Extracts from Elpis Israel 1848, John Thomas

“The Sentence of Death …”

In the previous chapter, I have treated of the introduction of sin into the world; its immediate effects upon the transgressors; and of some of its remoter consequences upon their posterity. We left Adam and his companion hid among the trees of the garden, greatly alarmed at the voice of God; and overwhelmed with shame at the condition to which they had reduced themselves. But, though hid, as they supposed, they soon found the truth of the saying that is written, that “there is not any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”.a When the Lord God called to Adam, he said, in answer to the question, “Where art thou?” “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself”.

This was the truth as far as it went; but it was not the whole truth. Fear, shame, and concealment are plainly avowed; but why he was ashamed he was not ingenuous enough to confess. The Lord God, however, knowing from the mental constitution He had bestowed upon him, that man could not be ashamed unless his conscience was defiled by transgression of His law in fact or supposition, directed His next inquiry so as at once to elicit a confession of the whole truth. “Who told thee”, said He, “that thou wast naked?” Did I tell thee, or did any of the Elohim? Or, “Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” Thou hast no cause to be afraid of Me, or ashamed of thine appearance as I have formed thee; unless thou hast sinned against Me by transgressing My law. Thou hast heard My voice, and stood upright and naked in My presence before, and weft not ashamed; what hast thou done? Why coverest thou thy transgression by hiding thine iniquity in thy bosom?a

But Adam, still unwilling to be blamed according to his demerits, in confessing reflected upon the Lord God, and turned evidence against Eve. “The woman”, said he, “whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” As much as to say, If thou hadst not put her in my way, and I had been left to myself, I should not have done it. It is she who is chiefly to blame; for she not only ate herself, but tempted me.

The offence being traced to Eve, the Lord Elohim said to her, “What is this that thou hast done?” But her ingenuousness was no more conspicuous than Adam’s. She confessed that she had eaten, but excused herself on the ground of a deception having been practised upon her by the serpent: “The serpent beguiled me”, said she, “and I did eat.”

There is no evidence that the Serpent either touched the tree, or ate of its fruit. Indeed, if he had he would have committed no offence; for the law was not given to him, but to Adam and Eve only; and “where there is no law there is no trangression”. Besides, Paul says Eve was the first in the transgression. The Lord God, therefore, did not interrogate the Serpent as He had the others. He had, by his clumsy interpretation of what he had seen and heard, corrupted Eve’s mind from the simplicity of faith, and obedience to the divine law; but he was incapable of showing upon what moral grounds he had called in question its literality. He thought they would not surely die; because he thought they could as well eat of the tree of life as of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He thought nothing of the immorality of the Lord God’s solemnly declaring a thing, and not performing it. Cognizance of the morality of thoughts and actions was beyond the sphere of his mentality. With all his superior shrewdness, he was neither responsible, nor able to give an account.

All the evidence in the case being elicited, the Lord God proceeded to pass sentence upon the accused in the order of their conviction. Being incriminated by Eve, and having, in effect, accused God of lying, the Lord began with him, and said,“Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life; and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This sentence was both literal and allegorical, like the rest of the things exhibited in the Mosaic account; being “representations of the knowledge and the truth”.a For the information of the unlearned reader I remark, that to allegorize is to speak in such a way that something else is intended than is contained in the words literally construed. The historical allegory has a double sense, namely, the literal and the figurative; and the latter is as real, as the former is essential to its existence. Thus, the literal serpent was allegorical of “sin in the flesh”; which is therefore figuratively styled the serpent, etc., as before explained. The literal formation of Eve out of Adam’s side was allegorical of the formation of the church out of him, of whom Adam was the figure; therefore, the church is the figurative Eve, and its temptation illustrated by that of the literal one. The examples of this are almost infinite. That of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar as allegorized by Paul in the text below, is a beautiful illustration of the relation between the literal and the figurative, as they are employed in the scriptures of truth. The discernment of the due limit between them is acquired, not by rules, but by much and diligent study of the word.

The literal is the exact construction of the sentence as it reads, and is found in strict accordance with their natural habit, and mutual antipathy between serpents and mankind. They go upon the belly, and lick the dust; and by the deadly quality of their venom, or “sting”, they are esteemed more hateful than any other creatures. In walking with a naked foot one would be bitten in the heel, whose retaliation would be instinctively to bruise the reptile’s head. This is all perfectly natural; but what does it suggest?

Much that might be said upon the allegorical meaning of this passage is already before the reader. I shall add, therefore, by way of summary, the following particulars:—

1. The Serpent as the author of sin is allegorical of “sin in the flesh”; which is therefore called ὁ πονηρός “the Wicked One”; and symbolized in its personal and political agency by “the Serpent”.

2. The putting of “enmity” between the Serpent and the woman is allegorical of the establishment of enmity between sin, incorporate in the institutions of the world, or the serpent: and the obedience of faith, embodied in the congregation of the Lord, which is the woman.

3. The “seed of the Serpent” is allegorical of those over whom sin reigns, as evinced in their obeying it in the lusts thereof. They are styled “the servants of sin”;b or, “the tares”.c

4. The “seed of the woman” is allegorical of “the children of the kingdom, ”c or “the servants of righteousness”.b They are also termed “the good seed”,a who hear and understand the word of the kingdom, sown in their hearts as “incorruptible seed”.b

5. The seed of the Serpent, and the seed of the woman, are phrases to be taken in the singular and plural numbers. Plurally, in the sense of the fourth particular. and singularly, of two separate hostile personages.

6. The serpent-bruiser of the heel is the sixth, or Imperial, head of the Dragon, to be crushed at the period of its binding, in the person of the last of the Autocrats.

