It was in no spirit of controversy that we set out to write
about judgement and responsibility. Our sole aim has been to make a contribution
to the healing of a breach between brethren by presenting what we believe is
ScripturaI truth for our common acceptance. We make no claim to have dealt
completely with matters which have to do with the rich depths of God’s wisdom
and knowledge, His unsearchable judgements and His ways past finding out. In
trying to avoid the well-worn phrases of the old controversy, we have come to
realise how easy it is to slip into the use of them and how hard to define in
other terms the truths one is seeking to convey.
The study of itself has been rewarding. Our own understanding
has been greatly enlarged, both of the theme itself and of the difficulties of
those brethren who have wrestled with it in the past. We are convinced that some
of the causes of the division long ago lay in difference of emphasis which then
led to divergence of view.
The path to reunion and unity will never be found by
attempting to unravel the past or press our own point of view on others today.
Nor does the way lie through mutual suspicion, charge and counter-charge, the
giving or the taking of offence. It is God’s truth we seek and the way to it is
His alone. It is the way of forbearance, love and common understanding, of one
another and above all of His Word.
In the name of Him who is holy, our God who is a consuming
fire, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who died for us but who
cometh quickly as the Judge of all the earth, we beseech you, brethren, to
accept our work in sincerity, to read it prayerfully and seek together to work
out a basis for unity which is both Scriptural and good.
Our Approach to the Theme
Our theme must be approached with reverence and godly fear, in
trembling yet with thankful heart, for it treats of judgement and salvation, of
what we are by nature and what by God’s grace we may become. Our need to
understand our natural estate before God and our responsibilities to Him is
vital, for His judgement will soon be no more a matter of words and phrases but
a reality. Then indeed the reproach of a Brotherhood at variance over one of the
cardinal principles of our common salvation will be brought home to us and too
late we shall realise that the Kingdom of God was not a matter of disputes
between brethren, rival theories, phrases of our own making and of doubtful or
ambiguous meaning, but “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Spirit”.
Rom 14:17
We shall endeavour therefore not to press Scripture into the
mould of past or present controversy or impose upon it interpretations which
follow purely human reasoning on matters of which Scripture itself does not
precisely speak. We do not seek even to defend one side or the other in points
previously at issue; but only to follow the whole counsel of God in the matter
and present it in such a way that He may approve and all our brethren say Amen
to it.
The Principle of Responsibility
“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.”
Paul’s statement in Rom 5:12 emphasises the fundamental importance of the
Genesis record for our study, since in the experiences of the “one man” the
principles of responsibility and judgement are laid down.
The responsibility of Adam to God was based upon the
relationship of a created being to his Creator and Sustainer. God had given the
man “life and breath and all things”, going beyond the provision of that which
was “good for food” in making things pleasant also to the sight. When Adam’s
happiness was crowned by the making of a help meet for him, he had all that was
necessary for his continued existence, the enjoyment of his life, and the
development of his mental faculties. His moral, or more Scripturally, his
spiritual development, depended upon his honouring God’s commandment by the
discipline of both mind and body.
Act 17:25,28; Gen 2:9,16-17,20-23.
To indulge in philosophical speculation about the nature of
man at this point (for it can only be philosophical in the absence of direct
revelation) is to ignore the fact that the Scriptures deal with man not merely
as an organism but as a whole being capable of fellowship with God. Adam was to
“live before God”, by reason of his obedience, and no doubt he would eventually
have become “partaker of the divine nature”, if he had shown himself able to
follow the path of self-discipline and to worship and serve his Creator alone.
It is helpful to bear in mind this concept of “wholeness”, since it throws light
upon what follows in the record, and reveals a principle at work in the
processes both of condemnation and salvation. The Scriptures are primarily
concerned with “the life of God”; the ultimate purpose of man’s life is oneness
with his Creator in nature and attributes — the manifestation of the glory of
the Lord. Salvation begins with the renewing of the mind, followed by the
sanctification of the spirit and is completed by the resurrection of the body;
condemnation affected man in the same order: he was affected in mind and
conscience first, then in bodily sensations, and finally he was to
die.
Gen 17:18 ; 2Pe 1:4 ; Rom 12:2 ; 1Pe 1:2; 2Th 2:13; 1Co
15:51,52
We have no need to speculate either about the role of the
serpent in the temptation or about the nature of the temptation itself when sin
and its consequences had not yet entered the world. Paul declares that the
serpent “beguiled” the woman, which implies a response on her part. The whole
incident was a transgression; that is, the woman first and then the man
knowingly did what they had expressly been forbidden to do. It was disobedience
to an explicit command, known to be a command of God, which constituted the
first sin, and since ignorance could not be pleaded as an excuse, when
questioned by God the man and the woman could only state the facts: their reason
and their desires had led them to listen to a voice other than that of God, the
man to that of his wife, and the woman to that of the serpent. They had thus
chosen the alternative to obedience to God’s command: by seeking their knowledge
and satisfaction from the created world they had defied their Creator.
We now see the nature of “responsibility”. The word itself
does not appear in Scripture (at least in AV or RSV), but its link with the idea
of “giving of an answer” or “rendering an account” to one who has the right to
ask is clearly seen in Gen 3. The Lord God put to Adam three searching questions
to which the answers were all-revealing: “Where art thou?”; “Who told thee thou
wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou
shouldest not eat?” Adam could only give the answers of a bad conscience: he had
hidden himself because, being naked, he was afraid of God, and had indeed eaten
of the tree because his wife had given him the fruit; to which Eve added her
confession of guilt by deception.
