Bible Book of the Month: The Gospel of John

In 1936, C. H. Dodd, a leading New Testament scholar of Great Britain, said concerning John, “I am disposed to think that the understanding of this Gospel is not only one of the outstanding tasks of our time, but the crucial test of our success or failure in solving the problem of the New Testament as a whole.”

What is the problem of the Fourth Gospel? It is a multiple problem involving authorship, relation to the Synoptic Gospels, the religious milieu upon which it draws for its ideas, and its historical character.

The amount of literary labor expended on John is immense. A glance at the book shelves in the present writer’s study reveals more volumes on John than on the other three Gospels combined. Our British friends have been particularly active in this field over the years.

Authorship

A practically unbroken line of testimony from the ancient Church assigns the Gospel to John the son of Zebedee. If it be objected that the first clear-cut witness is Irenaeus in the latter part of the second century, which is rather late, one may reply (1) that the period before Irenaeus is one of comparative silence on the literary side, (2) that the lack of positive testimony to John’s authorship in this early period may well be due to the use of the Gospel by the heretical Gnostics, (3) that the testimony of Irenaeus gains in weight when it is recognized that only one person linked him to John, namely, the saintly Polycarp.

The counterclaim that John died at an early age, though supposedly derived from Papias, who lived a half-century before Irenaeus, actually comes from sources several centuries later. If this was really put forward by Papias, one would expect the early Church fathers to have taken some note of it. Since the inspiration for such an opinion, no matter what its source, is the saying of Jesus to the sons of Zebedee about drinking His cup, the report may safely be dismissed as having arisen out of a need to fulfill Jesus’ prediction.

Some moderns have been attracted to the notion that John the Elder, a rather shadowy figure who is supposed to have lived at Ephesus, may be the real author. When this viewpoint takes the form that the afore-mentioned John was scarcely more than an amanuensis, little objection need be raised. But to assume that another John who stood outside the apostolic circle is responsible for the Gospel creates needless difficulty. Would the Church be inclined to receive into its canon of Scripture an account so different from the tradition embodied in the Synoptics, which were already in use and which rested upon apostolic authority? The only circumstance which would suffice to clear this hurdle is the indisputable apostolicity of the book.

The Johannine authorship has had and continues to have scholarly support over the last half-century despite many voices clamoring against it. Such men as Ethelbert Stauffer of Erlangen, A. C. Headlam, Scott Holland, J. Armitage Robinson, and H. P. V. Nunn affirm the traditional position.

Relation To Synoptic Gospels

Ninety per cent of the material in the Fourth Gospel is unique, having no counterpart in the others. Lacking is any account of the birth of Jesus, His baptism and temptation, the transfiguration, the parabolic teaching, and the Eucharistic sayings of our Lord. A few miracles (signs) chosen out of many serve as the foil for a series of discourses in which some of the many aspects of Christ’s person are given prominence. Peculiar to John is the long discourse in the Upper Room.

This Gospel contains a framework of history that is wanting in the Synoptics. From it we obtain the perspective of a ministry considerably longer than the single year accounted for by the other Evangelists. In particular, John opens to us the Judean ministry. To Scott Holland belongs the credit of showing not only that the Synoptics presuppose such a ministry—others have pointed out that the friends at Bethany, the owner of the colt, the good man of the house at Jerusalem, as well as the “how often” in Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem demand His presence there on previous occasions—but of showing that the Synoptics are really unintelligible without the Judean ministry reported by John. The withdrawal to Galilee and the conduct of the mission there, noted in the Synoptics (Matt. 4:12), have their explanation in the opposition stirred up against Jesus by reason of His early activity in Judea.

Though the Synoptics sketch the determined ascent to Jerusalem at the climax of the ministry and treat the issue as predetermined, since the city has had its time of visitation and has not perceived it, only the activity of the Lord in the holy city prior to this time, as told by John, explains the situation. One could wish that every Christian had the opportunity to read the tremendous passages by Scott Holland on this subject.

Relation To Contemporary Thought

On the question of John’s relation to the world of religious and philosophical thought of his time, the safest verdict is that he was not unacquainted with what his contemporaries were thinking and saying, and that he used their conceptions as steppingstones to lead them to a heightened appreciation of Christ. Such may well be the import of his introduction of the Son of God as the Logos in the prologue and the rather frequent recurrence of the word know. The Hermetic literature of Egypt abounds in this emphasis as well as in allusions to light and life. The uniqueness of John lies in the presentation of Jesus Christ as the indispensable means of knowing God the Father and as the One in Whom men must trust if they would know.

C. H. Dodd has been so impressed with the Hellenic background of the Fourth Gospel that he concludes the book must have been written to make converts to Christianity among intelligent Hellenes. But this flies in the face of the declared purpose of the writing—that the readers may continue to believe (the literal force of the verb in 20:31). At various points in the Gospel, John emphasizes the increased demand for faith that Jesus placed upon His followers. Corresponding to this, we are permitted to observe from time to time the heightened response of the Twelve to this demand. The book was written for believers, and for those familiar with the Synoptic tradition, but written in such a way as to present the claims of Christ to the unbeliever.

Historical Character

The tradition, in part old, in large part put forward here for the first time, at least in written form, is presented by John not merely as a recital of events but even more as an interpretation of the person of our Lord. The strong insistence on the Word made flesh (1:14) constitutes a protest against the Docetizing tendency already at work in the first century.

Sometimes it has been asserted that this Gospel has a mystical approach to Jesus, but this is misleading, for mysticism is careless of historical considerations. In its extreme form it calls for identification with the deity. John, like the rest of the writers of the New Testament, preserves the distinction between God and the creature despite the wonder of the new life in Christ.

The Gospel’s Value

The book has immeasurable value both for the preacher and the teacher of the Word. Evangelistic texts dot its chapters by scores and hundreds. No Christian teacher can ignore the Gospel, especially the incomparable Upper Room discourse.

It may be said of this book more truly than of any other in the New Testament that it may be studied on more than one level. Even the most elementary approach yields great blessing. On the other hand, the theologian cannot exhaust the truths suggested here.

John may be approached from various standpoints, such as the discourses, where the writer, much like Paul in Galatians 2, starts with a definite historical situation and glides into theological reflection based upon it. Or one may make a study of the signs, or of the I Am’s, or of the ruling concepts that are mediated through the recurring key words: light, life, truth, glory, know, believe. Again, one may trace the Tabernacle structure through the book, using 1:14 as the starting point. Fine sermonic material may be gleaned from a study of the individuals found here, many of whom are scarcely more than names in the Synoptics. In John they become characters. We see them develop under the tutelage of Christ.

Tools For Exposition

Of the older works, Godet and Bishop Westcott have an abiding usefulness. Among the newer volumes, William Temple’s Readings in St. John’s Gospel (1945) is not detailed but suggestive. In 1940 appeared E. C. Hoskyn’s commentary, treating John mainly from the standpoint of its theological implications. No one should miss consulting this work. One of the latest is by C. K. Barrett (1955). It is more valuable for its long introduction than for its comments.

Among American writers mention should be made of M. C. Tenney’s John, the Gospel of Belief (1948), R. C. H. Lenski’s The Interpretation of St. John’s Gospel (1931) and William Hendriksen’s two volumes (1953).

Two works that are not really commentaries are nevertheless pertinent because of their attempt to unfold the thought of the Gospel. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953), explores John in terms of contemporary religious and philosophical thought in the Hellenic world. Rumor has it that Dr. Dodd is planning to continue his studies in a second volume. W. H. Rigg, The Fourth Gospel and Its Message for Today (1952), is less concerned with the extrabiblical approach. He seeks to expound the great themes of the Gospel in terms of the message itself.

Students of the Upper Room discourse will find T. D. Bernard’s The Central Teaching of Jesus Christ (1892) richly rewarding. For a treatment of our Lord’s prayer in chapter 17, nothing surpasses Marcus Rainsford’s Our Lord Prays for His Own, since 1950 once more available. Another valuable commentary, but not so readily obtainable, is John Brown’s “Exposition of John XVII” (1850) which Spurgeon described as “deep, full, and overflowing.”

Though it is not a commentary, W. F. Albright’s contribution to The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (1956) is valuable for its support of the historical trustworthiness of the book from the standpoint of archeology.

Cover Story

Cranmer’s Message to Our Times

Four hundred years have now passed since England was given the portentous sign of an archbishop dying in flames for evangelical truth, and holding out the right hand that had almost betrayed him as a first victim to the fire. In those four hundred years there have been revolutionary changes in every aspect of the nation’s life, not least the religious. And since no nation can live in a vacuum, they are changes which for good or evil have significance for the world at large. There is every reason, therefore, to ask whether Cranmer still has a message for our twentieth century Christian world, and if so, what form that message will take.

Beliefs Cranmer Valued

Perhaps we can begin with the doctrine of Cranmer. For, after all, it was his doctrine which shaped the rest of his activity. And first we may take into account two or three more formal considerations. Cranmer was a dogmatician, but he was not a dogmatist. He had a mind which was always open to new truth. He took seriously the possibility that he might misunderstand the Word and revelation of God. He was always willing to be taught—so long as the teaching was in the right school and by the right Master. He was sixty years old before he came to understand the doctrine for which he died. And having found it, he did not lose all sympathy for those who had not yet done so. That is why he made his articles of religion as comprehensive as possible within an evangelical and scriptural framework. He was no inquisitor or persecutor. He realized that, to prevent a confusion of voices, the Church needs a confession on disputed issues. But he had no desire either to arrest a conscientious obedience to the Holy Spirit or to disrupt the Church by overly scrupulous definition. If truth, as he saw it, was quite incompatible with error, it was not incompatible with charity. And he had no illusions of having a monopoly of truth.

Materially, the doctrine of Cranmer has no very original feature, as compared with other Reformers. Its basis was loyalty to the Word of God, and it was in this bondage to the Word that Cranmer won through to the true liberty of the children of God.

Justification by faith played a central place in his teaching, with the characteristic emphasis that a true faith is a faith which obeys the divine command as well as the divine invitation, and therefore expresses itself in works. A reconstruction of sacramental doctrine was his third and most detailed contribution, and at this point Cranmer has some insights which may well guide us to a more genuinely biblical doctrine than either a crass “sacramentalism” on the one side or a mere “symbolism” on the other. The patristic learning of Cranmer is a distinctive feature, and if he did not always prove satisfactorily that the fathers taught good Reformation doctrine, he has shown us that they will always repay a careful study—especially when read independently of later medieval categories. Always, however, Cranmer was careful to subject the fathers to the apostolic, and therefore the scriptural, norm. For it is by the Bible that the Church and its thinking may rightly grow into the likeness of Christ. And it was not for nothing that Cranmer as a university don had demanded a biblical knowledge from his students, and as archbishop took practical steps which resulted in the licensing and later the definite institution in the churches of the English Bible.

Gifted Liturgical Phrasing

In the Anglican communion itself, the theological work of Cranmer is often discounted. His writings are not read, and the articles seem alien to a generation which has lost touch with the background from which they come. Only the patristic enthusiasm strikes a responsive chord, and even the fathers are not at all read as Cranmer read them. But if this is the case, and there is scope in many quarters for a deep re-thinking of the issues that Cranmer raised, the situation is very different in relation to his liturgical work. Of course, the prayer-book of Cranmer has its critics. The doctrinal assumptions of much of the revision are particularly disliked. The divesting of many of the offices of the more elaborate ceremonial, as well as the truncation or drastic reorganization of the structure, can hardly command the enthusiasm of those who look in a very different direction from Cranmer. Yet even the worst critics cannot dispute the fact that Cranmer had not only a fine ability to give liturgical form to his doctrinal presuppositions, but a genius in phraseology which makes the English Prayer Book one of the most highly treasured of all service-books, and one of the most daunting and exasperating for those who realize from time to time that there is a practical need to keep it up-to-date.

We can hardly learn from Cranmer’s phrasing, for this displays an element of sheer genius and is therefore inimitable. It teaches us, perhaps, that in the long run large-scale revision of set forms must wait for the hand of a master or masters. But there are many valuable lessons in the aims or principles of Cranmer, whatever forms of worship we may practice or adopt.

Lessons For Worship

A first is that worship should not be too complicated, but follow a simple and well-defined pattern so that there is not the distraction of novelty or confusion.

A second is that worship should be congregational. The mother-tongue is essential for this purpose (as also for edification). And the congregation should be able to join not only in singing but in prayer as well, through responses or common prayers. It must not rely on that which is read or said by the minister any more than it does on that which is sung by a choir.

A third is that the liturgical treasures of the past should as far as possible be exploited in the living situation of the present. The old forms were necessarily burst by the new content, but this did not mean that the old content could not be put into the new forms. As far as possible Cranmer adopted all suitable existing materials. He was not an iconoclast (except, of course, in a more literal sense). He wanted a worship that had wealth and dignity and tradition. He tried to keep the balance between conservatism and reform. And if he pleased neither the extremists nor the reactionaries, he did at least create a new thing which has commended itself to generations of worshippers and enriched the liturgical life of more than the Anglican communion.

Administrative Weakness

The administrative side of Cranmer’s work was the least successful, for he was continually hampered by rulers whom he could not control, and thwarted by the lack of any consistent support from ecclesiastical colleagues. Many of the practical measures of reform carried out under Henry were not of Cranmer’s devising or execution. Others which he might have desired were incapable of realization.

Negatively, we learn from Cranmer the danger inherent in every Erastian or semi-Erastian system. A theoretical case can be made out for the royal headship which Cranmer espoused in conscience as well as practice, but it presumes a “most religious and gracious king” who will not use the Church and its affairs merely as an instrument of domestic or foreign policy.

