======================================================================== WRITINGS OF J GRESHAM MACHEN - VOLUME 1 by J. Gresham Machen ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by J. Gresham Machen (Volume 1), compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Machen, J. Gresham - Library 2. 01.00. A Brief History Survey of the Old and New Testaments 3. 01.01. OT01. Before Abraham Genesis 1-11 4. 01.02. OT02. The Patriarchs Genesis 12-50 5. 01.03. OT03. Egyptian Bondage and Deliverance 6. 01.04. OT04. Moses as Leader and Lawgiver Ex 2-4 7. 01.05. OT05. Conquest and Settlement of Canaan Joshua 8. 01.06. OT06. Period of the Judges (Judges, Ruth) 9. 01.07. OT07. Samuel and Saul Prophecy and Monarchy (1Sam) 10. 01.08. OT08. David and Solomon Psalms and Wisdom 11. 01.09. OT09. The Kingdom of Israel (1Ki 12-2Ki17) 12. 01.10. OT10. Kingdom of Judah to Hezekiah 13. 01.11. OT11. Judah, from Hezekiah to the Exile 14. 01.12. OT12. Exile and Restoration 15. 01.13. OT13. Jewish State Under Persia 16. 01.14. OT14. Israel's Religious Life 17. 01.15. OT15. "The Coming One" 18. 01.16. NT01. The Preparation 19. 01.17. NT02. The Coming of the Lord 20. 01.18. NT03. The Baptism 21. 01.19. NT04. The Early Judean Ministry 22. 01.20. NT05. Beginning of the Galilaean Ministry 23. 01.21. NT06. Period of Popularity 24. 01.22. NT07. The Turning Point 25. 01.23. NT08. Jesus as Messiah 26. 01.24. NT09. The Prediction of the Cross 27. 01.25. NT10. The Last Journeys 28. 01.26. NT11. Teaching in the Temple 29. 01.27. NT12. The Crucifixion 30. 01.28. NT13. The Resurrection 31. 01.29. NT14. Beginnings of the Christian Church 32. 01.30. NT15. First Persecution 33. 01.31. NT16. The Conversion of Paul 34. 01.32. NT17. The Gospel Given to the Gentiles 35. 01.33. NT18. The First Missionary Journey and the Apostolic Council 36. 01.34. NT19. The Second Missionary Journey 37. 01.35. NT20. The Third Missionary Journey. 38. 01.36. NT21. The Third Missionary Journey. 39. 01.37. NT22. The First Imprisonment of Paul 40. 01.38. NT23. The Close of the Apostolic Age 41. 02.00. An Appeal to all that Doubt 42. 02.01. Chapter 1 43. 02.02. Chapter 2 44. 02.03. Chapter 3 45. 03.00. Christianity & Liberalism 46. 03.01. Chapter One: Introduction 47. 03.02. Chapter 2: Doctrine 48. 03.02. Chapter 2a: Doctrine 49. 03.03. Chapters 3&4 "God & Man" + "The Bible" 50. 03.05. Chapter5:"Christ" 51. 03.06. Chapter6:"Salvation" 52. 03.06. Chapter6a:"Salvation" 53. 03.07. Chapter7:"The Church" 54. 04.00. On the Deity of Christ 55. 04.01. What is the Deity of Christ? 56. 04.02. Does the Bible Teach the Deity of Christ? 57. 04.03. The Sermon on the Mount and the Deity of Christ 58. 04.04. What Jesus Said About Himself 59. 04.05. The Supernatural Christ 60. 04.06. Did Christ Rise From the Dead? 61. 04.07. The Testimony of Paul to Christ 62. 05.00. Christian Faith in the Modern World 63. 05.01. The Present Emergency and How to Meet It 64. 05.02. How May God Be Known? 65. 05.03. Has God Spoken? 66. 05.04. Is The Bible The Word Of God? 67. 05.05. Do We Believe In Verbal Inspiration? 68. 05.06. Shall We Defend The Bible? 69. 05.07. The Bible Versus Human Authority 70. 05.08. Life Founded Upon Truth 71. 05.09. God, The Creator 72. 05.10. The Triune God 73. 05.11. What Is The Deity Of Christ? 74. 05.12. Does The Bible Teach The Deity Of Christ? 75. 05.13. The Sermon Oon The Mount And The Deity 76. 05.14. What Jesus Said About Himself 77. 05.15. The Supernatural Christ 78. 05.16. Did Christ Rise From The Dead? 79. 05.17. The Testimony Of Paul To Christ 80. 05.18. The Holy Spirit 81. 06.00. The Doctrine of the Atonement 82. 06.01. The Doctrine of the Atonement 83. 06.02. The Active Obedience of Christ 84. 06.03. The Bible and the Cross 85. 07.00. The Importance of Christian Scholarship 86. 07.01. The Importance of Christian Scholarship for Evangelism 87. 07.02. The Importance of Christian Scholarship for the Defence of the Faith 88. 07.03. The Importance of Christian Scholarship for the Building Up of the Church 89. 08.00.1. The Literature and History of New Testament Times 90. 08.00.3. Copyright Information 91. 08.00.4. Contents 92. 08.00.5. Introduction 93. 08.01. The New Testament 94. 08.02. The Roman Background of Christianity 95. 08.03. The Greek Background of Christianity 96. 08.04. The Jewish Background of Christianity, I 97. 08.05. The Jewish Background of Christianity, II 98. 08.06. The Messiah 99. 08.07. The Book of The Acts 100. 08.08. The Cross and the Resurrection the Foundation of Apostolic Preaching ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. MACHEN, J. GRESHAM - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Machen, J. Gresham - Library Machen, J. Gresham - A Brief Bible History of the Old and New Testaments Machen, J. Gresham - An Appeal to All That Doubt, or Disbelieve Truths of Gospel Machen, J. Gresham - Christianity and Liberalism Machen, J. Gresham - On The Deity of Christ Machen, J. Gresham - The Christian Faith in the Modern World Machen, J. Gresham - The Doctrine of Atonement Machen, J. Gresham - The Importance of Christian Scholarship Machen, J. Gresham - The Literature and History of New Testament Times Machen, J. Gresham - The Origin of Paul’s Religion Machen, J. Gresham - The Virgin Birth of Christ S. A Remembrance of Warfield S. Christianity and Culture S. Faith and Works S. Faith Born of Need S. Faith in God S. Fulness of Time and other Studies in Theology S. God the Creator S. History & Faith S. In the Life of Christ. S. Is Mankind Lost in Sin S. Is the Bible the Word of God? S. Jesus & Paul S. Liberalism or Christianity? S. My Idea of God S. New Testament Greek: A brief Introduction S. Prophets False and True S. Proposed Department of Public Eduction S. Sin’s Wages and God’s Gift S. The Atonement S. The Christian Pathway S. The Consequences of the Fall of Man S. The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance S. The Fall of Man S. The Fear of God S. The Living Saviour S. The Minister & His Greek New Testament S. The Resurrection of Christ S. The Transforming Effect of the Gospel S. The Triune God S. The Witness of Paul S. Varied Service. S. What is Christianity? S. What is Sin? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00. A BRIEF HISTORY SURVEY OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS ======================================================================== A Brief Bible History Survey of the Old and New Testaments By J. Gresham Machen In this 38 chapter work, Machen (Presbyterian) does a brief and rapid survey of the Bible looking at major events throughout Scriptures. Introduction This book surveys the history of God’s redeeming grace. It reviews Old Testament history, disclosing the stream of God’s redeeming purposes flowing down through the older times. It reviews New Testament history, disclosing the broadening and deepening of that purpose for us men and for mankind in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and his Church. The chapters included in this book appear also as a part of Teaching the Teacher, a First Book in Teacher Training, and are issued in this form to supply the demand for a brief Bible history, for popular reading. Harold McA. Robinson. CONTENTS OT01. Before Abraham Genesis 1-11 OT02. The Patriarchs Gen 12-50 OT03. Egyptian Bondage and Deliverance OT04. Moses as Leader and Lawgiver Ex 2-4 OT05. Conquest and Settlement of Canaan Joshua OT06. Period of the Judges (Judges, Ruth) OT07. Samuel and Saul Prophecy and Monarchy (1Sam) OT08. David and Solomon Psalms and Wisdom OT09. The Kingdom of Israel (1Ki 12-2Ki17) OT10. Kingdom of Judah to Hezekiah OT11. Judah, from Hezekiah to the Exile OT12. Exile and Restoration OT13. Jewish State Under Persia OT14. Israel’s Religious Life OT15. "The Coming One" NT01. The Preparation NT02. The Coming of the Lord NT03. The Baptism NT04. The Early Judean Ministry NT05. Beginning of the Galilaean Ministry NT06. Period of Popularity NT07. The Turning Point NT08. Jesus as Messiah NT09. The Prediction of the Cross NT10. The Last Journeys NT11. Teaching in the Temple NT12. The Crucifixion NT13. The Resurrection NT14. Beginnings of the Christian Church NT15. First Persecution NT16. The Conversion of Paul NT17. The Gospel Given to the Gentiles NT18. The First Missionary Journey and the Apostolic Council NT19. The Second Missionary Journey NT20. The Third Missionary Journey. NT21. The Third Missionary Journey. NT22. The First Imprisonment of Paul NT23. The Close of the Apostolic Age ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. OT01. BEFORE ABRAHAM GENESIS 1-11 ======================================================================== Chapter 1: Before Abraham - Genesis, Chapters 1 to 11 That part of the globe which comes within the view of the Old Testament is mostly the region, about fifteen hundred miles square, lying in the southwestern part of Asia, the southeastern part of Europe, and the northeastern part of Africa. This is where the three continents of the Eastern Hemisphere come together. Roughly speaking it includes Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt, with a fringe of other lands and islands stretching beyond them. The heart of all this territory is that little strip of land, lying between the desert on the east and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, known as Syria and Palestine. It is some four hundred miles in length varies from fifty to one hundred miles in width. It has been well called “the bridge of the world,” for like a bridge it joins the largest continent, Asia, to the next largest, Africa. And as Palestine binds the lands together, so the famous Suez Canal at its southern end now binds the seas together. Today, therefore, as in all the past, this spot is the crossroads of the nations. Palestine has long been called the “Holy Land,” because it is the scene of most of the Bible story. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that that Bible story is limited to Palestine. The book of Genesis does not introduce the reader to Canaan (as it calls Palestine) until it has reached its twelfth chapter. There is a sense in which the history of God’s people begins with Abraham, and it was Abraham who went at God’s bidding into the land of Canaan. The story of Abraham will be taken up in the second lesson; but the Bible puts before the life of Abraham all the familiar story that lies in the first eleven chapters of Genesis and that forms the background for the figures of Abraham and his descendants. The location of this background is the basin of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These two streams are mentioned in Genesis 2:14 (the Tigris under the form “Hiddekel”) as the third and fourth “heads” of the “river that went out of Eden to water the garden” in which our first parents dwelt. The region is at the southern end of what is now called Mesopotamia. At the northern end of this river basin towers the superb mountain known as Mount Ararat. But the “mountains of Ararat,” mentioned in Genesis 8:4 as the place where Noah’s ark rested when the waters of the Flood had subsided, are no particular peak, but are the highlands of Kurdistan, which in ancient times were called Urartu (Ararat). Between Kurdistan on the north and the Persian Gulf on the south, the highlands of Persia on the east and the great Syrian Desert on the west, occurred the earliest drama of human history. That drama was a tragedy. It became a tragedy because of man’s sin. The wonderful poem of creation in Genesis 1:1-31, has for the refrain of its six stanzas, “God saw that it was good.” Best of all was man, the last and highest of God’s works — man, made in “his own image,” after his likeness. On the sixth “day,” when God made man, God said of his work, “Behold, it was very good.” More than that: through the kindness of God man is put in a “garden,” and is ordered to “dress it and to keep it.” Genesis 2:15. Adam sees his superiority to the rest of the animal kingdom, over which he is given “dominion.” He is thus prepared to appreciate the woman as a helpmeet for him, so that the unit of society may ever mean for him one man and one woman with their children. Adam is also warned against sin as having disobedience for its root and death as its result. All this prepares us to understand the temptation, the miserable fall of the woman and the man, their terror, shame, and punishment. Genesis 3:1-24. And we are not surprised to see the unfolding of sin in the life of their descendants, beginning with Cain’s murder of Abel, and growing until God sweeps all away in a universal deluge. Genesis 4:1-26, Genesis 6:1-22. God’s tender love for his foolish, rebellious creatures “will not let them go.” At the gates of the garden from which their sin has forever banished them, God already declares his purpose to “bruise” the head of that serpent, Romans 16:20, who had brought “sin into the world and death by sin,” Genesis 3:15. Through the seed of the woman” — a “Son of man” of some future day — sinful man can escape the death he has brought upon himself. And from Seth, the child “appointed instead of” murdered Abel, a line of men descends, who believe this promise of God. Genesis 5:1-32. In Enoch we find them “walking with God,” Genesis 5:24, in a fellowship that seemed lost when paradise was lost. In Lamech we find them hoping with each new generation that God’s curse will at length be removed. Genesis 5:29. And in Noah we find them obedient to the positive command of God, Genesis 6:22, as Adam had been disobedient. In the Flood, Noah and his family of eight were the only persons to survive. When they had come from the ark after the Flood, God gave them a promise that he would not again wipe out “all flesh.” Genesis 9:11. But after it appeared that God’s judgments had not made them fear him, God was just as angry with Noah’s descendants as he had been with the men before the Flood. Pride led them to build a tower to be a rallying point for their worship of self. But God showed them that men cannot long work together with a sinful purpose as their common object; he broke up their unity in sin by confusing their speech, Genesis 11:1-32, and scattering them over the earth, Genesis 10:1-32. This second disappointment had its brighter side in the line of men descended from Noah through Shem, Genesis 11:10, who also cherished God’s promises. And the last stroke of the writer’s pen in these earliest chapters of the Bible introduces the reader to the family of Terah in that line of Shem, and thus prepares the way for a closer acquaintance with Terah’s son, Abraham, “the friend of God.” Questions on Chapter 1 1. About how large is the world of the Old Testament, and where does it lie? 2. What special importance has Palestine because of its position? 3. How much of the story in Genesis is told before we are carried to Palestine? 4. Locate on a map the scene of those earliest events in human history. 5. Show how the first two chapters of Genesis prepare for the tragedy of sin and death that follows. 6. How does the brighter side of hope and faith appear from Adam to Noah? 7. What effect did the Flood have on men’s sin and their faith in God? 8. Trace the descent of the man God chose to become “the father of the faithful”. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. OT02. THE PATRIARCHS GENESIS 12-50 ======================================================================== Chapter 2: The Patriarchs Genesis, Chapters 12 to 50 God’s purpose to save and bless all mankind was to be carried out in a wonderful way. He selected and “called” one man to become the head and ancestor of a single nation. And in this man and the nation descended from him, God purposed to bless the whole world. Abraham was that man, and Israel was that nation. God made known his purpose in what the Bible calls the Promise, Galatians 3:17, the Blessing, Galatians 3:14, of the Covenant, Galatians 3:17. Its terms are given many times over in the book of Genesis, but the essence of it lies already in the first word of God to Abraham, Genesis 12:3, “In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” To believe this promise was a work of faith. It was against all appearances and all probability. Yet this was just where the religious value of that promise lay for Abraham and for his children after him — in faith. They had to believe something on the basis solely of their confidence in the One who had promised it. Or rather, they had to believe in that Person, the personal Jehovah, their God. They must absolutely trust him. To do so, they must “know him.” And that they might know him, he must reveal himself to them. That is why we read all through Genesis of God’s “appearing” or “speaking” to this or the other patriarch. However he accomplished it, God was always trying thus to make them better acquainted with himself; for such knowledge was to be the basis of their faith. Upon faith in him depended their faith in his word, and upon faith in his word depended their power to keep alive in the world that true religion which was destined for all men and which we today share. Abraham’s God is our God. Not Abraham’s great wealth in servants, Genesis 14:14, and in flocks and herds, Genesis 13:2, Genesis 13:6, but the promise of God to bless, constituted the true “birthright” in Abraham’s family. Ishmael, the child of doubt, missed it; and Isaac, the child of faith, obtained it. Galatians 4:23. Esau “despised” it, because he was “a profane [irreligious person,” Hebrews 12:16, and Jacob schemed to obtain it by purchase, Genesis 25:31, and by fraud, Genesis 27:19. Jacob bequeathed it to his sons, Genesis 49:1-33, and Moses delivered it in memorable poetic form to the nation to retain and rehearse forever. Deuteronomy 32:1-52. When Abraham, the son of Terah, entered Canaan with Sarah his wife and Lot his nephew and their great company of servants and followers, he was obeying the command of his God. He no sooner enters it than God gives him a promise that binds up this land with him and his descendants. Genesis 13:14-17. Yet we must not suppose that Abraham settled down in this Promised Land in the way that the Pilgrim Fathers settled in the Old Colony. Although Canaan is promised to the “seed” of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a possession, they did not themselves obtain a foothold in it. Apart from the field of the cave Machpelah, at Hebron in the south, Genesis 23:1-20, and a “shoulder” (shechem) or fragment of land near Shechem (“Jacob’s Well”), inthe center of Canaan, the patriarchs did not acquire a foot of the soil of what was to become “the Holy Land.” Abraham wandered about, even going down to Egypt and back. Isaac was sometimes at Hebron and sometimes at Beer-sheba on the extreme southern verge of the land. Jacob spent much of his manhood in Mesopotamia, and of his old age in Egypt. For after divine Providence in a remarkable manner had transplanted one of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, into new soil, Genesis 37:1-36, his father and his brothers were drawn after him, with the way for their long Egyptian residence providentially prepared for them, Genesis 50:20. Side by side with the growth of a nation out of an individual we find God’s choice of the direction which that growth should take. Not all, even of Abraham’s family, were to become part of the future people of God. So Lot, Abraham’s nephew, separates from him, and thereafter he and his descendants, the Ammonites and the Moabites, go their own way. As between Abraham’s sons, Ishmael is cast out, and Isaac, Sarah’s son, is selected. And between Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob, the choice falls on Jacob. All twelve of Jacob’s sons are included in the purpose of God, and for this reason the nation is called after Jacob, though usually under his name “Israel,” which Godgave him after his experience of wrestling with “theangel of the Lord” at the river Jabbok. Genesis 32:22. Those sons of his are to become the heads of the future nation of the “twelve tribes”, Acts 26:7. Even while Lot, Ishmael, and Esau are thus being cut off, the greatest care is taken to keep the descent of the future nation pure to the blood of Terah’s house. Those three men all married alien wives: Lot probably a woman of Sodom, Ishmael an Egyptian, and Esau two Hittite women. The mother of Isaac was Sarah, the mother of Jacob was Rebekah, and the mothers of eight of the twelve sons of Jacob were Leah and Rachel; and all these women belonged to that same house of Terah to which their husbands belonged. Indeed, much of Genesis is taken up with the explanation of how Isaac and Jacob were kept from intermarrying with the peoples among whom they lived. The last quarter of the book, which is occupied with the story of Joseph and his brethren, is designed to link these “fathers” and their God with the God and people of Moses. The same Jehovah who had once shown his power over Pharaoh for the protection of Abraham and Sarah, and who was later to show his power over another Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph,” showed his power also over the Pharaoh of Joseph’s day, in exalting Joseph from the dungeon to the post of highest honor and authority in Egypt, and in delivering Jacob and his whole family from death through Joseph’s interposition. What their long residence in Egypt meant for God’s people will be seen in another lesson. Questions on Chapter 2. 1. In what promise does God reveal to Abraham his plan to bless the world? 2. How was Abraham brought to believe in God’s promise? What difference did it make whether he and his descendants believed it or not? 3. Did the patriarchs see that part of the promise fulfilled which gave them possession of “the Holy Land”? Read carefully Genesis 15:13-16 and Hebrews 11:9-10, Hebrews 11:14-16. 4. Make a “family tree” in the usual way, showing those descendants of Terah who play any large part in the book of Genesis. Underscore in it the names of those men who were in the direct line of “the Promise.” 5. How were Isaac and Jacob kept from marrying outside their own family? 6. Explain Joseph’s words, “Ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Genesis 50:20. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. OT03. EGYPTIAN BONDAGE AND DELIVERANCE ======================================================================== Chapter 3 : Egyptian Bondage and Deliverance Exodus, Chapter 1 God says through his prophet Hosea, Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.” See also Matthew 2:15. There was a loving, divine purpose in the Egyptian residence of God’s people. What was it? What did this period mean in the career of Israel? Most obviously, it meant growth. From the “seventy souls,” Exodus 1:5, that went down into Egypt with Jacob, there sprang up there a populous folk, large enough to take its place alongside the other nations of the world of that day. Observe the nature of the land where this growth took place. Egypt was a settled country, where the twelve developing tribes could be united geographically and socially in a way impossible in a country like Palestine. However oppressed they were, they nevertheless were secluded from the dangers of raids from without and of civil strife within — just such dangers as later almost wrecked the substantial edifice slowly erected by this period of growth in Egypt. Egypt meant also for Israel a time of waiting. All this growth was not accomplished in a short time. It lasted four hundred and thirty years. Exodus 12:40-41. Through this long period, which seems like a dark tunnel between the brightness of the patriarchs’ times and that of Moses’ day, there was nothing for God’s people to do but to wait. They were the heirs of God’s promise, but they must wait for the fulfillment of that promise in God’s own time, wait for a leader raised up by God, wait for the hour of national destiny to strike. As Hosea 11:1 expresses it, this “child” must wait for his Father’s “call.” The Egyptian period left an indelible impression on the mind of Israel. It formed the graybackground on which God could lay the colors of his great deliverance. It is because God knew and planned this that he so often introduces himself to his people, when he speaks to them, as “Jehovah thyGod. who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” In the third place, this Egyptian period meant for Israel a time of chastisement. The oppression to which the descendants of Jacob were exposed, when “there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph,” Exodus 1:8, was so severe, prolonged, and hopeless, Exodus 1:14, that it has become proverbial and typical. Since every male child was to be put to death, Exodus 1:22, it is clear that the purpose of the Egyptians was nothing less than complete extermination. “It is good for a man that he bear theyoke in his youth”: if that be true, then thechildren of Israel derived good from the school of discipline in which they grew up. True, as we read their later story, we feel that no people could be more fickle. Yet there is no other nation with which to compare Israel. And it is very probable that no other nation would have been serious-minded enough even to receive and grasp the divine revelation and leading of Moses’ and Joshua’s time. God, who had “seen the affliction of his people,” who had “heard their cry” and sent Moses to them to organize their deliverance, wrote forever on this nation’s soul the message of salvation in a historical record. At the start of their national life there stood the story, which they could never deny or forget, and which told them of God’s power and grace. Exodus, Chapters 5 to 15 All this lay in Israel’s experience in Egypt. The nextlesson will tell of the character and work of the manwhom God chose to be leader. The means by which Moses succeeded in the seemingly impossible task of marching a great horde of slaves out from their masters’ country, was the impression of God’s power on the minds of Pharaoh and his people. It was a continued, combined, and cumulative impression. Of course it could not be made without the use of supernatural means. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find the story in Exodus bristling with miracles. To be sure, the “plagues” can be shown to be largely natural to that land where they occurred. And the supreme event of the deliverance, the passage of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, was due, according to the narrative itself, to a persistent wind, Exodus 14:21, such as often lays bare the shallows of a bay, only to release the waters again when its force is spent. Nevertheless, it is not possible to remove the “handof God” from the account by thus pointing out some of the means God used to accomplish his special purposes. It was at the time, in the way, and in the order, in which Moses announced to Pharaoh the arrival of the plagues, that they actually appeared. This was what had its ultimate effect on the king’s stubborn will. And when Israel was told to “go forward,” with the waters right before them, and when the Egyptians were saying, “They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in,” Exodus 14:3 — it was just at that juncture that the east wind did its work at God’s command; when Israel was over safely, it went down. Such things do not “happen.” It made a profound impression on Israel, on Egypt, and on all the nations of that day; all united in accepting it as the work of Israel’s God. Exodus 15:11, Exodus 15:14-16; Joshua 2:10. The important point for the nation was to know, when Moses and Aaron came to them in the name of God, that it was their fathers’ God who had sent them. On account of this need, which both the people and their leaders felt, God proclaimed his divine name, Jehovah (more precisely, Yahweh, probably meaning “He is,” Exodus 3:14-15), to Moses, and bade him pronounce the same to Israel, to assurethem that he was “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, andof Jacob,” and thus what Moses came now to do for them was just what had been promised to those fathers long before. The passover night was the fulfillment of God’s good word to Abraham. Exodus 13:10-11. How that word went on and on toward more and more complete fulfillment will be the subject of the succeeding lessons. Questions on Chapter 3 1.What advantages had Egypt over Palestine as the place for Israel to grow from a family into a nation? 2.What value was there for Israel in a negative time of waiting at the beginning of its history? 3.Compare the effect on Israel with the effect on a man, of passing through a time of difficulty while developing. 4.Name the ten “plagues of Egypt” in their order. How far can they be called “natural”? 5.If the east wind drove back the Red Sea, what did God have to do with Israel’s escape from the Egyptian army? 6.Why should we not be surprised to find many miracles grouped at this stage of Bible history? 7.How did God identify himself in the minds of the people with the God of their fathers? What was his personal name? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. OT04. MOSES AS LEADER AND LAWGIVER EX 2-4 ======================================================================== Chapter 4 : Moses as Leader and Lawgiver Exodus, Chapters 2 to 4 One of the things Israel had to wait for through thosecenturies in Egypt was a leader. When the time cameGod raised up such a leader for his people in Moses. The story of how Moses’ life was preserved in infancy, and of how he came to be brought up at the court of Pharaoh with all its advantages for culture, is one of the most fascinating tales of childhood. Exodus 2:1-10. But not many who know this familiar tale could go on with the biography of the man of forty who fled from Pharaoh’s vengeance. Moses found by personal contact with his “brethren,” the children of Israel, that they were not yet ready for common action, and would not easily acknowledge his right to lead them. After killing an Egyptian slave driver there was nothing for Moses to do but to flee. Exodus 2:11-15. He spent the second forty years of his life, Acts 7:23, Acts 7:30; Exodus 7:7, in the deserts about the eastern arm of the Red Sea — the region known to the Hebrews as Midian. There he married the daughter of the Midianite priest Reuel. (Jethro was probably Reuel’s title, meaning “his excellency.”) While herding his sheep in the mountains called Horeb (Sinai), Moses received at the burning bush that personal revelationof the God of his fathers, which lay at the base of all his future labors for God and his people. Exodus 3:1-22, Exodus 4:1-17. It was a commission to lead Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land promised to their fathers. Though very humble as to his fitness for such leadership, Moses was assured of Jehovah’s presence and help. He was equipped with extraordinary powers for convincing the proud Pharaoh that his demands were God’s demands; andhe was given the aid of his brother Aaron, who had a readiness of speech which Moses at this time seems to have lacked. Exodus, Chapters 16 to 24 How the two brothers achieved the seemingly impossible task of winning out of Egypt, and of uniting a spiritless and unorganized mass of slaves upon a desperate enterprise, is the narrative that fills the early chapters of Exodus. But with Israel safe across the Red Sea Moses’ leadership had only begun. He instituted an organization of the people for ‘relieving himself of his heavy duties as judge. He determined the line of march, and sustained the spirits of the fighting men in their struggle against the tribes of the desert who challenged Israel’s passage. But, above all, Moses became the “mediator” of the “covenant,” Hebrews 9:19-21, between the Hebrews and Jehovah their God at Mount Sinai. On the basis of the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20:2-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21, that guide to God’s nature and will which formed the Hebrew constitution, the people agreed to worship and obey Jehovah alone, and Jehovah promised to be their God, fulfilling to them his promises made to their fathers. By solemn sacrifices, according to the custom of the time, when the symbolism of altar and priesthood was well understood, this covenant was sealed. Exodus, Chapter 25 to Numbers, Chapter 36 After long seclusion on the mount alone with God, Moses ordered the erection of a house of worship. Ithad to be portable, so as to accompany them in theirwanderings and express visibly, wherever set up, the religious unity of the twelve tribes. Aaron and his sons were consecrated to be the official priesthood of this new shrine and were clothed and instructed accordingly. Minute details regulated all sacrifices, and similar minute instructions enabled the priests to decide questions of ceremonial cleanness and uncleanness in matters of food and health. All these laws and regulations, mainly recorded in Leviticus, were given through Moses, either alone orin association with his brother. It is not surprising to learn that there were those who challenged this exclusive leadership in every department of the national life. We read of a willful disregard of divine orders even in the family of Aaron, with immediate fatal results. Leviticus 10:1-7. Like punishment overtook those members of the tribe of Levi who showed jealousy of the house of Aaron and those elements in other tribes that claimed rights equal or superior to those of Moses. Numbers 16:1-50, Numbers 17:1-13. It would be strange indeed, if God who had vindicated his servant Moses against Pharaoh, should let his own authority as represented by Moses be challenged within the camp of Israel. He punished to save. Just as God took up the Sabbath and circumcision, old customs of the preceeding era, into the law of Israel, so also he spoke to this people through an elaborate system of feasts and pilgrimages, which bound up their whole year with the worship of God. Indeed, the principle of the seventh part of time as sacred was extended to the seventh year, and even to the fiftieth year (the year following the seventh seven), for beneficent social and economic uses. Leviticus 25:1-55. When at length the nation, thus organized and equipped, set forth from Sinai, Numbers 10:11, they required a leadership of a different kind — military leadership and practical statesmanship. They found both in Moses. He it was who led them through all the long wanderings in the peninsula of Sinai, bearing their murmurings and meeting their recurrent difficulties with a patience that seems almost divine, save for that one lapse which was to cost him and Aaron their entrance into the Promised Land. Numbers 20:10-12. At the border of the land, from the top of Pisgah in the long mountain wall of Moab, Moses at last looked down into that deep gorge of the Jordan Valley at his feet, which separated him from the hills of Canaan. Beyond this river and the Dead Sea, into which it empties, lay the land long ago promised to the seed of Abraham. Moses had been permitted to lead the people to its very gateway; but it remained for another, his younger helper, Joshua, to lead them through the gate into the house of rest. The Book of Deuteronomy But before he surrendered his power to another and his life to his Maker, the aged Moses rehearsed in the ears of Israel the great principles of God’s law. He pleaded earnestly with them to accept it from the heart, to adapt it to the changed conditions of their new settled life with its new temptations, and to hand it down as their most precious heritage to their children after them. This is the purpose and substance of the book of Deuteronomy, which gets its name from the fact that it is a “second lawgiving.” It is the Law of Sinai repeated, but in oratorical form, charged with the feeling and spirit of that “man of God,” whose name is forever linked with the Law and with the God who gave it to mankind. Questions on Chapter 4. 1.How did Moses’ forty years in Egypt and his forty years in Midian help to prepare him for leadership? 2.What was the constitution of the new Hebrew State established at Sinai? How was it ratified? 3.How was the tabernacle suited to the religious needs of Israel during Moses’ lifetime? 4.Show how the Law of Moses takes up the old principle of the Sabbath and applies it to the life of Israel. 5.Where did Moses’ leadership end, and what was his last service to the nation? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. OT05. CONQUEST AND SETTLEMENT OF CANAAN JOSHUA ======================================================================== Chapter 5 : The Conquest and Settlement of Canaan The Book of Joshua On the death of Aaron his son, Eleazar, succeeded him as high priest. But when Moses died, it was not a son who succeeded him in the political and moral leadership of Israel, for that position was not hereditary. Joshua, a man of Ephraim, was divinely designated for this work. He was fitted for the difficult undertaking by military experience, Exodus 17:9-14, by personal acquaintance with Canaan, Numbers 13:8, Numbers 13:16; Numbers 14:6, Numbers 14:30, Numbers 14:38, and by long ‘and intimate association with Moses, Exodus 33:11; Numbers 11:28; Deuteronomy 34:9; Joshua 1:1. The book of Joshua, which records his career, divides naturally into two parts, first, the conquest, chs. l to 12, and second, the settlement, chs. 13 to 22. Two further chapters, chs. 23,24, contain Joshua’s valedictory address. Before Moses’ death two and a half tribes had already received their assignment of territory on the east of the Jordan, out of lands conquered from the Amorite kings, Sihon and Og. But the fighting men of these tribes agreed to accompany the other tribes and share their struggle till all had obtained an inheritance. So when the great host passed over the Jordan, not far from where it empties into the Dead Sea, the men of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh crossed with the rest. Jehovah, who at the Red Sea a generation earlier had struck terror into the hearts of all nations by his wonderful interposition to save Israel and destroy its enemies, repeated here his saving help, by stemming the swift current of the Jordan River, till all had passed over dry shod to the western side. Once over, they found themselves face to face with Jericho, a city which commanded the passes into the mountain country beyond. Spies previously despatched to learn the weakness of Jericho had reported the panic of its inhabitants and so prepared the Hebrews to believe God’s word, when through Joshua he announced a bloodless victory here at the beginning of their conquest. Without a blow struck Jericho fell, and all its inhabitants were “devoted,” at Jehovah’s strict command. Even their wealth was to be “devoted,” that is, the cattle slain and the goods added to the treasury of the sanctuary. Only Rahab, who had saved the spies, and her family were excepted. One man, Achan, disobeyed the ban on private spoils. His covetousness and deception, revealed by Israel’s defeat in the expedition against Ai which followed the fall of Jericho, and detected by the use of the sacred lot, was punished by the execution of all who were privy to the crime. Better success attended the second attempt to take Ai. With these two cities reduced, Jericho at the bottom and Ai at the top of the valley leading up from the Jordan floor to the central highland, Joshuawas in a position to attack anywhere without fear of being outflanked. Middle, south, and north was the order commended by military considerations. Accordingly those cities which, because in the middle of the land, felt themselves the most immediately threatened,, took the first steps to avert the menace. A group of five towns lying just north of Jerusalem, with Gibeon at their head, succeeded by a ruse in getting a treaty of peace from Joshua. The Gibeonites deceived Joshua by representing themselves as having come from a great distance toseek an alliance. Joshua’s pride was flattered and he fell a victim to the trick. The consequences were serious, for these Canaanites, though reduced to vassalage, remained as aliens in the heart of the land, and cut off the southern from the northern tribes of Israel. A confederacy of the chief cities in the region south of Gibeon, headed by the king of Jerusalem, determined to strike the first blow. But their campaign against the Gibeonites, now the allies of Israel, ended in a quick advance by Joshua and his complete subjugation of all these cities, the humiliation and death of their kings, and the “devotion” of the inhabitants who fell into his hands. A similar campaign followed in the north, with the city of Hazor at the head of the Canaanite forces. At the “waters of Merom,” a small lake a few miles north of the Sea of Galilee, a surprise attack by Joshua deprived his enemies of their advantage in horsemen and chariots on the level ground they had selected for battle, and resulted in the utter rout of the Canaanites and the general slaughter of every soul that did not escape by flight from the “devoted” towns. Thus from Mount Hermon on the north to the wilderness of the wandering on the south, the wholeland had been swept over and reduced to impotence by the Hebrew invader. It was time to apportion it now to the several tribes. This was accomplished under the direction of Joshua and Eleazar. Judah and Joseph, the two strongest tribes, were assigned, the one to the south and the other to the north of the main mountain mass. Levi’s inheritance was to be “the Lord,” that is, the religious tithes, and his dwelling was to be “among his brethren,” that is, in designated towns throughout all the land. A commission of three representatives from each of the seven other western tribes divided the rest of the conquered territory into seven fairly equal parts. These then were assigned to the seven tribes by lot at the tabernacle at Shiloh. As for the eastern tribes, when they returned across the Jordan, they built an altar at the ford, as a permanent “witness” to the unity of all the sons of Jacob, however the deep gorge of the Jordan might cut them off from one another. At Shechem, where Abraham built his first altar in Canaan, Joshua had renewed the covenant between the people and their God as soon as he had secured control of Mount Ephraim, the middle highlands. Hehad not only read the Law of Moses to all the people here, he also inscribed it on stones for the sake of permanence and publicity. And now, when the conquest was complete and Joshua was nearing his end, he reassembled the people at the same spot, to remind them of that solemn covenant, and to leave with them his final charge of fidelity to their God and his one central sanctuary. Questions on Chapter 5. 1. How was Joshua specially fitted to succeed Moses as leader of Israel? 2. Which tribes received their inheritance east of the Jordan? How did these show their sense of the unity of all Israel (a) at the beginning, and (b) at the close of the conquest? 3. What justification can be urged for the stern measures which Israel took with the Canaanites and their possessions? 4. What was the plan of Joshua’s campaign, and what relation did the capture of Jericho and Ai bear to it? 5. How did the men of Gibeon deceive Joshua, and why? What lasting damage was caused by his treaty with them? 6. Locate on a map the inheritance of each of the tribes. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. OT06. PERIOD OF THE JUDGES (JUDGES, RUTH) ======================================================================== Chapter 6 : The Period of the Judges The Books of Judges and Ruth In Egypt, Israel had grown from a family into a folk. In the wilderness the folk had become a nation. In the conquest the nation had gotten its borne. But in the period of the Judges which followed the conquest this steady advance seemed interrupted. What do we find at this time? We find a loose confederacy of tribes, aware of their common origin, yet too jealous of local names and rights to combine for a common end, too selfish to help one another until the danger of one has become a tragedy for all. The nature of the land the Hebrews had occupied helped this divisive tendency. The great gash of the Jordan Valley, its bed two or three thousand feet below the mountain country on either side, cut off the eastern minority from the western majority. In the west a plain separated the foothills of the central range from the seashore. This plain not only contained enemies like the Philistines whom only a united Israel could have conquered, but also quickly altered the type of its Hebrew settlers. Right across the mountain belt from the sea to the Jordan stretched an almost unbroken plain (Esdraelon), varying from sea level to the lower level of the Jordan. This cut off the mountaineers to the north (Galilee) from those to the south (Ephraim). And a glance at any physical map will show how even in the mountain country deep, lateral valleys reach up from either side so far toward the center that communication from north to south is only by a series of violent grades, save along that narrow ridge in the middle where runs the highroad between Hebron, Jerusalem, Shechem, and Jezreel. Under these conditions only some strong positive force could prevent the disintegration of the Hebrew nation. Such a force the religion of Jehovah was intended to be, and would have been, if the people had remained faithful to it. It had one high priest, descendant of Aaron, and associated therefore with all the memories of Moses and Sinai. It had a single sanctuary, the seat of Ark and oracle, the center of pilgrimage three times a year. It had one law for all Hebrews, a law far superior to the codes of all other nations, and revealing the nature and will of a singlemoral and spiritual deity. All this provided the focusfor a mighty nation, with a pure “theocracy,” that is, a government by God himself. But the people did not remain faithful. They fell away in this time of the Judges. The Book of Judges, which tells the story of this period, records a long list of names, each one connected with some particular enemy of Israel, some tribe or group of tribes delivered, and some definite of years during which the deliverer “judged”the people. On this list the most conspicuous namesare those of Deborah and of Gideon in the north, ofJephthah east of the Jordan (Gilead), and of Samsonin the south. Most of the other judges are little more than names to us. Deborah stands out, not only because she was a woman, but also for her wonderful “song” preserved in the fifth chapter, celebrating Barak’s victory over the Canaanites near Mount Carmel. Gideon is memorable for his strategems and his persistence, and for his near approach to a real kingship, which was offered to him and his house after his victory, but which he declined, saying, “Jehovah shall rule over you. Judges 8:23. His son Abimelech was actually termed king inand around the city of Shechem for a few years, butperished his sins. Judges 9:6, Judges 9:56. Jephthah’s career wasmainly concerned with the region east of the Jordan, but his admirable “apology” for Israel showed his sense of Hebrew solidarity. Samson’s picturesque story, with its petty loves and hates, its riddles and its practical jokes, ended in the sacrificial death which in part redeems its meanness. But neither Samson nor any of his predecessors accomplished anything permanent. Two words of caution belong to the study of this book and of these times. First, we must not suppose that one judge necessarily follows another in point of time because his story follows the other’s story in the book. Judges 10:7 shows that oppressions of different sections of the land by different enemies might be taking place at the same time, and suggestthat the figures assigned to each judge at the close ofhis story cannot safely be added together to find thetotal length of this period. And second, those figuresthemselves (nearly always forty or eighty) are to be taken as “round numbers,” rather than as precise data such as we look for today to make out a table of chronology. In the same way the four hundred and eighty years of 1 Kings 6:1 is evidently intended astwelve times forty years, to represent the whole time from the Exodus to Solomon. For when we have subtracted from the beginning of it one forty-year term for the wanderings, and from the end of it three forty-year terms for Eli, 1 Samuel 4:18, Saul, Acts 13:21, and David, 1 Kings 2:11, then we have left eight forty-year terms for the Judges. Eight times forty is three hundred and twenty. Those three hundred and twenty years would then correspond with the three hundred years mentioned by Jephthah in Judges 11:26 as dividing Moses’ days from his own. Under these circumstances we are wise to wait for further light from archaeology before fixing the precise date of any one of these interesting persons. There are three additions or appendices to the Book of Judges. The first of them, including Judges 17:1-13, Judges 18:1-31, tells how the Danites came to live in the extreme north, and the origin of the idolatrous sanctuary at that city of Dan which was reckoned as the northern limit of Canaan— “from Dan to Beer-sheba.” The second occupies Judges 19:1-30, Judges 20:1-48, Judges 21:1-25, and records the civil war between Benjamin and the other tribes on account of “the sin of Gibeah,” Hosea 10:9. And the third appendix is the story of Ruth the Moabitess which now makes a separate book in the Bible. Besides its inherent charm the story claims special notice because of thelight it throws on that Bethlehem family which was soon to furnish the nation its great king, David. Questions on Chapter 6. 1.What influences made for the loss of Hebrew unity as soon as Joshua’s generation was dead? 2.What forces remained to bind the tribes together? Why did not these forces suffice? 3.How were the persons selected who ruled Israel in this period? Were they “judges” in the same sense as our judges today? What besides? 4.What three groups of tribes tended to draw together under common leaders? Tell the exploits of one distinguished judge belonging to each of these groups. 5.With what reserve should we use the figures in this book to construct a chronology of the period? 6.Point out the relation of the book of Ruth to the closing portion of the Book of Judges. What lends Ruth peculiar historical interest? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. OT07. SAMUEL AND SAUL PROPHECY AND MONARCHY (1SAM) ======================================================================== Chapter 7 : Samuel and Saul: Prophecy and Monarchy The First Book of Samuel Sometimes Eli and sometimes Samuel are called the last of the Judges. But neither of these was a judge in the same exclusive sense as Gideon or Samson. Eli was the high priest, but exercised the office of judge for his time. Samuel was a prophet, who also “judged Israel” in the interval between Eli’s death and Saul’s accession. Both men mark the time of transition between the period of the Judges and the monarchy. And the two names are most closely linked, for it was under Eli’s instruction, at the sanctuary in Shiloh, that Samuel grew up. The story of Hannah and her dedication of her little son to God as a “Nazirite,” 1 Samuel 1:11; compare Numbers 6:1-8, to dwell all his life at the house of God, 1 Samuel 1:28, has a peculiar charm for young and old.It gives a picture of personal piety in a rude age, and thus serves to correct our idea of the times. Beginning at a very early age, 1 Samuel 3:1-21, 1 Samuel 4:1, Samuel became the chosen and recognized mouthpiece of Israel’s God. That is the essential meaning of a prophet — one who speaks for God. Exodus 4:16 is instructive, for it shows that as Aaron was to be “a mouth” to Moses, while Moses was “as God” to Aaron, so the prophet was God’s mouthpiece or spokesman. Of course a prophet was often a person who also spoke before — one, that is, who predicted what should come to pass. And the fact that his words were actually fulfilled became a proof of his divine commission, both in theory, Deuteronomy 18:22, and in practice, Isaiah 44:26. But the bulk of the prophets’ messages were, like those of Samuel, addressed to their own time. They were preachers of righteousness, warners against sin, the nation’s conscience, and the Lord’s remembrancers. It is the chief glory of Samuel that he was not only first in the long line of the Hebrew prophets — the most remarkable succession of men the world has ever seen — but also the founder of the prophetic order. By the prophetic order we mean the prophets as a group conscious of their solidarity, the identity of their principles and aim. Samuel gathered about his dominating personality those persons who were sympathetic with him in spirit, and who shared with him some of that power of testimony which “the word of Jehovah” conferred. They seem to have lived together, 1 Samuel 19:20, in communities similar to those two centuries later under Elijah and Elisha. They used musical instruments in their devotions, which were public as well as private. 1 Samuel 10:5. They were the center of patriotic zeal as well as of religious effort. In fact, the belief in Israel’s God was so evidently the bond that bound Israel together, that for the common man patriotism and religion were in danger of being regarded as one and the same. thing. It is not surprising, therefore, that out of Samuel’s time and from the forces which Samuel set in motion, there came two movements which changed the course of the nation’s history: an outward movement for independence, and an inward movement for monarchy. A revival of religion couldnot fail to rouse the subjected Hebrews against their oppressors, the Philistines. The reverses they suffered in battle against their better armed and better led enemies put it into their minds to set up a king, “like all the nations.” Samuel, as the national leader, was God’s agent in selecting, consecrating, and establishing the first king. He chose Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, a man of heroic proportions though of modest demeanor. 1 Samuel 9:2, 1 Samuel 9:21. His choice met the popular approval, at first with general and outward acquiescence, thoughwith much inward reserve and individual revolt; but after his first successful campaign with universal loyalty. 1 Samuel 10:27; 1 Samuel 11:12-15. That first military effort of the new monarch was against the Ammonites. But a greater test remained in the menace of the Philistines, whose garrisons at strategic points in the mountains of Israel served to keep the tribes in check. Under those circumstances Saul was cautious, for he had but a small force, inadequately armed, at his disposal. But the initiative, for which all Israel waited, was taken by Saul’s son, Jonathan. Unknown to his father, Jonathan, accompanied only by his armor-bearer, but encouraged by an indication of God’s will and by the enemy’s slackness, 1 Samuel 14:12, attacked boldly a Philistine garrison that relied too much on the natural strength of its position. He began in this way a panic in the enemy’s ranks, and soon drew after him in pursuit of them not only Saul’s small army but multitudes of Hebrews who in their hiding places only waited such a signal to fall upon the hated oppressor. The victory of Michmash was overwhelming, the mountain country was cleared of the Philistines, and an independent people began to enjoy the reign of their first king. Unhappily Saul did not prove himself so well equipped for the in character and disposition as in personal prowess. Jealousy, natural in a king whose claim to authority was so new and weak, was heightened in Saul by a malady that induced fits of sullenness and rage. His humility and modesty of other days gave place to envy, vanity, cruelty. Even God’s express commands through the same prophet whose divine commission Saul’s claim to the throne rested were not heeded, for Samuel had to rebuke him for disobedience and only refrained from publicly rejecting him at Saul’s abject entreaty. 1 Samuel 15:30. Room was found in Saul’s heart for jealousy of the popularity and success of David, ch. 18:8, the young man of Bethlehem in Judah whom at first he had loved and attached to his person, 1 Samuel 16:21. Jonathan, though heir to his father’s throne and aware that David had been designated as Jehovah’s choice for king, 1 Samuel 20:15, 1 Samuel 20:31, had nothing but affection for David his friend. But Saul pursued David openly, after failing in repeated secret attempts to make away with him. And the close of Saul’s life is marred by his vindictive pursuit of his rival, till death in battle with the Philistines at Mount Gilboa brought the first king of Israel to a miserable end and left the way open for David to become his successor. Questions on Chapter 7. 1. Who shares with Samuel the leadership of Israel in the time of transition from the judges to the kings, and what relation did he bear to Samuel? 2. What was a prophet, what is meant by the prophetic order, and what is Samuel’s particular service and distinction among the prophets? 3. What motive led to the popular demand for a king, and how did Samuel as God’s representative regard this demand? 4. Sketch the character of Saul. What was his achievement for Israel? Wherein did he fail? 5. Compare Saul and Jonathan in ability and character. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.08. OT08. DAVID AND SOLOMON PSALMS AND WISDOM ======================================================================== Chapter 8: David and Solomon: Psalms and Wisdom The Second Book of Samuel; I Kings, Chapters 1 to 11;I Chronicles, Chapter10 to II Chronicles, Chapter 9 One of Saul’s sons, Ish-bosheth, for a short time after the death of his father and brothers in battle, attempted to maintain his right to succeed Saul on the throne. But when Abner, his kinsman and the head of the army, turned to David, son of Jesse, who was already reigning at Hebron as king over Judah, all the tribes followed him. Both Ish-bosheth and Abner soon perished. With his new dignity David promptly acquired a new capital, better suited than Hebron in location and strength to be the nation’s center. He captured the fortress of Jebus, five miles north of Bethlehem, his old home, from its Canaanitish defenders, and enlarged, strengthened, and beautified it. Under its ancient name of Jerusalem he made it both the political and the religious capital of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant, which in Eli’s time had been captured by the Philistines, had been returned by them, and for many years had rested in a private house, was regarded as the very heart and symbol ofthe national religion. David therefore brought it first to Jerusalem, and instead of uniting with it its former housing, the old Mosaic tabernacle, he gave it a temporary home in a tent, intending to build a splendid temple when he should have peace. But war continued through the days of David, and at God’s direction the erection of a temple, save for certain preparations, was left to Solomon, David’s successor. David was victorious in war. His success showed itself in the enlargement of Israel’s boundaries, the complete subjection — for the time — of all alien elements in the land, and the alliance with Hiram, king of Tyre, with the great building operations which this alliance made possible. A royal palace formed the center of a court such as other sovereigns maintained, and David’s court and even his family were exposed to the same corrupting influences as power, wealth, jealousy, and faction have everywhere introduced. Absalom, his favorite son, ill requited his father’s love and trust by organizing a revolt against him. It failed, but not until it had driven the king, now an old man, into temporary exile and had let loose civil war upon the land. Solomon, designated by David to succeed him, didnot gain the throne without dispute, but the attempt of Adonijah, another son, to seize the throne failed in spite of powerful support. The forty-year reign of Solomon was the golden age of Hebrew history — the age to which all subsequent times looked back. Rapid growth of commerce, construction, art, and literature reflected the inward condition of peace and the outward ties with other lands of culture. But with art came idolatry; with construction came ostentation and oppression; with commerce came luxury. The splendor of Jerusalem, wherein Solomon “made silver . . . to be as stones, and cedars. . . as sycomore-trees,” 1 Kings 10:27, contained in itself the seeds of dissolution. However, there are two great types of literature which found their characteristic expression in the days of David and Solomon and are always associated with their names — the psalm with David, and the proverb (or, more broadly, “wisdom”) with Solomon. Kingdom, temple and palace have long since passed away, but the Psalter and the books of Wisdom are imperishable monuments of the united monarchy. The Psalms The Psalter is a collection of one hundred and fiftypoems, of various length, meter, and style. As now arranged it is divided into five books, but there is evidence that earlier collections and arrangements preceded the present. Among the earliest productions, judged both by form and by matter, are those psalms which bear the superscription “of David,” though it would not be safe to assert that every such psalm came from David’s own pen or that none not so labeled- is not of Davidic origin. Judged alike from the narrative in the book of Samuel, and from the traditions scattered in other books as early as Amos, (Amos 1:5, as late as Chronicles, 1 Chronicles 15:16-29, 1 Chronicles 16:1-43; 1 Chronicles 25:1-31, David was both a skilled musician himself and an organizer of music for public worship. It is not surprising, therefore, to find a body of religious poems ascribedto him, which not only evidence his piety and good taste, but also, though individual in tone, are well-adapted to common at the sanctuary. The psalms are poems. Their poetry is not simply one of substance, but also a poetry of form. Rime, our familiar device, is of course absent, but there is rhythm, although it is not measured in the same strict way as in most of our poetry. The most strikingand characteristic mark of Hebrew poetic form is the parallel structure: two companion lines serve together to complete a single thought, as the second either repeats, supplements, emphasizes, illustrates, or contrasts with the first. Proverbs; Job; Ecclesiastes Poetry is also a term to which the book of Proverbs and most of the other productions of “Wisdom” are entitled. While they are chiefly didactic (that is, intended for instruction) instead of lyric (emotional self-expression), nevertheless the Wisdom books are almost entirely written in rhythmic parallelism and contain much matter unsuited to ordinary prose expression. In the Revised Version the manner of printing shows to the English reader at a glance what parts are prose and what are poetry (compare, for example, Job, Job 2:1-13, Job 3:1-26), though it must be admitted that a hard and fast line cannot be drawn between them. Compare Ecclesiastes 7:1-29 with Proverbs. “The wise,” as a class of public teachers in the nation (see Jeremiah 18:18), associated their beginnings with King Solomon (Proverbs 24:23; Proverbs 25:1), whose wisdom is testified to in the book of Kings, as well as his speaking of “proverbs,” that is, pithy sayings easy to remember and teach, mostly of moral import. 1 Kings 4:29-34. But the profoundest theme of wisdom was the moral government of God as seen in his works and ways. The mysteries with which all men, today as well as in ancient times, must grapplewhen they seek to harmonize their faith in a just and good God with such undeniable facts as prosperous sinners and suffering saints, led to the writing of such books as Job (the meaning of a good man’s adversities) and Ecclesiastes (the vanity of all that mere experience and observation of life afford). In the case of these Wisdom books, as in that of the Psalms, the oldest name— that of the royal founder — is not to be taken as the exclusive author. Solomon, like David, made the beginnings; others collected, edited, developed, and completed. Questions on Chapter 8. 1.In what tribe and town did David first reign as king? How did he secure a new capital when hebecame king of all Israel? How and why did he make this the religious capital also? 2.What advantages and disadvantages did David’s continual wars, and his imitation of other kings’courts, bring to him, his family, and his people? 3.What was David’s part in the development of religious poetry? How does Hebrew poetry differgenerally from English poetryin form? Name the books of the Old Testament written chiefly or wholly in poetry. 4.Who built the first Temple? Who were “the wise” in Israel, whom did they venerate as their royal patron, and what did they aim to accomplish by their writings? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.09. OT09. THE KINGDOM OF ISRAEL (1KI 12-2KI17) ======================================================================== Chapter 9 : The Kingdom of Israel I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17 With the death of Solomon came the lasting division of the tribes into two kingdoms, a northern and a southern, known as the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. Rehoboam on his accession announced a policy of repression and even oppression that alienated completely the loyalty of Ephraim and the other northern tribes, which never attached to the house of David in the same way as the tribe of Judah was. Under a man of Ephraim, therefore, Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who in earlier years had challenged even Solomon’s title, the ten tribes revolted from Rehoboam and established a separate state. Rehoboam found himself too weak to prevent this secession, and he and his descendants of David’s dynasty had to content themselves with the narrow boundaries of Judah. To be sure, in Jerusalem they possessed the authorized center of public worship for the whole nation. It was to offset this advantage that Jeroboam made Bethel, that spot associated in the minds of the people with the patriarchs themselves, his religious capital. And, influenced perhaps by the Egyptian example of steer worship (for he had long lived as a fugitive in Egypt in Solomon’s reign), he made golden steers and placedthem in the sanctuary at Bethel and in that at Dan inthe extreme north. (See close of Chapter 6). To these places and under these visible symbols of brute force, Jeroboam summoned his people to worship Jehovah. It was the old national religion but in the degraded form of an image worship forbidden by the Mosaic Commandments. A throne thus built on mere expediency could not endure. Jeroboam’s son was murdered after a two years’ reign. Nor did this usurper succeed in holding the throne for his house any longer than Jeroboam’s house had lasted. At length Omri, commander of the army, succeeded in founding a. dynasty that furnished four kings. Ahab, son of Omri, who held the throne the longest of these four, is the king with whom we become best acquainted of all the northern monarchs. This is partly because of the relations between Ahab and Elijah the prophet. Ahab’s name is also linked with that of his queen, the notorious Jezebel, a princess of Tyre, who introduced the worship of the Tyrian Baal into Israel and even persecuted all who adhered to the national religion.This affiance with Tyre, and the marriage of Ahab’sdaughter to a prince of Judah, secured Israel on thenorth and the south, and left Ahab free to pursue hisfather’s strong policy toward the peoples to the east, Moab and Syria. Upon Ahab’s death in battle against Syria, Moab revolted, and the two sons of Ahab, in spite of help from the house of David in Jerusalem, were unable to stave off the ruin that threatened the house of Omri. Jehu, supported by the army in which he was a popular leader, seized the throne, with the usual assassination of all akin to theroyal family. His inspiration to revolt had been due to Jehovah’s prophets, and his program was the overthrow of Baal worship in favor of the old national religion. Though Jehu thoroughly destroyed the followers of Jezebel’s foreign gods, he and his sons after him continued to foster the idolatrous shrines at Bethel and Dan, so that the verdict of the sacred writer upon them is unfavorable: they “departed not from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, where- with he made Israel to sin. Mesha, king of Moab, 2 Kings 3:4, lived long enough to see his oppressors, the kings of Omri’s house, overthrown and the land of Israel reduced togreat weakness. (See article “Moabite Stone” in any Bible dictionary.) Jehu’s son, Jehoahaz, witnessed the deepest humiliation of Israel at the hands of Syria. But it was not many years after Mesha’s boasting that affairs took a complete turn. Jehu’s grandson, Jehoash, spurred by Elisha the prophet even on his deathbed, began the recovery which attained its zenith in the reign of Jeroboam II, fourthking of Jehu’s line. Though little is told of this reignin the Book of Kings, it is clear that at no time since Solomon’s reign had a king of Israel ruled over so large a territory. It was the last burst of glory before total extinction. There is a history lying between the reigns of Jeroboam I, founder of the Northern Kingdom, and of Jeroboam II, its last prosperous monarch, which has scarcely been referred to in this brief sketch of its kings. It is the history of Jehovah’s prophets. Hosea; Amos; Jonah Reference has already been made to the rise of the prophetic order as such, in the time of Samuel. (Chapter 7.) With each crisis in the affairs of the nation God raised up some notable messenger with a word from him to the people or to the ruler. But all along the fire of devotion to God and country was kept alive by humbler, unnamed men, who supplied a sound nucleus of believers even to this Northern Kingdom with its idolatrous shrines and its usurping princes. 1 Kings 18:4, 1 Kings 19:18. The greatest names are those of Elijah and Elisha. The earlier struggle to keep Israel true to Jehovah focuses in these two men, one the worthy successor of the other. Their time marked perhaps the lowest ebb of true religion in all the history of God’s Kingdom on earth. It is no wonder, therefore, that such stern, strong men were not only raised up to fight for the God of Moses and Samuel and David, but also endowed with exceptional powers, to work wonders and signs for the encouragement of the faithful and the confounding of idolators and sinners. Such was the purpose of their notable miracles. Elijah and Elisha wrote nothing. But in their spirit rose up Hosea and Amos a century later — men who have left a record of their prophecies in the books that bear their names. Denunciation of sin, especially in the higher classes, announcement of impending punishment for that sin, and promise of a glorious, if distant, future of pardon, peace, and prosperity through God’s grace and man’s sincere repentance — these things form the substance of their eloquent messages. Hosea is noteworthy for hisstriking parable of a patient husband and a faithless wife to illustrate God’s love and Israel’s infidelity. Amos, himself a herdsman from Judah sent north todenounce a king and people not his own, is startling in the suddenness with which he turns the popular religious ideas against those who harbor them. See,for example, Amos 3:2, where Amos makes the uniquerelation between Jehovah and Israel the reason, not for Israel’s safety from Jehovah’s wrath, as the people thought, but for the absolute certainty of Israel’s punishment for all its sins. These two prophets, the last of the Northern Kingdom, had themelancholy duty of predicting the utter overthrow of what the first Jeroboam had set up in rebellion and sin two centuries before. Questions on Chapter 9. 1.When, why, and under whose lead did the ten tribes break away from the house of David? 2.Outline the fortunes of the kings of Israel from .Jeroboam I to Jeroboam II. 3.Who were the outstanding prophets in the Northern Kingdom, and what was the substance of their messages? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.10. OT10. KINGDOM OF JUDAH TO HEZEKIAH ======================================================================== Chapter 10 : The Kingdom of Judah, to Hezekiah I Kings, Chapter 12 to II Kings, Chapter 17; II Chronicles, Chapters 10 to 28; Obadiah; Joel; Micah; Isaiah (in part) The revolt of Jeroboam and the ten northern tribes reduced the dominion ruled by Rehoboam, grandson of David, to narrow bounds. Before his disastrous reign was over, Judah was still further humiliated by an invasion under Shishak, a Pharaoh of the twenty-second dynasty of Egypt, who despoiled Jerusalem of the treasures which Solomon had amassed. After the death of Rehoboam and the short reign of his son, Abijam, Judah was ruled successively by Asa and Jehoshaphat, each succeeding his father peacefully and each reigning long and, on the whole, prosperously. Another invasion from the south which threatened to be as disastrous as that of Shishak, under “Zerah the Ethiopian” was repelled by Asa. Internal reforms, both religious and civil, were carried out by these vigorous rulers. The natural rivalry and intermittent warfare between north and south, which had arisen through the division under Rehoboam, ceased for a time after Jehoshaphat entered into alliance with King Ahab and took Athaliah, Ahab’s daughter, as wife for his son Joram. The kings of Samaria and Jerusalem made common cause against Syria and Moab, and a temporary success seemed to crown the new policy. But prophets of Jehovah repeatedly warned the king who sat on David’s throne of the danger to the true religion from such an alliance with Baal worshipers. It was not long before their warnings were justified by the facts. Athaliah, Joram’s queen, was the daughter not only of Ahab but also of Jezebel and brought with her to Jerusalem the fierce spirit and heathen habits of her Tyrian mother. King Ahaziah her son lost his life through his close association with King Jehoram of Israel, his uncle, for Jehu made away with both kings at the same time, and with all the princes of Judah, kinsmen of Ahaziah, on whom he could lay his hands. The old tigress at Jerusalem, Athaliah, now turned upon her own flesh and blood, the children of Ahaziah, and murdered them all so as to secure the power for herself. One grandson alone, the infant Joash, escaped, saved by an aunt who hid him and his nurse from the cruel queen mother. Six years later this child was proclaimed king in the Temple courts by Jehoiada, the high priest. Athaliah was slain, and a new era began in Judah with the destruction of Baal worship and the repair of Jehovah’s Temple. Joash was too weak to do more than buy off the kingof Syria when his army threatened Jerusalem, and hehimself met his death in a conspiracy. The same fate befell his son Amaziah, after a reign that promised well but was wrecked on the king’s ambition to subdue the Northern Kingdom under him. Uzziah (or Azariah) succeeded to the throne, though for half of his long reign he and his kingdom seem to have been in a state of vassalage to Jeroboam II, the powerful ruler of Israel. The latter part of Uzziah’s reign was more prosperous, in spite of the king’s pitiable state-for he was stricken with leprosy and had to live apart. It was on this account that he associated his son Jotham with himself, and during the sixteen years of Jotham’s reign — most of which was included within the long nominal reign of Uzziah — the Philistines, Ammonites, and Arabians were defeated in warfare, while considerable building both in and out of the capital helped to prepare the little kingdom for the troublous days just ahead. The mighty kingdom of Assyria, with its capital at Nineveh on the Tigris River, was the force which God used to punish his faithless people. Lying beyond the kingdoms of Syria, Israel’s nearest neighbors on the north, Assyria was not at first felt to be the menace which in the end it proved to be. Whenever Assyria was strong, Syria. was weak, and the king in Samaria could breathe freely. But there came a day when a king of unusual power ascended the throne at Nineveh, Tiglath-pileser (or Pul, as he was also called, see 2 Kings 15:19, 2 Kings 15:29), and the fate of both Syria and Israel was sealed. Ahaz, the son of Jotham who had just died, saw in this Assyrian the means of delivering Judah out of the hands of Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, who had joined forces to capture Jerusalem and put a king of their own on the throne of David. By a great present Ahaz bought the support of Tiglath-pileser, who sent an army to attack Judah’s foes. Syria was devastated, the inhabitants were carried away captive from all the eastern and northern parts of Israel (Gilead and Galilee), Phoenicia and Philistia were overrun, and Ahaz, among other kings, went to Damascus in person to do homage to this irresistible conqueror. In the Northern Kingdom, reduced now to little more than the central highlands of Ephraim and Manasseh, Hoshea, a protégé of the Assyrian king, reigned for a few years. But he and his foolish advisers, unable to read the signs of the times, looked to Egypt for help and revolted. This time the end had come. Shalmaneser, now on the Assyrian throne, came against Samaria, and after a siege lasting almost three years, took and destroyed it. Thewhole population was carried away, after the drastic policy of deportation practiced by Assyria, and an alien population was introduced to take their places. Thus ended the Northern Kingdom after lasting a little over two centuries. And thus began that strangemixed people, known as the Samaritans, who settled in the central part of the Holy Land. The effect of Israel’s doom upon the minds of the king and people of Judah may be imagined. From the pages of Micah and Isaiah, contemporary prophets in Judah, can be seen how God was speaking to Judah through the ruin of Israel. Ahaz’s policy of relying on human help from Assyria instead of divine help from Jehovah was refuted by its outcome. With Syria and Samaria ruined, there lay nothing between Jerusalem and the Assyrian. And it is in Hezekiah’s reign— the next after that ofAhaz — that the ruthless conqueror from Nineveh isfound overrunning Judah itself; How king, prophet,and people met that crisis will begin the next lesson, for it belongs to the period when the Southern Kingdom is all that remained of the organized Hebrew nation in Palestine. Questions for Chapter 10. 1.What were the relations between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in general? 2.Who altered these relations for a time? How? With what consequences for Judah’s politics and religion? 3.Who was Joash, and how did he come to the throne? 4.What was the occasion of Judah’s first intimate contact with Assyria? Discuss Ahaz’s policy in the light of Isaiah 7:1-9. 5.What were the stages in the downfall of the Northern Kingdom? What became of the conquered people, and who replaced them? See 2 Kings 17:1-41. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 01.11. OT11. JUDAH, FROM HEZEKIAH TO THE EXILE ======================================================================== Chapter 11 : Judah, from Hezekiah to the Exile II Kings, Chapters 18 to 25 ; II Chronicles, Chapters 29 to 36; Isaiah (in part); Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Jeremiah; Lamentations; Ezekiel, Chapters 1 to 32 Although outwardly Judah appeared to be the same after the fall of the Northern Kingdom as before, it was not so. A very different situation confronted Hezekiah from that which had confronted his father Ahaz when he called on Assyria for help against Syria and Israel. Now there were no “buffer states” between Assyria’s empire and little Judah. And it was only a score of years after Samaria fell when Jerusalem felt the full force of Assyria. Sennacherib, fourth in that remarkable list of the six kings1 who made Nineveh mistress of Asia, sent an army to besiege Jerusalem, with a summons to Hezekiah to surrender his capital. A different spirit ruled this king. Isaiah, the same great prophet who had counseled Ahaz to resist Pekah and Rezin but had failed to move him to faith in Jehovah, found now in Ahaz’s son a vital faith in the God of Israel in this far sorer crisis. In response to that faith Isaiah by God to assure king and people of a great deliverance. The case, to all human seeming, was hopeless. But the resources at God’s disposal are boundless, and at one blow “the angel of Jehovah” reduced the proud Assyrian host to impotency and drove away in retreat. 2 Kings 19:35. Scribes who record the achievements of ancient monarchs are not accustomed to betray any of the failures of their royal heroes. But between the lines of Sennacherib’s records we can read confirmation of the Bible’s report of some great catastrophe to Assyrian arms. Jehovah rewarded the faith of his people in him. The seventh century before Christ; which began justafter this event, witnessed both the rise of Assyria to its greatest height, and its sudden fall before the Chaldeans, a people from the Persian Gulf, who succeeded in mastering ancient Babylon and in winning for it a greater glory than it had ever known in former times. Even in Hezekiah’s reign these Chaldeans, under their leader Merodach-baladan, were already challenging the supremacy of Nineveh, and in doing so were seeking allies in the west. When the king of Judah yielded to the dictates of pride and showed to these Chaldean ambassadors histreasures, Isaiah announced to him that the final ruin of Judah was to come in future days from this source, and not from Nineveh as might then have been anticipated. Manasseh, Hezekiah’s successor, was indeed taken as a captive to Babylon for a time, but the captor was a king of Assyria. 2 Chronicles 33:11. Manasseh was thus punished for his great personal wickedness,for he is pictured as the worst of all the descendantsof David, an idolator and a cruel persecutor. Yet his reign was long, and at its close he is said to have repented and turned to Jehovah. But this did not prevent his son Amon from following in his evil ways. A revolt of the people within two years removed Amon, however, and set his young son, Josiah, upon the throne. Josiah’s reign is important for the history of Judah. By putting together all that can be gleaned from Kings, Chronicles, and the prophets, it can be seen that Josiah gradually came more and more under theinfluence of the party in Judah that sought to purge the nation of its idolatry and bring it back, not merely to the comparatively pure worship and life of Hezekiah’s and David’s days, but to an ideal observance of the ancient Law of Moses. The climaxin the progressive reformation in Judah was reachedin Josiah’s eighteenth year, 622 B.C., when the kingand all the people entered into a “solemn league and covenant” to obey the Law of Moses both as a religious obligation and as a social program. The Law book which was found while workmen were restoring the Temple passed through the handsof Hilkiah, the high priest, who therefore committed himself, together with the priests, to this reform. And what the true prophets of Jehovah thought of it may be seen, for example, from Jeremiah 11:1-23, which tells that this prophetic leader preached in the streetsof Jerusalem and through the cities of Judah, saying,“Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.” Josiah attempted to attach to Jerusalem all those elements in the territory of the former kingdom of Israel which were in sympathy with Jehovah’s Law,and at Bethel itself he defiled the old idolatrous altar and slew its priests. In fact, it was on northern ground, at Megiddo, that Josiah met his tragic end and the new wave of patriotic enthusiasm was shattered, when, in battle against Pharaoh-necho and a great Egyptian army, the king of Judah was killed. Josiah’s four successors were weak and unworthy of David’s line. After Jehoahaz, the son whom the people put on the throne to succeed Josiah, had beenremoved by Necho, Jehoiakim, another son, reigned for eleven years. He owed his throne to the Pharaoh and was at first tributary to him. But early in his reign came the first of many campaigns of the Chaldeans into Palestine, as Nebuchadnezzar, master of Asia, extended his power farther and farther south after crushing the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 B.C. Jehoiakim had to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s yoke and seems to have lost his life in a fruitless attempt to shake it off. A great number of the leaders of Judah, nobles, priests, soldiers, and craftsmen, were deported, together with Jehoiachin, the young son of Jehoiakim, who had worn the crown but three months, 598 mc. For eleven years more, however, the remnant of Judah maintained a feeble state under Zedekiah, a third son of Josiah and the last of David’s line to mount the throne. In spite of his solemn oath to the king of Babylon and in the face of the express warnings from Jehovah through his prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel, this weak and faithless king revolted from Babylon, put his trust in the Egyptian army, and prepared to stand a siege. But Jerusalem’s end had now come, as Samaria’s had come before, and through a breach in the northern wall the Chaldean army entered; the king fled and was captured, blinded, and deported, and the whole city, including houses, walls, gates, and even the Temple — that famous Temple of Solomon which had stood nearly four centuries — was totally destroyed, 587 B.C. All that remained of the higher classes, together with the population of Jerusalem and the chief towns, were carried away to Babylonia, to begin that exile which had been threatened even in the Law, and predicted by many of the prophets, as the extreme penalty for disobedience and idolatry. 1 Tiglash-peleser, 745 - 727 BC; Shalmaneser, 727 - 722; Sargon, 722 - 705; Sennacherib, 705 - 681; Esar-haddon, 680 - 668; Ashurbanipal, 668 - 626. Questions on Chapter 11 1. How did the fall of Samaria affect the Kingdom of Judah? 2. How did Hezekiah meet the threats of Sennacherib? What was the outcome? 3. Which king carried through a reformation of religion? What was the basis of the covenant he imposed on Judah? How did he meet his end? 4. Describe the relations of the Chaldeans to Judah in the time of Hezekiah, of Jehoiakim, of Zedekiah? 5. When did Jerusalem fall? Did it fall unexpectedly and without warning? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 01.12. OT12. EXILE AND RESTORATION ======================================================================== Chapter 12 : The Exile and the Restoration Ezekiel, Chapters 33 to 48; Daniel; Ezra, Chapters 1, 2 When the northern tribes were carried away by Assyria they lost their identity in the mass of the nations. Only individuals from among them attached themselves to the organized nucleus of Judah. From that time the one tribe of Judah stood out so prominently as representative of the whole nation, that “Jew” (that is, man of Judah) has been equivalent to Hebrew. Paul says that he was of the tribe of Benjamin; the aged prophetess Anna is said to have been of the tribe of Asher, Luke 2:36, and all the priests were of course of the tribe of Levi; yet long before New Testament times all such Israelites were commonly referred to as “Jews.” Judah did not lose its identity among the nations when Jerusalem fell. The Jews who were not deported, among them the prophet Jeremiah, were put under the government of a certain Jewish noble, Gedaliah, who ruled the land from Mizpah as representative of the great king. Many fugitives returned to live under his sway when they found that it was beneficent. But Gedaliah was soon murdered by a prince of David’s house, whom the king of Ammon had set on to do this mischief and then received and protected. The other Jewish leaders feared to remain within reach of the king of Babylon after this insult to him, and against the warnings of Jeremiah they all went down to Egypt. That removal ended all organized Jewish life in Palestine for nearly half a century. In Babylon, however, an event occurred long before that time had elapsed, which marked the political recognition of Judah’s separate identity as a nation. That event was the release of Jehoiachin from prison by the new king of Babylon, Evil-merodach, successor of Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiachin, it will be remembered, was the unfortunate prince of David’s line who held the throne only three months after his father Jehoiakim’s death and was then deported to Babylon in 598. From that time on, through all the remainder of Nebuchadnezzar’s long reign, he had been imprisoned in Babylon. But now he was not only released, but given a pension from the royal treasury for the rest of his life and a standing superior to all the other captive princes in Babylon. This was in 562, and many Jewish hearts must already have begun to beat with fresh hope, as the old loyalty to David’s house flamed up, and the promises of a restoration recorded in the old Law and the Prophets were echoed by the prophet of the Exile, Ezekiel. This man, himself a priest by birth, had been carried to Babylon at the same time as Jehoiachin, and through all those years of doom hadthere preached to his countrymen, first to the portionexiled with him while Jerusalem still stood, but after 587 to the whole people united in a common catastrophe. His voice had even reached to Jerusalem, as he joined Jeremiah in reminding King Zedekiah of his oath to Nebuchadnezzar. With the elevation of Jehoiachin and the stirring of the national hopes, Ezekiel became the prophet of hope.He pictures the breath of Jehovah stirring to life thedry bones in the valley of death. Ezekiel 37:1-28. And he warns the optimistic people that only as God takes away from them their old stony heart and givesthem a heart of flesh, and sprinkles clean water upon them to cleanse them from their pollution through idolatry, can they be fit to form the new communitywherein God shall indeed reign. Ezekiel 36:25-26. What such a community might outwardly and visibly resemble, Ezekiel pictures in a long, detailed, descriptive vision wherewith his book closes. Chs. 40 to 48. Another outstanding Jew of the Exile was a man of an entirely different type. Daniel, a noble youth carried away from Judah to Babylon at the first clash of Nebuchadnezzar’s armies with the Jews, 605 B.C., and brought up at the court, succeeded through interpreting a dream of the king in attracting his notice and winning his favor, much as Joseph had done in ancient Egypt. Daniel 2:1-49. From his position of political power, Daniel was able, doubtless, to minister to the interests of his brethren, the Jewish exiles. Possibly it is to him that Jehoiachin owed his astonishing reversal of fortune. At any rate Belshazzar, the last ruler of the Chaldean state, still maintained Daniel in power, in spite of the very solemn warning of ruin to that state which Daniel fearlessly pronounced. Daniel 5:1-31. When the Persians succeeded the Chaldeans as masters of Babylon, this Jewish statesman still held his high post, and retained it in spite of the bitter enmity of officials who used his Jewish faith as a handle against him. Daniel 6:1-28. In fact, there is no better way to understand the favor accorded the Jews by Cyrus, the Persian conqueror, and the edicts preserved in Ezra 1:2-4; Ezra 6:3-5, than by supposing that Daniel, who had the king’s ear, brought to his attention the earlier prophecies of Jeremiah and of other spokesmen for Jehovah, God of the Jews. Certainly, however the affair was managed, it turnedout entirely to the Jews’ liking. All who were willingto return to Palestine were permitted and encouraged to go. They were assisted by the gifts of their brethren who could not, or would not, leave Babylon. They bore back with them the old vessels for the service of the sanctuary which Nebuchadnezzar had carried off. And, best of all, they took with them royal authority to erect the Temple of Jehovah on its ancient site, at the expenseof the king of Persia, that is, out of taxes and tribute he remitted. At their head went a prince of the old royal house, and a high priest who was grandson of that high priest whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed half a century before. Their number totaled forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, with enough slaves in addition to make the entire company number nearly fifty thousand. Their purpose was threefold: to reoccupy the Holy Land, to rebuild Jerusalem, and to erect a temple where Solomon’s Temple had stood. We should be likely to rate the importance of these three objects in the same order as that in which they have just been named. But not so the believing Jew. It was above all else the sacred house of his God that he wanted to see restored,, so that the prescribed sacrifices of the Law might be resumed, the nation’s sin might thus be atoned for, and God might once more visiblydwell among his people. All else was in order to this one great end. The origin of Judaism, which lies in the movements of this time, cannot be understood unless this supreme motive is clearly grasped. HowJudaism developed under the new conditions will be the subject of the next lesson. Questions on Chapter 12 1. What is meant by “a Jew”? 2. How did government of Hebrews by a Hebrew come to an end in Palestine for the first time since Saul’s day? 3. What was the first political event to arouse the exiled Jews from their depression? 4. Compare Ezekiel and Daniel in their personality, position, and audience. 5. When Cyrus captured Babylon in 539, what did he do for the Jews, and how came he to do it? 6. How many Jews returned to Palestine under Cyrus, and what was their uppermost motive? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 01.13. OT13. JEWISH STATE UNDER PERSIA ======================================================================== Chapter 13 : The Jewish State Under Persia Ezra, Chapters 3 to 10; Esther; Nehemiah; Haggai; Zechariah; Malachi For two centuries Judea, like the rest of western Asia, was under the domination of the Persians, whose great royal names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, are familiar to every student of history. The Old Testament spans one of those two centuries of Persian rule, 539—430, while for the other century, 430—332, we are dependent for the little we know about the Jews upon some documents recently discovered in Egypt, an occasional notice in classical historians, and the brief narrative of Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first Christian century. Even in the century covered by the books of the Bible there are long stretches of silence separating periods that are fairly reported. First comes the time of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the leaders, civil and religious, under whom the Jews returned and erected the Temple. This story carries us, though with a seventeen-year gap in its midst, from 538, the year after Cyrus took Babylon, to 515, the sixth year of Darius the Great, and is recorded in the first six chapters of the book of Ezra. To help us in understanding this time we have also the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah, though the last six chapters of Zechariah belong to another age. After the completion of the new Temple the curtain falls on Judea and, save for a single verse, Ezra 4:6, we hear no more of it for fifty-seven years. However, the interesting story of Esther belongs in these years, for the Ahasuerus of the Bible is the Xerxes of Greek history — that vain, fickle, and voluptuous monarch who was beaten at Salamis and Plataea. The Jews must have been a part of the vast host with which he crossed from Asia to Europe. Butthe drama unfolded in the book of Esther was played far from Palestine, at Susa, the Persian capital. With the seventh year of the next reign — that of Artaxerxes I — the curtain rises again on Judea, as we accompany thither the little band of Jews whom Ezra, the priestly “scribe,” brought back with him from Babylonia to Jerusalem. This account is found in the last four chapters of the book of Ezra, most of it in the form of personal reminiscences covering less than one year. The curtain falls again abruptly at the end of Ezra’s memoirs, and rises as abruptly on Nehemiah’s memoirs at the beginning of the book which bears his name. But there is every reason to believe that the letters exchanged between the Samaritans and the Persian court, preserved in the fourth chapter of Ezra, belong to this interval of thirteen years between the two books of Ezra and Nehemiah. For this alone can explain two riddles: first, who are “the men that came up from thee unto Jerusalem,” Ezra 4:12, if they are not Ezra and his company, Ezra 7:1-28? And second, what else could explain the desolate condition of Jerusalem and Nehemiah’s emotion on learning of it, Nehemiah 1:3, if not the mischief wrought by the Jews’ enemies when “they went in haste to Jerusalem,” armed with a royal injunction, and “made them to cease by force and power”? Ezra 4:23. Some persons are inclined to date the prophet Malachi at just this time also, shortly before Nehemiah’s arrival. But it is probably better to place the ministry of this last of the Old Testament prophets at the end of Nehemiah’s administration. Nehemiah’s points of contact with Malachi are most numerous in his last chapter, Nehemiah 13:1-31, in which he writes of his later visit to Jerusalem. Compare Nehemiah 13:6 with Nehemiah 1:1. In Cyrus’ reign the great Return was followed immediately by the erection of an altar and the resumption of sacrifice. Preparations for rebuilding the Temple, however, and even the laying of the corner stone, proved a vain beginning, as the Samaritans, jealous of the newcomers and angered by their own rebuff as fellow worshipers with the Jews, succeeded in hindering the prosecution of the work for many years. Ezra 3:1-13, Ezra 4:1-5. It was not until the second year of Darius’ reign, 520, nearly two decades later, that the little community, spurred out of their selfishness and lethargy by Haggai and Zechariah, arose and completed the new Temple, in the face of local opposition but with royal support. Ezra 4:24, Ezra 5:1-17, Ezra 6:1-15. Fifty-seven years later, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes, 458, came Ezra with some fifteen hundred men, large treasures, and sweeping privileges confirmed by a royal edict, the text of which he has preserved in the seventh chapter of his book. He was given the king’s support in introducing the Law of God as the law of the land, binding upon all its inhabitants, whom he was to teach its contents and punish for infractions of it. How Ezra used his exceptional powers in carrying out the reform he judged most needed — the dissolution of mixed marriages between Jew and Gentile forbidden by the Law — is told in detail in his own vivid language in Ezra 9:1-15, Ezra 10:1-44. It helps us to understand Malachi’s zeal in this same matter. Malachi 2:11. And the difficulty of this reform appears also from Nehemiah’s memoirs, since the same abuse persisted twenty-five years after Ezra fought it. Nehemiah 13:23-27. After the failure to fortify Jerusalem recorded in Ezra 4:8-23, Nehemiah, a Jew in high station and favor at Artaxerxes’ court, obtained from his king a personal letter, appointing him governor of Judea for a limited time, with the special commission to rebuild the walls and gates of Jerusalem. The same bitter hostility which the Samaritans and other neighbors in Palestine throughout had shown toward the returned Jews, reached its climax in the efforts of Sanballat and others in public and private station to hinder Nehemiah’s purpose. But with great energy and bravery, and with a personal appeal and example that swept all into the common stream of patriotic service, Nehemiah built the ruined walls and gates in fifty-two days, instituted social reforms, Nehemiah 5:1-19, and imposed a covenant on all the people to obey the Law which Ezra read and expounded. Nehemiah 8:1-18, Nehemiah 9:1-38, Nehemiah 10:1-39. Elements in the little nation that joined withhis enemies to discredit and even to assassinate himwere banished or curbed. The origin of the peculiar sect of the Samaritan is connected with Nehemiah through his rigor in banishing a grandson of the high priest who had married Sanballat’s daughter. This disloyalty of the priesthood is also one of Malachi’schief indictments against his nation, and the basis of his promise that a great reformer, an “Elijah,” should arise to prepare the sinful people for the coming of their God. Questions on Chapter 13. 1. How long after the Return was the Temple finished? Who hindered? Who helped? 2. What are the scene and the date of the book of Esther? 3. Compare the return of the Jews to Jerusalem under Ezra with that under Zerubbabel (a) in date, (b) in numbers, (c) in purpose and result. 4. Tell the story of Nehemiah: the occasion of his return, his enemies, his achievements. In what did Ezra help him? 5. Associate the ministry of the three prophets of this period after the Exile with the leaders and movements they respectively helped. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 01.14. OT14. ISRAEL'S RELIGIOUS LIFE ======================================================================== Chapter 14 : Israel’s Religious Life It has often been said that while civilization owes its art and letters to Greece and its law and order to Rome, it owes its religion and ethics to Palestine. This is true, within limits, provided we understand that what Israel contributed was not the product of its “native genius for religion,” but was due to the persistent grace of its God, who took this “fewest of all peoples” and made of it the custodian of his revelation and the cradle of his redemption for the whole world. When, however, the Hebrew claimed preeminence through these two things, a saving God and a righteous Law, it was no idle boast. So Moses eloquent asks in Deuteronomy: “What great nation is there, that hath a god so nigh unto them, as Jehovah our God is whensoever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that hath statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” Deuteronomy 4:7-8. Religion as developed in Israel had two sides, an inward and an outward. On its inward side it consisted of a faith in Jehovah cherished in the hearts of the people, together with the sentiments of reverence and love, and the purposes of loyalty and consecration, which grew out of that faith. On its outward side religion consisted of certain objects and ceremonies, adapted to express by act and symbol the relation between God and his people. But there is also another distinction often made in speaking of religion, the distinction’ between individual religion and national religion. Each member of the Hebrew nation held a personal relation to his God. The Law of God addressed him individually as it said to him, “Thou shalt not.” And, on a still higher level, Moses summed up that Law for him in these memorable words, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” Yet the entire body of Israel, as such, held a relation to God which his spokesmen are continually trying to illustrate and enrich by all sorts of figures. God is Israel’s “Rock,” “Possessor” or “Purchaser,” “Redeemer,” “Father” — until Isaiah can even say to the nation, “Thy Maker is thy husband,” and Hosea and Ezekiel can portray God’s dealings with Israel under the allegory of a marriage. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that all the inward religion was individual and all the outward religion national. There was provision in the ceremonial law, not only for sacrifices on a national scale, like those of the day of atonement, but also for each man to express outwardly his own penitence or devotion or gratitude or obligation to God by means of a personal sacrifice, publicly offered but privately planned and provided. And, on the other hand, the psalms and the prophets cannot be understood, unless we realize the general religious life of the nation that lies back of these highly individual forms of expression. That was why, when David thinking of himself could write, “The Lord is my shepherd,” the whole people couldtake that sentence and the psalm it begins for use in public worship as the collective expression of Israel’s trust in its God. The great fact of sin is responsible for the perversionof the true relation between these different varieties of religious life. In theory, every symbolic object and action at tabernacle or Temple was merely the outward expression of an inward idea or feeling or resolve. Every smoking sacrifice on the altar was supposed to come from an offerer drawing near to God in the sincere belief “that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.” Hebrews 11:6. But in fact the offerer was in constant danger of looking upon all the gifts and victims he brought asso many bribes with which he might buy the favor of an offended God, or, worse still, might obtain an “indulgence” to do some evil deed he planned. This is what Jeremiah means when he cries, “Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely ... and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered; that ye may do all these abominations?” Jeremiah 7:9-10. If the private worshiper was in danger of abusing theworship of God in this way, how much more was the priest, the professional sacrificer, and celebrant, in danger of looking upon all his duties as a kind of authorized magic! “Do this external act, and that inward benefit will surely follow.” “Offer this lamb,and cease to think about that black sin for which the lamb is the official price.” Yes, even this: “Go and do it again, but don’t forget to bring another lamb!”Is it any wonder that at length Malachi, after lashing the priests of his late day for their laziness, cynicism, and greed, cries out in Jehovah’s name, “Oh that there were one among you that would shut the doors [of the Temple , that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain!” Malachi 1:10. All along the course of Hebrew history we find prophets and psalmists protesting against this sinful perversion of ceremonial religion. See for example 1 Samuel 15:22; Psalms 40:6-8; Psalms 50:1-23; Isaiah 1:10-17; Micah 6:6-8. And yet it would be a mistake to say that the prophet stood for pure and spiritual religion, and the priest for merely external, formal religion. Some of the greatest of the prophets, as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, were priests. And how far the prophets could become professional declaimers and deceivers may be seen, for example, from Micah 3:5-8. The Hebrew prophets, notably Amos and Hosea, are sometime represented as the “inventors” of “ethical monotheism,” that is, of religion as consisting in the worship of one God, who is the moral ideal of man and demands moral living in man. But in fact, that is precisely the basis of all genuine Old Testament religion, from the very beginning. See Hebrews 11:1-40. And, particularly, that is the basis of the entire Law, even of the ceremonial law. For that Law must not be judged by its sinful abuse, but by the principles of righteousness, holiness, repentance, and fellowship that underlie every article in the sanctuary, every sacrifice on the altar, every rite prescribed and observance commanded. At their best the priests were allies of the true prophets, and external religion as centering in the Temple was for the time a fitting expression of Israel’s personal and national faith. If it had not been so, then such psalms as Psalms 24:1-10, Psalms 42:1-11, Psalms 65:1-13, Psalms 84:1-12, Psalms 122:1-9 could never been written, preserved, and used. Questions in Chapter 14. 1. What ground had Israel for “glorying”? See Romans 9:4-5. 2. Give illustrations to show that individual as well as national religion in Israel expressed itself externally, and that spiritual as well as ceremonial religion belonged to both the nation and the individual. 3. What sinful abuse of sacrifice were the prophets constantly attacking? Did they thereby condemn Temple, altar, priesthood, and ceremonial law in themselves? 4. Were all the prophets spiritually minded, or all the priests merely “professional”? Give instances from history of alliances between prophets and priests ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 01.15. OT15. "THE COMING ONE" ======================================================================== Chapter 15 : “The Coming One” The Old Testament points forward. The whole impression it leaves upon us is that of an unfinished thing. Its history moves toward a goal outside of itself. Its religion is a religion of expectation. All its institutions are typical, that is, they represent more than themselves, because they belong to a larger order of things which appears imperfectly in them. In the last lesson we saw how priest and prophet hadtheir own place in Israel. But both priest and prophet also typified a perfect priesthood and a perfect prophecy, to be realized under ideal conditions which were never present in those times. When, for example, Aaron made atonement for the sins of the nation once each year, as provided in Leviticus 16:1-34, he had to present first the blood of the bullock which was the sin offering for himself, before he presented the blood of the goat which was the sin offering for the people. But ideally, in his position as mediator between God and the sinful people, he was a sinless man; the blood of the bullock and the pure, white garments he put on to indicate that he was sinless for the moment. Nothing could be clearer than that he typified a perfect high priest for God’s people, who should be really a sinless man — one who needed no mechanism of altar, victim, and dress to make him pure from personal sin. See Heb. chs. 5 to 10, especially Hebrews 7:26-28. Again Moses looks forward to the realization in the future of the ideal communication between God and his people typified in the “A prophet,” says he, “Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee.” “From the midst of thee, like unto me.” Deuteronomy 18:15-19. This ideal prophet will perfectly hear and perfectly transmit divine truth to men. It was on the basis of this promise that many persons described our Lord as “the prophet,” meaning thereby that perfect prophet promised by Moses. John 1:21, John 1:25; John 7:40. But there was another institution of Old Testament times which more than prophet or priest was associated in the people’s minds with the ideal future. This was kingship. God himself was theoretically King — sole King — of Israel. Isaiah 33:22. But at the entreaty of his sinful and harassed people he instructed Samuel to “make them a king.” And while Samuel warned them of the evils which the monarchy would bring with it because of the sinfulness of the men who should be king, he nevertheless set up a throne that by its very nature was unique. The king of Israel was in a peculiar sense the representative of Jehovah. He ruled for God. He was his own “anointed,” set apart for the exercise of supreme authority over God’s people on earth and entitled to their religious as well as patriotic devotion. See, for example, Psalms 21:1-13, Psalms 101:1-8. After the failure of Saul to obey God’s instructions,Samuel anointed, at God’s dictation and against hisown human judgment, David the son of Jesse. Thisman proved himself, not indeed sinless nor the ideal king, but a man after God’s heart, Acts 13:22, because his dominant purpose was to do God’s will. To David therefore was given the remarkable promise contained in 2 Samuel 7:1-29. In a word, this promise was an irrevocable, eternal “covenant,” granting sovereignty to David’s “house” — that is, his posterity considered, as a unit — over God’s Kingdom on earth. The story of how men came to understand better and better vastness of this covenant, which Isaiah calls “the sure mercies of David,” Isaiah 55:3, forms the subject of that special Old Testament study called “Messianic Prophecy.” In the psalms and in the prophecies we are able to trace a growing faith, thatby an ideal king of David’s line Jehovah will finally work his long delayed will in and through Israel. This Person is commonly called “the - Messiah,” because “Messiah” means “Anointed.” Its Greek equivalent is “the Christ.” While other persons alsowere anointed with oil when they assummed office,kings were always so anointed and the idea belongs peculiarly to kingship. By the time our Lord appeared, no other side of the work which this ideal,promised, longed-for Coming One was to do, was so prominent as that of ruling for God as the King of Israel. For this reason Jesus of Nazareth is known to all who believe in his claims as “the Christ,” and such believers are thence called “Christians.” This title of Christ connects Jesus with the line of David,to which he actually belongs by descent, and it also connects him with the promise of David, of which he was the heir and the fulfillment. We have thus seen that “the Coming One,” Luke 7:19; John 11:27, the eyes of Israel were directed, was to be prophet, priest, and king. In all these offices and the various duties they involved he was to be the one chosen from among the people — a man therefore, “servant of the servants of God.” Yet this is not all. Alongside these promises there was a promise also that Jehovah himself would come to dwell among his people. The Holy of Holies, with its Ark of the Presence and its Mercy seat for revelation and atonement, was itself typical of an ideal presence of God among men. And through psalm and prophet we can trace this promise also. Now it is terrible with its threat to sinners, and now it is glorious with its hope for the oppressed. At length in Malachi we read in the clearest words, “The Lord, whom seek, will suddenly come to his temple.” Malachi 3:1, Malachi 3:5. Preceded by his “messenger” to “prepare the way before him,” Israel’s divine Lord himself is to come for judgment and salvation. See also Psalms 96:13; Psalms 98:9. It was not made so plain to the men of ancient Israel just how these two lines of promise were to be united, as it appears to us now in the light of later facts. But we, who worship Jesus of Nazareth not only as “Son of David according to the flesh,” but as divine Lord from heaven, “in two distinct natures and one person for ever,” can look back on those old prophecies of “men who spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:21. We can see in them God’s purpose to make this great Son of David a true “Immanuel,” Isaiah 7:14 — a Person in whom God actually is “with us.” God gave to him such names as ‘Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” because he should really be all that these names imply. Isaiah 9:6. For the Child who was born in little Bethlehem, the“city of David,” was not merely one who should be “ruler in Israel,”, but also one “whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” Micah 5:2. Questions on Chapter 15. 1. How did the priests and prophets in Israel point forward to an ideal Priest and Prophet? 2. What was the relation of Israel’s king to Jehovah? In whose “house” was this office made eternal? In what Person has this promise been fulfilled? 3. How was the promise that God himself should be “the Coming One” consistent with the promise of a human Prophet, Priest, and King? Where is it indicated in the Old Testament that both promises might be fulfilled in one Person? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 01.16. NT01. THE PREPARATION ======================================================================== Chapter 1: The Preparation At the time when the Old Testament narrative closes, the Jews were under the rule of Persia. The Persian control continued for about one hundred years more, and then gave way to the empire of Alexander the Great. Alexander was king of Macedonia, a country to the north of Greece; but the language and culture of his court were Greek. After Greece proper had been conquered by Alexander’s father, Philip, Alexander himself proceeded to the conquest of the East. The Persian Empire fell in 331 B.C., and with the other Persian possessions Jerusalem came into the hands of the conqueror. In 323 B.C., when Alexander died, his vast empire, which extended around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea and to the borders of India, at once fell to pieces. But the kingdoms into which the empire was divided were to a large extent Greek kingdoms. Short-lived, therefore, as Alexander’s empire was, it had the permanent effect of spreading the Greek language and Greek civilization over the Eastern world. It became thus as will be seen, one of the most important factors in the divine preparation for the gospel. After the death of Alexander, the country of Judea became a bone of contention between two of the kingdoms into which Alexander’s empire was divided-the Greek kingdom of Syria and the Greek kingdom of Egypt. At last, however, the Syrian kingdom, with its capital at Antioch, near the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea, gained the upper hand. Judea became part of the territory of the Syrian monarchs. In the reign of Antiochus IV of Syria, called Antiochus Epiphanes, 175-164 B.C., the Jews began a war for independence. Antiochus Epiphanes had desecrated the Temple at Jerusalem by setting up an image of a heathen god in the Holy of Holies. The result was the glorious revolt of the Jews under Mattathias and his sons-the family of the Maccabees. The Maccabean uprising, of which a stirring account has been preserved in the First Book of the Maccabees, an apocryphal book attached to the Old Testament, certainly constitutes one of the most glorious chapters in the history of liberty. The uprising was successful, and for about one hundred years the little country of the Jews, though surrounded by powerful neighbors, succeeded in maintaining its independence. At first the Maccabees had been animated by a religious motive; the revolt had been due not to an interference with what may be called civil liberty, but to the desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes of the Temple and to the attempt at prohibiting the worship of Jehovah. As time went on, however, the Maccabean rulers became more worldly in their purposes and thus alienated the devout element among their people. Hence the little kingdom became an easy prey to the next great world empire which appeared upon the scene. That empire was the empire of Rome. Originally a small city-state in Italy, Rome had gradually extended her conquests until she came into conflict with Greece and with the Greek kingdoms of the Eastern world. Weakened by many causes, the successors of Alexander soon succumbed, and among them the monarchs of Syria. Judea could not, resist the new conqueror. In 63 B.C., the famous Roman general, Pompey, entered Jerusalem, and Jewish independence was at an end. The Roman control was exerted in Palestine for a time through subservient high priests, until in 37 B.C. Herod the Great was made king. Herod was not a real Jew, but an Idumaean; and at, heart he had little or no attachment to the Jews’ religion. But he was wise enough not to offend Jewish feeling in the outrageous way that. had proved so disastrous to Antiochus Epiphanes. Throughout his reign Herod was of course thoroughly subservient to the Romans; though a king, he was strictly a vassal king. Herod reigned from 37 B.C. to 4 B.C. His kingdom embraced not only Judea, but all Palestine. It was near the end of Herod’s reign that our Saviour was born. Thus the reckoning of the Christian era, which was instituted many centuries after Christ, is at least four years too low; Jesus was born a little earlier than 4 B.C. When Pompey conquered Jerusalem in 63 B.C., Rome was still a republic. But before many years had elapsed Julius Ceasar assumed the supreme power, and the ancient Roman liberties were gone. After the assassination of Caesar in 44 B.C., there was a long period of civil war. Finally Augustus was triumphant, and the Roman Empire began. In the long reign of Augustus, 27 B.C. to A.D. 14, our Saviour was born. The political events which have just been outlined did not take place by chance. They were all parts of the plan of God which prepared for the coming of the Lord. When Jesus finally came, the world was prepared for his coming. In the first place, the Roman Empire provided that peace and unity which was needed for the spread of the gospel. War interrupts communication between nations. But when the apostles went forth from Jerusalem to spread the good news of Christ to the world, there was no war to interrupt their course. Nation was bound to nation tinder the strong hand of Rome. Travel was comparatively safe and easy, and despite occasional persecution the earliest missionaries usually enjoyed the protection of Roman law. In the second place, the Greek language provided a medium of communication. When the Romans conquered the Eastern world, they did not endeavor to substitute their own language for the language which already prevailed. Such an attempt would only have produced confusion. Indeed, the Romans themselves adopted the Greek language as a convenient medium of communication. Greek thus became a world language. The original, local languages of the various countries continued to be used (Aramaic, for example, was used in Palestine), but Greek was a common medium. Thus when the apostles went forth to the evangelization of the world, there were no barriers of language to check their course. In the third place, the dispersion of the Jews provided the early missionaries everywhere with a starting point for their labors. As a result not only of captivity, but also of voluntary emigration, the Jews in the first century were scattered abroad throughout the cities of the world very much as they are scattered today. But there was one important difference. Today the Jewish synagogues are attended only by Jews. In those days they were attended also by men of other races. Thus when Paul and the other Christian missionaries exercised their privilege of speaking in the, synagogues, they were speaking not only to Jews but also to a picked audience of Gentiles. Questions on Chapter 1. 1. Name in order the foreign powers which possessed the country of the Jews, beginning with Old Testament times and continuing down to the present day. 2. What was the importance of the Maccabean uprising in the. preparation for the coming of the Lord? What would have happened if Antiochus Epiphanes had been successful? 3. What was the importance of the Roman Empire for the spread of the gospel? of the Greek language? of the dispersion of the Jews? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 01.17. NT02. THE COMING OF THE LORD ======================================================================== Chapter 2: The Coming of the Lord John 1:1-18 When the Son of God came to earth for our salvation, the world was ready for his coming. The whole course of history had been made to lead up to him. And he was well worthy of being thus the goal of history. For the One who came was none other than the eternal Son of God, the Word who was with. God and who was God. He had existed from all eternity; he had been the instrument in creating the world. He was himself truly God, the same in substance with the Father, and equal in power and glory. Yet the One who was so great humbled himself to be born as a man and finally to suffer and die. His coming was a voluntary act, an act of the Father in giving him for the sins of the world, and his own act which he performed because he loved us. It was an act of infinite condescension. The Son of God humbled himself to lead a true human life; he took upon himself our nature. He was born, he grew in wisdom and stature, he suffered, he died." He was always God, but he became also man. Who can measure the depth of such condescending love? What, then, was the manner of his coming? The story is told, in beautiful narrative, in the first two chapters of Matthew and Luke. Luke 1:5-26, Luke 1:57-80 First, the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner, was announced by the angel Gabriel to Zacharias, a devout priest, as he was ministering in the Temple. Luke 1:5-25. Zacharias was old; he had given up hope of children. The promise seemed to him too wonderful to be true; he doubted the angel’s word. But the punishment which was inflicted upon him for his doubt was temporary merely, and the bitterness of it was swallowed up in joy for the child that was born. The tongue of Zacharias, which had been dumb on account of his sin, was loosed, and he uttered a wonderful song of praise. Luke 1:57-80. Luke 1:26-56 But before John was born, in fulfillment of the angel’s promise, there was a promise of a greater than John. Luke 1:26-56. "The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house ,of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary." It was a far more wonderful promise than that which had come to Zacharias, not only because of the greater glory of the promised Son, but also because of the mystery of his birth. The child was to have no human father, but was to be given by the power of the Holy Spirit. But this time, despite the strangeness of the promise, there was no unbelief, as in the case of Zacharias. "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord," said Mary; "be it unto me according to thy word." And then Mary went to Judea to visit her kinswoman Elisabeth, the wife of Zacharias; and while in Judea she gave glorious expression to her thanksgiving in the hymn which is called, from the first word of it in the Latin translation, the "Magnificat" "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." Then Mary returned to her own home in Nazareth. Matthew 1:18-25 But another announcement of the Saviour’s birth was made to Joseph, who was betrothed to Mary. Matthew 1:18-25. Joseph was to have the high privilege of caring for the child that was to be born. "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife," said the angel to Joseph in a dream, "for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." And here again, there was no unbelief and no disobedience. Joseph "did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took unto him his wife." Luke 2:1-7 Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth, a town of the northern part of Palestine, which was called Galilee. But the promised Child was to belong to the house of David, and it was fitting that he should be born at Bethlehem, a little town five miles south of Jerusalem where David himself had been born. To cause him to be born at Bethlehem, God made use of an event of world politics. Luke 2:1-7. A decree had gone out from the emperor, Augustus, that the whole empire should be enrolled. This enrollment or census seems to have been carried out in the kingdom of Herod the Great by the Jewish method which took account of family relationships. So, although at the time Joseph and Mary were living at Nazareth, they went up to the home of Joseph’s ancestors, to Bethlehem, to be enrolled. And at Bethlehem the Saviour was born. There was no room in the lodging place. The Child was laid, therefore, in a manger that was intended for the feeding of cattle. Luke 2:8-20 But humble as were the surroundings of the newborn King, his birth was not without manifestations of glory. Luke 2:8-20. Shepherds, keeping watch in the fields by night, heard a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased. "The shepherds went then to see the sign which had been made known to them. It was a strange sign indeed-Christ the Lord, the promised King, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Luke 2:21-38; Matthew 2:1-12 Forty days after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary made the offering according to the Old Testament law, and presented the Child, as the first-born, to the Lord in the Temple at Jerusalem. Luke 2:21-38. Then they must have returned to Bethlehem, for it was at Bethlehem that gifts were presented by Wise Men from the East. Matthew 2:1-12. The Wise Men had been guided to Bethlehem partly by a wonderful star which they had first seen in their own country, and partly by questions which were answered by the scribes. Matthew 2:13-23 But the life of the infant Saviour was not all to be a hearing of angels’ songs and a reception of gold and frankincense and myrrh. The Lord bad come to suffer for the sins of the world, and the last great suffering on the cross was anticipated by the persecution which came in the early days. Matthew 2:13-18. The suspicions of Herod, the jealous king, had been aroused by the questions of the Wise Men. He sent to Bethlehem to put a possible rival out of the way. But it was too late.’ ’The king’s rage was vented upon the innocent children of the little town, but God had cared for the infant Saviour. The Lord was finally to die for the sins of the world. But meanwhile many words of wisdom and grace were to fall from his lips; his hour was not yet come. Joseph was warned of God in a dream, and took the young Child and his mother away to Egypt, out of the way of harm, until Herod the Great was dead. Then they returned to Nazareth, where the Child was to spend long, quiet years of preparation for his work. Questions on Chapter 2. 1.What life had our Saviour lived before he came to earth? Did he cease to be God while he was on earth? 2.Why did he come? 3.Who was his forerunner? What sort of persons were the parents of the forerunner? 4.How did Jesus come to be born at Bethlehem? 5.What was the character of his mother? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 01.18. NT03. THE BAPTISM ======================================================================== Chapter 3: The Baptism Luke 2:40-50 The New Testament tells very little about the boyhood and early manhood of our Saviour. One incident, however, is narrated. Luke 2:41-50. Joseph and Mary, we are told, were in the habit of going up from Galilee to Jerusalem every year in the spring at the feast of the Passover. When Jesus was twelve years old, he went up with them. But when they left Jerusalem on the return, Jesus remained behind in the Temple, to study the Old Testament; and when Joseph and Mary found him, he replied to their inquiries, "Knew ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?" The incident shows the presence even in the human consciousness of the boy Jesus of a knowledge of the great mission that he was called to fulfill and of his special relation to God. Luke 2:51-52 But the consciousness of these great things did not prevent our Saviour from performing the humble tasks of daily life and from being obedient to his human parents. Luke 2:51-52. Jesus became a carpenter, and since Joseph also was a carpenter, no doubt Jesus learned the trade in early youth. Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55. For many years, till he was about thirty years old, the Saviour of the world labored at the carpenter’s bench, and lived as an obedient son in a humble home at Nazareth. Luke 3:23. At last, however, the time came for the beginning of his public ministry. Before that ministry is studied, it may be well to cast a glance at the condition of the country into which Jesus now came forward. When Herod the Great died in 4 B.C., his dominions were divided among his three sons. Archelaus received Judea, the southern part of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its chief city; Herod Antipas, the "Herod" who is mentioned in the Gospels in connection with Jesus’public ministry, received Galilee and a district to the east of the Jordan River called Perea; and Philip received a region lying to the east of Galilee and to the north of Perea. When Archelaus was banished in A.D. 6, his territory was placed under the control of Roman officials called procurators. The procurator who was in office during Jesus’public ministry was Pontius Pilate. Herod Antipas, with the title of "tetrarch," continued to rule until A.D. 39; Philip until about A.D. 33. The public ministry of Jesus extended from A.D. 26 or 27 to A.D. 29 or 30. During most of that time he was in the territory of Herod Antipas and of Pontius Pilate, though occasionally he entered the territory of Philip. Matthew 3:1-12, and Parallels The beginning of Jesus’ public ministry was prepared for by the work of John the Baptist. Matthew 3:1-12, and parallels. John was the last and greatest prophet of the old dispensation, who came just before the dawn of the new age. For centuries prophecy had been silent. But at last a prophet came in the spirit and power of Elijah to prepare the heart of the people for the promised Messiah. Even in dress and in manner of life, John was like a prophet of the olden time. His food was locusts and wild honey; he was clothed with a rough camel’s-hair garment; and his preaching was carried on in the deserts. The substance of his message is summed up in the words, "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 3:2. The phrase, "kingdom of heaven," or "kingdom of God," was evidently familiar to the hearers of John, and the meaning of the phrase, up to a certain point, is perfectly clear. As the kingdom of Caesar is the place where Caesar bears rule, so the Kingdom of God is the place, or the condition, where God bears rule. In one sense, the whole universe is the Kingdom of God, for nothing happens apart from God’s will. But evidently John was using the phrase in some narrower sense; he meant by the Kingdom of God the condition where God’s will is wrought out to completion, where the sinful disobedience which prevails in the world is banished and God is truly King. The Jews expected an age which should be under the perfect control of God. But they were surprised by what John the Baptist said about the requirements for entrance into that age. They had supposed that all Jews would have the blessing of the Kingdom, but John told them that only the righteous would be allowed to enter in. It was a startling message, since the hearers of John knew only too well that they did not possess the righteousness which was required. Repentance, therefore, or cleansing from sin, was necessary. And the sign of cleansing was baptism. Matthew 3:13-17, Matthew 4:1-11, and Parallels Among those who came to be baptized was Jesus of Nazareth. Matthew 3:13-15, and parallels. Jesus did not need to be baptized for his own sake, for he had no sin to be washed away. But his baptism was part of what he was doing for his people. Just as on the cross he received the punishment of sin, though there was no sin of his own, so in his baptism he represented the sinful people whom he came to save. When Jesus had been baptized, there was a wonderful event which was perceived not only by him but also by John the Baptist. Matthew 3:16-17, and parallels. The Holy Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove, and there was a voice from heaven which said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This event marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry as Messiah. He had been the Messiah already, and he had already possessed the Holy Spirit; but now the power of the Spirit impelled him to come forward definitely as the promised One. At the very beginning, however, there was temptation to be overcome. Matthew 4:1-11, and parallels. Jesus was led up from the deep Jordan Valley, where the baptism had taken place, into the wilderness on the heights. And there he was tempted. The temptation was based upon the holy experience which he had just received. The voice from heaven had designated Jesus as Son of God. "If that be true," said the Tempter, "if thou art really Son of God, use thy power to obtain creature comfort, test out thy power by casting thyself down from a pinnacle of the Temple, obtain the immediate enjoyment of thy power by doing obeisance to me." The Devil quoted Scripture for his evil purpose. But Jesus did not need to repudiate the Scripture in order to refute him. The Holy Scriptures themselves contained a sufficient answer to every suggestion of the Evil One. The great victory was won. The Kingdom of the Messiah was not to be a worldly realm, and it was not to be won by worldly means. The path to the Messiah’s throne led by the way of the cross. And that path our Saviour was willing to tread for our sakes. Questions on Chapter 3. 1.What is known about the boyhood and youth of Jesus? 2.Describe the physical features and the political divisions of Palestine at the time of our Lord. Where was Jesus born, where did he spend his youth, and where was he baptized? 3.What was the meaning of John’s baptism? Why was Jesus baptized? 4.What was the meaning of each of the three temptations, and how did Jesus overcome them? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 01.19. NT04. THE EARLY JUDEAN MINISTRY ======================================================================== Chapter 4: The Early Judean Ministry John 1:19-34 After the temptation Jesus descended again into the Jordan Valley, where the baptism had taken place. There he received the testimony of John the Baptist. John 1:19-34. John had come not to perform a work of his own, but to be a witness to the greater One who was to follow. He put aside, therefore, all thoughts of personal ambition, declared plainly that he was not the Christ, and rejoiced when his disciples left him in order to follow the One. whom he had come to announce. John had had revealed to him, moreover, not merely the fact that Jesus was the Saviour, but also something of the way in which the salvation was to be wrought. Jesus was to die, like a sacrificial lamb, for the sins of others. "Behold, the Lamb of God," said John to his disciples, "that taketh away the sin of the world!" John 1:35-51 Two pairs of brothers, in those early days, left John to follow the Saviour. John 1:35-42. One pair consisted of Andrew and Peter; the other, no doubt, consisted of the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, although John, who wrote the Gospel in which this narrative is contained, has never mentioned his own name in his book. Two other men, besides these four, came to Jesus on the following day-Philip and Nathanael. John 1:43-51. John 2:1-11 After the meeting with these six disciples, our Lord ascended again from the valley of the Jordan to the higher country of Galilee. And there, in the village of Cana, he wrought the first of his miracles. John 2:1-11. He was a guest at a wedding feast, and when the wine ran out he supplied the lack by turning water into wine. Thereby he not only manifested his power, but also indicated the manner of his ministry. He was not to be an austere person like John the Baptist, living far from the habitations of men. On the contrary, his ministry was, for those whom he came to win, a ministry of joy. He entered not merely into the sorrows, but also into the joys of men; the One who was to die for the sins of the world was also willing to grace a marriage feast! John 2:12-22 After a brief sojourn at Capernaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where he was afterwards to carry on a large part of his ministry, Jesus went southward to Jerusalem at passover time. At Jerusalem his first recorded act was an act of stern rebuke. John 2:13-22. The Temple area was filled with the tables of those who sold the sheep and oxen and doves which were intended for sacrifice; the sacred precincts of God’s house had been made a place of business. There was no hesitation on the part of Jesus; he made a scourge of cords and drove the traffickers out. It is a mistake to suppose that the wonderful gentleness of our Saviour or his gracious participation in innocent joys was any indication of weakness. Though always merciful to the penitent, Jesus could be indignant against blatant sinners; and the righteous anger of the Saviour was a terrible thing. John 2:23-25 At Jerusalem Jesus won adherents because of the miracles which he wrought. But he was able to distinguish true devotion from that which was false. He "knew all men, . ..and needed not that any one should bear witness concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man." John 2:24-25. John 3:1-15 One example of this knowledge was afforded by the case of Nicodemus, John 3:1-15; Jesus knew what Nicodemus lacked. Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night, to discuss the substance of what Jesus had been saying. But our Lord would not waste time with things that lay on the surface. He went straight to the heart of the matter, and said to Nicodemus, "Ye must be born anew." John 3:7. None of the learning, none of the worldly influence of Nicodemus would avail; true life could come only by a new birth, which all, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, must receive, and receive, not by their own efforts, but by the mysterious power of the Spirit of God. Jesus spoke, too, on that memorable night, of the sacrificial death which he himself was to die for the sins of men. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," he said, "even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life." John 3:22-50 Then Jesus left Jerusalem’ the capital, and carried on, through his disciples, a -ministry of baptism in the country districts of Judea. John 3:22-30. He was thus engaging in a work which before had belonged peculiarly to John the Baptist. Some of John’s disciples were perhaps inclined to be envious. But there was no envy in the heart of John himself. He had come not for his own sake but to be a witness to Jesus as Messiah. And now he rejoiced in the growing prominence of Jesus. "The friend of the bridegroom," he said about himself, "rejoices at the voice of the bridegroom. He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:29-30, in substance. John 4:1-42 When this early Judean ministry was over, Jesus went back to Galilee. On the way he passed through Samaria. John 4:1-42. The inhabitants of Samaria were not of pure Jewish race, and although they accepted the five books of Moses and looked for the coming of a Messiah, they did not accept all of the Old Testament. They were despised by the Jews. But even for the Samaritans, and for the most degraded among them, the Saviour had a message of hope. Wearied by his journey, our Lord was sitting by Jacob’s well near the city of Sychar. When his disciples had gone into the city to buy food, a woman came to draw water at the well. For that woman it was a memorable hour. Jesus was willing to labor, and that in the midst of his weariness- for one sinful soul, as well as for all the multitudes that had crowded around him in Judea. The woman was of sinful life, and she could not hide her sin from Jesus But Jesus searched out her sin, not in order to condemn her, but in order to bring to her the message of salvation. Attracted, then, by what the woman had said, a number of the Samaritans came to Jesus and recognized him as the Messiah and as the Saviour of the world. Questions on Chapter 4. 1. Give an account of the testimony of John the Baptist to Jesus. How did John know that Jesus was the Messiah? 2. What happened at Cana? Who, besides Jesus, was a guest at the feast? 3. Give an outline of all the journeys of Jesus up to his passage through Samaria. 4. Give an account, fuller than the outline given, of the early Judean ministry. What did Jesus say when he was asked to give a sign? 5. What is the meaning of the "new birth"? Is it still necessary today if a man is to be saved? How does it come? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 01.20. NT05. BEGINNING OF THE GALILAEAN MINISTRY ======================================================================== Chapter 5: The Beginning of the Galilaean Ministry After passing through Samaria, Jesus arrived in Galilee, and it was in Galilee that a large part of his ministry was carried on. The Galilaean ministry is narrated for the most part by the first three Gospels, which are called Synoptic Gospels, whereas the Gospel According to John deals more particularly with the work in Judea. Luke 4:16-30 After the healing of a nobleman’s son, when Jesus was at Cana of Galilee, our Lord began his preaching in the Galilaean synagogues. Early in this period he went to Nazareth, the place where he had been brought up. Luke 4:16-30. But the people of Nazareth could not believe that the carpenter’s Son whom they had known was really chosen by God to fulfill the glorious prophecies of Isaiah. When rebuked by Jesus they even desired to kill him. Thus did they illustrate, to their own eternal loss, the words of Jesus that "No prophet is acceptable in his own country." Leaving Nazareth, our Lord went down and dwelt at Capernaum, making that city apparently the center of his work. But before the details of the Galilaean ministry are studied, it will be well to cast a hurried glance at the geographical features of the country where Jesus’ ministry was carried on. The political divisions of Palestine have already been mentioned Galilee in the north, under the tetrarch, Herod Antipas; Samaria and Judea to the south, under the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. But the physical features of the country do not correspond at all to the political divisions. Physically the country is divided into four narrow strips, each about one hundred and fifty miles long, running from north to south. The westernmost strip is the coastal plain, along the Mediterranean Sea, into which Jesus hardly went; then comes the low hill country, the "shephela"; then the highlands, upon which Jerusalem is situated, reaching an altitude of some 2500 feet (760 metres) above sea level. These central highlands of Palestine are broken by the plain of Esdraelon, in southern Galilee. A little to the north of this plain, in a hill country, lies the town of Nazareth. East of the central highlands is the deep valley of the Jordan River. The Jordan rises in the extreme north of Palestine, one of its sources being on the slopes of the lofty Mount Hermon; then flows southward to the lake called "the waters of Merom"’ then, issuing from that lake it flows, after a short course, into the Lake of Gennesaret, or Sea of Galilee, which is about twelve miles long; then, issuing from the Lake of Gennesaret, it flows southward, through a very deep valley to the Dead Sea, which has no outlet and is extremely salt. During most of its course the Jordan Valley lies far below the level of the sea, being on account of this peculiarity absolutely unique among the river valleys of the world. The Dead Sea is 1292 feet (394 metres), and the Lake of Gennesaret 682 feet (208 metres) below sea level. It was on the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret that a large part of our Lord’s ministry was carried on. Centuries of misrule have now ruined the country, but in those days Galilee supported a large population. The shores of the lake, particularly, were lined with villages and towns. The work of our Lord was thus carried on amid "life’s throng and press," though from time to time he sought out the desert places for rest and prayer. Matthew 4:18-22, and Parallels At the beginning of the ministry on the shores of the Lake of Galilee Jesus called the two pairs of brothers - Simon Peter and Andrew, and James and John. Matthew 4:18-22, and parallels. They had known Jesus before, and had devoted themselves to his service. But now they were commanded to show their devotion by leaving their ordinary occupation and becoming Jesus’ permanent followers. Mark 1:21-39, and Parallels The Gospels give a vivid picture of a Sabbath which Jesus spent at Capernaum. near the beginning of his Galilaean ministry. Mark 1:21-34, and parallels. As usual, he went into the synagogue. Our Lord knew how to find God’s handiwork in the flowers of the field; but he was not like those who think that the worship of God through nature is any substitute for the public worship of the Church. In the synagogue the people were astonished at Jesus’ teaching: "He taught them as having authority, and not as the scribes." But they were also astonished at his power; he commanded even the unclean spirits and they obeyed him. He was not merely a teacher, but also a healer; he brought not merely guidance, but also active help. After the synagogue service, Jesus went into the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John. In the house he healed Simon’s wife’s mother who was sick of a fever. Others had heard of the wonderful power of Jesus, and desired to be healed. But in order not to break the Sabbath, they waited until sunset, when the Jewish Sabbath was over. At sunset they brought to Jesus those who were sick and those who were possessed with demons, and Jesus put forth his divine power to heal. It had been a crowded, busy day. Our Lord must have been weary as night at last came. But even in such busy days, he took time to seek the source of all strength. A great while before the dawn he went out into a desert place and there prayed. Mark 1:35-39, and parallels. Matthew 9:1-8, and Parallels After a tour in the Galilaean synagogues, with both preaching and healing, our Lord returned to Capernaum. There, as is told in one of the vivid narratives of the Gospels, Jesus healed a paralytic. Matthew 9:1-8, and parallels. The sick man could not be brought in by the door of the house because of the crowds. But he and his friends were not to be denied. The four friends who bore his couch lowered him through the roof into the place where Jesus was. They had found the Healer at last. But bodily healing was not the first gift which Jesus bestowed. "Son," said Jesus, "thy sins are forgiven." It was a strange physician indeed who could forgive sins. The scribes said that the word of Jesus was blasphemy. And so it was, unless Jesus himself were God. As a proof of his divine power, the Lord said also to the paralytic, "Arise, and take up thy bed, andwalk." And so the man went away from the presence of the great Healer, whole in body and in mind. Questions on Chapter 5. 1. Describe the political and the physical divisions of Palestine. In what parts of the country was our Lord’s ministry carried on? Where was Nazareth? Capernaum? Point out these places on a map. 2. Describe the call of the four disciples. When and where had they followed Jesus before? What was their occupation? 3. Give an account of the Sabbath in Capernaum that is described in the Gospels. What great divisions of Jesus’ work were illustrated on that day? 4. Describe the healing of the paralytic. What can be learned from this incident about the nature of Jesus’ person? Why were the scribes offended? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 01.21. NT06. PERIOD OF POPULARITY ======================================================================== Chapter 6: The Period of Popularity During the first part of the Galilaean ministry, our Lord had the favor of the people. Great crowds followed him so that he could scarcely enter into a house. On one occasion he embarked in a little boat and put forth a short distance into the lake, so as to be able to speak to the throng on the shore. This popularity, it is true, was not universal. The common people heard Jesus gladly, but the official teachers were hostile. These teachers, who are called scribes, belonged for the most part to the sect of the Pharisees. At the time of Christ there were two chief parties among the Jews-the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were a worldly aristocracy, in possession of the high-priestly offices at Jerusalem, favored by the Romans, and satisfied with the existing political order. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were a strict Jewish party, insisted on a strict interpretation of the Mosaic Law, and added to the Law a great mass of oral "tradition," which ostensibly consisted of interpretation of the Law, but really meant an enormous and oppressive addition to it. The Pharisees were opposed to Jesus for at least two reasons. In the first place, they were envious of his success in teaching, which endangered their own position. In the second place, they were opposed to the contents of his teaching; he rejected their interpretation of the Law, and rebuked them for paying such attention to the detailed rules which were set forth in their tradition as to forget the weightier matters of justice and mercy. The conflict of Jesus with the Pharisees was precipitated particularly by the attitude of Jesus toward the Sabbath. The Sabbath controversy was carried on partly in Galilee and partly, John, ch. 5, during a visit of Jesus to Jerusalem. The Pharisees had developed for the preservation of the Sabbath an elaborate set of rules which went far beyond what was set forth in the Old Testament. They were offended, therefore, when Jesus refused to rebuke his disciples for plucking the ears of wheat on the Sabbath Day, and when he himself insisted on using the Sabbath to perform works of mercy like the healing of the man that had a withered hand. But for the present the opposition of the Pharisees was held in check by the favor which our Lord had among the people. This favor was due partly to the teaching of Jesus and partly to his miracles. He interpreted the Scriptures in a fresh, original way; "He taught as one having authority and not as their scribes." And he had power to heal every manner of disease and to cast out demons. It was no wonder that the crowds followed so wonderful a teacher. Matthew 4:17 The Galilaean teaching of Jesus began with the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. The message sounded at first somewhat like the message of John the Baptist. Quite like John, Jesus came forward with the summons, "Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." But the new teacher differed from John in the more complete account which he gave of the nature of the Kingdom, and especially in the central place in the Kingdom which he assigned to himself. Matthew, Matthew 5:1-48, Matthew 6:1-34, Matthew 7:1-29 The nature of the Kingdom of God is set forth in the great discourse of our Lord which is commonly called the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:1-48, Matthew 6:1-34, Matthew 7:1-29. Having gone up from the shores of the Sea of Galilee to the heights which surround the lake, our Lord taught his disciples what was to be the life of those who should have a part in the Kingdom of God. In one sense, the Kingdom lay altogether in the future; it would be ushered in with full power only at the end of the world. But in another sense, it was present already wherever there were those who were truly submitting their lives to Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount contains certain features which are fundamental in all of Jesus’ teaching. In the first place, God is presented, in the Sermon on the Mount, as "Father." The fatherhood of God, in the teaching of Jesus, is sometimes misunderstood. Jesus did not mean that God is Father of all men. God stands indeed to all men in a relation which is analogous to that of a father to his children; he cares for all, he makes his sun to rise upon all. Matthew 5:45. But in the teaching of Jesus and in the whole New Testament the lofty term, "Father," is reserved for a still more intimate relationship. So in the Sermon on the Mount the great world without is sharply distinguished from the company of Jesus’ disciples; it is only the latter who can say, "Our Father which art in heaven." There was nothing narrow in such teaching; for although in Jesus’ teaching the intimate relation of sonship toward God was offered only to those who should be of the household of faith, yet the door of the household of faith was open wide to all who would be willing to come in. Indeed Jesus himself died on the cross with the purpose of opening that door. Our Saviour did far more than teach men that they were already children of God; he came to make them children of God by his saving work. In the second place, the Sermon on the Mount tells what kind of life is led by those who should have entered into the Kingdom and been made the children of God. That life is far more than obedience to a set of external rules; the purity which Jesus demanded is a purity of the heart. The life in the Kingdom is also far removed from all pretense; the children of God engage in prayer and good works not to be seen by men but to be seen by God. Finally, the life in the Kingdom is a life of perfect trust; all anxious thought for the morrow is banished, since God will care for his children. One difficulty arises in the reading of the Sermon on the Mount. How can such an ideal be attained? It might be possible to obey a set of rules, like the rules of the Pharisees, but how is it possible for sinful men to attain purity of heart? The righteousness of the Kingdom of heaven exceeds by far the "righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees." How can such righteousness be attained? The answer to this question was partly understood even by the, first hearers of the Sermon on the Mount. The disciples of Jesus knew even then that Jesus alone could give them entrance into the Kingdom; they trusted in him already not merely as teacher but also as Saviour. But the answer to the question is far plainer to us; for we know the cross. The atoning death of Christ it was that gave men the kind of righteousness required for entrance into the Kingdom of God, for it gave them the righteousness of Christ himself. The significance of the cross was spoken of by our Lord even during his earthly ministry, but the full explanation of it was left to the apostles. The saving work of Jesus could be fully explained only after it had been done. Questions on Chapter 6. 1. What is the meaning of "the kingdom of God," in Jesus’ teaching? 2. Who were the Sadducees? 3. Who were the Pharisees, and why were they opposed to Jesus? 4. Give an outline of the Sermon on the Mount. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 01.22. NT07. THE TURNING POINT ======================================================================== Chapter 7: The Turning Point The teaching of Jesus was carried on in various ways. Sometimes there were extended discourses like the Sermon on the Mount. On the other hand, much of the most precious teaching of our Lord is contained in brief sayings which were uttered in answer to some objection or in view of some special situation. One other form of teaching requires special attention-namely, the parables. Mark 4:1-34, and Parallels A parable is a narrative taken from ordinary life, but intended to teach some spiritual lesson. It differs from an allegory in that the application is not to be carried out in such detail. Ordinarily a parable teaches simply one lesson; there is only one point of similarity between the literal meaning of the parable and the deeper spiritual truth. Thus when our Lord compared God’s answer to prayer with the answer which an unjust judge gives to an importunate widow, the details in the two cases are not intended to be similar; God is very different from the unjust judge. But there is one point of similarity -importunity does have its effect in both cases. The distinction between a parable and an allegory is not an absolute distinction, and sometimes the two shade into each other. Thus the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, which Jesus uttered nearly at the close of his earthly ministry, partakes largely of the nature of allegory. The details to a considerable extent are significant-the wicked husbandmen represent the Jews and their leaders, the servants who were first sent represent the prophets, the son who was sent last represents Jesus himself. But many of Jesus’parables are parables pure and simple; they are not intended to be pressed in detail, but teach, each of them, some one lesson. The purpose of Jesus in using parables was twofold. In the first place the parables were not clear to those who did not wish to learn. In accordance with a principle of the divine justice, willful closing of the eyes to the truth brought an increase of darkness. But in the second place, to those who were willing to receive the truth, the parables were made gloriously plain; the figurative form of the teaching only served to drive the meaning home. The ministry of Jesus did not consist merely of teaching. Along with the teaching there went wonderful manifestations of divine power. These manifestations of divine power were of various kinds. Many of them were miracles of healing; Jesus had power to make the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear. He also had power to cast out demons. At the presence of the Son of God, Satan and his ministers had put forth all their baneful power. But the demons were obliged to flee at Jesus’ word. Matthew 8:23-27, and Parallels Not all of the miracles, however, were miracles of healing. Some of the most notable of them were of a different kind. But all of them were manifestations of Jesus’ divine power. When, on the lake, in the midst of the frightened disciples, our Lord said to the winds and the waves, "Peace, be still,." the Ruler of all nature was revealed. The particular form of Jesus’ miracles depended upon his own inscrutable will; but all of the miracles revealed him as the Master of the world. He who had made the world in the beginning could still put forth the same creative power. A miracle, as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature, is a manifestation of the creative, as distinguished from the providential, power of God. Matthew 14:13-21, and Parallels Among the miracles of Jesus the feeding of the five thousand seems to have been particularly important. Its importance is indicated by the fact that it is narrated in all four of the Gospels. Matthew 14:13-21, and parallels. Even the Gospel of John, which is concerned for the most part with what happened in Judea, here runs parallel with the Synoptic Gospels and narrates an event which happened in Galilee. This event marks the climax of the popularity of our Lord and at the same time the beginning of his rejection. Even before this time he had been rejected by some; his popularity had been by no means universal. He had been opposed by the scribes and Pharisees; he had not been understood even by the members of his own household; and he had been rejected twice at the town where he had been brought up. But for the most part he had enjoyed the favor of the people. At the time of the feeding of the five thousand, this popular favor had reached its height. Jesus had withdrawn from the crowds into a lonely place across the lake from Capernaum. But such was his popularity that he could not escape. The people followed him even when he tried to be alone; they had had no thought of food or of lodging for the night, so eager had they been to listen to his teaching. When evening came, therefore, they were in want. But our Lord had pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. By a gracious manifestation of his divine power he made the five loaves and two fishes suffice for all the multitude. Matthew 14:22-34, and Parallels After the feeding of the five thousand Jesus found at last the solitude which he had sought; he went up into the mountain to pray. The multitudes were making their way around the lake by the shore; the disciples had taken the only boat and were rowing hard against the wind. But about three o’clock at night our Lord came to the disciples walking upon the water. It is no wonder that they bowed before him and said, "Of a truth thou art the Son of God." John 6:22-71 Meanwhile the multitude had gone on foot around the lake to Capernaum. When they found Jesus there before them they were astonished. But their astonishment, unfortunately, was not of the kind that leads to true and abiding faith. They had valued the earthly bread which Jesus had given them, but were not willing to receive the spiritual bread. Jesus himself, he told them, was the Bread of life who had come down from heaven; only those could truly live who would feed upon him by accepting his saving work. John 6:22-71. It seemed to the Jews to be a hard saying. How could the Jesus whose family they knew be the bread which had come down from heaven? Many even of those who had formerly followed Jesus were offended at this "hard saying." The popularity of Jesus at this time began to wane. But there were some disciples who remained. Jesus had chosen twelve men, whom he called apostles. He had had them as his companions, and already he had sent them out on a mission to teach and to heal. Turning now to them, he asked, "Would ye also go away?" Then Peter, speaking for the others, showed the difference between true disciples and those who are offended at every hard saying. "Lord," he said, "to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." Questions on Chapter 7. 1. What is a parable? How does it differ from an allegory? 2. Why did Jesus use parables? Mention some of the parables recorded in the Gospels. 3. What is a miracle? Why did Jesus work miracles? 4. What is the particular importance of the feeding of the five thousand? 5. Why were the people offended by the discourse on the Bread of life? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 01.23. NT08. JESUS AS MESSIAH ======================================================================== Chapter 8: Jesus as Messiah The waning of Jesus’ popularity was by no means sudden. Even after the discourse on the Bread of life, we frequently find the multitudes around him. But in general, from that time on our Lord seems to have withdrawn from the crowds more frequently than before, in order to devote himself to the instruction of his intimate disciples. Matthew 15:21-39, and Parallels At this time our Lord withdrew into Phoenicia, northwest of Palestine. In Phoenicia he healed the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman. It was a foretaste of the rich streams of mercy which after Pentecost were to flow out into the whole world. After a brief stay in Phoenicia, Jesus returned to Galilee, where he engaged again in controversy with the Pharisees and again, by his divine power, fed a great multitude. This second time four thousand men were fed. There were also miracles of healing, and in general the essential characteristics of the Galilaean ministry were continued. Matthew 16:13-20, and Parallels But before long Jesus departed again from Galilee, and finally went with his disciples to the regions of Caesarea Philippi, northeast of Galilee. Near Caesarea Philippi occurred the great confession of Peter, which is one of the most important incidents of the Gospel record. Matthew 16:13-20, and parallels. "Who," Jesus asked of his disciples, "do men say that I am? And they told him, saying, Elijah; but others, One of the prophets. And he asked them, But who say ye that I am? Peter answereth and saith unto him, Thou art the Christ." Mark 8:27-29. In this confession Peter recognized that Jesus was the "Messiah," the "Anointed One," or according to the Greek translation of the same word, "the Christ." It was by no means the first recognition of the fact. The Messiahship of Jesus had been revealed to Joseph and Mary and Zacharias and Elisabeth even before Jesus was born; it had been revealed to the shepherds and the Wise Men who greeted the infant Saviour; it had been revealed to John the Baptist; it had been revealed to the little group of disciples who left John at the Jordan in order to follow Jesus; it had been proclaimed by Jesus himself in his conversations with Nicodemus and with the Samaritan woman; it had been recognized even by the unclean spirits. But although Jesus had been proclaimed ,is Messiah before, the confession of -Peter was by no means a matter of course. Although the disciples had already accepted Jesus as the Messiah it required considerable faith and devotion to continue to accept him, for Jesus was not the kind of Messiah whom the Jews had been expecting. They had been expecting a Messiah who, as anointed king of Israel, would deliver God’s people from the Roman oppressors, and make Jerusalem the center of the whole world. Such expectations seemed to be set at nought by the Prophet of Nazareth. No kingly pomp surrounded him; he mingled freely with the common people; he lived in the utmost humility, having not even a place to lay his head. Political Messiahship he definitely refused. When, after the feeding of the five thousand, the people were about to come and make him a king-that is, the Messianic king-he left them and withdrew into the mountain. John 6:15. It is no wonder that they were disappointed. All their enthusiasm seemed to be ruthlessly quenched. Jesuswould have absolutely nothing to do with the kind of Messiahship which they offered. By this attitude of Jesus not only the multitudes were discouraged. Even the members of Jesus’ household failed to understand, and the very forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist himself, was assailed, momentarily at least, by doubts. Conceivably the twelve apostles also might have been discouraged. But their faith remained firm. Despite all disappointments, despite the refusal of our Lord to accept what were supposed to be prerogatives of Messiahship, Peter was able still to say, at Caesarea Philippi, "Thou art the Christ." But in what sense was Jesus the Christ? He was not an earthly king who would lead the armies of Israel out to battle against the Romans. He was not that sort of Messiah. What then was he? What was Jesus’ own conception of Messiahship? In order to answer that question fully, it would be necessary to return to the study of the Old Testament. Jesus accepted to the full the Old Testament promises about the Messiah; what he rejected was merely a false interpretation of them. Even those promises of the Old Testament which make the Messiah a king of David’s line were fulfilled in Jesus. He was actually of David’s line, and he was born in David’s city. He was also the King of Israel. Only his kingship was exercised in ways different from those which the people generally were expecting. And there were other features of the Old Testament promises which Jesus also fulfilled. Jesus was not only Son of David; he was also Son of Man. The title "Son of Man," which was Jesus’own Messianic designation of himself, does not denote merely the humanity of Jesus in distinction from his deity. On the contrary, it is plainly taken from the stupendous scene in Daniel 7:13, where "one like unto a son of man" is represented as coming with the clouds of heaven, and as being in the presence of God. It indicates, therefore, not the human weakness of Jesus, but his exalted position as supreme Ruler and Judge. It is not surprising that for a time at least during his earthly ministry Jesus used this title of the Messiah rather than the other titles, for the title Son of Man was without the political associations which Jesus desired to avoid. It had been employed, not so much by the masses of the people, as by the circles which read the books which are called the "Apocalypses." In these books, on the basis of Daniel and other Old Testament prophecies, the Messiah was represented not as a political king, but as a heavenly, supernatural person. The title, therefore, was admirably fitted to designate the lofty character of the Messiah’s person, without the dangerous political associations which had gathered around certain other titles. Indeed for a time, in the early Galilaean ministry, our Lord seems to have kept his Messiahship somewhat in the background. Public proclamation of his Messiahship would have aroused false, worldly hopes of political upheaval. Before proclaiming himself again as Messiah, our Lord needed to make clear by his teaching and by his example what kind of Messiah he was; before finally setting up his Kingdom he needed to show that that Kingdom was not of this world. But he was Messiah and King from the beginning, and even at the beginning his Messiahship had been made known. Questions on Chapter 8. 1. Mention some of the titles which are used to designate Jesus as Messiah, and explain their meaning. Was the title "Son of Man" ever used with reference to Jesus by anyone except Jesus himself? 2. What was the significance of Peter’s confession? 3. Why did Jesus become less popular than he was at first? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 01.24. NT09. THE PREDICTION OF THE CROSS ======================================================================== Chapter 9: The Prediction of the Cross Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi was a triumph of faith, for which Jesus pronounced Peter blessed. Through a revelation from God, Peter had been made able to endure the disappointment involved in Jesus’refusal of kingly honors. But another trial of faith was soon to come. Matthew 16:21-28, and Parallels After Peter’s acknowledgment of Jesus as Messiah, our Lord began to teach the disciples more of what his Messiahship meant. Matthew 16:21-28, and parallels. It meant, he said, not worldly honors, and not merely a continuation of the humble life in Galilee, but actual sufferings and death. This teaching was more than Peter could endure. "Be it far from thee, Lord," he said, "this shall never be unto thee." In such rebellion against God’s will Jesus recognized a repetition of the temptation which had come to him at the first, immediately after the voice from heaven had proclaimed him to be the Messiah the temptation to use his Messianic power for his own worldly glory. And now as well as then the temptation was resolutely overcome. "Get thee behind me, Satan," said Jesus: "thou art a stumbling block unto me: for thou mindest not the things of God, but the things of men. Jesus was thus ready to tread the path of suffering which he had come into the world, for our sakes, to tread. And he called upon his true disciples to tread that path after him. Yet all the suffering was to be followed by a greater glory than Peter had ever conceived; and almost immediately there was a wonderful foretaste of that glory. Matthew 17:1-13, and Parallels Six days after the scene at Caesarea Philippi, our Lord took Peter and James and John, his three most intimate disciples, with him up upon a high mountain-no doubt somewhere on the slopes of the lofty Mount Hermon. There he was transfigured before them, Matthew 17:1-13, and parallels; "his face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as the light." With him appeared Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And they were talking about what seems to be a strange subject at such a moment. They were talking not- of the glories of Jesus’ Kingdom, but of the "departure" which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Luke 9:31. The "departure" included not only the resurrection and the ascension, but also the crucifixion. Even the shining light of the transfiguration was intended to point to the cross. Matthew 17:14-20, and Parallels After the glorious experience on the mountain, our Lord came at once into contact with the repulsiveness of human misery, Matthew 17:14-20, and parallels. But he did not shrink from the sudden transition. As he came down from the mountain, he found at the, bottom a boy possessed of a demon, who "fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming." It was a depressing sight, very unlike the brightness of the transfiguration. Even more discouraging, moreover, than the condition of the boy himself was the powerlessness of the disciples. They had tried to cast the demon out but had failed miserably, not because the power might not have been theirs, but because of their unbelief. The father of the boy, too, was lacking in faith. "I believe," he said; "help thou mine unbelief." Jesus did help his unbelief, and the unbelief of the disciples. He rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the boy. At this period Jesus repeated on several occasions the prophecy of his death. The tragedy on Calvary did not overtake him unawares. He went deliberately to his death for our sakes. Matthew 18:1-6, and Parallels Even on such solemn days, when the shadow of the cross lay over the path, the disciples were unable to overcome the pettiness of their character. On the very journey when Jesus had told them about his approaching death, they had quarreled about the question as to which of them should be greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. Thereby they had shown how far they were from understanding the true nature of the Kingdom. If the Kingdom was finally to be advanced under the leadership of such men, some mighty change would have to take place in them. That change did take place afterwards, as we shall see, at Pentecost. But at present the pettiness and carnal-mindedness of the disciples added to the sorrows of our Lord. Despite the intimacy into which he entered with his earthly friends, he towered in lonely grandeur above them all. After the transfiguration and related events near Caesarea Philippi, our Lord returned to Galilee. But apparently he did not resume permanently his Galilaean ministry. Soon we find him passing through Samaria, and laboring in Judea and in that country east of the Jordan River which is called Perea. This part of Jesus’ministry is recorded particularly in the Gospels According to Luke and According to John, although Matthew and Mark contain important information about the latter part of the period. The general character of the period is fixed by the expectation of the cross. Jesus had set his face toward Jerusalem to accomplish the atoning work which he had come into the world to perform. Luke 10:1-24; John 5:1-47 At the beginning of the period Jesus sent out seventy disciples, to prepare for his own coming into the several cities and villages which he was intending to visit. The Seventy were in possession of something of Jesus’ power; they were able to report with joy that the demons were subjected to them. During the same period we find Jesus in Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles. Even during the period of the Galilaean ministry Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem at least once, at the time of one of the Jewish feasts; and in connection with the healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda he had then set forth the true nature of his person and his relation to God the Father. John 5:1-47. At the later period with which we are now dealing, the same teaching was continued. John 7:1-53, John 8:1-59. Matthew 11:27, and Parallels It is particularly the Gospel of John which records the way in which Jesus set forth the nature of his own person, but what is fully set forth in the Gospel of John is really implied all through the Synoptic Gospels, and in Matthew 11:27; Luke 10:22 it is made just as plain as it is in John. According to his own teaching, Jesus stood in a relation toward God the Father which is absolutely different from that in which other men stand toward God. In the plainest possible way, our Lord laid claim to true deity. "I and my Father," he said, "are one." All the Gospels present the true humanity of Jesus, the Gospel According to John, no less than the Synoptists. But all the Gospels also set forth his deity. He was, according to a true summary of the Gospel teaching, "God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person for ever." Questions on Chapter 9. 1. What trial of Peter’s faith came just after his great confession? 2. What was the meaning of the transfiguration? 3. What event took place just afterwards? 4. Give an account of Jesus’ teaching at the time of the feast of tabernacles. John 7:1-53, John 8:1-59. How was this teaching received? 5. Give an account of the mission of the Seventy and compare it with the previous mission of the Twelve. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 01.25. NT10. THE LAST JOURNEYS ======================================================================== Chapter 10 : The Last Journeys John 9:1-41 During the latter part of Jesus’ ministry, with which Chapter 9 began to deal, Jesus spoke some of the most beautiful of his parables. A number of them, such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, are recorded only by Luke. From the same period the Gospel According to John records some notable teaching of Jesus, in addition to that which was mentioned in the last lesson. Part of this teaching was introduced by the healing of the man born blind. John 9:1-41. This miracle, which had been performed on the Sabbath, had aroused the special opposition of the Pharisees. In answer to them, our Lord pointed out the difference between those leaders of the people who are like robbers breaking into the sheepfold or at best like hirelings who flee at the first approach of danger, and the good shepherd who is willing to lay down his life for the sheep. Such a shepherd was Jesus himself, and his life was soon to be laid down. John 11:1-53 Finally, after various j ourneyings of Jesus in Judea and in Perea, there occurred in Bethany, a little village near Jerusalem, one of the most notable of our Lord’s miracles. John 11:1-44. At Bethany lived a certain Lazarus with his sisters Martha and Mary, whom Jesus knew well. Lazarus fell ill during the absence of Jesus across the Jordan in Perea; and the illness resulted in his death. On the fourth day after Lazarus’ death, Jesus came to Bethany. Martha came to meet him; Mary remained mourning in the house, until her sister brought word that Jesus bad arrived. Then she, too, went to greet the Lord. When Jesus saw her and her friends weeping for the one who had died, he, too, wept with them. But he had power not only to sympathize, but also to help. Going with the sisters to the tomb, he caused the stone to be removed, then prayed, and then called ‘with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” At the word of Jesus, the dead man came out of the tomb. Jesus was Master over death and the grave. It was not the first time that our Lord had raised the dead. He had raised the daughter of Jairus in Galilee and the son of the widow of Nain. But the raising of Lazarus is especially important, not only because of the wonderfully vivid way in which the incident is narrated in the Gospel According to John, but also because it served to hasten the crisis in Jerusalem. Both the Sadducees and the Pharisees were now aroused. The movement instituted by Jesus had reached alarming proportions. If allowed to continue it would be full of danger. The Romans, it was feared, would regard it as rebellion and would utterly destroy the nation of the Jews. The diverse parties among the Jewish leaders were becoming more and more united against the strange Prophet from Galilee. John 11:54 For a short time still the crisis was delayed. Our Lord retired from Judea to a city called Ephraim, near the wilderness. We also find him, in this period of his Life, again beyond the Jordan, in Perea. In this Perean residence is to be placed a portion of the teaching contained in the Synoptic Gospels, such as the teaching concerning divorce, Matthew 19:3-12, and parallels, the words to the rich young ruler, Matthew 19:16-30, and parallels, and the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Matthew 20:1-16. Luke 19:2-16 Before long, however, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for the last time. On the way, when he was passing through Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, he healed two blind men, and converted the tax collector Zacchaeus. The conversion of Zacchaeus was in accord with Jesus’ custom all through his ministry. The tax-gatherers were despised by the rest of the Jews at the time of Christ. They had allied themselves with the Roman oppressors, and no doubt most of them were guilty of abominable extortion on their own account. By the Pharisees, particularly, they were regarded as belonging to the very dregs of the people, with whom no true observer of the law could be intimate. But Jesus was bound by no limits in his saving work. He did not condone sin — either the sin of the tax-gatherers or the sin of the Pharisees. But he was willing to save from sin all who would believe. The whole, he said, need not a physician, but they that are sick. The Son of Man had come to “seek and to save that which was lost.” John 11:55-57, John 12:1 Toiling up the long ascent from Jericho, our Lord arrived at last, six days before the passover, at the village of Bethany, which is less than two miles from Jerusalem. During the remaining time before the crucifixion Jesus went every morning into the city and returned in the evening to lodge with his friends at Bethany. Matthew 26:6-13, and Parallels Soon after his arrival at Bethany, when Jesus was reclining at table in the house of a certain Simon the leper, he was anointed by Mary the sister of Lazarus. Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 13:3-9; John 12:2-8. This anointing is not to be confused with a somewhat similar event which had taken place some time before, when Jesus had been anointed by a woman who had been a notorious sinner. Luke 7:36-50. The disciples murmured at the waste. The precious ointment, they said, might have been sold for a great sum, which could have been distributed to the poor. Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, had a special cause for dissatisfaction; in his case the mention of the poor was only a cloak for covetousness. Judas kept the bag, and if the proceeds of the ointment had been put into his keeping, he could have indulged his thieving propensities. But all the murmuring, whether it proceeded from more sordid motives or from a mere misunderstanding of the true spirit of the woman’s act, was rebuked by our Lord. The woman, he said, had anointed his body beforehand for the burial. The days just before the crucifixion were no time for true disciples to murmur at an act which was prompted by overflowing love for the Saviour who was so soon to die. Matthew 21:1-11, and Parallels On the day after the supper at Bethany, that is, on the day after the Jewish Sabbath, on the ninth day of the Jewish spring month Nisan, our Lord entered into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:1-11, and parallels. It was a triumphal entry; Jesus was received publicly by the multitudes as the Messiah, the promised King of Israel. Even the manner of his entry was in accordance with prophecy; he came riding over the Mount of Olives and into the city mounted on an ass, in accordance with Zechariah 9:9. The promised King of Israel at last had come. The multitudes strewed palm branches in the way, and cried, “Hosanna to the son of David.” Questions on Chapter 10 1. Where was Perea? Jericho? Bethany? Ephraim? Find on a map the places mentioned in this lesson. 2. Give an account of all the times when Jesus, during his earthly ministry, raised the dead. In what Gospels are these incidents narrated? 3. What is the special importance of the raising of Lazarus? 4. Give an account of some of those parables of Jesus which are contained only in the Gospel According to Luke. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 01.26. NT11. TEACHING IN THE TEMPLE ======================================================================== Chapter 11: Teaching in the Temple Despite the enthusiasm which the multitudes had shown at the time when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, despite the shouts of those who cried, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” Jesus knew that be was going to his death, and that Jerusalem would turn against her King. “When he drew nigh,” we are told in the According to Luke, “he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” Luke 19:41-42. On the Sunday of the triumphal entry it was already late when Jesus entered into the Temple area. He did nothing, therefore, that day, except look about him; and then he returned to Bethany with twelve apostles. Mark 11:11. Matthew 21:12-19, and Parallels On Monday, however, the final conflict began. Entering into the city, our Lord cast out of the Temple those who bought and sold, just as he had done at the beginning of his public ministry. The rebuke which he had administered several years before had had no permanent effect. But Jesus did not hesitate to rebuke again who made God’s house a place of business. The rulers, of course, were incensed. But popular favor for a time put a check upon their hate. On the way into the city, Jesus said to a fig tree, which w bearing leaves only, “No man eat fruit from thee henceforward for ever.” The motives of our Lord’s act are not fully known to us; but at least he was able afterwards to point out through the case the fig tree the limitless power of faith. The disciples were exhorted to pray in faith. But their prayers, Jesus said, must be in love; no unforgiving spirit should be left in their souls when they prayed to heavenly Father for their own forgiveness. The next day, Tuesday, was a day of teaching. Our Lord spent the day in the Temple, meeting the attacks of his enemies. And he had an answer to every inquiry; the trick questions of his enemies always redounded to their own rebuke. Matthew 21:23-32, and Parallels First our Lord was questioned as to the authority by which he had cleansed the Temple the day before. Matthew 21:23-32, and parallels. He answered that question by another question: “The baptism of John, whence was it? from heaven or from men?” The chief priests and elders could not say. They were not really sincere seekers for divine authority. But Jesus was not content with having silenced them. He also pointed out, positively, their sin in not receiving the Word of God which had come through John. Matthew 21:33-46, and Parallels Still more scathing was the rebuke which Jesus uttered through the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. Matthew 21:33-46, and parallels. The wicked husbandmen had been put in charge of a vineyard. But when the time came to render the fruit of the vineyard to the owner, they killed the servants who were sent to them and finally the owner’s son. The chief priests and Pharisees needed no elaborate explanation; they would probably in any case have applied the parable to themselves. But as a matter of fact Jesus made the application abundantly plain. “The kingdom of God,” he said, “shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” Matthew 1:1-14 Just as plainly directed against the wicked leaders of the people, and against the rebellious nation itself, was the parable of the Marriage of the King’s Son. Matthew 22:1-14. Those who were bidden to the feast refused to come in; but from the highways and hedges the king’s house was filled. So the covenant people, the Jews, had rejected the divine invitation; but the despised Gentiles would be received. Matthew 22:15-40, and Parallels The rulers would have liked to put Jesus to death at once; but they still feared the people. So they adopted the underhand method of trying to catch him in his speech. First came the Pharisees and the Herodians, the latter being the partisans of the Herodian dynasty, with their adroit question about giving tribute to Caesar, Matthew 22:15-22, and parallels; then the Sadducees, the worldly aristocracy who did not believe in the resurrection, with their attempt to is the doctrine of the resurrection ridiculous, Matthew 22:23-33, and parallels; then an individual Pharisee with his question about the greatest commandment in the law. Matthew 22:24-40, and parallels. Jesus had a wonderful, profound answer for them all. But only the last inquirer to have been at all willing to learn. “Thou art not far,” Jesus said him, “from the kingdom of God.” Mark 12:34. Matthew 22:41-46, and Parallels Then, after all the questions which had been put to him, our put one question in turn. “David himself,” he said in effect, “calls the Messiah Lord; how is the Messiah, then, David’s son?” In this way Jesus was presenting to the people a higher conception of Messiahship than that which they had been accustomed to bold. The Messiah was indeed David’s Son, but he was not only David’s Son. Matthew 22:41-46, and parallels. Apparently on the same day, our Lord called attention to the poor widow who was casting her mite into the collection box. A gift, he said, is measured in the estimation of God not by its amount, but by the sacrifice which it means to the giver. Mark 12:41-44, and parallels Matthew 23:1-39 Finally, on the same memorable Tuesday, our Lord denounced openly the formalism and hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. Matthew 23:1-39. It was also perhaps on the same day that certain Greeks desired to see Jesus, John 12:20-21—a foretaste of that entrance of Gentiles into the Church which was to come after the resurrection. We are not told exactly how Jesus received the Greeks, but the importance of the moment was marked by a voice from heaven which came as a divine confirmation of Jesus’ message. Matthew 24:1-51, Matthew 25:1-46 When Jesus, on the same day, had gone out of the Temple and had ascended to the Mount of Olives, a hill which lay on the way to Bethany, he taught his disciples about the coming destruction of the Temple and also about the end of the world. Matthew 24:1-51, and parallels. The time of the end of the world, he said, is unknown to all except God, and in expectation of it men should always be watchful. This duty of watchfulness he illustrated by the parables of the Ten Virgins, Matthew 25:1-13, and of the Talents. Matthew 25:14-30. Then our Lord drew a great picture of the last awful judgment of God, when the wicked shall be separated from the good. Matthew 25:31-46. Questions on Chapter 11 1. Where was the Mount of Olives? Describe the route between Bethany and the Temple in Jerusalem. 2. Compare the two occasions when Jesus cleansed the Temple. 3. On what occasions during his ministry did Jesus speak about John the Baptist? 4. Give a full account of the questions which were put to Jesus on the Tuesday of the last week, and of the answers of Jesus. 5. What were the “woes” which Jesus pronounced against the scribes and Pharisees? 6. What did Jesus say after the Gentiles came to seek him? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 01.27. NT12. THE CRUCIFIXION ======================================================================== Chapter 12: The Crucifixion This following selection has been extracted from a joint work of J. Gresham Machen and James Oscar Boyd entitled "A Brief Bible History: A Survey of the Old and New Testaments" (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1922), now in the public domain.. Matthew 26:1-5, Matthew 26:14-16, and Parallels On the Wednesday of the week before the crucifixion, the chief priests and elders of the Jews took counsel how they might put Jesus to death. The difficulty was that if they arrested so popular a teacher in the midst of the crowds who had come to Jerusalem for the approaching feast of the passover, there would be a tumult. At first, therefore, the enemies of Jesus thought that they might have to wait until the passover was over. But they were helped out of their difficulty by one of Jesus’ own friends. Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve apostles, proved to be a traitor. He received a promise of thirty pieces of silver, and watched for a time when Jesus would be away from the crowds so that he could be delivered quietly into the hands of his enemies. Matthew 26:17-19, and Parallels Meanwhile, on Thursday, Jesus arranged for the celebration of the passover in company with the apostles. The passover feast commemorated the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, especially the passing over of Israel’s first-born when the first-born sons of the Egyptians were slain. The feast was opened on the evening of Nisan 14, Nisan being a spring month, and the first month of the Jewish year. According to Jewish reckoning, the evening of Nisan 14 constituted the beginning of Nisan 15. Starting from that time, the feast continued for seven days, no unleavened bread being used within that period. The first and most solemn act of the whole feast was the eating of the paschal lamb on the evening of Nisan 14. This passover supper was celebrated by Jesus and the apostles on Thursday evening, Nisan 14. And the feast was to be continued into the Christian era. The symbols were changed; bread and wine were to be used instead of the paschal lamb. But the fundamental meaning of the feast remained the same; both the passover and the Lord’s Supper had reference to the atoning death of Christ. The paschal lamb prefigured the Lamb of God who was to die for the sins of the world; the bread and wine also symbolized the body of Christ broken for us and the blood of Christ poured out for the remission of our sins. Thus what the passover symbolized by way of prophecy is symbolized in the Lord’s Supper by way of commemoration. And on that last evening our Lord changed the symbols in order to suit the new dispensation when, since the Lamb of God had once been offered up, other sacrifices should be no more. Matthew 26:20-35, and Parallels Jesus gathered with his apostles for the feast in an upper room. Matthew 26:20, and parallels. Then, lamentably enough, there was a strife among the apostles as to who should be the greatest. Luke 22:24-30. As a rebuke of all such inordinate ambitions our Lord gave an example of humility by washing the feet of his disciples. John 13:1-20. The traitor, Judas Iscariot, then left the apostolic company, John 13:21-35, and parallels, and the Lord’s Supper was instituted. 1 Corinthians 11:23-25; Matthew 26:26-29, and parallels. Then the denial of Peter was foretold; before the cock should crow twice Peter would deny his Lord three times. John 14:1-31, John 15:1-27, John 16:1-33, John 17:1-26 Then followed some of the most precious teaching of Jesus - teaching which is preserved only in the Gospel According to John. John 14:1-31, John 15:1-27, John 16:1-33, John 17:1-26. Our Lord spoke of the mission which he had come into the world to fulfill and of the mission which his apostles were to fulfill through the power of the Holy Spirit. The meaning of Jesus’ redeeming work could not fully be explained until it had been accomplished. And it was to be explained by the Holy Spirit speaking through the apostles. Matthew 26:36-46, and Parallels After they had sung a hymn, our Lord went out with the eleven to the Garden of Gethsemane, outside of Jerusalem, on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Matthew 26:36-46, and parallels. There he sought strength in prayer for the approaching hour when was to bear the penalty of our sins. The disciples were no help to him in his agony; Peter and James and John slept while he prayed. But God the Father heard his prayer. Matthew 26:47-75, Matthew 27:1 Soon the traitor came with the Temple guard, and Jesus was arrested, Matthew 26:47-56, and parallels. On the same evening there was an informal hearing of the Prisoner in the house of Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest. Matthew 26:57-58, Matthew 26:69-75, and parallels. Meanwhile Peter and “another disciple,” who was no doubt John the son of Zebedee, the writer of the Fourth Gospel, had entered into the house. There Peter denied his Lord. The next morning there was a more formal meeting of the Sanhedrin, the highest court of the Jews. Luke 22:66-71, and parallels. This meeting was intended to confirm the results of the informal hearing in the house of Annas. But both meetings were little more than a form. The court had really decided the question beforehand; it had determined to bring Jesus by any means, lawful or otherwise, to his death. When faced by his enemies, our Lord declared plainly that he was the Messiah, the Son of God. That answer was enough to satisfy the accusers. Jesus was judged guilty of blasphemy. Matthew 27:2-56, and Parallels But the Sanhedrin did not possess the power of life and death. Before Jesus could be executed, therefore, the findings of the Sanhedrin had to be confirmed by Pilate, the Roman procurator. And at first Pilate was recalcitrant to the Jews’ demands; he was not able to find in Jesus any cause o~ death. John 18:28-38, and parallels. In his perplexity, Pilate sent the prisoner to be examined by Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee, who was at the time in Jerusalem. Luke 23:6-12. But this hearing also was without decisive result. At last Pilate yielded, against his better judgment, to the importunity of the Jewish leaders and the mad shouts of the crowds, who had turned now against the One whom formerly they had honored. Matthew 27:15-30, and parallels. Pilate delivered Jesus up to the will of the Jews. Before the execution, however, the Prisoner was cruelly scourged and mocked by the Roman soldiers. Then when a last effort of Pilate had failed to placate the wrath of Jesus enemies, John 19:4-16, our Lord was finally taken out of the city to be crucified Luke 23:26-33, and parallels. The Prisoner at first was compelled to bear the cross on which be was to be put to death, but when his strength gave way a certain Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service. A crowd of people from Jerusalem followed the Prisoner, and especially a number of women who lamented. At last the place of execution was reached. It was called “Golgotha,” or according to the Latin translation of the name, “Calvary.” There they crucified our Lord. Matthew 27:33-56, and parallels. With him Were crucified two thieves, of whom one repented at the last hour, and received salvation. A number of sayings which Jesus uttered on the cross are recorded in the Gospels. At the moment of death, he cried, “It is finished.” John 19:30. The meaning of that saying is plain. The work for which our Lord came into the world at last was done. The Lord of glory had died to wash away the sins of all believers. The just penalty of sin had been borne by the One who knew no sin. Questions on Chapter 12 1. Summarize the teaching of Jesus on the last evening before the crucifixion. 2. What happened in Gethsemane? 3. Describe the trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate. 4. Why did the Jewish leaders put Jesus to death? Why did Jesus consent to die? 5. Give an account of the crucifixion of our Lord. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 01.28. NT13. THE RESURRECTION ======================================================================== Chapter 13: The Resurrection The death of Christ was the greatest event that history has ever seen. By that event the grace of God triumphed over sin, and a lost world was redeemed. Apart from Christ we all deserve eternal death. But the Lord of glory, on Calvary, bore the guilt which belonged to us, and made us children of God. So great an event was accomplished without flare of heavenly trumpets or blazing of heavenly light. To many, the death of Christ seemed to be merely the execution of a criminal. But there were not wanting some strange phenomena which marked the greatness of the event. From twelve o’clock on the day of the crucifixion there was darkness until three o’clock, when Jesus died. Then the veil of the Temple was rent, there was an earthquake, and graves were opened. Thus was nature made to recognize the suffering and the triumph of her Lord. After Jesus had died, his side was pierced by one of the soldiers whom Pilate had sent at the instance of the Jews in order that those who had been crucified should be killed and their bodies removed before the Sabbath. From the body of Jesus there came out blood and water. The event was witnessed by John the son of Zebedee, writer of the Fourth Gospel. John 19:31-42. Matthew 27:57-66 Then, in the late afternoon of the same day Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus, removed our Lord’s body from the cross and placed it in a new tomb. Mark 15:42-46, and parallels. Another secret disciple, or half-disciple, Nicodemus, came also to anoint the body. John 19:39. Certain women also came to see where Jesus was laid. Luke 23:55-56, and parallels. The chief priests and Pharisees, on the other hand, obtained a guard from Pilate, to watch the tomb, lest the disciples of Jesus should steal the body of Jesus away and say that he had risen from the dead. Matthew 27:62-66. Matthew 28:2-4, Matthew 28:11-15 The next day was Saturday, the Old Testament Sabbath. The friends of Jesus rested on that day. But very early on Sunday morn the women started to the tomb bearing spices in order to anoint the body. But before they arrived, our Lord had already risen from the dead. There had been an earthquake, an angel had rolled away the stone from the sepulcher, and our Lord himself had risen. At the sight of the angel, the soldiers of the guard, in their fear, “became as dead men.” Matthew 28:2-4. All that they could do was to report the event to the chief priests who had sent them. Matthew 28:11-15 Matthew 28:1, and Parallels; John 20:2; Matthew 28:5-10, and Parallels Then the women arrived at the tomb, and found it empty. Matthew 28:1, and parallels. One of them, Mary Magdalene, went back to tell Peter and John. John 20:2. The others remained at the tomb and there saw two angels who announced to them that Jesus was risen from the dead. On their way back to the city Jesus himself met them, and they fell down, grasped his feet, and worshiped him Matthew 28:5-10, and parallels. John 20:3-18 Meanwhile, at the message of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John ran to the tomb, found it empty, and believed that Jesus really was risen. John 20:3-10. But Mary Magdalene, after they had gone, stood weeping at the tomb; she supposed that some one had taken the body of her Lord away. Then Jesus himself came to her, her sorrow was changed into joy, and she joined her voice to that other women who told the disciples of the glad event. John 20:11-18 1 Corinthians 15:5; Luke 24:13-49; John 20:19-23 Thus far, Jesus himself had been seen only by the women. But now he appeared to Peter, 1 Corinthians 15:5; Luke 24:34, and to two of the disciples who were walking to the village of Emmaus. At first. the two disciples did not know him; but they recognized him at Emmaus when he broke the bread. Then, on the evening of the same Sunday he appeared to the apostles in Jerusalem. 1 Corinthians 15:5; Luke 24:36-49; John 20:19-23. All doubts were removed when he them the wounds in his hands and his side, and partook of food in their presence. Then he interpreted the Scriptures to them had done to the two disciples on the walk to Emmaus, showing themthat it was necessary that the Messiah should suffer. Finally he breathed upon them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” John 20:24-29 Thomas, one of the apostles, who had been absent from this meeting with the risen Lord, refused to believe at the mere word of the others. Jesus dealt very graciously with the doubting disciple. Again, one week later, he came to the apostles, the doors of the room being shut, and presented to Thomas his hands and his side. All doubts now melted away in the joy of meeting with the risen Lord. Thomas answered and said unto him, “My Lord and my God.” John 20:24-29 John 21:1-24; 1 Corinthians 15:6; Matthew 28:16-20 The apostles then went back to Galilee in accordance with Jesus’ command, and in Galilee also Jesus appeared to them. First he appeared to seven of the disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Among the seven was John the son of Zebedee, who has given an account of the event in his Gospel. John 21:1-24. Then there was a great appearance of Jesus on a mountain. At that time, apparently, not only the eleven apostles were present, but also five hundred other disciples. 1 Corinthians 15:6; Matthew 28:16-20. On the mountain Jesus instituted the sacrament of baptism, and gave his disciples the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations. The execution of that commission has sometimes been attended with discouragements. But the risen Lord promised always to be with his Church. 1 Corinthians 15:7; Acts 1:1-11 After the appearances in Galilee, the apostles returned to Jerusalem. It was no doubt in Jerusalem that Jesus appeared to James, his own brother, 1 Corinthians 15:7, who during the earthly ministry had not believed on him. Other appearances also occurred there. At one or more of these appearances Jesus commanded the apostles to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit should come upon them. Then, said Jesus, they were to be witnesses of him “both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.” Acts 1:8. Finally, forty days after the resurrection, Jesus led his disciples out to the Mount of Olives, on the way to Bethany, and there he was taken from them in a cloud into heaven. The disciples were saddened and bewildered by the departure of their Lord. But their sadness was soon turned to joy. “Two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was received up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye beheld him going into heaven.” Acts 1:10-11 The disciples went then into the city, where they were constantly in the Temple, praising God. Questions for Chapter 13. 1. Describe the burial of Jesus. How long did his body rest in tomb? 2. Enumerate the persons who saw the empty tomb. 3. Enumerate, so far as the facts are known, the persons who Jesus after the resurrection. 4. In what books of the New Testament are the facts about the resurrection mentioned? 5. What is the importance of the resurrection of Jesus for our Christian faith? 6. Describe the change which the resurrection produced in the early disciples of Jesus. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 01.29. NT14. BEGINNINGS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ======================================================================== Chapter 14: The Beginnings of the Christian Church The Christian Church is founded on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus; if that fact had not occurred there would be no Church today. The disciples of Jesus of Nazareth were evidently far inferior to him in spiritual discernment and in courage. Evidently they could not hope to succeed if he had failed. And with his death what little strength they may have had before was utterly destroyed. In the hour of his trial they had deserted him in cowardly flight. And when he was taken from them by a shameful death, they were in despair. Never did a movement seem to be more hopelessly dead. But then the surprising thing occurred. Those same weak, discouraged men began, in a few days, in Jerusalem, the very scene . their disgrace, a spiritual movement the like of which the world has never seen. What produced the wonderful change? What that transformed those weak, discouraged men into the spiritual conquerors of the world? The answer of those men themselves was plain. Their despair, they said, gave way to triumphant joy because the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead, and because they were convinced of his resurrection by the empty tomb and by the appearances of Jesus himself. No other real explanation has yet been discovered to account for the sudden transformation of the despair of the disciples into triumphant joy. The very existence of the Christian Church itself, therefore, is the strongest testimony to the resurrection; for without the resurrection the Church could never have come into being. Acts 1:12-26 After the ascension of Jesus, which was studied in the last lesson, the apostles returned to Jerusalem, and obeyed the command of Jesus by waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. But the period of waiting was not a period of idleness; it was spent, on the contrary, in praising God and in prayer. One definite action was taken - the place of Judas, the traitor, who had killed himself in his remorse, was filled by the choice of Matthias. Acts 1:1-26. At that time, certain women and a number of other disciples were gathered together with the apostles, making a total of about one hundred and twenty persons. It was upon that little company of praying disciples, or rather upon the promise of Jesus which had been made to them, that the hope of the world was based. Acts 2:1-47 At last, at the feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the passover, the promise of Jesus was fulfilled; the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples to fit them for the evangelization of the world. Acts 2:1-13. They were all together in one place; there was a sound as of a rushing, mighty wind; cloven tongues, like tongues of fire, sat upon each one of them; they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. When the crowd came together to see the wonderful thing that had happened, Peter preached the first sermon of the Christian Church. Acts 2:14-36. At the preaching of Peter three thousand persons were converted; the campaign of world conquest had begun. Acts 2:37-42. The campaign from the beginning was a campaign of witnessing, in accordance with Jesus’ command. Acts 1:8. The Christian Church was to conquer the world, not by exhorting men to live a certain kind of life, but by bringing them a piece of news. The Son of God, said the Christian missionaries, died on the cross and then rose again. That was the good news that conquered the world. Christianity from the beginning was a way of life, but it was a way of life founded upon a piece of news, a way of life founded upon historical facts. The meaning of the facts was not revealed all at once, but it was revealed in part from the very beginning, and throughout the Apostolic Age the revelation came in greater and greater fullness, especially through the instrumentality of Paul. The life of the Early Church in Jerusalem was in some respects like that of the Jews. The disciples continued to observe the Jewish fasts and feasts and were constantly in the Temple. But a new joy animated the company of believers. Their Lord was indeed taken from them for a time, and they did not know when he would return, but meanwhile he was present with them through his Spirit, and already he had saved them from their sins. Even in external observances the believers were distinguishable from the rest of the Jews. Entrance into their company was marked by the sacrament of baptism, which signified the washing away of sin; and their continued fellowship with one another and with the risen Lord found expression in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which commemorated the atoning death of Jesus. There were also meals. And those who had property devoted it, in a purely voluntary way, to the needs of their poorer brethren. The disciples attended diligently, moreover, to the teaching of the apostles, and engaged constantly in prayer. Acts 3:1-26 The preaching of the apostles in Jerusalem was authenticated by miracles. One notable miracle is narrated in detail in the book of The Acts. Acts 3:1-26. As Peter and John were going up into the Temple at the hour of prayer, they healed a lame beggar, who was in the habit of sitting at the gate. The miracle was the means of bringing to the people something better than bodily healing; for when the crowd came together in wonder at the healing of the lame man, Peter proclaimed to them the good news of the salvation which Jesus had wrought. Acts 4:1-37 The Sadducees, the ruling class, being incensed at such a proclamation, laid hands upon the two apostles, and brought them before the Sanhedrin. Acts 4:1-22. But even when Peter boldly announced to them that the name of that Jesus whom they had put to death was the only name which could bring salvation to men, they were unable to do more than warn the recalcitrant preachers. A notable miracle had been wrought, and they could not deny it. When Peter and John came again to the company of believers, all the company united in a glorious prayer of praise. The answer to the prayer was plainly given. “The place was shaken wherein they were gathered together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” Questions on Chapter 14 1. Show how the Christian Church is founded upon the fact of the resurrection. 2. Describe the choice of Matthias. 3. Who were gathered together in the “upper room” in Jerusalem? 4. Describe the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. 5. Was the speaking with other tongues on the Day of Pentecost the same as the gift of tongues described in the First Epistle to the Corinthians? If not, what was the difference? 6. Why were the Sadducees opposed to the preaching of Peter and John? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 01.30. NT15. FIRST PERSECUTION ======================================================================== Chapter 15: The First Persecution Acts 5:1-11 The life of the early Jerusalem church was full of a holy joy. But even in those first glorious days the Church had to battle against sin, and not all of those who desired to join themselves to the disciples were of true Christian life. One terrible judgment of God was inflicted in order to preserve the purity of the Church. Acts 5:1-11. A certain Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, had sold a possession, in accordance with the custom of those early days, and had laid part of the price at the apostles’ feet that it might be distributed to the poorer disciples. Part of the price was withheld, and yet Ananias and his wife pretended to have given all. Ananias was not required to sell his field, or to give all of the price after he had sold it. His sin was the sin of deceit. He had lied to the Holy Spirit. Terrible was the judgement of God; Ananias and Sapphira were stricken down dead, and great fear came upon all who heard. Acts 5:12-42 The apostles and the Church enjoyed the favor of the people - a favor which was mingled with awe. Many miracles were wrought by the apostles; multitudes of sick people were brought to be healed. But the Sadducees made another attempt to put a stop to the dangerous movement. Acts 5:17-42. They laid hands upon all the apostles, as they had laid hands upon two of them once before, and put them all in prison. But in the night the apostles were released by an angel of the Lord, and at once, in obedience to the angel’s command, went and taught boldly in the Temple. When they were arrested Peter said simply, “We must obey God rather than men. The Jesus whom you slew has been raised up by God as a Prince and a Saviour and we are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit.” Acts 5:29-32, in substance. It was a bold answer, and the Sanhedrin was incensed. But Gamaliel, a Pharisee, one of the most noted of the Jewish teachers, advocated a policy of watchful waiting. If the movement were of God, he said, there was no use in fighting it; if it were of men it would fail of itself as other Messianic movements had failed. The cautious policy prevailed, so far as any attempt at inflicting the death penalty was concerned. But the apostles before they were released were scourged. The suffering and shame did not prevent their preaching. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus. Acts 6:1-6 The early Jerusalem church was composed partly of Aramaic-speaking Jews who had always lived in Palestine, and partly of Greek-speaking Jews who were connected with the Judaism of the Dispersion. The latter class murmured because their widows were neglected in the daily ministrations. In order that the matter might be attended to without turning the apostles aside from their work of teaching and preaching, seven men were chosen to preside over the distribution of help to the needy members of the church. Acts 6:1-6. But these seven were no mere “business men.” They were “full of the Spirit and of wisdom,” and at least two of them became prominent preaching of the gospel. Acts 6:7-15, Acts 7:1-60, Acts 8:1-3 One of these two was Stephen, a “man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit.” Stephen “wrought great wonders and signs among the people,” and also preached in the synagogues which were attended by certain of the Greek-speaking Jews residing at Jerusalem. By his preaching he stirred up opposition. And the opposition was of a new kind. Up to that time the objection to the Early Church had come, principally at least, from the Sadducees. But the Sadducees were a worldly aristocracy, out of touch with the masses of the people, and in their efforts against the Church they had been checked again and again by the popular favor which the disciples of Jesus enjoyed. Now, however, that popular favor began to wane. It became evident that although the disciples continued to observe the Jewish fasts and feasts, their preaching really meant the beginning of a new era. The people were not ready for such a change, and especially the leaders of the people, the Pharisees, who, since the crucifixion of Jesus, had shown no persecuting zeal, came out in active opposition. The result was at once evident. Stephen was arrested, and was charged with revolutionary teaching about the Temple. The charge was false; Stephen did not say that the Temple worship should then and there be abandoned by the disciples of Jesus. But he did proclaim the beginning of a new era, and the presence, in the person of one greater than Moses. So, after a great and bold speech of Stephen, he was hurried out of the city and stoned. As Stephen was stoned, he called on Jesus, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and then kneeling down he prayed for forgiveness of his enemies: “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” Acts 6:8-15, Acts 7:1-60, Acts 8:1-3. Thus died the first Christian martyr. The Greek word “martyr” means “witness.” Others had witnessed to the saving work of Christ by their words; Stephen now witnessed also by his death. When Stephen was stoned, the witnesses had laid “their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.” Saul was to become the teacher of the faith which then he laid waste. But meanwhile he was a leader in a great persecution. The persecution scattered the disciples far and wide from Jerusalem, though the apostles remained. But this scattering resulted only in the wider spread of the gospel. Everywhere they went the persecuted disciples proclaimed the faith for which they suffered. Thus the very rage of the enemies was an instrument in God’s hand for bringing the good news of salvation to the wide world. Acts 8:4-40 Among those who were scattered abroad by the persecution was Philip, one of the seven men who had been appointed to care for the ministration to the poor. This Philip, who is called “the evangelist,” to distinguish him from the apostle of the same name, went to Samaria, and preached to the Samaritans. It was a step on the way towards a Gentile mission, but the Samaritans themselves were not Gentiles but half-Jews. When the apostles at Jerusalem heard of the work of Philip, they sent Peter and John from among their own number, and through Peter and John the Samaritans received special manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Acts 8:4-25. Then Philip went to a desert road leading from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he preached the gospel to an Ethiopian treasurer, who despite his employment in a foreign country may have been of Jewish descent. Vs. 26-40. Yet the preaching to him was another preparation for the spread of the gospel into the Gentile world. Questions for Chapter 15 1. What was the sin of Ananias and Sapphira? Was the relief of the needy in the early Jerusalem church what is now called communism or socialism? If not, why not? 2. What was the fundamental difference between the two first imprisonments of apostles in Jerusalem, and the persecution which began with the martyrdom of Stephen? Why was the latter more serious? 3. Outline the speech of Stephen. 4. Describe the progress of the gospel in Samaria. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 01.31. NT16. THE CONVERSION OF PAUL ======================================================================== Chapter 16: The Conversion of Paul The work of the Early Church was at first carried on only among the Jews. The Lord Jesus, it is true, had commanded the apostles to make disciples of all the nations, but he had not made it perfectly plain when the Gentile work should begin, or on what terms the Gentiles should be received. Conceivably, therefore, the early disciples might have thought it might be the will of God that all Israel should first be evangelized before the gospel should be brought to the other nations; and conceivably also the men of the other nations, when they finally should receive the gospel, might be required to unite themselves with the people of Israel and keep the Mosaic Law. The guidance of the Holy Spirit was required, therefore, before the gospel should be offered freely to Gentiles without requiring them to become Jews. But that guidance, in God’s good time, was plainly and gloriously given. One of the most important steps in the preparation for the Gentile mission was the calling of a leader. And the leader whom God called was one upon whom human choice never would have rested; for the chosen leader was none other than Saul, the bitterest enemy of the Church. Saul, whose Roman name was Paul, was born at Tarsus, a centre of Greek culture, and the chief city of Cilicia, the coast country in the southeastern part of Asia Minor, near the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. In Tarsus the family of Paul belonged by no means to the humblest of the population, for Paul’s father and then Paul himself possessed Roman citizenship, which in the provinces of the empire was a highly prized privilege possessed only by a few. Thus by birth in a Greek university city and by possession of Roman citizenship Paul was connected with the life of the Gentile world. Such connection was not without importance for his future service as apostle to the Gentiles. Far more important, however, was the Jewish element in his preparation. Although Paul no doubt spoke Greek in childhood, he also in childhood spoke Aramaic, the language of Palestine, and his family regarded themselves as being in spirit Jews of Palestine rather than of the Dispersion, Aramaic-speaking Jews rather than Greek-speaking Jews, “Hebrews” rather than “Hellenists.” Both in Tarsus and in Jerusalem, moreover, Paul was brought up in the strictest sect of the Pharisees. Thus despite his birth in a Gentile city, Paul was not a “liberal Jew”; he was not inclined to break down the separation between Jews and Gentiles, or relax the strict requirements of the Mosaic Law. On the contrary, his zeal for the Law went beyond that of many of his contemporaries. The fact is of enormous importance for the understanding of Paul’s gospel; for Paul’s gospel of justification by faith is based not upon a lax interpretation of the law of God, but on a strict interpretation. Only, according to that gospel, Christ has paid the penalty of the law once for all on the cross. According to Paul, it is because the full penalty of the law has been paid and not at all because the law is to be taken lightly, that the Christian is free from the law. Acts 9:1-19, and Parallels Early in life Paul went to Jerusalem, to receive training under Gamaliel, the famous Pharisaic teacher. And in Jerusalem, when he had still not reached middle age, he engaged bitterly in persecution of the Church. He was filled with horror at a blasphemous sect that proclaimed a crucified malefactor to be the promised King of Israel, and that tended, perhaps, to break down the permanent significance of the law. It is a great mistake to suppose that before he was converted Paul was gradually getting nearer to Christianity. On contrary, he was if anything getting further away, and it was while he was on a mad persecuting expedition that his conversion finally occurred. The conversion of Paul was different in one important respect from the conversion of ordinary Christians. Ordinary Christians, like Paul, are converted by the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus. But in the case of ordinary Christians human instruments are used - the preaching of the gospel, or godly parents, or the like. In the case of Paul, on the other hand, no such instrument was used, but the Lord Jesus himself appeared to Paul and brought him the gospel. Paul himself says in one of his Epistles that he saw the Lord. 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8. It was that fact which made Paul, unlike ordinary Christians, but like Peter and the other apostles, an actual eyewitness to the resurrection of Christ. A wonderful thing, moreover, was the way in which Jesus appeared to Paul. He might naturally have appeared to him in anger, to condemn him for the persecution of the Church. Instead he appeared in love, to receive him into fellowship and to make him the greatest of the apostles. That was grace - pure grace, pure undeserved favour. It is always a matter of pure grace when a man is saved by the Lord Jesus, but in the case of Paul, the persecutor, the grace was wonderfully plain. Paul never forgot that grace of Christ; he never hated anything so much as the thought that a man can be saved by his own good works, or his own character, or his own obedience to God’s commands. The gospel of Paul is a proclamation of the grace of God. Paul saw the Lord on the road to Damascus, where he bad been intending to persecute the Church. Acts 9:1-19, and parallels. As he was nearing the city, suddenly at midday a bright light shone around him above the brightness of the sun. Those who accompanied him remained speechless, seeing the light but not distinguishing the person, hearing a sound, but not distinguishing the words. Paul, on the other hand, saw the Lord Jesus and listened to what Jesus said. Then, at the command of Jesus, he went into Damascus. For three days he was blind, then received his sight through the ministrations of Ananias, an otherwise unknown disciple, and was baptized. Then proceeded to labor for the Lord by whom he had been saved. Soon, however, he went away for a time into Arabia. Galatians 1:17. It is not known how far the journey took him or how long it lasted, except that it lasted less than three years. Nothing is said, in the New Testament, moreover, about what Paul did in Arabia. But even if he engaged in missionary preaching, he also meditated on the great thing that God had done for him; and certainly he prayed. Questions on Chapter 16 1. Where was Paul born? Find the place on a map. What sort of city was it? 2. What is known about Paul’s boyhood home, and about his education? In what books of the New Testament is the information given? 3. Why did Paul persecute the Church? 4. Describe in detail what the book of The Acts says about the conversion of Paul. Where does Paul mention the conversion in his Epistles? 5. How did the conversion of Paul differ from the conversion of an ordinary Christian? In what particulars was it like the conversion of an ordinary Christian? 6. What did Paul do after the conversion? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 01.32. NT17. THE GOSPEL GIVEN TO THE GENTILES ======================================================================== Chapter 17 : The Gospel Given to the Gentiles Saul of Tarsus was not only converted directly by the Lord Jesus; he was also called just as directly by Jesus to be an apostle, and especially an apostle to the Gentiles. But other instruments were also used in the beginning of the Gentile mission. Even Peter, whose work continued for a number of years afterwards to be chiefly among the Jews, was led by the Holy Spirit to take a notable step in the offering of the gospel freely to the whole world. Acts 9:31-43 During the period of peace which followed after the persecution at the time of the death of Stephen, Peter went down to labor in the coastal plain of Palestine. Acts 9:31-43. At Lydda he healed a lame man, Aeneas; at Joppa, on the coast, he raised Dorcas from the dead. And it was at Joppa that he received the guidance of the Holy Spirit as to the reception of Gentiles into the Church. Ch. 10. Acts 10:1-48 At midday Peter went up upon the flat housetop to pray. There he fell into a trance, and saw a vessel like a great sheet let down from heaven, and in it all kinds of animals which it was forbidden in the Mosaic Law to use for food. A voice came to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat. But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. And a voice came unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, make not thou common. And this was done thrice: and straightway the vessel was received up into heaven.” The meaning of this vision was soon made plain. A Roman officer; Cornelius, a devout Gentile, living at Caesarea, which was a seaport about thirty miles (48 kilometres) north of Joppa, had been commanded in a vision to send for Peter. The messengers of Cornelius arrived at Peter’s house just after Peter’s vision was over. The Holy Spirit commanded Peter to go with them. Arriving at Caesarea, the apostle went into the house where Cornelius and his friends were assembled, and there proclaimed to them the gospel of the Lord Jesus. While he was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were present, upon the Gentiles as well as upon the Jews. Then said Peter, “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as well as we?” So the Gentiles were baptized. A very important step had been taken. Cornelius, it is true, was a “God-fearer” - that is, he belonged to the class of Gentiles frequently mentioned in the book of The Acts who worshiped the God of Israel and were friendly to the Jews. Nevertheless, he was still outside the covenant people, and under the old dispensation he could not be received into covenant privileges until he united himself with the nation by submitting himself to the whole Mosaic Law. Yet now such restrictions were removed by the plain guidance of the Spirit of God. Evidently an entirely new dispensation had begun. Acts 11:1-18 At Jerusalem Peter’s strange action in receiving Gentiles into the Church without requiring them to become Jews gave rise to some discussion. Acts 11:1-18. But the apostles had no difficulty in convincing the brethren of the necessity for what he had done. The guidance of the Holy Spirit had been perfectly plain. When the heard what Peter said, “they held their peace, and glorified God. Then to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life.” The freedom of the Gentiles had not yet, however, fully been revealed. For a time the case of Cornelius seems to have been regarded as exceptional. The Holy Spirit had plainly commanded Peter to receive Cornelius and his friends without requiring them to be united to the people of Israel, but perhaps similar definite guidance was required before others could be received. The underlying reason for Gentile freedom, in other words, had not yet fully been revealed. The revelation, however, was not long delayed; it came especially through the Apostle Paul. But meanwhile Paul was being prepared for his work. Acts 9:19-30, and Parallels After the journey to Arabia, which was mentioned at the end of Chapter 16, Paul returned to Damascus, and preached to the Jews, endeavouring to convince them that Jesus was really the Messiah. His preaching aroused opposition, and the Jews, with the help of an officer of King Aretas of Arabia, had tried to kill him. But the brethren lowered him over the city wall in a basket, and so he escaped to Jerusalem, Acts 9:23-25; 2 Corinthians 11:31-33, where he desired to become acquainted with Peter. No doubt he then talked with Peter especially about the events of the earthly ministry of Jesus and the appearances fo the risen Christ. He also engaged in preaching to the Greek-speaking Jews. But when these Greek-speaking Jews sought to kill him, the brethren sent him away to Tarsus. He was unwilling to go, being desirous of repairing the harm which he had done to the church at Jerusalem; but a definite command of the Lord Jesus sent him now forth to the country of the Gentiles. Acts 9:26-30; Acts 22:17-21; Galatians 1:18-24. He labored in or near Tarsus, preaching the faith which formerly he had laid waste. Acts 11:19-26 Meanwhile an important new step in the progress of the gospel into the Gentile world was taken at Antioch. Acts 11:19-26. Antioch, the capital of the Roman province of Syria, was situated on the Orontes River, near the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. It was the third greatest city of the empire, ranking immediately after Rome and Alexandria. And among the great Gentile cities was the first which was encountered on the march of the gospel out from Jerusalem to the conquest of the world. At Antioch, certain unnamed Jews of Cyprus and Cyrene, who had been scattered from Jerusalem by the persecution at the time of Stephen’s death, took the important step of preaching the word of God to the Gentiles. Before, they had spoken only to Jews; here they spoke also to the Gentiles. Gentiles were received no longer merely in isolated cases like the case of Cornelius, but in large numbers. To investigate what had happened, Barnabas, an honorable member of the early Jerusalem church, Acts 4:36-37, was sent from Jerusalem to Antioch. Barnabas at once recognized the hand of God, and sent to Tarsus to seek Paul. He and Paul then labored abundantly in the Antioch church. At Antioch the disciples of Jesus were first called “Christians” - no doubt by the Gentile population of the city. The fact is not unimportant. It shows that even outsiders had come to see that the Christian Church was something distinct from Judaism. A distinct name had come to be required. Questions on Chapter 17 1. Describe the conversion of Cornelius in detail. What was the importance of the event? 2. What was the meaning of Peter’s vision on the housetop at Joppa? 3. What important step was taken at Antioch? 4. Trace the part of Barnabas in furthering the work of Paul. 5. Show how every successive step in the offering of the gospel to the Gentiles was taken under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 01.33. NT18. THE FIRST MISSIONARY JOURNEY AND THE APOSTOLIC COUNCIL ======================================================================== Chapter 18 : The First Missionary Journey and the Apostolic Council Acts 11:27-30, Acts 12:1-25 After a time of rapid growth in the Antioch church, a prophet, Agabus by name, came down from Jerusalem and prophesied a famine. The disciples determined to send relief to their brethren in Jerusalem. This they did by the instrumentality of Barnabas and Paul. Acts 11:27-30. Meanwhile the Jerusalem church had been suffering renewed persecution under Herod Agrippa I, who, as a vassal of Rome, ruled over all Palestine from A.D. 41 to 44. James the son of Zebedee, one of the apostles, had been put to death, and Peter had escaped only by a wonderful interposition of God, Acts 12:1-25. Acts 13:1-52, Acts 14:1-28 After Barnabas and Paul had returned to Antioch from their labor of love in Jerusalem, they were sent out, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, upon a mission to the Gentiles, which is called the first missionary journey. Acts 13:1-52, Acts 14:1-28. This missionary journey led first through the island of Cyprus, then, by way of Perga in Pamphylia to Psidian Antioch on the central plateau of Asia Minor. At Psidian Antioch, as regularly in the cities that he visited, Paul entered first into the synagogue. In accordance with the liberal Jewish custom of that day, he was given opportunity to speak, as a visiting teacher. The congregation was composed not only of Jews but also of Gentiles who had become interested in the God of Israel and in the lofty morality of the Old Testament without definitely uniting themselves with the people of Israel - the class of persons who are called in the book of The Acts “they that feared God” or the like. These “God-fearers” constituted a picked audience; they were just the Gentiles who were most apt to be won by the new preaching, because in their case much of the preliminary instruction had been given. But the Jews themselves, at Pisidian Antioch as well as elsewhere, were jealous of the new mission to the Gentiles, which was proving so much more successful than their own. Paul and Barnabas, therefore, were obliged to give up the work in the synagogue and address themselves directly to the Gentile population. So it happened very frequently in the cities that Paul visited - at first he preached to both Jews and Gentiles in the synagogues, and then when the Jews drove him out he was obliged to preach to the Gentiles only. Being driven out of Pisidian Antioch by a persecution instigated by the Jews, Paul and Barnabas went to Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, which, with Pisidian Antioch, were in the southern part of the great Roman province Galatia, but not in Galatia proper, which lay farther to the north. Then, turning back from Derbe, the missionaries revisited Lystra, Iconium, and Pisidian Antioch, strengthening the disciples and appointing elders; and then returned to the church at Syrian Antioch from which the Holy Spirit had sent them forth. The Epistle of James During the progress of the Antioch church and of the mission which had proceeded from it, the church at Jerusalem had not been idle. At the head of it stood James, the brother of Jesus, who was not one of the twelve apostles and apparently during the earthly ministry of Jesus had not been a believer, but who had witnessed an appearance of the risen Lord. James was apparently attached permanently to the church at Jerusalem, while the Twelve engaged frequently in missionary work elsewhere. From this James there has been preserved in the New Testament a letter, The Epistle of James, which is addressed “to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion.” This letter was written at an early time, perhaps at about the time of the first missionary journey of Paul. In the letter, James lays stress upon the high moral standard which ought to prevail in the Christian life, and he has sometimes been regarded as an advocate of “works.” But this judgment should not be misunderstood. The “works” of which James is speaking are not works which are to be put alongside of faith as one of the means by which salvation is to be obtained; they are, on the contrary, works which proceed from faith and show that faith is true faith. James does not, therefore, deny the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Only he insists that true faith always results in good works. Paul meant exactly the same thing when he spoke of “faith working through love.” Galatians 5:6. Paul and James use some what different language, but they mean the same thing. Faith, according to both of them, involves receiving the power of God, which then results in a life of loving service. Acts 15:1-35; Galatians 2:1-10 The wonderful success of the first missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas caused great joy to the Antioch church. But the joy was soon marred by certain persons, commonly called “Judaizers,” who came down to Antioch from Jerusalem and said that unless the Gentile converts kept the Law of Moses they could not be saved. The demand was directly contrary to the great principle of justification by faith alone; it made salvation depend partly upon human merit. The entire life of the Church was in danger. But Paul, guided by a revelation from God, determined to comply with the wishes of the brethren at Antioch by going up to Jerusalem with Barnabas and certain others, in order to confer with the leaders of the Jerusalem church. Paul did not need any authorization from those leaders, for he had been commissioned directly by Christ; nor did he need to learn from them anything about the principles of the gospel, for the gospel had come to him through direct revelation. But he did desire to receive from the Jerusalem leaders, to whom the Judaizers falsely appealed, some such public pronouncement as would put the Judaizers clearly in the wrong and so stop their ruination of the Church’s work. The conference resulted exactly as Paul desired. Acts 15:1-35; Galatians 2:1-10. The Jerusalem leaders - James, the brother of the Lord, Peter and John the son of Zebedee - recognized that they had absolutely nothing to add to the gospel of Paul, because he. had been commissioned by Christ as truly and as directly as the original Twelve. Joyfully therefore, they gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. God had worked for Paul among the Gentiles as truly as he had worked for Peter among the Jews. With regard to the propaganda of the Judaizers, the Jerusalem church, after speeches by James and Peter presenting the same view as the view of Paul, sent a letter to the Gentile Christians in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia declaring them to be absolutely free from the Mosaic Law as a means of salvation, and directing them to refrain, out of loving regard for the Jews in the several cities, from certain things in the Gentile manner of life which were most abhorrent to Jewish feeling. Such was the result of the “Apostolic Council,” which took place at about AD 49. It was a great victory for the Gentile mission and for Paul, for it established clearly the unity of all the apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. No wonder the church at Antioch rejoiced when the letter of the Jerusalem church was read. Questions on Chapter 18 1. Describe in detail the release of Peter from prison in the closing days of the reign of Herod Agrippa I. 2. Enumerate the visits of Paul to Jerusalem which have been studied so far. 3. What happened, on the first missionary journey, at Paphos? at Perga? at Pisidian Antioch? at Lystra? 4. Describe the Apostolic Council in detail. What was the meaning of the letter which was sent out from the council? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 01.34. NT19. THE SECOND MISSIONARY JOURNEY ======================================================================== Chapter 19 : The Second Missionary Journey The Apostolic Council, which was studied in the last lesson, was an important step in the progress of Christian liberty. By it the Judaizers were definitely repudiated, and salvation was based upon faith alone apart from the works of the law. But many practical difficulties still remained to be solved. Galatians 2:11-21 One such difficulty appeared at Antioch soon after the council. Galatians 2:11-21. The council had established the freedom of the Gentile Christians from the Mosaic Law, but it had not been determined that the Jewish Christians should give up the Law. No doubt the Jewish Christians were inwardly free from the Law; they depended for their salvation not at all upon their obedience to God’s commands as set forth in the Law of Moses, but simply and solely upon the saving work of Christ accepted by faith. But so far as had yet been revealed, it might conceivably be the will of God that they should still maintain their connection with Israel by observing the whole of the Law including even its ceremonial requirements. In order however, that the ceremonial requirements of the Law might be observed, the Jews had always been accustomed to avoid table companionship with Gentiles. What should be done, therefore, in churches like the church at Antioch, which were composed both of Jewish Christian and of Gentile Christians? How could the Jewish Christians in such churches continue to observe the ceremonial law, and still hold table companionship with their Gentile brethren? This question faced the apostle Peter on a visit which he made to Antioch after the Apostolic Council. At first he answered the question in the interests of Gentile freedom; he allowed the unity of the church to take precedence over the devotion of Jewish Christians to the ceremonial law. He held table companionship, therefore, with the Gentile Christians, and he did so out of true conviction with regard to the new Christian freedom. But when certain men came to Antioch from James, Peter was afraid to be seen transgressing the ceremonial law and so began to withdraw himself from table companionship with his Gentile brethren. Peter’s action, because of its inconsistency, endangered the very life of the Church. Peter had given up the keeping of the ceremonial law in order to hold table companionship with the Gentile Christians. Then he had undertaken the keeping of the ceremonial law again. Might not the Gentile Christians be tempted to do the same thing, in order to preserve their fellowship with the greatest of the original apostles? But if the Gentile Christians should begin to keep the ceremonial law, they could not fail to think that the keeping of the ceremonial law was somehow necessary to salvation. And so the fundamental principle of Christianity — the principle of salvation by Christ apart alone from human merit — would be given up. The danger was imminent. God had raised up a man to fight the battle of the Church. Absolutely regardless of personal considerations, devoted solely to the truth, the Apostle Paul withstood Peter before the whole Church. It is exceedingly important to observe that Paul did not differ from Peter in principle; he differed from him only in practice. He said to Peter in effect, “You and I are quite agreed about the principle of justification by faith alone; why, therefore, do you belie your principles by your conduct?” In the very act of condemning the practice of Peter, therefore, Paul commends his principles; about the principles of the gospel the two chief apostles were fully agreed. Undoubtedly Peter was convinced by what Paul said; there was no permanent disagreement, even about matters of practice, between Peter and Paul. Thus did the Spirit of God guide and protect the Church. Acts 15:36-41, Acts 16:1-40, Acts 17:1-34, Acts 18:1-22 Soon afterward Paul went forth from Antioch on his “second missionary journey.” Acts 15:36-41, Acts 16:1-40, Acts 17:1-34, Acts 18:1-22. Journeying with Silas by the land route to Derbe and to Lystra, where Timothy became his associate, he then apparently went to Iconium and Pisidian Antioch and then northward into Galatia proper, that is “Galatia” in the older and narrower sense of the term. Finally he went down to Troas, a seaport on the Aegean Sea. At Troas he must been joined by Luke, the author of The Acts, since the narrative in Acts here begins to be carried on by the use of the first person, “we,” instead of “they”, thus showing that the author was present. Setting sail from Troas, the apostolic company soon came to Philippi in Macedonia, where an important church was founded. At last Paul and Silas were imprisoned, and although they were released through divine interposition and by the second thought of the city authorities, they were requested by the authorities to leave the city. Arriving at Thessalonica, Paul preached in the synagogue, and founded an important church, chiefly composed of Gentiles. But after a stay shorter than had been intended, persecution instigated by the Jews drove Paul out of the city. He went then to Athens, where he preached not merely in the synagogue but also directly to the Gentile passers-by in the market place. At Corinth, the capital of the Roman province Achaia, embracing Greece proper, large numbers of converts were won, and Paul spent about two years in the city. Not long after the beginning of this Corinthian residence, he wrote the two Thessalonian Epistles. The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians The First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written just after Paul had received his first news from the Thessalonian church. He had been obliged to leave Thessalonica before he had intended. Would his work in that city be permanent? Would the converts remain faithful to Christ? These were serious questions. The Thessalonian converts were living in the midst of a corrupt paganism, and Paul had not had time to instruct them fully in the things of Christ. Every human probability was against the maintenance of their Christian life. But at last Paul received his first news from Thessalonica. And the news was good news. God was watching over his children; the great wonder had been wrought; a true Christian church had been founded at Thessalonica. The letter which Paul wrote at such a time is very naturally a simple, warm expression of gratitude to God. At the same time, in the letter, Paul comforts the Thessalonians in view of the death of certain of their number, gives instruction about the second coming of Christ, and urges the converts to live a diligent and orderly life. The Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was written very soon after the former Epistle. It reiterates the teaching of I Thessalonians, with correction of a misunderstanding which had crept into the church with regard to the second coming of Christ. Questions on Chapter 19 1. What practical question arose at Antioch after the Apostolic Council? 2. How did Paul show the agreement in principle between himself and Peter? 3. What was the inconsistency of Peter’s action? Did Paul necessarily condemn Jewish Christians who continued to observe the ceremonial law? What principle was at stake at Antioch? What does Paul in his Epistles say about Peter after this time? Was there any permanent disagreement? 4. Why did Paul separate from Barnabas at the beginning of the second missionary journey? What does Paul say afterwards about Barnabas? Was there any permanent disagreement between Paul and Barnabas or between Paul and Mark? 5. Describe what happened at Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth. 6. What was the occasion for the writing of I Thessalonians? of II Thessalonians? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 01.35. NT20. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY. ======================================================================== Chapter 20 : The Third Missionary Journey. The Epistle to the Galatians This following selection has been extracted from a joint work of J. Gresham Machen and James Oscar Boyd entitled "A Brief Bible History: A Survey of the Old and New Testaments" (The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1922), now in the public domain. At Corinth, on the second missionary journey, the Jews made charges the Roman proconsul Gallio against Paul. But Gallio dismissed the charges as concerning only the Jewish Law. It was an important decision. Judaism was tolerated in the Roman Empire, and if Christianity was regarded as a variety of Judaism it would be tolerated too. Such was usually the practice of the Roman authorities in the very early days; the Roman authorities often protected the Christian missionaries against the Jews. Finally leaving Corinth, Paul went by way of Ephesus, where he made only a brief stay, to Palestine and then back to Syrian Antioch. Acts 18:23-28, Acts 19:1-41, Acts 20:1-38, Acts 21:1-15 After having spent some time at Syrian Antioch, he started out on his third missionary journey. Acts 18:23-28, Acts 19:1-41, Acts 20:1-38, Acts 21:1-15. First he went through Asia Minor to Ephesus, apparently passing through Galatia proper on his way. At Ephesus he spent about three years. The Epistle to the Galatians It was probably during this Ephesian residence that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Galatians; and probably “the churches of Galatia” to which the Epistle is addressed were churches in Galatia proper in the northern part of the great Roman province Galatia. Another view regards the Epistle as being addressed to the well-known churches at Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, which were in the southern part of the Roman province. When this view is adopted, the writing of the Epistle is usually put at a somewhat earlier time in the life of Paul. The occasion for the writing of the Epistle to the Galatians can easily be discovered on the basis of the letter itself. After Paul had left Galatia, certain other teachers had come into the country. These teachers were men of the Jewish race, and they are usually called “Judaizers.” What they taught can be established fairly well on the basis of Paul’s answer to them. They agreed with Paul in believing that Jesus was truly the Messiah, and that he had risen from the dead. Apparently they had no objection to Paul’s doctrine of the deity of Christ, and they agreed, apparently, that faith in Christ is necessary to salvation. But they maintained that something elseis also necessary to salvation — namely, union with the nation of Israel and the keeping of the Mosaic Law. The Judaizers, then, maintained that a man is saved by faith and works; whereas Paul maintained that a man is saved by faith alone. The Galatian Christians had been impressed by what the Judaizers had said. Already they had begun to observe some of the Jewish fasts and feasts. And they were on the point of taking the decisive step of uniting themselves definitely with the people of Israel and undertaking the observance of the Mosaic Law. It was to keep them from taking that decisive step that Paul wrote the Epistle. At first sight the question at issue might seem to have little importance today. No one in the Church nowadays is in danger of uniting himself with Israel or undertaking to keep the ceremonial law. If Paul had treated the question in Galatia in a merely practical way, his letter would be of no value to us. But as a matter of fact Paul did not treat the questionin a merely practical way; he treated it as a question of principle. He saw clearly that what was really endangered by the propaganda of the Judaizers was the great principle of grace; and the true question was whether salvation is to be earned partly by what man can do or whether it is an absolutely free gift of God. That question is just as important in the modern Church as it was in Galatia in the first century. There are many in the modern Church who maintain that salvation is obtained by character, or by men’s own obedience to the commands of Christ, or by men’s own acceptance of Christ’s ideal of life. These are the modern Judaizers. And the Epistle to the Galatians is directed against them just as much as it was directed against the Judaizers of long ago. Paul refuted the Judaizers by establishing the meaning of the cross of Christ. Salvation, he said, was obtained simply and solely by what Christ did when he died for the sins of believers. The curse of God’s law, said Paul, rests justly upon all men, for all men have sinned. That curse of the law brings the penalty of death. But the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, took the penalty upon himself by dying instead of us. We therefore go free. Such is the gospel of Jesus Christ as preached by Paul, and as defended in the Epistle to the Galatians. That gospel, Paul said, is received by faith. Faith is not a meritorious act; it simply means accepting what Christ has done. It cannot be mingled with an appeal to human merit. Christ will do everything or nothing. Either accept as a free gift what Christ has done, or else earn salvation by perfect obedience. The latter alternative is impossible because of sin; the former, therefore, alone can make a man right with God. But acceptance of the saving work of Christ means more than salvation from guilt of sin; it means more than a fresh start in God’s favor. It means also salvation from the power of sin. All men, according to Paul, are dead in sin. Salvation, then, can come only by a new creation, as Paul calls it, or, as it is called elsewhere in the New Testament, a new birth. That new creation is wrought by the saving work of Christ, and applied by the Holy Spirit. And after the new creation has been wrought, there is a new life on the basis of it. In the new life there is still a battle against sin. But the Christian has received a new power, the power of the Holy Spirit. And when he yields himself to that new power, he fulfills in its deepest import the law of God. Only he fulfills it not by obedience in his own strength to a law which is outside of him, but by yielding to a power which God has placed in his heart. This new fulfillment of the law on the part of Christians is what Paul mean when he speaks of “faith working through love”; for love involves the fulfilment of the whole law. Such was the gospel of Paul as it is set forth in the Epistle to the Galatians. Paul had received it from the Lord Jesus Christ. Without it the Church is dead. It need not be put in long words, but it must be proclaimed without the slightest concession to human pride, if the Church is to be faithful to the Saviour who died. We deserved eternal death; the Lord Jesus, because he loved us, died in our stead — there is the heart and core of Christianity. Questions on Chapter 20. 1. Describe Paul’s first visit to Corinth.Where did Paul go at the beginning of the third missionary journey? 2. What was the occasion for the writing of the Epistle to the Galatians 3. What great principle is defended in the Epistle? 4. What is the meaning of the death of Christ? 5. What is the meaning of “justification by faith”? 6. Give an outline of the Epistle, showing the three great divisions. 7. Why does Paul give, in the first part of the Epistle, a review of certain facts in his life? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 01.36. NT21. THE THIRD MISSIONARY JOURNEY. ======================================================================== Chapter 21 : The Third Missionary Journey. The Epistles to Corinthians and to the Romans Another Epistle, in addition to the Epistle to the Galatians, was written by Paul at Ephesus on the third missionary journey. This was the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The First Epistle to the Corinthians I Corinthians, the details of congregational life are more fully discussed than in any other of the Epistles of Paul. Paul had received information about the Corinthian church partly through what was said by the “household of Chloe,” who had come to Ephesus from Corinth, and partly by a letter which the Corinthian church had written. The information was not all of a favorable character. In Corinth, a Christian church was in deadly battle with paganism — paganism in thought and paganism in life. But that battle was fought to a victorious conclusion, through the guidance of an inspired apostle, and through the Holy Spirit of God in the hearts of believers. First Paul dealt in his letter with the parties in the Corinthian church. The Corinthian Christians were in the habit of saying, “I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ,” 1 Corinthians 1:12; they seem to have been more interested in the particular form in which the gospel message was delivered than in the message itself. Paul treated the subject in a grand and lofty way. The party spirit in Corinth was merely one manifestation of intellectual pride. In reply, the apostle directed his readers to the true wisdom. And if you would possess that wisdom, he said, give up your quarreling and give up your pride. Then there was gross sin to be dealt with, and a certain lordly indifference to moral purity. In reply, Paul pointed to the true moral implications of the gospel, and to the law of love which sometimes, as in Paul’s own case, causes a Christian man to give up even privileges which might be his by right. In 1 Corinthians 12:1-31, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, 1 Corinthians 14:1-40 of the Epistle, Paul dealt with the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy and speaking with tongues. These gifts were not continued after the Apostolic Age. But it is important for us to know about them, and the principles which Paul used in dealing with them are of permanent validity. The greatest principle was the principle of love. It is in connection with the question of gifts of the Spirit that Paul wrote his wonderful hymn about Christian love. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Paganism of thought was creeping into the Corinthian church in connection with the doctrine of the resurrection. Paul dealt with this question by appealing to the plain historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. That fact itself had not been denied in Corinth. It was supported by the testimony not only of Paul himself, but also of Peter, of the apostles, and of five hundred brethren most of whom were still alive. Paul had received the account of the death, the burial, the resurrection, and the appearances of Jesus from Jerusalem and no doubt from Peter during the fifteen days which the two apostles had spent together three years after Paul’s conversion. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-7 Paul is reproducing the account which the primitive Jerusalem church gave of its own foundation. And in that account Christianity appears, not as an aspiration, not as mere devotion to an ideal of life, not as inculcation of a certain kind of conduct, but as “a piece of information” about something that had actually happened — namely the atoning death and glorious resurrection of Jesus our Lord. The Second Epistle to the Corinthians The First Epistle to the Corinthians did not end all difficulties in the Corinthian church. On the contrary, after the writing of that letter, certain miserable busybodies had sought to draw the Corinthian Christians away from their allegiance to the apostle. A brief visit which Paul had made to Corinth had not ended the trouble. At last Paul had left Ephesus in great distress. He had passed through a terrible personal danger, when he had despaired of life, but more trying still was the thought of Corinth. Finding no relief from his troubles he went to Troas and then across to Macedonia. There at length relief came. Titus, Paul’s helper, arrived with good news from Corinth; the church had returned to its allegiance. To give expression to his joy and thanksgiving, Paul wrote the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In the Epistle he also dealt with the matter of the collection for the poor at Jerusalem, and administered a last rebuke to the Corinthian trouble makers. In I Corinthians it is the congregation that is in the forefront of interest; in II Corinthians, on the other hand, it is the apostle and his ministry. In this letter, the Apostle Paul lays bare before his readers the very secrets of his heart, and reveals the glories of the ministry which God had intrusted to him. That ministry was the ministry of reconciliation. God and men had been separated by the great gulf of sin, which had brought men under God’s wrath and curse. Nothing that men could do could possibly bridge the gulf. But what was impossible with men was possible with God. By the redeeming work of Christ the gulf had been closed; all had been made right again between God and those for whom Christ died. The Epistle to the Romans Arriving at Corinth Paul spent three months in that city. During this time he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. Paul was intending to visit the city of Rome. The church at Rome had not been founded by him; it was important, therefore, that in order to prepare for his coming he should set forth plainly to the Romans the gospel which he proclaimed. That is what he does in the Epistle to the Romans. In the Epistle to the Romans, the way of salvation through Christ is set forth more fully than in any other book of the New Testament. In Galatians it is set forth in a polemic way, when Paul was in the midst of a deadly conflict against a religion of works; here it is set forth more calmly and more fully. In the first great division of the Epistle, Paul sets forth the universal need of salvation. The need is due to sin. All have sinned, and are under God’s just wrath and curse. Romans 1:1-32, Romans 2:1-29, Romans 3:1-20. But the Lord Jesus Christ bore that curse for all believers, by dying for them on the cross; he paid the just penalty of our sins, and clothed us with his perfect righteousness. Romans 3:21-31. This saving work of Christ, and the faith by which it is accepted, were set forth in the Old Testament Scriptures. Romans 4:1-25. The result of the salvation is peace with God, and an assured hope that what God has begun through the gift of Christ, he will bring to a final completion. Romans 5:1-11. Thus, as in Adam all died, by sharing in the guilt of Adam’s sin, so in Christ all believers are made alive. Romans 5:12-21. But, Paul goes on, the freedom which is wrought by Christ does mean freedom to sin; on the contrary it means freedom from the power of sin; it means a new life which is led by the power of God. Romans 6:1-23 What the law could not do, because the power of sin prevented men from keeping its commands, that Christ has accomplished. Romans 7:1-25. Through Christ, believers have been made sons of God; there is to them “no condemnation”; and nothing in this world or the, next shall separate them from the love of Christ. Romans 8:1-39. Toward the spread of this gospel, Paul goes on, the whole course of history has been made to lead. The strange dealings of God both with Jews and Gentiles are part of one holy and mysterious plan. Romans 9:1-33, Romans 10:1-21, Romans 11:1-36. In the last section of the Epistle, Paul shows how the glorious gospel which he has set forth results in holy living from day to day. Romans 12:1-21, Romans 13:1-14, Romans 14:1-23, Romans 15:1-33, Romans 16:1-27. Questions on Chapter 21 1. What was the occasion for the writing of I Corinthians? of II Corinthians? of Romans? 2. Give outlines of these three Epistles. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 01.37. NT22. THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT OF PAUL ======================================================================== Chapter 22 : The First Imprisonment of Paul After the three months which Paul spent at Corinth on the third missionary journey, he went up to Jerusalem in order to help bear the gifts which he had collected in the Gentile churches for the poor of the Jerusalem church. He was accompanied by a number of helpers, among them Luke, the writer of the Third Gospel and the book of The Acts. Luke had remained behind at Philippi on the second missionary journey, and now, several years later, he joined the apostle again. The portions of the journey where Luke was actually present are narrated in The Acts in great detail and with remarkable vividness. When Paul came to Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor, he sent to Ephesus for the elders of the Ephesian church, and when they came he held a notable farewell discourse. There was a touching scene when he finally parted from those who loved him so well. Acts 21:15-40, Acts 22:1-30, Acts 23:1-35, Acts 24:1-27, Acts 25:1-27, Acts 26:1-32, Acts 27:1-44, Acts 28:1-31 Despite prophecies of the imprisonment that awaited him Paul went bravely on to Jerusalem. There he was warmly received by James the brother of the Lord and by the church. Acts 21:15-26. But the non-Christian Jews falsely accused him of bringing Gentiles with him into the Temple. Acts 21:27-40. There was an onslaught against him, and he was rescued by the Roman chief captain, who took him into the Castle of Antonia which the Romans used to guard the Temple area. On the steps of the castle he was allowed to address the people, Acts 22:1-22, who listened to him at first because he used the Aramaic language instead of Greek, but broke out against him again when he spoke of his mission to the Gentiles. An appeal to his Roman citizenship saved Paul from scourging, Acts 22:23-29; and a hearing the next day before the sanhedrin, Acts 22:30, Acts 23:1-10, brought only a quarrel between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. That night Paul had a comforting vision of Christ. Acts 23:11. A plot of the Jews to waylay Paul and kill him was frustrated by Paul’s sister’s son, who told the chief captain. The chief captain sent the prisoner with an escort down to Caesarea where the procurator Felix had his residence. Acts 23:12-35. Hearings before Felix brought no decisive result, Acts 24:1-27, and Paul was left in prison at Caesarea for two years until Festus arrived as successor of Felix. Then, in order to prevent being taken to Jerusalem for trial, Paul exercised his right as a Roman citizen by appealing to the court of the emperor. Acts 25:1-12. Accordingly, after a hearing before Herod Agrippa II, who had been made king of a realm northeast of Palestine by the Romans, Acts 25:13; Acts 26:32, Paul was sent as a prisoner to Rome, Acts 27:1-44, Acts 28:1-16. On the journey lie was accompanied by Luke, who has given a detailed account of the voyage — an account which is not only perhaps the chief source of information about the seafaring of antiquity, but also affords a wonderful picture of the way Paul acted in a time of peril. The ship was wrecked on the island of Malta, and it was not until the following spring that the prisoner was brought to Rome. There he remained in prison for two years, chained to a soldier guard, but permitted to dwell in his own hired house and to receive visits from his friends. Acts 28:6-31. During this first Roman imprisonment Paul wrote four of his Epistles — to the Colossians and to Philemon, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians. Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians were all written at the same time. Colossians and Ephesians were both sent by the same messenger, Tychicus, and this messenger was accompanied by Onesimus, who bore the Epistle to Philemon. The Epistle to Philemon Onesimus was a slave who had run away from Philemon, his master. He then had been converted by Paul, and Paul was now sending him back to his master. The little letter which the apostle wrote on this occasion gives a wonderful picture of the way in which ordinary social relationships like that of master and servant may be made the means of expression of Christian love. Very beautiful also was the relation between Philemon and the apostle through whom he had been converted. The Epistle to the Colossians The church at Colossae, to which the Epistle to the Colossians is addressed, had been founded not by Paul but by one of his helpers, Epaphras. A certain type of false teaching had been brought into the church by those who laid stress upon angels in a way that was harmful to the exclusive position of Christ. In reply, Paul sets forth in the Epistle the majesty of Jesus, who existed from all eternity and was the instrument of God the Father in the creation of the world. This was no new teaching; it is always presupposed in the earlier Epistles of Paul, and about it there was no debate. But in the Epistles to the Colossians, in view of the error that was creeping through false speculation, Paul took occasion to set forth fully what in the former letters he had presupposed. The Epistle to the Ephesians The Epistle to the Ephesians is probably a circular letter addressed to a group of churches of which Ephesus was the center. In this letter the personal element is less prominent than in the other Pauline Epistles; Paul allows his mind to roam freely over the grand reaches of the divine economy. The Church is here especially in view. She is represented as the bride of Christ, and as the culmination of an eternal and gracious plan of God. The Epistle to the Philippians The Epistle to the Philippians was probably written later than the other Epistles of the first captivity. The immediate occasion for the writing of the letter was the arrival of a gift from the Philippian church, on account of which Paul desires to express his joy. Paul had always stood in a peculiarly cordial relation to his Philippian converts; he had been willing, therefore, to receive gifts from them, although in other churches he had preferred to make himself independent by laboring at his trade. But the letter is not concerned only or even chiefly with the gifts of the Philippian church. Paul desired also to inform his Philippian brethren about the situation at Rome. His trial is approaching; whether it results in his death or in his release, he is content. But as a matter of fact he expects to see the Philippians again. Moreover, Paul holds up in the letter the example of Christ, which was manifested in the great act of loving condescension by which he came into the world and endured for our sakes the accursed death on the cross. That humiliation of Christ, Paul says, was followed by exaltation; God has now given to Jesus the name that is above every name. At the conclusion of the two years in prison in Rome, Paul was released, probably in A.D. 63. This fact is attested not by the book of The Acts, of which the narrative closes at the end of the two years at Rome, but by the Pastoral Epistles of Paul and also by an Epistle of Clement of Rome which was written at about A.D. 95. Clement says that Paul went to Spain. This he probably did immediately after his release. He then went to the East again, for it was in the East that I Timothy and Titus were written. Questions on Chapter 22. 1. Outline the events in the life of Paul which occurred between the departure from Corinth and the end of the first Roman imprisonment. 2. What was the occasion for the writing of Colossians? of Philemon? of Ephesians? of Philippians? 3. Give outlines of these Epistles. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 01.38. NT23. THE CLOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE ======================================================================== Chapter 23 : The Close of the Apostolic Age The Pastoral Epistles It was observed in the last lesson that Paul was released, from his first Roman imprisonment, and went then to Spain and then to the East. At the time when I Timothy was written he has just left Timothy behind at Ephesus when he himself has gone into Macedonia, and now writes the letter with instructions for Timothy as to the way of conducting the affairs of the church. Similarly, the Epistle to Titus was written to guide Titus in his work on the island of Crete. After this last period of activity in the East, Paul was imprisoned again at Rome. During this second Roman imprisonment he wrote II Timothy, to encourage Timothy and instruct him, and to give to him and to the Church a farewell message just before his own death, which he was expecting very soon. The two Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus, which are called the Pastoral Epistles, are similar to one another in important respects. They all lay stress upon soundness of teaching and upon the organization of the Church. In the closing years of his life Paul provided for the permanence of his work; the period of origination was over and the period of conservation had begun. It was not God’s will that every Christian generation should have revealed to it anew the whole of the gospel. What is true in one age is true in all ages. It was a salutary thing, therefore, that the Pastoral Epistles provided for the preservation of the faith which was once for all delivered the saints. Soon after the writing of II Timothy, Paul was beheaded at Rome. This event, which is attested in altogether credible Christian tradition outside of the New Testament, took place within the reign of the Emperor Nero — that is, before A.D. 68. At the time of the great fire at Rome in A.D. 64 Nero had persecuted the Christians, as is narrated by Tacitus, the Roman historian. But at that time Paul probably escaped by being out of the city; his execution probably did not occur until several years later. At about the time of the death of Paul disastrous events were taking place in Palestine. James the brother of the Lord had been put to death by the Jews in A.D. 62, according to Josephus the Jewish historian, or a few years later according to another account. In A.D. 66 the Jews rose in revolt against the Romans. In the war that followed there was a terrible siege of Jerusalem. Before the siege the Christians in the city had fled to Pella, east of the Jordan. Jerusalem was captured by the Romans in A.D. 70, and the Temple destroyed. From that time on, the Church in Palestine ceased to be of great relative importance; the gospel had passed for the most part to the Gentiles. A number of the apostles remained for many years, I ever, to guide and instruct the Church, and important books of the New Testament were written in this period either by the apostles themselves or by those who stood under their direction. The Epistle to the Hebrews Even before the destruction of the Temple, the original disciples had begun to labor far and wide among the Gentiles. It was perhaps during this early period that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written. The name of the author is unknown, but the book is truly apostolic — that is, it was written either by an apostle or by one who wrote under the direction of the apostles. The Epistle is intended to celebrate the all-sufficiency of Christ as the great High Priest, who has made atonement by his own blood, as distinguished from the Old Testament types that were intended to point forward to him. The First Epistle of Peter Some years before the destruction of Jerusalem, the apostle Peter left Palestine. In the course of his missionary journeys he went to Rome, and it was perhaps from Rome that he wrote the First Epistle of Peter, the word “Babylon” in 1 Peter 5:13 being perhaps a figurative designation of Rome as the “Babylon” of that age. The Epistle was addressed to Christians in Asia Minor, and was intended to encourage the readers to Christian fortitude in the midst of persecution. The gospel proclaimed in the Epistle is the one great apostolic gospel of Christ’s redeeming work which was also proclaimed by Paul. The Second Epistle of Peter; The Epistle of Jude The Second Epistle of Peter was written by the apostle to warn his readers against false teaching and urge them to be faithful to the authority of the apostles and of the Scriptures. Closely related to II Peter is the Epistle of Jude, which was written by one of the brothers of Jesus. The apostle Peter, in accordance with a thoroughly credible Christian tradition, finally suffered a martyr’s death at Rome. The apostle John, the son of Zebedee, became the head of the Church in Asia Minor, where, at Ephesus, he lived until nearly the end of the first century. During this period he wrote five books of the New Testament. The Gospel According to John was written to supplement the other three Gospels which had long been in use. It contains much of the most precious and most profound teaching of our Lord, as it had been stored up in the memory of the “beloved disciple”; and it presents the glory of the Word of God as that glory had appeared on earth to an eyewitness. The Epistles of John The First Epistle of John was written in order to combat certain errors which were creeping into the Church in Asia Minor and in order to present to the readers the true Christian life of love, founded upon the Son of God who had come in the flesh, and begun by the new birth which makes a man a child of God. The Second Epistle of John is a very brief letter written to warn an individual church of the same kind of error as is combated in I John. The Third Epistle is addressed to an individual Christian named Gaius, who is praised for his hospitality to visiting missionaries, which was the more praiseworthy because it was in contrast to the inhospitality of a certain Diotrephes. The little letter sheds a flood of light upon the details of congregational life in the last period of the Apostolic Age. The Book of Revelation The book of Revelation is based upon a revelation which the apostle John had received during a banishment to the island of Patmos, off the coast of Asia Minor, not far from Ephesus. Probably the book itself was written on the same island. The book contains letters to seven churches of western Asia Minor which are intended to encourage or warn them in accordance with the needs of every individual congregation. The whole book is a tremendous prophecy, which strengthens the faith of the Church in the midst of persecutions and trials by revealing the plan of God, especially as it concerns the second coming of our Lord and the end of the world. Details of future events, especially times and seasons, are not intended to be revealed, but rather great principles both of good and of evil, which manifest themselves in various ways in the subsequent history of the Church. The prophecy, however, will receive its highest and final fulfillment only when Lord shall come again, and bring in the final reign of righteousness and the blessedness of those whom he has redeemed. Questions on Chapter 23 1. When, where, and why were the three Pastoral Epistles written? 2. Outline the life of Paul after his release from the first Roman imprisonment? 3. What is known about the latter part of the life of Peter? 4. What was the occasion for the writing of I Peter? of II Peter? of Jude? What are the characteristics of these Letters? 5. What is known about the latter part of the life of John? 6. What were the date and the purpose of the Gospel According John; of the Epistles of John; of the book of Revelation. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 02.00. AN APPEAL TO ALL THAT DOUBT ======================================================================== An Appeal to All that Doubt... AN APPEAL To all that Doubt, or Disbelieve The Truths of the Gospel, WHETHER They be DEISTS, ARIANS, SOCINIANS, Or Nominal Christians. IN WHICH The true Grounds and Reasons of the whole Christian FAITH and LIFE are plainly and fully demonstrated By WILLIAM LAW, M.A. To which are added, Some Animadversions upon Dr. Trapp’s Late Reply. LONDON: Printed for W. INNYS and J. RICHARDSON, in Pater Noster Row. 1740. An ADVERTISEMENT to the READER. I Have Nothing to say by way of Preface or Introduction. I only ask this Favor of the Reader, that he would not pass any Censure upon this Book, from only dipping into this, or that particular Part of it, but give it one fair Perusal in the Order it is written, and then I shall have neither Right, nor Inclination to complain of any Judgment he shall think fit to pass upon it. LawW ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 02.01. CHAPTER 1 ======================================================================== Chapter I. Of Creation in general. Of the Origin of the Soul. Whence Will and Thought are in the Creature. Why the Will is free. The Origin of Evil solely from the Creature. This World not a first, immediate Creation of God. How the World comes to be in its present State. The first Perfection of Man. All Things prove a Trinity in God. Man hath the triune Nature of God in Him. Arianism and Deism confuted by Nature. That Life is uniform through all Creatures. That there is but one kind of Death to be found in all Nature. The fallen Soul hath the Nature of Hell in it. Regeneration is a real Birth of a Divine Life in the Soul. That there is but one Salvation possible in Nature. This Salvation only to be had from Jesus Christ. All the Deist’s Faith and Hope proved to be false. It has been an opinion commonly received, though without any foundation in the light of nature, or scripture, that God created this whole visible world, and all things in it, out of nothing. Nay, that the souls of men, and the highest orders of beings, were created in the same manner. The scripture is very decisive against this original of the souls of men. For Moses saith, "God breathed into man (Spiraculum Vitarum) the breath of lives, and man became a living soul." Here the notion of a soul created out of nothing, is in the plainest, strongest manner rejected, by the first written Word of God; and no Jew or Christian can have the least excuse for falling into such an error; here the highest and most divine original is not darkly, but openly, absolutely, and in the strongest form of expression ascribed to the soul; it came forth as a breath of life, or lives, out from the mouth of God, and therefore did not come out of the womb of nothing, but is what it is, and has what it has in itself, from, and out of the first and highest of all beings. For to say that God breathed forth into man the breath of lives, by which he became a living soul, is directly saying, that that which was life, light, and Spirit in the living God, was breathed forth from him to become the life, light and spirit of a creature. The soul therefore being declared to be an effluence from God, a breath of God, must have the nature and likeness of God in it, and is, and can be nothing else, but something, or so much of the divine nature, become creaturely existing, or breathed forth from God, to stand before him in the form of a creature. When the animals of this world were to be created, it was only said, Let the earth, the air, the water bring forth creatures after their kinds; but when man was to be brought forth, it was said, "Let us make man in our own image and likeness." Is not this directly saying, Let man have his beginning and being out of us, that he may be so related to us in his soul and spirit, as the animals of this world are related to the elements from which they are produced. Let him so come forth from us, be so breathed out of us, that our triune, divine nature may be manifested in him, that he may stand before us as a creaturely image, likeness, and representative of that which we are in ourselves. Now, from this original doctrine of the creation of man, known to all the first inhabitants of the world, and published in the front of the first written Word of God; these great truths have been more or less declared to all the nations of the world. First, that all mankind are the created offspring of the one God. Secondly, that in all men there is a spirit or breath of lives, that did not begin to be out of nothing, or was created out of nothing; but came from the true God into man, as his own breath of life breathed into him. Thirdly, that therefore there is in all men, wherever dispersed over the earth, a divine, immortal, never-ending spirit, that can have nothing of death in it, but must live for ever, because it is the breath of the everliving God. Fourthly, that by this immortal breath, or Spirit of God in man, all mankind stand in the same nearness of relation to God, are all equally his children, are all under the same necessity of paying the same homage of love and obedience to him, all fitted to receive the same blessing and happiness from him, all created for the same eternal enjoyment of his love and presence with them, all equally called to worship and adore him in spirit and truth, all equally capable of seeking and finding him, of having a blessed union and communion with him. These great truths, the first pillars of all true and spiritual religion, on which the holy and divine lives of the ancient patriarchs was supported, by which they worshipped God in a true and right faith; these truths, I say, were most eminently and plainly declared in the express letter of the Mosaic writings, here quoted. And no writer, whether Jewish or Christian, has so plainly, so fully, so deeply laid open the true ground, and necessity of an eternal, never- ceasing relation between God, and all the human nature; no one has so incontestably asserted the immortality of the soul, or spirit of man; or so deeply laid open, and proved the necessity of one religion, common to all human nature, as the legislator of the Jewish theocracy had done. Life and immortality are indeed justly said to be brought to light by the gospel; not only because they there stand in a new degree of light, largely explained, and much appealed to, and absolutely promised by the Son of God himself, but chiefly because the precious means and mysteries of obtaining a blessed life, and a blessed immortality, were only revealed, or brought to light by the gospel. But the incontestable ground and reason of an immortal life, and eternal relation between God, and the whole human nature, and which lays all mankind under the same obligations to the same true worship of God, is most fully set forth by Moses, who alone tells us the true fact; how, and why man is immortal in his nature, viz., because the beginning of his life was a breath, breathed into him from God; and for this end, that he might be a living image and likeness of God, created to partake of the nature and immortality of God. This is the great doctrine of the Jewish legislator, and which justly places him amongst the greatest preachers of true religion. St. Paul used a very powerful argument to persuade the Athenians to own the true God, and the true religion, when he told them, "that God made the world and all things therein; that he giveth life and breath and all things; that he hath made of one blood, all nations of men to dwell on the earth; that they should all seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after, and find him, seeing he is not far from any of us, because in him we live, move, and have our being." {Acts 27:24} And yet this doctrine, which St. Paul preaches to the Athenians, is nothing else, but that same divine and heavenly instruction, which he had learnt from Moses, which Moses openly and plainly taught all the Jews. The Jewish theocracy therefore was by no means an intimation to that people, that they had no concern with the true God, but as children of this world, under his temporal protection or punishment; for their lawgiver left them no room for such a thought, because he had as plainly taught them their eternal nature and eternal relation, which they had to God in common with all mankind; as St. Paul did to the Athenians, who only set before them that very doctrine that Moses taught all the Jews. The great end of the Jewish theocracy was to show, both to Jew and gentile, the absolute, uncontrollable power of the one God, by such a covenanted interposition of his providence, that all the world might know, that the one God, from whom both Jew and gentile were fallen away, by departing from the faith and religion of their first fathers, was the only God, from whom all mankind could receive either blessing or cursing. This was the great thing intended to be proclaimed to all the world by this theocracy, viz., that only the God of Israel had power to save or destroy, to punish or reward, according to his pleasure; and that therefore all the gods of the heathens, were mere vanity. If therefore any Jews, by reason of those extraordinary temporal blessings and cursings which they received under their theocracy, grew grossly ignorant, or dully senseless of their eternal nature, and eternal relation to God, and of that one true religion, which by nature they were obliged to observe in common with all mankind; if they took God only to be their local or tutelary deity, and themselves to be only animals of this world; such a grossness of belief was no more to be charged upon their great lawgiver, Moses, than if they had believed, that a golden calf was their true god. But to return to the creation. 2. It is the same impossibility for a thing to be created out of nothing, as to be created by nothing. {See Spirit of Prayer, Part II, page 58, &c. Way to Divine Knowledge, page 247, &c.} It is no more a part, or prerogative of God’s omnipotence to create a being out of nothing, than to make a thing to be, without any one quality of being in it; or to make, that there should be three, where there is neither two, nor one. Every creature is nothing else, but nature put into a certain form of existence; and therefore a creature not formed out of nature, is a contradiction. A circle, or a square cannot be made out of nothing, nor could any power bring them into existence, but because there is an extension in nature, that can be put into the form of a circle, or a square: but if dead figures cannot by any power be made out of nothing, who sees not the impossibility of making living creatures, angels, and the souls of men out of nothing? 3. Thinking and willing are eternal, they never began to be. Nothing can think, or will now, in which there was not will and thought from all eternity. For it is as possible for thought in general to begin to be, as for that which thinks in a particular creature to begin to be of a thinking nature: therefore the soul, which is a thinking, willing being is come forth, or created out of that which hath willed and thought in God, from all eternity. The created soul is a creature of time, and had its beginning on the sixth day of the creation; but the essences of the soul, which were then formed into a creature, and into a state of distinction from God, had been in God from all eternity, or they could not have been breathed forth from God into the form of a living creature. And herein lies the true ground and depth of the uncontrollable freedom of our will and thoughts: they must have a self- motion, and self-direction, because they came out of the self-existent God. They are eternal, divine powers, that never began to be, and therefore cannot begin to be in subjection to any thing. That which thinks and wills in the soul, is that very same unbeginning breath which thought and willed in God, before it was breathed into the form of an human soul; and therefore it is, that will and thought cannot be bounded or constrained. Herein also appears the high dignity, and never-ceasing perpetuity of our nature. The essences of our souls can never cease to be, because they never began to be: and nothing can live eternally, but that which hath lived from all eternity. The essences of our soul were a breath in God before they became a living soul, they lived in God before they lived in the created soul, and therefore the soul is a partaker of the eternity of God, and can never cease to be. Here, O man, behold the great original, and the high state of thy birth; here let all that is within thee praise thy God, who has brought thee into so high a state of being, who has given thee powers as eternal and boundless as his own attributes, that there might be no end or limits of thy happiness in him. Thou begannest as time began, but as time was in eternity before it became days and years, so thou wast in God before thou wast brought into the creation: and as time is neither a part of eternity, nor broken off from it, yet come out of it; so thou art not a part of God, nor broken off from him, yet born out of him. Thou shouldst only will that which God willeth, only love that which he loveth, cooperate, and unite with him in the whole form of thy life; because all that thou art, all that thou hast, is only a spark of his own life and Spirit derived into thee. If thou desirest, and turn towards the sun, all the blessings of the Deity will spring up in thee; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will make their abode with thee. If thou turnest in towards thyself, to live to thyself, to be happy in the workings of an own will, to be rich in the sharpness and acuteness of thy own reason, thou choosest to be a weed, and canst only have such a life, spirit and blessing from God, as a thistle has from the sun. But to return. 4. To suppose a willing, understanding being, created out of nothing, is a great absurdity. For as thinking and willing must have always been from all eternity, or they could never have been either in eternity, or time; so, wherever they are found in any particular, finite beings, they must of all necessity, be direct communications, or propagations of that thinking and willing, which never could begin to be. The creation therefore of a soul, is not the creation of thinking and willing, or the making that to be, and to think, which before had nothing of being, or thought; but it is the bringing the powers of thinking and willing out of their eternal state in the one God, into a beginning state of a self-conscious life, distinct from God. And this is God’s omnipotent, creating ability, that he can make the powers of his own nature become creatural, living, personal images of what he is in himself, in a state of distinct personality from him: so that the creature is one, in its finite, limited state, as God is one, and yet hath nothing in it, but that which was in God before it came into it: for the creature, be it what it will, high or low, can be nothing else, but a limited participation of the nature of the creator. Nothing can be in the creature, but what came from the creator, and the creator can give nothing to the creature, but that which it hath in itself to give. And if beings could be created out of nothing, the whole creation could be no more a proof of the being of God, than if it had sprung up of itself out of nothing: for if they are brought into being out of nothing, then they can have nothing of God in them; and so can bear no testimony of God; but are as good a proof, that there is no God, as that there is one. But if they have anything of God in them, then they cannot be said to be created out of nothing. 5. That the souls of men were not created out of nothing, but are born out of an eternal original, is plain from hence; from that delight in, and desire of eternal existence, which is so strong and natural to the soul of man. For nothing can delight in, or desire eternity, or so much as form a notion of it, or think upon it, or any way reach after it, but that alone which is generated from it, and come out of it. For it is a self-evident truth, that nothing can look higher, or further back, than into its own original; and therefore, nothing can look or reach back into eternity, but that which came out of it. This is as certain, as that a line reaches, and can reach no further back, than to that point from whence it arose. Our bodily eyes are born out of the firmamental light of this world, and therefore they can look no further than the firmament: but our thoughts know no bounds; therefore they are come out of that which is boundless. The eyes of our minds can look as easily backwards into that eternity which always hath been, as into that which ever shall be; and therefore it is plain, that that which thinks and wills in us, which so easily, so delightfully, so naturally penetrates into all eternity, has always had an eternal existence, and is only a ray or spark of the divine nature, brought out into the form of a creature, or a limited, personal existence, by the creating power of God. 6. Again. Every soul shrinks back, and is frightened at the very thought of falling into nothing. Now this undeniably proves, that the soul was not created out of nothing. For it is an eternal truth, spoken by all nature, that everything strongly aspires after, and cannot be easy, till it finds and enjoys that original out of which it arose. If the soul therefore was brought forth out of nothing, all its being would be a burden to it; it would want to be dissolved, and to be delivered from every kind and degree of sensibility; and nothing could be so sweet and agreeable to it, as to think of falling back into that nothingness, out of which it was called forth by its creation. Thus is the eternal, immortal, divine nature of the soul, which the schools prove with so much difficulty one of the most obvious, self-evident truths in all nature. For nothing but that which is eternal in its own nature, can have the least thought about eternity. If a beast had not the nature of the earth in it, nothing that is on the earth, or springs out of it, could be in the least degree agreeable to it, or desired by it. If the soul had not the nature of eternity in it, nothing that is eternal could give it the smallest pleasure, or be able to make any kind of impression upon it. For as nothing can taste, or relish, or enter into the agreeable sensations of this world, but that which hath the nature of this world in it; so nothing can taste, or relish, or look into eternity with any kind of pleasure, but that which hath the nature of eternity in it. 7. If the soul was not born, or created out of God, it could have no happiness in God, no desire, nor any possibility of enjoying him. If it had nothing of God in it, it must stand in the utmost distance of contrariety to him, and be utterly incapable of living, moving, and having its being in God: for everything must have the nature of that, out of which it was created, and must live, and have its being in that root or ground from whence it sprung. If therefore there was nothing of God in the soul, nothing that is in God could do the soul any good, or have any kind of communication with it; but the gulf of separation between God and the soul, would be even greater than that which is between heaven and hell. 8. But let us rejoice, that our soul is a thinking, willing being, full of thoughts, cares, longings, and desires of eternity; for this is our full proof, that our descent is from God himself, that we are born out of him, breathed forth from him; that our soul is of an eternal nature, made a thinking, willing, understanding creature out of that which hath willed and thought in God from all eternity; and therefore must, for ever and ever, be a partaker of the eternity of God. And here you may behold the sure ground of the absolute impossibility of the annihilation of the soul. Its essences never began to be, and therefore can never cease to be; they had an eternal reality before they were in, or became a distinct soul, and therefore they must have the same eternal reality in it. It was the eternal breath of God before it came into man, and therefore the eternity of God must be inseparable from it. It is no more a property of the divine omnipotence to be able to annihilate a soul, than to be able to make an eternal truth become a fiction of yesterday: and to think it a lessening of the power of God, to say, that he cannot annihilate the soul, is as absurd, as to say, that it is a lessening of the light of the sun, if it cannot destroy, or darken its own rays of light. O, dear reader, stay a while in this important place, and learn to know thyself: all thy senses make thee to know and feel, that thou standest in the vanity of time; but every motion, stirring, imagination, and thought of thy mind, whether in fancying, fearing, or loving everlasting life, is the same infallible proof, that thou standest in the midst of eternity, art an offspring and inhabitant of it, and must be for ever inseparable from it. Ask when the first thought sprung up, find out the birth-day of truth, and then thou wilt have found out, when the essences of thy soul first began to be. Were not the essences of thy soul as old, as unbeginning, as unchangeable, as everlasting as truth itself, truth would be at the same distance from thee, as absolutely unfit for thee, as utterly unable to have any communion with thee, as to be the food of a worm. The ox could not feed upon the grass, or receive any delight or nourishment from it, unless grass and the ox had one and the same earthly nature and original; thy mind could receive no truth, feel no delight and satisfaction in the certainty, beauty, and harmony of it, unless truth and the mind stood both in the same place, had one and the same unchangeable nature, unbeginning original. If there will come a time, when thought itself shall cease, when all the relations and connections of truth shall be untied; then, but not till then, shall the knot, or band of thy soul’s life be unloosed. It is a spark of the Deity, and therefore has the unbeginning, unending life of God in it. It knows nothing of youth, or age, because it is born eternal. It is a life that must burn for ever, either as a flame of light and love in the glory of the divine majesty, or as a miserable firebrand in that god, which is a consuming fire. 9. It is impossible, that this world, in the state and condition it is now in, should have been an immediate and original creation of God: this is as impossible, as that God should create evil, either natural or moral. That this world hath evil in all its parts; that its matter is in a corrupt, disordered state, full of grossness, disease, impurity, wrath, death and darkness, is as evident, as that there is light, beauty, order and harmony everywhere to be found in it. Therefore it is as impossible, that this outward state and condition of things, should be a first and immediate work of God, as that there should be good and evil in God himself. All storms and tempests, every fierceness of heat, every wrath of cold proves with the same certainty, that outward nature is not a first work of God, as the selfishness, envy, pride, wrath, and malice of devils, and men proves, that they are not in the first state of their creation. As no kind or degree of moral evil could possibly have its cause in, or from God, so there cannot be the least shadow of imperfection and disorder in outward nature, but what must have sprung up in the same manner, and from the same causes, as sickness and corrupt flesh is come into the human body, namely, from the sin of the creature. Storms, tempests, gravel, stone, sour and dead earth are the same things, the same diseases, the same effects of sin, produced in the same manner in the outward body of nature, as corrupt flesh, fevers, dropsies, plagues, gravel, stone, and gout, are produced in the outward body of man. For that, and that only which produces stone in the body of man, did produce stone in the outward nature, as shall plainly appear by and by. For nature within, and without man, is one and the same, and has but one and the same way of working; a stone in the body, and a stone out of the body of man, proceeds from one and the same disorder of nature. When therefore you see a diseased, gouty, leprous, asthmatical, scorbutic man, you can with the utmost certainty say, this is not that human body which God first created in paradise; so, when you see the disorders of heat and cold, the poisonous earth, unfruitful seasons, and malignant qualities of outward nature, you can with the same certainty affirm, this state of nature is not a first creation of God, but that same must have happened to it, which has happened to the body of man. For dark, sour, hard, dead earth, can no more be a first, immediate creation of God, than a wrathful devil, as such, can be created by him. For dark, sour, dead earth is as disordered in its kind, as the devils are, and has as certainly lost its first heavenly condition and nature, as the devils have lost theirs. But now, as in man, the little world, there is excellency and perfection enough to prove, that human nature is the work of an all-perfect being, yet, so much impurity and disease of corrupt flesh and blood, as undeniably shows, that sin has almost quite spoiled the work of God. So, in the great world, the footsteps of an infinite wisdom in the order and harmony of the whole, sufficiently appears; yet, the disorders, tumults, and evils of nature, plainly demonstrate, that the present condition of this world is only the remains or ruins, first, of a heaven spoiled by the fall of angels, and then of a paradise lost by the sin of man. So that man, and the world in which he lives, lie both in the same state of disorder and impurity, have both the same marks of life and death in them, both bring forth the same sort of evils, both want a redeemer, and have need of the same kind of death and resurrection, before they can come to their first state of purity and perfection. 10. That this outward world was not created out of nothing, is plainly taught by St. Paul, who declares, Romans 1:20, that the creation of the world is out of the invisible things of God; so that the outward condition and frame of invisible nature, is a plain manifestation of that spiritual world from whence it is descended. For as every outside necessarily supposes an inside, and as temporal light and darkness must be the product of eternal light and darkness, so this outward, visible state of things necessarily supposes some inward, invisible state, from whence it is come into this degree of outwardness. Thus all that is on earth is only a change or alteration of something that was in heaven: and heaven itself is nothing else but the first glorious out-birth, the majestic manifestation, the beatific visibility of the one God in Trinity. And thus we find out, how this temporal nature is related to God; it is only a gross out-birth of that which is an eternal nature, or a blessed heaven, and stands only in such a degree of distance from it, as water does to air; and this is the reason why the last fire will, and must turn this gross, temporal nature into its first, heavenly state. But to suppose the gross matter of this world to be made out of nothing, or compacted nothing, is more absurd, than to suppose ice that has congealed nothing, a yard that is not made up of inches, or a pound that is not the product of ounces. 11. And indeed to suppose this, or any other material world to be made out of nothing, has all the same absurdities in it, as the supposing angels and spirits, to be created out of nothing. All the qualities of all beings are eternal; no real quality or power can appear in any creature, but what has its eternal root, or generating cause in the creator. If a quality could begin to be in a creature, which did not always exist in the creator, it would be no absurdity to say, that a thing might begin to be, without any cause either of its beginning, or being. All qualities, properties, or whatever can be affirmed of God, are self-existent, and necessary existent. Self and necessary existence is not a particular attribute of God, but is the general nature of everything that can be affirmed of God. All qualities and properties are self-existent in God: now, they cannot change their nature when they are derived, or formed into creatures, but must have the same self-birth, and necessary existence in the creature, which they had in the creator. The creature begins to be, when, and as it pleased God; but the qualities which are become creaturely, and which constitute the creature, are self-existent, just as the same qualities are in God. Thus, thinking, willing, and desire can have no outward maker, their maker is in themselves, they are self- existent powers wherever they are, whether in God, or in the creature, and as they form themselves in God, so they form themselves in the creature. But now, if no quality can begin to be, if all the qualities and powers of creatures must be eternal and necessary existent in God, before they can have any existence in any creature; then it undeniably follows, that every created thing must have its whole nature from, and out of the divine nature. All qualities are not only good, but infinitely perfect, as they are in God; and it is absolutely impossible, that they should have any evil or defect in them, as they are in the one God, who is the great and universal all. Because, where all properties are, there must necessarily be an all possible perfection: and that which must always have all in itself, must, by an absolute necessity, be always all perfect. But the same qualities, thus infinitely good and perfect in God, may become imperfect and evil in the creature; because in the creature, being limited and finite, they may be divided and separated from one another by the creature itself. Thus strength and fire in the divine nature, are nothing else but the strength and flame of love, and never can be anything else; but in the creature, strength and fire may be separated from love, and then they are become an evil, they are wrath and darkness, and all mischief: and thus that same strength and quality, which in creatures making a right use of their own will, or self-motion, becomes their goodness and perfection, doth in creatures making a wrong use of their will, become their evil and mischievous nature; and it is a truth that deserves well to be considered, that there is no goodness in any creature, from the highest to the lowest, but in its continuing to be such an union of qualities and powers, as God has brought together in its creation. In the highest order of created beings, this is their standing in their first perfection, this is their fulfilling of the whole will or law of God, this is their piety, their song of praise, their eternal adoration of their great creator. On the other hand, there is no evil, no guilt, no deformity in any creature, but in its dividing and separating itself from something which God had given to be in union with it. This, and this alone, is the whole nature of all good, and all evil in the creature, both in the moral and natural world, in spiritual and material things. For instance, dark, fiery wrath in the soul, is not only very like, but it is the self-same thing in the soul which a wrathful poison is in the flesh. Now, the qualities of poison are in themselves, all of them good qualities, and necessary to every life; but they are become a poisonous evil, because they are separated from some other qualities. Thus also the qualities of fire and strength that constitute an evil wrath in the soul, are in themselves very good qualities, and necessary to every good life; but they are become an evil wrath, because separated from some other qualities with which they should be united. The qualities of the devil and all fallen angels, are good qualities; they are the very same which they received from their infinitely perfect creator, the very same which are, and must be in all heavenly angels; but they are an hellish, abominable malignity in them now, because they have, by their own self-motion, separated them from the light and love which should have kept them glorious angels. And here may be seen at once, in the clearest light, the true origin of all evil in the creation, without the least imputation upon the creator. God could not possibly create a creature to be an infinite all, like himself: God could not bring any creature into existence, but by deriving into it the self-existent, self-generating, self-moving qualities of his own nature: for the qualities must be in the creature, that which they were in the creator, only in a state of limitation; and therefore, every creature must be finite, and must have a self-motion, and so must be capable of moving right and wrong, of uniting or dividing from what it will, or of falling from that state in which it ought to stand: but as every quality, in every creature, both within and without itself is equally good, and equally necessary to the perfection of the creature, since there is nothing that is evil in it, nor can become evil to the creature, but from itself, by its separating that from itself, with which it can, and ought to be united, it plainly follows, that evil can no more be charged upon God, than darkness can be charged upon the sun; because every quality is equally good, every quality of fire is as good as every quality of light, and only becomes an evil to that creature, who, by his own self-motion, has separated fire from the light in his own nature. 12. If a delicious, fragrant fruit had a power of separating itself from that rich spirit, fine taste, smell, and color which it receives from the virtue of the sun, and the spirit of the air; or if it could in the beginning of its growth, turn away from the sun, and receive no virtue from it, then it would stand in its own first birth of wrath, sourness, bitterness, and astringency, just as the devils do, who have turned back into their own dark root, and rejected the Light and Spirit of God: so that the hellish nature of a devil is nothing else, but its own first forms of life, withdrawn, or separated from the heavenly light and love; just as the sourness, astringency, and bitterness of a fruit, are nothing else but the first forms of its own vegetable life before it has reached the virtue of the sun, and the spirit of the air. And as a fruit, if it had a sensibility of itself, would be full of torment, as soon as it was shut up in the first forms of its life, in its own astringency, sourness, and stinging bitterness: so the angels, when they had turned back into these very same first forms of their own life, and broken off from the heavenly light and love of God, they became their own hell. No hell was made for them, no new qualities came into them, no vengeance or pains from the God of love fell upon them; they only stood in that state of division and separation from the Son, and Holy Spirit of God, which, by their own motion, they had made for themselves. They had nothing in them, but what they had from God, the first forms of an heavenly life, nothing but what the most heavenly beings have, and must have, to all eternity; but they had them in a state of self-torment, because they had separated them from that birth of light and love, which alone could make them glorious sons, and blessed images of the Holy Trinity. The same strong desire, fiery wrath, and stinging motion is in holy angels, that is in devils, just as the same sourness, astringency, and biting bitterness is in a full ripened fruit, which was there before it received the riches of the light and spirit of the air. In a ripened fruit, its first sourness, astringency, and bitterness is not lost, nor destroyed, but becomes the real cause of all its rich spirit, fine taste, fragrant smell, and beautiful color; take away the working, contending nature of these first qualities, and you annihilate the spirit, taste, smell, and virtue of the fruit, and there would be nothing left for the sun and the spirit of the air to enrich. Just in the same manner, that which in a devil is an evil selfishness, a wrathful fire, a stinging motion, is in an holy angel, the everlasting kindling of a divine life, the strong birth of an heavenly love, it is a real cause of an everlasting, ever-triumphing joyfulness, an ever-increasing sensibility of bliss. Take away the working, contending nature of these first qualities, which in a devil, are only a serpentine selfishness, wrath, fire, and stinging motion; take away these, I say, from holy angels, and you leave them neither light, nor love, nor heavenly glory, nothing for the birth of the Son, Holy Spirit of God to rise up in. So that here you may see this glorious truth, that the love and goodness of God is as plain and undeniable in having given to the fallen angels, those very qualities and powers which are now their hell, as in giving the first sourness, astringency and bitterness to fruits, which alone makes them capable of their delicious spirit, taste, color, and smell. 13. And thus you see the uniform life of all the creatures of God; how they are all raised, enriched, and blessed by the same life of God, derived into different kingdoms of creatures. For the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in fruits, and the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in angels, are not only like to one another, but are the very same thing, or the workings of the very same qualities, only in different kingdoms. Astringency in a fruit, is the very same quality, and does the same work in a fruit, that attracting desire does in a spiritual being; it is the same beginner, former, and supporter of a creaturely life in the one, as in the other. No creature in heaven, or earth, can begin to be, but by this astringency, or desire, being made the ground of it: and yet this astringency kept from the virtue of the sun, can only produce a poisonous fruit, and this astringent desire in an angel, turned from the light of God, can only make a devil. The biting, stinging bitterness of a fruit, if you could add thought to it, would be the very gnawing envy of the devil: and the envious motion in the devil’s nature, would be nothing else but that stinging bitterness which is in a fruit, if you could take thought from the devil’s motion. 14. From this attraction, astringency, or desire, which is one and the same quality in every individual thing, which is the first form of being and life, the very ground of every creature, from the highest angel to the lowest vegetable, we are led by an unerring thread to the first desire, or that desire which is in the divine nature. For as this attraction, or astringent desire is in spiritual and corporeal things, one and the same quality, working in the same manner, so is it one and the same quality with that first, unbeginning desire, which is in the divine nature. That there is an attracting desire in the divine nature, is undeniable, because attraction is essential to all bodies; and desire, which is the same quality, is absolutely inseparable from all intelligible beings; therefore, that which is necessarily existent in the creature, upon the supposition of its creation, must necessarily be in the creator; because no inherent, operative quality can be in the creature, unless the same kind of quality had always been in the creator: therefore, attraction or desire, which are inseparable from every created being and life, are only various participations of the divine nature; or emanations from it, formed into different kingdoms of creatures, and working in all of them according to their respective natures. In vegetables, it is that attraction, or desire, which brings every growing thing to its highest perfection: in angels, it is that blessed hunger, by which they are filled with the divine nature: in devils, it is turned into that serpentine selfishness, or crooked desire, which makes them a hell and torment to themselves. 15. On the other hand, as we thus prove a posteriori, from a view of the creature, that there must be an attracting desire in the divine nature; so we can prove a priori also, from a consideration of God, that there must be an attracting desire in everything that ever was, or can be created by God: for nothing can come into being, but because God wills and desires it; therefore the desire of God is the creator, the original of everything. The creating will, or desire of God, is not a distant, or separate thing, as when a man wills or desires something to be done, or removed at a distance from him; but it is an omnipresent, working will and desire, which is itself, the beginning and forming of the thing desired. Our own will, and desirous imagination, when they work and create in us a settled aversion, or fixed love of anything, resemble in some degree, the creating power of God, which makes things out of itself, or its own working desire. And our will, and working imagination could not have the power that it has now even after the fall, but because it is a product, or spark of that first divine will or desire which is omnipotent. 16. Here therefore we have plainly found the true original, or first source of all things. The desire of God is the first former, generator, and creator of all things; they are all the births of this omnipotent, working desire; for everything that comes into being, must have the nature of that power that formed it, and therefore the nature of every creature must stand in an attractive desire, that is, everything must be a created, attractive power; because it is the birth, or product of a desire, or attractive power, and could neither come into, nor continue in being, but because it was generated not only by, but out of an attracting desire. And herein lies the band, or knot of all created being and life. 17. Will or desire in the Deity, is justly considered as God the Father, who from eternity to eternity, wills or generates only the Son, from which eternal generating, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds: and this is the infinite perfection or fullness of beatitude of the life of the Triune God. Now, as the unbeginning, eternal desire is in God, so is the created desire in the creature; it stands in the same tendency, hath the nature of the divine desire, because it is a branch out of it, or created from it. In the Deity, the eternal will or desire, is a desiring, or generating the Son, whence the Holy Spirit proceeds; the desire that is come out of God in the form of a creature, has the same tendency, it is a desire of the Son and Holy Spirit. And every created thing in heaven and earth attains its perfection, by its gaining in some degree, the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it: for all attraction and desire in the creature, generates in them as it did in God; and so the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God arises in some degree, or other, in all creatures that are in their proper state of perfection. 18. And here lies the ground of that plain, and most fundamental doctrine of scripture, that the Father is the creator, the Son the regenerator, and the Holy Spirit the sanctifier. For what is this but saying in the plainest manner, that as there are three in God, so there must be three in the creature, that as the three stand related to one another in God, so must they stand in the same relation in the creature. For if a threefold life of God must have distinct shares in the creation, blessing, and perfection of man, is it not a demonstration, that the life of man must stand in the same threefold state, and have such a Trinity in it, as has its true likeness to that Trinity which is in God? That which generates in God, must generate in the creature; and that which is generated in God, must be generated in the creature; and that which proceeds from this generation in the Deity, must proceed from this generation in the creature: and therefore, the same threefold life must be in the creature in the same manner as it is in God. For a creature that can only exist, and be blessed by the distinct operation of a Triune God upon it, must have the same Triune nature that is answerable to it. And herein lies our true, and easy, and sound, and edifying knowledge and belief of the mystery of a Trinity in Unity: and this is all that the scripture teaches us concerning it. It is not a doctrine that requires learned or nice speculations, in order to be rightly apprehended by us. But when with the scriptures, we believe the Father to be our creator, the Son our regenerator, and the Holy Spirit our sanctifier; then we are learned enough in this mystery, and begin to know the Triune God in the same manner in time, that we shall know him in eternity. And the reason why this great mystery of a Trinity in the Deity is thus revealed to us, and the necessity of a baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, laid upon us, is this; it is to show us, that the divine, Triune life of God is lost in us, and that nothing less than a birth from the Son and Holy Spirit of God in us, can restore us to our first likeness to that Triune God, who at first created us. This I have fully shown in the little treatise upon regeneration. 19. When man was created in his original perfection, the Holy Trinity was his creator; the breath of lives, which became a living soul, was the breath of the Triune God: but when man began to will, and desire, that is, to generate contrary to the Deity, then the life of the Triune God extinguished in him. The desire of man being turned from God, lost the birth of the Son, and the proceeding of the Holy Spirit; and so fell into, or under the light and spirit of this world: that is, of a paradisaical man, enjoying union and communion with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and living on earth in such enjoyment of God, as the angels live in heaven, he became an earthly creature, subject to the dominion of this outward world, capable of all its evil influences, subject to its vanity and mortality; and as to his outward life, stood only in the highest rank of animals. This and this alone, is the true nature and degree of the fall of man; it was neither more nor less than this. It was a falling out of one world, or kingdom, into another, it was changing the life, Light and Spirit of God, for the light and spirit of this world. Thus it was that Adam died the very day of his transgression, he died to all the influences and operations of the kingdom of God upon him, as we die to the influences of this world, when the soul leaves the body; and, on the other hand, all the influences, operations and powers of the elements of this life became opened in him, as they are in every animal at its birth into this world. All other accounts of that fall, which only suppose the loss of some moral perfection, or natural acuteness of his rational powers, are not only senseless fictions, but are an express denial of the Old and New Testament account of it; for the Old Testament expressly says, that Adam was to die the day of his transgression, and therefore it is certain, that he then did die, and that the fall was his losing his first life: and to say that he did not die to that first life in which he was created, is the same denial of scripture, as to say, that he did not eat of the forbidden tree. Again, the same scripture assures us, that after the fall, his eyes were opened; I suppose this is a proof, that before the fall, they were shut. And what is this, but saying in the plainest manner, that before the fall, the life, light and spirit of this world, were shut out of him? and that the opening of his eyes, was only another way of saying, that the life and light of this world were opened in him? If an angel, or any inhabitant of heaven, was to be sent of a message into this world, it must be supposed, that neither the darkness, nor light of this world, could act according to their nature upon him; and therefore, though he was here, he must be said not to have the opened eyes of this world: but if this heavenly messenger should be taken with our manner of life, should be in doubts about returning to heaven, and long to have such flesh and blood as ours is, as earnestly as Adam longed to eat of the earthly tree; and if by this longing, he should actually obtain that which he desired; must it not then be said of him, when he had got this new nature, his eyes were opened, to see light and darkness; and that only for this reason, because the heavenly life was departed from him, and the earthly life of this world was opened in him? And thus it was that Adam died, and thus his eyes were opened. Again, when his eyes were thus opened, or the light and life of this world thus opened in him, he was immediately ashamed and shocked at the sight of his own body, and wanted to hide it from himself, and from the sight of the sun. Now, how could this have happened to him, if his body had not undergone some very extraordinary change, from a state of glory and perfection, to a lamentable degree of vileness and impurity? All the terror at his fallen state, seems to arise from the sad condition, in which he saw and felt his outward body. This made him ashamed of himself; this made him tremble, at hearing the voice of God; this made him creep behind the trees, and endeavor to hide and cover his body with leaves. And is not this the same thing, as if Adam had said, "All my sin, my guilt, my misery, and shame, is published before heaven and earth, by this sad state and condition in which my body now appears." But now, what was this sad state and condition of his body? What did Adam see in the manner and form of it that filled him with such confusion? Why, he only saw that he was fallen from his paradisaical glory, to have the same gross flesh and blood as the beasts and animals of this world have; which was, to bring forth an offspring in the same earthly manner, as they did. He could see, and be ashamed of no other deformity in his body, but that which he had in common with the animals of this world; and therefore there was nothing else in his outward form that he could be ashamed of; and yet it was his outward form that filled him with confusion. And is not this the greatest of all proofs, that before his fall, his body had not this nature and condition of the beasts in it? Is it not the same thing, as if he had said, "this body which now makes me ashamed, and which I want to hide, though it be only with thin leaves, because it brings me down amongst the animals of this world, is not that first body of glory into which God at first breathed the breath of lives, and in which I became a living soul." Again, if Adam’s body had been of the same kind of flesh and blood as ours is now, only in a better state of health and vigor, how could he have been created immortal? If he was not created immortal, how can it be said, that sin alone brought mortality, or death into human nature? But if he had immortality in his first created state, then he must have such a body as none of the elements, or elementary things of this world could act upon; for there is no death in any creature of this world, but what is brought upon it by that strife and destruction which the four elements bring upon one another. But if sin alone gave the elements, and all elementary things their first power of acting upon the body of Adam; then it is plain, that before his sin, he had not, could not have a body of such flesh and blood as we now have, but that he stood, as to the state, nature, and condition of his outward body, at as great a distance and difference from the animals of this world, as heaven does from earth, and was created with flesh and blood as much exalted above, and superior to the nature and power of all the elements, as the beasts of this world are under them. And herein plainly appears the true sense of that saying, "God made not death," that is, he made not that which is mortal, or dying in the human nature, but sin alone formed and produced that in man, which could, and must die like the bodies of beasts. Death, and the grave, and the resurrection, are all standing proofs, that the body of bestial flesh and blood, which we now have, at the sight of which Adam was ashamed, which must die, which can rot in the grave, which must not be seen after the resurrection, was not that first body, in which Adam appeared before God in paradise: for it is an undeniable truth of scripture, that this flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God; it must be a truth of the same certainty, that this flesh and blood could not by God himself be brought into paradise; but that it must have the same original with every other polluted thing that is an abomination in his sight, or incapable of entering into the kingdom of God. 20. That the gospel also plainly shows, that man was created in the dignity and glorious enjoyment of the Triune life of God, and that his fall, was a falling into the earthly life of the light and spirit of this world, I have sufficiently proved from the greatest articles of the Christian faith, concerning the necessity, nature, and manner of our redemption, in the book of Christian Regeneration. I have there shown, that baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, signifies nothing but our being born again into this Triune life of God. That the necessity of being born again of the Word or Son of God, of being born of the Spirit, or receiving him as a sanctifier of our newly raised nature, plainly proves that what we lost by the fall, was this Triune life of God: he that denies this, denies the whole of the Christian redemption. {See Spirit of Prayer, Part II, page 63, &c., page 91. Way to Divine Knowledge, pages 39-53.} 21. It has been already observed, that when man was created in his original perfection, the Holy Trinity was his creator; but when man was fallen, or had lost his first divine life, then there began a new language of a redeeming religion. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were now to be considered, not as creating every man as they created the first, but as differently concerned in raising the fallen race of mankind, to that first likeness of the Holy Trinity in which their first father was created: hence it is, that the scriptures speak of the Father, as drawing, and calling men; because the desire which is from the Father’s nature, must be the first mover, stirrer, and beginner. This desire must be moved and brought into an anguishing state, and have the agitation of a fire that is kindling; and then men are truly drawn by the Father. The Son of God is now considered as the regenerator or raiser of a new birth in us; because he enters a second time into the life of the soul, that his own nature and likeness may be again generated in it, and that he may be that to the soul in its state, which he is to the Father in the Deity. The Holy Ghost is represented as the sanctifier, or finisher of the divine life restored in us; because as in the Deity, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as the amiable, blessed finisher of the Triune life of God; so the fallen nature of man cannot be raised out of its unholy state, cannot be blessed and sanctified with its true degree of the divine life, till the Holy Spirit arises up in it. Since then the Triune God, or the three persons in the one God, must have this difference of shares, must reach out this different help to the raising up of fallen man, it is undeniable, that the first created man stood in the image and real likeness of the one God, not only representing, but really having in his birth and life, the birth and life of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had such a Unity in Trinity in man, as they had in the Deity itself: how else could man be the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity, if it was not such a birth in man, as it was in itself? Or, how could the Holy Trinity dwell and operate in man, each person according to its respective nature, unless there was the same threefold life in man as there is in God? How could the Holy Trinity be an object of man’s worship and adoration, if the Holy Trinity had not produced itself in man? The creature is only to own and worship its creator; therefore Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must have each of them their creaturely offspring, or product in man, if man is to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If therefore you deny angels, and the souls of perfect men to have the triune nature, of life of God in them: if you deny that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have such union and relation in the soul, as they have out of it, you are guilty of as great heresy and apostasy from the gospel, as if you denied the Father to be the creator or him that calleth and draweth, the Son to be the redeemer, or him that regenerateth, and the Holy Spirit to be him that sanctifieth human nature. 22. Again: consider this great truth, which will much illustrate this matter; you can be an inhabitant of no world, or a partaker of its life, but by its being inwardly the birth of your own life, or by having the nature and condition of that world born in you. As thus, hell must be inwardly born in the soul, it must arise up within it, as it does without it, before the soul can become an inhabitant of it. Again: that which is the life of this outward world, viz., its fire, and light, and air, must have such a state and birth within you, as they have without you, before you can be an inhabitant or partaker of the life of this world; that is, fire must be in you, must be the same fire, have the same place and nature within you, have the same relation to the light and air that is within you, as it has without you, or else the fire of the outward world, cannot keep up, or have any communion with your own life. The light of this world can signify nothing to you, cannot reach or enrich you with its powers and virtues, if the same light is not arisen in the same manner in the kindling of your own life, as it arises in the outward world. The air also of this world can do you no good, can be no blower up and preserver of your life, but because it has the same birth in you, that it has in outward nature. And therefore it must be a truth of the greatest certainty, that so it must of all necessity be with respect to the kingdom of God, or that life which is to be had in the beatific presence of God; it must, by an absolute necessity, have the same birth within you, as it has without you, before you can enter into it, or become an inhabitant of it: if you are to live, and be eternally blessed in the triune life, or beatific presence of God, that triune life, must, of the utmost necessity, first make itself creaturely in you; it must be and arise in you, as it does without you, before you can possibly enter into any communion with it. Now is there anything more plain and scriptural, more easy to be conceived, more pious to be believed, and more impossible to be denied, than all this? And yet this is all that I have said, in two propositions in the treatise upon Christian Regeneration: it is there said, "Man was created by God after his own image, and in his own likeness, a living mirror of the divine nature; where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost each brought forth their own nature in a creaturely manner." Now, what is this, but saying, that the Holy Trinity brought forth a creature in its own likeness, standing in a creaturely birth of the divine, triune life? If it did not stand thus, how could it have its form or creation from the Holy Trinity? Or how could it without this triune life in itself, enter into, or be a partaker of the triune life or presence of God? In the next proposition it is said; "In it, that is, in this created image of the Holy Trinity, the Father’s nature generated the divine Word, or Son of God, and the Holy Ghost proceeded from them both as an amiable, moving life of both. This was the likeness or image of God, in which the first man was created, a true offspring of God, in whom the divine birth sprung up as in the Deity, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, saw themselves in a creaturely manner." Now, what is this, but saying in the plainest manner, only thus much, that the triune, creaturely life stood in the same birth and generation of its threefold life, as the Deity doth, whose image, likeness, and offspring it is? And can it possibly be otherwise; for if the creature cometh from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as their created image and likeness, must not that which it hath from the Father, be of the nature of the Father, that which it hath from the Son, be of the nature of the Son, and that which it hath from the Holy Ghost, be of the nature of the Holy Ghost? And must they not therefore stand in the creature in such relation to one another, as they do in the creator? If it is the nature of the Father to generate, if it is the nature of the Son to be generated, if it is the nature of the Holy Ghost to proceed from both, must not that which you have from the Father generate in you, that which you have from the Son be generated in you, and that which you have from the Holy Ghost, proceed from both in you? All which is only saying this plain and obvious truth, that that being, or created life, which you have from Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must stand in such a triune relation within you as it does without you; that having this threefold likeness of God, you may be capable of entering into an enjoyment of his triune, beatific life or presence. For, consider again this instance, with regard to the life of this world. The fire, and light, and air, of outward nature, must become creaturely in you; that is, you must have a fire that is your own creaturely fire, you must have a light that is generated by, or from your own fire, a breath that proceeds from your own fire and light, as the air of outward nature proceeds from its fire and light: you must have all this nature and birth of fire, and light, and air in your own creaturely being, or you cannot possibly live in, or have a life from the fire, and light, and air of outward nature: no omnipotence can make you a partaker of the life of this outward world, without having the life of this outward world born in your own creaturely being. And therefore, no omnipotence can make you a partaker of the beatific life or presence of the Holy Trinity, unless that life stands in the same triune state within you, as it does without you. The nature of this world must become creatural in you, before you can live, or have a share in the life of this world; the triune nature of God must breathe forth itself to stand creaturely in you, before you can live, or have a share in the beatific life or presence of the triune God. Now, is not all this strictly according to the very outward letter, and inward truth of the most important articles of the Christian religion? For what else can be meant by the necessity of our being born again of the Word, or Son of God, being born of the Spirit of God, in order to our entrance into the kingdom of heaven? Is not this saying, that the triune life of God must first have its birth in us, before we can enter into the triune, beatific life, or presence of God? What else is taught us by that new birth sought for by a baptism, in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Does it not plainly tell us, that the triune nature of the Deity is that which wants to be born in us, and that our redemption consists in nothing else but in the bringing forth this new birth in us, and that, being thus born again in the likeness of the Holy Trinity, we may be capable of its threefold blessing and happiness? The New Testament tells us of the impossibility of our being made holy, but by the Holy Spirit of God: now, how could we want any distinct thing particularly from the Son of God, any distinct thing, particularly from the Holy Ghost, in order to raise and repair our fallen nature, how could this particularity be thus absolutely necessary, but because the holy threefold life of the Deity must stand within us, in the birth of our own life, as it does without us, that so we may be capable of living in God, and God in us. Search to eternity, why no devil, or beast can possibly be a partaker of the kingdom of heaven, and there can only this one reason be assigned for it, because neither of them have the triune, holy life of God in them: for every created thing does, and must, and can only want, seek, unite with, and enjoy that outwardly, which is of the same nature with itself. Remove a devil where you will, he is still in hell, and always at the same distance from heaven; he can touch, or taste, or reach nothing but what is in hell. Carry a beast where you please, either to court, or to church, he is yet at the same infinite distance from the joys and fears either of church, or court, as the beasts that never saw anything else but their own kind: and all this is grounded solely on this eternal truth; namely, that no being can rise higher than its own life reaches. The circle of the birth of life in every creature is its necessary circumference, and it cannot possibly reach any further; and therefore it is a joyful truth, that beings created to worship and adore the Holy Trinity, and to enter into the beatific life and presence of the triune God, must, of all necessity ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 02.02. CHAPTER 2 ======================================================================== Chapter II. Of Eternal and Temporal Nature. How Nature is from God, and the Scene of his Action. How the Creatures are out of it. Temporal Nature created out of that which is eternal. The fallen Angels brought the first Disorders into Nature. This World created to repair those Disorders. Whence Good and Evil is in every Thing of this World. How Heaven and Hell make up the Whole of this World. How the Fire of this World differs from eternal Fire; and the Matter of this World from the Materiality of Heaven. Eternal Nature is the Kingdom of Heaven, the beatific Manifestation of the triune God. God is more Love and Goodness. How Wrath and Anger come to be ascribed to him. Of Fire in general. Of the Unbeginning Fire. Of the Spirituality of Fire. How Fire comes to be in material Things. Whence the Possibility of kindling Fire in the Things of this World. Every Man is, and must be the Kindler of his own Eternal Fire, &c. Was there no nature, there could be no creature, because the life of every creature is, and can be nothing else, but the life of that nature out of which it was created, and in which it has its being. Eternal beings must have their qualities, nature, form and manner of existence out of eternal nature, and temporal beings out of temporary nature: was there no eternity, there could be no time, was there nothing infinite, there could be nothing finite; therefore we have here two great fundamental truths that cannot be shaken; first, that there is, and must be, an eternal nature; because there is a nature that is temporary, and that it must be that to eternal creatures, which temporal nature is to temporal creatures: secondly, that everywhere, and in all worlds, nature must stand between God and the creature, as the foundation of all mutual intercourse; God can transact nothing with the creature, nor the creature have any communion with God, but in, and by that nature, in which it stands. I hope no one will here ask me for scripture proofs of this, or call these truths nostrums, because they are not to be found in the same form of expression in some particular text of scripture. Where do the holy writings tell us, that a thing cannot be, and not be at the same time? Or that every consequence must arise from premises? And yet the scripture is continually supposing both these truths, and there could be no truth in the scripture, or anywhere else, if these things were not undeniable. There is nothing said of man throughout all scripture, but what supposes him to stand in nature, under a necessity of choosing something that is natural, either life or death, fire or water. There is nothing said of God with relation to creatures, but what supposes him to be the God of nature, manifesting himself in and through nature, calling, assisting and directing everything to its highest natural state. Nature is the scene of his providence, and all the variety of his governing attributes display themselves by his various operations in and through nature: therefore it is equally certain, that what God does to any creature, must be done through the medium of nature, and also what the creature does toward God, must be done in and through the powers of that nature in which it stands. No temporary creature can turn to God, or reach after him, or have any communication with him, but in, and according to that relation which temporary nature bears to God; nor can any eternal beings draw near to, or unite with God in any other manner, than that in which eternal nature is united with him. Would you know, why no omnipotence of God can create temporal animals but out of temporary nature, nor eternal animals but out of eternal nature; it is because no omnipotence of God can produce a visible triangle, but out of, and by three visible lines; for, as lines must be before there can be any lineal figures, so nature must be before there can be natural creatures. 2. Everything that is in being, is either God, or nature, or creature; and everything that is not God, is only a manifestation of God; for as there is nothing, neither nature, nor creature, but what must have its being in, and from God, so everything is, and must be according to its nature, more or less a manifestation of God. Everything therefore, by its form and condition, speaks so much of God, and God in everything, speaks and manifests so much of himself. Temporary nature is this beginning, created system of sun, stars, and elements; ’tis temporary nature, because it begins and hath an end, and therefore is only a temporary manifestation of God, or God manifested according to transitory things. 3. Properly and strictly speaking, nothing can begin to be: the beginning of everything is nothing more, than its beginning to be in a new state. Thus time itself does not begin to be, but duration, which always was, began to be measured by the earth’s turning round, or the rising and setting of the sun, and that is called the beginning of time, which is, properly speaking, only the beginning of the measure of duration: thus it is with all temporal nature, and all the qualities and powers of temporal beings that live in it: no quality or power of nature then began to be, but such qualities and powers as had been from all eternity, began then to be in a new state. Ask what time is, it is nothing else but something of eternal duration become finite, measurable, and transitory? Ask what fire, light, darkness, air, water, and earth are; they are, and can be nothing else, but some eternal things become gross, finite, measurable, divisible, and transitory? For if there could be a temporal fire that did not spring out of eternal fire, then there might be time that did not come out of eternity. ’Tis thus with every temporary thing, and the qualities of it; ’tis the beginning of nothing, but only of a new state of something that existed before: therefore all temporary nature is a product, offspring, or outbirth of eternal nature, and is nothing else but so much of eternal nature changed from its eternal to a temporal condition. Fire did not begin to be, darkness did not begin to be, light did not begin to be, water and earth did not begin to be, when this temporary world first appeared, but all these things came out of their eternal state, into a lower, divided, compacted, created and transitory state. Hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, feeling, did not then begin to be, when God first created the creatures of this world, they only came to be qualities and powers of a lower, and more imperfect order of beings than they had been before. Figures, and their relations, did not then begin to be, when material circles and squares, &c., were first made, but these figures and relations began then to appear in a lower state than they had done before: and so it must be said of all temporal nature, and everything in it. It is only something of eternal nature separated, changed, or created into a new, temporary state and condition. 4. Now it may be asked, why was eternal nature thus degraded, debased, and changed from its eternal state of perfection? Will anyone say, that God of his own free will changed eternal nature, which is the glorious manifestation of his power and godhead, the seat of his holy residence, his majestic kingdom of heaven, into this poor, miserable mixture of good and evil, into this impure state of division, grossness, death, and darkness? No. It is the highest of all absurdities, to say so. Now, we sufficiently know from scripture, that a whole hierarchy, or host of angels, renounced their heavenly life, and thereby raised up a kingdom that was not heavenly. Could they not have inflamed and disordered outward nature in which they lived, they could not have destroyed the heavenly nature in themselves: for everything must be according to the state of that world in which it lives; and therefore, the state of outward nature, and the state of inward nature in the angels must stand and fall together; and as sure as a whole kingdom of angels lost their heavenly life, so sure it is, that their whole kingdom lost its heavenly state and condition: and therefore, it is an undeniable truth, founded on scripture evidence, that same part of eternal nature was changed from its first state of glory and perfection, before the creation of temporary nature; therefore, in the creation of this poor, gross, disordered, perishable, material world, one of these two things was done, either God took the spoiled part of heaven or eternal nature, and created it into this temporary state of good and evil; or he degraded, and brought down some part of the kingdom of heaven from its glory and perfection, into this mixture of good and evil, order and disorder in which the world stands. He could not do this latter, without bringing evil into nature, as the devil had done, and therefore we may be sure he did not do it; but if he did the former, then the creation of this lower world, was a glorious act, and worthy of the infinite goodness of God, it was putting an end to the devil’s working evil in nature, and it was putting the evil that was brought into nature, in a way of being finally overcome, and turned into good again. Will anyone now call these things whimsical speculations? Can anything be thought of more worthy of God, more conformable to nature, or more consonant to all revealed religion? But perhaps you will say, how could the angels spoil or destroy that glorious kingdom of eternal nature in which they dwelt. It may be answered, how could it possibly be otherwise? How could they live in eternal nature, unless nature without them, and nature within them, mutually mixed and qualified with each other? Would you have such mighty spirits, with their eternal energies, have less power in that nature, or kingdom in which they dwelt, than a kindled piece of coal hath in this world? For every piece of coal set on fire, adds so much heat to outward nature, and so far alters and changes the state of it. 5. Now, let it be supposed, not only that a piece of coal, but that the whole of everything in this world, that could either give or receive fire was made to burn, what effect would it have upon the whole frame of nature? Would not the whole state of things, the regions, places, and divisions of the elements, and all the order of temporal nature be quite destroyed? When therefore every angelical life kindled itself in wrath, and became thereby divided, darkened, and separated from God, the same kindling, darkening, dividing, and confusion must be brought forth in their natural kingdom, because they lived in nature, and could have neither love, nor wrath, but such as they could exert in and by the powers of nature. Now, all fire, wherever it is, is either a fire of wrath, or a fire of love: fire not overcome or governed by light, is the fire of wrath, which only tears in pieces, consumes and devours all that it can lay hold of, and it wills nothing else: but light is the fire of love, it is meek, amiable, full of kind embraces, lovingly spreading itself, and giving itself with all its riches into everything that can receive it. These are the two fires of eternal nature, which were but one in heaven, and can be only one wherever heaven is; and it was the separation of these two fires that changed the angels into devils, and made their kingdom a beginning of hell. Now, either of these two fires, wherever it is kindled in animate or lifeless things, communicates its own kind of heat in some degree to outward nature, and so far alters and changes the state of it: the wrath of a man, and the wrath of a tempest do one and the same thing to outward nature, alter its state in the same manner, and only differ in their degree of doing it. Fire kindled in a material thing, can only communicate with the materiality of nature; but the fire of a wrathfully-inflamed man, being a fire both of body and soul, communicates a twofold heat, it stirs up the fire of outward nature, as fire does in a coal, and it stirs up the wrath of hell as the devils do. The fire of love kindled by the Light and Spirit of God in a truly regenerated man, communicates a twofold blessing, it outwardly joins with the meek light of the sun, and helps to overcome the wrath of outward nature; it inwardly cooperates with the power of good angels, in resisting the wrath and darkness of hell: and it would be no folly to suppose, that if all human breath was become a mere, unmixed wrath, that all the fire in outward nature would immediately break forth, and bring that dissolution upon outward nature, which will arise from the last fire. Therefore it is necessary, that a whole kingdom of angels should kindle the same wrath and disorder in outward nature that was in themselves; for being in eternal nature, and communicating with it, as temporal beings do in temporal nature, what they did in themselves, must be done in that nature or kingdom in which they lived, and moved, and had their being. What a powerful fire there is in the wrath of a spirit, may be seen by the effects of human wrath; one sudden thought shall in a moment discolor, poison, inflame, swell, distort and agitate the whole body of a man. Whence also is it, that a diseased body infects the air, or that malignant air infects a healthful body? Is it not because there is, and must be an inseparable qualifying, mixing and uniting betwixt nature and those creatures that live in it? Now, all diseases and malignities, whether in nature or creature, all proceed from the sinful motions of the will and desires of the creature. This is as certain, as that death and all that leads to it, is the sole product of sin; therefore it is a certain truth, that all the disorder that ever was, or can be in nature, arises from that power which the creature hath in and upon nature; and therefore, as sure as a whole host of heavenly beings, raised up a fiery, wrathful, dark nature in themselves, so sure is it, that the same wrathful, fiery, dark disorder was raised up in that kingdom, or nature, in which they had their being. 