Eutychus and His Kin: September 30, 1957

THE SOUND BARRIER

Pastor Peterson dropped by last night after an evening of calls in the new Cloverleaf Vista subdivision. He wants a TV distance tuner that will fit in his coat pocket and operate so as to shut off any television set. To produce “snow” he said wouldn’t be enough. Sight and sound must both go, too, or the calling pastor hasn’t a chance.

We discussed other possibilities. The cord of the set is usually too inaccessible to trip over. The pastor has tried lowering his voice, and there are sensitive souls who will turn down the volume. Even these keep on looking. Standing in front of the set is sometimes an effective hint, he admitted, but usually he is firmly ushered to a chair in a corner. He has been forced to develop a two-minute talk which he can insert during a commercial. This is the one time, he reports, when TV viewers become conscious of a guest in the room.

At this point I urged him again to come in and sit down, but he declined, and left. As I returned to my favorite TV chair it occurred to me that perhaps this technique of the doorstep conversation was his latest solution.

Some of my “kin” may have sugtions for Pastor Peterson. Remember that he is an old-fashioned evangelical who insists on doing door-to-door evangelistic calling. It won’t do to tell him to go home and watch television. I should add that he has had some success on late afternoon calls by taking four of his children along. Since the Petersons have no TV set, the youngsters need little encouragement to find a thoroughly juvenile program and block the screen completely. This method, however, has not been found ideal for a first contact call.

Can you help Pastor Peterson?

EUTYCHUS

REFORMED EPISCOPAL BISHOPS

Your issue of June 24 states that the Reformed Episcopal Church elected its first new bishop since 1920 at the recent meeting of its General Council in Chicago. May I point out that this statement is obviously erroneous. Since 1920 the following have been consecrated as bishops in the Reformed Episcopal Church:

Robert Westly Peach, Joseph Edgar Kearney, Frank V. C. Cloak, Howard David Higgins, William Culbertson, the last two having been consecrated in 1937.

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN

The Stony Brook School

Stony Brook, Long Island

GOD’s IMAGE IN MAN

Kindly permit me to direct your attention to a review by G. Aiken Taylor (July 22 issue) of my book on The Basic Ideas of Calvinism.…

The reviewer writes of “an altogether negative approach to man’s constructive behavior which results from Meeter’s understanding of the doctrine of total depravity, an understanding which fails to take into account Calvin’s pointed references to the image of God as marred but not wholly destroyed in man. Meeter’s view (that the imago dei is wholly destroyed) necessarily colors his writing.” Emphatically, the author does not subscribe to any idea that the image of God is wholly destroyed in man. Rather he would wholeheartedly maintain with Calvin, as can be gathered from the quotes from references to Calvin’s writings in the book (The Basic Ideas of Calvinism, pp. 70–75), that the reason the image of God is not wholly destroyed in man lies precisely in the common grace of God. For if God had not restrained sin in the natural man, according to Calvin natural man would become worse than a furious beast or a violent overflowing river (p. 71). God’s common grace makes possible many laudable and excellent deeds by sinful man as explained in the quotes from Calvin (pp. 70–72). God’s common grace is therefore to Calvin the source of much “constructive behavior” even in pagans. The alternative, namely that man’s constructive behavior is due to native qualities left in man, would have laid the author open to the charge that it was not the Calvinistic view of total depravity he was advocating but rather partial depravity of the Arminian stamp. According to Calvin man after sin did not retain the image of God in the narrower sense of true knowledge, righteousness and holiness. In the broader sense of the term, that of being a spiritual being, rational, moral and immortal, man still has the image of God. Without these qualities he would cease to be human. I trust that the above will absolve the book from any charge that in it is maintained the view that the image of God is destroyed in man and of an altogether negative approach to man’s constructive behavior. God’s grace makes for constructive behavior.

H. HENRY MEETER

Grand Rapids, Mich.

SHORT OF THE GOAL

Since somebody sends me CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I occasionally glance over a copy—invariably my reaction is that my unknown benefactor is wasting his money, and I am wasting my time. I have never seen a periodical which strains so hard to achieve scholarly eminence and which falls so short of its goal.

Aside from the promotion of Billy Graham, CHRISTIANITY TODAY seems to be published primarily to compliment, propitiate, and flatter the liberals and infidels while ridiculing, insulting and denouncing those who stand for the Inspiration of Scripture and contend for the Faith.

It was my impression that at least all of the editorial staff (though perhaps not all of your correspondents) claim to believe in the Divine Inspiration and Infallibility of the Word of God but one would never know this was true from the average issue of the magazine.

BOB JONES, JR.

Bob Jones University,

Greenville, S. C.

Your contribution towards making a Messiah out of “Billy” Graham is particularly obnoxious. In due time we shall find that he will do Protestantism in general more harm than good.…

FREDERICK A. STERNER

Trinity Evangelical and Reformed Church, Reading, Pa.

We in Canada have been subjected long enough to the imperialism, religious and otherwise of the U.S.A. One of your least savoury influences has been the promotion in this country of religious vaudeville by the unlimited number of evangelical fundamentalist and Pseudo-Christian cults and sects.… I would suggest that you provide a school in the department of emigration for training emigrees in the fine art of gentlemanly and civilized mannerisms.… You would score a bigger hit in Canada if you through the medium of your newspaper dissuaded these aforementioned groups from interfering in the national religious life of Canada.…

PAUL E. GLOVER

All Saints’ Anglican Church

Calgary, Alberta

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is one of the most valuable magazines I receive. In variety and general excellence of material—spiritual and intellectual—it is tops with me.…

I. L. LLEWELLYN

Fields Methodist Church

Shenandoah, Va.

It is a great joy to see the beginning of such a needed organ of such high calibre.…

H. J. BENNETT JR.

The Methodist Church

Hemingway, S. C.

… Destined to take a leading position in evangelical literature. The warm, uniting and positive message may well help forge the bonds of a stronger evangelical Christianity tomorrow.

WILBERT D. GOUGH

Gilbert Meml. First Baptist Church

Mount Clemens, Mich.

It is extremely helpful to have such current theological thought coming to my desk in the form you present it.

G. F. GREENFIELD

First Baptist Church

Breckenridge, Tex.

… An intellectual approach that is appealing.…

JOHN WEBORG

Pendor, Neb.

I have found CHRISTIANITY TODAY a peerless theological publication. It allies clear utterance, deep scholarship, wonderful variety of subjects, rare equilibrium and moderation, to a sound theological position.

LIBRARIAN

Seminario Presbiteriana Do Brasil

Campinas, Brazil, S. A.

How thankful I am to receive your evangelical paper … I am 82 years of age … I had the joy of working with the late Dr. John R. Mott and Dr. Sherwood Eddy in India as a Secretary of the Y.M.C.A., Calcutta, and in … evangelism among the students … I was once a Hindu and now dying as a disciple of Christ …

P. A. N. SEN

Ranchi, Bihar, India

Especially do I appreciate the forthright stand you take relative to the problem of liquor advertising.

Editor FRANCIS A. SOPER

Listen

Washington, D. C.

Re the editorial “Dung and Scum” (July 8 issue), vilis means “cheap” (“vile” is turpis).

“Let an experiment be made on a cheap body” ran the conversation. “Cheap, do you call a body for which Christ did not scorn to die?”

A fine article all the same, and an outstanding issue.

E. M. BLAIKLOCK

Auckland University College

Auckland, New Zealand

Too long have we waited for such a voice as this in our wilderness world.

A. F. BALLBACH JR.

First Baptist Church

Oneonta, N. Y.

INFANT BAPTISM

I read with great interest the very worthwhile articles in the August 19 issue concerning “The Body Christ Heads.” A very pertinent question was raised by W. Boyd Hunt. It is a question which has divided the Christian Church on a very basic and essential doctrine—the doctrine of infant baptism. I am grateful to God that about 95% of the “Body Christ Heads” has continued to teach and to follow this revealed practice of the first century church.

Mr. Hunt asks, “Where in the New Testament is infant baptism?” (p. 8). Has he never read Acts 10:47–48 or Acts 16:15 or Acts 16:33? There are others, but these are enough references from the established practice of Peter, Paul and others to answer his question. For example, what else but baptism of the whole family can be meant by the statement of Acts 16:33? Very plainly Scripture states, “And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.” “His” certainly does not refer to his material possessions nor to the pets in the household. Any person ready to interpret Scripture with an open mind will have to interpret that statement to mean “his family,” i.e., “his wife and children.” Some would even include the family servants in this service of baptism. But “family” is sufficient to answer Mr. Hunt’s question. I suggest that Mr. Hunt read the booklet by Dr. Albertus Pieters entitled, Why We Baptize Infants.

KENNETH H. HESSELINK

Laketon Bethel Reformed Church

Muskegon, Michigan

Ideas

Oberlin: Unity and Mission

The Editors

In a world tottering before powers contrived to divide, one Power alone qualifies to unite men for time and eternity. Transcending all differences of race, of nationality and of social status is the oneness men may find in Jesus Christ.

Yet we languish in a divided Christendom. The religious disunity of the West, the crumbling of visible unity of Christian faith and order, are only too apparent. In fact, today’s Christian community often lacks a vibrant sense of common Christian heritage, of historical continuity bridging from New Testament times to the present.

During the last 100 years Christian churches, through their missionary effort, for the first time became a world-wide phenomenon. Yet confrontation by hostile world powers, especially of totalitarianism and secularism, sharpened the awareness of a very real Christian disunity. After 2000 years, Christian leaders were driven to ask: Is there hope that the visible churches can surmount their divisions? May it not be that some ecclesiastical conflicts stem from human perversity, that some divisions reflect secondary concerns?

And so the great drive for unity has gained momentum, storming the arguments in favor of diversity. May not diversity stem from human finiteness as well as from sinful rebellion? May not a democratic element in church life best guard a universal Church from usurping Christ’s lordship? (See Luther on the papacy for comments still relevant to a monolithic church.) Such questions became unpopular in the desperate concentration upon unity. For a generation Christian disunity has been diagnosed as evidence of institutional pride and sin, and of deficiency in nourishing ecclesiastical life with the unifying dynamic of the Holy Spirit. While emphasis has fallen, as well it may, on the dangers of a divided Church, the fact that churches can be united in quite bizarre patterns and by quite unworthy motives has been minimized.

The World Council of Churches has weighted the contemporary Christian balances with its uneasiness over disunity, thereby providing a powerful new incentive for unity. While three decades of prayer and effort, of study and organization, have shaped its convictions, yet agreement is still lacking on the meaning of ecumenical unity as it concerns the churches. Previously, the nature of church unity had not been a main theme for the World Council nor even an explicit subsidiary theme of an ecumenical session. This month in Oberlin, however, the North American Conference on Faith and Order addressed itself specifically to this dilemma.

Two controlling definitions of ecumenics have emerged from ecumenical discussion and debate. The one is structural: herein ecumenics is a basic unity of faith and/or order, involving the churches in a search for a common faith or a common framework for ecumenical effort. This endeavor for agreement in faith and order has proved increasingly frustrating and exasperating. Insisting that unity of the churches involves some tangible demonstration in their role as churches, leaders asked: What sort of visible unity does God will for his Church? Among the various formulas for the “organized body of Christ,” the following have been suggested, sometimes as successive stages: (1) mutual recognition (in which cooperation replaces competition between churches); (2) cooperative action through councils of churches on local and national levels; (3) church mergers in view of a sense of unity at the level of faith and order on the part of ministry and members; (4) organic or corporate unity in one communion or church that functions as a body with a single life and history in space and time. Would this last stage result in recombining existing churches with a high measure of visible centralized control and government? As opponents often say of ecumenical insistence that unity requires organization visibly manifested at the local level, would it carry outlines of a monolithic organized super-church? At Oberlin, Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft dismissed the notion of a monolithic super-church as the only alternative to disunity. But neither Dr. Visser ’t Hooft nor anyone else at the conference produced any alternative that actually delineates the WCC’s normative concept of unity between monolithic uniformity and competitive pluralism.

Since discussions of unity frequently had reduced to a running apologia for the doctrines of member groups, or for hospitable schemes of church union and organization, and had achieved no clear agreement on the lineaments of ecumenical unity, the North American Conference longed for a promising alternative of motivation. Instead of a structural definition, therefore, it ventured a second definition of ecumenics, namely the dynamic: herein unity comes through the Church’s mission, rather than from a common faith or a common order or structure. Thus ecumenics is the Church universal expressing the saviourhood and lordship of Christ by its missionary concern. Proponents of this approach ask: For what purpose is the One Great Church fashioned? One observer, fearful of a super-church as the end-all of ecumenical activity, asked: “What shall it profit the Church if she gain the whole oikumene and lose her witness?”

This shift of emphasis to purpose or mission as the basis of unity by the North American Conference gave a new and strategic direction to faith and order study. Leaders had observed that world conferences often generalize issues; that a special obligation to elaborate unity rests upon the United States and Canada, since their churches speak much the same language, members freely intermingle and intermarry, and congregational life reflects the special influence of democratic forces. Other leaders noted the absence of an ecumenical temper on the local level; the emergence of a powerful evangelistic dynamism from outside the organized ecumenical movement; the frustrated effort to find ecumenical unanimity on the level of faith and order. The new sense of dynamic purpose encourages the WCC merger with the International Missionary Council as the next great organization goal (cf. “The Drive for IMC-WCC Merger” in this issue, p. 9), thus underscoring the missionary spirit to shape the ecumenical outreach, and overruling the organizational foundations to remove dilemmas resulting from differences of doctrine and order.