Gen 3: 9-13
Condemned by God
The sentence which God pronounced was immediate and terrible:
some aspects of it had arisen instantly as a result of their bad conscience —
the sense of nakedness, the fear, the shame. The rest were to follow in their
now degenerate life before their physical decay brought them to the
grave.
We can now examine further the relationship between salvation
and condemnation. Just as Paul draws an analogy between the sin of one man which
brings the death of all, and the righteousness of one man by which all can be
saved, so it is possible to see the parallel between the process of the Divine
sentence and its removal. Evidently Adam’s conscience had been affected and some
of the consequences of his sin were already active within him, as he felt his
nakedness and was ashamed before God. He was condemned already, in the sense of
knowing he was guilty, by his own act and out of his own mouth. Nevertheless,
God condemned him to death and ensured that there was no way of evading that
penalty (Gen 3: 23). In the same way, the man obedient to God’s command can
first render “the answer of a good conscience”, “be transformed by the renewing
of the mind”; and sanctify God in both body and spirit. His release from the
bondage of corruption, however, is the last stage in the process of his
salvation.
Gen 3; 1Pe 3:21; 1Co 6:20; 2Co 7:1
Judgement and Condemnation
It is important to stress, even at the risk of some
repetition, one aspect of the judgement on Adam which has a bearing upon the
whole principle of judgement we are considering. There were immediate
consequences of his sin and the life of joyful fellowship was evidently over
since Adam tried to hide from the presence of God in the garden. But there was
still a definite formal “hour of judgement”, when Adam and Eve were brought
before God, and the sentence both in such effects of their transgression as they
had already experienced and in its ultimate issue in their death, was
unmistakably seen to be the sentence of God, formally pronounced in their
presence.
Gen 3:9,10,16-19
It is well also to be aware of the range of meaning in the
words “condemned” and “condemnation”. Strictly speaking the English word
judgement of itself implies neither the guilt nor the innocence of the party
involved; in fact, the process of judgement is intended to reach a decision on
that point. Condemnation, however, is the judgement in the court against the
accused, as the NT term “katakrima” implies: it is a verdict of “guilty” and
implies also the displeasure of the court. The penalty for the crime being
determined, the guilty man is then sentenced to pay it — or condemned in its
secondary meaning. In the case of Adam and Eve “condemnation” carried both
senses: they incurred the divine displeasure, being guilty, and were condemned
to death. Their sin involved deeds done in the body as a result of the intent of
their mind — it was a question of morality. The sentence of God likewise
affected the whole man and hence in Scripture “death” can have both a spiritual
and physical connotation.
Exo 23:6; Isa 1:27; Mat 12:20; Exo 22:9; Mat 12:7; Mark 10:33;
14: 64
Alienated from God
Although “the Lord God made coats of skins and clothed them”,
which in view of later records we are justified in interpreting as the
institution of sacrifice as a means of approach to God, the man and his wife
were nevertheless excluded from the garden. The actual words of the Lord God
are: “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live
for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.” So
Adam and Eve, both by personal transgression and by divine edict, were alienated
from the life of God as they had formerly experienced it. There could be no
possibility of their continuing as “one of us” and sharing a divine fellowship,
for their life was to be one of shame, fear, pain and sorrow, and theirs was to
be a “living death” until physical death brought it to an end. Yet there was a
“way of the tree of life”, which though not yet opened up, offered hope of
eventual restoration to those who should be granted the privilege of treading it
because they had overcome.
Gen 3:22-24; Rev 2:7
We must carefully distinguish between the two periods of
Adam’s life, and avoid drawing conclusions about our own case from one period
which properly belong to the other. The transgression that allowed sin into the
world, bringing with it the spiritual and physical death that were its
punishment, took place in the Garden of Eden. It was unique in being the first
and only such transgression, and it was unique in its far-reaching consequences
for Adam’s seed. In the garden also the judgement took place and the sentence
was pronounced. After Adam’s expulsion from the garden and exclusion from the
tree of life, his life was lived in the conditions produced by his transgression
and in relation to the arrangements for worship and the covenant God had made
with him. It is to this period alone therefore that any questions of Adam’s
future judgement and relation to eternal life — his “probation” in our terms —
must be referred. For the Scripture is thenceforward concerned with Adam and all
his descendants on the basis of their mortality and their own sinfulness and
their relationship to God’s promises, whereby they could become partakers of the
divine nature if they escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Adam and Eve had first been alienated from God by their transgression, but had
become separated also by their nature. They were what they were because they had
sinned: and because of what they had become they would never be free of the
propensity to sin and the possibility of sinning until that nature was
destroyed.
2Pe 1:24
However, since “alienation”, like “condemnation,” carries more
than one shade of meaning, it will be well to comment on them here. The
Scripture words translated “alien” and “alienate” in the NT (“allotrios”,
“apallotrioo”) bear similar basic meanings. The primary sense is “belonging to
another”, “another man’s”, “stranger” as in the phrase “a strange land” where
“strangers” dwell; that is, a “foreign” country. The idea of hostility or
estrangement is a possible and frequent, though not necessary, secondary
meaning; in practice, however, to our minds “alienation” usually bears these
overtones. The NT references to alienation are three (All are connected with the
verb “apallotrioo”, the prefix “ap” signifying “away from”. The whole participle
expression means “having been alienated away”, which is substituted here for the
AV version):
“At that time ye were without Christ, having been alienated away from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no
hope, and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12).
