Unity in Australia - The Accepted Basis

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ARM OF THE LORD

 

In that sense we interpret the words, “He hath no form nor comeliness, no beauty that we should desire him” (verse 2). There were not those features about him that men looked for as desirable elements from a human point of view in connection with the offices to which this man will some day ascend. Now in contrast, “he is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (verse 3). While he was the Arm of the Lord and the Servant of God, men hid their faces from him, and esteemed him not. We might, to see the full significance of that, ponder for a moment or two, what is implied in that word, the Arm of the Lord. The arm of a man is, of course, a part of his body. The arm of a man is that which he stretches out to help and the Arm of the Lord is what God has done to help. But just as the arm of a man is connected with the man, so pursuing the figure, we must see that there is some intimate connection between the Lord Jesus and the Almighty, to justify the term, “the Arm of the Lord” in connection with Jesus. Although not explicit, we believe it is fully implicit in the use of that figure, that Jesus was the Son of God. It is indeed indicated in the 52nd chapter, that this manifestation of God’s power in His holy Arm, was for men’s salvation. Listen to the 10th verse of chapter 52: “The Lord hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” That is, of course, a beautiful illustration of the parallelism that characterises Hebrew speech. “He has made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see” and parallel with the holy arm is “the salvation of God”, for here was the Saviour.

 

God has stretched out His arm in raising up a Son to be a Saviour, because we could not have been provided with a saviour apart from it, because no human being could have possibly lived the life of perfect obedience, that would ensure resurrection from the dead; and so provide one in whom could be vested the power to raise others also.

 

When the Arm of the Lord was revealed and the Son of God came this is how men treated him. We might stop for a second to think of the evidential value to the truth of the record in this fact. You can’t imagine any prophet, looking forward and speaking of one to come, who would be the Son of God, who of himself would depict such a treatment as is here described. Would he not naturally have described him as being in some way recognised and acclaimed and approved and exalted by men. I think we should. How comes it that the prophet has delineated such an opposite reception. It was as the prophet foretold, but the message could only be of God, who would reveal this which was so contrary to what would naturally have happened, as men would view it. But there was a Divine reason and that reason has already emerged from what we have considered in connection with his work, of sprinkling many nations. He was to be the one through whom redemption would come. So it is said, He bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.

 

ESTEEMED A LEPER

 

Yet men looked upon him as an outcast and a leper. Not as a leper in fact but like as a leper as being an outcast. A leper was an outcast and yet in fact we were; not literally lepers but such as were leprous by sin, in that our sins were as a leprosy. “By his stripes we are healed.” You will remember, as we pointed out, that word was taken from that figure of leprosy. But we are healed because of him, because “he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5). There was no iniquity in him. There were no transgressions in him. Why should the Lord have to suffer in the way that he did? Because God appointed that in him there should be declared His righteousness. And it could only be by one who was there, just where we are, in respect of our inheritance from Adam who could declare God’s righteousness (but we are involved in that) and so provide the way so that our sins could be forgiven. But the prophet doesn’t enter into that explanation. He states the simple fact that he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows. Not that they were transferred to him as such, but that as a result of his work they are taken away. But we would make a sad mistake if, while we have said that they were not, and could not be literally transferred to him that there was no burden upon him, in providing the condition for their removal.

 

BEARING OUR INFIRMITIES

 

Let us look at two passages in the New Testament. One in Matthew 8:17: Jesus had been healing and “when the evening was come they brought to him many that were possessed with devils and he healed all that were sick; that it might be fulfilled that was spoken by Esias the prophet, Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” Was there no sense of labour, no welling up of compassion for these people, that led him to do it? Of course there was. Since we are told that on one occasion he perceived that virtue had gone out of him, perhaps we may infer that his toilsome healing work was not without a sense of giving of himself as he did the work. Not only in the welling up of his large compassionate heart, as he looked upon them as sheep having no shepherd and as he entered into the feeling of their sufferings; but in the very giving of something in the physical power involved in doing this work of healing as he perceived that virtue had gone out of him.

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BEARING OUR INIQUITIES

 

The other passage is in Peter’s first epistle, chapter 2. At verse 20, he says, “What glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? If, when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even here unto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who when he was reviled, reviled not again; (and Peter is looking back at Isaiah 53 here). When he suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” (We will refer to this passage a little later.) “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on (or to) the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed.” You will observe how Peter is quoting that. Then he quotes again, “ye were as sheep going astray,” and since we are sheep, he is the shepherd although he is the Lamb of God by a beautiful introversion of Divine figures. “Ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” “Who, his own self, bare our sins in his own body to the tree” and that explains how it was done, that when his body was nailed to the tree, there was a declaration of a Divine purpose, as a condition upon which our sins are forgiven. It was because, Son of God as he was, that the Lord’s body was a body belonging to the Adamic race, dying because of sin, Adam’s sin. There is the inheritance, there is the entail.

 

There in that voluntary going to the cross, (this is the nerve of it, brethren and sisters), he declared the righteousness of God. So then in a figure (just as it is in a figure that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from sin for blood can cleanse nothing in itself), he bore our sins in his body to the tree. But it was because his body could rightly go there and that he could go there voluntarily, that he could bare our sins, and our sins could be forgiven for his sake. That is Peter’s explanation of what we are reading in this prophecy. The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. “We have turned,” he says, “everyone to his own way, like sheep.” What does it mean to say that we have turned, everyone to his own way. Adam chose his own way at the beginning and we have all repeated Adam’s mistake of going our own way.

 

What’s the alternative to going our own way? There’s the Lord’s way and who alone chose the Lord’s way, but the Lord’s anointed himself. That’s the contrast; we’ve chosen our own way; he chose the Lord’s way. “Not my will but thine be done.”

 

HIS SUFFERING AND TRIAL PUBLICISED

 

Now since this is to happen to the servant of God; how could it be arranged, that this could be done in such a way, that the Divine objects could be brought to men. The Lord could have retired to the wilderness and in the presence of the Angels, say, have laid down his life. Would that have achieved the Divine purpose? So far as the offering of himself. But that was not the whole of the purpose, because this, you see; what the Son was doing: this that the servant of God was doing, was something that dynamically concerned men and women and therefore it had to be done in such a way, that the very fact of it, as well as the effects of it, were brought to bear on men and women. Now how could that be done? Only by some publicity attaching to the way our Lord laid down his life. There must be some publicity. Paul gets the idea when writing to Galatians, after he has been speaking. “I am crucified with Christ,” he says, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that you have so soon turned away, before whom Christ was evidently set forth—and the word is “placarded”, that expresses the word “placarded” like the placards in the street that are designed to force themselves upon your attention. They’re there to attract your attention, to bring to bear with all that power, that the person who has the placard put there, wishes you to notice. It was just so here. It was necessary that, in some way the Lord should die; that the facts of his death were so evident that men were constrained to look at them. But how could it be accomplished? Well the prophet indicates how God did accomplish it.

 

“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment” (Isa.. 53:7,8). So the death of the Servant had to be associated with judicial forms, a procedure of judgment; and there is perhaps no other way that can so focus attention upon the issues as a judicial procedure. How our papers publicise the decisions of the courts. How interested the people of ancient times were, as they gathered around the open space of the market, within the gates, to hear the decisions of the judges. How the oral decisions of the judges in ancient times were impressed upon the minds of the people and became, as it were, unwritten laws, for their social life. When the judgment assumed more detailed forms, still more was the floodlight of publicity on what was done. So in the eyes of the whole nation of Israel, the facts connected with Jesus were brought to bear in an inescapable way.

