Bible Book of the Month: The Prophecy of Daniel

That the prophecy of Daniel in many respects is difficult to understand goes without saying. For this reason many preachers do not often use the book in their preaching, and the ordinary Bible reader often throws up his hands in despair as he contemplates it. On the one hand, some advance fanciful interpretions which have obscured the central message of Daniel. And on the other, those scholars who deny the historicity of the book also impose upon it an impossible interpretation and consequently do much to keep it from enjoying the understanding and popularity which it deserves.

Authorship Of The Book

It is necessary to say a word about the question of the book’s authorship. In the early third century there lived a man by the name of Porphyry who was an avowed opponent of Christianity. It was his intention to do all in his power to destroy the Christian religion. He wrote some fifteen books, which bore the general designation “Against the Christians.” Of these, only the twelfth is extant, and that only as it has been preserved in part in the commentary of Jerome on Daniel. According to this early opponent of Christianity, the book of Daniel could not have been written by Daniel because he would not have been able to foretell the future. It was, therefore, written by an unknown Jew who lived in the second century B.C. and who used Daniel’s name. According to Porphyry, this unknown Jew lied. In placing the authorship of the book in the second century B.C., many scholars have followed the unbelieving Porphyry, and it is no exagggeration to assert that this position has become dominant in modern scholarship. It is a position that renders impossible a satisfactory interpretation of the book. One need but examine a modern commentary to discover how untenable are interpretations based on the view that the book of Daniel is a product of the second century B.C.

The traditional Christian view is that the book is the work of Daniel the prophet and was written in the sixth century B.C. This is explicitly taught by the Lord Himself, who spoke of “Daniel the prophet” (cf. Matt. 24:15).

For the Christian believer this infallible utterance of Jesus Christ is sufficient. It is bolstered by the fact that the book of Daniel is a literary unit, so that if one part was written by Daniel, the book in its entirety was also written by him. Furthermore, the arguments against the Danielic authorship are not cogent. They have been answered many times, and there is no need in mentioning them here. If we approach the book as a trustworthy prophecy, we are more likely to look with seriousness upon its message.

Foundation Of Daniel’S Message

The reader will find it helpful to observe the following scheme. In Daniel (both in chapter 2 and chapter 7) there is mention of four world kingdoms, set forth in symbolic fashion. In chapter 2 they appear as parts of a great colossus, whereas in the seventh chapter they are given under the symbolism of four beasts which arise from the sea. The interpretations of these beasts have truly been many, but they may be reduced to the following three basic schemes, here labeled A, B, C.

A word concerning each of these schemes will be in order.

A. This is the position of those who deny that Daniel was the author of the prophecy and who date the prophecy in the second century B. C. In positing a Median kingdom as the second in the series, they assert that the author of Daniel made a gross historical blunder. As a matter of historical fact, it was the combined Medo-Persian kingdom which followed Babylon. The author of Daniel, so the charge runs, did not know this but rather assumed that there was first a Median and then a Median Persian kingdom. The blunder, however, was not on the part of the author of Daniel, for a careful study of the book reveals

that he never envisioned a separate Median kingdom following Babylon nor a separate Persian kingdom following Media. The “critical” view simply will not stand the test of close investigation. The reader may judge a commentary by the identification that it makes of the second kingdom.

B. This view is held by many good Christian scholars, although there are not many commentaries which expound it. It is found in Zockler’s commentary (in the Lange series), also in the old work of Moses Stuart and in the modern Roman Catholic commentary of Cuthbert Lattey, S.J. There are strong objections to it, and, in the writer’s opinion, it will not stand the test of close scrutiny of the text of Daniel.

C. This view may be called the traditional position, which is held and has been held in the church. It is distinctive in that it identifies the fourth kingdom as that of Rome. The fifth or Messianic kingdom was established while the Roman kingdom was in existence (in keeping with the prophecy of Daniel 2:44). This latter interpretation has the most in its favor and is clearly supported by the New Testament. If the reader will keep these three schemes in mind, he will find they aid his understanding of Daniel.

Minor Messages Of The Book

While the central thrust of the prophecy is to show that human empires rise and fall, that it is God who sets up kings and deposes them at his will, and that only the kingdom of Christ can be truly eternal and universal, the prophecy also contains several other messages of great importance. The preacher will find that the character of Daniel himself is an admirable subject for discussion in the pulpit. Although Daniel acknowledged his sinfulness (cf. 9:5), not one sin of his is recorded. Daniel was a statesman who was more concerned to do what was right than to follow a policy of expediency. He lived close to God, constantly having recourse unto him in prayer. He was a man of principle, yet ever maintaining a courteous attitude. There is no greater need either of country or of church than for men like Daniel, who are more eager to do what is right than to win the favor of men, more eager to stand up for truth than to be concerned over results.

The book of Daniel is also a rich treasure house of prayers. Indeed, these would furnish interesting material for a series of sermons or Bible studies. They are filled with adoration of the sovereign God whom Daniel worshipped. And they are filled with expressions of rich thought. We may note just a few of these: “May the name of God be blessed for ever and ever,” “Wisdom and power are his,” “He removes kings and sets up kings,” “He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him,” “Oh! Lord, hear, oh! Lord, forgive, Oh! Lord, attend and do, delay not for thy sake, Oh! my God, for the name is called upon by thy city and thy people.”

Outline Of The Book

The following will serve as a brief analysis of Daniel.

1:1–2:4a Introduction. The triumph of God’s grace in Babylon, and the training of the Hebrew youths.

2:4b–49 The dream of Nebuchadnezzar in which he sees the colossus, and Daniel’s interpretation of that dream.

3:1–5:30 The image erected by Nebuchadnezzar and the majestic appearance of the Son of God in the furnance. The madness of Nebuchadnezzar. Belshazzar’s banquet and his death.

6:1–28 Darius the Mede and the episode of the den of lions.

7:1–28 Daniel’s vision of the four beasts and the interpretation of the vision.

8:1–27 A vision of the ram and the he goat, having to do with the second and third kingdoms.

9:1–27 Daniel’s remarkable prayer and the Messianic prophecy of the seventy sevens. 10:1–12:13 A revelation of the future dealing with the exploits of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Antichrist. Conclusion of the prophecy.

Aids In Study Of Daniel

Much exposition of this prophecy is of almost no value inasmuch as it makes little or no serious effort to come to grips with the difficult problems involved in the study of the book. The best presentation of the “critical” position is found in H. H. Rowley Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel (1935). The older commentary of Moses Stuart gives a good explanation of the Aramaic words and is recommended for the minister who desires help in reading the Aramaic portions found in 2:4b–7:28. The lectures of Edward Pusey, Daniel the Prophet (1891), are superb. The same may be said of the technical studies of Robert Dick Wilson, Studies in the Book of Daniel (Vol. I, 1917, Vol. II, 1938). The comments of Hengstenberg in his Christology of the Old Testament (4 vols.) (1955 reissue) are most helpful. The commentaries of Keil and Leupold are valuable and present an interpretation of the fulfillment of the seventy sevens (Daniel 9:24–27) which is not distinctively Messianic but which takes place largely in the history of the church. The best modern defense of a premillennial position is that of Robert D. Culver, Daniel and the Latter Days (1954), which makes a serious attempt to grapple with some of the problems of interpretations. In The Prophecy of Daniel (1949), the present writer endeavored to defend the historical character of the prophecy and also to present and defend the traditional Messianic interpretation.

Edward J. Young.

Ideas

Human Rights in an Age of Tyranny

The modern era has seen the collapse of the Protestant liberal inflation of man into a divinity; now it strives against the naturalistic deflation of man into a slave of the state.

Firming up the case for human rights and responsibilities at the local level has become an imperative necessity for the vagabond West. The logic and urgency of the issues of man’s dignity and duty do not grip the man in the street.

The generation of tyranny has driven many Christian churches in the free world to a fuller accent on human worth and liberty. Christianity has long stood guard against both the romantic and the pessimistic misjudgments of man. Neither a deity nor an animal, man is a creature fashioned in the divine image, fallen into sin, bearing a unique dignity and traveling to an uncommon destiny. What is the meaning of this truth for a time of tyranny?

The theme of human freedom throbbed blood-fresh in the veins of America’s Founding Fathers. Alongside the titanic brutalities of our time, the tyranny they deplored as insufferable was perhaps only the shadow of sorrow. Nevertheless, they appealed to the one eternal Preserver of man’s responsible existence, the almighty Guardian of the dignity of man and Definer of the powers of the state. In the words of the Declaration of Independence: “All men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.…”

The Christian conformity of some signers of the Declaration of Independence is definitely debatable. There is little doubt, however, that the great majority were evangelical believers theologically at home in the doctrines of the Bible. True, they disapproved religious sectarian intolerance no less than political intolerance. Devout men, like Roger Williams, an evangelical Baptist, had espoused the cause of separation of church and state, or of religious liberty, as an essential aspect of human liberty. They were determined to spare Americans all the tortures of tyranny.

The Founding Fathers were careful, however, to separate neither the individual nor the state from an obligation to God. Nor did they leave the concept of God nebulous and undefined and wholly subject to private interpretation—contrary to a tendency thriving in American life today. Not the slightest hint can be found that by God they meant anything other than a personal supernatural being, the Creator (a distinctly theistic and biblical conception) through whose specific endowment the human race has been peculiarly endowed with inalienable dignity and with inalienable rights. Even the right of religious freedom had in their outlook a religious basis. Man’s unique place in society and in the universe was guaranteed by rights supernaturally supplied and sanctioned by a sovereign Creator imposing duties which both the rulers and the ruled must everywhere respect.

Confronted by the tyrannical totalitarianism that continues to deform our world, the General Assembly of the United Nations eight years ago overwhelmingly approved the so-called Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The world still outside the spreading Soviet sphere is appropriately constrained and compelled to study anew the important issue of human liberty, lest man’s freedom, taken for granted, and no longer cherished nor understood, be disassembled and dissolved.

