The Christadelphian, December 1873, Robert Roberts

“Questions on the Death of Christ”

Brother J. Grant, jun., of Grantown, Strathspey, who has not let go the Spirit’s testimony that “of this man (David’s) seed hath God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour Jesus” (Acts 13:23), proposes the following questions:

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

1.—The taking away of believer’s sins is much associated with the blood of Christ (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:22; 1 John 1:7), his offering (Heb. 10:12; Isaiah 53:10), and his death (Rom. 4:25; 1 Cor. 15:3; Gal. 1:4; Heb. 1:3; 9:26; 1 Peter 2:24.) Why is this, seeing that, failing his resurrection, sins would have remained notwithstanding his death (1 Cor. 15:17), and that seeing sins are not forgiven (even though Christ has died and risen) until the conditions of faith and obedience are complied with?—(Acts 2:38; 3:19; 10:43; 22:16.)

Why “For us?”

2.—Why is so much more stress laid upon the death of Christ for or on account of us (Rom. 5:6, 8; 1 Cor. 8:11; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15; 1 Thess. 5:10; Tit. 2:14; Heb. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 3:16), than upon his existence, obedience, and resurrection for us?

“Offered for Himself”

3.—In the offering of Jesus for himself (Heb. 5:3, 7, 27; 9:7, 9–12), can we understand anything else by it in relation to sin, than that in the pouring out of his blood to death, God’s law upon condemned nature was thus upheld, and the flesh freed from (in fulfilling the claim of) that which is the cause of death, viz., Adam’s sin?—J.G.

Replies

1.—The taking away of sin is specially associated with the bloodshedding, death, or offering of Christ, because that is the one element of the process of sin-taking-away, which implies all the rest. It is a common and natural peculiarity of speech to employ that feature or element of any act or matter which logically involves all its other elements. To say that Parliament passed the Education Act is a sufficient intimation that the Act was first framed, drafted, introduced, and discussed, and that all the forms of the House were complied with. There could not, of course, have been a “passing” of the Act unless the framing, drafting, introduction, and discussion had taken place; but in subsequent allusion, no one thinks of mentioning these minor (though essential) matters. The passing stands for all, and involves all. Endless illustrations of the same sort will occur to the thoughtful mind.

The death of Christ implies all the other parts of the process by which sin was covered. When you say Christ died, you intimate his birth, his nature, his character, and his resurrection. These all go with it. Thus, Christ could not have died if he had not been born. He would not have been Christ if he had not been from the loins of David. Christ could not have died if he had not been mortal. He would not have been Christ if he had been a sinner, and he would not have been sinless unless he had been God manifest in the flesh by the Spirit; and when he died with these conditions preceding, his resurrection was the secured sequel; for it was not possible, being an holy one, that he should be holden of death.—(Acts 2:24.) The death of Christ, then, is that feature of the process of sin-covering which logically involves all the rest, and, therefore, is the appropriate description of that process, although it be absolutely true that the death of Christ would have availed nothing for sin-covering if he had not risen.—(1 Cor. 15:17.)

The prominence of “the blood of Christ” is due to the symbolism of the law which converged and terminated in him. Blood-shedding was its constant feature in the slaying of animals from the foundation of the world. This blood-shedding had two significances, related one to the other, and both declarative of a fundamental principle in the relations between God and man, and illustrated in the death of Christ, who was slain for us. The first is that death is the penalty of sin. The blood is the life (Lev. 17:11–14), and the shedding of blood was, therefore, typical of death.

But it was typical of more than death; it was typical of a violent manner of death: for in natural death, the blood is not shed. Violent death includes death, but death does not necessarily include violence. Bloodshedding included both ideas. But why was it necessary that both should be thus prominent in the law? Because death had a double hold upon those for whom Christ was to die. They are hereditarily mortal because they inherit their being from one who was condemned to death because of sin; and their own numerous offences render them liable to the violent death decreed by the law. Christ came under both curses, and discharged them both by the shedding of his blood. He came under the first in being born of the same condemned stock “of this man (David’s) seed.” He came under the second in the act of crucifixion; for the law declared the man “accursed of God, ” (Deut. 21:23), who hung on a tree; and the spirit in Paul applies this to Jesus.—(Gal. 3:13.) Hence the shedding of his blood comes to be expressive of his whole work, even more completely in a verbal sense than his death; inasmuch as the shedding of his blood tells us he not only died but died violently. The literal shedding of his blood by the nails and spear of Rome was the Spirit’s ritual in the one great offering, connecting the offering with the slain beasts of the Mosaic law, and repeating the symbolism set forth from the beginning in the shedding of their blood; in the same way as the rending of the temple vail coincided with his death.—(Matt. 27:51.) The shedding of his blood would not have availed had he not died; and the crimson fluid would have been of no value to any human being, had it been caught in a bottle and preserved, as it oozed from the lacerated flesh. Its “preciousness” lay in the precious results it effected for us by the favour of God; and its cleansing power lies not in its physical nature, but in our spiritual perception of what God connected with it, and faith in His assurance of what He will do for us, if we submit to this vindication of his way towards men. The washing of us in his own blood is a figurative expression of the forgiveness of our sins we receive on our recognition and submission to God’s whole work in Christ, whom he hath set forth as a propitiation for our sins. God for Christ’s sake forgives us if we believe and obey him.

