On Ezekiel 37:18, 19

QUESTION: Explain Ezek. 37:18, 19.

"And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand." — Ezekiel 37:18, 19 KJV.

ANSWER: The Jews became divided after Solomon's death, ten northern tribes forming a new kingdom and two tribes remaining loyal to the dynasty of David. The  prophet, by fastening two sticks together symbolically united them. It has no reference to any union in modern times.

— Steele's Answers, p. 233.

Was Paul the Father of Timothy?

QUESTION: Was Paul a married man and the father of Timothy, whom he calls his son?

ANSWER: In Acts 16:1, 3 we read that he was the son of a Christian Jewess, but his father was a Greek. Hence Timothy was uncircumcised when he was converted. This proves that his father was a Gentile.

— Steele's Answers, p. 233.

Refuting Mormon Teachings

QUESTION: How can these Mormon errors be refuted: (1) Only those who have been baptized will be saved, (2) Baptism for the dead as taught in I Cor. 15:29, (3)  Receiving  the Holy Spirit only through the imposition of hands, (4) Probation after death, I Pet. 3:18, 19, and 4:5, 6, (5) The pre-existence of souls?

ANSWER: (1) That baptism is saving is disproved by those texts which teach that we are saved by faith in Christ (John 3:16, 36; 6:40; 11:25, 26; Acts 16:31). In Mark 16:16 the damnation is not from lack of baptism, but because of unbelief. The penitent thief went to Paradise unbaptized. If baptism is saving, Paul would not have left his converts without this ordinance (I Cor. 1:14-17). Simon Magus was baptized by Peter, who told him shortly afterwards that "his heart was not right before God" and that he and his silver was going to perish (Acts 8:14-24) . (2) In I Cor. 15:29 baptized for the dead (plural) means not for a dead person, but for all the dead. The doctrine of resurrection was so fundamental that faith in it was professed by the candidate for baptism, so that he was baptized into the faith of the resurrection of the dead and thereby he became a sponsor for that tenet. This is the exegesis of Chrysostom. (3) The promise of the Comforter in John 14:16 is conditioned on faith, love and obedience. No mention is made of any human mediation. The Spirit crying Abba, Father, in the heart is the privilege of every son of God, though he may be a thousand miles from any apostolic hands. While Peter was still preaching to General Cornelius and his staff "the Holy Spirit fell on all them that heard the word" (Acts 10:44). "Be ye filled with the Spirit" is a command which can be obeyed by every believer alone by himself without any imposition of hands. (4) We still believe that Wesley's note on I Pet. 3:18, 19 is correct: "Christ through the ministry of Noah preached to the spirits in prison, the unholy men before the flood, who were reserved by the justice of God as in a prison, till he executed sentence upon them all; and are now also reserved to the judgment of the great day. For another instance in this epistle of the activity of the Spirit of Christ before his incarnation he is, in Chapter 1:11, represented. as testifying in the prophets. "Preaching the Gospel to the dead" in 4:5, 6 means to those who in their several generations are now dead. (5) The Mormons say, "No existence is created; all beings are begotten. God himself, once a man, originated in the union of two elementary particles of matter, and that all men coming into being in the same way may become gods, the vastness of their dominions depending on the number of their children. Hence the importance of having a lot of wives to give their godhead a good start by raising an abundance of what President Roosevelt calls "the best crop."

— Steele's Answers, pp. 231-233.

Redemption for the Fallen Angels?

QUESTION: Why did God not provide a scheme of redemption for the fallen angels?

ANSWER: It has not pleased God to reveal much of his dealings with the different orders of angels. We do not know that provision for the restoration of the fallen angels was not made. It is highly probable, yea, certain, that God would be as merciful to them as to the fallen human race, and that some of them failed to accept the redemptive scheme devised by him, and that many accepted it and have attained a confirmed loyalty rendering them infallible.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 230, 231.

On Mark 13:32

QUESTION: Sidney Collett, in "All about the Bible," says that Mark 13:32 should be rendered, "Neither the Son if not (or but as) the Father," Christ thereby asserting not his ignorance, but his Deity, being one with the Father. Can this translation be substantiated?

ANSWER: No. The Greek language has two kinds of negatives, the objective, which, because it denies directly in plain terms, never coalesces with "if"; and the subjective negative, which is used in suppositions and is so weak as very often to coalesce with "if," making a new word, meaning unless, except, save, as in this text. It is often translated "but" in the sense of "identification with," as Collett has rendered it in defiance of all classical and Hellenistic usage. The word "alone" or "only" is sometimes pleonastically added, as in Matt. 24:36, "but my Father only." See also Matt. 17:8; 21:19; Acts 11:19; Phil. 4:15.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 230.

