Theology

Bible Book of the Month: The Johannine Epistles

Alexander Ross

Careful examination of the Johannine Epistles leads to the conclusion that all three of them come from the same pen. The second and third epistles, which have been called “twin sisters,” manifestly have the same author, who describes himself as “the Elder.” Comparisons indicate that the author of these epistles is also the author of First John (cf. 1 John 2:7 with 2 John 5; 1 John 2:18, 4:1–5 with 2 John 7; 1 John 2:23 with 2 John 2, 9; 1 John 3:6, 9 with 2 John 11). Of the 13 verses of the second epistle no fewer than 8 can be matched with verses of I John.

The internal evidence seems to point to identity of authorship. Who was the author? Was there at Ephesus at the end of the first century and the beginning of the second a “John the Elder,” as distinct from the Apostle John? That depends on how we interpret the famous words of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor in the period 100–140, as quoted by Eusebius. Papias writes about the importance he attached to the declarations of the elders: “If anywhere one came my way who had been a follower of the elders, I would inquire about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or what Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples; and I would inquire about the things which Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples, say.” We are inclined to agree with Dr. Smith when he says, “the Elder John must mean the Apostle John, since the apostles have just been called ‘the elders,’ and it is impossible that the term should have different meanings within the compass of a single sentence” (Exp. Greek Test.).

The existence of a Presbyter John (as distinct from the Apostle John) in Ephesus at the close of the apostolic age is regarded as extremely problematical by Zahn, Plummer, Farrar, Salmon and many others. Plummer finally came to the conclusion that this problematical figure is a “superfluous conjecture” (Cambridge Greek Test.). Many other scholars conclude that criticism has no other John to operate with but John the Apostle. This vexed question I have discussed with a fair degree of thoroughness in my Commentary on the Epistles of James and John (New International Commentary).

The external evidence also has to be considered. Has the voice of early Church tradition anything definite to say here? The Muratorian Canon, or the Muratorian Fragment, as it is sometimes called, contains a list of the books of the New Testament recognized by the Roman church about the year 180. It records a tradition with regard to the composition of the fourth gospel, which is ascribed to the Apostle John and goes on to say: “What wonder is it then that John brings forward each detail with so much emphasis even in his epistles, saying of himself, what we have seen with our eyes and heard with our ears and our hands have handled, these things have we written to you? For so he professes that he was not only an eyewitness but also a hearer, and moreover a historian of all the wonderful works of the Lord in order.”

A Clear Echo

Who can fail to hear in these words a clear echo of the opening words of First John? Bishop Lightfoot made skilful use of the fact that First John is thus associated with the fourth gospel as an argument in confirmation of the theory that the epistle was originally sent out along with the gospel as a kind of commendatory postscript. For that theory much can be said, and it has been advocated by such commentators as Haupt and Ebrard and others.

When we travel back along the stream of church tradition, we find testimony to First John which is dated much earlier than the Muratorian Canon. We find traces of the epistle in Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom in the year 155, and in Papias, who is described by Irenaeus as “a hearer of John and a companion of Polycarp.” Irenaeus himself (140–202), who was familiar with the views of the church at Rome and the church in Gaul, in his treatise Against Heretics quotes the epistle twice, ascribing it to John. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp of whom he has given a vivid account in his Epistle to Florinus, a portion of which has been preserved by Eusebius in his Church History. If Polycarp was John’s spiritual son, it may be said that Irenaeus was his spiritual grandson. The tradition of apostolic authorship thus goes back here through Irenaeus and Polycarp to John himself. The evidence here seems tremendously strong and it has not been shaken by the attempts of many critics to discount it.

Few allusions to Third John appear in early Christian literature. That is not surprising in view of its brevity, the nature of its contents and that it is addressed to an unknown person. To Second John, despite its brevity and that it also is addressed to an unknown person, we find a number of allusions, and such testimony to the second epistle may be regarded as testimony to the third.

Testimony Of Irenaeus

The testimony of Irenaeus is interesting. In his treatise Against Heretics he says of these heretics that “John, the disciple of the Lord, intensified their condemnation by desiring that not even a ‘God-speed’ should be bid to them by us; for, says, he, he that biddeth him God-speed partaketh in his evil works.” This is an allusion to 2 John 10, 11. Again, Irenaeus quotes 1 John 2:18 and goes on to say: “These are they against whom the Lord warned us beforehand; and His disciple, in his epistle already mentioned, commands us to avoid them, when he says: ‘Many deceivers are gone forth into this world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the Antichrist. Look to them, that ye lose not that which ye have wrought.’ ” This is an allusion to 2 John: 7, 8, with some slight variations that indicate Irenaeus had a different text from ours. In that second quotation he cites words of the second epistle as though they belonged to the first, but that is just a small slip on his part; it is evident that he regards the two epistles as coming from the same man.

