“Jesus Christ and Him Crucified” Reg Carr
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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 .