7. The head-bruiser of the dragon, the old serpent, surnamed the Devil and Satan, is emphatically the Seed of the woman, but not of the man.

The allegorical reading of the text founded upon these particulars is as follows: “I will put the enmityc of that mode of thinking thou hast elicited in Eve and her husband against My law, between the powers that shall be hereafter, in consequence of what thou hast done, and the faithful and unblemished corporation I shall constitute: and I will put this enmity of the spirit against the flesh, and of the flesh against the spirit,d between all who obey the lusts of the flesh which thou hast excited, and those of My institution who shall serve me: their Chief shall bear away the world’s sine which thou hast originated, and shall destroy all the worksf that have grown out of it: and the sin-powerg shall wound him to death; but he shall recover it, and accomplish the work I now pre-ordain him to do.”

The Constitution of Sin.

“The creature was made subject to evil, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope.”

The introduction of sin into the world necessitated the constitution of things as they were laid in the beginning. If there had been no sin there would have been no “enmity” between God and man; and consequently no antagonism by which to educe good out of evil. Sin and evil are as cause and effect. God is the author of evil, but not of sin; for the evil is the punishment of sin. “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I, the Lord, do all these things.”b “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?”c The evil then to which man is subjected is the Lord’s doing. War, famine, pestilence, flood, earthquake, disease, and death, are the terrible evils which God inflicts upon mankind for their transgressions. Nations cannot go to war when they please, any more than they can shake the earth at their will and pleasure; neither can they preserve peace, when He proclaims war. Evil is the artillery with which He combats the enemies of His law, and of His saints; consequently, there will be neither peace nor blessedness for the nations, until sin is put down, His people avenged, and truth and righteousness be established in the earth.

This is the constituted order of things. It is the constitution of the world; and as the world is sin’s dominion, or the kingdom of the adversary, it is the constitution of the kingdom of sin.

The word sin is used in two principal acceptations in the scripture. It signifies in the first place, “the transgression of the law”; and in the next, it represents that physical principle of the animal nature, which is the cause of all its diseases, death, and resolution into dust. It is that in the flesh “which has the power of death”; and it is called sin, because the development, or fixation, of this evil in the flesh, was the result of transgression. Inasmuch as this evil principle pervades every part of the flesh, the animal nature is styled “sinful flesh,” that is, “flesh full of sin”; so that sin, in the sacred style, came to stand for the substance called man. In human flesh “dwells no good thing”;a and all the evil a man does is the result of this principle dwelling in him.a Operating upon the brain, it excites the “propensities”, and these set the “intellect”, and “sentiments” to work. The propensities are blind, and so are the intellect and sentiments in a purely natural state; when therefore, the latter operate under the sole impulse of the propensities, “the understanding is darkened through ignorance, because of the blindness of the heart”.b The nature of the lower animals is as full of this physical evil principle as the nature of man; though it cannot be styled sin with the same expressiveness; because it does not possess them as the result of their own transgression; the name, however, does not alter the nature of the thing.

A defective piece of mechanism cannot do good work. The principle must be perfect, and the adaptation true, for the working to be faultless. Man in his physical constitution is imperfect; and this imperfection is traceable to the physical organization of his flesh, being based on the principle of decay and reproduction from the blood; which, acted upon by the air, becomes the life of his flesh. All the phenomena which pertain to this arrangement of things are summed up in the simple word sin; which is, therefore, not an individual abstraction, but a concretion of relations in all animal bodies; and the source of all their physical infirmities. Now, the apostle says, that the flesh thinks—τὸ φρόνημα τη̂ς σαρχός—that is, the brain, as all who think are well assured from their own consciousness. If, then, this thinking organ be commanded not to do what is natural for it to do under blind impulse, will it not naturally disobey? Now this disobedience is wrong, because what God commands to be done is right, and only right; so that “by his law is the knowledge of sin”; and this law requiring an obedience which is not natural, flesh is sure to think in opposition to it. The philosophy of superstition is—religion in harmony with the thinking of the flesh; while true religion is religion in accordance with the thoughts of God as expressed in His law. Hence, it need excite no astonishment that religion and superstition are so hostile; and that all the world should uphold the latter; while so few are to be found who are identified with the religion of God. They are as opposite as flesh and spirit.

Sin, I say, is a synonym for human nature. Hence, the flesh is invariably regarded as unclean. It is therefore written, “How can he be clean who is born of a woman?”c “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.”d “What is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous? Behold, God putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh iniquity like water?”a This view of sin in the flesh is enlightening in the things concerning Jesus. The apostle says, “God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin”;b and this he explains in another place by saying, that “He sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh”c in the offering of his body once.d Sin could not have been condemned in the body of Jesus, if it had not existed there. His body was as unclean as the bodies of those for whom he died; for he was born of a woman, and “not one” can bring a clean body out of a defiled body; for “that”, says Jesus himself, “which is born of the flesh is flesh”.e

According to this physical law, the Seed of the woman was born into the world. The nature of Mary was as unclean as that of other women; and therefore could give birth only to “a body” like her own, though especially “prepared of God”.f Had Mary’s nature been immaculate, as her idolatrous worshippers contend, an immaculate body would have been born of her; which, therefore, would not have answered the purpose of God; which was to condemn sin in the flesh; a thing that could not have been accomplished, if there were no sin there.

Speaking of the conception and preparation of the Seed, the prophet as a typical person, says, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me”.g This is nothing more than affirming that he was born of sinful flesh: and not of the pure and incorruptible angelic nature.

