A collection of a series of articles John Bell wrote in response to critics on The Atonement to demonstrate the doctrinal errors of his Clean Flesh teachings.

The Shield 1919, John Bell

“The Atonement”

Atonement!  What is it?   What does it mean?

Usually the etymology of a word is helpful in deciding the sense of it. Most words in our English language can be traced from a Saxon, French, Latin or Greek source and so we are able to gather just exactly what they mean radically. But this word is not so. It is mostly like Topsy – “It never had a father and it never had a mother, ‘specks it just growed’.”

Yet it’s very simple, open, honest, evident meaning excuses at once its lack of parentage.  It is only a verbal expression of a very comprehensible condition. I means atone-ment and has been closed up into one word for the sake of euphony and convenience. To atone is to be, or make, at one, and so “at-one-ment” is the state or condition of being at one.

It goes without saying then that this word has only a mental or moral purpose, without reference to anything physical, saving such as shall arise out of moral conditions or relations.

While two or more parties are agreed as to any course of action and the responsibilities ensuing therefrom, they are “atone”. So soon as discord, rebellion, or any disuniting force begins to work at-one-ment ceases. They are at-two-ment, or in the common phrase for confusion, “they are at sixes and sevens”. This confused state continues until by some means the original basis and concord is restored, when at-one-ment is again the prevailing condition. That by which they are brought to this desirable consummation atones them, or makes them “at one”.

Here then in a nutshell we have a clear conception of the whole basis of Bible teaching, upon which and around which have been encrusted so many theories and traditions of men that the very simple original has been obscured from the common ken.

Out of this parasitic growth have come the occasions for all the sneers and scoffs of able and intelligent men who have resented and revolted against the idea of vicarious sacrifice or substitutionary payment of debt. The very foundation of religion has been derided by the fallacies which have been built upon it.

Yet religion is identical in idea with at-one-ment.  It expresses well a logical sequence of thought.  Taking the primary state of one-ness and finding it ruptured, it radically tells of a “re-binding” or “re-uniting” of that which has been rudely severed.  Then it has come to express the state, or means, or system of ethics and practice, whereby the worshipper is in harmony with the object of adoration, or by which one-ness obtains.

Thus today we have the Jewish religion, the Roman Catholic, the Protestant, the Mohammedan, or the Buddhist, all of which prescribe certain factors as indispensable for atonement.

Unfortunately, however, in this clash of systems the simplicity of the original purpose has been buried in a chaos of priestly inventions, till now it is common to hold “atonement” as the settlement of a debt, appraised at such a price as the hierarchy shall determine. To atone has come to mean, in church affairs, to pay the price demanded by an offended Deity.

For many ages now the church have traded upon this perverted idea of atonement, and have battened and fattened in pomp and pocket upon a credulous laity, which they have held rigorously under the lash of their loudly proclaimed prerogatives to minister to them at such prices as they shall demand for their services. Sedulously shutting out all light from their chambers, the pious devotees have been bewildered by the obscurity, and have accepted all that has been told them by the privileged mystery makers as gospel.  As in all the world, ignorance has proved a fertile soil for superstition, and as a foul weed it grew rankly in the dark.

But as education has opened the doors of the minds of men, the clear, bright sunbeams have begun to chase away the dark haze of credulousness and have revealed the unfurnished cloisters of clerical theories. One by one the fictions of men have been blown away by the gales of impartial and unhindered investigation of learned but irreligious men, and so all the churches are being left stranded by being forsaken of their members, who can get nothing to replace the exploded mysteries which they once were fed up with.

Alas that investigation should have been so iconoclastic in its operation without supplying any constructive alternative for the satisfying of mankind. Men no longer go to church nor fear God, because they think He can only be known and served in the irrational manner of inexplicable or incomprehensible church language and ritual.

What a pity it is that the clever critics have been satisfied with the havoc they have wrought in what was called “religion” and the released have been content to be delivered from gaol without seeking for a free hygienic dwelling wherein they could look into the Bible for themselves, and see by its simplicity that no trammels of priest or parson need come between them and God.

There have been a few who have been privileged to discern their opportunities, and have eagerly and assiduously availed themselves of them.  One of these was found in the person of Dr John Thomas, whose indefatigable research and keen insight into the Bible enabled him to lay down truths of revelation on a comprehensible basis.  His labours were concreted into many books of exposition, and arising out of facts so clearly shown by him has grown up the Christadelphian Body of these later years, who are mainly known by the divergences of their tenets upon scriptural matters from those of all the orthodox churches.

Because of the logical grounds of their worship, the writer was attracted to their camp, and has never yet found occasion to regret joining in with them, as no other community has ever been so Biblically based in fundamentals, rationally stated and amply supported by Bible proof.

Despite this, however, as it might be expected, there are many phases of truth which do not appear to be apprehended as they may be, or which have been clouded by inaccuracy of expression in Christadelphian teaching.

Amongst these has been the question at present under consideration. It would seem as if the haze of the churches still lingers around, like a low-lying fog unwilling to yield to the beams of the sun with its clarifying powers.

As a matter of fact, it is hard to get a clear and definite statement from any one man or woman as to what they understand by “atonement”.  It is not unduly libelling most of them to say that they practically look upon the work of Jesus as a vicarious one, and most of them speak in terms which make Him a substitute for their liabilities.

This departure from the truth is much to be deplored even if it only arises from inability to simply and rightly explain themselves. Especially is this the case when an attempt is made to explain in what sense atonement is physically necessary or obtainable. So too, only blank impotence or blundering absurdity is evoked when the atonement of material objects comes under review. Men who would scorn to acknowledge any identity with Roman Catholic follies scruple not to demand atonement for original sin as resolutely as the aforesaid Roman Catholic requires that it shall be exorcised by priestly function from the newborn body of an unwitting babe.

It has, however, become so patent that a small number of brethren in a neighbouring state have been engaging themselves in the special study of this question, and have invited the publication of what is held by the writer, so as to clarify things if possible. Hence this article, which is put forward for the fullest criticism of the brotherhood, as it is purposed to help and not to hinder, therefore any idea which will help to elucidate the matter will be welcome, whether friendly of hostile, as no desire exists but for truth to prevail.

In our opening we looked at the simple meaning of our subject in our common English tongue. We will now go further.

The word “atonement” only occurs once in the New Testament, and there it is used to translate a Greek word which means primarily “exchange” especially of money, secondarily, “a change from enmity to friendship, reconciliation”.

Thus it will be seen that the Greek usage accords perfectly with what we have shown to be the English meaning of “atonement”. It tells of a condition and gives no room for any theory as to method of reaching the condition save “mutuality”.

In the Old Testament “atonement” occurs seventy-four times, almost entirely in the books of the law. It represents a Hebrew word meaning “to cover” which perfectly conveys all the facts of the case without lending any support to orthodox ideas of settlement by payment or equivalent.