A united Christianity engaged with full heart in the fulfillment of the Church’s mission would, of course, afford a strategic counter-blow to totalitarian and secular forces today. Christians everywhere will view with gratitude the new concern for mission. But, despite its enthusiasm for mission as the basis of unity, Oberlin left this very mission of the Church undefined. In reality, the constituent members of the WCC are as divided on the nature of the Church’s mission almost as much as on questions of faith and order. The term “mission” itself is given both a narrow interpretation, in terms of evangelism and missions, and a broader meaning, with reference to the whole task of the Church. Some churches identify the work and life of the Church exclusively with social action and cultural concerns, defining ecumenical cooperation simply in terms of “whatever we can do together.” It is not strange, therefore, that the missionary philosophy characterizing much contemporary ecumenical effort is itself under fire. Some critics detect a tendency to substitute ecumenism for evangelism; inter-church aid for missions; fellowship among Christians for outreach toward the unevangelized; fraternal workers for missionaries; consolidation for pioneering. (In Japan the unity of the Kyodan, organized mainly on a pragmatic basis, is already threatened.) What will happen when and where the mission of the Church is interpreted mainly as the promotion of organizational oneness? Some observers regard the Oberlin sessions on the nature of unity as but a prelude to a conference on church union, an ecumenism more concerned for propagation of the gospel of Church unity than for the Church’s evangelistic task. The question arises: Before mission can be a sufficient basis for ecumenical unity, must there not be consensus on the content of that mission?

Can the mission of the Church actually be defined without adequate reference to faith and order? The shift from faith and order to the alternative of mission as the basis of unity does not deal realistically with the viewpoint of large groups both inside and outside the WCC who contend that the mission of the Church is not isolated from but includes a specific content of faith, or of faith and order. Moreover, evangelicals question a unity in mission, for example, that enlists the Orthodox Church whose past history in Greece has been one of hostility to evangelical Protestant effort. The notion that mission can supersede theology in building the ecumenical movement seems to place the Church’s mission in a non-theological setting. Is such a mission a sufficient criterion of unity? Can mission in fact be detached from concerns of doctrine? Of order? Is not the new WCC emphasis vulnerable to the constant threat of basic dichotomies? Dare we interpret Ephesians 4:5 in this Revised Ecumenical mood: “One Lord … (one mission) … one faith?… one baptism?” Is this an adequate reflection of New Testament unity? Did the early Church understand its unity in terms of action rather than of being, of purpose rather than of nature? Is the WCC engaged in recovering the past unity of the apostolic Church, or is it shaping its own novel and experimental unity?

Moreover, if the deepest criterion of genuine ecumenity is expressed by obedience to the Great Commission, should not the ecumenical movement recognize mission-active denominations and movements of Protestant church life unaffiliated with the WCC as genuinely ecumenical expressions though they dissociate themselves from the WCC because of their insistence upon a more specific statement of Christian doctrine? In relation to non-member constituencies, the ecumenical movement today finds itself in an awkward dilemma. Many leaders consider the absence of large groups such as National Association of Evangelicals, Southern Baptists, Missouri Lutherans, as in some sense a judgment upon the ecumenical movement. On the other hand, whenever unofficial overtures are made to non-member groups, the question naturally arises whether the invitation to “come into the WCC” ungenerously implies the non-validity of these competitive ecumenical expressions.

Christology And Confession

Ecumenical leaders doubtless will contend that the twin concerns of faith and mission have been merged into each other, rather than submerged one to the other, and that they do not expect the problem of unity to be resolved wholly on an exra-doctrinal plane. The relationship, they aver, is never serial but organic. To ask upon what mission we can engage before doctrinal agreement, or what doctrinal agreement is needed for a common mission, is for them too static an approach. They stress that the New Testament Church was united in its mission despite the absence of theological agreement at the level of the later ecumenical creeds. And in evidence of theological earnestness they point to WCC discussion on the basis of “Jesus Christ is God and Saviour” by which Amsterdam upgraded the formula “Lord and Saviour.” (Some constituents, however, do not subscribe to the formula confessionally. Seventh Day Baptist leaders were unofficially reported at Oberlin as in the WCC not because they subscribe without reservation to the affirmation that Jesus Christ is God and Saviour, but because they regard the WCC mission as more important than doctrine—a statement that passed unchallenged in the section on doctrinal consensus and conflict.)

Doubtless the evangelical criticism of ecumenical theology too often fails to grasp the importance of this central Christological affirmation. Whatever its limitations, the confession bristles with relevance in a totalitarian age. Profession of Christ’s lordship liberates the human conscience from the claims of state absolutism. Wherever a single believer recognizes Christ as God and Lord, there the existence of the totalitarian state is nullified. Communist awareness of this fact explains the persecution that Chinese Red leaders directed especially against the Christians who constituted only two per cent of the population. Moreover, the ecumenical confession emphasizes that the way to Christian unity lies through Christology, and aims to give to all discussion—including ecclesiology—a Christocentric character.

Yet the WCC confession of Christ as God and Saviour is not to be understood as a dogmatically defined statement. Even as a confession, the statement is capable of divergent theological expositions. Leaders in the WCC are far from agreement on Christology; their generalities (does the emphasis on the personal as against the doctrinal here really substitute an abstraction for the reality?) avoid a division over differences. The ready concentration on a simple Christological formula, moreover, is viewed as a symbol of theological indifference as much as a symbol of unity. Will the latitude permitted beyond this initial requirement threaten the doctrinal purity of the Church? (Note Oberlin’s unprotested offering of prayers for the dead, and the pulpit reading of The Pastor of Hermas alongside the Pauline epistles.) Does the disposition to tolerate, if not to recognize the validity of each other’s confessions and practices require a pragmatic and expedient concession at the expense of the doctrinal?

The WCC confession is far too skeletal as a basis for virile Christianity. That Jesus Christ is God and Saviour is true but hardly the whole of vital New Testament teaching; actually, this statement includes less than the elements of confession necessary to salvation, namely, that Christ died for our sins and is risen (cf. Rom. 10:9–10, 1 Cor. 15:1–4). The accepted WCC formula is inadequate, therefore, to define the Gospel of Christ. Has not the Saviour and Lord already formulated the Christian organism and mission in more adequate terms? Foundational to the unity of the early Christians stood a biblical content at least as full as that of the Apostles’ Creed.

Because the WCC confession is theologically barren, it is widely regarded as the foreboding antecedent of divisions that might have been avoided through doctrinal specificity. Especially evangelical Protestants protest the WCC’s wholesale abridgment of the doctrinal basis of Christian unity. To them such reduction is a liability rather than an asset to Christian faith and witness. Some observers aver that unless the WCC arrives at a stronger confessional basis, it ultimately faces repudiation of the movement by some of its own member churches, or through indifference to revealed theology will succumb to intellectual deterioration of ecumenical Christianity.

This approach to the WCC confession, however, does not probe the deeper issues at stake.

For one thing, the WCC is increasingly disposed to issuing additional confessional statements. Such neoconfessionalism has emerged in many major communions that avoid absolutizing their own denominational convictions (cf. recent world confessions by Presbyterians and Lutherans), but issue wide pronouncements concerning the bearing of Christian belief upon threatening cultural trends of the time. These confessions, in turn, are given ecumenical interest and status alongside the early creeds.

The ecumenical movement as such has no apparent desire, however, to reintroduce doctrine as a test, but only as a testimony. That is, no disposition is evident to recognize the existence of divinely-revealed doctrines. The influential leadership of the movement distinguishes between faith and belief; doctrines are evaluated more in terms of interpretation than of revelation. Assertedly, faith concerns the Word (not concepts and words); belief, whereby the Church articulates its faith, issues confessions only as a witness to the world, not in conformity to an authoritatively revealed declaration of what men must believe to be recognized as Christians.

The non-confessional groups, maintaining that all creeds are responsible to Scripture, decry and fear the growing confessional tendency in the WCC. The confessional groups, on the other hand, fear the WCC’s possible power over the churches through the issuance of influential definitions of the faith. Both miss the major considerations. The real issues are: What is the basis of Christian authority? What is the relation of divine revelation to reason? What is the status of Scripture as a bearer of revealed truths or doctrines? These are the crucial factors. The old liberalism, now a waning influence in ecumenical meetings, struck its deepest blow at the historic Christian faith by dissolving the authoritative note in Protestantism, by sketching divine revelation in terms either of rationalism, voluntarism or emotionalism, and by rejecting Scripture as the authoritative rule of faith and practice. Has the formative leadership of the ecumenical movement provided an adequate alternative?

Evangelicals will continue to assess contemporary ecumenity’s statement of unity and mission as given at the Oberlin sessions on doctrinal consensus and conflict by the following criteria: (1) The basis of Protestant authority. Is the Bible qualified by divine revelation and inspiration as the final and trustworthy authority in matters of faith and doctrine? (2) The importance of truth. Granting the danger of rationalizing revelation in speculative terms, and that doctrine has a view to Christian obedience, is it acknowledged that truth also has a legitimate existence for its own sake? Does divine revelation take the form both of deed and truth? Granted that religious commitment involves the whole self in relation to God, is it acknowledged that truth is essential to both faith and belief? (3) The person and work of Christ. Is it affirmed both that “Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ” and that “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”? Many current formulations distinguish Jesus from “the Christ in Jesus,” and prefer also to speak of “God in Jesus Christ” rather than of the personal deity of the God-man. Is it affirmed not only that men as sinners are justified by faith without personal merit, but also that they are supernaturally regenerated on the occasion of faith in the imputation of Christ’s atonement as the ground of man’s salvation?

Evangelicals are saddened by any unity in mission that relegates such verities of revelation to an optional, secondary status.

Race Relations And Christian Duty

America is in the throes of great sociological change. Never has there been more need for Christian love and restraint. That the race issue has become political is to be deeply regretted. That the spiritual problem is ignored by some and stressed to the exclusion of sociological factors by others is equally regrettable.

In recent weeks incidents have arisen that should move every Christian with righteous indignation. The deliberate mutilation of a Negro in one city is one example; justice demands the severest penalty for those found guilty. Abuse accorded the few Negro boys and girls assigned to previously all-white schools by some young people in these schools has been a disgrace.

The unfortunate situation in Little Rock is eloquently appraised by a group of white and Negro ministers in that city expressing the Christian position in these words: “There is need for all to exercise constant and diligent prayer and a love which respects the dignity of all children of God and seeks equal justice for them. Because we have not walked in the way of the Lord we now find ourselves confused, disturbed and distressed. As Christian ministers we confess our own share in the corporate sin and guilt of our state and our own subjugation to the holy judgment of God. Our one hope in this hour of crisis lies not in our own ability to change ourselves, our people, or the social structure of which we are a part, but in the power and grace of God to bring order out of confusion, good out of evil and redemption beyond judgment.”

In such situations (and they are not confined to the South) there is need for Christian love, sympathy and common sense. That the church should lead in Christian relations goes without saying. There are those who feel that she has been woefully slow in assuming her role of leadership in breaking down racial discrimination and injustice. In some instances the church has lacked courage in vindicating justice for all. But some leadership has shown more enthusiasm than good judgment, more zeal than understanding. Christian courtesy, love, humility and consideration form the only basis on which right race relations can be developed. There are vocal integrationists who themselves refuse to have social contacts with another race. There are segregationists whose personal dealings with those of another race put to shame some most ardently active on the other side. Each needs to learn from the other.

The Christian church should work for the elimination of every restriction, discrimination and humiliation aimed at people of any race. She should preach and exemplify love and compassion and consideration at all times. She should also refrain from confusing legal, spiritual, and sociological problems—for in so doing she is being neither Christian nor realistic.

END

- More from The Editors

Theology

Bible Book of the Month: The Psalms

J. Kenneth Grider

In times like these we need to turn ourselves frequently to the Psalms. In them there is an intoxication with “the world above the world,” an acknowledgment of God at every step, a quest of the soul for the living God. In this questing, too, there is always the element of wonder; stretched out and yearning, the souls of the psalmists never fully comprehend Yahweh’s genius in creation nor his loving kindness toward men who sink in “deep mire, where there is no standing” (Psalm 69:2).

Moreover, there are in the Psalter taproots for growing tall, beauteous souls—souls that, unlike cut flowers, will bloom steadily and lustily through this life into the next. And if our newest weapons give us the jitters, the Psalms will give us balm and poise.

Kings and peasants, sages and saints, the tormented and the confident—they all speak out in these diaries of the heart. In their cries in the night and their hallelujahs at noonday they speak with peculiar relevance to believers in our time.

Piety Of The Psalms

Not a system of reasoned ideas; not what the Greeks would have given us. “The pearls here all lie loose and unstrung …” says John Paterson (The Praises of Israel, p. 24). Paterson also suggests: “Joy here is too abounding and sorrow is too passionate to be compressed within the moulds of a logical system” (ibid. p. 153).

What we have in the Psalter is a distilled piety. “In it beats the very heart of the Old Testament and of all spiritual religion” (W. T. Davidson, The Praises of Israel, p. 1). “What the heart is in man, that the Psalter is in the Bible” (Joh. Arnd; see Delitzsch’s Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, 1894, I, p. xvii). To use Paterson again, he says: “The Psalter finds us in the deepest parts of our being, and those songs speak a universal language to the heart of all mankind” (op. cit. p. 4).

Harold A. Bosley suggests something similar. Of this heart history he writes, “It is composed of the deepest, truest, most luminous insights we have into the universal and permanently important experiences of the human spirit” (Sermons on the Psalms, p. 10). He also speaks of the Psalter as “… one of our longest, steadiest, deepest looks into the depths of life” (ibid., p. 1). That is what John Calvin was referring to when he called these bits of glory written out “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul” (Commentary on the Psalms, I, Preface, p. xxxvii).

Doubts, fears, penitence, confidence, thanks, praise—these all figure in this heart literature. And our souls run together with the souls of the writers of the Psalms. Their joys are ours, and their distresses; their confidence, and their moans of contrition. Pens dipped in divine inspiration point right at us. We go forward for prayer in Psalm 51, water our couches with tears in Psalm 6, recount our blessings in Psalm 103, pant after God as does a thirsty hart after the water brooks in Psalm 42, pillow our heads in Psalm 23.

