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p179 MY DEAR BRETHREN, - I am not going to occupy you with - or - or - . It is to another they will answer, and I trust they will depend on His grace. I wish to inquire into the truth of your statement, 'he is content to teach from the word of God, and we are equally content to hear it from that alone.' You shall have the teaching you have learned to delight in and what scripture says side by side, and you or any one can then judge if this teaching is from the word of God, in the hope that some of you (may it be all!) may be delivered from what, to my mind, is a Satanic delusion, because on fundamental points it is in direct contradiction with that word.

'The Gentile who is dead does not require forgiveness.'

Luke 24:47 "That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among (εἰς, to) all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

Acts 10:43: "Through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." Acts 26:17, 18. Romans 3:19, 25: "That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." "There is no difference . . . whom God hath set forth a propitiation [mercy-seat] through faith in his blood." 1 John 2:2: "And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for (the sins of) the whole world." Romans 4:7-10: "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven . . . How was it then reckoned? . . . Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision." Acts 13:38, 39: "Be it known . . . and by him all that believe are justified from all things." Colossians 2:13: "And you, being dead in your sins . . . having forgiven you all trespasses." Now here we have Gentiles dead in sins and uncircumcision, forgiven all trespasses. Colossians is essentially to Gentiles. (See chap. 1:27, and as the whole passage here shews.) But they are forgiven. But if, in spite of evidence, it is insisted they are Jews, then the Jews were dead as well as Gentiles. At any rate the teaching is false that the dead do not need forgiveness, for here the dead are forgiven. And this leads me to Ephesians 2:1, 5: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past YE walked," etc. These are dead Gentiles, "Among whom also we all had . . . even as others" - these are Jews. "But God . . . hath quickened us together with Christ." Here are both together, but both dead and both quickened together, and sitting together in heavenly places in Christ.

This anti-christian statement that sinners of the Gentiles have no need of forgiveness is connected with, partly founded on, a false interpretation of 1 John 1:9, as if it applied only to believers, that they are cleansed from particular sins; but though this may be supported by souls not yet set free, it is not in the passage. It is not, if we fail the blood of Christ cleanses us, but "if we walk in the light, as God is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" - from All sin, not from any particular fault. It is the christian state or standing in the light as God is, and cleansed so as to be fit to be there. After that John speaks of particular sins: "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father." (1 John 2:1) There is no re-shedding of blood, no re-sprinkling of blood in scripture "The worshippers once purged have no more conscience of sins": "By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." It is not that we do not offend, but there is no imputing of the sin as guilt: "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord doth not impute sin." And in Romans 4, where this is found, it is expressly declared it is not for the circumcision only. It is for all those who believe, "though they be not circumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also." Your teaching has forgotten that there were those who were not Christians, who were not under law either, and accounted righteous by faith and forgiven their sins. See Romans 4, where this point is fully discussed to set aside what you hold. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time." A ransom is that by which redemption comes, is wrought; to have the good of it Christ must be believed in: but as the righteousness is of God, it is as good for the Gentile as for the Jew, and is needed by the Gentile as the Jew. "There is no difference."

I will now take up the question which your teacher connects with redemption, and where he is very confused. He declares he has only the earnest of the Spirit - he does not say of what, only goes on to the redemption of the body. That we are waiting for that is all true (Eph. 1): but in the previous part of the chapter, what is spoken of redemption is spoken of a something we have, "to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." According to the teaching you have now, this is Jewish, though there is not a word about law or Jews. You are not accepted in the Beloved, you have not redemption and forgiveness, and in your madness pretend you did not need it. The passage speaks of those who are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world: I suppose there were no Jews or Gentiles when "predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." All this belongs, according to this passage, to those who have redemption through His blood.

You are taught that redemption is 'only to the state in which Adam was, that is, Eden: as he was earthy, such are they who are earthy, and can, by redemption, only be brought to the state in which Adam was before he fell!' Why so? Why is the sacrifice of God's Son, made sin for us, to produce no other effect than creation? I read: "He hath made him to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him"; or, as we have just read, "We have the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace"; "He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." (Eph. 1) Besides, redemption is identified with the forgiveness of sins. What has that to do with innocent Adam? If it be the intervention and work of God, it has the effect purposed of God, and according to the worth of that work; and that is, that we should be "heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." (Rom. 8:17) "So that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." (Eph. 2:7) The whole train of thought in your doctrine denies the whole scheme and revelation of Christianity, which sets us redeemed and forgiven in the second Man, the last Adam, in all that belongs to Him as the glorified Man, as the Son of man. You get the same truth in Galatians 4:7, where it applies expressly to Gentiles. (See ver. 8) "Christ was made under the law to redeem them that were under the law," but He was also made of a woman, the Mediator between God and man.

