Friday, April 8, 2022

More Evidence that Some Christadelphians Believed Jesus Offered Atonement for Himself

John Carter (1889-1962) was a leading Christadelphian preacher and expositor. He served as the editor of The Christadelphian magazine from 1937 until 1962. In his commentary on Heb 9:23-28, we read the following:

 

The Cleansing of the Tabernacle (verses 23-28)

 

But as both new and old covenants required confirmation by shed blood, so also both the typical and true tabernacles were cleansed with blood. For the old covenant and the typical tabernacle animal sacrifices sufficed becoming by their use and association part of the ritual shadow. But the substance is the “better sacrifice” of Christ. “it was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly heavens should be cleansed with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these” (verse 23).

 

“The heavenly things” is a phrase denoting Christ and those who are redeemed by him. They are denominated “heavenly” in contrast with the “earthly” tabernacle, “made with hands, of this creation”. There are heavenly, not because their final abode is in heaven, but because they partake of the character of God who is in heaven, but because they partake of the character of God who is in heaven. Christ has ascended to heaven for the time being, but location in incidental to the matter. The phrase has its source in the fact that in the mount Moses was shown a pattern of which the tabernacle made by Israel was a “copy”. Relatively to this “copy”, the pattern was heavenly; so Paul describes it in 8:5: the priests under the law “serve that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses is warned of God when he is about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was shewed thee in the mount”.

 

It is important to observe that these heavenly things stood in need of cleaning; and undoubtedly Christ is part of the heavenly things. As Robert Roberts says: “The phrase ‘heavenly things’ is an expression covering all the high, holy, and exalted things of which the Mosaic pattern was but a foreshadowing. They are all comprehended to Christ, who is the nucleus from which all will be developed, the foundation of which all will be built. The statement is therefore a declaration that it was necessary that Christ should first of all be purified with better sacrifices than the Mosaic: ‘Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place’; ‘not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us’” (Law of Moses, 2nd edn, page 92).

 

“There must therefore be a sense in which Christ (the antitypical Aaron, the antitypical altar, the antitypical mercy-seat, the antitypical everything) must not only have been sanctified by the action of the antitypical oil of the Holy Spirit, but purged by the antitypical blood of his own sacrifice . . .

 

“If the typical holy things contracted defilement from connection with a sinful congregation, were not the antitypical (Christ) holy things in a similar state, through derivation on his mother’s side from a sinful race? If now, how came they to need purging with his own ‘better sacrifice’?

 

“Great difficulty is experienced by various classes of thinkers in receiving this view. Needlessly so, it would seem. There is first the express declaration that the matter stands so: ‘it was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these (Mosaic sacrifices), but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.’ ‘It was of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.’ ‘By reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself to offer for sins.’ ‘By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption’ (Heb. 9:23; 8:3; 5:3; 9:12) . . .

 

“There was next the necessity that is should be so. The word ‘necessity,’ it will be perceived, occurs frequently in the course of Paul’s argument. The necessity arises from the position in which men stood as regards the law of sin and death, and the position in which the Lord stood at their redeemer from this position. The position of men was that they were under condemnation to die because of sin, and that not their own sin, in the first instance, but ancestral sin at the beginning. The forgiveness of personal offences is the prominent feature of the apostolic proclamation, because personal offences are the greater barrier. Nevertheless, men are mortal because of sin, quite independently of their own transgressions. Their redemption from this position is a work of mercy and forgiveness, yet a work to be effected in harmony with the righteousness of God, that He might be just while with the righteousness of God, that He might be just while justifying those believing in the Redeemer. It is so declared (Rom. 3;26). It was not to be done by setting aside the law of sin and death, but by righteously nullifying it in One, who should obtain this redemption in his own right, and who should be authorized to offer to other men, a partnership in his right, subject to required conditions.

 

“How to effect this blending and poising of apparently opposing principles and different requirements: mercy and opposing principles and differing requirements: mercy and justice: forgiveness and righteousness: goodness and severity, would have been impossible for human wisdom. It has not been impossible with God, to whom all things are possible. We see the perfect adjustment of all the apparently incompatible elements of the problem in His work in Christ, ‘who of God, is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption’ (1c Cor. 1:30)” (pages 171-173)

 

“Under apostolic guidance, we see Christ both in the bullock, in the furniture, in the veil, in the high priest, and in brief, in all these Mosaic ‘patterns,’ which he says were ‘a shadow of things to come.’ All were both atoning and atoned for. There is no counterpart to this if Christ is kept out of his own sacrifice, as some thoughts would do. He cannot so be kept out of place is given to all the testimony—an express part of which is that as the sum total of the things signified by these patterns, he was ‘purified with’ a better sacrifice than bulls and goats—his own sacrifice. If he was ‘purified’ there was a something to be purified from. What was it? Look at his hereditary death taint, as the son of Adam, through whom death entered the world by sin, and there is no difficulty. Look at the curse of God brought on him in hanging on a tree (Gal. 3:13; Deut. 21:22, 23). We must not get away from the testimony” (page 182). (John Carter, The Letter to the Hebrews [2d ed.; Birmingham: The Christadelphian, 1947], 102-5)

 

Further Reading

 

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