John Carter comments on a pamphlet by E. Brady, circulated by The Nazarenes, that attacks two articles by Islip Collyer in The Christadelphian 1945.

“As We Grow Older”

The Christadelphian July 1945, Islip Colyer

Letters to Middle Age and Beyond—31

My Dear Brother—Sometimes letters arrive in such spate that it is impossible to deal with them individually even though they may call for comment. The prevailing impression drawn from this correspondence is one of sadness. Evil experiences come to us all in turn, and so at every hour someone is passing through a dark valley, beset with fears, and hardly knowing which way to step. In these hard struggles which are common to man, and which may be part of a necessary training, we can seldom give much real help beyond reminding each other that Christ and the apostles and prophets all attended the same hard school, and that they found strength and comfort in contemplating the divinely appointed resolution of all the discords.

Correspondence brings to light some facts which are even sadder than all the normal afflictions which come to humanity. In many parts of the world the operations of the Gospel are checked by endless “strife about words to no profit.” Sometimes there are more serious and persistent challenges to the work of the Truth. Old heresies which we thought had died fifty or seventy years ago are revived and blended in a new way, making it possible for a number of different persuasions either to strive with each other, or to unite in attacking those who are grounded and settled in that Hope which is able to transform us and make us fit for the Kingdom of God. I have received three copies of a single pamphlet which seeks to revive an old attack. It is one of those efforts in which there is an attempt to atone for poverty of argument by vigour of expression; and the “vigorous expression” so soon degenerates into a schoolboy type of rudeness, utterly futile in controversy of any kind, and tragically incongruous when applied to the most solemn and sacred of all the subjects presented in Scripture. It is difficult to understand why anyone should circulate such a pamphlet.

In some parts of the world more subtle and difficult controversy rages month after month and year after year. A recent communication reproaches me for not sounding an alarm in an effort to put matters right, for it is alleged that there have been some wrongful withdrawals. Alas! there have been many wrongful withdrawals all through history. Perhaps there has been more of unpardonable sin in this matter than in any other. There were wrongful withdrawals in apostolic days (3 John 9 : 10). Such evils need the wisdom and authority of an apostle to put them right. In any dispute or trouble, when investigation is made it is nearly always found that there are faults on both sides, and outside observers may not agree as to where the greater fault lies. We can see the wisdom of the divine rule which does not make Ephesus responsible for Sardis, or Sardis responsible for the evils of Laodicea. The seven churches in Asia were not far apart from each other, but each was responsible to the Lord, and not to other churches.

In some of the disputes it may seem possible to help by finding a definition which can be accepted by all sides: as it was scornfully observed twenty years ago, “Trying to find a formula after the manner of diplomatists.” Surely there is nothing of which to be ashamed in trying to make peace among brethren who are divided by strife of words. The only objection to the carefully worded formula is that it rarely brings peace. It may be accepted by both sides, showing that there is no vital difference of conviction to prevent harmony. For a little while we may think that we have succeeded. Then one side says, “We agree with your definition, but we think that it needs strengthening here.” The other side says, “Yes, we agree, but we think it needs to be made a little clearer here.” Then when one party has strengthened it and the other has made it clearer, we may be sure that the strife of words will break out as fiercely as ever. Such contention will not help anyone toward the Kingdom. It does not build us up in our most holy faith and make us fit for the Master’s use. Rather does it pull us down, check all spiritual growth, drive some away from the faith, and wear others out by fruitless controversy.

Dr. Thomas truly remarked that it is always right to contend earnestly for the Faith, and a healthy body will never be divided by this. But to contend for anything less than the Faith leads to all manner of evil.

If any member of the community becomes convinced that he has found a truth of vital importance, his conscience prompts him to proclaim the new doctrine. If others are convinced that he is wrong and that his agitation is doing harm, they are equally in honour bound to resist him. Division may become inevitable. Then let all concerned, and especially those who espouse the new teaching, pray for wisdom and examine themselves with merciless severity, for it is just at these times that feeling plays such a deadly part. Here lies the real danger arising from the many winds of doctrine which are spread through the post. Arguments which would not have the slightest effect when considered by a cool and scripturally enlightened reason, may become a grave menace when they are supported by feeling, even though the emotions which prove such a driving force have been aroused by matters far removed from the controversy in which they find expression. We can see how this acts in the political world. A man who feels that he has been slighted by his party will join with those who have been his opponents, and with whom he has nothing in common except a dislike of those who have offended him. Truly such resentments of the political world ought to have no counterpart in religion, but all men of experience know that there is often a humiliating resemblance between the affairs of the ecclesias and those of the world. In this connection I would remind you of one of the most interesting of the confessions made by bro. Roberts in his Autobiography. In early days there came a period of severe strain in his relationship with Dr. Thomas. The Doctor mistrusted him, and apparently accepted the judgment of his adversaries. R.R. was wounded deeply, and with his lacerated feelings raised the question in his mind whether after all the Doctor was right in his exposition of Scripture. Most natural, but not reasonable. A renewed appeal to the Word confirmed the conviction that the Doctor’s position could not be shaken. R.R. crushed down all resentful feeling, with the happy result that presently the misunderstandings were cleared away, and there was enduring harmony.

