QUES. 23.-Can we apply John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil," to all who are not children of God?

The Lord here is speaking to people who, while professing godliness, are at the same time full of hatred and murder, rejecting the truth when it is presented to them.

ANS.-As yon remark, the Lord applies the term to a people who manifest what they are ly their works, and no wise person would apply it under any other circumstances. Even then, a wise person will realize that the Lord was free to use expressions which we are not free to use, for He never erred in judgment, whilst we do. His eye could penetrate where ours cannot.

As classes, however, 1 John 3 :7-15 clearly makes but two :"The children of God . . . and the children of the devil." "He that committeth sin is of the devil . . . Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin." "He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous . . . Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother."

Whatever differences of state there may be, and are, both in the children of God and the children of the devil, the word of God recognizes no other class beside those two.

QUES. 24 -Please define the word " covetousness," and give a case in Scripture of a covetous person ?

ANS.-The adjective, covetous (pleonektees), occurs many times in Scripture ; also the noun, covetousness (pleonexia). The verb pleonekteo, related to them, occurs several times also ; the way in which it has been translated being explanatory, we give the translations :In 2 Cor. 2 :11 it is rendered, " Lest Satan should get an advantage of us" (lit., lest we should be overreached by Satan). Chap. 7 :2 translates it, " We have defrauded no man;" 12 :17, " Did I make a gain of you ?" The same in verse 18, and 1 Thess. 4 :6 gives it, "And defraud the brother in the matter."

Taken all together, it is easy to see that covetousness means an unbridled desire leading to the taking advantage of others for the possession of a wished-for object. It is illustrated in the Old Testament by Balaam, for position and reward ; in Korah, for power ; in Achan, for what was consecrated to God, and many beside. In the New Testament, in Judas, for money; in Diotrephes, for preeminence in the Church; and finally, in Antichrist, for the place which belongs to Christ alone.

It is an awful passion, chiefly in relation to money. When the heart is yielded to it, it may go to any excess, even to taking the lives of fellow-men. Even of believers, the word of God says :"They who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all evil ; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim 6 :B, 10).

QUES. 25. From E. C. ANS.-It would be impossible here to review the authors you mention, most of whom have exceedingly crude thoughts of truth. We would only say that the law is in no wise an expression of what God is. It is His rule for man as His creature-His standard of right and wrong. What God is seen in Christ alone, and who that knows Him as revealed there has not seen what is far beyond right and wrong ?

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