Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: February 04, 1957

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

The Bible is indeed an amazing book. In the academic world alone many thousands of scholars continue year after year to find it an inexhaustible mine in which they dig and delve and probe and experiment; and as the years go by the vast amount of scholarship devoted to the critical and analytical study of the sacred text shows no sign of diminishing. The great pitfall which intellectual activity of this kind does not always succeed in avoiding is that of a perspective which has room only for technicalities, thus tending to permit preoccupation with the letter to smother the spirit of the text and to forget that the primary purpose of Holy Scripture is to make man “wise unto salvation which is through faith in Christ Jesus.” But that the sacred text should be searched and pondered is a vital task of the Church in every generation.

The Expository Times (January, 1957) contains a stimulating article by Professor T. F. Torrance of Edinburgh on “One Aspect of the Biblical Conception of Faith.” We have by now become familiar with the contention that in the New Testament the word “faith” (pistis) should in important instances be understood as “faithfulness”, particularly divine faithfulness. For example, Romans 1:17—“The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”—may, as Dr. Torrance points out, be taken to mean that God’s righteousness is revealed from God’s faithfulness to man’s faith. “God”, he expounds, draws man within the sphere of his own faithfulness and righteousness and gives man to share in it, so that his faith is embraced by God’s faithfulness.” Or again, Romans 3:3 may be rendered: “Shall their faithlessness make of none effect the faithfulness of God?” Other significant texts mentioned are Romans 3:22 and Galatians 2:16, 20, and 3:22. Dr. Torrance explains “the faith of Jesus Christ” as “essentially a polarized expression denoting the faithfulness of Christ as its main ingredient but also involving or at least suggesting the answering faithfulness of man, and so his belief in Christ,” and he adds that “even within itself the faithfulness of Christ involves both the faithfulness of God and the faithfulness of the man Jesus.”

No one is likely to dispute the conclusion that “the whole of our salvation depends upon the faithfulness of God who does not grow weary of being faithful.” But when Professor Torrance asserts that “in Jesus Christ we are in fact unable to disentangle our faith from the faithfulness of God” we can but feel that his predisposition to dialectical thinking has confused rather than clarified what is a crucial issue. And even more so is this the case when he propounds the doctrine that “Jesus Christ is not only the Word of God become flesh, He is also Believer, but Believer for us, vicariously Believer” (my italics). So novel a deduction may be the offspring of dialectical ingenuity, but hardly of scriptural revelation.

In the exegesis of the biblical text, however, the twofold significance of pistis should not be overlooked.

Professor C. F. D. Moule of Cambridge writes in New Testament Studies (October, 1956) on “The Nature and Purpose of I Peter.” The hypothesis that I Peter is not properly a letter, but a primitive liturgy, and, more particularly, a baptismal liturgy, has been put forward by certain scholars in recent years. (Perdelwitz, 1911; Bornemann, 1919; Preisker, 1951); and more recently still Professor F. L. Cross of Oxford has advanved the view—in his book I Peter, A Paschal Liturgy (1954)—that I Peter is not only a baptismal liturgy, but (in Professor Moule’s words) “substantially the celebrant’s part of the Baptismal Eucharist of the Paschal Vigil.” While agreeing that I Peter is concerned with baptism, Professor Moule observes that this is also true of many other parts of the New Testament, and that in itself this ‘proves no more than that the early church writers continually had the ‘pattern’ of baptism in mind.” He is unconvinced that there is here an actual liturgy—“the words used actually at a celebration of baptism or a baptism-and-eucharist.” He finds it difficult to conceive how such a liturgy “could have been hastily dressed up as a letter and sent off (without a word of explanantion) to Christians who had not witnessed its original setting.” His detailed criticism of the hypothesis in question is sensible and compelling.

Professor Moule, however, advances a theory of his own. He believes that I Peter is “genuinely epistolary and was

written specifically for the communities indicated in the greeting.” But it is his opinion that, since (on his interpretation) “some of these communities were actually suffering persecution, while for others it was no more than a possibility, the writer sent two forms of epistle, one for those not yet under actual duress (1:1–4:11 and 5:12–14), and the other … for those who were in the refining fire (1:1–2:10, 4:12–5:14),” and suggests that “the messengers were bidden read the appropriate part to each community, according to the situation.” By an analysis of the contents he shows that each part contains an opening address (2:11 and 4:12) and a closing ascription (4:11 and 5:11), a macarism (ie. “Blessed are ye …”, (3:15 and 4:14), an appeal to Scripture (3:10–12 and 5:5), a reference to the imminence of judgment (4:7 and 4:17), an exhortation to commit one’s cause to the Lord. 1:1–2:10 and 5:12–14 are taken as common to both letters. This theory is certainly interesting and thought-provoking. The lack of any breath of ancient tradition in its support is, however, an obstacle not easily surmounted, and it is well known, not least in the New Testament, that the epistolary form may not infrequently exhibit digressions, recapitulations, repeated emphases, and spontaneous outpourings in the form of ascriptions, invocations, and so on.

Writing in The Christian Graduate (December, 1956), on “Some Aspects of the Reformed Doctrine of Holy Scripture,” the Rev. H. M. Carson emphasizes that “linked closely to the objective fact of the sufficiency of Holy Scriptures there is the allied doctrine of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.” This means that “our acceptance of the sufficiency of Scripture is not merely a mental assent, but is a spiritual response to the inner testimony of the Spirit, who brought the Scriptures into being, and who still interprets them to the people of God.” The Christian who adheres firmly to the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture can, he asserts, “be assured that he stands in a noble succession”—a succession which reaches back to the early church and to Christ Himself. It is, moreover, a doctrine that has been prominent “at all periods of spiritual awakening in the life of the church.” We, too, for our part, are convinced that, if there is to be a true spiritual awakening in our own day, it will not be apart from the recognition of the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as the Word of God.

Cover Story

Luther’s Doctrine of Inspiration

J. Theodore Mueller

The recent almost world-wide Luther renaissance, which has again made the Reformer’s teachings a matter of popular interest, has also produced a renewed discussion of his doctrine of biblical inspiration. Conservatives appeal to him for support of their position as well as the neo-orthodox and the neoliberals.

Since all quote passages from his writings to substantiate their claims, it would appear that Luther held heterogeneous and conflicting opinions on this issue. The resulting confusion justifies the question as to what Luther really believed and confessed with regard to the doctrine of biblical inspiration.

Luther’S Opposition To False Views

Only when we view the objective of Luther in its proper perspective can we rightly gauge his attitude toward Scripture. But this will lead us also to assign to him his rightful place as a true reformer of the biblical doctrine of Scripture in general over against the erroneous views of his day. As the first of the evangelical church reformers, Luther had to blaze a new Scripture-oriented trail through a veritable theological jungle of errant opinions in which Scripture, tradition, reason, mystic intuitions and the like were hopelessly jumbled.

Luther’s interest therefore was not attached primarily to the doctrine of inspiration, as was, for instance, that of the later Swiss divines. He accentuated, above all, what is now commonly known as the sola scriptura, that is, the proper source and norm of the Christian faith and life. That exalted position and function of Scripture Luther endeavored to establish and clarify against the Romanist view of Scripture plus church tradition, the humanist view of Scripture plus reason and the enthusiast view of Scripture plus private revelation.

The Bible’S Authority Decisive

To all these varying forms of unequally yoking together “what God says” and “what man says,” Luther once for all called a halt. Very early in his career as an evangelical reformer, he recognized that he could not maintain the central Gospel doctrine of Scripture, the glad tidings of salvation by grace alone through faith in Christ, unless the Bible alone is accepted as the decisive authority in religion.

He knew from both Scripture and experience that the sola gratia, or the sola fide, is a message of divine revelation, entirely foreign to a false church tradition, perverted human reasoning, erroneous mystic speculation, alleged private revelation and other standards which rationalizing theologians of all sorts desired to place side-by-side with Scripture as normative for doctrine and life.

Luther rightly maintained that the Christian way of salvation by grace through faith in the redemptive blood of Christ can come only from God Himself, and not from philosophy or any other manifestation of human thought. It was thus in the interest of the sola gratia that Luther so greatly stressed the sola scriptura. It was also for this reason that he inculcated the entire body of Christian truth from the viewpoint of Christ crucified and risen for sinful man’s deliverance and justification. Luther’s whole theology was indeed Christocentric, but this absolute Christocentric orientation did not flow from any speculative motif. His evangelical teachings were centered in Christ simply because, as he puts it, Christ is the beginning, middle and end of Scripture. Over against the vainglorious arrogance of perverted human reason his theology proved itself triumphantly theocentric.

Protest Against Rome’S Position

To understand properly Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration, we must keep in mind, moreover, that in the interest of the sola scriptura Luther also rejected, on the one hand, the false Romanist synthesis of the canonical Scriptures and the Apocrypha and on the other, the Romanist equalizing of the New Testament Homologumena and Antilegomena. Since neither Christ nor the apostles quote the Apocrypha of the Old Testament and since, moreover, Jewish tradition did not accept them as a part of the canon, Luther regarded it as an impious undertaking on the part of Romanism to place them on the same level with the prophetic Scriptures of the Old Testament. Luther’s protest against the Romanist attempt at placing on the same level the Homologumena, that is, the universally received books of the New Testament, and the Antilegomena, or those that were not unanimously received, such as James, Jude, Hebrews and others, was not quite as stern as was his repudiation of the Apocrypha. Nevertheless, he held that since the ancient Christian church, which alone was capable of deciding this matter, had made this distinction, the later (Romanist) church had no authority to abolish the established difference. This conviction largely explains Luther’s well-known condemnation of the Epistle of St. James.

Development In Luther’S Thought

At this point, however, it should be stated in justice to Luther that he later somewhat modified his earlier opinions on the Antilegomena. Thus his last preface to the Epistle of St. James is much more favorable than was his first.

Luther therefore should not be judged merely from certain expressions, often quoted without due consideration of the context, but from his theology as a whole, and that especially in its later development. There is no doubt that Luther increased in wisdom and stature as year by year he occupied himself with the profound Gospel content of Scripture. Hence, what the “young Luther” said must be compared with what the “mature Luther” had to say.

At the beginning of his work as a reformer, Luther had no dependable pattern to go by. Even so helpful a guide from the ancient church as St. Augustine usually failed him, as he faced doctrinal or exegetical problems. Then, too, it should be remembered that Luther was an extremely busy man who commonly wrote under heavy pressure. At one time he complained that his manuscript was taken from his desk by the printer even before the ink could become dry. That accounts largely for what has been called the “uncritical character” of his writings. Lastly, it may be noted that Luther was lacking in the literary punctiliousness, or precision that characterized, for example, such scholars as Melanchthon and Beza. Luther’s writings are like rugged gems, usually unpolished and often unfinished in form, but gems, nevertheless. Therefore the student of Luther may occasionally find in his theological treatises lapses or even contradictions, though these do not pertain to essentials, but to peripheral or accidental matters and may largely be explained by their orientation and emphasis.

But with regard to the doctrine of biblical inspiration there is nothing in his works that denies the verbal and plenary inspiration of the canonical books of the Bible. In Luther’s estimation every canonical biblical book is God’s Word, no matter whether it teaches a Gospel mystery or an intelligible precept and whether it pleases perverted human reason or not.

Champion Of Plenary Inspiration

While Luther did not use the scholastic terminology of the later Lutheran and non-Lutheran dogmaticians such as verbal or plenary inspiration, he in substance held what these terms signify, though he never taught what has been called a “mechanical dictation theory.” To him it sufficed that Scripture, given to perishing mankind by the merciful God through his divinely called prophets and apostles, is God’s own Word and therefore efficacious, authoritative, sufficient and perspicuous.

To Luther, God’s Word, set forth in Scripture, is never anything dead, but always something divinely alive, effective and powerful to work that which God wills, through the Holy Spirit operating in the written living Word. Therefore it must be regarded as efficacious and, as a divine message, also authoritative. But Scripture as the Word of God is also sufficient to quicken the hearts of men and convert them to Christ by a living faith, the Law humbling the conceited natural heart and the Gospel, the message of divine grace in Christ Jesus, as the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, engendering saving faith in Christ. For that very reason Scripture, in all its essential parts, is also perspicuous, or clear, though obscure portions occur in its prophetic utterances.

Luther very earnestly urged all students of the Bible to turn from such obscure passages and portions, if these should perplex them, and study with unabating zeal the divine plan of salvation in Christ Jesus, which Scripture everywhere sets forth in lucid terms. Luther himself never attempted an exposition of the Book of Revelation, which he regarded historically as deuterocanonical, and doctrinally as inexplicable in its prophetic visions.

