Questions And Answers

Question.-Acts 5.14. What is the meaning of the expression "And believers were the more added to the Lord" in this passage?

Answer.-The same word "added" used in Acts 5.14 is used in Acts 2.41, where we read, "And there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls." It means, to lay by the side of, adjoin. Believers in Christ in Acts 2. bowed to the will of their Saviour as their Lord, were baptized in water, then added, or placed by the side of others, joined to others, who had previously bowed to the Lord's will, and were together in a visible unity in Jerusalem. The adding, or adjoining, is referred to in Acts 5.14 in the words "added to the Lord." As believers they were in Christ, joined to our glorious Head, and in the Body of Christ, but now their submission to the Lord's will finds them being added to the Lord, which implies addition to that visible unity in the city where the will of the Lord was owned.

Question.-Where do the saints in the Old Testament come in for judgement,. beginning from Adam onwards?

Answer.-From the following scriptures it would appear to me that Old Testament saints will be judged and rewarded prior to the Millennial reign, at the time of the coming of the Lord Jesus as Son of Man.

In Daniel 7.10 we read, "A fiery stream issued and came forth from Him: thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgement was set, and the books were opened."

Speaking of that same time the Lord Jesus says in Matthew 16.27, "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man according to his deeds."

Again in Revelation 11.17 18, we read of the Lord God, the Almighty, taking His great power and reigning. "And the nations were wroth, and Thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy name, the small and the great."

Of course the saints of this Church period will be judged at the judgement-seat of Christ, which we believe will take place soon after the rapture of the Church (2 Corinthians 5.10).

unknown | Jun 1953
Questions And Answers