Chapter IV. The Sentence of Death—The Ruin of the Old World, and the Preservation of a Remnant

The Constitution of Righteousness

“Constituted the righteousness of God in Christ.”

The former things being admitted, if men would be righteous in God’s esteem, they must become such by constitution also. The “good actions” of a pious sinner are mere “dead works;” for the actions of a sinner to be of any worth in relation to the future state, he must be “constituted righteous;” and this can only be by his coming under a constitution made and provided for the purpose. A stranger and foreigner from the commonwealth of the States, can only become a fellow-citizen with Americans, by taking the oath of abjuration, fulfilling the time of his probation, and taking the oath of allegiance according to the provisions of the constitution.

Now, the Kingdom of God has a constitution as well as the Kingdom of Satan, or that province of it styled the United States. Before sinners come under it, they are characterized as “without Christ, being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God (αθεοι atheists) in the world.”^c They are termed “far off,”^c “strangers and foreigners,”^c “walking in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from p. 132 the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.”^a But, mark the sacred style descriptive of sinners after they have been placed under the constitution of Israel’s Commonwealth, which is the Kingdom of God. “You that were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ;” “through him you have access by one spirit to the Father; and are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God”—“fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of God’s promise in Christ by the gospel.”^b In this remarkable contrast is discoverable a great change in state and character predicated of the same persons. How was this transformation effected? This question is answered by the phrase, “In Christ by the gospel.” The “in” expresses the state; the “by,” the instrumentality by which the state and character are changed.

As the constitution of sin hath its root in the disobedience of the First Adam, so also hath the constitution of righteousness root in the obedience of the Second Adam. Hence, the apostle says, “As through one offence (sentence was pronounced) upon all men unto condemnation; so also through one righteousness (sentence was pronounced) upon all men (that is, Jews and Gentiles) unto a justification of life. For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted (κατεσταθησαν) sinners; so also through the obedience of the one the many were constituted righteous.”^c The two Adams are two federal chiefs; the first being figurative of the second^d in these relations. All sinners are in the first Adam; and all the righteous, in the second, only on a different principle. Sinners were in the loins of the former when he transgressed; but not in the loins of the latter, when he was obedient unto death; therefore, “the flesh profiteth nothing.” For this cause, then, for sons of Adam to become sons of God, they must be the subjects of an adoption, which is attainable only by some divinely appointed means.

The apostle then brings to light two sentences, which are co-extensive, but not co-etaneous in their bearing upon mankind. The one is a sentence of condemnation, which consigns “the many,” both believing Jews and Gentiles, to the dust of the ground; the other is a sentence which affects the same “many,” and brings them out of the ground again to return thither no more. Hence, of the saints it is said, “The body is dead because of sin; but the spirit (gives) life because of righteousness;”^e for “since by a man came death, by a man also came a resurrection of dead persons (αναστασις νεκρων). For as in Adam they all die, so also in Christ shall they all be made alive. But every one in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward “they that are Christ’s at his coming.”^f It is obvious that the apostle is not writing of all the p. 133 individuals of the human race; but only of that portion of them that become the subject of “a justification of life,” δικαιωσις ζωης. It is true, that all men do die; but it is not true that they are all the subjects of justification. Those who are justified are “the many,” οι πολλοι, who are sentenced to live for ever. Of the rest we shall speak hereafter.

The sentence to justification of life is through Jesus Christ. In being made a sacrifice for sin by the pouring out of his blood upon the cross, he was set forth as a blood sprinkled mercy seat to all believers of the gospel of the kingdom, who have faith in this remission of sins through the shedding of his blood. “He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;”^a that is, for the pardon of those who believe the gospel; as it is written, “He that believeth the gospel and is baptised shall be saved.”^b Hence, “the obedience of faith,”^c is made the condition of righteousness; and this obedience implies the existence of a “law of faith,” as attested by that of Moses, which is “the law of works.”^d The law of faith says to him who believes the gospel of the kingdom, “Be renewed, and be ye every one of you baptised in the name (επι τω ονοματι) of Jesus Christ for remission of sins.”^e

