Scripture Research

Volume 3, (Second edition) Number 2

Scripture Research, Inc.

P.O. Box 51717 Riverside, CA 92517

Formerly

Ewalt Memorial Bible School

Atascadero, California

CONTENTS

Page

Section One:

THE GLORY OF

THE CHRIST (concluded) ………………. 47

By Russell H. Schaefer

A Review ……………………………… ……. 48

The Man, Christ Jesus …………………….. 53

The Fullness of the Godhead

Bodily ……………………………….. 59

Redemption in the Son of Man …. 61

Section Two:

The Meaning, Matter, and Nature

of Redemption ……………………………. 70

Redemption as a Ransom …………. 70

Explanation as a Penal-

Judicial Substitution ………………………. 76

Redemption as a Satisfaction …….. 83

Redemption, a Synthesis …………... 84

Section Three:

The Eternal Reason ………………………… 87

Conclusion ………………………………….. 91

THE GLORY

OF THE CHRIST

By Russell H. Schaefer

How paradoxical that such finite creatures as ourselves, so very limited by our pygmy reference and stance in time, should unhumbly seek out, mark, measure, and even judge, the motives, modes, and intents of the one Infinite God as He moves within the realm of His creation.

Should God, the Absolute Superior Being, reveal Himself to any of His created creatures, such a revelation must be in the terms and context of what those creatures are. Of necessity, by the very nature of the case, this must be an accommodating revelation of Himself to us, and involving what ever is necessary in condescending to our low estate to project that revelation to our understanding. The alternative is for God to remain fully unknown and unknowable in any personal way; how else shall God, Whose essential essence is Spirit (John 4:24), Who is at once above and yet fills all things with His presence and power? Who, by the very multi-fariousness of His being, is unseeable; how else shall such a being make Himself known so that He is other than an abstract equation?

While the immensity of His power is but dimly seen in the vistas of the stars, it is the more intimate revelation of Himself in terms of our humanity that reaches our hearts and gives goal and motives to our lives. Needless to say, the highest reach and the greatest plateau of that revelation this far was in the perfect­ions of the person of Christ, and the completeness of His work. In Christ's incarnation and redemptive work, we see God in human form loving and redeeming the race. In Christ's perfect humanity we see ourselves as we were intended to be, and by His grace, will yet be.

In this study an effort will be made to discover God's motive in creation, having discovered that, to reason out of the Scriptures the need

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Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations used in this study are taken from Rotherham’s, Emphasized Bible.

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for this revelation of Himself to continue forever because of His co-mingling with our humanity.

A Brief Review

The Apostle Paul, in the Phil. 2:1-11 texts, sets before the believer Christ's self-abnegation and voluntary humiliation as the supreme and ultimate example on which believers were to model their thoughts and actions. First, the Godhood of Christ, then His ministry as Servant, i.e., Slave, then as the title "Jesus" implies, "Jehovah-Saviour" dying our death on the accursed tree, finally, in resurrection (still retaining a man­-like fashion and form) given the homage due Him, not because He exercised despotic power over others on Earth, but because He used awesome power upon Himself to hide His Deity under our humanity so that we in Him could die the death due our sins.

In each of the phases set forth in the Philippian passages, Paul draws some exceeding fine distinctions. As before His incarnation, Christ was in the form of God only, without the human form being involved. This passage (Phil. 2:6) has much in common with the Logos of God, i.e., the Divine Expresser of God, mentioned in John 1:1-3 & verse 14. Here He is the God, not only of creation (John 1:3), but the God Who conveyed His presence and proximity to His people. He continued to be the Logos when He took upon Himself our flesh, John 1:14. He then appeared in our midst as would a "Beloved Son" sent from a Father. Only thus would He carry out the revelation of God's love for the world, and to thus add a great redemptive chapter to God's story of involvement with man.

Paul's statement regarding Christ, "Who being in the form of God” (Phil. 2:6), depicts a continuing state, not a past state that was set aside when the "form of a Slave" was taken. The phrase, "Being in the form of God" belongs to the very essence of God, and as such cannot be set aside, dropped, or lost. God cannot become man in the sense of disrobing Himself of His Divine nature; as though Deity was something one could put on or off at will. That, by the very nature of Deity, is an utter false concept. While it was impossible for Christ to divest Himself of Deity, of Godhood, still this did not prevent God from uniting Himself with our humanity (in Christ). He “emptied Himself” -- not by rejecting the Divine form, which is inseparable from His essential being of God, but by concealing His Divine form. With utterly ruthless power He subjugated the Divine form in order to come to us in all our frail humanity, setting aside all the Divine honors

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due Him. Then in His humanity, He carried His oneness with the race to its most strategic position in order to secure for us all the blessings and fellowship that would arise from a full and free access to God (Eph. 2:18; 3:12 & 1:3). He accomplished this by submitting Himself as man to the shameful death of crucifixion, a death befitting a race that had turned away from its Creator. Thus, by faith in Him and by virtue of His union with us, we see ourselves as having sinned against God, and hence, in Him, dying. Sequentially, Christ in His risen and ascended state is held forth to the believer as the pattern of all that God will have us be to Himself (Eph. 1:17-23). The unique factor in all this is that Christ gained this status in our behalf, not in the indefatigable power inherent in His Deity (in which there could be no contest, no striving, no physical suffering, and no death), but in the purity of His tested manhood. During the days of His humiliation He never exercised His Divine power on His own behalf; He did use it for others.

Christ in His Person and Work

Many of the following references were enlarged upon in earlier studies. Some will be used in later studies, but a quick glance at their import will prepare us for the comments to follow.

1. John 1:1-3. Christ "In The Beginning" as the Word, i.e. Gr. "Logos," the Expresser or Manifestant of the otherwise incommunicable and unknowable God. God as the "Logos" is the Creator of all things, and as such lifts the "aloneness" of His being, and as the Logos moves into the realm of His creation, and into our awareness as creatures of time and space.

2. John 1:14. The “Logos” as a further step in expressing God to our consciousness, takes upon Himself "flesh," and appears in our midst as a "Beloved Son" of the Father.

3. John 1:18. Assuming our humanity, but not setting aside His Deity, our Lord passes through the state of being "begotten" and is called in the Greek text, "The Only Begotten God." As such, He declares in a most personal way, the unseeable God.

4. John 14:10, 11. Christ was in the "Father," and the "Father" was in Christ. Hence, what is seeable of the Father is seen in Christ (John 14:9).

5. Heb. 1:2. A “Son-wise” revelation of God was to supersede

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the "parts, portions, and prophets" given Israel earlier. As an obedient Son our Lord wrought perfectly the will of the Father. In His Son-ship role He won by humble obedience the status of the "inheritor of all things," thereby reclaiming for Himself what had been His previously by right of creation. Evidently, beings in the heavens as well as on Earth were brought into a state of rebellion by Satan's deflection, and this invalidated his claim to the empires of the Earth (Lk. 4:6) and to the cosmos (Matt. 4:8). This verse, Heb. 1:2, also states that Christ was the "Framer of the Ages" (Gr. text). He is the God of the Ages, having moved from the infinity of God's inherent timelessness to that which has time for its stage, the Orderly ages. We are creatures of time; therefore, God in Christ approximates (comes near) in time, setting in motion those primal forces having time for development.

6. Heb. 1:3. Just as certain rays testify to a "parent" body, so is Christ to the Invisible God. He is that perceptible element of the God-hood, and is the "out-ray" of that hidden reality. As such, He "bears" along all things by the Word of His power.

7. Heb. 1:10. The Earth and the heavens are the work of His hands.

8. Heb. 1:9. Christ was made "lower than the angels" for a time in order that He might taste death for all men.

9. Rom, 5:6-11. Christ in His death procures for all mankind God's great amnesty of grace. Man's sin is not charged to him (2 Cor. 5:19).

10. Col. 1:20. Not only is the enmity between God's ancient people, Israel, and the nations done away (Eph. 2:15, 16), but the light of Christ's death tokened victory in all areas. God's hostility towards former and current errant beings in the heavens and Earth has given way to “peace.” No reason now exists for any one to be at variance with God. This verse is of unusual interest since it is one of a very few that projects the effects of Christ's death beyond members of the human family.

11. Col. 2:9. The fullness of God and the plenitude of His being dwells in the body of Christ. The "dwelling" has reference to a "resident dweller" not merely a "passing phase." The comparison would be the Shekinah (presence) dwelling in the Holy of Holies. That no mistaken notion be contemplated, Col. 1:19 states clearly that all the Fullness was pleased to dwell in Him.

12. Eph. 1:21. Christ is separate from and far above all created beings, and all things have been placed under Him (1:22). Both of

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these verses have to do with Christ risen as the pattern for the believer’s future state as having been made one with the ascended and seated Christ. The Eph. l:23 passage designates "the out-calling which is His Body" as being the recipient of the Fullness of Him Who fills all things everywhere with that which comprises His Divine Being. For the church which is His Body to be designated, "The Fullness of Him," suggests that the Body of Christ is to be the recipient of His Fullness on an immensurable scale, and that commensurate with the Source, i.e.,"… that filleth all in all." Here, Deity of Christ so over-flowingly fills His Body of believers (Col. 1:16). The Greek text not only states that creation came into existence through the instrumentality of Christ, i.e., "by Him," but that it is actually in Him. He is not only its efficient means, but its efficient Cause, its Origin, and its sphere.

14. Col. 1:17. Christ is "Before all things." Before anything was created, Christ was. He existed as "God" alone, apart from any created form or thing. The text also states: "the all things in Him consisted." In Him, all things stand together. There is in this the thought of cohesion, that attractive force by which all elements of a body are held together.

15. Col. 1:15; 2 Cor. 4:4. Christ is the "Eikon, " i.e., the Image of the Invisible God. He it is Who bears a communicable form of God from out of invisibility to our awareness.

16. Col. 1:13; Eph. l:6. The title in Col. 1:13, "the Son Of His Love," and Eph. 1:6, "the One Having Been Loved" (Gr. text), speak of God's incursion into our humanity and as such, Christ comes from the Divine Essence in a relational way. From the Divine side, it is the ultimate demonstrative language of God's self-revelation. The titles, "Son of God and Son of Man" adequately convey the two-fold nature of Christ in the flesh. The term "…the body of His flesh through death" (Col. 1:22) defines the terms and reason of His humanity. It is in view of His humanity that He redeems and dies, and as Deity He could make the necessary vessel in which to do this, to show His oneness with the race. The "Son of God" title speaks of that "unique oneness" that Christ has with the Father. The Father title of God, on the other hand, is related to the Invisible God by Christ in John 6:46. Unfortunately, religious artists have given to the world a secular and materialistic concept of God that is alien to the Word of God. Their concepts in painting and stone not only vie with paganism but are pagan.

17. Rom. 9:5. Christ is declared to be:

"… The (One) Being over All, God,

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blessed unto the ages." (Gr. text).