We are told 'he could not say all have sinned till he proved the Jew guilty; and now having quoted their own scriptures and prophets, he proves them guilty, now he writes "all." 'All right; but then the Gentile is guilty, has sinned, but being dead does not require forgiveness.' 'We have all sinned, are all guilty, but do not require forgiveness.' It is a shame to have to reason about such stuff! And then he impudently says exactly the contrary of what the passage says, 'He brings in the free justification from the law.' Scripture (Rom. 3:21, 22) says "But now without law [apart altogether from it] the righteousness of God is manifested"; and to whom? - those under the law to justify them from it? Not the least, but "the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, etc., etc., that he might be just and the Justifier of him that believeth." Hence in chapter 4:11 he expressly tells us it comes on the uncircumcision, not to justify from the law, for they were not under it, but without law, having nothing to do with law (χωρὶς νόμου). Now you are taught that when Jews are proved to have sinned and be guilty, all are - Gentiles as well as Jews; and also that 'the word no difference applies between Jews and Gentiles, not between Jews and God.' All right: but then Gentiles have sinned, and Gentiles are guilty. All the world is guilty: all, Gentiles as well as Jews, have sinned. "Being justified freely by his [God's] grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Now this justification and this redemption is directly and unquestionably applied, and formally said of all those who had sinned, all Gentiles and Jews, for there is no difference. All this is largely confirmed and developed in Galatians 4. I do not dwell on Ephesians 1, 2, 3, where Jews and Gentiles are carefully identified in the same privileges, according to the eternal purposes of God, the middle wall of partition being broken down - Jews and Gentiles, they are all chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world - it would be to expound the whole epistle. To say those spoken of in the beginning of chapter 1 are privileges only of Jews, is to talk nonsense in defiance of what is said. It is all the saints and faithful at Ephesus, who were chiefly Gentiles (see Acts 29:9, 10); and Gentiles are carefully introduced, as his own mission is developed in chapter 3 where he calls himself prisoner for them - Gentiles.

I turn to another point: 'God is not Creator of the unconverted!' It is denied 'that we, before we were saved, were created by God!' I have been asked for a text. I quote Acts 17:25, 28: "He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation." He is addressing the heathen and says, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." 'Adam [before he fell] was God's creature.' Genesis 6:7: God says, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth." But according to this teaching, He had not created at all what He was going to destroy. Malachi 2:10: "Hath not one God created us?" Even the poor women have a chance of thinking themselves God's creatures. "For neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man." So in Ephesians 3:9: "God who created all things." Ecclesiastes 12:1: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Will it be said He is the Creator as well as the Redeemer of the Jews, not of the Gentiles? Then He is God of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles, not "of the spirits of all flesh" (Num. 16:22; 27:16); and Jews and Gentiles are distinct races of beings, have not a common Creator. John 8 refers to Jews. Further, if it be because we come in by ordinary generation, then nothing is created of God; for not a tree, not a bit of grass, but comes from another, as is written, whose seed is in itself. 'God created nothing but the earth, and what was first upon it.' Then "the things which are seen" (Heb. 11:3) has no sense. John 8:44 is referred to: there is not a word about creating. They had the spirit of Satan, murder and lying - he was the father of it. It was their moral character. So in 1 John 3:8: 'creature, or God's only work in creating.' This is because the word "made" is used, and that they are begotten of Adam. The poor women were never (not even Eve innocent was) created of God; nothing therefore at all that exists, is created of God! Genesis 1: heaven and earth were created. God created great whales, and all that moves in the sea. (Ver. 21) The difference of "created" and "made" is imaginary. God said, "Let us make man." . . . "So God created man." (Vers. 26, 27) And He rested "from all the work which he had made," and in it "he rested from all his work which God created and made" (Chap. 2:2, 3 - lit. "created to make"), and "these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." (Ver. 4) In Hebrews 11: "By faith we understand," etc. Now that is exactly creation. Colossians 1:16: "For by him [the Son] were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones," etc. But the coming in of sin, we are told, has made the difference - not as to his being God's creature: "he that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning." And "in this are manifest the children of God and the children of the devil. Whoever does not practise righteousness is not of God." We are the children of Abraham, if we are in Christ; but of creation not a word, whereas sons of Belial is a common expression. They are morally his offspring by murder and falsehood; as the Lord called Peter, Satan, when hindering His obedience unto death, through the influence of the world's Prince. As Christ says in this chapter, "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world." (John 8:23) To be in the spirit of this world was to be from beneath. I might add as to present creatures Psalm 104, which celebrates creation as it is, and when we read verse 30, after speaking of creatures dying and returning to their dust, "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth." The guilt of the heathen was that they "served the creature more than the Creator." To Elihu who gives us the thought and mind of God in contrast with Job and his friends (Job 33:4, 6) "the spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life." Yet he is speaking of natural life: "I also am formed out of the clay." Again, chapter 34:14, 15: "If he set his heart upon man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again to his dust."

As far as I can gather what is taught (for the statement is obscure), the possession of eternal life is denied. That we have the earnest of the Spirit till the full development of it in glory is true. But at present I am told I only have the earnest of the Spirit. But it is said that life is mine by faith. The earnest of eternal life is not scriptural thought. Leaving the statement there, I give the positive statement of scripture. First, it is because we are sons that the Spirit of God's Son is given to us: so that we must have life, be sons, to be sealed and cry, Abba, Father. More is needed, but this is clear; you must be a son, which is by faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26), or it is false to say, Abba, Father. This is by the Spirit given to us. (Gal. 4:6) But I will cite direct statements. John 3:36: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John 5:24: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." 1 John 5:11, 12: "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."

Now this is the result of this short statement of the teaching you accept. You deny God is our Creator. You deny redemption, except of the body at the end. You deny that we have need of forgiveness of sins when converted to God; and unless an obscure sentence be cleared up, you deny we have eternal life - we have only the earnest of the Spirit. Now I do not touch on ecclesiastical questions, though you seem to me in this also to have cast the truth overboard; but you cannot expect to be owned to be Christians, denying all these fundamental truths. It is impossible. You may ask why I call you brethren I do so, because I trust you may be delivered from these sad delusions of the enemy, in which the fundamental truths of Christianity, as to its application to us, are denied. I might have reasoned a great deal on the statements on which I comment, but I have preferred citing scripture as the adequate reply. May the Lord deliver you from the delusion of the enemy.

Affectionately yours in Christ.

October 1st, 1881.

[53151E]

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