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LIFE ON THE HIGHEST PLANE
The Person and Work of Christ
Volume One
By Ruth Paxson
1928

This is volume one in a three volume series
Believed to be in the Public Domain

Vol. I. The Person and Work of Christ
Vol. II. The Relation Between Christ and the Christian
Vol. III. The Believer's Response to the Holy Spirit's Inworking

Life On the Highest Plane
The Person and Work of Christ

Volume One

By RUTH PAXSON

A Study of the Spiritual Nature and Needs of Man

To my friend and co-worker EDITH DAVIS, who, through her
faithful intercession, helpful suggestion, constructive criticism,
painstaking correction and selfless expenditure of time and strength,
has given invaluable assistance, this book is lovingly and gratefully
dedicated.

INTRODUCTION

EVERY Christian has inherited untold riches. As a child of the
King and a joint heir with Christ he is a spiritual multi-millionaire.
But comparatively few Christians bear the marks of spiritual
affluence. Their conversation, character and conduct give the
impression rather of spiritual impoverishment. Throughout the Church
of Christ there is a universal complaint of dearth and deadness.

Many Christians do not seem to be conscious of their lack or
their need. They are indifferent and self-satisfied. But, on the other
hand, there are many whose lives are characterized by a humiliating
consciousness of defeat and failure, by a growing unrest, and by a
perpetual striving for something never attained. Their hearts cry out
insistently, "Lord, is there nothing better than this for me in the
Christian life?"

The purpose of these studies is to teach what are the Christian's
possessions in Christ and how they may be appropriated, enjoyed and
used.

These Bible studies were first given in embryo to pastors,
evangelists, teachers and other Christian leaders in Conferences held
in China. Later they grew into full-size as they were taught in weekly
Bible classes stretching over a period of six months. In response to
many requests from both Chinese and missionary friends that this

message might be made available for their use, it has been prepared
for publication.

God is building a spiritual house for His own glory and use. This
house is composed of a foundation, a superstructure and furnishings.
These studies attempt to furnish the plan of such an habitation and to
show step by step the process of its building. Each chapter is, as it
were, a story complete in itself yet connected both with the story
underneath it and the one above it. The work is divided into three
volumes as here indicated:

Volume I: Christ Jesus --
Eternal
Incarnate
Crucified
Risen
Ascended
Exalted
The Foundation

Volume II: The Believer in Christ --
and Christ in the Believer --
The Superstructure

Volume III: The Holy Spirit --
Indwelling
Infilling
Cleansing
Controlling
Guiding
Anointing
The Furnishings

Every architect has blue prints which visualize the construction
to be erected... The fourteen diagrams used in this book furnish blue
prints of God's spiritual house which He is in the process of
building. (diagrams omitted)

It is the hope of the author that these Studies may be used by
groups. For such the Bibliography will suggest additional material.

The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to Mrs. Mary
McDonough for the use of Charts II, III and IV which are in her book
God's Plan of Redemption; to the many authors whose books have been
consulted for inspiration and confirmation and to the many friends who
have had a large share in the sending forth of this message in print
through their faithful and believing intercession.

This book is now given back to God with the prayer that He will
use it to lift many to Life on the Highest Plane.

Ruth Paxson

#11

CONTENTS, VOLUME I

I. Human Life on Three Planes - 13
II. God's First Man--The First Adam - 21
III. Life on the Lowest Plane: The Entrance of Sin into Man - 40
IV. Life on the Lowest Plane: The Rule of Sin over Man - 70
V. God and Satan in Conflict - 85
VI. False and Futile Attempts for Salvation - 115
VII. The Chasm Bridged - 146
VIII. God's Second Man--The Last Adam - 154
IX. Four Spans in the Bridge of Salvation: Incarnation - 167
X. Four Spans in the Bridge of Salvation: Crucifixion - 194
XI. Four Spans in the Bridge of Salvation: Resurrection - 229
XII. Four Spans in the Bridge of Salvation: Ascension and Exaltation - 241
XIII. The Crowning Work of Jesus Christ in Salvation - 251
Bibliography - 262

DIAGRAMS: Facing Page (omitted in this file)

I. Life on Three Planes - 20
II. Uncreated and Created Life - 27
III. The Sinless Adam - 35
IV. The Sinful Adam - 84
V. God--Manifest in the Flesh: Crucified, Risen, Ascended - 166
VI. The God-Man - 228
VII. The Holy Spirit - 261

#13

I. HUMAN LIFE ON THREE PLANES

THE Bible is a mirror in which man may see himself just as he is.
Any person who wishes a true picture of himself will find it there.
The Bible is God's studio in which will be found the picture of each
of His created beings. Your photograph is there. It has been taken by
the Divine Photographer, therefore it is flawlessly accurate. Do you
wish to see your photograph?

The Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul has divided the human
race into three clearly distinguished groups and every member of the
human family, irrespective of racial or natural inheritance, belongs
to one of these groups. God's description of each is so accurate and
so true that every person may know with certitude in which class he
is.

This classification presents a study of human life on three
planes, the lowest, the highest, and a middle plane: or the natural
man, the spiritual man, and the carnal man.

We will start with the study of life on the lowest plane, that of

The Natural Man

i Cor. 2:14, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned."

#14

Rom. 8:9, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so
be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his."

1 Cor. 12:3 R.V., "No man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy
Spirit."

John 14:6, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the
life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

Is the natural man a Christian? No one can be called a Christian
who is not rightly related to God. Is the natural man then rightly
related to God? To get our answer let us begin with John 14:6 and work
backward to 1 Cor. 2:14.

Jesus says that no one can get into right relationship with God
the Father except through Himself. The Bible shows us with
unmistakable clearness that this necessitates receiving Jesus Christ
into the life as Saviour and as Lord. Paul tells us that no one can
truly call Jesus Lord, except "in the Holy Spirit," and that if the
Holy Spirit does not dwell in one he cannot belong to God as one of
His own. It is the Holy Spirit alone who knows the things of God which
He desires to give us freely in Christ. But 1 Cor. 2:14 tells us that
the natural man refuses to receive the things of the Spirit, they
appear mere foolishness unto him. More than that, he cannot know them
because it takes a spiritual mind to discern spiritual truth and he is
without the Holy Spirit. So it is very clear that the natural man is
not in the right relationship to God. Consequently from God's
viewpoint, no matter how exemplary a life he may live on the plane of
the natural, he is not a Christian.

#15

The Attitude of the Natural Man to God.

Let us study what Scripture says of the attitude of the natural man to God:

Gal. 4:8 He does not know God.
Rom. 1:21 He has no gratitude to God.
Rom. 3:11 He has no desire for God.
1 John 4:10 He has no love for God.
John 3:18 He has no faith in God.
Rom. 3:18 He has no fear of God.
Rom. 1: 21, 25 He does not worship God.
2 Tim. 3:8 He resists the truth.
1 Cor. 2:14 He receives not the things of God.
2 Thess. 2:12 He rejects God's truth.
2 Thess. 1:8 He disobeys God's Gospel.
Rom. 5:10 He is an enemy of God.

The Relationship of the Natural Man to God.

The attitude of the natural man to God determines his
relationship to God. Rom. 5:10 and Col. 1:21 make it quite clear that
the natural man is an open and avowed enemy of God. This attitude on
his part determines what God's relationship to him must be.

Eph. 2:17 He is far from God.
Rom. 3:19 He is guilty before God.
John 3:18 He is condemned by God.
John 3:36 He is under God's wrath.
Eph. 4:18 He is alienated from the life of God.
Eph. 2:12 He is without God in this life.
2 Thess. 1:9 He is without God in the life to come.

The Condition of the Natural Man.

The natural man is without the Lord Jesus Christ as his
Saviour, therefore he lives wholly and only unto

#16

himself. "The old man" is the center of his life and has undivided
control over his whole being. Self dominates his thoughts, affections,
speech, will and actions. His nature is sinful, therefore his conduct
is sinful.

The natural man is dead to God but alive to sin, self and Satan.
He is under the dominion of "the prince of the power of the air," and
is the bondservant of sin. He is a lost man, helpless and hopeless.
The tragic part of it is that "the god of this age" has so blinded his
mind that he does not comprehend the seriousness of his condition and
consequently he has no power within himself to know God, to love God,
to receive God, nor even to seek God. Surely this brief sketch of the
natural man reveals life lived on the lowest plane.

Let us next study life on the highest plane, that of

The Spiritual Man
i Cor. 2:15, "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he
himself is judged of no man."

Gal. 6:1, "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which
are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

The spiritual man is the exact antithesis of the natural man.

The Relationship of the Spiritual Man to God.

The spiritual man is rightly related to God through faith in
Jesus Christ. This relationship has been brought about by the Holy
Spirit who has convicted him of the sin of unbelief in God's way of

#17

salvation and of the necessity of a righteousness not his own, if he
would ever have fellowship with a holy, righteous God. He has revealed
Jesus Christ to him as a Saviour from sin and as the Saviour he needs.
The Holy Spirit has so wrought upon the mind, heart and will of the
natural man that he has been convinced of the truth of the Gospel,
convicted of the sin of his own heart, and has been led to put his
faith in the Crucified One as his Saviour, and so has been "born of
the Spirit" into the Kingdom of God.

The spiritual man has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him, filling
him, leading him, teaching him, empowering him. Through the new birth
God's own life, eternal and uncreated, has been imparted to him and
now Jesus Christ is his very life.

The spiritual man has a threefold relationship to the Lord Jesus
Christ which is manifested in his character, in his conversation, and
in his conduct.
The spiritual man has accepted Christ as his Saviour.
The spiritual man has yielded to Christ as his Lord.
The spiritual man has appropriated Christ as his Life.

Jesus Christ and he are one as the vine and the branch are one.
Christ is the supreme need of his life and has the supreme place in
his affections. Christ is all and in all to him.

The Condition of the Spiritual Man.

The spiritual man having taken the crucified, risen, glorified
Christ as Saviour, Lord and Life, lives his life wholly unto God. The
Lord Jesus is the center of his life and has undivided control over

#18

his whole being. Jesus Christ dominates his thoughts, affections,
speech, will and actions. He has become a partaker of the nature of
God so that there are two natures in the spiritual man but the divine
nature is sovereign.

The spiritual man is habitually alive to God and dead to sin and
self. He is a bondservant to God and gladly, joyously, acknowledges
and submits to the sovereign Lordship of Jesus.

Jesus Christ is intensely real and precious to the spiritual man,
and he considers, loves, serves, adores and worships Him. This
condition is not due to anything in himself but is true because of his
yielding himself unreservedly to the influence and operation of the
Holy Spirit, through whom he has been enabled to seek, to receive, to
love and to know Christ Jesus as his Saviour and through whom he is
filled with His life. Surely this brief sketch of the spiritual man
reveals life lived on the highest plane.

Let us lastly study life on the middle plane, that of

The Carnal Man
1 Cor. 3:1-4, "1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as
unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I
have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not
able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal:
for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are
ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul;
and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?"

#19

The carnal man is an hyphenated man, belonging to two spheres.

The Relationship of the Carnal Man to God.

The carnal man is a Christian because he has obtained sonship
through faith in Jesus Christ as his Saviour. Therefore he is rightly
related to God. But he has entered into neither the possessions nor
the privileges of a son and his practices are not those becoming his
position in the family of God.

The carnal man has the Holy Spirit dwelling in him but He is
constantly being grieved and quenched so that He has restricted power
in and dominion over the life.

The carnal man has been renewed through the new birth but he is
still a "babe in Christ." He sits at the table of the Lord to partake
of His bounties but he has no appetite nor capacity for "strong meat."
He subsists on "milk." He is not a full grown man. He actually has
been united to the Lord Jesus but he is an "adulterer" loving the
world and caring far more for its people and pleasures than for Jesus
Christ (James 4:4).

The carnal man has accepted Christ as his Saviour but he has
little or no apprehension of a life of complete surrender to, and of
full appropriation of, Jesus Christ as his Lord and his Life. He feels
a need of Christ and desires some relationship with Him but he is not
satisfied in Him. Christ has a place in his heart but not the place of
supremacy and preeminence.
The Condition of the Carnal Man.

The carnal man lives his life partly unto God and

#20

partly unto himself. The Lord Jesus is really at the center of his
life but "the old man" is usually on the throne. There is a divided
control over his life. Sometimes Christ dominates his thoughts,
affections, speech, will and action but more often they are under the
dominion of self. Two natures are side by side in the carnal man, the
divine and the fleshly, and he is under the sway of each in turn
according as he yields to one or to the other. He is alive to God
spasmodically but he is equally alive to sin, self and Satan. He
attempts to live in two spheres, the heavenly and the earthly--and he
fails in both.

The carnal man is in a miserable condition and his life is always
one of defeat and discouragement, often one of despair. This condition
is due to ignorance of the deep things of God, unwillingness to yield
himself unreservedly to the Lord Jesus Christ, and unbelief in
appropriating Christ with all His graces and gifts. Surely this brief
sketch of the carnal man reveals life lived on a middle plane.
(Diagram I. omitted)

We have looked into God's mirror. Have you seen yourself? We have
been in God's studio. Have you seen your photograph? We have seen
human life on three planes. On which plane are you living?

#21

II. GOD'S FIRST MAN--THE FIRST ADAM

AS we daily observe the lives of men and women we see a vast
difference in the quality of those lives. We readily admit that people
are living, on totally different planes with a consequent vast
divergence in character and conduct. We must seek the cause of such
disparity. What or who is to blame?

If we acknowledge God to be the Creator of all things in His
universe, then we are compelled to place the responsibility for such
inequality either upon Him or upon man. It must be the result either
of God's fiat or of man's choice. To say that it is due to the
difference in the heredity, circumstances, environment or
opportunities of people, is to beg the question altogether. Countless
ones have come up out of the depths of poverty, illiteracy,
superstition, affliction and persecution to heights of nobility in
character and conduct. Many have fallen from heights of wealth,
education, ease, opportunity and privilege to the lowest depths of sin
and shame. Upon whom then should the blame rest for such inequality in
human life?

Is God responsible for it? The only fair way to answer this
question is to turn to His own record of creation and to read what He
says of His first man, and to determine upon what plane He intended
him to live.

#22

Gen. 1:26, 27, "26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all
the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he
him; male and female created he them."

Gen. 1:31, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold,
it was very good."

If language has any power whatever to express thought, these
words clearly teach us five things regarding God's first man:
(1) That he was created by Someone who already existed.
(2) That his creation was the result of God's deliberate, direct,
creative will.
(3) That he was created in the image of God.
(4) That he was pronounced "very good."
(5) That he was given dominion over all the earth and made the head
of the entire terrestrial creation.

God Created Man in His own Image.

God's first man was made just as God wanted all men to be. He was
made after a pattern. God's first man came direct from God's own hand
and bore a definite resemblance to his Creator. "The root idea of the
Hebrew word translated 'image' is that of a shadow." God's first man,
then, was God's shadow. He was like God. But in what respect?

To answer this question we are forced to ask another.

#23

"What was God like?" "GOD created man." The statement is made without
any previous explanation of God Himself; He appears upon the first
pages of revelation as a Being acting independently in the creation of
a universe and of man with no explanation of Himself and with no
reference whatever to His origin.

"Who, then, created God?" How many mothers have had to answer
that query! It is, likewise, the first and greatest issue that
confronts the philosopher as he studies into the secrets of the
universe. In answering this question correctly one takes his first
step in knowing who God is.

Scripture gives to men and women of faith an absolutely
satisfying and final answer in the simple but sublime words, "In the
beginning GOD." God never became for He always was. God is the great
"I AM." "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM; and he said, Thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto
you." God had no beginning and will have no end. From everlasting to
everlasting He is God. "For with thee is the fountain of life." "For
as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to
have life in himself." God is the Uncreated: the Always-Existent. He
is the Eternal, Infinite One. He is the Beginning of all beginnings.

This, then, is what God is. But if this is what God is in what
respect could God's first man ever be said to resemble Him? Let us
press on in our search for an understanding of this great truth. While

#24

God never explains Himself in Scripture He does reveal Himself. He
wants men to know who and what He is, for if we did not have this
knowledge we could never know God's original intention for man who was
made in His image.

Let us turn to the first twenty-five verses of the opening
chapter of God's Word and see if we find any revelation of Himself
that throws light upon the kind of resemblance God's first man bore to
God. We read:

"God said ..." "God made ..."
"God saw ..." "God set ..."
"God divided ..." "God created ..."
"God called ..." "God blessed ..."

These phrases each record something which God did. Outward action is
the expression of inward being. What one does reveals what one is.

"God said," therefore God must have thought.
"God blessed," therefore God must have loved.
"God created," therefore God must have willed.

Genesis 1:1-25 reveals personality. God is a Person. He is a Person
who thinks, loves, and wills.

We have now found out two things about God. We have learned that
God is the Uncreated, the Eternal, the Infinite, the Fountainhead of
all life. And we have learned that He is a Person who thinks, loves
and wills. The deduction which we may make from this twofold
revelation is that God is a Person who thinks, loves

#25

and wills on the plane of uncreated, unlimited, eternal, divine Life.

Are we ready now to answer the question, "In what respect was
God's first man like God?" Perhaps we might clarify our thinking on
one very fundamental point by first saying in what respect God's first
man was not like Him.

Gen. 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul."

1 Cor. 15:47, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is the Lord from heaven."

God was man's Creator. Man became a living soul. Man was formed
from the dust of the ground. He is of the earth, earthy. It will be
clearly seen from these verses that God and God's first man Adam were
not in the same order of beings nor did they live on the same plane of
life.

God is uncreated, man is created. God is infinite, man is finite.
God is heavenly, man is earthy. God is divine, man is human. Between
what God is in His uncreated, essential, divine being and what man is
in his created, finite, human being there is an absolutely impassable
gulf, an immeasurable distance. God is not superman, man is not
inferior God.

In what respect then did God's first man resemble God? Wherein was
man God's shadow? It was in the wondrous gift of personality. Man is a
person as God is a person. Let us trace this likeness in the opening
chapters of Genesis.

#26

As a person God thought and expressed His thought in words thus
revealing the truth that intelligence is inherent in personality. God
made Adam in His image.

Gen. 2:19, 20, "And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto
Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every
living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all
cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field."

Adam was created with the power to think and to express thought
in words. Adam had intelligence.

As a person God loved and expressed His love in blessing thus
revealing the truth that emotion is inherent in personality. God made
Adam in His image.

Gen. 2:18, "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man
should be alone; and I will make him an help meet for him."

God gave Eve to Adam to be his wife and God said, "Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his
wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2:24).

Adam was created with the power to love and to express that love
in fidelity. Adam had emotion.

As a person God willed and expressed His will in action thus
revealing the truth that will is inherent in personality. God made
Adam in His image.

#27

Gen. 3:6, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for
food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired
to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave
also unto her husband with her; and he did eat."

Adam was created with the power to will and to express that will
in choice. Adam had volition.

God's first man was made in God's image in the sense of having a
personality patterned after God's in its power to think, to love and
to will; but with this difference, that God thought, loved and willed
on the plane of uncreated, unlimited, eternal, divine life, while Adam
thought, loved and willed on the plane of created, limited, finite,
human life. The intellectual, emotional and volitional life of God's
first man was perfect within a limited sphere. Above and beyond this
was the perfection of God's personality within an unlimited sphere.
(Diagram II. omitted)

The resemblance which God's first man bore to God through
likeness in personality made communion and cooperation between them
possible; while the difference of plane on which each lived determined
the basis of their relationship. God was the Creator, Adam was the
created. God was the Sovereign, Adam was the subject. It also set the
boundaries of Adam's intellectual, emotional and volitional life; all
must lie within the realm of divine sovereignty. The sovereignty of
God expressed in His divine will was to be the circumference of Adam's
human life. Unlimited liberty in thinking, loving and willing was

#28

given him. But one condition had to be met. He must think, love and
will within the circle of God's will.

Such a limitation was not for the purpose of making God a
glorified despot: a Sovereign who ruled arbitrarily with no thought
for the well being of His subject. On the contrary the limitation was
wholly beneficent. It was purely for the purpose of keeping man in the
only sphere in which he could remain perfect, in which he could come
into the fullest and most complete realization of the possibility of
his being, in which, in fact, he could remain in communion and
cooperation with God.

That God intended man to become even more than we see him to be
in the unfallen first man of Eden the whole trend of the Bible shows.
Adam was made in the image of God plus the capacity for sonship. "Man
as originally created, was not only in the image of God, he was also
made to live in union with God, so that all his limitation might find
its complement in the unlimited life of the Eternal. It is a great
mistake to think of man as made, and then as put into some position
where he might rise or fall, according to the capacity of his own
personality. It is rather to be remembered that he was created in the
image of God, and then put into a probationary position through which
he was to pass unharmed to some larger form of existence, if his life
were lived in union with the God who had created him. If however he
chose a separate existence, and cut himself off from union, in that
act he would fall."--(The Crises of the Christ, G. Campbell Morgan,
page 28.)

#29

What would God's first man do? Would he accept the limitation and
live his life in union with God, content to let it be kept wholly
within the circle of God's will, or would he exercise his will in a
choice contrary to the will of God and so cut himself off from the
life of God? There would be but one way to know--the way of a test.
God gave the test.

Gen. 2:8, 9, "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground
made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."

Gen. 2:16, 17, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the
day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

"Of every tree thou mayest freely eat"--unlimited freedom of
choice within the will of God. "But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil thou shalt not eat of it"--limitation of choice bounded
by the will of God. "The Lord God commanded the man saying, Thou shalt
not" Here was the Great Divide. This was the watershed between the
sovereignty of the Creator and the subjection of the created. All on
one side was within the circle of God's will: all on the other side
was without the circle of God's will. All on one side meant union with
God: all on the other side meant separation

#30

from God. All on one side spelled life: all on the other side spelled
death. God gave the test. Adam was to make the choice. God gave the
command. Adam could obey or disobey.

Just here we must pause to penetrate a bit deeper into the study
of Adam's personality to see if there was anything within him to
hinder or to help him in the making of his choice. Did God make Adam
so that he could will to live wholly within the circle of God's will
and have every other part of his being in active sympathy with such a
decision? In the very constitution of Adam's being did God place
anything that would favour and foster such complete and continuous
obedience?

Scripture does not say a great deal about the threefold nature of
man but what it does say is very illuminating and indubitable. It does
tell us how man came to be what man now is.

Gen. 2:7, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul."

Scripture names for us the component parts of man as thus created
by God.

1 Thess. 5:23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly;
and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

In Gen. 2:7 God gives us the divine order in the creation of the
component parts of man.

#31

The Formation of the Human Body. "And the Lord God formed man out
of the dust of the ground." "The first man is of the earth, earthy."
The earth was to be man's dwelling place. In order that it might have
communication with the external world in which it dwelt, the body of
man was formed of earth, and then equipped with five senses, sight,
hearing, taste, touch and smell. Because of its connection with the
earthly, the body is the lowest part of man. Yet it has the exalted
privilege of being the home of the spirit and of being its only outlet
to the world of sense. The body is the port city of the human
personality.

The Emanation of the Human Spirit. "And breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life." The divine Potter formed the human frame
and then breathed into it the breath of life. This life principle
which came as a direct emanation from God became the human spirit.
Some one has aptly said, "Man is dust inbreathed by Deity."

God Himself defines the human spirit in these words, "The spirit
of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost parts." The
spirit is the crowning part of man's being. It is God's masterpiece in
human creation. It is the part of man which has relationship to the
unseen, spiritual world, which has fellowship with God. Through the
spirit man apprehends, loves and worships God. Dr. A.T. Pierson says,
"The spirit receives impressions of outward and material things
through the soul and the body, but it belongs itself to a higher level
and realm, and is capable of a direct knowledge of God by relation to

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its own higher senses and faculties. In an unfallen state it was like
a lofty observatory with an outlook upon a celestial firmament." (The
Bible and Spiritual Life, page 116.) The spirit is the capital city of
the human personality.

The Creation of the Human Soul. "And man became a living soul."
Above the body and beneath the spirit stands the soul, the medium
between the two. It has been said that in its relationship to the body
and bodily senses it might be likened to the photographer's dark room.
The impressions regarding the external world received through the
senses are gathered up and conveyed to this dark room where they are
developed into distinct expressions of thought, emotion or will.

In its relationship to the spirit and the spiritual world the
soul might be likened to the judge's bench. The evidence regarding God
and spiritual realities which the spirit finds in its research in the
spiritual realm is brought to the bar of the soul and there either
accepted or rejected.

Man, then, is a trinity; spirit, soul, and body are the integral
parts of his triune being. In the constitution of God's first man two
independent elements were used; the corporeal and the spiritual; the
material and the immaterial. Each was essential because man was to be
related to two worlds; the seen and the unseen; the material and the
spiritual. He was made primarily for God and in order to have
intercourse with God he must have a spirit capable of communion and
fellowship with the Divine Spirit. But man was to be placed in

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God's material universe that he might have tangible relationship with
the external world of people and things. So he must have a body
capable of such contact and communication. Man was to be in close,
continuous touch with both heaven and earth; with the external and the
temporal; with the spiritual and the material.

When God placed the spirit within the body its home on earth, the
union of these two produced a third part and man became a living soul.
The soul uniting spirit and body gave man individuality, it was the
cause of his existence as a distinct being. The soul, consisting of
intellect, emotion and will became the central part, the seat, as it
were, of man's being.

The soul acted as the middleman between the spirit and the body;
it was the bond which united them and the channel through which they
acted upon each other. The soul stood thus midway between two worlds:
through the body it was linked to the visible, material and earthly;
through the spirit it was linked with the unseen, spiritual and
heavenly. To it was given the power to determine which world should
dominate man.

The very great importance of this theme in its relationship to
succeeding lessons and the intense desire that each reader may have a
clear understanding of it leads me to quote at length from Andrew
Murray's book, The Spirit of Christ:

"The Spirit quickening the body made man a living soul, a living
person with the consciousness of himself. The soul was the meeting
place, the point of union between body and spirit. Through the body,

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man, the living soul, stood related to the external world of sense;
could influence it, or be influenced by it. Through the spirit he
stood related to the spiritual world and the Spirit of God, whence he
had his origin; could be the recipient and the minister of its life
and power. Standing thus midway between two worlds, belonging to both,
the soul had the power of determining itself, of choosing or refusing
the objects by which it was surrounded, and to which it stood related.

"In the constitution of these three parts of man's nature the
spirit, as linking him with the Divine, was the highest; the body,
connecting him with the sensible and the animal, the lowest;
intermediate stood the soul, partaker of the nature of the others, the
bond that united them, and through which they could act on each other.
Its work as the central power was to maintain them in due relation; to
keep the body, as the lowest, in subjection to the spirit; itself to
receive through the spirit, as the higher, from the Divine Spirit what
was waiting for its perfection; and so pass down even to the body,
that by which it might be the partaker of the Spirit's perfection, and
become a spiritual body.

"The wondrous gifts with which the soul was endowed, specially
those of consciousness and self-determination, or mind and will, were
but the mould or vessel into which the life of the Spirit, the real
substance and truth of the Divine life, was to be received and
assimilated. They were a God-given capacity for making the knowledge
and will of God its own. In doing this the personal life of the soul

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would have become filled and possessed with the life of the Spirit,
the whole man would have become spiritual.

"To gather up what has been said, the spirit is the seat of our
God-consciousness; the soul of our self-consciousness; the body of our
world-consciousness. In the spirit God dwells: in the soul self, in
the body sense."

It is clear from all this that God's original intention was that
the human spirit through which alone man can be related to the Spirit
of God and to the spiritual world should be the dominant element in
the human personality. The spirit was to be sovereign and as long as
it remained so the whole being would be kept spiritual.

But while the human spirit was to be sovereign in the realm of
the human personality with both soul and body yielded to its
dominance, yet it was to be subject in turn to a higher power. Dr.
A.T. Pierson says, "One obvious lesson in this Biblical psychology is
that God evidently designed that the human spirit, indwelt and ruled
by the Holy Spirit, should keep man in constant touch with Himself,
and maintain in everything its proper preeminence, ruling soul and
body." (The Bible and Spiritual Life, page 123) (Diagram III. omitted)

Thus we see that the human spirit was to be a sovereign under a
Sovereign. It was also to be the middleman between the eternal and the
temporal; the unseen and the seen; the divine and the human; the
heavenly and the earthly. The spirit had its windows opened heavenward
and Godward and through spiritual perception, insight and

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vision it was constantly receiving spiritual impressions which were to
be sent outward by way of the soul to the body. The spirit through
unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit was to be the channel through
which the whole being of God's first man would be linked to the life
of God and so made and kept spiritual.

This brief study of the threefold nature of God's first man,
Adam, shows us that his human personality was so constituted that he
could always think, love and will within the circle of God's will. He
could choose to live under the authority of his divine Sovereign.
There was nothing within himself to hinder perfect obedience to the
will of God.

One other question remains to be answered. Was there anything
without his life to hinder? Was Adam's environment conducive to
complete and continuous obedience to God's will?

God placed His perfect man in a perfect environment. The picture
given in Genesis of the garden of Eden is that of a place in which
there was satisfaction and sufficiency for every need of man's spirit,
soul and body. The Creator had made Himself responsible for meeting
bountifully every need of His creature. Even the brief account given
of the life of Adam in Eden reveals perfect adjustment to his
environment. Righteousness ruled; therefore, peace resulted. There was
nothing within his environment to hinder perfect obedience to the will
of God.

God not only placed this perfect man in a perfect environment but
His own relationship with Adam was perfect. It was

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a relationship both of communion and cooperation.

Adam had communion with God. Man was made for God. There is ample
Scriptural authority for this statement in such verses as Isa. 43:7,
21; Col. 1:16; Rev. 4:11. The fact that man was made in the image of
God in his intellectual, moral and volitional life shows that God
desired fellowship with him and made him with the capacity for such
fellowship which was not given to any other of His creatures. The
beautiful words in Gen. 3:8, "And they heard the voice of the Lord
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day," reveal God even
taking the initiative in seeking communion and comradeship with Adam
and Eve. So God's first man walked and talked with God as friend with
friend; he was able to know and to enjoy God as a kindred nature; he
was in inner, spiritual harmony with God.

God's first man also had cooperation with God in His governmental
activities. Adam was God's vice-regent, as it were, over all His
works: he was the executive instrument by divine appointment to carry
out the divine purpose. God made Adam His representative as the
visible monarch of all living things. "He had dominion over the fish
of the sea, over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over
all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth." Within his own sphere he was made a sovereign, subordinate
only to God.

One thing more remains to be said concerning God's first man.
Adam was not only an individual but he was the federal head

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of the human race. God made His first man the head and representative
of man. Bishop H.C.G. Moule in his Outlines of Christian Doctrine,
says: "Adam was a true individual, as truly as Abel. But, unlike his
son, he was, what only one other Being has ever been, the moral,
intelligent Head of a moral, intelligent race; not only the first
specimen of a newly created Nature, but in such a sense the Spring of
that nature to his after-kind that in him not only the individual but
the race could, in some all important respects, be dealt with." (Page
168.) Adam by God's appointment was the source of human life of all
mankind: the head of the human family. He was God's first
representative man. Through him in creation God established a union
with the whole human race. Then He commanded Adam to be fruitful and
multiply.

God's first man, then, was perfect; he was put in a perfect
environment and he had perfect fellowship with God. Harmony reigned
within himself, within all his relationships both with the inferior
creatures beneath him and with the sovereign Creator above him. There
was everything within and without his life to foster complete
submission to the sovereignty of God and perfect obedience to His
will. Would he be content to remain a sovereign under a Sovereign?
Would he choose continuously to live within the circle of God's will?
Would his whole personality be kept under the control of the Divine
Spirit and so maintain its life on the spiritual plane? If so, then

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through this first man, made in His own image and controlled by His
divine Spirit, God would people the earth with beings who would also
bear His likeness, yield to His sovereignty, serve Him with
fruitfulness, and live together in righteousness and peace.

G. Campbell Morgan in The Crises of the Christ states Adam's
position before God in the following paragraph, "Finite will is to be
tested, and it will stand or fall as it submits to or rebels against
the Infinite Will of the Infinite God. Thus unfallen man was a being
created in the image of God, living in union with God, cooperating in
activity with God, having the points of limitation of his being marked
by simple and definite commands laid upon him, gracious promises
luring him to that which was highest on the one hand, and a solemn
sentence warning him from that which was lowest on the other. He was a
sovereign under a Sovereignty, independent, but dependent. He had the
right of will, but this could only be exercised in perpetual
submission to the higher will of God." (Page 32.)

Gen. 2:16-17, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ...
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it."

Here is God's will expressed in concrete form. Through this
command God puts the test to His first man. Adam had the right to will
and he had the power to will God-ward.