Whoever is "over all" must of necessity be God.

18. I Tim. 3:16. "God was manifest in the flesh." If our Lord was merely man, then this statement would be asinine--for how but "in the flesh" can man be manifested?

19. l Cor. l:2; Rom. 10:12-14. To pray, to "call upon the Lord," was to call upon the Lord Jesus. The texts point to Christ as the object of prayer. It was thus when Stephen was being stoned (Acts 7:59), and also the dying malefactor (Lk. 23:42). Thomas addresses his risen Saviour as his Lord and his God (John 20:28).

20. Col. 1:2; Phil. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:2; l Cor. 1:3; Rom. 1:7; Philem. 3;

2 Thess. l:2; I Tim. 1:2; Titus 1:4. In all these salutations Christ is co-named with God as the giver of grace, mercy, and peace. In Rom. 16:20; I Cor. 16:23; 2 Cor. 13:14; Gal. 6:18; Eph. 6:23, 24. Phil. 4:23; I Thess. 5:28; 2 Thess.3:18; Philem. 25, the Lord Jesus Christ is generally spoken of alone as the giver of grace (two exceptions).

21. Phil. 2:10. Before Him, and in His Name, every knee in the heavens and Earth shall bow. The original of this quotation, Isa. 45:22, applies it to "Jehovah," and the two N.T. usages (the other being Rom. 14:11) apply it to the Lord Jesus. As "Jehovah" He will be to His people whatever they need. The Isa. 45:22 passage shows Him to be Israel's Saviour, etc. See the context.

22. Col. l:l5b. Christ is "the Firstborn of all creation." This ancient title has lost its meaning since property no longer is held intact by the firstborn. Here Christ is said to be the rightful heir of creation, not only as creator, but a moral and spiritual sovereignty is involved (Col. 2:10), and as such He is "the Head of all rule and authority" (Gr. text). As such, He is the Head of Body, the church (Col. 1:18).

23. Eph. 4:10. Whoever "Fills all things" must be God. Here the text so speaks of Christ.

24. Col. 1:19. The Fullness of the Godhood is completely at home in Christ … therefore, in spite of His union with mankind, it remained at home in Him. See Col. 2:9.

25. Col. l:18b. “Who is the Beginning!” Christ is the Beginning. The text leaves the statement unqualified.

26. Rom. 8:9. The "Spirit," the "Spirit of God," and the “Spirit

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of Christ "are all united in this verse, and all point to the Lord Jesus in this and the following two verses.

27. I Cor. 10:4. Israel's "Rock" is here identified as "Christ." See Deut. 32:4, 15, 18, 30, 31, 37. Israel's "Rock" is "Jehovah."

THE MAN CHRIST JESUS

Scripture emphasizes the true Deity of the Lord Jesus. With the exception of sin, it places equal force upon His true humanity. Paul, in

I Tim. 2:5, points out Christ as the Perfect Mediator:

For One God (of all there is), one also mediator of God and of men, (a) man, Christ Jesus (Gr. text).

The role of "mediator" supposes the need of peace to be effected between two parties that have been estranged. The context gives the reason, i.e., "God desires the salvation of all men" (verse 4), and since there is but one God for all men, Christ has given Himself as a ransom on behalf of all men (verse 6). The ground of blessing must be the same for all men. Christ is that perfect and complete intermediary. As Christ, He proceeds from God as man, from men. He is the perfect meeting ground; peace is made arid in Him. Job 9:33 beautifully illustrates this; verse 32 is included:

For He (God) is not a man such as myself,

Whom I might answer—"meet me: let us plead!"

Oh! that there were with us an Arbiter, ONE Who could put His hand upon us both!

How little Job knew that there was such an Arbiter, such a Days­man! Flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, blood of his blood! The oneness of God for all is matched by the oneness of the Redeemer with us all. No wonder Paul would state:

For He is our peace… (Eph. 2:14).

How little Job realized that not only is He our peace, but we would be "In the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6), and "Christ in us" (Col. 1:27). We meet God—in Christ!

He shares our nature, as the rightful head of our race (from which headship our first Adam fell). Our sin and our death needs must be His! If by man came death, then another man must be the conqueror of sin and death by resurrection from the dead after its issues had been met fully. See

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I Cor. 15:21. The First Adam never rose higher than being a "living soulish" man, able to transmit only a soulish physical life, unlike the last Adam, the Giver of a "spirit-dominated" life (I Cor. 15:45).

Paul speaks of Christ as always subsisting in the form of God (Phil. 2:6), and then he adds, "the form of a slave taking, in likeness of men becoming, and in fashion being found as a man" (2:7). The perfect humanity of our Lord is as essential to God's program for the race as is His Deity. It is a true Deity; it is a true human­ity. Throughout His experiences in our midst, as a man among men, He felt our common pain, suffering, sorrows, hunger, test­ings, the need of friends, the loneliness of being misunderstood, forsaken, and betrayed. He prayed as a dependent, agonized with tears, was humbly obedient, and yielded His life to His slayers. Evidently a limit was imposed upon His humanity, since Rom. 8:3 states, "God of Himself sending His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." The "sinfulness" that is so at home in our flesh was alien to Him and to His, but not the flesh itself. "Flesh itself" need not be sinful. By His meeting every trial of the flesh with full dependence upon God, and constant fellowship in prayer, sin had no part in Him. Man may condemn his flesh as a vehicle of sin, but is helpless to stop its erosive effects. Even the law can but point out what is right but can give no power to do what is right either toward God or man. The chain of sin, using our flesh as its medium, was broken in His sinlessness. It stands written: "He knew no sin" (2 Cor. 5:21). Our flesh is a "flesh of sin," where­as sin had no hold upon Him. It was necessary in order to lead man out of His bondage that Christ assume the common flesh of humanity. He was made of a woman (Gal. 4:4) through whom He was descended from Adam (Lk. 3:38). The "Redemption" of man through a Man is the answer of God to the moral deflection of the First Adam, and his passing on to his race, death, with its germ-seed of rebellion inherent in his posterity. Without liking it, all of us share in the consequences of Adam's fall; God has given the race another, a Last Adam, to undo the ravages of the "First." See Rom. 5:12-21.

In determining the extent of Christ's humanity, Heb. 4:15 remarks:

… but One tested in all respects by way of likeness, apart from sin.

Was then, our Lord tempted because of His likeness to us in all respects? So the text states -- for most of us temptation arises and confronts us on a very limited basis. Our ignorance may, in effect, mitigate our guilt. While

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we might not even per­ceive sin to be sin, and our responses to the revealed will of God falls short of perfection, it was otherwise with Christ. He did not possess a faulty nature so as to be tempted from within as we are, nor did He suffer from our spiritual malaise and so was not restricted in seeing the will of God, nor blinded as to the activities of the Enemy. In order to be "one" with us, He volunt­arily took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh, that is, all our infirmities, all our frailties -- but without the moral trait and twist of sin. Had the first Adam not sinned in disobeying the express command of God, he would have gone on to righteousness by obedience to the revealed will of God. The Last Adam revealed His righteousness by always doing the will of God. He did this, not because His human and Divine nature were inseparable, but in His capacity as the Head of the human race. It was in this same capacity that He was tempted, and as such He was righteous. It is in His Headship that we are righteous, and in Him, we conquer.

The essence of Christ's temptations (and the essence of all temptations that come from without) revolve about the will of God. God seeks an obedience in the nature of partnership, fellowship, trust, faith, hope, and complete love, certainly not of fetish fatalism. For Christ the Man, the perfect Will of God meant implementing a purpose to redeem man, not merely to his Creator, but to an intimate son, in the Perfect Son, relationship. For Christ, this involved suffering and more suffering. It meant to bear the burdens of humanity, to weep their tears, to know and feel their sorrows. It meant to wear no sword, to use no power on His own behalf, to be helpless in the hands of His enemies, to feel the scourge of the Roman lash, to be degraded as a malefactor, abandoned by friends, betrayed, rejected, left alone to die.

Christ's temptations are prologued in three major confrontat­ions with Satan. These set the tone and the manner of His King­ship, His kingdom, His work, and His redemption. Matt. 4:1-11; Mk. 1:12, 13; Lk. 4:1-13 sum up the initial encounters of Christ with Satan. It is interesting to note that in Scripture, Satan is looked upon as heading up an opposing kingdom to that of God's. The book of Revelation details its final stages and its fall. The texts cited below, aside from Revelation, give us a glimpse of the stratagems of this Arch-foe as he seeks to divert Christ from the will of God, even to bring His human life to an end in such a manner as would abort the hope of redemption. *

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*Eph. 2:2; Col. 1:13; John 8:44; 12:31; 13:27; 14:30; 16:11; Matt. 12:25; (25-28); Lk. 11:15, 18; Matt. 6:13; 13:19, 25, 39; Lk. 22:3, 28, 31.

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As the forty days of trial and testing ended, Christ felt the weakness attending the lowering of His physical vitality. Looking into the future from that barren and lonely land, His weakness must have seemed prophetic of the mode and method He had committed Himself to in order to accomplish the will of God. For one "meek and lowly in heart" the awesome arms of empire could have no part. And yet, did not He, the Perfect Man, the God-Man, possess all power? Why then should He be faint for want of common bread? So Satan speaks:

And coming near, the Tempter said to Him, if Thou art God's Son Speak! that these stones may become loaves! (Matt. 4:3, Rotherham).

The temptation was not directed at His Sonship, but rather on its admission, and in view of it. He can do miracles; He can put an end to the present want; He can be the visible possessor of all power to fill all the physical needs of mankind! Why then should He not use His Divine Power for Himself? If not always, at least why not now? Why not tell the world He was the "miracle-man?" Why should He order His followers to "tell no man" when they saw human need answered by compassion too great to resist the healing word, or restore a dead son, or feed a hungry multitude? What is there about miracle-made follow­ers that caused Him to distrust them? In answer to Satan's thrust, Christ did not deny the necessity of bread, but He did show that mere "bread" was not the issue, but that the will of God was to be foremost in spite of dire circumstances:

But He answering said, “It is written, not on bread alone shall man live, but on every declaration coming forth through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Unless one has known real hunger, one cannot judge what another would do to gain a little food, and it is a commentary on the ministry of our Lord that the "poor" heard Him gladly. The question of why God does not intervene in the face of human misery has no ready answer. In waiting upon that, at least this comfort is ours; Christ took His place amongst the lowliest of mankind: the poor, the slave, the outcast, not even having a place to lay His head. Satan, in effect, was saying "A word from you can change all that!" The body does need bread or food to survive, but there is to be more to life than just that.

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It is this "other" side to life that Christ answers to in His reply. There is the "physical" side to man that answers to physical supplies. The "spiritual" reaches its greatest height on having heard from and in communication with God. At the moment, God uses the "Word" to make Himself known to us.