Origin Of The Psalter

Many of us would agree with W. E. Barnes that “for the Psalms questions of date and historical occasion are relatively unimportant (The Psalms, I, p. viii). The date and occasion of Daniel, for example, are far more important than they are for a given Psalm or series of Psalms. Yet it is of consequence who wrote the Psalms, when, and why.

Some men such as Duhm have tried to tell us that most of them originated in the Maccabean age. Most scholars, such as Gunkel, Oesterley, Paterson, and Snaith date them, in general, considerably earlier. The tendency during the last three decades or so is toward earlier dating. It is probably not without bearing that in all printed editions of the Hebrew Bible the Psalms are the first book among the “Writings,” for there seems to have been an attempt to arrange the books chronologically within each of the three divisions of the Jewish canon. Moreover, in the Hebrew manuscripts it never appears later than second among the Writings.

In the Hebrew the inscription le-David appears above 73 of the Psalms. It is rendered “A Psalm of David” in the AV and RV. (In the Septuagint, besides these 73 instances of the Davidic title, there are 15 others.) Most scholars would agree that the Hebrew could be rendered “A Psalm to (or for) David,” or even “after the manner of David” (Barnes, op. cit., p. xxiii). Paterson suggests “after the style of David” (op cit. p. 19).

This much is certain: (1) that the Hebrew scribes quite early understood the le-David as referring to actual authorship, since they frequently added to those psalm headings references to incidents in David’s life which occasioned the songs; and (2) that the le-David headings are quite early since they appear in the oldest extant texts of the Septuagint.

Some critics say that David of the Psalm inscriptions is not the king David of the historical books (see excellent response to this in Barnes, op. cit., pp. xxv ff). Yet many suggest that the Psalms reflect David’s life as given in those books (cf. Alexander Maclaren, The Life of David as Reflected in His Psalms, reprinted 1955).

Quite certainly the Septuagint is incorrect in ascribing 88 Psalms to David. Take, for example, Psalm 137, one of its 15 extra Davidic Psalms. That Psalm is surely the song of a subjected Hebrew in exile. Moreover, most would question a number of the 73 Davidic titles in the Hebrew, understanding that the later “title-makers” were not inspired, as were the psalm writers themselves. Alexander Maclaren suggests that 45 Psalms are quite certainly from David (ibid., p. 11).

Whether a given Psalm originated within the soul of David, Moses, Solomon or someone else, Christians and Jews alike agree that “the words of the Psalter are alive with the awareness of an Other” (E. Leslie, The Psalms, p. 18).

Structure Of The Psalms

We English readers often expect rhyme and meter in our poetry. But not all peoples have this feature in their poetic literature. The Anglo-Saxons, for example, looked for alliterated line beginnings instead of rhymed endings; this is another form of regularity, and regularity is what most distinguishes poetry from prose. Hebrew poetry often has a regularity of ideas in what we call its parallelisms—synonymous as in Psalms 15:1 and 67:3, antithetical as in Psalm 1:6, and in its stair-step arrangement as in Psalms 29:1–2 and 24:7–10.

Also, frequent use is made of repetition; in Psalm 136 each of its 26 verses contains the refrain, “for his mercy endureth forever.” More important, there are those passionate, luminous words and expressions found in all poetic literature. Most scholars would agree with W. E. Barnes that the Hebrews had “… a genius for religious poetry” (op. cit., I, p. vii). While some consider the threshold Psalm to be a prose introduction to the Psalter, the Hebrew genius is at work at least from Psalm 2, through those paeans of praise in Psalm 150 with its ten-fold “hallelujah” (praise ye the Lord) with which the Psalter is closed and which constitutes a fitting doxology to the whole. All of these Psalms together are called “Praises” in the Hebrew Bible. They were called “Psalms” in the Septuagint, and we have been influenced by that early Greek version here as on many other points.

In his Old Testament Essays (1927) pp. 118–142, Hermann Gunkel suggested that there are four main classes of Psalms: National hymns of praise, private hymns of thanksgiving, national hymns of sorrow and private hymns of sorrow. Some were thought of as mixed types. Bosley (op. cit., p. 10) gives a four-type summary also, but of a different sort. To him the types are penitence, hate, adoration and simple faith.

Regarding the Psalms of “hate,” we may surely understand that the enemies in some of them are nations, and that when they are individuals they are the psalmists’ enemies because they are God’s. Robert F. Pheiffer supposes that the “righteous” are often the Pharisees, and the “sinners” the Sadducees (Introduction to the Old Testament, 1948, p. 620). In any case, the psalmists lived in times when many thought it right to hate their enemies. Jesus showed that when he said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy” (Matthew 5:43). Not until Jesus came was that principle radically repudiated.

According to the Midrash on the Psalms, an ancient Jewish commentary, Moses gave the Israelites the five books of the Law, and to correspond to them David gave them the Psalms in five books. Although no one would now believe that David compiled the five books of the 150 psalms now in our Psalter, some believe there is a correspondence between the Law and the Psalms. Harry A. Ironside (Psalms, p. 406) believed that the dominant subject of each of the five books of the Pentateuch is duplicated in each of the five books in the Psalter. Norman Snaith argues more convincingly for a correspondence between them (Hymns of the Temple, pp. 18 ff). It might well be that just as a portion of the Law was read each Sabbath, with something from the Prophets, so a Psalm was read. The reading of Psalm One, in which the blessed man meditates on the Law day and night, would be most fitting on the day, each three years, when a new beginning was made in the public reading of the Law. It is intriguing that, with the way the Jews distributed portions of the Law over two-month periods, Psalms 1, 42, 73, and 90, the first psalms in each of the first four books of the Psalter, would be read as each of the first four books of the Law was begun. There is even plausible reason, too intricate for mention here, for the lack of correspondence in the case of the beginning of the last book of Psalms, which starts with Psalm 107.

Useful Psalm Studies

Useful material on the Psalms, somewhat in order of priority for the minister:

A work midway between the very technical and the too popular is John Paterson’s The Praises of Israel (Scribner’s, 1950). It would whet one’s appetite for more thorough works such as W. E. Barnes’ two-volume The Psalms, (Dutton, n.d.); W. Graham Scroggie’s three-volume Psalms (Pickering & Inglis, rev., 1949); and Elmer A. Leslie’s The Psalms (Cokesbury, 1949). One of the very thorough studies, which would be still more adequate for detailed information on a given psalm, is the three-volume Commentary on the Psalms by Prof. Delitzsch (Hodder & Stoughton, 1894). A quite careful study is Joseph Alexander’s The Psalms, (Zondervan, repr. 1864 ed.). Spurgeon’s The Treasury of David has a continuing relevancy (Zondervan, repr. 1881 ed.).

A very commendable specialized work on six psalms, with a general introduction, is Norman Snaith’s Hymns of the Temple (SCM, 1951). Somewhere, one ought to have a look at T. H. Robinson’s The Poetry of the Old Testament (Duckworth, 1947). Pertinent applications are found in Harold Bosley’s Sermons on the Psalms, (Harper, 1956). Specially rich in devotional thoughts is F. B. Meyer on the Psalms (Zondervan, repr. n.d.).

Within commentary sets, of course, there are indispensable studies. Calvin’s commentaries, urged even by James Arminius for all his students, include five volumes on the Psalter (Eerdmans, repr., 1949). An excellent study is in Charles Simeon’s Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible, Vols. 5 & 6 (Zondervan repr., 1956). Most important is the up-to-date treatment in The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 (Abingdon, 1955).

Three of the scheduled 55 volumes of Luther’s Works are now published, two of which (Vols. 12 & 13) are on the Psalms—and against the papists: (Concordia, 1955–56).

J. KENNETH GRIDER

- More from J. Kenneth Grider

Theology

Lost River of Paradise

J. Marcellus Kik

The second chapter of Genesis presents a mystery that has puzzled many through the ages—the mystery of a lost river. Scholars have endeavored to trace the river that flowed out of Paradise but so far only several of its branches have been identified. Seemingly the River of Eden has completely disappeared. The account as given in Genesis 2:10–14:

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bedellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

Scholars have conjectured that the four branches of the lost river are: the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates. These four great rivers give us some idea of the extent of the lost River of Paradise. The magnificent trees, the fragrant plants, the beautiful flowers of the Garden of Eden were watered by this river. The division into four branches indicated that the world surrounding Eden was to be watered as the numeral four is often used as a symbol for the earth. Thus we know that God intended the blessings of Paradise to prevail throughout the world. The entire earth, under the providence and blessing of God, was to be like the garden of Eden.

If the Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates were branches of the River of Paradise, then they pose a difficult problem of relating them to a common source, as a glance at a map will show that they are somewhat disjointed. This very disjointure, however, points graphically to the sad fact that Paradise itself is lost.

Another River

Paradise and its river were lost through the fall of man. The Indus, the Nile, the Tigris and the Euphrates are like four huge signposts that have been turned and confused by the sin of man. Reading these signposts, one can only become convinced that the former source, the River of Paradise, has been lost.

Turning away from these confused signposts, we turn for direction to a guidebook which so often discloses that which has been lost. The Bible is that guidebook; within its pages we hear the rippling sound of a quiet, soft-flowing river. Its sound comes to our ears in Psalm 46:

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

Within the boundary of the Psalm the river appears so small. Yet the river is set in contrast to the roar and restlessness of the mighty sea. The sea symbolizes the unbelieving world. The Bible informs us that “the wicked are like the troubled sea.” The wicked multitude is kept in constant motion by pride, ambition, greed and lust. Like the restless sea they are never at rest with themselves or with others. The sea ever rages and seeks to destroy. In opposition to this roaring, restless, raging sea is set the quiet, soft-flowing river with its peaceful streams. Strange as it may seem this river conquers the mighty, restless sea. Surely this river with its streams must be the lost River of Paradise.

A Healing Stream

The nature of this river and its healing streams is revealed in chapter 47 of the prophecy of Ezekiel:

And, behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward … Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea … And it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed: and everything shall live whither the river cometh.

The prophet Ezekiel has just seen a vision of a glorious temple. Now he beholds a river whose waters issued from under the threshold of the temple. The river flowed into the east country, into the desert, and finally into the sea. Significantly, the river entered into the Dead Sea. No fish or any form of animal life can exist within the salty water of the Dead Sea. But behold! When the river from the temple enters into the Dead Sea, “it shall come to pass, that everything that liveth, which moveth whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish.”

The river that flows from the temple has such restorative energy that even the Dead Sea—symbol of God’s curse against sin—is filled with a multitude of fish. May we hint of the fulfillment of this vision by recalling the voice of one who cried to a group of fishermen, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”? He also directed his disciples, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” They cast the net and were not able to draw it for the multitude of fish. Through the restorative powers of the River of Paradise children of God would appear in nations that previously had been under the curse of God.

Ezekiel also relates how the river affected the desert places, “And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed” (Ezek. 47:12). The ripple of the same river is heard in Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1 where we read that those who are planted by that river bring forth their fruit in their season and their leaf shall not wither. May we hint at the fulfillment of this part of the vision by recalling the statement of him who said, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” The disciples of Christ are indeed planted by the River of Paradise and bring forth fruit unto everlasting life.

A River Of Life

We would love to dwell wherever we hear the sound of the rippling of this river in Scripture; but we pass on to the very last chapter of the Bible where the river reappears. (Oh those blind leaders of the blind who deny the unity and inspiration of the Scriptures! Could mere man keep this river flowing through the books of the prophets and apostles during the course of centuries? What fools men be who deny the divine authorship of the Book of books!) In words reminiscent of Ezekiel’s vision, the river appears in verses 1 and 2 of Revelation 22:

And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

The water of this river is pure, living, clear, fresh and wholesome. Unlike the salt water of the restless sea or the stale stagnant water of broken cisterns, this water possesses life-giving power. As the river flows desert places are changed into gardens of Eden.

The river finds its source in the throne of God and of the Lamb. All life comes from God the Father, in God the Son, through God the Holy Spirit. The Lamb is specifically mentioned because all life is bestowed by virtue of his atoning sacrifice on Calvary’s cross. Those who search for living water outside of Christ, search in vain.

But let us draw even closer to this life-giving river. In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks these thrilling words:

If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.

The River of Paradise is Jesus Christ. It consists of the life of Christ conveyed by the Holy Spirit to believing and thirsting souls. They who drink of the water of this river are quickened and made alive forever more. Their souls resemble a watered garden. Where desert plants of uncleanness, idolatry, hatred, wrath, strife, drunkenness and deceit once thrived, there now appear fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. The barren soul becomes a garden of Eden watered by the River of Paradise, Christ Jesus.

Each One A Branch

Each individual soul becomes a branch of living water, reaching out to barren souls. The four branches of Eden become a multitude of streams flowing to the four corners of the earth. The River of Paradise entered into the Church of the New Testament on the day of Pentecost. The preaching of Christ by Peter was the first bursting forth of these waters from the temple. Three thousand souls were quickened and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. From Jerusalem the river and its streams flowed into Judea, Samaria, Syria, Asia, Greece, Italy, Germany, France, Holland, England, America, China, Africa, India and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

Each believer by the indwelling Spirit becomes a branch of the River of Paradise and conveys refreshing and healing waters to thirsty souls in desert places.

The River of Paradise which first appeared in the second chapter of Genesis has been found. In the midst of the roaring and raging of the restless sea, the ripple of this gentle, quiet, soft-flowing river is scarcely heard. Yet its healing waters continue to flow, causing the fragrant flowers of love, peace and joy to appear—love that abides, peace that remains throughout eternity, joy that never departs. The river regains Paradise for the soul.