But positively, there are better things to say, for Cranmer had vision even where he had no capacity. In the redeployment of monastic and chantry endowments, for example, he saw the need for a great increase in the number of preaching and teaching bishops and pressed for the provision of schools and hospitals. The injunctions, especially in the early years of Edward VI, lay great emphasis on the question of an educated as well as a godly ministry, resulting, of course, in an instructed and therefore more genuinely Christian people.

A favorite project of Cranmer was the drastic revision of canon law. The persistent obstruction of civil rulers prevented its practical realization. But the project reflects a typically Reformation concern for discipline. And the proposals include an important provision for the restoration of synods. Cranmer himself never had the force or authority to implement his suggestions. In the rough and tumble of administration and relationships with civil powers it may well be that there is a place for characters very different from cranmer.

But Cranmer did at least show a wide range of vision, and if he had been given the opportunity he might easily have carried through a far-reaching program of reform. In the circumstances and setting of the time, it may indeed be doubted whether any churchman, however forceful, could have done very much more. Even the masterful Wolsey broke on the rock of Tudor despotism.

This brings us directly to a final consideration of the character of Cranmer. For in the last analysis, it is by the life that a man is known. And Cranmer as a man has been the center of almost persistent controversy and misunderstanding. He has been pitied as a weakling and vilified as a sycophant. He has even been accused of hypocrisy and deliberate cruelty. And there are facts or episodes which can, of course, be adduced to support any or all of these interpretations.

Perhaps the real element of truth underlying them is that Cranmer was undoubtedly thrust willy-nilly into a position which he did not desire and for which he had, humanly speaking, no particular aptitude. Cranmer was almost a born scholar. He loved his quiet, studious life at Cambridge. He had no taste or ability for great matters of state and government. He was humble by nature and modest in taste and ambition. He had not the nature either to ride rough-shod over opponents or to stride gladly and militantly to martyrdom. He was one of the little things of the world, a despised earthen vessel, destined by God to carry a great treasure.

Cranmer was not by any means perfect, and in his high office the weak strains in his constitution were frequently exposed. But if he had the weaknesses of his virtues, they were solid virtues all the same—and genuinely Christian virtues.

Void Of Selfish Ambition

For one thing, he had no selfish ambitions. He did not covet wealth or glory or power. He did not abuse his position, even in the scramble for monastic riches.

Again, he was wholly honest and candid, if humble, in relation to himself. When attacked by his enemies, he was quite prepared to be examined and did not try to bluster his way through.

Above all, he was openhanded and friendly, especially to those who attacked or offended him. “Do my Lord of Canterbury an ill turn, and he will be your friend forever,” was a saying well supported by the facts.

It was perhaps because Henry saw in Thomas Cranmer a man without guile and without animosity—the very opposite of himself, but a genuine exemplification of Christian virtues—that he came to feel for him not merely admiration that he was so great a scholar, or gratitude that he solved his matrimonial problems, but affection that he was so loyal a subject, and above all so good a man. In Cranmer—elevated against his will—we catch a glimpse of the self-abasement which the world—even the world of historical judgment—can still scorn, but which is still the way of the Son of God, the way of the cross, and therefore the way of the Christian.

Architect Of Anglican Reform

And God did indeed use this weak thing of the world to confound the high and the mighty. At the deepest level, even in time, the contribution made by Cranmer in his lowliness and weakness was greater and more far-reaching than that of Henry in his power, or Wolsey in his statecraft, or Gardiner in his guile, or Northumberland in his forceful rapacity. For it was this man who proved to be the true architect of Anglican reform as it was finally carried through after the Marian reaction. His main work was in terms of spiritual realities—a Bible, a Prayer Book and a doctrinal confession. And in spite of their apparent insignificance, these are the most potent and abiding realities, in history as also in eternity. In other words, the life and character and work of Cranmer—for all their admitted deficiencies—are a challenge to our perception of the true proportion of contesting realities, the mode of the divine operation and the nature of our apostolic and Christian calling.

G. W. Bromiley, Ph.D., D.Litt., is rector of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and former Vice-Principal, Tyndale Hall, Bristol. He is also author of Thomas Cranmer: Theologian.

Cover Story

Worship in the Life of the Nation

Christianity Today November 12, 1956

America today is a nation at worship. Under many forms and in a variety of practices, the people of the United States are bowing before the Eternal God. Men and women, boys and girls everywhere go to church, say their prayers, participate in the offices of praise and thanksgiving in this period of national spiritual renewal. Once more at this season of the year we are being summoned by the President to observe our only national religious day—a Day of Thanksgiving.

All of this is as it should be. America began with men on their knees, has been strengthened and sustained as it has kept close to God, and Americans—when most truly themselves—have been people of faith and prayer.

The Reformation And 1776

The United States was born at a pinnacle in the progressive emancipation of the mind and spirit of man. Although many streams in the historical process flowed to the confluence of time on July 4, 1776, the most significant stream was the floodtide of the Protestant Reformation. And the dominating influence at our origin was the Calvinian theology and the way of life it fostered. God was the sovereign ruler of a moral universe before whom all nations and all men would finally be judged. A man was a man in his full stature only as he acknowledged the majesty and holiness of the Creator and humbly yielded himself to the divine will and purpose in life. Our forebears were committed to the elemental Christian virtues of chastity, sobriety, frugality, and the disciplined will. God, in the most vivid sense, was the source of our national life. And this life can be sustained only at its main source. That is why the worship and knowledge of God are so important.

Life Nourished By Worship

From the very beginning to this Thanksgiving Day in 1956, we have been a people whose life has been undergirded by faith in God and nourished by worship of the Almighty. In this faith our institutions were created, our culture promoted, our philanthropic endeavors initiated, our liberties secured and freedom for men everywhere promoted. Men accustomed to freedom in their approach to God, as they were accustomed in the dissenters’ paradise—the American Colonies—insisted upon freedom in the public expression of their ideas and the ordering of their lives. Men could be trusted with their own destiny so long as they lived in obedience to a higher authority—the authority of God. The soul of man in this new world would be most free, most trustworthy when captive only to God.

America has become great and strong not simply by vast natural resources made secure from all enemies by wide oceans and friendly neighbors. Other nations have had all that and for longer periods. America has become great and strong principally because of a creative spirit emanating from her religious faith, chiefly and dominantly evangelical Christian faith. In some, this faith has been intimate and personal. In others, it has been a way of life derived from the social atmosphere and psychological climate produced chiefly by evangelical piety.

God And Our Survival

The United States is so completely the child of a great religious heritage that the worship of God is essential to its survival in the purity of its pristine character. The worship of God is not an option in our life, but an indispensable requisite for our very existence. Allow worship to languish and we begin to deteriorate. I am not now concerned with the technical liturgical concepts of worship, although I believe that a true Protestant liturgy is the only sure protection against shallow, insipid and unrewarding worship. I am here desperately concerned that there be worship, that men go to church, enter into its life and in concert with other men give testimony to the glory of God in our common life.

No Fully Christian Nation

In the absolute sense and on the perfectionist basis there is no such thing as a “Christian nation.” In terms of the higher order of the Kingdom of God, no political entity, in this imperfect world, is thoroughly Christian. But some nations embody more Christian principles than other nations. Some nations are more hospitable to Christian truth than others. And some nations are more thoroughly responsive than others to Christian motivations and to doing the will of God. Christian ideas, ideals and culture flourish to a greater extent in some nations than in others. And such nations, in God’s time, become less obstructed conductors of the Christian evangel and more direct conveyors of God’s truth to the world.

When America is most faithful to its origin, to its truest self and to its God, it is that kind of nation.

In humility and fullness of dedication, it may well be that in this epoch when America carries such a heavy international responsibility, God can use her as an instrument of His purposes on the earth. Should that be true, as I believe it is true, the leaders and the people of this land must keep close to God, seek to discover His will and resolutely perform this providentially bestowed role of world leader.

A Nation Under God

A nation under God is a nation under His authority, under His power, and under His judgment.

If a nation is to be a “nation under God,” it must be a worshipping nation. Genuine worship is the offering of one’s self to God. For the Christian, it is accepting the gift of a new life in God through Jesus Christ, which is the result of repentance and faith. God is not to be used but to be served.

The Exploitation Of Religion

Much is being said these days in religious circles about the “exploitation” of religion as a weapon of ideological conflict. In the highest sense, pure religion is not to be “exploited” for anything except God’s purposes. God is to be worshipped and served for God’s sake. Righteousness is to be sought for righteousness’ sake. Nothing in Jesus’ teaching is more emphatic than that. But is it not true that a nation spiritually weak in our kind of world is also ideologically vulnerable? It therefore follows that a people constantly strengthened and renewed by the worship of God is better equipped for an age of sharp ideological warfare. When God is sought for God’s sake, and righteousness is served for righteousness’ sake, the nation becomes a citadel of strength for free men.

Moral Sag And Revival

In the decade since World War II, American life has been characterized on the one hand by a moral sag and cultural deterioration, and on the other hand by a moral resurgence and a spiritual awakening. Both are real and both arise out of the vast and variegated life that is America. Both the negative and the positive derive from a dynamism inherent in the cultural soil of the New World. The presence of the former does not invalidate the latter. That we are living in a period of great religious revival of continental proportions is too clear to need documentation. The evidence is all about us. It is too cumulative and too impressive to be ignored or minimized. We ought not to mistake motion for power, religious activity for religious renewal. But, allowing for all the exaggeration, the excesses, the sentimentality and the superficiality which appear in every age, the truth remains that there has rarely been a period in our national life when the movement of God’s spirit has been so manifestly real as today.

American Christianity

We have an American way of doing things, an American way of expressing ourselves and the American manifestation of religious vitality. This may be mystifying, even an enigma to foreigners, but it is our way. Our own church statesmen have always contended that in our missionary outreach, we should seek ultimately to make the Christian faith indigenous in the lands to which the Gospel is carried. But when we have such a vigorous indigenous American expression of Christianity, some of the same articulate churchmen lament the “nationalization of religion,” and the “domestication of the church.” Paradoxically, to some folk Christianity is good when expressed in some distant cultural pattern but when it appears under American patterns and forms it appears somehow corrupted. At best it seems to them synthetic or artificial. Indeed, we need always to refine the accent of the Gospel in our nation, and we need to purify the expression of Christian piety among our people. And we must ever be submissive to the searching judgment of God. But we need not be, and we are not called upon to be, something other than Christians in the rich soil of freedom we call America.

Spirituality In Washington

Our nation’s capital has become a dramatic focal symbol of a people at worship. Washington shares with the entire nation the drive and force of the contemporary revival. The way of Christian faith and the life of prayer are the norm for most of the leaders of our government. This return to the ways of the Spirit crosses all party lines and penetrates all religious groupings. In Washington it is transparently genuine.

Most of the persons who hold public office today are men who believe in and worship God, who seek to discover His will and who in the stewardship of their offices attempt to do God’s will. After a decade of intimate association with leaders of national life on all levels, through three presidential administrations, it is my judgment that by and large, the men whom we send to the highest offices of the land make the Christian evangel and the reign of Christ’s spirit as relevant and as meaningful in their lives as do men anywhere in the land.

Politics As Divine Vocation

For generations the church has encouraged Christian laymen to enter politics as an expression of the Christian vocation. We have spent our years persuading Christian men to perform public service. Many have been willing to do this.

Today, when such men come to Washington, enter into the life of the church, attend services, read their Bible, teach Sunday School classes, hold church offices and go to prayer meetings, there are some religious analysts who seem to think this is all hyprocritical and sneer at it as “piety along the Potomac.” Religion is good, they imply, for the barber and the baker, for the banker and the butcher, for the teacher and the tcol maker, but when it appears in Washington in a politician, a diplomat or a military leader, there is something sinister and suspect about it. This is what the new cynicism suggests—a sneer is substituted for sagacity.

Can there be any more effective way of discouraging devout churchmen from seeking public office, or preventing good men already in office from worshipping God, than to impugn their motives?

At this moment of history, when we must be great and strong spiritually, it is no service to the nation and no real contribution to the cause of Christ to indict as insincere those who witness to the truths of God and to our historic faith from high places, or to debunk as something “phony” the widespread revival of religion in our land. By all means, let there be precise evaluation, profound judgment, real prophetic insight. That is the way of correction and growth. But let it all be in the spirit of love, in a constructive and not corruptive mood. The ecclesiastical tent must be big enough for all sincere Christians. In this hour, we need a solidarity of religious witness. We need a nation which is a bastion of spiritual power if we are to be adequate for this age.

It was only from a position of moral eminence and authentic spiritual elevation that the President of the United States was able to make his audacious proposals at Geneva. The whole concept was wrought in prayer. It was that which gave lasting meaning to that historic gathering. And it will ever be so.

Americans simply must honor, worship and serve God as He has been revealed in Jesus Christ, our Lord. For the most part, our ideals are Christian ideals, our standards Christian standards, our goals Christian goals, our motivations Christian motivations. Under whatever form or denominational auspices, let us thank God for every American who today says out of a sincere heart, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.”

Edward L. R. Elson, L.H.D., D.D., Litt.D., L.L.D., is minister at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and author of One Moment with God, America’s Spiritual Recovery, and other books.

Cover Story

Faith the Foundation of Freedom

It is to me an astonishing thing that nearly all the exponents of the Christian Faith seek to commend it mostly in intellectual or in personal terms. We seek to make people understand that they need faith as interpretation for their wonderment about what life is, as refuge and solace for its hurts and lonelinesses, as dynamic to lend aim and purpose to their lives. We seek to help them to know that the faith can stand on its own feet intellectually. These things are abundantly true, and it is in the personal realm that religion must find its rise and take root.