The next temptation finds Christ standing upon one of the high promontories of the temple. Satan speaks:

If Thou art God's Son cast Thyself down,

for it is written,

“To His Messengers will He give charge

concerning Thee;

And on hands will they bear Thee up,

Lest once Thou strike against a stone thy foot”

(Matt. 4:6b Rotherham).

Judaism taught that the Messiah would proclaim Israel's deliver­ance as stated in Isa. 61:2, 3 from the roof of the Sanctuary; this "watch-place" of the High Priest would be the mark of the Messiah, affording Him due dignity and honor. In this respect, Edersheim makes the following statement on page 293 of The Life & Times Of Jesus The Messiah:

... they were regarded as the rightful manifestation of Messiah's dignity; whereas in the Evangelistic record they are presented as the suggestions of Satan, and the Temptation of Christ. Thus, the Messiah of (traditional) Judaism is the Anti-Christ of the Gospels.

Again, Satan is assuming the Son-ship of Christ, but that now His trust of God be displayed, and His headship over His people firmly demonstrated by a super-natural coming to His Sanctuary, borne along by heaven's host! This is the type of Messiah they would follow! There was no need to go the circuitous route of redemption! Let the Warrior-Chief descend with His flaming host companions, and the whole world will own Him King! The Christ answers:

Thou shalt not put to the test the Lord thy God.

Matt. 4:7

It is not for us, or Satan, to say what God should do or how or when. Only on His love, and grace, and mercy dare we test Him, on all other grounds, all is doomed — for not one before Him in His sight is pure.

The next temptation of Christ is staged from some high mountain.

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Luke records the first stage, and Matthew the second stage of this temptation:

Luke 4:5-8 Matthew 4:8-10

The Kingdoms of the inhabited The Kingdoms of the cosmos

Earth (Again, etc., a second time)

Power & Glory of them offered Every thing offered

"Unto Thee will I give this author- "All these things will I give Thee,

ity all together, and their glory; if Thou wilt fall down and worship because unto me hath it been de- me.” (worship, lit. fall before

livered up, and to whomsoever one and kiss their feet, a figure of

I please I give it: speech for acknowledging

Thou therefore, if Thou wilt the nature attributes, ways, claims,

worship (do homage) before , and authority of another)

me it shall all be Thine."

In answering Jesus said to him.., Then said Jesus unto him...

"It is written: "Withdraw Satan! for it is

The Lord thy God shalt thou written.

worship, The Lord thy God shalt thou

And unto Him alone render worship, and to Him alone render

divine service." divine service."

The Adversary departed from Then the Adversary leaveth

Him until a fitting season Him, and lo! messengers

(vs.13). came near, and began

ministering unto Him (vs. 11).

The "intoxicant" of "power" on an unlimited scale, the "vanity" of "glory," the "conceit" of "property & privilege" -- all these hardly touch the lives of common people (except tyranny on any level always hurts the common people most of all), so it would be difficult to assess a temptation of such magnitude, although history affords ample illustrations of otherwise wonderful people being given "power" and "glory" and "property" and consequently have become more corrupt than those born to these things. On the other hand, some have been able to keep their perspectives and have been a blessing to humanity, such as Abraham Lincoln.

We might well ask, "What was the Kingdom that Satan could offer?" Was it the "Father's Kingdom" about which Christ taught His disciples to pray? But that had not come yet, so this could not be that! Even within the prayer are the words, "Deliver us from evil, i.e., the Evil One." The "Bread," according to Lk. 11:3 (Gr. text), is the "bread of tomorrow," i.e., denoting "scarcity."

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It is no accident that in this prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) the Father's Kingdom and His will coordinate. It is not to Satan that such a kingdom belongs, nor its power and glory. The world in its present state, however, does well by Satan. As its god (2 Cor. 4:4) he blinds his subject's minds to the Glory of Christ; as its Prince (John 14:30) he wants nothing to do with Christ; as the Ruler (Eph. 2:2) he works to perfect disobedience to the Father's will in his "sons of disobedience." A Satanic Messiah, a Satanic Kingdom Empire among men, a Satanic religion in which he will come as an Angel of Light (2 Cor. 11:14), his ministers as ministers of righteousness (vs. 15), and his apostles as apostles of Christ (vs. 13). Christ came to destroy all this (Heb. 2:14; John 3:8). It is from all this that we have been freed, and have been translated into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love (Col. 1:13). Instead of a kingdom in which all men are alienated from God, regardless of the level of that alienation, Christ made it a high point in His redemption that no one need ever be alienated from God. The will of God is a service of love and love alone.

Satan failed, but the life of Christ showed that he did not desist from other attempts to cloud the issues and the goal for which Christ came. Christ shared our human flesh; with us He felt its wants, pains, and temptations, and having no sin of His own, He became sin-laden with ours and became our “offering for sin!”

The Fullness of the Godhood Bodily

The sub title above is taken from Col. 2:9:

For in Him dwelleth all the Fullness of the God­head bodily (A.V).

Wuest, in his translation, expands the above to:

… because in Him there is continuously and permanently at home all the Fullness of Absolute Deity in bodily fashion.

Wuest, in his expansion of the text, ably treats upon the word translated "dwelleth" as meaning: "continuously and permanently at home." The "Fullness of the Godhead" has been enlarged upon in an earlier issue, but suffice it to say that it means not only the Plentitude of Divine attributes, but much more: the Very Plentitude of Deity, and much more than that, the Very Plentitude of the Godhood. In effect the verse is saying, “All that makes up the essential nature and being of God is continuously and permanently at home in Christ.” The text reads: “in

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Him,” i.e., Christ, who was just named in the preceding verse. Since the Fullness of the Godhead at its source can only dwell permanently and completely in God, the verse must be saying that Christ is God. But since intrinsically such Fullness is infinite, limitless, timeless, immeasurable, and is in all, through all, and above all, it must not be containable in a body of flesh. Thus the verse is in fact stating that the Fullness is in Christ, but it is not stating that it is confined to a physical "body." But it is viewing Christ in relationship to the incarnation, not the incarnate Creative Word of John 1:1-3, but the Creative Word still communicating God (as the title implies), but having added "flesh," a fleshly form, as John 1:14 states, to dwell among us.

The word translated "bodily" in Col. 2:9 (Gr. somatikos) has its problems. In Col. 2:17 "body" is used of "substance" over against "shadow." In applying this concept to "bodily" in the earlier verse would make it say, "reality," as over against some shadowy prior "fullness" dwelling in Christ. Or, "the Fullness of the Godhead was seen only in types and shadows, but now its reality is seen in Christ." Some feel that "bodily" answers to “susiodos” substantially. This would make the passage read: "the Fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, not accidentally, nor partially, but wholly and by a substantial union." Others have felt that the passage should read: "the Fullness of the God­head dwells in Him in a bodily (physical way) fashion." The text does not say, "the Fullness of the Godhead dwells in a body," for no mere body could ever contain it, and to so suppose would in effect abolish God. To so immobilize God would restrict Him irreparably. The most satisfying translation would be: "… in Him dwells all the Fullness of the Godhead ... incarnate," using the thought of "bodily" meaning "corporeally," that this Fullness dwells in Him, in Christ, in His person, and this has been united to a body. This would teach us that Deity and our humanity have become united in the Person of Christ in the very process of His incarnation. Christ in this process superadds to the Divine Being that He will ever be, and has ever been, the human nature, albeit, sinless, and a corresponding human form. The Divine Nature of Deity cannot be disposed of, nor changed, nor set aside for a time. The human nature and its form and fashion is not done away either, nor made less than man, but remains truly man just as the Divine nature remains truly God.

Maybe the following texts, Col. 1:19 and Col. 2:9, will help to illustrate these two truths. In Col. 1:19, a reader of the A.V. will note that the words, "the Father" are omitted.

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Colossians 1:19 Colossians 2:9

Because in Him was well Because in Him dwells all

pleased all the Fullness to dwell. the Fullness of the Godhead bodily.

In the first, the Deity of Christ is being stressed. In the last, His Deity, plus His humanity is stressed. This last is similar to John 1:14 where the Word, or that which expresses God, adds another dimension to the otherwise immaterial communication:

And the Word became flesh and tabernacles among us, and we gaze at His glory, a glory as of an only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (Concordant Version).

In John 1:1-3 the Word or Logos is almost looked upon as an emanation of God creating all things. One is left with the feeling of remoteness in conjecturing with the title of Logos as a name of God; not so with the title of "Only Begotten," a concept of God clothed in our humanity. Thus, for differentiating purposes, the Divine in Christ is called “Son Of God!” and the human, “Son of Man.” While the head of the Race, He is nonetheless the Son of all humanity; all humanity meets in Him. Likewise with the nature of God: until He came as the perfect Man, we did not know what man was meant to be, we did not know what man could be, and will yet be by His grace ... nor did we know what God was like until He came.

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Redemption in the Son

The cause of redemption is in God; the medium of redemption is in the Lord Jesus Christ; the effecting means of redemption is in the humanity of Christ. It is only the humanity side of Christ that can "bleed" and "die redemptively." In the following verses note the close association of His humanity and ours by the use of plural pronouns such as, "we," "us," or "our." Also note that His person and His work are never separated, just as we in Him are never separated. It should also be borne in mind that it is in the Person of Christ as head or embodiment of the human race that He accomplishes redemption. If this last thought can be super-imposed upon all our thinking as it relates to the redemptive acts of Christ, we will

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gain knowledge of the underlying association effected between ourselves and (as an extension of our humanity) Christ. He does what we should have done, but were either too weak to do, or because of alienation, would not do.

In the following, notice how full and free the grace of God flows to us in Christ. There is no "drawing back" on God's part; no reserves of grace withheld for any reason:

Unto the praise of the glory of His favor (grace) wherewith He favoured (engraced) us in

the Beloved One,

In Whom we have the redemption

through His blood,

the remission of our offenses,

According to the riches of His favor (grace)

which He made to superabound toward us

(Eph. l:6, 7, Rotherham Text).

Happily, Rotherham catches the thought of the Greek text. The redemption is not a restricted one, but it is THE REDEMPTION, a redemption so full and so complete that any and all offenses that may have kept us at a distance from God have been fully and completely canceled. Henceforth, He accepts each of us in all the acceptability, beauty, love and grace of Christ, the Beloved One. He cannot but cause His grace to superabound to us in full accord to the full measure of His great spiritual wealth. The effective medium (Gr, dia) "through" which redemption is accomplished is His blood, a life "poured forth" on behalf of the whole race. His "blood" poured forth speaks of His death as being out of the ordinary course of events, for certainly many have died, some violently, and some in greater pain and agony than did Christ. But the luster of His death was that He alone did not have to die because of the poison of "death" residing in our First-Adam engendered bodies. This "poison" had no residence in Him, so He did not have to die, nor was there in Him a moral fault that would deserve death. Nor would He have had to die under Roman power if He chose not to. He said:

... because I lay down my life,

that again I may receive it:

No one forced it from Me,

but I lay it down of Myself,

Authority have I to lay it down, and

authority have I again to receive it (John 10:17b, 18a).

