Bible Studies

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We continue here in Part 11 where we stopped at the end of Part 10. We are still under section 14: "E. W. Kenyon and His Message on Faith: the True Story" by Joe McIntyre (Charisma House, 1997, 362 pages).

McIntyre discussed A. J. Gordon's view under the heading "A. J. Gordon and Identification" on pages 201-203. He quoted from Gordon's "In Christ: The Believer's Union with His Lord" (Gould and Lincoln, 1872), pages 9-10, 50, 55. I was able to find this book on the internet. I downloaded the first 60 pages of the book.

I'll include an excerpt from Gordon's page 40, 41, "... How gratefully we turn to Christ crucified as our only true resting place for comfort! 'Let me know that I have repented enough and suffered enough,' is the voice of a faith that is still in bondage to law. The voice of faith that is free is, 'Let me hear that Christ died in the stead of sinners, of whom I am chief, that He was forsaken of God, during these fearful agonies, because He had taken my place; that ON HIS CROSS I paid the penalty of my guilt [Gordon had these words (starting with "that" and going through the word "guilt") in italics. I added the Caps for emphasis. Significantly, Gordon believed that the suffering of Christ was finished ON THE ALL IMPORTANT CROSS.]. Let me hear too that his blood cleanseth from all sin, and that I may now appear before the bar of God, not only pardoned, but innocent. ...."

I'll include an excerpt from page 46 that further demonstrates that Gordon believed Christ's suffering was finished ON THE CROSS. "Standing by the cross now, we discern in the gloom and power of darkness that gather round it, that 'outer darkness' which had been ours forever out of Christ. In that plaintive 'Eloi, Eloi' ["My God, My God"], we hear what had been our cry of despair unanswered forever, except we had been found in Him. In that dreadful rending cry which delivers up the spirit, we own the due reward of our deeds, while confessing that this man hath done nothing amiss. But now all these things are passed forever both for Him and for us, as soon as the 'It is finished' has been spoken [ON THE CROSS]. And lo! the foregleams of the resurrection break upon us. The light of a certain and triumphant hope enters our heart. Remembering that we are joined to Him who said, 'I lay down my life that I may take it again,' we cease from tears and follow Him, saying as we hasten onward, 'Now if we be dead with Him, we believe that we shall also live with Him.' " He had to die, but He had told us that He would be raised on the third day. HE WAS!

On his page 202 McIntyre quoted the following words from Gordon (page 49 in the book I downloaded; McIntyre says page 50), "[Jesus] joined to His people, that He might carry them with Him through the pains and penalties of death, He now in the same gracious partnership of being brings them up again from the dead. He spreads the mighty miracle of his own regeneration from the dead, along the whole line of history. He repeats it in every true believer." Then McIntyre says, "Gordon here spoke of the 'regeneration' of Christ and the believers' participation in it. Kenyon's critics have mercilessly rebuked him for suggesting that after having been made sin with our sin, Jesus experience a regeneration - or was 'born again.' A. J. Gordon apparently - in seeking to understand Paul's teaching on the believer's identification with Christ - came to the same conclusion."

When Gordon spoke of Jesus' "regeneration from the dead," he was referring to His resurrection (not of His being born again like we sinners are); Gordon goes on for more than a page speaking of the fact that we have been raised (resurrected spiritually) with Christ. He was the first man (though He was much more than just a man) who left death behind and was born into (resurrected into) the glory of new creation life. In Col. 1:18 and Rev. 1:5 Jesus was called the "firstborn from the dead," referring to His resurrection. Because of His resurrection, all of us who are united with Him through faith are resurrected spiritually (born-again), and at the end of this age we will be resurrected (if we have died before He returns) and born into the fullness of eternal life with Him. In Romans chapter 6, and Col. 2:12; 3:1, for example, the apostle Paul shows how we die with Christ and are buried with Him, and how we are resurrected with Him in a spiritual (new birth) sense when we become Christians. In other passages he shows how we will be resurrected (if we have died before He returns) and glorified with Him in the ultimate sense at the end of this age (cf., e.g., Rom. 8:11; Phil. 3:21; and Col. 3:4).

The really important point for the purpose of this paper is that Gordon was not saying, like Kenyon did, that Jesus took on the nature of the devil and needed to be justified and born again spiritually like us sinners do, or that He suffered the torments of hell for three days after He died. Gordon has already informed us that the sufferings of Christ were completed ON THE CROSS.

On his page 202, McIntyre quoted several sentences from page 55 of Gordon's book. I'll just quote the last sentence he quoted, "Opener of the prison doors to them that are bound, He yet waits till the last demand of justice has been satisfied before He comes through the gate of the grave to lead them out." And I'll quote a key sentence from what McIntyre says here: "Observe that Gordon saw Christ continuing to suffer under the punishment of our sins until the resurrection."

McIntyre has misunderstood what Gordon was saying. Gordon has already informed us that Christ's sufferings have been completed ON THE CROSS. It's true that Gordon spoke in terms of Jesus remaining among the dead for three days to fully satisfy justice (in accordance with God's plan of salvation, and in accordance with the fact that Jesus had said that He would be raised on the third day), but, significantly, he didn't speak of Jesus suffering during those three days (when He was with the believers in the Paradise compartment of Hades). Gordon knows nothing of Jesus being tormented in hell after He died, which is where Kenyon saw most of Jesus' atoning work taking place.

