“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

“4. The Death on the Cross”

On Calvary Christ “became obedient unto death”. In so doing he submitted to a particular form of death, “even the death of the Cross” ( Phil. 2: 8 ). Members of the Nazarene Fellowship are quick to attach their own significance to this fact. Believing that Adam incurred violent death yet did not experience it, and observing that Christ experienced it whereas he did not incur it, they conclude that on the Cross Jesus voluntarily suffered violent death as Adam’s substitute.

This substitution theory is specious but unsound. Moreover, it is inadequate, since it omits to indicate why crucifixion was the particular form of violent death “determined before” of God ( Acts 4: 28 ). While affecting to explain the manner of Christ’s death ( John 18 : 31–32 ), it leaves the true significance of that death unmentioned, since it overlooks the fact that the mere violence of his sinless offering did not in itself accomplish man’s redemption. This fact is implicit in the gospel records. The Jews purposed to hurl Jesus over the precipice at Nazareth ( Luke 4: 29 , 30 ), and endeavoured to stone him in Jerusalem ( John 8: 59 ). Both forms of death would have been violent, yet, on each occasion Jesus exercised miraculous powers to escape the anger of the mob. Why? Because “his hour was not yet come”. Divine power was still at his command in Gethsemane, but on this occasion there was a new circumstance affecting the course of events; this was the “hour” of his enemies ( Luke 22: 53 ). If now he procured legions of angels to protect him, how could the Scriptures be fulfilled? ( Matt. 26 : 50–56 ). In obedience to those Scriptures he has to submit not merely to violent death as such, but to violent death on a cross, and in Gethsemane the appointed “hour” was at hand (verse 45 ). The angry multitude had before endeavoured to kill him and shed his blood, but not in the way decreed. Only when circumstances were favourable was he “delivered by the determinate counsel of God” so that he should be taken and by wicked hands be “crucified” ( Acts 2: 23 ).

Thus it is clear that in the divine purpose there was some special significance in violent death by crucifixion, not possessed by those other forms of violent death from which God preserved him. It is in this respect that the Nazarene theory of redemption is inadequate as well as unsound, since it does not recognize the moral principles which were operative in the Crucifixion. For if the procedure of ransom demanded merely a life for a life, a violent death for a violent death, why had Jesus to be crucified, not merely executed? Our Lord’s own words at once answer this question and stultify the legal theory. “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” ( John 3 : 14–15 ).

The parallelism is striking.

(a) As the brazen serpent was impaled and “lifted up” on a stake ( Num. 21 : 6–9 ), so was Jesus ( John 12 : 33–35 ).

(b) As those mortally bitten in the wilderness, beholding the serpent on the pole, were saved from death, so those mortally bitten by Sin, beholding the Cross, are saved from perishing.

Does the parallelism end there? Is the character of the life-giving serpent of no significance too? Most assuredly; for where the fiery serpent was actively venomous and destructive, the brazen serpent was impotent and harmless, not destroying men’s lives but saving them. As such, though in form a replica of the very enemy that brought death by its bite, it became a source of recovery to those who beheld it in faith. Thus,

(c) As the impaled serpent was a harmless symbol of Sin, so the crucified Jesus was a sinless bearer of our serpent-nature.

This third parallelism gives point to the symbolism of crucifixion as employed by Paul.

1. “Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed” ( Rom. 6: 6 ).

Here again the parallelism is significant. We die symbolically as Christ died physically—but in each case the death is “to Sin” (verse 2 ; verse 10 ). Our “old man” is figuratively crucified in baptism, as Christ’s body was literally nailed to the tree. But can we stop short at this point? Acknowledging that “the body of sin” is destroyed in our case, can we deny that the same was true of Jesus? If, in our case, it is destroyed in figure , does it not follow that in his case it was destroyed in fact ? To assert then that Christ’s body was not “a possession of sin”, because he was born “free”, destroys the parallelism, whereas to assert that he bore our sinful, condemned nature preserves it.