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Since neither death, nor sin, nor any external power could make demands upon Him unless He allowed it, on whose behalf did He die? A living union had been made in his humanity with all of us. Hence, on our behalf, He died to cancel out all claims of judgment that offense against God might entail. The kindred passage to Eph. 1:7 is Col. 1:14:

In Whom we have the redemption,

the forgiveness of our sins

(Marshall Text).

In each of these texts, "sins" is used to translate two different words. In the first (Gr. paraptomaton), "offenses" would have been the better word for the A.V. to have used. We have been forgiven all offenses, past, present, and future. Under "paraptoma" in his Critical Lexicon & Concordance, Bullinger writes:

... a falling when one should have stood upright, a misfall, mishap; hence, a falling aside from right, truth, or duty, the particular and special act of sin from ignorance, inadvertence, or negligence; sin rashly committed by one unwilling to do an injury.

In pondering what the dear Doctor wrote about this word, one is immediately struck with the thought that this defines most of the "sins" of the average person -- doing things in ignorance, not really wanting to offend God or man, but somehow managing to do so all too frequently -- and not even knowing it has been done! The second passage (Col. 1:14) uses the word (gr. amartion) better translated (sins) and of which Bullinger writes:

... miss, failure, aberration from prescribed law or duty; … sin is not merely, however, the quality of an action, but a principle manifesting itself in the activity of the subject …

This, in contrast to the first, is the outward act prompted by an inner abiding animosity toward God. Eve was "beguiled" by one whom she judged to be a superior being. Adam knew! So the chromosome coding that would bring death was given to Adam, and he passed it on to the race. But the great redemption that we have provides full and complete forgiveness for this type of overt sins. The meaning of the word "redemption" will be considered later in this study.

In the next text under consideration there is a "broadening out" of the effects of Christ's death:

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And through Him fully to reconcile (the) all

things unto Him, making peace through

the blood of His cross, -

Through Him -- Whether the things upon the

Earth, or the things in the heavens

(Col. 1:20, Rotherham Text).

Here, the word translated "reconcile" (Col. 2:21 and Eph. 2:16) is an intensified form of the word found in Romans and 2 Corinthians. Under the modified word (Gr. katalasso) man­kind's sins (that causes hostility between men and God) are not imputed to them at all, according to 2 Cor. 5:19. This Divine gracious act of amnesty was wrought on their behalf through the virtue of Christ's death while mankind was still at enmity with God, and for some, while they were enemies, according to Rom. 5:10. Having set this precedent in regard to sinful man, God expanded the area of reconciliation as well as its benefits. The Greek word "katallasso" is intensified with the addition of an additional prefix, "apo," so that "reconcile" is no longer able to carry the full meaning of the word. Generally, the preposition "apo" is used of "away from" something, as in “More than reconciled.” "Beyond reconciliation" might well be the thought. Rotherham tries to grasp its meaning by "fully to reconcile." The area now reaches beyond offending man, to the "all things" mentioned in the preceding verses. These include not only the things of our Earth, but the things of the heavens as well. With the things of the Earth we are familiar; the things of the heavens intrigue one no end. The things of the heavens and Earth are mentioned in Col. 1:16 and the title deed to these belong to Christ by right of creation. Had a shadow been cast upon that deed? Had Satan betrayed a trust in the dim unknown of which Rom. 8:20-22 hints? Were there indeed some "angels," "principalities," and "powers" that might seek to withstand the love of God manifested toward the believer as Rom. 8:38 implies? And, in this very book of Colossians (2:14, 15) His death, and His being nailed to that timber, became a "receipt" according to the ancient usage of posting a hand-written bill of obligations, nailing it to a public timber for all to see when all its obligation had been fully met. Christ embodied humanity's needs and discharged any and all obligations that could have been drawn up in a "bill of particulars" against us, and He Himself absorbs the obligation, and in His "nails" receipts the whole. The 15th verse of Col. 2 amazingly also associates this "receipting" with the stripping off from Himself "principalities and powers!” and in this very act “exposing them openly,

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and triumphing over them in it." Does the text mean that in the very act of Christ's death, seem­ingly the very height of triumph for man, Satan, and his hosts, was in fact the act that initiated the events that would spell the down-fall of that kingdom? In Eph. 6:12-16 the contest of the believer is not against "flesh and blood" in the heavenlies, but rather against Principalities and Powers, and world (Cosmic) rulers of darkness. Certainly, no believer need fear the Prince or powers of darkness unless he encamps himself with the Enemy. Nor is he to fight evil by battling people, but rather, in the armor of God's provision. He is to "hold the field" inasmuch as the Foe has already been routed. From the evidence of history we know that tyranny has within itself the seeds of self-destruction. Was all tyranny struck a blow in the death of Christ? Can we now see more clearly that corruption of power is not stayed by the robes of a high priest or Roman toga? That power itself is a trust, demanding purity and self-discipline in its holder. Whether these "hosts of darkness" were included in the "peace" and "more than reconciliation" of Col. 1:20, there is no way of knowing. But there are others "in the heavenlies" that are to be brought under the Headship of Christ, according to Eph. 1:10. The text should read, "To Sum-up together under One Head." Then, in Eph. 1:20-22 we read of Christ being designated "far above all principality and power” etc., and "Head over all." According to Eph. 3:10 there were "principalities and powers in the heavenlies" that needed to learn of the multifarious wisdom of God. The peace of God being extended to other realms than that of man would have no meaning unless those realms needed peace, implying that some sort or degree of hostility had existed at some time, somewhere.

This same "full reconciliation or more than reconciliation" mentioned in Col. 1:20 is applied to those who had been just recently estranged and enemies of God:

And you

who at one time were estranged and enemies

in your mind in your wicked works

Yet now hath He fully reconciled in His Body

of flesh through means of His death.

To present you holy and blameless and

unaccusable before Him

(Col. 1:21, 22, Rotherham).

How "much more" was here accomplished through Christ's death than had ever been done before. It is well to know, as in Romans and

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2nd Corinthians, that sin is not imputed, but that falls far short of that manifest destiny in which these erewhile enem­ies are now joined to Christ their Head, and in Him are now fully made presentable to God, “holy” "blameless," and "unaccusable."

Another facet of Christ's redeeming death is that they who were once "far off" from God are now "made near" in the Blood of Christ. (The "blood" of Christ signifies the pouring out or giving of His life in behalf of others, not merely "dying" as many others might have done.) Notice again, that following the nearness to God, another "peace" is announced, not as in Romans 5:1, between God and man, but between two classes of men, men that hitherto had been Divinely separated, partitioned off from each other by Israel's unique covenant privileges, laws, priesthood, and promises:

But just now in Christ Jesus,

Ye who at one time were afar off

were made nigh in the blood of the Christ;

He, in fact, is our peace--

Who made both one. And the enclosing

middle wall took down. The enmity

in His flesh--the law of commandments

in decrees, bringing to naught, --

That the two He might create in Himself into one

man of new mould,

Making peace.

And, might fully reconcile them both in one

body, through means of the cross, --

Slaying the enmity thereby

(Eph. 2:13-17, Rotherham Text).

The non-Jew and the Jew who had become alienated from his heritage were in effect one class. The Jew of the covenants, the Jew who from the heart obeyed the law of God, but who by that very law was "hedged in" and made apart from the "man of the nations" had no equal meeting grounds. On the one side was “privilege,” and the most that the man of the nations could expect was a status of being a "guest" in Israel's king and king­dom. No man of the nations could even enter Israel's Temple, or even its inner courts. They could look "from afar" but the erected wall with its inscribed words would keep them apart:

No alien is to enter within the balustrade and embankment

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about the Sacred Place. Whoever is caught will be responsible for his death, which will ensue.

Also, Jewish dietary and social laws affirmed "apartness." Now, in Christ, in His death, all differences are set aside. For the Jew, all the symbolism of His law has been met and satisfied. For the man of the nations, he has met "perfection" and he need not search further for the perfect man upon which to mold his thoughts and his life. For the Jew, the Messianic hopes and dreams would be realized in a perfect Christ, and even David's shadowy portentous kingdom must one day yield to the kingdom "of the Son of His Love."

Of the "twain" He makes a "New Humanity" in which there is no inequality. The Jew of special covenant privilege and the man of the nations could not sink their differences in a distinctly "Jewish Messiah," nor could the Jew subscribe to Gentile "Adonis" no matter how beautiful. But God would lead us both to a suffering -- dying -- bleeding Christ and in Him wipe away all distinctions. In His perfection, we would seek no other beauty, and the Jew -- in Christ the shadows would flee away for the substance, and in the light of His perfect work, all other religious exercises would seem like children at play. So at long last, peace was made. Not only this, but they, the both, were “more than reconciled unto God in the body by the cross,” i.e., the tree of public witness where all canceled notes of obligation were posted. They were just "one body" now, one in their union with each other, and one in their relationship to the Christ, the "enmity," -- slain in Himself (Gr. text). He absorbs all which slew Him, slew us in Him; as He dies, we die! “Crucified with Christ” writes Paul. Because it was mere kindergarten "paper dolls and coloring books," all religion, pagan and divine, died with Him there. No wonder Paul wrote:

In Whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him (Eph. 3:12).

There remained "no distance" from God any longer. Not only was "peace" proffered, but also a full freedom of access without any fear of disbarment, ever. Christ's faith, His faithfulness, was to be the guarantor of this.

Another aspect to the redemption in Christ Jesus is set before us in Eph. 5:2:

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And walk in love

Even as Christ also loved you,

And delivered Himself up in your behalf,

An offering and sacrifice unto God,

For a fragrance of sweet smell

(Rotherham Text).

The statement "delivered Himself up" describes the whole of Christ's life as well as the culminating act at its close. Using the term "delivering Himself up" stresses the free and volun­tary nature of His commitment to the will of God. The love that is enjoined upon the believer as motivation for his daily walking about in the concourse of life is exampled in Christ's love toward us. Just as He gave fully out of Himself, not out of legalism, but out of love, so we are to do. This is a part of becoming "imita­tors of God as children beloved " (Eph. 5:1). The Greek word here translated "imitators" by Rotherham, and "followers" in the A. V. is "mimetai, fr. mimetes," to become an imitator in the sense of a "mimic," and is used in the continuous tense, i.e., "always be mimicking God." The immediate context suggests:

And be ye gracious one to another, tenderly

affectionate, in favor forgiving one another —

Even as God also in Christ hath

in favor forgiven you.

Do we think of God's forgiveness as being conditional on some­thing we do, or "if we confess our sins?" Do we know that con­fession means "to say the same thing." God has said He has freely, graciously forgiven us in Christ, and has set that type of forgiveness forth for our "mimicking."

