“The Flesh”

The Christadelphian, December 1923, C.C. Walker

There has been and is so much talk concerning “the flesh,” “clean flesh,” etc., that it seems to be fitting that we should again turn our attention to what the Bible says about it. But has not that been done before? And is it not being done all the time? Yes, in a manner; but not in so lucid and exhaustive a manner as to leave the subject at rest, so that there is nothing more that can profitably be said about it.

Fifty years ago and more there was much speculation current as to the “great mystery” of “God manifested in the flesh.” Dr. Thomas, in his very last writing, was moved to counsel restraint and moderation among his friends and disciples concerning this, and to suggest that they might first see whether they could agree upon the more simple and proximate question:—

WHAT IS FLESH?

As appears in Dr. Thomas: His Life and Work, p. 287—(we propose re-issuing the book, but not in its present form)—sister Lasius wrote:

“Father was in the midst of writing an article for The Christadelphian when he was taken sick. I enclose it with this.”

The article was in the form of a letter addressed to a brother, and ran as follows:

“I would suggest that discussion of the very knotty and intricate subject of the quo modo of the manifestation of Deity in flesh be suspended among you, till each member of the ecclesia be furnished with a copy of my forthcoming Pictorial Illustration and explanatory Key. In the meantime it may not be amiss for our metaphysical friends to see if they can agree among themselves with regard to the more simple, proximate, and primary question, What is flesh? before they undertake to speculate dogmatically concerning the manifestation of Deity in flesh, who is spirit.

“You will excuse me, perhaps, just reminding you here that metaphysics are of a very unsubstantial and shadowy nature. As a system, it is a science socalled that treats of things immaterial, and, therefore, intangible and ethereal, or visionary; and which may be considered quite beyond the sphere of all profitable inquiry by plain, unphilosophical men, whose faith is based upon the revealed testimony of God, and not upon the modus in quo, or manner in which essences are generated; and how entities and quiddities are induced. We can believe the testimony of John, that Deity can of stones raise up children to Abraham, with a true and valid faith, which is not at all impaired by our metaphysical inability to explain the process by which He is able to arrive at such a result; for the faith which saves men is the belief of testimony divinely given, not a metaphysical or scientific comprehension of processes.

“Metaphysics are capital things for ‘doubtful disputation,’ and admirably adapted to the development of ‘sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.’ Let our friends, therefore, who would grow in the knowledge of God, and in His favour, eschew metaphysics, by which they can be neither enlightened nor improved; for as they say in Scotland, which has been befuddled and befooled by the science falsely so-called:—

“‘Metaphysics is when twa men talk thegither, and the ane who hears disna ken what the ither says; and the ane who speaks disna ken what he says himsel.’”

“To give our friends a start, then, towards the solution of the primary and proximate question of What is flesh? they will, perhaps, allow me to direct their attention to what He who made all flesh says it is. The Spirit in David testifies (Psa. 78:39) that ‘flesh is spirit that passeth away, and cometh not again.’ The common version says ‘flesh’ is ‘a wind;’ but in the Hebrew the word is ruach, which, in Gen. 1:2, is translated spirit, as also in a multitude of other places. Flesh, then, is spirit, if we are to believe the word. Hence Peter, all of whose ideas that were really good, came from the Spirit, styles the dead antediluvians, who were flesh in common with ourselves, ‘spirits in prison.’ But if you and I, and all mankind, and other beasts in general, be spirit, what is the most obvious difference in view of the divine testimony, between men and angels, who are incorruptible and deathless? Men and angels are both spirit in a certain sense; for in Scripture they are both styled spirits; only the one class ‘a little lower than’ the other: what, then, is the most obvious or striking difference between the two kinds of spirit, or nature the human and angelic? It is this: human nature in general is ‘spirit that passeth away, and cometh not again;’ while angelic, or divine nature or substance, is ‘Spirit that doth not pass away, ’ and is therefore incorruptible and immortal.

