The Atonement by F. O. Oakes

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 34.

The Atonement

By F. O. Oakes

By F. O. Oakes

ALL doubtless are familiar with the story of Christ leading Israel in the cloud and in the fire; and all also are familiar with His life on the earth as the son of Joseph and Mary; but how many have noticed a symbolic figure of the Son of God in the Sacred Word?

Just as He likened kings and nations of old to animals with certain characteristics (Daniel 7), so God likened the oneness of Jesus with believers to a human figure with its many members, thus: “Ye are the body of Christ.” 1 Cor. 12:27. “He [Christ] is the head of the body, the church.” Col. 1:18. “So we, being many, are one body in Christ.” Rom. 12:5. “As the body is one, and hath many members, . . . so also is Christ.” 1 Cor. 12:12. How striking is this figure! How great the inducements offered fallen man to share Christ’s body! How we rejoice to tell weak, sinful men that through it they are “heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ,” “of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones,” made “so much better than the angels,” obtaining a more excellent name than they, heirs of the world, sharers of Christ’s judgment throne. Col. 1:16; Heb. 2:5. Truly, “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

But have we alone received this union?

Let Moses answer. Ex. 4:22, 23: “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, even My first-born. . . . Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” What does this mean? Why say, “Israel is My son,” instead of, “The Israelites are My sons”? Why term this multitude “My son,” as if they were but one person, instead of “My sons,” as if many? We reply, Only for the same reason that the church is Christ’s body; only for the same reason that “He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one;” only to teach Pharaoh the gospel of sonship and adoption through faith in Christ. Rom. 9:4.

There is a sonship by descent from Adam, “who was the son of God;” and there is a sonship through Christ, by the new birth. One class, shorn of Christ’s covering body, claiming only the sonship through Adam, could truly be termed “My sons,” yet God does not so call them. But the other class, having received the atonement in Christ (Rom. 5:11), could fittingly be referred to as “My son,” singular, because they are all one in Christ.

Thus the words “My son” were well chosen. Thus they distinguish between believers and unbelievers, and thus they differentiate between a class representing “the mystery of godliness,” “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and a class representing “the mystery of iniquity,” which is a denial of the same. Therefore He practically said: “Tell Pharaoh the Israelites have by faith received the atonement. Tell him they trust in Him who alone can deliver. Tell him for that reason he must let them go.” Mark well this distinction between “son” and “sons,” because it will be used to explain the difference between “seed” and “seeds” of Gal. 3:16 later.

Now another text with the same figure, Hosea 11:1, 2: “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images.”

Here we find again the same enigmatical use of the words “My son.” What does it mean? Who is referred to? What “son” burned incense “to graven images”? We reply, If the words “My son” meant the multitudes of Jews in the above instance, these same words must necessarily refer to the same people in this. Thus, Hosea says, “When Israel was a child [in Christ—compare 1 Cor. 3:1], then I loved him [the Hebrews], and called My son out of Egypt.” How wonderfully these figures agree!

How we wonder at the same atonement, sonship, and adoption conferred, the same great and precious promise necessarily, therefore, received, and the same blessed Saviour held up for man’s redemption in Egypt as at the present day! But while marveling at this harmony of gospel figure, has a prophecy of a coming Messiah been seen above? While amazed at the supernatural agreement of gospel symbol, has any one noticed a discrepancy, a difference, an anachronism, so to speak, between Hosea’s figure of the Israelites coming out of Egypt, and Paul’s like metaphorical figure representing Israel of the present day? Has any one noticed that the prophet likens the church in Egypt to a man with head and body complete, thus, “called My son [the whole symbolic man] out of Egypt,”

while the apostle likens the same church to the body of the same symbolic man only, thus, “Ye are the body of Christ”? Has any one noticed a prophecy in this? Why such different description? Why not say, “called the body of Christ out of Egypt,” instead of, “called My son out of Egypt”? In short, when the body only was called (Hebrews) (Ex. 7:16), when the body only responded (Ex. 12:4), and when the Head had not as yet been made manifest in the flesh, why did Hosea thus include both Head and body in the calling out?

All contradiction disappears when we say the difference, or anachronism, taught that a coming Head would go into Egypt and out again to fulfil the prophet’s figure, to preach the gospel of deliverance in God’s dear Son, and to speak words of comfort and joy to weary souls groping in Egyptian darkness.

