^WlWtfW WAS CHBIST II AMI D far. tie founding if'. a CpUegi \ in. thi$ '.Colony? 'T^LE«¥MH¥IEI^Sflir¥» Gift of .e.taoienhi.Mm •*• *^ ¦ BY THE SAME AUTHOR. (In Cloth.) NEW WORKS. i. Theology. Pp. 271. (r2mo.) .... $1.00 2. Commentary on Romans. Pp. 390. (8vo.) . 1.50 NEW EDITIONS. 3. Are Souls Immortal? 3d Ed. Pp. 178. (i2mo.) .80 4 Was Christ in Adam ? 3d Ed. Pp. 97. (i2mo.) .60 5. Is God a Trinity? 3d Ed. Pp. 152. (i2mo.) .70 6. Questions Awakened by the Bible, (being Nos. 3, 4 & 5 in one volume). .... 1.25 7. Fetich in Theology. 3d Ed. Pp. 264. (i2mo.) 1.00 8. Theology and Fetich in Theology (in one volume). . . . . . . . . 1.50 9. Commentary on Proverbs 2d Ed. Pp. 721. (8vo.) ... . 2.00 10. "Metaphysics. Pp.430. (8vo.) . . . 1.50 11. Creed. (In paper.) ...... .10 Nos. 2, 6 & 8 (when mailed or bought together). . 3. 50 " 2, 6, 8 & 9 (Alien mailed or bought together). . 5 00 " 2, 6, 8, 9, 10 & 11 (when mailed or bought together). 6.00 Mailed post-paid on receipt of price and furnished to the trade by the EVANGELICAL REFORM PUBLICATION CO., PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY. THE TRADE ALSO SUPPLIED BY Charles T. Dillingham, 678 Broadway, New York; J. B. Lippincott Co., 715 & 717 Market Street, Philadelphia ; A. C. McClurg & Co., 117 to 121 Wabash Avenue, Chicago ; C. H. Whiting, 168 & 170 Devonshire Street, Boston. Price, 60 cts. WAS CHRIST IN ADAM? BY REV. JOHN MILLER. THIRD EDITION. PRINCETON, N. J.: EVANGELICAL REFORM PUBLICATION CO., 1887. Mailed post-paid by this Company on receipt of price. Copyright, 1877, By JOHN MILLER'. Press of W. L. Mershon & Co., Rahway, N.J. PREFACE. I KNOW of no authority, ancient or modern, for the doctrine I am about to promulgate. I have heard of something of the kind in Vinet : but I have searched his writings, though not, I confess, all of them, and find .adverse, rather than favoring, intima tions.* It makes one shiver to go on so exposed a road, without any company ; but there are certain mitigating circumstances which it is fair to quote. I. In the first place, this book would not have been so much as thought of, but at the suggestion of the Bible. Philosophy, for the person of Christ, seems vain and impertinent. We cannot employ it even afterward, when our faith has been revealed. We confess nothing of research or venture in this di rection. It certainly soothes a timid scruple to know, that, even if this work were a mistake, the promptings to it have been altogether Scriptural ; I mean by that, it has been in reading the Bible, that * While going through the press, a friend sends us a volume of Irving. We are not in time thoroughly to study his belief ; but find him accenting the peccableness of Christ ; speaking of the gracious- ness of His being kept holy ; but not accounting for it by federal de scent ; and, therefore, receding too much away from.it again, when arraigned for it as heresy. 9 6 Was Christ in Adam? the suggestion has come, of the mistake of the pre vailing Christologies. There, too, we invite the debate. We suspect that what is old has been a philosophy ; and we offer the new to be settled en tirely by revelation. 2. In the second place, we are cheered by great simplicity of the texts. 3. And in the third place, we hope to make this appear. The very newness may be one harbinger of hope. There having been no trial in the church, and no statements opposite recorded in the world, — who knows what may happen ? What seems so plain to us, may seem plain, in the same texts, to others. There may be a healing, as the surgeons say, " by the first intention ;" especially, as we reach a much warmer faith ; making Christ more our Christ ; bring ing him a great deal nearer to the curse ; seating him a great deal closer to his people ; and lifting a great deal higher, that righteousness of the cross, by which humanity must obtain redemption. Jno. Miller. Princeton, Sept. 5th, 1876. CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 I. REASONS FOR THE OLD DOCTRINE 13 CHAPTER I. Christ One Person 13 CHAPTER II. Christ Born of a Virgin 24 II. REASONS FOR THE NEW DOCTRINE 28 CHAPTER I. Christ and Man 28 CHAPTER II. Christ and Woman 33 CHAPTER III. Christ and Death 35 CHAPTER IV. Christ and Life 43 8 Contents. CHAPTER V. PAGE Christ and the Spirit 5° CHAPTER VI. Christ and Ransom 56 CHAPTER VII. Christ and Justification 7° CHAPTER VIII. Christ and Adoption 73 CHAPTER IX. Christ and Sanctification 76 CHAPTER X. Christ and Ordinances 79 CHAPTER XI. Christ and Glorification 8? CHAPTER XII. Christ and God 86 III. CONCLUSION 91 INTRODUCTION. The sixteenth question of " The Shorter Cate chism" is as follows, — " Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?" The answer is, " The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression." It would be hazardous to pause upon the mean ing of the doctrine, for it would delay and confuse us. Men have differed about the sense of imputation. Some have thought it natural. Some have thought it federal. All have thought it real : but have been entirely at variance as to the nature of the hereditary result. The writerthinks it both natural and righteous, and that it is stated so to be in the two lists of texts that are quoted by the different polemics. He thinks it natural, like the descent of a bad plant from a bad seed. Hethinksit righteous, to justifysuch adescent. He thinks God has arranged the universe so that like produces like, but that, when it comes to moral in telligences, there must be law, as well as nature : there must be the fact of a moral adjudication. It will not do to wave the hand, and say, All perish, by a fiat of nature ; but there must be a forensic cause : IO Was Christ in Adam t that is, the seal of heredity, in the instance of man, must be applied by juridic rule, that God may be just, though he breed hereditary bondsmen out of all mankind. Not positing, however, the justness of such a view, we give it merely as an example, and fall back to the more universal ground, that some effect has been transmitted, of Adam upon man ; and state, now, the universal thought, that that effect has not been a heritage to Christ, or in any way natural to him by blood relationship. He has been thought a new man, foisted in upon our race ; or, if that word is connected with the idea of falsehood,* then, grafted in upon it, with no hereditary descent, but able to begin, with quite unimplicated nature, to take our guilt, and to cut off our hereditary taint, by his own independent sacrifice. Now, our object is to point out the opposite doc trine as the doctrine of the word of God. We believe that Jesus Christ was an elected man ; and, with reverence be it spoken, that you or I might have been the chosen one for the incarnation of the Most High. We believe that this is taught labori ously, in plain terms, under both the dispensations. We believe that he was a child of Adam, and an heir to him, like you or me. And, inasmuch as this would have brought him into sin like you or me, we believe that his birth of the virgin, and his conception by the Holy Ghost, was to cut off this taint of nature. He was " holy, harmless, undeiiled, SEPARATED f from sin- * It. Fausse. \ " Separate" (E. V.). It is the Perfect : — " that had been separated ;" ..Introduction. 1 1 ners, and made higher than the heavens" (Heb. vii: 26). We believe, further, that, inasmuch as he could not be cut off from sin, except as the effect of ran som, Daniel and Job and Abraham were saved no otherwise than the humanity of Christ. Daniel and Job were saved retroactively ; and so the person of Christ, being made up of God and man — of God, quite unimplicated by guilt, — and of man, quite im plicated by it, that is, to the full extent of a descent from Adam, — we believe that the divine nature saved the human; that is, that the glory of the God (Rom. vi : 4) and the obedience of the man (Rom. v : 19) worked an entire emancipation ; and that the effect of it was, not simply to save the dead Daniel and all the millions of the saints, but the millions and One ; that is, the Head of the Church, and all the millions of his believing brethren. May I beg that this may not be considered a philosophic venture ? It was suggested to me by a singular look of passages of Scripture. Let my doctrine not be misunderstood. I be lieve Christ to be very God, and, as such, Jesus, that is God a Saviour. But I believe him also to be very man. And I find him in the Bible, not taking refuge behind his birth of Mary, but standing out as though a dead man had he been left to the flesh (1 Pet. iii : 18), and owing his life, by ten thousand asseverations of the fact (Is. lxiii : 5 ; Heb. ix : 12), to that ransom from death, when he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. i. e., not separated after being one of them, but, that, a parte ante, had been separated. 