A less honest and righteous man could easily have found some pretext for condemning the Doctor, and for attacking him fiercely. And such a man would never have admitted that feeling had played the slightest part in the matter! This frank confession in My Days and My Ways is worthy of our close attention. It is most revealing not only of the author, but of the complex human heart which can so easily be deceitful. There are not many men as honest as bro. Roberts either in subjecting feelings to the Word of God, or in admitting that there had been a momentary weakness.

There is another way in which natural human feeling may do harm. Human beings—men especially—like to express their opinions, and to defend them if attacked. We have witnessed disputes over the most trifling issues which have developed into angry quarrels. On each side it has been admitted that the matter was of no importance and not calling for any argument, but on each side there has been a determination to have the last word. In religious matters controversy tends to make any difference of opinion look more important. It would be easy to think of a score of issues which might be forced and exaggerated until they became causes of division. Just as the early morning and loudly expressed blessing may become a curse, so in the quiet development of ecclesial life an over emphasis of a theory may become intolerable, even if there is much to be said in its favour.

The apostle James said, “Be not many teachers, knowing that these shall receive greater judgment.” Some are forced into positions as teachers. It is for them to pray for wisdom, for they will receive more severe judgment both from men and from the Lord. Bro. Roberts, and in less degree those who have followed him, have had to answer many questions on all sorts of subjects. For the most part the work has been done well, but there have no doubt been some answers in which second thoughts would suggest the need for qualifications. Some of the thoughts thus expressed may be emphasized and reiterated in such a manner as to do harm. Here again the apostle James may be quoted, and his words of wisdom would save us from much evil if they were heeded: “My brethren, be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

Unprofitable strivings about the law are among the causes of offence or of stumbling which beset our path. It is therefore of vital importance that we should not be the authors of such fruitless strife. In view of the weakness of human nature it is inevitable that offences should come. Christ recognized this fact, and added a comment which should be a warning to all his disciples (Matt. 18: 7).

I.C.

The Christadelphian August 1945, Islip Colyer

Letters to Middle Age and Beyond—32

My Dear Brother—In these closing days of the Gentiles, when our energies ought to be directed toward the building of character and spiritual development, it seems sad that many brethren and sisters should have their minds disturbed and agitated by endless contentions regarding the meaning of the Atonement. I suppose, however, that as paper becomes more plentiful we may expect an increasing flood of this undesirable literature which comes uninvited through the post.

It is not that a single new thing challenges our attention. Many different ideas are presented, mostly in the nature of revivals of old errors. I notice, however, that several of the pamphlets recently to hand agree to this extent, that when they try to present an explanation of the great sacrifice they have nothing better to offer than the old theological conception of substitution: that Christ died instead of sinners. This is surprising, for the doctrine of substitution has nothing in its favour. It is utterly contrary to the principles of justice repeatedly stated in Scripture. It is not good to save alive the souls that should not live and to slay those that should not die. The son shall not die for the father, or the father for the son. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Those who have sinned will be blotted out of God’s book.

Moreover it is obvious that the penalty due to sin is much more than a temporary death. It involves exclusion from the presence of God, and from the tree of life. Unredeemed sinners pay the full penalty due to sin, not the righteous and well-beloved Son of God, nor those faithful men who are redeemed through him.

The substitution idea is not made any better by a revival of the “violent death” theory of fifty years ago. It has been argued that the death due to Adam and through him to all his descendants, was a violent death by slaying. Then it is suggested that this was inflicted on Christ as a substitute for Adam. The theorists offer no explanation as to why the penalty was paid by a righteous man instead of by a guilty one; no explanation as to why so many of Christ’s disciples should also suffer violent death, although according to the theory the debt was paid; or why millions of Adam’s sons without ever entering the covenant should die peacefully in their beds after living out the full period of their mortality.

