“Redemption in Christ Jesus” was written to refute the Renunicationist Clean Flesh beliefs of the Nazarene fellowship who renounced Christadelphian beliefs on the atonement with Edward Turney. Many of the arguments in this book are applicable to Shield Clean Flesh even though there are differences.

Redemption in Christ Jesus, 1946, W. F. Barling

“2. The Death By Sin”

In Gen. 2: 17 a law is declared. We are now familiar with the two rival interpretations of it:

A’s—that it threatens Adam with summary execution on the day of his crime.

B’s—that it condemns Adam to become a dying, or mortal, creature from that day onward.

Whichever view a man adopts is bound to determine his understanding of at least two passages of New Testament Scripture. Firstly, Romans 5: 12 must read either (a) By one man sin entered into the world, and violent death by sin ; or, (b) By one man sin entered into the world, and mortality by sin. Similarly, 1 Corinthians 15 : 21 means either: (a) By man came violent death ; or, (b) By man came mortality .

It is therefore clear that in appealing to the Word we must seek other pronouncements on this subject which are not susceptible in this way of double interpretation. In any theory, the facts of the O.T. and the observations of the New must integrate perfectly, and the theory itself, to be sound, must harmonize with both in every detail.

The O. T. Facts

The O.T. evidence is compressed into the third chapter of Genesis. There three events occur: (1) Adam transgresses; (2) God pronounces curse; (3) God offers Adam escape from the consequences of transgression.

The order is most significant: (1) Sin occurs; (2) Sin is punished; (3) Salvation from its effects is offered.

If it is denied that the curses enforce the declared law of Gen. 2: 17 , then they must either be additional to it, or instead of it. Yet nowhere in Scripture are we told that punishment was inflicted on Adam in addition to, or instead of, that decreed. Moreover, if (as asserted by A) Adam’s typical redemption absolved him from all consequence of guilt, then it is a foregone conclusion that all idea of punishment (whether additional, or alternative) is excluded altogether. The curses were therefore either not a punishment at all, or the actual punishment incurred by the law of Gen. 2: 17 . The text makes it perfectly clear that the first opinion cannot be correct, for the serpent was cursed because he beguiled Eve, and the ground was cursed because Adam ate of the Tree. The curses must, therefore, have been the direct consequence of the first transgression. Sin and curse were cause and effect. The decree of Gen. 2: 17 declared the end of Adam’s sin to be certain death; the curses declared the means which God introduced to accomplish that end. Expressed simply, the decree threatened punishment and the curses inflicted it. In the very day ( Gen. 3: 8 ) that Adam ate of the Tree he was sentenced to return to the ground. He thus “surely died” that day as really as childless Abraham became a father of many nations on the very day that God promised to multiply him exceedingly. In each case the divine intention was immutable, so that events yet to happen were already declared to be accomplished facts. Similarly Paul “died” ( Rom. 7: 9 ) and Sin “slew” him (v. 11 ) the moment he first transgressed a commandment, but the sentence and punishment were not simultaneous. On the same principle God, though He is the God of the living and not of the dead, could legitimately call Himself, at the Bush, the God of three deceased patriarchs. For these men, though in fact dead, as subjects of assured resurrection all lived unto Him ( Luke 20 : 37–8 ). In contrast, Adam, though still allowed to live until ( Gen. 3: 19 ) he returned to the ground, was in effect destined to return to it the moment he transgressed.

The design of the chapter is in itself significant. The serpent tempted: Eve yielded: Adam participated (verses 1–6 ). Next, Adam blamed Eve (verse 12 ), who, in turn blamed the serpent (verse 13 ). God then dealt with each in turn, making all three subject to new experiences.

a. The serpent (verses 14–15 ). He was sentenced to go upon his belly and dust was to be his meat. These words may be metaphorical, but they are also literal, and the sentence affected him physiologically.

b. Eve (verse 16 ). In sorrow was she to bring forth children. The joy of motherhood was to be preceded by the bodily sorrow and anguish of travail ( John 16: 21 ). She too, was affected physiologically by the sentence.

c. Adam (verses 17–19 ). The prohibition and penalty were originally communicated to him alone ( Gen. 2 : 16–18 ). Thus appropriately, it was to him that the consequences of transgression were revealed in detail. The earth was to bring forth thorns and thistles; he was to eat bread in the sweat of his face. For the first time his return to the ground was mentioned. Thus, in his case also, God’s sentence was physiological in its effects.

It is fundamental to the Nazarene theory to deny that Adam’s transgression produced any physical effect. It is said to have altered only Adam’s position in law, while his typical redemption is stated to have restored him to his original relationship legally with God. To such a notion, however, there are fatal objections in the text of this chapter.

