Q.-Matt. 28:1, Mark 16:2, Luke 24:1, John 20:1: please explain. M.
A.-The first text speaks, not of the resurrection day, but of the sabbath which preceded, though late on that day, the dusk of evening when the next day was to begin according to Jewish reckoning. With ver. 2 commences a distinct paragraph referring to that first day. When the sabbath was past, as we hear in the second (ver. 1), the women named bought the spices to embalm; but on coming to the sepulcher very early next morning, they learned that the Lord was risen; and so speaks the third text. The fourth tells us of the two separate visits of Mary of Magdala, when she saw the stone taken away, and subsequently when He first appeared to her, as also Mark 16:9 declares.
Q.-Luke 1:1-4. Are those verses equally inspired as the rest of the Gospel? or only a preface of the writer's? M.
A.-They are a striking evidence and instance of what characterizes Luke, in the combination of man's motives and affections and aims with the inspiring Spirit's power and design. It is only unbelief which tries to sunder what God has united. No doubt then a preface is peculiar to the third Gospel; but so it ought to be, if this Gospel have for its specialty, as it clearly has, to present the Lord Jesus, while truly God, in all the reality of that holy human nature, of which He deigned in grace to us and for God's glory to partake. The converse we see in the prediction of Caiaphas (John 11:49-53). There in divine sovereignty the Holy Spirit gave him to prophesy the death of the Savior in terms which none the less betrayed the selfish and unprincipled wickedness of the high priest. Here we see the piety, faith, love, and conscientious care of the writer, who was none the less empowered by the Spirit to give us the truth of Christ without error according to the divine purpose in view.
Q.-1 Tim. 3:16. May I ask why the cross is not included in this summary view of Christ? and why His being received up in glory is put last? A DISCIPLE.
A.-The reason, as I believe, why the cross does not appear is because Christ's death of rejection and in atonement was fully revealed in the O.T., as Psa. 22, Isa. 53 and Zech. 13 serve to prove. Sacrifice in general pointed to His death for our sins. Here it is “the mystery” or secret of piety which is presented, (i.e. not so revealed in the O.T.). Next, it would seem that the last clause is taken out of its historical place, in order that the blessed object of Christian dependence in faith should there stand in the more marked contrast with the falling away of some in later times, giving heed as they did to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons by the hypocrisy of legend-mongers branded in their own conscience, forbidding to marry and bidding to abstain from God-given meats. Such a system was a mere fleshly religion in open contempt, of the ascended Christ. These were the victims that fell away, through seducing spirits &c. behind the hypocritical legend-mongers, who were their instruments. Christ in glory was nothing to them. Their confidence was in self-devised ordinances instigated by demons. Christ's being “received up in glory” is an essential and characteristic truth of Christianity.
Q. Heb. 2:17; 8:4. As a matter of interest, not of authority, can you cite the judgment of the late J.N.D. on these scriptures so strangely misused of late? O. D.
A.-His uniform doctrine, as far as I know, was that the work of propitiation was on the cross when lifted up, before He entered on His proper priestly office in heaven, an exceptional work in being representative for atonement as the foundation of all. Take, out of many proofs, the following from Notes and Comments, 2 17, “But then the High Priest represented the people as such, and in this character, when He has personally, not as priest, offered Himself to God. He acknowledges the people's sins—He becomes that Khat'tath, but in conscious confession first, not in judicial suffering that follows. But the sins are laid on Him—the Lord has laid them on Him; and He, willingly bearing them, confesses them in perfectness before God for reconciliation being made. This the High Priest does as representing the people, but it is not high-priestly in the proper sense, though the High Priest's service—the priest's was with the blood; but then the sacrifice was finished. Had the High Priest not done this, there could have been no priestly service at all; even this was not done on earth, but as lifted up from it. Earth was connected with flesh (there was no reconciliation for it), and as long as Christ was alive upon it, He presented Himself to men in the flesh. When that is done with, He begins His lonely work where none could enter while it was going on—and as representing the people, He makes reconciliation. Hence no priesthood in any sense was exercised on earth; for the reconciliation work, in which the High Priest was engaged, was as lifted up from it, and, though not in heaven, no longer on earth.”
Q.-What is the precise difference between κρίνειν, ἀνακρίειν, διακρίνειν, ἐγκρίνειν, κατακρίνειν,and συγκρίνειν in N. T. usage? R.
A.-The meaning of the first or simple form is “to judge,” ἀνακρίσις being the technical word for the previous inquiry or preliminary investigation. Compare 1 Cor. 2:15; 4:3-5; 9:3; 10:25, 27, in the Greek, as well as Acts 25:26 (noun). But διακρίνειν is “to discern,” right in 1 Cor. 11:29 but wrong in 31; as the simple form means not “damnation” but “judgment” and even as contrasted with that. Again συγκρίνειν is in plain contradistinction to ἀνακρίνειν in 1 Cor. 2, and means the communicating or authoritative explaining of spiritual things in spiritual words, not sifting or examining them. In John 5:22-29 the confusion of the A.V. is extreme and seriously misleading. The right word is “judge” or “judgment” throughout, not “condemnation” as in 24, nor “damnation” as in 29; for our Lord is contrasting “life” with “judgment,” though the issue in this case be the same. In 1 Cor. 11 the “judging” is present, in the sense of temporal only, in contrast with final and everlasting condemnation (κατακρ.). Compounded with ἀπὸ the verb means “to answer,” as it should be in 2 Cor. 1:9, not “sentence,” as we may add.