2. “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” ( Gal. 5: 24 ).

Our Lord experienced crucifixion literally, believers undergo it symbolically. The principle involved, however, is the same in each case; the affections and lusts which are natural to human flesh (due to Adam’s sin) are denied and crucified by the believer, as they were repudiated finally by Jesus on the Cross. Expressing the same idea in different language, Paul says, “If ye mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” ( Rom. 8: 13 ).

3. “Put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts” ( Eph. 4: 22 ).

Employing the past tense Paul tells the Colossians, “Ye have put off the old man with his deeds” ( Col. 3: 9 ). His two statements are clearly complementary. Baptism is a summary act, discipleship a continuous process, of crucifixion. The one destroys the body of sin ceremonially, the other does so in a moral sense. The Apostle is again concerned with deeds, not with legal status only. The old man is corrupt, for his lusts are deceitful and his deeds evil. If “the old man” were merely a figurative expression for a man’s past state of legal alienation, Paul’s additional mention of “lusts” and “deeds” would be pointless, since these would then not necessarily be evil, as the case of Cornelius proves ( Acts 10 : 1–4 ). But such mention assumes its true significance when “the old man” is correctly understood to be our sinful nature, which needs both to be redeemed and brought into subjection.

4. “Ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism” ( Col. 2 : 11–12 ).

The Crucifixion reiterated the principle of circumcision. Circumcision was a physical ordinance, a cutting off of literal flesh, but as such its virtue was nil unless the person circumcised perceived its import, realized that the surgical act entailed a cutting off of fleshly desires on his part. Circumcision in the real sense, therefore, was not “that which is outward in the flesh . . . but of the heart” ( Rom. 2 : 28–29 ). Thus for a believer, the circumcision of Christ (or burial with Christ in baptism) is not a mere legal device whereby he changes masters, but a renunciation of his body prone by nature to sin.

The significance of the Cross emerges clearly in the light of such passages.

(a) As death, and no more, the Crucifixion represented the mortification of a sinful nature, the cutting off of human flesh (which is a body of sin in the case both of sinners and the sinless).

(b) As a “lifting-up” (in which respect it differed fundamentally from stoning) it declared those principles in an open and prominent manner.

(c) As a violent, premature death it was a voluntary and deliberate submission by Jesus to this public declaration of principles in his own crucified body.

Expressed briefly, the Crucifixion was “the judgment of this world”; it demonstrated conspicuously that “the prince of this world” was “cast out”, that is, that “Sin, in the flesh,” was being publicly condemned and nullified. For this cause came Jesus “to that hour” (John 12 : 27–33).

The death of the two malefactors could not accomplish the same purpose, even though they shared the inheritance of a sinful nature with Jesus. Crucifixion in their case was the outcome of sinfulness, but in his case it terminated a life of sinlessness. Such sinlessness was essential in a sacrifice intended to justify men, or declare them righteous. Thus when he “bore our sins in his own body on the tree” ( 1 Pet. 2 : 24 ), he did so effectually only because he was without moral spot and blemish ( 1 : 19 ). As Paul expresses it, God “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” ( 2 Cor. 5 : 21 ).

The Nazarene contention that Jesus was not made “Sin”, but “a sin-offering”, destroys the antithetical balance of this verse. Men naturally know no righteousness, but are “ made righteousness ” when they identify themselves with Jesus. Similarly, because of the identity existing between him and them on account of a common sinful nature, he who knew no sin was “ made Sin ”. That is, God in His mercy, accepted Christ’s “body of sin” as represesentative of all other human flesh, in which Sin dwells. So though Christ died on a literal Cross where we need not (a difference of experience which the Nazarene Fellowship misuses and magnifies into a rigid theory of substitution), yet nevertheless we are “crucified with him”. He represented us, for if he were our substitute we could not be “buried with him”. This he did because “sin, in the flesh” (the cause), which in all others has led to transgression (the effect), was in his person regarded by God as representative of men’s iniquities. Thus when death dissolved Christ’s association with the cause of iniquity, it simultaneously dissolved the association with their iniquities of those in him; it enabled them to be made free from the law of sin and death. As he rose from the dead exempt from all association with Sin, they rise ceremonially to a newness of life in him.