12 Was Christ in Adam ? Let me be very precise, therefore. Jesus Christ was a child of Adam. Being such, he was guilty, as being in the loins of his fathers ; or, in whatever manner all are guilty before they are born into the world. As such, he was a dead man according to the flesh. As such, he needed a ransom ; and won it, when he broke the bands of death for himself and his people. As such, he must antedate the purchase, like Job or Samuel. As such, he must be perfect, and must be regenerated from the womb ; nay, never regenerated, because never fallen : and as such, therefore, gloriously born ; not needing a father; but wrapped, before the possibilities of sin — before his very conception — in a birth of the Spirit. Christ, therefore, was of guilty parentage, though only of a woman : he was of a wicked nature by right of descent ; its wickedness, though not its infirmity, being cut off from him by the Holy Ghost : never theless he had to keep that holiness, and win it further, by hard trials of temptation : and herein lay his torture: He resisted even unto blood (Heb. xii : 4); and, being "obedient unto death," (Phil, ii : 8), he was made " perfect through sufferings" (Heb. ii : 10), and obtained, even for himself, " eternal redemp tion" (Heb. ix: 12).* * "For us" (E. V.) is in Italics. Sudh liberties shonld not be taken. I. REASONS FOR THE OLD DOCTRINE. CHAPTER I. Christ One Person. We tried the experiment, once, of offering our doctrine of Christ to a distinguished and very judi cious theologian. We were curious to see what would be his first impulse of thought in taking up an objection to our idea. We were not long in sus pense. His mind seemed to strike at once upon the thought, that the God and man in Christ were one person, and that, therefore, it was impossible to sup pose, that one was glorious and divine, and the other under bonds and guilty. Let us state this in dialectic form. I. Jesus Christ is God and man. The God in Christ is too unspeakably perfect to unite himself in eternal Sonship .with anything guilty or accursed. Such is the first difficulty. 2. Second ; Christ has a forensic unity. He is a person in court. The name is above every name ; and it must have a distinct personal acceptance, or else it could never serve to stand in the place of a 14 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. deceived and accursed people. This is the second obstacle to our thought. If Christ be condemned and accursed himself, the Vicar needs some substitu tionary victim ; and how can God arrange, himself to save, if, in the very person of his Son, the court holds him as himself amenable ? 3. Thirdly ; as to mediation. The parties are, the King and the rebel. The theory has always been, that a free substitute steps between. If Christ is guilty, what mediatorship can we conceive ? Not his divinity, for that it is that has been offended ; and not his humanity, for that is condemned itself. Where is our resting place for thought, if the days man that comes in, himself requires reconciliation, and a sacrifice to save him ? Now, as to the whole argument, we beg to say, that it has a confession which we will not admit. It holds to a rational appeal. What claim is there that we should be called into such a court ? We have stated that, in reason, we have been children ; that we did not travel that way ; that we were waked up by the inspired oracle ; that we were ready with a bundle of texts ; and that we were afraid that it would be imagined that we had been seduced by reason, and by the decoy lights of some favorite scheme of heresy. We had thrown ourselves, therefore, with uncom mon care upon the mere dogma of the Book; and, therefore, had gathered up all our part of the discus sion upon assorted texts, the bundles of which were to mark the chapters, and give shape to our dis cussion. Christ One Person. 1 5 Let me lodge the plea, therefore, that it is the old doctrine that offends by rationalism. So seemed it when this learned friend first struck upon his reply. We propounded to him texts of Scripture. Our reasoning was the mere mortar that coupled to gether the assertions of the text. But his was a ra tionalistic appeal. To appear in court, there must be a person. To appear effectually, he must be re sponsible and free. To be One Person with God, he must be worthy of such a seat. And, to be Media tor, he must be his own independent actor in the field, exempt of all personal debt, and entering, as an untrammelled substitute, upon the enfranchisement of his people. We protest, therefore. But, premising that, we meet the arguing, desti tute as it is of any inspiration. 1. In the first place, who is to decide who the great Jehovah may, or may not, unite with, as One Person ? It seems, he does unite with a man ; and that man has great infirmities of attribute. He is tempted (Heb. ii : 18). He is weak (Matt, xxvi : 41). He is timid (Matt, xxvi : 39). He is mortal (Heb. ii : 14). He shrinks from the lot that he encounters (Lu. xxii : 42). He is tempted in all respects like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. iv: 15). Moreover He is despicable (Is. xii : 24). He is ignorant (Mar. xiii : 32). He is finite (Jo. v: 19). He grows in wisdom and favor ; and if he is not accursed by heritage and by covenanted oath, it is almost the only weakness that has been debarred by the decree that brought him into being. Now, what exactly is the objection 1 6 Reasons for the Old Doctraic. to the view we take? It will be said, God cannot be incarnated in a sinner. But our view is, Christ was not a sinner. He was kept from being so by his own redemption. In his first embrace of his God head he was sanctified, and that perfectly. In fact he never knew taint, because, by the effect of his atonement, he was created sinless, and God never came into unity with a transgressor. But it will be said, He was guilty ; or, with a little difference, he would have heired guilt if he had not been ransomed ; nay, he may be counted to have been implicated, till his work had saved him ; and it was incompetent for the Great I AM to yoke His per son with an heir of Adam. Well, let us look at that. There is certainly a boldness in it that looks like rationalism. Let us drive it to be precise. What is it ? " The temple of God is holy" (i Cor. iii: 17). There can be no communion between Christ and Belial (2 Cor. vi : 1 5). God could not be tempted of evil (Jas. i : 13) ; and, therefore, he would not have linked his life with that of an apostate who had de scent from Adam. But we claim that he was not an apostate ; that he was redeemed from apostacy. We claim that he was not sinful, but that he was re deemed. The gist of the objection, therefore, is, that he needed redemption ; that, before all time, he was contemplated as guilty ; and that, as much as you or I ; he had inculpation from Eve, and would have been both sinful and accursed, but for the effect of his own redemption. Then, let us move still closer. Christ One Person. 