Vogstgt. 35 II Oslo, 29/04/30 Peace from God! Thank you for your letter of April 22, forwarded to Hønefoss. You maintain that the content of my article about Jesus Christ is not the point. However, for us it is the very essence of the matter. For as you have recently written about us in Korsets Seir“Victory of the Cross”—Norwegian Christian publication, no one can get an understanding of the faith and the message that my article presents. For that very reason it is necessary—for the sake of truth and righteousness, and for the sake of God and people—that you give space to my article. Otherwise, the result of your article will be that a terrible lie is being circulated among thousands of precious, redeemed souls. You recently reminded “T.T.” of the responsibility the publication had for publishing what it did. Now I want to remind you of the same thing! Everything bears fruit according to its own kind! After you had written and warned against us, I requested those present in Idrettens husMeeting hall of the church in Oslo, Norway who could confirm that we do not ascribe impurity to Jesus, to stand up. Without hesitation the entire assembly stood up! What, then, is the actual state of affairs? It is this: We are all fully agreed that Jesus is the only atoning sacrifice for sin, and that it was obviously impossible for Him to be that unless He was perfectly innocent and blameless in all areas! We all build on this, and there is nothing else on which to build. On this foundation we have come to a precious, highly exalted and blessed overcoming life. It is certifiable that our faith and the truth we proclaim belong to, and lead to, godliness. Tit. 1:1. What do you say to that? Will you reject it because we are not enrolled in your assembly, or because God, according to His free counsel, has given us light and understanding that you do not have? All of us are being saved through faith in the finished work of Christ without any consideration whatsoever as to what ideas and faith we might have or lack about how this work was finished. I am certain you are in agreement with that?! Or where would it be written that if we had a thorough and correct understanding of how this work occurred, then you will be saved, or then you will gain the victory? Now we come to the essential point, dear brother. Do not pretend that it is anything else, for that would be guile. It is our thoughts about how the work occurred that are different!!! But that cannot be a reason for issuing warnings, especially not if you are the party who is least interested in showing and understanding how the work occurred. To tell the truth, dear brother, generally speaking, I have never noticed the believers have been so interested in following in Christ’s steps that they have even shown an interest in such things. By and large it is sufficient for them to know that the work is finished, and that the debt has been paid—which is enough to be saved, to have eternal life. The point is that we, besides being saved by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ as the blood of a Lamb without spot, have also, by God’s good grace, received revelations about how Jesus was made sin for us and how He became like us in all things and partook of flesh and blood as we, and learned obedience by the things He suffered, and did the Father’s will and not His own, etc., etc. How? Our understanding—listen now to my personal testimony before God’s face and every man’s conscience—has made Jesus’ person and Christ’s work much, much greater to me!!! It vastly increases my comfort and my hope and my devotion to Him!!! Each tree shall be known by its fruit. What do you want to do about that? You cannot say anything against that even if you wanted to! I believe and teach exactly the same thing as our beloved and wise brother, Johan O. Smith. By God’s powerful, effectual grace, we have become one in Christ Jesus (as is promised to us in John 17), firmly united in the same mind and in the same spirit, speaking the same thing, and walking in the same steps. 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 12:18. God be praised! When you quibble about expressions like “sin in the flesh,” I wonder if it isn’t because you want to find an accusation against us, because it is a known fact that we were opposed long before you heard anything of the kind! We are familiar with the word, “The letter kills, but the spirit makes alive.” The expression is indeed used by us, but you put another spirit and another meaning into it than we do. You put something derogatory into it, whereas we see something exceedingly great and marvelous in it!!! When you ask, “Did Jesus have sin in the flesh?” I have to answer: “No! Not in the sense that is implied by you.” If you do not understand us, brother Barratt, you should nevertheless believe us, since it has been abundantly confirmed during all these years that we are trustworthy men who do not seek gain in this world. According to Jesus’ own words a bad tree (i.e., a bad doctrine) cannot bear good fruit. Do not judge in a matter that you do not understand! Do not warn against something that you do not know! Do not go beyond your measure of grace! You will lose by doing it! Take care that you do not choose a devout man who is better than yourself as an adversary (J.O. Smith)! You will be sure to regret it! According to your opinion of how Jesus was according to the flesh (Rom. 1:3), it would be fitting to add “pretense”; on the other hand, according to our understanding: “in truth.” And further like this: He was “pretend” tested in all points as we are—He was in truth tested in all points as we are; He ‘pretended” to be a partaker of flesh and blood like ours—He partook of flesh and blood in truth; the Lamb of God