greater than the Creator. A mere sentiment, a conception, a nonentity, cannot create a personal being. The father is greater than the child.
I know that there are some people who profess not to believe in what they cannot see; yet those same people talk about the air as though it were a real thing, and even take it for granted that they have brains, although they never saw either. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in human philosophy. If God were not a personality, the language of the entire Bible would be meaningless. No language could possibly be more personal than that which is used concerning Him, and which He uses of himself.
Direct Answers to Prayer
3. Do you believe in direct answers to prayer?
Here I am glad to make a confession of faith, and say that I do. Why do I believe in them? Because I have had them. Not to believe that God gives direct, definite answers to prayer, is to disbelieve the Bible, which abounds in statements to that end, and in instances of such answers.
Still, it is a thing which no one can prove to another. Whoever believes must believe for himself alone; and it is by faith that we know. Each one must "taste, and see that the Lord is good." (Psalm 34:8)
Miracles
4. Do you believe that Christ performed miracles?
Certainly; I have seen Him at work, and have experienced the result of His miracles. One of the greatest mysteries in the world is how anybody can disbelieve in miracles, when they are the commonest things in life.
Men speak of the miracle of the standing still of the sun and the moon in the days of Joshua, and the going back of the shadow on the dial ten degrees in the time of Hezekiah, as though they were impossible; but tell me how much greater a miracle either one of them was than that the heavenly bodies move at all, or that they hang in space?
It is true it is most unusual for the shadow to go backwards on the dial; but the infrequency of the occurrence of a thing is not what makes it miraculous; neither does frequent repetition of an act make it less miraculous. The point lies in this: Can you or any other man do it? or do you know how it is done?
An act which is beyond human power to perform is certainly miraculous. Do you believe that there are any such things?
The Resurrection
5. Do you believe in the resurrection of the body?
All these questions really amount to one, namely, "Do you believe the Bible?"
The entire Gospel--every promise of God--rests upon the one truth of the resurrection of the dead. For example: Those who are Christ's are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29) All that we can have in the world to come we get as heirs of Abraham. "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith." (Romans 4:13)
God made this promise to Abraham, "I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seedafter you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to your seed after you. And I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession." (Genesis 17:7-8)
Yet, "He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on." (Acts 7:5)
Therefore my reason for believing in the resurrection is that God must keep His promise; and Abraham and all the faithful must be raised from the dead, in order that God's word may not fail.
I believe in the resurrection of the body because I know it to be a fact. I have experienced the power of it. I know because if there were no resurrection Christ would not be risen; and I know Him too well as a living Saviour to be fooled by anybody's talk that there is no resurrection. It is no more a debatable question than is the shining of the sun. "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead," (Acts 26:8) when every day you have proof of it in the renewing of your own body?
Hell
6. Do you believe in hell as a world or place of punishment, or only as a state of mind?
What says the Scripture? "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." (Psalm 9:17)
The word "hell" is only another form of the word "hole," and most commonly in the Bible refers to the grave, as the pit of corruption. To call it a state of mind is to play with the Scriptures, and make them of no effect.
But there is another word also translated hell, and that is the name Gehenna, from the valley of Hinnom (which is what the Hebrew word Gehenna means) near Jerusalem, where all the refuse matter of the city was burned. There is no place of burning now, for all the wicked are in their graves unconsciously awaiting the resurrection of the dead and the Judgment. At "the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men," (2 Peter 3:7) the wicked will be raised to condemnation, (John 5:29; Acts 24:14-15) when they will be consumed by the fire that will melt the earth. After that, new heavens and a new earth will appear, wherein righteousness shall dwell, (2 Peter 3:7-13) and then the wicked will be "as though they had not been," (Obadiah 16) and their place will not be found. (Psalm 37:10,20,38)
The Trinity
7. Do you believe in the Trinity?
If I knew what you meant by the term, I might tell you; but from the days of Athanasius until now all discussion about the Trinity has been an attempt to define the indefinable and the incomprehensible. Thousands have been put to death for not professing belief in a formula which even its professors could not comprehend, nor state in terms that anybody else could comprehend.
The Scriptures reveal "One God and Father of all," (Ephesians 4:6) our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and "the eternal Spirit," (Hebrews 9:14) through whom Christ offered himself and was raised from the dead; but we do not profess any knowledge of them beyond what the Scriptures give us.
In teaching and preaching the Gospel we always confine ourselves strictly to Scripture terms and language; those who manufacture terms must be looked to for definitions of them. It is safest not to presume to define what the Bible has not defined, nor to attempt to explain infinity.
The Immaculate Conception
8. Do you believe in the Immaculate conception?
Let me ask you, "Do you know what that term means?"
