1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Liberty

There is something sterile and unsatisfying in the highest of merely human thoughts and attainments. It is not in the nature of life as it now is, to satisfy the mind. The mind is so constituted that nothing short of the infinite can satisfy.

In all merely human projects, it matters not in what direction, riches, power, fame, art, science—there is an end, which when once reached, becomes the grave of enterprise and the seed bed of discontent. There is nothing satisfying in what man proposes for himself. He cannot find peace except in that boundless mental action which lays hold of God for its delight and stay; Christ as the ideal of its affection, and an endless futurity of perfection as the vista of its anticipations.

This, dear brethren and sisters, is what the understanding of the truth has brought to us. It has conferred upon us entire liberty. What remains for us but to stand fast in it? It is a position we may lose if we neglect the conditions of its preservation. We must beware of the enticements suggested to us in the spectacle of cultured men and women

"without God and without hope in the world."

They are interesting in the present desolation, but it is a mere picture—a mere appearance—hollow if we penetrate it—absolutely ephemeral if we follow it to its close. We must beware of the zests and honours and emulations connected with society as it now is. It is a society that is not the friend of God, however amiable and attractive. We must not surrender to its seductions, or accept its embraces. It is written,

"The friendship of the world is enmity with God."

We must beware of the faintness of mind that is liable to overtake the patient continuance in godliness. It is not in vain that we addict ourselves to the ways and the studies of godliness, and decline the leeks and garlic of the Egyptians. The issue of things will justify the choice of wisdom, and reward beyond what tongue can utter or heart conceive, the faithful endurance of the monotonies and self-denials of this time of probation.

"Yet a little while, and he that shall come will come,"

from whose bright presence will fly all clouds and darkness for ever.

Sunday morning 186

3 For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

The Law of Moses v. Justification

Paul says "Circumcision verily profiteth if thou keep the law." As the "profit" in the case had reference to justification unto life eternal, it follows that

"If a Jew had kept the law in every point,"

he would have been saved, but not without the "atonement" required by the wisdom of God; for as one of the exiled race, through sin, the declaration of God's righteousness, as the basis of propitiation (Rom. 3:25.) would have required the shedding of his blood, as in the case of Christ, to be followed by resurrection through obedience.

But this is to discuss an impossible case, unless we take the case of Christ, who was "a Jew who kept the law in every point," and then,

"by (the shedding of) his own blood, entered into the holiest, having obtained eternal redemption."—(Heb. 9:12.)

The Christadelphian, Oct 1875

Circumcision: The token of the covenant

In after times circumcision came to be performed as a mere custom, or ceremony.

An institution of God, that was appointed as a memorial of His promise concerning the everlasting possession of Canaan and the world, and of that righteousness by faith of the promise which could alone intitle to it, and which was to express those who practised it -- degenerated into a mere form which was observed, like infant-sprinkling by "the pious" and most ungodly characters alike.

But it is evident that circumcision, being instituted after the covenant of promise was confirmed, and after Abraham had obtained a title to it by a righteousness of faith, could confer upon the person circumcised no right to possess the things promised for ever, and certainly none to reprobates who practised it. as Turks and wild Arabs do now, because their fathers have done it before them, time immemorial to them.

What obligation, then, did this sign of the covenant, and seal of Abraham's justification by faith without circumcision, impose upon the circumcised? Let the apostle answer the question.

"I testify," says he, "to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to the whole law."

(Gal. 5:3).

This was a fearful obligation for a man to be brought under, who sought to be justified, to the end that he might obtain an everlasting inheritance in the land of Canaan, which implies the acquisition of eternal life and glory.

The law was weak through the flesh; and gave only the knowledge of sin. It was an unbearable yoke of bondage, and a law which no man born of the will of the flesh had been able to keep without sin. If, then, a man sought to obtain a right to an everlasting possession of the land by obedience to it, he had undertaken an impossibility; for the law, on account of human weakness, could give no one a right to live for ever; and without life eternal a man could not everlastingly possess the land; and this life no one can attain to who is not justified from all his past sins; for if in his sins, he is under the sentence of death, as it is written,

"the wages of sin is death."

The apostle speaks directly to the point; for he says "If there had been a law given, which could have given (a title to) life (eternal), verily righteousness (or justification from past sins to life) should have been by the law" (Gal. 3:21):

"for if righteousness had come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain" (Gal. 2:21).

He says explicitly,

"by the law shall no flesh be justified."

A circumcised person is therefore bound to keep that which he cannot possibly keep, and which if he did keep could not benefit him, because justification to life is by faith in the prornise, and not by conformity to the Mosaic law.

Elpis Israel 2.4.