There can, however, be no doubt that the translators read their own mind into the Hebrew ritual, and therefore the whole of the misapprehension of this subject has had support found for it in the use made of the word “atonement” in the Old Testament. So we find them contending that Israel got absolution for sins by slaying a lamb and offering it whereby atonement was effected. All the virtue and value was in the lamb.

Thus, in like manner, self-styled Christians contend that Christ has done it all. They have no need to do anything but believe. What they are to believe their superstition does not define, nor do they in general bother about it. Sufficient for them that Jesus has paid their debt, and so they are free.

Amongst Christadelphians, as we have said before, it is hard to say where Jesus stands  in their minds concerning the atoning process. Some plainly make him a substitute, whilst others strenuously deny that He was a substitute, although they paradoxically claim that He bore “our sins” in His “own” body to the tree, turning figure into a fact which at once convicts them of inconsistency.

Much clamant protest may be raised against these statements, but they challenge refutation by some more effectual and seemly means than protest or repudiation.

We will therefore just go back in the Bible to the beginning of things, and try to follow the teaching upon atonement as we find it there written. We will try to be as fair in our assumptions as our purpose is sincere. If any destructive effect results upon old notions which may be shaken or shattered during the investigation, then ample endeavour will be made to replace the foundation of sand with one upon the rock of impregnable truth. Wherever we are shown to reason unsoundly, or infer without good cause, or misrepresent in statement, we will gladly make fullest possible amends by correction.

The Shield, June 15 1919

It was said in defining the word “atonement” that obviously it had ethical purpose or moral relation only.  Look forthwith into Eden’s Garden, and what is found? A divine Creator and a dust-formed creature, the one undying in constitution, the other continuing in life by eating food. Evidently no physical at-one-ment there, but diversity, albeit all was declared “very good”.

No great strain is needed to comprehend the childlike simplicity of the unsophisticated and inexperienced humans, who found themselves created into a Paradise other than what they had no conception of. Made as they had been for the pleasure of the Maker, but gifted by Him with powers of intelligence to grasp cause and effect and so derive pleasure for themselves in giving Him pleasure, it was needful that their relationship should be defined by a knowledge of His will. They were completely “at one”.

So long as they complied with His will they continued “at one”. He was the “one” who had the rights of creator, to which they must conform.  He only owed them such obligation as he chose to impose upon Himself. Their relationship was thus defined by law. Obedience to Him would be gratifying to Him and would ensure from Him the favour of His approval.  Thus there was continuing at-one-ness.

Mere automata, however, could not appreciate the pleasure of mechanical compliance with duty. To give it taste or flavour it was needful that it should be optional. Hence, freewill was conferred upon the creature, and he was left to his own initiative subject to the understanding that obedience would be pleasing to the Lord and beneficial to self. In other words, at-one-ness depended upon obedience.

This is plainly right. Only “one” could be right, so “that one” was made the standard of test.  Two capacities existed. Which was to rule? The all-wise knowledge of the Creator, or the assertive ignorance of the inexperienced creature? Clearly no wrong was done to the man in requiring him to subject himself to God.

To his inexperienced mind, then, comes the lure of suggestion. Appealing by insidious plausibility to his powers of observation, he was tempted to try a little line of his own. Prudence pointed the way of law abiding. Desire appealed to appetite. Desire won.

The man chose for himself. “At-one-ment” was fractured. The Creator and His creature were “at-two-ment”.

Forthwith penalty followed upon disobedience. Moral relation was broken by the transgression, without any physical impairment of relations. In disgrace for disobedience man was driven from the means by which physical improvement could be obtained, and the tree of life was shut out by the flaming sword of angelic wrath. So man began his career of at-two-ment with God. Man’s will against God’s will.

“Religion” was needed to heal the fracture. The terms upon which at-one-ment could be resumed were indubitably the prerogative of the one who had been slighted. We have them stated. Suffering, as a punishment for man whilst gravitating gravewards, and duty to God during this course, yet left the man with no gleam beyond the tomb.

Then we have the element of hope introduced by a pitying and merciful Creator, who tells the man of a day, when the cause of disaster will be destroyed by the seed of the woman, through whom he had been seduced from his duty. Thus, then, a motive would be inspired.  Obscure as the statement may appear to some, it was nevertheless competent to awaken in Mother Eve the expectation that in the conquering of the destroyer by her son, a means would be found for the progenitor to participate in the advantages of the freedom secured. Good ground for such conclusion can be found in the anxiety evidenced by Eve over her first born son, whom she prematurely and mistakenly took to be the promised deliverer, and accordingly named him “Cain” as “a man gotten from the Lord.”

The hope deferred would, however, serve to lighten the labours of the man, and furnish an incentive to a more complete faithfulness to God, so that he might look for a reward for duty done in the good day forecast. Thus, then, he would eagerly carry out such laws as were imposed by the Lord, and, so long as he did so, there would again be atone-ment between them.

Upon this basis, then, of faithful compliance with the laws of God, man walked onward through the years in more or less at-one-ment with God, as conditions or temperaments varied. Some were good; some were bad. In some cases the conditions proved too severe for mankind; in others, mankind, with more resolute temperament rose superior to conditions and triumphed.

It may be said that we have no record of any laws by which men knew the divine mind, so as to be at-one with it or otherwise. It is true that we have no list of laws in detail, such as we have in the Mosaic household, but such silence does not obliterate the obvious.  Moreover, specific reference is made to the existence of such statutory provisions, for we read that “Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws”. (Gen 26v 5)

It must not be forgotten that, in the earlier days of the world’s youth, angelic direction was not the marvel it afterwards became. The opening chapters of the book of Job would allow us to believe of open, visible receptions by the Angelic Lord of the province, when men were periodically to present themselves at court.

In any case, the passage quoted implies acquaintance by men with superhuman laws, and, as they were kept or broken, so the subjects and ruler would be at-one.

That at-one-ment did exist is, however, not left to our surmises, but is plainly stated.  “Enoch walked with God” (Gen 5:24), and “before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God” (Heb 11:5). Abraham, too, was told, “Walk before me and be thou perfect” (Gen 17:1), an injunction which he claimed compliance with, as we find in his commission when sending for a wife for his son, saying, “The Lord before whom I walk will send His angel with thee” (Gen 24:40). So complete was the at-one-ness between Abraham and Almighty God that we have the apostolic reference to the fact that he was “the friend of God” (Jas 2:23).

It will surely now need no argument to prove that such at-one-ness as did exist and of which we have given instances, was purely a moral one, arising out of submissive obedience to the declared will of God.  In no one case have we a scintilla of suggestion that the question of the physical condition of men was obtruded into the relations of the parties. In fact, it is palpably plain that no such consideration had any other weight than as an incentive to perfect actions.

A reading of Heb 11 will show plainly that these men lived and died in the knowledge of their mortal constitution, and they believed God, taking Him at His word, and looked away ahead, as did Abraham, to see the day of the Lord, and “He saw it and was glad,” although he has not as yet attained unto it.

