The Glory of the Person of the Son of God: His Title as the Eternal Life
Alexander Craven Ord
Table of Contents
Introduction
The testimony that distinguished brethren in early days is now being given up. The positive and distinct possession of eternal life, as the certain and conscious portion of the believer, was formerly known and held amongst us, and was the subject of public testimony, whilst other Christians were in doubt and uncertainty, and sought to find this certainty in their state or feelings or enjoyment – all of which are unable to give it, not being the sure Word of God.
Not only so, but the distinct presentation of Eternal Life to be received through the Son, as the result of the gift of God’s Son (John 3:16), or of believing in the Son of God (John 6:40), or receiving the Word of the Son of God (John 5:24) with the immediate certainty of its possession as the consequence of the reception of the Son of God (John 3:36) has for fifty years marked the testimony which has been given and owned of God. This, moreover, was understood to be the divine object for which the Gospel of John was written. “These things are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name” (John 20:31). Whilst the Epistle was expressly written to believers to establish them in the certainty of what they had received, not as a matter of evidence within themselves, but as a divine testimony: “If we receive the witness of men the witness of God is greater” “These things,” says the apostle, “I have written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13).
It were serious enough if only uncertainty were thrown upon all this divine truth, which so long characterized the testimony, and was the means of so much blessing to souls who previously were in doubt as to the possession of eternal life. But far worse than this, is the deprivation of the Son of God of His personal and divine glory as “the Eternal Life,” and the dividing His blessed Person in order to distinguish what is Eternal Life in Him and what is not. We had ventured to hope that the irreverences which had resulted from this attempt would, when attention was drawn to them have deterred souls from venturing further on such dangerous ground. Instead of this, the supposed necessity and capability of distinguishing in the person of Christ what is divine and communicable, from what is incommunicable, has led to an alarming development of this system of thought, in which life and deity in the Son of God are divided –Christ, as the Second Man and Eternal Life, is denied the possession of divine attributes – whilst what is essentially human, is virtually introduced into His Godhead. Not only is Mr. Raven supported in this by writers hitherto little known among Brethren, but the positive necessity of this view is now affirmed by leaders among them, so that the mass instead of being warned of the danger, are thereby invited and encouraged to pursue these unholy and soul-withering speculations. The serious responsibility which they have incurred by so doing, in appending their names and declaring that they have “full fellowship” with Mr. Anstey’s statements, we leave to God and their own consciences. But rapidly as these views and the false doctrine and expressions connected with them were spreading previously, we can only anticipate, after the impulse thus distinctly, and without any warning, given to them, by men in such a prominent position, that the enemy of souls will take full advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him, of spreading this poisonous leaven in their ranks to a fatal extent. They perhaps will only discover this when irreparable mischief has been done, for false doctrine is always ruinous in its effects upon souls, and numerous teachers, as will be shown in the sequel, are doing their utmost to give currency to these views in some of their worst features.
Such is the total loss of spiritual discernment produced by constant contact with this system of error, that others instead of having uneasiness, or even jealousy for the personal glory of Christ, awakened in their minds, are ready to disseminate the pamphlets containing these sentiments broadcast, in order to discredit those who have opposed them; disregarding the injury they are inflicting in this way on souls, and the triumph that they are thus giving to the enemy, in his worst and darkest designs against the Son of God. To expose these errors from Scripture in their true light, is a duty from which love to the Lord and to souls forbids us to shrink, even though we expose ourselves as before to misapprehension, and even charges of insincerity.
There is a day coming when all will be manifested. In the meantime, the approval of Him who knows the secrets of all hearts, and the deliverance of any of His who have yet “an ear to hear,” are consolations which God gives in His grace.
Besides this, the setting forth of the truth of God tends to strengthen faith in those that are weak, and to deliver them from the confusion of thought in which the adversary has sought by specious arguments to involve them. This has necessitated the further stating and bringing forward the truth concerning the Person of Christ, in order to show how that Person is presented and kept before us in Scripture – our sure and safe guide if we follow it, as well as the divine antidote provided against the vain and dangerous speculations of the human mind. At the same time, whilst maintaining the reality of the union of the divine and human natures in the blessed Person of Christ, in opposition to the unhallowed attempts now made to divide them (after the fashion of the Nestorian heresy that troubled the church in the early part of the fifth century), we utterly refuse to define the manner of that union. We do not suppose for a moment that many of these writers are aware of what they are doing; for their evident ignorance of the ground they are traversing, and of the consequences that have followed to those who have ventured on this path before them, in the attempt to “distinguish” (as they call it) “between the human and divine,” not merely in active manifestation, but in the Person of Christ Himself, makes the danger all the more serious for themselves and their followers.
It is evident from original letters of Mr. R.’s, now printed, that his views have become more developed and systematized. Indeed, he himself tells us “he was a learner not a teacher, at Witney,” and was then “on the road to light.” This claim to “more light,” on the subject of Eternal Life is advanced in the Sept. No. of the A Voice {to the Faithful, 1891}, in a paper entitled “Divine Light Exposes its Contrary” (pp. 257-266).
Such infatuation should only lead us to take a lower place for ourselves before God, and earnestly cry to Him for our brethren. But this claim is totally inconsistent with the assertion, that this system involved no new truth, but what we had all been accustomed to for so many years. The chief difficulty in reality has been, in the mystic and obscure nature of the system Mr. R. has elaborated, as well as the apparent contra- dictions it contains, which puzzle and perplex simple souls in a way that we never find in Scripture or in the teaching of the Spirit of God. We can see now that as a system it is fully developed, it is consistent as a whole, and the difficulty of grasping it is greatly diminished, now that we have something more than detached parts or fragments of it to examine; whilst it becomes evident where he is conducting us, and to what extent the truth of God is involved or lost, by adopting these views.
The citations from Mr. Darby, contained in various parts of this pamphlet, will be found of great value, and it seemed well to rescue them on this account from the mass of his writings, in which they are almost unknown or lost. Besides this, the subjects treated in this pamphlet are so little familiar to Brethren, that it appeared almost necessary to give some further evidence as to what has been held, by those who were raised up, to maintain the truth among us, on former occasions.
There does not seem anything that deserves a serious reply in the writings of those who have attacked the doctrine of the Tract entitled The Manifestation of the Divine Nature.”
If these attacks originated in value for the truth of God or love for souls, it would be another matter; but where sentences are taken up, only to twist and misrepresent their meaning, it is better to leave that to God, and seek rather to occupy the reader with the truth, adding explanation only of difficulties which have been raised, where it is required.
Chapter 1: Eternal Life: Its Nature ? the Diversity of Thought Existing
Its Nature – the Diversity of Thought Existing on This Subject
It seems as if God had specially retained in His own hand certain secrets of nature, in order that we may be sensible how limited are the powers of the human mind, and may be prevented from intruding into that domain, which He has reserved for Himself. For though men may observe and ascertain the phenomena of nature, and what are the laws which govern them, the origin of these laws, and how they exist, is hidden from us. This is especially the case with life whether in its highest or its lowest manifestations; from the infinite God, and heavenly or angelic life, down to its lowest terrestrial forms. If it is beyond our capacity then to seize and define that vital essence – which even in the plant distinguishes it from mere dead matter – how much more profound and impenetrable to us, must be the mystery of the blessed Person, who unites in one combination of glories all that is human and divine; and how vain, and almost blasphemous, the conceit that has assumed to decipher, to define, or limit Eternal Life, or life of any kind, as it exists or is expressed, in Him.
Being what He is essentially, His life is as infinite as Himself; and it is an unwarrantable intrusion into the glory of His Person, to attempt to gauge it. Never before the rise of this system of thought, since Gnosticism had its day, do we find such unhallowed speculations. Nor do we believe that they would have been indulged in, or entertained in the minds of so many, unless, by describing Eternal Life as a sphere or condition, they had first accepted the thought that it could be dissociated, or distinguished from what Christ is personally.
Thus – though that thought is a mistake and profane – the holy fear which would have prevented the enquiry, has been disarmed.
No one denies that “condition” or “sphere,” is a necessary and indispensable accompaniment of life, and that in which the life displays itself; and thus it has come to be used, in a secondary or subordinate sense, for life itself. In intelligent beings, life belongs to, or is what is proper to, a person or being, not to a condition, for the condition only answers to, or corresponds with, that life. Hence Mr. Darby says, “Life is not a condition of being: it characterizes it.”
“Is life in God a mere condition of being? – `Being’ means what has life.” This shows that he does not lose sight of the proper and primary sense of Eternal Life, as being personal which these writers however will not allow in the sense in which it is here maintained, because they say that that would take us into Deity. To speak of it merely as a condition of being, when its essence is in question, destroys its proper nature – life in its primary and proper sense, – and substitutes by a sophism, (perhaps unconsciously), a state in which life is found, for the reality of life itself. This sophism underlies almost all the reasoning of Mr. Raven and those who receive his views; and when it comes to be applied to Scripture teaching, or to the Person of Christ, or to the life we receive, it becomes very serious. Whilst the reader is thinking of life in its proper and original signification, he is unconsciously deceived by the substitution of a condition, without being aware that essential life is either lost or dropped out of view, or the two senses confused.
Is it honest therefore of Mr. R., or his advocates, to say to enquirers, that he “believes Christ Himself to be Eternal Life”; when he is using the term in another sense and means something quite different from what is in the mind of the enquirer?
I do not accept the assertion of some that Eternal Life is an essential title of the Son of God. I am sure it cannot be maintained. I believe it to be a term indicating a condition (Letter of August 25th, 1890 published by Mr. Boyt, p. 4).
In the closing pages (see Appendix A) we have the most distinct proof, that the Eternal Life has always been identified in the mind of saints, with the divine nature and the Person of the Son of God; that it is His own life with the Father in eternity, and is therefore identical in its character and nature with the life that was in the Father, though the relationship of Son is distinct.
The “Word of life” unites the manifestation of the divine nature, with this life, before the universe existed, for the Word is the expression of the mind of God. It was “the Word” that was “made flesh”; and we have also the statement, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” But this differs materially from a “sphere,” “condition,” or “state of blessing prepared for man,” though finally it may be included as proper to it. Hence Mr. Raven carefully separates Eternal Life from Deity and from Sonship saying that Sonship is “greater” than Eternal Life. But He cannot be greater than Himself. This is conclusive. Thus he will not allow that “the Eternal Life” is applicable to, or describes, or is used to distinguish, Christ as a Person.
I strongly object, [he says] to the talk about the Personality of Eternal Life, because (as the reference is to Christ) it makes Eternal Life commensurate with the person of the eternal Son, and this I believe to be very wrong.
For the same reason he will not apply Eternal Life to passages such as, “In Him was life”; nor allow that Christ is spoken of in the Gospel of John as Eternal Life. Nor can he find anywhere that Scripture “says that He was it, though it was manifested in Him.” “Nor do I know,” he says, “where Scripture says, `He was in His own person the manifestation of Eternal Life,’ nor where it says, `It was what He was, not what He enjoyed.’” (Letter of October 1st, 1890).
All this it is impossible to mistake; and though Mr. R. says elsewhere that “Eternal Life is Christ for the believer,” he himself explains in what a limited sense, and with how different meaning he understands this, when he says it was “something that came to light, and is now perfectly expressed in Him.” “A condition of relationship and being” . . . “and seeing that that condition existed, and was manifested, and is now fully expressed, even as to bodily condition, in the Son”– (putting his own construction on J. N. D.’s language) he says, “it is Christ” (Letter of July 24th, 1890). This is perfectly consistent with the previous statements which we have given. If, as he says, Eternal Life is “an integral part of His Person,” as having “embodied” this condition or state of being and relationship when He became Man, the condition became identified with His person, though it was not what He was personally, or His own divine nature in eternity. Indeed we know the explanation given on this very point by a brother: “As my arm is an integral part of myself, so Eternal Life is an integral part of Christ.” But Mr. Darby has given the reply to this, contrasting what the believer is with Christ the Source and Sustainer of life: “My hand is a part of myself, and I may lose my hand, but that is not myself.” To give another figure – which may partially illustrate a sphere or condition or state of blessing – Royalty is a condition attaching to the heir-apparent of the throne when born into this world, and, doubtless, he has a sphere connected with that state or condition; but it is not himself, nor his own essential life and being, though belonging to it, and though (as it has been explained in this controversy) he may enjoy royal life in its completeness when he comes to the throne, when royalty “is fully embodied and expressed in him.”
Condition or relationships are more accidentals than essentials of life. We may have an earthly state of life as in man, or a heavenly as in angels. Royalty or Sonship are conditions or relations of life accessory but not necessary to it. Adam was not a son, nor in the relationship of a son; all are not fathers, nor are all in the sphere pertaining to Royalty.
So that to identify life with a condition is in reality absurd and reduces it to a nullity. Hence, some of Mr. Raven’s passages give the serious impression that he does not believe in the impartation of life and of its real existence in the believer at all. He says “life is presented in Scripture, not so much as a deposit in the believer, though Christ lives in him in the power of the Spirit, but as a state of blessing. Scripture does not, I think, speak of our having had eternal life imparted to us.” (See also passages quoted in Appendix B).
But thus divine truth is undermined in the soul, though the writer is variable and not always consistent in his statements.
But where is there authority in the Word of God for a separation between Life and Eternal Life, when speaking of Christ? He is the Life and the Eternal Life. Both are averred of Him. Mr. R. says
The Life of which we are made participants is not the same life which was proper to the Son of God in His eternal existence . . . I could not make, “So hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself,” and Eternal life to be the same (Some Letters, p. 10).
So that we have this elaborate system built upon the extraordinary theory that the addition of eternal to life, or to the life, makes it “a term indicating a condition,” and a division or separation is made between Life and Eternal Life in Him, because the word Eternal is not always added. Mr. R. does not give the slightest proof of this from the word of God, but merely reasons from the fact that we receive eternal life, notwithstanding that the result of this theory is to make two kinds of life in Christ. Besides, we are as constantly said, to be recipients of life in the Son, as of eternal life.
“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Here life and eternal life are used interchangeably, as in the Son, and possessed by the believer without any distinction between them.
But it is the Son, though in Manhood, who is spoken of here, and we are to believe that this life in His Son is not identical with “In Him was Life” (Some Letters, p. 15). Mr. R. does not tell us what there is in the word “eternal,” thus to qualify or alter the meaning of Life, nor can we find any such use of it in Scripture. We have “Eternal God,” “Eternal Spirit,” “eternal redemption,” “eternal salvation,” “eternal righteousness,” but in none of these can we discover such a modifying or “technical” use of the word eternal; for though life is mysterious, both in its origin and nature and varied in its developments and manifestations, that is not due to the force of the word eternal, which has a constant meaning of its own. Will Mr. R. venture to say that when Christ says, “I am the Life,” that it is not eternal life?
We subjoin an emphatic passage of Mr. Darby’s on this point
Here again (1 John 5:11, 12) it is evident as to our possession of it, that it is impossible to distinguish eternal life from the possession of life in the Son; that life is eternal life. He that has the Son has life in the Son, eternal life, for He is eternal life, and he that has not that has no life at all spiritually . . . In John 3:36 we have the same truth that Christ is life – eternal life and that he that has not eternal life has none . . . The distinction between life and eternal life is utterly futile” (Collected Writings, vol. 7, pp. 32, 33).
Chapter 2: Is Christ Personally the Eternal Life Which Was Manifested Here?
Which Was Manifested Here? and Was Eternal Life Received From Him Whilst on Earth?
In the Gospel of John, Christ is Himself everywhere, and in various ways, presented personally, as “the Life.” It is what He is essentially; what is in Him, shines out in Him, and flows forth from Him. On coming to Him, therefore, or believing in Him, or hearing His word, life is received. This life, as the effect of divine prerogative, is attached to the recognition of His Person here on earth, as well as to His work subsequently, and is again and again stated to be eternal life. It could not be less, as found in Him, and flowing from Him, according to the glory of His Person. Did He cease to manifest it, He would cease to be, or to manifest, Himself for it is, as we have said, what He is, and He could not hide Himself. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” “Coming into the world, it shines upon every man” not upon Jews only. It acted upon man’s heart and conscience, though, in its true nature, it was not comprehended. But the Lord says distinctly, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” And, in the same chapter (John 9:5, 41), “If ye were blind, ye should not have sin”; for had they been blind, they would not have been morally guilty of slighting all that was displayed in Him. “Yet a little while,” he adds, “is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you” (i.e., the effect of His withdrawal). “While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light” (John 12:35, 36).
This life shone as the light of men, and thus brought out the moral condition and need of man, and the whole state of the world; yet the light always shone as God’s perfect answer in grace to that need, and as life provided for man, and presented to man in His Person. He had come as Man, and for man, and was manifested here below in the lowliness and self-renunciation of manhood, in order to reach man. His external glory was hidden, in order to come so near to man to attract and win him. Its effect was felt before it was really known in its true character, as we see in those who were disarmed by His words, and could not take Him (John 7:45 46). In John 4 He says to the woman of Samaria, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water.” This produced its effect, and attracted her, whilst it awakened confidence in His word even before she knew all that was implied. But was it not a present thing? And was it less than eternal life? “He would have given thee living water.” It is the gift of God, as in John 6, “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” This is clearly, as incarnate, and as present here in the world, and for the world; as the repeated use of the present tense in the word “giveth” implies.
Again, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in Me shall never thirst.”
Again, “This is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” If His blessed Person was discerned, under this lowly form of manhood, not only to be the Messiah, but in reality the Son of God, it was even then eternal life (v. 40). Thus Peter, at the end of the same chapter, confesses Him and the glory of His Person; little as he may have apprehended all that his confession involved. Christ’s words to him, even then, were “The words of eternal life.” This is confirmed by the Lord’s own statement at the same time, and with reference to their effect upon the same persons; “It is the Spirit that quickeneth” – It gives life – “the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” This accords with John 12:48-50, that the words that He then spake were the words given Him of the Father, and as such “life everlasting.”