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III. The Entrance of Sin Into Man

IT must be evident to every thoughtful person that life on the
spiritual plane is God's intention for man. In God's first man the
divine Spirit had direct relationship with the human spirit and
through it as a channel could so control the whole being as to make
and keep it spiritual. That which was God's intention for His first
man was also His purpose for all mankind.

But candidness compels us to admit that the overwhelming majority
of the human race today is living on the lowest plane of life--that of
the natural man. In all parts of the world we see man out of
adjustment with God, with his fellowmen and with himself. Hatred, war,
discontent, restlessness, crime, lawlessness, anarchy, prevail.

What then is the reason for such a terrible and tragic fall? Was
God's human creation a colossal failure? Did He initiate something
which He could not execute? Or must we find a reason for the present
condition of humanity in something outside of God? Does the Bible tell
us how that which God created without sin and pronounced "very good"
became sinful and was denounced by Him as "no good"? A

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Scriptural study of the history of the natural man gives a clear and
full explanation.

The Condition of the Natural Man.

Eph. 2:12, "That at that time ye were without Christ, being
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the
covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."

The Apostle Paul is writing to those in the church at Ephesus who
were then living on the spiritual plane but who previously had lived
on the plane of the natural. Paul says, "At that time"--when you were
living on the lowest plane--"ye were without God, without Christ, and
without hope."

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."

Eternal life is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But Eph. 2:12
says that the natural man is "without Christ," therefore he must be
without eternal life. God offers unto every man the gift of eternal
life which he has power to accept or to refuse. To accept it opens the
way for him to the highest plane of life, that of the spiritual man;
to refuse it leaves him on the lowest plane of life, that of the
natural man.

Eph. 2:1, "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses
and sins."

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The natural man refuses the gift of eternal life, therefore he is
"dead." Every person who has not accepted from the Father the gift of
eternal life bestowed upon him in Christ Jesus, the Son, is described
by God as "dead."

Perhaps the reader will think instantly of some unsaved relative
or friend who seems to have abounding life and he will challenge, nay,
even resent this statement regarding his condition. This person may be
a perfect specimen of physical strength and energy. He may be an
intellectual giant, perchance a fine classical scholar, abounding in
worldly wisdom and knowledge. He may be a model of morality, living
his personal, family and civic life on a high plane. He may even be
religious, occasionally attending divine service and contributing
toward the maintenance of church or temple. Surely God's description
of the natural man does not fit him for he is abounding in life! How
can such a man be described as "dead"? There seems to be abounding
life in his whole being.

But let a test be made in the realm of his spirit. We have seen
that the human spirit is the seat of God-consciousness and that in
God's first man there was a direct and vital relationship between the
divine Spirit of God and the human spirit of Adam. God's first man
responded to God in communion and cooperation. A spiritual man
delights to respond to every outreaching of God's grace and love
toward him. Does your unsaved friend respond to God?

Talk with him about God and spiritual things and your very
language is foreign and unintelligible to him,

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to say nothing of the truth you are attempting to convey. Invite him
to go to God's house and he frankly tells you he prefers the club,
the cinema or the guild. Give him a Bible to read and it seems
insufferably dull and insipid to him and in no measure compares in
interest with the newspaper or the latest novel. Invite him to spend
an evening in your home in company with God's people and he is
fearfully bored and out of place, not knowing how to act or what to
say, and longing for the time to depart. Speak to him of his personal
spiritual need, explain to him his condition and danger, urge him to
accept Christ as his personal Saviour and to ally himself openly with
God's people, and he either ridicules the idea or resents it.

Something somewhere seems wrong with the man. Something is wrong
with him in the realm of his spirit for there is no response
whatsoever to God. There is apparently no God-consciousness. There is
no sense of need of God; no desire for God. Something in the man
seems dead. Something in the man is dead. Death reigns in his spirit.

Adam, the Channel of Sin's Entrance into the Human Race.

God is the Author of all life and after His creation of living
things "He saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very
good." But today death reigns everywhere. No living thing is exempt
from its touch or its toll. It has wrought ruin everywhere. Surely God
is not the author of death. From whence then did it come? God does not
leave us in darkness on this question but in language simple enough

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for a child to understand He tells how death came into the world of
living things.

Rom. 5:12, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

This clearly teaches that death is a result; that sin is the
cause. Death came because of sin.

But how did sin come into the world? Sin entered by one man. The
blame then for the entrance of sin and death into His beautiful world
cannot be placed upon God, for in His own Word He absolutely clears
Himself from such a charge.

But who could the man be through whom such terrible havoc, such
awful disaster to the whole human race, was wrought? God never leaves
an honest, truly seeking soul without an answer that satisfies. In
Romans 5:12 God plainly says that all mankind was involved in the
disaster caused by one man's sin so he must have been a representative
man, one in whom the human race was latent. The context, Romans
5:13-23, sets in sharp contrast sin and death, salvation and life, and
traces each to its source in the only two representative men of all
history: Adam and Christ. A study of this passage clearly reveals
Adam, God's first man, to have been the one through whom sin and death
came, and Christ, God's second Man, to have been the One through whom
came salvation and life.

But if one has any question in his mind regarding

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this passage God states the case boldly and unmistakably in 1 Cor.
15:22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive."

Adam is the man through whom sin entered into the human race. The
consequence of sin was death. But we have seen in our previous study
that Adam was created without sin and that he was put into an
environment and enjoyed a fellowship with God both of which were
conducive to a continuance in such a state of innocence and
fellowship.

So the question forces itself upon one, "How could sin enter into
such a man with its blighting curse? How was the tragedy of death ever
enacted in that beautiful garden?" The story is told in the second and
third chapters of Genesis. This portion of God's Word spiritually
apprehended and humbly accepted gives an answer which satisfies every
true and sincere believer.

To answer the question we need to define sin. What could Adam do
that could be called sin? The answer is simple. The only sin that Adam
could commit was to transgress God's divine law, to will to disobey
the clearly revealed will of God. As long as Adam continued to will to
live his whole life within the circle of God's revealed will he could
not sin. Adam had the right to will but he could remain without sin
only as he exercised his will in perpetual submission to the higher
will of God. Sin, then, is known disobedience to the clearly revealed
will of God. Sin is the wilful, deliberate, resistance of a subject

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to the rightful authority of a Sovereign. "Sin, in the Biblical view,
consists in the revolt of the creature will from its rightful
allegiance to the sovereign will of God, and the setting up a false
independence, the substitution of a life-for-self for life-for-God."
(The Christian View of God and the World, James Orr, p. 172.)

Sin as God Himself defines it is "transgression of the law"
(1 John 3:4). God called Adam's sin "transgression."

Let us see from God's own record how sin entered into Adam with
its curse of death.

Gen. 2:16-17, "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not
eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die."

God gave Adam well-nigh unlimited liberty. But one commandment
was imposed. But one transgression was possible. Of every other tree
he could freely eat. Of only one tree was he forbidden to eat and even
for this prohibition God had a beneficent reason. Adam was on trial.
He ate of the forbidden fruit. He willed to have something which God
for a loving and beneficent reason had willed that he should not have.
By that one act he sinned for sin is the transgression of the law. By
his own volition Adam deliberately transgressed a divinely marked

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boundary; he overstepped a clearly revealed divine limitation.

Satan, the Originator of Sin in God's Universe.

But some one may ask, "When Adam was a perfect man with a
sinless nature, living in a perfect environment and having perfect
fellowship with God how could he be tempted to disobey?" With all in
his own personality and all in his environment favouring his complete
and continuous obedience to the will of God, from what source could
temptation to disobedience and self-will come? It is a legitimate
question and demands an answer which God gives.

Gen. 3:1, "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the
field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"

"Now the serpent was more subtil ... and he said ..." Here we
have words used which can be used only in characteristics, attitudes
and acts which belong to personality, either natural or supernatural.
But was there any other person in the garden besides the Lord God and
His two created beings, Adam and Eve? There evidently was. But it was
some one who apparently desired to conceal his identity, so he came
under the deceiving cover of impersonation. Who then was this other
one?

The conversation between the serpent and Eve recorded in Genesis
three reveals the twofold fact that this person is an enemy of God and
that he is there in the garden for an evil purpose. Does Scripture

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give us any clue by which this cunning, wicked impersonator may be
identified? It does. His name identifies him.

Rev. 12:9, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: and he
was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

Holy Scripture is a unity and Scripture interprets Scripture.
"The serpent" of Genesis 3:1 is none other than "that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan" of Revelation 12:9 and 20:2.

In Revelation 12:9 he is revealed as a deceiver. His nature
identifies him. The Bible tells us clearly that is the part he was
playing in the garden of Eden in his first dealings with humanity. The
finger prints of the arch deceiver are clearly discerned in Genesis
three.

1 Tim. 2:14, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived was in the transgression."

2 Cor. 11:3, "But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent
beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ."

There is evidence then that before the creation of Adam and Eve
there was in God's universe a being who was both a sinner and a
traitor. Does God's Word give us any light upon who he is and how he
came into such a condition?

Ezekiel 28:11-19 and Isaiah 14:12-20 seem to give this clue.
A careful study and comparison of these two passages

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with other Scriptures seem to indicate very clearly that the one
referred to is none other than Satan.

The passage in Ezekiel reveals the truth regarding the person and
position of Satan originally. It states that Satan was a created being
and that he was created perfect. He was "full of wisdom," "perfect in
beauty," "perfect in thy ways," "the sum of perfection was found in
him."

Not only was he perfect as regards his person but he held a very
exalted position in the service of God. He was "the anointed cherub
that covereth" and served "in the holy mountain of God." Perhaps no
other created being held so exalted a position or was so intimately
connected with God.

That he also had some relationship to and power over God's
created universe given to him by God Himself is seen in the two
titles, "the prince of this world" (John 14:30) and "the prince of the
power of the air" (Eph. 2:2).

That he had been given a high position of trust to which he had
been a traitor is very certain. He was a prince over a kingdom for
three times the Lord Jesus called him "the prince of this world," and
when he took the Lord into a high mountain and offered Him all the
kingdoms of the world with their glory Jesus did not dispute his claim
to their disposal.

But with all Satan's perfection and power, he was still a created
being and, as such, he must be subservient to his Creator and remain
dependent and obedient. Scripture, however, from beginning to end

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reveals Satan as God's arch-enemy. He is an open and avowed rebel. He
is not a subject of the kingdom of light but is a sovereign over the
kingdom of darkness.

When and how did this rebellion toward God take place? "The
anointed cherub" who was "in the holy mountain" sinned.

Eze. 28:15-16, "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that
thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Thou hast sinned:
therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God."

The sin that led to Satan's downfall is intimated in the words,
"Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted
thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness" (Eze. 28:17). Pride led to
self-exaltation which expressed itself in self-will.

Let us now examine Isaiah 14:12-20 and see to what lengths
self-exaltation carried Satan in rebellion against his Creator and
Sovereign.

Isa. 14:12-14, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son
of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit
also upon the mount of the congregation ..., I will ascend above the
heights of the clouds; I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH."

Self-exaltation led to self-will, self-will led to rebellion
against God, and Lucifer, son of the morning, became

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Satan, father of the night. The moment "the anointed cherub" said in
his heart "I will" as opposed to God's will sin began. The moment the
subject sought to dethrone the Sovereign by saying "I will be like
the Most High" sin's work in the universe commenced. But it did not
end there. The sin that began in the holy mountain of God was carried
into the garden of Eden.

Satan, the Deceiver and the Tempter, in Eden.

Satan, God's avowed enemy, is there. This apostate spirit is the
fourth person in the garden of Eden. And what is his mission? He is
there with the definite, deliberate, diabolical purpose of tempting
Adam and Eve to do just what he himself had done--through an act of
self-will to step outside the circle of God's will, to dethrone God by
enthroning self. He is there to gain recruits for his rebel ranks; to
win subjects for his kingdom of darkness and death.

It is instructive to follow the cunning machinations of this
diabolical strategist as he succeeds in tempting Adam and Eve into
doubt, disobedience and disloyalty. God grant that it may throw needed
illumination upon the path of temptation some reader may be treading.

Let us ask and answer three questions:
What was Satan's aim in tempting Adam and Eve?
What was Satan's method of approach to them?
How did he achieve his success?

Satan's aim, let us remember, was to exalt himself to God's place
of sovereignty and authority and to secure for himself the worship
from God's created beings which belonged to God alone. So he was in

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Eden to draw Adam and Eve away from God, to persuade them into
disobedience and disloyalty, which would automatically cast them out
of God's kingdom into his own. To accomplish this he did not need to
incite them to gross sin or vice; one act of disobedience would carry
out his purpose. He needed only to destroy confidence in God and to
lead them to disbelieve and disobey Him.

Satan's method of approach was very cunning and subtle. It was
not the method of open warfare against God but that of undermining
faith in God by malicious propaganda. Satan did not come out into the
open and contest God's sovereignty over His created beings but he
sought to discredit God in their sight by creating within them
discontent with their circumstances and by holding before them a false
Utopia, thus hoping to instigate a revolt against God.

His method has not changed from that day to this. He is
attempting the same thing and using the same method now that he did
6,000 years ago. The seed germ of discontent and disorder sown in the
garden of Eden has borne fruit and is reaping a terrible harvest in
all parts of the world today. Churches and chapels are being
demolished; Bibles are being torn to pieces; anti-Christian
demonstrations are being staged; threats are being made of dethroning
God in His own universe. Back of all this subtle, efficient,
destructive propaganda is the master mind of the first spiritual
Bolshevik who began his world revolution in the garden of Eden.

To accomplish his purpose there he put before Eve

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the lure of a far better condition of life than they enjoyed under
God's beneficent, loving rule, and urged securing it by illegitimate,
revolutionary means. Satan must reach the spirit of Adam and Eve and
in some way break the connection between the divine and the human. He
did this by the proffer of a knowledge even such as "the gods"
possessed. Through the human spirit illumined by the divine Spirit
they did know God, which knowledge was the "summum bonum" of benefit
and blessing. But Satan intimated that there was more to be known
which God was willfully and wrongfully withholding from them. They
were not having their due.

To reach the spirit to which Satan had no means of access he must
get at the soul. The emotions must be stimulated to desire this tree
of the knowledge of good and evil which could make one wise. Their
eyes must be opened to see how pleasant was this tree that they might
covet its fruit.

So an indirect appeal was made to the soul through the senses.
Satan gained his entrance to the innermost being of Eve through the
body. The tree was good for food so he tempted Eve to eat of the
forbidden fruit.

Every part of the human personality had been undermined by this
Satanic propaganda. Satan had appealed to the whole man, spirit, soul
and body but his method of approach had been from circumference to
center; from body through soul to spirit.

Let us examine God's Word to see how Satan achieved his success.

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Gen. 3:1, "And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye
shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"

A subtle insinuation is couched in these words which was intended
by the tempter to arouse suspicion of God's goodness. "Did God really
tell you that you couldn't eat of every tree in this garden? Wasn't
the garden made for you? Are you not labouring to dress it? Then
haven't you a right to its fruit?" The devil did not come to Eve at
once with a glaring accusation of God's unkindness but merely with a
subtle insinuation. He knew that harmony reigned in the garden of Eden
and that Adam and Eve were perfectly adjusted to each other, to their
environment and to God. Satan laid hold upon the only thing he could
in their external environment and used it to cause disruption in their
relationship with God. Satan's aim was to create doubt first and thus
gain a foothold by disturbing the inner harmony of Eve's moral being.

The reply of Eve showed that the devil's insinuating question had
had the desired effect. She acknowledged God's goodness in granting
them the liberty to eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden and
admitted the one and only restriction. But in so doing she omitted
from God's gracious promise the words "every" and "freely" and added
to the prohibition the words "neither shall ye touch it," thus
revealing a secret acquiescence in the serpent's insinuation against
God's goodness. Doubt of God's goodness was at work in her heart so
the devil grew bolder.

Eve not only stated the restriction made upon their

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liberty but also God's explicit warning of the penalty of death in
case of disobedience, varying it however by changing God's Word "thou
shalt surely die" to "lest ye die." Then Satan made a bold, shocking
assertion, an out-and-out denial of God's Word, "Ye shall not surely
die." This was immediately followed by his final and fatal appeal.

Gen. 3:5, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil."

The bold blasphemy, the cunning deception, the seductive
allurement of his sugar-coated lie, were worthy of the source from
which they came. Satan implied in this diabolical statement that God
was maliciously robbing man of knowledge which he not only had a right
to possess but which would raise him to an exalted position hitherto
undreamed.

"Your eyes shall be opened and ye shall know." Was not the desire
to know a lawful one? Was not the ambition for self-improvement
through the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge a legitimate one? Eve
had been daily coming into a larger and fuller knowledge of God and
His universe no doubt and now, if by merely eating of the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil she could at once obtain a
knowledge as limitless as God's own and be assured God's penalty of
death would not be enacted why should she not eat of it?

Satan had reached the acme of evil when he had said, "I will be
like the Most High," and now in some modified

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form suited to the innocence of the sinless pair he tempted them to a
similar aspiration, "Ye shall be as gods." He held out to them the
luring possibility of advancement in knowledge even to the plane of
the divine and unseen.

In the appeal of Genesis 3:5 the tempter assailed the whole
personality of the woman; intellect, emotion, and will. "Do not be
such fools as to believe God's word when it is so evidently against
all right and reason; do not be such dupes as to be cheated out of
something you rightfully should have; do not be such cowards that you
fear to assert your own will in this matter."

"Thus it is seen that at the back of the method of the devil is
an aspersion cast upon the character of God. Man was made to question
the goodness of law. Appealing to the intelligence of man, the enemy
created an aspersion, which was calculated to change the attitude of
his emotion, and so capture the final citadel, that namely of his
will. He declared that man's intellectual nature was prevented from
development by this limitation. By this declaration he created in the
mind of man a question as to the goodness of the God who had made the
law, and thus imperilled the relation of the will to God, as he called
it into a place of activity outside, and contrary to the will of God."
The Crises of the Christ, G. Campbell Morgan, p. 33.)

The Sin of Adam and Eve and its Effect upon Themselves.

Some response had to be made to such an appeal. The will must
function in acceptance or rejection of such an

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accusation against God. There was no neutral ground. Eve must take
sides either with or against God. "God said" and "the serpent said,"
and they said totally contradictory things. Eve listened to Satan's
voice rather than to God's. She believed the devil's lie rather than
God's truth. "The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty" (2 Cor.
11:3), and she ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam listened to Eve's
voice rather than to God's. Eve enticed her husband through his
affections and he ate of the forbidden fruit. He was the one to whom
God had given the command. To eat of the fruit was a deliberate
transgression of the divine law.

Gen. 3:17, "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground
for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy
life."

Adam and Eve had the God-given right to will and the power to will
Godward. They exercised the right to will and they chose to will
Satanward. The moment they so chose they stepped outside the circle of
God's will and into the realm of self-will. They dethroned God and
enthroned self. That one act, that one choice, that one decision, was
sin. Satan triumphed, sin entered, ruin ensued.

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Sin penetrated to the innermost part of Adam's being, the spirit,
the meeting place of God and man. And with what result? The very
result which God had predicted--DEATH. To apprehend the magnitude of
sin, one must know the meaning of death.

And what is death? Mrs. McDonough in God's Plan of Redemption
gives a clear and helpful answer. "The scientific definition of death
helps us to perceive His meaning. It is as follows, 'Death is the
falling out of correspondence with environment.' The following
illustration will help to better understand the subject. Here is an
eye of a human being, apparently able to see any object placed before
it; the objects of nature, bathed in the bright sunshine surround it,
but there is no response from the eye. It does not see; for the optic
nerve is severed. It is dead to the beauty before it.

"Here is a person whose ears are completely deafened. Birds are
singing, bells are ringing, voices speaking, but those ears do not
respond to the sound waves that are carrying melody to other ears
which are open to receive the same. They are dead to sounds.

"Upon the very day of Adam and Eve's disobedience sin severed the
delicate intuitive knowledge of God in the spirit of Adam and Eve.
They failed to respond to Him who was their Environing Presence. They
were dead to God ... the death process established in the spirit of
our first parents was quickly manifested throughout the whole of the
inner man and after a time the possibility of dissolution of the body,
which had been held in abeyance while man remained

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obedient and dependent before the Fall, became an actuality."--(Page 33.)

Death in its twofold aspect, spiritual, the separation of the
human spirit of man from the divine Spirit of God, and physical, the
separation of the spirit and the body of man, came by sin. A grain of
truth was mixed with the lie of the serpent.

Gen. 3:7, "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made
themselves aprons."

Gen. 3:8, "And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in
the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the
garden."

Their eyes had indeed been opened but to behold what? Their own
nakedness. They both acquired knowledge but of what? Their own sin and
shame. They had come into a new self-consciousness but in that one act
of sin they had lost God-consciousness. Their newly acquired knowledge
served only to produce such a sense of shame that they counted
themselves unfit for God's presence and were afraid to meet Him. The
twilight hour of communion with God was robbed of all its sweetness
and satisfaction by the sense of shame and sin. Eager response to God
was changed into seeking refuge from God. Sin separated man from God
and separation from God, who is Life, is death. Physical death was the
certain, even though more

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remote, result of sin. The judgment upon Adam included the curse of
physical death.

Gen. 3:19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

From the day Adam sinned the seed of physical death was in his
body and finally reaped its harvest in full.

Gen. 5:5, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and
thirty years: and he died."

Thus we see God's sentence of death, both spiritual and physical,
meted out as a result of sin.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Human Race

We have seen the disastrous effect of Adam and Eve's sin upon
themselves. The question naturally arises, "Did it affect any one
else? Can we trace the sin in the human family back to the first sin
in the first man, its federal head?" Let us reason backward.

Sin is a fact. Man is a sinner. One needs only to be closeted
with himself for a single day to have sufficient proof of this
statement. But if he should be loath to admit the evidence given in
his own thoughts, feelings, desires, words and acts, let him listen to
the gossip of a small town, or read in the daily paper of doings in
town or city. Man is a sinner. To deny the reality of sin is not only
to disbelieve God's Word and

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to make Him a liar but it is to discredit one's own experience and
observation.

1 John 1:8, 10, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us....
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word
is not in us."

Sin is a universal fact. Every man is a sinner. There are no
exceptions to this rule except the Man, Christ Jesus. God's Word says,
"There is no man that sinneth not."

Rom. 3:10, "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not
one."

Rom. 3:12, "They are all gone out of the way, they are together
become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

Every truly honest man knows and admits that he is a sinner. At
one time self-righteous Scribes and Pharisees brought to the Lord
Jesus a woman taken in the act of adultery. To tempt Him that they
might accuse Him, they asked if they should fulfil the law of Moses by
stoning her. In reply the Lord Jesus said, "He that is without sin
among you, let him first cast a stone at her." And "being convicted by
their own conscience, they went out one by one." Who among the readers
of this book is "without sin"? Men differ in the degree of sin in the
life but not in the fact of sin. Many men are naturally kind,
generous, genial and loving but "there is none righteous."

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Every man is a sinner before he sins. Sin is far more than an
act; it is a state, a nature, a disposition, a tendency. Sin is an
inner reality before it is an outer manifestation. Sin is a desire
before it is a deed.

James 1:15, R.V., "Then the lust, when it hath conceived,
beareth sin; and the sin when it is fullgrown, bringeth forth death."

Who has not seen a baby give vent to temper, self-will,
stubbornness and anger before it could talk or walk! Men were born in
sin. We are all of us "by nature the children of wrath." Humanity
inherited a sinful nature.

By God's appointment Adam was the federal head of the human
family. He was the seed of the race, and all the coming generations
were in him. Adam was not only man but he was the womb of mankind. As
forerunner of the human race, he was also its representative.

Therefore Adam's sin was not his sin alone. All mankind was
vitally affected by it. Adam's sin put the poison of sin in the human
germ; the result was the moral and spiritual ruin of the race,
collectively and individually. Adam was created without sin. By an act
of his own will he became a sinner. "What man thus became, men are."

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" (Job 14:4).
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). Adam fell and
by that fall received a corrupt nature. Then he begat sons in his own
likeness (Gen. 5:3). They inherited his sinful nature and

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so the poison of sin went on down through the human race until all men
are involved.

Rom. 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned."

Rom. 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

By Adam's disobedience all men were made sinners and the death
sentence rested upon all.

Spiritual deterioration and death began immediately upon Adam's
fall and the depths into which the human race soon sank are revealed
in the following words.

Gen. 6:3, R.V., "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always
strive with man, for in this going astray they are _flesh."

Gen. 6:5, 6, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in
the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually.
And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him at his heart."

Physical deterioration began immediately upon Adam's fall and
death and decay were the final outcome. Adam lived and died. The sad
record of Genesis five shows that the seed of death implanted in Adam
was transmitted to his posterity until each human being has to pay the
death toll.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Social Order

In the garden of Eden before the tempter entered it

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we see the social order as God intended it to be. Adam and Eve were
perfect and were living in perfect adjustment with God; therefore
there was perfect adjustment between themselves. Godliness and
holiness were followed by righteousness and peace.

But sin entered the human spirit and severed its relationship
with the divine Spirit. Immediately man was thrown out of adjustment
with God and ungodliness was the result.

Sin entered the human personality and reigned over every part of
it. Man's whole being was thrown into confusion and conflict. Man was
thrown out of adjustment with himself and unholiness was the result.

Sin entered the human relationship God had established between
his first man and woman and produced friction. They were thrown out of
adjustment with each other and unrighteousness was the result. Each
had sinned in eating of the forbidden fruit but each was unwilling to
bear the blame for it. Eve had tempted Adam but Adam had of his own
free will hearkened unto the voice of his wife and disobeyed God's
command. When brought face to face with his sin Adam played the part
of a churlish coward blaming both God and Eve for his own misdoing.

Gen. 3:12, "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be
with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

The sin that had introduced disorder into man's relations with
God and into his own personality now introduced it into the
relationship of fellow beings. Friction

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between man and man began in God's social order. "The break upward
brought the break crosswise. That is the tragic Eden crisis. It
touches us all most intimately today. The gloom and blight of the Eden
crisis has cast its inky shadow over all the race, and over all life,
ever since."--(Quiet Talks on the Crisis and After, S.D. Gordon; page
56)

Its inky shadow cast gloom over that first home. The sin of the
first parents was visited upon the first children. The eldest son Cain
killed his brother Abel. Friction between parents bore fruit in murder
between brothers. The maladjustment in God's social order begun in
Eden has continued and grown apace into personal, family, civic,
national and international frictions until the whole world today is
one seething, struggling mass of discontent, envy, greed, suspicion,
jealousy, hatred and revenge.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon the Material Universe.

The blighting, withering effect of sin was felt in the material
universe for even the earth was cursed because of the sin of Adam.

Gen. 3:17-19, "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened
unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground
for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou
shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread."

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The soil should henceforth be comparatively barren, man would no
longer be blessed by its spontaneous, prodigal abundance but would
have to coax from it by the sweat of his face and much suffering the
necessities of life.

The Effect of Adam's Sin upon God.

While the sin of Adam brought incalculable suffering and sorrow
to himself and to his posterity yet the One most wounded and wronged
by sin was God. The defeat of His purpose in the human race and the
dethronement of Himself in His own universe was the twofold aim of
Satan in Eden's tragedy. Behind the temptation was the tempter. "The
fall began in heaven. Sin entered into God's house before it invaded
man's. Christ felt its sting before man felt its stab."--(The Greater
Life and Work of Christ, Patterson, page 82)

The sin enacted in Eden immediately created two very vital issues
and brought God into a new relationship both to the tempted and the
tempter, to the sinner and to Satan.

The issue at stake between God and God's first man was God's
union with the human race. Through Adam in creation God had become
united with humanity. But now through sin that union had of necessity
been broken. God, who is absolute holiness, could never countenance
nor condone sin, much less dwell in its presence. Sin must be punished
and the sinner banished. Adam and Eve, through yielding to temptation,
had become sinners. God who had been their beneficent Creator, their
bountiful Provider, their intimate Companion, in the light of their
transgression of His

holy law must assume a different relationship to them and the race
latent in them from that which He had before.

God could never remain holy and just unless sin were punished
according to its deserts and in such a way as to satisfy fully His
holiness. When He gave His command regarding the eating of the fruit
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil He had clearly stated
the penalty if the command were disobeyed. To be true to Himself He
must now exact that penalty for their sin. He must become their Judge
and pronounce upon them the curse which sin merited.

But He had made the human race for Himself and His own glory. He
could not willingly stand by and condemn it either to destruction or
to eternal separation from Himself for He loved it with an everlasting
love. God's holiness compelled Him to become a Judge but His love
compelled Him to become a Redeemer. If His union with the human race
had been broken through the first man's disobedience, He would send
another Man to reestablish it through His obedience. If the race had
been ruined through the first man's sin it should be redeemed through
the second Man's Saviourhood. Thus God assumes a twofold relationship
to Adam and Eve in their sin: that of a Judge and that of a Redeemer.
The promise of a Saviour and the pronouncement of a doom were made.
Both promise and pronouncement must be fulfilled.

So we see God in Eden seeking the sinner who, because of his
sense of guilt and shame with its resultant fear, was hiding from Him.

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Gen. 3:9, "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him,
Where art thou?"

What a marvellous unveiling of the infinite, abounding grace of
God! A wounded, wronged God seeking a guilty, ungodly sinner! The Lord
God taking the initiative to bring Adam and Eve back home to Himself!
And this is but the opening scene in the continuous unfolding of God's
infinitely gracious dealings with fallen humanity from that hour to
this.

God then brought Adam and Eve face to face with the fact and
guilt of their sin and gave them a fair, full opportunity to confess
it. But instead of a contrite, broken-hearted confession there came a
cowardly, half-hearted one mixed with much of palliation and shifting
of responsibility.

Again the exceeding riches of God's grace shone forth in His
giving the promise of a Saviour. "It shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel" foretold to those guilty sinners who were soon
to be banished from God's presence that He would open for them and for
the race a way of access to Himself through the suffering of another.

Having now given vent to His infinite mercy and love in the
gracious promise of a Saviour, God does full justice to His holy
nature and His holy law in pronouncing a curse upon their sin. The God
of all grace becomes the sinner's Judge. Sweat, suffering and sorrow
are the awful consequences of sin. Then comes the sentence of death,
for "the wages of sin is death," and the banishment from God's
presence.

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Gen. 3:19, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till
thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust
thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."

Gen. 3:23, 24, "Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he
drove out the man."

Having dealt with the sinner in grace God now deals with Satan in
wrath. There could be no mercy manifested here. The issue between God
and Satan was a far more serious one. In the Eden temptation Satan had
contested God's right to the ownership of and the dominion over His
own creation. Through their yielding to sin God had lost the
sovereignty over the world and the race. Such insult and treachery
must be dealt with according to their deserts.

The Prophecy of a Conflict and the Pronouncement of a Doom

God Himself declares a war against this arch rebel that He will
fight to the finish and in which He will show no mercy. God prophesies
an age-long conflict and pronounces an eternal doom.

Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel."

From this sentence of eternal enmity there could be no reprieve.

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IV. The Rule of Sin Over Man

SIN is a despot and the Bible shows very clearly that man came
under the despotic rule of sin. Sin not only "entered" and "abounded,"
but it also "reigned" in man (Rom. 5:12, 20, 21). He lives under a
threefold bondage, from which it is impossible for him to extricate
himself. He is in bondage to sin.

John 8:34, R.V., "Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin."

He is in bondage to self.

2 Cor. 5:15, "And that he died for all, that they which live,
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died
for them, and rose again."

He is in bondage to Satan.

2 Tim. 2:26, "And that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will."

The natural man is in helpless captivity to sin, self and Satan.

The Ruin wrought by Sin in the Human Personality.

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Not only were all men drawn into the whirlpool of sin but all of
man was ruined by its pollution. Man's personality was corrupted at
the very center and the dry rot of sin contaminated his whole being
from center to circumference. Death breathed upon spirit, soul and
body its destructive fumes. Sin stalked over the human being, that
beautiful thing created in the image of God, and left its deadly trail
everywhere, marring it until scarcely a trace of Godlikeness could be
found. Sin caused civil war within the human personality. Sin made the
human spirit a death chamber. The blasting breath of death first
touched the human spirit. Sin closed the windows of the spirit
Godward and made it a death chamber. Sin severed the human spirit's
relationship with the divine Spirit.

Eph. 4:18, "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of
the blindness of their heart."

Sin also dethroned the human spirit as sovereign over the human
personality and made it a captive, nay, even a slave. Both soul and
body were permeated with sin and were brought under sin's control.
Each claimed and sought an equal right to the rule of man. The
immediate effect of sin was the complete inversion of the relationship
between the spiritual and the physical in human nature. The fall of
man from the plane of the spiritual to the plane of the natural took
place.

