2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

What Paul feared, and to prevent which he was

"jealous over all with a godly jealousy,"

was even then secretly at work, impregnating the Christian Eve with principles which in fruition caused her to give birth to a Cain, who has been murdering his brother Abel for fifteen hundred years.

It was even then at work. He styles it "the Mystery of the Iniquity" - the secret principles of that lawlessness which would develop itself into the Lawless One, or Man of Sin - anthropos tes hamartia - THE MAN OF THE APOSTASY.

The seed-germ of this man was already in the womb of the espoused.

"The mystery of the iniquity is already effectually working,"

says the apostle in 2 Thess. 2:7. Yes, it was this working, which, in verse 9, he styles "the inworking of the Satan," gave him so much trouble, and caused him such great anxiety, as evinced in his epistles. The principles of the apostasy were being inwrought, as he informs us,

"with all power, and signs, and miracles of falsehood, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish."

So effectual and specious was this inworking that, as Jesus predicted, even the elect would be endangered (Matt. 24:24).

Eureka 12.6.

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.

Paul confirms the tempter was an actual serpent

Moses gives not the slightest hint of the existence of a devil before the creations of the sixth day. The Serpent first; then man; afterwards, woman; and lastly, diabolos, or devil. This is the scriptural order of their manifestation, the revelation in the flesh of the incitant to transgression, or diabolos, being coeval with the Fall. Man existed before the devil, and will flourish in eternal glory after his destruction, when Sin and all its works are eradicated from the earth.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1852

The serpent beguiled Eve

Had she been certain of the consequences she would not have transgressed. She had no experience of evil. It might be a very agreeable thing for anything she knew, and highly promotive of happiness.

God had warned her of danger in the pursuit of knowledge through disobedience; but then, if they were to go back to the dust, that is, to die, what was the meaning of that Tree of Lives? Did not God mean something else? If they crossed the line in relation to the Tree of Knowledge, could they not eat also of that other Tree, and live for ever?

There seemed to her mind to be an uncertainty about returning to the dust, when she lost sight of the law. This was 'the weakness of the flesh.'

There was no uncertainty of consequences so long as she thought God meant what He said; but being deceived on this point, and so made doubtful of it, she ventured to experiment. But however doubtful of what might be, if she had adhered strictly to what God had said, she would still have continued 'very good.'

Bro Thomas

The Christadelphian, Dec 1873

Highly satisfied with his newly discovered views of the situation, he presented himself before the mother of all living, and opened a conversation with her upon the subject of the law and its penalty, in which he submitted to her the conclusions to which he had come from the premises before him. He introduced the conference by showing that he

knew what the Elohim had said, "Yea," said he,

"hath Elohim said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden!"

The "yea" implies that he knew the fact; but he put what he knew interrogatively to draw the woman out. She admitted that it had been so said, and specified the particular tree, and its locality in the midst of the garden, and added that they were forbidden even to touch it upon pain of death. This was the point he wished her to come to as it enabled him at once to state the discovery he had made of what Deity really intended contrary to his word.

He replied, "Dying ye shall not die:" that is, "Your dying shall not end in death." This was a point-blank denial of what the Deity had said. He had said they should die, and the serpent said they should not, and undertook to establish his position by declaring his acquaintance with the secret of the Deity hidden from her —

"Dying ye shall not die; for Elohim knows that in the day of your eating thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil."

The Elohim do not die, they know good and evil, and you will become like them.

The woman listened to his sermon on the law, and thought his exposition of the word might be its true spiritual import. It was possible that the Deity did not mean what he said; that it was the letter of the law only that killed; but the spiritual or secret meaning expounded by the intelligent and eloquent serpent, was the real life-imparting truth.

She entertained this supposition, since become so popular with her descendants; and, half convinced, she moved towards the tree to take a look at it, and more practically consider the matter. Her faith in the unadulterated Word was shaken. She believed the spiritualizing serpent, and she believed the Deity; for she believed the eating of the tree would impart

the knowledge of the good and the evil divinely indicated; but then she believed also, that the death-penalty might be evaded according to the doctrine of the serpent.

Eureka 12.14.

The simplicity that is in Christ

Jesus was made under the law, for Paul says he was "made under the law."—(Gal. 4:4.) He was also in the flesh, for John says if any man deny this he is anti-Christ.—(1 John 4:3.) Therefore, you must not entertain any thought that excludes either fact. Nor must you forget that God was the worker through and in Christ. Put all the facts together, and you will have no difficulty in reconciling apparent discrepancies.

When Paul says (Rom. 8:8), that they that are in the flesh cannot please God, he is referring to the rebelliousness of the carnal mind, as you may see by the previous verse. Jesus was never in this state, but always did those things that pleased the Father.

The Christadelphian, Dec 1874

In the serpent there is no truth, nor ever was, the creature not having capacity for its reception; neither is there truth in a man ignorant of the word. A man untaught of God is a serpent in human form, that hisses at any bible sentiment not in harmony with the thinking of his brain-flesh. ...