Jesus, according to His divine title and prerogative, as the Son of God, acting with the Father (John 5), does the same works as the Father, and “quickens whom He will.” He states positively that the hour had already commenced (“now is”) when the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear should live. It was the hour,even then for the display of His power and title as the Son of God, in this way. Even as regards His position taken in manhood “As the Father had life in Himself,” so had “He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” How could this be another kind of life? It was the same that was in the Father, and active in the same way (v. 21). Hence, after all the abundant evidence given concerning His blessed Person, and the object of His coming, He complains of the Jews at that very moment, “Ye will not come to Me that ye might have life.”
In John 7:37, on that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried (according to the infinite fullness of divine life, and the depth of divine love that brought Him here for human need), giving the loud and distinct invitation to all who are conscious of such need, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink” – a present and yet continuous thing. In this He takes, as so constantly in John, a worldwide aspect, and opens out that He has this living water for “any man.” Is not this eternal life? And is it not presented as such to the world?
The very same that afterwards was to flow out from the believer to others by the power of the Spirit – descended from heaven – when bestowed in its abundance, as rivers of living water?
Granted that it was needful He should die that it might flow forth thus freely, yet He says, in words that express both these thoughts, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly” {John 10:10}.
Again, in the same chapter (John 10), He says, “I give unto them eternal life.” It was indeed requisite that He should not only become incarnate, but die. And we have both these blessed facts set before us in John 6, “The bread of God is He that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” And then, “The bread that I will give is My flesh which I will give for the life of the world.” But both are alike on behalf of the world. Indeed, always in the Gospel of John where, though Son of Man, He is specially before us as Son of God, He is for “the world,” and not for Jews only, as their Messiah, in descent from Abraham and David. For a Jew has an undoubted and prescriptive right to Him as such, but as Son of God, sent by the Father, He is for all. Hence in this Gospel only He is seen among those outside. He gives the living water to the woman at the well, where His love makes Him at home among the Samaritans; and He rejoices in the prospect of an abundant harvest. Thus the apostle Paul says “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen.”
There could not indeed be the same abundant outflow as when the just claims of the divine majesty and the rights of God in regard to sin were met; for then divine love could express itself in all its fullness to a lost and perishing world in the gift of God’s Son, so that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. But here, as elsewhere, this life is for the perishing (John 3:14-17).
There is a contrast, however, in this respect, between life and its manifestation, and forgiveness or justification; for life distinctly belongs to the manifestation of what is in God Himself, and what the Son of God is personally, as displayed in this world. Hence the Gospel of John, which presents God and the divine nature in the Son, speaks so much of “life” whilst forgiveness and justification, being connected with the accomplishment of the work on which they are founded, are scarcely alluded to in it.
In the Old Testament, indeed, life was given with certain divine and essential qualities which always distinguish it, or souls could not have been in relation with God at all; as we learn from what is said of faith in Heb. 11. But the distinct testimony of “eternal life” was reserved for the presence of the Son of God on earth; in order to give it its true character and to mark the glory of His Person, when manifested in His own divine fullness. Hence it is always what He is, that is brought before us in the Gospel of John, and declared publicly before all. “I am,” (not I shall be) “the bread of life.” “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” “I am the resurrection and the life.”
This life in Him, in its fullness, extends not only to the soul, but to the body, and the sphere also in which that life is to be displayed – beyond the power of death and the grave.
He had but to apply the power of life that was there present and existed in Himself; for the voice of the Son of God not only quickens the soul, but calls out of the grave; for here (John 11), it is not the effect of His work, as Man victorious over the grave, as in 1 Cor. 15, but the vivifying energy of divine power. For the life was present, divine, and eternal subsisting in His own Person. He was it, and is it. “I am the resurrection and the life.” The hour, however, for the full display of His life-giving power in that sphere of its action had not yet arrived; in the other it was present (John 5:25) this power was already in effective operation. He was the Son, and it was “seeing the Son,” or the knowledge of the Son, that, according to the will of the Father that sent Him was eternal life (John 5:40). But besides this, it was the knowledge of the Father, and the One whom He had sent, that was “eternal life” (John 17:3). This the disciples had already received: “I have manifested Thy name unto the men that Thou gavest Me out of the world . . . and they have known surely that I came out from Thee; and they have believed that Thou didst send Me.” So in John 14:7, “From henceforth ye know Him, and have seen Him.” For the Lord speaks according to the character of the faith which had owned Him as the Son, and involved the knowledge of the Father – as He tells them; though their intelligence did not reach to all that was included in it.
Everywhere, and at every turn in this Gospel, do we find this subject of eternal life, as the positive thing before us. At the very moment when the Son of God was present here upon earth, it was here in Him. He brought it with Him. It came in His Person. He was it essentially. He gave it (John 4 and 5). And He presented in His Person as incarnate, to man, and to the world, eternal life, in contrast with Judaism, and mere external privileges such as the Jews had enjoyed. Note the words, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead; this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die” (John 6:50). If He spoke the words of eternal life, and the Jews would not come to Him that they may have it, the consequences would be fatal and final (John 8:25, 26). They would be left in darkness, and to die in their sins; and where He is they would never come.
The life was identical with the life that was in the Father, and He, being the Son, quickened as the Father, as well as being in His manhood the depositary of this life from the Father; in order that, in every way, even in His humiliation, the glory of His Person might be maintained.
This life, and the communication of it whilst here on earth, is the leading and distinctive feature and characteristic glory of His Person, as incarnate, and is presented in every possible way in this Gospel, in connection with the revelation of Himself as the Son, and of the Father in Him.
Do we deny that though there are certain qualities essential to divine life, and though it was given as eternal life whilst the Son of God was on earth, that there is a marked difference to be noted after the death and resurrection of our Lord, in its character in the saint, and in our enjoyment of it? or do we deny that its full expression and perfection are now seen in Christ in glory, to whom we are to be conformed? He says indeed that He is come that His sheep might have life but He adds “and that they might have it abundantly,” as the flowing forth of rivers of living water from the believer indicates. And again, “Yet a little while and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live ye shall live also.” For though He quickened souls with eternal life as the Son of God (by virtue of the life that dwelt in Himself, and of which He was the embodiment and expression, as having come from the Father), yet there was no association in it with others at that time. Nor could it be said to be continuous with, and in this way, inseparable from, His own life; as the words “Because I live ye shall live also,” imply. It was indeed from Him by the power of His living voice and word but it was not enjoyed with Him, nor in Him, till the resurrection, when (seen as the corn of wheat with its much fruit risen out of the ground, bearing the multiplied grain) it exists as one whole plant (John 12:24). He comes back to His disciples after His resurrection, and for the first time breathes into (¦<) them {John 20:22}; not only that this life may be realized abundantly {John 10:10} in the power of the Holy Ghost, but that it may be in inseparable association with Himself – dwelling in Him and He in us. As He says, “At that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in Me and I in you.” How are we to enjoy all the sweetness of the Father’s love, as He enjoys it, and the depth of the relationship – His relationship – with the Father; save as having His risen life, and His Spirit? Thus only can He dwell in us Himself, as He says, “I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them. And, these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” This is not exactly union, though we dwell in God, and God in us, by His Spirit, yet we are never said to be united to God, as some have erroneously taught. But it is more than union; for if I could share both the life and spirit of a man, so as to dwell in him, it would be to participate in his thoughts and feelings, in a more intimate manner than even a wife, united as she is in the closest way to her husband, and by the tenderest bond.
In the following extracts from the writings of J. N. D. it will be seen that his views correspond in all points with what is here presented, whilst though a fictitious resemblance is sought to be established in some things, between Mr. D.’s views and Mr. Raven’s, the whole system is entirely different.
For it is evident: First, that, in contrast with F. E. R.’s statement, Mr. Darby says that the Gospel as well as the Epistle of John is characterized by the presentation of Christ as the Eternal Life. Secondly, that this life which God gives us in Christ was essentially in the Father Himself as well as in Him as Son of God, a divine Person; F. E. R. however carefully distinguishes it in Him from what is divine and essential, because he says, as we receive it, that would make us partakers of Deity. Hence he will not apply John 1:4 to Eternal Life, which is so applied by Mr. D., and connected with us. Thirdly, that of this life Christ was the representative, and that it has to be manifested in us here below, which F. E. R. will not admit. Fourthly, it is connected by Mr. D. with the new birth, from which in its origin it cannot be separated. Lastly, Mr. D. calls it the Life divine and eternal, which, he says, cannot by any possibility perish.
John 10:10. Jesus, in contrast with all the false pretenders, who only came to steal and to kill, came that we might have life, and that we might have it in abundance. The first expression is the object of His coming in general, which characterizes the Gospel and also the Epistle of John. It is the Son of God come down, that we might live through Him. He is the Eternal Life which was with the Father, and gives life and becomes Himself our life. (Compare 1 John 4:9 1:2; 5:11, 12; John 3:15, 16. These quotations might be multiplied). The second part of the sentence shows the character and fullness of this life. This life is in the Son. Having the Son, we have life, and we have it according to the power of His resurrection. The faithful in old times were quickened; but here it is the Son Himself who becomes our life, and that as Man risen from amongst the dead. We have it “abundantly.” This tenth verse gives us the great purpose of the coming of the Son of God (“Notes on the Gospel of John,” chap. 10. Coll. Writ. 33, p. 339).
Then the Lord declares plainly to us what He gives them; that is, eternal life, in the full assurance of the faithfulness of Christ, and of the power of the Father Himself. Already had He declared that His object in coming was, in grace, to give life, and life in abundance, not to seek booty, like a robber, but to give life from above, in grace. We have here the nature and character of this life, in grace; it was eternal life, that life of which Christ was the source and representative in humanity (compare 1 John 1:2, and also John 1:4) that life which was essentially in the Father Himself which was in the Person of the Son down here, the life that God gives us in Him (1 John 5:11, 12), and by Him, which we possess in Him; for He is our life (Col. 3:4; Gal. 2:20); which bears the impress of Christ, new position of man, according to the counsels of God. For us – first character of this life, for we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and under the power of death down here – Christ is, then, the resurrection and the life, a life which ought to manifest itself in us now, and which breathes, so to speak, by faith in Him (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 4:10-18), and will be fully developed when we shall be with Him, and glorified (Rom. 6:22), but which subsists in the knowledge of the Father, the only true God, and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent (John 17:2, 3; see 1 John 5:20) (p. 343).
But if Christ is thus our life, then life in Him does not perish, nor fail in us; because He lives, we shall live also. Can He die, or can the divine life in us come to decay? Assuredly not. We shall not perish; the life of which we live is divine and eternal life (p. 344).
As to Eternal Life, in the full sense of it, it is Christ Himself, and that revealed as Man in glory (1 John 5:20). But its essence is divine life in the person of Christ (1 John 5:11, 12). “In Him was life,” and that life He has in manhood (John 5:24). But this has a double character; the Son quickens as Son (verse 21) and then we are when dead in sins quickened together with Christ: in one as Son of God, a divine person; in the other a dead man whom God raises. Now life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel . . . Now till He came this never was displayed, nor according to God’s full purpose in man till He was glorified. But I have no doubt the Old Testament saints were quickened, and they will be perfected.
Still it was as much in Christ humbled as in Christ glorified. 1 John 1 was before the world, and that is its essence, only now brought to light in connection with the incorruptibility of the body in resurrection (or changed), a spiritual body.
But in the Lord’s unfolding of the subject, in John 6 you find having Eternal Life as a present thing, as constantly in John, but directly connected four times over with His raising us in the last day. Its full development is in the sphere it came from, and in the power of Him who has it in connection with man; and so immortality (incorruptibility) the body brought in.
Nor, though they have it down here, is this shut out in the final result in Matthew 25, Daniel 1, and Psalm 133.
You cannot separate Eternal Life and new birth; but though the essence of divine life is there, yet Eternal Life in Christ as Man and finally in glory does go further, man being quickened, as accomplished in Christ glorified. It is the gospel which has brought it to light” (Letters, part 13 p. 171-173).
Chapter 3: The Person of Christ Unfathomable
This great mystery of the person of Christ is what is specially committed to the Church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth, to uphold and maintain it in the world. She has to be faithful to the sacred trust committed to her, and it is for this object she specially exists. It is this which gives its character to her position in this scene; and this is the mystery of godliness, and is the foundation of all spiritual life and piety (1 Tim. 3:15, 16). “God was manifested in flesh.”
This manifestation characterized His whole existence here. As such, He was “seen of angels,” and we know from Luke 2 that this commenced at His birth, and was a source of wonder, delight, and praise even then to those exalted beings.
Not only so, but He was “justified in the Spirit.” The Spirit verified His title, or glorious claim, as God manifest down here – by the power of the Holy Ghost that accompanied His whole life, path, actions, and testimony in this world – by publicly descending on Him from the opened heaven – and by rendering witness to Him in His resurrection, in which He was “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness” {Rom. 1:4}. His subsequent descent on the day of Pentecost, with “signs and wonders, and divers miracles and gifts,” renders additional testimony to this great fact and mystery.
All this is typically expressed in Lev. 8, where the high priest is anointed without blood, alone and apart from his sons, but along with the tabernacle and all that it contained according to the title Christ has in His own divine Person.
The tabernacle, figure of God’s abode in creation, where He revealed Himself in connection with it, becomes thus the scene where the glory of Christ is displayed. After that Aaron, the high priest, was clothed with the garments of glory and beauty which distinguished his position, the tabernacle and all that was within it, with the altar and the laver, were anointed with the fragrant oil. And this was done in conjunction with the person and the position occupied by the high priest, emblematical of the preeminence and dignity of Christ thus prefigured, of which the Holy Ghost’s presence and power and action in the universe is the expression.
The Scripture, when announcing the birth of Christ and His manifestation to Israel, puts these words into the lips of the remnant: “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given”; but the very first thing that is revealed respecting this Child is that, His name shall be called “Wonderful,” and that He is the “Counselor, the mighty God, the Father of eternity”(Isa. 9:5); that is, that the mystery of His Person is “wonderful,” and as such surpassing human ken, even when presented as a Child born and a Son given to Israel, or as the virgin’s seed whose name was called “Immanuel,” i.e. God with us. This mystery is “wonderful” from the first moment to the last. It is intended to be a mystery, infinitely so; and as such is impenetrable, unfathomable. Hence, he who attempts to touch it, or to reason upon it, necessarily loses the proper glory which belongs to it and gets out of his depth, and in reality destroys what he touches, because it is infinite, and he is only finite; he is limited, and this is illimitable undefinable. As another has well said on these very subjects “The moment you define you limit,” reducing the glory of His divine person to the low level or measure of the human mind.
Faith, and faith only, can apprehend, or rightly receive without pretending to fathom, such mysteries as the Trinity or the Person of Christ, or even creation (Heb. 11:3). It receives the wondrous revelation of them, and bows and worships; whilst reason, if it attempts to search into them exceeds its powers, and is necessarily at fault. Faith alone can appreciate, or in any little measure respond to the revelation which God has given of His blessed Person as “wonderful.” God has become Man, for He has not taken angelic nature to manifest Himself in, but manhood; as the angels tell us, the expression of divine “good pleasure in men and glory in the highest” (Luke 2:14).
Whilst the Lord loves to be near us and show Himself to us in the most gracious and condescending way in order to win our confidence and draw us near to Himself – allowing the apostle John to rest on His bosom, the multitudes to throng and press Him, or the woman and others to draw virtue out of Him by a touch – yet how often do we see a sort of mysterious power surrounding or displayed by Him! When exposed apparently to the fury of His enemies, He sometimes hides Himself, or passes through the midst of them untouched (Luke 4; John 8). He appears to the relief of His disciples walking on the sea in the midst of the storm, and saying, “It is I, be not afraid.” And in a moment on His entry into the ship it is at the land whither they went (John 6:21). On other occasions, with power over all, He tells them where to find the ass with the colt, to bring it from the hand of the owner for His triumphal entry into Jerusalem; or indicates the upper chamber for the last paschal supper; or directs Peter to the piece of money in the fish’s mouth for the tribute.
We have said, indeed, that it is needful always to have before us the divine estimate of this blessed One as that which is presented to us in the Gospels. Into this faith gradually enters as it studies these divine revelations, and becomes more imbued with their spirit and character; for we otherwise fall into the danger of being more or less affected by the atmosphere of unbelief which surrounded Him, and which is so congenial to our fallen nature. None assuredly can “tell” all that God could discern in its perfection in His Son as Man here, though it is evident that this is just what the Gospels reveal; and that whilst we have there a perfect picture of Christ, according to the mind of God, we have also as a sort of background, the unbelief of the human heart.
But again and again we are reminded in the Scriptures that what is infinite and illimitable lies hid in His blessed Person, for there dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; so that all the vain speculations now current among brethren, and among the ritualistic and rationalistic leaders of thought in the Establishment, only involve them in a labyrinth of error. For the subject transcends the powers of the human understanding, which is sure to fail in the attempt to resolve it.
Though He is rejected by man because of His humiliation (in Matt. 11) – for the pride of man is “offended” by the lowly guise and form of manhood which He has assumed – He bows to His Father, who hides these things from the wise and prudent, and reveals them unto babes; and we there learn that so glorious and profound is this mystery of His Person that it is inexplicable to man. But what is most remarkable and shows how, on account of His humiliation, His sacred character is guarded, it is not so affirmed of the Father; for while it is said that no man or creature “knoweth the Son but the Father,” it is permitted to us by the indwelling of the Spirit to know the Father. “Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills ($@b80J"4) to reveal Him.” There is not in the Father that complex glory which exists in the Person of the Son become man, but pure and simple divine character and nature, which could be revealed and made known by the Son. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (cp. John 1:18, 14:8, 9, 16:25, 17:6, 25, 26). Hence the glory of the Son who became man, and in consequence exposed Himself to be scrutinized and treated with indignity by the wretched ingratitude of the heart of man, for whose sake He humbled Himself, is safeguarded by the inscrutability which surrounds it. And so jealous is the Holy Ghost, by whom the Gospels are indited, on this subject, that the same truth is repeated still more emphatically in Luke 10:22: “All things are delivered to Me of My Father; and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” {Luke 10:22}. The difference of the language here observable is remarkable; it is not only “no man knoweth the Son, but the Father,” but no man knoweth (J\H ¦FJ4< Ò LÊÎH) who the Son is but the Father,” that is, not only His Person cannot be fathomed, but the manner of His existence is wholly incomprehensible to the human understanding.