The reasons are close at hand, therefore, why the U.S. National Commission for Unesco, commemorating and promoting the national and local observance of Human Rights Day annually on December 10, is disappointed and even somewhat baffled because its enthusiasm has not filtered down to the community level. Even in the District of Columbia only fragmentary participation greeted the occasion.

To overcome this national lethargy to the observance of U.N. Human Rights Day, some leaders of the U.S. National Commission for Unesco (a semi-governmental agency that serves the Department of State in an advisory capacity) have proposed a new organization, whose chairman they hope will be named by the government and functioning as a voluntary private body to solicit funds and provide guidance, a timetable of operations and materials and tools for a grass-roots nationwide observance. Under an alternate plan, the National Commission would itself seek, from the 60 voluntary organizations nominating members to that body, something beyond their present disappointing creation of interest and would secure the time of established organizations to implement the U.N. program on a local basis. By one or other of these mechanisms, it is hoped, the nation, faced by the grave world threats to human dignity and freedom, will be rallied to observance of the U.N. Day of Rights.

The effort to gain a more spontaneous dedication on the American popular level for the theme of human rights has not been limited to the U.N. thrust. The preaching of Christian churches has been increasingly alive and awake to the implications of biblical theology for the socio-political order. Confessedly, the pulpit has lacked the note of uneasy urgency essential to combat the current totalitarian devaluation of man. Why then has there not been a merging of church and civic efforts to firm up the case for human rights on the local level? At the national level, admittedly, the National Council of Churches and the National Catholic Education Association are among the movements represented on the National Commission. Yet the local churches in the hamlets and cities of America tend to show only a spotty enthusiasm for the emphasis on human rights in U.N. dimensions. Why this hesitancy?

Doubtless part of the nonparticipation in the humanrights program results from the indifference of some churches to questions of social morality. They are at home in questions of Christian personal ethics, but not of Christian social ethics, except in the barest personal dimensions. Even where the relevance of Christianity to culture is not excluded, some churches tend to suspect massive movements of any kind, both political and ecclesiastical. Often their reasons are eschatological (the totalitarian world beast of Revelation 13) or anthropological (concentration of power tends to be corruptive), if not both. Those who share this forecast must always square their consciences, of course, with the complaint that whatever a given organization may become, Christian duty today must be judged in terms of what it is.

But this is hardly the whole ground for hesitancy. Many Christian leaders think, and not without reason, that an unhappy ambiguity and obscurity run through the present Unesco handling of human rights. They fear that the American people, and that mankind as a whole, cannot be assured of real progress in the field of human rights until this equivocation is candidly exposed and confronted. Especially is this true of many evangelically minded Protestant ministers, who support an emphasis on human rights that accords with both the historic American spirit and the spirit of the Hebrew-Christian tradition, and who for that reason are less than happy with the U.N. formulation. The vagrant phantoms of totalitarianism and of anarchism, they fear, are not effectually exorcised by the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. For the only adequate reply to the atheistic devaluation of man as they see it—and here they are on the side of the inherited tradition of the West—is an alternative that, in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, is frankly theistic.

The very first article of the U.N. Declaration at once reflects its differences with the Declaration of Independence in clear light. That article declares: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

The U.N. statement incorporates no references to a supernatural Creator, nor does it anywhere assert that God endows mankind with specific rights. It asserts that men are “endowed with reason and conscience,” but it does not specify the source of this endowment; it goes on to specify a list of rights, but it nowhere asserts that it is the Living God who sanctions these rights. Its repeated formula is “Everyone has the right to.…” It is remarkable that the fact sheet distributed on Human Rights Day by the U.S. National Commission for Unesco, while quoting the emphasis of the Declaration of Independence on “unalienable rights,” wholly ignores the Declaration’s associated emphasis that these rights are an endowment by the Creator.

The U.N. Declaration therefore leaves in doubt the crucial fact that human rights have an ultimate basis, that God Himself insists upon these rights, that man has been endowed with these rights in view of his unique dignity by creation. It erases, therefore, the emphasis that the Declaration of Independence vigilantly sustained, that the Living God is the source and sanction of human freedoms.

The consequence of this deletion is far-reaching. For one thing, the promulgation of the U.N. Declaration, in the present conflict of ideas, could leaven the confused popular mind with an inadequate and unprotected view of human rights. Furthermore, by disjoining the question of freedoms from God as their source and sanction, the U.N. Declaration shifts the whole discussion of responsibility one-sidedly to that of human rights, and neglects the equally important subject of human duties.

The observance of Human Rights Day in the Free World ought to confront the totalitarian threat to human liberties head-on. But the U.N. formula fails to do so; in fact, its very neutrality leaves human rights vulnerably exposed and endangered.

Since the U.N. Declaration does not assert that God is the source and sanction of these rights, an impression continues to gain ground that the United Nations is their source and sanction. “The U.N. guarantees these rights!”—this is the formula one overhears time and again. If that really be the case, then the individual is guarded from the tyranny of the totalitarian state only by the totalitarian superstate. For if the U.N. is the source and sanction of human rights, there can be no appeal to a source and sanction higher than the U.N., by reference to which even the positions of the U.N. are to be approved or disapproved. In that event, the conflict between the Soviet orbit and the United Nations reduces to a conflict between superstates; the only issue in the balances is, which of them has the power of the totalitarian determination of human life? Either there is a source and sanction of human rights superior to the United Nations, a supernatural exposition of man and his station in the universe, or the conflict over human rights reduces to an intramural struggle between two totalitarian powers. The framers of the Declaration of Independence saw this issue with clearer vision than our modern statesmen. And until this issue of the ultimate source and sanction of human rights is clearly faced within the U.N., those who see dim outlines of a totalitarian superstate need not be dismissed as suffering from eschatological oddity.

If the Free World is really to stand fast against the threat to human freedoms, it will find the first line of defense, and the only unassailable tower, where the Christian patriots who forged the American Declaration of Independence located it, in the fact that man bears by divine creation a unique dignity, and that the state and citizen alike are bound in a responsible way to the Living God.

Stated in this way, the issue of human liberty will not be discussed independently of the issue of human liability. What the nations of the world need, in this sixth decade in the century of tyranny, is the compelling rediscovery of human duties no less than of human rights. Why a human rights day, in disconnection from a human responsibilities day? The one-sided observance easily gives rise to expectations that are not properly bounded by obligations. If the Christian church is to give effective leadership to a world that has lost its way, it dare not detach the question of human liberties from the knowledge of the Living God who has placed all men and nations under divine command.

END

Exchange Rate Confiscation Penalizes Korean Missions

Only one-half of every dollar given for Christian work in Korea is actually received by missions operating in that country. This is due to an arbitrary and unrealistic exchange rate set up by the Korean Government and in which the U.S. Government has concurred.

The official rate of exchange is 500 Hwan for one U.S. dollar. But on the open market (which the Korean Government calls the black market) the U.S. dollar is worth about 1000 to 1.

By maintaining this unfavorable rate, the Korean Government is penalizing all Christian mission work.

In round figures the American Government is pouring about $700,000,000 into Korea. About one half of this goes to the support of the South Korean army. Twenty divisions strong, the South Korean army is the fourth largest army in the world and is a well trained and well equipped bulwark against further aggression from the Communists in the North. For America to maintain a similar number of her own soldiers in Korea would probably cost her ten times as much.

Tire other half of the funds which America is sending into Korea, about $350,000,000, is largely for the so-called relief program. Wisdom and efficiency often are lacking in the distribution of some of this money. Some dispensers of relief might well avail themselves of the experience of Americans who have been longtime residents of Korea. Why the Government appropriates vast sums without adequate provision for effective distribution down to the levels of use is a moot question. Fifty million dollars worth of fertilizer is being distributed, with the ultimate consumer paying up to $8 a bag for this “relief” commodity.

Of far greater concern to Christians is the fact that missions in Korea today are being penalized about fifty cents on the dollar.

How much money goes into Korea today for Christian work? No one seemed prepared to give an answer. The Roman Catholics are spending a considerable sum. A consensus of many individuals, including mission treasurers and some U.S. military and civilian authorities, places the total at a minimum of three million and a maximum of four and a half million American dollars annually.

What is needed (and it will take strong and effective pressure from the U.S. Government) is an agreement with the Korean Government whereby a special category is set up for the “religious dollar.” Since other categories and special exchange rates have been set up, this would not be an innovation; in fact, up to August 1955 the “religious dollar” was in a special classification. This “religious dollar,” whether Protestant, Catholic or Buddhist, could then exchange at the currently realistic figure of about 1000 to 1.

Would this work a hardship on the Korean Government? Hardly. Since this money eventually goes into the Korean economy and is devoted to the welfare of the people, it would create no hardship, and would add to the effectiveness of the religious work in that land.

How can such a solution be reached? Missionaries, American civilians engaged in governmental activities, and American military personnel contend that the only effective means of bringing about a revision of the presently utterly unfair agreement is by arousing public opinion in America to demand a Congressional investigation of the situation with a view to a just settlement, guaranteeing that U.S. investments in Christian work in Korea shall not be penalized.

By any estimate the money going into Korea for Christian missions is less than one percent (possibly less than one-half of one percent) of all American money now being invested there for military or relief purposes. Such a concession should be accorded all bodies engaged in religious or philanthropic work in Korea and in no way would involve special consideration from the Korean Government in other areas of their work. To insist on such an agreement is not asking too much.

END

Children? Yes—But God Has No Grandchildren

This startling statement may sound facetious but it expresses a truth of the deepest significance.

Despite the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man which is so popular and so widespread the fact remains that only those who are born-again are the spiritual children of God.

God is the Father of all men by creation.

But the Bible plainly teaches that only those who have been born into the household of faith by accepting Christ as Savior stand in the true relationship of sons to our Heavenly Father.

