I find this statement by Beebe astounding. He says he approves much of what Potter wrote in refutation of "Two Seed doctrine in the flesh of the human family." Does this mean he no longer believed in Two Seedism in 1880? Or, does it mean that he denies Two Seedism "in the flesh," believing rather in Two Seed "in the spirit"? I seriously doubt that Beebe is telling the truth when he says he knows nothing about the "doctrine of eternal children." We have seen in previous chapters that Beebe believed like other Two Seeders that the elect seminally existed in Christ from eternity. It could be, however, that Beebe is playing a game with words in these remarks, a way to dodge the issue. He might respond by saying that the children existed in seed, but not as actual children yet, in the same way people were in Adam seminally but not as actual existing developed children.
Wrote Beebe in response:
"We fail to comprehend how God made choice of a people in Christ if that people did not in any sense exist in Christ when the choice was made."
Of course people existed in some sense from eternity. That sense is that they were in the mind of God, being envisioned by him in his foreknowledge, as an idea of what is created is in the mind of a creator before the thing imagined is created. Had Beebe and the Two Seeders held strictly to this sense, there would have been no difficulty. However, he and the Two Seeders went much further and taught that the church or chosen people of God had an actual existence in seed form. The above words of Beebe show this to be the case. His reasoning would exclude God making choice of an idea or a merely foreknown people. Instead of "choice" (or "chosen") he might as well have used the words "loved," "known," "predestined," etc., for these words are also used to describe God's mental vision of future things. However, God said he knew Jeremiah before he was born, before he was created in the womb. (Jer. 1: 5) God loved Jacob before he was born. (Rom. 9: 10-13) How could he love and know these people before they were born? Because he foresees all, and because God exists outside of time. Further, Beebe's argumentation does show him affirming "eternal children," the very thing he denies knowing anything about the term.
Beebe continued:
"We do not understand that the flesh and blood of the people chosen in Christ existed in him, nor that he himself existed in the flesh until his incarnation, for in their flesh and blood relation they did not exist until their creation in the earthly Adam, in common with all others of mankind. Still we are informed in the word of divine revelation that the saints at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus were blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places IN Christ Jesus, according as he hath chosen them in him (not into him) before the foundation of the world."
Again, he is arguing for "eternal children," though not physical children. Beebe is disagreeing with other Two Seeders who believed in "two seed in the flesh" ideology. Beebe fails to see how his denial that the children of God physically existed in Christ from eternity is inconsistent with his argumentation. Did Christ not love the physical bodies of the elect or church? Were they not also given spiritual blessings in Christ? Did he not predestine their bodies to be saved from sin and be made spiritual and immortal? If he believes that the flesh and blood or Christ and his people did not actually exist from eternity, he ought by the same reasoning object to the spirit or souls of people actually existed from eternity.
Beebe continued:
"We cannot conceive of the existence of Christ as the Son of God, begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, only in his Mediatorial relation to his eternal Godhead, as the Father, and as the Head over all to his church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. We have understood that he is the Word that was with God, and also that he is the Word that is God. The Head of the church is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God. The fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in him. He could no more sustain his Mediatorial relation if he and the Father were not one, than the church could inherit eternal life if they were not one with him, even as he and his Father are one. We think we agree with brother Potter, if we understand him, that Christ did not exist in flesh and blood (except in purpose) until he was made flesh by incarnation, by being made of a woman, and conceived by and born of the virgin Mary. But we do believe that he did exist as the Son of God, as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, from everlasting. His Mediatorial names or titles, Jesus and Christ, are expressive of his relation to the Father as a begotten Son, and to the church as her Head and spiritual and eternal life."
As we saw in previous chapters, Beebe's Two Seed views were intimately connected with his views on the Trinity and on what it means for Christ to be the eternally begotten Son of God. Beebe and Trott and many of the first generation of "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists rejected the Trinity, holding to Sabellian views, and others rejected the idea that Christ's being eternally begotten was proof of his divinity and oneness with the Father. Beebe believes that Christ being begotten of the Father from eternity has to do with his being appointed to be mediator, savior, and the anointed one of his chosen people or espoused wife. He is inconsistent however in this because he has affirmed that Christ being a man was essential to being this mediator, just as much as his being God the Word. So, if he was a mediator from eternity, then Beebe must affirm that Christ has always been both God and man.