The Central Interest Is Christ

On the other hand, Luther never wearied of expounding the fundamental Scriptures of sin and grace and to accentuate those Bible books that treat Christ, not because he regarded the others as non-inspired or less inspired, but because in his opinion Scripture serves no other purpose than to make men know, trust, love and follow Christ. Beyond that Luther did not develop the doctrine of biblical inspiration, not merely because there was no controversy on this subject, since both the Romanists and the Swiss reformers agreed with him on the doctrine of inspiration, but because he perceived no need of any further scholastic formulation of the doctrine. Nevertheless, essentially his teaching on inspiration is the same as that of the later Lutheran and non-Lutheran dogmaticians; for Christians who honestly accept what Scripture witnesses of itself are bound to reach the conclusion that the Bible is the divinely inspired Word of God and as such the only legitimate authority of doctrine and life, just as it is God’s power to convert and sanctify sinners, sufficient for man’s salvation and clear in all its teachings that pertain to man’s salvation.

Luther never changed or modified his doctrine of biblical inspiration which he had inherited from his medieval teachers, namely that Scripture, given by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is God’s own saving Word. Having been made a “Doctor of Sacred Scripture,” on October 19, 1512, he, at Wittenberg, eagerly took over the prescribed lectures on the Holy Bible, the so-called Lectura in Biblia, which obligated him to offer continuous discourses on Scripture.

What Scripture Says, God Says

In spring, 1513, he began to expound the Book of Psalms, to which he devoted that entire year. In these his first lectures he again and again impressed upon the students his conviction that the Scriptures are God’s Word, and that therefore such expressions as “God speaks” and “Scripture speaks” must be regarded as interchangeable. Luther thus says, to quote but a few of his many statements on this point: “The Scriptures are divine; in them God speaks, and they are His Word” (Weimar Ed., III, 41,6; 451,26). In 1520 Luther published his famous polemic Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, in which he states that the church has no authority to set forth new divine promises of grace “… (but that) God’s Word stands incomparably high above the church” (W. VI,561). In 1521, at the Diet of Worms, he refused to recant his statements against the Roman church, because he “was overcome by the Scriptures” and his “conscience was taken captive by the words of God” (W. 7,838). According to Luther, Scripture is always above the words and wisdom of men, because it is God’s own Word.

That remained Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration till the end of his life. To him the canonical Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament were at all times the authoritative Word of God and this he asserted over and over, almost ad nauseam. In matters of salvation only Scripture is to be believed, and not any pope or church council, for my faith must be certain and have a sure foundation in Scripture (W. 15,195). Whatever is asserted without Scripture or without its sure revelation need not be believed (W. 6,508; 10,2,191; 2, 297,279,309,315). The true God speaks in Scripture, wherefore we must accept in simple faith what it says (W. 40.2,593). Whatever Paul says, the Holy Spirit says; and whatever is contrary to Paul’s word, is contrary also to the Holy Spirit (W. 10.2,139 f.). The apostles received the Holy Spirit; therefore their words are God’s Word (W. 40. 1,173 f.). So, then, Scripture is God’s Word and not the word of men (W. 5, 184; 8, 597). God is the author of the Gospel (W. 8,584). The Holy Spirit is the author of Genesis (W. 44,532). The Bible is the peculiar Scripture of the Holy Spirit (W. 7,638; 46,545; 47, 133).

Studies Of Luther’S Doctrine

Dr. Reinhold Seeberg, from whose Die Lehre Luthers (Vol. IV) of his Dogmengeschichte (Leipzig 1933), we have quoted these thoughts and words of Luther, rightly remarks: “Such quotations (from Luther) could easily be multiplied.” That is true, and there are many that have performed this task. Luther’s doctrine of biblical inspiration has been very adequately and convincingly set forth by Dr. M. Reu, in his excellent book Luther and the Scriptures (1943). It has been treated still more comprehensively by Dr. Francis Pieper in his three-volume Christian Dogmatics (English translation, 1950). More briefly the writer of this has summed up the matter in his Christian Dogmatics (1934).

A fair and unbiased study of what Luther has written time and again on biblical inspiration should convince any reader that he always and fully recognized the canonical books of the Old and the New Testament as the inspired Word of God, from which a Christian dare not depart nor to which he dare add anything.

Luther acknowledged no degrees of inspiration. He did not look upon some books of Scripture as more inspired than other but considered all canonical books of the Bible to be equally inspired, though not equally important for Christian study so far as the way of salvation through faith in Christ is concerned; for first, as he says, those writings deserve consideration that set forth the fundamentals of sin and grace.

It is commonly said that Luther took over the doctrine of biblical inspiration from his medieval teachers. Rightly understood, that statement may stand. But medieval theology did not develop a peculiar doctrine of its own concerning biblical inspiration. It rather taught what has always been the belief of the Christian church, ever since the time of the church fathers, the apostolic fathers and the blessed apostles themselves, who in their teaching of biblical inspiration followed their divine Master.

A Sacred Tradition

To Christ, the entire Old Testament canon was the inspired Word of God, which he quoted authoritatively as the divine Word, and that not merely according to its general scope, but according to its particular passages or statements. To establish monogamy as the divinely instituted form of marriage over against his opponents, he quoted Genesis 1:27 (Matt. 19:4). To repulse the temptations of Satan he quoted distinctive Scripture passages against him from the Old Testament (Matt. 4:1–11). To our blessed Lord, the Old Testament passages were the authoritative divine Word, and in that sense they were understood also by his adversaries, Satan no less than the Pharisees and Sadducees.

This was the practice also of St. Paul, who as a called apostle of Jesus Christ did not only proclaim in divinely inspired words the divine truths revealed to him (1 Cor. 2:12,13) and wrote by divine inspiration the “commandments of the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:37) but also, in support of his apostolic teachings, quoted Old Testament passages as, for instance, Habbakuk 2:4 (Rom. 1:17).

That was done also by the other apostles, so that from the days of Christ and his apostles up to the time of crass rationalism the canonical Scriptures of the prophets and apostles were unanimously regarded in Christendom as the divinely inspired Word of God.

High View The Prevalent One

This fact was incontestably affirmed some years ago by the learned German theologian, Dr. H. Echternach, in a treatise on biblical inspiration entitled The Lutheran Doctrine of the Autopistia of Holy Scripture, which he delivered before a convention of Lutheran pastors and professors at Berlin Spandau in 1951. He wrote inter alia: “The infallibility of Scripture was the consensus of the church, irrespective of denominational lines, until long after 1700 A.D.” Again: “Lutheran theology … refused to surrender the doctrine of inspiration also for another reason. It was aware of the heinousness of false doctrine, something the moderns have lost.… The 17th century still knew something of ‘being constrained by the truth’ and of the moral implications of religious knowledge. It therefore recognized that both in the secular and in the ecclesiastical realm every error is blasphemy and soul-murder” (cf. Concordia Theological Monthly, April, 1952; pp. 241 ff.).

Acceptance Of The Biblical Witness

Luther took the Bible seriously. When, for example, it declares: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Tim. 3:16), or: “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Tim. 3:14), he accepted these statements as the inspired Word of God from which neither he nor any other person had the right to deviate.

Modern liberalism gave up this doctrine of biblical inspiration and with that fatal surrender also the objective Christian truth of Scripture, which Luther valued so highly. It lapsed into a deadly subjectivism tantamount to religious agnosticism; indeed, that tolerating human error and repudiating as false the Gospel of Christ’s free and full salvation as taught in Scripture.

But this agnostic subjectivism is not only subversive of all positive supernatural truth; it is also unfair to Scripture which approaches man as a divine Book, authoritatively demanding, as God’s own Word, both faith and obedience. If this divine Book, the glory of the Christian world, with its Spirit-inspired message of salvation, is not given a chance to sanctify sinners and transform our perishing civilization by its preserving moral precepts, the light of Christ will fail our western peoples as darkness once fell upon rebellious Israel when it declined to listen to the warning of the prophet: “To the law and testimony; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isa. 8:20).

Luther predicted that very thing to his own generation and people. Those who know history know what has happened. There is much that his prophetic voice may tell our own age on how to regard and treat the inspired Scriptures of God.

END

We Quote:

DANIEL A. POLING

Editor, Christian Herald

Always the high purpose, the veritable passion of the Reformers, was to know God through Jesus Christ; to open and release the Bible as the Word of God; to bring men, as individuals, to redemption, and to save the whole world, its institutions and its peoples from sin—sin corporate and personal. Always the message of the Reformation was, and always it must be, just this; Jesus Christ, Who is Very God of Very God, the one and only sufficient Saviour.—From a Reformation Day sermon November 4 in Jacksonville, Florida.

J. Theodore Mueller, whose earlier years were spent instructing in Lutheran colleges and serving Lutheran churches, in 1921 began his long and useful career as Professor of Systematic Theology and Exegesis at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. His books include Luther’s Commentary on Romans and The Lutheran Confessions. Born 1885, he received the Th.D. degree from Xenia Theological Seminary in 1927.

Cover Story

Emil Brunner and the Bible

Paul K. Jewett

The stroke suffered recently by Emil Brunner as he returned to his native Switzerland after two brief but strenuous years of teaching in Japan cannot but leave one with a sense of regret and loss. How much, in God’s providence, he may yet have to say to us we cannot know; but though there be little more, the bequest of his pen to our generation will challenge every serious theological mind for years to come. In this limited article we assay a large task, namely, to discuss his view of Scripture. Brunner himself once remarked, epigrammatically, “The fate of the Bible is the fate of Christianity.” Because this is true, it may also be said that the fate of the Bible in Brunner’s theology is the fate of his theology.

Acceptance Of Critical Views

Let us begin by observing (what is well known) that Brunner accepts many results of the so-called higher criticism of the Bible. That the creation and fall narratives, in fact the pre-Abrahamic history in general, are a late priestly production; that when all is said and done, the Wellhausian order of “prophets then law” has remained victorious; that the latter half of Isaiah is postexilic; that the Lukan account of a census and the Matthaean story of the Magi are legendary; that the resurrection narratives are conflicting; that John is not a historical source; and that the Pastorals are late—all this is for Brunner the common property of educated minds, just as much as Copernican astronomy and Newtonian physics. The Bible “is full of errors, contradictions, erroneous opinions concerning human, natural, historical situations. It contains many contradictions in the report about Jesus’ life; it is overgrown with legendary material even in the New Testament” (Religionsphilosophie, pp. 77 f.). Hence the orthodox view of the Scripture, which conceives the Bible as a book of infallible, self-consistent propositions, is impossible for anyone who knows anything.

It is probably true that Brunner’s liberal theological background, especially in the early years, served to underscore this phase of the problem in his thinking beyond due proportions. But every serious student of the literature knows that biblical criticism has raised questions that cannot be exorcised by the simple denial of their existence. Hence, though Brunner’s concessions to criticism seem to many of us intolerably cordial, our position is such that we are constrained to read on. If Brunner is convinced that we can no longer regard the Bible as an infallible norm of faith and practice—and he is—what place does he give it in our present-day thought about God and His self-disclosure to man?

Revelation Versus Doctrine

To answer this question we must pause a moment on the larger subject of revelation. Revelation, for Brunner, is God’s breaking into time in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the Word. “Revelation is Jesus Christ himself, not a doctrine about Jesus Christ” (Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 63). This revelation is completed in the response of faith on the part of the individual as he is confronted by God in Christ. The proper “echo” of the divine Word in the human heart is revelation consummated. It is “personal correspondence.” Thus the truth of revelation moves in a different sphere from that of reason. It is “thou-truth” (Du-Wahrheit), not “it-truth” (Es-Wahrheit). There is, as Brunner says, an “abyss” which separates “the human word and God’s Word, human-rational and divine-spiritual understanding” (Offenbarung und Vernunft, p. 415). Revelation then moves in the realm of personal encounter, of confession. “Verily thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Every genuine testimony about Christ must arise out of such a personal encounter of him. The rise of “it-truth” from “thou-truth,” or, to speak theologically, the rise of doctrine, such as we have in the Bible, from revelation occurred when the Apostles turned from the God who addressed them to the men whom they addressed.

The first prerequisite, therefore, for the rise of the witness of doctrine, is the stepping out of the thou-relationship to God, a turning of the face, as it were, away from God and toward the world. In doctrine man speaks no more in the thou-form to God, as in the original confession of faith—but he speaks now in the it-form about God. Doctrine is no more the spontaneous personal answer of prayer to God’s word, but even in its simplest form already, reflective speech about God. Stepping out of the dimension of personal meeting into the impersonal realm of reflection, is the presupposition of all doctrine. God is now no more the one who speaks, but the one who is spoken about; no more is God the one who is addressed, but a man or a plurality of men [Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 44],

On The Rim Of Revelation

Now the Bible, according to Brunner, is the fixation of this faith-confessing, faith-creating testimony of the Apostles. This viva vox of the Apostles stands in closer relationship to the Word of God than does the Bible, but the Scriptural fixation of this living testimony, which was necessary to preserve it from being completely altered and thereby lost in the moving stream of historical tradition, participates in the authority of that revelation. It is, so to speak, the rim, the border of that unique revelational event of which it bears record. It is this participation in the once-for-all character of revelation as a unique historical event which gives the written documents superiority over the subsequent oral tradition and which grounds the idea of a canon. “We have the word of revelation as something unique and finished, therefore, as canon” (Der Protestantismus der Gegenwart, p. 254). The once-for-all spoken word of revelation meets us as a Perfectum praeteritum in the Scripture, which is therefore the norm of revealed truth.

