Behold the Lamb of God! or, The two testaments

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Preface

It will be assumed in these pages that the atonement was in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; that before his death atonement was only promised, and was therefore incomplete till the death actually occurred; that, though incomplete, it was not wholly ineffectual, for the promise of it, though not equivalent to the actual death, was sufficient for a provisional state of grace; that during this provisional state of grace revelation was imperfect and proceeded through the ages with a gradual development. The first stage of revelation was that of promises, and these were dim, consisting often in symbols whose spiritual significance was unknown to the worshipers of that day. The second stage of revelation was of law — rules of action. The third was of advanced prophecy relating to the coming of Christ and the spiritual glory of the Church. The fourth and last stage was the revelation of the very nature of God himself to the consciousness of the true Christian believer’s heart, a moral change wrought in man by the Holy Ghost through faith in the risen Son of God ; in other words, that Jesus was the revelation of God in the flesh of man. As the prophets had heretofore revealed God’s will, so Christ now reveals God’s nature to us, and thus becomes the last link in the long and gradual chain of revelation to man, and is the crowning glory of the system of divine revelation to man while in this body. And this i3 the new testament and covenant of grace.

It will be assumed that pending the promise of the Son of God as a sacrifice for sin, and before the incarnation and death, a covenant of works was established between God and the elect nation of Israel, which covenant assumed the form of a testament in Moses ; that the same covenant was made with Abraham, which contained a promise that a covenant would be established in his seed, which would be purely spiritual; and that this promise was fulfilled in Christ — a covenant of grace with Abraham’s heirs by faith.

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It will be further assumed that no provision for the immediate and final salvation of man was made till made and wrought out in the actual death of our Lord Jesus Christ; that the patriarchs and Jews were elected to salvation if obedient when they died, but did not enter into the possession of the final grace of salvation till after the crucifixion of Jesus. I will attempt to show that God’s government of man before Jesus was incarnated and died was in the nature of civil government, with rewards and penalties for this life only, but that it was a continued act of preparation for the mediatorial government of Christ, which would be fully inaugurated at his coming and resurrection. That God did not attempt to save man spiritually before Christ further than to educate the world for the reception of Christ when he should appear ; that God saves mankind in Christ only, and that not until after his great sacrifice was m^de ; that those who died before Christ came, and had been obedient, were elected to enjoy salvation after Jesus had finished the redeeming process. Wild as this scheme may appear at first view, the the reader will think better of it after carefully reading the arguments set forth in this book. The view's herein set forth interfere with no orthodox doctrine, however cardinal or radical it may be. I differ w T ith the current view r s only in the method of stating some doctrines held by the Church.

The views of theology to be set out in this book are not Rocinian, Arian, or Pelagian, nor do they coincide with Baptist, Campbellite, or Roman Catholic. They are in strict accord with Methodism except in the mode of statement and except, perhaps, as to the condition of the holy dead who died before Christ. Methodism ha3 no authorized utterance on that subject.

If the same God has always held the reins of government, why do v r e have two testaments? Why should one not be sufficient? Why should we have two covenants, as set forth in the Epistle to the Hebrews? Why should there be such difference in the mode of divine government before and after Christ? How could Abraham be so eminent as a servant and friend of God, and yet have a plurality of wives and concubines, wffiile Christians of the New Testament are forbidden such practice? Why is the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than John, while he was greater than all his predecessors? These, with

Preface.

many other questions, demand answers. The attempt to answer has produced this book.

Dickens says unwritten books are the best. It may be so with mine. Yet if none should have been written, there would be no good books. The world must bear the infliction ol the bad, with the chance of getting the good. If this work should be the means of doing good, I am content, though it fails of general recognition.

The study of the subject herein treated has been a blessing to the writer. It has brought him nearer to God and Jesus the Saviour. It has brought out the doctrine of the Holy Ghost in a clear form, and placed the writer in readiness to receive his baptism as never before. The atonement and the Holy Ghost as a sanctifier of human nature are better seen and realized than by any other view. Outward holiness, a legal religion, intellectual piety, were never so clearly distinguished from that state of religion called “ the kingdom of heaven” as by means of this study.

