The Christadelphian, January 1874, Robert Roberts

The Brazen Serpent

J.S.—The brazen serpent was but a type. A type is not an exact representation, but a shadowing forth of some general feature of the thing represented. The brass placed on the top of the pole was first worked into the shape of one of the serpents that bit the children of Israel, to intimate (though that generation did not understand the intimation) that the deliverance of man from the death-bite of sin was to be effected by impaling on a cross the nature that had inflicted this bite—or to use the words of Paul, “condemning sin in the flesh:” “destroying through death that having the power of death.” It would not have been suitable to have placed a living serpent on the pole; for this would have intimated that the deliverer was to be an actual transgressor: an impossibility. His sinlessness was the great necessity: his participation of the condemned nature was the next necessity. The first is signified by the lifelessness of the brass: the second by the serpent-shape of the metal.

The Christadelphian, February 1874, Robert Roberts

“Renunciationism”

Under this general heading, we group the following items, which though properly “Answers to Correspondents,” may be more conveniently placed by themselves.

Did Jesus Partake of the Memorial Supper?

(W.H.)—Jesus “gave thanks” for the bread (1 Cor. 11:24) and the cup.—(Matt. 26:27.) Why should he give thanks if he were not to partake? When handing the cup to his disciples, he said, “I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until the day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”—(Mark 14:25.) Why should he say “no more” if he had not drunk at all? Is not 1 Cor. 11:25, an express intimation that he did partake? “After the same manner also, the cup when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Testament, &c.” With what appropriateness can it be called “the Lord’s Supper” (verse 20) if the Lord did not sup?

Why should he not partake of his own supper for which he gave thanks?”

The bread represented his body, and the wine his blood. Is not the personal Messiah part of the one body represented by the “one bread?”—(1 Cor. 10:17.) Is he not the head? and is not the head the principal part of the body? Why should a doubt be raised? Because, presumably, Renunciationism perceives that if the Lord partook of the emblems of his own sacrifice, it is an intimation that he was himself comprehended in the operation and effects of that sacrifice, which is, in fact, the case.

But whatever doubt may be raised with regard to the breaking of bread, none can exist with regard to his eating the passover: “Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? . . . With desire I have desired to eat the passover with you before I suffer.”—(Luke 22:11, 15.) Now, let the significance of the passover be considered: “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”—(1 Cor. 5:7.) Christ ate lamb’s flesh, representing himself. What is the conclusion? That as an individual he was saved from death (Heb. 5:7) by the anti-typical passover which God, through him, provided. The conclusion based upon his participation in the breaking of bread, is of less weight than that which follows from his undisputed eating of the passover with his disciples.

“No Contradiction”

“You said in 1869 that there was no change in Adam’s nature at the time he transgressed. Now you seem to say there was; I see in the same article (1869) you speak of condemnation ‘running in the blood,’ which looks like the same position you take now. Does not the threat, ‘dying thou shalt die,’ show that Adam was dying?”—(E.C.)

Answer.—Is there any difference in nature between a man in a state of health and a man dying of small pox? No. Both men have the same nature, but it is the same nature in differeut states. So Adam before and after transgression was the same nature, but in two different states—the second state being expressed by the word mortal or subject to death, which is not affirmable of the first. The sentence of death became a physical law of his being; hence it has passed on us who are derived from him. Its passing on us would be incomprehensible on any other principle. God’s sentences are carried out differently from man’s, who has no power beyond mechanical acts. When God decrees death, “we have the sentence of death in ourselves” (2 Cor. 1:9) as Paul expresses it. It is a law “working in our members.” When man decrees death, he has to carry it out with rope or guillotine. This difference has to be kept in view. We bear “the image of the earthy” in its second or condemned state, in which it became “heir” to “ills” unknown to the first. Hence the proverb. When the Dr. speaks of “nature unchanged taking its course,” he means nature unchanged into the spiritual body. He does not mean that the law of death, inoperative before, did not set in. He does not contradict himself. The glib assertion that he does only indicates the superficial thinking of the speaker. “Dying, thou shalt die” is a Hebraism not to be understood according to the English idiom. It occurs in the description of many other acts: e.g., “living thou shalt live;” “running thou shalt run;” “hearing, thou shalt hear,” &c., &c. It expresses both the act and the result as future to the time of speaking. Hence, when it was said to Adam, “dying thou shalt die,” it amounted to an intimation that the “dying” would not commence until transgression. No one having understanding of the Hebrew idiom would suggest that it meant he was dying.

