• About this site

Marriage and the Family

• About this site

Stu Thompson

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

David Jones

• About this site

The name, "Morning Star" (Revelation 22:16)" TARGET="_blank">Revelation 22:16) and the "Day Star" (2 Peter 1:19)" TARGET="_blank">2 Peter 1:19) both refer to the coming of the Lord Jesus.  Are they the same?

This page was adapted from an answer at Truth and Tidings Magazine by David Oliver.

The "Day Star" refers to the person of Jesus Christ. A few versions of the Bible (e.g. Darby, English Standard Version , New American standard), use the words "Morning Star" in 2 Peter 1:19." TARGET="_blank">2 Peter 1:19. The word "phosphoros" in Greek means "light bearing" (Strong, WEV), "light bringing" (Thayer), or even the Venus (Liddell & Scott). The two words in Greek from Revelation 22" TARGET="_blank">Revelation 22: are translated directly as "Morning Star." The word Peter uses, then, has a different emphasis than the two words in Revelation. In Peter is focusing on the second coming to the earth, but in Revelation 22" TARGET="_blank">Revelation 22 the emphasis is on the coming in the air for the Church.

In one paragraph (2 Peter 1:16-21)," TARGET="_blank">2 Peter 1:16-21), Peter, shows the certainty of the Lord’s coming to earth in glory. The brightness of the Morning Star ("the light bringer") should capture their (and our) attention and give assurance of the glorious day, when the "Sun of Righteousness shall arise" (Malachi 4:2)." TARGET="_blank">Malachi 4:2). In Revelation 22," TARGET="_blank">Revelation 22, the bright ("radiant": Strong) Morning Star captures the affection of the churches and causes anticipation of His coming to the air for His Bride - the Church. The Spirit and Bride both are calling for Him to come.

D. Oliver

• About this site

• About this site

Are there three distinct Persons in the Godhead, to be distinguished from one another?
 
It is wise to be humble as we approach the high and holy subject of the Being of God.  Any mere discussion of Him, before whom the angels veil their faces, the Three in One and the One in Three, should be guided by Him. We must not try to define or explain or measure where the Word of God is silent; in fact our wisdom is to limit ourselves as far as possible to the words of Scripture. We "cannot by searching find out God" (Job 11:7)," TARGET="_blank">Job 11:7), except in so far as He is pleased to reveal Himself.

God has never condescended to prove His existence, nor yet explain His mode of Being; but He reveals Himself in His Works and Word; and even then we need God the Spirit to teach us. The great truth of the Old Testament is the Unity of the Godhead. “The Lord our God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4)," TARGET="_blank">Deuteronomy 6:4), and we believe this as strongly as any Jew or so-called Unitarian. But from the very first verse of Genesis we are made aware of a Plurality in that Unity. The word for “created” is in the singular, but “God” is a plural word— Elohim, though when this stands for strong ones or false gods, it takes a plural verb (e.g., see Exodus 32:4)." TARGET="_blank">Exodus 32:4). In verse 2 a Personal Being in the Godhead is differentiated: “the Spirit of God.” Then in verse 26 we read, “Let us make man in our image.” Later, in Exodus we become aware of another Person—the Angel of the Lord, to whom Divine honours are paid (chap. 23.20-22)—and yet He is distinct from Jehovah. In Matthew 3:1" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 3:1 the word “messenger” (“messenger of the covenant”) is in the Hebrew the same as “angel”. We are brought face to face with a Personal Wisdom possessed by Jehovah “before His works of old” (Proverbs 8: 22-31);" TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 8: 22-31); and in Proverbs 30:4" TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 30:4 we are asked, Who is the Creator and “what is His Son’s name?” Who then is this Angel of His presence— and Who this Spirit against whom Israel rebelled and Who was grieved with their ways? (see also Zechariah 12:10" TARGET="_blank">Zechariah 12:10 and Zechariah 13:7)." TARGET="_blank">Zechariah 13:7). Clearly even in the Old Testament there are in the Unity of the Godhead, three Personal Subsistencies.