17 If guilt is the point, let us know distinctly when and how. Pie never became personally guilty, for he was enfranchised from it before he was born. But just there, where is the reasoning ? Was it that he was by nature guilty ? See then how much is arro gated for reason ! Here was a man that was- born to be accursed. He was decreed to be guilty for the sins of all mankind. Such was the structure of his person. He was conceived of as one to be accursed. And, centuries before he came, he had been levied on, and men had gotten into peace on the faith of the curse to be laid on their Redeemer. He was, 'therefore, guilty in a most shocking way ; for there came crowding upon him, by decree, the sins of all that might be forgiven. Now, that must be a bold intellect that shall attempt to decide, — God may become incarnate with a man who is covered over with guiltiness ; but it must be of one sort, and not of another. There is no question of personal guilt as the result of personal transgression, for no one impeaches him of that. But, of the two sorts that remain, God may become incarnate with man, if he sustain superhuman guilt, be it only of the men whom he is to redeem ; but God may not become incarnate in man, if he sustain Adam's guilt; that is if he be born of an ungodly line, and must expiate his meas ure of hereditary inculpation. Such, then, is our answer. It is not an argument, but a mere unveiling of the facts. If our adversary will admit our exhibition, we appeal from the court, and refuse to be tried. We are going to bring texts of Scripture : and, as to the points in thesi in the 1 8 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. case, we deny the competency of reason to declare that God may become incarnate with man when he has the guilt of millions, but may not become incar nate with man when impended over by his own guilt, that is, the guilt of the act in which all mankind stood together in an accursed relation. 2. And so, disposing of the difficulty that a guilty heir cannot be one person with the Almighty, we advance to the second, which is that a guilty heir cannot be a free sacrifice. Now, let us inquire into this, with the necessary thoroughness. A free sacrifice, as a notion to be applied to Christ, must imply a freedom in either of two partic ulars ; first, in its being unincumbered ; and second, in its being voluntary ; and, in both of these respects, our doctrine would be opposed, as denying the free dom of redemption. But let us look at both. In the first place, what is meant by being unincumbered ? If Christ were a sinner, all parties would agree that he could not atone for sin. But that he should be guilty, all parties agree. In the days of Adam, Abel left upon Him guilt. Christ was not yet born, and yet Heav en had settled that ; and Abel was redeemed, solely on the faith that Christ should become guilty. It soberly appears, therefore, that Christ was a guilty man long before he came into the world. It appears that he was righteously guilty ; and, though all agree that he never was, and never was to be, personally sinful, yet, under one imputation, he certainly was in volved, and the only question is, was he so under the Christ One Person. 19 other ? Under the covenant of grace he was born with millions of guiltinesses. Under the covenant of works, was he an heir of Adam's guilt ? To say, He decidedly was not, and to argue it on the plea of a free sacrifice, and to say, He never could have atoned for man, if by nature he was an heir to death, and to appeal to this as of the alphabet of the cross, is beyond all question rationalism ; for it pretends to say, Christ could buy me off, if all mankind were upon his shoulder, but not if Adam were ; or, to speak more plainly, he could be considered a free sacrifice if encumbered with all the lost, but not free if incumbered for himself; that is, God, who knows no heritage or birth, could give price-availing value to the man with whom he chose to be incarnate, but it must be a price-availing value sufficient only for millions, and not for the one humanity, descended from Adam, which God has chosen to take into union with Himself. Now, I say, This is rationalism. And there is a plain victory in store for our side of the case, if we say, Our appeal is solely to Scrip ture: grant that Christ never sinned, and that he was redeemed, ab ovo, from all his guiltiness ; and grant that we are successful with our Scriptures ; and grant that the Scriptures show that he bought off the whole churchly body ; and grant that they ex pressly teach that he broke the bars of the pit, and let himself out, as well as his disciples,^and we may laugh at the difficulties of the theorist. Grant only that he was born sinless, and that that escape from Adam was purchased, like yours or mine, and 20 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. no mortal is such a practitioner on high, that he un derstands the law of the case, and can rule that the God Christ can buy off the millions of the church, but cannot buy off the man Christ, when the God Christ is unincumbered of descent, and is known to be the basis of all the liquidation. And, in the second place, in respect to what is voluntary. It is known that Christ was incumbered long before he was begotten of Mary. God's share in the plan must be that which is chiefly looked upon as unincumbered and voluntary. Godwas free in all time, and yet not free in one particular, viz., free to do wrong ; and it would have been wrong not to have embraced the methods of redemption. But, in all juridic views, in which we are now only to speak, God began this scheme long before there was any bond, and before there was any motive but the eter nal wisdom which had embedded him in his whole decree. At that ancient time the true ideas emerge. God was voluntary. And God was utterly unincum bered. There was no Adam to implicate guilt. On the side of the Almighty, we get the fullest idea of an unincumbered and free Redeemer. But on the side of man it is different, a little. The Man appeared with centuries of steps taken for him, and no ques tions asked as to his will. The Man was born of the Virgin with a price upon his head. His leave was not asked, but millions of men had been born to life upon his guiltiness. This is not altogether volunta ryism. It was voluntary ; and the Scripture makes much of that account. But it was voluntary quo ad hoc. God was in Christ. The eternal voluntaryness Christ One Person. 21 reigned, and was accepted in his nature. But it was not voluntary* as it had been in the beginning ; for, already, millions had been bargained by it, and im plications had been had, that would have made it a sin in the Man if he had not kept up to the bargain of the God. " Thy vows are upon me," he says. So then, now, in the other respect. If Christ had his share in Adam, he was where he had been put by the will of the Father. He was no more implicated than by us. If he had to offer, first for his own guilt, and then for the people, it is but to show his share holding under both covenants. And to say, Reason forbids it, is to uphold the sternest rationalism. Quit of all personal sin, we have carried the Saviour far enough for logic ; and then, how he came so, whether by being a novus homo, or by being " the first born from the dead," must be a matter of reve lation ; and he is a bold rationalist who says, There is freedom and chance, if Christ had no guilt from Adam, but no freedom and no chance at all, if he had to be washed from his own guilt, and redeemed by his own ransom from his own share of the curse, and born of the Virgin, to secure retroactively entire quickening. 3. And now, one thing more ; as to our Mediator. * Christ says, " I lay it down of myself ;" but he immediately says, " This commandment have I received of my Father" (Jo. x : 18). The very bloodiest moment 'of his life he approaches in this way : — • ' But that the world may know that I love the Father ; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do"(Jo. xiv : 31). " For 1 came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me" (Jo. vi : 38). The sacrifice was voluntary, therefore ; but, like the worship of the blest, voluntary, yet commanded. 