“And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:13)
Man was created in the image and likeness of God (vs. 26-30), having mental and moral faculties corresponding, so that he could appreciate and enjoy communion with his Maker, for whose pleasure he was created. “Male and female created he them,” not only for the propagation of the race, but also that the twain might find their mutual adaptability to each other and God. Their dominion was to be the whole earth, with all its products and resources and all its lower forms of life ─ a wide and rich domain affording ample scope for their noble powers.
But then came the tempter and Eve was deceived, but Adam was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14). Since Adam was a willful and intelligent sinner, and since the sentence has been executed upon him and he now has nothing and is nothing, how much of the merit of Christ will be necessary for his release from his condemned condition?
We understand that Adam, having been tried and found guilty and sentenced to death, and having gone down into death under that sentence, has done nothing to liquidate his obligations in any sense of the word; and that it will require the full satisfaction of a ransom-price to set him free and permit him to have another trial. In a general way this, of course, is true of the entire human family. As Adam’s children, we are dealt with as a race, instead of as individuals except in the case of the Church and of the Jewish Nation under their law.
During the Millennial Age there will be no imputation of Christ’s merit to anyone as it is imputed to the Church during the Gospel Age. It is imputed to them for a special purpose ─ to enable them to offer acceptable sacrifices. In the Millennial Age no one will need the righteous-ness of another to make him acceptable. On the contrary, the whole world, counted as one, will be dealt with from that standpoint; and Christ as the great Mediator, Prophet and King, will make satisfaction to justice for Adam and all his children, dealing with them as one. After making satisfaction to Justice, and thus purchasing the whole world of mankind, the great Mediator of the New Covenant will put it into effect, and under that New Covenant the blessing will begin with Israel; but every member of the human race will have an opportunity to come into perfection.
This brings us to the study of the word ransom, which in the New Testament has a very limited and definite meaning. It occurs only twice. Once in our Lord’s own description of the work He was doing and once in Paul’s description of that complete work. The Greek word used by our Lord is lutron-anti, which signifies, “a price in offset, or a price to correspond.” Thus our Lord said, “The Son of Man came to… give his life a ransom [lutron-anti ─ a price to correspond] for many.” (Mark 10:45) The Apostle uses the same words, but compounds them differently, anti-lutron, signifying “a corresponding price,” saying “The man, Christ Jesus, gave himself a ransom [anti-lutron ─ corresponding price] for all to be testified in due time.” (1 Tim.2:6) The thought and only thought contained in this is that as Adam, through disobedience forfeited his being, his soul, all his rights to life and to earth, so Christ our Lord by His death, as a corresponding price, provided a full and exact offset for Father Adam’s soul or being, and in consequence for all his posterity, every human soul, sharers in his fall and in his loss (Rom. 5:12). If Adam is not raised then none of the rest of the world will be raised.
Let us be clear here ─ Jesus will not return in the flesh again (John 16:10). If he should take back his humanity that would cancel his ransom price and all the world would still be in their sins.
Knowing definitely the penalty pronounced against sin, we may easily see what Justice must require as a payment of that penalty, before the curse could be lifted and the culprit be released from the great prison-house of death (Isa. 61:1). As it was not because the entire race sinned that sentence came, but because one man sinned, so that sentence of death fell directly upon Adam only, and only indirectly through him upon his race, by heredity; and in full accord with these facts Justice may demand only a corresponding price. Justice must, therefore, demand the life of another as instead of the life of Adam, before releasing Adam and his race. If this penalty were paid, the whole penalty would be paid, one sacrifice for all, even as one sin involved all. We have already seen that the perfect Adam, the transgressor, who was sentenced, was not an angel, nor an archangel, nor a god, but a man, in nature a little lower than that of angels. Strictest Justice, therefore, could demand as his substitute neither more nor less than one of Adam’s own kind, under similar conditions to his, namely, perfect and free of Divine condemnation. We have seen that none such could be found among men, all of whom were of the race of Adam. Hence it was, that the necessity arose that one from the heavenly courts, and of spiritual nature, should take human nature, and then give it as substitute, Himself, a ransom for Adam and for all who lost life through him. So we see that Jesus cannot come again in the flesh for that would be taking back His ransom sacrifice again for then Adam and all his race would be lost again.
