Two areas of theology that were involved in the Two Seed controversy dealt with the nature of man and with whether Christ was a man from eternity. We will now look at what Elder Lemuel Potter wrote on these two subjects. Potter first gives us what the Two Seeders said and he gives the following article from Martin Ellis titled "WHAT IS MAN?" (Hardinsburg, Ind., January 27, 1879) This article is given in Potter's 1880 pamphlet titled "Unconditional Election Stated And Defined; Or, A Denial Of The Doctrine Of Eternal Children, Or Two Seeds In The Flesh." Potter wrote the following, giving us what the Two Seeder wrote in response to a previous article by Potter titled "What Is Man" (emphasis mine):
"Noticing an article in the Church Advocate, of December 16, 1878, on the subject of "What is Man," I, by your permission, wish to present your readers a few thoughts on the same subject, but refer you to a different text, which you will find in Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth, 15th chap. and 47th verse. "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." I wish to be understood that when Paul penned the text, he was moved by the Holy Spirit and wrote the truth. Then there is a man from heaven and a man of earth, and the earthly man is made in the image and after the likeness of the man from heaven. Paul says to the church at Rome, 5th chapter and 14th verse, that the earthly man is the figure of Him that was to come. In the 15th chapter and 45th verse of 1st Corinthians, Paul calls this heavenly man and this earthly both Adam, bearing the same name."
"The question is, is there any relationship between the two men. I take the ground there is. What is it? says one. The prophet Isaiah says to Israel "Look to the rock from whence you were hewn; which rock is Christ. Now anything hewn from out of anything must be of the same substance as that from which it is hewn. I will tell you what Paul says about it. He says to the Church "ye are of his body, of his flesh and of his bones," I will here say that all that stood in Adam, when God blessed him were the children of God, and fell in transgression in Adam, in the character of a seed. David says in the 22nd Psalm, 30th verse, "A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted unto the Lord for a generation." Now, as we have come to this point, I ask did David have reference to the Adam family when he was talking about a seed to serve the Lord? I say yes; that is just what he calls a generation. Paul called Christ a seed in writing to the Galatian Church, 3rd chapter, 16th verse. He says, "Not unto seeds, as of many, but as of one and to thy seed which is Christ." Now this is the woman's seed which bruised the serpent's head. When we speak of seed it is that (if it is a good seed) which will produce."
"Then I reckon no one will try to deny that Christ is a good seed. Then he is productive, and produced Adam. And when Adam was produced he was "good and very good." Now we go to the 13th chapter of Matthew, 37th verse; Christ there says, "He that sowed the good seed is the Son of Man." In the next verse he says, "the field is the world," the good seed are the "children of the kingdom." The tares are "the children of the wicked one." The enemy that sowed them is the devil. There are two generations brought to view in the scriptures. There is the generation of Jesus Christ and the generation of vipers."
"He took one of his ribs and made it a woman, and Adam says, "this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." We there find her first existence in her husband, and she existed in substance as soon as her head, and husband existed."
"Then the heavenly man is the husband of the earthly man. Then, as this is true, Christ is bound for her debt, by law. To pay the debt he died on the tree of the cross. There is no man that has a wife that contracts a debt, but the law holds her husband responsible for the payment of it. Now did the bride of Christ exist in Christ before the world began? I will tell you what Paul says, Eph. 1st chapter, 4th verse, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world."
"Paul says in Corinthians, 15th chapter and 21st verse. "For as in Adam all die." Then the bride of Christ, or Lamb's wife died in earthly Adam. Then as sin did not destroy the flesh and bone relation, nor could not, it still remains. Then if sin could not destroy the relation, it cannot be destroyed. Then this being true, the flesh and bone relation between Christ and his bride is not destroyed. Then I ask the question which is the oldest in substance, Christ or his bride? If the figure that Paul uses in the earthly Adam shows anything, it shows they were the same age."
In these citations we see where the basic Two Seed tenets are affirmed. First, Christ as a man existed from eternity, as a mediator, as a husband of the elect or church, and Second, the church existed in him or in his seed from eternity, and Third, after being deposited in Adam, they sinned and fell in Adam, but this did not destroy their relationship to God, did not separate them from God, did not bring them under wrath or degenerate them. The doctrine of "eternal children" is affirmed for the Two Seeder says that Christ and his bride are of the same age.
The doctrine of unconditional election, or election by grace, is also denied, for the Two Seed apologist (Ellis) says that Christ was obligated in law to pay the debt of sin that his wife incurred. In this paradigm it is affirmed that Christ was already the "last Adam" before the "first Adam" was created, and that Adam the first was created, body, soul, and spirit after the image of the human Christ. These tenets are but cunningly devised fables. Recall that I cited from the articles of faith of the Bear Creek Association (1832), and which remains present in them to this day, and shows that the association was infected with Two Seedism from the start, a fact that Elder Hosea Preslar testified to when he returned from Tennessee and lived once again in the bounds of that association. That article said:
Art. 2. 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.
You can read Elder Hosea Preslar's words on Two Seedism in the Bear Creek Association in these posts: (here, here, here here, here). Recall also that I have shown in previous chapters how they make Christ the first Adam or first man, and yet Adam, the husband of Eve, was called the first man or first Adam.
