Questions

Dear Brother Genusa,

Our attention has been drawn to the letters exchanged between yourself and Bro. Jim Cowie dated 25/2/2002, 20/3/2005, 22/3/2005 re atonement issues.

As we endeavor to understand the rights and wrong of the issue we are puzzled by and a little confused and thus we seek for clarification on certain points.

On your web page you display a copy of C.C.Walker’s discourse on the atonement under the heading “Metonymy” where he explains the second use of the word ‘sin”.

"Sin": Personification and Metonymy

"Sin is lawlessness" -- that is the primary meaning of the word as given by the beloved disciple (1 John 3:4). But there are secondary meanings, by figures of speech such as personification and metonymy; and unless these are recognized confusion will result. [C. C. Walker]

However in your letter to Bro. Jim, on Page 3 you make this comment.” To make one acceptation merely a metonym is to deny the second primary acceptation which Bro. Thomas elaborates in Elpis Israel.”

And again “ Does the descriptive label ‘metonym’ transmute the physical law of the body into an unreal, symbolic or phantasmal law and thereby justify your contention that the body is not accounted as ‘sin’?"

Could you please therefore give us the scriptural references, in Paul’s argument in Romans and elsewhere, where the word sin, first or second acceptation, is used in a metonymical sense? Or could you please state unequivocally that the word sin is never used as a metonym?

In the interests of truth could you please put this enquiry and your reply onto the net for others who may be interested or confused.

Luke and Barry.

Response

Dear Brethren,

Greetings in the hope of Israel. Thank you for the questions.

My point to brother Cowie is that brethren of a clean flesh persuasion are only throwing up so much dust in the air in their attempt to deny the second Scriptural acceptation (definition) of the word sin. In claiming that the second acceptation of the word sin is merely a metonym, they are hiding behind a figure of speech to deny "sin in the flesh". It is the old error of clean flesh hiding behind modified language. "Error changes its form from age to age, but the dutiful attitude remains the same—the duty of individual repudiation and non-toleration in fellowship." (The Christadelphian, 1890, p. 66)

You offer me the option of stating "unequivocally that the word sin is never used as a metonym". Why would I claim such an absurd idea? "The body of sin" takes its name by a figure of speech. This does not make the body or flesh itself a figure. It does not transform "indwelling sin" into a non-reality. The Scriptural "devil" in relation to the human body is not a mere figure or abstract concept.

As brother John Thomas said, there are two principal (primary) acceptations (definitions) for the word "sin". 1) Transgressions 2) physical human nature. What errorists are doing is saying that the second acceptation is only a figure of speech. This is not Central Christadelphian much less Christadelphian teaching. In his sacrifice did Christ condemn 1) a figure of speech, 2) a figure, or 3) physical human nature, from which transgression comes? Christadelphian teaching is that it was sinful human nature, the flesh, which was condemned -- not substitutionary but representative sacrifice.

Romans 8:3 says, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh". Did the Mosaic law condemn sins? Yes, of course it did¹. So then what was it that God did by sending his Son in the sameness of sinful flesh, which the Mosaic law could not do? He condemned "sin in the flesh" or the physical human nature from which the sinful impulses of flesh spring forth. This is "the devil" -- not a mere figure of speech -- but rather, the physical human nature.

You asked for scriptural references, in Paul’s argument in Romans and elsewhere that use the word 'sin' metonymically. C.C. Walker's article to which you referred has a number of examples in the section on metonymy.

Fraternally,

Stephen

¹ "The law condemned sin so thoroughly in the moral sense that it is called ‘the ministration of condemnation’. Then some have suggested that it means the flesh of the sacrificial animals. This is precluded by the intimation that Christ was sent ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ for the accomplishment of the work in question--the condemnation of sin in the flesh. This is, in fact, the reliable clue to the meaning. That he was sent ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ for the accomplishment of the work shows that it was a work to be done in him. Some try to get away from this conclusion (and this is the popular habit) by seizing on the word ‘likeness’ and contending that this means not the same, but only like. This contention is precluded by the use of the same term as to his manhood: ‘he was made in the likeness of men’, He was really a man, in being in the likeness of men: and he was really sinful flesh, in being in ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’. Paul, in Heb. 2:14-17, declares the likeness to have been in the sense of sameness: ‘Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, it became him likewise to take part of the same’. The statement remains in its undiminished force that’ God sent his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for (as an offering for) sin condemned sin in the flesh’, It is, in fact, a complete and coherent statement of what was accomplished in the death of Christ, and a perfect explanation of the reason why he first came in the flesh, and of the reason why John the apostle insisted so strenuously on the maintenance of the doctrine that he had so come in the flesh. Possessing sinful flesh was no sin to him, who kept it under perfect control, and ‘did always those things that pleased the Father’. At the same time, being the sinful flesh derived from the condemned transgressors of Eden, it admitted of sin being publicly condemned in him, without any collision with the claims of his personal righteousness, which were to be met by an immediate and glorious resurrection." (R. Roberts, The Law of Moses, The Consecration of Aaron and his Sons, 4th ed., p. 173, 174)