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Grace Taufeek's Story - "...an ultrasound showed a mass around my spinal canal. I was confused, sad, mad, and scared as I was trying to realize what was really happening. I was quite scared – sometimes even to tears – but deep down, I always had a sense of peace..." (more)

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Phil Sarlo's Personal Story

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John Dennison

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Rosa and her son Jesus

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Bible Verse Finder

The Online Bible Verse Finder provides a free way to add the ability to your site visitors to find a Bible verse directly from your page.  The Bible verse finder is available along with the dictionary under the link titled "Online Bible Search" or here.

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How are we to reconcile the truth that Christ is God and Christ is Man, in one Person, or rightly to estimate what belongs to each?

Again, how could our Lord be tempted in all points, like as we are, sin apart, if, as we believe, sin had no appeal to Him, as it has to us?

It is noticeable that when our Lord affirms that “no one knoweth the Father save the Son,” He at once adds, “and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Why did He not, when affirming as he had just done, that “no one knoweth the Son but the Father” add “and he to whomsoever the Father will reveal Him”? Is it not that there are mysteries in the Union of the two Perfect Natures, Divine and human, in the One Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Father nowhere promises ever fully to reveal? Not only are they too deep for us (we do not even understand our own tripartite being), but it is unnecessary for us thus to analyse His Being. One thing we aught never to forget, our Lord was not a dual personality, that is two Persons, Divine and human, but ONE DIVINE Personality, in equal relation to His two perfect natures. “The Word was God. . . the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1, 14)." TARGET="_blank">John 1:1, 14).

The Modernists, and alas, they have their representatives everywhere to-day, will not brook to be told that there are things their highest powers cannot grasp, and they so attempt to reconcile what has never been out of harmony, and explain what they ought rather to believe.

To some persons a glib bad answer, seems preferable to saying “I do not know.” As we read the Gospels under the influence of the Holy Spirit, it is not like chemists, with our test- tubes and reactives analysing all the mysteries of Christ, or like physiologists with our instruments dissecting His Personality, but as disciples and as worshippers.

The human sympathy of Christ is not a mere theory, which we must make real to ourselves by a certain manipulation of His Person to satisfy the logical deductions of some shallow minds, but a blessed reality, which He makes true in our experience when we embrace Him by faith. The effect of this wrought by the Spirit in our souls, will not be some philosophical demonstration that after all “He is altogether such an one as ourselves—sin apart,” but the adoring cry of Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” The question of the temptation of our Lord is not after all so far beyond our grasp, if we remember that temptation is used in two distinct senses in the New Testament: of allurement—’ ‘Every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of His own lust and enticed” (James 1:14)," TARGET="_blank">James 1:14), and of testing —“He was tempted (or tested) in all points,” according to the similitude, “apart from sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 4:15).

When we read that “God did tempt Abraham” (Genesis 22:1)" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 22:1) it was in this latter sense. He put him to the test. So Christ was tested by Satan in the wilderness, and proved to be the Son of God; but He was never tempted in the sense of being “drawn away of lust and enticed,” for He had none—He was “holy, harmless and undefiled” (Hebrews 7:26)." TARGET="_blank">Hebrews 7:26). “He did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22);" TARGET="_blank">1 Peter 2:22); “He knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21);" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 5:21); “In Him is no sin” (1 John 3:5)." TARGET="_blank">1 John 3:5).

I am sadly Convinced that the attempts of modernist teachers to emphasise the humanity of our Lord, on the plea of establishing His power of sympathy with us, is for the most part quite unreal; for, taken as a class, they are a self-sufficient, self-satisfied type of man; but rather, unconsciously to themselves it may be, and we trust it is, they “cast Him down from His excellency,” through undermining His Divinity.

W.H.

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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 ‘almäh, (“virgin” in Isaiah 7:14)" TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14) is a girl of marriageable age, with no special reference to her unspotted virginity, which is expressed,” he affirms, “by another word, bethulah”; 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, Isaiah 7:14," TARGET="_blank">Isaiah 7:14, where he wants to rule out the other meaning, and thus begs the question. He also
quotes Canticles 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 bethfflah is sometimes clearly used of a woman newly married, e.g., in Joel i. 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 “bethfflãh 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 2:27," TARGET="_blank">Luke 2:27, of the Virgin Mary. The Greek Version, the Septuagint, does sometimes translate the word “‘almãh” otherwise than by “parthenos,” but here in Isa. 7. 14," TARGET="_blank">Isa. 7. 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, occurs in verse i6, as we might say “virgin” or “maid” indiscriminately. Miriam, in Exodus 2:8," TARGET="_blank">Exodus 2:8, is called an “‘almh,” 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 10:3 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 virgins, 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 atural of events.

W.H.

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Is it right for an assembly to receive to its fellowship one coming from a distance, without a letter of commendation, and Should such one be allowed to partake of the supper?

The use of letters of commendation is a most scriptural one. Paul recognises this in 2 Corinthians 3" TARGET="_blank">2 Corinthians 3: , by the fact of protesting against being required to bring such a letter when visiting Corinth, where he had “laid the foundation.” “Need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or from you?” They were his letter, written on the heart, when he came to them; when he left them, they were his letter too, known and read of all men. We have the cases of Apollos in Acts 18 27," TARGET="_blank">Acts 18 27, and of Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2," TARGET="_blank">Romans 16:1-2, which will occur to all. This last case is helpful to our consideration, because the apostle’s was no mere formal commendation, but he adds her titles to special care from the saints—”Which is a servant (diakonos) of the church, which is at Cenchrea.” Letters then were not the stereotyped things they usually are to-day, mere forms filled up. Not that these are not better than nothing, nay often sufficient; but sometimes more would be better. Here Paul adds to “receive her as becometh saints,” “assist her, etc., for she hath been a succourer (prostatis) of many and of me also.” Ought not one, who has been regular at the meetings, diligent in service and helpful to the saints, get a better commendation than one who has been irregular in attendance, no special help, and even perhaps a trouble, on occasion?

If “fellowship” means sharing others’ privileges and responsibilities, how far can one who is hardly ever seen at the Gospel, Prayer, or Teaching Meetings consider oneself in full fellowship? As for the question whether no one can be received without a letter of commendation, as no rule is laid down, it is not for us to make one. It is rather strange that Paul, though he took letters from the high-priest to Damascus, did not think of getting one from thence to Jerusalem. It would have been easier for him had he done so, but Barnabas knew him and could answer for him, which did instead. But there can be no doubt as to the advisability of always carrying a letter when going to a strange place. Otherwise you can only be received on a principle which Scripture does not recognise—self-commendation. Really I should judge, no truly humble, godly person would wish to impose himself or herself on the saints and force fellowship, unless there were full confidence. A good letter imparts this. Where there is a godly walk, there will be godly consideration for fellow saints, and the more they are in touch with the Lord, the more they will share His mind in receiving those whom they believe to be His own and right with Him. “Receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.” No one was ever so glad as He to receive, nor so careful as to whom and on what
conditions he did receive.

W.H.

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