4 God also bearing them witness [Acts 3:9], both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?

The great salvation

exhibited in the gospel of the kingdom is national and individual. As a national salvation it delivers the nations from those that oppress them; suppresses vice, superstition, and crime; restrains evil; abolishes war; establishes justice and righteousness in the earth; and consummates a social regeneration of the world which shall be

"glory in the highest heavens to God, on earth peace, and good will among men."

As an individual salvation it saves believers of the gospel-promises, facts, and mystery, from sin, sins, and the wages of sin, which is death. It saves them from sins which are past when they become the subject of repentance and remission in the name of Jesus; and it saves them from sin in the flesh, and the consequences of it, when they arise from the death-state to possess the kingdom of God.

This is a great and wonderful deliverance—a salvation from all the ills of flesh, personal and relative. What possibility is there of escape if this be neglected? We know of none. The Bible reveals none; and a salvation-doctrine not inscribed in light upon its sacred page is unworthy of a wise man's consideration.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, FEB 1852

as I also vanquish and sit with my Father in his throne." (Rev 3:21)

But Paul settles the question whether Jesus has overcome or not, very distinctly. He tells us plainly and positively that he has not. In laying this conclusion before the reader, he quotes the eighth psalm, to show that the Son of Man was to be made a little lower than the angels: that he was to suffer death; that he was to be crowned with glory and honour; and that all things were to be put in subjection under him. He then argues that the phrase "all things" is so comprehensive as to leave no exception.

Eureka 3.3.9.

The term "lower" can only be understood in reference to body; for the character of Jesus was quite equal to that of the angels, inasmuch as

"he did no sin, and in his mouth no guile was found."

And it is also evident that this is the intended sense, from the connection in which it stands to suffering death. Had Jesus been made equal to, instead of

"lower than the angels,"

it would have been impossible for him to suffer death. For Jesus himself teaches that the angels are immortal, and cannot die any more."—(Luke 20:35, 36.)

He was, however, made only a "little lower," and that little pertains to his nature only. The necessity for the mortality of the Messiah is apparent. Could he not have died in the real and true sense of the word, sin could not have been overcome by him, and hence, as touching man's redemption, he would have been of no avail.

...No other than the mortal nature could have tasted death. To "lay down his life" would have been an impossibility under any other arrangement. And if no death, no resurrection; and if no resurrection of Jesus, the dead in hope of life would have been dead for ever.

"I am the resurrection and the life."—(John 11:25.)

Where then lay the strength to unlock the gates of the grave? Where was concealed the power on earth to forgive sins and to raise the dead? For it is this that must be known before there can be intelligent and saving faith and hope in Christ.

The answer is that the power lay in the character which was

"without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."

...He was cut off, but not for himself." "For he had nothing in him." As a matter of law and justice, therefore, he could not remain in the grave. "It was not possible, " says Peter, "that he should be holden of it."

Ambassador of the coming age, Jan 1869

Without doubt Jesus was

"crowned with glory and honour"

after his ascension, in the sense of being

"exalted to the right hand of God, and made both Lord and Christ,"

for Paul and Peter so declare; but it is also true, as testified by Paul, that

"all things are not yet put under him."

The Twelve Tribes are some of these things; and we see them at this day as rebellious as they were, or even more so, than when he wrote his letter to the Hebrews. But David says of them,

"they shall be willing in the day of his Son and Lord's power."

This then, is not the day of his power, for his people Israel is not willing to submit to him: therefore the kingdom was not set up on Pentecost, nor since; but remains to be established: for when his kingdom exists, where that is, there will his power be.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Feb 1856

14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

Sin Condemned in the Flesh

àIn what sense was sin or the devil condemned and destroyed in the flesh through death?—(Heb. 2:14; Rom. 8:3.)—J.G.

Answer.—See article in this number on "The Sacrifice of Christ." Sin was first destroyed in the person of Christ (who is the first-fruits) by his submission to death, in the nature condemned to death, which he had in common with all the seed of Abraham.—(Heb. 2:17.)