The necessity for the purchase of the race by Christ lay then in the fact that Father Adam had sold himself and his race into sin (Rom. 7:14; 5:12). He needed to be bought back from the slavery of sin; and the payment of the ransom-price was necessary before any could be released from the sentence or start anew to prove themselves worthy of life-everlasting.
But let us take a still larger view of this purchase, and note that Jesus became not only theoretically but actually the owner, controller and Father of the race, by reason of paying its ransom price; in this purchase He took Father Adam’s place, who had sold the race. As it was sold by Adam through sin, in self-gratification, in disobedience to God, so it was bought by the man Christ Jesus, by the sacrifice of Himself in obedience to the Father’s will, a corresponding price or ransom for Adam. The Bible presents this thought: “Christ both died and rose and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living.” (Rom. 14:9) It was by virtue of our Lord’s death that He became the master, ruler, Father of the race, and obtained power to deal with the race as with His own children, freed from the curse of the Divine sentence by His own sacrifice.
MUST ADAM BE REDEEMED FIRST?
Accepting the Scriptural presentation that “By one man’s disobedience sin entered into the world, and death as a result of sin, and thus death passed upon all men, and for that all are sinners” (Romans 5:12-17); accepting also the declaration of Scripture, “As by man came death, by man also come the resurrection of the dead,” also the assurance that “As all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21,22); shall we understand that Adam must first be redeemed and atoned for before any of his children can receive reconciliation? If so, should we understand that Adam was included amongst the believers, the household of faith, on whose behalf Jesus, our great High Priest, appeared and made satisfaction for sin when He appeared in the presence of God for us?
Most assuredly we should not! St. Paul did not mention Adam in his list of Ancient Worthies in Hebrews 11. On the contrary, our expectation for Adam is that as a man of the world class, “all people,” his sin will be atoned for in the end of this Age, when the great High Priest shall antitypically sprinkle His blood on the Mercy Seat for the sins of the whole world, “all people,” as at the beginning of the Age he made atonement for the Church’s sins. Our expectation also is that Father Adam will be one of the last to be awakened from the sleep of death and be brought forth to the privileges, blessings, opportunities and testings of the Millennial Age.
Our thought is that the restitution blessings will begin with the generation living at the time of the inauguration of the Mediator’s Kingdom; that it will deal first with these and bring them to a measure of recuperation before beginning with any of those who sleep in the dust of the earth; and further that those of the sleepers who went down into death most recently will be the first to come up, while those who went down first will be last to come up. In other words the first shall be last and the last shall be first (Matt. 19:30). Our thought is that quite probably the awakenings of the world will be in response to the prayers of their friends during the Millennium; and that those living at any time will be especially interested in praying for such as were their acquaintances or relatives. We see no reason why Father Adam should take any precedence in connection with the work of redemption. While it is true that he was the man through whom sin and death entered the world, nevertheless amongst the thousands of millions of his children he has no pre-eminence in the sight of justice, whose record respecting humanity we understand to be: One man’s sin ─ penalty Death.
The sacrifice of the man Christ Jesus was sufficient for the sins of the whole world, and that ultimately it will be made available for the cancellation of the sins of the world is because justice in the condemnation merely sentenced Father Adam as a man and has paid no attention to his children in the way of separate condemnation, but counted them all as members of the one man. Hence the death of Jesus could have been applied for any one of Adam’s race, but as he was the head of the race and they were all condemned through him, it was applied through him. And this last will be the ultimate result.