“There is, of necessity, an essential difference between these two kinds of spirits, which constitutes the one kind transitory, and the other permanent. This difference is not obvious. It is beyond the ken of the generality. There is a constitutional difference made between them by the Creator, and upon such a basis that the one can readily and instantaneously be transformed or made to pass into the other. This is a question, not of essence, but of organisation, which metaphysicians and theosophists have not been able to expound.

“Now, in illustration of this, let us consider the relations of steam power and the metal, iron. Look abroad, and behold the almost infinite diversity of results, operated by steam-power through iron. If the iron be in the state of ore, bar, or pig, steam power develops nothing; and for the obvious reason that the iron is in a raw, crude, and unorganised condition. But suppose that by the wisdom and science of the artificer, the iron is made to assume the form of the machinery of an ocean steamer, and steam power be applied, what then? The iron fabric is set in motion, and the vessel is propelled by the steam power through the deep.

“Now, the steam power will spin and weave cotton, print newspapers, and grind corn; but will the steam power spin, weave, print, and grind, by setting in motion the machinery of a steamship? Why not; it is an iron machinery and steam power? True; but the artistic organisation of the metal is not adapted to such results. Steam power and iron will spin, weave, print, grind, and do anything else, if the power be applied to iron properly and scientifically organized.

“Thus much by way of illustration. Now, for steam power, let us substitute divine creative power; and for iron ore, the dust of the ground. This abstract relation of elements develops no spiritual or mental and physical phenomena. Why? There is the wisdom and power that can do all things, and there is the material for developments! True, but the dust of the ground is not organised. It must be artistically developed into diversities of machinery, that each diversity may give development to diversity of results. If the creative Power, which is spirit, organise the dust of the ground into different kinds of living machines or organisms, these are spirit forms, which become capable of giving expression to an almost infinite variety of operations.

“These spirit forms are styled by Moses ‘the spirits of all flesh,’ to which Adam gave appropriate names, when the Creating Power, in whom they ‘lived and moved and had their being,’ caused them to pass in review before him. One of these spirits was a lion, another an elephant, a third a horse, and so forth. We all know what sort of spirit-manifestation can be displayed through the high-mettled spirit form conventionally termed horse; why cannot the same results be operated through a sloth or an elephant? It is the same power that works in them all to do or act. Because the animal machine termed elephant is a dust-of-the-ground organisation of a peculiar contrivance, designed for elephantine and not equine manifestations. It is the Creator’s artistic organisation of the dust of the ground that gives diversity of expression or manifestation to His power, on which account He is styled by Moses ‘the Elohim of the Spirits of all Flesh.’

“According to the constitution of the organism, so is the manifestation of results. Divine Power has made spirit out of the dust of the ground, and called it man. He has so made or organised it, that if not further interfered with by His power, it may pass away. This is called flesh, or spirit that passeth away; and, under ordinary conditions, cometh not again. The human organism is the most perfect of all animal machines; hence its mental or spiritual manifestations are of a higher and more perfect order than all the rest. His more perfect cerebral organisation is the long sought for, but hitherto never found boundary line between instinct and reason. The transforming energy of divine power will convert spirit that passeth away into spirit that passeth not away. They who may be the subject of this operation will be exalted to equality with the angels, whose substance doth not waste nor pass away . . .”

With regard to the Pictorial Illustration and Explanatory Key mentioned in the foregoing, it may be said that the chromolithograph entitled Pictorial Illustration of Deity Manifested in the Flesh was published in 1871 shortly after Dr. Thomas’ death. But we know of no Key. A second edition of the Pictorial Chart, as it is called briefly, was published in 1901 by the present editor of The Christadelphian, and is still in supply, as appears from page 4 of the cover of this issue. But it is comparatively little known. When re-issuing it in 1901 we gave in the July issue of this magazine for that year, p. 280, a reduced facsimile of the chart in black and white, and a brief description and exposition, at the end of which we inserted the following

PICTORIAL ILLUSTRATION OF GOD MANIFESTATION.

