The publication of Alan Walker’s book on evangelism, The Whole Gospel for the Whole World, has focused attention on the content of the Gospel. Dr. W. E. Sangster describes it as “an outspoken challenge to current evangelistic message and method.” Alan Walker led the Methodist campaign in Australia known as “The Mission to the Nation.” More recently, he has given addresses throughout America. Now he has returned to become superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission in Sydney.

Mr. Walker is an impassioned speaker with unusual gifts of oratory. He began his ministry among the miners of New South Wales, and later published a volume, entitled: Coal-town—A Sociological Survey of Cessnock, N.S.W. It marked the beginning of his deep involvement in social problems. Since that time he has spoken in season and out of season on the social implications of the Christian faith—particularly on such issues as peace and war, security and the welfare State, gambling and drink.

These themes are prominent in this new publication. In the introduction E. G. Homrighausen writes: “Alan Walker’s name is increasingly associated with that ‘larger evangelism’ which is needed in our time.… He rightly maintains that nineteenth century evangelism is not enough for the twentieth century.” Alan Walker does not hesitate to enumerate what he calls “the serious limitations and weaknesses which belong to nineteenth century evangelism.” “They are: a message which stops short of being the whole gospel for the whole world; an intellectual presentation of the faith which denies or ignores the great gains of biblical scholarship of the last one hundred years; a personal evangelism which has no social dynamic; an inadequate relationship with the Church as the body of Christ; an exaggerated trust in mass meetings as such and a calling for commitment to Christ in an emotional atmosphere with a limited intellectual and specific content.”

We are all familiar with Dean Inge’s quip: “Any stigma is good enough to beat a dogma.” If we ask “what is the kind of message which God seems to use in this twentieth century for bringing men and women to commitment?” (p. 99), the answer is “an evangelism which is … relevant to real-life situations.” This is the burden of his preaching. “To many it is destructive of faith that the Christian Church so often fails to be in the forefront of the reformist movements in history.” He passionately and stridently proclaims that the Church must give a social witness. Only so can modern man hear the Gospel.

Alan Walker is urgently insistent that the evangelization of the twentieth century man is dependent upon the social and political involvement of the Church.

All this involves a number of fundamental fallacies. It is imperative that we should make a clear distinction between the Gospel itself (with its message of repentance and forgiveness) and the application of the faith in personal and social life. William Temple made an important point when he said: “Social witness is both a preparation for evangelism and a consequence of it.” It is unfortunate that Alan Walker (despite his great gifts) is unable to understand this.

Again, there is, behind this interpretation of evangelism, a regrettable failure to understand the nature of the Church. The Church is more than the accredited officers of the Church making pontifical ecclesiastical pronouncements. The Church is the fellowship of the redeemed, clerical and lay. The world will not be redeemed by the leaders of the Church making ex cathedra statements on social and political problems—for the leaders of the Church are neither infallible nor impeccable; but rather by each member of the Church giving his own personal witness in his own local situation. It is the worship and witness of each member of the Church that is truly converting.

Finally, there is an unhappy disregard for the work of the Holy Spirit as the divine Agent of evangelism. “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” “Without Me,” Jesus said, “ye can do nothing.” How often we forget these facts! The Holy Spirit can alone convict men of sin; he alone can bring to men a realization of their need. As we condemn “the serious limitations and weaknesses” of mass evangelism we need to remember that it is still the good pleasure of God to save by the foolishness of preaching them that believe.

These are serious strictures. Nevertheless there is much to be gained from a consideration of Alan Walker’s conclusions concerning the planning and conduct of evangelistic crusades. He says that evangelistic meetings ought to be held on “neutral territory.”

We have made a significant discovery in Australia. From one end of the land to the other we have found that whenever Mission to the Nation meetings have been held in public halls or theatres or auditoriums audiences were two or three times larger than if meetings were planned in church buildings. This evidence has come to us so consistently that we now refuse to plan evangelism in anything but neutral territory—that is, when we are concerned with the true outreach of the Church to the people beyond its life. So startling has been this discovery that it has caused us to seek the psychology that lies behind it. Why should people be ready to come to public halls and shrink from entering churches? The chief reason is that most people dislike above all else to be called hypocrites. They have the mistaken idea that to be seen entering a church building is to be making a certain Christian profession. As yet they are not willing to declare themselves Christian in case their associates, knowing their lives, regard them as insincere and inconsistent. Therefore, they stay away. Also to enter a church is to be plunged into the style of worship that goes on in that church and there is fear of personal embarrassment through ignorance of procedures. So, rather than be noticed standing or sitting at the wrong time or fumbling in ignorance a hymn or prayer book others know so well, they stay away. Perhaps it is the very situation that Jesus found, and which led him to speak in the open rather than in synagogues. Perhaps the same discovery caused John Wesley to go out of the churches in his day to where the people were. Perhaps then, too, if men were to be won to the Church, they had first to be met and reasoned with outside the Church. Certainly it is logical to say it is a waste of time to preach in church trying to reach people who do not go to church.

This is an arresting comment and the conclusion is challenging. These observations are worthy of serious reflection.

Authority Of Scripture

Authority, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, London, 94 pp. 3s) and “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God, by J. I. Packer (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, London, 191 pp., 4s. 6d.) are reviewed by Donald Guthrie of the London Bible College.

Both these books deal with the problem of the Christian’s ultimate authority, although they treat it from rather different points of view. Dr. Lloyd-Jones has an essentially practical aim, whereas Dr. Packer’s plan is more systematic. The former book contains the substance of three addresses and retains the characteristics of the preacher’s style. It deals with the authority of Jesus Christ, of the Scriptures, and of the Holy Spirit. The author shows that evangelicals base their doctrine on Christ’s doctrine of Scripture. The only alternative to accepting on this basis the full authority of Scripture, is to acknowledge the uncertain authority of “modern knowledge” and “human ability.” Dr. Lloyd-Jones sees the issue as a clear alternative between Christ and the critics. Those who class themselves among the critics will find many challenging statements in this little book. In his chapter on the Holy Spirit the author shows special interest in the phenomena of revivals in which the authority of the Spirit is particularly manifest, and he makes a strong plea for more earnest prayer that the Spirit might again manifest his power in the Church.

Dr. Packer’s book performs several invaluable services for evangelicals. He makes clear that the manner in which the word “fundamentalism” is often used by liberal critics is not only misinformed but positively misleading. He points out that a different situation exists in Britain and America, since in the former the word has been employed by critics to describe a completely mechanical theory of inspiration, whereas in the latter it was coined by evangelicals themselves to denote their fundamental beliefs. Dr. Packer pleads that the word should be disused and replaced by the word “evangelical.” If this advice is followed a good deal of misrepresentation of the conservative position would be swept away. In his carefully reasoned chapter on “authority” Dr. Packer asserts that liberal critics are essentially subjectivists, who exalt

Christian reason to the position of arbiter to decide what is and what is not the word of God in the Scriptures. He rightly points out that the only sound approach to biblical interpretation is to submit the method used to the testimony of the Bible itself.

Dr. Packer gives a very lucid account of the evangelical doctrine of Scripture. He rejects as a critical “man of straw” the dictation-theory of inspiration, which he claims no serious evangelical scholar has ever maintained. The Bible is “word for word God-given; its message is an organic unity, the infallible Word of an infallible God” (pp. 113–114). Dr. Packer suggests that the problems and difficulties raised by biblical interpretation (e.g. problems of harmonization) cannot be considered a sufficient reason for disputing the evangelical doctrine of inspiration, since every other Christian doctrine raises problems unresolvable by human reason. In other words, the doctrine itself does not depend on rational demonstration. Dr. Packer clearly brings out the basic character of the differences separating conservative and liberal theologians. In the modern expositions of biblical theology he sees an example of the inconsistency which so often vitiates the liberal approach, since what is really in mind is not the theology of the Bible, but the theology of what subjective opinion declares to be “biblical.” Evangelicals can find little common ground with such a subjective approach that has been prevalent in liberal circles.

The important issues of faith and reason have a chapter each, while a concluding chapter on liberalism contains a penetrating comparison between the old and the new. This is a small but amazingly comprehensive book which will supply evangelicals with a reasoned statement of their own position and challenge liberals to re-examine their fundamental presuppositions.

DONALD GUTHRIE

Subjective Rationalism

Can People Learn to Learn?, by Brock Chisholm (Harper, 1958, 143 pp., $3), is reviewed by Arthur H. De Kruyter, Minister of the Christion Reformed Church of Western Springs, Illinois.

The title of the book is misleading, since the bulk of the material is on the content rather than on the technique of learning. Harping on an old theme, in almost every chapter Chisholm discredits the church by declaring it to be responsible for the problems of the world. And what is even worse, according to the author, is that the church is now the major institution preventing the necessary humanistic changes which can save the world from complete disaster.

The book contains a lopsided view of the world. Chapter 2 describes nations and continents from a so-called objective viewpoint which blames religion for promoting selfishness, exploitation, bad government, and other cleverly devised ills. Chapters 4 to 9 discuss problems of anxiety, aggression, population control by state birth controls, natural resource controls, a world language and monetary system, racial barriers, and the supremacy of the mind in contrast to authoritarian revelation of God. Mr. Chisholm has solutions for all of these problems and repeatedly states that the United Nations, which is destined to become the seat of the inevitable world government, is the answer.