Many dark passages of Scripture have become easy and luminous, and all the holy doctrines of orthodoxy are sustained and strengthened, however much the process differs from the usual methods of theologians. It is often objected that one who has a theory to support will wrest scriptures and force them into the service of such theory. No doubt this is true of some; but if it be true of all, then there must be no theories at all. And what would a Church be without a theory? Speculative theologians and philosophers have disgusted sober thinkers with their fanciful systems of thought, and now those sober thinkers, in revolt from such flimsiness, become flimsy themselves when they reject an argument only because it supports a theory that is new to them. Theories are God’s work. Correct theories, like the principles of mathematics, were laid by the divine mind in nature to be studied and developed by man. Get a correct theory of any thing, and you are walking in a path hewed out by the hand of God before “the morning stars sang together.”

The theory of the covenants, as set out in this book, would be readily received by non-Calvinistic Christians if it did not defer redemption to the last testament and make that testament non-effective till after the blood of the Saviour was really shed. So deeply is the Calvinistic theory fastened in the public mind

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that all Christendom accepts without demurrer the assumption that Christs atonement was perfect before he died, at the same time affirming that his death was essential to the atonement. The propositions are contradictory and utterly irreconcilable. The foreknowledge and power of Cod are invoked to harmonize the variance, and just there Arminianism makes a frenzied and helpless plunge into the fathomless abyss of Calvinism. I do not make the leap, but try to walk in a straight path by clinging to the covenants and testaments in the order of their arrangement by the divine Builder of the system of salvation.

I know there are difficulties in the way of the theory of this book, but they are more easily removed than those on the other side. He is a freshman indeed who expects every one to indorse his views. Nothing could be written that would not be criticised adversely. I have written in obedience to conscience. My hope is to accomplish good by awakening thought and drawing out stronger writers. I therefore commit my work to God, and rest in faith.

I am far from being satisfied with the arrangement and plan of this work. It lacks system, and is not sufficiently copious in some respects, while in others it is too much so, and there is too much repetition ; but I am in charge of a Church whose demand on my time is unusually great. It is a great national sanitarium —the city of Hot Springs, in Arkansas. Invalids from the ends of earth are here, and many of them require pastoral attention. This precludes literary labor. The Author.

CHAPTER I, The Necessity for Redemption

“ Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” (Matt. xv. 19.)

B Y the fall Adam’s nature was so corrupted as to give it a strong bias to iniquity. It was liable before, but evil desire was not then an element of liability, as it now is. It is now inclined to evil, and that continually. By evil I do not mean natural and innocent dispositions, such as appetite for food, but such, for instance, as covetousness and lust and pride and selfishness. It is this that makes redemption necessary. If this evil nature did not occur by the fall, we have no solution for the commonest phenomenon of daily life. Man sins; something inclines him to do so. That something is the question of philosophy. What is it? Whence came it ?

These questions are answered in three ways. First, the existence of sin is denied. Second, it is natural. Third, the disposition to sin is inherited from Adam. The first answer is infidelity; the second is evasive; the third is the only real answer.

Depravity is the cause of much controversy among Christians, but the controversy is chiefly about words

(ID

Behold the Lamb of God!

rather than the thing itself. “Total” is the troublesome word. Total depravity in Arminian theology means only inclination to sin — to commit acts that are sinful — and all admit that such inclination does exist. Therefore the controversy is more of words than of facts. The bias to sin is complete. It is not partly so; it is so in fact. Nevertheless the enlightening grace of God rests on the mind, and counter desires are awakened.

. This was the condition of Adam’s nature after he sinned, and in this dreadful condition it was transmissible. Sin therefore, in the form of depravity, is hereditary. It does not render every one guilty. Voluntary acquiescence in depraved desires makes guilt. Adam’s spiritual death, which is depravity but not his guilt, is transmissible, and that death would have been eternal if Christ had not died. Jesus’ death takes away unconditionally all original guilt which belonged only to our first parents, but the wound of sin remains.

It was the purpose of God at the fall of Adam to institute a plan by which man is not only pardoned from actual sin, but is also redeemed from his inherited depravity, and all the wounds of original sin healed. To do this involves a restoration of man to his spiritual status. Pardon cannot do that. The spirit that fled man’s nature when sin entered must return to it, and this is more than pardon. God must re-inhabit man. Man must again become the temple of God, as he was before the fall. This involves a change in the moral nature. The spirit of man must be renewed. This renewal or repairing of

The Necessity for Redemption.

