1 This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop [overseer], he desireth a good work.

Baptism of Spirit

Baptism of spirit, then, was only partially bestowed even upon the saints in the apostolic age. It was an outpouring of divine power upon certain of the saints having natural and moral qualifications fitting them for the administrative use of it.

They were not only to be "faithful men," but

"apt to teach," "able to teach others," "holding firmly according to the teaching of the faithful word, that by sound instruction they might be able both to exhort and to convince opponents;"

and good rulers of their own houses.—1 Tim. 3:2, 4; 2 Ep. 2; Tit. 1:9.

Having these and certain other qualifications, they were considered eligible for baptism of spirit by prayer and imposition of hands. They must be saints first; for no apostle nor presbytery, nor inworker of powers, would lay hands upon sinners to impart divine power to them

"for the work of the ministry."

When the Laodicean Apostasy which now fills all "Christendom," as the heathen call their Babylonish system, came to be established, sinners laid hands upon sinners, as at this day, but notwithstanding all their prayers for the gifts and graces of the spirit, no other spirit comes into manifestation but "the spirit of error" which strongly works in all "the children of disobedience"—the spirit of their own nature, "sin's flesh," in which "dwells no good thing;" and which is therefore the Devil Nature.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Nov 1861

"Polygamy is opposed to the principles of Paul, who, in his writings, only recognizes 'one wife,' (Titus 1:6; Eph 5:31,33; 1Cor 7:2,12-17). This is sufficient for us, without discussing the case of the ancients, who lived under a different order of things. We are subject to Paul as the appointed teacher of the Gentiles (1Tim 2:7; 1Cor 9:1; 1Thess 4:1). 'If any man think himself to be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I [Paul] write unto you are the commandments of the Lord' (1Cor 14:37.

If polygamy is anti-apostolic, then it is our duty to withdraw from the polygamist, whether he is so in practice or principle only; for Paul has laid down the rule; 'Withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the traditions which ye have received of us' (2Thess 3:6).

A man's knowledge of the truth goes for nothing, if he is disobedient."

The Christadelphian, 1897, p. 151.

6 Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

Adam in his novitiate

The Lord God having arranged the foundation of the world in the sentences pronounced upon the transgressors, and commenced the preparation of the kingdom in the stipulations of the New Law, decreed their expulsion from the garden eastward in Eden.

As the serpent had said, the man had become "as the gods," or Elohim, "to know good and evil," in consequence of eating the forbidden fruit. He had known good only in his novitiate; but, being lifted up with pride, he had fallen into the condemnation of the devil (1 Tim. 3:6), and had come to know also by experience both sorrow and pain.

This was a great calamity, but not so great as that a greater might not befall him, even in Paradise. He had eaten of one tree, and his presumption might cause him to take and eat of the other. The consequences of this eating, superadded to the first, would have rendered his situation still more deplorable than it was.

He now knew evil, as the Elohim had done before him; but there was hope of deliverance from it when he should return to the dust whence he was taken; but if he should eat of the Tree of the Lives, this hope would be cut off, and he would live for ever the subject of weeping, sorrow, and pain.

The misery of being the subject of evil for ever is forcibly expressed by Job. When reduced to the deepest distress, he laments, saying,

"When I say, my bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint; then Thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions: so that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity" (Job 7:13-16).

But if Adam had eaten of the tree of life when reduced to such misery as this, he would have sought death, but it would have fled from him. He would have found no deliverance. This, however, would not have been the worst of it. He would have involved all his posterity in the same interminable calamity.

The earth would at length have become crowded with undying generations of sensual and devilish men, who, if any virtue should survive, would afflict it a hundred fold.

Elpis Israel 1.5.

15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

A want of unity is fatal to edification. Union without unity is worse than worthless; it is pernicious; it tends to frustrate the objects of fellowship. The Ecclesia is not the place at all for discussing the Principles of the One Faith. That belongs altogether to the outside.