Who, for instance, can form an idea of the effect of the presence, action, and power of the Holy Ghost in that human nature, the Seed of the woman conceived of the Virgin by His power? For though it was “the Seed of the woman,” and conceived of her according to the promise, and thus of her nature and substance, the action of the Spirit was such, in the miraculous conception of that holy humanity {Luke 1:35} that the angel says that that Holy Thing born of her could, on this account (as well as in His own higher nature), bear the title of the Son of God. Thus all His human life was in the power of the Holy Ghost, infinitely beyond His marvelous action on saints in earlier days. This explains how, in the sacrificial aspect of His giving up Himself to death, it is said by the apostle Paul in Heb. 9, that He, “through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God”; for the Holy Ghost acts in being Himself, in an infinite way, the power of those motives and feelings, which led Him to devote Himself thus for the glory of God, in His death. So again we read “He was led of the Spirit into the wilderness” to be “tempted of the devil,” and “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee” (Luke 4).
This was signified of old in the type when the fine flour was mingled, as well as anointed with oil. We have pointed out the activity of the Spirit of God from the earliest moment in John the Baptist; how then can we limit His energy, and the effect of His all-pervading presence thus specially marked, in the case of our Lord Himself? Before the scene in the temple, even from His infancy, we read what could not be said of another, He was “filled with wisdom.” Now wisdom is not only knowledge, but the power or capacity of adjusting the relations of things, or using knowledge rightly. Where can we find another who could tell us what was addressed to Him at the moment of His birth? “I will declare the decree the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession” (Psa. 2:7, 8). We have seen (The Manifestation of the Divine Nature) in Psa. 22 how the sense of conscious relationship, confidence, and hope was expressed by the Lord when He was upon His mother’s breasts; but this goes even farther, for He declares how He was addressed as Son and heir by the Father, on the day of His birth, and what was then pledged to Him, and on what ground.
Of Him alone, in contrast with all others, it is said, “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him” (John 3:34). A prophet might communicate messages which were given to him, but at other times he spake as other ordinary men whilst Jesus spake only and always the words of God, and nothing else, just because He was God, and spake always by the Spirit of God. If He cast out devils, it was by the finger of God, and by the Spirit of God (Matt. 12:28); but He could also whilst on earth confer on others the power of doing the same and working miracles, to impart which is the prerogative of God alone (Luke 9:1; Mark 6:7). What above all marks the import of the passage, that none knows who the Son is but the Father, is the statement in Colossians, twice repeated, that in Him all the fullness (of the Godhead) is pleased to dwell.
Not only this, but “in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” This statement, true of Him when on earth, is generally supposed to express that He is God incarnate; but far more than this is contained in it. He is corporeally the center of the presence and action of all the divine Persons. He is the Son in His own Person. He manifests perfectly the Father in all His blessed nature; for He can say, “I and My Father are one,” and, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” And all the energies and working of the Holy Ghost, in the scene of evil that surrounded Him, proceeded from Himself as their center.
This is expressed in the Revelation, when He is said to be both now and in the future, possessor of the seven Spirits of God (originally seen before the throne, and subsequently sent forth into all the earth), first in the address to the church at Sardis, and afterwards when seen as the Lamb that had been slain, in the midst of the throne, with seven horns and seven eyes, emblematic of the fullness of divine intelligence, and of active power which He wields in all the universe (Rev. 1:4 4:5).
It is important to observe, that in both the passages which specially speak of the Lord before the assumption of humanity, and subsequently to His becoming man, His divine personality is always maintained. Nor did He take another personality by becoming man. It is one and the same Person that Scripture presents to us throughout. In Heb. 10, “Then said I, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God”; “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” The statement, “In the volume of the book it is written of Me,” comprises all that He fulfilled, after that He had taken as well as in taking the body prepared for Him. In what follows we read, “But this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God.” In Phil. 2 He who is subsistent in the form and glory of God, empties Himself; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbles Himself. The divine personality is not lost by His becoming man, but is marked or distinguished even then, by these acts ascribed to Him. Hence He carried with Him the infinite sense of what He was, and what He came to do. “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” And the result of His intervention never falls below the height of this infinite purpose and presence, as is distinctly shown in His still humbling Himself, and fulfilling what was written in these eternal counsels concerning Him. At no moment of His life from His birth, when He takes the body prepared for Him, to His giving it up on the cross, could this be wanting.
On this passage in Heb. 10 Mr. Darby thus comments
Before He became man, in the place where only divinity is known, and its eternal counsels and thoughts are communicated between the divine Persons, the Word –as He has declared it to us, in time, by the prophetic Spirit – such being the will of God contained in the book of the eternal counsels, He who was able to do it, offered Himself freely to accomplish that will.
That of which we have been speaking is continually manifested in the life of Jesus on earth. God shines through His position in the human body; for He was necessarily God in the act itself of His humiliation, and none but God could have undertaken and been found in it. Yet He was always, and entirely and perfectly obedient and dependent on God. That which revealed itself in His existence on earth was the expression of that which was accomplished in the eternal abode in His own nature. That is to say (and of this Psa. 40 speaks), that which He declares and that which He was here below are the same thing: the one in reality in heaven, the other bodily on earth. That which He was here below was but the expression – the living, real, bodily manifestation of what is contained in those divine communications which have been revealed to us and which were the reality of the position that He assumed (Synopsis on Hebrews, p.335, 336).
. . . He tells us that He took this place willingly according to the eternal counsels respecting His own Person. For the Person is not changed. But He speaks in the Psalm according to the position of obedience which He had taken, saying always I and Me in speaking of what took place before His incarnation” (p. 334, note).
How different all this is from Mr. R. and those writers whose reasonings would reduce us to the conclusion that His infancy was practically unaffected by His divinity or by the unlimited presence of the Holy Ghost; thus lowering Him below what was true of John the Baptist, who was “filled with the Holy Ghost from His mother’s womb!
Chapter 4: The Person of Christ. the Result of This System in
The Result of This System in Dividing That Ever Blessed Person
The evil effect of the spread of this teaching in the minds of saints is becoming very palpable. Mr. Anstey states, in his second letter to Continental brethren
We may distinguish Eternal Life and true Godhead in the person of the Son of God (see 1 John 1, 2), and we must separate them when we think and speak of what has been communicated to us.
The truth is that in rejecting, as you do, the distinction which he (Mr. R.) makes between “Eternal Life and Deity” in the Godhead, and in affirming (with this thought in your minds) a further point – that Eternal Life and Godhead, as to God’s gift to us cannot be separated, because that it is “Christ Himself and not a part of Him” that we receive (true as this is in its place) – you have fallen into the very same system of error, as is exposed above by J. N. D. You say that we must not “distinguish” (which you call “separate”) “Eternal Life” from “Godhead.” Hence if we have the one we must have the other” (pp. 1, 2).
Now this attempt to distinguish Eternal Life and true Godhead in the person of Christ, is without any foundation in Scripture and the passage Mr. Anstey refers to, viz., 1 John 1:2 teaches exactly the opposite. For what the Eternal Life was with the Father, was before manifestation in this world; and (unless we admit the false ideas which have been advanced involving a pre-existent humanity in His Person) was certainly Godhead; for there was nothing else existent there but Godhead being, life, and nature. This fact disposes of all these false and mystic notions at one blow. Pure Godhead alone existed in Christ before He came into the world, just as in the Father and in the Spirit, and no other; though the personality was distinct. Therefore the attempt to make out “something” distinct and different from Godhead, because that “something” is communicated to us, creates a false and mythical nature, which is supposed to be Eternal Life, but which has no existence at all, except in the mind of its author.
This is what J. B. S. and C. H. M. have now, by attaching their signatures, committed themselves to, as well as other teachers, and virtually all who have adopted these views. The relationship was divine, and the existence purely and exclusively divine, and from eternity; so that distinction of personality in the Godhead does not make any such nature of being as is described by Mr. Raven and his supporters.
This endeavor to “distinguish Eternal Life and true Godhead in the person of the Son,” is just what has led to the irreverent expressions which have been uttered concerning the Lord, and to the dividing of His glorious person. And what follows, that “we must separate them, when we think and speak of what has been communicated to us,” has the same tendency; for it cuts off and separates the eternal life which we enjoy, from its true divine source, and that which can alone sustain it in us. In ourselves we unquestionably must distinguish it from true Godhead; but to distinguish it in Him is to destroy both its nature and His Person. Faith knows and delights to recognize “both what is human and what is divine” in the blessed Person of Christ. But this distinguishing, now generally advocated by rationalistic writers, is most dangerous ground to get upon, and it is wholly false to say that the Gospels ever do this. On the contrary, as we have said they ever keep Him before us in the unity of His Person. No doubt they present, as has been stated, sometimes more of the divine and sometimes more of the human; and doubtless some acts are more characteristically divine in their nature and others more characteristically human. But even in specifically human acts, to attempt to draw the line, even as to these, or to exclude what is divine from them, and vice versa, is not permissible; and if reverence and faith and love for that blessed One are allowed to have their place, such an attempt will be at once checked. Take, for instance, the Lord touching the leper. No doubt it was with a human hand that He does so; but that blessed hand conveys divine virtue and power, and dispels the leprosy in a moment. And the words “I will, be thou clean,” expressive of divine title and authority, coming forth from human lips, and a heart filled with infinite love, accompany His touch, which in any other than His would have involved defilement. So when “the whole multitude sought to touch Him,” the Spirit of God adds, “for there went virtue out of Him and healed them all.”
Even in death (which is an act of a specific human character) we have seen that the divine purpose and nature (Heb. 10) not only gave all force and meaning to the assuming the body prepared for Him, but characterized the wondrous offering of that body on the cross; so that God could find His infinite pleasure and satisfaction in it. No man could take His life from Him. He had power to lay it down, and power to take it again. In a similar way we are not only told, that, whilst voluntarily submitting to it for our sakes, He could not be holden of death, for He was the Prince of Life; but He gives His flesh for the life of the world, and He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. This life in Him overcomes all the power of death, and this is here extended distinctly to His humanity.
In this His divine title and exemption from death, save by His own act, as well as His resurrection power, appear. He adds, “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again”; i.e., it was the voluntary nature of this act, and loving obedience to His Father in it, that constituted its value.
Thus, though we do not call divine acts human nor human acts divine, the Scripture shows us that, in His acts the human and divine combine or mingle. If this is denied His blessed Person is divided, and all the value of what He does, and is, is lost. This does not imply any confusion or transformation of the human into the divine, or the divine into the human; but it implies a union intimate and perfect, in His blessed Person, which will be our joy, as it is the ground of our confidence, throughout eternity. An union which is impenetrable and unfathomable, but because of which it could be said, when He was on earth, “The Son of man which is in heaven.”
For the help of the reader we quote a passage of Mr. Darby’s, in which he comments on Mr. B. W. Newton’s views, who in like manner was led by his false doctrine to divide the Person of the Lord. It will be seen that Mr. D. takes precisely the same ground as the writer has done in these pages, and wholly condemns the attempt to sever, either in thought, feeling, or action, the two natures, which coexist in the one and the same blessed Person of Christ.
Mr. N. goes beyond Scripture in saying that “to say that there was in His humanity a divine spring of thought and feeling is to deny His real humanity.”
Was His humanity then without a divine spring of thought and feeling? Had he said it was not of or from His humanity I should have nothing to say. But to say there was none in it unsettles the doctrine of Christ’s Person. There was the fullness of the Godhead bodily and the divine nature was a spring of many thoughts and feelings in Him. This is not the whole truth, but to deny it is not truth. If it merely means that humanity has not in itself a divine spring, that is plain enough, it would not be humanity. I am equally aware that it will be said that it was in His Person. But to separate wholly the humanity and divinity in springs of thought and feeling is dangerously overstepping Scripture. Is it meant that the love and holiness of the divine nature did not produce, was not a spring of, thought and feeling in His human soul? This would be to lower Christ below a Christian.
“His humanity,” it is said, “was not sui generis.”
This too is confusion. The abstract word humanity means humanity, and no more; and, being abstract must be taken absolutely, according to its own meaning. But if the writer means that in fact the state of Christ’s humanity was not sui generis, it is quite wrong, for it was united to Godhead, which no one else’s humanity ever was, which, as to fact, alters its whole condition. For instance, it was not only sinless but, in that condition, incapable of sinning; and to take it out of that condition is to take it out of Christ’s Person. What conclusion do I draw from all this?
That the wise soul will avoid the wretched attempt to settle, in such a manner, questions as to Him whom no one knoweth but the Father. The whole process of the reasoning is false (p. 229).
Now that Christ was truly man, in thought, feeling, and sympathy, is a truth of cardinal blessing and fundamental importance to our souls. But I have learnt thereby, not that humanity is not real humanity if there is a divine spring of thought and feeling in it, but that God can be the spring of thought and feeling in it without its ceasing to be truly and really man. This is the very truth of infinite and unspeakable blessedness that I have learnt. This, in its little feeble measure, and in another and derivative way, is true of us now by grace. He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit. This is true in Jesus in a yet far more important and blessed way . . . What I see in Christ is man, where God has become the spring of thought and feeling. And, through this wonderful mystery, in the new creation in us all things are of God.
That, if we speak of His and our humanity, is what distinguishes it . . . Humanity is always simply humanity. The moment I call it His it is sui generis because it is His; and, in fact, humanity sustained by Godhead is not humanity in the same state as humanity unsustained by Godhead (Extracts from “Letter on Subjects Connected with the Lord’s Humanity” Collected Writings of J. N. D., vol. 15, pp. 228-230).
In a note Mr. Darby also says
Did He hereby cease to be man? Not at all. It is though according to God, in man, and as man, these thoughts and feelings are to be found. And this extends itself to all the sorrows and the pressure of death itself upon his soul, in thought. He had human feelings as to what lay upon Him, and before Him; but God was the spring of His estimate of it all. Besides, the manifestation of God was in His ways. We had known man innocent, in suitable circumstances; and guilty subject to misery; but in Christ we have perfectness in relation to God in every way, in infallibly maintained communion in the midst of all the circumstances of sorrow, temptation, and death, by which He was beset the spring of divine life in the midst of evil, so that His every thought, as man, was perfection before God, and perfect in that position. This was what marked His state, as being down here, this new thing (Collected Writings of J. N. D., vol. 15, p. 230).
Chapter 5: Does the Fact of Christ Being Himself “the Life,” Involve
Does the Fact of Christ Being Himself “the Life,” Involve Association With Him in Deity in Those Who Partake of It?
The idea of absorption or participation in Deity is shocking to every godly mind; for it would, if in any sense admitted deprive the ever-blessed God of that worship and glory, which every renewed soul finds its delight in rendering to Him, and of which He alone is the object. In fact in such case there could only be contemplation, but not adoration; for we should be worshiping ourselves, after having dethroned God from His exclusive place of supremacy. Whereas the more blest we are, the more we delight to own Him as God alone and to celebrate the worthiness of God and the Lamb, by the Holy Ghost for ever.
But there is really no sense in the objection made, that the partaking of divine life involves participation in Godhead. It is confusing between personality, and nature, or life.
Though I derive human life from earthly parents, I do not share their personality. The mother also has a personality distinct from that of her unborn babe. This does not, indeed exhibit all the difference needful to be pointed out in the case of spiritual life received from God, but it shows how life and divine nature may be, and are, imparted to us, as Scripture teaches, without touching the distinct personality, either of the Father, who begets us by His word and His Spirit, or of the Son, who quickens and sustains us by His life, without in any sense bringing us into Godhead. “At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father” (as the Lord alone could be), “and ye in Me, and I in you”; and “because I live, ye shall live also.”
We do not attempt to fathom how this can be; but, like other divine mysteries, we rejoice in the fact, and the reality; and that it cannot, as is averted, be separated in His Person from what He is divinely, or all the blessing of it would be lost.
There are four points alluded to in The Manifestation of the Divine Nature which distinguish the participation in Eternal Life from Godhead, and render such a notion wholly inconsistent with what is there advanced. It is there said
Christ is spoken of personally and essentially as the Life or the Eternal Life, just as He is addressed as “Jehovah,” or as “the Word”; for to be the source and spring of spiritual life, to give it or to maintain it, is a divine prerogative, and this Eternal Life is a special manifestation or aspect of the divine in Him. But though it is what He is essentially, it does not, any more than His title of “Jehovah,” or than that of “the Word,” include all that He is essentially; hence the idea that the participation in it introduces us into Deity which is given as a reason for its being a condition or relationship, and not what Christ is personally, is a mistake; for it is not a question of His divine attributes, such as omniscience, omnipotence, &c. which are incommunicable, but of the moral qualities of the divine nature, in which we can participate, being made “partakers of the divine nature”; “the seed of God remains in him” (the believer), “and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9).
First of all, the distinction of what Christ is “personally and essentially,” is stated, because He is called the Life, or “the Eternal Life,” which is never affirmed of us in Scripture; nor can it be said o f the saint, as of Him, “In Him was life.” And the reason is given: “For to be the source and spring of spiritual life, to give it or to maintain it, is a divine prerogative; and this Eternal Life (i.e. so displayed) is a special manifestation or aspect of the divine in Him.” Thus in us, with whom this is in implied contrast, it is only derivative, and not personal or essential for from Him alone it flows, and is only sustained in us by Him, and in connection with Him.
Secondly, it is distinctly stated that eternal life in us
is not a question of His divine attributes, such as omniscience, omnipotence, &c., which are incommunicable, but of the moral qualities of the divine nature in which we can participate, being made “partakers of the divine nature.” “The seed of God remains in him” [the believer]: and “he cannot sin because he is born of God” (1 John 3:9).
And it is added in a note
For God quickeneth by His word, which is the expression of His nature, or what He is morally, just as a man’s breath and words are the expression of what he is. Hence, Christ is called “the Word,” as well as “the Life,” or “the Eternal Life.”