He who is the River of Paradise has promised, “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.”

END

- More from J. Marcellus Kik

Cover Story

Ecumenism and the Lord’s Table

R. J. Rushdoony

With the current interest in ecumenism and church union, there is a growing emphasis on the Lord’s table and a revival of interest in liturgics. Much of this latter interest has been properly criticized as romantic, as concerned unduly with rubrics, chants, stained glass, choral and congregational responses, clerical garb and the like, and as irrelevant. The Lord’s Supper began as a simple meal in an upper room, and, in the early church, was closer to the church potluck supper than to the modern observance. On the other hand, it must be clearly understood that we are not tied to the original form of the Lord’s Supper, in which case an upper room would be required, but to the essential form and content, as given in 1 Corinthians 11:18–34. Concerning the basic form, the words of institution, there is general agreement.

But what then is the essential content of the Lord’s Supper? Here, for many persons, the old term “communion” is most expressive. It is the Christian bond of peace and unity, the outward token of an inward and outward communion in and with Christ. As such, the Lord’s Supper has become the symbol of the current aspirations for ecumenity. Christ’s Church, sorely divided into many fragments and splinters, must be again united so that, with an effective and united voice, she may witness to a troubled world. In terms of such thinking, every service of communion becomes an indictment of the Church for continuing in disunion.

The fallacy of such thinking, however, is that it makes central to the Lord’s table the human communion of many believers, the totality of human strength as essential to witness, and the centrality of unity to Christian faith and life. It inevitably obscures the essential meaning of the sacrament, the atonement and redemption effected for believers by Jesus Christ, their continuing preservation, sanctification and unity in and with him. That unity does have an important part in this picture is obvious. But to emphasize it unduly is to distort the entire picture, if not to destroy it. In ecumenical thinking, incredible latitude is permitted with regard to the doctrinal aspects; these need not be taken literally, but unity must be taken literally. Thus the ecumenical approach allows a latitudinarian interpretation of the deity of Christ, of his atonement, of security, sanctification, and other doctrines, but insists on a literal approach to unity. The opponents of unity insist on a literal subscription to dogmatic statements but insist on a spiritualizing and latitudinarian interpretation of unity.

Truth And Unity

Obviously, therefore, the concept of unity needs examination. It must be first of all noted that the modern ecumenical movement has no relationship to the councils of the early Church. There the emphasis was on truth above unity, and unity only on the grounds of truth. The enduring value of these councils, despite many disorders as well as doctrinal variations, consisted in their emphasis on truth as the only valid ground for union. This emphasis, however, gave way gradually to the Roman Catholic emphasis, which, from the Protestant point of view, is on unity above truth. The differences preceding the Vatican Council were subordinated to the principle of unity; the long history of theological differences, for example, between Dominicans and Franciscans, shows also their subordination to the opinion made dogmatically binding. To the Protestant, truth and unity have a transcendent reconciliation in Christ; to the Roman Catholic, believing in Christ’s continuing incarnation in the church and the apostolic authority of the See of Peter, truth and unity have an immanent reconciliation in the pope; and hence papal infallibility is not an exotic but natural development of this immanence. Since the principle of unity is present in the person of the Roman pontiff, the principle of unity cannot exist apart from him or be reserved to the church and its schools. Thus devout Roman Catholics can submit to doctrinal pronouncements previously unacceptable to them because doctrinal pronouncements “concerning faith or morals to be held by the Universal Church” are truly and authoritatively defined by the Roman pontiff alone “and not by virtue of the consent of the Church” (Vatican Council). To the evangelical Protestant, truth and unity are perfectly reconciled in Christ only, not immanently in any social order or church. The modern ecumenical emphasis is analogous to Rome in that unity is the means to truth and the very ground of truth. The Roman concept of unity is imposed from above. The modern Protestant ecumenical movement differs from the Roman approach only in seeking unity more democratically. It agrees with Rome in emphasizing peace and unity as more important than truth and as the real ground of truth in Christ.

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

In terms of such thinking, Athanasius, Luther, and Calvin were clearly wrong in insisting that truth is more important than peace and unity. They were wrong then in believing that Christians must be exposed to the turbulent and demanding claims of truth and in insisting, through the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, that all Christians, and all men, must be brought face to face with the truth in Jesus Christ, and with the whole counsel of God in his Word, that unity might grow out of a priesthood grounded and established in truth.

Here it must be pointed out that the very conception of truth and unity as well as truth versus unity is in a very important measure defective. First of all, it must be recognized that by its very nature truth is divisive. It compels a demarcation and a definition, a separation from error and evil. Truth must therefore always be underrated and obscured if a blanket unity is to be furthered. Second, unity in itself is no more a virtue than is sincerity. The sincerity of Hitler and the unity of the German people under him constituted no moral value or gain. Sincerity and unity possess moral validity only as they are attached to persons and causes having moral validity. If unity is sought on grounds which undervalue truth, then unity becomes to that same degree reprehensible. Third, it must be recognized, however, that truth in itself can be barren, if, indeed, it is possible for truth to so exist. A very important question must here be raised: can truth exist without grace? For a Christian, such a thing is inconceivable: truth and grace are different aspects of one revelation. “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). Jesus Christ is the revelation of God’s truth and grace. Truth cannot exist without grace, and grace cannot exist apart from truth. Thus, the doctrinaire and belligerent attitude of some opponents of ecumenity is grounded neither in grace nor in truth but in a partisan spirit which is as defective as the barren insistence on union. The truly ecumenical insistence will not be on peace and unity but on truth and grace, and the only effective opposition to the defective ecumenity of our era is one which presents truth and grace. Fourth, it must be stated that there is a difference between unity and union. Union can exist without unity, and unity without union. Ecumenical thinking too often aims at union rather than unity, at an outward marriage, leading to a Protestant Rome, rather than a true marriage of minds and spirits. All such attempts only compound weaknesses and troubles and render sick churches more sick. On the other hand, it is not enough to emphasize unity without union. Where true unity exists, is there no obligation to union? Is it not indeed a form of irresponsibility to emphasize our unity and berate union?

Evangelical Contributions

Fifth, it is obvious that many churches today are far more interested in union than in unity. One of the ironic notes today is the growing destruction by ecumenity of its own parents. More of the modern ecumenical movement stems from various evangelical movements of the past century than is commonly recognized. Moody’s revivals, for example, cut across denominational lines and did more to foster interchurch relations than is generally conceded. Revivalism, with its “common denominator theology,” did much to correlate the theologies of the various churches. The Christian Endeavor movement, for many decades shaping the lives of the potential leaders of various denominations, trained them into a common denominator Christianity, albeit a conservative one, and emphasized interchurch unity. These movements and others like them were important in their major impact on American life in extending the frontiers of faith and life; they were also important in leveling the specifically Calvinist, Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, and other specifically theological and ecclesiological emphases in favor of a skeletal Christianity. As such they were a major ecumenical factor, whatever our opinion of their value.

But modern ecumenical leaders are at one and the same time active in promoting specifically denominational youth programs, church revival, and evangelism endeavors. They insist on union rather than unity, and on church loyalty rather than basic and fundamental doctrines. Clearly, church loyalty is a needed emphasis in the face of so much atomistic and individualistic thinking with regard to the Christian life. Without it, the church cannot be a church. But church loyalty is a dangerous concept unless subordinated to truth and grace, unless it is held in recognition of the freedom of the Christian believer and is truly a part of our obedience to the triune God. The Church and its leaders are never free of sin and every trifle cannot be made an occasion for revolt, but neither can the Church require obedience where it seeks to be the lawgiver as against God in his Word. Jesus Christ is King of the Church and its only lawgiver, and none other can bind the consciences of men. The Church can bind and loose only ministerially, not legislatively; only in Christ, not in its own authority; and loyalty must be ministerially, not legislatively, required.

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

Ecumenity, and the opposition to ecumenity, needs to be recalled to the true meaning of the Lord’s table, which indeed is the true bond of our unity and peace in Christ. According to Paul, those who failed to discern the Lord’s body (1 Cor. 11:29) were those who failed, first, to understand the nature of the sacrament, the meaning of the death, resurrection, atonement, sanctifying and preserving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Second, they revealed their lack of knowledge of truth by their lack of grace and order in their supper observances, their gluttony and drunkenness, their disunity and contempt of their brothers, and their self-satisfaction with their worship. They thus failed to discern the Lord’s body in the supper, that is, in its meaning, and failed to discern the Lord’s body in his Church. Today, in both the proponents and opponents of ecumenity there is a similar failure. It may again be said or this generation, both Christians and churches, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). The penalty for failure to discern the Lord’s body is still judgment (1 Cor. 11:29).

Robert Paul Roth has been Professor of New Testament Theology and Dean of the Graduate School at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S. C., since 1953. He holds the M.A. degree from University of Illinois, B.D. from Northwestern Lutheran Seminary, and Ph.D. from University of Chicago. He was formerly Professor in Luthergiri Seminary, India, and in Augustana College.

Alternatives

Not with mere stuttering repetition

Or useless aspirations dumbly spun

From wheels forever whirled on fitful winds

Over bleak gullies washed by turbid streams;

Nor egocentric flailing of dull flesh

Practised in the cloistered cell by night,

With wielded scourge and trickling blood and grief,

For extrication of essential guilt;

Nor bruised knees upward groping on the steep

Cross-studded sacramental stairs nor tear-

Groined cheeks to squatting idols bowed, with hope

From bloodless stone to gather certitude:

Neither these nor other agonies of heart

Preclude the grace that caused the veil to part.

JOHN JAMIESON

- More from R. J. Rushdoony

Cover Story

The Drive for IMC-WCC Merger

The spirit of ecumenical merger, motive force of contemporary Protestantism, has set as it next goal the integration of the International Missionary Council with the World Council of Churches. Most ecumenical leaders view this step as a logical move in shaping a master framework of organizational unity for Protestant witness, and they are confident that merger will be a fait accompli before the end of the 1960 WCC assembly. Many evangelical leaders, on the other hand, regard the drive for merger with dismay, and as tending to disrupt the harmony of missionary effort in many parts of the world. One fact is certain: while the merger would bring almost half the world witness of Protestant missions within the orbit of the ecumenical movement, it poses fresh problems for mission boards at home and missionary workers abroad.

35,000 Protestant Missionaries

The number of Protestant missionaries in the world today is just under 35,000. Standing at the frontiers of Christian faith against the powers of unbelief and darkness, this missionary force faces modern pressures for alignment unknown in apostolic days. The missionary today is caught in the tension between denominational and interdenominational or superdenominational alignment, which the ecumenical movement proposes to transcend, ostensibly by fulfilling the New Testament conception of the unity of the Church. Over and above this issue, however, hangs the theological tension of the day, posed by the conflict between the liberal and evangelical theology.

Strength Of Imc Effort

Since its organization in 1921, the IMC has gathered somewhat less than half the Protestant missionary personnel around the world into its orbit. Since IMC includes most of the older and established mission boards, it doubtless represents half the Protestant missionary effort. Most estimates place its missionary force between 12,000 and 15,000. The bulk of its strength is in missionary personnel from the United States and Great Britain; in fact, 60% of its missionary personnel is accounted for by the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches, U.S.A., and much of the remainder by its British counterpart, the Conference of Missionary Societies. Of the 35,000 Protestant missionaries, 25,000 are from North America, and 43% of these are represented by IMC.

IMC functions as an association of national councils of missions and as an association of councils of national churches, with a shifting emphasis from mission boards to younger churches as the basis of membership. It is rooted in an effort to coordinate the missionary effort of national churches whose rise is an aspect of ecumenical Christianity in the twentieth century.

At first IMC was promoted as a non-theological agency concerned only with missionary cooperation and efficiency. Its early efforts were carried on under the theme of the missionary proclamation of the gospel. Many evangelical missionaries cooperated with the understanding that its existence was wholly independent of ecumenical interests. Although the IMC program was increasingly represented as a means of fulfilling Christ’s prayer for the unity of the Church—the favorite theme of all ecumenical ventures—evangelical leaders who were apprehensive about this trend understood ecumenical pronouncements before and after the 1955 Evanston Assembly to mean that no plan was on foot to integrate IMC and the WCC.

The fact is, however, that IMC and WCC had already been brought into an official consitutional relationship at the Amsterdam assembly in 1950. IMC leaders, replying to evangelical protests that they were misled by ambiguous statements at Evanston, stress that the question in debate was not whether to merge, but when to merge, and that 1955 was not the propitious time. The announcement was not “we have resolved not to integrate,” but rather, “we have not resolved to integrate.”

Other Mission Agencies

Alongside IMC, which accounts for less than half of the Protestant missionary personnel, exist other missionary agencies organized on a specifically theological basis, both denominational and interdenominational. Organized in 1917 as an association of non-denominational faith mission boards, Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association now represents 6,000 missionaries. Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, an association of mission boards formed in 1945, reports 4,600 missionaries in direct membership. Doubtless these figures reflect some measure of overlap. But since EFMA represents an additional 1,000 missionaries not in direct membership but outside IFMA, these organizations account for more than 10,000 missionaries.

Both IFMA and EFMA are fundamentalist or evangelical in theology. IFMA excludes denominational and holiness groups, while EFMA includes both. In addition to its framework of spiritual fellowship, EFMA emphasizes its service features (expediting passports, protesting infractions of religious liberty, etc.).

Beside these movements exist denominational groups going their own way and represented by none of the larger organizations. For example, there are 1,000 Southern Baptist missionaries and almost 300 Lutheran (Missouri Synod) missionaries outside the orbit of IMC, IFMA and EFMA.

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

When local and national councils of churches were organized in foreign lands by the ecumenical movement, many areas boasted a predominance of evangelical missionaries. In many instances these missionaries did not wish to be excluded from a voice in organized Protestantism. Since IMC was projected as a non-creedal agency assisting established missions in doing their job, these evangelicals did not resist its advances, but enlisted in the local IMC councils.

