First Chapter. Introduction

INTRODUCTION

I.

The Man to be Wrought upon.

“Behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto you, I will make known My Words unto you.”—Prov. i. 23.

The discussion so far has been confined to the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church as a whole. We now consider His work in individual persons.

There is a distinction between the Church as a whole and its individual members. There is a _Body _of Christ, and there are _members _which constitute a part of that Body. And the character of the Holy Spirit’s work in the one is necessarily different from that of the other.

The Church, born of divine pleasure, is complete in the eternal counsel, and soverign choice has prepared all its course.

The same God who has numbered the hairs of our head has also numbered the members of Christ’s Body. As every natural birth is foreordained, so is every Christian birth in the Church divinely predestined.

The origin and awakening of eternal life are from above; not from the creature, but from the Creator, and are rooted in His free and soverign choice. And it remains not merely a choice, but is followed by a divine act equally decisive that enforces and realizes that choice.

That is God’s spiritual omnipotence. He is not as a man who experiments, but He is God who, never forsaking the work of His hands, is persistant and irresistible in the doing of all His pleasure. Hence His counsel becomes history; and the Church, whose form is outlined in that counsel, must in the course of ages be born, increase, and perfect itself according to that counsel; and since that counsel is indestructible the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. This is the ground of the security and consolation of the saints. They have no other ground of trust. From the fact that God is God, and that therefore His pleasure shall stand, they draw the sure conviction with which they prophesy against all that is visible and phenomenal.

In the work of grace, there is no trace of chance or fatalism; God has determined not only the final issue, leaving the way by which it is to be attained undecided, but in His counsel He has prepared every means to realize His choice. And in that counsel ways disclose themselves which human eye can not trace nor fathom. The divine omnipotence adapts itself to the nature of the creature. It causes the cedars of Lebanon to grow, and the bulls of Bashan to increase; but it feeds and strengthens each according to its nature The cedar eats no grass, and the ox does not burrow in the ground for food.

The divine ordinance requires that by its roots the tree shall absorb the juices from the ground, and that by the mouth the ox shall take his food and convert it into blood. And He honors His own ordinance by providing food in the soil for the one, and grass in the field for the other.

The same principle prevails in the Kingdom of Grace. To man as a subject of that Kingdom, and of the moral world belonging to it, God has given another organism than to the ox, cedar, wind, or stream. The movements of the latter are purely mechanical; from the steep mountain the stream must fall. In a different way He acts upon ox and tree; and in still another way upon man. In the human body chemical forces work mechanically, and other forces like those in the ox and cedar. And besides these there are in man moral forces which God operates also according to their nature.

Upon this ground our fathers rejected as unworthy of God the fanatical view that in the work of grace man is a stock or block; not because it attributes something to man, but because it represents God as denying His own work and ordinance. Creating an ox or a tree or stone each different from the other, giving each a nature of its own, it follows that He can not violate this, but must adapt Himself to it. Hence all His spiritual operations are subject to the divinely ordained dispositions in man as a spiritual being; and this feature makes the work of grace exceedingly beautiful, glorious, and adorable.

For let us not deceive ourselves and speak any longer of a glorious work of grace if the omnipotent God treats man mechanically, as a stock or block. Then there is no mystery for angels to look into, but an immediate work of omnipotence breaking down and creating anew. To admire the work of grace we should take it as it is _revealed, i.e., _as a complicated, unsearchable work by which, violating nothing, God adapts Himself to the delicate and manifold needs of man’s spiritual being; and reveals His divine omnipotence in the victory over the endless and gigantic obstacles which human nature puts in His way.

Even the heart of God thirsts after love. His entire counsel may be reduced to one thought, viz., that in the end of the ages He may have a Church which shall understand His love and return it. But love can not be ordered, neither can it be forced in an unspiritual way. It can not be poured out in a man’s heart mechanically. To be warm, refreshing, and satisfying, love must be quickened, cultivated, and cherished. Hence God does not instil an ounce of love into His people’s hearts, in consequence of which they love Him, but He exhibits love to such an extent that He, who was from the beginning with God and was God, in unfathomable love dies for men on the cross.

This would have been superfluous if man were a stock or block. Then God would only have had to create love in his heart, and men would have loved Him from sheer necessity, as a stove emits heat when the fire is lighted. But the love so warmly portrayed in Scripture is not superfluous, when God deals with spiritual creatures spiritually. Then the cross of Christ is a manifestation of divine love far surpassing all human conceptions; hence exercising such irresistible power upon all God’s elect.

And that which is preeminently true and apparent in love is equally true of every part of the work of grace—in all its stages. In it God never denies Himself, nor the ordinance and plan after which man was created. Hence it is its glory that, while on the one hand God granted man the strongest means of resistance, on the other He overcame that resistance in a divine and kingly way by the omnipotence of redeeming grace.

When the apostle testifies, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, as tho God did beseech you by us, be ye reconciled to God,” (2 Cor. v. 20) he reveals such a depth of the mystery of love that finally the relations are literally reversed, and the holy God beseeches His rebellious creature, who instead should cry to Him for mercy.

Tradition speaks of the fascination of mysterious beings exerted upon travelers and mariners so irresistibly that the latter cast themselves willingly and yet against their will into destruction. In love’s revelation this tradition in a reversed and holy manner has become a reality. Here also is an almighty power of fascination, in the end irresistible to the condemned sinner; but allowing himself to be drawn unwillingly and yet willingly, eternal pity draws him not _into _destruction, but out of it.

However, the wonderful workings of love can scarcely be analyzed. Lovers never know who has attracted and who has been attracted, nor how in the struggle of the affections love performed its drawings. Love’s being is too mysterious to reveal its various workings and how they succeed one another. And this applies in far greater measure to the love of God. Every saint knows by experience that at last it became irresistible, and prevailed. But how the victory was achieved can not be told. This divine work comes to us from such infinite heights and depths, it affects us so mysteriously, and in the beginning there was such utter lack of spiritual light that one can scarcely more than stammer of these things. Who comprehends the mystery of the natural birth? Who had knowledge when he was being curiously embroidered in the lowest parts of the earth? And if this took place without our consciousness, how can we understand our spiritual birth? Indeed, subjectively, i.e., depending upon our own experience, we know absolutely nothing of it; and all that ever was or can be said about it is taken exclusively from Scripture. It has pleased the Lord to lift only a corner of the veil covering this mystery—no more than the Holy Spirit deemed necessary for the support of our faith, for the glory of God and the benefit of others in the hour of their spiritual birth.

Wherefore in this series of articles we will try only to systematize and explain what God has revealed for the spiritual direction of His children.

Nothing is further from our minds than to exercise ourselves in things too high for us, or to penetrate into mysteries hid from our view. Where Scripture stops we shall stop; to the difficulties left unexplained, we shall not add what must be only the result of human folly. But where Scripture proclaims unmistakably Jehovah’s sovereign power in the work of grace, there neither the criticism nor the mockery of men will prevent us from demanding absolute submission to the divine sovereignty and giving glory to His Name.

II.

The Work of Grace a Unit.

“Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.”— Rom. v. 5.

The final end of all God’s ways is that He may be all in all. He can not cease from working until He has entered the souls of individual men. He thirsts after the creature’s love. In man’s love for God He desires to see the virtues of His own love glorified. And love must spring from man’s personal being, which has its seat in the heart.

The work of grace exhibited in the eternal counsel can never be sufficiently praised. From Paradise to Patmos, revealed to prophets and apostles, it is transcendently rich and glorious. Prepared in Immanuel, who ascended on high, who has received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them, it exceeds the praise of men and angels. And yet its highest glory and majesty appear only when, overcoming the rebellious, operating in the soul, it causes its light so to shine that men, seeing it, glorify the Father which is in heaven.

Hence the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the crowning event of all the great events of salvation, because it reveals subjectively, i.e. in individual persons, the grace revealed hitherto objectively.

Assuredly in the days of the Old Covenant saving grace wrought in individuals, but it always bore a preliminary and special character. Old-Covenant believers “received not the promise, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Heb. xi. 39, 40) And the dispensation of personal salvation, in its normal character, began only when, the work of reconciliation being finished, Immanuel risen, the other Comforter had come inwardly to enrich the members of the Body of Christ.

Hence the purpose of the Triune God steadily urges to this glorious consummation. The divine compassion can not cease from working so long as the work of saving the individual soul is not begun. In all the preparatory work God aims persistently at His elect; not only after the fall, but even before creation, His wisdom rejoiced in His earthly world, and “His delights were with the sons of men.” (Prov. viii. 31) From eternity He foreknows all in whom His glorious light shall once be kindled. They are no strangers to Him, discovered only after the lapse of ages, upon examination either to be passed by as unprofitable, or to be wrought upon as proper and useful subjects, according to their respective merits; no, our faithful Covenant God never stands as a stranger before any of His creatures. He created them all and ordained how they should be created; they are not first created, then ordained; but ordained, then created. Even then the creature is not independent of the Lord, but before there is a word upon his tongue He knoweth it altogether; not by information of what already existed, but by divine knowledge of what was to come. Even the relations of cause and effect connecting the various parts of his life lie naked and open before Him; nothing is hid from Him; and much more intimately than man knows himself, God knows him.

The waters of salvation descending from the mountain-tops of God’s holiness do not flow toward unknown fields, but their channel is prepared, and leaping over the mountain-sides they greet the acres below which they are to water.

Hence, altho clearness demands divisions and subdivisions in the work of grace, yet they do not actually exist; the work of grace is a unit, it is one eternal, uninterrupted act, proceeding from the womb of eternity, unceasingly moving toward the consummation of the glory of the children of God which shall be revealed in the great and notable Day of the Lord. For instance, altho in the moment of regeneration God calleth the things that are not, with all that they contain as in a germ, yet it should not be represented as tho He had neglected that soul for twenty or thirty years. For even this apparent neglect. is a divine work. Constrained by His love He would rather have turned to His chosen but lost creature immediately, to seek and save it. But He refrained Himself, if we may so express it; for this very neglect, this hiding of His countenance works together as a means of grace, in the hour of love, to make grace efficient in that soul.