Jonah in the Belly of the Fish

QUESTION: Having heard a Methodist preacher make the statement from the pulpit recently that Jonah was dead in the belly of the whale three days and nights, I wish to ask if, in your judgment, there is anything in the Bible to back up such a statement, and if there is, does it not prove that the Roman Catholics are right in their claim that we have a chance to get right with God after death? If God gave Jonah the privilege of repenting after he was dead, have not we a right to expect the same privilege?

ANSWER: The day after this question was laid on my table, my daily paper of May 17 reported that a vessel called the Octopus, sunken near Newport, R. I., was raised, after a submergence of twenty-four hours, the whole crew of fifteen men being found alive and as well as they ever were. They voluntarily went down in a water-tight submarine war vessel, well supplied. with food and fresh air condensed in vaults which they let out from time to time after expelling that which had become foul. They testify that they could have been very comfortable several days. If men using only natural means could prolong life under the sea, could not God, who has both the natural and the supernatural at his command, keep a runaway preacher alive in the Octopus, which he prepared for him in the Mediterranean Sea? The sailor at masthead cries "There she blows," when he sees a stream of spray arising from a whale expelling the foul air from his lungs, preparing to inhale several cubic yards of pure air. So you see, there was a good chance for Jonah to live without any great draft upon the supernatural. Moreover, we have a historic proof that Jonah did not die, in the fact that he made a long prayer, in answer to which he was permitted to go ashore without a gang plank. Judging by the length of their prayers, Jonah was more alive than Peter was, who had only breath enough to say, "Lord, save me." Jonah dead is a very shaky foundation for the Romish doctrine of a post-mortem purgatory, with its back door opening heavenward. But it is the best they have. There is but one purgatory, for sin, the blood of Jesus Christ (I John 1:7), applied in this life.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 228-230.

Too Conscientious?

QUESTION: Can a person be too conscientious?

ANSWER: There are persons who are morbidly conscientious. This is very often a form of insanity. I once heard a good woman say she could not set her tea table without sinning, or buy a dozen eggs without sin, for she instinctively picked out the biggest. The alienists say that quite a number of forms of disordered mental action involve the moral sense. Nervous diseases frequently take on this characteristic. Hence the need of charity for many, who, through an affection of the nerves, dwell in the border land between sanity and insanity. "God knoweth our frame."

— Steele's Answers, pp. 228.

Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of God

QUESTION: Do the expressions "kingdom of heaven" and "kingdom of God" mean one and the same thing?

ANSWER: Yes, also "the kingdom of Christ," "the kingdom of Christ and of God" (Eph. 5:5), "the kingdom of David," the ancestor and type of the Messiah (Mark 11:10), and "the kingdom" (Matt. 8:12). They are all synonymous, signifying the glorious reign of Christ in the hearts of believers. This definition the enemies of the Messiah did not like. Hence they crucified him.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 227, 228.

Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit?

QUESTION: Which is the correct translation of the Greek, Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit?

ANSWER: Both are correct, but Holy Spirit is  preferable,  because the word "ghost" has in modern times suffered a degradation. You would be shocked to hear John 4:24 quoted thus, "God is a ghost." Hence the American Revision invariably says Holy Spirit. The English were more conservative. Probably they thought it would spoil too many good hymns, such as Bishop Ken's Doxology, to let the term ghost go out of religious use.

— Steele's Answers, p. 227.

In What Sense Was Jesus Tempted?

QUESTION: If, as one writer puts it, there was no tinder in Christ for the devil to strike fire into, then in what sense was he tempted in all points, as we are?

ANSWER: Like us he was free to stand or to fall, otherwise his obedience was necessary, mechanical and no more praiseworthy than a good clock is for being an accurate timekeeper. None but a free agent can be an example for a free agent. Yet there was in the divine mind a perfect certainty that Jesus would resist temptation foreseen by infinite wisdom and foreknowledge. There are two kinds of sins, one of the flesh — sins finding expression through the body, and sins of the spirit, which are mental and independent of the body, such as pride, selfishness, unbelief, malice, etc. In respect to both of these classes Jesus was tempted beginning with the selfish use of his supernaturalism to satisfy his hunger, and ending with the suggestion to avoid the cross and become king immediately by a stroke of state. The fact that there was in him no hereditary bent toward sin makes a seeming difference between him and us. But it may be that the influence of the Holy Spirit more than compensates us. Jesus stood alone as a man assaulted by Satan unaided by his own personal divinity, and by the Holy Pentecostal Spirit, who was not yet given. Delitzsch insists that the words "without sin" limits the phrase, "in all points like as we are," except an innate proneness to be led astray. In so doing the writer of this epistle "brings out more clearly the unlimited similarity in all other respects." The tempter found him without sin and left him sinless. 

— Steele's Answers, pp. 226, 227.