He also destroys his own Two Seed ideology when he says that Christ from eternity did exist in flesh and blood but only "in purpose." Why does he not then say that the children of God, or those chosen, likewise existed in soul or spirit from eternity in purpose but not actually?
Other Two Seeders would argue that Christ did exist from eternity with a human body. They often would say that the church was "bone of his (Christ) bone and flesh of his flesh." (Eph. 5: 30) Even Beebe himself would cite this text to prove the preexistence of the elect. They often spoke of how Eve was "in" Adam before she was made, and in doing this they do in fact affirm that the elect had a physical existence in Christ before they were made, for they say that Eve is a type of the church. As we saw in earlier chapters, one of the oft repeated arguments by Beebe was to say that as Christ has from eternity been "head" of the church, the church being his "body" must have also always existed for a head cannot exist without a body.
Wrote Beebe:
"If we have read correctly the record which God has given of his Son, as the Head of the body, the church, he, as the Head of the church and Savior of the body, is not only the begotten, but the only begotten of the Father; and we infer that the begetting of the Head includes the begetting of the spiritual body, and all the members of the body of which he is the Head. We know of no other way in which the members of Christ’s body can be partakers of the divine nature, or inheritors of eternal life. If the life which was given us in the earthly Adam was eternal, it could not die; but the life which was with the Father, and was manifested, according to I John 1:2, and which was given us in his Son, according to I John 5:11,12, is emphatically eternal life, which was with the Father, and is hid with Christ in God. And this life which was given us in the Son of God was included, with all other spiritual blessings, in the unspeakable gift of God’s dear Son. Brother Potter says (but by what authority he has failed to tell us), that “Those people” (of whom Paul speaks in II Timothy 1:9) “were given to Christ in the covenant, and have sustained a covenant relationship to him ever since, or from all eternity;” and that “They are his by gift, not that they are his because they were in him, as the plant is in the seed, and have emanated from him in that sense."
If the "begetting of the Head includes the begetting of the spiritual body and all the members of the body," as Beebe asserted, then he does believe in "eternal children." The blessings given to believers in Christ before the world began were not given to them personally, since they did not then actually exist. They were given to the divine Son of God, who having been appointed to represent them, received those blessings on their behalf. Even in human affairs, things are often given to people who do not yet exist. Rich people have set up trusts which are designed to give money to future descendants. These are called "dynasty trusts." John D. Rockefeller used trusts in 1934 to pass on wealth, which still supports his heirs to the seventh generation. The Walton Family Holdings Trust, used to manage shares in Walmart, holds massive wealth for the heirs.
Wrote Beebe:
"This firstborn son, as the anti-type of David, shall be a progenitive Head, shall have children as his own seed, which were chosen in him, and blessed with and in him with all the spiritual blessings which are secured by the covenant of the sure mercies of David. “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven (Psalm 89).” Was David a type of Christ? Did his seed exist in him before they were born? Did his children proceed from him as plants from the seeds which produce them? If so, by what authority shall we say that the seed of Christ did not exist in Christ as their seminal Head, and proceed from him as the vine from its roots, as the branch from the living vine, and as plants from the seed?"
So, again, Beebe does believe in "eternal children." Also, he does admit that Potter was correct in saying that Two Seeders believed that the children of God existed in Christ before they were born in the same way that plants are in the first seed in a chain of seeds. We have looked at this line of reasoning in previous chapters. Did Solomon exist in David before he was conceived in the womb of Bathsheba? Of course he did not, except, as we have previously observed, in a manner of speaking. The person of Solomon did not exist in David. Consider also the fact that Beebe affirms two ideas that are contradictory to each other. First, he must say that Jesus as a man existed in David before he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary. Second, he must say that David existed in Christ the man before David was born.