...The mind of the Serpent transferred to man, the serpent henceforth occupied the place only of an emblem, or symbol, representative of all Sin's doings, that is, the Devil's, in man; and through him. I repeat, what I conceive I have elsewhere proved, that Diabolos translated devil, is SIN in the flesh, which causes those who yield to it, to cross the line forbidden to be passed by the Divine law. It is for this reason called diabolos; and is clearly shown by Moses to be the Serpent's son, begotten in the heart of the Mother of all living, who, as reproducers of their kind, give birth only to sinners, and therefore grandsons of the Serpent, and children of Sin.

This is the parentage of all mankind, be they the children of infidels or believers. "If ye," said Jesus to the apostles, "being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, by how much more shall your Father who is in the heavens, give good things to them that ask him?" If he styled those evil who have God for their father, how much more so are they who are not of God, but of sinful flesh only.

The apostles were evil in the sense expressed by Paul, in Romans 7: 17-18, saying, "Sin dwelleth in me; for I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing;" and in the thirteenth verse, this sin he personifies by the phrase kath' hyperboleen amartolos, a hyperbolical, or pre-eminent sinner.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Aug 1853.

13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

But one may say, is it to be supposed that the great, the wise, the pious of our age, who are esteemed orthodox, are all mistaken? We reply, no; such a thing is by no means to be supposed. The case is beyond supposition; it is a demonstrable certainty.

A thing cannot be at once both true and false. If it be true, that which is contrary to it, is not hypothetically, but positively not true; in other words, it is false.

...Piety and zeal can save no man while he denies nearly all the truth, except a few facts admitted to be real by even the worst of men. An immersed believer of facts, who denies the second appearing of Jesus, and his reign in Zion on David's throne there, is but a religious infidel and enemy of "the gospel of the kingdom" in disguise.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Dec 1855

14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

..while words sufficiently significant fail to express our utter detestation of the hideous spectacle of spiritual rottenness, which seethes and festers in dying putrefaction on every side, we have nothing but kindness in our hearts towards the persons of our contemporaries.

We thunder in their ears, and flash before their eyes, the sharp, bright, and rattling words of plain unvarnished truth, to awake them, if it be possible, from that deep sleep, which numbs them with the potency of death.

We urge upon our fellow men, that unless they be sealed with the Pentecostian Faith, they cannot be saved. The preaching of the clergy and ministers of the day, is a mere darkening of counsel by words without knowledge. They preach

"another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel,"

than Paul preached; and upon such, though the preachers might come direct from heaven, he imprecates a curse; and proscribes them from the fold of Christ as deceitful workers, transforming themselves into his apostles; but really like their master Satan, who long since transformed himself into an angel of light, mere ministers of righteousness in outward show (Gal. i. 8; 2 Cor. xi. 4,13).

We therefore invite all who have ears, to lend their ears to what the Spirit hath said of old to the children of men. We are all by nature and practice dead in trespasses and sins, and therefore the children of wrath. Made subject to vanity, but not willingly, the Deity commiserates our helplessness, and invites us into his favour.

Why should we not, as the Anglican Harlot in her "Common Prayer" expresses it, "renounce the Devil and all his works;" and in so doing, renounce her and all her sister-prostitutes; whose touch uncleansed, defiles to hopeless exclusion from the Virgin-Community of the Holy Square (Apoc. xiv. 4).

"Come out of them, my people, that ye partake not of their sins, and receive not of their plagues;"

for, if ye partake of the one, there is no escape from the infliction of the other. Be sealed, then, in your foreheads with the truth; and

"henceforth walk no more as others walk, in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of the Deity through the ignorance that is in them because of the hardness of their hearts."

Eureka 7.10.

18 Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

Aholah and Aholibah

They began to teach contrary to the wholesome words of the Lord Jesus; and to assume authority in rivalry of the apostles themselves. They were opposed to the glad tidings of the kingdom being preached to any but Jews; but not being able to prevent it, they contended that all Gentiles ought to be circumcised, and to keep the law of Moses, as well as to believe the gospel, and be baptized, or they could not be saved. 1 Thess. 2:16; Acts 15:1–5.

These Judaizers were particularly troublesome to the apostles. They commended themselves, and gloried after the flesh, saying that they were Hebrews, and Israelites, and the seed of Abraham, and apostles, and ministers of Christ. 2 Cor. 10:12; 11:13, 18, 22.

But Paul says, that they were false apostles, deceitful workers, and ministers of Satan, who perverted the truth, and preached another Jesus, another Spirit, and another Gospel; and that therefore they were accursed. Gal. 1:6–9; 2:4; 4:17; 6:12.

These accursed Judaizers were indefatigable in exalting themselves to the exclusion of Paul and the other apostles. Peter, James, John and Jude are very hot against them in their epistles; and in the letters to the seven ecclesias, they are denounced as pretended apostles, Nicolaitans, the Synagogue of Satan, holders of the doctrine of Balaam, Jezebel the pseudo-prophetess, Satan, liars and so forth.

They were evil men and seducers, deceiving and being deceived; having forsaken the right way; and therefore "cursed children." These were the "false prophets" that Jesus predicted would arise and deceive many.