The "offering and sacrifice unto God" aspect spoken of in Eph. 5:2 is not defined by the context. Paul spoke of himself in 2 Tim. 4:6 as follows:

For I already am being poured out as a drink-offering …

Concerning these bodies of ours, Paul wrote in Rom. 12:lb:

To present your bodies a living, holy sacrifice,

unto God acceptable...

Concerning the contraband aid given to him while under indict­ment by Rome, Paul wrote in Phil. 4:18:

But I have all things in full, and have more

than enough,

I am filled, having welcomed from Epaphroditus

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the things that came from you, --

A fragrance of sweet smell,

An acceptable sacrifice.

Well pleasing unto God.

The "fragrance" and the "sweetness" of this gift brought to Paul under such dire circumstances took on the nature of a sacrifice, it was so filled with devotion and love and risk and a "pouring out of their lives" if need be to bring him relief from need. In effect, Paul is saying, "This is Christ-like, this is love." There is a sweetness to some lives, a Christ-like simple nobility, a love that bridges all barriers of race, language, and social station. Paul says in 2 Cor. 2:14, 15a:

But unto God be thanks

Who ever leadeth us in triumph in the Christ, And, the fragrance of the knowledge of Him maketh manifest through us in every place that of Christ a grateful odor are we unto God.

A young man risked his life to bring King David a drink of water. He poured it out upon the ground. It was too sacred an act on the young man's part, so David "poured it out as a libation offering" as we are to do with these lives of ours.

To look at another side of this same "delivering Himself up" we see in Acts 2:23a that this act was in accordance with the will of God:

The Same, by the marked out counsel and fore­knowledge of God, given up....

Thus, Christ assumes, by virtue of His union with us, all the obligations incurred by us and that, without Him, we could not discharge. In full accord with the Father's will He offers Himself up to death, not, however, as a substitute for the race, but as its constituted Head, doing what it should have done had it been able. He alone had the power to do so, He had love to do so, and He could do so perfectly. He was so constituted so that both man and God could meet in Him, to the satisfaction of both because it was the “will of God.” His act was one of obedience, thereby annulling the sins of the race as embodied in the First Adam. Thus, it was only a difference of emphasis when the Scriptures state that Christ "delivered Himself up" or "He at least Who His own Son did not spare, but in behalf of all, delivered Him up" (Rom. 8:32). The central concept of Christ in His humanity offering Himself to effect redemption (and all that follows), and "God" effecting the same thing is well expressed in 2nd Cor. 5:19:

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How that God was in Christ

Reconciling a world (cosmos) unto Himself

Not reckoning unto them their offenses...

Christ claimed to be "doing" as the Father "had done, and to "speak" only as the Father "spoke" through Him (John 5:19-23; 8:26-29; 12:50, and 14:10,11). Christ was truly the plenipotentiary of God and mankind. The Divine edict, commanding the Incarnate (human-fleshly) form of Christ to die, was responded to by loving obedience as the perfect man, and was a manifestation of the Divine intention to consummate a redemption of such magnitude that all might have full and free access to the Divine Presence.

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Section Two

The Meaning, Manner, and Nature of Redemption

The many facets of redemption are almost endless, however, three main lines will be explored:

1. Redemption as a ransom

2. Expiation as a penal-judicial substitution

3. Satisfaction, a legal & moral compensation to God for wrong doing against an infinite Holy Being.

After these three lines of redemption are explored and the best elements of the three retained, a fourth line of synthesis will be formulated.

1. Redemption as a ransom.

The root of the family of words used in the context of Redemp­tion

is , Luo, literally, to loose, to free, to set at liberty, unbind,

unfasten, untie, to disengage, deliver, destroy, demolish, to make void,

nullify, to declare free, etc. It is used in all of these ways in the N.T.

When this basic meaning of the root word is lost sight of, deductions may

be drawn from supposed evidence that have no real foundation in

Scripture.

a. Lutrotes: Redeemer, a Deliverer, a Liberator, an Arbitrator, a Decider. Hence, One who frees, delivers, etc. Corresponds to the Heb. Goel, Kinsman-Redeemer, or Kinsman-Liberator. The first O.T. usage of Goel is Job 19:25, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and certainly the thought of deliverance from his suffering was not far from his thoughts.

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This "Kinsman-redeemer" title of God is used of Boaz in the book of Ruth (2:19, 20; 3:9, 12, 13; 4:4). But Boaz does not pay a ransom to anyone for this maiden, nor does he buy her. Rather, he restores to her a heritage hitherto lost to her when her Hebrew husband had died.

The great contribution of the Hebrew language to the title of "Redeemer" is the prefix, "Kinsman" that is a part of the Heb. word and is lost in the Greek translation. The Redeemer is to be a "kinsman," i.e., one related. Thus, Isa.43:14; 44:6 and 54:5 that speak of God being the Kinsman-redeemer is fulfilled in the Deity of Christ, and in His being "Son of Man" fulfills His "near- kinsmanship" to our humanity.

b. Lutron:

The means of loosing. The instrument used. Unfortunately, the translators of the A.V. were obsessed with the idea of someone paying someone else ransom and so they thought to so translate it. It was used by the Greeks for the freeing of slaves by declaration, by purchase, by adoption, and by the death of the owner in his will. In the LXX (Greek O.T. ) it is used as a "fine" paid as compensation (Ex. 21:30); in Lev. 19:20 it is used of an unpaid debt that if paid would have freed an indentured maid-servant (out- right slavery was not allowed in Israel); in Lev. 25:24 it is used of the original land owner exercising his legal right to "redeem" or "clear" his mortgaged land from incumbencies. No ransom was paid in any of these cases. The "Lutron" was the compensation costs, the legal recompense due the mortgage holder. In Isa. 52:3 we read:

For thus saith Yahweh for naught ye sold yourselves, and, not for silver shall ye be redeemed.

Like Israel of old, we have to learn that God's coinage is not of silver or gold, nor as Paul states in Acts 17:25, is He served by men's hands, implying that in His self-sufficiency He will be debtor to no one. To supply the means of redemp­tion is not for His, but our benefit. In none of the N.T. usages of Lutron as a ransom to be paid before the hostage is freed is it possible to determine to whom the debt or ransom is to be paid. This part of the metaphor is ignored in Scripture except for one instance in Isa. 43:3 where these lands were given to Persia for the release of Israel via Persia through the successors of Cyrus. They are called a "ransom."

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The declaration of 1 Cor. 6:19b & 20a "… for ye are not your own; for ye have been bought with a price!" is a metaphorically drawn sketch of ourselves in which we are thrust back in time and place to the slave-market era. In keeping with this (Rom. 6:6, 17, 19, 20; 7:14, 23 and Titus 3:3), our self-willed human natures are personified as "Sin-Masters" that hold us in bondage lest we become free from their tyrannous power and serve the God of love and righteousness. Then, too, this world-system with its Satanic headship (Eph. 2:2, 3) is the sphere in which we were raised and we had imbibed toxically of its spirit; it too was our master. To the Jew another master was added, the Law (Gal. 3:10-13). This could instruct and condemn and pile up offenses, and finally "curse." Into this charnel house of dead hopes and resigned despair One comes Who is of infinite worth, the one and only perfect Man. In the realm and arena of this strange slave- market of sin and self and Satan, no gold or silver will avail to give that spiritual impetus whereby slaves will shake loose their chains and set forth free. The price, His blood! His death! His lanced side and His skewered hands and feet! A slave's death-taking, and in its worth all who freedom want, can freedom take. "Bought with a price!" But such love as this binds me and draws me close to His side. In God's great grace with Him and in Him, I too die, and merged in His life, out-flowing always from Him, I live, and rise!

Is a ransom price paid to anyone in the above figure of speech? If it is, it would be paid to the thing or one holding us in bondage. It cannot be paid to the sin within us, whatever master that might be. It is not paid to the world - system, or Satan. Some might well imagine a Faust-Mephistopheles sale of a soul to Satan, and the Satanic cults appeasing him, or the making of charms to ward off evil, but Scripture knows of no bargain struck between God and Satan whereby God pays Satan a ransom-price. In the book of Faust, Mephistopheles claims to have a "blood- signed deed" but that is not Scripture, and to so imagine is to carry the figure beyond what is needed or written. If the figure is to be carried further, and an object of the ransom must be found, then it must be to God Himself, since it is He alone that is sinned against, and He it is that is "propitiated," but it is God that provided the price and The Redeemer, and it may well be that the mixing of metaphors is not in order here.

c. Apolutrosis:

Lutron stressed the means of release; Apolutrosis is an intensified form of "lutrosis," hence a full-release, a full or a

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release “that is more than enough.” Some usages follow:

Luke 21:27, 28. Christ's coming in power and glory, securing a full release for those faithful ones engulfed in tribulation.

Heb. 11:35. Those suffering persecution but not accepting a "full release" from this if they would but deny Christ.

Rom. 8:23. The waiting for the "full release" from the pains and ills that accompany our present mortality.

Heb. 9:15. The "full release" of the New Covenant made with Israelites, showing that it was also retroactive to those who had sinned under the Old Covenant. Heb. 10:4 bluntly states that the blood of slain animals could never take away sin. At best, they were but dim types and shadows of the reality of Christ's perfect presence and complete work. Animals were a "forced" sacrifice, less than infants in their understanding, not accountable for either moral or legal issues that are so much a part of human society.

Rom. 3:24. The "full release" in Christ Jesus that graciously extends free justification to all that believe.

1 Cor. 1:30. "Christ is made unto us. .. redemption." Here, the entire work of Christ respecting salvation is intended.

Eph. 4:30. The Day of Full Release! For this great step towards experimentally entering into what had been until then, hope, God's Spirit has "sealed" us, indelibly placing within us a mark (that life of Christ within us, seeking its master-image that it might mature into that likeness).

Eph. 1:7 & Col. 1:14. In both these texts the unique, perfect, and complete redemption gives “forgiveness,” the "aphesis," the "dismissal" of all that might ever come between us and God, not a "paresis" a "passing over" as in the O.T., where sins were neither forgiven nor forgotten, but temporally "covered." This "full release" with such a full forgiveness is fully in accord with the riches of the grace of God; it is completely FREE. In the Ephesian passage this full release flows from the engracement (Gr. text) that we have in the Beloved, and in the Colossian from our having been made fully fit for our allotment of the saints in light and having been transferred into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love. How blessed it is for God to do the preparing for all this. No doubt we should have prepared ourselves if we could have, but since even our best efforts fall so far short of His, it is better to lay ours aside and trust to His faithfulness and that in all things He will do more than is required, and more than enough.

d. Antilutron:

The above is composed from the Gr. preposition Anti. and Lutron. Lutron being the means used to loosen or redeem, and

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Anti, denoting equivalence and exchange. The importance of this preposition lies in that it expresses the concept of "exchange. " All of us have heard it used in the word, "Antichrist" (1 John 2:18), and while the thought of opposition, adversary, one against another, or contradiction, may come to mind in its usage rightly so, nonetheless of all the usages, the thought of exchanging one thing or person for another is in the forefront. A few texts illustrate this:

Because out of His Fullness

we all received,

Even favor over against (anti) favor

(John 1:16).