"In the fall the soul refused the rule of the spirit and became
the slave of the body with its appetites. Man

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became flesh; the spirit lost its destined place of rule, and became
little more than a dormant power; it was no longer the ruling
principle but a struggling captive. And the spirit now stands in
opposition to the flesh, the name for the life of soul and body
together in their subjection to sin."--(The Spirit of Christ, Murray,
page 34)

So the natural man "who is born of the flesh" is flesh. He is of
the earth, earthy, and dominated by the flesh rather than by the
spirit. The human spirit is darkened, deadened and dethroned.

Sin made the human soul a ruin. Sin invaded the realm of the soul
and laid hold upon the intellectual, emotional, and volitional life.
(1) The mind of man was blinded.

2 Cor. 4:3, 4, "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that
are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

Titus 1:15, "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them
that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind
and conscience is defiled."

Col. 1:21, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in
your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled."

God's first man was made with the capacity for knowing God and
one cannot help but believe that had Adam continued to live his life
entirely within the circle

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of God's will that capacity would have been enlarged and enriched. But
he sought knowledge God had willed he should not have. By that one act
of self-will he placed his intellect outside the circle of God's will.
He had the knowledge of evil but he had neither the wisdom nor the
power to resist it. As a result sin wrought such ruin in the mind of
man that God was compelled to say "that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). He even
calls evil, good and good, evil.

Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his
thinking is materialistic. "God is a spirit and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth." God is eternal and spiritual
and can never be apprehended by what is merely temporal and natural.
Apart from living union and communion with God the operation of the
human intellect is entirely within the realm of material things.

Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his
thinking is sensual. The soul, unaided by the spirit, in its struggle
with sin is open to continuous and terrible temptation through the
body.

Separated from God man's mind became so darkened that his
thinking is rationalistic. Being outside of God's will his thinking is
inevitably outside of God's thought. His wisdom is not God's wisdom:
in fact God draws a clean-cut line between His wisdom and that of the
natural man.

1 Cor. 1:20, 21, "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where
is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of

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this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe."

The wisdom of the natural man has its source in himself. He
rejects anything and everything which cannot be apprehended and
explained by his own unaided reason.

1 Cor. 2:14, "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned."

Sin has so twisted and perverted the intellect of the natural man
and Satan has so blinded his mind that he often thinks he knows more
than God. Pride leads him to exalt his own mentality to such an extent
that, if God says anything which his tiny intellect and puny reason
cannot comprehend, then he declares God's saying "foolishness." He
boldly proclaims God's sacred truth to be fable; God's eternal Word to
be an earth-born myth. His endeavour to fathom God's ocean of truth
with his little teacup of a mind is pathetic, and his arrogant method
of casting aside God's supernatural revelation when it goes contrary
to his sin-saturated reason is pitiful indeed.
(2) The heart of man was defiled.

Jer. 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked."

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Mark 7:21-23, "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed
evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts,
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye,
blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within,
and defile the man."

What a picture of the human heart! Yet it is a true one because
it was taken by the divine Photographer "who knows what was in man."
Who can look upon this awful picture and others given on the same
divine authority, such as Rom. 1:29-32, Gal. 5:17-21, Ps. 14:1-3, and
not call man's case absolutely hopeless except somehow a miracle be
wrought?

Man was made to love God with all his mind, heart, strength and
soul. His heart was created with the capacity to respond to the love
of God with love. Man was made to love his fellowmen. God wishes man
to love his neighbour as himself.

But what is the condition in the world today both as regards
man's relationship to God and to his neighbour? It is an awful but a
tragically true prediction which God made in His Word of the present
world condition.

2 Tim. 3:1-4, "This know also, that in the last days perilous
times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves,
covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false
accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of
God."

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When did man fall into such an evil state as is here described?
The moment God's first man stepped outside of God's will by his own
voluntary choice and carried the human race with him, that moment he
dethroned God and enthroned self in his own affections. From that
moment man left to himself has been inherently and incurably selfish.
(3) The will of man was perverted.

To will to do God's will is man's highest privilege, his most
godlike prerogative. To live wholly within the will of God is to have
righteousness, peace and harmony reign everywhere. This was God's
intention in His universe. All angelic beings, as well as man, were
made to be obedient subjects of God the Creator. But in Satan pride
led to self-will; self-will to rebellion; rebellion to refusal of
authority; and the refusal of authority to lawlessness. Satan, having
stepped outside the will of God and become a rebel, tempted Adam and
Eve to do the same. They yielded to his temptation and ever since the
will of mankind has been off the main track.

But if man has not been willing to submit to the will of God
which is always kind, beneficent and loving, surely he will not submit
to the will of his fellowman which is often selfish, tyrannical and
despotic. So the world of politics, commerce, industry, education and
even religion, is intersected with side lines built by the ingenuity
of masterful minds who wish to satisfy their unquenchable thirst for
power over other men's lives or their insatiable thirst for other
men's possessions. A heaven-inspired description of the perversion

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sin made in man's will and of the lengths of lawlessness into which it
led him, is given in these verses:

Judges 17:6, "In those days there was no king in Israel, but
every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

Rom. 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

G. Campbell Morgan, The Crises of the Christ, sums up the ruin
wrought in the human soul by Adam's fall as follows: "Thus in the
spiritual part of his nature, man by the fall has become unlike God,
in that his intelligence operates wholly within the material realm,
whereas the divine wisdom is spiritual, and therefore explanatory of
all material facts; his emotion acts from wrong principles of
self-love, whereas the divine love ever operates upon the principle of
love for others; and his will asserts itself upon the basis of passion
for mastery, whereas the divine will insists upon obedience, through
determination to serve the highest interests of others."

Sin made the human body a battlefield. Sin not only invaded the
realm of the spirit and the soul but also that of the body and made
that which was intended to be the spirit's congenial home its prison
house. That which should have been spiritual tends to become sensual.
That which God purposed to be the channel through which the spirit
within man could touch the external world and bring blessing to it was
turned into the instrument through which Satan

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reached the spirit with his defilement. The body became Satan's
broadcasting station.

Rom. 7:23, "But I see another law in my members, warring, against
the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin
which is in my members."

In Paul's exhortation to those who had accepted Christ as
Saviour, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye
should obey it in the lusts thereof," he implied that the body of the
natural man had been sin's territory. The members of the body became
Satan's tools and instruments of sin.

Rom. 6:13, "Neither yield ye your members as instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that
are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of
righteousness unto God."

Rom. 7:5, R.V., "For when we were in the flesh, the sinful
passions, which were through the law, wrought in our members to bring
forth fruit unto death."

The human body defiled by sin is corrupt, dishonoured and weak
and it awaits deliverance from a bondage under which it groans (Rom.
8:23).

2 Cor. 5:4, "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that
mortality might be swallowed up of life."

The Manifestation of Sin in the Natural Man

Sin began to do its deadly work at the core of

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Adam's being. This core, his human nature, became sinful. Sin became
its native atmosphere. Sin became its governing, impelling principle.
The fountainhead of his thoughts, emotions, attitudes, instincts and
purposes, was vitiated by sin.

The word we commonly use today to express this sinful root is
self. The core of the natural man is self. Scripture gives us another
name. That corrupt human nature, that inborn tendency to evil in all
men received by inheritance from our first parents, is called "the old
man."

Col. 3:9, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off
the old man with his deeds." (Cf. Rom. 6:6, Eph. 4:22.)

But man is not a silent, inactive creature. His thoughts are
expressed in words; his instincts are translated into actions; so if
the fountain is corrupt, then that which flows out from it will be
correspondingly corrupt. This inner nature manifests itself in outward
acts. The hidden desires of "the old man" come to the surface in
deeds. Covetousness grows into theft; deceit becomes falsehood;
impurity of thought and desire manifest themselves in sins of the
flesh; unforgiveness and hatred crystallize into revenge and murder;
fear becomes fretting; unbelief shades off into worry; dislike
degenerates into backbiting; impatience becomes nagging;
dissatisfaction and discontent clothe themselves with murmuring and
complaining; self-righteousness slips into censoriousness; pride takes
on the colour of boastfulness; envy becomes slander; ambition

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arms itself for war; selfishness grows into oppression; and jealousy
attempts to end its torment in suicide or homicide.

This truth is made very plain in the Bible in the clear cut
distinction between sin and sins.

1 John 1:8-9, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness."

Leon Tucker in his Studies in Romans states the difference as
follows:

"Sin is character; sins are conduct. Sin is the center; sins are
the circumference. Sin is the root; sins are the fruit. Sin is the
producer; sins are the product. Sin is the sire; sins are his
offspring. Sin is the fountain; sins are its flow. Sin is what we are;
sins are what we do."

Sin then is the old nature itself; sins are the manifestations of
the old nature.

This picture of the ravages of sin in the life of the natural man
is an exceedingly dark one but a thorough, prayerful study of God's
Word on this subject together with an honest observation of human life
as it is must convince an open-minded, humble man that it is a true
picture. It does not mean that each person has committed every one of
these sins. There is a difference in the degree of sin manifested in
the natural man but

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not in the fact of inherent sin. God who knows what is in man says,
"There is none righteous; no, not one." It does mean that every man is
a sinner in the sight of God and that the whole world is guilty before
Him (Rom. 3:19). It does mean that man who was made in the image of
God has become flesh.

The Destiny of the Natural Man

God and sin cannot dwell together; they cannot stay in the same
place at the same time for they are mutually exclusive. They are exact
opposites. Perhaps you are now sitting in a room full of light; a few
hours will pass by and it will be filled with darkness. Where has the
light gone? It has been displaced by darkness. Again a few hours pass
by and the room is filled with light. Where has the darkness gone? It
has been displaced by light. Light and darkness cannot dwell together;
they are exact opposites; they are mutually exclusive.

1 John 1:5-6, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If
we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie,
and do not the truth."

Eph. 5:8, "For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light
in the Lord; walk as children of light."

God is light, sin is darkness; therefore God must displace sin or
sin displaces God. God and sin cannot stay in the same place at the
same time for they are mutually exclusive.

Sin separated Adam from God; it made him want to hide from God's
presence. Sin separated God from Adam and compelled Him to pronounce

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the sentence of death and to send him forth from the garden of Eden.

If God cannot dwell with sin in the sinner on earth neither could
He dwell with sin in the sinner in Heaven. So if the natural man
persists in his sin and rejects the way of salvation which God
provides in Christ Jesus, by that very choice he debars himself from
the presence of God throughout eternity. His own unrighteousness will
then shut him out of the Kingdom of God.

1 Cor. 6:9, "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit
the kingdom of God?"

Rev. 21:27, "And there shall in no wise enter into it anything
that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a
lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

Let us now sum up the truth we have studied thus far. God's first
man, Adam, was without sin; he was created in God's image on the plane
of human life. He was made with the capacity for life on the highest
plane, the spiritual, and with the power to choose such a life. God
made man with his face turning Godward. God's will was both the center
and the circumference of his life: consequently he lived in
righteousness and peace because in perfect adjustment with God, with
himself, and with all created beings.

But Adam chose to disobey God's command. He used his power to
choice Satanward, and placed his life voluntarily under Satan's
sovereignty. He stepped outside of God's sphere of righteousness,

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light and life into Satan's sphere of sin, darkness and death. He
dethroned God and enthroned self. He ceased to be spiritual and became
flesh. Sin made him a sinner with his face turning Satanward and his
course tending downward. Self-will became both the center and the
circumference of his life; consequently he lives in ungodliness,
unrighteousness and discord because there was maladjustment with God,
with himself, and with all created beings.

Adam himself was the father of children. He was not merely an
individual creation of God but he was the appointed federal head of
the human race. All the evil consequences of sin in him were
transmitted to all men so that by nature all men are guilty and
defiled. The most awful consequence of sin, however, was not the moral
and spiritual ruin of the human race but the denial of the Godhood of
God in His own universe.

This view of the origin and the consequences of sin, even though
it is so clearly taught in God's Word, is not accepted by all. Sin
even in many pulpits today is treated very lightly if not passed over
altogether. Nevertheless every one knows that humanity is saturated
with sin and that sin is really at the bottom of all the world's
trouble. But many people are unwilling to admit the real nature of
sin. They treat it like a superficial skin disease rather than like a
malignant cancer.

Men are unwilling to acknowledge the truth of God's estimate of
the natural man, that left to himself he is hopelessly, incurably bad.
They place the blame of his misconduct onto his environment or limited

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circumstances and by seeking to improve these external conditions and
to afford him larger opportunities through education and civilization
they believe he can be evolved into what God intended him to be.

Such thinking is due to a fundamental misconception of what sin is.
The essence of the first sin in Eden is clearly defined in God's Word
and it is the essence of all sin from that day to this.

1 John 3:4, R.V., "Every one that doeth sin doeth also
lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness."

The exceeding sinfulness of Adam's sin lay in the fact that it
was high treason of the created against the Creator; of the subject
against the Sovereign. Such at heart is all sin. The natural man is a
spiritual Bolshevist.

Man is not only guilty and denied but he is rebellious and
lawless. He is not only separated from God by sin but he is
unreconciled by enmity. In God's sight he is a sinner, an enemy, an
outlaw. (Diagram IV omitted.)

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V. SATAN AND GOD IN CONFLICT

THAT evil exists in this world no one could deny. Evil forces are
at work in countless ways and through manifold channels. An evil
power operates everywhere working intelligently for the degeneration
of mankind and for the defeat of God. There is in the world an
aggressive opposition to God and to God's purpose.

Power is the product of personality, therefore the acknowledgment
of the presence of power necessitates the recognition of the presence
of a personality originating and directing it.

Nowhere in the Bible is evil treated as a mere abstraction. A lie
is the spoken language of a liar.

Acts 5:3, "But Peter said, Ananias, Why hath Satan filled thine
heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of
the land?"

A murder is the actualized desire of a murderer.

1 John 3:12, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew
his brother."

Ananias was the mouthpiece and Cain was the tool of another. Behind
the human personality was a supernatural personality. Their evil was
the revealed power of a concealed person.

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The Bible tells us that such an evil one exists. Christ is the
authority for the statement that there is an evil one and that he is
the devil.

Matt. 13:19 R.V., "When any one heareth the word of the kingdom,
and understandeth it not, then cometh the evil one, and snatcheth away
that which hath been sown in his heart."

Matt. 13:39, "The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest
is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels."

Good forces are at work also. A good power operates everywhere
intelligently for the regeneration of mankind and for the exaltation
of God. There is in the world an aggressive opposition to Satan and to
Satan's purpose.

Nowhere in the Bible is good spoken of as a mere abstraction. It
is invariably the product of personality. Christ is the authority for
the statement that there is a good one and that He is God.

Matt. 13:24, "Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The
kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his
field."

Matt. 13:37, "He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the
good seed is the Son of man."

Luke 18:19, "Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none
is good, save one, that is, God."

The evil one is the antithesis of the Good One. Scripture sets
Satan forth as the greatest enemy of both God

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and man. This is clearly seen in the names and titles given him.

He is called "Satan," which means opponent or adversary. This
title is used of him fifty-six times and invariably reveals him as the
opponent of God and the adversary of man.

Matt. 4:10, "Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan:
for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only
shalt thou serve."

1 Pet. 5:8, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the
devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour."

He is called "the devil," which means slanderer or accuser. This
title occurs thirty-five times in the Bible and shows him to be the
slanderer of God and the accuser of man.

Matt. 13:39, "The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest
is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels."

Rev. 12:10, "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is
come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the
power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down
which accused them before our God day and night."

The devil slanders God to man (Gen. 3:1-7) and man to God (Job
1:9-12; 2:1-7). He is called "the wicked one."

Matt. 13:19, "When any one heareth the word of the

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kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and
catcheth away that which was sown in his heart."

He is not only the personification of evil, "the wicked one," but
he is the source of evil in others.

1 John 3:8, "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the
devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was
manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."

The devil is a liar and cannot speak the truth. He is a murderer
and bent on the ruin and destruction of men. He was the first sinner;
therefore he is the forefather of sinners.

John 8:44, "Ye are of your father the devil and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not
in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a
lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of it."

He is called "the tempter." He tempted the Son of man and he
tempts all men.

Matt. 4:3, "And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be
the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread."

1 Thess. 3:5, "For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I
sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted
you, and our labour be in vain."

He is called "the deceiver." He deceives both indiviuals

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and nations. He began his wicked work in Eden by deceiving Eve.

Rev. 12:9, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan, which'deceiveth the whole world: he was
cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

1 Tim. 2:14, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
deceived was in the transgression."

On the threshold of divine revelation we read the prophecy of a
conflict between Satan and God and every page from that on is but an
unfolding of its progress toward its divinely appointed end, the
ultimate and absolute defeat of Satan, the eternal and perfect victory
of God.

The Commencement of the Conflict

That a good God created everything good is a logical supposition
as the character of God must be expressed in His works. But when God
says that every creation of His was "very good," then the statement is
lifted out of the realm of supposition into that of fact.

God, then, did not create evil nor did He create the evil one as
the evil one. From whence then did evil come? How did "the anointed
cherub" become the "devil," "the wicked one," "the tempter," "the
deceiver"? How did the beautiful archangel who held the highest rank
in heaven become the diabolical traitor who will be cast into the
depths of hell? How did he who "abode in the truth" become an apostate
and "the father of lies"?

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We have seen already that it was because he said,

"I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation.
I will ascend above the clouds.
I WILL BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH."

Every word of this defiant, presumptuous declaration is the very
breath of treason and anarchy. Lucifer is unwilling longer to be a
subject in and a prince over the world; he is determined not to be a
subordinate but a sovereign.

God could brook no such independence of action; He could
countenance no such effrontery to His sovereignty over the universe or
His moral government of created beings. Such treason brought Satan and
God into deadly conflict.

The Consequences of the Conflict

The die had been cast. Satan was henceforth to contest with God
the possession of the earth and all therein; to set himself up as a
rival claimant to the world's sovereignty and to man's worship. He
would establish a kingdom of his own. God, for a purpose which we
shall understand as we proceed with the unfolding of His wondrous plan
of redemption, permitted Satan to go forward with his evil designs.

Two Sovereigns. There are now in the universe two separate
distinct kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Two
Sovereigns claim authority over Heaven and earth.

By His creatorship God is the rightful Lord for all things

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were created by Him and for Him. God has never given away to any
created being, angelic or human, any part of His universe. He holds
the possession of the whole universe in perpetuity.

Deut. 10:14, "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the
LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is."

Ps. 24:1, "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the
world, and they that dwell therein."

The Kingdom of God is the central government, the only government
recognized by God and the spiritual hosts of heaven and earth. It is
composed of all moral intelligences, angelic or human, celestial or
earthly, of all centuries and all climes, who willingly place
themselves within the circle of the divine will and who of their own
free choice acknowledge and accept God as their Sovereign. The Kingdom
of God embraces the entire universe over which God is enthroned as the
absolute Sovereign.

The Lord Jesus teaches that there is such a Kingdom of God and
who are eligible to citizenship in it.

Luke 13:28, 29, "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth,
when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets,
in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. And they shall
come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from
the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God."

John 3:5, "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God."

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God states with clearness the essential credentials for entrance into
His kingdom.

James 2:5, "Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in
faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that
love him?"

However unthinkable it may seem there is also in God's universe a
kingdom of Satan. The Lord Jesus teaches that there is such a kingdom.
On one occasion when casting out a demon some of the people charged
Him with casting out demons through Beelzebub the chief of demons.
Jesus made the following reply in which He brought the kingdom of
Satan and the Kingdom of God into sharpest contrast.

Luke 11:17-20, "But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them,
Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a
house divided against a house falleth. If Satan also be divided
against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I
cast out devils through Beelzebub. And if I by Beelzebub cast out
devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be
your judges. But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt
the kingdom of God is come upon you."

God acknowledges that Satan did set up a kingdom and that he sits
on a throne of his own making.

Rev. 2:13, R.V., "I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's
throne is; and thou holdest fast my name, and didst not deny my faith,
even in the days of Antipas

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my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan
dwelleth."

Christ never acknowledged Satan to be king but three times He did
call him "the prince of this world."

John 12:31, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the
prince of this world be cast out."

God also acknowledges the worship Satan has succeeded in
obtaining for He calls him "the god of this world."

2 Cor. 4:4, "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not."

There is still another title given him in Scripture which shows
that Satan not only obtained and exercises great power on earth among
men but that he carried his rebellion against God even into Heaven and
secured a following among the angelic host.

Eph. 2:2, "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."

Eph. 6:12, R.V., "For our wrestling is not against flesh and
blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places."

It is evident, then, that through Satan's treason and Adam's
disobedience Satan gained a temporary conquest of the earth, which
became a revolted province in God's universe. Satan is a sovereign

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over a rebel government; it is a government against government. It is
composed of all moral intelligences, angelic or human, celestial or
earthly, of all centuries and of all climes, who are without the
circle of the divine will and who continue to be subjects of Satan.
The kingdom of Satan embraces the whole world of mankind that is
without the Lord Jesus Christ.

Two spheres. In a recent number of the National Geographic
Magazine there is a remarkable picture. It was a view taken from a
hydroplane at an elevation of five thousand feet of two rivers, the
Negro and the Amazon, meeting and mingling. The picture reveals two
distinct streams, each identified by its colour. The waters of the
Negro are black, those of the Amazon yellow, and even at the place
where they meet the sharp colour line of distinction can be seen.

One looking down upon humanity from the viewpoint of the
heavenlies can see in this world two distinct streams of life, the
natural and the spiritual, each easily identified by its colour. The
waters of the natural are black, those of the spiritual yellow, and
even at the place where they meet and mingle whether in business, in
society or in the home, the sharp colour line of distinction may be
seen.

The Negro and the Amazon have different sources and each partakes
all through its course of the colour of the water at the fountainhead.
The natural and the spiritual in human life come from two distinct
sources and each partakes all through its course of the quality of
life at its fountainhead.

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There are two spheres into which all humanity is divided; the one
is the sphere of sin and the other is the sphere of righteousness.
These two spheres are identified by three outstanding characteristics:
the sphere of sin by darkness, death and disorder; the sphere of
righteousness by light, life and liberty. Satan is the sovereign in
the sphere of sin and Christ is the Sovereign in the sphere of
righteousness.

That there are these two spheres of life and that Christ Jesus
died and rose again to bring men out of the one into the other is
declared in many passages of Scripture. We shall study only three
passages. In Paul's defence before Agrippa he states his God-given
commission as a minister and a missionary to the Gentiles. God told
Paul exactly what He expected him to do.

Acts 26:17, 18, "Delivering thee from the people, and from the
Gentiles unto whom I now send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn
them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God,
that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them
which are sanctified by faith that is in me."

Those to whom Paul preached were blinded, befogged, bound men and
he was sent that they might be enlightened and emancipated. They were
to be turned from something to Something, they were to be turned from
some one to Some One.

Col. 1:13, R.V., "Who delivered us out of the power of darkness,
and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love."

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The believer has been rescued from Satan's dominion and removed
into God's Kingdom.

Eph. 5:8, R.V., "For ye were once darkness, but are now light in
the Lord: walk as children of light."

There are these two sharply contrasted and distinctly marked
spheres in which men live and each reader this moment is in one or the
other of these spheres.

Two Seeds. With the defection of Adam Satan thought he had won
the first step in God's defeat and dethronement. A terrible conflict
began. God did not minimize its sinister seriousness but on the very
threshold of the conflict He triumphantly claimed victory over his
enemy.

Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel."

This prophecy-promise contains God's declaration of war. A battle
is to be fought to a finish between two seeds. The issue at stake is
the sovereignty of God. The immediate object in the conflict is the
redemption and reconciliation of the human race ruined through sin.
The ultimate object is the restoration to God of undivided sovereignty
over all His universe; in other words the rule of the Kingdom of God.

Enmity is to exist between two seeds--the seed of the serpent and
the seed of the woman. Satan's seed traced through Scripture is the
Antichrist; the woman's

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seed is the Christ. Toward these two persons pitted against each other
in a final conflict all Scripture prophecy converges.

Satan knows that Jesus Christ is "the seed of the woman." It is
He whom the devil hates. Ever since this first Messianic prophecy was
uttered in Eden Satan's virulent attacks have been against the Person
and work of the Lord Jesus. From the moment God said "I will put
enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and
thou shalt bruise his heel" until Christ, the Saviour, fulfilling that
prophecy on Calvary cried, "It is finished," Satan waged incessant
warfare against the Person of the Lord Jesus.

Old Testament history unfolds to view repeated attempts to
destroy the line through which "the woman's seed" would come, thus
preventing the incarnation. These being brought to nought by God's
protecting intervention, he then sought to kill the Christ-child at
birth. Failing in this he tried to thwart the fulfilment of God's
eternal purpose in His Son by tempting the Lord Jesus in the
wilderness to declare His independence of God. Defeated in his direct
appeal he used indirect means to keep Him from the Cross of Calvary.
He used both Christ's enemies and His friends as his tools. He
instigated His enemies to kill Him and repeated attempts were made
upon His life. He used His friends to dissuade Him from the voluntary
sacrifice of Himself as the world's Saviour. His defeat in all these
varied attempts maddened him into an attack upon the spirit, soul and
body of the Son of Man in Gethsemane, his last futile effort to

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blockade the way to Calvary. Jesus Christ went to the Cross, He died
and rose from the tomb: the seed of the woman bruised the serpent's
head.

Failing to hurt the Person of the Lord Jesus Satan has been
occupied through the past nineteen centuries with attempts to nullify
His work. He has done this by deceiving men and blinding their minds
thus leading them to disbelieve and deny the truth of the Gospel. By
so doing he hopes to delay the final fulfilment of the prophecy
regarding his own utter defeat.

From the moment of the pronouncement of this prophecy-promise God
has made steady progress in its fulfilment. In the garden of Eden it
was announced; in the manger cradle at Bethlehem it was actualized; on
the Cross of Calvary it was accomplished; and on Mount Olivet it will
be attested.

The kingdom belongs to God. Satan maintains his claim only as a
traitor and an usurper. Christ came, lived, died, rose, ascended into
Heaven and will come again that He may sit upon His throne and reign
(Acts 2:30) until every foe is conquered (Acts 2:35) and all is put
again under the divine sovereignty of the triune God (1 Cor.
15:22-28).

In Eden the final fate of Satan is clearly announced. "It shall
bruise thy head." It is to be a fatal stroke which effects his
ultimate defeat, dethronement and destruction. The doom pronounced
upon the devil in Gen. 3:14-15 is an eternal doom: the end for him is
eternal torment in the lake of fire prepared for him and his angels
(Matt. 25:41).

In the manger cradle of Bethlehem the final fate of

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Satan is actualized. The incarnation of the Lord of Heaven means the
beginning of the end for Satan, and he knows it. That is why he fought
the birth of the Christ-child and why he now denies the God-breathed
truth of the Virgin Birth. His destruction was actualized when
God-manifest-in-Christ entered openly and aggressively into the field
of operation to lead His forces on to victory.

On the Cross of Calvary the final fate of Satan was accomplished.
There his doom was sealed. God's eternal purpose in Christ's
Saviourhood was realized. Henceforth Heaven looks upon the devil as a
defeated foe. Christ in anticipating His death upon the Cross regarded
it as the time and place of the devil's defeat for He said, "Now shall
the prince of the world be cast out" (John 12:31).

But not until on the Mount of Olivet the Lord Jesus Christ comes
from Heaven in all His majesty and glory will the final fate of Satan
be attested. The sentence pronounced upon him in Eden will then be
executed. Through God's permission the traitor-prince still rules the
kingdom of Satan but when God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus is
carried out fully then God's judgment upon Satan will be executed
finally.

Subjects in the Two Kingdoms. From the moment Satan set up a
kingdom of his own he has been busy recruiting subjects and mobilizing
his forces for warfare. Today he has a multitudinous Satanic host in
the aerial heavens, on earth and in the underworld.

Scripture speaks of "the devil and his angels." It tells us there
are angels that sinned.

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Matt. 25:41, "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels."

Jude 6, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but
left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains,
under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day."

As "prince of the power of the air" and "prince of demons" Satan
rules a vast host of spirit beings in the aerial heavens. The "demons"
or "evil spirits" who are employed in Satan's service are probably
those who were under his rule when he was "the anointed cherub" and
who followed him in his rebellion against God. The heavenlies swarm
with these spiritual hosts of wickedness which are united in a most
complete organization consisting of principalities and powers over
which are intelligent world-rulers. The headquarters of this vast
organization, Satan's seat, (Rev. 2:13) is above the earth and the
sphere of activity of this Satanic host is on the earth and in the
atmosphere that envelops it.

Matt. 8:16, R.V., "And when even was come, they brought unto him
many possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word,
and healed all that were sick."

Satan is also ruler over a Satanic order on earth. He is

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called "the prince of this world." The posterity of Satan's seed is
found not only among angels and demons but among men. The seed of the
serpent can be traced from Genesis to Revelation. They are men and
women who choose to live in self-will rather than in God's will, who
refuse God's sovereignty over their lives, who in pride and
self-righteousness reject Jesus Christ as their Saviour. Cain is the
first one mentioned as the seed of the serpent.

1 John 3:12, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew
his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were
evil, and his brother's righteous."

The Lord Jesus recognized the serpent's brood in the self-loving,
self-willed, Christ-hating, Christ-rejecting Pharisees of His day and
did not hesitate to call them by their rightful names.

Matt. 23:33, "Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye
escape the damnation of hell?"

On another occasion in speaking to those who rejected Him, He
disclosed their spiritual ancestry, the devil, and said they were
subjects in His service. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the
lusts of your father ye will do."

At still another time Jesus called the unsaved among men "the children of the wicked one." He had told
them the parable of the tares and the wheat and they asked for an
explanation.

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Matt. 13:38, "The field is the world; the good seed are the
children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked
one."

God has a multitudinous host in Heaven, in paradise and on earth
who are His subjects. The seed of God can be traced from Genesis to
Revelation and includes all those who from the beginning of human
history have been rescued from Satan's kingdom and removed into God's
through faith in the atoning sacrifice of the Son. Abel was the first
of the heroes of the faith.

Heb. 11:4, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he, being dead, yet
speaketh."

All down through the centuries men continued to offer those "more
excellent sacrifices" which required the shedding of blood, thus
expressing their need of and faith in the Saviour who was to come.

Then the Saviour came and made one sacrifice for sins through the
shedding of His own blood. Since then through the preaching of the
Gospel multitudes from out of all nations and peoples of the earth
have renounced their citizenship in the kingdom of Satan and have
become subjects in the Kingdom of God.

Col. 1:13, "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and
hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son."

Added to these vast multitudes of God's subjects on

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earth are the innumerable hosts of angels in Heaven whose delight is
in unceasing worship of the Lamb that was slain.

Rev. 5:11, 12, "And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels
round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number
of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain
to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour,
and glory, and blessing."

Two Systems. Satan has a purpose, a project and a program. His
purpose is to "be like the Most High," his project is to set up a
kingdom in opposition to the Kingdom of God, his program is to better
the condition of the world and the circumstances of humanity so that
men will be satisfied to remain his subjects and will have no desire
for the Kingdom of God.

Satan has been represented in much of the literature of the world
as the fiend of hell. He has been caricatured as a heinous creature
with horns and hoofs, revelling in all that was cruel, vicious and
unclean. But he is the exact opposite of all this. He never wanted to
be the god of hell but the God of Heaven. It was God's judgment upon
his sin that made him king of the bottomless pit. He is the inspirer
and instigator of the very highest standards of the God-less,
self-made world of mankind. His purpose was and still is to be and to
do without God what God is and does. Let us ever keep in mind that
Satan's purpose was to dethrone God in His universe and in the hearts

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of men and then to take His place. To succeed in his attempt Satan
must try not to be unlike God but like God. To incline the hearts of
men to himself as a ruler and to draw out their hearts to him in
worship he must imitate God. To annul the work of Christ Satan must
counterfeit it as far as possible.

His project was in line with his purpose. He would leave his
position as a subordinate in God's kingdom and set up a kingdom of his
own. The foundation of it would be self. Self-will, self-love,
self-interest, self-sufficiency would constitute its corner stone.
Lawlessness, a revolt against the rule of God, and irreverence, a
refusal to worship God, would be its superstructure.

Satan knew that such a project would have to be safeguarded by a
cleverly planned program. Not even the natural man would submit
knowingly to the sovereignty of Satan or fall down and worship him. So
Satan's program from the beginning has been one of deception. Satan
has sought to keep the natural man satisfied with himself and with the
world in which he lives. This is not as easy a task as it might seem.
The spirit of man can never be satisfied save in God from whom it
emanated and for whom it was created. Something in even the worst of
men at certain times and under some circumstances cries out for God.
Man lives and toils in sweat, suffering and sorrow. His spirit, soul
and body cry out for release from the intolerable burden.