Freedom Has A Christian Basis

But there is another angle of approach which we do not take as often as we might. It is simply the practical one of reminding people who enjoy the blessings of human freedom that they owe this blessing primarily to the Christian Faith, and if they are concerned to help make the world a good place for their descendants, they had better ask what shall be its spiritual climate. From whence shall we find sufficient inward force to stand against the barbarism and inhumanity and tyranny and slavery that have arisen in our time? Military defense, industrial strength, political and diplomatic adroitness are necessary and important; but they do not have in themselves enough of a worldview to stand against the godless and materialistic view of the world which is rampant about us.

There are a great many people today who find in some kind of Naturalism or enlightened Humanism all the explanation they need, in friends and family and culture all the solace they need, in some creative interests and work all the dynamic they need. They may be young, well, happily married and reasonably successful. No appeal of personal need may reach them at the moment. But there will come a day when some deeper awareness of need will arise, when life will carry them through some dark valley of sorrow or of suffering. Must we wait till this time before we can expect them to wake up?

Sometimes this will be true. But there is a way into their hearts and minds that we have too seldom tried. It is the simple, practical approach of (1) reminding them whence came our chief blessings, especially freedom; and (2) asking them which way they want the world to go in the future. Jacques Maritain says that “States will be obliged to make a choice for or against the Gospel. They will be shaped either by the totalitarian spirit or by the Christian spirit.”

I find this appeal almost unknown by many educated people. They still persist in thinking that some people are weak and need religion, while others (like themselves) are strong and do not need it. Such paltry private considerations loom very small when you ask in which direction the world is going. Such people take for granted the freedom and other characteristic blessings which we enjoy in the western world, as if they were natural rights, not privileges, and were to be found quite easily. They have forgotten, or never known, how scarce a thing freedom has been, how rare in all human annals. They have not learned that the real centerpiece of the West is Christianity; nor have they considered that, if we would continue to enjoy the fruits of freedom, we had better look to the roots of faith. Shall there be less freedom, or more of it, in the world in which our children are growing? Are we using up our freedom as prodigally as we are using our water supply? If faith is the root, of which freedom is the fruit, it is high time we warned people that their legitimate human interests may very well be directly involved with the success of the Christian enterprise.

The Syrian Stream Runs Deep

I know very well that there are other factors in western civilization than Christianity. Arnold Toynbee says, “The Greek wave coalesced with a Syrian wave, and it is this union that has generated the Christian civilization of the Western world.” Nearly everyone knows the debt we owe the Greeks in all our search for truth. But let’s face it, the Syrian wave (in its Christian form) has spread vastly farther and more deeply into the world than the Greek. On one occasion in a university I seemed to be making too great a claim for the influence of Christianity on the West, and saying too little for the Greek, and a faculty historian challenged me. I asked him if he did not think that Christianity had been the pervasive and popular force that had primarily carried the double blessing, of Syrian and Greek influence, down the centuries; and he allowed this might be true.

We must, of course, remind ourselves that western civilization is not our first concern: Christianity itself is that. But there are substantiating effects in western civilization with which some of us will not readily part. When Toynbee calls ours ‘Christian’ civilization, one is sure he does not mean we are Christian through and through, but rather that the greatest blessings we have, including those values to which we sometimes give devotion, and sometimes only lip-service, derive from Christianity. Much of western civilization has grown fat, soft, comfortable and irresponsible with its own blessings. Unless we are mindful whence they came, and unless we share their benefits with others, we shall lose them, for we shall misuse as well as misunderstand them. But let us still be thankful for the amount of freedom to travel, to know the news, to live at a level of physical comfort above the need for grinding toil, which so many enjoy in our land. These are in themselves good things, when observed in the light of a religion that is concerned “for the body as well as for the soul.”

Self-Interest A Proper Appeal

In suggesting that the good human effects of Christianity are further reason for believing in Christianity and working for it, one is sometimes accused of appealing to self-interest. I have no hesitation whatever in appealing to anyone’s self-interest to get him to come quickly out of a burning house, or to go and have a physical examination when he appears to have cancer. What seems to me at stake today is human survival. If a man can be persuaded to give his attention to the Christian religion, on the basis that this may give him a whole view of life, improve his human relations, and help him win the war of ideas between the forces led by Christian thinking as against those led by communist thinking, thank God for having such a practical point of contact by which you can get his attention! There is a great deal of pseudo-spirituality floating about which asks for a purely unselfish approach to the search for God. Come, come, which of us was ever disinterestedly unselfish when we sought God? We sought Him because we needed Him. We used Him at the first, as our little children use us. Later on, let us hope, we came by a more mature mind, and began asking God to use us.

Do not forget that Jesus’ own sayings are filled with the thought of reward, understood as meaning that what He held out to us was good for us. “Seek and ye shall find”. “He that loseth his life for My sake, the same shall find it.” “Seek ye first the Kingdom … and all these things shall be added unto you.” We find some persecution also promised in this arrangement; but the New Testament is not so squeamish about rewards as we are. Do not ask a drowning man to be too meticulous about his motives: he is drowning and he would like to be saved.

Our Malady Is Spiritual Poverty

Our civilization is in just such critical danger. We need help. We ask for it with desperation. If God wills to send it, we shall remember one day to say “Thank You” and one day we shall even begin to say, “Now what do You want me to do?” And then we shall be in the way of getting converted. But the beginning is way back in the elementals of human desperation and need. Too many men, and especially clergy, forget how primitive and unspiritual was their own first cry to God, and persist in making their hearers feel that, unless you come to God from some high motive, you dare not come to Him at all. It is contrary to natural life, as we know it in our children, and to spiritual life, as we have known it in ourselves. Away with this pseudo-spirituality! Our world is sick and we are sick, and our sickness is primarily our poverty of faith in God and the Christ to Whom we owe just about everything of worth that we know. Let us be simply honest about our need. God has answered many a selfish prayer, and then led the prayer on to better things.

Democracy Does Not Stand Alone

Do we need proof of the dependence of our western freedom on our inherited Christian faith? Let me give you just a few statements which carry weight. William Aylott Orton of Yale said, “… it is only in the Christian doctrine of man that we can find a firm and reasoned ground for the American affirmation.” G. K. Chesterton said, “There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” T. S. Eliot says, “The term democracy … does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike—it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.” And there is the widely-quoted remark of William Penn, “Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants.”

If we will not accept the dicta of believers in democracy, we should at least accept those of men who hate and vilify it. Karl Marx said, “The democratic concept of man is false, because it is Christian. The democratic concept holds that each man has a value as a sovereign being. This is the illusion, dream and postulate of Christianity.” And Adolph Hitler said, “To the Christian doctrine of the infinite significance of the individual human soul, I oppose with icy clarity the saving doctrine of the nothingness and insignificance of the individual human being.”

The Best A Christian Bequest

We are not saying that western civilization is perfect: we are saying that the best things in it derive from the Christian heritage. We are saying that freedom is one of faith’s best and most important results. And we are saying that the thing that may catch the attention and the imagination of some selfish, and even sodden, beneficiary of our culture and civilization and freedom may be a reminder of what may happen to his hide in the immediate future, when you cannot get him to think about what is going to happen to his soul in eternity. When he finds out how much he owes temporally to the Christian Gospel, he may wake up and realize that he should be doing something about a faith to which he owes so much.

There are, I think, excellent reasons for beginning where people are, rather than where they should be. We must not fear; instead we should with all honesty and integrity try to make some appeal to the common sense and long-range self-interest of the ordinary man. It would do theoretically-minded clergy a great deal of good to have to think out a really logical argument to convince a skeptic or a materialist that it would be good for him to help forward the Christian enterprise.

Liberty Without God Breeds Bondage

We all know that the danger of freedom is always its misuse. Left to himself, left to a philosophy that does without God, man becomes more and more selfish in the use of his liberty. This in turn will require more and more controls from somewhere to keep him within bounds. Edmund Burke said, “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.” The converse is also true: the more there is within, the less there must be without. If only western, democratic, so-called Christian man would exercise a little more self-restraint and unselfishness in the use of his freedom, he would have much better prospects for preserving it for his grandchildren. But what will make him do this? Nothing but the setting of his “will and appetite” in the framework of his accountability to God. As faith is the thing that gives a man the conception of himself as God’s child in the beginning, and encourages him to fight for his freedom, faith is also the thing that gives him the sense of his accountability to God when freedom threatens to run away with him. The faith which creates freedom alone can control it.

We believe in the “separation of church and state” in this land. It was proven a good and sound principle. But in the day when our people think that this means a democracy can run well without having continually poured into it sound, believing, God-directed men and women, our greatness will have passed.

Samuel M. Shoemaker, D.D., S.T.D., is rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh and author of The Church Alive, They’re on the Way, How to Become a Christian, and other books.

Preacher In The Red 1For 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.

NEW AVENUE OF SERVICE

While I was a student in Bible college, several classmates took up the fad of saying things “backwards,” or mixing up words to give an expression a different meaning. One favorite expression was “occupew the pie,” for “occupy the pew.”

There were several small churches in the area where student ministers preached. I was invited to bring the Sunday evening sermon at one of these. A rather unusual number of student ministers attended. My sermon had to do with “Christian Service.”

Toward the end of the message I was building toward the “climax.” I was endeavoring to impress my audience with the fact that they should be “busy about the Father’s business.” I stated that many people could not teach, sing, preach or go as missionaries, but that no man lived who could not lend encouragement to the work of the Lord by his presence each church service. I intended to say that the least thing anyone could do was to come and “occupy a pew.” What I really said was, come and “occupew a pie.” Silence prevailed for a moment until one of my best friends could no longer hold his feelings. The service ended immediately.—The REV. SHERRIEL E. STOREY, Minister, Perry Christian Church, Canton, Ohio.

Cover Story

Marks of Great Evangelical Preaching

“The Romance of Preaching”! Under this title C. Silvester Horne delivered one of the most brilliant and inspiring series of all the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale. Speaking in 1914, a few months before the outbreak of World War I, with irrepressible optimism the British divine looked back at certain pulpit giants of other days. In every case he dealt with a man who belonged in what we know as the evangelical tradition: Moses and later prophets; John the Baptist and later apostles; Athanasius and Chrysostom; Savonarola, Calvin, and Knox; John Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers; John Wesley and George Whitefield.

Risks In Contemporary Evaluation

Any lover of church history can make a longer list of pulpit giants, every man of them strongly evangelical. If a student were disposed to deal with a positive subject negatively, he could try to compile a list of non-evangelical pulpit giants. Whatever the procedure, a prudent compiler would follow Horne in not singling out any contemporary preacher. Among living pulpiteers often counted great, or nearly great, how many will be so regarded after the lapse of forty years? Not many, I judge. I am thinking of my own experience as a lifelong lover of sermons. If I were to name the preachers whom many ministers counted great in 1914, my younger readers would not recognize most of the names. For example, think of Charles Wagner in Paris, William Dawson in London, and Newell Dwight Hillis in Brooklyn. Time has a way of deflating many of our biggest balloons.

In the realm of preaching, what then does it mean for a man to be “great”? Personally, I seldom use the word great about anyone but God, but here I am serving as a reporter of what others have found. According to Barrett Wendell at Harvard, greatness in writing consists in power and influence that continue after the conditions that produced the writing have passed away. Accepting this working principle, let us ask about marks of excellence in the preaching of certain masters in other days, whom many students of church history unite in calling both evangelical and great.

At first glance any such list of evangelical “greats” would impress a student with its variety. For instance, look at the following, and ask what they had in common with each other: Amos and Hosea; James and John; Peter and Paul; Augustine and Chrysostom; Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi; Luther and Calvin; John Bunyan and John Donne; John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards; Canon H. P. Liddon and Charles H. Spurgeon; Dwight L. Moody and John Henry Jowett. Any two of those pulpit masters differed from each other as much as any two stars in the sky at midnight. And yet, being stars, any two of those men were alike in certain respects, all of them important. These likenesses all belong together. As a whole, and one by one, they should help to make clear the meaning and the spirit of evangelical preaching at its best.

Evangelical Philosophy Of Preaching

Preaching here means God’s way of meeting the needs of sinful men through the proclamation of His revealed truth, by one of His chosen messengers. Not as a scientific definition, but as a working description, this account shows why those evangelical preachers looked on their calling as second to no other on earth, and on their preaching as a privilege that angels might covet. Preaching as the proclamation of God’s revealed truth means that the man in the pulpit makes known to others what he has received from God, mainly through the written Word, and there through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in response to the prayer of faith.

Preaching as the proclamation of God’s revealed truth differs from certain ideas now current about the work of a pulpit master. The herald now in view seeks not to discover, to invent, or to change the message that has come from his King. The messenger wishes rather to understand, to accept, and to present in a winsome fashion what he has received from above for the hearers at church. In 2 Corinthians 1–7 Paul most fully enunciates his practical philosophy of preaching. There he refers to himself as an ambassador of Christ as King. An ambassador does not originate his message, by using his reason, or in any other way. He employs his reason, and all his other God-given powers, in understanding the will of his Ruler, and in making that will known to the hearer, or hearers, with clarity, with interest, and with persuasive effectiveness. So it becomes clear that like John Bunyan every would-be ambassador of King Jesus must plan to dwell and toil in “the house of the interpreter.”

Preaching From The Bible

Every pulpit master at whom we have glanced has thought of himself as the Lord’s messenger in explaining and applying the written Word of God, as it relates to the interests and the needs of men and women in his day. Certain pulpit masters have left us expository sermons; others have not. Some have relied largely on a textual method; others equally devoted to the Scriptures have dealt with them topically. Spurgeon did so in his best-known sermon, “Songs in the Night,” and often elsewhere. Still others have preached allegorically, not having learned a more excellent way of dealing with the Bible. “From” the first two chapters of the Canticles, Bernard of Clairvaux preached eighty-five sermons about Christ. From the first verse of the next chapter he “drew” still another message full of Christian truth, which did not come from the Song of Solomon, a beautiful book of poetry with a far different purpose.

