Mr. Newton, whilst denying that there was sin in the human nature of Christ, put our blessed Lord under the consequences of the sin of others, in two ways first, as to His soul – in its relationship with God; and secondly, as to His body – in making Him subject to death.
Both these he stated to be the result of His being a man and an Israelite, or born of a woman, that is, that the condition of His birth entailed these things as a consequence of association. This principle is the opposite of substitution, or His taking sin upon Himself in grace for us, as He did upon the cross. He was thus, according to Mr. Newton, associated with the inconceivably fearful distance of man from God, and dealt with by God accordingly; and had the experiences which we ought to have had in our unconverted state, through rightly apprehending the wretchedness of this distance from God – the sense of wrath and judicial visitation. He formed “a part of that which was exposed to the judgments of God’s heavy hand,” and was “obnoxious to all the penalties due to man as man, and Israel as Israel,” and “to the sentence of death which had fallen on man because of Adam’s transgression.” It is no wonder that some have said that Mr. Newton’s Christ must want a Savior for Himself! Indeed Mr. Newton made John the Baptist Christ’s deliverer, who brought relief and the sound of grace to His ears, though it is not apparent how he could deliver Him from such partnership in the ruin of man, when once involved in it, or how He could otherwise escape from it, as Mr. Newton, of course, says He did.
Mr. Newton is said to have renounced these doctrines but this is not the case, for his Acknowledgment only admits that he was mistaken in placing our Lord under Adam as a federal head, but that is all. He says in it
I should have stated that the connection of the Lord Jesus with the consequences of Adam’s transgression was in virtue of His having been “made of a woman,” and thus having brought Himself into association with a race on whom those penalties were resting.
[He adds] I was right in stating that the Lord Jesus partook of certain consequences of Adam’s sin, of which the being possessed of a mortal body was one.
since his Acknowledgment, elaborately attempting to prove, not only that our blessed Lord was able to die, but mortal and corruptible, as we are; and as man (in the form He adopts), under the same “necessity of dying.”
For our own part, we have reason to know from private sources that Mr. Newton entirely denies “that he ever taught anything that could be called heresy,” and that not long since he propounded the same sentiments which are contained in his tracts in his own chapel; but public attention having been called to them, and great scandal having been occasioned to the minds of many Christians, especially by the first part of this false doctrine, that has been for the most part dropped out of sight. Nor could we believe that if Mr. Newton had been convinced of the deep dishonor and injury which he has done to the person of the Son of God by promulgating these views that he could be so inconceivably base as not to make the only reparation in his power, however insufficient, viz., a full frank, and heartbroken confession.