With regard to the designation “elder” we ought to note that Peter, one of the disciples of the Lord, so designates himself (1 Pet. 5:1). If he could do that, so also could John. It may be that he uses that title as the last survivor of the apostolic company, about the end of the first century.

A Polemical Purpose

John had a polemical purpose in writing his first epistle. He is definitely on the warpath against certain dangerous heresies that were threatening to invade the churches of Asia Minor. The heresies in view, likely, are chiefly those associated with Cerinthus, who was a native of Egypt and taught in Asia Minor at the same time as John. We owe our information about him to Irenaeus and to other early writers. Irenaeus tells us that Cerinthus taught that “Jesus had not been begotten of a virgin, but had been born of Joseph and Mary as a son in like manner to all the rest of men, and became more righteous and prudent and wise. And after the Baptist the Christ descended into him from the Sovereignty which is over the Universe, in the form of a dove; and then He proclaimed the unknown Father and accomplished mighty works, but at the end the Christ withdrew from the Jesus, and the Jesus had suffered and been raised, but the Christ had continued throughout impassible, being spiritual.”

These deadly heresies aroused strong indignation in the soul of John. A knowledge of the facts about the teaching of Cerinthus enables us to understand John’s meaning when he writes (5:6) that Jesus Christ, in indissoluble union, came through, or by means of water and blood; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. His baptism in the Jordan and his death on Calvary were both essential parts of his self-manifestation, and it is the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, which cleanses from all sin (1:7).

To Establish In Truth

While John apparently never loses sight altogether of the heresies of Cerinthus in any part of this epistle, he has also a more positive purpose in his mind of writing. He wants his “children” to be firmly established in the truth and especially, to understand clearly all that is involved in Christian love, love to God and love to men. Three times he states his purpose in writing (1:4, 2:1, 5:13). The best way to become immune against infection by dangerous heresy is to know the truth (Jn. 8:32) and to be so firmly established in it that any teaching that is alien to the truth as it is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21) will at once be detected by us in its true character. John is here in agreement with Peter, who tells us that the way in which men of unstable mind can attain to spiritual stedfastness is to be in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and, in that blessed sphere, as in our abiding spiritual home, to grow (2 Pet. 3:17, 18).

Dr. James Moffat has said we would not have suffered much loss if the second and third epistles of John had been excluded from the New Testament canon. On the contrary, we would have suffered very serious spiritual loss if we had never read the subtle rebuke of “advanced” thinkers in 2 John 9. The true reading there is not the reading which lies behind the AV rendering, “whosoever transgresseth,” but the reading which lies behind the RV rendering, “whosoever goes onward” and the RSV, “any one who goes ahead.” Real advance in Christian truth comes only as we abide in the teaching of Christ and are led by the Spirit of truth step by step into the fullness of its meaning (John 16:13). Any teaching that claims to be an advance beyond the teaching of Christ, as the Cerinthian heresy no doubt claimed to be, is teaching that is dominated by the “spirit of error” (1 John 4:6) and will lead to barren regions of futile and often dangerous speculation.

Would we not have been spiritually poorer if we had lacked the scathing portrait of Diotrephes in the third epistle? Dr. A. T. Robertson once wrote an article on Diotrephes for a church magazine in which he developed the idea that Diotrephes was a typical “church boss,” and the result was that some twenty deacons wrote to the editor cancelling their subscriptions because of the personal attack on them!

Tools For Exposition

Some commentaries which may be recommended are those by Alford, Huther (in Meyer), Haupt (1st Ep.), Westcott, Plummer in Cambridge Greek Testament, Smith in Expositor’s Greek Testament, Farrar in Early Days of Christianity, and G. G. Findlay, Fellowship in the Life Eternal. Dr. Samuel Cox’s little book Private Letters of St. Paul and St. John deals in a deeply interesting and very suggestive way with Second and Third John.

ALEXANDER ROSS

Books

Book Briefs: September 2, 1957

James Packer

Maurice Restated

Reconciliation in Christ, by G. W. H. Lampe. Longmans, London, 120 pp. 6s.6d.

This book by the Edward Cadbury Professor of Theology in Birmingham University contains an expanded version of the Maurice Lectures delivered in London in 1955. It is a study in the Bible doctrine of salvation, and is a much more learned and important volume than its small size, paper cover and almost entire freedom from footnotes might suggest. Prof. Lampe’s earlier book, The Seal of the Spirit, made him known as an erudite and vigorous champion of Protestant and biblical sacramental teaching; the present volume sets before us the broader basis on which he conceives that teaching to rest.