The violent death theory originated with a strangely perverse argument in which the closest restrictions of literal interpretation were forced on those who held the orthodox Christadelphian idea, while the utmost liberty of interpretation was claimed for the new theory. We were told that the immediate imposition of a law of mortality would not meet the needs of the case, for the warning was, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Then the sponsors of the new theory tried to make out that the “sure” death came, not on the day of transgression but four thousand years later, and that the one to die was not the “thou” addressed, but another man who had not sinned at all!

They claim that Adam “died in symbol” when the animals were slain to provide clothing. Was a symbolical death all that was meant by the words “thou shalt surely die”? We know where this kind of sophisticated reasoning led some of the brethren fifty years ago. They held that circumcision was a justifying ceremony necessary for infants who were supposed to be under condemnation to this violent death. Then with a shock of pained surprise some of the brethren discovered that they were teaching justification without faith.

If we allow the Bible to be its own interpreter this subject need cause no difficulty. In Gen. 2: 4 we read of “the day” in which the Lord God made the heavens and the earth. Even the strictest literalist must admit that at least six days of 24 hours were comprehended in this “day” of creation. Such a general application of the word day to a particular epoch is common in Scripture. In “the day” when God sent forth His energy the heavens and earth were created and made “very good.” In the day when Adam sinned evil came into the world and the law of death as the wage of sin. Thus through the inevitable principle of inheritance “we have the sentence of death in ourselves.”

I think that nearly all the difficulty experienced in connection with the great subject of Christ’s sacrifice arises from a failure to perceive that symbols must always be interpreted in harmony with plainly enunciated facts. We are spoken of as being redeemed, of being bought with a price, with the precious blood of Christ. We are also shown the righteous as having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. These are symbols and metaphors. The plain truth is that sins are remitted “through the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3: 25). That “God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4: 32). God will be merciful to the unrighteousness of Israel, and their sins and iniquities He will remember no more (Heb. 8: 12). Sins can only be put away by divine forbearance and forgiveness, and all metaphors must be interpreted in harmony with this great fact. We must remember too that divine law is the expression of divine will, and the law is given with a full knowledge of all its effects. God most reasonably demands that condemned rebels can only draw near to Him behind a perfect leader and mediator. The flesh having failed, God provided the leader; Jesus the righteous Son of God was made like his brethren and tempted in all points as they are. He suffered, being tempted. “He learned obedience by the things which he suffered.” He was obedient in all things “even to the death of the cross,” and for this cause God has highly exalted him and “saved him from death.” We must follow him to the best of our strength. Where much is given much is required. Some have to follow him even to the same kind of scourging and violent death which he endured. Some only have to follow in the long journeys and the wearying effort to instruct and help those who are not readily responsive. The divine object is that those who are fit for ultimate exaltation shall be given the necessary training. In faith and patience we must follow the “Captain of our salvation,” who by his perfect life and death provided the effective offering for sin, and on the basis of this sacrifice he passed into the Most Holy, “having obtained eternal redemption.’

A recent uninvited message through the post objects to the statement that there is something in our flesh which by a metonym is spoken of as sin.

Really the words of exposition to which this critic objected were not as emphatic as the words of the Apostle in Rom. 7. Paul wrote of “sin that dwelleth in me,” and of the law of sin in his members. There is no theological mystification in this. It would surely be sheer nonsense to suggest that men could sin for thousands of years without it having any effect on their flesh. We know something of what is meant by habit in the individual life. The first sin is always the worst, as it makes the change from innocence to guilt. Successive offences may form habits which it is almost impossible to break. Fleshly desires, and intolerance of all restraint, may harden into settled habits so that men “cannot cease from sin.” Racial habits, inherited tendencies, start us on the broad way, and we either let the flesh have an easy victory or life is a struggle.

Remember the wide range of scriptural definitions. To know to do good and do it not is sin. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. The thought of foolishness is sin. This last saying surely whips us all, for here in especial strength are some of the ingrained habits of the flesh.

If we really try to “overcome” we shall understand the apostle’s words. He put the matter in a personal way, and so will I. He found a law in his members warring against the law of his enlightened mind. So do I. He found that when he would do good, evil was present with him. So do I. He was conscious of something which he called “sin that dwelleth in me.” So am I. He exclaimed: “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”, and he thanked God that Christ could give deliverance. So do I.

Jesus can save because he partook of our nature with all its inherited weakness. He was made in all points like his brethren, and tempted as we are, but he never failed. Surely we may take much that is written in Psalm 119 as prophetic. He even hated vain thoughts, and only loved the Law of God which was his meditation day and night. Thus he took hold of sinful, human nature, and conquered it, finally nailing it to the cross.