Especially since the Reformation, holy men called of God to preach have striven to deal with each Bible passage in the light of its original purpose and meaning. Thus the Reformers went back to the noblest traditions and ideals of the early Church. For example, Home says about Chrysostom: “He is a man of the Word and a man of the World … Chrysostom himself is saturated with the Scriptures, and is determined that his audience shall be taught to base their lives upon the principles of Holy Writ” (op. cit., p. 134). So with our other exemplars: when in the pulpit, every one of them regarded himself as a man behind the Book, and as standing there to use the Book in meeting the needs of the men to whom he preached.

Preaching Bible Doctrine

The master evangelical preachers have accepted the doctrines of Holy Scripture. They have differed about such matters as Predestination and Sinless Perfection, but they have been strangely alike in adhering to the “faith of our fathers.” This term here means loyalty to the body of revealed truth that appears fully in the Holy Scriptures, especially in the New Testament, and echoes repeatedly from every church hymnal, with its Bible truths set to music. From varying points of view the preaching masters of the Church would have agreed with President Nathan M. Pusey, of Harvard, that “the world is seeking for a creed to follow, and for a song to sing.” They would have agreed, also, in looking to Holy Scripture for that creed, and to Christian hymnody for that song.

Preaching The Doctrine Of God

Of late there has been a widespread “theological renaissance,” especially in our seminaries, and in books about religion, but not as yet in most Protestant pulpits. In some respects the doctrines of this Renaissance differ from those of the Reformation. For instance, the Reformers had a way of putting God first, God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Modern teachers and writers tend to stress truth about man, and to put that truth first. For all the return to theology we ought to give thanks, but as for the emphasis, surely we should follow Paul and the other apostles in giving the primacy to the Triune God! It would be a pity if we ignored or minimized the Christian truth about the soul and the body of every man born with the image of God. In all these respects we ought to follow the preaching masters of other days, who agreed with the Apostles and the Reformers in putting the first truth first. In the pulpit, and everywhere else, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God.”

Preaching The Doctrine Of Redemption

In recent times New Testament scholars have rediscovered the core of redemptive truth now known as the kerygma. Popularly this means the preaching of God’s revealed truth as it centers in Christ, the Son of God, and the Redeemer from sin. While some of my “preaching fathers” would not have used the word kerygma, they all held to the redemptive facts enshrined in this term borrowed from Holy Writ. In the pulpit those men ranged widely over the known areas of Christian thought and action. All the while they looked on themselves, primarily, as chosen messengers of God’s grace in setting men free from sin, making them strong to serve, and filling them with hope for the Advent of their Lord, with the triumph of His Kingdom.

In all their preaching, the masters took for granted two other basic truths, which have recently come again to the fore. First, the fact of divine revelation. Apart from God’s written revelation, which portion of the kerygma could mortal men ever have discovered or stated? Second, the fact of our human response. From John 3:16, and from the Bible as a whole, as from their own experiences of redeeming grace, the pulpit masters of other days knew that the preaching of God’s revealed truth called for faith on the part of the hearer. That doctrine of redeeming grace they found supremely in God’s revelation through the Death and Resurrection of His Son. So they could have taken as a preaching motto the key verse of the Fourth Gospel, which I paraphrase, reverently:

These words of God’s kerygma are spoken that as hearers of the Gospel you may believe, and that through believing you may be saved from your sins, and set free to serve in the power of eternal life.

Preaching To The Unsaved

The master preachers of other days delivered two sorts of messages: to the unsaved, or the unchurched; and to active followers of Christ. While the proportion between the two kinds of sermons varied, often the ratio seems to have been about fifty-fifty. Among the published messages of preachers as different as Spurgeon, Moody, and Brooks, this proportion holds as a working standard. Search their volumes of sermons and see, as I have done with amazement, the practical uniformity of the findings.

Take Phillips Brooks, for example, in his preaching ministry at Boston (1869–91). Read the three-volume life by A. V. G. Allen, and the Yale Lectures on Preaching (1877). Then study the ten volumes of Sermons (1910), to figure out the purpose of each discourse. You will find that about half the time Brooks was trying to win the hearer who had not yet accepted Christ, and that the rest of the time Brooks was trying to strengthen the faith of the man who already believed. On the other hand, take Dwight L. Moody, whom Brooks admired and liked as much as Moody liked and admired Brooks. Starting from a point of view different from that of Brooks, as a full-time evangelist Moody spent about half of his preaching hours in addressing believers.

Preaching To Followers Of Christ

Almost without exception, the master preachers have dealt with the didache, as well as the kerygma. Like the Apostles, these later men in the same holy tradition strove from the pulpit to build up strong believers, thus preparing them for larger service, in this world and the next. If anyone today feels that the “cure of souls” from the pulpit has been a recent innovation, let him read the sermonic writings of Richard Baxter, or John Bunyan. Where else in print, for example, can anyone find such a heart-searching discussion of suicide as in an unexpurgated edition of Pilgrim’s Progress? On many another page, where Bunyan wrote about Giant Despair, Doubting Castle, or the Hill Difficulty, he was using Bedford Jail as a pulpit to set forth God’s ways of healing every disorder in a man’s soul. So with other evangelical pulpit masters, such as Thomas Chalmers and Alexander Whyte: no one of them ever dreamed of ignoring the heart needs of men and women after they had once been born from above.

Preaching A Message Of Hope

Contrary to a common impression, evangelical preachers as a rule have delivered messages full of assurance and hope. With William Sanday, New Testament scholar at Oxford, many an evangelical pulpit giant would have agreed that “the center of our Lord’s ministry and mission … lay beyond the grave” (The Life of Christ in Recent Research, p. 121). Hence the evangelical pulpit in other times gave a commanding place to messages about “this life and the next.” For worthy examples turn to the university sermons of Canon H. P. Liddon. Note his repeated stress on the Resurrection. Study also the best-known discourse from John Wesley, “The Great Assize,” by which he meant the Day of Judgment. In dealing with any such heart-searching doctrine, the masters as a rule have spoken with what Jowett loved to term “apostolic optimism.” Why not, when the man in the pulpit believed what his mother had taught him to sing: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness”?

Preaching To Common People

“The common people heard him gladly.” These words, first written about the Ideal Preacher, would apply to almost every one of His messengers at whom we have looked. Instead of referring to them as “great princes of the pulpit,” He would prefer to bless them as “good and faithful servants.” Whatever the designation, the most Christlike preachers in history have known how to make the truths of God seem real and interesting to ordinary people. Not to do so would have meant to misrepresent the Heavenly Father. In the Bible He everywhere appears as the most interesting and appealing Person of all history. At the same time He appears veiled in mystery and splendor, so that we mortals can not look upon His undimmed glory. Still the pulpit masters were able to preach about Him so that any hearer with the mentality of a twelve-year-old boy could understand the truth of God embodied in any sermon. Accepting that truth, the childlike hearer could bow down to worship, feeling “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

In terms of our day, such a preacher might have looked on himself as a “transformer.” With transforming truth coming from the mountains of God, through the utterances of prophets and apostles, as illuminated by the writings of scholars and saints, many a preacher of the Gospel to common people has been able to “step it down.” Without changing, weakening, or impairing the mighty truths of revelation, the messenger to God’s common people has been able to present in every sermon an important part of what He has revealed. On the human level the messenger has felt chiefly concerned about the spiritual needs of his hearers. For this reason Martin Luther addressed his sermons to common people, not to Philipp Melanchthon, the scholar. So did Jowett deliberately prepare messages so simple that his critics spoke of them as “thin.” According to one of his many learned admirers, Jowett had mastered the fine art of “making a little go a long way.” This kind of pulpit excellence springs from a Christlike sense of humility.

Preaching With Authority

Every evangelical master preacher has spoken with authority, and that not his own. Herein lies the heart of the evangelical tradition: “Thus saith the Lord.” A man called of God to preach receives from Him a message in keeping with the present needs of the hearers. During long hours of preparation, the man in the study “waits on the Lord.” While waiting he also works, until at length he feels sure about what the Lord wishes him to say. In the latter stages of preparation, the messenger keeps on waiting and working until at last he sees how the Lord wishes him to speak. When he goes into the pulpit, without apology he presents every truth, and discusses every duty in light that has come to him from God.

This kind of pulpit work calls for Christlike humility, and for Christlike courage, as well as common sense. Not by bellowing about his authority, not by claiming supernatural powers, but by living close to God and close to people, the minister takes for granted that he speaks to them for God. So do the hearers know and feel that this man has a message from the King, a message that suits the heart needs of the hearers. Alas, who can understand or explain the spirit and the ways of the minister who speaks with authority? On the other hand, who can fail to sense in the pulpit the presence of such authority, or else the absence?

Divine Constraint In Preaching

Authority in preaching does not depend on anything human. In a sense, a metropolitan minister with a vast church “plant,” a large endowment, a massive choir, and a reputation for magnetic powers of speech can speak with more effectiveness than if the, same man displayed his gifts and graces in Cream Ridge or Honeysuckle Valley. But what about a young minister on the threshold of his career, and aware that he has no dazzling brilliancy (Ezek. 33:30–33)? In Alexander Maclaren’s early ministry at Southampton, as with Jowett’s beginnings at Newcastle upon Tyne, the Lord delighted to speak with authority through a young man who still had much to learn about what to preach and how to do it well. At twenty years of age, without any learning of the schools, and with all sorts of crudity, Spurgeon preached with authority as real as thirty years later, when he had become world famous. At every stage of his ministry such a man feels that he has a mission from God and a message from God. O for a rising generation of evangelical ministers, every one of them loving to preach with authority from God!

Looking back we can see ten marks of evangelical preaching before World War I. These marks begin with pulpit work as the proclamation of God’s revealed truth. They end with the seal of God’s approval on the man preaching with His authority. Who follows in this train?

A Special Word To The Young Minister

My son, the Lord has honored you by calling you to the highest, the holiest, the hardest work in all the world today. For the sake of the Redeemer, and of the people whom you serve, or soon will serve, He would have you make the most of all your God-given powers and graces. He wishes you worthily to represent Him as a pastor, as a leader in worship, and in every sermon as an act of worship. Here I refer only to preaching. In the history of the pulpit He has set before you a noble succession of exemplars, every one of whom has shown the power of the Gospel when spoken by God’s messenger. Now that you stand on the threshold of a life work to be full of increasing burdens and joys, He wishes you to set up pulpit ideals that you will never need to change.

From beginning to end let your ministry be strongly evangelical, and also kind. Many years from now you will look back, as I am looking back, on more than forty years of mercy. Then you will give thanks for all the ways in which your preaching has held true to the “faith of our fathers.” You will feel ashamed and sorry if at any time along the way you have turned aside from God’s revealed truth to “preach” about “lesser things.” In the pulpit and in the study remember that preaching still means the Lord’s way of meeting the heart needs of men through the proclamation of His revealed truth and grace. The more you mingle with people, in Christ’s name, the more you will discover that while their lives keep changing on the surface, at heart they still need the Gospel, “the old consoling Gospel,” with its message of redemption, uplift, and hope. Do not ever preach anything else. Every time be sure to present it in a form worthy of one who represents the King.

A.W.B.

Andrew W. Blackwood, D.D., is professor of preaching at Temple University School of Theology and author of Doctrinal Preaching for Today and seventeen other books.

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The Reformation and the Common Man

How we began to remember that all humans are basically and fundamentally equal.

‘The Century of the Common Man” is the title that we of the twentieth century, in our complacency, frequently bestow upon our own remarkable age. We have the feeling that in our day, or that of our fathers at the earliest, the “common man” for the first time gained recognition and standing. This we attribute to many factors: the Industrial Revolution, the growth of science, the studies of the sociologist and psychologist, or even the two world wars. We seldom stop to think that our idea of the importance and the value of the “common man” has much deeper roots, roots reaching back to the Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century, and from them directly to the New Testament.

Souls of little worth

In the Middle Ages society had been divided, under the guidance of the Church, into three main classes: those who worked, the peasants; those who fought, the nobility; and those who prayed, the clergy. Those who traded, the merchants, were also recognized but were often regarded as parasites with somewhat uncertain futures beyond the grave. Of all the classes, the clergy were regarded as being on the highest level, for they dealt with the realm of grace, dispensing through the sacraments salvation to the laity, whose chief duty was to receive and to obey. Although the aristocracy was regarded as next in importance, the rest of the laity were counted as of relatively little significance.

The “common man” held a position in the scale of human existence lower than the clergy or aristocracy. Although his soul was of eternal value, on this earth he counted for little as an individual. His importance consisted almost entirely of being part of a group of “common men.” If he were a farmer, he was probably a serf or a freeman on a manor; if he lived in a town, he would be a member of a craft or a merchant guild. When he attended church he listened to a Latin service he did not understand, and he took no part in the political life of his own time. His whole significance was in the fact that as “mass man” he provided for the economic and social needs of the upper classes. If he fulfilled his responsibilities faithfully in this life, then heaven, after a period of purgatory, would be his ultimate end. In medieval thinking, “the common man” counted for little.

Renaissance gave no relief

Even the coming of the Renaissance did not alter the status of the common man. The principal social change was the loss of supremacy by the clergy, whose position now fell to the lot of the feudal nobles, the wealthy middle class, and the aristocracy of learning. Castiglione’s Courtier and Machiavelli’s Prince make it only too clear, however, that the “common man” received little consideration. Rather it was the man of virtu, the “virtuoso,” who dominated the scene. The “common man” was simply the reservoir of labor from which the member of the “elite” drew his sustenance in order to manifest his virtu in art, literature, government, or trade. Wherever the pattern of the Renaissance imposed itself, in Italy, France, or Spain, this social philosophy was manifest.