In the New Testament this becomes clearer. In Matthew Jesus is identified with Immanuel—”God with us.” But “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son” is equally true, so that the Giver and the Given One are both God. Again in John 1:1" TARGET="_blank">John 1:1 we read “The word was with (or in relation to—pros) God, and the Word was God” and in V. 14, “the Word became flesh.” To Him at His baptism the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and heard a voice from heaven saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I sin well pleased” (Matthew 3:16-17)." TARGET="_blank">Matthew 3:16-17). Later, He “by the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” (Hebrews 9:14)" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 9:14) and then after the Lord ascended, the Father sent the Spirit, in His and His own name, to testify of Christ.

All who believe are to be baptized into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Matthew 28.)," TARGET="_blank">Matthew 28.), and to such comes the message, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all” (2 Corinthians 13:14)." TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 13:14). “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:18)." TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 2:18). We do not confound the Persons nor do we divide the Substance. There is a distinction in the Divine Functions. The Father preordains—determines “the times and seasons,” and gives the Son; The Son creates, redeems, intercedes; The Spirit calls, gives life, indwells. But those three Divine Persons are coequal, coeternal, co-substantial in the Unity of the Godhead.
W.H.

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

• About this site

Why is there pain and suffering?

You may also be interested in the more personal question "Why am I experiencing a time of difficulty? What is going trying to do to me?"

C.S. Lewis called it “The Problem of Pain” in his short, but influential book.

“If God were good, He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.  That is the problem of pain in its simplest form.”

Very briefly, there are a number of ways of answering this challenge.  

Choice

God created man, Satan and the angels with the power of choice.  This gives us the option of choosing to obey or to rebel against God.  Building us with a free will has the inherent risk of losing us to sin.  Suffering, being the result of sin, is the inheritance we received from Adam and Eve and their fatal choice to disobey God.  Romans 5:12" TARGET="_blank">Romans 5:12 says that he is the source of death in the world being the head of all humanity.  As a consequence of Adam’s choice, the world is visited by calamity and suffering.

Romans 5:12" TARGET="_blank">Romans 5:12  Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned--

This “bondage of corruption,” with the “whole world groaning and travailing together in pain” (Romans 8:21, 22)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 8:21, 22), has affected all men everywhere. God did not make the world in its fallen state.  In fact, when finishing the world he said "it is very good" (Genesis 2:1-3)." TARGET="_blank">Genesis 2:1-3).  Some day in the future, God will take away the curse from the earth. In that day, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4)." TARGET="_blank">Revelation 21:4). 

God lacks power?

If God is almighty, then why does he allow suffering to exist?  God actually uses suffering to accomplish his will.  Hebrews 12:5-11" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 12:5-11 says that he disciplines his children with chastening.  Discipline is both punishment and instruction. 

Hebrews 12:5-11" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 12:5-11  And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.  (6)  For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives."  (7)  It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  (8)  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  (9)  Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?  (10)  For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.  (11)  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 5:8-9" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 5:8-9 says that Christ himself “learned” and was "made perfect" by what he suffered. Christ was certainly not ignorant nor unaware of suffering neither was he "imperfect" in the moral sense of sin.  He "learned" by experience what suffering is.  He "learned" obedience by practicing obedience even at the cost of the worst suffering imaginable.  "Made perfect" is the completion of his work by carrying it out to the end.

 Hebrews 5:7-9" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 5:7-9  In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.  (8)  Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.  (9)  And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,

Just because suffering continues to exist does not logically mean it exists because God is powerless to stop it.  God uses suffering to accomplish his purposes, which raises the next question…

God is cruel?

If God is capable of stopping suffering, then why does it continue?  To end suffering, God would have to end the root cause of suffering – the ability to sin.  This would mean that God would end our ability to make choices. To stop murder, God could end our ability to commit murder.  To stop sin against God, he could end our ability to rebel.  To stop evil implies ending the ability for individuals to choose what they want to do. God created Adam with the foreknowledge that Adam and his sons had the ability to worship God as well as the ability of Cain to kill his own brother.

Doesn’t God want his creatures to be perfectly happy?