 

We have mentioned the multitudes that assembled in Jerusalem for the passover. Josephus says two million people. I’m not concerned” whether this figure is accurate or not. The fact that he can name such a figure impresses us with the fact that the place must have been crowded; and all that crowd knew of the judicial procedure. But it was a judicial procedure that was a scandal to justice. He is afflicted and he opened not his mouth, for the procedure of justice was wrong. The jurisprudence of Israel had built up a series of regulations to safeguard the interests of the prisoner, the charges had to be made by witnesses; no trial should be by night; no trial should be clandestine and a host of other details, everyone of which was disregarded, as the whole system was torn to tatters by the attitude of the rulers of Israel. When the Lord stood before Pilate, who confessed that he found no fault in him, he had him scourged, which, was a crime, for an innocent man to be subjected to. Still more was it a crime, that Pilate should pronounce him innocent and then allow him to be condemned to the gallows.

 

“He was taken from prison and from judgment” (verse 8) and vet Peter tells us that while he was there, he wasn’t stood before Pilate or Annas or Caiaphas. “He committed himself,” says Peter, who saw the Lord in the judgment hall and didn’t know what the Lord was doing, unless it had been revealed to him, “he committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously.” The Lord’s mind was not centred on Herod or Pilate, Annas or Caiaphas, it was centred on his Father in heaven and he knew that He would vindicate him. Surely at that time, the words must have been in his mind, “He is near that justifieth me” and how abundantly the Father justified him when presently he was “raised from the dead and exalted to His own right hand.”

 

“Who shall declare his generation?” A question that suggests that he, being cut off, there would be a termination of his life and a termination of all succession with him. “He was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was he smitten” (verse 8). Here then is going to be a seedless man apparently without a posterity. Yet we shall be told presently “he shall see his seed” but we’ll wait till we get there, noting merely the fact the question asked.

[Resource Manager]

AN HONOURABLE BURIAL

 

But now there is another problem. If it was by judicial procedure that the Lord had to meet his death, in order that there might be this publicity attaching to it, that God required for His purposes and since it was the custom in the New Testament times, that the body of one crucified should be cast out into Gehenna; how could the Lord’s purpose, that His holy one should not see corruption, but should he raised from the dead, be accomplished again, with due regard, not only of the decorum of the matter, but also the facts to be established? The answer is in the prophet. It is wonderful, brethren and sisters, when we face these issues and look at these problems, how the answers come in the prophecy of Isaiah. “He made his grave with the wicked,” crucified with malefactors, and “with a rich man was his tomb”. The prophet tells us why that and it may seem at first obscure why! “Because he had done no violence, neither was there deceit in his mouth.” Why was it, because of his sinlessness, he had to share a rich man’s tomb? Because if there hadn’t been a man of sufficient influence and with that rare courage at that time, to go to Pilate and beg the body of Jesus, there would have been no honourable burial for the Son of God. But God foresaw its need and provided for it. Thus it was that two men were there who summoned up their courage and came out of their secret discipleship. The one to go and buy what was a princely amount of, spices.

 

A MULTITUDINOUS SEED

 

“When he shall be made an offering for sin, he shall see his seed (his seed) (verse 10), and who shall declare his generation?’’ Jesus said before Pilate, knowing that his work would go on, “he that is of the Truth heareth my voice.” What a sublime declaration that was in such a crisis. “What is Truth?” said Pilate, and Jesus answered, “he that is of the Truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37). But this isn’t the end, there is going to be a succession of men who hear the Truth, the Truth for which I’m standing, the Truth which is being illustrated and embodied in me. There will be adherents of this. The contemporary writer with Isaiah in the Psalms (45:16) says, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” “He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand” (verse 10). Then we get another word that is rather significant: “He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied” (verse 11). “Travail” is distinctly the woman’s lot in life. “I will multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.” How strangely that the figure of travail should be used here, and yet it’s right. For travail is the toil from which comes the new birth, the new order or the new being as the case may be. Here out of this man’s sufferings is going to emerge new things, a new creation and therefore it’s travail.

 

But since we are looking at this by meditation as well as devotion, might we think also that the word leads us to this. Here he was suffering the effects of what had come by sin, dying; “Cursed is the ground for thy sake; thorns and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee” (Gen. 3:17). There were thorns upon his brow and to complete the cycle pertaining to the consequences that came by sin, here is the travail too, the travail of soul. Thus from his sufferings emerges a new creation and he will be satisfied when he sees it. This is the practical effect that, “by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many for he shall bear their iniquities” (verse 11).

 

Now we must stop for a moment, for “bear their iniquities” takes us back to the day of Atonement when two goats were taken, both for the Lord, one slain and then the priest confessed all the sins and iniquities and transgressions upon the head of the live goat. Then by a fit man it was taken away into a land that was uninhabited, the land of forgetfulness. As is the offering for sin so is the goat that bears away to forgetfulness our sins. “For he shall bear their iniquities.”

 

JESUS HIGHLY EXALTED

 

So God will divide him a portion with the great, the immortal great, because of his work. The strong who are immortally strong seeing they have been exalted because of him; and that because he has poured out his soul unto death, because he had been numbered with transgressors and because he has borne the sin of many. “He poured out his soul unto death.” Do you recall the expression in Philippians where Paul harks back to this. It is lost in our Authorised version. But another version is so common that it ought to suggest it to us at once. Here it is in Philippians 2, verse 5, “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God (as the arm of the Lord) thought it not a thing to be grasped at (R.V.) to be equal with God.” “Ye shall be as gods” was said at the beginning and they grasped at it. But he emptied himself, a reference to “he poured out his soul unto death” (Isa. 53:12). “He emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant,” as these servant prophecies required, “and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, the death of the cross wherefore God has (and mark again how Paul gathers up the words of the prophecy) “Highly exalted him.” “He shall be lifted up” and “very high” and that because he has poured out his soul unto death. The offerer for sin is the priest. “He made intercession for the transgressors.”

 

Well, brethren and sisters, perhaps we have been able to suggest a few lines of thought in connection with this very very wonderful prophecy. If it humbles our pride as we see God’s work in Christ Jesus; if it makes our hearts glow at the wonder of His grace, in providing such a one for our sins, surely the Word of God has not been written in vain.

[Resource Manager]

DOCTRINAL ERROR EXPOSED

 

In presenting his second article “THE TRUTH IN AUSTRALIA” in THE CHRISTADELPHIAN, August 1958, page 372, Bro. Carter alludes to the writings of a certain contemporary brother in Australia (outside the “Shield” fellowship) whose teachings on the nature and sacrifice of Christ, were set out from time to time in various pamphlets, extant at the time of his visit to Australia.

 

Bro. Carter felt it his duty, in the interests of reunion, to expose these teachings as being out of harmony with doctrines held as scriptural by the “Central Fellowship” in Great Britain.

 

The citations quoted by Bro. Carter from these writings are essential to the understanding of his comments in refuting them, and are therefore given in full.

 

Under the heading “CITATION” is the quotation Bro. Carter makes from the writings of Bro. __________. In each case the “COMMENT” is that of Bro. Carter. The teachings of Bro. __________ are expressed by Bro. Carter in propositions I to VII.

 

THE TRUTH IN AUSTRALIA

 

Last month we reported on the reunion efforts in Australia, and pointed out that in the cross currents and agitations there, ideas had been put forward by certain brethren which were as far astray one way, as ideas they were opposing were the other.

 

As we pointed out last month, we have long recognised the tendency on the part of some “Berean” brethren to swing towards the doctrines of the late J. J. Andrew; and the same can be recognised in the contentions of some in Australia. We will now examine some of these contentions, which have been dogmatically, but in our judgment, mistakenly advanced as representing the views of the Central Fellowship. We might introduce the matter with a quotation from a letter recently received from the U.S.A.

 

The writer says:

 

“Your article ‘Christ Given’ (CHRISTADELPHIAN, May, page 127) is certainly one that strikes the core of the matter and in my opinion brings to light the fact that I have long suspected, that many of the extremists in the former “Berean” fellowship, now quite fittingly supporters of ‘The Old Paths’, are in reality closer to the teaching of J. J. Andrew than they realise.

 

“I wonder if the ‘Old Path’ supporters endorse the belief which I know is a part of their followers’ doctrine and those with whom they are in fellowship now of the Berean side, i.e., that it is a sin to be born into the human family.