RESTITUTION
(Acts 3:19-21)
Restitution signifies the restoring of a thing which was lost. You might give a person anything, whether he had once possessed it or not; but it would be quite improper to call it restoring unless he has once possessed it and then lost it. The human family once possessed a perfect mental, moral and physical nature as represented in the person of Adam, their head. Beautiful and majestic in form, God-like in the mental and moral qualities of his being (in God’s image) and commissioned to be the King or God over all earthly creatures (“In our likeness let him have dominion over the beasts, fowl, fish,” etc. Gen. 1:26), he stands before us the picture of human perfection. He passes the inspection of the great Jehovah and is pronounced a “very good” man. He was not a god, but a man. “Let us make man in our image.” We should not suppose that to be mentally and morally in God’s image means that we will have the same mental and moral capacity; but our justice, mercy, love, truth, and powers of reasoning, deciding, etc., while limited in capacity, are the same in kind as the justice, love, etc. of God, so that he can say to us “Come let us reason together.” (Isa. 21:18)
But before Adam had ever learned to use his powers fully, sin entered, and death followed, degrading and destroying by its various agencies of sickness and vice the one noble form, and the perfection of his intellectual and moral faculties.
God foresaw the necessity of this victory of evil over man, that he might learn forever the lesson that sin and death go hand in hand and both are his enemies; while obedience to God and life and happiness are indissolubly connected, and that God is his true and best friend. We see God, the loving Father permitting evil for man’s good and taking advantage of its presence to prove to man His unalterable character, “the exceeding sinfulness of sin,” “the justice of His laws, the boundlessness of His mercy,” “the exceeding riches of His grace.” And the “great love wherewith He loved us,” by redeeming us from all sin through Jesus Christ. We have seen too, how that through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by obedience of one shall the many be made righteous [just] (Rom. 5:19), and that in His due time God intends to bring all men back to the condition of perfect manhood where they will again be “very good.” This is restitution, the restoring of mankind to the power, qualities, and things lost through the first Adam.
Could Adam have developed a character without the knowledge of good and evil? What kind of character did he have prior to the disobedience and fall? We answer: A participation in sin is not essential to the development of character; otherwise God the father and our Lord Jesus Christ and holy angels would have to be classed as amongst those destitute of character. Surely God Himself is to be considered as possessing character of the very highest class, and hence His creature Adam, made in his own likeness, must have possessed a good character. So must a faultless character belong to all the angelic sons of God, and to His first-begotten. Character may be tested and strengthened and supported by experience or by observation. Seeing sin in others and noting its evil fruit, they have doubtless been made stronger in their determination for that holiness in which they were created and which they have maintained. But had sin never been permitted, this strengthening of character by the Holy angels through observation would have been impossible.
Adam, in the Divine image, and, therefore, of excellent character, was subjected to a peculiar temptation; to which probably he would not have yielded had he been granted the same acquaintance with righteousness and with his Creator that the Holy angels enjoyed. God left him in this condition, knowing in advance how it would result, and prepared for the rescue of the race in advance, in that feature of His plan which foresaw “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8) God chose to give Adam and his race an experience in the character development through contact with sin and in overcoming it by the assistance He renders through the Redeemer. While, therefore, a certain degree of strong and good character may be created, the testing and proving and bolstering of that character and its everlasting insurance could not be accomplished without some lesson of either experience or observation. It pleased God to give man his lesson and testing through experience, and the angels the same lesson and testing through observation, and all His ways are perfect.