Here is a command which meets a man as a dividing line between the State of Sin and the State of Righteousness. The obedience of faith finds expression in the name of Jesus as “the mercy seat through faith in his blood.” Hence the apostle says to the disciples in Corinth, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, idolators, adulterers, effeminate, abusers of themselves with mankind, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye were washed, sanctified, and made righteous (εδικαιωθητε) in the name (εν τω ονοματι) of the Lord Jesus, and in the spirit (εν τω πνευματι) of our God.”^f Thus, the spirit, which is put for the gospel of the kingdom and name, renewed these profligates; the divine law and testimony attested by the spirit with signs, and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts,^g and believed with a full assurance of conviction that worked in them by love to will and to do—caused them to be “washed in the name,” to be “sanctified in the name,” and to be “made righteous in the name of Jesus Christ.”

It must be clear to any man, unspoiled by a vain and deceitful philosophy, that to be washed in a name is impossible, unless the individual have faith in the name, and be subjected to the use of a fluid in some way. Now, when a man is “washed in the name of Jesus Christ,” there are three witnesses to the fact, by whose testimony every thing is established. These are the spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree in one statement. Jesus Christ was made manifest by water at his baptism;^h and by blood in his p. 134 death; and by the spirit in his resurrection: therefore, the spirit who is the truth (το πνευμα εστιν ἡ αληθεια), and the water, and the blood, or the truth concerning the Messiahship, sacrificial character, and resurrection of Jesus, are constituted the witnesses who bear testimony to a man’s being the subject of “the righteousness of God”^a set forth in the gospel of His Kingdom. The testimony of these witnesses is termed “the witness of God,” which every believer of the Kingdom and Name hath as “the witness in himself.”^b

Water, then, is the medium in which the washing occurs. But, although water is so accessible in all parts of the world where the gospel has been preached, it is one of the most difficult things under heaven to use it so as to wash a man in the name of Jesus Christ. What! says one, is it difficult to get a man to be dipped in water as a religious action? No; it is very easy. Thousands in society go into the water on very slender grounds. But going into the water, and having certain words pronounced over the subject, is not washing in the name. The difficulty lies, not in getting men to be dipped, but in first getting them to believe “the things concerning the Kingdom of God and the Name of Jesus Christ”;^c or “the exceeding great and precious promises,” by the faith of which they can alone become the “partakers of the divine nature.”^d Without faith in these things, there is no true washing, no sanctification, or purification, from moral defilement, and no constitution of righteousness by the name of Jesus for the sons of men; for, says the scripture, “without faith it is impossible to please God.”

It was the renewing efficacy of the exceeding great and precious promises of God assuredly believed, that changed the gay and profligate Corinthians into “the sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints”; of whom, it is testified, that “hearing, they believed and were baptised.”^e Now, to these baptised believers he writes, and tells them that “God made (εποιησεν) Jesus, who knew not sin, to be sin (that is, sinful flesh) for them, that they might be constituted (γινῶνται) God’s righteousness in Him”;^f so that, being introduced into Him (for an individual cannot be in a federal person unless introduced into Him) the crucified and resurrected Jesus became “the Lord their righteousness”;^g as it is written, “Of Him, Corinthians, are ye IN Christ Jesus, who of God was constituted (ἐγενηθη) for us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”^h So that, whosoever is in him, is said to be “complete in him;” in whom he is circumcised “in putting off THE BODY OF THE SINS of the flesh;” that is, all past sins; being buried with Christ in the baptism, in which also he rises with him through the belief of the power of God evinced in raising him from among the dead.ⁱ

p. 135 Now, because the unconstituted, or unrighteous, cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the law is revealed which says, “Ye must be born again;” for says the King, “Except a man be born again he cannot behold the kingdom of God.” This saying is unintelligible to men whose thinking is guided by the flesh. They cannot comprehend “how these things can be:” and, though they profess to be “teachers of Israel,” “Masters of Arts,” and “Bachelors,” and “Doctors of Divinity,” and of “Canon and Civil Law,” they are as mystified upon the subject of “the new birth” as Nicodemus himself. But to those who understand “the word of the kingdom” these “heavenly things” are distinguished by the obviousness and simplicity of truth. To be born again, as the Lord Jesus expounds it, is to be “born of water and the spirit;” as it is written, “Except a man be born out of water (εξ ὕδατος) and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”^a This is surely very explicit and very intelligible; who can misunderstand it, unless it be against his will to receive it?