The effect of their teaching was to cause the spread of iniquity in all the cities of the land; and because of this the love of the many became cold; and the congregations in Judea, became as apostate as the faithless generation whose carcasses fell in the wilderness.

Jerusalem and Samaria had again earned for themselves the character of Ezekiel's Aholah and Aholibah, two women of lewd and treacherous demeanour.

The Judaizers had corrupted them, and nothing remained but for them to be brought forth from the land with judgment, according to "the curse" or Roll in flight.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, June 1858

23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool -banteringly) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

(I speak banteringly) I excel them

This was a source of great vexation and mortification to the apostle. He had done good service for those in Corinth. He had brought to them at great hazard and under much reproach, the knowledge of inestimable truth, which had they been left to themselves they could never have searched out—truth that was not only wonderful, but able to make the believer of it rich, honorable, and glorious for ever.

Nevertheless, they who had the means of aiding him in his work abundantly, left him to get along as best he could. "Woe is me," said he, "if I preach not the gospel." They knew it. They knew he was bound to do it, and could not evade the responsibility. But what was that to them? He was

"rude in speech"—"weak in bodily presence; and in speech contemptible."

Such a man in Corinth would not attract the learned and polite; and give position in genteel society to those who contributed to his support. They behaved themselves toward him with meanness and parsimony, so that what he got out of them, if any thing, was like squeezing blood out of a stone. This must have been exceedingly galling to a man of his generous and exalted disposition.

"Have I committed an offence," said he, "in abasing myself that ye may might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely? For I levied upon other ecclesias, taking wages of them to do you service."

"But what is that to us, see thou to it!" They had believed and obeyed the truth; but the walking in it was not so much to their taste. The apostle longed to keep them in the way, and to gather fruit of them for the benefit of others, that it might redound to their account at the appearing of Christ in his kingdom. But they were selfish, wilful, narrow-souled, and covetous. They were devoted to their lusts—their god was their appetites; and they gloried in their shame.

They had houses to eat and drink in, and joyously they feasted; but it was the opulent of society, and not the poor of Christ's flock whose hearts were made glad by the abundant cheer. A man of weak bodily presence and contemptible speech, such as Paul, would have shamed his stylish brethren in the presence of their friends. They sought, therefore, a more fashionable ministry than his—ministers by whose eloquence and classical learning the uppertendom of Greek society might be propitiated in favour of their increasing and rising community.

There were Hymeneus, and Philetus, Phygellus and Hermogenes, accomplished gentlemen in their way, who were prepared to popularize the faith, and to "enter the evangelical field." They soon "proved themselves worthy of their Alma Mater;" and their brethren were not long in discovering "the bearing of their ministry upon the fortunes and progress of the reformation," or repentance preached by the apostles.

They boasted themselves as the sons of "Education, the great handmaid of religion," whose "educated minds were needed to train the vineyard of the Lord!" If the gay Corinthians were too miserly to co-operate with the self-denying apostle, they were well fleeced and plucked by these College Evangelists. In fact they got their deserts.

They were reduced to bondage, devoured, taxed, and smitten, by these self exalted ministers. The apostle bantered them upon their pretended excellencies; and denounced them as false, and deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles, or perhaps, "evangelists" of Christ—ministers of Satan, pretending to be ministers of righteousness, whose end should be according to their works.

These men were the Clergy of the apostolic era. Paul says, they were fools whom the Corinthians willingly suffered. They were

"grievous wolves," "men speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them;"

and who soon became "Lords over the Heritages," (katakyrieuontes toon kleeroon,) not sparing the flock. Learned fools, inflated with a false notion of "their high and responsible position before God and man," who preached "another Jesus," "another spirit," and "another gospel," a sort of improvement upon the original, which Paul had not declared.

These contemporaries of the apostles were their rivals, who at last utterly destroyed their influence by the faint praise they bestowed upon their teaching. Under the tuition of these men every generation became more ignorant and superstitious than the preceding, until the Holy Scriptures were suppressed, and "darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people" everywhere, as at this day.

The Clergy still exist, and flourish in the gloom like whited sepulchres. The class is divided into a multiplicity of Orders, called "Holy Orders," after the "sacrament" which sanctifies them. Every sect hath its orders, one or more, from His Latin Holiness down to the newest and most recent edition of the craft.

Like their predecessors in apostolic times, they wear sheep's clothing, and devour, spoil, and smite the faces of their supporters, who with craven and niggard hearts, and overflowing hands, load them with riches, while if left to the spontaneousness of their own grovelling natures, they would leave the truth and its unselfish advocates to perish before their eyes.

In fine, the Clergy and their schools have ever been the enemies of progress, and the opponents of the truth. If one of their class take a few steps in advance of his fellows he soon retreats; or takes up a position far in the rear of the ancient gospel and apostolic order of things, and falls right sectarianly to the building up of the institutions he once valiantly labored to destroy, thereby constituting himself a transgressor.

Let us then cease from the clergy, and stand aloof from all their schemes. Their schools, and colleges, and "benevolent institutions," and divinity, and gospel, are all of that old fiction which exalted itself that the apostles might be abased.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Oct 1851