Hence the salvation of a soul in its personal being is an eternal, uninterrupted, continuous act, whose starting-point lies in the decree whose end is in the glorification before the throne. It contains nothing formal or mechanical. There is not a period of eighteen centuries first, during which God is occupied with the preparation of objective grace, without a single gracious work in individual souls. Neither is there salvation prepared only for possible souls whose salvation was still uncertain. Nay, the love of God never works toward the unknown. He is perfect, and His way is perfect; hence His love, always bears the high and holy mark of proceeding from heart to heart, from person to person, knowing and reading one with perfect knowledge. During all the day while Cain was being judged; while Noah and his eight were safe in the ark; while Abraham was called, and Moses talked with Jehovah face to face; while the seers were prophesying, the Baptist appeared in public, Jesus ascended Calvary, and St. John was seeing visions—throughout all those ages God foreknew us (if we are His own), the pressure of His love went out steadily toward us, He called us before we were, in order that we might come into being, and when we had come into being, He led us all our days. Even when we rebelled against Him and He turned. His face from us, even then He led us as our true and faithful Shepherd. Surely all things must work together for good to them that love God, even the lives and characters of their ancestor—for they are the called according to His purpose.

Instead of being cold and formal, it is rather one act of love, energizing, pouring forth, shedding itself abroad. From its fountain-head on the highest mountains, traversing many highlands before it can reach you, divine love flows on, ever restless, until it pours itself forth into your soul. Hence the apostle boasts that at last love had attained this blessed end in his person and in Rome’s beloved church. “Now we have peace with God, _because _the love of God (moving toward us from eternity) at last has reached us, and is now shed abroad in our heart.”

And this does not mean that now we possess a pure love of our own, but that _the love of God _for His elect, having descended from on high and overcome every obstacle, has poured itself into the deep bed of our regenerated hearts. And to this He adds the grace of making the soul understand, drink, and taste of that love. And when in contrition and shamefacedness the soul loses itself in love’s delights and in the adorations of its eternal compassion, then His glory shines with greater brightness, and His rejoicings with the children of men are complete.

However, while the Triune God anticipates from before the foundation of the world the ingathering and glorification of the saints, Scripture clearly reveals that this ingathering and glorification is the adorable work of the Holy Spirit. God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts by _the Holy Spirit _who is given unto us.

The Scripture gives this work of the Spirit a prominent place; not to the exclusion of the Father and the Son, yet so that this personal work is always effected by the Holy Spirit. And the Scripture puts this so strongly that the Catechism speaks, not incorrectly, of three things in our most holy faith: of God the Father and our Creation, of God the Son and our Redemption, and then only of God the Holy Ghost and our Sanctification. And this is not surprising. For—

First, as we have seen already, in the economy of the Triune God it is the Holy Spirit who comes in closest contact with the creature and fills him. Hence it is His peculiar work to enter man’s heart, and in its recesses to proclaim God’s grace until he believes.

Second, He brings every work of the Triune God to its consummation. Hence He perfects the work of objective grace by the saving of souls, thus realizing its final purpose.

Third, He quickens life. He hovers over the waters of chaos, and breathes into man the breath of life. In perfect harmony with this, the sinner dead in trespasses and sin can not live except he be quickened by the Spirit of all quickening, whom the Church has always invoked, saying: “Veni, Creator Spiritus.”

Fourth, He takes the things of Christ and glorifies Him. The Son does not distribute His treasures, but the Holy Spirit. And since the entire salvation of the redeemed consists in the fact that their dead and withered hearts are joined to Christ, the Source of salvation, we must praise the Holy Spirit for doing it.

Hence in the constraining desire of divine love for the individual salvation of chosen but lost creatures, the work of the Holy Spirit evidently occupies the most conspicuous place. Our knowledge of God is not complete except we know Him as the Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But as “no man cometh to the Father but by Me,” (John xiv. 6) and “no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,” (Matt. xi. 27) so no man can come to the Son but by the Holy Spirit, and no man can know the Son if the Holy Spirit does not reveal Him unto him.

But this does not imply any separation, even in thought, between the Persons of the Godhead. This would destroy the confession of the Trinity, substituting for it the false confession of tri-theism. Nay, it is eternally the same God subsisting in three Persons. The truth of our confession shines in the very acknowledgment of the unity in the Trinity. The Father is never without the Son, nor the Son without the Father. And the Holy Spirit can never come to us nor work in us except the Father and the Son cooperate with Him.

III.

Analysis Necessary.

“Let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation.” —Heb. vi. 1.

To systematize the work of the Holy Spirit in individuals, we must first consider their spiritual condition _before _conversion.

Misunderstanding concerning this leads to error and confusion. It causes the various operations of the Holy Spirit to be confounded, so that the same terms are used to designate different things. And this confuses one’s own thought, and leads others astray. This is most seriously apparent in ministers who discuss this subject in general terms, artlessly avoid definiteness, and consequently reiterate the same platitudes.

Such preaching makes little or no impression; its monotone is wearisome; it accustoms the ear to repetitions; it lacks stimulus for the inward ear. And the mind, which can not remain inactive with impunity, seeks relief in its own way, often in unbelief, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. The words “heart,” “mind,” “soul,” “conscience,” “inward man” are used indiscriminately. There are frequent calls for conversion, regeneration, renewing of life, justification, sanctification, and redemption; while the ear has not been accustomed to understand in each of these a special thing and a peculiar revelation of the work of the Holy Spirit. And in the end this chaotic preaching makes it impossible to discuss divine things intelligently, since one initiated and more thoroughly instructed can not be understood.

We solemnly protest especially against the pious appearance that conceals the inward hollowness of this preaching by saying! “My simple Gospel has no room for these hair-splitting distinctions; they savor of the dry scholasticism with which quibbling minds terrify God’s dear children, and bring them under the bondage of the letter. Nay, the Gospel of my Lord must remain to me full of life and spirit: therefore spare me these subtleties.”

And no doubt there is some truth in this. By a dry analysis of soul-refreshing truth, abstract minds often rob simple souls of much comfort and joy. They discuss spiritual things in the mongrel terms of Anglicized Latin, as tho souls could have no part with Christ unless they be experts in the use of these bastard words. Such terrifying of the weak betrays pride and self-exaltation. And a very foolish pride it is, for the boasted knowledge is readily acquired by mere effort of the memory. Such externalizing of the Christian faith is offensive. It substitutes glibness of tongue for genuine piety, and mental justification for that of faith. Thus piety of the heart moves to the head, and instead of the Lord Jesus Christ, Aristotle, the master teacher of dialectics, becomes the savior of souls.

To plead for such a caricature is far from our purpose. We believe that our salvation depends solely upon God’s work in us, and not upon our testimony; and the little child with stammering lips, but wrought upon by the Holy Spirit, will precede these vain scribes into the Kingdom of Heaven. Let no one dare impose the yoke of his own thoughts upon others. Christ’s yoke alone fits the souls of men.

And yet the Gospel does not condone shallowness, neither does it approve mere twaddle.

Of course there is a difference. We do not require our children to know the names of all the nerves and muscles of the human body, of the diseases to which it is subject, and of the contents of the pharmacopœia. It would be a burden to the little fellows, who are happiest so long as they are unconscious of the curious organism they carry with them. But the physician who is not quite certain as to the locality of these vital organs; who, careless of details, is satisfied with the generalities of his profession; who, unable to diagnose the case correctly, fails to administer the proper remedies, is promptly dismissed and a more discriminating one is called in. And to some extent the same is required of all intelligent people. Well-informed men should not be ignorant of the vital organs of the human body and their principal functions; mothers and nurses should be still better informed.

The same applies to the life of the Church. The least gifted among the brethren can not understand the distinctions of the spiritual life; unable to bear strong meat, they should be fed with milk alone. Neither should young children be wearied and blunted with phrases far above their comprehension. Both should be taught according to “the tenor of their way.” A child talking on religious matters in discriminating terms unpleasantly affects the spiritual feeling. But not so the spiritual physician, i.e., the minister of the Word. If the unskilled veterinarian be dismissed, how much more they who, pretending to treat and cure souls, betray their own ignorance of the conditions and activities of the spiritual life. Wherefore we insist that every minister of the Word be a specialist in this spiritual anatomy and physiology; familiar with the various forms of spiritual disease, and always able out of Christ’s fulness to select the spiritual remedies required.

And the same knowledge we claim, if not in the same degree, of every intelligent man or woman. The physician or lawyer who smiles at our ignorance of the first principles of his profession ought to be equally ashamed when betraying his own lamentable ignorance of the condition of his soul. In the spiritual life each talent should bear interest. Every man ought to be symmetrically developed. According to his range of vision, strength of powers, and depth of penetration, he should be able to distinguish spiritual things and his own soul’s need. And that this knowledge is largely found only among our plain, God-fearing people, and not among the higher classes, is a serious and deplorable sign of the times.

The knowledge which is power in the spiritual sphere, and able to heal, does not come in foreign terms, does not exhaust itself in the various criticism of Scripture, fond only of philosophic reasonings, starving souls by giving them stones for bread; but it searches the Word and work of God in the souls of men systematically, and proves that a man has studied the things in which he is to minister to the Church.

Our spiritual leaders, therefore, who at the university and in the catechetical class have replaced this spiritual knowledge by various criticism and apologetics, have much to answer for. For the last thirty years this knowledge has been neglected in both these institutions. And so knowledge was lost, the preaching became monotonous, and a great part of the Church perished. There was still eye and ear for the objective work of the Son, but the work of the Holy Spirit is slighted and neglected. Consequently spiritual life has sunk to such a degree that, while scarcely one third of the fulness of grace which is in Christ Jesus is being known and honored, men dare to assert that they preach Christ and Him crucified.