All this would seem to make the subject of at-one-ment a simply comprehensible one, without any of the intricacies of thought which have been woven around it by theology and sectarianism.

The Shield, July 15 1919

It is, however, when we come, in process of time, to the ritual of Israel that the fogs and mists of human constructions becloud the understanding and obscure the facts in a haze of ceremonials. That this should be so in theological surroundings need excite no wonderment, for it is the habit of man to enshroud his doings in mystery, so as to arouse wonder in his fellows at the ease with which he can explain that which is hidden from them, mostly by the smoke of his own making.

It does, however, seem strange that a body of teachers, such as are and have been in Christadelphia, should lend themselves to the mysteries of priestcraft however unwittingly.  Their eyes have been opened to the divine simplicity of the gospel of the Kingdom of God, so that they have been able to lay bare the farce of the clergy, in dealing with and for alleged immortal souls. Every one of the cardinal doctrines of the church have been easily divested of all seeming scripture support, and in their place have been propounded, in plain terms, the simple truths of the teaching of Jesus.

Yet they, too, when asked to explain the teaching of at-one-ment, have resorted to circumlocution and involved reasonings, in which they have tangled themselves and their followers. Such, at any rate, has been my experience.

Of course, if we analyse the position, and seek for the cause of the confusing factor, we find it, as might be expected, right at the foundation.

Rejecting rightly the theory of the immortal soul they have failed to grasp entirely the simple truth of the creation. Dr Thomas certainly, in some cases, is beautifully clear and correct in his writings about man’s constitution, but he becomes ambiguous when he has to deal with him in his decadent state, as with the nation of Israel.

Others, in the early days not known to me, have found themselves stressed for definitions, which would fit theories which they have constructed, and so we find them devising a neutral kind of creature whom they say God made. The man was neither mortal nor immortal. They are strong and definite in this negation. But ask for positive statement in terms known to experience, and they can and will find no answer.

Of man today they will speak readily enough as mortal; but then man, they say, is not mortal as Adam was made. Something diabolical has got into him, how they will not say, lest they should commit themselves. At one time they did say God implanted this extra factor, but they have now gone back on that, and are content to claim the alleged fact without assigning any cause.

From this false start they are in trouble all the way along. Not only has man to make atonement morally, but he has also to atone for this extra alleged element in himself, which he did not put there, which he does not want, and which they cannot tell me how to get rid of. Of only one thing are they sure, and that is that man is responsible for the existence of this devil in the flesh, and must atone for it, as well as for moral transgression. It would be hard to beat this superstition in all the follies of the churches, which they so much deride. In fact, its only near relative is to be found in the theory of original sins, as propounded by the Mother of Harlots. Yet they are content to sit unashamed in this discreditable company.

Thus it has come to pass that we are told that God is ashamed of the creature He made, which has become obnoxious to Him, that He cannot suffer it save under the shrouding incense of sacrifice. In fact, one has to atone for being born at all, a transaction in which he had no volition. Such is the funny theory that has been patented in Christadelphia.

So urgent is the demand to accept this curio of controversy, that it is sine qua non in the select circles of the fold, from which the writer has been expelled because he cannot find such nonsense in the Bible, and will not stand it from anyone else.

Not even the Lord Jesus has been allowed by them to escape from this degrading stain, so that He too, they say, had to offer sacrifice to God to propitiate Him for the birth of Himself, though He was specially produced by divine power. Truly, men have sought out many wonderful inventions, and Christadelphia has about reached the top notch with a tainted Jesus.

In place of the simple definition I have given of the word “atonement”, it is common to hold it as an equivalent paid for transgression, or as a propitiating means whereby an angry God is placated.

Either of these views does such discredit to the God of Heaven that little wonder need be caused when clever men, who yet do not look for themselves but accepting theological theories as being well based, are prompted to deride or disparage such a God.

Fancy the great Monarch of the Universe coming down to trade level in matters of morality by assessing each at a price, upon the payment of which the sinner would be pardoned.  Yet such is the common view regarding the Law of Moses.

Whilst, as we have already stated, they say He is disgusted with His own handiwork, that man has, in some mystical way, to appease the Creator’s wrath by a sacrificial offering for his own existence, or for the indwelling in him of something which is the product of the disobedience of the primal pair in Eden, for which they in their day paid the penalty.

Christians, on the other hand, hold decided views of God slaying His son as a propitiation for the sins of the world, whereby His anger was sated. In Christadelphia, Christ is regarded as the propitiatory offering, whereby His own nature was cleansed, because of which He covers all in Him with the robe of His righteousness, as a substitute who died for them, although they baulk at the word substitute.

Let us just traverse the facts of the Mosaic and Messianic offering and see what our investigations will yield.

Our first fact is that “the law” was an excrescence grafted upon the economy of Israel, and was not normal thereto. Proof: “ Wherefore then serveth the law?  It was added because of transgression till the seed should come to whom the promise was made” (Gal 3:19). That is to say, it was a device whereby man should be plainly confronted by the evidence of his at-two-ment with God, and so be left without excuse. This is stated by Paul in his own terms, “But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in my by that which is good, that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful” (Rom 7:13).

Second fact:  Sacrifice was not grateful to God, but, on the contrary, was hateful. Proof: “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? Saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of he goats” (Isa 1:11).

Now let us see how the basis of at-one-ment came to be shifted from simple obedience into the arena of exacting and burdensome law. One of the rehearsals of primal facts with which the sacred page abounds, whereby Israel was continually acquainted with the causes of prevailing conditions, will be found in Ezek 20 which will more than repay a more than cursory study. We read there, “Wherefore I caused them to go out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness; and I gave them my statutes and made them to know my judgments which, if a man do, he shall even live in them……But the House of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness……….Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live” (verses 10,11,131,25).

Here we see how the law was added because of transgressions, as a taskmaster to discipline the nation; added to the benign education previously prevailing with God.

This conclusion is abundantly confirmed and plainly stated by another prophet: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices; but this thing commanded I them, Obey my voice and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you that It may be well unto you” (Jer 7:21-23).

The whole matter is exquisitely and tersely summed up by the apostle to the Hebrews: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast prepared me.  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure.  Then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do they will, O God” (Heb 10:5-7).

A careful consideration of all the fore-going quotations will suffice to convince any one that normally at-one-ment between Israel and God consisted in perfect compliance by the nation with the mind of God, as declared to them from time to time in statutes for  their direction. In all these normal times legal sacrifice was unknown, and was only introduced because of the revolt of the people, in order to serve themselves and flout or defy God.

It must be borne in mind that we are now reviewing sacrifice as obtaining in the polity of Israel by enactment. No need to refer to the many instances of sacrificial offering to God as told in prior parts of the Bible beginning with Abel. These were voluntary tokens of duty from the creature to the Creator, as in all ages men have rendered to their liege lord and protector, apart from any religious significance.