Words About The Word

Strictly speaking, then, the Bible is not the Word of God in the unqualified sense of Orthodoxy, but rather a word about the Word, a record of the Apostolic witness to the Word, which participates in the authority of that witness. Since Jesus is himself the Word, it is idolatry to regard the Bible as the Word of God in the orthodox sense. When all is said and done, however it may differ from other human formulations of revealed truth, the Bible cannot be the ground of Christian faith, but only its means. I do not believe that Jesus is the Christ because I believe the Bible. The order is exactly the reverse in Brunner’s way of thinking. “Because I believe in Christ, I believe the Scripture” (Offenbarung und Vernunft, p. 166). Nor does it help any to say that I believe Jesus is the Christ because an Apostle says so. It is all the same. Were not the Apostles men? Could they not err? Indeed they could and they did. Their testimony, as we have it preserved in Scripture, is, to be sure, “inspired by the Spirit of God, but it is at the same time a human word, and therefore laden with the frailty and incompleteness of all that is human” (Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 40). However, true faith is not shaken by this fact, but, recognizing that revelation is broken in the human medium, it reaches beyond the contradictory perspectives of the Scriptures to that One to whom they all point, Jesus.

The Temporary And Permanent

Hence, Brunner declares, it is our task to distinguish between that which is binding and valid and that which is temporal and human in the Bible. Only we must not fall into the error of liberalism by failing to perceive that our norm and criterion in fulfilling this task can be no other than the Scripture itself. “Only by means of the doctrine of the Apostles can the apostolic doctrine be criticized.” This apparently circular reasoning is really so only for “a legal-orthodox mentality” (Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 55). Though the astronomic-cosmological, the geographical, ethnographical and historical pronouncements of the Bible are not, as such, binding upon us, yet this does not mean, as the liberals assume, that we may lop off Genesis 1 through 12 and go about our business. No portion of the Bible is more laden with revelation than the lapidary opening chapters of the Genesis narrative. We do not receive revelation save through the whole Bible, by which Brunner means not simply all portions of the Bible, but all the content of all the Bible, including its antique cosmology and early chronology. The world view of the writers of Scripture is the alphabet in which the witness of revelation was given. Only we should not confuse the alphabet with the witness itself. We must differentiate between them even though we cannot sever them. Hence Brunner can say that we are bound even to the very words of Scripture, for the words of the Bible are not only signs of the thing, but the thing itself. “We have no power in any sense or respect over the words of Scripture, not even then when the need of the church may lie close to requiring such” (Natur und Gnade, zweite Auflage, Vorwort).

Not A Final Norm

Yet along with such commitments, we find Brunner categorically affirming that even in matters of doctrine, not to mention science, the Bible is not a final norm. To put the matter pointedly in Brunner’s own words: “However, the norm of Scripture understood even in the sense of a norm of doctrine, is no absolute, but only a conditional one, conditioned by that which at the same time grounds it; namely, the revelation, Jesus Christ Himself” (Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 57). The Word of God can never be identified with the words of the Bible. A final recourse to a passage of Scripture is therefore an impossibility. Christian doctrine remains always, and in every case, a venture of faith (ibid., p. 58). How, then, do I know that the Christ to whom the Scripture testifies is indeed the Word of God? Brunner’s reply is that there is no revelation in itself. Revelation is address and response, “personal correspondence.” I believe in Christ for the same reason Peter did, whose eyes were opened to the truth by a special act of God’s Spirit. To be sure, this testimony of the Spirit is only by means of the apostolic witness as preserved in Scripture. But God’s Word is double; the happened-Word becomes the happening-Word in the moment in which God seals it to me as His Word. The Bible, in other words, becomes the Word of God to me in the moment of revelation when I become contemporaneous with Christ. In a single act of revelation there is created in me faith in the Christ and faith in the Scripture which testifies to him. The relativism attaching to the merely historical, which makes impossible final recourse to the Scripture as such, is overcome in the act of faith, whereby the historical becomes “an other than the historical … an organ of the revelation of the eternal God … The historical has become the eternal Word of God” (Die christliche Lehre von Schopfung und Erlosung, p. 307).

Difficulties Facing Brunner

This in brief is Brunner’s attempted synthesis of the liberal-orthodox antithesis. Thus he would escape on the one hand the dilemma of the liberal, from whose fingers both tables of the Law have slipped, without committing himself to what he regards as a wooden Orthodoxy. There can be little doubt that he has achieved his end, after a fashion, for he is too orthodox for the liberal and too liberal for the orthodox. This is his privilege, and probably his intention, but would it be a pedantic irrelevance to ask him how he can reject the virgin birth of our Lord and at the same time be bound even to the words of the narrative as both sign and thing signified? We must, no doubt, grant him the liberty that we all take (even though we are not theologians of the paradox) of being a little inconsistent, but sometimes one is tempted to complain with Capulet to Juliet,

How now, how now, chop-logic!

What is this?

To be precise, Brunner insists that without an authoritative Bible, Christianity is lost (and as a Christian Brunner professedly bows before that authority), but at the same time he tells us that its authority is conditional only, that it is an authority freighted with human frailty. Is it not difficult to fit the pieces of this puzzle together?

What is a conditional authority? Is it not one to which we can talk back? One which we may like or leave? Yet our Lord said that the Scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35). So far was he from asserting that final recourse to the Scripture is impossible that he rested his whole defense against the devil on “It is written.” If we are Christians, we ought not to be ashamed of Jesus in this respect, but rather to acknowledge that the Scripture, as the word of God written, is the keystone in the arch of our confession, the foundation on which our view of life rests, the theological axiom from which alone we derive our message to a race of dying men.

Finality That Wavers

If, as Brunner himself says, the fate of the Bible is the fate of Christianity, then to make the authority of the Bible conditional is to place a question mark after the absoluteness of Christianity. Brunner would probably answer that the Spirit of God uses the Bible (even as he would a sermon) though it be fallible, as a means of divine revelation in the crisis of faith. Now it is surely important that the Bible become the word of God to the individual; but is it not equally important that the Bible be the Word of God, for how can the Bible become what it is not? To be sure, it is no longer possible to conceive the Bible as dictated by the Holy Ghost, yet even Brunner admits that “the Word of God is there [in the prophets] in the form of revealed human words, not behind them …, but in a direct identity, in a complete correspondence of man’s word and God’s word” (Die christliche Lehre von Gott, p. 26). This, it would seem, is to concede a very basic point, for however untenable certain scholastic formulations of the doctrine of Scripture may have become, the essence of the orthodox position is that the Bible is the Word of God in the form of revealed human words. But if the Scripture is the word of God, then our task is not to get beyond Orthodoxy, but so to formulate our Orthodoxy, in the light of contemporary problems, that the Bible becomes to men in our world what we as preachers and theologians believe it really is, namely, the Word of God.

Paul K. Jewett spent a year abroad in graduate studies under Emil Brunner on a scholarship from Harvard Divinity School, where he received the Ph.D degree. His book on Brunner’s Concept of Revelation was along the lines of his doctoral dissertation. Jewett is now Professor of Systematic Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Cover Story

Christianity in China

Hollington K. Tong

There are those who believe that with the spread of communism, Christianity is a lost cause in China. Nothing could be further from the truth. I propose to deal briefly with (1) the strength of Christianity among China’s leaders and people on Formosa; (2) what has happened to the Christians on the mainland since the coming of the communists; and (3) the place of Christianity in China’s future.

Christianity In Formosa

Most of the important government leaders on Formosa, or Taiwan, are professing Christians. The President of the Republic, Chiang Kai-shek, has been an active Christian for thirty years. The story of how, brought up in a Buddhist environment, he became a Christian, is not generally known in the United States.

Shortly before the completion of China’s unification, President Chiang, who had met and fallen in love with Miss Mei-Ling Soong, journeyed to Japan where his future mother-in-law was recuperating from an illness, to ask Mei-Ling’s hand. Madame Soong was reluctant to consent to her daughter’s marriage to a non-Christian and suggested that he become a Christian.

The Generalissimo replied that he was willing to study the Bible and to become a Christian later by conviction. Madame Soong agreed to this compromise and gave her blessing to the marriage.

The announcement of the coming wedding delighted all the Christians in China. Christianity was then under serious fire in China. The Russian communist advisers attached to the National Army and the native Chinese communists were striving to launch an anti-Christian movement patterned after the anti-Christian movement in Russia.

When, shortly after his marriage, Generalissimo Chiang publicly joined a Christian church, he began a career of devout and dedicated Christianity which has continued until this day.

Other prominent government leaders on Taiwan who are Christians include Mr. O. K. Yui, the Prime Minister; Dr. Wang Chung-hui, President of the Legislative Yuan, an office corresponding to that of Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; General Chang Chun, chief secretary to the President; General J. L. Huang, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Military Services; and General Ho Ying-chin, Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Board.

Madame Chiang, Mrs. Yui, Mrs. Chang, Mrs. Wang and Mrs. Ho are all earnest Christians. Mrs. Chen Cheng, wife of the Vice President of the Republic, is also a devoted Christian.

General Chiang Ching-kuo, the Generalissimo’s elder son, is also a fine Christian. The names of other prominent people on Taiwan who are Christians would sound like a roll call of outstanding Chinese. Christianity has deep roots on Taiwan.

The Christian influence has extended to the common people of the island. During Japan’s long occupation of Formosa, Christianity was barely tolerated. Only 30,000 people had accepted Christ at the end of Japanese rule. The Japanese discouraged Christianity among the 160,000 aborigines. Today, under the Republic of China, at least 20 per cent of the aborigines have become Christianized.

Today, the number of Christians on Taiwan has reached 150,000, out of a total population of ten million, or a ratio of one Christian to every 70 inhabitants. And the number of Christians is increasing rapidly. Five years ago, at a revival meeting one Sunday evening in a public park in Taipei, I was struck by the fact that more than 600 of the total audience of 800 stood up and expressed their wish to become Christians.

During the ten years Taiwan has been under Christian administration, there has been a great growth in the Christian faith. Take a walk in Taipei and you will find a church, a chapel, a Christian hospital or a mission agency within sight. There is Christian growth in the rural regions as well as the city.

The Taiwan Presbyterian Church is the oldest Christian church on Taiwan—a church that does much work among the aborigines. Established 84 years ago by missionaries from the English and Canadian Presbyterian churches, it has become the mother church of 426 Presbyterian churches on the island. Of this total, 238 are located on the plains and 198 among the aborigines.

One of the Generalissimo’s first acts upon his arrival on Taiwan was to establish a small church for his worship. For more than four years, the Shih Ling Church had as resident pastor the Rev. Chen Weiping. Eighty years old, Mr. Chen recently retired. Now the church secures different pastors to preach by invitation.

On The Mainland

How many Christians are openly maintaining their faith on the Chinese mainland, under communist rule, is not easy to estimate.

In the pre-communist period, in 1934, three years before the outbreak of the war, there were 5,493 Protestant missionaries in China, and 475,205 Protestant church members. This latter figure had increased by 1948 to 618,600. In the same year there were 2,624,166 Chinese Catholics.

The only figure known to us since the communists seized China is that 400,229 Christians signed the Christian Manifesto in September, 1950. This Manifesto was issued by the so-called National Christian Council, organized by the communists. Denominations represented were the Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church, the Episcopalian Church, the Baptist Church, the Little Flock, the Christian Meeting House, the Independents, the American Methodists, the English Methodists, the True Jesus Family, Pue Tao Hui, the Salvation Army, the Apostolic Faith Church, the Free Methodists, the Disciples, the Quakers, the Mennonites, various Pentecostal sects and 23 smaller groups.

Signing the Manifesto was obligatory for all Christians if they wished to avoid public accusations as supporters of Western imperialism. This Manifesto followed a virulent campaign of the communists against all Christian churches which were affiliated or connected with any foreign body. The major object of the Manifesto was to single out the United States for attack. According to the communists, all mission work done by any nation or Christian organization was prompted by American imperialism.