Hence the discussion of the Holy Spirit’s work in individuals demands that, while risking the danger of being called “scholastic drivers,” we leave the paths of shallowness and generalities and proceed to careful analysis. The Holy Spirit’s operations upon the various parts of our being in their several conditions must be distinguished and treated separately; not only in the elect, but also in the non-elect, for they are not the same. It is true the Scripture teaches that God causes His sun to shine upon the good and the evil, and His rain to come down upon the just and the unjust, so that in nature every good gift coming down from the Father of lights is common to all; but in the kingdom of grace this is not so. The Sun of righteousness often shines upon one, leaving another in darkness; and the drops of grace often water one soul, while others remain utterly deprived of them.

Hence, altho the Spirit’s work in the elect is of primary importance, yet it does not exhaust His work in individuals. Christ was set also for a fall to many in Israel; and even this is wrought by the witness of the Holy Spirit. Not only the savor of life, but the savor of death also reaches the soul by Him; as the apostle declares regarding those who, having received the gift of the Holy Ghost, had fallen away. His activity in them, and their condition when He begins His saving or hardening operations, must be carefully noticed.

Of course, this is not the place to discuss the condition of fallen man exhaustively. This would require special inquiry. Many things which perhaps elsewhere will be explained more in detail can here receive but passing notice. But it will serve our purpose if we succeed in giving the reader such a clear view of the sinner’s condition that he can understand us when we discuss the Holy Spirit’s work upon the sinner.

By a sinner we understand man as he is, lives, and moves by nature, i.e., without grace. And in that state he is dead in trespasses and sin; alienated from the life of God; wholly depraved and without strength; a sinner, and therefore guilty and condemned. And not only dead, but lying in the midst of death, ever sinking more deeply into death, which if not checked in its course opens underneath ever more widely, until eternal death stands revealed.

This is the fundamental thought, the mother-idea, the principal conception, of his state. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men.” (Rom. v. 12) And “the wages of sin is death.” (Rom. vi. 23) “Sin being finished bringeth forth death.” (James i. 15) To be translated into another state, one must pass from death into life.

But this general idea of death must be analyzed in its several relations, and to this end it must be determined what man was before, and what he has become after, this spiritual death.

IV.

Image and Likeness.

“Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.” _—_Gen. i. 26.

Glorious is the divine utterance that introduces the origin and creation of man: “And God created man after His own image and after His own likeness; after the image of God created He him” (Dutch translation).

The significance of these important words was recently discussed by the well-known professor, Dr. Edward Böhl, of Vienna. According to him it should read: Man is created “in”, not “after” God’s image, _i.e., _the image is not found in man’s _nature _or _being, _but outside of him in God. Man was merely set in the _radiance _of that image. Hence, remaining in its light, he would live in that image. But stepping out of it, he would fall and retain but his own nature, which before and after the fall is the same. In the Dutch the preposition “in” has not the meaning of “conformably to,” as in the English, but denotes rest or motion within limits, whether of place, time, or circumstances. With nouns or adjectives the word governed by “in” indicates the sphere, the domain where a property manifests itself. Hence the Dutch expression, “Geschapen in het, beeld God’s” (created in the divine image), indicates the sphere in which Adam moved before he fell.—Trans.

In the discussion of the corruption of the human nature we will consider this opinion of the highly esteemed professor of Vienna. Let us state here simply that we reject this opinion, in which we see a return to Rome’s errors. Dr. Böhl’s negative character of sin, which is the basis of this representation, we can not entertain. Moreover, it opposes the doctrine of the Incarnation, and of Sanctification as held by the Reformed Church. Hence we believe it to be safest, first to explain the confession of the fathers concerning this, and then to show that this representation is inconsistent with the Word.

Accepting the account of Creation as the Holy Spirit’s direct revelation, we acknowledge its absolute credibility in every part. They who do not so accept it, or who, like many Ethical theologians, deny the literal interpretation, can have no voice in the discussion. If in the exposition of the account we are in earnest, and do not trifle with words, we must be thoroughly convinced that God actually said: “Let Us make men after Our image and after Our likeness.” (Gen. i. 26) But denying this and holding that these words merely represent the form in which somebody, animated by the Holy Spirit, presented man’s creation to himself, we can deduce nothing from them. Then we have no security that they are divine; we know only that a pious man _attributed _these thoughts to God and laid them upon His lips while they were but his own account of man’s creation:

Hence the infallibility of Sacred Scripture is our starting-point. We see in Gen. i. 27 a direct testimony of the Holy Spirit; and with fullest assurance we believe that these are the words of the Almighty spoken before He created man. With this conviction, they have decisive authority; and bowing before it, we confess that man was created after God’s likeness and after His image.

This statement, in connection with the whole account, shows that the Holy Spirit sharply distinguishes man’s creation and that of all other creatures. They were all manifestations of God’s glory, for He saw that they were good; an effect of His counsel, for they embodied a divine thought. But man’s creation was special, more exalted, more glorious; for God said: “Let Us make men after Our image and after Our likeness.”

Hence the general sense of these words is that man is totally different from all other beings; that his kind is nobler, richer, more glorious; and especially that this higher glory consists in the more _intimate bond _and _closer relation _to his Creator.

This appears from the words _image _and likeness. In all His other creative acts the Lord speaks, and it is done; He commanded, and it stood fast. There is a thought in His counsel, a will to execute it, and an omnipotent act to realize it, but no more; beings are created wholly _outside _and _apart _from Him. But man’s creation is totally different. Of course, there is a divine thought proceeding from the eternal counsel, and by omnipotent power this thought is realized; but that new creature is connected with the image of God.

According to the universal significance of the word, a person’s image is such a concentration of his essential features as to make it the very impress of his being. Whether it be in pencil, painting, or by photography, a symbol, an idea, or statue, it is always the concentration of the essential features of man or thing. An idea is an image which concentrates those features upon the field of the _mind; _a statue in marble or bronze, etc., but regardless of form or manner of expression, the essential image is such a concentration of the several features of the object that it represents the object to the mind. This fixed and definite significance of an image must not be lost sight of. The image maybe imperfect, yet as long as the object is recognized in it, even tho the memory must supply the possible lack, it remains an image.

And this leads to an important observation: The fact that we can recognize a person from a fragmentary picture proves the existence of a _soul-picture _of that person, _i.e., _an image photographed through the eye upon the soul. This image, occupying the imagination, enables us mentally to see him even in his absence and without his picture.

How is such image obtained? We do not make it, but the person himself, who while we look at him draws it upon the retina, thus putting it into our soul. In photography it is not the artist, nor his apparatus, but the features of our own countenance which as by witchery draw our image upon the negative plate. In the same manner the person receiving our image is passive, while we putting it into his soul are active. Hence in deepest sense, each of us carries his own image in or upon his face, and puts it into the human soul or upon the artist’s plate. This image consists of features which, _concentrated, _form that peculiar expression which shows one’s individuality. A man forms his own shadow upon a wall after his own image and likeness. As often as we cause the impress of our being to appear externally, we make it after our own image and likeness.

Returning, after these preliminary remarks, to Gen. i. 27, we notice the difference between (1) the divine image after which we are created, and (2) the image which consequently became visible in us. The image _after which _God made man is one, and that fixed in us quite another. The first is God’s image after which we are created, the other the image created in us. To prevent confusion, the two must be kept distinct. The former existed before the latter, else how could God have created man after it?

It is not strange that many have thought that this image and likeness referred to Christ, who is said to be “the Image of the invisible God,” (Col. i. 15) and “the express Image of His Substance.” (Heb. i. 3) Not a few have accepted this as settled. Yet, with our best ministers and teachers, we believe this incorrect. It conflicts with the words, “Let Us make men after Our image and after Our likeness,” (Gen. i. 26) which must mean that the Father thus addressed the Son and the Holy Spirit. Some say that these words are addressed to the angels, but this can not be so, since man is not created after the image of angels. Others maintain that God addressed Himself, arousing Himself to execute His design, using” We” as a plural of majesty. But this does not agree with the immediately following singular: “And God created man after His image.” (Gen. i. 27) Hence we maintain the tried explanation of the Church’s wisest and godliest ministers, that by these words the Father addressed the Son and the Holy Spirit. And then the unity of the Three Persons expresses itself in the words: “And God created man after His image.” Hence this image can not be the Son. How could the Father say to the Son and to the Holy Spirit: “Let Us make men after the image of the Son”?

That image must be, therefore, a concentration of the features of God’s Being, by which He expresses Himself. And since God alone can represent His own Being to Himself, it follows that by the image of God we must understand the representation of His Being as it eternally exists in the divine consciousness.

“Image” and “likeness” we take to be synonyms; not because a difference could not be invented; but because in ver. 27 the word “likeness” is not even mentioned. Hence we oppose the explanation that image refers to the soul, and likeness to the body. Allowing that by the indissoluble union of body and soul the features of the divine image must have an after-effect in the latter, which is His temple, yet there is no reason nor suggestion why we should support such a precarious distinction between image and likeness. Hence the image after which we are created is the expression of God’s Being as it exists in His own consciousness.

The next question is: What was or is there in man that caused him to be created after that image?

V.

Original Righteousness.

“For in Him we live and move, and have our being: as certain also of your own poets have said. For we are also His offspring.” —Acts xvii. 28.

It is the peculiar characteristic of the Reformed Confession that more than any other it humbles the _sinner _and exalts the sinless man.

To disparage man is unscriptural. Being a sinner, fallen and no longer a real man, he must be humbled, rebuked, and inwardly broken. But the divinely created man, realizing the divine purpose or restored by omnipotent grace in the elect, is worthy of all praise, for God has made him after His own image.

Because he stood so high, he fell so low. He was such an excellent being, hence he became such a detestable sinner. The excellency of the former is the source of the damnableness of the latter.

It is said that while the present age properly appreciates and exalts man, our doctrine only disparages him; but with all its eulogy and praise this present age has never conceived a more exalted testimony than that of Scripture, saying: “God created man in His own image.” (Gen. i. 27) We protest against the cry of the age, not because it makes of man too much, but too _little, _asserting that he is glorious even now in his fallen state.