In the full light of all these facts, we are now competent to examine more closely into the requirements of the Mosaic law, whence have originated all the perverted notions about atonement by which men have been befogged, and God disparaged.

The Shield, Aug 15 1919

Let us take one enactment of the ceremonial law, and see how it works out, remembering that it is the phase of offerings for sin only that we are dealing with.

It is written in Exod 29:33, “And they shall eat those things wherewith ‘the atonement’ was made.”

Now what was atoned, and for what reason? If the chapter be read through, it will be found that it tells of the setting apart of Aaron and his sons for the service of the sanctuary, as ministers for God. “The things wherewith the atonement was made”, consisted of the several parts of a ram slain.  How is it possible to form any mental grasp of such a ceremony, if it be forced to convey the idea of reparation for any wrong done, or sin committed? Aaron and his sons were the subjects of “the atonement”. What had they singly or collectively done to atone for? We have no hint of any transgression.

But supposing we imagine one – say, original sin, or human nature – what are we to gather from the ceremony? Are we to reckon that God assessed this particular form of crime at the sacrificial price of one slain ram, by payment of which their sin of being in existence, would be, and was, atoned for? Surely it is absurd, even in the suggestion. Only a credulity such as ignorant peasants manifest in paying a priest to say masses for their souls, could parallel such nonsense.

Yet the Bible says atonement was made, and by certain things. There must be an explanation.

Of course there is, but not in any process of payment of an equivalent, or propitiating an offended God. The statement of the chapter explains the whole matter. Aaron and his sons were being dedicated, publicly, to the special service of the ministry of the tabernacle. To impose upon them the sacredness of their office and impress the people with the same, Aaron and his sons, first of all, put their hands upon the head of the ram, which is then solemnly slain, suggestive of a vow of faithfulness unto death. Then, an elaborate application of the blood, to many parts of the individuals and their garments, offers opportunities for speculative or imaginative explanation as to reasons. But the whole ceremony centres in, and concludes with, the “hallowing” of the priests; or the setting apart of them for specified office and functions, as stated in verse 21. This coincides, and perfectly harmonises with the verse we started out to consider concerning “the things wherewith the atonement was made to consecrate and to sanctify them” (verse 33).

Thus the atonement, in this passage, is nothing more or less than the ritual devotion of certain men to God’ exclusive service.

Take another case, in Lev 16:18: “And he shall go unto the altar that is before the Lord, and shall make an atonement for it”. What had the altar done to require that it should be atoned for?

It was but an inanimate and involuntary instrument in the furniture of the sanctuary, and was quite incapable of any deliberate decision for or against its architect. The mind is blankly confounded, when faced by the conventional idea of atonement, and at once says, Nonsense, it means something else than that.

And it does, for in verse 19 we have the simple explanation. This is all part of an elaborate ritual calculated to impress upon Israel the enormity of their individual and national transgressions against their God, so that the very altar, on which their sacrifices were offered, was polluted thereby, and had to be ceremonially hallowed. No thought of physical affection, connected with this ceremony, will stand analysis to reason. But let the mental attitude of the worshipper, which it was purposed to excite and foster, be taken as the basis of the ceremony, and at once it can be grasped, that, in the exhibition of the sensitiveness of God to such sin in His creatures, the recognition of the vileness of their doings by His contrite and confessing children, in the hallowing of the altar, would again bring them into harmonious consonance with His mind, and so there would be at-one-ment – for them; not for the altar.

But let us pass on to actual sin as transgression of the law, for which the law provided atonement. It is written:

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, If a soul sin, and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbour in that which was delivered unto him to keep, or in fellowship, or in a thing taken away by violence, or hath deceived his neighbour … and he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord, a ram without blemish out of the flock, with thy estimation of a trespass offering, unto the priest, and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him for anything that he hath done in trespassing therein” (Lev 7:7).

Here we are confronted with the fact that the priest makes an atonement for the sinner. What does it mean?

It does not mean, as it is slanderously reputed to do, that a man was absolved from guilt by the payment of a ram, and that the wrath of God was appeased thereby. This would be transgression made popular and convenient.

Nor does it mean that the priest is the effective factor in the ceremony, and that, by his efforts, God was placated and the sinner pardoned. In this view of the case, Roman Catholicism, and all priestly function, has found basis, and claims its rightful warrant. Thus has been elevated to the pinnacles of arrogance and authority a system of hierarchy, which God never would sanction nor approve, and which has cursed the world by its pretentious claim and implacable assertion.

Let us rightly face the facts. Why and wherein was the man a sinner? Was it not because God had revealed His mind to Israel, saying what would please and what would displease Him? Was it not because the man had deliberately violated the harmony of the relationship between God and himself, by doing that which God forbade? Was not this transgression more grievous in its deliberation than in its act? Did not the self-will, and self-indulgence, set up at-two-ness in the man, and so in all Israel? Was not thus all discipline disregarded, all duty denied? Was not God brought into contempt with and by the man?

If there was no God, and no mind of God to conform to, then to steal from or deceive his neighbour would be but the exercise of natural faculty, as tested by the same powers in the one wronged, who might in return employ such ability or power as he possessed, or could invoke, to get amends or vengeance upon the other.

The introduction of God into the case at once transfers it into the equity court of moral right and wrong. And shall God be gauged so low in moral scale as to be propitiated by an offering of a ram? Shall we consider that He Himself, in His law to Moses, assessed the immorality at such a price? Impossible!

Yet it says so in the text? Yes, if it is to be read in the conventional sense, which, however, we have already shown, by much scripture, to be a depraved and perverted application of the text of the law. Temple and altar in Israel reeked incessantly with such trespass offerings, which revolted the God whom men say they are purposed to pacify.

How can such inconsistency be reconciled? Is it not this very seeming contradictoriness which causes men to reject God, and laugh at His Bible? Alas for the obdurate blindness of man, which knows nothing of at-one-ment with God.

Right here let us further ponder the meaning of the word “atonement” in the Lev 6:7. It is, as we said before, a Hebrew word which, in its essence, knows nothing of the conventional meaning of atonement, as used by priest and sinner today. It simply means “to cover”, as the ark by Noah was “covered” with pitch. Thus derivatively “to obliterate by covering”.

Now conceive the sinning Jew approaching the priest with his trespass offering. Why is he there? As one paying a permit for his sin? No need for this. He has stolen because he had the opportunity or the power, and he will retain so long as he can resist any process of recovery, or conceal his action. Yet here he is with a trespass offering, seeking pardon from God. Which, think you, is the vital factor in his attitude – the offered lamb, of the spirit whereby the lamb is offered?

There is no need to debate the answer. The lamb is a mere detail. The mind of the man is what counts. He pleased himself and served his own appetite in the action which he took.  He reckoned himself safe by his own ingenuity and cleverness.