“As other Gentiles… having been alienated away from the Life of God through
the ignorance that is in them” (Eph 4:17,19).
“You… were sometimes having been alienated away and enemies in your mind by
wicked works” (Col 1:21).
The tenor of these verses is plain and consistent: both senses
possible in the word “alienation” are present. In Col 1 the term “alienated” is
actually reinforced by the word “enemies”, and the concept obviously goes beyond
that of merely “foreigners”. The former estrangement of those now reconciled had
been because they were “enemies in your mind in your evil works” (RV). The first
man had alienated himself from God in the garden because he became a stranger to
the life of God by his own will. Thereupon, being expelled from the garden, he
had been condemned to live with the consequences he had brought about. His
progeny were not only living with those consequences but had become, of their
own will, strangers from God. Eph 4 :19 shows that “the other Gentiles”, that
is, those who had not been reconciled, were not “ignorant” because they did not
know God, but because they chose not to know Him — their understanding had been
darkened, they had ceased to care (“being past feeling”) and had “given
themselves over” to lasciviousness and uncleanness (Rom 1:21,28 agrees with
this). Similarly the Gentiles referred to in Eph 2 were not merely “allotrioi”,
aliens or strangers, who although foreigners and not yet circumcised might be
“the stranger within thy gates”, whom Israel was commanded to love. They were
those without God in any sense (“atheoi”), separated by “the enmity” (v
15).
So in the day they sinned, Adam and Eve were “without God”,
and as we have already seen, their expulsion from the garden showed how complete
was that alienation from the life of God. They were under “the wrath of God”,
having chosen wicked works, being willfully ignorant, not of the specific
commandment, but of the mind and purpose of God. So would they have remained had
it not been for the hope, the sacrifice and the covenant of promise. The basis
of any future acceptability with God was faith, the manner of their approach was
through sacrifice; the infirmity of their fleshly nature, however, would remain
until the consummation of all things in Christ. How Adam and Eve fared in this
new sphere of probation we do not know and we gain nothing by
speculation.
Neither are we one whit advanced in our understanding by
attempting to isolate the physical effects of sin from the moral or spiritual.
The term “flesh” in Scripture, with reference to sin, refers to “deeds done in
the flesh” for which man’s mind and heart are responsible. “Flesh” merely as a
physical substance has no will and cannot therefore be considered as guilty; nor
is it of itself an evil substance. Since the days of Adam’s sin, to partake of
“flesh and blood”, however, is to feel within oneself the motions of a will not
naturally subject to the law of God.
Rom 7:18; 8:13; Gal 5:19-21
In Adam All Die
Thus “by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin,
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Thus was
inaugurated the universal reign of sin and death: sin “came in” and death “came
upon” all men as a consequence of one man’s action, declares Paul in his
fundamental statement in Rom 5:12. It is a plain statement of the relationship
of all men to Adam, since the Apostle is not here speaking of the personal share
which the man and the woman had in the original transgression, as he is in 1Ti
2:14: “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the
transgression.” The Romans passage deals with the man as involving the
succession of the race for “he begat a son in his own likeness and after his own
image.”
Rom 5:12; Gen 5:3
The “wherefore” of Rom 5:12 helps us here, since it links the
section (Rom 5:12-20) firmly with what goes before. The theme of Rom 5:11 is
justification by faith, peace with God, access by faith, reconciliation, and joy
in the atonement. And how is this happy consummation to be reached? The answer
is: by one man. The principle of reconciliation is therefore the same as that of
the condemnation, though the process in detail is different. In the disobedience
of one man all are involved by natural birth and without their own volition. In
the perfect obedience of one man all can become involved by a new birth. But in
the process of being begotten unto perfection and life, our faith and voluntary
obedience are an essential part.
Rom 5:12-20; John 3:3-5; 1Pe 1:22,23
For the moment, however, we are still concerned with the
consequences of being “in Adam”. “Sin entered… all have sinned”. Here is sin
seen both as something in which all men are involved, and as something which
develops itself in our conduct: it is both the propensity to sin and the habit
of sinning. The very metaphors Paul uses emphasise its universal character: all
are “under sin” (Rom 3:9) and “sin has reigned” (Rom 5:21). All men are subjects
of the same powerful monarch. And since it “reigns unto death”, then Paul can
also say that death reigns too, for the law of sin and death was pronounced in
Eden when the Lord God said unto the first man: “In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die”.
In the effects of sin on the first human pair is to be seen a
pattern of the disorders, mistrusts and passions that would henceforth continue
to ravage human life and society. “Desire” and “dominion” entered into relations
between the sexes; man was banished from God’s presence and was afraid to seek
his Creator, and he had to battle against evil in the created world; while on
the physical level life was a painful and ultimately hopeless struggle to renew
and sustain its basic processes. For the whole human race was born outside the
garden, alienated from the life of God. “The carnal mind is enmity against God,
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then, they
that are in the flesh cannot please God.” Indeed, “flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God” and in his parallel phrase Paul tells us why:
“neither doth corruption inherit incorruption”. Corruption is both physical
decay and all that is associated with the life and morality of man born of
corruptible seed, the servant of corruption — corrupt manners, corrupt deeds,
corrupt speech. In short, the image of Adam, the earthy.
