Review “Jesus Christ and him crucified” Reg Carr

Understanding the is,” he writes, “no subject in the Bible of greater Atonement. importance or more vital to our salvation” (p. 15). Matthew Trowell. Yet, sadly, as the author also later acknowledges, the intensity of controversy about this exalted 218 pages. Paperback. subject appears to have grown in direct propor- Published in 2011 by tion to its importance—and this is no less true Select Media, PO Box among the Christadelphians than in Christendom 5, Station A, Toronto, at large. “No subject,” says Brother Trowell, “has Ontario, Canada, been more misunderstood than the nature and M5W 1A2. sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . over the years this subject has been the cause of more con- tention within our community than any other” T IS NOT particularly easy to characterise a (p. 81). book which sets out to clarify and simplify the Ihistory of the differences between the various Contention: complexity out of simplicity Christadelphian fellowships on the key subject Alas, the fact cannot be denied: the atonement, or of the nature and sacrifice of Christ. In a short at least different aspects of it, has been at the heart Foreword by Brother Bob Lloyd—whose opinions of no fewer than four divisions of the Christadel- are (rightly) well-respected worldwide in the phian body since its inception in the 1860s. And, Christadelphian Central Fellowship—this book even today, sincerely held disagreement about is commended very highly indeed, with these the precise meaning of the relevant Scriptures words: “I would that all Christadelphians would still smoulders on, causing continuing separation have the opportunity to read it. This is a book that between many of those “for whom Christ died,” every Christadelphian home should have.” Is such in the UK, in Australia and, especially perhaps, a fulsome commendation entirely justified? Does in North America. the book successfully ‘do what it says on the tin’? Brother Trowell’s avowed aim, in his own It will be the aim of this review to answer these words, is to “cut through some of the complexi- questions as fairly and as objectively as possible. ties of language and detail and provide some clarity regarding Christ’s sacrificial work” (p. A vital, yet contentious, subject 15). Unfortunately, as he recognises, “since the The doctrine of the atonement is without doubt time of the Apostles, the beauty and simplicity a matter of the greatest personal importance of [the] Truth has been complicated by man-made to believers in Bible truth, as Brother Trowell theories which have subverted the very fabric emphasises from the outset of his book. “There of [the] Gospel message” (p. 23). Therefore, in The Testimony, July 2012 277 maintaining, as he does, that “the doctrine of (answered by means of a telling quotation from the Atonement is one of the most easy doctrines Brother Robert Roberts on p. 39). in the Bible to understand” (p. 15), the author sets the bar very high for himself, given that he Helpful devices is obliged, in the majority of his book, to spend As an aid to clarity, too, Brother Trowell uses the time explaining (and arguing against) some very helpful device of ‘keys to understanding,’ which technical and complex ideas indeed. Having consist of short, fundamental statements about stated at the outset that the atonement is easy to certain aspects of the atonement, and which are understand, it becomes all the more difficult for spread throughout the book and highlighted Brother Trowell to keep his book simple and to within the text by the use of a key symbol and present this key doctrine in all its “beauty and inserted text-boxes. These devices serve as a simplicity.” handy means of emphasising and summarising It has to be said, though, that the author’s at- thirty-six key principles, and these are usefully tempt to ‘keep it simple’ is a brave one, and not listed near the end of the book (pp. 209-10). lightly to be dismissed, however brain-stretching The keys themselves are extremely simple and his inevitable descent into minute doctrinal detail easy to grasp. “The Atonement is not an event. may sometimes prove to be. It is a process”; “There is only ONE method of reconciliation—not many!”; “God is supreme Clarity through structure and must be honoured!”; “God is developing a The author’s efforts to achieve clarity—and as divine family from among men”—these are just much simplicity of expression as he can com- the first four keys, and they begin the process of mand—are greatly helped by the comparatively building up a clear presentation of the work of straightforward structure of his book. God in Christ, with each of the keys then being Dividing his text into four broadly equal parts, explained and developed at greater length in the Brother Trowell takes us ‘back to basics’ in Part text. The regular appearance of the keys every 1 (Understanding the Doctrine), with chapters so often in the text provides the reader with a on “The Purpose of God,” “The Nature of Man,” helpful opportunity for reflection, and serves to “The Nature of Christ,” “The Work of God” and bring some otherwise complex issues back to an “Our Hope in Christ.” intellectually manageable level. Nevertheless, the There is much to approve and enjoy in these need for such devices underlines the inescapable pages, where we are reminded, among many fact that the author is dealing with ideas and important things, that “the mind of God (under- concepts that are not at all as clear and simple standing the moral difference between right and as he might like them to be. wrong) had to be developed [in Adam and