In the light of this knowledge Satan framed a very clever
program. It was to unite all his subjects into a huge world federation
for the reformation and betterment of

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the world. This would be accomplished through carefully worked out
plans for the promotion of education, culture, morality and peace upon
the earth. Human relationships, international, civic, social, family
and personal are undeniably in a terrible tangle but through peace
conferences, leagues of nations and world courts international
maladjustments would be righted: through mass education movements and
social service programs civic and social conditions would be bettered:
through new thought processes which foster self-culture and
self-constraint the civil war within man's own personality would be
ended and so more amicable relations with those to whom he was bound
by ties of blood and of friendship would be established. Thus Satan
would succeed in deceiving men into thinking the Kingdom of God had
come on earth.

Satan knows there is but one true God and that Jesus Christ is
His Son whom He sent to be the Saviour (James 2:19; Matt. 8:29). But
this truth he would keep men from knowing. He must even keep them from
feeling any need for God. So his program must provide for the perfect
satisfaction of man's soul and body that his spirit may be kept
darkened and deadened. So Satan's program includes every conceivable
thing that could minister to self-enjoyment, self-ease, self-gain and
self-satisfaction in the realm of the physical, intellectual,
affectional, aesthetic, moral, yea even in the religious nature of
man.

Moreover his program must provide for man an outward environment
that matches this inward need. The

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earth is cursed but Satan must do what he can to remove the effects of
that curse. Man will never be satisfied unless the earth is a more
comfortable, pleasant place in which to live. So Satan's plan is to
make this world very attractive and then organize human society that
it may be so engrossed with its pursuits and pleasures men will have
no thought for God.

Earnest, serious minded men will see through this flimsy veil and
will be concerned over the world's maladjustments. But Satan will
engage such men in the task of repairing the ruin he himself has
wrought. They will give millions upon millions of dollars, some will
even lay down their lives in the accomplishment of the task thinking
they are engaged in God's service. Satan will drug men with the
tangible and transient and so detach them from the heavenly and
eternal.

This huge federation of evil spirits and evil men is organized
into a cunning system over which Satan is the presiding genius. He
determines its principles, directs its policies, decides upon its
program and devises its propaganda. This Satanic system is "the
world." The Lord Jesus revealed both its name and its nature in His
farewell message to His disciples and told them clearly what its
attitude to Him would be. The attitude of this system to Jesus Christ,
which is one of unmitigated hatred, brands it as Satanic.

John 15:18-19, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me
before it hated you. If ye were of the world the world would love its
own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of
the world, therefore the world hateth you."

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John 17:14, 16, "I have given them thy word; and the world hath
hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world."

God says that this Satanic system is inherently "evil";
hopelessly "corrupt"; thoroughly "polluted"; irreconcilably hateful.

Gal. 1:4, "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver
us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our
Father."

2 Pet. 1:4, "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and
precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine
nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through
lust."

2 Pet. 2:20, "For if after they have escaped the pollutions of
the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse
with them than the beginning."

John 15:18, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me
before it hated you."

Thus God states His estimate of "the world." He speaks with equal
clearness regarding its works.

John 7:7, "The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I
testify of it, that the works thereof are evil."

This Satanic system, "the world," is like a colossal octopus that
has sent forth myriads of tentacles to lay hold upon every phase of
human life and draw it unto itself. It has its grip upon the corporate
life of mankind in its homes, marts, schools, politics, even its

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churches. It has penetrated into every relationship of the
individual's life, personal, family, social, national and
international.

"The world," which is human society with God left out, is Satan's
snare for capturing men and holding them in bondage. "What the web is
to the spider: what the bait is to the angler: what the lure is to the
fowler: so is the world to Satan a means of capturing men." "The
world" is the devil's paw with which he strikes men: it is his lair
into which he entraps men: it is the devil's ally in fighting God for
the sovereign control of men.

But is there anything within man that responds to Satan and to
his system? In the Bible we read they have an accomplice whose name is
"the flesh."

Rom. 7:5, "For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins
which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit
unto death."

Rom. 8:12-13, "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the
flesh, to live ajter the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye
shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the
body, ye shall live."

In Scripture the word "flesh" has several meanings but in the
verses quoted it is used in the ethical sense and means the whole
natural man, spirit, soul and body, living in self-will and alienated
from the life of God. The flesh is what man became through the fall.
It is man "without God" (Eph. 2:12).

The "flesh" manifests nothing but antagonism to God and defiance

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of authority. It is irrevocably opposed to God and to His law.

Rom. 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it
is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

The "flesh" then is the material in mankind upon which Satan
works to keep man a part of his system. This trinity of evil, the
world, the flesh and the devil, is organized into a diabolical combine
against God and His saints.

Satan has a cleverly thought out plan but God has a divinely
wrought out purpose. God's purpose antedated Satan's plan: God's
purpose anticipated Satan's plan: God's purpose annulled Satan's plan:
God's purpose was formed in the eternity of the past and reaches into
the eternity of the future.
"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."

Christ Jesus was the One through whom God's purpose was to be
fulfilled. He constantly spoke of Himself as one who had been sent
from Heaven by the Father to do the Father's will, not His own. He did
not belong to earth but to Heaven and was here only to fulfil a
special mission.

John 6:38, 40, "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own
will, but the will of him that sent me. ... And this is the will of
him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on
him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him at the last day."

Jesus disclaimed any part in or relationship to the Satanic
system called "the world."

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John 17:16, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the
world."

John 14:30, "For the prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in me."

In fact He declared that this Satanic system had an unchangeable
attitude toward Him--that of unrelenting hate which would spend itself
ultimately in crucifying Him.

John 15:18, "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me
before it hated you."

John 15:20, "Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant
is not greater than his lord. ... they have persecuted me, they will
also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep your's
also."

There is nothing in Scripture to indicate that God makes any
attempt to change or to convert "the world." The Lord Jesus frankly
acknowledges that "the whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John
5:19, R.V.) and is under Satan's control.

God's purpose in Christ is to call men out of the world: to
emancipate them from love for it, even to crucify them unto the world
and it unto them.

John 15:19, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his
own: but because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you."

1 John 2:15, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in
him."

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Gal. 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world."

God's purpose in this age Scripture makes unmistakably clear to
the spiritual mind. It is to call out individuals, here and there,
from all nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues, who through faith in
the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross become a very part
of Him and He of them. This living organism He calls His body, the
Church.

Col. 1:18, "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."

Christ's purpose in this age is to call out of the world and into
union with Himself those "chosen in him before the foundation of the
world," who become a holy, heavenly people fit to be members of the
body of which the holy Christ in Heaven is the Head.

Eph. 1:4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love."

Eph. 1:22, 23, "And hath put all things under his feet, and gave
him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body,
the fulness of him that filleth all in all."

1 Cor. 12:27, "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in
particular."

From God's viewpoint "the world" and "the Church" are exact
opposites. "The world" is a vast organization

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of the whole mass of unbelieving mankind under Satan's leadership.
"The Church" is an invisible organism of all true believers under
Christ's Headship. These two are in conflict on the earth and are
pitted against each other as the instruments of Satan and of Christ in
their attempt to get and keep possession and control of men.

How does God win response to His appeal to men to come out of the
world and into fellowship with Christ? Does He have an associate in
this task? We shall see in succeeding lessons that this is the work of
the Holy Spirit who kindles life anew in the human spirit and then
comes Himself to dwell in it.

Ez. 36:26, 27, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new
spirit will I put within you:... And I will put my Spirit within you."

Rom. 8:9, "But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so
be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ he is none of his."

The Consummation of the Conflict

God's eternal purpose in man's redemption has been in gradual
process of fulfilment ever since it was formed and each succeeding
century has brought it nearer to its consummation. The heart of God's
plan of redemption was a Saviour. This Saviour was to come through the
seed of a woman. God was to become man. So God chose a people and set
them apart that through them the Saviour might come "according to the
flesh." In the fulness of time Christ came, lived,

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died and rose again. Man's redemption was accomplished.

Rom. 9:4, 5, "Who are Israelites: ... Whose are the fathers, and
of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came."

Following thereon a written Word was needed to proclaim this
wondrous Gospel to sinners everywhere. So God chose and set apart a
people through whom the written Word might come.

1 Cor. 15:3, 4, "I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the
scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third
day according to the scriptures."

Rom. 3:1, 2, "What advantage then hath the Jew? ... Much every
way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of
God."

Through the Israelites, God's chosen people, He gave both the
incarnate Word and the written Word to the world.

God's next move was to preach this Gospel through His own
ministers and missionaries throughout the whole world that all men
everywhere might have the opportunity to behold the Son and to believe
on Him.

Mark 16:15, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature."

When this work has been completed to God's satisfaction and the
Bride is made ready for the Bridegroom,

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the Lord Jesus Christ will come again to take His own unto Himself and
to set up His kingdom upon earth.

This is the beginning of the end for Satan. He will be bound,
cast into the bottomless pit for one thousand years. Then he will be
loosed for a little season. He will go forth to deceive the nations
and to gather them together for battle against the Lord, thus proving
his unchanging and unchangeable attitude of self-will and of
opposition to God (Rev. 20:1-3, 7-9).

Then comes God's final and full judgment upon him. He is cast
into the lake of fire and brimstone to be tormented day and night
forever and ever (Rev. 20:10).

Christ Jesus having consummated to the full God's plan to redeem
men and reconcile all things unto Himself now restores the absolute,
undivided sovereignty of God over His entire universe.

1 Cor. 15:24-25, 28, "Then cometh the end, when he shall have
delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have
put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till
he hath put all enemies under his feet. ... And when all things shall
be subdued unto him, then shall the Son, also himself be subject unto
him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all."

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VI. FALSE AND FUTILE ATTEMPTS FOR SALVATION

IN His Word God has taught one truth which is beyond all
contradiction. It is that sin has created an awful chasm between
Himself and man. Man may ignore or condone sin, he may treat it very
lightly, he may even be so foolish as to deny its reality, but that
does not alter the unalterable fact that sin exists and that it
separates from God. God does not treat sin lightly. God hates it, God
condemns it. "Sin unatoned for must be an insuperable barrier between
the sinner and God."

If the natural man is to be brought into favour and fellowship
with God, it is evident that something must be done with sin. Man's
first step in returning to God must be a consciousness that deepens
into a conviction of sin. So the question which comes to every person
who awakens to his condition through sin and its consequences, is the
same as that which came to the Philippian jailor, "What must I do to
be saved?" (Acts 16:30).

The Nature of Salvation

"Let us analyze the jailor's question. First, "What must I do to
be saved?" Who is the "I"? A lost man enslaved by sin, self and Satan;
a blind man, whose mind has been darkened by the god of this

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world and whose eyes are closed to the beauty and glory of God; a dead
man alienated from the life of God.

Second, "What must I do to be saved?" He does not ask what he
must do to be reformed or repaired or repolished, but to be saved. The
question he asks is, "How can I an enslaved man have deliverance; a
blind man have sight; a dead man have life?"

Third, "What must I do to be saved?" What can a bond-slave do to
free himself? Or what can a blind man do to gain sight? Or what can a
dead man do to make himself alive?

Let us answer the jailor's question by defining the kind of
salvation which will fully meet the sinner's need. It must be a
salvation God can accept as wholly sufficient and satisfactory. God is
the One who has been offended and most wounded by sin. By his sin Adam
forfeited all right to relationship with God and it is God alone who
can say by what means and in what manner the relationship with sinful
men can be restored. Man has no ground upon which he can approach God.
If God ever receives the natural man it must be upon some ground where
he confesses himself an helpless, hopeless, sinner. "Between him and
God is the impassable gulf of moral inability. Between him and God is
the barrier of penal judgment." God alone can determine how this chasm
shall be bridged and this barrier removed.

It must be a salvation that deals effectually with sin and all
its consequences. This salvation must put away sin and give man a new
nature, without which there would be

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no basis for establishing a relationship with God. This salvation must
blot out man's sins and their attendant guilt. Sins committed cannot
be undone merely by an expression of sorrow or by a promise of
amendment through a New Year resolution or by the "turning over of a
new leaf."

It must be a salvation that carries out the sentence of death
upon the sinner. God's law is holy and it cannot be trifled with.
God's judgments are righteous and they must be fulfilled. God has
said, "The soul that sinneth it shall die." The penalty must be paid;
the judgment must be executed. Any salvation that saves must take into
account the payment of this penalty and the execution of this
judgment.

It must be a salvation that accomplishes the defeat, dethronement
and destruction of Satan. God's judgment upon Satan who brought sin
into the universe must be executed as truly as God's judgment upon the
sinner. God has said that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head
of the serpent. This is one half of the original promise of salvation.
Christ's final victory necessitates Satan's full defeat. Such must be
the nature of any salvation that fully saves.

Man's False and Futile Attempts for Salvation.

But there are those who, refusing to accept God's estimate of the
natural man, deny the necessity of any such radical and revolutionary
change in him. They delight in the exaltation of the flesh and they
deny the self-evident fact that human nature is in utter ruin though
they are compelled to admit that it is greatly in need of repair. They
believe and teach that human nature

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is imperfect because it is in the process of formation. But given
proper environment, liberal education and the chance to make the best
of what he already possesses, man by his own natural development
ultimately will achieve Godlikeness and attain a place in the Kingdom
of God. In other words salvation is not by grace but by growth; it
depends upon an evolution of life from within rather than upon an
impartation of life from without.

There are those even in the pulpit and in the theological
seminary who teach that the natural man is not dead but diseased; not
wicked but weak; not fallen but fainting; and they attempt
resuscitation through ethical culture, social reform and mass
education while ridiculing the necessity of redemption through the
atoning work of the crucified Saviour and regeneration through the
power of the indwelling Spirit.

Their kind of preaching is well summed up in the word of a
prominent preacher who said, "Do your part and God will surely do His.
To deny that a man is forgiven when he turns away from wrong and asks
forgiveness would be to deny the moral character of God." In such
teaching man is made his own saviour, and salvation is nothing more
than a feeble sense of regret resulting in slight changes in conduct
to which God is asked to affix His seal of forgiveness.

This kind of thinking and teaching leads men to seek out ways of
salvation which are futile and to rest upon hopes which are false. If
the meaning of salvation is what we have indicated in these pages then
the means of its accomplishment must be supernatural. But

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man is ever prone to put his trust in the purely natural, in himself.

When the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened to evil and they came
into a realization of their sin and shame instead of seeking God,
confessing their sin, and acknowledging their undone condition, they
made themselves aprons of fig leaves to cover their nakedness (Gen.
3:7). From that day to this the natural man has been at the same
foolish, futile task of trying to cover his sin and guilt with some
garment of his own making which he trusts will be acceptable to God.

But no dress which the natural man provides for the flesh will
ever please God. No matter of what material it is made or how
beautiful, fitting and durable it may seem to be to the world, it will
wither into nothingness, even as Adam's and Eve's aprons of fig
leaves, before the righteousness and holiness of God.

No garment of salvation except the one He Himself provides will
be acceptable to God.

Gen. 3:21, "Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make
coats of skins, and clothed them."

By this act God acknowledged that the shame of Adam and Eve was
not groundless, and that they did need a covering; but He also showed
the utter inadequacy of the one they had provided for themselves,
their lack of apprehension of the enormity and heinousness of their
sin against Him, and of the nature of the salvation required to
restore them to His fellowship. God had said, "In the day thou eatest

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thereof thou shalt surely die." They had eaten. "The wages of sin is
death." If they did not die some one acceptable to God must die in
their stead. This is the meaning of salvation. But God had already
given the promise of a Saviour-Substitute. The seed of the serpent
would bruise the heel of the woman's seed. The garments of skin with
which the Lord God clothed Adam and Eve were procured through the
slaying of animals, through the shedding of blood. By this gracious
act of God the means of salvation was symbolized; the death of His own
well-beloved Son was shadowed forth. God Himself furnished the skins,
God made the coats, God clothed them in acceptable garments.

Now let us look at some of the aprons of fig leaves with which
the natural man is trying to make himself acceptable to God and fit
for Heaven.

Salvation through character. "Character--homebrew" is the sign
over the door of the self-righteous man's life. He has to admit
weakness and failure but he does not call sin sin nor does he grant
that he has any great need. There is nothing in him so wrong that he
cannot remedy it himself if given time, a proper environment and
enlarged opportunities. The self-righteous man thinks that he starts
with something already very good, something even with the very essence
of the divine in it. His business is to make this good thing gradually
better.

In this process of self-cultivation the self-righteous man
measures himself with himself and he is very pleased; he measures
himself also with other men and, like the self-righteous Pharisee of

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Luke 18:9-14, he is more than pleased. He congratulates himself on
himself and even commends his virtues to God. But there is one
measurement that he has forgotten to take. He has never placed his
self-righteous life alongside the spotless, stainless, sinless, life
of the Son of Man to see how infinitely far short he falls of a
righteousness which God accepts. He ignores the fact that the absolute
righteousness of God demands nothing less than absolute righteousness
in all who are acceptable to Him, which is a demand no human being in
himself ever can meet.

Some day when this man stands before the Lord Jesus Christ, once
a proffered but a rejected Saviour, now his Judge, he will expect Him
to approve this man-made production of righteousness, to pronounce it
as good as anything the Lord could have done, and to let him pass into
Heaven to abide forever in the presence of an absolutely righteous
God.

I was talking once with a friend concerning his need of a
Saviour. He was a man of splendid ideals, high standards and excellent
principles. He was cultured, kind, moral, and from a human standpoint,
lived what the world would commend as a highly respectable life. When
I pressed the necessity of accepting Jesus Christ as his Saviour, he
said, "Why do I need any one to die for me? I do not want any one's
blood shed for me!" The root of that reply was self-righteousness.
That young man was trusting to be saved through character. God looks
down upon all such "which trusted in themselves that they were
righteous" and says:

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Rom. 3:10, 12, "There is none righteous, no, not one. ... They
are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable:
there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

And of the righteousness which has been so carefully cultivated
He gives His estimate through the mouth of His prophet.

Isa. 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our
righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we do fade as a leaf; and our
iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."

To rely upon self-righteousness as the ground of salvation is
utterly futile. God declares plainly that His wrath against it will be
revealed.

Rom. 10:3, "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and
going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God."

Rom. 1:18, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness."

How very different is the self-righteous, self-made man from the
one who has had a glimpse of the Holy One and His righteousness!

Isa. 6:5, "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am
a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean
lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

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Job 42:5, 6, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but
now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust
and ashes."

1 Tim. 1:15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners: of
whom I am chief."

The last quotation is from the lips of a man who, if any one,
could have rested upon his own righteousness as a sufficient ground of
acceptance with God. With perfect sincerity he said of himself that
"touching the righteousness which is of the law he was blameless." Yet
after seeing the Lord of glory he was convinced of the foolishness and
futility of such confidence in the flesh. From that time he had but
one consuming desire, "... that he might win Christ, and be found in
him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith" (Phil. 3:8, 9). The only righteousness that makes any
man acceptable with God is the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus
Christ.

Rom. 3:22, 23, "Even 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."

No one whose eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts, and who
has contrasted his own sinfulness with His holiness will have a shred
of hope of acceptance with God through his own character. The man who

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relies upon any righteousness in himself as his ground of salvation
and who refuses Christ's imputed righteousness as God's free gift only
proves the Word of God that the god of this world has blinded his mind
so that the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image
of God, should not shine into his heart.

Salvation through education. Another bridge which men attempt to
erect over the yawning sin-made chasm between God and man is that of
education. Ignorance due to lack of opportunity is deemed the cause of
much of the sorrow, suffering and strife, in the world. The cry is,
"Give every one an education and so elevate standards, raise ideals and change environment. By thus creating a
desire for better conditions of life a better life itself will
eventuate." There are intelligent men and women today who are
proclaiming that the one thing needed for the salvation of individuals
and of nations is mass education. Knowledge is made the cure for sin.

Such argument is absolute fallacy. For to know is but a fragment
of man's responsibility in the matter of living and is by far the
easier part of the task. Life challenges us to do, above all to be.
Knowledge is of no value whatsoever until it has been transmuted into
character and conduct. In fact the Bible tells us in one of its most
solemn words that unless it is so transmuted knowledge becomes
positive sin. "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him
it is sin" (James 4:17).

Education has sometimes even led to a deterioration of character
and conduct. It has opened new avenues into sin

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and taught men greater cleverness in the ways of evil. It has not only
made men more selfish, more proud, more grasping, but has placed them
in positions where their selfishness, ambition and greed could have
full right of way against others less favoured.

We hear much in certain circles today about religious education
and many people believe this to be the sufficient remedy for the need
of the world. If religious education means teaching the Word of God
itself under the direction and operation of the divine Teacher, the
Holy Spirit, with the purpose of securing man's regeneration and
renewal, then it is indeed one of the world's greatest and deepest
needs. But, if it means urging the natural man to study Christ's
teachings and to learn His principles of life for men as individuals
and as members of society in order that through obedience to His
teaching, through application of His principles, and through imitation
of His example there may be a reconstruction of human society and an
amelioration of social wrongs, then it is an absolutely foolish and
futile thing. The natural man could know the content of the teachings
of God from Genesis to Revelation and still have no power, and more,
no desire to obey them. He might be thoroughly conversant with every
Christian principle for the government of man in his personal, social
and civic relationships and yet fail to apply them in his own life.

I heard of a group of students who talked loud and long about the
selfishness and greed of officials in high places in the government of
their country. They took part in patriotic movements

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to remove these men from office. Yet they themselves were found guilty
of taking a "squeeze" from their fellow-students who had entrusted to
them the task of buying food under a self-government scheme in
operation in the college. In their smaller sphere of activity they had
done exactly what the officials had done in their larger sphere. Any
system of religious education which merely unfolds to the natural man
the teachings and principles of Jesus Christ and tells how to apply
them in the life of the other fellow is utterly inadequate.

The Bible is the only textbook given man on salvation from sin
and from cover to cover there is not a ray of hope held out of
salvation through education or through anything that aims merely at
the improvement of the natural man. In fact God plainly tells us in
the first and second chapters of 1 Corinthians that it is "the wisdom"
of the natural man that keeps him from accepting the only way of
salvation, Christ crucified. Education, if it be truly Christian, may
be one of the agents used by God to create the desire for salvation
but it can never furnish the dynamic which makes salvation possible.

Salvation through works. One man looks for salvation through
character or what he is; another trusts in education or what he knows;
while a third seeks it in service or what he does. He believes he can
be saved through good works. He comes to God with self-confidence and
says, "What shall I do that I might work the works of God?"

God answers his question by asking one which

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teaches that the natural man can do no good work that will accomplish
his salvation.

Jer. 13:23, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his
spots? then may ye also do good, who are accustomed to do evil."

Please note God does not say, "Can the Ethiopian powder or rouge
his skin?" That has been done. The question is "Can the Ethiopian
change his skin?" The natural inference is that it would be changed
from its natural colour to another. Can that be done?

Suppose a girl from Ethiopia comes for the first time into the
presence of a group of fair skinned girls. Never before has she seen
any colour of skin but black. She wishes her skin to be fair and
determines to do something to make it so. Procuring water and soap she
proceeds to lather her face and rubs it vigorously. The process ended
she goes triumphantly to the mirror expecting to see a great change.
Instead she confronts the same black skin only a bit more highly
polished. She decides that she did not do enough, that she failed to
use sufficient water or soap or muscle, so she repeats the process
increasing the use of soap, water and strength. But the second attempt
ends in the same bitter disappointment. To change her skin is beyond
her power.

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" We are compelled to answer
God's question for His answer to ours depends upon it. If the
Ethiopian can change his skin then the natural man will be able to do
something to change his sinful heart, he will be able to do

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good who has always been accustomed to do evil. But, if the Ethiopian
cannot change his skin then what must we infer regarding the power of
the natural man to change his evil heart? God's Word gives a
conclusive answer.

Jer. 2:22, "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee
much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord
God."

Through self-cultivation, self-discipline and self-effort many
men and women have been able to accomplish certain reforms within
themselves which have made them more acceptable to themselves and to
the world but no living person has ever been able to make himself
righteous, and without righteousness no man is acceptable to God.

Another way in which the natural man attempts his own salvation
is to do something for God which will be acceptable.

This was Cain's mistake, yea, it was more, it was Cain's sin. Why
was Abel's offering accepted and Cain's accepted not? (Gen. 4:4, 5).
Because Abel realized that he was a sinner and that the offering he
brought to God must confess that fact and be an acknowledgment of his
need of another to cleanse him. Cain, on the contrary, brought an
offering which revealed no sense of sin but rather of complete
self-sufficiency. He offered his best, the work of his hands, the
fruitage of his toil. He needed not the help of any one. And he
expected God to accept his gift, the offering

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of a sinner still in his sins, and to call the account against him
squared. Cain did not come to God "by faith" (Heb. 11:4) but "by
works."

There is no phase of modern teaching more ancient or pagan than
the doctrine proclaimed so generally throughout the world today that
we can be made acceptable to God by good works, that we are saved
through service. It is indeed true that, if we are saved, we will
serve; but it is altogether untrue that we are saved because we serve.

Jews in our Lord's time who were unwilling to acknowledge Him as
their Messiah and to accept Him as their Saviour, came to Him with the
question, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" The
reply of the Lord Jesus is very significant. "This is the work of God,
that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." But this "good work" they
stubbornly refused "to do."

What God required was not that they should do something for Him
but that they should accept what He had done for them. The foundation
stone of salvation is not what man gives to God but what God gives to
man; it is not what man offers to God but what he receives from God.

Rom. 4:4, 5, "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned
of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on
him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for
righteousness."

2 Tim. 1:9, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to

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his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began."

The Pharisees considered themselves the prophets of religion.
They fasted and prayed; they paid tithes and "built the tombs of the
prophets and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous." They did
countless good works yet Jesus called them "hypocrites" and the
apostle Paul prayed that they might be "saved." So in this twentieth
century many are deceived into thinking they are saved because they
serve tables at a church supper; make garments for the poor or
bandages for the sick; act as chairman of the finance committee to put
over a big drive; or contrive schemes for the physical and social
betterment of mankind.

Salvation through good works either for God or man is pure
paganism. I have a friend in China whose dear old grandmother was an
ardent Buddhist. At seventy-six years of age she rose every morning at
four o'clock and spent the hours until noon without food in performing
the rites of her heathen worship. She walked long distances to the
temple, she burned her bundles of incense and lighted her candles, she
gave of her money. Her days were largely spent in religious works, but
at seventy-six she was still an ignorant, superstitious, idolatrous,
unsaved woman. But not one whit more unsaved than the man or woman,
even though dressed in cap and gown, who offers to the Saviour who
died upon the Cross to redeem him "the stone" of philanthropy, good
works and social service, for "the bread" of faith, adoration and
worship.

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Salvation through religion. Some one has said that "Man is
incurably religious." Another has beautifully written, "God created
man a deep and everlasting void. The soul in its highest sense is a
vast capacity for God but emptiness without God." It is most assuredly
true that man was made for God and his heart never can be fully
satisfied until it is satisfied in Him. It is equally true that God
made man not only in His likeness but also with the capacity for
fellowship with Him, yes, even for sonship. Therefore God's heart can
never be fully satisfied except as this relationship with man is
realized and enjoyed.

The natural man can neither satisfy nor please God (Rom. 8:7).
Therefore God could never enjoy his presence even were it possible for
him to stay in the presence of an holy God. Something must be done by
God to make man acceptable to Him.

From the day sin entered into the human race, God has been
working to win men and women, one by one, back to Himself. He has sent
His messengers, prophets and apostles to open the eyes of sinners and
"to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto
God." At the same time the devil has been equally busy blinding the
minds of men "lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ who is
the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Cor. 4:4).

Satan's path is not altogether smooth. Two forces are working
against him. One is the religious instinct in man. He cries out for
something he knows he needs. He senses his insufficiency in seasons of

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trial, suffering and sorrow; often his heart reaches out for the help
and comfort of one stronger than himself. He cannot let loved ones
pass out of sight and touch without an insistent longing to know where
they have gone and if all is well. That unsatisfied something in man's
soul that cries out to an unknown God is very much against Satan.

The second hindrance to the devil is the Holy Spirit. It is His
business to convict of sin, to reveal the love of God in Christ, and
to draw the heart of the sinner out in faith and love to God.

Just here the devil reveals himself at his worst. He will lay
siege to that unquenchable thing in man's nature which craves an
object of worship and hold it for himself. He will delude men into
thinking they can be saved by systems of religion which he inspires
them to make.

Contrary to the salvation of which Jesus Christ is the source
Satan's system is not one and the same for all men alike irrespective
of family, race, education, privilege or environment. These man-made,
Satan-inspired religions have various names and manifold methods each
suited to the type and temperament of the man who believes them. There
is one kind for the ignorant and illiterate; another for the educated
and erudite; one for the simple and superstitious; another for the
wise and cultured; one for the poor; another for the prosperous.

There is a system of religion for the idolater. Satan is an
arch-deceiver and his practice of deception is seen in its most cruel
and malicious form in idol-worship. Even

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in this twentieth century Satan still holds in his power millions upon
millions of men who are worshippers of gods of their own making. They
have been led to believe a lie and so have been plunged into dense
darkness.

There is a system of religion for the ritualist. In carrying out
His eternal purpose in Christ, God called forth a people from among
the nations through whom the seed of the woman would come. The Jews
were set apart as the people of God by the rite of circumcision. To
this God added the covenants and the law so that the worship and
service of the Jew was based on a God-appointed, God-honouring,
ritualism. Through the manifold ordinances and sacrifices of the
Jewish ritualism God made the Jew familiar with the idea of
redemption. Then God raised up prophets who foretold the coming of a
Messiah who would be their Redeemer. In the fulness of time the
Saviour was born. The need of sacrifices was past for the one
Sacrifice had offered Himself.

But the expounders of the law, the most ardent religionists of
Jesus' day instead of receiving Him rejected Him. And why? Because
they permitted religious ordinances to take a larger place in their
lives than God's redemptive order. They exalted ritualism above
righteousness and substituted prayer for penitence, tithing for trust
and fasting for faith.

There are other great religious systems in the world today in
which the real Christ of the Bible, the Redeemer of the Gospels, is
veiled through ordinances and ceremonies in which there is no saving

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power, yet through which countless thousands are deceived into
thinking they are made acceptable to God.

There is a system of religion for the rationalist. The
pronouncement of the curse upon Satan and the promise of salvation
through Christ following the fall precipitated a conflict as we have
seen. The conflict begun then has never ceased; it is being waged more
fiercely today than ever before.

To prevent the execution of the curse and the fulfilment of the
promise Satan tried in every conceivable way to destroy the seed of
the woman. At the Cross of Calvary he thought himself triumphant. But
the very place of his supposed victory was the place of his judgment
and the forerunner of his final doom. Christ arose, the Victim became
the Victor. Christ Jesus returned to the glory from whence He came. He
went beyond the devil's reach. There is no way in which Satan again
can touch or tempt the person of the adorable Lord. How then would he
continue the conflict? Now that he could not focus the venom of his
hate upon the incarnate Word upon what would he focus it?

The revelation of this conflict is unfolded in a Book. The
incarnate Word has gone home to His Father but the written Word is
still on earth. In it the defeat of the devil and the victory of the
Christ is recorded in large type. The way of salvation through the
atoning death and the triumphant resurrection of the Lord of glory is
written in red letters from Genesis to Revelation. This is the Gospel.
This Gospel the devil hates with all the hatred of which the father of

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hate is capable. So against it he will now direct his attack. Around
the Gospel of Christ the conflict will center henceforth.

The Gospel is in the Bible and the Bible is in the world. It has
been printed in hundreds of languages and has gone to the far corners
of the earth. More millions of copies of it are being sold annually
than of any other book. Men everywhere are reading the Bible and are
believing the Gospel. Being saved through it they are taken from
Satan's dominion and removed out of his kingdom.

What can he do to stop its progress and its power? Destroy it? He
has tried that and failed. The Bible is not printed on paper only but
it has been graven on human hearts by the Spirit of God, so that if
every copy of the printed Bible in the world today were destroyed a
new copy could be made from its truth stored in human hearts.

Perhaps, then, Satan could ridicule the Bible and hinder its
progress and power through scoffing. He has tried that also and
failed. He has used some of the world's most brilliant men as his
preachers of infidelity and atheism. Today they are in their graves
and their words are forgotten while the Bible lives on more powerful
than ever.

But is there not a more effectual way of denying the Gospel and
of keeping sinners from the benefit and blessing of the salvation it
offers? There is and Satan is making use of it in these days in ever
increasing measure. God tells us that the devil's most subtle
manoeuvre in the conflict is to turn preacher and with

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the Bible as his textbook to concoct out of it a gospel of his own.
When Satan found that attacking the written Word from without failed
then he began attacking it from within. As Christ uses men to preach
His Gospel so Satan would find men who would consent to become "his
ministers."