The last four chapters deal with education—both method and content. Needless to say, there is no room in his curriculum for authority or convictions. A subjective rationalism is the genius of his system.

Having read other writings of Chisholm, father of the Mental Health Movement, it was not surprising to read his caricatures and abuses of the church and religion. What is surprising is that Harper has published such a brazen attack on Americanism and Christianity.

ARTHUR H. DE KRUYTER

Wide-Open Spaces

One Way of Living, by George M. Docherty (Harper, 1958, 173 pp., $3) is reviewed by Richard Allen Bodey, Minister of Third Presbyterian Church of North Tonawanda, New York.

Like Peter Marshall, his illustrious predecessor at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D. C., George Docherty is a Scot who turned to preaching after having already embarked on another vocation. The present volume, his first, discusses the basic and broader aspects of Christian commitment under four headings: The Way, Decision For The Way, Difficulties In The Way, Discipleship In The Way. The chapters are revisions of messages preached from the New York Avenue pulpit.

The author’s purpose is to provide answers to questions concerning the nature of conversion and its issue, answers which lie somewhere between those of Billy Graham and Reinhold Niebuhr. He certainly has allowed wide-open spaces!

Docherty, again like his predecessor, has a colorful style; however, he is considerably less vivid, dramatic, and compelling. There is much that is good here, but nothing new. Generally sound, there are some shaded passages, i.e., his implication that Albert Schweitzer is a true believer (p. 9), and his apparent approval of the critical interpretation which sees in the Song of Solomon nothing more than “a collection of secular love songs, spiritualized by the Fathers of the Church” (p. 119). We believe it only honest to say that this subject has been much better handled in a dozen other books.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Galatians 3:13).

It is no doubt possible by sufficient ingenuity to explain these words away: but their plain meaning is obvious enough. The Lord redeemed us from the curse of the law by taking that curse upon himself. And this was symbolized by the fact that the very death he died was under a curse in the Law.

Redemption

To redeem—(exagorazo)—by payment of a price to recover from the power of another, to ransom, buy off; metaphorically of Christ freeing men from the dominion of the Mosaic law at the price of his vicarious death.

THAYER’S GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON

The thought of the price that had to be paid for it must not be pushed too far into the background (cf. 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23, and Rev. 5:9). We must think of this passage in relation to what is said in other places of Scripture about ransoming (Matt. 20:28; 1 Tim. 2:6) and redeeming (“purchasing free”: Titus 2:14). A more particular thought is attached to this redeeming than simply that of the emancipation of a prisoner. At issue here is satisfaction of violated justice, as is evidence from the phrase: from the curse of the law. Behind the imagery employed, there very probably lies the old practice, circumscribed by the Jewish legal code, according to which ransom money could be paid for a forfeited life (cf. Exod. 21:30). According to this line of thought those who were under the curse were to be regarded not merely as prisoners but as persons appointed to die (cf. Deut. 27:15 ff and 30:15, 19). It is from this sentence of death that Christ has redeemed them by himself “becoming a curse” for them.

HERMAN N. RIDDERBOS

Curse Of The Law

“To be made a curse” is a strong expression for becoming accursed; or, in other words, being subjected, by the Divine appointment, to that suffering, the infliction of which sin had rendered necessary for the honour of the Divine character and government—that suffering which is the manifestation of the Divine displeasure at sin. Christ was thus “made a curse” for or in the room of those whom he redeemed from the curse; and this substituted endurance of the curse was the ransom-price by which he redeemed them. It was that, in consideration of which they obtained deliverance—pardon and salvation.

JOHN BROWN

The curse which the law threatens, and which the execution of the law would inflict, is the punishment due to sin. This must mean, that he has rescued us from the consequences of transgression in the world of woe; he has saved us from the punishment which our sins have deserved. The word us must refer to all who are redeemed; that is, to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The curse of the law is a curse which is due to sin, and cannot be regarded as applied particularly to any one class of men. All who violate the law of God, however that law may be made known, are exposed to its penalty. ALBERT BARNES

This passage (Deut. 21:23) is applied to the death of Christ, not only because he bore our sins and was exposed to shame, as these malefactors were that accursed of God, but because he was in the evening taken down from the cursed tree and buried, (and that by the particular care of the Jews, with an eye to this law, John 19:31) in token that now, the guilt being removed, the law was satisfied, as it was when the malefactor had hanged till sunset; it demanded no more. Then he ceased to be a curse, and those that are his. And as the land of Israel was pure and clean, when the dead body was buried, so the church is washed and cleansed by the complete satisfaction which thus Christ made.

MATTHEW HENRY

This curse culminated in the wrath of God. And here I must take occasion to expose the unbiblical theory prevalent in a certain school of theologians at present, that the element of wrath did not enter into the atonement, and that Christ was in no sense the object of the wrath of God. It suffices to explode such a notion to direct attention to this single phrase, which conveys the opposite thought: Were not men under the wrath of God when they were under the curse? (Gal. 3:10; Eph. 2:3.) And when Christ was made a curse, was he not, in an official respect, of necessity the object of divine wrath? The term used in the text has only to be alternated with the equivalent term, to convince any mind that the theory in question is no better than a neutralizing evasion, if not a contradiction, of Scripture. That curse was the penal sanction of the law with which we were burdened, and from which we must needs be redeemed; and the words will bear no other comment.

GEORGE SMEATON

For Us

All virtue lies in the little words: for us.

MARTIN LUTHER

It seems plain that the huper (for us) must be understood in the substitutive, and not merely in the beneficiary sense. For “the making of Christ a curse” is represented as the ransom by which our “redemption from the curse” has been obtained. The curse was removed from us by being transferred to Him.

THOMAS J. CRAWFORD

After the same manner John the Baptist calleth him, “The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.” He verily is innocent, because he is the unspotted and undefiled Lamb of God. But because he beareth the sins of the world, his innocency is burdened with the sins and guilt of the whole world. Whatsoever sins I, thou, and we all have done, or shall do hereafter, they are Christ’s own sins, as verily as if he himself had done them. To be brief, our sin must needs become Christ’s own sin, or else we shall perish forever. This true knowledge of Christ, which Paul and the prophets have most plainly delivered unto us, the wicked sophisters have darkened and defaced.

MARTIN LUTHER

Our sins were imputed to him as to a sacrifice. Christ the just is put in the place of the unjust to suffer for them (1 Pet. 3:18). Christ is said to bear sin as a sacrifice bears sin, Isaiah 53:10–12. His soul was made an offering for it; but sin was so laid upon the victims, as that it was imputed to them in a judicial account, according to the ceremonial law, and typically expiated by them. As a surety, “He was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21), and he bare our sins.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK

Martin Luther once studied law. So did John Calvin. Deans of law schools and theological seminaries point to interchange of students between the two disciplines. Now for the first time a full-fledged national conference has been held by American Protestants on “Christianity and Law.” Some four years of preparation produced four days of intensive discussion at the University of Chicago, September 7–10. And though Wittenberg and Geneva showed greater strength than many would expect in these environs, the theology of Basel cast the longest shadow across the campus. It did not, however, have entirely its own way, despite the presence of able proponents, including the Basel master’s son Markus Barth, associate professor of New Testament of the University of Chicago’s Federated Theological Faculty.

In fact, one of the most interesting points of the conference was the reaction of lawyers, judges, and law professors and students—meeting with theologians and parish clergy—to dialectical theology.

The conference, sponsored by the United Student Christian Council and the Faculty Christian Fellowship of the National Council of Churches, brought together 120 registered participants from 30 states, along with numerous visitors, and consisted of three “dialogues,” three “sub-conferences,” more than a dozen seminar sessions, worship services led by conference chaplain Professor A. T. Mollegen of the Episcopal Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia, and daily Bible study conducted by Professor Barth.

Already aware of the “increasing evidence of an earnest concern among Christians in the legal profession about the issues of Christianity and law,” the conferees were accorded a sharpened awareness by means of three resource papers sent out in advance of the conference. The selection of these was criticized as weighting the conference prematurely toward a Barthian orientation, one essay being a reprint of Karl Barth’s “Gospel and Law.” Following this line was the paper by Jacques Ellul, professor of law at the University of Bordeaux in France. Disdaining the optimism of liberal theology as to man’s goodness and human progress, he emphasizes that everything in this world is doomed to death. Only men can be Christian—not “things, ideas, or institutions.” Thus law cannot be based on Christian love (“unthinkable”!), nor can it “express justice.” Rather it is “a waiting place” and will only become justice at the coming of Christ in his glory. It has now but a relative value.

In other conference literature, chairman F. William Stringfellow, young New York attorney, denies the possibility of a Christian philosophy of law. As Professor Wilber Katz of the University of Chicago Law School put it, Stringfellow “denies that Christianity provides ethical norms and asserts that the gospel stands in opposition to laws both good and bad. For him Christianity offers not standards for rational criticism but a vocation to worship and witness” which may be lived within the legal profession.

On the other hand, Professor Katz argues for the possibility of a Christian philosophy of law and “for Christian ethical standards for criticizing particular laws.”

In the first dialogue, Professor Katz contended that the law should provide freedom for moral growth and that in criminal law should be found a place for forgiveness (he urged the abolition of capital punishment, charging it ineffective as a crime deterrent). The law should find a “token fulfillment” of the future that Christ would bring. It should provide for equality of economic ability, as for example in “progressive taxation.”

