THE BIBLE DOCTRINE CONCERNING THE TEMPTER CONSIDERED.
We have ascertained satisfactorily, because scripturally, as it appears to me, that the thing, styled in the Greek New Testament diabolos, and rendered devil in the English version, is SIN IN THE FLESH, He that “walks according to the flesh” “serves sin,” diabolos, or the devil. The mortal body is “the body of sin,” or Sin Incarnate, which with its affections, lusts, and transgressions, is styled “the Old Man;” than whom no imaginary devil can be more wicked, and defiant of God and his law. The Old Man in his individual, social, and political manifestations is the diabolos or devil of the New Testament mystery—1 Timothy 3: 16—(The New Testament is the exhibition of the great mystery of godliness.), and treated of accordingly. Destroy the ascendancy of the sin-principle of the flesh over the thoughts and actions, and you have a moral development of the New Man, and then eradicate it from the flesh by the Spirit in a resurrection or transformation to eternal life, and you the New Man in combined moral and physical manifestation, “isangelos,” “equal to an angel”—Luke 20: 36. There is no sin in the flesh of the angelic nature; therefore it cannot die. No element of it has “the power of death;” so that diabolos exists not in angelic society. The devil has no place there. Being nothing in their nature causing them to transgress, or Cross the line of the Divine will, there are no ta erga diabolon, works of sin, among them. But all is just as God would have it; and it would be so here but for the disturbing principle called Sin. Eradicate this, and “the will of the Father will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” that is, in angelic society.
From what I have set forth on this subject, our worthy friend will see that I do not speak in Elpis Israel of the agency in the original temptation as only an animal. If there had been nothing in the constitution of the original nature of man impressible by the suggestions of the Serpent, there could have been no transgression. Had Eve’s nature been isangelic instead of animal, there would have been no internal response to the external enticement. That internal something was not essentially evil; because, though possessing it, Adam and Eve was pronounced “very good.” It is not evil to admire the beautiful, and to wish to possess it; to desire to gratify the taste, and to aspire to the wisdom of “the gods,” or Elohim: but all this becomes evil when its attainment is sought by crossing the limit forbidden of God. The seeking to attain by crossing the line, Paul teaches was the result, not of innate wickedness, but of deception. 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 any thing 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 forever? 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.” “Weakness,” mental and physical, is an original element of animal nature; as “power” is of the angelic. Adam’s nature was “very good” as an animal nature; but still it was weak, and therefore deceivable and terminable. This weakness is founded in the unfitness of air, electricity, blood, and food, to maintain organised dust, or flesh, in life and power forever. The life-principles being weak, the flesh is weak in all its operations, mental and physical. The life of the angelic nature, or spiritual body, is not maintained on animal principles; but by the direct action of God’s Spirit on dust so organised as to be adapted to its operations. It is therefore strong. When Adam’s weak nature began to think and act, independently of the divine law, its weakness, before an undefiled weakness, became evil in its workings, and deteriorating in its effects; and acquired the name of Sin from its having brought forth sin, or transgression of law.
The undefiled weakness of the flesh, enticed and deceived by sophistry from without, is, in few words, the definition of the original temptation. The law of God was weak through the flesh—Romans 8: 3, not through the strength of the Serpent. Had the flesh been strong, the Serpent would have been powerless with all his sagacity. But the weakness thrown into a ferment by serpent-subtlety became beguiling; and the beguiling subtlety, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived them, and by it slew them—Romans 7: 11. What I have said about the Serpent in Elpis Israel stands as it was. I have affirmed neither more nor less than what Moses and the apostles say. “It was more subtile,” or acute, “than any beast, of the field which the Lord God had made.” It is generally supposed that the serpent was employed by the Devil to beguile the woman. “It cannot be doubted,” says Calmet, “but that by the Serpent, we are to understand the Devil; who merely employed the Serpent as a vehicle to seduce the first woman.” This teaches the existence of an invisible devil before the Serpent. The Bible, however, does not teach this. Diabolos had no existence before the formation of man; but the Serpent had. 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.