Change by the Reformation

The social landscape of the Protestant countries in northern Europe presents a somewhat different scene. It is true that for some thousand years the Roman Church, as in the south, had dominated the life of man, feudalism had shaped society, and trade—except in the Netherlands—had not expanded to anything like the same degree it had in Italy. Yet out of these Protestant lands come forth a new concept of the “common man,” the concept that lies at the base of modern democratic ideals. The reason for this would seem to lie in the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation.

That there is very good reason why this should be the case becomes clear when one makes even a cursory study of the Reformers’ teachings. For one thing, by re-emphasizing the Scriptural doctrine of sin, they insisted that ultimately all men were on the same level in the sight of God. Luther’s Bondage of the Will laid down the basic principle that all men are sinners, worthy of God’s wrath and judgment. Calvin worked out even more consistently the logical and biblical consequences of this doctrine, by pointing out that no man can do anything for his own salvation. Sin made all men·equal before God—equal in guilt.

Yet the Reformers were not pessimists, for they also held strongly to the New Testament doctrine of grace in all its fullness. Here again Calvin proved the more thorough and consistent thinker, although the others were· in complete accord with him. Since salvation is beyond man’s earning power, he taught that it must be the free gift of God bestowed upon those to whom He chose to give it. God’s grace is always imparted freely and sovereignly. Moreover, He has graciously made His Grace effective by Himself bearing man’s sins in Jesus Christ. Thus, since salvation is indeed “of the Lord” and of the Lord alone, again all men are equal.

How does man receive grace? The Reformers’ answer was not a sacramental system, by which one was saved through performing certain sacramental acts. Man comes to a knowledge of his sinfulness and God’s graciousness, according to the Reformers, by hearing and believing the Word of Scripture. Thus one attains salvation by faith alone, and this faith is the gift of God worked in the sinner’s heart by the Holy Spirit.

Thus, all men, whether within or without the Church, were basically and fundamentally equal, for even the redeemed and justified sinner had no claims that he could advance on his own behalf. His whole salvation was the gift of God. Therefore, the medieval and Renaissance concepts of the orders in society were as ephemeral as the morning dew. They meant little or nothing in ultimate terms, since all men weighed the same in God’s scales of justice and grace.

Divine orders of society

But what about the differences in society? Did not the Reformers talk much about submission to magistrates and pastors? Did not Luther attack the revolting peasants for their attempts to overthrow their rulers? The answer to all these questions is, of course, yes; for the Reformers did indeed believe that there were orders of society established by God for the benefit of society. There had to be those who ruled and those who obeyed. Yet these differences exist entirely according to the calling of God, Who chooses men for different positions in life. Basically, however, this only proved more conclusively that there was no fundamental difference in the worth of men, since differences in position were all determined according to the plan and purpose of God’s sovereign will.

Such a position was as different from the medieval and Renaissance points of view as is summer from winter. The Reformers ruled out any idea of there being an abstract or mass “humanity” whose sole interest was in the next world, with only a few individuals enjoying themselves upon this earth. Moreover, although scholars and teachers themselves, they also rejected the Renaissance attitude that it is one’s intellectual, rational capacity which determines one’s worth. Instead, insisting that each individual is a unique personality, they held that all men stand as sinners under judgment or under grace before the sovereign God. Moreover, everyone in this life is called to some activity, no matter how humble, whereby he may glorify God.

Individual role in worship

This was no matter of mere theory. One of the first steps that the Protestant leaders took as a result of their theological views was to change the’ form of public worship. The Roman mass had been in Latin with the congregations understanding little of what was taking place, and preaching had largely disappeared. Luther, therefore, very early in the Reformation prepared a German vernacular service, in which he included German hymns along with preaching. Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, and others followed the same plan, in order that all men might intelligently praise and serve the Lord their God. The “common man” began to take part in the services of worship.

Even this innovation was not enough to satisfy the Reformers. The church service was of little value unless each individual had enough knowledge to grasp the meaning of the sermon and to understand what he was singing. For this reason the Reformers insisted that the Bible must be open to every man in his own language. They believed that although such freedom contained dangers the Holy Spirit would keep even the “common man” from going too far astray. Moreover, in order to give the common man guidance in the understanding of God’s Word, increased individual instruction of the rank and file of the congregation became an important part of the pastor’s work. Catechisms appeared in rapid succession in Wittenberg, Zurich, Geneva, Edinburgh, and other centers of the Reformation. Even the Roman Catholic forces gathered at Trent soon found it necessary to prepare a catechism also for their own protection. The “common man” was to receive every opportunity to gain an understanding of his faith, so that he might be a strong, active Christian.

A place in church leadership

The Reformers’ interest in the “common man” was not limited to worship and understanding. Reformers such as Calvin and Knox should take part in the government of the church. Luther and the English reformers, owing to their movement being closely bound up with contemporary national politics, were not able to carry out this type of organization. The Reformed churches following Calvin’s teaching and example have always insisted that since all believers enjoy the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, they should be able to choose those who are to rule over them in the faith. This they do by electing delegates who will represent them in a hierarchy of church courts. For the first time the “common man” could help in directing the church’s life and work.

Not just for a few

That man might be able to serve God adequately in this life, the Reformers insisted on the need for education, whether academic or technical, for as many as possible—not just for a few. Luther, Calvin, Knox, and others spent much of their time preparing educational programs, founding schools, and teaching. For those in poverty or ill health places of refuge should be provided they believed. They did not believe, as many later writers seem to think, that poverty and misfortune were signs of some signal sin or that they showed the victim to be of the reprobate. Calvin and his colleagues knew that trials and difficulties come upon men in this life through no fault of their own and that they should therefore receive all the help other Christians are able to give.

Even in matters of government and politics some of the Reformers gave the “Common man” a new place of importance. It is true that they did not produce a full-blown idea of democracy, but they were like the first rays of the rising sun after a long dark winter’s night. Although many have deprecated the influence exercised by Calvin in Geneva, it would seem to be true, nevertheless, that Geneva was one of the principal seed beds from which came many Western democratic flowers. The formerly forbidden area of government now opened its gates to the “common man.”

A new concept of society

The Reformation brought a new concept of society to the world. It laid the foundation for a world in which the “common man” was recognized as an individual, for the first time in at least fifteen hundred years as a unique personality in the sight of God. Based upon the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, it brought man back to the fact that all men are God’s creatures, whatever their position in life.

Modern danger of obscurity

Since the sixteenth century, many changes have come in Western thinking, but this stress upon the importance of the “common man” remained well-nigh intact until the eighteenth century. Then Rationalism, followed by romanticism, which in turn gave way to materialism, gradually pushed the individual “common man” back to his old subordinate place. The French Revolution, Bolshevism, Nazism all participated in this attack on the “common man.” Only in lands where the Reformation has maintained its firm hold has this not happened, although even there the idea has been weakened.

George Orwell in his 1984 has shown us what may happen if the “common man” is destroyed as a personality. We talk of him much today, but if the modern materialistic and existential forms of thought continue to flourish, his end is not far off. When we forsake the ideas of the Reformation, we tend to cut ourselves off from the roots of our democracy, and if we are not grafted back into the main stalk, the “common man” in Western society will once more become the “faceless one,” without personality or identity.

W. Stanford Reid is Professor of History, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Review of Current Religious Thought: October 29, 1956

America’s and Europe’s religious journals, Catholic and Protestant, are today full of fascinating contents. On the whole, they deal constructively with crucial issues that confront the contemporary religious and secular mind. Naturally, many articles are controversial. We would not expect it otherwise in a broken world like ours. Sharp disagreements among thinkers are often the cutting edge of newly emerging ideas. It is both sobering and healthy when our Christian faith is subjected to intense scrutiny by friend and foe. The latter frequently stab us more awake than the former. Did not Jesus warn that “the children of the world are often wiser than the children of the light”?

Just now desegregation of public schools is uppermost in the American mind. Passion is running high, while Asia and Africa and our European and Latin American friends are probing the depths and range of our moral integrity. While all over our land revivals are in full swing, riots also agitate many of our communities. Where the apostle Paul preached there were, to be sure, often revival and riot side by side. But the riot grew out of the revival, that is, out of the preaching of the whole Gospel for the whole man. Our American community riots, however, seem utterly unrelated to the Gospel and its dynamic. Instead they erupt out of attitudes and traditions rooted in our sinful past.

Life magazine (Oct. 1, 1956) presents an article on the race issue by Billy Graham. The famous evangelist clearly focuses the problem in the context of the Christian’s love of God and neighbor:

The Bible requires neighbor-love alongside the love for God, and neighbor-love strikes far deeper than what usually passes today as ‘an end of segregation’ and ‘community integration’. The Christian layman must speak out against the social ills of our times, but he must be careful to speak with the voice of the biblical prophets and apostles and not in the spirit of secular and socializing views.

We are happy to note that Graham unequivocally states that “the Bible speaks strongly against race discrimination.” Woefully he admits that Christians as a whole have not been exemplary in their racial attitudes. “Indeed, it is the tragedy of 20th century Christianity … that such secular influences as military desegregation, sports and television have done more to combat racial prejudice than many churches.” True neighbor-love, Graham stresses, “flows from the regenerate life alone.” Yes, if Christians live in the power and spirit of the Gospel! No, if Christians, despite their professions, are bound by social mores and traditions which they all too easily identify with a Gospel falsely understood! Graham pleads for a recovery of the dynamic of the Holy Spirit, “the power that turns the social patterns upside down.” But before that power can become manifest, must we not seriously repent of all that has gone into our tragic racial situation in the United States? For none of us, north and south, is without guilt in this matter. Would that genuine repentance would sweep through our land for this evil thing that began in slavery and ends in debauching race riots! Then God, who is no respecter of persons, might heal our hurt.

The Baptist Student (April, 1956), a Southern Baptist journal, through Roy Eckhardt cries “Down With This New Religion!” What is that new religion? Answer: success story religion, juke box religion, Hooray religion! “There is nothing in true Christian faith to promise success.” Following Christ more often means hardness, a rugged road of self-denial, or even martyrdom. God is not the ally of our sinful or even idealistic ventures. He is not a means to human ends but we are to be means to His eternal ends. Well spoken!

The conversation between Jew and Christian is today in full swing. Think of Joseph Klausner, Hans Joachim Schoeps, Sholom Asch or Martin Buber, profound Jewish thinkers of our day who reveal a rapport with the deepest religious thinking in Christendom. This conversation must continue on ever higher levels.

A Christian believer may learn much, for instance, from an article by Robert Gordis in Judaism (Summer, 1955) under the title “The Temptation of Job: Tradition versus Experience.” The writer sets into sharp relief the tremendous conflict that raged in Job’s soul between accepted tradition of the group and personal experience of the individual. Job dared to challenge his accuser friends steeped as they were in a venerated tradition in which suffering inevitably was the consequence of sin. In the end of the struggle, Job is chastened and his friends see the light of new truth, namely that suffering may be part of our human discipline or a divine warning, lest we become too secure in our religious imaginations. And withal the mystery of faith remains. “What cannot be comprehended through reason must be embraced in love.”

Katsumi Matsumura in an article in The Japan Christian Quarterly (April, 1956) searchingly writes about “Christianity and Modern Thought in Japan.” The land of the rising sun is afflicted by “surplus of thought” rather than “poverty of thought.” The author points out that “the principal tendencies of thought in Japan are Marxism, existentialism, and nihilism,” but none of these has taken root to any depth. Chronic poverty encourages both resignation and revolutionary tendencies. The lack of persevering in any one way of thinking in modern Japan Matsumura sees as “the chief reason for the loss of faith of the common people.”

The Christian missionary in Japan must grapple with these thought currents and heed the author’s warning against the effort to evangelize quickly. Jesus might have aimed at the rapid spread of His Gospel in His own day. Instead He dealt patiently both with the many and the few. He was never in a hurry.

An encouraging note is found in an editorial in the Texas Standard of recent date: “The editor does not believe that Southern Baptists should affiliate with the National Council of Churches, but he does believe that most denominational bodies affiliated with it are Christian bodies.” Thank you, Dr. James, for this sensible word.

This review of live spiritual and moral issues debated in the secular and religious press of the day is prepared sucessively for CHRISTIANITY TODAY by four evangelical scholars: the Rev. Phillip Hughes of England, Prof. William Mueller of the United States, Prof. G. C. Berkouwer of the Netherlands, and Prof. John H. Gerstner of the United States.—ED.

Book Briefs: October 29, 1956

Honest Criticism

The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, by G. C. Berkouwer. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1956. $4.95.

The Triumph of Grace is a readable book, a veritable triumph of clarity in style and thought. Dutch barbarisms—the misplaced “already,” the excessive use of “over against,” the Germanic adjectival phrases, such as “the in Christ historically realized rejection of the chaos” (p. 249)—are infrequent. The thought proceeds without confusion. One always knows precisely what Berkouwer means. The obscurities are all Barth’s.

The theme of the volume opens with the question as to whether or not Barth has seriously altered his earlier theological views. Has there been a break in his thought, or is it continuous? Has he been won to optimism after a period of war-weary pessimism? Has he become more orthodox?

Through several chapters Berkouwer argues that while there have been variations in emphasis, and even one or two retractions of unfortunate phraseology, the triumph of God’s grace is the single and continuous motif.

With chapter eight Berkouwer’s criticism begins. As his exposition is marked with great care, so too his criticism is scrupulously honest and restrained. Barth’s paradoxical and even unintelligible language tempts an author to see contradictions where none may be. Or, possibly the contradictions are really there. But Berkouwer never presses minor difficulties. There are, however, some major questions.