22 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. The argument here is, If Christ be one with Adam, and is himself, quoad the earlier covenant, bound for Adam's sin, he is himself of the party of the guilty. And what becomes then of the idea of a go-between ? Being himself of Adam, and acting for himself, the idea of an inter-nuncial messenger seems mightily obscured. To all which we reply, by charg ing again a hardy rationalism. A days-man, in the instance of our race, is a third person. There is a king, and there is a culprit, and there is a third man who lays his hand upon both. Nobody pretends to this in the instance of our Redeemer. Paul specially demurs, and teaches that the whole thing is an im perfect illustration. And the difficulty lies here : God is one party, and man another, but the Me diator is obscured under any theory. The Media tor is also God, and the Mediator is also man ; and, even though we were to throw him out as an actual heritor with man, he would still remain " one body" (Rom. xii : 5). He delights to speak of himself as the head with the members. And, therefore, he is really of both parties. He delights to speak of him self as God (our Confession phrases it " very God"), and he delights to speak of himself as man, and, therefore, under any supposable theory, he is not a mediator of any usual kind. And, therefore, the spell of any sharp rationalistic arguing is broken. Paul says, " Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one" (Gal. iii.: 20). And demurring, therefore, to the idea of mediation as actually precise, he leaves us to canvass Scripture. If God is one, and therefore a mediation within his own substance must Christ One Person. 23 be of a peculiar kind, and man is one, because, as Christ claims, he is of one body with his people, then to call Christ a Mediator at all, is but an approach to the truth ; and to go further, and say, Christ mediates for himself, does not so far increase the difficulty as to make any appreciable difference in the argument as based upon mediation. We would mark Christ thus : — He is the offended God : he is also the offending man. He is the of fended God, as being of the same substance. He is the offending man, as being a natural heir of our apostacy. He is a mediator in but a partial sense : first, as separated from God by his humanity ; second, as separated from man by his divinity (a mediator- ship, therefore, thus far, rather as compound than as simple) ; thirdly, from his being unlike man in obe dience ; fourthly, from his being unlike God in suffer ing ; and fifthly, from his whole sacrificial work. See how this last unifies him. He could not do it as God, from its humiliation. He could not do it as man, from its atoning value : and, nevertheless, he did do it, and thereby stood out from his race. And it is this blended One, thus standing out from our humanity, that became the Mediator; God, on one side, and man, on the other ; God, on one side, and, therefore, not a mediator there ; and man, on the other, and, therefore, not a mediator there ; but a mediator when united into one — a chosen member of our race, in whom the great God was to be incarnate ; who was to stand representing all his people ; who, though weak, was never to be lost by weakness, but was to be clothed with power ; who, though pec- 24 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. cable, was never to be allowed to sin, but was to be filled with the Spirit ; and who, though guilty, was never to be born in guilt, but was to be snatched from corruption before his very beginning, and was, in this way, to become mediator— not as God, for there he is one, and not as man, for there he is a party too, but as God and man, in that middle position in court, in which he brings into the case the represen tation of both natures. Christ's being one with God, is not irreconcila ble, therefore, in its thought, with Christ as being an heir of Adam. CHAPTER II. Christ Born of a Virgin. A READER, who shall have followed us thus far, will very probably throw off, with impatience, the charge of rationalism. Is not ours the old doctrine, he will say ? and therefore, he will feel, as I always did, that the Scriptures must be full of it. Where did men get it, he will be ready to exclaim, unless it has been the burden, all the time, of the Christian revelation ? Now, Has it been ? That is exactly what we wish to press. If the Scriptures be all full of it, mention fifty — nay, coming down as Abraham did, mention thirty — mention twenty — nay, mention ten — give us five simple Scriptures that make it at all to be un derstood that Christ was not of Adam when he came into the world. The pressure upon the mind of the reader, even though it be a thing altogether negative, Christ Born of a Virgin. 25 must have its effect. Where, in all the Bible, do you find a passage that testifies of a created Christ ; of a Christ superinduced upon our line ; of a Saviour cut off, by intention, from descent ; an imitated man, rather than one hereditarily derived from our ac cursed ancestors ? There floats in many a mind the single sentence, " A body hast thou prepared me :" but, besides the singular fact that that is not the original ; but that the original favors weakness and stupidity and deaf ness of nature as native to Christ, and reads, " Mine ears hast thou opened ;" in addition to all this, — the sentence, if it were correctly in the Hebrew, would be but a slender base on which to build such a sub stantial teaching. In all the Bible, therefore, there remains but one other passage', and that is. The Birth from the Virgin. We had not advanced a page, before, beyond all doubt, every body thought of this imagined testi mony to the separateness of the Redeemer. We are to treat this argument in an after part of our book; but we cannot afford to postpone it. One fact about it now ! There are four considerations that make it utterly inadequate to answer its end in the reasoning. 1. In the first place, there is nothing natural to answer to it. A mother's son is just as much a heritor as a father's son. Intellect, virtue, good looks, strength, and stature, are more often inherited, many men think, from the mother, than from the other side. But all that apart. The question was never made practical but once. Beyond all manner 26 Reasons for the Old Doctrine. of doubt there is not a farthing of value to the consideration that the man hands down the traits, beyond the thought that it may be done by the woman. So much for nature. 2. Now for Scripture. There is not a line of Scripture that explains the transaction this way. 3. On the contrary, thirdly; we are distinctly taught that Christ was a child of Adam — that he was a child of Abraham — that he was a child of David. His maternal birth was never for a moment federally dwelt upon. On the contrary, as we shall afterward see, the Scripture delights to call him a " Branch" — to speak of his growing up " from be neath" (Zech. vi : 12) ; to speak of his mortal flesh ; to speak of his " being a dead man according to the flesh" (1 Pet. iii : 18) ; and to talk of him in all those ways which never relax for a moment into any relief by showing what he gained from his mother. 4. Lastly, his miraculous birth is explained. It is necessary, considering him lost. Reverse all the usual ideas. Consider him guilty. That is ; in the loins of his fathers, and as an heir like us,suppose him to be putatively dead. Then suppose him to be elect, and to be chosen, before all time, to be the prophet of his people. Suppose that he is to be God ; that is, that he is to be the temple of God incarnate. Suppose that, on account of this amazing glory, he is a prince, and that what he suffers is as though all suffered, and that, as he obeys, that is to win for himtheobedience of allmankind — Lsay,His birth of a virgin is necessary to inwrap him with the Spirit : he must be holy, harmless, separated from Christ Born of a Virgin. 