Thirdly, this eternal life in us consisting specially in the moral qualities of the divine nature, comes through the reception of the Word, and not as a mere emanation of what is divine, apart from the word of God, and the quickening action of His Spirit. Moreover, it is stated (p.25)
that the moral qualities of this divine or eternal life are specially light and love. In the Gospel of John we have the characteristics of this life, which display either what God is to man or the Son as come from the Father; in the Epistle more of the traits of this life as manifested in the Christian. Hence, righteousness, dependence obedience, &c., are added, as well as all the enjoyment of relationship and communion.
The fourth point is, that whatever we taste of, that which is divine, is declared to be, through our association with Christ as Man, and in His human nature as risen from the dead.
Having united us with Himself as Man risen from the dead, He can bring us into the sweetness and blessedness of what was His own with the Father “Then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him”(Prov. 8:30).
Observe also the note from Mr. Darby, purposely quoted by the author as distinctly reserving the Godhead of the Lord (Synopsis, vol. 2, p. 32).
Christ introduces (us) into the enjoyment of that which is His own – of His own position before the Father. This is blessedly true in every respect, except, of course, essential Godhead and oneness with the Father in this He remains divinely alone. But all He has as man, and as Son in manhood, He introduces (us) into “My Father and your Father, my God and your God His peace, His joy, the words the Father gave to Him He hath given to us; the glory given to Him He hath given to us; with the love wherewith the Father has loved Him, we are loved” (Synopsis on John, p. 541).
Chapter 6: Participation in the Divine Nature
It is, however, of the greatest importance to discern, that the believer does partake, in the blessed qualities of the divine nature. Both light and love, are in their very nature, divine qualities, and characteristic of eternal life; and that, as displayed in the midst of evil and of the darkness, caused by sin. Was God ever so manifested as “love,” before sending His Son into the world, that we might live through Him? And Christ was the expression of this: “Hereby perceive we the love, because He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16).
God is love, and love is given as evidence of the existence and the manifestation of eternal life in us (1 John 3:14). Again “He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” God is also light, and was displayed thus by Christ Himself as “the Life,” for “in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Now we are not only said to be sons of light (1 Thess. 5:5), and in the light as God is in the light (1 John 1:7), but more than this, we “are light in the Lord” (Eph. 5:3). These are the very perfections of the divine nature, and hence we only have them fully unfolded in the writings of the apostle John, who expressly treats of that nature. The same may be said of “grace and truth,” which, in contrast with the law (given by Moses), are said to have come by Jesus Christ, for this shows what God is Himself, as above the sin of man, and active healing, saving, and blessing man, as ruined under the effects of sin in this world. Hence the glory, as of the only begotten with the Father, was full of grace and truth.
It is thus that though we are not infinite, yet we participate in what is divine and infinite in Him; for Jesus, as man, and as the Son, has brought these divine qualities, which He had with the Father before the world was, into manhood.
The apostle John speaks of His glory, which he beheld, “The glory as of an only begotten with a Father, full of grace and truth.” This glory was divine in its character, being that of the Son with the Father, and existing in Him in divine fullness, and displayed here in its perfectness, so that it could be beheld by the apostles and declared. But the apostle adds “And of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” The words “all we” extend the participation or enjoyment of what is named beyond the apostle, and the words “of His fullness” extend the range of reception, to every grace that is found in Him. For this glory is not here an external thing visible to the eye, but those qualities, divine in their nature, which never could have been seen or known otherwise, for “The Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us,” and this glory dwelt in His blessed Person, as with Israel of old in another way in the wilderness. How entirely does this display of His glory correspond with “The Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and show unto you that eternal life that was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” – that life of which He is personally the expression. And it is in the contemplation of this that we have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, through participating in the divine nature; or (as in John 1), as already said, receiving out of His fullness.
Indeed it is remarkable how Scripture identifies what is really divine with what we participate in or enjoy. Not, of course, that we are the fountain, but that we drink into this fountain in different ways. Not only the Spirit of God is in us searching all things, even the deep things (Gr. depths) of God and knows what is in His mind, as a man’s spirit knows the things of a man, but the Apostle Paul, when speaking of the one that is spiritual, says, “He judgeth [discerneth] all things yet he himself is judged [discerned] of no man,” and quoting the striking passage in Isa. 40, he adds, “For who hath known the mind of the Lord [i.e. Jehovah]? but we have the mind of Christ.” This refers both to the capacity of knowing and to the things known. Associated with Him as Man, we thus enter into His mind, here called the mind of Jehovah.
We have the same kind of connection also between what is human and divine in 1 Cor. 1:30, 31: “Of Him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” We are in Christ, who is in a special sense the wisdom of God, as well as the One in whom the righteousness of God is displayed, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him, and are also made “partakers of His [God’s] holiness” (Heb. 12). Thus, though we have nothing, and are nothing in ourselves, we may glory in what we have in Him in whom, as Lord or Jehovah, it all exists.
In Phil. 2 also we are exhorted to have the same “mind” in us which was also in Christ Jesus. And what is this described to be? The wondrous descent from the glory dignity, and personal position of God, to the lowly form of manhood, even of a bondservant. Is not such a principle of thought and feeling wholly divine, both in its origin and nature? Could it exist in us, apart from the divine nature and life which we have received – the mind of Christ in us?
Though we may speak of the blessed traits of divine life, this does not imply that we can define or fathom this life, even in ourselves; and still less in Christ, from whom it all proceeds and in whom it is infinite and illimitable. For how otherwise could this life be the light of men? or the light of life? or, still more, the light of the heavenly scenes (Rev. 21), which are all illumined by His blessed presence? How poor and misty must be the exchange of a state or sphere of blessedness prepared for man, which does not go beyond manhood in Christ, or in us, for the wonderful infinite display of what the Son is, of what He was with the Father on earth likewise! It is like giving up the glory, beauty, and lifegiving influence of the sun, for the pale, feeble, reflected light of the moon, which communicates no heat, and contains no life-sustaining properties. For thus the soul is turned back and occupied with its own subjective condition, instead of what the apostle says, “I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
But when we speak of Christ being like the sun (and it is a figure Scripture delights in: Mal. 4:2; Matt. 17:2; 1 Sam. 23:4), we think not only of its light (and even vitalizing power), beautiful as that is, and giving a charm to the whole natural scene, but of the radiance of that countenance which fills heaven and earth with delight, and of those beams, every one of which is a living ray, and has a deep and yet pregnant meaning of its own, and which will waken and thrill every pulse of life in us. “We shall be like Him,” says the apostle “for we shall see Him as He is”; and when we see Him mortality will be “swallowed up of life.” For one gleam of His countenance, when we behold Him, will transform us into life and glory for ever. He is the Sun of Righteousness, and we shall be as the rays of His glory, for “the righteous shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of their Father.” “Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone clear as crystal (Rev. 21:11). “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it” (Rev. 21:24) for though her light shines upon the nations, Christ Himself is the light of the heavenly city, the glory of God.
Chapter 7: On the Introduction of What Is Human Into the Godhead
And the Denial ofDivine Attributes to the Second Man
We have seen, in Phil. 2: 4-10, how the unity of the Person of the Lord is carefully preserved throughout. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Under this name Jesus, given to Him as man, though implying that He is Jehovah, He is spoken of as in the form of God, and as emptying Himself and taking the form of a servant. So in John 6, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever and the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” These passages really give no countenance to the old heretical notion of the preexistence of the humanity of Christ; for in the last quoted passage, the Lord in speaking of Himself, alludes to His body as the bread which He gives, and calls it the bread which came down from heaven. Mr. Raven, refusing to admit divine truth, which is infinitely blessed as to our association with Christ in what He was eternally and divinely, through His becoming Man, has been forced (by the endeavor to make out Eternal Life to be “Something” in Eternity, which is not essentially divine,) into reasonings, which, if true, would prove nothing less than humanity in the Godhead. He says
I believe Eternal Life to be the life of man” (October 12, 1890 – also) As to what it is essentially, it was ever in Him with the Father. . . . This certainly could not be said of the Son of Man as to form, but it could and is as to purpose, and as to all that He is essentially. All I meant by “in essence” was, that it (Eternal Life) was not in form with the Father until the Son became Man, but as I said the being, and, in a sense, the relationship was, but I judge the thought of Eternal Life always had man in view (July 25, 1890).
But what is, “all the Son of Man is essentially” – or Eternal Life, if it is “the life of man”? The “nature,” “being,” and, “in a sense, the relationship” were there something moreover, inferior to, and yet in His Godhead as the Son. Again he says
I do not find that the term Eternal Life is employed save in connection with manhood either in the Son or us” (November 2, 1890).
All that in which Eternal Life essentially consists (nature and relationship) was in the Son ever with the Father, and manifested in Him when here after the flesh. But the Eternal Son is a much greater thing than Eternal Life” (July 2nd).
The essentials of the Second Man are, a human relationship with the Father, human righteousness, subjection obedience, dependence, confidence, &c. described by Mr. Raven himself as characteristic of Eternal Life.
Now if these things are true, as existing in Christ before He became incarnate, they make His Godhead altogether distinct, and of a different character, from that of the other persons of the blessed Trinity, who, dwelling in the absolute existence of Godhead, never partook of manhood, and all that is essential to it; so that the unity of the divine nature, in the persons of the Godhead, is completely destroyed. Moreover, these qualities, if existent as constituent elements in the Son, are wholly inconsistent with the true nature of Godhead, and all its essential properties, before manhood was actually assumed and the proper Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ also disappears.
We read in Psa. 2:7, when Christ became man, “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee”; and again in Luke 1:35, “Therefore also that holy thing that shall be born of Thee shall be called the Son of God.” This tells us distinctly that this “being” or “relationship” only commenced with the incarnation; so that it would be wholly false to say that anything of the kind existed in the Son before incarnation; any more than these human properties, of which we have spoken, which are indeed essentials of manhood, and belong to the creature alone and could not exist apart from creature nature, or its assumption by Christ. If they existed previously, they cannot be true human qualities at all, and all the true humanity of Christ and His blessed association with us, in order to represent us in His manhood, is also lost, with all its infinite results in redemption.
He {F. E. Raven} adds that Mr. {A. H.} Rule “does not understand or evades the force of the scripture, `the Second Man is out of heaven,’” being apparently unaware that all orthodox writers from the earliest ages have used these passages as we have cited them; so that they have been spoken of as “the transference of predicates,” that is that the union of the divine and human in the Person of Christ was so perfect, that what was properly predicated as distinctive or descriptive of one nature, when spoken of either as God, or as Man, could be applied to His Person.
Here is where the division of the Person of the Lord (the result of these theories as to eternal life) becomes painfully evident. For in the letter of August 25th, 1890, to Mr. M., given in full in Some Letters of F. E. R., we read
That which was to characterize man was what had been in the Son eternally with the Father, and was in due time revealed in the Second Man, the One out of heaven. But what characterized the Second Man could not include all that was true of a divine Person, as self-existent, having life in Himself, omnipotence omniscience, and many other attributes of a divine Person; and yet it does include what He was morally in righteousness, love, holiness, truth and nearness to the Father.
Yet it is as Man that Scripture constantly and specially applies to Him, the attributes of omniscience and omnipotence; and to detach them from what He is as the Second Man, because of His connection with us, as such is to destroy the unity of His Person, and to deprive us of all the blessing that flows from what He is. He says, “No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”
Certainly this applies self-existence, and what is illimitable to Him as man, as distinctly as when it is said of Him as the Son, using the same term of expression, “The only begotten Son which is” (Ò T<) “in the bosom of the Father.”
If this limit is rightly assigned to one of our blessings in Christ, it is applicable to all; for the principle is stated by Mr. Anstey in a general and absolute way, “We m ay distinguish between Eternal Life and true Godhead in the person of the Son of God; and we must separate them when we think and speak of what has been communicated to us.” “If Eternal Life cannot be separated from the Godhead of the Son, then we have it not.” T he fact is Mr. R. and all who accept his doctrine, including Mr. A. and his cosignatories, have shut themselves up to this conclusion. They admit, and it is impossible to deny, that Scripture speaks of Eternal Life as existing before incarnation. It must be, they say, something distinct from His Godhead, because it is communicated to us. So they affirm there was something in Him before He took flesh that was not Godhead at all, and has to be separated or distinguished from it, and which has also to be distinguished afterwards in His life. T his is where their theory has landed them – the result of denying that “the Eternal Life” is a proper and essential attribute of the Person of the Son. (See p. 81 {pp. 127b, 128a, herein}).
Mr. Anstey has placed, not his opponents, but himself and his friends, who “have full fellowship” in his statements, “upon the horns of the dilemma,” as he expresses it. “If Eternal Life cannot be separated from the Godhead of the Son, then we have it not.” Will he tell us when and how this Eternal Life which is not Godhead was created, and how that which is not Godhead came to exist in Godhead? His attempt to separate it from Godhead renders it an unscriptural and delusive fable. And when he declares if it cannot be separated from Godhead he “has it not,” we trust that many eyes will be opened to the consequences of his doctrines. We commend to the attention of these teachers the following extract
But there was that which belonged to the Lord Jesus that was not made – “In Him was life.” It was not only that He could cause a life to exist that had not before existed, but there was a life that belonged to Him from all eternity. “In Him was life.” Not that this life began to be; all else, all creation began to be and it was He that gave them the commencement of their existence.
But in Him was life, a life that was not created, a life that was therefore divine in its nature. It was the reality and the manifestation of this life which were of prime importance to man. Everything else that had been since the beginning of the world was only a creature; but in Him was life. Man was destined to have the display of this life on earth. But it was in Him before He came among men. The light was not called the light of angels, but of men. Nowhere do we find that eternal life is created. The angels are never said to have life in the Son of God. They were kept by divine power, and holy. Theirs is a purely creature life, whereas it is a wonderful fact of revelation that we who believe have the eternal life that was in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and are therefore said to be partakers of the divine nature. This is in no way true of an angel. It is not that we for a moment cease to be creatures, but we have what is above the creature in Christ, the Son of God (“The Word Made Flesh,” Coll. Writings of J. N. D., vol. 21, p. 139).
Mr. Raven appears in one passage to make a difference between what He is as “the last Adam, a life-giving Spirit,” and “the Second Man.” It is as the Second Man that he denies that “all that is true of a divine person as self-existent having life in Himself, omniscience, omnipotence, and many other attributes of a divine person are included” (p. 4). Is there then one part of His humanity dissociated from His Godhead, whilst another part is not so? One part of His humanity, the Second Man, not characterized by omnipotence and omnipresence, because He is thus linked with us; another part only, as last Adam, divinely distinguished or characterized by these divine powers? Into how many parts will this unholy reasoning divide the glorious Person of our Lord? We have had first of all essential life and Eternal Life so divided; and now the last Adam and the Second Man.
All this is indeed deadly and fatal error as regards the Person of Christ, and ruinous in its effect on souls. Can we wonder at one who was recently delivered from these errors saying, “I have lost Christ; i.e. as the alone glorious Object before the soul!
Is this separation continuous, and constant, and eternal?
The Scripture is as careful to maintain the connection of these things, both in the Person of Christ and toward ourselves, as these writers are to dissever it. “All things,” says the apostle (Col. 1:16-18), “were created by Him, and for Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence.” For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in Him. That is, that the Spirit of God links what He is as Creator and Upholder of the entire universe, to the position which He occupies as Man risen from the dead, and Head of His body; the One in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. So in Eph. 4. He who has gone up on high, and led captivity captive, and received gifts for men, after having first descended into death and the grave, is the same that has ascended far above all heavens, that He might fill all things.
He communicates out of this fullness as Head, all that is needful for the edification of His body, into whom we are to grow up to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. From Him the Head (vv. 15, 16) the whole body is supplied and makes increase according to the effectual working in the measure of every part. Everywhere the apostle insists on this divine fullness being enjoyed by Christ as Man and Head of His body, as the source and spring of all gifts and blessings, and the active energy and sustaining power in His members. It is expressly connected with His body and used for it. Even when life and His divine unity with the Father is brought in, no such separation is made (John 14). “The world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me because I live ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you.” For though He is in the Father, we are in Him, who alone is so in the unity of His divine nature; so that we derive blessedness as well as the revelation of the Father, from His being so.
We have been told indeed before, that the life of Jesus to be manifested in our mortal flesh was human, not divine; but are all the poor bewildered sheep of Christ to be left to the perilous uncertainty and injury of these destructive analyses applied to the Holy One of God? When will the responsible leaders awake to the danger, as well as the dishonor, thus done to the blessed Lord?
The author intimated the similar attack that has been made upon the blessed Person of Christ in Lux Mundi (The Light of the World), by Oxford professors and clergymen which has been followed up by other well-known writers in the Church of England. There also they will find it taught that Omniscience does not characterize the Second Man; in other words, that He does not know in His human nature what He is cognizant of in His divine, His Person being thus divided. And this is the leading argument of the Rationalists of the present day, in order to weaken and destroy the foundations of Christianity, which has now (“tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon”) been endorsed by the leaders of this school among “Brethren.”
So that He whose blessed Person we have always been taught was indivisible and indissoluble, is now, by this dreadful dissecting process of the human mind to which it is subjected, divided into two kinds of life, and two kinds of manhood. Mr. Raven alone can tell us when He has these divine attributes, or when or whether they can or cannot be in exercise toward us or in us, or in what aspect He is divested of them. Will he or those writers inform us what is the meaning of being filled with all the fullness of God, as the result of Christ dwelling in the heart by faith? (Eph. 3). How can Christ, who is in heaven, be in us life, or sustain that life in us, save as a divine Person? It may be said, perhaps, that it is by the Holy Ghost He does so; but in the Colossians, where we have “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” it is emphatically the power of the life of Christ in the soul, and not the aspect of the Holy Ghost’s presence and activity, as the Epistle to the Ephesians. Or will these writers say that the Holy Ghost can be in us and sustaining this life in us as God, and that Christ cannot do so, because He is man?
though we are specially told in this epistle that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”; and “ye are complete in Him” are the very words that follow. Does not “bodily” express His manhood? and our being “complete in Him”(B,B80DT:X<@4), in whom the fullness (B8ZDT:") of the Godhead dwells {Col. 2:9, 10}, involve, in the most distinct and definite way, our connection with Him in whom we stand as Head? Is not this the Second Man, who Mr. R. says is not characterized by, and does not include the attributes of a divine Person?