In an article in the People’s Daily, entitled “How Did Imperialism Use Religion for Aggression in China,” Hsieh Hsin-yao declared:

In the past hundred years, churches have been the bastion of the aggressors, with the latter serving as the background of the former. Whenever chances occurred for diplomatic negotiations, certain missionaries came to meddle in affairs. For instance, J. Leighton Stuart, former president of Yenching University, had posed as a religious leader and educator for many years. Outwardly he acted as if he really sympathized with China but in fact he was one of the most important secret agents for American aggression in China. Unveiling himself, he became the American Ambassador to China in order to carry out America’s aggressive policy toward China.

In his book, “China under Communism—the First Five Years,” Professor Richard L. Walker declared that “Christianity has been under attack because in communist doctrine, it represents Western Imperialism in China. No aspect of the humanitarian work of devoted Christian missionaries over the past century has been spared attack. Chinese Christian leaders activities and associations.… In a majority of cases activities and associations.… “In a majority of cases the missionaries were subjected to some combination of imprisonment, torture, house arrest, sometimes lasting for years, and public mass trial.”

I fear that at least 50 per cent of the Christians on the mainland have been driven underground by communist persecution. They dare not openly attend services. Communists keep a close tally on church attendance, and those who attend are subjected to stern discrimination. I can only guess that 50 per cent of the preachers have capitulated to Chinese communist pressure by including communist propaganda in their sermons. Sad to relate, most of the churches on the mainland have joined the so-called new order.

We can understand this apostasy, even though it hurts us. It takes rare courage for any Chinese to be a Christian in Red-ruled China today. It means that he will be treated as an outcast. Paragraph 21 of the Election Law of March 1, 1953, denies the franchise to Christians and Buddhists unless they belong to organizations that are members of government-sponsored bodies, and unless their political conduct is good.

The attack upon religion by the Chinese communists follows the historic Soviet line. Many Chinese communists in their youth undoubtedly received the benefit of education in Christian schools. Some of the Communists who have bitterly denounced Dr. J. Leighton Stuart, former American Ambassador, were students in Yenching University, a Christian institution, during his university presidency. However, sentiment is nonexistent in a communist. Once an individual becomes a communist, he must follow the communist line in his thoughts and actions.

Immediately after the communists took over, an official order was issued requiring all churches and Christian groups to register with the government if they wished to continue. At the same time a government bureau for the control of religious matters was created. Many churches and Christian groups registered with the bureau, but a few had the courage to refuse to register.

In order to centralize control over the churches, the bureau in 1950 set up the so-called National Christian Council. After issuing the Manifesto, the Council proceeded to set up what it called the Three Self-Reform Church Movement. This was a control measure designed to detach the churches from all identity with their original denominations. The “Movement” insists upon self-government, self-support and self-propagation. If a church refuses to join the “Movement,” its property is subject to confiscation by means of heavy taxation. An unaffiliated church must pay heavy land taxes. If these are not promptly paid, a fine of one-half per cent a day is imposed. Thus a church can exist in Red China only on condition that it “reforms.” When it accepts affiliation with the “Movement,” it pays either no taxes at all or extremely low taxes.

The Three Self-Reform Church Movement has made existence very hazardous for preachers. They must constantly ask themselves—what shall we preach, how shall we preach, and who shall preach? The communists have definitely answered the question, who shall preach. They declare that the preacher must be a man who stands firmly on the side of the people. Of course, the communist meaning of the term “the people” differs sharply from the meaning that free peoples accept.

The kind of directives given to the churches through the “Movement” are exemplified by an article entitled “Christians Must Oppose Imperialism and Be Patriotic” by Wang Chin-hsin, a professor in the Nanking Theological Seminary, in Tien Feng (June, 1955), a church paper published by the communists. He argues that those who oppose the Three Self-Reforms have been trying to quote the Scriptures incorrectly to suit their purposes. He condemns them for opposing the new communist church changes.

Another pamphlet, issued in Peiping, indicates that the Three Self-Reform Church Movement has caused wide confusion within the church groups themselves.

Religious magazines formerly devoted to the spread of the Gospel have also been converted into communist media of information. An instance is the Kung Po, formerly the publication of the Church of Christ in China.

As late as January, 1950, the Kung Po dared to write fearlessly in opposition to the communist evil. The change in the atmosphere in Red China may be seen in the change that has come over Kung Po since that time. The same magazine has been filled with articles equating Christianity with the Marxist doctrines. In 1951, for example, there appeared an article entitled “A Christian of the New Generation.” The writer declared that there is a lack of faith in the church of China today. This is due, he points out, to the fact that the members do not rightly understand the “People’s Principles” and that they have not cut away completely from “imperialistic doctrines.” Without doing these two things, he says, a Christian cannot develop a true love for his nation and church. He then proceeded to tell them, under four heads, what a Christian of the new generation needs.

(1) New Life—“resurrection life.” This means putting forth all one’s strength, working with every breath one draws, “to enter the New Order.”

(2) New Thinking—“Lift up your intelligence.” This means to develop a plan to carry out the principles of Marx, Lenin and Mao.

(3) New Knowledge—One should increase his knowledge. The author argued that American imperialism leads the Chinese to divide and perish, but that Mao is a brave lover of the people.

(4) New Work—Christ commanded His disciples to go into all the world and teach all nations, releasing men from bondage. This is the new work to which every Christian is called. Paul exemplified it. Today, men must follow their example, proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, namely, the establishment of world peace according to the principles of the People’s Republic.

By 1952, the Kung Po was printing a cartoon of President Truman and his Cabinet on their knees before a rat in a cage, pleading with the rat to save them (by means of germ warfare) from the just vengeance of the People’s Armies in Korea.

The picture of Red China today may be clarified by some of the remarks of the Rev. Victor D. Barnett at the Biennial Conference of the Far Eastern Council of Christian Churches at Karuizawa, Japan, in August, 1953. Mr. Barnett’s conclusion was that the State Church today is only a tool of the communist regime, although within it there are, no doubt, many of God’s own people.

He told of a pastor in Canton who, after obeying government orders publicly to accuse missionary friends and Chinese brethren, went into an inner room and wept bitterly. However, “so far as I have heard,” he states, “he is still in the State Church.” Another man, a principal of a theological seminary, who was greatly used of God in past days, is now a compromiser and an “accuser of the brethren.”

Mr. Barnett told of the more admirable group of Christians in China who have not yet bowed the knee to the communists. For example, a church in the South was told to join the Church State Organization, if it wished to continue to function. It refused. As a result, its meeting places were confiscated and ten of its leaders were imprisoned. Four of these were executed as “reactionaries,” three were released after a year of imprisonment, and three are still unaccounted for.

A certain pastor declined to join the so-called reform movement. The communists induced one of his nephews to accuse him of immoral conduct and to publish an untruthful expose of him in a State Church magazine entitled “Heavenly Wind.” The nephew later committed suicide and the pastor was stoned to death by communist terrorists.

So great is the fear in Red China that some day the communists may take the Bible away from the Christians that an “Eat the Bible Society” has been organized among the Christian students in a certain university. The purpose of the society is to require each member to memorize an assigned portion of the Bible against the day when no true Bible will be obtainable in China.

The Future In China

As to the place of Christianity in China’s future, I shall set forth my personal views. God rules in righteousness and justice. The choice must be made by each nation either for God or against Him.

There is no question that the number of Christian leaders in the Government of the Republic of China will steadily increase with time. I feel confident that we shall return to the Chinese mainland, the only question being when. Once we are back, we shall give Christianity the first place in our religious activities. Of course, the Government will not interfere in religious activities—our Constitution provides freedom of religion—but those who will direct the affairs of state will be largely Christians.

We have noted a considerable decline in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. These faiths which used to dominate the minds of the people have dropped into a secondary status and will probably never recover their former importance in China. Christianity, which has so much to give, will unquestionably reach millions of new converts in China.

Communism based upon godlessness must fail, or thousands of years of recorded human history are meaningless. Once it collapses, the task of Christianity to fill the vacuum will be immense. It will be the duty of Christians to repair the ravages—spiritual and material—left by communism. With God’s help, we will be equal to the task.

A graduate of the University of Missouri in 1913, Hollington K. Tong is Ambassador of the Republic of China to the United States.

Cover Story

The Word for This World

Peter H. Eldersveld

PSALM 96:10, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth …”

What is the most important proclamation the world needs to hear? In light of renewed interest in religion, what is the message to modern man in this critical hour of tension and turmoil? In other words, what should be the content of preaching?

There are many answers to that question, popular and unpopular. For example, some people believe the only message for today is racial integration and its related social problems. Others believe it is ecumenicity, the unity of the Church and the need for Church union. Others would constantly preach about the return of Christ at the end of time or some interpretation of the millennium. Others would involve preaching only in theological controversy, such as modernism vs. fundamentalism, and orthodoxy vs. neo-orthodoxy. And still others believe that the threat of communism to the Church ought to be the principal concern of preaching.

All of the above subjects are very important and should be brought into the pulpit. They belong to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But one wearies of hearing the same subjects from preachers with pet prejudices, which they parade endlessly to the exclusion of all else. Surely there is something greater and more vital to proclaim to our world, which will apply to its deepest need, as well as to secondary problems that we are so prone to make primary.

And there is! The true Gospel transcends all the little themes in which little men often lose themselves. We find it in Psalm 96:10, our text, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth.…” That has always been the greatest message to proclaim, the word for this world, the fundamental of all fundamentals. The absolute sovereignty of almighty God is the most important lesson for modern man to learn. He must rediscover the basic fact in the universe, namely, that God is really God!

Such little ideas are prevalent about God these days. This may be because we have such big ideas about ourselves. The Bible teaching about the sovereignty of God is not taken seriously. The renewed interest in religion has not produced humbleness. Men are still trying to make God after man’s image. How small that makes God!

We smile indulgently about the strange idols of pagan people, who live in what we like to call the benighted areas of this earth. Poor souls! we say. We make it our business to bring them the benefits of our genius. We can be so patronizingly magnanimous about it all! But, of course, we want them to adopt our “way of life” too. We want them to live in the light of our modern culture, to share the ideas that have made us so great.

However, many reject our way of life. They take our material goods, but not our way of thinking and living. This baffles us and insults us. We wonder how they can be so ungrateful. Perhaps it isn’t a matter of ingratitude. They believe that their gods are superior and we are pagans. Some state bluntly that they even prefer the idols and the ideas of communism!

And no wonder, for the popular conceptions of God that prevail in our supposedly Christian culture can hardly compete with the gods of pagan theologies. For people to take God seriously, He must be greater than the popular idea of Him.

Popular Misconceptions

For many of our scientists, God must be small enough to be seen through a telescope, or to be measured by a mathematical formula or to be put into a test tube. It is considered to be quite a compliment to God when a noted scientist declares that he believes in Him.

For many of our philosophers, God must be small enough to fit the limitations of their little minds. If they cannot comprehend him, they cannot believe in him. The Word of God is for many a modern thinker quite beside the point, a weird jumble of fact and fiction, almost without validity and certainly without authority.

For many of our politicians, God must be small enough to be used for the purpose of getting votes. His name in campaign speeches is like the name of an athlete on a box of breakfast cereal or like the name of an actress on a cake of soap. God is used to recommend the politician to the gullible public, but otherwise he is something of a misfit in politics.

For many of our economists, God must be small enough to bow humbly before the dictates of big labor leaders, big captains of industry and big officials of government, who solve all our problems for us in this area of life. He must wink at injustice, turn his head discreetly lest he look upon violence, put his blessing blindly upon tyranny and then comfort the poor victims of domestic strife. But he may not occupy a decisive role. After all, what does the God of that ancient Bible know about the complicated problems of our modern machine age?

For many of our diplomats, God must be small enough to live within the cozy little chapel reserved for him—and for all other gods—in the United Nations building. He cannot have an active part in the great assemblies of world powers, lest we antagonize those who do not believe in him and thus jeopardize our hopes for world peace. Apparently our international problems are outside the sphere of his sovereignty.

And for many of our theologians, God must be small enough to dwell in temples made with human hands. Some are churches where creeds are dead, where the word of man has replaced the Word of God, where ecclesiastical power is more important than redeeming grace, where the Cross of Christ is little more than a symbol. The towering biblical truths that speak about an absolutely sovereign God are too great to be found in these churches. Modern man does not want the sovereign God. The modern church must give him another one, a smaller god, a more liberal god, like man himself, made in his image, a god he can handle. This is the supreme tragedy of our times, that even churches have become too small for God—the God of the Bible, and of the great creeds that are based upon it! Meanwhile, these churches are big enough to hold all those who want to be religious these days, whatever their religion may be. They have room for the largest membership in history, but they are too small for God—the true God, the absolutely sovereign God.