2J sinners, and made higher than the heavens — to be all this, he must be redeemed — to be redeemed, his hu man part must get a share from his expiatory labor — to perform that labor, he must be perfect — to be perfect, he must be sanctified from the womb, nay, he must be perfect in the earliest conception of his being — and to be so, he must be born, not like you or me when we are born again, and not like Jeremiah if he was converted from the womb, but like his own blessed self, born as a " holy thing," in the womb of the Vir gin Mary, under the power of the Holy Ghost, that, though inheriting weakness from his mother, he might be cut off from sin by that perfect shrouding of his nature, ab ovo, in the grace that sanctifies. For these reasons we think this noted narrative to be less against us than in our favor, and wish to be distinctly understood ; — Our Christ is a Prophet like us (Deut. xviii : 15); infinitely far from us in his di vinity; and infinitely better off than we, in that he was regenerated from the womb ; but perfectly at one with us in his descent from Adam, and liable to all our curse through his mother's guiltiness, were he not bought off by the work which he was yet to finish, through his glorious Godhead. II. REASONS FOR THE NEW DOCTRINE. CHAPTER I. Christ and Man. If Christ were a new creation, and grafted by a second covenant in upon the body of our race, care would not be taken to make all our humanity one, and to make Christ so distinctly as he is made, a part of the aggregate man. This begins in the very first chapter of the Scrip tures. They seem to delight to call men man, and to give no separate name to Adam but this name man (Adam), the name of all mankind. Hence it is a puzzling thing to translate, in cer tain passages. " This is the book of the generations of man (Adam). In the day that God created man (Adam), in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created he them ; and blessed them, and called their name man (Adam), in the day when they were created. And man (Adam) lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image ; and called his name Seth : and the days of man (Adam), after he had begotten Seth, Christ and Man. 29 were eight hundred years ; and he begat sons and . daughters. And all the days that man (Adam) lived were nine hundred and thirty years : and he died" (Gen. v: 1-5). Another fragment (if we adopt the idea of many good men, that Moses under divine in spiration selected from among these ancient annals), confirms in the most careful way this desire of unit izing humanity. " God said, Let us make man (Adam). . So God created man (Adam) in his own image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them. And God blessed them" etc. (Gen. i : 26-28). And again, " The Lord God formed man (Adam) dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man (Adam) became a living soul" (Gen. ii : 7). This is one stage. Now, another. " Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Gen. i : 26 ; see also 28). David, thousands of years afterward, repeats this, " Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands : thou hast put all things under his feet" (Ps. viii : 6). And Paul, a thousand afterward, lifts this quite out of the category of a common do minion, and ascribes it to Glorified Man. " For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. But one in a cer tain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that thou 11 30 Reasons for the New Doctrine. visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower thar, the angels : thou crownedst him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands : thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him" (Heb. ii : 5-9). Why not ? Christ was long since glorified. And Paul states that. " We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor." But see, now, his blessed doc trine ! All saved humanity is to be crowned. That is the waiting consummation. We are to see the kingly Adam. And as MAN was to " have domin ion," we see not yet all things put under him (Adam). " But we see Jesus," the Head and Prince and God : He is glorified ; but not the entire man : the finest attestation we can dream of His being of the one humanity. And not only so : the Bible is not only careful to make all humanity one, but it shows how. It does not leave us to those realistic follies which make all man sin personally, and by whimsical presence in the Garden of Eden, a conceit so brainless that it stains polemics, but it treats all hereditarily, and manages the unity of man naturally, and by the matter of birth. Christ, in this way, holds of Adam all through the word of God.. Paul, in his very comment on the Psalm, viz., that man is to have dominion, and that Christ, who now has dominion, is but a part of man, fortifies that conception by words that cannot be mistaken ; for he says, " Both he that sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of one: for which Christ and Man. 31 cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren ; say ing, I will declare thy name unto my brethren ; in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee (Heb. ii : 11, 12). And so of other passages. What we find proved is, that Christ is Adam-born, like Ta- mar, or like Amon, or like any other in the list of his progenitors. The Bible makes no difference. In settling for us a creed, Paul tells us that He was " born of the seed of David according to the flesh' (Rom. i: 3). Antioch is to receive him as "this man's seed," viz., David's (Acts xiii : 23). Isaiah discourses upon him as " out of the stem of Jesse" (Is. xi : 1) ; nay, as " a root out of a dry ground" (Is. liii : 2). Zechariah makes him " grow up from be neath" (Zech. vi : 12). And Moses (Deut. xviii : 15), quoted afterward by Peter (Acts iii : 22), gives it with almost startling plainness. It justifies the speech that Christ was elected (Is. xiii: 1), and anointed (Is. lxi : 1), and set up (Ps. ii : 6), and ordained (Acts xvii : 31), like Saul or David out of the multitudes of Israel. For listen to the language, " Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me." Boldness seems the last thing that the men of inspiration seem inclined to fear. Isaiah calls him an abomination (Is. xii : 24). He says, He made dust his sword, and driven stubble his bow (Is. xii : 2) ; meaning by that, that the human part of Christ, except through Him that raised up the righteous man, was like what Zechariah calls him, " a brand plucked out of the fire" (Zech. iii : 2). Hosea says, " I called mv son out of Egypt" (Hos. xi : 1). And 32 Reasons for the New Doctrine. now, dwelling upon this, there can be no doubt that this is the whole gospel mystery. Matthew studs his chapters with these pregnant quotations from the prophets. " That it might be fulfilled," he says — (and surely he would not load his verse with mere puerile allusion): " He came and dwelt," he says, " in a city called Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene" (Matt, ii : 23). Now, what are we to un derstand ? Nothing trifling, beyond all manner of doubt. What are we to understand by the fifteenth verse, " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son" (Matt, ii : 15). The thing to be understood is, that Christ was an " abomination" (Is. xii : 24) ; that he was " stubble ;" that he was " dust" (Is. xii : 2), in his vile heredity : that he was a brand plucked from the burning as to his claim by birth ; and that was what Matthew was seizing upon in the historic allegory. He came out of Egypt, just as all the rest of us come out of the iron furnace. And he was called from Nazareth, not only because Nazareth was an "abomination," but because Christ was the " Branch"* (Is. liii ; 2 ; see Zech. iii : 8 ; vi : 12), fairly and actually derived from our dead humanity. We would like to quote other passages. " Agur," an allegorical personage, is himself Christ's hu manity ; f and he wonders at his own relief, — " Be cause I am more brutish than a man of the better sort, * Heb. Nezer — a branch. f See the author's Commentary on Proverbs, pp. 506-509, Christ and Woman. 