Sinful flesh being the hereditary nature of the Lord Jesus, he was a fit and proper sacrifice for sin; especially as he was himself “innocent of the great transgression”, having been obedient in all things. Appearing in the nature of the seed of Abraham,h he was subject to all the emotions by which we are troubled; so that he was enabled to sympathize with our infirmities,i being “made in all things like unto his brethren”. But, when he was “born of the Spirit”, in the quickening of his mortal body by the spirit,j he became a spirit; for “that which is born of the spirit is spirit”. Hence, he is “the Lord the Spirit“, incorruptible flesh and bones.

Sin in the flesh is hereditary; and entailed upon mankind as the consequence of Adam’s violation of the Eden law. The “original sin” was such as I have shown in previous pages. Adam and Eve committed it; and their posterity are suffering the consequence of it. The tribe of Levi paid tithes to Melchisedec many years before Levi was born. The apostle says, “Levi who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham”. Upon the same federal principle, all mankind ate of the forbidden fruit, being in the loins of Adam when he transgressed. This is the only way men can by any possibility be guilty of the original sin. Bemuse they sinned in Adam, therefore they return to the dust from which Adam came—ἐφʼ ᾠ̈́̈́̈́ says the apostle, “in whom all sinned”.* There is much foolishness spoken and written about “original sin”. Infants are made the subjects of a religious ceremony to regenerate them because of original sin; on account of which, according to Geneva philosophy they axe liable to the flames of hell for ever! If original sin, which is in fact sin in the flesh, were neutralized, then all “baptismally regenerated” babes ought to live for ever, as Adam would have done had he eaten of the Tree of Life after he had sinned. But they die; which is a proof that the “regeneration” does not “cure their souls”; and is, therefore, mere theological quackery.

Mankind being born of the flesh, and of the will of man, are born into the world under the constitution of sin. That is, they are the natural born citizens of Satan’s kingdom. By their fleshly birth, they are entitled to all that sin can impart to them. What creates the distinction of bodies politic among the sons of Adam? It is constitution, or covenant. By constitution, then, one man is English, and another American. The former is British because he is born of the flesh under the British constitution. In this case, he is worthy of neither praise nor blame. He was made subject to the constitution, not willingly, but by reason of them who chose that he should be born under it. But when he comes of age, the same man may become an American. He may put off the old man of the political flesh, and put on the new man, which is created by the constitution of the United States; so that by constitution, he becomes an American in every particular but the accident of birth. This will be exact enough to illustrate what I am about to say.

There are two states or kingdoms, in God’s arrangements, which are distinguished by constitution. These are the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God. The citizens of the former are all sinners; the heirs of the latter are saints. Men cannot be born heirs by the will of the flesh; for natural birth confers no right to God’s Kingdom. Men mast be born sinners before they can become saints; even as one must be born a foreigner before he can be an adopted citizen of the States. It is absurd to say that children are born holy, except in the sense of their being legitimate. None are born holy, but such as are born of the Spirit into the Kingdom of God. Children are born sinners or unclean, because they are born of sinful flesh; and “that which is born of the flesh is flesh”, or sin. This is a misfortune, not a crime. They did not will to be born sinners. They have no choice in the case; for it is written, “The creature was made subject, τῃ̂ ματαιότητι to the evil, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected it in hope“.a Hence, the apostle says, “By Adam’s disobedience the many were made sinners”;b that is, they were endowed with a nature like his, which had become unclean, as the result of disobedience; and by the constitution of the economy into which they were introduced by the will of the flesh, they were constituted transgressors before they were able to discern between right and wrong.

Upon this principle, he that is born of sinful flesh is a sinner; as he that is born of English parents is an English child. Such a sinner is an heir of all that is derivable from sin. Hence, new-born babes suffer all the evil of the peculiar department of Satan, or sin’s kingdom, to which they belong. Thus, in the case of the Amalekites, when the divine vengeance fell upon them, the decree was—“Utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”.c The destruction of “infants and sucklings” is especially commanded in divers parts of scripture. Not because they were responsible transgressors; but, on the same principle that men not only destroy all adult serpents that come in their way, but the thread-like progeny also; for in these is the germ of venomous and malignant reptiles. Had God spared the infants and sucklings of the Canaanitish nations, when they had attained to manhood, even though they had been trained by Israel, they would have reverted to the iniquities of their fathers. Even Israel itself proved a stiff-necked and perverse race, notwithstanding all the pains bestowed upon their education by the Lord God; how much more perverse would such a seed of evil serpents as the Canaanitish offspring have turned out to be?

It is a law of the flesh that “like produces like”. Wild and truthless men reproduce themselves in their sons and daughters. The experiment has been tried on Indian infants. They have been taken from their parents, and carefully educated in the learning and civilization of the white man; but when they have returned to their tribe as men, they have thrown off the habits of their patrons, and adopted the practices of savage life. The same tendency is seen in other animals. Hatch the eggs of the wild turkey under a tame one; and as soon as they are able to shift for themselves they will leave the poultry yard, and associate with the wild species of the woods. So strong is habit, that it becomes a law to the flesh, when continued through generations for a series of years.