Eve, as in each of us] by experience and divine educa- The nature of Christ and the work of God tion” (p. 27). The author also helpfully explains With a number of basic building-blocks laid the need for Adam and Eve to change their nature down, Brother Trowell moves on to consider to an immortal one. “It was never God’s inten- the nub of all the controversies about the atone- tion,” writes Brother Trowell, “to create man for ment: the nature of Christ. So he explains that the purpose of watching him die . . . While man “the divine method” by which God chose to had been created for the purpose of manifesting resolve the paradox of how to save mankind, God’s character, a body constituted of ‘flesh and whilst remaining true to His own principles of blood’ was never meant to be the final frame in righteousness and holiness, was “based upon which this character was expected to exist ‘for the principles of (i) Responsibility, (ii) Retribu- ever.’ The divine character, once developed in tion and (iii) Redemption” (p. 40). Adam and Eve the man and woman, was, at some point in time, were responsible to God (as we are); they broke going to have to become framed in spirit nature His law (as we do), and their just retribution (as if it was going to live ‘for ever’” (p. 29). Worth is ours, as law-breakers ourselves) was to suffer noting, too, in these chapters, are the passages the consequence of their own disobedience; and devoted to sin and the impulses that lead to it their redemption could come (as ours can) only by (pp. 32-8)—what Brother Thomas (quoted on p. the merciful provision, or grace, of God, through 37) called “the serpent-thinking of the flesh”— the shedding of blood. It was therefore necessary, and also the very important question of how for this process of salvation to be consistent with God could be both “a just God and a Saviour” divine principles, for sin “to be condemned by a 278 The Testimony, July 2012 man, in the very place in which it first took hold forms to this very day—hence Brother Trowell’s . . . Sin was conceived in the flesh. It had to be need to explain their ideas to us. condemned in the flesh by the righteous posses- Edward Turney’s views—known at the time sor of that flesh, as a basis for our reconciliation (the 1870s) as ‘Renunciationism,’ and in later years to God” (p. 45). as ‘Clean Flesh’—were based on the premise that Jesus Christ is thus presented to us as the work Jesus Christ, receiving his life direct from God, of God alone. It is God Who saves, through Christ; was not a son of Adam, that his nature was not Christ himself is the meeting-place between God sinful like ours, that his body was not under di- and man; and, uniquely, because of the manner of vine condemnation to death, that he could have his birth, Christ is able to represent both man to inherited eternal life without dying, and that he God and God to man. “This idea that Christ came did not benefit from his own death. This is what to represent both God and Man is a most important Brother Trowell calls “the first extreme” (pp. principle that we must understand, because it 81-7); and he shows how these views are contra- . . . forms the foundation to God’s method of dicted both by Scripture and by the Birmingham reconciliation with Man” (p. 47). Amended Statement of Faith (BASF). Jesus was “the first member of the human race ‘Andrewism’ is then succinctly presented in to lead a sinless life of obedience” (p. 48); his life its key features. The whole of mankind, it is al- was “a demonstration of . . . God’s righteousness” leged, inherits ‘legal condemnation’ from Adam (p. 49); his death “cleanses us from our sins by a and deserves to die a violent death; we require figure” (p. 50); and the sacrifice of Christ is“ the an atoning sacrifice from two forms of sin, from basis upon which God chooses to extend His mercy and both of which we are freed at baptism through forgive” (pp. 50-51). All of these simple and Scrip- the violent death of Jesus: our physical nature tural truths are summarised on page 53: “The (which we inherit from Adam), and our own work of God through the sacrificial life, death and moral failures (which we all commit); only those resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is all about who have had both types of sin atoned for, by the practical demonstration of certain principles associating themselves with the blood of Christ and truths about Man and about God. It is Christ’s through baptism, will be resurrected to judge- public demonstration of these principles and truths, ment. This is what Brother Trowell describes and our identification with them, which forms the basis as “the second extreme” (pp. 88-108); and it is for ‘the forgiveness of sins’ and our reconciliation to helpfully presented in greater detail through God.” And again, in a most important statement quotations from Brother Andrew himself, from on page 59: “God’s righteousness was declared in Brother Roberts (who first withstood these ideas), Jesus’ life in that he overcame the impulses that from the so-called ‘Resurrectional Responsi- lead to sin. God’s righteousness was declared by the bility Debate’ of 1894, and, once again, from mode of his death as he submitted to a sacrificial the BASF. death upon the cross, in a ceremonial condemna- As a supplement to all of this, a further ten tion of sin. God’s righteousness was declared in his pages are devoted to an analysis of the teachings resurrection from the dead for an innocent man of Brother Thomas Williams, whose Advocate was not left in the grave.” magazine, begun in 1885, continues to this day as the organ of the North American ‘Unamended’ Understanding the extremes Christadelphians. Adam’s offence, we are told, ac- After the clarity and comparative simplicity of cording to Brother Williams, has been transmitted Part 1—in which he presents the basic truths of to us as a physical form of sin called ‘Adamic’ or the atonement (albeit with perhaps just a touch ‘inherited sin’; “the law of sin and death” (Rom. too much repetition)—Brother Trowell turns in 8:2) is to be understood as the commandment Part 2 to examine the much more complex issues given to Adam and Eve in Eden, by which law raised by three ‘controversial’ Christadelphians: all men, including Jesus, are alienated from God Edward Turney, J. J. Andrew and Thomas Wil- and “children of wrath” at birth, through no fault liams. During the forty years after the death of of their own; Jesus himself was regenerated as a Brother Thomas in 1870, each of these brethren new creation, both mentally and morally, when, at in turn put forward alternative understandings his baptism, he was legally absolved from Adam’s of the nature and sacrifice of Christ, and their sin; and only those who have been baptised into views became the basis for contention and for Christ’s atoning work for both moral and physical fellowship divisions which continue in diverse sin will be raised to judgement. The Testimony, July 2012 279 The technical ramifications of these ideas (so establishing the true sense of Brother Thomas’s similar in many respects to those promulgated often-quoted remark (in Elpis Israel) that “the by Brother Andrew) are well characterised by word ‘sin’ is used in two principal acceptations.” Brother Trowell; but they serve also to draw us As Brother Trowell rightly says, “Bro. Thomas . . . further away from the simplicity that the author did not say that there are two forms of sin. He said set out to achieve. This is hardly his fault, of that the word ‘sin’ is used in two principal accepta- course; but it means that the reader has to work tions. He did not say that sin . . . is the substance really hard (especially if he or she is previously called man. He said that the word ‘sin’ . . . ‘came uninformed about these issues) to keep up with to stand for the substance called man’” (p. 137). On the complexities of what is being said. this basis, Brother Trowell is able to conclude that Many diagrams and tables are employed here this “secondary use of the word ‘sin’ in Scripture by Brother Trowell as a means of presenting in by metonymy does not mean that our nature is as simplified terms as he can the technicalities of treated in the same way as transgression” (p. 139). the views he is discussing. The author is clearly And thus he is able to conclude, with satisfying well versed, too, in the phraseology of the various finality, that Transgression“ needs forgiveness. But statements of faith which embody these different our physical natures require changing. Our physi- viewpoints—even if the general reader risks be- cal nature does not need forgiving, covering, or ing overwhelmed by such niceties of detail. All atoning for as our transgressions do. The idea the more welcome is it, therefore, to be reassured that the impulses or desires within us need to by the clarity of Brother Trowell’s own words that be cleansed, forgiven, covered or atoned for is a “Christ inherited our same condemned nature, concept quite foreign to Scripture” (p. 139). was never alienated from God on account of the Equally satisfying also are the following state- physical nature that he bore, but like us, required ments by Brother Trowell about the benefits that redeeming from mortality and death, and that he came from Christ’s sacrifice, both for himself was redeemed ‘through death’” (p. 96). and for us. First: “Sin was openly condemned by Christ during his life of perfect obedience to Understanding the differences his Father’s will by ‘mortifying the deeds of the In spite of the complexities, however, Brother body’ (Romans 8:13; cp. Colossians 3:5). It was Trowell nobly persists, in Part 3, in helping the openly condemned in his death because when he reader to grasp the essential differences between died upon the cross those impulses that lead to “the extremes” and the plain, straightforward, sin were rendered powerless, and died. It was for teaching of Scripture. What characterises these this very reason that he was able to die as a sacrifice extremes, he suggests (p. 129), is that they are all for sin” (p. 142). And secondly: “Christ needed “predicated upon a misunderstanding of how redeeming just as much as we do . . . He was the word ‘sin’ is used in the Scripture.” This is saved ‘out of death’ because of his life of perfect a crucial comment; and it is expanded in pages obedience and the obedient act of laying down 130-33 by a valuable section where the author his life as a basis for the remission of our sins demonstrates convincingly that ‘sin’ is often used . . . Christ’s death was not a sacrificial cleansing in figures of speech such as personification and FOR his nature. His death was the ‘ceremonial metonymy—as in the expression “sinful flesh” condemnation’ of sin in the body of a righteous in Romans 8:3, where the cause of our disobedi- man” (pp. 148-9). ence (our ‘flesh’) is made to stand for its effect (our sinning). As Brother Roberts (quoted on p. Types and shadows 135) put it so well: “The phrase ‘sin in the flesh’ Less satisfactory, though, are Brother Trowell’s is metonymical. It is not expressive of a literal arguments against basing any doctrine of the element or principle pervading the physical or- atonement on the types and shadows contained ganisation. Literally, sin is disobedience, or the act in the Old Testament (pp. 151-63). The reviewer of rebellion. The impulses that lead to this reside suspects that this reluctance to follow Old Testa- in the flesh, and therefore come to be called by ment typology in this respect may be due to the the name of the act to which they give birth. In fact that both J. J. Andrew and Thomas Williams determining first principles, we must be accurate interpreted the Mosaic offerings to support their in our conceptions.” view that human nature (‘sin-in-the-flesh’) needs In relation to this key issue of the meaning of to be covered (atoned for) before the supposed ‘sin,’ Brother Trowell is particularly perceptive in ‘two types of sin’ can be forgiven. 