On the Nature of Man and the Death of Christ

Extract from a paper compiled by the Wilston Ecclesia in their discussions with the Brisbane (Petrie Terrace) Ecclesia over the latter's acceptance of Clean Flesh in fellowship - 1971

“On The Nature of Man and the Death of Christ - Robert Roberts 1895”

That death entered the World of mankind by Adam’s disobedience.
That death came by decree extraneously to the nature bestowed upon Adam in Eden, and was not inherent in him before sentence.
Since that time, death has been a bodily law.
The human body is therefore a body of death requiring redemption.
That the flesh resulting from the condemnation of human nature of death because of sin, has no good in itself, but requires to be illuminated from the outside.
That God’s method for the return of sinful man to favour required and appointed the putting to death of man’s condemned and evil nature in a representative man of spotless character, whom he should provide, to declare and uphold the righteousness of God, as the first condition of restoration, that he might be just while justifying the unjust, who should believingly approach through him in humility, confession, and reformation.
That the death of Christ was by God’s own appointment, and not by human accident, though brought about by human instrumentality.
That the death of Christ was not a mere martyrdom, but an element in the process of reconciliation.
That the shedding of his blood was essential for our salvation.
That Christ was himself saved in the Redemption he wrought out for us.
That as the anti-typical High Priest, it was necessary that he should offer for himself as well as for those whom he represented.

“The Nature of Man and the Sacrifice of Christ” The Christadelphian September 1898, Robert Roberts

These clauses with accompanying proofs, amplify and explain clauses 5 and 12 of the B.A.S.F. and were compiled by Bro. Roberts in 1895 to combat the teachings of one Cornish in Melbourne. Refer to “Diary of a Voyage” pages 67-69. Modifications to the Cornish theories emerged in Sydney at the turn of the Century and finally resulted in the “Sydney Division” of 1904. The main proponent of these theories was John Bell whose doctrines are catalogued later.

Like many after him, Cornish quoted against Bro. Roberts his article in the “Ambassador” of 1869, namely,

“Adam, before transgression, though a living soul (or natural body—1 Cor. 15:44–5), was not necessarily destined to die, as obedience would have ended in life immortal. After transgression, his relation to destiny was changed. Death (by sentence,) was constituted the inevitable upshot of his career. He was, therefore, in a new condition as regarded the future, though not in a new condition as regarded the actual state of his nature. In actual nature, he was a corruptible groundling before sentence, and a corruptible groundling after sentence; but there was this difference: before sentence, ultimate immortality was possible; after sentence, death was a certainty. This change in the destiny lying before him, was the result of sin. That is, his disobedience evoked from God a decree of ultimate dissolution. This was the sentence of death, which, though effecting no change as regarded his constitution at the moment it was pronounced, determined a great physical fact concerning his future experience, viz., that immortality, by change to spirit nature, was impossible, and decay and decease inevitable. The sentence of death, therefore, appertained to his physical nature, and was necessarily transmitted in his blood, to every being resulting from the propagation of his own species.”

Because this article was quoted out of context , Bro. Roberts found it necessary to give a further explanation of his meaning in “The Christadelphian”, 1877. Concerning this matter Bro. Carter commented as follows in “The Christadelphian” for Nov. 1944.

“In the disputations on this subject there has been reference to an article by bro. Roberts in 1869. This article contains some ambiguous expressions, and on more than one occasion “those of a contrary mind” have quoted it. In searching for something else, we have come across an explanation of his meaning in The Christadelphian, 1877, page 471. A man has a right to explain what he meant and to admit the obscurity in his terms; but if we want to quote him, we must quote what he says he meant. Here then is his explanation in 1877:

“The article in the Christadelphian for March, 1869, continues to represent our convictions on the subject of which it treats, viz., the relation of Jesus to the condemnation which we all inherit from Adam. On some details, however, of that general subject, we should, if we were writing it again, express ourselves more explicitly, in view of the searching controversy which has arisen on the subject of sin in the flesh. We should guard ourselves against forms of expression which seem to favour the false ideas that have come to be advocated. In asserting, for instance, that there was no change in the nature of Adam in the crisis of his condemnation, we should add, that though his nature continued of the order expressed in the phrase ‘living soul,’ a change occurred in the condition of that nature through the implantation of death, as recognised in the article in question on page 83, col. 2, line 15, in the statement that death ran in the blood of Mary. And on the subject of sin in the flesh, while retaining the declarations on page 83, as regards the operation of our moral powers, we should add that the effect of the curse was as defiling to Adam’s nature as it was to the ground which thenceforth brought forth briars and thorns: and that therefore, after transgression, there was a bias in the wrong direction, which he had not to contend with before transgression. Our mind has not changed on the general subject, but some of its details have been more clearly forced on our recognition by the movements and arguments of heresy.”

Robert Roberts on the Effect of the Sentence Upon Adam - Quoted from “the Evil One” pg 9, 1881.

“This sentence took effect upon Adam’s nature, and became a law or quality of it, which was henceforth “corruptible” and “mortal”. His nature became physically a dying nature, and therefore a death-nature, because of sin. Afterwards, children were born to Adam with the result of multiplying men who, having his nature, had also the “sentence of death in themselves” (1 Cor 1:9) which came originally by Adam’s sin, and who in their moral manifestations revealed the effects of their inheritance”

Robert Roberts on How Death Entered the World - Quotations from “The Visible Hand of God”, chapter 4, “The Reign of Death” pages 30-39, 1883.

