The Christadelphian November 1943, John Carter

“Winds of Doctrine”

The printing press is a means of blessing or otherwise according to the use to which it is put. If it is the means of extending the knowledge of God’s purpose, it is equally the means of spreading the seeds of false doctrine. In Great Britain and elsewhere zealous propagandists of ideas, either wrong in themselves or given a disproportionate and unbalanced emphasis, become pamphleteers. Errors long since exposed, and included among “doctrines to be rejected,” are revived. Occasionally a soul is disturbed, odd ones may be are beguiled from truth. But persistent propagation of error calls for restatement of truth. We once again return to the subject of man’s nature, sin, and sin-offering and the relationship of Jesus Christ to “sin,” in an endeavour, not to deal with the matters comprehensively—space does not permit—but to state the facts on some points controverted.

The apostle Paul says that “by man came death” and, “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:21, 22). The same matter is stated in greater fulness in Rom. 5:12: “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” If death came “by man,” and “by sin,” it was not present in the world of man before he sinned. This death was the result of the sentence “unto dust thou shalt return”; and in the words of bro. Roberts, “death came by decree extraneously to the nature bestowed upon Adam in Eden, and was not inherent in him before sentence.” This expresses his views at the end of his life when he was controverting the meaning put upon some of his words written in his younger days, and which now are being reproduced. Dr. Thomas’ general teaching is clear, whatever ambiguity may attach to a few of his phrases. “Man’s defilement was first a matter of conscience and then corporeal.” “The great principle to be encompassed (for the taking away of sins) was the condemnation of sin in sinful flesh, innocent of actual transgression. This principle necessitated the manifestation of one. . . (who) would be Son of God by origination; and Son of Man by descent, or birth of sinful flesh.” “Sin was to be condemned in sinful flesh. This required the death of a man.” “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.”

Because the flesh is sinful it is called “sin” by metonomy. This is denied by some in the interests of false doctrine. “Sin,” wrote Dr. Thomas, “is a synonym for human nature. Hence the flesh is invariably regarded as unclean.” “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’; 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 in the offering of his body once. Sin could not have been condemned in the body of Jesus, if it had not existed there.”

Is Dr. Thomas correct when he says that “sin” is a synonym in the passage quoted for “sinful flesh”? It must be clearly understood that he taught that “sin is used in two principal acceptations in the Scripture. It signifies in the first place ‘the transgression of law’; and next it represents that physical principle of 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.” Can it be established that sin has this secondary meaning of sinful flesh?

It must be noticed that both the A.V. and R.V. translate 2 Cor. 5:21, that Jesus “was made to be sin”; but in Rom. 8:3 the A.V. “and for sin” is changed in the R.V. to “and as an offering for sin.” Why have the Revisers in the one place changed “sin” into “offering for sin” and not in the other? The answer, which is fatal to all claims that “sin” means “sin offering” in 2 Cor. 5:21, is that Paul did not use the same words in both cases. In 2 Cor. 5:21, he used hamartia, but in Rom 8:3 he used peri hamartia. The two statements are therefore not “similar.” Were then the Revisers justified in retaining “sin” in 2 Cor. 5:21? They were justified by the established usage of words. Concerning kai peri hamartias (Rom. 8:3) it has been truly said “Literally, and concerning sin. But the idea is defined by the constant recurrence of the phrase in the Septuagint (more than fifty times in the book of Leviticus alone) for a sin offering.” When Paul wanted to speak of sin-offering the established phrase was to hand, and he used it. But when he used hamartia without peri it was because he did not mean sin-offering. Had he meant sin-offering in 2 Cor. 5:21 he would have used the same phrase as in Rom. 8:3. The fact that he did not is incontrovertible evidence that he meant something else. That something else was not personal transgression, which is excluded by the words “who knew no sin.” “Sin” therefore in the phrase “He made him to be sin,” whatever other facts may be included, must, as Dr. Thomas said, mean that he was sent “in the likeness of sinful flesh”; it cannot mean “sin-offering.” The usage of peri hamartia in the Septuagint can be checked by anyone who has access to Hatch & Redpath’s Concordance to the Septuagint. These facts were amply demonstrated in The Christadelphian 1915, pages 106 and 343 by bro. W. J. Young. But truth needs constant re-assertion.