Designed by Dr. Thomas in 1870.

extracts from a letter written by Dr. Thomas to the same brother as is addressed in the “What is Flesh?” letter quoted above. The following was written in December, 1870, three months before Dr. Thomas’ death:—

“Dear Brother Coffman, —Yours of the 9th . . . came safely to hand. My health is slowly improving, but my mental energies are still below par. This to me is an indication that the body still requires rest. I am glad to hear you are better. Our mortal bodies are frail, and under continual strain of nerve, brain, or muscle, we will give way at last. The past must suffice for me and you in this state. We cannot always be young. With age weakness will come. . . .

“Enclosed, I send you a sketch illustrative of the Great Mystery. It is in the rough. I have a more artistic drawing in my book. This I keep as a copy for the lithographer, if ever I may be able to publish it. It is thought by those who have seen it to be very beautiful, and to simplify the subject wonderfully.

“In the upper corner on the left, you will notice the letter I, surrounded by rays of light. See 1 Tim. 6:16, for what is represented: unapproachable light, in which dwells the invisible I. You will also notice that the lines all converge to a point, which is the mouth of the figure whose head is the word “Who,” the visible who; the ‘I’ manifested in the ‘WHO.’

‘From the mouth of the ‘Who I will be,’ all the lines diverge. Between the converging lines are the prophetic sayings of the invisible I; and between the diverging lines from the oral point of the visible Who, are the New Testament oracles concerning him. By comparing the utterances, it will be seen that it is the invisible I who is the speaker throughout.

“The visible Who, the image of ‘the invisible God,’ you will perceive, is standing upon the earth, His future dominion, under which is the ancient monogram, I.H.S., consisting of the initials of the sentence, Jesus Hominum Salvator, which signifies Jesus, the Saviour of men.

“In my original, it has Moses addressing a company of Israelites, in the lower corner of the left, and pointing to the ‘I’ and the ‘Who’ as the practical illustration of Deut. 6:4.

In the lower corner of the right is John the Baptist, pointing to the visible Who I will be, and declaring that ‘he was before him.’

“At the feet of Who is a symbol of Who’s relation to Judah, as the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root and offspring of David.

“If you imagine the human figure removed, the convergence to, and divergence from a common centre, would be destroyed, and the utterances would all be confused and without consistent signification. The flesh is the focus of the invisible I’s converging utterances and assumed power, as a vail for the purpose of condemning sin therein; after which, the same power (Ail) converts it into his own substance—spirit.

“Take away the converging Power, indicated by the lines following upon the back of Who’s head, and you have an illustration of the mere-manism of the profane babblers of our time; blasphemers, who make a mere man affirm that he came down from heaven, and is the equal of God. . . .”

“Waiting and watching, I remain,

Yours,

John Thomas.”

[We have looked up the block made over 22 years ago and insert it here, as the exposition is not very intelligible without it. But the coloured chart is itself accessible and at a third of its original price. Further comment must be deferred to next issue.—Ed.]

The Christadelphian, January 1924, C.C. Walker

(Continued from Vol. lx., page 533.)

THE brief but beautifully lucid commentary on the Pictorial Chart of God manifestation in the Flesh which, together with the black-and-white facsimile of the chart, was published in our last issue, is the only “key” we know of from Dr. Thomas’ own pen. But, as we said 22 years ago, Phanerosis (now out of print) is a more diffuse exposition of the subject by the same author. The pictorial chart itself is now accessible, and at a third of its original price, to those who desire it. See table on page 4 of cover of this magazine.

It may be said that we have visions of reproducing the pith and marrow of Phanerosis in pamphlet form, with a “line” (black and white) reproduction of the Chart. But whether, in the stress of the times, these will materialise remains to be seen.

But we are wandering from the lower to the higher question—from “What is Flesh?” to “Who is Jesus Christ (‘the Word made flesh’) in relation to God and Man?”

Returning to Dr. Thomas’ last writing in “What is Flesh?” which in the main is very beautiful, we have to regret (with many others in years gone by) his unadvised alteration of the translation of the A.V. in Psa. 78:39, where he changes “wind” into “spirit.”