6. Now the scriptures nowhere say in express words, that the place of this world was the place of the angels that fell, and that their fallen, spoiled and disordered kingdom, was by the power of God, changed or created into this temporary state of things in which we live; this is not expressly said, because it is plainly implied and fully signified to us by the most general doctrines of scripture; for if we know, both from nature and scripture, that this world is a mixture of good and evil, do not we enough know, that it could only be created out of that which was good and evil? And if we know that evil cannot come from God, if we know that the devil had actually brought it forth before the creation of this world; are we not enough told, that the evil which is in this world, is the evil that was brought forth into nature by the devil? And that therefore the matter of this world, is that very materiality which was spoiled by the fallen angels? How can we need a particular text of scripture to tell us, that the place of this world was the place of the angels before their fall, when the whole tenor of scripture tells us, that it is the place of their habitation now? For how could they have, or find darkness, but in that very place, where they had extinguished the light? What could they have to do with us, or we with them, but that we are entered into their possessions, and have their kingdom made over to us? How could they go about amongst us as roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour, but that our creation has brought us amongst them? They cannot possibly be anywhere, but where they fell, because they can live nowhere but in the evil which they have brought forth; they can have no wrath and darkness but where they broke off from light and love; they can communicate with no outward nature but that which fell with them, and underwent the same change as they did: therefore, though St. Jude saith with great truth, that they left their own habitations, yet, it is only as they left their own angelical nature, not departed from it into a distant place, but deformed and changed it; so that the heaven that was within them, and without them, is equally left, because both within them, and without them, they have no habitation but a fiery darkness broken off from the light of God. And therefore, as man by his creation is brought into a power of commerce with those fallen angels, who must live, and could only act in that part of nature which they had deformed, it is plain, that this creation placed him in that system of things, which was formed and created out of their fallen kingdom, because they can act, or be acted upon nowhere else. 7. And this is the one true, and only reason, why there is good and evil throughout all temporal nature and creature; ’tis because all this temporary nature is a creation out of that strife of evil against good which the fallen angels had brought into their kingdom. No subtle, evil serpent could have been generated, no tree of knowledge of good and evil could have been sprung out of the earth, but because nature in this world was that part of eternal nature which the fallen angels had corrupted; and therefore, a life made up of good and evil could be brought forth by it. Evil and good was in the angelical kingdom as soon as they set their wills and desires contrary to God, and the divine life. Had God permitted them to go on, their whole kingdom had been like themselves, all over one unmixed evil, and so had been incapable of being created into a redeemable state: but God put a stop to the progress of evil in their kingdom, he came upon it whilst it was in strife, and compacted or created it all into a new, temporary, material state and condition; whence these two things followed: first, that the fallen angels lost their power over it, and could no further kindle their own fire in it, but were as chained prisoners, in an extent of darkness which they could neither get out of, nor extend any further: secondly, this new creation being created out of this begun strife, stood as yet in the birth of life, and so became capable of being assisted and blessed by God; and finally, at the end of time, restored to its first heavenly state. Now, the good and evil that is in this world is that same good and evil, and in the same strife that it was in the kingdom of fallen angels, only with this happy difference, there it was under the devil’s power, and in a way to be wholly evil; here it is in a new compacted, or created state under the providence and blessing of God, appointed to bring forth a new kind of life, and display the wonders of divine love, till such time as a new race of angelical creatures born in this mixture of good and evil, shall be fit to receive the kingdom of Lucifer, restored to its first glory? Is there any part of the Christian religion that does not either suppose or speak this great truth, any part of outward nature that does not confirm it? Is there any part of the Christian religion that is not made more intelligible, more beautiful and edifying by it? Is there any difficulty of outward nature that is not totally removed and satisfied by it? How was the philosophy of the ancient sages perplexed with the state of nature? They knew God to be all goodness, love, and perfection, and so knew not what to do with the misery of human life, and the disorders of outward nature, because they knew not how this nature came into its present state, or from whence it was descended. But had they known, that temporal nature, all that we see in this whole frame of things, was only the sickly, defiled state of eternal things put into a temporary state of recovery, that time and all transitory things were only in this war and strife, to be finally delivered from all the evil that was brought into eternal nature, their hearts must have praised God for this creation of things as those morning stars did, that shouted for joy when it was first brought forth. 8. From this true knowledge of the state, and nature, and place of this creation, what a reasonableness, wisdom, and necessity does there appear in the hardest sayings, precepts and doctrines of the gospel? He that thus knows what this world is, has great reason to be glad that he is born into it, and yet still greater reason to rejoice, in being called out of it, preserved from it, and shown how to escape with the preservation of his soul. The evils that are in this world, are the evils of hell, that are tending to be nothing else but hell; they are the remains of the sin and poison of the fallen angels: the good that is in this world are the sparks of life that are to generate heaven, and gain the restoration of the first kingdom of Lucifer. Who therefore would think of anything, desire anything, endeavor anything, but to resist evil in every kind, under every shape and color? Who would have any views, desires and prayers after anything, but that the life and light of heaven may rise up in himself, and that God’s kingdom may come, and his will be done in all nature and creature? Darkness, light, fire and air, water and earth, stand in their temporary, created distinction and strife, for no other end, with no other view, but that they may obtain the one thing needful, their first condition in heaven: and shall man that is born into time for no other end, on no other errand, but that he may be an angel in eternity, think it hard to live as if there were but one thing needful for him? What was the poor politics, the earthly wisdom, the ease, sensuality, and advancements of this world for us, but such fruits as must be eaten in hell? To be swelled with pride, to be fattened with sensuality, to grow great through craft, and load ourselves with earthly goods, is only living the life of beasts, that we may die the death of devils. On the other hand, to go starved out of this world, rich in nothing but heavenly tempers and desires, is taking from time all that we came for, and all that can go with us into eternity. 9. But to return to the further consideration of nature. As all temporary nature is nothing else but eternal nature brought out of its kindled, disordered strife, into a created or compacted distinction of its several parts, so it is plain, that the whole of this world, in all its working powers, is nothing else but a mixture of heaven and hell. There cannot be the smallest thing, or the smallest quality of anything in this world, but what is a quality of heaven or hell, discovered under a temporal form: everything that is disagreeable to the taste, to the sight, to our hearing, smelling or feeling, has its root and ground, and cause, in and from hell, and is as surely in its degree the working or manifestation of hell in this world, as the most diabolical malice and wickedness is: the stink of weeds, of mire, of all poisonous, corrupted things, shrieks, horrible sounds, wrathful fire, rage of tempests, and thick darkness, are all of them things that had no possibility of existence, till the fallen angels disordered the state of their kingdom; therefore, everything that is disagreeable and horrible in this life, everything that can afflict and terrify our senses, all the kinds of natural and moral evil, are only so much of the nature, effects, and manifestations of hell: for hell and evil are only two words for one and the same thing: the extent of one is the extent of the other, and all that can be ascribed to the one, must be ascribed to the other. On the other hand, all that is sweet, delightful and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of the seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting itself in such a degree, and darting forth in such variety so much of its own nature. So that heaven and hell are not only as near you, as constantly showing and proving themselves to all your senses, as day and night, but night itself is nothing else but hell breaking forth in such a degree, and the day is nothing else but a certain opening of heaven, to save us from the darkness that arises from hell. O man! consider thyself, here thou standest in the earnest, perpetual strife of good and evil, all nature is continually at work to bring about the great redemption; the whole creation is travailing in pain, and laborious working, to be delivered from the vanity of time, and will thou be asleep? Everything thou hearest, or seest, says nothing, shows nothing to thee, but what either eternal light, or eternal darkness hath brought forth; for as day and night divide the whole of our time, so heaven and hell divide the whole of our thoughts, words and actions. Stir which way thou wilt, do, or design what thou wilt, thou must be an agent with the one or with the other. Thou canst not stand still, because thou livest in the perpetual workings of temporal and eternal nature; if thou workest not with the good, the evil that is in nature carries thee along with it: thou hast the height and depth of eternity in thee, and therefore be doing what thou wilt, either in the closet, the field, the shop, or the church, thou art sowing that which grows, and must be reaped in eternity. Nothing of thine can vanish away, but every thought, motion, and desire of thy heart, has its effect either in the height of heaven, or the depth of hell: and as time is upon the wing, to put an end to the strife of good and evil, and bring about the last great separation of all things into their eternal state, with such speed art thou making haste either to be wholly an angel, or wholly a devil: O! therefore awake, watch and pray, join with all thy force with that goodness of God, which has created time and all things in it, to have a happy end in eternity. 10. Temporal nature opened to us by the Spirit of God becomes a volume of holy instruction to us, and leads us into all the mysteries and secrets of eternity: for as everything in temporal nature is descended out of that which is eternal, and stands as a palpable, visible outbirth of it; so when we know how to separate the grossness, death, and darkness of time from it, we find what it is in its eternal state. Fire, and light, and air in this world are not only a true resemblance of the Holy Trinity in Unity, but are the Trinity itself in its most outward, lowest kind of existence or manifestation; for there could be no fire, fire could not generate light, air could not proceed from both, these three could not be thus united, and thus divided, but because they have their root and original in the Trinity of the Deity. Fire compacted, created, separated from light and air, is the elemental fire of this world: fire uncreated, uncompacted, unseparated from light and air, is the heavenly fire of eternity: fire kindled in any material thing is only fire breaking out of its created, compacted state; it is nothing else but the awakening the spiritual properties of that thing, which being thus stirred up, strive to get rid of that material creation under which they are imprisoned: thus every kindled fire, with all its rage and fierceness, tears and divides, scatters and consumes that materiality under which it is imprisoned; and were not these spiritual properties imprisoned in matter, no material thing could be made to burn. And this is another proof, that the materiality of this world is come out of a higher, and spiritual state, because every matter upon earth can be made to discover spiritual properties concealed in it, and is indeed a compaction of nothing else. Fire is not, cannot be a material thing, it only makes itself visible and sensible by the destruction of matter; matter is its death and imprisonment, and it comes to life but by being able to agitate, divide, shake off, and consume that matter which held it in death and bondage; so that every time you see a fire kindled, you see nature striving in a low degree to get rid of the grossness of this material creation, and to do that which can alone be done by the last fire, when all the inward, spiritual properties hid in everything, in rocks, and stones, and earth, in sun, and stars, and elements, shall by the last trumpet be awakened and called forth: and this is a certain truth, that fire could nowhere now be kindled in any material thing, but for this reason, because all material nature was created to be restored, and stands by divine appointment in a fitness and tendency to have its deliverance from this created state, by fire; so that every time you see a piece of matter dissolved by fire, you have a full proof, that all the materiality of this world is appointed to a dissolution by fire; and that then, (O glorious day!) sun and stars, and all the elements will be delivered from vanity, will be again that one eternal, harmonious, glorious thing which they were, before they were compacted into material distinctions and separations. 11. The elements of this world stand in great strife and contrariety, and yet in great desire of mixing and uniting with each other; and hence arises both the life and death of all temporal things; and hereby we plainly know that the elements of this world were once one undivided thing; for union can nowhere be desired, but where there has first been a separation; as sure therefore as the elements desire each other, so sure is it, that they have been parted from each other, and are only parts of some one thing that has been divided. When the elements come to such a degree of union, a life is produced; but because they have still a contrariety to each other, they soon destroy again that same life which they had built, and therefore every four-elementary life is short and transitory. Now, from this undeniable state of nature, we are told these following great truths: 1. That the four elements are only four parts of that, which before the creation of the world, was only a one element, or one undivided power of life. 2. That the mortality of this life is wholly and solely owing to the divided state of the elements. 3. That the true, immortal life of nature, is only there to be found, where the four elements are only one thing, mere unity and harmony; where fire and air, water and earth, have a much more glorious union than they have in diamonds and precious stones: for in the brightest diamonds the four elements still partake of their divided state, though to our eye they appear as only one glorious thing; but the beauty of the diamond is but a shadow, a low specimen of that glory which will shine through all nature, when fire and air, water and earth shall be again that one thing which they were, before the fall of angels and the creation of this world. 4. That the body of Adam (being formed for immortality) could not possibly have the nature, or be made out of the divided state of the elements. The letter of scripture absolutely demonstrates this; for if sickness, sorrow, pain, the trouble of heat and cold, all so many forerunners of death, can only be where the elements are in division and contrariety; and if, according to scripture, these calamities did not, could not possibly touch Adam till he fell, then it is plain from scripture, that before his fall, the division and contrariety of the elements was not in him: and that was his paradisaical nature, in and by which he stood in a state of superiority over all the elements of this world. 5. That the body of Adam lost is one elementary glory and immortality, and then first became gross, dark, heavy flesh and blood, under the power of the four elements, when he lusted to eat, and actually did eat of that tree, which had its good and evil from the divided state of the elements. 6. Hence we also know, with the greatest certainty, the mystery of the resurrection of the body, that it consists wholly and solely in the reducing the four-elementary body of this world, to its first, one elementary state, and then everyone has that same body raised again that died, and all that Adam lost is restored. For if the body is mortal, and dies because it is become a body of the four elements, it can only be raised immortal, by having its four elements reduced again into one: and here lies the true sameness of the body that died, and that which rises again. But to proceed: 12. As all the four elements, by their desiring, and wanting to be united together, prove that they are only four grossly divided outbirths of that which before was only one heavenly, harmonious element, so every single element fully demonstrates the same thing; for every single element, though standing in its created contrariety to every other, has yet in its own divided state, all the four elements in itself: thus the air has everything in it that is in the earth, and the earth has in itself everything that is in fire, water and air, only in a different mixture and compaction; were it not so, had not every element in some degree the whole nature of them all, they could not possibly mix, and qualify with one another; and this may well pass for a demonstration, that that out of which the four elements are descended, was one harmonious union of them all, because every one of the four, has now, and must have in its undivided state, all the four in itself, though not in equality; for if the four must be together, though unequally lodged in every single element, it is plain, the four must have been one harmonious thing, before they were brought into four unequal separations: and therefore, as sure as there are four warring, disagreeing elements in time, so sure is it, that that which is now in this fourfold division, was and is in eternity, one, in an heavenly, harmonious union, keeping up an eternal, joyful, glorious life in eternal nature, as its four broken parts bring forth a poor, miserable, transitory life in temporal nature. 13. All matter in this world is only the materiality of heaven thus altered. The difference between matter in this world and matter in the other world, lies wholly and solely in this; in the one it is dead, in the other it is living materiality. It is dead materiality in this world, because it is gross, dark, hard, heavy, divisible, &c. It is in this state of death, because it is separated, or broken off from the eternal light, which is the true life, or the power of life in everything. In eternal nature or the kingdom of heaven, materiality stands in life and light; it is the light’s glorious body, or that garment wherewith light is clothed, and therefore has all the properties of light in it, and only differs from light, as it is its brightness and beauty, as the holder and displayer of all its colors, powers and virtues. But the same materiality in this world, being created or compacted into a separation from fire united with light, is become the body of death and darkness, and is therefore gross, thick, dark, heavy, divisible, &c., for death is nothing else but the shutting up, or shutting out the united power of fire and light: this is the only death that ever did, or can happen to anything, whether earthly or heavenly. Therefore, every degree of hardness, sickness, stiffness, &c., is a degree of death; and herein consists the deadness of the materiality of this world. When it shall be raised to life, that is, when the united power of fire and light shall kindle itself through all temporal nature, then hardness, darkness, divisibility, &c., will be all extinguished together. That the deadness of the earth may, and certainly will be brought to life by the united power of fire and light, is sufficiently shown us by the nature and office of the sun. The sun is the united power of fire and light, and therefore the sun is the raiser of life out of the deadness of the earth; but because fire and light as united in the sun, is only the virtue of temporary fire and light, so it can only raise a short and fading, transitory life. But as sure as you see, that fire and light united in the sun, can change the deadness of the earth, into such a beautiful variety of a vegetable life, so sure are you, that this dark, gross earth, is in its state of death and darkness, only for this reason, because it is broken off from the united power of fire and light: for as sure as the outward operation of the fire and light of the sun can change the deadness of the earth into a degree of life, so sure is it, that the earth lies in its present deadness, because it is separated from its own eternal fire and light: and as sure as you see, that the fire and light of the sun can raise a temporal life out of the earth, so sure is it, that the united power of eternal fire and light can, and will turn all that is earthly, into its first state of life and beauty. For the sun of this world, as it is the union of temporal fire and light, has no power, but as it is the outward agent, or temporary representative of eternal fire and light, and therefore it can only do that in part, and imperfectly in time, which by the eternal fire and light will be wholly and perfectly done in eternity. And therefore every vegetable life, every beauty, power, and virtue which the sun calls forth out of the earth, tells us, with a divine certainty, that there will come a time, when all that is hid in the deadness, grossness, and darkness of the earth, will be again called up to a perfection of life and glory of beauty. 14. How has the philosophy of the schools been puzzled with the divisibility of matter! It is because human reason, the mistress of the schools, partakes of the deadness of the earth; and the soul of man must first have the light of eternal life rise up in him, before he can see or find out the truths of nature. Human reason knew nothing of the death of the matter, or the nature and reason of its temporary creation, and so thought death and divisibility to be essential to matter; but the light of God tells every man this infallible truth, that God made not death in anything, that he is a God of life, and therefore, everything that comes from him, comes into a state of life. Matter is thick, hard, heavy, divisible, and the like, only for a time, because it is compacted or created into thickness, hardness, and divisibility only for a time: these are only the properties of its temporal, created state, and therefore are no more essential to it than the hardness of ice is essential to water. Now, that the creation of the matter of this world is nothing else but a compaction, that all the elements are separated compactions of that which before was free from such a compaction, is plain from scripture. For we are told, that all the material things and elements of this world, are to have their created state and nature taken from them, by being dissolved or melted: but if this be a scripture truth, then it is equally true from scripture, that their creation was only a compaction; and a compaction of something that stood before according to its own nature, absolutely free from it. Mortality, corruptibility, and divisibility, are not essential properties, but temporary accidents, they are in things, as diseases and sickness are, and are as separable from them; and that is the true reason, why this mortal can put on immortality, this corruptible can put on incorruptibility, and this divisible put on indivisibility: for when the four elements shall be dissolved and loosed from their separate compaction from one another, when fire and air, water and earth, shall be a one much more glorious and harmonious thing than they are now in the brightest diamond, then the divisibility of this redeemed materiality will be more impossible to be conceived, than the distance between fire and water in a diamond. 15. The reason why all inanimate things of this world tend towards their utmost perfection in their kind, lieth wholly and solely in this ground; it is because the four elements of this world were once the one element of the kingdom of the fallen angels; and therefore, nature in this world is always laboring after its first perfection of life, or as the scripture speaks, the "whole creation travaileth in pain, and groaneth to be delivered from its present vanity": and therefore it is, that all vegetables and fruits naturally grasp after every kind and degree of perfection they can take in; endeavoring with all their power, after that first perfection of life which was before the fall of the angels. Every taste and color, and power and virtue, would be what it was before Lucifer kindled his dark, fiery, wrathful kingdom; but as this cannot be, so when every fruit and flower has worked itself as far towards a heavenly perfection as it can, it is forced to wither and rot, and become a witness to this truth, that neither flesh nor blood, nor fruit, nor flower, can reach the kingdom of God. 16. All the misery and imperfection that is in temporary nature, arises from the divided state of the elements: their division is that which brings all kinds and degrees of death and hell into this world, and yet their being in a certain degree in one another, and always endeavoring after their first union, is so much of the nature and perfection of heaven still in them. The death that is in this world, consists in the grossness, hardness and darkness of its materiality. The wrath that is in this world consists in the kindled division of its qualities, whence there arises a contrary motion and fermentation in all its parts, in which consists both the life and death of all its creatures. This death and this wrath is the nature of hell in this world, and is the manifestation of the disorders which the fallen angels have occasioned in nature. The heaven in this world began when God said, Let there be light, for so far as light is in anything, so much it has of heaven in it, and of the beginning of a heavenly life: this shows itself in all things of this world, chiefly in the life-giving power of the sun, in the sweetness and meekness of qualities and tempers, in the softness of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrancy of smells, and richness of tastes and the like; thus far as anything is tinctured with light, so far it shows its descent from heaven, and its partaking of something heavenly and paradisaical. Again, love or desire of union, is the other part of heaven that is visible in this world. In things without life, it is a senseless desire, a friendly mixing and uniting of their qualities, whereby they strive to be again in that first state of unity and harmony in which they existed, before they were kindled into division by Lucifer. In rational creatures, it is meekness, benevolence, kindness and friendship amongst one another: and thus far they have heaven and the Spirit of God in them, each in their sphere, being and doing that to one another, which the divine love is and does to all. Again, the reason why man is naturally taken with beautiful objects, why he admires and rejoices at the sight of lucid and transparent bodies, and the splendor of precious stones, why he is delighted with the beauty of his own person, and is fond of his features when adorned with fine colors, has this only true ground, ’tis because he was created in the greatest perfection of beauty, to live amongst all the beauties of a glorious paradise: and therefore man, though fallen, has this strong sensibility and reaching desire after all the beauties, that can be picked up in fallen nature. Had not this been his case, had not beauty, and light, and the glory of brightness been his first state by creation, he would now no more want the beauty of objects, than the ox wants to have his pasture enclosed with beautiful walls, and painted gates. Every vanity of fallen man shows our first dignity, and the vanity of our desires are so many proofs of the reality of that which we are fallen from. Man wants to see himself in riches, greatness and power, because human nature came first into the world in that state; and therefore, what he had in reality in paradise, that is he vainly seeking for, where he is only a poor prisoner in the valley and shadow of death. 17. All beings that are purely of this world, have their existence in and dependence upon temporal nature. God is no maker, creator or governor of any being or creature of this world, immediately, or by himself, but he creates, upholds and governs all things of this world, by, and through, and with temporal nature: as temporary nature is nothing else but eternal nature separated, divided, compacted, made visible and changeable for a time, so heaven is nothing else but the beatific visibility, the majestic preference {presence?} of the abysmal, unsearchable, triune God: ’tis that light with which the scripture saith, God is decked as with a garment, and by which he is manifested and made visible to heavenly eyes and beings; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as they are the triune God, deeper than the kingdom of heaven or eternal nature, are invisible to all created eyes; but that beatific visibility and outward glory which is called the kingdom of heaven, is the manifestation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in, and by, and through the glorious union of eternal fire, and light, and spirit. In the kingdom of heaven, these are three and one, because their original, the Holy Trinity, is so, and we must call them by the names of fire, and light, and spirit; because all that we have of fire, and light, and spirit in this world, has its whole nature directly from them, and is indeed nothing else but the fire, and light, and spirit of eternity, brought into a separated, compacted, temporal state. So that to speak of a heavenly fire, has no more grossness and offense in it, than when we speak of a heavenly life, a heavenly light, or heavenly spirit; for if there is a heavenly light and spirit, there must of all necessity be a heavenly fire; and if these things were not in heaven in a glorious state of union, they never could have been here in this gross state of a temporal compaction and division: so that as sure as there are fire, and light, and air in this world, in a divided, compacted, imperfect state, in which consists the life of temporary nature and creatures, so sure is it, that fire, and light, and spirit are in the kingdom of heaven, united in one perfection of glory, in which consists the beatific visibility of God, the divine nature, as communicable to heavenly beings. 18. The kingdom of heaven stands in this threefold life, where three are one, because it is a manifestation of the Deity, which is three and one; the Father has his distinct manifestation in the fire, which is always generating the light; the Son has his distinct manifestation of the light, which is always generated from the fire; the Holy Ghost has his manifestation in the spirit, that always proceeds from both, and is always united with them. It is this eternal unbeginning Trinity in Unity of fire, light, and spirit, that constitutes eternal nature, the kingdom of heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem, the divine life, the beatific visibility, the majestic glory and presence of God. Through this kingdom of heaven, or eternal nature, is the invisible God, the incomprehensible Trinity eternally breaking forth, and manifesting itself in a boundless height and depth of blissful wonders, opening and displaying itself to all its creatures as in an infinite variation and endless multiplicity of its powers, beauties, joys and glories. So that all the inhabitants of heaven are for ever knowing, seeing, hearing, feeling, and variously enjoying all that is great, amiable, infinite and glorious in the divine nature. Nothing ascends, or comes into this kingdom of heaven, but that which descended, or came out of it, all its inhabitants must be innate guests, and born out of it. 19. God considered in himself, as distinct from this eternal nature, or kingdom of heaven, is not the immediate creator of any angels, spirits, or divine beings; but as he creates and governs all temporal beings in, and by, and out of temporal nature, so he creates and governs all spiritual and heavenly beings in, and by, and out of eternal nature: this is as absolutely true, as that no being can be temporal, but by partaking of temporal nature, nor any being eternal, but by partaking of the eternal, divine nature; and therefore, whatever God creates is not created immediately by himself, but in and by, and out of that nature, in which it is to live, and move, and have its being, temporal beings out of temporal nature, and eternal beings out of the heavenly kingdom of eternal nature: and hence it is, that all angels, and the souls of men are said to be born of God, sons of God, and partakers of the divine nature, because they are formed out of that eternal nature, which is the unbeginning majesty of God, the kingdom of heaven, or visible glory of the Deity. In this eternal nature, which is the majestic clothing, or glory of the triune God, manifested in the glorious unity of divine fire, light, and spirit, have all the created images of God, whether they be angels or men, their existence, union and communion with God; because fire, and light, and spirit have the same union and birth in the creature, as in the creator: and hence it is, that they are so many various mirrors of the Deity, penetrated with the majesty of God, receiving and returning back communications of the life of God. Now, in this ground, that is, in this consideration of God, as manifesting his Holy Trinity through nature and creature, lieth the solid and true understanding of all that is so variously said of God, both in the Old and New Testament with relation to mankind, both as to their creation, fall, and redemption. God is to be considered throughout, as the God of nature, only manifesting himself to all his creatures in a variety of attributes in and by nature; creating, governing, blessing, punishing, and redeeming them according to the powers, workings, and possibilities of nature. Fire, light, and spirit in harmonious union, is the substantial glory, the beatific manifestation of the triune God, visible and communicable to creatures formed out of it. All intelligent, holy beings were by God formed and created out of, and for the enjoyment of this kingdom of glory, and had fire, and light, and spirit, as the triune glory of their created being: and herein consisted the infinite love, goodness and bounty of God to all his creatures: it was their being made creatures of this fire, light, and spirit, partakers of that same nature in which the Holy Trinity had stood from all eternity gloriously manifested. And thus they were creatures, subjects, and objects of the divine love; they came into the nearest, highest relation to God; they stood in, and partook of his own manifested nature, so that the outward glory and majesty of the triune God, was the very form, and beauty, and brightness of their own created nature. Every creature which thankfully, joyfully, and absolutely gave itself up to this blessed union with God, became absolutely fixed in its first created glory, and incapable of knowing anything but love, and joy, and happiness in God to all eternity: thus in this state, all angels and men came first out of the hands of God. But seeing light proceeds from fire by a birth, and the spirit from both, and seeing the will must be the leader of the birth, Lucifer and Adam could both do as they did, Lucifer could will strong might and power, to be greater than the light of God made him, and so he brought forth a birth of might and power, that was only mighty wrath and darkness, a fire of nature broken off from its light. Adam could will the knowledge of temporal nature, and so he lost the Light and Spirit of heaven for the light and spirit of this world: and had man been left in this state of temporary nature, without a redeemer, he must, when the light of this world had left him, have found himself in the same absolute wrath and darkness of nature, which the fallen angels are in. 20. Now, after these two falls of two orders of creatures, the Deity itself came to have new and strange names, new and unheard of tempers and inclinations of wrath, fury, and vengeance ascribed to it. I call them new, because they began at the fall; I call them strange, because they were foreign to the Deity, and could not belong to God in himself: thus God is in the scriptures said to be a consuming fire. But to whom? To the fallen angels, and lost souls. But why, and how is he so to them? It is because those creatures have lost all that they had from God, but fire; and therefore God can only be found and manifested in them, as a consuming fire. Now, is it not justly said, that God, who is nothing but infinite love, is yet in such creatures only a consuming fire, and that though God be nothing but love, yet they are under the wrath and vengeance of God, because they have only that fire in them, which is broken off from the light and love of God, and so can know, or feel nothing of God, but his fire in them? As creatures they can have no life, but what they have in and from God; and therefore, that wrathful life which they have, is truly said to be a wrath of God upon them. And yet it is as strictly true, that there is no wrath in God himself, that he is not changed in his temper towards the creatures, that he does not cease to be one and the same infinite fountain of goodness, infinitely flowing forth in the riches of his love upon all and every life; but the creatures have changed their state in nature, and so the God of nature can only be manifested in and to them, according to their own state in nature: and this is the true ground of rightly understanding all that is said of the wrath and vengeance of God in and upon the creatures. It is only in such a sense as the curse or unhappiness of God may be said to be upon them, not because anything cursed, or unhappy can be in, or come from God, but because they have made that life which they must have in God, to be mere curse and unhappiness to them: for every creature that lives, must have its life in and from God, and therefore God must be in every creature; this is as true of devils, as of holy angels: but how is God in them? Why only as he is manifested in nature. Holy angels have the triune life of God in them, therefore God is in them all love, goodness, majesty and glory, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Devils have nothing of this triune life left in them, but the fire of eternal nature broken off from all light and joy; and therefore the life that they can have in and from God, is only a life of wrath and darkness, and theirs is the kingdom of hell: and because this life is a strength of life which they must have in and from God, and which they cannot take out of his hands; therefore, is their cursed, miserable, wrathful life truly and justly said to be the curse, and wrath, and vengeance of God in and upon them, though God himself can no more have wrath and vengeance, than he can have mischief and malice in him: for this is a glorious, twofold truth, that from God considered as in himself, nothing can come from eternity to eternity, but infinite love, goodness, happiness, and glory; and also that infinite love, goodness, happiness and glory are, and will be for ever and ever flowing forth from him in the same boundless, universal, infinite manner; he is the same infinitely overflowing fountain of love, goodness and glory after, as before the fall of any creatures; his love, and the infinite workings of it can no more be lessened, than his power can be increased by any outward thing; no creature, or number of creatures can raise any anger in him, ’tis as impossible as to cast terror, or darkness, and pain into him, for nothing can come into God from the creature, nothing can be in him, but that which the Holy Trinity in Unity is in itself. All creatures are products of the infinite, triune love of God; nothing willed, and desired, and formed them, but infinite love, and they have all of them all the happiness, beauty and excellency that an infinitely powerful love can reach out to them: the same infinite love continues still in its first creating goodness, willing, desiring, working, and doing nothing with regard to all creatures, but what it willed, did, and desired in the creation of them: this God over nature and creature, darts no more anger at angels when fallen, than he did in the creation of them: they are not in hell, because Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are angry at them, and so cast them into a punishment, which their wrath had contrived for them; but they are in wrath and darkness, because they have done to the light which infinitely flows forth from God, as that man does to the light of the sun, who puts out his own eyes: he is in darkness, not because the sun is darkened towards him, has less light for him, or has lost all inclination to enlighten him, but because he has put out that birth of light in himself, which alone made him capable of seeing in the light of the sun. It is thus with fallen angels, they have extinguished in themselves that birth of light and love, which was their only capacity for that happiness, which infinitely, and everywhere flows forth from God; and they no more have their punishment from God himself than the man who puts out his eyes, has his darkness from the sun itself. 21. God, considered in himself, as the holy, triune God, is not the immediate fountain and original of creatures; but God considered as manifesting himself in and through nature, is the creator, Father and producer of all things. The hidden Deity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is from eternity to eternity, manifested, made visible, perceivable, sensible in the united glory of fire, light and spirit; this is the beatific presence, the glorious outbirth of the Holy Trinity; this is that eternal, universal nature, which brings God into all creatures, and all creatures into God, according to that degree and manner of life which they have in nature: for the life of creatures must stand in nature, and nature is nothing else but God made manifest, visible, and perceptible; and therefore the life of every creature, be it what it will, a life of joy or wrath, is only so much of God made manifest in it, and perceptible by it, and thus is God in some creatures only a God of wrath, and in others, only a God of glory and goodness. No creature can have life, or live, and move, and have its being in God, but by being formed out of, and living in this manifestation of nature. Thus far hell and heaven, angels and devils are equally in God, that is, they equally live, move, and have their being in that eternal nature, which is the eternal manifestation of God: the one have a life of glory, majesty, and love, and bliss, the other a life of horror, fire, wrath, misery, and darkness. Now, all this could not possibly be, there could be no room for this distinction between creatures standing in nature, the one could not possibly have a life of majestic bliss and glory, the other of fiery horror and darkness, but because the holy, triune God is manifested in the united glory and bliss of fire, light, and spirit. For the creatures could only divide that, which there was in nature to be divided, they could only divide that, which was united, and divisible; and therefore, as sure as heaven is a splendrous light of blissful majesty, as sure as hell is a place of fiery wrath and darkness, so sure is it from the scriptures, that eternal nature, which is from God, or a manifestation of God, is a nature of united fire, light, and spirit, otherwise, some creatures could not have the blissful glory of light, and others, a horrible, fiery darkness for their separate portions. All therefore that has been said of an eternal nature, or kingdom of heaven, consisting of united fire, light, and spirit, is not only to be looked upon as an opinion well grounded, and sufficiently discovered by the light of nature, but as a fundamental truth of revealed religion, fully established by all that is said in the scriptures both of heaven and hell. For if God was not manifested, visible, perceptible and communicable, in and by this united fire, and light, and spirit, how could there be a heaven of glorious majesty? If this fire of heaven could not be separated, or broken off from its heavenly light, how could there be a hell in nature? Or, how could those angels which lost the light of heaven, have thereby fallen into a state of hellish darkness, or fire? Is not all this the greatest of demonstrations, that the holy Triunity of God is, and must be manifested in nature, by the union of fire, light, and spirit? And is not this demonstration wholly taken from the very letter of the most plain doctrines of scripture? Hell and wrath could have no possibility of existence, but because the light and majesty, and glory of heaven, must of all necessity have its birth in and from the fire of nature. An angel could not have become a devil, but because the angelic light and glory had, and must have its birth in and from the fire of life. And thus as a devil was found, where angelic light and glory had its existence, so a hell was found, where heavenly glory was before; and as the devil is nothing but a fire-spirit broken off from its angelic light and glory, so hell is nothing but the fire of heaven separated from its first light and majesty. And here we have plainly found two worlds in eternity; not possible to be two, nor ever known to be two, but by such creatures, as have in their own natures, by their own self-motion, separated the fire of eternal nature from its eternal light, spirit and majesty. And this is also the beginning, or first opening of the wrath of God in the creature; which is, in other words, only the beginning, or first opening of pain and misery in the creature, or the origin of a hellish, tormenting state of life. 22. And here, in this dark wrathful fire of the fallen creature, do we truly find that wrath and anger and vengeance of God, that cleaves to sin, that must be quenched, atoned, and satisfied before the sinner can be reconciled to God; that is, before it can have again that triune life of God in it, which is its union with the Holy Trinity of God, or its regaining the kingdom of heaven in itself. Some have objected, that by thus considering the fallen soul, as a dark, wrathful fire-spirit, for this reason, because it has lost the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it, that this casts reproach upon God the Father, as having the nature of such a soul in him. But this is a groundless objection, for this state of the soul casts no more reproach upon the first, than upon the second and third persons of the holy Trinity. The fallen soul, that has lost the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it, cannot be said to have the nature of the Father left in it. This would be blasphemous nonsense, and is no way founded on this doctrine. But such a soul must be said to have a nature from the Father left in it, though a spoiled one, and this because the Father is the origin, fountain and creator of all kind of existence: hell, and the devils have their nature from him, because every kind of creature must have what it has of life and being from its creator; but hell and the devils have not therefore the nature of the Father in them. If it be asked what the Father is, as he is the first person in the sacred Trinity, the answer must be, that as such, he is the generator of the Son and Holy Spirit: this is the nature of the Father; where this generating is not, there is not the nature of the Father. Is it not therefore highly absurd to charge this doctrine with ascribing the nature of the Father to the fallen soul, which asserts the soul to be fallen, for this reason, because it has quite lost and extinguished all power and ability for the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit in it? How could it be more roundly affirmed, or more fully proved, that the fallen soul hath not the nature of the Father in it. But to proceed: The reader ought not to wonder, or be offended at the frequent mention of the word "fire," which is here used to denote the true nature, and state of the soul. For both nature and scripture speak continually the same language. For wherever there is mention of life, light, or love in the scriptures, there fire is necessarily supposed, as being that in which all life, and light, and love must necessarily arise; and therefore the scriptures speak as often of fire, as they do of life, and light, and love, because the one necessarily includes the other: for all life, whether it be vegetable, sensitive, animal, or intellectual, is only a kindl ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 02.03. CHAPTER 3 ======================================================================== Chapter III. The true Ground of all the Doctrines of the Gospel discovered. Why Adam could make no Atonement for his sins. Why, and how Jesus Christ alone could make this Atonement. Whence the Shedding of Blood for the Remission of Sins. What Wrath and Anger it is, that is quenched and atoned by the Blood of Christ. Of the last Sufferings of Christ. Why, and how we must eat the Flesh and drink the Blood of Jesus Christ. We have now, worthy reader, so far cleared the way, that we have nothing to do, but to rejoice in the most open illustration, and full proof of all the great doctrines of the gospel, and to see all the objections, which Deists, Arians, and Socinians have brought against the first articles of our faith, dashed to pieces: for as soon as we but begin to know, that the holy, triune Deity from eternity to eternity manifests itself in nature, by the triune birth of fire, light and spirit, and that all angels and men must have been created out of this nature; there is not a doctrine in scripture concerning the creation, fall, and redemption of man, but becomes the most plainly intelligible, and all the mysteries of our redemption are proved and confirmed to us, by all that is visible and perceptible in all nature and creature. Here we have the plain foundation of the whole economy of all religion from the beginning to the end of time, why the incarnation of the Son of God, who is the light of the world, must have before it the fiery dispensation of the Father delivered from Mount Sinai; and after it, the pouring out, or proceeding forth of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh; it is because the triune life of the fallen race must be restored according to the triune manifestation of the holy Deity in nature. Here we know what the love, and what the anger of God is, what heaven and hell, an angel and a devil, a lost and a redeemed soul are. The love, and goodness, and blessing of God known, found, and enjoyed by any creature, is nothing else but the Holy Trinity of God known, found, and enjoyed in the blissful, glorious, triune life of fire, light and spirit, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost perpetually communicate their own nameless, numberless, boundless powers, riches and glories to the created image of their own nature. The hell in nature, and the hellish life in the creature, the wrath of God in nature and creature, is nothing else but the triune, holy life broken and destroyed in some order of creatures, it is only the fire of heaven separated from its heavenly Light and Spirit. This is that eternal anger, and wrath, and vengeance, that must be atoned, satisfied, and removed, that eternal fire that must be quenched, that eternal darkness that must be changed into light, or there is no possibility in nature, that the soul of fallen man should ever see the kingdom of God: and here all the doctrines of the Socinians are quite torn up by the roots. For in this ground appeareth the absolute necessity of the incarnation, life, sufferings, death, resurrection and ascension of the Son of God. Here lieth the full proof, that through all nature there could no redeemer of man be found, but only in the second person of the adorable Trinity become man. For as the Light and Spirit of eternal life, is the Light and Spirit of the Son and Holy Ghost manifested in heaven, so the Light of eternal life could never come again into the fallen soul, but from him alone, who is the Light of heaven. He must be again in the soul, as he was in it when it was first breathed forth from the Holy Trinity, he must be manifested in the soul, as he is in heaven, or it can never have the life of heaven in it. The Socinians therefore, or others, who think they pay a just deference to the wisdom and omnipotence of God, when they suppose there was no absolute necessity for the incarnation of the Son of God; but that God, if he had so pleased, could as well have saved man some other way, show as great ignorance both of God and nature, as if they should have said, that when God makes a blind man to see by opening or giving him eyes, there was no necessity in the thing itself, that sight should be given in that particular way, but that God, if he had so pleased, could have made him become a seeing man in this world without eyes, or light of this world. For if the Son of God is the Light of heaven, and man only wants to be redeemed, because he has lost the Light of heaven; is it not absolutely impossible for him to be redeemed any other way, or by any other thing, than by a birth of this Son of God in him. Is not this particularity the one only thing that can raise fallen man, as seeing eyes are the one only thing that can take away blindness from the man? If Adam had been able to undo himself all that he had done, if he could have gone back into that state from whence he was fallen, if he could have raised up again in himself that birth of the Holy Trinity, in which he was created, no savior had been wanted for him; but because he could not do anything of this, but must be that which he had made himself to be, therefore the wrath of nature, or the wrath of God, manifested in nature, abode upon him, and this wrath must of all necessity be appeased, atoned, and satisfied, that is, it must be kindled into light and love, before he could again find, and enjoy the God of nature, as a God of light and love. Could Adam himself have done all that which I have just now mentioned, then his own actions had atoned and satisfied the divine wrath, and had reconciled him to God: for nothing lost him the love of God, but that which separated him from God; and nothing did, or ever can separate him from God, but the loss of that inner triune life, in which alone the Holy Trinity of divine love can dwell. If therefore Adam could have raised again in himself that triune life, then his sin, and the wrath of God upon him, had been only transitory; but because he did that, which according to all the possibilities of nature, was unalterable; therefore he became a prisoner of an eternal wrath, and heir of an everlasting, painful life, till the love of God, who is greater than nature, should do that for him and in him, which he could by no powers of nature do for himself, nor the highest of creatures do for him. 3. And here we see in the plainest light, that there was no anger in God himself towards the fallen creature, because it was purely and solely the infinite love of God towards him, that did, and alone could raise him out of his fallen state: all scripture, as well as nature, obliges us to think thus of God. Thus it is the whole tenor of scripture, that "God so loved the world, that he sent his only-begotten Son into it, that the world, through him, might be saved": is not this saying more than if it had been said, that there was no anger in God himself towards fallen man? Is he not expressly declared to be infinitely flowing forth in love towards him? Could God be more infinite in love, or more infinitely distant from all possibility of anger towards man, when he first created him, than when he thus redeemed him? God out of pure and free love gave his Son to be the life of the world, first, as an inspoken and ingrafted Word of life, as the bruiser of the serpent given to all mankind in their father Adam. This Word of life, and bruiser of the serpent, was the extinguisher of that wrath of God that lay upon fallen man. Now, will the scriptures, which tell us that the love of God sent his Son into the world, to redeem man from that hellish wrath that had seized him, allow us to say, that it was to extinguish a wrath that was got into God himself, or that the bruiser of the serpent was to bruise, suppress, or remove something that sin had raised in the Holy Trinity itself? No surely, but to bruise, alter, and overcome an evil in nature and the creature, that was become man’s separation from the enjoyment of the God of love, whose love still existed in its own state, and still followed him, and gave his only Son to make him capable of it. Do not the holy scriptures continually teach us, that the holy Jesus became incarnate to destroy the works of the devil, to overcome death and hell that had taken man captive? And is not this sufficiently telling us, what that wrath was, and where it existed, which must be atoned, satisfied, and extinguished, before man could again be alive unto God, or reconciled unto him, so as to have the triune life of light and love in him? It was a wrath of death, a wrath of hell, a wrath of sin, and which only the precious, powerful blood of Christ could change into a life of joy and love: and when this wrath of death and hell are removed from human nature, there neither is, nor can be any other wrath of God abiding on it. Are not the devils and all lost souls justly said to be under the eternal wrath of God, and yet no wrath but that which exists in hell, and in their own hellish nature. 4. They therefore, who suppose the wrath and anger of God upon fallen man, to be a state of mind in God himself, to be a political kind of just indignation, a point of honorable resentment, which the sovereign Deity, as governor of the world, ought not to recede from, but must have a sufficient satisfaction done to his offended authority, before he can, consistently with his sovereign honor, receive the sinner into his favor, hold the doctrine of the necessity of Christ’s atoning life and death in a mistaken sense. That many good souls may hold his doctrine in this simplicity of belief, without any more hurt to themselves, than others have held the reality of Christ’s flesh and blood in the sacrament under the notion of the transubstantiation of the bread and wine, I make no manner of doubt: but when books are written to impose and require this belief of others, as the only saving faith in the life and death of Christ, it is then an error that ceases to be innocent: for neither reason nor scripture will allow us to bring wrath into God himself, as a temper of his mind, who is only infinite, unalterable, overflowing love, as unchangeable in love, as he is in power and goodness. The wrath that was awakened at the fall of man, that then seized upon him, as its captive, was only a plague, or evil, or curse that sin had brought forth in nature and creature: it was only the beginning of hell: it was such a wrath as God himself pitied man’s lying under it; it was such a wrath as God himself furnished man with a power of overcoming and extinguishing, and therefore it was not a wrath that was according to the mind, will, and liking, or wisdom of God; and therefore it was not a wrath that was in God himself, or which was exercised by his sovereign wisdom over his disobedient creatures: it was not such a wrath, as when sovereign princes are angry at offenders, and will not cease from their resentment, until some political satisfaction, or valuable amends be made to their slighted authority. No, no; it was such a wrath as God himself hated, as he hates sin and hell, a wrath that the God of all nature and creature so willed to be removed and extinguished, that seeing nothing less could do it, he sent his only begotten Son into the world, that all mankind might be saved and delivered from it. For seeing the wrath that was awakened and brought forth by the fall, and which wanted to be appeased, atoned, and quenched, was the wrath of eternal death, and eternal hell, that had taken man captive; therefore God spared not the precious, powerful, efficacious blood of the holy Jesus, because that alone could extinguish this eternal wrath of death and hell, and re-kindle heaven and eternal life again in the soul. And thus all that the scriptures speak of the necessity and powerful atonement of the life and death of Christ, all that they say of the infinite love of God towards fallen man, and all that they say of the eternal wrath and vengeance to which man was become a prey, have the most solid foundation, and are all of them proved to be consistent, harmonious truths of the greatest certainty, according to the plain letter of scripture. 5. It is the foundation of the Law and the gospel, that without shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins; and that the precious blood of Christ could alone do this, could alone reconcile us to God, and deliver us from the wrath to come. How, and why blood, and only the blood of Jesus Christ could do this, will appear as follows: Adam was created with a twofold respect, to be himself a glorious, living, eternal image of the holy, triune God, and to be a father of a new world of like beings, all descended from himself: when Adam fell, he lost both these conditions of his created state; the holy image of God was extinguished, his soul lost the Light and Spirit of heaven, and his body became earthly, bestial, corruptible flesh and blood, and he could only be a father of a posterity partly diabolical, and partly bestial. Now, if the first purpose of God was to stand, and to take effect; if Adam was still to be the father of a race that were to become sons of God, then there was an absolute necessity that all that Adam had done in and to himself, and his posterity, by the fall, should be undone again; the serpent and the beast, that is, the serpentine life, and the bestial life in human nature, must both of them be overcome, and driven out of it. This was the one only, possible salvation for Adam, and every individual of his posterity. Adam had killed that which was to have been immortal in him, he had raised that into a life which never should have been alive in him, and therefore that which was to be undone and altered both in himself and his posterity, was this, it was to part with a life that he had raised up into being, and to get another life, which he had quite extinguished. And here appears the true, infallible ground of all the sacrifice, and all the blood-shedding that is necessary to redeem and reconcile man to God. ’Tis because the earthly, fleshly, bestial, corruptible life under the elements of this world, is a life raised and brought into man by the fall, is not that life which God created, but is an impurity in the sight of God, and therefore cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven; ’tis a life, or body of sin, brought forth by sin, and the habitation of sin, and therefore it is a life that must be given up, its blood must be poured out, before man can be released from his sins: this is the one only ground of all the shedding of blood in religion. Had not a life foreign to the kingdom of God, and utterly incapable of it, been introduced by the fall, there had been no possible room for the death of any creature, or the pouring out any blood, as serviceable and instrumental to the raising fallen man. 6. But now, this bestial, animal life which is thus to be given up, and its blood poured out, is but the half, and lesser half of that which is required to deliver man from all that the fall has brought upon him. For the heavenly life, the birth of the Light and Holy Spirit of God which Adam had quite extinguished, was to be kindled or regenerated again; also his first, glorious, immortal body was to be regained, before he could become an inhabitant of the kingdom of heaven: but for all this Adam had no power. See here again the true and dreadful state of the fall, it was the fall into such a life, as must be slain and sacrificed before the fallen soul could come to God; and yet this death and sacrifice of the body, which was thus absolutely necessary, was the most dreadful thing that could happen to man, because his own death, come when it would, would only remove him from the light of this world into the eternal darkness, and hellish state of fallen angels: and here we find the true reason, why man’s own death, though a sacrifice necessary to be made, had yet nothing of atonement or satisfaction in it; it was because it left the eternal wrath of nature, and the hell that was therein, unquenched and unextinguished in the soul, and therefore made no reconcilement to God, no restoration to the creature of its first state and life in God, but left the soul in its dark, wrathful separation from the kingdom of light and love. But here the amazing infinity of divine love appeared, such a mystery of love as will be the universal song of praise to all eternity. Here God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, took human nature upon him, became a suffering, dying man, that there might be found a man, whose sufferings, blood and death had power to extinguish the wrath and hell that sin had brought forth, and to be a fountain of the first heavenly life to the whole race of mankind. It was human nature that was fallen, that had lost its first heavenly life, and got a bestial, diabolical life in the stead of it. Now if this human nature was to be restored, there was but one possible way, it must go back to the state from whence it came, it must put off all that it had put on, it must regain all that it had lost: but the human nature that fell, could do nothing of this, and yet all this must be done in and by that human nature which is fallen, or it could never, to all eternity, come out of the state of its fall; for it could not possibly come out of the state of its fall, but by putting off all that, which the fall had brought upon it. And thus stood man, as to all the powers of nature and creature, in an utter impossibility of salvation, and had only a short life of this world betwixt him and hell. 7. But let us now change scene, and behold the wonders of a new creation, where all things are called out of the curse and death of sin, and created again to life in Christ Jesus; where all mankind are chosen and appointed to the recovery of their first glorious life, by a new birth from a second Adam, who, as an universal redeemer, takes the place of the first fallen father of mankind, and so gives life and immortality, and heaven to all that lost them in Adam. God, according to the riches of his love, raised man out of the loins of Adam, in whose mysterious person, the whole humanity, and the Word of God was personally united; that same Word which had been inspoken into Adam at his fall, as a secret bruiser of the serpent, and real beginning of his salvation; so that in this second Adam, God and man was one person. And in this union of the divine and human nature lies the foundation and possibility of our recovery. For thus the holy Jesus became qualified to be the second Adam, or universal regenerator of all that are born of Adam the first. For being himself that Deity, which as a spark or seed of life was given to Adam, thus all that were born of Adam had also a birth from him, and so stood under him, as their common father and regenerator of a heavenly life in them. And it was this first inspoken Word of life which was given to Adam, that makes all mankind to be the spiritual children of the second Adam, though he was not born into the world till so many years after the fall. For seeing the same Word that became their perfect redeemer in the fullness of time, was in them from the beginning, as a beginning of their redemption, therefore he stood related to all mankind as a fountain and deriver of an heavenly life into them, in the same universal manner as Adam was the fountain and deriver of a miserable mortality into them. And seeing also this great and glorious redeemer had in himself the whole humanity, both as it was before and after the fall, viz., in his inward man the perfection of the first Adam, and in his outward the weakness and mortality of the fallen nature; and seeing he had all this, as the undoer of all that Adam had done, as the overcomer of death, as the former and raiser of our heavenly life, therefore it was, that all his conquests over this world, sin, death, and hell, were not the conquests of a single person that terminated in himself, but had their real effect and efficacious merit through all human nature, because he was the appointed father and regenerator of the whole human nature, and as such, had that same relation to it all as Adam had: and therefore as Adam’s fall, sin and death, did not, could not terminate in himself, because he was our appointed father, from whom we must have such a state and condition of life as he had; so the righteousness, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ into the kingdom of heaven did not terminate in himself, but became ours, because he is our appointed second Adam, from whom we are to derive such a state and condition of life as he had; and therefore all that are born again of him, are certainly born into his state of victory and triumph over the world, sin, death and hell. 8. Now here is opened to us the true reason of the whole process of our savior’s incarnation, passion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven: it was because fallen man was to go through all these stages as necessary parts of his return to God; and therefore, if man was to go out of his fallen state, there must be a son of this fallen man, who, as a head and fountain of the whole race, could do all this, could go back through all these gates, and so make it possible for all the individuals of human nature, as being born of him, to inherit his conquering nature, and follow him through all these passages to eternal life. And thus we see, in the strongest and clearest light, both why and how the holy Jesus is become our great redeemer. Had he failed in any of these things, had he not been all that he was, and did all that he did, he could not have made one full, perfect, sufficient atonement and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, that is, he could not have been and done that, which in the nature of the thing was absolutely necessary, and fully sufficient to take the whole human race out of the bondage and captivity of their fallen state. Thus, had he not really had the divine nature in his person, he could not have begun to be our second Adam from the time of the fall, nor could we have stood related to him as children, that had received a new birth from him. Neither could he have made a beginning of a divine life in our fallen nature, but that he was that God who could make our nature begin again where it had failed in our first father. Without this divinity in his person, the perfection of his humanity would have been as helpless to us as the perfection of an angel. Again, had he not been man, and in human nature overcome sin and temptation, he could have been no savior of fallen man, because nothing that he had done had been done in and to the fallen nature. Adam might as well have derived sin into the angels by his fall, as Christ had derived righteousness into us by his life, if he had not stood both in our nature, and as the common father and regenerator of it; therefore his incarnation was necessary to deliver us from our sins, and accordingly the scripture saith, "he was manifest in the flesh to destroy the works of the devil." Again, if Christ had not renounced this life, as heartily and thoroughly as Adam chose it, and declared absolutely for another kingdom in another world; if he had not sacrificed the life he took up in and from this world, he could not have been our redeemer, and therefore the scripture continually ascribes atonement, satisfaction, redemption, and remission of sins to his sufferings and death. Again, had not our Lord entered into that state of eternal death which fallen man was eternally to inherit; had he not broken from it as its conqueror, and rose again from the dead, he could not have delivered us from the effects of our sins, and therefore the apostle saith, "If Christ be not risen, ye are yet in your sins." But I must enlarge a little upon the nature and merits of our savior’s last sufferings. It is plain from scripture that that death, which our blessed Lord died on the cross, was absolutely necessary for our salvation; that he, as our savior, was to taste death for every man--that as the captain of our salvation, he was to be made perfect through sufferings--that there was no entrance for fallen man into paradise till Christ had overcome death and hell, or that first and second death which stood between us and it. Now the absolute necessity of our savior’s doing and suffering all this, plainly appears, as soon as we consider him as the second Adam, who, as such, is to undo all the evil that the first Adam had done in human nature; and therefore must enter into every state that belonged to this fallen nature, restoring in every state that which was lost, quickening that which was extinguished, and overcoming in every state that by which man was overcome. And therefore as eternal death was as certainly brought forth in our souls, as temporal death in our bodies, as this death was a state that belonged to fallen man, therefore our Lord was obliged to taste this dreadful death, to enter into the realities of it, that he might carry our nature victoriously through it. And as fallen man was to have entered into this eternal death at his giving up the ghost in this world, so the second Adam, as reversing all that the first had done, was to stand in this second death upon the cross, and die from it into that paradise out of which Adam the first died into this world. Now when the time drew near that our blessed Lord was to enter upon his last great sufferings, viz., the realities of that second death through which he was to pass, then it was that all the anguishing terrors of a lost soul began to open themselves in him; then all that eternal death which Adam had brought into his soul, when it lost the Light and Spirit of heaven, began to be awakened, and stirring in the second Adam, who was come to stand in the last state of the fallen soul, to be encompassed with that eternal death and sensibility of hell, which must have been the everlasting state of fallen man. The beginning of our Lord’s entrance into the terrible jaws of this second death, may be justly dated from those affecting words, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, tarry ye here with me and watch." See here the Lord of life reduced to such distress as to beg the prayers, watching, and assistance of his poor disciples! A plain proof that it was not the sufferings of this world, but a state of dreadful dereliction that was coming upon him. O holy redeemer, that I knew how to describe the anguishing terrors of thy soul, when thou wast entering into eternal death, that no other son of man might fall into it. The progress of these terrors are plainly shown us in our Lord’s agony in the garden, when the reality of this eternal death so broke in upon him, so awakened and stirred itself in him, as to force great drops of blood to sweat from his body. This was that bitter cup which made him withdraw himself, prostrate himself, and thrice repeat an earnest prayer, that if it were possible, it might pass from him, but at the same time heartily prayed to drink it according to the divine will. This was that cup he was drinking from the sixth to the ninth hour on the cross, nailed to the terrors of a twofold death, when he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" We are not to suppose that our Lord’s agony was the terrors of a person that was going to be murdered, or the fears of that death which men could inflict upon him; for he had told his disciples, not to fear them that could only kill the body, and therefore we may be sure he had no such fears himself. No, his agony was his entrance into the last, eternal terrors of the lost soul, into the real horrors of that dreadful, eternal death, which man unredeemed must have died into when he left this world. We are therefore not to consider our Lord’s death upon the cross, as only the death of that mortal body which was nailed to it, but we are to look upon him with wounded hearts, as fixed and fastened in the state of that twofold death, which was due to the fallen nature, out of which he could not come till he could say, "It is finished; Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." In that instant he gave up the ghost of this earthly life; and as a proof of his having overcome all the bars and chains of death and hell, he rent the rocks, opened the graves, and brought the dead to life, and triumphantly entered into that long shut up paradise, out of which Adam died, and in which he promised the thief, he should that day be with him. When therefore thou beholdest the crucifix, which finely represents to thy senses the savior of the world hanging on the cross, let not thy thoughts stay on any sufferings, or death, that the malice of men can cause; for he hung there in greater distress than any human power can inflict, forsaken of God, feeling, bearing, and overcoming the pains and darkness of that eternal death which the fallen soul of Adam had brought into it. For as Adam by his fall, or death in paradise, had nothing left in his soul, but the nature, properties and life of hell, all which must have awakened in him in their full strength, as soon as he had lost the flesh, and blood, and light of this world, as this eternal death was a state that belonged to man by the fall, so there was an absolute necessity that the savior of man should enter into all these awakened realities of the last eternal death, and come victoriously out of them, or man had never been redeemed from them. For the fallen nature could no way possibly be saved, but by its own coming victoriously out of every part of its fallen state; and therefore all this was to be done by that son of man, from whom we had a power of deriving into us his victorious nature. Lastly, if our blessed Lord was not ascended into heaven, and set on the right hand of God, he could not deliver us from our sins; and therefore the scripture ascribes to him, as ascended, a perpetual priesthood in heaven: "If any man sin," saith St. John, "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins." All these things therefore are so many equally essential parts of our savior’s character, and he is the one atonement, the full satisfaction for sin, the savior and deliverer from the bondage, power, and effects of sin. And to ascribe our deliverance from sin, or the remission of our sins more to the life and actions, than to the death of Christ, or to his death more than to his resurrection and ascension, is directly contrary to the plain letter and tenor of the scripture, which speaks of all these things as jointly qualifying our Lord to be the all- sufficient redeemer of mankind; and when speaking separately of any of them, ascribes the same power, efficacy, and redeeming virtue to one as to the other. And all this is very plain from the nature of the thing; for since all these things are necessary parts or stages of our return to God, every one of them must have the same necessary share in delivering us from our sinful state; and therefore what our savior did, as living, dying, rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven, are things that he did as equally necessary, and equally efficacious to our full deliverance from all the power, effects, and consequences of our sins. And here we may see, in the plainest light, how Christ is said to bear our iniquities, to be made sin for us, and how his sufferings have delivered us from the guilt and sufferings due to our sins, and how we are saved by him. It is not by an arbitrary, discretionary pleasure of God, accepting the sufferings of an innocent person, as a sufficient amends or satisfaction for the sins of criminals. This is by no means the true ground of this matter. In this view we neither think rightly of our savior, nor rightly of God’s receiving us to salvation through him. God is reconciled to us through Jesus Christ in no other sense than as we are new born, new created in Christ Jesus. This is the only merit we have from him. Jesus Christ was made sin for us, he bore our iniquities, he saved us, not by giving the merit of his innocent unjust sufferings as a full payment for our demerits, but he saved us because he made himself one of us, became a member of our nature, and such a member of our nature, as had power to heal, remove, and overcome all the evils that were brought into our nature by the fall. He bore our iniquities and saved us, because he stood in our nature as our common father, as one that had the same relation to all mankind as Adam had, and from whom we can derive all the conquering power of his nature, and so are enabled to come out of our guilt and iniquities by having his nature derived into us. This is the whole of what is meant by having our guilty condition transferred upon him, and his merit transferred upon us: our guilt is transferred upon him in no other sense than as he took upon him the state and condition of our fallen nature, to bear all its troubles, undergo all its sufferings, till he had healed and overcome all the effects of sin. His merit or righteousness is imputed or derived into us in no other sense, than as we receive from him a birth, a nature, a power to become the sons of God. Hence it appears, what vain disputes the world has had upon this subject, and how this edifying, glorious part of religion has been perplexed and lost in the fictions and difficulties of scholastic learning. Some people have much puzzled themselves and others with this question, how it is consistent with the goodness and equity of God to permit, or accept the sufferings of an innocent person as a satisfaction for the guilt and punishment of criminal offenders? But this question can only be put by those, who have not yet known the most fundamental doctrine of the gospel salvation; for according to the gospel, the question should proceed thus, How it is consistent with the goodness and equity of God, to raise such an innocent, mysterious person out of the loins of fallen man, as was able to remove all the evil and disorder that was brought into the fallen nature? This is the only question that is according to the true ground of our redemption, and at once disperses all those difficulties which are the mere products of human invention. The short of the matter is this: Man considered as created, or fallen, or redeemed, is that which he is, because of his state in nature; he can have no goodness in him when created, but because he is brought into such a participation of a goodness that there is in nature; he can have no evil in him when fallen, but because he is fallen from his good state in nature; he can no way be redeemed, but by being brought into his first state of perfection in nature; and therefore, this is an eternal, immutable truth, that he can be redeemed by the God of nature, only according to the possibilities of nature: and here lies the true ground, the whole reason of all that our savior was, and did, and suffered on our account: it was because in and through all nature there could be no other relief found for us: it was because nothing less than such a process of such a mysterious person could have power to undo all the evils that were done in and to the human nature; and therefore it is not only consistent with the goodness and equity of God to bring such a mysterious person into the world, but is the most infinite instance of his most infinite love to all mankind, that can possibly be conceived and adored by us. To proceed: 9. By the fall of our first father we have lost our first, glorious bodies, that eternal, celestial flesh and blood which had as truly the nature of paradise and heaven in it, as our present bodies have the nature, mortality and corruption of this world in them: if therefore we are to be redeemed, there is an absolute necessity that our souls be clothed again with this first paradisaical, or heavenly flesh and blood, or we can never enter into the kingdom of God. Now, this is the reason, why the scriptures speak so particularly, so frequently, and so emphatically of the powerful blood of Christ, of the great benefit it is to us, of its redeeming, quickening, life-giving virtue; it is because our first life, or heavenly flesh and blood is born again in us, or derived again into us from this blood of Christ. Our blessed Lord, who died for us, had not only that outward flesh and blood, which he received from the virgin Mary, and which died upon the cross, but he had also an holy humanity of heavenly flesh and blood veiled under it, which was appointed by God to quicken, generate, and bring forth from itself, such an holy offspring of immortal flesh and blood, as Adam the first should have brought forth before his fall. If our Lord Christ had not had a heavenly humanity, consisting of such flesh and blood as is not of this world, he had not been so perfect as Adam was, nor could our birth from him, raise us to that perfection, which we had lost, nor could his blood be said to purchase, ransom, redeem, and restore us; because, as it is heavenly flesh and blood that we have lost, so we can only have it ransomed and restored to us, by that blood which is of the same heavenly and immortal nature with that which we have quite lost. Our common faith, therefore, obliges us to hold, that our Lord had the perfection of the first Adam’s flesh and blood united with, and veiled under that fallen nature, which he took upon him from the blessed virgin Mary. Had he not taken our fallen nature upon him, nothing that he had done, could have been of any advantage to us, or brought any ransom or redemption to our fallen nature; and had he not taken our nature as it was before the fall, he could not have been our second Adam, or a restorer to us of that nature, which we should have had from Adam if he had not fallen. Now, what our common faith thus fully teaches, concerning a heavenly, as well as earthly humanity, which our Lord had, is also plainly signified to us by several clear texts of scripture; as where he saith of himself, "I am from above, ye are from beneath," again, "I am not of this world," and further, "No one ascends into heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man, who is in heaven": these and other texts of the like nature, which plainly speak of something in our blessed Lord, which can neither be understood of his divinity, nor of that flesh and blood which he received from the virgin Mary, has forced some scholastic divines to hold the pre-existence of our savior’s soul, which is an opinion utterly inconsistent with our redemption; for it is as necessary that our Lord should have a soul as well as a body derived from Adam, in order to be the redeemer of Adam’s offspring: but all these texts, which a learning, merely literal, has thus mistaken, do only prove this great, necessary, and edifying truth, that our blessed Lord had a heavenly humanity, which clothed itself with the flesh and blood of this world in the womb of the virgin; and from that heavenly humanity, or life-giving blood it is, that our first heavenly, immortal flesh and blood is generated and formed in us again; and therefore his blood is truly the atonement, the ransom, the redemption, the life of the world; because it brings forth, and generates from itself the paradisaical, immortal flesh and blood, as certainly, as really, as the blood of fallen Adam brings forth and generates from itself the sinful, vile, corruptible flesh and blood of this life. Would you further know, what blood this is, that has this atoning, life-giving quality in it? It is that blood which is to be received in the holy sacrament. Would you know, why it quickens, raises and restores the inward man that died in paradise? The answer is from Christ himself, "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him, that is, he is born of my flesh and blood." Would you know, why the apostle saith, "that he hath purchased us by his blood," Acts 20:28. "That we have redemption through his blood," Ephesians 1:7. Why he prays, "the God of peace--through the blood of the everlasting covenant, to make us perfect in every good work to do his will"; ’tis because the holy Jesus saith, "except we drink his blood, we have no life in us," and therefore the drinking his blood, is the same thing as receiving a life of heavenly flesh and blood from him: and all this is only saying, that our savior, the second Adam, must do that for us and in us, which the first Adam should have done; his blood must be that to us by way of descent, or birth from him, which the blood of our first father, if he had not fallen, would have been to us; and as this blood of an immortal life is lost by the fall, so he from whom we receive it again by a secondary way, is justly and truly said, to purchase, to redeem, and ransom us by his blood. Now, there is but one redeeming, sanctifying, life-giving blood of Christ, and it is that which gave and shed itself under the veil of that outward flesh and blood that was sacrificed upon the cross; it is that holy and heavenly flesh and blood which is to be received in the holy sacrament; it is that holy, immortal flesh and blood which Adam had before the fall, of which blood, if we had drank, that is, if we had been born of it, we had not wanted a savior, but had had such flesh and blood as could have entered into the kingdom of heaven; had we received this holy, immortal flesh and blood from Adam before his fall, it had been called our being born of his flesh and blood; but because we receive that same flesh and blood from Jesus Christ, our second Adam, by our faith, our hunger and desire of it; therefore it is justly called our eating and drinking his flesh and blood. And here we have another strong scripture proof, that our savior had heavenly flesh and blood veiled under that which he received from the virgin Mary. For does not the holy sacrament undeniably prove to us, that he had a heavenly flesh entirely different from that which was seen nailed to the cross, and which was to be a heavenly, substantial food to us; that he had a blood entirely different from that which was seen to run out of his mortal body, which blood we are to drink of, and live for ever? Now, that flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God, is a scripture truth; and yet it must be affirmed to be a truth according to the same scriptures, that flesh and blood can, and must enter into the kingdom of God, or else, neither Adam, nor any of his posterity could enter in thither; therefore, it is a scripture truth, that there is a flesh and blood that has the nature, the likeness, and qualities of heaven in it, that is as wholly different from the flesh and blood of this world, as heaven is different from the earth. For if the flesh and blood that we now have, cannot possibly enter into the kingdom of heaven, and yet we must be flesh and blood, for ever in heaven; then it follows, that there is a real flesh and blood that has nothing of this world in it, that neither arises from it, nor is nourished by it, but will subsist eternally, when this world is dissolved and gone. Now, if this flesh and blood is lost by the fall of our first father, and if the blood which we derive from him is the cause, the seat, and principle of our mortal, corruptible, impure life; if from the blood of this first father, all our unholiness, impurity and misery is derived into us, then we may clearly understand what is meant by our being redeemed by the blood of Christ, and why the scriptures speak so much of his atoning, quickening, life-giving, cleansing, sanctifying blood; it is because it is to us the reverse of the blood of Adam, it is the cause, the seat, the principle of our holiness and purity of life; it is that from which we derive an immortal, holy flesh and blood in the same reality from this second Adam, as we inherit a corrupt, impure, and earthly flesh and blood from our first Adam: and therefore that which would have been done to us by our birth, if we had been born of the holy blood of Adam unfallen, that we are to understand to be done to us, in and by the holy blood of Christ. For the blood of Christ is that to us in the way of redemption, which the blood of our first father should have been to us in the order of creation; for the redemption has no other end, but to raise us from our fall, to do that for us, which we should have had by the condition of our creation, if our father had kept his state of glory and immortality; and this is a certain truth, that there would have been no eating the flesh, and drinking the blood of Christ in the Christian scheme of redemption, but that the flesh and blood which we should have had from Adam, must of all necessity be had, before we can enter into the kingdom of heaven. 10. Here therefore is plainly discovered to us, the true nature, necessity and benefit of the holy sacrament of the Lord’s Supper; both why, and how, and for what end, we must of all necessity, eat the flesh, and drink the blood of Christ. No figurative meaning of the words is here to be sought for, we must eat Christ’s flesh, and drink his blood in the same reality, as he took upon him the real flesh and blood of the blessed virgin: we can have no real relation to Christ, can be no true members of his mystical body, but by being real partakers of that same kind of flesh and blood, which was truly his, and was his, for this very end, that through him, the same might be brought forth in us: all this is strictly true of the holy sacrament, according to the plain letter of the expression; which sacrament was thus instituted, that the great service of the church might continually show us, that the whole of our redemption consisted in the receiving the birth, spirit, life and nature of Jesus Christ into us, in being born of him, and clothed with a heavenly flesh and blood from him, just as the whole of our fall consists in our being born of Adam’s sinful nature and spirit, and in having a vile, corrupt and impure flesh and blood from him. But what flesh and blood are we to eat and drink? Not such as we have already, not such as any offspring of Adam hath, not such as can have its life and death by, and from the elements of this world; and therefore, not that outward, visible, mortal flesh and blood of Christ, which he took from the virgin Mary, and was seen on the cross, but a heavenly, immortal flesh and blood, which came down from heaven, which hath the nature, qualities, and life of heaven in it, according to which our Lord said of himself, that he was a "Son of Man come down from heaven," that "he was not of this world," that "he was from above," &c., that very flesh and blood which we should have received from Adam, if we had kept his first glorious and immortal nature. For as the flesh and blood which we lost by his fall, was the flesh and blood of eternal life, so it is in the holy sacrament, that we may eat, and live for ever: this is the adorable height and depth of this divine mystery, which brings heaven and immortality again into us, and gives us power to become sons of God. Woe be to those who come to it with the mouths of beasts, and the minds of serpents! who, with impenitent hearts, devoted to the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life, for worldly ends, outward appearances, and secular conformity, boldly meddle with those mysteries that are only to be approached by those that are of a pure heart, and who worship God in spirit and truth. Justly may it be said of such, that they eat and drink damnation to themselves, not discerning, that is, not regarding, not reverencing, not humbly adoring the mysteries of the Lord’s body. If you ask how the eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ, is the receiving that flesh and blood of eternal life, which we should have had from Adam himself, it is for this plain reason, because the same kind of flesh and blood is in Christ, that was in Adam, and is in Christ as it was in Adam, for this very end, that it might be derived into all his offspring: so that we come to the sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ, because he is our second Adam, from whom we must now receive that eternal, celestial flesh and blood which we should have had from our first father; and therefore it is, that the apostle saith, the "first Adam was made a living soul," that is, had a life in himself, which could have brought forth an eternal ever-living offspring; but having brought forth a dead race, the last Adam, as the restorer of the life that was lost, was made a quickening spirit, because quickening again that life which Adam as a living soul, should have brought forth. And thus we have the plain and full truth of the most mysterious part of this holy sacrament, delivered from the tedious strife of words, and that thickness of darkness which learned contenders on all sides have brought into it. The letter and spirit of scripture are here both preserved, and the mystery appears so amiable, so intelligible, and so beneficial, as must needs raise a true and earnest devotion in everyone that is capable of hungering and thirsting after eternal life. And this true and sound knowledge of the holy sacrament could never have been lost, if this scripture truth had not been overlooked; namely, that Christ is our second Adam, that he is to do that for us, which Adam should have done; that we are to have that life from him, as a quickening spirit, which we should have had from Adam as a living soul; and that our redemption is only doing a second time, or in a second way, that which should have been done by the first order of our creation: this plain doctrine attended to, would sufficiently show us, that the flesh and blood of eternal life, which we are to receive from Christ, must be that flesh and blood of eternal life which we lost in Adam. Now, if we had received this immortal flesh and blood by our descent from Adam, we must in the strictness of the expression have been said to partake of the flesh and blood of Adam; so seeing we now receive it from Christ, we must in the same strictness of expression, be said to be real partakers of the flesh and blood of Christ, because he hath the same heavenly flesh and blood which Adam had, and for the same end that Adam had it; namely, that it may come by and through him into us. And thus is this great sacrament, which is a continual part of our Christian worship, a continual communication to us of all the benefits of our second Adam; for in and by the body and blood of Christ, to which the divine nature is united, we receive all that life, immortality, and redemption, which Christ, as living, suffering, dying, rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven, brought to human nature; so that this great mystery is that, in which all the blessings of our redemption and new life in Christ are centered. And they that hold a sacrament short of this reality of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, cannot be said to hold that sacrament of eternal life, which was instituted by our blessed Lord and savior. FINIS. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 03.00. CHRISTIANITY & LIBERALISM ======================================================================== Christianity & Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) Originally published in 1923 (NY: Macmillan), this book is now in the public domain (original pagination and footnotes have been kept intact for purposes of reference). The electronic edition of this book was scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal for Reformation Ink. It may be copied and distributed without restriction. In a few cases the spelling has been modernized. Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction Chapter Two: Doctrine Chapter Three: God and Man Chapter Four: The Bible Chapter Five: Christ Chapter Six: Salvation Chapter Seven: The Church What This Book Is About (in Machen’s own words). "In my little book, Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, I tried to show that the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion, but, at bottom, between two essentially different types of thought and life. There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that—exactly the other way around—it is a life founded on a doctrine." (From "Christianity in Conflict," an autobiographical essay on Machen’s life and works). To order a hard copy of this book for yourself or a friend, click here. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 03.01. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ======================================================================== Chapter One: Introduction The purpose of this book is not to decide the religious issue of the present day, but merely to present the issue as sharply and clearly as possible, in order that the reader may be aided in deciding it for himself.Presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means a popular business at the present time; there are many who prefer to fight their intellectual battles in what Dr. Francis L. Patton has aptly called a "condition of low visibility."1Clear-cut definition of terms in religious matters, bold facing of the logical implications of religious views, is by many persons regarded as an impious proceeding. May it not discourage contribution to mission boards? May it not hinder the progress of consolidation,and produce a poor showing in columns of Church statistics? But with such persons we cannot possibly bring ourselves to agree. Light may seem at times to be an impertinent intruder, but itis always beneficial in the end. The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their meanings, or shrinks from "controversial" matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life. In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things 1. Francis L. Patton, in the introduction to William Hallock Johnson The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlight, [1916], p. 7. about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding;the really important things are the things about which men will fight. In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern non-redemptive religion is called "modernism" or "liberalism." Both names are unsatisfactory; the latter, in particular, is question-begging. The movement designated as "liberalism" is regarded as "liberal" only by its friends; to its opponents it seems to involve a narrow ignoring of many relevant facts. And indeed the movement is so various in its manifestations that one may almost despair of finding any common name which will apply to all its forms. But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism—that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity. The word "naturalism"is here used in a sense somewhat different from its philosophical meaning. In this non-philosophical sense it describes with fair accuracy the real root of what is called, by what may turn out to be a degradation of an originally noble word, "liberal"religion. The rise of this modern naturalistic liberalism has not come by chance, but has been occasioned by important changes which have recently taken place in the conditions of life. The past one hundred years have witnessed the beginningof a new era in human history, which may conceivably be regretted, but certainly cannot be ignored, by the most obstinate conservatism. The change is not something that lies beneath the surface and might be visible only to the discerning eye; on the contrary it forces itself upon the attention of the plain man at a hundred points. Modern inventions and the industrialism that has been built upon them have given us in many respects a new world to live in; we can no more remove ourselves from that world than we can escape from the atmosphere that we breathe. But such changes in the material conditions of life do not stand alone; they have been produced by mighty changes in the human mind, as in their turn they themselves give rise to further spiritual changes. The industrial world of today has been produced not by blind forces of nature but by the conscious activity of the human spirit; it has been produced by the achievements of science. The outstanding feature of recent history is an enormous widening of human knowledge, which has gone hand in hand with such perfecting of the instrument of investigation that scarcely any limits can be assigned to future progress in the material realm. The application of modern scientific methods is almost as broad as the universe in which we live. Though the most palpable achievements are in the sphere of physics and chemistry, the sphere of human life cannot be isolated from the rest, and with the other sciences there has appeared, for example, a modern science of history, which, with psychology and sociology and the like, claims, even if it does not deserve, full equality with its sister sciences. No department of knowledge can maintain its isolation from the modern lust of scientific conquest; treaties of inviolability, though hallowed by all the sanctions of age-long tradition, are being flung ruthlessly to the winds. In such an age, it isobvious that every inheritance from the past must be subject to searching criticism; and as a matter of fact some convictionsof the human race have crumbled to pieces in the test. Indeed, dependence of any institution upon the past is now sometimes evenregarded as furnishing a presumption, not in favor of it, but against it. So many convictions have had to be abandoned that men have sometimes come to believe that all convictions must go. If such an attitudebe justifiable, then no institution is faced by a stronger hostile presumption than the institution of the Christian religion, for no institution has based itself more squarely upon the authorityof a by-gone age. We are not now inquiring whether such policyis wise or historically justifiable; in any case the fact itself is plain, that Christianity during many centuries has consistently appealed for the truth of its claims, not merely and not evenprimarily to current experience, but to certain ancient books the most recent of which was written some nineteen hundred yearsago. It is no wonder that that appeal is being criticized today; for the writers of the books in question were no doubt men of their own age, whose outlook upon the material world, judged by modern standards, must have been of the crudest and most elementary kind. Inevitably the question arises whether the opinions of such men can ever be normative for men of the present day; in otherwords, whether first-century religion can ever stand in company with twentieth-century science. However the question may be answered, it presents a serious problem to the modern Church. Attempts are indeed sometimes made to make the answer easier than at first sight it appears to be. Religion, it is said, is so entirely separate from science, that the two, rightly defined, cannot possibly come into conflict. This attempt at separation, as it is hoped the following pages may show, is open to objections of the most serious kind. But what must now be observed is that even if the separationis justifiable it cannot be effected without effort; the removal of the problem of religion and science itself constitutes a problem.For, rightly or wrongly, religion during the centuries has asa matter of fact connected itself with a host of convictions, especially in the sphere of history, which may form the subjectof scientific investigation; just as scientific investigators,on the other hand, have sometimes attached themselves, again rightly or wrongly, to conclusions which impinge upon the innermost domain of philosophy and of religion. For example, if any simple Christian of one hundred years ago, or even of today, were asked what would become of his religion if history should prove indubitably that no man called Jesus ever lived and died in the first century of our era, he would undoubtedly answer that his religion would fallaway. Yet the investigation of events in the first century in Judea, just as much as in Italy or in Greece, belongs to the sphereof scientific history. In other words, our simple Christian, whether rightly or wrongly, whether wisely or unwisely, has as a matterof fact connected his religion, in a way that to him seems indissoluble, with convictions about which science also has a right to speak. If, then, those convictions, ostensibly religious, which belong to the sphere of science, are not really religious at all, the demonstration of that fact is itself no trifling task. Even if the problem of science and religion reduces itself to the problem of disentangling religion from pseudo-scientific accretions, the seriousness of the problem is not thereby diminished. From everypoint of view, therefore, the problem in question is the mostserious concern of the Church. What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? It is this problem which modern liberalism attempts to solve. Admitting that scientific objections may arise against the particularities of the Christian religion—against the Christian doctrines of the person of Christ, and of redemption through His death and resurrection—the liberal theologian seeks to rescue certain of the general principles of religion, of which these particularities are thought to be mere temporary symbols, and these general principles he regards as constituting "the essence of Christianity." It may well be questioned, however, whether this method of defense will really prove to be efficacious; for after the apologist has abandoned his outer defenses to the enemy and withdrawn into some inner citadel, he will probably discover that the enemy pursues him even there. Modern materialism, especially in the realm of psychology, is not content with occupying the lower quarters of the Christian city, but pushes its way into all the higher reaches of life; it is just as much opposed tothe philosophical idealism of the liberal preacher as to the Biblical doctrines that the liberal preacher has abandoned in the interests of peace. Mere concessiveness, therefore, will never succeed in avoiding the intellectual conflict. In the intellectual battle of the present day there can be no "peace without victory"; one side or the other must win. As a matter of fact, however, it may appear that the figure which has just been used is altogether misleading; it may appear that what the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to be long in a distinct category. It may appear further that the fears of the modern man as to Christianity were entirely ungrounded, and that in abandoning the embattledwalls of the city of God he has fled in needless panic into the open plains of a vague natural religion only to fall an easy victim to the enemy who ever lies in ambush there. Two lines of criticism, then, are possible with respect to the liberal attempt at reconciling science and Christianity. Modern liberalism may be criticized(1) on the ground that it is un-Christian and (2) on the ground that it is unscientific. We shall concern ourselves here chiefly with the former line of criticism; we shall be interested in showing that despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions. But in showing that the liberal attempt at rescuing Christianity is false we are not showing that there is no way of rescuing Christianity at all; on the contrary, it may appear incidentally, even in the present little book, that it is not the Christianity of the New Testament which is in conflict with science, but the supposed Christianity of the modern liberal Church, and that the real city of God, and that city alone, has defenses which are capable ofwarding of the assaults of modern unbelief. However, our immediate concern is with the other side of the problem; our principal concern just now is to show that the liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene. In trying to remove from Christianity everything that could possibly be objected to in the name of science, in trying to bribe off the enemy by those concessions which the enemy most desires, the apologist has really abandoned what hestarted out to defend. Here as in many other departments of life it appears that the things that are sometimes thought to be hardestto defend are also the things that are most worth defending. In maintaining that liberalism in the modern Church represents a return to an un-Christianand sub-Christian form of the religious life, we are particularly anxious not to be misunderstood. "Un-Christian" in such a connection is sometimes taken as a term of opprobrium. We do not mean it at all as such. Socrates was not a Christian, neither was Goethe; yet we share to the full the respect with which their names are regarded. They tower immeasurably above the common run of men; if he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than they, he is certainly greater not by any inherent superiority, but by virtue of an undeserved privilege which ought to make him humble rather than contemptuous. Such considerations,however, should not be allowed to obscure the vital importance of the question at issue. If a condition could be conceived in which all the preaching of the Church should be controlled by the liberalism which in many quarters has already become preponderant, then, we believe, Christianity would at last have perished from the earth and the gospel would have sounded forth for the last time. If so, it follows that the inquiry with which we are now concerned is immeasurably the most important of all those with which the Church has to deal. Vastly more important than all questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to what it is that shall be preached. Many, no doubt, will turn in impatience from the inquiry—all those, namely, who have settled the question in, such a way that they cannot even conceive of its being reopened. Such, for example, are the pietists, of whom there are still many. "What,"they say, "is the need of argument in defence of the Bible? Is it not the Word of God, and does it not carry with it an immediatecertitude of its truth which could only be obscured by defense? If science comes into contradiction with the Bible so much the worse for science!" For these persons we have the highest respect, for we believe that they are right in the main point; they have arrived by a direct and easy road at a conviction which for other men is attained only through intellectual struggle. But we cannot reasonably expect them to be interested in what we have to say. Another class of uninterested persons is much more numerous. It consists of those who have definitely settled the question in the opposite way. By them this little book, if it ever comes into their hands, will soon be flung as ideas only another attempt at defence of a position already hopelessly lost. There are still individuals, they will say, who believethat the earth is flat; there are also individuals who defend the Christianity of the Church, miracles and atonement and all.In either case, it will be said, the phenomenon is interestingas a curious example of arrested development, but it is nothing more. Such a closing of the question, however, whether it approve itself finally or no, is in its present form based upon a very imperfect view of the situation;it is based upon a grossly exaggerated estimate of the achievements of modern science. Scientific investigation, as has already been observed, has certainly accomplished much; it has in many respectsproduced a new world. But there is another aspect of the picture which should not be ignored. The modern world represents in somerespects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life, but in the spiritual realm there is a corresponding loss. The loss is clearest, perhaps, in the realm of art. Despite the mighty revolution which has been produced in the external conditions of life, no great poet is now living to celebrate the change; humanity has suddenly becomedumb. Gone, too, are the great painters and the great musicians and the great sculptors. The art that still subsists is largely imitative, and where it is not imitative it is usually bizarre.Even the appreciation of the glories of the past is gradually being lost, under the influence of a utilitarian education that concerns itself only with the production of physical well-being. The "Outline of History" of Mr. H. G. Wells, with its contemptuous neglect of all the higher ranges of human life, is a thoroughly modern book. This unprecedented declinein literature and art is only one manifestation of a more far-reaching phenomenon; it is only one instance of that narrowing of the rangeof personality which has been going on in the modern world. The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward the limitation of the realm of freedom for the individual man.The tendency is most clearly seen in socialism; a socialistic state would mean the reduction to a minimum of the sphere of individual choice. Labor and recreation, under a socialistic government, would both be prescribed, and individual liberty would be gone. But the same tendency exhibits itself today even in those communities where the name of socialism is most abhorred. When once the majority has determined that a certain regime is beneficial, that regime without further hesitation is forced ruthlessly upon the individual man. It never seems to occur to modern legislatures that although "welfare"is good, forced welfare may be bad. In other words, utilitarianism is being carried out to its logical conclusions; in the interests of physical well-being the great principles of liberty are beingthrown ruthlessly to the winds. The result is an unparalleled impoverishment of human life. Personality can only be developed in the realm of individual choice. And that realm, in the modern state, is being slowly but steadily contracted. The tendency is making itself felt especially in the sphere of education. The object of education, it is now assumed, is the production of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But the greatest happiness for the greatest number, it is assumed further, can be defined only by the will of the majority. Idiosyncrasies in education, therefore, it is said, must be avoided, and the choice of schools must be taken away from the individual parent and placed in the hands of the state. The state then exercises its authority through the instruments that are ready to hand, and at once, therefore,the child is placed under the control of psychological experts, themselves without the slightest acquaintance with the higher realms of human life, who proceed to prevent any such acquaintance being gained by those who come under their care. Such a resultis being slightly delayed in America by the remnants of Anglo-Saxon individualism, but the signs of the times are all contrary to the maintenance of this half-way position; liberty is certainly held by but a precarious tenure when once its underlying principles have been lost. For a time it looked as though the utilitarianism which came into vogue in the middle of the nineteenth centurywould be a purely academic matter, without influence upon daily life. But such appearances have proved to be deceptive. The dominant tendency, even in a country like America, which formerly prided itself on its freedom from bureaucratic regulation of the details of life, is toward a drab utilitarianism in which all higher aspirations are to be lost. Manifestations of such a tendency can easily be seen. In the state of Nebraska, for example, a law is now in force according to which no instruction in any school in the state, public or private, is to be given through the medium of a language other than English, and no language other than English is to be studied even as a language until the child has passed an examination before the county superintendent of education showing that the eighth grade has been passed.1 In other words, no foreign language, apparently not even Latin or Greek, is to be studied until thechild is too old to learn it well. It is in this way that modern collectivism deals with a kind of study which is absolutely essential to all genuine mental advance. The minds of the people of Nebraska, and of any other states where similar laws prevail,2 are to be kept by the power of the state in a permanent condition of arrested development. It might seem as though with such laws obscurantism had reached its lowest possible depths.But there are depths lower still. In the state of Oregon, on Election Day, 1922, a law was passed by a referendum vote in accordance with which all children in the state are required to attend the public schools. Christian schools and private schools, at least in the all-important lower grades, are thus wiped out of existence. Such laws, which if the present temper of the people prevails will probably 1. See Laws, Resolutionsand Memorials passed by the Legislature of the State of Nebraska at the Thirty-Seventh Session, 1919, Chapter 249, p. 1019. 2. Compare, for example, Legislative Acts of the General Assembly of Ohio, Vol. cviii, 1919, pp. 614f.; and Act, and Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of Iowa, 1919, Chapter 198, p. 219. soon be extended far beyond the bounds of one state,1 [which will] mean of course the ultimate destruction of all real education. When one considers what the public schools of America in many places already are—their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudo-scientific fads of experimental psychology—one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which there is no escape from such a soul-killing system. But the principle of such laws and their ultimate tendency are far worse than the immediate results.2 A public 1. In Michigan, a bill similar to the one now passed in Oregon recently received an enormous vote at a referendum, and an agitation looking at least in the same general direction is said to be continuing. 2. The evil principle is seen with special clearness in the so-called"Lusk Laws" in the state of New York. One of these refersto teachers in the public schools. The other provides that "Noperson, firm, corporation or society shall conduct, maintain oroperate any school, institute, class or course of instruction in any subjects whatever without making application for and being granted a license from the university of the state of New Yorkto so conduct, maintain or operate such institute, school, class or course." It is further provided that "A school, institute, class or course licensed as provided In this section shall be subject to visitation by officers and employees of the university of the state of New York." See Laws of the State of New York,1921, Vol. III, Chapter 667, pp. 2049-2051. This law is so broadly worded that it could not possibly be enforced, even by the whole German army in its pre-war efficiency or by all the espionage system of the Czar. The exact measure of enforcement is left to the discretion of officials, and the citizens are placed in constant danger of that intolerable interference with private life which real enforcement of the provision about "courses of instruction in any subjects whatever" would mean. One of the exemptions is in principle particularly bad. "Nor shall such license be required:’ the law provides. "by schools now or here afterestablished and maintained by a religious denomination or sect well recognized as such at the time this section takes effect." One can certainly rejoice that the existing churches are freed, for the time being, from the menace involved in the law. But in principle the limitation of the exemption to the existing churchesreally runs counter to the fundamental idea Of religious liberty; for it sets up a distinction between established religions and those that are not established. There was always tolerance for established religious bodies, even in the Roman Empire; but religious liberty consists in equal rights for religious bodies that are new. The other exemptions do not remove in the slightest the oppressive character of the law. Bad as the law must be in its Immediate effects, it is far more alarming in what it reveals about the temper of the people. A people which tolerates such preposterous legislation upon the statute books is a people that has wanderedfar away from the principles of American liberty. True patriotism will not conceal the menace, but will rather seek to recall the citizens to those great principles for which our fathers, in America and In England, were willing to bleed and die. There are some encouraging indications that the Lusk Laws may soon be repealed. If they are repealed, they will still serve as A warning that only by constant watchfulness can liberty be preserved. school system, in itself, is indeed of enormous benefit to the race. But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of private schools. A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised. Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist. Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which despite their weapons of fire and sword permitted thought at least to be free. The truth is that the materialistic paternalism of the present day, if allowed to goon unchecked, will rapidly make of America one huge "Main Street," where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens. God grant that there may come a reaction, and that the great principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty may be rediscovered before it is too late! But whatever solution be found for the educational and social problems of our own country, a lamentable condition must be detected in the world at large. It cannot be denied that great men are few or non-existent, and that there has been a general contracting of the area of personal life. Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline. Such a condition of the world ought to cause the choice between modernism and traditionalism, liberalism and conservatism, to be approached without any of the prejudice which is too often displayed. In view of the lamentable defects of modern life, a type of religion certainly should not be commended simply because it is modern or condemned simply because it is old. On the contrary, the condition of mankind is such that one may well ask what it is that made the men of past generations so great and the men of the present generation so small. In the midst of all the material achievements of modern life, one may well ask the question whether in gaining the whole world we have not lost our own soul. Are we forever condemned to live the sordid life of utilitarianism? Or is there some lost secret which if rediscovered will restore to mankind something of the glories of the past? Such a secret the writer of this little book would discover in the Christian religion. But the Christian religion which is meant is certainly not the religion of the modern liberal Church, but a message of divine grace, almost forgotten now, as it was in the middle ages, but destined to burst forth once more in God’s good time, in a new Reformation, and bring light and freedom to mankind. What that message is can be made clear, as is the case with all definition, only by way of exclusion, by way of contrast. In setting forth the current liberalism, now almost dominant in the Church, over against Christianity, we are animated, therefore, by no merely negative or polemic purpose; on the contrary, by showing what Christianity is not we hope to be able to show what Christianity is, in order that men may be led to turn from the weak and beggarlyelements and have recourse again to the grace of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 03.02. CHAPTER 2: DOCTRINE ======================================================================== Chapter 2: Doctrine Modern liberalism in the Church, whatever judgment may be passed upon it, is at any rate no longer merely an academic matter. It is no longer a matter merely of theological seminaries or universities. On the contrary its attack upon the fundamentals of the Christian faith is being carried on vigorously by Sunday-School "lesson-helps," by the pulpit, and by the religious press. If such an attack be unjustified, the remedy is not to be found, as some devout persons have suggested, in the abolition of theological seminaries, or the abandonment of scientific theology, but rather in a more earnest search after truth and a more loyal devotion to it when once it is found. At the theological seminaries and universities, however, the roots of the great issue are more clearly seen than in the world at large; among students the reassuring employment of traditional phrases is often abandoned, and the advocates of a new religion are not at pains, as they are in the Church at large, to maintain an appearance of conformity with the past. But such frankness, we are convinced, ought to be extended to the people as a whole. Few desires on the part of religious teachers have been more harmfully exaggerated than the desire to "avoid giving offense." Only too often that desire has come perilously near dishonesty; the religious teacher, in his heart of hearts, is well aware of the radicalism of his views, but is unwilling to relinquish his place in the hallowed atmosphere of the Church by speaking his whole mind. Against all such policy of concealment or palliation, our sympathies are altogether with those men, whether radicals or conservatives, who have a passion for light. What then, at bottom, when the traditional phrases have all been stripped away, is the real meaning of the present revolt against the fundamentals of the Christian faith? What, in brief, are the teachings of modern liberalism as over against the teachings of Christianity? At the outset, we are met with an objection. "Teachings," it is said, "are unimportant; the exposition of the teachings of liberalism and the teachings of Christianity, therefore, can arouse no interest at the present day; creeds are merely the changing expression of a unitary Christian experience, and provided only they express that experience they are all equally good. The teachings of liberalism, therefore, might be as far removed as possible from the teachings of historic Christianity, and yet the two might be at bottom the same." Such is the way in which expression is often given to the modern hostility to "doctrine." But is it really doctrine as such that is objected to, and not rather one particular doctrine in the interests of another? Undoubtedly, in many forms of liberalism it is the latter alternative which fits the case. There are doctrines of modern liberalism, just as tenaciously and intolerantly upheld as any doctrines that find a place in the historic creeds. Such for example are the liberal doctrines of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. These doctrines are, as we shall see, contrary to the doctrines of the Christian religion. But doctrines they are all the same, and as such they require intellectual defence. In seeming to object to all theology, the liberal preacher is often merely objecting to one system of theology in the interests of another. And the desired immunity from theological controversy has not yet been attained. Sometimes, however, the modern objection to doctrine is more seriously meant. And whether the objection be well-founded or not, the real meaning of it should at least be faced. That meaning is perfectly plain. The objection involves an out-and-out skepticism. If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain. We are indulging, therefore, in a mere juggling with words. To say that all creeds are equally true, and that they are based upon experience, is merely to fall back upon that agnosticism which fifty years ago was regarded as the deadliest enemy of the Church. The enemy has not really been changed into a friend merely because he has been received within the camp. Very different is the Christian conception of a creed. According to the Christian conception, a creed is not a mere expression of Christian experience, but on the contrary it is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based. But, it will be said, Christianity is a life, not a doctrine. The assertion is often made, and it has an appearance of godliness. But it is radically false, and to detect its falsity one does not even need to be a Christian. For to say that "Christianity is a life" is to make an assertion in the sphere of history. The assertion does not lie in the sphere of ideals; it is far different from saying that Christianity ought to be a life, or that the ideal religion is a life. The assertion that Christianity is a life is subject to historical investigation exactly as is the assertion that the Roman Empire under Nero was a free democracy. Possibly the Roman Empire under Nero would have been better if it had been a free democracy, but the historical question is simply whether as a matter of fact it was a free democracy or no. Christianity is an historical phenomenon, like the Roman Empire, or the Kingdom of Prussia, or the United States of America. And as an historical phenomenon it must be investigated on the basis of historical evidence. Is it true, then, that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life? The question can be settled only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity. Recognition of that fact does not involve any acceptance of Christian belief; it is merely a matter of common sense and common honesty. At the foundation of the life of every corporation is the incorporation paper, in which the objects of the corporation are set forth. Other objects may be vastly more desirable than those objects, but if the directors use the name and the resources of the corporation to pursue the other objects they are acting ultra vires of the corporation. So it is with Christianity. It is perfectly conceivable that the originators of the Christian movement had no right to legislate for subsequent generation; but at any rate they did have an inalienable right to legislate for all generations that should choose to bear the name of "Christian." It is conceivable that Christianity may now have to be abandoned, and another religion substituted for it; but at any rate the question what Christianity is can be determined only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity. The beginnings of Christianity constitute a fairly definite historical phenomenon. The Christian movement originated a few days after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It is doubtful whether anything that preceded the death of Jesus can be called Christianity. At any rate, if Christianity existed before that event, it was Christianity only in a preliminary stage. The name originated after the death of Jesus, and the thing itself was also something new. Evidently there was an important new beginning among the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. At that time is to be placed the beginning of the remarkable movement which spread out from Jerusalem into the Gentile world—the movement which is called Christianity. About the early stages of this movement definite historical information has been preserved in the Epistles of Paul, which are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation. The writer of the Epistles had been in direct communication with those intimate friends of Jesus who had begun the Christian movement in Jerusalem, and in the Epistles he makes it abundantly plain what the fundamental character of the movement was. But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based upon doctrine. Certainly with regard to Paul himself there should be no debate; Paul certainly was not indifferent to doctrine; on the contrary, doctrine was the very basis of his life. His devotion to doctrine did not, it is true, make him incapable of a magnificent tolerance. One notable example of such tolerance is to be found during his imprisonment at Rome, as attested by the Epistle to the Philippians. Apparently certain Christian teachers at Rome had been jealous of Paul’s greatness. As long as he had been at liberty they had been obliged to take a secondary place; but now that he was in prison, they seized the supremacy. They sought to raise up affliction for Paul in his bonds; they preached Christ even of envy and strife. In short, the rival preachers made of the preaching of the gospel a means to the gratification of low personal ambition; it seems to have been about as mean a piece of business as could well be conceived. But Paul was not disturbed. "Whether in presence, or in truth," he said, "Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice" (Php 1:18). The way in which the preaching was being carried on was wrong, but the message itself was true; and Paul was far more interested in the content of the message than in the manner of its presentation. It is impossible to conceive a finer piece of broad-minded tolerance. But the tolerance of Paul was not indiscriminate. He displayed no tolerance, for example, in Galatia. There, too, there were rival preachers. But Paul had no tolerance for them. "But though we," he said, "or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8). What is the reason for the difference in the apostle’s attitude in the two cases? What is the reason for the broad tolerance in Rome, and the fierce anathemas in Galatia? The answer is perfectly plain. In Rome, Paul was tolerant, because there the content of the message that was being proclaimed by the rival teachers was true; in Galatia he was intolerant, because there the content of the rival message was false. In neither case did personalities have anything to do with Paul’s attitude. No doubt the motives of the Judaizers in Galatia were far from pure, and in an incidental way Paul does point out their impurity. But that was not the ground of his opposition. The Judaizers no doubt were morally far from perfect, but Paul’s opposition to them would have been exactly the same if they had all been angels from heaven. His opposition was based altogether upon the falsity of their teaching; they were substituting for the one true gospel a false gospel which was no gospel at all. It never occurred to Paul that a gospel might be true for one man and not for another; the blight of pragmatism had never fallen upon his soul. Paul was convinced of the objective truth of the gospel message, and devotion to that truth was the great passion of his life. Christianity for Paul was not only a life, but also a doctrine, and logically the doctrine came first.1 But what was the difference between the teaching of Paul and the teaching of the Judaizers ? What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the Epistle to the Galatians? To the modern Church the difference would have seemed to be a mere theological subtlety. About many things the Judaizers were in perfect agreement with Paul. The Judaizers believed that Jesus was the Messiah; there is not a shadow of evidence that they objected to Paul’s lofty view of the person of Christ. Without the slightest doubt, they believed that Jesus had really risen from the dead. They believed, moreover, that faith in Christ was necessary to salvation. But the trouble was, they believed that something else was also necessary; they believed that what Christ had done needed to be pieced out by the believer’s own effort to keep the Law. From the 1. See The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921, p. 168. It is not maintained that doctrine for Paul comes temporally before life, but only that it comes logically first. Here is to be found the answer to the objection which Dr. Lyman Abbott raised against the assertion in The Origin of Paul’s Religion. See The Outlook, vol. 132, 1922, pp. 104f. modern point of view the difference would have seemed to be very slight. Paul as well as the Judaizers believed that the keeping of the law of God, in its deepest import, is inseparably connected with faith. The difference concerned only the logical—not even, perhaps, the temporal—order of three steps. Paul said that a man (1) first believes on Christ, (2) then is justified before God, (3) then immediately proceeds to keep God’s law. The Judaizers said that a man (1) believes on Christ and (2) keeps the law of God the best he can, and then (3) is justified. The difference would seem to modern "practical" Christians to be a highly subtle and intangible matter, hardly worthy of consideration at all in view of the large measure of agreement in the practical realm. What a splendid cleaning up of the Gentile cities it would have been if the Judaizers had succeeded in extending to those cities the observance of the Mosaic law, even including the unfortunate ceremonial observances! Surely Paul ought to have made common cause with teachers who were so nearly in agreement with him; surely he ought to have applied to them the great principle of Christian unity. As a matter of fact, however, Paul did nothing of the kind; and only because he (and others) did nothing of the kind does the Christian Church exist today. Paul saw very clearly that the differences between the Judaizers and himself was the differences between two entirely distinct types of religion; it was the differences between a religion of merit and a religion of grace. If Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leaving us to provide the rest, then we are still hopeless under the load of sin. For no matter how small the gap which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge that gap. The guilty soul enters again into the hopeless reckoning with God, to determine whether we have really done our part. And thus we groan again under the old bondage of the law. Such an attempt to piece out the work of Christ by our own merit, Paul saw clearly, is the very essence of unbelief; Christ will do everything or nothing, and the only hope is to throw ourselves unreservedly on His mercy and trust Him for all. Paul certainly was right. The differences which divided him from the Judaizers was no mere theological subtlety, but concerned the very heart and core of the religion of Christ. "Just as I am without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me"—that was what Paul was contending for in Galatia; that hymn would never have been written if the Judaizers had won. And without the thing which that hymn expresses there is no Christianity at all. Certainly, then, Paul was no advocate of an undogmatic religion; he was interested above everything else in the objective and universal truth of his message. So much will probably be admitted by serious historians, no matter what their own personal attitude toward the religion of Paul may be. Sometimes, indeed, the modern liberal preacher seeks to produce an opposite impression by quoting out of their context words of Paul which he interprets in a way as far removed as possible from the original sense. The truth is, it is hard to give Paul up. The modern liberal desires to produce upon the minds of simple Christians (and upon his own mind) the impression of some sort of continuity between modern liberalism and the thought and life of the great Apostle. But such an impression is altogether misleading. Paul was not interested merely in the ethical principles of Jesus; he was not interested merely in general principles of religion or of ethics. On the contrary, he was interested in the redeeming work of Christ and its effect upon us. His primary interest was in Christian doctrine, and Christian doctrine not merely in its presuppositions but at its center. If Christianity is to be made independent of doctrine, then Paulinism must be removed from Christianity root and branch. But what of that? Some men are not afraid of the conclusion. If Paulinism must be removed, they say, we can get along without it. May it not turn out that in introducing a doctrinal element into the life of the Church Paul was only perverting a primitive Christianity which was as independent of doctrine as even the modern liberal preacher could desire? This suggestion is clearly overruled by the historical evidence. The problem certainly cannot be solved in so easy a way. Many attempts have indeed been made to separate the religion of Paul sharply from that of the primitive Jerusalem Church; many attempts have been made to show that Paul introduced an entirely new principle into the Christian movement or even was the founder of a new religion.1 But all such attempts have resulted in failure. The Pauline Epistles themselves attest a fundamental unity of principle between Paul and the original companions of Jesus, and the whole early history of the Church becomes unintelligible except on the basis of such unity. Certainly with regard to the fundamentally doctrinal character of Christianity Paul was no innovator. The fact appears in the whole character of Paul’s relationship to the Jerusalem Church as it is attested by the Epistles, and it also appears with startling clearness in the precious passage in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, where Paul summarizes the tradition which he had received from the 1. Some recount of these attempts has been given by the present writer in The Origin of Paul’’ Religion, 1921. primitive Church. What is it that forms the content of that primitive teaching? Is it a general principle of the fatherliness of God or the brotherliness of man? Is it a vague admiration for the character of Jesus such as that which prevails in the modern Church? Nothing could be further from the fact. "Christ died for our sins," said the primitive disciples, "according to the Scriptures; he was buried; he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name "gospel" or "good news" implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. "Christ died"—that is history; "Christ died for our sins"—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity. It is perfectly clear, then, that the first Christian missionaries did not simply come forward with an exhortation they did not say: "Jesus of Nazareth lived a wonderful life of filial piety, and we call upon you our hearers to yield yourselves, as we have done, to the spell of that life." Certainly that is what modern historians would have expected the first Christian missionaries to say, but it must be recognized that as a matter of fact they said nothing of the kind. Conceivably the first disciples of Jesus, after the catastrophe of His death, might have engaged in quiet meditation upon His teaching. They might have said to themselves that "Our Father which art in heaven" was a good way of addressing God even though the One who had taught them that prayer was dead. They might have clung to the ethical principles of Jesus and cherished the vague hope that the One who enunciated such principles had some personal existence beyond the grave. Such redactions might have seemed very natural to the modern man. But to Peter, James and John they certainly never occurred. Jesus had raised in them high hopes; those hopes were destroyed by the Cross; and reflections on the general principles of religion and ethics were quite powerless to revive the hopes again. The disciples of Jesus had evidently been far inferior to their Master in every possible way; they had not understood His lofty spiritual teaching, but even in the hour of solemn crisis had quarreled over great places in the approaching Kingdom. What hope was there that such men could succeed where their Master had failed? Even when He had been with them, they had been powerless; and now that He was taken from them, what little power they may have had was gone.1 Yet those same weak, discouraged men, within a few days after the death of their Master, instituted the most important spiritual movement that the world has ever seen. What had produced the astonishing change? What had transformed the weak and cowardly disciples into the spiritual conquerors of the world? Evidently it was not the mere memory of Jesus’ life, for that was a source of sadness rather than of joy. Evidently the disciples of Jesus, within the few days between the crucifixion and the beginning of their work in Jerusalem, had received some new equipment for their task. What that new equipment was, at least the outstanding and external element in it (to say nothing of the endowment which Christian men believe to have been received at Pentecost), is perfectly plain. The great weapon with which the disciples of Jesus set out to conquer the world was not 1. Compare "History and Faith," 1915 (reprinted from Princeton Theological Review for July, 1915), pp. 10f. a mere comprehension of eternal principles; it was an historical message, an account of something that had recently happened, it was the message, "He is risen."1 But the message of the resurrection was not isolated. It was connected with the death of Jesus, seen now to be not a failure but a triumphant act of divine grace; it was connected with the entire appearance of Jesus upon earth. The coming of Jesus was understood now as an act of God by which sinful men were saved. The primitive Church was concerned not merely with what Jesus had said, but also, and primarily, with what Jesus had done. The world was to be redeemed through the proclamation of an event. And with the event went the meaning of the event; and the setting forth of the event with the meaning of the event was doctrine. These two elements are always combined in the Christian message. The narration of the facts is history; the narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried"—that is history. "He loved me and gave Himself for me"—that is doctrine. Such was the Christianity of the primitive Church. "But," it may be said, "even if the Christianity of the primitive Church was dependent upon doctrine, we may still emancipate ourselves from such dependence; we may appeal from the primitive Church to Jesus Himself. It has already been admitted that if doctrine is to be abandoned Paul must be abandoned: it may now be admitted that if doctrine is to be abandoned, even the primitive Jerusalem Church, with its message of the resurrection, must be abandoned. But possibly we can still find in Jesus Himself the simple, non-doctrinal religion that we 1. Compare A Rapid Survey of the Literature and History of New Testament Times, published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work, Student’s Text Book, pp. 42f. desire." Such is the real meaning of the modern slogan, "Back to Christ." Must we really take such a step as that? It would certainly be an extraordinary step. A great religion derived its power from the message of the redeeming work of Christ; without that message Jesus and His disciples would soon have been forgotten. The same message, with its implications, has been the very heart and soul of the Christian movement throughout the centuries. Yet we are now asked to believe that the thing that has given Christianity its power all through the centuries was a blunder, that the originators of the movement misunderstood radically the meaning of their Master’s life and work, and that it has been left to us moderns to get the first inkling of the initial mistake. Even if this view of the case were correct, and even if Jesus Himself taught a religion like that of modern liberalism, it would still be doubtful whether such a religion could rightly be called Christianity; for the name Christian was first applied only after the supposed decisive change had taken place, and it is very doubtful whether a name which through nineteen centuries has been so firmly attached to one religion ought now suddenly to be applied to another. If the first disciples of Jesus really departed so radically from their Master, then the better terminology would probably lead us to say simply that Jesus was not the founder of Christianity, but of a simple, non-doctrinal religion, long forgotten, but now rediscovered by modern men. Even so, the contrast between liberalism and Christianity would still appear. But as a matter of fact, such a strange state of affairs does not prevail at all. It is not true that in basing Christianity upon an event the disciples of Jesus were departing from the teaching of their Master. For certainly Jesus Himself did the same thing. Jesus did not content Himself with enunciating general principles of religion and ethics; the picture of Jesus as a sage similar to Confucius, uttering wise maxims about conduct, may satisfy Mr. H. G. Wells, as he trips along lightly over the problems of history, but it disappears so soon as one engages seriously in historical research. "Repent," said Jesus, "for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." The gospel which Jesus proclaimed in Galilee consisted in the proclamation of a coming Kingdom. But clearly Jesus regarded the coming of the Kingdom as an event, or as a series of events. No doubt He also regarded the Kingdom as a present reality in the souls of men; no doubt He represented the Kingdom in one sense as already present. We shall not really succeed in getting along without this aspect of the matter in our interpretation of Jesus’ words. But we shall also not get along without the other aspect, according to which the coming of the Kingdom depended upon definite and catastrophic events. But if Jesus regarded the coming of the Kingdom as dependent upon a definite event, then His teaching was similar at the decisive point to that of the primitive Church; neither He nor the primitive Church enunciated merely general and permanent principles of religion; both of them, on the contrary, made the message depend upon something that happened. Only, in the teaching of Jesus the happening was represented as being still in the future, while in that of the Jerusalem Church the first act of it at least lay already in the past. Jesus proclaimed the event as coming; the disciples proclaimed part of it at least as already past; but the important thing is that both Jesus and the disciples did proclaim an event. Jesus was certainly not a mere enunciator of permanent truths, like the modern liberal preacher; on the contrary He was conscious of standing at the turning-point of the ages, when what had never been was now to come to be. But Jesus announced not only an event; He announced also the meaning of the event. It is natural, indeed, that the full meaning could be made clear only after the event had taken place. If Jesus really came, then, to announce, and to bring about, an event, the disciples were not departing from His purpose, if they set forth the meaning of the event more fully than it could be set forth during the preliminary period constituted by the earthly ministry of their Master. But Jesus Himself, though by way of prophecy, did set forth the meaning of the great happening that was to be at the basis of the new era. Certainly He did so, and grandly, if the words attributed to Him in all of the Gospels are really His. But even if the Fourth Gospel be rejected, and even if the most radical criticism be applied to the other three, it will still be impossible to get rid of this element in Jesus’ teaching. The significant words attributed to Jesus at the Last Supper with regard to His approaching death, and the utterance of Jesus in Mark 10:45 ("The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many"), have indeed been the subject of vigorous debate. It is difficult to accept such words as authentic and yet maintain the modern view of Jesus at all. Yet it is also difficult to get rid of them on any critical theory. What we are now concerned with, however, is something more general than the authenticity even of these precious words. What we are now concerned to observe is that Jesus certainly did not content Himself with the enunciation of permanent moral principles; He certainly did announce an approaching event; and He certainly did not announce the event without giving some account of its meaning. But when He gave an account of the meaning of the event, no matter how brief that account may have been, He was overstepping the line that separates an undogmatic religion, or even a dogmatic religion that teaches only eternal principles, from one that is rooted in the significance of definite historical facts; He was placing a great gulf between Himself and the philosophic modern liberalism which today incorrectly bears His name. In another way also the teaching of Jesus was rooted in doctrine. It was rooted in doctrine because it depended upon a stupendous presentation of Jesus’ own Person. The assertion is often made, indeed, that Jesus kept His own Person out of His gospel, and came forward merely as the supreme prophet of God. That assertion lies at the very root of the modern liberal conception of the life of Christ. But common as it is, it is radically false. And it is interesting to observe how the liberal historians themselves, so soon as they begin to deal seriously with the sources, are obliged to admit that the real Jesus was not all that they could have liked Jesus to be. A Houston Stewart Chamberlain,1 indeed, can construct a Jesus who was the advocate of a pure, "formless," non-doctrinal religion; but trained historians, despite their own desires, are obliged to admit that there was an element in the real Jesus which refuses to be pressed into any such mold. There is to the liberal historians, as Heitmuller has significantly said, "something almost uncanny" about Jesus.2 This "uncanny" element in Jesus is found in His Messianic consciousness. The strange fact is that this pure teacher of righteousness appealed to by modern liberalism, this classical exponent of the non-doctrinal religion 1. Mensch und Gott, 1921. Compare the review in Princeton Theological Review, xx, 1922 pp. 327-329. 2. Heitmuller, Jesus, 1913, p. 71. See The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921, p. 157. which is supposed to underlie all the historical religions as the irreducible truth remaining after the doctrinal accretions have been removed—the strange fact is that this supreme revealer of eternal truth supposed that He was to be the chief actor in a world catastrophe and was to sit in judgment upon the whole earth. Such is the stupendous form in which Jesus applied to Himself the category of Messiahship. It is interesting to observe how modern men have dealt with the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. Some, like Mr. H. G. Wells, have practically ignored it. Without discussing the question whether it be historical or not they have practically treated it as though it did not exist, and have not allowed it to disturb them at all in their construction of the sage of Nazareth. The Jesus thus reconstructed may be useful as investing modern programs with the sanctity of His hallowed name; Mr. Wells may find it edifying to associate Jesus with Confucius in a brotherhood of beneficent vagueness. But what ought to be clearly understood is that such a Jesus has nothing to do with history. He is a purely imaginary figure, a symbol and not a fact. Others, more seriously, have recognized the existence of the problem, but have sought to avoid it by denying that Jesus ever thought that He was the Messiah, and by supporting their denial, not by mere assertions, but by a critical examination of the sources. Such was the effort, for example, of W. Wrede,1 and a brilliant effort it was. But it has resulted in failure. The Messianic consciousness of Jesus is not merely rooted in the sources considered as documents, but it lies at the very basis of the whole edifice of the Church. If, as J. Weiss has pertinently said, the disciples before the crucifixion had 1. Da’ Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien, 1901. merely been told that the Kingdom of God was coming, if Jesus had really kept altogether in the background His own part in the Kingdom, then why when despair finally gave place to joy did the disciples not merely say, "Despite Jesus’ death, the Kingdom that He foretold will truly come"? Why did they say rather, "Despite His death, He is the Messiah"?1 From no point of view, then, can the fact be denied that Jesus did claim to be the Messiah—neither from the point of view of acceptance of the Gospel witness as a whole, nor from the point of view of modern naturalism. And when the Gospel account of Jesus is considered closely, it is found to involve the Messianic consciousness throughout. Even those parts of the Gospels which have been regarded as most purely ethical are found to be based altogether upon Jesus’ lofty claims. The Sermon on the Mount is a striking example. It is the fashion now to place the Sermon on the Mount in contrast with the rest of the New Testament. "We will have nothing to do with theology," men say in effect, "we will have nothing to do with miracles, with atonement, or with heaven or with hell. For us the Golden Rule is a sufficient guide of life; in the simple principles of the Sermon on the Mount we discover a solution of all the problems of society." It is indeed rather strange that men can speak in this way. Certainly it is rather derogatory to Jesus to assert that never except in one brief part of His recorded words did He say anything that is worth while. But even in the Sermon on the Mount there is far more than some men suppose. Men say that it contains no theology) in reality it contains theology of the most stupendous kind. In particular, it 1. J. Weiss, "Des Problem der Entstehung des Christentums," in Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft? xvi. 1913, p. 466. See The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921, p. 156. contains the loftiest possible presentation of Jesus’ own Person. That presentation appears in the strange note of authority which pervades the whole discourse; it appears in the recurrent words, "But I say unto you." Jesus plainly puts His own words on an equality with what He certainly regarded as the divine words of Scripture; He claimed the right to legislate for the Kingdom of God. Let it not be objected that this note of authority involves merely a prophetic consciousness in Jesus, a mere right to speak in God’s name as God’s Spirit might lead. For what prophet ever spoke in this way? The prophets said, "Thus saith the Lord," but Jesus said, "I say." We have no mere prophet here, no mere humble exponent of the will of God; but a stupendous Person speaking in a manner which for any other person would be abominable and absurd. The same thing appears in the passage Matthew 7:21-23 : "Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many shall say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out demons, and in thy name done many mighty works? And then I shall confess to them, ’I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work lawlessness."’ This passage is in some respects a favorite with modern liberal teachers; for it is interpreted—falsely, it is true, yet plausibly—as meaning that all that a man needs to attain standing with God is an approximately right performance of his duties to his fellow-men, and not any assent to a creed or even any direct relation to Jesus. But have those who quote the passage 80 triumphantly in this way ever stopped to reflect upon the other side of the picture—upon the stupendous fact that in this same passage the eternal destinies of men are made dependent upon the word of Jesus ? Jesus here represents Himself as seated on the judgment-seat of all the earth, separating whom He will forever from the bliss that is involved in being present with Him. Could anything be further removed than such a Jesus from the humble teacher of righteousness appealed to by modern liberalism? Clearly it is impossible to escape from theology, even in the chosen precincts of the Sermon on the Mount. A stupendous theology, with Jesus’ own Person at the center of it, is the presupposition of the whole teaching. But may not that theology still be removed? May we not get rid of the bizarre, theological element which has intruded itself even into the Sermon on the Mount, and content ourselves merely with the ethical portion of the discourse? The question, from the point of view of modern liberalism, is natural. But it must be answered with an emphatic negative. For the fact is that the ethic of the discourse, taken by itself, will not work at all. The Golden Rule furnishes an example. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"—is that rule a rule of universal application, will it really solve all the problems of society? A little experience shows that such is not the case. Help a drunkard to get rid of his evil habit, and you will soon come to distrust the modern interpretation of the Golden Rule. The trouble is that the drunkard’s companions apply the rule only too well; they do unto him exactly what they would have him do unto them —by buying him a drink. The Golden Rule becomes a powerful obstacle in the way of moral advance. But the trouble does not lie in the rule itself; it lies in the modern interpretation of the rule. The error consists in supposing that the Golden Rule, with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, is addressed to the whole world. As a matter of fact the whole discourse is expressly addressed to Jesus’ disciples; and from them the great world outside is distinguished in the plainest possible way. The persons to whom the Golden Rule is addressed are persons in whom a great change has been wrought—a change which fits them for entrance into the Kingdom of God. Such persons will have pure desires; they, and they only, can safely do unto others as they would have others do unto them, for the things that they would have others do unto them are high and pure. So it is with the whole of the discourse. The new law of the Sermon on the Mount, in itself, can only produce despair. Strange indeed is the complacency with which modern men can say that the Golden Rule and the high ethical principles of Jesus are all that they need. In reality, if the requirements for entrance into the Kingdom of God are what Jesus declares them to be, we are all undone; we have not even attained to the external righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and how shall we attain to that righteousness of the heart which Jesus demands ? The Sermon on the Mount, rightly interpreted, then, makes man a seeker after some divine means of salvation by which entrance into the Kingdom can be obtained. Even Moses was too high for us; but before this higher law of Jesus who shall stand without being condemned? The Sermon on the Mount, like all the rest of the New Testament, really leads a man straight to the foot of the Cross. Even the disciples, to whom the teaching of Jesus was first addressed, knew well that they needed more than guidance in the way that they should go. It is only a superficial reading of the Gospels that can find in the relation which the disciples sustained to Jesus a mere relation of pupil to Master. When Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," he was speaking not as a philosopher calling pupils to his school) but as One who was in possession of rich stores of divine grace. And this much at least the disciples knew. They knew well in their heart of hearts that they had no right to stand in the Kingdom; they knew that only Jesus could win them entrance there. They did not yet know fully how Jesus could make them children of God; but they did know that He could do it and He alone. And in that trust all the theology of the great Christian creeds was in expectation contained. At this point, an objection may arise. May we not—the modern liberal will say—may we not now return to that simple trust of the disciples? May we not cease to ask how Jesus saves; may we not simply leave the way to Him? What need is there, then, of defining "effectual calling," what need of enumerating "justification, adoption and sanctification and the several benefits which in this life do either accompany or flow from them"? What need even of rehearsing the steps in the saving work of Christ as they were rehearsed by the Jerusalem Church; what need of saying that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures"? Should not our trust be in a Person rather than in a message; in Jesus, rather than in what Jesus did; in Jesus’ character rather than in Jesus’ death? Plausible words these are—plausible, and pitifully vain. Can we really return to Galilee; are we really in the same situation as those who came to Jesus when He was on earth? Can we hear Him say to us, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? These are serious questions, and they cannot possibly be ignored. The plain fact is that Jesus of Nazareth died these nineteen hundred years ago. It was possible for the men of Galilee in the first century to trust Him; for to them He extended His aid. For them, life’s problem was easy. They needed only to push in through the crowd or be lowered through some Capernaum roof and the long search was over. But we are separated by nineteen centuries from the One who alone could give us aid. How can we bridge the gulf of time that separates us from Jesus? Some persons would bridge the gulf by the mere use of the historical imagination. "Jesus is not dead," we are told, "but lives on through His recorded words and deeds; we do not need even to believe it all; even a part is sufficient; the wonderful personality of Jesus shines out clear from the Gospel story. Jesus, in other words, may still be known; let us simply—without theology, without controversy, without inquiry about miracles—abandon ourselves to His spell, and He will heal us." There is a certain plausibility about that. It may readily be admitted that Jesus lives on in the Gospel record. In that narrative we see not merely a lifeless picture, but receive the impression of a living Person. We can still, as we read, share the astonishment of those who listened to the new teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. We can sympathize with the faith and devotion of the little band of disciples who would not leave Him when others were offended at the hard saying. We feel a sympathetic thrill of joy at the blessed relief which was given to those who were ill in body and in mind. We can appreciate the wonderful love and compassion of Him who was sent to seek and to save that which was lost. A wonderful story it is indeed—not dead, but pulsating with life at every turn. Certainly the Jesus of the Gospels is a real, a living Person. But that is not the only question. We are going forward far too fast. Jesus lives in the Gospels—so much may freely be admitted—but we of the twentieth century, how may we come into vital relation to Him? He died nineteen hundred years ago. The life which He now lives in the Gospels is simply the old life lived over and over again. And in that life we have no place; in that life we are spectators, not actors. The life which Jesus lives in the Gospels is after all for us but the spurious life of the stage. We sit silent in the playhouse and watch the absorbing Gospel drama of forgiveness and healing and love and courage and high endeavor; in rapt attention we follow the fortunes of those who came to Jesus laboring and heavy laden and found rest. For a time our own troubles are forgotten. But suddenly the curtain falls, with the closing of the book, and out we go again into the cold humdrum of our own lives. Gone are the warmth and gladness of an ideal world, and "in their stead a sense of real things comes doubly strong." We are no longer living over again the lives of Peter and James and John. Alas, we are living our own lives once more, with our own problems and our own misery and our own sin. And still we are seeking our own Savior. Let us not deceive ourselves. A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls. Clothe Him with all the art of modern research, throw upon Him the warm, deceptive calcium-light of modern sentimentality; and despite it all common sense will come to its rights again, and for our brief hour of self-deception—as though we had been with Jesus—will wreak upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment. But, says the modern preacher, are we not, in being satisfied with the "historical" Jesus, the great teacher who proclaimed the Kingdom of God, merely restoring the simplicity of the primitive gospel? No, we answer, you are not, but, temporally at least, you are not so very far wrong. You are really returning to a very primitive stage in the life of the Church. Only, that stage is not the Galilean springtime. For in Galilee men had a living Savior. There was one time and one time only when the disciples lived, like you, merely on the memory of Jesus. When was it? It was a gloomy, desperate time. It was the three sad days after the crucifixion. Then and then only did Jesus’ disciples regard Him merely as a blessed memory. "We trusted," they said, "that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." "We trusted"—but now our trust is gone. Shall we remain, with modern liberalism, forever in the gloom of those sad days? Or shall we pass out from it to the warmth and joy of Pentecost? Certainly we shall remain forever in the gloom if we attend merely to the character of Jesus and neglect the thing that He has done, if we try to attend to the Person and neglect the message. We may have joy for sadness and power for weakness; but not by easy half-way measures, not by avoidance of controversy, not by trying to hold on to Jesus and yet reject the gospel. What was it that within a few days transformed a band of mourners into the spiritual conquerors of the world? It was not the memory of Jesus’ life; it was not the inspiration which came from past contact with Him. But it was the message, "He is risen." That message alone gave to the disciples a living Savior; and it alone can give to us a living Savior today. We shall never have vital contact with Jesus if we attend to His person and neglect the message; for it is the message which makes Him ours. But the Christian message contains more than the fact of the resurrection.1 It is not enough to know that Jesus is alive; it is not enough to know that a wonderful Person 1. For what follows compare A Rapid Survey of the History and Literature of New Testament Times, published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work, Teacher’s Manual, pp. 44f. lived in the first century of the Christian era and that Person still lives, somewhere and somehow, today. Jesus lives, and that is well; but what good is it to us? We are like the inhabitants of far-off Syria or Phoenicia in the days of His flesh. There is a wonderful Person who can heal every ill of body and mind. But, alas, we are not with Him, and the way is far. How shall we come into His presence? How shall contact be established between us and Him? For the people of ancient Galilee contact was established by a touch of Jesus’ hand or a word from His lips. But for us the problem is not so easy. We cannot find Him by the lake shore or in crowded houses; we cannot be lowered into any room where He sits amid scribes and Pharisees. If we employ only our own methods of search, we shall find ourselves on a fruitless pilgrimage. Surely we need guidance, if we are to find our Savior. And in the New Testament we find guidance full and free—guidance so complete as to remove all doubt, yet so simple that a child can understand. Contact with Jesus according to the New Testament is established by what Jesus does, not for others, but for us. The account of what Jesus did for others is indeed necessary. By reading how He went about doing good, how He healed the sick and raised the dead and forgave sins, we learn that He is a Person who is worthy of trust. But such knowledge is to the Christian man not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is not enough to know that Jesus is a Person worthy of trust; it is also necessary to know that He is willing to have us trust Him. It is not enough that He saved others; we need to know also that He has saved us. That knowledge is given in the story of the Cross. For us Jesus does not merely place His fingers in the ears and say, "Be opened’’; for us He does not merely say "Arise and walk." For us He has done a greater thing—for us He died. Our dreadful guilt, the condemnation of God’s law—it was wiped out by an act of grace. That is the message which brings Jesus near to us, and makes Him not merely the Savior of the men of Galilee long ago, but the Savior of you and me. It is vain, then, to speak of reposing trust in the Person without believing the message. For trust involves a personal relation between the one who trusts and him in whom the trust is reposed. And in this case the personal relation is set up by the blessed theology of the Cross. Without the eighth chapter of Romans, the mere story of the earthly life of Jesus would be remote and dead; for it is through the eighth chapter of Romans, or the message which that chapter contains, that Jesus becomes our Savior today. The truth is that when men speak of trust in Jesus’ Person, as being possible without acceptance of the message of His death and resurrection, they do not really mean trust at all. What they designate as trust is really admiration or reverence. They reverence Jesus as the supreme Person of all history and the supreme revealer of God. But trust can come only when the supreme Person extends His saving power to us. "He went about doing good," "He spake words such as never man spake," "He is the express image of God"—that is reverence; "He loved me and gave Himself for me"—that is faith. But the words "He loved me and gave Himself for me" are in historical form; they constitute an account of something that happened. And they add to the fact the meaning of the fact; they contain in essence the whole profound theology of redemption through the blood of Christ. Christian doctrine lies at the very roots of faith. It must be admitted, then, that if we are to have a nondoctrinal religion, or a doctrinal religion founded merely on general truth, we must give up not only Paul, not only the primitive Jerusalem Church, but also Jesus Himself. But what is meant by doctrine? It has been interpreted here as meaning any presentation of the facts which lie at the basis of the Christian religion with the true meaning of the facts. But is that the only sense of the word? May the word not also be taken in a narrower sense? May it not also mean a systematic and minute and one-sidedly scientific presentation of the facts? And if the word is taken in this narrower sense, may not the modern objection to doctrine involve merely an objection to the excessive subtlety of controversial theology, and not at all an objection to the glowing words of the New Testament, an objection to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and not at all to the first century? Undoubtedly the word is so taken by many occupants of the pews when they listen to the modern exaltation of "life" at the expense of "doctrine." The pious hearer labors under the impression that he is merely being asked to return to the simplicity of the New Testament, instead of attending to the subtleties of the theologians. Since it has never occurred to him to attend to the subtleties of the theologians, he has that comfortable feeling which always comes to the churchgoer when some one else’s sins are being attacked. It is no wonder that the modern invectives against doctrine constitute a popular type of preaching. At any rate, an attack upon Calvin or Turrettin or the Westminster divines does not seem to the modern churchgoer to be a very dangerous thing. In point of fact, however, the attack upon doctrine is not nearly so innocent a matter as our simple churchgoer supposes; for the things Objected to in the theology of the Church are also at the very heart of the New Testament. Ultimately the attack is not against the seventeenth century, but against the Bible and against Jesus Himself. Even if it were an attack not upon the Bible but only upon the great historic presentations of Biblical teaching, it would still be unfortunate. If the Church were led to wipe out of existence all products of the thinking of nineteen Christian centuries and start fresh, the loss, even if the Bible were retained, would be immense. When it is once admitted that a body of facts lies at the basis of the Christian religion, the efforts which past generations have made toward the classification of the facts will have to be treated with respect. In no branch of science would there be any real advance if every generation started fresh with no dependence upon what past generations have achieved. Yet in theology, vituperation of the past seems to be thought essential to progress. And upon what base slanders the vituperation is based! After listening to modern tirades against the great creeds of the Church, one receives rather a shock when one turns to the Westminster Confession, for example, or to that tenderest and most theological of books, the "Pilgrim’s Progress" of John Bunyan, and discovers that in doing so one has turned from shallow modern phrases to a "dead orthodoxy" that is pulsating with life in every word. In such orthodoxy there is life enough to set the whole world aglow with Christian love. As a matter of fact, however, in the modern vituperation of "doctrine," it is not merely the great theologians or the great creeds that are being attacked, but the New Testament and our Lord Himself. In rejecting doctrine, the liberal preacher is rejecting the simple words of Paul’ "Who loved me and gave Himself for me," just as much as the homoousion of the Nicene Creed. For the word "doctrine" is really used not in its narrowest, but in its broadest sense. The liberal preacher is really rejecting the whole basis of Christianity, which is a religion founded not on aspirations, but on facts. Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity—liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood, while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man’s will, while Christianity announces, first, a gracious act of God. In maintaining the doctrinal basis of Christianity, we are particularly anxious not to be misunderstood. There are certain things that we do not mean. In the first place, we do not mean that if doctrine is sound it makes no difference about life. On the contrary, it makes all the difference in the world. From the beginning, Christianity was certainly a way of life; the salvation that it offered was a salvation from sin, and salvation from sin appeared not merely in a blessed hope but also in an immediate moral change. The early Christians, to the astonishment of their neighbors, lived a strange new kind of life—a life of honesty, of purity and of unselfishness. And from the Christian community all other types of life were excluded in the strictest way. From the beginning Christianity was certainly a life. But how was the life produced? It might conceivably have been produced by exhortation. That method had often been tried in the ancient world; in the Hellenistic age there were many wandering preachers who told men how they ought to live. But such exhortation proved to be powerless. Although the ideals of the Cynic and Stoic preachers were high, these preachers never succeeded in transforming society. The strange thing about Christianity was that it adopted an entirely different method. It transformed the lives of men not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story; not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event. It is no wonder that such a method seemed strange. Could anything be more impractical than the attempt to influence conduct by rehearsing events concerning the death of a religious teacher? That is what Paul called "the foolishness of the message." It seemed foolish to the ancient world, and it seems foolish to liberal preachers today. But the strange thing is that it works. The effects of it appear even in this world. Where the most eloquent exhortation fails, the simple story of an event succeeds; the lives of men are transformed by a piece of news. It is especially by such transformation of life, today as always, that the Christian message is commended to the attention of men. Certainly, then, it does make an enormous difference whether our lives be right. If our doctrine be true, and our lives be wrong, how terrible is our sin! For then we have brought despite upon the truth itself. On the other hand, however, it is also very sad when men use the social graces which God has given them, and the moral momentum of a godly ancestry, to commend a message which is false. Nothing in the world can take the place of truth. In the second place, we do not mean, in insisting upon the doctrinal basis of Christianity, that all points of doctrine are equally important. It is perfectly possible for Christian fellowship to be maintained despite differences of opinion. One such difference of opinion, which has been attaining increasing prominence in recent years, concerns the order of events in connection with the Lord’s return. A large number of Christian people believe that when evil has reached its climax in the world, the Lord Jesus will return to this earth in bodily presence to bring about a reign of righteousness which will last a thousand years, and that only after that period the end of the world will come. That belief, in the opinion of the present writer, is an error, arrived at by a false interpretation of the Word of God; we do not think that the prophecies of the Bible permit so definite a mapping-out of future events. The Lord will come again, and it will be no mere "spiritual" coming in the modern sense—so much is clear—but that so little will be accomplished by the present dispensation of the Holy Spirit and so much will be left to be accomplished by the Lord in bodily presence—such a view we cannot find to be justified by the words of Scripture. What is our attitude, then, with regard to this debate? Certainly it cannot be an attitude of indifference. The recrudescence of "Chiliasm" or "premillennialism" in the modern Church causes us serious concern; it is coupled, we think, with a false method of interpreting Scripture which in the long run will be productive of harm. Yet how great is our agreement with those who hold the premillennial view! They share to the full our reverence for the authority of the Bible, and differ from us only in the interpretation of the Bible; they share our ascription of deity to the Lord Jesus, and our supernaturalistic conception both of the entrance of Jesus into the world and of the consummation when He shall come again. Certainly, then, from our point of view, their error, serious though it may be, is not deadly error; and Christian fellowship, with loyalty not only to the Bible but to the great creeds of the Church, can still unite us with them. It is therefore highly misleading when modern liberals represent the present issue in the Church, both in the mission field and at home, as being an issue between premillennialism and the opposite view. It is really an issue between Christianity, whether premillennial or not, on the one side, and a naturalistic negation of all Christianity on the other. Another difference of opinion which can subsist in the midst of Christian fellowship is the difference of opinion about the mode of efficacy of the sacraments. That difference is indeed serious, and to deny its seriousness is a far greater error than to take the wrong side in the controversy itself. It is often said that the divided condition of Christendom is an evil, and so it is. But the evil consists in the existence of the errors which cause the divisions and not at all in the recognition of those errors when once they exist. It was a great calamity when at the "Marburg Conference" between Luther and the representatives of the Swiss Reformation, Luther wrote on the table with regard to the Lord’s Supper, "This is my body," and said to Zwingli and Oecolampadius, "You have another spirit." That difference of opinion led to the breach between the Lutheran and the Reformed branches of the Church, and caused Protestantism to lose much of the ground that might otherwise have been gained. It was a great calamity indeed. But the calamity was due to the fact that Luther (as we believe) was wrong about the Lord’s Supper; and it would have been a far greater calamity if being wrong about the Supper he had represented the whole question as a trifling affair. Luther was wrong about the Supper, but not nearly so wrong as he would have been if, being wrong, he had said to his opponents: "Brethren, this matter is a trifle; and it makes really very little difference what a man thinks about the table of the Lord." Such indifferentism would have been far more deadly than all the divisions between the branches of the Church. A Luther who would have compromised with regard to the Lord’s Supper never would have said at the Diet of Worms, "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 03.02. CHAPTER 2A: DOCTRINE ======================================================================== God help me, Amen." Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith. Still another difference of opinion concerns the nature and prerogatives of the Christian ministry. According to Anglican doctrine, the bishops are in possession of an authority which has been handed down to them, by successive ordination, from the apostles of the Lord, and without such ordination there is no valid priesthood. Other churches deny this doctrine of "apostolic succession," and hold a different view of the ministry. Here again, the difference is no trifle, and we have little sympathy with those who in the mere interests of Church efficiency try to induce Anglicans to let down the barrier which their principles have led them to erect. But despite the importance of this difference, it does not descend to the very roots. Even to the conscientious Anglican himself, though he regards the members of other bodies as in schism, Christian fellowship with individuals in those other bodies is still possible; and certainly those who reject the Anglican view of the ministry can regard the Anglican Church as a genuine and very noble member in the body of Christ. Another difference of opinion is that between the Calvinistic or Reformed theology and the Arminianism which appears in the Methodist Church. It is difficult to see how any one who has really studied the question can regard that difference as an unimportant matter. On the contrary’ it touches very closely some of the profoundest things of the Christian faith. A Calvinist is constrained to regard the Arminian theology as a serious impoverishment of the Scripture doctrine of divine grace, and equally serious is the view which the Arminian must hold as to the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. Yet here again, true evangelical fellowship is possible between those who hold, with regard to some exceedingly important matters, sharply opposing views. Far more serious still is the division between the Church of Rome and evangelical Protestantism in all its forms. Yet how great is the common heritage which unites the Roman Catholic Church, with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds, to devout Protestants today! We would not indeed obscure the difference which divides us from Rome. The gulf is indeed profound. But profound as it is, it seems almost trifling compared to the abyss which stands between us and many ministers of our own Church. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the Christian religion; but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. That does not mean that conservatives and liberals must live in personal animosity. It does not involve any lack of sympathy on our part for those who have felt obliged by the current of the times to relinquish their confidence in the strange message of the Cross. Many ties—ties of blood, of citizenship, of ethical aims, of humanitarian endeavor—unite us to those who have abandoned the gospel. We trust that those ties may never be weakened, and that ultimately they may serve some purpose in the propagation of the Christian faith. But Christian service consists primarily in the propagation of a message, and specifically Christian fellowship exists only between those to whom the message has become the very basis of all life. The character of Christianity as founded upon a message is summed up in the words of the eighth verse of the first chapter of Acts—"Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." It is entirely unnecessary, for the present purpose, to argue about the historical value of the Book of Acts or to discuss the question whether Jesus really spoke the words just quoted. In any case the verse must be recognized as an adequate summary of what is known about primitive Christianity. From the beginning Christianity was a campaign of witnessing. And the witnessing did not concern merely what Jesus was doing within the recesses of the individual life. To take the words of Acts in that way is to do violence to the context and to all the evidence. On the contrary, the Epistles of Paul and all the sources make it abundantly plain that the testimony was primarily not to inner spiritual facts but to what Jesus had done once for all in His death and resurrection. Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness. But if so, it is rather important that the Christian worker should tell the truth. When a man takes his seat upon the witness stand, it makes little difference what the cut of his coat is, or whether his sentences are nicely turned. The important thing is that he tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If we are to be truly Christians, then, it does make a vast difference what our teachings are, and it is by no means aside from the point to set forth the teachings of Christianity in contrast with the teachings of the chief modern rival of Christianity. The chief modern rival of Christianity is "liberalism." An examination of the teachings of liberalism in comparison with those of Christianity will show that at every point the two movements are in direct opposition. That examination will now be undertaken, though merely in a summary and cursory way. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 03.03. CHAPTERS 3&4 "GOD & MAN" + "THE BIBLE" ======================================================================== Chapter3:"God & Man" It has been observed in the last chapter that Christianity is based on an account of something that happened in the first century of our era. But before thataccount can be received, certain presuppositions must be accepted.The Christian gospel consists in an account of how God saved man,and before that gospel can be understood something must be known(1) about God and (2) about man. The doctrine of God and the doctrineof man are the two great presuppositions of the gospel. With regardto these presuppositions, as with regard to the gospel itself,modern liberalism is diametrically opposed to Christianity. It is opposed to Christianity, in the first place, in its conception of God. But at this point we are met with a particularly insistent form of that objectionto doctrinal matters which has already been considered. It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a "conception" of God; theology, or the knowledge of God, it is said, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence. With regard to this objection, it ought to be observed that if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatever. Pure feeling, if there be such a thing, is non-moral. What makes affection for a human friend, for example, such anennobling thing is the knowledge which we possess of the character of our friend. Human affection, apparently so simple,is really just bristling with dogma. It depends upon a host of observations treasured up in the mind with regard to the character of our friends. But if human affection is thus really dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the basis of religion ? Why should webe indignant about slanders directed against a human friend, while at the same time we are patient about the basest slanders directed against our God? Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God; the knowledge of God is the very basis of religion. How, then, shall God be known; how shall we become so acquainted with Him that personal fellowship may become possible? Some liberal preachers would saythat we become acquainted with God only through Jesus. That assertion has an appearance of loyalty to our Lord, but in reality it is highly derogatory to Him. For Jesus Himself plainly recognized the validity of other ways of knowing God, and to reject those other ways is to reject the things that lay at the very center of Jesus’ life. Jesus plainly found God’s hand in nature; the lilies of the field revealed to Him the weaving of God. He found God also in the moral law; the law written in the hearts of men was God’s law, which revealed His righteousness. Finally Jesus plainly found God revealed in the Scriptures. How profound wasour Lord’s use of the words of prophets and psalmists! To say that such revelation of God was invalid, or is useless to us today, is to do despite to things that lay closest to Jesus’ mind and heart. But, as a matter offact, when men say that we know God only as He is revealed in Jesus, they are denying all real knowledge of God whatever. For unless there be some idea of God independent of Jesus, the ascription of deity to Jesus has no meaning. To say, "Jesus is God," is meaningless unless the word "God" has an antecedent meaning attached to it. And the attaching of a meaning to the word "God" is accomplished by the means which have just been mentioned. We are not forgetting the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."But these words do not mean that if a man had never known what the word "God" means, he could come to attach an idea to that word merely by his knowledge of Jesus’ character. On the contrary, the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking had alreadya very definite conception of God; a knowledge of the one supreme Person was presupposed in all that Jesus said. But the disciples desired not only a knowledge of God but also intimate, personal contact. And that came through their intercourse with Jesus. Jesus revealed, in a wonderfully intimate way, the character of God, but such revelation obtained its true significance only on the basis both of the Old Testament heritage and of Jesus’ own teaching. Rational theism, the knowledge of one Supreme Person, Maker and active Ruler of the world, is at the very root of Christianity. But, the modern preacher will say, it is incongruous to attribute to Jesus an acceptance of "rational theism"; Jesus had a practical, not a theoretical, knowledge of God. There is a sense in which these words are true. Certainly no part of Jesus’ knowledge of God was merely theoretical; everything that Jesus knew about God touched His heart and determined His actions. In that sense, Jesus’ knowledge of God was "practical." But unfortunately that is not the sense in which the assertionof modern liberalism is meant. What is frequently meant by a "practical" knowledge of God in modern parlance is not a theoretical knowledge of God that is also practical, but a practical knowledge which is not theoretical—in other words, a knowledge which gives no information about objective reality, a knowledge which is no knowledge at all. And nothing could possibly be more unlike the religion of Jesus than that. The relation of Jesus to His heavenly Father was not a relation to a vague and impersonal goodness, it was not a relation which merely clothed itself in symbolic, personal form. On the contrary, it was a relationto a real Person, whose existence was just as definite and just as much a subject of theoretic knowledge as the existence of the lilies of the field that God had clothed. The very basis of the religion of Jesus was a triumphant belief in the real existence of a personal God. And without that belief no type of religion can rightly appeal to Jesus today. Jesus was a theist, and rational theism is at the basis of Christianity. Jesus did not, indeed, support His theism by argument; He did not provide in advance answers to the Kantian attack upon the theistic proofs. But that means not that He was indifferent to the belief which is the logical result of those proofs, but that the belief stood so firm, both to Him and to His hearers, that in His teaching it is always presupposed. So today it is not necessaryfor all Christians to analyze the logical basis of their belief in God; the human mind has a wonderful faculty for the condensation of perfectly valid arguments, and what seems like an instinctivebelief may turn out to be the result of many logical steps. Or, rather’ it may be that the belief in a personal God is the result of a primitive revelation, and that the theistic proofs are only the logical confirmation of what was originally arrived at by a different means. At any rate, the logical confirmation of the belief in God is a vital concern to the Christian; at this point as at many others religion and philosophy are connected in the most intimate possible way. True religion can make no peace with a false philosophy, any more than with a science that is falsely so-called; a thing cannot possibly be true in religion and false in philosophy or in science. All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid methods, will arriveat a harmonious result. Certainly the atheistic or agnostic Christianity which sometimes goes under the name of a "practical"religion is no Christianity at all. At the very root of Christianity is the belief in the real existence of a personal God. Strangely enough, at the very time when modern liberalism is decrying the theistic proofs, and taking refuge in a "practical" knowledge which shall some how be independent of scientifically or philosophically ascertained facts, the liberal preacher loves to use one designation of God which is nothing if not theistic; he loves to speak of God as "Father." The term certainly has the merit of ascribing personality to God. By some of those who use it, indeed, it is not seriously meant; by some it is employed because it isuseful, not because it is true. But not all liberals are able to make the subtle distinction between theoretic judgments and judgments of value; some liberals, though perhaps a decreasing number, are true believers in a personal God. And such men are able to think of God truly as a Father. The term presents avery lofty conception of God. It is not indeed exclusively Christian; the term "Father" has been applied to God outside of Christianity. It appears, for example, in the widespread belief in an "All- Father," which prevails among many race seven in company with polytheism; it appears here and there in the Old Testament, and in pre-Christian Jewish writings subsequent to the Old Testament period. Such occurrences of the term are by no means devoid of significance. The Old Testament usage, in particular,is a worthy precursor of our Lord’s teaching; for although in the Old Testament the word "Father" ordinarily designates God in relation not to the individual, but to the nation or to the king, yet the individual Israelite, because of his part in the chosen people, felt himself to be in a peculiarly intimate relation to the covenant God. But despite this anticipation of the teaching of our Lord, Jesus brought such an incomparable enrichment of the usage of the term, that it is a correct instinct which regards the thought of God as Father as something characteristically Christian. Modern men have been so much impressed with this element in Jesus’ teaching that they have sometimes been inclined to regard it as the very sum and substance of our religion. We are not interested, they say, in many things for which men formerly gave their lives; we are not interested in the theology of the creeds; we are not interested in the doctrines of sin and salvation; we are not interested in atonement through the blood of Christ: enough for us is the simple truth of the fatherhood of God and its corollary, the brotherhood of man. We may not be very orthodox in the theological sense, they continue, but of course you will recognize us as Christians because we accept Jesus’ teaching as to the Father God. It is very strange how intelligent persons can speak in this way. It is very strange how those who accept only the universal fatherhood of God as the sum and substance of religion can regard themselves as Christians or can appeal to Jesus of Nazareth. For the plain fact is that this modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God formed no part whatever of Jesus’ teaching. Where is it that Jesus maybe supposed to have taught the universal fatherhood of God? Certainly it is not in the parable of the Prodigal Son. For in the first place, the publicans and sinners whose acceptance by Jesus formed the occasion both of the Pharisees’ objection and of Jesus’ answer to them by means of the parable, were not any men anywhere, but were members of the chosen people and as such might be designated as sons of God. In the second place, a parable is certainly not to be pressed in its details. So here because the joy of the father in the parable is like the joy of God when a sinner receives salvation at Jesus’ hand, it does not follow that the relation which God sustains to still unrepentant sinners is that of a Father to his children. Where else, then, can the universal fatherhood of God be found ? Surely not in the Sermon on the Mount; for throughout the Sermon on the Mount those who can call God Father are distinguished in the most emphatic way from the great world of the Gentiles outside. One passage in the discourse has indeed been urged in support of the modern doctrine: "But I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you; that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He maketh His sun to rise on evil and good and sendeth rain on just and unjust" (Matthew 5:44-45). But the passage certainly will not bear the weight which is hung upon it. God is indeed represented here as caring for all men whether evil or good, but He is certainly not called the Father of all. Indeed it might almost be said that the point of the passage depends on the fact that He is not the Father of all. He cares even forthose who are not His children but His enemies; so His children, Jesus’ disciples, ought to imitate Him by loving even those who are not their brethren but their persecutors. The modern doctrineof the universal fatherhood of God is not to be found in the teaching of Jesus. And it is not to be found in the New Testament. The whole NewTestament and Jesus Himself do indeed represent God as standing in a relation to all men, whether Christians or not, which is analogous to that in which a father stands to his children. He is the Author of the being of all, and as such might well be called the Father of all. He cares for all, and for that reason also might be called the Father of all. Here and there the figure of fatherhood seems to be used to designate this broader relationshipwhich God sustains to all men or even to all created beings. So in an isolated passage in Hebrews, God is spoken of as the "Fatherof spirits" (Hebrews 12:9). Here perhaps it is the relation of God, as creator, to the personal beings whom He has created which is in view. One of the clearest instances of the broader use of the figure of fatherhood is found in the speech of Paulat Athens, Acts 17:28 : "For we are also His offspring."Here it is plainly the relation in which God stands to all men, whether Christians or not, which is in mind. But the words form part of an hexameter line and are taken from a pagan poet; theyare not represented as part of the gospel, but merely as belongingto the common meeting-ground which Paul discovered in speaking to his pagan hearers. This passage is only typical of what appears,with respect to a universal fatherhood of God, in the New Testament as a whole. Something analogous to a universal fatherhood of Godis taught in the New Testament. Here and there the terminology of fatherhood and sonship is even used to describe this general relationship. But such instances are extremely rare. Ordinarily the lofty term "Father" is used to describe a relationship of a far more intimate kind, the relationship in which God standsto the company of the redeemed. The modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God, then, which is being celebrated as "the essence of Christianity,"really belongs at best only to that vague natural religion whichforms the presupposition which the Christian preacher can use when the gospel is to be proclaimed; and when it is regarded asa reassuring, all-sufficient thing, it comes into direct opposition to the New Testament. The gospel itself refers to something entirely different; the really distinctive New Testament teaching about the fatherhood of God concerns only those who have been brought into the household of faith. There is nothing narrow about such teaching; for the door of the household of faith is open wide to all. That door is the "new and living way"which Jesus opened by His blood. And if we really love our fellowmen, we shall not go about the world, with the liberal preacher, trying to make men satisfied with the coldness of a vague natural religion. But by the preaching of the gospel we shall invite them into the warmth and joy of the house of God. Christianity offers men all that is offered by the modern liberal teaching about theuniversal fatherhood of God; but it is Christianity only because it offers also infinitely more. But the liberal conception of God differs even more fundamentally from the Christian view than in the different circle of ideas connected with the terminology of fatherhood. The truth is that liberalism has lost sight of the very center and core of the Christian teaching. In the Christian view of God as set forth in the Bible, there are many elements.But one attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible; one attribute is absolutely necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end the Bible is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the creature from the Creator. It is true, indeed, that according to the Bible God is immanent in theworld. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. But he is immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and Upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator a great gulf is fixed. In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name "God" is applied to the mighty world process itself. We find ourselves in the midst of a mighty process, which manifests itself in the indefinitely small and in the indefinitely great—in the infinitesimal life which is revealed through the microscope and in the vast movements of the heavenly spheres. To this world-process, of which we ourselves form a part, we apply the dread name of "God." God, therefore, it is said in effect, is not a person distinct from ourselves; on the contrary our life is a part of His. Thus the Gospel story of the Incarnation, according to modern liberalism, is sometimes thought of as a symbol of the general truth that man at his best is one with God. It is strange how such a representation can be regarded as anything new, for as a matter of fact, pantheism is a very ancient phenomenon. It has always been with us, to blight the religious life of man. And modern liberalism, even when it is not consistently pantheistic, is at any rate pantheizing. It tends everywhere to break down the separateness between God and the world, and the sharp personal distinction between God and man. Even the sin of man on this view ought logically to be regarded as part of the life of God. Very different is the living and holy God of the Bible and of Christian faith. Christianity differs from liberalism, then, in the first place, in its conception of God. But it also differs in its conception of man. Modern liberalism has lost all sense of the gulf that separates the creature from the Creator; its doctrine of man follows naturally from its doctrine of God. But it is not only the creature limitationsof mankind which are denied. Even more important is another difference. According to the Bible, man is a sinner under the just condemnation of God; according to modern liberalism, there is really no such thing as sin. At the very root of the modern liberal movementis the loss of the consciousness of sin.1 The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting-point of all preaching; but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness; the religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the world’s evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world’s good; no help is needed from outside the world. What has produced this satisfaction with human goodness? What has become of the consciousness of sin? The consciousness of sin has certainly been lost. But what has removed it from the hearts of men? In the first place, the war has perhaps had something to do with the change. In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are sometimes inclined to forget our own sins. Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppressionof the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces 1. For what follows, see "The Church In the War," in The Presbyterian forMay 29,1919, pp. 10f. with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt. If John Smith beats his wife nowadays, no one is so old-fashioned as to blame John Smith for it. On the contrary, it is said, John Smith is evidently the victim of somemore of that Bolshevistic propaganda; Congress ought to be called in extra session in order to take up the case of John Smith in an alien and sedition law. But the loss of the consciousness of sin is far deeper than the war; it has its rootsin a mighty spiritual process which has been active during the past seventy-five years. Like other great movements, that process has come silently—so silently that its results have been achieved before the plain man was even aware of what was taking place. Nevertheless, despite all superficial continuity, a remarkable change has come about within the last seventy-five years. The change is nothing less than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant view of life. Seventy-five years ago, Western civilization, despite inconsistencies, was still predominantly Christian; today it is predominantly pagan. In speaking of "paganism,"we are not using a term of reproach. Ancient Greece was pagan, but it was glorious, and the modern world has not even begun to equal its achievements. What, then, is paganism? The answer is not really difficult. Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmoniousand joyous development of existing human faculties. Very differentis the Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature’ whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart. In saying that Christianity is the religion of the broken heart, we do not mean that Christianity ends with the broken heart; we do not mean that the characteristic Christian attitude is a continual beating on the breast or a continual crying of "Woe is me." Nothing could be further from the fact. On the contrary, Christianity means that sin is faced once for all, and then is cast, by the grace of God, forever into the depths of the sea. The trouble with the paganism of ancient Greece, as with the paganism of modern times, was not in the superstructure,which was glorious, but in the foundation, which was rotten. There was always something to be covered up; the enthusiasm of the architect was maintained only by ignoring the disturbing fact of sin. In Christianity, on the other hand, nothing needs to be covered up. The fact of sin is faced squarely once for all, and is dealt with by the grace of God. But then, after sin has been removed by the grace of God, the Christian can proceed to develop joyously every faculty that God has given him. Such is the higher Christian humanism—a humanism founded not upon human pride but upon divine grace. But although Christianity does not end with the broken heart, it does begin with the broken heart; it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without the consciousness of sin, the whole of the gospel will seem to be an idle tale.But how can the consciousness of sin be revived? Something no doubt can be accomplished by the proclamation of the law of God, for the law reveals transgressions. The whole of the law, moreover, should be proclaimed. It will hardly be wise to adopt the suggestion (recently offered among many suggestions as to the ways in which we shall have to modify our message in order to retain the allegiance of the returning soldiers) that we must stop treating the little sins as though they were big sins. That suggestion means apparently that we must not worry too much about the little sins, but must let them remain unmolested. With regard to such an expedient, it may perhaps be suggested that in the moral battle we are fighting against a very resourceful enemy, who does not reveal the position of his guns by desultory artillery action when he plans a great attack. In the moral battle, as in the Great European War, the quiet sectors are usually the most dangerous. It is through the "little sins" that Satan gains an entrance into our lives. Probably, therefore, it will be prudent to watch all sectors of the front and lose no time about introducing the unity of command. But if the consciousness of sin is to be produced, the law of God must be proclaimed in the lives of Christian people as well as in word. It is quiteuseless for the preacher to breathe out fire and brimstone from the pulpit, if at the same time the occupants of the pews go on taking sin very lightly and being content with the more’ standards of the world. The rank and file of the Church must do their part in so proclaiming the law of God by their lives that the secrets of men’s hearts shall be revealed. All these things, however, are in themselves quite insufficient to produce the consciousness of sin. The more one observes the condition of the Church, the more one feels obliged to confess that the conviction of sin is a great mystery’ which can be produced only by the Spirit of God. Proclamation of the law, in word and in deed, can prepare for the experience, but the experience itself comes from God. When a man has that experience, when a man comes under the conviction of sin, his whole attitude toward life is transformed; he wonders at his former blindness, and the message of the gospel, which formerly seemed to be an idle tale, becomes now instinct with light. But it is God alone who can produce the change. Only, let us not try to do without the Spirit of God. The fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged in an absolutely impossible task—she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: "You people are very good," he says; "you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible—especially in the life of Jesus—something so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people."Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and probably we shall be no more successful than He. Chapter4:"The Bible" Modern liberalism, it has been observed so far, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of the Christian message—the living God, and the fact of sin. The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the message itself. The Christian message has come to us through the Bible. What shall we think about this Book in which the message is contained? According to the Christian view, the Bible contains an account of a revelation from God to man, which is found nowhere else. It is true, the Bible also contains a confirmation and a wonderful enrichment of the revelations which are given also by the things that God has made and by the conscienceof man. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork"—these words are a confirmation of the revelation of God in nature; "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"—these words are a confirmation of what is attested by the conscience. But in addition to such reaffirmations of what might conceivably be learned elsewhere—as a matter of fact, because of men’s blindness, even so much is learned else where only in comparatively obscure fashion—the Bible also contains an account of a revelation which is absolutely new. That new revelation concerns the way by which sinful man can come into communion with the living God. The way was opened,according to the Bible, by an act of God, when, almost nineteen hundred years ago, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the eternal Son was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men. To that one great event the whole Old Testament looks forward, and in that one event the whole of the New Testament finds its center and core. Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened. Hence appears the uniqueness of the Bible. All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the Christian view, is altogether dark,and humanity is lost under the guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin. But a new face has been put uponlife by the blessed thing that God did when He offered up His only begotten Son. An objection is sometimes offered against this view of the contents of the Bible.1 Must we, it is said, depend upon what happened so long ago? Does salvation wait upon the examination of musty records? Is the trained student of Palestinian history the modern priest without whose gracious intervention no one can see God? Can we not find, instead, a salvation that is independent of history, a salvation that depends only on what is with us here and now? The objection is not devoid of weight. But it ignores one of the primary evidences for the truth of the gospel record. That evidence is found in Christian experience. 1. For what follows compare History and Faith, 1915, pp. 13-15. Salvation does depend upon what happened long ago, but the event of long ago has effects that continue until today. We are told in the New Testament that Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of those who should believe on Him. That is a record of a past event. But we can make trial of it today, and making trial of it we find it to be true. We are told in the New Testament that on a certain morning long ago Jesus rose from the dead. That again is a record of a past event. But again we can make trialof it, and making trial of it we discover that Jesus is truly a living Savior today. But at this point a fatal error lies in wait. It is one of the root errors of modern liberalism. Christian experience, we have just said, is useful as confirming the gospel message. But because it is necessary, many men have jumped to the conclusion that it is all that is necessary. Having a present experience of Christ in the heart, may we not, it is said, hold that experience no matter what history may tell us as to the events of the first Easter morning? May we not make ourselves altogether independent of the results of Biblical criticism? No matter what sort of man history may tell us Jesus of Nazareth actually was, no matter what history may say about the real meaning of His death or about the story of His alleged resurrection, may we not continue to experience the presence of Christ in our souls? The trouble is that the experience thus maintained is not Christian experience. Religious experience it may be, but Christian experience it certainly is not. For Christian experience depends absolutely upon an event. The Christian says to himself: "I have meditated upon the problem of becoming right with God, I have tried to produce a righteousness that will stand in His sight; but when I heard the gospel message I learned that what I had weakly striven to accomplish had been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ when He died for me on the Cross and completed His redeeming work by the glorious resurrection. If the thing has not yet been done, if I merely have an idea of its accomplishment, then I am of all men most miserable, for I am still in my sins.My Christian life, then, depends altogether upon the truth of the New Testament record." Christian experienceis rightly used when it confirms the documentary evidence. But it can never possibly provide a substitute for the documentary evidence. We know that the gospel story is true partly because of the early date of the documents in which it appears, the evidence as to their authorship, the internal evidence of their truth,the impossibility of explaining them as being based upon deception or upon myth. This evidence is gloriously confirmed by present experience, which adds to the documentary evidence that wonderful directness and immediacy of conviction which delivers us from fear. Christian experience is rightly used when it helps to convinceus that the events narrated in the New Testament actually did occur; but it can never enable us to be Christians whether the events occurred or not. It is a fair flower, and should be prized as a gift of God. But cut it from its root in the blessed Book, and it soon withers away and dies. Thus the revelation of which an account is contained in the Bible embraces not only a reaffirmation of eternal truths—itself necessary because the truths have been obscured by the blinding effect of sin—but also a revelation which sets forth the meaning of an act of God. The contents of the Bible, then, are unique. But another fact about the Bible is also important. The Bible might contain an account of a true revelation from God, and yet the account be full of error. Before the full authority of the Bible can be established, therefore, it is necessary to add to the Christian doctrine of revelation the Christian doctrine of inspiration. The latter doctrine means that the Bible not only is an account of important things, but that the account itself is true, the writers having been so preserved from error, despite a full maintenance of their habits of thought and expression, that the resulting Book is the "infallible rule of faith and practice." This doctrine of "plenary inspiration" has been made the subject of persistent misrepresentation. Its opponents speak of it as though it involved a mechanical theory of the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, it is said, is represented in this doctrine as dictating the Bible to writers who were really little more than stenographers. But of courseall such caricatures are without basis in fact, and it is rather surprising that intelligent men should be so blinded by prejudice about this matter as not even to examine for themselves the perfectly accessible treatises in which the doctrine of plenary inspirationis set forth. It is usually considered good practice to examine a thing for one’s self before echoing the vulgar ridicule of it. But in connection with the Bible, such scholarly restraints are somehow regarded as out of place. It is so much easier to content one’s self with a few opprobrious adjectives such as "mechanical," or the like. Why engage in serious criticism when the people preferridicule? Why attack a real opponent when it is easier to knockdown a man of straw?1 1. It is not deniedthat there are some persons in the modern Church who do neglect the context of Bible quotations and who do ignore the human characteristics of the Biblical writers. But in an entirely Unwarrantable manner this defective way of using the Bible is attributed, by insinuation at least, to the great body of those who Ye held to the inspiration of Scripture. As a matter of fact, the doctrine of plenary inspiration does not deny the individuality of the Biblical writers; it does notignore their use of ordinary means for acquiring information;it does not involve any lack of interest in the historical situations which gave rise to the Biblical books. What it does deny is the presence of error in the Bible. It supposes that the Holy Spirit so informed the minds of the Biblical writers that they were kept from falling into the error" that mar all other books. The Bible might contain an account of a genuine revelation of God,and yet not contain a true account. But according to the doctrine of inspiration, the account is as a matter of fact a true account; the Bible is an "infallible rule of faith and practice." Certainly that is a stupendous claim, and it is no wonder that it has been attacked. But the trouble is that the attack is not always fair. If the liberal preacher objected to the doctrine of plenary inspirationon the ground that as a matter of fact there are errors in the Bible, he might be right and he might be wrong, but at any rate the discussion would be conducted on the proper ground. But too often the preacher desires to avoid the delicate question of errors in the Bible—a question which might give offence to the rank and file—and prefers to speak merely against "mechanical" theories of inspiration, the theory of "dictation," the "superstitious use of the Bible as a talisman," or the like. It all sounds to the plain man as though it werevery harmless. Does not the liberal preacher say that the Bible is "divine"—indeed that it is the more divine because it is the more human ? What could be more edifying than that? But of course such appearances are deceptive. A Bible that is full of error is certainly divine in the modern pantheizing sense of "divine," according to which God is just another name for the course of the world with all its imperfections and all its sin. But the God whom the Christian worships is a God of truth. It must be admitted that there are many Christians who do not accept the doctrine of plenary inspiration. That doctrine is denied not only by liberal opponents of Christianity, but also by many true Christian men. There are many Christian men in the modern Church who find in the origin of Christianity no mere product of evolution but a real entrance of the creative power of God, who depend for their salvation, not at all upon their own efforts to lead the Christ life, but upon the atoning blood of Christ—there are many men in the modern Church who thus accept the central message of the Bible and yet believe that the message has come to us merely on the authority of trustworthy witnesses unaided in their literary work by any supernatural guidance of the Spirit of God. There are many who believe that the Bible is right at the central point, in its account of the redeeming work of Christ, and yet believe that it contains many errors. Such men are not really liberals, but Christians; because they have accepted as true the message upon which Christianity depends. A great gulf separates them fromthose who reject the supernatural act of God with which Christianity stands or falls. It is another question, however, whether the mediating view of the Bible which is thus maintained is logically tenable, the trouble being that our Lord Himself seems to have held the high view of the Bible which is here being rejected. Certainly it is another question—and a question which the present writer would answer with an emphaticnegative—whether the panic about the Bible, which gives rise to such concessions, is at all justified by the facts. If the Christian make full use of his Christian privileges, he findsthe seat of authority in the whole Bible, which he regards as no mere word of man but as the very Word of God. Very different is theview of modern liberalism. The modern liberal rejects not only the doctrine of plenary inspiration, but even such respect forthe Bible as would be proper over against any ordinarily trustworthy book. But what is substituted for the Christian view of the Bible? What is the liberal view as to the seat of authority in religion?1 The impression is sometimes produced that the modern liberal substitutes for the authority of the Bible the authority of Christ. He cannot accept, he says,what he regards as the perverse moral teaching of the Old Testamentor the sophistical arguments of Paul. But he regards himself as being the true Christian because, rejecting the rest of the Bible, he depends upon Jesus alone. This impression, however, is utterly false. The modern liberal does not really hold to the authority of Jesus. Even if he did so, indeed, he would still be impoverishing greatly his knowledge of God and of the way of salvation. The words of Jesus, spoken during His earthly ministry, could hardly contain all that we need to know about God and about the way of salvation; for the meaning of Jesus’ redeeming work could hardly be fully set forth before that work was done. It could be set forth indeed by way of prophecy, and as a matter of fact it was so set forth by Jesus even in the days of His flesh. But the full explanation could naturally be given only after the work was done. And such was actually the divine method. It is doing despite, not only to the Spirit of God, but also to Jesus Himself, to regard the teaching of the Holy Spirit, 1. For what follows, compare "For Christ or Against Him," in The Presbyterian,for January 20, 1921, p. 9. given through the apostles, as at all inferior in authority to the teaching of Jesus. As a matter of fact,however, the modern liberal does not hold fast even to the authority of Jesus. Certainly he does not accept the words of Jesus as they are recorded in the Gospels. For among the recorded words of Jesus are to be found just those things which are most abhorrent to the modern liberal Church, and in His recorded words Jesus alsopoints forward to the fuller revelation which was afterwards to be given through His apostles. Evidently, therefore, those words of Jesus which are to be regarded as authoritative by modern liberalism must first be selected from the mass of the recorded words by a critical process. The critical process is certainly very difficult,and the suspicion often arises that the critic is retaining as genuine words of the historical Jesus only those words which conform to his own preconceived ideas. But even after the sifting process has been completed, the liberal scholar is still unable to accept as authoritative all the sayings of Jesus; he must finally admitthat even the "historical" Jesus as reconstructed by modern historians said some things that are untrue. So much is usually admitted. But, it is maintained, although not everything that Jesus said is true, His central "life-purpose" is still to be regarded as regulative for the Church. But what then was the life-purpose of Jesus ? According to the shortest, and if modern criticism be accepted, the earliest of the Gospels, the Son of Man camenot to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his lifea ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Here the vicarious death is put as the "life-purpose" of Jesus. Such an utterance must of course be pushed aside by the modern liberal Church. The truth is that the life-purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life purpose of the real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesus—isolated and misinterpreted—which happen to agree with the modern program. It is not Jesus, then, who is the real authority, but the modern principle by which thes election within Jesus’ recorded teaching has been made. Certain isolated ethical principles of the Sermon on the Mount are accepted, not at all because they are teachings of Jesus, but because they agree with modern ideas. It is not true at all,then, that modern liberalism is based upon the authority of Jesus. It is obliged to reject a vast deal that is absolutely essential in Jesus’ example and teaching—notably His consciousnessof being the heavenly Messiah. The real authority, for liberalism,can only be "the Christian consciousness" or "Christian experience." But how shall the findings of the Christian consciousness be established? Surely not by a majority vote of the organized Church. Such a method would obviously do away with all liberty of conscience. The only authority, then, can be individual experience; truth can only be that which "helps" the individual man. Such an authority is obviously no authority at all; for individual experience is endlessly diverse, and when once truth is regarded only as that which works at any particular time, it ceases to be truth. The result is an abysmal skepticism. The Christian man, on the other hand, finds in the Bible the very Word of God. Let it not be said that dependence upon a book is a dead or an artificial thing. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was founded upon the authority of the Bible, yet it set the world aflame. Dependence upon a word of man would be slavish, but dependence upon God’sword is life. Dark and gloomy would be the world, if we were left to our own devices and had no blessed Word of God. The Bible, to the Christian is not a burdensome law, but the very Magna Charta of Christian liberty. It is no wonder, then, that liberalism is totally different from Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and its life. Liberalismon the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men. PROCEED to ChapterFive: Christ This article was made available on theinternet via REFORMATIONINK (www.markers.com/ink).Refer any correspondence to Shane Rosenthal: SocietyCP@aol.com ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 03.05. CHAPTER5:"CHRIST" ======================================================================== Chapter5:"Christ" Three points of difference between liberalism and Christianity have been noticed so far. The two religions are different with regard to the presuppositions of the Christian message, the view of God and the view of man; and they are also different with regard to their estimate of the Book in which the message is contained. It is not surprising, then, that they differ fundamentally with regard to the message itself. But before the message is considered, we must consider the Person upon whom the message is based. The Person is Jesus. And in their attitude toward Jesus, liberalism and Christianity are sharply opposed. The Christian attitude toward Jesus appears in the whole New Testament. In examining the New Testament witness it has become customary in recent years to begin with the Epistles of Paul.1 This custom is sometimes based upon error; it is sometimes based upon the view that the Epistles of Paul are "primary" sources of information, while the Gospels are considered to be only "secondary." As a matter of fact, the Gospels, as well as the Epistles, are primary sources of the highest possible value. But the custom of beginningwith Paul is at least convenient. Its convenience is due to the large measure of agreement which prevails with regard to the Pauline Epistles 1. This method of approach has been followed by the present writer in The Origin of Paul’sReligion, 1921. About the date and authorship of the Gospels there is debate; but with regard to the authorship and approximate date of the principal epistles of Paul all serious historians, whether Christian or non-Christian, are agreed. Itis universally admitted that the chief of the extant epistles attributed to Paul were really written by a man of the first Christian generation, who was himself a contemporary of Jesus and had come into personal contact with certain of Jesus’ intimate friends.What, then, was the attitude of this representative of the first Christian generation toward Jesus of Nazareth? The answer cannot beat all in doubt. The apostle Paul clearly stood always toward Jesus in a truly religious relationship. Jesus was not for Paul merely an example for faith; He was primarily the object of faith The religion of Paul did not consist in having faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God; it consisted rather in havingfaith in Jesus. An appeal to the example of Jesus is not indeed absent from the Pauline Epistles, and certainly it was not absent from Paul’s life. The example of Jesus was found by Paul, moreover, not merely in the acts of incarnation and atonement but even in the daily life of Jesus in Palestine. Exaggeration with regard to this matter should be avoided. Plainly Paul knew far more about the life of Jesus than in the Epistles he has seen fit to tell; plainly the Epistles do not begin to contain all the instruction which Paul had given to the Churches at the commencement of their Christian life. But even after exaggerations have been avoided, the fact is significant enough. The plain fact is that imitation of Jesus, important though it was for Paul, was swallowed up by something far more important still. Not the example of Jesus, but the redeeming work of Jesus, was the primary thing for Paul. The religion of Paul was not primarily faith in God like Jesus’ faith; it was faith in Jesus; Paul committed to Jesus without reserve the eternal destinies of his soul. That is what we mean when we say that Paul stood in a truly religious relation to Jesus. But Paul was not the first to stand in this religious relation to Jesus. Evidently, at this decisive point, he was only continuing an attitude toward Jesus which had already been assumed by those who had been Christians before him. Paul was not indeed led to assume that attitude by the persuasions of the earlier disciples; he was converted bythe Lord Himself on the road to Damascus. But the faith so induced was in essentials like the faith which had already prevailed among the earlier disciples. Indeed, an account of the redeeming work of Christ is designated by Paul as something that he had "received"; and that account had evidently been accompanied already in the primitive Church by trust in the Redeemer. Paul was not the first who had faith in Jesus, as distinguished from faith in God likethe faith which Jesus had; Paul was not the first to make Jesus the object of faith. So much will no doubtbe admitted by all. But who were the predecessors of Paul in makingJesus the object of faith? The obvious answer has always been that they were the primitive disciples in Jerusalem, and that answer really stands abundantly firm. A strange attempt has indeed been made in recent years, by Bousset and Heitmuller, to cast doubt upon it. What Paul "received," it has been suggested, was received, not from the primitive Jerusalem Church, but from such Christian communities as the one at Antioch. But this attempt at interposing an extra link between the Jerusalem Church and Paul has resulted in failure. The Epistles really provide abundant information as to Paul’s relations to Jerusalem. Paul was deeply interested in the Jerusalem Church; in opposition to his Judaizing opponents,who had in certain matters appealed to the original apostles against him, he emphasizes his agreement with Peter and the rest. But even the Judaizers had had no objection to Paul’s way of regarding Jesus as the object of faith; about that matter there is not in the Epistles the least suspicion of any debate. About the place of the Mosaic law in the Christian life there was discussion, though even with regard to that matter the Judaizers were entirely unjustified in appealing to the original apostles against Paul But with regard to the attitude toward Jesus the original apostles had evidently given not even the slightest color for an appeal to them against the teaching of Paul. Evidently in making Jesus the object of religious faith—the thing that was the heart and soul of Paul’s religion—Paul was in no disagreement with those who had been apostles before him. Had there been such disagreement, the "right hand of fellowship," which the pillars of the Jerusalem Church gave to Paul (Galatians 2:9), would have been impossible. The facts are really too plain. The whole of early Christian history is a hopeless riddle unless the Jerusalem Church, as well as Paul, made Jesus the object of religious faith. Primitive Christianity certainly did not consist in the mere imitation of Jesus. But was this "faith in Jesus" justified by the teaching of Jesus Himself? The question has really been answered in Chapter 2. It was there shown that Jesus most certainly did not keep His Person out of His gospel, but on the contrary presented Himself as the Savior of men. The demonstration of that fact was the highest merit of the late James Denney. His work on "Jesus and the Gospel" is faulty in some respects; it is marred by an undue concessiveness toward some modern types of criticism. But just because of its concessiveness with regard to many important matters, its main thesis stands all the more firm. Denney has shown that no matter what view be taken of the sources underlying the Gospels, and no matter what elements in the Gospels be rejected as secondary, still even the supposed "historical Jesus," as He is left after the critical process is done, plainly presented Himself, not merely as an example for faith, but as the object of faith. It may be added, moreover, that Jesus did not invite the confidence of men by minimizing the load which He offered to bear. He did not say: "Trust me to give you acceptance with God, because acceptance with God is not difficult; God does not regard sin so seriously after all." On the contrary Jesus presented the wrath of God in a more awful way than it was afterwards presented by His disciples; it was Jesus—Jesus whom modern liberals represent as a mild-mannered exponent of an indiscriminating love—it was Jesus who spoke of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire, of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come. There is nothing in Jesus’ teaching about the characterof God which in itself can evoke trust. On the contrary the awful presentation can give rise, in the hearts of us sinners, only to despair. Trust arises only when we attend to God’s way of salvation. And that way is found in Jesus. Jesus did not invite the confidence of men by a minimizing presentation of what was necessary in order that sinners might stand faultless before the awful throne of God. On the contrary, he invited confidence by the presentation of His own wondrous Person. Great was the guilt of sin, but Jesus was greater still. God, according to Jesus, was a loving Father; but He was a loving Father, not of the sinful world, but of those whom He Himself had brought into His Kingdom through the Son The truth is, the witness of the New Testament, with regard to Jesus as the object of faith, is an absolutely unitary witness. The thing is rooted far too deep in the records of primitive Christianity ever to be removed by any critical process. The Jesus spoken of in the New Testament was no mere teacher of righteousness, no mere pioneer in a new type of religious life, but One who was regarded, and regarded Himself, as the Savior whom men could trust. But by modern liberalism He is regarded in a totally different way. Christians stand in a religious relation to Jesus; liberals do not stand in a religious relation to Jesus—what difference could be more profound than that? The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does not stand in a religious relation to Jesus. Jesus for him is an example for faith, not the object of faith. The modern liberal tries to have faith in God like the faith which he supposes Jesus had in God; but he does not have faith in Jesus. According to modern liberalism, in other words, Jesus was the Founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian, and Christianity consists in maintenance of the religious life which Jesus instituted. But was Jesus really a Christian? Or, to put the same question in another way, are we able or ought we as Christians to enter in every respect into the experience of Jesus and make Him in every respect our example? Certain difficulties arise with regard to this question The first difficulty appears in the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. The Person whom we are asked to take as our example thought that He was the heavenly Son of Man who was to be the final Judge of all the earth. Can we imitate Him there? The trouble is not merely that Jesus undertook a special mission which cannever be ours. That difficulty might conceivably be overcome; we might still take Jesus as our example by adapting to our station in life the kind of character which He displayed in His. But another difficulty is more serious. The real trouble is that the lofty claim of Jesus, if, as modern liberalism is constrained to believe, the claim was unjustified, places a moral stain upon Jesus’ character. What shall be thought of a human being who lapsed so far from the path of humility and sanity as to believe that the eternal destinies of the world were committed into His hands? The truth is that if Jesus be merely an example, He is not a worthy example; for He claimed to be far more. Against this objection modern liberalism has usually adopted a policy of palliation. The Messianic consciousness, it is said, arose late in the experience of Jesus, and was not really fundamental. What was really fundamental, the liberal historians continue, was the consciousness of sonship toward God—a consciousness which may be shared by every humble disciple. The Messianic consciousness, on this view, arose only as an afterthought. Jesus was conscious, it is said, of standing toward God in a relation of untroubled sonship. But He discovered that this relation was not shared by others. He became aware, therefore, of a mission to bring others into the place of privilege which He Himself already occupied. That mission made Him unique, and to give expression to His uniqueness He adopted, late in His life and almost against His will, the faulty category of Messiahship. Many are the forms in which some such psychological reconstruction of the life of Jesus has been set forth in recent years. The modern world has devoted its very best literary efforts to this task. But the efforts have resulted in failure. In the first place, there is no real evidence that the reconstructed Jesusis historical. The sources know nothing of a Jesus who adopted the category of Messiahship late in life and against His will. On the contrary the only Jesus that they present is a Jesus who based the whole of His ministry upon His stupendous claim. In the second place, even if the modern reconstruction were historical it would not solve the problem at all. The problem is a moral and psychological problem. How can a human being who lapsed so far from the path of rectitude as to think Himself to be the judge of all the earth—how can such a human being be regarded as the supreme example for mankind? It is absolutely no answer to the objection to say that Jesus accepted the category of Messiahship reluctantly and late in life. No matter when He succumbed to temptation the outstanding fact is that, on this view, He did succumb; and that moral defeat places an indelible stain upon His character. No doubt it is possible to make excuses for Him, and many excuses are as a matter of fact made by the liberal historians. But what has become then of the claim of liberalism to be truly Christian? Can a man for whom excuses have to be made be regarded as standing to his modern critics in a relationship even remotely analogous to that in which the Jesus of the New Testament stands to the Christian Church? But there is another difficulty in the way of regarding Jesus as simply the first Christian. This second difficulty concerns the attitude of Jesus toward sin. If Jesus is separated from us by his Messianic consciousness, He is separated from us even more fundamentally by the absence in Him of a sense of sin. With respect to the sinlessness of Jesus modern liberal historians find themselves in a quandary. To affirm that He was sinless means to relinquish much of that ease of defending liberal religion which the liberal historians are anxious to preserve, and involves hazardous assumptions with regard to the nature of sin. For if sin is merely imperfection, how can an absolute negation of it be ventured upon within a process of nature which is supposed to be ever changing and ever advancing? The very idea of "sinlessness," much more the reality of it, requires us to conceive of sin as transgression of a fixed law or a fixed standard, and involves the conception of an absolute goodness. But to that conception of an absolute goodness the modern evolutionary view of the world properly speaking has no right. At any rate, if such absolute goodness is to be allowed to intrude at a definite point in the present world-process, we are involved in that supernaturalism which, as will be observed later, is the very thing that the modern reconstruction of Christianity is most anxious to avoid. Once affirm that Jesus was sinless and all other men sinful, and you have entered into irreconcilable conflict with the whole modern point of view. On the other hand, if there are scientific objections, from the liberal point of view, against an affirmation of the sinlessness of Jesus, there are also very obvious religious objections -against an opposite affirmation of His sinfulness—difficulties for modern liberalism as well as for the theology of the historic Church. If Jesus was sinful like other men, the last remnant of his uniqueness would seem to have disappeared, and all continuity with the previous development of Christianity would seem to be destroyed. In the face of this quandary the modern liberal historian is inclined to avoid rash assertions. He will not be sure that when Jesus taught His disciples to say, "Forgive us our debts," He did not pray that prayer with them; on the other hand he will not really face the results that logically follow from his doubt. In his perplexity, he apt to be content with the assertion that whether Jesus was sinless or not He was at any rate immeasurably above the rest of us. Whether Jesus was "sinless"is an academic question, we shall probably be told, that concerns the mysteries of the absolute; what we need to do is to bow in simple reverence before a holiness which compared with our impurity is as a white light in a dark place. That such avoidance of the difficulty is unsatisfactory hardly requires proof; obviously the liberal theologian is trying to obtain the religious advantages of an affirmation of sinlessness in Jesus at the same time that he obtains the supposed scientific advantages of its denial. But just for the moment we are not concerned with the question at all; we are not concerned to determine whether as a matter of fact Jesus was sinless or no. What we need to observe just now is that whether Jesus was sinful or sinless at any rate in the record of His life which has actually come into our hands He displays no consciousness of sin. Even if the words "Why callest thou me good?" meant that Jesus denied the attribute of goodness to Himself—which they do not—it would still remain true that He never in His recorded words deals in any intelligible way with sin in His own life. In the account of the temptation we are told how He kept sin from entering, but never how He dealt with it after its entrance had been effected. The religious experience of Jesus, as it is recorded in the Gospels, in other words, gives us no information about the way in which sin shall be removed. Yet in the Gospels Jesus is represented constantly as dealing with the problem of sin. He always assumes that other men are sinful; yet He never finds sin in Himself. A stupendous difference is found here between Jesus’ experience and ours. That differences prevents the religious experience of Jesus from serving as the sole basis of the Christian life. For clearly if Christianity is anything it is a way of getting rid of sin. At any rate, if it is not that it is useless; for all men have sinned. And as a matter of fact it was that from the very beginning. Whether the beginning of Christian preaching be put on the day of Pentecost or when Jesus first taught in Galilee, in either case one of its first words was "Repent." Throughout the whole New Testament the Christianity of the primitive Church is represented clearly as a way of getting rid of sin. But if Christianity is a way of getting rid of sin, then Jesus was not a Christian; for Jesus, so far as we can see, had no sin to get rid of. Why then did the early Christians call themselves disciples of Jesus, why did they connect themselves with His name? The answer is not difficult. They connected themselves with His name not because He was their example in their ridding themselves of sin, but because their method of ridding themselves of sin was by means of Him. It was what Jesus did for them, and not primarily the example of His own life, which made them Christians. Such is the witness of all our primitive records.The record is fullest, as has already been observed, in the case of the Apostle Paul; clearly Paul regarded himself as saved from sin by what Jesus did for him on the cross. But Paul did not stand alone. "Christ died for our sin`" was not something that Paul had originated; it was something he had "received."The benefits of that saving work of Christ, according to the primitive Church, were to be received by faith; even if the classic formulation of this conviction should prove to be due to Paul, the conviction itself clearly goes back to the very beginning. The primitive Christians felt themselves in need of salvation. How, they asked, should the load of sin be removed? Their answer is perfectly plain. They simply trusted Jesus to remove it. In other words they had "faith" in Him. Here again we are brought face to face with the significant fact which was noticed at the beginning of this chapter; the early Christians regarded Jesus not merely as an example for faith but primarily as the object of faith. Christianity from the beginning was a means of getting rid of sin by trust in Jesus of Nazareth. But if Jesus was thus the object of Christian faith, He Himself was no more a Christian than God is a religious being. God is the object of all religion, He is absolutely necessary to all religion; but He Himself is the only being in the universe who can never in His own nature be religious. So it is with Jesus as related to Christian faith. Christian faith is trust reposed in Him for the removal of sin; He could not repose trust (in the sense with which we are here concerned) in Himself; therefore He was certainly not a Christian. If we are looking for a complete illustration of the Christian life we cannot find it in the religious experience of Jesus. This conclusion needs to be guarded against two objections. In the first place, it will be said, are we not failing to do justice to the true humanity of Jesus, which is affirmed by the creeds of the Church as well as by the modern theologians? When we say that Jesus could not illustrate Christian faith any more than God can be religious, are we not denying to Jesus that religious experience which is a necessary element in true humanity? Must not Jesus, if He be true man, have been more than the object of religious faith; must He not have had a religion of His own? The answer is not far to seek. Certainly Jesus had a religion of His own; His prayer was real prayer, His faith was real religious faith. His relation to His heavenly Father was not merely that of a child to a father; it was that of a man to his God. Certainly Jesus had a religion; without it His humanity would indeed have been but incomplete. Without doubt Jesus had a religion; the fact is of the utmost importance. But it is equally important to observe that that religion which Jesus had was not Christianity. Christianity is a way of getting rid of sin, and Jesus was without sin. His religion was a religion of Paradise, not a religion of sinful humanity. It was a religion to which we may perhaps in some sort attain in heaven, when the process of our purification is complete (though even then the memory of redemption will never leave us); but certainly it is not a religion with which we can begin. The religion of Jesus was a religion of untroubled sonship; Christianity is a religion of the attainment of sonship by the redeeming work of Christ. But if that be true, it may be objected, in the second place, that Jesus is being removed far from us, that on our view He is no longer our Brother and our Example. The objection is welcome, since it helps us to avoid misunderstandings and exaggerations. Certainly if our zeal for the greatness and uniqueness of Jesus led us so to separate Him from us that He could no longer be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, the result would be disastrous; Jesus’ coming would lose much of its significance. But it ought to be observed that likeness is not always necessary to nearness. The experience of a father in his personal relation to his son is quite different from that of the son in his relation to his father; but just that very difference binds father and son all the more closely together. The father cannot share the specifically filial affection of the son, and the son cannot share the specifically paternal affection of the father: yet no mere relationship of brotherhood, perhaps, could be quite so close. Fatherhood and sonship are complementary to each other; hence the dissimilarity, but hence also the closeness of the bond. It may be somewhat the same in the case of our relationship to Jesus. If He were exactly the same as ourselves, if He were merely our, Brother, we should not be nearly so close to Him as we are when He stands to us in the relationship of a Savior. Nevertheless Jesus as a matter of fact is a Brother to us as well as a Savior—an elder Brother whose steps we may follow. The imitation of Jesus has a fundamental place in Christian life; it is perfectly correct to represent Him as our supreme and only perfect example. Certainly so far as the field of ethics is concerned there can be no dispute. No matter what view may be taken of His origin and His higher nature, Jesus certainly led a true human life, and in it He came into those varied human relationships which provide opportunity for moral achievement. His life of perfect purity was led in no cold aloofness from the throng and press; His unselfish love was exercised not merely in mighty deeds, but in acts of kindness which the humblest of us has the power, if only we had the will, to imitate. More effective, too, than all detail is the indefinable impression of the whole; Jesus is felt to be far greater than any of His individual words or deeds. His calmness, unselfishness and strength have been the wonder of the ages; the world can never lose the inspiration of that radiant example. Jesus is an example, moreover, not merely for the relations of man to man but also for the relation of man to God; imitation of Him may extend and must extend to the sphere of religion as well as to that of ethics. Indeed religion and ethics in Him were never separated; no single element in His life can be understood without reference to His heavenly Father. Jesus was the most religious man who ever lived; He did nothing and said nothing and thought nothing without the thought of God. If His example means anything at all it means that a human life without the conscious presence of God—even though it be a life of humanitarian service outwardly like the ministry of Jesus—is a monstrous perversion. If we would follow truly in Jesus’ steps, we must obey the first commandment as well as the second that is like unto it; we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. The difference between Jesus and ourselves serves only to enforce, certainly not to invalidate, the lesson. If the One to whom all power was given needed refreshment and strengthening in prayer, we more; if the One to whom the lilies of the field revealed the glory of God yet went into the sanctuary, surely we need such assistance even more than He; if the wise and holy One could say "Thy will be done," surely submissionis yet more in place for us whose wisdom is as the foolishness of children. Thus Jesus is the supreme example for men. But the Jesus who can serve as an example is not the Jesus of modern liberal reconstruction, but only the Jesus of the New Testament. The Jesus of modern liberalism advanced stupendous claims which were not founded upon fact—such conduct ought never to be made a norm. The Jesus of modern liberalism all through His ministry employed language which was extravagant and absurd—and it is only to be hoped that imitation of Himwill not lead to an equal extravagance in His modern disciples. If the Jesus of naturalistic reconstruction were really taken as an example, disaster would soon follow. As a matter of fact, however, the modern liberal does not really take as his example the Jesus of the liberal historians; what he really does in practice is to manufacture as his example a simple exponentof a non-doctrinal religion whom the abler historians even of his own school know never to have existed except in the imagination of modern men. Very different is the imitation of the real Jesus—the Jesus of the New Testament who actually lived in the first century of our era. That Jesus advanced lofty claims; but His claims, instead of being the extravagant dreams of an enthusiast, were sober truth. On His lips, therefore, language which in the reduced Jesus of modern reconstruction would be frenzied or absurd becomes fraught with blessing for mankind. Jesus demanded that those who followed Him should be willing to break even the holiest ties—He said, "If a man cometh to me and hateth not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple," and "Let the dead bury their dead." Coming from the mere prophet constructed by modern liberalism, those words would be monstrous; coming from the real Jesus, they are sublime. How great was the mission of mercy which justified such words! And how wonderful the condescension of the eternal Son! How matchless an example for the children of men! Well might Paul appeal to the example of the incarnate Savior; well might he say, "Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." The imitation of the real Jesus will never lead a man astray. But the example of Jesus is a perfect example only if He was justified in what He offered to men. And He offered, not primarily guidance, but salvation; He presented Himself as the object of men’s faith. That offer is rejected by modern liberalism, but it is accepted by Christian men. There is a profound difference, then, in the attitude assumed by modern liberalism and by Christianity toward Jesus the Lord. Liberalism regards Him as an Example and Guide; Christianity, as a Savior: liberalism makes Him an example for faith; Christianity, the object of faith. This difference in the attitude toward Jesus depends upon a profound differences as to the question who Jesus was. If Jesus was only what the liberal historians suppose that He was, then trust in Him would be out of place; our attitude toward Him could be that of pupils to a Master and nothing more. But if He was what the New Testament represents Him as being, then we can safely commit to Him the eternal destinies of our souls. What then is the difference between liberalism and Christianity with regard to the person of our Lord? The answer might be difficult to set forth in detail. But the essential thing can be put almost in a word—liberalism regards Jesus as the fairest flower of humanity; Christianity regards Him as a supernatural Person. The conception of Jesus as a supernatural Person runs all through the New Testament. In the Epistles of Paul, of course, it is quite clear. Without the slightest doubt Paul separated Jesus from ordinary humanity and placed Him on the side of God. The words in Galatians 1:1, "not from men nor through a man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead," are only typical of what appears everywhere in the Epistles. The same contrast between Jesus Christ and ordinary humanity is everywhere presupposed. Paul does indeed call Jesus Christ a man. But the way in which he speaks of Jesus as a man only deepens the impression which has already been received. Paul speaks of the humanity of Jesus apparently as though the fact that Jesus was a man were something strange, something wonderful. At any rate, the really outstanding fact is that in the Epistles of Paul, Jesus is everywhere separated from ordinary humanity; the deity of Christ is everywhere presupposed. It is a matter of small consequence whether Paul ever applies to Jesus the Greek word which is translated "God" in the English Bible; certainly it is very difficult, in view of Romans 9:5, to deny that he does. However that may be, the term "Lord," which is Paul’s regular designation of Jesus, is really just as much a designation of deity as is the term "God." It was a designation of deity even in the pagan religions with which Paul’s converts were familiar; and (what is far more important) in the Greek translation of the Old Testament which was current in Paul’s day and was used by the Apostle himself, the term was used to translate the "Jahwe" of the Hebrew text. And Paul does not hesitate to apply to Jesus stupendous passages in the Greek Old Testament where the term Lord thus designates the God of Israel. But what is perhaps most significant of all for the establishment of the Pauline teaching about the Person of Christ is that Paul everywhere stands in a religious attitude toward Jesus. He who is thus the object of religious faith is surely no mere man, but a supernatural Person, and indeed a Person who was God. Thus Paul regarded Jesus as a supernatural Person. The fact would be surprising if it stood alone. Paul was a contemporary of Jesus. What must this Jesus have been that He should be lifted thus quickly above the limits of ordinary humanity and placed upon the side of God? But there is something far more surprising still. The truly surprising thing is that the view which Paul had of Jesus was also the view which was held by Jesus’ intimate friends.1 The fact appears in the Pauline Epistles themselves 1. Compare The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921, pp. 118-137. to say nothing of other evidence. Clearly the Epistles presuppose a fundamental unity between Paul and the original apostles with regard to the Person of Christ; for if there had been any controversy about this matter it would certainly have been mentioned. Even the Judaizers, the bitter opponents of Paul, seem to have had no objection to Paul’s conception of Jesus as a supernatural Person. The really impressive thing about Paul’s view of Christ is that it is not defended. Indeed it is hardly presented in the Epistles in any systematic way. Yet it is everywhere presupposed. The inference is perfectly plain—Paul’s conception of the Person of Christ was a matter of course in the primitive Church. With regard to this matter Paul appears in perfect harmony with all Palestinian Christians. The men who had walked and talked with Jesus and had seen Him subject to the petty limitations of earthly life agreed with Paul fully in regarding Him as a supernatural Person, seated on the throne of all Being. Exactly the same account of Jesus as that which is presupposed by the Pauline Epistles appears in the detailed narrative of the Gospels. The Gospels agree with Paul in presenting Jesus as a supernatural Person, and the agreement appears not in one or two of the Gospels, but in all four. The day is long past, if there ever was such a day, when the Gospel of John, as presenting a divine Jesus, could be contrasted with the Gospel of Mark, as presenting a human Jesus. On the contrary, all four Gospels clearly present a Person lifted far above the level of ordinary humanity; and the Gospel of Mark, the shortest and according to modern criticism the earliest of the Gospels, renders particularly prominent Jesus’ superhuman works of power. In all four Gospels Jesus appears possessed of a sovereign power over the forces of nature; in all four Gospels, as in the whole New Testament, He appears clearly as a supernatural Person.1 But what is meant by a "supernatural Person"; what is meant by the supernatural? The conception of the "supernatural" is closely connected with that of "miracle"; a miracle is the supernatural manifesting itself in the external world. But what is the supernatural? Many definitions have been proposed. But only one definition is really correct. A supernatural event is one that takes place by the immediate, as distinguished from the mediate, power of God. The possibility of the supernatural, if supernatural be defined in this way, presupposes two things—it presupposes (1) the existence of a personal God, and (2) the existence of a real order of nature. Without the existence of a personal God, there could be no purposive entrance of God’s power into the order of the world; and without the real existence of an order of nature there could be no distinction between natural events and those that are above nature—all events would be supernatural, or rather the word "supernatural" would have no meaning at all. The distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" does not mean, indeed, that nature is independent of God; it does not mean that while God brings to pass supernatural events, natural events are not brought to pass by Him. On the contrary, the believer in the supernatural regards everything that is done as being the work of God. Only, he believes that in the events called natural, God uses means, whereas in the events called supernatural He uses no means, but puts forth His creative power. The distinction between the natural and the supernatural, in other words, is simply the distinction between God’s works of providence and God’s work of creation; a miracle is a 1. Compare "History and Faith," 1915, pp.5f. work of creation just as truly as the mysterious act which produced the world. This conception of the supernatural depends absolutely upon a theistic view of God. Theism is to be distinguished (1) from deism and (2) from pantheism. According to the deistic view, God set the world going like a machine and then left it independent of Himself. Such a view is inconsistent with the actuality of the supernatural; the miracles of the Bible presuppose a God who is constantly watching over and guiding the course of this world. The miracles of the Bible are not arbitrary intrusions of a Power that is without relation to the world, but are evidently intended to accomplish results within the order of nature. Indeed the natural and the supernatural are blended, in the miracles of the Bible, in a way entirely incongruous with the deistic conception of God. In the feeding of the five thousand, for example, who shall say what part the five loaves and two fishes had in the event; who shall say where the natural left off and the supernatural began? Yet that event, if any, surely transcended the order of nature. The miracles of the Bible, then, are not the work of a God who has no part in the course of nature; they are the workof a God who through His works of providence is "preserving and governing all His creatures and all their actions." But the conception of the supernatural is inconsistent, not only with deism, but also with pantheism. Pantheism identifies God with the totality of nature. It is inconceivable, then, on the pantheistic view that anything should enter into the course of nature from outside. A similar incongruity with the supernatural appears also in certain forms of idealism, which deny real existence to the forces of nature. If what seems to be connected in nature is really only connected in the divine mind, then it is difficult to make any distinction between those operations of the divine mind which appear as miracles and those which appear as natural events. Again,it has often been said that all events are works of creation. On this view, it is only a concession to popular phraseology to say that one body is attracted toward another in accordance with a law of gravitation; what really ought to be said is that when two bodies are in proximity under certain conditions they come together. Certain phenomena in nature, on this view, are always followed by certain other phenomena, and it is really only this regularity of sequence which is indicated by the assertion that the former phenomen a "cause" the latter; the only real cause is in all cases God. On the basis of this view, there can be no distinction between events wrought by the immediate powerof God and those that are not; for on this view all events are so wrought. Against such a view, those who accept our definition of miracle will naturally accept the common-sense notion of cause. God is always the first cause, but there are truly second causes; and they are the means which God uses, in the ordinary course of the world, for the accomplishment of His ends. It is the exclusion of such second causes which makes an event a miracle. It is sometimes said that the actuality of miracles would destroy the basis of science. Science, it is said, is founded upon the regularity of sequences; it assumes that if certain conditions within the course of nature are given, certain other conditions will always follow. But if there is to be any intrusion of events which by their very definition are independent of all previous conditions, then, it is said, the regularity of nature upon which science bases itself is broken up. Miracle, in other words, seems to introduce an element of arbitrariness and unaccountability into the course of the world. The objection ignores what is really fundamental the Christian conception of miracle. According to the Christian conception, a miracle is wrought by the immediate power of God. It is not wrought by an arbitrary and fantastic despot, but by the very God to whom the regularity of nature itself is due—by the God, moreover, whose character is known through the Bible. Such a God, we may be sure, will not do despite to the reason that He has given to His creatures; His interposition will introduce no disorder into the world that He has made. There is nothing arbitrary about a miracle, according to the Christian conception. It is not an uncaused event, but an event that is caused by the very source of all the order that is in the world. It is dependent altogether upon the least arbitrary and the most firmly fixed of all the things that are—namely upon the character of God. The possibility of miracle, then, is indissolubly joined with "theism." Once admit the existence of a personal God, Maker and Ruler of the world, and no limits, temporal or otherwise, can be set to the creative power of such a God. Admit that God once created the world, and you cannot deny that He might engage in creation again. But it will be said, the actuality of miracles is different from the possibility of them. It may be admitted that miracles conceivably might occur. But have they actually occurred? This question looms very large in the minds of modern men. The burden of the question seems to rest heavily even upon many who still accept the miracles of the New Testament. The miracles used to be regarded as an aid to faith, it is often said, but now they are a hindrance to faith; faith used to come on account of the miracles, but now it comes in despite of them; men used to believe in Jesus because He wrought miracles, but now we accept the miracles because on other grounds we have come to believe in Him. A strange confusion underlies this common way of speaking. In one sense, certainly, miracles are a hindrance to faith—but who ever thought the contrary? It may certainly be admitted that if the New Testament narrative had no miracles in it, it would be far easier to believe. The more commonplace a story is, the easier it is to accept it as true. But commonplace narratives have little value. The New Testament without the miracles would be far easier to believe. But the trouble is, it would not be worth believing. Without the miracles the New Testament would contain an account of a holyman—not a perfect man, it is true, for He was led to make lofty claims to which He had no right—but a man at least far holier than the rest of men. But of what benefit would such a man, and the death which marked His failure, be to us? The loftier be the example which Jesus set, the greater becomes our sorrow at our failure to attain to it; and the greater our hopelessness under the burden of sin. The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man like the rest of men, then an ideal is all that we have in Him. Far more is needed by a sinful world. It is small comfort to be told that there was goodness in the world, when what we need is goodness triumphant over sin. But goodness triumphant over sin involves an entrance of the creative power of God, and that creative power of God is manifested by the miracles. Without the miracles, the New Testament might be easier to believe. But the thing that would be believed would be entirely different from that which presentsitself to us now. Without the miracles we should have a teacher;with the miracles we have a Savior. Certainly it is a mistake to isolate the miracles from the rest of the New Testament. It is a mistake to discuss the question of the resurrection of Jesus as though that which is to be proved were simply the resurrection of a certain man of the first century in Palestine. No doubt the existing evidence for such an event, strong as the evidence is, might be insufficient. The historian would indeed be obliged to say that no naturalistic explanation of the origin of the Church has yet been discovered, and that the evidence for the miracle is exceedingly strong; but miracles are, to say the least, extremely unusual events, and there is a tremendous hostile presumption against accepting the hypothesis of miracle in any given case. But as a matter of fact, the question in this case doe. not concern the resurrection of a man about whom we know nothing; it concerns the resurrection of Jesus. And Jesus was certainly a very extraordinary Person. The uniqueness of the character of Jesus removes the hostile presumption against miracle; it was extremely improbable that any ordinary man should rise from the dead, but Jesus was like no other man that ever lived. But the evidence for the miracles of the New Testament is supported in yet another way; it is supported by the existence of an adequate occasion. It has been observed above that a miracle is an event produced by the immediate power of God, and that God is a God of order. The evidence of a miracle is therefore enormously strengthened when the purpose of the miracle can be detected. That does not mean that within a complex of miracles an exact reason must be assigned to every one; it does not mean that in the New Testament we should expect to see exactly why a miracle was wrought in one case and not in another. But it does mean that acceptanceof a complex of miracles is made vastly easier when an adequate reason can be detected for the complex as a whole. In the case of the New Testament miracles, such an adequate reason is not difficult to find. It is found in the conquest of sin. According to the Christian view, as set forth in the Bible, mankind is under the curse of God’s holy law, and the dreadful penalty includes the corruption of our whole nature. Actual transgressions proceed from the sinful root, and serve to deepen every man’s guilt in the sight of God. On the basis of that view, so profound, so true to the observed facts of life, it is obvious that nothing natural will meet our need. Nature transmits the dreadful taint; hope is to be sought only in a creative act of God. And that creative act of God—so mysterious, so contrary to all expectation, yet so congruous with the character of the God who is revealed as the God of love—is found in the redeeming work of Christ. No product of sinful humanity could have redeemed humanity from the dreadful guilt or lifted a sinful race from the slough of sin. But a Savior has come from God. There lies the very root of the Christian religion; there is the reason why the supernatural is the very ground and substance of the Christian faith. But the acceptance of the supernatural depends upon a conviction of the reality of sin. Without the conviction of sin there can be no appreciation of the uniqueness of Jesus; it is only when we contrast our sinfulness with His holiness that we appreciate the gulf which separates Him from the rest of the children of men. And without the conviction of sin there can be no understanding of the occasion for the supernatural act of God; without the conviction of sin, the good news of redemption seems to be an idle tale. So fundamental is the conviction of sin in the Christian faith that it will not do to arrive at it merely by a process of reasoning; it will not do to say merely: All men (as I have been told) are sinners; I am a man; therefore I suppose I must be a sinner too. That is all the supposed conviction of sin amounts to sometimes. But the true conviction is far more immediate than that. It depends indeed upon information that comes from without; it depends upon the revelation of the law of God; it depends upon the awful verities set forth in the Bible as to the universal sinfulness of mankind. But it adds to the revelation that has come from without a conviction of the whole mind and heart, a profound understanding of one’s own lost condition, an illumination of the deadened conscience which causes a Copernican revolution in one’s attitude toward the world and toward God. When a man has passed through that experience, he wonders at his former blindness. And especially does he wonder at his former attitude toward the miracles of the New Testament, and toward the supernatural Person who is there revealed. The truly penitent man glories in the supernatural, for he knows that nothing natural would meet his need; the world has been shaken once in his downfall, and shaken again it must be if he is to be saved. Yet an acceptance of the presuppositions of miracle does not render unnecessary the plain testimony to the miracles that have actually occurred. And that testimony is exceedingly strong.1 The Jesus presented in the New Testament was clearly an historical Person—so much is admitted by all who have really come to grips with the historical problems at all. But just as clearly the Jesus presented in the New Testament was a super 1. Compare "History and Faith, 1915, pp. 6-8. natural Person. Yet for modern liberalism a supernatural person is never historical. A problem arises then for those who adopt the liberal point of view—the Jesus of the New Testament is historical, He is supernatural, and yet what is supernatural, on the liberal hypothesis, can never be historical. The problem could be solved only by the separation of the natural from the supernatural in the New Testament account of Jesus, in order that what is supernatural might be rejected and what is natural might be retained. But the processof separation has never been successfully carried out. Many have been the attempts—the modern liberal Church has put its very heart and soul into the effort, so that there is scarcely anymore brilliant chapter in the history of the human spirit than this "quest of the historical Jesus"—but all the attempts have failed. The trouble is that the miracles are found not to be an excrescence in the New Testament account of Jesus,but belong to the very warp and woof. They are intimately connected with Jesus’ lofty claims; they stand or fall with the undoubted purity of His character; they reveal the very nature of His mission in the world. Yet miracles are rejectedby the modern liberal Church, and with the miracles the entirety of the supernatural Person of our Lord. Not some miracles are rejected, but all. It is a matter of no importance whatever that some of the wonderful works of Jesus are accepted by the liberal Church; it means absolutely nothing when some of the works of healing are regarded as historical. For those works are no longer regarded by modern liberalism as supernatural, but merely as faith-cures of an extraordinary kind. And it is the presence or absence of the true supernatural which is the really important thing. Such concessions as to faith-cures, moreover, carry us at best but a very short way—disbelievers in the supernatural must simply reject as legendary or mythical the great mass of the wonderful works. The question, then, does not concern the historicity of this miracle or that; it concerns the historicity of all miracles. That fact is often obscured, and the obscuration of it often introduces an element of something like disingenuousness into the advocacy of the liberal cause. The liberal preacher singles out some one miracle and discusses that as though it were the only point at issue. The miracle which is usually singled out is the Virgin Birth. The liberal preacher insists on the possibility of believing in Christ no matter which view be adopted as to the manner of His entrance into the world. Is not the Person the same no matter how He was born? The impressionis thus produced upon the plain man that the preacher is accepting the main outlines of the New Testament account of Jesus, but merely has difficulties with this particular element in the account. But such an impression is radically false. It is true that some men have denied the Virgin Birth and yet have accepted the New Testament account of Jesus as a supernatural Person. But such men are exceedingly few and far between. It might be difficult to find a single one of any prominence living today, so profoundly and so obviously congruous is the Virgin Birth with the whole New Testament presentation of Christ. The overwhelming majority of those who reject the Virgin Birth reject also the whole supernatural content of the New Testament, and make of the "resurrection" just what the word "resurrection" most emphatically did not mean—a permanence of the influence of Jesus or a mere spiritual existence of Jesus beyond the grave. Old words may here be used, but the thing that they designate is gone. The disciples believed in the continued personal existence of Jesus even during the three sad days after the crucifixion; they were not Sadducees; they believed that Jesus lived and would rise at the last day. But what enabled them to begin the work of the Christian Church was that they believed the body of Jesus already to have been raised from the tomb by the power of God. That belief involves the acceptance of the supernatural; and the acceptance of the supernatural is thus the very heart and soul of the religion that we profess. Whatever decision is made, the issue should certainly not be obscured. The issue does not concern individual miracles, even so important a miracle as the Virgin Birth. It really concerns all miracles. And the question concerning all miracles is simply the question of the acceptance or rejection of the Savior that the New Testament presents. Reject the miracles and you have in Jesus the fairest flower of humanity who made such an impression upon His followers that after His death they could not believe that He had perished but experienced hallucinations in which they thought they saw Him risen from the dead; accept the miracles, and you have a Savior who came voluntarily into this world for our salvation, suffered for our sins upon the Cross, rose again from the dead by the power of God, and everlives to make intercession for us. The difference between those two views is the difference between two totally diverse religions. It is high time that this issue should be faced; it is high time that the misleading use of traditional phrases should be abandoned and men should speak their full mind. Shall we accept the Jesus of the New Testament as our Savior, or shall we reject Him with the liberal Church? At this point an objection may be raised. The liberal preacher, it may be said, is often ready to speak of the "deity’’ of Christ; he is often ready to say that "Jesus is God." The plain man is much impressed. The preacher, he says, believes in the deity of our Lord; obviously then his unorthodoxy must concern only details; and those who object to his presence in the Church are narrow and uncharitable heresy-hunters. But unfortunately language is valuable only as the expression of thought. The English word "God" has no particular virtue in itself; it is not more beautiful than other words. Its importance depends altogether upon the meaning which is attached to it. When, therefore, the liberal preacher says that "Jesus is God," the significance of the utterance depends altogether upon what is meant by "God." And it has already been observed that when the liberal preacher uses the word "God," he means something entirely different from that which the Christian means by the same word. God, at least according to the logical trend of modern liberalism, is not a person separate from the world, but merely the unity that pervades the world. To say, therefore, that Jesus is God means merely that the life of God, which appears in all men, appears with special clearness or richness in Jesus. Such an assertion is diametrically opposed to the Christian belief in the deity of Christ. Equally opposed to Christian belief is another meaning that is sometimes attached to the assertion that Jesus is God. The word "God" is sometimes used to denote simply the supreme object of men’s desires, the highest thing that men know. We have given up the notion, it is said, that there is a Maker and Ruler of the universe; such notions belong to "metaphysics," and are rejected by the modern man. But the word "God," though it can no longer denote the Maker of the universe, is convenient as denoting the object of men’s emotions and desires. Of some men, it can be said that their God is mammon—mammon is that for which they labor, and to which their hearts are attached. In a somewhat similar way, the liberal preacher says that Jesus is God. He does not mean at all to say that Jesus is identical in nature with a Makerand Ruler of the universe, of whom an idea could be obtained apart from Jesus. In such a Being he no longer believes. All that he means is that the man Jesus—a man here in the midst of us, and of the same nature as ours—is the highest thing we know. It is obvious that such a way of thinking is far more widely removed from Christian belief than is Unitarianism, at least the earlier forms of Unitarianism. For the early Unitarianism no doubt at least believed in God. The modern liberals, on the other hand, say that Jesus is God not because they think high of Jesus, but because they think desperately low of God. In another way also, liberalism within the "evangelical" churches is inferior to Unitarianism. It is inferior to Unitarianism in the matter of honesty. In order to maintain themselves in the evangelical churches and quiet the fears of their conservative associates, the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language. Ayoung man, for example, has received disquieting reports of the unorthodoxy of a prominent preacher. Interrogating the preacher as to his belief, he receives a reassuring reply. "You may tell everyone," says the liberal preacher in effect, "that I believe that Jesus is God." The inquirer goes away much impressed. It may well be doubted, however, whether the assertion, "I believe that Jesus is God," or the like, on the lips of liberal preachers, is strictly truthful. The liberal preacher attaches indeed a real meaning to the words, and that meaning is very dear to his heart. He really does believe that "Jesus is God." But the trouble is that he attaches to the words a different meaning from that which is attached to them by the simple-minded person to whom he is speaking. He offends, therefore, against the fundamental principle of truthfulness in language. According to that fundamental principle, language is truthful, not when the meaning attached to the words by the speaker, but when the meaning intended to be produced in the mind of the particular person addressed, is in accordance with the facts. Thus the truthfulness of the assertion, "I believe that Jesus is God," depends upon the audience that is addressed. If the audience is composed of theologically trained persons, who will attach the same meaning to the word "God" as that which the speaker attaches to it, then the language is truthful. But if the audience is composed of old-fashioned Christians, who have never attached anything but the old meaning to the word "God" (the meaning which appears in Genesis 1:1), then the language is untruthful.And in the latter case, not all the pious motives in the world will make the utterance right. Christian ethics do not abrogate common honesty; no possible desire of edifying the Church and of avoiding offence can excuse a lie. At any rate, the deity of our Lord, in any real sense of the word "deity,"is of course denied by modern liberalism. According to the modern liberal Church, Jesus differs from the rest of men only in degree and not in kind; He can be divine only if all men are divine.But if the liberal conception of the deity of Christ thus becomes meaningless, what is the Christian conception? What does the Christian man mean when he confesses that "Jesus is God"? The answer has been given in what has already been said. It has already been observed that the New Testament represents Jesus as a supernatural Person. But if Jesus is a supernatural Person He is either divine or else He is an intermediate Being, higher indeed than man, but lower than God. The latter view has been abandoned for many centuries in the Christian Church, and there is not much likelihood that it will be revived; Arianism certainly is dead. The thought of Christ as a super-angelic Being, like God but not God, belongs evidently to pagan mythology, and not to the Bible or to Christian faith. It will usually be admitted, if the theistic conception of the separateness between man and God be held, that Christ is either God or else simply man; He is certainly not a Being intermediate between God and man. If,then, He is not merely man, but a supernatural Person, the conclusion is that He is God. In the second place, it has already been observed that in the New Testament and in all true Christianity, Jesus is no mere example for faith, but the object of faith. And the faith of which Jesus is the object is clearly religious faith; the Christian man reposes confidence in Jesus in a way that would be out of place in the case of any other than God. It is no lesser thing that is committed to Jesus, but the eternal welfare of the soul. The entire Christian attitude toward Jesus as it is found throughout the New Testament presupposes clearly, then, the deity of our Lord. It is in the light of this central presupposition that the individual assertions ought to be approached. The individual passages which attest the deity of Christ are not excrescences in the New Testament, but natural fruits of a fundamental conception which is everywhere the same. Those individual passages are not confined to any one book or group of books. In the Pauline Epistles, of course, the passages are particularly plain; the Christ of the Epistles appears again and again as associated only with the Father and with His Spirit. In the Gospel of John, also, one does not have to seek very long; the deity of Christ is almost the theme of the book. But the testimony of the Synoptic Gospels is not really different from that which appears everywhere else. The way in which Jesus speaks of my Father and the Son—for example, in the famous passage in Matthew 11:27 (Luke 10:22): "All things have been delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him"—this manner of presenting Jesus’ relation to the Father, absolutely fundamental in the Synoptic Gospels, involves the assertion of the deity of our Lord. The Person who so speaks is represented as being in mysterious union with the eternal God. Yet the New Testamentwith equal clearness presents Jesus as a man. The Gospel of John, which contains at the beginning the stupendous utterance, "TheWord was God," and dwells constantly upon the deity of the Lord, also represents Jesus as weary at the well and as thirst, in the hour of agony on the Cross. Scarcely in the Synoptic Gospels can one discover such drastic touches attesting the humanity of our Savior as those which appear again and again in the Gospel of John. With regard to the Synoptic Gospels, of course there can be no debate; the Synoptists clearly present a Person who lived a genuine human life and was Himself true man. The truth is, the witness of the New Testament is everywhere the same; the New Testament everywhere presents One who was both God and man. And it is interesting to observe how unsuccessful have been all the efforts to reject one part of this witness and retain the rest. The Apollinarians rejected the full humanity of the Lord, but in doing so they obtained a Person who was very different from the Jesus of the New Testament. The Jesus of the New Testament was clearly, in the full sense, a man. Others seem to have supposed that the divine and the human were so blended in Jesus that there was produced a nature neither purely divine nor purely human, but a tertium quid. But nothing could be more remote from the New Testament teaching than that. According to the New Testament the divine and human natures were clearly distinct; the divine nature was pure divinity, and the human nature was pure humanity; Jesus was God and man in two distinct natures. The Nestorians, on the other hand, emphasized the distinctness of divine and human in Jesus as to suppose that there were in Jesus two separate persons. But such a Gnosticizing view is plainly contrary to the record; the New Testament plainly teaches the unity of the Person of our Lord. By elimination of these errors the Church arrived at the New Testament doctrine of two natures in one Person; the Jesus of the New Testament is "God and man, in two distinct natures, and one Person forever." That doctrine is sometimes regarded as speculative. But nothing could be further from the fact. Whether the doctrine of the two natures is true or false, it was certainly produced not by speculation, but by an attempt to summarize, succinctly and exactly, the Scriptural teaching. This doctrine is of course rejected by modern liberalism. And it is rejected in a very simple way—by the elimination of the whole higher nature of our Lord. But such radicalism is not a bit more successful than the heresies of the past. The Jesus who is supposed to be left after the elimination of the supernatural element is at best a very shadowy figure; for the elimination of the supernatural logically involves the elimination of much that remains, and the historian constantly approaches the absurd view which effaces Jesus altogether from the pages of history. But even after such dangers have been avoided, even after the historian, by setting arbitrary limits to his process of elimination, has succeeded in reconstructing a purely human Jesus, the Jesus thus constructed is found to be entirely unreal. He has a moral contradiction at the very center of His being—a contradiction due to His Messianic consciousness. He was pure and humble and strong and sane, yet He supposed, without basis in fact, that He was to be the final Judge of all the earth! The liberal Jesus, despite all the efforts of modern psychological reconstruction to galvanize Him into life, remains a manufactured figure of the stage. Very different is the Jesus of the New Testament and of the great Scriptural creeds. That Jesus is indeed mysterious. Who can fathom the mystery of His Person? But the mystery is a mystery in which a man can rest. The Jesus of the New Testament has at least one advantage over the Jesus of modern reconstruction—He is real. He is not a manufactured figure suitable as a point of support for ethical maxims, but a genuine Person whom a man can love. Men have loved Him through all the Christian centuries. And the strange thing is that despite all the efforts to remove Him from the pages of history, there are those who love Him still. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 03.06. CHAPTER6:"SALVATION" ======================================================================== Chapter6:"Salvation" It has been observed thus far that liberalism differs from Christianity with regard to the presuppositions of the gospel (the view of God and the view of man), with regard to the Book in which the gospel is contained, and with regard to the Person whose work the gospel sets forth. It is not surprising then that it differs from Christianity in its account of the gospel itself; it is not surprising that it presents an entirely different account of the way of salvation. Liberalism finds salvation (so far as it is willing to speak at all of "salvation") in man; Christianity finds it in an act of God. The difference with regard to the way of salvation concerns, in the first place, the basis of salvation in the redeeming work of Christ. According to Christian belief, Jesus is our Savior, not by virtue of what He said, not even by virtue of what He was, but by what He did. He is our Savior, not because He has inspired us to live the same kind of life that He lived, but because He took upon Himself the dreadful guilt of our sins and bore it instead of us on the cross. Such is the Christian conception of the Cross of Christ. It is ridiculed as being a "subtle theory of the atonement."In reality, it is the plain teaching of the word of God; we know absolutely nothing about an atonement that is not a vicarious atonement, for that is the only atonement of which the New Testament speaks. And this Bible doctrine is not intricate or subtle. On the contrary, though it involves mysteries, it is itself so simple that a child can understand it. "We deserved eternal death, but the Lord Jesus, because He loved us, died instead of us on the cross"—surely there is nothing so very intricate about that. It is not the Bible doctrine of the atonement which is difficult to understand—what are really incomprehensible are the elaborate modern efforts toget rid of the Bible doctrine in the interests of human pride.1 Modern liberal preachers do indeed sometimes speak of the "atonement." But they speak of it just as seldom as they possibly can, and one can see plainly that their hearts are elsewhere than at the foot of the Cross. Indeed, at this point, as at many others, one has the feeling that traditional language is being strained to become the expression of totally alien ideas. And when the traditional phraseology has been stripped away, the essence of the modern conception of the death of Christ, though that conception appears in many forms, is fairly plain. The essence of it is that the death of Christ had an effect not upon God but only upon man. Sometimes the effect upon man is conceived of in a very simple way, Christ’s death being regarded merely as an example of self-sacrifice for us toemulate. The uniqueness of this particular example, then, can be found only in the fact that Christian sentiment, gatheringaround it, has made it a convenient symbol for all self-sacrifice; it puts in concrete form what would otherwise have to be expressed in colder general terms. Sometimes, again, the effect of Christ’s death upon us is conceived of in subtler ways; the death of Christ, it is said, shows how much God hates sin—since sin brought even the Holy One to the dreadful Cross—and 1. See "The Second Declaration of the Council on Organic Union," The Presbyterian,for March 17, 1921, p. 8. we too, therefore, ought to hate sin, as God hates it, and repent. Sometimes, still again, the death of Christ is thought of as displaying the love of God; it exhibits God’s own Son as given up for us all. These modern "theories of the atonement" are not all to be placed upon the same plane; the last of them, in particular, may be joined with a high view of Jesus’ Person. But they err in that they ignore the dreadful reality of guilt, and make a mere persuasion of the human will all that is needed for salvation. They do indeed all contain an element of truth: it is true that the death of Christ is an example of self-sacrifice which may inspire self-sacrifice in others; it is true that the death of Christ shows how much God hates sin; it is true that the death of Christ displays the love of God. All of these truths are found plainly in the New Testament. But they are swallowed up in a far greater truth—that Christ died instead of us to present us faultless before the throne of God. Without that central truth, all the rest is devoid of real meaning: an example of self-sacrifice is useless to those who are under both the guilt and thralldom of sin; the knowledge of God’s hatred of sin can in itself bring only despair; an exhibition of the love of God is a mere display unless there was some underlying reason for the sacrifice. If the Cross is to be restored to its rightful place in Christian life, we shall have to penetrate far beneath the modern theories to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Upon the Christian doctrine of the Cross, modern liberals are never weary of pouring out the vials of their hatred and their scorn. Even at this point, it is true, the hope of avoiding offence is not always abandoned; the words "vicarious atonement" and the like—of course in a sense totally at variance from their Christian meaning—are still sometimes used. But despite such occasional employment of traditional language the liberal preachers reveal only too clearly what is in their minds. They speak with disgust of those who believe "that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner."1 Against the doctrine of the Cross they use every weapon of caricature and vilification. Thus they pour out their scorn upon a thing so holy and so precious that in the presence of it the Christian heart melts in gratitude too deep for words. It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the Christian doctrine of the Cross, they are trampling upon human hearts. But the modern liberal attacks upon the Christian doctrine of the Cross may at least serve the purpose of showing what that doctrine is, and from this point of view they may be examined briefly now. In the first place, then, the Christian way of salvation through the Cross of Christ is criticized because it is dependent upon history. This criticism is sometimes evaded; it is sometimes said that as Christians we may attend to what Christ does now for every Christian rather than to what He did long ago in Palestine. But the evasion involves a total abandonment of the Christian faith. If the saving work of Christ were confined to what He does now for every Christian, there would be no such thing as a Christian gospel—an account of an event which put a new face on life. What we should have left would be simply mysticism, and mysticism is quite different from Christianity. It is the connection of the present experience of the believer with an actual historic appearance of Jesus in the world which prevents our religion from being mysticism and causes it to be Christianity. 1. Fosdick, Shall the Fundamentalists, Win?, stenographically reported by Margaret Renton,1922, p. 5. It must certainly be admitted, then, that Christianity does depend upon something that happened; our religion must be abandoned altogether unless at a definite point in history Jesus died as a propitiation for the sins of men. Christianity is certainly dependent upon history. But if so, the objection lies very near. Must we really depend for the welfare of our souls upon what happened long ago? Must we really wait until historians have finished disputing about the value of sources and the like before we can have peace with God? Would it not be better to have a salvation which is with us here and now, and which depends only upon what we can see or feel? With regard to this objection it should be observed that if religion be made independent of history there is no such thing as a gospel. For "gospel" means "good news," tidings, information about something that has happened. A gospel independent of history is a contradiction in terms. The Christian gospel means, not a presentation of what always has been true, but a report of something new—somethingthat imparts a totally different aspect to the situation of mankind. The situation of mankind was desperate because of sin; but God has changed the situation by the atoning death of Christ—that is no mere reflection upon the old, but an account of something new. We are shut up in this world as in a beleaguered camp. To maintain our courage, the liberal preacher offers us exhortation. Make the best of the situation, he says, look on the bright side of life. But unfortunately, such exhortation cannot change the facts. In particular it cannot remove the dreadful fact of sin.Very different is the message of the Christian evangelist. He offers not reflection on the old but tidings of something new, not exhortation but a gospel.1 1. Compare History and Faith 1915, pp. 1-3. It is true that the Christian gospel is an account, not of something that happened yesterday, but of something that happened long ago; but the important thing is that it really happened. If it really happened, then it makes little difference when it happened. No matter when it happened, whether yesterday or in the first century, it remains a real gospel, a real piece of news. The happening of long ago, moreover, is in this case confirmed by present experience. The Christian man receives first the account which the New Testament gives of the atoning death of Christ. That account is history. But if true it has effects in the present, and it can be tested by its effects. The Christian man makes trial of the Christian message, and making trial of it he finds it to be true. Experience does not provide a substitute for the documentary evidence, but it does confirm that evidence. The word of the Cross no longer seems to the Christian to be merely a far-off thing, merely a matter to be disputed about by trained theologians. On the contrary, it is received into the Christian’s inmost soul, and every day and hour of the Christian’s life brings new confirmation of its truth. In the second place,the Christian doctrine of salvation through the death of Christ is criticized on the ground that it is narrow. It binds salvation to the name of Jesus, and there are many men in the world who have never in any effective way heard of the name of Jesus. What is really needed, we are told, is a salvation which will save all men everywhere, whether they have heard of Jesus or not, and whatever may be the type of life to which they have been reared. Not a new creed, it is said, will meet; the universal need of the world, but some means of making effective in right living whatever creed men may chance to have. This second objection, as well as the first, is sometimes evaded. It is sometimes said that although one way of salvation is by means of acceptance of the gospel there may be other ways. But this method of meeting the objection relinquishes one of the things that are most obviously characteristic of the Christian message—namely, its exclusiveness. What struck the early observers of Christianity most forcibly was not merely that salvation was offered by means of the Christian gospel, but that all other means were resolutely rejected. The early Christian missionaries demanded an absolutely exclusive devotion to Christ. Such exclusiveness ran directly counter to the prevailing syncretism of the Hellenistic age. In that day, many saviors were offered by many religions to the attention of men, but the various pagan religions could live together in perfect harmony; when a man became a devotee of one god, he did not have to give up the others. But Christianity would have nothing to do with these "courtly polygamies of the soul";1 it demanded an absolutely exclusive devotion; all other Saviors, it insisted, must be deserted for the one Lord. Salvation, in other words, was not merely through Christ, but it was only through Christ. In that little word "only" lay all the offence. Without that word there would have been no persecutions; the cultured men of the day would probably have been willing to give Jesus a place, and an honorable place, among the saviors of mankind. Without its exclusiveness, the Christian message would have seemed perfectly inoffensive to the men of that day. So modern liberalism, placing Jesus alongside other benefactors of mankind, is perfectly inoffensive in the modern world. All men speak well of it. It is entirely inoffensive. But 1. Phillimore, in the introduction to his translation of Philostratus, In Honour of Apollonius of Tyana, 1912, vol. i, p. iii. it is also entirely futile. The offence of the Cross is done away, but so is the glory and the power. Thus it must fairly be admitted that Christianity does bind salvation to the name of Christ. The question need not here be discussed whether the benefits of Christ’s death are ever applied to those who, though they have come to years of discretion, have not heard or accepted the gospel message. Certainly the New Testament holds out with "yard to this matter no clear hope. At the very basis ofthe work of the apostolic Church is the consciousness of a terrible responsibility. The sole message of life and salvation had been committed to men; that message was at all hazards to be proclaimed while yet there was time. The objection as to the exclusiveness of the Christian way of salvation, therefore, cannot be evaded, but must be met. In answer to the objection, it may be said simply that the Christian way of salvation is narrow only so long as the Church chooses to let it remain narrow. The name of Jesus is discovered to be strangely adapted to men of every race and of every kind of previous education. And the Church has ample means, with promise of God’s Spirit, to bring the name of Jesus to all. If, therefore, this way of salvation is not offered to all, it is not the fault of the way of salvation itself, but the fault of those who fail to use the means that God has placed in their hands. But, it may be said, is that not a stupendous responsibility to be placed in the hands of weak and sinful men; is it not more natural that God should offer salvation to all without requiring them to accept a new message and thus to be dependent upon the faithfulness of the messengers? The answer to this objection is plain. It is certainly true that the Christian way of salvation places a stupendous responsibility upon men. But that responsibility is like the responsibility which, as ordinary observation shows, God does, as a matter of fact, commit to men. It is like the responsibility, for example, of the parent for the child. The parent has full power to mar the soul as well as the body of the child. The responsibility is terrible; but it is a responsibility which unquestionably exists. Similar is the responsibility of the Church for making the name of Jesus known to all mankind. It is a terrible responsibility; but it exists, and it is just like the other known dealings of God. But modern liberalismhas still more specific objections to the Christian doctrine of the Cross. How can one person, it is asked, suffer for the sins of another? The thing, we are told, is absurd. Guilt, it is said, is personal; if I allow another man to suffer for my fault, my guilt is not thereby one whit diminished. An answer to this objection is sometimes found in the plain instances in ordinary human life where one person does suffer for another person’s sin. In the war, for example, many men died freely for the welfare of others. Here, it is "aid, we have something analogous to the sacrifice of Christ. It must be confessed, however, that the analogy is very faint; for it does not touch the specific point at issue. The death of a volunteer soldier in the war was like the death of Christ in that it was a supreme example of self-sacrifice. But the thing to be accomplished by the self-sacrifice was entirely, different from the thing which was accomplished on Calvary. The death of those who sacrificed themselves in the war brought peace and protection to the loved ones at home, but it could never avail to wipe out the guilt of sin. The real answer to the objection is to be found not in the similarity between the death of Christ and other examples of self-sacrifice, but in the profound difference.1 Why is it that men are no longer willing to trust for their own salvation and for the hope of the world to one act that was done by one Man of long ago? Why is it that they prefer to trust to millions of acts of self-sacrifice wrought by millions of men all through the centuries and in our own day? The answer is plain. It is because men have lost sight of the majesty of Jesus’ Person. They think of Him as a man like themselves; and if He was a man like themselves, His death becomes simply an example of self-sacrifice. But there have been millions of examples of self-sacrifice. Why then should we pay such exclusive attention to this one Palestinian example of long ago? Men used to say with reference to Jesus, "There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin." They say so now no longer. On the contrary, every man is now regarded as plenty good enough to pay the price of sin if, whether in peace or in war, he will only go bravely over the top in some noble cause. It is perfectly true that no mere man can pay the penalty of another man’s sin. But it does not follow that Jesus could not do it; for Jesus was no mere man but the eternal Son of God. Jesus is master of the innermost secrets of the moral world. He has done what none other could possibly do; He has borne our sin. The Christian doctrine of the atonement, therefore, is altogether rooted in the Christian doctrine of the deity of Christ. The reality of an atonement for sin depends altogether upon the New Testament presentation of the Person of Christ. And even the hymns dealing with the Cross which we sing in Church can be placed in an ascending 1. For what follows, compare "The Church in the War," in The Presbyterian,for May 29 1919, pp. 10f. scale according as they are based upon a lower or a higher view of Jesus’ Person. At the very bottom of the scale is that familiar hymn: Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me. That is a perfectly good hymn. It means that our trials may be a discipline to bring us nearer to God. The thought is not opposed to Christianity; it is found in the New Testament. But many persons have the impression, because the word "cross" is found in the hymn, that there is something specifically Christian about it, and that it has something to do with the gospel. This impression is entirely false. In reality, the cross that is spoken of is not the Crossof Christ, but our own cross; the verse simply means that our own crosses or trials may be a means to bring us nearer to God. It is a perfectly good thought, but certainly it is not the gospel. One can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to use in the last solemn hour of their lives. But there is another hymn in the hymn-book: In the cross of Christ I glory, Towering o’er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime. That is certainly better. It is here not our own crosses but the Cross of Christ, the actual event that took place on Calvary, that is spoken of, and that event is celebrated as the center of all history. Certainly the Christian man can sing that hymn. But one misses even there the full Christian sense of the meaning of the Cross; the Cross is celebrated, but it is not understood. It is well, therefore, that there is another hymn in our hymn-book: When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride. There at length are heard the accents of true Christian feeling—"the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died." When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered on Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our own salvation and for the hope of society, than all the rivers of blood that have flowed upon the battlefields of history. Thus the objection to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ disappears altogether before the tremendous Christian sense of the majesty of Jesus’ Person. It is perfectly true that the Christ of modern naturalistic reconstruction never could have suffered for the sins of others; but it is very different in the case of the Lord of Glory. And if the notion of vicarious atonement be so absurd as modern opposition would lead us to believe, what shall be said of the Christian experience that has been based upon it? The modern liberal Church is fond of appealing to experience. But where shall true Christian experience be found if not in the blessed peace which comes from Calvary? That peace comes only when a man recognizes that all his striving to be right with God, all his feverish endeavor to keep the Law before he can be saved, is unnecessary, and that the Lord Jesus has wiped out the handwriting that was against him by dying instead of him on the Cross. Who can measure the depth of the peace and joy that comes from this blessed knowledge? Is it a "theory of the atonement,"a delusion of man’s fancy? Or is it the very truth of God? But still another objection remains against the Christian doctrine of the Cross. The objection concerns the character of God. What a degraded view of God it is, the modern liberal exclaims, when God is represented as being"alienated" from man, and as waiting coldly until aprice be paid before He grants salvation! In reality, we are told, God is more willing to forgive sin than we are willing to be forgiven; reconciliation, therefore, can have to do only with man; it alldepends upon us; God will receive us any time we choose. The objection depends of course upon the liberal view of sin. If sin is so trifling a matter as the liberal Church supposes, then indeed the curse of God’s law can be taken very lightly, and God can easily letby-gones be by-gones. This business of letting by-gones be by-gones has a pleasant sound. But in reality it is the most heartless thing in the world. It will not do at all even in the case of sins committed against our fellow-men. To say nothing of sin against God, what shall be done about the harm that we have wrought to our neighbor? Sometimes, no doubt, the harm can be repaired. If we have defrauded our neighbor of a sum of money, we can pay the sum back with interest. But in the case of the more serious wrongs such repayment is usually quite impossible. The more serious wrongs are those that are done, not to the bodies, but to the souls of men. And who can think with complacency of wrongs of that kind which he has committed? Who can bear to think, for example, of the harm that he has done to those younger than himself by a bad example? And what of those sad words, spoken to those we love, that have left scars never to be obliterated by the hand of time? In the presence of such memories, we are told by the modern preacher simply to repent and to let by-gones be by-gones. But what a heartless thing is such repentance! We escape into some higher, happier, respectable life. But what of those whom we by our example and by our words have helped to drag down to the brink of hell? We forget them and let by-gones be by-gones! Such repentance will never wipe out the guilt of sin—not even sin committed against our fellow-men, to say nothing of sin against our God. The truly penitent man longs to wipe out the effects of sin, not merely to forget sin. But who can wipe out the effects of sin? Others are suffering because of our past sins; and we can attain no real peace until we suffer in their stead. We long to go back into the tangle of our life, and make right the things that are wrong—at least to suffer where we have caused others to suffer. And something like that Christ did for us when He died instead of us on the cross; He atoned for all our sins. The sorrow for sins committed against one’s fellow men does indeed remain in the Christian’s heart. And he will seek by every means that is within his power to repair the damage that he has done. But atonement at least has been made—made as truly as if the sinner himself had suffered with and for those whom he has wronged. And the sinner himself, by a mystery of grace, becomes right with God. All sin at bottom is a sin against God. "Against thee, thee only have I sinned" is the cry of a true penitent. How terrible is the sin against God! Who can recall the wasted moments and years ? Gone they are, never to return; gone the little allotted span of life; gone the little day in which a man must work. Who can measure the irrevocable guilt of a wasted life? Yet even for such guilt God has provided a fountain of cleansing in the precious blood of Christ. God has clothed us with Christ’s righteousness as with a garment; in Christ we stand spotless before the judgment throne. Thus to deny the necessity of atonement is to deny the existence of a real moral order. And it is strange how those who venture upon such denial can regard themselves as disciples of Jesus; for if one thing is clear in the record of Jesus’ life it is that Jesus recognized the justice as distinguished from the love, of God. God is love, according to Jesus, but He is not only love; Jesus spoke, in terrible words, of the sin that shall never be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come. Clearly Jesus recognized the existence of retributive justice; Jesus was far from accepting the light modern view of sin. But what, then, it will be objected, becomes of God’s love? Even if it be admitted that justice demands punishment for sin, the modern liberal theologian will say, what becomes of the Christian doctrine that justice is swallowed up by grace? If God is represented as waiting for a price to be paid before sin shall be forgiven, perhaps His justice may be rescued, but what becomes of His love? Modern liberal teachers are never tired of ringing the changes upon this objection. They speak with horror of the doctrine of an "alienated"or an "angry" God. In answer, of course it would be easy to point to the New Testament. The New Testament clearly speaks of the wrath of God and the wrath of Jesus Himself; and all the teaching of Jesus presupposes a divine indignation against sin. With what possible right, then, can those who reject this vital element in Jesus’ teaching and example regard themselves as true disciples of His? The truth is that the modern rejection of the doctrine of God’s wrath proceeds from a light view of sin which is totally at variance with the teaching of the whole New Testament and of Jesus Himself. If a man has once come under a true conviction of sin, he will have little difficulty with the doctrine of the Cross. But as a matter of fact the modern objection to the doctrine of the atonement on the ground that that doctrine is contrary to the love of God, is based upon the most abysmal misunderstanding of the doctrine itself. The modern liberal teachers persist in speaking of the sacrifice of Christ as though it were a sacrifice made by some one other than God. They speak of it as though it meant that God waits coldly until a price is paid to Him before He forgives sin. As a matterof fact, it means nothing of the kind; the objection ignores that which is absolutely fundamental in the Christian doctrine of the Cross. The fundamental thing is that God Himself, and not another, makes the sacrifice for sin—God Himself in the person of the Son who assumed our nature and died for us, God Himself in the Person of the Father who spared not His own Son but offered Him up for us all. Salvation is as free for us as the air we breathe; God’s the dreadful cost, ours the gain. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Such love is very different from the complacency found in the God of modern preaching; this love is love that did not count the cost; it is love that is love indeed. This love and this love alone brings true joy to men. Joy is indeed being sought by the modern liberal Church. But it is being sought in ways that are false. How may communion with God be made joyful? Obviously, we are told, by emphasizing the comforting attributes of God—His long-suffering, His love. Let us, it is urged, regard Him not as a moody Despot, not as a sternly righteous Judge, but simply as a loving Father. Away with the horrors of the old theology! Let us worship a God in whom we can rejoice. Two questions arise with regard to this method of making religion joyful—in the first place, Does it work? and in the second place, Is it true? Does it work? It certainly ought to work. How can anyone be unhappy when the ruler of the universe is declared to be the loving Father of all men who will never permanently inflict pain upon His children ? Where is the sting of remorse if all sin will necessarily be forgiven? Yet men are strangely ungrateful. After the modern preacher has done his part with all diligence—after everything unpleasant has carefully been eliminated from the conception of God, after His unlimited love has been celebrated with the eloquence that it deserves—the congregation somehow persistently refuses to burst into the old ecstasies of joy. The truth is, the God of modern preaching, though He may perhaps be very good, is rather uninteresting. Nothing is so insipid as indiscriminate good humor. Is that really love that costs so little? If God will necessarily forgive, no matter what we do, why trouble ourselves about Him at all? Such a God may deliver us from the fear of hell. But His heaven, if He has any, is full of sin. The other objection to the modern encouraging idea of God is that it is not true. How do you know that God is all love and kindness? Surely not through nature, for it is full of horrors. Human suffering maybe unpleasant, but it is real, and God must have something to do with it. Just as surely not through the Bible. For it was from the Bible that the old theologians derived that conception of God which you would reject as gloomy. "The Lord thy God,"the Bible says, "is a consuming fire." Or is Jesus alone your authority? You are no better off. For it was Jesus who spoke of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire, of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this age or in that which is to come. Or do you appeal, for your comforting idea of God, to a twentieth-century revelation granted immediately to you? It is to be feared that you will convince no one but yourself. Religion cannot be made joyful simply by looking on the bright side of God. For a one-sided God is not a real God, and it is the real God alone who can satisfy the longing of our soul. God is love, but is He only love? God is love, but is love God? Seek joy alone, then, seek joy at any cost, and you will not find it. How then may it be attained? The search for joy in religion seems to have ended in disaster. God is found to be enveloped in impenetrable mystery, and in awful righteousness; man is confined in the prison of the world, trying to make the best of his condition, beautifying the prison with tinsel, yet secretly dissatisfied with his bondage, dissatisfied with a merely relative goodness which is no goodness at all, dissatisfied with the companionship of his sinful fellows, unable to forget his heavenly destiny and his heavenly duty, longing for communion with the Holy One. There seems to be no hope; God is separate from sinners; there is no room for joy, but only a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Yet such a God has at least one advantage over the comforting God of modern preaching—He is alive, He is sovereign, He is not bound by His creation or by His creatures, He can perform wonders. Could He even save us if He would? He has saved us—in that message the gospel consists. It could not have been foretold; still less could the manner of it have been foretold. That Birth, that Life, that Death—why was it done just thus and then and there? It all seems so very local, so very particular, so very unphilosophical, so very unlike what might have been expected. Are not our own methods of salvation, men say, better than that?"Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" Yet what if it were true? "So, the All-Great were the All-Loving too"—God’s own Son delivered up for us all, freedom from the world, sought by philosophers of all the ages, offered now freely to every simple soul, things hidden from the wise and prudent revealed unto babes, the longstriving over, the impossible accomplished, sin conquered by mysterious grace, communion at length with the holy God, our Father which art in heaven! Surely this and this alone is joy. But it is a joy that is akin to fear. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Were we not safer with a God of our own devising—love and only love, a Father and nothing else, one before whom we could stand in our own merit without fear? He who will may be satisfied with such a God. But we, God help us—sinful as we are, we would see Jehovah. Despairing, hoping, trembling, half-doubting and half-believing, trusting all to Jesus, we venture into the presence of the very God. And in His presence we live. The atoning death of Christ, and that alone, has presented sinners as righteous in God’s sight; the Lord Jesus has paid the full penalty of their sins, and clothed them with His perfect righteousness before the judgment seat of God. But Christ has done for Christians even far more than that. He has given to them not only a new and right relation to God, but a new life in God’s presence for evermore. He has saved them from the power as well as from the guilt of sin. The New Testament does not end with the death of Christ; it does not end with the triumphant words of Jesus on the Cross, "It is finished." The death was followed by the resurrection, and the resurrection like the death was for our sakes. Jesus rose from the dead into a new life of glory and power, and into that life He brings those for whom He died. The Christian, on the basis of Christ’s redeeming work, not only has died unto sin, but also lives unto God. Thus was completed the redeeming work of Christ—the work for which He entered into the world. The account of that work is the "gospel, "the "good news." It never could have been predicted, for sin deserves naught but eternal death. But God triumphed over sin through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. But how is the redeeming work of Christ applied to the individual Christian man? The answerof the New Testament is plain. According to the New Testament the work of Christ is applied to the individual Christian man by the Holy Spirit. And this work of the Holy Spirit is part of the creative work of God. It is not accomplished by the ordinary use of means; it is not accomplished merely by using the good that is already in man. On the contrary, it is something new. It is not an influence upon the life, but the beginning of a new life; it is not development of what we had already, but a new birth. At the very center of Christianity are the words, "Ye must be born again." These words are despised today. They involve supernaturalism, and the modern man is opposed to supernaturalism in the experience of the individual as much as in the realm of history. A cardinal doctrine of modern liberalism is that the world’s evil may be overcome by the world’s good; no help is thought to be needed from outside the world. This doctrine is propagated in various ways. It runs all through the popular literature of our time. It dominates religious literature, and it appears even upon the stage. Some years ago great popularity was attained by a play which taught the doctrine in powerful fashion. The play began with a scene in a London boarding-house. And it was a very discouraging scene. The persons in that boarding-house were not by any means desperate criminals, but one could almost have wished that they had been—they would have been so much more interesting. As it was, they were simply sordid, selfish persons, snapping and snarling about things to eat and about creature comforts—the sort of persons about whom one is tempted to say that they have no souls. The scene was a powerful picture of the hideousness of the commonplace.But presently the mysterious stranger of "the third floorback" entered upon the scene, and all was changed. He had no creed to offer, and no religion. But he simply engaged in conversation with everyone in that boarding house, and discovered the one good point in every individual life. Somewhere in every life there was some one good thing—some one true human affection, someone noble ambition. It had long been hidden by a thick coatingof sordidness and selfishness; its very existence had been forgotten. But it was there, and when it was brought to the light the whole life was transformed. Thus the evil that was in man was overcome by the good that was already there. The same thing is taught in more immediately practical ways. For example, there are those who would apply it to the prisoners in our jails. The inmates of jails and penitentiaries constitute no doubt unpromising material. But it is a great mistake, it is said, to tell them that they are bad, to discourage them by insisting upon their sin. On the contrary, we are told, what ought to be done is to find the good that is already in them and build upon that; we ought to appeal to some latent sense of honor which shows that even criminals possess the remnants of our common human nature. Thus again the evil that is in man is to be overcome not by a foreign good but by a good which man himself possesses. Certainly there is a large element of truth in this modern principle. That element of truth is found in the Bible. The Bible does certainly teach that the good that is already in man ought to be fostered in orderto check the evil. Whatsoever things are true and pure and of good report—we ought to think on those things. Certainly the principle of overcoming the world’s evil by the good already in the world is a great principle. The old theologians recognized it to the full in their doctrine of "common grace." There is something in the world even apart from Christianity which restrains the worst manifestations of evil. And that something ought to be used. Without the use of it, this world could not be lived in for a day. The use of it is certainly a great principle; it will certainly accomplish many, useful things. But there is one thing which it will not accomplish. It will not remove the disease of sin. It will indeed palliate the symptoms of the disease; it will change the form of the disease. Sometimes the disease is hidden, and there are those who think that it is cured. But then it bursts forth in some new way, as in 1914, and startles the world. What is really needed is not a salve to palliate the symptoms of sin, but a remedy that attacks the root of the disease. In reality, however, the figure of disease is misleading. The only true figure—if indeed it can be called merely a figure—is the one which is used in the Bible. Man is not merely ill, but he is dead, intrespasses and sins, and what is really needed is a new life. That life is given by the Holy Spirit in "regeneration" or the new birth. Many are the passages and many are the ways in which the central doctrine of the new birth is taught in the Word of God. One of the most stupendous passages is Galatians 2:20 : "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live but Christ liveth in me." That passage was called by Bengel the marrow of Christianity. And it was rightly so called. It refers to the objective basis of Christianity in the redeeming work of Christ, and it contains also the supernaturalism of Christian experience. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me"—these are extraordinary words. "If you look upon Christians,"Paul says in effect, "you see so many manifestations of the life of Christ." Undoubtedly if the words of Galatians 2:20 stood alone they might be taken in a mystical or pantheistic sense; they might be taken to involve the merging of the personality of the Christian in the personality of Christ. But Paul had no reason to fear such a misinterpretation, for he had fortified himself against it by the whole of his teaching. The new relation of the Christian to Christ, according to Paul, involves no loss of the separate personality of the Christian; on the contrary, it is everywhere intensely personal; it is not a merely mystical relationship to the All or the Absolute, but a relationship of love existing between one person and another. Just because Paul had fortified himself against misunderstanding, he was not afraid of an extreme boldness of language. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me"—these words involve a tremendous conception of the break that comes in a man’s life when he becomes a Christian. It is almost as though he became a new person—so stupendous is the change. These words were not written by a man who believed that Christianity means merely the entrance of a new motive into the life; Paul believed with all his mind and heart in the doctrine of the new creation or the new birth. That doctrine represents one aspect of the salvation which was wrought by Christ and is applied by His Spirit. But there is another aspect of the same salvation. Regeneration means a new life; but there is also a new relation in which the believer stands toward God.That new relation is instituted by "justification"—the act of God by which a sinner is pronounced righteous in His sight because of the atoning death of Christ. It is not necessary to ask whether justification comes before regeneration or vice versa; in reality they are two aspects of one salvation. And they both stand at the very beginning of the Christian life. The Christian has not merely the promise of a new life, but he has already a new life. And he has not merely the promise of being pronounced righteous in God’s sight (though the blessed pronouncement will be confirmed on the judgment day), but he is already pronounced righteous here and now. At the beginning of every Christian life there stands, not a process, but a definite act of God. That does not mean that every Christian can tell exactly at what moment he was justified and born again. Some Christians, indeed, are really able to give day and hour of their conversion. It is a grievous sin to ridicule the experience of such men. Sometimes, indeed, they are inclined to ignore the steps in the providence of God which prepared for the great change. But they are right on the main point. They know that when on such and such a day they kneeled in prayer they were still in their sins, and when they rose from their knees they were children of God never to be separated from Him. Such experience is a very holy thing. But on the other hand it is a mistake to demand that it should be universal. There are Christians who can give day and hour of their conversion, but the great majority do not know exactly at what moment they were saved. The effects of the act are plain, but the act itself was done in the quietness of God. Such, very often, is the experience of children brought up by Christian parents. It is not necessary that all should pass through agonies of soul before being saved; there are those to whom faith comes peacefully and easily through the nurture of Christian homes. But however it be manifested, the beginning of the Christian life is an act of God. It is an act of God and not an act of man. That does not mean, however, that in the beginning of the Christian life God deals with us as with sticks or stones, unable to understand what is being done. On the contrary He deals with us as with persons; salvation has a place in the conscious life of man; God uses in our salvation a conscious act of the human soul—an act which though it is itself the work of God’s Spirit, is at the same time an act of man. That act of man which God produces and employs in salvation is faith. At the center of Christianity is the doctrine of "justification by faith." In exalting faith, we are not immediately putting ourselves in contradiction to modern thought. Indeed faith is being exalted very high by men of the most modern type. But what kind of faith? There emerges the difference of opinion. Faith is being exalted so high today that men are being satisfied with any kind of faith, just so it is faith. It makes no difference what is believed, we are told, just so the blessed attitude of faith is there. The undogmatic faith, it is said, is better than the dogmatic, because it is purer faith—faith less weakened by the alloy of knowledge. Now it is perfectly clear that such employment of faith merely as a beneficent state of the soul is bringing some results. Faith in the most absurd things sometimes produces the most beneficent and far-reaching results. But the disturbing thing is that all faith has an object. The scientific observer may not think that it is the object that does the work; from his vantage point he may see clearly that it is really the faith, considered simply as a psychological phenomenon, that is the important thing, and that any other object would have answered as well. But the one who does the believing is always convinced just exactly that it is not the faith, but the object of the faith, which is helping him. The moment he becomes convinced that it is merely the faith that is helping him, the faith disappears; for faith always involves a conviction of the objective truth or trustworthiness of the object. If the object is not really trustworthy then the faith is a false faith. It is perfectly true that such a false faith will often help a man. Things that are false will accomplish a great many useful things in the world. If I take a counterfeit coin and buy a dinner with it, the dinner is every bit as good as if the coin were a product of the mint. And what a very useful thing a dinner is! But just as I am on my way downtown to buy a dinner for a poor man, an expert tells me that my coin is a counterfeit. The miserable, heartless theorizer! While he is going into uninteresting, learned details about the primitive historyof that coin, a poor man is dying for want of bread. So it iswith faith. Faith is so very useful, they tell us, that we must not scrutinize its basis in truth. But, the great trouble is, such an avoidance of scrutiny itself involves the destruction of faith. For faith is essentially dogmatic. Despite all you can do, you cannot remove the element of intellectual assent from it. Faith is the opinion that some person will do something for you. If that person really will do that thing for you, then the faith is true. If he will not do it, then the faith is false. In the latter case, not all the benefits in the world will make the faith true. Though it has transformed the world from darkness to light, though it has produced thousands of glorious healthy lives, it remains a pathological phenomenon. It is false, and sooner or later it is sure to be found out. Such counterfeits should be removed, not out of a love of destruction, but in order to leave room for the pure gold, the existence of which is implied in the presence of the counterfeits. Faith is often based upon error, but there would be no faith at all unless it were sometimes based upon truth. But if Christian faith is based upon truth, then it is not the faith which saves the Christian but the object of the faith. And the object of the faith is Christ. Faith, then, according to the Christian view means simply receiving a gift.To have faith in Christ means to cease trying to win God’s favor by one’s own character; the man who believes in Christ simply accepts the sacrifice which Christ offered on Calvary. The result of such faith is a new life and all good works; but the salvation itself is an absolutely free gift of God. Very different is the conception of faith which prevails in the liberal Church. According to modern liberalism, faith is essentially the same as "making Christ Master" in one’s life; at least it is by making Christ Master in the life that the welfare of men is sought. But that simply means that salvation is thought to be obtained by our own obedience to the commands of Christ. Such teaching is just a sublimated form of legalism. Not the sacrifice of Christ, on this view, but our own obedience to God’s law, is the ground of hope. In this way the whole achievement of the Reformation has been given up, and there has been a return to the religion of the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, God raised up a man who began to read the Epistle to the Galatians with his own eyes. The result was the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith. Upon that rediscovery has been based the whole of our evangelical freedom. As expounded by Luther and Calvin the Epistle to the Galatians became the "Magna Charta of Christian liberty." But modern liberalism has returned to the old interpretation of Galatians which was urged against the Reformers. Thus Professor Burton’s elaborate commentary on the Epistle, despite all its extremely valuable modern scholarship, is in one respect a medieval book; it has returned to an anti-Reformation exegesis, by which Paul is thought to be attacking in the Epistle only the piecemeal morality of the Pharisees. In reality, of course, the object of Paul’s attack is the thought that in any way man can earn his acceptance with God. What Paul is primarily interested in is not spiritual religion over against ceremonialism, but the free grace of God over against human merit. The grace of God is rejected by modern liberalism. And the result is slavery—the slavery of the law, the wretched bondage by which man undertakes the impossible task of establishing his own righteousness as a ground of acceptance with God. It may seem strange at first sight that "liberalism," of which the very name means freedom, should in reality be wretched slavery. But the phenomenon is not really so strange. Emancipation from the blessed will of God always involves bondage to some worse taskmaster. Thus it may be said of the modern liberal Church, as of the Jerusalem of Paul’s day, that "she is in bondage with her children." God grant that she may turn again to the liberty of the gospel of Christ! The liberty of the gospel depends upon the gift of God by which the Christian life is begun—a gift which involves justification, or the removal of the guilt of sin and the establishment of a right relation between the believer and God, and regeneration or the new birth, which makes of the Christian man a new creature. But there is one obvious objection to this high doctrine, and the objection leads on to a fuller account of the Christian way of salvation. The obvious objection to the doctrine of the new creation is that it does not seem to be in accord with the observed fact. Are Christians really new creatures? It certainly does not seem so. They are subject to the same old conditions of life to which they were subject before; if you look upon them you cannot notice any very obvious change. They have the same weaknesses, and, unfortunately, they have sometimes the same sins. The new creation, if it be really new, does not seem to be very perfect; God can hardly look upon it and say, as of the first creation, that it is all very good. This is a very real objection. But Paul meets it gloriously in the very same verse, already considered, in which the doctrine of the new creation is so boldly proclaimed. "It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me"—that is the doctrine of the new creation. But immediately the objection is taken up; "The life which I now live in the flesh," Paul continues, "I live by the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." "The life which I now live in the flesh"—there is the admission. Paul admits that the Christian does live a life in the flesh, subject to the same old earthly conditions and with a continued battle against sin."But," says Paul (and here the objection is answered), "the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith which is in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." The Christian life is lived by faith and not by sight; the great change has not yet come to full fruition; sin has not yet been fully conquered; the beginning of the Christian life is a new birth, not an immediate creation of the full grown man. But although the new life has not yet come to full fruition, the Christian knows that the fruition will not fail; he is confident that the God who has begun a good work in him will complete it unto the day of Christ; he knows that the Christ who has loved him and given Himself for him will not fail him now, but through the Holy Spirit will build him upun to the perfect man. That is what Paul means by living the Christian life by faith. Thus the Christian life, though it begins by a momentary act of God, is continued by aprocess. In other words—to use theological language—justification and regeneration are followed by sanctification. In principle the Christian is already free from the present evil world, but in practice freedom must still be attained. Thus the Christian life is not a life of idleness, but a battle. That is what Paul means when he speaks of faith working through love (Galatians 5:6). The faith that he makes the means of salvation is not an idle faith, like the faith which is condemned in the Epistle of James, but a faith that works. The work that it performs is love, and what love is Paul explains in the last section of the Epistle to the Galatians. Love, in the Christian sense, is not a mere emotion, but a very practical and a very comprehensive thing. It involves nothing less than the keeping of the whole law of God. "The whole law is fulfilled in one word, I even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Yet the practical results of faith do not mean that faith l itself is a work. It is a significantthing that in that last "practical" section of Galatians Paul does not say that l faith produces the life of love; he says that the Spirit of God produces it. The Spirit, then, in that section is represented as doing exactly what in the pregnant words, "faith working through love," is attributed to faith. The apparent contradiction simply leads to the true conception of faith. True faith does not do anything. When it is said to do something (for example, when we say that it can remove mountains), that is only by a very natural shortness of expression. Faith is the exact opposite of works; faith does not give, it receives. So when Paul says that we do something by faith, that is just another way of saying that of ourselves we do nothing; when it is said that faith works through love that means that through faith the necessary basis of all Christian work has been obtained in the removal of guilt and the birth of the new man, and that the Spirit of God has been received—the Spirit who works with and through the Christian man for holy living.The force which enters the Christian life through faith and works itself out through love is the power of the Spirit of God. But the Christian life is lived not only by faith; it is also lived in hope. The Christian is in the midst of a sore battle. And as for the condition of the world at large—nothing but the coldest heartlessness could be satisfied with that. It is certainly true that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Even in the Christian life there are things that we should like to see removed; there are fears within as well as fightings without; even within the Christian life there are sad evidences of sin. But according to the hope which Christ has given us, there will be final victory, and the struggle of this world will be followedby the glories of heaven. That hope runs all through the Christian life; Christianity is not engrossed by this transitory world, but measures all things by the thought of eternity. But at this point an objection is frequently raised. The "other worldliness"of Christianity is objected to as a form of selfishness.The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how much nobler is the man who because of duty walks boldly into the darkness of annihilation! The objection would have some weight if heaven according to Christian belief were mere enjoyment. But as a matter of fact heaven is communion with God and with His Christ. It can be said reverently that the Christian longs for heaven not only for his own sake, but also for the sake of God. Our present love is so cold, our present service so weak; and we would one day love and serve Him as His love deserves. It is perfectly true that the Christian is dissatisfied with the present world, but it is a holy dissatisfaction; it is that hunger and thirst after righteousness which our Savior blessed. We are separated from the Savior now by the veil of sense and by the effects of sin, and it is not selfish to long to see Him face to face. To relinquish such longing is not unselfishness, but is like the cold heartlessness of a man who could part from father or mother or wife or child without a pang. It is not selfish to long for the One whom not having seen we love. Such is the Christian life—it is a life of conflict but it is also a life of hope. It views this world under the aspect of eternity; the fashion of this world passeth away, and all must stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Very different is the"program" of the modern liberal Church. In that program, heaven has little place, and this world is really all in all. The rejection of the Christian hope is not always definite or conscious; sometimes the liberal preacher tries to maintain a belief in the immortality of the soul. But the real basis of the belief in immortality has been given up by the rejection of the New Testament account of the resurrection of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 03.06. CHAPTER6A:"SALVATION" ======================================================================== And, practically, the liberal preacher has very little to say about the other world. This world is really the center of all his thoughts; religion itself, and even God, are made merely a means for the betterment of conditions upon this earth. Thus religion has become a mere function of the community or of the state. So it is looked upon by the men of the present day. Even hard-headed business men and politicians have become convinced that religion is needed. But it is thought to be needed merely as a means to an end. We have tried to get along without religion, it is said, but the experiment was a failure, and now religion must be called in to help. For example, there is the problem of the immigrants; great populations have found a place in our country; they do not speak our language or know our customs; and we do not know what to do with them. We have attacked them by oppressive legislation or proposals of legislation, but such measures have not been altogether effective. Somehow these people display a perverse attachment to the language that they learned at their mother’s knee. It may be strange that a man should love the language that he learned at his mother’s knee, but these people do love it, and we are perplexed in our efforts to produce a unified American people. So religion is called in to help; we are inclined to proceed against the immigrants now with a Bible in one hand and a club in the other offering them the blessings of liberty. That is what is sometimes meant by "Christian Americanization." Another puzzling problem is the problem of industrial relations. Self-interest has here been appealed to; employers and employees have had pointed out to them the plain commercial advantages of conciliation. But all to no purpose. Class clashes still against class in the destructiveness of industrial warfare. And sometimes false doctrine provides a basis for false practice; the danger of Bolshevism is ever in the air. Here again repressive measures have been tried without avail; the freedom of speech and of the press has been radically curtailed. But repressive legislation seems unable to check the march of ideas. Perhaps, therefore, in these matters also, religion must be invoked. Still another problem faces the modern world—the problem of international peace. This problem also seemed at one time nearly solved; self-interest seemed likely to be sufficient; there were many who supposed that the bankers would prevent another European war. But all such hopes were cruelly shattered in 1914, and there is not a whit of evidence that they are better founded now than they were then. Here again, therefore, self-interest is insufficient; and religion must be called in to help. Such considerations have led to a renewed public interest in the subject of religion; religion is discovered after all to be a useful thing. But the trouble is that in being utilized religion is also being degraded and destroyed. Religion is being regarded more and more as a mere means to a higher end.1 The change can be detected with especial clearness in the way in which missionaries commend their cause. Fifty years ago, missionaries made their appeal in the light of eternity. "Millions of men," they were accustomed to say, "are going down to eternal destruction; Jesus is a Savior sufficient for all; send us out therefore with the message of salvation while yet there is 1. For a penetrating criticism of this tendency, especially as It would result in the control of religious education by the community, and for an eloquent advocacy of the opposite view, which makes Christianity an end in itself, see Harold McA. Robinson, "Democracy and Christianity," in The Christian Educator Vol. No. 1, for October, 1920, pp. 3-5. time." Some missionaries, thank God, still speak in that way. But very many missionaries make quite a different appeal. "We are missionaries to India," they say. "Now India is in ferment; Bolshevism is creeping in; send us out to India that the menace may be checked." Or else they say: "We are missionaries to Japan; Japan will be dominated by militarism unless the principles of Jesus have sway; send us out therefore to prevent the calamity of war." The same great change appears in community life. A new community, let us say, has been formed. It possesses many things that naturally belong to a well-ordered community; it has a drug-store, and a country club, and school. "But there is one thing," its inhabitants say to themselves, "that is still lacking; we have no church. But a church is a recognized and necessary part of every healthy community. We must therefore have a church." And so an expert in community church-building is summoned to take the necessary steps. The persons who speak in this way usually have little interest in religion for its own sake; it has never occurred to them to enter into the secret place of communion with the holy God. But religion is thought to be necessary for a healthy community; and therefore for the sake of the community they are willing to have a church. Whatever may be thought of this attitude toward religion, it is perfectly plain that the Christian religion cannot be treated in any such way. The moment it is so treated it ceases to be Christian. For if one thing is plain it is that Christianity refuses to be regarded as a mere means to a higher end. Our Lord made that perfectly clear when He said: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother . . . he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). Whatever else those stupendous words may mean, they certainly mean that the relationship to Christ takes precedence of all other relationships, even the holiest of relationships like those that exist between husband and wife and parent and child. Those other relationships exist for the sake of Christianity and not Christianity for the sake of them. Christianity will indeed accomplish many useful things in this world, but if it is accepted in order to accomplish those useful things it is not Christianity. Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a unified nation, in a slow but satisfactory way; but if it is accepted in order to produce a unified nation, it is not Christianity: Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity: Christianity will promote international peace; but if it is accepted in order to promote international peace, it is not Christianity. Our Lord said: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." But if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those other things may be added unto you, you will miss both those other things and the Kingdom of God as well. But if Christianity be directed toward another world; if it be a way by which individuals can escape from the present evil age to some better country, what becomes of "the social gospel"? At this point is detected one of the most obvious lines of cleavage between Christianity and the liberal Church. The older evangelism, says the modern liberal preacher, sought to rescue individuals, while the newer evangelism seeks to transform the whole organism of society: the older evangelism was individual; the newer evangelism is social. This formulation of the issue is not entirely correct, but it contains an element of truth. It is true that historic Christianity is in conflict at many points with the collectivism of the present day; it does emphasize, against the claims of society, the worth of the individual soul. It provides for the individual a refuge from all the fluctuating currents of human opinion, a secret place of meditation where a man can come alone into the presence of God. It does give a man courage to stand, if need be, against the world; it resolutely refuses to make of the individual a mere means to an end, a mere element in the composition of society. It rejects altogether any means of salvation which deals with men in a mass; it brings the individual face to face with his God. In that sense, it is true that Christianity is individualistic and not social. But though Christianity is individualistic, it is not only individualistic. It provides fully for the social needs of man. In the first place, even the communion of the individual man with God is not really individualistic, but social. A man is not isolated when he is in communion with God; he can be regarded as isolated only by one who has forgotten the real existence of the supreme Person. Here again, as at many other places, the line of cleavage between liberalism and Christianity really reduces to a profound difference in the conception of God. Christianity is earnestly theistic; liberalism is at best but half-heartedly so. If a man once comes to believe in a personal God, then the wow ship of Him will not be regarded as selfish isolation, but as the chief end of man. That does not mean that on the Christian view the worship of God is ever to be carried on to the neglect of service rendered to one’s fellow-men—"he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, is not able to love God whom he hath not seen"—but it does mean that the worship of God has a value of its own. Very different is the prevailing doctrine of modern liberalism. According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to the liberal Church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of man. But the social element in Christianity is found not only in communion between man and God, but also in communion between man and man. Such communion appears even in institutions which are not specifically Christian. The most important of such institutions, according to Christian teaching, is the family. And that institution is being pushed more and more into the background. It is being pushed into the background by undue encroachments of the community and of the state. Modern life is tending more and more toward the contraction of the sphere of parental control and parental influence. The choice of schools is being placed under the power of the state; the "community" is seizing hold of recreation and of social activities. It may be a question how far these community activities are responsible for the modern breakdown of the home; very possibly they are only trying to fill a void which even apart from them had already appeared. But the result at any rate is plain—the lives of children are no longer surrounded by the loving atmosphere of the Christian home, but by the utilitarianism of the state. A revival of the Christian religion would unquestionably bring a reversal of the process; the family, as over against all other social institutions, would come to its rights again. But the state, even when reduced to its proper limits, has a large place in human life, and in the possession of that place it is supported by Christianity. The support, moreover, is independent of the Christian or non-Christian character of the state; it was in the Roman Empire under Nero that Paul said, "The powers that be are ordained of God." Christianity assumes no negative attitude, therefore, toward the state, but recognizes, under existing conditions, the necessity of government. The case is similar with respect to those broad aspects of human life which are associated with industrialism The "otherworldliness" of Christianity involves no withdrawal from the battle of this world; our Lord Himself, with His stupendous mission, lived in the midst of life’s throng and press. Plainly, then, the Christian man may not simplify his problem by withdrawing from the business of the world, but must learn to apply the principles of Jesus even to the complex problems of modern industrial life. At this point Christian teaching is in full accord with the modern liberal Church; the evangelical Christian is not true to his profession if he leaves his Christianity behind him on Monday morning. On the contrary, the whole of life, including business and all of social relations, must be made obedient to the law of love. The Christian man certainly should display no lack of interest in "applied Christianity." Only—and here emerges the enormous difference of opinion—the Christian man believes that there can be no applied Christianity unless there be "a Christianity to apply."1 That is where the Christian man differs from the modern liberal. The liberal believes that applied Christianity is all there is of Christianity, Christianity being merely a way of life; the Christian man believes that applied Christianity is the result of an initial act of God. Thus there is an enormous difference between the modern liberal and the Christian man with reference to 1. Francis Shunk Downs, "Christianity and Today," in Princeton Theological Review, xx, 1922 p. 287. See also the whole article, ibid., human institutions like the community and the state, and with reference to human efforts at applying tile Golden Rule in industrial relationships. The modern liberal is optimistic with reference to these institutions; the Christian man is pessimistic unless the institutions be manned by Christian men. The modern liberal believes that human nature as at present constituted can be molded by the principles of Jesus; the Christian man believes that evil can only be held in check and not destroyed by human institutions, and that there must be a transformation of the human materials before any new building can be produced. This difference is not a mere difference in theory, but makes itself felt everywhere in the practical realm. It is particularly evident on the mission field. The missionary of liberalism seeks to spread the blessings of Christian civilization (whatever that may be), and is not particularly interested in leading individuals to relinquish their pagan beliefs. The Christian missionary, on the other hand, regards satisfaction with a mere influence of Christian civilization as a hindrance rather than a help; his chief business, he believes, is the saving of souls, and souls are saved not by the mere ethical principles of Jesus but by His redemptive work. The Christian missionary, in other words, and the Christian worker at home as well as abroad, unlike the apostle of liberalism, says to all men everywhere: "Human goodness will avail nothing for lost souls; ye must be born again." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 03.07. CHAPTER7:"THE CHURCH" ======================================================================== Chapter7:"The Church" It has just been observed that Christianity, as well as liberalism, is interested in social institutions. But the most important institution has not yet been mentioned—itis the institution of the Church. When, according to Christian belief, lost souls are saved, the saved ones become united in the Christian Church. It is only by a baseless caricature that Christian missionaries are represented as though they had no interest in education or in the maintenance of a social life in this world; it is not true that they are interested only in saving individual souls and when the souls are saved leave them to their own devices. On the contrary true Christians must everywhere be united in the brotherhood of the Christian Church. Very different is this Christian conception of brotherhood from the liberal doctrineof the "brotherhood of man." The modern liberal doctrineis that all men everywhere, no matter what their race or creed, are brothers. There is a sense in which this doctrine can be accepted by the Christian. The relation in which all men stand to one another is analogous in some important respects to the relation of brotherhood. All men have the same Creator and the same nature. The Christian man can accept all that the modern liberal means by the brotherhood of man. But the Christian knows also of a relationship far more intimate than that general relationship of man to man and it is for this more intimate relationship that he reserves the term "brother."The true brotherhood, according to Christian teaching, is the brotherhood of the redeemed. There is nothing narrow about such teaching; for the Christian brotherhood is open without distinction to all; and the Christian man seeks to bring all men in. Christian service, it is true, is not limited to the household of faith; all men, whether Christians or not, are our neighbors if they be in need. But if we really love our fellow-men we shall never be content with binding up their wounds or pouring on oil and wine or rendering them any such lesser service. We shall indeed do such things for them. But the main business of our lives will be to bring them to the Savior of their souls. It is upon this brotherhood of twice-born sinners, this brotherhood of the redeemed, that the Christian founds the hope of society. He finds no solid hope in the improvement of earthly conditions, or the molding of human institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But in themselves their value, to the Christian, is certainly small. A solid building cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have themselves been redeemed. Thus Christianity differs from liberalism in the way in which the transformation of society is conceived. But according to Christian belief, as well as according to liberalism, there is really to be a transformation of society; it is not true that the Christian evangelist is interested in the salvation of individuals without being interested in the salvation of the race. And even before the salvation of all society has been achieved, there is already a society of those who have been saved. That society is the Church. The Church is the highestChristian answer to the social needs of man. And the Church invisible, the true company of the redeemed, finds expression in the companies of Christians who constitute the visible Church to-day. But what is the trouble with the visible Church? What is the reason for its obvious weakness? There are perhaps many causes of weakness. But one cause is perfectly plain—the Church of today has been unfaithful to her Lord by admitting great companies of non-Christian persons, not only into her membership, but into her teaching agencies. It is indeed inevitable that some persons who are not truly Christian shall find their way into the visible Church; fallible men cannot discern the heart, and many a profession of faith which seems to be genuine may really be false. But it is not this kind of error to which we now refer. What is now meant is not the admission of individuals whose confessions of faith may not be sincere, but the admission of great companies of persons who have nevermade any really adequate confession of faith at all and whose entire attitude toward the gospel is the very reverse of the Christian attitude. Such persons, moreover, have been admitted not merely to the membership, but to the ministry of the Church, and to an increasing extent have been allowed to dominate its councils and determine its teaching. The greatest menace to the Christian Church today comes not from the enemies outside, but from the enemies within; it comes from the presence within the Church of a type of faith and practice that is anti-Christian to the core. We are not dealing here with delicate personal questions; we are not presuming to say whether such and such an individual man is a Christian or not. God only can decide such questions; no man can say with assurance whether the attitude of certain individual "liberals" toward Christ is saving faith or not. But one thing is perfectly plain—whether or not liberals are Christians, it is at any rate perfectly clear that liberalism is not Christianity. And that being the case, it is highly undesirable that liberalism and Christianity should continue to be propagated within the bounds of the same organization. A separation between the two parties in the Church is the crying need of the hour. Many indeed are seeking to avoid the separation. Why, they say, may not brethren dwell together in unity? The Church, we are told, has room both for liberals and for conservatives. The conservatives may be allowed to remain if they will keep trifling matters in the background and attend chiefly to "the weightier matters of the law." And among the things thus designated as "trifling" is found the Cross of Christ, as a really vicarious atonement for sin. Such obscuration of the issue attests a really astonishing narrowness on the part of the liberal preacher. Narrowness does not consist in definite devotion to certain convictions or in definite rejection of others. But the narrow man is the man who rejects the other man’s convictions without first endeavoring to understand them, the man who makes no effort to look at things from the other man’s point of view. For example, it is not narrow to reject the Roman Catholic doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Church. It is not narrow to try to convince Roman Catholics that that doctrine is wrong. But it would be very narrow to say to a Roman Catholic: "You may go on holding your doctrine about the Church and I shall hold mine, but let us unite in our Christian work, since despite such trifling differences we are agreed about the matters that concern the welfare of the soul." For of course such an utterance would simply beg the question; the Roman Catholic could not possibly both hold his doctrine of the Church and at the same time reject it, as would be required by the program of Church unity just suggested. A Protestant who would speak in that way would be narrow, because quite independent of the question whether he or the Roman Catholic is right about the Church he would show plainly that he had not made the slightest effort to understand the Roman Catholic point of view. The case is similar with the liberal program for unity in the Church. It could never be advocated by anyone who had made the slightest effort to understand the point of view of his opponent in the controversy. The liberal preacher says to the conservative party in the Church: "Let us unite in the same congregation, since of course doctrinal differences are trifles." But it is the very essence of "conservatism" in the Church to regard doctrinal differences as no trifles but as the matters of supreme moment. A man cannot possibly be an "evangelical" or a "conservative" (or, as he himself would say, simply a Christian) and regard the Cross of Christ as a trifle. To suppose that he can is the extreme of narrowness. It is not necessarily "narrow" to reject the vicarious sacrifice of our Lord as the sole means of salvation. It may be very wrong (and we believe that it is), but it is not necessarily narrow. But to suppose that a man can hold to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ and at the same time be little that doctrine, to suppose that a man can believe that the eternal Son of God really bore the guilt of men’s sins on the Cross and at the same time regard that belief as a "trifle" without bearing upon the welfare of men’s souls—that is very narrow and very absurd. We shall really get nowhere in this controversy unless we make a sincere effort to understand the other man’s point of view. But for another reason also the effort to sink doctrinal differences and unite the Church on a program of Christian service is unsatisfactory. It is unsatisfactory because, in its usual contemporary form, it is dishonest. Whatever may be thought of Christian doctrine, it can hardly be denied that honesty is one of the "weightier matters of the law." Yet honesty is being relinquished in wholesale fashion by the liberal party in many ecclesiastical bodies today. To recognize that fact one does not need to take sides at all with regard to the doctrinal or historical questions. Suppose it be true that devotion to a creed is a sign of narrowness or intolerance, suppose the Church ought to be founded upon devotion to the ideal of Jesus or upon the desire to put His spirit into operation in the world, and not at all upon a confession of faith with regard to His redeeming work. Even if all this were true, even if a creedal Church were an undesirable thing, it would still remain true that as a matter of fact many (indeed in spirit really all) evangelical churches are creedal churches, and that if a man does not accept their creed he has no right to a place in their teaching ministry. The creedal character of the churches is differently expressed in the different evangelical bodies, but the example of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America may perhaps serve to illustrate what is meant. It is required of all officers in the Presbyterian Church, including the ministers, that at their ordination they make answer "plainly"to a series of questions which begins with the two following: "Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice?" "Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures?" If these "constitutional questions" do not fix clearly the creedal basis of the Presbyterian Church, it is difficult to see how any human language could possibly do so. Yet immediately after making such a solemn declaration, immediately after declaring that the Westminster Confession contains the system of doctrine taught in infallible Scriptures, many ministers of the Presbyterian Church will proceed to decry that same Confession and that doctrine of the infallibility of Scripture to which they have just solemnly subscribed! We are not now speaking of the membership of the Church, but of the ministry, and we are not speaking of the man who is troubled by grave doubts and wonders whether with his doubts he can honestly continue his membership in the Church. For great hosts of such troubled souls the Church offers bountifully its fellowship and its aid; it would be a crime to cast them out. There are many men of little faith in our troublous times. It is not of them that we speak. God grant that they mayobtain comfort and help through the ministrations of the Church! But we are speakingof men very different from these men of little faith—from these men who are troubled by doubts and are seeking earnestly for the truth. The men whom we mean are seeking not membership in the Church, but a place in the ministry, and they desire not to learn but to teach. They are not men who say, "I believe, help mine unbelief," but men who are proud in the possession of the knowledge of this world, and seek a place in the ministry that they may teach what is directly contrary to the Confessionof Faith to which they subscribe. For that course of action various excuses are made—the growth of custom by which the constitutional questions are supposed to have become a dead letter, various mental reservations, various "interpretations" of the declaration (which of course mean a complete reversal of the meaning). But no such excuses can change the essential fact. Whether it be desirable or not, the ordination declaration is part of the constitution of the Church. If a man can stand on that platform he may be an officer in the Presbyterian Church; if he cannot stand on it he has no right to be an officer in the Presbyterian Church. And the case is no doubt essentially similar in other evangelical Churches. Whether we like it or not, these Churches are founded upon a creed; they are organized for the propagation of a message. If a man desires to combat that message instead of propagating it, he has no right, no matter how false the message may be, to gain a vantage ground for combating it by making a declaration of his faith which—be it plainly spoken—is not true. But if such a courseof action is wrong, another course of action is perfectly open to the man who desires to propagate "liberal Christianity."Finding the existing "evangelical" churches to be bound up to a creed which he does not accept, he may either unite himself with some other existing body or else found a new body to suit himself. There are of course certain obvious disadvantages in such a course—the abandonment of church buildings to which one is attached, the break in family traditions, the injury to sentiment of various kinds. But there is one supreme advantage which far over balances all such disadvantages. It is the advantage of honesty. The path of honesty in such matters may be rough and thorny, but it can be trod. And it has already been trod—for example, by the Unitarian Church. The Unitarian Church is frankly and honestly just the kind of church that the liberal preacher desires—namely, a church without an authoritative Bible, without doctrinal requirements, and without a creed. Honesty, despite all that can be said and done, is not a trifle, but one of the weightier matters of the law. Certainly it has a value of its own, a value quite independent of consequences. But the consequences of honesty would in the case now under discussion not be unsatisfactory; here as elsewhere honesty would probably prove to be the best policy. By withdrawing from the confessional churches—those churches that are founded upon a creed derived from Scripture—the liberal preacher would indeed sacrifice the opportunity, almost within his grasp, of so obtaining control of those confessional churches as to change their fundamental character. The sacrifice of that opportunity would mean that the hope of turning the resources of the evangelical churches into the propagation of liberalism would be gone. But liberalism would certainly not suffer in the end. There would at least be no more need of using equivocal language, no more need of avoiding offence. The liberal preacher would obtainthe full personal respect even of his opponents, and the whole discussion would be placed on higher ground. All would, be perfectlystraightforward and above-board. And if liberalism is true, the mere lose of physical resources would not prevent it from making its way. At this point a question may arise. If there ought to be a separation between the liberals and the conservatives in the Church, why should not the conservatives be the ones to withdraw ? Certainly it may come to that. If the liberal party really obtains full control of the councils of the Church, then no evangelical Christian can continue to support the Church’s work. If a man believes that salvation from sin comes only through the atoning death of Jesus, then he cannot honestly support by his gifts and by his presence a propaganda which is intended to produce an exactly opposite impression. To do so would mean the most terrible blood-guiltiness which it is possible to conceive. If the liberal party, therefore, really obtains control of the Church, evangelical Christians must be prepared to withdraw no matter what it costs. Our Lord has died for us, and surely we must not deny Him for favor of men. But up to the present time such a situation has not yet appeared; the creedal basis still stands firm in the constitutions of evangelical churches. And there is a very real reason why it is not the "conservatives" who ought to withdraw. The reason is found in the trust which the churches hold. That trust includes trust funds of the most definite kind. And contrary to what seems to be the prevailing opinion, we venture to regard a trust as a sacred thing. The funds of the evangelical churches are held under a very definite trust; they are committed to the various bodies for the propagation of the gospel as set forth in the Bible and in the confessions of faith. To devote them to any other purpose, even though that other purpose should be in itself far more desirable, would be aviolation of trust. It must be admitted that the present situation is anomalous. Funds dedicated to the propagation of the gospel by godly men and women of previous generations or given by thoroughly evangelical congregations today are in nearly all the churches being used partly in the propagation of what is diametrically opposed to the evangelical faith. Certainly that situation ought not to continue; it is an offence to every thoughtfully honest man whether he be Christian or not. But in remaining in the existing churches the conservatives are in a fundamentally different position from the liberals; for the conservatives are in agreement with the plain constitutions of the churches, while the liberal party can maintain itself only by an equivocal subscription to declarations which it does not really believe. But how shall so anomalous a situation be brought to an end? The best way would undoubtedly be the voluntary withdrawal of the liberal ministers from those confessional churches whose confessions they do not, in the plain historical sense, accept. And we have not altogether abandoned hope of such a solution. Our differences with the liberal party in the Church are indeed profound, but with regard to the obligation of simple honesty of speech, some agreement might surely be attained. Certainly the withdrawal of liberal ministers from the creedal churches would be enormously in the interests of harmony and co-operation. Nothing engenders strife so much as a forced unity, within the same organization, of those who disagree fundamentally in aim. But is not advocacyof such separation a flagrant instance of intolerance? The objectionis often raised. But it ignores altogether the difference between involuntary and voluntary organizations. Involuntary organizations ought to be tolerant, but voluntary organizations, so far as the fundamental purpose of their existence is concerned, must be intolerant or else cease to exist. The state is an involuntary organization; a man is forced to be a member of it whether he will or no. It is therefore an interference with liberty for the state to prescribeany one type of opinion or any one type of education for its citizens. But within the state, individual citizens who desire to unite for some special purpose should be permitted to do so. Especially in the sphere of religion, such permission of individuals to unite is one of the rights which lie at the very foundation of our civil and religious liberty. The state does not scrutinize the rightness or wrongness of the religious purpose for which such voluntary religious associations are formed—if it did undertake such scrutiny all religious liberty would be gone—but it merely protects the right of individuals to unite for any religious purpose which they may choose. Among such voluntary associations are to be found the evangelical churches. An evangelical church is composed of a number of persons who have come to agreement in a certain message about Christ and who desire to unite in the propagation of that message, as it is set forth in their creed on the basis of the Bible. No one is forced to unite himself with the body thus formed; and because of this total absence of compulsion there can be no interference with liberty in the maintenance of any specific purpose—for example, the propagation of a message—as a fundamental purpose of the association. If other persons desire to form a religious association with some purpose other than the propagation of a message—for example, the purpose of promoting in the world, simply by exhortation and by the inspiration of the example of Jesus, a certain type of life—they are at perfect liberty to do so. But for an organization which is founded with the fundamental purpose of propagating a message to commit its resources and its name to those who are engaged in combating the message is not tolerance but simple dishonesty. Yet it is exactly this course of action that is advocated by those who would allow non-doctrinal religion to be taught in the name of doctrinal churches—churches that are plainly doctrinal both in their constitutions and in the declarations which they require of every candidate for ordination. The matter may be made plain by an illustration from secular life. Suppose in a political campaign in America there be formed a Democratic club for the purpose of furthering the cause of the Democratic party. Suppose there are certain other citizens who are opposed to the tenets of the Democratic club and in opposition desire to support the Republican party. What is the honest way for them to accomplish their purpose? Plainly it is simply the formation of a Republican club which shall carry on a propaganda in favor of Republican principles. But suppose, instead of pursuing this simple course of action, the advocates of Republican principles should conceive the notion of making a declaration of conformity to Democratic principles, thus gaining an entrance into the Democratic club and finally turning its resources into an anti-Democratic propaganda. That plan might be ingenious. But would it be honest? Yet it is just exactly such a plan which is adopted by advocates of a non-doctrinal religion who by subscription to a creed gain an entrance into the teaching ministry of doctrinal or evangelical churches. Let no one be offended by the illustration taken from ordinary life. We are not for a moment suggesting that the Church is no more than a political club. But the fact that the Church is more than a political club does not mean that in ecclesiastical affairs there is any abrogation of the homely principles of honesty. The Church may possibly be more honest, but certainly it ought not to be less honest, than a political club. Certainly the essentially creedal character of evangelical churches is firmly fixed. A man may disagree with the Westminster Confession, for example, bu the can hardly fail to see what it means; at least he can hardly fail to understand the "system of doctrine" which is taught in it. The Confession, whatever its faults may be, is certainly not lacking in definiteness. And certainly a man who solemnly accepts that system of doctrine as his own cannot at the sametime be an advocate of a nondoctrinal religion which regards as a trifling thing that which is the very sum and substance of the Confession and the very center and core of the Bible upon which it is based. Similar is the case in other evangelical churches The Protestant Episcopal Church, some of whose members, it is true, might resent the distinctive title of "evangelical,"is clearly founded upon a creed, and that creed, including the exultant supernaturalism of the New Testament and the redemption offered by Christ, is plainly involved in the Book of Common Prayer which every priest in his own name and in the name of the congregation must read. The separation of naturalistic liberalism from the evangelical churches would no doubt greatly diminish the size of the churches. But Gideon’s three hundred were more powerful than the thirty-two thousand with which them arch against the Midianites began. Certainly the present situation is fraught with deadly weakness. Christian men have been redeemed from sin, without merit of their own, by the sacrifice of Christ. But every man who has been truly redeemed from sin longs to carry to others the same blessed gospel through which he himself has been saved. The propagation of the gospel is clearly the joy as well as the duty of every Christian man. But how shall the gospel be propagated? The natural answer is that it shall be propagated through the agencies of the Church—boards of missions and the like. An obvious duty, therefore, rests upon the Christian man of contributing to the agencies of the Church. But at this point the perplexity arises. The Christian man discovers to his consternation that the agencies of the Church are propagating not only the gospel as found in the Bible and in the historic creeds, but also a type of religious teaching which is at every conceivable point the diametrical opposite of the gospel. The question naturally arises whether there is any reason for contributing to such agencies at all. Of every dollar contributed to them, perhaps half goes to the support of true missionaries of the Cross, while the other half goes to the support of those who are persuading men that the message of the Cross is unnecessary or wrong. If part of our gifts is to be used to neutralize the other part, is not contribution to mission boards altogether absurd? The question may at least very naturally be raised. It should not indeed be answered hastily in a way hostile to contribution to mission boards. Perhaps it is better that the gospel should be both preached and combated by the same agencies than that it should not be preached at all. At any rate, the true missionaries of the Cross, even though the mission boards which support them should turn out to be very bad, must not be allowed to be in want. But the situation, from the point of view of the evangelical Christian, is unsatisfactory in the extreme. Many Christians seek to relieve the situation by "designating" their gifts, instead of allowing them to be distributed by the mission agencies. But at this point one encounters the centralization of power which is going on in the modern Church. On account of that centralization the designation of gifts is often found to be illusory. If gifts are devoted by the donors to one mission known to be evangelical, that does not always really increase the resources of that mission; for the mission boards can simply cut down the proportion assigned to that mission from the undesignated funds, and the final result is exactly the same as if there had been no designation of the gift at all. The existence and the necessity of mission boards and the like prevents, in general, one obvious solution of the present difficulty in the Church—the solution offered by local autonomy of the congregation. It might be suggested that each congregation should determine its own confession of faith or its own program of work. Then each congregation might seem to be responsible only for itself, and might seem to be relieved from the odious task of judging others. But the suggestion is impracticable. Aside from the question whether a purely congregational system of church government is desirable in itself, it is impossible where mission agencies are concerned. In the support of such agencies, many congregations obviously must unite; and the question arises whether evangelical congregations can honestly support agencies which are opposed to the evangelical faith. At any rate, the situation cannot be helped by ignoring facts. The plain fact is that liberalism, whether it be true or false, is no mere "heresy"—no mere divergence at isolated points from Christian teaching. On the contrary it proceeds from a totally different root, and it constitutes, in essentials, a unitary system of its own. That does not mean that all liberals hold all parts of the system, or that Christians who have been affected by liberal teaching at one point have been affected at all points. There is sometimes a salutary lack of logic which prevents the whole of a man’s faith being destroyed when he has given up a part. But the true way in which to examine a spiritual movement is in its logical relations; logic is the great dynamic, and the logical implications of any way of thinking are sooner or later certain to be worked out. And taken as a whole, even as it actually exists today, naturalistic liberalism is a fairly unitary phenomenon; it is tending more and more to eliminate from itself illogical remnants of Christian belief. It differs from Christianity in its view of God, of man, of the seat of authority and of the way of salvation. And it differs from Christianity not only in theology but in the whole of life. It is indeed sometimes said that there can be communion in feeling where communion in thinking is gone, a communion of the heart as distinguished from a communion of the head. But with respect to the present controversy, such a distinction certainly does not apply. On the contrary, in reading the books and listening to the sermons of recent liberal teachers—so untroubled by the problem of sin, so devoid of all sympathy for guilty humanity, so prone to abuse and ridicule the things dearest to the heart of every Christian man—one can only confess that if liberalismis to return into the Christian communion there must be a change of heart fully as much as a change of mind. God grant that such a change of heart may come! But meanwhile the present situation must not be ignored but faced. Christianity is being attackedfrom within by a movement which is anti-Christian to the core. What is the duty ofChristian men at such at time? What is the duty, in particular, of Christian officers in the Church? In the first place,they should encourage those who are engaging in the intellectualand spiritual struggle. They should not say, in the sense in which some laymen say it, that more time should be devoted to the propagation of Christianity, and less to the defense of Christianity. Certainly there should be propagation of Christianity. Believers should certainly not content themselves with warding off attacks, but should also unfold in an orderly and positive way the full riches of the gospel. But far more is usually meant by those who call for less defense and more propagation. What they really intend is the discouragement of the whole intellectual defense of the faith. And their words come as a blow in the face of those who are fighting the great battle. As a matter of fact, not less time, but more time, should be devoted to the defense of the gospel. Indeed, truth cannot be stated clearly at all without being set over against error. Thus a large part of the New Testament is polemic; the enunciation of evangelical truth was occasioned by the errors which had arisen in the churches. So it will always be, on account of the fundamental laws of the human mind. Moreover, the present crisis must be taken into account. There may have been a day when there could be propagation of Christianity without defense. But such a day at any rate is past. At the present time, when the opponents of the gospel are almost in control of our churches, the slightest avoidance of the defense of the gospel is just sheer unfaithfulness to the Lord. There have been previous great crises in the history of the Church, crises almost comparable to this. One appeared in the second century, when the very life of Christendom was threatened by the Gnostics. Another came in the Middle Ages when the gospel of God’s grace seemed forgotten. In such times of crisis, God has always saved the Church. But He has always saved it not by theological pacifists, but by sturdy contenders for the truth. In the second place, Christian officers in the Church should perform their duty in deciding upon the qualifications of candidates for the ministry. The question "For Christ or against him?"constantly arises in the examination of candidates for ordination. Attempts are often made to obscure the issue. It is often said: "The candidate will no doubt move in the direction of the truth; let him now be sent out to learn as well as to preach." And so another opponent of the gospel enters the councils of the Church, and another false prophet goes forth to encourage sinners to come before the judgment seat of God clad in the miserable rags of their own righteousness. Such action is not really "kind"to the candidate himself. It is never kind to encourage a man to enter into a life of dishonesty. The fact often seems to be forgotten that the evangelical Churches are purely voluntary organizations; no one is required to enter into their service. If a man cannot accept the belief of such churches, there are other ecclesiastical bodies in which he can find a place. The belief of the Presbyterian Church, for example, is plainly set forth in the Confession of Faith, and the Church will never afford any warmth of communion or engage with any real vigor in her work until her ministers are in whole-hearted agreement with that belief. It is strange how in the interests of an utterly false kindness to men, Christians are sometimes willing to relinquish their loyalty to the crucified Lord. In the third place, Christian officers in the Church should show their loyalty to Christ in their capacity as members of the individual congregations. The issue often arises in connection with the choice of a pastor. Such and such a man, it is said, is a brilliant preacher. But what is the content of his preaching? Is his preaching full of the gospel of Christ? The answer is often evasive. The preacher in question, it is said, is of good standing in the Church, and he has never denied the doctrines or grace. Therefore, it is urged, he should be called to the pastorate. But shall we be satisfied with such negative assurances? Shall we be satisfied with preachers who merely "do not deny" the Cross of Christ? God grant that such satisfaction may be broken down! The people are perishing under the ministrations of those who "do not deny" the Cross of Christ. Surely something more than that is needed. God send us ministers who, instead of merely avoiding denial of the Cross shall be on fire with the Cross, whose whole life shall be one burning sacrifice of gratitude to the blessed Savior who loved them and gave Himself for them! In the fourth place—the most important thing of all—there must be a renewal of Christian education. The rejection of Christianity is due to various causes. But a very potent cause is simple ignorance. In countless cases, Christianity is rejected simply because men have not the slightest notion of what Christianity is. An outstanding fact of recent Church history is the appalling growth of ignorance in the Church. Various causes, no doubt, can be assigned for this lamentable development. The development is due partly to the general decline of education—at least so far as literature and history are concerned. The schools of the present day are being ruined by the absurd notion that education should follow the line of least resistance, and that something can be "drawn out" of the mind before anything is put in. They are also being ruined by an exaggerated emphasis on methodology at the expense of content and on what is materially useful at the expense of the high spiritual heritage of mankind. These lamentable tendencies, moreover, are in danger of being made permanent through the sinister extension of state control. But something more than the general decline in education is needed to account for the special growth of ignorance in the Church. The growth of ignorance in the Church is the logical and inevitable result of the false notion that Christianity is a life and not also a doctrine; if Christianity is not a doctrine then of course teaching is not necessary to Christianity. But whatever be the causes for the growth of ignorance in the Church, the evil must be remedied. It must be remedied primarily by the renewal of Christian education in the family, but also by the use of whatever other educational agencies the Church can find. Christian education is the chief business of the hour for every earnest Christian man. Christianity cannot subsist unless men know what Christianity is; and the fair and logical thing is to learn what Christianity is, not from its opponents, but from those who themselves are Christians. That method of procedure would be the only fair method in the case of any movement. But it is still more in place in the case of a movement such as Christianity which has laid the foundation of all that we hold most dear. Men have abundant opportunity today to learn what can be said against Christianity, and it is only fair that they should also learn something about the thing that is being attacked. Such measures are needed today. The present is a time not for ease or pleasure, but for earnest and prayerful work. A terrible crisis unquestionably has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundationsof the faith. And now there are some indications that the fiction of conformity to the past is to be thrown off, and the real meaning of what has been taking place is to be allowed to appear. The Church, it is now apparently supposed, has almost been educated up to the point where the shackles of the Bible can openly be cast away and the doctrine of the Cross of Christ can be relegated to the limbo of discarded subtleties. Yet there is in the Christian life no room for despair. Only, our hopefulness should not be founded on the sand. It should be founded, not upon a blind ignorance of the danger, but solely upon the precious promises of God. Laymen, as well as ministers, should return, in these trying days, with new earnestness, to the study of the Word of God. If the Word of God beheeded, the Christian battle will be fought both with love and with faithfulness. Party passions and personal animosities will be put away, but on the other hand, even angels from heaven will be rejected if they preach a gospel different from the blessed gospel of the Cross. Every man must decide upon which side he will stand. God grant that we may decide aright! What the immediate future may bring we cannot presume to say. The final result indeed is clear. God has not deserted His Church; He has brought her through even darker hours than those which try our courage now, yet the darkest hour has always come before the dawn. We have today the entrance of paganism into the Church in the name of Christianity. But in the second century a similar battle was fought and won. From another point of view, modern liberalism is like the legalism of the middle ages, with its dependence upon the merit of man. And another Reformation in God’s good time will come. But meanwhile our souls are tried. We can only try to do our duty in humility and in sole reliance upon the Savior who bought us with His blood. The future is in God’s hand, and we do not know the means that He will use in the accomplishment of His will. It may be that the present evangelical churches will face the facts, and regain their integrity while yet there is time. If that solution is to be adopted there is no time to lose, since the forces opposed to the gospel are now almost in control. It is possible that the existing churches may be given over altogether to naturalism, that men may then see that the fundamental needs of the soul are to be satisfied not inside but outside of the existing churches, and that thus new Christian groups may be formed. But whatever solution there may be, one thing is clear. There must be somewhere groups of redeemed men and women who can gather together humbly in the name of Christ, to give thanks to Him for His unspeakable gift and to worship the Father through Him. Such groups alone can satisfy the needs of the soul. At the present time, there is one longingof the human heart which is often forgotten—it is the deep, pathetic longing of the Christian for fellowship with his brethren. One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord, or at best a forced union of machinery and tyrannical committees. How different is the true unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace! Sometimes, it is true, the longing for Christian fellowship is satisfied. There are congregations, even in the present age of conflict, that are really gathered around the table of the crucified Lord; there are pastors that are pastors indeed. But such congregations, in many cities, are difficult to find. Weary with the conflicts of the world, one goes into the Church to seek refreshment for the soul. And what does one find? Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God’s Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Such is the sermon. And then perhaps the service is closedby one of those hymns breathing out the angry passions of 1861, which are to be found in the back part of the hymnals. Thus the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God, And sad indeed is the heart of the man who has come seeking peace. Is there no refuge from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus’ name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place, then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive the weary world. This article was made available on theinternet via REFORMATIONINK (www.markers.com/ink).Refer any correspondence to Shane Rosenthal: SocietyCP@aol.com. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 04.00. ON THE DEITY OF CHRIST ======================================================================== On the Deity of Christ J. Gresham Machen Table of Contents I. What is the Deity of Christ? II. Does the Bible Teach the Deity of Christ? III. The Sermon on the Mount and the Deity of Christ IV. What Jesus Said About Himself V. The Supernatural Christ VI. Did Christ Rise From the Dead? VII. The Testimony of Paul to Christ ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 04.01. WHAT IS THE DEITY OF CHRIST? ======================================================================== WHAT IS THE DEITY OF CHRIST? WE have been talking about the great mystery of the Trinity. We have seen that according to the Bible there is but one God but that that one God is in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. There are some places in the New Testament where all three persons of the Godhead are mentioned in the same verse. But much the more important or extensive part of the Biblical proof of the doctrine of the Trinity is found in those passages where parts of the great doctrine are so mentioned as that when they are put together the completed doctrine inevitably appears. I want to begin to talk to you today about one great central part of the doctrine. I want to talk to you about the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. But before I can say a single word to you about the deity of Christ, I must tell you what that term “the deity of Christ” means, or rather I must make perfectly clear to you what it does not mean. I must make perfectly clear to you the fact that the term “deity of Christ” and the assertion “Jesus is God” are often so employed today as to mean something quite contrary to the Bible and to the Christian faith. Do you not see, my friends, that when a man says he believes in the deity of Christ, or when he says he believes that Jesus is God, the significance of such assertions depends altogether upon the question what the man who makes them means by the term “deity” or the term “God.” If a man has a low view of deity, then, when he says that he believes in the deity of Christ, that means that he has a low view of Christ; and if he has a low view of God; then, when he says that he believes that Jesus is God, that means that he has a low view of Jesus. But here is where the confusion comes in. A Christian man, hearing some unbeliever say that he believes in the deity of Christ or believes that Jesus is God, attributes to that unbeliever the Christian definition of the term “deity” or the term “God.” He simply assumes that the term “deity” or the term “God” means what Christians have always taken those terms as meaning. That is, he assumes that those terms refer to a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world, separate by a mighty gulf from all finite things. The consequence is that he is very much impressed when those terms are used about Jesus by a man who otherwise seemed to be very far from the Christian faith. “Did you not hear that man say,” he exclaims, “that he believes in the deity of Christ; did you not hear him call Jesus ‘God’? Well, if he believes in the deity of Christ, if he is willing to call Jesus ‘God,’ he cannot be so very wrong. He may be unorthodox in some particulars, but surely the root of the matter must be in him.” When I hear Christian people talking in that fashion about one of the noted unbelievers of the day, I have the sad feeling that those Christian people are, if I may use plain language, being deceived. I am not a bit ashamed of laying stress upon this point, because I think it is a matter of profound importance. If I were sure I could get it really straight in your minds I should think it worth while to devote nor merely a part of one lecture to it, but a whole series of lectures. The more I look out upon the condition of the Church, the more I am convinced that untold harm is being done by this double use of the term “deity” and of the term “God.” The willingness of unbelievers to use the terms in their sense, coupled with the proneness of Christians to understand them in theirs, is causing the great issue in the Church between Christianity and unbelief to be obscured. What is the result? The result is that the Church is being undermined from within. Christian people are being lulled to sleep by this use of orthodox terminology. Unbelievers are quietly gaining control. The young people of the Church are being trained up in unbelief. Precious souls are being destroyed. What ought we to do in such a situation? I will tell you what we ought to do, my friends. We ought to seek light, and we ought to pray God for light. We ought to pray God that people may cease to be satisfied by a word, but may insist on looking at the meaning of the word. Now the Christian meaning of the term “deity of Christ” is fairly clear. The Christian believes that there is a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the universe, a God who is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. So when the Christian says that Jesus Christ is God, or when he says that he believes in the deity of Christ, he means that that same person who is known to history as Jesus of Nazareth existed, before He became man, from all eternity as infinite, eternal and unchangeable God, the second person of the holy Trinity. Very different is the use of the term “deity of Christ” or the term “God,” as it is applied to Jesus by many leaders in the modern Church. You can tell that they are using the term in some sense entirely different from the Christian sense because of the things that they say about Jesus in detail, or, even more, because of the things that they will not say. They will not say that Jesus was born of a virgin. They will not say that He worked miracles. They will not say that the things that He said were always true; they will not say that He died as our substitute on the cross; they will not say that He rose from the tomb on the third day. Yet, they say, He was God. When they say He was God, are they saying something orthodox? Is that orthodox assertion of theirs to be put to their credit over against the unorthodox assertions that they have made? We answer: “No, a thousand times no!” When these men say that they believe in the deity of Christ or that they believe Jesus is God, that is not the most orthodox but the least orthodox thing that they say. It is an orthodox and a blessed thing to say that the Jesus of the Bible is God; but to say that this poor deluded enthusiast of modern reconstruction is God is horrible blasphemy. How low these men must think of God if they can use His name in that way! But in what sense do these men use the term “God” or the term “deity” when they apply it to the purely human Jesus—their purely human Jesus whom they have reconstructed after their rejection of the New Testament account? Sometimes they mean by calling Jesus God merely that they try to enter into the same religious experience as the religious experience of those who in past generations called Jesus God. In the creeds of the Church, they say, Jesus is called God. We do not believe, they say, that He is God in the sense in which the authors of those creeds believed it. Shall we then cease to use the creeds? Not at all, they say. When the authors of the creeds called Jesus God, they were expressing in the language of their day a very precious experience which we also can share. So, they say, we can use the creeds still. We do not, of course, take them literally. But we can use them as expressions of the historic faith of the Church. We can still hold to the underlying spiritual meaning of the doctrines that they contain—including the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Such repetitions of the creeds and such professions of belief in the deity of Christ are doing untold harm in the Church today. No doubt they are comforting to the men who practise them. I have sympathy with those men. To those men this use of traditional terminology seems like the stained glass in an old cathedral. It puts everything in a sort of dim religious light; it seems to impart a solemn glow of sanctity to what would appear to be bald unbelief if it were viewed in the cruel light of day. But the trouble is that ordinary people in the Church are being deceived. They hear a man repeating the creeds. He seems to be repeating them with the utmost fervor. He is particularly fervent in expressing his belief in the deity of Christ. They simply assume that he means by the deity of Christ what people have always meant by it. So they tolerate him in the Church and put him in a position of authority. Time goes on. Many such men are put into positions of greater and greater authority. They undermine the faith of the Church, partly by their words, but more particularly by their silence. A deadly vagueness gradually affects the Church’s witness. The young people of the Church are not soundly indoctrinated. People do not know what is wrong, but the Church loses its power. Finally, the mask is thrown off. The people who really believe in the Bible and in the creed of the Church and who are dead in earnest about that belief are treated as troublemakers. The Church sinks down into a merger with the world. That has been the process in many Churches of our day. But it is not in that way that we believe in the deity of Christ. When we say we believe in the deity of Christ, when we repeat the great creeds, we are not just using a form of words that meant something to somebody of long ago. No, we are saying something that we do honestly hold ourselves to be true. We are not just giving expression to the historic faith of the Church, but we are giving expression to our faith. We are saying that. the historic faith of the Church is what we ourselves believe. But aside from a merely traditional use of ancient terms, what is the actual meaning attributed to the terms “deity” and “God” by those who have given up the meaning that is found in the Bible and in the great creeds of the Church? What do modern unbelievers mean by speaking of the “deity of Christ” and what do they mean by calling Jesus “God”? I think a twofold answer will have to be given to that question. Unbelievers who use the term “deity of Christ” and the term “God” as applied to Jesus mean usually one or the other of two things by those terms. In the first place, some of them use the terms in what may be called a pantheizing sense. That is, they are willing to call Jesus God because they hold that all of us are God. They put only a difference of degree and not a difference of kind between Jesus’ deity and ours. God, they say, is not a far-off God. His life pulsates through the life of all the world. He has always been incarnating Himself in men and women. At one point He incarnated Himself with particular fulness— namely, in Jesus of Nazareth. But that incarnation was not different in kind from the incarnation in other men. It was different in degree but not in kind. What is revealed by the appearance of such a man as Jesus on the earth is that God and man are essentially one. It is needless to say that that view of the deity of Christ is just about the diametrical opposite of the Christian view, which the Bible teaches. According to the Bible, what is revealed by the appearance of Jesus upon the earth is not that God and man are one, but rather that God and man are not one. God is God and man is man. There can be no confusion between the two. Moreover, man is separate from God by the awful abyss of sin. Hence—just because of that separation between God and man—the eternal Son of God, Second Person of the holy Trinity, took upon Himself our nature, by an act that was done not many times but once and once only, and so because of that one act “was, and continueth to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever.” I am not going to try to speak today of the relation between the divine nature and the human nature in the person of Christ. That belongs to a later talk in this series, or rather to a talk in some subsequent series. But what I want now to do is simply to say that the words, “Jesus is God,” have no real meaning, certainly no Biblical or Christian meaning, unless they go with the supplementary belief that we most emphatically are not God. In the second place, other unbelievers use the terms “deity of Christ” or the term “God” as applied to Jesus in what may be called an anti-metaphysical or positivistic sense. I trust you have some spirit left in you when I use words as long as those. I do not expect all of you to understand that word “positivistic” right at the start, but I do hope to make you understand the thing that I mean by that word. I mean to designate by it the view of people who regard the human life of the man Jesus as the only God that they know. People used to believe, they say, that there is a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world. But we no longer believe that—at least we are quite uncertain about it. It belongs to the realm of metaphysics, which is a very doubtful realm. The only things that we can be really certain about are the things that we can see and hear, the things that are found here in this world in which we live. So if we are to have a God, a modern God, we must find Him here in the midst of us—here in this plainly visible realm. Now we want to find a God, say the men of this way of thinking. People who used to believe in that old metaphysical God, Maker and Ruler of the universe, had something that we are in danger of losing. They had religion. They had a Being who could call forth ennobling emotions of reverence and awe. We need those emotions. We need something to call them forth. We need something to worship. Where shall we find something to call forth these emotions? Where shall we find something to worship? Where shall we find an adequate object of religious devotion to take the place of that personal Creator in whom we no longer believe? We must find it here upon this earth, say these people of whom we are now speaking. Where then shall we find it? Why, we find it, they say, in the life of a certain man named Jesus. He was not of course the Creator of the world. He was a man like the rest of men. But His moral life can call forth the same reverence as past generations used to give to the supposed Creator of the world. So although metaphysics is gone religion remains. Men used to have the ennobling emotion of reverence as they turned to the starry heavens and said: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” We no longer believe all that. But we can experience those same ennobling emotions by contemplating the human life of the man Jesus. Such is a very common view of what men call “the deity of Christ.” What shall we say about that view? What shall we say about that way of worshiping Jesus? I will tell you what I think we ought to say about it. I think we ought to say about it that it is a terrible sin. Please do not misunderstand me. It is not a sin to worship Jesus. On the contrary, it is the highest and noblest privilege and duty ever given to man. It is not a sin to worship the real Jesus. It is not a sin to worship the Jesus who is God and man. But it is a sin to manufacture a Jesus who was man only and not God, and then after you have manufactured that purely human Jesus to bow down and worship Him. Do you not see what that kind of worship of the moral life of a supposedly purely human Jesus, a Jesus who is regarded merely as the ideal man—do you not see what that worship of such a purely human Jesus really means? It means that the man who engages in it has committed the ancient and terrible sin of worshiping humanity. It means that he has worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, and that is a sin indeed. The upshot of what I have been saying is this—that when men today say that Christ is God they often do so not because they think high of Christ but because they think desperately low of God. That is not at all the way in which the Bible says that Christ is God. When the Bible says that Christ is God, it does not do that by dragging God down. It does not ask us to forget a single thing that it has said about the stupendous majesty of God. No, it asks us to remember every one of those things in order that we may apply them all to Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us in the first verse that God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Jesus Christ is God? No, it asks us to remember that. It says of Jesus Christ: “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” The Bible tells us that God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? No, it tells us to remember that. “I am Alpha and Omega,” says Christ, “the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” “Before Abraham was, I am.” “In the beginning was the Word.” “He is before all things, and by him all things consist.” The Bible tells us that God is holy. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? Let the whole New Testament give the answer. The Bible tells us that God is mysterious. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? No, it tells us that there are mysteries in Christ which only God can know. No one knoweth the Son but the Father, says Jesus, as no one knoweth the Father but the Son. The Bible tells us that God is the final judge. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Jesus is God? No, Jesus Himself said, in the Sermon on the Mount, that He would sit upon the judgment throne to judge all the earth. Everywhere it is the same, my friends. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation presents a stupendous view of God, and then it tells us that Jesus Christ is all that God is. What interest has the Christian man in all that? What interest has the Christian man in knowing that Jesus Christ is very God, what interest in knowing that it was through Him that the worlds were made, what interest in knowing that He pervades the remotest bounds, what interest in knowing that He is infinite in knowledge and in power? No interest, say modern unbelievers; these things are mere metaphysics. Every interest, say Christians; these things are the very breath of our lives. We have trusted in Jesus. But how far can we trust Him? Just in this transitory life? Just in this little speck that we call the earth? If we can trust Him only thus far we are of all men most miserable. We are surrounded by stupendous forces; we are surrounded by the immensity of the unknown. After our little span of life there is a shelving brink with the infinite beyond. And still we are subject to fear—not only fear of destruction but a more dreadful fear of meeting with the infinite and holy God. So we should be if we had but a human Christ. But now is Christ our Saviour, the one who says, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” revealed as very God. And we believe. Such a faith is a mystery to us who possess it; it seems folly to those who have it not. But if possessed it delivers us forever from fear. The world to us is all unknown; it is engulfed in an ocean of infinity. But it contains no mysteries to our Saviour. He is on the throne. He pervades the remotest bounds. He inhabits infinity. With such a Saviour we are safe. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 04.02. DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE DEITY OF CHRIST? ======================================================================== DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE DEITY OF CHRIST? IN the last talk I began to speak about the deity of Christ. But I had to point out the disconcerting fact that in contemporary parlance the term “deity of Christ” and the term “God” as applied to Jesus mean practically nothing. They are used in so many different senses that the use of these terms has in itself lost all significance. Unbelievers who have a very low view of Jesus indeed are perfectly willing to say that Jesus is God. They are willing to say that Jesus is God not because they have a high view of Jesus but because they have a low view of God. It is a relief to turn from such intellectual quagmires, where words no longer mean what they say, to the Bible. In modern parlance, with its boundless degradation of formerly lofty terms, there is no solid footing; but it is not so in the Bible. The Bible defines its terms with the utmost clearness, and therefore when the Bible says that Jesus is God, we readers of the Bible know exactly where we stand. Just now, therefore, we have a much pleasanter task than that which we had in the last talk. We are going to try to begin to set forth in positive fashion a little bit at least of what the Bible says about the deity of Christ. If we were going to do so with any completeness we should have to begin with the Old Testament. It is true, the Old Testament does not set forth the doctrine of the deity of Christ with any fulness. I do not sup-pose that either the prophets or their hearers knew in any clear fashion that the coming Messiah was to be one of the persons in the Godhead. Yet there are won-derful intimations of the doctrine of the deity of Christ even in the Old Testament. The outstanding fact is that the hope of a coming Messiah, as it appears with increasing clearness in the Old Testament books, goes far beyond any mere expectation of an earthly king of David’s line. The Messiah, according to the Old Testament, is clearly to be a supernatural person, and he is clearly possessed of attributes that are truly divine. It has often been observed that before the time of Christ, there were two types of Messianic expectation among the Jews. According to one type, the Messiah was to be a king of David’s line; according to the other, He was to be a heavenly being suddenly appearing in the clouds of heaven to judge the world. Both of these types of later Jewish expectation are rooted in the Old Testament. The Old Testament rep-resents the Messiah both as a king of David’s line and also as a supernatural person to appear with the clouds of heaven. The former of these two representations appears, for example, in the seventh chapter of II Sam-uel, where a never-ending line of kings to be descended from David is promised; and it appears even more clearly in the passages where the coming of one supreme king of David’s line is promised. The latter of the two representations appears, for example, in the seventh chapter of Daniel, where a mysterious person “like unto a son of man” is seen, in the prophet’s vision, in the presence of the “ancient of days `—a mysterious person to whom is given a universal and everlasting dominion. These two types of Messianic expectation in the Old Testament are by no means sharply distinguished from one another, When we examine closely the expected king of David’s line, we find that He is to be far more than an ordinary earthly king; we find that He has distinctly supernatural attributes: and, on the other hand, the supernatural figure of the seventh chapter of Daniel is by no means separate from Israel but appears as the representative of the Old Testament people of God. This possession of both divine and human attributes by the Messiah appears with particular clearness in the ninth chapter of Isaiah. There the coming deliverer is spoken of as one who shall sit upon the throne of David. Yet his kingdom is to be everlasting, and He Himself is actually called “The Mighty God, The ever-lasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” There we have the deity of the coming Messiah presented in the Old Testament in so many words. Now the glorious thing is that in the New Testament we find these two types of Old Testament promise about the Messiah united, in the fulfilment, in the same Person. How is it that one Person can on the one hand be a man, a king of David’s line, and at the same time be the mighty God? The question is not fully answered in the Old Testament. But the New Testament answers it most wonderfully in the great central doctrine of the two natures in the one person of our Lord. Yes, the coming deliverer was indeed to be both Mighty God and a king of David’s line, because the Mighty God in strange condescension and love became man for our sakes “and so was, and continueth to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.” But we are not now speaking about the relation be-tween the divine nature and the human nature in Christ. What we are now interested in saying is that the Old Testament does teach the deity of the coming Messiah. Here, as at so many other points, there is a wonderful continuity between the Old Testament and the New. That continuity is fully recognized by the New Testament. The New Testament does not present the doctrine of the Trinity, including the doctrine of the deity of Christ, as though it meant the introduction of a new idea of God. On the contrary, it presents it as being a revelation of the same God as the God who had revealed Himself to Israel in Old Testament times. That is finely brought out in the article on the Trinity by B. B. Warfield, to which we have already referred.1 The Jehovah of the Old Testament is presented in the New Testament as being a triune God; but He is the same God throughout both the Old Testament and the New. Hence it is only what is to be expected when we find that the New Testament applies to Christ Old Testament passages where the God of Israel is called by His holiest and most precious name, “Jehovah.” Could there be any clearer testimony to the full deity of Jesus Christ? Dr. Warfield rightly calls attention also to the mat-ter-of-course way in which this identity of the triune God of the New Testament with the covenant God of Israel appears in the New Testament books. The New Testament writers are apparently not conscious of saying anything revolutionary. They assume the- doctrine of the deity of Christ more than they expressly teach it. Why do they assume it? Dr. Warfield gives the answer.2 They assume it because it had already been established by the fact of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. The doctrine was established by the fact of the incarnation before it was set forth in words. When the eternal Son of God became man in order to redeem sinners on the cross, and when the Holy Spirit was sent to apply that redeeming work of the Son of God to those who should be saved, then the doctrine of the Trinity was made known to men. The Church from the very beginning was founded upon that doctrine; it was the factual revelation of that doctrine by the coming of the Son and the coming of the Spirit that ushered in the new dispensation. However, although it was the factual revelation of the doctrine, which in a true sense came first, yet the doctrine is taught also in words, and taught in the plainest possible way. In setting forth the way in which it is taught, one great difficulty is the difficulty of selection. The whole New Testament teaches the deity of Christ, and that is what makes it hard for us to decide what individual passages we shall mention. Where the store is so very rich, it is hard to make a selection from it. Let us begin with the point of time at which the New Testament narrative begins. Let us begin with the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist, as it is recorded in the first chapter of Luke. The angel promises to Zacharias that he will have a son, who will, in accordance with the prophecy in Malachi, go before the Lord to make ready His people for Him. (Luke 1:16 f). There is here no clear reference to the Messiah as a distinct person. The promised son of Zacharias is to go before Jehovah, or, in the Greek form, “the Lord”; but it is not said that he is to go before the Messiah. Yet there is no doubt but that the author of the Gospel according to Luke, when he quotes the angel’s words, identifies that coming of Jehovah with which the Malachi prophecy dealt and to which the angel alludes with the coming of Jesus Christ. The coming of Jehovah is the coming of Christ. There is also no doubt but that in making that identification the author of this gospel is in accordance with the whole New Testament and in accordance with the real meaning of what the angel said. We have here just one instance of that stupendous fact of which we have already spoken—the fact that the New Testament writers apply to Jesus things that the Old Testament says of Jehovah. The whole New Testament is based upon the thought that there is some strange essential unity between Jesus Christ and the covenant God of Israel. Then we have the annunciation of the angel to the virgin Mary.(Luke 1:30-38). The annunciation is partly in Old Testament terms. Mary’s son is to sit on the throne of David; and when it is said that of His kingdom there is to be no end, that also does not go beyond what the Old Testament had promised about the Messiah. But then a great mystery is revealed. The promised child is not to have a human father by ordinary generation, but is to be conceived by the Holy Ghost in the womb of a virgin mother. Even that—at least the part of it that sets forth the fact that the mother is to be a virgin—is found in Old Testament prophecy (in Isaiah 7:14)—but that prophecy had not been understood among the Jews. Now, just before the fulfilment, the prophecy is repeated in fuller and more glorious terms. The conception of this child in the womb of the virgin Mary is to be a miracle wrought by the immediate power of the Spirit of God. That miracle is one of the things that will show the child to be rightly called “holy” and “Son of God.” Evidently the term “Son of God” is here used in some very lofty sense. It does not designate the promised child merely as the Messiah, though sometimes the Messiah was called “Son of God.” Evidently the term is used here in some unique and stupendous sense. At twelve years of age, the child Jesus was found in the Temple. Joseph and Mary had sought Him sorrowing, and at last they found Him among the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. “Son,” they said, “why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” Then came the strange answer of the boy Jesus: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:48 f) When Mary spoke of the father of that twelve-year-old boy, she meant his human father, the one who stood to him in a relation more like that of a father than did any other human being. When the boy Jesus spoke of His Father in reply, He meant God. Notice that He did not say “Our Father” when He spoke of God. No, He said “My Father.” He was Son of God in a sense entirely different from that which would apply to any other person who ever lived upon this earth. That brings us to one of the strangest things about the way in which Jesus all through the Gospels speaks of God. This strange thing appears not only in the Gospel according to John, which modern unbelief rejects so radically as untrue, but also in the Synoptic Gospels. The strange thing is that Jesus according to all four of the Gospels never speaks of God as “our Father,” classing Himself with His disciples in that word “our.” He says “My Father” and He says to His disciples “Your Father,” but never does He say “Our Father” classing Himself, with His disciples in that filial relationship to God. The Lord’s prayer begins with those words “Our Father,” but Jesus certainly did not pray that prayer with His disciples, because that prayer contains a confession of sin, and Jesus never had any sin to confess. It was a prayer that He taught His disciples, not a prayer that He prayed Himself. The significant fact remains, therefore. Jesus never appears in the Gospels as saying “Our Father” to God together with His disciples. God was His Father, and God was their Father; but He was His Father in an entirely different sense from the sense in which He was their Father. Jesus was Son of God in an entirely unique way. At the beginning of the Gospel according to Mark, with the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, we are told about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. That event was marked by a miracle. The Spirit descended upon Jesus, and there was a voice from heaven that said: “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.”3 It is possible that the good pleasure of God which is here spoken of is the definite act of approval accomplished at the moment when Jesus was sent forth into His public ministry. Yet, even so, that divine act of approval is evidently regarded as rooted in a unique relationship in which the Person thus approved had always stood toward God. Jesus did not become Son of God because He had divine approval, but He had that divine approval because He had always been Son of God. For a further discussion of that question and similar questions I may refer you incidentally to the learned and most illuminating book on “The Self-Disclosure of Jesus” by Geerhardus Vos.4 At any rate Jesus now comes forward in His public ministry. In what light does He present Himself in that public ministry? Here one great central fact stares us in the face. I think it would hardly be possible to lay too much stress upon it. It is this—that Jesus does not present Himself merely as an example for faith but presents Himself as the object of faith. That fact appears not merely in the Gospel according to John, which unbelievers reject as altogether unhistorical; but it appears also in the three Synoptic Gospels, and in the Synoptic Gospels it appears even in those parts which are supposed by modern criticism, rightly or wrongly, to come from the earliest sources underlying the Gospels. You cannot get away- from it anywhere in the Gospels. It is all-pervasive. That fact has been demonstrated in particularly convincing fashion by James Denney in his book “Jesus and the Gospel.” I do not commend that book to you in general. In some respects it is a sadly mistaken book. But it does show in a singularly convincing way that everywhere in the New Testament, including the Synoptic Gospels, and including the sources sup-posed rightly or wrongly to underlie the Synoptic Gos-pels, Jesus is represented not as a mere example for faith but as the object of faith. What do we mean by saying that? What do we mean by saying that Jesus is presented not primarily as an example for faith but as the object of faith? We mean something very simple and at the same time something very stupendous. We mean that Jesus did not come forward merely saying: “Look at me; I am practising the true religion, and I bid you practise the same religion as that which I am practising.” We mean that He did not come forward merely saying: “Look at me; I have faith in God, and I bid you have faith in God like my faith in God.” We mean that He did not come forward merely saying: “Look at me; I regard God as my Father, and I bid you to regard God as your Father too in the same sense as that in which I regard Him as my Father.” It is so that modern unbelievers represent Jesus. They regard Him as a guide out into a larger type of religious life. They regard Him as being the founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian. They regard Christianity as consisting in imitation of the religious life of Jesus. So they love to speak of “the religion of Jesus”; they love to speak of the gospel of Jesus in distinction from a gospel about Jesus. Thus they degrade Jesus to the position of a mere teacher and example. They turn away from the gospel that has Him as its substance to a gospel which was merely the gospel that He preached. When they do that, it is evident that they are turning away from what has been known as Christianity for the past nineteen hundred years. But they are also turning away from Jesus Himself as He is presented to us in all the sources of historical information that we know anything about. According to all the four Gospels, and according to all the supposed sources which modern criticism has tried to detect back of the four Gospels, Jesus put Himself into His gospel; the gospel of Jesus was also a gospel about Jesus; the gospel that He preached was also a gospel that offered Him as Saviour. He did not say merely: “Have faith in God like the faith that I have in God,” but He said: “Have faith in me.” That appears of course with the utmost clearness in the Gospel according to John. But it also appears in the Synoptic Gospels. There was, indeed, according to the Synoptic Gospels, a period in the public ministry of Jesus when He did not ordinarily make His own person the express subject of systematic discourse. But if you look a little deeper, you see that everywhere Jesus was offering Himself as the Saviour of men and was asking them to have faith in Him. That appears, for example, in His miracles of heal-ing. “Thy faith hath saved thee,” He says; “go in peace.” Well, faith in whom? Perhaps we might be tempted to say merely, “Faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God.” But I bid you read the narratives with care and ask yourselves whether that inter-pretation really does justice to them. I think you will find that it does not. No, Jesus was presenting Himself when He worked those miracles as one in whom He was bidding men have confidence. No doubt He was bidding them have confidence in God the Father. But the point is that that confidence in God the Father was also confidence in Him. The faith that saved those people was faith in Jesus Christ. He was saving those people from bodily ills, but He was also saving their souls from sin. That becomes explicit in the healing of the paralytic borne of four, where Jesus says not only “Arise and walk” but “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” But it is really implied in the cases where it is not expressed. Jesus according to all the Gospels saves men from sin, and the means which He uses to save them from sin is the faith which He bids them have in Him the Saviour. Thus Jesus, according to all the Gospels, presents Himself as the object of a truly religious faith. Well, who is the object of a truly religious faith? The answer is very simple. He is God. The way in which, in all the Gospels and even in the sources supposed, rightly or wrongly, to underlie the Gospels, Jesus presents Himself as the object of faith is a tremendous testimony by Jesus Himself to His own deity. That testimony does not appear merely in individual passages. It is a kind of atmosphere that pervades the whole picture, or, to change the figure, a foundation that sustains the whole building. If you ignore it, the whole account which the Bible gives of Jesus becomes a hopeless puzzle. In the next talk, I want to continue to deal with the deity of Christ. Today I have been able to do no more than make a beginning in the presentation of that great subject. I wonder what you think about it. What do you think of Jesus Christ? Do you think of Him, with modern unbelievers, merely as the initiator of a higher type of religious life, the discoverer of certain permanent facts about the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? Or do you think of Him, as Christians do, as the Lord of Glory, the eternal Son of God become man to save you from your sins? Or, finally, are you undecided with regard to Him? Are you undecided which of these two views you will hold? Do you belong to that great army of persons who stand outside the household of faith and look longingly at the warmth and joy within? Are you hindered from entering in by gloomy doubts? If you belong to that third class, we pray God that you may be led to say at least: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” If you do say that, the Lord will help your unbelief, as He helped the man who said that so long ago, and will bring you into the clear shining of faith. Notes 1. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines, 1929, pp. 142 f. 2. Warfield, op. cit., pp. 143-147. 3. Mark 1:11. 4. Vos, The Self -Disclosure of Jesus (1926), especially pp. 185-188. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 04.03. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST ======================================================================== THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST WE are now in the midst of our discussion of the great theme, the deity of Jesus Christ. Was Jesus a mere man, a leader into a higher and better type of religious experience, or was He the eternal Son of God become man to save us from the guilt and power of sin? We have already begun to point Out what the Bible says about this question. In particular, we have pointed out that all four of the Gospels, and even the sources supposed, rightly or wrongly, to underlie the Gospels, represent Jesus not merely as an example of faith but as the object of faith—that is, they represent Jesus not as saying merely, “Have faith in God like the faith which I have in God,” but as saying, “Have faith in me.” But that means that the four Gospels teach the deity of Christ and represent Jesus Himself as teaching it. The object of a truly religious faith is none other than God. I want now to show you how extraordinarily pervasive in the Gospels is the lofty view of Jesus Christ which necessarily goes with His offer of Himself as the object of faith. People try to escape from that lofty view of Christ. They like to regard Jesus just as a teacher and example; they say that this whole notion about His deity is an unfortunate metaphysical notion that has nothing to do with vital religion. Let us get away from metaphysics and theology, they say, and, instead, just get up and obey Jesus’ commands; if we obey His commands we are honoring Him more than we could honor Him by any amount of intellectual convictions regarding His deity. Well, my friend, I will say to a man of this way of thinking, where will you turn in the Gospels to get away from a lofty view of the person of Christ; where will you turn to find a Jesus who simply gave men directions for the ordering of their lives and did not demand that they should have any particular view about Him? Here is a New Testament, my friend; will you just open it anywhere you like in order to prove your point. I suppose that if I should say that to one of the advocates of this non-doctrinal Christianity, he would be most apt to turn, among all the passages in the New Testament, to the Sermon on the Mount.1 In the Sermon on the Mount, it is often said, we have a program for Christian living that is quite independent of the niceties .of orthodox theology, and if we should just be willing to live that kind of life it would be a great deal better than disputing about theological questions or even being too anxious to get a completely orthodox notion about Jesus Himself. Well, my friend, you have turned to the Sermon on the Mount. I did not choose it. You chose it. It is your favorite passage. You cannot object therefore if we examine it a little for ourselves to see whether it really teaches that kind of non-doctrinal religion that so enthusiastically advocate. In particular, you cannot object if we examine it to see whether it is really silent about those stupendous claims of Jesus which so trouble you in other parts of the New Testament. All right, then; we are going to put preconceived opinions aside and examine the Sermon on the Mount for ourselves. What happens to us when we do that? I will tell you very plainly. We find that the Sermon on the Mount teaches and presupposes that same stupendous view of Jesus Christ which underlies all the rest of the Gospels. The Sermon on the Mount might seem to begin in a way unfavorable to that view and favorable to the advocate of a non-doctrinal Christianity who is not interested in the question what sort of person Jesus is. It begins with the Beatitudes, and the Beatitudes might seem at first sight to be independent of any particular view regarding the one who spoke them. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”—does not that remain true whatever we think of the person who uttered it? Well, I am not sure even about that. I am not sure but that in all of the Beatitudes we detect a strange note of authority which would be overwrought and pathological in any other person than the Jesus of the Bible. Who is this who tells with such extraordinary assurance what sort of persons will be in the kingdom of God? Who is this that announces to men rewards that only God can give? But let that pass for the moment. The thing that is clear is that Jesus does not finish the Beatitudes before He comes to speak in the most stupendous way about Himself. What is the last of the Beatitudes? Is it merely a blessing pronounced upon people who possess a certain quality of soul? Not at all! It is a blessing pronounced upon people who stand in a certain relation to Jesus Himself. Here is what it is: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” Notice those words “for my sake.” They contain a tremendous claim on the part of Jesus. Men are to be willing to bear His name, and if they are not ashamed to bear His name they are to stand in the final judgment. Imagine any mere man saying that! Imagine anyone other than Jesus saying: "Blessed are ye if ye suffer on account of me.” We have here the words of the same Jesus as was the One who said: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple,” (Luke 14:26) the same Jesus as the One who said: “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in. this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38). Who can claim such an exclusive devotion as that—a devotion which shall take precedence of even the holiest of earthly ties, a devotion upon which a man’s eternal destiny depends? God can, but can any mere man? Then comes that great section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus declares Himself to have come not to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfil. “Ye have heard that it was said to the men of old time,” He says, and then makes several quotations. Those quotations contain in part sentences found in the Old Testament. Over against those quotations, Jesus in every case puts something of His own: “Ye have heard that it was said . . . but I say unto you.” No doubt it may be held that Jesus in none of these instances is setting what He says over against what the Old Testament says, but in every instance is merely setting what He says over against what the Jewish teachers had wrongly held that the Old Testament said. But even then the fact remains that what He sets forth against the wrong interpretation of the Old Testament passages is not just a right interpretation but something wonderfully fresh and new. Plainly Jesus puts His own sayings here on a level with the Old Testament pronouncements which He certainly regarded as the very Word of God. I ask you to consider for a moment that authority, with which Jesus speaks, that authority which causes Him to put His own pronouncements fully on a level with the Old Testament pronouncements. What is the nature of that authority which Jesus here claims? Well, prophets claimed authority. They asked that people should receive what they said as a message from God. Was then the authority which Jesus is here claiming merely the authority of a prophet? No, most emphatically it was not merely that. The prophets spoke with a divine authority. But it was a delegated authority, and it was delegated to them in a temporary way. There were times when the prophets became spokesmen of God, but they were spokesmen of God merely because they became for the moment channels for the Holy Spirit. They were not in general infallible. They had no authority which was granted them as a permanent possession to be used as they saw fit. When they came forward as prophets they were careful to give all honor to God. Thus the characteristic way in which the prophets introduced their utterances was with the words, “Thus saith the Lord,” By that they meant to say: “I am not saying this as my own word, but it is God who is saying it; I am merely the mouthpiece of God.” Now unquestionably Jesus was a prophet. Undoubtedly the catechism that I learned in childhood was right when it told me that He was a prophet as well as a priest and a king. But although Jesus was a prophet, He was also vastly more than a prophet. So He does not introduce these utterances of His in the Sermon on the Mount in the way in which the utterances of a prophet are introduced, He does not say, “Thus saith the Lord.” No, He says, “I say.” He comes forward with His own authority, and that authority He places fully on a level with the authority of God as it was found expressed in the Old Testament. I am not forgetting the places in the Gospels where the dependence of the man Jesus upon God is set forth. Those passages ate found particularly just in the Gospel according to John—just in that Gospel where the deity of Christ is set forth, I will not say more clearly (since it is set forth with the utmost clearness in all the Gospels), but more expressly and fully, than in the other Gospels. Jesus according to the Gospel of John did what He saw God doing, and He said what God told Him to say. All the same, despite this subordination of the man Jesus to God, His authority went far beyond the authority of a prophet. It was an authority which was His own personal right, as belonging to the one who was not merely man but God. You can search all through the words of the prophets and not find anything in the remotest degree resembling that stupendous “I say unto you” of the Sermon on the Mount. Then I bid you read on to the end of that Sermon on the Mount. “Not every one,” says Jesus, “that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21) That is one of the favorite texts of unbelievers. If the whole Sermon on the Mount is their favorite passage, this perhaps, within the Sermon on the Mount, may be regarded as their favorite text. It is a favorite text with unbelievers not because of its real meaning, but because of the meaning which they wrongly attribute to it. They take it as meaning that if a man is what the world calls a good moral man then he will enter into the Kingdom of God no matter what His attitude toward Jesus may be. But of course that is not what the text says. The text does not say that if a man does the will of God he will enter into the kingdom of God whether He says “Lord, Lord” to Jesus or not. It does not say that any man who does not say, “Lord, Lord” to Jesus will enter into the kingdom. But what it does say is that even among those who do say, “Lord, Lord” to Jesus there are some who will not enter in. Those are the ones who say “Lord, Lord” only with their lips and not with their hearts, and who show that they have not said it with their hearts because they do not say it with their lives. However, though for bad reasons, it is a popular text among unbelievers. They ought then to be willing to examine carefully what it says, and we all ought to examine it with them. When we do examine it, we discover that it involves the most stupendous claim on the part of Jesus. For one thing, it provides an instance of the strange way in which Jesus speaks of God as being His own Father. “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,” He says, “but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” “My Father,” says Jesus, not “our Father” or “the Father.” We spoke of that in the talk just preceding this one. We noticed how it appeared in the answer of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, and how it runs all through the Gospels. Well, here it is, in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot get away from it. We do not particularly notice it as we read this verse, because we have become so used to it. But that does not destroy its tremendous significance. Indeed, it vastly increases it. Everywhere Jesus thinks of Himself as being Son of God in some entirely unique sense. But now let us look at what this verse itself says. We must take it in connection with the following two verses. Those verses also are favorites with the unbelievers of our day. They read as follows: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Unbelievers, I suppose, interpret those words as disparaging miracles, and as disparaging the active profession of religion. They interpret them as teaching that if a man leads what the world calls a moral life he does not need to accept any creed or make any definite profession of faith. That interpretation is of course quite wrong, in the same way as that in which the corresponding interpretation of the preceding verse is wrong. These verses do not say that miracles were unimportant in the apostolic age (when miracles still happened) or that orthodoxy was unimportant then or is unimportant now. They only say that nothing else matters unless a man’s heart is changed and unless that change of his heart is shown in a good life. They do not say that orthodoxy is unnecessary or that mighty works in the external world are unimportant, but they only say that orthodoxy without right living is a sham, and that real orthodoxy results in obedience to the commands of God. But the fact remains that these verses are favorites with unbelievers; they are favorites with those who think that it does not make any difference what a man thinks about God or about Christ and that all that is needed according to Jesus is to live what is ordinarily called a moral life. All right. Let us just look at these verses so popular among unbelievers. Do they really teach that it does not make any difference what a man thinks about Jesus Christ? I tell you, my friends, the exact reverse is the case. These verses, like all the rest of the New Testament, present a stupendous view of Jesus Christ, and like other sayings of Jesus they present a stupendous claim made by Jesus Himself. What is the scene to which we are transplanted in these verses? Is it some scene in the course of ordinary history or some scene of merely local or temporary significance? No, it is nothing of the kind. It is the tremendous scene of the last judgment, the court from which there is no appeal, the final decision that determines the eternal destinies of men. In other words, it is the judgment-seat of God. Well, who is it that is represented here as sitting on the judgment-seat of God; who is it that is represented here in this supposedly pleasant, purely ethical, practical, ultra-modern, non-theological Sermon on the Mount, and by this supposedly simple teacher of righteousness who kept His own person out of His message and was careful not to advance any lofty claims—who is it that is represented here in this supposedly purely ethical discourse and by this humble Jesus as sitting one day upon the judgment-seat of God and as determining the eternal destinies of all the world? There can be no doubt whatever about the answer to that question. The one represented here as sitting on the judgment-seat of God is Jesus Himself. We may not like the answer to that question, but the answer is as plain as plain can be. “Many will say to me,” Jesus says, “in that day, Lord, Lord . . . and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Who is that “I,” and who is that “me”? Is it God the Father? No, it is Jesus; it is the one who speaks these words. Upon Jesus’ decision depends the fate of all men. And what is that fate? What is the meaning of that “Depart” which is Jesus’ sentence upon those who work iniquity? About this question also there can be no doubt. The Sermon on the Mount itself gives the answer: “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:29). The answer is given also in the whole teaching of Jesus, and it is implied even in the verses with which we now have to do. No, there can be no doubt whatever about what Jesus meant by that word “Depart”; He meant that those upon whom He would pronounce that sentence to depart would be cast into hell. The thought of hell as well as the thought of heaven runs all through the teaching of Jesus; it gives to His ethical teaching that stupendous earnestness which is its marked characteristic. But how is hell here designated? It is described elsewhere in the Gospels; and never let us forget, whether we call the language “figurative” or not, that it means an eternal and terrible punishment, a punishment of which there is no end. But how is hell designated in this particular passage? The answer may be surprising to some people, but it is perfectly plain. Hell is designated in our passage as being banishment from Jesus. I do just beg you to think of that for a moment, my friends. Jesus of Nazareth certainly did believe—no good historian can deny it—that He would sit upon the judgment-seat of God at the terrible last judgment day, that His word would be final, and that life in His presence would be heaven and departure from Him would be hell. What has become of the weak, sentimental, purely human, purely ethical Jesus of modern reconstruction; what has become of your Jesus who was a simple teacher of righteousness and advanced no claim to be God? Have you found your purely human Jesus, and have you escaped from the divine Christ of the creeds, by appealing from the Gospel according to John to the Sermon on the Mount? No, indeed, my friend! The Jesus of the Bible is everywhere exactly the same. What will you do with that Jesus? Will you treat Him with a mild approval? Ah, people are so patronizing in the presence of Jesus today. They say such kind, polite things about Him. They are good enough to say that His ethics will solve the problems of society; they are good enough to say that He enunciated some maxims that are better than Jefferson’s ten rules and go far beyond Socrates and Confucius and Buddha. They are perfectly ready to let Him influence some departments of their life. They will not receive Him as their Saviour; they are not interested in His atoning blood: but they are so complacent in His presence. God grant that it may not be so with you, my friends! God grant that you may never treat Jesus with this polite, patronizing approval! God grant that you may not treat Him as a religious genius or as the founder of one of the world’s religions! God grant that, instead, you may say to Jesus, with doubting Thomas: “My Lord and my God.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 04.04. WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HIMSELF ======================================================================== WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HIMSELF WE have discussed the deity of Christ as it is attested by Jesus Himself in the Sermon on the Mount. We have seen that in the very passage to which unbelievers appeal in support of their view that Jesus kept Himself out of His gospel and merely presented a program of life to be followed first by Him and then by His followers—in that very passage Jesus presents Himself as possessed of an authority that goes far beyond that of any prophet and is in truth an authority that belongs only to God. At the close of our last talk, we were speaking particularly of the passage near the end of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus presents Himself as the one who is to sit at the last day on the judgment-seat of God and determine the eternal destinies of all the world This is by no means the only passage in the Gospels where Jesus so presents Himself as the final judge. Indeed, it is probably because of this thought of Himself as the final judge that He uses one of His favorite titles to designate Himself—namely, the title “the Son of man.” Our first impulse might be to say that the title is a designation of the humanity of Jesus as distinguished from His deity. He was both God and man, and that, we may be tempted to say, is what He meant when He called Himself Son of man as well as Son of God. If that view of the title were correct, it would certainly be a very lofty title, and it would certainly not be in any contradiction with the deity of Christ. But, as a matter of fact, it is unlikely that the title, “the Son of man,” on the lips of Jesus has this meaning at all. It is unlikely that it is intended to designate the humanity of our Lord as distinguished from His deity. It is on the whole unlikely that there is any contrast in the Gospels between the title “Son of man” and the title “Son of God.” People who use these titles to designate the two natures of Jesus as both man and God, who call attention, in other words, to the fact that He was both “Son of man” and “Son of God,” are probably wrong in their interpretation of the title, right though they unquestionably are in holding that Jesus was both God and man. The true key to the title, “Son of man,” on the lips of our Lord is probably to be found in the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel, where “one like unto a son of man” appears in the presence of the “ancient of days” and receives an everlasting dominion. When this person is said to be “like unto a son of man,” that is not said because He is a man in contrast with God. The contrast is rather with the beasts—lion, bear, leopard, and unnamed beast—that represent the world empires preceding the kingdom of the one like unto a son of man. After the successive appearance of those kingdoms represented by figures designated as being each like the figure of some beast, there arises a Kingdom whose ruler appears in the vision as a man. That Kingdom unlike those other kingdoms is to be everlasting. This passage in the Book of Daniel had an important influence upon subsequent Messianic expectations among the Jews. In the so-called Ethiopic Book of Enoch, for example,—a book which of course is not in the Bible and does not at all deserve to be there—the title “the Son of man” occurs frequently as the designation of a heavenly personage already existing in heaven but destined to appear in great glory to be the judge of all the world. Now we certainly do not mean for one moment that our Lord made any use of that so-called Book of Enoch. But the thing that is likely is that that book does give evidence of the use among the Jews of the great passage in the seventh chapter of Daniel. On the basis of that passage the coming Deliverer had come to be called—in certain Jewish circles at least—“the Son of man,” and had come to be thought of as destined to appear with the clouds of heaven and be the judge of all the earth. What our Lord did when He called Himself “the Son of man” was to place the stamp of approval upon this Jewish expectation because it was really in accordance with the Old. Testament, and then to apply it to Himself. It is altogether probable, then, that the title “the Son of man” on the lips of Jesus is distinctly a Messianic title. It does not designate the humanity of Jesus as distinguished from His deity, but it designates Him as being that transcendent, heavenly Person who was to come one day with the clouds of heaven and be the final judge of all the world. A notable passage in the Book of Acts confirms this view of the title “the Son of man.” In Acts 7:55 f., it is said, of the dying martyr Stephen: “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” Here the reference to the seventh chapter of Daniel is perfectly plain. Stephen sees essentially the same vision as that which the prophet Daniel had seen; he sees that heavenly figure, the Son of man, appearing in glory in the presence of God. As Jesus uses the title, the origin of the title is just as clear as it is in the words of the dying Stephen. So, for example, in Mark 8:38 (with the parallel passages): “Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” So also in Mark 13:26 (with the parallel passages): “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.” In such passages the reference to the great scene in the seventh chapter of Daniel is perfectly clear. In other passages, it is true; the reference to that scene is not so direct. Jesus sometimes uses the title, the Son of man, where He is speaking not of His exaltation but of His humiliation. So in Matthew 8:20, where it is said that the “Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” So also in the great passage, Mk. ’10:45, where Jesus says, regarding His atoning death, that “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” But we may fairly hold that the use of the title in these passages is intended to contrast the stupendous dignity properly belonging to the Son of man, the judge and ruler of all the world, with His present humble life. The real pathos of those passages is found in the fact that it was not any ordinary man who had not where to lay His head, and that it was not any ordinary man who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, but the heavenly Son of man, that stupendous figure, who was now more homeless than the foxes and the birds! Here and there, as Jesus uses the title, there may possibly be a special reference to the humanity of the one so designated, but such passages at the most are rare, and the prevailing significance of the title is that it identifies Jesus with the heavenly Messiah, the stupendous figure spoken of in the seventh chapter of Daniel whose kingdom would be an everlasting kingdom. That, I may say in passing, is the prevailing opinion today among scholars of widely different shades of opinion, both believers and unbelievers. Here and there a defender of another view of the title appears, but I think it may be said that the prevailing view among careful scholars is what I have just indicated. For a full discussion of this subject I want to refer you to a book to which I have been much indebted—the learned book of Dr. Geerhardus Vos on “The Self-Disclosure of Jesus.” What particularly needs to be said, however, is that whatever view be taken of the origin and meaning of the term, the Son of man, it is at any rate clear that Jesus of Nazareth certainly did claim that He would one day sit on the judgment-seat of God to decide the eternal destinies of men. That claim appears, as we observed very clearly, in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot get away from it even in the supposedly purely ethical parts of Jesus’ teaching. It runs all through the Gospels. Every historian, whether he is a Christian or not, ought to take account of this strange fact—that a certain Jesus, a man who lived in the first century in Palestine, was actually convinced, as He looked out upon the men who thronged about Him, that He would one day sit on the judgment-seat of God and be their judge and the judge and ruler of all the world. What are you going to do with that claim of Jesus? If you hold it to be true, then Jesus is your King and Lord. If you hold it to be false, then I do not see how in the world you can go on taking Him as a worthy example for your life. The conviction of Jesus that He would at the last judgment decide the eternal destinies of men was joined with the conviction that He could determine those eternal destinies here and now. He claimed to be able to forgive sins. His opponents got the point of that claim; they got it far better than certain modern persons who trip along so lightly over the things that the Gospels contain. “Why doth this man thus speak?” they said. “He blasphemeth: who can forgive sins but one, even God?” (Mark 2:7). They were right. None can forgive sins but God only. Jesus was a blasphemer if He was a mere man. At that point the enemies saw clear. You may accept the lofty claims of Jesus. You may take Him as very God. Or else you must reject Him as a miserable, deluded enthusiast. There is really no middle ground. Jesus refuses to be pressed into the mould of a mere religious teacher. Thus we have seen that Jesus’ claim of deity runs all through the Gospels. It does not appear merely in this passage or that, but is really presupposed in every word that Jesus uttered and in everything that He did. There was, it is true, a period in His ministry when He did not make His own person for the most part the express subject of His teaching. It was always the background of His teaching and His work; without it everything that He said and did becomes unintelligible. But during a large part of His Galilean ministry, as described by the Synoptic Gospels, He seems not often to have set forth the mystery of His own person in any detailed way. That lack is wonderfully supplied by the Gospel according to John, which was written by a man who stood in the innermost circle of the disciples of our Lord. But what I want you to observe particularly is that there is no opposition at this point between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. The Christ who is so gloriously set forth in the Gospel according to John is exactly the Christ who is everywhere presupposed in the Synoptic Gospels. Far from being in any contradiction with the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel according to John, with its rich report of the teaching of our Lord about His own person, provides the key which enables us the better to understand what we are told in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Here and there, moreover, we have in the Synoptic Gospels just the kind of teaching of our Lord about Himself as that which appears so fully reported by the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel according to John. That is notably the case with a famous passage in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, which has a close parallel in the tenth chapter of Luke. “All things are delivered unto me of my Father,” says Jesus: “and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” (Matthew 11:27). Here we have not only the substance of the teaching that appears so fully in the Fourth Gospel but even the form of it. “The Father,” “the Son”—how often those terms appear set over against each other in the Gospel according to John just exactly as they are set over against each other here! Just consider how wonderfully rich is the content of this verse in its report of the teaching of Jesus about Himself! “No man knoweth the Father but the Son”—that in itself is a very stupendous utterance. It designates Jesus as truly knowing God, and as the only one who knows Him. We think instinctively, as we read, of the words in the Gospel according to John: “No man hath seen God at any time; God only-begotten, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” (John 1:18). How wonderful is such a knowledge of God! Think of it, my friends. Jesus of Nazareth, a man walking upon this earth, said as He talked to His contemporaries: “No one knoweth God save me.” How is such rich knowledge of God possible to any but God Himself? But that is not all that there is in this saying. No, the saying goes far beyond that. “No one knoweth the Father but the Son”—that is wonderful enough. But that is not all. There is something still more stupendous in this verse. It is this: “No one knoweth the Son but the Father.” Just think what these words mean, my friends. They mean that there are mysteries in the person, Jesus, which none but the infinite and eternal God can know. The two persons, the Father and the Son, are here put in a strange reciprocal relationship. They are both mysterious to all others, but they are known, and fully known, to each other. The Son knows the depths of the Father’s being, and the Father knows the depths of the being of the Son. An ineffable mutual knowledge prevails between these two. What does that mean? It means what is really implied in the Gospels from beginning to end. It means that that strange man who is known to history as Jesus of Nazareth was no mere man, but infinite and eternal and unchangeable God. In this wonderful verse, the twenty-seventh verse of the eleventh chapter of Matthew, we have in summary and in implication the great doctrine of the deity of our Lord, and when we put it together with Jesus’ teaching regarding the Holy Spirit we have the full wonderful teaching of Scripture regarding the three persons in one God. I have not time in the present talk to speak to you longer about that doctrine; I have not time to set forth further the richness of the Scripture testimony to the deity of our blessed Lord. But there is one thing that I do want to drive home at once. It is this—that this mysterious verse of which we have just been speaking does not appear as some excrescence in the Gospel picture of Jesus but as an integral part of the whole. When we come upon this “Christological” passage in our reading of the Gospel of Matthew, this passage which has been called “the Johannine passage” because it is so much like the Gospel, according to John, do we feel anything like a shock? Do we feel as though we were transplanted into another atmosphere? Do we feel as though we were suddenly dealing with another Christ? I tell you, my friends, we do not. No, we are dealing with the same Christ as the Christ with whom we have been dealing all through the Gospel according to Matthew; we are dealing with exactly the same Christ as the Christ who spoke, for example, the Sermon on the Mount. We are dealing with the same Christ as the Christ who according to all four Gospels spoke words of solemn warning but also words of an infinite tenderness and grace. What is the context of this verse with which we have been dealing in the present talk—this verse which sets forth in such stupendous fashion the majesty of the person of our Lord? Just let me read it to you before we part: “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Then follow the words of which we have spoken, the words in which Jesus speaks of that ineffable relation between the Father and the Son. Then what follows? Does something follow that reveals some later theology of the Church, something that fails to show the unmistakable, characteristic, inimitable quality of Jesus’ authentic teaching? Judge for yourselves, my friends. Here is what follows upon that stupendous testimony to the deity of Christ: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Are those the words of some falsifier who put upon the lips of Jesus words that Jesus never spoke? Are those the words of some religious genius who used the name of Jesus as the medium through which he might convey his teaching to the world? Oh, no, my friends; no religious genius ever spoke words like these. These are words such as never man spake. How sweet these words are on the lips of Jesus! How abominable they would be on the lips of any other! “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”—who could speak those words without mocking and deceiving those who hear? I will tell you. Only He who said in the same breath: “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son.” The plain fact is that that gracious invitation of Jesus—an invitation so sweetly repeated again and again in the Gospels by Him who was sent to seek and to save that which was lost—the plain fact is that that invitation is a divine invitation. The one who uttered it was a deceiver or He was God. Yet, it is objected, there are so many who will not accept the invitation; there are so many learned men who will not believe Jesus when He advances these stupendous claims. Yes, I know. They are very many and they are very learned. But did not Jesus Himself say so; did not Jesus Himself say that there were many learned persons who would very learnedly reject Him when He offered Himself as their Saviour and Lord? “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Which are you, my friends? Do you belong to the wise and prudent, of whom our Lord spoke? Do you belong to those who rely upon the wisdom of this world and turn aside from Christ? Or are you among the babes? Will you come to Jesus weak and helpless; will you come to Him as a very little child? Are you weary and heavy laden? Will you come to Him that He may give you rest? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 04.05. THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST ======================================================================== THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST I HAVE been talking to you about the deity of Christ, and have shown you that Jesus’ testimony to His own deity is not found merely in the Gospel according to John. It is found in all four Gospels and it pervades all parts of the Gospels. Even in the so-called ethical parts of the Gospels like the Sermon on the Mount the stupendous claim of Jesus is really presupposed. We must now, however, notice something else. We must notice that this claim of Jesus is everywhere supported by His power to work miracles. That is the way in which the Gospels represent the miracles. They represent them as attestations to show that Jesus spoke the truth when He came forward with His stupendous claim. This Biblical estimate of the miracles has often been reversed in the minds of modern men. The miracles, men tell us, even if they really happened, are at best an obstacle to faith rather than an aid to faith. People used to believe, they tell us, because of the miracles; they now believe, if they believe at all, in spite of the miracles. A curious confusion underlies this way of thinking. In one sense, of course it is true that the miracles are an obstacle to faith. Unquestionably a narrative that has no miracles in it is easier to believe than a narrative that contains miracles. Of course that is so. Who ever denied it? A perfectly trivial narrative is easier to believe than one that contains an account of extraordinary happenings. So if I should tell you that when I walked down the street today I saw a Ford car, my narrative would have at least one advantage over the narratives in the New Testament—it would certainly be far easier to believe. But then it would also have one disadvantage. It would be far easier to believe, but then, you see, it would not be worth believing. So if the Gospels contained no miracles they would in one sense be easier to believe than they are now. But, do you nor see, the thing that would be believed would be entirely different from the thing that is believed now when we take the Gospels as they stand. If the Jesus of the Gospels were a purely natural and not a supernatural person, then we should have no difficulty in believing that such a person lived in the first century of our era. Even skeptics would have no difficulty in believing it. Defenders of the faith would have an easy victory indeed. Everybody would believe. But then there would be one drawback. It would be this— that the thing that everybody would believe would not be worth believing. A purely natural, as distinguished from a supernatural, Christ would be just a teacher and example. There have been many teachers and examples in the history of mankind. It would place no particular demands upon our faith if we were told that this teacher and example was a little better than any of the others. But then, you see, we are not looking for a teacher and example. We are looking for a Saviour. And a purely human, a merely natural, as distinguished from a super-natural, Christ can never be our Saviour. He would merely be one of us. He would need a Saviour for himself before he could save others; he just as much as we would need a supernatural Saviour. We have such a Saviour presented to us in the Gospels, a Saviour who is not merely man but God. The really difficult thing to believe is that such a Saviour really entered into this world. It is a very blessed thing, but it is certainly not a trivial thing. It is not one of those trivial things that are so easy to believe because they occur every day. It is certainly not a thing that can be believed without a mighty revolution in all a man’s thinking and all a man’s life. If now you ask whether it would be easier to believe that thing without the individual miracles narrated in the Gospels than it is to believe it with those individual miracles, we answer emphatically, No. It would be easier to believe the story of a mere religious teacher without the miracles. Certainly. That goes without saying. But not to believe the story of the life upon earth of the incarnate Son of God. The whole appearance of such a divine Person upon earth is itself a stupendous miracle. The individual miracles, with their individual attestation, do make it easier to believe that great central miracle. They are proofs of it. They are exactly what the Bible represents them as being—true testimonies to the truth of that stupendous claim of Jesus to be very God. If you examine carefully the views of those who reject the individual miracles, you will discover that they do not really hold on to the great central and all-pervading miracle. They may seem to do so. They use the old terminology. They love to speak of “incarnation”; they love to speak of God as having become man. But when you come to look at them closely, you discover that this use of traditional terminology on their part only serves to mask from them themselves and from others a profound difference of thought. They mean by “incarnation” just about the opposite of what the Bible means by it. They do not really mean by it that the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, became man this once, and this once only, “and so was, and continueth to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever. No, they mean something entirely different. They are very far indeed from believing on Christ for salvation as He is offered to us in the gospel. The truth is that the Bible picture of Jesus possesses a wonderful unity. Without the miracles as the Gospels narrate them the unity would be sadly destroyed. Every one of the miracles, with its historical attestation, adds its quota of evidence to our great central conviction that this Jesus is indeed the Son of God. It is interesting to observe the way in which the miracles of the life of Christ have been treated in the history of modern unbelief. The cardinal principle of unbelief is that miracles have never happened. What, then, shall be done with the accounts of miracles that are found in the Gospels? The first impulse of a skeptic might be to say that since the Gospel picture of Jesus contains miracles, and since miracles never happened, therefore the whole picture is untrue. But that of course will not do at all. It is perfectly clear that we have in the Gospels an account of a real person who really lived in Palestine in the first century of our era. The picture is entirely too lifelike ever to have been the product of invention. That is admitted by all except a few extremists. Very well, then. If the picture is the picture of a real person, what shall be done with the miracles that it contains? Those miracles, according to the initial assumption of our skeptical investigator, never happened; yet they are narrated in an account of a real historical person. What shall be done about it? The obvious answer of unbelievers is that the miracles must be rejected in order to leave the rest. In this way, it is supposed, we shall be able to sift the material in the Gospels in order to arrive at the modicum of truth that they contain. When, it is said, we have removed from the Gospel picture of Jesus these gaudy colors of the supernatural we shall have Jesus as He actually was. Well, it sounds easy. Surely it must have been accomplished long before now—the removal of the miracles from the picture of Jesus in the Gospels. Many of the most brilliant of modern men have been engaged in it during the past hundred years. Surely their effort must have been successful. That is certainly what one might expect. But in this case expectations are not borne our by the fact. The plain fact is that this “quest of the historical Jesus,” as it has been called—this effort to take the miracles out of the Gospels—has proved to be a colossal failure. It is being increasingly recognized as being a failure even by the skeptical historians themselves. The supernatural is found to be far more deeply rooted in the Gospel account of Jesus than was formerly supposed. At first, it seemed to be quite easy to get the miracles out of the Gospels. All we shall have to do, said the skeptical historians, is just to take the miracles out and leave all the rest. Even the miracle-incidents themselves, they said, can be accepted as historical; only, we must observe that they were not really miraculous. So Luke tells us in the first chapter that Zacharias the father of John the Baptist went into the Temple at the hour of incense and received an announcement about the birth of a soil. Is that incident historical? Did Zacharias really go into the Temple that day? Certainly, said the men of this way of thinking, the incident is historical; certainly Zacharias went into the Temple. Of course he was slightly mistaken about what he saw! He thought he saw an angel when what he really saw was just the smoke rising from the altar in that dim religious light. But such mistakes do not cast any general discredit upon the narratives in which they stand. So also all four of the Gospels say that Jesus one day fed five thousand men. Is that incident historical? Did Jesus really feed those five thousand men? Certainly the narrative is historical, said the men of the way of thinking with which we are now dealing; certainly Jesus fed those five thousand men. What He did was just to take those five loaves and two fishes and set a good example by distributing them to the people immediately around Him. That led the other fortunate people among the crowd to do likewise. His good example was contagious. People who were fortunate enough to have any food distributed it to those around them and so everybody was fed. Thus the incident is perfectly historical, but it was not really miraculous. The whole trouble has come from the fact that readers of the Gospels have insisted on putting a supernaturalistic interpretation upon an incident that was really quite natural. It is all perfectly easy and simple, is it not? How nicely the task has been accomplished—miracles as neatly extracted as an appendix is extracted in a modern hospital, everything else allowed to remain “as was,” the general trustworthiness of the Gospels rescued, Jesus made to keep within the bounds of nature’s laws! What was all the bother about? It is all so perfectly simple! Such was the so-called “rationalizing” method of dealing with the miracle narratives, as practised by Paulus and others one hundred years ago. It had considerable vogue in its day. But its vogue was of short duration. God raised up a besom of destruction for it in the person of a disconcerting young man named David Friedrich Strauss. Strauss published his “Life of Jesus” in 1835. It was unquestionably one of the most influential books of modern times—a very important book to have been written by a young man of twenty-seven years of age. I said that Strauss’s book was influential. I did not say that its influence was good, and as a matter of fact it was not good but very bad. Strauss did not write in the interests of the truth of the Gospels; he did not write from the point of view of a real Christian believer. On the contrary he wrote from the point of view of an extreme unbelief. His book remains to the present day perhaps the fullest compendium of what can be said against the truthfulness of the Gospel narratives. Yet such a book had at least the use, in the providence of God, of demolishing the rationalizing method of dealing with the miracle-narratives in the Gospels. In those narratives, Strauss said, the miracles are the main thing; they are the thing for which all the rest exists. How absurd, then, to say that the narratives have grown up out of utterly trivial events upon which a supernaturalistic interpretation was wrongly put! No, said Strauss, we must give up all attempts at finding a modicum of historical truth in these narratives; they are simply myths—that is, they are popular expressions, in narrative form, of certain religious ideas; they are merely the way in which popular fancy expressed the great debt which the early Christian Church owed to Jesus. At first, Strauss’s book caused great consternation. He had not, indeed, denied the historical existence of Jesus, and of course he really held that much that is narrated about Jesus in the Gospels is true. But so radical was his criticism, and so completely did he fail to put together into any continuous positive account of Jesus what was left after his criticism had done its work, that it was quite natural for people to feel that Strauss had almost removed Jesus of Nazareth from the pages of history. Then, however, an attempt was made to repair the damage. I am not, referring to the defence of the Gospels by believing scholars, but I am referring to the attempt by men of Strauss’s own way of thinking—men, that is, who like Strauss denied the occurrence of miracles—to discover and make use of the modicum of truth that might be thought to remain in the Gospels after criticism had been given its rights. Possibly, it was supposed, that modicum of truth might be discovered by what is called “source-criticism.” The Gospels, it was admitted, contain much that is untrue, but if we could discover the earlier sources used by the writers of the Gospels we might get much nearer to the facts. Well, an imposing attempt was made in that direction. The Gospel according to John was rejected as almost altogether unhistorical, and then the two chief sources of Matthew and Luke were held to be (1) Mark and (2) a lost source composed chiefly of sayings of Jesus as distinguished from accounts of His deeds. That was the famous “two-document theory” as to the sources of the Gospels. On the basis of that theory a supposedly historical account of a purely human Jesus was constructed. People became quite enthusiastic about it. The troublesome miracles, it was supposed, were all removed; the theological Christ of the creeds was done away. But, it was said, something better had been rediscovered—a really and purely human Jesus, a Jesus who was one of us, a Jesus who started where we started and won through to sonship with God, a Jesus who kept His own person out of His gospel and simply taught—by word and by life—the great liberating truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Such was the so-called “Liberal Jesus.” It was an imposing reconstruction indeed. It was thought to offer great promise to the human race. The shackles of dogma, it was supposed, had been removed. A new Reformation would soon take place. But alas for human hopes! Nothing has been seen of the new Reformation, and the imposing reconstruction of the Liberal Jesus has fallen to the ground. I think the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century might almost be called, in the sphere of New Testament criticism, the period of the decline and fall of “the Liberal Jesus.” That is a great outstanding fact. I think that it is a fact that is going to loom up very large to future historians when the history of the period in which we are living comes finally to be written. The great trouble is that the miraculous in the Gospels is found to be much more pervasive than it was at first thought to be. It runs through the Gospels as we now have them. That is clear. But it also is found to run through the sources supposed rightly or wrongly to underlie the Gospels. All right, then; suppose we go even back of those earliest written sources and examine supposed detached bits of oral tradition out of which they are sometimes supposed to have been composed. Alas, we obtain no relief. Those supposed detached bits are found themselves to contain the objectionable miraculous element. There seems to be no escape from the supernatural Christ. At the very beginning of the Church—not at some later time but at the very beginning—Jesus was regarded not just as a religious teacher or just as a prophet but as a supernatural Deliverer. That is the result at which ultra-modern criticism has arrived. It is a far cry from the cheerful, rationalizing days of Paulus one hundred years ago. It is a far cry from the time when men thought they could explain away this miracle-narrative and that, and have a perfectly good account left of a great religious teacher. The outstanding result of a hundred years of effort to separate the natural from the supernatural in the early Christian view of Jesus is that the thing cannot be done. The two are inseparable. The very earliest early Christian account of Jesus is found to be supernaturalistic to the core. Very well, what shall we do about it? The earliest view of Jesus that we know anything about represents Him as a supernatural person. It is found to exhibit a remarkable unanimity at this point. What shall we do with it? There are only two things to do with it. We can take it or we can leave it. Modern skeptical historians are saying we must leave it. All our information about Jesus is supernaturalistic, they are saying; therefore all our information about Jesus is uncertain. We can never disentangle the real Jesus from the beliefs of His earliest followers. The only Christ we really know is the supernatural Christ of Jesus’ earliest followers. We can never rediscover the portrait of the real Jesus. Are you afraid of skepticism like that? I am not afraid of it a bit. It is easily refuted by a mere reading of the Gospels. I beg you just to read the Gospels for yourselves, my friends, and then ask yourselves whether the Person there presented to you is not a living, breathing person. The extreme skepticism of the day will always be refuted by common sense. That being so, the extreme skepticism of our day is very instructive. I get great comfort from it. Do you not see, my friends? That extreme skepticism of Bultmann and others is the inevitable result of trying to reject the miracles in the Gospels. That extreme skepticism is absurd. What is the conclusion? The conclusion is that the process which inevitably led to that extreme skepticism was wrong from the beginning. We never ought to have tried to reject the miracles in the Gospels at all. I wonder when men are going to draw this conclusion. It does seem to lie so very near at hand. When will they cease to be blind to it? The Gospels present to us just one Christ—the supernatural Christ. They do so with overwhelmingly self-evidencing force. When shall we just accept their witness? `When shall we just say that God did walk upon this earth? When shall we just come to that divine Christ and ask Him to be the Saviour of our souls? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 04.06. DID CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? ======================================================================== DID CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? IN the last of these talks, I was speaking to you about the miracles of Christ. But a treatment of the miracles would be incomplete unless we singled out for special examination the central or crowning miracle, which is the miracle of the resurrection In treating the resurrection, I suggest that we may begin with things about which everybody is agreed, in order that we may go on from them to speak of things with regard to which Christian people differ from those who are not Christians. Nineteen hundred years ago there lived in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire one who would have seemed to a superficial observer to be a remarkable man. He engaged in a career of religious teaching accompanied by a ministry of healing. At first He had the favor of the crowd, but since He would not be the kind of leader the people demanded He soon fell victim to the jealousy of the rulers of His people and to the cowardice of the Roman governor. He died the death of criminals of that day, on the cross At His death, His followers were discouraged. They had evidently been far inferior to Him in discernment and in courage, and now what little courage they may have had was gone. His death meant the destruction of all their hopes. Never, one might have said, was a movement more completely dead than the movement which had been begun by Jesus of Nazareth. Then, however, the surprising thing happened. It is a fact of history, which no real historian denies, that those same weak discouraged men, the followers of Jesus, began, within a very short time after the shameful death of their Leader, in Jerusalem, the scene of their cowardly flight, the most remarkable religious movement that the world has ever known, the movement commonly called the Christian Church. At first, that movement was obscure. But it spread like wildfire. In a few decades at the most it was firmly planted in the chief cities of the civilized world and in Rome itself. After a lapse of less than three centuries it conquered the Roman Empire. Incalculable has been its influence upon the whole history of the world. What caused that remarkable change in those followers of Jesus? What caused those weak and cowardly men suddenly to become the spiritual conquerors of the world? At that point the difference of opinion arises. Yet even with regard to that point there is a certain measure of agreement. It is now admitted by historians both Christian and non-Christian that those followers of Jesus became the founders of what is commonly known as the Christian Church because they became honestly convinced that Jesus was risen from the dead. But what in turn produced that conviction? What produced the belief of the first disciples in the resurrection of Christ? There is where the difference of opinion comes in. The New Testament, of course, has a perfectly clear answer to the question. The belief of the disciples in the resurrection, according to the New Testament, was due simply to the fact of the resurrection. Those disciples came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead for the simple reason that Jesus had risen from the dead. He had risen from the dead; and they had not only seen His tomb empty but had seen Him Himself alive after His death on the cross. If that explanation of the belief of the first disciples in the resurrection be rejected, what shall be put into its place? The answer to that question which is given today by all or practically all unbelievers is that those first disciples of Jesus became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead because they experienced certain hallucinations, certain pathological experiences in which they thought they saw Jesus before their eyes when in reality there was nothing there. In a hallucination, the optic nerve is really affected; but it is affected not by light rays coming from an external object, but by some pathological condition of the bodily organism of the subject himself. This is the so-called “vision theory” regarding the origin of the Christian Church. It has held the field among unbelievers inside of the Church and outside of the Church since the days of Strauss about one hundred years ago. I think we ought to understand just exactly what that vision theory means. It means that the Christian Church is founded upon a pathological experience of certain persons in the first century of our era. It means that if there had been a good neurologist for Peter and the others to consult there never would have been a Christian Church I am perfectly well aware of the fact that advocates of the vision hypothesis refuse to look at the matter just exactly in that way. The really important thing, they say, was not the pathological experience which those men had, but it was the impression left upon them by Jesus’ character. They never would have experienced those hallucinations, they say, unless their minds and hearts had been filled with the thought of the radiant personality of Jesus. It was because they were so much impressed with Him that they came to have those hallucinations. Thus the hallucinations, say the advocates of the vision hypothesis, were merely the temporary form which was necessary in that day and among men of that kind of education in order that the influence of Jesus could continue to make itself felt. We, they say, can get rid of that form. We no longer need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the eyes of His disciples. But we can still let the influence of Jesus be felt in our lives. In the changed lives of men who have been influenced by Him Jesus has His truest resurrection. So the thing is represented by the advocates of what is misleadingly called a “spiritual resurrection.” This representation altogether ignores the real character of the first disciples’ faith. What those men had from the appearances of the risen Christ was not merely the conviction that Jesus was still alive. No, what they had was the conviction that He had risen. It was not merely the state of Jesus resultant upon the resurrection which was valuable for them, but the act of the resurrection. At the heart of their faith was the conviction that Jesus had done something for them by His death and resurrection. The Christian religion in other words is rooted in an event. If that supposed event really took place, as the Bible says it did, then the Christian religion is true. If it did not take place, as the dominant vision theory holds, then the Christian religion is false, and a Church that professes it is merely an empty shell. But is the message upon which the Christian Church is founded really true? Did Christ rise from the dead? I want to say just a few words to you about that subject now. Two things are to be noted about the account of the appearances which the New Testament contains. The first thing concerns the manner of the appearances. The appearances, according to the New Testament, were of a plain bodily kind. Jesus did not, it is true, simply resume the conditions of His life before the crucifixion. There was something mysterious about His coming and going. Yet He is plainly represented as being with His disciples in body. They could touch Him. He partook of food in their presence He held extended conversations with them. The second feature of the appearances, as they are described in the New Testament, concerns the place of the appearances. The appearances, according to the New Testament, were both at Jerusalem and in Galilee; and the first appearances were at Jerusalem. Both these features of the New Testament account of the appearances are rejected by advocates of the vision hypothesis. The former feature is always rejected by them, the latter usually. The advocates of the vision hypothesis hold, with regard to the manner of the appearances, that, contrary to the New Testament, the appearances were only of a momentary kind. The disciples who experienced the appearances did not experience any extended intercourse with Jesus. They not only did not really have any extended intercourse with Him, but they did not even think they had any extended intercourse with Him. All they even thought they had was a momentary sight of Him in glory or perhaps the sound of a word or two of His ringing in their ears. The New Testament is quite wrong in saying they even thought they saw or heard any more than that. The second point at which the advocates of the vision hypothesis, or most of them, reject the New Testament account of the appearances concerns the place of the appearances. Most of the advocates of the vision hypothesis hold that the first of the “appearances”—which they of course regard as hallucinations—took place a considerable time, perhaps weeks, after the crucifixion, in Galilee; the New Testament says that the first of the appearances took place at Jerusalem on’ the third day after the death of Jesus. At first sight it might look as though this were a mere difference in detail. But that is not so. As a matter of fact it is a difference of a very important kind. If the first appearances, the first of these supposed hallucinations in which the disciples thought they saw Jesus alive after His death, took place at Jerusalem and on the third day after the death, then the question arises why the tomb of Jesus was not investigated to see whether the story of the resurrection was really true—why it was not investigated by foes as well as by friends. If the resurrection was not a fact, then the investigation of the tomb of Jesus would refute the story, and the beginning of the Christian Church would have been prevented. If, on the other hand, the first appearances took place in Galilee weeks after the death of Jesus, then, it might be said, when the disciples finally did return to Jerusalem it would be too late for the tomb to be investigated Thus the so-called Galilean hypothesis as to the place of the first appearances might be thought to remove the difficulty which a consideration of the tomb of Jesus has always placed in the way of a denial of the fact of the resurrection. What shall be said about that? Two things are to be said about it. In the first place, even the Galilean hypothesis does not really remove the difficulty, since it does seem strange even on the Galilean hypothesis that the tomb of Jesus was not investigated, and, in the second place the Galilean hypothesis is not true. Where shall we turn to test the hypothesis of unbelievers not only on this point regarding the place of the appearances but also on the point regarding the manner of the appearances? Well, we can of course turn to the Gospels. We can show that the low view which unbelievers hold regarding the Gospels is not justified and that these documents are really trustworthy accounts of what the first disciples of Jesus said with regard to the founding of the Church. But obviously it would be a good thing also if we could find some source of information which is admitted to be good not only by believers but also by unbelievers. Can we find such a source of information? Can we find a source of information with regard to which there is some common meeting ground between ourselves and our opponents in this debate? The answer is, Yes. We can find such a source of information in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It is generally admitted by foes of our view as well as by friends that that Epistle was really written by the Apostle Paul and that it was written at about A.D. 55, approximately twenty-five years after the death of Jesus. It is also generally admitted that when Paul says in this Epistle that he had “received” the information that he gives in the fifteenth chapter regarding the resurrection and appearances of Jesus he means that he had received it from the early Jerusalem Church—particularly, perhaps, from Peter, with whom he tells us in another of his Epistles that he spent fifteen days only three years after his conversion. What we have here, then, in the fifteenth chapter of this Epistle, in verse eight and the following verses, is a precious bit of what modern historians call “primitive tradition.” It is usually admitted by friends and foes of our view that we have here a summary of what the very earliest Jerusalem Church said about the events that lay at the beginning of its life. Well, then, is this account by the primitive Jerusalem Church of the resurrection and related events favorable to the contention of unbelievers—the contention that at the beginning the appearances were regarded as independent of what had become of the body of Jesus? Volumes have been written about this question. But the answer, if we may put it plainly and briefly, is most emphatically, No. This passage is not favorable to the contention of unbelievers at all. What does Paul say exactly when he summarizes that precious tradition of the earliest Jerusalem Church? Here is what he says: “For I delivered unto first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” I want you to notice the mention of the burial of Christ in this passage. What does it mean? I will tell you, and then I just want you to read the passage for yourselves to see whether you do not agree with me. When Paul mentions the burial, he means that the resurrection of Christ about which he is speaking is a bodily resurrection. The thing that was laid in the tomb in the burial was the body; and the thing that was laid in the tomb was the thing that came out of the tomb in the resurrection. “He died, He was buried, He rose.” We follow here, as we read, what happened to the body of Jesus. If a man will just read the words without prejudice he will see that they are at this point as plain as day. It is quite clear that Paul does not mean, and the Jerusalem Church as quoted by him did not mean, that the body of Jesus remained in the tomb. The bodily resurrection is the only resurrection that the New Testament knows. In fact, when we come to think about it, a resurrection `that is not a bodily resurrection is a contradiction in terms. Did those first disciples, when they began the work of the Christian Church, merely believe in the continued personal existence of Jesus? Was that what gave them their strange new confidence and power? Such a view is really quite absurd. They had that conviction even in the sad hours immediately after the crucifixion. They were not Sadducees. They believed in the personal survival of all men after death; and so they believed, even just after the crucifixion, in the personal survival of Jesus. But that conviction left them in despair. What changed their despair into joy was the substitution, in their minds, for a belief in the continued personal existence of Jesus, of a belief in His resurrection. It is quite absurd, then, to say that the two things, in their view, were the same. Our sources of information about the beginnings of the Christian Church know nothing whatever of a resurrection that is not a bodily resurrection. The second thing that I want you to notice in the report by Paul of the tradition of the Jerusalem Church is the mention of the third day. “And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,” he says. There are few words in the whole Bible that are more uncomfortable to modern unbelief than those words “the third day” in the primitive Jerusalem tradition recorded here by Paul. Those words demolish the whole edifice of the Galilean hypothesis as to the place of the appearances. They show, by the testimony of the very first disciples, that the first appearance did not take place in Galilee weeks after the crucifixion but on the third day and at Jerusalem. I know that attempts are made to evade the plain implications of these words. The first appearances, it is said, took place only weeks afterwards, but when they did take place the disciples who experienced them hit upon the notion that Jesus had risen long before and merely had not chosen to appear to them until then. But why in the world did they hit upon just the third day as the day of the resurrection if nothing in particular happened to them on that day? Various answers have been given to that question, but they are vain. No, the mention of the third day in the primitive Jerusalem tradition interposes a mighty barrier against the whole attempt to explain the appearances of the risen Christ as hallucinations experienced at a time when it would be too late to investigate the tomb of Jesus to see whether the resurrection had really happened or not. The truth is that the origin of the Church in Jerusalem is explicable if Jesus really rose from the dead, and it is not explicable if He did not so rise. The very existence of the Christian Church is a mighty testimony to the resurrection of our Lord. But, it will be objected, that is all very well, but the trouble is that the thing we are asked to believe is really unbelievable. We are asked to believe that a dead man rose from the dead, and we have never seen a man who did that. What is our answer to this objection? It is very simple. You say, my friend, that you have never seen a man who rose from the dead after he had been laid really dead in the tomb? Quite right. Neither have I. You and I have never seen a man who rose from the dead. That is true. But what of it? You and I have never seen a man who rose from the dead; but then you and I have never seen a man like Jesus. Do you not see, my friends? What we are trying to establish is not the resurrection of any ordinary man, not the resurrection of a man who is to us a mere x or y not the resurrection of a man about whom we know nothing, but the resurrection of Jesus. There is a tremendous presumption against the resurrection of any ordinary man, but when you come really to know Jesus as He is pictured to us in the Gospels you will say that whereas it is unlikely that any ordinary man should rise from the dead, in His case the presumption is exactly reversed. It is unlikely that any ordinary man should rise; but it is unlikely that this man should not rise; it may be said of this man that it was impossible that He should be holden of death. The point is that this thing hangs together. We have in the Gospels an account of a Person who was entirely unique. He was totally different from other men in His moral purity and strength. Yet He made the most stupendous claims—claims that place Him beyond the bounds of sanity unless the claims were true. The claims are true if the resurrection really happened; they are a hopeless puzzle if the resurrection did not happen. Do you see what I am driving at, my friends? The evidence of the truth of Christianity must be taken as a whole. The direct evidence for the resurrection must be taken together with the total picture of Jesus in the Gospels, and then that must be taken in connection with the evidence for the existence of God and the tremendous need of man which is caused by sin. If you take the Bible as a whole you have a grand consistent account of God, of the world and of human life. If you reject the Bible, and particularly if you reject the fact of the resurrection, you have a jumble of meaningless and detached bits of information that dance before your imagination in a wild and riotous rout. Oh, that God would open men’s eyes that they might see, that they might detect the grand sweep and power of His testimony to Himself in His Word! Oh, that He would take away the terrible blindness of men’s minds! Has He taken away the blindness of your minds, my friends? Do you know the risen Christ today as your Saviour and your Lord? If you do not yet know Him, will you not bow before Him at this hour and say, “My Lord and my God!” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 04.07. THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL TO CHRIST ======================================================================== THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL TO CHRIST IN our presentation of the testimony of the New Testament to the deity of Christ, we have dealt so far only with the Gospels But now it becomes necessary to consider also the other New Testament books and particularly the Epistles of Paul. The reason why the Epistles of Paul are particularly important in this connection is that with regard to them we find a common meeting ground with those who deny the deity of Christ and are opposed to the Christian religion. Practically all serious literary critics today admit that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the man whose name they bear. In the case of the four Gospels it is not so easy to find a common meeting ground with our opponents. We did not indeed altogether give up the hope of finding it. We tried to point out that there is a certain amount of agreement even with regard to the Gospels between those who are friends and those who are foes of Christianity. It is universally admitted, for example, by serious historians, that the picture of Jesus in the Gospels is a picture of a real, historical person. We tried to point out certain important consequences that follow from that admission. But, after all, the common meeting ground which we can find with our opponents is, so far as the Gospels are concerned, not very extensive. In particular, there is disagreement with regard to questions of what is known as “literary criticism.” There is disagreement, namely, with regard to the authorship and date and historical value of each of the Gospels. If, therefore, we begin by assuming that any one of these Gospels was written by the man whose name has been attached to it in the opinion of the Church, we shall be accused at once of begging the question. The traditional view of the authorship of all four of these books is disputed by our opponents in this great debate. Now, mind you, I do not think that it is rightly disputed. I am perfectly willing to defend the traditional view of the authorship of the Gospels. I think it is immensely important to defend it. I think it can successfully be defended. But the point is that it needs to be defended. Rightly or wrongly the traditional view of the authorship of the Gospels is disputed by modem skeptics. About the Epistles of Paul, on the other band, there is no such dispute. Even the most skeptical critics—except a few extremists who are altogether without influence upon the current of modern thought—admit that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the Apostle Paul and written in the first generation of the Christian Church. That is a very important admission indeed. I think it is very important that we should use it in our effort to lead the men who make it to accept the claims of Christ. You see, we do not regard the people who differ from us regarding these great concerns of the soul as our enemies. On the contrary, we long to help them. Having known something of the misery of doubt ourselves, we long to help others out of that misery. Hence we do like, if we can, to find a common meeting ground with our opponents in the debate, in order that we may lead them on from the things about which they agree with us to an acceptance of the things about which they disagree. It is to be welcomed, therefore, that friends and foes of Christianity are agreed in holding that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the Apostle Paul. The man, Paul, who wrote those Epistles was a contemporary of Jesus. That can be shown from the accepted Epistles themselves, because Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians says that he himself had met a brother of Jesus and it is very clear that this meeting took place only a short time after Jesus’ death. Paul had abundant opportunities to learn the facts about Jesus. He spent fifteen days, as he tells us in Galatians, with Peter, who was in the innermost circle of Jesus’ friends, and at the same time he also saw James, who was Jesus’ brother. Contact with the same men was also established at the later time that is referred to in the second chapter of Galatians, and at that later time John, who, like Peter, belonged to Jesus’ innermost circle of friends, was also present. Barnabas and Silas, who, according to the Book of Acts came from the early Jerusalem Church, were associated with Paul through long periods of time on the missionary journeys; and while it may be objected that our knowledge of their original connection with the Jerusalem Church comes only from the Book of Acts and not from the universally accepted Epistles of Paul, still the historical basis of such concrete personal details in the Book of Acts will be admitted probably by most critics. At any rate it is perfectly clear, in view of all the conditions of Paul’s life, that Paul had abundant contacts with those who had known Jesus when He was on earth. The testimony of Paul to Jesus becomes, therefore, a matter of the highest importance to every careful historian who is interested in the beginnings of the Christian Church. It becomes very important for us to ask what sort of person Paul held Jesus to be. The answer to that question is very surprising to anyone who approaches the subject with ordinary analogies in his mind, because it becomes perfectly clear at once that Paul regarded Jesus in a very extraordinary way. He regarded Him as a supernatural person and he regarded himself as standing to Jesus in the relation in which a man stands to God. He does, it is true, speak of Jesus as a man. But when he speaks of Him as a man we may well hold that he regarded it as something extraordinary, something unexpected, that He should be a man. The really outstanding thing in the way in which Paul speaks of Jesus is that he separates Jesus very clearly from ordinary humanity and places Him on the side of God. So at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians, for example, he says that he, Paul, is an apostle not from men nor through a man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. “Not through a man but through Jesus Christ!” Man is one thing, Christ another; and Christ, over against man, is placed with God the Father. Could there be any clearer testimony to the deity of Christ? In one place at least Paul applies to Jesus the Greek word which is translated by the English word “God.” I am referring to Romans 9:5, where Christ is spoken of as the one “who is over all, God blessed for ever.” Attempts have been made to avoid holding that the word “God” in this passage refers to Christ, but it is more than doubtful whether any of those attempts can be regarded as successful. According to the plain construction of the words, the construction which in any other case would be regarded by every reader as a matter of course, Paul here calls Jesus “God.” It is true that ordinarily he does not use that word in speaking of Christ. He does not ordinarily apply to Christ the word which is translated “God” in our English Bibles, But what of it? He does apply to Christ constantly another word which can clearly be shown to be a word designating deity—namely, the word “Lord.” That word had, indeed, its uses in ordinary life; it designated a master of slaves and the like. But it had also a widespread religious use, and—what is vastly more important—it is the word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (which was the form of the Bible that Paul ordinarily employed) to translate the word “Jehovah,” the holiest name of the covenant God of Israel; and Paul does not hesitate to apply to Jesus Old Testament passages that speak of Jehovah. In view of this lofty significance of the word “Lord” Dr. B. B. Warfield is surely justified when he suggests that the title “the Lord” may almost be designated as Paul’s “Trinitarian name” of Jesus Christ.1 Paul teaches the doctrine of the Trinity—only, as Dr. Warfield points out, he uses a somewhat different terminology from that to which we have become accustomed. Instead of speaking of “God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost,” He speaks of “God,” “the Lord” and “the Spirit”; but he teaches exactly the same doctrine as that which is taught when men use that other terminology. And His doctrine of the Trinity includes, of course, the doctrine of the deity of Christ. The doctrine of the deity of Christ is all-pervasive in the Epistles of Paul. It is by no means an isolated thing. You do not have to search for it to find it. On the contrary, you cannot get away from it. Open the Epistles where you will and you will find the deity of Christ. Take, for example, the way in which Paul speaks of Christ in the openings of almost all of his Epistles. “Grace to you and peace,” he says, “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”2 Those words often make little impression on our minds. We trip along very lightly over them. But why is it that they make no impression on our minds; why is it that we trip along so lightly over them? Simply for the reason that we have become accustomed to them. They do not stand out in any way in the Epistles of Paul because they are so completely in accord with all that Paul says elsewhere about Christ. But in themselves they are really most extraordinary words. Imagine it being said about any other man who ever lived—the greatest of reformers or the holiest of saints—“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Martin Luther, or the Apostle Paul himself or John the Beloved Disciple”— and I think you will see at once how blasphemous such a form of words would be. Why is it not blasphemous, then, when Paul says “Grace be with you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”? For one reason and one reason only, my friends, Because Jesus Christ is God. Being God, and for that reason only, He can be linked in this stupendous fashion with God the Father and can be separated from the whole universe of created things. The reason why we think nothing of those stupendous words as we come to them at the beginnings of the Epistles is that they are in exact accord with everything that Paul says about Jesus. The reason why they do not stand out like mountain peaks in the Epistles is not that they are not high but that everything else that Paul says about Christ is equally high. Then I want you to understand something else about the way in which Paul teaches the deity of Christ. It is this—that Paul’s teaching about the deity of Christ is not found merely in this passage or that. It is not found merely in any number of passages where Paul ascribes divine honor and glory to Christ—no matter how numerous you may find those passages to be. No, Paul teaches the deity of Christ by the inmost heart and core of his own religious life. What was the religion of Paul really like? We ought to be able to get the answer to that question, because Paul had a remarkable gift of self-revelation. Someone, I believe, has said that he is the best known man of antiquity. He has bared his heart to us in his Epistles. He appears there not as a cold academic teacher but as a man of flesh and blood, and he has let us know what were the inmost springs of his life. Evidently those springs of his life were in his religion. There never was a more intensely religious man. What then was that religion of Paul—that religion of Paul that is so wonderfully presented to us in those revealing documents, the Epistles? Did that religion of Paul consist in having faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God? Was Jesus for Paul just an example for faith—just a pioneer in the religious life, just one who attained sonship with God and inspired others to attain it? Well, some people have tried to look at the thing in that way. But they have done so only by closing their eyes to what actually stands in the documents from which our information is to be derived. If you simply close your eyes and construct out of your own inner consciousness what you think Paul ought to have said, then of course you can make Paul out to be an adherent of what men call “the religion of Jesus”; you can make him out to be a man whose religion consisted primarily in an imitation of the religious experience through which Jesus Himself had passed; you can make him out to be a man whose religion consisted in an effort to have the same kind of faith in God as that faith which Jesus had in God. But the moment you allow yourself to be hampered in the flight of your imagination by some knowledge of the facts, the moment you seek to view Paul not as you think he ought to have been but as he was, you will observe that his religion did not consist merely in the effort to have the same kind of faith in God as the faith which Jesus had, but that it consisted in having faith in Jesus. Jesus, according to Paul, was no mere example for faith, but was the object of faith. He was the object, for Paul, of a faith that was truly religious. What does that mean? It means plainly one thing. It means that Paul stood toward Jesus not just in the relation in which a disciple stands toward his teacher, but in the relation in which a man stands toward his God. The deity of Christ is the foundation of Paul’s life. In the light of this fact, we are not surprised to read what Paul says about Christ in detail. Jesus Christ, according to Paul, existed from all eternity. He was the One through whom the universe was made. He came into this world as a man not as other men come but by a voluntary act—an act of wonderful condescension and love. His death was not just a noble martyrdom but an act of cosmic significance. It meant the redemption, from the wrath and curse of God, of a great multitude of men of all nations. After His death, He rose from the dead and is now exalted far above all principalities and powers. He belongs with God the Father in a category entirely distinct from that of all created things. Have you ever stopped just to think how extraordinary that Pauline doctrine of the deity of Christ would seem to you to be if you came to it for the first time? Here was Jesus, a man who had lived only a few years before and had died a shameful death. Here was Paul, a contemporary of Jesus, an associate of Jesus’ intimate friends, yet attributing to Jesus the highest divine attributes, and standing to Him always in the relation in which a man stands to God. Have you ever heard of anything like that anywhere else in the history of the human race? Perhaps you might be tempted to say, Yes. Perhaps you might be tempted to say that this was not the first time or the only time in the history of the world when one man has attributed deity to another. There was the deification of the Roman emperors, for example, and the deification of oriental monarchs. But do you not see the stupendous difference, my friends? Those who deified the Roman emperors were polytheists; they believed in many gods. There was nothing extraordinary, therefore, in their believing that one more god was to be added to the great host of gods with which earth and heaven were already peopled. Paul, on the other hand, was a monotheist. He believed that there was one God and one God only, the Maker of heaven and earth. He was a Jew, and the Jews were nothing if not monotheists. Both before and after his conversion the belief in one God was the very breath of his life. With all his soul he hated the very thought that any other could be called God save that One. Yet it was such a monotheist sprung of a race of monotheists who paid to one of his contemporaries, Jesus, honors that belong only to God, who reposed in Him a truly religious faith, who applied to Him Old Testament passages that spoke of Jehovah the covenant God of Israel, the one living and true God, the God who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth. No, there is nothing like that in the whole history of mankind, nothing like that ascription of deity to the man Christ Jesus by the Apostle Paul. It is no wonder that H. J, Holtzmann, ablest representative, perhaps, of the unbelief of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, admitted that for the deification of the man Jesus as it appears in the Epistles of Paul he was able to cite no parallel in the religious history of the race.3 I tell you, my friends, it is only ignorance that can trip along lightly over this amazing phenomenon. Real scholars are at least immensely intrigued by it. But so far I have not mentioned what is the most surprising thing of all about it. The truly amazing thing is not merely that Paul believed in the deity of Christ, but that he does not argue about it; the truly amazing thing is that he seems to treat it as a matter of course. About other things there was bitter debate. There was debate, for example, about the place of the Law in the attainment of salvation. About that opponents of Paul appealed to Peter and the original apostles of Jesus against Paul. Even about that, indeed, their appeal was a false appeal. The original apostles were really with Paul and against those Judaizers. But about the deity of Christ the Judaizers evidently did not make any appeal at all. Paul just assumes that everyone in the Church, including his opponents, will agree with his stupendous view of Jesus Christ. Still more clearly does he assume that the original friends of Jesus will agree with it. That is the truly extraordinary thing. The intimate friends of Jesus—think of it—those who had walked and talked with Him when He was on earth, those who had seen Him subject to all the petty limitations of human life—these intimate friends of Jesus stood, so far as we can see from the Epistles of Paul, in the most complete agreement in their view of Jesus with one who regarded Jesus as very God. Who was this Jesus who was exalted to the throne of God not by later generations but by His own intimate friends? The Gospels give the only believable answer to that question. Their picture of Jesus is independent of Paul; it is certainly not just spun out of what the Pauline Epistles say about Christ. Yet it presents just the Christ whom the Epistles presuppose. Deny the truthfulness of the Gospel picture of Jesus, and you can never explain the origin of the religion of Paul. Take the picture as it stands, and all is clear. The two great testimonies to Christ—the Gospels and Paul—lead to the same end. And at that end of the testimony we find the Saviour of our souls. Notes 1. Warfield, The Lord of Glory, 1907, p. 231 2. See the article by B. B. Warfield, “God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” in Princeton Theological Review, xv, 1917, pp. 1-20, reprinted in Biblical Doctrines, 1929, pp. 21-231. 