33 and have not the discernment even of a common man, and have not learned wisdom, and yet have the knowledge of holy things : who hath ascended up to heaven and come down " etc., i. e., who has ennobled such a humanity? (see the whole passage), the idea being that the man Christ, by any race-heredity, and by any tie of flesh, is literally " an abomination," and that this would have come out save for the interven tion of the Most High ; but that from the emigrants out of the iron furnace there was to be raised up one who was to be chosen before all time ; who was to be lifted out of the miry pit ; who was to be known before he was in the womb ; who was to be sanc tified before he came forth (Jer. i : 5) ; and who was to be so tabernacled in by God, as to become God himself; and who was therefore to be worshipped and adored, though but the worm Jacob (Is. xii : 14), and though effecting his triumphs on paths that he could not tread with his feet* (Is. xii : 2). CHAPTER II. Christ and Woman. Of course, if Joseph were the father, no difficulty would occur in Christ as the inheritor of Adam: but, as Mary was the mother, it still remains to prove that that makes the slenderest difference as to a true connection with our humanity. * This is » peculiar expression, and means that Christ was so Verily man that, like the man Elijah, or the man Paul, he could not follow the omnipotence, and actually feel it, and wield it, and tread in the path of it, in his mere humanity. His humanity did not raise the dead ; but only his Deity as his humanity willed it. 34 Reasons for the New Doctrine. Notice this, — Woman herself is introduced to us in a careful presentation. She is not brought from a distance, as Christ is supposed to be, but she is bred of Adam. " This is now bone of my bones" (Gen. ii : 23), says our old progenitor. And the Bible seems careful to declare that " she was taken out of man" (ib.). Her very name in Hebrew (isha) betokens that (ib.) ; and the passage seems to delight to declare that the man and wife are " one flesh" (v. 24). Now Targums are not more fabled and tradi tionary than our glosses of the text. I have searched everywhere. Men are called seed of man (Gen. xvii : 7) and seed of woman (Gen. iii : 15) ; and I can trace no difference. Eve seems to have imagined Cain to be the Messiah ; and announces him, — " I have gotten possession of the man Jehovah" (Gen. iv : 1). If she had been taught that much, why had she not been taught that in an ordinary birth it was impos sible ? Tamar ! was her blood less contaminating than that of Obed ? And Rahab ! and Bathsheba ! It has often been remarked that Christ was brought nearer to man by the turpitude in some of his mothers. Has all that been folly? And, if so, why? Mary brought to the temple a sacrifice upon the birth of her child. And if " the days of her purification" (Lu. ii : 22) were for herself, why does the word " THEIR purification" linger about the old manuscript ? and why, at any rate, in this particular instance have a sacrifice, if immaculate purity, even to the extent of their being no heredity from Adam, was to be the conception of the birth ? Christ and Death. 35 Why, moreover, had Christ to pay a ransom as the first born ? CHAPTER III. Christ and Death. If Christ, though woman-born, was an heir of Adam, and, as Peter expresses it, of the fruit of the loins of David (Acts ii : 30), he is brought squarely under the curse, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." But our attention was first excited by passages far more express than this. And what we wish to notice is the exceeding daintiness with which the inspired writers pick out their words. The sub ject is, of course, a delicate one. Christ never sinned. And should I select the title, " Christ Lost in Adam," my language would not be as happy as that which corresponds to it in the living word. When Paul says, " In Adam all die" (1 Cor. xv : 22), see how ex pert he is. He does not make his statement in the past tense, but with singular deftness tells us this, — that, ages after Adam (using the present tense), men who were in no sense in the garden, now " die," tem porally and eternally, in consequence of his sin ; or, as it is tersely expressed, " in Adam." With like skill are those wonderful passages that I am about to quote. When I say,' " Christ Lost in Adam," I in stantly have to define. He is not lost, in many im portant particulars. He was never lost. I mean by that, Christ as God was never lost at all. And Christ as man, when he actually came into being, was already saved. He never saw corruption. / was 36 Reasons for the New Doctrine. never lost. That is, if I belong to Christ, I was covenanted for from eternity ; and twenty centuries ago I was paid for: so that I need never be finally lost. But Christ was saved in a far more efficient sense. He never sinned. He never tasted actual apostacy. And, therefore if I were to call my book, " Christ Dead in Adam," I should have to show that he never died actually ; it would have to be, that he inherited death; nay, that he actually incurred death, as one, by the earlier judgment, with the offending Adam ; that he actually feared death, (Heb. v : f), as we shall most particularly show ; that he actually felt death, in an enervated conscience (Mar. xiv : 38; Heb. v : 2), and in the power of a supreme tempta tion ; but that he never succumbed to death, simply because he was redeemed ; the Holy Ghost meeting him in the very womb of his mother, and overshadow ing him at the very first, and saying to death, " O Death, I will be thy plague," that death having the rights by heritage, and rights that would have been enforced, were it not for the identical ransom which expelled it in the children of his people. Now, if there are sentences that come out that tell all this, and tell it in the most emphatic way, I beg you to notice how aptly they will tell it, and how the texts I quote tell it at the very first blow ; how they frame it in a final shape; and though they provoke you to exclaim, How very strong they are! yet there is no room for wavering. I need not say, They are true in that sense, but not true in the other. But they have all that digested at the first. They have all said at a stroke, without the need of returning limitations. Christ and Death. 37 For example Peter says, " Being put to death in the flesh" (1 Pet. iii: 18). Now, in our haziness, we shroud this under a trivial translation. We make it refer to the cross. Nobody dreams that this does not mean " put to death," at all. The verb (thanatoo) occurs eleven times in the Greek. It never means slain, or killed, but always, " delivered to death," or " made as good as dead." Paul says, " For thy sake are we killed all the day long" (Rom. viii : 36). Three of the cases refer to religious persecution (Matt, x: 21; Mar. xiii: 12; Lu. xxi: 16); three others to the counsel of the scribes (Matt, xxvi: 59; xxvii : 1; Mar. xiv : 55); each of the six meaning to " cause to be put to death." Of the three that remain, one is the pas sage, " dead to the law" (Rom. vii : 4) ; another the expression, " chastened and not killed" (2 Cor. vi : 9) ; meaning " not delivered over to death :" and the only remaining one is that in Romans: let me read the whole of it ; — " If ye through the Spirit do mor tify the deeds of the body" (Rom. viii : 13) ; mean ing, if ye give them over to die. This now is the skill I speak of. The apostle Peter does not say, Christ was dead ; but he says, " Being made a dead man, or as good as dead." This is the exact limit of the purport of my book. » Being made a lost man by the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit ; which may be stated thus — dead naturally, but never al lowed to see death, — graciously redeemed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her, yet with out sin : or, returning to the apostolic language, — " A 38 Reasons for the New Doctrine. dead man by the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit :' by which Spirit, we go on to hear, he was not only quickened, but went forth to quicken others. He went into this great " prison" house of earth, and preached to its dead spirits (i Pet. iv : 6) ; not al ways as man, for he was not man always ; but to spirits "who at any time (pote) were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God has waited in days of Noah," that is, in days like those of Noah, " an ark being a preparing." We are carried too far, how ever. A glance must be enough for the context.