It is statements like this that cause bro. Stone's teaching to be labeled "clean flesh". He clearly states that no cleansing is necessary for the flesh. It only needs to be changed. If it doesn't need to be cleansed, then certainly it must be clean. Also, this is the reason why we find earlier statements by bro. Hensley, that Jesus offered for his sin nature, to be inadequate. This explains perfectly what he means, which is quite different from what the truth is.

In the historical sense, the teaching of bro. Stone and the teaching of bro. Strickler should have been called something other than "clean flesh". The renunciationist heresy, which is historically the true "clean flesh" teaching, taught that Christ's nature was different from ours. It taught that we have a defiled nature, but that in order to have a defiled nature, one must have a human mother and father. As Jesus did not, he had a clean nature, different from Adam.

Bro. Stone (as did bro. Strickler) teaches something different. He teaches that Christ and us have the same nature, unlike the historical "clean flesh teaching"; but that there is no such thing as a defiled nature. It amounts to the same thing. If the nature does not need cleansing through Jesus's atoning sacrifice, it must already be clean. The renunciationist recognized that our nature needed to be cleansed, but felt that Jesus's did not. Bro. Stone teaches that nobody's nature needs to be cleansed. This is the difference. In this sense bro. Stone's error is as serious to the nature of man, as it is to the nature and sacrifice of Christ.

Yet we can see similarities between the controversy of 1873 and the current teaching in Central. For instance, the issue of no "cleansing" being necessary as bro. Stone has just mentioned recalls this question which bro. Roberts dealt with in 1873. Bro. Roberts asked: "Paul says that as it was necessary that the pattern-things in the Mosaic system should be purged with blood, so it was necessary that the THINGS SIGNIFIED should be purged, but with a better sacrifice, that is, the sacrifice of Christ. (Heb. 9:23) The Christ of YOUR theory NEEDETH NO "PURGING". Therefore does it not follow that HE IS NOT THE CHRIST OF PAUL, who required purging from the law of sin and death BY HIS OWN SACRIFICE?"

This question is still valid. Since the Christ of bro. Stone needed no purging, or cleansing: is it not clear that it is not the Christ of the apostle Paul?