The New Birth, like the old one of the flesh, is not an abstract principle, but a process. It begins with the begettal and ends with the having been born. A son of God is a character, which is developed out of the “incorruptible seed”^b of God, sown into the fleshy table of the heart.^c When this seed, or word of the Kingdom, is received, it begins to work in a man until he becomes a believer of the truth. When things have come to this pass, he is a changed man. He has acquired a new mode of thinking; for he thinks in harmony with the thoughts of God as revealed in His law and testimony. He sees himself, and the world around him, in a new light. He is convinced of sin; and experiences an aversion to the things in which he formerly delighted. His views, disposition, temper, and affections are transformed. He is humble, child-like, teachable, and obediently disposed; and his simple anxiety is to know what God would have him to do. Having ascertained this, he does it; and in doing it is “born out of the water.” Having been begotten by the Father by the word of truth,^d and born of water, the first stage of the process is completed. He is constitutionally “in Christ.”

When a child is born, the next thing is to train him up in the way he should go, that when he is old he may not depart from it. This is also the arrangement of God in relation to those who are born out of water into His family on earth. He disciplines and tries them, that He may “exalt them in due time.” Having believed the gospel and been baptized, such a person is required to “walk worthy of the vocation,” or calling, “wherewith he has been called,”^e that by so doing he may be “accounted worthy” of being “born of spirit,” that he may become “spirit,” or a spiritual body; and so enter the kingdom of God, crowned with “glory, p. 136 honour, incorruptibility, and life.”^a When, therefore, such a believer comes out of the ground by a resurrection from among the dead, the spirit of God, worked by the Lord Jesus, first opens the grave, and forms him in the image, and after the likeness of Christ; and then gives him life. He is then an incorruptible and living man, “equal to the angels;” and like them capable of reflecting the glory of him that made him. This is the end of the process. He is like Jesus himself, the great exemplar of God’s family, born out of water by the moral power of the truth; and out of the grave by the physical power of spirit; but all things of God through Jesus Christ the Lord.

In the way described, sinners are transformed into saints; and it is the only way; their conversion being the result of the transforming influence of “the testimony of God.” Those who are ignorant of “the law and the testimony,” and who yet claim to be saints, and “teachers of divine mysteries,” may demur in toto to this conclusion, because “in saying this thou condemnest us also.” But truth knows no respect of persons; and while the oracles of God declare, that men are “renewed by knowledge,” and “alienated from the life of God through ignorance,” I feel entrenched impregnably in the position here assumed. According to the constitution of the human intellect, the knowledge of truth must precede the belief of it. There is no exception to this. If cases be cited as exceptions, the faith is spurious, and not that with which God is pleased. It is credulity; the faith of opinion, such as characterises the spiritual philosophy of the age.

Lastly, the act demanded of a renewed sinner by the constitution of righteousness, that he may be inducted into Christ, and so “constituted the righteousness of God in him,” is a burial in water into death. The energy of the word of truth is twofold. It makes a man “dead to sin” and “alive to God.” Now, as Christ died to sin once and was buried, so the believer, having become dead to sin, must be buried also; for after death burial. The death and burial of the believer is connected with the death and burial of Christ by the individual’s faith in the testimony concerning them. Hence, he is said to be “dead with Christ,” and to be “buried with Christ;” but, how buried? “By baptism into death,” saith the scripture.