In answer, Markus Barth found the law to be good only when “Christ takes it in his hand” and gives it a “spiritual interpretation.” The lawyer who is a Christian—in contradistinction to the term “Christian lawyer,” to Barth an unreality—will follow Christ by seeking to do the law. He will thus enter into a solidarity with evildoers and intercede for them. Clarence Darrow’s practice of taking “hopeless cases” provides a worthy example of a willingness to “get one’s hands dirty.” Christians are thus to serve persons and not institutions, which, though they may improve temporarily, will always in time decline.

In the second dialogue, Professor Paul Lehmann of Harvard Divinity School surprised some with his optimism, contending that “love can be unsentimentally translated into concrete terms of justice” through the possibility of law acting as “a function of forgiveness” and “an instrument of reconciliation.”

In the most optimistic presentation given thus far, Professor Harold Berman of Harvard Law School defended the concept of a Christian jurisprudence and traced its course through history. Calling upon his hearers to be “more realistic than liberalism or neo-orthodoxy,” he professed to see no tension between law and love. “Law needs love for its motivation and direction, and love needs law for its structure in society.” The church is challenged to create a legal environment where “love can flourish.” Professor Barth retorted that “only the gospel creates conditions under which law can flourish.” Katz and Mollegen also opposed Berman’s optimism, the latter sensing that the Cross had somehow been left out.

The third dialogue found many of the lawyers breathing a sigh of relief that they were to hear at last the practical application of Christianity to their daily practice of law. The two speakers were John Mulder, Chicago attorney and occasional lecturer at McCormick Seminary, and Professor Karl A. Olsson of North Park Seminary, Chicago. Olsson had already sounded an orthodox Protestant note in criticizing liberalism for reducing theology to a social science, and in finding fault with dialectical theology for not taking history, society, and institutions seriously enough.

A difficult question was raised as to whether it was right for a lawyer to defend a client he believes to be guilty. Attorney Mulder’s conclusion, seemingly a popular one: the adversary system in this country demands that every client’s case be argued as strongly as possible, though the lawyer’s conscience may experience anguish in this “ambiguous life.”

Mulder and Olsson defended the concept of “Christian lawyer,” the latter finding it indicated in the doctrines of creation, providence, and redemption. And in some sense, law “reflects God’s will for the world.” The Christian lawyer lives in two worlds—he knows a solidarity with the sinner in this world and gives himself in love to this service, but he also sees this world passing away and looks for the New Jerusalem.

Professor Barth assured the writer that the concept, “Christian lawyer,” is permissible if “Christian” is understood in terms of sovereign grace, with exclusion of any notion of human merit or accomplishment in salvation. But he prefers to drop the term rather than add the cumbrous definition each time it is used.

Indeed, the conference debates were often reminiscent of the Barth-Brunner controversy on common grace. But the thunderous “nein!” was uttered this time in the more dulcet tones of the amiable younger Barth, who was troubled at the difficulty of communication between lawyer and theologian.

The optimistic lawyers were at times nonplused at the “gloom” and “unreality” of dialectical theology. Some theologians thought this due to the “rational” conditioning acquired in the course of legal training. One pointed out that on certain of the issues, conservatives, liberals, Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Judaists would stand together in opposition to neo-orthodoxy.

In any case, the theology of crisis seemed to exhibit little attraction for the men of law over so brief an exposure. The attorneys generally saluted the conference for the excellent idea that it was, but often they watched arguments expose Protestant cleavages much as one sees an iceberg—only the upper ninth being visible. But the cleavages are deep. Some call them wounds.

Canada

Siberia Bound

Spokesmen for the extremist Doukhobor group known as “Sons of Freedom” say they accept “in principle” conditions under which they can get aid to return to Siberia.

Canadian governmental authorities, which “Sons” have defied since emigrating to western Canada some 60 years ago, promise financial help provided that sect members renounce Canadian citizenship, give proof that Russia will take them back, and supply evidence of a means of transportation.

The State Of Jewry In 5719

Jews still waiting for the Messiah were blowing the shofar unto the ends of the earth this month, in observance of the year 5719 on the Hebrew calendar. The new Israel was in its eleventh year and still growing, but more than 10 million Jews were still away from “home.”

Even as Yom Kippur drew nigh, reports out of Romania told of new Jewish persecution by Communists. Fleeing refugees said virtually all Jews in government posts had been dismissed. Personal effects and real estate were being confiscated.

As if in relief, the Soviet press broke a 10-year silence on the fate of Jews in Birobidzhan. The autonomous Jewish province was described as a successfully flourishing center of industry and agriculture.

Jews back in Israel were thinking of material success as well. The government announced that within five years steps would be taken toward setting up an atomic power plant.

Australia

Prayer Support

Many thousands of Australians are praying daily for the ministry of Billy Graham. Protestant churches in Sydney observed a night of prayer September 21 to coincide with the opening of Graham’s crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina. Prayer programs are scheduled to continue through the spring of 1959, when the evangelist visits Australia and New Zealand for campaigns in a number of cities. Australasia has never seen a religious revival. But neither has there ever been such a prayer offensive as is now going on “down under.” There are signs of awakening spiritual interest.

Meanwhile, Christians in the Carolinas fixed eyes on Charlotte, where a fully-integrated crusade was launched amidst a school integration crisis.

Africa

Race Relations

The Reformed Ecumenical Synod, meeting last month in the South African city of Potchefstroom, adopted a statement which emphasizes that no single race should consider itself superior.

The statement says “unquestioned equality” of all races “must be recognized according to Scripture.”

Middle East

From Zion … The Law

Amos Khaham, 30-year-old partially-paralyzed clerk in the Jerusalem Institute for the Blind, won the first international Bible quiz sponsored by Israel’s Tenth Anniversary Committee and the Israel Broadcasting Service.

Some 26,000 persons, including Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, witnessed the contest held at the Hebrew University amphitheater in Jerusalem.

Mrs. Myrtle Davis, 49-year-old Baptist teacher from Georgia, who was declared Bible champion of the United States on “The $64,000 Challenge” television program, tied for seventh place.

Archbishop’S Deportation

The Jordanian government seized and deported to Lebanon last month Archbishop Tiran Nersoyan of the Armenian Orthodox Church. The patriarch-elect of Israel and Jordan is a naturalized American citizen, having served as primate of the American diocese from 1944 to 1954.

In 1956, Nersoyan was named to the Israeli-Jordanian patriarchate in an election which was disputed and never recognized by the government at Amman. In ensuing months, Nersoyan and his predecessor, Archbishop Yegeshe Derderian accused each other of being sympathetic to communism.

Europe

True Or False

Iron Curtain representatives generally got their way with the World Council of Churches’ Central Committee last month.

The Central Committee, meeting at Nyborgstrand, Denmark, (1) acceded to demands of Hungarian Bishop Lajos Veto, a member, that “false” be dropped as a label on charges of WCC complicity in the 1956 anti-Soviet revolt in Hungary (it was decided that the Hungarian charges were merely “criticisms and misrepresentations”); and (2) turned down proposals to show up opposition to Dr. Joseph L. Hromadka, Czech Protestant theologian and WCC Executive Committee member who has been called an apologist for the Communist regime.

The Central Committee reelected all 12 members of the Executive Committee, including Hromadka, as a bloc without opposition. Proposals to elect Executive Committee members secretly from a list of 15 had been introduced by Dr. P. O. Bersell, president emeritus of the Augustana Lutheran Church, and Colonel Francis P. Miller, of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. The proposals died.

The Central Committee also:

—Agreed to invite observers from the Moscow Patriarchate to attend future meetings “as a wise first step on a road which may lead to closer contacts.”

—Adopted a report which declared that Christians should speak “openly” against use of atomic weapons in an all-out conflict but could “in conscience” agree to their use in a limited war. The report said Christians should seek to end any all-out war by resorting, if necessary, to the enemy’s terms.

—Voted to admit into the WCC the Evangelical Church of the Cameroons, the Independent Philippine Church, and the U. S. Hungarian Reformed Church.

—Approved a new $2,500,000 WCC headquarters in Geneva.

Theology In France

Three major groups constitute French Protestantism: (1) the Reformed Church, the largest; (2) the Lutheran Church, which has fewer churches but almost as many members, owing to the large proportion of Protestants in Alsace, and (3) nonconformists, with a great many local churches and assemblies, each rather small. The latter includes Evangelical Reformed and Free churches, various types of Methodists and Baptists, Mennonites, Open and Closed Plymouth Brethren, Salvation Army, and several Pentecostal associations.

In the third group the theological trend is clearest. With few exceptions all its ministers and spiritual leaders are evangelical. They hold to the great facts and doctrines on which Christianity rests.

This gives a fine basis for fellowship and cooperation. Some of these churches have joined the World Evangelical Fellowship. Some are members of the International Council of Christian Churches.

Except for Pentecostalists and the Salvation Army, all are loosely linked together through the Evangelical Information and Action Center, which affords leaders of these various denominations the chance to meet annually, together with representatives from French-speaking Belgium and Switzerland, to exchange information and to coordinate efforts in fields of Christian education, evangelism, mission work, and literature. Every year a number of fine publications are issued: commentaries, Bible handbooks, treatises on systematic theology, and tracts. There is no genius of world repute among these men. But many worthy scholars and clear thinkers are members. Clarity has always been one of the main characteristics of French theologians.