His main thesis is that what fixes the perspective and determines the interpretation of New Testament soteriology is the thought of personal union with Christ by faith. It is an error„ he says, “to try to interpret St. Paul’s teaching on the atonement in isolation from the real central point of his thought, namely, the idea expressed in that phrase ‘in Christ’ which is the true heart of his religion … Man is reconciled in Christ. This is the heart and essence of the Pauline gospel. It is also central in the Johannine teaching … It is in Christ that the sinner is justified … he is given the status of a son because he is in Christ, standing within the scope of the reconciliation that Christ effected” (pp. 61 ff). The author reviews the doctrines of sanctification, the Church and the sacraments in the light of this principle. Sanctification, he insists, is “a life of continual dying and rising in Christ” (p. 65), a process energized by the Holy Spirit as man exercises faith Christ-ward. The “virtues” of Christian character must therefore be conceived as “modes of the operation of the Holy Spirit, working in and through (the believer) because by grace he is in Christ” (p. 66). They are God-given, not man-made, and only exist where faith is active in humble dependence on God. Christian behavior is “the expression of the personal relationship of Christ, and so of the believer who is ‘in Christ,’ to his fellow men” (p. 67). The sanctifying process must be viewed eschatologically; throughout this age it remains incomplete, and Romans 7 depicts the present condition of the Christian man as the law of sin in his members wars against the law of God in his mind.

The state of the Church in the world is precisely analogous. Its “virtues,” its holiness and unity, are gifts of Christ by the Spirit, and it is not in man’s power to achieve them by his own unaided efforts; they are, indeed, eschatological qualities, which means that “neither (the Church’s) holiness nor its unity can ever be fully and completely realized in the present order” (p. 71). Prof. Lampe briefly suggests the bearing of this important truth upon current thought about reunion. Then he issues a protest against mediaevalizing views of sacramental grace as “an impersonal force, like a charge of electricity” or “a dose or injection of medicinal tonic,” and pleads for a return to the Reformed and confessional Anglican conception of the sacraments as “effectual signs of grace, and God’s good will” to believers, whereby Christ is exhibited for the evocation and confirmation of faith. The author’s scriptural demonstration of these contentions is brief but wholly admirable.

The polemical slant, however, which Prof. Lampe seeks to give to his exposition of saving union with Christ, is less happy. He wants to detach it altogether from the historic Protestant view that Christ’s saving work in us is founded upon his saving work for us, in making satisfaction to his Father for our sins, and that the ground of our justification is the imputation of Christ’s merits to us. What Prof. Lampe is trying to do is to rehabilitate the atonement theory of F. D. Maurice. This theory consisted of a catena of what we judge to be false antitheses, thus: God is the author of propitiation, therefore he is not the object of it; Christ died to save us from sin, not from the punishment of sin; Christ is man’s representative, but not his substitute; his obedience unto death was vicarious, but not penal; and we are saved, not by his satisfying God’s holy law for us, but by his reproducing his own holy life in us; Christ saves us, not by dealing with God on our behalf, but by dealing with us on God’s behalf. Prof. Lampe more or less explicitly echoes all these antitheses. He speaks as if such categories as debt, penalty and imputation were somehow inconsistent with all that he has said about faith-union with Christ, and seems to think that jettisoning the one will help to conserve the other. This too, however, is surely a false antithesis. The real reason why Prof. Lampe is unhappy with ideas of satisfaction and merit becomes plain when he tells us that he does not believe in the necessity of satisfaction for sin. “God’s forgiveness is really free; it does not have, as it were, to be compensated for by the satisfaction of his holiness through the merits either of men in general … or of Christ as man. In Christ, God brought man out of his sin into the scope of the divine forgiveness; he did not have to make it possible for himself to forgive” (p. 110 f). This, of course, is Maurice over again.

Does the Bible warrant such statements? We are sure that it does not. The Bible represents sin as guilt, and God as Judge; it interprets man’s slavery to sin, and death in sin, as penal, the first fruits of “the wrath”; and it undoubtedly represents the imputation of Christ’s righteousness as the objective ground for the removal of the subjective penal consequences that Adam’s sin has brought upon his posterity. The crucial passages here are Romans 1:18, 3:20 and 5:12–21. But Prof. Lampe devotes no attention to either; and there is no treatment of the guilt of sin anywhere in his book.

We welcome, then, Prof. Lampe’s positive emphases; but we think that a closer study of the biblical evidence will reveal that the “not-but” of himself and Maurice should be replaced by the “both-and” of the historic Reformed faith. The biblical doctrine of the covenant union of the redeemed with Christ is broader than Prof. Lampe here recognizes; Christ saves his people from the guilt of sin no less than from the power of sin, and there is no inconsistency between these two aspects of his gracious mediatorial work.

JAMES PACKER

Bultmann’S Myths

Scripture and Myth: An Examination of Rudolf Bultmann’s Plea for Demythologization, by Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Tyndale Press, London. 30 pp., 1s.6d.

