A dialogue between brethren.

Questioner. – It is some time since we have had a talk together Brother W., and I have called now to make a few inquiries.

I want you to give me in a few words, your reasons for believing that Jesus is now present.

Watchman. – I am glad to talk with you upon so interesting a subject, and shall try to answer your queries. You are aware, I presume, that I and all true Bible Students (the fully consecrated) believe that Jesus has come the second time, and is now present (invisibly) in the world, and for this reason our paper was/is also called the “Herald of Christ’s Presence.”

If I understand your question, you want me to refresh your memory briefly on the reasons for so believing.

Q. Exactly. Of course, all Christians believe that Jesus has been spiritually present with his church during all the Gospel Age, as He said: “Lo, I am with you always even unto the end of the world” [age].

In what sense is he now present, as He has not always been, and what are the proofs?

W. Let us for a moment then drop the idea of time and of His now being present, and see how He will be in His day, whether that day be now or a thousand years hence. First, come back 2,000 years to the time when Jesus “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God” (when he was in glory.) See Him lay aside the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, and being rich for our sakes become poor. See Him “take upon Him the form of a servant for the suffering of death.”

Notice now the difference between bodily form of God (a spirit being), and the form of a servant (a fleshly being); They are totally different and He must leave the one to take the other.

Secondly, notice why He took the form of a servant.

We read – for the suffering of death. God is a spirit, has a spiritual body, and could not die under any circumstances, for a spiritual body (a divine body) is an immortal, [undying] body, (1 Cor 15). Man being a sinner, condemned to death and unable to release himself, Jesus became his ransom, giving His life a ransom for ours. We were redeemed from death, or justified to life, “by the precious blood [death] of Christ.” We see then that Jesus laid aside the form of God (the spiritual likeness of God), and took the form of man, so that He might pay our penalty for us – die for us.

The foregoing may lead some to the wrong conclusion, believing that when it was stated that our Lord previous to taking the form of a servant (the human nature) was in the form of God, i.e. possessed of the divine or immortal nature, this however is not what is meant here. He was not at that time possessed of the divine nature, immortality. When it is stated that he was in the form of God, what was meant is that like the Father he was a spirit being, and possessed of the same divine likeness, i.e. the same character likeness, holy disposition and etc., as the Father.

The reason why our Lord took the form of a servant, was not so that he would be able to die (he could die, but had he been immortal, possessed of the divine nature this would have been an impossibility), but rather he took the form of a servant, a fleshly being so that he could become man’s redeemer. He must be made flesh like we in order to become our propitiation or satisfaction, viz., a ransom (or corresponding price). As it was a man, a perfect fleshly being that sinned and caused the fall of us all, so too under the law, a life for a life, it would require another perfect man to redeem him, and thus all his posterity in him. Our Lord in the form of God, a spirit being could not satisfy justice (nor could any other spirit being angel or etc.), it would require an actual human being, a man for a man. This is why our Lord took the form of a servant.

Thirdly, notice that when he had died “even the death of the cross” the purpose or object in taking our form was accomplished, and there is no reason why He should have the form of a servant since He died. And we claim that He is not now a man glorified, that He has not been a man since “the man Christ Jesus gave himself a ransom for all.”

Thus, we claim that these two natures – the spirit nature and the human nature – are separate and distinct, that as He left the spirit nature to take the human, so also, He left the human when He resumed the spirit nature.

Jesus was put to death in the flesh but quickened [made alive] by the spirit. Let us look at this expression, “made alive by the spirit.”

To what kind of life? Was it the life of the flesh that was quickened?

No, it was spiritual life. Listen; Jesus tells Nicodemus “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, (Jesus as a man was born of a woman and was flesh, thus taking human nature,) and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” Jesus at His resurrection was “born of the spirit,” therefore was not flesh but spirit. He is called “the first-born from the dead,” and was “quickened by the spirit.”

So, it will be with us; we shall be satisfied when we awake in His likeness. Not in the likeness of men which He took for a purpose. We have that likeness now, but when “we see Him as He is we shall be like Him” and be satisfied – be like unto Christ’s glorious body.

“Nor doth it yet appear,

How great we shall be made,

But when we see Him as He is,

We shall be like our Head.”

Q. I see then that you understand the text, “Put to death in the flesh, quickened by the spirit” as being of the same import as the one which speaking of the death and resurrection of the Saints, says: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; “and “as we now bear the image of the earthly, we shall then bear the image of the heavenly.”

W. Yes, very true, but let us not lose our subject. It is Jesus and His new condition after His resurrection, not what we shall be, although the inferential reasoning that our vile and earthly bodies must undergo so great a change, to be like His heavenly, or glorious body before we can see Him as he is, is the very best kind of proof that He is not and has not been, since His resurrection, like us, (presently, in the flesh) that is, in the form of a servant.

Continued with next post.