"Grace" is here personified in Christ Jesus as over against a shadowy former grace as typified in Moses (verse 17a).

... unto no one evil for (anti) evil rendering.

Giving back in kind, stroke for stroke, burning for burning, hate for hate, tooth for tooth, eye for eye might well be the principle of governing a society in which all moral values have collapsed. But as much as things are influenced by a believer, he is to be a man of peace (see 12:18).

The two following texts use Anti in a beautiful way. The first, I Heb. 12:2, is difficult to translate so as to show how Anti is used, but let us try:

... Who instead (anti) of the joy then

present with Him, endured the cross,

despising the shame

(Wuest Trans).

Wuest feels that Christ exchanged the joy that He then possessed for a cross, despising the shame. The Concordant Version places the "joy" into the future:

Who, instead of the joy lying before Him,

endures a cross, despising the shame.

In his translation, Rotherham looks at the text and sees Christ exchanging His future joy as full compensation for His present sufferings: ,

Who (in consideration of the joy lying before Him)

Endured a cross, shame despising!

Whether the "joy" was present or future, an exchange was made.

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The earlier text mentioned, Matt. 20:28, is very clear:

Just as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to

minister, and, to give His life a ransom instead of many.

How beautiful the metaphor presents Christ as the Great Price, the Ransom, One stepping forth from the ranks of humanity to meet a greater foe than did David of old. Instead of five stones to front the enemy, He has five wounds!

Antilutron occurs only once in Scripture:

For One is God, One also is Mediator

of God and of men, The Man, Christ Jesus,

Who did give Himself a ransom (anti-lutron)

for all —- the testimony in its own times-

(1 Tim. 2:5, 6, Young's Lit. Trans).

An exchanging means of release, i.e., a ransom for all. Not merely the "many" of the Matt. 20:28 text, but enlarged to “all.” In His dual personality of Son of God and Son of Man, being a mediator in Himself of both, He offers Himself, and He, Himself is the Ransom or means of release, and this to all. The text itself does not define the "all." It could be all without distinctions of race, language, sex, color, etc. It could be all without exceptions of any kind, and be as broad as the reconciliation mentioned in Col. 1:20. One element stressed in this use of Antilutron is that of Christ being the complete exchange, the full representation of all of us that could not be personally and experimentally in the market- place of Calvary where the great drama of our Antilutron was wrought. He exchanged places with us, with those living in the past, the present, and the future.

There are other Greek words associated with redemption, but enough has been said to see the issues. There is, in all the foregoing, no one to receive a "payment of ransom!' neither “sin,” nor "self," nor "Satan." The firm portion of the figure used is that God through Christ has invested heavily in us, and has used this means to release us fully from the domination of self, sin, the world-system, and Satan. If sin is a debt, redemption will be its payment; if a bondage, redemption will be its deliverance; if a

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heritage is lost, redemption will restore it; if a fall, redemption will uplift; if it is slavery, redemption will be liberty; if it is a lien, redemption will be its payment; if it is alienation, redemp­tion will be reconciliation; if it is offense or transgression, then redemption will be forgiveness. Redemption is God's gift of love to us in Christ Jesus.

2. Expiation as a Penal-judicial Substitution. (See page 70.)

The concept of penal substitution as an explanation of the death of Christ sees in most sacrifices, and particularity in the death of Christ, a judicial substitution. In this concept, sin is looked upon as a capital and direct offense and sovereignty of God. It follows then that Divine holiness and majesty be upheld, and that requital be made to God with the most extreme penalty possible to the offender, i.e., that he (or she) be put to death, or if this is not practical, an adequate substitute be found, or if this is refused, then (at least tradition­ally) after one's natural death, they be sent to an eternal hell for either one or many sins. The animal sacrifices of the O.T. seem to coincide with this concept, at least to a degree:

For, as for the life (soul) of the flesh, in the blood

it is, therefore have I given it (the blood) unto

you upon the altar, to put a propitiatory-

covering over your lives (souls), for the blood it

is which by virtue of the life (soul) maketh

propitiation (Lev. 17:11).

... for the life of all flesh the blood thereof for

the life thereof standeth (Lev. l7:14).

Blood is looked upon in the O.T. as the vehicle of life; modern medicine concurs. The "life of the flesh" and the "soul of the flesh” are the same thing. "Soul" and "life," either in animals or man, are synonyms in Scripture. In the original Heb. text of the O.T. all things that have life are called "soul" or “Nephesh!” A reader of the A.V. is kept in ignorance of this by the vagaries of the translators. It (nephesh-soul) occurs 754 times in the Heb. O.T. It is translated "soul" 472 times, and in 282 other places it is translated by forty-four different words or phrases. In the Scriptures, the life of animals is looked upon as belonging to God, and as such, and because of moral inability, He gives it to man to utilize to sustain his life, but always reserving the merit,

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worth, or sacredness of the animal by declaring it to be given of God, even though it was a wild animal or bird used only for food (Lev. 17:13).

Not all offerings were "sin" offerings, nor were all offerings "blood" offerings. Some were of the "fruits" of the soil. In all the verity of "sin" offerings under the law, sin was not looked upon as being remitted, but as merely being "covered." The N.T. book of Hebrews (Ch. 9 and 10) plainly states that these sacrifices called to mind one's sins (Heb. 10:3), and each one pointed out that the "offerer" was guilty (not the animal), for as Heb. 10:4 points out so vividly, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. So there was no actual substitution involved in the Sacrificial System of the Law! Could it possibly be that in the "pressing down upon the animal" that the offerer was confessing not the sinfulness of the victim, but his own guilt? And that his guilt was causing the death of one who was completely innocent of any offense whatever? That the victim was pure, spotless and without blemish? That it represented the purity that mankind's sin had lost, and that sin within us has slain? Could we have been reading the figure wrong all these years? Could it be saying, here stand in the role of this pure innocent perfect animal, but it hurt no one, harmed no one, is sinless and undefiled, but sin in me slays what is innocent and pure and undefiled in me and in others! I press upon it, it is bound, it cannot move, just as I cannot be free of my sin and my guilt! Will God let its purity be the plea for the purity I should have had, and did not? Will He let its untimely death at my hands be my confession that my sin destroys all things beautiful in me and in others? Will He let its death be a confession of what sin in me deserves, and that I see it before me as its life ebbs away in a crimson flood? He declares its purity, its spotlessness, its dress, it shall be for you a cover­ing! The Kipper! Christ never became sinful; He was alone the Sinless One of the sinful race.

In all the offerings of the Law of Israel, no provision was ever made for capital crimes against man, and for major infractions of the Law, against God. The outright death penalty was held for both. For manslaughter, the offender could flee to the City of Refuge, stay there until the High Priest in office died.

Penal-Substitution sees a conflict between God as Love and God as Holiness. It is as though God wears a frowning face but a loving Christ proceeds against this God of Justice as though He was an enemy to be defeated, but that God exacts the utmost price

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or all sins, and that for each, the defendant must be damned.

The closing act in this drama of penal-substitution is that of the innocent defender coining before this Bar of Justice, and presenting His own blood as a substitute for the guilty. God, The Judge, and His awesome holiness is satisfied.

In contrast to this is the teaching of Scripture as to the nature and being of God. It is God Who is our Savior (Titus 1:3), “… the love of God our Savior” (3:4), “… the great God and Saviour of us, Christ Jesus” (2:13), and John speaks of the Father uttering the very words of Christ. 2 Cor. 5:13-21 tells how God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. No, there is no conflict between God in His holiness and God in His love.

In penal-substitution the innocent is punished for the guilty. Of all injustices, this would not be countenanced or approved in any civilized court in the world. Nor did the O.T. approve of it:

Fathers shall not be put to death for sons, nor shall sons be put to death for fathers, every man for his own sin shall be put to death (Deut. 24:16).

If then punishment falls upon one who is stranger to one's self, it is not punishment at all. If penal-substitution were indeed the intent of the sacrificial system, then each sin should be balanced by one death (that is if all sins are equally an affront to God), or, if not each sin, then each sinner should have a "one for one" ratio, ad inf. Only if the nature of the punishment, the sin, and the victim be changed can another "pure" but completely voluntary person (like Christ) be brought into the judicial aspects of sin. This is exactly what the Scriptures do, and it is a procedure that God alone can do, for if the same were followed in a human court of law, it would wreck the whole judicial process. The process is better left to accounting houses, banks, loan companies, etc., rather than to the criminal court systems, that is, “imputation.” In finance, your "account" is credited, reckoned, or imputed with so much cash. No actual gold, silver, or curren­cy is actually "enveloped" and placed in your account, rather it is "imputed” or "reckoned" to you. In all imputation there must be some association, some basis, some foundation for the act of "imputation."

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Imputation is practiced, for instance, when one"reckons" that printed paper used for currency represents some value. The world's currency system is based upon imputation and faith. When faith in the representative value of those little slips of paper fails, nations flounder. The Greek word involved here is "logizomai," to set down accounts, to occupy oneself with reckonings or calculations, to reckon or count, to reckon any thing to a person, to put it to his account, either in his favor or what he must be answerable for. The N.T. usage of this word as it applies to this subject of penal-substitution overwhelms one:

For I say unto you—

This that is written must needs be

completed in Me, --

And With Lawless Ones Was He Reckoned:

For that which concerneth Me hath

completion.

And they said--

Lord, lo! two swords here!

And He said unto them--

“Tis enough!”

(Lk. 22:37, 38).

The two swords were sufficient to establish the charge of law-­ lessness even though Christ forbade Peter to use the sword. While Christ was "reckoned" as being with those transgressing the law of Israel and of Rome, still He never did anything but fulfill the law by keeping it perfectly. He had no use for the "traditions" of the elders that added to the Law of God, making it an unbearable burden. Paul's words in 2 Cor. 5:21 (also, John 8:46; 1 Pet. 2:22; Heb. 4:15; 7:26; 1 John 3:5):

He Who knew not sin should be sufficient for us, for our learning. He never knew sin, He always did the will of the Father. To be a sinner, one must sin, either in thought, word, or deed. Of course, we judge as sin outward acts, whereas God looks to motives, etc. Legalism, lack of love, selfishness, not living by faith in God's Word, can be far more serious in God's sight than some overt acts that are purely physical. This text should settle the issue of whether there was an actual substitutionary transference of our sins to Christ whereby He became sinful. In keeping with this, the verse continues:

… for Him Who did not know sin,

in our behalf He did make sin (not a sinner)

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that we may become the

Righteousness of God in Him

(Young's Lit. Trans).