One of the more curious phenomena of British theological scholarship is the almost obsequious respect it tends to pay to critical theories which emanate from Germany, however destructive of the Christian religion or intellectually unsatisfactory they may prove to be. Rudolf Bultmann’s book, Die Geschichte synoptischen Tradition, published in 1921, was described by Vincent Taylor in 1933 as “one of the most important contributions to Gospel criticism of our time,” though he admitted that it was “radical to the point of scepticism.” Many of us were under the impression that Bultmann’s combination of an extreme form-critical analysis of the Gospels with an existential philosophy, which found expression in his book Jesus published in 1925, had proved unacceptable to the majority of British scholars by the time the second world war began. It has become evident however during the postwar years that some British scholars are most anxious by radio talks and English translations of Bultmann’s works to give wide publicity to his views.

In view therefore of the revival of “Bultmannism,” Dr. Philip Hughes has rendered a most valuable service in this Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture in submitting Bultmann’s plea for the demythologization of the New Testament to a critical philosophical examination. In thirty lucid pages Dr. Hughes shows that a careful scrutiny of Bultmann’s postwar books—particularly those known in English as Kerygma and Myth and The Theology of the New Testament—makes it abundantly evident that so much is thrown away in Bultmann’s demythologization that Jesus is reduced to a figure so puny that he has no claims to the attention, let alone the allegiance, of mankind. And yet by the aid of existentialism Bultmann brazenly asserts that this Jesus, who is not the incarnate Son of God, who is unknown and unknowable from the only records that we have about him, who is neither risen nor ascended, nevertheless becomes through preaching a living, challenging reality to the individual, confronting him with the opportunity and the necessity for making a decision of ultimate significance. No explanation is given why this man Jesus, any more than any other mere man, should have this power—for the very good reason that no explanation is possible.

As Dr. Hughes convincingly shows, a theology which can truly be described as “a faith without hope,” which “robs the Christ-event of its crucial uniqueness,” which is preoccupied with the present at the expense of the past and the future, which bows uncritically to the authority of “modern science” and to a large degree a demoded modern science which views the whole natural order as a closed system, does not deserve the name “Christian” in any recognizable meaning of that word, and in the last analysis is antitheistic. “Nowhere,” Dr. Hughes penetratingly observes towards the end of his lecture, “does Bultmann seek to call into question the being of God; but this, so far from being a merit, is in fact the crucial inconsistency in his system. For throughout, by setting up the knowledge of ‘modern man’ and ‘modern science’ as determinative of what is and what is not possible in our world, he proclaims that the knowledge of man is authoritative and thereby pronounces against the knowledge and authority of God. That means that in effect, though not in intention, he pronounces against the being of God. It is hardly surprising that in his writings God has the appearance of being an unexplained ‘foreign body.’ Can he not see that the logic of his position cries out for him to take the one last step of declaring ‘God’ to be the ultimate myth that has to be eliminated?” Not the least interesting part of Dr. Hughes’ lecture is his demonstration with special reference to Genesis 3 of the truth that, “the God of the Scriptures is the ground not only of all being but also of all knowledge.”

In thinking of Bultmann we ought to remember what is not mentioned in this lecture, that his theology is to no small degree conditioned by the political tensions in Germany in the prewar years. As Ulrich Simon observes in the Church Quarterly Review for March 1957: “Can any reader take Bultmann’s ‘Jesus’ really seriously without hearing, so to speak, the threatening Horst Wessel Lied in the background? The historical Son of God, born of a Jewish lady, Saviour of the whole world, had become totally inacceptable at the time … I remember only too well the swastika imposed on the Cross, in slogans, on posters, even in school classrooms while religious instruction was being given. I am not charging Bultmann with such excesses, but I do not believe that his work should be read apart from a realization that these and later events were happening at the same time.”

R. V. G. TASKER

Proven Worth

Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2 vols., by Frederick Louis Godet Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $11.95.

This commentary is one of the nineteenth-century reprints in Zondervan’s current series, The Classic Commentary Library. The book’s jacket quotes an opinion that Godet on John is “… from a theological standpoint and for going to the uttermost depths of the profound teachings recorded in the Fourth Gospel … the supreme work [containing] some of the finest pages of Christology to be found anywhere.” It is likely that few authorities would agree with this statement. M. C. Tenney, for instance, says of Westcott’s commentary that it is “probably the greatest single commentary on John ever published” (John: The Gospel of Belief, p. 318). But if Godet on John is not without peer, he is certainly one of the best commentators, particularly in his exposition of the devotional riches of this Gospel.

Godet’s theological and critical conservatism is well known. John, the son of Zebadee and our Lord’s disciple, is the author of the Gospel (I, p. 203). For a further example, John 3:16–21 is not the comment of John but is based on what Jesus himself said (I, p. 395).

