A Reply to the Doctrine of A. G. 's Paper,

"THE GROUNDS OF THE MONTREAL DIVISION RECONSIDERED."

(Continued from page 238.)

Speaking on what the Old Testament saints had, A. G. very solemnly counsels us to observe the very "significant and impressive silence of Scripture."He warns us against "essaying to pass this barrier of divine reserve."See page 27. Well, how reserved is Scripture on this point? It may be well to let it speak for itself.

First, then, in Heb. 11:3, it tells us that Abel "obtained witness that he was righteous." At least one Old Testament saint, however "dim his light," had justification, even if we have to accept the dictum that "justification cannot be apart from faith in Christ." Enoch, little as he knew, knew that "he pleased God." God gave him "this testimony." Was it not sufficient for him? Was his light so dim he was not sure of his blessing? We are told that Noah was an "heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Was that not a "righteousness which is of God?" Abraham "looked for a city." "Partial" as was his revelation, he certainly understood he had title to it, and that the title he had was not vested in himself. Was not life-eternal life-and incorruptibility among the promises these worthies of this far back time "saw afar off"? Even if "their nature" was yet to be fully brought to light, they "were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." The inspired apostle tells us that "they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country," and he adds, the country they seek is a heavenly one. In this connection I will mention Job. In the twilight under which he lived he knew he had a Redeemer-a living Redeemer. He knew, too, that he was going to die, yet his dim light told him that some day as a man in resurrection-in life and incorruptibility, he would see his living Redeemer. Job 19:25-27 does not look as though Scripture was silent about life and incorruptibility, does it? In Heb. 11:35, we read of saints in Old Testament times who would not accept deliverance when it was offered them, content to be cruelly tortured to death rather than be unfaithful; the hope of a glorious resurrection to incorruptibility dwelling in power in their souls. As for the forgiveness of sins, Rom. 3:25, explicitly declares they had it-that God passed them by or pretermitted them,-did not look on them, (though what covers them had not yet been provided) and that the cross now shows how righteous He was in doing so.

Reader need I quote further? Does it appear that Scripture has preserved a strange silence on this subject? If it is a question of "following the example of the Holy Spirit," then plainly A. G.'s "barrier of divine reserve" is not there to bar us from giving them credit for believing something, and that
there was a hope in them subjectively realized. If they lived under the "dim light of a partial revelation " how bright faith in them shines! Does it not put us to shame? Does it befit us to boast of our superiority? With our fuller light are we better witnesses of the hope of the life to come? Again I say, how they shame us!

What A. G. gains by misquoting John 17:3, I am unable to make out. I can understand that the text as it stands does not suit him. It reads, " And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." A. G. gives it, "this is life eternal, that they might know Thee (the Father) and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Why change "the only true God" into "the Father?" Did not Old Testament saints know "the only true God?" Did not Abraham see the day of Jesus Christ? Our Lord said he did.

I give now his quotation of some words of Mr. Grant, page 28.

" 'That they may all be one as Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.' This (says Mr. Grant) is a direct and conclusive statement. It warrants, nay necessitates, our saying that as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so are we in the Father and in the Son." (And further, on page 11), "Community of life and nature, realized in dependence, and manifested in community of word and work. This is what the terms we have been looking at imply. They are the Lord's own words, moreover, as we have seen, which affirm their similar meaning, when applied to Himself and the Father, or to His people in the Son and in the Father; 'as Thou, Father, art in Me and I in Thee, that they may be one in Us.' "

A. G. 's remarks on this show how utterly incompetent he is to criticize. He has entirely misrepresented Mr. Grant's teaching; not intentionally, of course, but through misunderstanding him. But this misunderstanding manifests also an incapacity to understand Scripture.