 

“Consequently they say Christ is a ‘sinner’ in that respect and alienated from God by being a son of Adam. I think the time has come when those who are so keenly concerned in ‘heresy hunting’ should be given some information in starting to clean their own house; or else agree the things they fellowship are believed by them too as being truth.”

 

This brings the matter to a focus. We mentioned in THE CHRISTADELPHIAN, 1957, page 311, the similarity between the teaching of Bro. __________ (referred to above) and J. J. Andrew.

 

We propose now illustrating our assessment of this matter by giving some quotations from Bro. __________’s writings with comments.

 

In doing this we do not forget the nebulousness of some of these discussions and the sterility in ecclesial life they seem to foster. Bro. __________ teaches the following:

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I. THAT WE ARE ALIENATED FROM GOD BY CONDEMNATION IN ADAM.

 

CITATION: (from Bro.__________) “Before being baptised a believer is dead in being alienated from God (a) by ignorance, (b.) condemnation inherited from Adam, and (c.) trespasses and sins.”

 

COMMENT: (by Bro. Carter) The Bible supports (a) and (c.) (see Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21), but is silent about (b.).

 

CITATION: “The trespass in Eden produced two related results, both of which excited God’s displeasure and were causes of Adam’s position as an outcast. These were (a) his personal guilt and (b.) his unclean physical condition.”

 

“No one in Adam can cease to be ‘by nature’ a child of wrath on his own terms.”

 

“Paul in Eph. 2:3 declares all to be ‘by nature children of wrath’. The wrath here referred to is the wrath or displeasure of God. Now only one thing is the cause of His disfavour namely sin. With what sin, then, in a newly born irresponsible infant is God displeased? Obviously not disobedience but inherited sin is the answer.”

 

COMMENT: These statements are full of errors. Although what we do arises out of our nature, yet it is for what we do, and not for our nature, that we are “children of wrath”. The context in Eph. 2:3 shows this. That “by nature” is too narrowly construed is evident when we note that Gentiles “by nature” fulfil the law (Rom. 2:14). It is clear that “by birth” or “by physical constitution” is not the meaning. To talk of “inherited sin” is to talk jargon. We inherit mortality and a tendency to sin but this does not make us the subject of wrath until we sin. Otherwise, since Jesus was of our nature he would be a child of wrath: which is absurd.

 

CITATION: Speaking of Romans 8:1, 2, we are told: “this simply means that the release (by the sacrifice of Christ) from the condemnation inherited from Adam plus transgression was the answer—cherished by them ‘in faith’—to the indwelling deathfulness which was their weakness when experiencing persecution.”

 

COMMENT: This is “simply” not correct. The only “condemnation” inherited from Adam is mortality: we do not inherit any personal condemnation; we shall receive personal condemnation for our sins unless they are forgiven now and our mortality will be swallowed up of life at the coming of the Lord.

 

CITATION: He speaks of men “by legacy from Adam” being still “children of wrath” and then adds: “But those ‘in Christ’, not being ‘in the flesh’—i.e. ‘in Adam’—

can

please God; not because baptism renders physically inactive their fleshly tendencies to transgress, but because by baptismal induction into Christ their relationship to the constitution of sin

involving the condemnation inherited from Adam

—is, as a basis for the blotting out of past sins, cancelled; and that, conditional on their walking ‘in the light’, they are cleansed from all future unrighteous acts through the mediation of Jesus their High Priest (1 John 1:9; Heb. 2:17).”

 

COMMENT: This is a confused sentence. We are all ‘in Adam’ so long as we live; for ‘in Adam’ defines the physical relationship we sustain to the first man. However, the paragraph affirms that our relationship to the ‘constitution of sin’ involves a condemnation inherited from Adam. This we believe to be unscriptural. Moreover, “in the flesh” cannot be equated with “in Adam”. “In Adam” denotes only physical decent, but “in the flesh” in Rom. 8:9 means to have the mind of the flesh in opposition to God.

 

CITATION: Further since we are told: “Because it was the result of, and conditioned by sin, this ‘corruption’ or ‘unclean-ness’ defiled the nature it cursed. That

its possession caused estrangement from God

is decisively proved by the fact that myriads of human beings, innocent of transgression (infants) have died and still die. If transgression (as ‘the only form of sin’) left Adam’s ‘very good’ body unchanged and if (as logically follows) infants, at birth, are at one with God, why do they die?”

 

COMMENT: There is here more confusion. Infants die because they inherit the mortality that has come by sin. But that does not mean they die because they are estranged. Estrangement arises from ignorance or wicked works: the word can only be rightly applied where reconciliation is possible; babies are just flesh and as such sustain no relationship personally to God one way or the other. To talk of “possession” of human nature causing estrangement misses entirely the essential factors of separation from God and reconciliation to Him. Its fallacy is shown by the fact that Jesus possessed our nature, but he was never estranged from God.

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II. THERE ARE TWO ASPECTS OF SIN THAT SEPARATE FROM GOD.

 

CITATION: “There is one thing that I firmly believe, that you once believed and that was believed by brethren Dr. Thomas, R. Roberts and C. C. Walker as well as by Bro. J. J. Andrew, viz., that two aspects of sin separate all unregenerate men from God: (a) man’s inherited uncleanness and (b.) transgression. The former (a) Paul variously styles ‘the law of sin and death’ (Rom. 7:23; 8:2); ‘him that had the power of death’ (Heb. 2:14); ‘the sting of death’ (1 Cor. 15:56); ‘our old man’ (Rom 6:6) and ‘the uncircumcision of your flesh’ (Col. 2:13). The latter (b.) he refers to as ‘your sins’.”

 

“What was the

barrier preventing fellowship

between God and man? Man’s guilt

and inherited sinful nature

. In scriptural phrasing ‘transgressions’ and ‘uncleanness’ (Lev. 16:16).” “Between the fall of Adam and crucifixion of Christ, sin as cause and effect existed as a barrier between God and man. Before God can favourably look upon man, his evil and iniquity must be covered. This applies to death and corruption as well as transgression.”

 

“Accordingly the devil (sin enthroned in the flesh) and his works (disobedience) stood as a barrier or obstacle between fallen man and divine favour, for sin (both as an actuating principle in the flesh, and transgression) is rebellion against the authority of God.”

 

“It may be asked, what proof have we that the ‘devil’ or ‘sin in the flesh’, as well as disobedience, was a barrier between God and man?”

 

“That the blood of Christ made of none effect as a barrier between God and His people, that in the flesh having the power of death (the devil) as well as personal sins (the works of the devil), is the direct teaching of the Spirit word, and does not, as some assert, logically result in the acceptance of the Andrew theory of the non-resurrection of enlightened rejectors.”

 

“The cause of disobedience dwelling in and animating the flesh, is obnoxious to God, and unoffered for, alienates all ifs possessors from Him. That is why, although possessing a spotless character, Jesus required to be ‘brought nigh’.

 

COMMENT: There are as many aspects of sin as there are forms of transgression. All the works of the flesh enumerated by Paul are aspects of sin. The confusion in the above extracts arises from treating sin in its literal sense and “sin” when used metonymically for the impulses to sin, as both belonging to one category. Anger and malice are alike aspects of sin: but impulses are not literally sin until they are expressed in wrong thought or action.

 

Sin used as a literal term, and “sin” used by metonymy, cannot be classed in one category. Because we read “all flesh is grass” we do not say there are two kinds of grass—the green variety that is rooted in the soil and a variety that walks on two legs. Because Jesus said “This is my body” as he took the bread of the Passover in his hands, we do not say there are two kinds of bodies of Jesus, one of flesh and one of flour. The Romanist denies the metaphor and believes in “transubstantiation”—although the actual body of Jesus was there when Jesus spoke the words.