What would you think of the man who, walking through your flower-garden, laid waste by a violent thunder-storm, called the stem broken and mud-covered flowers, lying upon their disordered beds, _magnificent? _And this the present age is doing. Walking through the garden of this world, withered and disordered by sin’s thunderstorms, it cries in proud ecstasy: “What glorious beings these men! How fair and excellent!” And as the botanist would say regarding his disordered garden: “Do you call this beautiful? You should have seen it before the storm destroyed it”; so say we to this age: “Do you call this fallen man glorious? Compared to what he ought to be he is utterly worthless. But he was glorious before sin ruined him, shining in all the beauty of the divine image.”

Hence our doctrine exalts him to highest glory. Next to the glory of being _created after the image of God _comes the glory of being God Himself. As soon as man presumes to this he thrusts at once all his glory from him; it is his detestable sin that he aspires to be like God. If it be said that even in Paradise the law prevailed that God alone is great, and the creature nothing before Him; we answer, that he that is created after the divine image has no higher ambition than to be a _reflection _of God; excluding the idea of being above or against God. Hence it is certain that the original man was most glorious and excellent; wherefore fallen man is most despicable and miserable.

Has fallen man then lost the image of God?

This vital question controls our view of man in every respect, and hence requires closest examination; especially since the opinions of believers concerning this are diametrically opposed. Some maintain that after the fall man retained a few remains of it, and others that he has entirely lost it.

To avoid all misunderstanding, we must first decide whether to be created after the image of God (1) refers _only _to the original righteousness, or (2) included also man’s nature which was clothed with this original righteousness. If the divine image consisted only in the original righteousness, then, of course, it was _completely and absolutely lost; _for by his fall man lost this original righteousness once for all. But if it was also impressed upon his being, his nature, and upon his human existence, then it can not disappear entirely; for, however deeply sunk, fallen man remains man.

By this we do not imply that something spiritually good was left in man; among the finally lost even the deepest fallen will retain some evidence that he was created after the divine image. We do not even hesitate to subscribe to the opinion of the fathers that if the angels, Satan included, were originally created after God’s image (which Scripture does not teach positively), then even the devil in his deep fiendishness must show some features of that image.

We do not mean that after the fall man had any willingness, knowledge, or anything good; and they who in pulpit or writing infer this from “the few remains” of article xiv. of the Confession of Faith pervert its plain teaching. Altho it acknowledges that a few remains are retained, yet it follows that “_all _the light which is in us is changed into darkness’’; and it says before that “man is become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways,” and “that he has corrupted his _whole _nature.” Hence these “few remains” may never be understood to imply that there remained in man any strength, willingness, or desire for good. No, a sinner in his fallen nature is altogether condemnable. And there is, as the same article confesses, “no will nor understanding conformable to the divine will and understanding, but what Christ has wrought in man, which He teacheth us when He said, “Without Me ye can do nothing.”

And thus we disarm any suspicion that we look for something good in the sinner.

With Scripture we confess: “There is _none _righteous, no not _one. _There is _none _that understandeth, there is _none _that seeketh after God. They are _all _gone out of the way, they are _together _become unprofitable; there is _none _that doeth good, no, not one.”

But how is this to be reconciled? How can these two go together? On the one hand the sinner has nothing, absolutely nothing good or praiseworthy; and on the other, this same sinner always retains features of the image of God!

Let us illustrate. Two horses become mad; the one is a common truck horse, the other a noble Arabian stallion. Which is the more dangerous? The latter, of course. His noble blood will break loose into more uncontrollable rage and violence. Or two clerks work in an office; the one a mere drudge of slow understanding, the other a youth with brains and piercing eye. Which could do his master the greater injury? The latter, of course, and all his schemes would show his superiority working in the wrong direction. This is always the case. There is no more dangerous enemy of the truth than an unbeliever religiously instructed. In all his impious rage he shows his superior training and knowledge. Satan is so mighty because before his fall he was so exceedingly glorious. Hence in his fall man did not put off the original nature, but he retained it. Only its action was reversed, corrupted, and turned against God.

When the captain of a man-of-war in a naval engagement betrays his king and raises the enemy’s flag, he does not first damage or sink his ship, but he keeps it as efficient for service as possible, and with all its armament intact he does the very reverse of what he ought to do. “Optimi coruptio pessima!” says the proverb of the wise—i.e., the greater the excellency of a thing, the more dangerous its defection. If the admiral of the fleet were to choose which of his ships should betray him, he would say: “Let it be the weakest, for defection of the strongest is the most dangerous.” It is true in every sphere of life that the excellent qualities of a thing or being do not disappear in reversed action, but become most excellently bad.

In this way we understand man’s fall. Before it he possessed the most exquisite organism which by holy impulse was directed toward the most exalted aim. Tho reversed by the fall, this precious human instrument remained, but, directed by unholy impulse, it aims at a deeply unholy object.

Comparing man to a steamship, his fall did not remove the engine. But as before the fall he moved in righteousness, so he moves now in unrighteousness. In fact, as fast as he steamed then toward felicity, so fast he steams now toward perdition, i.e., away from God. Hence the retaining of the engine made his fall all the more terrible and his destruction more certain. And thus we reconcile the two: that man retained his former features of excellency, and that his destruction is sure except he be born again.

But in the divine image we must carefully distinguish:

First, the wonderful and artistic organism called human nature.

Second, the _direction _in which it moved, _i.e., _toward the holiest end, in that God created man in original righteousness.

That God created man good and after His own image does not mean that Adam was in a state of _innocence, _in that he had not sinned; nor that he was perfectly equipped to _become holy, _gradually to ascend to greater development; but that he was created in _true righteousness and holiness, _indicating not the degree of his development, but his status. This was his _original righteousness. _Hence all the inclinations and outgoings of his heart were perfect. He lacked nothing. Only in one respect his blessedness differed from that of God’s children, viz., his good was _losable _and theirs not.

Of these two parts constituting the divine image—first, the inward, artistic organism of man’s being, and, second, the original righteousness in which the organism moved naturally—the _latter _is completely lost, and the _former _is reversed; but the _being _of the instrument, tho terribly marred, remained the same, to work in the wrong direction, i.e., in unrighteousness. Hence the features or after-effects of the divine image are not found in the few good things that remain in the sinner, ”but in all that he does.” Man could not sin so terribly if God had not created him after His own image.

Scripture teaches, therefore, that they are all gone aside, that they are altogether become filthy, and that all come short of the glory of God; while it also declares that even this fallen man is created after God’s image—Gen. ix. 6, and after His likeness—James iii. 9.

VI.

Rome, Socinus, Arminius, Calvin.

“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”—Ephes. iv. 24.

It is not surprising that believers entertain different views concerning the significance of the image of God. It is a starting-point determining the direction of four different roads. The slightest deviation at starting must lead to a totally different representation of the truth. Hence every thinking believer must deliberately choose which road he will follow:

_First, _the path of Rome, represented by Bellarminus.

_Second, _that of Arminius and Socinus, walking arm-in-arm.

_Third, _that of the majority of the Lutherans, led by Melanchthon.

Lastly, the direction mapped out by Calvin, _i.e., _that of the Reformed.

Rome teaches that the original righteousness does _not _belong to the divine image, but to the human nature as a superadded grace. Quoting Bellarminus, first, man is created consisting of two parts, flesh and spirit; _second, _the divine image is stamped partly on the flesh, but chiefly on the human spirit, the seat of the moral and rational consciousness; _third, _there, is a conflict between flesh and spirit, the flesh lusting against the spirit; _fourth, _hence man has a natural inclination and desire for sin, which as desire alone is no sin as long as it is not yielded to; _fifth, _in His grace and compassion God gave man, independently of his nature, the original righteousness for a defense and safety-valve to control the flesh; _sixth, _by his fall man has willingly thrust this superadded righteousness from him: hence as sinner he stands again in his naked nature (in puris naturalibus) which, as a matter of course, is inclined to sin, inasmuch as his desires are sinful.

We believe that the Romish theologians will allow that this is the current view among them. According to Catechismus Romanus, question 38: “God gave to man from the dust of the earth a body, in such a way that he was partaker of immortality not by virtue of his nature, but by a superadded grace. As to his soul, God formed him in His image and after His likeness, and gave him a free will; _moreover _[_prœterea, _besides, hence not belonging to his nature], He so tempered his desires that they continually obey the dictates of reason. Besides this He has poured into him the original righteousness, and gave him dominion over all other creatures.”

The view of Socinus, and of Arminius who followed him closely, is totally different. It is a well-known fact that the Socinians denied the Godhead of Christ, who, as they taught, was born a mere man. But (and by this they misled the Poles and Hungarians) they acknowledged that He had _become _God. Hence after His Resurrection He could be worshiped as God. But in what sense? That the divine nature was given Him? Not at all. In Scripture, magistrates, being clothed with the divine majesty which enabled them to exercise authority, are called “gods.” This applies to Jesus, who, after His Resurrection, received of the Father power over all creatures in an eminent degree. Hence He is absolutely clothed with divine majesty. If a sinner, as a magistrate, is called god, how much more can we conceive of Christ as being called God, simply to express that He was clothed with divine authority?

In order to support this false view of Christ’s Godhead, the Socinians falsified the doctrine of the image of God, and made it equivalent to man’s dominion over the animals. This was in their opinion also a kind of higher majesty, containing something divine, which was the image of God. Hence the first Adam, being clothed with majesty and dominion over a portion of creation, was therefore of God’s offspring and created in His image. And the second Adam, Christ, also clothed with majesty and dominion over creation, the Scripture therefore calls God.

