Forty Years in the Wilderness (Part 11 of 7)

Forty Years In The Wilderness (Part 11) – The Same, But Different

The reprinting of this series (this segment appeared originally in "The Shield", January, 1947) not only presents sensible reasoning based on Scripture that provides sound middle ground for many of our ecclesial disagreements about the Atonement, but also provides some somber reflections on the lack of REAL progress in attitudes and relationships in Australia in 30 years. Last issue, we reported on two ecclesial fellowship breakdowns because some insist on a form of words that requires acknowledgement of a physical change upon the sentence of Adam and Eve. This article examines the reconciling of different approaches to exactly the same vexatious subject, 30 years ago. It is also salutary to recognise the standing of the parties involved in those days and to note that those holding to the view that a physical change took place were not of "Shield". Ed. Com.

The Same, But Different

No two objects in God’s wide universe are precisely identical in all respects. In fact, no single organic body, whether animate or inanimate, is exactly the same at one period of its existence as at another. Yet, on the other hand, any two objects have at least one feature in common, some bearing a resemblance which is sustained through many attributes.

This constant mutation, and this universal infinitude of co-existent diversity with similarity, compels carefulness (especially in controversy) when classifying, comparing or contrasting one thing or person with another. The point is that any two things or persons can be the same in one sense, or aspect, but quite different in another.

Two substances, quite different chemically, can be physically similar, whilst two samples of the one substance, chemically identical, can be physically diverse. ‘All flesh’ which breathes in air, earth and sea belongs to the same genus, i.e. ‘nephesh chayiah’ (‘Elpis Israel’, p. 31), yet `all flesh is not the same flesh’ (1 Cor. 15.39). There is difference of species.

Further subdividing, two of the same species (e.g. two humans) can be physically ‘the same’ (in the sense of partaking of the ‘one flesh of men’) and at the same time physically different (inasmuch as there are dissimilitudes due to age, sex, nationality, health, manner of life, etc.). How often do we hear it said of an individual, ‘He is a different man!’ Yet nobody doubts he is ‘the same’ man.

Readers of ‘Christendom Astray’ will remember Bro. Roberts’ reference to ‘atomic change’ in the human organism (Lecture 2). He rightly declared, ‘It is an ascertained fact in physiology that the substance of our bodies undergoes an entire change every seven years…so that at the end of the period mentioned the body is made up of entirely new substance.’ Therefore every man, though physically ‘the same’, is nevertheless physically ‘different’ from what he was seven years ago, having undergone a complete physical change.

It may be said truly of Adam that he experienced a physical change before he sinned. With one rib less than formerly, the Lord God having ‘closed up the flesh instead thereof’ (Gen. 2.21), he was, after the formation of his wife, physically different yet physically the same as before.

These points, which to some may appear puerile and stultifying, are yet true and important. They are made, not to open a ‘hair-splitting’ competition, but to stress the suggestion that an earnest effort must be made on both sides to rightly understand and to charitably interpret any references made by the other party to ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’.

Our controversy has revolved around two men — Adam of Eden and Jesus of Nazareth. `The first Adam’ and ‘the last Adam’ were each so unique among men, yet both had so much in common with the rest of mankind, that any attempt to compare or contrast them with humanity generally, or with one another, presents quite a few traps to the unwary extremist. Carelessness, either in generalising or in particularising (or in interpreting a brother’s references) could readily lead to mistakes, or misunderstandings, or both.

Both A and B must now be prepared to overcome their reluctance to make concessions.

‘The First Man Adam’

Before long it should be possible — where it has not already been done — for B to concede (as contended by A) that Adam, as the result of his transgression underwent a physical change in a degenerative direction. At the same time it should be possible for A to concede (as maintained by B) that Adam’s nature was the same after transgression as before. There is no real incompatibility in these two ideas. It is true (as Dr. Thomas wrote in ‘Elpis Israel’, p. 71, and as quoted by Bro. Barnard in ‘Adam and Morality’) that ‘he (Adam) was made different from what he afterwards became.’ It is equally true, however (as declared by the same author in the same work, p. 79) : ‘If the man (Adam) maintained his integrity, there was the Tree of Lives as the germ of a superior order of things; but if he transgressed, then the natural and animal system would continue unchanged.’ Only a short-sighted and undiscerning mind would imagine there was any contradiction in those two statements.

Again, ‘The Christadelphian’, June 1921, p. 257, asked the question, ‘Was the nature of Adam changed after he sinned in Eden?’ In answer thereto the editor (Bro. C. C. Walker) supplied ‘the reply by Bro. Roberts to a corres­pondent who imagined there was a change in the nature of Adam after he sinned in Eden’. (This was taken from ‘The Ambassador’, March, 1869). Here are the first striking sentences of Bro. Roberts’ reply: ‘There is a misapprehension lurking under the proposition we are combating. Our friend imagines there was a change in the nature of Adam when he became disobedient. There is no evidence of this whatever, and the presumption and evidence are entirely contrary to it. There was a change in Adam’s relation to his Maker, but not in the nature of his organization.’

