How Many Days Was Jesus in the Tomb?

QUESTION: Matt. 17:1 says, "After six days." Luke 9:28 says "about an eight days later." Harmonize this discrepancy.

ANSWER: Luke, by using the word "about," intimates that he is not speaking accurately in counting the fractions of two days, the first and the eighth, while both Matthew and Mark count only the whole days between the two events making only six. The Jews generally counted the fractions  as  whole days, so that Jesus was three days in the tomb, though only one whole day.

— Steele's Answers pp. 237, 238.

The Piano Tuner's Dilemma

QUESTION: I am a piano-tuner by occupation. Should I as a Christian refuse to tune the pianos used in ball-rooms and theaters?

ANSWER: In this wicked world there is scarcely any business which does not bring the Christian into evil associations which can be avoided only by "going out of the world," as Paul says in I Cor. 5:10. A poor day-laborer must either go out of the world or do the work, the evil use of which he is not responsible for, asking no questions for conscience sake. Yet he is to listen to the voice of conscience and heroically starve, if he should be required to take a direct and active part, such as that of the bartender, or the brewer, or distiller, or dance fiddler. Tuning the piano is one thing, but playing it for the dance is another.

— Steele's Answers p. 237.

Of Water and the Spirit

QUESTION: Does John 3:5 refer to water baptism: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"?

ANSWER: It is figurative of the initial purification of regeneration, as the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire is figurative of the perfect cleansing in the entire sanctification of the believer. Fire is a more thorough purgative than water.

— Steele's Answers pp. 236, 237.

Perfected Holiness is a Progressive State

QUESTION: Can you give me light upon the following: I have read of and heard persons state that they received the blessing after making the consecration, and later they received the Blesser. Is it possible to have the blessing of a clean heart and not also have the Blesser who gives the clean heart?

ANSWER: The nominal experience of love made perfect is the incoming of the Comforter extinguishing the self-life, as light entering a room instantly banishes darkness. But others testify of a short interval between the conscious cleansing and the conscious fullness of the Spirit. It is also true that perfected holiness is a progressive state in which Christ manifests himself more and more wonderfully to the persevering believer whose love is attested by constant obedience. As they err who say; "I got it all when I was regenerated," so do they err  who say, "I got all that God has to give when I was wholly sanctified." The reader of the original of John 17:3 will note that eternal life lies not so much in the possession of a completed knowledge of Christ, gained once for all, as in a perpetually increasing apprehension of him: "and this is life eternal that they should be knowing (present tense denoting continuity) Thee, the only true God and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." I expect to be eternally striving after a growing knowledge of the Father through the Son. My happiness will consist in love ever increasing promoted by a gainful striving which will know no end. Don't be afraid you will exhaust God:

"Immortal Love forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea." — Whittier.

— Steele's Answers pp. 235, 236.

Is It Wrong to Raise Mules?

QUESTION: Is it wrong to raise mules in the light of Lev. 19:19, "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled with linen and woolen come upon thee"?

ANSWER: In the Old Testament the law embraces not only moral actions, such as are right or wrong as discoverable by conscience, or revealed in the Decalogue, but also acts violating the code of ceremonial purity, and acts forbidden by the Judicial law which relates solely to the Jewish nation. These three kinds of laws are intermingled in the Pentateuch. The Jew regards all of them as morally obligatory. Hence he regards the breeding of mules as sinful because it is forbidden by the ceremonial law, which the Christian is under no obligation to keep, because Christ abrogated it in Mark 7:19, "This he said making all meats clean," R. V. The Jewish farmer deems it wicked to put a pumpkin seed in a hill of corn, or to wear a linsey woolsey garment, or one made of cotton and wool, sometimes called crugget, a comfortable clothing within reach of the poor. The highest magnifying glass fails to find any moral element in Lev. 19:19. Hence the mule is not an outlaw, nor is his breeder a sinner.

— Steele's Answers pp. 234, 235.

The Forbidden Fruit

QUESTION: What was the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden?

ANSWER: The kind is unknown. It is described as good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise. It afforded an occasion for the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, the three forms of moral evil.

— Steele's Answers p. 234.

Anger

QUESTION: Can a father having a hot temper get rid of it entirely when entirely sanctified?

ANSWER: Yes. He can be rid of all sinful anger. There ls such a thing as righteous indignation.

— Steele's Answers p. 234.

Mormons & Polygamy

QUESTION: Do the Mormons still practice polygamy?