The text says of God’s estimate of Israel in their “vanity” (verse 33):

“He remembered that they were but flesh;

“A wind that passeth away and cometh not again”

(A.V. and R.V.).

It is perfectly true that the original “word is ruach, which in Gen. 1:2 is translated spirit, ” but that is not to say that it should be translated “spirit” here. It is curious that in Gen. 1:2 some rationalistic critics translate ruach elohim, “a might wind” (lit., a wind of God, according to the well-known intensive usage of Elohim). But this inversion is just as inadmissible here as that of Dr. Thomas in Psa. 68:39; and does crying violence to the verb translated “moved,” as any one may see at a glance who can consult the Hebrew. (Compare R.V. marg., was brooding upon). Fancy a “mighty wind brooding upon” the face of the waters. It may be freely admitted that in the early ages of the earth storms of inconceivable violence occurred; but a “mighty wind” would only produce a chaos, not a kosmos or “creation” of the kind attributed to “the spirit of God” in Gen. 1.

The primary meaning of ruach is spirit, breath; and wind, vanity, are examples of many subordinate meanings which must be determined in each case by the context. A New Testament parallel to Psa. 68:39 is found in Jas. 4:14: “What is your life? For ye are a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (R.V.).

It is unfortunate that so good a man as Dr. Thomas should represent God as saying that “Flesh is spirit,” when God says the very opposite. Thus in Isa. 31:3:—“The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit.” “God is spirit,” and flesh is “a-dust-of-the-ground organisation” made by God by His spirit. The Lord Jesus similarly discriminates: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit” (Jno. 3:6).

It is unfortunate also that there are good men who go on reproducing and upholding some of these errors of Dr. Thomas, and find fault with those who point them out and try to correct them. It is quite certain that in the resurrection Dr. Thomas will not be grateful to those who, in the vain days of the flesh, have upheld and propagated his mistakes! But we have never heard of anyone who wanted to withdraw from Dr. Thomas for this and similar slips!

It may perhaps be added here that any verbatim reproductions of Dr. Thomas’ writings in the old back numbers of The Herald, etc., of some sixty or seventy years ago, will impose extra responsibilities upon modern readers to “prove all things and hold fast that which is good.” In the copious extracts from Dr. Thomas’ writings that have appeared in the pages of this magazine during the last fifty years and more, it has always been the aim of the late and present editors to conform all things to the highest standard reached by Dr. Thomas. This we doubt not would be according to his mind; and, what is more important, according to the mind of the Lord.

The allusions to “flesh” in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are always of a deprecatory nature. It is always esteemed as weak, frail, and naturally given to sin. This is the more remarkable seeing that the primary sense of the Hebrew word bahsahr, flesh, is, according to Gesenius, “beauty.” And who is not susceptible to the beauty of the flesh, the marred and defaced “image of God,” in which God created man from the dust of the ground, and in which he “groans,” “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body?” (Rom. 8:23).

The purpose of these articles being only to illustrate the divine estimate of flesh, let us look at a few typical passages of scripture.

We have in Gen. 2. the account of the creation of woman. God took one of Adam’s ribs and “closed up the flesh instead thereof.” And of the rib he made woman, of whom Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called Woman (Isha) because she was taken out of Man (Ish). This was a remarkable miracle in itself, and also a remarkable dramatic allegory of Christ and the Bride. “We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” says an apostle (Eph. 5:30, 32), adding this comment: “This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” He had been exhorting husbands and wives on the basis of God’s creation of woman described in Gen. 2. The “beauty” of the woman appealed to Adam greatly; but her frailty was his downfall. And after all she was but a bit of his own flesh! Who would boast of the flesh after that?

In Gen. 6. we read of what happened after flesh had multiplied upon earth for about a millennium and a half. “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”

It may be remarked here that this passage obviously describes some obliquity of conduct which explains and justifies the strife of the spirit against the flesh (“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would”—Gal. 4:18). It is not merely marriage that is in question, but unlawful marriage, or, in all probability, the utter ignoring of all divine law in the matter. We notice that Lamech in the Cainite line introduced polygamy (Gen. 4:19). And the Sethite (“Sons of God”) community would thus, by commingling with the Cainites, soon become corrupted, so that soon “all flesh had corrupted God’s way upon the earth.” And “after that the deluge”! The modern laxity in the same direction, from Russia downwards, only too well justifies Christ’s likening of these last days to “the days of Noah”; and will amply justify the last “flood” of divine vengeance that will as completely sweep away “this present evil world.”

