The Christadelphian, January 1876, Robert Roberts

“Alleged Contradiction”

JW.A. asks us to “reconcile” the following statements which he alleges to be in contradiction of one another.

First Statement (Christadelphian, Oct. 1873, p. 442.)

“If there had been a Jew who kept the law in all things, having done the will of the Father from the beginning of life, he would have been in the very same position as the Lord Jesus himself; it would then have been in his power by dying to cleanse himself from the Adamic condemnation, and his righteousness would have caused his resurrection from the dead. . . . Death purifies him from hereditary condemnation.”

Second Statement (Christadelphian, Nov. 1875, p. 520.)

“Though redeemed by the first (the moral), we are by the second (the physical), under the actual dominion of death until incorruptibility is conferred, and if a man before then died twenty times, he would no more be paying ‘the claims of sin’ twenty times over than in the case of twenty attacks of toothache. The claims of the case exist as long as we are mortal, and we shall continue mortal until the time arrives for God to seal His grace to us in the great change, and when that time arrives, it matters not whether we are living or dead.”.

The contradiction supposed to exist between these two extracts is thus expressed by our correspondent. “Some time ago you had been learning I presume, as well as ‘watching’ for twenty-one years, and had learnt that a man by dying would cleanse himself from the Adamic condemnation, but when you have been learning for twenty-three years, you have learnt that death will not cleanse him, but that he remains unchanged until God shall do the work by bringing about the great change after the judgment.”

It is an unpleasant thing for a writer to discuss whether he has contradicted himself or not, and an unprofitable thing for those who may read. But when the cry of “contradiction” is raised to the detriment of the truth, it may be necessary to take notice of it.

We allege then that there is no contradiction in the case. and that the phrase “reconcile” is inappropriate to the process of demonstrating this. The two propositions, as any one may see at a glance, relate to two different cases; the first, to a suppositious case of a man not sinning; the second to those who have sinned, but are forgiven through Christ. That which might be true in the first case is not necessarily true in the second.

But even if the propositions both applied to the same case, there is an absence of contradiction when the terms are properly understood. That they are not understood by W.A. is evident from his implied paraphrase of “cleanse” as used in the first extract by the word “change” (physical). We did not use the word with this meaning. Doubtless, the word cleanse, as a figurative expression, is a little ambiguous, and gives room for misunderstanding on the part of those who do not candidly and patiently consider all the explanations that have been given, which any one is bound to do, who so confidently and scornfully alleges the existence of contradiction. The word “cleanse” was used in the sense of being delivered from the defiling sentence in the way God’s honour required, viz., by being carried out. It was not used in the sense of the removal of physical blemish in the living person: in that sense, death would be a strange mode of cleansing: cure a mortal man of his mortality by killing him! Immortalization is the physical cleansing; but there is a cleansing which can only be effected by death, and this “cleansing” is defined in the very paragraph which is supposed to contradict it. The language is this: (Christadelphian, Nov. 1875, p. 520,) “In the moral sense—that is, so far as the requirements of God’s authority are concerned, one occurrence of death completes the vindication of the law in question, or is all that is necessary for it.” To put the matter briefly, we hold at the end of twenty-three years as we held at the end of twenty-one, first, that apart from Christ, a perfectly righteous man, (if there had been such a man) could not have been cleansed or delivered from the condemnation that has passed upon all men, without dying; secondly, that Christ having died and risen, those who have identified themselves with the condemnation that has been accomplished in him (in being baptized into his death,) do not need to die so far as the mind of God towards them is required, but die only because the time has not arrived for the change of their physical constitution.

The cry of “contradiction” is usually due to a misunderstanding of what is written, or to an only partial acquaintance with a subject having many bearings, and requiring long thought and deep reverential study towards God. It is of course a trial of patience that it should be freely alleged; but we endure it in the knowledge that the accusation has no foundation in truth, and that on the contrary, what has been written is in harmony one part with another, notwithstanding an occasional appearance to the contrary.

The matters explained above have often, in one form or other, been the subject of explanation within the last two years. On this ground we stated last month that the question (though relating to a recent appearance of “contradiction”) had been answered many times. This statement we repeat in the sense in which we made a similar observation to a correspondent in the Christadelphian for April, 1875, page 186; and we do not consider that in making this statement we lay ourselves open to the insinuation of partial falsehood at the hands of reasonable men.

The Christadelphian, April 1875, Robert Roberts

Redemption The Work of God

H.H.K.—The question you have asked has been many times answered in the Christadelphian during the last two years. God was the father of Jesus because the work to be done was to be a work of God and not of man, and because also it was a work that no man could do. If Joseph had been the father of Jesus, Jesus would have been a “mere man,” and like all other mere men, a transgressor, and therefore one whose sacrifice must have ended in the grave. It required the divine impress on the seed of David to qualify Jesus to be a sinless bearer of the condemnation of the world. Thus he was “of God made unto us righteousness.” Thus it is that his name Yah-hoshua is fulfilled. God saves by Christ. God was in Christ. Christ was God manifested in the flesh, that the world’s redemption might be the Father’s own action. This glorious result could not have been realised if Joseph had been the father of Jesus. As for the suggestion that the object was to free him from the very condemnation he came to bear, it is self-condemned. Had that been the purpose in view, he would not have been born of a human mother, but would have been brought into existence outside the human race altogether.