The
Meaning of Sacrifice
Islip
Collyer
(Note
¨C this booklet from the 1920s is not the same as, and does not appear to be an
earlier
version of, the later chapter ¡°The Meaning of Sacrifice¡± from ¡®Principles
and Proverbs¡¯)
I
am writing these lines in response to the request of some of the brethren who
believe that this way of presenting the truth regarding the nature of Christ may
be helpful to those who are distressed in mind owing to the persistent blight of
doubtful controversy. 1 sincerely hope that the effort will not in any instance
be provocative of further strife. It is one of the greatest tragedies of these
latter days that the main object of Christ's sacrifice has often been obscured
by the fleshly wrangling of men who have thought that they were wise expounding
the subject. They have minutely examined technical points, they have insisted
upon exact definitions; but all the while have tended to obscure the great
central truth of Divine love and mercy ; the terrible character of sin, and the
complete conquest of the flesh effected by Christ. A beautiful truth, which
should tend more than anything else to " humble us under the mighty hand of
God," has been made the subject of endless debate, thus producing an
atmosphere in which humility never thrived.
It
must surely be agreed that our effort should be to help brethren rather than to
attack them ; to find a form of words which all can understand, rather than to
provoke strife by insisting on phrases that are doubtful. Above all, to strip
ourselves of all human pride. Now, as ever, pride is the most deadly of all the
sins. If the great sacrifice does not make us humble, we have missed the most
important of all the lessons it can teach us.
More
than thirty years ago, Brother Roberts used a phrase which, perhaps better than
any other, expresses the meaning of Christ's sacrifice. The work of our Lord was
described as the " complete repudiation of the flesh as a basis of approach
to God." Christ was begotten not of the will of the flesh, but by the power
of the Highest, the Holy Spirit of God. Human flesh was thus rejected as unable
to effect any redemption. Christ at all times did the will of His Father. The
flesh was thus conquered and sin was condemned in every act of His life. Christ
was nailed to the cross, and He died the most painful of deaths. The flesh was
thus completely repudiated ; but the personality of the Lord Jesus, the
spirit-begotten and spirit-developed character, was raised to life by the same
power that had originally "called Him from the womb" ; and only
through this exalted Son of God can we approach the throne of grace.
The
Apostle Paul speaks of all having sinned and come short of the glory of God, and
shows that reconciliation can only be through Divine mercy. He tells us that in
Jesus Christ the righteousness of God was declared. He tells us Christ condemned
sin in the flesh, and that all occasion for the flesh to glory is excluded. Here
we have the moral objects of the sacrifice, and they provide a basis for us to
understand the whole subject. The death of Christ was wrought by sinful men who
hated Him for His righteousness. It was the inevitable outcome of His faithful
testimony, and thus in the fullest sense " He was obedient unto
death." God used the sinful men to bring the righteous one to perfection,
and to complete the condemnation and repudiation of sin in the flesh.
It
is as though the prophet was anticipating this controversy when he wrote :¡ª
"
Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ; yet did we esteem Him
stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our
peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed."
It
was the purpose of God to bring His Son into the world and to bring Him to
perfection in the only way of which we have any knowledge.
That
is through the suffering of conscious struggle. Obedience involved such a
reproof to powerful sinners that a violent death was the fore-known conclusion.
God chose this way of conquering and condemning sin in the very nature that had
transgressed and was continually transgressing. He made His Son strong for the
work of overcoming and condemning sinful flesh, and this the Lord Jesus did in
every act of His life, and finally in His death.
It
should not be difficult for Christadelphians to "understand the moral basis
of Christ's offering. We know the truth regarding human nature, and we know that
Jesus was the Son of God, the beginning of a. new creation. He needed to be made
perfect through suffering. We have to follow the same path of conscious
struggle, but with the humble consciousness that in our own strength we should
be dismal failures. It is only through His righteousness that we can be saved.
On the basis of faith in Him, we can be acceptable to God ; but it must be a
real faith ; " a belief from the heart unto righteousness " ; a living
faith made manifest by works as a thank offering to God.
