The Christadelphian January 1905, C.C. Walker

“Adam, Mortality and Defilement”

Answers to Correspondents

Adam and Mortality

What relation did the first man sustain to mortality and immortality?

Answer.—That of a candidate for the one or the other. If obedient to the law, he would obtain the right to eat of the tree of life, and live for ever (Gen. 3:22; Rev. 22:14). If disobedient he would incur the penalty of the law, which consigned him to the dust from whence he was taken (Gen. 2:17: 3:19).

Having come under the penalty of the law, when did it begin to take effect?

Answer.—After he had given account of himself at the judgment which sat upon his case, and sentence of death was pronounced upon him.

What is death?

Answer.—The cessation of the life of an earthy body. (The foregoing are by Dr. Thomas—Catechesis, p. 9).

Mortal: The Meaning of the Term

What is the meaning of the term mortal?

Answer.—Mortal is from the Latin Mortalis, and means “subject to death, destined to die” (Century Dictionary).

But that is the conventional meaning. What is the New Testament usage of the term “mortal”?

Answer.—The New Testament usage is strictly in harmony with the foregoing. The word in the Greek is Thnetos, which is defined in the Lexicon as “mortal, obnoxious to death.” The following are all the occurrences of the word in the New Testament:

Rom. 6:12.—“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” This is a death stricken body “subject to death” and not merely capable of death.

Rom. 8:11.—“He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.” Here, again, they are sinful, death-stricken bodies, and not merely bodies capable of death.

1 Cor. 15:53–4.—“This mortal” is bracketted by Paul with “this corruptible” body, of which we have only too much practical experience.

2 Cor. 4:11.—“Our mortal flesh” parallel with “earthen vessels.”

2 Cor. 5:4.—“That the mortal (mortality, A.V.) might be swallowed up of life.” This is by physical transformation after judgment at Christ’s coming.

These are all the occurrences of the word in the New Testament, and it always and only means “subject to death.”

Flesh Defiled by Transgression

Was Adam’s body defiled by transgression? Can flesh be defiled by transgression?

Answer.—Most certainly. As regards Adam, it was evident in the shame and fear, and in the covering of his nakedness. Before transgression he knew no evil; afterwards he knew nothing but sorrow and toil until his condemned body returned to the dust, whence it was taken. Nothing is plainer in the Scriptures than the fact that sin’s flesh is defiling and defiled. The law of Moses was specially designed to inculcate this lesson. The Israelites were forbidden to defile themselves by eating of forbidden animals (Lev. 11:44). Lev. 15. is very convincing as to the uncleanness of the flesh. Concerning all its ordinances, which touched the life of every Israelite, it is said (5:31), “Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, that they die not in their uncleanness when they defile my tabernacle that is among them.” So again, in Lev. 18:20–27, “Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things, for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you, and the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.”

In Israel there was no question about the defilement of the flesh by transgression. The flesh itself was regarded as unclean, and the law enforced the lesson continually, as Paul argues convincingly in Rom. 7. In the New Testament, Jude 8 speaks of “filthy dreamers who defile the flesh and despise dominion,” and Paul says, in 1 Cor. 12:17, “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” Adam defiled the temple of God, and God destroyed him. After his transgression he was, in apostolic phraseology, a “body of death” (Rom. 7:24). He had the “sentence of death in himself” (compare 2 Cor. 1:9). And all who have descended from him are said to have been “shapen in iniquity” (Psa. 51:5). And not only does David use this expression, but another preeminently righteous man, Job, asks, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” and answers, “Not one” (Job 14:4). There is no room in the divine economy for the notion that sin’s flesh is a clean thing.

Jesus “Separate from Sinners”

What is meant by the expression “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26)? Does it refer to the nature of Christ? If not, to what does it refer?

Answer.—It cannot refer to the nature of Christ, for that was human nature. “He was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), and “he bare our sins in his own body” (1 Pet. 2:24). He was “undefiled” in character but not in nature, and he was separate from sinners, or more correctly, “separated from sinners” (see R.V.) when he was raised from the dead and made “higher than the heavens” in the ascent to the right hand of the majesty on high.

Calling Jesus Accursed (1 Cor. 12:3)

What does Paul mean when he says, “No man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed”?

Answer.—He is speaking, not of the position of brethren who, like himself, believed that Jesus took part of flesh and blood, but of the necessity of discerning the spirits, that the brethren might be delivered from false teachers (compare 1 Jno. 4:1–2). Jewish philosophy, pointing to the fact that Jesus was “hanged on a tree” (in crucifixion), declared him “accursed,” with the apparent sanction of the law (Deut. 21:23). Whereas, of course, the fact is related to the purpose of God in a way altogether opposed to that philosophy, as Paul beautifully explains in Gal 3:13: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” So then the law did curse Jesus, but, of course, Jesus is not now “anathema, ” but is exalted to the Father’s right hand. This was the thing which the seducing spirits at Corinth would not allow.

“The Precious Blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:19)

In what sense is it said that the blood of Christ is “precious”?

Answer.—Not in the physical sense, for it was the same blood as his mother’s. The preciousness consisted in the spotlessness of the Lamb of God, which is Peter’s explanation in the same verse (1 Pet. 1:19). The blood of Christ was the only blood of all the race which did not energise a man to transgress. Being poured out in sacrifice in obedience to the command of the Father it was precious, and redeemed both Jesus and his brethren (Heb. 9:12).

Treading under Foot the Son of God (Heb. 10:29)

What is meant by this, and by the expression “counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing”?

Answer.—Where Paul speaks in Heb. 10:29 of some who “count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing,” he is speaking not of those who believe that Jesus came in the flesh, but of those who “sin wilfully after receiving a knowledge of the truth.” It is a “despising” of the law of Christ, “forsaking the assembly,” and “drawing back unto perdition.”