The A.V., "made Him to be sin" has added a "to be" that is not in the Greek. Nor is the verbal form used since Christ was not made a "sinner" as to His nature, nor by imputation. Christ was "reckoned" indeed with transgressors in His death, and He was brought into our existence and state of sin by His union with our humanity, but He Himself did not sin, knew not sin, was without sin, was holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners in His character, and sin found no lodgment in Him at all at any time (see texts cited, page 79). The "sin" of the race had to be identified with Him in order that His purity, His righteousness, His perfect obedience even unto death, might be imputed to the one hitherto offending. The "sin-offerings" of Lev. 1:3-17 are a case in point. The offering was burned up completely, not as a token of Divine judgment, but as of "acceptance" as a sweet savor to God, and the purity of the slain victim was given as a "covering" for the one offending. Human sacrifice, on the other hand, as a substitute, was forbidden (Lev. 20:1-5). If the death of Christ was an actual physical substitution for our death, then no one ever would die physically. If we say we need not die spiritually, then a "spiritual" death is imputed to Christ, and nothing in Scripture warrants that. Even the darkest hour midst His lonely sufferings, even to the very words He uttered, the "forsaken cry," even this was "obedience" to the very will of God; instead of being evidence of having been made sin, it was evidence of His righteousness. And, it is this righteousness that is imputed to us:

Even as David also affirmeth the

happiness of the man unto whom God

renkoneth righteousness apart from

works:--

"Happy they whose lawlessnesses have

been forgiven, and whose sins have

been covered; happy the man whose

sin the Lord will in nowise reckon." (Rom. 4:6-8).

The "Not reckoning unto them their offenses" is repeated in 2 Cor. 5:19. This is, of course, different than not imputing sin when there is no law to define an act as sinful. Can one imagine

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a court of law not imputing a man's criminal offenses against him? Not only that but:

Whereas unto him that worketh not,

but believeth on Him that declareth

righteous the ungodly, his faith is

reckoned as righteousness (Rom. 4:5).

God declares an ungodly person righteous! In a court of law, this would be comparable to declaring a guilty man innocent! On the basis of God's great imputation in Christ Jesus, GOD:

1. Does not impute sin to the sinful

2. Declares righteous the ungodly

3. Lets the "unifying" principle of faith be

imputed as "righteousness" and that more over

the very righteousness of Christ Himself, as

though we were the ones who had "obeyed unto death."

There is this judicial aspect to God's dealing with us, and God meets it by this type of process. In this connection John 1:29 must have a bearing upon how Christ identified Himself with sin:

See! The Lamb Of God!

Who is now bearing the sin of the world

(Gr. Critical Text).

"Airo," to bear, is in the present tense, and thereby draws our attention to the added truth that Christ in His pure humanity felt the weight and burden of mankind's sin. Not "sins" in their multi-­ plicity, but that simple ingredient within mankind that causes him to veer from the path of rectitude. Amongst the many "reckonings" in the book of Romans, Ch. 6:11 touches upon this same subject:

So ye also be reckoning yourselves to be ­Dead

indeed unto sin,

But alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

The basis of this "reckoning," treats the sin (not sins) element within us as though we were "dead" to it, is based upon the greater truth that a new center has come into our lives, a new polarity, a new reference arising out of Christ's living union with us, and His spirit within us, and our having shared in His death; sin, the ill old man within us:

… was crucified together with Him (Rom. 6:6).

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What we should have done, putting the sin-element within us to death, God so credits us by the "joint-crucifying" with Christ that we have with Him by virtue of His race-headship and faith, so the union is followed by our "joint-dying" with Him (Rom. 6:8, Col. 2:20), by being "co-buried" (Col. 2:12) and then being "jointly made alive" (Eph. 2:5, Col. 2:13) and "jointly-raised" and "jointly-seated in the heavenlies in Christ" (Eph. 2:6).

The grace and justice of God are both honored by Christ’s unity with the race, and our unity with Him, by faith, and by His full obedience showing forth His righteousness, even to death. We die in Him, receive the stroke due sin, and as it in Him, slays us.

No doubt what is done for another has the concept of ex­change in it, but in having both God and man meet in Christ, in His perfect person and work, therein lays a foundation so that God can at once manifestly demonstrate His love, and man can demonstrate His union with Christ by faith in Him and in His work on his behalf. God is honored; Christ is honored, and "faith" forms the bridge whereby God lets us enjoy the benefits.

Whatever was required to meet any demands arising from a "trespass" of the law of God (for those under the law), Christ intensively and essentially met. The ultimate "curse" that could be placed upon one breaking the Law of Moses was to slay and then after death, suspend him on a tree (Gal. 3:13). See Deut. 21:23 and Josh. 10:26. The latter act of crucifixion was to show the shame and contempt due one for breaking the Law (The Romans crucified as a means of torture, then slew the offender; the Jew slew first, then crucified to show shame.). So in Christ's dying, every contingency was taken into account. Not apart from the race, not apart from the law, not apart from righteousness, but in Himself meeting every need, and we in Him finding all we ever needed. Paul wrote in Gal. 2:20:

With Christ have I been crucified;

And living no longer am I,

But living in me is Christ,

While so far as I now do live in flesh

By faith I live --

The faith in (“of” -- objective gen.) The

Son of God, Who loved me,

And gave Himself up in my behalf.

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A new spirit of life had entered Paul and those like him; the ego was still there but put into proper perspective; the merger of his interests and Christ's were now the same.

3. Redemption as Satisfaction:

In this concept of redemption, sin is an offense against God. The offense cannot go unrequited. Sin is a lien against Divine justice until it has been paid. Since sin is against the being and government of God, it takes upon itself the nature of high treason. Since it is against an infinite being, it is looked upon as an infinite wrong. Only an Infinite Being, cooperating on a human and Divine level via the Incarnation, can satisfy the demands of Divine honor and infinite holiness. Only an incarnate Christ can offer complete satisfaction to God's holiness so as to cancel out the offense. Christ, by virtue of His dual nature as Son of God and Son of Man, gives an infinite value to His redeem­ing death; thus restoring to God the honor and glory that sin had withheld, and He restores it super-abundantly.

Sin does bring God's honor, holiness, and justice into doubt. Any breech of the Divine will brings into question God's actual Sovereignty. Why, if Sovereign, is His will flouted? If holy, why do sin and sinners thrive? If just, why injustice? If love, why do the gentlest and purest of the race suffer? Redemption, while not the full answer, at least gives a partial answer.

Notice, in the follow texts how much of the above is set forth and answered:

Being declared righteous freely by

His favor through the redemption

that is in Christ Jesus:--

Whom God hath set forth as a propitiatory

covering, through faith in His blood,

For a showing forth of His righteousness,

by reason of the passing by of the

previously committed sins in the

forbearance of God, --

With a view to a showing forth of His

righteousness in the present season,

That He might be righteous even when

declaring righteous him that hath

faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:24, 25).

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Divine justice is vindicated, sin has been dealt the blow it deserves, the righteousness of God is honored, and the offender is spared by His grace and declared righteous upon his faith in the redemptive death by owning Christ as “Jesus,” i.e., "Jehovah The Saviour."

The lien of sin has been satisfactorily met. The moral deed of Christ has adjusted the proportional judgment due the sinner. The reparation for man's offenses by Christ is more than sufficient for all sins for all times.

The primary problem in the legal-satisfaction aspect of redemption, is not in its basis in Scripture, but rather how it is accomplished. Can merit be transferred from the Innocent One to the guilty? Can demerit be transferred from the guilty to The Innocent One?

Or, was Christ functioning out of His pure humanity as the true head of the human family, as it were, an extension of our­selves, doing all in our behalf as the first Adam should have done as the physical, moral and spiritual head of the race?

Does our faith "amen" His efforts and affirm our union and loyalty to Him? Is the rejection of unbelief a disowning of Christ as The "Son of Man" and "Son of God"?

________________________________________________________________

The Synthesizing of Redemption

Each of the views of redemption (see page 70) are incomplete in themselves, and if viewed separately without considering that each view contributes to a composite whole, then an injury is done to the truth of redemption.

Sin is a bondage from which we could not free ourselves, and sin incurs a debt (the wages of sin is death, Rom. 6:23) that we are unable to pay. It is not a stranger to ourselves that secures our release, but a Kinsman Redeemer.

Christ died for us, on our behalf. Rom. 5:6-8 states that, while we were weak, ungodly and even enemies, He alone in His pure humanity did not deserve to die. But Roman 6:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:20-22 teaches that Christ did this as the "Last Adam,” the rightful Head of the Human Family. By our association of faith God accepts us as being in Him when this was done.

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Certainly, justice is satisfied in Christ's redemption or we could not avoid standing before an offended judge. God has accepted payment at my bleeding Surety's hands. But, I am part of Him, and He of me. What I was unable to do, too weak to do, too ill disposed to do, too wayward to do, He does in my behalf! Is not this then the balancing factor in the varied concepts of redemption, that Christ comprises and summarizes in Him­self all that man was meant to be; He, in His sinless per­fections epitomizes the wholeness the race was meant to have, and that in His perfect work of redemption, fulfills completely His duty of the family's Kinsman-Redeemer? How beautifully He carries out the task of Mediator, as the Man, for mankind, and as Deity, for God:

For One God is. One also Mediator

of God and of men,

A Man, Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5 Gr. Text).

As Man, the oblation is made acceptable in all His acceptableness. As Deity, God is loving, justifying, reconciling, accepting, for­giving, claiming, owning ...

In keeping with this thought of being united with Christ in His redemptive work, consider again the following:

For the love of Christ doth constrain us,

having judged thus:

that if One for all died,

then the whole died,

and, for all He died, that those living,

no more to themselves may live,

But to Him, Who died for them,

and was raised again

(2 Cor. 5:14, 15, Young's Lit. T).

A literal physical substitution would state that if Christ died for all then all would not have to die. But Paul states the very opposite: "the whole died," in Him, with Him. He died indeed in their behalf, and lives in their behalf, and with them and in them. He died to the benefit and profit of all. All of us died with Christ when He died, for such was our union with Him in His humanity. Our racial incorporation into Christ, and His into our humanity was the very object of the Incarnation. He was innocent and pure, but no outsider to our cause. He was the only qualified member of the race to fulfill this task and, as such, He

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fulfills it. God accepts us as having died when Christ died. If God is willing to so reckon, shall not we? Shall we leave to others the speculation as to whether this is a physical death, a moral death, a second death, a myst­ical death, and trust God that He knows what He is doing in so reckoning? As far as God is concerned, we are fully associated with Christ at the moment of His death centuries ago.

Thankfully, the Scriptures do not limit our union with Christ to just His death, but follows on to a living, vital, union with Him in His resurrection life. This union is external in the sense that Christ exists and lives apart from us, and internal, within us, by the spirit He has given us. He becomes:

The First Adam became a living soul,

The Last Adam, a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).