Why
should this supremely important moral aspect of Christ's sacrifice be obscured
by endless discussion of details? There should be no difficulty in agreeing on
all essentials, if we desire to agree and to help each other through the Gentile
wilderness. We agree as to the meaning of Christ's sacrifice; we agree that He
was made in all points like His brethren, and tempted and tried just as they
are. Our acceptance of these truths is not confused by any false theories
regarding human nature, or regarding the personality of the Lord Jesus. We see
in Christ the one begotten by the power of God, the Divine character impressed
upon human nature and progressively developed from stage to stage, thus making
Him strong for the great work. We recognise that it was in character and not in
nature that He differed from us. We know that He learned obedience and was made
perfect through suffering. If we are well grounded in the first principles of
the Oracles of God, all these assurances fall so harmoniously into line that
they are not provocative of discussion.
The
trouble arises through the use of phrases which are often interpreted in
different ways, and which may easily lead to a prolonged and completely
unprofitable wrangle. Thus we hear of the " clean flesh heresy," and
"the unclean flesh heresy." There have been many pitiful divisions
over these phrases. We have been told that we ought to " take action
against the clean flesh heresy." If we ask what it is, we are given a
definition which is promptly repudiated by those who are supposed to hold it. If
we wade through the controversy so far as it has been published, we find that on
both sides there has been a use of very unsatisfactory language that can easily
be misunderstood, providing differences enough to make a score of divisions if
we wanted them.
What
do brethren mean when they speak of human flesh being ¡°unclean¡±? Sometimes
they use language almost suggesting that they are turning back to the "papistical
conceit," as Dr. Thomas called it, of imputed transgression; of Divine
wrath against infants, and ceremonies for justification without faith. Sometimes
others use language almost suggesting a belief that human beings could sin for
thousands of years without any effect upon their flesh. As a set-off to this,
there are some who, in their zeal to condemn the "clean flesh heresy,"
fail to recognise the great physical effects of personal transgression. It has
been stated that "the flesh of Christ was just as unclean as that of you or
me or any other man." The one
who makes such an affirmation is quite unconscious of any need for
qualification, or any danger of misunderstanding. He would probably regard a
denial of his proposition as conclusive evidence of the "clean flesh
heresy." Yet it is practically certain that he does not really mean what he
says, and that on the subject being analysed, he would insist that certain
qualifications were obvious. In other words, he needs a generous breadth of mind
in the interpretation of his definition such as he will never grant to
opponents.
Let
us try to get down to root meanings in connection with this "question. What
do we mean when we say the flesh is ¡°unclean¡± ?
We
get the idea from Scripture. Under the law there were offerings not only for
personal transgression, but for all manner of physical uncleanness, even when
there is no suggestion of any moral fault. The reason of this is easy to
perceive, if we remember that Christ is the substance of all these shadows. All
these ills to which the human race is heir are connected with sin. They will
only be removed through Christ. Therefore in the types of the law, " all
things are cleansed with blood." The Apostle Paul speaks of "sin that
dwelleth in me." (Rom. 7:17) He refers to a law in his members tending to
bring him into captivity to sin, and he says: "O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from this body of death? "
There
is nothing mysterious in all this. Every man who makes an honest effort to
follow Christ is conscious of this law of sin in his members. The flesh has a
strong tendency to please itself, to rebel against restraint and even to desire
that which is forbidden more than that which is permitted. A man who tries to
serve God is ready to speak with the Apostle of the law of sin in his members,
and to exclaim with him: " who shall deliver me from this body of death ?
" It is not merely a theological idea. It is part of the well-known law of
habit which has been described as "second nature." There are racial
tendencies as well as individual. As with the individual so with the race, the
first transgression is the most serious because it spans the distance between
innocence and guilt. The beginning of an evil habit is a bigger downward step
than all the subsequent confirmations; but every repetition of the evil makes
the tendencies so much stronger, and more difficult to overcome. Habit is a
physical impression with moral effects. Dr. Thomas said that our nature was just
the same as that of Adam, only so much the worse for the many centuries of sin
wear. Dr. Thomas furthermore said :¡ª
"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 (Elpis
Israel, fourth edition, pages 113-114).
When
we speak of "sin in the flesh," we mean usually what the Apostle Paul
meant when he described the matter so fully in Romans 7. We know that our
fathers have all sinned, generation after generation. We know that in this way
evil tendencies and habits are formed and confirmed. The Apostle said that there
was a law of sin in his members from which he sighed to be delivered. We find
the same law in ourselves. Well, surely it is not a clean thing ? I should say
it is like " a loathsome disease." It is the physical impression of
the racial habit of sinning. It tends to make the individual fall into the same
errors and so confirm the habit still more. It is essentially an unclean
property of the flesh.