In harmony with the foregoing reflections it is to be remembered that the word nahshim (“wives”) is not so restricted as the English word by which it is rendered, but is simply the plural of ishah, woman. The expression in verse 3, “for that he also is flesh,” is scarcely English; and the one Hebrew word that stands for “for that also” can, as the R.V. margin points out, be taken as a verb, and rendered “in their going astray.” Thus the expression would become, as the margin says, “In their going astray they are flesh.” The context bears this out only too sadly well. It is only too characteristic of flesh to “go astray.” Humanum est errare, said the Latins: To err is human. And this has been characteristic of flesh from Eden downwards.

Because of the universal violence and corruption of God’s way by “all flesh” “God said to Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me.” Then followed the deluge, in which, by the ark, a remnant only of “all flesh” was saved. We have Peter’s authority for endorsing and expanding the before-mentioned reference of the Lord to “the days of Noah.” He says of these days that the long-suffering of God waited “while the ark was preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 3:20, 21).

So then Jesus Christ raised from the dead is the antitypical Noah’s ark (“This same shall comfort us”—Gen. 5:29), in whom the Lord shuts us in by baptism if we are found righteous before him in our day and generation (Gen. 7:1). We must abide in the ark by faith and obedience in hope that we may be saved “after the deluge” that is coming upon “all flesh.”

(To be continued.)

The Christadelphian, February 1924, C.C. Walker

(Continued from page 3.)

THE conclusion of your leading article in January (says a brother) reminds me of the days preceding the Great French Revolution. Was there not some expectation of a “deluge” then?

There was. And, as a matter of fact, the language referred to was suggested by that very phrase: Apres nous le déluge, After us the deluge. This was said to have been the pronouncement of Madame de Pompadour, the favourite of Louis XV. She seemed to see in the growing corruption of French Society, and the corresponding growing discontent of the people, the premonitions of the divine judgments that were impending. Dr. Thomas treats of these in Eureka, vol ii., when expounding Revelation ch. 11. The “great earthquake” of that prophecy is followed by the still greater “earthquake” of Rev. 16:18. And now as then there are similar apprehensions of “After us the deluge.”

But it is not so much what man thinks as what God thinks that concerns us here. The answer of history is before us as concerns the Revolution of 130 years ago. But the answer as concerning the present crisis is not as yet completely written. But the explanation of the main principles of the divine dealings with flesh is divinely written in the book of Genesis, to which we now return.

The Deluge subsided and the saved remnant of “all flesh” came forth out of the ark to start a new world—a beautiful type of what will happen when Christ comes again. But, alas! flesh was not much changed by the drastic experiences through which it had passed. Noah’s drunkenness and the curse of Canaan (ch. 9.) at once convince us of that. And in a few centuries at the most a new apostasy is centred in Babel. When Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem (Josh. 24.) he reminded them of this, saying, “Your fathers dwelt of old time beyond the River, even Terah the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods” (verse 2, R.V.).

The records of this “service,” illustrating the folly of the flesh in the days of these “fathers,” have come down to us, and may be studied in the museums of Europe. Abraham was for 58 years contemporary with Noah (Chron. Heb.) and it was probably about the time of Noah’s death that his first “call” took place (Acts 7:1–8; Gen. 12:1). The divine remedy for the universal corruptions of “all flesh” was no longer a deluge. God had sworn to Noah that that should not be (Gen. 9.). The rainbow “token of the covenant” (verse 13) is to this day a witness of the divine forbearance in this respect.

What then remained? God would scatter the apostates by confounding their speech, and would take from their midst a man in whom He perceived the latent disposition of faith and obedience. And thus, the enmity of the two seeds being continued (Gen. 3:15) God, would raise up in this man’s line the “Seed of the Woman” who should bruise the Serpent’s head, and at last would “bless all nations” in and through him.

