Suzy Fitch

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Eric Walberer

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Bob MacLeod

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Sunday School Lesson

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 Woollen and Linen

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Peter Ramsay - I thought... “Yes I have done some wrong things, but I am not bad enough to go to Hell. There are many people who really deserve to be there – but I don’t."

The very last thing I wanted to do was to let go of the things that I thought earned me favor with God and gave me a special status.

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Which of Noah’s sons was the eldest?

In Genesis 9:24" TARGET="_blank">Genesis 9:24 Ham is spoken of as Noah’s younger (or “youngest,” R.V.) son, though some commentators would connect the expression there with his grandson Canaan because of the prominence given to the latter in the curse of verse 25. This leaves us as the two elder ones, Shem and Japheth, and the decision between them depends on the rendering which is accepted as the correct one of Genesis 10: 21." TARGET="_blank">Genesis 10: 21. The AN. gives it, “Shem . . . the brother of Japheth the elder,” which would imply that Japheth was oldest; but the R.V. with more probability translates it, “Shem . . . the elder brother of Japheth,” which would
give the honour to Shem.

W.R.

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Does the doctrine of the Eternal Sonship of the Second Person of the Divine Trinity involve inferiority or subsequence to the Son?

It is on such strange affirmations that the deniers of the Eternal Sonship of our Lord rest their theories, and is exactly what the arch- heretic, Anus, rested on to deny the deity of the Son. But what is eternal cannot be subsequent to anything, and what is divine cannot be inferior to anything, and the Son partakes of the whole Divine Essence equally with the Father and Spirit. Really Anus was more subject to the Scriptures than the present-day deniers we refer to, for he saw that the Lord’s Sonship, as prior to His incarnation, was so clearly revealed in the Word of God that it could not be denied. His only escape from the dilemma he had manufactured for himself was then to deny the Lord’s deity. He was exceedingly exalted, but because He was clearly said to be the only-begotten Son, and that long before He came into the world, there must have been a time when He was not begotten, and therefore did not exist.

By the mercy of God the followers of Mr. J. Taylor do not, up to now, deny the deity of the Lord; therefore they must invent another loop-hole of escape: the Lord was only Son as the result of incarnation. It is really fortunate that Anus is not still in the flesh, for one would tremble for this whole company in face of his sophistries, to which they seem to have some strange affinity. It is hard to conceive of men, with any pretence to weighing the words of Scripture, being satisfied with the reasonings they allege, involving as they do the modelling of the Divine and Eternal relations in the Godhead on the human and temporary expedients of earthly relationship. The human relations of any father and son, involve, so they assert, inferiority in the son, therefore the Divine relations of Father and Son must also involve inferiority in the Son, as though anyone thought of the eternal generation of the Son in terms of the human. It is a complete reversal of the true order of things.

Sonship in its highest possible human development, that is where all thought of even a conventional inferiority of the son has passed from view, is only a faint shadow of the Eternal and Divine Sonship, where neither subsequence nor inferiority could have ever existed. When the Lord claimed in John . 17, to have worked also, as the Father (“My Father worketh hitherto and I work”), the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because such words could only mean that, by speaking of Himself in the same breath with God as His Father, He did clearly assert His equality with the Father, and our Lord accepted the inference, while asserting that such equality did not preclude subordination for mutual purposes. If the Lord was only Speaking of a relation established on the earthly plane at Bethlehem, then, according to these teachers, He would not have been equal to His Father and proves by their own showing that He was speaking of Divine relationships existing before His birth. It is surprising that any Christian teacher should fail to differentiate between eternity and the divine on the one hand and time and the human on the other, and try to import into the former, ideas attaching to the latter.

W.H,

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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.

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