It follows that Christ’s death possessed an efficacy for himself also. This the Apostle establishes by an interpretation of the Tabernacle ritual. Atonement has to be made for the altar, “to cleanse it and hallow it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel” ( Lev. 16 : 18–19 ). Atonement had similarly to be made for the other vessels of the Tabernacle, and even for the Tabernacle itself (verse 16 ), because it was in the midst of uncleanness ( Heb. 9: 21 ). Thus where moral sin did not exist, uncleanness necessitated atonement still. But “without the shedding of blood” such “remission” or “purging” was not possible (verse 22 ). The Apostle tells us what this signified. “It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these (blood, water, hyssop, etc., verse 19 ); but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these” (verse 23 ).

Let the parallelism be noted.

(a) The patterns of things in the heavens were purified, with animal blood.

(b) The heavenly things themselves had likewise to be purified, but with better sacrifices.

Such purification was not in either case a purification of moral sin, but of the uncleanness resulting from contact with Sin. In the case of “the heavenly things themselves” (i.e. the person of Jesus), such uncleanness was removed when he “put away Sin by the sacrifice of himself” (verse 26 ). “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place” (verse 12 ), that is, “into heaven itself” (verse 24 ). Without such atonement, his physical entry into God’s presence (thanks to which alone “we have access unto the Father”— Eph. 2: 18 ) would have been impossible.

His baptism was a token of this fact. Anticipating his Crucifixion, Jesus declared, “I have a baptism to be baptized with” ( Luke 12: 50 ). Previously at Jordan, whereas all others came to John confessing their sins, he came with none to confess, but insisting nevertheless that John should baptize him. He knew the import of John’s testimony that all flesh is grass ( Isa. 40 : 3–8 ), and that he himself, though a sinless bearer of flesh-nature, had nevertheless to be baptized. That is, Jesus had to submit to a ceremonial condemnation of his nature in anticipation of the literal condemnation which he would later suffer, and by which he would destroy Diabolos ( Heb. 2:14 ), or Sin in the flesh, the power which reigns unto death ( Rom. 5: 21 ). So “to them that look for him shall he appear the second time without Sin unto salvation” ( Heb. 9: 28 ).

What has been written above is epitomized by Paul. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God: being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness; that God might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” ( Rom. 3 : 23–26 ).

How did the Crucifixion declare God’s righteousness? In that Christ possessed a nature under condemnation of death, so that there was no violation of justice in his death. It was not wrong for him to die, so his voluntary death declared God’s righteousness in not waiving the Edenic sentence unconditionally. If the death which Jesus experienced were one to which he was not related, it would instead have declared the injustice of God, for God would then have connived at the unrequired death of an innocent man. The logic of this has been admitted by one Nazarene author. He asks, “Does justice substitute the innocent for the guilty?” and answers, “Not for an evil purpose, but in a case of redemption by divine mercy it does”. He adds that “a just law can never be satisfied with the death of the innocent when the guilty goes free, if accomplished for a wicked purpose”, but contends again that the good purpose of redemption nullified the injustive involved. He also endeavours to ridicule our concept of the Atonement as “the substitution of the ‘guilty’ for the guilty”. The Scripture testimony adduced above disposes of such a misrepresentation of our teaching. The death of Jesus was just, because, as Son of Man ( John 3: 14 ), he was under Adamic condemnation, and thereby God could lawfully require him to die. In his death Jesus declared God’s righteousness, so that God, while remaining just to His own decree, could thereafter be the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

While emphasis must with profoundest gratitude be laid on the fact that Christ died “for the ungodly”, “to save sinners” and “to bear the sins of many”, the additional testimony must not be ignored that “when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, he was heard in that he feared” ( Heb. 5: 7 ).