But men are not only made, or constituted sinners by the disobedience of Adam, but they become sinners even as he, by actual transgression. Having attained the maturity of their nature, they become accountable and responsible creatures. At this crisis, they may be placed by the divine arranging in a relation to His word. It becomes to them a Tree of Life,d inviting them to “take, and eat, and live for ever”. If, however, they prefer to eat of the world’s forbidden fruit, they come under the sentence of death in their own behalf. They are thus doubly condemned. They are “condemned already” to the dust as natural born sinners; and, secondarily, condemned to a resurrection to judgment for rejecting the gospel of the kingdom of God: by which they become obnoxious to “the Second Death”.a

Thus men are sinners in a twofold sense; first, by natural birth; and next, by transgression. In the former sense, it is manifest they could not help themselves. They will not be condemned to the Second Death because they were born sinners; nor to any other pains and penalties than those which are the common lot of humanity in the present life. They are simply under that provision of the constitution of sin which says, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return”. Now, if the Lord God had made no other arrangement than that expressed in the sentence upon the woman and the man, they and all their posterity in all their generations would have incessantly gone to dust and there have remained for ever. “The wages of sin is death.” Sinful flesh confers no good thing upon its offspring; for holiness, righteousness, incorruptibility, and life for ever are not hereditary. None of these are inherent in animal flesh. Sinners can only acquire them by a conformity to the law of God; who offers them freely to all who thirst after the water of life eternal.b

The Constitution of Righteousness.

“Constituted the righteousness of God in Christ.”

The former things being admitted, if men would be righteousin God’s esteem, they must become such by constitution also. The “good actions” of a pious sinner are mere “dead works”; for the actions of a sinner to be of any worth in relation to the future state, he must be “constituted righteous”; and this can only be by his coming under a constitution made and provided for the purpose. A stranger and foreigner from the commonwealth of the States, can only become a fellow-citizen with Americans, by taking the oath of abjuration, fulfilling the time of his probation, and taking the oath of allegiance according to the provisions of the constitution.

Now, the Kingdom of God has a constitution as well as the Kingdom of Satan, or that province of it styled the United States. Before sinners come under it, they are characterized as “without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God (ἄθεοι, atheists) in the world”.c They are termed “far off”, “strangers and foreigners” “walking in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart”.a But, mark the sacred style descriptive of sinners after they have been placed under the constitution of Israel’s Commonwealth, which is the Kingdom of God. “You that were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ”; “through him you have access by one spirit to the Father; and are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God”—“fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel”.b In this remarkable contrast is discoverable a great change in state and character predicated of the same persons. How was this transformation effected? This question is answered by the phrase, “In Christ by the gospel”. The “in” expresses the state; the “by” the instrumentality by which the state and character are changed.

As the constitution of sin hath its root in the disobedience of the First Adam, so also hath the constitution of righteousness root in the obedience of the Second Adam. Hence, the apostle says, “As through one offence (sentence was pronounced) upon all men unto condemnation; so also through one righteousness (sentence was pronounced) upon all men (that is, Jews and Gentiles) unto a justification of life. For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted (χατεστάθησαν) sinners; so also through the obedience of the one the many shall be constituted righteous“.c The two Adams are two federal chiefs; the first being figurative of the secondd in these relations. All sinners are in the first Adam; and all the righteous in the second, only on a different principle. Sinners were in the loins of the former when he transgressed; but not in the loins of the latter, when he was obedient unto death; therefore, “the flesh profiteth nothing”. For this cause, then, for sons of Adam to become sons of God, they must be the subjects of an adoption, which is attainable only by some divinely appointed means.

The apostle then brings to light two sentences, which are coextensive, but not co-etaneous in their bearing upon mankind. The one is the sentence of condemnation, which consigns “the many”, both believing Jews and Gentiles, to the dust of the ground; the other is a sentence which affects the same “many”, and brings them out of the ground again to return thither no more. Hence, of the saints it is said, “The body is dead because of sin; but the spirit (gives) life because of righteousness”;e for “since by man came death, by a man also came a resurrection of dead persons (ἀνάστασις νεχρω̂ν). For as in Adam they all die, so also in Christ shall they all be made alive. But every one in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming”.f It is obvious that the apostle is not writing of all the individuals of the human race; but only of that portion of them that become the subject of “a justification of life”, διχαίωσις ζωη̂ς. It is true, that all men do die; but it is not true that they are all the subjects of justification. Those who are justified are “the many”, οἱ πολλοί, who are sentenced to live for ever. Of the rest we shall speak hereafter.

The sentence to justification of life is through Jesus Christ. In being made a sacrifice for sin by the pouring out of his blood upon the cross, he was set forth as a blood-sprinkled mercy seat to all believers of the gospel of the kingdom, who have faith in this remission of sins through the shedding of his blood. “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification”;a that is, for the pardon of those who believe in the gospel; as it is written, “He that believeth the gospel and is baptized shall be saved”.b Hence, “the obedience of faith”c is made the condition of righteousness; and this obedience implies the existence of a “law of faith”, as attested by that of Moses, which is “the law of works”.d The law of faith says to him who believes the gospel of the kingdom, “Be renewed, and be ye every one of you baptized in the name (ἐπὶ τᾡ ὀνόματι) of Jesus Christ for remission of sins”.e

Here is a command which meets a man as a dividing line between the State of Sin and the State of Righteousness. The obedience of faith finds expression in the name of Jesus as “the mercy seat through faith in his blood”. Hence the apostle says to the disciples in Corinth, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners; shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye were washed, sanctified, and made righteous (ἐδιχαιώθητε) in the name (ἐν τῳ̂ ὀνόματι) of the Lord Jesus, and in the spirit (ἐν τῳ̂ πνεύματι) of our God”.f Thus, the spirit, which is put for the gospel of the kingdom and name, renewed these profligates; the divine law and testimony attested by the spirit with signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts,g and believed with a full assurance of conviction that worked in them by love to will and to do—caused them to be “washed in the name”, to be “sanctified in the name”, and to be “made righteous in the name of Jesus Christ”.