4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

On the very threshold of the apostolic enterprise we read, in Acts 15: 5, 24, of "certain of the sect of the Pharisees, which believed ", who contended" that it was needful to circumcise the Gentile believers, and to command them to keep the law of Moses". Paul's epistle bears evidence of the contentious activity of this class years afterwards in parts widely distant from Judea.

"Tell me ", he exclaims, in writing to the Galatians,

"ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law ?"

and he proceeds to unfold an argument intended to prove that Christ is of no use to those who put themselves under the law (Gal. 5:4), and that it is the duty of his brethren

"to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage" (verse 1).

That his argument would be effectual with some, there cannot be a doubt; but that it failed to silence and convince the agitators, we have positive evidence in the letters written afterwards, in which he recurs to the subject itself, and renews his warnings against the Judaizers (Phil. 3:2, 3, 6-9; Col. 2:13-17; 1 Tim. 1:6-7, 2 Tim. 2: 14, '18; Titus 1: 10-14). Not only so, but he foretold their triumph in the community that had been developed by the labours of the apostles (Acts 20 : 29; 2 Tim. 2:17; 3:13; 4:3, 4).

The epistles of John, written forty years later, show us the great strides that had been made within that time in the fulfilment of the prophecy. The thing had really begun in Paul's day, for he had to say, "All they that be of Asia (the Lesser) are turned away from me" (2 Tim. 1: 15). But in John's day John had to say

"Many false prophets (teachers) are gone out into the world... the world heareth them"

(1 John 4: 1,5).

Consequently, we should make a great mistake if we looked upon the community headed up by the bishops under Constantine as a community founded upon apostolic principles in their purity and truth. It was a community that had been widely leavened with Judaism, as illustrated in their observance of "Easter" and other feasts of a Jewish origin, the substitution of "baptism" on the eighth day in the room of circumcision, the exaltation of the original simple "pastors and teachers" into the position of priests and Levites, the exaction of tithes for their maintenance, and the transmutation of the first day assembly for the breaking of bread, into the place of the Mosaic Sabbath.

Nevertheless, out of the corruption came this good result. A Sabbath rest once in seven days became a law of Europe--a result which ameliorated the barbarism of the nations, and at the same time secured legal liberty, as at this day, for the true friends of Christ everywhere to hold that memorial assembly which is so necessary to their spiritual well-being.

The attempt to enforce the Mosaic Sabbath as a rule of individual duty for the friends of Christ in this age is in direct violation of Christ's teaching as to their relation to the Mosaic law, and the law of the Sabbath in particular, whether by himself or his apostles.

Law of Moses Ch 6

8 This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.

Him that calleth you

In the natural order of things (that is, if Christ had not appeared and sent out a call to all willing men to become his) we should have been occupied like the Gentiles around, with mere questions of eating and drinking, and being comfortable and merry in this mortality, indulging in Pagan dreams of futurity, doomed to eternal disappointment.

We, therefore, realize this idea that this captain differs from other captains, in that he himself makes his own election.

It is not as if his people were a political party, looking round and choosing the man that happens to suit them best. The movement proceeds from him. He has sent out agents (his apostles) for the purpose of creating a party for himself, and the party so created differs very much from all other parties that ever surrounded a leader.

It is called to a much closer relation to the captain than in worldly parties. Personal loyalty is exacted in the highest degree, and is returned by the captain (as we shall see at his coming) in a far higher form than the affection ever conceived by mortal leader for his partizans. As to the first, the rule of the service is

"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

As to the second, he has laid down his life for his friends; and has promised that when all shall have proved their faithfulness, he will

"make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them."

And what does this making them sit down to meat involve? The most a human leader can do for his supporters, is to distribute mammon among them; his favours leave them the same perishing creatures, who, while alive, are weak and abortive in the functions of their being; and, in a few years, must sink under the law of death, and disappear below the clod, saying farewell to all friendship, honour, and possessions.

How different the favour bestowed by the Captain of our salvation! Having come forth and made his choice, he invests them with a vigour of constitution that shall never decay; clearness of faculty that can never grow dim; purity of nature that will never fade or corrupt; beauty that will never tarnish; life that will never end.

And having thus qualified them, he invites them to his society, and a participation in the glory, honour, riches, and renown, which will be his as the Lord of all the earth.

Sunday Morning 34 - 02/1872

9 A little leaven [judaism] leaveneth the whole lump.

Vital Error

—It is a mistake to suppose that the early ecclesias were guaranteed against error, and that therefore their modern representatives may equally expect to be. The epistles reveal the very opposite to be the case.