That the Remonstrants also adopted this doubly false representation appears conclusively from what the moderate professor À Limborch wrote in the beginning of the eighteenth century: “This image consisted in the power and exalted position which God gave to man above all creation. By this dominion he shows most clearly the image of God in the earth.” He adds: “That in order to exercise this power, he was endowed with glorious talents. But these are only means. Dominion over the animals is the principal thing.” Hence we infer that the bravest and coarsest tamer of animals” playing with lions and tigers as if pet dogs, is the tenderest child of God. We say this in all seriousness and without a thought of mockery, to show the foolishness of the Socinian system.

The Lutheran view, as will be seen, occupies the middle ground between the Roman Catholic and the Reformed.

Its most prominent part (readily recognized in the representation of Dr. Böhl) is that the divine image is merely the original righteousness. They do not deny that man, as man, in his nature and being shows something beautiful and excellent, reminding one of the image of God; but the real image itself is not in man’s nature, nor in his spiritual being, but only in the original wisdom and righteousness in which God created him. Gerhardt writes: “The real similarity with God lay in the soul of man, partly in his intelligence, partly in his moral and rational inclinations, which three excellencies together constitute his original righteousness.” And Bauer: “Properly speaking, this image of God consists of some perfections of will, intellect, and feeling which God created together with man (concreatas), which is the original righteousness.” Hence the Lutheran doctrine teaches that the proper image of God is now totally lost, and that the sinner is as helpless before the work of grace as a stock or block, as one fettered and unable even to rattle his chain.

The Reformed, on the contrary, have always denied this; and taught that the image of God, being one with His likeness, did not consist only in the original righteousness, but included also man’s being and personality; not only his state, but also his being. Hence the original righteousness was not something additional, but his being, nature, and state were originally in the most beautiful harmony and causal relation. Ursinus says: “The image of God has reference: (1) to the immaterial substance of the soul with its gifts of knowledge and will; (2) to all in-created knowledge of God and of His will; (3) to the holy and righteous inclination of the will, and moving of the heart, i.e., the perfect righteousness; (4.) to the bliss, holy peace, and abundance of all enjoyment; and (5) to the dominion over the creatures. In all these our moral nature reflects the image of God, tho imperfectly. St. Paul explains the image of God from the true righteousness and holiness, without excluding, however, the wisdom and in-created knowledge of God. He rather presupposes them.”

These four views concerning the divine image present four opposing opinions that are clearly drawn and sharply outlined. The Socinian conceives of the image of God as entirely outside of man and his moral being, and consisting in the exercise of something resembling _divine authority. _The Roman Catholic does indeed look for the divine image in man, but severs him from the divine ideal, _i.e., _the original righteousness which is put upon him as a garment. The Lutheran, like the Socinian, puts the divine image outside of man, exclusively in the divine ideal, which he considers not as foreign to man, but calculated for him and originally created in his nature (however distinct from it). Lastly, the Reformed confesses that man’s whole personality is the impress of God’s image in his being and attributes; to which belongs naturally that ideal perfection expressed in the confession of original righteousness.

Undoubtedly the Reformed confession is the purest and most excellent expression of the Bible revelation; hence we maintain it from deepest conviction. It maintains that God created _man _in His image, and not his _nature _only, like Rome; nor his _authority _only, like the Socinians; nor his _righteousness _only, like the Lutherans.

His divine image does not belong merely to an attribute, state, or quality of man, but to the whole man; for He created _man _in His image; and the confession which subtracts from this detracts from the positive Scriptural statement, _i.e., _from the Spirit’s direct testimony: “Let Us _make _man in Our image and after Our likeness,” (Gen. i. 26) and not: “Let Us _re-form _man in Our image.”

Neither is the divine image only in man’s _personality, _as the Vermittelungs (Mediation) theologians, following Fichte, hold. Man’s personality certainly belongs to it, but it is not all, nor even the principal thing. Personality is _contrast _to our equals, and contrast can not be after the image of God, for God is One. _Personality _is a very feeble feature of the divine image. True personality is no contrast, but glorious completeness, like that in God. One person is something defective; three persons in one being, completeness.

Wherefore we protest against these loud and emphatic assertions that the image is our imperfect personality, as leading the Church away from the Scripture. No; man himself is the image of God, his whole being as man—in his _spiritual _existence, in the being and nature of his soul, in the attributes and workings that adorn and express his being; not as tho this human being were a locomotive without steam, posing as a model, but a living and active organism exerting influence and power.

As a being man is not defective, but perfect; not in a state of _becoming, _but of _being—i.e., _he was not to _become _righteous, but was righteous. This is his original righteousness. Hence, that God created man in His image signifies:

1. That man’s being is in finite form the impress of the _infinite _Being of God.

2. His attributes are in finite form the impress of God’s attributes.

3. His state was the impress of the felicity of God.

4. The dominion which he exercised was image and impress of God’s dominion and authority.

To which may be added that, since man’s body is calculated for the spirit, it also must contain some shadows of that image.

This confession the Reformed churches must maintain in the pulpit, in the catechetical classes, and above all in the recitation halls of theology.

VII.

The Neo-Kohlbruggians.

“And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth.”—Gen. v. 3.

Many are the efforts made to alter the meaning of the word, “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness,” (Gen. i. 26) by a different translation; especially by making it to read _“in” _instead of “after” our likeness. This new reading is Dr. Böhl’s main support. With this translation his system stands or falls.

According to him, man is not the bearer of the divine image, but by a divine act he was set in it, as a plant is set in the sun. As long as the plant stood in the dark, its shape and flowers are invisible; carried into the light its beauty becomes apparent. In like manner, man was without luster until God put him in the shining glory of His image, and then he appeared beautiful. Of course, this idea requires the translation: “Let Us create man _in _Our image.” (Gen. i. 26)

Let us explain the difference: Gen. i. 26 in the Hebrew has two different prepositions. The one standing before “likeness” (כֵּ) is invariably used in comparisons; while the other before “image” is mostly used to denote that one thing is found in another. Hence the translation, “In our image and after our likeness,” has apparently much in its favor. This translation (altho we believe it to be incorrect; for our reasons see the next article) does not alter the meaning, if rightly interpreted.

And what is that right interpretation? Not that of Dr. Böhl; for, according to him, the newly created man did not stand in the midst of that image, but only in its reflection and radiation. The plant is not set in the sun, but in the sun-rays. No; if Adam stood in the midst of God’s image, then he was wholly encompassed by it.

Let us illustrate. There are wooden images covered with paper on which is printed a head or bust, colored to imitate marble or bronze. The wood may be said to be _in the image, _covered by it from all sides. Again, the sculptor actually chisels the image, in his mind, or posing as a model, _about the marble _until it encloses the whole black. In like manner it may be said that Adam, upon his first awakening to consciousness, was enclosed by God’s image; not externally, and he only its reflection, but its ectype penetrating his whole being.

The correctness of this exegesis appears from Gen. v. 1-3, the contents of which, tho often overlooked, settle this matter. Here Scripture brings Adam’s creation in direct connection with his own begetting a son after his own likeness. We read: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived a hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.”

In both instances the Hebrew word _zelem, _image, is used. Hence to obtain a clear and correct understanding of the statement, “to be created in the image and after the likeness of God,” Scripture invites us to let the child’s resemblance to the father assist us. And the father’s likeness lies in the child’s being, is part of it, and does not merely beam from the father upon the child externally. Even in his absence or after his death the resemblance of features continues.

Hence to beget a child in our image and after our likeness means to give existence to a being bearing our image and resemblance, altho as a person distinct from us. From which it must follow that when Scripture says, regarding Adam, that God created him in His image and after His likeness, using the same words “image” (zelem) and “likeness” (demoeth), it can not mean that the divine image shone upon him, so that he stood and walked in its light; but that God so created him that his whole being, person, and state reflected the divine image, since he carried it in himself.

It is remarkable that the prepositions used in Gen. i. 26 appear also in this passage, but _in a reversed order. _Rendering the preposition “כ” “in,” as in Gen. i. 26, it reads: “He begat a son _in _his likeness and after his image.” And this is conclusive. It shows how utterly unfair it is to deduce a different meaning from the use of different prepositions. Even if we translate “ëĔ by “in”—“in the image of God”—the sense is the same; in both, the image is not a reflection falling upon man, indicating his state only, but also his form, both state and being.

However, before we proceed, let Dr. Böhl speak for himself. For we might possibly have wrongly understood him; it is therefore reasonable that his own words be laid before our readers.

We take these citations from his work; entitled, “Von der Incarnation des Gottlichen Wortes”; a dogmatic, highly important book, wherein he deals the Vermittellungs theologians blows that have filled our hearts with joy, partly because God is honored thereby, and also because of the consolation offered to broken hearts. Hence it does not enter our minds to belittle the labor of Dr. Böhl. We only contend that his presentation of the image of God is not the true one. We point, therefore, to the important and exceedingly clear sentences of pages 28 and 29:

“Gott nun veranstaltete es so, dass der Mensch gleich anfangs unter den Einfluss des Guten zu stehen kam and _somit _das Gute that. Er schuf ihn _im _Bilde Gottes, nach seiner Gleichheit (Gen. i. 26). Was dies heisst, wird dann erst recht deutlich, wenn wir die Wiederherstellung des gefallenen Menschen (nach Ephes. iv. 24; Col. iii. 9) in Betracht ziehen. Paulus blickt hier auf den anfänglichen Zustand hin, wenn er redet von dam neuen Menschen, den wir nach Ausziehung des alten anzuziehen hätten. Er bezeichnet nun diesen neuen Menschen als einen Gott gemäss geschaffen (Kappa tau iota sigma theta epsilon w/ tonos nu tau alpha) in Gerechtigkeit und Heiligkeit, wie sie nach Wahrheit ist. Diese apostolischen Ausdrücke enthalten sine Umschreibung jener Ausstattung, welche Mose mit den Worten: ‘Im Bilde Gottes, nach seiner Gleichheit’ kennzeichnet. Die Wiedergeburt ist sine neue Schöpfung, die aber nach der Vorschrift der alten bestellt ist, ohne etwas davon- nosh dazuzuthun. _Der Stand im Bilde Gottes, in dem der Mensch nach der Gleichheit Gottes war, ist also etwas, was man von dem Menschen hinwegnehmen kann, ohne die Creatur Gottes selbst aufzuheben. _Es ist dem Apostel weiter eigenthümlich, die Bewegungen des neuen Menschen unter dem Bilde von verschiedenen Gewändern darzustellen, die man anzuziehen habe (Col. iii. 12 ff.). Grund and Veranlassung für solche Umwandlung ist Christus, der Geist, den Christus vom Voter her sendet, oder der Stand in Christo odes in der Gnade (z.B. 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. v. 16, 18, 25; Rom. v. 2) Und ganz ebenso ist nach Gen. i. 26 Grund für die Gleichheit mit Gott der Stand im Bilde Gottes.” “God ordered it so that immediately, from the beginning, man came to stand under the influence of that which is good, and consequently did that which is good. He created him in the image of God, after His likeness. The significance of this is made clear when we consider the restoration of fallen man (according to Ephes. iv. 24; Col. iii. 9). Paul, speaking of the new man that we must put on, after having put off the old man, has reference to the original state. And now he describes this new man as one that is created after God in righteousness and holiness, as he truly is. These apostolic expressions contain a description of the same equipment that Moses characterizes with the words: In the image of God, after, His likeness. Regeneration is a new creation, which, however, is ordered after the model of the old, without taking anything from, or adding anything to it. _Hence man’s standing in the image of God, wherein he was after the likeness of God, is something that can be taken away from man without removing God’s creature itself. _Furthermore, the apostle describes the movements of the new man under the image of various, garments which must be put on (Col. iii. 12 ff.). The ground and occasion of such being clothed upon is Christ, the Spirit whom Christ sends from the Father; or the standing in Christ, or in grace (e.g. 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. v. 16, 18, 25; Rom. v. 2). And in just the same way is the ground, for likeness with God, the standing in the image of God, according to Gen. i. 26.”

The words in italics dispel, alas! all doubt. It is possible to conceive of the image of God as having completely disappeared, and yet man remaining man.

Dr. Böhl repeats this, clearly in the following words (p. 29):

“Wenn wir nun die Creatur aus jenem Stande hinausgetreten denken, so bleibt diese Creatur intact.”“If we now think of the creature to have left this standing, yet this creature remains intact.”

This goes so far that Dr. Böhl himself felt how closely he thus returned to the boundaries of Rome, for which reason he continues, saying:

“Nur freilich, dass diese Creatur nicht, wie die romische Kirche lehrt, immer noch genug übrig behält, um sich wieder mit Hilfe des Gnadengeschenkes Christi selbst zu rehabilitiren. Sondern nach dem Falle ist der Mensch and zwar sein Ich mit den dem Menschen anerschaffenen höchsten Gaben (siehe Calvin, ‘Inst.,’ ii., 1, 9) aus der rechten Stellung herausgetreten und dem Tode als Herscher, dem Gesetz als unbarmherziger Treibert preisgegeben.”† † “With this understanding, however, that the creature has not retained enough strength, with the help of the gracious gift of Christ, to restore himself, as Rome teaches. But after the fall, man’s ego, with the highest gifts received in his creation, has left his true standing and is delivered to Death as his ruler, and to the Law as his unmerciful driver.”

But stronger still: Dr. Böhl is so firmly attached to this presentation that he says even of Christ, that He, before His Resurrection, lacked the divine image. See page 45: “Our Lord and Savior stood outside the image of God.” “Ausserhalb des Bildes Gottes stand unser Herr.” Which is all the more serious since in consequence of this presentation, the passions and desires toward the sinful are, considered by themselves, sinless, just as Rome teaches it.

So we read on page 73:

“Das der Mensch Begierden hat, dass ihn Leidenschaften (pi alpha w/ tonos theta eta) treiben, wie Zorn, Furcht, Muth, Eifersucht, Freude, Liebe, Hass, Sehnsucht, Mitleid, dies Alles constituirt noch keine Sünde, denn das Vermögen, um Zorn, Unlust, oder Mitleid and dergl. m. zu empfinden, ist von Gott geschaffen. Ohne dem wäre kein Leben und keine Bewegung im Menschen. Also die _Begierde _and überhaupt die Leidenschaften sind an sich nicht Sünde. Sie werden es und sind es im actuellen Zustand des Menschen, weil durch ein dazwischentretendes Gebot and durch jene verkehrte Lebensrichtung, die Paulus einen νόμος της αμαρτιας nennt, das menschliche Ich bewogen wird, zu den Leidenschaften und Begierden Stellung zu nehmen, d. h. sich richtig oder unrichtig zu ihnen zu verhalten.”“The fact that man has desires, that he is led by passions, such as anger, fear, courage, jealousy, joy, love, hate, longing, pity; all this does not constitute sin; for the power to experience anger, displeasure, or pity, and the like passions, is created of God. Without these there would be no life nor stir in man. Hence _desires _and passions in general are no sin in themselves. They become and are sin in man’s present condition, because, by an intervening law, and by that perverted tendency of life which Paul calls a law of sin, the human Ego is compelled to determine its relation to the passions and desires, _i.e., _to adopt a good or bad attitude toward them.”

Let each judge for himself whether we said too much when we spoke of the necessity of protesting, in the name of our Reformed Confession, against the creeping in of this Platonic presentation, which later on was defended partly by the Romish, partly by the Lutheran theologians.

Dr. Böhl is excellent when he shows that the original righteousness was not simply a germ, which had still to be developed, but that Adam’s righteousness was complete, lacking nothing. Equally excellent is his proof against Rome, showing that man, in his naked nature, absolutely lacks the power to holiness. But he errs in representing the image of God as something without which man remains man. This places righteousness and holiness mechanically outside of us, while the organic connection between that image and our own being, which once existed and ought to exist, is the very thing that must be maintained.

And yet, let it not be thought that Dr. Böhl has any inclination toward Rome. If we see aright, his deviation, psychologically explained, springs from an entirely different motive.

It is a well-known fact that Dr. Köhlbrugge has contended, with a glorious ardor of faith, against the reestablishing of the Covenant of Works in the midst of the Covenant of Grace: and has reintroduced us with stress and emphasis to the completely finished work of our Savior, to which nothing can be added. Hence this preacher of righteousness was compelled to make the child of God remember _what he was outside of Christ. _Of course, outside of Christ, there is no difference between a child of God and a godless person. Then all lie in one heap; as the ritual of the Lord’s Supper so beautifully confesses: “That we seek our life out of ourselves, in Jesus Christ, and thereby acknowledge that we lie in the midst of death’’; as also the Heidelberg Catechism confesses: “That I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil.”

If we see aright, Dr. Böhl has tried to reduce this part of the truth to a dogmatic system. He has reasoned it out as follows: “If a child of God has his life outside of himself, then Adam, who was a child of God, must also have had his life outside of himself. Hence the image of God was not in, but outside of, man.”

And what is the mistake of this reasoning? This, that the child of God remains a _sinner _until his death, and is only fully restored after his death. Then only complete redemption is his. While in Adam, before his fall, there was no sin; hence Adam could never say that in himself he lay in the midst of death.

With all the earnestness of our hearts we beseech all those who with us possess the treasure of Dr. Köhlbrugge’s preaching carefully to notice this deviation. If the younger Kohlbruggians should be tempted to misunderstand their teacher in this respect, the loss would be incalculable, and the breach in the Reformed Confession would be lasting; since it touches a point which affects the whole confession of the truth.

VIII.

After the Scripture.

“In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God created He him.”—Gen. v. 1.

In the preceding pages we have shown that the translation, “in Our image,” actually means, “after Our image.” To make anything in an image is no language; it is unthinkable, logically untrue. We now proceed to show how it should be translated, and give our reason for it.

We begin with citing some passages from the Old Testament in which occurs the preposition “B” which, in Gen. i. 27, stands before image, where it can not be translated “in,” but requires a preposition of comparison such as “like” or “after.”

Isa. xlviii. 10 reads: “Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.” Here the preposition “B “stands before silver, as in Gen. i. 27 before image. It is obvious that it can not be translated “in silver,” but “as silver.” Surely the Lord would not cast the Jews in a pot of melted silver. The preposition is one of comparison; as in 1 Peter i. 17 the refining of Israel is compared to that of a noble metal. It may be translated: “I have refined thee, but not according to the nature of silver”, or simply: “as silver.”

Psalm cii. reads: “My days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.” In the Hebrew the same preposition “B” occurs before smoke, and almost all exegetes translate it, “as smoke.”

Again, Psalm xxxv. 2 reads: “Take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine help.” “Stand up in my help” makes no sense. The thought allows no other translation than this: “Stand up so that Thou be my help;” or, “Stand up as my help”; or, as the Authorized Version has it: “Stand up for my help.”

We find the same result in Lev. xvii. 11 : “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Here the same preposition “B” occurs. In the Hebrew it reads: “Banefesh” (Heb. Shin dot Pe segol Nun segol Bet patah dagesh), which was translated “for the soul.” It would be absurd to render it: _“in _the soul”; for the blood does not come _in _the soul, nor does the atonement take place in the soul, but on the altar. Here we have also a comparison (substitution). The blood is as the soul, _represents _the soul in the atonement, takes the place of the soul.

We notice the same in Prov. iii. 26, where the wisdom of Solomon wrote: “The Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” The same preposition occurs here. The Hebrew text reads “Bkisleka” (Heb. Dalet hataf qamats Lamed segol Samekh sheva Kaf hiriq Bet dagesh sheva), literally, “for ‘a’ loin to thee.” And because the loins are a man’s strength, it is used metaphorically to indicate the ground of confidence and hope in distress. The sense is therefore perfectly clear. Says Solomon: “The Lord shall be to thee as a ground of confidence, thy refuge, and thy hope.” For if we should read here: “The Lord shall be in your hope,” it might be inferred that, among other things, the Lord was also in the hope of the godly; which would be unscriptural and savor of Pelagianism. In the Scripture, the Lord alone is the hope of His people. Hence the preposition does not mean, “in,” but it indicates a comparison.