Jesus, speaking to his carping critics, said: “If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, the devil, the lusts … ye will do.”

Yes, it is true: “God has no grandchildren.” Every man must stand by his own faith, or fall through his lack of it. We bring our children to the Lord, dedicate them in baptism and pray for them, and God hears our prayers. But, their salvation depends solely on their own faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

END

The Spirit The Index To Powerless Or Powerful Effort

Jesus is the only way to eternal life. He has so stated, and his Word reaffirms again and again the simple fact that salvation is found in no other way than through faith in Him.

But do not we Christians who believe this often make the tragic mistake of relying on earthly resources of power for the doing of Christian work?

We stress education, and rightly so, when that education is correlated with Christian truth.

We seek to develop personality, and we send out young go-getters who can charm an audience or impress themselves on others in a most attractive way socially.

We organize meetings and campaigns with great stresson men and material resources.

We develop organizations in which all of the work is integrated and developed in a most wonderful way.

These and many other things can be used of God, when offered in humility and complete submission to His service.

But there is One without which no effective Christian work can be done. There is One who alone supplies that power which is absolutely necessary—the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,” and subsequent events show that the same men who were powerless before became the agents through which God could evangelize the world.

We Christians need to search our own hearts and see how much we are depending on human and material means. To recognize the futility of work without the presence and power of the Holy Spirit pricks the bubble of human conceit. To completely subordinate ourselves and our work to the leadership of the Holy Spirit means a humility which God can honor. To wait for the infilling and the leading of the Spirit often demands a Christian discipline entirely foreign to our experience.

Until we are brought face to face with the sobering fact that we of ourselves can do nothing, and, replace our natural confidence in human methods and instruments with an absolute and final faith in the Holy Spirit as the only One who can energize for effective work, until then we labor in vain.

The power of an individual Christian and the power of a church can come from but one source. We either recognize this fact and seek him, or we continue to wonder why we are powerless.

It is high time that we return to the Scriptural teaching that it is “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts.”

Eutychus and His Kin: February 4, 1957

SACRED BRANDS

“The Best in Sacred Westerns!” Do you, dear editor, know what they are? Do you know a good sacred western from a bad sacred western? Ah—you thought it was the sacred east and the secular west! What an egghead! Get with it, man (i.e. become relevant, communicate)! Turn off your Hi-Fi, put down the Journal of Philosophy and drag down to your local Christian Book Store. See what gives. Spin a few platters plugged by the Gospel disk jockey. Hear that lonesome moan? That is real gone gospel croonin’. Gone west. Look at the full color close-up on the album. Lean type, isn’t he? Plays lead parts in the best sacred westerns.

Of course not all these disks are westerns. Here’s a hill-billy type. This one is more sophisticated. A gal with a mean break in her voice. There’s not much real rock-n-roll yet. The Presley influence may still be months away. The Christian market is very conservative, you know.

Did you look over these sacred novelties at the next table? You must have some Bible text pencils. Have you seen these cross pendant ear-rings? This new lip-stick case has a glow-in-the-dark motto on it. Why don’t you take home one of these Bible Bingo games? They’re reduced for clearance.

… Well, you didn’t have to make that scene! Especially about the books. After all, they still stock some. What did you expect—a counter display for a new book on ethics? You might think the manager’s at fault! He learned at a trade convention his business would fail unless one sells people what they want, not what you think they ought to have.

Now calm yourself, and let’s have an editorial soon—“Is the Christian Western Worth Saving?”

EUTYCHUS

CONFESSION OF FAITH

Some local churches may not require belief on the part of members in the virgin birth, bodily resurrection and substitutionary atonement. But in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. a minister has to “receive and adopt the confession of faith of this Church, as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures.” The confession makes a definite statement of our church position on these matters. A minister who has “no truck with any of them” should feel quite out of place in the Presbyterian Church, and his Presbytery should look into this matter.

ARTHUR JAMES YUNKEHS JR.

First Presbyterian Church

Jackson, Minn.

RISING DEMANDS OF ROME

One of the most important articles I have ever read. It should be published very widely.…

CHARLES M. GOOD

Hutchinson, Kans.

The most thorough analysis of the growing menace to religious freedom I have ever read.

WARD S. HUMPHRIES

Pleasant Plains, Il.

I personally think that this “rising tempo” is not to be met with political opposition alone, but with an all-out evangelistic and educational program among the Catholics themselves.…

HERBERT A. HAYES

Beaver Falls, Pa.

NO MAN’S LAND

I do not think the parallel articles (by Allis and Smith on Palestine) are beyond reconciliation … Allis is right until the Jews repent; Smith will be right when the Jews accept the Messiah.…

JAMES MILLER

Bible Presbyterian Church

Lemmon, S. Dak.

… The Covenant made to Abraham does not include the Israel made up out of the seeds, but the seed.…

FLOYD JOHNSTON

Crossville, Tenn.

Although the viewpoints seem contradictory, could they not be synthesized by applying the promises of Palestine’s future glory to Abraham’s spiritual seed (Gal. 3:7), who have the same hope (Heb. 11:20)?… When a new heaven and a new earth are formed … the kingdom of (spiritual) Israel will cover the earth.…

MELVIN E. MATHERS

Cleveland, Ohio

Your meticulously fair presentation of opposing views of the Israel-in-Palestine question suggests the need for … open-minded consideration of a third interpretation … The crux of the

controversy appears … in the … identification of ancient Israel, to whom certain immutable promises were given … with its supposed modern counterpart—namely, the Jews.… It may be readily granted that modern Jewry, in its most substantial racial element, represents a continuation of its Israelitish origin … The continuing House of Judah is indispensable to the Lord in his promised reconstitution … of the nation.… Scriptural and historical clues to the identification of modern Joseph lead conclusively to the Anglo-Saxon nations … The present Israeli state in no way meets the requirements.…

CLYDE CRUSE

Missionary Baptist Church

Springville, Ala.

… I’d like to know why Christians do not seize the name of true Israel and do away with this confusion.

JOHN A. KIRSTEIN

Beulah Presbyterian Church

Fern Creek, Kentucky

Mr. Allis states that the forcing of the Arabs out of Palestine is a grievous wrong. In Genesis 21:10–12, … a similar grievous thing was done by Abraham and since God sanctioned it, Idare not define the grievous thing as a wrong.

THELMA M. THOMPSON

Southern Pines, N. Car.

“Israel’s transgression in Palestine” may have world-wide repercussions … inimical to the message of the New Testament and the mission of the Church to evangelize all nations.

It may precipitate a more universal Armageddon than some Bible teachers insist on reading into the Scripture.

MAX R. GAULKE

Gulf Coast Bible College

Houston, Tex.

… If Israel is worried about overproduction, I would suggest that she give the surplus to the displaced Arabs on her doorstep.…

J. P. SCHISSLER

Innerkip, Ontario, Canada

Is not the burning issue America’s duty in the present crisis rather than predictions of things to come? Whether or not we think Palestine will become the everlasting (!) homeland for Jews, we have no right to help make it so, if that involves us in unethical behavior toward any people now living there!

HAROLD N. ENGLUND

Second Reformed Church

Zeeland, Mich.

When Jesus the Messiah fulfilled all prophecy and the Law, he made it clear that we become his brothers and children of God the Father through our faith. Individual Jews may be sons of God, but as a national group, racial group or adherents of a religion denying Christ, they are not.

When Christians approve or support the establishment of nations like Israel, they not only contribute to the unrest in the world, they encourage the thought that the religion of Judaism is another acceptable and true form of the worship of God.…

Edward O. Lukens, Jr.

St. Stephen’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Wilmington, Del.

FRATERNIZING WITH DEITY

I do not know just where the thing started, with the ministry, probably, but that portion of it that has come from our Bible schools, not our seminaries of good standing, but the speech habit of praying to God as “you,” etc., etc., ad nauseam, … seems to me to be a very false and ill-considered intimacy.

The thing is growing. Our young people are taking it up, it is getting into our songs at our vacation camps. There is nothing I can find in the Bible to justify this.… It is a false use of the imminence of God and a denial of his transcendence.…

EUGENE M. WILSON

Glenrock, Wyo.

• Christianity Today endorses this plea for reverence and dignity in prayer, without detriment to its intimacy. The debate between partisans of “Thee-Thou” and of “You-Your,” however, hardly coincides with a strict division between Bible schools and seminaries; proponents of each may be found in both groups. Nor does the use of “Thee-Thou” assure a proper view of Divine transcendence, any more than “You-Your” requires a false view of immanence. Moreover, either form may be employed with an absence of reverence. The case for “You-Your” rests apparently upon the same argument used for modern Bible versions—that the Divine speech to man, and hence also that of man to God, is most effectively expressed in the language familiar to the contemporary man. What seems always objectionable, however, is careless fluctuation between the “Thee-Thou” and “You-Your” forms. As to the relative merit of the consistent use of one formula or the other, however, we shall be glad to overhear debate between our readers.—ED.