Through eating of the Tree (verse 6–7 ), Adam and Eve came to possess a knowledge of good and evil whereby they became both aware and ashamed of their physical nudity. This knowledge remaining with them till death, is proof that their sin was of permanent moral effect. Their sin had also permanent legal consequences. It is of especial significance that it was after the provision of the skin covering that Adam was formally denied access to the Tree of Life and expelled from the Garden (verses 21–24 ). Such expulsion can in no way accord with the Nazarene concept of redemption, for, if exactly what Adam forfeited was restored to him, he ought to have remained in the Garden with all his former privileges. If it is argued in reply that “Adam could not live in Eden after sin entered, because the debt had to be paid” an insoluble logical problem arises. Why should a typical sacrifice (which left the true debt still unpaid) suffice to restore Adam’s free possession of life, yet not permit him to live that life in the Garden, as before? Should the reply then be that all which Adam actually forfeited was his free possession of life and not his tenancy of the Garden, the curses have still to be explained. These, as we have seen, affected Adam and Eve physically. If Eve would, regardless of transgression, have experienced agony in childbirth, God’s words to her, “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children”, would have been meaningless. But they were far from meaningless: they were, for herself, and her female posterity, the consequences of her sin. The words of God to Adam must also be of the same significance. The record informs the reader of Adam’s nature—that he was formed of dust, and taken out of the ground ( Gen. 2: 7 ). But no question of his return to the earth arose until he sinned. Here again, if he was, regardless of transgression, destined to return to dust, God’s pronouncement is robbed of all its point and purpose as an expression of displeasure: it becomes merely gratuitous. A respect for the structure of the chapter, however, makes it clear that God’s words to Adam were intended to reveal to him the physical effect, for himself, and his posterity, of his sin.

In no sense, therefore, was Adam restored to his original status, either legal, moral, or physical, when redemption was offered to him typically in the skin covering.

The N.T. Comments

The N.T. gives the significance of the skin covering. Adam set the law of sin and death in operation; God in His mercy, instituted the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. In a whole series of antitheses the N.T. contrasts the effect of Adam’s sin with that of Christ’s obedience. Two familiar examples might be given.

1. By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ( 1 Cor. 15 : 21 ).

2. As sin hath reigned unto death, so might grace reign unto eternal life ( Rom. 5:21 ).

Here are touchstones by which to test the rival interpretations of Genesis 2: 17 . Both schools of thought accept the first clause, believing that by Adam came death, and that due to him sin reigned unto death: but they differ in their conception of that death. If the second clause is, however, accepted candidly as the antithesis of the first, the very contrast requires that in each case the term “death” should mean that which takes a man inevitably to the grave.

1. The statement “by man came violent death” demands as an antithesis, “by man came absolution from violent death”, and so precludes the very mention of “resurrection” which is what the Apostle contrasts with “death”. In view of the O.T. evidence just examined, resurrection is indeed all that Paul could so contrast with the “death” which came by Adam. Resurrection is emergence, not exemption, from the tomb. Thus the antithesis which sets resurrection (or revival from physical death) in contrast with “death”, attaches to that term but one possible meaning—physical death as a consequence of the sentence of mortality which eventually brings life to an end.

2. Old and New Testaments integrate similarly in the second antithesis. Sin and grace are personified as monarchs, the one reigning unto death, the other unto eternal life. The exercise of divine grace was only required by the entry of sin into the world. Thus the operation of grace has nothing to do in Paul’s argument with the supposed natural death to which Adam was liable before transgression. In consequence, grace is seen to entail much more than the mere restoration of life to one who had lost his legal right to it. Grace bestows eternal life, not legal possession of life in a corruptible body—a life which knows no death, not a life which is interrupted by the inevitable occurrence of “death through physical exhaustion”. “Not as the offence so is the free gift . . . where sin abounded , grace did much more abound : that as sin hath reigned unto death so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” ( Rom. 5: 20 , 21 ). This is not the terminology of the pawnshop: there is no mention here of the restoration to the owner of the identical possession which was lost, but rather of the bestowal of a new and greater gift. This is consistent with the third chapter of Genesis. The decree of Gen. 2: 17 was immutable. By it Adam was sentenced to return to the ground out of which he was taken; but when the divine decree was thus upheld in the sentence passed, redemption was offered typically in the skin-covering. That covering, with all it signified, was the means whereby God justified the ungodly. “David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered ” ( Rom. 4 : 5–8 ). Thus where Adam brought curse through sin, Christ brought blessing through obedience.

This great truth charges either Scriptures with meaning. Men through fear of death are all their lifetime subject to bondage. Theirs is not the bondage of legal death, but the fear of that which, soon or late, terminates every human life, namely the death which came by Adam. But to those of them who accept Christ as the Resurrection and the Life, salvation from it is available. For through his death he can deliver men from their fear of death ( Heb. 2 : 14–15 ). His is the task of swallowing up death in victory. That task will be complete when those who come forth from their graves, unto the resurrection of life ( John 5 : 28–29 ), are clothed upon with their “house which is from heaven . . . that mortality might be swallowed up of life” ( 2 Cor. 5–1–4 ). For those whose mortal shall then have put on immortality, death will have lost its sting, and the grave its victory ( 1 Cor. 15 : 53–55 ). Ultimately this will be true of all, when death itself—the last enemy—is destroyed (v. 26 ). Death was no enemy of Adam’s until his sin introduced it into the world. God made him a living creature: his sin made him a dying creature. If he were a dying creature regardless of transgression, then an experience which would in any case have befallen him became an enemy to him only because he was due to undergo it violently some nine hundred years earlier than if he had remained obedient. But the testimony of Scripture is too precise for any to accept such a conclusion. The death which all humans die (decease in the grave) is assuredly that over which God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. His redemptive work will be consummated when “there shall be no more death” ( Rev. 21: 4 ), for the obvious reason that there will be “no more curse” ( Rev. 22: 3 ).

Thus, in their common witness that Adam brought death through mortality into the world, the Old and New Testaments integrate perfectly. The theory which ignores this must clearly be false.