Jesus Made a Curse

“The apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 12:3, says that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed; yet in Gal. 3:12, he says that Jesus was made a curse for us; will you please explain what he means by the one in Cor.”—(C.F.)

Answer.—The explanation is to be found in the difference between the two words used by Paul in the two places referred to. They are not the same. In 1 Cor. 12:3, the word is αναθεμα, which means dedicated or devoted to evil: cut off for that destiny. In Gal. 3. the word is καταρα, which means a curse proceeding from any source without reference to final effects. Certain classes of Jews and Gentiles held that Jesus, as a felon (which they supposed him to be from the mode of his execution) was an accursed man in the absolute sense; whose end on the cross showed that his miracles and excellent precepts were a delusion, and that he himself was a vile person, given over to everlasting infamy. Some known at Corinth, claiming to be inspired, held this doctrine; and Paul in the verse referred to at once disposes of their case, by saying that no one speaking by the Spirit could hold such a view.

But this is no interference with Paul’s own doctrine (Gal 3:13), that in being hung on the cross, Jesus came, by the will of the Father, under the curse of the law, that he might redeem those who were under that curse by their disobedience. We speak by the Spirit in saying that, in this sense, Jesus was accursed; for it is the Spirit that has said: “He that hangeth on a tree is accursed of God.” We join not the Corinthian blasphemers who said Jesus was dedicated or devoted to evil. In Paul’s letters, notwithstanding occasional appearances to the contrary, there is no contradiction.

“Except a Corn of Wheat,” &c

In Jerusalem, at the Feast of the Passover, some Greeks (Jews or proselytes) having intimated to Jesus, through Andrew and Philip, that they wished to see him, Jesus said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”—(John 12:24.) This is held to teach the Renunciationist Heresy that Jesus was not a mortal man, but might, without dying, have entered eternal life alone. A consideration of the circumstances under which the saying was uttered, and the things said in the immediate context on the same occasion, will show the fallacy of this contention. The words are parabolic, which will not be denied; and, therefore, must be interpreted in harmony with what the Lord plainly taught on the subject supposed to be treated of. The occasion of the utterance was the inquisitive approach of those who wished to look at him in the light of his well-known claim to be the Messiah. The popular conception of that claim led the people to suppose—like the Renunciationists—that the man truthfully making it would never die (verse 34), and would be manifested at once in kingly glory. Christ’s visitors, without doubt, entertained this idea. He, therefore, at once, meets their premature expectations by uttering the parable in question. The question is, What is the application of the parable to him? He himself gives it in the very next words he spoke: “He that loveth his life shall lose it: and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”—(verse 25.) So far from teaching that he was an exception, he includes himself in the rules of probation to which all stood related. These rules required them to make nothing of the present life except as a means of attaining to the life to come. The way the one is to be used to lead to the other he illustrates by the corn of wheat, which, if it be not sacrificed, will not produce increase. “Much fruit” is the parable; eternal life is the meaning. “A corn of wheat” is the parable; the present life is the meaning. The one must be used to produce the other. Every man shall reap as he sows—bountifully, sparingly, or nothing, according to the sowing.

But suppose we interpret the parable as applying to Christ exclusively, the Renunciationist Heresy is nothing profited thereby. On the contrary, it is destroyed. For, according to that interpretation, the corn of wheat is the natural man Christ, the earthy corruptible flesh-and-blood Son of David, who, as flesh and blood, was incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God.—(1 Cor. 15:50.) Now, except this corn of wheat die, it must remain what it is; for we all know that to be the fact. A grain unsown remains a grain; any change being that of corruption. Therefore, according to this application, apart from death, Christ must have remained an unglorified, corruptible, natural man—an unchanged corn of wheat, which, in process of time, would turn to corruption. What does this prove but the truth?—that as a partaker of our common uncleanness, he had himself to be delivered by obedience, death, and resurrection, apart from which, he must remain a corruptible unproductive “corn of wheat.”

Sin in the Flesh

“What do you mean by ‘sin in the flesh,’ which some speak of as a fixed principle?”—(C.F.)

