Proposition 3
- Tanner Hawkins
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
Christadelphian Unamended First Principles
PROPOSITION 3
By Bro. Jack Garvey
PROPOSITION 3 – That the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth on the earth was necessitated by the position and state into which the human race had been brought by the circumstances connected with the first man. Gen. 3:19; Rom. 5:12-19; 1 Cor. 15:21-22; 2 Cor. 5:19-21.
What It Means
This proposition explains the reason why Christ exists and is essential in God’s plan. God provided a redeemer and savior for man because of the fall of the race. Man sinned in the garden, and as the penalty for breaking that law was death, the condemnation to eternal death came over Adam and Eve. If there was to be any hope of escaping eternal death, something would need to be introduced into God’s plan to make this possible. This is why God sent His son.
In Psalms chapter 18, King David of Israel wrote a distressing Psalm, in which he grieved about the frailty of life and cried out, “The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me”. In this verse, he metaphorically describes death as an active enemy, seeking to entrap him, to wrap its coils around him like a snake, and pull him down to the grave.
Life is not sure. We’re all vulnerable to and surrounded by continual loss due to death. Some, who have no interest in God, simply accept this condition as unavoidable. To their way of thinking, there’s no reason for death, and there’s no solution to it.
But for those who search out the word of God on this subject, we’re told why we are in this situation, and God’s Word gives us simple instructions to resolve this great dilemma. The Apostle Paul clearly pointed out the cause of death in Romans 5:12 when he said, “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men…”
The breaking of God’s law in Eden by the first human pair (which is mentioned in the upcoming propositions of 4 and 5) brought upon the human race the sentence of condemnation to death (Genesis 3:19), and Romans 5:18 explains this in saying, “by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation”.
As we saw in proposition 3, death was not part of the initial creation. Man was created “very good”. But as these passages show, death entered into the world because of Adam’s disobedience, and because Adam and Eve did not have children until after this condemnation came upon them, the rest of the race inherited this condition. Death is therefore the result of sin.
Had God chosen, in Eden, to cease his dealings with man, the ultimate fate of every human creature from then till now would have been extinction of both thought and being in death. As we’re told in
Isaiah 38:18 – For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
This verse makes it clear that death, according to the Bible, is not a process of passing from one state of consciousness to another. It is the complete end of conscious thought, and very often in the Bible, death is compared to the unconsciousness of sleep.
We read in Psalms 49:12 that “man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish”, and in verse 7 of the same chapter we read, “none of them (referring to sinful creatures) can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him”. Our hopeless condition, without God, leaves us in a position where there is no one who can deliver us from eternal death.
While God could have easily allowed His law to be swiftly effected and Adam and Eve be slain, it was not the intention of our merciful Heavenly Father to desert His creatures in their hour of hopelessness. Out of goodness and mercy, God Himself determined to provide a redeemer who would be available to all who would hear him. Thus He promises through Isaiah in
Isaiah 59:20 – The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.
The apostle John, who saw the Redeemer, testified in
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Likewise, the apostle Paul, greeting the Galatians at a later time, says in
Galatians 1:3-4 – Grace be unto you and peace . . . from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God…
Christ was brought into God’s plan as the deliverer, and Paul therefore continues in
Galatians 4:4-5 – But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, (5) To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Complete deliverance from death is promised through the writer to the Hebrews in Hebrews 2:15. In discussing the redemptive work of Christ, he tells us that He will “deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Since the human family was doomed there in the garden from then on because of the condemnation of sin, it became imperative that Jesus Christ be sent as a “vessel prepared” for the purpose of rescuing those “who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality” like we learn in Romans 2:7. The manner in which this work was to be accomplished will be discussed more fully in later propositions.
To summarize what we have just talked about: When Adam and Eve chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, their bodies changed because of this fruit. This change gave them, by default, a nature with a desire to disobey the commands of God. This change, permeating throughout their flesh, made themselves what we would call sinful creatures, and every child they would have in the future would be born with this corrupted nature.
In Romans, Paul explains how our sinful nature operates within us and is the cause for evil thoughts and actions. He writes in
Romans 7:18, 21-23 – For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing… (21) I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
This sin in the flesh is what plagues mankind, and as Christ was sent as a representative of the fallen race to act as its redeemer, it was therefore necessary that he be endowed with the same sinful nature as the rest of the race. This nature was assumed by Christ specifically and only so he could accurately represent, redeem, and empathize with the race he was sent to save. As explained by Paul in
Hebrews 2:17 – Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
Why This a First Principle
The nature of Christ will be covered more in later episodes, but as Proposition 3 explains, it is the fallen nature and condition of the race which both made Christ necessary and determined what form he would need to come in in order to represent the race.
This is the main, simple reason the doctrine of proposition 3 is a first principle of the truth. It shows the important relationship between the fall of man and reason Jesus was even necessary in God’s plan. It is to undo the wrong committed in Eden that Christ was sent. If man did not fall – the term “fall” requiring that man was created in a better state than we are now – then the race does not need a redeemer. Again, as we will see discussed more in later episodes, the fall of the race determined the conditions he had to come in to be an intercessor and mediator. We cannot separate the condition of the fallen race from the condition in which the redeemer appeared.
Therefore, from the fall of man at the beginning of creation, God’s plan of salvation revolved around a faithful servant to come who would perfectly serve God and offer the perfect sacrifice of self. This servant was referred to as the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15, a title referring to Christ.
Jesus told us in John 14:6 that he was “the way, the truth, and the life”, and also told us, in the same verse, that “no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
So as Proposition 3 states, “The appearance of Jesus of Nazareth on the earth was necessitated by the position and state into which the human race had been brought by the circumstances connected with the first man.”
As we have seen from the words of Christ, no one can come to God, except they come by way of Christ. This makes it clear that the human race cannot be at one with God without our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that the reason for this separation was the sinful nature the man and the woman created in themselves when they sinned.
Thank you for your time considering this important bible subject. We briefly referred to the “better state” that man was originally created in, and that is what proposition 4 will discuss in the next episode.