When he died, the law of sin and death could exact no more of him. It could not prevent his resurrection, because he was a Holy One;

"and it was not possible that he should be holden of death."—(Acts 2:24.)

Hence, when he rose, sin was destroyed in him, by having received all it could claim.

"Death had no more dominion over him."—(Rom. 6:9.)

Sin was destroyed "through death." Had he not risen, the case would have stood the other way: he would have been destroyed through death. It was his resurrection that was the triumph so to speak; without this, his death would have been a failure. Hence, says Paul:

"It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again."—(Rom. 8:34.)

Again,

"If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins."—(1 Cor. 15:17.) "He was raised again for our justification."—Rom. 4:25.)

As regards his brethren, God has been pleased to give him the authority to extend forgiveness to them on account of their faith on what he did on their account (Acts 13:38–39); and he has further given to him the power to seal to them the fruit of that forgiveness, in the changing of their corruptible bodies into the image of himself.—(John 17:3; Phil. 3:21.)

The Christadelphian, July 1873

Destroying the Power of Death

Christ "through death, destroyed that having the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14).

How could he do this if he had not in himself the power of death to destroy by dying? He has destroyed death. But in whom? In himself alone as yet. Believers will obtain the benefit by incorporation with him at the resurrection: but, at the present time, the victory is his alone.

The fact is plain to everyone. Some who admire Christ are horror struck at the idea of his having been a partaker of the Adamic condemned nature - a nature defiled by death because of sin. Their horror is due wholly to too great a confinement of view. They fix their attention on the idea of "defilement" without remembering that the defilement was undertaken expressly with a view to removal.

We must have God's revealed object in view. The power of death was there that it might be destroyed. If it was not there, it could not be destroyed. This is the mischief of what may be truly called the Papal view. By denying that Jesus came in the very dying flesh of Adam , it changes the character of the death of Christ into a martyrdom or a punishing of the innocent for the guilty: instead of being what it is revealed to have been - a declaration of the righteousness of God that He might be just, while the justifier of those who have faith in it for the forgiveness of their sins (Rom. 3:24-26). RR., The Law of Moses (pp. 264-265).

If the principle of corruption had not pervaded the flesh of Jesus, or if he were not of our flesh, he could not have been tried in all points as we, nor would sin have been condemned there, nor could he have

"borne our sins in his body on the tree."

He was not, in any physical sense, apart from us. He inherited a nature that all derive who are born of a woman - a nature condemned in Eden - a nature defiled by sin and inclined towards sin.

Elpis Israel, p. 131 (Logos edition).

The symbol of sin and death is the subtle lying serpent which was contemporary with our first parents' habitation of Eden.

Christ has, as it were, taken the sting out of it so that it cannot do permanent harm to those who are his; it can only, as it were, bruise them in the heel, or trip them up for a temporary period, whereas itself is destined to be bruised in the head and finally destroyed.—(Heb, 2:14.)

The Christadelphian, Jan 1876

-the serpent principle, the death-power in us.

Now Christ took part of the flesh and blood of the children, that he might extirpate [totally destroy] in it that which was destroying them.

Christ took on him the nature of Abraham and David, which was sinful nature. How, then, some say, was he, with sinful flesh, to be sinless? ...

God did it.

THE WEAK FLESH COULD NOT DO IT. JESUS WAS GOD MANIFEST IN THE FLESH, THAT THE GLORY MIGHT BE TO GOD.

The light in his face is the light of the Father's glory. If you ask me how the Father could be manifest in a man with an independent volition, you ask a question not truly founded on reason. Do I know how the Almighty causes substance organized as brain to evolve thought? No; do you? No. But do we doubt the fact the less because we are unable to comprehend it? By no means.