2 Cor. 11:13-15, R.V., "For such men are false apostles,
deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And
no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light.
It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion
themselves as ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according
to their work."

What would Satan's gospel be and where would it begin? God's
Gospel is a Gospel of grace and begins with Genesis, chapters one to
three. But how could Satan accept these three chapters as they stand
fresh from the heart and hand of God containing as they do the
revelation of God's perfect work in the creation of the universe and
man; the invasion of an enemy, he being that enemy; the injection of
sin into God's perfect work; the awful consequence in the fall of Adam
and Eve; the terrible curse of God upon himself, upon man and upon the
earth; the precious promise of a Saviour and the glorious prophecy of
his own defeat through the death upon the Cross? Of course he could
not accept these chapters for in them is the germ of the whole Gospel
of man's salvation.

He would defeat his own purpose if he did so bold and blatant a
thing as deliberately to cut these chapters

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out of the Bible. But the arch-deceiver is quite equal to the
emergency. He will preach a gospel that reserves the right of
interpretation of the Word of God according to the dictates of reason.
He will insist upon a faith that is rational.

It is always difficult for reason to accept anything beyond its
own range. God thinks and works on the plane of uncreated, divine,
unlimited, supernatural life. Man thinks and works on the plane of
created, human, limited, natural life. The rationalist refuses to
recognize any such dividing line between himself and his Creator.
Consequently he refuses to accept anything, even from God, that goes
beyond his reason. So whatever the rationalist believes, his religion
must be on his own plane of life--the natural.

So a system of religion is framed to suit him. A gospel is
manufactured "which is another gospel" (Gal. 1:6), a clever, malicious
counterfeit. Satan knows that he must inspire man to make a religion
which does away altogether with God's revelation of the creation and
the fall of man, otherwise how can he dispose of the promise of a
Saviour and the prophecy of his own ultimate defeat through Christ's
glorious victory on Calvary and His triumphant return as King?

Consequently the basic tenet of the rationalist's system of
religion is evolution. Man did not come direct from God's hands--a
perfect work which God Himself pronounced "very good." God's first man
was not created in the image of One infinitely higher than himself,
but was evolved from something infinitely

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lower than himself. This something had evolved through various stages
by natural processes until man was produced. So that God's part in the
production of man was not so much that of a Creator as of a semidivine
supervisor or foreman "of resident natural forces." In other words the
supernatural in man's creation was eliminated through evolution. So
much for man's creation in this man-made, Satan-inspired gospel.

How does this gospel of the rationalist deal with sin? Sin is in
the world. Sin is in man. How does the rationalist account for its
origin and what does he say of its end? He evades the issue altogether
by calmly denying the necessity of any one having such knowledge.

I read recently a chapter on "Sin and its Forgiveness" from the
pen of a noted preacher in which he said, "Whence did sin come? What
was its origin? How did it get into God's universe? That is a question
to which no satisfactory answer has ever yet been given. ... Jesus is
disappointing in His treatment of human sin. The origin of evil He
never touched. He left that problem as opaque as it was before He
came. He seemed to take it for granted that the origin of evil is a
problem to be thought about and worked out in some other world than
this. ... It is not necessary for us to know either the beginning of
evil or the end of it; it is enough to know that sin is a burden to
the heart of God, and that God has provided a way for our
deliverance." Such deliberate evasion is equivalent to out-and-out
denial. For any honest man,

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whose mind has not been blinded by the god of this world, could not
but believe from the reading of Genesis three and Romans five that sin
came into this world through Adam who yielded to the will of Satan.
Therefore sin must have had its origin in the devil. Jesus, far from
leaving this opaque, threw a flood of light upon it when He said that
the devil was "a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies"
(John 8:44).

But not only is sin in the world but Christ is also in the world.
And He is in the world primarily as a Saviour. He became a Saviour by
going to the Cross. His work in this world as Saviour is to draw
sinners unto Him for salvation. "And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto me." His power of attraction is mighty
and permeates the world of humanity today. When once the Lord Jesus
Christ is accepted by one as Saviour, yielded to as Lord, and
appropriated as Life, then the devil's power over that life is broken.
The devil knows this full well. So what will he do with Christ in the
system of religion he inspires men to make, and in the gospel he
inspires them to preach?

Satan cannot do away with Christ altogether for even the most
simple would see that any system of religion which claims to be based
on the Bible and calls itself Christianity must give Christ some
place. It is a galling thing to do but the devil is compelled for
policy's sake to preach Christ in his "gospel, which is another
gospel." But will he allow "his ministers of righteousness" to preach
Jesus Christ as the Saviour from the

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guilt, penalty and power of sin through His substitutionary death upon
the Cross and His bodily resurrection and His ascension into Heaven as
the God-man, the interceding High Priest? Never! To do so would be
allowing his own funeral sermon to be preached, fulfilling Gen. 3:15.
But he will preach Jesus as the world's greatest teacher, its purest
example, its most ethical leader, its most powerful reformer. He will
appeal to the natural man still in his sin and hostility, still under
condemnation and the sentence of death, to obey Christ's teaching,
emulate His example, follow His leadership and submit to His reforms.
Such a caricature of the real Christ as this is found in the
rationalist's system of religion.

True Christianity is grounded upon the supernatural. Two
supernatural facts are its foundation. The first is the supernatural
creation of man by the divine Creator whose perfect work was ruined by
an enemy through the injection of sin. The second is the supernatural
regeneration of man accomplished by God's grace through the
supernatural birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension and
exaltation of His Son.

Rationalism, Liberalism, Modernism or whatever one wishes to call
it, is grounded upon the natural. Two fallacies are its foundation.
The first is the fashioning of man through evolution by which natural
process he will continue to grow from the imperfect to the perfect.
The second is the natural reformation of man accomplished through
self-development by the help of a human Jesus, whose earthly life
furnishes an example to be imitated, whose teachings provide a rule

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for right living, and whose principles constitute a guide for the
overcoming of evil and the gradual betterment of individual and
corporate life.

There is, then, a system of religion made by man but inspired by
Satan. It is a religion which eliminates the supernatural. I am
speaking now of the system not of the man who accepts it: of modernism
not of the modernist. There are varying degrees and grades of faith
and of unbelief in those who subscribe to this false system of
religion. Some who call themselves modernists were brought up and
nourished on the fundamental truths of evangelical Christianity and
there is now in their belief a strange mixture of the false and the
true. Our purpose in writing this is not to judge any man but to warn
any who may be putting confidence for salvation in this man-made,
Satan-inspired system of religion.

There is a gospel of Satan and a Gospel of Christ; the one is the
exact antithesis of the other. Satan's gospel has no place for the
grace of God. Satan's gospel reverses God's estimate of the natural
man. It does not admit that in himself he is hopelessly incurable and
incorrigible, even though it does have to say that he is still
imperfect. The basic tenet of his gospel is man's natural worthiness
which can be increased and for which man will take to himself the
glory. Satan's gospel admits the natural man's need for spiritual
garments, but it teaches men that these garments can be made by
themselves and urges them to borrow the pattern from the earthly life
of Jesus and then make the garments to fit themselves. In Satan's

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gospel the sinner does not penitently beseech God to save him but he
politely requests God to help him save himself and then endorse what
he has done.

The Gospel of Christ has place for nothing but the grace of God
by which a salvation is provided that the sinner accepts by faith as a
gift. God's Gospel declares that the natural man is a sinner, a rebel
and an outlaw and that he is separated from God and condemned by God.
In God's Gospel the sinner admits that this is his standing and his
state before God and that he is absolutely helpless to change it and
therefore hopeless. He comes to God in true penitence and cries to God
for salvation. The basic tenet of God's Gospel is the infinite worth
of His Son and the efficacious worthiness of His finished work of
redemption. God's Gospel declares the spiritual nakedness of the
natural man and his inability to stand in the presence of God unless
clothed in the garment of His Son's righteousness which He will
graciously bestow upon all who will accept Him by faith.

Which Gospel are you believing? There is but one Gospel that is
the power of God unto salvation. Anything which departs an iota from
the truth of that Gospel is "another gospel," even the gospel of
Satan.

Rom. 1:16, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it
is the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth."

Gal. 1:6-9, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that
called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:

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Which is not another: but there be some that trouble you, and would
pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven,
preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto
you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If
any man preach any other gospel unto you than ye have received, let
him be accursed."

We have been facing the question, "What must I do to be saved?"
and endeavouring to answer it. I trust it has been made clear that
salvation does not consist in anything that man makes of himself or
that education and environment make of him. Nor does it consist in
anything that he does either for God or for man. Neither is salvation
a mere matter of a changed manner of living. It does not mean the
elevation of the life of the natural man to a better state of living
still on the natural plane. As long as he remains on the plane of the
natural he is unsaved, no matter how cultured, educated, moral or even
religious he is.

Salvation is not man's work for God but God's work for man.
Salvation calls us to put our faith not in what man is or does but in
what Christ is and has done. Salvation's first concern is not what
kind of a life a man lives but what is his relationship to God. So its
first dealing is not with the good in man but with the bad. Salvation
does not try to improve the standing and state of the natural man
through reformation but it transfers him into a totally new sphere of
life through regeneration.

Every attempt to save the natural man through character,
education, good works or religion, will prove to be

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utterly futile because it has failed to deal effectually with that
trinity of evil, sin, self and Satan. Anything that leaves a man "in
Adam," "in the flesh," and under "the power of Satan" is not salvation
and is not acceptable to God.

Dear reader, which way are you going to take?

Will you proudly and arrogantly try to save yourself or will you
humbly and penitently accept the salvation provided for you in
Another?

Will you go the way of Cain, who presented to God as a sacrifice
the finest fruit of his garden and the best product of his toil, or
will you go the way of Abel who acknowledged his need of a Saviour,
and accepted by faith God's sacrifice?

Will you attempt to secure access to and acceptability with God
on the ground of good works or will you rest on the finished work of
God's Son?

Will you try to improve the old sinful nature which is your
inheritance in Adam or will you partake by faith of that new divine
nature which God bestows in Christ?

Will you try to conform your character and conduct to the
standards of Satan's worldly system or will you yield yourself to
Christ to be transformed into His image through the infilling of the
Holy Spirit?

Will you follow Satan's way or God's? Upon your answer to this
question your present happiness and your eternal destiny depend.

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(This page has a picture of a "chasm" with a column on either
side. They are presented in alternating statements as follows.)

NO MIDDLE GROUND -- ONLY A CHASM

A. "The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints"
B. Modernist Theology

A1. The Bible IS the Word of God. "the Book judges man"
B1. The Bible CONTAINS the Word of God. "Man judges the book"

A2. Jesus Christ is THE Son of God in a sense which no other is.
B2. Jesus Christ is A Son of God in the sense which all men are.

A3. The birth of Jesus was SUPERNATURAL.
B3. The birth of Jesus was NATURAL.

A4. The death of Jesus was EXPIATORY.
B4. The death of Jesus was EXEMPLARY.

A5. Man is the product of special CREATION.
B5. Man is the product of EVOLUTION.

A6. Man is a SINNER fallen from original righteousness, and apart
from God's redeeming grace is hopelessly lost.
B6. Man is the unfortunate VICTIM of environment but through
self-culture can "make good!"

A7. Man is justified by FAITH in the atoning blood of Christ, result,
supernatural regeneration from ABOVE.
B7. Man is justified by WORKS in following Christ's example; result,
natural development from WITHIN.

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VII. THE CHASM BRIDGED

GOD and God's first man enjoyed sweet and intimate communion
until they were separated by sin. How could this great, impassable
chasm which sin had made between God and man be bridged? From the very
nature of the case man could do nothing, even had he wanted to, for
sin had closed all possible access to God. Clearly, if anything was
to be done, God would have to do it.

But what would God do? Adam's sin presented a terrific problem:
one which not only affected God's personal relationship to man but His
governmental relationship to the whole universe; nay, even, it
affected His own personal character.

Adam's sin was spiritual anarchy; it was resistance to God's
authority; disobedience to God's command; rebellion against God's law.
How would God treat sin? Would He punish it and pass judgment upon it?
Or would He condone it and pass over it? If God failed to deal
righteously with such a flagrant case of disobedience and disloyalty,
how could He maintain order through obedience to law in any other part
of His universe? God's governmental administration of the universe was
involved in this stupendous difficulty.

But Adam's rebellion created an even greater problem than this.
By it God's holiness had been outraged;

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His righteousness denied; His veracity questioned; His goodness
doubted; His Word disbelieved; His command disobeyed; His love
spurned. Surely such treatment deserved drastic action. Why did
He not then and there abandon Adam and Eve utterly and leave them and
their posterity to the consequences of their sin?

He did not because He could not. "God is love," and "love never
faileth." God's love is an everlasting love which nothing can quench,
not even sin. Awful, terrible as sin is, it is not powerful enough to
defeat God's purpose in the creation of man. Man was created not only
by God but for God. Man was made for fellowship with God, much more,
for ultimate sonship. Apart from a living, loving relationship with
man God could never be satisfied. God, who is love, could not cast
away the sinner in his sin and still be love. The claims of God's love
must be met.

But "God is light" and "in him is no darkness at all." As light
cannot fellowship with darkness, so holiness cannot commune with sin.
An holy God cannot have intimate relationship with a sinful man. God
and sin cannot dwell together. The claims of God's holiness must be
satisfied as truly as the claims of His love.

"We speak of law and love, of truth and grace, of justice and
mercy, and so long as sin does not exist, there is no controversy
between any of these. If there be no sin, law and love are never out
of harmony with each other; truth and grace go ever hand in hand;
justice and mercy sing a common anthem. If the law

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be broken, what is love to do? If truth be violated, how can grace
operate? In the presence of crime, how can justice and mercy meet?
This is the problem of problems. It is not a problem as between God
and man. It is not a problem as between God and angels. It is a
problem as between God and Himself."--(The Bible and the Cross,
G. Campbell Morgan, page 125)

Let us think deeply into this greatest of problems created by
Adam's sin. How would He satisfy the claims of both His love and His
holiness? His holiness must condemn sin and command the sinner to
depart. His love must open its arms to the sinner and bid him come. An
holy God could not tolerate sin, a loving God could not turn away from
the sinner. God could not desert the sinner but what should He do with
the sin? God's attitude toward sin would reveal His true character
quite as much as His attitude toward the sinner.

Would Adam's sin not only separate God and man but would it even
bring division into God's own being? "Sin, whether as anticipated by
the Creator, or as become actual in our world, created an antinomy in
the very being of God, created a new ethical exigency for God and for
the universe, so that for the legitimate expression of either or both
of these polarities (holiness and love) in question a new
reconciliation was necessary: that is, a reconciliation of opposite
moral relationships within God's being itself. On the one hand, as we
must believe, the self-affirmatory character of the divine purity must
compel displeasure against sin: and on the other hand, the divine
clemency which on God's part yearns to impart its own holy nature to His

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creatures would constrain Him to forgive and cleanse from that
sin."--(The Divine Reason of the Cross, H.C. Mabie, Ch. III, page 54)

What, then, would God do that both would be consistent with His
holiness and conciliatory to His love; which would mercifully and yet
righteously bridge that awful chasm between Himself and man?

The Chasm Bridged

A perfect reconciliation was brought about within God's being by
a synthesis of His holiness and His love by which the claims of each
were satisfied. God's holiness and righteousness compelled Him to
pronounce the curse upon the serpent, the man, the woman and even upon
the earth. God had said, "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." God's word is true and is from everlasting to
everlasting; God's righteousness compelled Him to carry out His
judgment upon sin.

"But God's love put an exquisite, fragrant, fadeless rose in the
midst of the thorns." Right in the very heart of the pronouncement of
that awful curse recorded in Genesis 3:14-19 is that gracious,
wondrous promise of salvation through a Saviour.

Gen. 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and thou
shalt bruise his heel."

God's holiness and love are melted together in this precious
promise and out of this golden crucible emerges THE CROSS OF THE LORD

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JESUS CHRIST, and stretches itself across the impassable chasm sin has
made between God and man. "The reconciliation was affected through the
self-provided, suffering reconciliation of God in Christ." 'Mercy and
truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each
other.' Thus the antinomy in the divine Being itself was dissolved."

Before Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden the promise was made
of a way of salvation for the whole human race which had been plunged
into moral and spiritual ruin through sin. It was not man's way but
God's--Salvation through a Saviour.

The Cross in God's Eternal Purpose

But just here we may ask--and reverently so--"Did Adam's and
Eve's sin take God by surprise and did He have to think out a way of
escape for man after his fall?" Here we come to the very acme of the
infinite grace of God. May the Holy Spirit grant each reader spiritual
understanding to apprehend "the breadth and length and depth and
height of the love of God which passeth knowledge."

No, Adam's sin did not take God by surprise, nor was God's way of
redemption an after-thought. God knew even before the foundation of
the world and the creation of man the sad and tragic devastation sin
would work in the human race. God had anticipated the fall and was
ready for it.

The Cross which was to bridge the chasm made by sin was set up in
love in the dateless eternity of the past before it was set up in
promise in Eden or in history on Calvary. "The divine redemptive

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movement, in purpose anterior to creation, once determined upon, never
paused until it victoriously expressed itself in the language of
Calvary. ... The atonement in principle and in God is dateless, but as
taking effect on man it is historical, though dateless. ... Redemption
then, in the large, is anything but an afterthought, a mere appendix
to make good an unexpected disaster which had overtaken God's
universe. Both sin and redemption were foreseen from the beginning."
--(The Divine Reason of the Cross, H.C. Mabie, Ch. III, page 54)

There was a Cross set up in Heaven before it was ever set up on
earth. The atonement for man's sin made visible, effectual and
historical on Calvary, was wrought out in purpose and in principle in
the heart of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the
dateless past.

Rev. 13:8, "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,
whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world."

Eph. 1:4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love."

Acts 2:23, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain."

2 Tim. 1:9, "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

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What can these words mean but that in the counsels of the triune
God in the eternity of the past the awful tragedy in Eden was
foreknown and that, then and there, the wondrous plan of salvation
through the Son's redemptive work was formed by which God-in-Christ
should reconcile a lost, sinning race to Himself?

Revelation of Redemption

The Bible is the Book of Redemption, its one theme from the
beginning to the end is salvation through a Saviour.

Luke 24:27, "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning
himself."

Luke 24:44, "And he said unto them, These are the words which I
spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the
prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me."

All through the law, the psalms and the prophets, God is
unfolding to man His plan of salvation through a Saviour. By the
sacrifices of the Old Testament He foreshadows the one supreme
Sacrifice. By pen pictures and prophetic promises He foretells Him who
is "The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."

The story of His life with the record of its words and works; His
death, resurrection and ascension as recorded in the Gospels; His
doings as continued in the history of the Acts; the deeper revelation
of Himself as the living, victorious, glorified Lord in the Epistles,

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and the promise and prophecy of a coming King in the Revelation; all
have but one underlying purpose: namely, to reveal Him, not as the
founder of a new religious order, nor as the propagator of a new
ethical code, nor as the teacher of moral principles, nor as the
reformer of man's external environment, but to reveal Him as the
Saviour of mankind. The Father announced the coming of His Son as the
coming of a Saviour.

Matt. 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call
his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

Luke 2:11, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

Jesus Christ did not come only to teach or to preach or to heal:
He came to SAVE. Jesus Christ came for but one purpose which He
Himself states in these words,

Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that
which was lost."

He came to bridge the chasm which sin had made between God and
man. No one else and nothing else could do this.

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VIII. GOD'S SECOND MAN--THE LAST ADAM

THREE things are clear: man cannot save himself, God has
undertaken to save him, Jesus Christ is the means. The question
follows:

What method would God use in salvaging the wreckage wrought in
humanity? Would He try to repair the ruin in the old creation or would
He replace it by a totally new creation? Would He reestablish the old
order of humanity or would He inaugurate a radically new order?

The race had been ruined through a man, therefore it must be
redeemed through a man. The first man had failed to fulfil God's
original intention in creation so a second Man must come forth who
would succeed in fulfilling it. The old order of which the first Adam
was the head had gone down in ruin so a new order of redeemed men
under the headship of the last Adam must be started. The sentence of
death had fallen upon all mankind through the first Adam's
disobedience; it must be lifted through the obedience of another Adam,
whose work would be so perfect that He could be rightly called "the
last Adam" for none other would ever be needed. The redemption wrought
through the last Adam is set in sharp contrast to the ruin
accomplished through the first Adam in Rom. 5:12-21.

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THE FIRST MAN THE SECOND MAN
THE FIRST ADAM THE LAST ADAM

"BY ONE MAN"

The Necessity of a Mediator

God, then, will redeem man through a Man. What then would be
required in a Redeemer? Remember that sin has caused a terrible breach
between God and man. God is morally unable to have fellowship with the
sinner and the sinner is morally unable to have access to God. If any
real reconciliation is to be effected between them there is need of a
Mediator, one who would stand between God and man. Such a Mediator
must needs be one accepted and trusted by both parties, one who
partakes both of God's nature and of man's nature, one who in the work
of reconciliation would represent both God and man equally, one who
would satisfy every claim of God upon man and of man upon God. In
other words a true Mediator must be a God-man. The Saviour of men must
be a God-man. Christ Jesus, the Mediator, is the GOD-man. He is not
the man-GOD. He is not a man who became God but God who became man. He
is not a man who for a special purpose and at a special time was
invested with Deity but He is God who for a special purpose and at a
special time was invested with humanity. He always was God: He became
man.

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Heb. 1:1-3, "God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake
in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days
spoken unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,
by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his
glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things
by the word of his power, when he had himself purged our sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."

No words could teach more clearly that Christ Jesus, the Saviour,
the God-appointed Mediator, is God. He is the eternal Son, the Heir,
the Creator, the upholder of the universe and all therein. He is the
Son who is the commencement, the continuance, and the consummation of
all things. He is the Son, the effulgence of the Father's glory and
the very essence of His Person. He is the eternal Son who said of
Himself, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58); who declared "I came
forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the
world, and go to the Father" (John 16:28) and on the eve of returning
to His Father, prayed, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine
own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was"
(John 17:5).

Only God could represent God in this mediatorship. As in creation
so in redemption the Father works in and through the Son. "God in
Christ was reconciling the world unto himself." Christ Jesus, the
Mediator between God and man is God, the eternal Son, "the Lord from
heaven."

But where could God find one who would qualify as

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the GOD-man? Most surely not among the sons of men on earth, nor among
the angelic hosts of Heaven for they are neither God nor man. One and
only One even in Heaven itself could ever be thought of for such an
exalted task--the eternal Son of God.

But how could even He be a Mediator for man? It is easy to see
how the Lord from Heaven could represent an holy God but could He be a
just, righteous, impartial representative for sinful man? If such a
reconciliation demanded a divine-human Mediator how could He qualify
who had been throughout all the eternity of the past the holy Son of
God?

Just here we come to the place where the human mind has to
acknowledge its finiteness, where human reasoning is silenced, where
human comprehension confesses defeat, for we are lifted above all that
is human, earthly and natural, up--up--up--into the realm of that
which is divine, heavenly and supernatural, to the wondrous grace of
God. Nothing but the grace of God could have provided such a
divine-human Mediator, could have conceived the thought of a God-man.

Again we are driven back in thought to that which took place in
the eternal councils of the Godhead as the Omniscient Father, Son and
Holy Spirit looked out upon the universe they were to make, upon the
man they were to create, and foresaw the tragedy in Eden with all its
terrible consequences. Then and there the Triune God looked from
eternity to eternity and compassed fully in thought and plan all that
would take place between, "In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth" (Gen. 1:1) and "I saw a

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new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth
were passed away" (Rev. 21:1). It was then and there determined that
the eternal Son of God, the Alpha and the Omega, "the beginning and
the end, the first and the last" (Rev. 22:13), should lay aside for a
brief space of time His essential glory, and "be made in the likeness
of man": "to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross"
(Phil. 2:6-8) that He in returning to glory "might bring many sons
unto glory" (Heb. 2:10), to be forever with the Lord. There in the
glory of eternity the grace of God fashioned the wondrous plan of
redemption by which the eternal Son of God would become the incarnate
Son of Man; the divine-human Mediator; the God-man whom both God and
man would need when sin entered into the human race and separated man
from God. Christ Jesus is the divinely provided Mediator.

1 Tim. 2:5, R.V., "For there is one God, one mediator also
between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus."

In no book of the Bible is the person of Christ Jesus, the
God-man and His work as the divine-human Mediator more clearly set
forth than in the Epistle to the Hebrews. In it we can trace back to
glory the unfolding of truth regarding His glorious person and follow
from Heaven to earth and from earth to Heaven again His gracious work
as Redeemer.

We shall consider His work in the following chapters. May we
concentrate our thought now upon His person. Who is He?

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The divine-human Mediator--the Eternal Son of God--"The Lord from
heaven."

1 Cor. 15:47, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is the Lord from heaven."

John 1:1-2, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God."

The divine-human Mediator--the Incarnate Son of Man--"The Word
made flesh."

John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God."

John 1:14, R.V., "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,
(and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the
Father), full of grace and truth."

"The Word became flesh." "The statement is appalling,
overwhelming. Out of the infinite distances into the finite nearness;
from the unknowable, to the knowable; from the method of
self-expression appreciable by Deity alone, to a method of
self-expression understandable of the human."--(The Crises of the
Christ, G. Campbell Morgan, page 73)

Christ Jesus, the Mediator, is the GOD-man. The Eternal Son of
God became the Incarnate Son of Man. Heaven came to earth.

In Hebrews, chapter one, the Mediator is divine. He is called
"Lord," "God," "the Son." In Hebrews, chapter two, He is human. He is
called "Jesus," "brother," "high priest." In chapter one He is as

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far above us as the heavens are above the earth; He is absolutely
separate from us; He is in a class by Himself; He is the
Unapproachable; the Incomprehensible; the Incomparable One. In chapter
two He is on the level of our humanity, He has stooped to come to our
human plane of life.

Heb. 2:9, "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that
he by the grace of God should taste death for every man."

In chapter two He is one with us, He has entered into our
humanity, He has actually become part of our flesh and blood.

Heb. 2:11, "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are
sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call
them brethren."

Heb. 2:14, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh
and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil."

In chapter two He is the tender, sympathetic, understanding Son
of Man: the gracious, gentle One.

Heb. 2:17-18, "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made
like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the
sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being
tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted."

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Only Man could represent man in this mediatorship. Christ Jesus,
the Mediator between God and man is Man: the Incarnate Son: "the Word
made flesh."

From the beginning to the end of Scripture this story is told:
Christ Jesus, the Mediator between God and man is God; the Eternal
Son; the Lord from Heaven; the Alpha and the Omega. Christ Jesus, the
Mediator between man and God is Man; the Incarnate Son; the Man of
Galilee; the Babe of Bethlehem.

How the Eternal Son became the Incarnate Son

That Christ Jesus was a divine-human Mediator is not only a fact
of revelation but of history as well. Not only the words of Scripture
but the a.d. on our desk calendar tells us that at some one point of
time "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us."

Luke 2:11-12, "For unto you is born this day in the city of
David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign
unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying
in a manger."

"Christ the Lord"--"a babe"! "a saviour"--"wrapped in swaddling
clothes"! the creator of the universe--" lying in a manger"! the
author and sustainer of life--"born"! The father of
eternity--beginning to count His life by days and weeks and years! a
god-man ! It is a fact of revelation and of history staggering:
stupendous: sublime. In this fact we are face to face with the miracle
of miracles, the mystery of mysteries.

Many have asked the question "How can such a thing be?" "How did
the Eternal Son of God become

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the Incarnate Son of Man?" "How was the uncreated Lord of glory born a
babe in Bethlehem?" The answer is plainly given in the annunciations
of the angels to Joseph and to Mary.

Matt, 1:20, "But while he thought on these things, behold, the
angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou
son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which
is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."

Luke 1:30, 31, 34, 35, "And the angel said unto her, Fear not,
Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt
conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name
JESUS. ... Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I
know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of
thee shall be called the Son of God."

Perhaps nothing in God's holy Word challenges man to greater
reverence, deeper humility, sublimer faith, than this divine record of
God's supernatural entrance into human life. Yet to the truly humble,
reverent, worshipful, man of faith there is no difficulty in accepting
the statement of revelation that through the supernatural operation of
God, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Mary gave birth "to that holy thing
which was called the Son of God." He reads and accepts these two
annunciations without making any attempt to explain the heart of the
mystery therein because he

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humbly acknowledges that it transcends all human understanding.

He sees in Christ Jesus, the God-man, essential Deity and real
humanity, very God and very Man. He gladly acknowledges the
supernatural in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He finds no way
to account for such a result except in an adequate cause. A
supernatural life demands a supernatural birth. So he joyfully accepts
as true God's divine revelation that in the origin of the God-man
there was to be found the cooperation of Deity and humanity. He
believes that Christ Jesus, the God-man, was "conceived by the Holy
Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary," as the evangelical Church has
believed through the centuries.

Thus the supernatural birth of the Lord Jesus is the connecting
link between eternity and time: between Heaven and earth: between
Deity and humanity: between God and man. Through the doorway of that
supernatural conception there came into this world such a Person as
had never lived in it before or ever has since. In Him there is
essential Deity and essential humanity each in its wholeness and
completeness. He is "the Son of God, the Word of the Father, begotten
from everlasting of the Father, very and eternal God, of one substance
with the Father. Being such, He took man's nature in the womb of the
blessed Virgin, of her substance, so that two whole and perfect
Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and the Manhood, were joined
together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ,
very God and very Man."--(Outlines of Christian Doctrine, H.C.G.
Moule, page 57)

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All that God is, Christ Jesus is. All that unfallen man was, He
is. Nothing that belonged to Deity or to sinless humanity was lacking
in Him. The divine and the human nature are each fully manifested in
His unique personality. Both God and man are equally represented in
the constituent elements of the personality of the God-man. He is
veritable God and veritable man in one person.

Even though the God-man is a unit in whom God and man meet in a
harmonious union of natures yet the root of His wonderful personality
is God. Through all eternity He was God. At one moment of time He
became Man. "The Son of God came from the eternities. The Son of Man
began His Being." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
God." The Deity of Christ Jesus is basic and primary. "The Word was
made flesh" and there was "born this day in the city of David a
Saviour--a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." The humanity of Christ
Jesus is assumed and therefore secondary though essential. In the
union of God and man God is the dominant factor. "The incarnation is
the humanizing of deity and not the deification of humanity." The
God-man is "God ... manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16).

In the following Scriptural classic we have a very clear and
beautiful revelation of the person of the God-man and the process by
which He became such and the purpose.

Phil. 2:5-8, R.V., "Have this mind in you, which was also in
Christ Jesus: who existing in the form of God,

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counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the
likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled
himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the
cross."

He was the Eternal Son, "existing in the form of God" and "on an
equality with God." But in the presence of Eden's tragedy and man's
need of redemption He counted not the being on an equality with God a
thing to be grasped but by a sublime act of self-emptying He qualified
to be the world's Saviour. While not divesting Himself of His
essential nature as God, He became the Incarnate Son, "taking the form
of a servant, being made in the likeness of men," and submitted to the
temporary non-manifestation of His divine prerogatives.

"He emptied Himself." He did this by permitting the essential
glory and majesty of His divine person to be covered and hidden for a
while by the flesh, by voluntarily putting His several attributes,
omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, under temporary
limitations; and by placing Himself under the sovereign will of the
Heavenly Father and under the control of the Holy Spirit.

"The emptying indicates the setting aside of one form of
manifestation, in which all the facts of equality with God were
evidently revealed, for another form of manifestation, in which the
fact of equality with God must for a time be hidden, by the necessary
submissiveness of the human to the divine. ... The Word passed from
government to obedience, from independent

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cooperation in the equality of Deity to dependent submission to the
will of God."--(The Crises of the Christ, G. Campbell Morgan, pages
76-77)

"He humbled Himself." God took man's form, the Lord of glory
stooped to an actual union with human nature. In His humiliation He
endured every conceivable suffering, the culmination of which was His
cruel death on the Cross as a condemned criminal.

His voluntary self-humbling and self-emptying was for a purpose.
"He became obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross" that
through His divine-human mediatorship He might become mankind's
all-sufficient Saviour. (Diagram V. omitted)

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IX. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION

Incarnation

GOD in His infinite love has undertaken the restoration of
mankind and the reconciliation of all things to Himself through the
mediation of Christ Jesus. It is to be salvation through a Saviour. If
man's complete salvation is effectually accomplished, five things must
be done.

First: Man must be restored to such a relationship with God as
shall make possible the fulfilment of the original, divine intention
in his creation.

Second: The sin question must be fully and finally settled. Sin
must be dealt with in respect to its guilt, penalty, power and
presence.

Third: Such propitiation and reconciliation must be effected as
shall remove the barrier of separation between God and man and give to
every person the opportunity of restoration to God's favour and
fellowship.