Gen 3:16-19; 4:4; Rom 8:7,8; 1Co 15:50; Gen 6:5,11,12; Eph
4:22; Jude 1:10
“As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy”, and in
Adam all die. “By the offence of one, judgement came upon all men to
condemnation.” In dealing with the things of God which lie so completely beyond
our understanding except by His revelation, we are not spiritual but carnal if
we construct rival or mutually exclusive theories of God’s judgement and mercy
based on our own use and usage. The fact is, in Scripture there is both a racial
and an individual condemnation, as can be clearly shown. The former is the
consequence of being born “in Adam”, the other of personal transgression. The
unique responsibility of Adam derived from the fact that he was the ancestor of
the human race and had been created to have dominion over the works of God’s
hands. The command to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth meant
that everything subsequently hung upon his obedience to the explicit command
relating to the tree of knowledge. What the earth would have been like peopled
by the offspring of a spiritually mature Adam we cannot know. We do know that
“the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now”, since
not only man but all else has been involved in the consequences of Adam’s
transgression. Again, we get a glimpse of this principle in reverse, so to
speak, in Isaiah’s vision of the harmony of the beasts and the removal of hurt
and destruction when righteousness reigns upon the earth.
Isa 11; Rom 8:20-23
Corporate Involvement in Transgression
This principle of corporate involvement in transgression is
well illustrated in Scripture, both in general statement and historical event,
although in considering it we must not take a wrong turn by failing to give due
consideration to another and parallel Scriptural principle referred to below.
Fathers who transgress the second commandment have their iniquity visited upon
their children, unto the third and fourth generation. When Achan “took of the
accursed thing” at Jericho, it is written that “Israel committed a trespass in
the accursed thing”, and the Lord told Joshua: “Israel hath sinned, and they
have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them.” It is interesting
that the specific penalty was paid by Achan and his family, and that Israel as a
nation suffered the consequences of his sin in their defeat before Ai. That one
man’s deed is treated as a national sin is not to say that all the people
participated in the covetousness — at least not in fact, even if their heart
was covetous. But the nation is not merely a number of individuals; it is a
Divinely constituted organic whole. Thus, Adam was not merely an individual man,
but the progenitor of the human race of which he and his wife were then the sole
representatives. In his phrase that “By one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Paul
is therefore saying more than that all men have sinned personally, true though
that is, with the single exception of Christ.
Ex 20: 4-6; Jos 7:1,11; Rom 5:12
We have, however, already pointed out that there are overtones
of moral guilt and estrangement involved in terms like “condemnation” and
“alienation”. The involvement of the race in the punishment of Adam, is not the
same thing as imputing to all the guilt, as distinct from the consequences, of
his iniquity. Again, the analogy of Israel helps us here. Caleb and Joshua were
forced to wander forty years in the wilderness, being members of the sinful
nation condemned so to do. But being alone judged personally faithful to the
Lord and His covenant, they did not perish with the rest, but entered into the
promised Land. It will help us later if we bear in mind also, that this death in
the wilderness and the escape from it, were related to a particular
transgression in the given context of the wilderness and not to questions of the
subsequent probation either of the nation in general or of the two men in
particular, who eventually died. Also, in the case of visiting “the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children”, we must not ignore the qualification “of them
that hate me”. Hereditary and environmental factors resulting from a father’s
dissolute way of life involve innocent children, but there is mercy (unto a
thousand generations, not just three or four) for children who forsake their
father’s ways and “love me and keep my commandments”. For we, like Israel, are
forbidden to say, “The fathers have eaten a sour grape and the children’s teeth
are set on edge”, thereby imputing guilt to subsequent generations for something
not particularly their transgression. So while Scripturally there was an
original sin, the consequences of which lie heavily upon all men, there is no
such thing as “original sin” for which subsequent generations are to be
accounted morally guilty.
Num 14:27-38; 26:64,65; Deu 5:9,10; Jer 31:29,30; Eze
18:2
The Law of Sin and Death
We must now consider the varied relationship of men to God in
their life “in Adam”, since all are born of his line. Again we must be careful
to distinguish things that differ: Paul’s theme in Rom 5 is the comparison
between the way sin, and therefore death, entered into the world and the
revelation of God’s righteousness which brings life: both were by one man. So
since the point at issue in this passage is not the ground of God’s final
judgement, which is a matter of personal and individual responsibility, only
those effects of Adam’s transgression which are transmitted to all his posterity
are brought into the comparison. These effects were the inheritance of death and
of a sin-disposed nature.
Paul’s succinct phrase for the human condition is: “Death
reigned”; and the reason: “Sin reigned unto death”. He distinguishes also
between “sin” and “transgression”: transgression is disobedience to a specific
commandment, a sin indeed, whereas since the entry of sin into the world, men
sin where there is no specific commandment to transgress. Sin was in the world
before the law (and the context in Rom 5:14 demands that we understand “the law
of Moses”), but the law served to reveal the true nature of sin — it is the
condition of those who are “not subject to the law of God” as well as those who
actually transgress it, or to use Paul’s language, sin was made to appear
“exceeding sinful”. So “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that
had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression”, not because they
were held guilty for what Adam had done, but because they were his race, the
human race, an organic whole, who could not be free of the tendency and the
possibility of sinning except by the work of the other “one man”. “Death passed
upon all men, for that all have sinned”, and we both “have sin” and “have
sinned” according to the Divine record.