man’s fallen nature is called salvation. To accomplish this Jesus was promised, and it was essential that he should die to accomplish it. Why his death should be a necessity is a branch of the subject not now necessary to be discussed. But we are not left in doubt as to the fact. lie must die; and that death, with his life and resurrection, is to be the “procuring” cause of salvation. It is needless to distinguish between “ originating ” and “procuring causes” in this discussion; whatever the quality of the cause, Jesus’ death is by all orthodox Christians admitted to be the cause. But the death of Jesus is deferred to a late period in time; therefore, since the effect cannot precede the cause, salvation cannot precede the death of Jesus. A mere pardon might exist before Jesus’ death, but salvation could not. The promise of Jesus is not held to be the cause; it is his actual death. Wherefore, to meet the emergency of the case before the death of Jesus, a provisional plan is suggested and originated and set out in the old scriptures, based on the promised Christ, and is a temporary provision for salvation till the perfect comes. ^ This is the first volume of the book of salvation, the first covenant and testament.

To deliver man from spiritual death is salvation; sanctification in the New Testament accomplishes this, and qualifies man for holy living. This is the object of Jesus’ mission. But sanctification is the work of the Spirit. The death of Jesus is the cause of the Spirit’s work. If the Spirit does the work before Jesus dies, the effect exists without a cause, and Jesus’ death is not the cause of redemption.

Behold the Lamb of God!

Hence we see that God’s government of men before Christ came is different from his government since. But the difference is not that of antagonism; it is only that of perfection as compared with preparatory measures. We also see that all types existed before Jesus, and not after; that Church methods of antiquity are unsuited to the Church at present; that covenants have succeeded each other — the first followed by the second; Testaments have succeeded each other — the Old and the New; that Moses was the mediator of the Old, and Christ of the New; that Moses dedicated his with the blood of beasts, and Christ dedicated his with his own blood; that however good the blood of Abel’s sacrifice, “ the blood of Christ speaketh better things.” We also see that the people of God under the first were called servants, but under the second they are sons — children of God. This is the difference between mere pardon and salvation. He gives power to them that believe to become the sons of God. The Church is more active because more spiritual under the second covenant than under the first. It was local and unprogressive under the first; it is universal and aggressive under the second. Under the first worshipers sought the mediation of sacrifices and priests; under the second they go direct to Jesus, and without any sacrifice or priest, save Jesus only, find and enjoy the presence of God.

If God had pardoned Adam without a redeeming process by which the moral nature might be restored to harmony with God, it would not have changed the tendency of nature. Therefore, to save

The Necessity for Redemption.

man from the power of this depravity, something more must he done than merely to forgive.

Before Adam fell he was holy. Every thing that God could have required of him by specific demands of law was performed without any demand whatever. Every thing he did or had any inclination to do was innocent. Thus was the law written in his heart. His very nature was responsive to every demand that the most exacting law could have made. But he was man. As such his information wasTimited. A tree was in the garden whose fruit it was not proper that he should eat; wherefore, by way of instruction in the nature of a commandment, he was forbidden the use of that tree. From causes wholly external to himself, but operating through the natural channel of his mind, he ate and sinned, and his spiritual nature was changed. It is called death.. It was a spiritual death. In it are the germs of physical and eternal death. But the immediate effect of that sin was spiritual death. Spiritual death is difficult to describe. One who has been quickened into spiritual life can readily understand it. Experience comes to the relief of one’s understanding, but to one who has inherited that spiritual death, and has not been quickened into life, it is difficult to so explain as to make it clear. Terms have different shades of meaning as they are explained by different experiences. To one who never feared it would be difficult to describe fear. To one who never had eyes light could not be described. To one who does not enjoy spiritual life it cannot be explained.

Behold the Lamb of God!

Adam's spiritual death was constitutional, and that because of the absence of God’s Spirit. It did not directly affect the mental or physical organism; it only affected the moral, with resulting effects on mind and body. But it is this death, with the possible consequences, that has ever interested Deity in the affairs of man. To merely pardon Adam would no more restore impaired moral nature than the Governor’s pardon would make the thief honest. This impaired moral nature, the direct result of Adam’s sin, is so disastrous and in such direct antagonism to good moral government, and is so radically at enmity with the nature of God, that it is called sin, although it may not be the act of personal volition in Adam’s posterity. It is simply a state of sinful being, by nature antagonistic to pure life, and is therefore a state of sin, but not a state of guilt. So the apostle calls it “ the carnal mind,” and declares that “it is enmity against God” and not only not subject to God’s law, “ but cannot become so.” Observe that he does not say it is at enmity, which would allow it to be something that, under certain circumstances, might be good, but just now is in this state of enmity. As if two gentlemen otherwise good and kind, for some real or fancied grievance, fall out and are at enmity with each other. The cause of enmity may be removed and the combatants become friends again. This is not the case with sin that dwells in human depravity. It is enmity itself against God. It is changeless. It is death — a moral poison. When it ceases to be enmity it ceases to be any thing. The baptism of the

The Necessity for Redemption.

