Is Legal Condemnation Inherited? – Part three

What Christ Inherited

What did Christ inherit? Christ inherited the same that all others inherit Through His mother Mary, he inherited mortality and the death that passed upon all men He possessed the same flesh and blood nature as those He came to redeem, Heb 2 14 He was tempted in all points by the impulses of sin in His members He possessed the flesh of sin or sin’s flesh Being mortal He needed redemption from mortality, as all others do If left alone He would have grown old and died But He was not to be left alone because He was brought into existence for a specific purpose and that purpose was to take away sins, I John 3 5 He was raised up to be a sin bearer or representative Through Him as a representative sin was to be condemned and taken away, or destroyed, Rom 8 3 and Heb 2 14 This necessitated a certain kind of death, a death whereby the righteousness of God would be declared, or vindicated, in His dealings with sin in relation to the human race God appointed this kind of death for Christ to die In dying for transgressors He had to die a transgressor’s death In His dying He was to die as a representative for others so that what was done to Him was in principle done to sin His dying was a message to us from God of what rs due to transgressors if God so required But He doesn’t because it would avail nothing toward salvation What God wants from us is a recognition or acknowledgment of this We recognize and accept this when we are baptized into His death

But to qualify as a representative for sinners does not mean that He had to be a personal or individual sinner Neither does rt mean that He as an individual Himself had to be as guilty and deserving of all that sinners and transgressors are This would in fact ha‘e disqualified Him, because a sinner can neither redeem himself nor others, Psa 49 7 To qualify as a sin bearer He had to be free from personal sin A sinner cannot be a sin bearer In this respect Christ as a sin bearer was different from those for whom He died Transgressors need forgiveness, Christ required none He was given a capability by God to overcome sin by never yielding to its impulses, if He so desired He did so desire

The only cleansing that Christ needed was a cleansing or purification from His physical sin nature This was accomplished when He was changed from mortality to immortality Every vestige and trace of sin was eradicated from His body He needed no legal or moral cleansing or justification If He had rt would have disqualified Him He was ‘made to be sin” (II Cor 5 21) in being given a physical make up or a body with the impulses of sin in its members and also in being treated as a sinner.

Why was Christ Baptized?

The writer thinks that there had to be a cleansing connected with His Baptism. But why? It never says so. And the only cleansing that others receive from baptism is a moral cleansing or a forgiveness for personal sins. This involves and creates a change of relationship. When one submits to baptism it represents an acceptance on his part of the system or means of righteousness that God has devised and established through the sacrificial and mediatorial accomplishment of Christ. Baptism symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

When Christ stepped forward to be baptized it represented on His part an acceptance of that which baptism symbolizes, His death. It meant an acceptance of the kind of death that God had appointed for Him to die. It was a typical submission to death. He was signifying that the way to resurrection and life would be through His voluntary submission to the kind of death symbolized by the baptismal water. As He willingly submitted to the typical death He would at the appointed time, willingly submit to the real death symbolized thereby. It was an assurance to this effect. So God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit without measure. And Christ later submitted to the appointed death by crucifixion.

How Did Christ Benefit?

How did Christ benefit by the shedding of His own blood ? Heb. 13:20 and Phil. 2:8, 9, give us the answer. He was resurrected, immortalized and highly exalted. That Christ had to die is beyond dispute. He inherited death. As a sin bearer His submission to a kind of death that would glorify God by exhibiting to sinners what was due to them was made the basis for His own glorification. God required this kind of death because of our offences, Rom. 4:25. It was to deliver us from our sins and transgressions that Christ was brought into existence, Isa. 53.5. As long as we remember this we will be all right. The difficulty arises when we try to isolate Christ from being a sin bearer and a representative and think of Him as an individual dying for Himself apart from others. You cannot consider Christ dying on the cross for Himself apart from others. It was His dying as a sin bearer or representative that necessitated the kind of death appointed for Him. He had to shed His blood because without shedding of blood there would be no remission , or forgiveness of sins. Had Christ been working out His own salvation merely, and dying for Himself merely, with no forgiveness of sins involved, with no transgressors concerned, who knows what God would have required? The writer seems to try to make Christ die for Himself in exactly the same sense in which He died for others. You run into difficulties trying to do this. Christ had to die for Himself but not in the same exact full sense in which He died for others. Christ died for us to remove personal transgressions which act as a barrier to eternal life. He had no person­al transgressions.

The Curse Of The Law

Christ was made under the law so He could redeem them that were under the law from the curse of the law because of transgression, Gal. 4:3,4; Heb. 9:15. In order to redeem those under the law from the curse of the law it was necessary for Christ to come under its curse, Gal. 3:13. But while they came under the curse of the law through transgression, Christ came under its curse through obedience. He came under its curse and suffered it through the mode of His death, the hanging on a tree. Christ came under the curse of the law innocently. There was no sin on His part. It was the crowning act of obedience. So it reads “being MADE a curse.” He suffered the curse to redeem others from the curse. Through coining under the curse and suffering it He was not accursed of God, I Cor. 12:3.

What Christ Accomplished

What Christ did was what we were not able to do. He dedicated Himself to the work of God to the extent that He was obedient in all things. Had He transgressed, it would have been a barrier to eternal life. His sin nature was no barrier to eternal life when perfect obedience was rendered and no transgression involved. If men could live without transgression and render perfect obedience as Christ was able to do, sin nature itself would be no more of a barrier to eternal life than it was to Christ. Christ devoted Himself completely to God and pleased Him in all points. He was involved in the work of redemption including His death, and therefore benefited by it. His death was effective in obtaining redemption both for himself and repentant sinners. Through Christ God has been honored and glorified and declared righteous while forgiving sins. It is imperative that we recognize this as the basis for the forgiveness of sins. Sin had first to be condemned, then forgiven.