Rom 5:14,21; 7:13; 8:7; 1Jo 1:8-10
Responsibility and Judgement
Remembering that “sin entered” by Adam’s transgression inside
the garden, for which he was formally judged and sentenced, and that the total
consequences of his transgression, his condemnation, have become the lot of all
begotten of him outside the garden, we can now discuss some important, indeed,
fundamental aspects of responsibility and judgement. The more the relevant
Scriptures are studied, the more evident it is that responsibility to God’s
judgement extends more widely than we might have thought, although the Apostle’s
“How then shall God judge the world?” ought to have corrected our point of view.
For in addition to the abiding judgement, so to speak, that is, the law of sin
and death as of cause and effect, there have been throughout history certain
“days of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God”, all
anticipatory of the final “hour of judgement” or “the wrath to come”. Why was
this so, if “sin is not imputed when there is no law” ? The answer must accord
with the whole tenor of Paul’s argument, especially Rom 2:9-16. The law in
question is again the law of Moses, and the argument turns not upon the nature
of responsibility for sin, but upon the basis of judgement: one cannot sin by
transgressing the law where the law is not applicable, and so God does not hold
men responsible for transgressing or disobeying it or punish them according to
the law’s prescription. Death reigned nevertheless, because sin reigned.
Moreover, there were at least two notable acts of judgement, one on the whole
world in the days of Noah and the other on Sodom and Gomorrah — both set forth
as types of the judgement to come upon the whole world.
Rom 3:5,6; 2Pe 2:5-10; Jude 1:6,7
The ground of the judgement was the filling up of the measure
of their iniquity: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually”. “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is very
great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now and see
whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto
me.” So the Lord’s spirit would strive no more with those who had shown
themselves but of flesh — carnal in body, soul and spirit. Another Divine
principle emerges here: the prelude to judgement of so signal a character by
direct intervention of God, is a preaching of righteousness, and the opportunity
for the individual, if not the whole community to escape. At the time of their
judgement the men of Noah’s day and the men of Sodom were “willingly ignorant”
because they had deliberately ignored God’s warning and call to
repentance.
Gen 6:5; 18:20,21; 2Pe 2:5-8; 3:5
There were other “judgements”, which took place in less
spectacular and more “natural” ways, which Scripture nevertheless declares to be
the judgement of God, notably of the nations around Israel, including their
conquerors Assyria and Babylon. Here the opening chapters of Amos are
instructive, for they reveal two distinct grounds of liability. Judah was
punished for despising the law of the Lord, as was Israel for transgressing
specific ordinances which represented the everyday observance in practice of the
principles of the law: the people of the Lord did not reflect His attributes and
glorify His name. The remaining nations were punished for not keeping such of
their own code, the “ius gentium” or law of the nations, as was based on Divine
principles. Although Gentiles have not the law of Moses, they are still subject
to the dictates of their own conscience of certain Divine things which became
law for them, and within those limits are judged of God accordingly. For,
according to Rom 1:16-32, God has not left Himself without witness even where
the more accurate knowledge of His purpose is not understood, although it took
the preaching of the Gospel to throw up into relief the full scale of the wrath
of God. To this witness the Apostles appealed to introduce their preaching of
the Gospel in places where a knowledge of the prophetic witness could not be
assumed. For example, at Lystra the appeal was to the witness of the Divine
provision of “food and gladness”, in Athens to the absolute dependence of man
upon the God of all creation.
Amo 1:3-2:8; Acts 14:15-17; 17:23-28
So God has judged the world, and will do so again, on the
principle that “the whole world lieth in wickedness”, the distinction between
the future judgement and all those in the past being that there is “the day of
the Lord”, “the wrath to come”, which is the consummation of judgement,
signifying the inauguration of the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness: it will be “the day of judgement and perdition of ungodly
men”.
2Pe 3:7-8
Who as individuals will escape this judgement of the world at
large we cannot say, since it is one of the things which the Father hath put in
His own power. Noah survived because he found grace in the Lord’s sight and Lot
because his soul was righteous; and we know that there will be nations purged of
rebels to form the population of the Kingdom of God. There were those in the
past who lived out their mortal life, involved in the general condemnation of
the human race and sharing its ills, then died to wake no more. In the coming
judgement all on the scene will share in the tune of trouble, which would cause
all flesh to perish if the days were not shortened for the elect’s sake; but we
have no means of knowing the reasons why this or that man not of God’s famiIy
will escape. We rest upon the assurance that the Judge of all the earth will do
right.
Gen 18:25
The Judgement Seat of Christ
Turning now from the “general judgement” to the judgement in
particular, we consider those who have sinned after the similitude of Adam’s
transgression, and deal with what we may call a closer relationship to Divine
judgement, one more personal and well-defined. In one sense Adam’s transgression
was unique, since it took place with no previous history of transgression or
propensity to sin. It was also unique in its far-reaching consequences: it
involved mankind as a whole. But personal responsibility to God based upon an
explicit command and a relationship with Him is not unique, and the whole
question of personal judgement and salvation is connected with it. For his
transgression in the garden, the judgement upon the individual Adam was death, a
natural extinction after a lifetime of decay. Any relationship he could have to
the ultimate purpose of God arose therefore only because of a new factor
introduced after his transgression — the hope of salvation. This concerned his
life outside the garden. Here he was on the same terms as all his descendants:
by nature prone to sin, under condemnation (that is, sentence)of death and
responsible to Divine command and therefore judgement according to the degree of
his knowledge. Since his knowledge and the Divine commandment now concerned
eternal life, that is, were related to ultimate salvation from death on the
basis of God’s covenant, then his further responsibility to judgement was also
related to the time of consummation yet future.