Wrote Beebe:
"We presume that brother Potter believes, as we certainly do, that the Son of God is the begotten Son of the eternal Father, and stood in that vital relation to the Father before the world began, as the Son. Now if the children of God were chosen and blessed in him before the foundation of the world, and we accept the testimony of Christ himself, and of his inspired apostles, that they are the body of which he is the Head, would it not be a singular anomaly that a head should be begotten and born, and the body and members of that head only adopted? The Scriptures abound with figures illustrative of the union and relationship of Christ and the church. We are told that Adam is the figure of him that was to come; and that Adam was first formed, then Eve (I Timothy 2:13)."
The Son of God's agreement with the Father and Spirit to become a man in order to redeem sinners, and to be the head and representative of such redeemed sinners, does not necessitate that those sinners be in actual existence when this agreement was made in the eternal covenant. It was only necessary that God had predetermined to create man, suffer him to fall into sin, and to appoint Christ as the head of those who he intended to save, so that they existed in his mind, though they did not yet exist in actuality.
From the above we see how the subject of how adoption relates to being begotten was a difficulty with Beebe as it has been with many others. I would encourage the reader to read my series on this subject (which are all in their own blog for easy reading - See here). Potter and others, however, have argued that if adoption is true, then it proves that those who become children of God were not so from eternity.
Beebe is begging the question when he attempts to reason that the begetting of the Head (Christ) must involve the begetting of all those over whom he is head, or his body. But, we have shown how this line of reasoning, if true, would force him into asserting that every human being has existed from eternity and that they are all children of God, for Christ is not only the head of the church, but "the head of every man." (I Cor. 11: 3)
Wrote Beebe:
"Our Lord Jesus Christ, in his Mediatorial Sonship, is the image of the invisible God, the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person; the appointed heir of all things; by whom also he made the worlds. (Hebrews 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15.) Adam as a type, “is the figure of him that was to come. He was created in the image and likeness of Christ, as the heir of all terrestrial things, having dominion over all created things, and as the seminal head and progenitor of his race; and of him, when he, not being deceived, had followed his bride into the transgression, it was said, “Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil, etc. (Genesis 3:22).”
What does Beebe mean by "Mediatorial Sonship"? As we have seen in former chapters, Beebe believed that Christ had three natures, a divine nature, a human nature, and a mediatorial nature. He believed that Christ's mediatorial nature was begotten when he was begotten of the Father before time began. Beebe and Trott and other Two Seeders were anti-Nicenists, being opposers of the Nicene creed which says:
"We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
Christ being begotten of the Father is proof of his divinity and oneness with the Father. That, however, is not believed by Beebe and many other "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists of the 19th century. To be begotten proves that Christ was not God, said they, for God cannot be begotten, so though Christ was God it was not because he is the only begotten Son of God. Therefore, his being begotten had do do with him becoming human or a mediator.
When Beebe says that Adam "was created in the image and likeness of Christ" he means not that he was made in the "image of God," although this is what the Bible says, but was made in the image of the begotten or created Mediator, who they say was "the first thing God created" per Colossians 1: 15 and Revelation 3: 14, and which is why they were called Arians by Elders Grigg Thompson and John Clark. This belief is behind the second article in the articles of faith of the Bear Creek Association (of which I was once a part), which I have cited previously, and reads as follows:
"We believe in the man Jesus being the first of all God's creation and the pattern of all Gods perfection in nature, providence, grace and glory, and in relative union with the Divine Word, and thus united with the whole Trinity." (Article Two)
Wrote Beebe:
"In all this the earthly Adam is the image or type of him that was to come. Adam, as the seminal head and progenitor of all the race of mankind, is the figure of Christ, as the seminal Head and spiritual progenitor of his spiritual seed, which he saw when his soul was made an offering for sin. He is their life, and that life in him is eternal life. It was with the Father, and given to his seed in the Son, or Sonship of the only begotten of the Father. It is only in this begotten relation that any vital union can be developed between God and the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty."