In recent years, evangelical opinion has cooled toward IMC, primarily for two reasons. Little by little IMC has moved into the realm of theological issues. The question of the nature of the Church has been constantly raised by the younger churches in relation to their mission boards, and this in turn has renewed the issues of liberalism, neo-supernaturalism, and evangelicalism. Moreover, while IMC has not directly implemented the WCC program, the agency has doubtless done much indirect footwork for WCC since the Amsterdam assembly.

The Big Merger Looms

These issues have now come into major focus with the announcement that merger of IMC and the WCC is under active consideration. Whereas a few years ago the imminence of merger was scouted, the current emphasis is that the WCC in reality is a product of the IMC as the symbol of ecumenical missionary concern. The IMC claims that its 1921 beginnings were really sparked by the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. Whereas the ecumenical movement has centered interest in the concerns of Faith and Order, and Life and Work, it is now proposed to center its outreach in the missionary movement.

The next step toward merger is scheduled next December when the IMC assembly at Ghana, on the African Gold Coast, will vote on a draft plan of integration. If approval is ratified by IMC constituent councils, the plan will come before the 1960 assembly of the WCC.

Denominational Questions

Structural and theological aspects of the proposed merger are causing concern to leaders in some denominational mission boards.

On the structural side the questions are numerous. The IMC has been and is, as its name implies, an organization strictly devoted to the business of missions. Those who compose it are, for the most part, persons who are engaged in the missionary task. Thus IMC is of the nature of a “trades association” in which those who are charged with a specialized responsibility meet for consultation and counsel concerning matters to which they hold a direct administrative relationship. The WCC, on the other hand, is quite different in structure. It is, as the name suggests, a council of churches. Representatives from various ecclesiastical bodies to the WCC are not persons who necessarily have any relationship to their own denominational program of missions. For example, of the 12 representatives of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. in the WCC, not one has any administrative connection with its Foreign Mission Board or with its program of work overseas. The framers of the plan of integration have undoubtedly seen this difficulty and have sought to meet it by proposing that there be set up within the WCC a Commission on World Missions and Evangelism, approximately two-thirds of whose membership will be drawn from councils now affiliated with the IMC. However, this Commission would have no final authority within the Council, but would submit its report and make recommendation to the Assembly and the Central Committee.

Some denominational spokesmen also fear that all this machinery of organization, with the interposition of additional steps before any action can be regarded as authorized, will have the effect of retarding the functions and processes that the organization is designed to serve. The unwieldiness of ever larger structures involves enormous overhead costs, time waste and delay, and inefficiency that one critic declares “would bankrupt any organization except one supported by charity.”

Fear Growth Of Power

Others warn that democratic liberties characteristic of Protestantism will be in serious danger under this system of concentrated power. While the new organization is projected as “consultative, not controlling,” designed to serve the purposes of reference and counsel, and without compromising the independence and autonomy of constituent bodies (the draft plan of merger asserts that “the Commission has no mandatory authority over any of the affiliated or associated councils in its membership”), they regard this as unconvincing. Mandatory power there may not be; but the power of pressure, persuasion, preponderance, publicity and propaganda is tremendous. A kind of regimentation can be brought about which is absolute in authority. Experience clearly shows, they argue, that organizations of this sort, begun for the purpose of mutual consultation and sharing, soon develop administrative powers.

By way of example, such observers note that since the Foreign Missions Conference was superseded by the organization of the National Council in 1950 with its Division of Foreign Missions, there has been a gradual change with respect to function. The elements of reference, counsel and consultation are still there, but there is a definite development in the direction of making the Division of Foreign Missions and its Executive Board increasingly administrative and directive. Various units of the Division, such as the Africa Committee, the Far Eastern Committee and the Latin-America Committee, are setting up programs and projects administered centrally from New York, the boards participating by contributing their share to the special budgets required for these enterprises and by their representation on the controlling committees. There develops, through this process, a sort of collective administration of rapidly increasing programs of work in these several areas. Would it not be too much to expect, observers ask, that the same thing would not happen if the merger takes place between the IMC and the WCC?

Whatever the structural problems, the theological aspect is viewed by some denominational spokesmen as the real heart of the difficulty. Theologically speaking, the WCC is a disappointment to many who stand for a vigorous Christian testimony in the world. They feel that the Council, purporting to represent the major stream of Christian life, thought and action in the world, ought to have a more forthright testimony in faith and doctrine. What kind of mission will be fostered and promoted by a unity that seems to be interested primarily in organizational oneness, they ask, rather than in a united proclamation of a forthright full-rounded gospel that will be honoring to Christ?

Evangelical Concern

The evangelical missionary enterprise has been thrown into new tensions over ecumenical issues through the IMC-WCC merger maneuver. Evangelical missionaries enlisted in the IMC on the basis of its non-creedal framework are now threatening to detach themselves from local missionary councils on foreign fields unless those councils detach themselves from IMC in view of the proposed merger with WCC. The ecumenical drive for merger, it is protested, while ostensibly in the name of the unity of the Church, is actually disruptive, since it is now threatening and curtailing the range of missionary cooperation, in and through the identification of the broad missionary interest with an objectionably abbreviated theological base as represented by the WCC.

Congo Protestant Council, one of the oldest members of IMC and also one of the most vigorous councils in Africa, has threatened to withdraw from IMC because of the provocative theological issue if the merger with WCC is consummated. The Norwegian Missionary Society has also given indications of withdrawal on the ground that its workers would not be at home within the new alignment.

Meanwhile, tensions between evangelical forces and the IMC are rising. Some missionary leaders resent increasing IMC pressures in behalf of the WCC aimed to secure evangelical continuance within the merger framework. IMC spokesmen have propagandized to preserve the status quo on foreign fields while home constituencies are pressuring missionary boards for theological reasons to pull their missionaries out of foreign councils that persist in affiliation with IMC. In French Indo-China, evangelical leaders complain, IMC advocates have sought to influence local churches contrary to the principles of their governing mission boards in America. EFMA has already set aside a day during its Winona Lake conference, October 1–4, when its executive committee will discuss problems related to the drive for merger.

Ecumenical spokesmen discount evangelical fears that the proposed merger will neutralize the missionary effort through a blurring of theological distinctives. But evangelical mission leaders point to the Church of South India, arguing that it was shaped according to the lowest common denominator theologically on the ecumenical pattern and then defected from a Bible-centered ministry.

Peace Of The Churches

In recent decades evangelical leaders have been exasperated frequently because they have been dismissed as uncooperative or divisive simply because they have not enlisted in ecumenical organizations and ventures. Many of them point to the implications of the IMC-WCC merger as an evidence that ecumenical forces are more interested in massively organized Protestantism than in harmony of the Protestant witness. What genuine devotion to the unity of Christian missions, they ask, dictates an unyielding drive for massive mergers that are provocative of tensions in evangelical missionary effort and disruptive of the harmony of established church enterprises?

Evangelical spokesmen point especially to the Congo, where the crisis posed by the merger possibility affects 54 mission boards. Of these, 46 are in the Congo Protestant Council, which is older than IMC, of which it is now an affiliate. Some of the largest of these boards are also in EFMA and IFMA, but all have cooperated and contributed to the Council within the IMC as a non-theological agency. The vast majority of these boards want no affiliation with the WCC for theological reasons, and their leaders have given advance warning that an IMC-WCC merger will split the Congo Protestant Council.

The disruptive consequences of the IMC-WCC drive for merger, some evangelical leaders argue, gives a hollow center to ecumenical attempts to impute to evangelical Christianity blame for the disunity of Protestant witness.

As pressures increase for the ecumenical movement’s absorption of the missionary enterprise, reaction will also increase on the part of those lacking enthusiasm for the ecumenical effort in its present theological outlines. The present Protestant missionary situation is therefore not bright with the promise of harmony.

Is Merger Assured?

Some Protestant leaders doubt, however, that the IMC-WCC merger is certain of achievement in 1960, though they regard it as inevitable. Dr. Norman Goodall, secretary of the Joint Committee of the WCC and IMC, concedes some reservations have been voiced both within IMC and WCC to the present formulation. Moreover, the IMC constitution makes possible the defeat of the merger plan, once it is commended to the member councils in December at the Ghana assembly, by the opposition vote of but six of those councils during the subsequent two-year interval.

Already there are indications that the Congo and the Norwegian councils will oppose. Moreover, opposition to the merger has also been voiced by the Orthodox Church (both Greek and Russian), for reasons quite different from evangelical opposition. The complaint of the Orthodox Church is that the merger would imply WCC approval of the Protestant Reformation missionary witness to which the Orthodox Church is opposed in its own geographical sphere as objectionable proselyting. (Some ecumenical leaders think the Orthodox opposition will help to crystallize evangelical enthusiasm, while some evangelical leaders reply that the inclusion of the Orthodox Church within the ecumenical framework only serves to dramatize its objectionable theological base.)

Although Dr. Goodall concedes that the IMC assembly “could turn down” the merger plan as too divisive, he thinks the general proposal is more likely to receive a majority vote at Ghana, and that its fate will be commended to the constituent councils. In the event of their approval, the merger will be consummated at the 1960 WCC assembly.

END

Cover Story

Revelation, History, and the Bible

George Eldon Ladd

At the heart of biblical religion is revelation. The presupposition of biblical religion is that man’s predicament is so involved that he is incapable of finding God. Left to himself, man’s religious quest leads to futility. However, God has not left man to himself. God has taken the initiative to bring to men that which they could not achieve: knowledge of God and fellowship which grows out of that knowledge. This divine activity involves both redemption and revelation. God has acted to impart to men, who are in bondage to ignorance and sin, knowledge of and fellowship with himself.

Role Of The Bible

The role of the Bible in revelation is vigorously debated in contemporary theological discussion. Orthodox theology has maintained that revelation has taken place in the Bible, that the Scriptures themselves are divine revelation, that the Bible is the Word of God. A powerful reaction to this traditional theology has arisen with the insistence that the medium of revelation is redemptive history rather than a book. The content of revelation is held to be not truth about God to be stated in propositional form; it is God himself who through revelation imparts himself to man. Revelation conveys not knowledge about God but knowledge of God.

A vigorous and stimulating presentation of this modern point of view may be found in John Baillie’s American Bampton lectures delivered at Columbia University (The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought, New York, Columbia Univ. Press, 1956). Baillie has some excellent passages on the historical character of biblical religion. Other sacred books consist of oracles setting forth timeless truths to instruct man in his conduct and worship. The Bible records what God has done to bring man into fellowship with himself. The Mosaic law is set apart from other legal codes in being based upon a covenant between Israel and God which is conceived as taking place in history. The prophetic oracles differ from other oracles in antiquity in that they were concerned with the meaning of definite historical situations rather than with timeless truth. While the great philosophies offer a new interpretation of old and universal facts and pagan religions attempt to provide men with a new relationship to an old situation, biblical religion has something new to announce. God has done something. New events have occurred which place men in a situation in which they have never been before (pp. 52 f). The Gospel is indeed “good news.”

Through this historical revelation culminating in Christ, says Baillie, God has not merely made himself known; he has given himself that men might enter into fellowship with God. If revelation consisted chiefly of theological propositions, the reaction required of men would be intellectual assent. This, however, is not what God requires; it is rather complete committal, truth, that there might ensue a life of fellowship with and dependence upon God.

There is indeed, Baillie admits, an element of assent in revelation; but this intellectual element plays a distinctly subordinate role in man’s response to God’s act. Only wholehearted trust which replies to God’s giving of himself in revelation is an adequate response. In fact, such a response is necessary for revelation actually to exist. Revelation is never complete, i.e., the process of the divine impartation is never consummated without this human response.

Revelation Or Witness?

In this process, Baillie insists, the Bible is not revelation but a witness to revelation. It is both a record of what God has done in revelation and the response of men contemporary with the divine act which completes the revelation. As men in subsequent ages read the witness and, led by the Spirit, respond to God’s revelatory act in Christ, as did the prophets and the apostles so that the prophetic response becomes our response, then revelation again becomes a completed reality.

This theology of revelation as recital and response rather than as proposition is offered as a challenge to the traditional view that the Bible is part of revelation. The traditional view which is no longer acceptable to thinkers like Baillie is described as “an ecclesiastical formulation which identified revelation with the written word of Scripture and gave to the action of God in history the revelational status only of being among the things concerning which Scripture informed us” (p. 62). In other words, orthodoxy is accused of emphasizing the role of the Bible in revelation to the practical exclusion of revelation in historical events.

This “ecclesiastical formulation” is not the only interpretation held by modern orthodox theologians. There is no reason why the orthodox understanding of revelation requires a denial of special or revelatory history. On the other hand, cordial recognition of history as the vehicle of revelation does not lead to a denial that the Bible is itself a part of revelation. The role of redemptive history in revelation is recognized, if not stressed, by Carl F. H. Henry in his essay, “Divine Revelation and the Bible” (In Inspiration and Interpretation, John W. Walvoord, ed., Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1957, pp. 253–278). “Special revelation involves unique historical events of divine deliverance.… The category of revelation is therefore broader than the category of the spoken and written words of Scripture, since it covers special historic events which the Bible normatively interprets.… Revelation cannot, therefore, be equated simply with the Hebrew Christian Scriptures; the Bible is a special segment with a larger divine activity of revelation” (ibid., pp. 254 f).

Certainly Henry’s view squares with the teachings of Scripture. The Bible is very conscious that God has spoken unto the fathers in the prophets in diverse manners (Heb. 1:1). One of these modes of conveying the Word of God is historical events. We need not be afraid of the affirmation that God has revealed himself in redemption history. In fact, apart from this redemptive history, there would be no revelation and no Bible.