ARMAGEDDON

I was much dismayed to see in your December 10 issue a quotation of a statement supposedly by me regarding Armageddon. As you will see by the inclosed clipping from the Daily News the statement was not mine but the reporter’s … it contains an unwarranted inference … and … is distorted.…

The views which I tried briefly to propound to the reporter ran somewhat as follows. The Book of Revelation is an apocalypse written apparently in a time of persecution of Christians and calling upon them to be faithful in the hope and expectation that Christ and the forces of righteousness would eventually triumph over evil and the enemies of truth. As commonly in such writings the message of the author is conveyed in highly symbolic language. The term “Armageddon” is such a symbol, representing a decisive conflict between two opposing forces. It stands in a context whose symbolism clearly refers to Rome and the Roman Empire. The immediate application of the author’s meaning is then to the Empire as persecutor and enemy and its downfall is predicted. Here he indicates that some things have already happened and others are future. In general, however, he casts the whole account in the form of a prophecy. And wherever the book be dated the symbolism of Armageddon and related terms is for the author and his readers obviously still in the future, representing the victory of righteousness and truth over evil and falsehood. The chief difference of interpretation of the term Armageddon and the event involved is in the degree to which this is taken either to be symbolic or to be representative of something that will be literally fulfilled in the future.…

ALLEN WIKGREN

Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature

University of Chicago

NEW K.J.V. EDITION

I have been reading Paul Jewett’s excellent article … He says that we need a very conservative improvement in layout; the poetry printed as poetry, the prose in paragraphs.… The recent edition of the K.J.V. (1954) put out by our Bible Society … is exactly the thing he wants, and I am rather surprised that it has not been reprinted in the U. S. The poetry is printed in verses and stanzas, the prose in paragraphs. There are cross-headings here and there to indicate change of subject, but no comments.… This Bible has been produced very cheaply, as the B.F.B.S. is an evangelical and non-profit-making foundation.…

C. G. Chilty

(Angelican)

Draycott, Cheddar

Somerset, England

FROM THE GRAVE

Owing to the proximity of his death to the search for Bridey Murphy, someone will very probably claim to be H. L. Mencken reincarnated within the Christian covenant. Mrs. Grabill is right; we need them.

Arie R. Brouwer

Holland, Mich.

Please discontinue sending this magazine which I consider an insult to one’s intelligence.… It is the same shallow, obscure, ignorant Fundamentalism that I am all to [sic] familiar with. I guess one requirement of the fundamentalist is to stop learning at the mental age of three.

Douglas T. Ibach

Presbyterian Church

West Nottingham, Md.

A Nation under God

Christianity in the World Today

President and Mrs. Eisenhower, Vice President and Mrs. Nixon and members of their immediate families were seated in the congregation at National Presbyterian Church.

Seated nearby were Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, a half a dozen other Cabinet members, the governors of more than 12 states and many members of Congress.

And this is the sermon they heard—from the pastor, Dr. Edward L. R. Elson:

“ ‘In the beginning God.’ On these first words of the Bible early America staked down its life.

“This central tenet of our life was explicit in our Declaration of Independence. It is implicit in our instruments of government. It permeates our institutions. And it is manifest in our common days. The virtues of our people and the values of our culture are derived from the premise that this is ‘a nation under God.’

“This basic truth has been mediated to our people through many religious traditions and by many denominations. All espouse in common a faith in a transcendent God in history and beyond history. In some this faith in God has been intimate and personal; in others an attitude of life derived from the social climate and the cultural atmosphere produced by religious faith, principally evangelical Christian faith.

“To be sure, America has as a principle the complete separation of the institutions of the church from the institution of government. In our plural religious structure, this separation has been a source of virility to both Church and State. But while we cling tenaciously to this principle of separation, no doctrine of American life has ever or ever will eliminate or minimize the presence, the power, or the influence of religion in our national affairs. Religion and national destiny are forever intertwined.

“To be ‘under God’ is to acknowledge that this is God’s world—that he is the sovereign Lord and Ruler of all life. He is the God of Creation. Man, created in his image, bears some of God’s characteristics. Man is a person as God is a person; and the only reason for treating human beings with dignity and respect is that they are persons created in God’s image, with immortal souls and an eternal destiny. Thus created by God in God’s own image, man is free under God’s rulership. His freedom is God-bestowed, not an attainment but an obtainment. Man is born free and the chief end of this free man as the catechism long ago said is—’to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ God himself is the Lord of Creation and he will have no other gods before him. Therefore, that nation which deifies itself, or absolutizes some reality in its life cannot be a nation ‘under’ God. Such is idolatry, for that nation usurps God’s place. Americans have always rejected this temptation. Americans believe God is above the nation.

“To be ‘under God’ is also to be under His Providence. There is a destiny for that nation whose ‘God is the Lord’—a destiny shaped and determined by the Almighty himself. Our spiritual forbears convenanted with God, not as a tribal or a racial deity but as the universal God, who while being the God of all people, becomes in a special sense the God of those who accept his purpose for human life.

“Our history has meaning only in these terms. We are a people under God’s Providence.

“To be ‘under God’ is to be guided by him. That nation which seeks to understand and obey his laws; that nation which seeks to discern and do his will—only that nation becomes an effective instrument of God’s purpose on the earth. Above all, over all, guiding all, empowering all is the transcendent God. To the degree we possess his mind and spirit, which is at the center of the universe, and which we Christians believe to be revealed by Jesus Christ, we are and we shall remain a ‘nation under God.’

“This concept of freedom under God cannot survive as a mere intellectual expression. Apart from its Source, it will wither and die. But enriched by prayer, strengthened by worship, maintained by a variety of spiritual disciplines, our great nation can successfully confront all forces which would corrupt its life or destroy its freedom. A dynamic and witnessing faith is not an option for our time; it is an imperative for all ages.

“But deeper than these truths, a nation ‘under God’ is a nation under God’s judgment. God is sovereign Ruler of a moral universe. Man is not the final source of values. Nor is the nation the highest tribunal of judgment. The values by which both men and nations are judged are eternal. They rest with God. Man and his institutions are under God’s final judgment. There is a divine order above all and beyond all, in time and beyond time, where love and justice and righteousness and truth are absolute—the perfect order of God’s Kingdom, where God rules the heart and conscience of all beings. There is a higher court of Judgment above all persons, above all nations, above all cultures, even above all universes—the Court of God’s eternal perfection. A nation ‘under God’ is always under His judgment.

“Here in this Capital City this truth was legislated into our Pledge of Allegiance, is printed on our postage stamps and impressed on our coins.

“Now let us each impress it deep within our own hearts and manifest it in our lives and national conduct. Such testimony, to be sure, will sharpen the irreconcilable differences between the two great poles of power in our world today. But it will also give us the strength to live in these times and play our God-appointed role in history.

“Our dominating concern in Washington on January 20, 1957, is not what we know, not the skills we possess, not the wealth we have accumulated but rather the spirit we convey to the world. To whom are we committed? By whom are we led? These are the commanding questions.

“Freedom under God is not permanently secured, nor safely installed anywhere without personal responsibility and unceasing vigilance. Freedom is always only one generation away from extinction. Freedom must be won, understood, guarded and enriched in each age.

“Not out of fear, or insecurity, or a substitute for solid thinking; not as an escape to an easy and comfortable way do we seek to reclaim our ancient heritage. But rather we worship and pray, we trust and obey, because it is the very life-spring of our national being.

“On days such as this I like to think of our spiritual kinsman, the pioneer American who faced the frontier and the future with three implements in his hand. He carried an axe, a gun and a book. With the axe he felled the trees, built his home, his school, his church. With the gun he provided meat for his table and protection from the predatory forces about him. The Book was the center of religious devotion, the textbook of his education and the inspiration of his institutions.

“Today’s American no longer carries the axe, the gun, the Book. His axe has become America’s gigantic industrial machine, and the world sees that. His gun has become America’s powerful armament, and the world knows it well. His Book, by the power of the Person revealed therein, is pouring forth the light of a new spiritual birth, and the world must clearly see that.

“If we are to lead in this hour America must become a citadel of man’s true freedom and a vast bastion of spiritual power, whose light shines in American lives so brightly at home it will illuminate the dark places of all mankind.

“Rightly do we sing:

“Our Father’s God, to Thee Author of Liberty,

To Thee we sing Long may our land be bright,

With freedom’s holy light;

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God, our King.”

Two hours after leaving the service, the President and Vice President took their oaths of office for the new terms in a private ceremony at the White House. (This ceremony was repeated the following day before thousands of deeply-interested Americans.)

As President Eisenhower took the oath, his hand rested on a Bible that his mother gave him before he graduated from West Point in 1915.

The King James Bible was open to Psalm 33, verse 12, which reads:

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.”

END

Beavan Resigns

Jerry Beavan, public relations director of the Billy Graham team and executive secretary of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has resigned, effective February 1.

The announcement was made in the New York offices of the Billy Graham Crusade.

Beavan, who has been on a two-month rest leave, explained that health was a basic factor in the decision, together with the necessity of curtailing the excessive travel, which has averaged over 100,000 flying miles per year during the past six years.

Dr. Graham, in accepting the resignation with regret, announced that Beavan would serve in a behind-the-scenes advisory capacity to the Graham staff in the direction of the forthcoming New York Crusade. Beavan helped develop the New York organization in the past year.

Dr. Graham also stated, “We have reluctantly accepted the resignation of Mr. Beavan. He has been a key factor in the development of our organization. We will miss him. We remain close personal friends.”

Nae Asks Aid Halt

The National Association of Evangelicals has urged Congress to bar any further economic assistance to Colombia “until such a time as all religious violence is stopped.”

Dr. Clyde W. Taylor, Secretary of Public Affairs of the NAE, directed the request to members of the U. S. Senate and leading members of the House.

The request was accompanied by a memorandum giving several examples of the “hundreds of cases of religious pressures which are brought to bear on the Protestant minority in Colombia.”

Officials of the NAE stressed that they were not requesting the action because of any feeling of bitterness, nor in a spirit of retaliation. Rather, they said, the need for this action stems from the fact that it is entirely inconsistent with the U. S. policy in world affairs to grant economic support to a government which has ceased to protect the freedoms essential to the development of free nations.

Only the weight of Congressional concern, expressed in active measures to withhold economic assistance to a country which allows such conditions to exist, will be effective on stimulating corrective measures by the Colombia government, Taylor said.

Laymen’S Leadership

Lively discussions on the problems of the Christian conscience in business and the challenge of being a witness for Christ in every walk of life highlighted the second Laymen’s Leadership Institute at Louisville, Ky.

