Should Conscience Be Our Guide?

QUESTION: Define conscience and answer the question, Is it always to be our guide?

ANSWER: It is the faculty which discovers the moral quality of actions, and approves the right and condemns the wrong. On abstract questions its voice is always the same in all countries and in all generations, such as, Is it wrong to hate a benefactor, or punish innocence? These are questions relating to immutable morality. But most of the questions we meet with are not abstract and simple, but concrete and mixed, requiring the exercise of our fallible intellects, so that one may say that an act is right and another say it is wrong. That is the field of mutable morality. Hence the need of a well-trained  illuminated by a good knowledge of God's Word, especially of the New Testament. Such a conscience is our guide, not infallible in the field of practical life, except in the case of the Pope, if we believe that he is the divinely appointed organ of the Holy Spirit who cannot err. The best guide is a tender conscience very sensitive to moral distinctions, like a pair of scales so delicately poised as to weigh a hair. The worst is a seared conscience (1 Tim 4:2), which by being habitually disregarded has now lost its sensitiveness, as flesh cauterized till it has ceased to feel. Such a guide leads to the pit of woe. The only remedy is a supernatural change wrought by the Holy Spirit regenerating and sanctifying. A good conscience is a tender, moral sense, which approves our conduct, and a bad conscience is one that condemns.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 15,16.

The Books Beyond the Gospels

QUESTION: Why should I receive the epistles of Paul, John and other apostles as authorities equal to the words of Jesus Christ?

ANSWER: Because he announced the incompleteness of his teachings and that the Holy Spirit would teach them truths which they could not bear to receive from his lips, such as the atonement, justification by faith, the in-gathering of the Gentiles, the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day, the substitution of baptism for circumcision, the abolition of the whole Levitical law.

— From Steele's Answers p. 13.

Trine Baptism

QUESTION: Was trine baptism practiced in the apostolic church?

ANSWER: There is no proof of it in the N. T., but it was so universal in the early Christian centuries that some infer its apostolic origin.

— Steele's Answers p. 242.

On Matthew 12:43-45

QUESTION: Explain Matt. 12:43-45, "But the unclean spirit, when he is gone out of a man, passeth through waterless places seeking rest, and findeth it not." * * * "Even so shall it be also unto this evil generation."

ANSWER: The gross idolatry of Israel had been cast out through captivity in Babylon, so that they were "empty and swept" of that evil, but they had permitted a sevenfold greater to come in, namely, Pharisaism embracing self-righteousness and unbelief culminating in the rejection of their Messiah King and Savior. To show the enormity of these sins and their dreadful consequences he uses a parable suggested by his miracle just wrought by casting out a demon (verse 22). The whole description bears a parabolic impress, and the several features should not be overstrained or "made to go on all fours." The whole subject of demoniacal possessions is greatly alleviated by the idea that while Christ was on the earth the Almighty lengthened their tether, permitting them to take possession of some men in Judea, where a basement window was left open, so that Jesus by casting them out could demonstrate that demons were subject to him while angels ministered unto Him, thus showing his universal Lordship. This theory is sustained by the fact that demonical possessions did not often occur in the Old Testament nor to any great extent in the New Testament after the time of Christ. "Waterless" or desert, places are witnesses of the sin of mankind — a sticking proof of the  disappearance of Paradise. Hence deserts are suitable places for demons outside of hell. See Isa. 13:21, 22; 34:13-15, Rev 18:2. The number seven  denotes completeness. "Empty and swept" signify sloth; "the idle man's brain is the devil's workshop." "Garnished" — here the pure soul appears as the bride wooed by heaven and hell. The unclean man is fascinated by purity which he desires to defile. This passage of Scripture is full of deep moral truth, the most alarming of which is the possibility of a Christian's final and eternal apostasy. "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

— Steele's Answers pp. 198, 199.

The Spirit Brings the Bible's Message to Life

The Spirit gives reality to the Old Testament, the prophetic record, and to the New Testament, the historic record of Christ's life. He impresses upon us the fact that Jesus is living and present — that He is what He was. His birth, His sermon on the mount, His parables, His miracles, His farewell discourse, His high-priestly prayer, His words on the cross, to Spirit-illumined souls do not belong to a distant antiquity, but are perpetually as fresh as the morning paper. The Spirit telegraphs the Gospels across the chasm of centuries and millenniums as recent news from heaven. What are you so greedily reading, grandpa?" said a child to a Bible-studying saint of four score years intently reading the word of God. "News," was the reply. To the spiritual mind Christ is present giving life to His words spoken eighteen hundred years ago. Thus He verifies His own promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Thus He makes His words spirit and life.

Tithing?

QUESTION: Ought one to give a tenth of his income to the Lord?