To add one more example, Exod. xviii. 4 reads: “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.” Translate this, “The God of my father was in my help,” and how unscriptural and illogical the thought!

From these passages, to which others might be added, it appears:

(1) That this preposition can not always be translated by “in.”

(2) That its use as a preposition of comparison, in the sense of “like,” “for,” “after,” is far from being rare.

Armed with this information, let us now return to Gen. i. 26; and in our opinion, it does not offer us now any difficulty at all. As in Isa. xlviii. 10, the preposition and noun are translated “as silver”; in Psalm cii. 4, “as smoke”; in Psalm xxxv. 2, “as” or “to my help”; in Lev. xvii. 11, “as” or “in the place of my soul”; in Prov. iii. 16, “as,” or “to my confidence,” the German Version of the Vienna Hebrew Bible translates, “Let Us make men to, or as Our image,” i.e., let Us make men, who shall be Our image on the earth. Or more freely: “Let Us make a sort of being who will bear Our image on earth, who will be as Our image on earth, or be to Us on earth for an image.”

Then it follows, in Gen. i. 27: “And God created man for His image, to be an image of God created He him.”

It is, of course, exactly the same whether I say, “God created man after His image,” i.e., so that man became bearer of His image, or “God created man for an image of Himself.” In both instances, and in similar manner, it is expressed that man should exhibit an image of God. Thus far the image of God was lacking in the earth. When God had created man, the lack was supplied: for that image was man, upon whose being the Lord God had stamped His own image. Hence we see no difference in the two translations.

Speaking of the image stamped on sealing-wax by a seal, I can say, “I have stamped the wax after the image of the seal,” referring to the concave image of the seal; or, “The image is stamped on the wax,” referring to the convex image on the wax.

We add three remarks:

First, the word “man” in Gen. i. 26 does not refer to one person, but to the whole race. Adam was not merely a person, but our progenitor and federal head. The whole race was in his loins. Humanity consists at any given moment of the aggregate of those who live or will live in this world, whether many or few. Adam alone was humanity; when Eve was given him he and she were humanity. “Let Us make man in Our image and after Our likeness,” is equal to: “Let Us create humanity, which will bear Our image.” But it refers also to the individual in that he is a member of the human family. Hence Adam begat children in his image and after his own likeness. Yet there is a difference. Men have different gifts, talents, and qualifications; the complete impress of the divine image could appear not in individual endowments, but in the full manifestation of the race, if it had remained sinless.

Hence the Dutch Version uses the plural, altho the Hebrew the singular “man”: not Adam alone, but the genus man, humanity, was created in the divine image.

Hence when the original man fell, the second Adam came in Christ, who, as the second federal Head, contained in Himself the whole Church of God. In His meditorial capacity Christ appeared as God’s image in Adam’s place. Wherefore every member of the Church must be transformed after His image—1 Cor. xv. 49; Rom. viii. 29. And the Church, representing regenerated humanity, is the pleroma of the Lord; for it is called “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”

Secondly, since man is created to be God’s image on earth, he must be willing to remain image, and never presume or imagine to be original. Original and image are opposites. God is God, and man is not God, but only the _image _of God. Hence it is the essence of sin when man refuses to remain image, reflection, shadow, exalting himself to be something real in himself. Conversion depends, therefore, solely upon his willingness to become image again, i.e., to believe. He that becomes an image is nothing in himself, and exhibits all that he is in absolute dependence upon Him whose image he bears; and this is at once man’s highest honor and completest dependence.

Lastly, God must have His image in the earth. For this purpose He created Adam. Having defiled it beyond recognition, man denies the existence of the divine image in the earth. And thus image-worship originated. Image-worship means that man says: “I will undertake to make an image of God.” And this diametrically opposes God’s work. It is His holy prerogative to make an image of Himself; and the creature should never dare undertake it. Hence it is presumption when, aspiring to be God, man refuses to remain His image, defiles it in himself, and undertakes to represent God in gold or silver.

Image-worship is an awful sin. God saith: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.” (Exod. xx. 4) This sin is from Satan. He always imitates God’s work. He will not be less than God. When at last the Great Beast appears, the Dragon proclaims: “They that dwell in the earth should make _an image of the Beast!” _God has decreed to make His own image to be the object of His eternal pleasure. But Satan, opposing this, defiles that image and makes an image for himself; not of man, for he is defiled and ruined, but of a beast. And thus in his supreme manifestation he judges himself. God’s Son became a _man, _Satan’s creation is a beast.

When finally the Beast and its image are overthrown, by One who is like a son of man, it is the Lord’s triumph over His enemies. Then the divine image is restored, nevermore to be defiled. And the Almighty God rejoices forever and ever in His own reflection.

IX.

The Image of God in Man.

“As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”—1 Cor. xv. 49.

One more point remains to be discussed, viz., whether the divine image refers to the image of Christ.

This singular opinion has found many warm defenders in the Church from the beginning. It originated with Origen, who with his brilliant, fascinating, and seducing heresies has unsettled many things in the Church; and his heresy in this respect has found many defenders both East and West. Even Tertullian and Ambrose supported it, as well as Basil and Chrysostom; and it took no less a person than Augustine to uproot it.

Our Reformed theologians, closely following Augustine, have strongly opposed it. Junius, Zanchius and Calvin, Voetius and Coccejus condemned it as error. We can safely say that in our Reformed inheritance this error never had a place. .

But in the last century it has crept again into the Church. The pantheistic philosophy occasioned it; and its after-effects have tempted our German and Dutch mediation theologians to return to this ancient error.

The great philosophers who enthralled the minds of men at the beginning of this century fell in love with the idea that God became man. They taught not that the Word became flesh, but God became man; and that in the fatal sense that God is ever _becoming, _and that He becomes a better and a purer God as He becomes more purely man. This pernicious system, which subverts the foundations of the Christian faith, and under a Christian form annihilates essential Christianity, has led to the doctrine that in Christ Jesus this incarnation had become a fact; and from it was deduced that God would have become man even if man had not sinned.

We have often spoken of the danger of teaching this doctrine. The Scripture repudiates it, teaching that Christ is a Redeemer from and an atonement for sin. But a mere passing contradiction will not stop this evil; this poisonous thread, running through the warp and woof of the Ethical theology, will not be pulled from the preaching until the conviction prevails that it is philosophic and pantheistic, leading away from the simplicity of Scripture.

But for the present nothing can be done. Almost all the German manuals now used by our rising ministers feed this error; hence the widespread prevalence of the idea that the image in which man was created was the Christ.

And this is natural. So long as it is maintained that, even without sin, man was destined for Christ and Christ for man, it must follow that the original man was calculated for Christ, and hence was created after the image of Christ.

For evidence that this deviates from the truth, we refer theologians to the writings of Augustine, Calvin, and Voetius on this point, and to our lay-readers we offer a short explanation why we and all Reformed churches reject this interpretation.

We begin with referring to the many passages in Scripture, teaching that the redeemed sinner must be renewed and transformed after the image of Christ.

In 2 Cor. iii. 18 we read: “We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”; and in Rom. viii. 29: “That we are predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son”; and in I Cor. xv. 49: “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” To this category belong all such passages in which the Holy Spirit admonishes us to conform ourselves to the example of Jesus, which may not be understood as mere imitation, but which decidedly means a transformation into His image. And lastly, here belong those passages that teach that we must increase to a perfect man, “to the stature of the fulness of Christ”; and that “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Hence believers are called to transform themselves after Christ’s image, which is the final aim of their redemption. But this image is not the Eternal Word, the Second Person in the Trinity, but the Messiah, the _Incarnate _Word. 1 Cor. xv. 44 furnishes the undeniable proof. St. Paul declares there that the first man Adam was of the earth earthy; i.e., not only after the fall, but by creation. Then he says that as believers have borne the image of the earthy, so they will also bear the image of the heavenly, i.e., Christ. This shows clearly that in his original state man did not possess the image of Christ, but that afterward he will possess it. What Adam received in creation is clearly distinguished from what a redeemed sinner possesses in Christ; distinguished in this particular, that it was not according to his nature to be formed after Christ’s image, which image he could receive only by grace after the fall.

This is evident also from what St. Paul teaches in—1 Cor. xi In the third verse, speaking of the various degrees of ascending glory, he says that the man is the head of the woman, and the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God. And yet, having spoken of these four, woman, man, Christ, God, he says emphatically, in ver. 7, not as might be expected, “The woman is the glory of the man, the man the glory of Christ,” but, omitting the link Christ, he writes: “For the man is the glory of God, and the woman the glory of the man.” If this theory under consideration were correct, he should have said: “The man is the image of Christ.”

Hence it is plain that according to Scripture the image after which we are to be _renewed _is not that after which we are _created; _the two must be distinguished. The latter is that of the Triune God whose image penetrated into the being of the _race. _The former is that of the holy and perfect Man Christ Jesus, our federal Head, and as such the Example [Dutch, Voorbeeld; literally, an image placed before one.—Trans.], after which every child of God is to be renewed, and which at last he shall resemble.

Hence Scripture offers two different representations: first, the Son who is the image of the Father as the Second Person in the Trinity; second, the Mediator our Example [_Voorbeeld, _image put before one], hence our image after which we are to be renewed; and between the two there is almost no connection. The Scripture teaching that the Son of God is the express image of His Person and the image of the Invisible, refers to the relation between the Father and the Son in the hidden mystery of the Divine Being. But speaking of our calling to be renewed after the image of Christ, it refers to the Incarnate Word, our Savior, tempted like as we are in all things, yet without sin.

Mere similarity of sound should not lead us to make this mistake. Every effort to translate Gen. i. 26, “Let Us make man in or after the image of the Son,” is confusing. Then “Let Us” must refer to the Father speaking to the Holy Spirit; and this can not be. Scripture never places the Father and the Holy Spirit in such relation. Moreover, it would put the Son outside the greatest act of creation, viz., the creation of man. And Scripture says: “Without Him was not anything made that was made” (John i. 3); and again: “Through Him are created all things in heaven and on earth.”