The plea of "looking at both sides" is plausible, and looks candid; but it belongs only to those who are uncertain of the Faith; and certainly is no feature of the "full assurance of faith" without which it is impossible to please God. It is all very well for those who do not know the Truth to talk in such a style. Such are in no state to form constituents of a community whose function is to be the "Pillar and Ground of THE TRUTH" (1 Tim.3:15).

Agreement in the things of the Spirit is the first condition of ecclesial unity. The "unity of the Spirit" may be kept in the bond of peace. But the schism of the Spirit—disagreement in the things of the Spirit—renders peace impossible.

Bro Roberts - Seasons of Comfort.

16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

The Mystery of Godliness Apocalypsed In Symbol

"I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold I am living for the Aions of the Aions; Amen."

The Apocalypse being a revelation of the mystery hidden in the prophetic writings, it is to be presumed that it would certainly not omit to exhibit that cardinal element thereof, styled by Paul "the mystery of godliness," which he says is "great." We find it, therefore, introduced to the attention of the reader in such terms and phrases as God, Jesus Christ,

"He who is, and who was, and who is coming,"

"the Seven Spirits which is before his throne,"

"the Father of Jesus Christ,"

"the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is coming, the Almighty,"

"I am the First and the Last, and the Living One, and was dead, and behold I am living for the Aions of the Aions."

These are very remarkable, and, apart from revelation, very mysterious and impenetrable sayings. There is One who speaks of Himself in them as "I;" and he saith of this "I" that he was "the First," "the Alpha," "the Beginning," "the Lord the Almighty." This is intelligible enough, and we readily comprehend that the Deity, the self-existing, and first cause of all things, is meant.

We also recognise in the terms the epithets bestowed by the Deity upon himself in the prophets, and with a claim to them as his exclusively. But when we come to read the Apocalypse, we find the same terms applied to one who saith,

"I am the First who was dead."

This would very naturally suggest the inquiries,

"Did the Deity, who is the creator and upholder of the universe, ever die? and while he was dead, how was that universe sustained? And, seeing that death is an utter destitution of all power, how was life restored to the dead creator of all things?"

These are questions which obtrude themselves upon the thoughtful in view of these apocalyptic sayings. Apart from revelation they are unanswerable, for

"the world by wisdom knows not the Deity;"

and none by searching can find him out.

Philosophy, then, cannot help us; for philosophy is the system of speculation elaborated by the thinking of the flesh, independently of revelation. A brain destitute of God's thoughts is unenlightened, and, of necessity, incapable of thinking, speaking, and writing correctly concerning Deity, either in relation to his essence, mode of existence, system of manifestation, purposes, or requirements. We are compelled, therefore, from very helplessness, to accept God's own account of these things, which is revelation, or to remain in hopeless ignorance of the truth.

There is then a mystery in the premises, which, as the apostle saith, "without controversy is great." By "mystery" is meant a secret - a secret which the Deity only could reveal. He has made it known, yet the revealed secret continues to be styled a mystery, in reference to what it was originally. Paul terms it "the Mystery of Godliness." In particularising it, he shows that by "godliness" he means, a visible manifestation of Deity, testified and believed by men. In specifying it, he saith of the mystery, that it consisted, when revealed, of

"Deity manifested in flesh, perfected in spirit, seen of messengers, preached unto the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory" (1 Tim. 3:16).

Here is Deity set forth by implication in two states - Deity before manifestation, and Deity in manifestation. Does the fact of manifestation transform Deity into that which is not Deity? Certainly not. Or, is not Deity in manifestation as much Deity as before he made himself visible? Certainly he is.

The nature of the medium through which the manifestation is made does not change the nature of that which is manifested. Deity is Deity though He manifest his wisdom and power through mortal flesh.

The mortality of the flesh does not necessitate nor imply the mortality of the Deity; nevertheless, Deity becoming flesh, and constituting a manifested individual, if that individual die, and be raised again to life, and Deity again enter into combination with the resurrected body, so as to transform it into substance like the divine essence; in other words, to make that spirit which was before flesh, and so exalt it to the Father, Deity may say, with the strictest propriety,

"I am the First who was dead;"

and yet, abstractly from the medium of manifestation, did never die.