With full acknowledgment of the fact that Barth espouses many biblical themes and is usually a more sober judge of the same than others of the neo-orthodox school, Berkouwer clearly states the general principle that an emphasis on grace does not ipso facto insure a fully Scriptural theology. Marcionism, Romanism, and antinomianism have also spoken of grace. Therefore, with respect to Barth one must ask: What sort of triumph does he proclaim? What is the enemy over which the triumph occurs? What are the means of the triumph? Four chapters are used to answer these questions.

If Barth says that grace triumphs over sin, one must note that for Barth sin is not defined in terms of divine law. Sin is pride or autonomy; it is absurd and inexplicable; it is the “No” which is the reverse side of God’s “Yes.” Sin is a mystery, not because we cannot explain it, but because it is “ontologically impossible.” Sin in the nature of the case cannot be; man cannot be godless; sin is a violation of the inviolable grace of God. When this view is combined with the theme of triumph, a triumph already complete, Berkouwer naturally asks whether Barth has not made the preaching of the Gospel useless and the struggle against sin empty.

Then too, the completeness of the triumph, in the emphatic terms Barth uses, leads to universalism. Yet Barth rejects universalism. At the same time he asserts that every man is both elect and reprobate. But if every man is both, and if all synergism is radically denied, how can universalism be logically avoided? Barth objects to the Remonstrants, who made redemption universal but limited grace’s effectiveness by a human cooperation. Yet, concludes Berkouwer, Barth has adopted a position that differs from the Remonstrants more in words than in thought. Barth, says Berkouwer, stands at the crossroads: either he should accept universalism and the uselessness of the Gospel, or he should reconsider his position on sin and election.

An appendix of 10 pages is added on the “Problem of Interpretation.” It is in effect a criticism of Professor Cornelius Van Til. In the words of Balthasar, Van Til’s interpretation of Barth is “completely grotesque.” Berkouwer adds that Van Til neglects “an elementary requirement of scholarship” with his “unwarranted interpretation.” And worse, Van Til expounds orthodoxy in such a way that “I cannot recognize the features of the real Reformed orthodoxy.” This reviewer shares Berkouwer’s evaluation of Van Til’s critical abilities, but on the points under discussion he cannot see that Van Til’s departures from the Reformed faith are quite so serious as Berkouwer seems to believe.

GORDON H. CLARK

Graham In Asia

To the Far Corners, by George Burnham. Revell, Westwood, N.J., 1956. $2.00.

This new book by George Burnham, converted Chattanooga newsman, is a stirring close-up of Billy Graham in action on his recent trip through India, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Formosa, Japan and Korea. Burnham’s on the-spot report is vivid, colorful, informing and full of action. As the reader travels swiftly with Billy and his party around the world, he receives the indelible impression that divine providence prepared the way and sustained the evangelist everywhere, that the Holy Spirit moved in a New Testament pattern, and that the simple preaching of the Word of God produced the same notable results in Asia as in other lands.

Every chapter closes with direct quotations from Billy Graham’s diary. These reveal the dedication, spiritual drive, and mental alertness of the man. The reviewer was particularly impressed by the chapter, “Frightening Reaction,” which describes the threatening mob violence in the crowd of 40,000 people in Palamcottah, India, when one of the amplifiers failed. “Billy prayed, ‘Oh God, stop the noise; quiet the people now.’ Immediately a deathlike hush came on the crowd and it became the quietest, most reverent meeting we have had in India. It was like the breath of God had suddenly fallen” (p. 53). At the invitation 4,000 people surged forward when there were only 400 counselors to care for them.

The report of Billy’s interviews with Nehru of India, Madame and General Chiang Kai-shek, and Prime Minister Hatayoma of Japan, gives a better understanding of these leaders. Billy’s own reasons for his success, why he has not yet gone to Russia, why he thinks his ministry may be brief, and what he preaches are all given here.

F. D. WHITESELL

Intolerant

Religious Freedom in Spain, by J. D. Hughey, Jr. Broadman, Nashville, 1955. $3.00.

A discussion of religious freedom in Spain is in point precisely because it has been so frequently and significantly lacking in that country. The reason for opposition to religious freedom in Spain has not been an anti-religious feeling, but a strong concern for Catholic unity. This accounts for a kind of religious oppression in the name of religion.

Catholicism, with its claim to being the only church and the only authoritative teacher of truth, is in principle intolerant of all other religious institutions and teachings. It is successfully intolerant, however, only where it holds a large enough balance of political power to impose its own religious pattern on a people. In Spain the greatest measure of alliance between Catholic Church and State has been achieved, and it is here that Catholicism has obtained political preference to the prejudice of evangelical churches.

Dr. Hughey, Professor of Practical Theology at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Ruschlikon-Zurich, Switzerland, and for four years a missionary in Spain, gives a competent, thoroughly documented, and enlightening account of the changing fortunes of evangelical religion in this Catholic-dominated country. The origins of Catholic unity are traced to the reconquest of Spain from the Mohammedan Moors by Christians, a process which resulted in a fusion of religion and nationalism. Hughey traces developments through the rise of liberalism, the establishment of religious freedom in varying degrees, and periodic reaction, culminating in the current reaction under General Francisco Franco.

This story indicates that free-thinkers have been very active in the struggle for religious freedom, a fact which provides a Catholic argument against the granting of it. The enforcement of an official religion, however, will rather encourage irreligion. In any event, the Gospel of God cannot be bound, and even in Spain there is religious tolerance. This is no doubt the saving factor for Spain and even for Spanish Catholicism. Religious freedom, as Hughey observes, best serves a whole people, and best serves the cause of religion, including the Catholic.

GEORGE STOB

5,524 Greek Words

Greek-English Concordance to the New Testament, by J. B. Smith, Herald, Scot dale, Pennsylvania, 1955. $12.75.

The sub-title of this volume, “A Tabular and Statistical Greek-English Concordance Based on the King James Version with an English-Greek Index,” indicates rather clearly its functions and scope. As this description suggests, the volume, while basically a Greek concordance, has been prepared with the needs of English readers chiefly in view. The Index lists over 9,700 English translations of the 5,524 Greek words given in the Concordance, and by means of numbers which identify the tables where the Greek terms are found in the Concordance, makes it possible even for the reader of the New Testament who does not know any Greek to take advantage of the information supplied by the Concordance. That interest centers largely in the King James Version also appears from the fact that in the Concordance there is a tabulation of its various English renderings of the individual Greek words. The volume is also of value to the Greek scholar, however, because the tabular arrangement not only easily and quickly discloses the comprehensive use of a word, but also its frequency of usage and its distribution in the several books where it appears.

Most Greek scholars will regret the fact, however, that the Concordance has been based upon the Textus Receptus of the 16th century rather than upon a modern Greek Testament such as Nestle’s.

Students of the Bible who will make regular use of this Concordance will without doubt feel amply rewarded and will be grateful for the indefatigable labors of the author. No tool is more indispensable to the responsible and conscientious student of Scripture than a concordance. For concordances in general, and this one in particular, owe their origin to the conviction that sure results in the area of interpretation are possible only if linguistic usage is consulted. In the case of the study of the Bible the biblical usage is obviously of primary interest and pertinence. In this connection, moreover, it is often highly significant to distinguish the usage of one author from that of another and even the usage in one book from that of another of the same author. The question of the frequency of the usage of a particular word may also be meaningful as one considers the breadth of the basis provided for the consideration of the meaning of the term in any particular instance. The distinctive features of the Concordance of J. B. Smith, accordingly, add substantially to its usefulness as an aid to interpretation. Readers of the Greek New Testament as well as of the King James Version may use this volume to great advantage in acquiring a more exact knowledge of and even fresh insights into the meaning of Holy Scripture.

NED B. STONEHOUSE

Propitiation

The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, by Leon Morris. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1955. $3.50.

Central in Christian preaching both yesterday and today is the Cross. What is the message of the Cross? Modern biblical theology has raised questions which profoundly affect the preaching of the Cross. Does the biblical concept of the blood of Christ mean life shared or life sacrificed in death? Does the death of Christ effect only expiation of sin or does it also propitiate God? Can a God of love be also a God of wrath? Does reconciliation have to do only with man, or is there a sense in which God must be reconciled? Does justification involve a subjective element? If it is objective and forensic, can such a doctrine play an essential role in biblical theology?

The contemporary study of theology has suggested answers to these questions which deviate from the answers given by the Reformers and classical Protestant orthodoxy. Wrath is said to be unworthy of a loving God who has no need to be reconciled to men. Propitiation of deity is a pagan and therefore unchristian, or at best subchristian, concept. Christ’s death cannot be construed as sacrificial and propitiatory but as the outpouring of his life that men may share its blessings.

Here is a long-overdue study championing the traditional interpretation by the Vice-principal of Ridley College,

Melbourne, Australia. It is not, however, merely a remouthing of old shibboloths, but a fresh, competent linguistic and exegetical study which follows the method made familiar by Gerhard Kittel’s massive theological dictionary. Dr. Morris has already gained wide scholarly recognition in Great Britain by the publication of some of this material in The Expository Times, The Journal of Theological Studies, and The Evangelical Quarterly.

Of outstanding significance is the bearing of Morris’ study on the propitiatory character of Christ’s death. The exegetical conclusions of C. H. Dodd have so widely prevailed at this point that renditions of the K.J.V. and the A.V. at Romans 3:25 have been changed in the R.S.V. from “propitiation” to “expiation.” Probably the average layman is unaware that this change involved a basic divergence in the concept of God himself. Morris fully recognizes the merit of Dodd’s work in dissociating the biblical teaching from pagan ideas of “celestial bribery”; but he successfully demonstrates that Dodd has gone too far in eliminating any idea of propitiation. Morris employs the same technical, philological methodology as that used by Dodd in his influential The Bible and the Greeks. In fact, he demonstrates that Dodd’s conclusions are inadequate because his very methodology needs correction.

GEORGE E. LADD

Christian Existentialist

Kierkegaard Commentary, by T. H. Croxal. Harper, New York. $5.00.

Those interested in the thought of Soren Kierkegaard will find real help in Dr. Croxall’s book. He gives a lucid survey of the contents of Kierkegaard’s writings. The whole picture of the life and labor of the great “Christian Existentialist” stands out in bold relief in this work.

Croxall writes from the point of view of one who has deep sympathy with the object of his research. It is to be hoped that as thorough a study of Kierkegaard as that found in this book may soon be written by some one committed to the historic Christian faith. Something approaching this will soon be made available by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. In a book to be titled Modern Thinkers, the evaluation of Kierkegaard’s philosophy by Prof. S. U. Zuidema, of the Free University of Amsterdam, will be made available to English readers. Meanwhile, we are grateful for Croxall’s book.

CORNELIUS VAN TIL

News Report: Conflict of the Gospel with Paganism, October 29, 1956

Ministers Favor Eisenhower 8 To 1

A poll by CHRISTIANITY TODAY of representative Protestant clergymen from all sections of the United States revealed a strong preference for Eisenhower over Stevenson in the November election for the Presidency.

Tabulation of 1,474 postcards from ministers, selected at random among all denominations, showed the following results:

► Eisenhower—85 per cent.

► Stevenson—11 per cent.

► Undecided—4 per cent.

The Eisenhower-Nixon ticket was marked on 1,248 cards, with Stevenson-Kefauver favored on 160. Those undecided numbered 61. Only five ministers expressed their preference for a Prohibition candidate.

In marking their cards, the clergymen were asked to show “why” by checking any or all of seven reasons. The count came out as follows:

1. Personal stature of the candidates. Eisenhower, 1,017; Stevenson, 75.

2. Nominee of my political party. Eisenhower, 158; Stevenson, 34.

3. Party platform. Eisenhower, 201; Stevenson, 55.

4. Religious views of candidates. Eisenhower, 555; Stevenson, 13.

5. Attitude toward corruption in government. Eisenhower, 432; Stevenson, 24.

6. Moral and spiritual emphasis. Eisenhower, 854; Stevenson, 22.

7. Stand on racial desegregation. Eisenhower, 230; Stevenson, 19.

The poll total showed that 1,117 of those preferring Eisenhower this year also voted for him in 1952. He was favored by 105 who did not vote in 1952 and 28 announced they would switch their 1952 vote from Stevenson to Eisenhower. Stevenson’s total showed 97 of the 160 voted for him in 1952, with 41 planning to switch from Eisenhower.

In the undecided group of 66, 36 voted for Eisenhower in 1952 and 14 for Stevenson. The remaining 16 did not vote.

A breakdown of some of the major states listed the following counts, with the first figure for Eisenhower and the second for Stevenson:

► Alabama, 14–3; Arizona, 10–0; Arkansas, 16–0; California, 83–12; Colorado, 18–2; Florida, 29–6; Georgia, 18–9; Illinois, 133–22; Indiana, 41–2; Iowa, 35–3; Kansas, 31–3; Kentucky, 14–5; Louisiana, 11–1; Maine, 13–1; Maryland, 21–4; Massachusetts, 24–4; Michigan, 61–1; Minnesota, 31–0; New Jersey, 31–3; New York, 43–9; North Carolina, 49–6; Ohio, 61–8; Oklahoma, 23–4; Pennsylvania, 74–1; Tennessee, 28–2; Texas, 34–1; Virginia, 25–14; Wisconsin, 44–2.

Several ministers said they did not believe in voting, because of non-resistance and other reasons. One said “I pray that God might supply His man.”

A majority of the clergymen answered, in a variety of ways, this question on the poll card: “What specific change for the better in American affairs do you desire from your candidate if elected?”

