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Bodily Life: God and Man

The living bodies of men are the men. Is not this in accordance with your experience? Did you ever know a man without a body? and when a man ceases to possess his body, do you not cease to know him? Can you conceive of a man without a body? Can you conceive of any living being without a body? Christ has a body (though not now a corruptible body like ours): the angels have bodies (though their bodies are spirit substance). Yea, the Creator has a body. "What!" you exclaim, "the Creator possess a body! Is it not written, He is 'without body or parts'?" Yes, it is so written in the 39 Articles, but they are not inspired : it is the utterance of man. It is not so written in the Bible. On the contrary, He is always spoken of in a way that attributes person and bodily form to Him. The very first sentence of the Lord's prayer teaches it: "OUR FATHER who art in heaven." This locates a person in heaven. Christ is his Son: and he is said to be "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), the express image of His person (Heb. 1:3). "The similitude of Jehovah [Yahweh]" Moses was permitted to behold, though Israel saw it not (Num. 12:8). Moses saw His back parts (Ex. 33 :23). It matters not whether this was an angelic manifestation: it was to Moses the similitude of Jehovah [Yahweh]. It is the human similitude. So James says, Men are made after the similitude of God (even the Father--see first part of the verse, Jas. 3:9). The angels are in the same similitude. The Father is the archetype of them all. He is the kernel, or radiant centre-point of Eternal Universal Power and Wisdom, a Stupendous Unit, filling, and embracing, and controlling all creation. The Personal Father is the will-power of the Universal Spirit with which He is one, as the sun is one with its effulgent light-ocean.

One's own intuitions tell him the Father-form must be the human in its highest perfection. What other form can we associate with intelligence and goodness? We may have every conceivable form-the globe, the cloud, the unhewn block, the mountain, the rock, the sea, straight lines, curves and angles, in every possible combination, in every variety of creature; and with none of them but the human form can we associate the idea of love, and wisdom, and goodness. Human in form, in the main features of that form, divine in substance, the Father is glorious and immortal in nature, "dwelling in light that no man can approach." So that not even the Creator is to be conceived of apart from body. If the body of God could die, God would die; but this is a physical impossibility. The body of God and the universal spirit of God are one, and eternal, and the basis of all existence, and cannot die. But the body of man can die, and, therefore, man dies. When the body of man rises from the grave, man rises again to renewed and glorious life.

Concerning Christ

"But then," says our friend, "the Christadelphians have such dreadful ideas of Christ." Nay, good friends. We but receive the apostolic testimony, that he was the Son of God by His begettal by the Spirit of God (Luke 1:35): that though thus begotten of God, he was a man "made in all points like as we are--touched with the feeling of our infirmity yet without sin" (Heb. 2:17; 4:15); that, nevertheless, though a man, he was not a mere man, but the manifestation of God in the flesh by the spirit, enabling him to say "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (Jno. 14:9). If we do not receive the Trinitarian definition, it is because that is both a violation of language (unlike anything to be found in the Scriptures), and because it is inconsistent with the Bible revelation of God, which exhibits to us the Father as supreme (1 Cor. 11:3; 8:6; 15:28); and the bodily Christ as the medium of his manifestation (Col. 2:9; Acts 2:22; 10:38; 2 Cor. 5:18-19).

Baptism

"You make too much of baptism," say our friends again. A mistake, good friends, a mistake. You would not have us make less of baptism than the apostles made of it? We make no more of it than they made of it. We receive and maintain exactly their teaching on the subject. We say that baptism (immersion in water) is God's appointed institution in which believing men find union with Christ for the remission of their sins. In this we go not one iota beyond the apostles. All believers in apostolic times were baptised, as the Acts of the Apostles show. This is their language on the subject: "Be baptised for the remission of your sins" (Acts 2:38); "Be baptised and wash away thy sins" (Acts 22:16); "As many as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27); "Know ye not that so many of us as were BAPTISED INTO JESUS CHRIST were baptised into his death" (Rom. 6:3).

Hell

"But you don't believe in hell." We don't believe in the popular hell: but we believe in the hell of the Bible. What that hell is, you answer with this question: Where were honourable soldiers interred in ancient times with their swords under their heads? Ezekiel says: "They have gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads" (Ezek. 32:27). What hell is this? Is. 45:9, 11, informs you: "Thy pomp is brought down to the grave" described as "hell" two verses before (verse 9). The fact is, the word translated "hell" (sheol in Hebrew: hades in Greek) is frequently translated "grave." Take a Greek and Hebrew concordance of the Bible, and you will find this to be the case. The Bible hell is the grave, which enables us to understand how Jesus descended into it, but was not left there, being delivered by resurrection. Concerning Gehenna, also translated "hell," investigation will show that that is the introductory punishment of the rejected which introduces them at last to the final hell of their destruction-the grave, where "the wicked cease from troubling" (Job 3:17).

