Question: What is the thought in Phil. 3:10, 11, “power of His resurrection,” “attain unto the resurrection of the dead”? C. M.
Answer: The thought expressed is an earnest pressing on to reach that which alone can make the salvation we have complete the resurrection from the dead. To this of course Paul had not yet attained and therefore could think of nothing here (except indeed fellowship in Christ’s sufferings). All that his soul longed for was there.
Question: Please explain “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
Answer: Certainly some were appointed to eternal life. (See 2 Thess. 2:13, and 2 Tim. 1:9.) But none are appointed to be damned. Notice that, while Rom. 9:22, 23 does say the vessels of mercy were afore prepared of God, it does not say that God prepared the vessels fitted to destruction.
Question: What is the meaning of “from the horns of the unicorns”? (Psa. 22:21.)
Answer: Great strength and untamableness Thus the Lord’s implacable enemies were compared to these animals. “The horns of the unicorns” is a figure of speech of impalement and intense suffering.
Question: In what sense is the time when the Son of man came into the world to put away sins, “the end of the world”?
Answer: God calls it the “end of the world,” because man’s moral history is entirely ended—grace is not ended. Man’s history was closed at the cross. First, lawlessness, then law-breaking, and then enmity to God; then comes that blessed perfect work of the last Adam, who met the need in His own person, and brought in the full accomplishment of the purposes of God. He has brought man into an entirely new sphere by death and resurrection, and eventually glory, and has settled the whole question of responsibility.
Question: How far can we rely on the words of the natural man?
Answer: Man is competent to give a fact, but not the truth on any subject, and still less on that vast scene of glory which God has formed, and which He has revealed, too, for the glory of the Lord.
Question: Is it known or can it be conjectured why Paul went into Arabia (Gal. 1:17)?
Answer: Probably to be alone with God, as Moses in Sinai, or Elijah in Horeb.
Question: Is no one saved who does not confess Christ with his mouth? What is the meaning of “unto righteousness,” “unto salvation”? (Rom. 10:9, 10).
Answer: We would not say that any one who refused to confess Christ was saved.
“Unto righteousness” refers to position before God.
“Unto salvation” refers to outward position as among the saved (or Christians). The former is in the heart; the latter by the mouth.