Because Jesus partook of our nature, he shared redemption. He was “saved out of death”; he “obtained eternal redemption”; “by his own blood he entered in once for all into the holy place”; he was “brought again from the dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant.” “By man came the resurrection from the dead” (Heb. 5:7; 9:12; 13:20; 1 Cor. 15:21). These testimonies plainly declare that Jesus benefited by his own death. It is essential to ascertain the facts that are clearly stated in Scripture; and any theory which does not find a place for all the facts is either incomplete or wrong.

It is impossible to comment on all assertions that are made in the service of false teaching. Space alone under present conditions precludes it. If any feel the need to examine this matter further the truth on the atonement is set out in the pamphlet The Blood of Christ by bro. Roberts; and The Atonement by bro. C. C. Walker, the latter being particularly useful for the extensive citation and classification of Scripture references.

The Christadelphian March 1944, John Carter

“More on ‘Sin’ and ‘Sin-Offering’”

The Editorial of November of last year on Winds of Doctrine has stirred up a renegade brother (formerly in the Suffolk Street fellowship) who has gone over to the teaching of Edward Turney (which was met and exploded by bro. Roberts seventy years ago), to issue a leaflet questioning the accuracy of the statements we made. We quoted Dr. Thomas’ well known words that “Sin is a synonym for human nature,” and pointed out that in 2 Cor. 5 : 21—“God made him to be sin”—it was impossible with due regard to the usage of language to change “sin” to “sin-offering.” Since the word “sin” applied to Jesus cannot have its primary meaning of transgression, it must have a secondary meaning, and that meaning must include, as Dr. Thomas taught, “that he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh.” We drew attention to the fact that the Septuagint used hamartia for sin, and peri hamartias for sin-offering, and added that this could be verified by checking the passages as given in Hatch and Redpath’s Concordance.

Our critic speaks of this Concordance as an “obscure Greek Concordance” and “little known.” Hatch and Redpath is the standard Concordance to the Septuagint, is in two volumes, published in 1907 by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. We have just checked the references again, and proved the truth of the extract we gave from C. J. Vaughan’s Epistle to the Romans (Greek text), in his note on 8 : 3 , that “peri hamartias is defined by the constant recurrence of the phrase in the Septuagint (more than fifty times in the Book of Leviticus alone) for a sin-offering.” If Paul had wanted to say sin-offering in 2 Cor. 5 : 21 he would have used peri hamartias and not hamartia alone. In Heb. 10: 6 he uses peri hamartias, when quoting Psa. 40: 7, and also in Heb. 10: 18, 26, where “sin-offering” is meant. In Heb. 9: 28—“appear without sin unto salvation”—he uses hamartias alone, and in this passage as well as 2 Cor. 5 : 21 it is wrong to translate by “sin-offering.” The Revisers recognize that peri hamartias means “sin offering” by so translating in Rom. 8: 3; they also shew that in their judgment hamartia alone cannot mean “sin-offering,” by translating it “sin” in 2 Cor. 5 : 21 and Heb. 9: 28, leaving the reader to determine the meaning to be attached to the word “sin,” as translation and not interpretation was their task. We are not “clutching at straws,” but submitting facts which anyone can verify for themselves. We are challenged for proof—a challenge that comes strangely from one who claims to have now consulted the “obscure” Concordance, in which the proof is patent.

Similarly it is running against fact to say that there is not one passage which says Christ’s “death was for himself or which plainly suggests that he was included in redemption.” It is written that he “obtained eternal redemption.” Did he not then stand in need of it? How did he obtain it? Paul answers “by his own blood” (Heb. 9: 12). He was brought from the dead “by the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13: 20). “By man came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15 : 21), and this is put in antithesis to the bringing in of death by Adam: “By man came death.” Death was not there in man’s world till Adam’s sin, when God passed sentence that he should die—a sentence which subjected him to evil until at last he died. Adam was outside the evil and came under it. Christ is born amidst the evil and secured deliverance by resurrection through his obedience to the Father’s will. When Paul says “By man came the resurrection from the dead,” he speaks of a man who was subject to death but who was emancipated from it. This is ignored by those who, teaching substitution in fact if not in words, say that Jesus did not benefit from his own sacrifice. Paul affirms he did benefit. He was born of our nature that, bringing life and immortality to light in himself, he might be the source of life to others.

On another page we reproduce some extracts from The Christadelphian, 1915, pages 106, 107.