We give a further extract from Mr. Darby, on the subject of manhood being out of heaven, and of the unity of the Person of Christ, written when a brother was charged with holding the former doctrine; in consequence of a statement inadvertently made by him in print, subsequently acknowledged and withdrawn, and even the appearance of it repudiated.
Had he (Mr. ___ {C. H. M.) held the doctrines imputed to him, I for one should have objected to holding communion with him; but, his statements on this point are as plain, as their plainness makes the injustice of his accusers to be evident. But I think His expression objectionable: “The Second Man was, as to His manhood, the Lord from heaven.” The objectionableness lies in this, that in ascribing the title of the Lord from heaven, it goes beyond ascribing it to His Person, being man; and by the expression “as to” separates the nature and applies the title to it. Had he said He was Lord from heaven in His manhood, he would have been perfectly right, and he who denied it would be unquestionably a heretic, but “as to” separates the manhood, and thus the words cannot refer to His person, who was there in manhood. Dr. C. does not see the difference, and quotes them as “in His manhood,” condemning them alike as the same. That Mr. ____ ever asserted that His manhood came down from heaven, is, as far as I can discern, simply a false accusation. The Second Man was the Lord from heaven. That Scripture states. And it goes a great deal farther (in predicating of the nature what belongs to the Person) than the ignorance of Dr. Carson seems to be aware of.
“This,” says Jesus, “is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die.” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Now I fully admit that this language deals with His human nature, His flesh having in view the union of the two natures in His person, just as He says, “The Son of Man which is in heaven.” He begins by, “I am the living bread,” and then passes on to the bread being His flesh. Still this union is so true that He speaks of Himself as the living bread which came down from heaven, and declares that this bread is His flesh. Hence as mere human expressions, the divine man, and the heavenly man, can be used as expressing what is blessedly true, though they may not have the accuracy of Scripture. The true humanity of Jesus is fundamental, but he who would so separate the natures in the Person as to touch such expressions as the sixth of John gives, is on very slippery ground (Collected Writings 10:76-78).
It will be seen that what has been referred to as confounding the Nature with the Person, Mr. Darby calls “ignorance of Scripture,” which predicates “of the Nature what belongs to the Person.” For in this w ay Scripture constantly speaks of Him, as regards both His human and divine nature, so that in reality it is condemning its statements. “A man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tem pest; as river’s of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land”(Isa. 32:2); applying thus His divine power and protection and the blessedness of the shelter found in Him, to that wondrous Man of whom alone such infinite grace could be predicted. This m ode of expression is even extended to His body, as not only Mary Magdalene says, “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him” (John 20:13); but the angels (who delighted to show the honor in which they held that Person, and how sacred in their eyes was the spot where His body had lain) say to the women at the sepulchre, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” But, above all, this is seen in the words that are used by Jehovah Himself, “Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the Man that is My Fellow, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 13:7). And He who is born in Bethlehem – the Judge of Israel smitten with the rod upon the cheek – the ruler in Israel – is the One “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:1, 2).
Chapter 8: Current Objections and Their Fallacy: With Remarks on the Manifestation
With Remarks on the Manifestation of Eternal Life and on Divine Principles
One charge which is made in Mr. Raven’s writings, and constantly reiterated by his followers, against those who differ from him, is founded on a total misconception. In the paper on John’s writings (A Voice to the Faithful for January, 1891 p. 11) we read
Those who say the Son of God, or the eternal Son – the Christ, and the Eternal Life, are identical or interchangeable terms (and there are such), have evidently lost the all-important distinction between the blessed Lord as a divine Person and as man.
Here the Eternal Life is again limited to what Christ is as Man, and distinguished from what He is as a divine Person for on this the accusation is founded of “limiting Him to that in which we can be united to Him.” So Mr. Raven
I strongly object to the talk about the personality of Eternal Life, because it makes Eternal Life commensurate with the person of the Eternal Son; and this I believe to be very wrong (Letter to Mr. Edwards).
But the fact is, that no one divine title or name of Christ is equivalent to or commensurate with another: while He could not bear any one of them unless He was essentially God, He is “Jehovah”; He is “The Son of God”; “The Word”; “The Eternal Life” that was with the Father. But none of these “cover the same ground”; for they express the distinct and divers glories of His Person. As “Jehovah” in the Old Testament, He was in covenant, and in a special relationship with an earthly people, in a way which did not include other nations; nor did He then make known the Father as He did when He came and was manifested as the Son, to all, and for all. As “The Word,” He is the expression of the mind of God to all creatures; the one through whom alone the invisible God makes Himself known. Most of these are relative titles or names, but each has its distinct range, and that in which it differs from others, though forming a constituent part of His divine glory. So, all the beautiful colors in the rainbow, or in a pencil of light refracted by the prism, combine to form the ray of white light which everywhere illumines our earth, and from it, all the varied tints in nature which surround us, are derived. Thus His title, “the Eternal Life,” does involve, as has been said, “what He is essentially,” “being a part of His divine glory,” and this has been insisted on, in order to resist the attempt to deprive Him of this glory. It is an essential part of the divine glory of the Father to be the Father, as it is of the Son to be the Son – to be Jehovah, or the Eternal Life.
The assertion that this statement divides the person of Christ, is too obviously false, to affect any saint instructed in divine truth.
Whilst on this point we may notice the use that has so unhappily been made of the Scripture statement that Christ is “the true God and the Eternal Life.” Now, as God, He is in the divine place of absolute supremacy, right, and authority over all, which belongs alike to all the blessed persons of the Godhead; whilst the titles or names to which we have alluded as “the Son” or “the Word” are relative titles, and belong either specially or exclusively to Himself. Such is the case when He is spoken of personally as “the Life,” or “the Eternal Life.” He bears this title in relation to others because the manifestation of what is divine, is specially through His blessed Person (cp. Prov. 8, where for the same reason He is called Wisdom); for all spiritual life is displayed in, or communicated from, and maintained by Him. For this reason the apostle tells us, not only that He is God, which is true of all the divine Persons, but that He is in addition, in a special way, the one blessed Fountain of life towards us, in whom all its power and fullness is displayed. It no more implies, when Christ is spoken of as “God and the Eternal Life,” that the latter is not divine, than that “the Word” is not a divine title because it is also added, “And the Word was God,” or than when we say, speaking of the Father, He is also “God,” that His name as Father is not divine likewise (Eph. 4: 6).
This explanation disposes of other painful and profane arguments, of which some of these objectors are not ashamed to make use. Such as the declaration that the life, or the Eternal Life, applied to Christ personally, makes a fourth person in the Godhead, or that we might consistently pray to or worship, Eternal Life. For the personal glory and manifestation of what is divine, under this title, no more involves another personality than when He is called “the Word,” or “Wisdom,” or when the titles of “Jehovah,” or “Most High” are in Scripture used to designate glories or names of God, in which He is pleased to reveal Himself, as characterizing His relations with men. We worship the Father and the Son by the Spirit, under those titles or names which are fitted to express either supremacy and authority, or special rights over us, as well as enlisting our confidence. “But to us,” says the apostle, “there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him” (1 Cor. 8:6).
“The Eternal Life,” however blessedly expressive of His life-giving power towards us and in us, is not one of these for the apostle says, “Christ liveth in me,” and “the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” For the same reason we do not pray to the Spirit, because He dwells in us, and produces the prayers that we utter, though we own His person and work as divine, and though we are energized by His divine power, and all the work wrought within us for our eternal blessing is His.
But other subtle arguments are suggested by the enemy of souls, to deprive them of the joy and blessing to be derived from the truth, that “the Life,” or “the Eternal Life,” is used to express the divine personality of Christ. Anything tending to weaken or impair the glory of Christ, passes current at the present moment. Christ however says of Himself, that He is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6); and again that He is “the resurrection, and the life.” (John 11:25). The objection founded on these passages is, that – inasmuch as the appellation “the Life,” is used of the Lord, along with other designations, which are not supposed to be expressive of His divine glory – this one has not this force either. This objection comes indeed but ill from those who have just quoted “He is the true God and the Eternal Life,” to show that the latter is something inferior, and not equivalent to the former. Does not the Lord then speak of Himself as the resurrection, as a special expression of His divine power and glory (John 5:21, 28, 29), as well as being “the Life”? Could any one but a divine Person express “the truth” in all its infinite variety and fullness? He became man in order to do so. “For grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).
Could the way to God as the Father have been known, or approach to Him given to us, save in and through the Son of God? Again it is said, that “in Him was life” does not imply that personally He was Himself the Life. But His body was the temple in which the divine glory dwelt; as He says “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Does that imply that He was not God? Does not this system degrade all the divine truth that it touches?
We must however add that the expression, the “personality of Eternal Life,” is not strictly accurate, for personality is an abstraction, and Eternal Life is in many instances in scripture used as a general term, and is applicable to spiritual life in earthly saints and their portion (Matt. 25:46; Isa. 4:3), as well as in its fuller and higher sense, to heavenly saints. But to make use of this to deny its application to Christ personally, is the enemy’s artifice to cloud the glory of His Person and to deceive souls. It is when Christ is spoken of distinctively as “the Life,” or “that Eternal Life,” or in other similar ways, that the term is specially applied to Him, or used to express what He is personally.
The subject of the manifestation of Eternal Life to the world is important, for though any Christian, from extreme Calvinistic notions, might easily fall into the idea, that there was nothing really in the Son of God for the world, but only for the elect exclusively, the thought certainly robs the Lord of the divine beauty of His character as displaying the Father and is dangerous because it naturally leads to the idea of life being some mystic thing in the Son of God, instead of what He was Himself, and thus paves the way for a further acceptance of this system.
It should be noted, that in the Gospel of John, in contrast with these views, the intimacy and blessedness of the relations between the Father and the Son, are unequivocally expressed by the Son Himself, as well as by the Father before all. This was in order that souls might be attracted, by the evidence of such nearness of relationship and oneness with the Father, or left without excuse, if they will not receive Him to whom all this blessedness evidently and of right belongs. And so perfectly is all this blended in its expression, and so is He addressed in the unity of His Person, both as Man and Son of the Father, that it is as impossible, as it would be irreverent to attempt to define or limit to one nature, the way in which He is kept before us in these passages.
The visible sign, by which John the Baptist was to recognize His Person, not previously known to him, was the Spirit descending from heaven publicly, and abiding on Him.
“Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, that same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God” (John 1:31-34). The Father Himself too announces openly before all that He was His Son, the object of His love and the One in whom He found His fullest satisfaction and delight. The heavens opened over Him, and His own voice declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” To this testimony so borne the Lord refers the Jews, as among the varied and unmistakable witnesses which had been rendered to the character and dignity of His Person.
“The Father Himself which hath sent Me hath borne witness of Me” (John 5:37; cp. 6:27).
And even the tenderest moments in which these feelings and sentiments found their expression are not, as we might have thought likely, withheld from those surrounding the Lord at the time. “He that sent Me is with Me. The Father hath not left Me alone; for I do always those things that please Him” (John 8:28, 29). Again, at the grave of Lazarus we read, “And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (John 11:41 42). “Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17). “I and My Father are One.” “That the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (John 14:31). John 5:17, 19, 20 is also a very striking instance of this.
But this wondrous unfolding of His intercourse with the Father extends not only to His own Person and service, but even to the view of the cross that rises before Him in John 12.
There (in verses 27, 28) He opens His soul-trouble to the Father at the prospect. “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” This is before all, as well as the reply of the Father to His appeal, when He gives Himself up to accomplish in death, the Father’s glory. Whilst then the Son alone could undertake to sustain what was due to the divine glory, the question, “What shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour,” and the answer from the Father that He would glorify His name (by raising Him as man from the dead), shows how what He was both as Son of God, and as Man, had its place at one and the same moment. So in Luke 2 He is seen as man, praying, as well as (in Matthew) fulfilling all righteousness. So in the passage cited from John 8 He speaks as the Son who has the Father always with Him and who alone makes free; yet He is the Son of Man who is going to be lifted up, and who (though being the eternal Son)has taken the place of recipient, and does nothing from Himself, but speaks what the Father teaches Him. In John 11 whilst as the Son, His voice calls Lazarus out of the grave, He is seen weeping and groaning to the Father who hears Him always. And lastly, He manifests His love and obedience as Son to the Father in going on to death when the prince of this world comes and finds nothing in Him. In all this blessedness in which as Man He was with the Father is unmistakably displayed before all. The Spirit of God evidently delights to honor Christ in the very way which Mr. R. declares “not only erroneous but repulsive” to his mind.
As an attempt has been made to limit the meaning of the word “manifestation” (N"revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17); whilst the word “manifest” (N"<,D`T) is the absolute display of what He is before all apart from the effect produced. This is not necessarily vital in its character, though of course this display may so affect the soul (through divine grace acting on it). It is once so used in John 17:6; but in that instance only of the Father’s name.
The following passages are conclusive on this point: John the Baptist, speaking of Christ as the Lamb of God and the Son of God, says, “I knew Him not: but that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water” (John 1:31). This is to the nation as such, and not any question of their conversion. Again, in turning the water into wine, the apostle says, “He manifested forth His glory. (John 2:11). “God was manifest in flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Tim. 3:16).
Again, the reason why the heathen are without excuse is that they have the public testimony of the power and glory of God in creation. “That which may be known of God is manifest to them; for God hath showed it unto them” (Rom.1:19).
“For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin.” “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, in that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:9). But still more striking is the fact that the same word is used for the manifestation of Christ and His saints in glory. “When He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).
“When Christ also, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
The following extracts from Mr. Darby’s writings will show how he identifies Eternal Life and Divine Life, treating them as one and the same thing, and fully presenting the Son as Eternal Life to man and as by it meeting the need of man which is all denied by this system.
Divine Life and Its Effects
(1 John 1; 2: 1, 2).
The subject of this epistle (1 John) is the communication of divine life. In the gospel we have the exhibition of it in the Person and character of Jesus Christ; but in the epistles we have the communication of it, as also tests of divine life.
The first four verses exhibit . . . the beauty of eternal life outside of us, first as manifested in the man Christ Jesus, and afterwards as communicated through Him from God (p. 1).
The last Adam is the Son of God. He became man, and as man manifested the divine life here on earth in a way that it never could have been manifested but for sin. It could not have been displayed in heaven in this way. The light shone in darkness (p. 2).
Divine life was adapted to our needs by being in the man Christ Jesus. He went through all that we have to go through – “was tempted in all points like as we are” – without sin . . . But in Him the heart to which life has been communicated can see the perfection of divine life. It could not have been thus seen in heaven, although it was there with the Father long before. No angel wanted such grace no angel demanded such patience; it was for man as a sinner that divine life was manifested.
Thus we see love adapting itself to us in the person of the man Christ Jesus. Perfection has come to meet us (I speak of those who know Christ, though all may come to Him as sinners). The apostle says we have seen Him and heard Him. They learn Him every day; and what was it they saw? – Eternal life. You may ask many a Christian what is eternal life, and he cannot tell you, though he has it within him. Christ is eternal life. John says the life was manifested, and we saw and heard. They saw and heard Christ, and He was eternal life – first manifested, then communicated (p. 3).
For God being holy, and I not holy, Christ becomes my life, and His blood cleanses from all sin. If I received His word, I received Christ, and He is eternal life. Henceforth I hate sin, and the Son of God is my life.
In the fourth verse we had, “And these things we write unto you that your joy may be full.” “These things,” as expressed in the opening verses of this epistle are the manifestations of divine life in the Person of Christ, and the communication of divine life through Him to such as believe . . . Divine life has been manifested, divine life has been communicated . . . Christ is my life and joy now, and heaven has no other life or joy. Now I have done with self, because I have got another self who is more my real self than I. My connection with the Person of Christ is new life in me (pp. 4, 5 ).
I can go to the vilest sinner in the country and offer him life . . . Grace puts down man, to give new life which is altogether of God; but we are responsible. Eternal life has been manifested, and now the message to us is that God is light, and there is no darkness in Him (pp. 5, 6).
The children of Israel said, “Let not God speak to us.”
Moses said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” But in the infinite grace of God, the law was the schoolmaster up to that eternal life who was with the Father, and who in the fullness of time was manifested in the world (from Manchester Series of Tracts, No. 57).
As to manifestation, we give the following answers to questions addressed to Mr. R. at a reading at Dr. H.’s January 15, 1889
Q. Do we get our need met in John 3:16?
A. How do you mean, “our need”? It is very evident that the lifting up of the Son of God is not in connection with the putting aw ay of our sins, that is the important point.
Q. Take as an instance when He was on the cross and spoke of His mother?
A. I should not say He was manifesting the Eternal life then, but what He did was perfectly consistent with it. You may walk perfectly consistent with the characteristics of Eternal life, but you cannot display it in this sphere.
Eternal life belongs entirely to another sphere altogether.
The system as a system is now complete, and can be viewed in all its parts, in contrast with what we all once held to be of God. The enemy first suggests a doubt as to the Person of Christ – whether He is divinely and personally and in eternity the “Eternal Life.” Then follow speculations as to what Eternal Life is, or what it was in His Person, before the world was, or as manifested in the world, leading to the division of life in His Person; and ultimately these speculations are carried into the Godhead and all that once thus distinguished His glory is displaced in the soul, under the specious but delusive pretext of more advanced truth. But this effect is only produced gradually as the truth of God is undermined; so that the loss is unperceived until the system is fully embraced.
But we must add a word as to the important principles of action raised by this question.
Hitherto the principle of association, received amongst us, has always been – “Separation from evil God’s principle of unity.” Has it now been accepted that toleration of evil is the principle of unity? Does not the Word of God warn us, that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? And, “Whose word doth eat as doth a canker”? Do saints think to escape the evil, by evading the solemn responsibility, which Scripture presses upon them as the only remedy, for the prevalence of evil in these last days? “Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.” And it is of doctrinal evil the apostle is speaking in this passage. The motto of many at the present moment is, “Stay in association with acknowledged evil.” The Lord’s command is, “Depart from it,” and that to every one; for the name of the Lord has its claim upon the soul, and it is due to Him to dissociate it from evil. Has all the past been it mistake?
and are brethren prepared to condemn the line of conduct they have pursued the last five-and-forty years? We have had to separate once because of ecclesiastical failure, a breach being made on the unity of the body of Christ.