His comments are:

" 'A community of life and nature realized in dependence,' as Mr. Grant expresses it. It might have been thought that the knowledge of the divine glory of the Son of God, as one with the Father, would have preserved Mr. Grant from the assumption that our being in Him is a parallel truth with His being in the Father, with whom He is linked in the oneness of absolute Deity, in which no creature can ever have part. Is this oneness realized by the Son in dependence? Are we one with the Father and in the Son in having part in the intrinsic, essential life of the Godhead? "

But Mr. Grant never taught what is here attributed to him. Nor do I know of anyone else who has taught this. When the Lord says," As Thou Father art in Me and I in Thee," He is not speaking of Himself as Son in Deity, but as Son in manhood. As Son in manhood it was given to Him to have life in Himself (John 5:26), but it was not given to Him to have life in Himself as Son in Deity. To say this would, indeed, be "strange disparagement and dishonor." But no one says it. The Son in manhood given to have life in Himself was thus as man one with the Father. It was as man that He was in the Father, and abode in the Father. It was thus as man that He had "community of life and nature" which was " realized in dependence and manifested in community of word and work." Now then, just as life was thus in Him dependently and realized in dependence, just as thus in this dependent way the Father was in Him and He in the Father, so, too, life is dependently in us. It is thus that we are in them-in the Father and the Son. It is not His oneness in Deity that is the pattern of our oneness in them, but it is His oneness as a man that gives the pattern and character of the oneness we have in them. There is no degradation of our Lord in this, no unholy exaltation of ourselves. To say this is not placing saints on the plane of Deity. It is merely stating the nature and character of our relationship to God, which is one of dependence-patterned after the dependent relationship of the Son in manhood.

On the top of page 30, A. G. says:

"The passage which Mr. Grant quotes from John 17:refers, it is believed, to the unity of the Spirit."

It is believed by whom? By Mr. Darby? No. At least he does not so teach in the Synopsis, where he speaks of it as being "communion with the Father and the Son" and refers to i John 1:3. This is precisely Mr. Grant's view. But perhaps he means Mr. Kelly. Well, Mr. Kelly says, in his exposition of the Gospel of John, on page 365, "It is communion in virtue of the Father made known in the Son, and of the Son the object of the Father's love and delight, into which we are brought by the Holy Ghost. With the Father we share the Son; with the Son we share the Father." Another remark on the same page is, "The power of the Spirit baptized all the believers into one body, the Church. The unity here, however, though produced by the same Spirit in those who compose that body, is not that which fell to the apostle Paul to set out." Thus again do we find the same "construction which Mr. Grant has put upon it." Evidently A. G. does not understand what is believed. The statement, "The saints of old . . . were, one and all of them, quickened by the Son with the life in Him," will not have to "be refused as being un scriptural yet. Considering the company we are in, we will hold to it until it is proved to be unscriptural.

At the bottom of page 29, we are told:

"For God and for faith the flesh has been judicially terminated at the cross. Until this was accomplished, and the Lord had through death and judgment, entered upon His full, mediatorial place, none could have life 'in the Son.' Life from the Son they

might have; for the Son is God; but that is another matter."

Will this distinction stand the test of Scriptures? Of course, all life is from the Son. He is the Creator of every living thing. Plant life is from The life of the mere animal is also from Him. Human life is from Him. But in Scripture there is a distinction between plant and mere animal life, and human life. It is never said that either plant or mere animal life is in God, but, in Acts 17:28, human life is explicitly said to be in God. "For in Him we live and move and have our being." All creature life is dependent life, but there are different kinds of dependent life. Plants and mere animal are not related to God in the same way that men are. Men are in the image and likeness of God; plants and mere animals are not. Man's kinship to God is by the life which God has given him, a life imparted to him by the in breathing of God. God did not in breathe plants and animals. They came in being by the simple word of His power, but in man's case, along with the word of power, there was the in-breathing, so that man lives in God. Now it cannot be maintained that there is a distinction between life in God and life in the Son. Life in God characterizes it as life in kinship with God. Life in the Son expresses the source through which we have received life in God, while the Spirit, of course, is the divine Agent in the communication of it.