That error would creep in was plainly foretold; that in due time it came along, is matter of fact many times referred to in the same writings; that the fidelity of the brethren was thereby put to the test, is equally evident; and that as the result of this, some fell away, while the approved were made manifest, is a thing beyond all doubt.

The only safeguard against error is the daily reading of the scriptures, and a constant and unabated insistence on all they enjoin in faith and practice; for as then, so now, it only takes a little leaven to leaven the whole lump.

The "key of knowledge" is the key that opens the door of faith into the kingdom. To understand aright the gospel of the kingdom of God, and the things concerning the name of Jesus Christ, is to possess the key, which modern theologians, equally with the ancient Jewish lawyers, have taken away.

The Christadelphian, Dec 1888

15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.

These are the apostle's words. Wise men remember them and leave off meddling. The love of many may wax cold. Disputations may rage and blight among

"lovers of debate and despisers of those that are good."

But wise men will hold themselves aloof, in the loving service and patient waiting for Christ, knowing that the present hour will soon have vanished and return no more, while beyond lies the day of peace and holiness and love and life and joy for ever.

Seasons 2.31.

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

THE CONSTANT BATTLE

The agency which God has appointed for bringing about the indwelling of the word is based upon the fact of human forgetfulness. There is a constitutional need for bringing it to remembrance. Every man of reflection experiences this need. Even in human knowledge, the memory has constantly to be refreshed; how much more in the things of the Spirit, for which there is not only no natural affinity, but to which there is a constitutional repugnance.

We should make a great mistake if we were to rest on our oars at all. The achievements of the past are only valuable to us if we preserve our connection with them by means of an unbroken line of similar action. This refers to present profitableness and divine approbation: we must in many ways "endure to the end."

We know the truth, it may be, but it does not follow that we can afford to let the study of it alone. Even as respects knowledge, the word of God is so constituted that we cannot become acquainted with all its teaching apart from daily reading and thought; but what shall we say as to the personal views, tastes, and affections which it is intended to engender? It is here where our greatest need exists.

The current of the natural mind is in the opposite direction to the mind of the Spirit, and that current is strengthened by all the circumstances to which we are related in life, whether in business or at home. We cannot hope to make headway against this current apart from the daily reading and meditation of the testimonies of God.

If we suspend this process -- if we become lax in our attention to them, we shall as surely drift in the wrong direction as a boat set loose will drift down the stream. We shall slowly but surely come under the dominion of the carnal mind, in all our sentiments . and "to be carnally minded is death."

Bro Roberts - Christ and nature, Seasons 1: 34.

The flesh lusteth against the Spirit - Gal 5: 17

(that is, against the Spirit of God, as active towards us, through apostles and prophets, in doctrine, precept and command),

and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that we cannot do the things that we would."

Here are two opposing forces in those who have become enlightened in the things of the Spirit. Our problematic relation to them is clearly defined in Romans 8:13,

"If ye walk after the flesh ye shall die, but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

Here is the fight; the flesh in a thousand ways says, "Follow me," and the Spirit also, in manifold ways, says, "Follow me." The one goes east, the other goes west. We cannot follow both at the same time.

"Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

The overcoming lies in making a successful choice and holding to it-casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

There is every incentive to overcome.

"Godliness is profitable for the life that now is as well as that which is to come,"

for a man who suffers himself to be guided by the precepts of the Spirit of God is happier and nobler and better in every way than the man who obeys the promptings of the lower instincts. Sin will blight and ruin a man even now; righteousness will confer a crown of glory upon a man even now. Righteousness exalteth a nation-let alone a man.

"Great peace have they that love Thy law; nothing shall them offend."

There is more joy in the exercise of the understanding and of the higher faculties than can ever be found in the pursuit of mere secular aims of life. The service of God, the love of God, the opening out of the mind in the daily contemplation of God in prayer and reading, open out sources of peace and joy unknown to the man who knows not God and obeys not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But the chief incentive relates to prospect.

"Ho every one that thirsteth, come to the waters . . . come to me. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. Hear and your soul shall live. I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."

Season 2.95

Let us now look at the works of the flesh—this good flesh—for we are asked now to believe that the flesh is a good thing. This is one of the most abhorrent features of this heresy. Here are the works of this good flesh:

"Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like."—(19–21.)

It is only those who sow to the Spirit that shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Those who sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption. The flesh is weak, unclean, and sinful.

...Now Christ took part of the flesh and blood of the children, that he might extirpate in it that which was destroying them. This is the apostolic testimony:

"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" (Heb. 2:14)

—the serpent principle, the death-power in us. Christ took on him the nature of Abraham and David, which was sinful nature. How, then, some say, was he, with sinful flesh, to be sinless?