3. H. J. Holtzmann, in Protestantische Monatshefte, iv, 1900, pp. 465 1., and in Christliche Welt, xxiv, 1910, column 153. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 05.00. CHRISTIAN FAITH IN THE MODERN WORLD ======================================================================== The Christian Faith in the Modern World by John Gresham Machen PREFACE DURING the first four months of the year 1935, the writer of this book delivered over Station WIP a course of radio addresses, for which the arrangements were made by the Rev. Edwin H. Rian, on behalf of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. The addresses are now published in a form very similar to that in which they were delivered. The resulting book may perhaps lay claim to a larger degree of unity than that which is usually possessed by published addresses, since these addresses proceeded in logical sequence. Little more than a beginning, however, is made of the treatment of the subject indicated in the title. The Christian view of the Bible and a part, at least, of the Biblical doctrine of God are presented (of course only in summary fashion); but other great elements in the Christian Faith—the Christian view of man and the Christian view of salvation—are left for future treatment. The author desires to express his heartfelt gratitude to his friend, the Rev. Edwin H. Rian, of the Board of Trustees of Westminster Theological Seminary, to whom the plan for the delivery of such a course of lectures was due, and whose unfailing encouragement and help made possible the carrying out of the plan. The author is also indebted to colleagues in the Faculty of the Seminary—particularly to Mr. John Murray, who is in charge of the Department of Systematic Theology—for counsel generously given him with regard to certain of the subjects treated in the lectures. First printed by WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING CO. of Grand Rapids: Michigan in 1936. A paperback edition was printed in 1965. Table of Contents Preface and Table of Contents 01. The Present Emergency and How to Meet It 02. How May God Be Known? 03. Has God Spoken? 04. Is The Bible The Word Of God? 05. Do We Believe In Verbal Inspiration? 06. Shall We Defend The Bible? 07. The Bible Versus Human Authority 08. Life Founded Upon Truth 09. God, The Creator 10. The Triune God 11. What Is The Deity Of Christ? 12. Does The Bible Teach The Deity Of Christ? 13. The Sermon Oon The Mount And The Deity Of Christ 14. What Jesus Said About Himself 15. The Supernatural Christ 16. Did Christ Rise From The Dead? 17. The Testimony Of Paul To Christ 18. The Holy Spirit http://www.christianbeliefs.org/books/chrfaith/ChrFaith-Machen-00.html ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 05.01. THE PRESENT EMERGENCY AND HOW TO MEET IT ======================================================================== Chapter 1 THE PRESENT EMERGENCY AND HOW TO MEET IT The subject of this first talk has been treated by the author in a way which in part is similar in his articles, "Christianity and Liberty," in Forum for March, 1931, and "The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age," in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science for January, 1933. At the very beginning, I may as well tell you plainly that I am not going to talk about the topics that are usually regarded as most timely just now. I am not going to talk to you about the gold standard or about unemployment or about the NRA or about the Brain Trust. Possibly some of you may discover that certain things that I may say have a bearing upon those topics, but those topics are not the topics about which I am going to talk. Instead, I am going to talk to you about God, and about an unseen world. May I reasonably expect you to be interested in such very intangible topics as these? There are many persons who say, "No." We are living, say these persons, in the midst of a serious emergency. One economic system, they say, seems to have broken down, and another is not quite ready to be put into its place. Everywhere are to be found unemployment and distress, almost everywhere there are wars or rumors of wars. In the midst of such distresses, who, these persons say, could be so heartless as to spend his efforts upon doubtful speculations regarding a life beyond the grave? Time enough to deal with that other world when we have set this world in order! Let us deal bravely—so the argument runs—first with the problems that we can see; and then, when we have done that, we may possibly find opportunity afterwards to deal with the unseen and intangible things. I have much sympathy with persons who speak in that way. I do not mean that I agree with them. On the contrary I disagree with them with all my soul. But I do say that I can sympathize with them, and I think I can recognize the element of truth in what they say. It is certainly true that circumstances do alter a man’s choice of the things to which he shall turn his attention. If you were living at Little America along with Byrd, I could hardly advise you to go in to any great extent for landscape gardening. What is true, moreover, of different positions on the Earth’s surface is true also of different times. There are times of emergency when work that is needed in ordinary times is no longer in place. The World War, of course, gave us a stock example. In time of war people turned their attention to things very different from the things that they did at ordinary times. If I may use the very humblest of all examples, the example of myself, I may say that in the time of peace before the war I taught Greek; in time of war I made what I am afraid was the world’s worst effort at running a small delicatessen store. Other persons did things that were more useful but were even more remote from their ordinary occupations. It was a time of emergency, and things that were ordinarily needed were no longer in place. I am perfectly ready to admit, moreover, that although the World War is now over the emergency remains with us to the full. Indeed, the emergency is far more serious than we could ever have imagined it would be. Little did I think, for example, as I walked out through the little town of Synghem on the Scheldt River in Belgium on the morning of November 11, 1918, and saw the dead lying beside the road and went out into the positions across the river so recently occupied by the enemy, and as I gloried in the strange peace of that November morning when the noise of war that had so long seemed to be an inevitable part of human existence gave place to a strange, eloquent, unbelievable silence—little did I think, and little did men far wiser than I think, that the peace then granted to humanity would result after sixteen years in a condition like that which faces us today. Little did I think that a war supposed to make the world safe for democracy would be followed by an era in which in Italy and in Germany, as well as in Russia, democracy and liberty would be openly despised and would be replaced by a tyranny far more crushing and soul-killing in many respects than the cruder tyrannies of the past. Little did I think that even in America the civil and religious liberty which was our dearest possession and which was won by our fathers at such cost would be threatened as it is being threatened today. No thoughtful man can possibly look out upon the world today without observing that we are in the midst of a tremendous emergency. It does seem perfectly clear to thoughtful people, whether they are Christians or not, that humanity is standing over an abyss. At such a time, is it any wonder that this world with its pressing problems should seem to many persons quite sufficient to occupy all our thoughts; is it any wonder that the pressing problems that are before our very eyes should crowd out attention to God and to an unseen world? Persons who adopt that attitude may with some plausibility argue that the most important thing that you have to do for a man is not always the first thing that you must do for him. If a man is in the water, drowning, the most important thing to do for him is to preach the gospel to him for the saving of his soul. But that is not the first thing to do for him. The first thing to do for him is to pull him out of the water. He cannot even attend to the gospel for the saving of his soul when his ears are full of salt water. The first thing that you have to do for him—even though it be not the most important thing—is to pull him out of the water and give him artificial respiration. Then and then only can you preach the gospel to him for the saving of his soul. It might seem to be the same way with humanity as a whole. Humanity is drowning in the water, or, to change the figure slightly, is sinking in the mire. The first thing to do might seem to be to pull it out, in order that after it has been pulled out we may ask it to deal with the unseen things. Let the Church show what it can do with the plain emergency as it actually exists in this world—so the argument might run—and then, if it proves able to do that, the world may think it worth listening to if it talks about God. Plausible reasoning this is—plausible but utterly untrue. In the first place, the program that this reasoning proposes will not work. It proposes that we shall first deal with the political and social emergency, and then afterwards deal with the unseen things. But what was it that brought the emergency upon us in the first place? Was it something in the realm of that which can be seen? Not at all. The physical resources of the world were amply sufficient for the world’s needs. No, the thing that brought the emergency upon us was something in the realm of the unseen things. It was an evil that was found within the soul of man. That evil was not quite so simple as was at first supposed. Not many of us, I think, would now hold that the war was due solely to the sins of the Kaiser or the German military machine. The evil, alas, was considerably more widespread than that. But at least it is clear that it lay within the realm of those intangible and unseen things. It lay within the soul of man and within the sphere of the relations between man and the unseen world. Moreover, if it was something within that realm that brought the emergency to us in the first place, it is also something in that realm that keeps the emergency with us today. The distress of the world is due clearly to an evil that is within the soul of man. Hence these so-called "practical" men who would neglect the realm of the soul and of the soul’s relations to God in order to deal with the economic problems of the day are the most impractical people that could possibly be imagined. They always remind me of a man who tries to run a gasoline engine that is not producing a spark. You may have your engine in fine working order; there may be a good flow of gasoline; there may be the most perfect lubrication: but if there is something wrong with the ignition system your engine will not run. I think I remember trying the experiment inadvertently sometimes in those heroic days before the invention of self-starters when a Ford was still a Ford. I cranked my engine until I was very red in the face and until my temper suffered considerable strain. I imagined that I needed an expert capable of discoursing on the most intricate principles of dynamics. But despite all my efforts and despite all my search for mechanical learning the miserable engine would not start. Why? Because there was anything wrong with the engine? Not at all. Henry Ford had done his work well. But because I had forgotten to turn on the switch. So it is with these practical men who are not interested in the human soul and in God. They are cranking the engine of society furiously; they are proposing all sorts of radical changes in the machinery. But there is one little thing that they have forgotten. They have forgotten to turn on the switch. The engine is not producing a spark; and until it produces a spark it will not run. The truth is that that analogy of the drowning man does not apply to the evils of society. To pull a drowning man out of the water is a simple physical effort. But to pull society out of the mire into which it has fallen today is not a simple physical effort at all, but is a highly complex matter; and at the very heart of it is that mysterious portion of the mechanism which is known as the soul of man. It is impossible, therefore, to deal first with the social and political evils of the day, and then deal afterwards with the unseen things, for the simple reason that without dealing with the unseen things you cannot deal successfully with those social and political problems at all. At that point I am particularly anxious to avoid misunderstanding of what I am saying. I certainly do not mean by what I have been saying that religion is to be regarded merely as a means to a higher end. I certainly do not mean that God is to be dragged in merely to help us out in the troubles that face us at the present emergency. If I meant that I should be rejecting the central things of the Christian religion and should be saying something quite contrary to the Bible. We ought to be perfectly clear about this point. If you regard religion merely as a means to attain worldly ends, even the highest and noblest of worldly ends—if you regard religion for example, merely as a means of meeting the present emergency in this world, then you have never even begun to have even the slightest inkling of what the Christian religion means. God, as He is known to the Christian, is never content to be thus a mere instrument in the hands of those who care nothing about Him. The relation to God is the all-important thing. It is not a mere means to an end. Everything else is secondary to it. But what I do mean is that God has so ordered the course of this world that in this case—unlike that case of the drowning man—it is impossible to attain the lower end until the higher end has been attained. It is impossible to deal successfully even with these political and social problems until we have come to be right with God. No emergency can possibly be so pressing as to permit us to postpone attention to the unseen things. Indeed, the emergency ought to have exactly the opposite effect; the evils of the time, instead of leading us away from God, ought to lead us to Him. There was a time not so very long ago when this world might have seemed to a superficial observer to be a fairly satisfactory place. Even then the evil was there, but it was covered up; the abyss over which we were standing was concealed by the amenities of modern life. When I was a student in Germany in the years 1905-1906, the world might have seemed to a superficial observer to be getting along fairly well without God. It was a fine, comfortable world, that godless European world before 1914. And as for another European war, that seemed to be about as far beyond the bounds of possibility as that the knights should don their armor and set their lances again in rest. The international bankers, we supposed, obviously would prevent an anachronism so absurd. But we have since discovered our mistake. That godless European and American world proved to be not so comfortable after all. Today the world is in a state far more disquieting than that which prevailed in 1918. Europe is armed to the teeth. Russia stands under the most systematic and soul-crushing tyranny that the world has ever seen. In Germany fiendish wickedness is being practiced in the name of science, and in that country as well as in Italy even the form of liberty, to say nothing of the reality of it, has been abandoned. Civil and religious liberty is being treated openly as though it had been merely a passing phase in human life, well enough in its day, but now out of date. In America, the same tendencies are mightily at work. Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have been crushed by an all-powerful State. Is this a time when we ought to be contented with things as they are? Is it not rather a time when we ought seriously to ask ourselves whether there is not some lost secret which must be regained if humanity is to be saved from the abyss? What is true about humanity as a whole is also true, I venture to think, about you. The world is weary and perplexed today. Well, how is it with you? Are you contented with your lives as they are now? I suppose that many of you are. But some of you, I know, are discontented, and are looking for something entirely different from that which you now possess. That is true of rich as well as of poor; it has little to do with your particular situation in this world. To such hungry souls I think I have something to say in this little series of talks; and there are many hungry souls today. But why is it that I have something to say to you? Is it because I am an expert in religion and because I can draw upon great resources of wisdom and experience in order to help you to deal with the problems of your lives? Is it because I am a skillful soul-physician who can point you to hidden resources in your own souls upon which you yourselves can then draw? I may as well say at once that if that is the program of these addresses I cannot expect you to attend to them any more. There are many persons in the world, there are many persons speaking "over the air," who are far wiser and more learned and in every way more gifted than I. No, I certainly cannot expect you to listen to me because of any wisdom of mine; for I have none. I cannot expect you to be particularly interested in any opinions of mine that I may be bold enough to present. There is just one reason why I may possibly expect you to listen to me. I may expect you to listen to me if I can bring to you a message from God. If I can do that, then the very insignificance of the speaker may in a certain sense be an added inducement to you to listen to him, since it may help you to forget the speaker and attend only to the message. It is just that that I am trying to do. I am asking you to turn away from me and my opinions; I am asking you to turn away from yourself and your opinions and your troubles; and I am asking you to turn instead that you may listen to a word from God. Where can I find that word? I am going to try to tell you in the next one of these little talks. Not in myself and not in you, but in an old Book that has been sealed by the seals of prejudice and unbelief but that will, if it is rediscovered, again set the world aflame and that will show you, be you wise or unwise, rich or poor, the way by which you can come into communion with the living God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 05.02. HOW MAY GOD BE KNOWN? ======================================================================== Chapter 2 HOW MAY GOD BE KNOWN? In the first talk of this little series, I tried to tell you why I think you cannot postpone attention to God and to an unseen world. It is true that this world presents pressing problems, but you can never solve even those problems aright unless you first face the question of your relation to God. That is the all-important thing, and the distresses of the present time only serve to press it still more insistently upon our attention. But if it is important for us to face the question of our relation to God, how can God be known to us? How can we discover whether there is a God at all, and then, if there is, what sort of being He is? I have something rather simple to say about that question at the very start. It is something that seems to me to be rather obvious, and yet it is something that is quite generally ignored. It is simply this—that if we are really to know anything about God it will probably be because God has chosen to tell it to us. Many persons seem to go on a very different assumption. They seem to think that if they are to know anything about God they must discover God for themselves. That assumption seems to me to be extremely unlikely. Just supposing for the sake of the argument that there is a being of such a kind as that He may with any propriety be called "God," it does seem antecedently very improbable that weak and limited creatures of a day, such as we are, should discover Him by our own efforts without any will on His part to make Himself known to us. At least, I think we can say that a god who could be discovered in that way would hardly be worth discovering. A mere passive subject of human investigation is certainly not a living God who can satisfy the longing of our souls. Some years ago I was asked to contribute to a composite volume which had as its general title, "My Idea of God" 1[My idea of God, edited by Joseph Fort Newton, Litt.D., D.H.L., 1926]. Various writers told, each of them, what his own idea of God was. One said, "I think of God so"; another said, "I think so." Now I shall not presume to say whether the essay that I contributed to that volume had any particular merit at all. Perhaps it was a rather poor effort. But I do very deliberately maintain that I was right at least in saying at the beginning of it that if my idea of God were really mine I should attach very little importance to it myself and could reasonably expect even less importance to be attributed to it by others. A divine being that could be discovered by my efforts, apart from His gracious will to reveal Himself to me and to others, would be either a mere name for a certain aspect of man’s own nature, a God that we could find within us, or else at best a mere passive thing that would be subject to investigation like the substances that are analyzed in a laboratory. I think we ought to stick to that principle rather firmly. I think we ought to be rather sure that we cannot know God unless God has been pleased to reveal Himself to us. How, then, has God revealed Himself to us? In the first place, He has revealed Himself by the universe that He has made. How did the world come into being? It is here. That cannot be denied. But how did it come to be? The question forces itself upon the attention of every thinking man. We may try to evade it. We may just say that it is unanswerable. We may try to put it out of our minds. But it continues to haunt us all the same, and for ages it has haunted the human race. I think the universe itself provides the answer to that question. The answer is itself a mystery, but it is a mystery in which we can rest. The answer is a very simple answer. The answer is that this world came into being because God made it. It is the work of an infinite and all-wise and all-powerful God. That answer presses itself upon different people in different ways. It has been defended by philosophers and theologians by way of detailed reasoning. That reasoning has been divided logically into what are called the "theistic proofs"—indications in the world itself that point to the existence of a personal God, creator and ruler of the world. I am not going to speak of them here except just to say that I think they are good proofs, and that the Christian man, whether he has a detailed knowledge of them or not, ought never to depreciate them or regard as a matter of no importance the debate about them among philosophers and learned men. But I am not going to attempt any exposition of those proofs. What I do want to do is just to point out that the testimony of nature to nature’s God comes to different people in different ways. I remember listening some time ago to a lecture by an eminent man of science. The lecturer traced the progress of scientific investigation and pointed out, if I remember aright, its material benefits. But then he paused to speak of another product of the scientific spirit; the true scientist, he said, is brought face to face at last with the ultimate mystery, and at that point he becomes a religious man. There is endless diversity in the world, said he: but the progress of investigation has revealed the electron; and the electrons, said he, are all alike—they are machine-made—and their marvelous likeness reveals the existence of a mystery into which man cannot penetrate; in truly religious awe the man of science stands at length before a curtain that is never lifted, a mystery that rebukes all pride. I am not saying that man of science had a true knowledge of God. I do not think that he had. I should have liked, if he had been willing to listen to me, to tell him of the way in which, for little children as well as for learned men of science, that dreadful curtain of which he spoke has been pulled gently aside to give us at least a look into the mysteries beyond. But at least there was one aspect of nature that brought that scientist to the threshold of a knowledge of God. To some men the testimony of nature to nature’s God comes by such precise knowledge of nature as was possessed by that scientist. To others it comes by a reasoned consideration of the implications of nature’s existence. But to still others it comes by what Browning calls "a sunset touch." To one man in one way, to another in another. To me nature speaks clearest in the majesty and beauty of the hills. One day in the summer of 1932 I stood on the summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps. Some people can stand there and see very little. Depreciating the Matterhorn is a recognized part of modern books on mountain climbing. The great mountain, it is said, has been sadly spoiled. Why, you can even see sardine cans on those rocks that so tempted the ambition of climbers in Whymper’s day. Well, I can only say that when I stood on the Matterhorn I do not remember seeing a single can. Perhaps that was partly because of the unusual masses of fresh snow which were then on the mountain; but I think it was also due to the fact that unlike some people I had eyes for something else. I saw the vastness of the Italian plain, which was like a symbol of infinity. I saw the snows of distant mountains. I saw the sweet green valleys far, far below, at my feet. I saw the whole glorious round of glittering peaks, bathed in an unearthly light. And as I see that glorious vision again before me now, I am thankful from the bottom of my heart that from my Mother’s knee I have known to whom all that glory is due. Then I love the softer beauties of nature also. I wonder whether you love them with me. Some years ago, in the White Mountains, I walked beside a brook. I have seen, I suppose hundreds of brooks. But somehow I remember particularly that one. I am not going to tell you where it is, because if I did you might write to the C.C.C. or the National Park Service about it and get them to put a scenic highway along it, and then it would be forever ruined. But when I walked along it, it was untouched. I cherish the memory of it. It was gentle and sweet and lovely beyond all words. I think a man might travel through all the world and never see anything lovelier than a White Mountain brook. Very wonderful is the variety of nature in her changing moods. Silence too, the silence of nature, can be a very revealing thing. I remember one day when I spent a peaceful half-hour in the sunlight on the summit of a mountain in the Franconia range. I there experienced something very rare. Would you believe it, my friends? It was really silent on that sunny mountain top. There was not the honk of a motor horn; there was no jazz music; there was no sound of a human voice; there was not even the rustling of the leaves. There was nothing but a strange, brooding silence. It was a precious time indeed. I shall never forget it all my life. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not asking that everyone should love the beauties of nature as I love them. I do think, indeed, that the love of nature ought to be cultivated. At least I do not think that government ought to go into the business of crushing it out of a people’s soul as the United States government is doing by some of the artificialities and regularities of its National Parks. I think some sweet and delicate little things ought to be left untouched. But I well understand that there are many people who do not love the beauties of nature. Are they shut off from finding God revealed in the world that He has made? Indeed, that is not so, my friends; indeed, it is not so. The mystery of the existence of the world presses itself upon different people in different ways. I remember, for example, a talk that I heard from a professor at an afternoon conference service many years ago. I do not know just why I should remember it, but I do remember it. The professor said that he had had a friend who had come to a belief in God, or had come back to a belief in God, by—what do you suppose? Well, by a trip through Europe! As he went from city to city and observed the seething multitudes, the throngs upon throngs of men and women, somehow, he said, the conviction just seemed to come over him: "There is a God, there is a God." Was that a foolish fancy? Were those experiences in my own life of which I have been bold enough to speak merely meaningless dreams? Or were they true testimonies to something marvelous beyond? Were they moments when God was graciously revealing Himself to me through the glory of the world that He has made? I think a Christian ought not to be afraid to give the latter answer. The revelation of God through nature has the stamp of approval put upon it by the Bible. The Bible clearly teaches that nature reveals the glory of God. In a wonderful passage in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans the Apostle Paul says that the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [Romans 1:20]. Here the Bible approves the arguments of those who in systematic fashion argue from the existence of the world to the existence of a divine Maker of the world. But the Bible also approves those more unreasoned flashes of knowledge in which suddenly we see God’s workmanship in the beauty and the majesty of His world. The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork, [Psalms 19:1] says the Psalmist. And what said our Lord Jesus Christ. Even Solomon in all his glory, said He of the lilies of the field, was not arrayed like one of these [Matthew 6:20]. All that is true. The revelation of God through nature is a very precious thing. But then a serious question arises. If God has revealed Himself through the things that He has made, why do so very few men listen to the revelation? The plain fact is that very few men arrive by a contemplation of nature at a true belief in a personal God. Even those scientists whose religious views are sometimes being incautiously welcomed by Christian people are often found upon closer examination to believe only in a God who is identical with a spiritual purpose supposed to inhere in the world process itself and are found not to believe at all in a living and holy God, are found not to believe at all in the true God who created the Heavens and the Earth. Why is that so? If God has revealed Himself so plainly through the world that He has made, why do men not see? Well, when men do not see something, there are two possible explanations of the fact. One is that there is nothing there to see. The other is that the men who do not see are blind. It is this latter explanation which the Bible gives of the failure of men to know God through the things that He has made. The Bible puts it very plainly in that same passage already quoted from the first chapter of Romans. Their foolish heart, says Paul, was darkened [Romans 1:21]. Hence they did not see. The fault did nor lie in nature. Men were without excuse, [Romans 1:20] Paul says, when they did not see what nature had to show. Their minds were blinded by sin. That is a hard saying, but like many other hard sayings it is true. You will never understand anything else that I may say unless you understand that we all of us, so long as we stand in our own right, and have not had our eyes mysteriously opened, are lost and blind in sin. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 05.03. HAS GOD SPOKEN? ======================================================================== Chapter 3 HAS GOD SPOKEN? At the beginning of this little series of talks, I tried to tell you why you cannot postpone attention to an unseen world and to God. This world presents very pressing problems just now, but even the problems of this world cannot be solved aright if you neglect the other world and the great question of your relation to God. Then I began to tell you how you can come into relations with that unseen world; I tried to begin to tell you how God may be known. He may be known, I said, through the universe that He has made: the existence of the world shows that there is a Maker and Ruler of the world. That revelation of God through nature, I said, is wonderfully confirmed by the Bible, but it does not come only from the Bible. It is spread out before men so that all might be expected to see. But in the last of these talks I was not able to finish, even in bare outline, what ought to be said about that general revelation of God which is given to us outside of the Bible. I spoke of the way in which God has spoken to us through the majesty and beauty of the world that He has made. But there is another way, still apart from the Bible, in which God has spoken to His creatures. He has not only in the wonders of the world outside of us but also through His voice within. He has planted His laws in our hearts. He speaks to all men through the voice of conscience. He speaks through the majestic words which all but the most degraded men utter, the words: "I ought." He speaks through the majesty of the moral law. A law implies a lawgiver. Conscience testifies of God. There are some people, even people who are not Christians, to whom that revelation seems particularly to appeal. Some years ago I remember hearing an informal lecture by a well-known professor of philosophy. The speaker told us about the present state of philosophical opinion. It was, he said, overwhelmingly in favor of naturalism—that is, very few philosophers believed in any reality beyond and above the universe in which we live. He himself, the speaker said, disagreed with this naturalism. He did believe in a transcendent reality. Why? He believed in it, he said, because he observed that certain people sacrifice their own interests for the sake of other people or for the sake of duty. What could possibly lead them to act so if there is no transcendent principle of right? How could they possibly act in a way so contrary to all worldly interests unless there is a reality beyond this world? The Bible sets the stamp of its approval upon that revelation of God through conscience, as we have seen that it sets the stamp of its approval upon the revelation that comes through the external world. Paul says, for example, in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Romans: For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.... [Romans 2:14-15]. Here the Apostle does seem clearly to teach that the voice of conscience, which speaks in the very constitution of man’s nature, is the voice of God. He does not mean that men really obey that law as it ought to be obeyed. On the contrary, he is very clear indeed in teaching that all have disobeyed. They have disobeyed the law, but at least the law is there, in their hearts. Because of their disobedience they are under the condemnation of the law; the law can therefore of itself never give them any hope. But that is not the fault of the law; the moral law is written in the very constitution of their being, and if they do not heed it they are without excuse. Thus God the great lawgiver is revealed in the voice of conscience as He is in the wonders of the world without. These two may be grouped together as constituting the revelation of God through nature, if nature be taken to include the nature of man. The philosopher Immanuel Kant is said to have summed it up when he spoke of the starry heavens above and the moral law within as being the two things which fill the heart of man with awe. I do not mean that those two things gave to Immanuel Kant a true knowledge of God: I do not mean even that he had a true notion of what knowledge itself is. But what I mean is that he made a correct summary of those things which apart from the Bible ought to give us a knowledge of God. The wonders of the universe without and the moral law within—those are the two great elements in God’s revelation of Himself through nature. But He has not only revealed Himself through nature; He has also revealed Himself in an entirely different way. That other revelation of God, different from His revelation of Himself through nature, is not natural but supernatural. When we say "supernatural," we are not speaking about something contrary to nature. Nothing that is contrary to nature could possibly come from God; for God is the author of nature, and He cannot contradict Himself. But when we say that anything is "supernatural" we are saying that it is "above nature." There is a really existing order of nature; the order of nature does not consist merely in our observation of certain regularities in God’s working, but it is something that truly exists. That does not mean that nature exists apart from God. On the contrary, it would not continue to exist for one moment except by God’s will. God is not isolated from the world; He does everything that nature does and He says everything that nature says. But what we mean is that God acts and speaks in two very different ways. In the first place He acts and speaks by means of the world that He has made; and in the second place He acts and speaks directly, without the use of means. It was in this latter way that God acted when He first created the world, and it was in this latter way that He acted when He wrought the miracles recorded in the Bible and when He spoke to men in the supernatural revelation with which we are dealing just now. Why was this supernatural revelation needed? It was needed for two reasons. In the first place, God’s revelation of Himself through nature has been hidden from our eyes by sin. We saw in the last talk how that is the case with the revelation given by the wonders of the external world. Those wonders reveal the glory of God. But men are blinded so that they do not see. That is even more clearly true of the revelation of God through His voice within. Have you never experienced yourselves, my friends, the way in which conscience becomes blunted? Have you never first looked upon some foul thing with horror, and then slipped into that thing by insensible degrees, so that what seemed wrong to you before is now treated as a matter of course, until at some sad hour you come to yourself and see that you are already wallowing in the mire? Ah yes, the voice of conscience is silenced by a life of sin. We can detect that dreadful hardening process in ourselves, and very terribly is it set forth in the Bible as a punishment for sin. How terrible, too, are the perversions of the conscience among men! It is certainly true that the revelation of God through conscience has been hidden from men’s eyes by sin. There is need of supernatural revelation, therefore, to show us again those things which sin has hidden from our eyes. But is that all the supernatural revelation that there is? If it were, we should be of all men most miserable. Suppose we had had revealed to us the terrible majesty of God; suppose the voice of conscience had spoken to us with perfect clearness, of the justice of God and of our disobedience. How terrible that revelation would be! No, thank God. He has also, in His supernatural revelation, told us other things. He has told us again in supernatural fashion things that we ought to have learned through nature, but then He has told us other things of which nature gives no slightest hint. He has told us, namely, of His grace. He has told us of the way in which sinners who have offended against His holy law and deserve nothing but His wrath have been made His children at infinite cost and will live as His children for evermore. Where shall we find that supernatural revelation? I want to say very plainly that I think all that we can know of it now is found in the pages of one Book. There have, indeed, been men in our day who have claimed to be the recipients of supernatural revelation, who have claimed to be prophets, who have said as they have come forward: "Thus says the Lord; God has spoken directly to me, and my voice therefore is the voice of God." But those who have said that in our times are false prophets one and all; the real supernatural revelation that we know is recorded in one blessed book, the Bible. It is no wonder that that is the case, because there is a marvelous symmetry and completeness in that revelation of God which the Bible records. I should love to speak to you about it if there were time. When sin came into the world, the Bible tells us that there was a revelation of salvation to come; the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. I should love to tell you of the unfolding of that promise. I should love to tell you of Abraham and of Moses. I should particularly love to tell you of the great prophets, because in their words we see so plainly what supernatural revelation is. They spoke of judgment; they spoke of the terror and the majesty of God. But they also spoke, very tenderly, of God’s grace. As when at some solemn sunset hour there are dark clouds above but low on the horizon a deep, clear, unearthly light, despair of every artist’s brush, so in the great prophets there are warnings of the day of vengeance of our God but mingled with the warnings strange gleams of a heavenly tenderness and peace. For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace [Isaiah 9:6]. Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel [Isaiah 7:14]. Only, our figure was not altogether right; those passages reveal to us not a sunset glow but the glory of a far-off dawn. Then, as we read the Bible, we see the dawn drawing nearer. It is like that solemn hour when all nature is hushed before the appearance of the day. Shepherds kept watch over their flocks by night. There came to them a heavenly word: Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord [Luke 2:11]. I should love to tell you of that Savior. He spoke as never man spoke. But I suppose His whole life can be called supernatural revelation. He was true man, but He was not only man, and He came into this world by a supernatural act of God, and in His death and resurrection He wrought a supernatural work. I should love to tell you of the way in which through the apostles supernatural revelation was gloriously continued after His saving work was done. I should love to tell you how by heeding the revelation contained in the Epistles of the New Testament you can have that glorious Savior as your Savior today. I should love to tell you of the last book of the Bible, with its promises of things to come, with its promises of the time when we shall see our Savior face to face. Yes, there is a wonderful symmetry and completeness in the supernatural revelation recorded in the Bible. But one question may trouble us. Have we a true record of that revelation? The revelation came to men of long ago. How do we know that the account which we have of it is true? And how do we know that those saving acts of God which went with the revelation really did happen? The revelation is one thing, it might be said, and the record of the revelation is another. How do we know that the record is true? I want to talk to you about that question in the next one of these addresses. I want to talk to you about inspiration—the inspiration of the Book in which the revelation is recorded. I want to talk to you about the question just exactly what we mean when we say that the Bible is the Word of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 05.04. IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? ======================================================================== Chapter 4 IS THE BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD? In the last two talks in this series, I have been speaking to you about the question how God may be known. He may be known, I said, only as He has been pleased to reveal Himself. But He has been pleased to reveal Himself in two ways. In the first place, He has been pleased to reveal Himself through nature—by the wonders of the world and by His voice within, the voice of’ conscience—and, in the second place, He has been pleased to reveal Himself in an entirely different way that we call "supernatural" because it is "above nature." We were talking about that supernatural revelation in the last talk. In that supernatural revelation God has spoken to men not through the wonders of the world that He has made and not through His voice planted in our hearts, the voice of conscience, but directly and specially, in a way analogous to the way in which one person here on Earth gives a piece of information to another. I said at the close of the little talk that all of that "supernatural" or special revelation that we know is contained within the pages of one book, the Bible. Was I right in saying that? Well, I think that I was just about right. Supernatural revelation, along with the miracles, ceased when the last of the Apostles of Jesus died. If you want information as to why the miracles ceased, and with them supernatural revelation, I think you will kind it if you will turn, for example, to the admirable book by the late B. B. Warfield, entitled Counterfeit Miracles [1918, pp. 1-33]. But why should we not obtain information, in addition to that recorded in the Bible, about supernatural revelation given, indeed, not later, but in Bible times? Well, it is perfectly conceivable that we might do so. It is perfectly conceivable, for example, that there might turn up in Egypt bits of papyrus affording true information about words of Jesus not contained in the four Gospels. But the bits of papyrus which have actually turned up so far hardly seem to provide such information. It is, for example, on the whole unlikely that Jesus really spoke the words recorded in one such fragment: "Lift up the stone, and there you shall find me; cleave the wood, and there I am" [For text and translation, see Hugh G. Evelyn White, The Sayings of Jesus from Oxyrhynchus, 1920, pp. 35 f.]. On the whole, speaking broadly, we can certainly say that all the supernatural revelation that we can be at all certain about, although no doubt other supernatural revelation was given in Bible times, is recorded in the pages of one book, the Bible. But then the question forces itself upon our attention "How about that record?" We have said that the record of supernatural revelation outside the Bible is uncertain, to say the very best for it. But is the record in the Bible any better? Can we really depend upon the record? I want to try to answer that question today. I want to try to tell you what I think the right view of the Bible is. In doing so, I am perfectly well aware of the fact that in the opinion of a good many people I shall be putting my worst foot forward. I shall be giving expression to views which put me out of accord with the main trend of opinion both outside the Church and inside of it. Should I not be wiser if I took this thing more gradually, if I adopted a more apologetic line of approach, if I decided, in the first part of my little series at least, to conceal somewhat the full unpopularity of my opinions? In reply, I just want to say that I do not think that if I adopted that method I should be treating you quite fairly. Here we are, sitting down together quietly. Cannot we at least be friends? Cannot we at least try to understand each other, whether we can agree with each other or not? I do not think that I should be doing my part toward that mutual understanding If I concealed from you the real basis of what I am going to say. Hence I am going to tell you at once, just as briefly and as plainly as I can, what I think about the inspiration of the Bible. As I do that I am afraid I shall have to relinquish any ambitions of being brilliant or sparkling or eloquent. A simple, summary presentation of a large subject does not lend itself to the exercise of these qualities. So I must resist the temptation of exhibiting my eloquence. That is just too bad! But I do not think I can estimate my self sacrifice in this particular too highly. You see, I am greatly assisted in my battle against the temptation of exhibiting my eloquence by the fact that I have no eloquence to exhibit. At any rate, whether because of necessity or because of choice, I am subordinating all other ambitions in these little talks to the one ambition of being plain. I do want to try to help you to get certain things straight. They may seem to be simple and even elementary, and yet there is the strangest confusion about them today. You may not agree with me about these things, but at least I hope that if you are broadminded enough to listen to me at all you may obtain a fairer conception about what certain much abused people—we who believe in the inspiration of the Bible—really hold. After all, there are a good many people in the world who believe, as I do, that the Bible is the Word of God; and you cannot really be broadminded, you cannot really have an intelligent view of the state of humanity as a whole, if you listen only to what is said about these people by their opponents and never take the trouble to listen to what they have to say for themselves. Of course, I cannot conceal from you the fact that I have also another and a higher purpose in these little talks, I want not only to clear away misconceptions from your minds as to what we believe, but I want to win some of you to believe the same thing yourselves. I want not only to show you what are the views of people who believe that there is a God and that He has spoken to men, but also to try to lead some of you to listen to the voice of God for yourselves. I know I cannot do that by any mere persuasions or arguments of mine. I can do it only if I have the blessing of God. But if I can just be the instrument, in these little talks, to clear away the mists and to enable you to see God, above all if I can bring you a message from God’s Word as to how you can come into God’s presence and become His child—if I can do that even for a single one of you—then these little talks will have been well worth while. What, then, shall we think about the Bible? I will tell you very plainly what I think we ought to think. I will tell you very plainly what I think about it. I hold that the Biblical writers, after having been prepared for their task by the providential ordering of their entire lives, received, in addition to all that, a blessed and wonderful and supernatural guidance and impulsion by the Spirit of God, so that they were preserved from the errors that appear in other books and thus the resulting book, the Bible, is in all its parts the very Word God, completely true in what it says regarding matters of fact and completely authoritative in its commands. That is the doctrine of full or "plenary" inspiration of Holy Scripture. It is not a popular doctrine. It is not in accordance with the wisdom of this world. A man cannot hold to it seriously (and really act in accordance with it) and at the same time enjoy the favor of the world or the favor of the ecclesiastical authorities in many of the churches of the present day. Yet it is a very blessed doctrine all the same, and if a man founds his life upon it he can be very joyous and quite undismayed in all the sorrows and all the battles that may come upon him in this world. Now I want to talk to you a little about that blessed doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible. It is certainly worth talking about, because it belongs not to the superstructure but to the foundation. If a man really holds to it, everything else for that man is changed. But can a man hold to it? Is it a reasonable thing to believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible? And if it is a reasonable thing, how can we show that it is a reasonable thing? I cannot attempt to answer that latter question with any fullness in the rest of the present little talk. But I do believe that some of the objections to the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible disappear the minute a man observes clearly what that doctrine is, and in particular the minute he observes what that doctrine is not. The strangest misconceptions prevail, even among people who otherwise are educated people, about what we believers in the plenary inspiration of the Bible really hold. Perhaps I can perform a service by clearing away one or two of those misconceptions now. In the first place, then, let it be said that we believers in the plenary inspiration of the Bible do not hold that the Authorized Version or any other form of the English Bible is inspired. I beg your pardon for saying anything so obvious as that, but, do you know, my friends, it is necessary to say it. There are scarcely any limits to the ignorance which is attributed to us today by people who have never given themselves the trouble to discover what our view really is. Let it be said then very plainly that we do not hold that the Authorized Version or any other form of the English Bible is inspired. We are really quite well aware of the fact that the Bible was written in Hebrew and in Greek. The Authorized Version is a translation from the Hebrew and the Greek. It is a marvelously good translation, but it is not a perfect translation. There are errors in it. The translators were not supernaturally preserved from making mistakes. It is not inspired. In the second place, we do not hold that any one of the hundreds, even thousands, of the Greek and the Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible is free from error. Before the invention of printing the Bible was handed down from generation to generation by means of copies made by hand. Those copies were written out laboriously by scribes. Before one copy was worn out or lost another copy would be made to take its place, and so the Bible was handed down. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps—no one knows how many—of such copies or "manuscripts" were made. Several thousand of them, some of these contain of course only parts of the Bible or only parts of either Testament, are now in existence [many are but fragments and some of these are very small. However many, even of the fragments, are very important - aal]. These are just remnants from among the vast number that are lost. Now we believers in the inspiration of the Bible do not believe that the scribe who made any one of these manuscripts that we have was inspired. Every one of the manuscripts contains errors, no one of them is perfect. What we do believe is that the writers of the Biblical books, as distinguished from scribes who later copied the books, were inspired. Only the autographs of the Biblical books, in other words—the books as they came from the pen of the sacred writers, and not any one of the copies of those autographs which we now possess—were produced with that supernatural impulsion and guidance of the Holy Spirit which we call inspiration. At that point an objection to the doctrine of inspiration arises in the minds of many people. I am inclined to think it is a widespread objection, and I am inclined to think it troubles many thoughtful and intelligent people. "What is the use of the inspiration of the Bible," people say, "if no form of the Bible that we have is inspired? Why should God have worked a stupendous miracle in order to preserve the writers of the Biblical books from error and make the autographs of their books completely true if He intended then to leave the books thus produced to the mere chance of transmission from generation to generation by very human and often careless copyists?" Such is the objection. I have deep sympathy with the people who raise it or who are troubled by it. It is such a very human objection. We are all of us so prone to say "If God did this, why did He not also do that?" We are all of us so apt to demand of God just a little bit more than He has given us. We are all of us so reluctant to say to ourselves that perhaps God’s way is best, and that in not giving us all He has given us just exactly what it was good for us to have. But, human though such reasoning is, it is very wrong. What we ought to do as a matter of fact is to take with thankfulness what God has been pleased to give us and not say that because He has not been pleased to give us something else therefore what He has been pleased to give us is of no use. Certainly in this case with which we are dealing now what He has been pleased to give us is a very great deal, and it is far more than some people seem to think. He has given us the supernatural inspiration of the writers of the Biblical books. That is much. But, according to our view of the Bible, that is not all that He has given us. He has also, according to our view, given us a marvelously accurate, though not a supernaturally accurate, transmission, from generation to generation, of what those inspired writers wrote. The objector says to me, "How strange, according to your view, the view of you believers in the plenary inspiration of the Bible, it is that God should leave the transmission of a supernaturally inspired book to the chance of transmission by fallible human copyists!" What do I say in reply? I say: Hold on there, brother; what is that you said? Did you say that according to our view God left the transmission of the Bible to chance? If you said that you said something that is quite wrong. That is not our view at all. No, God certainly did not, according to our view, leave the transmission of the Bible to chance. He did not leave anything to chance; but it is particularly plain that He did not leave that to chance. Was it by chance that in the early days the text of the New Testament books was so diligently copied from one piece of papyrus to another that knowledge of what the sacred writers had written was not lost during the period when that very perishable writing material was used? Was it by chance that about the beginning of the fourth century the wonderfully durable writing material, vellum, or parchment, came into use, so that two great manuscripts of the Bible made in that century are for the most part just as clear and easy to read today as if they had been made yesterday? Was it by chance that one of these manuscripts, the great Codex Sinaiticus, was so strangely preserved in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai until it was found by Tischendorf in 1859? Was it by chance that a perfect photographic reproduction of that manuscript has been made, so that although the manuscript itself was well worth the half-million dollars that the British Museum is said to be paying the Soviet government for it, you can obtain to all intents and purposes just as much information about the manuscript as if you had the manuscript itself in your hands, any time you will just come to the library of Westminster Seminary, for example, and look at the photographic reproduction? Is it by chance that the evidence for the original text of the Bible is so vastly more abundant than for the text of other ancient books in the case of which, nevertheless, nobody doubts but that we have a very close approximation indeed to what the authors wrote? Was it by chance that the King James or Authorized Version of the English Bible was made in the most glorious period of the English language and by men so wonderfully qualified for their task? No, my friends, these things did not come by chance. God did these things. He did not do them by a miracle. But it was just as much God that did them as it would have been if He had done them by a miracle. He did them by His use of the world that He had made and by His ordering of the lives of His creatures. Very wonderfully and very graciously, according to our view of the Bible, has God provided for the preservation, from generation to generation, of His holy Word. What is the result for you, my friends? The result is that you can take down your Authorized Version from the shelf, the version hallowed, for many of you, by many precious associations, and be very sure that it will give you good information about that which stood in the autographs of the Word of God. The study of the manuscripts of the Bible is a wonderfully reassuring thing. The Greek text of the New Testament, for example, from which the Authorized Version is taken is based not upon the best manuscripts but upon inferior manuscripts. Yet how infinitesimal is the difference between those inferior manuscripts and the best manuscripts—how infinitesimal in comparison with what they have in common! I do not mean that we ought not to take care in the use of the Bible; I do not mean that we ought not to try by every means within our power to determine what the exact wording of the autographs was. I do think that careful Christian scholarship is a very important thing. Yet God has provided very wonderfully for the plain man who is not a scholar. You do not have to depend for the assurance of your salvation and the ordering of your Christian lives upon passages where either the original wording or the meaning is doubtful. God has provided very wonderfully for the transmission of the text and for the translation into English. The Bible is perfectly plain in the things that are necessary for your souls. God will make other things in it clearer to you as the years go by. Read it, my friends. It is God’s Book, not man’s book. It is a message from the King. Read it, study it, trust it, live by it. Other books will deceive you, but not this book. This book is the Word of God. Many things have been left unsaid this afternoon. Many things are left at loose ends. I do not like to leave things at loose ends when I am talking about the Bible. This theme is so momentous that I always wish when I talk about it that I could say everything at once I am so afraid of leading somebody astray by telling just a part of the truth. So I do hope you will listen to me in the next one of these talks. I want to say certain things that simply must be said. I want to say something more about what the inspiration of the Bible means. Does it mean a mechanical treatment of the Biblical writers as so many people say it does? In what sense is it, and in what sense is it not, "verbal" inspiration? I want to talk to you about that question. I also want to talk to you about the question whether it is enough to say that the Bible contains a record of supernatural revelation or whether we ought rather to say, that it is as a whole itself a supernatural revelation from God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 05.05. DO WE BELIEVE IN VERBAL INSPIRATION? ======================================================================== Chapter 5 DO WE BELIEVE IN VERBAL INSPIRATION? In the last talk I was speaking about the inspiration of the Bible. The writers of the Biblical books, I said, received a blessed and wonderful and supernatural guidance and impulsion by the Spirit of God, so that they were preserved from the errors that appear in other books and thus the resulting book, the Bible, is in all its parts the very Word of God, completely true in what it says regarding matters of fact and completely authoritative in its commands. That is the great doctrine of the full or "plenary" inspiration of Holy Scripture. I had to break off what I was saying to you about that doctrine. In fact, almost all that I had time to do was to clear away certain misconceptions. Now we get more into the heart of the subject. I think I can help you to get into the heart of the subject if I just ask you to consider with me for a minute or two what I suppose is one of the commonest if not the very commonest of the objections to the doctrine of full or "plenary" inspiration. You see, this business of considering objections is a good thing in more ways than one. Not only may it possibly help people who are actually troubled by the objections, but also it may enable all of us to get the thing more nearly straight in our minds. There are few better ways of seeing clearly what a thing is than the way of setting it off sharply in contrast with what it is not. Well, what is this common objection to the doctrine of plenary inspiration? It is that the doctrine of plenary inspiration represents God as acting upon the Biblical writers in a mechanical way, a way that degrades those writers to the position of mere machines. People who raise this objection sometimes ask us: "Do you believe in the ‘verbal’ inspiration of the Bible?" When they ask us that, they think that they have us in a dreadful hole. If we say: "No, we do not believe in verbal inspiration," they say: "How then can you hold to your conviction that the Bible is altogether true? If God did not exercise some supernatural control over the words, then the words will surely contain those errors which are found in all human productions." If, on the other hand, we say: "Yes, we do believe in verbal inspiration"—then they hold up their hands in horror. "How dreadful, how mechanical!", they say. "If God really provided in supernatural fashion that the words should be thus and so, then the writers of the Biblical books are degraded to the position of mere stenographers; indeed, they are degraded even lower than that, since stenographers are human enough to err and also to help, whereas in this case the words would be produced with such perfect accuracy as to show that the human instruments in the production of the words were mere machines. What becomes of the marvelous beauty and variety of the Bible when the writers of it are regarded as having been treated in this degrading way?" Such is the hole into which we are thought to be put; or, if I may change the figure rather violently, such are the horns of the dilemma upon which we are thought to be impaled. How can we possibly escape? Well, I think we can escape very easily indeed. You ask me whether I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I will answer that question very plainly and quickly. Yes, I believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible; but I do insist that you and I shall get a right notion of what the word "verbal" means. I certainly believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. I quite agree with you when you say that unless God provided in supernatural fashion that the words of the Bible should be free from error we should have to give up our conception of the Bible as being, throughout, a supernatural book. Yes, inspiration certainly has to do with the words of the Bible; in that sense I certainly do believe in verbal inspiration. But if you mean by "verbal inspiration" the view that inspiration has to do only with the words of the Bible and not also with the souls of the Biblical writers, then I want to tell you that I do not believe in verbal inspiration in that sense. If you mean by verbal inspiration the view that God moved the hands of the Biblical writers over the page in the way in which hands are said to be moved over a ouija board—in such a way that the writers did not know what they were doing when they wrote—then I do hold that that kind of verbal inspiration does utterly fail to do justice to what appears in the Bible very plainly from Genesis to Revelation. The writers of the Bible did know what they were doing when they wrote. I do not believe that they always knew all that they were doing. I believe that there are mysterious words of prophecy in the Prophets and the Psalms, for example, which had a far richer and more glorious fulfillment than the inspired writers knew when they wrote. Yet even in the case of those mysterious words I do not think that the sacred writers were mere automata. They did not know the full meaning of what they wrote, but they did know part of the meaning, and the full meaning was in no contradiction with the partial meaning but was its glorious unfolding. I believe that the Biblical writers used ordinary sources of information; they consulted documents, they engaged in research, they listened to eyewitnesses. I do not, indeed, believe, that they were limited to such sources of information. They were sometimes, as they wrote, the recipients of fresh supernatural revelation—supernatural revelation not previously given to others but given for the first time to them in the very moment of their writing. I believe also that sometimes even when they used ordinary sources of information or when they consulted their memory their use of such means of information went far beyond what is possible, except with supernatural assistance, to the human mind. In one sense, of course, their use of such sources of information always went beyond what is possible to the human mind. To err is human, and these men did not err. They were always protected, in supernatural fashion, from the errors which appear in ordinary books. But what I mean is that sometimes that supernatural heightening of human powers consisted not only in the invariable prevention of error in matters where uninspired writers might in any individual case have avoided error, but also in the prevention of error in matters where uninspired writers could not possibly have avoided error. I am thinking, for example, of the discourses of Jesus reported in the Gospel according to John. It is often urged as an objection against the authenticity of those long discourses that no one who heard the discourses could possibly have remembered them so long afterwards with anything like accuracy. That objection no longer troubles me as much as it formerly did. Did not our Lord Himself tell the Apostles, including the writer of this Gospel, that after His departure the Holy Spirit would bring to their remembrance whatever He had said to them? (John 14:26). May we not suppose that the report by the Beloved Disciple, writer of this Gospel, of the things that Jesus had said when He was with the disciples on Earth goes far beyond what is possible to the unaided human memory and is due in part to that mysterious and supernatural work of the Holy Spirit of which Jesus spoke? But such considerations ought not to obscure the fact that the Biblical writers did use ordinary sources of information where they were reporting things that had been said and done on this Earth. Indeed, they often lay great stress on the fact that they used such ordinary sources of information. The author of that very Gospel about which we have just been speaking, and in which we were inclined to find something that goes far beyond what is possible to the unaided human memory—even the author of that Gospel lays particular emphasis on the fact that he was an eyewitness of the life of Jesus. He reported what he had seen and heard. He did not tell these things just because they had been revealed to him at some later time in some supernatural experience. No. He was there when Jesus said certain things and did certain things. As an eyewitness he insists that he is worthy of belief. Even before his hearers or his readers should come to believe in any supernatural inspiration of which he was the recipient they ought to believe him as men believe a credible witness when he takes his seat on the witness stand. So the Apostle Paul appeals to the witness of the five hundred brethren who had seen the risen Lord. So the Evangelist Luke tells in the prologue of his Gospel about the historical researches in which he had been engaged. Yes, the Biblical writers used ordinary sources of information, and when they were eyewitnesses they used their own memory of what they had seen and heard. It is very important indeed to insist upon these facts, because they give the Bible such evidential force. Suppose a man comes to the reading of the Bible without any belief in inspiration. Even then he ought to give credence to what he reads. It can be shown him even before any acceptance on his part of the doctrine of plenary inspiration that the writers were men who had opportunities of knowing the facts, that they were honest men, that they knew how to distinguish truth from falsehood. If he will only consider these Biblical books with the same fairness as that with which he approaches other sources of historical information, he will accept what they say as being substantially true. Then, on the basis of that conviction that they are substantially true, he will go on to see that the books are not only substantially true, in the way in which other good books are true, but that they are altogether true because of the supernatural work of the Spirit of God. We do not therefore merely admit that the Biblical writers used ordinary sources of historical information. We insist upon it. It is tremendously important for the witness which the Bible renders to those who have not yet come to believe. What is more, the Biblical writers did not merely use ordinary means of obtaining information, but also they followed their own individual habits of style. When people say that the doctrine of plenary or full inspiration of the Bible fails to do justice to the individuality of the Biblical writers, they simply show that they do not know what they are talking about. Yes, what a wonderful variety there is in the Bible. There is the rough simplicity of Mark, the unconscious, yet splendid eloquence of Paul, the conscious literary art of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the matchless beauty of the Old Testament narratives, the high poetry of the Prophets and the Psalms. How much we should lose, to be sure, if the Bible were written all in one style! We believers in the full inspiration of the Bible do not merely admit that. We insist upon it. The doctrine of plenary inspiration does not hold that all parts of the Bible are alike; it does not hold that they are all equally beautiful or even equally valuable; but it only holds that all parts of the Bible are equally true, and that each part has its place. That wonderful variety in the Bible did not come by chance. It came by the gracious providence of God. It was God who superintended the varied education of those writers to prepare them the better for their mighty task. It was God who watched over the prophet Amos when he was "a herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit." It was God who watched over Paul when he sat at the feet of Gamaliel. When I consider the wonderful variety among the Biblical writers, and the wonderful unity of the Book amid this variety, I am tempted to use a figure of speech to describe what is really beyond all human figures. I am tempted to think of the writers of these sixty-six books as though they were a great orchestra, not composed of poor mechanical strummers but of true musicians, carefully chosen, carefully trained, individual, different, yet contributing by their very differences to the unity of some glorious symphony under a great Director’s wand. In that marvelous harmony of Holy Scripture even the least considered parts of the Bible have their place. None could be lacking without offending the great Musician’s ear. But, you say, this doctrine of inspiration is certainly a great paradox. It holds that these men were free, and yet that every word that they wrote was absolutely determined by the Spirit of God. How is that possible? How could God determine the very words that these men wrote and yet not deal with them as mere machines? Well, my friend, I will tell you how. I will tell you how God could do that. He could do it simply because God is God. There is a delicacy of discrimination in God’s dealing with His creatures that far surpasses all human analogies. When God deals with men He does not deal with them as with machines or as with sticks or stones. He deals with them as with men. But what needs to be emphasized above all is that when God dealt thus with the Biblical writers, though He dealt with them as with men and not as with machines, yet He accomplished His ends. He ordered their lives to fit them for their tasks. But then, in addition to that providential ordering of their lives, in addition to that use of their individual gifts of which we have spoken, there was a supernatural work of the Spirit of God that made the resulting book not man’s book but God’s Book. That supernatural work of the Spirit of God extends to all parts of the Bible. People say that the Bible is a book of religion and not a book of science, and that where it deals with scientific matters it is not to be trusted. When they say that, if they really know what they are saying, they are saying just about the most destructive thing that could possibly be imagined. Is religion really independent of science? Well, "religion" is a very broad term. I will not say just how broad a term it is. Possibly it is even broad enough to include an attitude of the human soul that is independent of all facts with which science may legitimately deal. I am not saying whether such an attitude may or may not be called "religion." I am not much interested in the question. What I am interested in and what I am certain about is that whatever may be true of religion in general, the Christian religion is most emphatically dependent upon facts-facts in the external world, facts with which "science" in the true sense of the word certainly has a right to deal. When you say that the Bible is a true guide in religion, but that you do not care whether it is a true guide when it deals with history or with science, I should just like to ask you one question. What do you think of the Bible when it tells you that the body of the Lord Jesus came out of that tomb on the first Easter morning nineteen hundred years ago? That event of the resurrection, if it really happened, is an event in the external world. Account would have to be taken of it in any ideally complete scientific description of the physical universe. It is certainly a matter with which science, in principle, must deal. Well, then, is that one of those scientific matters to which the inspiration of the Bible does not extend, one of those scientific matters with regard to which it makes no difference to the devout reader of the Bible whether the Bible is true or false? There are many people who say just that. There are many people who do not shrink from that logical consequence of their division between religion and science. There are many people who say that the Bible would retain its full religious value even if scientific history should show that it is wrong about the resurrection of Jesus and that as a matter of fact Jesus never rose from the dead. I say there are many people who say that. But the people who say that are not Christians. We Christians know that we are sinners; and we look to the Bible for something far more than inspiring poetry or soul-stirring exhortation or expert instruction in the art of being religious. We look to the Bible for facts. What good does it do to me to tell me that the type of religion presented in the Bible is a very fine type of religion and that the thing for me to do is just to start practicing that type of religion now? What good does it do to tell me that I have a fine pattern of religion in the account of Jesus in the Gospels whether that account is history or an inspiring ideal? What good does it do to tell me to cultivate my religious nature in the manner in which the religious nature was cultivated with such eminent success by Jesus or by Paul or by Isaiah? I will tell you, my friend. It does me not one tiniest little bit of good. You are just mocking me when you talk to me like that. You are ignoring my true condition. You are ignoring the fact that in my own right I am a sinner under the wrath and curse of God, and that in my own strength I am under the awful bondage of sin. What I need first of all is not exhortation but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of the way God has saved me. Have you any good news for me? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts? The Bible does tell me the facts. It tells me Jesus died on the cross to save me; it tells me He rose from the dead to complete His saving work and be my living Lord. What do I say when it tells me that? Do I say: "That is history and not religion: I am not interested in it; it may be true or it may not be true for all I care; the Bible is a book of religion and not a book of science or a book of history"? No, my friends, I do not say that. I say rather: "Praise be to God for that blessed story of the resurrection and the cross; upon the truth of it all my hope depends for time and for eternity; how I rejoice that God Himself has told me in His holy Book that it is true!" Here is a rule for you, my friends: no facts, no good news; no good news, no hope. The Bible is quite useless unless it is a record of facts. Thank God, it is a record of facts. The Spirit of God, in infinite mercy, was with the writers of the Bible not merely when they issued God’s commands, but also and just as fully when they wrote the blessed record of what God had done. What a dreadfully erroneous thing it is to say merely that the Bible contains the Word of God. No, it is the Word of God. It is the Word of God when it records the facts. It is the Word of God when it tells us what we must do. Hear it as the Word of God, my friends. It will probe very deep into your life. It will reveal the dark secrets of your sin. But then it will bring you good tidings of salvation as no word of man can do. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 05.06. SHALL WE DEFEND THE BIBLE? ======================================================================== Chapter 6 SHALL WE DEFEND THE BIBLE? In the last few talks in this little series, I have been speaking to you about the inspiration of the Bible. I have been saying that the Bible is the Word of God and that as such it is completely true in matters of fact and completely authoritative when it issues commands. That is certainly a good deal to say; it is certainly a large claim for me to make in behalf of a book that many people regard merely as a collection of Hebrew religious literature. The question arises whether the claim is justified, whether the Bible is really and truly the Word of God. I have a great deal of sympathy for those who raise that question, and I do not think that it is a question that ought to be dodged. If you should come into the classes that I try to conduct at Westminster Seminary, I do not believe that you would charge me with dodging the question. I do try as best I can—only, I wish my best were better—to show the students how we can deal with people who do not yet believe in the inspiration of the Bible. We cannot help them very much if we just assume that they already believe what we believe. Instead, we ought to try to understand their present position and then lead them logically from one thing to another until finally we can show them that the Bible is, as we believe it is, the Word of God. When I say that, I do not mean that everyone who comes to believe in the inspiration of the Bible passes successively through those logical steps. In countless cases conviction as to the divine authority of the Bible comes in very much more immediate fashion. A man hears some true preacher of the gospel. The preacher speaks on the authority of a book which lies open there on the pulpit. As the words of that book are expounded, the man who listens finds that the secrets of his heart are revealed. It is as though a cloak had been pulled away. The man suddenly sees himself as God sees him. He suddenly comes to see that he is a sinner under the just wrath and curse of God. Then from the same strange book there comes a wonderful offer of pardon. It comes with a strange kind of sovereign authority. The preacher, as he expounds the book, seems to be an ambassador of the King, a messenger of the living God. The man who hears needs no further reflection, no further argument. The Holy Spirit has opened the doors of his heart. "That book is the Word of the living God," he says; "God has found me out, I have heard His voice, I am His for ever." Yes, it is in this way, sometimes, and not by elaborate argument, that a man becomes convinced that the Bible is the Word of God. Yet that does not mean that argument is unnecessary. Even that man in our illustration may meet criticism of his new found conviction. People may tell him that the book which he thinks to be the Word of God is really full of errors and absurdities. How is he going to meet such criticism? Well, "that depends." He may be able, because of his intellectual gifts, to meet the criticism squarely; he may be able to meet the critics on their own ground and to show that as a matter of fact the Bible is not full of errors and absurdities. Or he may be a simple soul unable to say any more to the critics of his new-found conviction than that which was said by that man in the ninth chapter of John: One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see [John 9:25]. But whatever may be possible to that converted man in our illustration, it is perfectly clear, when you take the Christian world as a whole, that convictions are held by but a precarious tenure if those who hold them continue, on principle, to ignore objections. After all, truth is essentially one. I may be convinced with my whole soul that the Bible is the Word of God; but if my neighbor adduces considerations to show that it is really full of error, I cannot be indifferent to those considerations. I can, indeed, say to him: "Your considerations are wrong, and because they are wrong I can with a good conscience hold on to my convictions." Or I can say to him: "What you say is true enough in itself, but it is irrelevant to the question whether the Bible is the Word of God." But I do not see how in the world I can say to him: "Your considerations may be contrary to my conviction that the Bible is the Word of God, but I am not interested in them; go on holding to them if you want to do so, but do please agree with me also in holding that the Bible is the Word of God." No, I cannot possibly say that. This last attitude is surely quite absurd. Two contradictory things cannot both be true. We cannot go on holding to the Bible as the Word of God and at the same time admit the truth of considerations that are contrary to that conviction of ours. I believe with all my soul, in other words, in the necessity of Christian apologetics, the necessity of a reasoned defense of the Christian Faith, and in particular a reasoned defense of the Christian conviction that the Bible is the Word of God. Some years ago I attended a conference of Christian students. Various methods of Christian testimony were being discussed, and particularly the question was being discussed whether it is necessary to engage in a reasoned defense of the Christian faith. In the course of the discussion, a gentleman who had had considerable experience in work among students arose and said that according to his experience you never win a man to Christ until you quit arguing with him [1 Peter 3:15 - aal]. Well, do you know, my friends, when he said that I was not impressed one tiny little bit. Of course a man never was won to Christ merely by argument. That is perfectly clear. There must be the mysterious work of the Spirit of God in the new birth. Without that, all our arguments are quite useless. But because argument is insufficient, it does not follow that it is unnecessary. What the Holy Spirit does in the new birth is not to make a man a Christian regardless of the evidence, but on the contrary to clear away the mists from his eyes and enable him to attend to the evidence [See Romans 10:13-17 - aal]. So I believe in the reasoned defense of the inspiration of the Bible. Sometimes it is immediately useful in bringing a man to Christ. It is graciously used by the Spirit of God to that end. But its chief use is of a somewhat different kind. Its chief use is in enabling Christian people to answer the legitimate questions, not of vigorous opponents of Christianity, but of people who are seeking the truth and are troubled by the hostile voices that are heard on every hand. Sometimes, when I have given a lecture in defense of the truth of the Bible, a lecture, for example, which has adduced considerations to show that Christ really did rise from the dead on the third day, somebody has come up to me afterwards and has said very kindly something to the following effect: "We liked your lecture all right, but the trouble is that the people who need it are not here; we who are here are all Christian people, we are all convinced already that the Bible is true, so that we are not the ones who really needed to listen to what you had to say." When people have told me that I have not been too much discouraged. It is true, I do wish that those persons who do not agree with me might occasionally give me a hearing. It does seem rather surprising that people who pride themselves on being so broadminded should take their information about what is called by its opponents "Fundamentalism" from newspaper clippings or from accounts of "Fundamentalism" written by opponents on the basis of newspaper clippings, instead of reading what these so-called "Fundamentalists," these conservatives, these Christians, have published in serious books over their own signatures, or instead of listening to what they have to say when they lecture. But although I do wish that my opponents in this debate would give me a fairer hearing, yet I am not too much discouraged when they are not present at one of my lectures. You see, what I am trying to do in such a lecture is not so much to win directly people who are opponents of the Bible as to give to Christian parents who may be present or to Christian Sunday School teachers materials that they can use, not with those whose backs are up against Christianity, but with the children in their own homes or in their Sunday School classes, the children who love them and want to be Christians as they are Christians, but are troubled by the voices against Christianity that are heard on every side. Yes, I certainly do believe in Christian apologetics; I certainly do believe in the necessity of the reasoned defense of the truth of the Bible. I have felt it to be my duty to engage in it myself, to the very best of my very limited ability; but what is really important is that many persons far, far abler than I should engage in this great work. Certainly neglect of this work will be to the loss of countless precious souls. Some years ago a kind of anti-intellectualism prevailed widely in the Church. Scholars were despised by evangelists; theological seminaries were regarded either as nurseries of unbelief or else as places where men engaged in dry-as-dust pursuits remote from living reality. Well, many theological seminaries today are nurseries of unbelief; and because they are nurseries of unbelief the churches that they serve have become unbelieving churches too. As go the theological seminaries, so goes the church. That is certainly true in the long run. Look out upon the condition of the Church throughout the world today, and you will see that it is true. But why is it that so many theological seminaries have become nurseries of unbelief and have dragged the churches that they serve down with them? It is partly because of that anti-intellectualistic attitude of pastors and evangelists, of which I spoke just now. Despising scholarship as they did, and leaving it in possession of the enemy, they discover today that in the long run they cannot get along without it. When real revival comes in the Church, we may be perfectly sure of one thing. We may be perfectly sure that with it and as a vital part of it will come a revival of Christian learning. That was true of the Reformation of the sixteenth century, and it will be true of every reformation or revival that does any more than merely scratch the surface. I do wish people would read the twelfth chapter of 1 Corinthians more often than they seem to do—that chapter where Paul speaks of the diversity of gifts and of that one Spirit who gives to each one separately as He wills [1 Corinthians 12:11]. If they did read that great chapter more carefully, they would see that what was true of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in the apostolic age is also true of the gifts which the Holy Spirit still graciously bestows upon the Church. It is still quite true that one gift cannot do without the others. Certainly it is true that evangelism cannot do without Christian scholarship. I do not like to think of the relationship between Christian scholarship and evangelism as being a balance between the two things. I do not like to say: "Let us have evangelism, but not so much evangelism as to crowd out Christian scholarship." No, the true state of the case is that you can hardly have evangelism unless you have Christian scholarship; and the more Christian scholarship you have, so much the more evangelism. Out of real theological seminaries, where the Bible is expounded and defended, come ministers and evangelists who know what they believe and why they believe it; and the preaching of such ministers and evangelists is graciously used of God for the salvation of precious souls. There is no guess work about that. Look about you today, and you will see that it is simply a fact. Well, perhaps you may say that I have said enough about the necessity of defending the Bible and ought now to go on and defend it. Obviously I cannot do so today, since my time is nearly up. Also I am not going to be able to do so in any great detail in the following talks of this series, because in this particular series I am going to talk about what the Bible teaches rather than about the reasons which impel us to believe that the Bible is true. At some future time I should particularly love to study the New Testament with you, for example, in order to show you how wonderful are the evidences of its truth, and how wonderfully those evidences of truthfulness confirm our conviction that the whole Bible is indeed the Word of God. But even now, even in the present talk, I cannot leave you without saying just a word about the way in which we come to that great conviction about the Bible. I want just to indicate very briefly one great argument for the inspiration and divine authority of Holy Scripture. Mind you, it is not the only argument; but I am just singling it out by way of example this afternoon. That argument is found in the testimony of Jesus Christ. In the first century of our era there lived in Palestine a man called Jesus of Nazareth. We have certain records of His life in the New Testament. I want you to study them at least as historical documents. If you are not yet ready to take them as part of the inspired Word of God, as I do, study them at least, fairly, as historical documents. If you do study them thus fairly, you will be impressed by the picture which they give of Jesus Christ. That picture is evidently the picture of a real person. Of that there can be no doubt. But it is also the picture of a very strange person. The Jesus of the Gospels advanced stupendous claims and substantiated those claims by a sovereign power over the forces of nature. He seemed to command nature as nature’s Maker and nature’s God. He was clearly a supernatural person. Modern men have tried to separate the supernatural from the natural in the Gospel picture of Jesus. "We shall just remove these antiquated supernatural trappings from the picture," they have said to themselves, "and then we shall have a picture of the real Jesus, a great religious genius and nothing more." But the effort to make that separation has been a failure. The supernatural element in the Gospel picture of Jesus has proved to be an integral part of the whole. It cannot be separated from the rest in that easy, artificial way. The Gospel picture of Jesus is supernatural through and through. Some radicals of the present day are drawing the logical conclusion. Since the supernatural is inseparable from the rest and since they will not accept the supernatural, they are letting the whole go. They are telling us that we cannot know anything at all with any certainty about Jesus. Such skepticism is preposterous. It will never hold the field. You need not be afraid of it at all, my friends. The picture in the Gospels is too vivid. It is too incapable of having been invented. It is evidently the picture of a real person. So the age-long bewilderment of unsaved men in the presence of Jesus still goes on. Jesus will not let men go. They will not accept His stupendous claims; they will not accept Him as their Savior. But He continues to intrigue and baffle them. He refuses to be pushed into their little molds. They stand bewildered in His presence. There is only one escape from that bewilderment. It is to accept Jesus after all. Refuse to believe that the picture is true, and all is bewilderment and confusion in your view of the earliest age of the Church; accept the picture as true, and all is plain. Everything then fits into its proper place. The key has been found to solve the mighty riddle. The supernatural Jesus is thus the key to a right understanding of early Christian history. But He is also the key to far more than that. Mankind stands in the presence of more riddles than the riddle of New Testament times. All about us are riddles—the riddle of our existence, the riddle of the universe, the riddle of our misery and our sin. To all those riddles Jesus, as the New Testament presents Him, provides the key. He is the key not to some things but to everything. Very comprehensive, very wonderfully cumulative, very profound and very compelling is the evidence for the reality of the supernatural Christ. But if we are convinced by that evidence, we must take the consequences. If we are convinced that Jesus is what the New Testament says He is, then the word of Jesus becomes for us law. We cannot then choose whether we will believe Him when He speaks. We must believe. His authority then must for us be decisive in all disputes. On many questions our records do not record any decision of Jesus. But on one question His decision is plain. It is plain to us not only after we have become convinced that the records of His life are divinely inspired and therefore altogether without error. It is plain even when we take those records merely as reasonably accurate history. If one thing is clear to the historian, it is that Jesus of Nazareth held to the full truthfulness of the Old Testament Scriptures; it is that Jesus held that high view of the divine authority of the Old Testament which is held by despised believers in the Bible today. That is admitted even by those who have a low opinion of the truthfulness of the Gospels. Jesus, they admit, held that view of the Bible which was held generally by the Jews of His day. They are sorry to admit that. "Too bad," they say, "that Jesus, whom we admire so much, was in this respect a child of His time!" But admit it, if they are scholars, they must. Jesus did certainly believe that the Old Testament was the very Word of God, and He certainly placed that belief at the very heart of His life as a man. But if He thus pointed back to the Old Testament and founded His human life upon it, He also pointed forward to the New. He chose apostles. He endowed them with a supernatural authority. In exercise of that authority, they gave the New Testament books to the Church. No man who believes what Jesus says can, if he is consistent, help taking the whole Bible as the very Word of God. When we do take the whole Bible thus as the very Word of God, we find rich and manifold confirmation of our decision. We find it in the marvelous unity of Holy Scripture—what the Westminster Confession calls "the consent of all the parts." We find it in the countless evidences of truthfulness in detail. We find it in the utter dissimilarity of this book to other books. We find it in the sweetness and peace of a life grounded upon what this book tells. Yes, my friends, very rich and varied, yet marvelously convergent, is the evidence that bids us take the Bible as the Word of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 05.07. THE BIBLE VERSUS HUMAN AUTHORITY ======================================================================== Chapter 7 THE BIBLE VERSUS HUMAN AUTHORITY If the Bible is really the Word of God, as we have said it is, the question arises what it actually means in our lives to take the Bible in that way. I want to talk to you for a little while about that question now. The answer to the question ought not to be so very difficult, however difficult some of the implications of the answer may turn out to be. If we take the Bible as the Word of God, then the Bible becomes our standard of truth and of life. When we are asked whether we can support any kind of message or can engage in any course of conduct, what we do is simply to compare that message or that course of conduct with the Bible. If it agrees with the Bible, we can support it or follow it; if it does not agree with the Bible, we cannot support it or follow it no matter what we may be told by other authorities to do. I really think it is very important that that should be perfectly clear. We are living at a time when a very serious difference of opinion has appeared in the Church. The first question in dealing with any difference of opinion is the question what standard of judgment is to be applied to the question at issue. Unless people can agree about that preliminary question it is not likely that they will agree about anything else. Suppose I have an engagement with a business man in Philadelphia in the summer time. The engagement is for eleven o’clock. I come in from the country and appear at the office promptly at eleven. But when I get there, I find the man with whom I have the engagement considerably perturbed. "What do you mean," he says, "by keeping me and these other gentlemen waiting in this way? The engagement was for eleven o’clock, and it is now exactly twelve. You are exactly an hour late." I then reply in kind. "You surprise me," I say; "in fact I should really hesitate to characterize the impropriety of your words. My watch says exactly eleven o’clock, and I would back my watch against any cheap office clock in the whole city of Philadelphia." Then, after we have disputed about the matter vigorously for a good while, I discover that Philadelphia is on daylight saving time. You see, we could not come to any agreement because we were applying different standards to the question under dispute. It is somewhat that way with the difference of opinion in the Church. There, too, the disputing parties cannot come to an agreement because they are operating with different standards. In one very important particular, however, our illustration of daylight saving time and standard time does not apply to the situation in the Church. In the case of my imaginary dispute with that business man, both parties to the dispute could be right, because it did not make any particular difference which of the two standards should be applied. It did not make any very great difference whether we should go on daylight saving time or on standard time, just so we were both of us perfectly clear as to which was being used. But in the case of the situation in the Church both parties to the dispute are laying claim to the same thing-namely, truth. Therefore, they cannot both be right. In this case, the standard that is sought is not just some arbitrary method of dividing up the day, but it is a standard of truth, and truth is not relative but absolute. However, the illustration does at least show that if two parties to any dispute are to understand each other—to say nothing of coming to an agreement—the first question they must discuss is the question what standard is to be used. Certainly that principle applies in fullest measure to the difference of opinion in the Church. Here we find perfectly earnest and sincere people differing from each other in the sharpest possible way. What one holds to be true the other holds to be false; what one holds to be wise and beneficent the other holds to be destructive. Discussion between the contending parties sometimes seems only to make matters worse; it sometimes seems only to lead to greater irritation and greater confusion. The reason for this unfortunate state of affairs—at least one important reason for it—is perfectly plain. It is found in the fact that the contending parties do not see clearly that the real ground of their difference of opinion is that they have totally different standards of truth and of life. I have already said what our standard is. It is the Bible. When we are deciding whether we can support any propaganda or engage in any course of conduct, we simply ask whether that propaganda or that course of conduct agrees with the Bible. I think I can best explain what it means to take the Bible thus as one’s standard of truth and of life if I set this standard over against some of the other standards that are being proposed today. Many persons, for example, are taking human experience as their standard. They are saying that they will adhere to that kind of religion which works the best, which shows itself to be the best in actual practice. I remember that some years ago I preached a baccalaureate sermon at a college. When I got through, a member of the graduating class asked me what I thought of a certain religious movement, which it is entirely aside from our present point for me to name. I intimated that I could not support it. In reply he told me that he for his part thought it was the most "vital" thing in the religious world today. That young man and I did not get very far in our discussion because we were applying different standards. He was applying the standard of experience; I was applying the standard of the Bible. That young man favored the religious movement that we were discussing because it was "vital." Well, in one sense noxious weeds in a garden are vital. They often grow up more rapidly than the flowers. But the careful gardener is inclined to pull them up. So also we refuse to make mere rapidity of growth or enthusiasm of adherents the criterion by which any religious movement shall be judged. Instead, we test every movement by the Bible. If it agrees with the Bible, we approve it; if it disagrees with the Bible we oppose it, no matter what external successes it may attain and no matter even what apparent graces it may seem to our superficial human judgment to induce here and there in its adherents. Those apparent graces, we are sure, will, if the movement is contrary to the Bible, never stand the test to which they will be subjected at the judgment seat of God. God does not contradict His own Word. That same use of experience as the standard of truth and of life underlies what I believe has been called somewhere "the great inquiry racket." There has arisen in recent years a perfect craze for questionnaires on the subject of religion, "open forums," and "inquiries" of various kinds. The thing has become one of the major nuisances of the day. When one contemplates the unscientific character of many of these enterprises and their begging of the real underlying questions, one is tempted to dismiss them as being unworthy of consideration. Many of them are not really inquiries at all, but are merely agencies carrying on propaganda through the particular device of question begging questionnaires. The people who conduct them are of course honest. They are trying to get at the truth: but, the trouble is, they are so completely out of sympathy with the Christian religion that when they formulate their questionnaires they do not know how even to give a Christian man the opportunity of casting his vote or of giving expression to his convictions. But absurdly unscientific and question begging though many of these inquiries and questionnaires are, a serious purpose, even though it be a mistaken purpose, does, I think, underlie them. The purpose underlying them is, I think, that through an examination of various types of religion we may arrive, by a process of comparison and elimination, at that type of religion which is best adapted to the age in which we are living and which therefore is the type of religion which it is thought we ought to adopt. Those who engage in these inquiries and questionnaires, or at any rate many of those who engage in them, are making human experience the standard of truth and of life. That standard is quite different from the standard to which we hold. These persons are advocating a "managed currency" in religion, whereas we are on the gold standard. Our standard is not a flexible standard. Far from holding that what is true today becomes false tomorrow according to the shifting needs of human life, we find our standard both of truth and of conduct in the Bible, which we hold to be not a product of human experience but the Word of God. So we reject the first alternative view that we are considering in the present little talk. We reject experience as our standard. In the second place, we reject, as our standard, what is wrongly called "the teaching of Jesus" or "the teaching of Christ." At that point I am particularly anxious not to be misunderstood. I certainly hold that the real teaching of Jesus is all completely true. I hold that everything that Jesus said in the sphere of fact is true and that His commands are all completely valid. But my point is that those who make the teaching of Jesus their authority, as distinguished from the Bible, are not really holding to the teaching of Jesus at all. We have seen how clearly Jesus testified to the authority of the Bible. How then, if you reject the authority of the Bible, can you possibly claim to be true to Jesus’ teaching? What is the underlying notion of those who make what they call the teaching of Jesus their authority, instead of the Bible? I am afraid that question is not hard to answer. It is the notion that Jesus was primarily a teacher, that we honor Him because by His word and by His example He taught us how to practice the same type of religion as that which He practiced. Jesus, according to this way of thinking, was the founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian. Other men honor Buddha or Confucius as the great teacher and example; we, say the men of this way of thinking, are Christians because we take Jesus, as distinguished from Buddha or Confucius, as our teacher and example. That notion is of course radically contrary to the Bible, but it is also radically contrary to the real Jesus’ own teaching. Jesus, according to the Bible and according to His own teaching, came, as has well been observed, not primarily to say something, but to do something. He came not just to teach us true general principles of religion and ethics, but to redeem us from sin by His death upon the cross. His teaching is indeed very precious. How wonderfully precious it is, my friends! But its preciousness is altogether lost when it is separated from the rest of the Bible. We miss the very heart and core and substance of it if we take it out of its organic connection with that grand sweep of supernatural revelation that runs through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and if we separate it from that mighty saving work which culminated in the Cross and resurrection of Christ. Thus we reject this notion that the teaching of Jesus as distinguished from the Bible is the seat of authority. It is profoundly dishonoring to the teaching of Jesus itself. It degrades Jesus to the level of a mere religious teacher, the founder of one of the world’s religions. I am inclined to think that most of those who begin by saying that the teaching of Jesus is their authority are, if they reflect about the matter, obliged to modify their position. Jesus obviously said many things which they do not regard as true. But if Jesus said many things that are untrue, how can His teaching be authoritative? Well, a great many of these men respond, with more or less clearness, that it is not the teaching of Jesus as such—or, as they would put it, not the "letter" of His teaching—but the underlying "spirit" of His teaching which they regard as authoritative. That brings us to the third of the alternatives to the authority of the Bible which we are now passing under review. It is the alternative of those who say that their authority is "the spirit of Jesus." Of course when they use the phrase "the spirit of Jesus," they do not mean at all what the Bible means by it. The Bible means by it the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the blessed Trinity. They, on the other hand, spell the word "spirit" with a small letter, not with a capital, and they mean by "the spirit of Jesus" simply the inner temper or quality of Jesus’ life. We are Christians, according to the advocates of this view, not because of any particular thing that Jesus did over nineteen hundred years ago, not even because we obey any particular commands that He uttered, but because we have caught the inner spirit or temper of His life. The spirit of His life has been handed down from generation to generation. It is a kind of contagion. One who has caught that spirit passes it on to another. To catch that spirit a man does not need to have any particular view about Jesus; indeed he does not even need to know that Jesus ever lived: all that he needs to do is to take into his life the peculiar spirit of Jesus’ life no matter how it is mediated to him, no matter from what particular Christian he receives it, no matter whether he knows that it is the spirit of Jesus or has ever heard of Jesus at all. So, we are told in accordance with this view, that if a missionary is not permitted to proclaim Christ by his words he may at least proclaim Him by his life; he may be a true missionary merely by "living Christ" as distinguished from preaching Christ; those who come into contact with him can catch from him "the spirit of Jesus" or "the spirit of Christ" even if he is not allowed to tell them anything about the Cross of Christ or about the God in whom Jesus believed. And if people, through such missionaries, have caught the spirit of Jesus, what more could possibly be desired? Such, carried to its logical conclusion, is the view which makes "the spirit of Jesus," in distinction from the Bible, the test of truth and of life. What is wrong with it from the Christian point of view? Many things, no doubt. But at the heart of what is wrong with it is this—that ignores the fact of sin. All that we need, say the advocates of it, is to catch the spirit of Jesus. If we catch the spirit of Jesus, we can live the life that Jesus lived and then all will be well. Very different is what the real Christian says. The real Christian knows that unlike Jesus he is of himself under the guilt and power of sin, subject to the just wrath of God, unable to do any good, without hope save as Jesus has redeemed him by His precious blood. Can we catch the spirit of Jesus in the manner that is so glibly regarded as possible by those who have never been convicted of sin? Ah, no. We know only too well that we were dead in trespasses and sins, and that only as we have been made alive by the mysterious act of the Spirit of God can we even begin to be true followers of the holy Jesus. These two things are poles apart. I do nor think that there can be any clearness in our thinking so long as we confuse the one of them with the other. The man who thinks that all we need is to catch the spirit of Jesus and that we can catch that spirit without knowing what Jesus did for us on the cross and without the supernatural act of the Spirit of God in the new birth—that man takes Jesus as just a teacher and example. A Christian man, on the other hand, takes Jesus primarily as a Savior. Where is He presented to us as our Savior? The answer is, "In the whole Bible"; and that is the reason why the Bible is to us such a very precious book. I have not time to speak at any length of other things which are being proposed as substitutes for the authority of the Bible. But before I leave you I do want to say just a word or two about one of these. It is the view that takes as the test of truth and of life the pronouncements and regulations of the Church. Those who hold to this view as to the seat of authority do not usually deny the authority of the Bible in so many words. What they do is to say—by implication if not in words—that the Bible is interpreted authoritatively by the "living Church." "When a man becomes a minister or a member of a Church," they say in effect, "it is his duty to support the program of that church. He may think that it is contrary to the Bible; but never mind, it is not his business in this particular matter to think; he must submit his judgment to the judgment of the councils of his church; he must let them interpret the Bible for him and must make the message that he supports conform to their shifting votes." In sharp distinction from that view, we make the Bible, and the Bible only the test of truth and of life. There is no living authority to interpret the Bible for us. We must read it every one for himself, and must ask God to help us as we read. A church that commands us to support any program on the authority of the decisions of the Church is usurping in the interests of fallible men an authority that belongs only to God. But is it not a dangerous thing to reject other authorities in this fashion and submit ourselves unreservedly to the authority of this one Book? Yes, it is a very dangerous thing. It puts us sharply in conflict with the whole current of the age. But if it is a dangerous thing it is also a very blessed thing. It is a very blessed thing to hear the Word of the living God. It is also a very blessed thing to proclaim that Word to others. Every Christian has the duty and the inestimable privilege of proclaiming it to others. But that duty and that privilege belong particularly to ministers. What do you ministers do—if any of you are attending to me now—when you enter into your pulpits on Sunday mornings? Do you tell the people about your religious experiences; do you give them the benefit of your expert advice; do you express to them your views on the great questions of the day; do you make yourselves the promotion agents of some human organization? If these things are what you do, you may have very rich rewards, but there is one thing that you will miss. You may be great orators, but never will you be ministers of Jesus Christ. You may proclaim man’s word with marvelous eloquence, but never can you proclaim the Word of God. Oh, may God send us ministers of another kind! God grant that you, my brothers, may be ministers of another kind! May God send us ministers who come forth into their pulpits from a secret place of meditation and prayer, who are servants of Christ and not servants of men, who be they ever so humble are ambassadors of the King, who, as they stand behind the open Bible and expound its blessed words, can truly and honestly say, with Micaiah the son of Imlah: As the Lord lives, what the Lord says unto me, that will I speak [1 Kings 22:14]. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 05.08. LIFE FOUNDED UPON TRUTH ======================================================================== Chapter 8 LIFE FOUNDED UPON TRUTH Having considered with you the question what kind of book the Bible is, I think it is now high time that we should open up that book together and find out what is in it. We have shown that the Bible is worth reading, because it is the Word of God. Well, if it is worth reading, let us now begin to read it and see whether we can discover what it contains. What does the Bible teach? I had in my mind a very good answer to that question when I was so very young as to have very little else in my mind. It is the answer to the third question in the Shorter Catechism, and it seems to me to be a very good thing. There are one hundred and six other good things in that Catechism. Those are the answers to the others of the one hundred and seven questions. I should certainly not go quite so far as to say what some Presbyterian is accused of having said—that the Shorter Catechism is more important than the Bible because the Shorter Catechism is "the Bible boiled down"—but all the same I am a convinced Presbyterian too, and I do maintain that the Shorter Catechism, with its marvelous comprehensiveness and its faithfulness to Scripture, with its solemnity and its tenderness, is the truest and noblest summary of what the Bible teaches that I have ever seen. The third question in the Shorter Catechism is the question in which I am interested just now: "What do the Scriptures principally teach?" The answer is: "The Scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man." The thing that I want you to notice about this answer is that it makes the Scriptures principally teach, first, what man is to believe and, second, what man is to do. It puts truth before conduct, doctrine before life. It makes truth the foundation of conduct and doctrine the foundation of life. Today the order is commonly reversed. Life comes first, we are told, and doctrine comes afterwards. Religion is first an experience and only secondarily a doctrine. Doctrine is merely an expression of religious experience, and although the experience remains essentially the same its doctrinal expression must change as the generations pass. So, it is said, we value the great creeds of the Church not at all because we regard as true, in the plain man’s sense of the word "true," the things that they contain, but because they expressed in the language of a by gone day an experience which we can still share. So it is also, we are told, with the Bible. It is a great mistake, we are told, to take what the Bible says about Jesus as being true in the ordinary sense of the word "true"; but it is a still greater mistake to miss the experience which underlies what the Bible says. Thus when the Bible says that Jesus was born of a virgin, we do not, of course, it is said, believe that any physical miracle took place in connection with the birth of Jesus nineteen hundred years ago. But we do think that the men of that day were giving expression to something very precious when they said that, and we ought not to miss that very precious thing. Thus also, it is said, when people of long ago said that Jesus was God, they were of course meaning by that expression something that we do not at all accept. They meant that a heavenly person who had existed from all eternity came into this world by a voluntary act when Jesus of Nazareth was born. We do not at all believe that, say the persons whose views we are now summarizing; on the contrary, we believe that the person Jesus never existed before he was born in that Jewish family. Well, then, shall we just reject what those persons said when they declared Jesus to be God? Not at all, it is said. They were giving true expression, it is said, in the language of their day, to something that is just as precious to us as it was to them. They could not possibly give expression to it in any other language. If they had tried to give expression to it in our language, that would for them have been utterly false and futile. Do we then still believe in the deity of Christ? Oh, yes—as the expression of a great experience. That experience is the really essential thing, but the intellectual expression of it must necessarily change from age to age. Such is the attitude that is dominant in the religious world of our day—religion as an experience and doctrine as just the necessarily changing expression of the experience; life first and creed as just the changing expression of it. Those are the shibboleths that designate the prevailing attitude. What shall we think of that attitude? Well, in the first place, I think we ought to face clearly the fact that it is an attitude of the most complete unbelief that could possibly be imagined. It denies not this truth or that but truth itself. It denies that there is any possibility of attaining to a truth which will always be true. There is truth, it holds for this generation and truth for that generation, but no truth for all generations; there is truth for this race and truth for that race, but no truth for all races. I remember some years ago that I read a paper at a conference of theological professors on the subject of "revelation." I read a paper and then another professor read a paper, and then still other professors made remarks about the papers. One of those latter professors said that although he disagreed with me completely, and agreed much more with my opponent, yet he was bound to say he thought that so far as the definition of terms was concerned I was a good deal nearer than my opponent to the historic meaning of the term "revelation." I thought that was very encouraging. But then he went on to say that even I did not mean the same thing by that term as people used to mean by it. Then he developed, with more or less clearness, the view that in general words are bound to change their meaning so that we never mean by the words that we use what past generations meant by them. At any rate, whether that was what that particular professor said or not, I think it does represent what a good many people are saying. A good many people seem to think that every generation lives in a sort of intellectual water tight compartment, without much chance of converse with other generations. Every generation has its own thought forms and cannot by any chance use the thought forms of any other generation. Do you know what I think of this notion? I think it comes very near being nonsense. If it were true, then books produced in past generations ought to be pure gibberish to us. Take any book of Aristotle, for example. Aristotle lived some three and a half centuries before Christ. That book of Aristotle is composed of thousands of words. When Aristotle wrote the book it made sense, because the writer knew the meaning of every one of those thousands of words. Knowing the meaning of those words, he could fit them together so that the resulting book would make sense. But then, according to the theory with which we are now dealing, the meaning of every one of those words began to wobble, and has been wobbling for twenty-two centuries. Of course the words would not all wobble to just exactly the same extent and in exactly the same direction. That would be a chance too remote to be considered. The probabilities against it would be ten billion or more to one. Very well, then. What will inevitably be the result? The result, after twenty-two centuries of wobbling, will be that all those thousands of words will be completely out of alignment and the resulting book will be a meaningless jumble. Yes, that will be the inevitable result if that professorial theory as to the inevitable shift in the meanings of words is correct. But the trouble is that that inevitable result is not the actual result. As a matter of fact, that book of Aristotle is just as perfectly clear and logical today as it ever was. What does that show? It shows that the theory that we have been dealing with is untrue. It shows that as a matter of fact words do not change their meaning in that kaleidoscopic way. It shows that there is an intellectual gold standard which enables us to carry on commerce perfectly well with the men of past generations. What is true of different ages in the history of mankind is also true of different races coexisting today. People say that Western creeds ought not to be forced upon the Oriental mind. The Oriental mind, they say, ought to be allowed to go its own way and give its own expressions to the Christian faith. Well, I have examined one or two of those supposed expressions of the Oriental mind, and I am bound to say that they look to me uncommonly like the expressions of the mind of the South Side of Chicago. But how about it? Ought we to give our Western creeds to the Oriental mind? I shall just pass over the question whether those so-called Western creeds are really Western. Let us call them "Western creeds" in quotation marks and for the sake of the argument. Ought those Western creeds to be given to the Oriental mind? What is our answer? The answer is: "Certainly." Of course those Western creeds ought to be given to the Oriental mind. But that ought to be done only on one condition—that those Western creeds are true. If they are not true, they ought not to be given to the Oriental mind or to any other kind of mind; but if they are true, they are just as true in China as they are in the United States. The truth is that although I am thought by some of my friends to be very gullible, believing as I do that the Bible is true and that miracles really happened, there are some things about which I am a confirmed skeptic. Frankly, I do not believe in the separate existence of an Oriental mind or an Occidental mind or an ancient mind or a medieval mind or a modern mind. I do believe indeed that different races of mankind have different aptitudes or talents. It is perhaps true that French writers have the special gift of clearness, while Germans are characterized by a power of metaphysical speculation and by a certain solidity and thoroughness of learning. It must be admitted, indeed, that some German writers are admirably clear and some French writers, on the other hand, are awfully muddled. But still I suppose it is true to a very considerable extent that clearness is especially a French virtue of style. I have a great respect also for the intellectual gifts of Oriental peoples. I have no doubt but that those peoples are contributing something very valuable, and are going to contribute something still more valuable, to the intellectual life of the world. But the really important thing is that under all fluctuations between this age and that age, between this nation and that nation, there is a gold standard of truth. We may misunderstand ancient writers, but our very recognition of the possibility of misunderstanding them shows that there is also a possibility of understanding them. I may have difficulty in understanding the mental processes of the Chinese and the Japanese, as they have difficulty in understanding mine; but the very fact that we can both detect that difficulty affords hope that the difficulty may be overcome, since the fact that we can detect that difficulty shows that there is a common intellectual ground upon which we can stand. I think, therefore, that we can safely resist the bottomless skepticism which holds that all that remains constant from generation to generation is an experience that must clothe itself in ever changing intellectual forms. I think that we may safely resist the skepticism which holds that the convictions of one generation can never by any chance be the convictions of another. But are convictions important? Many people say that they are not. It does not make much difference, they say, what a man believes; life is the thing that counts. But merely saying a thing often does not make the thing true. As a matter of fact it does make a tremendous difference what a man believes. A modern French novelist wrote in 1889 a very interesting book to show that that is the case. I have just been rereading it, and I find it almost as impressive as I found it when I read it the first time. The novelist who wrote it is hardly to be put in the first rank of French writers. But this one book of his is certainly worth reading. Some years ago I was talking about it to a French lecturer and critic who was inclined to be very severe upon this writer. But then I said that I had read one book of this writer and that it seemed to my poor judgment to be a masterpiece. "Yes," said the critic with whom I was talking; "that particular book of this writer is indeed a masterpiece." The book that I am referring to is the novel by Paul Bourget entitled Le Disciple, "The Disciple." It describes, with a delicacy of touch in which French writers excel, the simple and austere life of a noted philosopher and psychologist. He was engrossed altogether in the things of the mind. His lodging was up four flights of stairs. His daily existence was an invariable routine. Coffee at six o’clock, lunch or breakfast at ten, walk until noon, work again until four, visits of scholars and students three times a week from four to six, dinner at six, short walk, work, bed promptly at ten. An inoffensive, scholarly man if there ever was one, a man who, in the words of his caretaker, "wouldn’t hurt a fly." But one day this peaceful routine was strangely broken into. The philosopher was summoned to a criminal inquest. A former pupil of his was accused of murder. He had been a brilliant young man, who had climbed those four flights of stairs full of enthusiasm for what he regarded as liberating doctrines. He had drunk in those doctrines only too well. In the prison he wrote an account of his life for the eye of his revered master. In it the abstract becomes concrete. The terrible story is told of the way in which those supposedly liberating doctrines work out in actual practice. It is rather a tremendous little book—that study of "The Disciple" by Paul Bourget. But the same tragedy as that which is so powerfully depicted in that little book is appearing on a gigantic scale in the whole history of our times. Fifty or even twenty-five years ago, certain views about God and about the Bible might have seemed to a superficial observer to be perfectly respectable and perfectly innocent—as harmless and as remote from anything like tragedy as Bourget’s philosopher up his four flights of stairs. It was such a sweet, pleasant thing—that older Modernism, or "Liberalism," as it was euphemistically called. But today it is having its perfect work. It is destroying civil and religious liberty; it is defiling the sweetness and gentleness of the Christian home; it is causing contracts public and private to be explained away, until the man or the nation that swears to his own hurt and changes not is regarded as a curious relic of the past. Do you look with complacency upon this world where purity and honesty and liberty are regarded as out of date? Do you think it is going to be a pleasant world to live in? If you do, you are blind. You have to be pretty blind not to see that mankind is today standing over an abyss. Do not be deceived, my friends. This notion that it does not make much difference what a man believes, this notion that doctrine is unimportant and that life comes first, is one of the most devilish errors that are to be found in the whole of Satan’s arsenal. How many human lives it has wrecked, how many mothers’ hearts it has broken! That French novelist is entirely right. Out of the Pandora box of highly respectable philosophy come murders, adulteries, lies and every evil thing. Well, I have been talking about various things. It might look as though I had forgotten all about the thing I started out to talk about. It might look as though I had forgotten all about the Bible. But indeed that is not the case. I have been talking about these other things, I have been talking about the snarl into which men have come, only in order that at the last I may lead you to the place where that snarl may be straightened out. What does the Bible say about the question that we have been discussing this afternoon? What does the Bible say about the question whether doctrine is merely the changing expression of life or whether—the other way around—life is founded upon doctrine? You do not have to read very far in the Bible in order to get the answer. The answer is given to you in the first verse. Does the Bible begin with exhortation; does it begin with a program of life? No, it begins with a doctrine. In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth [Genesis 1:1]. That is the foundation doctrine upon which everything else that the Bible says is based. The Bible does present a way of life; it tells men the way in which they ought to live. But always when it does so it grounds that way of life in truth. Run through the Bible in your minds, my friends, and see whether I am not right. In the Old Testament a wonderful program of life is presented. It is called the Ten Commandments. But do the Ten Commandments begin with commandments? Not at all. They begin with doctrine. I am the Lord your God, Who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage [Exodus 20:2]. That is the preface to the Ten Commandments. It is not a commandment. It is not a program. It is a doctrine. Only because that doctrine is true—only because the one speaking in the commandments is the Lord God—have the commandments any authority. The Old Testament contains another wonderful presentation of the way in which men should live. Like the Ten Commandments it was quoted by Jesus. It reads: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might [Deuteronomy 6:5]. That is a wonderful commandment indeed—that commandment of love. But does it begin with a commandment? Not at all. It begins with a doctrine. It is grounded upon a doctrine. Hear, O Israel, says the passage in Deuteronomy: The Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might [Deuteronomy 6:4-5]. Only because that doctrine is true has the commandment any meaning. Only because there is one God only and only because that one God is Jehovah are God’s people commanded to love that one God with all their heart and soul and might. Turn then to the New Testament. The New Testament tells us how Jesus came. Did He come in the modern fashion telling people that it made no difference what they believed and that the thing for them to do was just to live the life first and then afterwards give doctrinal expression to the life? Well, He did come presenting to them a life that they should live. "Repent," He said, when He came forward in His public ministry in Galilee. But is that all that He said? Did He just say: "Repent, repent, repent, repent, repent"? Not at all. He said: Repent: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand [Matthew 3:2]. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand is not a command or a program. It is a doctrine; and upon that doctrine the command of Jesus to repent is based. Jesus sat one day by the well, and talked to a sinful woman. In the course of the conversation He laid His finger upon the sore spot in that woman’s life. You have had five husbands, He said; and he whom you now have is not your husband [John 4:18]. Then, apparently to evade the disconcerting question of the sin in her own life, the woman asked Jesus a theological question about the right place in which to worship God—whether on Mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem. What did Jesus do with that woman’s theological question? Did He brush it aside after the manner of certain modern religious workers? Did He say: "You are evading the real question; we will take up your theological question afterwards, but now let us come back to the question of the sin in your own life." No, He did nothing of the kind. He answered that woman’s theological question with the utmost fullness as though the woman’s soul depended on her getting the right answer. Not Gerizim, He said, but Jerusalem is the place in which to worship God, but the time is coming when the worship of God will be bound to no set places. And then, in response to that sinful, unconverted woman’s question Jesus engaged in some of the profoundest theological teaching in the whole of the Bible. Apparently Jesus regarded a right doctrine of God not as something that comes along after salvation but as something necessary to salvation. At the beginning of the Book of Acts Jesus is said to have told His disciples to be witnesses unto Him. On the day of Pentecost, a few days later, Peter arose to obey that command. He preached that great sermon which is found in the second chapter of Acts. What did he say in that sermon? He had not had some advantages which men have today. He had not had the inestimable advantage of modern "religious education." If he had had, no doubt he would have told the people that it did not make any difference what doctrine they held about Jesus or about anything else, and that life was the only thing that mattered. But poor Peter! He had not had the advantage of modern religious education. He had to content himself with another advantage—he had just been filled with the Holy Spirit. The result is that his sermon is doctrinal through and through. He just gave them the facts about Jesus. Not a bit of exhortation, nothing about a program. Just facts, facts, facts, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. What was the result? They were pricked in their hearts [Acts 2:37]. Then Peter told them what to do. Three thousand were saved. So it is everywhere in the Bible, my friends. First doctrine, then life. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation gives not a bit of comfort to the skeptical notion that doctrine is the mere changing and symbolic expression of Christian experience. The Bible founds living everywhere squarely upon truth. God grant that you may all receive that truth for the saving of your souls, and that having been saved you may live true Christian lives upon this Earth and then live in God’s presence for evermore! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 05.09. GOD, THE CREATOR ======================================================================== Chapter 9 GOD, THE CREATOR We have seen that the Bible is doctrinal through and through. It gives not the slightest bit of comfort to the skeptical notion, so much in vogue today, that doctrine is merely the necessarily changing form in which Christian experience expresses itself. The Bible, unlike this skepticism, grounds life squarely in truth. Christianity, according to the Bible, is not a life as distinguished from a doctrine and it is not a life that has doctrine as its changing expression, but—just the other way around—it is a life founded upon a doctrine. That doctrine upon which the Bible grounds life is not one isolated doctrine, and it is not a mere series of doctrines, but it is a system of doctrine. If the Bible contained a number of divergent systems, it could not possibly be the Word of God, because it could not possibly be true throughout. The ordination pledge to which all ministers and elders in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. have subscribed is quite right in speaking of the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. I think great stress ought to be laid upon that fact. A great deal of harm is done when people take one part of the teaching of the Bible out of its connection with the rest, or when they leave gaps in their presentation of what the Bible teaches. It is very important to see that the Bible does far more than present isolated truths. It is very important to see that it presents a system of truth, and it is very important to view that system not in part but as a whole. As we study that system here together, let us remember above all things that it is not a system which man has devised, but a system which God has revealed—revealed graciously in His holy Word. Where shall we begin in our study of that great system of revealed truth that the Bible contains? I think we ought to begin where the Bible begins. I think we ought to begin with a consideration of what the Bible teaches about God as the Creator and Ruler of the world. There are many today who insist that we ought to begin at another place. There are many who tell us that we ought to begin with a consideration of the human life of Jesus. In fact these people often tell us that that is where we ought not only to begin but also to end. They are telling us that that is all we really need to know. All that we need to know about God, they tell us, is that God is like Jesus. We do not need to know how the universe came into being, they tell us, or whether there is a God who governs it in its course. These things belong to metaphysics, they say, not to religion. We are not interested, they say, in the question whether God is powerful, but are only interested in conceiving of Him as good. Such is the view of those who use the phrase "the Christlike God." That phrase, as it is commonly used, grates upon Christian ears. It grates upon the ears of those who believe not that God is like Jesus, but that Jesus Himself is God. But what is wrong with that view? Aside from the terminology that is used to set it forth, what is wrong with the view itself? What is wrong with this notion that all that we know about God is that He possesses the moral excellencies that are found in the man Jesus? Two things at least are wrong with it. In the first place, it is terribly degrading to Jesus. That may seem strange at first sight. It may seem strange that a view which holds that all we need to know about God is that God is like Jesus should be derogatory to Jesus, but a little reflection will show that it is derogatory to Jesus in the extreme. It is derogatory to Jesus because it does despite to the deepest things in Jesus’ teaching and example. At the very heart of the life of Jesus was just that view of God which is being so contemptuously rejected by those who say that the moral life of the man Jesus tells us all that we need to know about God. Jesus certainly believed that God is the Creator and Ruler of the universe, and that belief belonged to the foundation of everything that He believed. Not a sparrow, He said to His disciples, shall fall on the ground without your Father [Matthew 10:29]. It is God, according to Jesus, who clothes the lilies of the field, and it is God who makes the sun to rise on just and unjust. There can be no doubt whatever but that Jesus held just that view of God which the persons of whom we have been speaking reject as being mere metaphysics. He put at the very foundation of His teaching and His life that divinely revealed metaphysic which is found in the first verse of Genesis. Everything that He did, with everything that He said, was based upon the great truth: In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth [Genesis 1:1]. God, according to Jesus, is the Creator and the absolute Ruler of the universe, bringing all things to pass in accordance with the counsel of His will. You may not like that view of God, but if you are a historian who sees things as they are you will be obliged to recognize the fact that it was certainly the view held by Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, Jesus certainly held that men had a true knowledge of God before He appeared upon the Earth. He held that they had that true knowledge of God from the Old Testament. We have already observed in previous talks in this little series that Jesus regarded the Old Testament as the very Word of God and that He put that conviction about the Old Testament at the very heart both of His teaching and of His life. How, then, if you reject that conviction, can you possibly think that you are doing honor to Jesus? If you hold that the revelation of God contained in the Old Testament is valueless and that all that we need to know about God is found in the moral character of the man Jesus of Nazareth, what will you do with the fact that the Jesus to whom you appeal put at the very basis of that moral character which you so much admire a view of the Old Testament and a view of God which you contemptuously reject? Jesus did, indeed, present Himself as revealing God and as being in His very person the revelation of God. He who has seen Me, He said, has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father [John 14:9]? But that certainly does not mean that the disciples who were with our Lord on Earth were told by our Lord suddenly to regard as of no value the knowledge of God which they already had. The key to what our Lord meant when He said, He who has seen Me has seen the Father is to be found, I am inclined to think, in the words in John 1:18: No man has seen God at any time; God only begotten, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. Devout readers of the Old Testament had known God, but they had not seen Him, since God is invisible. But now the one Who is both God and only begotten, the eternal Son, has become flesh, and because He has become flesh can actually be seen with men’s eyes. A man who sees Him sees the Father, since He is Himself one in substance with the Father. Thus, in Christ, the longing of men actually to see God is satisfied. At any rate, what is perfectly clear is that everywhere Jesus presupposed the knowledge of God which His disciples had from the Old Testament. He just assumes that His disciples have that knowledge, and then, building upon that knowledge He leads them on into a fuller and more glorious knowledge through His intercourse with them upon Earth. To hold, then, that all that we need to know about God is found in the moral character of the man Jesus of Nazareth, and that we can be indifferent to the question whether God is the Maker and Ruler of the world, is to treat Jesus Himself with contempt, since it means that we reject what He Himself put at the very foundation of His life and of His teaching. But that view is not only derogatory to Jesus. It is also derogatory to God. What a low view of God it is to be sure when men say that they are not interested in the question whether He is powerful, whether He is the Creator or Ruler of the world, but are only interested in the question whether He is good! Is that view of God really right? [The treatment of this question in the following paragraphs is similar to that in the book by the same writer, What Is Faith? 1925, pp. 60f.]. Has all our trust in the infinite power of our God been wrong when in the midst of storms and trials and a host of enemies we have quoted the words of Scripture: If God be for us, who can be against us [Romans 8:31]? Was Isaiah wrong when he turned his eyes to the starry Heavens and said: Lift up your eyes on high, and behold Who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power; not one fails[Isaiah 40:26]? Was Jesus wrong when He told His disciples to trust in Him Who clothes the lilies of the field and when He said: Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom [Luke 12:32]? To these questions philosophers may return this answer or that, but the answer of the Christian heart is plain. Away with all these pale abstractions, it cries; away with this strange theory that speaks of the goodness of God but deprives Him of His power! If God is good only and not powerful, we are of all men most miserable. We had trusted Him so implicitly; we had felt so safe in His everlasting arms. But now you tell us that our confidence was misplaced and that God really had no power to save His children when they call! Shall we believe you? Ah, no, my friends. Not if we are Christians. Others may heed these voices that bid us lose confidence in the power of our God, but as for us Christians, we will say still, though ten million times ten million universes unloose against us all their mighty power, though we stand amid the clash of falling systems and contemplate a universal ruin—we will say still that it is God’s world which He can create and He destroy, and that through Christ’s grace we are safe forever in the arms of our heavenly Father. But, people say, even if God is not thus all powerful, even if we can no longer think of Him as the sovereign Creator and Ruler of the world, even if we relegate these things to the realm of mere metaphysics, have we not at least something left? Have we not goodness left? We do not know how the world came into being; we do not know what will be our fate when we pass through the dark portals of death. But can we not find a higher and more disinterested worship—far higher, it would seem than that which Jesus practiced—in the reverence for goodness stripped of the old vulgar trappings of power? It sounds noble at first. But consider it for a moment and its glory turns to ashes and leaves us in despair. What is meant by a goodness that has no power? Is not goodness a mere abstraction except as it belongs to persons? As does not the very notion of a person involve the power to act? Goodness altogether divorced from power is therefore no goodness at all. The truth is that if you try to make God good only and not powerful, both God and goodness have been destroyed. We insist then that in order to know God it is not sufficient to examine the moral life of the man Jesus of Nazareth. To regard that as sufficient is to do despite to Jesus Himself, and it leaves us with a God who is no God at all. What then is the view of God which the Bible presents to us, when we take the Bible as we ought to take it—as a whole? If you will let me answer that question in one word, and if you will not forbid me to make that one word a convenient word which philosophers use, I will just say that the view of God which the Bible presents is the view which philosophers call "theism"—that is, it is the view which holds that there is a personal God who is Creator and Ruler of the world. That is the view which Jesus presents with particular clearness, and that is the view which the Bible presents as a whole. To understand just what that view of God is, we cannot do better than contrast it with two other views which men have often held. In the first place, there is the view called deism. According to that view, God created the universe, but then left it alone to run by itself like a machine. That view, affirming the existence of a personal God but denying His presence in the world and His active governance of it, used to be held widely by unbelievers of past generations; but today it is dead. I do not know whether there are any real deists at the present time. A second error is, however, very much alive; in fact, in different forms, and with greater or less modification, it is the view underlying the Modernism that is stifling the life of such large portions of the Church today. That is the ancient error called "pantheism." It is held in very many different forms, and with many degrees of consistency. According to the strict meaning of the term, it is the view that "all is God," the view that simply identifies God with the totality of existing things. I suppose the first impulse of the ordinary man, untrained in philosophy, is to regard that view as absurd. It was in that way that I regarded it when I first heard of it when I was at school or college. It seemed to me almost more preposterous than the idolatry of the heathen who bows down to idols of wood and stone. But here is the strange thing, my friends—a great many people who regard pantheism as wrong if the meaning of the term is explained to them are practically pantheists themselves. They are not aware of the fact, but they are pantheists all the same [The treatment of this subject in the following three paragraphs is similar to that in What Is Faith? pp. 70 f.]. We find ourselves in the midst of the mighty process of nature. It manifests itself in the wonders of the starry Heavens and the equal wonders that the interior of the atom now reveals. It is seen in the revolving seasons and also in the achievements of the human mind. In the presence of that mighty process of nature, we stand in awe; we are impressed with our own littleness; we understand that we are but infinitesimal parts of a mighty whole. And to that mighty whole, to that stupendous world process, whose vastness we moderns have come to understand as never before, the pantheist applies the dread name of God. God is thus no longer thought of as an artificer apart from His machine; He is thought of rather as the universe itself, conceived of not in its individual manifestations but as a mighty whole. Such is pantheism in the strict sense of the word. We can well understand the appeal which such a view has for many minds. It has stimulated some of the most brilliant thinking and inspired some of the grandest poetry of the race. But it contains no comfort whatever for oppressed and burdened souls. If God be merely another name for the totality of things, then if we possess Him we have nothing that we did not have before. There is for us now no more appeal from nature to nature’s God. We are now nothing but the playthings of blind force. Feeling, perhaps, the defects of the stark pantheism which identifies God with all that exists, some men have sought for a "higher pantheism" of various kinds. No, they say to themselves, God is not simply another name for the universe as a whole, but is to be identified rather with the spiritual purpose that runs through the universe. Some of them have said that God is the soul of the universe. As the human body has a human soul, so the universe has a soul, they say, and that soul is to be called "God." Two profound defects are found in all these forms of pantheism, high and middling and low. In the first place, they give us a God who is in some kind of necessary connection with the world. Not only does the world not exist apart from God, they tell us, but God does not exist apart from the world. What becomes, then, of the holiness or separateness of God? Clothe such a view with all the beauty of language with which it has been celebrated by poets and philosophers, and still it gives us a God who is merely a function or an aspect of the world. Such a God can never bring us into contact with that dread and mysterious realm of the beyond into which our souls long to enter. In the second place, pantheism high or low can never really give us a personal God. A God of which we are parts can never be a God with whom we can have communion. We can never stand in the presence of such a God as one person stands in the presence of another. We can never say "You" to such a God, and such a God can never say "You" to us. We can never love such a God, and such a God can never love us. An abstraction can neither love nor be loved. Never could we say to a "world process" or to a "spiritual meaning" or to a principle of goodness: Our Father Who is in Heaven [Matthew 6:9]. How gloriously are those two defects of pantheism avoided in the teaching of Holy Scripture! The former of the two defects is certainly avoided. What is it that stands out sharply in the Bible from beginning to end? Is it not the awful holiness or separateness of God, the awful distinction between the finite and the infinite, between the creature and the Creator? The Bible does indeed teach us that God is immanent in the world. He is not a God afar off. He is not a God who stands aloof from the universe as an artificer stands aloof from his machine. The devout reader of the Bible can say with Tennyson: "Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." But if God is thus immanent in the world, He is also transcendent. The world is dependent upon Him, but He is not dependent upon the world. He has set bounds to the world, but the world has set no bounds to Him. It is the work of His hands, but He is from eternity. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the Earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God [Psalms 90:2]. Running all through the Bible is the awful separateness of God from the world. That is what the Bible calls the holiness of God. The Bible, unlike the pantheists, presents to us a holy God. But the Bible also—and again unlike the pantheists—presents to us a personal God. The God of the Bible is not just a name for the universe itself, nor is He a name for a spiritual purpose supposed to run through the universe, or for any impersonal principle of goodness. No, He is a person. That much is clear at the start. We shall speak in a subsequent talk of the deeper mystery of the three persons in one God. But at least it is clear that God is personal. He is not a force or a principle or a collective somewhat of which we are parts. He is a person, to whom we can say "You," a person who can, if He will, speak to us as a man speaks to His friend, and who can, if He will, become to us a heavenly Father. But what is needed first of all is that we shall stand in awe before His throne. We are living in an age when men have forgotten God. They have become engrossed in their own affairs. They have been puffed up in their pride. They have put God out of their thoughts. The result is that our boasted civilization is rushing rapidly to its fall. Oh, that men would turn to God while yet there is time! How is it with you, my friends? Have you been walking in your own paths? Have you forgotten God? If so, I bid you read the blessed book that will tell you how He may be found. If you heed His Word you may first stand in awe before His throne, and then, by the way that He has provided, you may come to be at peace with Him and be His child for evermore. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 05.10. THE TRIUNE GOD ======================================================================== Chapter 10 THE TRIUNE GOD In this little series of talks we spent some time discussing the question what kind of book the Bible is; but at last we plunged fairly into the question what that book teaches. We were talking about what the Bible teaches regarding God. In dealing with that subject, we had not time to do any more than make a beginning. All that we had time to do was to observe that the Bible tells us there is a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the World. God, according to the Bible, is not another name for the mighty process of nature, and He is not some one part or aspect of that process, but He is a free and holy person, who created the process of nature by the fiat of His will and who is eternally independent of the universe that He has made. Now we ask more in detail what the Bible tells us about God. When we ask that, I know we shall be met with an objection. We are seeking to know God. Well, there are many people who tell us that we ought not to seek to know God. The knowledge of God, they say, is the death of religion. Instead of seeking to know God, they tell us, we ought simply to feel Him; putting all theology aside, they say, we ought just to sink ourselves in the boundless ocean of God’s being [The following treatment of this objection is similar to the treatment by the same writer in Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, pp. 54 f.]. Such is the attitude of the mystics ancient and modern. But it is not the attitude of the Christian. The Christian, unlike the mystic, knows Him whom He has believed. What shall be said of a religion that depreciates theology, that depreciates the knowledge of God? One thing that can be said of it is that it hardly possesses any moral quality at all. Pure feeling, if such a thing exists, is non-moral. That can be observed in the sphere of human relationships. What makes my affection for a human friend such an ennobling thing is the knowledge that I have of the character and the needs of my friend. Am I indifferent to such knowledge? Am I indifferent to an error that seeks to contravene it? Am I indifferent to base slanders which are directed against my friend’s reputation? Not if I am a friend worthy of the name. Human affection, apparently so simple, is in reality just bristling with doctrine; it depends upon a host of observations, stored up in the mind, regarding the object of the affection. That is true, I think, even with regard to those human affections that are often thought of as instinctive. Take, for example, the love of a mother for a child. That love is no doubt independent of excellence in the child; it is impossible to kill a mother’s love, no matter what one may do. But is a mother’s love independent of some knowledge of the child, independent of some knowledge of the child’s sufferings and needs, independent of some ability to enter into the soul of the child in order to sympathize and understand? If it is thus independent of all knowledge, I am inclined to think that it is hardly human affection at all; it has descended to an almost sub-human level. It is to that sub-human, non-personal level that the mystic seeks to degrade our communion with God. Very different is the love of God as the Bible sets it forth. According to the Bible, we love God because He first loved us; and He has told us of His love in His holy Word. We love God, if we obey what the Bible tells us, because God has made Himself known to us and has thus shown Himself to be worthy of our love. I do not mean to say that the Christian in his communion with God is always rehearsing consciously the things that God has told us about Himself. There are times, as someone has observed, when a child of God, weary with the battle of life, can say only, as he lies down to rest: "Lord, You know, we are on the same old terms." There are times when the Christian can be strangely conscious of the presence of God, even though he is not for the moment thinking in detail about the things that he knows regarding God. Certainly the Bible does offer to us an immediate communion with God, which is like no other experience which a man can possibly have; and certainly the Bible does make a distinction between knowing God and merely knowing about God. But underlying that sweet and blessed communion of the Christian with his God there is a true knowledge of God. A communion with God which is independent of that knowledge of God is communion with some other god and not with the living and true God whom the Bible reveals. Every true man is resentful of slanders against a human friend. Should we not be grieved ten times more by slanders against our God? How can we possibly listen with polite complacency, then, when men break down the distinction between God and man, and drag God down to man’s level? How can we possibly say, as in one way or another is so often said, that orthodoxy makes little difference. We should never talk in any such way about a human friend. We should never say with regard to a human friend that it makes no difference whether our view of him is right or wrong. How, then, can we say that absurd thing with regard to God? The really consistent Christian can have nothing whatever to do with such doctrinal indifferentism. There is nothing so dishonoring to God, he will say, as to be indifferent to the things that God has told us about Himself in His holy Word. What, then, has God told us about Himself in His Word? I certainly cannot now answer that question with any fullness. But there are a few things that I do want to say, and if by saying them I can be helpful to you in your own reading of the Bible, the purpose of this little series of talks will have been attained. In the Shorter Catechism of the Presbyterian churches, there is the following answer to the question, "What is God?": "God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." That answer is certainly in accordance with the Bible. I think it will help us a little bit to get straight in our minds what the Bible says about God. Notice that God is here said to be infinite, eternal and unchangeable. What is meant by saying that He is infinite? Well, the word "infinite" means without an end or a limit. Other beings are limited: God is unlimited. I suppose it is easy for us to fall into our ordinary spatial conceptions in trying to think of God. We may imagine ourselves passing from the Earth to the remotest star known to modern astronomy—many, many light years away. Well, when we have got there, we are not one slightest fraction of an inch nearer to fathoming infinity than we were when we started. We might imagine ourselves traveling ten million times ten million times farther still, and still we should not be any nearer to infinity than when we started. We cannot conceive a limit to space, but neither can we conceive of infinite space. Our mind faints in the presence of infinity. But we were really wrong in using those spatial conceptions in thinking of infinity, and particularly wrong were we in using spatial conceptions in thinking of the infinite God. It may help us to the threshold of the truth to say that God pervades the whole vast area of the universe known to science, and then infinitely more; it may help us to the threshold of the truth to say that God inhabits infinite space: but when we look a little deeper we see that space itself belongs to finite things and that the notion of infinite space is without meaning. God created space when He created finite things. He Himself is beyond space. There is no near and no far to Him. Everything to Him is equally near. So it is when we try to think of God as eternal. If the word "infinity" is related, by way of contrast, to the notion of space, so the word "eternity" is related by way of contrast to the notion of time. When we say that God is eternal, we mean that He had no beginning and that He will have no end. But we really mean more than that. We mean that time has no meaning for Him, save as it has meaning to the creatures whom He has made. He created time, when He created finite creatures. He Himself is beyond time. There is no past and no future to Him. The Bible puts that in poetical language when it says: For a thousand years in Your sight are as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night [Psalms 90:4]. We of course are obliged to think of the actions of God as taking place in time. We are obliged to think of Him as doing one thing after another thing; we are obliged to think of Him as doing this today and that tomorrow. We have a perfect right so to think, and the Bible amply confirms us in that right. To us there is indeed such a thing as past and present and future, and when God deals with us He acts in a truly temporal series. But to God Himself all things are equally present. There is no such thing as "before" or "after" to Him. It is very important to see clearly that God is thus infinite, eternal and unchangeable. These attributes of God are often denied. Those who have denied them told us that God is a finite God. We must not blame Him, they tell us, if things are not just right in the world. He is doing the best He can, they say; He is trying to bring order out of chaos, but He is faced by a recalcitrant material which He did not create and which He can mold only gradually and imperfectly to His will. It is our business to help Him, and while we may at first sight regret that we have not the all powerful God that we used to think we had, yet we can comfort ourselves with the inspiring thought that the God that we do have needs our help and indeed cannot do without it. What shall we say of such a finite God? I will tell you plainly what I think we ought to say about Him. He is not God but a god. He is a product of men’s thoughts. Men have made many such little gods. Of the making of gods, as of the making of books, there is no end. But, as for Christians, with our Bibles before us, we turn from all such little gods of man’s making, out toward the dread mystery of the infinite and eternal, and say, as Augustine said, with a holy fear: "You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You." The definition in the Shorter Catechism, which we are taking to give us our outline of what the Bible tells us about God, says not only that God is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being and in His power and in His holiness, but also that He is infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His wisdom and in His Justice, goodness and truth. Does that seem surprising to you in the light of what we have just been saying? Well, perhaps it might seem to be surprising. These qualities—wisdom, justice, goodness and truth—are such startlingly human qualities. Can we ascribe them to that infinite, eternal and unchangeable God of whom we have just been speaking? If we do try to ascribe them to that God, are we not guilty of a naive anthropomorphism? Are we not guilty of the childish error of thinking of God as though He were just a big man up in the sky? Are we not guilty of making a god in our own image? The answer is: No, we are not guilty of that. If we think of God as having some attributes which we also possess, we may conceivably be doing it for one or the other of two reasons. In the first place, we may be doing it because we are making God in our own image. But, in the second place, we may be doing it because God has made us in His image. The Bible tells us that this second alternative is correct. God made man in the image of God, and that is the reason why God possesses some attributes which man also possesses, though God possesses them to an infinitely higher degree. The Bible is not afraid of speaking of God in a startlingly tender and human sort of way. It does so just in passages where the majesty of God is set forth. It is He Who sits upon the circle of the Earth, says the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers [Isaiah 40:22]. All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity [Isaiah 40:17]. But what says that same fortieth chapter of Isaiah about this same terrible God? Here is what it says: He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those who are with young [Isaiah 40:11]. How wonderfully the Bible sets forth the tenderness of God! Is that merely figurative? Are we wrong in thinking of God in such childlike fashion? Many philosophers say so. They will not think of God as a person. Oh, no. That would be dragging Him down too much to our level! So they make of Him a pale abstraction. The Bible seems childish to them in the warm, personal way in which it speaks of God. Are those philosophers right or is the Bible right? Thank God, the Bible is right, my friends. The philosophers despise children who think of God as their heavenly Father. But the philosophers are wrong and the children are right. Did not our Lord Jesus say: I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babies [Matthew 11:25]. No, God no pale abstraction. He is a person. That simple truth—precious possession of simple souls—is more profound than all the philosophies of all the ages. But now we come to a great mystery. God, according to the Bible, is not just one person, but He is three persons in one God. That is the great mystery of the Trinity. The Trinity is revealed to us only in the Bible. We said at the beginning of this little series of talks that God has revealed some things to us through nature and through conscience. But the Trinity is not among them. This He has revealed to us by supernatural revelation and by supernatural revelation alone. We can, it is true, detect something in the doctrine of the Trinity that serves to render clearer and richer even what nature and conscience reveal. Nature and conscience reveal, in a revelation which, it is true, sinful man seldom receives, a personal and holy God, Creator of the world. But how can a personal and holy being exist entirely alone? The thing is difficult for us to understand. That difficulty is wonderfully overcome by the doctrine of the Trinity, which tells us that even before God had created the world there was a personal interrelation within the Godhead. But we ought to be exceedingly cautious about such considerations. Though God is a person, He is a person very different from us finite persons, and I am not sure that we could ever have said, on the basis of any general revelation in nature and conscience, that an infinite person could not have existed entirely alone. Let us put such considerations, then, aside. When we are engaging in them we are venturing upon holy ground, where we can walk at best with but trembling and halting footsteps. The thing that is perfectly clear is that we should not have had any real knowledge of the holy mystery of the Trinity had not that mystery been revealed to us in the written Word of God. Within the Word of God, it is in the New Testament that the doctrine of the Trinity is taught. There are hints of it in the Old Testament, but they are only hints, and it was left to the New Testament for this precious doctrine to be clearly revealed. In the New Testament, the doctrine is taught with the utmost clearness; and, as has well been pointed out by Dr. B. B. Warfield, in a splendid article on the Trinity [B. B. Warfield, Article, "Trinity," in International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, now reprinted in his collected works, in the volume Biblical Doctrines, 1929, pp. 143-147. The present writer is much indebted to that article for the treatment of this whole subject], the doctrine is presupposed even more than it is expressly taught. That is, the New Testament is founded throughout on the doctrine of the Trinity, and the doctrine was really established by the great facts of the incarnation of the Son of God and the work of the Holy Spirit even before it was enunciated in words. Only the smallest part of the teaching of the New Testament about the Trinity is found in passages where the doctrine is stated as a whole. What the New Testament ordinarily does is to state parts of the doctrine, so that when we put those parts together, and when we summarize them, we have the great doctrine of the three persons and one God. For example, all passages in the New Testament where the deity of Jesus Christ is set forth are, when taken in connection with passages setting forth the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit, passages supporting the doctrine of the Trinity. In the next talk, I hope to deal with some of those passages. But what needs to be observed now is that although by far the larger part of the Biblical teaching about the Trinity is given in that incidental and partial way—presupposing the doctrine rather than formally enunciating it as a whole—yet there are some passages where the doctrine is definitely presented by the mention, together, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The most famous of such passages, I suppose, is found in the Great Commission, given by the risen Lord to His disciples according to the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew. Go therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [Matthew 28:19]. There we have a mention of all three persons of the Trinity in the most complete coordination and equality—yet all three persons are plainly not three Gods but one. Here, in this solemn Commission by our Lord, the God of all true Christians is forever designated as a triune God. We think also, for example, of the apostolic benediction at the end of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all [2 Corinthians 13:14]. Here the terminology is a little different from that in the Great Commission. Paul speaks of the Son as the Lord. But the word Lord in the Pauline Epistles is plainly a designation of deity, like the other Greek word which is translated into English by the word God. It is the Greek word used to translate the holy name of God, Jehovah, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament which Paul used, and Paul does not hesitate to apply to Christ Old Testament passages which speak of Jehovah. That brings us to something supremely important in the teaching of the whole New Testament about the Trinity. It is this—that the New Testament writers, in presenting God as triune, are never for one moment conscious of saying anything that could by any possibility be regarded as contradicting the Old Testament teaching that there is but one God. That teaching is at the very heart and core of the Old Testament. It is every whit as much at the heart and core of the New Testament. The New Testament is just as much opposed as the Old Testament is to the thought that there are more Gods than one. Yet the New Testament with equal clearness teaches that the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, and that these three are not three aspects of the same person but three persons standing in a truly personal relationship to one another. There we have the great doctrine of the three persons but one God. That doctrine is a mystery. No human mind can fathom it. Yet what a blessed mystery it is! The Christian’s heart melts within him in gratitude and joy when he thinks of the divine love and condescension that has thus lifted the veil and allowed us sinful creatures a look into the very depths of the being of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 05.11. WHAT IS THE DEITY OF CHRIST? ======================================================================== Chapter 11 WHAT IS THE DEITY OF CHRIST? We have been talking about the great mystery of the Trinity. We have seen that according to the Bible there is but one God but that that one God is in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There are some places in the New Testament where all three persons of the Godhead are mentioned in the same verse. But much the more important or extensive part of the Biblical proof of the doctrine of the Trinity is found in those passages where parts of the great doctrine are so mentioned as that when they are put together the completed doctrine inevitably appears. I want to begin to talk to you today about one great central part of the doctrine. I want to talk to you about the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. But before I can say a single word to you about the deity of Christ, I must tell you what that term "the deity of Christ" means, or rather I must make perfectly clear to you what it does not mean. I must make perfectly clear to you the fact that the term "deity of Christ" and the assertion "Jesus is God" are often so employed today as to mean something quite contrary to the Bible and to the Christian faith. Do you not see, my friends, that when a man says he believes in the deity of Christ, or when he says he believes that Jesus is God, the significance of such assertions depends altogether upon the question what the man who makes them means by the term "deity" or the term "God." If a man has a low view of deity, then, when he says that he believes in the deity of Christ, that means that he has a low view of Christ; and if he has a low view of God; then, when he says that he believes that Jesus is God, that means that he has a low view of Jesus. But here is where the confusion comes in. A Christian man, hearing some unbeliever say that he believes in the deity of Christ or believes that Jesus is God, attributes to that unbeliever the Christian definition of the term "deity" or the term "God." He simply assumes that the term "deity" or the term "God" means what Christians have always taken those terms as meaning. That is, he assumes that those terms refer to a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world, separate by a mighty gulf from all finite things. The consequence is that he is very much impressed when those terms are used about Jesus by a man who otherwise seemed to be very far from the Christian faith. "Did you not hear that man say," he exclaims, "that he believes in the deity of Christ; did you not hear him call Jesus ‘God’? Well, if he believes in the deity of Christ, if he is willing to call Jesus ‘God,’ he cannot be so very wrong. He may be unorthodox in some particulars, but surely the root of the matter must be in him." When I hear Christian people talking in that fashion about one of the noted unbelievers of the day, I have the sad feeling that those Christian people are, if I may use plain language, being deceived. I am not a bit ashamed of laying stress upon this point, because I think it is a matter of profound importance. If I were sure I could get it really straight in your minds I should think it worth while to devote not merely a part of one lecture to it, but a whole series of lectures. The more I look out upon the condition of the Church, the more I am convinced that untold harm is being done by this double use of the term "deity" and of the term "God." The willingness of unbelievers to use the terms in their sense coupled with the proneness of Christians to understand them in theirs, is causing the great issue in the Church between Christianity and unbelief to be obscured. What is the result? The result is that the Church is being undermined from within. Christian people are being lulled to sleep by this use of orthodox terminology. Unbelievers are quietly gaining control. The young people of the Church are being trained up in unbelief. Precious souls are being destroyed. What ought we to do in such a situation? I will tell you what we ought to do, my friends. We ought to seek light, and we ought to pray God for light. We ought to pray God that people may cease to be satisfied by a word, but may insist on looking at the meaning of the word. Now the Christian meaning of the term "deity of Christ" is fairly clear. The Christian believes that there is a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the universe, a God who is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. So when the Christian says that Jesus Christ is God, or when he says that he believes in the deity of Christ, he means that that same person who is known to history as Jesus of Nazareth existed, before He became man, from all eternity as infinite, eternal and unchangeable God, the second person of the holy Trinity. Very different is the use of the term "deity of Christ" or the term "God," as it is applied to Jesus by many leaders in the modern Church. You can tell that they are using the term in some sense entirely different from the Christian sense because of the things that they say about Jesus in detail, or, even more, because of the things that they will not say. They will not say that Jesus was born of a virgin. They will not say that He worked miracles. They will not say that the things that He said were always true; they will not say that He died as our substitute on the cross; they will not say that He rose from the tomb on the third day. Yet, they say, He was God. When they say He was God, are they saying something orthodox? Is that orthodox assertion of theirs to be put to their credit over against the unorthodox assertions that they have made? We answer: "No, a thousand times no!" When these men say that they believe in the deity of Christ or that they believe Jesus is God, that is not the most orthodox but the least orthodox thing that they say. It is an orthodox and a blessed thing to say that the Jesus of the Bible is God; but to say that this poor deluded enthusiast of modern reconstruction is God is horrible blasphemy. How low these men must think of God if they can use His name in that way! But in what sense do these men use the term "God" or the term "deity" when they apply it to the purely human Jesus—their purely human Jesus whom they have reconstructed after their rejection of the New Testament account? Sometimes they mean by calling Jesus God merely that they try to enter into the same religious experience as the religious experience of those who in past generations called Jesus God. In the creeds of the Church, they say, Jesus is called God. We do not believe, they say, that He is God in the sense in which the authors of those creeds believed it. Shall we then cease to use the creeds? Not at all, they say. When the authors of the creeds called Jesus God, they were expressing in the language of their day a very precious experience which we also can share. So, they say, we can use the creeds still. We do not, of course, take them literally. But we can use them as expressions of the historic faith of the Church. We can still hold to the underlying spiritual meaning of the doctrines that they contain—including the doctrine of the deity of Christ. Such repetitions of the creeds and such professions of belief in the deity of Christ are doing untold harm in the Church today. No doubt they are comforting to the men who practice them. I have sympathy with those men. To those men this use of traditional terminology seems like the stained glass in an old cathedral. It puts everything in a sort of dim religious light; it seems to impart a solemn glow of sanctity to what would appear to be bald unbelief if it were viewed in the cruel light of day. But the trouble is that ordinary people in the Church are being deceived. They hear a man repeating the creeds. He seems to be repeating them with the utmost fervor. He is particularly fervent in expressing his belief in the deity of Christ. They simply assume that he means by the deity of Christ what people have always meant by it. So they tolerate him in the Church and put him in a position of authority. Time goes on. Many such men are put into positions of greater and greater authority. They undermine the faith of the Church, partly by their words, but more particularly by their silence. A deadly vagueness gradually affects the Church’s witness. The young people of the Church are not soundly indoctrinated. People do not know what is wrong, but the Church loses its power. Finally, the mask is thrown off. The people who really believe in the Bible and in the creed of the Church and who are dead in earnest about that belief are treated as troublemakers. The Church sinks down into a merger with the world. That has been the process in many Churches of our day. But it is not in that way that we believe in the deity of Christ. When we say we believe in the deity of Christ, when we repeat the great creeds, we are not just using a form of words that meant something to somebody of long ago. No, we are saying something that we do honestly hold ourselves to be true. We are not just giving expression to the historic faith of the Church, but we are giving expression to our faith. We are saying that the historic faith of the Church is what we ourselves believe. But aside from a merely traditional use of ancient terms, what is the actual meaning attributed to the terms "deity" and "God" by those who have given up the meaning that is found in the Bible and in the great creeds of the Church? What do modern unbelievers mean by speaking of the "deity of Christ" and what do they mean by calling Jesus "God"? I think a twofold answer will have to be given to that question. Unbelievers who use the term "deity of Christ" and the term "God" as applied to Jesus mean usually one or the other of two things by those terms. In the first place, some of them use the terms in what may be called a pantheizing sense. That is, they are willing to call Jesus God because they hold that all of us are God. They put only a difference of degree and not a difference of kind between Jesus’ deity and ours. God, they say, is not a far off God. His life pulsates through the life of all the world. He has always been incarnating Himself in men and women. At one point He incarnated Himself with particular fullness—namely, in Jesus of Nazareth. But that incarnation was not different in kind from the incarnation in other men. It was different in degree but not in kind. What is revealed by the appearance of such a man as Jesus on the Earth is that God and man are essentially one. It is needless to say that that view of the deity of Christ is just about the diametrical opposite of the Christian view, which the Bible teaches. According to the Bible, what is revealed by the appearance of Jesus upon the Earth is not that God and man are one, but rather that God and man are not one. God is God and man is man. There can be no confusion between the two. Moreover, man is separate from God by the awful abyss of sin. Hence—just because of that separation between God and man—the eternal Son of God, Second Person of the holy Trinity, took upon Himself our nature, by an act that was done not many times but once and once only and so because of that one act "was, and continues to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever." I am not going to try to speak today of the relation between the divine nature and the human nature in the person of Christ. That belongs to a later talk in this series, or rather to a talk in some subsequent series. But what I want now to do is simply to say that the words, "Jesus is God," have no real meaning, certainly no Biblical or Christian meaning, unless they go with the supplementary belief that we most emphatically are not God. In the second place, other unbelievers use the terms "deity of Christ" or the term "God" as applied to Jesus in what may be called an anti-metaphysical or positivistic sense. I trust you have some spirit left in you when I use words as long as those. I do not expect all of you to understand that word "positivistic" right at the start, but I do hope to make you understand the thing that I mean by that word. I mean to designate by it the view of people who regard the human life of the man Jesus as the only God that they know. People used to believe, they say, that there is a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world. But we no longer believe that—at least we are quite uncertain about it. It belongs to the realm of metaphysics, which is a very doubtful realm. The only things that we can be really certain about are the things that we can see and hear, the things that are found here in this world in which we live. So if we are to have a God, a modern God, we must find Him here in the midst of us—here in this plainly visible realm. Now we want to find a God, say the men of this way of thinking. People who used to believe in that old metaphysical God, Maker and Ruler of the universe, had something that we are in danger of losing. They had religion. They had a Being who could call forth ennobling emotions of reverence and awe. We need those emotions. We need something to call them forth. We need something to worship. Where shall we find something to call forth these emotions? Where shall we find something to worship? Where shall we find an adequate object of religious devotion to take the place of that personal Creator in whom we no longer believe? We must find it here upon this earth, say these people of whom we are now speaking. Where then shall we find it? Why, we find it, they say, in the life of a certain man named Jesus. He was not of course the Creator of the world. He was a man like the rest of men. But His moral life can call forth the same reverence as past generations used to give to the supposed Creator of the world. So although metaphysics is gone religion remains. Men used to have the ennobling emotion of reverence as they turned to the starry Heavens and said: The Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork [Psalms 19:1]. We no longer believe all that. But we can experience those same ennobling emotions by contemplating the human life of the man Jesus. Such is a very common view of what men call "the deity of Christ." What shall we say about that view? What shall we say about that way of worshipping Jesus? I will tell you what I think we ought to say about it. I think we ought to say about it that it is a terrible sin. Please do not misunderstand me. It is not a sin to worship Jesus. On the contrary, it is the highest and noblest privilege and duty ever given to man. It is not a sin to worship the real Jesus. It is not a sin to worship the Jesus who is God and man. But it is a sin to manufacture a Jesus who was man only and not God, and then after you have manufactured that purely human Jesus to bow down and worship Him. Do you not see what that kind of worship of the moral life of a supposedly purely human Jesus, a Jesus who is regarded merely as the ideal man—do you not see what that worship of such a purely human Jesus really means? It means that the man who engages in it has committed the ancient and terrible sin of worshipping humanity. It means that he has worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, and that is a sin indeed. The upshot of what I have been saying is this—that when men today say that Christ is God they often do so not because they think high of Christ but because they think desperately low of God. That is not at all the way in which the Bible says that Christ is God. When the Bible says that Christ is God, it does not do that by dragging God down. It does not ask us to forget a single thing that it has said about the stupendous majesty of God. No, it asks us to remember every one of those things in order that we may apply them all to Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us in the first verse that God in the beginning created the Heaven and the Earth. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Jesus Christ is God? No, it asks us to remember that. It says of Jesus Christ: All things were made by Him and with out Him was not anything made that was made [John 1:3]. The Bible tells us that God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? No it tells us to remember that. I am Alpha and Omega, says Christ, the beginning and the end, the first and the last [Revelation 22:13]. Before Abraham was, I am [John 8:58]. In the beginning was the Word [John 1:1]. He is before all things, and by Him all things consist [Colossians 1:17]. The Bible tells us that God is holy. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? Let the whole New Testament give the answer. The Bible tells us that God is mysterious. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Christ is God? No, it tells us that there are mysteries in Christ which only God can know. No one knows the Son but the Father, says Jesus, as no one knows the Father but the Son. The Bible tells us that God is the final judge. Does it ask us to forget that when it tells us that Jesus is God? No, Jesus Himself said, in the Sermon on the Mount; that He would sit upon the judgment throne to judge all the earth. Everywhere it is the same, my friends. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation presents a stupendous view of God, and then it tells us that Jesus Christ is all that God is. What interest has the Christian man in all that? What interest has the Christian man in knowing that Jesus Christ is very God, what interest in knowing that it was through Him that the worlds were made, what interest in knowing that He pervades the remotest bounds, what interest in knowing that He is infinite in knowledge and in power? No interest, say modern unbelievers; these things are mere metaphysics. Every interest, say Christians; these things are the very breath of our lives. We have trusted in Jesus. But how far can we trust Him? Just in this transitory life? Just in this little speck that we call the Earth? If we can trust Him only thus far we are of all men most miserable. We are surrounded by stupendous forces; we are surrounded by the immensity of the unknown. After our little span of life there is a shelving brink with the infinite beyond. And still we are subject to fear—not only fear of destruction but a more dreadful fear of meeting with the infinite and holy God. So we should be if we had but a human Christ. But now is Christ our Savior, the One Who says, Your sins are forgiven you [Luke 5:20], revealed as very God. And we believe. Such a faith is a mystery to us who possess it; it seems folly to those who have it not. But if possessed it delivers us forever from fear. The world to us is all unknown, it is engulfed in an ocean of infinity. But it contains no mysteries to our Savior. He is on the throne. He pervades the remotest bounds. He inhabits infinity. With such a Savior we are safe. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 05.12. DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE DEITY OF CHRIST? ======================================================================== Chapter 12 DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE DEITY OF CHRIST? In the last talk I began to speak about the deity of Christ. But I had to point out the disconcerting fact that in contemporary parlance [discussion] the term "deity of Christ" and the term "God" as applied to Jesus mean practically nothing. They are used in so many different senses that the use of these terms has in itself lost all significance. Unbelievers who have a very low view of Jesus indeed are perfectly willing to say that Jesus is God. They are willing to say that Jesus is God not because they have a high view of Jesus but because they have a low view of God. It is a relief to turn from such intellectual quagmires, where words no longer mean what they say, to the Bible. In modern parlance [discussion], with its boundless degradation of formerly lofty terms, there is no solid footing; but it is not so in the Bible. The Bible defines its terms with the utmost clearness, and therefore when the Bible says that Jesus is God, we readers of the Bible know exactly where we stand. Just now, therefore, we have a much pleasanter task than that which we had in the last talk. We are going to try to begin to set forth in positive fashion a little bit at least of what the Bible says about the deity of Christ. If we were going to do so with any completeness we should have to begin with the Old Testament. It is true, the Old Testament does not set forth the doctrine of the deity of Christ with any fullness. I do not suppose that either the prophets or their hearers knew in any clear fashion that the coming Messiah was to be one of the persons in the Godhead. Yet there are wonderful intimations of the doctrine of the deity of Christ even in the Old Testament. The outstanding fact is that the hope of a coming Messiah, as it appears with increasing clearness in the Old Testament books, goes far beyond any mere expectation of an earthly king of David’s line. The Messiah, according to the Old Testament, is clearly to be a supernatural person, and He is clearly possessed of attributes that are truly divine. It has often been observed that before the time of Christ, there were two types of Messianic expectation among the Jews. According to one type, the Messiah was to be a king of David’s line; according to the other, He was to be a heavenly being suddenly appearing in the clouds of heaven to judge the world. Both of these types of later Jewish expectation are rooted in the Old Testament. The Old Testament represents the Messiah both as a king of David’s line and also as a supernatural person to appear with the clouds of heaven. The former of these two representations appears, for example, in the seventh chapter of 2 Samuel, where a never ending line of kings to be descended from David is promised; and it appears even more clearly in the passages where the coming of one supreme king of David’s line is promised. The latter of the two representations appears, for example, in the seventh chapter of Daniel, where a mysterious person like unto a Son of Man [Daniel 7:13] is seen, in the prophet’s vision, in the presence of the Ancient of Days [Daniel 7:9]—a mysterious person to whom is given a universal and everlasting dominion. These two types of Messianic expectation in the Old Testament are by no means sharply distinguished from one another. When we examine closely the expected king of David’s line, we find that He is to be far more than an ordinary Earthly king; we find that He has distinctly supernatural attributes: and, on the other hand, the supernatural figure of the seventh chapter of Daniel is by no means separate from Israel but appears as the representative of the Old Testament people of God. This possession of both divine and human attributes by the Messiah appears with particular clearness in the ninth chapter of Isaiah. There the coming deliverer is spoken of as one who shall sit upon the throne of David. Yet his kingdom is to be everlasting, and He Himself is actually called The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace [Isaiah 9:6]. There we have the deity of the coming Messiah presented in the Old Testament in so many words. Now the glorious thing is that in the New Testament we find these two types of Old Testament promise about the Messiah united, in the fulfillment, in the same Person. How is it that one Person can on the one hand be a man, a king of David’s line, and at the same time be the Mighty God? The question is not fully answered in the Old Testament. But the New Testament answers it most wonderfully in the great central doctrine of the two natures in the one person of our Lord. Yes, the coming deliverer was indeed to be both Mighty God and a king of David’s line, because the Mighty God in strange condescension and love became man for our sakes "and so was, and continues to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person forever." But we are not now speaking about the relation between the divine nature and the human nature in Christ. What we are now interested in saying is that the Old Testament does teach the deity of the coming Messiah. Here, as at so many other points, there is a wonderful continuity between the Old Testament and the New. That continuity is fully recognized by the New Testament. The New Testament does not present the doctrine of the Trinity, including the doctrine of the deity of Christ, as though it meant the introduction of a new idea of God. On the contrary, it presents it as being a revelation of the same God as the God who had revealed Himself to Israel in Old Testament times. That is finely brought out in the article on the Trinity by B. B. Warfield, to which we have already referred [Warfield, Biblical Doctrines, 1929, pp. 142 f.]. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is presented in the New Testament as being a true God; but He is the same God throughout both the Old Testament and the New. Hence it is only what is to be expected when we find that the New Testament applies to Christ Old Testament passages where the God of Israel is called by His holiest and most precious name, "Jehovah." Could there be any clearer testimony to the full deity of Jesus Christ? Dr. Warfield rightly calls attention also to the matter-of-course way in which this identity of the triune God of the New Testament with the covenant God of Israel appears in the New Testament books. The New Testament writers are apparently not conscious of saying anything revolutionary. They assume the doctrine of the deity of Christ more than they expressly teach it. Why do they assume it? Dr. Warfield gives the answer [Warfield, op. cit., pp. 143-147]. They assume it because it had already been established by the fact of the coming of the Son of God in the flesh. The doctrine was established by the fact of the incarnation before it was set forth in words. When the eternal Son of God became man in order to redeem sinners on the cross, and when the Holy Spirit was sent to apply that redeeming work of the Son of God to those who should be saved, then the doctrine of the Trinity was made known to men. The Church from the very beginning was founded upon that doctrine; it was the factual revelation of that doctrine by the coming of the Son and the coming of the Spirit that ushered in the new dispensation. However, although it was the factual revelation of the doctrine which in a true sense came first, yet the doctrine is taught also in words, and taught in the plainest possible way. In setting forth the way in which it is taught, one great difficulty is the difficulty of selection. The whole New Testament teaches the deity of Christ, and that is what makes it hard for us to decide what individual passages we shall mention. Where the store is so very rich, it is hard to make a selection from it. Let us begin with the point of time at which the New Testament narrative begins. Let us begin with the annunciation of the birth of John the Baptist, as it is recorded in the first chapter of Luke. The angel promises to Zacharias that he will have a son, who will, in accordance with the prophecy in Malachi, go before the Lord to make ready His people for Him [Luke 1:16f]. There is here no clear reference to the Messiah as a distinct person. The promised son of Zacharias is to go before Jehovah, or, in the Greek form, "the Lord"; but it is not said that he is to go before the Messiah. Yet there is no doubt but that the author of the Gospel according to Luke, when he quotes the angel’s words, identifies that coming of Jehovah with which the Malachi prophecy deals and to which the angel alludes with the coming of Jesus Christ. The coming of Jehovah is the coming of Christ. There is also no doubt but that in making that identification the author of this gospel is in accordance with the whole New Testament and in accordance with the real meaning of what the angel said. We have here just one instance of that stupendous fact of which we have already spoken—the fact that the New Testament writers apply to Jesus things that the Old Testament says of Jehovah. The whole New Testament is based upon the thought that there is some strange essential unity between Jesus Christ and the covenant God of Israel. Then we have the annunciation of the angel to the virgin Mary [Luke 1:30-38]. The annunciation is partly in Old Testament terms. Mary’s son is to sit on the throne of David; and when it is said that of His kingdom there is to be no end, that also does not go beyond what the Old Testament had promised about the Messiah. But then a great mystery is revealed. The promised child is not to have a human father by ordinary generation, but is to be conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin mother. Even that—at least the part of it that sets forth the fact that the mother is to be a virgin—is found in Old Testament prophecy [in Isaiah 7:14]—but that prophecy had not been understood among the Jews. Now, just before the fulfillment, the prophecy is repeated in fuller and more glorious terms. The conception of this child in the womb of the virgin Mary is to be a miracle wrought by the immediate power of the Spirit of God. That miracle is one of the things that will show the child to be rightly called "holy" and "Son of God." Evidently the term "Son of God" is here used in some very lofty sense. It does not designate the promised child merely as the Messiah, though sometimes the Messiah was called "Son of God." Evidently the term is used here in some unique and stupendous sense. At twelve years of age, the child Jesus was found in the Temple. Joseph and Mary had sought Him sorrowing, and at last they found Him among the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. Son, they said, why have You thus dealt with us? behold, your father and I have sought You sorrowing. Then came the strange answer of the boy Jesus: Do You not know that I must be about My Father’s business [Luke 2:48 f.]? When Mary spoke of the father of that twelve-year-old boy, she meant his human father, the one who stood to him in a relation more like that of a father than did any other human being. When the boy Jesus spoke of His Father in reply, He meant God. Notice that He did not say "Our Father" when He spoke of God. No, He said "My Father." He was Son of God in a sense entirely different from that which would apply to any other person who ever lived upon this Earth. That brings us to one of the strangest things about the way in which Jesus all through the Gospels speaks of God. This strange thing appears not only in the Gospel according to John, which modern unbelief rejects so radically as untrue, but also in the Synoptic Gospels. The strange thing is that Jesus according to all four of the Gospels never speaks of God as "our Father," classing Himself with His disciples in that word "our." He says "My Father" and He says to His disciples "Your Father," but never does He say "Our Father" classing Himself with His disciples in that filial relationship to God. The Lord’s prayer begins with those words "Our Father," but Jesus certainly did not pray that prayer with His disciples, because that prayer contains a confession of sin, and Jesus never had any sin to confess. It was a prayer that He taught His disciples, not a prayer that He prayed Himself. The significant fact remains, therefore. Jesus never appears in the Gospels as saying "Our Father" to God together with His disciples. God was His Father, and God was their Father; but He was His Father in an entirely different sense from the sense in which He was their Father. Jesus was Son of God in an entirely unique way. At the beginning of the Gospel according to Mark, with the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, we are told about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. That event was marked by a miracle. The Spirit descended upon Jesus, and there was a voice from heaven that said: You are My beloved Son, in You I am well pleased [Mark 1:11]. It is possible that the good pleasure of God which is here spoken of is the definite act of approval accomplished at the moment when Jesus was sent forth into His public ministry. Yet, even so, that divine act of approval is evidently regarded as rooted in a unique relationship in which the Person thus approved had always stood toward God. Jesus did not become Son of God because He had divine approval, but He had that divine approval because He had always been Son of God. For a further discussion of that question and similar questions I may refer you incidentally to the learned and most illuminating book on The Self-Disclosure of Jesus by Geerhardus Vos [Vos, The Self-Disclosure of Jesus (1926), especially pp. 185-188]. At any rate Jesus now comes forward in His public ministry. In what light does He present Himself in that public ministry? Here one great central fact stares us in the face. I think it would hardly be possible to lay too much stress upon it. It is this—that Jesus does not present Himself merely as an example for faith but presents Himself as the object of faith. That fact appears not merely in the Gospel according to John, which unbelievers reject as altogether unhistorical; but it appears also in the three Synoptic Gospels, and in the Synoptic Gospels it appears even in those parts which are supposed by modern criticism, rightly or wrongly, to come from the earliest sources underlying the Gospels. You cannot get away from it anywhere in the Gospels. It is all pervasive. That fact has been demonstrated in particularly convincing fashion by James Denney in his book Jesus and the Gospel. I do not commend that book to you in general. In some respects it is a sadly mistaken book. But it does show in a singularly convincing way that everywhere in the New Testament, including the Synoptic Gospels, and including the sources supposed rightly or wrongly to underlie the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is represented not as a mere example for faith but as the object of faith. What do we mean by saying that? What do we mean by saying that Jesus is presented not primarily as an example for faith but as the object of faith? We mean something very simple and at the same time something very stupendous. We mean that Jesus did not come forward merely saying: "Look at Me; I am practicing the true religion, and I bid you practice the same religion as that which I am practicing." We mean that He did not come forward merely saying: "Look at Me; I have faith in God, and I bid you have faith in God like My faith in God." We mean that He did not come forward merely saying: "Look at Me; I regard God as My Father, and I bid you to regard God as your Father too in the same sense as that in which I regard Him as My Father." It is so that modern unbelievers represent Jesus. They regard Him as a guide out into a larger type of religious life. They regard Him as being the founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian. They regard Christianity as consisting in imitation of the religious life of Jesus. So they love to speak of "the religion of Jesus"; they love to speak of the gospel of Jesus in distinction from a gospel about Jesus. Thus they degrade Jesus to the position of a mere teacher and example. They turn away from the gospel that has Him as its substance to a gospel which was merely the gospel that He preached. When they do that, it is evident that they are turning away from what has been known as Christianity for the past nineteen hundred years. But they are also turning away from Jesus Himself as He is presented to us in all the sources of historical information that we know anything about. According to all the four Gospels, and according to all the supposed sources which modern criticism has tried to detect back of the four Gospels, Jesus put Himself into His gospel; the gospel of Jesus was also a gospel about Jesus; the gospel that He preached was also a gospel that offered Him as Savior. He did not say merely: "Have faith in God like the faith that I have in God," but He said: "Have faith in Me." That appears of course with the utmost clearness in the Gospel according to John. But it also appears in the Synoptic Gospels. There was, indeed, according to the Synoptic Gospels, a period in the public ministry of Jesus when He did not ordinarily make His own person the express subject of systematic discourse. But if you look a little deeper, you see that everywhere Jesus was offering Himself as the Savior of men and was asking them to have faith in Him. That appears, for example, in His miracles of healing. Your faith has saved you, He says; go in peace [Luke 7:50]. Well, faith in whom? Perhaps we might be tempted to say merely, "Faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God." But I bid you read the narratives with care and ask yourselves whether that interpretation really does justice to them. I think you will find that it does not. No, Jesus was presenting Himself when He worked those miracles as one in whom He was bidding men have confidence. No doubt He was bidding them have confidence in God the Father. But the point is that that confidence in God the Father was also confidence in Him. The faith that saved those people was faith in Jesus Christ. He was saving those people from bodily ills, but He was also saving their souls from sin. That becomes explicit in the healing of the paralytic borne of four, where Jesus says not only Arise and walk but your sins are forgiven you [Luke 2:5; Luke 2:9]. But it is really implied in the cases where it is not expressed. Jesus according to all the Gospels saves men from sin, and the means which He uses to save them from sin is the faith which He bids them have in Him the Savior. Thus Jesus, according to all the Gospels, presents Himself as the object of a truly religious faith. Well, who is the object of a truly religious faith? The answer is very simple. He is God. The way in which, in all the Gospels and even in the sources supposed, rightly or wrongly, to underlie the Gospels, Jesus presents Himself as the object of faith is a tremendous testimony by Jesus Himself to His own deity. That testimony does not appear merely in individual passages. It is a kind of atmosphere that pervades the whole picture, or, to change the figure, a foundation that sustains the whole building. If you ignore it, the whole account which the Bible gives of Jesus becomes a hopeless puzzle. In the next talk, I want to continue to deal with the deity of Christ. Today I\ have been able to do no more than make a beginning in the presentation of that great subject. I wonder what you think about it. What do you think of Jesus Christ? Do you think of Him, with modern unbelievers, merely as the initiator of a higher type of religious life, the discoverer of certain permanent facts about the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man? Or do you think of Him, as Christians do, as the Lord of Glory, the eternal Son of God become man to save you from your sins? Or, finally, are you undecided with regard to Him? Are you undecided which of these two views you will hold? Do you belong to that great army of persons who stand outside the household of faith and look longingly at the warmth and joy within? Are you hindered from entering in by gloomy doubts? If you belong to that third class, we pray God that you may be led to say at least: Lord, I believe; help my unbelief [Mark 9:24]. If you do say that, the Lord will help your unbelief, as He helped the man who said that so long ago, and will bring you into the clear shining of faith. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 05.13. THE SERMON OON THE MOUNT AND THE DEITY ======================================================================== Chapter 13 THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE DEITY OF CHRIST We are now in the midst of our discussion of the great theme, the deity of Jesus Christ. Was Jesus a mere man, a leader into a higher and better type of religious experience, or was He the eternal Son of God become man to save us from the guile and power of sin? We have already begun to point out what the Bible says about this question. In particular, we have pointed out that all four of the Gospels, and even the sources supposed, rightly or wrongly, to underlie the Gospels, represent Jesus not merely as an example of faith but as the object of faith—that is, they represent Jesus not as saying merely, "Have faith in God like the faith which I have in God," but as saying, "Have faith in Me." But that means that the four Gospels teach the deity of Christ and represent Jesus Himself as teaching it. The object of a truly religious faith is none other than God. I want now to show you how extraordinarily pervasive in the Gospels is the lofty view of Jesus Christ which necessarily goes with His offer of Himself as the object of faith. People try to escape from that lofty view of Christ. They like to regard Jesus just as a teacher and example; they say that this whole notion about His deity is an unfortunate metaphysical notion that has nothing to do with vital religion. Let us get away from metaphysics and theology, they say, and, instead, just get up and obey Jesus’ commands; if we obey His commands we are honoring Him more than we could honor Him by any amount of intellectual convictions regarding His deity. Well, my friend, I will say to a man of this way of thinking, where will you turn in the Gospels to get away from a lofty view of the person of Christ; where will you turn to find a Jesus who simply gave men directions for the ordering of their lives and did not demand that they should have any particular view about Him? Here is a New Testament, my friend; will you just open it anywhere you like in order to prove your point. I suppose that if I should say that to one of the advocates of this non-doctrinal Christianity, he would, be most apt to turn, among all the passages in the New Testament, to the Sermon on the Mount [MAT chapters 5-7]. In the Sermon on the Mount, it is often said, we have a program for Christian living that is quite independent of the niceties of orthodox theology, and if we should just be willing to live that kind of life it would be a great deal better than disputing about theological questions or even being too anxious to get a completely orthodox notion about Jesus Himself. Well, my friend, you have turned to the Sermon on the Mount. I did not choose it. You chose it. It is your favorite passage. You cannot object therefore if we examine it a little for ourselves to see whether it really teaches that kind of non-doctrinal religion that you so enthusiastically advocate. In particular, you cannot object if we examine it to see whether it is really silent about those stupendous claims of Jesus which so trouble you in other parts of the New Testament. All right, then; we are going to put preconceived opinions aside and examine the Sermon on the Mount for ourselves. What happens to us when we do that? I will tell you very plainly. We find that the Sermon on the Mount teaches and presupposes that same stupendous view of Jesus Christ which underlies all the rest of the Gospels. The Sermon on the Mount might seem to begin in a way unfavorable to that view and favorable to the advocate of a non-doctrinal Christianity who is not interested in the question what sort of person Jesus is. It begins with the Beatitudes, and the Beatitudes might seem at first sight to be independent of any particular view regarding the one who spoke them. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven [Matthew 5:3]—does not that remain true whatever we think of the person who uttered it? Well, I am not sure even about that. I am not sure but that in all of the Beatitudes we detect a strange note of authority which would be overwrought and pathological in any other person than the Jesus of the Bible. Who is this who tells with such extraordinary assurance what sort of persons will be in the Kingdom of God? Who is this Who announces to men rewards that only God can give? But let that pass for the moment. The thing that is clear is that Jesus does not finish the Beatitudes before He comes to speak in the most stupendous way about Himself. What is the last of the Beatitudes? Is it merely a blessing pronounced upon people who possess a certain quality of soul? Not at all. It is a blessing pronounced upon people who stand in a certain relation to Jesus Himself. Here is what it is: Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake [Matthew 5:11]. Notice those words for My sake. They contain a tremendous claim on the part of Jesus. Men are to be willing to bear His name, and if they are not ashamed to bear His name they are to stand in the final judgment. Imagine any mere man saying that! Imagine anyone other than Jesus saying: "Blessed are you if you suffer on account of Me." We have here the words of the same Jesus as was the One who said: If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple [Luke 14:26], the same Jesus as the One who said: Whoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels [Mark 8:38]. Who can claim such an exclusive devotion as that—a devotion which shall take precedence of even the holiest of Earthly ties, a devotion upon which a man’s eternal destiny depends? God can, but can any mere man? Then comes that great section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus declares Himself to have come not to destroy the law or the prophets but to fulfill. You have heard that it was said to the men of old time, He says, and then makes several quotations. Those quotations contain in part sentences found in the Old Testament. Over against those quotations, Jesus in every case puts something of His own: You have heard that it was said . . . but I say unto you [Matthew 5:21-22]. No doubt it may be held that Jesus in none of these instances is setting what He says over against what the Old Testament says, but in every instance is merely setting what He says over against what the Jewish teachers had wrongly held that the Old Testament said. But even then the fact remains that what He sets forth against the wrong interpretation of the Old Testament passages is not just a right interpretation but something wonderfully fresh and new. Plainly Jesus puts His own sayings here on a level with the Old Testament pronouncements which He certainly regarded as the very Word of God. I ask you to consider for a moment that authority with which Jesus speaks, that authority which causes Him to put His own pronouncements fully on a level with the Old Testament pronouncements. What is the nature of that authority which Jesus here claims? Well, prophets claimed authority. They asked that people should receive what they said as a message from God. Was then the authority which Jesus is here claiming merely the authority of a prophet? No, most emphatically it was not merely that. The prophets spoke with a divine authority. But it was a delegated authority, and it was delegated to them in a temporary way. There were times when the prophets became spokesmen of God, but they were spokesmen of God merely because they became for the moment channels for the Holy Spirit. They were not in general infallible. They had no authority which was granted them as a permanent possession to be used as they saw fit. When they came forward as prophets they were careful to give all honor to God. Thus the characteristic way in which the prophets introduced their utterances was with the words, Thus says the Lord [Isaiah 54:1, et. al.]. By that they meant to say: "I am not saying this as my own word, but it is God who is saying it; I am merely the mouthpiece of God." Now unquestionably Jesus was a prophet. Undoubtedly the catechism that I learned in childhood was right when it told me that He was a prophet as well as a Priest and a King. But although Jesus was a prophet, He was also vastly more than a prophet. So He does not introduce these utterances of His in the Sermon on the Mount in the way in which the utterances of a prophet are introduced. He does not say, Thus says the Lord. No, He says, I say. He comes forward with His own authority, and that authority He places fully on a level with the authority of God as it was found expressed in the Old Testament. I am not forgetting the places in the Gospels where the dependence of the man Jesus upon God is set forth. Those passages are found particularly just in the Gospel according to John—just in that Gospel where the deity of Christ is set forth, I will not say more clearly (since it is set forth with the utmost clearness in all the Gospels), but more expressly and fully, than in the other Gospels. Jesus according to the Gospel of John did what He saw God doing, and He said what God told Him to say. All the same, despite this subordination of the man Jesus to God, His authority went far beyond the authority of a prophet. It was an authority which was His own personal right, as belonging to the one who was not merely man but God. You can search all through the words of the prophets and not find any thing in the remotest degree resembling that stupendous I say unto you of the Sermon on the Mount. Then I bid you read on to the end of that Sermon on the Mount. Not every one, says Jesus, who says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven [Matthew 7:21]. That is one of the favorite texts of unbelievers. If the whole Sermon on the Mount is their favorite passage, this perhaps, within the Sermon on the Mount, may be regarded as their favorite text. It is a favorite text with unbelievers not because of its real meaning, but because of the meaning which they wrongly attribute to it. They take it as meaning that if a man is what the world calls a good moral man then he will enter into the Kingdom of God no matter what His attitude toward Jesus may be. But of course that is not what the text says. The text does nor say that if a man does the will of God he will enter into the Kingdom of God whether He says Lord, Lord to Jesus or not. It does not say that any man who does not say Lord, Lord to Jesus will enter into the Kingdom. But what it does say is that even among those who do say Lord, Lord to Jesus there are some who will not enter in. Those are the ones who say Lord, Lord only with their lips and not with their hearts, and who show that they have not said it with their hearts because they do not say it with their lives. However, though for bad reasons, it is a popular text among unbelievers. They ought then to be willing to examine carefully what it says, and we all ought to examine it with them. When we do examine it, we discover that it involves the most stupendous claim on the part of Jesus. For one thing, it provides an instance of the strange way in which Jesus speaks of God as being His own Father. Not every one who says unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, He says, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in Heaven [Matthew 7:21]. My Father, says Jesus, not "our Father" or "the Father." We spoke of that in the talk just preceding this one. We noticed how it appeared in the answer of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple, and how it runs all through the Gospels. Well, here it is, in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot get away from it. We do not particularly notice it as we read this verse, because we have become so used to it. But that does not destroy its tremendous significance. Indeed, it vastly increases it. Everywhere Jesus thinks of Himself as being the Son of God in some entirely unique sense. But now let us look at what this verse itself says. We must take it in connection with the following two verses. Those verses also are favorites with the unbelievers of our day. They read as follows: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? and in Your name have cast out demons? and in Your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you who work iniquity [Matthew 7:22-23]. Unbelievers, I suppose, interpret those words as disparaging miracles, and as disparaging the active profession of religion. They interpret them as teaching that if a man leads what the world calls a moral life he does not need to accept any creed or make any definite profession of faith. That interpretation is of course quite wrong, in the same way as that in which the corresponding interpretation of the preceding verse is wrong. These verses do not say that miracles were unimportant in the apostolic age (when miracles still happened) or that orthodoxy was unimportant then or is unimportant now. They only say that nothing else matters unless a man’s heart is changed and unless that change of his heart is shown in a good life. They do not say that orthodoxy is unnecessary or that mighty works in the external world are unimportant, but they only say that orthodoxy without right living is a sham, and that real orthodoxy results in obedience to the commands of God. But the fact remains that these verses are favorites with unbelievers; they are favorites with those who think that it does not make any difference what a man thinks about God or about Christ and that all that is needed according to Jesus is to live what is ordinarily called a moral life. All right. Let us just look at these verses so popular among unbelievers. Do they really teach that it does not make any difference what a man thinks about Jesus Christ? I tell you, my friends, the exact reverse is the case. These verses, like all the rest of the New Testament, present a stupendous view of Jesus Christ, and like other sayings of Jesus they present a stupendous claim made by Jesus Himself. What is the scene to which we are transplanted in these verses? Is it some scene in the course of ordinary history or some scene of merely local or temporary significance? No, it is nothing of the kind. It is the tremendous scene of the last judgment, the court from which there is no appeal, the final decision that determines the eternal destinies of men. In other words, it is the judgment seat of God. Well, who is it that is represented here as sitting on the judgment seat of God; who is it that is represented here in this supposedly pleasant, purely ethical, practical, ultramodern, non-theological Sermon on the Mount, and by this supposedly simple teacher of righteousness who kept His own person out of His message and was careful not to advance any lofty claims—who is it Who is represented here in this supposedly purely ethical discourse and by this humble Jesus as sitting one day upon the judgment seat of God and as determining the eternal destinies of all the world? There can be no doubt whatever about the answer to that question. The one represented here as sitting on the judgment seat of God is Jesus Himself. We may not like the answer to that question, but the answer is as plain as plain can be. Many will say to Me, Jesus says, in that day, Lord, Lord . . . and then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you who work iniquity. Who is that "I," and who is that "Me"? Is it God the Father? No, it is Jesus; it is the One Who speaks these words. Upon Jesus’ decision depends the fate of all men. And what is that fate? What is the meaning of that Depart which is Jesus’ sentence upon those who work iniquity? About this question also there can be no doubt. The Sermon on the Mount itself gives the answer: And if your right eye cause you to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from you: for it is profitable for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into Hell" [Matthew 5:29]. The answer is given also in the whole teaching of Jesus, and it is implied even in the verses with which we now have to do. No, there can be no doubt whatever about what Jesus meant by that word Depart; He meant that those upon whom He would pronounce that sentence to depart would be cast into Hell. The thought of Hell as well as the thought of Heaven runs all through the teaching of Jesus; it gives to His ethical teaching that stupendous earnestness which is its marked characteristic. But how is Hell here designated? It is described elsewhere in the Gospels; and never let us forget, whether we call the language "figurative" or not, that it means an eternal and terrible punishment, a punishment of which there is no end. But how is Hell designated in this particular passage? The answer may be surprising to some people, but it is perfectly plain. Hell is designated in our passage as being banishment from Jesus. I do just beg you to think of that for a moment, my friends. Jesus of Nazareth certainly did believe—no good historian can deny it—that He would sit upon the judgment seat of God at the terrible last judgment day, that His word would be final, and that life in His presence would be Heaven and departure from Him would be Hell. What has become of the weak, sentimental, purely human, purely ethical Jesus of modern reconstruction; what has become of your Jesus who was a simple teacher of righteousness and advanced no claim to be God? Have you found your purely human Jesus, and have you escaped from the divine Christ of the creeds, by appealing from the Gospel according to John to the Sermon on the Mount? No, indeed, my friend. The Jesus of the Bible is everywhere exactly the same. What will you do with that Jesus? Will you treat Him with a mild approval? Ah, people are so patronizing in the presence of Jesus today. They say such kind, polite things about Him. They are good enough to say that His ethics will solve the problems of society; they are good enough to say that He enunciated some maxims that are better than Jefferson’s ten rules and go far beyond Socrates, Confucius and Buddha. They are perfectly ready to let Him influence some departments of their life. They will not receive Him as their Savior; they are not interested in His atoning blood: but they are so complacent in His presence. God grant that it may not be so with you, my friends! God grant that you may never treat Jesus with this polite, patronizing approval! God grant that you may not treat Him as a religious genius or as the founder of one of the world’s religions! God grant that, instead, you may say to Jesus, with doubting Thomas: My Lord and my God [John 20:28]. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 05.14. WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HIMSELF ======================================================================== Chapter 14 WHAT JESUS SAID ABOUT HIMSELF We have discussed the deity of Christ as it is attested by Jesus Himself in the Sermon on the Mount. We have seen that in the very passage to which unbelievers appeal in support of their view that Jesus kept Himself out of His gospel and merely presented a program of life to be followed first by Him and then by His followers—in that very passage Jesus presents Himself as possessed of an authority that goes far beyond that of any prophet and is in truth an authority that belongs only to God. At the close of our last talk, we were speaking particularly of the passage near the end of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus presents Himself as the One Who is to sit at the last day on the judgment seat of God and determine the eternal destinies of all the world. This is by no means the only passage in the Gospels where Jesus so presents Himself as the final judge. Indeed, it is probably because of this thought of Himself as the final judge that He uses one of His favorite titles to designate Himself—namely, the title the Son of man [Mark 8:29, et. al.]. Our first impulse might be to say that the title is a designation of the humanity of Jesus as distinguished from His deity. He was both God and man, and that, we may be tempted to say, is what He meant when He called Himself Son of man as well as Son of God. If that view of the title were correct, it would certainly be a very lofty title, and it would certainly not be in any contradiction with the deity of Christ. But, as a matter of fact, it is unlikely that the title, the Son of man, on the lips of Jesus has this meaning at all. It is unlikely that it is intended to designate the humanity of our Lord as distinguished from His deity. It is on the whole unlikely that there is any contrast in the Gospels between the title Son of man and the title Son of God. People who use these titles to designate the two natures of Jesus as both man and God, who call attention, in other words, to the fact that He was both Son of man and Son of God, are probably wrong in their interpretation of the title, right though they unquestionably are in holding that Jesus was both God and man. The true key to the title, Son of man, on the lips of our Lord is probably to be found in the seventh chapter of the Book of Daniel, where one like unto a Son of Man appears in the presence of the Ancient of Days [Daniel 7:13] and receives an everlasting dominion. When this person is said to be like unto a Son of Man, that is not said because He is a man in contrast with God. The contrast is rather with the beasts—lion, bear, leopard and unnamed beast—that represent the world empires preceding the Kingdom of the One like unto a Son of Man [Daniel 7:13-14]. After the successive appearance of those kingdoms represented by figures designated as being each like the figure of some beast, there arises a Kingdom whose ruler appears in the vision as a man. That Kingdom unlike those other kingdoms is to be everlasting. This passage in the Book of Daniel had an important influence upon subsequent Messianic expectations among the Jews. In the so-called Ethiopic Book of Enoch, for example,—a book which of course is not in the Bible and does not at all deserve to be there—the title the Son of Man occurs frequently as the designation of a heavenly personage already existing in Heaven but destined to appear in great glory to be the judge of all the world. Now we certainly do not mean for one moment that our Lord made any use of that so-called Book of Enoch. But the thing that is likely is that that book does give evidence of the use among the Jews of the great passage in the seventh chapter of Daniel. On the basis of that passage the coming Deliverer had come to be called—in certain Jewish circles at least—the Son of Man, and had come to be thought of as destined to appear with the clouds of Heaven and be the judge of all the Earth. What our Lord did when He called Himself the Son of Man was to place the stamp of approval upon this Jewish expectation because it was really in accordance with the Old Testament, and then to apply it to Himself. It is altogether probable, then, that the title the Son of Man on the lips of Jesus is distinctly a Messianic title. It does not designate the humanity of Jesus as distinguished from His deity, but it designates Him as being that transcendent, heavenly Person who was to come one day with the clouds of Heaven and be the final judge of all the world. A notable passage in the Book of Acts confirms this view of the title the Son of Man. In Acts 7:55 f., it is said, of the dying martyr Stephen: But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into Heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Here the reference to the seventh chapter of Daniel is perfectly plain. Stephen sees essentially the same vision as that which the prophet Daniel had seen; he sees that heavenly figure, the Son of Man, appearing in glory in the presence of God. As Jesus uses the title, the origin of the title is just as clear as it is in the words of the dying Stephen. So, for example, in Mark 8:38 (with the parallel passages): Whoever therefore shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. So also in Mark 13:26 (with the parallel passages): And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. In such passages the reference to the great scene in the seventh chapter of Daniel is perfectly clear. In other passages, it is true, the reference to that scene is not so direct. Jesus sometimes uses the title, the Son of Man, where He is speaking not of His exaltation but of His humiliation. So in Matthew 8:20, where it is said that the Son of Man has not where to lay His head. So also in the great passage, Mark 10:45, where Jesus says, regarding His atoning death, that the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many. But we may fairly hold that the use of the title in these passages intended to contrast the stupendous dignity properly belonging to the Son of Man, the judge and ruler of all the world, with His present humble life. The real pathos of those passages is found in the fact that it was not any ordinary man who had not where to lay His head, and that it was not any ordinary man who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, but the heavenly Son of Man, that stupendous figure, who was now more homeless than the foxes and the birds! Here and there, as Jesus uses the title, there may possibly be a special reference to the humanity of the one so designated, but such passages at the most are rare, and the prevailing significance of the title is that it identifies Jesus with the heavenly Messiah, the stupendous figure spoken of in the seventh chapter of Daniel whose Kingdom would be an everlasting Kingdom. That, I may say in passing, is the prevailing opinion today among scholars of widely different shades of opinion, both believers and unbelievers. Here and there a defender of another view of the title appears, but I think it may be said that the prevailing view among careful scholars is what I have just indicated. For a full discussion of this subject I want to refer you to a book to which I have been much indebted—the learned book of Dr. Geerhardus Vos on The Self-Disclosure of Jesus. What particularly needs to be said, however, is that whatever view be taken of the origin and meaning of the term, the Son of Man, it is at any rate clear that Jesus of Nazareth certainly did claim that He would one day sit on the judgment seat of God to decide the eternal destinies of men. That claim appears, as we observed very clearly, in the Sermon on the Mount. You cannot get away from it even in the supposedly purely ethical parts of Jesus’ teaching. It runs all through the Gospels. Every historian, whether he is a Christian or not, ought to take account of this strange fact—that a certain Jesus, a man who lived in the first century in Palestine, was actually convinced, as He looked out upon the men who thronged about Him, that He would one day sit on the judgment seat of God and be their judge and the judge and ruler of all the world. What are you going to do with that claim of Jesus? If you hold it to be true, then Jesus is your King and Lord. If you hold it to be false, then I do not see how in the world you can go on taking Him as a worthy example for your life. The conviction of Jesus that He would at the last judgment decide the eternal destinies of men was joined with the conviction that He could determine those eternal destinies here and now. He claimed to be able to forgive sins. His opponents got the point of that claim; they got it far better than certain modern persons who trip along so lightly over the things that the Gospels contain. Why does this man speak thus? they said. He blasphemes: who can forgive sins but one, even God [Mark 2:7]? They were right. None can forgive sins but God only. Jesus was a blasphemer if He was a mere man. At that point the enemies saw clear. You may accept the lofty claims of Jesus. You may take Him as very God. Or else you must reject Him as a miserable, deluded enthusiast. There is really no middle ground. Jesus refuses to be pressed into the mold of a mere religious teacher. Thus we have seen that Jesus’ claim of deity runs all through the Gospels. It does not appear merely in this passage or that, but is really presupposed in every word that Jesus uttered and in everything that He did. There was, it is true, a period in His ministry when He did not make His own person for the most part the express subject of His teaching. It was always the background of His teaching and His work; without it everything that He said and did becomes unintelligible. But during a large part of His Galilean ministry, as described by the Synoptic Gospels, He seems not often to have set forth the mystery of His own person in any detailed way. That lack is wonderfully supplied by the Gospel according to John, which was written by a man who stood in the innermost circle of the disciples of our Lord. But what I want you to observe particularly is that there is no opposition at this point between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. The Christ who is so gloriously set forth in the Gospel according to John is exactly the Christ who is everywhere presupposed in the Synoptic Gospels. Far from being in any contradiction with the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel according to John, with its rich report of the teaching of our Lord about His own person, provides the key which enables us the better to understand what we are told in Matthew, Mark and Luke. Here and there, moreover, we have in the Synoptic Gospels just the kind of teaching of our Lord about Himself as that which appears so fully reported by the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel according to John. That is notably the case with a famous passage in the eleventh chapter of Matthew, which has a close parallel in the tenth chapter of Luke. All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, says Jesus: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father? save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him [Matthew 11:27]. Here we have not only the substance of the teaching that appears so fully in the Fourth Gospel but even the form of it. The Father, the Son—how often those terms appear set over against each other in the Gospel according to John just exactly as they are set over against each other here! Just consider how wonderfully rich is the content of this verse in its report of the teaching of Jesus about Himself! No man knows the Father but the Son—that in itself is a very stupendous utterance. It designates Jesus as truly knowing God, and as the only One Who knows Him. We think instinctively, as we read, of the words in the Gospel according to John: No man has seen God at any time; God only-begotten, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him [John 1:18]. How wonderful is such a knowledge of God! Think of it, my friends. Jesus of Nazareth, a man walking upon this Earth, said as He talked to His contemporaries: "No one knows God save me." How is such rich knowledge of God possible to any but God Himself? But that is not all that there is in this saying. No, the saying goes far beyond that. No one knows the Father but the Son—that is wonderful enough. But that is not all. There is something still more stupendous in this verse. It is this: No one knows the Son but the Father. Just think what these words mean, my friends. They mean that there are mysteries in the person, Jesus, which none but the infinite and eternal God can know. The two persons, the Father and the Son, are here put in a strange reciprocal relationship. They are both mysterious to all others, but they are known, and fully known, to each other. The Son knows the depths of the Father’s being, and the Father knows the depths of the being of the Son. An ineffable mutual knowledge prevails between these two. What does that mean? It means what is really implied in the Gospels from beginning to end. It means that that strange Man who is known to history as Jesus of Nazareth was no mere man, but infinite and eternal and unchangeable God. In this wonderful verse, the twenty-seventh verse of the eleventh chapter of Matthew, we have in summary and in implication the great doctrine of the deity of our Lord, and when we put it together with Jesus’ teaching regarding the Holy Spirit we have the full wonderful teaching of Scripture regarding the three persons in one God. I have not time in the present talk to speak to you longer about that doctrine; I have not time to set forth further the richness of the Scripture testimony to the deity of our blessed Lord. But there is one thing that I do want to drive home at once. It is this—that this mysterious verse of which we have just been speaking does not appear as some excrescence in the Gospel picture of Jesus but as an integral part of the whole. When we come upon this "Christological" passage in our reading of the Gospel of Matthew, this passage which has been called "the Johannine passage" because it is so much like the Gospel according to John, do we feel anything like a shock? Do we feel as though we were transplanted into another atmosphere? Do we feel as though we were suddenly dealing with another Christ? I tell you, my friends, we do not. No, we are dealing with the same Christ as the Christ with whom we have been dealing all through the Gospel according to Matthew; we are dealing with exactly the same Christ as the Christ who spoke, for example, the Sermon on the Mount. We are dealing with the same Christ as the Christ who according to all four Gospels spoke words of solemn warning but also words of an infinite tenderness and grace. What is the context of this verse with which we have been dealing in the present talk—this verse which sets forth in such stupendous fashion the majesty of the person of our Lord? Just let me read it to you before we part: I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babies. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Your sight [Matthew 11:25-26]. Then follow the words of which we have spoken, the words in which Jesus speaks of that ineffable relation between the Father and the Son. Then what follows? Does something follow that reveals some later theology of the Church, something that fails to show the unmistakable, characteristic, inimitable quality of Jesus’ authentic teaching? Judge for yourselves, my friends. Here is what follows upon that stupendous testimony to the deity of Christ: Come unto me, all that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light [Matthew 11:28-30]. Are those the words of some falsifier who put upon the lips of Jesus words that Jesus never spoke? Are those the words of some religious genius who used the name of Jesus as the medium through which he might convey his teaching to the world? Oh, no, my friends; no religious genius ever spoke words like these. These are words such as never man spoke. How sweet these words are on the lips of Jesus! How abominable they would be on the lips of any other! Come unto Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest—who could speak those words without mocking and deceiving those who hear? I will tell you. Only He Who said in the same breath: No man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son. The plain fact is that that gracious invitation of Jesus—an invitation so sweetly repeated again and again in the Gospels by Him Who was sent to seek and to save that which was lost—the plain fact is that that invitation is a divine invitation. The one who uttered it was a deceiver or He was God. Yet, it is objected, there are so many who will not accept the invitation; there are so many learned men who will not believe Jesus when He advances these stupendous claims. Yes, I know. They are very many and they are very learned. But did not Jesus Himself say so; did not Jesus Himself say that there were many learned persons who would very learnedly reject Him when He offered Himself as their Savior and Lord? I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babies [Matthew 11:25]. Which are you, my friends? Do you belong to the wise and prudent, of whom our Lord spoke? Do you belong to those who rely upon the wisdom of this world and turn aside from Christ? Or are you among the babies? Will you come to Jesus weak and helpless; will you come to Him as a very little child? Are you weary and heavy laden? Will you come to Him that He may give you rest? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 05.15. THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST ======================================================================== Chapter 15 THE SUPERNATURAL CHRIST I have been talking to you about the deity of Christ, and have shown you that Jesus’ testimony to His own deity is not found merely in the Gospel according to John. It is found in all four Gospels and it pervades all parts of the Gospels. Even in the so-called ethical parts of the Gospels like the Sermon on the Mount the stupendous claim of Jesus is really presupposed. We must now, however, notice something else. We must notice that this claim of Jesus is everywhere supported by His power to work miracles. That is the way in which the Gospels represent the miracles. They represent them as attestations to show that Jesus spoke the truth when He came forward with His stupendous claim. This Biblical estimate of the miracles has often been reversed in the minds of modern men. The miracles, men tell us, even if they really happened, are at best an obstacle to faith rather than an aid to faith. People used to believe, they tell us, because of the miracles; they now believe, if they believe at all, in spite of the miracles. A curious confusion underlies this way of thinking. In one sense, of course it is true that the miracles are an obstacle to faith. Unquestionably a narrative that has no miracles in it is easier to believe than a narrative that contains miracles. Of course that is so. Who ever denied it? A perfectly trivial narrative is easier to believe than one that contains an account of extraordinary happenings. So if I should tell you that when I walked down the street today I saw a Ford car, my narrative would have at least one advantage over the narratives in the New Testament—it would certainly be far easier to believe. But then it would also have one disadvantage. It would be far easier to believe, but then, you see, it would not be worth believing. So if the Gospels contained no miracles they would in one sense be easier to believe than they are now. But, do you not see, the thing that would be believed would be entirely different from the thing that is believed now when we take the Gospels as they stand. If the Jesus of the Gospels were a purely natural and not a supernatural person, then we should have no difficulty in believing that such a person lived in the first century of our era. Even skeptics would have no difficulty in believing it. Defenders of the faith would have an easy victory indeed. Everybody would believe. But then there would be one drawback. It would be this—that the thing that everybody would believe would not be worth believing. A purely natural, as distinguished from a supernatural, Christ would be just a teacher and example. There have been many teachers and examples in the history of mankind. It would place no particular demands upon our faith if we were told that this teacher and example was a little better than any of the others. But then, you see, we are not looking for a teacher and example. We are looking for a Savior. And a purely human, a merely natural, as distinguished from a supernatural, Christ can never be our Savior. He would merely be one of us. He would need a Savior for himself before he could save others; he just as much as we would need a supernatural Savior. We have such a Savior presented to us in the Gospel, a Savior who is not merely man but God. The really difficult thing to believe is that such a Savior really entered into this world. It is a very blessed thing, but it is certainly not a trivial thing. It is not one of those trivial things that are so easy to believe because they occur every day. It is certainly not a thing that can be believed without a mighty revolution in all a man’s thinking and all a man’s life. If now you ask whether it would be easier to believe that thing without the individual miracles narrated in the Gospels than it is to believe it with those individual miracles, we answer emphatically, No. It would be easier to believe the story of a mere religious teacher without the miracles. Certainly. That goes without saying. But not to believe the story of the life upon Earth of the incarnate Son of God. The whole appearance of such a divine Person upon Earth is itself a stupendous miracle. The individual miracles, with their individual attestation, do make it easier to believe that great central miracle. They are proofs of it. They are exactly what the Bible represents them as being—true testimonies to the truth of that stupendous claim of Jesus to be very God. If you examine carefully the views of those who reject the individual miracles, you will discover that they do not really hold on to the great central and all pervading miracle. They may seem to do so. They use the old terminology. They love to speak of "incarnation"; they love to speak of God as having become man. But when you come to look at them closely, you discover that this use of traditional terminology on their part only serves to mask from them themselves and from others a profound difference of thought. They mean by "incarnation" just about the opposite of what the Bible means by it. They do not really mean by it that the eternal Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, became man this once, and this once only, "and so was, and continues to be God, and man, in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever." No, they mean something entirely different. They are very far indeed from believing on Christ for salvation as He is offered to us in the gospel. The truth is that the Bible picture of Jesus possesses a wonderful unity. Without the miracles as the Gospels narrate them the unity would be sadly destroyed. Every one of the miracles, with its historical attestation, adds its quota of evidence to our great central conviction that this Jesus is indeed the Son of God. It is interesting to observe the way in which the miracles of the life of Christ have been treated in the history of modern unbelief. The cardinal principle of unbelief is that the miracles have never happened. What, then, shall be done with the accounts of miracles that are found in the Gospels? The first impulse of a skeptic might be to say that since the Gospel picture of Jesus contains miracles, and since miracles never happened, therefore the whole picture is untrue. But that of course will not do at all. It is perfectly clear that we have in the Gospels an account of a real person who really lived in Palestine in the first century of our era. The picture is entirely too life like ever to have been the product of invention. That is admitted by all except a few extremists. Very well, then. If the picture is the picture of a real person, what shall be done with the miracles that it contains? Those miracles, according to the initial assumption of our skeptical investigator, never happened; yet they are narrated in an account of a real historical person. What shall be done about it? The obvious answer of unbelievers is that the miracles must be rejected in order to leave the rest. In this way, it is supposed, we shall be able to sift the material in the Gospels in order to arrive at the modicum of truth that they contain. When, it is said, we have removed from the Gospel picture of Jesus these gaudy colors of the supernatural we shall have Jesus as He actually was. Well, it sounds easy. Surely it must have been accomplished long before now—the removal of the miracles from the picture of Jesus in the Gospels. Many of the most brilliant of modern men have been engaged in it during the past hundred years. Surely their effort must have been successful. That is certainly what one might expect. But in this case expectations are not borne out by the fact. The plain fact is that this "quest of the historical Jesus," as it has been called—this effort to take the miracles out of the Gospels—has proved to be a colossal failure. It is being increasingly recognized as being a failure even by the skeptical historians themselves. The supernatural is found to be far more deeply rooted in the Gospel account of Jesus than was formerly supposed. At first, it seemed to be quite easy to get the miracles out of the Gospels. All we shall have to do, said the skeptical historians, is just to take the miracles out and leave all the rest. Even the miracle incidents themselves, they said, can be accepted as historical; only, we must observe that they were not really miraculous. So Luke tells us in the first chapter that Zacharias the father of John the Baptist went into the Temple at the hour of incense and received an announcement about the birth of a son. Is that incident historical? Did Zacharias really go into the Temple that day? Certainly, said the men of this way of thinking, the incident is historical; certainly Zacharias went into the Temple. Of course he was slightly mistaken about what he saw! He thought he saw an angel when what he really saw was just the smoke rising from the altar in that dim religious light. But such mistakes do not cast any general discredit upon the narratives in which they stand. So also all four of the Gospels say that Jesus one day fed five thousand men. Is that incident historical? Did Jesus really feed those five thousand men? Certainly the narrative is historical, said the men of the way of thinking with which we are now dealing; certainly Jesus fed those five thousand men. What He did was just to take those five loaves and two fishes and set a good example by distributing them to the people immediately around Him. That led the other fortunate people among the crowd to do likewise. His good example was contagious. People who were fortunate enough to have any food distributed it to those around them and so everybody was fed. Thus the incident is perfectly historical, but it was not really miraculous. The whole trouble has come from the fact that readers of the Gospels have insisted on putting a supernaturalistic interpretation upon an incident that was really quite natural. It is all perfectly easy and simple, is it not? How nicely the task has been accomplished—miracles as neatly extracted as an appendix is extracted in a modern hospital, everything else allowed to remain "as was," the general trustworthiness of the Gospels rescued, Jesus made to keep within the bounds of nature’s laws! What was all the bother about? It is all so perfectly simple! Such was the so-called "rationalizing" method of dealing with the miracle narratives, as practiced by Paulus and others one hundred years ago. It had considerable vogue in its day. But its vogue was of short duration God raised up a besom [broom] of destruction for it in the person of a disconcerting young man named David Friedrich Strauss. Strauss published his Life of Jesus in 1835. It was unquestionably one of the most influential books of modern times—a very important book to have been written by a young man of twenty-seven years of age. I said that Strauss’s book was influential. I did not say that its influence was good, and as a matter of fact it was not good but very bad. Strauss did not write in the interests of the truth of the Gospels; he did not write from the point of view of a real Christian believer. On the contrary he wrote from the point of view of an extreme unbelief. His book remains to the present day perhaps the fullest compendium of what can be said against the truthfulness of the Gospel narratives. Yet such a book had at least the use, in the providence of God, of demolishing the rationalizing method of dealing with the miracle narratives in the Gospels. In those narratives, Strauss said, the miracles are the main thing; they are the thing for which all the rest exists. How absurd, then, to say that the narratives have grown up out of utterly trivial events upon which a supernaturalistic interpretation was wrongly put! No, said Strauss, we must give up all attempts at finding a modicum of historical truth in these narratives, they are simple myths—that is, they are popular expressions, in narrative form, of certain religious ideas, they are merely the way in which popular fancy expressed the great debt which the early Church owed to Jesus. At first, Strauss’s book caused great consternation. He had not, indeed, denied the historical existence of Jesus, and of course he really held that much that is narrated about Jesus in the Gospels is true. But so radical was his criticism, and so completely did he fail to put together into any continuous positive account of Jesus what was left after his criticism had done its work, that it was quite natural for people to feel that Strauss had almost removed Jesus of Nazareth from the pages of history. Then, however, an attempt was made to repair the damage. I am not referring to the defense of the Gospels by believing scholars, but I am referring to the attempt by men of Strauss’s own way of thinking—men, that is, who like Strauss denied the occurrence of miracles—to discover and make use of the modicum of truth that might be thought to remain in the Gospels after criticism had been given its rights. Possibly, it was supposed, that modicum of truth might be discovered by what is called "source criticism." The Gospels, it was admitted, contain much that is untrue, but if we could discover the earlier sources used by the writers of the Gospels we might get much nearer to the facts. Well, an imposing attempt was made in that direction. The Gospel according to John was rejected as almost altogether unhistorical, and then the two chief sources of Matthew and Luke were held to be (1) Mark and (2) a lost source composed chiefly of sayings of Jesus as distinguished from accounts of His deeds. That was the famous "two-document theory" as to the sources of the Gospels. On the basis of that theory a supposedly historical account of a purely human Jesus was constructed. People became quite enthusiastic about it. The troublesome miracles, it was supposed, were all removed; the theological Christ of the creeds was done away. But, it was said, something better had been rediscovered—a really and purely human Jesus, a Jesus who was one of us, a Jesus who started where we started and won through to sonship with God, a Jesus who kept His own person out of His gospel and simply taught—by word and by life—the great liberating truths Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Such was the so-called "Liberal Jesus." It was an imposing reconstruction indeed. It was thought to offer great promise to the human race. The shackles of dogma, it was supposed, had been removed. A new Reformation would soon take place. But alas for human hopes! Nothing has been seen of the new Reformation, and the imposing reconstruction of the Liberal Jesus has fallen to the ground. I think the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century might almost be called, in the sphere of New Testament criticism, the period of the decline and fall of "the Liberal Jesus." That is a great outstanding fact. I think that it is a fact that is going to loom up very large to future historians when the history of the period in which we are living comes finally to be written. The great trouble is that the miraculous in the Gospels is found to be much more pervasive than it was at first thought to be. It runs through the Gospels as we now have them. That is clear. But it also is found to run through the sources supposed rightly or wrongly to underlie the Gospels. All right, then; suppose we go even back of those earliest written sources and examine supposed detached bits of oral tradition out of which they are sometimes supposed to have been composed. Alas, we obtain no relief. Those supposed detached bits are found themselves to contain the objectionable miraculous element. There seems to be no escape from the supernatural Christ. At the very beginning of the Church—not at some later time but at the very beginning—Jesus was regarded not just as a religious teacher or just as a prophet but as a supernatural Deliverer. That is the result at which ultra modern criticism has arrived. It is a far cry from the cheerful, rationalizing days of Paulus one hundred years ago. It is a far cry from the time when men thought they could explain away this miracle narrative and that, and have a perfectly good account left of a great religious teacher. The outstanding result of a hundred years of effort to separate the natural from the supernatural in the early Christian view of Jesus is that the thing cannot be done. The two are inseparable. The very earliest early Christian account of Jesus is found to be supernaturalistic to the core. Very well, what shall we do about it? The earliest view of Jesus that we know anything about represents Him as a supernatural person. It is found to exhibit a remarkable unanimity at this point. What shall we do with it? There are only two things to do with it. We can take it or we can leave it. Modern skeptical historians are saying we must leave it. All our information about Jesus is supernaturalistic, they are saying: therefore all our information about Jesus is uncertain. We can never disentangle the real Jesus from the beliefs of His earliest followers. The only Christ we really know is the supernatural Christ of Jesus’ earliest followers. We can never rediscover the portrait of the real Jesus. Are you afraid of skepticism like that? I am not afraid of it a bit. It is easily refuted by a mere reading of the Gospels. I beg you just to read the Gospels for yourselves, my friends, and then ask yourselves whether the Person there presented to you is not a living, breathing person. The extreme skepticism of the day will always be refuted by common sense. That being so, the extreme skepticism of our day is very instructive. I get great comfort from it. Do you not see, my friends? That extreme skepticism of Bultmann and others is the inevitable result of trying to reject the miracles in the Gospels. That extreme skepticism is absurd. What is the conclusion? The conclusion is that the process which inevitably led to that extreme skepticism was wrong from the beginning. We never ought to have tried to reject the miracles in the Gospels at all. I wonder when men are going to draw this conclusion. It does seem to lie so very near at hand. When will they cease to be blind to it? The Gospels present to us just one Christ—the supernatural Christ. They do so with overwhelmingly self evidencing force. When shall we just accept their witness? When shall we just say that God did walk upon this Earth? When shall we just come to that divine Christ and ask Him to be the Savior of our souls? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 05.16. DID CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? ======================================================================== Chapter 16 DID CHRIST RISE FROM THE DEAD? The subject of this address was similarly, but somewhat more fully, treated in a lecture on "The Resurrection," published in Winona Echoes for 1924 and in The Bible To-day for April and May, 1925. In the last of these talks, I was speaking to you about the miracles of Christ. But a treatment of the miracles would be incomplete unless we singled out for special examination the central or crowning miracle, which is the miracle of the resurrection. In treating the resurrection, I suggest that we may begin with things about which everybody is agreed, in order that we may go on from them to speak of things with regard to which Christian people differ from those who are not Christians. Nineteen hundred years ago there lived in an obscure corner of the Roman Empire one who would have seemed to a superficial observer to be a remarkable man. He engaged in a career of religious teaching accompanied by a ministry of healing. At first He had the favor of the crowd, but since He would not be the kind of leader the people demanded He soon fell victim to the jealousy of the rulers of His people and to the cowardice of the Roman governor. He died the death of criminals of that day, on the cross. At His death, His followers were discouraged. They had evidently been far inferior to Him in discernment and in courage, and now what little courage they may have had was gone. His death meant the destruction of all their hopes. Never, one might have said, was a movement more completely dead than the movement which had been begun by Jesus of Nazareth. Then, however, the surprising thing happened. It is a fact of history, which no real historian denies, that those same weak discouraged men, the followers of Jesus, began, within a very short time after the shameful death of their leader, in Jerusalem, the scene of their cowardly flight, the most remarkable religious movement that the world has ever known, the movement commonly called the Christian Church. At first, that movement was obscure. But it spread like wildfire. In a few decades at the most it was firmly planted in the chief cities of the civilized world and in Rome itself. After a lapse of less than three centuries it conquered the Roman Empire. Incalculable has been its influence upon the whole history of the world. What caused that remarkable change in those followers of Jesus? What caused those weak and cowardly men suddenly to become the spiritual conquerors of the world? At that point the difference of opinion arises. Yet even with regard to that point there is a certain measure of agreement. It is now admitted by historians both Christian and non-Christian that those followers of Jesus became the founders of what is commonly known as the Christian Church because they became honestly convinced that Jesus was risen from the dead. But what in turn produced that conviction? What produced the belief of the first disciples in the resurrection of Christ? There is where the difference of opinion comes in. The New Testament, of course, has a perfectly clear answer to the question. The belief of the disciples in the resurrection, according to the New Testament, was due simply to the fact of the resurrection. Those disciples came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead for the simple reason that Jesus had risen from the dead. He had risen from the dead; and they had not only seen His tomb empty but had seen Him Himself alive after His death on the cross. If that explanation of the belief of the first disciples in the resurrection be rejected, what shall be put in its place? The answer to that question which is given today by all or practically all unbelievers is that those first disciples of Jesus became convinced that Jesus had risen from the dead because they experienced certain hallucinations, certain pathological experiences in which they thought they saw Jesus before their eyes when in reality there was nothing there. In a hallucination, the optic nerve is really affected; but it is affected not by light rays coming from an external object, but by some pathological condition of the bodily organism of the subject himself. This is the so-called "vision theory" regarding the origin of the Christian Church. It has held the field among unbelievers inside of the Church and outside of the Church since the days of Strauss about one hundred years ago. I think we ought to understand just exactly what that vision theory means. It means that the Christian Church is founded upon a pathological experience of certain persons in the first century of our era. It means that if there had been a good neurologist for Peter and the others to consult there never would have been a Christian Church. I am perfectly well aware of the fact that advocates of the vision hypothesis refuse to look at the matter just exactly in that way. The really important thing, they say, was not the pathological experience which those men had, but it was the impression left upon them by Jesus’ character. They never would have experienced those hallucinations, they say, unless their minds and hearts had been filled with the thought of the radiant personality of Jesus. It was because they were so much impressed with Him that they came to have those hallucinations. Thus the hallucinations, say the advocates of the vision hypothesis, were merely the temporary form which was necessary in that day and among men of that kind of education in order that the influence of Jesus could continue to make itself felt. We, they say, can get rid of that form. We no longer need to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the eyes of His disciples. But we can still let the influence of Jesus be felt in our lives. In the changed lives of men who have been influenced by Him Jesus has His truest resurrection. So the thing is represented by the advocates of what is misleadingly called a "spiritual resurrection." This representation altogether ignores the real character of the first disciples’ faith. What those men had from the appearances of the risen Christ was not merely the conviction that Jesus was still alive. NO, what they had was the conviction that He had risen. It was not merely the state of Jesus resultant upon the resurrection which was valuable for them, but the act of the resurrection. At the heart of their faith was the conviction that Jesus had done something for them by His death and resurrection. The Christian religion in other words is rooted in an event. If that supposed event really took place, as the Bible says it did, then the Christian religion is true. If it did not take place, as the dominant vision theory holds, then the Christian religion is false, and a Church that professes it is merely an empty shell. But is the message upon which the Christian Church is founded really true? Did Christ rise from the dead? I want to say just a few words to you about that subject now. Two things are to be noted about the account of the appearances which the New Testament contains. The first thing concerns the manner of the appearances. The appearances, according to the New Testament, were of a plain bodily kind. Jesus did not, it is true, simply resume the conditions of His life before the crucifixion. There was something mysterious about His coming and going. Yet He is plainly represented as being with His disciples in body. They could touch Him. He partook of food in their presence. He held extended conversations with them. The second feature of the appearances, as they are described in the New Testament, concerns the place of the appearances. The appearances, according to the New Testament, were both at Jerusalem and in Galilee; and the first appearances were at Jerusalem. Both these features of the New Testament account of the appearances are rejected by advocates of the vision hypothesis. The former feature is always rejected by them, the latter usually. The advocates of the vision hypothesis hold, with regard to the manner of the appearances, that, contrary to the New Testament, the appearances were only of a momentary kind. The disciples who experienced the appearances did not experience any extended intercourse with Jesus. They not only did not really have any extended intercourse with Him, but they did not even think they had any extended intercourse with Him. All they even thought they had was a momentary sight of Him in glory or perhaps the sound of a word or two of His ringing in their ears. The New Testament is quite wrong in saying they even thought they saw or heard any more than that. The second point at which the advocates of the vision hypothesis, or most of them, reject the New Testament account of the appearances concerns the place of the appearances. Most of the advocates of the vision hypothesis hold that the first of the "appearances"—which they of course regard as hallucinations—took place a considerable time, perhaps weeks, after the crucifixion, in Galilee; the New Testament says that the first of the appearances took place at Jerusalem on the third day after the death of Jesus. At first sight it might look as though this were a mere difference in detail. But that is not so. As a matter of fact it is a difference of a very important kind. If the first appearances, the first of these supposed hallucinations in which the disciples thought they saw Jesus alive after His death, took place at Jerusalem and on the third day after the death, then the question arises why the tomb of Jesus was not investigated to see whether the story of the resurrection was really true—why it was not investigated by foes as well as by friends. If the resurrection was not a fact, then the investigation of the tomb of Jesus would refute the story, and the beginning of the Christian Church would have been prevented. If, on the other hand, the first appearances took place in Galilee weeks after the death of Jesus, then, it might be said, when the disciples finally did return to Jerusalem it would be too late for the tomb to be investigated. Thus the so-called Galilean hypothesis as to the place of the first appearances might be thought to remove the difficulty which a consideration of the tomb of Jesus has always placed in the way of a denial of the fact of the resurrection. What shall be said about that? Two things are to be said about it. In the first place, even the Galilean hypothesis does not really remove the difficulty, since it does seem strange even on the Galilean hypothesis that the tomb of Jesus was not investigated, and, in the second place the Galilean hypothesis is not true. Where shall we turn to test the hypothesis of unbelievers not only on this point regarding the place of the appearances but also on the point regarding the manner of the appearances? Well, we can of course turn to the Gospels. We can show that the low view which unbelievers hold regarding the Gospels is not justified and that these documents are really trustworthy accounts of what the first disciples of Jesus said with regard to the founding of the Church. But obviously it would be a good thing also if we could find some source of information which is admitted to be good not only by believers but also by unbelievers. Can we find such a source of information? Can we find a source of information with regard to which there is some common meeting ground between ourselves and our opponents in this debate? The answer is, Yes. We can find such a source of information in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. It is generally admitted by foes of our view as well as by friends that that Epistle was really written by the Apostle Paul and that it was written at about AD 55, approximately twenty-five years after the death of Jesus. It is also generally admitted that when Paul says in this Epistle that he had "received" the information that he gives in the fifteenth chapter regarding the resurrection and appearances of Jesus he means that he had received it from the early Jerusalem Church—particularly, perhaps, from Peter, with whom he tells us in another of his Epistles that he spent fifteen days only three years after his conversion. What we have here, then, in the fifteenth chapter of this Epistle, in verse eight and the following verses, is a precious bit of what modern historians call "primitive tradition." It is usually admitted by friends and foes of our view that we have here a summary of what the very earliest Jerusalem Church said about the events that lay at the beginning of its life. Well, then, is this account by the primitive Jerusalem Church of the resurrection and related events favorable to the contention of unbelievers—the contention that at the beginning the appearances were regarded as independent of what had become of the body of Jesus? Volumes have been written about this question. But the answer, if we may put it plainly and briefly, is most emphatically, No. This passage is not favorable to the contention of unbelievers at all. What does Paul say exactly when he summarizes that precious tradition of the earliest Jerusalem Church? Here is what he says: For I delivered unto first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures [1 Corinthians 15:3-4]. I want you to notice the mention of the burial of Christ in this passage. What does it mean? I will tell you, and then I just want you to read the passage for yourselves to see whether you do not agree with me. When Paul mentions the burial, he means that the resurrection of Christ about which he is speaking is a bodily resurrection. The thing that was laid in the tomb in the burial was the body; and the thing that was laid in the tomb was the thing that came out of the tomb in the resurrection. "He died, He was buried, He rose." We follow here, as we read, what happened to the body of Jesus. If a man will just read the words without prejudice he will see that they are at this point as plain as day. It is quite clear that Paul does not mean, and the Jerusalem Church as quoted by him did not mean, that the body of Jesus remained in the tomb. The bodily resurrection is the only resurrection that the New Testament knows. In fact, when we come to think about it, a resurrection that is not a bodily resurrection is a contradiction in terms. Did those first disciples, when they began the work of the Christian Church, merely believe in the continued personal existence of Jesus? Was that what gave them their strange new confidence and power? Such a view is really quite absurd. They had that conviction even in the sad hours immediately after the crucifixion. They were not Sadducees. They believed in the personal survival of all men after death; and so they believed, even just after the crucifixion, in the personal survival of Jesus. But that conviction left them in despair. What changed their despair into joy was the substitution, in their minds, for a belief in the continued personal existence of Jesus, of a belief in His resurrection. It is quite absurd, then, to say that the two things, in their view, were the same. Our sources of information about the beginnings of the Christian Church know nothing whatever of a resurrection that is not a bodily resurrection. The second thing that I want you to notice in the report by Paul of the tradition of the Jerusalem Church is the mention of the third day. And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, he says. There are few words in the whole Bible that are more uncomfortable to modern unbelief than those words the third day in the primitive Jerusalem tradition recorded here by Paul. Those words demolish the whole edifice of the Galilean hypothesis as to the place of the appearances. They show by the testimony of the very first disciples, that the first appearance did not take place in Galilee weeks after the crucifixion but on the third day and at Jerusalem. I know that attempts are made to evade the plain implications of these words. The first appearances, it is said, took place only weeks afterwards, but when they did take place the disciples who experienced them hit upon the notion that Jesus had risen long before and merely had not chosen to appear to them until then. But why in the world did they hit upon just the third day as the day of the resurrection if nothing in particular happened to them on that day? Various answers have been given to that question, but they are vain. No, the mention of the third day in the primitive Jerusalem tradition interposes a mighty barrier against the whole attempt to explain the appearances of the risen Christ as hallucinations experienced at a time when it would be too late to investigate the tomb of Jesus to see whether the resurrection had really happened or not. The truth is that the origin of the Church in Jerusalem is explicable if Jesus really rose from the dead, and it is not explicable if He did not so rise. The very existence of the Christian Church is a mighty testimony to the resurrection of our Lord. But, it will be objected, that is all very well, but the trouble is that the thing we are asked to believe is really unbelievable. We are asked to believe that a dead man rose from the dead, and we have never seen a man who did that. What is our answer to this objection? It is very simple. You say, my friend, that you have never seen a man who rose from the dead after he had been laid really dead in the tomb? Quite right. Neither have I. You and I have never seen a man who rose from the dead. That is true. But what of it? You and I have never seen a man who rose from the dead; but then you and I have never seen a man like Jesus. Do you not see, my friends? What we are trying to establish is not the resurrection of any ordinary man, not the resurrection of a man who is to us a mere x or y not the resurrection of a man about whom we know nothing, but the resurrection of Jesus. There is a tremendous presumption against the resurrection of any ordinary man, but when you come really to know Jesus as He is pictured to us in the Gospels you will say that whereas it is unlikely that any ordinary man should rise from the dead, in His case the presumption is exactly reversed. It is unlikely that any ordinary man should rise; but it is unlikely that this man should not rise; it may be said of this man that it was impossible that He should be held of death. The point is that this thing hangs together. We have in the Gospels an account of a Person who was entirely unique. He was totally different from other men in His moral purity and strength. Yet He made the most stupendous claims—claims that place Him beyond the bounds of sanity unless the claims were true. The claims are true if the resurrection really happened; they are a hopeless puzzle if the resurrection did not happen. Do you see what I am driving at, my friends? The evidence of the truth of Christianity must be taken as a whole. The direct evidence for the resurrection must be taken together with the total picture of Jesus in the Gospels, and then that must be taken in connection with the evidence for the existence of God and the tremendous need of man which is caused by sin. If you take the Bible as a whole you have a grand consistent account of God, of the world and of human life. If you reject the Bible, and particularly if you reject the fact of the resurrection, you have a jumble of meaningless and detached bits of information that dance before your imagination in a wild and riotous rout. Oh, that God would open men’s eyes that they might see, that they might detect the grand sweep and power of His testimony to Himself in His Word! Oh, that He would take away the terrible blindness of men’s minds! Has He taken away the blindness of your minds, my friends? Do you know the risen Christ today as your Savior and your Lord? If you do not yet know Him, will you not bow before Him at this hour and say, "My Lord and my God!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 05.17. THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL TO CHRIST ======================================================================== Chapter 17 THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL TO CHRIST For a fuller treatment of this subject by the same writer, see The Origin of Paul’s Religion, 1921 In our presentation of the testimony of the New Testament to the deity of Christ, we have dealt so far only with the Gospels. But now it becomes necessary to consider also the other New Testament books and particularly the Epistles of Paul. The reason why the Epistles of Paul are particularly important in this connection is that with regard to them we find a common meeting ground with those who deny the deity of Christ and are opposed to the Christian religion. Practically all serious literary critics today admit that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the man whose name they bear. In the case of the four Gospels it is not so easy to find a common meeting ground with our opponents. We did not indeed altogether give up the hope of finding it. We tried to point out that there is a certain amount of agreement even with regard to the Gospels between those who are friends and those who are foes of Christianity. It is universally admitted, for example, by serious historians, that the picture of Jesus in the Gospels is a picture of a real, historical person. We tried to point out certain important consequences that follow from that admission. But, after all, the common meeting ground which we can find with our opponents is, so far as the Gospels are concerned, not very extensive. In particular, there is disagreement with regard to questions of what is known as "literary criticism." There is disagreement, namely, with regard to the authorship and date and historical value of each of the Gospels. If, therefore, we begin by assuming that any one of these Gospels was written by the man whose name has been attached to it in the opinion of the Church, we shall be accused at once of begging the question. The traditional view of the authorship of all four of these books is disputed by our opponents in this great debate. Now, mind you, I do not think that it is rightly disputed. I am perfectly willing to defend the traditional view of the authorship of the Gospels. I think it is immensely important to defend it. I think it can successfully be defended. But the point is that it needs to be defended. Rightly or wrongly the traditional view of the authorship of the Gospels is disputed by modern skeptics. About the Epistles of Paul, on the other hand, there is no such dispute. Even the most skeptical critics—except a few extremists who are altogether without influence upon the current of modern thought—admit that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the Apostle Paul and written in the first generation of the Christian Church. That is a very important admission indeed. I think it is very important that we should use it in our effort to lead the men who make it to accept the claims of Christ. You see, we do not regard the people who differ from us regarding these great concerns of the soul as our enemies. On the contrary, we long to help them. Having known something of the misery of doubt ourselves, we long to help others out of that misery. Hence we do like, if we can, to find a common meeting ground with our opponents in the debate, in order that we may lead them on from the things about which they agree with us to an acceptance of the things about which they disagree. It is to be welcomed, therefore, that friends and foes of Christianity are agreed in holding that the principal ones of the Pauline Epistles were really written by the Apostle Paul. The man, Paul, who wrote those Epistles was a contemporary of Jesus. That can be shown from the accepted Epistles themselves, because Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians says that he himself had met a brother of Jesus and it is very clear that this meeting took place only a short time after Jesus’ death. Paul had abundant opportunities to learn the facts about Jesus. He spent fifteen days, as he tells us in Galatians, with Peter, who was in the innermost circle of Jesus’ friends, and at the same time he also saw James, who was Jesus’ brother. Contact with the same men was also established at the later time that is referred to in the second chapter of Galatians, and at that later time John, who, like Peter, belonged to Jesus’ innermost circle of friends, was also present. Barnabas and Silas, who, according to the Book of Acts came from the early Jerusalem Church, were associated with Paul through long periods of time on the missionary journeys; and while it may be objected that our knowledge of their original connection with the Jerusalem Church comes only from the Book of Acts and not from the universally accepted Epistles of Paul, still the historical basis of such concrete personal details in the Book of Acts will be admitted probably by most critics. At any rate it is perfectly clear, in view of all the conditions of Paul’s life, that Paul had abundant contacts with those who had known Jesus when He was on Earth. The testimony of Paul to Jesus becomes, therefore, a matter of the highest importance to every careful historian who is interested in the beginnings of the Christian Church. It becomes very important for us to ask what sort of person Paul held Jesus to be. The answer to that question is very surprising to anyone who approaches the subject with ordinary analogies in his mind, because it becomes perfectly clear at once that Paul regarded Jesus in a very extraordinary way. He regarded Him as a supernatural person and he regarded himself as standing to Jesus in the relation in which a man stands to God. He does, it is true, speak of Jesus as a man. But when he speaks of Him as a man we may well hold that he regarded it as something extraordinary, something unexpected, that He should be a man. The really outstanding thing in the way in which Paul speaks of Jesus is that he separates Jesus very clearly from ordinary humanity and places Him on the side of God. So at the beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians, for example, he says that he, Paul, is an apostle not from men nor through a man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead. Not through a man but through Jesus Christ! Man is one thing, Christ another; and Christ, over against man, is placed with God the Father. Could there be any clearer testimony to the deity of Christ? In one place at least Paul applies to Jesus the Greek word which is translated by the English word "God." I am referring to Romans 9:5, where Christ is spoken of as the one who is over all, God blessed for ever. Attempts have been made to avoid holding that the word "God" in this passage refers to Christ, but it is more than doubtful whether any of those attempts can be regarded as successful. According to the plain construction of the words, the construction which in any other case would be regarded by every reader as a matter of course, Paul here calls Jesus "God." It is true that ordinarily he does not use that word in speaking of Christ. He does not ordinarily apply to Christ the word which is translated "God" in our English Bibles. But what of it? He does apply to Christ constantly another word which can clearly be shown to be a word designating deity—namely, the word "Lord." That word had, indeed, its uses in ordinary life; it designated a master of slaves and the like. But it had also a widespread religious use, and—what is vastly more important—it is the word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (which was the form of the Bible that Paul ordinarily employed) to translate the word "Jehovah," the holiest name of the covenant God of Israel; and Paul does not hesitate to apply to Jesus Old Testament passages that speak of Jehovah. In view of this lofty significance of the word "Lord" Dr. B. B. Warfield is surely justified when he suggests that the title "the Lord" may almost be designated as Paul’s "Trinitarian name" of Jesus Christ [Warfield, The Lord of Glory, 1907, p. 231.]. Paul teaches the doctrine of the Trinity—only, as Dr. Warfield points out, he uses a somewhat different terminology from that to which we have become accustomed. Instead of speaking of "God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit"; He speaks of "God," "the Lord" and "the Spirit"; but he teaches exactly the same doctrine as that which is taught when men use that other terminology. And His doctrine of the Trinity includes, of course, the doctrine of the deity of Christ. The doctrine of the deity of Christ is all pervasive in the Epistles of Paul. It is by no means an isolated thing. You do not have to search for it to find it. On the contrary, you cannot get away from it. Open the Epistles where you will and you will find the deity of Christ. Take, for example, the way in which Paul speaks of Christ in the openings of almost all of his Epistles. "Grace to you and peace," he says, "from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" [See the article by B. B. Warfield, "God Our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," in Princeton Theological Review, xv, 1917, pp. 1-20, reprinted in Biblical Doctrines, 1929, pp. 215-231. Also in THE WORKS OF BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, II BIBLICAL DOCTRINES, 1981 (1929), pp. 213-231. (10 Vol. set)]. Those words often make little impression on our minds. We trip along very lightly over them. But why is it that they make no impression on our minds; why is it that we trip along so lightly over them? Simply for the reason that we have become accustomed to them. They do not stand out in any way in the Epistles of Paul because they are so completely in accord with all that Paul says elsewhere about Christ. But in themselves they are really most extraordinary words. Imagine it being said about any other man who ever lived—the greatest of reformers or the holiest of saints—"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Martin Luther, or the Apostle Paul himself or John the Beloved Disciple"—and I think you will see at once how blasphemous such a form of words would be. Why is it not blasphemous, then, when Paul says "Grace be with you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ"? For one reason and one reason only, my friends. Because Jesus Christ is God. Being God, and for that reason only, He can be linked in this stupendous fashion with God the Father and can be separated from the whole universe of created things. The reason why we think nothing of those stupendous words as we come to them at the beginnings of the Epistles is that they are in exact accord with everything that Paul says about Jesus. The reason why they do not stand out like mountain peaks in the Epistles is not that they are not high but that everything else that Paul says about Christ is equally high. Then I want you to understand something else about the way in which Paul teaches the deity of Christ. It is this—that Paul’s teaching about the deity of Christ is not found merely in this passage or that. It is not found merely in any number of passages where Paul ascribes divine honor and glory to Christ—no matter how numerous you may find those passages to be. No, Paul teaches the deity of Christ by the inmost heart and core of his own religious life. What was the religion of Paul really like? We ought to be able to get the answer to that question, because Paul had a remarkable gift of self revelation. Someone, I believe, has said that he is the best known man of antiquity. He has bared his heart to us in his Epistles. He appears there not as a cold academic teacher but as a man of flesh and blood, and he has let us know what were the inmost springs of his life. Evidently those springs of his life were in his religion. There never was a more intensely religious man. What then was that religion of Paul—that religion of Paul that is so wonderfully presented to us in those revealing documents, the Epistles? Did that religion of Paul consist in having faith in God like the faith which Jesus had in God? Was Jesus for Paul just an example for faith—just a pioneer in the religious life, just one who attained sonship with God and inspired others to attain it? Well, some people have tried to look at the thing in that way. But they have done so only by closing their eyes to what actually stands in the documents from which our information is to be derived. If you simply close your eyes and construct out of your own inner consciousness what you think Paul ought to have said, then of course you can make Paul out to be an adherent of what men call "the religion of Jesus"; you can make him out to be a man whose religion consisted primarily in an imitation of the religious experience through which Jesus Himself had passed; you can make him out to be a man whose religion consisted in an effort to have the same kind of faith in God as that faith which Jesus had in God. But the moment you allow yourself to be hampered in the flight of your imagination by some knowledge of the facts, the moment you seek to view Paul not as you think he ought to have been but as he was, you will observe that his religion did not consist merely in the effort to have the same kind of faith in God as the faith which Jesus had, but that it consisted in having faith in Jesus. Jesus, according to Paul, was no mere example for faith, but was the object of faith. He was the object, for Paul, of a faith that was truly religious. What does that mean? It means plainly one thing. It means that Paul stood toward Jesus not just in the relation in which a disciple stands toward his teacher, but in the relation in which a man stands toward his God. The deity of Christ is the foundation of Paul’s life. In the light of this fact, we are not surprised to read what Paul says about Christ in detail. Jesus Christ, according to Paul, existed from all eternity. He was the One through whom the universe was made. He came into this world as a man not as other men come but by a voluntary act—an act of wonderful condescension and love. His death was not just a noble martyrdom but an act of cosmic significance. It meant the redemption, from the wrath and curse of God, of a great multitude of men of all nations. After His death He rose from the dead and is now exalted far above all principalities and powers. He belongs with God the Father in a category entirely distinct from that of all created things. Have you ever stopped just to think how extraordinary that Pauline doctrine of the deity of Christ would seem to you to be if you came to it for the first time? Here was Jesus, a man who had lived only a few years before and had died a shameful death. Here was Paul, a contemporary of Jesus, an associate of Jesus’ intimate friends, yet attributing to Jesus the highest divine attributes, and standing to Him always in the relation in which a man stands to God. Have you ever heard of anything like that anywhere else in the history of the human race? Perhaps you might be tempted to say, Yes. Perhaps you might be tempted to say that this was not the first time or the only time in the history of the world when one man has attributed deity to another. There was the deification of the Roman emperors, for example, and the deification of oriental monarchs. But do you not see the stupendous difference, my friends? Those who deified the Roman emperors were polytheists; they believed in many gods. There was nothing extraordinary, therefore, in their believing that one more god was to be added to the great host of gods with which Earth and Heaven were already peopled. Paul, on the other hand, was a monotheist. He believed that there was one God and one God only, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He was a Jew, and the Jews were nothing if not monotheists. Both before and after his conversion the belief in one God was the very breath of his life. With all his soul he hated the very thought that any other could be called God save that One. Yet it was such a monotheist sprung of a race of monotheists who paid to one of his contemporaries, Jesus, honors that belong only to God, who reposed in Him a truly religious faith, who applied to Him Old Testament passages that spoke of Jehovah the covenant God of Israel, the one living and true God, the God who in the beginning created the Heavens and the Earth. No, there is nothing like that in the whole history of mankind, nothing like that ascription of deity to the man Christ Jesus by the Apostle Paul. It is no wonder that H. J. Holtzmann, ablest representative, perhaps, of the unbelief of the nineteenth and beginning of he twentieth century, admitted that for the deification of the man Jesus as it appears in the Epistles of Paul he was able to cite no parallel in the religious history of the race [H. J. Holtzmann, in Protestantische Monatshefte, iv, 1900, pp. 465 f., and in Christliche Welt, xxiv, 1910, column 153.]. I tell you, my friends, it is only ignorance that can trip along lightly over this amazing phenomenon. Real scholars are at least immensely intrigued by it. But so far I have not mentioned what is the most surprising thing of all about it. The truly amazing thing is not merely that Paul believed in the deity of Christ, but that he does not argue about it; the truly amazing thing is that he seems to treat it as a matter of course. About other things there was bitter debate. There was debate, for example, about the place of the Law in the attainment of salvation. About that opponents of Paul appealed to Peter and the original apostles of Jesus against Paul. Even about that, indeed, their appeal was a false appeal. The original apostles were really with Paul and against those Judaizers. But about the deity of Christ the Judaizers evidently did not make any appeal at all. Paul just assumes that everyone in the Church, including his opponents, will agree with his stupendous view of Jesus Christ. Still more clearly does he assume that the original friends of Jesus will agree with it. That is the truly extraordinary thing. The intimate friends of Jesus—think of it—those who had walked and talked with Him when He was on Earth, those who had seen Him subject to all the petty limitations of human life—these intimate friends of Jesus stood, so far as we can see from the Epistles of Paul, in the most complete agreement in their view of Jesus with one who regarded Jesus as very God. Who was this Jesus who was exalted to the throne of God not by later generations but by His own intimate friends? The Gospels give the only believable answer to that question. Their picture of Jesus is independent of Paul; it is certainly not just spun out of what the Pauline Epistles say about Christ. Yet it presents just the Christ whom the Epistles presuppose. Deny the truthfulness of the Gospel picture of Jesus, and you can never explain the origin of the religion of Paul. Take the picture as it stands, and all is clear. The two great testimonies to Christ—the Gospels and Paul—lead to the same end. And at that end of the testimony we find the Savior of our souls. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 05.18. THE HOLY SPIRIT ======================================================================== Chapter 18 THE HOLY SPIRIT In bringing this little series of addresses now to a close, I want to say what a great pleasure it has been to me to become acquainted with you. Our conversations might, indeed, seem at first sight to have been just a little bit one-sided; in them I have done most of the talking. I hope you will not be unkind enough to say that that is the reason why I have enjoyed the conversations so much. I will confess that I do love to talk about these themes with which we have been dealing; but then, you see, I have also enjoyed the companionship I have had with you. These are rather trying days to a man who sorrows when a visible Church that professes to believe the Word of God turns from it so often into the pathways of unbelief and sin; and in such days it is doubly comforting to converse with those who truly love the Gospel of Christ and believe that it alone is the message that is forever new. I do rejoice with all my heart in the Christian fellowship which we have had together, and I trust that God may richly bless you, both in joy and in sorrow, and may by His Holy Spirit cause you always to be grounded upon the rock of His holy Word. One thing is clear, my friends—the Word of God will never fail. Many, indeed, have turned from it in our day. Religious persecution is going on apace in Russia and in Germany and in Mexico; in those countries unbelief is blatant and unashamed and is endeavoring to stamp out the Christian religion by force. In our country the same tendency, though in less extreme form, is already mightily at work; and the visible Church is often unfaithful to its great trust and in some cases is engaged in driving out real Christian testimony from its communion. But this is not the first time of discouragement in the history of the Christian Church, and sometimes the darkest hour has just preceded the dawn. So it may be in our day. Let us never forget that the Spirit of God, who inspired the writers of the Bible, is all powerful, and that He can make even dead churches to live. Then I want to say a word of farewell also to any of you who have disagreed with what I have been trying to say. I appreciate your being broad minded enough to listen to that with which you do not agree; and I do trust that, if I have not been able to convince you of the truth of what I have been saying, God may send you a messenger of His own choosing who is better fitted than I to proclaim to you that truth which I have so imperfectly proclaimed. It must be admitted, as we come to the last talk of this little series, that the title of the series is something of a fraud. It is not an intentional fraud, to be sure; but still an unkind person might say that it is a fraud. I have certainly not succeeded in treating The Christian Faith in the Modern World in any comprehensive way. Indeed I have made only a bare beginning of treating it. I have spoken of the Bible, from which the Christian Faith is derived, and I have spoken of the Biblical doctrine of God. But I have not treated all the divisions even of that latter topic. I have spoken a little of the Trinity, but can only—in the present talk—touch slightly upon the last part of that great subject; and I have not been able to speak, for example, of the decrees of God at all. As for the other parts of the system of doctrine that the Bible contains, I have not been able even to make a beginning of treating them. I have not spoken of the Biblical doctrine of man and of sin; I have not spoken of the Biblical doctrine of salvation. I hope to be able to deal with those themes at some future time. Meanwhile I can just bid you turn to God’s Word and read it for yourselves. Doing that, after all, is far more worth while than listening to expositions even though they were far better than mine. May the Holy Spirit increasingly unfold to you the boundless treasures of truth that the Bible contains! As I utter that prayer, I am brought to the theme that it would be next in order for me to deal with in our little series of talks. That theme would be the teaching of the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit. I have talked to you just a little about the Father, and I have tried to present to you just a little of what the Bible says about the Son, but so far I have not spoken to you specifically about the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Please do not understand by that neglect that I do not think the subject is important. If only I had time I might naturally treat that subject much more fully than it can be treated now. Even if I did have more time, I should not, indeed, give as much time to that subject as I should give, for example, to the subject of the deity of Christ. Devout persons sometimes seem to think that there is something derogatory to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, in the fact that theologians and preachers do not devote so much time or space to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as they do to the doctrine of the deity of Christ. These persons are apt, I think, to be particularly severe on the so-called "Apostles’ Creed," for example, because, after it has set forth a number of facts about Christ, the only thing that it says about the third person of the Trinity is just the bare clause, "I believe in the Holy Spirit." Surely that extreme brevity, they will be inclined to say, is derogatory to the third person of the Trinity, who is equal in power and glory to the Father and the Son. Well, I do not know whether we ought to be so very hard on the Apostles’ Creed at this point. No doubt it is defective—at this point as at a good many other points. No doubt it ought to say something more about the Holy Spirit than just "I believe in the Holy Spirit." But after all the work of the Holy Spirit is especially to witness to the Son and to the Father. So, although the Bible has a great deal to say about the work of the Holy Spirit, the plain fact is that it does not devote so much space to the doctrine that sets forth the truth about the Holy Spirit Himself as it does to certain other doctrines. So we, in this little series of talks, have already said a good deal about the work of the Holy Spirit—at least one work of the Holy Spirit—when we spoke of the inspiration of the Bible, and if we do not say more about the Holy Spirit Himself that may perhaps be partially excused by the fact that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, important though it is, could be set forth more briefly than, for example, the doctrine of the Son. The teaching of the Bible about the Holy Spirit is found not only in the New Testament, but also in the Old Testament. The second verse of the Bible speaks of the Spirit of God as active at the beginning. The Spirit of God, that verse says, moved upon the face of the waters [Genesis 1:2]. We think also, of course, of the work of the Spirit in empowering the prophets when they came forward with a message from God. In some places the Spirit appears as the giver of some special qualification; but the Spirit also appears as determining a holy life. Take not Your Holy Spirit from me, says the Psalmist [Psalms 51:11]. There is a tendency in some quarters to underestimate the richness of the Old Testament teaching regarding the Spirit of God. But it must be admitted that in the Old Testament we have no clear presentation of the personal distinctness of the Spirit of God. We may have intimations of it, as we have intimations of the doctrine of the Trinity; but for clear teaching regarding it we must turn to the New Testament books. In the New Testament books that clear teaching is certainly present. At first sight, indeed, it might not seem to be so abundant as we might expect it to be. The deity of the Holy Spirit is everywhere perfectly plain, but the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit does not seem to lie so clearly on the surface. Hence it is not surprising that in discussions of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit the question that is chiefly discussed is different from the question that is discussed with regard to Christ. With regard to Christ, the distinct personality of the One Who is presented is everywhere perfectly clear, and therefore argument is quite unnecessary about that. The question that needs discussion about Christ is the deity of the One spoken of. Christ appears to a superficial observer not as God but as a man. What needs to be done, therefore, is to show that superficial observer that this man, Jesus Christ, is both God and man. But with regard to the Holy Spirit it is just the other way around. The deity of the Holy Spirit is everywhere perfectly clear; but what seems at first sight paradoxical, what seems to require discussion, is the true personality of the Spirit. It is clear without any discussion that the Spirit of God is God, but it might seem at first sight very strange that the Spirit of God should be a distinct person within the Godhead. However—strange though that is—the Bible makes perfectly clear that it is true. A careful reading of the Bible shows that the true personality of the Holy Spirit, though not often made the subject of direct exposition, really underlies and gives meaning to everything that the Bible says about the Spirit of God. For one thing, the great Trinitarian passages in the Bible really imply the personality of the Spirit. When, for example, our Lord in the "Great Commission" at the end of the Gospel according to Matthew commands the Apostles to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit [Matthew 28:19-20], can He possibly mean that although the Father and the Son are persons, the Holy Spirit is a mere impersonal aspect of the being of the Father or of the Son? The perfect coordination of the three—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—would seem to make such an interpretation extremely unnatural. So it is also with the "Apostolic Benediction" at the end of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all [2 Corinthians 13:14]. Here also to deny the distinct personality of the Spirit would seem almost to involve denying the distinct personality of the other two members of Paul’s triad; and since that would of course be out of accord with the Apostle’s whole teaching, it seems perfectly clear that he regards the Holy Spirit as a person just as he regards each of the other two. But the passage where the personality of the Holy Spirit is most clearly and gloriously set forth is found in the intimate discourses of our Lord with His apostles as those discourses are recorded in the Gospel according to John. Here our Lord speaks of the Holy Spirit it as another Comforter [John 14:16], or rather (by what is probably a better translation of the word) another Advocate. The Holy Spirit, then, is in one sense another as over against Jesus; indeed Jesus says that His, Jesus’, departure means the Spirit’s coming. It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you [John 16:7]. It would hardly be possible to set forth more clearly than is done in these words the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit. He is not just an aspect of the person of Jesus; indeed, it is said that if Jesus departs He will come. In another sense, indeed, even according to this very passage, the coming of the Spirit is the coming of Jesus; human analogies break down in the presence of the mystery of the Trinity. One cannot separate what the Son does and what the Father does from what the Spirit does as would be the case with three finite persons. But, all the same, it remains true that the Holy Spirit does appear very clearly in this precious passage as a true person. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, but not as a mere emanation or a mere force but as a person Who stands in a truly personal relationship with the two other persons in the Godhead. Again and again in this wonderful passage the personal relationship between all three persons of the Trinity is set forth. In one verse at least, our Lord uses the first person plural in speaking of Himself and God the Father. If a man love Me, He says, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make our abode with him [John 14:23]. Here Jesus of Nazareth, a man who walked upon this Earth, joins Himself with God the Father in a fellowship in which one person joins Himself with another. We will come, He says. The human mind is aghast in the presence of that stupendous We. God has certainly revealed to us wondrous things in His holy Word. In this personal fellowship between the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit? Who is to be sent as another Comforter, appears as a third member of the fellowship. He stands in personal relation both to the Father and to the Son. And I will pray the Father, says Jesus, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever [John 14:16]. Here the Spirit appears as being sent by the Father at the instance of the Son. In another place He appears as being sent by the Son, and yet as proceeding from the Father. But when the Comforter is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He shall testify of Me [John 15:26]. All through this passage the relationship between all three appears as a warm relationship of love between persons. In the light of what our Lord here says, all thought of regarding the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as being merely three modes in which one Person works, or merely three aspects in which one Person may be regarded, is seen to be contrary to the very heart of what the Bible teaches. No. the Bible teaches us certainly that there are three persons in the Godhead. But, in teaching us that, the Bible never allows us to forget the primary truth that there is but one God. That truth is pressed home in the Old Testament, but it is pressed home just as insistently in the New. When the New Testament teaches that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons, it teaches with equal insistence that these three persons are one God. The New Testament writers never seem to be conscious that one of these two great truths could by any chance be regarded as in contradiction with the other. They are never for one moment conscious of any danger lest when they present the deity and the personality of the Son and of the Spirit they may lead men away from the unity of God. So in the Gospel of John Jesus says, I and the Father are One [John 10:30]; yet in that same Gospel He says, about the Father and Himself, We will come; and in that same Gospel He says, I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter. One God, three persons, each person God—so the Bible presents, in majestic harmony what God has graciously revealed to us of the mysteries of His being. The three persons of the Godhead are, as our Shorter Catechism puts it, "the same in substance, equal in power and glory." But is that so? Are the three persons of the Godhead really the same in substance and equal in power and glory? One of the early heresies said, No. The Son is of like substance with the Father, said the adherents of that heresy, but not of the same substance. But widely removed indeed was that heresy from the teaching of the Bible. I know the difference between these two expressions—"of the same substance" and "of like substance"—has often been ridiculed as being the difference merely of an iota, the smallest letter in the Greek alphabet. The Greek word for "of like substance" has a iota in it, and the Greek word for "of the same substance" is that word with the iota left out. What a hair splitting distinction, then, it is said, was that distinction which kept the Church in turmoil for so many years! The whole trouble was over one tiny little iota! Well, my friends, the unbelief of our day uses a great many arguments, but I doubt whether any argument ever was used in any debate that was much more foolish than this. Is the difference between the meanings of words really to be measured by the number or the size of the letters wherein the words differ? In that case the difference between "just" and "unjust" for example, would be very slight. Just put the little syllable "un" in front of "just," and you get "unjust." What a very slight difference that is! So I suppose you are not at all interested in the question whether a man says your decisions are "just" or whether he says they are "unjust"! It is merely a difference of that little syllable! Even the word "not" is not a very big word. So I suppose it makes no difference to you whether somebody says you are a liar or whether he says you are not a liar! Why indulge in hair splitting distinctions? Why quarrel over such a little word as "not"? Well, we do quarrel over such little words and little letters. Little words and little letters sometimes make a vast deal of difference. So that little Greek letter, iota, made a whole world of difference in the great debate to which we have just referred. If Christ is said to be only of like substance with the Father, in the sense in which that early heresy meant it, then we have a miserable mythology that breaks down the gulf between the creature and the Creator, between the finite and the infinite. The Bible does no such thing. There is no such thing as "almost God" according to the Bible. The next thing less than the infinite, according to the Bible is infinitely less. So the Bible certainly teaches that the Son is of the same substance with the Father, and that He is equal to the Father in power and glory. Only so can He be very God. And it teaches that also with regard to the Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Godhead are according to the Bible, the same in substance and equal in power and glory. Do you know that triune God as your God, my friends? We pray that you may know Him so. We pray that the Holy Spirit may enable you to believe in the Son, and that, redeemed by His precious blood, you may stand in the Father’s presence for evermore. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 06.00. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT ======================================================================== The Doctrine of the Atonement Three lectures by J. Gresham Machen Contents: Part I: The Doctrine of the Atonement 1 Part II: The Active Obedience of Christ 3 Part III: The Bible and the Cross 4 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 06.01. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT ======================================================================== Part I: The Doctrine of the Atonement THE priestly work of Christ, or at least that part of it in which He offered Himself up as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and reconcile us to God, is commonly called the atonement, and the doctrine which sets it forth is commonly called the doctrine of the atonement. That doctrine is at the very heart of what is taught in the Word of God. Before we present that doctrine, we ought to observe that the term by which it is ordinarily designated is not altogether free from objection. When I say that the term ‘atonement’ is open to objection, I am not referring to the fact that it occurs only once in the King James Version of the New Testament, and is therefore, so far as New Testament usage is concerned, not a common Biblical term. A good many other terms which are rare in the Bible are nevertheless admirable terms when one comes to summarise Biblical teaching. As a matter of fact this term is rather common in the Old Testament (though it occurs only that once in the New Testament), but that fact would not be necessary to commend it if it were satisfactory in other ways. Even if it were not common in either Testament it still might be exactly the term for us to use to designate by one word what the Bible teaches in a number of words. The real objection to it is of an entirely different kind. It is a twofold objection. The word atonement in the first place, is ambiguous, and in the second place, it is not broad enough. The one place where the word occurs in the King James Version of the New Testament is Romans 5:11, where Paul says: And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Here the word is used to translate a Greek word meaning ‘reconciliation.’ This usage seems to be very close to the etymological meaning of the word, for it does seem to be true that the English word ‘atonement’ means ‘atonement.’ It is, therefore, according to its derivation, a natural word to designate the state of reconciliation between two parties formerly at variance. In the Old Testament, on the other hand, where the word occurs in the King James Version not once, but forty or fifty times, it has a different meaning; it has the meaning of ‘propitiation.’ Thus we read in Leviticus 1:4, regarding a man who brings a bullock to be killed as a burnt offering: And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. So also the word occurs some eight times in the King James Version in the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus, where the provisions of the law are set forth regarding the great day of atonement. Take, for example, the following verses in that chapter: And Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make an atonement for himself, and for his house (Leviticus 16:6). Then shall he kill the goat of the sin offering that is for the people, and bring his blood within the veil, and do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it upon the mercy seat: And he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins: and so shall he do for the tabernacle of the congregation, that remaineth among them in the midst of their uncleanness (Leviticus 16:15 f.). In these passages the meaning of the word is clear. God has been offended because of the sins of the people or of individuals among His people. The priest kills the animal which is brought as a sacrifice. God is thereby propitiated, and those who have offended God are forgiven. I am not now asking whether those Old Testament sacrifices brought forgiveness in themselves, or merely as prophecies of a greater sacrifice to come; I am not now considering the significant limitations which the Old Testament law attributes to their efficacy. We shall try to deal with those matters in some subsequent talk. All that I am here interested in is the use of the word ‘atonement’ in the English Bible. All that I am saying is that that word in the Old Testament clearly conveys the notion of something that is done to satisfy God in order that the sins of men may be forgiven and their communion with God restored. Somewhat akin to this Old Testament use of the word ‘atonement’ is the use of it in our everyday parlance where religion is not at all in view. Thus we often say that someone in his youth was guilty of a grievous fault but has fully ‘atoned’ for it or made full ‘atonement’ for it by a long and useful life. We mean by that that the person in question has — if we may use a colloquial phrase — ‘made up for’ his youthful indiscretion by his subsequent life of usefulness and rectitude. Mind you, I am not at all saying that a man can really ‘make up for’ or ‘atone for’ a youthful sin by a subsequent life of usefulness and rectitude; but I am just saying that that indicates the way in which the English word is used. In our ordinary usage the word certainly conveys the idea of something like compensation for some wrong that has been done. It certainly conveys that notion also in those Old Testament passages. Of course that is not the only notion that it conveys in those passages. There the use of the word is very much more specific. The compensation which is indicated by the word is a compensation rendered to God, and it is a compensation that has become necessary because of an offence committed against God. Still, the notion of compensation or satisfaction is clearly in the word. God is offended because of sin; satisfaction is made to Him in some way by the sacrifice; and so His favour is restored. Thus in the English Bible the word ‘atonement’ is used in two rather distinct senses. In its one occurrence in the New Testament it designates the particular means by which such reconciliation is effected — namely, the sacrifice which God is pleased to accept in order that man may again be received into favour. Now of these two uses of the word it is unquestionably the Old Testament use which is followed when we speak of the ‘doctrine of the atonement.’ We mean by the word, when we thus use it in theology, not the reconciliation between God and man, not the ‘at-onement’ between God and man, but specifically the means by which that reconciliation is effected — namely, the death of Christ as something that was necessary in order that sinful man might be received into communion with God. I do not see any great objection to the use of the word in that way — provided only that we are perfectly clear that we are using it in that way. Certainly it has acquired too firm a place in Christian theology and has gathered around it too many precious associations for us to think, now, of trying to dislodge it. However, there is another word which would in itself have been much better, and it is really a great pity that it has not come into more general use in this connection. That is the word ‘satisfaction.’ If we only had acquired the habit of saying that Christ made full satisfaction to God for man that would have conveyed a more adequate account of Christ’s priestly work as our Redeemer than the word ‘atonement’ can convey. It designates what the word ‘atonement’ — rightly understood — designates, and it also designates something more. We shall see what that something more is in a subsequent talk. But it is time now for us to enter definitely into our great subject. Men were estranged from God by sin; Christ as their great high priest has brought them back into communion with God. How has He done so? That is the question with which we shall be dealing in a number of the talks that now follow. This afternoon all that I can do is to try to state the Scripture doctrine in bare summary (or begin to state it), leaving it to subsequent talks to show how that Scripture doctrine is actually taught in the Scriptures, to defend it against objections, and to distinguish it clearly from various unscriptural theories. What then in bare outline does the Bible teach about the ‘atonement’? What does it teach — to use a better term — about the satisfaction which Christ presented to God in order that sinful man might be received into God’s favour? I cannot possibly answer this question even in bare summary unless I call your attention to the Biblical doctrine of sin with which we dealt last winter. You cannot possibly understand what the Bible says about salvation unless you understand what the Bible says about the thing from which we are saved. If then we ask what is the Biblical doctrine of sin, we observe, in the first place, that according to the Bible all men are sinners. Well, then, that being so, it becomes important to ask what this sin is which has affected all mankind. Is it just an excusable imperfection; is it something that can be transcended as a man can transcend the immaturity of his youthful years? Or, supposing it to be more than imperfection, supposing it to be something like a definite stain, is it a stain that can easily be removed as writing is erased from a slate? The Bible leaves us in no doubt as to the answer to these questions. Sin, it tells us, is disobedience to the law of God, and the law of God is entirely irrevocable. Why is the law of God irrevocable? The Bible makes that plain. Because it is rooted in the nature of God! God is righteous and that is the reason why His law is righteous. Can He then revoke His law or allow it to be disregarded? Well, there is of course no external compulsion upon Him to prevent Him from doing these things. There is none who can say to Him, ‘What doest thou?’ In that sense He can do all things. But the point is, He cannot revoke His law and still remain God. He cannot, without Himself becoming unrighteous, make His law either forbid righteousness or condone unrighteousness. When the law of God says, ‘The soul that sinneth it shall die,’ that awful penalty of death is, indeed, imposed by God’s will; but God’s will is determined by God’s nature, and God’s nature being unchangeably holy the penalty must run its course. God would be untrue to Himself, in other words, if sin were not punished; and that God should be untrue to Himself is the most impossible thing that can possibly be conceived. Under that majestic law of God man was placed in the estate wherein he was created. Man was placed in a probation, which theologians call the covenant of works. If he obeyed the law during a certain limited period, his probation was to be over; he would be given eternal life without any further possibility of loss. If, on the other hand, he disobeyed the law, he would have death — physical death and eternal death in hell. Man entered into that probation with every advantage. He was created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. He was created not merely neutral with respect to goodness; he was created positively good. Yet he fell. He failed to make his goodness an assured and eternal goodness; he failed to progress from the goodness of innocency to the confirmed goodness which would have been the reward for standing the test. He transgressed the commandment of God, and so came under the awful curse of the law. Under that curse came all mankind. That covenant of works had been made with the first man, Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity. He had stood, in that probation, in a representative capacity; he had stood — to use a better terminology — as the federal head of the race, having been made the federal head of the race by divine appointment. If he had successfully met the test, all mankind descended from him would have been born in a state of confirmed righteousness and blessedness, without any possibility of falling into sin or of losing eternal life. But as a matter of fact Adam did not successfully meet the test. He transgressed the commandment of God, and since he was the federal head, the divinely appointed representative of the race, all mankind sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. Thus all mankind, descended from Adam by ordinary generation, are themselves under the dreadful penalty of the law of God. They are under that penalty at birth, before they have done anything either good or bad. Part of that penalty is the want of the righteousness with which man was created, and a dreadful corruption which is called original sin. Proceeding from that corruption when men grow to years of discretion come individual acts of transgression. Can the penalty of sin resting upon all mankind be remitted? Plainly not, if God is to remain God. That penalty of sin was ordained in the law of God, and the law of God was no mere arbitrary and changeable arrangement but an expression of the nature of God Himself. If the penalty of sin were remitted, God would become unrighteous, and that God will not become unrighteous is the most certain thing that can possibly be conceived. How then can sinful men be saved? In one way only. Only if a substitute is provided who shall pay for them the just penalty of God’s law. The Bible teaches that such a substitute has as a matter of fact been provided. The substitute is Jesus Christ. The law’s demands of penalty must be satisfied. There is no escaping that. But Jesus Christ satisfied those demands for us when He died instead of us on the cross. I have used the word ‘satisfied’ advisedly. It is very important for us to observe that when Jesus died upon the cross He made a full satisfaction for our sins; He paid the penalty which the law pronounces upon our sin, not in part but in full. In saying that, there are several misunderstandings which need to be guarded against in the most careful possible way. Only by distinguishing the Scripture doctrine carefully from several distortions of it can we understand clearly what the Scripture doctrine is. I want to point out, therefore, several things that we do not mean when we say that Christ paid the penalty of our sin by dying instead of us on the cross. In the first place, we do not mean that when Christ took our place He became Himself a sinner. Of course He did not become a sinner. Never was His glorious righteousness and goodness more wonderfully seen than when He bore the curse of God’s law upon the cross. He was not deserving of that curse. Far from it! He was deserving of all praise. What we mean, therefore, when we say that Christ bore our guilt is not that He became guilty, but that He paid the penalty that we so richly deserved. In the second place, we do not mean that Christ’s sufferings were the same as the sufferings that we should have endured if we had paid the penalty of our own sins. Obviously they were not the same. Part of the sufferings that we should have endured would have been the dreadful suffering of remorse. Christ did not endure that suffering, for He had done no wrong. Moreover, our sufferings would have endured to all eternity, whereas Christ’s sufferings on the cross endured but a few hours. Plainly then His sufferings were not the same as ours would have been. In the third place, however, an opposite error must also be warded off. If Christ’s sufferings were not the same as ours, it is also quite untrue to say that He paid only a part of the penalty that was due to us because of our sin. Some theologians have fallen into that error. When man incurred the penalty of the law, they have said, God was pleased to take some other and lesser thing — namely, the sufferings of Christ on the cross — instead of exacting the full penalty. Thus, according to these theologians, the demands of the law were not really satisfied by the death of Christ, but God was simply pleased, in arbitrary fashion, to accept something less than full satisfaction. That is a very serious error indeed. Instead of falling into it we shall, if we are true to the Scriptures, insist that Christ on the cross paid the full and just penalty for our sin. The error arose because of a confusion between the payment of a debt and the payment of a penalty. In the case of a debt it does not make any difference who pays; all that is essential is that the creditor shall receive what is owed him. What is essential is that just the same thing shall be paid as that which stood in the bond. But in the case of the payment of a penalty it does make a difference who pays. The law demanded that we should suffer eternal death because of our sin. Christ paid the penalty of the law in our stead. But for Him to suffer was not the same as for us to suffer. He is God, and not merely man. Therefore if He had suffered to all eternity as we should have suffered, that would not have been to pay the just penalty of the sin, but it would have been an unjust exaction of vastly more. In other words, we must get rid of merely quantitative notions in thinking of the sufferings of Christ. What He suffered on the cross was what the law of God truly demanded not of any person but of such a person as Himself when He became our substitute in paying the penalty of sin. He did therefore make full and not merely partial satisfaction for the claims of the law against us. Finally, it is very important to observe that the Bible’s teaching about the cross of Christ does not mean that God waited for someone else to pay the penalty of sin before He would forgive the sinner. So unbelievers constantly represent it, but that representation is radically wrong. No, God Himself paid the penalty of sin — God Himself in the Person of God the Son, who loved us and gave Himself for us, God Himself in the person of God the Father who so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, God the Holy Spirit who applies to us the benefits of Christ’s death. God’s the cost and ours the marvellous gain! Who shall measure the depths of the love of God which was extended to us sinners when the Lord Jesus took our place and died in our stead upon the accursed tree? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 06.02. THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST ======================================================================== Part II: The Active Obedience of Christ LAST Sunday afternoon, in outlining the Biblical teaching about the work of Christ in satisfying for us the claims of God’s law, I said nothing about one very important part of that work. I pointed out that Christ by His death in our stead on the cross paid the just penalty of our sin, but I said nothing of another thing that He did for us. I said nothing about what Christ did for us by His active obedience to God’s law. It is very important that we should fill out that part of the outline before we go one step further. Suppose Christ had done for us merely what we said last Sunday afternoon that He did. Suppose He had merely paid the just penalty of the law that was resting upon us for our sin, and had done nothing more than that; where would we then be? Well, I think we can say — if indeed it is legitimate to separate one part of the work of Christ even in thought from the rest — that if Christ had merely paid the penalty of sin for us and had done nothing more we should be at best back in the situation in which Adam found himself when God placed him under the covenant of works. That covenant of works was a probation. If Adam kept the law of God for a certain period, he was to have eternal life. If he disobeyed he was to have death. Well, he disobeyed, and the penalty of death was inflicted upon him and his posterity. Then Christ by His death on the cross paid that penalty for those whom God had chosen. Well and good. But if that were all that Christ did for us, do you not see that we should be back in just the situation in which Adam was before he sinned? The penalty of his sinning would have been removed from us because it had all been paid by Christ. But for the future the attainment of eternal life would have been dependent upon our perfect obedience to the law of God. We should simply have been back in the probation again. Moreover, we should have been back in that probation in a very much less hopeful way than that in which Adam was originally placed in it. Everything was in Adam’s favour when he was placed in the probation. He had been created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. He had been created positively good. Yet despite all that, he fell. How much more likely would we be to fall — nay, how certain to fall — if all that Christ had done for us were merely to remove from us the guilt of past sin, leaving it then to our own efforts to win the reward which God has pronounced upon perfect obedience! But I really must decline to speculate any further about what might have been if Christ had done something less for us than that which He has actually done. As a matter of fact, He has not merely paid the penalty of Adam’s first sin, and the penalty of the sins which we individually have committed, but also He has positively merited for us eternal life. He was, in other words, our representative both in penalty paying and in probation keeping. He paid the penalty of sin for us, and He stood the probation for us. That is the reason why those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ are in a far more blessed condition than was Adam before he fell. Adam before he fell was righteous in the sight of God, but he was still under the possibility of becoming unrighteous. Those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ not only are righteous in the sight of God but they are beyond the possibility of becoming unrighteous. In their case, the probation is over. It is not over because they have stood it successfully. It is not over because they have themselves earned the reward of assured blessedness which God promised on condition of perfect obedience. But it is over because Christ has stood it for them; it is over because Christ has merited for them the reward by His perfect obedience to God’s law. I think I can make the matter plain if I imagine a dialogue between the law of God and a sinful man saved by grace. ‘Man,’ says the law of God, ‘have you obeyed my commands?’ ‘No,’ says the sinner saved by grace. ‘I have disobeyed them, not only in the person of my representative Adam in his first sin, but also in that I myself have sinned in thought, word and deed.’ ‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘have you paid the penalty which I pronounced upon disobedience?’ ‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not paid the penalty myself; but Christ has paid it for me. He was my representative when He died there on the cross. Hence, so far as the penalty is concerned, I am clear.’ ‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘how about the conditions which God has pronounced for the attainment of assured blessedness? Have you stood the test? Have you merited eternal life by perfect obedience during the period of probation?’ ‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not merited eternal life by my own perfect obedience. God knows and my own conscience knows that even after I became a Christian I have sinned in thought, word and deed. But although I have not merited eternal life by any obedience of my own, Christ has merited it for me by His perfect obedience. He was not for Himself subject to the law. No obedience was required of Him for Himself, since He was Lord of all. That obedience, then, which He rendered to the law when He was on earth was rendered by Him as my representative. I have no righteousness of my own, but clad in Christ’s perfect righteousness, imputed to me and received by faith alone, I can glory in the fact that so far as I am concerned the probation has been kept and as God is true there awaits me the glorious reward which Christ thus earned for me.’ Such, put in bald, simple form, is the dialogue between every Christian and the law of God. How gloriously complete is the salvation wrought for us by Christ! Christ paid the penalty, and He merited the reward. Those are the two great things that He has done for us. Theologians are accustomed to distinguish those two parts of the saving work of Christ by calling one of them His passive obedience and the other of them His active obedience. By His passive obedience — that is, by suffering in our stead — He paid the penalty for us; by His active obedience — that is, by doing what the law of God required — He has merited for us the reward. I like that terminology well enough. I think it does set forth as well as can be done in human language the two aspects of Christ’s work. And yet a danger lurks in it if it leads us to think that one of the two parts of Christ’s work can be separated from the other. How shall we distinguish Christ’s active obedience from His passive obedience? Shall we say that He accomplished His active obedience by His life and accomplished His passive obedience by His death? No, that will not do at all. During every moment of His life upon earth Christ was engaged in His passive obedience. It was all for Him humiliation, was it not? It was all suffering. It was all part of His payment of the penalty of sin. On the other hand, we cannot say that His death was passive obedience and not active obedience. On the contrary, His death was the crown of His active obedience. It was the crown of that obedience to the law of God by which He merited eternal life for those whom He came to save. Do you not see, then, what the true state of the case is? Christ’s active obedience and His passive obedience are not two divisions of His work, some of the events of His earthly life being His active obedience and other events of His life being His passive obedience; but every event of His life was both active obedience and passive obedience. Every event of His life was a part of His payment of the penalty of sin, and every event of His life was a part of that glorious keeping of the law of God by which He earned for His people the reward of eternal life. The two aspects of His work, in other words, are inextricably intertwined. Neither was performed apart from the other. Together they constitute the wonderful, full salvation which was wrought for us by Christ our Redeemer. We can put it briefly by saying that Christ took our place with respect to the law of God. He paid for us the law’s penalty, and He obeyed for us the law’s commands. He saved us from hell, and He earned for us our entrance into heaven. All that we have, then, we owe unto Him. There is no blessing that we have in this world or the next for which we should not give Christ thanks. As I say that, I am fully conscious of the inadequacy of my words. I have tried to summarise the teaching of the Bible about the saving work of Christ; yet how cold and dry seems any mere human summary — even if it were far better than mine — in comparison with the marvellous richness and warmth of the Bible itself. It is to the Bible itself that I am going to ask you to turn with me next Sunday afternoon. Having tried to summarise the Bible’s teaching in order that we may take each part of the Bible in proper relation to other parts, I am going to ask you next Sunday to turn with me to the great texts themselves, in order that we may test our summary, and every human summary, by what God Himself has told us in His Word. Ah, when we do that, what refreshment it is to our souls! How infinitely superior is God’s Word to all human attempts to summarise its teaching! Those attempts are necessary; we could not do without them; everyone who is really true to the Bible will engage in them. But it is the very words of the Bible that touch the heart, and everything that we — or for the matter of that even the great theologians — say in summary of the Bible must be compared ever anew with the Bible itself. This afternoon, however, just in order that next Sunday we may begin our searching of the Scriptures in the most intelligent possible way, I am going to ask you to glance with me at one or two of the different views that men have held regarding the cross of Christ. I have already summarised for you the orthodox view. According to that view, Christ took our place on the cross, paying the penalty of am that we deserved to pay. That view can be put in very simple language. We deserved eternal death because of sin; Jesus, because He loved us, took our place and died in our stead on the cross. Call that view repulsive if you will. It is indeed repulsive to the natural man. But do not call it difficult to understand. A little child can understand it, and can receive it to the salvation of his soul. Rejecting that substitutionary view, many men have advanced other views. Many are the theories of the atonement. Yet I do think that their bewildering variety may be reduced to something like order if we observe that they fall into a very few general divisions. Most common among them is the theory that Christ’s death upon the cross had merely a moral effect upon man. Man is by nature a child of God, say the advocates of that view. But unfortunately he is not making full use of his high privilege. He has fallen into terrible degradation, and having fallen into terrible degradation he has become estranged from God. He no longer lives in that intimate relationship of sonship with God in which he ought to live. How shall this estrangement between man and God be removed; how shall man be brought back into fellowship with God? Why, say the advocates of the view of which we are now speaking, simply by inducing man to turn from his evil ways and make full use of his high privilege as a child of God. There is certainly no barrier on God’s side; the only barrier lies in man’s foolish and wicked heart. Once overcome that barrier and all will be well. Once touch man’s stony heart so that he will come to see again that God is his Father, once lead him also to overcome any fear of God as though God were not always more ready to forgive than man is to be forgiven; and at once the true relationship between God and man can be restored and man can go forward joyously to the use, in holy living, of his high privilege as a child of the loving heavenly Father. But how can man’s heart be touched, that he may be led to return to his Father’s house and live as befits a son of God? By the contemplation of the cross of Christ, say the advocates of the view that we are now presenting. Jesus Christ was truly a son of God. Indeed, He was a son of God in such a unique way that He may be called in some sort the Son of God. When therefore God gave Him to die upon the cross and when He willingly gave Himself to die, that was a wonderful manifestation of God’s love for sinning, erring humanity. In the presence of that love all opposition in man’s heart should be broken down. He should recognise at last the fact that God is indeed his Father, and recognising that, he should make use of his high privilege of living the life that befits a child of God. Such is the so-called ‘moral-influence theory’ of the atonement. It is held in a thousand different forms, and it is held by thousands of people who have not the slightest notion that they are holding it. Some of those who have held it have tried to maintain with it something like a real belief in the deity of Christ. If Christ was really the eternal Son of God, then the gift of Him on the cross becomes all the greater evidence of the love of God. But the overwhelming majority of those who hold the moral-influence view of the atonement have given up all real belief in the deity of Christ. These persons hold simply that Jesus on the cross gave us a supreme example of self-sacrifice. By that example we are inspired to do likewise. We are inspired to sacrifice our lives, either in actual martyrdom in some holy cause or in sacrificial service. Sacrificing thus our lives, we discover that we have thereby attained a higher life than ever before. Thus the cross of Christ has been the pathway that leads us to moral heights. Read most of the popular books on religion of the present day, and then tell me whether you do not think that that is at bottom what they mean. Some of them speak about the cross of Christ. Some of them say that Christ’s sufferings were redemptive. But the trouble is they hold that the cross of Christ is not merely Christ’s cross but our cross; and that while Christ’s sufferings were redemptive our sufferings are redemptive too. All they really mean is that Christ on Calvary pointed out a way that we follow. He hallowed the pathway of self-sacrifice. We follow in that path and thus we obtain a higher life for our souls. That is the great central and all-pervading vice of most modern books that deal with the cross. They make the cross of Christ merely an example of a general principle of self-sacrifice. And if they talk still of salvation, they tell us that we are saved by walking in the way of the cross. It is thus, according to this view, not Christ’s cross but our cross that saves us. The way of the cross leads us to God. Christ may have a great influence in leading us to walk in that way of the cross, that way of self-sacrifice; but it is our walking in it and not Christ’s walking in it which really saves us. Thus we are saved by our own efforts, not by Christ’s blood after all. It is the same old notion that sinful man can save himself. It is that notion just decked out in new garments and making use of Christian terminology. Such is the moral-influence theory of the atonement. In addition to it, we find what is sometimes called the governmental theory. What a strange, compromising, tortuous thing that governmental theory is, to be sure! According to the governmental view, the death of Christ was not necessary in order that any eternal justice of God, rooted in the divine nature, might be satisfied. So far the governmental view goes with the advocates of the moral-influence theory. But, it holds, the death of Christ was necessary in order that good discipline might be maintained in the world. If sinners were allowed to get the notion that sin could go altogether unpunished, there would be no adequate deterrent from sin. Being thus undeterred from sin, men would go on sinning and the world would be thrown into confusion. But if the world were thus thrown into moral confusion that would not be for the best interests of the greatest number. Therefore God held up the death of Christ on the cross as an indication of how serious a thing sin is, so that men may be deterred from sinning and so order in the world may be preserved. Having thus indicated — so the governmental theory runs — how serious a thing sin is, God proceeded to offer salvation to men on easier terms than those on which He had originally offered it. He had originally offered it on the basis of perfect obedience. Now He offered it on the basis of faith. He could safely offer it on those easier terms, and He could safely remit the penalty originally pronounced upon sin, because in the awful spectacle of the cross of Christ He had sufficiently indicated to men that sin is a serious offence and that if it is committed something or other has to be done about the matter in order that the good order of the universe may be conserved. Such is the governmental theory. But do you not see that really at bottom it is just a form of the moral-influence theory? Like the moral-influence theory, it holds that the only obstacle to fellowship between man and God is found in man’s will. Like the moral-influence theory it denies that there is any eternal justice of God, rooted in His being, and it denies that the eternal justice of God demands the punishment of sin. Like the moral-influence theory it plays fast and loose with God’s holiness, and like the moral-influence theory, we may add, it loses sight of the real depths of God’s love. No man who holds the light view of sin that is involved in these man-made theories has the slightest notion of what it cost when the eternal Son of God took our place upon the accursed tree. People sometimes say, indeed, that it makes little difference what theory of the atonement we may hold. Ah, my friends, it makes all the difference in the world. When you contemplate the cross of Christ, do you say merely, with modern theorists, ‘What a noble example of self-sacrifice; I am going to attain favour with God by sacrificing myself as well as He.’ Or do you say with the Bible, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me; He took my place; He bore my curse; He bought me with His own most precious blood.’ That is the most momentous question that can come to any human soul. I want you all to turn with me next Sunday afternoon to the Word of God in order that we may answer that question aright. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 06.03. THE BIBLE AND THE CROSS ======================================================================== Part III: The Bible and the Cross HAVING observed last week what are the leading views that have been held regarding the cross of Christ, we turn now to the Bible in order to discover which of these views is right. Did Jesus on the cross really take our place, paying the penalty of God’s law which justly rested upon us? That is the orthodox or substitutionary view of the atonement. Or did He merely exert a good moral influence upon us by His death, either by giving us an exhibition of the love of God or by inspiring us to sacrifice our lives for the welfare of others as He sacrificed Himself? That is the so-called moral-influence theory of the atonement. Or did He by His death merely conserve the good discipline of the world by showing that, in the interests of the welfare of the greatest number, God cannot simply allow His law to be transgressed with complete impunity? That is the so-called governmental theory of the atonement. We shall try to test these three views of the cross of Christ by comparing them with what the Bible actually says. But before we do so, there are two preliminary remarks that we ought to make. Our first remark is that the three views of the atonement really reduce themselves to two. Both the moral-influence and the governmental view of the atonement really make the work of Christ terminate upon man, rather than upon God. They both proceed on the assumption that, in order that man shall be forgiven, nothing but man’s repentance is required. They both of them deny, at least by implication, that there is such a thing as an eternal principle of justice, not based merely upon the interests of the creature but rooted in the nature of God — an eternal principle of justice demanding that sin shall be punished. They both of them favour the notion that the ethical attributes of God may be summed up in the one attribute — benevolence. They both of them tend to distort the great Scriptural assertion that ‘God is love’ into the very different assertion that God is nothing but love. They both of them tend to find the supreme end of the creation in the happiness or well-being of the creature. They both of them fail utterly to attain to any high notion of the awful holiness of God. No doubt the governmental theory disguises these tendencies more than the moral-influence theory does. It does show some recognition of the moral chaos which would result if men got the notion that the law of God could be transgressed with complete impunity. But, after all, even the governmental theory denies that there is any real underlying necessity for the punishment of sin. Punishment, it holds, is merely remedial and deterrent. It is intended merely to prevent future sin, not to expiate past sin. So the tragedy on Calvary, according to the advocates of the governmental view, was intended by God merely to shock sinners out of their complacency; it was intended merely to show what terrible effects sin has so that sinners by observing those terrible effects might be led to stop sinning. The governmental view, therefore, like the moral-influence view, has at its centre the notion that a moral effect exerted upon man was the sole purpose of the cross of Christ. Very different is the substitutionary view. According to that view, not a mere moral effect upon man but the satisfaction of the eternal justice of God was the primary end for which Christ died. Hence the substitutionary view of the atonement stands sharply over against the other two. The other two belong in one category; the substitutionary view belongs in an entirely different category. That is the first remark that we desire to make before we begin to consider the Biblical teaching in detail. That remark, however, would be decidedly misleading unless we went on to make a second remark. Our second remark is that the substitutionary view of the atonement, though it makes the work of Christ in dying upon the cross terminate primarily upon God, yet does at the same time most emphatically make it terminate also upon man. What a distortion of the substitutionary view it would be to say that Christ, when He died, did not die to produce a moral effect upon man! Of course He died to produce a moral effect upon man! If He had not died, man would have continued to lead a life of sin; but as it is, those for whom He died cease to lead a life of sin and begin to lead a life of holiness. They do not lead that life of holiness perfectly in this world, but they will most certainly lead it in the world to come, and it was in order that they might lead that life of holiness that Christ died for them. No man for whom Christ died continues to live in sin as he lived before. All who receive the benefits of the cross of Christ turn from sin unto righteousness. In holding that that is the case, the substitutionary view of the atonement is quite in accord with the moral-influence theory and with the governmental theory. Well, then, is it correct to say that the moral-influence theory and the governmental theory are correct as far as they go and merely differ from the substitutionary view in being inadequate or incomplete? No, I do not think that that is correct at all. You see, the heart and core of the moral-influence theory and the governmental theory is found in the denial that Christ on the cross took our place and paid the just penalty of our sins that we might be right with God. Denying that, the moral-influence theory and the exhibit the necessity of some deterrent against sin in the interests of an orderly world, or did He die on the cross in order to pay the penalty of our sin and make us right with the holy God? Which of these three views is right? That is the question which we shall seek to answer by an examination of the Word of God. At the beginning of the examination there is one fact which stares us in the face. It has sometimes been strangely neglected. It is the fact of the enormous emphasis which the Bible lays upon the death of Christ. Have you ever stopped to consider how strange that emphasis is? In the case of other great men, it is the birth that is celebrated and not the death. Washington’s birthday is celebrated by a grateful American people on the twenty-second day of February, but who remembers on what day of the year it was that Washington died? Who ever thought of making the day of his death into a national holiday? Well, there are some men whose death might indeed be celebrated by a national holiday, but they are not good men like George Washington; they are, on the contrary, men whose taking off was a blessing to their people. It would be a small compliment to the father of his country if we celebrated with national rejoicing the day when he was taken from us. Instead of that, we celebrate his birth. Yet in the case of Jesus it is the death and not the birth that we chiefly commemorate in the Christian church. I do not mean that it is wrong for us to commemorate the birth of Jesus. We have just celebrated Christmas, and it is right for us so to do. Happy at this Christmas season through which we have just passed have been those to whom it has not been just a time of worldly festivity but a time of commemoration of the coming of our blessed Saviour into this world. Happy have been those men and women and little children who have heard, underlying all their Christmas joys, and have heard in simple and childlike faith, the sweet story that is told us in Matthew and Luke. Happy have been those celebrants of Christmas to whom the angels have brought again, in the reading of the Word of God, their good tidings of great joy. Yes, I say, thank God for the Christmas season; thank God for the softening that it brings to stony hearts; thank God for the recognition that it brings for the little children whom Jesus took into His arms; thank God even for the strange, sweet sadness that it brings to us together with its joys, as we think of the loved ones who are gone. Yes, it is well that we should celebrate the Christmas season; and may God ever give us a childlike heart that we may celebrate it aright. But after all, my friends, it is not Christmas that is the greatest anniversary in the Christian church. It is not the birth of Jesus that the church chiefly celebrates, but the death. Did you know that long centuries went by in the history of the church before there is any record of the celebration of Christmas? Jesus was born in the days of Herod the King — that is, at some time before 4 B.C., when Herod died. Not till centuries later do we find evidence that the church celebrated any anniversary regarded as the anniversary of His birth. Well, then, if that is so with regard to the commemoration of Jesus’ birth, how is it with regard to the commemoration of His death? Was the commemoration of that also so long postponed? Well, listen to what is said on that subject by the Apostle Paul. ‘For as often as ye eat this bread,’ he says, ‘and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.’ That was written only about twenty-five years after the death of Christ and after the founding of the church in Jerusalem. Even in those early days the death of Christ was commemorated by the church in the most solemn service in which it engaged — namely, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Indeed that commemoration of the death of Christ was definitely provided for by Jesus Himself. ‘This cup is the New Testament in my blood,’ said Jesus: ‘this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.’ In those words of institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus carefully provided that His church should commemorate His death. Thus the Bible makes no definite provision for the commemoration of the birth of Jesus, but provides in the most definite and solemn way for the commemoration of His death. What is the reason for that contrast, which at first sight might seem to be very strange? I think the answer is fairly clear. The birth of Jesus was important not in itself but because it made possible His death. Jesus came into this world to die, and it is to His death that the sinner turns when He seeks salvation for his soul. Truly the familiar hymn is right when it says about the cross of Christ: All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime. The whole Bible centres in the story of the death of Christ. The Old Testament looks forward to it; the New Testament looks back upon it; and the truly Biblical preacher of the gospel says always with Paul: ‘I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.’ I ask you, then, which of the theories of the atonement suits this supreme emphasis which the Bible puts upon the cross. Does the moral-influence theory suit it? I think not, my friends. If Jesus died on the cross merely to give us a good example of self-sacrifice or merely to exhibit, without underlying necessity, the love of God, then the Bible does seem strangely overwrought in the way in which it speaks of the death of Christ. Then indeed all the talk in the Bible about the blood of Christ and the blood of the sacrificial victims that were prophecies of Him becomes just about as distasteful as so many modern men hold it to be. Some very much greater significance must be attributed to the death of Christ than a mere hallowing of some universal law of self-sacrifice or a mere pedagogic exhibition of God’s love, if we are to explain the way in which the Bible makes everything to centre in the event that took place on Calvary. The case is not essentially different when we consider the governmental theory. It is true, the governmental theory does seek, as over against the moral-influence theory, to do justice to the emphasis which the Bible places just on the death of Christ. It regards the tragic horror of the cross not as merely incidental to the meaning of what Christ did but as essential to it. It regards that tragic horror as being the thing that shocks sinners out of their complacency and makes them recognise the seriousness of sin. Hence it seeks to show why just the death of Christ and not some other exhibition of self-sacrificing love was necessary. But, after all, what a short way such considerations go towards explaining the Biblical emphasis on the cross of Christ! The truth is that there is just one real explanation of such emphasis. It is found in the fact that Christ on the cross did something absolutely necessary if we sinners are to be forgiven by a righteous God. Once recognise the enormous barrier which sin sets up between the offender and his God, once recognise the fact that that barrier is rooted not merely in the sinner’s mind but in the eternal justice of God, and then once recognise that the cross, as the full payment of the penalty of sin, has broken down the barrier and made the sinner right with God — once recognise these things and then only will you understand the strange pre-eminence which the Bible attributes to the cross of Christ. Thus even the mere prominence of the death of Christ in the Bible, to say nothing of what the Bible says about the death of Christ in detail, is a mighty argument against all minimising theories of the significance of the death of Christ and a mighty argument in favour of the view that Christ on the cross really died in our stead, paying the dread penalty of our sin, that He might present us, saved by grace, before the throne. In presenting what the Bible says in detail about the death of Christ, I want to speak first of all of those passages where Christ’s death upon the cross is represented as a ransom, then about those passages where it is spoken of as a sacrifice, then about those passages where, without the use of either of these representations, its substitutionary or representative character is plainly brought out. The first passage that we shall speak of, next Sunday afternoon, is that great passage in the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark where our Lord says that the Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many. On this last Sunday of the old year, I just want to say to you who have been listening in on these Sunday afternoons how much encouraged I have been by your interest and by your Christian fellowship. I trust that you have had a very joyous Christmas and I trust that the new year which is so soon to begin may be to you a very blessed year under the mercy of God. * Note: The above three articles were radio addresses broadcast by Gresham Machen broadcast shortly before his death on January 1, 1937. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 07.00. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP ======================================================================== INTRODUCTION Modern Teaching "Religious Education" I. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR EVANGELISM New Testament Evangelism Pentecost Philippi Christ and the Woman of Samaria Paul’s Missionary Preaching The Simplicity of the Gospel! Life Founded on Truth How to be Saved II. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH The Need for the Defence of the Faith The Importance of Argument The Place of Christian Apologetics To-day Controversy in the Church Prayer and Theological Differences Controversy and Revival The Holy Spirit and Doctrine Positive Preaching! The Method of Defence A Scholarly Defence of the Faith Knowledge of Truth and Error Past History of the Church III. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH The Apostolic Practice Doctrinal Preaching Modern Preaching The Revelation of God in the Bible The Revelation of God in Nature The Need for a Fuller Revelation The Revelation of Man in the Bible What is Wrong with the World? The Gospel Unfolded in Scripture INTRODUCTION It seems to me, as I stand here before you to-day, that there is one blessing in these days of defection and unbelief which we have come to value as we never valued it before. That is the blessing of Christian fellowship in the presence of a hostile world, and in the presence of a visible Church which too often has departed from the Word of God. To-day, during the three meetings of this League, in the portion of the meetings which has been allotted to me, I am to have the privilege of delivering three addresses on the subject, "The Importance of Christian Scholarship." It is no doubt unfortunate that the person who speaks about this subject should have so limited an experimental acquaintance with the subject about which he is endeavouring to speak; but in these days of anti-intellectualism you may be willing to hear a word in defence of the intellect, even from one whose qualifications for speaking on that subject are so limited as mine. There was a time when the raising of the question as to the importance of Christian scholarship might have seemed to be ridiculous; there was a time when a man who does so much talking as a minister or a Sunday School teacher ought to do, in the propagation of the Faith to which he adheres, would have regarded it as a matter of course that he ought to know something about the subject of which he undertakes to talk. Modern Teaching But in recent years we have got far beyond all such elementary considerations as that; modern pedagogy has emancipated us, whether we be in the pulpit or in the professor’s chair or in the pew, from anything so irksome as earnest labour in the acquisition of knowledge. It never seems to occur to many modern teachers that the primary business of the teacher is to study the subject that he is going to teach. Instead of studying the subject that he is going to teach, he studies "education"; a knowledge of the methodology of teaching takes the place of a knowledge of the particular branch of literature, history or science to which a man has devoted his life. This substitution of methodology for content in the preparation of the teacher is based upon a particular view of what education is. It is based upon the view that education consists primarily, not in the imparting of information, but in a training of the faculties of the child; that the business of the teacher is not to teach, but to develop in the child a faculty which will enable the child to learn. This child-centered notion of education seems to involve emancipation from a vast amount of drudgery. It used to be thought necessary to do some hard work at school. When a textbook was given to a class, it was expected that the contents of the textbook should be mastered. But now all that has been changed. Storing up facts in the mind was a long and painful process, and it is indeed comforting to know that we can now do without it. Away with all drudgery and all hard work! Self-expression has taken their place. A great pedagogic discovery has been made -- the discovery that it is possible to think with a completely empty mind. It cannot be said that the results of the discovery are impressive. This child-centred notion of education has resulted, particularly in America, where it has been most ruthlessly applied, in a boundless superficiality of which we Americans certainly have little reason to be proud; but it has probably not been confined to America by any means. I wonder when we shall have that revival of learning which we so much need, and which I verily believe might be, in the providence of God, as was the Renaissance of the fifteenth century, the precursor of a Reformation in the Church. When that revival of learning comes, we may be sure that it will sweep away the present absurd over-emphasis upon methodology in teaching at the expense of content. We shall never have a true revival of learning until teachers turn their attention away from the mere mental process of the child, out into the marvellous richness and variety of the universe and of human life. Not teachers who have studied the methodology of teaching, but teachers who are on fire with a love of the subjects that they are going to teach are the real torch-bearers of intellectual advance. "Religious Education" Certainly the present view of education is, when it is applied to the work of the preacher and of the teacher in the Church, sceptical to the core. It is summed up in what is called "religious education." I wonders sometimes at the readiness with which Christian people -- I do not mean Church-members, but real Bible-believing Christians -- use that term; for the ordinary implications of the term are quite opposed to Christian religion. The fundamental notion underlying the ordinary use of the term "religious education" is that the business of the teacher in the Church is not to impart knowledge of a fixed body of truth which God has revealed, but to train the religious faculty of the child. The religious faculty of the child, it is supposed, may be trained by the use of the most widely diverse doctrinal content; it may be trained in this generation, perhaps, by the thought of a personal God; but in another generation it may be trained equally well by the thought of an ideal humanity as the only God there is. Thus the search for objective and permanent truth is given up, and instead we have turned our attention to the religious faculties of man. In other words, men have become interested to-day in religion because they have ceased to believe in God. As over against such scepticism, the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, presents a body of truth which God has revealed; and if we hold the Biblical view, we shall regard it as our supreme function, as teachers as well as preachers and as Christian parents and as simple Christians, to impart a knowledge of that body of truth. The Christian preacher, we shall hold, needs above all to know the thing that he is endeavouring to preach. But if knowledge is necessary to preaching, it does seem probable that the fuller the knowledge is, the better the preacher will be able to do his work. Underlying preaching, in other words, is Christian scholarship; and it is in defence of Christian scholarship that I have thought it might be fitting to say a few words to you to-day. Christian scholarship is necessary to the preacher, and to the man who in whatever way, in public or in private, endeavours to proclaim the gospel to his fellow-men, in at least three ways. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 07.01. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR EVANGELISM ======================================================================== I. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR EVANGELISM In the first place, it is necessary for evangelism. In saying so, I am perfectly well aware of the fact that I am putting myself squarely in conflict with a method of religious work which is widely prevalent at the present time. Knowledge, the advocates of that method seem to think, is quite unnecessary to faith; at the beginning a man may be a Fundamentalist or a Modernist, he may hold a Christian or anti-Christian view of Christ. Never mind; he is to be received, quite apart from his opinions, on the basis of simple faith. Afterwards, indeed, he will, if he has really been converted, read his Bible and come to a more and more correct view of Christ and of the meaning of Christ’s death. If he does not come to a more and more correct view, one may perhaps suspect that his conversion was not a real one after all. But at the beginning all that is thought to be unnecessary. All that a man has to believe in at the beginning is conversion: he is saved on the basis of simple faith; correct opinions about God and Christ come later. With regard to this method, it may of course be said at once that the "simple faith" thus spoken of is not faith at all; or, rather, it is not faith in Christ. A man cannot trust a person whom he holds to be untrustworthy. Faith always contains an intellectual element. A ver little knowledge is often sufficient is a man is to believe, but some knowledge there must be. So if a man is to trust Christ he must know something about Christ; he may know only a very little, but without some knowledge he could not believe at all. What these advocates of a "simple faith" which involves no knowledge of Christ really mean by "simple faith" is faith, perhaps, but it is not faith in Christ. It is faith in the practitioners of the method; but it is not faith in Christ. To have faith in Christ one must have knowledge of Christ, however slight; and it is not a matter of indifference whether the opinions held about Christ are true or false. New Testament Evangelism But is this modern anti-intellectualistic view of faith in accordance with the New Testament? Does the New Testament offer a man salvation first, on the basis of a psychological process of conversion or surrender -- falsely called faith -- and then preach the gospel to him afterwards; or does the New Testament preach the gospel to him first, set forth to him first the fact about Christ and the meaning of His death, and then ask him to accept the One thus presented in order that his soul may be saved? That question can be answered very simply by an examination of the examples of conversion which the New Testament contains. Pentecost Three thousand were converted on the day of Pentecost. They were converted by Peter’s sermon. What did Peter’s sermon contain? Did it contain merely an account of Peter’s own experience of salvation; did it consist solely in exhortation to the people to confess their sins? Not at all. What Peter did on the day of Pentecost was to set forth the facts about Jesus Christ -- His life, His miracles, His death, His resurrection. It was on the basis of that setting forth of the facts about Christ that the three thousand believed, confessed their sins, and were saved. Philippi Paul and Silas were in prison one night at Philippi. There was a miracle; the prisoners were released. The gaoler was impressed and said, "What must I do to be saved?" Paul and Silas saod: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Did the gaoler believe then and there; was he saved without further delay? I think not. We are expressly told that Paul and Silas, after that, "spake unto him the word of the Lord." Then and not till then was he baptised, and I think we are plainly to understand that then and not till then was he saved. Christ and the Woman of Samaria Our Saviour sat one day by the well. He talked with a sinful woman, and laid His finger upon the sore spot in her life. "Thou has had five husbands." He said; "and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband." The woman then apparently sought to evade the consideration of the sin in her own life by asking a theological question regarding the right place in which to worship God. What did Jesus do with her theological question? Did He brush it aside after the manner of modern religious workers? Did He say to the woman: "You are evading the real question; do not trouble yourself about theological matters, but let us return to the consideration of sin in your life?" Not at all. He answered that theological question with the utmost fulness as though the salvation of the woman’s soul depended on her obtaining the right answer. In reply to that sinful woman, and to what modern religious workers would have regarded as an evasive question, Jesus engaged in some of the profoundest theological teaching in the whole New Testament. A right view of God, according to Jesus, is not something that comes after salvation, but it is something necessary to salvation. Paul’s Missionary Preaching The Apostle Paul in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians gives a precious summary of his missionary preaching. He does so by telling what it was to which the Thessalonians turned when they were saved. Was it a mere programme of life to which they turned? Was it a "simple faith," in the modern sense which divorces faith from knowledge and supposes that a man can have "simple faith" in a person of whom he knows nothing or about whom he holds opinions that make faith in him absurd? Not at all. In turning to Christ those Thessalonian Christians turned to a system of theology. "Ye turned to God from idols," says Paul, "to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivereth us from the wrath to come." "Ye turned to God from idols" -- there is theology proper. "And to wait for His Son from heaven" -- there is Christology. "Whom He raised from the dead" -- there is the supernatural act of God in history. "Even Jesus" -- there is the humanity of our Lord. "Which delivereth us from the wrath to come" -- there is the Christian doctrine of sin and the Christian doctrine of the Cross of Christ. So it is in the New Testament from beginning to end. The examples might be multiplied indefinitely. The New Testament gives not one bit of comfort to those who separate faith from knowledge, to those who hold the absurd view that a man can trust a person about whom he knows nothing. What many men despise to-day as "doctrine" the New Testament calls the gospel; and the New Testament treats it as the message upon which salvation depends. But if that be so, if salvation depends upon the message in which Christ is offered as Saviour, it is obviously important that we should get the message straight. That is where Christian scholarship comes in. Christian scholarship is important in order that we may tell the story of Jesus and His love straight and full and plain. The Simplicity of the Gospel! At this point, indeed, an objection may arise. Is not the gospel a very simple thing, it may be asked; and will not its simplicity be obscured by too much scholarly research? The objection spring from a false view of what scholarship is; it springs from the notion that scholarship leads a man to be obscure. Exactly the reverse is the case. Ignorance is obscure; but scholarship brings order out of confusion, places things in their logical relations, and makes the message shine forth clear. There are, indeed, evangelists who are not scholars, but scholarship is necessary to evangelism all the same. In the first place, though there are evangelists, who are not scholars, the greatest evangelists, like the Apostle Paul and like Martin Luther, have been scholars. In the second place, the evangelists who are not scholars are dependent upon scholars to help them get their message straight; it is out of a great underlying fund of Christian learning that true evangelism springs. Life Founded on Truth That is something that the Church of our day needs to take to heart. Life, according to the New Testament, is founded upon truth; and the attempt to reverse the order results only in despair and in spiritual death. Let us not deceive ourselves, my friends. Christian experience is necessary to evangelism; but evangelism does not consist merely in the rehearsal of what has happened in the evangelist’s own soul. We shall, indeed, be but poor witnesses of Christ if we can tell only what Christ has done for the world or for the Church and cannot tell what He has done personally for us. But we shall also be poor witnesses if we recount only the experiences of our own lives. Christian evangelism does not consist merely in a man’s going about the world saying: "Look at me, what a wonderful experience I have, how happy I am, what wonderful Christian virtues I exhibit; you can all be as good and as happy as I am if you will just make a complete surrender of your wills in obedience to what I say." That is what many religious workers seem to think that evangelism is. We can preach the gospel, they tell us, by our lives, and do not need to preach it by our words. But they are wrong. Men are not saved by the exhibition of our glorious Christian virtues; they are not saved by the contagion of our experiences. We cannot be the instruments of God in saving them if we preach to them thus only ourselves. Nay, we must preach to them the Lord Jesus Christ; for it is only through the gospel which sets Him forth that they can be saved. How to be Saved If you want health for your souls, and if you want to be the instrument of bringing health to others, do not turn your gaze forever within, as though you could find Christ there. Nay, turn your gaze away from your own miserable experiences, away from your own sin, to the Lord Jesus Christ as He is offered to us in the gospel. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up." Only when we turn away from ourselves to that uplifted Saviour shall we have healing for our deadly hurt. It is the same old story, my friends -- the same old story of the natural man. Men are trying to-day, as they have always been trying, to save themselves -- to save themselves by their own act of surrender, by the excellence of their own faith, by mystic experiences of their own lives. But it is all in vain. Not that way is peace with God to be obtained. It is to be obtained only in the old, old way -- by attention to something that was done once for all long ago, and by acceptance of the living Saviour who there, once for all, brought redemption for our sin. Oh, that men would turn for salvation from their own experience to the Cross of Christ; oh, that they would turn from the phenomena of religion to the living God! That that may be done, there is but one way. It is not found in a study of the psychology of religion; it is not found in "religious education"; it is not found in an analysis of ones’ own spiritual states. Oh, no. It is found only in the blessed written Word. There are the words of life. There God speaks. Let us attend to His voice. Let us above all things know the Word. Let us study it with all our minds, let us cherish it with all our hearts. Then let us try, very humbly, to bring it to the unsaved. Let us pray that God may honour not the messengers but the message, that despite our unworthiness He may make His Word upon our unworthy lips to be a message of life. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 07.02. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH ======================================================================== II. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE FAITH In speaking of Christian scholarship before the Bible League, I am somewhat in the position of bringing coals to Newcastle, but perhaps you will take what I am saying as being an expression of hearty agreement with that scholarly work which your League has been carrying on so successfully for many years. This morning we considered the importance of Christian scholarship for evangelists. The gospel message, we observed, is not brought to a man after salvation has already been received, but it is brought to him in order that salvation may be received; and the fuller and plainer the message is, so much the more effective is it for the saving of souls. The Need for the Defence of the Faith But Christian scholarship is also necessary, in the second place, for the defence of the faith, and to this aspect of the subject I invite your attention this afternoon. There are, indeed, those who tell us that no defence of the faith is necessary. "The Bible needs no defence," they say; "let us not be forever defending Christianity, but instead let us go forth joyously to propagate Christianity." But I have observed one curious fact -- when men talk thus about propagating Christianity without defending it, the thing that they are propagating is pretty sure not to be Christianity at all. They are propagating an anti-intellectualistic, non-doctrinal Modernism; and the reason why it requires no defence is simply that it is so completely in accord with the current of the age. It causes no more disturbance than does a chip that floats downward with a stream. In order to be an adherent of it, a man does not need to resist anything at all: he needs only to drift, and automatically his Modernism will be of the most approved and popular kind. One thing needs always to be remembered in the Christian Church--true Christianity, now as always, is radically contrary to the natural man, and it cannot possibly be maintained without a constant struggle. A chip that floats downwards with the current is always at peace; but around every rock the waters foam and rage. Show me a professing Christian of whom all men speak well, and I will show you a man who is probably unfaithful to his Lord. The Importance of Argument Certainly a Christianity that avoids argument is not the Christianity of the New Testament. The New Testament is full of argument in defence of the faith. The Epistles of Paul are full of argument--no one can doubt that. But even the words of Jesus are full of argument in defence of the truth of what Jesus was saying. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" Is not that a well-known form of reasoning, which the logicians would put in its proper category? Many of the parables of Jesus are argumentative in character. Even our Lord, who spake in the plenitude of divine authority, did condescend to reason with men. Everywhere the New Testament meets objections fairly, and presents the gospel as a thoroughly reasonable thing. Some years ago I was in a company of students who were discussing methods of Christian work. An older man, who had had much experience in working among students, arose and said that according to his experience you never win a man to Christ until you stop arguing with him. When he said that, I was not impressed. It is perfectly true, of course, that argument alone is quite insufficient to make a man a Christian. You may argue with him from now until the end of the world: you may bring forth the most magnificent arguments: but all will be in vain unless there be one other thing--the mysterious, creative power of the Holy Spirit in the new birth. But because argument is insufflcient, it does not follow that it is unnecessary. Sometimes it is used directly by the Holy Spirit to bring a man to Christ. But more frequently it is used indirectly. A man hears an answer to objections raised against the truth of the Christian religion: and at the time when he hears it he is not impressed. But afterwards, perhaps many years afterwards, his heart at last is touched: he is convicted of sin; he desires to be saved. Yet without that half-forgotten argument he could not believe: the gospel would not seem to him to be true, and he would remain in his sin. As it is, however, the thought of what he has heard long ago comes into his mind; Christian apologetics at last has its day, the way is open, and when he will believe he can believe because he has been made to see that believing is not an offence against truth. The Place of Christian Apologetics To-day Sometimes, when I have tried -- very imperfectly, I confess--to present arguments in defence of the resurrection of our Lord or of the truth, at this point or that, of God’s Word, someone has come up to me after the lecture and has said to me very kindly: "We liked it, and we are impressed with the considerations that you have adduced in defence of the faith; but, the trouble is, we all believed in the Bible already, and the persons that really needed the lecture are not here." When someone tells me that, I am not very greatly disturbed. True, I should have liked to have just as many sceptics as possible at my lecture; but if they are not there I do not necessarily think that my efforts are all in vain. What I am trying to do by my apologetic lecture is not merely--perhaps not even primarily--to convince people who are opposed to the Christian religion. Rather am I trying to give to Christian people-- Christian parents or Sunday School teachers--materials that they can use not in dealing with avowed sceptics, whose backs are up against Christianity, but in dealing with their own children or with the pupils in their classes, who love them, and long to be Christians as they are, but are troubled by the hostile voices on every side. It is but a narrow view of Christian apologetics that regards the defence of the faith as being useful only in the immediate winning of those who are arguing vigorously on the other side. Rather is it useful most of all in producing an intellectual atmospherr in which the acceptance of the gospel will seem to be something other than an offence against truth. Charles Spurgeon and D. L. Moody, in the latter years of the nineteenth century, were facing a situation entirely different from that which faces the evangelists of to-day: They were facing a world in which many people in their youth had been imbued with Christian convictions, and in which public opinion, to a very considerable extent, was in favour of the Christian faith. To-day, on the other hand, public opinion, even in England and America, is predominantly opposed to the Christian faith, and the people from their youth are imbued with the notion that Christian convictions are antiquated and absurd. Never was there a stronger call of God than there is to-day for a vigorous and scholarly defence of the faith. I believe that the more thoughtful of the evangelists are coming to recognise that fact. There was a time, twenty-five or thirty years ago, when the evangelists regarded the work of Christian apologists as either impious or a waste of time. Here are souls to be saved, they said; and professors in theological seminaries insist on confusing their students’ minds with a lot of German names, instead of preaching the simple gospel of Christ. But to-day a different temper often prevails. Evangelists, if they be real evangelists, real proclaimers of the unpopular message that the Bible contains, are coming more and more to see that they cannot do without those despised theological professors after all. It is useless to proclaim a gospel that people cannot hold to be true: no amount of emotional appeal can do anything against the truth. The question of fact cannot permanently be evaded. Did Christ or did He not rise from the dead: is the Bible trustworthy or is it false? In other words, the twelfth chapter of I. Corinthians is coming again to its rights. We are coming to understand how many-sided is the work of Christ: the eye is ceasing to "say to the hand, ’I have no need of thee.’ " Certainly one thing is clear--if Christian apologetics suffers, injury will come to every member of the body of Christ. But if we are to have Christian apologetics, if we are to have a defence of the faith, what kind of defence of the faith should it be? Controversy in the Church In the first place, it should be directed not only against the opponents outside the Church but also against the opponents within. The opponents of Holy Scripture do not become less dangerous, but they become far more dangerous when they are within ecclesiastical walls. At that point, I am well aware that widespread objection arises at the present time. Let us above all, men say, have no controversy in the Church: let us forget our small theological differences and all repeat together Paul’s hymn to Christian love. As I listen to such pleas, my Christian friends, I think I can detect in them rather plainly the voice of Satan. That voice is heard, sometimes, on the lips of good and truly Christian men, as at Caesarea Philippi it was heard on the lips of the greatest of the Twelve. But Satan’s voice it is, all the same. Sometimes it comes to us in rather deceptive ways. I remember, for example, what was said in my hearing on one occasion, by a man who is generally regarded as one of the leaders of the evangelical Christian Church. It was said at the climax of a day of devotional services. "If you go heresy-hunting for the sin in your own wicked hearts," said the speaker, as nearly as I can remember his words, "you will have no time for heresy-hunting for the heretics outside." Thus did temptation come through the mouth of a well-meaning man. The "heretics," to use the term that was used by that speaker, are, with their helpers, the indifferentists, in control of the church within the bounds of which that utterance was made, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, as they are in control of nearly all the larger Protestant churches in the world. A man hardly needs to "hunt" them very long if he is to oppose them. All that he needs to do is to be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, and his opposition to those men will follow soon enough. But is it true, as this speaker seemed to imply, that there is a conflict between faithfulness to Christ in the ecclesiastical world and the cultivation of holiness in one’s own inner life? My friends, it is not true, but false. A man cannot successfully go heresy-hunting against the sin in his own life if he is willing to deny his Lord in the presence of the enemies outside. The two battles are intimately connected. A man cannot fight successfully in one unless he fights also in the other. Prayer and Theological Differences Again, we are told that our theological differences will disappear if we will just get down on our knees together in prayer. Well, I can only say about that kind of prayer, which is indifferent to the question whether the gospel is true or false, that it is not Christian prayer; it is bowing down in the house of Rimmon. God save us from it! Instead, may God lead us to the kind of prayer in which, recognising the dreadful condition of the visible Church, recognising the unbelief and the sin which dominate it to-day, we who are opposed to the current of the age both in the world and in the Church, facing the facts as they are, lay those facts before God, as Hezekiah laid before Him the threatening letter of the Assyrian enemy, and humbly ask Him to give the answer. Controversy and Revival Again, men say that instead of engaging in controversy in the Church, we ought to pray to God for a revival; instead of polemics, we ought to have evangelism. Well, what kind of revival do you think that will be? What sort of evangelism is it that is indifferent to the question what evangel is it that is to be preached? Not a revival in the New Testament sense, not the evangelism that Paul meant when he said, "Woe is be unto me, if I preach not the gospel." No, my friends, there can be no true evangelism which makes common cause with the enemies of the Cross of Christ, Souls will hardly be saved unless the evangelists can say with Paul: "If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we preached unto you, let him be accursed!" Every true revival is born in controversy, and leads to more controversy. That has been true ever since our Lord said that He came not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword. And do you know what I think will happen when God sends a new Reformation upon the Church? We cannot tell when that blessed day will come. But when the blessed day does come, I think we can say at least one result that it will bring. We shall hear nothing on that day about the evils of controversy in the Church. All that will be swept away as with a mighty flood. A man who is on fire with a message never talks in that wretched, feeble way, but proclaims the truth joyously and fearlessly, in the presence of every high thing that is lifted up against the gospel of Christ. The Holy Spirit and Doctrine But men tell us that instead of engaging in controversy about doctrine we ought to seek the power of the living Holy Spirit. A few years ago we had in America, as I suppose you had here, a celebration of the anniversay of Pentecost. At that time, our Presbyterian Church was engaged in a conflict, the gist of which concerned the question of the truth of the Bible. Was the Church going to insist, or was it not going to insist, that its ministers should believe that the Bible is true? At that time of decision, and almost, it seemed, as though to evade the issue. many sermons were preached on the subject of the Holy Spirit. Do you think that those sermons, if they really were preached in that way, were approved by Him with whom they dealt.. I fear not, my friends. A man can hardly receive the power of the Holy Spirit if he seeks to evade the question whether the blessed Book that the Spirit has given us is true or false. Positive Preaching! Again, men tell us that our preaching should be positive and not negative, that we can preach the truth without attacking error. But if we follow that advice we shall have to close our Bible and desert its teachings. The New Testament is a polemic book almost from beginning to end. Some years ago I was in a company of teachers of the Bible in the colleges and other educational institutions of America. One of the most eminent theological professors in the country made an address. In it he admitted that there are unfortunate controversies about doctrine in the Epistles of Paul; but, said he in effect, the real essence of Paul’s teaching is found in the hymn to Christian love in the thirteenth chapter of 1. Corinthians: and we can avoid controversy to-day, if we will only devote the chief attention to that inspiring hymn. In reply, I am bound to say that the example was singularly ill-chosen. That hymn to Christian love is in the midst of a great polemic passage: it would never have been written if Paul had been opposed to controversy with error in the Church. It was because his soul was stirred within him by a wrong use of the spiritual gifts that he was able to write that glorious hymn. So it is always in the Church. Every really great Christian utterance, it may almost be said, is born in controversy. It is when men have felt compelled to take a stand against error, that they have risen to the really great heights in the celebration of truth. The Method of Defence But in defending the faith against the attack upon it that is being made both without and within the Church, what method of defence should be used? In answer to that question, I have time only to say two things. In the first place, the defence, with the polemic that it involves, should be perfectly open and above board. I have just stated, that I believe in controversy. But in controversy I do try to observe the Golden Rule; I do try to do unto others as I would have others do unto me. And the kind of controversy that pleases me in an opponent is a controversy that is altogether frank. Sometimes I go into a company of modern men. A man gets up upon the platform, looks out benignly upon the audience. and says: "I think. brethren. that we are all agreed about this"--and then proceeds to trample ruthlessly upon everything that is dearest to my heart. When he does that, I feel aggrieved. I do not feel aggrieved because he gives free expression to opinions that are different from mine. But I feel aggrieved because he calls me his "brother" and assumes, prior to investigation, that I agree with what he is going to say. A kind of controversy that pleases me better than that is a kind of controversy in which a man gets up upon the platform, looks out upon the audience. and says: "What is this? I see that one of those absurd Fundamentalists has somehow strayed into this company of educated men"--and then proceeds to call me by every opprobrious term that is to be found in one of the most unsavoury paragraphs of Roget’s "Thesaurus." When he does that, I do not feel too much distressed. I can even endure that application to me of the term "Fundamentalist," though for the life of me I cannot see why adherents of the Christian religion, which has been in the world for some nineteen hundred years, should suddenly be made an "-ism," and be called by some strange new name. The point is that that speaker at least does me the honour of recognising that a profound difference separates my view from his. We understand each other perfectly, and it is quite possible that we may be, if not brothers (I object to the degradation of that word ), yet at least good friends. A Scholarly Defence of the Faith In the second place, the defence of the faith should be of a scholarly kind. Mere denunciation does not constitute an argument; and before a man can refute successfully an argument of an opponent, he must understand the argument that he is endeavouring to refute. Personalities, in such debate, should be kept in the background; and analysis of the motives of one’s opponents has little place. That principle, certainly in America, has been violated constantly by the advocates of the Modernist or indifferentist position in the Church. It has been violated by them far more than by the defenders of God’s Word. Yet the latter, strangely enough, have received the blame. The representatives of the dominant Modern-indifferentist forces have engaged in the most violent adjectival abuse of their opponents: yet they have been called sweet and beautiful and tolerant: the defenders of the Bible, and of the historic position of the Church have spoken courteously, though plainly, in opposition, and have been called "bitter" and "extreme." I am reminded of the way in which an intelligent American Indian is reported (I saw it in the American magazine, "The Saturday Evening Post," a few months ago) to have characterised the terminology used in histories of the wars between the white men and the men of his race. "When you won," said the Indian, "it was, according to your histories, a ’battle’; when we won, it was a ’massacre.’" Such, I suppose, is the treatment of the unpopular side in every conflict. Certainly it is the treatment which we receive to-day. Men have found it to be an effective way of making themselves popular, to abuse the representatives of so unpopular a cause as that which we Bible-believing Christians represent. Yet I do not think we ought to be dismayed. If in these days of unbelief and defection in the Church we are called upon to bear just a little bit of the reproach of Christ, we ought to count ourselves honoured, and certainly we ought not to mitigate in the slightest measure the plainness either of our defence of the truth or of our warnings against error. Men’s favour is worth very little after all, in comparison with the favour of Christ. But certainly we should strive to keep ourselves free from that with which we are charged. Because our opponents are guilty, that is no reason why we should make ourselves guilty too. Knowledge of Truth and Error It is no easy thing to defend the Christian faith against the mighty attack that is being brought against it at the present day. Knowledge of the truth is necessary, and also clear acquaintance with the forces hostile to the truth in modern thought. At that point, a final objection may arise. Does it not involve a terrible peril to men’s souls to ask them--for example, in their preparation for the ministry--to acquaint themselves with things that are being said against the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Would it not be safer to learn only of the truth, without acquainting ourselves with error? We answer, "Of course it would be safer." It would be far safer, no doubt, to live in a fool’s paradise and close one’s eyes to what is going on in the world to-day, just as it is safer to remain in secure dugouts rather than to go over the top in some great attack. We save our souls, perhaps, by such tactics, but the Lord’s enemies remain in possession of the field. It is a great battle indeed, this intellectual battle of to-day; deadly perils await every man who engages in that conflict; but it is the Lord’s battle, and He is a great Captain in the fight. There are, indeed, some perils that should be avoided--particularly the peril of acquainting ourselves with what is said against the Christian religion without ever obtaining any really orderly acquaintance with what can be said for it. That is the peril to which a candidate for the ministry, for example, subjects himself when he attends only one of the theological colleges where the professors are adherents of the dominant naturalistic view. What does such a course of study mean? It means simply this, that a man does not think the historic Christian faith, which has given him his spiritual nurture, to be worthy of a fair hearing. I am not asking him to close his eyes to what can be said against the historic faith. But, I am telling him that the logical order is to learn what a thing is before one attends exclusively to what can be said against it: and I am telling him futther, that the way to learn what a thing is is not to listen first to its opponents, but to grant a full hearing to those who believe in it with all their minds and hearts. After that has been done, after our students, by pursuing the complete course of study, have obtained something like an orderly acquaintance with the marvellous system of truth that the Bible contains, then the more they listen to what can be said against it, the better defenders of it they Will probably be. Let us, therefore, pray that God will raise up for us to-day true defenders of the Christian faith. We are living in the midst of a mighty conflict against the Christian religion. The conflict is carries on with intellectual weapons. Whether we like it or not, there are millions upon millions of our fellow-men who reject Christianity for the simple reason that they do not believe Christianity to be true. What is to be done in such a situation? Past History of the Church We can learn, at this point, a lesson from the past history of the Church. This is not the first time during the past nineteen hundred years when intellectual objections have been raised against the gospel of Christ. How have those objections been treated? Have they been evaded, or have they been faced? The answer is writ large in the history of the Church. The objections have been faced. God has raised up, in time of need, not only evangelists to appeal to the multitudes, but also Christian scholars to meet the intellectual attack. So it will be in our day, my friends. The Christian religion flourishes not in the darkness but in the light. Intellectual slothfulness is but a quack remedy for unbelief; the true remedy is consecration of intellectual powers to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us not fear for the result. Many times, in the course of the past nineteen hundred years, men have predicted that in a generation or so the old gospel would be forever forgotten. Yet the gospel has burst forth again, and set the world aflame. So it may be in our age, in God’s good time and in His way. Sad indeed are the substitutes for the gospel of Christ. The Church has been beguiled into By-path Meadow, and is now groaning in the dungeon of Giant Despair. Happy is the man who can point out to such a Church the straight high road that leads over hill and valley to the City of God. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 07.03. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH ======================================================================== III. THE IMPORTANCE OF CHRISTIAN SCHOLARSHIP FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH We have been discussing to-day the uses of Christian scholarship. It is important, we showed this morning, for evangelism: it is important, in the second place, as we showed this afternoon, for the defence of the faith. But it has still another use. It is important, in the third place, for the building up of the Church. The Apostolic Practice At this point, as at the first two points, we have the New Testament on our side. At the beginning of the Church’s life, as we are told in the Book of Acts, the Apostolic Church continued steadfastly, not only in fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers, but also in the apostles’ teaching. There is no encouragement whatever, in the New Testament, for the notion that when a man has been converted all has been done for him that needs to be done. Read the Epistles of Paul, in particular, from that point of view. Paul was the greatest of evangelists, and he gloried particularly in preaching the gospel just in places where it had never been heard; yet his Epistles are full of the edification or building up of those who have already been won; and the whole New Testament clearly discourages the exclusive nourishment of Christians with milk instead of with solid food. Doctrinal Preaching In the modern Church, this important work of edification has been sadly neglected; it has been neglected even by some of those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God. Too often doctrinal preaching has been pushed from the primary place, in which it rightly belongs, to a secondary place: exhortation has taken the place of systematic instruction; and the people have not been built up. Is it any wonder that a Church thus nurtured is carried away with every wind of doctrine and is helpless in the presence of unbelief? A return to solid instruction in the pulpit, at the desk of the Sunday School teacher, and particularly in the home, is one of the crying needs of the hour. I do not mean that a sermon should be a lecture; I do not mean that a preacher should address his congregation as a teacher addresses his class. No doubt some young preachers do err in that way. Impressed with the truth that we are trying to present tonight, they have endeavoured to instruct the people in Christian doctrine: but in their efforts to be instructive they have put entirely too many points into one sermon and the congregation has been confused. That error, unquestionably, should be avoided. But it should be avoided not by the abandonment of doctrinal preaching, but by our making doctrinal preaching real preaching. The preacher should present to his congregation the doctrine that the Holy Scripture contains; but he should fire the presentation of that doctrine with the devotion of the heart, and he should show how it can be made fruitful for Christian life. Modern Preaching One thing that impresses me about preaching to-day is the neglect of true edification even by evangelical preachers. What the preacher says is often good, and by it genuine Christian emotion is aroused. But a man could sit under the preaching for a year or ten years and at the end of the time he would be just about where he was at the beginning. Such a lamentably small part of Scripture truth is used; the congregation is never made acquainted with the wonderful variety of what the Bible contains. I trust that God may raise up for us preachers of a different type: I trust that those preachers may not only build upon the one foundation which is Jesus Christ, but may build upon that foundation not wood, hay, stubble, but gold, silver, precious stones. Do you, if you are preachers or teachers in the Church, want to be saved merely so as through fire, or do you want your work to endure in the day of Jesus Christ? There is one work at least which I think we may hold, in all humility, to be sure to stand the test of judgment fire; it is the humble impartation, Sunday by Sunday, or day by day, of a solid knowledge not of what you say or what any man has said, but of what God has told us in His Word. Is that work too lowly; is it too restricted to fire the ambition of our souls? Nay, my friends, a hundred lifetimes would not begin to explore the riches of what the Scriptures contain. What a world in itself the Bible is, my friends! Happy are those who in the providence of God can make the study of it very specifically the business of their lives; but happy also is every Christian who has it open before him and seeks by daily study to penetrate somewhat into the wonderful richness of what it contains. The Revelation of God in the Bible A man does not need to read very long in the Bible before that richness begins to appear. It appears in the very first verse of the Bible; for the very first verse sets forth the being of God: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." We are told to-day, indeed, that that is metaphysics, and that it is a matter of indifference to the Christian man. Footnote: With what follows compare the treatment by the lecturer in "What is Faith," 1925. pp. 26-66. To be a Christian, it is said, a man does not need at all to settle the question how the universe came into being. The doctrine of "fiat creation," we are told, belongs to philosophy, not to religion; and we can be worshippers of goodness even though goodness is not clothed with the vulgar trappings of power. But to talk thus is to talk nonsense, for the simple reason that goodness divorced from power is a mere abstraction which can never call forth the devotion of a man’s heart. Goodness inheres only in persons; goodness implies the power to act. Make God good only and not powerful, and you have done away not only with God, but with goodness as well. Very different from such a pale abstraction, which identifies God with one aspect of the universe, is the God whom the first verse of Genesis presents. That God is the living God; it is He by Whom the worlds were made and by Whom they are upheld. No, my friends, it is altogether wrong to say that the Christian religion can do perfectly well with many different types of philosophy, and that metaphysical questions are a matter of indifference to the Christian man. Nothing could be farther from the truth. As a matter of fact, everything else that the Bible contains is based upon the stupendous metaphysic that the first verse of Genesis contains. That was the metaphysic of our Lord Jesus Christ, and without it everything that He said and everything that He did would be vain. Underlying all His teaching and all His example is the stupendous recognition that God i8 the Maker and Ruler of the world: and the Bible from beginning to end depends upon that same "philosophy" of a personal God. The Revelation of God in Nature That philosophy ought to have been clear from an examination of the universe as it is; the Maker is revealed by the things that He has made. "The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth His handiwork." "The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." Natural religion has, therefore, the full sanction of the Bible: and at the foundation of every theological course should be philosophical apologetics, including the proof of the existence of a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world. I know there are those who tell us to day that no such study is necessary; there are those who tell us that we should begin with Jesus, and that all we need to know is that God is like Jesus. They talk to us, in that sense, about the "Christlike God." But do you not see that if you relinquish the thought of a personal God, Creator and Ruler of the world, you are dishonouring the teaching of Jesus from beginning to end. Jesus saw in the lilies of the field the weaving of God: and the man who wipes out of his consciousness the whole wonderful revelation of God in nature, and then says that all that he needs to know is that God is like Jesus, is dishonouring at the very root of His teaching and of His example that same Jesus whom he is purporting to honour and serve. The Need for Fuller Revelation The existence of a personal God should have been clear to us from the world as it is, but that revelation of God in nature has been obscured by sin, and to recover it and confirm it we need the blessed supernatural revelation that the Scriptures contain. How graciously that revelation is given! When we rise from the reading of the Bible, if we have read with understanding and with faith, what a wonderful knowledge we have of the living God! In His presence, indeed, we can never lose the sense of wonder. Infinitesimal are the things that we know compared with the things that we do not know; a dreadful curtain veils the being of God from the eyes of man. Yet that curtain, in the infinite goodness of God, has been pulled gently aside, and we have been granted just a look beyond. Never can we cease to wonder in the presence of God: but enough knowledge has been granted to us that we may adore. The Revelation of Man in the Bible The second great mystery that the Bible presents is the mystery of man. And we are not allowed to wait long for that mystery. It is presented to us, as is the mystery of God, in the early part of the first book of the Bible. Man is there presented in his utter distinctness from the rest of the creation: and then he is presented to us in the awful mystery of his sin. At that point, it is interesting to observe how the Bible, unlike modern religious literature, always defines its terms: and at the beginning, when the Bible speaks of sin, it makes clear exactly what sin is. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, if you will pardon an allusion to that upon which your speaker was brought up, "sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God." I do not remember, at the moment, what proof-texts the authors of the Westminster Standards used to support that definition. But they need hardly have looked farther for such proof-texts than to the early part of Genesis. "Ye shall not eat of the tree," said God: man ate of the tree and died. Sin is there presented with the utmost clearness as the transgression of law. So it is presented in the whole of the Bible. Sin and law belong together. When we say "sin" we have said "law": when we have said "law," then, man being what he now is, we have said "sin." At the present time, the existence of law is being denied. Men no longer believe that there is such a thing as a law of God; and naturally they do not believe that there is such a thing as sin. Thoughtful men, who are not Christians, are aware of the problem that this stupendous change in human thinking presents to the modern world. Now that men no longer believe that there is a law of God, now that men no longer believe in obligatory morality, now that the moral law has been abandoned, what is to be put in its place, in order that an ordinarily decent human life may be preserved upon the earth. It cannot be said that the answers proposed for that question are as satisfactory as the way in which the question itself is put. It is impossible to keep back the raging seas of human passion with the flimsy mud embankments of an appeal either to self interest, or to what Walter Lippmann calls "disinterestedness." Those raging seas can only be checked by the solid masonry of the law of God. What is Wrong with the World? Men are wondering to-day what is wrong with the world. They are conscious of the fact that they are standing over some terrible abyss. Awful ebullitions rise from that abyss. We have lost altogether the sense of the security of our Western civilisation. Men are wondering what is wrong. It is perfectly clear what is wrong. The law of God has been torn up, as though it were a scrap of paper, and the inevitable result is appearing with ever greater clearness. When will the law be re-discovered? When it is re-discovered, that will be a day of terror for mankind: but it will also be a day of joy; for the law will be a schoolmaster unto Christ. Its terrors will drive men back to the little wicket gate, and to the way that leads to that place somewhat ascending where they will see the Cross. Those are the two great presuppositions of everything else that the Bible contains; the two great presuppositions are the majesty of the transcendent God and the guilt and misery of man in his sin. But we are not left to wait long for the third of the great mysteries--the mystery of salvation. That, too, is presented at the beginning of Genesis, in the promise of a redemption to come. The rest of the Bible is the unfolding of that promise. And when I think of that unfolding, when I try to take the Bible, not in part, but as a whole, when I contemplate not this doctrine or that, but the marvellous system of doctrine that the Bible contains, I am amazed that tn the presence of such riches men can be content with that other gospel which now dominates the preaching in the Church. The Gospel Unfolded in Scripture When I think again of the wonderful metaphysic in the first verse of Genesis--"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth"--when I think of the way in which throughout the Old Testament the majesty of that Creator God is presented with wonderful clearness, until the presentation culminates in the matchless fortieth chapter of Isaiah--"It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers, that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in"--when I think of the way in which in that same chapter the tenderness and the gentleness of that same awful God are represented, in a manner far beyond all human imagining--"He shall feed His flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young"--when I think of the wonderful gallery of portraits in the Old Testament, and compare it with the best efforts of men who have sought to penetrate into the secrets of human life and of the human heart: when I think of the gracious dealings of God with His people in Old Testament times, until the fulness of the time was come, and the Saviour was born into the world: when I think of the way in which His coming was accomplished, by a stupendous miracle indeed, but in wonderful quietness and lowliness; when I think of the songs of the heavenly host, and the way in which the infant Saviour was greeted in the Temple by those who had waited for the redemption of Jerusalem; when I stand in awe before that strange answer of the youthful Jesus, "Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business?"; when I try to keep my imagination at rest, as Scripture bids me do, regarding those long, silent years at Nazareth; when I think of the day of His showing to Israel; when I think of the sternness of His teaching, the way in which He pulled the cloak from human sin, the way in which, by revealing through His words and His example the real demands of God, He took from mankind its last hope of any salvation to be obtained through its own goodness; when I think again of the wonderful kindness of the Saviour; when I read how He forgave where none other would forgive, and helped where all other helpers had failed; when I think, above all, of that blessed thing which He did not only for men of long ago, who saw Him with their bodily eyes, but for every one of us if we be united with Him through faith, when He died in our stead upon the Cross, and said in triumph, at the moment when His redeeming work was done, "It is finished"; when I enter into both the fear and the joy of those who found the tomb empty and saw the vision of angels which also said, "He is not here: for He is risen"; when I think of the way in which He was known to His disciples in the breaking of bread; when I think of Pentecost and the pouring out of His Spirit upon the Church; when I attend to the wonderful way in which the Bible tells us how this Saviour may be our Saviour to-day, how you and I, sitting in this house to-night, can come into His presence, in even far more intimate fashion than that which was enjoyed by those who pushed their way unto Him as He sat amidst scribes and Pharisees when He was on earth; when I think of the application of His redeeming work by the Holy Spirit: "Be of sin the double cure. Cleanse me from its guilt and power"; when I think of the glories of the Christian life, opened to us, not on the basis of human striving, but of that mighty act of God; when I read the last book of the Bible, and think of the unfolding of the glorious hope of that time when the once lowly Jesus, now seated on the throne of all being, shall come again with power--when I think of these things, I am impressed with the fact that the other gospel, which is dominant in the Church today, preached though it is by brilliant men, and admirable though it might have seemed if we had not compared it with something infinitely greater, is naught but "weak and beggarly elements," and that the humblest man who believes that the Bible is the Word of God is possessed of riches greater by far than all the learning of all the world and all the eloquence of all the preachers who now have the ear of an unfaithful Church. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 08.00.1. THE LITERATURE AND HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES ======================================================================== The Literature and History of New Testament Times by J. Gresham Machen ***** This module is brought to you by www.DoctorDaveT.com For more Bible Study modules that are conservative evangelical Bible believing Christ honoring make sure you stop by www.DoctorDaveT.com! We have hundreds of modules easily organized by topics, like these: Old Testament Exposition (topic modules) New Testament Exposition (topic modules) Doctrinal Theology (topic modules) Commentary Modules Dictionary Modules and a whole lot more! Please visit www.DoctorDaveT.com! Dave ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 08.00.3. COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ======================================================================== Copyright Information Copyright, 1915, by John Gresham Machen Philadelphia, Pa. The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work Now in the public domain. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 08.00.4. CONTENTS ======================================================================== Contents 00.5. Introduction 1 . The New Testament 2. The Roman Background of Christianity 3. The Greek Background of Christianity 4. The Jewish Background of Christianity: I. Palestinian Judaism 5. The Jewish Background of Christianity: II. The Judaism of the Dispersion 6. The Messiah 7. The Book of The Acts 8. The Cross and the Resurrection the Foundation of Apostolic Preaching 9. The Beginnings of the Christian Church 10. The First Persecution 11. The First Gentile Converts 12. The Conversion of Paul 13. The Church at Antioch 14. The Gospel to the Gentiles 15. The Council at Jerusalem 16. The Gospel Carried into Europe 17. Encouragement for Recent Converts 18. The Conflict with the Judaizers 19. Problems of a Gentile Church 20. The Apostle and His Ministry 21. The Gospel of Salvation 22. Paul’s Journey to Rome 23. The Supremacy of Christ 24. The Church of Christ 25. Christ and His Followers 26. Training New Leaders 27. A Presentation of Jesus to Jewish Christians 28. A Graphic Sketch of the Life of Jesus 29. A Greek Historian’s Account of Jesus 30. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple 31. The Jesus of the Gospels 32. A Document of the Jerusalem Church 33. Jesus the Fulfillment of the Old Testament 34. Christian Fortitude 35. The Christian’s Attitude toward Error and Immorality 36. The Life of the Children of God 37. The Messages of the Living Christ 38. A Vision of the Final Triumph 39. Review 40. The Church and the World 41. The Christian Message 42. The Word and the Sacraments 43. Prayer 44. The Congregation 45. The Relief of the Needy 46. Organizing for Service 47. A Mission for the World 48. The Christian Ideal of Personal Morality 49. Christianity and Human Relationships 50. The Christian Use of the Intellect 51. The Christian Hope and the Present Possession 52. Retrospect: the First Christian Century ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 08.00.5. INTRODUCTION ======================================================================== Introduction The general purpose of this course of lessons has been set forth in the introduction to the Student’s Text Book. There is a tendency in the modern Church to neglect the study of Bible history. Such neglect will inevitably result in a loss of power. The gospel is a record of something that has happened, and uncertainty about the gospel is fatal weakness. Furthermore the historical study of the apostolic age — that age when divine revelation established the great principles of the Church’s life — is the best corrective for a thousand vagaries. Much can be learned from modern pedagogy; but after all what is absolutely fundamental, both for teacher and for student, is an orderly acquaintance with the Bible facts. The Teacher’s Manual, therefore, is intended not merely to offer suggestions as to methods of teaching, but primarily to supplement the teacher’s knowledge. A teacher who knows only what he actually imparts to the class is inevitably dull. The true teacher brings forth out of his treasure things new and old. The sections in the Teacher’s Manual, since they are intended to be supplementary, should not be read until after careful attention has been paid to the corresponding sections in the Student’s Text Book. Moreover, both sections together are of course in themselves insufficient. They should be supplemented by other reading. Suggestions about reading have been put at the end of every lesson. Here, however, a few general remarks may be made. Davis’ “Dictionary of the Bible” and Purves’ “Christianity in the Apostolic Age,” which have been recommended even to the student, will be to the teacher almost invaluable. The earnest teacher will also desire to refer to good commentaries on The Acts. The commentaries which have been mentioned in connection with the individual lessons are based upon the English Bible; but every teacher who has any knowledge of Greek, however slight, should use, instead, the commentary of Knowling, in “The Expositor’s Greek Testament.” For the life of Paul, Lewin’s “Life and Epistles of St. Paul” and the similar book of Conybeare and Howson are still very valuable for their vivid and extended descriptions of the scenes of the missionary journeys. A similar service is rendered, in more up-to-date form, by the various works of Ramsay. Stalker’s “Life of St. Paul” is a good handbook. M’Clymont’s “New Testament and Its Writers” contains instructive, though very brief, introductions to all of the New Testament books. Hastings’ “Dictionary of the Bible” and “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels” number among their contributors many writers of many opinions. They are rich in references to the vast literature of modern Biblical discussion. The writer of this course has derived information from many quarters. Definite acknowledgment of indebtedness, since no originality is claimed, may be regarded as unnecessary. It is a pleasure, however, to render special thanks to Rev. Professor William Park Armstrong, D. D., of Princeton Theological Seminary, whose wise counsel has been of incalculable assistance at many points. The actual presentation of the lessons will, of course, vary according to the needs of the classes and the preferences of the teachers. The Student’s Text Book may often provide a convenient order of presentation. That book is intended not merely to be read, but also to be studied. It is to be regarded as a sort of outline of the course. The “topics for study” are intended to serve a double purpose. In the first place, they will test the student’s knowledge of the lesson material; in the second place, they will afford encouragement to special investigation. Individual topics may often be assigned for thorough treatment to individual students, while the class as a whole may use all the topics as guides to a general knowledge. Personal interest in the individual students is of the utmost importance. Instruction has a tenfold value when it is backed by friendship. The relation of the students to the Church should be a matter of especial concern. If any member of the class has not confessed his faith in Christ, the study of this year offers abundant opportunity for a word in season. Our study reveals the Church as a divine institution. Shall we then stand aloof? In this course the teacher has the opportunity of introducing young people of maturing minds to the historical study of the New Testament. There could be no more inspiring task. Carried about with every wind of doctrine, the Church is sadly in need of an assured anchorage. That anchorage should be sought in history. Ignorance is weak; sound knowledge, sought with prayer, and blessed by the Spirit of God, will lead to a more stalwart and more intelligent faith. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 08.01. THE NEW TESTAMENT ======================================================================== The New Testament This is an introductory lesson. It should be used, first of all, to answer intelligent general questions about the New Testament. Some of these questions will be discussed briefly under Sections 1 to 3, below. The historical study of the New Testament, based upon a study of the circumstances under which the individual books were written, will probably be new to many of the students. The new point of view should be used to awaken interest. The climax of the lesson should, however, be a presentation of the unity of the New Testament as the very Word of God to us. Historical study should be made — and can be made — subservient to reverent and thankful obedience. 1. The Origin and Meaning of the NameThe English word “testament” comes from a Latin word. The equivalent Greek word is hard to translate. As used in the Greek Bible it may mean either “covenant” or “testament.” Usually it should probably be translated “covenant.” The phrase “new covenant” occurs about five times in the New Testament. In none of these passages does the phrase refer to the “New Testament” in our sense. It designates a new relationship into which men have been received with God. The old covenant was made, through the mediatorship of Moses, with the Hebrew nation; the new covenant, hinted at in prophecy, Jeremiah 31:31, and instituted by the Lord Jesus, 1 Corinthians 11:25, was made with all those, of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, who should through faith accept the salvation offered by Christ. Those who believe become, like Israel of old, God’s chosen people, and enter into the warmth and joy of the divine communion. The names “old and new covenants,” then, were applied first to these two special relationships into which God entered with men. Afterwards the names were applied to the books in which the conditions of those relationships were set forth. Perhaps it would have been better if we had started to say “New Covenant” where we now say “New Testament.” At any rate the idea alluded to in the name is the inspiring idea, realized in Christ, of an alliance with God. The New Testament is the divine treaty by the terms of which God has received us rebels and enemies into peace with himself. 2. One Book, or a Collection of Books? In the first place, the New Testament may be treated in every respect as a single book. That course is adopted by many of the most devoted lovers of the Bible. By them the Bible is treated simply as a textbook of religion. Passages are quoted indiscriminately from all parts of it, without much regard to the context. The wide differences of form and of spirit among the various books are ignored. The historical implications of the books are of course accepted as true, but practically they are left quite unassimilated. Now let us be quite plain about one thing. The men who use the Bible in this way are right in the main point. They treat the Bible as the guide of life for time and for eternity. And if by the use of the Bible we can come into communion with God, we can afford to miss a good many other things. Nevertheless, the Bible is as a matter of fact not a mere textbook of religion, and if we treat it as such we miss much of its richness. If the Bible were merely a systematic treatise, it would be far easier to interpret. The interpreter would be spared a great deal of trouble, but the burden would be heaped upon the preacher. As it is, the Bible is itself a preacher, because it is in such close contact with the actual experience of men of flesh and blood. Its general teachings are given us in large measure only through the medium of history, through the medium of example. In order to arrive at the general truths, therefore, intellectual labor is often necessary. God has made things harder for the intellect that he may strike home the more surely to the heart. If Paul had written a systematic theology, the New Testament way of salvation might in some ways have been plainer than it is. It would have been plain to the intellect, but it would have needed interpretation to the heart. Conviction can be wrought only by the immediate impact of personal life. The theology of Paul, of itself, might be a dead thing; the religious experience of Paul, interwoven with his theology, and bared before us in the epistles, is irresistible. In the second place, the historical form of the Bible may be considered at the expense of its spiritual content. The Bible may be treated simply as a storybook. Such a method of treatment is exceedingly common to-day. “The Bible as literature” is its slogan. This treatment has simply missed the main point altogether. It is incomparably inferior to that treatment which takes the Bible as a mere textbook of religion. The Bible as an addition to the world’s history or the world’s literature has, indeed, considerable educational value. But it does not give eternal life. A third method is possible, and that third method is right. The historical and literary form of the Bible is recognized to the full. But it is regarded not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. Historical study is necessary not only to establish to the modern man the saving facts of the gospel, but also to do justice to the dramatic narrative form in which God has revealed to us his eternal will. It is nearer the truth, then, to say that the New Testament is a single book than to say that it is a collection of books. Its parts differ widely among themselves, in authorship, in date, in circumstances, in aim. Those differences must be studied carefully, if the full meaning is to be obtained. But widely as the New Testament writings differ among themselves, they differ yet far more widely from all other books. They presented themselves originally to the Church with a divine authority, which is foreign to the ordinary writings of men. That authority has been confirmed through the Christian centuries. Those who have submitted their lives to the New Testament have never been confounded. The New Testament has been to them the voice of God. 3. The Four Divisions of the New Testament (1) The Gospels. — Christianity is based upon historical facts. Attempts, it is true, are often made to separate it from history. But they are bound to result in failure. Give up history, and you can retain some things. But you can never retain a gospel. For “gospel” means “good news,” and “good news” means tidings, information derived from the witness of others. In other words, it means history. The question whether religion can be independent of history is really just the old question whether we need a gospel. The gospel is news that something has happened — something that puts a different face upon life. What that something is is told us in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. (2) The Book of The Acts.— The Book of The Acts is a history of the extension of Christianity from Jerusalem out into the Gentile world. It represents that extension as guided by the Spirit of God, and thus exhibits the divine warrant for the acceptance of us Gentiles, and for the development of the Christian Church. It provides the outline of apostolic history without which we could not understand the other New Testament books, especially the epistles of Paul. It illustrates to the full what has been said above about the value of the historical form in which the Bible teaching is presented. By reading this vivid narrative we obtain an impression of the power of the Holy Spirit which no systematic treatise could give. (3) The Epistles. — The Epistles of the New Testament are not just literature put in an epistolary form, but real letters. It is true that the addresses of some of them are very broad, for example, those of James and of 1 Peter; and that some of them contain no specific address at all, for example, Hebrews and 1 John. But the great majority of them, at least, were written under very special circumstances and intended to be read first by very definite people. The chief letter-writer of the New Testament was the apostle Paul. To a certain extent he used the forms of letter-writing of his time, just as everyone to-day begins a letter with ‘‘Dear Sir.” Within the last twenty years a great number of Greek private letters, dating from about the time of Paul, have been discovered in Egypt, where they have been preserved by the dry climate. It is interesting to compare them with the letters of Paul. There are some striking similarities in language; for both these letter-writers and Paul used the natural language of daily life rather than the extremely artificial language of the literature of that period. To a certain extent, also, Paul used the same epistolary forms. The differences, however, are even more instructive than the resemblances. It is true, the Pauline epistles are not literary treatises, but real letters. But on the other hand they are not ordinary private letters intended to be read and thrown away, like the letters that have been discovered in Egypt. Most of them were intended to be read originally in churches. It is natural, then, that they should have been written in a loftier style than is to be found in mere business communications and the like. And if Paul uses the epistolary forms of his time he uses them in an entirely new way. Even the mere openings of the epistles are made the vehicle of Christian truth. “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” — there is nothing like that in contemporary letter-writing. The openings of the Pauline epistles form an interesting study. They are varied with wonderful skill to suit the varied character and subject matter of the letters that follow. Paul is never merely formal. The letters of Paul differ widely among themselves. The Epistle to the Romans is almost a systematic exposition of the plan of salvation. Philemon is concerned with a little personal matter between Paul and one of his converts. But even where Paul is most theological he is personal, and even where he is most personal, he is faithful to his theology. Theology in him is never separate from experience, and experience never separate from theology. Even petty problems he settles always in the light of eternal principles. Hence his letters, though the specific circumstances that gave rise to them are past and gone, will never be antiquated. (4) The Apocalypse. — The Christian life is a life of hope. Inwardly we are free, but our freedom is not yet fully realized. We are in danger of losing our hope in the trials or in the mere humdrum of life. To keep it alive, the Apocalypse opens a glorious vision of the future. The vision is presented in symbolical language. It is not intended to help in any calculation of the times and seasons. But it shows us the Lamb upon the throne — and that is enough. In the Library. — Davis, “Dictionary of the Bible”: articles on “Bible, “Canon of the New Testament,” “Covenant,” “New Testament,” and “Testament.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 08.02. THE ROMAN BACKGROUND OF CHRISTIANITY ======================================================================== The Roman Background of Christianity Christianity is not a human product. It is not to be explained by what preceded it on the earth. It is a new beginning in history, an immediate exercise of the divine power. But though Christianity was not produced by men, it operates upon men, and upon men subject to all the ordinary conditions of earthly life. Primitive Christianity, then, which we shall study this year, cannot be understood fully without an examination of the historical conditions under which it arose. In the class, the lesson should probably be approached through the New Testament examples of the general principles which are outlined in the lesson helps. Examples will be found in the passages assigned in the Student’s Text Book, and others should be sought for elsewhere. 1. The Establishment of the Empire By the middle of the first century before Christ the power of the Roman republic extended around the Mediterranean Sea. Victories abroad, however, were accompanied by serious troubles at home. The increase of wealth and the importation of slave labor had produced unfortunate social conditions. The realm had become too large to be administered adequately by the old republican government. Individuals sometimes obtained practical control of affairs, and the state was torn by civil wars. Finally, in 49 B. C, Julius Caesar entered Rome at the head of an army, and Roman liberty was at an end. After the assassination of Caesar in 44 B. C, there was a succession of civil wars, and then, by the victory of Actium in 31 B. C, Octavius, who later assumed the name of Augustus, became sole ruler. Augustus died in A. D. 14. Subsequent emperors during the first century were: Tiberius (A. D. 14-37), Caligula (A. D. 37-41), Claudius (A. D. 41-54), Nero (A. D. 54-68), Galba, Otho and Vitellius (A. D. 69), Vespasian (A. D. 69-79), Titus (A. D. 79-81), Domitian (A. D. 81-96), Nerva (A. D. 96-98), Trajan (A. D. 98-117). 2. Roman Administration under the Empire The general advantages of the Roman imperial government have been considered in the Student’s Text Book. It will here be advisable to consider one or two features a little more in detail. Much of what follows can be illustrated from the New Testament; for the acquaintance of New Testament writers, especially of Luke, with Roman administration is not only accurate but also minute. The students should be encouraged to seek New Testament illustrations for themselves. (1) The Provinces. — The provinces of the empire are to be distinguished from the territories of subject kings or princes. The latter were quite subservient to Rome, but were given more independence of administration. A good example of such a subject king, theoretically an ally, but in reality a vassal, was Herod the Great, who ruled over all Palestine till 4 B. C. The provinces themselves were divided into two great classes — imperial provinces and senatorial provinces. The imperial provinces were under the immediate control of the emperor. They were governed by “legates,” who had no regular term of office, but served at the emperor’s pleasure. The imperial provinces were those in which, on account of unsettled conditions, or for the defense of the empire, large bodies of troops had to be maintained. Thus, by keeping the appointment of the legates exclusively in his own hands, the emperor retained the direct control of the all-important power of the army. A good example of an imperial province is the great province of Syria, with capital at Antioch. Palestine was more or less under the supervision of the Syrian legate. Districts different from the great imperial provinces, but, like them, under the immediate control of the emperor, were governed by “procurators.” Judea, from A. D. 6 to A. D. 41, and from A. D. 44 on, is an example. The senatorial provinces were governed by “proconsuls,” chosen by lot from among the members of the Senate. The proconsuls served for only one year. Even over these provinces and their governors the emperor retained the fullest supervisory authority. The senatorial provinces composed the central and more settled portions of the empire, where large standing armies would not be needed. Examples are Achaia, with capital at Corinth, and Cyprus with capital at Paphos. Proconsuls of both of these provinces are mentioned in the New Testament by name. (2) Local Government. — The Romans did not attempt to introduce perfect uniformity throughout the empire. The original Greek unit of political life was the city, and Greek cities were scattered over the east before the Roman conquest. With regard to local affairs, many of the cities retained a certain amount of independence. It is interesting to observe the local peculiarities of the cities described in The Acts. In addition to the Greek cities, many of which were more or less “free” in local affairs, many “Roman colonies” had been established here and there throughout the empire. The original colonists were often veterans of the Roman armies. Of course the populations soon came to be mixed, but Roman traditions were cultivated in the colonies more than elsewhere. A number of the cities of The Acts were colonies, and one, Philippi, is expressly declared to be such. Acts 16:12. In that city the Roman character of the magistrates appears clearly from the Lucan narrative. There were “praetors” and “lictors.” (3) Roman Citizenship. — Before New Testament times Roman citizenship had been extended to all Italy. Italy, therefore, was not a province or group of provinces, but was regarded as a part of Rome. Outside of Italy Roman citizenship was a valuable special privilege. It raised a man above the mass of the provincial population. Some of the advantages of it appear clearly in the New Testament narrative. Because Paul was a Roman citizen he was legally exempt from the most degrading forms of punishment, and had a right to appeal to the court of the emperor. Roman citizenship was sometimes acquired by money, but Paul inherited it from his father. 3. Roman ReligionUnder the empire, Rome was possessed of a state religion. The ancient gods of the republic were retained. There were great divinities like Jupiter and Mars, and there were numberless private divinities of individual households. The ancient religion had, indeed, undergone modifications. New divinities in plenty had been received. But the reception of the new did not involve abolition of the old. On the contrary, the gods of other peoples could be accepted just because they were regarded as nothing but the Roman gods under different names. Thus, long before the Christian era, there had been a thoroughgoing identification of the gods of Greece with the gods of Rome. The Greek Zeus, for example, was identified with the Roman Jupiter; the Greek Ares with the Roman Mars. The gods of countries other than Greece were also received, though, as far as the city of Rome was concerned, with some conservatism. In the Roman world, religion was a national affair. Worship of the national gods was not only piety, but also patriotism. Patriotism and religion were inseparably connected. Support of the gods of Rome, even where personal faith in them had been undermined, was considered to be the duty of every loyal citizen. The political aspect of Roman religion appears most clearly in the worship of the Roman emperors. This remarkable development appears from the beginning of the empire. Augustus, indeed, refused to receive divine honors, at least in the west. But in the east even he was worshiped, and as time went on the reluctance of the emperors disappeared. Some of the worst of the emperors were most insistent upon their own divinity. Perhaps the first impulse of the modern man is to regard the Caesar cult simply as a particularly despicable form of flattery. In reality it was more than that. It was not established by imperial edict. It was not dictated primarily by servile fear. The Greek inhabitants of the empire really regarded Augustus as their saviour. And so he was, as far as any man could be. He saved them from the miseries of civil war, and from the rapacity of the degenerate republic; he gave them peace and happiness. And they responded by regarding him as a god. To them it was natural. To them it was nothing new. Alexander the Great had been regarded as a god long before the Christian era. His successors in Syria and in Egypt had also received divine honors. To the genuine Romans, the thing did not come so easy. The Caesar cult, at least at first, was not developed in the west. But even the Romans could worship the emperor’s “genius” or spirit, and from that to the actual worship of the emperor was but a step. Essential to the whole process of deification, both in Rome and in the east, was the close connection in ancient thinking between deity and humanity, and between religion and the state. If patriotism is religion, then the king is a god. The Caesar cult was the most palpable incorporation of the state religion. Worship of the emperor, therefore, might well be the test of loyalty to Rome. It could be practiced by skeptics and philosophers. It could be practiced by the devotees of all religions — save two. Jews and Christians alone could not bow at the emperor’s shrine, for their God was a God who could brook no rival. He was not merely the greatest among many. He was the only Lord, Maker of heaven and earth. 4. The Roman Empire and Subsequent HistoryBetween Christianity and the Roman state, with its official religion, a life-and-death struggle was inevitable. But in the providence of God it was delayed. The empire was used not to crush Christianity but to open the world before it. But was the empire really identical with the world? It seemed so to the Romans and to the Greeks. To them the empire was the world. And they were right. Not, of course, in a literal sense. In the first century after Christ, vast civilizations — for example the civilization of China — were already in existence. There were great peoples of whom the Romans had never heard. But Roman arrogance has at last been vindicated. For Rome was in reality the key to subsequent history. Rome was the parent of Europe, and Europe is moving the world. Even China is at last being opened to the civilization of Rome. The Romans were right. He who could master Rome would be master, one day, of the world. It has been a long process. But God’s plans are sure. Christianity appeared at the one time when the world was open before it. By the power of the divine Spirit it conquered the empire. The empire dominated its barbarian conquerors. The barbarians are the parents of modern civilization. Modern civilization is invading the earth’s remotest bounds. China, at last, is within our ken. Realms long closed have at last been opened. Another great opportunity! An opportunity for greed and selfishness! An opportunity for a dismal skepticism! And an opportunity for the Church of God! In the Library. — Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible”: Adeney, article on “Caesar”; Gwatkin, articles on “Roman Empire,” and “Rome.” Hastings, “Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics”: Iverach, article on “Caesarism.” Westcott, “The Two Empires,” in “The Epistles of St. John,” pp. 250-282. Ramsay, “The Cities of St. Paul,” pp. 48-81. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 08.03. THE GREEK BACKGROUND OF CHRISTIANITY ======================================================================== The Greek Background of Christianity The purpose of the present lesson is to make the student feel that the gospel was from the beginning a real gospel in a real world. If we isolate the early preaching from its environment, we make it seem like an unreal thing. Study of New Testament times makes the New Testament itself become a more living, a more interesting book. In the Student’s Text Book an outline of the Hellenistic age has been provided. It has been supplemented below by illustrative material. But in the class the lesson can probably be best approached from the side of the New Testament itself. In what languages is the Bible written? How did the New Testament come to be written in Greek? What other languages are mentioned in the New Testament? What light do these passages shed upon the linguistic conditions of the time? What is the attitude of the apostles toward Greek thought? Is that attitude altogether unfavorable, or did the early missionaries ever lay hold upon the higher aspirations of their Gentile hearers (Athens)? Where did the missionaries come into contact with heathen superstition? (Several fine examples in The Acts). What was the moral condition of the Greco-Roman world? How was the Hellenistic age like our own? Why did God send our Lord just in the first century? What was the social condition of the early Christians? Do you think that was an advantage or a disadvantage? What men of higher position are mentioned in the New Testament? Questions like these will serve to relate the general expositions in the lesson helps to the New Testament itself. The lesson helps are intended to provide merely the presuppositions necessary for intelligent study. God working for real men in a real world — that is the subject of the lesson. 1. The Hellenistic AgeThe Greek world culture which prevailed after the conquest of Alexander was widely different from the Greek life of the classical period. The earlier period is called the “Hellenic” period, the later period is designated as “Hellenistic.” When Greek thought made itself master of the world, it became mingled with numberless foreign elements. The mixture appears most clearly, perhaps, in the sphere of religion. Polytheism was capable of indefinite expansion. New gods could easily be identified with the old, or else be received along with them without a conflict. The religion of the Greco-Roman world is therefore different from that of ancient Greece. It is a curious mixture of the most diverse beliefs. Nevertheless, the whole deserves to be called Hellenistic, because even the most strikingly non-Grecian elements were usually subjected more or less to the subtle molding of the Greek spirit. The Hellenistic age used to be despised, but among modern scholars it is coming into its own. Its literary products are admittedly inferior to the glories of the earlier age, but even in literature its achievements are not to be despised, and in other spheres it is supreme. Notably in mathematics and in natural science it was the golden age. Euclid, the geometrician, lived three centuries before Christ. The learning of the Hellenistic age was centered in Alexandria in Egypt, a city which had been founded by Alexander the Great. Athens had, perhaps, ceased to possess the primacy. That fact is typical of the time. Greek culture had ceased to belong to Greece in the narrower sense. It had become a possession of the world. The great library of Alexandria was a sign of the times. The Hellenistic age was an age of widespread learning. When Rome became master of the eastern world, conditions were not fundamentally changed. Rome merely hastened a process that was already at work. Already the nations had been brought together by the spread of Greek culture; Roman law merely added the additional bond of political unity. The Roman legions were missionaries of an all-pervading Hellenism. The Greco-Roman world was astonishingly modern. It was modern in its cosmopolitanism. In our own time the nations have again been brought together. The external agencies for their welding are far more perfect to-day than they were under the empire. Even the Roman roads would be but a poor substitute for the railroad and the telegraph and the steamship. But on the other hand we lack the bond of a common language. In some ways the civilized world was even more of a unit in the first century than it is to-day. The cosmopolitanism of the Roman Empire was a God-given opportunity for the Church. In a cosmopolitan age, if a man has something to say, he will not lack for an audience. His message will be understood in one place as well as in another. The lesson is obvious for the Church of to-day. Again God has opened the world before us. If we have a message, in God’s name let us proclaim it while yet there is time. 2. The Greek Bible The Church originated in Palestine. The first missionaries were native Jews. Yet even they had been affected by the cosmopolitanism of the time. Even they could use Greek, in addition to their native language. And Paul, the greatest of the missionaries, though a Jew, was a citizen of a Greek city. The Church from the beginning was able to speak to the larger world. One difficulty might possibly have arisen. The Christian mission was not carried on merely by the oral word. From the beginning Christianity was a religion with a Book. And that Book was not Greek. On the contrary it was intensely un-Grecian. The Old Testament is intolerant of heathen ideas. It is deeply rooted in the life of the chosen people. How could a Hebrew book be used in the Greek world?The difficulty might have been serious. But in the providence of God it had been overcome. The Old Testament was a Hebrew book, but before the Christian era it had been translated into Greek. From the beginning Christianity was provided with a Greek Bible. It is always difficult to make a new translation of the Bible. Every missionary knows that. The introduction of a new translation takes time. It was fortunate, then, that a Greek-speaking Church had a Greek Bible ready to hand. Everything was prepared for the gospel. God’s time had come. Roman rule had brought peace. Greek culture had produced unity of speech. There was a Greek world, there were Greek-speaking missionaries, and there was a Greek Bible. In the first century, the salvation that was of the Jews could become a salvation for the whole world. 3. The PapyriThe world in which the gospel was proclaimed is deserving of careful study. How shall it be investigated? The most obvious way is to study the literature of the period. Until recent years that was almost the only way. But that method is partial at best. For literature is after all but an imperfect measure of any age. The society that is found in books is an idealized society, or at any rate it is the society of the great. The plain man is unrecorded. His deeds are not deemed worthy of a place in history. Within the last thirty years, however, the plain people of the ancient world have come remarkably into view. They are revealed to us in the “non-literary papyri.” “Papyri” are pieces of papyrus. Papyrus was the common writing material of antiquity up to about A. D. 300, when vellum, or parchment, came into general use. Unfortunately papyrus, which was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, is not a very durable substance, so that ancient papyri have been preserved until modern times only under exceptionally favorable conditions. These conditions are found in Egypt, where the dry climate has kept the papyrus from disintegration. In Egypt, within the last thirty years, have been discovered large numbers of papyrus sheets with Greek writing. Of these the “literary papyri” contain simply parts of books. They differ from other copies of the works in question only in that they are usually older than the vellum manuscripts. The “non-literary papyri,” on the other hand, are unique. They are private documents of all sorts — receipts, petitions, wills, contracts, census returns, and most interesting of all, private letters. It was usually not intended that these documents should be preserved. They were simply thrown away upon rubbish heaps or used as wrappings of mummies. They have been preserved only by chance. The non-literary papyri are important first of all in the study of language. They exhibit the language of everyday life, as distinguished from the language of literature. The language of literature always differs more or less from the language used on the street, and the difference was particularly wide in the Greek of the Hellenistic period. The books of the time were modeled to a considerable extent upon the ancient classics, but the actual spoken language had been changing. Hence the literary language had become exceedingly artificial. Up to within the last few years, the literary language alone could be studied. The books of the period were preserved, but the language of daily life was gone. Now, however, the papyri supply what was lacking. In them there is no attempt at style. They are composed in the language which was employed in the ordinary affairs of life and preserve the actual spoken language of every day. At this point a remarkable fact must be noticed. The language of the New Testament is more like the language of the non-literary papyri than it is like the language of contemporary literature. The papyri indicate, therefore, that the New Testament is composed in the natural living language of the time rather than according to the canons of an artificial rhetoric. The artlessness of the New Testament has sometimes been regarded as a reproach. Instead, it is a cause for rejoicing. The simplicity of the gospel would only be concealed by niceties of style. The greatness of the New Testament is independent of literary art. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the New Testament, because it is composed in the language of the people, is characterized by anything like cheapness or vulgarity. On the contrary its simplicity is the noble simplicity of truth. In the New Testament the spoken language of the Greco-Roman world, in all its living freshness, becomes a worthy vehicle for the sublimest thoughts. The non-literary papyri, then, reproduce for us the spoken language of the time as distinguished from the artificial language of literature. But that does not exhaust their importance. They afford a knowledge not only of language, but also of life. Through them ordinary people are revealed in the ordinary relations of every day. In them, the ancient world has been made to live again. A few examples (see the book of Professor Milligan mentioned at the end of the lesson) will serve to indicate the character of the papyrus letters. The following boy’s letter (of the second or the third century alter Christ) is written in very bad grammar, but is for that reason all the more lifelike. (The translation is taken from Grenfell and Hunt, “Oxyrhynchus Papyri,” Part i., p. 186.) “Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won’t take me with you to Alexandria I won’t write you a letter or speak to you or say good-by to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won’t take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won’t take me. Mother said to Archalaus, ‘It quite upsets him to be left behind (?).’ It was good of you to send me presents . . . on the 12th, the day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don’t, I won’t eat, I won’t drink; there now!” The following invitation to dinner, of the second century after Christ, throws light upon I Corinthians (the translation taken from Professor Milligan): “Antonius, son of Ptolemaeus, invites you to dine with him at the table of the lord Serapis in the house of Claudius Serapion on the 16th at 9 o’clock.” “The lord Serapis” is a god. Even an ordinary dinner party seems thus to be regarded as the table of Serapis. Under such conditions the Christian life must have been hard to lead. No wonder the Corinthian Christians had to ask Paul questions. Even the ordinary affairs of life were intimately connected with a false religion. What should the attitude of the Christians be? Where should they draw the line in associating with their heathen friends? 4. A Real Gospel in a Real World The people that are introduced to us so intimately in the papyri are probably very fair representatives of the people among whom the gospel was first proclaimed. In that cosmopolitan age the society of Egyptian towns was probably not so very different from that of Corinth. The people of the papyri are not the great men of the time; they are just plain folk. But the early Christians were also usually not of exalted social position, though there were exceptions. “Not many wise after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble” were called. 1 Corinthians 1:26. Many of the early Christians were slaves, many were humble tradesmen. The same classes appear in the papyri. In the papyri we are introduced into the private lives of the men to whom the gospel was proclaimed. Seeing, but unseen, hidden as by a magic cap, we watch them in their most intimate affairs. And we come away with a new feeling of the reality of early Christian history. These men were not so very different from ourselves. They were real men and women, living in a real world. And they needed a real gospel. In the Library. — Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible,” extra volume: Ramsay, article on “Religion of Greece,” pp. 109-156, especially PP- 135-156. Milligan, “Selections from the Greek Papyri,” (with translations). Deissmann, “The Philology of the Greek Bible,” pp. 1-63, 144-147. Ramsay, “The Cities of St. Paul,” pp. 1-47. Browning, “Cleon,” (vol. iv, pp. 115-122 of the Riverside Edition.) ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 08.04. THE JEWISH BACKGROUND OF CHRISTIANITY, I ======================================================================== The Jewish Background of Christianity, I I. Palestinian Judaism 1. Sources The New Testament is one of the chief sources of information about the Palestinian Judaism of the first century. Other important sources are the works of Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, and the Mishna. The Mishna is a collection of Jewish interpretations of the Mosaic law. In its written form it is thought to have been produced at the end of the second century, but it contains a mass of earlier material which had been preserved by oral tradition. 2. Outline of Jewish History After the conclusion of the Old Testament period the Jewish nation had undergone important changes. If, therefore, the Judaism of the first century is to be understood, the student must have in mind at least a bare outline of the history between the Testaments. Old Testament history closes with the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and the reorganization of the national life which took place under Ezra and Nehemiah in the fifth century before Christ. At that time Judah, or “Judea,” was the only part of Palestine which was occupied by the Jews, and they occupied it only as vassals — though with independence in internal affairs — of the kings of Persia. The Persian dominion continued for over a century. Then, in the latter part of the fourth century before Christ, Judea was conquered by Alexander the Great. For some hundred years after the death of Alexander, the country was a bone of contention between the kings of Egypt and the kings of Syria — that is, between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. At the beginning of the second century before Christ the king of Syria won a permanent victory. Under the Ptolemies and at first under the Seleucids, as well a s under the Persians, the Jews enjoyed a considerable measure of independence in the management of their own affairs. Their religion, in particular, was left quite unmolested. But the assimilation which was not being accomplished by force was being accomplished by peaceful influences. The all-pervasive Greek culture of the period was making itself felt in Palestine as well as elsewhere. Judea seemed to be in danger of being Hellenized. Under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria (175-164 B. C.), however, the policy of toleration was suddenly interrupted. Antiochus tried to stamp out the Jewish religion by force. The result was a heroic uprising led by Mattathias and his sons, who are called the Maccabees. The tyranny of Antiochus had caused a mighty popular reaction against the Hellenizing party among the Jews. Devotion to the religion of Israel with exclusion of foreign influences was ever afterwards the dominant tendency in Jewish history. The Maccabees were at first wonderfully successful against overwhelming odds; and when the opposing forces seemed at last to have become too powerful, internal conflicts at the Syrian court gave the Jewish patriots that independence which they could probably not otherwise have maintained. Rulers belonging to the Maccabean dynasty governed the Jewish nation for about a hundred years, during most of which period they were independent. Their territory at first embraced only Judea, but was gradually enlarged over the other parts of Palestine. Galilee, which — since the destruction of the northern Israelitish kingdom centuries before — had become predominantly Gentile, was Judaized under Aristobulus I in 104-103 B. C. Before the time of Christ it had become thoroughly Jewish. Unfortunately the worldly power of the Maccabees had brought worldliness of spirit. The first revolt had been undertaken from a lofty religious motive, in order to maintain the worship of Jehovah. As the years went on, the Maccabean rulers became increasingly engrossed in the extension of political power. Allying themselves with the aristocratic party among the Jews, they came to favor the extension of those Greek influences — though not in the sphere of religion — which at first they had opposed. Under Queen Alexandra (76-67 B. C.) it is true, there was a reaction. The strictly Jewish, anti-Hellenistic party again became dominant. But under Alexandra’s successors there was civil strife, and the all-conquering Romans found the country an easy prey. Pompey took possession of Jerusalem in 63 B. C. The years that followed saw the gradual rise of the family of Herod the Great, who, as vassal of the Romans, became king of all Palestine in 37 B. C. and ruled until 4 B. C. Herod was an Idumsean, not a genuine Jew. Idumaea, however, the country to the south of Judah, had been Judaized some time before. Herod was at heart a Hellenist. He built Greek theaters and amphitheaters not only in the numerous Greek cities in or near Palestine, but also in Jerusalem itself. Nevertheless he was wise enough to support the Jewish religion and generally to respect the customs of the people. His magnificent rebuilding of the temple was probably intended chiefly to win popular favor. At Herod’s death, his territory was divided among his sons. Archelaus was given Judea, Antipas — the “Herod” of Jesus’ public ministry — received Galilee and Perea, with the title of “Tetrarch,” and Philip received certain territories to the east of Galilee. Archelaus was banished in A. D. 6, Antipas was banished in A. D. 39, and Philip died in A. D. 33. After the banishment of Archelaus, Judea was administered by Roman procurators till A. D. 41, when all Palestine was given to Herod Agrippa I. Acts 12:1-4; Acts 12:18-23. After A. D. 44, procurators were again in control. The misgovernment of the procurators led to the great revolt in A. D. 66. After four years of war, Jerusalem was taken by the Roman army in A. D. 70. The temple was destroyed, and the offering of sacrifices ceased. The destruction of the temple marks an epoch in Jewish history. Henceforth the national center was gone. There was another uprising in A. D. 132-135, but that was the last. A Gentile city was erected on the ruins of Jerusalem, and for a considerable time at least the Jews were forbidden even to enter its precincts. 3. Administration and PartiesAfter the return from the Exile, the priests occupied a position of leadership. The high priest, whose office was hereditary, was practically head of the Jewish state. With him was associated a council, composed of members of the priestly aristocracy. This state of affairs prevailed during the Persian and Greek periods. Under the Maccabees the power of the high priest reached its highest point. For after a time the Maccabean rulers themselves assumed the title of high priest, and still later the title of king. The high priest, then, under the Maccabees, was also king. Under Herod the Great, on the contrary, the high priesthood sank to its lowest ebb. Herod made and unmade high priests at pleasure. The council associated with the high priest was, under Alexandra, opened to the members of the strict anti-Hellenistic party. At the time of Christ it included both Pharisees and Sadducees. These parties became distinct at the time of the Maccabees. The Sadducees — the origin of the name is not altogether clear — were the aristocratic party, hospitable to Greek culture. The Pharisees were the strict Jewish party, devoted to the law, and opposed to foreign influences. The name “Pharisee” means “separated.” The Pharisees were “separated” from the mass of the people by a stricter observance of the Mosaic law. At first the Pharisees supported the Maccabean leaders; for the Maccabean revolt was in the interests of the Jewish religion. But when the Maccabees became engrossed in worldly politics and susceptible to Greek influences the Pharisees opposed them. At the time of Christ the essential characteristics of the parties remained unchanged. 4. Language Some centuries before Christ, Hebrew had ceased to be the ordinary language of Palestine. As the language of the Old Testament it continued to be studied. Old Testament passages in Hebrew were read in the synagogue. Hebrew was used also to some extent as the language of learned discussion. But for all ordinary purposes its place had been taken by Aramaic, a language of the Semitic family closely related to Hebrew. At the time of Christ Aramaic was the spoken language of the Palestinian Jews. Even in the synagogues, the Old Testament passages, after having been read in Hebrew, were translated orally into the language which the people could understand. But, since the time of Alexander the Great, another language had made its way into Palestine along with Aramaic. This was the Greek. The kingdoms into which Alexander’s empire was divided were Greek kingdoms. Two of them, Syria and Egypt, bore rule alternately over Palestine. With the Greek government came Greek culture and the Greek language. Then, under Antiochus Epiphanes, there was a mighty reaction. Thereafter religion, at least, was kept altogether free from Greek influences. In other spheres, however, under the Maccabean kings and still more under the Romans, Greek culture effected an entrance. At the time of Christ there were typical Greek cities not only to the east of the Jordan in Decapolis, where magnificent ruins even to-day attest the ancient Greco-Roman civilization, and not only along the coast of the Mediterranean, but even within the confines of Palestine proper. With some truth Palestine in the first century may be called a bilingual country. Greek and Aramaic were both in use. Aramaic was the language of the mass of the people. Many, no doubt, could speak no other language. But if a man desired to make his way in the world in any public capacity or in trade he would be obliged to learn the cosmopolitan language of the time. No doubt very many could speak both languages. Jesus and his apostles belonged to those circles which were least affected by the encroachments of Greek civilization. The whole atmosphere of the Gospels is as un-Greek as could be imagined. As is proved by the presence of Aramaic words even in our Greek Gospels, Aramaic was undoubtedly the language in which the gospel was originally proclaimed. Aramaic was the language of Jesus’ boyhood home, and Aramaic was the language of his intercourse with the disciples and of his public preaching. It is perfectly possible, however, that even Jesus may have used Greek upon rare occasions, for example in conversation with Pilate, the Roman procurator. His disciples, after the resurrection, found themselves at the head of a Greek-speaking community. The early Church in Jerusalem was composed not only of ‘‘Hebrews,” but also of “Grecians,” or Hellenists. Acts 6:1. The Hellenists were Greek-speaking Jews of the dispersion who were sojourning more or less permanently in the holy city. The apostles seem to have entered upon their new functions without difficulty. Some knowledge of Greek, no doubt, all of them brought with them from their Galilean homes, and their knowledge would be increased through practice. It is not surprising then that several of the original apostles and two of the brothers of Jesus were the authors of Greek books of the New Testament. In the Library. — Riggs, “A History of the Jewish People,” especially pp. 105-116, 143-153, 215-231. Davis, “Dictionary of the Bible”: articles on “Council,” “Pharisees,” “Sadducees,” “Synagogue,” “School,” “Scribe,” “Aramaic,” and “Hebrew.” The outline of Jewish history and institutions which is provided in the lesson helps for this lesson and the following is dependent especially upon the large German work of Schürer. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 08.05. THE JEWISH BACKGROUND OF CHRISTIANITY, II ======================================================================== The Jewish Background of Christianity, II II. The Judaism of the DispersionThe presentation of the lesson in class may be begun somewhat in the manner suggested in the Student’s Text Book. The student should be made to appreciate the practical problem of a missionary in a new city. Various solutions of the problem may be adopted. The missionary may simply engage in conversation with individuals in the street, or he may hire a room and advertise his preaching. In any case the securing of an audience is usually no easy matter. It is difficult to know how to begin. The case might naturally have been the same with Paul and his companions when, for example, after the journey up from Perga they arrived at Pisidian Antioch. Complete strangers were perhaps not much better received in those days than they are now. How could the missionaries get a hearing for their message? In some cases, they might simply take their stand in the market place and talk to the passers-by. Paul tried that method in Athens. It might do when nothing better offered. But fortunately there was usually a far better opportunity. The synagogue offered an audience. What is more, it offered just exactly the most promising audience that could possibly have been secured. The scene in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch is typical of what happened again and again. The student should be made to appreciate the remarkable liberality and informality of the synagogue customs. There seem to have been no set preachers. Any Jew who really had a message could be heard. He needed only to go in and sit down. Acts 13:14. Paul and Barnabas had no difficulty in making their fitness known. “Brethren,” said the rulers of the synagogue, “if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.” Acts 13:15. They had a word of exhortation indeed. “Jesus is the Messiah for whom you are waiting. He has died for your sins. He has risen from the dead, and is now alive to save you.” It was a powerful word, and it bore fruit. The native Jews, it is true, soon came out in opposition. The reasons for their opposition are not far to seek. Jealousy was an important factor. Christianity was evidently too radical a thing to be simply a sect of Judaism. If allowed to continue, it would destroy the prerogatives of Israel. It could not be controlled. Its success was too great. On that next Sabbath in Pisidian Antioch, “almost the whole city was gathered together to hear the word of God.” The Jewish mission had never had a success like that. “When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy.” Christianity had taken away the heritage of Israel. In one way the Jewish opposition displayed genuine insight into the situation. Christianity was really destined to be a fatal rival to the older Judaism. What took place on a small scale at Antioch was repeated on the larger stage of history. When the Christian mission began, Judaism was a successful missionary religion. Soon afterwards it had withdrawn hopelessly into its age-long isolation. Various causes contributed to this result. The destruction of the national life in Palestine and the increasing influence of the strict rabbinical schools both had an important part. But at least one factor in the process was the competition of the Christian Church. Christianity offered the world everything that Judaism could offer, and more. It offered the knowledge of the one God, and the lofty morality, and the authoritative Book. In addition, it offered a way of redemption — and the men of that time were preeminently seekers after redemption — through the sacrifice of Christ. It offered all these things, moreover, without requiring any relinquishment of purely national characteristics. Christianity did not demand union with any one race. It had a gospel for the world. No wonder, then, that those who had been attracted by Judaism now became adherents of Christianity. The Jews were filled with envy. It was natural from their point of view, but it was a sad mistake. Had they themselves accepted the gospel, the gospel would have been to their glory. How glorious was the mission of Israel! A blessing to the whole world! Far better than any narrow particularism! But they were not willing to accept the message. Nevertheless, despite their opposition, the Church should not forget the debt which she owes to Israel. The dispersion was like the Judaism of Palestine. In both cases the men themselves were opposed to the gospel. But in both cases they had preserved the deposit of divine truth. Judaism, despite itself, opened the way for the Christian Church. One service which the dispersion rendered to Christianity has been illustrated by the scene at Pisidian Antioch. That service was the providing of an audience. Another service “was the assurance of legal protection. This may be illustrated by another incident in The Acts — the appeal to Gallio. Acts 18:12-17. There the opposition of the Jews appears in all its bitterness. No doubt that opposition was a serious hindrance to the work of the Church. Just because Christianity was regarded as a Jewish sect, the Christians were subject to persecution by the Jewish authorities. But persecutions by the Jews, annoying though they were, were far less serious than opposition on the part of the Roman authorities. And the latter was, at first, conspicuously absent. Gallio’s decision is a fair example of the general attitude of the Roman magistrates. Christianity, as a Jewish sect, was allowed to go its way. Judaism, despite itself, afforded the Church legal protection. Beginning with these two striking scenes, the teacher may proceed to the more general presentation of the lesson. In what follows, the outline of the Student’s Text Book will be supplemented at one or two points. 1. The Causes and Extent of the Dispersion Deportations of Jews to foreign countries took place at various times. The most famous of those deportations was carried out by Nebuchadnezzar after his conquest of Judah, about 600 B. C. Many of Nebuchadnezzar’s captives did not join in the return under the Persian monarchy, but remained permanently in the east and formed the nucleus of the large Jewish population of Mesopotamia. When Pompey conquered Palestine in the first century before Christ, he carried many Jews as slaves to Rome. Afterwards they were liberated, and formed a large Jewish colony at the capital of the empire. These are merely examples. Part of the dispersion was due to forcible exile. Other causes have been mentioned in the Student’s Text Book. It is a question, however, whether all of these causes combined are sufficient to account for the extraordinary growth of the dispersion. Schürer believes that the vastness of the Jewish population presupposes the merging of large bodies of proselytes into the Jewish people. He also believes, however, that these thoroughgoing conversions were less numerous in New Testament times than they had been before. Harnack calculates that at the time of the death of Augustus there were from four million to four and a half million Jews in the Roman Empire, including about seven hundred thousand in Palestine, and that, if that estimate be correct, then the Jews formed perhaps some seven per cent of the total population. Of course, Harnack is himself the first to admit that such calculations are exceedingly uncertain. But so much at least is clear — the Jews in the first century were surprisingly numerous. 2. The Septuagint Translation and the Language of the New TestamentThe name “Septuagint,” derived from the Latin word for “seventy,” has been applied to the Alexandrian translation of the Old Testament in reference to an ancient story about its origin. According to this story, the translation was made by seventy-two men summoned from Jerusalem by Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, in order to add the Jewish law to the royal library at Alexandria. The story is certainly not true in details, and is probably not even correct in representing the translation as destined primarily for the royal library. More probably the translation was intended for the Greek-speaking Jews of Egypt. The Septuagint is a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek world language of the period, and into the popular, spoken form of that language, not into the literary form. The translation differs widely in character in the different books, for many different translators had a part in it. Some of the books are translated with such slavish literalness as to be almost unintelligible to a Greek. Everywhere, indeed, the influence of the Hebrew original makes itself felt to some degree. Hebrew idioms are often copied in the translation instead of being remolded according to the peculiarities of the Greek language. The Septuagint exerted an important influence upon the language of the New Testament. The Septuagint was the Greek Bible of the New Testament writers, and the influence of a Bible upon language is very strong. A good example is afforded by the influence of the King James Version upon the whole development of modern English. It is not surprising, therefore, that as the Septuagint was influenced by Hebrew, so the language of the New Testament also displays a Semitic coloring. That coloring was induced partly by the Septuagint, but it was also induced in other ways. Part of the New Testament, for example the words of Jesus, goes back ultimately to an Aramaic original. All the New Testament writers except one were Jews, and had spoken Aramaic as well as Greek. No wonder, then, that their Greek was influenced by the Semitic languages. This Semitic influence upon the language of the New Testament is not so great as was formerly supposed, but it cannot be ignored. The New Testament is written in the natural, non-literary form of the Greek world language. That is the main thing to be said. But upon this base is superposed an appreciable influence of Hebrew and Aramaic. The importance of the Septuagint for the early Christian mission was inestimable. Every pioneer missionary knows how difficult it is to create the vocabulary necessary to express new religious ideas. In the case of the earliest Christian mission, that labor had already been done. It had been done by the Jews of Alexandria. By the Septuagint, the great ideas of the Old Testament — and upon these ideas Christianity was based — had already been put into a Greek form. The Christian Church needed only to develop what had been begun. The Church made good use of her opportunity. The influence of the Septuagint upon the religious vocabulary of the New Testament writers was profound. The Septuagint had provided a vocabulary which was understood already by great masses of people — by the Jews of the dispersion and by the hosts of the “God-worshipers” who attended the synagogues. Naturally the Christian missionaries used the words which people could understand. 3. ConclusionThe Judaism of the dispersion was a wonderful preparation for the gospel. Israel ought to be regarded with gratitude and sympathy. But the ultimate object of gratitude is God. The Church was founded in a time of opportunity. The Roman Government had brought peace. The Greek language had welded the nations together. The dispersion of the Jews had prepared the way. These things did not come by chance. The nations were instruments in the hand of God. But instruments for what? A mighty, age-long plan! Centuries of preparation! At last the Saviour came. But did he come for naught? Or is he Saviour of you and me? In the Library. — Edersheim (revised by White), “History of the Jewish Nation,”‘ pp. 45-79. “The Jewish Encyclopedia”: Reinach, article on “Diaspora.” Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible”: Schürer, article on “Diaspora,” extra volume, pp. 91-109. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 08.06. THE MESSIAH ======================================================================== The Messiah The teaching of this lesson may be begun with Acts 2:17-21. Surely the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was something new. Yet even that was explained by a reference to prophecy. And the reference is of remarkable aptness and beauty. The Pentecostal speech of Peter is full of the appeal to prophecy. Primarily, indeed, the claims of Jesus are supported by the direct testimony to his resurrection. Without the facts, of course appeal to prophecy would have been useless; for it was just the wonderful correspondence of the facts with the prophecies that could induce belief. Along with the direct testimony to the facts went the appeal to prophecy. The promised king of David’s line at last has come. Acts 2:30; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Psalms 89:3-4; Psalms 132:11. And David’s son is David’s Lord — David’s Lord and ours. Acts 2:34-35; Psalms 110:1; compare Matthew 22:41-46. 1. The New Testament Appeal to ProphecyThis speech of Peter is typical of the preaching of the early Church. The appeal to prophecy was absolutely central in the presentation of the gospel. Proof of that fact does not need to be sought. It is written plain on the pages of the New Testament. Old Testament prophecy was found to apply not merely to one side of the work of Christ, but to all sides. Israel had looked not merely for a king, but also for a prophet and a priest. Peter, after his first arrest, for example, could appeal to the notable prophecy of Deuteronomy: “A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me.” Acts 3:22; Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 18:19. The author of Hebrews could appeal to the priest after the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 5:6; Psalms 110:4, and to the symbolic sacrifices of the temple which found their fulfillment on Calvary. The appeal to prophecy extended even to those things which were most distinctive of the Christian message. “I delivered unto you first of all,’’ says Paul, “that which also I received: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. Here the death and the resurrection of Christ are both declared to be according to the Scriptures. That means that they were the subject of prophecy. But the death and the resurrection of Christ were the fundamental elements of the gospel. The gospel, then, in the form of prophecy, is to be found in the Old Testament. What Old Testament passages has Paul here in mind? With regard to the death for our sins, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was probably in his mind. That passage was being read by the Ethiopian when Philip met him, and Philip made the passage a basis for preaching about Jesus. Acts 8:27-35. With regard to the resurrection, it is natural to think of Psalms 16:10. Paul himself quoted that passage in his speech at Pisidian Antioch. Acts 13:34-37. The appeal to prophecy did not begin with the apostles. It was initiated by Jesus himself. “To-day,” said Jesus at Nazareth after the reading of Isaiah 61:1-2, “hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.” A large claim! No wonder they found it difficult to accept. When John the Baptist asked, “Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” it was to “the works of the Christ” that Jesus appealed. Matthew 11:2-6; Isaiah 35:5-6; Isaiah 61:1. These are merely examples. Throughout, Jesus represented himself and his kingdom as the fulfillment of the ancient promise. “O foolish men,” he said to the disciples on the way to Emmaus, “and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24:25-27. 2. The Messianic Hope a Preparation for the GospelWhen the gospel was preached to pure Gentiles, a great deal of preliminary labor had to be done. Under what title should the claims of the Saviour be presented? “Christ” to the Gentiles was almost meaningless, till explained. “Son of God” was open to sad misconception. There were “sons of God” in Greek mythology, but they were not what the early Christians meant to show that Jesus was. These difficulties were overcome, and speedily. Gentile Christians were imbued with a lofty and adequate conception of the Lord. The labor was great, but it was gloriously accomplished. In this labor, however, the missionaries were assisted by the synagogues of the Jews. In the synagogues, “Christ” was no new term, and no new conception. In the synagogues, one proposition needed first to be proved, “This Jesus ... is the Christ.” Acts 17:3. If that were proved, then the rest would follow. The Jews knew that the Messiah was Lord and Master. Identify Jesus with him, and all the lofty claims of Jesus would be substantiated. How the identity was established may be observed in the speech of Peter on the day of Pentecost, or in the speech of Paul at Pisidian Antioch. Acts 13:16-43. It will be remembered that the synagogues attracted not merely Jews but also Gentiles. The Gentile “God-fearers,” as well as the Jews, were acquainted with the Messianic hope. Even the Gentile mission, therefore, was prepared for by the prophets of Israel. 3. The Permanent Value of Prophecy The appeal to prophecy, however, was not merely valuable to the early Church. It is of abiding worth. It represents Jesus as the culmination of a divine purpose. The hope of Israel was in itself a proof of revelation, because it was so unlike the religious conceptions of other nations. The covenant people, the righteous king, the living God, the world-wide mission — that is the glory of Israel. The promise is itself a proof. But still more the fulfillment. The fulfillment was an unfolding. Wonderful correspondence in detail — and far more wonderful the correspondence of the whole! The promise was manifold. Sometimes the Messiah is in the foreground. Sometimes he is out of sight. Sometimes there is a human king, sometimes Jehovah himself coming to judgment; sometimes a kingdom, sometimes a new covenant in the heart; sometimes a fruitful Canaan, sometimes a new heaven and a new earth. But manifold though the promise, Christ is the fulfillment of it all. “How many soever be the promises of God,” in Christ is the yea. 2 Corinthians 1:20. There is the wonder. In Christ the apparent contradictions of the promise become glorious unity, in Christ the deeper mysteries of the promise are revealed. Christ the keystone of the arch! Christ the culmination of a divine plan! That is the witness of the prophets. It is a witness worth having. 4. The Messianic Hope of Later JudaismAfter the close of the Old Testament, the promise did not die. It was preserved in the Scriptures. It continued to be the life of the Jewish nation. But it was not only preserved. It was also interpreted. Some of the interpretation was false, but much of it was true. The Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament promise is worthy of attention. What did the Jews of the first century mean by the Messiah, and what did they mean by the Messianic age? In the first place, they retained the hope of a king of David’s line — a human king who should conquer the enemies of Israel. When it was held in a one-sided form this was a dangerous hope. It led logically to materialistic conceptions of the kingdom of God and to political unrest. It led to the effort of the Jews to take Jesus by force and make him a king. John 6:15. It led to the quarrel of the disciples about the chief places in the kingdom. Matthew 18:1-4; Mark 9:33-35; Luke 9:46-47. This conception of the Messiah had to be corrected by Jesus. “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36. Yet even where the Messiah was conceived of as an earthly ruler, the spiritual hope was by no means always and altogether lost. The “Psalms of Solomon,” for example, Pharisaic psalms of the first century before Christ, though they look for an earthly ruler, picture him as one who shall rule in righteousness. “And a righteous king and taught of God is he that reigneth over them; And there shall be no iniquity in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy and their king is the Lord Messiah” (Psalm of Solomon 17:35, 36. See Ryle and James, “Psalms of the Pharisees,” especially pp. 137-147). No iniquity in the days of the Messiah! That is true understanding of the Old Testament, even joined with the political ideal. In the second place, however, the Messianic age is sometimes in later Judaism conceived of as purely supernatural. The Messiah is not an earthly ruler, merely helped by God, but himself a heavenly being, a preexistent “Son of Man,” judge of all the earth. The Messianic age is ushered in not by human warfare, but by a mighty catastrophic act of God. Not a liberated Canaan is here the ideal, but a new heaven and a new earth. This transcendental, super naturalistic form of the Messianic hope appears in the “Book of Enoch” and other “apocalypses.” Its details are fantastic, but it was by no means altogether wrong. In many respects it was a correct interpretation of the divine promise. The new heavens and the new earth are derived from Isaiah 65:17. The doctrine of the two ages was accepted by Jesus and by Paul— for example Matthew 12:32; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 1:21. The heavenly “Son of Man” goes back to Daniel 7:13-14. The Book of Enoch was not altogether wrong. Its use of the title “Son of Man” prepared for the title which Jesus used. Finally, the Messianic hope was held in a pure and lofty form by the “poor of the land” — simple folk like those who appear in the first two chapters of Luke. In the hymns of Mary and Zacharias and Simeon, purely political and materialistic conceptions are in the background, and the speculations of the apocalypses do not appear. The highest elements of prophecy are made prominent. “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” Luke 2:30-32. In those circles, the hope of Israel burned still and pure. Later Judaism thus preserved the manifoldness of prophecy. There was exaggeration and there was one-sidedness; but in Judaism as a whole the promise was preserved. One element at most was forgotten — the suffering servant and his sacrificial death. The death of the Messiah was no easy conception. The disciples had difficulty with it. When Peter heard of it, he took Jesus, and began to rebuke him. Matthew 16:22. The lesson was not easy, but it had to be learned. And it was worth learning. The cross is the heart of the gospel. Thus in Jesus nothing was left out, except what was false. The whole promise was preserved. The revealer of God, the ruler of the kingdom, the great high priest, the human deliverer, the divine Lord — these are the elements of the promise. They find their union in Christ. Leave one out, and the promise is mutilated. Such mutilation is popular to-day. The whole Christ seems too wonderful. But the Church can be satisfied with nothing less. In the Library. — Beecher, “The Prophets and the Promise,” pp. 173-420. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 08.07. THE BOOK OF THE ACTS ======================================================================== The Book of The Acts The teaching of the lesson may be begun with some very simple questions. If rightly put, they will open up a fresh way of looking at a New Testament book. The way will thus be prepared for considering the deeper elements of the lesson. If interest can be aroused in the book itself, the contents of the book, in the lessons which follow, will be studied with much livelier attention. 1. Authorship Who wrote the book of The Acts? How do you know? The former question will probably be answered without difficulty, but the latter may reveal difference of opinion. Many of the students will know that The Acts was written by the same man as the Gospel of Luke. But that does not settle the question. How do you know that Luke was written by Luke? The name does not occur in the Gospel itself. The title, “According to Luke,” was probably added later. So, in order to determine the authorship both of Luke and of The Acts, recourse must be had to Christian tradition. Fortunately, however, tradition in this case is quite unimpeachable. In the first place, although the author of The Acts is not named in the book, yet the book is not an anonymous work. Undoubtedly the name of the author was known from the beginning. For the book is dedicated to an individual, Theophilus. Evidently Theophilus knew who the author was. Information about the author could thus be had from the start. If, therefore, Luke did not really write The Acts, some one has removed the name of the true author and substituted “Luke” in place of it. That is an exceedingly unlikely supposition. In the second place, it is evident quite independently of any tradition that the book was written by an eyewitness of part of Paul’s missionary journeys. This fact appears from the so-called “we-sections” of the book. In certain portions of the narrative the author uses the first person instead of the third. Of this pecularity there is only one satisfactory explanation. The author uses the first person when he is describing the experiences in which he himself had a part. When, for example, the author says, not, “They made a straight course to Samothrace,” but “We made a straight course,” Acts 16:11, he means that he was present on that voyage. This natural supposition is confirmed by the character of the “we-sections.” These sections are full of such a wealth of artless detail that no one but an eyewitness could possibly have written them. The only possible way of avoiding the conclusion that a companion of Paul wrote the book of The Acts is to maintain that although such a man wrote the “we-sections” some one else wrote the rest of the book. But that is unlikely in the extreme. If a later author had been simply using as a source a diary of a companion of Paul, he would surely either have told us he was quoting, or else have changed the first person to the third. By leaving the third person in he would simply have been producing nonsense. Everyone knew who the author of the book was. The book is dedicated to a definite man. The author evidently could not have palmed himself off as a companion of Paul even if he would. And if he desired to do it, he would not have chosen this remarkable way of doing it. Of course if he had been a mere thoughtless compiler he might have copied his source with such slavish exactness as to leave the “we” in without noticing that in the completed work it would produce nonsense. But he was most assuredly not a mere compiler. If he used sources, he did not use them that way. The book shows a remarkable unity of style. Modern research has demonstrated that fact beyond peradventure. There is a remarkable similarity of style between the “we-sections” and the rest of the book. Only one hypothesis, then, does justice to the facts. The author of the “we-sections” was also the author of the whole book. When he comes to those parts of the narrative in which he himself had a part, he says very naturally “we,” instead of “they.” The book of The Acts, then, was written by a companion of Paul. That fact stands firm, even apart from any tradition. And that is the really important fact. If the book was written by an eyewitness, the particular name of the eyewitness is comparatively unimportant. But the tradition as to the name is without doubt correct. There is not the slightest reason for calling it in question. What the book of The Acts itself says about its author fits exactly what Paul says about Luke. 2. Date The authorship of The Acts is certain. The date, however, is not so clear. The book was written by Luke. But when was it written? The latter question cannot be answered with perfect precision. At least, however, since the book was written by Luke, it must have been written during the lifetime of a companion of Paul. A. D. 100, for example, would be too late, and A. D. 90 would be unlikely. A good deal can be said for putting the date at about A.D. 63. This early date would explain the abrupt ending of the book. One of the most curious things about The Acts is that the narrative is suddenly broken off just at the most interesting point. The trial of Paul is narrated at very great length, but we are not told how it came out. The final decision, the climax of the whole long narrative, is just at hand; but with regard to it we are left altogether in suspense. Was Paul released? Was he condemned and executed? The author does not say. His silence requires an explanation. The simplest explanation would be that Luke wrote his book at the very point of time where the narrative is broken off. Of course he could not tell us any more if nothing more had happened. He brought his narrative right up to date. Nothing more was possible. It is true, other explanations may be proposed. (a) It has been suggested, for example, that The Acts closes so abruptly because the author was saving something for another work. As The Acts is the continuation of the Gospel of Luke, so a third work, it is said, was planned as the continuation of The Acts. But even so, it seems rather strange that the author should not have given at least a hint of the outcome of that trial in order to take the edge off our curiosity. He has done something like that at the conclusion of his Gospel; why not also at the conclusion of The Acts? (b) But perhaps the ending is not so abrupt as it looks. The author’s purpose, it is said, was not to write a biography of Paul, but to show how the gospel spread from Jerusalem to Rome. When Rome was reached, then the narrative was broken off. Biographical details — even the most interesting details about the most interesting character — were ruthlessly excluded. The plan of the book had been accomplished. For this explanation there is much to be said. But the trouble with it is that especially in the latter part of the book the author as a matter of fact does show considerable interest in biographical details. The trial and shipwreck of Paul are narrated with a fullness which is quite out of proportion to the rest of the history. After such a full account of the trial, it remains rather strange that the author has said not a word about the outcome. Either of these last two explanations is perfectly possible. Possibly The Acts was written as late as A. D. 80. But the early date at least explains the peculiar ending best of all. 3. SourcesWhere did Luke get the materials for his work? Did he use written sources as well as oral information? The question has been discussed at very great length, but without much uniformity in the results. If he used written sources, at least he used them skillfully, placing upon them the imprint of his own style. The book possesses genuine unity. The really important fact about the sources of the book of The Acts is a negative fact. Whatever the sources were, the Pauline epistles were not among them. Compare the passages where Paul and Luke narrate the same events — for example Gal., chs. 1, 2, with the corresponding passages in The Acts — and it becomes evident that the two narratives are entirely independent. Luke did not use the Pauline epistles in writing his book. That is an exceedingly significant fact. It shows that The Acts is an independent witness. What is more, it strengthens materially the argument for the early date of The Acts. The Pauline epistles at a very early time began to be collected and used generally in the Church. In A. D. 100, for example, they would certainly have been used by anyone who was writing an account of Paul’s life. Since, therefore, the book of The Acts does not use them, that book must have been written earlier, and probably very much earlier. Even in A. D. 80, it would perhaps have been strange that the epistles should not have been used. 4. PurposeThe proper purpose of a historian is to tell the truth. And Luke was a genuine historian. His own account of his method, Luke 1:1-4, shows that he knew the meaning of historical research, and the character of his books bears this out. Luke did not permit any desire of putting Christianity in a good light, or of defending one kind of Christianity against another, to interfere with the primary duty of truthfulness. That does not mean, however, that the book of The Acts is like some modern university dissertations — written simply and solely in order to say some new thing, whether interesting or no. No great historian goes to work that way, Of course Luke had an interest in his subject matter. Of course he was convinced that Christianity was a great thing, and was full of enthusiasm in narrating its history. In that he was perfectly right. Christianity really was a great thing. The best celebration of its greatness was a narration of the facts. Christian faith is based on fact. Luke wrote, not only in the Gospel but also in The Acts, in order that his readers might know the certainty concerning the things wherein they were instructed. Luke 1:4.m 5. Literary Characteristics The author of The Acts was well acquainted with the Old Testament. He was able to catch the spirit of the primitive Palestinian church. His books exhibit the influence of the Semitic languages. But he was also capable of a Greek style which would have passed muster in the schools of rhetoric. Luke 1:1-4, for example, is a typical Greek sentence. Evidently Luke could move with ease in the larger Greek world of his time. His references to political and social conditions are extraordinarily exact. His narrative is never lacking in local color. He knows the proper titles of the local officials, and the peculiar quality of the local superstitions. His account of the shipwreck is a mine of information about the seafaring of antiquity. Evidently he was a keen observer, and a true traveller of a cosmopolitan age. His narrative is characterized by a certain delightful urbanity — an urbanity, however, which is deepened and ennobled by profound convictions. In the Library. — Warfield, “Acts, Timothy, Titus and Philemon,” in “The Temple Bible,” pp. i-xxvii. Davis, “Dictionary of the Bible”: Purves, article on “Acts of the Apostles.” Purves, “Christianity in the Apostolic Age,” pp. 1-8. M’Clymont, “The New Testament and Its Writers,” in “The Guild Text Books,” pp. 41-46. Hastings, “Dictionary of the Bible”: Headlam, article on “Acts of the Apostles.” ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: 08.08. THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION THE FOUNDATION OF APOSTOLIC PREACHING ======================================================================== The Cross and the Resurrection the Foundation of Apostolic Preaching 1. The Resurrection a Fact of HistoryWhich of the books of the New Testament contain the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus? That question will serve to begin the teaching of the lesson. In answer to it, the students will probably mention the four Gospels. To the Gospels, however, should be added especially the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The passage in First Corinthians is deserving of very careful attention. For, unlike the Gospels, that epistle can be dated to within a year or so. It was written only about twenty-five years after the crucifixion. Even though possibly some of the Gospels were written still earlier, the precision with which the epistle can be dated makes its witness particularly valuable. Furthermore, the author of the epistle is well known. No one doubts that First Corinthians was written by Paul, and Paul is the best-known man of apostolic times. Evidently his witness to the facts is of the utmost value. Paul himself was a direct witness of the resurrection. He saw the risen Lord. 1 Corinthians 9:1; 1 Corinthians 15:8. In 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, however, he does not content himself with his own witness, but reproduces the testimony of others in an extended list. That testimony had come to Paul by ordinary word of mouth. “I delivered unto you first of all,” says Paul, “that which also I received.” In what follows there is a list of the appearances of the risen Christ. “He appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; then he appeared to James; then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to the child untimely born, he appeared to me also.” Evidently these appearances are not conceived of merely as “visions,” but as events in the external world. The mention of the burial, 1 Corinthians 15:4, is a plain hint that what Peter and the rest saw was the body of Jesus raised from the tomb. That view of the matter is amply confirmed in the Gospels and in the book of The Acts. In the Gospels, we are told that the tomb was found empty on the morning of the third day after the crucifixion. It was found empty by some women and by Peter and John. Since the tomb was empty, the body which appeared to the disciples had some connection with the body which had been taken down from the cross. Furthermore, the Gospels and The Acts make the bodily character of the appearances abundantly plain. Jesus did not merely appear to the disciples at a distance. He walked with them on the road to Emmaus. He broke bread with them. He came into the very midst of them when they were assembled in a room. Thomas could even touch his hands and his side. These are merely examples. Clearly the testimony of the disciples is testimony not to mere spiritual experiences, but to the bodily presence of the Lord. It may be admitted that the body was a glorified body. After his resurrection Jesus was freed from the limitations of his earthly life. Nevertheless, he was not merely a “spirit.” Luke 24:39. There was some real, though mysterious, connection between the glorified body and the body that had been laid in the tomb. The New Testament attests not merely the immortality of Jesus, but his resurrection. The resurrection, in these days, is hard to accept. For it is a miracle. Against any miracle there is a tremendous presumption. In this case, however, the presumption has been overcome. It has been overcome by the character of Jesus. It is in the highest degree unlikely that an ordinary man should rise from the dead; but it is not unlikely that Jesus should have risen. The resurrection is unique. But so is the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The two wonders support one another. Explain away the testimony to the resurrection, and your task is not done. You must also explain away that sinless life. If Jesus rose from the dead he had a unique experience. But that is to be expected. For Jesus himself was unlike any other of the children of men. There are mysteries in his life that have never been explained. The resurrection of Jesus is a well-attested fact of history. The proof of it is cumulative. Any one of the proofs might be regarded as insufficient when taken alone, but when taken together they are overpowering. The sinless, unearthly character of Jesus separates him from the rest of men, so that probabilities which apply to others do not apply to him. His mysterious self-consciousness involves so lofty a claim, that if he was not divine he was a meglalomaniac — he whose calmness and strength have left an impression which the centuries have done nothing to efface! The specific testimonies to the empty tomb and to the plain bodily appearances of the risen Lord are independent and varied. Finally, unless the resurrection be a fact, the very origin of the Christian Church becomes an insoluble mystery. The resurrection alone can explain the sudden transformation of a company of weak, discouraged men into the conquerors of the world. The resurrection of Jesus is a fact of history. It is not an aspiration of the heart. It comes ultimately through the testimony of the senses. The apostles came forward with a piece of plain information. They were witnesses to a fact in the external world. That fact has put a new face upon life. It is good news of salvation. 2. The Resurrection Confirmed by ExperienceThe resurrection is a fact of history. Accept it as true, and you can have hope for time and for eternity. At this point, however, some men experience a difficulty. How can the acceptance of a historical fact satisfy the longing of our souls? Must we stake our salvation upon the intricacies of historical research? Surely some more immediate certitude is required. The objection would be valid if history stood alone. But history does not stand alone. It has suffered from a false isolation. A Christian certitude that is founded solely upon history is insufficient. History is necessary, but not sufficient. We need history, but we need something else as well. A historical conviction of the resurrection of Jesus is not the end of faith, but only the beginning. If faith stops there, it will never stand the fires of criticism. We are told that Jesus lives. So much is a matter of testimony, a matter of history. If we believe the witness, then we can have hope. But the religious problem of our lives has not yet been solved. Jesus lives. But what good is it to us? If he lives, we need to find him. We need to find him, and we can find him. We accept the message of the resurrection enough to make trial of it. And making trial of it, we find that it is true. Jesus is found to be alive, for he makes answer to our prayer, and heals us. We never could have come to him unless we had accepted the historical evidence for the resurrection. But starting with that historical belief we went on to the blessed experience of salvation. Christian experience cannot do without history. But it adds to history that directness, that immediateness, that simplicity of conviction, which delivers us from fear. We began with history. But we went on to experience. “Now we believe, not because of thy speaking: for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.” 3. The DeathJesus is alive. If we find him, he will heal us. But how shall we find him? In the New Testament we receive instruction. In the New Testament a strange fact stares us in the face. The New Testament seems far more concerned with the death of Jesus than with the details of his life. Learned men have tried in vain to explain that curious fact. In elaborate treatises they have sought the explanation. But it is really very simple. The New Testament emphasizes the death of Jesus because that is what Jesus did for us — or rather, coming after his perfect obedience to the law, it is the culmination of what he did for us. In the account of Jesus’ life we are told what Jesus did for others. That account is absolutely necessary. Without it we should never have been interested in Jesus at all. But it is to us a means to an end, not an end in itself. We read in the Gospel what Jesus did for others. For one he placed his fingers in the ears and said, “Be opened”; to another he said, “Arise, take up thy bed, and walk”; to another, “Thy sins are forgiven.” These things are what Jesus did for others. But what has he done for us? The answer of the New Testament is plain. For us he does not say, “Arise and walk.” For us — he died. That mysterious thing which was wrought on Calvary — that was his work for us. The cross of Christ is a mystery. In the presence of it theology walks after all with but trembling, halting footsteps. Learning will never unlock its meaning. But to the penitent sinner, though mysterious, though full of baffling riddles, it is plain enough. On the cross Jesus dealt with our sin. Our dreadful guilt, the condemnation of God’s law — it is wiped out by an act of grace. It seemed inseparable from us. It was a burden no earthly friend could bear. But Christ is Master of the innermost secrets of the moral world. He has accomplished the impossible, he has borne our sins. By the cross he has healed us. But through whom does he apply the healing touch? Through no one, save his Spirit. For he is here himself. If we are seekers for him, then this day our search is over.The death of Christ, in the modern Church, is often subordinated. Exclusive emphasis is laid upon the holy example and teaching of the Galilean prophet. The modern theologians would be right if there were no such thing as sin. If there were no such thing as guilt, and if there were no such thing as a dreadful enslaving power of evil, then a noble ideal might be sufficient. But to talk about an ideal to a man under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Sin may indeed be glossed over. Let us make the best of our condition, we are told, let us do the best we can, let us simply trust in the all-conquering love of God. Dangerous advice! By it a certain superficial joy of life may be induced. But the joy rests upon an insecure foundation. It is dangerous to be happy on the brink of the abyss. Permanent joy can come only when sin has been faced honestly, and destroyed. It has been destroyed by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is true that God is loving. He has manifested his love, however, better than by complacency toward sin. He has manifested it by the gracious gift of a Saviour. In the Library. — Denney, “The Death of Christ.” Orr, “The Resurrection of Jesus.” Crawford, “The Doctrine of Holy Scripture Respecting the Atonement.” ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-j-gresham-machen-volume-1/ ========================================================================