280 The Testimony, July 2012 Brother Trowell is right in principle, of course: understanding of the Atonement has serious it is for our own sins that we need forgiveness, practical implications in the lives of Christ’s not for Adam’s wrongdoing. And yet, despite followers), these three final chapters are, for the what Brother Trowell would have us believe, the reviewer at least, almost ‘a bridge too far.’ For ‘covering’ of sin in the Old Testament (represented example, Chapter 1 (“Sin is real”), although it by the Hebrew word kaphar) signified merely contains much that is true about our need for the temporary covering of actual transgressions; spiritual education, puts forward some debat- whereas, by complete contrast, the work of the able ideas which serve to detract from the force Lord Jesus involved the permanent removal of of the message (such as the role of dopamine sins—a ‘taking away,’ prefigured principally in in the ‘pleasure circuit’ of the human brain [p. the Law of Moses by the work of the scapegoat. 175]). Chapter 2, also (“Releasing the angel in- Brother Trowell’s analysis is similarly inad- side”), based as it is on an extended conceit about equate when he asks the wrongly framed question Michelangelo’s statue of David, comes across (p. 159), “Were the cleansing rituals of the Law as artificial, and seems to belong in a different ceremonial cleansings or literal cleansings?” Once book. And, while there is much to agree with in again, it seems, in his laudable desire to correct the final chapter (“Unity of the Faith”), it is not the errors of Andrewism, he has overlooked the clear how much it contributes to the book as a obvious fact that the literal cleansings under the whole. Law (for such they undoubtedly were) quite evidently serve for us as metaphors at a spiritual level. Keys, appendices and final thoughts (Brother Trowell himself subsequently recognises Alluded to already, the summary list of “Keys to the truth of this when he writes, in conclusion understanding the Atonement” (pp. 209-10) are to this particular section of his argument [p. well worth noting and absorbing, containing as 161]: “If we ‘touch’ Christ as our altar, we too they do the distilled and simplified conclusions can also benefit, for he is able to ‘present us holy of the author, based on his in-depth researches and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight’ into the doctrinal history of the Christadelphians. [Colossians 1:22].”) And, perhaps pre-eminently memorable among these succinct statements is this: “Christ did Summaries and conclusions not die FOR his nature. He died BECAUSE HE Among the author’s most important conclusions SHARED our nature” (p. 210). is the clear statement—fully justified by all that Valuable, too, are the two appendices, con- he has previously said—that “Bible teaching taining enlightening quotations from both is that we have received the genetic effects of the Council of Trent and the Roman Catholic Adam’s transgression, but not the legal guilt of catechism, as well as an informative account of his sin,” the latter being what he calls a “false the Berean division of 1923, the views of Brother conclusion” (p. 164). A. D. Strickler, the Jersey City Resolution, and an While there are currently at least three Christa- endlessly fascinating ‘family tree’ of the various delphian fellowships which apparently accept Christadelphian divisions and fellowships. this false conclusion (Berean, Old Paths and Una- So does the book do what it says on the tin? mended/Advocate), Brother Trowell is persuasive Well, yes, it does; though not entirely as the in demonstrating that the Central Fellowship reviewer might have wished or the reader may remains faithful to the traditional, biblical, under- expect. Faint praise, however, would be churlish; standing of the nature and sacrifice of Christ. In and, in spite of the reservations noted at different support of this, he systematically catalogues (on places within this review (and others not noted pages 166-9) the various doctrinal errors that can here for lack of space), Brother Trowell’s book can result from the extremes he has so painstakingly certainly be said to be a wholly worthwhile read analysed in his book. And though there is much about a subject which is not generally as well un- repetition in these pages, the arguments are well derstood among us as it should be. Understanding worth following in all their patient detail. the Atonement is highly informative, thoughtfully constructed and—for the most part—well argued. Understanding in practice Considering the complexity and importance of the Part 4 (pp. 171-207) is, in many ways, perhaps topic covered, the reviewer can well understand the least successful section of the book. Though why Brother Bob Lloyd would like the book to praiseworthy in its aim (to show that a proper be as widely read as possible. The Testimony, July 2012 281