 

The argument we are considering confuses the literal and figurative and brings them both within one category. In addition, if the flesh is the “barrier” between God and man, then it was a barrier in the case of Jesus. This appears to be recognised by saying that Jesus needed to be “brought nigh”. Was there ever a barrier between Jesus and God that estranged him? How did he need to be brought nigh? Was he not always the beloved Son?

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III. JESUS WAS UNDER A CURSE AND WAS A CHILD OF WRATH.

 

This is involved in the preceding, but finds precise expression in the following:

 

CITATION: “But in possessing the nature of a condemned race he (Jesus) came under condemnation: ‘sin in the flesh’ could not have been anti-typically condemned in anyone upon whom the condemnation common to the race did not rest. Jesus was born under the condemnation or curse, so that ‘through death he could make it of none effect.

At birth, therefore, his relationship to God was no different from that of other descendants of Adam, who, ‘by nature’ are ‘children of wrath’.

(Eph. 2:4).

 

COMMENT: That the disfavour of God towards Jesus is intended is clear from the further statement:

 

“to concede that a thing is condemned and yet contend that it is not the object of disfavour, is to postulate a contradiction in terms.”

 

When in the 1890’s a correspondent used the phrase “alienation of Christ” only to refute it, Bro. Roberts interpolated the phrase “God pardon the expression appearing in THE CHRISTADELPHIAN”. A theory that makes the son of God a child of wrath is self-condemned.

 

IV. MAN IS ESTRANGED BECAUSE OF HIS NATURE WHETHER “SINNER OR NO”.

 

CITATION: “Besides man’s defilement having ‘actual’ or ‘literal’

sin as its source

, its inner essence consists in the organic permeation of his ‘being’ by a sin-principle that continually projects into his consciousness ‘contrary to God’ ideas and inclinations; thus perpetually echoing ‘the spirit of disobedience’ infused into the mind of the first man by disobedience.

 

“This sin-impregnated nature God justifiably views with extreme disfavour and (mainly because that nature is instinct with sin-begotten opposition to His law)

He regards its possessors as estranged from Him whether they are transgressors or not

. He, therefore, required ‘sin by metonymy’ as well as ‘literal’ sin to be condemned by sacrifice: so that ‘through death’ it—as ‘the devil’ having ‘the power of death’—might be ‘destroyed’, ‘brought to nought’, ‘made of none effect’, ‘put off’ or ‘put away’.

 

“Could God be other than

displeased with and estranged from

a nature containing, swayed and energised by ‘a principle contrary to’ Him? Can He be completely ‘at one’ with any possessor (sinner or no) of a ‘tendency so inevitable in its sin-producing power that Paul can say that through Adam’s sin all sinned’?”

 

“Man’s inherited uncleanness, then—possessed by whomsoever, sinner or no—stands as an obstacle between every unregenerate son of Adam and resurrection to eternal life as well as personal transgression.”

 

“From this it is certain that at baptism not only are ‘the sins’ of the believer ‘washed away’, the

state of estrangement occasioned ‘by nature’

is, provisionally, at an end too. In thus contending Bro. J. J. Andrew was quite right.”

 

COMMENT: It is important that we note the words “sinner or no” in these extracts, because the use of these words clearly includes Jesus, the sinless one, in the estrangement and displeasure of God. One would have thought such a conclusion was of itself sufficient to show that there is something wrong with the premises laid down. God is estranged from individuals, and it is foolish to speak of estrangement from “a nature”. But there is more.

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V. JESUS WAS PROVISIONALLY CLEANSED BY CIRCUMCISION.

 

CITATION: “That Jesus, being ‘born of a woman’, was no exception is proved by the fact that, like all other Jews, He was provisionally cleansed from inherited sin by being circumcised, and that His mother offered according to the law for her cleansing (Lev. 12:8, Luke 2:21 to 24).”

 

COMMENT: How could a rite performed on a babe cleanse anything, provisionally or in fact? Human nature with its weakness and mortality, will be cleansed by transformation wrought by the Spirit of God after the resurrection. This mortality is our misfortune and not our fault, as Dr. Thomas said, and it is an outrage on justice to talk of estrangement as a result of something a person cannot help. We shall be cleansed of our mortality by the transforming energy of the Spirit of God when the Lord comes.

 

VI. JESUS WAS LIABLE TO A VIOLENT DEATH BECAUSE HE SHARED OUR NATURE.

 

CITATION: “The plain truth is that any possessor of sinful flesh is liable to pain or death

in any form

. . . this liability is not negatived by a guiltless character . . . His being ‘born of a woman’ rendered Him liable to suffer a violent death.”

 

COMMENT: If death is a punishment, and surely an imposed violent death must be so regarded, then we are now told that the possession of a nature conferred by birth brings a liability for punishment. To what strange ends can theories lead us!

 

VII. BAPTISM IS NOT FOR SINS ONLY.

 

CITATION: “I deny that baptism is only concerned with the washing away of ‘our sins’ and affirm, in harmony with our pioneers, that it also symbolises the crucifixion of ‘our old man’ (the diabolos or sin-nature) ‘with him’ (Jesus), (Rom. 6) and that, therefore, baptism signifies the provisional cancellation of ‘the racial condemnation which we physically inherit’ as well as the forgiveness of ‘our sins’.”

 

COMMENT: Bro. C. C. Walker wrote in 1900: “We believe that in baptism, upon belief of the gospel, God forgives us ‘our sins’ for Christ’s sake, and that the name of Christ was preached among Jews and Gentiles for this express purpose by his express commission: ‘Go ye and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things, whatsoever I have commanded you’ (Matt. 28:19). “Thus it is written and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47). He had forgiven sins himself (Luke 5:20; 7:47). It was ‘thy sins’ in both cases referred to. How could it be otherwise? He taught his disciples to pray, ‘Forgive us our sins’ (Luke 11:4). The Apostolic preaching of his name always had reference to the repentance and remission of the sins of those who heard the word . . . there is no mention of ‘Adamic sin’.”

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ANDREW-ROBERTS’ DEBATE ON J.J. ANDREW’S TEACHING

 

We might go on, but enough has been quoted. We will now quote briefly from the Andrew-Roberts Debate, to show that all this is the same as J. J. Andrew’s teaching.

Bro. Andrew wrote:

 

“Lust being the cause of physical corruption, every member of the race is necessarily the subject of Divine condemnation by reason of its possession; and the removal of this condemnation is requisite before they can ‘have peace with God’ (Rom. 5:1).”

 

“The denial that condemnation in Adam is legally taken away at baptism deprives that ceremony of half its efficacy.”

 

The following questions and answers from the Andrew-Roberts Debate are also relevant. The questions are by J. J. Andrew and the replies by R. Roberts.

 

Q. 100.—The question is not whether a man can sin, but whether he was made or constituted a sinner by the offence of Adam?

 

A.—By Adam’s offence he was brought into such a state of things that his being a sinner was inevitable. That is the fact of the case, and you must harmonise the facts and your maxims.

-------

Q. 106.—Is it necessary for the shedding of blood to take away the sinful condition associated with birth?

 

A.—The object of the shedding of blood was to declare God’s righteousness as the basis of His offer of forgiveness.

-------

Q. 118-125.—Are we not alienated from God before we commit a single wicked work?

 

A.—Not in the same sense.

-------

Q.—Not in the same sense?

 

A.—No. We are members of a sinful stock which will certainly bring forth wicked works left to itself.

-------

Q.—Is it not the sinful condition which we have by nature in itself a cause of alienation from God?

 

A.—The whole human race is in a state of alienation from Him; it can only become reconciled by coming into harmony with Him, and sinful flesh cannot be in harmony with him.

-------

Q.—Is “sinful flesh” in itself the cause of alienation from God, before a single act has been committed?

 

A.—It is the root of the mischief.

-------

Q.—Is it in itself a cause of alienation from God?

 

A.—As we cannot consider the thing in itself, the question cannot be narrowed in that way.

-------

Q.—Why cannot we consider it in itself? Are there not human creatures born who die before they have committed a single act?

 

A.—Yes. They are mere bits of animal organism.

