virgin-born Son of the living God and “In Christ shall all be made alive.” His virgin birth, described in Isaiah 7:14, was fulfilled to the letter as described in Luke 1:26-37. The Extreme Penalty Q. Is capital punishment wrong? A. No, it is not. The law of capital punishment as given in the Scrip tures antedates the Jewish law of Moses by 1,000 years. That it was one of God’s fundamental, govern mental laws is proven by Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” This law has never been modified or abrogated. In Romans 13:4 we read, “For he [a civil officer] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a reveng er to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” The State not only has the right to put a murderer to death, it has no right to let him live. God put g o v e r nm e n t s in the world to restrain sin. In His sight it is a terrible thing to take a life. To be sure, it is the civil govern ment’s right to execute the extreme penalty; most certainly it is not the right of a mob or an individual. Do not confuse rules for Chris tian conduct with God’s charter of earthly government. The laxness in our laws in regard to murder has much to do with the increase of it. The extreme penalty makes known to all men the value of human life. God’s Word does not deny the mur derer a pardon if he comes to Christ for salvation before he dies. Nor is any Christian forbidden to try to win a condemned man before his execution. I have done this myself.
gogues, I strove to make them blas pheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.” This does not mean that Paul succeeded in making the Christians blaspheme, and I suppose by “blaspheme” is meant to deny Christ. If anyone would do that, he would be spared death, but history is full of the stories of the martyrs who died in flames and other forms of torture rather than deny the Lord who bought them. Christ's Birth Prophesied Q. One of our church papers em phasizes the genealogy of Christ as the Son of David, and states that the story of the virgin birth origi nated among the Gentiles after the time of Peter and Paul. I am great ly disturbed over this. Is this true? A. This is, of course, liberalism which is nothing but atheism. It is but a repetition of the old Satanic question which the devil put to Eve in the Garden of Eden: “Yea, hath God said?” God Himself predicted the virgin birth when He said: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3: 15 ). I ’ll guarantee the writer of that article does not believe in the deity of Christ or of His atoning work either. These three denials go to gether. Had Joseph been the father of Jesus, Christ would have been under the law and would have had to die for His own sins; if Joseph had been His father, Christ would have been in Adam, and we read in 1 Corinthians 15:22: “. . . in Adam all die” and Christ would have died as a sinner. But thanks be to God, such was not the case. He was the
Did Jesus Claim to be God? Q. Did Jesus ever claim to be God? A. Yes, He did, over and over again, sometimes by direct state ment and then by accepting wor ship as God, by performing mira cles which only God could perform, by His sinless life, by foretelling future events known only to God, by rising from the dead, by apply ing Old Testament prophecies to Himself. Read these verseS: John 4:25, 26; John 5: 18; John 5:46; John 6:35, 41, 48, 51; John 8:42; John 8:58; John 9:35-38. These are only a few of the many passages. Read Colossians, Hebrews, Ephe sians, Revelation from beginning to end. He is very God of very God. Espoused Q. Please explain the use of the word “espoused” in the time of Christ (Luke 1:27). A. The American Standard Ver sion of the Bible, the very reliable translation of 1901, renders this word “betrothed.” The betrothal of a young Jewish girl was much more important than an engage ment is to us. It was celebrated about a year before the marriage and the father paid a dowry to the bridegroom. While it was not an actual marriage, yet to break one’s betrothal vows was serious indeed. Did Christians Blaspheme? Q. How could Saul of Tarsus make Christians blaspheme as is stated in Acts 26:11? A. You will find that the transla tion of this verse in the American Standard Version of 1901 sheds a great deal of light on the meaning of these words: “And punishing them oftentimes in all the syna
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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