The Devil

"You do not believe in the devil." Oh, we do. Unhappily, we are obliged to do so. Facts compel recognition. We believe in the Bible devil, but not in the devil of "the church." Who is the devil of "the church"? Let us ask you. You say, "a fallen archangel-once an angel in heaven who rebelled against God and was cast out with other angels that helped him." We ask where do you find your information? You say Rev. 12:7: "There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels." Good friends, consider. What you quote is part of a prophetic revelation of what was to transpire among men after the day when John received it in Patmos: See chap. 1:1--"That his servants might know things that shall shortly come to pass"; chap. 4:1-"I will show thee things that must be hereafter. " You quote a prophecy of things on earth to prove a history of things in heaven. But what does it mean? The question can be answered (See Thirteen Lectures on the Apocalypse), but this is not the time. Sufficient that it does not prove the popular devil. Where else do you find him? In Isaiah 14:12, Lucifer, son of the morning, aspiring to set his throne above the stars of God. Read the chapter: see the subject: verse 4: "the king of Babylon"-prophecy of an earthly potentate: and so you will find it in every place where it is imagined there is Scriptural countenance to the popular theory of the devil.

There is a devil: but he is a very large one, made up of much diabolism in detail, having existence and power in places little suspected. He has various names. He is called Mammon, the world, the old man, the flesh, Sin, Satan, and so forth. You have a bit of him in the words of Christ-"Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil" (Jno 6:70). He comes into view when Peter, taking up a hostile attitude to the purpose of God in the death of Christ, was rebuked thus: "Get thee behind me, Satan . . . thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men" (Matt. 16:23). He shows in another guise when Paul says, "Ye have put off the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts" (Eph. 4:22). Still another, when Jesus says, "The devil shall cast some of you into prison" (Rev. 2:10); and in still another, when Paul informs us that the very object of Christ's death was, that "through death, he might DESTROY him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14), which he elsewhere tells us was "the putting away of sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9:26). Oh, yes, we believe in the devil, but in the Bible devil only, which is the personification of all the evil in the world, which, in various forms and guises, opposes God, and is the slanderer of God, a liar, and the destroyer of man. This devil will shortly disappear from creation, with the hell appertaining to him. The work has been begun in Christ, who has vanquished him in death and resurrection.

The Commandments of Christ

But, perhaps, the main reason of the popular antipathy to the Christadelphians is their insistence on the commandments of Christ as the rule of our acceptance with God. You know, the common doctrine of the churches is that men can have a present unconditional and free salvation in the simple act of recognising the cross by faith; and that salvation, in its ultimate sense, is in no way dependent on the actions of men. This doctrine is naturally a very palatable one, against which the Christadelphians place this apostolic teaching, that, although believing men may receive the forgiveness of their past sins in the obedience of the gospel in baptism, their acceptance at the coming of Christ depends upon their conformity to the commandments of Christ during the time of their probation.

This teaching is constantly put forward, both in the discourses of Christ and in the letters of the apostles. From Christ's mouth, we have the following words: "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you" (Jno. 15:14). "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord,but he that doeth the - will of my Father, shall enter into the kingdom" (Matt. 7:21). "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love" (Jno. 15:10). "Why call ye me Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). From the letters of the apostles: "Be not deceived, God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption" (Gal. 6:8). "If ye live after the flesh ye shall die" (Rom. 8:13). "The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 6:9). "If the righteous shall scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 Pet. 4:18). "Let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous . . . He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar." (1 Jno. 3:7, 2:4).

The Judgment-Seat of Christ

With these doctrines is conjoined this fact arising out of them, that all responsible persons must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ at his appearing, and give account, and receive in accordance with the account they render, good or bad (2 Tim. 4:1; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10,12; Luke 19:15). Now, the community at large have no relish for such doctrines. They prefer a doctrine that leaves them at liberty. They do not like to be called upon to recognise the world as an evil world-to live in it as not of it-as strangers and pilgrims--"denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly and righteously and godly in the present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:12, 14).

"Come Out!"

What are we to say to these things? If men are to be faithful to the apostolic testimony, they have no alternative but to "come out" from communities that both in works and words deny it; and if being spoken against is the result, they will accept it in the spirit of the apostles, who rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ. This has been the decision of many. Their "coming out" has necessarily resulted in the formation of a sect, and they have called themselves by the name "CHRISTADELPHIAN" because of the necessity for a name that will distinguish them from those who profess a belief in the Bible but do not submit to its teachings, and because that name proclaims a fact that Christendom has forgotten, viz, that all who believe and obey Christ are his brethren, whom "he is not ashamed to call such" (Heb. 2:11). But as a sect, they have no sacerdotal pretensions. They are a number of private men and women who have surrendered to the claims of Scripture teaching, by the exercise of the inestimable right of private judgment, and who, on that basis, are seeking to "work out their own salvation" by conformity to the law of Christ in all things. They make public efforts, not because they have anything of themselves to offer the public, but because that public effort is made part of their duty by the law of Christ. Without boasting, they are sure that they have the truth. They invite their neighbours to look into the matter, and see whether this is so or not; and, finding that it is so, to follow the example of others, and identify themselves with "the sect everywhere spoken against."

Robert Roberts