But some of Godet’s positions reflect a freer air often breathed by nineteenth-century evangelicals but not shared by some of their would-be twentieth century heirs. While Thiessen (Lectures in Systematic Theology, p. 139) and Berkhof (Systematic Theology, p. 94) contend for the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of the incarnate Son of God, Godet flatly denies that Jesus possessed these attributes (I, pp. 270, 292–294). Nor does he falter in such a matter as the rejection of the Johannine authorship of John 7:53–8:11 (I, p. 71, and II, pp. 83–89; cf. the indecision of Thiessen, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 176).

On the relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics, Godet’s nineteenth-century position is out of touch with the contemporary viewpoint. In his hands John becomes the primary historical document among the four gospels. He refers to John as correcting “an inaccuracy of detail” in the Synoptics (I, p. 79; with Godet this is compatible with inspiration). In explaining why John places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and not at its close as in the Synoptics, he declares that John knew that the event had “a much more serious part [in Jesus’ ministry] than that which was attributed to it in the synoptical narrative” (I, p. 83).

An interesting contrast with current ideas is also evident in Godet’s claim that the prophecies of the Suffering Servant and of the Messiah were clearly united in messianic interpretation prior to the time of Jesus (I, pp. 311–312, f.n. 1; ct. H. H. Rowley, The Unity of the Bible, pp. 133–134).

But these are matters largely confined to Godet’s introductory section. So far as the commentary itself is concerned, it has continued to prove its worth. In addition to its devotional richness, its great strength is its positive evangelicalism. Godet faithfully portrays from beginning to end the eternal life which is the possession of all who believe in Jesus Christ.

W. BOYD HUNT

Study In Apologetics

Christian Commitment: An Apologetic, by Edward John Carnell, Macmillan. $5.00.

This book on Christian apologetics by the president of Fuller Theological Seminary is divided into two unequal parts. The last third or fourth of the volume is a statement of the Christian position; the much longer first part consists of arguments by which the author recommends to his readers the theology of the conclusion.

The theology begins with a fine statement of the need of propitiating an offended God. If you and I require propitiation after someone despises the dignity of our person, God does so all the more. Christ is the propitiation—Christ’s death in the stead of sinners. “Only Jesus Christ can lead a sinner from moral ruin to judicial restoration … We can determine our place in God by simply naming our federal head.”

This biblical emphasis on propitiation and federal headship is a needed one today when so many have weak notions of God’s righteousness and sovereignty. Unfortunately some later phrases are confusing. “Let no one caricature this by saying that only those who contemplate the atonement can be saved. Abraham did not know the cross, yet he was justified. The Scriptures say that all who believe in God will be saved … Men prove their respect for God by repenting” (p. 296).

Does this mean that faith in Christ is not absolutely necessary to salvation? Will faith in God suffice? And would a Mohammedan’s faith in God suffice, as least if he repents? The precise meaning of the paragraph is not clear, yet evidently the words bear a sense that can be taken as disparagement of foreign missions, for the author tries immediately to justify missions on the ground that generic repentance is perilous and uncertain. “The Apostle Paul [limited] repentance almost (!) exclusively to the active preaching of the gospel. Not that men cannot repent without being confronted with Christ after the flesh, but that they do not repent without such confrontation” (p. 297).

However, since the book is a book on apologetics, the main interest lies in the arguments by which the author attempts to recommend his theology to his readers.

As may be expected a large part of the earlier chapters deals with epistemology. “Ultimate reality cannot be grasped unless rational knowledge is savored by spiritual conviction” (p. 13). President Carnell does not deny the need of rational knowledge, but he denies its sufficiency. But what “savoring” ultimate reality is, and how “spiritual conviction” is distinguished from rational knowledge are not explained.

The author begins by placing some emphasis on knowledge by acquaintance. He contrasts it with knowledge by inference (p. 17) and seems to identify it with presentational immediacy. A number of contemporary philosophers make use of the notion of knowledge by acquaintance. It is usually immediate awareness of sense data completely apart from interpretation. It is not knowledge by description. As Bergson says, a quality “inscribes itself automatically in sensation.”

Unhappily, after contrasting acquaintance with inference, the author confuses the reader by stating that all knowledge is inferential. Even “knowledge by acquaintance is the passage of the mind to a conclusion without the aid of a middle premise” (p. 17). This statement brings to mind chiefly what the logicians call immediate inference. For example: All triangles contain 180 degrees; therefore some triangles, equilateral triangles, contain 180 degrees. This inference has no middle term and no middle premise. But it is not the customary notion of knowledge by acquaintance.

It is in fact difficult to grasp the author’s concept of knowledge. He defines knowledge as “man’s systematic contact with the real.” He explicitly notes that this does not require consciousness. “I assert that man can be systematically in contact with the real without knowing it. But this want of awareness in no way alters the reality of the knowledge” (p. 29). This quotation contains a self-contradiction. If systematic contact with reality is knowledge, then a man cannot be in such contact with reality without knowing it, for the contact is the knowledge. Furthermore, if consciousness or awareness is not necessary to knowledge, then breathing and digestion are forms of knowledge because these are systematic contacts with reality. Here one must question whether such unconscious “knowledge” is a contribution to epistemology.