It must be clear to any man, unspoiled by a vain and deceitful philosophy, that to be washed in a name is impossible, unless the individual have faith in the name, and be subjected to the use of a fluid in some way. Now when a man is “washed in the name of Jesus Christ”, there are three witnesses to the fact, by whose testimony everything is established. These are the spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree in one statement. Jesus Christ was made manifest by water at his baptism;h and by blood in his death; and by the spirit in his resurrection: therefore, the spirit who is the truth (τὸ πνευ̂μά ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια), and the water, and the blood, or the truth concerning the Messiahship, sacrificial character, and resurrection of Jesus, are constituted the witnesses who bear testimony to a man’s being the subject of “the righteousness of God”a set forth in the gospel of His Kingdom. The testimony of these witnesses is termed “the witness of God”, which every believer of the Kingdom and Name hath as “the witness in himself”.b

Water, then, is the medium in which the washing occurs. But, although water is so accessible in all parts of the world where the gospel has been preached, it is one of the most difficult things under heaven to use it so as to wash a man in the name of Jesus Christ. What! says one, is it difficult to get a man to be dipped in water as a religious action? No; it is very easy. Thousands in society go into the water on very slender grounds. But going into the water, and having certain words pronounced over the subject, is not washing in the name. The difficulty lies, not in getting men to be dipped, but in first getting them to believe “the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ”;c or “the exceeding great and precious promises”, by the faith of which they can alone become the “partakers of the divine nature”.d Without faith in these things, there is no true washing, no sanctification, or purification, from moral defilement, and no constitution of righteousness by the name of Jesus for the sons of men; for, says the scripture. “without faith it is impossible to please God”

It was the renewing efficacy of the exceeding great and precious promises of God assuredly believed, that changed the gay and profligate Corinthians into “the sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints”; of whom it is testified that “hearing, they believed and were baptized”.e Now, to these baptized believers he writes, and tells them that “God made (ἐποίησεν) Jesus, who knew not sin, to be sin (that is, sinful flesh) for them, that they might be constituted (γινω̂νται) God’s righteousness in Him”;f so that, being introduced into Him (for an individual cannot be in a federal person unless introduced into Him) the crucified and resurrected Jesus became “the Lord their righteousness”;g as it is written, “Of Him, Corinthians, are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God was constituted (ἐγενήθη) for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”h So that, whosoever is in him, is said to be “complete in him”; in whom he is circumcised “in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh”; that is, all past sins; being buried with Christ in the baptism, in which also he rises with him through the belief of the power of God evinced in raising him from among the dead.i

Now, because the unconstituted, or unrighteous, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the law is revealed which says, “Ye must be born again”; for says the King, “Except a man be born again he cannot behold the kingdom of God”. This saying is unintelligible to men whose thinking is guided by the flesh. They cannot comprehend “how these things can be”: and, though they profess to be “teachers of Israel”, “Masters of Arts”, and “Bachelors”, and “Doctors of Divinity”, and of “Canon and Civil Law”, they are as mystified upon the subject of “the new birth” as Nicodemus himself. But to those who understand “the word of the kingdom” these “heavenly things” are distinguished by the obviousness and simplicity of truth. To be born again, as the Lord Jesus expounds it, is to be “born of the water and the spirit”; as it is written, “Except a man be born out of water (ἐξ ὕδατος) and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”.a This is surely very explicit and very intelligible; who can misunderstand it, unless it be against his will to receive it?

The New Birth, like the old one of the flesh, is not an abstract principle, but a process. It begins with the begettal and ends with the having been born. A son of God is a character, which is developed out of the “incorruptible seed”b of God, sown into the fleshy table of the heart.c When this seed, or word of the Kingdom, is received, it begins to work in a man until he becomes a believer of the truth. When things have come to this pass, he is a changed man. He has acquired a new mode of thinking; for he thinks in harmony with the thoughts of God as revealed in His law and testimony. He sees himself, and the world around him, in a new light. He is convinced of sin; and experiences an aversion to the things in which he formerly delighted. His views, disposition, temper, and affections are transformed. He is humble, child-like, teachable, and obediently disposed; and his simple anxiety is to know what God would have him to do. Having ascertained this, he does it; and in doing it is “born out of the water”. Having been begotten by the Father by the word of truth,d and born of water, the first stage of the process is completed. He is constitutionally “in Christ”.

When a child is born, the next thing is to train him up in the way he should go, that when he is old he may not depart from it. This is also the arrangement of God in relation to those who are born out of water into His family on earth. He disciplines and tries them, that He may “exalt them in due time”. Having believed the gospel and been baptized, such a person is required to “walk worthy of the vocation”, or calling, “wherewith he has been called”,e that by so doing he may be “accounted worthy” of being “born of spirit”, that he may become “spirit”, or a spiritual body; and so enter the kingdom of God, crowned with “glory, honour, incorruptibility, and life”.a When, therefore, such a believer comes out of the ground by a resurrection from among the dead, the spirit of God, worked by the Lord Jesus, first opens the grave, and forms him in the image, and after the likeness of Christ; and then gives him life. He is then an incorruptible and living man, “equal to the angels”; and like them capable of reflecting the glory of Him that made him. This is the end of the process. He is like Jesus himself, the great exemplar of God’s family, born out of water by the moral power of the truth; and out of the grave by the physical power of spirit; but all things of God through Jesus Christ the Lord.

