Love the new Signs

The magazine I buy most often is the Reader’s Digest because of its small size and great articles. For years I thought Signs of the Times® would do well in a similar smaller format, so thrill of thrills, the January Signs is a dream come true! Having color on every page along with actual photo illustrations livens up the magazine. Cheers for the new format! It’s a winner, smart looking and ready to share.

—Helen Stiles, e-mail

Who’s our intercessor?

In your column “What the Bible Says About the Holy Spirit” (October 2006), you quote Romans 8:26, which says, “The Spirit himself intercedes for us.” But 1 Timothy 2:5 says that “there is . . . one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

—Thelma Pendell, San Antonio, Texas

Editor’s response: Jesus is our only Mediator for salvation and the forgiveness of sin. The Spirit’s intercession is quite different. Romans 8:26 says that the Spirit intercedes for us because “we do not know what we ought to pray for.” The Spirit intercedes in the sense of “translating” our prayers into God’s “language.” That’s quite different from interceding for our salvation.

Judas’s repentance again

In the editor’s response to a letter about whether Judas had repented of his betrayal of Jesus (October 2006) you said, “Judas was a lost man at the time he committed his betrayal, and his repentance was not genuine in any saving sense.” But the Bible repeatedly states that when we sincerely ask God for forgiveness, He indeed forgives us.

—Roxanne Lennon, e-mail

Editor’s response: You are correct that when we sincerely ask God to forgive us, He does. But the Gospels give no indication that Judas ever asked God to forgive him. To the contrary, in one of His final prayers Jesus said that none of His disciples was lost “but the son of perdition,” that is, Judas (John 17:12, KJV). And in Matthew 26:24 Jesus said, “Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born” (KJV). The evidence is clear that Judas was lost at the time of his death, and thus he did not truly repent of his sin.

How’s Charlie?

After reading John McLarty’s article “Charlie’s Medicine” (November 2006) about a horse treated with eye salve, I wonder, did he get his sight back?

—Sue Cecil, Lavaca, Arkansas

Editor’s response: We called and asked John. He said that Charlie was 27 years old at the time of the treatment. The eye salve stopped the infection, but Charlie eventually went blind, and he died of old age.

Your Thoughts by Readers	From the February 2007 Signs