The Apostle Paul takes his stand with these Old Testament writers. He taught the same principle of corporate identity. To Paul, all who believe are the “body of Christ.” The church is the “Isaac” of faith, “one body” or one person with Abraham and all true believers of all ages (the Greek word soma means not only body but also person). To Gentile as well as Jewish believers Abraham is “our father.” See Romans 4:1-13. To the Gentile believers of his day, Paul speaks of “our fathers ... all baptized unto Moses,” “we, being many are one bread, and one body” or one person. See 1 Cor. 10:1-17. “By one spirit are we all baptized into one body [person], whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” “We all” means both past generations and the present generation. Christ’s “body” is all who have believed in Him from the time of Adam down to the last “remnant” who welcome Him at His second coming. All are “one” corporate individual or person in the pattern of Paul’s thinking. The moment we believe we become a part of that corporate person or “body” composed of the saints of all ages, each individual member as closely connected with all other members as the various organs of the human body being separate are yet one corporate entity. See 1 Cor. 12:13-27.
So deeply imbedded in Paul’s mind was this Hebrew idea of corporate personhood that he used a unique example to explain it: Levi “payed tithes in Abraham”, he said. He was talking about the time when Abraham, not Levi, paid his tithes to Melchizedek, following the Battle of Siddim before Levi’s grandfather Isaac had even been born! How then could Levi have paid tithes to Melchizedek? It makes sense only when one recognizes the Hebrew principle of corporate identity: “He was yet in the loins of his [great-grand] father [Abraham], when Melchizedek met him.” Heb. 7:9, 10.
The point of Paul’s idea is tremendous. The “members” of Christ’s “body” are related to each other as the various organs of our physical body are related. When God looks upon the church, He sees more than a mere scattered mass of unrelated individuals. When you think of a friend, you do not envisage an anatomical collection of organs, cells, and limbs; you think of a person.
So, says Paul, the Church in all ages is “one person.” “If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.” When one “member” falls into sin, all the “members” share the pain and the guilt. No “schism” (1 Cor. 12:25) creates an isolated self- righteousness on the part of any. No generation of the Church says, “Those of us who live today are not accountable for the sins of our spiritual ancestors” (see Movement of Destiny, page 368). Such generation self-righteousness would be a “schism” in Paul’s idea. Unless specific repentance is experienced for those “sins of our spiritual ancestors,” we cannot cut ourselves off from full fellowship with them. In Bible terminology “Israel” is one individual through all the ages of her national existence. “Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan,” the Lord says to Israel of old, addressing her as one woman. Ezekiel 16:3. He reviews her “life-story” through her time of ripening girlhood (“thou wast exceeding beautiful,” verse 13, the days of Israel’s glory under David and Solomon to her time of mature womanhood when she proved unfaithful to her Divine Lover (“Wherefore, 0 harlot, hear the word of the Lord,” verse 35).
What does this tremendous truth mean to us today? “Our” “birth and … nativity” was 1844. We, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, are a “woman.” Our “babyhood” was the time of pre-organization infancy from 1844 to 1863 when our General Conference was “organized.” Our years of “youth” were our years of denominational pride in the 1870s and 1880s when we rejoiced in our invincibility in argumentative debate and our burgeoning institutional growth. Our 1888 “confrontation” was our “time of love” when the Heavenly Bridegroom appealed to “us” to yield our all to Him. The “wedding” would have come in that generation had “we” yielded! “We” were mature and responsible when “we” rejected the “beginning of the Latter Rain” that would have led to the finishing of God’s work in that generation and the coming of the Lord.
It is apparent that the oft-repeated remonstrance, “We cannot repent for the mistakes of a previous generation! “ is meaningless. It discloses a failure to grasp Bible teaching regarding the realities of human nature.
Jesus Himself experienced corporate repentance. This is evident from both Scripture and the Spirit of Prophecy writings.
Peter says of Him that He “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” 1 Peter 2:22. When John the Baptist baptized Him, it was because Jesus asked for it and insisted on it. If “John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance” (Acts 19:4), he must have baptized Jesus with the only baptism he was capable of administering—a baptism indicating on the part of the sinless Candidate an experience of repentance.
But how could Christ experience repentance if He had never sinned? This is basically the same question often asked, “How can we repent of Calvary and of 1888 if we weren’t even born then?” If it is shocking to imagine that good people can repent, it seems incomprehensible that a perfect and sinless Christ could repent.
The answer is that Jesus, in taking upon Himself our human nature, became a part of the human race and took our sins upon Himself though He was not personally guilty of any of them. The only kind of repentance a sinless person could experience would be a perfect corporate repentance. Jesus’ experience of repentance is a model and example of what we ourselves should experience.
It is unthinkable that Jesus was suggesting that they act out a play, when He told John at the Jordan, “Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” Playacting could never “fulfill all righteousness.” Our Divine Example could never condone baptism without an appropriate, genuine, and sincere experience of heart. For Him to submit to “the baptism of repentance” without repentance would have been an example of sheer hypocrisy.