“The beginnings” of Genesis 1: 1; Matthew 19: 8; John 1: 1 and 8: 44, are manifestly not all the same. The “beginnings” of Genesis, Matthew, and John 1: 1, have relation to the creation week; but that of John 8: 44, to the conversation of the Serpent with Eve, and the murder of Abel. The Fall was probably several years after the creation week; and Abel’s murder certainly many. Father diabolos was not a murderer before he brought our first parents under sentence of death. It was then he slew them by the commandment. The beginning referred to in this text is the apo kataboles kosmou, or formation of the world, laid in its sin-constitution—Genesis 3: 14-21. Jesus is there talking to the Jews of their father, Sin, whose servants they were. They regarded themselves as the freeborn descendants of Abraham; but he told them, they were bondmen to their father, Sin. “Whosoever committeth sin, is Sin’s doulos or bondservant.” He offered to make them free of this yoke by the truth. “I know,” says he, “that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.” This murderous disposition constituted them the seed of a living father, as well as of the dead Abraham; for Jesus says, “I speak what I have seen with my father, and ye do what ye have seen—with your father.” Here was a question between them of fatherhood. Jesus claimed to be seed of Abraham and God; while he charged them with being seed of Abraham and Sin—they were in other words, begotten of sinful flesh, while he was begotten of God, sinful flesh being the matrice of both parties. They said, “Abraham is our father,” or begetter; but Jesus objected to this, because they did not do the works of Abraham; showing that he was speaking, not of lineage, but of sonship based on disposition and character. They contended for purity of lineage—that their fatherhood was not of Gentile idolaters, but Jewish believers in God, which constituted them children of God. Jesus charged them with doing the deeds of their father, which they understood to mean, of their Gentile paternity; for they said, “We be not born of fornication: we have one Father even God.” They considered that purity of descent from Abraham constituted them children of God, without regard to character; but Jesus taught them that “the flesh profiteth nothing.” If man would be “the children of God, being the children of thee resurrection,” it was by being like Abraham in faith and obedience; which they were not: but being Sin’s bondmen, he said to them in the words of the forty fourth verse, substituting Paul’s definition of diabolos for “devil,” “ye are of the father, Sin, and the lusts of your father (the lusts of sinful flesh) ye will do. Sin was a murderer from the beginning (or from the Fall) and caused not to stand (hesteken) in the truth (or law) because truth is not in it. When Sin uttereth a lie, it speaks of its own things; for it is a liar, and the father of it.” This is perfectly intelligible. All men are Sin’s children who are born of blood, of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man; and they continue such until they “become sons of God” by becoming Abraham’s seed through Jesus as the Christ—John 1: 12-13; Galatians 3: 26-29.
From what I have said under this head, our good friend will perceive that I teach that the devil or diabolos had a place in the beginning; as really as the Serpent; and that place was in the flesh; while the serpent was somewhere not far off from the woman and the tree.
3. I come now to Mr. Cook’s third inquiry, “Does not the New Testament teach there is a Tempter, as really as a “Christ”—the tempted?” In reply to this, I remark, that in the case of Jesus, diabolos and satan were both concerned. When he was filled with the Holy Spirit he was led, Mark says “driven,” by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, or properly, to be put to the proof under Sin—hypo tou diabolou. Their nature was his nature; for “the children of God being partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same”—Hebrews 2: 14. Hence, he was sent forth “in a form of Sin’s flesh”—en homoiomati sarkos hamartias—Romans 8: 3; and thus God made him sin, (that is, flesh and blood) for us—2 Corinthians 11: 14, and on account of sin, gave judgment against sin in the flesh of Jesus.
