Question: Please explain why it was necessary that the spear should be thrust into the side of Christ, seeing He was already dead; was His death not full payment to God for sin? Why is it said “It is the blood (not the death) that maketh atonement for the soul”? M. S.
Answer: The spear thrust into the side (the heart) of Christ showed to all that His death was real, and moreover drew out those tokens of atonement and purification (blood and water) on which we rest, and by which we are cleansed. The death of Christ was a full atonement for sin, but blood out of the body, apart from it, is a proof of death: (in the body it is the life of it), and hence the blood is everywhere used for the atoning value of the death of Christ; not that blood is different from death, but because it is the proof of it. The blood “making atonement” is a more beautiful thought than the death, because it means the perfect life given up in death. The blood which was the life, now poured forth in death, is that which is so precious in God’s sight. You will observe that when, the death is spoken of, it is more in connection with resurrection, presenting the truth of deliverance from sin (Rom. 6) rather than atonement for sins. (Rom. 3).
Question: Can our Lord in His character as glorified man, still suffer grief? S. B.
Answer: We do not believe that our Lord now suffers as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” but we do believe that He feels for the sorrows, and is grieved at the failures of His people as much as ever; being the same Jehovah that had so often to bear with the hardness and unbelief of His people of old. Beyond this, however, we have a High Priest who is touched, even now, with the feeling of our infirmities. In one sense, therefore, grief is confined to earth; in another, as we see from Gen. 6:66And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. (Genesis 6:6), etc., it is not.
Question: What is the “Everlasting gospel”? B. J. M.
Answer: The “everlasting gospel” is quite distinct from the gospel of the grace of God now preached. The former will go forth prior to the opening of the millenial kingdom. No doubt the precious gospel now published is everlasting as to its source and subject; but it is not intelligent to apply Rev. 14:66And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, (Revelation 14:6), to the present gospel.
Answer: We are not told in what specific way “those women labored with Paul in the gospel,” but we know there are a thousand ways in which a woman may serve in the gospel without ever stepping out of that sphere which properly belongs to her. As to the married woman, we feel increasingly persuaded that home is pre-eminently her place; there she has a hallowed and elevated sphere in which she can serve in the full consciousness of being exactly where the hand of God has set her, and where His Word directs her. She also has a great privilege of lodging and feeding the servants of the Lord as they go about in their ministry of the Word, and thus helping them in their service.
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