Psalm 98 exhorts:
“O sing unto Yahweh a new song; For he hath done marvellous things: His right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory. Yahweh hath made known his salvation …” (Psa. 98:1).
But the question naturally arises: When and How was this great victory accomplished? A common misconception is that it was the point at which the Lord died. Hence a correspondent writes:
“In my summary, what bro. G taught is that the divinely crafted, divinely instructed, and divinely counselled Jesus earned his victory over the flesh by lifelong obedience, climaxing in the destroying of sin nature in his death. This great victory over the flesh declared the righteousness of God and placed him in such a position that—based upon this declaration—the grace of God would grant to him life immortal”
And again:
“The war described by Paul dwelling in our bodies was then over for Jesus at his death, and Jesus had won. The law of sin was defeated through obedience throughout his life, and in the crucifixion, it was then physically destroyed.”
And on his website, Duncan Heaster writes:
“But the New Testament emphasis is upon the death of Christ, His victory within Himself and subsequent resurrection, as the crucial means by which our redemption was enabled.
The New Testament presents the death of Christ as His final victory, the springboard to a J-curve growth, involving even literal ascent into Heaven. What seemed to be defeat turned out to be the ultimate victory.”
(Duncan Heaster, https://christadelphia.net/rca9.html)
The claim then, is that the “law of Sin” was “physically destroyed” upon the cross, and that was when the war “was over for Jesus”, for his death was “His final victory”.
This position is sometimes further explained that “sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3) is a carnal disposition of thought, and that when Messiah died, his thoughts ceased, and therefore the carnal mind ceased to exist. However, this approach differs from that held by our earlier brethren, who saw the Triumph of Christ as being at his resurrection. Hence Robert Roberts wrote:
“… Sin was first destroyed in the person of Christ (who is the first-fruits) by his submission to death, in the nature condemned to death, … when he rose, sin was destroyed in him…. Sin was destroyed “through death.” Had he not risen, the case would have stood the other way: he would have been destroyed through death. It was his resurrection that was the triumph so to speak; without this, his death would have been a failure …”
Robert Roberts, The Christadelphian 1873 pg, 331.
And CC Walker:
“Sin … “reigned unto death”; “had the power of death” and is therefore “the devil” (Heb. 2:14). Jesus died that through death he might “destroy him,” “put him away,” “cast him out,” which he did when he rose again from the dead,”
CC Walker Christadelphian 1913 pg 260.
But the fact that our earlier brethren taught this, does not itself prove the point. For this, we need to turn to the Scriptures – and this we shall do!
We need to firstly establish what “sin in the flesh” actually is, in order to understand how it is overcome. The immediate context of the expression describes how God condemned it in his Son:
“… God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3).
Straight away then, we see how it is wrong to say that Jesus “earned his victory over the flesh by lifelong obedience”. It was what God accomplished, not what Jesus earned. But the “sin” which Paul explains is “in the flesh” is an allusion to his earlier words in the preceding chapter:
“Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing … Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me” (Rom. 7:17-20).
In these words, Paul defines “in me” to be “in my flesh”, hence the expression “sin in the flesh”. What was this “sin”? Not an act of committed sin – for to say that a specific committed sin dwells in the flesh would make no sense. But Scripture uses the term “sin” in a secondary sense – that element which forms part of the human constitution, which renders it mortal, and induces the possessors thereof to transgress. Hence Paul also refers to it as “the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Again, he refers to the same law of our being as the diabolos, or devil:
“forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that though death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the diabolos” (Heb. 2:14).
Disregarding the church notion of the devil being a rebel angel in opposition to God, we find that it was necessary for Messiah to “take part of the same” flesh and blood as those he came to save. He could not partake of, or destroy the sin that Paul teaches was in his flesh, unless he also himself likewise took part of the same nature – AKA, “the likeness of sinful flesh”. Being that the diabolos is that which has the power of death, we find that the flesh that bears it is “mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:11), and the bodies of those who possess it: “mortal bodies” (Rom. 8:11, 6:12). In other words, “sin in the flesh” is the physical condition of our nature, summed up in the word “mortality.” That which Messiah came to deliver Paul and his brethren from is the body of death:
“O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord …” (Rom. 7:25).