But within him there operated an extraordinary function called conscience. This is the product of education. His was fashioned by the law of God. Conscience told him he had broken the law of God, and he felt at-two-ment with God depressing his every movement.  How could he succeed if God be displeased with him? No rest for him in defiance.  Knowledge told him retribution would follow wrong. This state of affairs was no good to him. How could he mend it?  By confession to God first, and reparation to the wronged next. Thus was at-one-ment achieved in every sense.

But – the offered lamb? This was but the evident expression of the mental attitude, used by the God, who initiated it, as a means to provide for His ministering officials in the sanctuary. What was the at-one-ment factor in the transaction? The offered lamb or the contrite heart of the repentant one? The answer is obvious.

Coming then with the emblem of his admitted error to the dwelling place of God, the servant in attendance conveys the message to the Lord, who, after acquaintance by the officer of the attitude of the offerer, is pleased to accept the token of contrition for breach of His law, by the sinner, who wishes to be at-one again with Him, and so He “covers” the transgression in forgetfulness.

Thus we see in clear daylight how the righteousness of God was vindicated under the Mosaic system. Repentance and contrition brought at-one-ment, and the wrong was covered by loving forbearance. So is shown up the falsity of the theory which would make transgression cheap, in a reparation to be made by a flat rate of a lamb per sin, big or little, with which an angry God would be propitiated into a benignant father.

Also the idea of a substitute taking the place of the sinner in the sacrificial victim, disappears as a barbarous libel upon God, and in its place the lamb appears but as the outward and visible token of the contrition of the sinner, who thus shows his recognition of the majesty of God by proclaiming his own default and seeking at-one-ment.

What more perfect process could be suggested to illustrate the Creator and his creatures in proper relationship? Too simple by far to please ambitious man, who has magnified it by his own devices, which have accreted to themselves all sorts of extravagant embellishments, till the original has been submerged in their trappings.

Look now at the Why? Of the repudiation and the remonstrances of God against perpetual sin-offerings, and see what substantial reason for them existed. “To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Prov 21:3).

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, right the oppressed, judge the fatherless; plead for the widow” (Isa 1:26,17).

“Obey my voice and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you” (Jer 7:23).

“To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken that the fat of rams” (1 Sam 15:22) “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God” (Mic 6:6-8).

What more perfect description of at-one-ment could be penned than is simply said in these verses of Micah?

What more eloquent expression of irreligious and persistent breach of harmony than in
the incessant smoke of the sacrificial offerings, telling confessions of flagrant unrighteousness by a rebellious people, working night and day upon the devices of their own hearts?

Need there be wonder at the disgust of God with a state of things so obnoxious to all His desires, which made patent a discordant inharmony, where His will should be supreme?

At-one-ment and not sacrificial offerings was the purpose of God. The offerings were the consequence of the law making sin obviously sinful, and so revealing transgression in all its enormity.

At-one-ment is a felicitous condition of moral harmony with God. It is not an elaborate system of expiatory offerings for sin.

The Shield, Sep 15 1919

From the shadow pictures of the law, let us now come to the enduring substance, of which the law was but a forecast.

So far as we have gone we have shown that at-one-ness is not Biblically applicable to physical considerations, for diversity of constitution, between the groundling and his Maker, is made apparent in the story of Eden, without in any way reflecting upon or disparaging the “very good” creature, which was at-one, in its early novitiate, with its Creator, although formed out of dust.

In this there is a perfect parallel between the two Adams. Jesus, too, was a being of identical constitution to His progenitor Adam, and yet no one dare assert of Him that He was ever at any time anything but “at-one” with His God. How absurd then and illogical to introduce any sin-in-the-flesh sectarian ideas of a constituent of His fleshly body, which they say divorced Him from His Father till He legally atoned for it.

This alleged difference in physical condition between the Saviour Adam and the Edenic Adam has no authority for its assertion from the Bible. Not a word can be found in its pages of any physical change in man from his first creation. His conditions were changed, but he himself remained as originally set in being.

Many and many a request and demand have we made of the Bible authority for the asserted alteration in Adam, but not once has any notice been taken by those who brazenly assert what they cannot prove, trusting in the docility of their followers to accept their dictum, whilst they decry all who dare question them. No wonder they cannot understand at-one-ment, which Adam broke.

Next we claim to have fairly demonstrated that the atoning factor, according to the Law of Moses, did not lie in the sacrifices offered, but in the mental attitude of the persons offering. It is of vital importance to recognise this, in order that the folly may be seen of the claim, put forward by high priests in our camp, that Jesus had to atone for his body. We have clearly shown that harmony of mind as the impulse of loving obedience was what was pleasing to God in place of the daily recurring offering of sacrifices, which told of the inharmony that existed where there should be accord. This is all summed up tersely in the saying of the seer, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams”. None can rightly say that Jesus was ever rebellious, and therefore He was exempt from any personal need to sacrifice according to the foregoing precept.

So we ask ourselves, Shall we find any difference in the principle of atonement in the Messianic system from what we have discovered in the Mosaic?

For reply we answer, only such difference as exists between the substance and the shadow, by which it was outlined. All doubts, all hesitation, any irregularity of form or outline, all disappear in the perfection of Jesus.

Unfortunately this is not the view held throughout Christadelphia, as will be evident from the writings of our standard works, which make it incumbent upon each and all to look into the matter keenly, for it is as necessary to give an intelligible reason upon this point for the hope that is in us, as upon any other doctrine.

In fact, is it not more needful for us to comprehend our relationship to God, and be able to rationally explain it, than to be fully posted upon many of the details arising out of the relationship? Of what value or interest is it to know all the items of our inheritance, if we are not able to prove our claim to share therein?

It is not too much to say that we have not yet met the man in our camp who is able to give,  in clear, precise, succinct words, his conception of atonement. In every case there has been a talking round the subject, generally by showing what it does “not” mean, but no definite, coherent, constructive, rational explanation has been forthcoming.

No two attempts have agreed in such complete terms as to justify the saying that any specific form of words would express the common conviction of the body. As with the Socialists today when asked to define Socialism, every man has a definition of his own.

Because of this difficulty, it is well perhaps to take a line of thought from a pamphlet published by our late Bro Roberts, called “The Blood of Christ”.

This little work has been held in high esteem by the body, as a clear and proper exposition of the subject matter we have under consideration, and so it will give us somewhat authoritative ground to work upon.

Therein we read: “But now let us come to the question, Why is the death of Christ a sufficient foundation for the forgiveness of sin unto life eternal, when the death of animals was not so?  We find the answer in the statement that the death of Christ was
‘to declare the righteousness of God’, as the ground of the exercise of His forbearance.

That is to say, God maintains His righteousness and His own supremacy while forgiving us; and exacts the recognition of them and submission to them, as the condition of the exercise of His forbearance in the remission of our sins. Now we look at Christ, we find in His death the declaration of that righteousness. When we look at the killing of the lamb or of any animal of any kind, it is not a declaration of the righteousness of God that we see, except in type, in shadow, in figure; the animal had done no wrong, and in the abstract there would be wrong and not righteousness in punishing one for the sins of another. The death of Christ was ‘that God might be just’ while acting the part of justifier or forgiver.” – “Blood of Christ”, p13.