But is this all? By no means; for the object of the burial in water is not to extinguish animal life; but, by preserving it, to afford the believer scope to “walk in newness of life,” moral and intellectual. He is, therefore, raised up out of the water. This action is representative of his faith in the resurrection of Jesus; and of his hope, that as he had been planted with him in the similitude of his death, he shall hereafter be also in the likeness of his resurrection,^b and so enter the kingdom of God. To such persons the scripture saith, “Ye are all sons of Gcd in p. 137 Christ Jesus through the faith;” and the ground of this honourable and divine relationship is assigned in these words: “For as many of you as have been baptised INTO Christ have put on Christ; and if ye be Christ’s, then are ye the seed of Abraham, and heirs according to the promise.”^a They have thus received the spirit of adoption by which they can address God as their Father who is in heaven.

The Two Principles

“With the mind I myself serve the Law of God; but with the flesh the Law of Sin.”

Although a sinner may have been “delivered from the power of darkness,” or ignorance, and have been “translated into”^b the hope of “the Kingdom of God and of his Christ,”^c by faith in the divine testimony and baptism into Christ—yet, if he turn his thoughts back into his own heart, and note the impulses which work there, he will perceive a something that, if he were to yield to it, would impel him to the violation of the divine law. These impulses are styled “the motions of sins.”^d Before he was enlightened, they “worked in his members,” until they were manifested in evil action, or sin; which is termed, “bringing forth fruit unto death.” The remote cause of these “motions” is that physical principle, or quality, of the flesh, styled indwelling sin, which returns the mortal body to the dust; and that which excites the latent disposition is the law of God forbidding to do thus and so; for, “I had not known sin, but by the law.”

Now, while a righteous man feels this law involuntarily at work in his members, the law of sin, or of nature within him, he also perceives there a something which condemns “the motions of sins,” and suppresses them; so that they shall not impel him to do what he ought not to do. The best of men—and I quote Paul as an illustration of the class—are conscious of the co-existence of these hostile principles within them. “I find,” says he, “a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Yes; the principle of evil and the principle of good are the two laws which abide in the saints of God so long as they continue subject to mortality.

The reader is invited to re-peruse pages eighty-nine and ninety on the subject of these laws, as it will prevent repetition in this place.

The law of sin and death is hereditary, and derived from the federal sinner of the race; but the law of the mind is an intellectual and moral acquisition. The law of sin pervades every particle of the flesh; but in the thinking flesh it reigns especially in the propensities. In the savage, it is the only law to which he is p. 138 subject; so that with his flesh he serves only the law of sin and death. This is to him “the light within;” which is best illustrated by the darkness of Egypt, which might be felt. It was this internal light which illuminated “the princes of the world, who crucified the Lord of glory.” It shined forth in the philosophy of Plato, and in the logic of Aristotle, who walked in it while “dwelling in the land of the shadow of death;”^a and it is “the light within” all babes who are born of blood, of the will of the flesh, and of man under the constitution of sin in all countries of the world.

Now, the scripture saith, “The commandment of God is a lamp; and his law is light;”^b so that the prophet says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”^c And to this agrees the saying of the apostle, that the sure word of prophecy is “a light that shineth in a dark place.”^d Now, Isaiah testifies, that the Word is made up of God’s law and testimony, and that those who do not speak according to it, have no light in them.^e This is the reason that the savage has no light in him; because he is intensely ignorant of the law of God. Light does not emanate from within; for sin, blood, and flesh can give out none. It can only reflect it after the fashion of a mirror. The light is not in the mirror; but its surface is so constituted that when light falls upon it, it can throw it back, or reflect it, according to the law of light, that the images of objects are seen on the surface, whence the light proceeding from the objects is last reflected to the eye. Neither is light innate in the heart. This is simply a tablet; a polished tablet, or mirror, in some; but a tarnished, rusty tablet in others. It is called “the fleshy tablet of the heart.” It was polished in the beginning, when God formed man after His likeness; but sin, “the god of this world,” hath so tarnished it that there are but few who reflect His similitude.