-------

Q.—Were they not in a state of alienation from God at birth?

 

A.—Alienation is only applicable to those who are capable of reconciliation.

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Q.—Is it not applicable to any who are unable to do right or wrong?

 

A.—No. It is a moral relation, not affirmable of an unconscious babe.

-------

Q. 129-138.— Are we not justified from “sin in the flesh” at the same time as from wicked deeds?

 

A.—That is your way of putting it. I put the facts: that God forgives our sins when we are baptised, and takes away sin in the flesh when we are changed.

-------

Q.—In Eph. 2 we read, “And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins”. What do you mean by “trespasses and sins?”

 

A.—Wicked works.

-------

Q.—Does it include “sin in the flesh” or the offence of Adam?

 

A.—Certainly not.

-------

Q.—When it says in the third verse, “Ye were children of wrath”, it does not. of course mean they were children of wrath then, because it is in the past tense?

 

A—Yes.

-------

Q.—Does it mean they were “children of wrath” previously?

 

A.—It means they were “by nature” such as become children of disobedience or wrath, such as sin, such as become transgressors.

-------

Q.—Previous to baptism?

 

A.—Previous to baptism.

-------

Q.—Were they not children of wrath in consequence of their nature?

 

A.—No doubt. I prefer to understand things rather than to jingle phrases.

-------

Q.—It is not a jingling of phrases at all. Are those who possess “sin in the flesh” and have not committed a single wicked thing, children of wrath?

 

A.—It is the sense in which a young serpent would be an object of your repugnance; although it has not power to sting you, it will have by and by if it grows.

-------

Q.—Is it not the subject of anger for its condition then? For its sinful nature?

 

A.—To be angry with a thing for its condition is absurd.

-------

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Q. 146.—But is not “sin in the flesh” in itself the object of divine wrath?

 

A.—It is “sin in the flesh” only in the sense of being that which will lead to sin afterwards. It is the impulse, but kept in subjection, it ceases to be the cause of wrath.

-------

Q. 269.—When it becomes holy is not “sin -in the flesh” which defiled it the subject of justification?

 

A.—No. “Sin in the flesh” is physical; justification from that is by the change that is to come at another stage, viz., at the resurrection. Justification is moral first, physical afterwards.

-------

Q. 280.—Not legally?

 

A.—I do not wish to deal in shadowy terms. I prefer the naked substance of truth. Adam sinned and was condemned, and we as his children inherit the mortality which was the consequence. God does not hold us responsible for what he did, but for our own sins.

-------

Q. 413-415.—Did not that judgment bring condemnation upon all his descendants for his offences?

 

A.—It established a condition of things in which, if posterity ensued, they were necessarily sinners and therefore condemnation became the universal rule, and there can be no remission of that condemnation or forgiveness of sin without a preliminary vindication of God’s authority in the shedding of blood.

-------

Q.—Are they not under condemnation for the offence of Adam before they do anything themselves, right or wrong?

 

A.—They are mortal because of Adam’s sin.

-------

Q.—That is not an answer. Are they not under condemnation for the offence of Adam before they do anything, right or wrong?

 

A.—God condemns no man for Adam’s offence in the individual sense. Condemnation comes through it, which is a very different idea.

-------

Q. 422.—Are they not “children of wrath”, and do they not die under the condemnation under which they are born?

 

A.—They are children who would grow up to be men who would provoke God’s wrath by disobedience if they lived, but as babies the wrath has not begun.

-------

These questions and answers reveal the character of J. J. Andrew’s reasoning and the resemblance between the position of Bro. J. J. Andrew and Bro. __________ is evident.

[Resource Manager]

Extracts-J. J. Andrew’s “The Blood Of Covenant”

 

A few short quotations from Bro. Andrew’s pamphlet The Blood of Covenant confirm this impression.

 

“Sin in the flesh ... is the subject of divine reprobation.” (Page 4.)

 

“Adam’s descendants are ‘made sinners’ (Rom. 5:19) without any exercise on their part.” “Sacrifice is as essential to take away sin in its physical as in its moral aspect.”

 

“Christ only possessed sin physically, not morally, but all who are sprinkled with his blood possess sin in both forms.” (Page 7.)

 

The baptism of those who enter Christ is “a practical confession that they deserved for their ‘sin in the flesh’ and for their ‘wicked works’ a violent death similar to that which was inflicted on Christ”.

 

Abraham “was a sinner by birth and by deed, and needed sacrifice to cover his sin”. (Page 11.)

 

Circumcision showed that the “child was a sinner by birth.” (Page 12.)

 

“The sons of Adam cannot be cleansed from sinful flesh without bloodshedding.” (Page 17.)

 

“Justification from individual sins is necessary as well as justification from the offence of Adam.” (Page 18.)

 

Speaking of circumcision of Jesus: “This was the first act of justification of which Jesus partook. Its effect was to transfer him from the state of condemnation to death under which he was born into the condition described as being ‘alive’”. (Page 23.)

 

“To be justified in God’s sight is impossible for anyone inheriting sin’s nature.” (Page 34.)

 

“Sin in the flesh deserves the same penalty as personal transgression”; and so on with many references to “inherited sin” and justification from it.

 

Further citation is unnecessary… That these ideas were resisted at the time they were advanced is abundantly evident from the discussions in THE CHRISTADELPHIAN in the 1890’s.

 

We believe they are far removed from the plain truths of Scripture, which can be expressed in terms the simplest can understand, whereas contentions along the lines of these extracts, while sometimes having a show of logic, lead to strife about legal abstractions. Those who pursue them live in a fantasy world of words.

 

As Bro. Collyer said in the article we reproduced last month:

 

“Earnest brethren and sisters, anxious to hold the truth, have sometimes been perplexed and almost distracted in the strife of words, beyond their power to understand. The havoc that such strife may cause is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that one of the most capable men we ever had among us, in his efforts for legal logic, ended by teaching justification for sin without faith, and we were all slow to realise the full enormity of the position. I well remember the surprise and even consternation of one of his supporters when he was first shown this feature of the case.”

 

“That men are objects of divine anger because they are flesh,” was described by Bro. Collyer sixty years ago as the most outrageous statement made in the controversy on Adamic condemnation. To that we subscribe. These contentions have also embittered and estranged brethren who could find harmony and co-operation by accepting the facts of Scripture testimony. But when legalistic minds insist on pursuing these mystifying tracks, and condemning all who will not follow them, we can only let them go their own way while we seek the sound paths of Scripture truth.

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REFERENCE TO PIONEER WRITINGS

 

Bro. Carter’s third and final article appeared in THE CHRISTADELPHIAN, November 1958, page 515. In this he quotes extensively from our pioneer writers in support of the doctrinal position he adopted in the first two articles on “THE TRUTH IN AUSTRALIA”.

 

THE TRUTH IN AUSTRALIA

 

- A FURTHER STATEMENT

 

Bro. Carter firstly refers to a letter of rejoinder from Bro. __________ to his “comments” on citations from this brother’s writings. In this letter Bro.__________ gave a series of quotations from THE CHRISTADELPHIAN and other works on the truth to support his views. Bro. Carter then proceeds as follows:

 

What then of his quotations from Dr. Thomas and Bro Roberts? The answer is that in every controversy for the last eighty years, both sides have quoted Dr. Thomas, and in the 1890’s Bro. Roberts’ earlier writings were quoted against himself despite his denial of the inferences which were drawn from his earlier writings.

 

We need not be disturbed at this. It may be admitted that occasionally Dr. Thomas used language that is technical in character and is therefore liable to misuse. We shall show this presently. But that he taught what has been deduced from some of his words we believe can be roundly denied. We all know how (he words of Scripture are cited to prove the immortality of the soul. We have known strange ideas to be expressed by brethren, based upon misused Scripture language. The sentence upon Adam, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” has been used to show that the sweat glands (and other cleansing organs) did not function until Adam had sinned; it has also been cited to prove that Adam was appointed a change of diet after sinning—now he must eat bread.

