Sketches of Jewish Social Life

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Shad Sluiter

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 Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth

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How to Build a Learning Unit

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Shelly McKenna

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Fernando Medina

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It is being taught in some quarters that our Lord was “God the Son in eternity,” and became the “Son of God in incarnation.”

Is this distinction scriptural?

I do not know where the phrase, “God the Son,” occurs in Scripture, though no serious objection need be raised to it. As a Trinitarian Person He was God the Son, but THEN, too, He was in the relation of Son to the Father, and was therefore Son of God. There are those who deny the Eternal Sonship of Christ, which is a very serious error, but clearly the teacher referred to here admits this important truth.

But I believe it is unscriptural to limit the expression “Son of God” to incarnation. To the Son He saith, “Thy throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever,” and to the Son also, “Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth” (Hebrews 1:8-10)" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 1:8-10)—uttered to the Lord centuries before His incarnation. I doubt if the Sonship of Christ is ever made to depend on His incarnation. He was CALLED the Son of God’ in incarnation, because He was the Son of God before incarnation (Luke 1:35)," TARGET="_blank">Luke 1:35), just as the “Son given” is called “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God,” because He was all this before being “the child, born” of the virgin (Isaiah 9:6)." TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 9:6). The above teacher has been referred to as to the phrase this question is based on, and he replies that what he intended to be printed was, “Christ was God the Son in eternity, and became the Son of God as Man,” which seems only to mean that personally He was unchanged, but now as Son of God He entered into Manhood and became changed in condition.

W.H.

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Can you please tell me the meaning of the verse in  1 Corinthians 15:51" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:51

Is it speaking of spirits?

It says...Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed.
 
First we must answer the question - what is a mystery in the Bible?

The word "mystery" in the Bible refers to a newly-revealed teaching that previous generations did not know.  The word "mystery" carries with it the connotation of being creepy or mysterious as in a crime-solving story.  However, the idea of a Bible mystery is that the truth was previously hidden, but not revealed.

There are several of these teachings revealed in the New Testament that were not known in the Old Testament including:
•    The Mystery of the Jew and Gentile sharing equally in God's Plan - Ephesians 3:1-12" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 3:1-12
•    The mystery that the Holy Spirit would indwell believers permanently - 1 Corinthians 2:6-16" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 2:6-16
•    The mystery that the Church would be raptured out of the world at the end of the age of the Church - 1 Corinthians 15:51-58," TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:51-58, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18" TARGET="_blank">1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
•    The mystery of the will of God - Ephesians 1:9" TARGET="_blank">Ephesians 1:9
•    The mystery that God would come and live among us in the form of a man - 1 Timothy 3:16" TARGET="_blank">1 Timothy 3:16

The mystery of 1 Corinthians 15:51" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 15:51 refers to the moment of the rapture.  All who believe in Christ will not remain in the grave.  Believers in the Old Testament knew that they were awaiting eternal life for them, but the details of the nature of the resurrection were unclear until the New Testament was completed.

The chapter refers to spirits (or the souls) and bodies of believers who have died.  The body appears to be asleep while dead.  The Scriptures refer to the dead in Christ as sleeping.  Those who die in their sins are "dead".  However, the spiritual part of the person is "with Christ which is far better" (Philippians 1:23)" TARGET="_blank">Philippians 1:23) until the moment of the rapture.  Christ will return to the earth, resurrect those who have died in Christ and take living believers directly to heaven.   

Shad Sluiter

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UNFERMENTED WINE

Are not Christians who believe that unfermented or nonalcoholic wine is nearer that used by Christians in the early days justified in using such at the Lord’s table?

It is well not only to have beliefs, but also to be able to justify them from the Word of God or from real facts, admitted as such. Otherwise our “beliefs” may degenerate into personal opinions or even fads. I have never heard any proof that the wine used in the Scriptures was not ordinary fermented wine, as is produced in all wine-producing countries today. Fermentation is an ordinary process of nature and cannot but occur when wine is made. The wine used in the Bible made persons intoxicated, if taken in excess, and that used by the Corinthians, when they came together ostensibly to keep the Lord’s supper, was of the same character, as 1Corinthians 11:21" TARGET="_blank">1Corinthians 11:21 (“another is drunken”) shows. It was indeed a sad state of things, but the apostle did not solve the difficulty by changing the liquid used, but by changing their ideas of the Lord’s supper from a meal to an act of remembrance.