Our correspondent, referred to above, writes: “What did Jesus destroy in his death? Obviously, his body— in which dwelt the diabolos”. But that is not the teaching of Scripture: Jesus did not destroy his body – rather, his flesh rested in hope (Acts 2:26). His body was not destroyed! Hence Robert Roberts described:
“… the Lord’s sacrifice was only to be carried as far as the spiritual requirements of the case required: crucifixion, but not bodily destruction: wounds, but not mutilation: blood shedding, but no bonebreaking: death, but no disappearance in a dishonoured grave, as would have been the case had the Lord’s body been cast in the ordinary course into the local Gehenna as that of a condemned criminal.
The whole process of the Lord’s death and burial was so guarded (while giving to mankind every security as to the fact of his death, and every evidence of a complete conformity to the law of sacrifice, as a shedding of blood for the remission of sins), as to fence off all needless humiliation or outrage. A short three days in a new and honourable tomb, and then the body that had been impaled revived in healing life, without having experienced dismemberment or disintegration, or the humiliation of decomposition. Changed by the Spirit, it ascended to the Father, “a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”
(R Roberts, The Law of Moses page 217)
What was destroyed was that resident evil in the flesh, not the flesh itself, which rested in hope – and the victory over this was accomplished by resurrection.
To illustrate this, it is written of the risen Lord, that:
“… Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God” (Rom. 6:9-10).
Clearly, Jesus could not have had the victory over something at the same time as being under the dominion of that thing. He must first be extricated from under its dominion, and only then can he be victorious over it.
The first prophecy in Scripture of the Lord Jesus Christ is in Genesis 3:15:
“… I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”
Notice, there are two elements here – the smiting of the serpent’s head, and the bruising of the woman’s seed in the heel. The two are commonly confounded, but they are not the same thing. The bruising of the heel was a temporary victory for the serpent, but the smiting of the serpent’s head was a death-blow to it, a permanent victory for the woman’s seed. And this victory is described by the prophet:
“He will swallow up death in victory: and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all of the earth: for Yahweh hath spoken it” (Isa. 25:8).
Notice here, that the “victory” is when death is swallowed up – and not before. In other words, Jesus had to pass through death, and emerge the other side, so to speak. So it was “though death”, or by “passing through” death, as the Greek has it (in Heb. 2:14), that he was able to smite the serpent’s head by rising victorious.
It is significant that the Bible never describes a death as being a victory. But it does describe the resurrection of Christ in terms of death being swallowed up in victory (as per above) – which proves he had to die first, and then subsequently rise victorious. The New Testament also continues this theme, as the Apostle Paul cites Isaiah 25 thus:
“… So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:54, cp. 2 Cor. 5:4).
Notice that again, the victory is at resurrection, not before. As we say, Scripture always uses the word “victory” of a resurrection to life, and never to a death.
But why does it matter? Because it fundamentally affects our understanding of what Sin in the Flesh actually is, how it is overcome, and the atoning work of God in Christ. Sin in the flesh is a physical law of our being: the “law of sin and death” AKA that which has “the power of death”. That physical law can only be vanquished through a physical change of nature: being made incorruptible. To regard it as being only a mindset which ceases to exist in the death-state misses this point entirely. Also, the mind of Christ was not carnal, but spiritual. Hence the exhortation is given: “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).
But although the Diabolos was overcome by Messiah’s resurrection to immortality, it has not yet been destroyed totally – it still exists in all of Adam’s progeny – hereditarily so: it is genetically written into every cell of our being. But the promise is that upon the basis of the sacrifice of Christ – which includes his resurrection – it can be destroyed in us also. So, just as Christ partook of our nature, the “likeness of sinful flesh”, we can be changed to partake of his glorified nature: “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself” (Phil. 3:21). This is the victory that all of Messiah’s brethren yearn for, and which will be granted at his coming again to raise the dead and glorify the faithful.
Christopher Maddocks