We may agree with Baillie that the historical character of biblical religion is one of the elements which determines both its distinctiveness and its glory. Theology is not simply a set of universal truths, a system of philosophical concepts. The so-called “old liberalism” of men like Adolf von Harnack is subject to the criticism that it reduced the kernel of Christianity to a few religious truths of universal character: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the infinite value of the human soul and the ethic of love. This is not biblical Christianity. The Bible asserts that God has done something, that God has been active in the stream of redemptive history and has finally himself entered history in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, to bring lost men into fellowship with himself. God is indeed revealed in the historical Jesus. “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9).

History And Relativity

There is indeed one important circle of contemporary theological thought which is embarrassed by the historical character of revelation, for it seems to make theology dependent upon the relativities of historical research. The modern understanding of history often takes offense at the idea that one “piece” or strand of history can contain meanings which are absolute and by which all other history is judged. The effort has therefore been made to free Christian theology from its involvement in history while retaining the theological values of orthodoxy—an effort which has not been successfully accomplished (See Paul King Jewett, Emil Brunner’s Concept of Revelation, London, James Clarke, 1954).

While we may agree that the events of redemptive history are revelatory, that God has spoken in the events of the history of Israel and above all in Jesus Christ, we must insist that much contemporary theological thought has not adequately understood the role of the Bible in revelation. Revelation in acts is not left to speak for itself. Revelation in historical events might not always be recognized as such. Baillie recognizes this fact and, following C. H. Dodd, admits that history consists of the historical occurrence plus its interpretation or meaning. It is the total structure of historical events plus their interpretation which is God’s Word to man. The events by themselves are capable of other explanations, but the prophetic interpretation recognizes the divine activity in the historical event, and this prophetic interpretation becomes itself a new event (p. 69).

Normative Interpretation

This is indeed the biblical pattern. However, a problem arises at this point: does the biblical concept of revelation recognize any normative and authoritative element in the prophetic interpretation of the revelatory historical events? Neo-orthodox theologians see little that is authoritative in the interpretation. They hold that the prophetic interpretation is a human response which completes the divine act in history so that it becomes revelation to the person responding. This view insists that the Bible is a witness to the act-revelation and the record of the human response which completes it. The man who today reads the witness to revelation and responds as did the prophets and apostles enters into the same experience of revelation. God becomes reality to him as he did to them.

This, however, is not the biblical pattern. Rather, the interpretation is not merely a human reaction to the divine act but is also a divine act. The prophetic interpretation is itself the Word of God which is necessary to convey the divine meaning of the historical events. Redemptive history has a character of once-for-allness. Christ died. The death of Christ is an unrepeatable event. Christ died for our sins. This apostolic interpretation of the death of Christ also shares this character of once-for-allness. There is indeed variety of interpretation, but it is not a variety of contradiction but of richness of meaning. There are divinely intended meanings in the events of redemptive history which are not always self-evident. These meanings are conveyed in the prophetic and the apostolic interpretation. Therefore the total revelatory event includes the historical act plus the prophetic interpretation; and both share the character of once-for-allness. There must indeed be a human response to revelation as each individual embraces the redemptive act of God for his own experience. This, however, is not revelation but illumination. My experience does not share the authoritative character of the apostolic interpretation, nor does it give rise to new and equally authoritation meanings.

The Meaning Of Calvary

We may here cite only one illustration to demonstrate this fundamental principle that the revelatory event consists of occurrence plus authoritative meaning. The death of Christ is an historical event. Paul says that it is the proof, the demonstration of the love of God (Rom. 5:8). How do we know that Christ’s love discloses the love of God? Were the Roman soldiers conscious of God’s love as they watched Jesus die? Were the few disciples who stayed close to the cross drawn there because they realized that in this act God was demonstrating his love for them? Was the love of God in Christ’s death self-evident? Does Golgotha speak for itself? On the contrary, the disciples thought that the end of their world had come. Their reaction was, “We had hoped.…” (Lk. 24:21 RSV).

An answer frequently given to this problem is that the theological understanding of Christ’s death grew out of Christian experience. However, the fact seems to be that Christian experience arose only where there was already a theological interpretation of the meaning of Christ’s death. Only when the Resurrection reversed the apparent catastrophe of his death, only when the risen Christ himself interpreted the meaning of his death (Lk. 24:26–27), only when the apostles set forth the unseen, divine activity in an otherwise tragic event, did it begin to convey a new significance and to be recognized for what it was: an act of God’s love. We know that Jesus’ death shows the love of God only because of the prophetic interpretation of that event. This interpretation is a given, and it is normative, authoritative. It cannot be displaced by any alternative interpretation, for it is itself revelation which comes from God. The authoritative apostolic interpretation has been crystallized and deposited in the written New Testament Scriptures, which are therefore themselves revelation, the Word of God.

This analysis indicates the role of the Bible in revelation. The prophetic words of interpretation were sometimes spoken, sometimes written. Sometimes they preceded act-revelation, sometimes they followed, and sometimes they both preceded and followed. But interpretative words are always necessary. Revelation is never left to speak for itself.

Thus God’s revelatory acts were consummated in Jesus Christ. He is an historical character, and Christianity stands or falls with the historicity of his person and ministry. But revelation is not itself consummated in Jesus Christ, for the event of Christ is not “bare” event; the meaning of the “Christ event” is set forth in the apostolic interpretation, i.e., in our New Testament. This interpretation is itself revelation, consisting of the divinely initiated tradition of the meaning of what God did and said in Christ. The events of redemptive history can never be repeated, nor can the prophetic interpretation ever be repeated. Both are normative; both participate in the character of once-for-allness. The experience of the apostles and prophets included two elements: a personal realization of God, and a normative interpretation of the divine revelatory events. The first is repeatable in Christian experience; the second is unique.

Revelation And Inspiration

Thus revelation is never consummated apart from the inspired interpretation of the apostles and prophets. In biblical days the interpretation was of necessity, in part at least, in spoken form. This inspired interpretation is now inscripturated in the Word of God written. The writing of the inspired Scriptures is therefore an essential part of the activity of God in redemptive history. Revelation has not occurred in history alone; it has occurred also in the written Scriptures which preserve the divinely initiated meaning of act-revelation. This does not mean that there are two revelations or two processes of revelation—one in history and one in Scripture. Both elements are essential in the one process of revelation. God acted in history; God inspired the prophets to interpret authoritatively the meaning of revelatory history, whether the interpretation was oral or written. We no longer have the living prophetic voice; but we have the living Word of God written, which is the inscripturated prophetic interpretation. Redemptive history is revelatory, but it is not by itself revelation; it is revelation only as the prophetic, or biblical, interpretation discloses the revelatory meaning of redemptive history. We can however say that redemptive history is revelation when we recognize that the Bible is itself the result of God’s activity in history and is in fact the crown and consummation of the process of revelation, giving to act-revelation its normative meaning. Thus revelation consists of acts and words, occurrences and interpretation, history and the Bible. The Bible is not merely a witness to revelation in history; it is itself revelation which alone discloses the revelatory meaning of redemptive history.

This explains why propositional truth is an indispensable element in revelation. “God is love.” This is a proposition; but it is much more than a proposition. It is a proposition which, ultimately, can be made and understood only in the light of the historical event of Christ’s death, as that event is prophetically interpreted in the Scriptures. Such truth requires the assent of the reader; yet it is obvious that intellectual assent is not enough. Scripture itself affirms this. Personal response is demanded—commitment, trust. It is true that in revelation and as a result of revelation, God gives himself. Revelation has a redemptive purpose. However, this divine self-giving includes knowledge about God as well as knowledge of God. I must know something about God before I can commit myself to him. The continuing human response to the divine revelation includes both mind and heart; in fact, the whole man. It is the business of orthodox Christianity to define and to defend the truth about God and redemption. Apart from assured truth, we have no certain message to proclaim. But it is also the business of orthodox Christianity to propagate revealed truth, to proclaim to sinful men the reality of the self-revealed God and the divinely initiated redemption in Christ, that lost men may be brought back into fellowship with the living God. This is the goal of revelation.

The name of Oswald J. Smith, Litt.D., pastor of the Peoples Church in Toronto, Canada, is a symbol of missionary spirit in the pulpit. His church has contributed more than 3 million dollars for missionary work, mostly for foreign missions. He has written 22 small books, one of them, The Passion for Souls, somewhat of a missionary classic. Dr. Smith here relates the mission and method that motivated his program.

Preacher In The Red

SPEECHLESS

It was in the early days of my ministry, when I was a student minister prior to college days. I was making a pastoral call at a home where a little girl talked incessantly, preventing a conversation between her mother and myself. In self-defense, I playfully said to the child, “Amy, if you will be quiet for five minutes and don’t say a word, I will give you five cents. That’s a cent a minute, which is pretty good pay.”

The little girl became silent and remained so, while I kept my eye on my watch. At the end of the five minutes I gave her the five cents, for which she thanked me. Imagine my great surprise when she looked me seriously in the face and said, “Now, Mr. C., if you will be quiet and won’t speak for five minutes I’ll give it back to you!” It left both her mother and myself speechless for the moment and I can’t recall who spoke next, or what was said.—The Rev. TOM CURRANT, St. Thomas—Wesley United Church, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Suite 1014 Washington Building, Washington, D. C.

- More from George Eldon Ladd

Cover Story

Right and Wrong Uses of the Apocrypha

Bruce M. Metzger

The word “Apocrypha” commonly denotes the fourteen or fifteen books which are present in Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Old Testament but which are not included in the canon of the Hebrew Old Testament. Most of them were written during the period between the close of the Old Testament and opening of the New Testament.

The apocryphal books represent a variety of literary forms. Some are historical in content (such as I Esdras and I and II Maccabees); others resemble the Book of Proverbs (such as Ecclesiasticus); one is a devotional piece (The Prayer of Manasseh); one stands in the succession of the prophetical books (Baruch); still others are moralizing novels and entertaining legends (such as the books of Tobit, Susanna, Judith, and Bel and the Dragon).

In view of the fact that these books have been recently translated into English by a group of the Standard Bible Committee and published by Thomas Nelson and Sons (September 30), it is appropriate to review some right and wrong uses of the Apocrypha. First, however, it will be useful to put them in correct historical perspective.

Apocrypha In English Bibles

It may be a surprise to some that the books of the Apocrypha were included in all English Bibles of the sixteenth century (that is, Coverdale’s translation, Tyndale’s translation, the Geneva version, the Bishops’ Bible, etc.), as well as in the King James Version or so-called Authorized Version of 1611. In fact, one of the translators of the King James Version, George Abbot, as Archbishop of Canterbury, issued a decree in 1615 that if any printer should dare to bind up and sell a copy of the Bible without the Apocrypha he would be liable to a whole year’s imprisonment. Despite this decree, however, during subsequent centuries fewer and fewer Bibles were published containing the Apocrypha, and today virtually the only editions of the King James Version containing the Apocrypha are the large Bibles found on the pulpits of most Protestant churches.

Two main factors operated in the dropping of the books of the Apocrypha. One was an economic consideration; since the books of the Apocrypha are almost as long as the New Testament in bulk, it is cheaper to print and bind Bibles without these books. Chiefly, however, it was for doctrinal considerations that they fell out of general usage among Protestants.

Doctrinal Statements

Although Jerome at the close of the fourth century clearly differentiated between the canonical books of the Hebrew Old Testament and the others which circulated in Greek and Latin manuscripts, most people during the Middle Ages who used his Latin Vulgate translation quoted indiscriminately from both canonical and apocryphal books alike. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Luther and Calvin once again reiterated Jerome’s fundamental distinction. The reason they insisted upon this distinction was that certain Roman Catholic practices and emphases (including the efficacy of prayers and masses for the dead in purgatory, and stress upon merit acquired through good works) were based largely upon texts in the Apocrypha. Such a use of the Apocrypha, the Reformers maintained, attributed to these books an authority which they did not possess.

On the other hand, the Reformers also recognized the proper use of the Apocrypha. Luther, for example, in his very influential German translation of the Scriptures (1534) gathered together all but two of the books of the Apocrypha (he did not include I and II Esdras) and printed them between the Old and New Testaments with this heading: “APOCRYPHA—that is, books which are not held equal to the Holy Scriptures, and yet are profitable and good to read.” He also provided prefaces before the text of the several books of the Apocrypha, in which he pointed out the ethical and devotional help which Christians could derive from perusing these books. His edition of the Bible formed the basis for the first Bibles to be translated into Swedish (1541), Danish (1550), Icelandic (1584), and Slovenian (1584), all of which have the Apocrypha with Luther’s heading and prefaces.

Similarly, Reformed churches in France and part of Switzerland used the first Protestant translation of the Bible in French (1535), which was prepared by Pierre Robert Olivétan, Calvin’s cousin; this contained the books of the Apocrypha. Olivétan’s rendering, revised by Calvin (1545), was reissued in 1551, with a new translation of the Apocrypha by Theodore Beza.

As a reaction to Protestant insistence on the fundamental difference between canonical and the apocryphal writings, at the Council of Trent (1546) an anathema was pronounced upon anyone who would not receive as sacred and canonical all the books in the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible. This decree, it should be noted, was arrived at only after prolonged debate and the opposition of some of the more learned of the Roman prelates, who were well aware that the distinction between the Hebrew canon and the apocryphal books had been maintained from the time of Jerome by a succession of Catholic scholars, including even Cardinal Ximenes and Cardinal Cajetan, Luther’s opponent.