Do we know how the Father performs any of the myriad wonders of His power? Know we so small a matter as the modus operandi of the germination of grain in the field, to its multiplication twentyfold? Nay verily; though we know a thousand things as facts, you will find, on a close scrutiny, that we are utterly ignorant of the mode of invisible working by which these facts have their existence.

If it be so with things in nature, why must our inability to define the process be a difficulty to our receiving a heavenly fact, not only commended to us on the best of all testimony, but self-manifest before us? For who can contemplate the superhuman personage exhibited in the gospel narrative without seeing, with his own eyes, so to speak, that the Father is manifest in him?

When did ever man deport himself like this man? When spoke the most gifted of men like this? Is he not manifestly revealed the moral and intellectual image of the invisible God? Is he not, last Adam though he be—is he not "the Lord from heaven?" But what are we to say to the plain declaration emanant from the mouth of the Lord himself, that the beholder looking on him, saw the Father, and that the Father within him by the Spirit—(for as he said on the subject of eating his flesh, it is the Spirit that maketh alive: the flesh profiteth nothing)—was the doer and the speaker? The answer of wisdom is, that we must simply believe; and true wisdom will gladly believe in so glorious a fact.

Bro Roberts - The Slain Lamb.

Christ in His Death

à1.—Who or what is "that having the power of death, that is the devil," which Jesus came to destroy?

Sin is the cause of death, and, therefore, "that having the power of death," and, therefore, the devil. And sin is disobedience. But it is not an abstraction that sin has the power of death. That is, it has no power to hurt with death until it obtain admission in some way. So long as it is outside of us it cannot hurt.

There are two ways in which its deadly work can be done:

"Whosoever committeth sin is the servant (or slave) of sin."

This is one way—the personal commission of sin, which brings us under personal condemnation, as Paul in all his epistles teaches, e.g., Rom. 1:32; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6. The other way is exemplified in our relation to Adam. He sinned, and death coming on him, was transmitted to all who afterwards inherited his death-stricken nature.—(Rom. 5:14; 7:24; 1 Cor. 15:54.)

In this way, sin or the devil obtains access to the innocent, or, as Paul defines them in the chapter,

"them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgressions."

A child just born, for instance, though innocent of actual sin, has death in itself through Adam. Christ's sacrificial mission was to destroy the hold the devil had obtained in both these ways. He did not destroy the hold it had obtained on sinners in general; for the vast mass of them continue under its bondage from generation to generation, and will be held by it in eternal bonds, and the (comparative) few whom Christ will save are yet unreleased.

He was sent to be a beginning or release for all who should incorporate themselves with him. The release began with himself. He destroyed that hold which the devil had obtained in himself through extraction from Adam, and through submission to the curse of the law in the mode of his death.

He was of the same nature as ourselves as regards flesh and blood, and, therefore, death-stricken, for that is the quality of flesh and blood; and in obeying the command which required him to submit to crucifixion, he came under the dominion of death as administered by the law.

The testimony is that he destroyed the devil through death. Sin can do no more when a man is dead. Therefore, in dying on the cross, Christ yielded to the devil all he could take; and God then raised him for his righteousness sake, so that in Christ, the devil was destroyed in the only way possible in harmony with God's appointments. He was not destroyed out of Christ. He was destroyed in him. We have to get into Christ to get the benefit. In him we obtain the deliverance accomplished in him.

The Christadelphian, Aug 1875

Through fear of death subject to bondage

This fear, we know, arises out of sin. Solomon tells us that "fools make a mock at sin." It is no new thing, therefore, for a man to make light of sin. Sin is a terrible reality though scouted in our generation as a pious myth. Let us not be diverted from wisdom in this matter by the general folly. It is a matter of revelation that

"all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,"

and that "the wrath of God" is operative against this state of things and will inflict –tribulation and anguish, indignation and wrath upon every (responsible) soul of man that doeth evil" - who will at last be

"punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power when he shall come to be glorified in his saints."