In the way described, sinners are transformed into saints; and it is the only way; their conversion being the result of the transforming influence of “the testimony of God”. Those who are ignorant of “the law and the testimony”, and who yet claim to be saints, and “teachers of divine mysteries”, may demur in toto to this conclusion, because “in saying this thou condemnest us also”. But truth knows no respect of persons; and while the oracles of God declare, that men are “renewed by knowledge”, and “alienated from the life of God through ignorance”, I feel entrenched impregnably in the position here assumed. According to the constitution of the human intellect, the knowledge of truth must precede the belief of it. There is no exception to this. If cases be cited as exceptions, the faith is spurious, and not that with which God is pleased. It is credulity; the faith of opinion, such as characterizes the spiritual philosophy of the age.

Lastly, the act demanded of a renewed sinner by the constitution of righteousness, that he may be inducted into Christ, and so “constituted the righteousness of God in him”, is a burial in water into death. The energy of the word of truth is twofold. It makes a man “dead to sin” and “alive to God“. Now, as Christ died to sin once and was buried, so the believer, having become dead to sin, must be buried also; for after death, burial. The death and burial of the believer is connected with the death and burial of Christ by the individual’s faith in the testimony concerning them. Hence, he is said to be “dead with Christ”, and to be “buried with Christ”; but, how buried? “By baptism into death”, saith the scripture.

But is this all? By no means; for the object of the burial in water is not to extinguish animal life; but, by preserving it to afford the believer scope to “walk in newness of life”, moral and intellectual. He is, therefore, raised up out of the water. This action is representative of his faith in the resurrection of Jesus; and of his hope, that as he had been planted with him in the similitude of his death, he shall hereafter be also in the likeness of his resurrection,b and so enter the kingdom of God. To such persons the scripture saith, “Ye are all sons of God in Christ Jesus through the faith”; and the ground of this honourable and divine relationship is assigned in these words: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ; and if ye be Christ’s, then are ye the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise”.a They have thus received the spirit of adoption by which they can address God as their Father who is in heaven.

The Two Principles.

“With the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the Law of Sin.”

Although a sinner may have been “delivered from the power of darkness”, or ignorance, and have been “translated into”b the hope of “the Kingdom of God and of his Christ”,c by faith in the divine testimony and baptism into Christ—yet, if he turn his thoughts back into his own heart, and note the impulses which work there, he will perceive a something that, if he were to yield to it, would impel him to the violation of the divine law. These impulses are styled “the motions of sins”.d Before he was enlightened, they “worked in his members”, until they were manifested in evil action, or sin; which is termed, “bringing forth fruit unto death”. The remote cause of these “motions” is that physical principle, or quality, of the flesh, styled indwelling sin, which returns the mortal body to the dust; and that which excites the latent disposition is the law of God forbidding to do thus and so; for, “I had not known sin, but by the law”.

Now, while a righteous man feels this law involuntarily at work in his members, the law of sin, or of nature within him; he also perceives there a something which condemns “the motions of sins”, and suppresses them; so that they shall not impel him to do what he ought not to do. The best of men—and I quote Paul as an illustration of the class—are conscious of the co-existence of these hostile principles within them. “I find”, says he, “a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me” Yes; the principle of evil and the principle of good are the two laws which abide in the saints of God so long as they continue subject to mortality.

The reader is invited to re-peruse pages eighty-nine and ninety on the subject of these laws, as it will prevent repetition in this place.

The law of sin and death is hereditary, and derived from the federal sinner of the race; but the law of the mind is an intellectual and moral acquisition. The law of sin pervades every particle of the flesh; but in the thinking flesh it reigns especially in the propensities. In the savage, it is the only law to which he is subject; so that with his flesh, he serves only the law of sin and death. This is to him “the light within”; which is best illustrated by the darkness of Egypt, which might be felt. It was this internal light which illuminated “the princes of the world, who crucified the Lord of glory”. It shined forth in the philosophy of Plato, and in the logic of Aristotle, who walked in it while “dwelling in the land of the shadow of death”a and it is “the light within” all babes who are born of blood, of the will of the flesh, and of man under the constitution of sin, in all countries of the world.

Now, the scripture saith, “The commandment of God is a lamp; and his law is light”;b so that the prophet says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path”.c And to this agrees the saying of the apostle, that the sure word of prophecy is “a light that shineth in a dark place”.d Now, Isaiah testifies, that the Word is made up of God’s law and testimony, and that those who do not speak according to it, have no light in them.e This is the reason that the savage has no light in him; because he is intensely ignorant of the law of God. Light does not emanate from within; for sin, blood, and flesh can give out none. It can only reflect it after the fashion of a mirror. The light is not in the mirror; but its surface is so constituted that when light falls upon it, it can throw it back, or reflect it, according to the law of light, that the images of objects are seen on the surface, whence the light proceeding from the objects is last reflected to the eye. Neither is light innate in the heart. This is simply a tablet; a polished tablet, or mirror, in some; but a tarnished, rusty tablet in others. It is called “the fleshy tablet of the heart”. It was polished in the beginning, when God formed man after His likeness; but sin, “the god of this world”, hath so tarnished it that there are but few who reflect His similitude.

No; it is a mere conceit of the fleshly mind that man is born into the world with the light within; which requires only to be cherished to be sufficient to guide him in the right way. God only is the source of light; He is the glorious illuminator of the moral universe; and He transmits His enlightening radiance through the medium, sometimes of angels, sometimes of prophets, and at others through that of His Son and the apostles, by His all-pervading Spirit. Hence it is that the scripture saith, “God is light”, whose truth “enlightens the eyes”. But what is the truth? It is “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ”, who is the polished incorruptible fleshly mirror, which reflects the Image of God—an image, at present, but obscurely impressed upon the fleshy tablets of our hearts; because we know only in part, perceiving things by the eye of faith, until hope shall disappear in the possession of the prize.