No; it is a mere conceit of the fleshly mind that man is born into the world with light within; which requires only to be cherished to be sufficient to guide him in the right way. God only is the source of light; He is the glorious illuminator of the moral universe; and He transmits His enlightening radiance through the medium sometimes of angels, sometimes of prophets, and at others through that of His Son and the apostles, by His all-pervading Spirit. Hence it is that the scripture saith, “God is light,” whose truth “enlightens the eyes.” But what is the truth? It is “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,” who is the polished incorruptible fleshly mirror, which reflects the Image of God—an image, at present, but obscurely impressed upon the fleshy tablets of our hearts; because we know only in part, perceiving things by the eye of faith, until hope shall disappear in the possession of the prize.

p. 139 God, then, is the source of light; the gospel of the kingdom in the name of Jesus is the light; and Christ is the medium through which it shines; hence he is styled THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS; also, “the true light, which enlighteneth every man, that cometh into the world”; “a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel.” Now, the enlightening of every man is thus explained by the apostle: “God,” saith he, “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, it is he who hath shined into our (the saints’) hearts, with the illumination of the knowledge (προς φωτισμον της γνωσεως) of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”^a But “every man” is not enlightened by this glorious knowledge; for to some it is hid. The tablets of their hearts are so corroded and encrusted with opaque and sordid matter that they are destitute of all reflecting power. Light will not shine in a black surface. Hence, saith the apostle, “If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of the world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine into them.”^b He darkens the tablets of their hearts by “the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches;^c and thus prevents them from opening their ears to hear the words of eternal life.

If a man have light, then, it is very evident that it is acquired from without, and not an hereditary spark within. When the Lord Jesus appeared in Israel “he shined in the darkness.” This nation was so darkened by the propensities and human tradition, that they did not perceive the light when it shined among them; “the darkness comprehended it not.”^d If this were the condition of Israel, how intensely dark must have been the world at large. Still the Gentile mind was not so totally eclipsed as that of the savage. The nations of the Four Empires had been greatly mixed up with the Israelites in their history; so that the light of their law must have been considerably diffused among them; though not given to them for their obedience. Hence, “the work of the law was written upon their hearts” to some extent; and created in them “a conscience,” by the thoughts of which they accused or excused one another.^e

This shining of the truth in the darkness of the nations was considerably increased by the apostolic labours; for “their sound went into all the land, and their words unto the ends of the habitable” (της οικουμενης, or Roman Empire).^f Now, although this light was almost extinguished by the apostasy, lamps were still kept burning in its presence;^g so that the eclipse was not so total that the darkness of the Gentile mind was reduced to a savage state. When the scriptures were again disseminated in the tongues of the nations in the sixteenth century, the light of truth began again to stream in upon them. The scriptures were then like a book just fallen from heaven. The world was astonished at their p. 140 contents; but “comprehended them not.” Men discussed it, tortured it, perverted it, fought about it; until the stronger party established the foundation of the world as at present constituted.

This world, called “Christendom,” is much after the order of things in the days of Jesus. Were he to appear now, he would “shine in the darkness” as when among the Jews. These professed to know God, while in works they denied Him. Their clergy said, “We see;” but Jesus characterised them as “blind leaders of the blind;” therefore, “their sin remained.” They boasted in the law; yet through breaking it, dishonoured God. They professed to be more conscientious and pious than Jesus; but he charged them with being hypocrites and serpents. They strained out gnats, and swallowed camels; and gave tithe of mint and cummin, and despoiled the fatherless and the widow. And, “like priest, like people.” They crowded to the synagogues and the temple in splendid apparel. The bejewelled worshippers exhibited themselves in conspicuous seats; while the poor stood, or if seated, sat on footstools near the door. They made a great show of piety, sang the psalms of David with holy rapture, devoutly listened to the reading of the law and the prophets; and expelled Jesus and his apostles with great fury from their midst, when they showed the meaning of them. With the worship of God they combined the worship of Mammon. They heaped up gold and silver, and apparel till it was moth eaten; oppressed the hireling in his wages; and ground the faces of the poor.