Is God leading us somewhere with the aid of suffering?  The purpose of creation is not to give us self-indulgent pleasure.  The ultimate happiness of man is found by being able to glorify God even if that entails suffering on our part.  If God had made Adam with the mind of a programmed machine, Adam would not have sinned nor died.  Adam and his descendents would also not have the experience of being redeemed by grace.  There would be no salvation.  There would be no mercy of God.  There would be no heaven.  Instead, God has created a plan that will be consummated by the salvation of sinners who don’t deserve redemption, but will worship God eternally because of it. Man would never know salvation apart from sin. 

Suffering is turned into goodness in the end.  God was not surprised by Adam’s sin and fall. Of course, this does not mean that God is the source of sin, but it does mean that God is above sin and can use it to accomplish glory in the end.  If God is eventually going to bring glory to himself through the suffering of all humanity, can he not do the same in your broken life?

Conclusion

These are summary paragraphs of a few reasons why suffering is allowed to continue.  We can't know all the reasons why God allows suffering we just know that He does.

Shad Sluiter

• About this site

SEPARATION
Is sectarianism sin? I am In an assembly of so called “open brethren” who invite “Reverend” gentlemen from the sects, also a sister, to address them. Is this right?.

Sectarianism wherever found, is a work of the flesh (Galatians 5:20)." TARGET="_blank">Galatians 5:20). To whom but God Himself should confession be made? The beginnings of it were seen at Corinth—”I am of Paul, and I of Apollos and I of Cephas; and I of Christ” (1 Corinthians  1:12).

In the first three cases men were attaching themselves to human leaders, instead of to Christ alone; in the last case, while attaching themselves to Christ, they were detaching from Him true members of His Body and pretending to belong to Him in some peculiar sense, in which others did not. This is also sectarianism against which we must watch. The whole idea of dividing up the Body of Christ is condemned by the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 3:3-4" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 3:3-4 ). It is condoned to-day and we are told that the different sects are only regiments in God’s army, as though regiments recruited from one another and were sometimes found fighting against one another. The only true Christian position is to know no other centre than Christ, and to recognise all believers as equally belonging to Him, though lamenting the broken-up condition of things around.

No doubt there are men truly gifted of Christ, who occupy sectarian positions, but that does not make those positions right, and to invite such to teach the Saints a complete anomaly and certainly not calculated to “build these up on their most holy faith,” but rather to break down the land-marks between truth and error and lead the Lord’s people back on to sectarian ground. This is especially dangerous when the invited brethren are men who were once in the simple assemblies themselves, but have become popular preachers or even “Reverends,” wearing all the insignia of their declension. They are often strongly opposed to the truth they once professed. It is not for us to judge their conscience, nor should we put a salve to their conscience by inviting them to teach or preach, thus approving of their position, or be present, when they officiate, as is apparently the case in some places. As for inviting a sister to teach the gathered saints, it is so clearly contrary to our Lord’s express prohibition, through His apostle: “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority* over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Timothy 2:12;" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 2:12; see also 1 Corinthians 14:34-35)," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 14:34-35), that comment is needless.

W.H.

• About this site

Why do so many preachers speak of “the destroying angel,” in Exodus 12" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 12?

It seems due to a mistaken idea of what took place on the Passover night, based on a careless reading of the whole passage. Exodus 11:1" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 11:1 speaks of “one plague more.” Exodus 12:13" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 12:13 refers to “the plague” and ver. 23 to “the destroyer,” but there is no such agent mentioned, either in Exodus, Heb. Ix, or elsewhere in Scripture, as “the destroying angel,” in connection with the deliverance from Egypt. Moses says in chap. II.4—”Thus saith the Lord, about midnight will I go out into the midst of Egypt”; see, too, ch. 12. ia: “I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land . . . I will excute judgment”; and v. 23: “For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians, and when He seeth the blood. . . the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you.” God is Light and God is Love—God is at once “Avenger” and “Redeemer,” and neither work does He entrust to an angel, however exalted. It was God vindicating His holy claims against sin, who passed through the land in judgment; it was God who intervened in mercy wherever He saw the blood of His own providing, sprinkled. The two words for “passing through” (‘abar), and “passing over” (paali), are quite distinct. This latter is found again in Isaiah 3" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 3’. : “As birds flying, so will the Lord of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also He will deliver it and passing over (paal) He will preserve it.” That is, He will interpose between the enemy, who, it may be suggested, will then be attacking Jerusalem from the air, and His people.