Whittled To Our Size

Not long ago I had the privilege of participating in a panel discussion before a group of college and university students who wanted to examine the various religious ideas of our day. One member of our panel was a distinguished liberal preacher who became somewhat embarrassed and irritated by the questions asked. They found certain inconsistencies in his theology, and they were particularly critical of his conception of God. Finally, one of them asked him bluntly: “Do you think God is infinite or finite?” The answer was equally blunt, and little caustic: “Of course, I believe that God is finite. He is limited by the actions of men. In this enlightened age, how can any intelligent person still believe in an infinite God?”

What midget ideas we have of God! We have whittled him down to our size, and even smaller, so that he would be more manageable. Indeed, when our text states, “say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth …”—that God is really God—it is speaking to our modern culture, too. That word “heathen” applies not only to those who have never heard the Christian Gospel but also to those who have heard it and have rejected it. It not only fits a civilization where the Word of God has never come but also one where it has come and gone. And in either case, the most important thing to proclaim is that God is the absolute sovereign in this world!

Greatness And Glory

It seems almost incredible that men should miss what is the most obvious fact in this universe. How can they be so blind? Just look heavenward some clear night and you will see a cluster of stars that is the finest in the northern sky. You can count 6,000 stars in that group, if you try, and each one of them is larger than the sun. And the sun is so big that you could put a million of our little earths into it and still have room to spare. Who is behind all of that? Who brought it into being? Who has been upholding it twenty-four hours a day, year in and year out, for centuries, so that every part of it stays where it belongs in its patterned orbit? Why, God, of course! And yet these tiny creatures on this tiny planet dare to deny him or to refashion him to fit the limitations of their own little thoughts.

The Bible says in Daniel 4:35: “He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand, or say to him: What doest Thou?” These words came from the lips of a pagan king, Nebuchadnezzar, but he had to suffer most awful punishment before he became humble enough to say it. Amid all the rubble of twenty-three civilizations that historians declare have already perished, we find the evidence that indicates what happens to men if they refuse to acknowledge this fact. We must either take the sovereignty of God seriously, and live; or deny it, and die!

But if we are going to take it seriously, we must see God at his greatest, his highest, and his best. That cannot be done by merely looking at his heaven through a telescope, or by observing the laws that govern his world, or by marking his footprints in the path of history. God is God, supreme and sovereign, not only because he is the creator of the world, and the One who upholds it, but because he is the Redeemer of the world, the One who saves it.

It was good when he said amid the darkness of an unborn universe, “Let there be light!” But it was much better when he said amid the darkness of a sinful universe, “I am the Light of the world.” He was infinitely great when he formed man’s body out of the dust of the earth and then gave him divine breath to make him a living soul. But he was infinitely greater when he himself became a Man—a babe in a manger, a boy in a carpenter shop, a teacher with disciples, a physician for the sick, a preacher to the poor and, above all, a saviour on the Cross! That was indeed the highest point of his absolute sovereignty! Only one who is really God could have done that!

Preacher In The Red

HIGH TIME

While a student at Bucknell University, I was invited to speak at a church in New Columbia, Pennsylvania. The night before, I set my alarm in ample time to reach the church ahead of schedule. Unknown to me, my roommate came in late that night and turned off the alarm. Much to my chagrin I awoke an hour later than I had planned. By the time I reached the church I was thirty-five minutes late for the service. When I finally got up to begin my talk, I had to announce my text from Roman 13:11, “Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.”—The Rev. JAMES H. MIDDLETON, pastor, Calvary Baptist Church, Princeton, New Jersey.

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Sovereign From A Cross

Justin Martyr used to say that the scribes had omitted three very important words from this text, that it actually reads this way, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from a tree.…” There is an old hymn based upon that version and confirmed by Philip Schaff, which has in it this very striking verse:

The truth that David learned to sing

Its deep fulfillment here attains:

Tell all the earth the Lord is King!

Lo, from a Cross, a King He reigns!

God is sovereign from a Cross! He alone has the power to save from sin, which is the greatest power in all the world. And only he could have made the sacrifice that was necessary to atone for sin. The hands that hold the reins of world government are the holy hands that were nailed to a Cross. And the feet that have this earth as a footstool are the feet that were pierced. And the crown of absolute dominion in this universe is a crown of thorns. And the blood that brings peace to the hearts of men in their battle with sin is the blood of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.

Many years ago, Archimedes, the Greek philosopher, said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a place to put it on, and I will move the world.” There is such a lever: the Cross of Christ; there is a place to put it on: Calvary; and God is using it to move the world. And not only to move it, but to save it!

So this is the question with which we must confront every man today, How big is your God? The gods of modern man are not big enough to save your soul and to govern your world. You need the God of the Holy Bible, the God of our historic Christian faith, who alone is big enough to overcome death with life, time with eternity, sin with salvation, and hell with heaven. Without that God your soul is lost and your world is doomed. Go to his throne on Calvary today, confess your sin, ask him to wash you in his precious blood, and surrender yourself in faith to his sovereign grace. There is no other god big enough for you, for there is no other God!

Let us rededicate ourselves and our churches to the high purpose of saying among the heathen that God is really God—from a Cross! That is indeed the word for this world!

The Rev. Peter H. Eldersveld has been the radio and television voice of the Christian Reformed Church since 1946 as minister of The Back to God Hour. He holds the A.B. degree from Calvin College, Th.B. from Calvin Seminary and A.M. from University of Michigan, for post-graduate study in Speech and English.

Cover Story

That They May Be One

J. Marcellus Kik

Enthusiasm for ecumencity has taken firm hold on the ecclesiastical world. Constant discussion and debate revolve about the ecumenical movement and its goals, but unanimity concerning the objectives involved has not been reached. To some the goal is deepening fellowship and widening areas of cooperation. To others the aim is visible, organic union—a single comprehensive organization of the churches. Nothing less than a visible structure would satisfy many ecumenists. For such the very word ecumenical connotes visible organizational unity of the church.

Advocates of organic union appeal constantly to the petition uttered by Christ in his high priestly prayer: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21). It has been assumed that this earnest appeal pleads for corporate church union.

Visible Church Unity

Christ’s supplication, without a doubt, does press for visible church unity. Without a visible oneness how could the burden of the petition be effected “that the world may believe that thou hast sent me”? The world cannot behold the invisible. Surely the world would be more inclined to believe the divine mission of Christ if unity among professing Christians were perceptible. Christendom split into fragments must puzzle the unregenerate world and cause it to doubt the value of Christ’s entrance into history. The church united in faith, love, worship and purpose would not fail to impress the world and engender respect for her Leader.

Those who would belittle church unity must quarrel with the petition of Christ. He definitely prays the Father to establish a visible unity among his followers that the world may believe in his mission. While recognizing this need the evangelical, however, is distressed that many ecumenists pay scant attention to the type of church unity for which Christ pleads. In spite of the definitional clause in the petition the ecumenist envisions his type of union—a single comprehensive organization with some acceptable government whether congregational, presbyterian or episcopal. Was this ecumenical church in the mind of Christ as he petitioned the Father?

Our Lord defined the unity he desired with the clause “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.” The particle as cannot be ignored if one would interpret the mind of Christ. The concord that exists between the Father and the Son forms the pattern of unity for which the church must strive.

One In Doctrine

Obviously, harmony exists between the Father and the Son in regard to doctrine. Jesus insisted that his teachings were in agreement with the Father. “My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me,” he claimed in John 7:16. He said further, “I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him.… I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me” (John 8:26, 28). Again he said, “For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (John 12:49). These are but a few passages in which Jesus strongly maintains that his doctrine is identical with that of the Father. Unity with contradictions in doctrine was not the burden of the high priestly prayer.

Impatient designers of the ecumenical church shudder at the thought of doctrinal unity, which either appears unimportant or impossible of achievement. Fear has been expressed that doctrinal emphasis will scuttle the ecumenical movement. Yet how can two walk together except they be agreed? Since Jesus stressed doctrinal agreement between the Father and himself, how can any movement worthy of his name ignore this important cohesive force? Organizational union without concord in doctrine will fail to impress the observant world. Actually, doctrinal unity is an important ingredient of the mortar which will hold together the living stones of the Temple of God.

One In Purpose

Between the Father and the Son there was mutual agreement in the carrying on of the work of redemption. They were one in purpose. Jesus said, “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.… And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life” (John 6:38, 40). The will of the Father was the salvation of his people through the atoning work of Christ upon the cross. Thus Jesus could say in anticipation of Calvary, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).

The church must echo that agreement of purpose by proclaiming the message of redemption to every creature. Salvation of the lost was the purpose for which God sent his Son into the world. In fulfilling this mission the Church comes into the unity of the Father and the Son. The rapid growth of the first-century church can in part be ascribed to the unity manifested by believers in proclaiming the message of redemption. Organizational unity, where the one purpose of proclaiming redemption does not exist, will fail to impress the unbelieving world.

One In Love

The pagan world stood amazed at the demonstration of love in the lives of believers. “How these Christians love one another. They are even ready to die for each other,” was the discerning remark of a pagan. The church is described as being of one heart and of one soul in Acts 4:32. What affected one affected all. With surprise and admiration the first-century world beheld a fellowship bound by love, embracing men of every race and language. This was the visible unity for which Jesus prayed and which astonished the world.

The present ecumenical movement can never succeed until the desire for closer union springs from dynamic love in the hearts of church members. Many are enamored of ecumenicity because a comprehensive organization seems more efficient and more economical. Many are impressed because church leaders stress its importance. However, a unity brought about by economic reasons or by ecclesiastical pressure has no resemblance to unity engendered by love. A unity built upon superficial motives has little resemblance to the unity of heart and soul of the early church. Nor is it the unity for which Jesus prayed.

Unity Of Early Church

No one will seriously argue that there has been a complete fulfillment of the Lord’s petition in history. Nevertheless, the first-century church does reflect a great unity of doctrine, faith, life and purpose. The Epistles reveal the struggle of the church to achieve the type of unity for which Christ prayed. For instance, the epistle to the Galatians shows how Paul withstood the infiltration of false doctrine lest it split the church. Further, in Ephesians 4:11–14 he emphasized that the work of the ministry was to bring the Church “in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” Faith and knowledge that has the Son of God as the object will bring about genuine unity—a unity that can be destroyed only by heresy.

Central Control

Recent writers have despaired of finding a pattern for their conception of the ecumenical church in the New Testament. John Knox writes, “Our recognition of the fact that the church, which has never been fully united in a visible unity, was not thus united in the Apostolic Age, will keep us from interpreting the goal of the ecumenical movement as being simply the restoration of the forms and usages of the early church” (The Early Church and the Coming Great Church, p. 15). He maintains also that “There was no one over-all organization and no central control” (ibid., p. 43); and “There was no single comprehensive organization of the churches; nor can a universal pattern of organization be traced among all the churches severally” (ibid., p. 83).

The absence of “central control” is explained by the consciousness of the New Testament church that the headship of Christ was a living and vital reality. Expression of the fact is found in Colossians 2:19: “And not holding the Head, from which the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered and knit together increaseth with the increase of God.” Here is true organic unity—a spiritual unity which may disappoint those who feel that organizational unity is the high goal of ecumenicity. The New Testament, however, emphasizes the spiritual Headship of Christ and the spiritual unity of believers.

Visible unity of the church is the desperate need of the present day. Its absence harms the cause of Christianity. Yet the only effectual unity is the unity for which Christ prayed and which the New Testament Church illustrated. The Church today must not yield to the temptation to search for a more human and a lower pattern for the sake of immediate achievement. There must be no bypassing of the pattern of unity expressed in the Lord’s petition, “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee” and the pattern of unity exemplified by the early church. While this spiritual unity may take longer to achieve, it is that for which our Lord prayed.

Eutychus and His Kin: January 21, 1957

SACRED ELECTRONICS

Now that the Jesuits use electronic brains for research (Time, Dec. 31), it is time for harassed pastors to discover automation.

Pastor Brown is already a short circuit rider. In his saddlebag for calls on ailing widows is a tape recording of Sunday’s service. His simple visitation technique is to bring a table, find an extension cord, plug in the machine, replace a fuse, splice the tape, then nap with a suitably benign expression while his best oratory thunders at the widow.

One or two ministers of visual education, with suitable staffs, can keep the largest pastorate wired for sound.

For real automation such simplification of the ministry is but the beginning. By prompt action you may still sell your library before the conservatives realize we are in the post-literary age. Soon gleaming silver-green machines will line your study wall. Their quiet hum indicates they are receiving information by direct wire from the regional office, Commission for Group Therapy, Worship Division. From this your sermon will be accurately assembled and recorded (in your own voice—somewhat improved).