Now it has always been a matter of wonderment to us that a man with such clear insight into Bible teaching, and such faculty of simply and rightly expounding, as we generally found Bro Roberts to be, should fail so egregiously to accept and say the simple facts of the question involved in this quotation from his work.

Whilst holding sacrifice as the essential element in securing atonement, by what right, and on what proof, does he say, or can any one maintain, that the death of animals was not “a sufficient foundation for the forgiveness of sins unto life eternal”?

The Bible is in conspicuous opposition to such an assertion. Paul says of the Mosaic law that it was “ordained unto life” (Rom 7:10) – not merely an ordinary animal existence, but to a life arising out of approval for law obeyed.

Now in that law it is expressly stipulated that, given the doing of certain things by a sinner under the law, including specified animal offerings, “and the priest shall make an atonement for his sin which he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven him”, “for anything of all that he hath done in trespassing therein” (Lev 5:10).

Does God say He will pardon on prescribed conditions, and still subject the pardoned one to any disability, arising out of the sin which has been pardoned or forgiven? Who dare so charge God with insincerity. Therefore the conclusion by Bro Roberts is unsound.

It may be said that the forgiveness is not overlooked by our brother, but that it was only operative during natural life and conditions. If this is so, the pardon is no less complete, and thus a completely pardoned man would stand in the sight of God, as measured by the law, as a clean creature from whom the wages of sin could not be claimed, and who thus was qualified for living in the age to come, to which the law was but the pedagogue.

There need be no scruple about the exact kind of forgiveness meant, as if there could be degrees of forgiveness.  For the word in Hebrew “salach” is the synonym of the Greek word “aphesis”, used in Acts 13:38, “Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the ‘forgiveness’ of sin”. Therefore if there be no “putting away” of sin under Moses neither will there be in Jesus.

Now another matter of amazement to us, for many years, was how a sound reasoner could try to maintain that it was just upon God’s part to punish a sinless man for sinners.

Yet Bro Roberts says “The death of Christ was that God might be just”. How could it be “just” to put to death a sinless man? Or could it be “just” to allow one to die who perfectly kept the law of God which said, “This do and thou shalt live”?  In the whole record of God’s dealings in the Bible, the same principle of absolute impartial justice is written broad and clear, that every man shall “die for his own sins”. Upon what basis of equity is that fundamental principle of justice set aside in the “punishment of one for the sins of another”?

That God has a right to do as He pleases goes without saying, and who dare question
Him? But when He lays down certain ethical laws as the basis of all fair dealing, how can He void them by breach, and still hold Himself just? To say that He does, or did so, is to impeach His character. We never could understand it, and certainly never could believe it, even in the days when blindly accepting the dogmas of the body.

Of course Bro Roberts saw the danger and difficulty of the position he had set up, for he goes on, in another paragraph of the same page, to say, “Now on Christ we must fix our attention in this character, with the view of being able to see that the righteousness of God was declared in the crucifixion of a guileless and sinless and perfect man”.

In passing we would emphasise these very emphatic words used by Bro Roberts to describe Jesus, the sin-in-the-flesh-tainted saviour of our present day expositors.

He calls Him “guileless, sinless, perfect”. Yet he sets out upon a task of special pleading to prove the impossible, wrapping the whole matter up in a tangle of terms, which of course fail to convince anyone, that the righteousness of God could never, in any way, be declared by an unrighteous act.

As showing the ramifying danger of this leaven of error, we were astounded to find its dissemination ardently urged to be instilled into the receptive minds of children, in an official document.

Having been asked to adjudicate upon some Sunday School papers, and formulate the questions for examination for the Sunday School Union, some “Notes on Lessons, Session 1916-17”, were put into our hands.

In a “Prefactory note to teachers in the Junior Division”, we came upon the following – “Let it not be thought that any scholar in our school is too young to be taught the main truth of the atonement, that is, that it was necessary that some one, who never sinned, should bear the punishment of those who did, if we were ever to get eternal life, and that Jesus did this for us.”

How many young minds have been turned away by this fallacy will not be known to human computation. But of one thing we are absolutely certain, and that is that the Editor who penned those lines could never in a lifetime explain the enigma which he said none were too young to comprehend.

We pass by the hideous burlesque of atonement, as taught in the churches of
Christendom, being content merely to mention its terms. A Triune God, having made a world and man to inhabit it, found out in process of time that the masterpiece man was such a fearful failure that this God got ferociously angry. After wreaking its rage in many spiteful ways upon its creatures, its wrath could not be appeased but only grew greater.

Then the second part of the Trinity approached the first part, and, after some negotiation, arranged to go down to earth and live as a man. As such He was known as Jesus Christ who, after a lifetime of right living, in which He commended Himself to all who came in contact with Him, was finally slain by wicked Jews, who subjected Him to the cruel death of the cross, and He thus appeased the wrath of God, atoned for mankind, and then went back to His original abode in Heaven, having fooled mankind with believing that He, a God, could suffer and die for them.

No wonder that the cynical scoffer has scorched, with his irony, professing pietists, as we have heard in the open streets of our city. No wonder that the thinking and prudent agnostic has refused to be attracted to God by such theories, which horrified his conception of justice, and made God despicable in his eyes. No wonder the devout churchmen and scholars have striven to apologise for what they could not explain or excuse.

How lamentable that the Christadelphian, who has been delivered from most of the doctrinal fallacies of the churches, should have been unable completely to divest himself of all the old time glamour, so that the superstition of atonement as a price paid for sins committed, should still be rampant amongst us. We, no more than the pietist parson, cannot explain the justice of all sins, great and small, heinous or venal, being all assessed at the one atoning price, being paid for by the dying of a sinless Jesus, who yet was Himself of such a nature as was innately obnoxious to His God, as they say.

Never once in any of the symbol shewings of the law do we find that man or woman offered a sacrifice for being born, or that they atoned for any sin other than that of which he or she had been personally guilty. It is true that the majestic greatness and grandeur of the Divine Creator is pictured as being unable to see anything, or being, which in comparison with Himself was clean. This language of hyperbole is no extravagance at all, but is eloquent to its purpose.

It, however, contains no hint of exacting liability from those creatures which He made to His own design, and of His own selected materials, who involuntarily partake of any of their disabilities, and are rightly exempt from responsibility thereof.

How much less, then, should we have to look for an explanation of an alleged atonement made by Jesus with God for the very creature Jesus, which He (God) had specially contrived and constructed as His atoning medium. Yet we have those who demand insistently that He has to propitiate God for the body in which He wrought out a perfect character, but which He had no say in the selection and construction of.

The Shield, Oct 15 1919

Let us pass on, without more ado, to consider this Jesus and His work, by whom we have access to the Father. What was He, and what did he do? Was he a sacrificial offering in place of us?  Or was He the pattern man that we should walk in His steps?