More than 300 leading laymen, representing business administration, finance, insurance, law, oil and sales, attended the Institute, held at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The main addresses were on such themes as “The Layman and Prayer in a Program of World Evangelization,” by Maxey Jarman;“Christ, the Only Hope,” by General William K. Harrison; “The Layman and His Faith,” by Howard E. Butt Jr.; “The Bible is My Business,” by Dr. Duke K. McCall; “God’s Priority in Man’s Affairs,” by Richard C. Halverson; “A Journalist’s Inquiry Into a Religious Dilemma,” by Stanley High; “Research, Reason and Revelation,” by Dr. George K. Schweitzer, and “Christ In This Hour of Crisis,” by Dr. Billy Graham.

A personal testimony of daily experiences with Christ was given by Alvin Dark, professional baseball player.

Halverson decried the compartmentalization of life by too many business men. He recalled the words of a banker who said, while praising his pastor, “what my pastor does in the worship hour on Sunday morning has absolutely nothing to do with what I do in my bank.” This banker, Halverson said, is a traitor to Christ and all he represents.

He continued:

“Secularism, that is, godlessness, is a worse enemy than communism. And this godlessness is widely practiced by professing churchmen.”

High warned against an “otherworldliness” that is oblivious to the Church’s involvement in the affairs of here and now.

“Christianity,” he said, “has been least significant when it has been too otherworldly and most significant when it has been most deeply involved in the woes and needs of the people.”

The journalist said that Old Testament prophets, once they had a living encounter with God, spoke with a thundering “Thus saith the Lord” to the sins and idolatries of their age.

He added:

“Let the Church be the Church, in the noble sucession of St. Francis, Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, John Wesley … let it proclaim both the grace and righteousness of God for this wicked generation.”

Dr. Graham spoke about the grace that saves, schools and serves. He called for reality in religion, for total surrender to the will of God and for total self-denial.

W. M.

Graham At Yale

Dr. Billy Graham will be guest preacher at the Annual Yale Christian Mission in New Haven, Conn., February 11–14.

His sermons, scheduled to be delivered on four successive evenings in Yale University’s Woolsey Hall, will be broadcast to local churches. Twelve associate missioners will help the evangelist with student consultations and discussions.

Members of Dr. Graham’s evangelistic team are not scheduled to take part in the series of services.

The invitation to Dr. Graham was extended by the Mission Committee, comprising Yale undergraduates appointed by the Council of the Yale Christian Community, the University Church and the Yale Christian Association.

The annual student mission at Yale dates back to the early years of the century. One of the guest ministers at Yale during the last few years was Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr.

Bills In Congress

The following bills, relating to religious affairs, have been introduced in the 85th Congress:

★ To permit income tax deductions for tuition payments to religious schools, on the same basis as charitable institutions … income tax deductions for tuition payments on children through 12th grade of private schools.… excise tax exemptions for private and parochial schools on same basis as public schools.

★ To make Good Friday a legal holiday.

★ To ban serving of alcoholic beverages on commercial airliners (passed House last year but failed in Senate).

★ To permit American missionaries serving abroad to buy supplies at commissaries and post exchanges maintained by U.S. Armed Forces.

★ To provide heavier penalties for peddlers of indecent literature.

★ To make it a Federal penalty punishable by five years imprisonment to mail obscene literature to unmarried minors.

Numerous bills, introduced by a number of congressmen, relate to civil rights.

Broadcast Probe

An effective national policy and organization at the local level to protect the rights of all paid religious broadcasts were among the top items considered in closed business meetings at the 14th annual convention of National Religious Broadcasters, Inc., in Washington, D. C., January 30–31.

The strong considerations followed reports from many evangelical pastors about being taken off the air because of the announced policy of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches in favor of “free” and “sustaining” time.

“Free” time may mark the end of “freedom” for evangelical broadcasting in America, said the official news-letter of the NRB.

Delegates to the convention were told that the National Council pressure follows this pattern:

★ “Local churches are objecting to the ‘commercialization’ of religion by the sale of time.

★ “There are too many ‘religious hucksters, religious exploiters, faith healers’ and ‘cultists’ on the air. The only way to control this situation is to put Protestant time in the hands of the Council of Churches.

★ “Paid-time broadcasters do not represent ‘the theology or worship practices of the main body of the American people.’

★ “The NCC represents within its membership all the ‘cooperative, substantial’ and ‘trustworthy’ elements in Protestantism. Local representatives should be given priority in the allocation of radio and television time.

★ “The local Council of Churches or ministerial association should be consulted and should have the right to approve all religious programs other than Roman Catholic or Jewish.

★ “Local stations should have a policy in line with that of the Federal Communications Commission, the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters and the National Council of Churches.”

The NRB estimated that hundreds of evangelical programs have been dropped at local levels since the NCC effort began last April, because of the lack of “effective strategy to meet the situation.” It was stated, however, that the radio-television industry “on the national level” has been “eminently fair and generous in its attitude toward ‘paid’ religious broadcasting.”

Moral Leadership

Christian leaders from many parts of the world have been converging on Washington, D.C., in recent days.

The reason: International Christian Leadership Conference, February 6–9, and highlighted by Prayer Breakfast for the President February 7 at the Mayflower Hotel.

Dr. Billy Graham will speak at the annual banquet. Senator Price Daniel of Texas is president of the organization.

Sigurd Anderson, general conference chairman, stated:

“America’s top role in world affairs is indisputable, as is the fact her leadership must be more than political, economic and military. The world today desperately needs the moral and spiritual leadership which our country is in a unique position to give.

“The International Christian Leadership Conference will be a testimony to the world that America takes her spiritual and moral responsibility seriously.”

Warning To Clergy

Church membership, to some, is not as demanding as membership in many civic clubs.

This opinion was expressed to an estimated 300 ministers from 31 states by Dr. G. Ernest Thomas, director of the first National Conference on Spiritual Birth and Growth sponsored by the General Board of Evangelism of the Methodist Church. The conference was held recently at Kentucky Lake State Park.

Dr. Thomas warned the ministers against permitting their churches to become merely clubs. He stressed the need for “spiritual rebirth bringing with it the power of the Holy Spirit.”

Deep In The Heart

The Baptist General Convention of Texas has launched a mammoth stewardship program aimed at increasing annual gifts to churches from $75,000,000 in 1957 to $80,000,000 in 1958.

Dr. C. C. Warren, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is one of 27 speakers touring the state in behalf of the program.

Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention’s effort to establish 30,000 new preaching stations by 1964 has been voted the top news story of 1956 in the Convention.

Baptist editors voted as second most important the record $20,000,000 given in direct support to Convention missionary and agency work.

‘Utopian Dreamers’

Dr. W. A. Criswell, pastor of the 11,800-member First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, lashed out at the “so-called social gospel” in a recent address to the 19th annual Texas Baptist Evangelistic Conference.

He said the social gospel is “destroying Christendom under the guise of social consciousness,” and declared that “its fruits, whether in New York, Japan or India, are a dead church, a dead gospel, a dead denomination, a dead seminary and a dead preacher.”

Dr. Criswell described such preachers as “utopian dreamers and arm-chair philosophers.” He said that liberal churches today, “with their abandoned Sunday evening services, their deserted prayer meetings and their cold intellectual sermons, are occupying themselves with pimples of the skin when the disease of death lies in the blood stream of the heart.”

He added:

“Men with a passion for social righteousness are to be commended. The amelioration of working conditions, the building of better community playgrounds, the organization of groups for the peace and the good of the world—these things and a thousand others like them are acceptable to God and to man. It is not for these things that we arraign the social gospelers. We would support these humanitarian movements with all our hearts and souls. But the modernists have committed evils. They have forsaken the Lord God, ‘the foundation of living waters, and they have hewed them out broken cisterns that can hold no water.’

“They made a God of judgment and wrath a soft, yielding Father, who has so made the world that we inevitably grow better and better. That one should think there is a final reckoning for evil or a hell awaiting the wicked is to insult the sentimental fatherhood of God.

“Salvation, moreover, to the social gospelers, means that what a man requires is not regeneration in the old sense of the terms, but simply an awakening to what he really is.…

“Man has one need above all others, and that is the need for redemption. If he cannot be saved from his sins, no system into which he is placed will work toward peace and perfection.

“Our hope is in the gospel of repentance and faith. We sin individually and we must repent individually. Each one of us must find pardon for himself in the atoning grace of Christ and eternal life through a personal faith in Him. The primary task of the Church today is to preach the gospel of salvation everywhere, to offer redemption from the bondage of sin and eternal life in Christ Jesus now and in the world to come. We can never have a better world until better people live in it. There is more lasting social good accomplished by bringing men to Christ than by all the highspun theories of all the armchair philosophers in the whole world.”

Restudy Of Doctrine

The American Baptist Convention’s missionary program in the Orient, caught increasingly between denominational and ecumencial pressures, has wavered ambiguously for some years.

Lacking a cooperative program, Northern Baptists, who once held the lead in mission work among the Japanese, have now been strongly outpaced by Southern Baptists. At the same time, ecumenical aggression has tended to reduce Northern Baptist strength, whereas Southern Baptists have worked independently of national church agencies.

In an effort to halt this erosion, the ABFMS has named a committee to restudy the Baptist doctrine of the church. Composed of leaders from within the board, the committee, while predominantly conservative in theology, also includes representatives of the liberal view.

The committee’s task is a big one: to exhibit a Baptist doctrine of the church which will encourage cooperation with Southern Baptists and ecumenical forces at the same time, without loss of Northern Baptist strength.

Governor And Bible

Governor Orval Faubus, in his second term inaugural address before the Arkansas General Assembly, cited five passages from the sixth chapter of Galatians, which, he said, have been guideposts of his administration.

The passages are:

“Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

“Let every man prove his own work.”

“Be not deceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

“Let us not he weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.”

“As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.”

And One Hindu

(The following statistics on the religious affiliation of members of the 85th Congress were compiled by Robert Tate Allan’s Washington Religious Report Newsletter. The figures may vary slightly from reports of other religious news sources, because some members of Congress, at their own request, are classified as just “Unlisted” or “Protestant.”)