The men of Nineveh
Before we pursue this question of salvation righteousness by
faith and the judgement related thereto, we turn aside briefly to consider the
case of Nineveh, which according to Christ has a bearing upon this judgement to
come. The men of Nineveh are the most completely documented case of a nation
other than Israel who had a prophet of God sent with an explicit message of doom
and condemnation which was in effect a preaching of repentance. They could not
have refused that message without deliberately transgressing a commandment. They
did repent, however, and escaped, not the universal condemnation to death, but
the threatened judgement upon the city itself. They are cited by Jesus as an
example of the ground upon which the rejecters of his word in his day would be
condemned at the judgement of the last day. The king and rulers of Nineveh
received and obeyed a commandment to repent as preached by a prophet. What would
be the fate of those who deliberately transgressed by refusing to accept the Son
of God?
Jon 3:2-10; Mat 12:41
Now the Lord in this passage categorically states: “The men of
Nineveh shall stand up (“anastesontai”) in the judgement with this generation,
and shall condemn it.” Although the verb for “to stand up” is used frequently of
natural rising to perform normal tasks, it is also regularly used for the
standing up of resurrected ones, eg in seven out of eight occurrences in John’s
Gospel. Of 42 occurrences of the related noun “anastasis”, it is only once used
not explicitly of the resurrection of the dead, including two or three times of
restoration to natural life. The idea that Ninevites will be present on
judgement day is a difficult one, but in view of the Lord’s personal statement,
it would be bold in the extreme to affirm positively that his meaning was merely
symbolic. The principle is clearly stated either way.
In Christ
“As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shill all be made
alive.” Here we return to the twofold theme of “the one man”: the one through
whose righteousness grace and life abounded just as through another’s
transgression sin entered and death came upon all. It is important to grasp
Paul’s meaning in this passage in 1Co 15, since its bearing on the question of
resurrection is fundamental. The whole chapter is concerned not with a mere
coming out of the grave, an “anastasis” which is of itself neutral as regards
acceptance in judgement, but with resurrection to life eternal, which is the
sense of the expression “raised incorruptible”. He is not dealing in this
chapter with the question of resurrection to condemnation, and makes no more
than a brief allusion to the Epicurean philosophers’ denial of it in verse 32.
Their doctrine was that dead men never rise again and there is therefore nothing
to fear from a judgement to come; so there is no need for restraint upon
self-indulgence: “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die” (cf. Acts 17:32).
Paul’s word for “made alive” in v 22 is “zoopoieo”, to quicken, a term certainly
not applicable to “the resurrection of condemnation”. His sense is not “all
those in Adam die, but only those in Christ ever come to life again”; but “just
as death is certain for all the seed of Adam, so eternal life is assured for all
who are Christ’s.” The context again demands that for “in Christ” we do not read
“all who have ever been baptized into Christ’s name”, but “all they who are
truly Christ’s” (v 23), whether they “wake or sleep” at his coming.
This word “quickened”, “made alive”, in this important chapter
about the resurrection of the body to eternal life, the putting on of
incorruption and the bearing of the image of the heavenly, reminds us of our
earlier discovery: that in the process of deliverance from sin’s bondage the
curse of physical death is the last to be removed from Christ’s servants (1Co
15:26,54). Long ago the spiritually dead first heard the voice of the Son of
God, for the last Adam was made the quickening spirit, and those that heard
lived, and passed from death unto life. The hour is close upon us when all those
that are in the graves (and John’s “all” is obviously “all without distinction”
and not “all without exception”, as the context shows in relation to those
listening) shall hear the call to come forth; though those to be quickened unto
everlasting life will be only those that have done good. This will be the
consummation of the great salvation initiated when the Holy One of God
reconciled us by his death that we might be saved by his life.
1Co 15:26,54; John 5:24-29; Rom 5:10
From Death to Life
The contrast between the state of life “in Adam”, its pain and
frustration, its degradation and corruption of body, soul and spirit, with the
blessedness of being “in Christ” enjoyed even now, is beautifully emphasised in
the powerful words of Eph 2:1-9. To appreciate the full force of the cumulative
effect of the Apostle’s thought, we set it out phrase by phrase, clause by
clause, with the verb “quickened” reserved as Paul reserved it until the climax
of v. 5. Then, and only then, is the tension, produced by our realisation of our
natural state, relieved by the words “But God who is rich in mercy”, and those
who were dead are made alive:
“And you who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of
the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom
also we all had our conversation in times 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: But 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,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus…”
Let us ponder this well; and, beginning however dimly to
comprehend the distinction between the life of the flesh and the life of the
Spirit, ponder also how we shall escape if we neglect so great
salvation.