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 what Paul also 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,” &c.? 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.” “Passed from death unto life,” means, “Passed from that relation that ends in death, to that which leads to life.” Adisregard of 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. God’s sentences are not carried out by hangmen’s ropes and executioners’ axes, but by the inworking of His appointed law. Because the invisible, constitutional, physical inworking of death in us came by sin, that inworking is termed sin. It is a principle of uncleanness and corruption and weakness—the word and experience conjoining in this testimony. For this reason, it is morally operative: for whatever affects the physical, affects the moral. If no counterforce were brought into play, its presence would subject us to the uncontrolled dominion of disobedience, through the constitutional weakness and impulse to sin. The enlightenment of the truth helps us to keep the body under. Still we are not thereby emancipated. Our experience answers to Paul, and leads us to sympathise exactly with his exclamation, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death.” The body of the Lord Jesus was this same unclean nature in the hand of the Father, that deliverance might be effected by God on His own principles and to His own glory. Condemnation has been called a cage; and it has been asked how one prisoner can liberate another? The answer is that God never allows His locks to be forced or His prisoners to be unlawfully set free. The doors must be opened legitimately, and the opening of the prison must be for a reason among the prisoners as in the closing. God accepts no compromise. He provided a prisoner furnished with the key of obedience who could open the door for all who should name themselves after Him.

“The Law Weak Through the Flesh”

Paul says that God by Christ has done “that which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh.” It is suggested that “the flesh” in this sentence is a periphrasis for the sacrifices offered under the law of Moses. This cannot but be characterised as an extraordinary suggestion, indicative of radical unsoundness in the theory requiring it to be made. While the phrase “the flesh” occurs about seventy times as (beyond cavil) expressive of human nature in its moral tendencies and resources, not once is it employed to define generically the institution of animal sacrifice. That a phrase always used to mean human nature is in a solitary instance to be taken to mean beast nature, is so inherently improbable as to require something exceptionally forcible in the way of proof. The search for proof will dissipate the suggestion entirely. For the phrase is used a second time in the same verse, and has only to be read in the way suggested to make its utter absurdity manifest. Thus: “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh of slain beasts, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh of slain beasts!”

Then we look at the suggestion in its general relations and find the same evidence of fallacy. For what does Paul’s statement amount to but this, that the law would have been strong but for the medium of its operation being weak: in that it was weak through the flesh.’ The Law was one thing: the flesh another. If we suppose the flesh means the sacrifices, remembering that the sacrifices were a part of the law, we are asked to imagine that Paul meant to say that the law was weak through itself! And then we are forced to suppose that the law would not have been weak if the sacrifices had not formed an element of it; that it would have been strong to give eternal life if there had been no need, by transgression, for sacrifice: a supposition partly true, but rejected by those who suggest that “the flesh” means sacrifices. Discarding the most absurd exegesis proposed, and interpreting Paul’s statement in the light of the evident meaning of “the flesh” as alluding to human nature in its unaided moral resources, it becomes intelligible Its meaning cannot be more intelligibly stated than in the words used by himself in the same context, “The commandment which was ordained unto life, I found to be unto death. For sin (that dwelleth in me—v. 17), taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and by it, slew me.”—(Rom. 7:10–11.) The inability of the flesh to perfectly comply with the commandments of God was the source of the law’s weakness. If the flesh had been equal to obedience, life would have come by it. This is conclusively evident when we ask how has life come? Is it not by the obedience of one?—(Rom. 5:19.) Obedience to what? To the commandments of God. Does it matter what those commandments are? No. The principle is the same in one or a hundred statutes: in abstaining from forbidden fruit or keeping a feast enjoined. Did not the law form a portion, and the major portion, of the commandments to which Jesus was subject? This cannot be denied in view of the fact that Christ was “made under the law.” His obedience opened the way; and it was obedience rendered “under the law,” and hence all the blessings of the law centered in Christ, who, dying under the law, was, after his resurrection, “the end of the law for righteousness to every one believing in him.”—(Rom. 10:4.) Thus, in the preaching of him, the righteousness of God without the law was manifested (Rom. 3:21), but it was a righteousness developed under the law; for Jesus was born and obedient under the law. He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.”—(Matt. 5:17.) The law would have been “destroyed” if it had been left out of the process by which he “of God, was made unto us righteousness,” &c.—(1 Cor. 1:30.) The flesh did not and could not keep the law: Jesus did, but he was not the flesh, “merely.” He was God manifest in the flesh (the mode of which we need not trouble ourselves with), that the work might be of God and the glory to Him. Thus, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God (did) sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (made of a woman, made under the law—Gal. 4:4), and on account of sin, condemned (by his crucifixion) sin in the flesh (that sinned in Adam, whose mortal effects were present in the flesh of Jesus who was thus made sin for us who knew no sin).