But would not this be giving some of the race a second chance? We answer: the first chance for everlasting life was lost for himself and all of the race, “yet in his loins,” by Father Adam’s disobedience. Under that original trial “condemnation passed upon all men”; and God’s plan was that through Christ’s redemption sacrifice Adam and all who lost life in his failure, should, after having tasted of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and felt the weight of sin’s penalty, be given the opportunity to turn unto God through faith in the Redeemer. If any one chooses to call this a second chance, let him do so; it must certainly be Adam’s second chance, and in a sense at least it is the same for all of the redeemed race, but it will be the first individual opportunity of his descendants, who, when born, were already under condemnation to death. Call it what we please, the facts are the same; viz all were sentenced to death because of Adams’s disobedience, and all will enjoy (in the Millennial Age) a full opportunity to gain everlasting life under the favorable terms of the New Covenant. This, as the angels declared, is “Good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all peoples.” And, as the Apostle declared, this grace of God that our Lord Jesus “gave himself a ransom for all, must be testified to all “in due time.” (Rom. 5:17-19; 1 Tim. 2:4-6)
The two texts given above indicates only that it is the will of God that all men should be saved from the ignorance and blindness and degradation which has come upon the race as a result of Adam’s sin. There is no reference here to eternal salvation, but merely to a recovery from the loss sustained through Adam; and it should not be forgotten that father Adam did not lose eternal life, for though he had a perfect life, and was free from all elements of death, he was, yet placed in Eden on probation, to see whether by obedience to God he would develop a character in harmony with God so be accounted worthy of everlasting life. Hence, when Adam and his race are redeemed from the curse of death, this redemption of salvation from the death sentence does not entitle them to everlasting life, but merely entitles them to the favorable conditions of father Adam, and to a fresh trial as to worthiness for everlasting life.
This fresh trial secured for Adam and all his race will indeed be more favorable in some respects than was Adam’s original trial, because of the large increase of knowledge. Man has had an opportunity to learn the exceeding sinfulness of sin and will have an opportunity to learn the blessedness of righteousness, and of God’s grace in Christ. This knowledge will be of service to all who will use it, during the fresh trial for eternal life in the Millennial Age, when for a thousand years the whole world shall be on judgment or trial for eternal life, before the great white throne (Rev. 20:4).
But if Adam was perfect, how could he have sinned? It seems that a perfect man would have acted in a perfect manner. From the Scriptural narrative of the creation of man, it is evident that God, the Creator, designed to have an intelligent creature made in His own likeness, with an individual will capable of deciding for good or evil. Man has the power of willing to do as he, himself, desires.
Had he been created otherwise he would not have been in the likeness of God, but a mere machine controlled and directed by Divine will. We may reasonably suppose that Adam chose to disobey the Lord because of his love for Eve. She had been deceived by the Adversary, Satan, and had partaken of the forbidden fruit, the penalty for which was death. Adam, realizing that she must die, deliberately chose to share her fate, as life without her would not be worth living. We are distinctly told that Adam was not deceived (1 Tim. 2:14) and we could conceive of no other motive on the part of a perfect man in disobeying the Divine mandate, than that of love for his bride.
What became of Adam when he died, did he go to heaven or hell? We may be sure Adam did not go to heaven at death, because three thousand years later Jesus said, “No man hath ascended up to heaven.” (John 3:13) The judgment or sentence of death was passed upon Adam by the Lord, who said, “For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.” (Gen. 3:19) This judgment of death was gradually enforced during a period of 930 years, by Adam being denied access to the life-giving food in Eden (Gen. 3:23,24); at the end of which time Adam was completely dead. He went to hell ─ not the hell of the Dark Ages, which had been represented as a lake of fire and brimstone, but to the hell of the Bible, which word is translated from the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word hades and properly translated into the English words grave, tomb or state of death. Likewise all of Adam’s children, inheriting this death sentence, have followed him, at death, to the tomb. The entire race would have been exterminated had it not been that God provided for the redemption and resurrection of the race through Christ Jesus. “Who gave His life that we might have life.” (John 3:16, 17)
Therefore, if Adam is not raised then none of the remainder of the world will be raised. For when Adam sinned the race of mankind was still in his loins, unborn. So when Jesus gave Himself a “ransom for all” it was for Adam and all in his loins. Jesus could do this because He, too, had an unborn posterity in His loins.