And so Abram “came out,” and though holding the promise of God, for many years wandered childless in the Land of Promise with an aged and barren wife. Under these circumstances the flesh suggested a compromise that would have upset the original promise of the Seed of the Woman. “The Lord has restrained me from bearing,” said Sarai to Abram, take Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid. We know the sequel, and how Hagar fled before the birth of Ishmael, and more than thirteen years afterwards was “cast out” before the child of promise.

Circumcision

And He gave him the covenant of circumcision—Acts 7:8.

This was when Abram was ninety-nine years old, and circumcision was the “token of the covenant.” The penalty of neglect was “That soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant” (Gen. 17:14). Even Moses nearly lost his life on this account (Ex. 4:24–26). No more drastic repudiation of the fleshcould be conceived than this, which, so far as concerns the outward and visible “token,” is perpetuated among the Jews to the present day. But what was “the inward and spiritual grace” signified? if we may be allowed to borrow the language of a catechism. The answer to this question must be sought in the New Testament scriptures. Christ was circumcised in flesh; but then he was also “circumcised in heart and ears,” a state of mental and moral preparation that did not obtain among the circumcised enemies who “cut him off.” “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not of man but of God” (Rom. 2:28, 29). So Paul argues; and, as concerning Abraham himself, he says his faith was reckoned to him “in uncircumcision; and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be in uncircumcision” (Rom. 4:10, 11). And in ch. 15:8 Paul strengthens this conclusion by a reference to the mission of Christ in the call of the Gentiles, as foretold in the prophets in harmony with the original covenant that God made with Abram concerning the blessing of all nations in his seed which is Christ.

How then do Gentiles stand related to “the covenant of circumcision”? This was a burning question between Jewish and Gentile converts in the first century. Some “Judaisers” taught the Gentiles, saying, “Ye must be circumcised after the manner of Moses” (Acts 15:1). But “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit” and to the apostles not to lay this burden upon the Gentiles (verse 28). Yet they must be “circumcised of heart—in the spirit.” How was this to be attained? By a repudiation of “the thinking of the flesh,” repentance from dead works, baptism into Christ for the remission of sins, and an honest endeavour to walk in the way of Christ’s commandments. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye (Colossians—and we, too, if we follow in the Christ ‘way’) are made full, who is the head of all principality and power: in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the sins of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:9–12).

Here then in Christ is the “substance” of the “shadow” betokened in circumcision. It is the utter repudiation of the flesh in thought, word and deed, the “cutting off,” of which Christ himself was the subject that “through death he might bring to nought (or destroy) him that had the power of death that is the Devil” (Heb. 2:14) that is Sin; for “Sin hath reigned unto death” (Rom. 5:21). “By one man sin entered into the world and death by Sin” (verse 12). And thus “Death reigned” (verse 12). And thus Christ “died unto Sin once” (6:10), came under the dominion of Death once (verse 9). But now, having been “cut off” (Dan. 9:26), and having been raised from the dead notwithstanding this cutting off (Isa. 53:8, 10–12), he has in his own person “abolished Death, and has brought Life and Immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). Thus “the God of peace brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13:21).

In all these things the divine principles and purposes concerning flesh are revealed. It is to be “cut off” that “Spirit” may remain. And even the Son of God, “partaking of the flesh” though sinless, is himself included in the operation.

There are, and always have been, those who would exempt him from the operation and benefits of his own sacrifice. They point to the Authorised Version of Dan. 9:26 and emphasise the English words, “but not for himself” (“Messiah shall be cut off but not for himself”). In this they do violence to the type of the High Priest who “offered up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people’s” (Heb. 7:27). “This,” says the apostle, “he (‘the Son,’ verse 28) did once, when he offered up himself.” The typical High Priest did not “offer up himself” but animal sacrifices. The High Priest of Israel “being taken from among men” is ordained “for men, ” and being a man and “compassed with infirmity” can have compassion on his fellows. “And,” adds the apostle, “by reason hereof he ought as for the people so also for himself to offer for sins” (Heb. 6:3). And this, he says, Christ did, offering up prayers and supplications to be saved from death from which he was saved “for his godly fear.” He offered up his own body (Heb. 10:10), which body was saved from death after being “cut off out of the land of the living.” Surely this was “for himself.” else how could it be “for us” since he is “the first fruits”?