You ask, Was the prophecy fulfilled? Did the Head go over the same ground as the body? Did the true Son of God journey in the above manner? Listen. Matt. 2:14, 15: “He [Joseph] took the young Child and His mother by night, and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called My son.”

How clear the fulfilment! See how the Head went over the same ground as the body; see how Hosea’s figure was literally fulfilled; see how Matthew included both the Hebrews and Christ in one term, “the Lord,” where he says Hosea’s words referring to the Jews “were spoken of the Lord;” see how he thus admits the atonement, and sees a message of hope and courage proclaimed in Joseph’s midnight trip, that just as Christ went in and out of literal Egypt, so would He go into spiritual Egypt and bring out every trusting soul triumphant.

O glorious fulfilment! O precious hope! But notwithstanding this study may now be plain to many, we can not close without one more text to silence every objection. Here it is—Gen. 13:14-16: “Look, . . . for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth.” How is it possible to find a mystical figure in this text? Where is there any reference to Christ and His church? What possible indication of an atonement? Since Inspiration has spoken, we will let the same answer. Gal. 3:16: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”

Paul here declares that Canaan was promised to one, even Christ; while the words from God’s own lips just as emphatically declare it was given to a people as numerous “as the dust of the earth.” How can we reconcile these statements? What is meant by the words “many” and “one”? We reply again, The blessed atonement figure comes to our aid. Just as the distinction between “My son” (as of one) and “my sons” (as of many) in Ex. 4:22 differentiates between believers and unbelievers, so Paul’s distinction between “seed” and “seeds” differentiates between precisely the same people; just as the words “My son,” indicating but one, meant Christ and His church in Egypt, so the word “seed” in Gen. 13:15, albeit also paradoxically stated by Paul to indicate but one, means precisely the same people; and just as believers, the body, together with Christ, the Head, were referred to as “the Lord” in Matt. 2:15, so the same “body” and the same “Head” are referred to as the “seed,” the posterity, which is to be as numerous “as the dust of the earth.” Thus we may read: “Look, . . . for all the land which thou seest, to thee I give it, and to Christ and His church forever. And I will make thy seed [same] as the dust of the earth,” etc.

At last the true meaning appears. At last we see Paul’s distinction between “many” and “one” is no less than a stunning blow at apostate Jews; no less than saying, Canaan was not promised to individual seeds of Abraham, shorn of Christ’s covering body, standing alone as units, as “many,” but to believers, the body, together with Christ, the Head, making the paradoxical “one, . . . which is Christ.” Thus this collective “one” seed or posterity is the same figure described in 1 Cor. 12:12; Rom. 12:5; Heb. 2:11; Matt. 2:15; Hosea 11:1; Ex. 4:22; and Gen. 13:15; thus it is the golden thread running from Genesis to Revelation; and thus it is another striking testimony to the divine inspiration of God’s word.

But in finding an atonement figure in Paul’s mysterious language, we have also unknowingly discovered the same figure in another much controverted text. In other words, by finding the meaning of one verse, we have found the meaning of another; by the ending of all controversy on one point, we have unintentionally settled all argument on another. We read Gal. 3:19: “Wherefore then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” etc. Necessarily, if Paul means Christ and His people for the “seed” in the sixteenth verse, he certainly does the same in the nineteenth; and necessarily, therefore, painful as it may be to destroy the long cherished theory of our “no law” brethren, we are obliged to read the verse thus: “Wherefore then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till Christ and His church [the said seed] should come to whom the promise was made;” or, as we may say, the law is in force until every believer comes into His promised home; until that scripture is fulfilled which says, “And from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me” (Isa. 66:23); and until the great Lawgiver Himself comes down on earth to dwell with man (Rev. 21:3), and then that law is inscribed in the hearts of all God’s children forevermore (Heb. 8:8-10).

In conclusion, we ask, How does this present binding obligation of God’s law affect Christ’s church to-day? If this law knows but a seventh-day Sabbath, what becomes of the wide-spread agitation for a compulsory Sunday law? What becomes of this iniquitous union of church and state? What becomes of all who take part in such an unscriptural movement? Whether appreciated or not, it is treason to God.