Really “unfermented wine” is a contradiction in terms. If it is not fermented, it may be a red liquid, it may be even a concoction of raisins, but it cannot be wine. The late W. Hunter of Manchester, used, I believe, to say that “unfermented wine,” was on a par with “unfrozen ice.” This being said, the wine need only be of such a strength as will preserve it sufficiently, so as not to necessitate the opening of a new bottle every week.

W.H.

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Should a Christian celebrate the Passover?

The Jewish holiday of Passover commemorates the Exodus of the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt.  Moses commanded the people to choose a lamb, prepare it with bitter herbs and apply the blood to the doorposts and lintel of the doors of their houses.  Those Egyptians who chose not to participate in this ceremony, lost their first born sons at midnight.  Pharaoh then permitted the people of Israel to leave the country.  Jewish homes still celebrate the Passover today with some changes to the original details of the meal as recorded in Exodus 11" TARGET="_blank">Exodus 11 and12.
 

The New Testament says that Christ is the fulfillment of the Passover event (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)" TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 5:7-8) and that Christians should recognize the spiritual significance of the feast of Unleavened Bread, which immediately precedes the Passover.

There are some Christians who not only see the spiritual lessons of Christ’s salvation prefigured in the Passover, they also wish to celebrate the Passover in all of its details.  They say that the Passover is a cultural event.  Continuing the supper allows Jewish believers to retain their cultural heritage and at the same time embrace Christ as their savior.  A second reason for a Christian to celebrate the Passover is to use the event as an evangelism tool to explain the gospel to Jewish friends.

A Christian may choose not to celebrate the Passover based on the teaching of the Epistle of Hebrews.  The whole point of the Book of Hebrews is that Christ is the fulfillment of the law.  All Old Testament rituals were mere shadows of the coming Promised Messiah.  We should leave all old practices now that they have become obsolete.  Hebrews 13:10-13" TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 13:10-13


10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

 11For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.

 12Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.

 13Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.

 14For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

 

The “Last Supper” of the Lord Jesus and his disciples was a commemoration of the Passover of Moses.  It was the last time to be practiced before Christ introduced the New Covenant.  (Matthew 26:28)." TARGET="_blank">Matthew 26:28).  The epistles never command us to remember the Passover, but to break bread remembering the death of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:23-34)." TARGET="_blank">1 Corinthians 11:23-34).

If a believer chooses to celebrate the Passover, he should be fully aware that there is no sanction for it in the Bible.  However, it would be wrong for another believer to condemn him for doing so.  Colossians 2:16-17" TARGET="_blank">Colossians 2:16-17 and Romans 14:5" TARGET="_blank">Romans 14:5 say that believers are free to conduct celebrations of Sabbaths and other holidays.

Shad David Sluiter

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Is there any good ground for the change, advocated by some, of the word “virgin” In Isaiah 7:14" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14 to “young married woman” or “young woman of marriageable age”?