___________________________________________________________________
A CONVINCING PROOF OF THE RESURRECTION
“Be not faithless, but believing.” (John 20:27)
Previous to the occasion of the words of our text, St. Thomas, the Apostle, had not been present at any of the manifestations of Jesus after his resurrection. Thomas seems to have been of a rather skeptical turn of mind. He heard the other apostles telling about what they had seen, about the manifestations that had taken place, and he felt that on such evidences he could not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. He thought that his brethren had been too easily deceived.
St. Thomas did not accredit his fellow disciples with an attempt at deceiving him; but as he declared, he would not believe on any such testimony as he had received. He said, “Unless I see the spear mark, unless I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” You cannot convince me that he is not dead. You cannot convince me that a person put to death after that manner is again alive. I cannot say where the deception came from, but you brethren are too easily deceived.
A week later, Jesus appeared in the “upper room” a second time. After saluting the company, he said to St. Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.” Again, he said, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The disciples did not see, evidently, the spirit being. They saw merely a materialization ─ actual flesh and bones. St. Thomas did as the Lord had requested. Then he said, “My Lord and my God!” He acknowledged that Jesus was the Lord. It was not an apparition. The brethren had not been deceived. He was the one who had come very near being deceived by his own lack of faith.
We cannot doubt that in this incident the Lord has given to all of his followers a very helpful lesson. Had none of the apostles even seemed to doubt the Lord's resurrection, they might have failed to bring out convincing proof of the fact. They might afterward have thought to themselves, “Why did we not make further investigation?” But here we have evidence of the investigation.
There are some people who are naturally very cautious. St. Thomas seems to have been one of these. We cannot think that the Lord is displeased with such characters. From our standpoint, indeed, the person who is inclined to be somewhat critical is rather to be approved. We would naturally incline to disapprove those who are too easily credulous, too easily persuaded. We are even to think highly of those who are of the mental attitude of St. Thomas. We are glad that there was one such hard thinker as this Apostle.
The Lord said in this connection, “Because thou hast seen, thou hast believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” There might be a question as to what the Lord meant by these words. He may have meant, Do not congratulate yourself that you were not easy to convince; or he may have meant, There is a special blessing for those who have faith ─ who believe without seeing.
There were above five hundred brethren amongst the disciples at the time of our Lord’s crucifixion. The Apostle says that he was seen of these at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6). But afterwards the brethren were obliged to believe without seeing, merely on the testimony of others. We are in this category ourselves. All the Christian church throughout the Gospel Age have believed without seeing the outward demonstration. Whether on this account the Lord would be specially pleased with us, we know not. But we think not. Whether we believe on slight evidence or on greater evidence is dependent upon the structure of the brain. God seems to have made provision that all those called of him may have a sufficiency of evidence. And he gives us the additional evidence from the days of the apostles to help to sustain our faith. We have the benefit of the doubts of St. Thomas and of our Lord’s demonstration of his change of nature.
FAITH THE CENTER OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS
The question might be asked, Why did Jesus lay stress upon the importance of faith? Why did he imply that St. Thomas could not be his disciple at all without believing? There are many who tell us that they cannot see that faith has any province, that they see no reason why God should bless faith, that in their opinion God should reward us for the doing. They say, “We are doing all the good works that we can.” The Bible always sustains the thought that any one who does not do to the best of his ability shall receive stripes. But the Bible also holds out the other thought ─ that God purposes to reward his people according to their faith; that whoever cannot exercise perfect faith cannot be his disciple; that if one has not faith, it is impossible for him to get into the Kingdom.
In God’s arrangement, faith has been made the very center of Christian progress ─ faith in the things he has done, faith in the things he has promised to do. Faith is the thing which, by God’s grace, enables us to avail ourselves of the wonderful opportunities of this present time. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” But this does not mean that conditions will always be as now, or that God will forever reject those who, on account of their mental makeup, cannot now exercise faith, but it means that at the present time He will save no others than the faithful.
