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CHRISTADELPHISM
AUTHOR: Pollock, A.J.
PUBLISHED ON: April 24, 2003
DOC SOURCE: CCN

                                CHRISTADELPHISM

            Taken from the book “HERESIES EXPOSED” by Wm. C. Irvine

                      Article written by A. J. Pollock

    CHRISTADELPIANISM makes a great show of  appealing  to  Scripture.  Every
  lover  of  the  truth  will  be well content to judge this system by such an
  unerring standard.  No seeker after light need fear the result.  If it be of
  God,  Scripture will surely be its amplest vindication;  if not of God,  its
  fullest exposure.

    Nor  is  it  mere  details  we  shall have to consider.  There is not one
  important fundamental doctrine upon which  Christendom  has  for  ages  been
  agreed that is not by this system denied.

    The book from which we cull extracts to show what they (Christadelphians)
  distinctly hold,  and which was sent to the writer by a  Christadelphian  to
  convince  him  of  their tenets,  consists of thirty-six propositions,  with
  about five hundred Scripture quotations.  The number of Scripture  is  their
  exposure,  as  we  shall  see.  Read  by the careless or ignorant,  they may
  succeedin  misleading,  but  once  let  the  truth  be  clearly  stated  by
  Scripture, it will soon be apparent how great is the deception. 

                              UNITARIAN IN BELIEF

  1)  Christadelphians believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was not divine,  but
  merely a man – thus aiming a fatal blow at the whole scheme  of  redemption.
  Let us quote their words:
      “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is not the `second person’ of an eternal
    Trinity of Gods,  but the manifestation of the One Eternal Creator, who is
    `above all and through all’  (Eph. 4:6) and `out of whom are  all  things’
    (Rom. 11:36).  This Creator is Spirit,  dwelling corporally and personally
    in heaven,  yet in His Spirit-effluence filling immensity.  (How strangely
    careless  yet  deceptive is this piece of writing!  The Creator is Spirit. 
    How,  then,can He dwell corporally in heaven?) By this Spirit-effluence He
    begot Jesus, who was therefore His Son:  by the same power He anointed him
    and dwelt in him,  and  spoke to  Israel  through  Him  (Heb. 1:1).  Jesus
    Christ, therefore, in the days of his weakness, had two sides – one deity;
    the other man;  but not as construed by Trinitarianism,  which makes Jesus
    the Son Incarnate.  The man was the son whose  existence  dates  from  the
    birth  of  Jesus;  the  Deity dwelling in him was the Father,  who without
    beginning of days,  is eternally preexistent.  There were not two or three
    eternal  persons  before  `the  man  Christ  Jesus,’  but only One-God the
    Father,  whose relation to the Son was afterwards exemplified in the event
    related  by Luke  (Chap. 1:35),  by which was established what Paul styles
    the `mystery of godliness;’ `God manifested in the flesh, justified in the
    Spirit,  seen of angels,  preached unto the Gentiles,  believed on in  the
    world, received up to Glory’ (1 Tim. 3:16).”

  In  this  proposition is stated,  as clearly as words are able,  that the
  Lord Jesus is not God the Son.  No one believes in “an  eternal  Trinity
  of Gods,” but Christendom believes in God the Father, God the Son, God the
  Holy Spirit – one God.  Christendom believes in a Triune God,  not in a
  plurality of Gods.  This can be proved most clearly from Scripture.  Yet we
  are  told in  this  proposition that there are not two or three eternal
  persons,  that Jesus is not the Son Incarnate,  that He is only God’s Son
  as begotten  into this  world,  Whose  existence dates only from His birth,
  that Deity is not essential to the person of the Lord Jesus,  but “Deity
  dwelling in  Him  was the Father.”

  The whole proposition is entirely false.  Let Scripture, to which they so
  confidently appeal,  answer them.  The Christadelphians assert that the
  Lord Jesus  had no  existence previous to His incarnation.  The Lord’s own
  words are:

  John 8:58 Jesus said to them,  “Most assuredly, I say to you, before
  Abraham was, I AM.”

  Again observe carefully the words of the Lord Jesus Himself:

  John 17:5 “And now,  O Father,  glorify Me together with Yourself,  with
  the  glory which I had with You before the world was.”

  Rom. 9:5 …of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh,
  Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God.  Amen.

  John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word,  and the Word was with God,  and
  the  Word was  God.  He  was  in the beginning with God.  All things were
  made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

  John 1:14 And  the  Word became flesh and dwelt among us,  and we beheld
  His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
  and truth.

  Could refutation of  Christadelphian  teaching  be  more  convincing  and
  clear?