The testimonies show that Jesus was “under sin” as a man under a burden. —He groaned under it in painful travail. While among the wild beasts of the wilderness a (similar situation to the first Adam’s) he felt the danger, and desolation of his situation, and the cravings of a long protracted fast. He ate nothing all this time, his life being sustained by the Spirit: and at the end became very hungry. Luke terms this, “being forty days put to the proof under diabolos,” or sin; that is, in his case, under the perturbation of weakened flesh and blood. This was before the adversary came to him. His nature was severely tried during this period; and it remained to be seen, whether his flesh thus weakened would stand in the truth; or like Adam’s, seek present gratification by transgressing the divine law. The end of the forty days appears to have been the prepared crisis of the trial. At this junction, one came to test him. Jesus styles him, as he termed Peter, “Satan,” that is, adversary. This individual, probably, was an angel; for angels were concerned in the matter, as appears from the testimony; and Paul says, “the very adversary (Satan) transforms himself into an angel of light,” or knowledge—2 Corinthians 5: 21. Christ’s visitor was evidently a person of scriptural information; and as he appeared as a tester at a time especially prepared for the trial, I have no doubt he was sent by the same Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness there to be put to the proof. I conclude then, that he was “an angel of light,” not shining with brightness, but appearing as a friendly man, well instructed in the word.
Now Luke attributes what this concealed adversary suggested to diabolos, or one causing to transgress, but in this case without success; for they were suggestions to Jesus under the workings of sin’s flesh, seeing that “he was in all things put to the proof according to the likeness without offence.” The visitor, though styled “devil,” was not diabolos within, as in our case, but an excitant thereof; in “the likeness,” or sin’s flesh; therefore his sayings are recorded as those of diabolos. Jesus being begotten of God, as was Adam the first likewise, and not of the will of sin’s flesh, the promptings to transgression did not proceed from within. In this the form of sin’s flesh he assumed, differed from the form we possess. The promptings in our case do often proceed from within. In the two Adams they came from without—from the serpent in the one case; and from the angel of light in the other. These occupied for the time the position of the then as yet unbegotten diabolos relatively to their flesh, till the lust they might excite should by the strength thereof bring forth sin, when their personal missions would be terminated, and sin enthroned as the conceived diabolos of the form, or likeness of sin’s flesh.
In the second Adam’s case the testing adversary failed to move him from the stand he had taken of absolute obedience to the will of God, whatever might ensue. He appealed to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, but all without effect. The law of the Spirit of life within him was too strong for these appeals. He extinguished their effect by the word of faith, which was his shield, and emerged from the trial undefiled. The tester of his allegiance then left him; and whatever perturbation may have been excited, it subsided into the peacefulness of a conscience void of offence towards God.
In studying Christ’s trial it is important not to forget what I have intimated above about his nature; because it was the point of difference in the nature of the two Adams from ours that caused the ordeals they were subjected to, to assume the forms narrated. No one has ever been put to the proof through a speaking reptile since Adam’s fall; nor has any one been tried by an angel of light since Jesus successfully resisted his suggestions. —Paul’s phrase “in the likeness of sinful flesh”—en homoiomati sarkos hamartias—I have rendered more literally “in a form of Sin’s flesh.” “Sinful” is an adjective expressive of the quality of the “flesh,” and signifies flesh full of sin. —This is a form of flesh common to all mankind, and indicated by Paul in the words, “in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” But Adam’s flesh before his fall, and the Christ’s flesh, were forms of flesh and blood to which the English word “sinful” is inapplicable. —They were not full of sin. The first Adam’s was a form in which there was no sin at all, but only a physical weakness inseparable from flesh and blood. Luke styles him “Son of God,” because he was begotten by his Spirit from mother earth. Having transgressed, his weakness was defiled, and became sin, and his flesh “Sin’s flesh”—sarx hamartias—a form afterwards inherited by Abraham in common with all mankind. But Christ’s was still another form of Sin’s flesh than either Abraham’s or Adam’s before his fall. The homiomal difference of his flesh from Adam’s consisted in its maternity. Adam’s came directly from the dust of the ground; Christ’s from that form of Sin’s flesh styled “the seed of Abraham”—Hebrews 2: 16. It differed from this, however, in its paternity. Abraham’s daughter, Mary, was “begotten of blood, of the will of the flesh, or of man;” but her son Jesus, of the will of God by his creative power, which constituted him a peculiar form of Sin’s flesh; and hence the propriety of my more literal rendering of en homoiomati sarkos hamartias—a form of Sin’s flesh—even the third form under which flesh and blood has been manifested since the creation-week.