Holy Ghost is its only antidote. To save man from this carnality is redemption, so far as this mortal life is concerned; it will be finished in the resurrection. And the provision for this redemption is in the blood of Jesus Christ under the New Testament.

CHAPTER II. The Real Deliverer

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” — Paul .

f TIE object of this book is to trace the develop-

JL ment of God’s design in the work of human redemption. In a former chapter we have seen the necessity for such redemption. Now let us observe the methods of its execution. This is best performed by following the order of development as laid down in the Bible.

The work appears to be divided into three great epochs. The first is that of promise only. From Adam to Abraham something was promised to man. In Abraham the promise was somewhat exalted in that it took the form of a covenant, and entered on a distinct epoch. From Abraham to all future generations the covenant era extends. But we now observe that the covenant era is itself divided into two distinct periods, called the first and second covenants. So that we have an era of promise only, and one called the first covenant, and a third called the second covenant or testament.

Covenant and promise are not antagonistic. A promise is the act of one; a covenant is the act of two or more. Mutuality is an element of covenants, but is not essential to a promise. Jesus is the subject of the promise and the covenants.

The Real Deliverer.

As between Jesus and the Father there is no covenant except that which exists in pure speculation, but as between the Trinity and man there is a promise. God promised his Son to the world.

But little is known of the Christian system when it existed in the era of promise only, except that Jesus was promised, and even this was couched in language so shadowy as to darken its true meaning and involve it in great obscurity. Its first appearance to Adam after the fall is clothed in these mystical but oft-quoted words: “ It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

In Abraham the promise of Jesus was renewed, made more distinct, and his birth restricted to the line of that patriarch’s blood. This restriction is the ground of the Abrahamic covenant. Heretofore Jesus existed only in promise except as the unincarnated Word, and that promise was general to the whole race, and no one was required to agree to any thing except to obey such special commands as should be given. Any views contrary to this are conjectural, not scriptural. But to limit the honor of Christ’s nativity to a particular family God imposed conditions, and Abraham accepted them, and so entered into covenant relation to God respecting the nativity of the coming Christ. This gave the ancient promise a temporal complexion, and was the origin of its legal features and covenantal form as seen in Genesis xvii. 1-12. This was afterward brought out with more distinctness in detail and established by Moses with a system of laws and ritual added. It assumed the form of a Testament

Behold the Lamb of God !

under Moses — a formal announcement of the divine will dedicated in blood. In Adam it was promise; in Abraham, covenant; in Moses, testament; and as a testament was duly dedicated in the blood of beasts at Sinai with Moses as mediator.

The covenants have been divided into the first and the second. The first was made with Abraham and confirmed with Moses. The second was made between Christ and all who should believe on him (Gal. iii. 12-14), and was in its original form only a promise to become a covenant in the coming Jesus of the secoud testament. The first was to endure till the second was dedicated, and this dedication occurred at the death of Christ and became a testament in the blood of Jesus (Ileb. xix. 15-16). The first covenant contained two distinct features — one secular and the other spiritual. Both features were matters of promise only, but the secular was to be realized first, and the spiritual last and in a very distant day. The secular promises were realized in the birth of Isaac and the settlement of Canaan by the descendants of Jacob. The spiritual was realized in the birth, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, and the glory which followed these events.

The second covenant was purely spiritual, having no admixture of carnal elements. It is the fulfillment of the spiritual promise of the first covenant. It developed in Christ at his coming. It is the successor of the first covenant. See Hebrews viii. 7-9. The first was provisional and temporary — a schoolmaster having charge of religion in its minority.

The Beal Deliverer.

So the history of God’s dealing with man consists of a great promise and its fulfillment, and such covenants, with institutions, formula, and ceremonies, as were needful to the history and development of that promise.