Our investigation of the teachings of the shadow service of the law, has clearly and unmistakably shown that the answer to our first query in emphatically No! God’s righteousness could never be, and never was vindicated by punishing the sinless for the guilty. When God resented the sacrifices of Israel, and repudiated any pleasure therein, reprobating their ceaseless continuance as obnoxious to Him, it would be queer reasoning which would make Him take excessive and plenary pleasure in a human holocaust, transcendingly more valuable than they all, inasmuch as it was affected in the person of His only begotten and well beloved Son.

Yet it will be urged that such is the express statement of Scripture, and such passages will be quoted in support as Acts 4:27,28 “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done”.

This, and all similar passages fall exactly into line with all the truth of the atonement effected by Jesus, but they do not suggest any more than they truly support, a capricious theory of sacrificial purification. He was “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”, truly, but not by any orthodox process of atoning. “He bore our sins in His own body to the tree”, but not as a bequest from past sinners, nor as an anticipatory miracle for unborn sinners with uncommitted sins.

But what was He? He was a flesh and blood product of Mary by divine agency, born in poverty, and brought up in the nurture and admonition of the law. From His earliest years devout and pious, our first glimpse of His disposition shows Him striving to acquire a more perfect grasp and appreciation of His father’s will, anxiously interrogating the masters in Israel who were letter perfect and skilled in exposition. His youthful exclamation limned out His life’s endeavour, “Wist ye not that I should be about my Father’s business?” From then till His expiring surrender, “It is finished”, we find one long story of obedience, without a flaw of self obtruding a jarring note.

Now take an instance or two of His view of what He was here for, in which we may discern the linking up of the old and new systems, showing them to have but one and the same objective.

“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” (Mat 5:17)  “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34)   “For I came down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him that sent me.”  (John 6:38)  “I can of mine own self do nothing; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father who hath sent me.” (John 5:30)  “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”  (Mat 26:39)

This continuing fulfilment of His commission shows how He understood it. “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also for therefore am I sent” (Lk 4:43) and He also explains its constitution and condition as “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Thus we have the conception put before us of the goal of our life’s endeavours, as a state of the post perfect prevalence of the will of God, which illustrates completest atone-ness, reaching away out to the further time when “God will be all and in all.”

Is this not in perfect accord with what we have already seen from the epistle to the Hebrews: “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body thou hast prepared me; in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will O God. Above when He said, sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offerings for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said He, Lo I come to do thy will O God. He taketh away the first that He may establish the second.” (Heb 10:5-9)

Surely there is no need to paint the lily by trying to amplify this lucid and explicit statement of the object of the life of Christ. It was to take away the elaborate system of sacrifice, which had become obnoxious in its operations and install in the place thereof the simple doing of the will of God, or at-one-ness.

Then the apostle goes on to say; “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once. Heb 10:10.

Was this then a sacrificial offering for us? Or was it a monumental pattern to us?

For us, as in place of any one, No. For us, or on our account, to show us the way? Yes!

But we must go back to the matter of atonement. Did Jesus atone for us by paying any penalty, by which act of His we are automatically reprieved?

Take His own case. Was there any one thing for which He had to atone, on His own account? We leave out of the bill the puerile theory that He had to make good for merely being born, or for original sin, or for Adamic condemnation, or for any other of the verbal fables current, such as sin in the flesh defilement. There is not a scintilla of Scripture proof to support them, though there may be reams of tradition.

Let one search the Scriptures which tell of Him in prophecy and person. We will invite anyone to suggest, let alone prove, that He was ever at any time other than “at one” with His Father. No death was needed to purge His body, for while yet a moral, unsaved man, He fearlessly asserted, “I and my Father are one”, and the echo from heaven endorsed His worlds. “This is my beloved Son; hear Him” (Mk 9:7)

Follow on, then, His aspirations for His loved co-labourers in the Gospel, and hear Him pray the Father for them, whilst they, too, were weak and fallible, physically and mentally:  “And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth.  Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe in me through their word; that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, and Thou in Me that they may be made perfect in one.” (John 17:19-23)

Here we have the summit of atonement prayed for by Jesus, in such terms as demonstrably prove that it is a matter of mental or moral relationship, and not one that has any physical features. Here we have outlined the primal result of His long endeavour; the handful of first fruits garnered from the great harvest that grows out of His planting. So we see a small body of storm-tried men who have been brought into perfect and complete at-one-ness with God by accepting the precepts, and emulating the example, of the Son of God. In them we behold the body subjected to, and the mind compliant with, the will of God, so that no diversity of thought or purpose or desire ruffles the serenity of such a condition of Paradise, good evident to all, evil conspicuous by its absence, or abhorred as the consequence of wrongdoing.

There is no logical need to go further in the definition of “at-one-ment”. The divine conditions are those of perfection. Let one-ness prevail between the Creator and His creatures, and universal perfection prevails.

It ought now to be obvious that the essential factor in at-one-ment throws the onus of its attainment upon the individual desiring it, and so any vicarious operation is peremptorily excluded. Jesus did not accomplish at-one-ment for any. He taught it in His doctrine, and illustrated it in His life.

If He had atoned for any, then all need ceased for such atoned ones to do anything. If He paid the ransom, then the enslaved were free automatically. In place of this, the apostle Peter, with exquisite, simple words, states the truth, in saying, “He left us an example that we should follow in His steps.” (1Pet 2:21)

Any who think that Christ has done it all, and we have nothing to do for ourselves, will find that for them Christ died in vain. The Scriptures abound with exhortations to men to “Work out their own salvation” after His pattern.

Many objections will be set forth, as they will surely arise, to the conclusions we have reached.  It will be held inadequate and contradictory of many passages of the Bible, as it is certainly destructive of the theories which have been constructed upon or out of these passages.

We might well wait the presentment of these criticisms, but it may be better to anticipate some, if only in preliminary measure, believing that, as what we have set forth is the simple, unembellished facts of our subject every phase of that subject must be consistent with the whole, and explainable in harmony therewith.

One idea we may traverse briefly, as it may stumble some. If we are to work out our own salvation, that can only have a future effect. How, then, about the past when we were sinners? Is every man his own saviour?

No. God has been pleased to give to Jesus, as a reward for His faithfulness, a peculiar relationship to mankind. Jesus did not pay the debts of any. But for those who elect to accept the life of Jesus as the way unto the Father, it has pleased God to promise that He will forgive them for Christ’s sake, and so the righteousness of God is declared in His magnanimously passing over that which has been confessed and repudiated for Christ’s sake by those who have admired the pattern enough to try to copy it. So God vindicates Himself by requiring recognition and obedience as yielded by His Son. This is quite a different thing from the slaying, or requiring the death, of a just person in place of any unjust ones.