Our role in all this is one of faith: faith that our Redeemer did the right and just thing. We see too that such love has a drawing power all its own, and we too must take our place and be counted as one with our glorious Christ. We see God in another light, a Loving Father using His sovereignty to carry out a plan whereby His holiness, good­ness, mercy, grace and love, all might be brought to bear upon our need of redemption, and accomplishing it in Christ.

_________________________________________________________

Three Nails

With Christ Have I Been Crucified

(Gal. 2:20)

How often, Master, Thou hast called for me,

And I, in shame, how often have replied

Like Adam, naked, silence giving Thee,

Enveloped in my leaves, my sin to hide!

A thousand times I followed Thy pierced feet,

Easy to grasp, since nailed to a tree;

But just as often went in sin's pursuit,

Despite the price with which Thou boughtest me!

With kiss of friendship I have Thee betrayed!

But as a master doth his wayward slave

Chastise (rebellious back with rod he flails)

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So see me here returned, if long delayed;

Hang with Thee there upon Thy Cross

Thy Slave

And, end my wanderings with Thine own

Three Nails!

Dr. J. A. Roddy

THE ETERNAL

REASON

All things point to many vast mysteries in and beyond the material universes. There are and will always be innumerable gulfs that our finite reasoning cannot bridge. On the universal scale of measurement, our weight would be less than the dust on the balances. Our infinitesimal stance in time and place are the chains that bind us. Yet, and speaking with all humility, man has an inner mystery that makes for uniqueness midst all the visible creation, that of a mind with an inquisitive spirit wanting to know. Man has a consciousness of self-existence, of being, that lets him perceive himself as a spectator and as a participator in the great drama of creation. He can see himself, and yet, look beyond himself. Man reaches his greatest stature when he reaches out to the illimitable superior Being of God, and knows that all of creation, everywhere, is but a micro-flicker of power to One Who is infinite. Man's frailest limitations are in the realm of the physical; his greatest strengths are that of the spirit when he transcends his lowly passions to worship, to be compassionate, to forgive, to love, and to dream … to mold his thinking so as to be Christ-like.

__________

Every serious thinking person must ponder and speculate upon the reason, the origin, and the goal of all things. The Word of God gives a gentle push upon this imponderable door of knowledge;

Oh! The depth of the riches and wisdom

and knowledge of God!

How unsearchable His judgments!

And, untraceable His ways!

Because, of (ex) Him, and through (dia)

Him, and unto (eis) Him

are (the) all things.

Unto Him be the glory, unto the Ages.

Amen!

(Rom. 11:33, 36).

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The texts readily confess that there shall always be mystery associated with God, there will always be the unsearchable and untraceable. Only another One such as Himself could comprehend His being. Of course, more than one unlimited being would be a contradiction. Of this mysterious aloneness Isaiah writes:

I am, First and Last

and besides Me,

There is no God.

Whether there is a God besides Me?

... I know of none!

(Isa. 44:6, 8).

God, self-sufficient! Underived, self-existent, absolute, age­less, eternal, all powerful, everywhere, all-knowing, and perfect with an unlimited excellence compatible with all other excellences. God, a moral being perfect in holiness, righteous­ness, and love. These perfect absolutes must always remain the prerogatives of this independent Being. All other beings are derived and dependent. The gulf between the dependent and the absolute can never be bridged, but the Absolute can reach across the abyss with the lights of creation pointing the way toward Himself.

The text, Rom. 11:36, breaths one of the most transcendent truths ever expressed. That God is:

1. The Source of All.

2. The Channel of All.

3. The Object of All.

It is interesting that what is here predicated of "God" is elsewhere spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Who is the Image (Eikon) of the Invisible God, First-born (Ownership title) of all creation,

because, In Him where the all things created, those in the heavens,

and those upon the Earth,

those visible, and those invisible,

whether thrones, whether lordships

whether principalities, whether prin-

cipalities, whether authorities;

all things through Him, and for Him, have been created.

And, Himself is before all, and all the things

in Him have consisted

(Col. 1:15-17, Young's Lit. Trans).

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What greater testimony to the Deity of our Lord? Creation being in Him, through Him, and unto Him! Not only do these verses proclaim that creation resides in Christ as Creator (before the Incarnation, of course), but also through Christ as the efficient medium, the Creative Word, through Whom it came into being.

While the Roman 11:36 passage identifies the goal (Gr. eis, for, toward, unto) as being God, the Col. 1:16 passage is more specific, and identifies it as being Christ, the Eikon of the other­wise Invisible God.

Both passages clearly state that the eternal reason for all Divine activity has been, is, and will always be God's own being. This eternal reason is locked up within Himself. To express it another way:

1. All things are out of His Infinite Perfections

2. All things are through His Infinite Perfections

3. All things are for or unto His Infinite Perfections.

Creation is out of the perfections of His own being and for His own perfect ends. He, Himself, in His own perfections is the object and goal of all things. So then all things must be an expression of His perfections, and the goal of all things will be His perfections.

God has for us a goal as we are a part of the “all things.” That goal is Himself, in Christ.

The question arises, "Is God selfish in this?"

The Scriptures state:

to sum-up together, the all things

in Christ,

the things upon the heavens,

and, the things upon the earth;

in Him. (Nestle Gr. Text.)

God's expressed goal is to "sum-up together" the all things in Christ. He is to be in all the "parts" and all the "parts" are to be in Him, for only thus can He be its “Sum.” All are to have and be part of His perfections. This is one facet of all things being "unto Him." Another would be the entering into the perfect love of God (Eph. 3:14-21) in Christ. Another would be to experi­ence the grace of God in the on-corning ages (Eph. 2:7). But in all this and a host of other things in the Ephesian Letter, for instance, is “for Himself!” or “in His own behalf,” an expression of the Greek "middle-voice" that has no counter-part in English.

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Is God then wrong for bringing Himself within the sphere of our humanity, of interposing Himself so as to disrupt the goal mankind would have had without Him?

Is it fitting that we should be created, redeemed, engraced, and loved, not only for our own sakes but for His own perfect end? Is it ill of God to encompass us with His own perfect love, for His own perfect holy and noble goals? Or, is it better that man be enthroned and be made to serve his own ends?

Can it be that we judge God's holy (wholeness) love on the basis of our own? But selfishness implies that happiness is on the basis that one must obtain from another what they have in order to be happy. Paul had stated in the 17^th chapter of Acts that God had no needs whatever; His own perfections have always been sufficient, and man has nothing to contribute to the Divine Being, since man and all creation are dependents, "for life, and breath, and all things." Hence, there is no selfishness with God for He already has everything, and by encircling us within His perfections He does not increase those perfections.

In Him, out of Him, through Him, and unto Him are all things! We can be spectators and participators in this great manifestation of the Divine Being, be part of the great design God has in manifesting His perfections and letting us move on with them to an ever enlarging goal, a goal that must be as vast as God's manifestation allows. Surely in light of such ends we cannot believe that it is fitting that we look at God and see in Him only a glorified servant to man's needs, to serve man's own ends. Human history has already written that tragic page.

Willingness to be dependent upon the infinite perfections of the Divine character, and the unselfish ends, will always give room for an unending manifestation, and an unending progress.

God makes no apology for making His own being in Christ, the total reason for "all things." In the words of 1 Cor. 15:28b:

That God may be all things in all!

The Incarnation (according to the context) served this end; the Sonship of Christ as a manifestation of the Divine perfections served this end. The end? God's infinite perfections might be in the ALL, EVERYWHERE. It is not that ALL shall be in God that is stressed here, for all creation has always been in Him, but when He saw fit to create beings and give them "choice," then they chose not to have His person or perfections, and in place of the perfect, chose a lesser end. God has not abandoned His limitless goal; it will be secured when all stand manifestly

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perfect and complete in Christ.

God has nothing to gain by being selfish. His well-being and attributes are not dependent upon another, but are fulfilled with­in Himself. For instance, His love is perfect in itself, it cannot be enlarged, nor diminished, and it can only be shared for noble ends.

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CONCLUSION

While God's dealings may change, there are no changes in His character. His own perfections have always been the origi­nating cause and object of His creative acts. Nor, because He created, did He set aside the right of programming creation in such a way that it would ultimately be a testimony to His own infinite perfections. Nor does the act of creation ever imply that a new or different goal had now been set forth.

In His invisibility and absoluteness, God must always remain alone. The very immensity and incomparable greatness of His essential being is the barrier that disallows God from showing the totality of His being. What God can make known of Himself is very limited, and this only through a Divine Medium of Him­self, a Creative Instrument out from His essential being, with self-imposed limitations, causing within the Godhood a unity of being, a plurality. That is, the Invisible God, the Unseen Father, a Spirit being everywhere and in all things, and on the other hand: God in communication, in creation, in manifestation, in redemption, in rule.

God Himself, in His own perfections manifest in Christ Jesus our Lord, is the answer to the how, why, what and to what end is creation and all else.

In closing, a few verses of Scripture are given. Some of these in a capsule way will reflect some of the truths touched upon in this study, especially the latter section. It is suggested that all these pages be slowly and carefully studied. It is all meant to be a study, not material casually scanned and then thrown aside with the remark, "I cannot understand it!"

Eph. 1:4, 5. Even as He has chosen us in Him before the world was founded, to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined us in Jesus Christ for His Sonship, in agreement with the kind intent of His will (Berkley Version).

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Eph. 1:10, 11. For an administration of the fullness of the seasons, to reunite for Himself under one head, the all things in the Christ, the things upon the heavens, and the things upon the Earth, in Him: in Whom also we were taken as an inheritance, according to the purpose of Him Who energiseth all things according to the counsel of His will.

Eph. 2:7. That He might point out in the oncoming ages the surpassing riches of His favor in graciousness upon us, in Christ Jesus.

Col. 1:14-17. In Whom we have our redemption -- the remission of our sins, --

Who is an Image of the Unseen God, Firstborn of all creation, -- because IN HIM were created all things in the heavens and upon the Earth. The things seen and the things unseen, whether thrones or lordships or principalities or authorities, -- they all THROUGH HIM and FOR HIM have been created, and He is before all, and they all in Him hold together.

Rom. 11:33-36. Oh! The depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments! And untraceable His ways! For who hath come to know the mind of the Lord? Or, who hath become His counselor? Or, who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him?

Because OF HIM, and THROUGH HIM, and UNTO HIM are all things: —

Unto Him be the glory unto the ages. Amen!

Col. 1:12, 13. Giving thanks unto the Father that hath made you sufficient for your share in the inheritance of the saints in light, Who hath rescued us out of the authority of the darkness, and translated (us) into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love.

Col. 3:11b ... But all things and in all, Christ (after the image of Him that hath created him).

Eph. 2:10. His, in fact we are -- His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.

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