6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

Many a man is destroyed by the words he lets out of his mouth.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1894. p380

Set on Fire of Hell

—To say the tongue is set on fire of Gehenna (Jas. 3:6) is another way of saying that, wrongly employed, it is a consuming institution, as Gehenna will be; or to explain by another analogy, Gehenna is the synonym of condemnation, and as the righteous are all aglow with the joy set before them, so the evil-tongued may be said to be fired by the prospect of their own condemnation, or, in other words, that they are all aflame with the wisdom which is from beneath, which is

"earthly, sensual and devilish."

Again, tongues "set on fire of hell," speak of hell, employing it to describe the fate to which they are in the habit of consigning those they speak ill of, in their fiery hell-barbed oaths. The case is illustrated to some extent, by such language as "thou did'st debase thyself even unto hell" (Sheol); "who enlargeth his desire as hell" (Sheol); "two-fold more the child of hell" (Gehenna); "her steps take hold on hell" (Sheol); "her house is the way to hell" (Sheol).

Shuttleworth

The Christadelphian, Nov 1889

9 Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.

The Similitude of the Deity

The Divine form - the form of man, who is 'made after the similitude of God,' even the Father. This is the form of the angels, who are also spoken of as 'the sons of God' (Job 38:7). Their designation as sons would point to a Father-form, even He Who 'dwells in light' ... With this in view, we can join in David's word with fullness of meaning:

'To Thee lift I mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens';

and in the prayer that the Lord taught his disciples,

'Our Father Who art in heaven'."

Christadelphian 1892, p. 169

"Man is stated by James to be 'made after the similitude of God,' even the Father—see context (James 3:9). Paul also says he is 'the image and glory of God' (1 Cor. 11:7). Christ, formed in fashion as a man, is said to be 'the image of God' (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15); and 'the express image of His person' (Heb. 1:3); which gives force to Yahweh's description of him as 'the man that is My fellow' (Zech. 13:7).

"From this results the conviction that the Father is not only glorious substance, even spirit substance, but that this substance has the human form in its perfection. The Father's person is, in fact, the prototype of all intelligent being. Of Moses it was said, as indicative of the privilege which he alone enjoyed in his day, 'the similitude of the Lord shall he behold' (Num. 12:8). That this referred to the angelic manifestation of Yahweh is unquestionable, but still the fact remains that the similitude he beheld was the similitude of Yahweh.

"The God revealed to us in the Bible is a Creator, a Father, and a Person; universal in His presence and power, but still a located and glorious Person ... Our simple duty is to accept implicitly what is revealed ... The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is a personal Father, yet not a man, though we faintly borrow our image from Him."

15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

Earthly, sensual, and demoniac

Such is the wisdom of the Old Man of the Flesh. It can rise no higher in conceptions of God than the zenith of its own halo. He thinks as he feels, and his feelings are only blind. Being a creature of earth, and sense, and sin, his conceptions of God are earthly, sensual, and demoniac.

He proclaims Him to be an incomprehensible existence, without body or parts. Having assumed this, he deposits Him in every created thing, and theistically worships Him in men, birds, beasts, creeping things, and their images.

In this assumption, the philosopher, the theologian, the idolator, all meet together upon common ground. This is their "One God," whom they represent as fierce, vindictive, cruel, and implacable; who, but for some more benevolent being, interposing between Him and men, would increase His own glory and enjoyment, and satisfy His eternal justice, by tormenting them in fire and brimstone endlessly.

This is the God created and worshipped by the Old Man of the Flesh; worshipped, not because he loves Him, or sees anything in Him to admire, but because he is afraid of Him. Hence, all the fancy superstitions he has devised are based upon one common error of the brain, namely the necessity of the worshipper doing something to placate the Deity. The prescriptions extant in the Old Man's dispensary for the purpose are multitudinous.

Some of the most notable with which the world is empiricized and overspread, are those of cutting the flesh with knives after the manner of Baal; of causing children to pass through the fire after the manner of Moloch; of

"covering the altar of Yahweh with tears, with weeping and with crying out,"

after the practice of the priests in the days of Malachi; of straining at gnats, and paying tithes of mint and cummin in the fashion of hypocrites; of self-immolation under the fervid wheels of Juggernaut; of voluntary martyrdom, after the manner of the disciples of the Nicolaitanes, Balaams, and Jezebels of the early centuries after Christ; of papistical penance in afflicting the body for its commendation to God; of many long "prayers" or rhapsodical rants, weeping, and cryings out for religion, after the manner commonly witnessed at the camp meetings and revivals of the names and denominations which now fill the unmeasured court of the Gentiles (Rev. 11:2).

These, and ten thousand other absurd practices of the temple, the synagogue, and church, are all expressive of the common error referred to above, and indicate the total ignorance of Jews and Gentiles, both of the Mosaic and Nazarene teaching concerning the Holy One of Israel.

Phanerosis - The limitations of fleshly wisdom

Epicureanism

The founder of the Epicurean branch of "the wisdom from beneath," from the depths of the carnal mind, was Epicurus, who flourished in Greece two hundred and seventy years before Christ; and after the translation of the Septuagint not many years. The Epicurean maintained that,

"The world arose from chance; that the gods whose existence they did not dare to deny, neither did nor could extend their providential care to human affairs; that the soul was mortal; that pleasure was to be regarded as the ultimate end of man, and that virtue was neither worthy of esteem nor choice, but with a view to the attainment of pleasure."

"Pleasure is supposed by some to mean, in this system, not only sensual, but to comprehend moral and intellectual pleasures. "

If so," says one,

"in what does the scheme of Epicurus, as respects virtue, differ from the opinion of those 'Christian philosophers' who maintain that self-love is the only spring of all human affections and actions?"

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Apr 1861

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

His wishes for their peace were based on the fact that they were a community of men and women, walking in obedience to the apostolic commandments—built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets - men and women of pure hearts and pure lives—purity of thought, purity of action, purity of intention, purity of aspiration; a prevailing purity engendered by the knowledge of God, and faith in His glorious promises and love of the Lord Jesus as the centre of those promises.

The Christadelphian, Apr 1872