 

There is real point in the Lord’s question, “How readest thou?” We propose, therefore, to give some quotations in which the very ideas that we understand Bro. —— to teach are controverted, but which, controversy apart, are helpful to a right apprehension of the teaching of Scripture.

 

DEFILEMENT BY TRANSGRESSION

 

The Scriptures teach that all men are sinners, and wickedness has at times been so bad that God has seen that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually (Gen. 6:5).

 

The Lord witnesses to the fact that “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” (Matt. 15:19). He can even interpolate the phrase as axiomatic, “If ye being evil”.

 

The works of the flesh are catalogued by Paul more than once (Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:3; Col. 3:5) and in Rom. 1 his description of the Roman world of his day shows to what depths human nature descends when free from any controlling influence of the Word of God. James says that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust (1:14).

 

Paul gives a personal account of his own conflicts as a man who is “carnal, sold under sin”—not carnal in the sense of being guilty of base sins, but fleshly as all are fleshly. And “SIN” is personified as the owner of men, because they have yielded service to sin. Paul then speaks of these wayward impulses working contrary to his own better desires as “sin that dwelleth in me”.

 

Here Paul uses the word as a metonym for the impulses within, which are sinful and are opposed to God’s will. He uses a series of parallel expressions for these wayward impulses such as “a law—evil present with me,” “the law of sin in my members,” and these parallels make clear what he meant by “sin dwelling in me”. Bro. __________ scoffingly derides this insistence on the use of metonymy, referring to it as a “jingle”, and “the semi-enigmatic terms ‘metonym’, ‘metonymy’, and ‘metonymical’”; but the figure has always been recognised, as we shall see by the quotations to be given.

 

These being the characteristics of the flesh it can be described as “unclean”. Besides having the inherited tendencies to sin we all do one or other of the things which Jesus said “defiles a man”.

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DEATH OUR INHERITANCE

 

In addition to this inheritance of sinfulness man also inherits a dying nature. Paul traces both the sinfulness and the mortality to the fact that “by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

 

He proves that death is an inherited evil by recalling the fact that death reigned from Adam to Moses over men that had not sinned, as Adam had, under a penal code. The Edenic law carried a death penalty for disobedience, and some of the Mosaic laws involved death for disobedience; but we know of no such penal enactments throughout the patriarchal age. Yet death reigned—reigned because death passed through to all men. All men are mortal and all have sinned.

 

ADAMIC CONDEMNATION DEFINED

 

It is at this point where theories of Adamic condemnation and language such as “inherited condemnation” and “inherited wrath” start up confusion and misunderstanding. The phrase “Adamic condemnation” has been used in the Truth’s literature, not as expressive of any personal condemnation derived from our descent from Adam but as a useful description of the inherited mortality that came into the world by the condemnation upon Adam.

It will be sufficient to cite Bro. Roberts’ lecture given in reply to Edward Turney, entitled THE SLAIN LAMB (page 9-10):

 

“It is the person, the individual,

the nature

that is condemned, because it was the person, Adam, that was the sinner. Condemnation in Adam means, therefore, that we are mortal in Adam; mortal in the physical constitution—the organisation. Look at any of us

when we are just newly born

. Why are we mortal at that moment? We have not sinned. Oh, but we sinned in Adam says the same theory. Did we sin in the individual sense in him? How could we sin individually when we did not exist? Paul says No! He says death reigned over them that

had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression

.

 

“Why is it we are mortal, then? In what sense is the sentence of Adam upon us when we are born? Well, we are Adam’s organisation. It is in the organisation that the law of mortality resides. It is in the physical substance that the principle of death is at work. Hence the phrase ‘this corruptible’. If the substance were not corruptible ‘life’ would be ours for ever.”

 

In THE CHRISTADELPHIAN he wrote:

 

“Suffering the Adamic condemnation is a question of physical constitution.” (1874, page 233), also again in the same year, “This mortality is our condemnation in Adam.”

 

ON ADAMIC NATURE

 

But let us hear Dr. Thomas. Speaking of Adam and Eve, he says:

 

“But when they adopted the Serpent’s reasonings as their own, these being at variance with the truth, caused an enmity against it in their thinkings, which is equivalent to ‘enmity against God’. When their sin was perfected, the propensities, or lusts, having been inflamed, became ‘a law in their members’; and because it was implanted in their flesh by transgression, it is styled ‘the law of sin’; and death being the wages of sin, it is also termed, ‘the law of sin and death’; but by philosophy, ‘the law of nature’.”

 

Then in an oft-quoted passage he says:

 

“The word sin is used in two principal acceptations in the scriptures: It signifies in the first place ‘

the transgression of law

’; and in the next it represents that physical principle of the animal nature, which is the cause of all its diseases, death, and resolution into dust. It is that in the flesh ‘

which has the power of death

’; and it is called sin because the development, or fixation, of this evil in the flesh was the result of transgression.

 

“Inasmuch as this evil principle pervades every part of the flesh, the animal nature is styled ‘sinful flesh’, that is,

flesh full of sin

; so that sin, in the sacred style, came to stand for the substance called

man

. In human flesh ‘dwelleth no good thing’; and all the evil a man does is the result of this principle dwelling in him. Operating upon the brain, it excites the ‘propensities’ and sets the ‘intellect’ and ‘sentiments’ to work. The propensities are blind, and so are the intellect and sentiments in a purely natural state; when, therefore, the latter operate under the sole impulse of the propensities, ‘the understanding is darkened through ignorance, because of the blindness of the heart’. The nature of the lower animals is as full of this physical evil principle as the nature of man; though it cannot be styled sin with the same expressiveness; because it does not possess them as a result of their own transgression; the name, however, does not alter the nature of the thing.” (Elpis Israel.)

[Resource Manager]

DR. THOMAS ON “CONSTITUTION”

 

In the same section Dr. Thomas draws out the figure of “Constitution”—that men are born citizens of Satan’s kingdom, as a man is born a British or American citizen. In this context he makes a much abused remark that “Children are born sinners because they are born of sinful flesh” to which he adds: “This is a misfortune and not a crime.”

 

In the same section he speaks of “men not only being made or constituted sinners by the disobedience of Adam, but they become sinners even as he by actual transgression.” The last sentence of the quotation concerning the lower animals is usually quietly ignored.

 

This phrase “constituted sinners” was misused both in the controversies of the ‘70’s and also the ‘90’s. In June 1874, Bro. Roberts wrote:

 

“Only perversity would suppress the word ‘constitutional’, and allege that the Christadelphians teach Christ to have been a sinner,” and he added, “Finally, I do not teach that Christ was a sinner by birth or any other means: this is your misrepresentation. I believe he inherited in his flesh the result of Adam’s sin, as we do; not that he was a sinner himself… And here I add, for the sake of a few who are wondering what the phrase ‘constitutional sinner’ means, as once or twice employed by Dr. Thomas in reference to Christ; it means that he stood related to a sin-constitution of things—a state of things arising out of sin; without being himself a committer of sin. Sorrow arises out of sin; and he was a man of sorrow. Pain (among men) arises out of sin, and he suffered pain. Weakness arises from sin, and he was ‘crucified through weakness’. Mortality (among men) is the result of sin, and he was mortal, requiring to be saved from death (Heb. 5:7), and bringing life by his obedience (Rom. 5).

 

“Into this state of things he was introduced as we are introduced, in being born of a sinful woman. This is the sense of the phrase ‘a constitutional sinner’.”

 

In 1894 the following was written by Bro. F. G. Jannaway:

 

“An effort is then put forth to make Dr. Thomas endorse ‘the idea of imputing

the sin of Adam to helpless babes

’, by quoting the following remarks from THE REVEALED MYSTERY: ‘All mankind are born of corruptible parents into

a state of sin

. By this natural birth they become members of this sinful and evil state, and heirs of its disabilities. By virtue of this birth they are

constituted sinners

’.