Another and more emphasized factor in Dr. Carnell’s epistemology is his theory of moral self-commitment. There are certain truths that become immediately clear as soon as we take ourselves seriously. If we stop making philosophy a mere academic game and examine our own sincere reactions to the concerns of life, we shall have insight. In one place the author states as a self-evident truth so obtained, “Whenever people receive us because of a respect for rational self-consistency, we are offended” (p. 67). This somewhat pontifical dictum is one which the reviewer is not so willing to accept. Really, I am not offended when people accept me because of rational self-consistency. I might even be flattered. But I am not flattered when it is said that my lack of insight into this truth is the result of my insincerity. In another place the author dismisses a conflicting opinion as “ossified” (p. 151).

In addition to these criticisms in detail something should be said about the general method. While the book cannot be accurately styled a form of the cosmological argument, yet it is an attempt to understand God by observations of man. “If the meaning of God’s character cannot be anticipated by information drawn from our own conception of decency … [and] unless we can meaningfully anticipate God’s standards of rectitude, it may turn out that the book, church, or priestly caste that is least moral on human standards is most moral on divine standards” (p. 142).

This line of reasoning will commend itself to those who believe that the cosmological argument is valid. It also commends itself to those who like Kant believe that theology should be founded on ethics rather than ethics on theology. In fact, it is standard procedure of those who wish to oppose the theology Dr. Carnell stands for. Did not Mary Baker Eddy write that anyone who accepts the concept of a substitutionary sacrifice has failed to understand the character of God? Have not many others opposed historical Christian doctrines on the ground that they are immoral? And in view of the noetic distortions caused by sin, is it not likely that men should fail to anticipate God’s standards of rectitude? Would it not therefore be better to appeal to revelation rather than to anticipation? Must we not conclude that theology is basic to ethics and that ethics is derivative?

GORDON H. CLARK

Fresh Viewpoints

Certainties for Today, by Lehman Strauss, Loizeaux, New York. $2.50.

This is an unusually provocative book of sermons with the ideas involved presented in clear, simple style. The reader feels at times, in fact, that he is being personally confronted with the words of a prophet. Orthodoxy here goes far beyond the mechanical use of proof texts, for fresh interpretations are coupled with the skilfull use of pointed illustrations which challenge the reader to search his own heart. The author also shows wide acquaintance with scriptural symbolism, which is so essential to correct interpretation of the Word of God. It is refreshing indeed to find the sublime truths of the Christian faith presented so interestingly and so remarkably free from the threadbare phraseology too often found fundamentalist writings.

Dr. Strauss’ frequent employment of alliterative headings is not artificial and helps the reader to remember the main points of each message. A carefully prepared index of texts has increased the value of the volume for reference purposes. A book of this quality deserves wide circulation and should be particularly well-adapted for use in discussion groups.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

Review of Current Religious Thought: September 02, 1957

G. C. Berkouwer

The international work of the Bible Societies is a tremendous effort, especially in our times, all over the world. Whoever becomes acquainted with this work will be impressed by various aspects of this task of translating and spreading the Gospel. Already in the nineteenth century there were Christians who gave their life and time for this work; e.g., in the translation work, for the Javanese Bible (over a period of 28 years, completed in 1854), in the work of Dr. Matthes in the Makassar Bible translation, and of Dr. Hardeman, who translated the Bible into the Ngadja-Dajak language. Those who wish to be informed about all the aspects of this work should read the important Bulletin of the Bible Societies.

What was the background of this great effort? Bishop Berggraf was once reminded of the word of a Japanese Christian: “The Bible is no longer a Western book, but our book.” There had been in divine providence a way for the Gospel to the Western world and now there is a way from the Western world to the East. This work of translation is immediately connected with the witness of the Gospel, “ye shall be witnesses … unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Sometimes there has been in church and theology a strange criticism, that Christianity gives the impression that it is a “book religion” just like other religions (Koran, etc.). But it is necessary to stress that no one can understand the meaning of this word “book” in a formal and neutral comparison between Christianity and other religions. In such a comparison the specific content of this “Book” is left out and we are warned in the Bible against formalism, against Pharisaism which adored the Torah (coming from heaven), but did not see and understand the content of grace, abounding grace. But when form and content are not separated, then this “Book” arouses a tremendous enthusiasm and activity, also scientific work.

Sometimes we are told that scientific work in connection with the Bible is not necessary because the mystery of the Kingdom is hid from the wise and prudent. It is obvious that this quotation from the Lord is misunderstood. All scientific work is not dominating the Church by the proclamation of science, but is a service to the Word of God.