To make man pure and God-like, the promise of Christ was a necessity; to develop the promise, covenants were needed; to develop the covenants, a nation like Israel was also a necessity. Jesus is the spirit of true religion. Promises and covenants — with attending rites, ceremonies, and institutions — were but the form in which this spirit naturally clothed itself iu the process of development.

I do not undertake in this discussion to follow all lateral lines of development. My object is to trace the outline of the plan. With the numerous minor covenants and promises mentioned in scripture I have little to do. High above these I find the promise and the covenants numbered one and two, looming up like suns in their systems, and around which many lights of lesser magnitude revolve.

I have sought in vain for the covenant with Adam made prior to his fall, so celebrated in the polemics of the Fathers, from which flows a stream of error hurtful to the interests of our holy Zion. If any were made with Adam, it was one of death and not of life. “ 13o this and live ” is not in it, but “Do this and die ” is very conspicuous.

Since the Bible is a record of God’s work in a plan of redemption, every thing in it challenges my attention and interest. I am compelled to inquire

Behold the Lamb of God!

the meaning of its great epochs — why God has so strangely divided history by such events as those in the lives of Abraham, Moses, Adam, Noah, and Jesus. There are those who say that God has just as strangely marked the dispensations of Luther, Calvin, and Wesley as those of Abraham, Sinai, and Calvary. Such talk seems idle. Did God in any wise change his method of governing in religious matters in the case of Luther, Wesley, or Asbury? Yet who can fail to see radical changes by way of improved methods, marking the epochs in the patriarchal ages, and a wonderful change after the resurrection of Jesus?

That the practice of the Church differed in the times of Luther, Wesley, and Irenseusno one doubts, but did God change his rule? That is the question. The question is not what Luther, Wesley, or any other man may do, but what has God done? Luther changed no law or method of God; he only sought to know what God required, to know what the Bible taught. But Moses gave new and greater laws, while Jesus fulfilled all and erected man into a new creature. Does the reader see no difference in the dispensations of Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Wesley, and Luther? In Colossians i. 25-27 Baul claims to be a minister “according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God; even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in

The Real Deliverer.

you, the hope of glory.” The glory of this mystery which was hid from former ages is “Christ in you.” Then he was not in them as in us. And this is certainly ground for a new “dispensation.”

CHAPTER III. The Covenants

B EFORE proceeding farther it is well perhaps to take a brief view of the covenants as understood and explained by the two great schools of orthodoxy known as Calvinism and Arminianism. A history of these theories is not needed here; a mere glance at the points of difference is sufficient for the purpose of the present discussion. By common consent a covenant called the “covenant of redemption and grace’’ is held to be the first. It is claimed by both schools to have been made in the council of the Holy Trinity, between the Father and the Son ages before the earth was made, in behalf of elect sinners on Avhom grace and glory were settled forever. Calvinists hold this settlement of grace on elect sinners to he unconditional, while Arminians hold it to be conditional as to adults on the sinnor’s faith in Jesus Christ. The two schools hold that a covenant was also made with Adam in Eden, which they agree in calling a “covenant of works” as distinguished from the so-called eternal covenant of grace in Jesus Christ, the motto of which is: “Do this, and live.” Calvinists hold that the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David are minor covenants, and are intended to be only typical of the great covenant of grace in Christ. But ( 24 )

The Covenants.

Arminians believe that the covenant with Abraham was a revelation of the eternal covenant of grace and is identical with it, and that the covenant of Moses is minor, temporary, and transitory. They further hold that the covenant with David is a restatement of the Abrahamic or the eternal covenant with the Son of God. Now, with these principal points of agreement and disagreement between the great parties to the discussion set before my readers, we may be able to see that some compromise has been made, and that the advantage in the compromise is rather with the Calvinists. Neither school pretends to explain how a type and the thing typified can exist at one and the same time. I think it would have been more scriptural, and therefore more consistent, if Arminians had denied totallv any covenant of eternal grace made with the Son in the secret council of the Trinity in the ages before the earth was created. For, first, the meaning of the word covenant is too indefinite as used in Scripture to make any opinion we may form of it the ground of such stupendous consequences as are involved in the doctrine. That word is used in the sense of a conditional promise and of an unconditional promise, of a conditional gift and an unconditional gift, of blessings to be sought and blessings not to be sought. It has a present historic meaning and it has a future prophetic meaning. Besides all this there is no scripture that gives it necessarily the hard and arbitrary character as presented in the view of a thoroughly organized and finished system in the ages previous to our earth. While