I believe “virgin” can be shown to be the true rendering, along several lines of proof. It is significant that those who propose this change are mostly of Modernist tendencies. Such men deny the miraculous in general, and would gladly get rid of the Virgin Birth of our Lord, and create a discrepancy between Matthew 1:23" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:23 and our verse. Gesenius, the well-known author of the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, a man with a strong Modernistic bias, says, “The true meaning of ‘almãh, (“virgin” in Isaiah 1:14)" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 1:14) is a girl of marriageable age, with no special reference to her unspotted virginity, which is expressed,” he affirms, “by another word, bethulãh”; but that moral purity is surely taken for granted, unless definite proof is alleged to the contrary. He adds, “almãh is used of a youthful spouse recently married”; but the only place he quotes to prove this is the verse in question, Isaiah7:14," TARGET="_blank">Isaiah7:14, where he wants to rule out the other meaning, and thus begs the question. He also quotes Canticles - Song of Solomon 6:8" TARGET="_blank">Song of Solomon 6:8 to prove his point, but as virgins (‘almöth) are distinguished there from wives and concubines, we may ask what they do stand for, if not for unmarried girls of unspotted character? Gesenius admits, moreover, that his word bethülah” is sometimes clearly used of a woman newly married, e.g., in Joel 1:8." TARGET="_blank">Joel 1:8. If that word had been used in Isaiah 7:14" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14 he might still have found a loop-hole, and have quoted Joel to show that even was not conclusive. God, however, has raised up to oppose Gesenius a man of equal scholarship, namely, Dr. S. P. Tregelles, of humble evangelical faith, and also of European reputation as a Hebraist. He translated Gesenius’ Lexicon from the German, and has added notes in brackets to neutralise, where necessary, the bias of the Lexicon. The following note by Dr. Tregelles occurs under “‘almãh”: “Gesenius’ object in view in seeking to undermine the opinion, which would assign the signification of virgin to this word, is clearly to raise a discrepancy between Isaiah 7:14" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23." TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:23. Nothing which has been stated (i.e. by Gesenius earlier in the article) does, however, really give us any ground for assigning another meaning. . . . ‘Almãh in the Punic language signifies virgin.
The absolute authority of the New Testament is, however, quite sufficient to settle the question to a Christian.” We may refer here to the words of Matthew 1:23" TARGET="_blank">Matthew 1:23: “Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is by interpretation, God with us.” The Evangelist uses the ordinary Greek word, “parthenos,” for “virgin,” used too in Luke 1:27," TARGET="_blank">Luke 1:27, of the Virgin Mary. The Greek Version, the Septuagint, does sometimes translate the word “‘almãh” otherwise than by “parthenos,” but here in Isaiah 1:14," TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 1:14, where as Tregelles points out “it must to their minds have occasioned a difficulty,” they translate by the same word that we have in the Gospels. We may suppose these learned Jews—the translators of their own Scriptures—knew at least as much of Hebrew and Greek as Modernist scholars. Matthew does not appear to have quoted from the LXX, so is an independent witness. We do not, however, in any case, need even the authority of God-fearing scholars. This is a question in which “a wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err.” Let us look at the other occurrences of the word, “‘almãh,” in the Old Testament. It is used in Genesis 24:43" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 24:43 of Rebecca—the prospective wife of Isaac. The other word, “bethülãh,l occurs in verse 16, as we might say “virgin” or “maid” indiscriminately. Miriam, in Exodus 2:8," TARGET="_blank">Exodus 2:8, is called an “ ‘almãh,” and she was clearly not a young married woman, but a maiden. This suits, too, in Proverbs 30:19." TARGET="_blank">Proverbs 30:19. Canticles 1:3 seems to demand the sense of virgins, as also chap. 6. 8, as we have seen. Psalm 68:25" TARGET="_blank">Psalm 68:25 we may take as neutral; we cannot affirm the damsels to be.yirgins, though they might have been. Then there is another consideration. The name to be given to the child—”Emmanuel,” “God with us”—goes a long way to justify the translation of “virgin” by our Translators and Revisers, as such a birth demanded extraordinary concomitant circumstances. The context, too, favours the same conclusion. Jehovah had offered Ahaz any sign he might choose to ask—”in the depth or in the height” above, that is anything comparable with the drying up of the Red Sea or the Jordan, or on the other hand, with Joshua’s long day. When Ahaz refused, the prophet replied, “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign. “Behold a* (literally “the”) virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.” Clearly God’s sign would be something extraordinarily arresting. How else would the Eternal Son of God enter into manhood except in the womb of a Virgin? The birth of a son to a young married woman, far from being an arresting sign, would not be a sign at all, but the most
natural of events.

* Heb.—”the Virgin,” that is the Virgin of prophecy, predestined one day to be the Virgin of history. When people talk of the Virgin to-day, they refer to the Mother of our Lord, and this expression is undoubtedly better.

 W.H.

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