Many shortcomings must be acknowledged within this circle. Yet in so diversified a section of French Protestantism there is no apostasy from biblical faith. Mutual love and understanding prevail. From Bible institutes and the seminary at Aix-en-Provence fine young people (about as many as come out of Reformed and Lutheran seminaries) are sent to preach the Gospel.

In spite of tighter ecclesiastical links, the Reformed and Lutheran groups, odd as it may seem, are doctrinally much less homogenous.

Some observers say old-fashioned liberalism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century has died out. That is not true, though liberalism now is much less prevalent. Some local churches notorious for modernistic traditions are now under care of evangelical ministers, and happily so! Among seminary professors, there are very few old-time rationalists.

Still some ministers and laymen are proud opponents of orthodoxy. A liberal association was inaugurated a few years ago, having among its leaders a handful of able men, including the noted Albert Schweitzer and André Siegfried, journalist member of the French Academy. Both these men are over 80, but they have around them younger enthusiastic disciples who exert considerable influence over the radio and through the press.

Decline of liberalism during the last 30 years was aided largely by the influence of Barthian theology. But some major obstacles stood in the way of this influence. The question of language was one. Only a few minor booklets of Karl Barth have been translated into French. The voluminous Kirchliche Dogmatik has been accessible to French readers only since 1953. Moreover, although Barth is a Swiss citizen, his way of thinking is decidedly German. To the French he is characterized by inclusiveness, minuteness, and seeming self-contradiction.

Nevertheless, his impact has been great. Many who claim to be his disciples are much at variance with him and with one another. One for whom Barth himself had much sympathy and admiration was Pierre Maury, who recently passed away. But not many French ministers are really at home with all the subtleties of Barthian dialectic. Most of them have mainly embraced the following tendencies: acknowledgment of the deity as well as of the humanity of Christ, over against liberalism; reverence for the Bible as the only means of revelation, but combined with approval of higher criticism; some distrust of Christian experience, overstressed and sometimes distorted by the previous generation.

The latter tendency leads to an anti-pietistic attitude, and favors a certain kind of worldliness, in order to avoid self-righteousness and spiritual pride. Quite at variance with Barth’s own teaching, it sometimes even disparages conversion and sanctification.

Barthianism in France has had an influence both bad and good. The most sturdy fundamentalism has something to learn from that great mind, although many of his conclusions must certainly be discarded, and his dialectical method is dangerous.

A kind of high churchism is not unknown in France. Many Lutherans, of course, favor ritualism and insist on the objective value of the sacraments. But in the Reformed Church a similar tendency has arisen. A community of men formed at Taize, near Cluny, would like to introduce the practice of confession, call for an episcopal church government, and make themselves advocates of celibacy. They are frequently in contact with Roman Catholic priests and monks.

Theologically, these people hold orthodox views of the person of Christ, his atoning work, and the inspiration of Scripture. Their sympathy for some of the least acceptable features of Roman Catholicism is nonetheless strongly resented by many who have in their veins the blood of old Huguenots.

Main bulk of the Reformed and Lutheran churches is made up of somewhat hesitant evangelicals. They are Trinitarian, believe in salvation by faith through the atoning death of Christ, wait for his second coming, and have much love for the Bible. They do not, however, consider the Bible as the infallible Word of God. They deny eternal torment and assert annihilation or universal restoration of the wicked. They have no desire to sever ecclesiastical ties with the liberal wing of the church. They are much interested in the ecumenical movement, and at times become uneasy over rigid evangelicals who want to stay apart.

In the Reformed Church, a Calvinistic revival has taken place in recent years. A generation ago, Calvinism was dying out. Today a very lively Calvinistic society is developing. Members are as valiantly orthodox Calvinists as the most conservative Dutch Reformed in The Netherlands or in the United States.

Finally, there are Lutheran and Reformed church members who are frankly evangelical and who like to cultivate contacts with nonconformists. The 100-year-old Evangelical Alliance has recently been renewed and revived. This organization groups individuals from various denominations on a doctrinal basis, and its membership includes those who oppose the ecumenical movement, as well as proponents.

This past summer, an international congress was held at Strasbourg on the theme, “How to confess our Reformed faith?” Men of worldwide reputation (Dr. G. C. Berkouwer of Amsterdam was among them) presented valuable lectures now scheduled for publication. Presence of young ministers and students was taken as a sign of vitality.

Billy Graham’s visit to Paris in 1955 supplied opportunity for congenial cooperation. Liberals and Barthians mostly opposed. But under the leadership of the Evangelical Alliance, with chairman Jean-Paul Benoit, people ranging from the “incomplete evangelicals” among the Lutherans and Reformed to the Closed Plymouth Brethren and some moderate Pentecostalists joined for prayer and work. Since then, similar campaigns have been launched, always with a strictly evangelical basis.

The most important one in recent months was the Eugene Boyer campaign in Paris last spring. The largest auditorium in Paris, the Velodrome D’Hiver (where Graham had spoken), was used for 16 days. Night after night audiences of 1,200 to 3,500 attended the services. A total 600 decisions for Christ were registered. Boyer speaks French fluently and knows how to bring home the eternal Gospel to the French mind.

Contemporary reviews of the trend of modern thinking in France often ignore Protestantism, numbering 800 thousand out of 45 million people. But Protestantism is intellectually much stronger and more influential than its numerical weight would indicate.

Whether political changes will affect French Protestantism remains a revelant question.

J. M. N.

Papal Condemnation

Pope Pius XII takes a dim view of Chinese Communist efforts to establish a Catholic church independent of the Vatican. In a 2,000-word encyclical made public this month, the pontiff condemned the “crime” of the consecration of bishops without the Vatican’s permission. He exhorted Chinese Catholics to “remain unflinching” in their faith.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rev. Canon Bernard Iddings Bell, 71, Episcopal churchman, author, and educator, in Chicago … B. D. Ackley, 85, composer of more than 3,500 Gospel songs, in Warsaw, Indiana … Dr. Harry Thomas Stock, 66, general secretary of the Division of Christian Education in the Congregational Church Board of Home Missions, in Boston … Dr. Lucius Porter, 78, former Congregational missionary to China, in Beloit, Wisconsin … Dr. Charles P. Bernheisel, 85, retired Presbyterian missionary to Korea, in Indianapolis.

Election: To the executive presbytery of the Assemblies of God, the Rev. N. D. Davidson.

Appointments: As general secretary of the International Missionary Council, Bishop J. E. Leslie Newbegin of the Church of South India … as executive secretary of the National Service Board for Religious Objectors, J. Harold Sherk … as Lutheran tutor at Mansfield College of Oxford University, Dr. William E. Hulme … as editor of a proposed Methodist music magazine, the Rev. V. Earle Copes … as associate director of information for the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., Stanley J. Rowland Jr.… as director of the youth work of the Church of God, the Rev. Alan Egly.

Inaugurations: As president of Evangel College and Central Bible Institute, Springfield, Missouri, the Rev. J. Robert Ashcroft … as president of Philadelphia College of Bible, Dr. Charles Caldwell Ryrie.

Awards: By The Missionary Digest, to World Vision, Inc., for its film, “Cry in the Night” (top documentary); to the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in Los Angeles, for its film, “Life to Live” (top drama) … by the government of Haiti, to the Rev. Wallace Turnbull of the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, a citation in admiration of his “tireless efforts and spectacular accomplishments for the welfare of the peasants of Haiti.”

Dedication: Of the Thomas W. Phillips Memorial, new headquarters building in Nashville of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, held September 12–14.

Grant: To Tennessee Baptists’ Carson-Newman College, $21,373 from the U. S. Public Health Service for cancer research.

Digest: While ringing a doorbell of a faculty colleague’s apartment on the campus of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Chicago, Dr. Thorwald W. Bender, professor of theology, was pounced upon and beaten by three thugs … The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union in England is sponsoring a mission, to be led by the Rev. John R. W. Stott, November 9–16. Mission Prayer Secretary G. C. Neal, King’s College, Cambridge, is enlisting prayer partners.

NEWS

Christianity in the World Today

“The Church on the Offensive in the War of Ideas” is the challenge of World Missionary Literature Sunday to be observed October 12 in churches across America. Sponsored by Evangelical Literature Overseas (ELO), cooperative missionary literature ministry, this first annual observance focuses attention on an urgent need for world-wide Christian missionary literature offensives.

“Today approximately half the world’s population can read,” according to Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse in a recent article in the ELO Bulletin. “Present estimates,” he reports, “indicate that one million people are learning to read every week. But what will they read? The answer is simple—whatever is available—everything, anything.”

Helping place the printed Gospel message in hungry hands has been the work of ELO since its founding six years ago. ELO, literature arm of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association, has encouraged the holding of intermission literature conferences to bring about closer cooperation of already existing missionary agencies on the field.

New African Magazine Published

Dramatic evidence of the success of such cooperation is the launching this month of Our Africa, eleventh mass-appeal Christian magazine originated in the last six years. Sponsored by the South Africa General Mission, Our Africa is directed to the 55 per cent of the South African population who can read English. In this day of emphasis on the indigenous church, it is significant that under missionary Don Smith, SAGM literature secretary, nationals are being trained to take over the responsibility of writing, producing, and distributing the magazine.

Pioneer of the mass-appeal Christian magazines is African Challenge, published in Nigeria under the Sudan Interior Mission. Printed in English, Challenge reaches thousands of newly literate Africans with simply written self-help material and the Gospel of Christ.