Senate

Methodist, 18; Baptist, 14; Lutheran, 4; Presbyterian, 13; Congregationalist 8; Disciples of Christ, 2; Evangelical and Reformed, 2; Episcopalian, 12; Quakers, 2; Unitarian, 2; Mormon, 3; Jewish, 2; Unlisted, 1; “Protestant,” 2; Roman Catholic, 11.

House Of Representatives

Methodist, 84; Baptist, 55; Presbyterian, 52; Lutheran, 15; Congregational, 19; Disciples of Christ, 14; Evangelical and Reformed, 4; Mormon, 4; Episcopal, 45; Quakers, 2; Unitarians, 3; Church of Christ, 4; Apostolic Christian, 1; Universalist, 2; Evangelical Free Church, 1; Christian Scientist, 2; Hindu, 1; Jewish, 8; Unlisted, 26; “Protestant”, 18; Roman Catholic, 75.

Edmunds Honored

A Southern Baptist educator has been elected president of the Association of American Colleges for the first time in its 42-year-old history.

He is Dr. J. Ollie Edmunds, president of Stetson University, DeLand, Fla.

Dr. Edmunds succeeds Dr. Arthur G. Coons, president of Occidental College, Los Angeles.

Digest …

► “Fishers of Men” pin President Eisenhower in hour-long visit at the White House.

► Dr. H. L. Turner, president of Christian and Missionary Alliance, on tour of mission fields in Africa. Returns late in March.… Carl L. Cleaver elected president of New York Bible Society. Associated with Reynolds & Co., member of New York Stock Exchange.

► Methodists launch drive for 1,200 new clergymen a year.… Record $23,533,296 contributed by Methodists in 1956 for missionary work.

► Six American Lutheran church bodies announce giving goal of $35,550,000 for 1957 and $120,635,000 for the three-year period ending in 1959.

► Kresge Foundation of Detroit grants $1,500,000 to help build Methodist Church’s new theological seminary.

Britain

Claims Disputed

The Roman Catholic Church is making rapid progress in Britain, reports the Catholic Directory for 1957.

According to published statistics, the Roman Catholic population in England and Wales rose by 122,300 to a total of 3,292,000 during 1956.

In commenting on these figures, the Sunday Express quotes recent words of Eric Treacy, the Roman Catholic Archdeacon of Halifax, York, who forecast that by the end of this century the Anglican Church will no longer be an established church.

These are the quoted words:

“A nation with a predominantly Roman Catholic population will by then have taken steps to have the Constitution of the country changed, so that the cathedrals and ancient parish churches are made over to the Roman Catholics; the King (or Queen) of this country is crowned by a Roman Prelate; and the Anglican Church and its clergy are deprived of the privileges that now belong to them as ministers of the establishment.”

A qualified Protestant observer had this to say:

“These opinions are without solid foundation, nor are the Roman Catholic statistics so impressive as they appear. It is well known that the numerical growth of the Roman Church in the last few years is due in large measure to the influx into Britain of refugees from Central Europe and of employees (e. g., nurses) from Ireland, nearly all of them Catholics. It is also well known (although no statistics are available) that considerable numbers of Roman Catholics are received each year into the Church of England.

“Despite the high-sounding claims of the Roman hierarchy, the Anglican Church shows no signs of decline. Its membership includes over 60 per cent of the population of England, and the number of its communicants increases year by year. The Protestant Free Churches in Britain are also gaining in strength. This is certainly true of the Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians. And the Free Churches continue to exert a powerful influence in the spiritual life of the nation. The Romans are laboring under an illusion if they think they are having everything their own way.”

F. C.

Revising Canon Laws

The Church of England is in the process of overhauling its Canon Laws—last revised in 1603.

It is generally agreed that a certain amount of revision is called for, if the Canons are to retain any sort of spiritual authority. But evangelical churchmen have become increasingly uneasy, lest in the process of revision, the distinctively Reformed character of the Church of England be endangered.

The Church Society, founded in 1950 and representing the more extreme evangelical opinion in the Church of England, has issued a broadsheet in which a direct attack is made on the proposed new Canons. It describes the revision as “an attempt, behind a smokescreen of respectability and legalism, to whittle away the faith once delivered unto us by the Apostles and to reverse the Reformation doctrine which is built upon this faith.”

Among other things, the Society protests that many of the revised Canons would give increased power to the bishops, undermine the authority of the Bible, legalize Mass vestments and the confessional and enforce Confirmation as an essential condition of admittance to Holy Communion.

A strongly-worded answer to these charges has come from the Bishop of Rochester, Dr. C. M. Chavasse, in a letter to the London Times. Describing himself as “the senior Evangelical Bishop in the Church of England,” Dr. Chavasse repudiates the Church Society’s broadsheet as “false and scandalous” and calls it a “scurrilous document” produced by “irresponsible and unknown agitators.”

Fuel has been added to the fire by speeches made at the recent Islington Clerical Conference—an annual rallying point for Anglican evangelicals. An estimated 500 attended. The president of the conference, the Rev. Maurice Wood, vicar of Islington in N. E. London, disassociated himself from the views expressed by the Church Society and forbade the sale of the broadsheet.

“Canon Law revision,” he declared, “is not a plot to drive evangelical clergy out of the Church of England. There is no need to make ourselves into a persecuted minority.”

F. C.

Sunday School Decline

The London Times has surveyed the place of children in church and concluded that the name, Sunday School, is no longer in favor.

It has discovered some attempts to change the name to “children’s church,” “junior church” and “family church.” Attendance at British Sunday Schools is steadily dropping, however, no matter what the name.

Europe

Crisis Deepens

The crisis within the Italian Communist Party (cited in November 26 issue ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY) is deepening.

The confusion that the Hungarian slaughter caused upon the rank and file of Italian Communists became manifest during the recent Eighth Congress of the Italian Communist Party held in Rome. Some outstanding leaders of the party openly accused the Stalinist bosses and asked for a more democratic leadership. Signor Togliatti and his followers, however, succeeded in silencing the opposition and in closing the Congress in absolute conformity to Moscow’s orders.

In the days that followed, the victory became less real. Signor Eugenio Reale, one of the founders of Italian communism and a former ambassador to Warsaw, resigned from the party. His example was followed by six notable personalities in the field of culture. One of these, Professor Vezio Crisafulli, who had been a candidate to the High Constitutional Court, said on behalf of the others, “To come out from the Communist Party had become for us a matter of conscience.”

An untold number declined to renew their membership cards.

The latest blow was given by Signor Nenni, leader of the Socialist Party, who offered his Stalin Prize (over $25,000), received from the hands of Stalin, to the Italian Red Cross in aiding hundreds of Hungarian refugees pouring into Italy.

R.T.

Seminary In Germany

Formation of a theological training center in West Germany for Spanish Protestant ministerial candidates was voted at the annual conference of the Gustav Adolf Work of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland.

The decision to set up the new training facilities was made after the conference heard a report by Dr. Manuel Gutierrez-Marin, president of the Spanish Evangelical Church, on the “distressed situation” of that body.

Praise For Niemoeller

Dr. Martin Niemoeller, president of the Evangelical Church in Hessen and Nassau, was greeted on his 65th birthday by religious, cultural and political leaders all over Germany.

Bishop Otto Dibelius of Berlin, chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKID), hailed him as “a courageous man who tells everybody what he thinks must be told.”

Even his adversaries cannot deny that he is one of the most outstanding personalities of German Protestantism in the 20th century, asserted the bishop.

During recent years, Dr. Niemoeller has become a highly controversial figure.

His statements on political questions, particularly his opposition to the rearming of West Germany, have frequently evoked criticism from church and civic leaders and brought praise from pro-communist groups.

News Behind News

A communist newspaper in Czechoslovakia has complained about a slowing down of atheistic propaganda.

The paper, Nase Pravda, said the population is still deeply religious and hence, there must be no relaxation in anti-religious campaigns.

Africa

New Nasser Move

Egyptian President Gamel Nasser, frustrated eastward, may turn westward into the African continent in a bid to regain his prestige as the Arabs’ “strong man.”

Coastal newspapers in West Africa recently have headlined rumors of Egyptian influence among the area’s Moslem population. The papers look upon this influence, based upon religious ties and Arab nationalism, as a threat to their own nationalist ambitions.

With self-government for the Federation of Nigeria approaching, political leaders of the “Christian” south fear that the Moslem rulers of the vast and rich northern region may want to secede from the Federation in favor of the Moslem “lodestar” across the Sahara.

“The Sahara is a bridge rather than a barrier between Egypt and us,” Prime Minister Alhaji Ahmadu of Northern Nigeria said in Cairo during his pilgrimage to Mecca last June. The Prime Minister of Somalia and the Secretary-General of the French Cameroons Party also were among the leading African figures who visited Egypt last year.

Low air fares are making the Mecca more attractive to West Africans. An estimated 10,000 of them now make the “Hajj” each year. So many went from Nigeria last year that the government sent a special mission, including a physician and a team of medical workers, to look after their needs.

It is on this religious feeling of kinship that Nasser is working. The trip to Mecca whets the appetite for national liberty as pilgrims rub shoulders with nationalists from other areas of the colored world. At the same time, the sense of unity in Moslem Africa tends to undermine loyalties to the western world.

Nasser has not been silent in wooing the affections of Africa. In his Philosophy of the Revolution, he said, “If we direct our attention to the continent of Africa, I would say, without exaggeration, that we cannot, even if we wish to, in any way stand aside from the sanguinary and dreadful struggle now raging in the heart of Africa between 5,000,000 whites and 200,000,000 Africans.”

Egyptian officials announced last October that they would open a consulate in Nigeria.