“The whole incident of the entrance of death into the world by Adam’s disobedience, may be considered as the next exhibition of the visible hand of God in human affairs—an exhibition reaching down to our own day in the continuance and propagation of the death constitution then miraculously established. It has become quite unfashionable to suppose that death entered into the world at that time. It is universally accepted in learned circles that death has always been in the world.” (Page 30)

Of the Adamic race Bro.Roberts asks -

“Did it commence mortal, or was it brought down to a mortal state after it appeared?”

And answers,

“However unfashionable it may have become, therefore, and however unscientific and far behind it may seem, the man stands on logically unassailable ground who holds that death did not come into the world with Adam, but by him after he came; that at first, he was free from the action of death in his organisation; that though not absolutely immortal in the sense of being indestructible in nature, he was in that state with respect to the working and tendency of his organisation, that death did not wait him in the natural path, but had to be introduced as a law of his being before he could become mortal. His was an animal nature that would not die left to itself—a natural body free from death.” (Page 31)

On the physical change requiring a miracle of God, he writes -

“But this immortality Adam did not attain. Nay, he lost the good natural state which was his by creation. He had to confess to having eaten of the tree which he was commanded not to eat; and he had to suffer the dread sentence which doomed him, after a life of toil, to return to the ground from which he had been taken. In the execution of this sentence, we have the visible hand of God. Left to himself as God had made him, he would not have returned to the ground: left to itself, too, the ground would have brought forth beneficially and plentifully. It required what men call a miracle to depress to the level of the beasts that perish, the noble creature formed in the image of the Elohim, and to cause the earth to yield spontaneously “thorns also and thistles. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake” (Gen. 3:17, 18). It was not cursed before. “Thou shalt die” (Gen. 2:17): this was not the prospect apart from disobedience. How were the two results effectuated? By the interposition of the Divine will causing the one and the other. The Divine power that made man and the ground “very good” at the beginning easily modified the constitution of things for evil. A slight alteration in the condition of the soil and in the distribution and proportional activity of vegetable germs, was sufficient to make it soon apparent that the curse of God was on the earth, while as regards Adam, the sentence judicially pronounced would write itself in his constitution after the example of Elisha’s imprecation of the leprosy on Gehazi who went from the presence of the prophet’s words as white as snow. Mortality has been a fundamental law of human nature from that day to this. We have all to acknowledge with Paul, the “sentence of death in ourselves” (2 Cor. 1:9).” Pg. 32.

Concerning Christ’s redemptive work he writes - Page 33

Concerning the reversal of the effects of the sentence he writes on page 34 -

“He will do it by the power God has given him. God has given him power over all flesh with this view (John 17:2). By it, he will change the bodies of his people that they may be conformed to the likeness of his own glorious body (Phil. 3:21). The spirit of God, changing the mortal to the immortal, will thus blot out the sentence of death written in Eden. Thus one miracle will undo the effects of another.”

Concerning the need for the Serpent to tempt Adam and Eve he writes on page 34-35 -

“Whether it were natural endowment or divine inspiration that led the creature to entice the woman to disobedience, the moral bearings of the incident are the same. The obedience of Adam and Eve was put to the proof. And this was the object intended. Left to themselves, obedience would have been a matter of course; but it is not obedience of this mild description that is commendable to God. Obedience under trial is what pleases God. To give Adam and Eve an opportunity for obedience of this sort, or to terminate and set aside the obedience they were rendering if it should prove of the flimsy order of a mere circumstantial compliance, this creature was placed in the way. It was a divine arrangement with a divine object.”

Concerning the Tree of Life he writes on pages 36 and 37 -

“These reflections are specially cogent in their bearing upon that other tree, of which he was not permitted to eat—the tree of life—in which resided the extraordinary power that had he partaken of it even after his condemnation, he would have lived for ever (Gen. 3:22). We may dismiss the idea that some have advanced, that Adam had been in the habit of eating this tree: and that so long as he did so, he was immortal, and that all that was necessary to secure his mortality was to cut him off from the use of the daily medicament. The prompt and energetic precautions taken “lest he should put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life,” are out of keeping with this idea. It was a single eating in the case of the single tree of knowledge; and the “also” of this verse suggests that it was a similar contingency that was in view in the case of the tree of life. The interposition of a “a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life,” would have been an excess of energy if the object was merely to cut off the supply of what required to be daily taken in order to have its effect. The withering of the tree or expulsion from the garden would in that case have met all the necessities of the situation. Then it would have been strangely disproportionate with the facts to speak of Adam, “putting forth his hand and eating and living for ever,” if he had to eat for ever in order to live for ever; and a rather over-vigorous use of language to call a tree of life that which had only power to impart life during the short time the quantity taken might remain in the system. The figurative use of the tree in the New Testament, to represent the life everlasting which God will give to all who receive Christ at the resurrection, is inconsistent with the notion that it had to be used constantly to be effective. The whole surroundings of the case show that Adam had not taken of it, and that if he had, he would have become immortal. The only countenance to the contrary idea is the permission to eat “of every tree of the garden,” except the tree of knowledge in the midst of the garden (Gen. 3:2, 3; 2:16). It is argued that this must have included the tree of life. But this does not follow. The tree of life was evidently not reckoned among “the trees of the garden.” It seems to have stood apart by itself, having a “way” or approach that could be guarded (Gen. 3:24).”

“The Visible Hand of God” was written in 1883 and reveals Bro. Roberts mind on the Atonement and the nature of man at that point.