The Communion of the Holy Spirit

It is not by accident that, in the apostolic benediction, "the communion of the Holy Ghost" comes last. It is the crowning blessing of the Triune God. Without it the "grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God," could not be satisfactorily and joyfully known. These might exist as a matter of inference from the gracious dispositions and holy aspirations of the soul. They cannot be immediately known by a knowledge excluding all doubt, except as they are uncovered by the Holy Ghost. "He shall receive of mine and show it unto you." "He shall testify of me."

Scriptures About Women and Ministry

QUESTION: Explain:

(a) 1 Corinthians 11:1-16:

 1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.  2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.  3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.  4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.  5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.  6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.  7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.  8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.  9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.  10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.  11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.  12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.  13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?  14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?  15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.  16 But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." (KJV)

(b) 1 Corinthians 14:35, 36:

35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? (KJV)

(c) 1 Timothy 2:11, 12:

11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

ANSWER: (a) This indirectly permits a woman to pray and to prophesy or preach by prescribing the manner. (b) Having thus permitted her praying and speaking in public, it is not like Paul to absolutely forbid her in the same letter. What he does prohibit is the interruption of the preacher by asking questions. Our missionaries in the Orient are thus often interrupted when preaching to women. (c) This teaches that there can be two captains on one deck and designates the man as captain and the woman as mate. In Rom. 16:1 Paul calls Phoebe a deacon (that is Greek) of the church at Cenchrea. In I Tim. 2:3-11 the qualities of women deacons are indicated, and deacons in addition to caring for the poor and sick, preached the Gospel, as did Stephen. In Rom. 16. Paul sends greetings to seven women, most of them by name, as fellow laborers "in the Lord." If women are not to use their gift of speech for Christ, who has broken their galling and heavy yoke, what a mistake God made when he endowed Frances E. Willard and other women with extraordinary persuasive address!

— from Steele's Answers p. 46.

Confessing Christ

A confessing mouth always attends a believing heart.

"Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul."

This declaration, constantly put forth by living men, is perpetual testimonial to the spiritual medicine advertised in the word of God. A specific held up before the public from year to year, unaccompanied by attested cures, comes to be distrusted and neglected. Hence even the blood of sprinkling, potent to cleanse the heart from all unrighteousness, needs something more than the advertisement of the inspired penman; it needs the joyful voice of the healed leper, crying, "It hath cleansed me!"

Partakers of the Divine Nature?

QUESTION: In what sense are regenerated persons partakers of the Divine nature?

ANSWER: This is another figure for denoting a moral likeness to God. They who have Christian love, holiness, justice, and truth have a nature like God's nature. To insist that they literally have his nature is to insist that they are gods. Many difficulties are surmounted and many errors are avoided by the exercise of reason in discriminating between the literal and the metaphorical in the Holy Scriptures.

— from Steele's Answers p. 45.

In What Sense Was Adam a Son of God?

QUESTION: Luke 3:36 declares "Adam was the son of God." Must not a son be a partaker of the nature of his father?

ANSWER: Yes, if he is a real son. Adam was a figurative, not a real, son of God. He has but one son. All others who are like him in moral character are metaphorical sons of God. If they lose their similarity to him by ceasing to love what he loves and to hate what he hates, they lose their sonship and become figurative children of the devil because they have become like him.

— from Steele's Answers p. 45.

Accounts of the Resurrection

QUESTION: In the account of the resurrection of Jesus, Matthew and Mark say that there was one angel, or rather "an angel," but Luke and John say there were two. Please harmonize.

ANSWER: There is no discrepancy here, nor in the number of Marys at the tomb — two being mentioned by Matthew, Mark and Luke, while John speaks of Mary Magdalene alone. Similar instances are the demoniacs of Gadara, and the blind men at Jericho; where, in both cases, Matthew speaks of two persons, but Mark and Luke mention only one. Something peculiar in one rendered him more prominent than the other. When Lafayette revisited America in 1824, he was everywhere received with joy and much was said about him in the daily papers; some of which did not mention his son, who was with him, eclipsed not by the shadow of his father, but by his glory as a Major General in Washington's army. This is the sound rule of interpretation in such cases: "He who speaks of the larger number includes the smaller; he who mentions the smaller does not deny the larger."

— from Steele's Answers pp. 44, 45.

Self-Love and Selfishness

QUESTION: Can a person be a true Christian who finds self at the bottom of all his desires and activities, who wants self to have God's favor and self to be saved from endless woe?

ANSWER: This querist evidently confounds self-love with selfishness. Self-love is an instinctive principle implanted by the Creator which impels every rational creature, however holy, to preserve his life and promote his own happiness. When God in his Word appeals to the hopes or to the fear of a man, he appeals to his self-love, he sanctions self-love when he makes it the measure of our love of our neighbors. Selfishness in exclusive regard for one's own interests, ends, or advantage, without any regard for others. It is destructive of the happiness of society, hateful in the sight of God, and repugnant to Christianity. It must be crucified. This crucifixion begins with the new birth when the love of God is first shed abroad in the heart and is completed when that love is made perfect, casting out all fear and killing all selfishness.

 — from Steele's Answers pp. 43, 44.

Christian Joy

Christ Jesus glorified in the soul by the Holy Ghost, is the fountain of true joy. The kingdom of God is "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." When the blessed Comforter fills the hearts of a people with his joy-inspiring presence, they burst out into spontaneous singing. But where formalism, worldliness, and unbelief have crowded the Comforter out of their hearts, they pay thousands of dollars to a quartette to perform the service which their backslidden souls refuse to render. Hence joy is a very good test, not only of orthodox opinions, but of the strength of our faith in Christian truth, and our personal devotion to Christ.

But not all joy is Christian. Joys may be classified as, 1) unnatural, 2) natural, 3) supernatural.

The Unpardonable Sin & Spiritual Desire

QUESTION: What Scriptural authority have we for the statement that he who has committed the irremissible sin has no longer any desire for restoration to God's favor?

ANSWER: Ps. 145:10, "Thou satisfiest the desire of every living thing." Matt. 5:6, "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled," and Isa. 55:1. Our God is too good to refuse to gratify a desire which he has inspired. He does not tantalize his spiritual intelligences in this manner.

 — from Steele's Answers p. 43.

An Immediate Point of Attainment

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in her admirable essay on "Primitive Christian Experience," uses the following language: —

The advantages to the Christian Church in setting before it distinct points of attainment, are very nearly the same in result as the advantages of preaching immediate regeneration in preference to indefinite exhortation to men to lead sober, righteous, and godly lives. It has been found, in the course of New England preaching, that pressing men to an immediate and definite point of conversion, produced immediate and definite results; and so it has been found among Christians, that pressing them to an immediate and definite point of attainment will, in like manner, result in marked and decided progress. For this reason it is, that, among the Moravian Christians, where the experience by them denominated full assurance of faith was much insisted on, there were more instances of high religious faith than in almost any other denomination

 

Here is sound philosophy, founded on facts corroborated by Mr. Wesley in his wide range of observation: — "Wherever the work of sanctification increased, the whole work of God increased in all its branches." In 1765 he found in Bristol fifty less members that he left before. He thus accounts for this decline: — "One reason is, that Christian perfection has been little insisted on; and wherever this is not done, be the preacher ever so eloquent, there is little increase either in the numbers or grace of the hearers."

When a definite point is presented to the believer as attainable immediately, all the energies of the soul are aroused and concentrated. Prayer is no more at random. There is a target set up to fire at. Faith as an act — a voluntary venture upon the promise — puts forth its highest energies and achieves its greatest victories.

— from Love Enthroned,  Chapter 7.