This Word was not an isolated divine voice (vox divina) but a voice which penetrated the human world in a special time and special language. The Church rejects (and has to reject) every form of Docetism which does not recognize this real human side and aspect of the Bible. (Docetism—the doctrine of the docetae, an early heretical sect which held that Christ’s body was merely a phantom or appearance, or that if real its substance was celestial.) Docetism is not only to be avoided in the doctrine of Christology (it was a threatening danger in the history of the Church and extinguished the image of Christ our brother), but also in connection with the Word of God. Sometimes, against the sharp criticism of the Word of God, making this Word a human word, the divine Word was emphasized. This emphasis was correct, but we shall have to recognize the marvelous fact that there is in the Word of God no competition between the divine and the human side of this Word, but that it is exactly the divine voice that sounds in and through the human voice and brings thus the divine Word very near and understandable to us. The mystery of the Word of God is not only that God speaks to us, but that he speaks in this way. And from this important point of view the work of translating of the Bible becomes immediately important as implied in historic Christianity.

All the work of theology (obedient theology), exegesis and translation is service, no more and no less. Sometimes we can be impressed by the enthusiasm of a translator, working so that in a certain country they may hear in their own language—and the background of much unknown work is love, understanding the Gospel, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:13, 14).

Of course there is danger in every Christian activity. We can do all this work in connection with the Bible as a science or as a business, with all its financial aspects. We can translate as if we are translating “a book.” But dangers are challenges to be overcome. And when we love the Word of God, then there is for us the possibility of service, in which we are reminded of the word of Pentecost, unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

All this effort needs our prayers and cooperation. In this way we shall be kept from selfishness and isolation, from glorifying the Word without obedience and love, from forgetting the world which needs the Gospel more than ever. We shall also be kept from forgetting the perspective of the Apocalypse, “the great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9).

No Docetism will take place in our hearts, neither in Christology nor in the doctrine of the Bible. There will be no rest for the Church until the Gospel is heard everywhere. Was not the preaching of the Gospel one of the signs of the times? “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14).

This is the eschatological aspect of all the work of the Bible Societies. Eschatology never is—according to the Scriptures—without an actual responsibility in the present.

Cover Story

The Body Christ Heads: A Symposium

G. C. Berkouwer, Richard C. Halverson, W. Boyd Hunt and more

A Symposium

Our generation is unsurpassed for voluble discussion and debate over the relevant principles of the unity of the Church and of the theology of Christian worship.

Such preoccupation was foreign to First Century Christianity. The early followers of Jesus Christ manifested unquestioned union in Christ and unquestioned confidence in the great verities of special revelation. Already operative with one accord in Christ, they required no organizational directives for an undivided union.

Contemporary ecumenical inquiry unveils a striking departure from this apostolic setting. Today’s professing Church is a vast arena of debate: the nature of the Church; the theology of revelation; even the person and work of Jesus Christ comprise this grievous spectacle of ambiguity. Each participant assumes withal his indisputable inclusion in the body Christ heads. This Twentieth Century approach to the problems of Christian fellowship too often exposes, sadly enough, a spiritual community unsure of its moorings, uncertain of its destiny.

Many Protestant churchmen are looking now toward Oberlin, Ohio. Here from September 3–10 a North American Faith and Order study conference of the World Council of Churches will weigh “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.” The sessions will consider not only organizational structures and cultural pressures, but also will wrestle over faithfulness to the eternal Gospel, including the strategic problem of doctrinal agreement and variance.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has requested seven of its contributing editors, of different denominational affiliations, to discuss neglected emphases in contemporary discussions of the church as a stimulating addition to current reflection on “The Body Christ Heads.”

Contributors

G. C. BERKOUWER is a Dutch Reformed scholar, serving at Free University of Amsterdam as Professor of Systematic Theology. Next to Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, Dr. Berkouwer’s Studies in Dogmatics, now in process of translation, is the most extensive theological effort of our time. His most recent book, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, is a constructive evangelical critique. In the present symposium, Dr. Berkouwer measures current discussions of the Church.

RICHARD C. HALVERSON is a minister of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. He has served since May, 1956, as Associate Executive Director of International Christian Leadership with headquarters in Washington, D. C. He was for nine years Minister of Leadership and Education at Hollywood Presbyterian Church, and is author of the volume Christian Maturity.

W. BOYD HUNT is a Southern Baptist minister. Since 1953 he has been Professor of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, after serving as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Houston from 1946–53. He was a member of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Southwide Executive Commission from 1947–1953 and in 1951 made a round-the-world mission tour.

J. THEODORE MUELLER is a Lutheran scholar who served Concordia Seminary (Missouri Lutheran) for a generation as Professor of Systematic Theology and Exegesis. He began lectures at Concordia in 1920 and now, in his 72nd year, continues on modified service.