Here is a sampling of the reasons:

For Eisenhower

► “Clean government. Work even more ardently for peace.” … “Lifting of the moral and spiritual life of the American people as a whole.” … “Less centralized national government.” … “Foreign and domestic policies consistent with Christian principles.” … “More emphasis on spiritual things.” … “Much stronger stand against Communism at home and abroad.” … “Back to sane, sensible, Constitutional government.” … “Stronger stand against labor unions. Less foreign spending.”

For Stevenson

► “Segregated schools. Better farm program.” … “Recognizing and honoring God, especially the Sabbath.” … “Stabilized farm income and protection for small business.” … “Improved foreign relations. Tax burden off those less able to pay. Lifting of draft.” … “Stronger hold on moral issues by the President and those who support him in his work.” … “Restoration to a position of real leadership in world affairs.” … “Less interference in state affairs by the Federal Government.”

President Eisenhower is a Presbyterian. Stevenson is a Unitarian, recently affiliated with the Presbyterians.

Strangely Hushed

The death of an American missionary pilot, shot down while dropping Scripture leaflets over a Mexican village, has been strangely hushed.

Secular news agencies have had little to say about the story because of the blind alleys and blank walls encountered in trying to run down the facts.

As far as can be determined, this is what happened:

On September 21, over one month ago, Ancel Allen, a missionary pilot, was shot down and killed in the crash of a small borrowed plane as he flew over the village of San Sebastian, dropping copies of the Gospel of John to villagers.

Allen was seen as he made three very low runs over the town. At the end of the third run, a volley of rifle shots was heard and the plane crash-landed beyond the town.

Native villagers, the first to arrive at the scene, carried off the pilot’s wrist watch, rings and other valuables. There was much speculation that he survived the landing and was killed by fanatics who objected to the Protestant propaganda. Several bullet holes were in the plane and the body.

Official versions of the crash minimized the possibility that the plane was shot down and emphasized the probability that it was overloaded.

A native of Ogden, Indiana, and a World War II Air Force veteran with 17 years of flying experience back of him, Allen had arrived in Mexico with his wife six weeks before. They were independent missionaries.

Mrs. Allen claimed the body on the day after the crash and burial was held in the nearby city of Toluca.

Other missionary pilots have lost their lives in Mexico before, but none have been shot down. Observers interpret the incident as a possible renewing of efforts by fanatics to stem the tide of missionary activity in Mexico.

—J.H.R.

Life In One Paragraph

W. G. B—Jr., 45, who said he was “born” into the Christian ministry and later served congregations in Washington, D. C. before making a fortune in California insurance, tearfully told police that his beautiful secretary was kissing him when he killed her.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYsubscribes to Religious News and Evangelical Press services.

Jerusalem + Judea + Samaria

Oil For Troubled Waters

Henry Martyn, noted missionary to India and first translator of the New Testament into the Persian language, was traveling from the Persian Gulf to the city of Shiraz in 1811 to perfect his version.

He made the following entry in his diary:

“We arrived at the foot of the mountains, at a place where we seemed to have discovered one of nature’s ulcers. A strong, suffocating smell of naphtha announced something more than ordinarily foul in the neighborhood. We saw a river. What flowed in it, it seemed difficult to say, whether it were water or green oil.”

This “green oil” was to play a tremendous part in the political, economic and religious history of Iran (Persia) in the twentieth century. The presence of this bad-smelling naphtha in South Iran made it so necessary for the Allies to prevent the country from falling into Hitler’s hands during World War II. Nationalization of the oil industry in 1951 brought Iran before the eyes of the world and almost brought her to destruction. With this problem seemingly solved, an international group in South Iran is engaged in the production and distribution of the oil.

This year, another announcement captured the world’s interest. Drillers had struck oil in North Iran near the city of Qum, about 100 miles north of Teheran. Observers said the oil burst forth with a mighty roar, waking all the residents. For several weeks it was impossible to stop the guyser. Several oil lakes formed.

The new well, considered the largest in the world, can supply alone all the needs of Iran. More than ever, the envious eyes of neighbors have been turned toward the priceless treasures in the barren deserts of Iran.

An immediate effect of the discovery will be the change of Qum from just a shrine city to a booming oil town.

A large gilded dome covers the grave of one of the female descendants of Mohammed, and this place of pilgrimage for Shi’ite Moslems is visited every year by tens of thousands seeking healing and forgiveness. Qum also is the main center of theological training in Iran. Some 10,000 men are there preparing to become the preachers and teachers of Islam.

Shi’ite Moslems consider non-Moslems to be unclean. The religious people of Qum have been so devoted to their shrine that it has been very difficult for Christian missionaries to do any work in this “holy city.”

Now, however, the city will be overrun by oil men and a new opportunity may be given the Church to preach the Gospel of a Living Saviour in the city of a dead saint.

—W.M.M.

Garden Of Evangelism

A lovely Persian garden, located 10 miles from Teheran at the foot of the snow-capped Alborz Mountains, has been the ideal home for nine years of a summer school of evangelism.

Those who attend for three years and complete the nine-months course receive a diploma. Seventeen have graduated, but scores of others, unable to remain for the full course, have returned to their homes throughout Iran to serve Christ with greater devotion.

Five young men formed the latest graduating class. Two were Armenians, one was an Assyrian and two were sons of Moslem converts.

Christian workers assert:

“These little springs of spiritual life will be more important for the Kingdom of God than the great oil wells of Iran.”

Discovery Revealed

The discovery of what appears to be the first unopened royal tomb of the Hyksos period ever unearthed has been reported by Hebrew University archaeologists working in the area of the biblical town of Tel Hazor in northern Galilee.

The Hyksos, or “shepherd kings,” were the earliest invaders of Egypt, conquering it without a blow about 1685 B.C., according to Josephus, who also identified them as Israelites.

Hyksos and their people held sway over Egypt throughout the 15th–17th dynasties, approximately 511 years, until driven out by a rebellion. Some 240,000 of these desert people then migrated back to Judea, where they built Jerusalem.

Findings at the tomb have not been announced.

Digest …

► Site of Old Testament city of Gibeon found and water system excavated by seven American archaeologists.

Asia + Africa + Australasia

Buddhism Turns Worldly

After several months in office, the Ceylon government of Prime Minister Solomon W. R. D. Bandaranaike has calmed down from its extreme racialism.

The government, elected on a slogan of “Sinhalese Only,” set free a burst of Sinhalese nationalism which erupted into violence when the bill was debated and passed by Parliament.

“Sinhalese Only” was widely understood to mean that Sinhalese would be the official language, while Tamil and English would be relegated to a position of spoken vernaculars only. Friend and foe suspected the sincerity of Bandaranaike on the language problem, since he is one of the nation’s leading orators in English. The government recently has given discreet hints of fairer treatment for Tamil and English.

Bandaranaike came to power largely because he was supported by Buddhist priests, ayurvedic (native) physicians and village school teachers who knew only Sinhalese. The aim of the more active priests apparently is to turn Ceylon into a Buddhist state, in which government money will be used to promote Buddhist enterprises, with little or no money for Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Buddhists however, strongly disapprove of any control by the government.

Ceylon’s burning question is this—can the present government keep the team of priests, village doctors and teachers moving forward after the carrot of “Sinhalese Only” has been removed? Trouble is anticipated.

Any revision of the status quo is an opportunity for a fresh proclamation of the Gospel. Never before have Christian pastors in Hindu areas of Ceylon had so little opposition to the preaching of the Gospel.

—W.R.H.

Scoffs From Clergy

Protestant clergymen in Hong Kong, who served for years as missionaries in China, scoffed at a statement reportedly made by Anglican Bishop K. H. Ting of Chekiang that he did “not know of a single Christian leader who was executed by the Chinese Communist government.”

Dr. Eugene L. Smith, vice president for foreign missions of the National Council of Churches, said recently in Washington that Bishop Ting made the statement to him at a meeting of the World Council of Churches’ central committee in Hungary last August.

Missionaries in Hong Kong said a number of Christian leaders were put to death in China as “counter-revolutionaries.” They charged this designation was employed by the Communists to “cover up” the fact that the Christians were executed for their religious activity.

A spokesman said “the Reds are putting on a smile campaign for the western world.”

“Some people are falling for it,” he said. “Meanwhile, Christianity is dying in China and being replaced by a new, political ‘thought-religion.’ ”

Slogan For Olympics

“You can’t win without Christ” will be the slogan for the Open Air Campaigners of Australia in their big evangelistic drive during the Olympic Games November 22 through December 8.

Said Chairman Harry McKeon:

“Melbourne will be flooded with visitors from the four corners of the earth—people from behind the Iron Curtain, people from behind the Bamboo Curtain—needy souls from lands where Gospel preaching is forbidden. These people, for several weeks, will be open to the message of salvation.”

Melbourne will be zoned and each day 12 Gospel vans will be taken by teams to various areas.

Several American organizations, including Gideons International, have provided great quantities of Bibles, Scripture portions and tracts for the campaign.

Digest …

► A shipload of Australian Methodists—360 of them—leave Sydney next June for an inspection tour of the church’s missions in the Pacific. Methodists working in the Fiji, Samoa and Tonga areas more than 100 years. Early missionaries ran risk of ending in the cooking pot.

► More than 1,300 Rhodesian Africans, members of religious group living in slum area at Port Elizabeth, ordered out of South Africa. Presence said “illegal.”

► Evangelical Fellowship of Ceylon, formed by laymen with support of women, takes Gospel to more than 400,000 with sound truck. Thousands of Scriptures distributed. Bible School for training of native evangelists recently started.

Britain And The Continent

New Drive By Old Church

The Synod of Waldensian Church, reported to be the oldest Protestant denomination in the world, has announced its interest in evangelization and cooperation.

A resolution was adopted in favor of periodical meetings with the Methodist Church in Italy to examine the work of evangelization and closer cooperation.

The Waldensian Church originated from the twelfth century revival movement led by Peter Valdo, a merchant in Lyons, France. It spread across southern France, Switzerland and the northwest of Italy.

Today the Waldensian Church is the strongest Protestant denomination in Italy, with about 30,000 members, 95 churches and 60 ministers. The church has a number of hospitals, children’s homes, old people’s homes and a theological school in Rome. Missions have been set up in the Argentine, United States and Switzerland.

Discussions have been taking place for some time concerning a possible union of the Waldensian and Methodist churches in Italy.

‘Let Us Stick To It’

The Church of England’s ban against the remarriage of divorced persons has been upheld by Dr. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury.

He told the Convocation of Canterbury it had been the practice of the Church for 20 years not to remarry divorced persons in churches.

“If we all agree that for practical purposes that is the only policy the Church can follow, then let us stick to it,” the Anglican Primate said.

A plea that parish priests be given more discretion in the handling of problems arising from remarriage after divorce was made by Dr. John L. Wilson, Bishop of Birmingham.

National Effort

A united evangelistic campaign for England in 1960 has been approved by the Free Church Federal Council.

The Rev. F. P. Copland Simmons, ex-moderator, said the original plan was to confine the campaign to the north of England, but that it had been expanded to embrace the entire country.

He said the effort would be reminiscent of the Simultaneous Mission organized by the Council in 1901.

Also discussed by the Council at a recent meeting was the creation of a United Free Church of England. “If we do not unite now,” said the Rev. Tom Bevan of the Seaham Methodist Circuit, “the day is not too far distant when the Free Churches will lose their sense of mission and drift into the Church of England.”

Reaction of the Free Church press was not enthusiastic. The Methodist Recorder said, “If the Free Churches have no more vitality than to drift into the Anglican Church through mere flabbiness, or to save the miserable remnants of their quaking souls, they would not be worth having as a gift.”

‘Verge Of Treachery’

Dr. Eivind Berggrav, retired Bishop of Oslo and former Primate of the State Lutheran Church in Norway, has called for a halt to the growing contacts between western churches and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Bishop Berggrav charged that the Russian Church “subordinates itself to a godless State.” He contended that western churchmen who participate in official visits to the Russian Church and join in its worship services “place themselves on the verge of treachery to Christian justice and faith.”

Words With Power …

► “The freedom of man is under attack today by three forces—communism, socialism and materialism—and any one can enslave human reason. To many, freedom means largely self-indulgence.”—The Most Rev. Philip M. Hannan, auxiliary Bishop of Washington, D. C.

► “Communists exceed us by their zeal and strong convictions. Today’s Christian has light but no heat. The materialist has heat but no light.”—Dr. Joseph L. Hromadka, Czech Protestant theologian.

► “Science is one agent that in the last three centuries has been showing that virgin birth is possible.”—Dr. Edward McGrady, former chief of the biological division of the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and now president of the University of the South at Sewanee, Tenn.

Church Climate Changes

Writing in his diocesan leaflet recently, Dr. William Greer, 54-year-old Bishop of Manchester, said:

“I am sometimes asked whether I see any signs of what is called a spiritual revival in England. I am sorry to say I do not; not after the manner in which the multitudes were turned from unbelief to faith in the days of John Wesley … What I do see is a slow but unmistakable return to the Church, or perhaps it would be better to say an increase in real church membership, since not a few of those I have in mind have never openly professed the Christian faith before.

“During the last few years, adult confirmations have substantially increased, and in most parishes congregations are noticeably larger.”

The change in the climate of British church life has been dated by most observers from the Billy Graham Greater London Crusade of 1954.

A new evangelistic spirit has been seen in all the churches. The Church of England recently set up a Commission on Evangelism, with the official backing of the Church Assembly.

Digest …

► Church of England and Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) representatives “made progress” in series of talks at Edinburgh on church unity. Fellowship discussions between two Churches instituted in 1932, suspended two years later and resumed in 1950.

► Two of four Protestant leaders, sentenced to life imprisonment by Bulgarian Communist Court in 1949, pardoned. Identified as the Rev. Vasil Ziapkov and the Rev. Nikola Mihailov.