Fourth: A new order of human beings must be inaugurated to
supersede the old order which is in ruin and rejection.

Fifth: Satan, the original cause and continual instigator of sin
in man, must be defeated and dethroned. God's sovereignty over all
things must be fully restored.

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To accomplish such a salvation God erected a bridge of four spans
over the chasm made by sin. Each span is an integral part of the
whole. Without any one span the bridge would be incomplete and
inadequate. The four spans are incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection
and ascension. Incarnation is the first span in the bridge of
salvation.

That there would be an incarnation God's prophet had plainly
foretold.

Isa. 7:14, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign;
Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his
name Immanuel."

Isa. 9:6, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be
called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father,
the Prince of Peace."

The moment sin stained the heart of humanity God gave the promise
of a Saviour. All down through the centuries those who, like Simeon
and Anna were eagerly anticipating the Coming One, could hear the
advancing steps of the Lord of glory on His way from heaven to earth.

In the fulness of time He came. "Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea in the days of Herod the king." "God manifest in the flesh" was
God's first step in the fulfilment of his prophecy-promise in Eden.

God's original intention in the creation of man was a being made
in His own image. Through sin man lost all true knowledge both of God
and of himself as God meant him to be.

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Living in a world of sinful men the sinner had no one better than
himself with whom to compare himself. So he measured himself with
himself and with others like himself and the result has been
self-complacency and self-sufficiency. Left to himself alone there is
no desire for anything better for there is no sense of need. In his
moral and spiritual darkness and degradation man is incapable of
knowing aright either God or himself. Hence it is clearly evident that
if man is to be restored to favour with God he needs a twofold
revelation, a revelation of God as He is, and of himself as he is and
as God means him to be.

Revelation--The Preliminary Purpose in Incarnation

God gave that twofold revelation in Christ Jesus, the God-man.
Only the Son could reveal accurately and authoritatively the Father
because He alone had seen the Father.

John 1:18, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten
Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."

Matt, 11:27, "No man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son."

But how could the Son make known to sinners on earth the
ineffable beauty, the infinite love, the immeasurable worth of the
Father in Heaven if He remained in the Father's bosom? There was but
one way that the age long cry of "orphaned humanity," "Shew us the
Father," could be answered and that Was by way of the incarnation.
This is the way the Lord Jesus took

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and He told those who saw Him on earth that when they had seen Him
they had seen the Father.

John 14:9, "Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with
you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"

In the incarnate Son the everlasting Father stooped to the level
of man's power to comprehend Him. "Jesus is God spelling Himself out
in a language that men can understand."

In the glorious person and the gracious work of the Son God was
manifest. What the Son was God is. His character and conduct on earth
is a mirrored reflection of His Father in Heaven. Blessing the little
children and bidding them come unto Him; entering into the joys of the
wedding feast and the dinner party; weeping with the bereaved sisters
at the brother's tomb; seeking the companionship of kindred spirits in
the Bethany home; talking with an outcast woman at Jacob's well;
feeding the hungry multitudes who have followed Him into the desert;
giving sight to the eyes of the man born blind; cleansing the temple
of the avaricious moneychangers; denouncing the hypocrisy and
self-righteousness of the unbelieving Pharisees; suffering in
Gethsemane; dying upon Calvary; in all these ministries the invisible
God is made intelligible to men.

But Jesus Christ came not alone to reveal God to man but to
reveal man to himself. Through sin man

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was blinded both to the worth of God and the worthlessness of self.
But in the man Christ Jesus God revealed to humanity His perfect Man,
the divine Ideal. In Him man not only found all that he could ever
want in God but all that God could ever want in man. What the God-man
was on earth God desires every human being to be. "In him we see in
perfect form what man in the divine idea of him is." By comparison of
his life with that of the man Christ Jesus each one may see the depth
of sin into which he has fallen and the height of holiness to which he
may rise.

The twofold revelation in the God-man of God as He is and of man
as he may be is surely the preliminary purpose in the incarnation but
it is not the primary one. If the natural man had nothing beyond this
revelation it would do him very little good. In the first place, how
could his blinded mind apprehend it? his darkened heart accept it? his
biased will act upon it? And if he could apprehend, accept, and act
upon this revelation of God and of himself given in Jesus, where would
it bring him? Such a revelation does not touch the sin question except
to reveal to what depths man has fallen. In no sense can it settle it.
It would only leave the awakened sinner with a greater consciousness
of condemnation and a deeper experience of despair.

Redemption--The Primary Purpose in Incarnation

Revelation in itself is not a sufficient reason for the
incarnation. God was not manifest in the flesh to mock sinners by
giving them an example of a perfect life which

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they had absolutely no power within themselves to imitate. The God-man
is an example for the saint to follow but not for the sinner.

Again Jesus Christ did not come to impart teachings which the
natural man could obey. Nor did He come to earth to make it a more
comfortable and habitable place for the sinner through the social
reforms He would effect. Nor did He come as the founder of a new
religion, the spiritual head of another sect, which would go a step
beyond other religions in resuscitating the old creation and in
lifting the human, race through gradual development to a higher moral
and spiritual attainment.

Jesus Christ clearly conceived His mission to this sinful world
to be that of a Saviour. Scripture always speaks of the incarnation in
relationship to sin and to God's purpose in redemption. Redemption is
the primary purpose in the incarnation. Christ came to save sinners
like you and me.

Luke 19:10, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that
which was lost."

Gal. 4:4, R.V., "But when the fulness of the time came, God sent
forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons."

1 John 3:5, R.V., "And ye know that he was manifested to take
away sins: and in him is no sin."

The incarnation is undoubtedly the first span in God's bridge of
salvation. But in what way is the fulfilment of God's redemptive
purpose begun in the incarnation? What

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part does it have in man's restoration to the favour and fellowship of
God?

We have already stated two consequences of the fall; first, the
utter failure of God's first man to fulfil God's original intention in
His creation; secondly, the total ruin of the old order of humanity of
which Adam was the head. The first Adam failed both as a man and as a
representative man. Through his sin God's union established in
creation with himself and through him with the whole human race was
broken. This must be restored. Sin had injected into man an evil
nature which made man hostile to God. He must be reconciled. Salvation
demands reconciliation and reconciliation must be followed by
conformity. Salvation from God's viewpoint does not mean merely the
recovery of men from the guilt, penalty and power of sin but it means
restoration to the likeness of God, even conformity to the image of
His Son. It is not only a negative deliverance from a state of
estrangement from and hostility to God but it is a positive entrance
into a state of righteousness and holiness in God.

To accomplish such a salvation an altogether new union with the
race must be made and it must be a union based on kinship of nature so
that both God and man could find their fullest satisfaction and
greatest blessedness in such fellowship. It was impossible for God to
permit, or for man to enjoy, such an union as long as man had only an
evil nature. For man to enjoy fellowship with God he must have a
nature like God's. But how could he become a partaker

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of the divine nature? Here we discover the measure of God's grace.
Here God's grace at its highest height stoops to man's need at its
deepest depth. In order that man might become a partaker of the divine
nature God would Himself become a partaker of human nature. In order
to condemn sin in the flesh God would send His own Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh.

Heb. 2:14, 16, 17, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers
of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil.... For verily he took not on him the nature of
angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all
things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to
make reconciliation for the sins of the people."

Rom. 8:3, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh."

The act of the Son of God in becoming a partaker of our nature is
the incarnation. This is followed very shortly by His death,
resurrection and ascension by which we may become partakers of His
nature. Thus in the incarnation we find the corner stone of the new
union between God and man. But let us go further into its meaning.

God was faced with two necessities in any effectual plan of
salvation: first, the sending forth of a second

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Man who would fulfil His original intention in man's creation;
secondly, the providing of another Adam who would act representatively
for the human race as the Head of a new order. The Man Christ Jesus
meets both these necessities. He is God's second Man.

1 Cor. 15:47, "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second
man is the Lord from heaven."

He is God's last Adam.

1 Cor. 15:45, "And so it is written, the first man Adam was made
a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."

In the God-man God made a new union with the human race; the
ultimate issue of this union is a new race of redeemed men of whom
Christ Jesus is the Head.

To fully qualify, however, as the last Adam in this mediatorial
redemptive work, God's second Man must succeed where His first man
failed, and He must succeed under the same circumstances and
limitations. The first man failed on earth: the second Man must
succeed on earth. The first man had a tripartite human nature subject
to human limitations. The second Man must have a tripartite human
nature subject to human limitations. The first man was tempted from
without by Satan to doubt, disobedience and disloyalty. The second Man
must be tempted in the same way, by the same person, to do the same
thing. If God's second Man succeeded where God's first man

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failed then He would qualify as the last Adam to become the Redeemer
of the human race and the Head of a new order of beings.

Let us see how God's second Man in the incarnation met every one
of these requirements.

The eternal Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The only
begotten Son left the Father's bosom in glory to be born of a virgin
in a manger in Bethlehem. A Saviour was born in the city of David. The
Lord from heaven came to earth.

God's second Man was human subject to human limitations. Christ's
humanity began where ours did and went through all the stages of human
life from infancy to manhood. Christ had a human ancestry.

Rom. 1:3, "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was
made of the seed of David according to the flesh."

Acts 13:23, "Of this man's (David) seed hath God, according to
his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus."

The Son of God became the Son of Man by a human birth. He was "a
babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." Mary was His mother.

Luke 1:30, 31, "And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for
thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in
thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS."

He was a "child" subject to the law of regular development,
living in a home with brothers and sisters and

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growing under the training and discipline of His home life as other
boys grow.

Luke 2:40, "And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit,
filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him."

He was "a man" and as a son and brother in the home, as a
neighbour and tradesman in the community, as a citizen of the nation,
He performed every duty and met every obligation that these human
relationships demanded. Christ Jesus was not only "made in the
likeness of men" but He was in His earthly life "found in fashion as a
man" (Phil. 2:7, 8). "In all things it behoved him to be made like
unto his brethren" (Heb. 2:17). In everything the Son of Man was not
only humanly perfect but He was perfectly human.

God's second Man had a tripartite human nature.

Luke 23:46, "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said,
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said this, he
gave up the ghost."

Matt. 26:38, "Then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding
sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me."

Matt. 26:12, "For in that she hath poured this ointment on my
body, she did it for my burial."

God's second Man had a spirit. It was ever open Godward and
heavenward. He loved His Father and delighted in His Father's world,
word and will. Communion with His Father was His supreme delight and

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He ever lived in the consciousness of the Father's presence (John
8:29) and in the joy of the Father's smile (Matt. 17:5). In Jesus the
human spirit was always in perfect adjustment with the Spirit of God
and was dominant over both His soul and body.

God's second Man had a soul. The last Adam thought, loved and
willed as the first Adam had done. His familiarity with the Holy
Scripture shows how He must have read and pondered the sacred
writings. His parables taken largely from nature or the events of
human life reveal the mould that shaped His thought life. He loved
people and enjoyed fellowship with them. He was capable of intense
sympathy and sorrow, of great indignation and anger, of deep joy and
gladness, of exquisite appreciation and gratitude. Jesus had a soul in
which was manifested a mighty capacity to think, love and will.

God's second Man had a body. He was made "in the likeness of
sinful flesh." The Samaritan woman knew Him to be a Jew. Mary
Magdalene thought Him to be a gardener. Those who saw and heard Him in
the synagogue at Nazareth while wondering at His gracious words still
took Him to be only Joseph's son. He ate, slept, walked, worked and
lived as other men did. While in His countenance, conversation and
carriage there must have been that which His sinlessness and holiness
produced which made Him different from all other men yet in His
physical form there was nothing which differentiated Him.

God's second Man was not only human but He was subject to all the
sinless infirmities and limitations of

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humanity. Jesus hungered, thirsted, slept, wept, wearied, mourned,
suffered and died. "There is not a note in the great organ of our
humanity which, when touched, does not find a sympathetic vibration in
the might, range and scope of our Lord's being, saving, of course, the
jarring discord of sin."

Heb. 2:10, 11, "For it became him, for whom are all things, and
by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both he
that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."

Lastly God's second Man was tempted from without by Satan to
doubt, disobedience and disloyalty.

When Satan said "I will" to God, setting his creaturely will in
opposition to that of his Creator, he broke the unwritten law that in
God's universe there can be but one will and that the will of the
Maker of all things. Lawlessness then became a fact in the celestial
realm. It entered the world and began coursing through the veins of
human life when God's first man broke God's law and disobeyed God's
command.

From that day on down through the centuries until the angels sang
the first Christmas carols over the manger cradle in Bethlehem there
had never lived a man who had been perfectly obedient to God, who had
fully kept God's law. Men had turned to their own way and done that
which was right in their own sight. Even among those who through faith

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followed the Lord there was not one who lived only and wholly in the
will of God.

But through the incarnation there entered into human life a
second Man in whom mankind was again to be put to the test; a last
Adam in whom the human race had its only and final hope of restoration
to God.

The first man, Adam, and the whole race latent in him had gone
down into ruin and rejection through disobedience. Now God had sent
forth a second Man, a last Adam, who might lift the race into
restoration and reconciliation upon the one condition of obedience. It
must, however, be obedience from the beginning to the end of life;
obedience at all times, in all things, under all circumstances, to all
limits, in spite of all consequences; obedience, too, not merely in
the letter but in the spirit; obedience to the whole will of God as
the unalterable rule of life; such obedience as made the will of God
the center of His life, the circumference, and all in between. The
ruling passion of His whole being must be "God's will--Nothing more,
nothing less, nothing else."

Rom. 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

Would the Son of Man be able to qualify for Saviourhood under
such a condition? Would He choose in all things to will Godward?

In coming into the world Christ Jesus had declared that the
purpose of the incarnation was to do His Father's will.

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John 6:38, "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will,
but the will of him that sent me."

Part of His humbling in becoming the Son of Man was His
willingness to leave the place of equality in sovereignty as God to
take the place of subordination in subserviency as man. The Father's
will was the Son's delight; it was the very sustenance of His life.

John 4:34, "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of
him that sent me, and to finish his work."

He came, He lived, He worked, all with one purpose and one
passion--to do His Father's will. And what was the Father's will in
relation to the human race and to the incarnation of His Son?

John 6:40, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every
one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting
life: and I will raise him up at the last day."

God's will was that every sinner should see in His Son a Saviour
and believe on Him as such that the Father might lift from him the
sentence of death and raise him up into eternal life in Him.

That this was the Father's will Satan knew; that Jesus Christ had
yielded Himself unreservedly to the Father to carry out that will
Satan also knew. His Satanic desire, his devilish determination, was
to keep the Son of Man from doing the Father's will if possible. The
slightest shadow of questioning regarding His Father's goodness would
be doubt: failure to keep the holy law of

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God even in one point would be disobedience: the merest deflection of
desire toward self-will would be disloyalty, and God's second Man, His
last Adam, would have been disqualified for becoming the world's
Saviour and the Head of a race of holy, heavenly men. That He would be
tempted by Satan from the center to the circumference of His life,
yea, that His Father must even permit such temptation would be easily
understood even if Scripture did not state it so plainly.

Heb. 4:15, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be
touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Heb. 2:18, "For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succour them that are tempted."

Heb. 2:10, "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by
whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

To qualify as the Saviour of men and the Head of a race of
redeemed men the Man Christ Jesus must be a victor over humanity's
temptations one by one.

Throughout the thirty years of private life as a child, a boy and
a young man, He had no doubt been tempted over and over again to doubt
the Father's goodness, to disobey the Father's law and to be disloyal
to the Father's will. In the home, at the carpenter's bench, in the
manifold contacts of community life He met a daily assault in the
common temptations of man. That He came through these years of

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obscurity with His manhood unsullied and unstained is amply attested
by the Father's voice speaking those words of unqualified approval at
His baptism. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." As a
Man Jesus had lived in private a life not only of absolute sinlessness
but one that was wholly obedient to the will of God.

He emerged from private into public life and engaged upon His
three years of public ministry. He publicly proclaimed Himself as the
Messiah. But before He did this an event of tremendous significance
occurred. At the Jordan Jesus was baptized by John. This was His first
act of identification with humanity's sin, it was the preliminary step
in becoming the sinner's Substitute.

Crowds of people were thronging to John to be baptized,
confessing their sins. Jesus came to be baptized. He had no sin to
confess and He had no disobedience to God's law to repent of. But
there on the banks of the Jordan God's second Man publicly
acknowledged and accepted His responsibility as the world's Saviour by
thus identifying Himself with the world's sin. The last Adam through
His baptism committed Himself to bear all the consequences of a broken
law on the part of sinners. At His baptism the Man Christ Jesus began
to be numbered with the transgressors and the work of personal
substitution which ended at Calvary was commenced.

Immediately after His baptism His public ministry began and we
read, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted of the devil."

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As a man Jesus had met the manifold testings through the daily
temptations incidental to private life and in them all had come forth
Victor. But now as the Son of Man He is to have the decisive test of
His whole life in a personal conflict with the devil himself. Man's
salvation does not consist in deliverance from temptation but in
deliverance from the possession and power of the tempter. The utter
defeat and destruction of the devil himself was part of Christ's work
as Saviour. Jesus Christ was committed to the salvation of mankind
from sin in toto; this necessitated His going back to the very origin
of sin in man and confronting and conquering its instigator. To such a
task and to such a test "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness."

In this wilderness conflict the God-man is there not alone as a
man but as the Son of Man, not only as an individual but as the
Representative of mankind. Satan is there not only as a personal enemy
of "the seed of the woman" but as the avowed foe of God and of the
human race. The enmity prophesied in Eden is having there a concrete
fulfilment; the conflict foretold, which has gone on in secret for
centuries and which has its manifest fulfilment on Calvary, is brought
out into the open and crystallized into actual combat here in the
wilderness. The devil is no longer allowed to cover his identity
through impersonation but is exposed as the devil and his purposes are
openly revealed. There in the wilderness the spoiler of the human race
faces the Saviour of the human race in a decisive and terrible
conflict. It will be proven here

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for all ages to come who is the vanquished and who the Victor.

Satan had tempted Adam with the one purpose of gaining
sovereignty over him and securing his worship. He had tempted God's
first man in the garden of Eden at the one point where he could be
disobedient and had met marked success. He had come forth victor. Adam
had made a personal choice against the choice of God. He had acted
independently of God and by so doing had stepped outside of God's will
into self-will.

In the wilderness Satan impelled by the same purpose, tempted
God's second Man employing the same methods and working toward the
same end. A careful study of the great temptation (Matt. 4:1-11) will
show that Satan made three separate attacks along three distinct
avenues but with one purpose: to draw the God-man in desire and in
deed outside the will of God; to induce Him to make a personal choice
against the choice of God; to persuade Him to act independently. The
supreme effort in each attack was to dislodge the God-man from the
center of God's will and to lead Him into disloyalty to His Father.

The temptation in the wilderness was the decisive test not only
for Christ but for Satan as well. If Satan could only triumph over the
last Adam as he had over the first then he would be victor for all
time to come. So he offered to Him in the wilderness all that he had
gained in the garden even the kingdoms of this world if He would only
fall down and worship him. Then he would indeed have dethroned God and
the Satanic passion to be "like the Most High" would

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have been realized. The only hope of man's salvation would have gone,
for Christ is the last Adam.

God's first man exercised his right to will and willed Satanward.
God's second Man had also been given the same right to will and the
power to will Godward. He exercised the right to will and chose to
will Godward. The first Adam became the victim of sin and of Satan;
the last Adam became the Victor over sin and Satan.

The question is bound to force itself upon us "Was it as God or
as man that the God-man triumphed over Satan?" Unconsciously perhaps
we may comfort ourselves in defeat by thinking that He made use of the
prerogatives and powers of Deity and that His victory was gained
through means beyond the reach of man. If this be true the whole
benefit to mankind of that wilderness experience is lost and it was
only a personal and not a racial victory which the God-man gained. He
alone would have profited by it but there would have been no meaning
in it for you and for me. For if He had recourse to Deity and to
divine power not at our disposal, then His triumph over sin and Satan
does not avail for us.

This, however, was the very thing the devil was tempting Him to
do and the very thing He resolutely refused to do. Satan tempted Him
to use His power as the Son of God. "He declined to use the
prerogatives and powers of Deity in any other way than was possible to
every other man. He did not face temptation or overcome it in the
realm of His Deity but in the Magnificence of His pure, strong

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Manhood: tested for thirty years in ordinary private life and for
forty days in the loneliness of the wilderness. Jesus was in the
wilderness as Man's representative."--(The Crises of the Christ, G.
Campbell Morgan, page 170)

The last Adam gained His victory precisely where the first Adam
failed. Scripture reveals two constituent elements in the God-man's
triumph in the wilderness. The first is the sovereign control of the
Holy Spirit over His whole being, spirit, soul and body. The second is
His implicit obedience to God's Word.

Matt. 4:1, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted of the devil."

God, the Holy Spirit, led Him into the wilderness to gain this
racial victory. The temptation in the wilderness was no accident; it
was not even the devil's doings; it was part of the plan. The
temptation from without did not take Jesus unawares; He was prepared
for this crisis. In His earthly life He was begotten, ruled, led,
filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. While still having all the
attributes of Deity, yet as God's second Man, He voluntarily submitted
to a life of human limitations that He might be tempted in all points
like as we are and gain the victory over temptation in the only way in
which we can gain the victory. So He voluntarily put Himself under the
control of the Holy Spirit, and lived His life and did His work only
in the Spirit's power.

The temptation of the last Adam in the wilderness was an assault
upon His entire personality. Satan approached

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Jesus through "the lust of the flesh," "the lust of the eye," and "the
pride of life," but He found no vulnerable spot in Him. The human
spirit in Jesus was dominant over both soul and body because it in
turn was yielded wholly to the Spirit of God. The constituent parts of
Jesus' wondrous personality were in perfect adjustment to each other
because the whole life was lived in right relationship to God. Hence
when Satan came he "found nothing in Him." It was victory gained
through submission to the dominant control of the Holy Spirit. Such a
victory may daily be yours and mine.

The second factor in the triumph of the God-man was His obedience
to and use of God's Word. In Eden God's first man was defeated because
he had listened to the devil's voice instead of to God's; he had
believed the devil's lie instead of God's truth. In the wilderness
God's second Man was victorious because He had listened to God's voice
instead of to Satan's; He had believed God's Word instead of the
devil's lie. More than that, He had used that Word as a weapon against
the devil and with it alone repulsed the threefold attack.

Matt. 4:4, "But he answered and said, It is written."

Matt. 4:7, "Jesus said unto him, It is written."

Matt. 4:10, "Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan:
for it is written."

"Then the devil leaveth him" for the victory was won. It was the
victory of perfect obedience to the will of

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God revealed in the Word of God. Such a victory may daily be yours and
mine.

The victory won in the wilderness over the tempter was both
perfect and permanent. For both Satan and Christ it had been a
decisive test. From that time the devil never again approached Christ
in the same way and Christ ever treated Satan and his emissaries as a
Victor treats the vanquished.

But the temptation in the wilderness was humanity's test as well
as Christ's. God was giving man another chance, a last chance.
Therefore the victory was humanity's victory. The Lord Jesus was there
as God's second Man qualifying to become man's Saviour and as the last
Adam preparing to become the Head of a new race of men. "The Lamb of
God which taketh away the sin of the world" must be without spot.
Satan had used every avenue of approach and every method of attack to
make Him sin and to win His allegiance but he had failed utterly. The
Son of Man came forth from this fierce conflict unscathed, unsullied,
unstained. At every point where the first man had failed, the second
Man had succeeded; at every place where the first Adam met defeat, the
last Adam won victory. The fight against sin, self and Satan had been
completely won. His sinlessness qualified Him for Saviourhood. The
victory in the wilderness was more than personal, it was racial; it
was your victory and mine, if we will.

Sinlessness, however, is a negative condition of life and God
requires more than that. For the fullest fellowship with Himself He
demands something positive,

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even the perfection of holiness. So Christ went forth from the
wilderness to live a perfect life--perfect in its words, walk, ways
and work. Perfection marked everything in His character and conduct.
He Himself testified both negatively and positively to the perfection
of His life when He said "The prince of this world cometh, and hath
nothing in me" (John 14:30) and "The Father hath not left me alone;
for I do always those things that please him" (John 8:29). He was not
only the sinless One but the perfect One.

The perfection of His life was the perfection of obedience, of
unwavering, unvarying submission to His Father's will. When He emptied
Himself of His equality with the Father and yielded the place of
sovereignty for one of subserviency He surrendered completely His
right to speak, to act, to will independently of His Father.

John 12:49, 50, "For I have not spoken of myselj; but the Father
which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I
should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting:
whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I
speak."

John 5:19, "Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth
the Son likewise."

Matt. 26:39, "And he went a little farther, and fell on his face,
and prayed, saying, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."

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His obedience was the obedience of the God-man: of the
divine-human Mediator, of God's second representative Man. It was
therefore not due to any divine attributes of the Son of God but was
an obedience the Son of Man learned through sufferings and sorrow,
through trial and tribulation as He trod the pathway of all humanity.

Heb. 5:8, 9, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by
the things which he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the
author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him."

Heb. 2:10, "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by
whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the
captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

It was an obedience that did not end simply in the perfection of
moral beauty and spiritual grace in daily life but one which led Him
to drink the cup of suffering to its very dregs. It constrained Him,
even compelled Him to be obedient unto death, even the death of the
Cross, because this was the Father's will. He measured up to the full
stature of the perfection of holiness in God the Father through His
perfect obedience as the incarnate Son.

In the person of the God-man the broken unity between God and man
has been reestablished. For what purpose? For none other than that of
restoring in man the image of God, disfigured and marred by sin. In
the holiness of the perfect Man sinful humanity has not only a
revelation of what God meant man to be

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but also a pledge of what man may become. God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto Himself that He might lift man out of what
he is into what God is.

Rom. 5:10, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life."

God proposes the inauguration of a new order of beings who are to
be as heavenly and holy, as pure and perfect as He is; a race of
redeemed men who shall be "conformed to the image of his Son."
Undiscouraged by sin's tragic work God purposes to carry out His
original intention that man shall be like Himself. The new union God
made with humanity in the incarnation is His pledge of the fulfilment
of such a purpose. He stooped to an actual identification with human
nature and by that stoop He lifted human nature into an actual
identification with the divine nature. Reconciliation--The Plenary
Purpose in the Incarnation.

The revelation of God in Christ to man and the redemption by God
in Christ of man were undoubtedly the preliminary and the primary
purpose in the incarnation. But they do not exhaust the exceeding
riches of God's grace in salvation nor complete His purpose in sending
His only begotten Son into the world.

Sin despoiled both the human race and the natural universe. Sin
produced chaos in the place of cosmos. Both heaven and earth suffered
through sin.

Christ the Son is the Alpha and He is the Omega. He is

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the goal of all things in God's universe as He is the beginning.
Christ Jesus is the firstborn of all creation; by Him all things
consist and in Him shall all things be gathered together. God's
eternal purpose in Christ His Son will be consummated in the
reconciliation of all things in heaven and in earth unto Himself.

Col. 1:20, "And, having made peace through the blood of his
cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say,
whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven."

Eph. 1:10, "That in the dispensation of the fulness of times, he
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in
heaven, and which are on earth; even in him."

Incarnation then is the first span in the bridge of salvation,
the first great movement toward the restoration of man to God and
toward the reconciliation of all things in God's universe. It is no
wonder the angels of heaven sang on that first Christmas morning. The
birth of the Lord Jesus was the beginning of the fulfilment of the
prophecy-promise of Gen. 3:15. It was the first step in the overthrow
of God's arch-enemy; the first victory in the age-long conflict; the
beginning of the end of sin. It was to the angels as to us, "the
central point from which all events were to be hereafter measured. To
Heaven as to earth it was to be the reckoning point of all time, and
more, for b.c. and a.d. are to be the extensions of eternity."--(The
Greater Life and Work of Christ, A. Patterson, page 13) (Diagram V.
omitted)

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X. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION

Crucifixion

INCARNATION brought God to man but it could not bring man to God.
The first span in the bridge of salvation demands a second. In the
incarnation God had not yet dealt with the sin question. He could go
no further through the revelation of His own sinless, perfect life
than to show men what they ought to be. Sin, the insuperable barrier
between God and man, remained, and Satan, the arch-enemy of God, the
tempter and deceiver of men, still held the human race in his control.
Men did not even know how sinful they were; their darkened minds had
no conception of God's real attitude toward sin, nor did they
apprehend the awful certainty of its inexorable consequences.

The life and teaching of Christ Jesus had stirred the heart of a
very few to desire something better and to seek Him as the Giver but
the majority of those who saw and heard Him were indifferent to Him,
and not a few even hated Him. Had He only lived His pure, holy life
and died a natural death He would have been enshrined in the memory of
but few of the choice, rare souls who appreciated His worth.

That something more than the life even of the holy

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Lord Jesus was needed to save men's souls is patent, something that
would deal adequately with sin and all its consequences, something
with power in it to defeat and to destroy the devil, something with
the germinating seed of a holy, heavenly life. The world is full of
leaders and reformers. Its fundamental need is a God-sent Saviour, One
who can deal with sin in such a way as to bring satisfaction to God
and salvation to man.

Death the Goal of Incarnation

The incarnation was not an end but a means to an end. In itself
it had no redemptive value but it paved the way for His death which
alone has redemptive value. It could never make an end of sin but it
did give to the world a Saviour. Our Lord Himself and every New
Testament writer set forth the death of Christ as the goal of the
incarnation. He was born not merely a Man but a Saviour. He came not
alone to live but to save, and to save He must die.

Matt, 1:21, "And she shall bring forth a son and thou shalt call
his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

Luke 2:11, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a
Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."

The eternal Son became the incarnate Son that He might lay down
His life as the crucified Son. He became the Son of Man that He might
die for the race of men.

Matt. 20:28, "Even as the Son of Man came not to be

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ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many."

He took a body in incarnation that He might lay it down in
crucifixion. He entered into a body supernaturally prepared for Him,
which no sin had tainted and upon which death had no claim that He
might offer it as a voluntary sacrifice unto God, that through death
He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil.
"The body was prepared not so much for the birth as for the bruising"
(Gen. 3:15).

Heb. 10:5, "Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith,
Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou
prepared me."

Heb. 10:10, "By the which will we are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all."

Christ Jesus not only came into the world to die but He knew that
He came for that purpose. From the very beginning of His public
ministry the Son of Man had a brooding anticipation of "an hour" that
was to come--an hour which in some eventful way would be the
culmination of His ministry. "The sense of something tragic in His
destiny was present in the mind of Jesus."

Let us trace His anticipation of this hour through John's Gospel.

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John 2:4, "Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with
thee? mine hour is not yet come."

This word was spoken on a joyous occasion at the beginning of His
public ministry when He was popular, when the people were receiving
and following Him.

John 7:6, "My time is not yet come: but your time is alway
ready."

A large multitude of those who had been fed with the loaves and
fishes had followed Him as He went from Capernaum across the sea. He
used the occasion to give the wonderful discourse recorded in John six
where He claims to be the Bread of Life sent by the Father to give His
life for the life of the world. Life out of death was possible for all
but only actual in the life of the one who "ate his flesh and drank
his blood." The message of the Cross was foreshadowed in these words.
It was a hard saying even for His own disciples and many of them went
back and walked no more with Him. The claim of Messiahship and
Saviourhood angered the Jews beyond measure and instilled such bitter
hatred into their hearts that they sought to kill Him. But Jesus was
unperturbed, simply saying, "My time is not yet come." He knew full
well the time would come when their hate would expend itself on Him in
cruel malignity.

Three times in John seven this expression is used. The Jews'
feast of tabernacles was at hand and the

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Lord Jesus was conscious of the plot on the part of the Jews to kill
Him, so He says to the disciples:

John 7:8, "Go up to the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast;
for my time is not yet full come."

How significant are those words "full come." The shadow of the
Cross had already fallen over His life. From that time on He would
walk in its ever deepening darkness.

At this feast the Lord Jesus was brought into open conflict with
the Jews over the question of the authoritative origin of His
doctrine. Again He made claims for Himself which so incensed them that
we read:

John 7:30, "Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands
on him, because his hour was not yet come."

The same thing was repeated as the Lord Jesus taught in the
temple (John 8:20). Jesus grew in popularity with the people. He makes
even more daring claims to Deity and Messiahship and proved the truth
of His words by the wonder of His works. The man born blind is given
sight. Lazarus is raised from the dead. The religious leaders of the
day are compelled to acknowledge the uniqueness of His power and they
fear its influence upon the people. They frankly confess that "the
world is gone after him" and openly declare that the thing must be
stopped immediately. The hour draws nearer.