This cannot be described as the paying of a debt except in the language of metaphor. God forgives sinners for Christ’s sake, but He will only forgive us if in faith and obedience we follow our Captain to the limit of our strength. Whether we have to follow to violent death as did the apostles, or to persecutions, or to hunger and want, or to reviling and insult, or to long journeys and wearying disputes—in whatever sphere we are called upon to labour we must do our best.

I.C.

“The Heretics”

The Christadelphian January 1946, John Carter

A pamphlet written by E. Brady, attacking the articles by bro. Collyer in The Christadelphian for July and August, 1945, has been widely circulated by a small group of onetime Christadelphians, now self-styled Nazarenes, and by inference in the title of the pamphlet “The Heretics”. All the pamphlets they issue are marked by violent language and pungent personal remarks; but vigour of expression takes the place of logical thought. Assertion is made to serve for proof.

In this pamphlet the writer speaks, among other similar words and phrases, of “mental curiosities”, of “a clouded brain”, and “nonsense” in others; yet he writes the following: “Men are only related to Adam’s sin in a federal sense—they are required by the Scripture to regard themselves as included under it in order to take part in the redemption from it”. In other words, we are called upon by Scripture to think of ourselves as being in a position of debt, which we are not really in, so that the debt which does not really exist can be paid, and we can share the redemption thus secured. We look in vain for any citation of Scripture in proof of such a statement.

Again, we are told that “most of those who are related to the purpose of God from Adam onwards, have been redeemed, either typically under the Law by sacrifice, or by baptism into Christ under the new dispensation, and have thus passed through the death for sin symbolically, their faith being accepted for the reality”. This apparently means that when faith is present God accepts a symbolic death for a real one, and that symbolic death as a means of redemption from death for sin. Men thus related to God have borne death for sin symbolically; and yet this same paragraph says there is “only one penalty for sin, namely death . . . the effect upon a sinner is extinction, final, complete and utter destruction”. The section is entitled “Artificial Fog”. Again, it is asserted that “if Adam had borne the penalty himself (i.e., for his sin) he would have remained dead . . . the grave would have held Adam”; also that “if the life of Adam had been taken he would have eternally perished”; and that Christ “met the claim of Sin upon the life of his brother Adam by giving his own life instead, a life for a life”. So Christ on this view died instead of Adam; but as all logic requires that in such a case he should by taking Adam’s place have remained dead, “eternally perished”, there must be something wrong with the theory in view of the fact that Christ rose.

An attempt is made to avoid this difficulty and to explain “how Jesus can have suffered the penalty instead of Adam and not now remain dead”, by saying: “all that is necessary is to keep in mind that it is ‘death’ that is the penalty, the actual suffering of death and not the fact of remaining dead”. The necessities of the theory now make death the suffering of death, in other words the act of dying. The penalty on Adam which was defined as “complete and utter destruction” becomes, when imposed on Christ “instead of Adam”, merely the suffering of death. Therefore Jesus could be raised. What then is the penalty? Is there “only one” or more than one?

What, then, also was this death of Jesus? Was it permanent, or was it temporary? In fact death only held him for a short time. Commenting on bro. Collyer’s use of the phrases “temporary death” and “sinners paying the full penalty of sin”, the writer says: “We should like him to produce any kind of justification outside his own clouded brain for various degrees of the penalty of sin, or any scripture for nonsense like a temporary death”. We turn to his own pamphlet. He says that had Adam borne the penalty he would have perished; Jesus bearing it instead of Adam, merely suffered death and did not perish. Does not the writer here himself propound “degrees of the penalty”—one that involves perishing and one that does not? And yet he also says one stood for the other. We may state the writer’s view in another way: the penalty for sin is “the actual suffering of death”: but the suffering of death has one effect upon a sinner—that is, perishing; and a different effect upon the righteous man—that is, not perishing. Hence the righteous man may pay the penalty for the sinner but escape the consequences—an idea which reminds one of the mediæval theory that Christ cheated the Devil.

As for “a full penalty” for sin, this happens in the unbroken sleep of an unenlightened, unforgiven sinner; and there is “a temporary death” in the case of a man whose “flesh rests in hope”. Scripture is asked for. Is it not found in the context of the phrase quoted? “Thou wilt not leave my soul in sheol, neither will thou suffer thine holy to see corruption”. Therefore the death of the Messiah had to be of so short duration that his flesh had not corrupted. If this is not temporary death, it is the same thing in other words. Either our critic must mean that the use of the phrase “a temporary death” is nonsense (which would be nonsense), or the idea is nonsense. What is it then when he expresses the idea in other words? Men are warned against trying to remove splinters when beams are in their own eyes.