The Responsibility Question

The theory of eternal death and inherited legal condemnation is a build up as a basis for what he is to say on the Responsibility Question. He desperately needs these two theories. Without these two theories all he has say on responsibility to the resurrection and judgment would be just wasted words. It is the principle of knowledge being a ground of responsibility to the resurrection and judgment that he denounces most severely. He doesn’t like the doctrine and he won’t accept it. He makes it a first principle. He says it is a matter of life and death. He denounces it as a false doctrine. In the last paragraph he writes, “We have shown how this false concept destroys every principle. It reaches deeply into the doctrine of baptism; it destroys the work of Christ as the basis of resurrection; and ignores the eternal judgment upon man from the beginning and in the future. Truly it deserves our full attention. Can we afford not to give it our all ? Can we afford not to be correct on these matters ? Can we afford to sink to the depths of Christendom gone astray?”

Well this is different from what we are usually told by the Unamended. They usually say that it is an unimportant question and should not divide the two groups. If what the writer asserts is true then the two groups are justified in being apart because of this difference. Much of the last 5 or 6 pages of the treatise is confused talk. He says on page 15, lines 25 and 26, “This doctrine is destructive and makes the entire plan of God a farce.”

The writer feels certain that the eternal sentence of Eden rests upon all men not in Christ and is final. Yet on page 21, par. 1, he cites examples of cases where those outside Christ have been resurrected. And just in case God might resurrect some contrary to the eternal death sentence inherited from Eden, he says that the action will be “arbitrary.” The word “arbitrary” is a questionable word to use when applied to the decisions of God.

His main objection to an enlightened rejector being raised to judgment is that he will have no opportunity to be saved. He is doomed. But the same objection could be used in relation to the baptized who turn away from the Truth later. Their doom is equally certain. How about the High Priest, the chief priests, elders and all the council (the Sanhedrin) who condemned Christ to death? They will be at the judgment because Christ declared, “Hereafter shall ye (the council) see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matt. 26:64. How about Ba­laam ? Num. 24:17. Saul ? Judas? Ananias and Sapphire ? Won’t they be doomed ? What about those who will see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God and themselves thrust out? Luke 13:28. It might be said that they could have done differently. The same holds true in respect to the enlightened rejector.

Does one have a right to refuse to repent when he becomes enlightened by the Truth ? Can he reject the Truth with impunity? Should he be treated with more regard than one who at least makes the first step of obedience by being baptized but later fails to come up to the required standard and will therefore be rejected at the judgment seat? Is repentance a command when one learns the Truth ? Paul said there was a time when God winked at the ignorance of men. But when the Gospel began to be widely preached he proclaimed, “But NOW commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Acts 17:30.

Suppose a man refuses to repent? Then the words of Paul apply, “Despiseth thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and long suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and Impenitent Heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the Righteous Judgment of God; who will render unto every man according to his deeds,” Rom. 2:4-6. He continues in verse 8, “Unto them that are contentious, and do not obey (the original word Apeitheo is only used of the unbaptized in the New Testament) the truth, but obey unrighteousness (will receive) indignation and wrath.” This applies to both Jews and Gentiles and has reference to the ‘day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel,” verse 16.

To refuse to repent is to despise the goodness of God and will bring the righteous judgment of God to bear in the day of judgment because to refuse to repent is to “obey unrighteousness” and unrighteousness calls for the judgment of God. How could anything be plainer?

In Deut. 18:18,19, God declares, “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren (applied to Christ in Acts 3:22,23), like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him. And it shall come to pass, that Whosoever will not hearken unto my words which He shall speak in my name, I will Require it of him” (or make him give an account for refusal). Christ gave real meaning to these words when He solemnly declared, as recorded in John 12:48,49, “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.” The “last day” here is the day referred to in Rom. 2:16 and means the day of resurrection and judgment. See John 11:24 and John 6:39,40,44,54. He continues, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, He gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak.”

In the parable of the pounds (Luke 19:11-27) we read of three classes brought forward to Christ at the time of His return:

1. The faithful servants—verse 15
2. The unfaithful servants—verse 20
3. His enemies who were not His servants—verse 27

His enemies are brought forward and slain with no investigation of their past deeds seeing they are avowed enemies. They are side by side at the same scene. Did these enemies have the eternal sentence of death lifted from them by contact with the blood of Christ in which they had no faith? See Rom. 3:22,25. If not, then on what ground can they be brought forth if the eternal death sentence of Eden is final? And the Sanhedrin that condemned Christ, on what grounds will they be brought forth? Had they made contact with the blood of Christ? The only contact that they could have had with the blood of Christ would be when they hit Him and caused His blood to flow. Without faith in Christ’s blood, can it lift the eternal death sentence, the legal condemnation?

The truth of the matter is that God can raise up anyone to a renewed mortal existence, (see II kings 13:20,21), or to be judged, but in Christ in the full sense will receive eternal life. There is no eternal death sentence resting upon men that acts as a legal barrier to prevent resurrection. Ignorance, or lack of understanding, precludes any reason for resurrection. Hence this class will never be resurrected. There is no inherited legal condemnation. Men incur legal or moral condemnation for personal sins. It is not a sin to be born. Neither alienation nor reconciliation is affirm able of a babe. It is a misfortune to be mortal but not a sin or a crime. God does not consider us at fault for this. How can we help it? These are only invented theories designed to act as a foundation upon which the denial of resurrectional responsibility for the enlightened rejector is built up. For one who won’t repent and be baptized, why should such sympathy be extended?