The Shield, Nov 15 1919

Since this was written, we have to hand “The Christadelphian” for August, in which on p370 we read from the pen of a brother in Melbourne, “Now, it is obvious that those ideas are completely subversive of the divine principle underlying the sacrifice of Christ. I refer particularly to the words of the Apostle Paul in Rom 3:26, a contextal study of which will reveal the agonising death on the cross was ‘a declaration of the righteousness of God.’  Edward Turney made void the principle by declaring that ‘for himself’ Jesus had no need to die at all, that He had a ‘free life.’”

We submit that a careful, candid and unprejudiced reading of what we have written on this subject will make perfectly clear that we hold nothing in common with Turneyism, of which we have been so carelessly and persistently and ungenerously accused.

But was the “agonising death on the cross a declaration of the righteousness of God”, as is so savagely contended for, and does Rom 3:26 support it?

We say emphatically, No. God is not a cruel monster though He is a jealous God.  Jesus Himself explained that His sacrifice was a voluntary one, which He made in the fullest confidence of His Father’s righteousness, whereby He would receive His life again. This is made plain in John 10:17,18 which is quite irreconcilable with any theory of punishment, such as is held by those who sing from one of our hymns with great fervour: “We held His as condemned by heaven, An outcast from His God.” Thus associating ourselves in sentiment with the rebellious and unregenerate Israel.

Nor can this reproach of God be found in Rom 3:26, or any contextal portion. Paul says Jesus has been set forth as a “mercy seat – a propitiatory sacrifice” – through whom God will exercise mercy upon “him who believeth in Jesus”. Surely here we have in the idea of mercy plainly set forth, the very antithesis of savage satisfaction upon sinners.

As we have said elsewhere, Jesus did not atone for Himself, or anyone, by paying the debt due by human nature in the agony of crucifixion. He yielded, voluntarily His sinless and unforfeited life in token of obedience to God, as the supremest act of recognition of the rights of God, to the perfect acknowledgement by the creature of the supremacy of the Creator. Thus there is shown that there can only be “one” paramount in such relationship.  Jesus, as was usual with Him, was at one with God to the last; He was obedient unto death.

At once we can hear the exclamation: “But it is written, ‘Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God’ (1 Pet 3:18). What do you make of that, and many similar passages?”

No need exists to make anything of it, save what we have already shown. The apostle does not wish to convey the idea of His bringing any to God apart from their own volition and co-operation. None would so construe his words. Neither does he mean that a just man died in place of any unjust men. He simply states that one died, who was in Himself spotless, and that He did so because of or, on account of those who were unjust.

What do you mean? Some will say. Why, then, did Christ die? If men had not been unjust there would have been no need for Him to die, as no saviour would have been necessary.  He died a sacrificial death not a natural one. He had nothing of His own to sacrifice or atone for. But it was needful for Him to manifest the supremacy of God, that through Him God might vindicate Himself. He had promised life for evermore to such as lived at one with Him.

The highest peak of at-one-ness lay in the voluntary yielding up of the life we all hold so dear. What will not one give for his life? If it were given up, what guarantee was there that the sacrifice would not be final, and leave the offerer in Lethe. Jesus felt the enormous strain of the test, which arose out of the unjustness of others, and not His own. He prayed for exemption. But God was inexorable. Jesus yielded, and died. Thus He did His part.

And God? “Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above they fellows.” (Heb 1:9) God did His part. He suffered not His holy one to see corruption, but raised Him in triumph over the tomb, to live as an example and warrant of the faithfulness of God to His promise. The righteousness of God was vindicated by the resurrection and not by the crucifixion of Jesus.

There is no doubt that many will be staggered a bit by the stripping off the sacrifice of Christ many of the hoary vestments in which it has been wrapped. Man dearly loves mystery, and the more involved his ideas of worship can be made the more sacred do they become.

Many passages will doubtless occur to our readers which they have always held to justify other theories than ours. We would gladly traverse then each one, but we feel it is better to wait till our readers have digested what we have written and then let them advance what they think to the contrary.

By last mail some one, in the old country, has mailed us, without remark, or comment, the pamphlet on “The Nature and Sacrifice of Christ”, by our late Bro J J Hadley. We thank the sender and find ourselves much in agreement with what our brother wrote, which may perchance be held by some as further proof of our heresy. It has shown how hard it is to adequately grapple with such a big subject, and made us fully conscious of many voids in our treatment.

Bro Hadley wrote: “We are brought, however, to a point in which questions and theories crowd upon our attention in perplexing number and variety – a point at which passages of Scripture so multiply, like the branches and twigs of a wide-spreading tree, that the systematic division and presentation of them is a matter of no little difficulty – if, indeed, it be not an impossible task. Let therefore the indulgence of the readers be extended to us in our endeavour, as we believe it will be by those who have given the most thought to the subject, and let it not be hastily assumed, till we have finished, that we either have forgotten, or wrongfully omitted anything which we ought to have taken into account. So far as we have tried to direct attention to salient and central truths, which can be easily grasped, rather than to figurative or semi-figurative utterances of the Scripture writers, which, in some instances, are difficult to interpret.”

Let this be taken as our mind in this matter, and let charity have free course in looking at our shortcomings. Then we will be glad to try to meet all objections which may be put forth, or modify our views or expressions to chord better with what we may be shown.

God’s Gospel was for the poor and unlearned, and thus was simply stated. We have tried to expose the simplicity of one of its cardinal features.

So we will conclude our essay by asking a question, which has been elsewhere put forward, and answered with involved elaboration, which has confused the mind: “When is atonement completed?”

This transfers the issue from vicarious sacrifice, into the proper relationship. As the case is commonly understood, we should say “When was the atonement completed?” because only in this definite sense is it usual to speak of the work of Jesus by those who deny that He was a substitute and yet hurl such passages as “He bore our sins in His own body to the tree”, at us, as applying prospectively and retrospectively to His crucifixion. If such be permitted as expressive of the facts, who, in the most orthodox manner, can
“Leave it all to Jesus”, for the unburdened sinner, has atonement completed in and by His death?

But we know that none is exempt from the need of atonement, despite the death of Christ, hence the wording of our question. The answer is, When the mind of the sinner has been enlightened from the word of God to discern his hopeless, death-stricken condition, in which he is ever at variance with the mind of God. His great concern is, “What must he do?”

The answer is: “Repent, and be baptised into the death of Jesus Christ.” That does not mean nor imply any physical participation in the exhaustion of the life of Jesus. Such is impossible, for He died some centuries of years before grace came to the sinner. It means that, as Jesus died unto sin daily and finally, so, after His example, must the repentant one copy His method, all of which is symbolically illustrated in the baptismal act, wherein the dead part is buried.

So God is honoured and obeyed.

Then the man enters again, by resurrection, upon another novitiate, in which his beginning is at-one-ment with God, in full and complete surrender of self to His will. This is indeed a newness of life, in which he has to walk worthy of his holy calling which demands of him, “Be ye holy as I am holy” – the condition of complete at-one-ment.