"THIS is life eternal, that they may KNOW Thee, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou
hast sent"—John 17:3

WHAT does it mean—to KNOW them? Is it just to know of their existence, or is it to know them personally and the great facts of revealed divine truth concerning them? On another occasion, Jesus said—

"Ye shall know the TRUTH, and the truth shall MAKE YOU FREE" (John 8:32).

What freedom was he talking about, and what relation did it have to the life eternal that comes from knowing God? It WAS life eternal, for he was speaking of freedom from sin and death. He says in v. 34—

And Paul adds—

So men are slaves of sin unto death, and they need to know the Truth that Jesus tells them in order to become free from death. What truth must they know? Paul declares (Rom 1:27)—

The Truth, then, that must be known for salvation is the Gospel. In 1 Cor 15:1-3, Paul says:

So for salvation we must know, and believe, and keep in memory, among other things, the truth concerning the death of Christ. The explanation the Scriptures give of the sacrifice of Christ is simple and harmonious and reasonable, but it cannot be understood apart from the truth concerning Christ's nature—that he WAS A MAN, a descendant of Adam, under the condemnation that Adam brought upon all.

As an illustration of the confusion that has been caused on this subject by the false idea that Jesus was a co-equal part of a trinity of three Gods, consider the following from Webster's Dictionary, under the word "Atonement"—

It is quite evident from this that there is something very wrong. The trouble lies with the false ideas that Christendom has concerning who Christ was.

It is impossible for them to accept what the Scriptures say about his death as long as they tie themselves to the theory of the "Trinity."

The key will be found to lie in the distinction between representation and substitution. This idea of substitution—punishing the innocent as a substitute for the guilty—as invented by Anselm in the 11th century, lies at the bottom of most of the theories of Christendom.

What was the purpose of the sacrifice of Christ? Broadly speaking, it was to DESTROY SIN, and with it, DEATH which is inseparably connected with sin. Heb. 9:26—

As Christ said in a passage already quoted (John 8:34), all mankind is in the bondage of sin and death. How this condition under which we all suffer came about is related in Rom. 5:12—

What then is sin, which Jesus' sacrifice was to "put away"? Simply and primarily, it is disobedience to God's law,

"Sin is the transgression of the law" (1 John 3:4).

The earth is God's. He is the Creator and Owner of everything. He has made man, given him life, and set him upon God's earth. It is both right and necessary that He should instruct man how to behave, so that he may conduct himself in harmony with the rest of God's plans and arrangements for the general good.

It is both right and necessary that an ignoring or rejecting of God's instructions requires the taking away of the abused and destructively perverted gift of life.

But sin, which has to be destroyed from the earth, goes deeper than just specific acts of disobedience. We all know this to our sorrow. Paul says, and he speaks for us all—

So sin is an ingrained thing in human flesh, a natural and universal urge to rebel against God's laws, a willfulness of contrary desire. This entered into the constitution of the race through the first man's transgression—

Now the Scriptures never tell us that some innocent person has to pay the sinner's debt so the sinner can escape punishment for his sins. There are only two scriptural ways of dealing with sin, either blotting out the sinner by punishment or blotting out sin by forgiveness.

But the Scriptures do say that SOMEONE MUST LAY AN ACCEPTABLE BASIS BEFORE GOD whereby sin may be forgiven through him and for his sake without obscuring or nullifying the principles of truth and righteousness and justice by which God's universe is maintained. We are told this very clearly in Romans 3:25-26:

—this word "propitiation" is translated "mercy-seat" in Heb. 9:5. It refers to the Mercy-seat or Kapporeth of the Mosaic Tabernacle and means "a place of covering or forgiveness"—

God's righteousness had to be declared and set forth—recognized, manifested, vindicated and upheld for all ages so that He would be established as just even though, in His love and mercy, He forgave sins and remitted the punishment due.

Now how did the death of Christ declare God's righteousness? Here is where the substitution theory fails completely. To punish the innocent instead of the guilty is the farthest thing possible from declaring God's righteousness and demonstrating God's justice.

But the scriptural picture of representation beautifully fulfills the requirements. If one of the condemned race—a true representative man—is perfectly obedient to God in all things, thereby publicly testifying that in all things he recognizes and submits to the righteousness of God's laws and then at the command of God, voluntarily lays down his life in recognition of the fact that God was righteous in condemning the race to death because all are part of Adam and are defiled—in con-sequence of their oneness with Adam—by the law of sin and death within them—in this case we can immediately see how beautifully and completely God's righteousness is declared, and how a sound basis is laid whereby He can extend forgiveness to others in and through and for the sake of this perfectly righteous man, without compromising or obscuring His own holiness.

The essential key—in order to declare God's righteousness in his death—is that HE MUST BE ONE OF THE CONDEMNED RACE.

Jesus Christ is repeatedly spoken of as a man, as being of our flesh, born of a woman, born of the seed of David, born a descendant of Adam. This in itself would be sufficient to prove that he was subject to the same constitution and condemnation that is common to all men—that he found the same "law in his members" that Paul and all others have found as their heritage from the first man.