This is an appropriate place to introduce the letter of a correspondent who, though never tainted with Renunciationism, held somewhat aloof from the arguments submitted on behalf of the truth, on the ground that (as it appeared to him) wrong positions were taken and contradictions perpetrated, in which both Dr. Thomas and the Editor were involved—but the latter more than the former. He writes:

“I am glad to state that by further examination of God’s abstruse book, I have been brought to the conclusion that it is true that the law could have saved, had it not been for the fact that “the flesh” of no man (Christ excepted) could keep it. I was brought to this conclusion from the following passages:

Rom. 3:19–23: “Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference, for all (Jew and Gentile) have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Rom. 7:10–13: “And the commandment which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me and, by it, slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.”

Rom. 8:3, 4: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.”

Rom. 2:13: “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”

Lev. 18:5: “Ye shall, therefore, keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the Lord.”

Nehemiah 9:29: “Thou testifiedst against them, that Thou mightest bring them again into Thy law, yet they dealt proudly and hearkened not unto Thy commandments, but sinned against Thy judgments—which if a man do he shall even live in them—and withdrew the shoulder and hardened their neck, and would not hear.”

Ezek. 22:11–13, 21: “I gave them my statutes and showed them my judgments, which if a man do he shall even live in them. Moreover, also, I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my Sabbaths they greatly polluted . . They walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them.”

Prov. 4:4: “He taught me also and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words; keep my commandments and live.”

Luke 10:25–28: “And behold a certain lawyer stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? . . . This do and Thou shalt live.”

Gal. 3:12: “The law is not of faith, but the man that doeth them shall live in them.”

Rom. 10:5: Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth these things shall live by them.

I care nothing about being wrong myself, but I should have been very sorry if it could be proved that either you or the poor old Dr. was at fault.

I also see that all men are appointed unto death (Heb. 9:27–28), but, nevertheless that God does not punish the child for the father’s sin (Ezek. 18:20), so that dying “in Adam” would not keep us in the grave “eternally,” if we ourselves were righteous.

I am glad that I have at last seen, and been able to renounce all Renunciationist absurdities. For although I rejected it as a whole from the first, nevertheless there were a few things, and very few, that appeared to me to be plausible, and I thought I would embrace them until such time as I could prove them. But they led me into all sorts of erroneous conclusions: “The weakness of the flesh,” being the last that bothered me, and it led me into extra errors. So after bothering my brains both day and night, for a space, I have profited nothing, for it has left me in statu quo.”—(John Martin, Plymouth.)