...God did it. The weak flesh could not do it. Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, that the glory might be to God. The light in his face is the light of the Father's glory. If you ask me how the Father could be manifest in a man with an independent volition, you ask a question not truly founded on reason.

Do I know how the Almighty causes substance organized as brain to evolve thought? No; do you? No. But do we doubt the fact the less because we are unable to comprehend it? By no means. Do we know how the Father performs any of the myriad wonders of His power? Know we so small a matter as the modus operandi of the germination of grain in the field, to its multiplication twentyfold?

Nay verily; though we know a thousand things as facts, you will find, on a close scrutiny, that we are utterly ignorant of the mode of invisible working by which these facts have their existence. If it be so with things in nature, why must our inability to define the process be a difficulty to our receiving a heavenly fact, not only commended to us on the best of all testimony, but self-manifest before us?

For who can contemplate the superhuman personage exhibited in the gospel narrative without seeing, with his own eyes, so to speak, that the Father is manifest in him?

When did ever man deport himself like this man? When spoke the most gifted of men like this? Is he not manifestly revealed the moral and intellectual image of the invisible God? Is he not, last Adam though he be—is he not "the Lord from heaven?" But what are we to say to the plain declaration emanant from the mouth of the Lord himself, that the beholder looking on him, saw the Father, and that the Father within him by the Spirit—(for as he said on the subject of eating his flesh, it is the Spirit that maketh alive: the flesh profiteth nothing)—was the doer and the speaker?

The answer of wisdom is, that we must simply believe; and true wisdom will gladly believe in so glorious a fact. What if our understanding be baffled? Shall we refuse to eat bread because we fail to comprehend the essences in which flour subsists? A childlike faith is alone acceptable in this matter. The words used by Jesus to his disciples we may presume to be applicable to us, if they are true of us:

"The Father himself loveth you because ye believe that I came out from God."

Those who make the mistake of the Pharisees, and "judge after the flesh," stand back in gloomy quandary and talk of "mere man;" others who think to make a great mystery "simple" and plain, speak of the flesh of Christ as a mixture of human with "divine substance."

Wisdom takes her stand between the two, and seeks to dive no deeper than the testimony that God was in Jesus manifest in the flesh: she troubles not herself with the impracticable question of "how?" Seeing the fact and the reason of the fact, she rejoices and gives praise to God, from whom "the dayspring from on high hath visited us."

As for the question asked, that "if God gave Jesus greater power than we, has He not dealt unjustly with us?" it is not the question of a child of God. What was done by Christ was God's work out of love to us; that we, subject to His will, and recognising His supremacy, should become Heirs of his nature. Such a question as the one referred to is enough to secure for the questioner the grave of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1873

21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

‭"‬They which do such things‭" ‬are those who go on doing them.‭ ‬Certainly such shall not inherit the Kingdom.‭ ‬Paul cannot mean that single acts repented of will not be forgiven:‭ ‬for,‭ ‬in‭ ‬2‭ ‬Cor.‭ ii. ‬7,‭ ‬also‭ xii. ‬21,‭ ‬he distinctly recognises the possibility of forgiveness in the most flagrant of the offences enumerated.

The Christadelphian, Oct 1894. p391-393.

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

'...every enlightened man's conscience,‭ ‬that with all his attainments,‭ ‬the clog of this corruptible nature,‭ "‬in which we groan,‭ ‬being burdened,‭" ‬lies heavily upon him,‭ ‬and prevents that uniform and steady faith which he admires and desires in his heart,‭ ‬and that fulness and fervency of divine communion after which he longs,‭ ‬and that constant conformity in all particulars with the beautiful law that requires continual meekness to man,‭ ‬and continual worship to God in that‭ "‬love,‭ ‬joy,‭ ‬peace,‭ ‬and long-suffering,‭" ‬which are the indispensable‭ "‬fruits of the spirit‭?"

‭Exhort No ‬280 TC 10/1896

23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Brother Roberts follows Dr. Thomas.

WITH all his meekness and gentleness, Christ could address his pious and pompous antagonists as "whited sepulchres", "hypocrites", " fools", "blind guides", "blind leaders", "children of hell", "serpents", "vipers", and so on.

He could describe Herod as "that fox"; and Peter, and James, and Jude, in perfect imitation of Christ's " style", could speak of the false teachers of their time as "natural brute beasts", "wandering stars", "clouds without water", " lovers of the wages of iniquity", "evil beasts and slow bellies ", and a good many other terse things.

We, therefore, do not sympathise with the squeamish objections of popular "Christianity " on the subject of style.

Honesty of utterance, even if erring on the side of severity, so far from being incompatible with true Christ[adelph]ian character, is a distinguishing feature of it.

Bro Roberts - Christadelphian Facts