It is an essential first principle, says John (1 John 4:2; 2 John 1:7) that Christ "came in the flesh," and the Scriptures always speak of human flesh as unclean in that—from Adam down—it has been contaminated by the results of sin, and its natural tendencies are opposed to God.

As an example, consider how Paul speaks of the flesh in Gal. 5—using it as a synonym for sin—

Note the expression "crucified the flesh." It loses its meaning if we do not realize that Christ himself crucified this same flesh.

But we are not left with just this. Christ's oneness with the condemned race is definitely stated. Moreover, it is insisted upon as essential for the accomplishment of his mission. Consider Heb 2:14—

—the same flesh, the flesh that Paul calls "sinful flesh"—

V. 17: "Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren."

He was necessarily made of flesh, we are told here, so that through death he might destroy the devil—that which had the power of death.

How did he destroy the devil through death, and why was it necessary that he be of the same flesh to do it? The answer lies in this: What DID he destroy by death? Paul says (Rom. 6:6)—

That's what Christ destroyed in his death—the old man, the devil, the body of sin. As we saw in Gal. 5:24:

He had to possess the "body of sin"—sinful flesh—so that he could overcome it, and—by a sacrificial death, crucify and destroy it.

And being an obedient and voluntary death, it was a public condemning and repudiating of sinful flesh. So (Rom. 8:3)—

Some have said that this word "likeness" leaves room for the idea that he was not actually a partaker of sinful flesh, but just something that looked like it. But this would take all meaning out of the passage and all the glory out of the victory. Jesus condemned sin by resisting every temptation of the sin-body, and then nailing it to the cross to declare God's righteous condemnation of that body and all its natural rebellious tendencies.

There it is for all ages to see—the natural man with all its affections and lusts exposed and nailed to the cross in shame. It required the death of a perfectly righteous man to—at the same time—both condemn the race and open a way for its forgiveness.

It was for no sin of his own that he died. And yet his death declared God's justice. So the very heart of the matter is laid bare; the very body of sin—the motions of willfulness that lie at the root of all outward sin—is exposed and condemned.

"Not MY will but THINE, be done" (Luke 22:42).

"MY will," the will of the flesh, was repudiated—nailed to the cross. This was the sacrifice God desired—the sacrifice that must be made before any of Adam's condemned race could approach God. They must be purified from the body of sin, and Christ—the representative man—was so purified by his own shed blood, and so entered God's presence and received the divine nature, as it is testified in Heb. 9:12—

It will be noted that the "for us" in this passage is in italics. It is omitted in the Rev. Version, and is admittedly spurious in the Auth. Ver.—the result of translator's prejudice. Thayer's Greek Lexicon, which is a recognized standard, says this word "obtained" here is in the middle or reflexive voice, and means "to find for one's self."

This is an important point. This verse conclusively states that Jesus found or obtained for himself eternal redemption by his own blood. We find this also very plainly stated in Heb. 13:30—

Jesus himself was brought from the dead through his own blood—on the basis of and by means of his own sacrifice. He was the first to reap its benefits. In fact, it is only by being in him and part of him that anyone else can benefit by this sacrifice at all.

He, in person, has opened the way, gained the victory, obtained the redemption, destroyed the body of sin and been purified from it. Thus having personally accomplished redemption, he is now mighty to save those that come to God by him. So we read in Heb. 5:9—

Similarly in Heb. 7:27—

The simple and obvious meaning of this is that Jesus offered for his own sins and for the people's. The force of this is sometimes evaded by objecting to the expression "his own sins," inasmuch as Christ was free from any personal transgressions, but if we look back to the Mosaic sacrifices referred to, as in Lev 16:16, we find that the high priest offered—

This is what Paul is referring to when he speaks of offering for the "sins of the people," so it is clear that by "sins" is included both uncleanness and transgression, as we have seen sin to mean throughout the Scripture. It is only by realizing that the two aspects—the motions of sin in the flesh and actual transgression arising from it—are both inseparable parts of that general condition called "sin," that we can understand Christ's sacrifice. Jesus had the law of sin in his flesh, but he never for a moment allowed it to act. This is clear from Heb. 4:15—

How are we tempted? Paul says:

"I see a law in my members, warring against the law of my mind" (Rom. 7:23)

And James says (1:14)—

Jesus, then, being tempted "in all points like as we are," was tempted in this way, by his own lusts—the law in his members. THIS was what he overcame, and—by perfect faithfulness unto death—destroyed.

The necessity of Jesus' own purification from the uncleanness of the flesh by sacrifice, is further illustrated in Heb. 9:22—

—that is, the things of the Mosaic ritual, which were only typical, were typically purified by animal sacrifices—

What were the real "heavenly things" that were symbolized by the Mosaic ritual? We know that all the Mosaic pattern pointed forward to Christ. Consider, for instance, Lev. 16:15-19—

Who is represented by the mercy-seat and the altar? What is typified by the cleansing of these things by the shedding of blood? Paul says (Rom. 3:25)—

And in Heb. 13:10—

Christ is the reality of that which was foreshadowed by the high priest, the mercy-seat and the altar, all of which were cleansed by the sacrificial blood. The fulfillment and meaning is plain.