Hence this “Let Us” must be taken either as a plural of majesty, of which the Hebrew has not a single instance in the first person; or as spoken by the Triune God, the Three Persons mutually addressing each other; or the Father addressing the two other Persons. A third is impossible.

Supposing that the Three Persons address each other; the image can not refer to the Son, because, speaking of His own, He can not say, “Our image,” without including the other Persons. Or suppose that the Father speaks to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; even then it can not refer to the image of the Son, since He is the Father’s image and not that of the Holy Spirit. In whatever sense it be taken, this view is untenable, outside the analogy of Scripture, and inconsistent with the correct interpretation of Gen. i. 26.

To put it comprehensively: If the divine image refers to the Christ, it must be that of the Eternal Son, or of the Mediator, or of Christ in the flesh. These three are equally impossible. First, the Son is Himself engaged in the creative work. Second, without sin there is no need of a Mediator. Third, Scripture teaches that the Son became flesh after our image, but never that in the creation we became flesh after His image.

The notion that the divine image refers to Christ’s righteousness and holiness, implying that Adam was created in _extraneous _righteousness, confounds the righteousness of Christ which _we embrace by faith _and which did not exist when Adam was created, and the _original, eternal _righteousness _of God the Son. _It is true that David embraced the imputed righteousness, altho it existed _not _in his day, but David was a sinner and Adam before the fall was not. He was created without sin; hence the divine image can not refer to the righteousness of Christ, revealed only in relation to sin.

In our present sad condition, we confess unconditionally that even now we lie in the midst of death, and have our life outside of ourselves in Christ alone. But we add: Blessed be God, it shall not always be so. With our last _breath _we die wholly to sin, and in the resurrection morning _we shall be like Him; _hence in the eternal felicity our life shall be no more _without _us, but in us.

Wherefore, to put the separation which was caused only by sin, and which in the saint continues only on account of sin, in Adam before the fall, is nothing else than to carry something sinful into Creation itself, and to annihilate the divine statement that man was created good.

Wherefore we admonish preachers of the truth to return to the old, tried paths in this respect, and teach in recitation-hall, pulpit, and catechetical class that man was created after the image of the Triune God.

X.

Adam Not Innocent, but Holy.

“Created in righteousness and true holiness.”—Ephes. iv. 24.

It remains, therefore, as of old, that “God created man good and after His own image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love Him, and live with Him in eternal happiness, and glorify and praise Him.” Or, as the Confession of Faith has it: “We believe that God created man, out of the dust of the earth, and made him and formed him after His own image and likeness, good and righteous and wholly capable in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God.”

Every representation which depreciates in the least this original righteousness must be opposed.

Adam’s righteousness lacked nothing. The idea that he was holy inasmuch as he had not sinned, and by constant development could increase his holiness, so that if he had not fallen he would have attained a still holier state, is incorrect, and betrays ignorance in this respect.

The difference between man in his original state and in the state of sin is similar to that between a healthy child and a sick man. Both must increase in strength. If the child remains what he is, he is not healthy. Health includes growth and increase of strength and development until maturity be attained. The same is true of the sick man; he can not remain the same. He must recover or grow worse. If he is to recover, he must gain in strength. So far both are the same.

But here the similarity ceases. Increase the strength of the sick at once, and he will be well, and what he should be. But add the full strength of the man to the child, and he will be _unnatural _and _abnormal. For the present _the child needs no more than he has. He lacks nothing at _any given moment. _To be a normal child in perfect health, he must be just what he is. But the sick person needs a great deal. In order to be healthy and normal he must _not _be what he is. The child, so far as health and strength are concerned, is _perfect; _but the sick person is very _imperfect _as regards health and strength. The condition of the child is good; that of the sick man is _not _good. And the former’s healthy growth is something entirely different from the latter’s improvement in health and strength.

This shows how wrong it is to apply sanctification to Adam before the fall. Sanctification is inconceivable with reference to sinless man; foreign to the conception of a creature whom God calls good.

“Excellent,” says one; hence Adam was born in childlike innocence gradually to attain a higher moral development without sin; hence sanctification after all!

Certainly not. A believer’s sanctification ceases when he dies. In death he dies to all sin. Sanctification is merely the process which partly or wholly eliminates sin from man. Wholly freed from sin he is holy, and it is impossible to make him holier than holy. Even for this reason it is absurd to apply sanctification to holy Adam. What need of washing that which is clean? Sanctification presupposes unholiness, and Adam was not unholy. Sin being absolutely absent, holiness lacks nothing, but is complete. Adam possessed the same complete holiness now possessed by the child of God in which he stands by faith, and by and by in actuality when through death he has absolutely died unto sin.

Yet in heaven God’s children will not stand still—their joy and glory will ever increase, but not their holiness, which lacks nothing. And to be more holy than perfectly holy is impossible. Their development will consist in drinking ever more copiously from the life of God.

The same is true of sinless Adam; he could not be sanctified. Sanctification is healing, and a healthy person can not be healed. Sanctification is to rid one of poison, but poison can not be drawn from the hand that is not bitten. The idea of holy, holier, holiest is absurd. That which is _broken _is not whole, and that which is _whole is _not broken. Sanctification is to make whole, and since in Adam _nothing _was broken, there was nothing to be made whole. More whole than whole is unthinkable.

Yet altho holy, Adam did not remain what he was, he did not stand still without an aim in life. Take, e.g., the difference between him and God’s child. The latter possesses an unlosable treasure, but Adam’s was losable, for he lost it. Not that he was less holy than the saint; for this has nothing to do with it.

Let us illustrate. Of two dishes, one is fine cut glass, hence breakable; the other coarse glass, but unbreakable. Is the latter now more whole than the former? Or can the former be made more whole? Of course not; its wholeness has nothing to do with its being breakable or not. Hence the fact that Adam’s treasure was losable does not touch the question of holiness at all. Whether one is holy, or yet to be made holy, does not depend upon the losableness of the treasure, but upon its being lost or not.

How this holy development of Adam was to be effected we do not know. We may not inquire after things God has kept from us. As sinners we can no more conceive of such sinless development than of the unfolding of the heavenly glory of God’s children.

Confining ourselves closely to Scripture, we know, _first, _that sinless man would not have died; _second, _that as a reward for his work he would have received eternal life, _i.e., _being perfectly able from moment to moment to do God’s will, he would always have desired and loved to do it; and for this he would have been rewarded continually with larger measures of the life and glory of God.

We compare the contrast between Adam’s condition and ours to that between the royal child born possessor of vast treasures, and a child of poverty that must earn everything or have another to earn it for him. The former lacks nothing, altho he has only toys to dispose of; for his father’s whole estate is his. Growing up, he does not become richer, for his treasures remain the same; but he becomes more conscious of them. So Adam’s treasures would never have increased, for all things were his; only as his life gradually unfolded would he have had more conscious enjoyment of his riches.

Hence original righteousness does not refer to Adam’s _degree of development, _nor to his _condition, _but to his state; and that was perfectly good.

All those unscriptural notions of Adam’s increase in holiness spring from the unscriptural ideas which men, tempted by pantheistic heresies, have formed of holiness.

“Be ye then perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” does not mean that you, boastful man, puffed up by philosophic madness, must become like God. A creature you will remain even in your highest glory. And in that glory the consciousness that you are _nothing _and God is all will be cause of your most fervent adoration and deepest delight. No, Christ’s word simply means, “Be whole,” even as your Father in heaven is whole and complete. Saying that an earthen vessel must be as whole and sound as a porcelain vase does not mean that it must become _like _that vase. The former costs but a few cents; the latter is paid for with gold. It only means that as the vase is whole as a vase, so must the earthen vessel be whole as an earthen vessel.

Hence Christ’s word means: There are rents in your being; the edges are chipped; you are injured and damaged by sin. This must not be so. There may be no break in your being, nor should defect mar your completeness. Behold, as your Father in heaven is unbroken, so must you be wholly sound, unbroken, and perfect. That is, as God remained perfect as _God, _so must you remain whole and complete as _man, _a _creature _in the hand of your Creator.

But generally it is not so understood. The current view is as follows: The first step in holiness is conflict with sin. _Second, _sin becomes weak. _Third, _sin is almost overcome. _Fourth, _sin is _entirely _cast out. Then only, the _higher _sanctification sets in, and the whole ladder is being climbed; higher and higher, ever more holy, until holiness reaches the clouds.

Of course, those who accept these fancies can not think of Adam otherwise than as created on a low plane of holiness and called to attain higher sanctification. But if there is but one sanctification, _i.e., dying to sin _and _making _the broken nature _whole, _then higher sanctification regarding Adam is out of the question. To Adam’s holiness nothing can be added. He would have known his Creator, heartily loved Him; and lived with Him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise Him, in ever-increasing consciousness; but all this would not have added anything to his righteousness and holiness. To suppose this would betray a lack of understanding concerning holiness. Thus love is confounded with holiness; righteousness with life; state with condition; word with being; and the very foundations are wrenched from their place.

Yea, worse. Souls are severed from Jesus. For he that fails to understand original righteousness can not understand how Christ is given us of God for righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He desires Jesus most assuredly. But how? “Jesus finds the sinner sick and perishing by the wayside. He puts him on His animal, and takes him to the inn, where He pays for him until he is restored.” Hence always the same representation as tho, after being redeemed, one must still seek for a righteousness and holiness which by constant progress will only gradually be attained.

If this is correct then Christ is not our righteousness, sanctification, nor redemption; at the most, He is a Friend supporting and strengthening us in our efforts to attain righteousness and holiness. No; if the Church is to glory once more in the comforting and blessed confession that in Christ it possesses now absolute righteousness, holiness, and redemption, it must first begin by understanding original righteousness, i.e., that Adam can _not _love, can _not _live in blessed fellowship with God, except he be first perfectly righteous and completely holy.