The Christadelphian, May 1874, Robert Roberts

Did Jesus Die as a Substitute

M.L.S.—Jesus did not die as our substitute, but as our representative. Had he died as our substitute, his resurrection would not only have been unnecessary, but would have been excluded, because the death which we had to die was a death without resurrection. Jesus died as one of us, for he was of the same physical nature with ourselves, as Paul abundantly testifies. He was the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16), not “of the seed” of Abraham, as the latest quibble has it. He partook of the same flesh and blood as the children—(Heb. 2:14–17.) Consequently what is affirmed of the physical nature of his brethren was affirmable of him in the days of his flesh: body dead because of sin (Rom. 8:10), sentence of death in ourselves (2 Cor. 1:9), waiting for the redemption of the body (Rom. 8:23), a vile body (Phil. 3:21) a weak, corruptible, dishonourable, natural body.—(1 Cor. 15:42–44.) That feature of his case which distinguished him from us was, that he was God at work in our nature. The object of this was that the work might be God’s—that the glory might be to Him. The result of the work was a man without sin morally, though suffering the consequences of sin physically, in whose death and resurrection the law of sin and death was annulled. To him, God asks all men to look to be saved. Their sins are forgiven for his sake, if they repent; they have eternal life if they recognise the vindication of God’s law in him. To use the words of Paul (Rom. 3:25, 26), “God hath sent him forth to be a propitiation for our sins, through faith in his blood.” Why was the blood shed? “To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, ” “that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” The forbearance of God is the great feature of the case. If the death of Christ had been as a substitute, there would have been no “forbearance” in letting the others go free. When a debt is paid, there is no forbearance in exempting the original debtor. But God forgives our sins through His forbearance, not because he obtained satisfaction in the death of Christ in the sense of a substitute, but because in him, his righteousness was declared; in his death his way towards men was upheld, his despised authority vindicated; and the way open for him to be gracious without compromise to all identifying themselves with this righteousness in baptism into the name of the crucified and risen representative. But you say: “the two Adams were two federal heads; all sinned in one and all died in the other.” You say this to exempt Christ from the operation of his own death. Do you not see that your argument proves the reverse? Was not the first Adam personally included in the results that came on us; and if there is to be a parallel, the second Adam must be personally included in what he underwent and accomplished. But in point of fact, there is a mistake made about Paul’s use of the word “Adam” in relation to Christ. He is constantly understood to apply it to him in the days of his flesh, whereas the context will show it is applied to him in his glorified state. He is the second Adam now in the matter of giving life, after having vanquished the death that came by the first. As we get death from Adam, we get life from Christ, but not from the weak and suffering and dying Christ of 1,800 years ago, but from the Christ exalted to heaven in his state of victory over death—in that state, in which having died unto sin once, death hath no more dominion over him (Rom. 6:10), in the state in which he is now: in which, being our life, when he appears, we appear with him in glory.—(Col. 3:4.) But though connected with him as to individual destiny, the saints are not yet free from hereditary condemnation. They are free from the individual condemnation that will be pronounced on those who come in contact with the light but prefer the darkness.—(John 3:19.) That is, it is not in store for them. They are delivered from it in the remission of their sins, but it is yet true that the body is dead because of sin (Rom. 8:10); that the body requires redemption (ib. 23) being vile, dishonourable, and corruptible, and deathful, because being the image of sinful Adam.—(Phil. 3:20; 1 Cor. 15:42–50.) They do not obtain the physical results of their transfer from Adam to Christ till the appointed “marriage” with the Lamb, in the transformation of their vile body into conformity with the body of his glory.

Sinning Without Law

“I draw from a portion of your reply to a question put, the idea that all men are in some sense related to Divine law, the transgression of which makes subject to the wrath of God, and the undergoing of which would be violent death. Where this is implied in fewest words, is in the quotation, ‘Believers were all at one time subject to this wrath,’ referring (as I understand it) to Gentiles as well as Jews, previous to their saving connection with the One Faith.’ This idea of general law appears to me to be reasonable, in view of the fact that the present generation of believers are Gentiles by nature, and which, if not related to law prior to contact with the truth, they had no sins to be forgiven or obedient connection with the truth; because we read ‘Where no law is, there is no transgression.’ But then again I am met with a difficulty on coming across the words ‘For as many as have sinned without law.’ The question then may be briefly put this way: To what law are Gentiles related previous to belief of and obedience to the truth? Explain in connection with this Rom. 2:2, which teaches that some are without law and yet sin, and Rom. 4:14, that where no law is there is no transgression.”—(J.G.)

Answer.—After Adam was expelled from Eden, we find Abel offering sacrifice. This is proof that a new law was established towards Adam and his children, after the transgression and death-sentence in the garden. To this law they and their descendants were related, either as transgressors or sons of God—(Gen. 6:1). Hence, when all flesh had corrupted God’s way on earth, while they were in the full swing of their own pleasures—“eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” the flood came and took them all away. The law thus avenged was continued through Noah and his sons, as evidenced by the sacrifice after the flood, and the covenant with Noah. Shem, Ham and Japheth were three federal heads, through whom it came to bear on all the world. Melchizedek is an instance of righteous conformity to it: Sodom and Gomorrah and the seven nations of Canaan, instances of departure and transgression. In subsequent times, the departure was so wide-spread and complete, that “times of ignorance” came to be the order of the day everywhere. At these “times of ignorance” God winked, not because men were not wicked, but because in their situation they were helpless. Ancestrally related to His law, they were personally without it. Hence though sinners, or doers of those things which God had anciently commanded not to be done, so far as they were concerned, they were sinners without law, since they were personally in the dark concerning the law. In this is to be found the solution of the apparent paradox that while there can be no transgression without law, the Gentiles are sinners who have not the law. All men who transgress what was enjoined on the descendants of Noah are sinners, though they may not know it. They are children of wrath, since “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men.”—(Rom. 1:18.) But because they sin without law, in not standing personally related to the law, whose breach constitutes sin, God, who is not unjust, suffers them to perish without holding them personally and wrathfully responsible to a law of which they were ignorant.