God, then, is the source of light; the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus is the light; and Christ is the medium through which it shines; hence he is styled the Sun of Righteousness; also, “the true, light, which enlighteneth every man, that cometh into the world”; “a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel”. Now, the enlightening of every man is thus explained by the apostle: “God”, saith he, “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, is he who hath shined into our (the saints’) hearts, with the illumination of the knowledge (πρὸς φωτισμὸν τη̂ς γνώσεως) of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.a But “every man” is not enlightened by this glorious knowledge; for to some it is hid. The tablets of their hearts are so corroded and encrusted with opaque and sordid matter that they are destitute of all reflecting power. Light will not shine in a black surface. Hence, saith the apostle, “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of the world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into them”.b He darkens the tablets of their hearts by “the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches”;c and thus prevents them from opening their ears to hear the words of eternal life.

If a man have fight, then, it is very evident that it is acquired from without, and not an hereditary spark within. When the Lord Jesus appeared in Israel “he shined in the darkness”. This nation was so darkened by the propensities and human tradition, that they did not perceive the light when it shined among them; “the darkness comprehended it not”.d If this were the condition of Israel, how intensely dark must have been the world at large. Still, the Gentile mind was not so totally eclipsed as that of the savage. The nations of the Four Empires had been greatly mixed up with the Israelites in their history; so that the light of their law must have been considerably diffused among them; though not given to them for their obedience. Hence, “the work of the law was written upon their hearts” to some extent; and created in them “a conscience, by the thoughts of which they accused or excused one another”.e

This shining of the truth in the darkness of the nations was considerably increased by the apostolic labours; for “their sound went into all the land, and their words unto the end of the habitable” (τῃ̂ς οἰχουμένης, or Roman Empire).f Now, although this light was almost extinguished by the apostasy, lamps were still kept burning in its presence;g so that the eclipse was not so total that the darkness of the Gentile mind was reduced to a savage state. When the scriptures were again disseminated in the tongues of the nations in the sixteenth century, the light of truth began again to stream in upon them. The scriptures were then like a book just fallen from heaven. The world was astonished at their contents; but “comprehended them not”. Men discussed it, tortured it, perverted it, fought about it; until the stronger party established the foundation of the world as at present constituted.

This world, called “Christendom”, is much after the order of things in the days of Jesus. Were he to appear now, he would “shine in the darkness” as when among the Jews. These professed to know God, while in works they denied Him. Their clergy said, “We see”; but Jesus characterized them as “blind leaders of the blind”; therefore, “their sin remained”. They boasted in the law; yet through breaking it, dishonoured God. They professed to be more conscientious and pious than Jesus; but he charged them with being hypocrites and serpents. They strained out gnats, and swallowed camels; and gave tithe of mint and cummin, and despoiled the fatherless and the widow. And, “like priest, like people”. They crowded to the synagogues and the temple in splendid apparel. The bejewelled worshippers exhibited themselves in conspicuous seats; while the poor stood, or if seated, sat on footstools near the door. They made a great show of piety, sang the psalms of David with holy rapture, devoutly listened to the reading of the law and the prophets; and expelled Jesus and his apostles with great fury from their midst, when they showed the meaning of them. With the worship of God they combined the worship of Mammon. They heaped up gold and silver, and apparel till it was moth eaten; oppressed the hirelings in his wages; and ground the faces of the poor.

Such was the state of “the church” when Jesus and his apostles were members of it; and such is its condition now that “he standeth at the door, and knocks”. “The Church” of the 20th century (by which I understand, not the “One Body”;a but that thousand-headed monster presented by the ecclesiastical aggregate of “Christendom”) is that Laodicean antitype which is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and which saith, “I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; but knows not that it is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”;b the sputa once “spewed out of the Lord’s mouth”. Its eyes are blinded by the god of the world. Its zeal for faction: its devotion to Mammon; its ignorance of the scriptures; and its subjection to the dogmas and commandments of men—have made its heart fat, its ears heavy, and closed its eyes. “The people of the Lord, the people of the Lord are we!” ascends as its cry to heaven from myriads of throats; but in the tablets of their hearts the light of the glorious gospel of Christ’s kingdom and name finds no surface of reflection. Many who mean well lament “the decline of spirituality in the Churches”; but they fail to perceive the cause. The scriptures have fallen into comparative disuse among them. They are superseded by shallow speculations—mere unintelligible pulpit disquisitions, the contradictory thinking of the flesh, trained to excogitate the creedism of the community that glorifies itself in the orator of its choice. The gospel is neither believed nor preached in the churches. In fact, it is hid from their eyes; and the time is come to break off the wild olive branch for its saplessness; to cut off these churches for their unbelief.a

The principle, or spirit, that works in these children of disobedience, is neither the law of sin as exhibited in the savage; nor the law of God as it appears in the genuine disciples of Christ. It is a blending of the two; so as to make of none effectb the little truth believed, as far as inheriting the Kingdom of God is concerned. This proportion of truth in the public mind is the measure of its morality, and exegetical of its conscience; and constitutes that scintillation, or “light within”, which is struck out by the collision of ideas in the world around. Educational bias makes men what they are—sinners, whose habitude of thought and action is “pious”, or impious, civilized or savage, according to the school in which their young ideas have been taught to shoot. The divine law and testimony alone can turn these into reflectors of the moral image and similitude of God.