Very boldly the writer challenges those who believe that because of inherited weakness men are incapable of complete obedience to God’s laws to “point out one single commandment which we cannot keep”; in reply it is only necessary to ask if there is any commandment which has ever been completely kept by any (Jesus alone excepted) in the spirit enjoined by Jesus in Matt. 5:21, 28, 39; 1 John 3:15. No wonder when such assertions as the one quoted are made, that John says: “If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”.

Bro. Collyer referred to the “inevitable principle of inheritance”, which his critic says is “to invite ridicule”. Has the critic never heard of Mendel and all the work that has been done by his successors in biological research? If it cannot be explained how heredity works, we need not deny the fact. The writer himself seems to admit the facts which tell against him when he says: “No one denies that all people do not start level; some are born with weakness in certain directions”. Why are they born with these weaknesses? Is there no reason?

There is much else that could be commented upon. Nearly every paragraph has its quota of error. But we get the worst sample of confused thinking when we are given the reason why Christ died. We are told that “the Devil was the first Sin personified into whose power Adam sold himself and all his family”. If the Devil were a person we could understand Adam selling himself to him and coming under his dominion. We could then understand a payment to the Devil for man’s release. But to talk of a personification of sin and then reason as though it were an actual person, instead of getting at the facts involved in the figure, is to stultify thought and make nonsense of words. When Paul says “the wages of sin is death”, he does not mean that sin is literally a personal master paying wages. By a vivid metaphor he means that God punishes men who sin with death and that they have earned death. “Ransom” used in connection with man’s deliverance from death is a metaphor, whatever may be said to the contrary. It is a scriptural metaphor, and it must be interpreted by the illustrations in the Law of Moses from which Jesus quotes, and not by the mediæval explanation of Christ’s work in terms drawn from brigandage, which is reproduced by these “heretics”.

We should get at the facts. Death has come by sin. Sin is rebellion against God, the setting up of man’s will against the will of God, thereby challenging God’s supremacy. God therefore punished Adam with death. “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin”, says Paul; and again, “By man came death”. These are basic statements of fact—they give the reason why man dies: for Paul continues, “and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”. He proves this by pointing out that death reigned from Adam to Moses, yet men during that period were not living under a penal code. Their death was not the result of any imposition due to broken law, just as in the Christian dispensation there is no divine penal code which inflicts death for disobedience. But the law of Moses had a penal code—for certain transgressions a man had to be stoned: but the absence of such a penal code during the period from Adam to Moses, shows that individual death was not due to individual sin, but to inherited mortality. Paul could hardly cite the Christian dispensation, which would have served his argument equally well, in view of the time he was writing.

The antithesis in 1 Cor. 15 shows that the death that has come “by man” is the death which terminates the present life. Paul does not talk of forfeited life: man dies. To treat of “life” as something that could be paid as in commercial transactions, is to obscure the facts. Life is not a separable thing from the man as if it were a part of him that could be dealt with apart from the man as a whole. The Bible deals with the man as a physical being, whose life is terminated by death. And as death has come by man, so “by man came the resurrection of the dead”. The death from which Christ rose is the death that has come by man. From this death the gospel offers us deliverance. But instead of these simple facts we are invited to believe, on one page of the pamphlet, that there is “only one penalty for sin, namely death . . . the effect upon a sinner is extinction, final, complete and utter destruction”, on another that “if Adam had borne the penalty himself he would have remained dead”; and yet that “death that is the penalty (is) the actual suffering of death and not the fact of remaining dead”. So do the necessities of a false theory lead to contradictions.

Christ rose “the firstfruits”; he is alive for evermore. God has highly exalted him because he was obedient even to the death on the cross: he has the keys of the grave. By his voluntary death he declared God’s righteousness in involving all in death because of sin; God’s supremacy is upheld in Christ by the willing offering of a sinless man who shared the consequences which have come by sin. God’s holiness and righteousness thus upheld, God invites us to identify ourselves with Christ in the symbolic rite of baptism which itself speaks of death. We acknowledge the moral principles of divine action, and for Christ’s sake God forgives.

We are reluctant to devote space to pointing out the contradictions and mistakes of these pamphleteers. We do not think anyone well instructed in the Scriptures will be misled, but for the sake of any who might be perturbed we draw attention to some of the fallacies. We hope to publish a series of constructive articles on these much controverted subjects. The well reasoned scripture-supported statement in The Blood of Christ, by R. Roberts, is excellent, and the contrast between the two views, one based on the facts declared in Scripture, and the other based on a theory built on a misused metaphor, will remove any doubts to open minds. The Atonement, by C. C. Walker, gathers together the Scripture passages which bear upon the subject.