Christ and His Death

E.N.—Your advice to “read and think over the gospel by John” is good. We have done so many times, but not with the result of believing that the body of Jesus was in any respect different from that of David and our own. If you admit his body was the same as ours (as those who have misled you profess to admit), you are bound to admit the following things respecting it: that it was dead because of sin, because ours is (Rom. 8:10); that it was vile, because ours is (Phil. 3:21); that it was mortal, because ours is (1 Cor. 15:53); that it was unclean, because all born of women are (Job 14:4; Ps. 51:5); that it had the sentence of death in itself, because Paul’s had (2 Cor. 1:9), the reason of all which was, that it was produced exactly as ours is, in being made and born of a sinful woman. These conclusions do not in any way conflict with the discourses of Christ in John. He truly said his flesh was the bread come down from heaven to give life to the world; but you must not fall into the mistake of many of his disciples, who supposed he meant there was some virtue in his flesh in a physical sense, and that his flesh had to be really eaten. Christ corrected their mistake, saying, “It is the Spirit that maketh alive; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are life.”—(Jno. 6:63.) The Spirit was the Saviour: God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” The words that Christ spoke concerning this mystery of love and wisdom were the food to be eaten. As the mystery related to the manifestation of God in the flesh, the words related to the flesh, and, therefore, were in parable spoken of as the flesh; but the flesh in itself was profitless, except as an ingredient in the Spirit’s work of salvation. To be an efficacious ingredient in this work, it required to be and was “the same” flesh. God’s plan required the sinful flesh to be offered in the person of a sinless wearer of it, whom He only could produce by the manifestation of Himself therein. In this way He sent forth His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and on account of sin, condemned sin in the flesh. If you call his flesh “holy flesh,” you are with the antichrists of John’s day, against whom he specially warned the brethren. But you lay special stress on Christ saying, “I am the resurrection and the life” You say none under sentence of death could use such language. All depends upon the sense you attach to “sentence of death.” If you mean personal condemnation on account of personal sin, no doubt your remark is true, but as no one believes such a thing concerning Christ, this cannot be your meaning The mortality we inherit from Adam is what is contended for as Christ’s inheritance from his mother equally with our own. If this is what you mean by being “under sentence of death,” then your remark is by no means obviously true, but in presence of the facts, becomes obviously untrue. If the saying, “I am the resurrection and the life,” meant that the person uttering it required to be one that should not die, your remark might be worthy of consideration; but seeing it was uttered by one who did die afterwards, the case stands the other way. This dying on his part was no accident; it was a matter of purpose on the part of the Father who sent Jesus. Does it matter how you express the enunciation of this purpose—whether by the words “sentence,” “appointment,” “will,” “requirement,” or “decree?” As a fact which you must admit, death was before him; yet he could say, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Hence your assertion, that no one so situated could use such language, becomes self-evidently untrue. The fact is, that no one except one in that situation could use such language; for only one bearing our condemnation could be made righteousness and resurrection-life to us. That he was in himself spotlessly righteous—God’s holy one in a moral sense—did not alter the fact that he was in our mortal nature. The purpose of God to nullify our mortality in him (that we might afterwards in union with him obtain redemption) required the two things: that he should have our sentence on him, but that he should be perfectly holy in a moral sense. The one was the remedy for the other. The sentence was required for his death; his righteousness for his resurrection. Such a combination could only be produced in the way recorded in Luke 1:35. Your other assertion that no one under sentence of death can redeem those who are under sentence of death, is equally without scriptural foundation. It is true in human law but not in divine. God’s ways are not as man’s ways. In this, God was the redeemer, and the facts show that in doing the work He required a righteous one to come under the sentence in the very way we come under it. God brought His beloved under our death for the declaration of His righteousness, that His forbearance might be extended to us in the remission of our sins, without danger of boasting on our part.—(See Rom. 3:25, 26.) God forgives us for Christ’s sake (Eph. 4:32). Therefore, by a figure of speech, we are said to be washed in his blood, and our sins said to have been laid on him.