I'll quote some more from Gordon to further confirm this important point. "...forgiveness was fully accomplished when He had pronounced the 'It is finished' ON THE CROSS [my emphasis]. For then He had blotted out the dark score of disobedience that was against us, having nailed it to the cross. ... But the pardon thus written in his blood waited to be sealed and attested by his resurrection. For though He had spoiled principalities and powers by his death, only by bursting the bars of the grave could He 'make a show of them, openly triumphing over them in Himself.' And so, while in the blood of the dying Christ we see the title of our pardon, we wait for a luminous glance from the risen Christ to bring it out into full distinctiveness and significance. ..." (pages 51, 52).

"Opener of the prison doors to them that are bound, He yet waits till the last demand of justice has been satisfied [in Jesus' remaining among the dead for three days], before He comes through the gate of the grave to lead them out [speaking of His leading us out of our spiritual death and bondage to sin through new-covenant salvation; He also led the spirits of the believers from Old Testament days to heaven at that time (the man on the cross beside Jesus was included)]. The members [the believers who become united with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection] must be with their Head. They are his fullness, and without them He cannot be made perfect. He waits till the weary hours of their prison service [He is taking our place in hades; THIS IS VERY DIFFERENT THAN JESUS BEING TORMENTED IN HELL FOR THREE DAYS] are completed in their Surety [in Christ, Who makes our salvation sure]. He cannot accept deliverance while they are under condemnation. But when the full acquittal has been secured, the glorious promise is fulfilled, 'The third day I shall be perfected.' Aye, thou mighty Captain of our salvation, thou first Begotten from the dead, because thou wilt then have 'perfected forever them that are sanctified.'

I am aware [Gordon says] of a certain holy jealousy for the honor of the cross, that restrains some from ascribing justifying efficacy to the resurrection of Christ. But let it be marked that it is not atoning justification which we attribute to it, but 'manifesting justification,' as Edwards so exactly names it. ..." (pages 55, 56).

And McIntyre dealt with A. T. Pierson on page 203. "A good friend of Gordon's and a respected mentor for Kenyon, A. T. Pierson also wrote along these lines. While the interim pastor for Charles H. Spurgeon in London, Pierson preached a sermon titled 'The Attestation of the Son of God'; or, 'Hope Through the Resurrection.' Commenting on Acts 13:33, he said, 'the reference in the second Psalm, "This day have I begotten Thee," is to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. [Yes!] ....' It would be hard to deny that Gordon and Pierson understood Christ to have undergone some kind of new birth out of death in His resurrection. Acts 13:33 became a favorite of Kenyon's in showing Christ being 'born again.' "

There is nothing in McIntyre's excerpt from Pierson (I didn't include the entire excerpt here) to support Kenyon's idea that Jesus began to partake of the nature of Satan and needed to be justified and born again like we sinners must, or that He was tormented in hell for three days. Pierson rightly shows that Acts 13:33 informs us that the birth spoken of in Psalm 2:7 refers to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, where He left death behind and was born into the fullness of the eternal life of God's new creation. Jesus didn't have a need to be born again, like we do. As I mentioned Col. 1:18 and Rev. 1:5 speak of Jesus being the first born from the dead, referring to His resurrection. When we are born again, we follow Him in that birth in a spiritual sense. At the end of this age, we will follow Him in the fullness of that birth into the fullness of eternal life and glory ((cf., e.g., Rom. 8:29; Rev. 12:5 [Rev. 12:5, which is one of the most important eschatological verses in the Bible, is discussed in detail, along with all of Revelation chapters 11-13 in my book "The Mid-Week Rapture"]; also see on Psalm 2:7 in the chapter on Psalm 2 in that book; Psalm 2 is a very important eschatological psalm)).

Lastly, we'll discuss the view of Henry C. Mabie, which McIntyre discussed on pages 192-195 in his book. Mabie, who was a close personal friend of A. J. Gordon, spoke regularly for D. L. Moody. He wrote three books on the atonement. McIntyre quoted from one of these books "The Meaning and Message of the Cross" (1906); Kenyon commented in one of his sermons that Mabie "was considered one of the greatest teachers of the Bible in America," and he acknowledged reading "How Does the Death of Christ Save Us?," which was another of Mabie's three books on the atonement (published in 1908).

Having read the entire chapter of Mabie's book, "The Meaning and Message of the Cross," from which all of McIntyre's (and my) excerpts were taken, and several other chapters, I'll say, for a start, that Mabie does not agree with Kenyon that Jesus was tormented in hell for three days after His suffering on the cross, or that Jesus, having taken on the nature of the devil, needed to be justified and born again like we do.

The reason I wanted to discuss Mabie last is because he greatly emphasized the depths of the suffering experienced by Christ as He took our place. I'll include some excerpts from Mabie along this line: "That Christ experienced a spiritual anguish altogether unparalleled is found in His cry on the cross: 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' This was the high-water mark of His sorrow. ... That Christ was for the time sympathetically at least, in the place of an outcast world and partook of the sense of the abandoned before a judicial tribunal when He could say only 'My God, My God' - not 'My Father, My Father,' is most evident

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