► Church building in Soviet Zone of Germany at virtual standstill for lack of funds, reports Dr. Oskar Soehngen, vice president of Evangelical Union Church.

► Five-week advertising campaign to increase church attendance launched in Stockholm with large ads in all daily newspapers.

► Mothers in Polish village near Cracow boycott local school … no religious instruction.

► Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin, head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, invited to visit Communist China. Invitation extended by members of Chinese delegation at congress of East German Christian Democratic Union.

► Dr. John A. Mackay of Princeton, N. J., president of World Presbyterian Alliance, warns that “resurgent confessionalism” may develop in such a way as to “wreck” the ecumenical movement.

North And South America

Biggest News Story

The biggest religious news story today is that “prayer is at work in our nation,” United States District Judge Luther W. Youngdahl of Washington, D. C. asserted recently.

He said “hard-headed business men” and “political politicians” are making religion work in their every-day lives.

“Prayer is at work in the home, at the workbench, in the office, in the factory, and in our nation’s capital thousands are starting each day in the office with prayer.”

Many business and governmental leaders have come to see, he said, “that the real world crisis has a lot to do with human relations, and when you get to human relations you are on the thresh-hold of religion.

“Only a dedicated spirit to prayer and religious conviction in the lives of individual people will save this country and the world.”

Freedom Differences

Christianity faces an increasing threat from foreign “isms,” along with “creeping, insidious materialism,” Dr. Theodore F. Adams of Richmond, Va., president of the Baptist World Alliance, said in an address to 2,000 at the Festival of Faith, sponsored by the Greater Miami Council of Churches.

“If we win in the war of ideas, it will be by love, sacrifice and devotion to Christian principles,” he said.

Dr. Adams pointed out the difference between freedom of religion and freedom of worship. In Russia, he said, the public can worship in a limited number of churches, but had no freedom of religion.

“We live in a mixed-up world,” he said, “but Christ is the answer to all problems.”

$25,000,000 Budget

The 2,700,000-member United Lutheran Church in America is considering adoption of a record $25,000,000 budget, with recommendations to double its benevolent giving in 1958.

Delegates to the recent convention in Harrisburg, Pa., were asked to extend the continent-wide evangelism effort of the Church’s 4,400 congregations for the next two years with an additional budgetary cost of $135,000.

Opinion From Dulles

Clergymen should have more time to inform themselves on world problems, according to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.

In an address to the 13th Biennial Congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, he said:

“Moral principles are simple and can be easily stated, but applying these principles is immensely difficult. Those who guide us spiritually do not have the time to study these other (political) problems to determine the applicability of these principles to a given situation. It is easy to reach wrong judgments.”

Rodeo And Religion

The air was super-charged with respect for Roy Rogers and his wife, Dale Evans, at the state fair in Des Moines, Iowa, this year.

Never were so many thousands of people more silent and attentive as the popular parents encouraged families “to worship together, pray together, play together, and then stay together.”

Many children followed their sincere plea to attend Sunday School.

Digest …

► Radio stations in many parts of nation cancelling programs sponsored by evangelical groups. Dr. James DeForest Murch, president of National Religious Broadcasters, said action result of National Council of Churches’ statement opposing sale of air time. National Association of Evangelicals and NRB adopt resolution saying National Council “does not speak for all Christians of America.”

► Opening of mission field in Ethiopia approved by American Lutheran Church … General Commission of Chaplains to expand work among young adults in service.

► Protestant churches in America facing critical shortage of 25,000 ministers … Meditation and prayer room at United Nations headquarters being enlarged and beautified.

► Budget of $8,125,074 for 1957 adopted by Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board … Churches in America and Canada burning at rate of more than 12 a day. Large percentage of fires accidental … Twenty-five ministers from Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., conduct October preaching mission in Alaska …

► Jalopy raids, parties and simple witnessing paying off with thousands of decisions from Colorado to Pennsylvania. Called “Youth Missions to Youth.”

► Dr. Henry F. Schuh, president of American Lutheran Church, calls upon members to stop shunning political office. “There are those Christians who fail to think of themselves as salt. They prefer to be saints and withdraw from the problems of the world and operation of government … Salt only serves its purpose when its characteristics are used.”

► “Wonderful results” reported in Louisville Crusade of Billy Graham. Overflow attendances nightly, with thousands of decisions.

► Organ, used in Republican National Convention, donated to Mrs. Eisenhower. She, in turn, presented to Fitzsimons General Hospital, where President was treated after heart attack … New York Board of Education adopts statement providing for teaching of moral and spiritual ideals in New York City public schools … Judges and lawyers join in special service to pray for God’s blessings on New York’s courts of justice.

► Week-long Bible reading marathon conducted in Euclid Church at Cleveland, Ohio, for dedication of new $220,000 building. “They now see it as a complete book rather than a few favored passages,” said the Rev. Fred K. Bernlohr.

► Navigators sending largest missionary group overseas this fall and early spring, reports director Lorne Sanny … British and Foreign Bible Society distribute 361,355 volumes of Scripture in 74 languages in Canada during year.

Bible Text of the Month: Matthew 16:16

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16).

The majority of ministers face two problems in preparing sermons. The first is lack of time, because of the many demands made upon the average minister. The second is the scarcity of books for research. In this space each month CHRISTIANITY TODAY will provide the results of textual research to assist and to stimulate the busy minister in his preparation.

This is a simple but satisfactory Confession of Faith. We should always be ready to give an answer to those who would know what we believe on a matter so central as the person and nature of our Lord. A mistake on this point would involve all our religion in failure. If He is not to us the Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, and “the Son of the living God,” we know not Jesus aright.—C. H. SPURGEON.

We feel the force of it better in this and many passages of the Gospels, by using the Hebrew word Messiah. “Thou” is expressed in the Greek, and therefore emphatic.… The earliest disciples of Jesus, including Simon Peter, at once concluded that He was the Messiah (John 1:41, 49). But He proceeded to act so differently from what they had been reared to expect of the Messiah, that they would naturally become uncertain even as John felt in his prison. Again and again, however, some work or word would persuade them afresh.… We understand the importance of this confession when we hear a Jew of the present time announce his new-found conviction that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.—JOHN J. BROADUS.

As was to be expected from his impetuous character, and personal superiority, as well as from the future standing already assigned him in John 1:42, Peter assumes the part of a spokesman, and in a decided and solemn manner declares Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Both elements combined, the work and the person constituted then, as they always do, the sum of the Christian confession. Compare Matthew 26:63; John 11:27, 20:31; Philippians 2:11; 1 John 2:22 ff.—H. A. W. MEYER.

The Meaning Of “Christ”

The name Christ in Greek, Messiah in Hebrew, bearing as it does, the participial or adjective sense of anointed, was capable of being applied, and actually was applied, in the earlier parts of Scripture, to a variety of persons. Because the high priest was emphatically the anointed one at the first institution of the tabernacle worship, he is therefore called “the priest, the Christ” (Heb. hamschiach, Lev. 4:3). After the institution of the kingly office, and the setting apart of him who bore it by an act of consecration with oil, he became, in a peculiar sense, the Lord’s anointed, or the Christ of the Lord, as Saul is once and again designated by David (1 Sam. 12:3, 5). Hannah, however, at the close of her song of praise, has already given the word a loftier direction—not without respect, it may be, to the more immediate bearers of the royal dignity, but still more especially pointing to one who should gather into his person the highest powers and prerogatives associated with the chosen people, and give them a world-wide development; for she speaks of the Lord “exalting the horn of his Messiah” (anointed), so as, at the same time, to “judge the ends of the earth.” In Psalm 2, the Lord’s Christ is He who is God’s Son by way of eminence, and who receives the heritage of earth to its utmost bounds as His sure possession. In Daniel 9:25, 26, we find the term applies to the expected deliverer, without the article or any accompanying epithet, precisely as a proper name.—IMPERIAL BIBLE DICTIONARY.

The importance of this first express acknowledgement of Jesus as the Christ or the Messiah, even by His own chosen followers, arises from the fact that all his public actions hitherto implied a claim to that exalted character, and that in consequence the truth of this claim was essential to the proof, not only of His public mission but of His personal veracity. The claim itself had reference to the clear prediction of a Great Deliverer in the ancient prophecies, expressly called Messiah, or Anointed, both by David (Ps. 2:2) and by Daniel (9:25), and by implication so described in all the Scriptures which exhibit Him as filling the great theocratical offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, in which the previous incumbents only held His place till He should come, and to which they were set apart by unction, the appointed symbol of those spiritual gifts which fitted men for these high functions, and which He was to possess without measure. All this Jesus claimed, and all this Peter acknowledged Him to be, not only as a private individual when the truth was first suggested to him by his brother Andrew, but now as it were ex officio, in the name of all the twelve, and in response to an authoritative question from the Lord Himself.—J. A. ALEXANDER.

“Thou art the Christ,” the very person promised from the foundation of the world. Thou art “the Seed of the woman, in whom all nations are to be blessed”; the Shiloh that was to come, before that the sceptre should finally depart from Judah; “the Son of David, that shall reign over his kingdom for ever and ever.” Thou art He “of whom Moses and the prophets have written” so much, and in whom all that they have written shall be accomplished.—CHARLES SIMEON.

Christ was anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows; i.e., above those who possessed with Him a fellowship or similarity of office, as types of Himself. Aaron was anointed High Priest; Saul was anointed King; Elisha was anointed Prophet; Melchisedec, King and Priest; Moses, Priest and Prophet; David, King and Prophet; yet none was ever anointed to the union and comprehension of all these offices together, but the Christ of God.—HORAE SOLITARIAE.

The Son Of The Living God

Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God and that means He is a person of the same substance and nature with God. As man begets his like, so God begets His like, and He is His only begotten Son.—THOMAS GOODWIN.

The term “Son of God” was understood by the Jews as of so high an import, that when Jesus claimed that title, he was considered as affecting an equality with Jehovah, and actually “making himself God.” In this sense Peter acknowledged him to be, not a mere man, but infinitely above all created beings, “Emmanuel, God with us,” even “God over all, blessed for evermore.”—CHARLES SIMEON.

Peter calls Christ, who was the Son of man, the “Son of the living God”; not in that or on that account whereon he is the Son of man, but because he is peculiarly, in respect of another nature than that wherein he is the Son of man, the Son of the living God. And if Peter had intended no more in this assertion but only that he was one among the many sons of God, how doth he answer that question, “But whom say ye that I am?” being exceptive to what others said, who yet affirmed that he was a prophet, one come out from God, and favored of Him. It is evident that it is something much more noble and divine that is here affirmed by Him, in this solemn confession of him on whom the church is built.—JOHN OWEN.

In this confession, the conglomeration, or gathering together so many articles in the Greek set afore every word, is as so many stars that call us to behold this eminency of His sonship and generation. This emphasis on every word in that small sentence, “Thou art that Christ; that Son of that God, that living God”; the like indigitation is never used but for some special intent, according to the nature of the matter spoken of. It is observed by some that the article o huios, the Son, is given to none but to this Son; lo, here it is also put to every word besides, when His sonship is solemnly proclaimed.—THOMAS GOODWIN.

God is said to be the living God, in contradistinction from idol deities, and as the author of life and its blessings. See John 6:69; Acts 8:37; 9:20; 1 John 4:15; 5:5 … Peter’s confession was full, clear, and explicit, bringing out the two-fold nature of Christ as born of man, and yet the Son of God, as both human and divine—a view so much in advance of the Jewish conception of the Messiah that our Lord declares it to have been communicated to him by a revelation from heaven.—JOHN J. OWEN.

Practical Application

Beg of Christ that He would anoint Himself king in our hearts, and prophet and priest in our hearts, to do what He did, to know His will as a prophet, to rule in us as a king, and to stir up prayers in us as a priest.—RICHARD SIBBES.

Jesus our hope, is Jehovah’s Messiah. He became Jesus, assuming human flesh, for the sake of His people; and as Jesus, or the Saviour, was anointed or became Christ, to complete their salvation. What wonderful love is implied under this term to poor sinners! He was, and is and ever will be the anointed one for their sakes. With what joy and celerity did Andrew run to meet his brother Peter, and with what a beautiful abruptness did he tell him: We have found the Messiah! The message was too welcome to be locked up; and doubtless Andrew, like most other young converts, would have been glad to communicate what he knew, and impart what he felt, to all the world.—HORAE SOLITARIAE.

Hence learn we to renounce all kings, priests, and prophets, in comparison of Christ; He is a priest to redeem, and a prophet to teach and reveal the mysteries of God, and He is the king to execute all God’s decrees.—THOMAS GOODWIN.

With Peter let us confess that Jesus is our Prophet, Priest, and King. Let us acknowledge Him: “Thou art my Prophet, my infallible teacher; Thou art my Priest, who has made atonement for me; Thou art my King, to whom I will render obedience.” It is such a confession that constitutes a Christian.

When the Apostles went about proclaiming this confession, what happened? Christians were placed in prison; some were burned at the stake; some were thrown to lions; and some were crucified. The forces of Satan in all their hellish power sought to destroy the young Church. But the Church prevailed because she proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Prophet, Priest, and King of God. During the dark ages the Church began to revise Peter’s confession, in effect. Man was cast in the role of mediator between God and man; and man’s loyalty was to man. The Reformation rediscovered the confession of Peter and proclaimed it with triumph in spite of persecution. The Church today needs to rediscover the centrality of this great confession. Such a refocusing may well kindle the revival fire so long awaited.

Those who would make this confession sincerely must receive supernatural assistance. Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.” No man has eyes to see this truth, till the veil is removed from his heart, and his understanding is enlightened by the Spirit of God. The Apostle John declared in his first Epistle, “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit.”

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