But, says the objector, there is the phrase in Dan. 9:26—“not for himself,” Yes, there is the English phrase, but the Spirit of God did not write it. Even the margin of the A.V. indicates an alternative (or And shall have nothing). And when we turn to the R.V. we find that this alternative is transferred from the margin to the text with a marginal alternative (or There shall be none belonging to him). What is the reason for this revision?

In the original the words are Ve ein lo, literally, And nothing to him, or in him. The Septuagint says, Kai krima ouk estin en auto, literally, And judgment there is not in him, or There is no judgment in him. That is to say, There is no real cause of adverse judgment in his case. In fact “By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who among them considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living? For the transgression of my people was he stricken” (Isa. 53:8—R.V.). This was exactly what Jesus himself said when the time for cutting off really came. “The Prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30). We believe that these words of the Son of God are in direct allusion to Isa. 53. and the prophecy of Gabriel in Dan. 9:26. He gave his flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51) and “for himself” first of all, for he is “the Life.”—Ed.

Answers to Correspondents

“Sinful Flesh”

Brother H. (in Australia) writes:—“May we ask of your courtesy an early answer to the four following questions: Taking for granted that Adam was created ‘Good, ’ 1, Did the sentence of death bring about any change in Adam? 2, When is a babe’s flesh sinful flesh? 3, Did Jesus come in sinful flesh? 4, Why is human nature weak? At this distance the time will seem long to be anxiously waiting your answer.”

Answers.—It is testified that Adam was created “good” along with the other works of God (Gen. 1:4, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This series of affirmations concerning the “goodness” in question, when rightly considered, enables us to perceive that by “good” is here meant well adapted to the purpose of the Creator according to His mind. It does not here qualify character, for Adam was in a state of primeval ignorance and innocence.

1.—Yes, the sentence of death consigned Adam to the dust whence he was taken, “death by sin” (Rom. 5:12). It was as real and tangible a matter as was the sentence of leprosy against Gehazi (2 Kings 5:27). It is as well to be satisfied with such scriptural declarations as these, and not to get lost here in philosophical hair-splittings.

2.—First let us make sure what we understand by the phrase “sinful flesh.” It is found but once in the scriptures. in the much-tortured passage, Rom. 8:3: “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” The R.V. margin truly tells us that the English phrase “sinful flesh” is the equivalent of “Gr. flesh of sin.” Obviously this here means simply human nature, and not flesh guilty of actual sin or transgression, for God’s own son was not so. Seeing that this cannot be denied, our correspondent’s question in relation to God’s own son resolves itself into this: When did the Word become flesh? Surely when Jesus was born (Matt. 1:18–25; Lu. 2:1–21). The fact that Mary was “purified,” and Jesus “circumcised,” shows that the “flesh” in question was “flesh of sin,” “the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3). David, who, unlike his “Greater Son,” was not innocent of actual sin or transgression, in his psalm of penitence (51:5) bewailed his inheritance of the flesh: “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” And here again our correspondent has the answer to his question, which answer of course, he knows very well; but he is proving the editor by hard questions, or perhaps we should rather say, seeking to elicit answers that will dispose of mistaken accusations of toleration of heresy on the part of the editor. The pamphlet The Blood of Christ contains some good instruction on the subject.

3.—Answered above.

4.—Because it is “flesh.” It is Jesus who says so: “Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). “It is sown in weakness” (1 Cor. 15:43). Christ “was crucified through weakness” (2 Cor. 13:4).

We have no sympathy with doctrines that contradict these scriptural statements, no matter what may be affirmed to the contrary. See our leading articles in this and the last issue of this magazine.