(Our late beloved Bro. John Carter, who was editor of ‘The Christadelphian’ when these articles first appeared, in a letter made reference to the above paragraph. His comments appear in a later article of the series — No. 19).

‘The Last Adam’

Again, with reference to the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, we all (A and B alike) firmly and rightly maintain that He was of the very same nature as His brethren. Nevertheless, it is true that, in a perfectly scriptural sense, He was physically different from all other men. At first reading this may seem a little difficult to follow, but reflection will commend it to sane and sound judgment.

`A’ contends (quite rightly, I feel) that physical defilement was wrought in the first Adam by the operation of those negative emotions of shame and terror which possessed him as the result of his transgression. Bro. Barnard writes (both in ‘The Bondage of Cor­ruption,’ pp. 9 and 36, and in ‘Adam and Mortality’, p. 10), of the physically defiling effect of ‘the fear of death’ which came upon Adam when, in full view of God’s forewarning, he chose to disobey. In this contention A appears quite correct, and B will probably agree.

But surely A will not deny that shame and fear and other ‘physically defiling’ emotions are experienced by all actual transgressors whose conscience, like Adam’s, becomes defiled. In­asmuch then as ‘the Lamb of God’ never trans­gressed, and had always a ‘conscience void of offence’, he was obviously free from that ac­quired individual physical defilement which a defiled conscience induces.

Readers are advised to peruse the section in ‘Elpis Israel’ entitled ‘A good, and an evil con­science’ (pp. 85, 86). Of Adam and his partner before the fall, the author states: ‘They were then pure and undefiled, being devoid of all conscience of sin.’ The context clearly shows that the term ‘sin’ is there used in the sense of `transgression of God’s law’. In honesty and fair­ness, A must concede that ‘the Son’, who did always those things that pleased ‘the Father’, was ‘devoid of all conscience of sin’ (trans­gression) and that his uniqueness of character would, on A’s own argument, establish a uniqueness physically.

The Sameness — And — The Distinction

Let us grasp, then, the fact that ‘sameness’ and ‘difference’ can co-exist. It will help con­siderably towards resolving our difficulties. We all endorse the essential truth that Jesus was a partaker of our nature. We heartily believe the inspired testimony to that effect He was ‘made of the seed of David according to the flesh’ (Rom. 1:3); ‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same’ (Heb. 2.14); God sent His Son ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Rom. 8.3).In view of these facts, I believe that B will recognise that whatever degree of ‘physical de­filement’ may have been transmitted to Adam’s posterity, it was inherited also by Jesus, through birth of woman. ‘In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren’ (Heb. 2.17).

On the other hand, I believe that A, in turn, will appreciate the fact that man, after he has been ‘made’, or born), can and does, by his manner of life, acquire physical defilement in another sense. To the extent, then, that ‘purity’ and ‘undefiled’-ness of character in an individual contribute to the development in that individual of corresponding qualities of body (and A has recognised that they do), Jesus was, in that sense, physically ‘pure’ and ‘undefiled’. He was that unique individual.

If ‘evil thoughts’ which proceed ‘out of the heart’ defile a man’ (Matt. 15.18-20), and if “a man’s ‘self’ or ‘soul’ is inseparable from and identical with his flesh” (`Adam and Mortality’, p.1), then obviously the flesh of Jesus was not defiled as that of actual sinners is. If ‘ungodly men’ defile the flesh’ (and Jude says they do, vv. 4 and 8), then Jesus never did. If improper use of the tongue ‘defileth the whole body and setteth on fire the course of nature’ (James 3.6), then Jesus was free from any bodily defilement of this kind.

I now suggest that it may be to the mutual advantage of the parties to accept the possibility of there being at least two kinds of physical defilement, one of which Jesus at no time of his life experienced. Each party sees its own ‘side’ quite clearly; it now must try to see the other.

Summarizing the findings of this part of our enquiry, it is for A to recognise:

  • That Adam was of the same nature after his transgression as before;
  • That Jesus, in one truly scriptural sense, was physically undefiled.

On the other hand, it is for B to recognise:

  • That Adam, in consequence of dis­obedience, experienced a degrading physi­cal change, becoming physically different from what he had been formerly;
  • That Jesus, by reason of his birth of Mary and his consequent physical communion with human nature, inherited whatever form or degree of ‘defilement’ is native to the flesh of human kind.

There is no true irreconcilableness between these propositions. Sooner or later the scales will fall from our eyes, and our expanded minds will find themselves quite capable of accommodating both sets of ideas side by side without strain.