Did
Christ partake of this same sin-stricken nature ? We cannot conceive of any one
enlightened in the first principles of the Truth who could hesitate for a moment
in giving an affirmative answer to this question. These racial tendencies are a
part of our physical nature. For Christ to have been free from all the desires
of the flesh to please itself would have involved a miracle of Divine energy for
the express purpose of making His nature different from ours. Scripture,
however, affirms that it was the express object of God to make Him partake of
the same nature as ours. That He was made in all points like His brethren. If
there had been in His flesh no trace of the racial tendency to sin, He would
have been made miraculously free from the worst temptations that assail us. We
are informed, however, that He was tempted and tried in all points as we are. Of
course, the unclean racial habit was there in His flesh for Him to overcome. I
cannot believe that there is a Christadelphian in all the world who would fail
to see this truth when presented apart from the blight of phrase-ridden
controversy.
When,
however, one goes further than this and says: " the flesh of Jesus was just
as unclean -as yours or mine or that of any other man," the trouble begins.
There are some, perhaps, who feel in their very bones that the definition is
untrue, but cannot quite see where the falsehood lies. Assuredly it lies in
this: that there is a complete failure to recognise the great and inevitable
effect that personal conduct will have upon the unclean inheritance of human
nature. It is the old error of the theologians who put so much emphasis on
" original sin " or " Adamic sin," that they ignore the far
more serious matter of personal conduct. Here again experience confirms the
teaching of Scripture. The evil habit or tendency that we inherit is bad enough,
but the personal confirmation of that tendency is far worse..
Let
us contemplate two human lives of the first century in the land of Israel. In
the first picture, they are new-born babes of the same nation and the same
tribe. Their ancestors were sinners; they both inherit the racial tendencies
which presently will bid them eat and enjoy the fruits that seem good to the
eyes. In that sense they are both equally unclean in nature.
The
second picture is of rather more than thirty years later. The two babes have
grown to manhood and are in the prime of life. One has consistently sinned from
childhood, and now, consumed with murderous malice and anger, he is helping to
compass the destruction of a teacher of righteousness who reproved him. The
other has never sinned in all His life. It has been His meat and drink to do the
will of His Father in Heaven. He is stumbling under the weight of the cross on
which He is to be slain in obedience to death. And even now, so far from bearing
anger or malice toward those who are killing Him, He breathes a prayer: "
Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do."
Can
we say now that the bodies of the two men are equally unclean? The one in whom
the unclean racial habit has been consistently confirmed, and the one in whom it
has been consistently condemned?
Unless
he has become so much the slave of phrases that he has lost all capacity to deal
with meanings, every brother will surely recognise that the definition we have
challenged is demonstrably wrong. Surely every brother who thinks must also
recognise that Christ was a partaker of our unclean mortal inheritance with its
racial tendencies of rebellion against God. It was this that He had to overcome
and condemn. It is perfectly true to say that as a babe His flesh was just as
unclean as that of other babes. That is another way of saying that He was made
in all points like His brethren, and tempted just as we are. We all come from
sinful ancestors, and the habit of rebellion is part of our inheritance. But
when Christ was at the end of his probation, having overcome every weakness of
the flesh, having brought every thought into subjection, it is not at all true
to say that His body was just as unclean as that of a sinner. If brethren will
try to help each other to understand these things, after a little while of such
effort we shall probably hear no more of the "clean flesh" and the
"unclean flesh" heresies. We agree that Christ was exactly of our
nature, with all the weakness, mortality, uncleanness, racial tendency, or
whatever we call it that we inherit from sinful ancestors. We agree that He was
tempted just as we are. We agree that He overcame and thus condemned and
crucified the flesh in every act of His life, right to the obedience of death.
Cannot we agree to leave it at that and pay more heed to the moral lesson of our
Lord's sacrifice, if perchance in the Divine mercy we, in spite of our utter
unworthiness, may be saved by Him?
I.
C.
(Original
pamphlet concludes with the words:
Further copies of
this pamphlet may be had from Bro H. B. ANDREWS, 64, Meadway, Old Southgate,
London, NW11)
This
scan Dec. 2006 www.god-so-loved-the-world.org/english/collyer_meaningofsacrifice.doc