Passages Explained

From: Bible Witness and Review: Volume 2

• 4 min. read • grade level: 9

The passages you refer to seem to have no difficulty if you take them as they read. Eccl. 12:7: the first half of it refers to the body; the second to the soul: Gen. 2:7 explains it. The breathing of God put an immortal and responsible spirit in us, which at death returns to God who gave it, and awaits the judgment throne of Christ, whether it be as in 2 Cor, v. 10, or in Rev. 20:11¹¹And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. (Revelation 20:11). Paul in Acts 17:22-31²²Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. ²³For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. ²⁴God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; ²⁵Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; ²⁶And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; ²⁷That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: ²⁸For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. ²⁹Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. ³⁰And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: ³¹Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:22‑31) throws light on Gen. 2 and Eccl. 12 Acts 17:25²⁵Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; (Acts 17:25), He gave to all life, etc., verse 29, "We are the offspring of God," etc. Also verse 31 speaks of the coming of this exalted Man as judge. This is the judgment of "the habitable world." But whether it be the saints of this church time; the living nations of Matt. 25; the men of the millennial world; or the wicked dead at the great white throne- all are regarded as bound morally to be taken account of by God. If God gave the spirit-the spirit returns to God; and when re-united to the body the deeds done in the body will be passed under the moral review of the searching glance of Him whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who tries the hearts and reins, and will give to every man according to his works. This makes the doings of that period when soul and body are in conjunction here so very solemn and important. Every morning we rise we should say to ourselves, I am to walk to-day as " manifested unto God" in view of that day when " every man shall give account of himself unto God." "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ," etc. (2 Cor. 5:10¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10)).

I see no difficulty in Luke 16:23²³And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. (Luke 16:23): what is it? That a disembodied spirit should be said to have eyes? But does it not? If not how do the angels who are " spirits " and have no bodily eyes manage to know where to go? Our organs of vision are the mere windows in the body through which the eyes of our spirits look: we take our eyes with us when we die, as this text teaches, for the seeing is in our spirits; for as soon as a person dies, his visual organs are merely curiously wrought clay, and they see nothing: the seeing of the eyes goes with the soul. Hence the thought that the saints do not see any one in their disembodied state is a mistake. The Lord's words are, " in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off."

As to Luke 4:25-27²⁵But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; ²⁶But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. ²⁷And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. (Luke 4:25‑27), I suppose your difficulty is about the word “save," which means "except," but the expression refers to widowhood in general and not to widows in Israel, i.e. to none of the many widows in the land of Israel was Elias sent, but to the one widow in the Sidonians' land. The same applies to verse 27 about the lepers. See "but" in Matt. 12:4⁴How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests? (Matthew 12:4) and "save" in Gal. 1:19¹⁹But other of the apostles saw I none, save James the Lord's brother. (Galatians 1:19).

The "James " of " Galatians " was not one of the twelve apostles, but an apostle in a wider sense, as Barnabas was. " He gave apostles " (Eph. 4); he did not confine them to the number, twelve. So " James " was one of those glory-given ones, as Paul was himself. It seems clear that this " James " was "the Lord's brother," not the apostle so named and called by Christ an earth. It is more than probable when James the apostle was killed by the sword of Herod (Acts 12), that James the Lord's brother filled the gap made in " the Twelve," for he is found among the " pillars " (Gal. 2) " James and Cephas and John, who were conspicuous as being pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship," etc. He appears to take the lead in the council at Jerusalem (Acts 15), and this he would hardly have done at such an important assembly as was then convened, if he had not had a very high spiritual consciousness that he was acting as an apostle of the Lord-though a sub- resurrection one, and one (so far as we have the record of it is concerned), who had no formal place of authority given him, as bad Matthias (Acts 1)

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