* Returning to the eighteenth verse, we will confirm it by another from the Apostle Paul. But before we do that, let us restate its meaning. It means that Christ was as good as dead according to the flesh ; for that an old man would have been born within him by his fleshly nature, and that he would have fallen into sin ; but that he was made alive, as a new man, by the work of the Spirit ; and that the new man utterly destroyed the old ; not its infirmities (Heb. v: 2); not, at all, its pecc^bleness (Heb. v: 7); not, least of all, its tempted nature (Matt, iv: 1) ; but its actual sinfulness ; not as in his glorified state, but by the naked power and overbalancing mastery of the Holy Ghost. This is Peter's testimony. Now for another apostle. When Christ was set' up from eternity, he was decreed as the head of the universe (Ps. 2). " For him were all things created" (Col. i : 16). He was not created first, but created centrally. All things * See this whole passage discussed in the Monograph, "Are Souls Immortal?" III. Chap. V. Christ and Death. 39 were created around him ; that is, as Paul expresses it, "By him all things consist" (E. V. Col. i: 17). When, therefore, not as God, but as man, he was born into the world, he was " the first born of every creature" (Col. i : 15). How ? Not temporally. The morning stars had sung together for millions of ages. Then how was he the first born ? Why, logically : in that every thing else was begotten in the very first idea of him. The universe, as a whole, was decreed when Christ was decreed. " For by him ;" and, as far as this alludes to the human nature, we must take the copulative meaning of dia, as where John says, This is he that came by water and blood : therefore, making this change, and applying it to the man, let us begin again, — " For with him, or by means of him, as the unifying ideal, were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or do minions or principalities or powers; all things were created with him and for him ; and he is before all things ; and in him all things stood together" (Col. i: 16, 17). Now, using this apt context as a fine setting for the clause which is to be our second in the way of proof, let us bring in that clause at once. It is in the bosom of the next verse. It reads, " The first-born from the dead." Now, how is he the first born ? John repeats the sentence — " The first begotten of the dead" (E. V., Rev. i : 5). The Greek is the same. Had not Lazarus been raised from the dead ? How singularly we lose Scriptures by trivial interpretations ! Who would look at these pregnant utterances, and 40 Reasons for the New Doctrine. say, they were thoroughly satisfied by the idea that, in the order of time, Christ was the first to break the bands of the grave? But if not, then where are our ideas carried ? Precisely where Peter's were (i Pet. 3 : 1 8). Christ, before all time, was decreed in Adam. When time began he " fell with" Adam ; at least if that be a proper phrase in our " Confession" to apply to all mankind. Through the flight of ages, till he came, he lay with Adam ; and when he came, he was heir of Adam. As heir he would have been cursed in Adam, but for being redeemed. Though redeemed he was cursed in Adam, by being born infirm (Heb. v : 2). He was "begotten from the dead," just as you have been, or I have been, by the Holy Ghost. And he was the " first begotten" ; not that he was regen erated before Job, or before Abel, or Abraham ; but that, as cause, he must be logically first; that is, the new birth of Abel must be granted on account of the new birth of Christ; and the new birth of Christ, though four thousand years after, must precede in court, that is in the plan, and concession of the ver dict, the new birth of Abel, because the new birth of Christ was necessary to that absolute obedience without which he could not have won the new birth of all his people. We speak of new birth, but it must be with un speakable distinctions. The new birth of Christ was not like yours or mine. It had no old birth behind it. He was never born at all, till he was born sinless. He never saw corruption. He was born infirm and tempted, but he resisted perfectly, as our new birth resists only partially. He was born Emmanuel ; and Christ and Death. 41 the presence of the Godhead curbed by main strength the forces of iniquity. It was done with human struggle, like ours or yours. But while we succeed partially in this prison-house of clay, he succeeded perfectly ; though in terrible torment. And his birth into this fierce battle in which he lost never a field, was his begetting ; and it was as " First Begotten," because it had to come first to him in the order of logic as the means and the purchase of the begetting of his people. Of a piece with these views are many expressions in the prophets. He is called " elect" (Is. xiii : 1). Elect from among whom ? He is called a " Branch" (Zech. iii : 8). A branch from whom ? He is called an " abomination" (Is. xii : 24). An abomination why? And then, in broader terms, he is called " a rod out of the stem of Jesse" (Is. xi : 1) and " a root out of a dry ground" (Is liii : 2). He is said to " grow up from beneath" (Zech. vi: 12; see the Heb.) There is the command, " Write in it with a pen, — Enosh (that is, the sick, the mortal, the incurable one : it is the lowest name for man) shall hasten the spoil, and hurry the prey" (Is. viii : 1). He says him self, The Lord hath formed me from the womb (Is. xlix: 5): The Lord God hath opened mine ear(l: 5). We count this passage in Isaiah as throughout a tes timony to our poor sin-visited Redeemer. Of a like character is much in the Psalms of David. " I will praise thee, for thou hast heard me, and art become my salvation" (Ps. cxviii : 21). "The sor rows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me : I found trouble and sorrow. Then 42 Reasons for the New Doctrine. called I upon the name of the Lord : O Lord, I be seech thee, deliver my soul"(Ps. cxvi: 3, 4). " Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling" (ib. v. 8). " Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell" (Ps. lxxxvi : 13). When it begins to speak of " iniquities" and " sins" and " transgressions," the translators shrink away at once : but when we remember that the Bible uses the word " sin" oftentimes for being treated as a sinner, we are driven from none of the Messianic passages. And yet we are not driven quite over to the idea of mere atoning guiltiness. Judah said, "If I bring him not unto thee, then I have sinned against thee forever" (Gen. xliii : 9 ; see also 1 Ki. i : 21). So that when David said, " Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee" (Ps. xii : 4) ; or when he says, " Mine iniquities are gone over mine head ; as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me" (Ps. xxxviii : 4) ; or when he says, " there is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger ; neither is there any rest in my bones, because of my sin" (ib. v. 3), — we are not to be driven to dislocate the Psalms, and to separate Messianic and un-Messianic parts of the same brief poem ; nor on the other hand are we to think of a mere vicarious guiltiness ; but we are to think of the guilt, i. e., in Oriental phrase, the sin, that lies closer than a mere assumption ; the guilt that would have been inherited from Adam ; the sin that lay menacing from the first moment of birth; the guilt that was of Christ himself, except as kept off by sacrifice ; and the sin that lay natural to the heart, and was kept couching for its prey, and would Christ and Life. 43 have burst in upon Christ, were it not for the super natural work of the directly purchased, because gra ciously imparted, agency, that had been promised, of