Now, to a reasonable man, it is a cause of much heaviness and distress of mind that he should be implicated in such a situation. We are all originally in this position. We have all to own with Paul that among the sinners that go to make up the present evil world,

"we all had our conversation in time past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath even as others" (Eph. 2:2).

At that time," as he further says, "we were without Christ... having no hope and without God in the world." How is it possible that we could have rest and peace of mind in such a state of things? No amount of the exercise of veneration, benevolence, faith, hope, conscientiousness, observation, causality and comparison could bring peace under such a condition of alienation from God and condemnation by His law, any more than physical health could give peace to a man sentenced to be executed for treason.

We require to be assured of God's friendship, and of our reconciliation to Him through forgiveness. Here is emphatically where we find rest in Christ. "Through this man is preached the forgiveness of sins." A forgiven man is at rest. "God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us," if we submit to Christ. There is no reconciliation in any other way. The reconciliation in this way is complete. This is what Paul calls

"the ministry of reconciliation, to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

The conditions are simple, and we have complied with them. "By him all that believe are justified"... that is, forgiven. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." Christ crucified and raised is the way to reconciliation and peace for those who believe and obey, and for no other. And there is no other way,

"No man cometh unto the Father but by me." "I am the way." "There is none other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved."

These are the express declarations of revealed truth which compel us to stand aside from systems and thoughts around us that make human righteousness and human salvation independent of the work of Christ.

"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus, by whom we have access into this grace wherein we stand."

Seasons 2.92

16 For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of

Abraham.

The Substance of the Matter

That the Father is the Redeemer of man. No second person redeems us from Him; but He redeems us from sin. He does it on a principle that (1) excludes the glorying of the flesh, and (2) preserves a harmony between His work in condemnation and His work in salvation.

Illustration of the first point.

—He manifests Himself by the Spirit in the nature condemned. The result was a Son in whom He was well pleased, holy, harmless and undefiled. God was in him for the work of reconciliation. Apart from the Father, Christ was and could do nothing. He was the Word made flesh, and the Word was God. The result of his work is therefore of God and not of man, that the praise might be to the glory of His grace. Had he been merely a man as Adam the first was, the glory would have been to man; but the last Adam was the Lord from heaven—God manifest in the flesh.

Illustration of the second point.

—Man condemned in Adam must bear the condemnation, for God in His ways is without variableness or the shadow of a turning. But, if man is left to bear the condemnation himself, it destroys him, because his own transgressions stand in the way of escape. Therefore God provides him one who can bear it and be rescued from it after it is inflicted. This required one in the nature of the transgressor, for in God's ways, sentence upon man cannot be borne by angel or beast, but by him only on whom it lies.

Jesus was such an one, for he partook of the very flesh and blood of Adam's comdemned race through Mary. Yet the sufferer, though in the nature of the transgressor, had to be personally sinless, otherwise God could not raise him. Hence it was necessary that God Himself should manifest Himself in the seed of Abraham, thus producing a sinless character in the condemned nature of the first man.

This was done by the miraculous conception of the Son of Mary, who "through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself to God."—(Heb. 9:14.) Raising His Holy One from the grave, he offered all men forgiveness by faith of what had been done in Him, and obedience to His commandments.

He who renounces this, renounces the truth, and repeats the history of first-century declension.

Editor.

The Christadelphian, July 1873

He took not hold of angels (because they are not under sentence of death), but he took hold of the seed of Abraham, because it is under sentence of death by sin, therefore coming in sinful flesh and for sin, and while in the nature which was under sentence of death because of sin, developed a character of spotless purity, thereby effecting a condemnation of sin in the flesh.

A condemnation of sin could not be effected only in our nature, wherefore in all things he was obliged (opheile) to be made like unto his brethren under sentence of death, and by his death destroy him that had the power of death, afterwards made a merciful and faithful high priest, because he can sympathise with us. We are not without our troubles here; but they refer to the subject of resurrection and judgment."