The Scriptures very clear1y indicate, however, that after the selection of the Church, and the reward of their faith, the Lord will then deal with the world through the class which exercise faith now ─ through Christ and the Church ─ for the blessing of all mankind. In the next Age less faith will be required than now. Messiah’s Kingdom established will be openly manifested. Then mankind will not be obliged to walk by faith. They will walk by sight, whereas now we must walk by faith and not by sight.
From the natural standpoint it looks as though God were not ruling the world at all, but that the world were being ruled by chance or by Satan himself ─ so different are conditions from what we would expect if God were recognized as the great King. Consequently we must exercise faith, if we are to receive the blessing at this time. By and by, during the Messianic rule, when everything contrary to righteousness will be punished, and everything in harmony with righteousness will be rewarded, then all opposers of righteousness will be cast down, and all lovers of righteousness will be prosperous. That will be the time of walking by sight.
In the present time we must walk by faith because ours is a special salvation. The “high calling” is a peculiar privilege, for a special class. In the next Age, however, mankind’s unbalance of mind through the fall will be compensated for. Those who need much demonstration will have such; those who need less will have less. The matter will be made so clear that there will be no excuse for any one not to attain to full obedience of works, and these works will gradually lead them up to full human perfection. God has made nothing unreasonable in his laws and requirements; his every demand is reasonable and essential.
OUR LORD'S CHANGE OF NATURE
Putting ourselves into the position of the disciples during the forty days after Jesus had arisen from the dead; we can readily imagine that they were considerably confused. One and another of them had been witnesses of strange things ─ they could not explain what, but they had seen what purported to be Jesus ─ on one occasion the appearance was as the gardener, on another occasion as a stranger, etc. They saw no mark of identity, and did not really know whether they had seen him at all. On another occasion, looking very much like his former self, he appeared in their midst, the doors being shut. They could not imagine how a human being could have come in while the doors were shut. Therefore there was considerable perplexity.
The Scriptures give us to understand that the reason why our Lord thus manifested himself in various forms was that God raised Jesus from the dead to a different plane of existence ─as a spirit being. The Scriptures declare, “Now the Lord is that Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:17) The second Adam is the heavenly Lord. He is not the earthly man Jesus. This explanation we can appreciate because we are living since Pentecost. We can see and understand that Jesus had become a spirit being and that like the angels he could, where it was necessary, appear like a human being. We would not question at all that if Jesus had any reason for showing the identical body that had been crucified he could have appeared in it, could have opened the door and the apostles could have been blinded, so that they could not see the door opening and shutting, as he entered. But the account contradicts such supposition and is very explicit in the statement that “the doors were shut,” not that the apostles did not see them open, but that they did not open at all. In the second statement ─ when St. Thomas was present ─ our Lord appeared in the same manner, “The doors being shut.”(John 20:19,26)
While Jesus could have brought the body, and could have maintained himself inside of it as a spirit being, he did not do so. If he had done this they would have been deceived, supposing that he had arisen in his body of flesh in which he had been crucified. Therefore he appeared in different bodies of flesh, but under conditions that left no doubt as to his identity. He knew that after the disciples had received the Holy Spirit all would be plain to them. So he made no attempt to explain to them at that time, but merely kept them in touch with himself until after the Pentecostal blessings had come, when they were able to understand from the true viewpoint.
Our thought, therefore, would be that the body in which our Lord appeared was materialized. This was not a deception. It was intended, on the contrary, to keep the disciples from being deceived. Being natural men, they could not appreciate a change from human nature to spirit nature. Therefore this appearance was to help them over a difficulty ─ to keep them from saying “He is not risen.”