Eureka 2.0.

The Mystery of Godliness Apocalypsed In Symbol

The mystery of godliness is practically exhibited in the incarnation of the Word in the conception and anointing of Jesus; in the perfecting of his body at its resurrection, when Deity in Spirit was as visible to the apostles as Deity in Flesh had been to them before the crucifixion.

They preached Deity in Spirit seen of men as a testimony to be believed: it was believed, and that extensively, producing, through the teaching predicated upon it, the most remarkable moral effects. "Believed on in the world," saith Paul, "received up in glory."

Deity in Spirit having sojourned on earth with the sons of men for forty days, "received up in glory", where he has been, for the past eighteen hundred years, awaiting the appointed time to reappear in the world, not as Deity in Spirit manifested in one man only, but in

"a multitude which no man can number"

- a multitude, whose symbol is exhibited in the Son of man in the midst of the Seven Lightstands, the Head of whom is Jesus (Apoc. 1:11-18).

The Apocalypse, like the prophecy of Ezekiel, contains Hebrew! mareoth Elohim, "VISIONS OF ELOHIM;" that is, of Deity in Spirit multitudinously manifested. Ezekiel saw this in symbol, but did not understand the mystery of their development from the sons of Adam; for the great exemplar, Jesus, had not then solved the problem in his own person.

The revelation of the mystery through him and the apostles has explained the principles, and shown how flesh may become spirit, or how a dark-minded pagan may be transformed into a manifestation of Deity in spirit. These principles in manifestation are individualised; and being so exhibited, they are symbolized, or indicated by signs, and graphically described in the imagery and writing of the Apocalypse.

Eureka 2.0.

God-Manifestation Without God

Renunciationism exposes the brethren to the danger of being taken captive by a specious fallacy which separates God from Jesus; presenting to view a mere man, while professing homage to the sublime fact of God-manifestation in the flesh.

"We believe," say these perverse disputationists, "the Scripture teaching of God manifest in the flesh; for the scheme is all of God."

If a "scheme" of God is God manifest in the flesh, then the law of Moses was God manifest in the flesh, for it was a scheme of God. But there is a difference between a scheme of God and God Himself. The mystery of godliness is not the manifestation of a scheme, but the manifestation of the Schemer, for a reason that comes not within the understanding of such as speak and judge of God as if He were a man.

Then it is said, "Without God, there could be no Son of God." If this makes Jesus God manifest in the flesh, then is an elephant God manifest in the flesh, for without God, there could be no elephant.

"God devised the plan," is the rejoinder. The answer is, a plan is not God. "Marvellous manifestation of God's love to death-stricken man," is the next periphrasis, by which it is attempted to make plausible God-manifestation without God. The manifestation of God's love is seen in rain on the just and unjust, but God's love is one thing; God Himself another.

Then it is put forward as sufficient, that the Spirit of God gave Mary power to conceive. So the Spirit of God gave Elizabeth power to conceive (Luke 1:7, 13), and Sarah also (Heb. 11:11), but neither John nor Isaac was God manifest in the flesh.

Then it is said, the Spirit was on Jesus; so it was on John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), but John the Baptist was not God manifest in the flesh. The manifestation of God in the flesh is displaced by all definitions which seek to bring Christ's case within the lot of mere men. And much as those who put forward these definitions may profess the acceptance of God manifest, they, in fact, deny the doctrine, and impose on others, if not on themselves, a deception.

Jesus was Immanuel—God with us—for the doing of what human weakness could not accomplish of itself, that the praise might be to God and not to men. By him and in him, God helped the seed of Abraham out of condemnation.

Renunciationism denies God in Christ, and it denies man in Christ; for it says, he had not our mortal nature, and that he had "no power within him superior to man, enabling him to pass through this state of existence without sin." It, therefore, denies, despite its protestations to the contrary, the great doctrine that God was manifest in the flesh. It preaches a God-manifestation without God, a doctrine which will be to the certain destruction of all believers of it.

The Christadelphian, Dec 1873