Now that the Roman church had moved to canonize certain apocryphal books (namely, all but I and II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, which are printed as an appendix after the New Testament in the official editions of the Latin Vulgate), it was natural that some Protestants would tend to deprecate any and all use of the Apocrypha. Thus it came about that, though Luther had declared these books to be “profitable and good to read,” others, in reaction to the use made of them by the Romanists, refused to have anything whatever to do with them. Not all, however, took this extreme position. In the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican or Episcopal church, issued in 1562, it is declared that, though uninspired, these books are “read for example of life and instruction of manners” (Art. VI). After lengthy debate as to the merits of the intertestamental books, the representatives of the Reformed churches meeting at the Synod of Dort (1618) voted that the new official translation of the Bible, which had just been decreed, should include the Apocrypha, placed after the New Testament. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), though sometimes popularly thought to forbid the reading of the Apocrypha, actually only cautions against their improper use, stating that these books “not being of divine inspiration … are not … to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings” (Chap. I, sec. iii).

In commenting on the attitude of Protestants respecting the disputed books, Œcolampadius, perhaps on the whole the best representative of the Swiss Reformers, declared in a formal statement: “We do not despise Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the last two books of Esdras, the books of Maccabees, the additions to Daniel; but we do not allow them divine authority with the others.” Here he clearly distinguishes between proper and improper use of the intertestamental books.

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

There is an old Latin proverb to the effect that the abuse of anything does not do away with its use. Granted that the Apocrypha are not inspired and that the Roman church erred in elevating them to canonical status, the intertestamental literature is far from being without value for Protestants.

In the first place, these books are useful in interpreting and elucidating various aspects of Western culture. In English literature, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Ruskin, Longfellow and many others have borrowed more or less freely themes and statements from the Apocrypha. In art, many of the old masters, as well as several modern painters, have chosen subjects from this body of literature. In music, such hymns as “Now Thank We All Our God,” “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” and dozens of Charles Wesley’s compositions disclose the adoption of ideas, phrases and even whole sections from the Apocrypha. Anthems, oratorios and several operas incorporate material from these books. Even Christopher Columbus was influenced in his decision to sail westward by a passage in II Esdras. (Since there is not room here to document these instances of the pervasive influence of the Apocrypha, perhaps the author may be allowed to refer those who are interested to his recent book, An Introduction to the Apocrypha, Oxford University Press, where all these and many more examples are discussed.)

In the second place, just as the works of the ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, are useful to the serious student of the New Testament, so too the apocryphal books throw much light upon the history of the Jews between the Old and New Testaments. The development of the sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees; the growth of interest in the coming of the Messiah; the extension of beliefs regarding angels and demons; the dissemination of the doctrine of the resurrection—in all these respects the Apocrypha provide great assistance in tracing the growth of institutions and beliefs which are taken for granted everywhere in the New Testament but of which there is scarcely an allusion in the Old Testament. All such study constitutes the proper use of the Apocrypha.

In the third place, despite the presence of obviously frivolous and superstitious statements in some of the apocryphal books, it cannot be denied that they also contain several passages of great inspirational and devotional value. The saintly Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible, incorporated the greater part of the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh in his book of Private Devotions, and thus made it widely familiar to users of that excellent devotional aid. In conducting funeral services many a minister who reads the words of a hymn of comfort, or Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar,” also may use the exalted passage in the Wisdom of Solomon, beginning, “The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and no torment will ever touch them” (3:1–5).

Proper Attitude

John Bunyan provides an instructive example of a sane and sensible attitude toward the Apocrypha. In his remarkable autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, Bunyan describes how in 1652 he received help to overcome a lengthy period of spiritual despondency from the text, “Look at the generations of old, and see; did ever any trust in the Lord and was confounded?” Though he could not at first locate this verse, when at length he found it in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 2:10), he was honest enough to confess that “this, at the first, did somewhat daunt me; but … when I considered, that though it was not in those Texts that we call Holy and Canonical, yet forasmuch as this sentence was the sum and substance of many of the Promises, it was my duty to take the comfort of it; and I bless God for that word, for it was of God to me.” He concludes this moving account with the admission, “That word doth still, at times, shine before my face” (section 62 ff).

As a postscript, one may ask whether it is too far-fetched to speculate what might have been the result if Bunyan had not been somewhat familiar with the Apocrypha. In that case, humanly speaking, he might never have overcome his spiritual despondency and consequently might never have written his immortal allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress.

END

Harold B. Kuhn is now in India, serving as guest professor at Union Biblical Seminary in Yeotmal, the training school of the Evangelical Fellowship of India. He is on leave until January from his post as Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological Seminary. Before returning to the U.S., Dr. and Mrs. Kuhn will be speaking at several conventions and Bible conferences.

- More from Bruce M. Metzger

Review of Current Religious Thought: September 16, 1957

John H. Gerstner

Ecumenism, or the movement toward the visible unity of the Christian denominations, is the most conspicuous fact on the ecclesiastical scene. We say conspicuous because it may or may not be the most significant. Or, it may be significant but not particularly valuable. Or, it may be all these things. But, in any case, it is, at least, the most conspicuous fact on the ecclesiastical scene.

Whatever the value of ecumenism may be, it has a by-product of undisputed value. It has inevitably led to—demanded—a general and intensive study of the nature of the Church. Still, even this is more apparent than real. In many instances the study of the nature of the Church is really merely a study of how to discover essential similarities on which to build the ecumenical church. This drive to ecumenism, therefore, has sometimes produced a calculated shallowness of investigation. To take but one example—the study of biblical ecclesiology was much more intensive in seventeenth century England than it is in twentieth century England.

Be all this as it may, current periodical literature abounds with studies of the nature of the Church. In our bit of space here we note briefly several articles. One of these presents the exclusivist viewpoint (which regards a particular denomination as the only true visible church); another the inclusivist viewpoint (which regards various denominations as equally constituting the visible church); and the third a viewpoint mediating between these.

The Very Rev. Georges Florosky gives us a most informative discussion of the Eastern Orthodox tradition in his, “Orthodox Ecumenism in the Nineteenth Century” (St. Vladamir’s Seminary Quarterly, Spring-Summer, 1956). This learned historical survey succinctly, though incidentally, reveals the general outlook of Eastern Orthodoxy. “It would,” says Father Florovsky, “always insist upon an identity of doctrine and make the ‘reality’ of the church itself dependent upon the purity and completeness of the faith.” But, Christian life was recognized as possible in the schismatic bodies also (p. 13). Nevertheless, “identity of belief was stressed as an indispensible pre-requisite of communion, and a reference was made to the answer given by the Eastern Patriarchs to the Non-Jurors in 1723.” One of the most outspoken clergymen was Metropolitan Anthony who in 1914 contended that:

What is outside of the Orthodox Church is just ‘this World, foreign to Christ’s redemption and possessed by the Devil.’ It makes no difference, Anthony argued, whether the non-Orthodox have or do not have ‘right beliefs.’ Purity of doctrine would not incorporate them in the Church. What is of importance is only the actual membership in the Orthodox Church, which is not compromised by doctrinal ignorance or moral frailty. ‘Doctrinal agreement’ by itself means little. Membership in the Body is the only thing that counts.

But, in spite of this global exclusion of all non-Orthodox from Christendom, Anthony was wholeheartedly in favor of Orthodox participation in the proposed ‘Conference on Faith and Order.’

This view may not be shared, in its rigor, by all of orthodoxy, but there can be no denying that this tradition regards itself as alone perpetuating the original, true and catholic doctrine and order. While it has been especially friendly to the Anglican Church, as Florovsky shows, inter-communion, not to mention union, has not been achieved, partly because it suspects the Calvinistic strain in the Anglican denomination, which is regarded as heretical as well as schismatic.

The inclusivist view is such because it does not regard church order or even all church doctrine as belonging to the esse, or being, of the Church, but only to the bene esse, or, well being, of the Church. It may be quite as strict in its adherence to a particular doctrinal and governmental position, but it does not regard itself as the only legitimate denomination. It usually regards itself as the most biblical but will not deny that other bodies may be true churches nonetheless. This outlook is shared by the generality of Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and, indeed, most of the Protestant groups. Even the generality of Lutherans, it seems to us, belongs to this group; but, it must be remembered that the more strict among them think that their specific doctrines are essential.

The study illustrating the inclusivist viewpoint does so only incidentally to its purpose of tracing the English origin of some of the inclusivist churches. James Fulton Maclear’s “The Birth of the Free Church Tradition” (Church History, June, 1957) while no less learned than Florovsky is more interpretive and more difficult to summarize. The following paragraph is a remarkably concise statement of the way, according to our author, modern denominationalism arose.

With the fall of the Anglican Establishment and the pathetic condition of its nominal successor, the ‘lame Erastian presbytery’ (soon to be further maimed by its duel with the sects), the real religious situation throughout the 1640’s was free denominationalism. The revival of the Establishment principle in the Cromwellian church in the 1650’s was an unobtrusive superimposition on this reality rather than a serious challenge to it. Hence 1640 inaugurated an age of embarrassment for the sects when there was no substantial national church to repudiate. Witnessing for the holy community could still take place in this situation, as in the agitation against tithes, but deprived of its foil, it was necessarily less dramatic and less emphatic. Furthermore, the relevant problem which faced individuals in this milieu was not national church versus holy community, but which holy community. Of course, variety and competition had existed in the sectarian underworld before the Revolution, but it was not until the advent of freedom that this became the prime characteristic of its environment. Thus everything conspired to emphasize the factor of choice. And choice was exercised. The religious culture of the Interregnum was saturated with personal experimentation as scores of spiritual pilgrims made their way from form to form seeking an elusive satisfaction. To this situation it required only the addition of the principle of mutual recognition among the sects for voluntaryism to be exhibited in the form which it had assumed among the modern free churches.

When the Anglican Church is called the “Bridge Church,” we ask: “Which Anglican Church?” It has already been inferred that the rightist wing always tends to a rapprochement with Orthodoxy on the basis of a virtual identity of doctrine and polity with the East. While the Anglican Church builds this bridge to the Orthodox Church, it is burning its bridges to the rest of the Protestant churches. But, on the other hand, there is another wing, apparently much larger, which sits much more loosely astride the Apostolic Succession and anti-Calvinist theology. It is this segment which made the Church of South India possible (though the other segment has prevented official Anglican recognition of it). Its thinking approaches much closer to the inclusivist view to which we have referred. If the reader asks why we make a separate classification, the answer is that it insists, at all costs, on remaining an episcopal church. It is inclined, for example, to unite with Presbyterians, but it will insist on episcopal order.

This mediating, inclusive episcopal viewpoint is well articulated by Harlow Donovan in the April issue of the Anglican Theological Review. The conciliatory tone of the article is apparent throughout. Perhaps these sentences, in which the writer disclaims any belief in the absolute rightness or completeness of his own tradition, or the absolute wrongness or emptiness of other traditions, show this as clearly as any other.

… the Church is out of full relationship with itself. What is more, the question as to whether this lateral continuity has ever existed in fulness calls for some close examination. The study of early Christian writings, beginning with First Corinthians, discloses incipient division from the beginning. Solutions which have been offered from time to time for the healing of divisions sometimes have involved pretentious judgments concerning the opposition and have resulted in mutual exclusion of each other from real relationship. Offers of reconciliation have sometimes amounted to little more than overbearing demands for unconditional surrender.

The signs of hope now becoming apparent in the Ecumenical Movement would seem to indicate that we of the alienated churches are learning something of the essential need for repentance, both as members and function-bearing persons, on the part of the Church.

If anyone wishes to see this attitude—we are not saying whether we think it good or bad—at work in current negotiations between the Anglican and non-Anglican traditions, he may find some interesting reading in The Ecumenical Review (July, 1957): “Relations Between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches”

- More from John H. Gerstner

Books

Book Briefs: September 16, 1975

Edward J. Young

Christological Themes

Jesus of Yesterday and Today, by Samuel G. Craig, Presbyterian and Reformed, Philadelphia, 1956. $2.75.

As one reads this book of Christological studies by Dr. Craig, retired Presbyterian clergyman, editor and author of another outstanding volume Christianity Rightly So Called, he realizes that the historic Reformed faith is not wanting today for able exponents. Taking as his point of departure Hebrews 13:8—“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and for ever”—he analyzes the wide variety of roles which the Son of God has taken to himself, e.g., Lord, Redeemer, Example, Teacher, Social Reformer, Judge. Central to each analysis is the author’s keen perception based on the text of Hebrews that what he was in the days of his flesh, so he is now and everlastingly.

Craig begins his studies with an incisive exposition of the person of Christ by virtue of which he is not merely the supreme example of faith—not the first Christian as the liberals affirm—but the divine object of faith. He closes the book with a discussion of the cosmic relations sustained by Christ that provide the foundation for personal confession of his Saviourhood and Lordship. Here he reaches the summit of his theme and sets before us an exalted view of Christ which too often is lost by those who see only his relationship to humanity.

On every page, but especially in the chapter “Jesus and Miracles,” the reader is impressed with the author’s irresistible logic. With the scalpel of logical reasoning he probes to the very core of his subject and extricates it from the confusing tissues which have gathered around it. In this way he not only expounds but defends classical orthodoxy. Nowhere does he take shelter in obscurantisms, ambiguities and vaguenesses. With deftness and a zeal for truth cradled in genuine Christian love he exposes and demolishes the diluted Christologies which have dominated the American theological scene. We ought to add that nowhere, however, does the author make logic a substitute for the authority of the biblical witness. In his hands logic is the handmaiden of Scripture.

The theologically untrained, as well as the advanced scholar, will find this book both readable and convincing. It is the outgrowth of years of laborious study, research and mature thinking, although Craig’s erudition to some may be concealed beneath his simplicity. The parish preacher will find here an excellent basis for a series of Lenten sermons on Christological themes.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Concept Of Messiah

He That Cometh, by S. Mowinckel, Abingdon, New York. $6.50.