The “intellect” and “sentiments” of the apostle’s brain, constituting “the fleshly tablet of his heart”, had been inscribed by the Spirit of the living God, in a way that all believers are not the subject of. He was inspired; and consequently received much of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” by divine suggestion, or revelation;c others receive the same knowledge, in words spoken, or written, by “earthen vessels” like himself, in whom “this treasure” was deposited.d The means by which the knowledge is communicated matters not, so that it is written on the heart. When it gets possession of this, it forms that “mind” or mode of thinking or feeling (νου̂ς) with which the apostle said he “served the Law of God”. Being renewed by the divine testimony, his intellect and sentiments were sure to think and feel in harmony with the thoughts of God. Nevertheless, his “propensities” were only checked in their emotions. He kept his body under. This was all that he could do; for no spiritual perfection of thought and feeling could eradicate from the particles of his flesh the all-pervading principle of its corruption. While, therefore, with his mind he served the Law of God, his flesh obeyed the law of sin, which finally mingled it with its parent dust.

This new mode of thinking and feeling created in a true believer by the divine law and testimony, is variously designated in scripture. It is styled “a clean heart and a right spirit”;e “a new spirit” and “a heart of flesh”;f the “inward man”;g “new creature”h “the new man created in righteousness and true holiness”; and “renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him”;a the “hidden man of the heart”;b and so forth. This new and hidden man is manifested in the life, which is virtuous as becomes the gospel. He delights in the law of the Lord, and speaks often of His testimonies. He denies himself of all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and walks soberly, righteously and godly in the world. His hope is the glorious manifestation of Jesus Christ, with the crown of righteousness, even glory, honour, and immortality, promised to all who look for him, and “love his appearing”, and desire his kingdom.c Nevertheless, the law of sin, through the weakness of the flesh, fails not to remind him of imperfection. Being delivered from the fear of death, he looks forward to it as to the period of his change, knowing that, when he falls asleep in the dust, he will afterwards be delivered from the principle of evil by a resurrection to incorruptibility and unalloyed existence in the Paradise of God.

a a. Heb. 4:13.

a a. Job. 31:33.

a a. Rom. 2:20; Heb. 8:5; 9:9, 23, 24; 10:1; Rom. 5:14; Gal. 4:24.

b b. Rom. 6:12, 17, 19.

c c. Matt. 13:25, 38.

c c. Matt. 13:25, 38.

b b. Rom. 6:12, 17, 19.

a a. Matt. 13:23, 38.

b b. 1 Pet. 1:23.

c c. Rom. 8:7.

d d. Gal. 5:16–17; 4:29.

e e. John 1:29.

f f. 1 John 3:8.

g g. John 19:10.

b b. Isaiah 45:7.

c c. Amos 3:6.

a a. Rom. 7:18, 17.

a a. Rom. 7:18, 17.

b b. Eph. 4:18.

c c. Job 25:4.

d d. Job 14:4.

a a. Job 15:14–16

b b. 2 Cor. 5:21

c c. Rom. 8:3.

d d. Heb. 10:10, 12, 14.

e e. John 3:6.

f f. Heb. 10:5.

g g. Psalm 51:5.

h h. Heb. 2:16–18.

i i. Heb. 4:15.

j j. Rom. 8:11.

* *. This marginal reading of the A.V. cannot be sustained The Revised Version has struck it out.

a a. Rom. 8:20.

b b. Rom. 5:19.

c c. 1 Sam. 15:3.

d d. Prov. 3:18.

a a. Rev. 20:14.

b b. Rev. 22:17; Isaiah 55:1–3.

c c. Ephes. 2:12, 13, 19.

a a. Ephes. 4:17, 18.

b b. Ephes. 3:6.

c c. Rom. 5:18, 19.

d d. verse 14

e e. Rom. 8:10, 11.

f f. 1 Cor. 15:21–23.

a a. Rom. 4:25.

b b. Mark 16:15, 16.

c c. Rom. 1:5.

d d. Rom 3:27, 21.

e e. Acts 2:38.

f f. 1 Cor. 6:9–11.

g g. Heb. 2:3, 4.

h h. John 1:31.

a a. Rom. 1:17; 3:21, 22, 25, 26.

b b. 1 John 5:6–10.

c c. Acts 8:12.

d d. 2 Pet. 1:4.

e e. Acts 18:8.

f f. 2 Cor. 5:21.

g g. Jer. 23:6.

h h. 1 Cor 1:30.

i i. Col. 2:10–12.

a a. John 3:3–10.

b b. 1 Pet. 1:23.

c c. Matt 13:19.

d d. James 1:18.

e e. Eph. 4:1.

a a. Rom. 2:7.

b b. Rom. 6:3–11

a a. Gal. 3:26–29.

b b. Col. 1:13.

c c. Rev. 11:15.

d d. Rom. 7:5.

a a. Isaiah 9:2.

b b. Prov. 6:23.

c c. Psalm 119:105.

d d. 2 Pet. 1:19.

e e. Isaiah 8:20.

a a. 2 Cor. 4:6.

b b. 2 Cor. 4:3, 4.

c c. Matt. 13:22.

d d. John 1:5.

e e. Rom. 2:14, 15.

f f. Rom. 10:18.

g g. Rev. 11:4.

a a. Eph. 4:4.

b b. Rev 3:17.

a a. Rom. 11:20, 22, 25.

b b. Matt. 15:6, 9.

c c. Gal. 1:11, 12.

d d. 2 Cor. 4:7.

e e. Psalm 51:10.

f f. Ezek. 11:19.

g g. 2 Cor. 4:16; Rom. 7:22.

h h. 2 Cor. 5:17

a a. Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10.

b b. 1 Pet. 3:4.

c c. Titus 2:11–14; 2 Tim. 4:1, 8; Heb. 9:28.