RESURRECTION MUCH MISUNDERSTOOD
The disciples could see that our Lord had a different power altogether from what he had before he died. Thus he appeared time and again during the forty days ─ a few minutes at a time. This very evidently was to accomplish the purpose of demonstrating to them that he was a spirit being, that he had power to come and go like the wind, that he could appear in the flesh when necessary, and then vanish at will, and that he could come in one form and another form. This was the great lesson by which he purposed to keep them from being in any way deceived.
We cannot imagine how Jesus could have substantiated his resurrection and confirmed the faith of his disciples in any better way. If he had remained with them as a man, they would have felt bound to believe that the same personality, the same flesh, was his still, and they would have been unable to understand his word, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age.” But now they could understand that as he had appeared and vanished from sight, although really present with them throughout the forty days, he could also in a different sense, be with them all through the Gospel Age, and return in person when necessary, in the end of the Age.
We see no deception in this, but an avoidance of deception. We are to remember that it took several of these manifestations to attest the fact that he was a changed being. If the disciples had thought of him as a man in heaven, it would have led them into serious difficulty, just as we see is now the case with our friends in the nominal churches, who think Jesus arose in the same flesh, and that he retains that flesh in heaven. Our friends believe this. We ask them if they think that, as Jesus bears the marks, the scars, of his wounded flesh, that all of his followers will likewise bear theirs. They answer, Yes. Then we remind them that some of them were most horribly maltreated, often mutilated, before they died. Think of those who were beheaded; and those who met with accidents and wounds! If they are to bear those marks and bruises in heaven, or be headless, they will be a disfigured set.
We show them that those who hold this view do not believe at all in the redemption ─ the redemption of which the Bible treats. We quote to our friends, “He poured out his soul unto death;” he made “his soul an offering for sin.” Yes, they answer, we believe that his fleshly body was sacrificed. We reply, His fleshly body will only redeem the fleshly body of Adam. But Adam had more than the fleshly body. It was the soul of Adam that sinned ─ and Jesus must have given a soul in order to redeem Adam (Isaiah 53:10,12).
If the body never was a part of Jesus, then it was not Jesus that died, but his body; it was not he that was humiliated, but his body; it was not he who left his glory that was sacrificed, but his body. Now, if the body never was Jesus, then he deceived mankind into thinking that he was a man; and he deceived the Apostle into saying that “he who was rich, for our sakes became poor.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) Then to speak of his being tempted, as the Apostle Paul spoke of him, was wrong, for he could not be tempted like us, if he were altogether of a different nature. So we see that the truth, as the Bible teaches it, is harmonious.
THE RESURRECTION OF THE WORLD
The first resurrection, Christ's resurrection, began with the glorious change of our Lord, more than eighteen centuries ago, and as his resurrection, it will be completed when the last member of his Body shall have experienced the change from earthly to heavenly, Divine nature. The world’s resurrection cannot take place before that of the Church, but must follow it. The Ancient Worthies will be the first of the earthly class to be resurrected to human nature. But their resurrection will not be at the same time as that of The Church, but later ─ as the Apostle says, ─ “They, without us, shall not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39,40)
The awakening of the world will probably not begin for fifty or a hundred years after the Kingdom has been established. During that time, however, the resurrection process ─ the raising up gradually ─ will be in operation amongst the nations then living. As gradually nations, peoples, kindreds and tongues are awakened; they must be brought to knowledge of the truth, and must give the assent of their wills, before any resurrection processes begin to operate in them. This work will continue all down through the thousand years of Messiah’s reign.
The world’s resurrection will not be fully completed until the end of the thousand years, while The Church's resurrection will be completed at the beginning of the thousand years. For this reason it would be improper to say that the resurrections of the just and of the unjust take place at the same time. Indeed, the world will not be raised up fully until, at the close of the thousand years, they shall be turned over to God, even the Father; for one result of the fall was the loss of the heavenly Father’s favor and fellowship. Mankind will not be delivered out of that feature of the fall until the Mediator shall have accomplished his work in them. (Pastor Russell, Reprints 5236-5238, May 15, 1913)