the Holy Ghost. Now we are going on to other chapters. But let it be here distinctly intimated, — All the other chapters will be proofs of this one. For example, we are to show in the next (Chap. IV.) that Christ was quick ened, and that that quickening was often spoken of under the phrase, " resurrection from the dead" ; in the next, that he was quickened by the Spirit (Chap. V.) ; in the next, that he was ransomed (Chap. VI.) ; then, that he was justified (Chap. VII.), adopted (Chap. VIII.), and sanctified (Chap. IX.) ; then, that he was the subject of humiliating ordinances, baptism and circumcision (Chap. X.) ; then, that he was glori fied (Chap. XI.) ; then, how he was Jehovah (Chap. XII.); in all which chapters one truth will appear, viz., that he was lost in Adam ; the influence of each being to cut off the possibility of mistake, and to show, in his quickening and sanctification, how he was lost, and how the death of which I have been speaking, though it never occurred, was kept from occurring, simply as our perdition is, by a divine atonement. CHAPTER IV. Christ and Life. PAUL, in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, tells those Ephesian Christians that they were " quickened together with Christ." There is 44 Reasons for the New Doctrine. no flinching from the expression. Let us quote it fully. " God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace ye are saved) ; and hath raised us up together" (Eph. ii : 4-6). The phrase is direct : " hath co- quickened us" : and lest any one should say, " hath co-quickened us by Christ," Paul repeats the sen tence in the Epistle to the Colossians, and there pre vents such a use of the dative by the actual preposi tion [sun). Let me quote here that also, — " Buried with him in baptism ; wherein also ye are co-risen, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, HATH HE QUICKENED TOGETHER WITH HIM, having for given you all trespasses" (Col. iii : 12, 13). I beg you to notice how your mind, clinging to old thoughts, puts some gloss upon the passage, that will parry its more natural consequence. " Hath quickened us together with Christ." Of course our quickening, and Christ's quickening, must be, at va rious points, different ; because Christ's death, and our death, are different. Christ's death was never reached. He never died spiritually. But hence is best explained this quickening. He was quickened from the very womb. We are quickened not till we are converted. We are quickened only in part. We are quickened chiefly at the resurrection. We are born dead. But Christ was born fully into life ; and, therefore, we must mark a great difference there be tween him and his people. And yet he was born Christ and Life. 45 from the dead (ek nekrdn). And he was born in view of a ransom. And he was born of the Holy Spirit. He would have been dead by the flesh, but he was "quickened by the Spirit" (1 Pet. iii : 18). He was like his people, therefore, in many respects ; but he differed in these two, — first, he was born perfect, and born without any interval of sin ; and, second, he was saved by himself. We are quickened together with Christ, but we are quickened by a purchased Spirit ; and the difference between that quickening and his, is that he bought for both of us. His glorious Deity was the foundation of a price which his hard-wrought obedience paid down " for himself and for the errors of the people." Let us pursue this subject further. "God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth" (Phil, ii : 9, 10). And, yet, he delights to throw himself with his people. Nicodemus says to him, " We know that thou art a teacher come from God" (Jo. iii : 2). He immediately replies, " If ANY MAN be not begotten from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (v. 3). The forms of such teaching are endless. " The first born from the dead" : that we have already noticed. And Paul repeats the idea ; taking it away from the thought of the resurrection altogether, where he says, " That he might be the first born among many brethren" (Rom. viii : 29). Moreover, in respect to the resurrection ; are we not quite at fault in making that the mere resurrec- 46 Reasons for the New Doctrine. tion of the body? Notice certain passages. "lam the resurrection and the life" (Jo. xi : 25). Does that mean the merely fleshly resurrection ? Again, " And preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts iv: 2). This form of summing up occurs continually. " For which hope's sake, King Agrippa" (Acts xxvi : 7) ; — and when we come to un derstand the apostle's " hope," it is, " that there shall be a resurrection of the dead." " That I may know the power of his resurrection" (Phil, iii : 10). " Even baptism doth now save us, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. iii: 21). Again, "His Son whom he raised from the dead" (1 Thess. i : 10). Again, " Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead according to my gospel" (2 Tim. ii : 8). Again. " Determined (marg.) to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i : 4). Now I say, Lazarus's resurrection, or Eutychus's, or Jairus's daughter's, or the Shunamite's son's, are no more the boundary of these resurrections which are the " hope" (Acts xxvi : 7) of the saints, than the grave is the boundary of the dominion of wickedness. Yet if they are not, what do they refer to in Christ ? All men have noticed this ; some with more wakefulness than others. And yet it has not dis lodged the indolent impression, that Christ's resur rection was merely from the grave ; yet every body agrees that there is a strange insisting upon this, considering the other events more central in his history. Now, we believe that Christ's resurrection often Christ and Life. 47 means his resurrection from his death in Adam. " If ye then be risen with Christ" (Col. iii : 1). Does that mean from the grave ? Let us quote many passages. " God hath fulfilled the same, in that he hath raised up Jesus again" (Acts xiii : 33). Does that mean corporeally ? No : for it immediately adds, " This day have I begotten thee." Some, therefore, have thought that the begetting of Em manuel was at his resurrection (Sanctius, Camera., Cor. a Lapide ; see also Poli Syn.). Why not rather that his resurrection was at his begetting? Our doc trine is, that Jesus was raised from the dead in the womb of the Virgin Mary. That is, that he de scended to her lineally apostate, and that he was born of her, not wicked, because he was saved, and not guilty, because he was redeemed, and that that was his anastasis, and that all the other facts of it, viz., his bursting from the grave, and his anastasis into glory, are all a part of what, in many passages, are regarded as his rising from the dead {ek nekrdn). And here let me say, that Christ's bursting from the grave is more than we usually make of it. He was born enosh (Is. viii : 1), that is, a mortal ; and that means more than a mere sick body: it means a sick mind. Sin belonged to him by certain tenden cies of his nature ; and he was held up from sinning by the sheer power of the Holy Ghost. Hence his temptation. Hear his account in the Garden : "The Spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. xxvi : 41). When, therefore, he died upon the cross, he shut his eye to the great period of death, and finished it ; and did so in a great acme of tempted 48 Reasons for the New Doctrine. agony. That is the meaning, in my belief, of his cry, Lama sabacthanif God did leave him, till he was pushed nigh to sin. And this is the meaning of those strong words of revelation, " With strong cry ing and tears to him that was able to save him from death" (Heb. v : 7). Paul alludes to it, ." Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Heb. xii : 4). And, therefore, the bursting of the grave was a new epoch. His soul came out to a relief. And, therefore, the resurrection often touches this part of the anastasis ; and even the mouldering of the body becomes a symbol of the apostacy that Christ escaped. Hence it is that even the £r«z>