Now let us notice what Potter said in rebuttal. Potter wrote:
"We propose to make the Bible our umpire, and hope that we have no desire to appeal from its decisions on any subject that may come before us. Brother Ellis tells us that Adam, the earthly man, was made in the image, and after the likeness of the man from heaven. This is the first information we have had that Adam was made in the image and after the likeness of a man at all. The Bible says, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." Gen. i. 27. From what Elder Ellis says, we suppose he must reckon God to be the man from heaven. We, however, are not ready to accept the position yet, until we can get it from better authority. We shall still adhere to the Bible on the subject, that Adam was made in the image of God and not man."
The claim of Ellis and the Two Seeders that "Adam, the earthly man, was made in the image, and after the likeness of the man from heaven" is exactly what the Bear Creek article of faith says. This is, as I have also stated in previous chapters, very close to what Mormons teach. According to Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.” They also teach that the only begotten Son of God had a body before the world began and Adam was made with a body in the likeness of the bodies of the Father and Son.
Potter wrote further:
"Then the apostle truly says, "We are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones." Not that we are of his body, in a sense that we were produced by his body of flesh and bones. What text of scripture says we were made of Christ. We read that he was made of a woman - that he was of the seed of David according to the flesh - that the Virgin Mary brought him forth, that our Lord sprang out of Judah, etc. But that Adam is the natural product of the humanity of Christ, we do not learn from the Bible."
Albert Barnes in his commentary on Ephesians 5: 30, where Paul says of believers that they are "members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," rightly says:
"Of his flesh, and of his bones - There is an allusion here evidently to the language which Adam used respecting Eve. "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh;" Genesis 2:23. It is language which is employed to denote the closeness of the marriage relation, and which Paul applies to the connection between Christ and his people. Of course, it cannot be understood "literally." It is not true literally that our bones are a part of the bones of Christ, or our flesh of his flesh; nor should language ever be used that would imply a miraculous union. It is not a physical union, but a union of attachment; of feeling; of love. If we avoid the notion of a "physical" union, however, it is scarcely possible to use too strong language in describing the union of believers with the Lord Jesus."
Of course, in the case of Adam and Eve, it was literally true that Eve was bone of Adam's bone and flesh of Adam's flesh. But, it is not true of every other marriage. I cannot say of my wife what Adam said of his wife. Paul uses that language to denote the union of believers with Christ, and the "body" of which they are members is not a physical body, but a group of people, an assembly or congregation of believers.
John Gill in his commentary wrote:
"For we are members of his body,...Not of his natural body, for this would make Christ's human nature monstrous; Christ, as man, is of our flesh and of our bones, or a partaker of the same flesh and blood with us; or otherwise, his incarnation would have been of no service to us; and had our human nature been from Christ, it would not have been corrupted; but our bodies, flesh, and bones, are from the first, and not the second Adam, and so corrupt and sinful...Of his flesh and of his bones: for so the church may be called, his own flesh, his flesh and bones, on account of the marriage relation she stands in to him, and that spiritual union there is between them, which these phrases are expressive of; and which the near relation of man and wife is an emblem of..."
This is an excellent response to the Two Seeder view. The Bible is clear in affirming that Christ is a descendant of Adam, getting his body from him, and not vise versa. So Paul wrote:
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same" (Heb. 2: 14 kjv).
As we saw in previous chapters, this was a verse much used by Elder Beebe to prove his Two Seed views. His view was that both Christ and his children preexisted and then took part of flesh and blood, each becoming incarnate or coming down from heaven. However, for the view of the Two Seeders to be correct, the text should rather read as follows:
"Therefore, because Christ was a partaker of flesh and blood from before the world began, the children likewise partake of flesh and blood."
The words of Paul indicate that the children were first being partakers of flesh and blood, and Christ then took part of flesh and blood. Who does Paul indicate first partook of flesh and blood? Christ or his children?
Some who believe as do the Roman Catholics that the bread and wine of the Eucharist or Lord's Supper become the literal flesh and blood of Christ will say that believers do partake of the literal body of Christ. But, if this is true, what about his bones? How would such a view of the Supper make it true that the communicants become "bone of his bone"? The truth is, we do partake of Christ in the Supper, and in feasting upon him and his sacrifice, but this is not so literally or physically, but spiritually and mentally. This is what Paul means when he says: "For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast..." (I Cor. 5: 7-8 nkjv) Priests in the old testament were to eat of the burnt sacrifice of the Passover, and today we do so by faith and through our joyful meditations upon that sacrifice.
Potter wrote:
"If Adam is the natural product of the humanity of Christ, then he did not make Adam any more than we make our children. Yet we find that man was created, which means he was brought into being; and this fact contradicts the idea that he eternally had a being."
He also wrote:
"There is no text in the Bible that proves the pre-existence of the seed of Abraham."
Of course, Two Seeders would dispute this claim. Granted, there is no text that explicitly says that the elect actually preexisted before their conception in the womb of their mothers, but the Two Seeders would try to prove it by inference, as we have seen. They believed that Eve being in some sense in Adam before she had an actual developed existence or creation out of Adam's rib and say that this shows that the bride of Christ was also in Christ before she was in time created in the womb.
In the next chapter we will continue to look at what Potter wrote against the Two Seed idea of the preexisting humanity of Christ.
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