Alhaji M. A. Deke, a former employe of the Islamic Congress, has told the West African press that diplomats from Egypt have been visiting Northern Nigeria in the role of businessmen. He also revealed that the Congress recently sent 20,000 Islamic books of a political nature to the Northern Region. All this, he stated, was designed to build up a Moslem empire headed by Nasser.

Leaders of Christian missions in West Africa, already concerned about the way in which Islamic “evangelism” is outstripping the growth of the Christian Church in some areas, are closely watching these signs of strengthened ties between Nasser’s Arab nationalism and the African Islamic religion.

W. H. F.

Gold Coast Nuggets

Only 10 students showed up when a youth camp, with Christian lecturers, was held on the African Gold Coast four years ago.

Converts among these 10 provided camp officers for the next year. In December, 1956, four camps were held on the Gold Coast, with 170 attending.

The idea has spread along the coast to Sierra Leone and east to Nigeria, where the country’s first boys’ camp was held last Christmas. Two of the many who made decisions for Christ were from Moslem homes.

One of the converts at the camp four years ago was Felix Konotey Ahulu. Today, he is in England studying to be a medical doctor and trying to win students for Christ.

Norway

Report On Revival

Hundreds of Norwegians have surrendered their lives to Christ, in the wake of an evangelistic campaign that began last fall.

The campaign was scheduled to end many weeks ago, but interest has mounted and the rush of people continues. Thousands jam the white parish church of Hoyland near the city of Stavanger. People come from far away and police are kept busy regulating queues.

The revival leader is the Rev. Johannes Skauge, a secretary of foreign missions. He speaks in a simple, objective and direct manner. He never appeals to the emotions. There are no solos and choir numbers. The speaker, in giving the invitation, says, simply, “Let us sing this hymn while you come along.”

A young couple walks toward the altar. Others follow. Soon, there is no more kneeling space. Others wait.

In the periodical, “Our Church,” a reporter wrote:

“Hardly anything has touched me so deeply as what I have just seen: people breaking away from the road of perdition to seek God. Christ has but rarely appeared to me in such majesty as when I was watching the multitude striding forward towards the altar to let God take the lead.”

T. B.

India

Csi Adds Big Church

The executive synod of the Church of South India voted at its meeting in Madras to accept the application of Christ (Anglican) Church at Trivandrum to become a member.

This action brought into the CSI the largest Anglican congregation in Travancore-Cochin state not already a member.

CSI, formed in 1947, now includes Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Reformed and Congregational bodies.

Books

Book Briefs: February 4, 1957

Voice Of Barth

The Existentialist and God, by Arthur C. Cochrane. Westminster, Philadelphia. $3.00.

Mr. Cochrane, a Canadian, did his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto and took his theological training at Knox College, Toronto. He received his Ph. D. from Edinburgh in 1937 and did further graduate work in Germany. Since 1948 he has occupied the Chair of Systematic Theology in the Seminary of the University of Dubuque, Iowa. The work here reviewed contains the Robert Foundation Lectures delivered at Presbyterian College, Montreal, during the fall semester of 1954. The lectures consist of an analysis of the concept of being in the thought of Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, Tillich, Gilson and Barth, from the standpoint of Christian doctrine of the being of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

The author’s thesis sets forth that existentialism is a serious quest for being. It is fundamentally ontology (though more than that) with the color of theology. This ontology rests on the awareness that our existence is founded upon something which transcends it. It understands man’s being as movement, as action in relation to another than itself, rather than as being grounded in itself.

As for Kierkegaard, the fundamental principle of his thought is the absolute qualitative distinction between time and eternity, God and man. Man is a particular existing being, but God is eternal. According to Cochrane, Kierkegaard did not intend by this formulation to outline a new philosophy of existence, but rather to drive home to his contemporaries what it means to exist before God. For Kierkegaard the only legitimate question in connection with pure being is that of the relationship which I, the subjective, existing thinker, sustain to this being. Ontology is incidental, at best implicit, in Kierkegaard, and this was his intention. Those who have followed him, however, have all too often seen in Kierkegaard’s refusal to develop an ontology, and invitation to them to do just that. The elaborate systems of Jaspers, Heidegger and Sartre are really, according to the author, utterly foreign to Kierkegaard’s spirit, and to call him the father of contemporary existentialism leads to a gross misunderstanding (pp. 29–30).

Turning then to the exposition of Jaspers’ thought (pp. 48–57), the author shows quite convincingly, in the reviewer’s opinion, that though Jaspers is a sort of theist who talks about “faith” in “God,” his thought is essentially humanistic. The concept is the awareness of the transcendent in the ultimate situations of life. Cochrane tells us that churchmen (I suppose he means respectable Christians) should realize that Jaspers combines with this theoretical opposition to Christianity something of an evangelistic fervor against Christ’s claims to exclusiveness.

As for Heidegger (pp. 58–65), he agrees with Jaspers that being cannot be comprehended as anything that is or as an object of thought. Heidegger, therefore, begins with human existence (Dasein) in its ontological structure. Dasein is not at hand, however, as objects are. Dasein is a being-in-the-world, but not simply spatially, as a table is in a house, but being in a situation which has the possibility of non-being. Hence non-being (death) is integral to Dasein; it constitutes its possibility. “For if Dasein is to become something, it must not be. We encounter this nothing in the mood of dread (Angst). Its object is indefinable.”

Satre (pp. 65–76) is the boldest of all the existentialists. He draws the pessimistic consequence of Heidegger’s ontology with fortitude. He perceives the relationship of human existence to that which transcends it, but for him it is unequivocally the nothing. Sartre is an honest atheist. Man simply turns up on the scene and then defines himself. He becomes what he wills himself to be in the upward thrust of his existence. Cochrane observes (p. 70) that there is little danger that the church will ever confuse the nothing which Heidegger and Sartre have substituted for God, with the true God, though the possibility exists that it may be confused with what the Bible calls evil.

Turning to Tillich (pp. 78–99), the author believes that being, non-being and being-itself are the three leading concepts in his system and the key to understanding his use of them is his method of correlation. To reduce the author’s analysis of Tillich’s position to the space of this review would overtax the reviewer’s ingenuity. We will content ourselves by observing simply that Cochrane feels that the revelation of God in Christ is nonessential to Tillich’s system. He comes to the knowledge of being-itself and of finite being just as Jaspers and Heidegger do. Churchmen should be aware of this secular strand in Tillich. His Systematic Theology is actually a systematic philosophy, not a witness to Jesus Christ, but to “being-itself,” of which Jesus Christ is only a symbol (p. 90).

The treatment of Gilson (pp. 100–112) marks a rather different stream from the main course of the book, a sort of interesting parenthesis. The thrust of this Thomistic existentialism consists in the composition of existence and essence, in which existence is the primary element (p. 105 f).

The most interesting phase of the book, to this reader (and about the only place where he has some reservation), is the analysis of Barth’s view. In the subtitle of the book, Barth’s name is the last in a list of seven representative thinkers, but in the actual structure of the book, we meet Barth everywhere—at the beginning, at the end and in the middle. As indicated at the start, the perspective which pervades the treatment of the whole is the Christian doctrine of the being of God as revealed in Christ, but in specific terms this means the doctrine of Karl Barth. It is Barth, according to Cochrane, who has given us the Christological corrective to Kierkegaard’s implicit ontology and the only saving antidote to the overt, un Christian ontology of the other representative thinkers discussed. As an exposition of Barth’s view, there is little with which anyone could disagree expressly. The reviewer, however, cannot share the author’s enthusiasm for the Barthian position, especially on the score of Barth’s Christological emphasis. No Christian would doubt that Christ is the supreme revelation of the one true God; but the Christ testified to in Scripture and the Christ who appears in the theology of Barth are somewhat more different than Cochrane would admit. More specifically, the reviewer is still not convinced that Barth has a toe to stand on in his differences with Brunner on this score. (The primary discussion occurs pp. 33–39). Not that we would counter enthusiasm for Barth by enthusiasm for Brunner, but who could ever argue, and get away with it (except Barth), that since Pilate fulfilled the plan of salvation, we see that the state is indissolubly intertwined with the Cross and therefore the Christian should honor the state? No wonder van Balthasar, the Romanist, commends Barth for expounding Scripture without being “exegetical” (p. 145, note 43). Before the writing of this review we scanned Barth’s Nein! again and still feel he is simply shouting Brunner down, as he has done with just about everyone, at one time or another. If one wants to believe everyone was a Thomist until Barth, the first Protestant, came along, that is his privilege, but it is our opinion that both Paul and Calvin believed that the knowledge of God which the sinner has is pre-supposed in the knowledge which he receives in Christ.

The book is definitely for the specialist and serves (though without intention or fault) to underline the great gulf between the theology of Barth and the common man. I fail to see, when I read Barth, or books about him, how anyone could ever transmute his theology into the idiom of preaching. Not that we expect Barth to write Sunday school quarterlies, but if theology is to serve the Gospel, there ought to be some apparent connection. Dean Homrighausen recently defended Billy Graham against theologian Niebuhr and asked, “Where are the neo-orthodox evangelists?” (Time Magazine, July 23, 1956, p. 51). Barth would probably answer, the Holy Ghost doesn’t need any!

PAUL K. JEWETT

Biblical Theologian

Our Reasonable Faith, by Herman Bavinck. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1956. $6.95.

This is a translation of Herman Bavinck’s Magnalia Dei, first published in 1909, now for the first time translated into English by Henry Zylstra of Calvin College, Grand Rapids. It is, as Zylstra says in his preface, “a compendium or synopsis of the four volume Dogmatics” by the same erudite and distinguished Dutch theologian. As a compendium it is less technical and is intended for more popular use (cf. p. 6). It must not be supposed, however, that this volume is a little handbook. It is a large volume in which all the leading themes of the Christian faith are unfolded with that thorough competence of which only a master theologian is capable. It is a systematic theology for the layman, and it is executed with remarkable skill. The person unversed in the technicalities of theological discussion needs to have no hesitation in undertaking the reading of this volume. It is meant for him.

