The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 314

THE SINNER TO BE WROUGHT UPON

274

not as the Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity, but as Redeemer, Savior, and Surety in short, faith in Christ and Hitn cruci-

—

And

fied.

since "Christ

unfallen man,

it is

Him

and

incorrect to place

sinner as regards faith.

Even

sin.

Scripture

Adam in

line with the justified

in the state of righteousness

did not live in Christ, for Christ

a sphere or element in which

crucified" does not belong to

is

man

lives as man.

knows no Christ and ;

Adam

only a sinner's Savior, and not St.

In the absence of

Paul teaches that, when

all

the consequences of sin shall have ceased, Christ shall deliver the

kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all. Hence Adam and the regenerate are not the same. The difference between their status is most obvious in the fact that out of Christ the latter lies in the midst of death, having no life in himself, as St. Paul says, " Yet not I, but Christ who liveth in me, who loved me and gave Himself for me"; while Adam had a natural righteousness in himself.

The

They

fathers have always strongly emphasized this point.

taught that Adam's

original righteousness was not accidental, su-

pernatural, added to his nature, but inherent in his nature

;

not

another's righteousness imputed to him and appropriated by faith, but a righteousness naturally his own. Wherefore Adam needed no substitute he stood for himself in the nature of his own being. Hence his status was the opposite of that which constitutes for the ;

God

child of

the glory of his faith.

Teachers of another doctrine are moved, consciously or unconsciously, by philosophic motives. "

Properly speaking, our salvation

The

nature

of God."

Its

cross,

but in Christ's

;

is

communicable.

This being imparted to

nature becomes superior in kind, and thus cross

Ethical theory says:

not in the

He was God and Man, hence divine-human and this divine-

Person.

human

is

This

is

a denial of the

and of the whole doctrine

conclusion

is:

way of

we become

faith,

of Scripture

us,

our

the children

and a rejection

of the

— a fearful error indeed.

"First, even in sin's absence the

Son

of

God

would have become man; second, of course sinless Adam lived in the God-man." Without assenting to these errors, others imprudently teach that Let them be sinless Adam lived by the righteousness of Christ. Scripture allows no theories which careful of the consequences. obliterate the difference between the Covenant of Works and that of Grace.

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