For man’s redemption is costly, being wrought only by the
precious blood of Christ, called “the blood of the everlasting covenant”, since
in his death alone the promise of God from the beginning to justify men by faith
and grant everlasting life was sealed, and in his resurrection confirmed. The
atonement, according to its Hebrew definition, is a covering, and in Greek a
reconciliation. Both ideas are exactly represented in the coats of skins which
the Lord God provided for the man and his wife according to Gen 3:21, where they
are associated with the symbols of His presence. The Divinely appointed garment
covered the nakedness of sin for which man’s device had proved ineffective, and
it enabled man to approach the presence of God where hitherto he had been
ashamed. It stopped short of being so complete a reconciliation that expulsion
from the garden was avoided, since it pointed to something which could provide
more than a ritual sanctification. That the garment was ceremonial and symbolic
is seen in the relative rarity of the word for coat here (“kethoneth”), reserved
for Adam’s coat, Joseph’s coat, the linen garment essential to the priest’s
service, and the symbol of chastity for a king’s daughter. It symbolised the
blessedness of him “whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered…
the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity”. It spoke also of the shedding
of blood in sacrifice and was connected therefore with the place of
propitiation, or meeting place between God and man. This is the literal meaning
of “hilasterion”, “propitiation” in Rom 3:25; it is translated “mercy seat” in
Heb 9:5.
1Pe 1:18-21; Heb 13:20; Gen 37:3; Exo 28:4; 2Sa 13:18,19; Song
5:3; Psa 32:1,2; Rom 4:6-8
The Blood of the Covenant
In view of the possible misunderstanding over the shedding of
blood in sacrifice, it is well that we do not mistake the shadow for the
substance, or seek to impose upon the one great sacrifice in which altar,
offering and priest are all one, all the details of temporary ordinances imposed
until the time of reformation. We have to ask why the shedding of blood was
necessary and why the blood of Christ is able to reconcile God and
man.
Rom 5:9,10
The answers lie in the nature of sin and transgression, since
blood of itself has no cleansing power, even though almost all things were by
the law purged with blood and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
The wages of sin is death, and a sacrifice was both a declaration that this was
so and an acknowledgement of the righteousness of God in punishing the guilty.
Sin entered the world through faithlessness, in dishonouring the word of God;
righteousness, therefore, could only be by faith, and for men with propensities
to sin faith lay in believing that God would forgive and in seeking to be
obedient to all God required of those who would draw nigh. God set forth Christ,
“to be a place of propitiation (“hilasterion”), through faith in his blood, to
shew his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime,
in the forbearance of God; for the shewing, I say, of his righteousness at this
present season: that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that
hath faith in Jesus.”
Rom 3:25-26
The very repetition of sacrifice and offering for sin under
the old covenant proclaimed their inadequacy; they could not take away the
condemnation of the race. This could be done only by one whose relationship to
the race was comparable to that of Adam’s whose perfect obedience would involve
men in its consequences as Adam’s sin had in its condemnation. He had to be one
subject to death, suffering the consequences of sin in the world, but also to be
one personally innocent of sin so that he could be raised from the dead, that
men who associated themselves with him in his death, could be justified by their
faith in a risen Lord. He took away sin by the sacrifice of himself because,
though of identical nature with those who sin, he resisted the propensity even
unto death. The very act of sacrifice was necessary to bring about his final
triumph over sin. “The blood of Christ”, therefore, is a phrase which
comprehends all these elements of his sacrifice, and it cleanses because all
those who “put on Christ” by baptism are clothed with a perfect righteousness,
though not their own. Though still of Adamic nature, they become God’s children,
having received the spirit of adoption which entitles them to cry Christ’s own
words, “Abba, Father”. This change of status — “being brought nigh by the blood
of Christ” — is marked by the forgiveness of their personal sins. Their
transgression is covered and their sin not imputed. God is both just and the
justifier of all who believe in Jesus. The blood is the blood of the everlasting
covenant, since from the beginning and in His repeated promises of a seed and of
everlasting life, God had declared His intention to seal, in the death for sin
of His innocent Son, the new covenant that “I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more” —
the new covenant in his blood.
Rom 4:25; 8:15; Mark 14:36, Gal 4:6; Eph 2:13; 1Jo 1:7, Rom
3:26; Heb 8:8-12; Mark 14:24
The Likeness of Sinful Flesh
The identity of Christ’s nature with ours cannot be
over-emphasised, in view of the declaration that he came “in the likeness of
sinful flesh” and that he was “a partaker of flesh and blood”. To attempt closer
definition is to range over phrases of which Scripture knows nothing, and which
need to be fenced immediately against misunderstandings inherent in them. His
sacrifice was an essential part and the culmination of his perfect obedience and
his death the only means of his own deliverance from a nature with the inherent
possibility of sinning. The true meaning of Christ’s sacrifice can best be
appreciated by a careful study of Heb 10:4-10:
“For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away
sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me; In burnt offerings and
sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the
volume of the book it is written of me), to do thy will, O God. Above when he
said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou
wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then
said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may
establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for
all.”
Equally important is it to emphasise that being unique in that
he was the only begotten Son of God, he was born “a holy thing”, and that there
was no alienation corresponding to that produced by ignorance, wicked works, or
estrangement from the covenants of promise he came to confirm. And we must
balance that cry wrung from his lips when he felt utter desolation and horror at
the reality of death: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, with the
fact that the Father heard the prayers of His Son, offered with strong crying
and tears unto Him that was able to save him out of death. He was heard in that
he feared.