Before the end of the year two more new magazines will appear, both in the Belgian Congo. Sponsored by the Africa Literature Society, Oyebi will be published in the Lingala language; Sikama, in Kikongo.

Other evidences of evangelical cooperation are the score of literature fellowships now active in strategic areas. Pioneer is LEAL, the Latin American Fellowship. In the Belgian Congo alone six fellowships are now active in as many language areas. In India, ELFI (Evangelical Literature Fellowship of India) has been instrumental in the founding of Kiran, mass-appeal magazine in Telegu, sponsored by International Missions.

Recent progress was reported by the Rev. Harold B. Street, executive secretary of ELO, following a trip to the simmering Near East, North Africa, and Europe. In Beirut, heart of the Arabic-speaking world, 38 delegates from 27 mission boards and national churches, representing 11 countries, made plans to set up what will become the nineteenth cooperative literature organization.

A Unique Opportunity

The Beirut conference pinpointed the unique opportunity of developing Christian literature beamed to the 100 million Arabic-speaking people of the Near East and North Africa—almost 100 per cent Moslem. In meeting this regional need, a basic literature, suitable for adaptation in other languages, can be provided for the whole Moslem world of 500 million souls, largest single religious body in the world.

“Because more and more of the peoples of the world can read this life-giving message, of Christ’s coming to give men new life,” Barnhouse emphasizes, “we must tell it with the printed page. To meet the urgency of the hour there must be a literature program that will concentrate on communicating the love of Christ to a divided world, and that will identify itself with the people it seeks to serve.”

Antecedent to this task of communicating the love of God to man is the basic need of teaching the world’s illiterates to read.

A “breakthrough” on the literacy front has been scored these past two years in the literacy-by-TV program in Memphis, Tennessee. This pilot project of a community educational TV program, using the Laubach literacy system, has successfully taught over 2,000 adults to read. To share the Memphis plan, the local Chamber of Commerce recently invited representative national leaders to a two-day Conference on World Literacy by Television. Response was encouraging.

Veteran literacy expert Dr. Frank Laubach, in his keynote address, pointed out that America might lose the cold war to communism in Asia and Africa if we fall behind in the literacy race.

Laubach retired recently from the Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, but the committee—known as Lit-Lit—continues his work. A unit of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches of Christ, the committee works with NCC members and nonmembers alike in stepping up world-wide lit-lit programs.

“Nine people out of ten in South Asia and Africa are illiterate,” reported Dr. Laubach at the Memphis conference. “That area is the world’s question mark.… These people are destitute because they are illiterate. They want to come up out of their ignorance more than anything else in the whole world.”

“People fear,” said Laubach, “that if we teach illiterates to read, they will read Communist literature. But we must provide them with what they ought to read.… If we mobilize our writing talents to win friends and influence people in Asia and Africa, we would have nothing to fear from the Communists. Their writings are cheap, and they are as dull as a government bulletin.

“But teaching a billion illiterates to read is a gigantic and costly task.… We need a mass medium which will teach these billion to read as swiftly as the totalitarian methods of the Communists are doing in Russia and China.”

He listed television and motion pictures as two great potential teachers, then added, “This vast world enterprise would require a third program—training an army of specialists to install the equipment, to direct the teaching, and to organize villages into literacy campaigns.…

“Where is the money to be found?… Under Public Law 480 our government has sold about three billion dollars worth of our surpluses to 25 backward countries. Because they could not pay us in dollars, we allowed them to deposit that money in their own currency in their own banks. Congress has now passed an amendment to this bill permitting the use of that money for education and literacy. Moreover, many farsighted men and women in business and philanthropy are keenly aware that we cannot save Asia and Africa unless we lift their unbearable load of ignorance and poverty.”

North Vs. South

Officialdoms of Northern and Southern Presbyterianism split along a familiar front this month: race relations.

“Enforcing (the Supreme Court desegregation decision) with troops and tanks if necessary, is a lesser evil—however undesirable—than the alternative of buying temporary peace,” read a statement from the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Signers were Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, stated clerk, and Dr. Theophilus M. Taylor, moderator.

“I must heartily disagree,” countered Philip F. Howerton, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. “Force can accomplish nothing but chaos.”

A few days later, ministers of the Washburn Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. took a stand of their own which set them at odds with Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus. The Little Rock area clergymen in a resolution urged the governor to countermand his proclamation refusing to open the city’s four high schools.

In ill-tempered words, Faubus said “some Presbyterian ministers have been brainwashed” by “Communists and left-wingers.”

The ministers denied the charges and demanded an apology.

The race issue failed to slow a move by the Northern and Southern Presbyterian churches to operate Austin Theological Seminary jointly. The Texas synod of the Northern church voted to buy a half-interest in the seminary. Southern Presbyterians have already approved the plan. Northern Presbyterians will pass on the proposal at their General Assembly next year. The Texas seminary has been integrated for more than 10 years.

Divine Promotions

E. Arthur Bonney was a guided missile expert at the Johns Hopkins Applied Research Laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland. Several years ago he heard God’s call to the ministry. “Last year,” he recalls, “the calling grew so strong I couldn’t refuse.”

This month Bonney, 40, enrolled at Gordon Divinity School in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, for theological training. With him went his wife and three children. They were starting all over in obedience to the Great Commission and divine beckoning.

Robert T. Yonkman of Grand Rapids, Michigan, also knows what it means to pull up occupational stakes, middle-age notwithstanding. Married and the father of a seven-year-old girl, he gave up work as an electrical manufacturer’s agent to enroll at Bexley Hall Seminary of Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. That was three years ago. This summer Yonkman was ordained and became rector of Christ Episcopal Church of Charlevoix, a small town in northern Michigan.

Theological Center

A Sealantic Fund grant of $1,500,000 will make possible immediate construction of buildings for the new Interdenominational Theological Center of Atlanta, Georgia.

The center will combine educational functions of Gammon Theological Seminary (Methodist), the graduate faculty of religion at Morris Brown College (African Methodist Episcopal), the graduate program in religion at Morehouse College (Baptist), and the Phillips School of Theology at Jackson, Tennessee (Christian Methodist Episcopal). Classes are expected to begin next fall.

Ministerial Problems

What bothers clergymen in the United States?

The Ministers Life and Casualty Union of Minneapolis sponsored a survey to find out. The poll revealed that ministers worry most about how to handle demands on their time, especially burdensome details of administration.

Clergymen also are troubled by church finances and by their own inadequate salaries as well as by church members’ lack of interest in spiritual things.

Some 44 per cent of the 1,405 ministers polled said they felt their salaries inadequate. About 52 per cent reported salaries (excluding parsonages) of between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. Another 28 per cent are paid reportedly from $5,000 to $7,000. Less than one-half of one per cent said they received more than $10,000. Ten per cent reported salaries under $3,000.

Nearly one-fourth of the responding clergymen said their churches expect too little of them in the way of counseling.

Most of the ministers (63 per cent) complained of not enough time for leisure activities, although most (65 per cent) were satisfied with their vacation time.

The Negro Baptists

For America’s two big Negro Baptist groups, the Supreme Court’s latest integration ruling could not have been timelier. Conventions of both were in session when the nation’s highest tribunal ordered Little Rock to proceed with integration. The two groups met simultaneously (September 9–14), the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., in Chicago; the National Baptist Convention of America in Detroit.

At Chicago Coliseum, some 10,000 delegates greeted the announcement with shouts of “Thank you, God” and “Yes, Lord.” The assembly sang “Rock of Ages.” Many delegates cried openly.

Dr. Joseph H. Jackson, who was unanimously reelected president of the incorporated body, had urged delegates to accept the court’s order in a “spirit of meekness and worship and not cheers.”

The announcement was made immediately following an address to the convention by Democratic Representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas, who is president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Hays cited the need for Christian brotherhood.

In Detroit, 8,000 delegates met at King Solomon Baptist Church. Their reaction to the Supreme Court decision was equally subdued.

“There was no demonstration,” said the Rev. G. Goings Daniels, recording secretary. “We took the matter quietly as a matter of course.”

Keynote speaker for the unincorporated Baptists was the Rev. Martin Luther King of Montgomery, Alabama.

The National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., is America’s third largest Protestant denomination with more than 4½ million members. The National Baptist Convention of America is sixth largest with more than 2½ million members.

Church Effectiveness

Churches today “are not very effective either in changing society or even in making clear what it means to be a Christian,” according to Dr. Winthrop S. Hudson, professor of church history at Colgate Rochester Divinity School.

“The church is failing,” he told a Baptist student assembly, “because it is confused within itself on the nature of the Christian faith, the nature of the Christian church, and the Christian vocation.”

“A student’s first job is to draw together small groups for Bible study and theological discussions to clarify his thinking on the basic nature of his faith,” Hudson said. “The current spirit of easy tolerance which says that one religion is as good as another is a death-blow to evangelism.”

A student’s second task as a church member, he said, is to “rediscover the nature of the church as the household of God.” He warned against thinking of the church building as the church. “These buildings are little more than monuments to ourselves—the product of our own pride rather than of our devotion to God,” he said.