His submission to baptism indicates that “the Lord … laid on Him the iniquity of us all” then and there. His baptism became an injection of healing- repentance for sin into the “body” of humanity. This perfect identity with us began long before Calvary. Ellen G. White offers these perceptive comments on how Christ experienced a deep heart-repentance on our behalf:
John had heard of the sinless character and spotless purity of Christ. … John had also seen that He should be the example for every repenting sinner. … John could not understand why the only sinless one upon the earth should ask for an ordinance implying guilt, virtually confession, by symbol of baptism, pollution to be washed away. …
Christ came not confessing His own sins; but guilt was imputed to Him as the sinner’s substitute. He came not to repent on His own account; but in behalf of the sinner. … As their substitute. He takes upon Him their sins, numbering Himself with the transgressors, taking the steps the sinner is required to take; and doing the work the sinner must do.— R&H, January 21, 1873.
After Christ had taken the necessary steps in repentance, conversion, and faith in behalf of the human race. He went to John to be baptized of him in Jordan.—Ellen G. White, General Conference Bulletin, 1901, page 36.
Christ … had taken the steps which every sinner must take, in conversion, repentance, and baptism. He Himself had no sins of which to repent, and therefore He had no sins to wash away. But He was our example in all things, and therefore He must do that which He would have us do.—ST, March 12, 1912; That I May Know Him, page 252.
Accordingly, analyze these statements:
(a) Though sinless, Christ did experience repentance.
(b) He knows how the sinner feels, including “every repenting sinner.” He put Himself in his place. In our self-righteousness we cannot feel such empathy with “every repenting sinner” because only a Perfect Man can experience perfect repentance.
(c) Christ is our Example in corporate repentance. Who is more holy than He? Lukewarm impenitence comes from either not seeing Him clearly revealed, or from rejecting Him. Jesus’ perfect compassion for every human soul is the direct result of His experiencing a perfect repentance in behalf of every soul. He becomes the true “second Adam,” partaking of the “body,” becoming one with us. Thus He had phenomenal power to win the hearts of sinners. In this pre-baptism experience of “repentance, conversion, and faith in behalf of the human race” Jesus learned to know what was “in man.” John 2:25. Only thus could He have learned to speak as “never man spake.” John 7:46. We will never as a people learn to love as Jesus loved until we learn to repent as He repented. If Jesus learned to realize His personal involvement with the sin of the whole world, can we be more holy than He and refuse to see it?
This kind of repentance is the path to Christlike love. It effectually conquers lukewarmness forever. The “injection” of Christ’s repentance produces a love that permeates His “body,” the Church. No longer are we hopeless to “reach” sinners in modern times whose particular evil deeds we do not understand and pride ourselves on not committing. Corporate repentance enables us to bridge the gap that at present insulates us from needy souls whom Christ loves, but for whom He can exercise no healing ministry because we as His instruments are “frozen” in corporate impenitence. Like Christ “who did no sin” but knew repentance, we can feel a genuine compassion in behalf of others whose sins we may not personally have committed, either for lack of opportunity or for lack of temptation of equal intensity. Love is freed from the chains of impenitence and immediately goes to work as Jesus did. Of each sinner we say, “There but for the grace of God am I.”
When we have such an experience, many sinners will recognize the reality of it, and will respond where today they turn a deaf ear to us.
The repentance Christ calls for is a path that will lead directly into the finishing of the gospel commission in all the world. Here is where this inspired prediction will find its fulfillment:
Those who wait for the Bridegroom’s coming are to say to the people, “Behold your God.” The last rays of merciful light, the last message of mercy to be given to the world, is a revelation of His character of love.—COL 415.
Let it be emphasized as clearly and strongly as possible that the call to denominational repentance has nothing to do with confidence or lack of confidence in the personnel of the General Conference leadership of the Church. The authors of this confession maintain a lifelong confidence in the integrity of General Conference leadership and firmly believe today that the Lord will overrule all things for the finishing of His work in triumph, honoring the principles of organization to the very end.
The leadership of the Church and the Church itself are all “one body,” one corporate whole. The strengths and weaknesses of one are that of the other. If the actual personnel of leadership were changed a thousand times, the call of our Lord Jesus, “Be zealous therefore, and repent,” would still be valid until a denominational repentance is fully effective in preparing for the finishing of the work in all the world. “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:10. We all, without a single exception, need to understand how our Saviour’s call is to us.
Therefore it is useless and irrelevant to say that recognizing the facts of our history, past and current, is being “critical.” Is Christ “critical”? Certainly not. Yet His message to the Laodicean Church has often been so interpreted by the enemy of God’s work.
If when we hear our Lord’s call we simply say “Amen! “ we are responding in the only way an honest and contrite heart can respond.