who “pretended” to bear the sins of the world—who bore the sins of the world in truth, and so on. When you permit yourself to believe that what is written was written as a pretense, then we must be permitted—with at least as much right—to believe that it was so in reality? We believe—with a perfectly good conscience—that Jesus Christ in reality had a will to deny, a will that He did not have when He was with the Father, a will of which He voluntarily partook by partaking of flesh and blood as we. He overcame this will in the power of an eternal Spirit. This is His great masterwork! Indeed, it was necessary for Him to put it on so that He through death could destroy him who had the power of death that is, the devil, so that it would even be possible for us to be saved. Heb. 2:14. Whether you see this or not, it was like this and had to be like this; otherwise we would all still be in our sins. The Father justly required that someone with flesh and blood like us should overcome, which is what Jesus did! Glory be to His great name!!! Dear brother, when did death enter into the world? After the Fall! Jesus had to have flesh and blood as we; otherwise it would not at all have been possible for Him to have died!!! Because Adam before the Fall was immortal! After everything is said and done, our “crime” is that we believe God’s Word and live according to it. We shall admit to that weakness! As far as a deeper acknowledgment of our own folly is concerned, I did not forget to mention of what it consisted as far as your person is concerned, because that was not the intention. On the contrary, it was my sincere wish that you would receive grace to find it yourself simply because I also, from personal experience, as well as from light over the way, know what a blessed result it produces in one’s life. Indeed, a deeper acknowledgment is the only way to a deeper life. If we are to attain to a deeper acknowledgment of our own folly, a stronger light has to shine over the several details of our thoughts, words, actions, circumstances, and situations in our daily life on the basis of the Word, so that we have an opportunity to see in what area we fall short, so that we can judge ourselves and be more surrendered into the death of Christ, by faith. This is (using your expression) our tactic in Idrettens hus and in other places. It bears blessed fruits for all those who acquiesce in the judgment of the light. Judgment returns to righteousness for such people, and this is the very reason they increase in all that is good. Ps. 94:15. Since you are asking me to be so friendly as to mention what your folly consists of, I will gladly give you a few hints in that direction, hoping that you might gain some profit from it, just as we, by God’s good and true grace have gained it and still hope to gain it. You are using an expression in this connection that seems to indicate that you did not properly understand me: “Show me where I have sinned.” This expression is more appropriately used when it concerns “works of the flesh,” the works that are manifest (Gal. 5:19), whereas I thought of folly in a deeper sense, sins that are not manifest; I was thinking of “deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13), the works for which we must have greater light to be able to see and acknowledge, works that we in that moment are not conscious of as being bad and which therefore are not reckoned to us as sin. It is precisely here that we have an opportunity to grow and make progress in the inner life. However, this is impossible without self-acknowledgment. Example: Love your neighbor as yourself (or even more than yourself). The opposite—that which must be acknowledged, judged, and put to death in ourselves—must of necessity be self-love. It could be possible, dear brother Barratt, couldn’t it, for you to find an opportunity for a deeper acknowledgment of self-love in one or another of your thoughts, words, or actions in one or another circumstance or situation? Or have you really adopted such a regrettable point of view as to think that that is out of the question??????? Example: Tit. 1:6; 1 Tim. 3, 4, and 5. How is it when it comes to this point, dear brother? Wouldn’t it be possible—if only to a small degree—to find an opportunity for acknowledgment in this area? In all likelihood everything has not been and is likely not quite tip-top when it comes to dealing with the children in all possible details? Example: Let the greatest be as the least. Is this actually the case without exception to perfection, or could there possibly be room for a deeper acknowledgment that, in a deeper sense of the word, something was lacking here? If so, the source of it is one’s own folly—that is what hinders it. Example: “The righteous considers the cause of the poor.” Prov. 29:7. Is this so to perfection? Is it absolutely out of the question that you could have been more righteous, so that you, to a greater degree, could have had more care for and interest in and be more involved with the poorest people and members??? We could go on mentioning examples like this “without end.” We have considered it the right and good thing to do—to judge ourselves. By doing this very thing we constantly partake of more divine nature. In this way, on this way of the cross, we die to more and more of our self, to our own folly. We decrease, and the life of Christ—His righteousness, love, truth, patience, longsuffering, all goodness and faithfulness, and so on—increases in us. It was progress in all these things that I desired for you, dear brother Barratt. We praise God for all His goodness to us! We live and flourish and increase by His hand as never before. Your, through Jesus Christ, God’s beloved Son, extremely happy brother,Elias Aslaksen