ANSWER: Much more would be given to him, if all Christians should adopt the practice of systematic giving. The New Testament fixes no other ratio than this: "As God has prospered him" (I Cor. 16:2). By this rule some ought to give their two mites or one mite or nothing at all.

— Steele's Answers p. 172.

Reading the Bible Systematically

QUESTION: I have been reading my Bible in a haphazard. way without getting as much good as I ought. Tell me how I can read it in a better way.

ANSWER: Get the American Standard Revised Bible, with maps and index to them. Locate every place you find in your reading. This will give you a sense of reality. When you begin a book get a synopsis of its contents by reading the headlines at the top of the pages. Then rapidly read the book through, and afterwards review such portions as most interest you, studying the various marginal readings and turning to the references. There is no easy way to a thorough knowledge of God's Word. If you do not find sufficient nutriment to your spiritual life in Ecclesiastes, alternate that book with John's Gospel, which is to be read in the same way. Read in both the Old Testament and the New daily. Have a Bible dictionary at hand to answer many questions respecting persons, places and doctrines which will arise in your mind. Don't be discouraged because of your slow advancement.

— Steele's Answers pp. 164, 165.

Saved to the Uttermost

"Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Hebrews 7:25 ASV.)

The Greek for "uttermost" is παντελὲς (panteles). This is the only place in the New Testament where it is used, except negatively, "in no wise," in Luke 13:11.

It is a strong compound word, meaning "all to the end." The R.V., margin, is "completely." This is its true meaning "perfectly, completely, to the very end" says Delitzsch, "but without necessarily any reference to time." Again he says, "Christ is able to save in every way, in all respects, unto the uttermost; so that every want and need, in all its breadth and depth. is utterly done away." This annotation is a perfect answer to his argument in his Biblical psychology in proof of "the unabolished antinomy' in Rom. 7. "The law in the members" warring until death against the law of the mind, and bringing the Christian at his best earthly estate into captivity to the law or uniform sway of sin. Let us believe the exegete rather than the theologian. It is always safer to trust an honest and scholarly expounder than a warped and traditional dogmatist. Modern interpreters unanimously reject the idea of some of the ancient annotators that "uttermost" has here reference to illimitable future time. Besides being unscholarly, this view involves the heresy of Canon Farrar's "eternal hope" for wicked souls after death.

Why was Paul constrained to invent these new and strong terms? Because he was divinely called to describe what never existed before Pentecost, and for that reason had no name — human souls entirely sanctified through the mission of the Comforter. Why did he not do the same wonderful works before Pentecost, seeing that as God he was omnipresent and omnipotent? He had not the same tools to work with, the completed facts of the gospel ending with the ascension of Christ from the footstool to the throne. "Sanctify them through the truth."

— edited from Half-Hours With St. Paul, Chapter 16.

When Was the Holy Spirit Given?

QUESTION: Harmonize the following: "Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost." "Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "For the Holy Ghost was not given because Jesus was not yet glorified." How could men be filled with the Holy Spirit before he was given?

ANSWER: We believe that the Holy Spirit is Divine. Hence he has by his essential presence always been in the world as the author of all the piety in the ages before Christ. But on the day of Pentecost he became officially present. In the mysterious economy of the Trinity, he came to fill the office of the Paraclete. His great work is to glorify Christ, to keep him ever in the minds and hearts of men. Without this office of the Spirit, Jesus would long ago have been forgotten by men. This constitutes the chief difference between the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament and in the New. He has now much better tools to work with, all the facts in Christ's earthly life and all the truths he uttered. 

— Steele's Answers pp. 79, 80

Two Testaments, One Religion

The Old Testament and the New contain not two different religions, but one in different stages of development. Well did Augustine say: "In the Old Testament the New lies hidden; in the New Testament the Old lies open." The essential principal of Judaism and of Christianity is the same supreme love to God. The Great Teacher and Law-giver sums up the law, and the prophets, and all human duty in this great word LOVE. It is the natural and necessary inference from the unity of God, as opposed to polytheism; hence it follows the "Shema," the first words every Hebrew child is taught to speak, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deut. vi. 4, 5).

— from Mile-Stone Papers Part 1, Chapter 5.

The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments

QUESTION: State in a few words the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New in the production of piety in the human heart.

ANSWER: He is the Author of all the piety from Adam to the convert of today. But since Pentecost he has had a perfect chest of tools to work with, all the facts of Christ's earthly history and all the truths deduced therefrom by the inspired apostles. The result is that of a joyful assurance of sonship to God has taken the place of the servile feeling, characteristic of the saints under the Law. This transition is described in Gal. 4:7. The distinguishing peculiarity of the New Testament salvation is the attestation by the Holy Spirit of the believers adoption into the family of God and of the entire sanctification of those who claim their full heritage in Christ.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 37, 38.