Very many people who use it think that it applies to the birth of Christ; but the fact is, that the Roman Catholics, who invented it, use it with reference to Mary.
Their argument is that the mother of Christ, the Sinless One, must have been conceived and born without sin. But if that were so, it would be equally necessary for her mother to be begotten sinless, and her mother, and so on back to the beginning: for a child inherits the flesh of its great, great, great grandmother as surely as that of its own mother.
No; I do not believe in the "immaculate conception" of Mary, the mother of Christ, because the Scriptures give us the genealogy of Christ, stating that: "[He] was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Romans 1:3)
Christ, "the Holy One and the Just" (Acts 3:14) was born of sinful flesh as an assurance to all mankind that, although sinful, God can bring forth from them "the fruits of righteousness." (Philippians 1:11)
Christ may be found in everyone of us as really as He was in the virgin Mary (Galatians 4:19); "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given." (Isaiah 9:6)
The Devil
9. Do you believe in a devil?
This is the same old question, "Do you believe the Bible?"
Read the 1st and 2nd chapters of Job; the 4th chapter of Matthew; 1 Peter 5:8; Jude 9; and dozens of other texts. I believe "all things which are written in the law and in the prophets." (Acts 24:14)
Why should I not? Besides, I have had too painful, personal evidence of the existence of a devil to doubt the fact.
The Bible God's Word
10. Do you believe that the Bible contains the actual words of God, and nothing else?
This is what everybody ought to believe, whether I do or not; but I do: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16)
But nobody can prove to another that the Bible is the Word of God. "If any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the teaching." (John 7:17) "He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself." (1 John 5:10)
Evolution
11. Do you believe that man has been slowly evolved from the lower forms of life? or that he was created by God in the likeness of His own image? "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." (Genesis 2:7) "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them." (Genesis 1:27) "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life." (Job 33:4)
Here is the plain and the only sensible, creditable account of the origin of man. The normal human mind is so constituted by God that it cannot believe a thing without some evidence; for God always gives the most positive evidence for everything that He asks man to believe.
To believe a thing without evidence is folly; and no man has ever yet brought forward the smallest particle of evidence in support of the theory of evolution. Nobody has ever seen the slightest change of any animal toward a higher state; nor does history record any trace of such a change. The theory is pure fancy, a fabrication spun out of an idle mind, in spite of the clearest evidence to the contrary. In the beginning God said: "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind; and it was so." (Genesis 1:24)
And so it has ever been. Not only has no animal shown any tendency toward development into a higher species, but none ever changes its kind to the slightest degree. In the forest, where animals roam wild, each kind is as distinct as at the creation. Animals as closely related as the hare and the rabbit retain their distinctive characteristics. So among birds: the robin does not mate with the sparrow, nor the sparrow with the wren. Fishes swarm in the sea in untold millions, yet the cod, the salmon, the mackerel are as distinct as though they were in different seas.
To believe that man has evolved from lower orders of creation, requires a degree of simple credulity that is not found among those who believe the Bible.
12. Do you believe in the fall of man, as related in theBible?
Yes; I believe the whole Bible. If it were not for that, the Present Truth would have no reason for existence, and would cease to be published. This involves the next question, which will be given and answered with it.
Salvation From Sin and Death
13. Do you believe that Christ died to save man from hell?or do you believe that He died to save man from sin?
Both. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (1 Timothy 1:15) "[He] gave himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." (Galatians 1:4)
In saving us from sin, He saves us from death and hell, since death came by sin, and "the wicked shall be cast into hell." (Psalm 9:17)
And herein we have a proof that man has fallen, and is not rising by evolution from a lower state; for if man were not fallen, there would have been no need for Christ to come. If we had evolved from a monad [Monad: a single-celled organism] to manhood, we would in time by the same process of evolution attain to the highest state.
Because we believe the Gospel, we do not believe in evolution; and we believe the Gospel, because we find ourselves helpless,--unable to do the good thing that we would, and in need of the Saviour whom the Gospel reveals.
14. Do you believe that only by a belief in Christ as Son of God can any man escape hell? or do you believe that only by faith in Christ can man be good?
This is answered in the preceding paragraph. Salvation is from sin; the man who is convicted of sin does not think of the fact that he is in danger of destruction, but that he has grieved the Lord; and the Christian believes and obeys the Lord, not that he may be saved from wrath, but that he may glorify God.
God sent forth His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Romans 8:3-4)
We need Christ, in order that we may be proper men, real men; for only as we come to "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," (Ephesians 4:13) do we reach the state of "a perfect man." (Ephesians 4:13)--Present Truth, July 23 & 30, 1903.