Just at this time when the Jews are most fiercely censuring and
opposing Him a very significant thing happens. A

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deputation of Greeks, Gentiles, came to worship Him. Everything
converges to show Christ that "the hour" He has so long anticipated is
now near at hand. So when Andrew and Philip bring the message of the
Greeks to Him, with majestic calmness and kingly control He replies,
"The hour is come."

Up to this time He has not explained what He means by the oft
repeated words "my hour." Several times He has foretold His death and
resurrection but the disciples did not grasp His meaning. On this
occasion, however, He speaks more explicitly.

John 12:23, 24, "And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is
come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

John 12:27, 31-33, "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. ... Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince
of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he
should die."

The interval now was very short. Not a single event of that last
week takes the Lord Jesus by surprise. He knows that His hour has
come. In His last conversation and prayer with His disciples He
anticipates His exodus from this world and His return to His Father in
Heaven.

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John 16:28, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father."

John 17:1, "These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to
heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy
Son may also glorify thee."

When the Lord had spoken these words He went forth with His
disciples unto a place called Gethsemane. There His soul began to be
very sorrowful and oppressed, so much so that He left the
companionship of the disciples and went alone with His Father to pray.
Falling upon His face He cried:

Matt. 26:39, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."

Returning unto His disciples and finding them asleep, He, still
overborne with sorrow, went away a second time and prayed:

Matt. 26:42, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me,
except I drink it, thy will be done."

Again He came to the disciples and found them sleeping and again
He left them to pray. Then He returned to them for the last time and
said:

Matt. 26:45, "Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour
is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of
sinners."

Never in the history of man was such anguish of

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spirit and agony of soul endured as that of the Son of Man as He went
to Calvary by way of the garden of Gethsemane. Heaven mercifully
veiled the Sufferer from the gaze of men and left us only the thrice
repeated pleadings of His prayer to indicate the nature and the depth
of the suffering.

Two utterances in His prayer take us to the very heart of His
anguish. "Let this cup pass from me" and, "Behold the hour is at
hand." Surely the two bear some intimate relationship to each other.
But what is the dreaded "cup" that must be drunk? What is the
inevitable "hour" so long anticipated and now at hand? Did He not
interpret the meaning of this oft used expression when He said "The
Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners"? From this and the
events that follow in quick succession "the hour" could be none other
than the hour of His death.

But why should He dread that or shrink from its approach? But an
hour or two before He had said "Now I go my way to him that sent me."
Would not death be to Him an hour of glorious release from a life
environed by sin, suffering and sorrow? Would it not be the hour of
reinvestment with all His kingly majesty and glory? Above all would it
not be a return to the blessedness of immediate, intimate fellowship
with His Father? Had He died a death such as other men die then it
would indeed have been just such a glorious release. Had death for Him
been merely the culminating event in a life of unsullied perfection
then it would have been such a gracious coronation. Some

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adequate explanation must be found for His dread of the approach of
that "hour" that meant the drinking of a bitter "cup."

But another question must surely press in upon one who has beheld
the Son as He is mirrored in the pages of the four Gospels and who has
entered into a study of His matchless, pure life with any degree of
spiritual appreciation and apprehension. The question is "Why need
Jesus Christ die?" Scripture is very clear in its statement of what
death is and who dies.

Rom. 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death."

Rom. 5:12, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men."

Ezek. 18:20, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die."

Death is the consequence of sin: it is the sinner who dies. And
Jesus Christ died! The irresistible logic of these facts places before
one two alternatives. Either Jesus was a sinner as all other men are
and His death like theirs was the wages of His own sin, or else He
died a death different from the death of all other men and for a
reason entirely outside of His own life.

Was Jesus Christ a sinner? Did death come to Him as the penalty
of His own sin? Even His bitterest enemies in the time in which He
lived and in all succeeding ages have never accused Him of sin. He
said once to a group who were opposing and denying Him, "Which of you
convinceth me of sin?" But not one word

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of accusation did they bring against Him. Even Pilate said he could
find no fault in Him. God testified to the absolute sinlessness and
holiness of His life even before His birth in saying through the angel
to Mary, "that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called
the Son of God." After living in a world where He was continuously
environed by sin and defilement God again testified through those who
knew His character and conduct under all circumstances that He "did no
sin" (1 Pet. 2:22); "In him is no sin" (1 John 3:5); He "knew no sin"
(2 Cor. 5:21). In His character, conversation and conduct He was the
holy One of God "without blemish and without spot." If then death is
the wages of sin, it had no claim upon Jesus Christ.

Why then did Jesus Christ die? How foolish and futile to look
anywhere else for the answer to such a question but to God's divine
revelation. There an absolutely sufficient and altogether satisfying
answer is given.

1 Cor. 15:3, "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scripture."

Isa. 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every
one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all."

Isa. 53:4, 5, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and
with his stripes we are healed."

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1 Pet. 2:24, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on
the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness:
by whose stripes ye were healed."

In every one of these passages "death" and "sin" are shown to
have an inextricable relationship to each other but it is invariably
the death of Christ and the sin of men.

Words could not make it clearer that Jesus Christ died not
because of anything in Himself but because of something in us; that it
was not the wages of His sin but of ours that He paid on the Cross. It
was our sin He put away; our sins that He bore; our iniquities which
were laid upon Him. Death had no claim on Him; then the death He died
was for the sake of others and to accomplish something for them which
they were unable to accomplish for themselves. The death of Christ was
obviously for the purpose of taking up the sin question and dealing
with it in such a way as to bring salvation to man.

But would it also deal with it in such a way as to bring
satisfaction to God? God has an unalterable, irrevocable attitude
toward sin which is most clearly revealed in His judgment upon it.
"The wages of sin is death." Death is the expression of God's
implacable condemnation of sin. "Death is the man's liability in
relation to sin." Did the death of Christ deal with this divine
judgment upon sin in a way that was satisfactory to God? God says it
did.

2 Cor. 5:14, 15, R.V., "For the love of Christ constraineth

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us, because we thus judge, that one died for all therefore all died;
And he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto
themselves, but unto him, who for their sakes died and rose again."

The sinner's twofold relationship to God, the divine Judge and
God, the gracious Saviour, may be stated as follows:

"The wages of sin is death,"
"All have sinned,"
"So death passed upon all men."

BUT

"One died for all,"
"Therefore all died."

Death is the racial doom. In Adam all die because in Adam all
sinned. Death is God's judgment upon sin and it rests equally upon all
men. From the execution of this divine judgment there is no escape
because it is the decree of a holy God and is therefore unalterable.
Sin and death are inextricably interwoven: the sinner must die.

But the holy God is also a loving God. While He cannot change His
attitude toward sin and His judgment upon it without denying His own
nature yet His love with perfect consistency can make some escape for
the sinner providing whatever He does maintains unity in His own
divine being. This necessitates meeting in full the requirement of His
holy law.

What, then, would that requirement be? That an adequate
Substitute able to meet the full penalty of the

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law should voluntarily offer to take the sinner's place and die the
sinner's death.

But where could such an adequate substitute be found? Only "a
lamb without spot and blemish" could be accepted as an offering for
sin. Only an absolutely sinless one could be the sinner's Substitute.
It would require one who himself had fulfilled every demand of God's
holy law to pay the sinner's penalty for a broken law. There was but
one who had ever lived such a life on earth and He was the incarnate
Son of God.

Would He voluntarily offer Himself as the sinner's Substitute and
thereby assume all responsibility for the removal of the penalty, the
power and the presence of sin in man knowing as He did that the
penalty of sin was death, that the power of sin meant anguish of
suffering consummating in crucifixion, and that the presence of sin
involved even separation from God? Would He who never knew sin
willingly be made sin on the sinner's behalf knowing full well that
all the wrath of a holy God against sin would be spent on Him? (A very
helpful treatment of this to which I am indebted is found in Atonement
and Law, Armour.)

Yes, He would do it. For the very purpose of becoming the
sinner's Substitute the eternal Son had become the incarnate Son. But
have we not discovered in this truth the secret of His dread of that
"hour," His shrinking from the "cup"? It was not death He dreaded but
the death of the Cross which was "the wages of sin." What else could

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the thrice repeated pleading to the Father to remove "the cup" mean
but that, in the death He was about to die as the sinner's Substitute,
all the sin of the whole race of sinners with all its stain and stench
would be upon Him? It is no wonder that the soul of the sinless Son of
God cried out in an agony of suffering at the thought!

But the weight and wickedness of the world's sin was not all the
"cup." Sin separates from God. God cannot stay in the presence of sin
even when that sin is upon His own beloved Son. The Son of Man in the
garden faces this awful consequence of Saviourhood. Could He assume
this consequence of sin for the sinner's sake? Could He, who through
all eternity in glory had rested in the intimate fellowship of the
Father's bosom and who in His life on earth had enjoyed the vivid
consciousness of His Father's abiding presence, consent to the
inevitable even though momentary separation from His Father which the
presence of the world's sin on Him would cause? Death is separation
from God and separation from God is hell (2 Thess. 1:7-9).

This, then, is "the cup" He could not drink were there any other
possible way for the Father's will in man's salvation to be
accomplished. This is "the cup" that caused the agony of soul in
Gethsemane--an agony so terrible that His sweat was as it were great
drops of blood falling to the ground; an agony so awful it took Him
back three times to the Father to cry out for release; an agony so
intense that an heaven-sent angel appeared to strengthen Him. This is
"the cup" that caused the intolerable anguish of

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spirit, which wrung from the sufferer upon Calvary that heart-breaking
cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Could He drink that
"cup"? Yes, even that if it were the Father's will and there were no
other way in which sin could be dealt with to God's satisfaction and
man's salvation. He who had been obedient to the will of His Father
every moment of His earthly life would be "obedient unto death, even
the death of the Cross."

There evidently was no other way for "while He yet spake, lo,
Judas one of the twelve came and with him a great multitude with sword
and staves." In quick succession follow the betrayal, arrest and trial
of the Lord Jesus and then--the crucifixion of the Lord of glory.

The "hour" had come. The event foretold and foreshadowed for
centuries had taken place; "the most stupendous event in the history
of man, the only event in the history of God." The noon hour not only
of time but of eternity had come; indeed it was the pivotal hour in
the life both of heaven and of earth. "The Son of God has died by the
hands of men. This astounding fact is the moral center of all things.
A bygone eternity knew no other future; an eternity to come shall know
no other past. That death was this world's crisis."--(The Gospel and
Its Ministry, Sir Robert Anderson, page 12)

The death of Jesus Christ is the pivotal fact in Christianity. It
is its very heart-beat; its life's blood. Without it Christianity
would not be. His worth lay not in the life He lived but in the death

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He died. His death was not so much the culmination of the victorious,
obedient, holy life as its coronation. His incarnation was but paving
the way for death; His death was the goal of incarnation.

It is not merely the fact that Christ died that is vital but that
He died the death of the Cross. The prophecy of Gen. 3:15 foretold a
bruising and it was in the bruising of the heel of the woman's seed
that the promise of the sinner's salvation was to be found. The Old
Testament sacrifices made for the sake of sins year by year required
the blood of goats and calves. These sacrifices and this
blood-shedding were the foreshadowing of the one perfect sacrifice of
the Son of God as He poured out His life's blood on Calvary for the
salvation of sinners. While the prophets of old did tell us something
of the circumstances that would attend the birth of Jesus Christ yet
the burden of their message was of One who would be "wounded,"
"bruised," "scourged," "oppressed," "afflicted." By the mouth of all
the prophets God foretold that Christ should suffer. Over and over
again the Lord Jesus told the disciples that He "must go to Jerusalem
and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes and be killed and be raised again." On the way to Emmaus as He
walked and talked with the two disciples who were recounting to Him
the tragedy of His crucifixion He said unto them:

Luke 24:26, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and
to enter into his glory?"

The theme of the entire Bible is the Lamb slain from

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the foundation of the world. "Cut the Bible anywhere and it bleeds; it
is red with redemption truth." A suffering, crucified Christ was the
Christ preached by the Apostles and to them His sufferings were a
vital factor in the sinner's salvation because of their expiatory
nature. Paul testifying before King Agrippa preached a suffering
Christ.

Acts 26:22, 23, "Having therefore obtained help of God, I
continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying
none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say
should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the
first that should rise from the dead."

Peter told us that it was through the victorious, atoning
sufferings of Christ that men were brought back to God.

1 Peter 3:18, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the
just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death
in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit."

John taught that there was no cleansing power except in the blood
of Christ shed on Calvary.

1 John 1:7, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from
all sin."

Respectable sinners will flock to the church today to hear
ministers preach on the life of Jesus; many are even not averse to
listening to an occasional sermon of the death of Christ, providing
that death is preached only as the

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greatest example of sacrificial love, or as the culminating event in a
life of obedience, or as an act of martyrdom in a good cause. But in
this age there is a widespread refusal on the part of the man in the
pew, and on the part of the man in the pulpit a conspicuous rejection
of the Biblical, evangelical teaching regarding the death of the
Cross. The reason for this will grow more apparent as we proceed with
our studies.

The Cross of Christ--The Great Divide

The Cross of Christ makes a clean-cut cleavage between the two
spheres, the sphere of death, darkness and disorder, and the sphere of
life, light and liberty, and it challenges sinners to decide in which they purpose to live. The Cross of
Christ is the battlefield on which the conflict between Satan and God
over the sovereignty of human lives is being waged and it compels men
to take sides either for or against God. The Cross of Christ marks the
boundary line between the kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God and
it calls subjects in the one to come out and to become subjects in the
other. The Cross of Christ finds men living on the plane of the
natural and it opens a way for them to live on the plane of the
spiritual and then appeals to them to enter the open door. The Cross
of Christ is the Great Divide: it separates men into two classes, the
unsaved and the saved.

1 Cor. 1:18, "For the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of
God." -

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The Cross of Christ--A Double Exposure

The Cross of Christ is the place of exposure. There as nowhere
else is revealed the hatred of man for God and the love of God for
man. Sin is seen at its worst and love is seen at its best in the
Cross. Man's sin and God's love both reach a climax on Calvary. There
the hideousness of the one and the glory of the other are brought out
into sharpest relief.

Acts 2:23, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain."

The desperate, despicable wickedness of the human heart is
uncovered at Calvary. All the rebellion, self-will and enmity of the
natural man found vent in this one act. In the crucifixion of the Holy
One sin came out into the open and disclosed its inwardness.

"Him--ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and
slain." Sin nailed the Saviour to a Cross and by doing so exposed to
the world its ugly hideousness. Sinners stained their hands with the
blood of their Saviour and thereby revealed the length and breadth,
the height and depth of the infamy of sin.

However, the sin of man could not outstrip the love of God. Nor
could sin defeat God by taking Him unawares. Before that hydra-headed
monster had raised its head in rebellion against God He had
accomplished its defeat. "Him, being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God." In the eternal counsels of the
Godhead the Cross of Christ was set up in love before man was made or

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the world created. In the atoning death of the well-beloved Son on the
Cross of Calvary God was fully prepared to assume responsibility for
sin and all its consequences. God, the Father, spelled out in capital
letters on the Cross His unquenchable love for sinners.

The Cross of Christ reveals not only the love of the Father but
the love of the Son as well. In the lament over Jerusalem, in the
parable of the father's love for the prodigal, in the tender look at
the denying Peter, and in the pathetic question to Judas the betrayer,
Jesus Christ showed His sorrow for sin and the outreaching of His
loving heart to the sinner. But only in the laying down of His sinless
life in death as the sinner's Substitute do we see the perfect
outshining of His infinite, limitless love. With the most perfect
apprehension of what the sin of man was on the one hand, and of what
the mind of God toward sin was on the other and of sin's due from God,
there went up from the depths of Christ's sinless humanity a perfect
Amen to the righteous judgment of God against sin, and a willingness
to bear that judgment.

The Cross of Christ is the heart of God broken by sin. It tells
you and me that the God who must judge and punish sin will save and
forgive the sinner. It discovers to us the unfathomable depths of
God's love.

Rom. 5:8, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that while
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son."

Gal. 1:3, 4, "... Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for

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our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world,
according to the will of God and our Father."

The Cross of Christ--The Place of Victory

God has but one problem in His universe�it is sin. All other
problems of whatever nature emanate from this one. The sweat of
grinding toil, the suffering of broken hearts, the sorrow of the
world's crushing maladjustments, all have their beginning in sin. God
has but one enemy in the universe--it is Satan. All other enmities,
whether among angels or men, have their ultimate source in him. To
regain His rightful sovereignty over the world and in the human race
God had a double victory to win. This twofold victory was won through
the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ. Salvation from sin and all its
consequences, deliverance from Satan and all his allies, were gained
for the sinner at the Cross.

The Old Testament classic which reveals Jesus Christ as the
Sin-bearer is Isaiah fifty-three.

Isa. 53:4, 6, 10, 11, 12:
"Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows:...
"... And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
"... when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,...
"... for he shall bear their iniquities.
"... He bare the sin of many, ..."

The New Testament is full of the same truth.

John 1:29, "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and
saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the
world."

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Heb. 9:28, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sin of many;
and unto them which look for him shall he appear the second time
without sin unto salvation."

Jesus Christ faced the problem which sin had created and solved
it by taking upon Himself the whole responsibility for it. When He
entered into human life and as the Son of Man became the connecting
link between God and the ruined race, He pledged Himself to become
responsible for sin and its effects.

Sin had brought upon man four terrible consequences for which
Christ as Sin-bearer assumed responsibility. The first is guilt. The
whole world is guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). The whole of man is
defiled and depraved. That this guilt might be removed God made Christ
sin and then treated Him as sin.

2 Cor. 5:21, R.V., "Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our
behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him."

The second is death. "The wages of sin is death." The sentence of
death rested upon the whole human race. As the last Adam Jesus Christ
assumed all responsibility for the first Adam's sin and its
consequences. Therefore He executed the death sentence upon sinners by
Himself dying.

Rom. 5:6, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time
Christ died for the ungodly."

The third consequence of sin is the curse. Sin is lawlessness and
the penalty for broken law is the curse. Jesus Christ

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acknowledged the justice in God's judgment upon sin and voluntarily
offered to assume even this responsibility on the sinner's behalf.

Gal. 3:13, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that
hangeth on a tree."

The fourth consequence of sin is the wrath of God. God hates sin.
God's holiness demanded that He take some action against it. So God
was compelled to decree that sin would bar sinners from His presence
through time and eternity. Here again Jesus Christ assumed
responsibility for the presence of sin in men and on the Cross of
Calvary bore the full force of God's wrath against it even to the
point of conscious separation from His Father's presence.

Rom. 5:9, "Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we
shall be saved from wrath through him."

In becoming the Sin-bearer Jesus Christ fully met and solved the
problem of sin. "In His death everything was made His that sin had
made ours ... everything in sin except its sinfulness."--(The Death of
Christ, James Denney)

The Cross of Christ is God's starting point of victory over Satan
and all his allies. God is the One who has been hurt most by sin.
"Satan was putting the knife into God's heart through Adam's hand." So
any effectual dealing with sin must go back to its first cause and any
permanent victory for God must be a crushing defeat for Satan.

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The first curse pronounced after the fall was upon the serpent.
The serpent's curse and the Saviour's Cross are inextricably
interwoven. The prophecy containing the curse foretells a double
bruising. "It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Men and women are being taught that the record of the fall in
Genesis three is just a myth and that no scholarly person believes it
today. This is indeed the devil's lie and he has a very good reason
for telling it. By the death of Christ his head was bruised, his doom
was sealed. The Cross of Christ robbed that Satanic usurper of every
vestige of rightful claim to the world and of all dominion over any
man or woman who fully trusts in the atoning blood of the Saviour and
who yields to the Lordship of Jesus. Christ's cry of victory from
Calvary's Cross "It is finished" was Satan's death knell. The victory
over the devil commenced in the wilderness, continued in Gethsemane,
culminated on Calvary. The hour of Christ's death was the hour of
Satan's defeat.

John 12:31, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the
prince of this world be cast out."

The death of the Cross deprived him of his power and rendered him
inoperative.

Heb. 2:14, R.V., "Since then the children are sharers in flesh
and blood, he also in like manner partook of the same; that through
death he might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that
is, the devil."

The death of Jesus Christ meant an open and decisive

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victory for God over all the principalities and powers in rebellion
against Him. It severs the believer from the powers of darkness.

Col. 2:14, 15, "Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that
was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way,
nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers,
he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it."

The devil has two active, aggressive allies in his diabolical
work of keeping sinners living in self-will and rebellion toward God.
They are the "world" and the "flesh." For the defeat of both of these
God has made ample provision in the Cross of Christ.

Gal. 6:14, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and
I unto the world."

Gal. 5:24, "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh
with the affections and lusts."

In the Cross of Christ the sinner who truly desires it may find
complete deliverance from the evil one and all his entanglements.
Satan's reign over him may end there if he seeks release through the
Cross.

The Cross of Christ--A Divinely Provided Meeting Place

Sin made every man unrighteous in God's sight, (Rom. 3:10-12) and
by so doing it created an impassable chasm between a righteous God and
an unrighteous sinner. It did more than that, it totally disqualified
man for doing anything to bridge this chasm

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thus placing upon God the whole responsibility of making a way of
access into His presence and of providing a meeting place between
Himself and the sinner.

But how could a righteous God be just and the justifier of
sinners? (Rom. 3:26). How could God maintain His holiness in His
dealing with sin and at the same time manifest His graciousness in
mercy toward the sinner? How could God provide such a meeting place
and not deny Himself through compromise?

Before God was a law which was holy and right. It was the
expression of His own character; the essence of His own nature. To
ignore or condone man's rebellion and disobedience as evidenced in
that law broken would be to deny Himself. God could not do that; He
must be true to Himself so He must treat sin as sin and deal with it
as such. It must be condemned and its merited punishment meted out.
"Even God cannot change the character of righteousness by altering, or
lessening to the slightest degree, its holy demands. What is done for
the satisfaction of His love in saving any one whom His righteousness
condemns must be done in full view of all that His righteousness could
ever require."--(Salvation, L.S. Chafer, page 27)

Before God was not only a broken law but a broken relationship, a
broken bond of love which had united Him to the human race. Before
Him, too, was the desperate need of those whom He loved with an
everlasting love, the undone condition of those who were precious in
His sight. Before Him was His own broken

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heart made desolate by the prodigal's departure into the far country.

Viewing the sinner in his relationship to God his fundamental
need is a way of access and acceptance with God despite his guilt.
Viewing God in His relationship to the sinner His fundamental
necessity is a way of granting favour and fellowship to the sinner
despite His holiness. A meeting place between a righteous God and an
unrighteous sinner is the demand made upon the righteousness of God.
But it is equal to even this necessity for in His death upon Calvary's
Cross Jesus Christ became the propitiation for the sins of the world.

1 John 2:2, R.V., "And he is the propitiation for our sins; and
not for ours only, but also for the whole world."

Rom. 3:25, 26, R.V., "Whom God set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood, to show his righteousness because of the
passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God;
for the showing, I say, of his righteousness at this present season:
that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him that hath
faith in Jesus."

To the spiritually minded Christian who has a realization of the
awful chasm sin had made between him and his God the truth that
centers around the word "propitiation" is inexpressibly precious. But
to the natural man living still in pride, rebellion and
self-satisfaction, it is insufferably offensive.

"Propitiation" means a mercy seat or covering, a divinely
provided meeting place. In Old Testament

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times on the Day of Atonement the great high priest took the blood of
the sacrificial lamb into the Holy of Holies and with it sprinkled the
mercy seat. Within the ark under the cover of the blood was the broken
law. The blood-sprinkled mercy seat provided a meeting place between
God and the sinner where the guilty one could come to God without remembrance of his past offences and without
fear of judgment and where the Holy One could receive the sinner
without compromise and yet without condemnation. "A holy God could
righteously meet a sinful man and a sinful man could fearlessly meet a
holy God."

God set forth His well-beloved Son to be such a propitiation for
all the guilty sinners in all the world. Through the shedding of the
precious blood of the Lamb of God on the Cross of Calvary such a
covering for sin and for broken law was provided. In His death Jesus
Christ honours God's holy law by bearing in full the punishment meted
out to the sinner for breaking it. Thus in the crucified Lord the
sinner has found a meeting place with God and a way of access into His
favour and fellowship.

The Cross of Christ--A Divinely-prepared Turning Point

A double barrier separates God and the sinner. Sin has caused man
to be offended toward God as truly as it has caused God to be offended
toward man. The Cross of Christ shall have failed to deal adequately
with sin if it only removes the cause of offence in its Godward aspect
and does not equally remove it in its manward aspect.

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And this is exactly what the Cross of Christ does. "We love him
because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). "By grace are ye saved
through faith." The grace of God built the bridge of salvation before
ever a single sinner made a start toward crossing it. Grace took God
into the garden in the cool of the day to seek the first two sinners
and to offer them the gracious promise of salvation through a Saviour
even before He dealt righteously with their sin in pronouncing upon
them the judgment of the curse. Even in the prophecy-promise given in
Eden God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. God took
the initiative in effecting reconciliation by giving His Son to die.

Rom. 5:10, "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to
God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled we shall be
saved by his life."

Col. 1:21, 22, "And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies
in your mind by wicked works yet now hath he reconciled IN THE BODY OF
HIS FLESH THROUGH DEATH, to present you holy and unblameable and
unreprovable in his sight."

2 Cor. 5:18, "And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us
to himself by Jesus Christ."

The Son of God endured the suffering and the shame of the Cross
that thereby He might tell a world of sinners who have turned their
backs on God that God loves them with an everlasting love. When the
sinner sees the Saviour suffering, the just for the unjust, when he
sees Christ crucified by his sin, dying his death, enduring his
punishment, then his heart is melted, his

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rebellion is removed, his whole attitude toward God is changed from
enmity to love, from estrangement to fellowship, from indifference to
devotion, from fear to faith, from shame to peace.

In Christ crucified God has provided such propitiation and
reconciliation as has made possible the removal of the barrier of
separation between God and man, and has opened a merciful yet
righteous way of access and acceptance; thus giving to every man who
will avail himself of God's grace the opportunity for full restoration
to God's favour and fellowship.

The Cross of Christ--The End of the Old Creation
and the Beginning of the New

Through propitiation and reconciliation accomplished in the death
of Christ adequate provision has been made for a change of
relationship between the sinner and God which effects a radical change
in the sinner's position before God. But is there provision for a
change in his condition also? The natural man is a slave, "sold under
sin" (Rom. 7:14).

Where sin abounded grace did much more abound. God's boundless
grace was undaunted by the sinner's helpless, hopeless condition.
God's right to proprietorship through creation still remained but it
had been lost to Him through man's surrender of himself to the
sovereignty of another. But God would Himself go down unto the
slave-market of sin and buy back that which was His own. He would then
take the sinner out of the sphere of Satan, out of the slave-market of
sin, and set him free in the glorious liberty of a new life in Christ.

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Such redemption demanded a ransom. It required a life for a life.
"The life is in the blood." To redeem the race from the bondage of sin
involved the paying of a price which was nothing less than the
precious blood of the spotless Lamb of God. To buy back His own for a
possession God paid the costly price of His own blood.

Acts 20:28, "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the
flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed
the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

1 Pet. 1:18, 19, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed
with corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain
conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot."

Rev. 5:9, "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to
take the book, and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain, and
hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and
tongue, and people, and nation."

But God did not go into the slave-market of sin only to buy the
captive sinner but also to bring him out from that old sphere of
bondage and set him free in a new sphere of liberty. Not alone would
He lead him out of Egypt but He would bring him into Canaan. Christ
Jesus would become not only the sinner's Saviour but He would be the
believer's Lord and Life. In the Cross of Christ God rejected the old
order of fallen, sinful humanity "sold under sin" through

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the first Adam's disobedience that He might raise up a new order of
holy, heavenly beings redeemed from sin through the last Adam's
obedience.

The death of Christ upon the Cross not only redeems but it
re-creates; it not only provides complete emancipation from the old
life but abundant entrance into the new.

Ex. 13:3, "And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in
which ye came out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by
strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place."

Ex. 13:11, "And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into
the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers,
and shall give it thee ..."

Tit. 2:14, "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from
all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works."

The Cross of Christ--The Place of Decision
that Determines Destiny

"The Cross of Christ has measured out the moral distance between
God and man and has left them as far asunder as the throne of heaven
and the gates of hell."--(The Gospel and its Ministry, Sir Robert
Anderson, page 25.) Scripture bears ample testimony to the solemn
truthfulness of these words.

But praise God it is equally true that the Cross of Christ has
measured out the length and breadth and height and depth of the love
of God in the gift of a Redeemer who closed the gates of hell and
opened the gates of Heaven for all who will believe.

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As sin through Adam had been universal so salvation through
Christ must be made potential to all. Where sin abounded grace did
much more abound and opened a way back to God for every sinner. The
bridge of salvation provided a way out of the old sphere into the new
for all who will acknowledge themselves sinners needing a Saviour.

Tit. 2:11, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath
appeared to all men."

1 Tim. 2:5, 6, "One mediator between God and men, the man Christ
Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all."

Isa. 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity
of us all."

Heb. 2:9, "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that
he by the grace of God should taste death for every man."

In tenderest compassion God broods over every sinner and bleeds
for his sin. His great yearning heart of love reaches to the uttermost
corner of His universe and seeks to draw each heart unto Himself
through His Son.

1 Tim. 2:3, 4, R.V., "This is good and acceptable in the sight of
God our Saviour; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the
knowledge of the truth."

1 Tim. 4:10, "For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach,
because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men,
specially of those that believe."

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2 Pet. 3:9, R.V., "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise,
as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

That all men might have an adequate opportunity to know God's way
of salvation He commanded the disciples to carry the Gospel to the
ends of the earth preaching it to every creature.

Acts 1:8, "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost
is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth."

Mark 16:15, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and
preach the gospel to every creature."

God commands every sinner who hears the Gospel to repent and turn
to Him.

Acts 17:30, "And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but
now commandeth all men everywhere to repent."

God invites all sinners to come to Him and promises eternal life
to all who truly believe and receive His Son.

John 6:37, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out."

John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life."

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Countless sinners throughout the ages have refused the grace of
God manifested in His salvation and have rejected Christ, the Saviour,
but the death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary opened a way back to
God for all men everywhere. "No man is lost for want of an atonement,
or because there is any other barrier in the way of his salvation than
his own most free and wicked will."

Dear reader, on which side of the Cross of Christ are you living?
Your relationship to the crucified Christ will determine your
destiny. (Diagram VI. omitted)

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XI. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION

Resurrection

HAVING granted that incarnation and crucifixion are necessary
spans in the bridge of salvation, one is driven to the acceptance of
resurrection as the third span or all that has been gained through the
other two will be lost.

The intimate relationship between these three fundamental truths,
their unbreakable connection in fact, is brought out very wonderfully
in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2:22-36.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is shown to be the essential
vindication of His incarnation and crucifixion. Without the
resurrection the other two spans in the bridge of salvation would be
futile; through the resurrection every claim God had made regarding
the person and work of His Son both had been vindicated and realized.

Let us get the setting of these words. A tremendous event had
taken place. It was a post-resurrection event. The risen, ascended,
exalted Christ had poured forth the Holy Spirit who had filled every
believer and had caused each one to speak in another tongue the
wonderful works of God so that people from every nation under Heaven
gathered in Jerusalem at that time had heard them speak in their own

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language. The multitude were confounded and amazed and asked for an
explanation.

This the Apostle Peter gave in a sermon the theme of which was
the resurrection of Christ. He deals with it both in retrospect and in
its relationships. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit which they had
seen and heard had been promised, but it was conditioned upon the
realization of God's eternal purpose which He had purposed in Christ,
His Son (Eph. 3:11) and upon the fulfilment of His divine plan.
According to that purpose and plan it was the risen, exalted Christ
who was to shed forth the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:32, 33, "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are
witnesses, Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and
having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath
shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit was an accomplished fact
attested to not only by the little company of believers but by devout
Jews from every nation. The shedding forth of the Holy Spirit was
proof that Christ had risen from the dead. Now that we have the
setting of the words under consideration let us study their
significance.

The Resurrection--An Essential Vindication

Acts 2:22, "Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of
Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and
signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also
know."

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In these words the Apostle Peter records God's satisfaction in
the person and work of the incarnate Son. He had sent His Son into the
world to live such a life as none other had ever lived and to do such
a work as none other had ever done. He had lived the life and done the
work and had received the Father's unqualified approval.

Let us get clearly before us in review what the task was to which
the Father had set His Son. In the equality of Deity Father and Son
had worked together to create a universe and the race which was to
inhabit it. Into this perfect creation sin had entered first through a
celestial being and then through a human being. Death, darkness and
disorder followed in the trail of sin and threw everything in God's
world out of harmony with Him. God Himself was even dethroned both in
His world and in the hearts of men.

