Purgatory?

QUESTION: What do you think of the following: "If a man will not let the Holy Spirit burn his selfishness out of him in this life, it will have to be done in the next"?

ANSWER: This is the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, who have borrowed from Grecian paganism purgatorial fires for curable sinful souls. It is also the teaching of modern Universalism that all the souls unfit for heaven when they leave the body will be purified by a limited punishment and will then be admitted to the life everlasting. The Scriptural basis for this doctrine is lack­ing. There is not the remotest hint that the work of the Holy Spirit in the sanctification of believers can be done after death, nor is there anywhere in the Bible any intimation that saving faith in Christ, followed by the new birth, is possible after the spirit becomes disem­bodied. There is positive proof that the sentences on the day of judgment are final and irreversible. It is equally certain that repentance and regeneration do not take place between death and the resurrection, for Christ says, "they that have done evil shall come forth unto the resurrection of damnation." The idea that good men will arise from bad men's graves implies the possibility that wicked men may arise from graves in which righteous men were buried! This is preposterous. The extension of probation till the day of judgment might solve some theological difficulties, but it would greatly weaken, if not destroy, the motive to repentance in the present life. Nothing that we have here said con­tradicts the possibility of a believer aspiring after perfect purity finding on his death-bed. All persevering believers belong to the new covenant which insures not only heaven but a fitness for heaven as the gift of God in probation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 122, 123.

Are the Sacraments Life-Giving?

QUESTION: I have recently heard a preacher describe the sacraments as "life-giving." Is this correct?

ANSWER: They are not the source of life, but rather the means of grace through which, when used with faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit may impart and sustain life. Baptism is the outward sign of the Spirit's inward work The Lord's Supper is a memorial of Christ's great love manifested in voluntarily dying for us. Whatever brings this event vividly to the mind of the believer is a means of grace. We should beware of resting in the symbol instead of the thing signified. Thousands of ceremonialists are trusting for salvation in symbols instead of the Savior — in the shadow instead of the substance. The sacraments alone, though administered by priests who claim to be ordained by bishops in succession back to the apostles, are not saving. Only Christ saves.

— Steele's Answers p. 122.

Would the Incarnation Have Happened Apart From Human Sin?

QUESTION: If sin had not come into our world, would the Son of God have been incarnate? 

ANSWER: All along down the Christian ages there have been some theologians who have given an affirmative answer. They say that the incarnation was not con­tingent upon man's sin, but that it was the original pur­pose of God for the exaltation of the human race, pro­moting their highest spirituality and felicity. They, moreover, dislike the doctrine expressed by the "felix culpa" ("blessed be the sin") which brought God into man and man into God. To the writer the idea is very distasteful and repugnant, that sin has been beneficial to our race. Those interested in this question should read Bishop Westcott's essay, "The Gospel of Creation," in his commentary on the Epistles of St. John; 87 pages.

— Steele's Answers pp. 121, 122.

Unbelief and Doubt

QUESTION: My presiding elder teaches that all men have doubts at times, and that it is not a sin to doubt at times even the divinity of Christ and the existence of God. Is this so?

ANSWER: He probably told you that there is a great difference between unbelief and doubt. Unbelief, involving as it does a permanent wrong attitude of the will inconsistent with spiritual life, is always sinful; and doubt, not implying any fixed and wilful repugnance to saving truth, but rather a temporary suspense of the mind while investigating a theological proposition with a willingness to receive the truth, is not a sin. A man may doubt and yet live on the right side of his doubts. Bunyan tells us that Christian fell into the slough of despond and got out on the right side of his doubts, the side towards the celestial city; and that for a while he was in Doubting Castle, locked up in a cage. Neither of these experiences were destructive of his spiritual life, yet both have their perils. Your preacher should have told you that there is a perfect salvation from doubts on fundamentals. But perhaps he has not got so far in his personal experience as the full assurance of faith, the sure cure of doubt. This is a distinctively Christian privilege unknown to John the Baptist in Herod's dark prison, and to Elijah, his antitype, under the juniper tree. They were the greatest Old Testament saints. The weakest one in the kingdom of heaven opened on the earth on the Day of Pentecost is greater in privilege and experience. He may be entirely delivered from doubt on the fundamentals, and march with firm steps to the fires of martyrdom.

— Steele's Answers pp. 120, 121.

Looking Unto Jesus

The gospel scheme of keeping men from sinning is so peculiar that it never was conceived or dreamed of by mere human reformers. It is to commit the keeping of your soul wholly to another, even Christ. The attitude of the watchful soul is to be that of Peter's eyes when he first stepped from the ship upon the waters of the sea — LOOKING UNTO JESUS.

Philosophy says, "Eye well your deadly foes;" the Gospel says, "Eye Jesus only." Philosophy says , "Dispose of your enemies first, and look to Jesus afterward;" the Gospel says, "Look to Jesus first and last, and He will dispose of your foes."

Weakness, not strength, comes from a constant survey of the hosts in battle array against you. Power comes into the palsied arm when the eye turns wholly toward the Angel of Jehovah, who encampeth around about the believer. Philosophy says, "Grow strong by a downright grapple with the threatening foeman;" but the Gospel of the Old Testament, as well as that of the New, says, "THEY THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW THEIR STRENGTH."

The Rate of Divorce

QUESTION: One of the special contributors to the Christian Witness of Sept. 20 says: "As to the divorce evil, where one couple separate, there are five hundred that keep together." Is this true?

ANSWER: It may have been true when the contributor was a little boy, but it is far from the present ratio of divorces to marriages. In some of our States, every tenth marriage ends in a divorce, and in the whole United States the average is more than one in twenty. The very foundations of church and state and civilized society are being overturned. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" says the Psalmist. It is reform or ruin. God help the nation to make wise choice and ministers of the Gospel to refuse to marry persons unscripturally divorced.

— Steele's Answers pp. 119, 120.

But, Don't Infants Need the New Birth?

QUESTION: If the necessity for regeneration is found in our fallen nature, do not infants need the new birth?

ANSWER: Certainly. But if cut off from life before becoming accountable, they are unconditionally saved by the second Adam from the wrong tendency entailed by the first Adam. If allowed to attain intellectual and moral development, the new birth is left to their free choice.

— Steele's Answers p. 119.

"Unrighteousness" in 1 John 5:17

QUESTION: Does the word unrighteousness in I John 5:17, "All unrighteousness is sin," refer to conduct or to a condition of heart?

ANSWER: It may include both, but it probably refers to some deed violating law and justice, or some marked failure to fulfill our duty one to another. Bishop Westcott thinks that it also includes sins which flow from human imperfection and infirmity in regard to which there is a wide scope for Christian sympathy and intercession.

— Steele's Answers p. 119.

Sin as a Condition of Heart

QUESTION: Is the word sin ever used in the Bible to denote a state or condition of heart?

ANSWER: Yes. When a man sins he takes on a sinful character. "Not only does sin have its seat in the will; it is a state of the will. it is not merely a series of voluntary acts; it consists rather in the fixed moral preferences; it is character, a moral perversity, a false direction." (Prof. Stevens, Methodist Review, September, 1904.)

— Steele's Answers pp. 118, 119

The Salvation of a Dying Infant

QUESTION: On what grounds is the dying infant freed from Adamic depravity?

ANSWER; On the ground of the atonement made for the fallen race by Jesus Christ. Cut off from development and sanctification, by which he could have been delivered through faith in Christ from the effects of an evil heredity, he is unconditionally cleansed by the second Adam from the defilement of Adam. The plaster is as large as the wound. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." This is as true of the infant incapable of faith as it is of the believer in Christ.

— Steele's Answers p. 118.