The professor’s remarks were addressed to 500 delegates attending the sixth annual Baptist Student Conference at Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Baptists In Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh Baptist Church is a new venture of Southern Baptists in western Pennsylvania. The work began some three months ago as a mission of the Evangel Baptist Church of nearby Weirton, West Virginia. Now the church has 26 members, all formerly from the South. A recent Sunday service drew 60 worshipers (some were Northern Baptists).

The congregation represents the first Southern Baptist work in the Pittsburgh area. Services are held at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in the Steel City’s civic center.

Said a Northern Baptist official: “We will be courteous and Christian in our attitude and will want to work with them in the same cooperative spirit that we share with other denominations.”

C.N.W.

The “Y” Program

Spiritual priorities were plainly on the margin at a meeting of YMCA general secretaries in Pasadena, California, last month. The “Y” administrators were largely preoccupied with extension of present programs.

Commenting on the plea of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for a larger spiritual thrust, Randolph E. Myers of Washington told the secretaries that the spiritual thrust is uppermost in the capital.

Chairman Harper Glezen of Minneapolis called the problem of expanding services into new suburbs one of the most pressing.

Recruitment and training of YMCA secretaries was an acknowledged problem. A national commission is at work on it. Currently the “Y” gets half its secretaries from George Williams College, Chicago, and Springfield College, Springfield, Massachusetts. Both are traditional training grounds. The next largest group comes from seminaries, church-related liberal arts colleges and schools which train social workers.

Christian faith must translate itself into works. It is not sufficient to lend mental assent to a Christian creed. It is necessary for one’s destiny that the details of life be committed to the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, faith translates itself into Christian experience and action.

Christian faith consists of a body of truth as taught in the New Testament, as expressed in the commonly accepted creeds, and as believed by those who call themselves Christian. Christian faith becomes experience when the individual commits his life to Jesus Christ and acknowledges him to be the Lord of life. Faith is then expressed in life.

Paul And James

In speaking of faith, St. Paul used Abraham as an illustration of one who believed and whose faith was counted unto him for righteousness. He declared that Abraham was justified by faith and not by works. This righteousness was equated with salvation. “By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourself; it is the gift of God; not of works lest any man should boast.” On the other hand, James used Abraham as an illustration of one who was saved by works. He declared, “Faith without work is dead. Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac, his son, upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, by works was faith made perfect.”

Some have attempted to create a conflict between Paul and James on this subject of salvation by faith or by works and faith. The harmony comes in recognizing that faith is the root and works are the fruit of the matter. Whoever has a justifying faith in God gives evidence of this by obedience. Faith produces love and love is the fulfilling of the law. It is impossible to divorce Christian life from Christian faith.

Hence we are warned to beware of historical faith, or dead faith. This is the kind of faith which the demons have. James said, “The demons also believe, and tremble.” Historical or intellectual faith is that which accepts the Bible, the Gospel and Christ as one accepts history. It is possible for one to believe that Jesus

Christ died by crucifixion outside of Jerusalem in the spring of 29 A.D. and not have it affect his life. This is one of the great dangers which face the Christian church. Historical faith must become experimental faith or it has no value.

Life By Faith

The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith.” This text, found in Habakkuk 2:4 is quoted three times in the New Testament. The first time is in Romans 1:17 where Paul is concerned with the subject of righteousness. Thus, he uses it to prove that man shall become righteous by faith in the propitiation of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. The book of Romans declares that all men are sinners, whether profligate heathen, moral persons, or adherents of religion. He goes on to declare that they cannot be made righteous by any works of the law, but only through justification by faith, a faith that believes that Jesus Christ was sent forth by God to be a propitiation for sin through faith in his blood.

The second time this Old Testament text is quoted in the New Testament is in Galatians 3:11 where Paul is emphasizing the subject of faith over against works. He declares that it is not by works, whether of character, of morality or of religion that men become right with God but only through faith.

The third place where it is quoted is in Hebrews 10:38 where the writer is emphasizing that the just shall live by faith. He then goes on to give in Hebrews 11 many illustrations of walking by faith. The first was Abel who believed God’s word that man could be accepted in His sight only by bringing a blood sacrifice which typified the coming of the suffering Messiah.

The Adventure Of Obedience

When faith is translated into obedience, it provides a sense of adventure, it reveals our trust in the Word of God and it puts a thrill into living. It is this obedience of faith which has marked the lives of missionaries who have gone to the ends of the earth, of reformers who have stood upon God’s word over against the tide of opposition and persecution, and of witnesses who have been faithful unto the Lord’s command,

Harold John Ockenga has ministered to historic Park Street (Congregational) Church in Boston for over 20 years.

(Ardent apologies to Hans Christian Andersen)

Many years ago King Visible Church received royal garments woven out of the revealed truths of Scripture. His delight was to display them to all who would behold. The royal garments were of such beauty that people came from the ends of the earth to see them. Many became so entranced by their glory that they remained to become citizens of the realm over which the King reigned.

Among the hosts of strangers that came to visit the King were two designers who disdained the traditional royal garments and gave themselves out as weavers. They claimed that they knew how to weave the most beautiful fabrics imaginable. Not only were the colors and patterns unusually fine and existential, but the garments that were made of this cloth had the peculiar quality of becoming invisible to every person who was unworthy or who was lacking in the latest scientific knowledge.

The King was greatly disturbed when he heard snatches of their conversation. He would hear them say to others that his royal garb was “out-worn,” “out-dated,” “old-fashioned,” “affront to the intelligentsia,” “lacking in critical scholarship,” “not philosophically respectful,” and many more of like nature. This greatly embarrassed the King. Perhaps he needed the renovations they had to offer. “Those must be splendid garments,” mused the King. “By wearing them I would be able to discover which men in my kingdom are unfitted for their ecclesiastical positions. I shall distinguish the scholars from the fools. Yes, I certainly must commission these wise men to weave some garments for me.” The King commanded that all the venerable institutions of his realm be opened to the weavers and that they be accorded all honor and respect.

So they put up two paradoxical looms and began to weave dialetically with tillichian and bultmannian shuttles. On and on they worked far into the night.

“I should like to know how those weavers are getting on with their fabric,” thought the King, but he hesitated when he reflected that anyone who was unscholarly or unfit for his post would not be able to see it. “I will send my faithful old theological weaver,” thought the King. “He will be able to see how the cloth looks for he is not an obscurantist and no one fulfills his ecclesiastical duties better than he does.”

So the good and trusted weaver went into the room where the two strangers sat working at their paradoxical looms.

“Heaven help me,” thought the old theologian. “Why, I can’t see a thing!” But he took care not to say so.

The two designers begged him to step a little nearer and asked him if he did not think it was a good Christian pattern and beautiful coloring. They pointed to what they declared to be a beautiful piece of cloth woven with dialectical skill with the tillichian shuttle and consisting of the lost dimension:

The answer is given by the awareness that we have lost the decisive dimension of life, the dimension of depth, and there is no easy way of getting it back. Such awareness is in itself a state of being grasped by that which is symbolized in the term, dimension of depth. He who realizes that he is separated from the ultimate source of meaning shows by this realization that he is not only separated but also reunited.

“Good heavens,” thought the old and trusted weaver. “I must be way behind the time. I had not thought so, but to hear dialectical language makes me wonder if I am intelligible to young theolog weavers. It will never do to say I cannot understand this.” So when the old theological weaver returned to the King, he informed him that the use of the tillichian shuttle would produce the most profound, constructive, apologetical theological fabric ever made in the kingdom. At last sophisticated intellectuals may obtain a sense of meaning by the realization that he is separated from the ultimate source of meaning. The tillichian shuttle would enable man to make the profound discovery that the very knowledge that he is actually separated from the source of meaning would indicate that he is also reunited.

The King soon sent another faithful ecclesiastical official to see how the garment was getting on. The same thing happened to him as to the old and trusted weaver. He looked and looked, but he could see no authentically Christian fabric in the loom.

“Is not this a beautiful piece of Christian cloth?” asked the two designers. “Notice how the bultmannian shuttle gives intellectual and scientific depth to the Apostles’ Creed.”

I believe in Jesus Christ, not the only Son of God, (yet) our Lord: who was not conceived by the Holy Ghost, not born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried: he did not descend into hell; the third day he is (thought to have) risen again from the dead; he did not ascend into heaven; and sitteth not at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall not come to judge the quick and the dead.

The two foreign designers pointed to what they purported to be another colorful piece of the same Christian cloth woven with the bultmannian shuttle:

The man who understands his historicity radically, that is, the man who radically understands himself as someone future, or in other words, who understands his genuine self as an ever-future one, has to know that his genuine self can only be offered to him as a gift by the future.

The poor ecclesiast could see no resemblance whatever to revealed Christianity. He could not conceive of himself unworthy of his post, so he concluded that he was theologically ignorant. This he did not dare to confess, however, so he praised the stuff he did not see, and assured them of his delight in the beautiful colors and the originality of the design. Then he reported to the King that the cloth was truly the primitive kerygma properly demythologized and intelligible to the modern man.

Now the King thought he would like to see it while it was still on the loom. So, accompanied by the two faithful officials, he went to see the crafty designers who were working away at the empty looms.

This time it was not necessary for the designers to make any explanations, for the two officials pointed out the lost dimension in the design and how the very fact that it was lost meant that it was found. “It is magnificent,” they said, each thinking no doubt the other could see what he could not see. “Only look at the beauty of the primitive kerygma from which is stripped all that would appear ugly and unscientific to the modern mind.”

