Questions And Answers

Question.-Will Christians know each other in heaven? The scripture says that there shall be neither male nor female, and we shall all be changed like unto His glorious body; how then could we recognize each other?

Answer.-Shall we know? and, how shall we know? are two widely different matters. How it will be that we shall know each other, we have not the faintest idea. Sometimes even on earth, if persons do not see each other for forty or fifty years, they cannot by appearance recognize each other, at least for a time, the passage of years and circumstances in life have wrought a great change. Great as is the mystery of the recognition of saints in resurrection bodies, greater is the mystery of the recognition of persons, one of another, in a disembodied state. Think of what is said in the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, in Luke 16.19-31. Here we have the rich man recognizing Abraham, and Lazarus, the one-time beggar, in his bosom. We have the description Abraham gave of the rich man's earthly life and that of Lazarus. We have also the knowledge of Abraham revealed, in that he knew that Moses who came 400 to 500 years after him had written the Pentateuch, and that the prophets after him had added their quota to the Old Testament Scriptures. How these mysteries are to be unravelled it is net ours even to venture an opinion, but the facts remain nevertheless. Did not the apostles know Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration? How? That we are not told. Are not those who have made friends here with the mammon of unrighteousness (money) to be welcomed in the eternal tabernacles by such friends? (Luke 16.9). But if their friends do not recognize them the day they arrive in heaven, how will they receive them. They may clasp the hand of the wrong person, may they not? Will they know them 10 years after arrival, or 100 or 1,000? Personality is indestructible, and all persons are different. Such difference in persons will certainly manifest itself, even though we shall each be like Christ. We bear the image of Adam, all of us, but we are different (1 Corinthians 15. 49), and even so shall we each bear the image of Christ, though we shall differ from each other as we are told the stars differ from one another (1 Corinthians 45. 41, 42).

Question.-1 Timothy 5.28, "Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." Was this the kind of wine of which Noah drank? (Genesis 9. 21). Surely no Christian would wish to take such wine even as a medicine. Answer.-The wine of which Noah drank came from a vineyard, so also, I judge, did the wine of which Timothy was exhorted to use. Noah drank to excess. It is said that "he drank wine and was drunken." In Noah's case it was not the use, hut the misuse, of wine. We have little need now to drink wine as a beverage; indeed,' the writer believes it is not expedient to do so for various reasons. The same he believes should be the course which should be adopted with other alcholic beverages. The misuse of these things is so prevalent that the rule of expediency should govern the Christian's actions in regard to such things. But to say that wine under all circumstances should be banned would condemn even Paul, who wrote by inspiration to Timothy regarding the use of wine. There is the right use of wine. We need not go further into the matter, save to say, that wine was on the table when the Lord kept the last passover, and of that wine the Lord took a cup, of which he said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, even that which is poured out for you "'(Luke 22. 20)

Question.-Hebrews 6. 4-6: If this chapter is written to Christians, how is it impossible to restore those who have fallen away? Surely nobody but a Christian could be a partaker of the Holy Spirit.

Answer.-Those to whom the Hebrew epistle is written are not only Christians, but Christians builded together as a spiritual house (1 Peter 2.5), who are described "Whose house are we if we hold fast our boldness and the glorifying of our hope firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3.6). Note the force of the conditional if "if we hold fast." This clearly shows that we may let go. Such a people in the house of God are warned by the apostle "Take heed, brethren lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in falling away (or departing A.V.) from the living God (Hebrews 3.12). Then we have held up as a warning the 603,550 men of Israel who were numbered, from twenty years old and upward (Exodus 30. 11-16; 38.25-28), who refused to enter the land of Canaan at Kadesh-barnea, and in consequence fell in the wilderness and never entered the land, save two, Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 14. 1-39)Though God sentenced them to die in the wilderness, they decided to enter the land and take it in their own strength, but they were driven back by the Amalekites and Canaanites See Numbers 14.40-45. They were told by Moses that this would happen because said Moses, "ye are turned back from following the LORD". Such was the danger of the Hebrews to whom Paul wrote, the danger of apostasy, which would result in spiritual death. In Israel's case, when God dealt with Israel after the flesh, the death was physical.

Whilst the Hebrews were in danger of apostasy some had already fallen away, and their case was as hopeless as was the case of Israel that disobeyed and so sinned against God in the wilderness Repentance and consequent restoration were impossible. After such a statement in Hebrews 6.4-6 Paul illustrates his point by referring to land which received rain has been tilled and received the blessing of God. It should then have yielded to the husbandman his due. But if after all has been done to make it fertile and fruitful, it bear only thorns and the thistles, effects of the fall and the curse of disobedience, what is to be done with it "It is rejected and nigh unto a curse, whose end is to be burned" (verse 8). How careful Paul is! He does not say that the land is cursed for that can never happen with one who is born again, but the land which illustrates the apostate Christian, is nigh unto a curse Moreover, though the word says, "whose end is to be burned", no one burns land. All that is burned is the product of the land the thorns and thistles. See for corroboration of this 1 Corinthians 3. 13-15. The fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work shall abide which he build thereon, he shall receive a reward If any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire. Though a land may be said to be burned, it is but what answers to wood, hay and stubble that is burned. The land itself is saved, yet so as through fire.

Note how Hebrews 10 26-31 speaks of the unforgivable character of the wilful sin against the knowledge of the truth: and see also 1 John 5. 16, 17, as to sin unto death sin that a disciple of Christ may commit, the penalty of which is death, though physical death may not take place for years afterwards.

unknown | Jun 1951
Questions And Answers