If one wishes to know the distinguishing features of the unpardonable sin, he will find one of the finest expositions to be found anywhere and much misunderstanding and confusion will be corrected (pp. 253 f.). In the chapter on the covenant of grace it is gratifying to find that Bavinck uses the expression “the counsel of redemption” to designate the arrangements between the persons of the Godhead in distinction from “the covenant of grace” as the historical actualization of that counsel (pp. 260–279). Bavinck also rejects the distinction between the external and internal covenant as a distinction which “cannot stand in the light of the Scriptural teaching” (p. 279). Thorough Calvinist as Bavinck was he does not rationalistically rule out the will of God to the salvation of all, that God “wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” and he appeals to 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9 in this connection (pp. 360 f.). He insists, and the present writer thinks rightly, that hell in Acts 2:27 must mean grave (p. 365). If we wish to know how Bavinck interprets such a difficult text as Ephesians 1:23, he tells us (p. 383 f.). In reference to the “water” of John 3:5, he says that “Jesus is not in the first place thinking of baptism”; water is the image of renewal and purging (p. 426). Yet, if we are a little troubled that in our evangelical tradition sufficient significance is not attached to baptism as the rite of initiation into the fellowship of the church, we may listen to Bavinck again: “Viewed in this way, baptism was in very fact a preservation, like that of the ark which spared Noah (1 Peter 3:20–21), a dying and being raised again with Christ (Rom. 6:3–4), a washing away of sins (Acts 22:16), a break with the world and an entrance into a new fellowship” (p. 524). For all of us some difficulty arises in connection with the distinction between the completed accomplishment of redemption and its application. Not a little help can be derived from the distinction which Bavinck develops between property by deed and actual possession (p. 455). These are but a few random examples of how rewarding a perusal of this volume can be.

The simplicity of presentation will not conceal from the discerning reader the maturity of thought which lies back of this exposition of the biblical system of truth. Neither will it conceal the amazing knowledge of Scripture which the author had at his command. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find another book which is so fully documented by quotation and citation of Scripture. This evinces that Bavinck was essentially a biblical theologian. And because this is so, every chapter breathes the atmosphere of that godliness which persuasion of the truth creates. In this respect Our Reasonable Faith is like its great predecessor in the Reformed tradition, The Institutes of the Christian Religion; it is written in the interests of Christian devotion, faith united with a serious fear of God. “God, and God alone, is man’s highest good” (p. 17). It is with these words the book begins.

The scientific theologian will not find it a waste of time to mark up this volume. He will find gems of theological exposition and formulation. For example, what could be better than Bavinck’s formulation of the relation of time and space to creation (pp. 169 f.)? And, when in these days the doctrine of the church is so much in the forefront

of thought and discussion, what could be more rewarding than a careful study of the chapter on “The Church of Christ” (pp. 514–543)?

The translator evidences throughout his sensitivity to the demands of literary taste and form, and this adds greatly to the readability of the translation. An occasional footnote by the translator, however, would have been in order as, for example, a correction of Bavinck’s slip reproduced in the translation at the middle of page 380. And the omission of the name of God from the translation of Hepp’s tribute to Bavinck (p. 11) leaves a startling, though erroneous, first impression of what Hepp actually said and of what Zylstra intended to say.

JOHN MURRAY

Theological Background

English Thought: 1860–1900. The Theological Aspect, By L. E. Elliott-Binns. (Longmans). 28s.

The late Canon Vernon Storr published in 1913 his book on The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century: 1800–1860. He had intended to produce a companion volume dealing with the latter half of the century but was prevented from doing so by the pressure of other work. We now have a volume from Canon Elliott-Binns treating the subject over this period from a wider outlook than Canon Storr had in mind, for as the author rightly says the theological viewpoint can only be seen in true perspective when set against the background of prevailing trends of thought in other fields.

Beginning with the impact of natural science upon theology and religion, the author traces the influence of philosophy, archaeology and the critical views of German theologians on biblical studies in this period, together with the development of dogmatic theology, sacramental teaching and the position of Church and State. In such a book one would expect this ground to be covered. But where Dr. Elliott-Binns puts us particularly in his debt is in relating these theological considerations to the political, economic and social conditions of the times, to which he has added a study of the general literature and spread of liberal views associated with that period.

Though one is constantly impressed with the immense range of the author’s reading, as indicated both by quotations and footnotes, yet his learning is so easily presented that this book is a sheer delight to read. His own comments on the different situations and problems are shrewd and penetrating; for example, in dealing with dogmatic theology he states “Dogmas are working hypotheses to be tested by practical religious experiment, and every age must conduct its own tests and be prepared if necessary to make the consequent adjustments, for a too rigid doctrinal system may erect barriers to the fuller knowledge of things divine and preclude further progress. The Christian faith is not a kind of Maginot line behind which the Church takes shelter against the intrusion of new and unwelcome ideas” (p. 213).

Two major impressions are left by this book upon the· mind of at least one reader. First, the immense prestige acquired by German theologians during the period, so that for a time many British scholars accepted their findings as being almost above criticism. Though this docile spirit and submissive attitude were not universal, yet such teaching did considerable harm in undermining popular views on the inspiration of the Bible, leading to a general opinion that as its text was unreliable, so its message was obsolete. Second, the dominant position of Westcott in England at the close of the century. Though as a pure scholar he may not have been the equal of either Lightfoot or Hort, yet his influence was in his day more widespread than theirs, due to his deep concern over the social problems of the times and over the expansion of the Church in other lands. By seeming to see the past by the light of the present and its needs, by his emphasis on the teaching of the Fourth Gospel and by his knowledge of the Greek Fathers, he helped to change the direction of theological thought in this country. But if Westcott was the outstanding personality, and Lightfoot “the greatest interpreter of the New Testament”, to Hort belongs the distinction of producing what is described as “one of the most valuable and suggestive theological works produced in England during the period”, entitled The Way, the Truth, the Life. Quotations from it go far to substantiate this claim for a volume which has been largely forgotten.

In the long view, the development of psychology presented a greater danger to religion than the attacks of science, and not the least valuable section of the book is that dealing with this subject and the effect of its early pronouncements upon the uninstructed public.

Many of the problems and difficulties with which the church is faced today in England, and indeed in other countries, owe their origin to events and trends of thought which began about a century ago. A true understanding of these problems can only be gained by examining their causes, and to read this book will enable the student, and general reader alike, to obtain a wide understanding of the many factors which have contributed towards the religious climate of our own times.

G. C. B. DAVIES.

Stimulating Reprint

Luke The Physician, by William M. Ramsay. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids. $4.50.

Sir William Ramsay’s mind was that of an eager, earnest scholar who is determined to grapple with great problems. This series of studies (reprinted from the 1908 edition) deals with a variety of unrelated subjects and exhibits the wide range of the author’s interest and the carefulness of his scholarship.

Indeed, it is perhaps in this that the significance of Ramsay’s work consists: not so much in the conclusions reached, as in the methods used and the attitude which characterizes his consideration of New Testament problems. Many of the particular points he makes may seem somewhat dated, after the passage of fifty years or more. His treatment of Harnack on Luke, or Sunday on New Testament criticism, may not have the relevance it once possessed. His conclusions as to the authorship of Hebrews are interesting, and his study of the original sources of our gospel records is stimulating, but the picture which the author gives of himself is far more valuable than any of these things or the sum of them.

Here is a man who proceeds on the basis that “when a real piece of living literature is to be examined, it is a false method to treat it as a corpse, and cut it in pieces: only a mess can result” (p. 3). He lashes out against “so-called critics” who “do not read a book whose results they disapprove” (p. 8). He sees that “ideas are not like dead matter to be placed side by side: they unite and are productive, or they die; but they cannot remain inert and unvarying” (p. 125). His protest against mere cleverness in scholarship is excellent (p. 250).

The book will have a limited appeal because of the technical nature of its subject matter, and because it deals with some themes which are not of great concern today. But to those who share Ramsay’s concern for the problems of the history of religion, it offers much that is rewarding.

H. L. FENTON, JR.

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Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: February 04, 1957

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- More from Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

Cover Story

Luther’s Doctrine of Inspiration

J. Theodore Mueller

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

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

Luther’S Opposition To False Views

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

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

The Bible’S Authority Decisive

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

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

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

Protest Against Rome’S Position

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

Development In Luther’S Thought

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

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

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

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

Champion Of Plenary Inspiration

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

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

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

The Central Interest Is Christ

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

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

What Scripture Says, God Says

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

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

Studies Of Luther’S Doctrine

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

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

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

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

A Sacred Tradition

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

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

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

High View The Prevalent One

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

Acceptance Of The Biblical Witness

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

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

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

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

END

We Quote:

DANIEL A. POLING

Editor, Christian Herald

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

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

- More from J. Theodore Mueller

Cover Story

Emil Brunner and the Bible

Paul K. Jewett

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

Acceptance Of Critical Views

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

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

Revelation Versus Doctrine

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

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

On The Rim Of Revelation

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

Words About The Word

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

The Temporary And Permanent

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

Not A Final Norm

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

Difficulties Facing Brunner

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

How now, how now, chop-logic!

What is this?

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

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

Finality That Wavers

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

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

- More from Paul K. Jewett

Cover Story

Christianity in China

Hollington K. Tong

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

Christianity In Formosa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On The Mainland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Future In China

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

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

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

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

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

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Cover Story

The Word for This World

Peter H. Eldersveld

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Popular Misconceptions

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whittled To Our Size

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

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

Greatness And Glory

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

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

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

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

Preacher In The Red

HIGH TIME

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

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Sovereign From A Cross

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

The truth that David learned to sing

Its deep fulfillment here attains:

Tell all the earth the Lord is King!

Lo, from a Cross, a King He reigns!

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

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

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

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

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

- More from Peter H. Eldersveld

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