This is simply a further statement of the above belief. It smacks of Arianism. It makes "the first Adam" to be the second Adam, and vise versa, as I have previously stated.
Wrote Beebe:
"We hope that it is not in any derisive, sarcastic or scoffing way that any of our brethren would speak of the eternity of the existence of the children of God in Christ, as the head and source of all spiritual union and communion with God through Jesus Christ our Lord, as “eternal children.”"
Why are the words "the eternity of the existence of the children of God in Christ" not an affirmation of "eternal children"? Why is it sarcasm or scoffing to call this belief a belief in eternal children?
Wrote Beebe:
"It is with deep concern that we have observed of late, among some who claim to be Old School or Primitive Baptists, a disposition to sap the foundation of the Christian’s faith and hope in God, by ignoring the vitality of our union to and with God in Christ. They are willing to admit an eternal union, if we will give up the vitality of it, and call it a covenant union, or in any way deprive it of vitality; but it seems to us that a union without life would be a dead union, it could not make us partakers of the divine nature. But when we claim that the life on which our relation to God as his children rests was given us in Christ Jesus, with all other spiritual blessings, before the foundation of the world, although this heart-cheering doctrine is so fully declared in the Scriptures, an effort is made to call down onus, and what is far worse, on the doctrine, the obliquity and ridicule of those who do not entertain the same views that we do."
Potter and others did not deny that there was a predestined or representative union from eternity for God in his divine decrees determined that Christ be the head and representative and savior of those chosen to salvation. In those decrees the Father gave the elect to Christ in a covenant and is why Christ said "all that the Father gives to me shall come to me." (John 6: 37) But, to affirm that this ordained union proves that the elect actually existed from eternity is highly objectionable. Actual union with Christ follows actual existence, and follows being joined to Christ in time by faith.
Wrote Beebe:
"Much of the confusion in the minds of the saints, we think, arises from a failure to discriminate between Adam and Christ. In the earthly Adam we all die. Why? Because we were all in him in the transgression. By that one offense sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Did all men sin in the first offense of Adam? That occurred almost six thousand years before the birth of any of the men of the present generation. But if we had not been in Adam as our seminal head and progenitor, could we have sinned in him? Could death have passed on us as men that had sinned, if we were not in him as his posterity or children? If we were not children of Adam when he transgressed, and death thereby entered and passed upon us, when did we become his children? Did Adam call his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living before any of her living children were born? Did Levi pay tithes to Melchisedec before or after he was born? Were Jacob and Esau children before their birth, or was it not until afterward? These questions relate to our natural life, as children of the earthly Adam, and who is the figure of him that was to come. Then tracing the analogy of the figure, we ask, Are we the children of God in Christ today? If so, were we his children yesterday? He is the same yesterday, today and forever. If we are his seed, or children now, were we his seed almost two thousand years ago, when his soul was made an offering for sin, and when we saw his seed and was satisfied?"
Beebe misunderstands how and why the sin and guilt of Adam is imputed to his descendants. It is not strictly because of "seminal union" but because of a representative union, because God decreed that Adam should stand for the entire race. If that is not the case, then every man becomes responsible for every sin of his ancestors.
Also, as we have seen, Paul spoke of some who "were in Christ before I was" (Rom. 16: 7), which destroys the thesis of Beebe that all the children of God were in Christ from eternity. It also destroys the idea that says "we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3: 26). The apostle Peter also wrote to the believers: "Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." (I Peter 2: 10 kjv)
Wrote Beebe:
"God’s children were children before they were partakers of flesh and blood, even as Christ was the Son of God before he took part in like manner of the same flesh and blood."
However, as we just saw, this is not what the Bible teaches. God chose and predestined people to become the children of sons of God, but they do not become so until they have an existence in time and until they have become united to Christ by faith.
So, in conclusion, it is obvious that Beebe's answer to the Two Seed objections by Potter was not cogent.