 

“It would have been well if it had been noticed that Dr. Thomas uses this word

constituted

as Bro. Roberts uses it,

as a verb

, and not as an adjective. The doctor reveals his mind in further explaining the term thus—’that is, they were endowed with a nature like his (Adam’s), which had become unclean as the result of disobedience’, and he distinctly states, ‘

not

because they were

responsible

transgressors’.

 

“Yet some are now contending that we require forgiving for that for which we are not responsible. The word of God teaches that we need

forgiving our own sins and redeeming from our vile bodies

(both of which are traceable to Adam’s offence, but which is a different thing from our being held guilty of that offence).

 

“Then some speak ‘of “

inherited wrath of God

”, from which “

we are at baptism delivered

”.’ This has been correctly described as jargon. Speak as the oracles of God. Bible deliverance from Adamic inheritance is future. Thus Paul exclaimed, ‘Who

shall

deliver me?’ when speaking of the state into which he was born.

 

“‘

By nature children of wrath

.’ True! But what does Paul mean? Does he mean that- God is angry with us as soon as we are born? The very text in which the phrase occurs excludes such an unreasonable doctrine (Eph. 2:3). He speaks of ‘lusts of the flesh’, ‘desires of the flesh’, ‘desires of the mind’, ‘conversation in times past’, ‘

wherein we walked

’, ‘the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience’, all of which have to do with nature, but which require action superadded.

 

“Of all sin it may truly be said, ‘it is our nature so to do’. We are truly ‘by nature children of wrath’, but it is wrath against evil-doing; any other wrath is inconceivable.”

 

On this Bro. Roberts commented: “Bro. Jannaway has sufficiently answered the suggestion that Dr. Thomas in his phrases ‘constituted sinners’, ‘state of sin’, etc., harmonises with the contention now raised, that God ‘imputes’ the sin of Adam to his descendants.

 

“It is pretty much a strife of words in the way the thing is argued. Test the thing by its commonsense application, and the true state of the case must appear. If you impute an offence to a man, of course you can charge him with it. Imagine yourself charged by God or man with eating the forbidden fruit in Eden. Would not your understanding be outraged? Is it necessary to say, ‘You never did eat of the fruit; that you weren’t there to eat’? Adam ate; Adam sinned; Adam was condemned to death; Adam was driven out into a state of evil because of sin; you have been born into that state, or constitution of things, sharing his very being in all its relations, and therefore may be described as constitutional members of a sinful state, alias constituted sinners, that is, men helplessly made subject to a state of sin, from which you cannot by your own will deliver yourself.

 

“This is intelligible enough, and all that Dr. Thomas meant, or could mean by his definitions. To talk of ‘imputing sin’, is to confuse our understanding with an unscriptural conception. ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin,’ that is, to whom the Lord will not impute his own sin, but will forgive him his sins: the idea of imputing someone else’s sins to him is foreign alike to the Scriptures and commonsense.”

[Resource Manager]

ONLY SIN CAN ALIENATE

 

Our relationship to Adam is physical; we share the evil and mortality that belongs to him. But that physical inheritance is our misfortune; we cannot help it, and we are not to blame for it.

 

We are not alienated from God because we possess this flesh which is mortal, but because we sin and so become alienated by wicked works. Bro. __________ pinpoints this as the issue: his own repeated phrase “sinner or no” fixes his view that the possession of the flesh alienates. (See quotations August CHRISTADELPHIAN, page 374). On that view Jesus was alienated and it is here where the falsity of the teaching becomes evident. This has been discerned in previous controversies.

 

For example in 1874 (page 526), Bro. Roberts wrote:

 

“Was Jesus born under condemnation? Answer: In the scriptural sense of hereditary condemnation, the answer is, yes; but this requires to be fenced against the misunderstanding natural to the terms employed. Condemnation, in its individual application, implies displeasure, which cannot be affirmed of Jesus, who was the beloved of the Father. But no one is born under condemnation in its individual application. That is, no one is condemned as an individual till his actions as an individual call for it.

 

“But hereditary condemnation is not a matter of displeasure, but of misfortune. The displeasure of wrath arises afterwards, when the men so born work unrighteousness. This unrighteousness they doubtless work ‘by nature’, and are, therefore, by nature, children of wrath—that is, by nature, they are such as evoke wrath by unrighteousness.

 

“It was here that Jesus differed from all men. Though born under the hereditary law of mortality, as his mission required, his relation to the Father, as the Son of God, exempted him from the uncontrolled subjection to unrighteousness.”

 

In the LAW OF MOSES, Bro. Roberts quotes the following from another brother:

 

“We are forgiven and shall be saved for Christ’s sake, he required no forgiveness… Christ was undefiled in mind, absolutely pure, therefore he required no cleansing as pertaining to the conscience at baptism, for

there never was a moment in his life when God was displeased with him

; he always did and said what pleased the Father. He only required cleansing in nature which was done after resurrection.”

 

JESUS SHARED OUR NATURE

 

At the same time it was rightly insisted that Jesus shared our nature with its sorrows and temptations, but always overcame every trial. As Bro. Roberts wrote (1875, page 376):

 

“He was a sufferer from the hereditary effects of sin; for these effects are physical effects. Death is a physical law in our members implanted there through sin ages ago, and handed down from generation to generation. Consequently, partaking our physical nature, he partook of this, and his own deliverance (as ‘Christ the first fruits’) was as necessary as that of his brethren. In fact, if Christ had not first been saved from death (Heb. 5:7), if he had not first obtained eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12), there would have been no hope for us, for we obtain salvation only through what he has accomplished in himself, of which we become heirs by union with him. He overcomes and we share his victory, by uniting with him, if he at the judgment seat permit.”

[Resource Manager]

CAN ALL “SIN IN ADAM”?

 

Our next quotation concerns the phrase “In Adam all sinned”. This is based upon the A.V. translation of Rom. 5:12, “in whom all sinned”. A footnote to ELPIS ISRAEL for half a century has pointed out that this translation cannot be sustained. But if it is insisted upon, what does the phrase mean? Here Bro. Roberts answers (1873, page 409):

 

“The words ‘in him (Adam) all sinned’ (Rom. 5:12), only amount to ‘as I may so say’, as in the case of Levi said to have paid tithes (or more properly, ‘to have been tithed’) in the loins of his father Abraham (Heb. 7:10). He says (verse 9) ‘As I may so say, Levi did so and so’. That is, in an indirect sense, not to be practically pressed. Our sinning in Adam can be made to mean nothing more than that from him we were destined to be generated, and that his act affected our state when we should appear. But this is not the meaning of ‘sin’, when we come to discuss ‘sin’ as affecting individual destiny.

 

“Using the term in its correct sense, Paul expressly isolates Adam’s descendants from Adam’s sin. He says: ‘Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them who had NOT SINNED AFTER THE SIMILITUDE OF ADAM’S TRANSGRESSION’ (Rom. 5:14). The point of his argument is that ‘through the offence of ONE many are dead’, who sinned not after the similitude of that offence being no ‘parties to the transaction’, and not being ‘in at the job’, to use phrases whose allusion will be understood; but that the glory of God’s grace is to release penitent and reforming offenders from many offences through the righteousness of ONE.

 

“The new argument destroys this beautiful fact by huddling the millions of Adam’s race all into one Edenic offender, and making them all ‘parties to the transaction’… Adam’s descendents have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression; but are his companions only in the sense of being heirs of the consequences of his act; among whom was Jesus, who, however, being the begotten of God in the channel of those consequences, could annul them, in the bearing of them into a grave that God could open because of his holiness.”

[Resource Manager]

SIN IN THE FLESH

 

The phrase “sin in the flesh” has always provoked contention. The argument of Edward Turney was that “the life” was condemned.

 

This is really absurd, for it separates the life from the individual. It treats of something which is only an abstraction separated from the man.