“What?” thought the King. “I see nothing at all. This is terrible. Am I a fool? Am I not fit to be King?” “Oh, it is beautiful,” he said. “It has my highest approval.” Nothing would induce him to say that he saw no authentic Christianity in the looms. As a matter of fact he immediately ordered that the designers receive the highest honorary degrees in the kingdom.

Then the day arrived for the fitting and for the procession to which all within the kingdom were invited. The fame of the foreign weavers had spread throughout the land. All people were aware of the magic power the new existential garments possessed to reveal the unworthiness or ignorance of anyone. While some had a measure of trepidation in heart yet none dared to absent himself from viewing the procession.

First of all the weavers stripped from the King all the traditional garments which had attracted people from the ends of the earth. These they declared to be out-worn, out-moded and out-dated. With gloved hands they removed dogmas, creeds, and all that smacked of the supernatural.

Then they placed upon him what purported to be a kierkegaardian paradoxical under-garment. This, they explained, could not be grasped by the mind but only by a faith-leap. Those who did not ignore logical contradictions had no faith. The poor King saw nothing and concluded he had no faith. The outer garments, they elucidated, were purely symbolical. They fastened on his waist what they declared to be a bultmannian train from which the vertical had been almost removed and the horizontal extended to show its historical continuity to the first century.

The King looked into the mirror and saw nothing but his nakedness. “What beauty! How modern! How scholarly and scientific!” cried all his couriers round.

“The canopy is waiting outside which is to be carried over Your Majesty in the procession,” said the stated clerk who had charge over all ecclesiastical functions to see that they operated smoothly and efficiently. Nothing must be done to upset the carefully planned schedule of events.

“Well, I am quite ready,” said the King. “The clothes certainly do fit well.” Then he turned round and round in front of the mirror, so that he should seem to be looking at his grand and new fabric. The faithful old theological weaver and the ecclesiast were given the honor of holding up the train. With dignity they pretended to lift it from the ground with both hands, and they walked along with their hands in the air. They dared not let it appear that they could not see anything.

Then the King walked along in the procession under a gorgeous ecclesiastical canopy, and everybody in the streets and at the windows exclaimed, “How beautiful is the King’s new existential garment! What a splendid train! And it fits to perfection!” Nobody would confess that he could see nothing lest he be considered ignorant or unworthy.

“But he has got nothing on,” said a little child.

“Oh, listen to the innocent,” said its father. And one person whispered to the other what the child had said. “He has nothing on—a child says he has nothing on!”

“But he has nothing on!” at last cried all the people.

The King writhed, for he knew it was true. But he thought, “The procession must go on now.” So he held himself stiffer than ever, and the ecclesiastical dignitaries lifted with their hands the invisible train.

When we speak of postmillennialism, we mean that view of the last things which holds that the kingdom of God is now being extended in the world through the preaching of the Gospel and the saving work of the Holy Spirit, that the world eventually is to be Christianized, and that the return of Christ will occur at the close of a long period of righteousness and peace, commonly called the millennium.

This view is to be distinguished from that optimistic, but false, view of human progress and betterment which holds that the kingdom of God on earth will be achieved through a natural, rather than a supernatural, process by which mankind will be improved and social institutions will be reformed and brought to a higher level of culture and efficiency. The latter view regards the kingdom of God as the product of natural laws in an evolutionary process and represents only a spurious or pseudo postmillennialism.

The word millennium, a thousand years, is found just six times in Scripture, all in the first seven verses in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. Some Bible students take the word literally and hold that Christ will set up a Kingdom on earth which will continue for precisely that length of time. We believe, however, that the word is to be understood figuratively, as meaning an indefinitely long period.

Outstanding theologians who have held the postmillennial position are: David Brown, whose book, The Second Advent (1849), was for many years the standard work on the subject, Charles Hodge, W. G. T. Shedd, Robert L. Dabney, Augustus H. Strong and Benjamin B. Warfield. James H. Snowden’s book, The Return of the Lord (1919), is an able presentation of the postmillennial system.

This system has been much neglected during the past third of a century, but the other systems too have had their periods of neglect and decline. For nearly a thousand years between the time of Augustine and the Protestant Reformation, premillennialism was in almost total eclipse; and amillennialism as a system has received its fullest expression only in comparatively recent times.

Evangelical Agreement

The essential presuppositions of the three systems are similar, and each has been held by men of unquestioned sincerity and ability. Each holds to the full inspiration and authority of Scripture. Each holds to the same general concept of the death of Christ as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice and as the only ground for the salvation of souls. Each holds that there will be a future, glorious, visible, personal coming of Christ. Each system is, therefore, consistently evangelical.

The differences between these systems arise not out of any conscious or intended disloyalty to Scripture, but primarily out of the distinctive method employed by each in the interpretation of Scripture; and they relate chiefly to the time and purpose of Christ’s second coming and to the kind of kingdom that is being set up or will be set up at his coming. Premillennialists insist on literal interpretation as the only means by which the true meaning of Scripture can be set forth, while post- and amillennialists readily accept a figurative interpretation where that seems preferable.

Literal And Spiritual

But while, as postmillennialists, we spiritualize some prophecies or other statements of the Bible, that does not mean that we explain them away. Sometimes their true meaning is to be found only in the unseen spiritual world. We hold that to literalize and materialize those prophecies is to keep them on an earthly level and so to miss their true and deeper meaning. That was the method followed by the Jews in their interpretation of Messianic prophecy. They looked for literal fulfillments with a political ruler and an earthly kingdom, and as a result, they missed the redemptive element so completely that when the Messiah came they did not recognize him, but instead rejected and crucified him. The fearful consequences of literalistic interpretation as it related to the first coming should put us on guard against making the same mistake for the second.

The millennium to which the postmillennialist looks forward is a golden age of spiritual prosperity embraced in the larger Church age. We hold that the present age gradually merges into the millennial age as an increasingly larger proportion of the world’s inhabitants are converted to Christianity. We do not hold that every person will be a Christian, nor that sin will be completely eliminated, but only that sin will be reduced to a minimum. Sinless perfection belongs only to the heavenly state. The earth during the present age can never become paradise regained. But a Christianized world can afford a foretaste of heaven, an earnest of the good things that God has in store for those who love him.

World Will Get Better

As the millennium becomes a reality, Christian principles of belief and conduct will be the accepted standard for nations and individuals. Figuratively, the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together when people and forces formerly antagonistic and hateful to each other are so changed that they work together in one harmonious purpose. The desert shall blossom as the rose, literally, as economic and scientific advances lead to generally prosperous conditions the world over; and figuratively, as moral and spiritual conditions are improved. Health and education will be the rule, and wealth will be vastly more abundant and more widely shared.

Life at that time will compare with life in the world today in much the same way that life in a truly Christian community compared with that in a pagan or irreligious community. The millennium embodies, therefore, not a political world power kingdom of Jewish supremacy continuing for an exact one thousand years, but a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men, of which the Church will continue to be then as now the outward and visible manifestation. It closes with the second coming of Christ, the general resurrection and judgment.

What The Scripture Says

But the important question is, What do the Scriptures say about a future golden age? Do they warrant such an expectation? In both the Old and New Testaments we find an abundance of evidence to that effect, although lack of space prevents us from giving more than a small portion of that evidence. Isaiah tells us that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” (11:9). Jeremiah gives the promise that the time is coming when it no longer will be necessary for a man to teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, “Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them” (31:34).

Speaking through the psalmist, God says, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (2:8); and again, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee” (22:27). The last book of the Old Testament contains a promise that “from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles” (Mal. 1:11). These great and precious promises are so far reaching and expansive that they stagger the imagination.

In the New Testament we find the same clear teaching. Strong emphasis is placed on the fact that it is the world that is the object of Christ’s redemption. “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). “For God sent not the Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17). The parable of the leaven teaches the universal extension and triumph of the Gospel as society is transformed by the Kingdom influences.

Victory Certain

The redemption of the world, then, is a long, slow process, extending through the centuries, yet surely approaching an appointed goal. We live in the day of advancing victory and see the conquest taking place. From the human viewpoint there are many apparent setbacks, and it often looks as though the forces of evil are about to gain the upper hand. But as one age succeeds another, there is progress. Looking back across the nearly 2,000 years that have elapsed since the coming of Christ, we see that there has been marvelous progress. All over the world, pagan religions have had their day and are disintegrating. None of them can stand the open competition of Christianity. They await only the coup de grace of an aroused and energetic Christianity to send them into oblivion.

We have been commanded by our Lord to go and make disciples of all the nations. We are engaged in a mighty struggle that rages through the centuries; there can be no compromise. The Church must conquer the world, or the world will destroy the Church. Christianity is the system of truth, the only one that through the ages has had the blessing of God upon it. We shall not expect the final fruition within our lifetime, nor within this century. But the goal is certain and the outcome is sure. The future is as bright as the promises of God. The great requirement is faith that the Great Commission of Christ will be fulfilled through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and preaching of the everlasting Gospel.

Loraine Boettner is author of a number of books, among them The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Studies in Theology, Immortality, and The Millennium. He holds the B.S. degree from Tarkio College, Missouri, which conferred upon him the honorary D.D. and Litt.D.; and the Th.B. and Th.M. degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary. From 1929–37 he served as Professor of Bible in Pikeville College, Kentucky. He contributes the third of the essays on the subject of the millennium, presenting the viewpoint of postmillennialism.