In Hebrews 4: 15, the phrase “form of Sin’s flesh” is expressed by the single word homoiotes, “likeness, resemblance, or similitude;” as, kata panta kath, homoioteta, “in all things according to the likeness.” One thing may resemble another without being identical in every particular. This was the case with Christ’s flesh. It was Sin’s flesh so far as its maternity was concerned, but not as to its fatherhood. In this he differed from the Jews, who had Sin’s flesh for their parentage on both sides, which they illustrated in their persecution of their maternal brother, who was “born after the Spirit;” thereby proving that they were the children and slaves of father, Sin, or diabolos. Still Christ’s paternity did not destroy the physical likeness of his flesh to Abraham’s seed; it only removed from it the reigning principle hereditarily transmitted by the will of man, called diabolos, or “devil.” His flesh, however, was still reduced in strength below that of Adam’s original nature, because of its maternal defilement. Hence, to place it on a par with the first Adam’s, that there might be equality of strength, Jesus was anointed or Christened, by which he became “full of the Holy Spirit.” This filling did not destroy the homoiotes or likeness to Sin’s flesh. It was still possible for Christ to feel the force and influence of sophistical appeals to the lusts of Sin’s flesh with which he was burdened as with “a loathsome disease”—Psalm 38: 6-7. Hence, says the apostle, “he was put to the proof in all things or according to the likeness,” or resemblance of his flesh to his brethren’s in its susceptibilities, “without offence.”
There being no reigning diabolos, “devil,” or Sin, transmitted by the will of man in Adam or Christ, as in the flesh of all mankind, that causing not to stand in the truth, or diabolos, is in their cases, and in their’s alone, to be referred to the Serpent and the Angel of light. But this does not constitute them what the Gentiles call “the Devil,” or “His Satanic Majesty.” The Serpent, because of his agency in the affair, became the Bible symbol representative of the evil he had done in the unconsciously immoral use he had made of what he knew by observation, and was able to express in speech. —It would be very injudicious to rush to the conclusion that, because the Serpent and the Angel of light stood related to the two Adams as the diabolos, or that causing to err, therefore, whenever the word diabolos occurs, it means the serpent or angel of light. If it did, it by no means follows that it would signify the Devil of gentile “organised theology,” which is as dissimilar from them as they are from one another. Christ was not put to the proof by a serpent, nor by the serpent; nor was Adam by an angel of knowledge, nor by the angel of light, who offered his suggestions to Jesus. They were both probed to the quick; but by provers suitable to the times, place, and circumstances around them.
But, though the proving agents in the trials of the two Adams have never experimented upon any others of our race, Christ’s brethren stand related to a power, styled ho peiradzoon, which is rendered in the English version, “the tempter”—1 Thessalonians 3: 5. —By reference to the passage it is manifest that the tempter alluded to there was not an invisible Devil, but a persecuting power under which the disciples lived in Thessalonica. They were suffering persecution when Paul wrote to them for their encouragement. “Let no man,” says he, “be moved by these afflictions: for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto.” He then refers to what he had told them before, and not them only, but all others; that “it is through much tribulation that they (the baptised) must enter the Kingdom of God.” But he reminds them that they are not alone in their trouble, but are “suffering like things of their countrymen” that Christ’s brethren on Judea had of the Jews. This saying reveals the power as that of the Gentile authorities in Thessalonica, who, stirred up by “lewd fellows of the baser sort,” were carrying into effect as far as they could “the decrees of Caesar,” with all the pains and penalties annexed, against the refractory—Acts 17: 5-8; 2 Thessalonians 1: 4-5. These were torture, imprisonment, and death, which served to prove their inseparable devotion to the doctrine of God’s Kingdom, for which they suffered. These “persecutions and tribulations” might be avoided upon one condition which was offered to them by the enemy—if they would renounce the faith, and burn incense to Caesar’s image. This was the temptation offered to them by the tempting power. If they yielded to the temptation, they saved their lives, but lost “God’s Kingdom and glory.” Fearing this result in some cases, Paul says, “I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain.”