Even before this penultimate stage immense benefits await you. Consider the efficiency of storing stock sermon illustrations on punched cards, to be automatically inserted on the tape where they apply! Think of the values of electronic committee meetings! Progressive pastors have already moderated meetings in absentia with a recorder wired to repeat the concluding statements of every speech in this setting: “In other words, you believe that … What reaction is there to this insight?”

A fully electronic committeee meets in the machine. Deacon Jones’ chronic opposition to the pastor, Elder Harper’s allergy to doctrinal questions—all such factors are filed on tape, including, in Elder Biffle’s case, the pronounced views of Mrs. Biffle. Anything can be decided in 47 seconds. The trained clergyman can adjust the machine to jam and ring an alarm when fed the question, “Should the pastor be asked to resign?”

EUTYCHUS

INAUGURATION OF A RULER

The inauguration this month of Dwight D. Eisenhower … brings to mind the “inauguration” some three thousand years ago of Saul … anointed king of Israel in place of Samuel the deposed judge.

They are remarkably similar: (1) They rode to office on the crest of a political tidal wave that repudiated their traditional, conservative freedoms in favor of more “liberal,” socialistic forms of government. (2) They were considered by contemporaries as “God’s man” for their particular hour while embarking upon political philosophies contrary to the will of God.

Mr. Eisenhower’s policies, like those of Saul, reflect the spiritual attitude of the people, for the national surrender of individual sovereignty to the state is always an outgrowth of the spiritual decline of the nation as a whole.

The Democratic Party began this trend in 1932 by taking the American people for a twenty-year sojourn through the political jungles of Saul. In 1952 Mr. Eisenhower was elected with the understanding by many people that he would return us to the type of government exemplified by Samuel and founded by the fathers of our nation. Instead, his administration so closely resembled that of his predecessors that we now have what has been called the “two-party, one-platform” system. Our endorsement of “modern” Republicanism is a repudiation of conservative Americanism.…

We are reminded of another “Inauguration” to come when the True Judge, of which Samuel was a type, will ascend his rightful throne.

EDW. W. ANDERSON

Seattle, Wash.

THE SPELL OF THE CROSS

Your leader on James Denney reminded me that I am probably the only person in these United States who was present at his inaugural address. But I left before he finished as he was beyond me, in deeper waters than a first year student at Glasgow University could follow.…

When I graduated from seminary “loaded with larnin’,” as my Irish friend put it, and somewhat befogged, I was fortunate to get Denney’s Studies in Theology (my copy is dated 1895, fifth edition), lectures delivered at Chicago Theological Seminary.

There I got my bearings in the New Testament and saw how God sealed my pardon with His blood, in a vicarious atonement for my sin. While under the spell of this discovery, I was lunching one Sunday with a prominent New York Avenue preacher to whom I mentioned Denney and commended his book. “Oh, he’s too old fashioned for me,” he replied; “the incarnation is the important thing in religion and theology.” A year after that day the New York Times one Monday morning published an extract from my friend’s sermon wherein he said that in several years he had never had a single conversion in his church. How could he expect converts if he lingered in Bethlehem? Men are attracted by preaching without the cross, but not redeemed.…

GEORGE MCPHERSON HUNTER

First Presbyterian Church

Mannington, W. Va.

RECOGNITION OF RED CHINA

Historical forces will eventually bring us to a recognition of Red China. It took us sixteen years to recognize Russia after the revolution in that country, though the Soviet Union had earlier been recognized by most other nations.

LOWELL MESSERSCHMIDT

Zion Church

Batavia, Wis.

How much I appreciated your editorial on “Red China and World Morality” (Dec. 10, 1956). I first went to China in 1946 as an Episcopal missionary teacher. I lived in Red China one and a half years before I was permitted to leave. I stayed behind by my own choice because I suspected that the United States government’s hostility to communism led to dishonest reports of what communism really was. I lived and worked under an episcopal bishop who is now the chief Episcopal collaborator with the communists in China. I learned to my grief that criticisms of communism rather than being violently unfair are really repressed in an effort not to jeopardize the present status quo. I saw Christians in China driven insane by communist persecution; I saw peasants ruthlessly expended for the gain of the communist rulers; I saw missionaries unjustly sentenced and virtually forgotten by their sending agencies.

When I got back to the United States, I volunteered for the Korean War, for I was convinced that the sooner communism was checked, the less suffering there would be for all the world, including the communist parts of it. Since I had been ordained, I was accepted as a civilian employee, not a soldier and used for interpreting and translating Chinese. I spent two years in Japan and Korea.

And all the time, I was hurt and perplexed by the lack of support from the major American denominations. The Buck Hill Falls Foreign Missionary Conference (as I learned after my return from China) called for U.S. recognition of Red China—in spite of the way Red China disgracefully treated their own missionaries. “Peace at any price” partisans demanded American withdrawal. Thousands of Protestant church leaders dignified a foreign policy of expediency by calling it peace. I was deeply troubled with the theological shallowness and political irresponsibility that prompted community leaders to follow Neville Chamberlain’s pathetic program to secure “peace in our time.”

And in the midst of my despair and disgust with American church leadership, I found your editorial.… It has been literally water for the soul in a thirsty land. With prophetic clarity it enunciates the moral principles that are at stake and points toward a definite policy. Congratulations on the way you have perceived and fulfilled your moral responsibility. You have demonstrated more than I could have hoped that not all Protestant leaders ultimately worship secular expendiency.…

PAUL B. DENLINGER

Chinese and Russian Institute

University of Washington

Seattle, Wash.

MORALITY AFAR OFF

From a Christian viewpoint, the violent demonstrations of moral indignation taking place around the world, protesting Russian “enslavement” of Hungary, are highly significant. We rise to defend the moral law as binding on all men. Yet where there is personal involvement, such as our culture’s flaunting of sex, the rising rates this year of crime, venereal disease and divorce, we are not so demonstrative. These we may on occasion attack but not the root of the matter in our own hearts. Here is our human culpability, our sin.

We had supposed that democracies would be ever-righteous until Britain and France demonstrated that involvement and expediency could excuse them for violating moral rectitude.

Believers, unbelievers and half-believers fought with almost superhuman tenacity in World War II, on the desperate assumption that Providence could not allow bestial tyranny to subdue the entire world. Yet, our personal righteousness, on the national average, has not noticeably improved.

We need a revival of personal righteousness and faith in Jesus Christ more than we know. With the United States standing in a sudden and unchallenged moral leadership, especially among the uncommitted nations of Africa and Asia—what a potentiality if a true revival should sweep our land! May God raise an army of intercessors!

WILLIAM E. LUMBERG

First Mission Covenant Church,

Chicago, Ill.

OUR SCHOOL SHORTAGE

The great need facing the American people today is the shortage of schools. In sundry places two sessions are held in the same building and the pressure is increasing.…

Now the schools are not only a concern to the civil government. Calvin recognized the teacher as a God-given officer. Indeed, in the early middle ages the bishop’s cathedra was the only “college chair.” Knox wanted a large portion of the assets of the medieval church used for educational purpose. Our Christian Reformed brethren today are saying that the schools are the primary responsibility of the parents for their children. In America the school, the church and the home have worked together for the nurture of the children.

On many occasions congregations have rented and used school facilities for Sunday worship and instruction. Conversely, the public schools are now renting classrooms on a temporary basis from different congregations. DeKalb County so used rooms of the Columbia Presbyterian Church a few years ago. Decatur is now renting rooms from the First Baptist Church, and Atlanta from the Trinity Presbyterian Church.

This article is a suggestion that these temporary arrangements be made more permanent. Many of our churches have large educational buildings, the full capacity of which is used only for the Church School hour on Sunday. During the week many of these classrooms could be used by the local schools without interfering with the work of the Church. The local school boards could afford to rent these rooms rather than raise the money to build more buildings by bonds at the present high rate of interest.

There need be no more sacrifice of the principle of separation of Church and State on a permanent than on a temporary basis. This is a case of the two institutions cooperating in a needy enterprise without either dominating the other. The fact that the Church is cooperating may be a reminder to the schools of the debt which society owes the Church for the preservation of the heritage of the ages and for her constant encouragement of education. While there should be no effort on the part of any Church to dominate the teaching done in these rented rooms, the meeting of classes under the shadow of the Church would be a silent reminder of Him Who is the Light of the World.

WILLIAM C. ROBINSON

Columbia Theological Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

MINE ONLY

… THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN MY LETTER TO YOU PUBLISHED IN YOUR DEC. 24TH ISSUE ARE MINE ONLY AND NOT THOSE OF THE SENIOR MINISTER OR NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE SESSION OF THE CHURCH TO WHICH I SERVE AS ASSISTANT MINISTER. INASMUCH AS MY PREVIOUS COMMUNICATION WAS NOT WRITTEN WITH THE INTENTION OF IT BEING PUBLISHED, I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS MORE ACCURATELY MY THEOLOGICAL POSITION. I AFFIRM MY BELIEF IN THE DEITY OF JESUS CHRIST MY LORD, THE IMMORTALITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL AND ITS UNION AFTER THE DEATH OF THE PHYSICAL BODY WITH A NEW AND SPIRITUAL BODY, AND THE VICTORY OF JESUS CHRIST OVER SIN AND DEATH.

THOMAS J. KELSO

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Pittsburgh, Pa.

• The Rev. Mr. Kelso refers to correspondence asserting that he has “no truck” with “the Virgin Birth, the Bodily Resurrection, the … substitionary atonement of Jesus Christ.” The Presbyterian Church U.S.A., he added, “does not require belief” in these doctrines (“if it did, a lot of us would be out on our ear …”). He also flouted the idea of conditioning church membership upon such profession of belief. There was no indication that the letter was not to be published.—ED.

Ideas

Conversations With Chinese Christians

Conversations With Chinese Christians

The tragic gulf between the nations of the world in this generation of grief must not be allowed to threaten the unity of the body of Christ. Russians, Chinese, Yugoslavians, Hungarians, Indians, Japanese, Britons and Americans alike belong to that body, equal in dignity and privilege, if they have been regenerated by the Spirit of God. There is neither East nor West in the body of which Christ is the head, but one faith, one Lord, one baptism.

One can sympathize, therefore, with the repeatedly expressed hope for renewed contact between believers in Russia and China and believers in the Free World. Almost six years have passed since American missionaries and Chinese believers have had free conversations. The break in relationships came not without some measure of ecclesiastical animosity; in fact, Chinese member churches requested in 1951 that the World Council cease all correspondence. Of the 4200 Protestant foreign missionaries in China in 1948, not more than ten remained in 1955, some of these reportedly in prison. Of the 6475 Catholic missionaries in 1949, less than 84 remained; 20 of the remaining missionary priests were allegedly imprisoned.

The suffering and sorrow of Christians behind the Iron Curtain are part of the burden that more fortunate Christians may help them bear. If direct help is excluded, at least they can pray and understand. Lack of information about the persecuted church in China has curtailed intercessory interest among world Christians.

Whether this communion of saints is best achieved by exchange groups of ecumenically-minded churchmen making tourist stops in the churches of the Soviet Union and Red China is another matter.

We may waive for the moment the marginal question of whether a contingent of ecumenical clergymen, traveling under State Department auspices, adequately reflects the outlook and temper of American Christianity. Even more important is the question: Is it judicious for American churchmen to go abroad and confer recognition and dignity upon foreign churchmen standing in cordial relations with a regime that has martyred and imprisoned hosts of believers?

Leading churchmen have been agitating for the State Department to permit a delegation to visit Communist China, with the ultimate objective of an exchange visit by Chinese churchmen to the U.S.A. Dr. John A. Mackay, president of Princeton Theological Seminary, has called bluntly for revision of state policy, virtually impugning the present restrictions as anti-Christian: “Christian churchmen simply cannot regard as ultimate and permanently authoritative any governmental edict that would force them to accept a situation which violates their Christian conscience and the eternal imperative of Christian love.” These are strong words, a stinging indictment of American foreign policy from church sources. One wonders whether such words have been uttered in China by the churchmen Dr. Mackay proposes to visit?

When evangelicals think of fellow-believers in Communist China, their hearts go out first to those who suffer for their witness to Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Lord. The 3000 evangelicals reportedly languishing in concentration camps and prisons would welcome a resumption of contact with believers outside Red China and would ably interpret to them the innate spiritual antagonism between Communism and Christianity.

The relationship of these persecuted believers to the churches and churchmen tolerated by the Red regime in China is quite ambiguous. We are not suggesting that the government-approved church hegemony includes no men of sincere Christian faith and experience struggling in their own way to save the churches in China from extinction, and seeking a more favorable state policy. Nor do we contend that no evangelical workers have joined the pro-Communist church leadership. But nonetheless the evangelical spirit in China has gone to prison and martyrdom, whereas the liberal spirit is the moving force in the pro-Communist ecclesiastical thrust. A sketch of the fortunes of Christianity in China indicates that, although ecumenical leaders convey the notion that there is one Protestant church in China (“the Church on the Mainland”), multitudes of evangelical believers opposed to Communist restriction and control of spiritual activities and now unorganized if not underground are outside the “official church.”