Few books in the Old Testament field of recent date can have the significance and importance of this one. The author, Dr. Sigmund Mowinckel of Oslo, Norway, is without question one of the foremost Old Testament scholars. For years he has been an advocate of the method of form-criticism as applied to the Old Testament books. He is known for his thorough studies on the Psalms and for his presentation of the idea of the enthronement festival of Yahweh. In this volume we have his most mature thought on the concept of the Messiah as that concept was supposedly held by Jews of the Old Testament period and later.

The work proceeds upon the assumption that the principles of a negative criticism, i.e., a criticism which would deny the full trustworthiness of the Scriptures, are legitimate principles. Hence, one who does accept the trustworthiness of Scripture will find much in this book with which he cannot agree. He will also find that there are places where it seems that the author has presented his position upon the basis of very slender evidence. Such an instance appears, for example, in the translation of Isaiah 52:7b as “Your God has become King.” (p. 141). Such a rendering fits in well with the idea of Yahweh’s enthronement, but whether it is an accurate rendering of the Hebrew of Isaiah is another question.

Dr. Mowinckel does believe that the content of the Old Testament must ultimately be traced to divine revelation. One wonders however, just what connotation that word revelation is made to bear. For if the Old Testament truly is revelation from God, i.e., special revelation, it simply follows ipso facto that the reconstruction of Old Testament religion which is offered in the pages of Mowinckel’s book cannot be correct. Thus, to take but one example, the discussion of the Servant of the Lord, scholarly as it indeed is, can only be disappointing to one who is willing to accept at face value the claims which the Bible makes concerning the Servant. The same is true with respect to the learned discussion of the Son of Man.

This book should he read and reread by all who are interested in present-day study of the Old Testament. It is filled with erudition and with ideas that are provocative of thought. We greatly admire the author and the tremendous capacity for work which he possesses. On the other hand, we can only assert that this hook will not promote a more correct understanding of the Old Testament. Those who wish to know what the Old Testament teaches concerning the Messiah should still consult the works of Hengstenberg, Keil, Delitzsch, and men of their school of thought. For these men built upon the assumption that the Old Testament is true and trustworthy in its statements, and it is only so that one can truly come to understand it.

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Scope Of Lutheranism

Lutheran Churches of The World, Bishop Hanns Lilje, et al., Augsburg, Minneapolis. $3.50.

There are 70 million Lutherans living in 29 countries of the world, included in 57 branches of Lutheranism. Their representatives met in Minneapolis in August for the Third Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation. Bishop Lilje, of Hannover, Germany, was president and this book was published in conjunction with the LWF gathering.

“The purpose,” says Dr. Carl E. Lund-Quist, who wrote the foreword, “is to interpret the life and work of our Lutheran churches. At the same time it will give the reader information on the issues facing these churches.”

“The situation we face,” points out Bishop Lilje, “charged with tensions and burdened with old problems and new tasks, demands a continuing and thoroughgoing self-examination on the part of the Lutheran Church in Germany.”

In India a dilemma presents itself. Should a Lutheran give up membership in the denominational fellowship for union with other churches in a land where there is need for a united Christian witness to a non-Christian world?

In Asia, the churches are more and more identifying themselves with the people, sensing a responsibility to the millions around them.

After much persecution in Latin America, today the Lutheran church taken together is probably the largest single Protestant fellowship in the former Iberian Empire. Such are some of the conclusions of sections of the book dealing with geographical areas of Europe, the Scandinavian countries, Africa, Asia, North America and Latin America.

Bishop Lilje, Pastor Laszlo G. Terray, Dr. Ragnar Askmark, Dr. Theodore Bachmann, Bishop Rajah B. Manikam, Dr. Fridtjov Birkeli and Dr. Stewart Harman are authors of various chapters.

A hopeful prospect is expressed concerning theological discussions regarding Christian unity which may be the outcome of the LWF meetings in Minneapolis. Pointing out how Lutherans in North America not only have learned how to adapt themselves to survive, but now are learning to lead, Dr. Bachmann says, “Lutherans today are thus obligated to re-examine their relations (1) to other Christians, and (2) to each other in the light of their own heritage.”

With mergers being talked by numbers of Lutherans, such a volume adds substantially to available material to help in understanding these groups and for what they stand. The book will serve both as a means of orienting the general reader concerning Lutheranism’s scope and as a reference concerning organizations and leaders in the branches of the Lutheran Church.

RICHARD L. JAMES

Christian Moralism

Christian Faith In Action, Foy Valentine, Ed., Broadman, Nashville. $2.00.

This is a book of 14 sermons on subjects dealing with ethical requirements of Christianity as applied to significant areas of everyday living, written by prominent clergymen in the Southern Baptist church. This volume was prepared “in the conviction that the Christian faith is practical, that God is concerned about the great moral issues with which Christians daily grapple, and that Jesus does have a message for our day in these significant areas.”

The first sermon, by Dr. J. B. Weatherspoon, provides a setting and finds a basis for moral concern in the Christian profession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The confession of Jesus’ Lordship “is not just a statement of faith, a theological creed; it contains a moral challenge.… For one to say … that Jesus is Lord is to face a moral obligation to obey him, which cannot be refused without betraying the faith.” Subsequent sermons are a discussion of the problems of civic duty, honesty, materialism, sex, love and marriage, divorce, alcoholism, race, pride, segregation, daily work, juvenile delinquency and freedom. The volume concludes with a sermon which offers the readers “a charter for Christian living.”

These sermons are an attempt to set forth a statement of a Christian ethic on the basis of a conservative, evangelical theology, and are written in the consciousness that only too often evangelical Christians have failed adequately “to proclaim … the moral and social responsibilities of the new life.” If one wonders how these Southern preachers would treat the subject of race and segregation, he will find they have taken seriously their concern to speak the Christian faith to the issues of the day and are keenly and penitently aware of the sinfulness that lies at the basis of race discrimination. Commenting on the traditional Baptist struggle for freedom and their mighty confession that “all men have equal rights,” Dr. Marney expresses concern about “our common practice—‘some white men have equal rights.’ ” Biology and theology have been employed to resolve this contradiction. “But,” says Dr. Marney, “here in the South we Christians used a butchered biology to bolster a biased theology, and it threatens to destroy not only our major principle of equality, but our very personality as a people of God.” Again, “the tensions of Asia and Africa spill over into our countyseat towns, our school boards, our deacons’ meetings, our coffee houses.” It is needful to repent, and return to “the belief that in our Lord Christ’s name men are really men, ends in themselves, never means to an end.”

The sermons are not strictly textual, but are for the most part tracts for the day, but written from the viewpoint of the Christian faith. The call to a Christian ethic, because it is the demand of the Lordship of Jesus, and the requirement of a right relationship to Jesus Christ, is a necessary call. One might have wished that the volume had touched more fully and deeply on the meaning of union with Christ in his cross and resurrection for Christian living. If that were done it would have relieved the messages of what appears to be a simple Christian moralism, i.e., a statement of the problem of Christian living in terms of knowledge of and courage to do the right. But to live a Christian life one needs more than enlightenment and courage. One must become a new creature in Christ, by dying and rising again with him. Christian living involves the anguish of self-crucifixion and the profound dynamic of a life caught up in the risen Christ. And Baptists certainly do know the meaning of being buried with Christ and rising with him to newness to life.

GEORGE STOB

Religious Poetry

Garment of Praise, by Helen Frazee-Bower, Humphries, Boston. $2.75. Above the Thorn, by Johnstone G. Patrick, Pageant, New York. $2.50. Rhythm and Rhyme, by B. B. and Ella Allen Edmiaston, Stamps-Baxter, Chattanooga, Tenn. $1.25.

The most obvious fact about the poems of Helen Frazee-Bower is their overwhelming homage to Christ as Saviour and Lord. The book is divided into fourteen parts with such titles as “Praise,” “Bereavement,” “Motherhood,” “Easter,” and “Second Coming,” but Christ is paramount in all of them. What is unusual in such books is the fact that the sonnet form is used in nearly half the poems. The sonnet is too intricate for most religious versifiers, but Mrs. Frazee-Bower has used it with skill. There are phrases here and there showing her acquaintance with such masters as Tennyson and Browning and reflecting her conceptions of what poetry ought to be. With some exceptions she shows a sensitivity to penetrating language and seldom falls into the trite phrase. Sometimes she is too facile with rhythms and rhymes. In recent years Mrs. Frazee-Bower has suffered an accident which left her as invalid, and some of the poems give testimony to her faith in this severe testing.

Johnstone G. Patrick is a Scotchman who is now pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Sayre, Pennsylvania. His poems have appeared in such publications as Christian Century, Canadian Poetry Magazine and the British Weekly. His best poems have a crisp, staccato quality which permeates sense as well as sound. He often demonstrates the oblique approach which constitutes genuine poetry. For instance, in “The Lodestar” the cock of Peter’s denial is heard crowing in the manger and the Magi’s star moves over Calvary as well as over the stable. His allusions to nature are appreciative without being sentimental. One section of the book consists of prayer poems, and “Prayer for Peace” illustrates Mr. Patrick’s incisive thought:

Attack me, Father, now,

As when the sea

Rushes the rising rocks

Relentlessly;

Then, with the easing done,

Gather increase,

Circle my stubborn soul,

Lap it in peace.

Considerably less can be said for the third book, which has perhaps three times as many verses as the other two, but verses which are chiefly noteworthy for triteness of phrase, rhyme and rhythm. Many of them belong to the class of writing which assumes that turning the Bible into rhyme constitutes poetry. Phrases like “wings of the morning,” “zephyrs in gentleness,” “helped a sick soul to grow strong,” “a song came winging its way,” and “greet life with a song” show the general quality, or rather lack of it. As with many such privately printed volumes, the printing and proofreading are poor. The best thing about this little book is not what is in it but what it suggests about the authors as wholesome, enthusiastic and pleasant people.

However difficult it is to make a book of verse pay for itself these days, it would nevertheless be better if authors and publishers refrained from recommending their verses as fitting for use on “occasions,” a practice which inevitably cheapens the true poetic value. It would be well also if publishers avoided such sweeping and false generalizations as the one on the dust cover of Above the Thorn: “This slender volume … may be the precursor of a veritable renaissance of religious poetry,” as if a renaissance of religious poetry had not been under way for twenty years.

CLYDE S. KILBY

Impact Impaired

Discoveries Made from Living My New Life, by Eugenia Price, Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $2.00.

Eugenia Price, radio script writer and former producer of the program “Unshackled,” shares in this book experiences and thoughts out of her brief years as a Christian.

Under the headings of “Discoveries Concerning Discipleship, My Reason for Living, and Concerning a Number of Wonder-filled Things,” she gives her testimony to the love and faithfulness of God. Certain verses form a kind of refrain through the book: “Go and make disciples of men,” “To me to live is Christ,” “Learn of me,” etc.

The book is a challenge to the Christian to live in closer relationship with his Lord. It should prove a blessing to the reader who will apply its suggestion to his life.

Miss Price gives evidence of being of mystical bent, with little time for “theology.” Perhaps when she has had longer experience in the Christian life and has had time to see the dismaying results of the disparagement of theology, she will modify her view.

“If for some reason Jesus Christ came to me and said that he had made a big mistake, that there was no eternal reward, and no heaven and no hell—would I still follow Him?” (p. 111). This reminds me of the words attributed to a certain liberal who claimed that Christianity would be valid even if it could be proved that Jesus had never lived! We cannot but register our horror! A Christ who could make “mistakes” would not be able to save us. He would not be God. A Bible that contained “mistakes” would not be the infallible Scripture of orthodox Christianity.

It is unfortunate that tendencies such as these weaken the impact of a book which would otherwise be an even more appealing testimony.

NORMA R. ELLIS

Pragmatism Applied

John Dewey’s Thought and Its Implications For Christian Education, by Manford George Gutzke, King’s Crown Press, New York, 1956. $3.80.

The problem which the author confronts in this study is whether the Christian Gospel can be presented to the modern mind in harmony with the method of science. His basic thesis is that, “when experimental analysis and interpretation are applied in the exposition of religious experience there will be neither reduction nor impairment of the values cherished by men, but rather enlargement and improvement of such values to the general advantage and benefit of all concerned” (pp. 228–229).

The writer is obviously well acquainted with the philosophy of John Dewey. He quotes extensively. Whether he interprets Dewey’s statements accurately in all instances may be open to question.

After discussing the operation of intelligence, the nature of man, the meaning of religion, and instrumentation in religious experience, he comes out with the following conclusions:

Since religion is a part of experience it is subject to the method of critical intelligence. Through the method of science one is able to study antecedent causes and results. Having identified these instrumentalities, one may use the method of critical intelligence to improve both instrumentalities and results. These improved instrumentalities are not to be held with finality but are subject to constant revision. Finally, as in Dewey’s philosophy so in religion, these effective instrumentalities must lead to action that will benefit the total experience of mankind.

The findings of this book are neither startling nor unusual and it is most difficult to read.

FINDLEY B. EDGE

- More from Edward J. Young

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Christology And Confession

Race Relations And Christian Duty

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Piety Of The Psalms

Origin Of The Psalter

Structure Of The Psalms

Useful Psalm Studies

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Another River

A Healing Stream

A River Of Life

Each One A Branch

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Truth And Unity

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

Evangelical Contributions

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

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35,000 Protestant Missionaries

Strength Of Imc Effort

Other Mission Agencies

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

The Big Merger Looms

Denominational Questions

Fear Growth Of Power

Evangelical Concern

Peace Of The Churches

Is Merger Assured?

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Role Of The Bible

Revelation Or Witness?

History And Relativity

Normative Interpretation

The Meaning Of Calvary

Revelation And Inspiration

Preacher In The Red

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Apocrypha In English Bibles

Doctrinal Statements

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

Proper Attitude

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Christological Themes

Concept Of Messiah

Scope Of Lutheranism

Christian Moralism

Religious Poetry

Impact Impaired

Pragmatism Applied

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