2.—This question is answered in the first part of the reply to No. 1; but it may be well to say something on a feature in it not intended by the querist to be prominent; but nevertheless which is liable to appear a difficulty in the light of the fact that Jesus was personally comprehended in his offering for sin. And that is, the incessant “stress laid upon the death of Christ” as being “for on account of us.” The question suggests itself—why “for us” if he was included? The answer is clear without setting aside the fact that he partook of our mortal nature and was redeemed from death because of his obedience. That answer is that in the matter of personal offences, the death of Christ was not for himself but for us. He was absolutely without sin. He kept the law spotless. In no point had he offended: in no sense was he liable to a violent death before his suspension on the cross. If it were lawful to at all consider his case separately from those he came to redeem, we might say that where all others from the weakness of the flesh had found the law to be unto death (Rom. 7:10; 8:3), Jesus would have found it unto life in his resurrection, when the life of this mortal had with him terminated.

The case of his brethren was much different. They were “dead in trespasses and sins.”—(Eph. 2:1.) It was not merely that they were mortal because descended from Adam, but they were “alienated and enemies in their minds by wicked works.”—(Col. 1:21). They were among the children of disobedience; “Among whom,” says Paul, “we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind.”—(Eph. 2:3). It was this8 that constituted them the children of wrath, even as others; for “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.”—(Rom. 1:18). The wrath of God is not revealed toward us because Adam sinned, (as the Apostacy and Renunciationism teach,) but because we ourselves transgress. Believers were all at one time subject to this wrath, because as Paul further says, “We ourselves also were sometime foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.”—(Titus 3:3).

The most conspicuous feature of the goodness of God toward us in the gospel is in the forgiveness of these “many offences.”—(Rom. 5:16.) Our hereditary mortality would have been a trivial obstacle if we ourselves had been found righteous before God. It was our iniquities that separated us from God. Hence the glory of the gospel is the proclamation of the remission of these, in the belief and obedience of the gospel of His Son.

Now Jesus had no offences to suffer for. He was without sin. “For himself” it was unnecessary he should have been nailed to the tree, except as part of the obedience the Father required at his hands. It was “for us” he thus was slain; for this violent death was the penalty due to the “many offences” that hold us captive, and which God laid upon him. His stripes were for our healing. But let it be observed that this was not on the principle of substitution. The act of hanging on a tree, which God required him to surrender to, brought him under the curse of the law, which said, “He that hangeth on a tree is accursed of God.” Therefore, he himself was made a curse in this part of the process of redeeming us from the curse. Before he was lifted to his place on the cross, he was not liable to a violent death; but as soon as he suffered himself to be suspended there, he became so by reason of the curse of the law resting on him. Yet it was “for us;” for it was for our sakes that he submitted to come under this curse. The mistake lies in supposing that because it was “for us,” he was not personally subjected to the burden laid on him. The beauty of the divine remedy is that it interferes with no divine law or arrangement. In the person of Jesus (a son of Adam as well as a son of God), Adamic mortality and the Mosaic curse were vanquished by his resurrection, after a mode of death which brought the curse of the law upon him. In him only, therefore, is life for the sons of men. In him only are the privileges of forgiveness and adoption unto eternal life. We partake of them by incorporation with his name in the appointed way. Out of His own goodness and mercy, God forgives us for Christ’s sake, in whom His honour and authority have been vindicated; not that Christ has satisfied Him or that He has accepted a compromise for our offences, or punished him in substitution for us; but merely that His way is upheld, and the door opened for man to be saved on the basis of forgiveness without the danger of forgiveness being used as an incentive to licence or rebellion.

Truly it was “for us” that Christ was born a mortal man, and made subject to weakness, and tempted in all points like as we are, and nailed to the cross and raised again from the dead; but unfortunately perverted are those who suppose that because God manifest in the flesh went through all these things “for us,” therefore he was not himself included in the entire operation.

3.—This question is fully met in the reply to No. 2. He offered for himself, first, by reason of his participation in Adamic mortality, and second, because his hanging on a tree brought on him the curse of the law, from which he could only be delivered by death. The resurrection that followed was the Father’s interference on behalf of His holy one, whose very condemnation by the law was the result of his submission to what the Father required—his death on the cross

8 To which they were prone by nature.—Editor.