In the case before us the tempter was the imperial pagan Roman power, styled in the apocalypse, “a great red dragon,” and “the great Dragon, the ancient Serpent, the surnamed diabolos and the Satan.”—Revelation 12: 3, 9. The Dragon, or Serpent, was the symbol of the Roman Sovereignty selected by the Romans themselves as representative of its imperiality. Chrysostom, who flourished in the 4th century, says that “the Emperors wore among other things to distinguish them silken robes embroidered with gold, in which Dragons were represented.” Gibbon also says, speaking of the procession of Constantine from Milan to Rome, “He was encompassed by the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embroidered with gold and shaped in the form of Dragons, waved round the person of the emperor.” The emperor Constantine speaks of the Dragon as the symbol of the pagan Roman Sovereignty in his epistle to Eusebius and other bishops concerning the rebuilding and repair of churches. “Liberty being now restored,” says he, “and that Dragon being removed from the administration of public affairs, by the providence of the great God, and by my ministry; I esteem the great power of God to have been made manifest even to all.” Moreover, on the testimony of Eusebius, we are informed, that a picture of Constantine was set up over the palace gate, with the cross over his head, and under his feet “the great enemy of mankind, who persecuted the church by means of impious tyrants, in the form of a Dragon,” transfixed with a spear through the midst of his body, and falling headlong into the depth of the sea. Hence it is evident that the species of serpent called the dragon was as much the symbol of the Roman power, as the lion is of the British at this day. The Romans probably borrowed it from Egypt, which had become a province of their dominion. When an independent monarchy under the Pharaohs, its majesty was represented by “the great dragon, that lieth in the midst of his rivers.” The annexation of so ancient and renowned a kingdom was very likely celebrated by the adoption of its ancient symbol into the Roman heraldry. Hence, the Roman dragon is styled “the ancient serpent,” or the Egyptian—Revelation 11: 8—The great city, or Roman empire, is here figuratively styled Egypt.
Whether God in his providence influenced the governments of the world to represent their several sovereignties by peculiar symbols, I cannot say; but that he has adopted them in his word when treating of their policy and destiny relatively to Israel, and the Saints, is beyond all question. The Egyptian serpent, the Assyrian lion, the Persian ram, the Macedonian goat, the French frogs, &c., are all examples that he has done so. The adoption by the Romans of the serpent, styled in the prophets, “the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; the dragon that is in the sea”—Isaiah 27: 1, as the symbol of the sovereignty that rules the imperial territory, is singularly appropriate. Its scriptural fitness is seen in the fact, that “all the power of the enemy” with which God’s people have had to contend on the arena of prophecy, originated in the sophistry of the serpent; and is found civilly and ecclesiastically organised in the ancient and modern imperial dominion of the Roman earth. This power has ever been the adversary of Israel after the flesh and spirit, and of the truth, since the Holy land became a Roman province; and will so continue to be “until the Ancient of Days shall come, and judgment shall be given to the saints of the Most High; and the time comes that they shall take the kingdom, and possess it”—Daniel 7: 22, 18. It is not only their Adversary in making war upon them as a people who will hereafter seize upon its dominion; but when it gets them into its clutches, it endeavours to turn them from the faith, and to compel them to embrace its own superstition, and so cause them not to stand in the truth. It is, therefore, a power causing to cross the line, or to transgress the divine law, that is, a diabolos, as well as THE ADVERSARY, or ho Satanas. It is for this reason the Spirit has “surnamed,” the imperial serpent, in the words of the English version, “the Devil and Satan,” or more articularly, “the surnamed Devil and the Satan”—ho kaloumenos diabolos kai ho Satanas. —And here we will pause till our next issue.
EDITOR.
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