What does the Holy Communion mean to you?” a divinity student once asked me in Trinity College, Dublin. In a moment I recognized that one’s views on this subject both epitomize and express one’s whole spiritual outlook.

“It means five things,” I replied. “It is an outward sign of the Gospel. It is a remembrance of the Lord’s death. It is a feeding of the soul on him. It is a sign of the unity of all true believers in him. It is a reminder of his return.”

Later I began to wonder whether my impromptu answer to so important a question was accurate and adequate. Was any major thought omitted? I think perhaps there was one—to which I shall refer later. Meanwhile, consider these other points.

“As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,” says St. Paul, “ye do shew the Lord’s death.” “You proclaim the Lord’s death” is the Revised Standard Version. The partaking of bread and wine is a sign of the Gospel.

Children love to see as well as to hear. What they see enforces and illustrates what they hear. Christ has been pleased to provide for God’s children, in the most impressive manner possible, an outward sign of the central truth of their faith. The language is charming in its simplicity—food and drink, the oldest language in the world—and employs the three senses: sight, taste and touch. The breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine typify the wounding of the body and the shedding of the blood of Jesus. Hence the title: the breaking of bread. When Christians break the bread and pour out the wine, God proclaims to them and they proclaim to others the sacrifice of Christ by which they have been saved.

The symbols, moreover, proclaim, not the fact of his death only, but also its significance. It was in connection with the Jewish feast of the Passover that the Lord instituted the Supper. The Passover was in memory of God’s deliverance of the children of Israel from the bondage under which they had existed in Egypt, and from the power of the destroying angel which he had sent in judgment to destroy all the first-born in the land. Prior to that critical night, God had commanded the Israelites to take a lamb on their last evening in Egypt; to gather in households to eat it roasted, with unleavened bread; and to sprinkle its blood over the lintel and two side posts of the doors of their houses; and had added the promise: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you.” That night the Israelites became a nation by a covenant God made with them: he would be their God and they would be his people. The feast of the Passover was instituted by God as an annual reminder of this covenant, and as an object lesson that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Now, in the institution of the Supper, the Lord so connected his words and actions with the Passover as to give to his death a twofold significance: it was to inaugurate and seal a new covenant; and it was to be for the remission of sins. This is the heart of the Gospel.

The new covenant—that all who believed in him should have forgiveness of sins, everlasting life, and the law of God written in their hearts—was made between the Father and the Son before the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ came in order to mediate this covenant to man and seal it with his own blood, of which the blood sprinkled in Old Testament sacrifices was both a picture and a promise. In the Passover the words were used: “This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate when they came out of Egypt.” In instituting the Supper the Lord broke bread and said: “Take, eat: this is my body which is broken for you.” Similarly, after supper, he took one of the cups of wine used in the Passover feast, and said: “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament [“covenant,” Revised Version], which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Thus the Passover and the Lord’s Supper each acknowledged that blood was to be shed for the remission of sins; each recognized a covenant relationship between God and his people; each was divinely instituted as an outward sign of spiritual realities.

Remembrance Of His Sacrifice

As the partaking of the bread and wine is a proclamation, so is it also a remembrance of the Lord’s death. “This do in remembrance of me,” he said, no doubt with special reference to his death. Christ instituted the Supper in order to recall frequently to the minds of his followers their deliverance by his death from the condemnation and bondage of sin. How closely memory is connected with the spiritual life! It is a very early and forceful activity of the mind; plays a large part in conviction of sin and in repentance; is intimately connected with imagination, association, suggestion, reasoning, and the growth of our moral nature. No wonder, then, that it should have pleased the Lord Jesus to make the Holy Supper an institution appealing to memory. “This do in remembrance of me.”

It is noteworthy, however, that the Lord never made the Supper a renewal of his death. The words “This is my body” and “This is my blood” can no more be taken literally than the words in the Passover: “This is the bread of affliction which your fathers ate when they came out of Egypt.” Had he chosen, the Lord could have ordained that the bread and wine should be offered afresh to God as a renewal of his eternal sacrifice for sin; but the records are entirely lacking in any clear indication of such an intention. Rather, the New Testament emphasizes that his sacrifice—in contrast to those of the Old Testament—was perfect, all-sufficient and made once and forever, and that the Supper is a proclamation of his completed work and a memorial of himself.

Feeding On His Life

The partaking of the bread and wine is also a feeding of the soul on Jesus Christ. “The cup of blessing which we bless,” says St. Paul, “is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” Hence the term The Holy Communion, communion meaning literally participation in. Eating and drinking are the most significant physical acts of life: what we eat and drink becomes part of ourselves. Bread must be eaten in order to nourish, and wine drunk that it may refresh. The relationship of the believer to Christ is equally intimate: his spiritual life is nourished by feeding on Christ in his heart by faith, that is, appropriating the fruits of his sacrifice and daily depending on him for strength and help. In accepting the bread and wine, the communicant publicly proclaims to the Church and to the world that Christ is one with him and he is one with Christ.

Not that this feeding on Christ takes place only at the Lord’s Supper; the Christian is continually dependent upon him for his soul’s strength. Those who lay exclusive or even primary emphasis on the Lord’s Supper as the means by which the soul is fed should ponder over the fact that there are only about half a dozen references to the Supper in the whole New Testament, including the three records of its institution.

Indeed, the figurative language of eating and drinking had been used by Jesus in the synagogue at Capernaum over a year before he instituted the Supper. I am the living bread which came down from heaven.… If any man will eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.… Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

When his words puzzled and offended some of his disciples, Jesus went on to explain: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life,” and he did not mean them literally. By his death, eternal life was to be made available to all. Just as food and drink must be consumed in order to bring physical benefit, so must the fruit of his death be personally appropriated in order to give spiritual life. By so appropriating the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice, the believer would be mysteriously united with him—even as he is with his Father—in a lifegiving relationship.

Sign Of Our Unity

“We being many are one bread and one body,” says St. Paul, “for we are all partakers of that one bread.” The Supper has its social significance. It is a sign of the unity of all believers in Christ. The eating of the one loaf and drinking of the one cup are symbolic of the holy bond which unites in one body—the Church—all who partake of the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. Thus the Supper is the supreme symbol of fellowship. “Take this and divide it among yourselves,” said the Lord, after he had taken the cup and given thanks. By eating and drinking together, the children of God declare they are one family in the Church of Jesus Christ; they enjoy hallowed affection and brotherly love, with all fellow-pilgrims to the heavenly home and fellow-heirs of future glory.

Consequently, it is a sign also of separation. The Egyptians had no part in the Passover, unless any of them were to adopt Jehovah as their God. The scribes and Pharisees were not invited to the Lord’s Supper. Judas, so far as we can judge, left the supper room before the Supper was instituted. True Christians alone have any right to the holy table; that is why churches should require certain qualifications for attendance.

Though all true Christians have a right to the Lord’s table, even they must take heed to partake worthily. Owing to its connection with the agape, or love-feast—a social gathering of Christians—the Lord’s Supper in the Corinthian Church had become corrupted by divisions, pride, selfishness and irreverence. “Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily,” wrote St. Paul to them, “shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of the bread, and drink of the cup. For he that eateth and drinketh, eateth and drinketh judgment unto himself, if he discern not the body.” The word “judgment” in this Revised Version and “damnation” in the Authorized means “chastening,” as is indicated in the apostle’s later words: “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” These are solemn words. Any Christian who approaches the Lord’s Supper in a spirit of levity draws his Father’s chastening hand upon himself.

Not that we can ever be worthy of Christ or free from all sin. What he requires is that we should trust him as our Saviour, recognize him as our Life, yield ourselves to him as our Lord, and confess him before men. This relation to him must be deeply sincere. The Passover was to be eaten with unleavened bread; and leaven, being a kind of corruption, was an emblem of insincerity and falsehood. The faith which saves is not the outward profession of those who deceive themselves or others, but that of the sincere heart. It would be inconsistent, moreover, to employ the sign of unity with one another without a corresponding reality. Christians should, therefore, seek to repair any quarreling among themselves before partaking together.

Reminder Of His Return

The Supper is also a reminder of the Lord’s return. “I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,” said Jesus at the institution, “until that day when I drink it new in my Father’s kingdom.” “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,” says St. Paul, “ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.” The sacred feast is limited in duration and purpose. During this age the people of God walk by faith in an invisible, ascended Lord. How precious, sacred and significant to them are the symbols which he ordained! But memory not only recalls the past; it enlarges expectation. The Christian looks forward to the joy of sharing in his marriage supper. In that glorious day, faith shall give place to sight; hope to realization; promise to fulfillment. With the Lord himself in the midst, the sacred symbols shall vanish away.

A Means Of Grace

I said at the beginning that there was one other import in the Supper. It includes and depends on all the other points. The Supper is a means of grace by which God works in the hearts of the faithful. As the Lord’s people proclaim him, recall him, thank him, feed on him, acknowledge their unity with one another in him, and expect his return from heaven, they cannot but be blessed. They may feel refreshed and uplifted; they may not. But God has repaired and renewed the innermost springs of their spiritual life. And in his strength they go on their way rejoicing.

Gordon Harman serves four churches out of Cheadle Rectory in Cheshire, England After receiving his M.A. degree from Queen’s College, Cambridge, he attended London College of Divinity and was ordained by the Church of England in 1937.