Department Of Question And Answer

QUESTION-Does a person cease to have participation in the kingdom of God immediately he or she commits any of the sins enumerated in 1 Corinthians 6.9, 10?

AN5WER.-NO, the kingdom of God is a sphere wherein the rule of God and the judgment of God may be put into effect. If the sinning person were automatically excised (ipso facto) there would be no room for action by God's local executive-the church of God in the place. A person put outside a kingdom is no longer answerable to the laws of that kingdom.

A leprous person in Israel prior.to the priest's judgment would be free to participate in the privileges within the Camp, so the sinning person in an assembly participates in the kingdom of God until he is judged by the assembly. But while this is so there are inunediate results in the experience of the one who sins. Unforgiven sin is a direct barrier to fellowship. "If we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth" (1 ~ 1 6). A person who is sinning is out of touch with God, and subject to the soul-withering consequences thereof.

QUESTION.-Was the fornicator in the assembly in Corinth still in the kingdom of God and part of the house of God until he was put away by the church officially?

ANSWER.-Yes. The people of God who are together as God's house, and expressing His kingdom, are viewed by God as His executive, and the truth of Matthew i8. 18 has its bearing here :-" Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and what things soever ye shall lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Thus it is clear that God in heaven awaits the carrying out of judgment by the responsible unit on earth.

In olden days a person might be leprous for a period before the matter came to the notice of the priests for judgment, and until that judgment was given the person in question was reckoned among the people of God, and within the sphere of God's kingdom.

QUESTION.-Could the offending persons in Corinth who had been taken away in death over the question of the Lord's Supper be said to have been in the kingdom and house until their decease?

ANSWER.-Yes. Peter tells us that," The time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God " (1 Peter 4.17). Really it was the fact of their being in the kingdom and house that rendered them liable to the judgment. Certain priests might be named who ininistered in the Tabernacle of old, and continued to minister until God's

judgment fell upon them. G.P.

unknown | May 1950
Department Of Question And Answer