  In denying the essential Deity of the Son, the fountain of Christadelpian
  teaching  is  poison  at  its  source.  What wonder,  then,  that the stream
  emanating from such a source is baneful and poisonous!  To proceed further:

                              ATONEMENT CARICATURED

  2) Christadelphians deny the atoning value of the death of Christ,  and thus
  would take from us, if they could, the Saviour.  They say:

      “The  death  of  Christ was not to appease the wrath of offended Deity,
    but to express the love of the Father in a  necessary  sacrifice  for  sin
    that  the  law  of  sin  and death which came into force by the first Adam
    might be nullified in the second in a full descharge of its claims through
    a  temporary  surrender  to  its  power;  after  which  immortality  by
    resurrection  might  be  acquired,  in  harmony with the Law of obedience. 
    Thus sin is taken away, and righteousness established.”

  Here the death of the Lord Jesus is looked at as the  expression  of  the
  Father’s love.  Doubtless it is the expression of God’s love,  and who would
  wish to question that?  But mark, reader, the righteousness of God demanding
  satisfaction for sin is entirely ignored.  The death of  Christ,  they  say,
  was  not to appease the wrath of God.  Surely holiness and righteousness had
  their claims, and if God’s love is to be righteously shown to sinners in the
  offer of forgiveness of sins  and  salvation,  there  must  be  satisfaction
  rendered  to  God’s  holiness and righteous claims against sin.  In the book
  quoted from, Christ is not referred to as Saviour, nor the precious blood as
  that which alone can cleanse from sin,  and the confession of Jesus as  Lord
  is altogether ignored.  How inexpressibly sad! 

SPIRIT IMPERSONAL

  3)  If  Christadelphianism denies the divine personality of God the Son,  we
  are quite prepared that they should deny the divine personality of the  Holy
  Spirit.  They teach that:

      “The  Spirit  is  not a personal God distinct from the Father,  but the
    radiant, invisible power or energy of the Father,  filling universal space
    and forming the medium of His omniscient perceptions and the instrument of
    His  omnipotent  behests,  whether  in  creation  or  inspiration;  the
    distinction between the Father and the Spirit being not that they are  two
    persons,  but  that  the  Father  is  Spirit  in focus so intense as to be
    glowing substance inconceivable,  and the Spirit,  the Father’s power,  in
    space-filling diffusion, forming with the Father a unity in the stupendous
    scheme  of  creation,  which is in revolution around the Supreme source of
    All Power.”

  Thus in grand,  swelling,  empty words they deny the personality  of  the
  Spirit of God.

  On  the  contrary,  Scripture  repeatedly  refers to the Holy Spirit as a
  Person.

  John 16:13
    “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come,  He will guide you into
  all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears
  He will speak, and He will tell you things to come.”
  [See also Matt. 28:19; John 19:16-17,26; 15:26]

                          SATAN’S PERSONALITY DENIED

  4) “The Devil is not (as is commonly supposed) a personal supernatural agent
    of evil, and that in fact, there is no such being in existence.  The Devil
    is a scriptural manifestation – subjective,  individual, aggregate, social
    and political,  in history,  current experience,  and prophecy;  after the
    style of metaphor which speaks of wisdom as a woman,  riches as MAMMON and
    Satan as the God of this world, sin, as a master, etc.”

  The purpose of Satan is well served if people can be  persuaded  that  he
  does not exist.  Can subtlety go futher?

                                  HELL DENIED

  5) Christadelphians, not content with denying heaven to the believer, refuse
  to  believe  in a hell or eternal punishment at all.  They settle it in very
  few words.  They say:

      “It also follows of necessity,  that the popular  theory  of  hell  and
    `eternal torments’ is a fiction.”

  As  Christadelphians  deny heaven to be the believer’s portion,  and deny
  the very existence of hell,  they are forced  to  propound  what  they  call
  “conditional immortality” to cover their retreat.

  Enough  has  been  shown  to prove that this system is anti-Christian and
  Satanic.  We can understand that,  once having started with a wrong  premise
  as  to the person of God the Son,  error after error was needed wherewith to
  bolster up this daring attack on Christianity. 

  It may be contended that amidst this mass of error  the  Christadelphians
  at  least are sound as to their acknowledgment of God the Father.  Even this
  contention Scripture takes from them, and they are left completely under the
  curse of Scripture.  They deny the Divine Personality of the Son.  Scripture
  tells us in this connection that:

  1 John 2:23 Whoever  denies  the  Son  does  not  have  the  Father
  either,  he  who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

  2 John 7,9,10,11 For  many deceivers have gone out into the world who do
  not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.  This is a deceiver and
  an antichrist.  Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine
  of  Christ  does not  have  God.  He who abides in the doctrine of
  Christ has both the Father and the Son.  If anyone comes to you and does
  not bring this doctrine,  do not  receive him into your house nor greet
  him;  for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.

  Without God,  without the Father,  without  the  Son,  without  the  Holy
  Spirit,  without  atonement,  without  a hope of heaven,  how truly terrible
  their condition  is!  Theirs  is  indeed  a  system  of  error  without  one
  redeeming feature.

                              DAVID J. GEAUVREAU

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