QUES. 9.-Please explain Luke 7:28, which says of John the Baptist "Ha that is the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he." It has been said that the least in the Kingdom refers to Christ.

ANS.-We could not speak of our Lord as being in the Kingdom, for -He is the head of it. Most assuredly we could not speak of Him as least, who is over all things. The passage is very simple when we see the connection. Our Lord was speaking of position and privilege, not of personal character. So far as holiness and personal character were concerned, there was not a greater born of woman than John. But he was connected with the old dispensation, the earthly kingdom of Israel, though it was in ruins. He was the last of the prophets, and marked the close of that period of trial, before Christ. He was also the immediate forerunner of our Lord, and the herald of His Kingdom. But he was not in the Kingdom, for the reason that it was not then established. When our Lord departed, after His rejection, His Kingdom was set up. The privileges of Christianity are immeasurably above all that preceded it. Therefore the least in this dispensation has greater privileges than the prophets and kings before Christ. It is not the Church that our Lord speaks of, but the blessings of Christianity, as we might term it.

QUES. 10.-In Matt. 12:40, it is said our Lord was to be " three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." If He was crucified on Friday and rose on the first day of the week, He was only two nights in the grave. How is this to be understood?

ANS.-All through Scripture we have foreshadows of our Lord's resurrection. The case of Jonah mentioned in the immediate context is but one example of the use of the term, "three days," "the third day," etc. Of course, it is not the question of so many hours, but the spiritual significance and connection that is important. The Jewish method of computing time was this,-today, to-morrow, the third day. (See Luke 13:32, 33.) So the expression, "three days and three nights," is simply another way of saying our Lord was to be raised on the third day. It is literally true if we count, as the Jews did, each fraction of a day as a full day, that is, a clay and a night. Thus the evening and morning in Gen. 1:made a full day. So here the Lord was to be three days in the tomb. It can be counted as follows:part of Friday, called the first day and night (really but the afternoon of Friday); Friday night and Saturday, the second day and night (this one complete) ; third, Saturday night and the early dawn of the Lord's day. the third day and night. Of course in our phraseology this would not be done, but it was well understood by those to whom our Lord spoke, and was the usage of Scripture.

The reason for His rising on the third day is beautiful and simple. The first day saw the deed done, the second bore witness to its reality, and the third, the day of manifestation, showed all the power of God.

QUES. 11.-In Luke 5:whom does the Lord mean by "sons of the bride chamber" ? When are the days when they shall fast ? Also what is the connection between that and what He says about patching an old garment ? In John 3:29 the Baptist speaks of himself as the friend of the Bridegroom; as he does not speak of the Church, why does he not include himself ?

ANS.-The Bridegroom is, of course, our Lord. The sons of the bride chamber are not distinguished from the bride, who is not mentioned here. The presence of our Lord made it impossible for piety to mourn; that would have been formalism and a pretense. But after His rejection they would indeed mourn; " ye shall weep and lament." And this is the attitude and state of those who are now waiting for our Lord to come. They mourn an absent Bridegroom. It is not a dispensational statement, though the sons of the bride chamber were Jews, and after our Lord was taken away they were Christians.

He goes on next to speak of a new order, in which the old bottles of Jewish formalism would be set aside for the new-thing, the church, or the new creation, which would be a suited vessel for the new wine of the Spirit.

When John the Baptist calls himself the friend of the Bride-groom, he does not mean to exclude himself from Israel, the earthly bride, but to emphasize the fact that Christ is the Bridegroom, and that He is all. John was but the voice speaking of and pointing to Him. That was his official position; personally he was part of Israel. He will however, with all the Old Testament saints, have his place at the marriage supper of the Lamb, as one of those called to witness the union of the heavenly bride, the Church, with her Lord.