The fundamentalist-modernist struggle in China was confined mainly to the big cities, as a contest waged between leaders of church life. Influential for the modernist cause were liberal books published by the Association Press, including works by T. C. Chao, former dean of Yenching University School of Religion, later elected a president of the World Council of Churches at the Amsterdam Assembly.

When the government-approved Three Self-Reform Church Movement was formed in 1951, inclusivist church leaders emphasized unity on the basis of anti-imperialism, and identified the modernist-fundamentalist debate as a minor disagreement within a major unity. Theological differences were said to add abundance and richness to the unity, rather than to hinder it. The Nanking United Theological Seminary featured “courses in the area of theology and Bible … divided into two sections according to the modernist and fundamentalist point of view.” H. H. Tsui, more than 15 years general secretary of the organically united Church of Christ in China, and who disowns belief in the doctrines of the incarnation, virgin birth, resurrection, trinity, last judgment and second coming of Christ, pursues this course in a recent article titled “We Must Strengthen and Expand Our Unity.” Y. T. Wu, chairman of the Three Self-Reform Church Patriotic Committee, in Darkness and Light, writes: “During the past thirty years my thinking has experienced two great changes. The first was when I accepted Christianity; from religious doubt I moved to religious faith. The second change was when I accepted the anti-religious principles of social science and combined materialism and religious faith in one philosophy.”

Communism had its inception in China just a generation ago, in July, 1921, in an army cell in Canton. Within six years it gained power enough to challenge the government and to threaten all religious faiths. In 1927, shrines, temples and churches were destroyed in central China. Christian missionaries headed homeward by hundreds; missions effort slowed almost to a stall. The Communist withdrew to the mountain areas of China only to recruit and train for a better opportunity, presented by the end of the Sino-Japanese War. Having won the long struggle with the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai Shek, the Communists in October, 1949, set up “The People’s Republic of China.” The Communist cause was unwittingly promoted by a surprising number of Americans; journalists, State Department representatives and some missionaries. Some of the latter, having discarded biblical supernaturalism, tended to view Communism as a form of Christian social and economic reform which the masses needed. Communism was welcomed as an acceptable exposition of Christian social ethics; not even the notion that it is “a Christian heresy” survived. Chinese Christian youth became easy victims, including those in many mission-sponsored colleges.

The Communists appeared in the new role of protectors of all religion; The Common Programme, Article V, guaranteed “freedom of religious faiths.” Five Protestant leaders were invited to help participate in the writing of the new constitution and set up the government. In 1951 one of them became chairman of the Communist-approved church reorganization that claimed to represent 40 per cent of China’s million Protestants. Under government auspices 158 Protestant leaders met to form the united church movement. Church workers and members were urged to adopt the Communist practice of “self-criticism” by searching out and publicizing faults of churches and Christians, a technique which led to the imprisonment of many evangelical leaders. During 1951 alone, at least 228 accusation meetings were held in 133 cities, aimed at Christian workers opposing Communism. Christian conferences in Peking in 1951 and 1954 were largely oriented to the government’s political program. The Christian mission was represented by such slogans as “Loyalty to Country and Church” and “Service to the People.” Government hostility was directed against Protestant efforts that refused cooperation to this state-approved effort. The majority of evangelicals were reluctant to join up. Evangelical Foreign Missions Association points out that there were only spotty defections of a small minority, including a few leaders; the vast majority resisted pressures to join the Communist-approved church agency. Many of their churches have since been occupied or closed by the government. All are pressured to display the picture of President Mao Tse Tung and the Five Star Flag. Leaders have been falsely accused, tortured and imprisoned with the aim of forced confessions. Only in the larger cities are some congregations allowed to carry on, because attempts to dissolve some churches have yielded several congregations in their place. In the case of “unreformed churches,” however, heavy land taxes are imposed, and if not promptly paid, a fine of one-half per cent per day is added. The result of Communist policy is to make evangelical Christianity secret and silent.

The Three Self-Reform (self-government, self-support, self-propagation) Church Patriotic Committee, the Communist government-approved agency representing Protestant church bodies, has virtually replaced the National Christian Council. A bridge between church and government, it attempts officially to direct Christian activity in Red China, exerting pressure on all church groups to affiliate, sponsoring study groups and patriotic campaigns in which Christians must take part, and publicizes accusations and charges against “reactionary elements.”

In 1954 a sixteen-day Conference of the Christian Church was convened, July 22-August 6, in East Peking, with 232 delegates from 62 denominations and organizations attending. Leaders lamented the fact that of the million Protestants it had been hoped to force into the government-sponsored movement, only 414,389 had signed the new church manifesto. This was tacit to an admission that the Three Self-Reform Church group had been unable to enlist the majority of Protestants in China, and represented only a minority. The manifesto pledged support to the construction of a socialist society, to the right of freedom of religion used “in the interests of the People” and to the promotion of patriotism in the churches. Wu Yao Tsung, president of the movement, a member also of the standing committee of the government’s Political Consultative Conference, has taken the line that missionaries of the past extended imperialistic aggression through their preaching of the Gospel. His hostility is clear: “We know that … American mission boards are … studying the reasons for their failure in China, in order to work out a new policy for using the Chinese churches.…” Mr. Wu told the National Conference in 1954: “Regardless of who the person may be, he cannot use freedom of religion as a pretext to engage in activities contrary to the Constitution.”

The reports about Christianity in China issuing from the state-approved church follow an interesting pattern. At the expense of the Peking government, in 1953 nine Swedish citizens led by Bishop Theodor Arvidson, and in 1954 twelve Norwegians with the Rev. Ragnar Forbech, visited Red China and gave approving reports. In May, 1954, 21 leaders of the Three Self-Reformed Church (now using the more appealing title of The Protestant Christain Reform Movement) denied reports of the death sentence and execution of 29 pastors (including Pastor Wang Ming Tao) the previous month by the Chinese People’s Government. They issued a joint statement: “Not a single pastor has been sentenced to death since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. On the contrary, the churches in China are enjoying full freedom of religion.” In January, 1955, Dag Hammarskjold, with the Rev. Gustav Nystrom of Stockholm as interpeter, returned from Peking with appreciation both of the organized church in China and of Premier Chou En-lai. In the interim the American agitation for deputations of churchmen to visit “the Church of the Mainland” has continued to mount.

If the State Department is inclined to lift its present ban on visas to Red China (enforced presumably because the U.S.A. cannot guarantee protection and security to its citizens in that land), some pointed questions must be raised about the renewal of Christian relations. If a Christian delegation goes to Red China, ought not its objective to be those who suffer for their faith and who by virtue of that fact can best interpret to us the clash between government and church? Reports persist that 3000 evangelicals languish in the concentration camps of Red China; dare we learn the truth about them? Is the full picture of the fortunes of Christianity likely to be obtained from those who for one reason or another have escaped the cruelties and hostilities of the Peiping regime and are associated with an agency whose present freedoms derive from a cooperative effort approved as an instrument of government doctrine and policy? This question is of utmost importance.

By the same token, if in the future we are to have a return visit from China, ought it not to be made by Christian leaders who have been imprisoned and who are ready now to assure us either that the Red rulers have had a change of heart, or at least a change of strategy, or that their confinement grew out of just misunderstandings? Might not such a delegation appropriately include Pastor Wang Ming-tao, arrested in Peking the night of August 8, 1955, after 30 years of preaching and writing? Pastor Wang’s story is set forth in the Occasional Bulletin of the Missionary Research Library (Vol. VII, No. 3). The son of Chinese Christians, a college man who grappled long with a call to Christian service, his theological perspectives fell to him from evangelical European missionaries, Pentecostalists among them. He worked independently of foreign denominations and church groups, although in close cooperation with indigenous Christian efforts. During the Sino-Japanese war, before the Communist era, he refused to join the North China Church Union sponsored by Japanese militarists. After the Communist victory, he refused cooperation with the Communist-favored “progressive leadership” in the Chinese church. When the “Three Self-Reform Church Patriotic Committee” brought pressure on him, he openly defied it. Pastor Wang was known throughout China through his writings, and his popularity made him a symbol of evangelical fortunes. Wang’s independency made it hard to tag him as “an agent of imperialism”; for a season government and church leaders even pointed to him as an example of religious freedom under Red rule. But in 1954 and 1955, “progressive” church leaders joined actively in a campaign of public vilification against him. Christians were forced to call him friend or foe. Wang refused to unite with the Church Reform Committee on biblical grounds and for the sake of faith. His opponents labeled him a counter-revolutionary. For his refusal to cooperate with the political front he was sentenced to fifteen years; his wife and son, for the present, are being permitted to carry on his church work. It would be well to let him speak his heart to the American believers. Similar observations are in order with regard to an American delegation. Nothing impressive is involved in a visit by distinguished ecumenical leaders. Those who bear in their bodies the marks of activity and initiative do not always bear the marks of persecution for Christ’s sake. Would not an American delegation to China more aptly be comprised of veterans of American missionary labors in China, men and women who faced the totalitarian tyrant in their own person and who preferred prison to an acceptance of the encroachments of the state against religious freedom and the Great Commission? Would not Dr. Levi Lovegren, released by Communists after years in prison, be qualified? There are Roman Catholic missionaries from America who also have suffered abroad and for that reason qualify. Bishop Donaghy, after release from his long imprisonment in Wuchow, South China, told the press in Hong Kong that Chou En-lai’s claim of religious freedom in China is utterly false. If American missionaries released from prison are lacking in number, why not consider Dr. Walter H. Judd, the distinguished congressman from Minnesota, himself a veteran of missionary service in China in the Protestant liberal tradition, yet a churchman who does not dismiss Communism as merely “a Christian heresy”?

Apart from such safeguards the proposal for conversations with Chinese Christians is of doubtful value, and may easily deteriorate into a monologue by Communist collaborationists.

END

Ministering Between The Living And The Dead

A patient, suffering from an acute massive hemorrhage, was recently rushed to a hospital. The surgeon had been notified of the emergency and the operating room was ready, the patient being transferred directly from the ambulance to the operating table.

Life was almost gone; the face with pallid greenish tinge spoke of death. There was no pulse, but the heart was still beating. The source of the hemorrhage was quickly located and the necessary steps were immediately taken to control it. A large amount of blood and plasma was needed and these were administered immediately. A few hours later the surgeon could talk with the patient so recently but one step from eternity.

The whole procedure in this case was one of the utmost speed designed to save life, using those things known to be needed and effective to that end.

Science has made possible the equipment and the means necessary for many emergencies which may confront the human body, but, the emergency of the soul must be met by the One alone who came into this world for that purpose.

In a prayer, a successful pastor asked the Lord to never let him forget that as a minister of the Gospel he stood between the living and the dead.

Here we find God’s highest calling: not to relieve a malady which may recur, not to heal a body which must eventually die but to stand as a witness of the living Christ to those who are spiritually dead.

It is a strange commentary on human nature that we will applaud the efforts of a physician or surgeon who acts with speed to avert tragic consequences from accident or disease, but at the same time will often criticize the minister for being “sentimental” or “emotional” if he pleads with the spiritually dead to turn from their sins to the Saviour.

Is this not one of the reasons why the faithful preaching of the Gospel can never be popular with the world. Men do not like to be told that they are sinners. They do not want to hear that they are dead. They resent being told that they are lost. But, that is a part of preaching and a very necessary part.

Some years ago a man was preaching to a large audience in India. He mentioned the weight of sin. A young man arose and asked, “How much does sin weigh? A pound? A ton?” The reply of the speaker came right to the point. “Does a dead man feel a weight when you place it on his body? Just so, a man who is spiritually dead does not feel the weight of sin. But, when God’s Spirit stirs in his heart he becomes conscious of his sin and of his need for one to save him from that sin and its consequences.”

Yes, the minister does stand between the living and the dead. May he never forget it and may his parishioners always uphold his hands in prayer as he preaches and as he daily faces the emergencies of lost souls.

Without the power of God no dead soul can come to life. Only by a miracle of grace can the blind see and the deaf hear. Preaching the Gospel and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are the two requirements for raising the dead.

END

Theology

Thoughts on Artificial Insemination

G. Aiken Taylor

Artificial insemination (the procedure whereby a donor renders a woman pregnant through the medium of a physician’s instruments and office) today is no longer an academic question. No accurate records are available, but the guarded testimony of physicians and parents indicates that in the United States alone thousands of “test-tube” babies are born every year. And the number is increasing as additional couples hurdle the barrier of the husband’s reproductive impotency with the impersonal cooperation of an unseen and unknown third party to the marriage. Not long ago a national magazine carried an article defending the practice, written by a woman who was then awaiting her third such pregnancy.