Since that we have been compelled to sever ourselves from those who upheld doctrines which deprived us of our true blessings and standing in Christ. Now we have a system which not only commenced with something of the same kind, but which robs the Lord Himself of His proper personal glory, dividing His blessed person, and undermining His true Godhead.
Nothing shows more the deplorably low moral state of saints, or the spiritual incapacity to discern the true bearings of that by which God is testing us, than the arguments which are used, and listened to, to justify continuing in association with evil. Greenwich, it is said is not to be separated from, because every ecclesiastical form has not been gone through with reference to it. What are ecclesiastical forms when Christ is in question, or the saints of God themselves in danger, from the enemy’s power? “Have ye never read,” says the Lord, “what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him?”
When the heir, the object of God’s counsels, was rejected, or his title and need was in question, did God hold to the forms or order of His house being maintained?
No, the Lord puts His sanction on David’s act, when he took of the showbread, which “was not lawful” for him to eat, and gave it to them that were with him. And He adds “In this place is One greater than the temple.” Are these forms to be weighed in the same scale with the Son of God, the Lord of all? Is the superstructure of more consequence than the foundation itself – the One on whom the Church of God is built, and on whom all its safety stability, and integrity depends? Under ordinary circumstances it is right enough to enter a man’s house with all the deference and respect due to him. But if the house is on fire, and it is a question of rescuing the inmates, nobody thinks of knocking at the door and asking permission to enter. To force a way in and drag them out anyhow, is, at such a time the only right thing. “Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire” (Jude 23).
We add here some thoughts expressed by Mr. Darby on these points when passing through a similar crisis.
Never let the question of ecclesiastical subtleties swamp a broad principle of right and wrong. But I shall not be brought to such wickedness as to treat acceptance of blasphemers as an ecclesiastical question. If people like to walk with them or help and support the bearing with them at the Lord’s Table they will not have me . . . I do not accept the setting aside my spiritual liberty; we are a flock, not an enclosure (Ecclesiastical Independency, J.N. D.).
The reader will find another example of the unsettling the soul as to fundamental truths in the confusion between the life communicated to the saint and the divine nature in Christ . . . I call it a work of Satan, when, blessing and testimony having been brought in by the blessed Spirit of God, a systematic effort is made, producing a regular system; an effort which takes up the truth whose power has decayed as to faith really carrying the soul out of the influence of present things, or some neglected truth generally, and, while it seems to adopt it as it stands in its basis, as a fact, subverts and sets it aside. . . . Any pretension to the possession of spiritual power is based on Church position, and thus seems to honor the institution of the Church and Christ in it. God is alleged to have set there, in that institution, the seat of blessing, and this also is an acknowledged truth, and the unity of the body of Christ is thereon connected with the institution. But the sovereign operation of the Spirit of God is set aside, and that which acts outside the actually formed institution is condemned as denying the authority of God’s institution and schismatical sin. Thus the actual possessors of the power of the institution, in its then state, really take the place of God. His power is vested in them as far as it acts on earth (Narrative of Facts, pp. 5, 10, 12-13, J. N. D.).
Unpublished Letter of
J. N. D., Dated July, 1850
and Sent From France.
Dearest Harris, – I thank you very much for your letter; it has convinced me how much I have been led of God in not taking any part in the affairs of England. Had I been there I could not, of course have avoided a testimony. Perhaps I should have felt called on to put myself more forward than even I have done – as it is, I am outside a mass of movements which are but the writhings in false position, of those who cannot see the simplest thing possible.
What are protracted investigations to me as to Bethesda when I do not admit the avowed basis of their meeting as consistent with the first principles of faithfulness to God?
They have denied (to me) the only ground upon which the Church of God stands. Hence Bethesda has ceased to exist, to my mind, as an assembly – on the same grounds on which I am a Christian, they avow they are NOT bound to see whether Christ be denied or no – I exist because He is what He is, and nought else; and they maintain the righteousness of the principle, when they avow the doctrine to be such that if it were true, Christ would need to be saved as much as the Church. The further I go, the clearer I am that in not owning Bethesda at all as a saints’ meeting, I am going on the first principles of Christian life. All who have countenanced Bethesda have mis-measured their strength, because their path is not of faith. The Lord, I believe, is consolidating souls on the ground of truth. All the investigations possible would not make me own Bethesda. I am satisfied it is no want of charity (my charity might be greater), but that which produces it produces my decision in this matter. A person looking simply at Christ and His glory cannot say anything, but that it is a question of first principles, as to saints’ conduct in this day. I am satisfied a very decided sifting is going on through this means, and that persons who walk on ground incompatible with the unity of the Church, as based on the witness of Christ will not stand. Were it my duty to be in England at this time, I should feel perfect peace and liberty; but my work for Christ is here I doubt not. What investigation could change a judgment founded on that letter of the ten? That letter is the basis on which I go, though I know some of its statements to be unfounded, and mere subterfuges but I have investigated that letter, and cannot own what is based on the principles contained in it. The joy, the simple joy of the brethren, is my delight and life. I have no doubt blessing is preparing for those who walk faithfully, in more simplicity than ever. My heart is much with the brethren in England, but I am in peace. L ___ C ___ will bear a sad burden. It is a sorrowful thing to be the instrument for sifting and chastening God’s people but Christ’s love is perfect and unfailing – feeble as I am I feel it. I never directly enjoyed the consciousness of it so much, and the intelligence, the wonderful living depth of the Word of God. I suspect our associations were not enough in Christ. The Church has had a large place in my heart for the past twenty two years. I lived, and sorrowed, and joyed with it if I could. I believe there was a singular blessing for the brethren, but they took it too much for themselves. God would have the Church in more direct association with Himself. I feel myself excessively weak and feeble, and unworthy of anything but full of hope. In these dark days it is the time to show Christ’s infallible love to His Church – He Himself bears it according to the counsels of God.
Appendix a
Containing extracts showing the views held by those leaders among brethren who have expounded scripture teaching on the subject of eternal life, as well as those of other Christians.
Also extracts and letters showing the new system of thought now introduced; with the view held by unitarians on the same subject.
Extracts From Collected Writings of J. N. D.
Notes on the Gospel of John” Vol. 33
The second quality found in Him is, that “in Him was life.”
This cannot be said of any creature; many have life, but they have it not in themselves. Christ becomes our life, but it is He who is it in us. “God hath given us Eternal Life and this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” This is a very momentous truth as regards Himself, as regards us and as regards the life that we possess as Christians.
But more; this life is “the light of men,” a word of immense value for us. God Himself is light, and it is the divine light as life which expresses itself to men in the Word. It is not the light of angels, though God be light for all, for He is it in Himself, but as it is relative, adapted to other beings, it is not to angels; His delights were in the sons of men (Prov. 8). The proposition is one which is called reciprocal; that is, the two parts of the proposition have an equal value. I could say just as well, the light of men is the life which is in the Word. It is the perfect expression of the nature, counsels, and glory of God when all shall be consummated. It is in man that God will make Himself to be seen and known. “God was manifest in flesh . . . seen of angels.” The angels are the highest expression of God’s power in creation; but it is in man that God has shown Himself, and that, morally, in holiness and love.
We ought to walk as Christ walked, to be imitators of God as His dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us; and also “we are light in the Lord,” for He is our life . . . And this is not a rule, although there be in it a rule (for we ought to walk as He walked), but a life which is the perfect expression o f it the expression of the life of God in man. Ineffable privilege! Wonderful nearness to Jesus! “Both He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one.”
Redemption develops and manifests all the moral qualities of God Himself, and above His qualities, His nature – love and light, and that in man, and in connection with men. We are, as being in Christ, and Christ in us, the fruit and expression of all that God is in the fullness and revelation of Himself (pp. 201-3).
Now the true Light is He who, coming into the world, is light for every man, Pharisee or sinner, Jew or Gentile. He is the Light, who, come from on high, is such for every one, whether He be rejected or received; for a Simon or a Herod, for Nathanael or for Caiaphas. He is the expression of God, and of the mind of God for every man whatever state he may be in. The subject here is not that of receiving the light into the heart. In that case it is a question of the state of him who receives; here, of the fact of the appearing of the Light in this world (p. 206).
But from this time quickening power and Eternal Life in the Person of the Son, who revealed the Father in grace, were come, so that the dead should hear the voice of the Son of God; and those that should hear it should live (John 5:25).
This was the great proclamation as to life; it was there and as the Father had life in Himself, He had given to His Son, a Man upon earth, to have life in Himself, a divine prerogative, but here found in a Man come in grace upon earth (p. 276).
As we have seen, the multitude, under the hidden direction of God, had alluded to the manna, asking some similar sign of the Lord. Jesus had said to them (a touching reply), “I am the sign of God’s salvation, and of Eternal Life sent into the world” (the original French, `au monde,’ `to the world’). I am the manna, the true bread, which the Father God acting in grace, gives to you. “He that comes to Me shall never hunger, and he that believes on Me shall never thirst” (p. 288).
Here it is Christ come down from heaven, the incarnation setting aside all idea of promise; it is the great and mighty fact that, in the person of Jesus, people saw Him who was come down from heaven, the Son of God become man, as we see in 1 John 1: “That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes which we have contemplated, and our hands handled concerning the word of life . .,the Eternal Life which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us.” It was as to His Person, not yet as to our entrance into it, the beginning of a new order of things.
The first great point, then, was the incarnation; Christ come down from heaven, the Word made flesh, life in Him and to give Eternal Life to him who should eat Him. The second point is that Christ gave this flesh for the life of the world (pp. 289, 290).
It was necessary that a divine and heavenly life should come down from heaven, and be communicated to souls and that in a Man. It was necessary that this Man should die, and terminate all relation with the fallen race; and risen, should begin a new race, possessing the divine life (inasmuch as they had appropriated Christ to themselves by grace), and which should be raised again by the Savior’s power, when the moment should come, “at the last day” (p. 290).
Personally the new thing, as we have already said, was presented in His Person, – a Man, God manifested in flesh; but He in whom was life, He who was this Eternal Life which had been with the Father, and which was now manifested to the disciples (p. 291).
But the Lord says, in verses 40, 47, that He is come that whosoever believeth in Him may have everlasting life, and that he that believeth on Him hath everlasting life; so that whosoever really sees the Son of God in the despised Man of Nazareth has everlasting life (p. 296).
After this we have the doctrine with regard to the Savior which is connected with the preceding fact: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12); not yet here the Messiah of the Jews, but the presentation, on the part of God, of light in the world – light which manifested everything, but which remained alone, for the whole world was darkness, far from God, and the heart of man himself darkness. This light manifested the effect of even the law; it showed where man was, as placed under it. But it was far more.
If man followed it, it was “the light of life” (cp. John 1:4) that which made manifest as the revelation of the divine nature, but that which communicated life to those who received this light. It was an entirely new thing com e into the world. God Himself, in the power of grace, become Man; rejected, all was morally judged; but, received by grace, it was the new life, the life eternal, for Christ is eternal life come down from heaven (1 John 1:1, 2) (p. 314).
In 1 John 1 we see definitely what Eternal Life is: it is Christ. That which they had seen, contemplated, and handled from the beginning, it was Christ, the Eternal Life which was with the Father and had been manifested to them (p. 431).
We participate in the divine nature, and we are in the position of Christ: sons according to the good pleasure of the Father’s will. That is the nature of this life.
Here (John 17) it is presented objectively. In fact, in our relations with God, that which is the object of faith is the power of life in us. Thus Paul says, “When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me”; but in receiving by grace by faith, the Savior that he was to preach to others, he received life, for Christ is our life.” (p. 431).
Still it is an inward life, real and divine, by which we live although we possess it in these poor earthen vessels. It is no longer we that live, but Christ that lives in us (p. 432).
Extracts From Paper on “Eternal Life” in “Memorials of the Ministry of G. V. W.” Edited by Mr. Dennett. Vol. 1, P. 345.
In “Memorials of the Ministry of G. V. W.” Edited by Mr. Dennett. Vol. 1, P. 345.
“From the beginning,” a remarkable expression. In the gospel it is, “In the beginning,” there as connected with the divine glory of the One who was the Son of God.
There was a difficulty the Spirit of God felt in writing of this subject, because “that which was from the beginning” was also the One of whom John could say, “Which we heard, which we have seen,” &c. John had not seen the divine glory in the abstract, but he had seen it in the One who was down here – God manifest in flesh.
“The life that was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” God never made a revelation of Himself except through the Son, whether in creation, in the reestablishing of things after the flood, in His dealings with Israel, or afterwards with the Church. There was no medium through which the divine glory found expression save through the Son. Everything that came out about God came out in the Son (p. 346).
This book is the expression of One who existed in Himself before the world was. God might have sent from heaven a description of Himself, but that was not His way. No; He sent the Man Christ Jesus, the Babe that was born and laid in the manger at Bethlehem. That is the One John is speaking of when he says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,” showing how completely the Lord had been there among them. John’s head had been on His bosom; He could wash their feet. “Concerning the word of life,” of might imply part of a thing, but this is rather about or concerning.
In verse 2 he speaks of the life itself. “The life was manifested.” They had seen this person, and in Him Eternal Life. The One who walked on the sea, who fasted forty days, He had got {sic} life in Himself, He had the reins of life in His hand. He could command Lazarus to come forth from the grave, and to return to the life which he had before; and so too the widow of Nain’s son. He could command them to cast out their nets, and draw all the fish together round the ship. All was under His control. But besides this He had life with the Father before the world was (p. 347).Mr. Bellett also, in his treatise on The Son of God, distinctly identifies His person with the Eternal Life that was with the Father, and shows it cannot be separated from what He is as God.
Extracts From Mr. Bellett.
There were, I doubt not, different apprehensions of Him different measures of faith touching His person in those who called on Him. He Himself owns, for instance, the faith of the centurion, in apprehending His personal glory to be beyond what He had found in Israel. But all this in no wise affects what we hear of Him, that He was the Son “in the bosom of the Father,” or “that Eternal Life which was with the Father,” and was manifested to us (pp. 6, 7).
“No man knoweth who the Son is but the Father” is a sentence which may well check our reasonings. And the word, that the Eternal Life was manifested to us, to give us fellowship with the Father and the Son (1 John 1:2) distinctly utters the inestimable mystery of the Son being of the Godhead, having “Eternal Life” with the Father.
And again, as we well know, it is written, “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” I ask, can any but God declare God? (pp. 9, 10).
In the bosom of the Father He was – there lay the Eternal Life with the Father, God and yet with God (p. 15).
And still further, in each stage of this journey we see Him awakening the equal and full delight of God, all and as much His joy at the end as at the beginning, though with this privilege and glory, that He has awakened it in a blissful and wondrous variety. This blessed thought Scripture also enables us to follow. As He lay in the bosom through eternity, we need not (for we cannot) speak of this joy (p. 16).
If the soul were but impregnated with the thought, that this blessed One (seen where He may be, or as He may be) was the very One who from all eternity lay in the divine bosom, if such a thought were kept vivid in the soul by the Holy Ghost, it would arrest many a tendency in the mind which now defiles it. He that was in the Virgin’s womb was the same that was in the Father’s bosom! What a thought! Isaiah’s enthroned Jehovah whom the winged seraphim worshiped, was Jesus of Galilee!
Let the soul be imbued with this mystery, and many a rising thought of the mind will get its answer at once.
Who would talk, as some have talked, in the presence of such mystery as this! Let this glory be but discovered by the soul, and the wing will be covering the face again, and the shoe will be taken off the foot again (p. 19).Mr. J. B.
Stoney himself, before these views were developed bears in 1885 the same testimony, that this Eternal Life was essentially divine, viz., the life that the Son had in common with the Father, which was fully displayed here below, and is given to us.
Extracts From Mr. Stoney
It is in the eternal life only that we could have fellowship with the Father and the Son. It is every way of the deepest importance that we should see that the eternal life is an entirely new existence, never possible among men till the Son came, and then it was for the first time manifested. The nature and measure of the life which the saints had before the coming of Christ I cannot determine all I can insist on is that the eternal life which was with the Father, as the very terms “with the Father” show could not be manifested unto us until the Son came. The Son of Man down here, manifested unto us the life He had in common with the Father, and He then, as the “last Adam,” gives us this eternal life (John 17:2).
We start, then, with the simple fact that the Eternal Life was never manifested in a man until the Son came and He was the virtual and actual expression of that life down here (A Voice to the Faithful, vol. 19, p. 56).
Men of God acted for Him here in divine power according to the measure in which He was pleased to reveal Himself. He was never declared to any of them as Father; until the Son came this could not be. “The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” The life of God is manifested by a Man on this earth (pp. 56, 57).
The Son of man is to be lifted up, crucified, made an offering for sin, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This life is heavenly in its nature, tastes, and interests. The blessed Son humbled Himself, and became a Man. He came to do His Father’s will. He freely offered Himself. He, who knew no sin was made sin for us. He vindicates God on our side, that every one believing in Him may be in His life; not reinstated in the condition which man lost in judgment but in the life of the One who bore our judgment, so that where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. This life is consequently entirely outside the ken of man (p. 57).
There was One now here who always did the things that pleased God. He was not trying to stand for God on this or that occasion, but He was in Himself a contradiction to everything that was not of God, as the light in the darkness. He was the exhibition of every divine beauty in every detail of His life. The life with the Father was manifested unto us; and that in the One who, because the children were partakers of flesh and blood, “likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death,” &c. (p. 59).
I have only to add that it is very evident, from John’s epistle, that very soon the Church lost the true idea of eternal life; so much so, that the apostle tells us that “these things are written that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” Let any one read 1 John 1, and in any degree apprehend the “fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ” (impossible to be enjoyed until the Son had come), and surely he will admit that the eternal life is an existence entirely apart from human ken.