Mat 27:46; Phi 2:8; Heb 5:7, RV mg.
The Revelation of God’s Wrath
The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation since it reveals
the righteousness of God. We must not forget, however, that it reveals the wrath
of God also and the certain judgement of those who, when light is come into the
world, prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil. It is not that
those who are enlightened may choose whether to accept what God offers or not
and merely forfeit the chance of eternal life if they decide to reject.
Conscious rejection is not a neutral attitude, but a deliberate transgression of
a commandment, and like Adam’s transgression, subject to a specific and
individual judgement.
Rom 1:17,18; John 3:16-19
For the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ marked
a turning-point in the relations between God and man, with the most profound
consequences in the matter of judgement and responsibility Previously, as we
have seen, God had held men and nations in general responsible and judged them,
according to their degree of privilege and enlightenment, with a judgement
apparently related to this life only. Israel indeed were judged as the nation
whom God had known “of all the families of the earth”, but other nations
according to a more general principle; although as we have seen, particular
judgements were indicted or remitted if there had been a “preaching of
righteousness” to be rejected or accepted. In the context of the “last times” of
the Gospel era, there was for the world at large an “overlooking of times of
ignorance”, a “passing over of the sins done aforetime in the forbearance of
God” and a “suffering of all nations to walk in their own ways”. The burden of
the apostolic message, however, was “but (God) now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent, because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead.” This command
is thus clearly linked in Paul’s preaching both with resurrection and with
judgement to come.
Rom 3:25, RV; Acts 17:30-31
Deliberate Transgression
It is granted, of course, that we have no means of telling
what in our day constitutes an effective preaching of the Gospel or at what
point the apprehension of it and its personal implications call for a decisive
individual response. The apostles assume in their preaching the universal appeal
and benefit of the Gospel, and are simply concerned with its acceptance or
rejection on the part of those who have understood their message. Having said
that, however, and having fully grasped that rejection of the Gospel is a
transgression of a specific Divine commandment, we cannot but be impressed by
the weight of the Scripture testimony as to the consequences, and to the fact
that these consequences are likely to be more far-reaching than we may at first
have imagined. Salvation and life eternal have personal and individual
implications related to a time yet future. The implications of willful rejection
of them can only be related to that same time: and, like Felix when Paul
“reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judgement to come”, we tremble at the
thought of our own responsibility.
“Unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness, (shall be) indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon
every soul of man that doeth evil” (Rom 2:8,9).
“For which things sake (the works of our members upon earth) the wrath of God
cometh upon the children of disobedience” (Col 3:6, cf with v 4).
“The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us,
that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly, righteously
and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Tit 2:11-13).
“I charge thee therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge
the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom” (2Ti 4:1).
“It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble
you; and to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be
revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on
them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the
Lord” (2Th 1:6-9).
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation…?” (Heb 2:3).
“If we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there remaineth… a certain fearful looking for of judgement.” We have “trodden
under foot the Son of God” and “counted the blood of the covenant… an unholy
thing” (Heb 10:26-31).
The Gentiles who “think it strange that ye run not with them
to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you… shall give account to him
that is ready to judge the quick and the dead” (1Pe 4:3-5). {All ambiguity about
the meaning of this passage vanishes when the Greek text is consulted. The verb
“shall give account” is in the 3rd person plural, relating to “they” and not to
“you”.}
Tribulation, vengeance and judgement were threatened in the NT
upon men now long dead, but the reference was not the condemnation suffered by
all because they were in Adam, or to any general judgement then imminent. It was
the individual judgement of the “last day” to which all men must come who have
understood the import of the Gospel message, whether they have received it
wholeheartedly and with patient continuance, at first accepted and then turned
the back or from the beginning counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing
by despising the grace of God. For he who had come as a Saviour, to judge no man
at that time, except in that his very righteousness convinced the world of sin,
has had all judgement committed into his hands. And he has said “He that
rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word
that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” This phrase “the
last day” is found only in John’s record. Five times it is used of the
resurrection of the dead at the coming of Jesus. The sixth use is the one quoted
here and with similar allusions in the other Gospels the phrase helps to build
up a majestic and comprehensive picture of Jesus as Judge, when those who refuse
him will “hereafter… see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power,
and coming in the clouds of heaven”. It would be rash indeed to seek to minimise
the power of the judgement Jesus is to exercise at his coming or to define or
restrict its scope.
John 12:44-49; 6:39,40,44,54; 11:24; Mat 26:64
What is not Revealed
The precise manner and details of the judgement we cannot yet
know, although the term “judgement seat of Christ” inevitably carries its own
imagery in all our minds. The fact that we shall be raised “every man in his own
order”, which means “his own rank” and not “order of time”, suggests that the
procedure of judgement also could have some element of classification in it.
Account must be taken, however, of the fact that at least some will have their
sorrow increased by the sight of “Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the
prophets in the kingdom of God and themselves thrust out”. Of prime importance
to us, however, are not the details, but the principles of judgement and
responsibility, and the issues of our own acceptability.
1Co 15:23; Luke 13:28,29
But even though by man came death, by man came also the
resurrection of the dead.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who
is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God’s elect? Shall God that justifieth? Who is he that shall
condemn? shall Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, than was raised from the
dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us?”
(Rom 8:31-34, RV with mg).
The Committee of The Christadelphian
September 1975