Q. I.-"In 'Eight Lectures on Prophecy' I read, 'Into this new earth the new Jerusalem, the glorified Church, will descend,' etc. I have just looked at Rev. 21:, but it does not seem clear to me. Will not the new earth be for the earthly people, and the new heaven for the heavenly people?"

Ans.-First, as to the expression "new heaven," in Rev. 21:i, it is evidently the atmospheric heaven only, and not the " third heaven " of Paul's vision and the paradise of God. It is when the great white throne is set that the earth and the heaven flee away from before the face of Him who sits on it; and Peter describes the same change:"The heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."

But it is true that the heavenly people will always remain so, as Israel and the millennial saints in general will always remain an earthly one. Nor does the descent of the new Jerusalem militate against this. We have to remember that the pictures in Revelation are not to be taken as literal description, and that in the heavenly city is the throne of God and the Lamb ; moreover, it is said as to the new earth, " The tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them." This does not imply that God will forsake heaven for earth ; and the Lord's promise to us is, "Where I am, there ye shall be also." Nor is it even said that the new Jerusalem will be on earth. Near and intimate connection there will be, assuredly ; and this is all that the expressions can, without straining, be made to mean.

Q. 2.-"In Ex. 22:28, who are the 'gods' mentioned ? and why are they not to revile them ?"

Ans.-It is the same expression as in Ps. 82:6, which the Lord quotes in Jno. 10:34 :"I said, Ye are gods," and of which He says that they are called gods to whom the word of God came. The force is doubtless that of "judges," divinely commissioned, and thus representing God. Those who reviled them thus spoke against God's authority in the judge. And the same principle now applies. Jude speaks of some as " filthy dreamers," who " defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities ; " and Peter has a similar warning :both in connection with evils which should characterize the latter days. The application to the present time is only too plain, and Christians should lay it to heart in the midst of a state of things when so much license with the tongue is claimed and given.

Q. 3.-" What is meant by the expression ' baptized for the dead ' in i Cor. 15:29,-' Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all ? why are they, then, baptized for the dead? ' "

Ans.-The expression may be rendered, "baptized in place of the dead." The preposition translated "for" in both the Common and Revised Versions (ύπέρ) is, in 2 Cor. 5:20 and Philem. 13, translated "instead of," although the Rev. Ver. has corrected it to "in behalf of" in both places. But the meaning "instead of" is admitted in the lexicons.

It might also be, and has been by many, translated "ever the dead," according to the root idea of the preposition, without any change of meaning, perhaps even more vividly. For the thought in the mind of the apostle, as is evident by the whole passage, is of a battle-field, in which fresh combatants are taking the place of those removed by death. In those days, to become a Christian was to expose one's self to death; and why thus fill up the ranks decimated by so fierce a conflict if there be no resurrection ? For then Christ is not risen, as he argues, your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. " Over the dead " would be in this way vividly pictorial. But the meaning is, in any case, plain.

Q. 4.-"How am I to understand 2 Pet. 2:12? Annihilationists regard this passage as a strong proof of their doctrine."

Ans.-The point pressed by annihilationists is the resemblance drawn between beasts and evil men. Says one of their leaders,-

" They resemble them in irrationality, and will be like them in their destiny. The beasts are made, or born, for φθoράv (extinction"), and wicked men will suffer φθoράv also (Gal. 6:) ; but if this word signified endless misery, it could not be said that the 'natural irrational brutes' were 'made' for that."

Now it is freely and fully granted that φθoρά does not mean "endless misery." I am not aware of any one having ever contended that it did. No one doubts, I suppose, that it means, in general in the New Testament, "corruption," physical or moral; and so it is always translated in the Common Version (Rom. 8:21; i Cor. 15:42, 50; Gal. 6:8; 2 Pet. 1:4; 2:12, 19), except twice,-Col. 2:22, "to perish," and in this place, "to be destroyed." It is derived from the verb φθείρω, which is similarly translated "to corrupt" (i Cor. 15:33; 2 Cor. 7:2; 11:3; Eph. 4:22; Jude 10; Rev. 19:2), except in i Cor. 3:17, which I shall presently notice. In the passage before us it also occurs, though in a stronger form in the text King James' translators followed, and is therefore rendered "utterly perish." It is the word used once again in 2 Tim. 3:8, "men of corrupt minds."

"Corruption" is evidently, then, the leading thought in the New-Testament use of the word. But the passage in i Cor. 3:" 17 presents the word in a double sense, apparently, which it is hard to give in a translation, and the Common Version uses for it two words, "defile" and " destroy:" " If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." The one word, however, defining the sin and the punishment, is surely significant. It speaks solemnly of repayment in kind, which is a noticeable principle in the divine government:" Reward her even as she rewarded ; and double unto her double, according to her works :in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double." (Rev. 18:6.) We can retain this thought in Corinthians by a slight amplification :" If any man corrupt the temple of God, him shall God give over to corruption ;" and this will be more really literal than the other translation.

If we now look again at 2 Pet. 2:12, we shall find a like thought:"But these, as irrational beasts, made naturally for capture and corruption, speaking evil of things that they understand not, in their corruption shall also be given to corruption, acquiring for themselves the wages of unrighteousness." I give here again as literal a translation as I can, retaining throughout a uniform rendering of the words in question. The Rev. Ver. gives in this place, "shall in their destroying surely be destroyed," and similarly in Corinthians,-" If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy," preserving the due connection of sin and punishment, but losing that with "for the temple of God is holy:"-the thought of the sin as the corruption of a holy thing.

But in this way the whole interest of annihilationists in the passage is taken away. I do not mean, but deny, that it serves them as it stands in our translations ; for what they have to prove for this, and can never prove, is, that the destruction of a man is extinction, as that of the beast is. In itself, destruction never means this, but the removal out of the place for which the beast, or the man, or whatever else, was originally made. The beast, indeed, was only made to fill a temporary place. It was made, therefore, for destruction when its time runs out. Not so with man, and destruction for him means judgment.

Phthora, in the New Testament, seems always, however, to mean "corruption," which in the case of the beast is physical, of course; but it does not follow that because man is likened to the beast in his end, that the end is the same. Likeness is not identity, nor does it imply it. And what forbids the thought wholly is, that as applied to men in the passage here, the corruption is not physical at all, but spiritual; and to this, as having chosen it, they are given up. They are recompensed in kind; they reap as they sow:having sown to the flesh, they will of the flesh reap corruption. Judgment delivers them up to this:"he that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still."