Many believers have no idea of this life. They are assured, through grace, that their immortal souls will be happy in heaven – which they surely will – but they have no idea of possessing a new existence, capable of enjoying God, answering to His nature, and sharing in His thoughts and interests; one, too, in which we have fellowship with one another, and in which we come out in the obedience and walk of our Lord Jesus Christ on the earth (p. 63).
Various Extracts From Other Writers.
Could St. John affirm in plainer words that the Son had no beginning of existence, but that He abode with and in the Father before His assumption of our nature, and indeed from everlasting, than in those with which he begins his first epistle? He writes thus, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:1, 2).
And then in the conclusion of his epistle he tells us that the Son is that life which here, in the beginning of it, he says was not made, but was Eternal and with the Father.
He writes, “And we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ; this is the true God and Eternal Life.”
But if the Son is the Life, and the life was with the Father and the same evangelist says, “And the Word was with God” (John 1:1), then it is plain that the Son must be that Word which was everlastingly with and in the Father.
And as this Son is the Word, so God must be the Father.
Moreover the Son, according to St. John, is not merely “God,” but “Very God.” And therefore the Word which he tells us elsewhere was God is doubtless properly so too. And the Son Himself declares Himself to be that Life which the apostle tells us is eternally with the Father.
Thus, then, we see that the Son, the Word, and the Life are all declared to be with and in the Father (Athanasius Orations against the Arians).
The circumstance which, in my mind, places the matter beyond dispute is, that the same person is here most evidently spoken of as “the true God and ETERNAL LIFE.” It will be granted that a writer is the best interpreter of his own phraseology. Observe then the expression that he uses in the beginning of the epistle “The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and show unto you that ETERNAL LIFE, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” In these words it is admitted that the Eternal Life is a title given to Jesus Christ. Compare then the two passages. Is not the conclusion of the epistle a clear explanation of its beginning? (Discourses on the Principal Points of the Socinian Controversy, by Dr. Wardlaw, p. 59).
I would only ask you to compare with this the confession of the prophet, “Jehovah is the true God, He is the living God” (Jer. 10:10). And here we have another invincible argument that Jesus Christ is Jehovah, very and eternal God. (Comment on the above by E. Bickersteth, Bishop of Exeter, The Rock of Ages, p. 77).
So numerous and clear are the arguments and the testimonies of Scripture in favor of the true deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrine can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-3, is so clear; and so superior to all exception, that by no daring effort of either commentators or critics can it ever be overturned, or be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth (Griesbach’s Critical Testimony on this Scripture, p. 16).
Jesus was the Eternal Life which was at the side of the Father, in communion with Him, in equal intercourse with Him; that life of which all other existence . . . depends for its license to exist. (Dorner’s Doctrine of the Person of Christ.)
Now these extracts from various writers, though they have not authority over us as the word of God has, show what has at all times been the faith of God’s elect; and that it has been generally held by Christian writers that Christ Himself is spoken of personally and divinely as the Eternal Life, or as the Word of Life in 1 John 1, and that this especially characterizes what He is, and the relation in which He stands to us. The editor of A Voice to the Faithful {J. B. Stoney}
shows us plainly, in his paper on Eternal Life, that in February, 1885, he had not adopted the views we are combating, and that they do not originate from him, though he has since allowed himself to be drawn into them. On the contrary, he expresses fully, with a sense of their value and importance, the thoughts he now opposes, and guarantees them to us in every important particular. Eternal Life is what Christ had in common with the Father, that He gives us this Eternal Life, that He manifested and expressed this life of God here on this earth, in all its perfections and in every detail of His life, that it is a new existence, received by the sinner on believing, and that He is our life. So that the delusive outcry now raised, that this involves participation in Godhead, is just as applicable, if it has any force at all, to all these writers from the very commencement, including J. B. S. who now, in his signature attached to Mr. Anstey’s paper virtually condemns himself as guilty of such profanity, in what he then taught. The only writers who have ever questioned these views, or opposed the thought of the Eternal Life being a personal title of Christ, and what He was in eternity, are such as are unsound as to the Godhead of the Lord.
We see, however, in painful contrast with these Extracts in a paper by F. E. R. in A Voice to the Faithful for January 1886, nearly a year after Mr. Stoney’s article, the first germs of these doctrines.
I have doubted sometimes if it be sufficiently seen that when life is spoken of in Scripture, it is presented to us as a moral state into which one is brought through faith (“the Just shall live by faith”), to which the nature begotten in the believer of the Spirit by the word necessarily answers.
In Psa. 133:3 life for evermore is the explanation of “the blessing,” and it is identified with Zion, and therefore with all the moral force of Zion.
I think the passages cited show that the idea of life, in the first revelation of it in Scripture, is a moral order of things into which the believer enters through grace.
And in chapter 5, the apostle reverts to the fact of the Eternal Life being in the Son, and ends with the expression, “He is the true God and Eternal Life”; that is, that Eternal Life means a new order of things, so far as man is concerned, true only in the Son, and in believers as abiding in Him.
My impression is that it is in this way life is presented in Scripture; not so much as a deposit in the believer though indeed Christ lives in him in the power of the Spirit, but as a state of blessing, whether in Christ in glory, or under Christ on the earth.
The question is, Are we to give up truth which we have held and valued as the truth of God for so many years surrendering it for a view which is received by Unitarians alone – who deprive Him of the proper and essential glory of His person, which they have seen plainly enough (if Brethren do not) is involved in this question. This will be seen in the statement given in the following pages, made in reply to enquiries by a brother to a late Minister of that body, and since verified by himself.
Unitarian Statement on Eternal Life.
I understand “that eternal life which was with the Father” not to be Christ personally, but to refer to the life that was manifested in Him when on earth. He manifested the life of God. He did not manifest that life to the unbelieving world, but only to His disciples. This I hold to be the explanation of the words, “How is it that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” In other words, “that eternal life which was with the Father” was the life of God, lived on earth by Jesus Christ Godward – never lived on earth before He lived it, and distinguishable from earthly life.
As to 1 John 5:20, I take “This is the true God” to refer to God (the Father), it is His title; but the following words, “and eternal life,” are not a title of Jesus Christ though the eternal life there spoken of was manifested in Him. I believe that God was in Him when He was a babe in the manger, for Scripture says God was Christ, but that as a babe in the manger He was not the Exhibition of eternal life, nor until some time afterwards, it being necessary in order to the manifestation that He should be understood by those to whom He did manifest it. This required spiritual perception, and eternal life was only manifested to those who had this spiritual perception.
There is no doubt but that the language in the first verse of the First Epistle of John refers to a person, and that person was Jesus, whom they handled, looked upon –with natural eyes, of course – and heard; but “that eternal life” which was with the Father was not the person. Two things are alluded to in verses 1 and 2 (the latter being a parenthesis), viz., the person of Jesus, and the eternal life which was in Him, but these two things are distinct, i.e., the person is not the life, neither is the life the person.
If the pronouns “that” and “which” could be fairly rendered in the neuter in the Greek, as they undoubtedly stand in our English translation, then it would be sound reasoning to argue that their reference is to the life and not to the person; but it all turns upon what the apostle John really said in the original language, and not what we believe about it.
With certain reservations I would admit that Christ was eternal life, i.e. He lived it, and taught men the doctrine of it, He Himself being the expression of it; though I think it would be more correct to say it was characteristic of Him, as all His life could not be said to be the expression of eternal life, He having earthly relationships and duties to fulfill distinct from His mission as a teacher come from God. But while with the above reservations I would admit that Christ was eternal life, yet I would not say He was The Eternal Life, still less that eternal life was Christ, because that would be to ascribe a personality to an attribute, and, as I have before said, in reference to 1 John 5:20, I do not hold that eternal life is an essential title of Jesus Christ. Eternal life is not Deity, inasmuch as it could be expressed in the man Christ Jesus, and through Him imparted to men. Deity belongs only to God, and if I were to admit that “that eternal life which was with the Father” was in itself Deity I should immediately be on Trinitarian ground.
We are far from saying that either Mr. Raven or his followers are Unitarians, but we take the fact of this similarity as affording remarkable evidence of the dangerous character of this system of reasoning, and, along with the further development which has led to dividing the Person, and the apparent intrusion of manhood into the Godhead of the Son it is enough to show, to any who have their eyes open, where these doctrines are leading and will ultimately land their adherents. God has allowed this warning to reach His saints.
Will it be listened to, or refused as other warnings have been?
We shall have fulfilled our duty in placing it before them whatever may be the result.
We are conscious of no feeling but of love toward them and have no wish either to irritate or pain them needlessly, far from it; but as we expect to meet them in heaven, we would arouse them, if possible, to a sense of the dishonor we are sure they are unconsciously allowing towards the Lord who bought them.
It is on Mr. Raven’s letters that we can alone depend with certainty in seeking to ascertain the nature of the views held by him. Mere verbal statements, drawn out of him with an evident object, by those who have sought to defend his views, are of little worth.
It will be seen that some of the letters here given have not before been printed, they are therefore given in full, with some fresh extracts, which have only reached the author in part, along with other passages from letters already printed, added in order to complete the view of the writer’s sentiments.
Extracts and Letters From Mr. Raven.
Extracts Already in Print.
Eternal Life is a condition, but existing and expressed in such a way in a person, that it can be said of Him, He is it.
I should still hesitate to say that Eternal Life is presented as a principle of living” (July 16th, 1890).
I do not find in scripture that the term “Eternal Life” is employed save in connection with manhood either in the Son or us. When the Son is viewed, as in the gospel, as a divine Person, other terms are employed (Nov. 21st, 1890 Letter to J. W., Dublin).
It was in essence with the Father in eternity (Printed Letter to J. S. O ., Dec. 6th, 1889).
Scripture does not speak of Christ having been the Eternal Life which was with the Father before the world was (March 6th, 1890, to W . Barker).
But until He had passed out of the condition into which He had in grace entered, where He might die, and had entered on a new condition in resurrection, in every way commensurate with what He had been spiritually, I could not say He was fully revealed as Eternal Life (Nov. 13th 1890, to A. L., Dublin).
Scripture does not say that Eternal Life is Christ, but that Christ is Eternal Life, i.e. that the heavenly condition of relationship and being, in which Eternal Life consists exists, and is embodied and expressed in Him (Letter printed by Mr. Champney, p. 19).
Other Statements of Mr. Raven.
All I meant by “in essence” was, that it was not in form with the Father until the Son became man; but, as I said the being and, in a sense, the relationship was there, but I judge the thought of eternal life always had man in view.
Eternal Life is a condition, but existing and expressed in such a way, in a Person, that it can be said of Him, He is it (Greenwich, July 25th, 1890).
I do not accept the assertion of some, that eternal life is an essential title of the Son of God. I am sure it cannot be maintained. I believe it to be a term indicating a condition which, according the counsel of God, was to characterize man, and which has now been made manifest by the appearing of Jesus Christ. That which was to characterize man was what had been in the Son eternally with the Father, and was in due time revealed in the Second Man the One out of heaven. But what characterized the Second Man could not include all that was true of a divine Person as self-existent, having life in Himself, omnipotence omniscience, and many other attributes of a divine Person and yet it does include what He was morally in righteousness, love, holiness, truth, and nearness to the Father (August 25th, 1890).
As I gather the truth, Christ is the last Adam – a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), and the Second Man (1 Cor. 15:47).
As the last Adam He stands alone as Head (John 17:2; 1 Cor. 11:3). He gives life. (Who but God could do this?)
As the second Man, He is the pattern of the heavenly family – “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:48). Hence, when I view Him thus (though in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily), I think of Him in connection with the family – of what is true in Him and in them (1 John 2:8). “As He is so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). And this in itself does not involve all that is true of a divine Person, as self-existent, having life in Himself, etc., etc., or it would be true also of us, which is impossible (Nov. 25th, 1890).
As far as I can gather, he (Mr. Rule) regards Eternal Life as the life of the Son as a divine Person, as, in fact equivalent to “In Him was life”; while I regard it as a condition which, although ever existing essentially in the Son, is presented in Scripture as characteristic of the Second Man . . . I fail to find in any of the gospels the statement that Christ is eternal life. On the contrary eternal life there refers without exception to something given to man, or into which man is to enter (Sept. 17th 1890).
Hence I conclude that eternal life is a truth which is connected with man, whether in Christ or in us . . . I believe eternal life is what He is now as man, but then it takes its character from what He was eternally as divine.
But I believe eternal life to be the life of man, according to the purpose of God, and what has come out fully in Christ in resurrection, though manifested in Him even before . In a word, I believe eternal life to mean a new man in a new scene for man (Greenwich, Oct. 12th, 1890).
It is, I judge, a grave mistake to make any essential difference between Eternal Life as presented in Paul’s writings and in John’s (Greenwich, Oct. 29th, 1890).
Questions Addressed in a Letter to Mr. Raven
Is it true that you hold that Eternal Life is an essence or sphere apart from Christ?
Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is and was from the beginning that Eternal Life which was with the Father?
Do you say that 2 Cor. 4:10, 11 is not Eternal Life, and if not, what life is it?
Do you hold that a Christian attending to his earthly calling is not manifesting Eternal Life whilst thus engaged?
Why not, if we do all to His glory?
Reply to the Above Letter.
June 18th, 1890. “Dear Mrs. S., – I readily answer your letter. But I must say that I can only characterize the statement (from whoever it may come) that I hold any evil doctrine as to the divinity of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as shameful untruth. The tendency of what I have maintained is to keep the truth of what He is as a true divine Person distinct from purpose in Him of blessing for man.
The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, and other titles which speak of the true Deity of Christ, are not interchangeable with eternal life. He is the true God AND eternal life.
To answer your questions. I do not hold that Eternal Life is an essence or sphere apart from Christ, though I have no doubt that the apprehension of the new and heavenly sphere is essential to the entering into Eternal Life.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life; that eternal life was manifested in Him here and eternally in Him (in essence, i.e. not in form of man)with the Father.
2 Cor. 4:10, 11 appears to me to refer to life in the sense of character. The life of Jesus (what He was as Man here) is to be manifested in our mortal bodies. Eternal Life is, that we live in Him where He is.
Eternal life is heavenly (John 3:12), and has in itse lf nothing to do with earthly calling, &c. For us its form and character is to know the Father as the only true God, and Jesus Christ His sent One. I do not know where Scripture speaks of any one manifesting eternal life. What it does say is that it has been manifested, a special revelation, so to say, to the apostles that they m ight declare it.
They apprehended in some way the out-of-the-world heavenly relationship and being in which eternal life consists. The more we are in the power of it the better we shall do all here to the glory of God; but all this will pass away, and Eternal Life abide.
(Signed) F. E. RAVEN
July 2nd. My dear brother, – I am glad to answer your letter; and as to the various points you mention would say that the statement about John 5:26 is untrue, and has no foundation. I refer the passage, as every one else, to the hour that now is.
As to eternal life not being a Person, a Person is eternal life – Christ is it; but when it was said that eternal life is a person by C. S. and that school, they meant that the eternal life and the Eternal Son were strictly equivalent.
This I believe to be very wrong, and clouding to the glory of the only begotten Son. As the risen glorious Man He is the Eternal Life; but then all that in which Eternal Life essentially consists (nature and relationship) was in the Son, ever with the Father, and manifested in Him when here after the flesh. But the eternal Son is a much greater thing than eternal life.
I send you an extract from the letter in which the statement “Think of an helpless infant,” &c. occurs. I think it speak s for itself. The exhibition of eternal life is in the risen Man who has annulled death.
The reference in my printed paper to certain statements having been withdrawn or modified was to statements by ____ ____ &c., not to statements of my own.
I think in the beginning of 1 John 1 the apostle gives prominence to the condition rather than the person –though the condition is inseparable from the person – at the same time the person is greater than the condition.
Believe me Your affectionate Brother, F. E. Raven P. S. – The moment is a trying one, but made less difficult through the mistakes of those who have acted.
To Mr. F. of Salisbury
The personality of Eternal life I do not understand – I understand the personality of the Father, Son, and Spirit –they are Persons; but I judge Eternal life to be a condition (of being and relationship) which was ever in the Son with the Father, and manifested in Him as a man here, and has now its full and proper expression in Him according to the counsels of God, as the risen glorious Man – “He is the true God and Eternal Life,” and we are in Him. The place of Eternal life is “with the Father”; and hence I do not understand its manifestation to the world. Scripture says it was manifested to us (the inspired writers), which implies a special grace to them to enable them to apprehend what was with the Father. Christ was the light of the world spoke the Father’s words, and did the Father’s works, but all that was a different thing to the manifestation of Eternal life – God’s purpose and promise for man.
F. E. R.
To J. W. B.
In regard to Eternal Life it seems to me that it is a kind of technical expression, indicating an order and state of blessing purposed and prepared of God for man . . . so that Eternal Life is objective and practical rather than subjective – a sphere and order of blessing
(May 1, 1888).
To W. Barker
How you can say that my interpretation of 1 John 1 sweeps away Christ as being Himself the Eternal Life I am at a loss to understand. I admit Eternal life to be state, as it has been said, a condition of being and relationship, and this was at least in essence in the Son in eternity (Feb. 10 1890).
Extracts From Mr. Raven’s Writings Already Printed
Expressive of His Views on Eternal Life.
I should not quite like to say that Eternal Life is the life of God (Letter, Oct. 17, 1890, to J. W ., Dublin).
Royal Naval College Greenwich
December 16th, 1890.
My dear Brother,–
I am glad to answer your letter, and I trust to clear up the point you mention. I doubt if the words you quote are exactly what I have written; but I have said more than once that the term Eternal Life in Scripture always stands in connection with manhood whether in Christ or in us. To deduce from this that Christ became Eternal Life in incarnation is wholly unwarrantable, and contrary to Scripture.
In declaring tha t Eternal Life which was with the Father the apostle speaks of what was “from the beginning,” i.e.
from the incarnation. This indicates that he speaks of the Son as man; but then Eternal Life is not what He took in becoming Man, but what He brought into manhood. As to what it is essentially, it was ever in Him with the Father.
Hence Christ could say, “No man hath ascended to heaven but He which came down from heaven, the Son of man which is in heaven.” And again, “What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before.” And Paul says, “The Second Man is out of heaven.”
