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only exists as a result of the combination of spirit and body. We therefore can find no
warrant for speaking of the soul as a separate entity. We do not say it sleeps, or dies, it
simply ceases to be the moment the breath ceases to animate the body.
There is much left unsaid, and although we have not referred in this answer to many
passages, we have not ignored them in coming to this conclusion.
pp. 190 192 (end)
No. 24.--W.P., LONDON.
"I should be greatly obliged if you would kindly give me the gist of your
remarks concerning two subjects we were speaking about.
(1). `Without sin.' (2). Apostate Israel as the Scarlet Woman."
(1). "Without Sin".--The gist of our remarks was to the effect that the words,
"without sin", in Heb. 4: 15 and 9: 28, were important key words bearing directly
upon the theme of the epistle.
The usual interpretation of Heb. 4: 15 is that the Lord Jesus was tempted in all
points as we are, yet never yielded to the temptation. When the matter is pressed, and
general statements become particular, when one asks how the Holy One of God could be
tempted by the crimes and passions of our fallen nature, the answer usually is, the
temptation is no sin, but yielding to it constitutes the offence. This superficially satisfies.
To us the question does not present itself. We believe the very Scripture itself tells us
that the Lord Jesus Christ WAS NEVER TEMPTED BY SIN. He is "touched with the
feeling of our infirmities", and was "tempted in all points like as we are, APART FROM
SIN". The temptations of the believer who is passing through the experiences of
"Hebrews", are the temptations of the wilderness journey. The imagery of Hebrews 3:
and 4: is borrowed from the wilderness journey of the children of Israel. Their
temptations were of God.
"The Lord thy God led thee forty years in the wilderness to humble thee and to prove
thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments,
or no. And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna,
which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that He might make thee know that
man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord doth man live. . . . as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God
chasteneth thee" (Deut. 8: 2-5).
James says that the man who endures temptation is blessed, but declares that God
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man with it. To be tempted by sin
is to drawn away of our own lust, a statement we can never make of the Son of God in
any shape or form. The temptations of "Hebrews" are "apart from sin". So also is the