Recent Debate Inconclusive

The practice, of course, involves fundamental moral and spiritual considerations. These, in the light of growing acceptance, may not be ignored or taken for granted. And, as a matter of fact, the moral implications of artificial insemination have already received wide attention in both the ecclesiastical and medical press, but thus far without generally conclusive results.

It is possible to state the fundamental moral question very simply: Does the method used sanction the conception of a child by a man who is not the husband of the mother? Or, in other words, is it possible that circumstances may occur when it is morally and spiritually excusable for a woman to have a child by a third party to her marriage?

Arguments Pro And Con

Doctors and sociologists in increasing numbers say yes. They point to the impersonal nature of the arrangement; to the natural hunger of married couples for children; to the frustrations that inevitably attend a childless marriage; and to the absence of physical or emotional entanglements between husband and wife which this antiseptic arrangement presumably provides. They often speak of this act as a simple medical procedure which, to all practical purposes, now allows the husband himself to become a father—although the semen is not actually his.

But the fact remains that the woman who submits herself to artificial insemination has a child by a man who is not her husband. The donor, not the husband, is the true father of the child that is subsequently born. The productive union between this father and this mother is not that of husband and wife. It may properly be asked, therefore, if the infant is not, logically and literally, born out of wedlock?

On the other hand, supporters of artificial insemination point out that the procedure can hardly be called natural intercourse. And without the physical sensations associated with sex, can this be adultery?

Some Related Questions

But such attempts to justify the practice on account of the procedure employed raise other questions: If the method used to accomplish this conception and pregnancy is without moral stigma, then why wouldn’t it be morally right for any woman to have children this way, even unmarried ones? Why a husband at all? Most women crave the joys of motherhood, spinsters as well as matrons; and millions are denied those joys because they never marry. If it is morally defensible to have children via the test-tube and without benefit of clergy, then why not any woman who desires children, whether single or married? As a matter of fact, Dr. Joseph Fletcher, in his book, Morals and Medicine (p. 103) reports that Dr. Frances Seymour, medical director of Eugene Alleviation of Sterility, Inc., in England, frankly confesses to the frequent impregnation of single girls. Dr. Fletcher declares (p. 132) that whatever you may say of this, you certainly cannot accuse the girls of adultery. Maybe not (depending on your definition of adultery), but neither can you say that their children are born in wedlock.

It seems that the case for artificial insemination rests heavily on the fact that a husband is standing by. Apparently (unless you believe that single girls may also have children this way, in which case the fundamental question becomes an altogether different one) he is something of a moral “catalyst” which sanctions the arrangement. If the woman has a legitimate (and willing) husband, she may proceed in this roundabout fashion to become impregnated by another man. Thus the whole question boils down to the impersonal nature of the arrangement and depends, for its moral validity, upon the fact that the true father unites with the mother, but without bodily contact. Otherwise, of course, the act would clearly be adultery.

But we are not discussing adultery, and the fact or the absence of bodily contact in artificial insemination is beside the point. The question, “Whose child is this?” does not necessarily follow upon every instance of adultery, nor does a woman of many loves commit adultery only with the father of her illegitimate child. Of course, moral looseness has usually been charged against those who had children out of wedlock, because prior to the practice of artificial insemination there was simply no other possible conclusion. But now, the question of paternity must be considered apart from that of sexual morality. And there seems to be no reason to declare that, because science has come up with a new wrinkle, a woman may now bear a child by just whomsoever she pleases. Or as often and by as many different men as she pleases. The question of personality and of fundamental personal identity is at stake. We cannot morally agree that it makes no difference whose child this is.

Additional Difficulties Cited

Other bothersome questions, however, occur: if the husband is not the true father, should he be considered a step-father? Or would god-father be better? Perhaps his is the spirit of the compassionate suitor who marries the ravished maid in order to give her child a name? Most bothersome of all: if artificial insemination is morally defensible in order to meet the problem of the husband’s impotency, then why not to avoid the transmission of undesirable inheritable characteristics—or for a host of lesser reasons?

Then there is the time factor. If it is the married estate which legitimatizes test-tube conceptions, the whole plan will depend upon whether the marriage lasts until after the child is born. Should the husband be removed from the picture unexpectedly, the wife might revert to the legal status of an unmarried girl insofar as her child is concerned!

Inherently A Marital Breach

Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was the first on record to practice the principle of artificial insemination, if not the method, when she gave her handmaid, Hagar, to her husband in order to redeem her own infertility by proxy, as it were. However, neither the Scriptures nor subsequent history have tended to justify a continuation of the practice. Any marriage which does not bring happiness or fulfillment tends to disappointment and sometimes to bitterness, of course. But not yet is the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness permissible beyond prescribed moral bounds. Both the Roman and the Anglican communions have come out strongly against artificial insemination as intrinsically a breach of marriage. The rest of us can do no less, in this instance, than to follow their view.

G. Aiken Taylor, minister of First Presbyterian Church of Alexandria, La., holds the Ph.D. degree from Duke University, and is author of A Sober Faith and St. Luke’s Life of Jesus. A Calvin scholar, his doctoral thesis centered on the Reformer’s view of Christian Education.

Theology

Bible Text of the Month: Genesis 3:15

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and

Between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head,

And thou shalt bruise his heel (Genesis 3:15).

This text embraces and comprehends within itself everything noble and glorious that is to be found anywhere in the Scriptures.—LUTHER.

The obverse side of the sentence upon the serpent is a curse upon him; the reverse a promise for mankind. Before the penal sentence upon man is pronounced, the mercy of God fashions the curse upon the tempter into hope for the tempted.—F. DELITZSCH.

The first promise was revealed, proposed and given, as containing and expressing the only means of delivery from that apostasy from God, with all the effects of it, under which our first parents and all their posterity were cast by sin. The destruction of Satan and his work in his introduction of the state of sin, by a Savior and Deliverer, was prepared and provided for in it. This is the very foundation of the faith of the church; and if it be denied, nothing of the economy or dispensation of God towards it from the beginning can be understood.—JOHN OWEN.

Implanted Enmity

The statement emphasizes that it is God who will not suffer this enmity to die down: “I will put.” God wants man to continue in undying opposition to this evil one and He rouses the enmity Himself.—H. C. LEUPOLD.

In the place of the false, ungodly and man-destroying peace between the serpent and the woman, must there come in, between them, a good and salutary enmity, established by God.—J. P. LANGE.

The work of regeneration is included in the first promise. We cannot have an enmity to that which is the same with our nature, without a change of disposition. That foolish appetite, affected sensuality, indulgence to the flesh, the cause of our first friendship with Satan, must be changed into divine desires, affection to heavenly things, a mortification of the flesh, before a man can part with this friendship.—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Had not the devil spite and enmity enough against men, without God’s putting enmity between them? Yes, enough and enough again; but man had not enmity enough against the devil. He had been too much friends with him, in hearkening to him, obeying him, complying with him to the violating of God’s command, and the undoing of all mankind; and should he still continue in that compliance with him, there were no hope of recovery, no way but eternal ruin. Therefore, it was a most comfortable and happy passage, when God himself takes on him to dissolve this society, and to set hem at odds,—that the seed of the woman should set the devil at defiance, be an enemy to him, and fight against him,—and, at last, through God’s strength and good assistance, tread him under foot.—JOHN LIGHTFOOT.

Wicked Versus The Righteous

“Thy seed”—There must be meant the children of the evil one who are of their father the devil and will do the lusts of their father (John 8:44). If “seed” must refer to a whole class and so is used in the collective sense in the one half of the statement, then “seed” in the second half or parallel member of the statement must be used collectively for the descendants or posterity of woman. To take the word “seed of the woman” at this point at once in the sense of an individual and so as a definite and exclusive reference to Christ the Savior is wrong and grammatically impossible.—H. C. LEUPOLD.

There are four things here intimated, each of which is worthy of notice. (1) The ruin of Satan’s cause, was to be accomplished by one in human nature. (2) It was to be accomplished by the seed of the woman. Satan had made use of her to accomplish his purposes, and God would defeat his schemes through the same medium. (3) The victory should be obtained, not only by the Messiah himself, but by all his adherents. (4) Though it should be a long war, and the cause of the serpent would often be successful, yet in the end it should be utterly ruined. The head is the seat of life, which the heel is not.—ANDREW FULLER.

The enmity is spiritual, but the warfare often times is outward. The first manifestation of this enmity was in blood. Cain slew Abel. Why? Because he was of the evil one. And so it hath been carried on by blood from that day to this.—JOHN OWEN.

Against the natural serpent the conflict may be carried on by the whole human race, by all who are born of woman, but not against Satan. As he is a foe who can only be met with spiritual weapons, none can encounter him successfully but such as possess and make use of spiritual arms. Hence the idea of the seed is modified by the nature of the foe.—C. F. KEIL.

Bruising Of Head And Heel

If we had a lively feeling of the serpent’s poison, we could not but rejoice in our Captain, who hath bruised his head.—JOHN TRAPP.

In the protracted struggle with Satan thou mayest receive many a wound.… Still be thou in Christ; abiding in Him as the Seed of the woman and thy Savior; and thou shalt have confidence and good hope through grace. Satan may wound thee, but only in thy heel. His own head is bruised; and he has no power over thee, no power to keep thee under condemnation, no power to keep thee under bondage, no power to prevail against thee, either as the accuser or as the oppressor.—R. S. CANDLISH.

By head, we are to understand the whole power, subtilty and destroying nature of the devil; for as in the head of the serpent lieth his power, subtilty and poisonous nature; so in sin, death, hell and the wisdom of the flesh, lieth the very strength of the devil himself. Take away sin, then, and death is not hurtful.… Wherefore, the seed, Jesus Christ, in his braising the head of the serpent, must take away sin, abolish death and conquer the power of the grave.—JOHN BUNYON.

This promise was the great charter of our redemption, and the foundation of the faith of Adam’s posterity for several ages. It was indeed spoken to the serpent, but for the sake of man; a threatening to the tempter, and a promise to the tempted, and an argument of terror to the first, and support to the latter. Christ is here proposed for men’s comfort under the notion of a conqueror, but yet under the notion of a sufferer; his passion in his heel was to precede his breaking his enemies’ head; so his sufferings are first to be eyed by faith before his victory.—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

Application

We perceive, that the person, sufferings, glory and triumphs of the Redeemer; the character, tribulations and felicity of the redeemed; the temporary success and final ruin of all enemies of Christ and his people; and indeed almost the whole history of the church, and of the world, through time and to eternity, are compendiously delineated in this singular verse; which stands, and will stand to the end of time, an internal demonstration that the Scripture was given by inspiration from God.—THOMAS SCOTT.

This victory also is set out in the New Testament in such expressions and phrases as evidently doth allude to this very promise in Genesis, as the accomplishment of it. Romans 16:20, “And God shall tread down Satan under your feet shortly.” It is God indeed treads him down, and yet it is their feet he is trodden under. Yea and Christ himself is pleased to give forth to his apostles, and us in them, our part and share in this victory over Satan, under the same expressions and allusion to this promise, as then bequeathed to us together with himself, Luke 10:19, when speaking of their subduing Satan, verse 17, and by their ministry throwing him down as lightning, verse 18, he utters it in these words, verse 19, “Behold I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy.”—THOMAS GOODWIN.

Christ is the leader of the seed of the woman, the captain and head of it in this great conflict; and Satan, as he was the head of the apostasy from God, continues the head of his seed, the generation of vipers, to try out the contest with Christ unto the end. The victory shall always be to the seed of the woman.—JOHN OWEN.

The protevangel contains the germ of all later Messianic prophecies; therefore is it so universal, so comprehensive, so dark, and yet so striking and distinct in its fundamental features. As the ground outline of the future of salvation, it denotes: 1. The religious ethical strife between good and evil in the world, and the sensible presentation of this strife through natural contrasts—the serpent, the woman. 2. The concrete form of this strife and its gradual genealogical unfoldings: the seed of the serpent, the seed of the evil one, and the children of evil; the seed of the good and the children of salvation. 3. The decision to be expected: the wounding of the woman’s seed in the heel, that is, in his human capability of suffering, and its connection with the earth, the treading down or the destruction, not of the serpent’s seed merely, but of the serpent himself, and that too in his head, the very centre of his life. The whole is, therefore, the prediction of an universal conflict for salvation, with the prospect of victory. From this basis the promise proceeds in ever-narrowing circles, until it passes over from the general seed of the woman to the ideal seed and from that again draws out in ever-widening circles, together with the self-unfolding promise of the kingdom of God.—J. P. LANGE.

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