This certainly could not be said of the Son of man as to form; but it could and is as to purpose, and as to all that He is essentially. What the Son ever was in nature (or moral being) and in relationship with the Father now, gives its character as far as it can to manhood, and is fully revealed in Christ risen, though He is also the true God.
Hence Eternal Life was with the Father, and ever so. I have objected, and do object strongly, to the deification of Eternal Life on the one hand, and on the other to its connection with man in his state as a living man here on earth. It reaches us through death and resurrection, and involves a new order of being.
It has been said by a brother in Dublin that Eternal Life is the life of God. This is what I should call irreverence.
May the Lord give grace and courage for the defense of the truth. I am sure it is a critical moment.
With love in the Lord,
Your affectionate Brother (Signed)
F. E. Raven
Written to A. J. P.
Royal Naval College, Greenwich
October 30th 1890
Dear Brother,
– I saw a letter of y ours (to Cutting, I think) in which you expressed a difficulty in understanding a sentence in a paper of mine, viz., “It (Eternal life) was ever an integral part of the person of the blessed Son, but such as could according to the divine counsel be connected with manhood and be imparted to man.” I thought, therefore I would send you a line as to it. What is meant by it is this that while Eternal Life would cover all that Christ is morally, it does not include attributes which are properly divine, and which belong to the eternal Son. He has His own proper glory which is given to Him, even though He has become Man.
There are things which are common between the Father and Son as are seen in John 5 and there are things which are common, so to say, between the Son and us; what is true in Him and in us – as eternal life. In the connection in which things stand in Scripture I do not see that eternal life ever goes beyond man whether Christ or us. In the First Epistle of John it is what was from the beginning (the incarnation) in a man (though essentially it was ever with the Father, as the Second Man is out of heaven). When we come, as in John’s gospel, to the revelation of Christ’s person, other expressions are employed, as, “In Him was life” – as self-existent – which cannot be common between Christ and us. It is here what was in the beginning.
The same glorious Person who is now the full revelation of eternal life – the pattern of the heavenly family – is also the true God; He has life in Himself, we have life in eating Him, but morally we are as He is.
I trust this may serve to make the point plain.
I fear you have trying times in the States as we have in England. There is a distinct retrograde movement from the truth.
With love in the Lord, Your affectionate Brother (Signed) F. E. Raven
(To F. L.)
His (Mr. Rule’s) object is to identify Eternal Life with the life of the eternal Son as a divine Person (in Him was life). . . The statements as to the Son in the gospels are not all to be merged and lost in the truth of Eternal Life. Mr. Rule in his zeal for Eternal Life seems to me to be fast letting go the true deity of Christ. He says the Eternal Son ever was, is, and ever will be in His glorious person and eternal being the Eternal Life.” The phrase is high sounding! but where does he find it in Scripture (Greenwich, Jan. 29, 1891).
Extract and Letter of Mr. Darby’s on Truths of This Nature Are Here Added
The apostle then tells Timothy of the safeguard on which he may rely to preserve himself, through grace, steadfast in the truth, and in the enjoyment of the salvation of God.
Security rests upon the certainty of the immediate origin of the doctrine which he had received; and upon the Scriptures, received as authentic and inspired documents which announced the will, the acts, the counsels, and even the nature of God. We abide in that which we have learned, because we know from whom we have learned it.
The principle is simple and very important. We advance in divine knowledge, but (so far as we are taught of God) we never give up for new opinions that which we have learned from an immediately divine source, knowing that it is so (Synopsis, vol. 5., p. 222).
N e w York, Dec. 10th, 1874.
Beloved Brother, –
We must take care not to pretend to know all that concerns the union of humanity and divinity in the person of the Lord. This union is inscrutable. “No man knoweth the Son but the Father.” Jesus grew in wisdom. What has made some Christians fall into such grave errors is that they have wished to distinguish and explain the condition of Christ as man. We know that He was and that He is God; we know that He became man and the witness to His true divinity is maintained, in that state of humiliation, by the inscrutability of the union. One may show that certain views detract from His glory, and from the truth of His person, but I earnestly desire that brethren should not set to work to dogmatize as to His person; they would assuredly fall into some error. I never saw any one do it without falling into some unintentional heresy. To show that an explanation is false, in order to preserve souls from the evil consequences of the error, and to pretend to explain the Person of the Lord, are two different things (from the French. Letters of J. N. D., vol. 2, p. 368).
N. B. – Italics are introduced everywhere to mark important passages.
Appendix B
The following extracts will show the effect of this teaching as regards life or eternal life; how the true scriptural idea of it is destroyed in the soul, and that it only becomes a fact at the resurrection. Christ Himself as the life is also reduced to what is experimental. Such is the result of the new system which was introduced at Witney in April, 1888. This teaching appears to be generally adopted among Brethren in India.
“Indian Extracts, No. 21.”
“Please circulate among those in fellowship.”
If I am right then it follows that Eternal Life must not be confounded with the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. How then are we to understand, “This is the true God and eternal life”? In the same way as when we identify a man with his experimental life. J. has been converted and he is quite another man . . . What the disciples “handled” was not part of the life, but it was part of the Word of life, it was part of Jesus. If I am right in my “scriptural facts” it is an absurdity to speak of “the Personality of Eternal life,” because it is the personality of “zoee,” which is experience and never person. But now suppose I am wrong as to my scripture facts . . . Suppose, on further investigation, it could be demonstrated that Eternal Life did mean His eternal Person? What is the fault that could be laid to my charge . . . Would it be the dreadful fact of my rejection of the Personality of Eternal Life? (pp. 25, 26).
“All the days of our life,” neither beginning of days nor end of life.
It is the exercise, experience, activity of that which lives. “Zoee” is never that which does live, but always the result produced by living, or I might say it is the fact of living (p. 22).
Scripture, as I read it, invariably when speaking of the life says it is in Christ, and not it is Christ, though Christ (experimentally) is it . . . Now is the life Mr. L. leads the person of Mr. L.? Surely not; but Eternal Life is eternal “Zoee,” and so cannot be a person. If an intimate friend of his were to describe his life minutely another might exclaim, “Yes, that is Mr. L. exactly.” And it is in this way Darby says Eternal Life is Christ Him self.
Another thing. We must distinguish between having life in Christ and having life in oneself. The former is having it in title or assured to us, as, “We have . . . an house . . . eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 6). It is ours, but we have not yet got it . . . (cp. John 6:50, 51). Yet though the Lord had at least eleven with Him who had been born again, His words prove that they had no life (“Zoee”) in them because they had not eaten His flesh or drunk His blood (p. 26).
Letters by General Haig and J. Dow.
The final issues of existence (judgment or Eternal Life) were vested in Him, so that one who heard His words and believed in God who sent Him was safe from judgment and sure of Eternal Life, and that matter passed at once from the domains of death to that of life, &c. If someone corrects me and says I must not alter “hath Eternal Life” to “is sure of Eternal Life,” I say that in the sense as elsewhere in Scripture, e.g. 2 Cor. 5:1, “we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” It is ours, but we have not yet got it.
Look now into the future and see life in the new creation . . . Now as many as received Jesus had been born of God, God’s “seed” was in them; but that “seed” is never called “life” in the Bible – much less “Eternal Life.” The seed was in them. Eternal Life was secured to them. When the Holy Ghost was given them and enabled them to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man and to feed on Him, then they had Eternal Life in them; but the thought of John 6:47 was not yet effectuated, nor has it been even now – see verse 40 – it is connected with the post-resurrection state. The Spirit is God’s earnest, but John 6:47 contemplates Eternal Life in its fullness in resurrection glory (Letter from General Haig, pp. 27-29).
So we have called the new birth “the Eternal Life”; and one born of God a “quickened soul,” &c.; while all these terms are distinct and entirely separate in scripture use, so the words “personality of Eternal Life,” are foreign to Scripture (Letter by J. Dow, p. 35).
Extracts From “Notes of a Conference Held at Lahore,”
December, 1890.
“Partakers of the divine nature” in 2 Pet. 1:4 has a moral sense, and not the sense in which the expression is very commonly used in connection with new birth (p. 30).
Quickening is to give life, and we have commonly used the word to mean imparting new birth. He causes them to live.
Quickening is not merely imparting a new vital principle but causing them to live. Those born of God have Eternal Life in the sense of having it assured to them. New birth is never called “life” in Scripture (p. 33).
The disciples could not have the life of the Son (as Man) with the Father, until they had entered into the work of the cross. Though they were born of God, they could have no life in them till His death . . . The outcome of the new birth in the Old Testament saints is never once called life in the Scriptures.
New birth is the sovereign action of God, preliminary to all else . . . It is not our receiving Christ, though those that have been born of God do receive Him (p. 36).
To refer again to verse 10 (John 10:9-17), “If they had life how could He come to give it?
It is clear that they had not life before from what we have already noticed in John 6:53. Note too John 5: 25. “They that have heard shall live,” not “do live.” See also John 14:19.
The new birth is the beginning of the process that leads on to Eternal Life. The new birth makes you as secure as God can make you. You are absolutely secure from that moment. God has given me Eternal Life, but before that I was born again. To be born again involves Eternal Life eventually, but it does not necessarily mean the enjoyment of it here.
The Spirit is life – induces life. I believe that life begins from the moment the Spirit is given . The seventh of Romans is not what God calls life (pp. 38-40).
Neither resurrection nor life is a title, though neither resurrection nor life can be known, save in Him. He produces that result for others (p. 46 ).
We have been priding ourselves that we have life, even in an utter stagnant state of soul out of communion when we are away from God in spirit; it is humbling to find that God does not recognize that as life (p. 47).
He gave them their commission to go forth and betoken it with an act of power; showing Himself as the giver of life then He gives them authority, they could not go forth as sent ones, nor use this authority until the Holy Ghost came down, and then they had life in them too (p. 49).
Extracts From “a Few Words on Life,” by C. E. M.
(Winder, Leeds).
The saints of old must have been born of the Spirit, or they could have had no part in the hopes which God revealed to them. But life was still future, for there was not yet the man who as a divine Person had always lived, and now as a man could live for ever, and who could achieve life for others, because He could lay down what He had in common with them – His human soul – and take it again by a power which was inherent in Himself.
Life for them was a future thing, not yet brought to light. God had life for them, and in witness thereof took away Enoch, to show that life was somewhere else than here; He had it for them, but it had not come. There is no such thing as life for man apart from the accomplished fact of a man beyond the reach of death? That and nothing else is life.
Eternal Life, primarily and properly, is the inherent essential power to live for ever . . . In like manner Eternal life and the condition of having it, though inseparable, are distinct . . . Eternal life for man is the privilege bestowed by God, His gift, and beyond all risk of forfeiture of living for ever (p. 6).
Eternal life is the final result of His death and resurrection but it is the last thing administered; that is to say, Eternal Life is not an actual fact in the persons of those that are Christ’s, until the whole man is set by God’s power, the same power that raised up Christ beyond death for ever.
But at present Eternal life for man exists nowhere as an accomplished fact save in Christ’s own person.
Nevertheless now, as a thing quite outside ourselves eternal life is given of God, and possessed by believers.
John’s Gospel and Epistle teach us how (p. 7).
. . . The Word, in whom is and always was life; that is the inherent essential power of living; who as God, and eternally existing, was eternally, by His nature, out of the reach of death (p. 8).
He who has brought what He alone possesses down to us in His flesh and blood being given for us to eat and drink – creature life ended, that we may receive in Him that which is eternal, – now gives Eternal Life, because as man He has gone back to what He had before He became man and this is Eternal Life (p. 12).
The sent one replaced, as man, in the original glory He had from all eternity. Surely this is Eternal Life.
For now that what He has brought down and done for us is made good in Himself. He gives that we should live for ever, in having for ever before us Eternal Life, where only and as only, it could be in its true character in man and for man (p. 13).
N. B. – Important passages are put in italics.
We can hardly be surprised at the above statements by the followers of Mr. Raven, when he expresses himself on these important points as below; separating new birth and quickening into distinct things, denying faith, new affections and the reception of Christ to new birth.
As to communication of life, I have no question for a moment that a soul is spiritually alive as the result of new birth: still new birth is only a foundation, and is not necessarily in itself the reception of Christ. Eternal life is in Christ, and in receiving Christ eternal life is received but it is in Christ (the Second Man) “God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
I do not regard new birth and quickening as equivalent.
In the first, I believe a new foundation is laid b y the Spirit in man through the word, while quickening is that a soul is made to live spiritually in the life and relationship of the Second Man. In a word, quickening is the equivalent of “new creation,” and the result of it is that the believer has passed out of death into life (Letter of F. E. R., Sept. 17 1890).
In Scripture new birth is never connected with faith, but is the sovereign gift of God. Eternal life is always on the ground of faith, though of course it is also the sovereign gift of God.
Scripture does not connect life with birth. Nature is life in essence, but there is not the whole framework so to speak; i.e. the affections, & c. (Notes of a Brothers’ Meeting at Mr. Oliphant’s, 14th January, 1890).
Appendix C
Since the foregoing pages were in type, a copy of a letter of Mr. Oliphant’s, with Mr. Raven’s reply (published by the latter), have reached the author from England. Extracts from both are printed below. From these it will be seen that Mr. Oliphant’s remarks verify the conclusions that have been drawn in this and other pamphlets, that Mr. Raven’s statements distinctly “imply” the existence of humanity, in some shape or form, before the incarnation. Mr. Raven, in painful consistency with his previous course, declines in his reply to withdraw anything, and denies that he holds what is imputed to him or that his words fairly bear such a construction. Instead of a simple acknowledgment that they are wrong, he attempts a sort of explanation of them, which only indicates how far his mind was carried into this region by his speculations, though now that they are challenged he would fain avoid the discredit attaching to them.
The reader must judge for himself, from the extracts given, how far Mr. Raven’s explanation can be accepted, in the face of his refusal to withdraw the sentences which have given rise to the charge; and his own admission, that he was unwilling to speak in “too positive a way on a profound subject, which is gathered from the general tenor of Scripture.” Speaking of Christ as “last Adam and Second Man,” he says, “He was always such in the counsel, and I could almost say in the presence of God”; and again, in his letter to Mr. White, cited by Mr. Rule, “In resurrection (1 Cor. 15) He is revealed as last Adam and second Man, though ever such in His own person, for the second Man is out of heaven.”
Further, at the close of his letter, instead of judging himself, he brings the charge against his brethren of “lack of familiarity with Scripture habits of thought,” whilst assuming that he and his followers have gained truer and juster views of the real humanity of our blessed Lord!
Extracts From Mr. Oliphant’s Letter Dated September, 1891.
You say nobody thinks that Christ became last Adam and Second Man till the incarnation, and He was not declared such till the resurrection; and you add, “but I believe that He was always such in the counsel, and, I could almost say, in the presence of God, and we find m any allusions to this in the Old Testament, Ps. 8, 40.” Now no one would have any difficulty about the Lord being the Man of God’s purpose, and I have always understood Psa. 8 and Prov. 8 to refer to God’s counsels. But the sentence, “I could almost say,” shows a want of Scripture basis for the thought; or why not say, “scripture teaches,” and then it has the authority of the word of God? As it stands, it bears the meaning that you are venturing on speculation, and then what you do say looks like what Chater is refuting on your behalf, namely, that man or humanity existed in some shape or form before the incarnation, though the Person always existed, of course . . . No doubt He who was born brought what He was into the world, but what was born was a new thing in the world – “that holy thing which shall be born of thee” {Luke 1:35} – and neither man manhood, nor humanity had any existence in fact before the Word became flesh. But this sentence, I must own, gives a handle to those who accuse you of making humanity in some shape or form exist before the incarnation, and I am afraid souls will be stumbled by it, and others kept in a wrong position by it. I wish you could see your way to withdraw it with the letter quoted by Gladwell, as to which I wrote before, and give a distinct and emphatic denial to the accusation that you h old any such doctrine which would weaken the truth of the incarnation.
Extracts From Mr. Raven’s
Letter, Dated Greenwich,
25th September, 1891.
I should be very ready to withdraw the sentences you quote in your letter of September, in deference to your wish; but it is now difficult to take any step in the matter, since though I have no reason to doubt the sentences are mine they have not appeared in any published paper, and I have no recollection when or to whom they were written, nor can I readily trace them. My fear is tha t a construction will be put upon the withdrawal very different from my meaning in it, for though I have no disposition to disregard the judgment of others, the sentences, in my reading of them, do not convey anything contrary to truth and sound doctrine.
The idea that man or manhood or humanity had any existence in fact in Christ until “the Word became flesh,” never entered my thoughts, and I do not believe that any sentence of mine, read in its connection, and without bias could fairly bear such a construction.
In fact the charge against me of making manhood eternal in Christ is monstrous and inconsistent on the part of those who have made it.
I add a word as to the particular sentences you criticize.
I believe the title “Son of man” to be personal. It is the way in which the Lord most commonly referred to Himself; and that He said, “Son of man which is in heaven” by virtue of what He was in His own divine Person; but from the characteristic form in which the expression is couched it has seemed to me to imply a contrast to man as created for earth, and if so, the expression carries the idea of a new order, but I should not press it. The use in the other sentence of the words, “I could almost say,” sprang from an unwillingness to speak in too positive a way on a profound subject which is gathered from the general tenor of Scripture, and on which I felt there was much to learn.
But we must call attention to the fact that the preexistence of humanity in essence is the keystone upon which Mr. Raven’s system rests, to which he is shut up by his own words, and without which the whole fabric falls to the ground. What otherwise was this “something,” which existed in Christ before He took flesh, which was not Deity? Nay more, which he calls “irreverence” to identify with Deity. Distinguishing it also by various expressions from His life and His Sonship as also Mr. Anstey and others have done. That, notwithstanding his disclaimer, Mr. Raven still fundamentally retains the same thought is evident when he says, not only “In the Word becoming flesh it could not but be, as you say that manhood received its character from the Word,” but further, that “manhood is not seen as something added to the Word, but the expression is, “The Word became flesh”
(Letter of 25th September, quoted above).