W.H.

• About this site

THE “FLESH” AND THE “BODY”
Explain the difference between the terms “flesh” and “body”? What is meant by the “redemption of the body”?

If the inquirer can examine, in any good Lexicon of New Testament Greek, or better still, in Mr. Vine’s Expository Dictionary, the great variety of meanings which each of the two words “sarx” (flesh) and “soma” (body) may bear, according to the context in which they occur; he will realise that it would be difficult to reply to his question adequately, within the bounds of this page. And if he can avail himself of a Young’s or Wigram’s Concordance to go through all the occurrences of each word, he will probably glean more help in that way than he would from any formal answer.

The fact is that, as used in some passages, there is little or no difference between the two words; and yet in certain other passages a clear distinction is made between them. For instance, in 2 Corinthians 4:10" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 4:10 we have the phrase, “that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our BODY”; while in the parallel statement of the next verse it is, “that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal FLESH.” Here the two words are practically synonymous. The opposite extreme may be seen in Colossians 2:23" TARGET="_blank">Colossians 2:23 (R.V.), where one can show “severity” to the BODY, and at the same time be showing “indulgence” to the FLESH.

Taken in its most literal sense, the “body” is the physical or material part of man, viewed as an organised whole (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23)." TARGET="_blank">1 Thessalonians 5:23). The “flesh” is the substance of which this body is to a large extent composed (see Luke 24. 39)." TARGET="_blank">Luke 24. 39). But either word may be used to represent the entire man, as “body” in Luke 20: 36," TARGET="_blank">Luke 20: 36, and “flesh” in Luke 3:6." TARGET="_blank">Luke 3:6.

It is when the thought of evil, either in state or in tendency, is suggested, that a deeper distinction is at times made between the two words. For example, the expression “in the flesh” may be employed as in Romans 7:5" TARGET="_blank">Romans 7:5 and 8:8, , of the moral standing of the unsaved, but “in the body” is never so used. The latter phrase may refer to one’s bodily presence in some particular place, as in 1 Corinthians 5:3," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 5:3, or to the present earthly life of man, as in 2 Corinthians 5:10;" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 5:10; but this is not distinctive of it, for “in the flesh” may also have either of these meanings, as in Colossians 2:1" TARGET="_blank">Colossians 2:1 and in Philippians 1:24." TARGET="_blank">Philippians 1:24.
Again, “tendency to evil” may sometimes be signified by the term “the flesh,” especially in such phrases as “after the flesh,” etc.; but “the body” is not so used, except in a few remarkable expressions, “the body of sin” (Romans 6: 6)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 6: 6), “the body of this death” (Romans 7:24)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 7:24), “the deeds of the body” (Romans 8: 13)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 8: 13), and “the body of the sins of the flesh” (Colossians 2:11)." TARGET="_blank">Colossians 2:11).

The body is frequently spoken of as capable of being used for God (Romans 12:1)," TARGET="_blank">Romans 12:1), and so are its members (Romans 6: 12, 13);" TARGET="_blank">Romans 6: 12, 13); but this is never predicated of the flesh (see Rom. 7. 25)," TARGET="_blank">Rom. 7. 25), the members of which seem rather to be those named in Col. 3. 5." TARGET="_blank">Col. 3. 5. Moreover, the body of the saint is called a temple of the Holy Ghost and a member of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:15, 19)," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:15, 19), but it is his “flesh” that lusteth against the Spirit (Galatians 5:17)." TARGET="_blank">Galatians 5:17). Finally, the saint’s body, having been “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20)," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 6:20), awaits its full “redemption” when our Lord Jesus comes again (Romans 8:23)." TARGET="_blank">Romans 8:23). Then He “shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory” (Philippains 3:21 R.V.); and when He has done so, “WE (not merely our bodies) shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2)." TARGET="_blank">1 John 3:2).

W.R.

• About this site