The Christadelphian, Jan 1874

The Dr.‭'‬s Reply to a Charge Against Elpis Israel

In body Jesus only differed from other men in paternity.

God was the father of that body, not Joseph; therefore, the body was Son of God, as Luke testifies of the first Adam.

The logical consequences resulting from the denial of the true humanity of Jesus, are destructive of the mystery of the gospel; for if the Spirit did not take our nature, but a better nature, then is that better nature not our nature, and redeemed from whatever curse it may have laid under, and been reconciled to God.

But if the human nature of Christ were immaculate (excuse the phrase, O reader, for since the Fall, we know not of an immaculate human nature) then God did not 'send Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh;' he did not 'take hold of the seed of Abraham;' he did not 'become sin for us;' 'sin was' not 'condemned in the flesh;' and 'our sins were' not 'borne in his body upon the tree.'

These things could not have been accomplished in a nature destitute of that physical principle, styled 'Sin in the flesh.' Decree the immaculateness of the body prepared for the Spirit (Psalm 40:6; Heb. 10:5), and the 'mystery of Christ' is destroyed, and the gospel of the kingdom cases to be the power of God for salvation to those that believe it.

If the Son of Man did not live a life of faith, and if he did not experience all the temptations which we feel, then is his life, and his resistance of evil, no example to us. But 'he was tempted in all things after our likeness without sin;' this, however, can only be admitted on the ground of his nature and 'the brethren's' being exactly alike: hence

He knows what sore temptations are,

For he has felt the same.

Enticements within and persecutions without make up the sum of his 'sufferings for us,' leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps: who did no sin 'neither was guile found in his mouth.'

The Christadelphian, Aug 1873

18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are

tempted.

He kept his body under, triumphing over its lusts; and, though sorely tried, he yielded not, but evolved a character that was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners...Having established his worthiness in this moral conflict with the world and the flesh, God accepted him as the most excellent of all the intelligences of his universe.

Eureka 1.1.

Tempter and tempted

At this junction, one came to test him. Jesus styles him, as he termed Peter, "Satan, " that is, adversary.

...Paul says, "the very adversary (Satan) transforms himself into an angel of light," or knowledge. Christ's visitor was evidently a person of scriptural information; and as he appeared as a tester at a time especially prepared for the trial, I have no doubt he was sent by the same Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness there to be put to the proof. I conclude then, that he was "an angel of light," not shining with brightness; but appearing as a friendly man, well instructed in the word.

Now Luke attributes what this concealed adversary suggested to diabolos, or one causing to transgress, but in this case without success; for they were suggestions to Jesus under the workings of sin's flesh, seeing that

"he was in all things put to the proof according to the likeness without offence."

The visitor, though styled "devil," was not diabolos within, as in our case, but an excitant thereof; in "the likeness," or sin's flesh; therefore his sayings are recorded as those of diabolos. Jesus being begotten of God, as was Adam the first likewise, and not of the will of sin's flesh, the promptings [unenlightened serpent thinking] to transgression did not proceed from within.

In this the form of sin's flesh he assumed, differed from the form we possess. The promptings in our case do often proceed from within. In the two Adams they came from without—from the serpent in the one case; and from the angel of light in the other. These occupied for the time the position of the then as yet unbegotten diabolos relatively to their flesh, till the lust they might excite should by the strength thereof bring forth sin, when their personal missions would be terminated, and sin enthroned as the conceived diabolos of the form, or likeness of sin's flesh.

In the second Adam's case the testing adversary failed to move him from the stand he had taken of absolute obedience to the will of God, whatever might ensue. He appealed to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, but all without effect. The law of the Spirit of life within him was too strong for these appeals.

He extinguished their effect by the word of faith, which was his shield, and emerged from the trial undefiled. The tester of his allegiance then left him; and whatever perturbation may have been excited, it subsided into the peacefulness of a conscience void of offence towards God.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1852