ANSWER: Their president has five wives and the children are increasing in number. They profess to have renounced polygamy. Being a State they elect their own civil officers, so that they can manage their domestic relations to suit themselves, inflicting slight punishment for polygamy, or none at all. The Federal government cannot now reach this evil.

— Steele's Answers pp. 233, 234.

The Error of Sacramentalism

Another error obstructive of the spiritual life of all the so-called sacramentarian churches — more than half of Christendom — consists in a perversion of the meaning of Christ's words to Nicodemus, "born of water and the Spirit." Those who magnify the sacraments as saving ordinances, and some who do not teach baptismal regeneration, teach that the words "born of water" refer to water baptism. But others including the writer, insist that these words have no reference to that ordinance which was not made obligatory upon believers until after Christ's resurrection, years after his dialogue with Nicodemus. The identification of water baptism with the new birth has wrought untold harm to myriads of souls, deluding them with a shadow of the requisite for salvation instead of the substance, the impartation of spiritual life and initial sanctification symbolized by water. We sympathize with Weisse, though we cannot use his strong language, that to make regeneration depend upon baptism by water "is little better than blasphemy." We believe with Neander, Calvin, Grotius and other scholars, that Christ here intends the symbolic import of water, and not water itself, as an agent of cleansing, according to an ancient figure which expressed one idea by two nouns connected by "and" instead of a noun and an adjective, as, "we drink from cups and gold" for golden cups. Thus, "ye must be born of water and the Spirit" for the purifying Spirit. Desiring to give his distinguished hearer a clear idea of the change which the Spirit must work in the natural heart, he adds the idea of initial cleansing by using the word "water."

In like manner a more thorough purification is expressed by the words of John the Baptist descriptive of Christ, "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," an agent of cleansing far more effective than water in the purification of earthen and metallic utensils. We cannot here, as some do, read and as meaning or, "with the Ghost or fire," meaning all who do not receive the Holy Spirit's baptism must be baptized with hell fire. We prefer the exegesis of Bishop Hopkins,

those who are baptized with the Holy Spirit are, as it were, plunged into the heavenly flame, whose searching energy devours all their dross, tin and base alloy.

— The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 14.

The Error of the Doctrine of the Two Natures

There prevails in certain religious circles the doctrine that in the new birth a new nature is created, while the old nature, or old man, continues till physical death extinguishes his life. It is said that the old nature is nailed to the cross, but he does not die so long as the human spirit acts through a material organism. Denial of the possibility of entire sanctification in the present life is an obvious inference. Another outcome of this error is that depravity is necessary, and that it is beyond the reach of the Holy Spirit in the application of the blood of Christ which cleanses from all sin. Hence the notion of two natures existing in every Christian, however consecrated, so long as he is in the body, the one a new creation and therefore sinless, and the other sinful and beyond all hope of change for the better, is exceedingly mischievous, palliating and excusing evil propensities. 

When we speak of the Holy Spirit as the indwelling Sanctifier we will examine the alleged scriptural proofs of this doctrine. We insist that the work of the Spirit in the new creation of the penitent believer in Christ is not the creation of new faculties, but the rectification of those already existing, weakened and marred by sin. He has no need of a new reason for even after the fall, reason in man grasps the same self-evident truths that exist in God, In fact, the modern teaching of philosophy is that truths of intuition are the activity of God immanent in the soul of man. His sensibilities, both natural and moral, have been damaged by the fall of Adam, and his will has become enslaved to his perverted affections and depraved desires. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to lift this yoke of bondage and to bring the newborn soul into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. He whom Christ Jesus makes free is free indeed. It is the slave that is emancipated and not a new being just created. Such a being would need no act of emancipation. It is the office of the Spirit to give the will the gracious ability to make holy choices, and to clarify the moral sense or conscience so that its decisions will all harmonize with ethical axioms or immutable morality. The "new creature" spoken of by Paul is a figure of speech for the vivid presentation of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in the renewal of a soul badly shattered by sin. Conscience is restored to full activity both in its power to discern and its power to approve or to condemn. The human spirit may well be compared to a skylight in the dome of his being through which he was designed to have a vision of spiritual realities. But sin has darkened the windows and intercepted the heavenly vision. The remedy is not in the demolition of the old skylight and the setting of a new one, but in the thorough cleansing of the original window by One who by taking up His abode in that dome can always keep it transparent by His purifying presence. The process seems to be first to cause the law of God to shine into conscience, the light of forgiveness, then the light of purity, "having no more conscience of sin."

— The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 14.