Such was the state of “the church” when Jesus and his apostles were members of it; and such is its condition now that “He standeth at the door, and knocks.” “The Church” of the 19th century, by which I understand, not the “One Body;^a but that thousand-headed monster presented by the ecclesiastical aggregate of “Christendom;” is that Laodicean antitype which is neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and which saith, “I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing; but knows not that it is wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;”^b the sputa once “spewed out of the Lord’s mouth.” Its eyes are blinded by the god of the world. Its zeal for faction; its devotion to Mammon; its ignorance of the scriptures; and its subjection to the dogmas and commandments of men—have made its heart fat, its ears heavy, and closed its eyes. “The people of the Lord, the people of the Lord, are we!” ascends as its cry to heaven from myriads of throats; but in the tablets of their hearts the light of the glorious gospel of Christ’s kingdom and name, finds no surface of reflection. Many who mean well, lament “the decline of spirituality in the churches;” but they fail to perceive the cause. The scriptures have fallen into comparative disuse among them. They are superseded by shallow p. 141 speculations—mere unintelligible pulpit disquisitions, the contradictory thinking of the flesh, trained to excogitate the creedism of the community that glorifies itself in the orator of its choice. The gospel is neither believed nor preached in the churches. In fact, it is hid from their eyes; and the time is come to break off the wild olive branch for its saplessness; to cut off these churches for their unbelief.^a

The principle, or spirit, that works in these children of disobedience, is neither the law of sin as exhibited in the savage; nor the law of God as it appears in the genuine disciples of Christ. It is a blending of the two; so as to make of none effect^b the little truth believed, as far as inheriting the Kingdom of God is concerned. This proportion of truth in the public mind is the measure of its morality, and exegetical of its conscience; and constitutes that scintillation, or “light within,” which is struck out by the collision of ideas in the world around. Educational bias makes men what they are—sinners, whose habitude of thought and action is “pious,” or impious, civilised or savage, according to the school in which their young ideas have been taught to shoot. The divine law and testimony alone can turn these into reflectors of the moral image and similitude of God.

The “intellect” and “sentiments” of the apostle’s brain, constituting “the fleshly tablet of his heart,” had been inscribed by the Spirit of the living God, in a way that all believers are not the subject of. He was inspired; and consequently received much of “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God” by divine suggestion, or revelation;^c others receive the same knowledge, in words spoken, or written, by “earthen vessels” like himself, in whom “this treasure” was deposited.^d The means by which the knowledge is communicated matters not, so that it is written on the heart. When it gets possession of this, it forms that “mind,” or mode of thinking and feeling (νους) with which the apostle said he “served the Law of God.” Being renewed by the divine testimony, his intellect and sentiments were sure to think and feel in harmony with the thoughts of God. Nevertheless, his “propensities” were only checked in their emotions. He kept his body under. This was all that he could do; for no spiritual perfection of thought and feeling could eradicate from the particles of his flesh the all-pervading principle of its corruption. While, therefore, with his mind he served the Law of God; his flesh obeyed the law of sin, which finally mingled it with its parent dust.

This new mode of thinking and feeling created in a true believer by the divine law and testimony, is variously designated in scripture. It is styled “a clean heart and a right spirit”;^e “a new spirit” and “a heart of flesh”;^f the “inward man”;^g “new creature”;^h “the new man created in righteousness and true holiness”; and p. 142 “renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him”;^a the “hidden man of the heart”;^b and so forth. This new and hidden man is manifested in the life, which is virtuous as becomes the gospel. He delights in the law of the Lord, and speaks often of His testimonies. He denies himself of all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and walks soberly, righteously and godly in the world. His hope is the glorious manifestation of Jesus Christ, with the crown of righteousness, even glory, honour, and immortality, promised to all who look for him, and “love his appearing,” and desire his kingdom.^c Nevertheless, the law of sin, through the weakness of the flesh, fails not to remind him of imperfection. Being delivered from the fear of death, he looks forward to it as to the period of his change, knowing that, when he falls asleep in the dust, he will afterwards be delivered from the principle of evil by a resurrection to incorruptibility and unalloyed existence in the Paradise of God.