 

It was Adam who sinned; it was Adam who was condemned; it was the dust formed organisation that was sentenced to return to the ground. It was the physical man that sustained such changes as brought shame and fear and a defiled conscience, a defilement which then became, in Dr. Thomas’ word, “corporeal”. But the opposite error is now being taught. “Sin” used by metonymy for the fleshly impulses, is now being separated from the individual and is being made of itself a reason for alienation and estrangement.

 

Man is an entity; a man sustains a relationship to God by his acts; he sins and is alienated; he is forgiven and is reconciled. Moral terms are wrongly given an application to the flesh when “the flesh” is considered as separable from the individual as a whole.

 

In 1874 (page 88) Bro. Roberts answered the question, “What do you mean by ‘sin in the flesh’, which some speak of as a fixed principle?”

 

“Answer: Job speaking of ‘man that is born of woman’, says ‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?’ and David, by the Spirit, says, in Psalm 51:5: ‘Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.’ Furthermore, the annual atonement under the law (Lev. 16) was appointed ‘even for the holy place’, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, besides their ‘transgressions in all their sins’ (verse 16). ‘Sin in the flesh,’ which is Paul’s phrase, refers to the same thing. It is also what Paul calls ‘Sin that dwelleth in me’ (Rom. 7:17), adding, ‘I know that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing’.

 

“Now, what is this element called ‘uncleanness’, ‘sin’, ‘iniquity’, etc.?

The difficulty experienced by some in the solution of this question, arises from a disregard of the secondary use of terms

. Knowing that sin is the act of transgression, they read ‘act of transgression’ every time they see the term sin,

ignoring the fact that there is a metonymy in the use of all words which apply even to sin.

 

“Suppose a similar treatment of the word DEATH. Primarily, death means the state to which a living man is reduced— when his life ceases. Now we read of one of the sons of the prophets saying, ‘there is death in the pot’. Does this mean there was a corpse in the pot? No, but that which makes a corpse of any living man. ‘Death’ literally meant ‘that which: would lead to death’. Again ‘death hath passed upon all men’, means the condition that leads to death. So, ‘let the dead bury their dead’, means, ‘Let those who are destined to be numbered with the dead, bury those who are actually dead’. ‘Past from death unto life’, means ‘Passed from that relation that ends in death, to that which leads to life’.

 

“

A disregard for metonymy and ellipsis in such statements, has led to most of the errors of the apostacy

; and is leading some back to them who had escaped.

 

“There is a principle, element, or peculiarity in our constitution (it matters not how you word it) which leads to the decay of the strongest or the healthiest. Its implantation came by sin, for death came by sin; and the infliction of death and the implantation of this peculiarity are synonymous things.”

 

In 1873 (page 447) he has also written:

 

“Adam was driven out of Eden because of disobedience; He was therefore thrown back upon himself, so to speak, and he soon found in himself and his progeny how weak and evil a thing the flesh is, for his first son was a murderer. And because disobedience or sin, was the cause of his expulsion, and that sin was the result of the desires of the flesh, and because all the desires that are natural to the flesh organisation are because of native ignorance, in directions forbidden, there is no exaggeration, no high figure in talking of sin in the flesh.

 

“It is Paul’s figure. He speaks of ‘sin that dwelleth in me’, and as he defines me to be ‘my flesh’, sin that dwelleth in me is ‘sin in the flesh’ — a metonym for those impulses which are native to the flesh, while knowledge of God and of duty is not native to the flesh.”

[Resource Manager]

SIN AS IT AFFECTED JESUS

 

In 1875 (page 375) he says concerning Jesus:

 

“He was a sufferer from the effects of sin in all the items of weakness, labour, pain, sorrow, death; and in this sense (as a partaker with us of the effects

of sin) has been described as a constitutional sinner, or one subject to a sin-constitution of things. But

as this phrase gives occasion to disingenuous cavil, it is well to discard the phrase and look at the meaning, which has been stated.

 

“As a sufferer from the effects of sin, he had himself to be delivered from those effects; and as the mode of deliverance was by death on the cross, that death was for himself first, not for sins of his own committing, but for deliverance from the (effect of the) sin of Adam from which he suffered in common with his brethren, and from the sins of his brethren which were laid upon him.”

 

“BY NATURE CHILDREN OF WRATH”

 

We come now to the phrase “by nature children of wrath” which is always called into service in connection with what is virtually the importing of responsibility for “original sin”.

 

The phrase has been mentioned in a previous quotation. It was discussed in the DEBATE as quoted in the August CHRISTADELPHIAN, page 375; in 1873 (page 554) Bro. Roberts wrote:

 

“The case of his brethren was much different. They were ‘dead in trespasses and sins’ (Eph. 2:1). It was not merely that they were mortal because descended from Adam, but they were ‘alienated and enemies in their minds by wicked works’ (Col;1:21). They were among the children of DISOBEDIENCE; ‘Among whom,’ says Paul, ‘we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind’ (Eph. 2:3). It was this (to which they are prone by nature) that constituted them the children of wrath, even as others; for ‘the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ (Rom. 1:18). The wrath of God is not revealed toward us because Adam sinned (as the Apostacy and Renunciationism teach),

but because we ourselves transgress

. Believers were all at one time subject to this wrath, because as Paul further says, ‘We ourselves also were sometime foolish, DISOBEDIENT, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another’.” (Titus 3:3.)

“The most conspicuous feature of the goodness of God toward us in the gospel is in the forgiveness of these ‘many offences’ (Rom. 5:16). Our hereditary mortality would have been a trivial obstacle if we ourselves had been found righteous before God. It was our iniquities that separated us from God. Hence the glory of the gospel in the proclamation of the remission of these, in the belief and obedience of the gospel of His son.”

 

The battle of quotations could be continued indefinitely but although we could parallel those from the earlier controversy (1873-4) with others from the later disputes (1894-5-6) we do not propose to continue the discussion.

 

The extracts quoted above are clear: they were written to refute the very ideas now being imposed as the correct interpretation of the STATEMENT OF FAITH, and which it would appear are being endorsed by the ‘minority’ in Great Britain, who have separated with the cry of purity of doctrine, and now espouse old errors which have twice been overthrown.

[Resource Manager]

CONCLUSION

 

The reunion effected some five years ago was not a capricious action but the result of years of effort by brethren having deep conviction of the truth and love of the brotherhood. The faults and misunderstandings of some 50 years of division were not overcome in a moment.

 

Our heartfelt thanks should go out to those brethren who laboured so patiently to bring about a better understanding amongst brethren and sisters. Particularly do we acknowledge our great indebtedness to Bro. John Carter for the wealth of understanding and patience he brought to bear upon the problems concerning reunion in Australia.

 

The benefits and fruits of this reunion have been so precious that all brethren and sisters are urged not only to familiarise themselves with the history of reunion and the basis upon which it was effected, but to realise their individual responsibility to do all in their power to preserve the blessings of this reunion.

 

Purity of doctrine is essential, but above all, the Truth must reach the heart and engage the affections. Brethren are urged to avoid the mistakes of the past, to avoid personalities and discord in the body (1 Cor. 12:20); to cease from all evil speaking, slander, enmity, strife, dissentions, party spirit, base suspicions, morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words, all of which things are works of the flesh that destroy unity and harmony, and will exclude from the Kingdom of God. [1 Pet. 2:1; Gal. 5:19-21 (R.S.V.); 1 Tim. 6:3-5 (R.S.V.).]

 

We exhort brethren everywhere to have a deeper appreciation of the blessings of reunion, to maintain the spirit of Christ amongst us and to excel in those lovely fruits of the spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23 R.S.V.; Eph. 4; 1 Cor. 13 R.S.V.).

 

It is our sincere prayer that each brother and sister may ever seek the wellbeing of the brotherhood in love (Rom. 14:19, Phil. 2:4, 1 John 3:14-19; 1 Peter 1:22, John 13:34), and may it please the Father to guide us in the way of all Truth and to bless all our efforts to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”.

 

INDEX TO SUBJECTS

 

Included in the attached file

 

INDEX TO SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

 

Included in the attached file

 

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