Truth is like peace in this respect—it is indivisible. There can be no such thing as nearly true. A matter is either true or false. God has spoken and His word is the Truth. There has been throughout the ages an increase of His revelations to men, but these are expressions of the Truth and no part has ever become redundant. One sometimes hears a Christadelphian who has not sufficiently thought out his or her faith asking the question, “Do slight differences of doctrine matter very much?” The first reply is— what is a slight difference?
Let us take an example which today is a source of difficulty to many who try to teach friends the Truth. In this sophisticated age, obsessed with the theory of Evolution, one is apt to feel old-fashioned when admitting a belief in the serpent and temptation of Eve. Indeed, some are led to ask, “Is it right to keep people out of the kingdom because of this difficulty?” It is important to keep in mind, first of all, that we can keep no one out of the kingdom. God has foreknown and called and predestined His sons and He will also glorify them. They will be men and women who believed in His Word without reservation.
Returning to the question. There are tremendous moral issues bound up in the serpent. “God made man upright” (Prov.). This was absolutely necessary in the Divine purpose of creating a human personality. God could not bring a creature into judgment if the creature had been formed with a mental twist. Neither could such a creature stand in innocence before his Maker, nor hope for Eternal Life. Yet Adam was innocent and God gave him His fellowship and instructed him in the knowledge of His ways. Yet, humanly speaking, God took a fearful risk when introducing such a being into the universe. Here was a creature who could love and hate, obey or rebel. Such it had to be if sons of God were to be produced; human personality had to be free—free to respond or to reject.
In order, therefore, to develop in Adam a conscience and a positive resistance to evil, some form of opposition had to be introduced. The problem was solved by introducing a creature with sufficient brain capacity to reason on a limited scale, yet having no moral sense and not responsible for its thought processes. This is what we must find in the serpent. He is an absolute necessity in the great drama. A mode of thinking was born which would test and develop the personality of man on God-like lines and the serpent provided it. To reject the serpent, then, fundamentally speaking, is to destroy a great Truth—and another source for the “thinking of the flesh” must be sought. But to suggest that it was in Adam already when he was formed is to make God a liar and unjust. Let us think very carefully before we decide whether or not a doctrine is important lest we, too, be guilty, of serpentine reasoning.
The Sabbath and Israel and Jesus’ work on the Sabbath