Now it cannot be maintained that those born again in Old Testament times were not in so close relationship to God as the mere natural man. If man as a mere creature has life in God, as Acts 17:28 says he has, then those born again have life in God in a still higher sense. To say they only have life from God is to put them in a position of relationship to God lower than that of the mere natural man. It is to reduce them to a position among plants and mere animals. Who is willing to do this? If men as such have life in God, then surely those born again stand in a relationship to Him that is of a higher order. A. G.'s distinction between "life from the Son" and "life in the Son" then is entirely unsupported by Scripture.

Beloved reader, it is refreshing to my spirit to turn from these reasonings on life by a mind that is uncontrolled by Scripture to Scripture itself. There I learn of the happy life of God before time began, of the blessed fellowship of the Father and the Son as they enjoyed together their wondrous counsels, their grand purposes, their magnificent plan for eternal delight. There I learn that as soon as sin came into the world the revelation of these counsels-this immeasurable fellowship of the Father and the Son began to be unfolded, the revelation gradually enlarging, '' God speaking at sundry times and in divers manners to the fathers, by the prophets." There I learn that through the testimony of God, in which He has been gradually unfolding His eternal delights-the joys of the Father and the Son, men, as believing the divine testimony, have found competency to walk with God and live before Him. Tell me this was not communion with God! My soul revolts from the thought. In Scripture I learn that this happiness of God-of the Father and the Son- before the world was made, has been completely manifested in a truly human life, the Son of God Himself Becoming a man to live among men dependently upon God, bringing down here into human conditions the fellowship of the Father and Son- the fellowship of the eternal counsels, and dependently abiding in that fellowship. By this full manifestation of the eternal life that was with the Father-that the Father and the Son lived in happy communion together-those who have received competency to enter into communion with God have had their communion immeasurably enlarged. But, whether in the dim light of a partial revelation, the communion limited by it, or in the light of the complete display of the life in which the Father and Son lived, the communion being greatly enhanced, it is communion with God. It is participation, not "in the intrinsic essential life of the Godhead," but in the activities and fellowship of the Godhead. And truly this knowledge of God – whether partial or complete-is eternal life.

There is one point more. There is a comment in A. G.'s "concluding remarks" which I cannot let pass unchallenged. Page 31 he says:

"Be it remembered that it was not for holding these views that Mr. Grant was put away. Saints were indeed deeply concerned, and not without just grounds, that a teacher of his gift and standing should hold such views. But the clash came through his persistency in teaching them regardless of godly remonstrance; and forming a party around himself in so doing."

Now this raises the question of where authority is vested. Is the word of God-the truth from God, authority for teaching it? Or is it not? If it is vested in the Church, or, in a special class in the Church, I have not read Scripture aright. Jeremiah met with plenty of protest and remonstrance, and that too by those high up in the councils of the nation, but did their remonstrance invalidate the authority of Jeremiah? "He that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully" (Jer. 23:28), is very conclusive. It is an assumption to suppose that protests and remonstrances are necessarily godly. John says, "He that is not of God heareth not us." Any protest or remonstrance that is not the fruit of subjection to the word of God must not debar one who has the word of God from speaking it. If it was the truth Mr. Grant taught, then the protests and remonstrances were not of God, and it was opposition to God to hinder and stop his teaching it. This is the question to be first settled. Was his doctrine the truth of God? Did it have the authority of the word of God? A. G.'s paper, at all events, has not exposed it as not being of God.

I close now. I have written entirely free from any personal animosity. I do not know A. G.-have no remembrance of ever having met him. I did not even know who was represented in the initials until this present paper was well on towards completion. I have merely responded to an appeal to help the Lord's people in a clear judgment of the doctrines discussed. I could not refuse to respond to the appeal. My work is now in their hands, and sent forth in the sense that mercy from God has been abundantly bestowed. It is commended to God. May He graciously deign to use it to establish in the truth and deliver from error where necessary. C. Crain.