There is another similar type that is strikingly clear and to the point. Jesus said—

If we look into this event he referred to, it well illustrates the scriptural principle of his death. Because of the wickedness of the children of Israel, as they journeyed through the wilderness, God on this occasion sent serpents among them to sting them. As a cure, Moses was commanded to make a serpent of brass and set it up on a pole, and all the Israelites who looked at it in faith were healed.

Jesus says this serpent on the pole represented him in his crucifixion. It was the serpent that brought death—the serpent in the Scripture represents sin. When they looked in faith to sin crucified, they were healed. How was sin crucified in Jesus?

As we have seen, he was for this very purpose "made sin" (2 Cor. 5:21), he was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3), he partook of the same flesh as all mankind (Heb. 2:14). And so Peter says, explaining this type of the serpent on the pole (1 Pet. 2:24)—

"In his own body" — that was where sin was, and that was where it was conquered and destroyed—nailed up in voluntary condemnation for all to look upon and be healed.

IN JESUS was actually fulfilled that which was typified in all other sacrifices. The typical sacrifices of animals, says Paul (Heb. 10:4), could not really take away sin, because of the fact that they were just typical. That which they symbolized and pointed to had to be actually accomplished — somewhere, sometime, and in some one. That was the "putting away of sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Heb. 9:26).

Sin had to be actually put away — not just in type, but really. We have seen how this was done in Christ, and how the Scriptures show that it was necessary for him to actually partake of sinful flesh, and actually gain a real victory over it.

The common idea that Christ was an all-powerful god that merely took a similar appearance to sinful flesh and pretended to overcome sin—pretended to be tempted (for we are told that God cannot be tempted (James 1:13)—this takes all the beauty and value and reality out of his victory and is a mockery of man's own real and bitter struggle with sin.

THERE is another aspect that strikingly and independently confirms the scriptural principle that Christ must necessarily come under the Adamic curse in order to open a way out of it. Paul says (Gal. 3:13)—

Jesus had to himself personally come under the curse of the Mosaic Law, says Paul, in order to open a way of redemption for those under that curse. He must be one of the cursed, a true representative standing for all in like position, but himself personally sinless. This was accomplished in the cursed manner of his death.

Is not this inescapably parallel with Paul's declaration that he had to be of the cursed Adamic flesh in order to suffer and destroy the Adamic curse? He had to come under it to destroy it in himself and open up a way out of it for himself and for all who make themselves part of him in the appointed way.

The Adamic curse he came under by birth, as we all do; the Mosaic he came under by the manner of his death—both without loss of his personal righteousness. Being under them, in his death he fulfilled them and justified them, and he emerged from the grave freed from their power.

THERE is one great point that must be kept clear. While Christ was a real man, who really over-came and destroyed sinful flesh, still that which was accomplished in and through and by him was God's work. Jesus himself said:

"I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30).

He recognized that as an unaided man he was helpless. But he submitted himself wholly to the operation of God, and God dwelt in him and strengthened him, and directed him in all things. All the glory and power was God's, as it must be in all things. God now works through Christ, and Paul said therefore:

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13).

And again, Phil. 2:13—

This was true of Christ in an altogether unique and transcendent degree. While truly and essentially a man, he was a special vessel for a special purpose—specially begotten by the Holy Spirit of God.

IN AND through this man God has laid a basis in which sin is repudiated and condemned, righteousness is exalted, justice is vindicated, and forgiveness may be extended without obscuring or condoning evil.

A way of escape out of the bondage of sin has been broken open by the God-strengthened perfect righteousness of this specially-provided, representative man in whom the destiny of the race is centered. He entered into the death-stricken condition that passed upon all men through Adam, but death could not hold him, and he now lives forevermore.

By his shed blood, freely offered to God as a recognition of the righteousness of the condemnation that man is under, he purified himself from that condemnation and opened a way to eternal life—

And John testifies (1 Jn. 2:2)—

"He is the mercy-seat—the place of forgiveness—for our sins."

God accepts his atoning death on behalf of all who identify themselves with it. We read (2 Cor. 5:14)—

The believer is considered as having died with him, he being the representative of all. This is perhaps clearer in Rom. 6:3-4—

We have emphasized Christ's sacrifice, in life and death, as a real accomplishment, an actual overcoming, a genuine victory over the power of sin. In closing, we would like to draw attention to the equally necessary reality of what must be accomplished in ourselves by the transforming power of that sacrifice.

It is not just an interesting and entertaining symbolism, whereby we merely accept Christ and then thank God that He has so kindly arranged everything that we can just enjoy life and glide comfortably into salvation. No sadder delusion ever existed. The way of the cross is hard and steep and few there be, the Scriptures tell us, that find it and follow it through.

Let us let a continual contemplation of the life and death of Christ determine our view of the meaning and purpose of our present existence. Consider a few passages that reveal the real significance of his sacrifice as it bears upon all who desire to unite themselves with him:

Unless these things are fulfilled in us, he has—for us—died in vain. Paul knew the meaning of these things. He said, Phil 3:8-17—