As Father and Son had worked together in the creation of the race
so would they work together for its regeneration. God in Christ would
reconcile the world unto Himself. As sin had entered the world through
God's first man, salvation would enter through God's second Man.

To this end the eternal Son would become the incarnate Son. The
second Man would start exactly where the first man started, with a
perfect life, a human nature, a direct fellowship with God through the
Holy Spirit, the right to will and the power to will Godward, but He
would start in a world where everything would work to drag Him down
into defeat and destruction. In such a world He must live a life such

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as none other had ever lived--a life of unspotted holiness, unceasing
victory and unwavering obedience. It must be a life literally "without
spot or wrinkle, or any such thing," unsullied by either the slightest
desire to sin born from within or by the yielding to any temptation to
sin brought from without. It must be a life from center to
circumference lived wholly within the will of God.

Through such a holy Man God would establish a new union with the
human race and through such a sinless Mediator God would open a way of
reconciliation and redemption to rebellious sinners.

The Apostle Peter in the sermon at Pentecost witnessed to the
fact that the incarnate Son had lived such a life on earth. Three
times God had even opened heaven and spoken to all who would hear the
words of divine satisfaction in the perfection of His Son. But the
world did not reckon to it such worth or give to it such honour. Many
had rejected Him; some had even dared call Him an imposter and a
blasphemer. A further public witness and open vindication of the
Father's satisfaction in the perfection of the Son was essential. This
God gave in the resurrection.

The Resurrection--A Consummated Victory.

Acts 2:23, "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain."

In undertaking the reconciliation and redemption of the world God
obligated Himself to deal fully and

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finally with sin and all its consequences. Every man was a sinner and
the sinner's greatest need is a Saviour.

In the incarnation God provided a potential Saviour in the Holy
One who was always everywhere Victor. But to make this potential
Saviourhood effectual for man's salvation it must be actualized.
Christ's personal victory must become a racial victory if it avails
for the sinner. But the only way in which the benefit of Christ's
victory over sin could be bestowed upon the sinner was by having the
guilt, penalty and judgment of sin borne by the Saviour. If the sinner
were to take Christ's place of holiness, victory and obedience Christ
must take the sinner's place of sin, death and judgment. If any sinner
were ever saved Christ must take upon Himself the sin of all sinners
and bear its full responsibility. To pay the wages of sin the Author
of life died. In the deep and unfathomable mystery of the Cross His
Spirit was separated from God and went into Hades, and from His body
which went into the grave (Acts 2:27).

The eternal Son becoming the incarnate Son had given the world a
perfect Man; the incarnate Son becoming the crucified Son had given to
the human race a perfect Saviour. He had been victorious in the
wilderness temptation, in the Gethsemane struggle and finally in the
Calvary conflict. But now what? He lies buried in a tomb and a stone
seals His grave. Has He been conquered at last? Was His victory but a
seeming victory? Has the world had bequeathed to it nothing but the
example of a sinless, perfect life it is impossible to follow and the
memory of a well meaning but futile

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sacrifice for sin? Will the Author, Preserver and Upholder of all life
Himself succumb to death, and will the palm of victory after all
belong to him "who has the power of death, that is the devil"? Such
will surely be the case if the God-man remains in the grave.

But this is unthinkable. Christ had said that He would not only
lay down His life but that He would take it again (John 10:17-18). And
He did rise from the dead. Death could never hold Him who had said, "I
am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25).

"Death could not keep his prey--
Jesus, my Saviour,
He tore the bars away--
Jesus, my Lord!
Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o'er His foes;
He arose a Victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah, Christ arose! "

The victory over death was complete.

1 Cor. 15:55-57, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is
thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the
law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ."

The victory of the resurrection gathered up into its embrace all
the other victories in His life and death and gave to them meaning and

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power. The victories of incarnation and crucifixion were merged into
the victory; perfect, powerful, permanent victory over the triumvirate
of hell: sin, death and Satan.

The Resurrection--The Divine Seal

Acts 2:24, "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of
death; because it was not possible that he should be holden of it."

Upon the life of the perfect Man and the work of the perfect
Redeemer, God, the Father set His divine seal of approval and
appraisal by raising the God-man from the dead. Christ Jesus had cried
from the Cross, "It is finished," and it was the cry not of a victim
of Satan, but of a Victor over Satan; not of one vanquished by death,
but the cry of the Vanquisher of death. In that cry of victory Christ
showed that He anticipated His resurrection; He expected the Father to
raise Him from the dead. Had He a right to expect His Father so to
act? Most assuredly.

To His perfection of life as God's second Man the Father had set
His seal of approval both at His baptism and at His transfiguration by
opening the heavens and saying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am
well pleased." Would the Father remain silent now? Would there be no
witness to the Father's satisfaction in the all-sufficiency of the
Son's sacrifice of Himself upon Calvary's Cross to save men? To
Christ's death on the Cross as the perfect Saviour God would set His
seal by opening the tomb and raising His Son from the dead, thus
expressing in language more eloquent than words His satisfaction with

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the Saviour's redemptive work and its sufficiency for the sinner's
salvation. "Upon all the virtue of His life and the value of His death
and the victory of His conflict, God set the seal in the sight of
heaven and earth and hell, when raising Him from the dead."--(The
Crises of the Christ, G. Campbell Morgan, page 364) "The resurrection
is the Father's 'Amen' to the Son's exclamation 'It is finished.'"

The Resurrection--A Sure Pledge

The body that had been specially prepared for Him in incarnation
(Heb. 10:5), that had been laid down in death upon the Cross (Heb.
10:10) was now raised and came forth from the tomb.

Matt. 28:5, 6, "And the angel answered and said unto the women,
Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is
not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the
Lord lay."

John 20:27, "Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger,
and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it in into
my side; and be not faithless, but believing."

In resurrection as in incarnation He was still the God-man. He
arose from the grave on that first Easter morning with the body which
He had taken in incarnation, which had been nailed to the Cross in
death, which had been placed in Joseph's tomb, which had been
preserved from corruption and which after three days had been raised
from the dead. In that body He appeared to the disciples proving to

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them His identity by the nail prints in His hands and feet and the
spear print in His side. In that body He ascended to Heaven and sits
today at the right hand of the Father receiving the worship of
countless multitudes out of every kindred, and tongue, and people and
nation who are redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb slain on
Calvary. In that glorified yet scarred body He will live through the
ages of the ages, the visible reminder to redeemed sinners "of the
exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ
Jesus."

While the body of the risen God-man was the same body yet it was
a changed body. From the truth revealed in Phil. 3:20, 21 and 1 Cor.
15:42-50 it is clear that the body Christ Jesus had in resurrection
was a glorified, incorruptible, mighty, spiritual, heavenly body. The
limitations of His earthly life were those of His human nature; the
limitations incident to the humiliation to which He had voluntarily
submitted. But in the resurrection He threw off all these fetters of
the flesh. "His birth marked the voluntary self-limitation of His
Godhood in His descent into our race in His incarnation. His
resurrection marked His ascent out of these limitations and His return
to His former glory. It was the passageway through which He went to
the resumption of the unlimited powers of His Godhood."--(The Person
and Work of Jesus Christ, A.E. Wood, page 56)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the sure pledge of the
resurrection of the believer. When comforting Martha about her brother
Lazarus who had been dead four days Jesus said, "I am the resurrection

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and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall
he live." Just as truly as Christ's prophecy concerning His own
resurrection was literally fulfilled will this promise to Martha
concerning the resurrection of every believer also be fulfilled. The
resurrection of Him who is the Head of the body makes the resurrection
of every member of the body not only certain but essential.

1 Cor. 15:20-24, "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and
become the first fruits of them that slept. For since by man came
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in
his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are
Christ's at his coming."

And as He rose with a glorified, incorruptible, mighty,
spiritual, heavenly body, so shall we. "As we have borne the image of
the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor.
15:49).

Phil. 3:20, 21, R.V., "For our citizenship is in heaven; whence
also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: �who shall fashion
anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body
of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to
subject all things unto himself."

The Resurrection--A New Beginning

Col. 1:18, "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."

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Through the last Adam God has provided another way of union with
the human race and in Him He has made a new beginning. Through the
perfection of His incarnate manhood, God's second Man has qualified to
become the Head of a new creation, through the victory of His
crucifixion He has put an end to the old creation, and now through the
power of His resurrection a new order of beings is formed of which He
is appointed the executive Head. As firstborn from the dead He becomes
the Progenitor of a new race of redeemed men, the Head of a new
company of people whose life on earth is to be transformed daily into
His image from glory to glory and who are ultimately to share the
perfection of His glorification.

Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as twin
events, certain definite issues in the conflict between God and Satan
were met and eternally settled. The victory over Satan was fully and
finally won which robbed him of the last vestige of claim to
sovereignty over the earth or the race. He is henceforth a usurper and
a thief. Jesus Christ gained back all that had been lost and now the
earth and all that is therein is His not only by right of creation but
by right of conquest.

To the believer in Jesus Christ it means that the sovereignty of
Satan over his life is ended and the sovereignty of God begins; that
he leaves the sphere of sin, death, darkness and disorder, and enters
the sphere of righteousness, life, light and liberty; that he ceases
to be a subject in the kingdom of Satan and becomes a subject in the
Kingdom of God; that he severs his

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alliance with Satan's system, the world, and avows his allegiance as a
member of Christ's body the Church, to Christ Himself who is its Head.
It means, in other words, that the old creation with all that pertains
to it ends at the Cross and is buried in the tomb and that a new
creation comes forth in the resurrection. It means that the old
relationship with sin, self and Satan is altogether annulled and a new
union with God in Christ Jesus is made, and that in this new
relationship Christ becomes not only the believer's Saviour but his
Lord and his Life.

Through His death on the Cross Christ Jesus willed to every man
who will take it perfect salvation from the pollution, penalty and
power of sin; perfect victory over death, both spiritual and physical;
perfect release from the bondage of Satan. Through the resurrection
from the dead He is appointed by the Father to be Executor of this
will; to be the Mediator of the New Covenant; to be the Dispenser of
all the blessings and benefactions which were given through grace to
all those who have become sons and heirs of God through faith in Him.
The resurrection of Christ Jesus is the third span in the bridge of
salvation. (Diagram VI. omitted)

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XII. FOUR SPANS IN THE BRIDGE OF SALVATION

Ascension and Exaltation

THERE remains but one double span to complete God's wondrous
bridge of salvation. The God-man, crucified, buried and risen, must go
back to His Father in glory and be exalted to the place of honour and
power at His right hand. Only then would His work be completed. At the
resurrection Christ Jesus was constituted the last Adam and became the
Progenitor of a new order of beings but not until His ascension and
exaltation could He actually be inducted into His work as Head of the
Church. He must first enter into Heaven to present the blood of
Calvary's Sacrifice to His Father and then be enthroned by God as "the
King of kings and the Lord of lords."

The Home-coming of the Son

In His glorified body the God-man left the earth and passing
through the heavens entered into Heaven itself.

Acts 1:10, 11, "And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as
he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also
said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same

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Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

Heb. 9:24, "For Christ is not entered 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."

Oh! What a Home-coming that must have been! Thirty-three years
before the well-beloved Son, who through all eternity had been in the
bosom of the Father, had left His home in glory to be born in the womb
of a virgin. Earth had never held such an One as He and the world not
knowing the worth of the precious gift received Him not. But, having
glorified His Father on earth and having finished the work which He
gave Him to do, the Son now goes Home. He is marred and scarred by His
treatment on earth. Hands and feet and brow all tell the story of the
crucifixion on Calvary's tree. The precious body of flesh and bones
(Luke 24:39) is a silent witness to the blood shed on the cruel Cross.
Surely Heaven had never homed such an One as He. But Heaven knew the
worth of the treasure it held on that wonderful ascension day and the
angelic host, the number of whom was ten thousand times ten thousand,
and thousands of thousands, praised Him with a loud voice and heaven
reverberated with the anthem of welcome that greeted the triumphant
Redeemer as He entered its portals.

Ps. 24:7-10, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

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Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty
in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye
everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this
King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory."

The Exaltation of the Son

The Father awaited the return to glory of His well-beloved Son
that He might bestow upon Him the place of highest honour; that He
might exalt Him to the place of greatest power; that He might give Him
a name which is above every name; that He might crown Him Lord of all.

Eph. 1:20-22, "Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him
from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly
places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and
dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but
also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet,
and gave him to be the head over all things to the church."

Phil. 2:9-11, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and
given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

The exaltation of Jesus Christ meant His enthronement. The
eternal Son who once voluntarily had emptied and humbled Himself was

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now exalted to the throne of God and all power in Heaven and upon
earth was granted unto Him. The crucified Saviour is now the
preeminent Lord.

Matt. 28:18, "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All
power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."

Acts 2:36, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord
and Christ."

The Present Work of the Living Christ

There are three tenses in salvation, past, present and future.
Three statements may be made regarding the sinner which are apparently
contradictory, yet absolutely true; the believer has been saved, the
believer is being saved, the believer will be saved. There is a
salvation that is to be appropriated in a moment of time by the
sinner, that day by day is to be actualized in the believer's life,
that some future day will be fully accomplished. The work which the
God-man began on the Cross for the sinner He continues on the throne
for the saint.

The Divine-human Mediator. There is but one way of approach to
God whether for sinner or for saint and that is by way of Christ
Jesus, the divine-human Mediator. The sinner has no way of access to
God for salvation except through Christ.

John 14:6, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and
the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

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The saint has no way of approach to God for sanctification except
through Christ.

Heb. 7:25, "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them."

Whether we wish to be delivered out of the bondage of sin, or
whether we desire to enter into the fulness of our glorious liberty as
sons and heirs of God, we must do it through Christ. Through the
mediation of Christ Jesus we obtain life; through the same mediation
we obtain life more abundant. Our eternal inheritance is in Him. All
blessings promised under the new covenant are hid away in the God-man.
The glorified Lord is the depository of all the spiritual treasures
kept for God's people. He holds them in trust to be bestowed by Him as
Mediator when claimed by faith. The representative Man who was on the
Cross as the sinner's Substitute is on the throne as his Surety.

Heb. 9:15, R.V., "And for this cause he is the mediator of a new
covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the
transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been
called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance."

The Great High Priest. Just before Jesus gave up the ghost He
cried "It is finished." What was finished? The completion of His work
as the Sacrifice for man's sin. He Himself was that Sacrifice.

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Heb. 9:26, "For then must he often have suffered since the
foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he
appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

But in olden times the sacrifice made for sins had to be
ministered by a priest. On the great day of atonement the great high
priest alone went into the Holy of Holies to offer the sacrifice for
the sins of the people. The sacrifice would have been of no avail had
it not been offered by a God-appointed, God-anointed, priest. Christ
is the Lamb of God offered as a Sacrifice to put away sin for us. But
have we a Great High Priest who can act as minister of the sanctuary
and make the Sacrifice for sin avail for our forgiveness, cleansing
and renewal? Praise God we have just such a Great High Priest.

Heb. 8:1, "Now of the things which we have spoken this is the
sum: we have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens."

Heb. 10:12, "But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for
sins for ever sat down on the right hand of God."

Heb. 4:14, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is
passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
profession."

The Man who was the Sacrifice also offered the sacrifice.

"It is finished"--"He sat down."

The priest-in olden times always stood; he never

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sat because his work was never finished, "for it is not possible that
the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins" (Heb. 10:4). So in
those sacrifices there was a remembrance year by year of sins (Heb.
10:3). But when "this man had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,"
then "He sat down." A perfect Sacrifice for sin had been made; the
Saviour's work was done.

Heb. 7:26, 27, "For such an high priest became us, who is holy,
harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the
heavens; Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up
sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this
he did once, when he offered up himself."

But in order that the precious blood of the Lamb might avail for
the forgiveness, cleansing and renewal of the believer a
God-appointed, God-anointed high priest is needed. Such a Great High
Priest Jesus Christ became. In virtue of His perfect life on earth, in
virtue of His perfect sacrifice upon the Cross, in virtue of His
finished work for man's redemption, the God-man sits at the right hand
of God as our Great High Priest. He is there as our Forerunner having
made a blood-sprinkled path from earth to Heaven--even into the Holy
of Holies--for sinful men (Heb. 6:20; 10:19). He is there as our
Representative before God, "a merciful and a faithful high priest in
things pertaining to God." While down here on earth He was tempted in
all points like as we are so He is a High Priest who is touched with
the feeling of our infirmities

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(Heb. 4:14, 15). He knows our trials, afflictions, disappointments,
difficulties, sufferings and sorrows, for He has met and passed
through them on earth. Therefore He is able now to succour them that
are tempted (Heb. 2:18).

The Sympathetic Advocate. God cannot condone sin nor company with
it whether that sin is in the sinner or in the saint. Sin always,
everywhere, separates from God. When the believer sins, his fellowship
with God is broken, but he cannot restore himself any more than the
sinner could save himself. As the sinner needed a Saviour to open a
way to God through redemption so the saint needs an Advocate to keep
that way open through restoration.

Such an Advocate must be one who sympathetically understands the
awful power of sin and himself has felt its tremendous pressure upon
spirit, soul and body, and yet one who has been uncompromising in his
refusal to yield to it in thought, word or deed.

Such an Advocate must be one who is able to have access moment by
moment to God and one who has a remedy to offer God for the things he
attempts to make right.

Such a righteous and effectual Advocate the believer has in
Christ Jesus. Such an efficacious remedy for cleansing and restoration
Christ has in His shed blood.

1 John 2:1, "My little children, these things write I unto you,
that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

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1 John 1:6, 7, "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and
walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the
light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."

As the sinner is cleansed once for all from the guilt of sin
through the precious blood of Christ, so the saint in the same way is
cleansed daily from the defilement of sin.

The Faithful Intercessor. God was not satisfied with delivering
the sinner from the old sphere of death, darkness and disorder but He
wished him to claim and use to the full his possessions and privileges
in the new sphere of life, light and liberty. He is not content merely
to have a man saved but He purposes to have him saved to the
uttermost. God is able not only to lift the sinner from the lowest
depths of life on the plane of the natural but also to exalt the saint
to the highest heights of life on the plane of the spiritual. For this
He has made ample provision in the faithful intercession of the
exalted Lord.

Rom. 8:34, "Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died,
yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God,
who also maketh intercession for us."

Heb. 7:25, "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the
uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make
intercession for them."

The intercession of the exalted Son is the capstone of His
finished work. What He made potential through

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His crucifixion on the Cross He makes actual through His intercession
on the throne. "The intercession of the exalted Christ for the saint
is the projection into experience of the saving act of the crucified
Saviour for the sinner. It is by His work from heaven that we
appreciate His work upon earth."

In His last prayer with the disciples on earth, recorded for us
in John seventeen, He unveils the nature and the content of His High
Priestly intercession for all believers. He prays for their safety and
their sanctification; He anticipates the oneness of life which He as
Head will have with them, as members, of His body; and prays for His
perpetual presence in them that it may mean the perfection of His life
in theirs. "Christ ever liveth to make intercession for us," praying
that God's eternal purpose which He wrought out in the incarnation,
crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and exaltation of His Son may be
perfectly realized in the life of the believer in his complete
deliverance from bondage and in his full acceptance of Christ.

In the ascension and exaltation of Jesus Christ God completes the
fourth span in the bridge of salvation.

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XIII. THE CROWNING WORK OF JESUS CHRIST IN SALVATION

THERE remains yet one thing to be done to perfect God's gracious plan of salvation. A connecting link between the Saviour in Heaven and the sinner on earth is needed. The finished work of Christ by some means must be made applicable to and operative in the souls of men. A way must be provided whereby the life of the crucified Saviour, now enthroned as Lord in Heaven, may be communicated to, and maintained in, the believer on earth. Two Wondrous Gifts.
Upon the sinner God has bestowed a wondrous gift, that of His Son as Saviour; upon the believer God has bestowed a second wondrous gift, that of His Spirit as Sanctifier.

Gal. 4:4-6, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent
forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them
that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son
into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

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God sent forth His Son that the sinner might enter the family of
God as a child. God sent forth His Spirit that the child might enter
into the fulness of his inheritance as an heir. God gave His Son to
make salvation possible for us; God gave the Spirit to make salvation
real in us. God gave His Son that we might have life; God gave the
Spirit that we might have life abiding and abounding.

God's Crowning Work

Without the Holy Spirit's work all that was accomplished through
Christ's death, resurrection and exaltation would be of no avail. One
cannot study thoughtfully the Lord's last conversation with His
disciples on earth recorded in John 13-16 without seeing that He
teaches most clearly that the sending of the Holy Spirit from the
Father upon His return to glory was to be the crowning work in His
salvation of men. Let us turn then to these chapters for a study of
this truth.

There were many things that He longed to say to His disciples
that last night but they were unable to bear them (John 16:12). A few
things, however, He must make clear. One was the kind of life He
expected them to live. It was to be both an abiding and an abounding
life. His life was to be to their life what that of the vine is to the
branch. In Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and that
fulness was to be made theirs until they were "filled with all the
fulness of God" (Col. 2:9-10; Eph. 3:19).

As He talked along about this wonderful abiding and abounding
life, He said, "But because I have said

#253

these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart" (John 16:6). No
doubt He was watching their faces and saw a confused, troubled look as
He spoke of going away from them and yet of expecting them to live any
such life as this. He had told them that it was to be a life
characterized by peace, joy, power, fruitfulness, friendship and love,
yet it was to be interwoven with suffering, tribulation, persecution,
even possible death by violence. How could they ever hope to live such
a life if He went from them when in those three years in which they
had enjoyed the blessing and helpfulness of His personal presence
there had been so much of envy, criticism, discouragement, cowardice,
fear, and unbelief in their lives? His quick sympathy understood what
they feared to express and He hastened to comfort them by saying: "I
will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."

What a strange thing to say--to tell them in the same breath that
He was going away from them and yet coming to them. But He explains
further: "Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye
see me." He was to be with them and seen of them but in a way unknown
and invisible to others. It must be, then, in a spiritual rather than
in a physical presence. Still they were perplexed and could see no
real benefit in His leaving them. Then He said, "Nevertheless I tell
you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not
away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
send him unto you." But what would be gained by the going of Jesus
Christ and the sending of some one else in His

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place? Had it not been very wonderful to have the Lord with them on
earth, talking and praying with them, teaching and leading them,
letting them work with Him, showing them by the life He lived and the
work He did how they ought to live and work? Yes, it had been very
wonderful but not altogether successful. While there had been much of
joy in fellowship with Him yet there had been also much of
discouragement. He said so much the meaning of which they could not
grasp and even what they did understand they so often failed to obey.
He had been much with them but they had not grown like Him in the
three years. What gain then could it be to have Him go away so that
even His bodily presence was denied them? He does not leave them
without answering every questioning of their sad, perplexed hearts.

John 14:16, 17, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever: even the
Spirit of truth ... for He dwelleth with you, and SHALL BE IN YOU."

Oh! here is something entirely new: wholly different from any of
God's dealings with men before. God the Spirit had been with men and
He had come upon men but never had He been in men as a perpetual
presence. Now it would seem that through Jesus Christ's going back to
the Father by way of the cross and the tomb and the clouds an entirely
different relationship was to be established between God and men, a
relationship more close and intimate than anything man had experienced
through all the centuries. "We will come

#255

unto him and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). God, the
righteous, holy One, was to live in men in actual presence. How could
such a thing be? The Lord Jesus tells us.

John 14:20, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father,
and ye in me and I in you."

John 17:21, "As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us."

How would the Son who was leaving to go back to the Father in
Heaven and to live at His right hand be able to live also in Peter,
and in James, and in John on earth? "O, the depth of the riches both
of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Here indeed is the crowning
work of the Lord Jesus.

John 16:7, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient
for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not
come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you."

John 16:13, 14, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come,
he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself:
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he shall shew
you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine,
and shall shew it unto you."

John 15:26, "He shall testify of me."

Jesus taught clearly in these words that the chief mission of the
Holy Spirit in being sent forth from the

#256

Father to dwell in the believer was that He might make the presence of
the risen, glorified, living Lord an actual spiritual reality. He also
taught them that the Holy Spirit was to be both the sole and the
sufficient messenger of spiritual truth and the medium of spiritual
revelation. In other words all that they would ever know of, or
receive from, their risen Lord was to be communicated by and through
the Holy Spirit. Without Him there would be no means for the presence
and power of the risen Christ to be manifested in their lives, and no
way for them to realize in their spiritual experience the blessing and
benefit gained for them by Jesus Christ through His death and
resurrection. The Holy Spirit was to be the middleman between Heaven
and earth. The salvation that had come from the Father through the Son
would be applied by the Spirit. By the power invested in the Holy
Spirit the believer would be lifted to the plane of the spiritual man
and his life maintained there.

The Promise of Christ Fulfilled

Christ had promised that, if He went away, the Holy Spirit would
come and His promise was fulfilled literally. He died and rose again.
He met the disciples individually and collectively several times,
revealing Himself to them as their risen Lord. He gave them a last
commission; then He repeated His promise and commanded them to wait
for its fulfillment.

Luke 24:49, "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon
you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with
power from on high."

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Acts 1:4-5, "And, being assembled together with them, commanded
them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the
promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall
be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence."

Jesus Christ then ascended into Heaven (Acts 1:10-11). They
waited according to His command (Acts 1:12-14). God's time was
fulfilled. The day of Pentecost came (Acts 2:1-4). The promise of the
Father was actualized in the descent of the Holy Spirit in baptism
upon the waiting group of believers.

The Twofold Aspect of the Holy Spirit's Baptism

The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples had a double
import: it accomplished two definite, distinct things.

First, the Holy Spirit came upon each believer filling him with
Himself. Through this baptism the exalted Christ took up His abode in
the individual believer where He was enthroned as Lord and
appropriated as Life. Through the baptism in the Holy Spirit the
abundant life of the living Lord was manifested in power in each
believer.

Acts 2:4, "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost."

Second, the Holy Spirit came upon the whole group of believers
and baptized them into one body, the Church. Through this baptism they
were united to Christ, its Head, and to one another as fellow-members
of the body of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit's

#258

descent on the day of Pentecost the exalted Christ was installed as
Lord over, and instilled as Life into, the Church.

1 Cor. 12:12-14, "For as the body is one, and hath many members,
and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so
also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have
been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one
member, but many."

The Result of the Holy Spirit's Baptism

Through His death, resurrection and exaltation, the Lord Jesus
not only removed the penalty of sin but He broke its power. Through
union with Him by faith He had made potential for the believer on
earth the same life of victory, power and holiness, which He lived in
Heaven. This life was to be communicated to and maintained in each
believer through the incoming, indwelling and infilling of the Holy
Spirit.

On the day of Pentecost Peter, James, John and all the other
believers who tarried in the upper room were baptized with the Holy
Spirit. The question is bound to rise in our hearts, "Did that baptism
make any difference in their lives? If so, what difference?" Even a
casual comparison of the record of the life of the disciples before
and after Pentecost will convince any one that a marvellous change had
been wrought. These men had been in almost daily companionship with
Jesus during the years of His public ministry. They had been taught
deep truths by Him, they had shared

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His wonderful prayer life. They had lived under the spell of that
matchless personality day by day. He had been both their Teacher and
their Example for three years.

But witness the failure, defeat, and sin of their lives as it is
laid open to our gaze in the Gospels! See the jealousy, ambition,
selfishness, pride, self-seeking, self-assertion, self-love, weakness,
and fruitlessness. In spite of their fellowship with the Holy One who
tried in all possible ways to help them they remained very largely
what they were before they followed Him.

And why was this true? Because He was only living with them, one
without, working upon them by His word and personal influence. But
what a change was wrought when on the day of Pentecost, through the
baptism in the Holy Spirit, Christ came down into those men to take
the perfect possession, the complete control, and the unhindered use
of their whole being. Self was dethroned and Christ was enthroned as
Lord. Christ became the Life of their life.

A fourfold fruitage was manifested in their lives immediately.
They became men of purity. "God, which knoweth the hearts, giving them
the Holy Spirit, purified their hearts by faith." A mighty inward
change first was wrought. The Spirit of God is a holy Spirit and He
can only dwell in a holy place. So His primary work is always the
cleansing of the innermost recesses of the life. "Be ye holy for I am
holy" is God's mandate to the saved soul. When the disciples were
baptized with the Holy Spirit He first purified them, displacing pride
with humility; selfishness with love;

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cowardice with courage; carnal with spiritual; worldly with heavenly;
human with divine; temporal with eternal.

They became men of power. "Ye shall receive power after that the
Holy Ghost is come upon you." This promise abundantly was fulfilled in
them. Inward purity begat outward power. The book of the Acts is one
unbroken record of the mighty power of God the Holy Spirit coursing
through purified channels. "Rivers of living water" flowed through
those first apostles and believers into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and
even to the uttermost parts of the earth.

They became men of passion. One and all they gave themselves to
the winning of souls. Their own hearts, all aglow with fervent
gratitude and adoring praise to Him who loved them enough to give
Himself for them, were kindled into a flame of passionate desire to
bring others into the joy and peace and security of a personal, saving
relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. They became men of one
passion--"This one thing I do" animated their lives.

"Oh! for a passionate passion for souls!
Oh! for a pity that yearns!
Oh! for a love that loves unto death!
Oh! for a fire that burns!
Oh! for a prayer power that prevails!
That pours itself out for the lost;
Victorious prayer in the Conqueror's name,
Oh! for a Pentecost!

They became men of prayer. Communion with God through prayer, and
cooperation with God through intercession

#261

in making the finished work of Christ operative in other men's lives,
became their chief delight and constant occupation. The book of the
Acts is one continuous record of answered prayer. All their wonderful
works were begun, continued, and ended in prevailing prayer.

The repeated impression made upon the student of the book of the
Acts is that through the baptism in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost those
first believers were changed from carnal into spiritual Christians and
that from that time on they purposed to live their lives on the
highest plane. What life on the highest plane was to them is defined
aptly and adequately in a description used repeatedly in connection
with them, "They were filled with the Holy Spirit."

Through our studies thus far we have seen that in the finished
work of Jesus Christ, the eternal, incarnate, crucified, risen,
ascended, exalted Son crowned by the sending forth of the Holy Spirit,
God has made all-sufficient provision for lifting any and every person
from the deepest depths of life on the natural plane to the highest
heights of life on the spiritual plane. (Diagram VII. omitted)

#262

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapter I:
He That is Spiritual: L.S. Chafer
The Three Realms of Spiritual Life: Mrs. Tydeman Chilvers

Chapter II:
God's Plan of Redemption: Mrs. Mary McDonough
The Spirit of Christ: Andrew Murray
Soul and Spirit: Mrs. Penn-Lewis
The Bible and Spiritual Life: A.T. Pierson

Chapter III:
Earth's Earliest Ages: G. H. Pember
Man's First Disobedience: L.S. Keyser
Gleanings in Genesis: Arthur Pink
The Biblical Story of Creation: Giorgio Bartoli

Chapter IV:
Studies in Romans: Leon Tucker
Romans: W.R. Newell

Chapter V:
Satan: L.S. Chafer
Satan, His Kingdom and Its Overthrow: W.E. Blackstone
The Warfare with Satan and the Way of Victory: Mrs. Penn-Lewis
Satan and His Gospel: Arthur Pink

Chapter VI
Can Morality Save Us? I.M. Haldeman
Christianity and Liberalism: Gresham Machen
What is the Gospel? C.G. Trumbull

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Chapter VII:
The Divine Reason of the Cross: H.C. Mabie
Atonement and Law: J.M. Armour
The Bible and the Cross: G. Campbell Morgan

Chapter VIII:
The Incarnate Son of God: Henri De Vries
Many Infallible Proofs: A.T. Pierson

Chapter IX:
The Person and Work of Jesus Christ: N.E. Wood
The Christian View of God and the World: James Orr
The Real Christ: R.A. Torrey
The Crises of the Christ: G. Campbell Morgan
The Christ of the Bible: R.A. Torrey

Chapter X:
The Gospel and Its Ministry: Sir Robert Anderson
The Death of Christ: James Denney
The Greatest Theme in the World: F.E. Marsh
The Meaning of the Cross: Eleanor Boyd
The Meaning of the Cross: Gordon Watt
The Glories of the Cross: A.C. Dixon

Chapter XI:
Outlines of Christian Doctrine: H.C.G. Moule
The Work of Christ: A.C. Gaebelein

Chapter XII: The Greater Life and Work of Christ: A. Patterson

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Chapter XIII:
The Ministry of the Spirit: A.J. Gordon
Person and Mission of the Holy Spirit: Geo. Soltau
The Holy Spirit: Who He is and What He Does: R.A. Torrey

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LIFE ON THE HIGHEST PLANEThe Person and Work of ChristVolume OneBy Ruth Paxson1928

LIFE ON THE HIGHEST PLANE
The Person and Work of Christ
Volume One
By Ruth Paxson
1928