HAROLD JOHN OCKENGA is a Congregational minister who has occupied the historic Park Street Church pulpit in Boston since 1936. He was founder and first president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and is currently chairman of the board of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Gordon Divinity School. His writings include Protestant Preaching in Lent and The Church in God.

W. STANFORD REID is a minister of the Church of Canada, and is Associate Professor of History in McGill University, Montreal. He has served on many committees of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and was Convener of the Commission on Estate Admission of the Church in 1955–56. He is author of The Church of Scotland in Lower Canada, Economic History of Great Britain, and Problems in Western Intellectual History Since 1500.

SAMUEL M. SHOEMAKER is rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh. Before coming to Pittsburgh in 1953, he served for 27 years as rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, New York City. He is author of many books, among them Revive Thy Church Beginning with Me, How to Become a Christian, By the Power of God, and The Experiment of Faith.

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN, who contributes to this issue the guest editorial on “The Sacred Life of the Church,” is a minister of the Reformed Episcopal Church. For many years he has been Headmaster of The Stony Brook School. Among his eleven books are Christian Education in a Democracy and The Pattern of God’s Truth: Problems of Integration in Christian Education.

Theology

Vital Emphases Discussions in Contemporary of the Church

G. C. Berkouwer, Richard C. Halverson, W. Boyd Hunt and more

“in seeking unity …

let us not neglect uniqueness …”

G. C. BERKOUWER

When we in our day consider the place of the Church of Jesus Christ in the world, we are inevitably impelled to focus attention on the question of our symposium, whether there are special accents in the New Testament which in the struggle of the Church in our day are being forgotten or neglected. It is plain that we must always be kept aware of such a possibility. In this short article I wish to approach the problem from the angle of a concrete and acute danger, namely that men today in the midst of the strong pressure toward unity of the Church do not pay sufficient attention to the relation between the “unity” and the “uniqueness” of the Church. In these two words we do not in any sense have a dilemma, between which we are forced to choose. But the danger lies herein, that in seeking unity with all our might, we do not give sufficient attention to the “uniqueness” of the Church. And it is clear that the neglect of this uniqueness of the Church threatens and makes an issue of the drive for unity.

That there can be no question of a dilemma is made clear immediately by the fact that in the New Testament strong emphasis is placed upon the unity of the Church. In the high-priestly prayer of Christ in John 17 such unity is central. This unity is even seen in the light of the unity of Christ and the Father, that they “may be one as we are one” (John 17:11; 22) and the prayer of Christ goes out to the Father, “that they all may be one … that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21). This unity therefore stands in the light of the analogy of the unity between the Father and the Son and in connection with the believing of the world. But also in other places this unity is central: One faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father of all who call on him (Eph. 4:4 f), the unity of belief (Eph. 4:13), the whole body (Eph. 4:16). It is the koinonia, the fellowship of all similar to the period following Pentecost, persevering in the communion and in the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42). This unity is essential and central, because it mirrors in the world the unity and the love prevailing between the Father and the Son. It is never secondary, but belongs to the being and the reality of the Church on earth. Whoever is satisfied with the partitionment of the Church in a broken-up world and who explains everything in the light of psychological, sociological and other factors, has not understood the sense of the New Testament. All variations in the New Testament Church fall within the circle of the one body of Christ: together with all the redeemed … (Eph. 3:18)

Whoever then also on the ground of the New Testament cries out from the heart to seek for unity, and who with Calvin would travel to the ocean’s end to do something for unity, does nothing more than what obviously belongs to the being of the Church and what must appear as an immanent dynamic of the reality of the body of Christ.

It is exactly in this connection that a grave danger arises. We live in a tom and fragmented world and everywhere we hear a cry for unity and togetherness. To achieve unity, no doubt we can expect, so it is argued, that a certain measure of compromise will have to be entered into—the possibilities having been considered—but that certainly, somehow in this compromise unity and fellowship will become visible. Many are under the impression that there is only one alternative left to us: unity or destruction.

In the middle of this cry for unity and integration, amidst a threatened and anxious world, we hear also the cry for the unity of the Church. Must it not set itself up as an example to the world to demonstrate what is real unity and fellowship? The answer to this question can be sounded so positively that people want to push through to unity in every possible manner, because the time is short. Unity becomes a watchword in relation to the tearing apart of the world and involved with our weakness over against the forces that threaten us, so that men want to force a human construction of unity: now or never!

In this understandable drive toward unity it is possible that unity becomes separated from the uniqueness of the Church. We come into a parallel between the unity of the world and the unity of the Church. Men will thereby come to compromise in favor of unity, and the term acquires only numerical meaning. Men separate “unity” from “uniqueness” and through this fall into the danger of losing what belongs to the message of the New Testament, that this unity concerns the unity of this Church, of the body of Christ, wherein there can be no discussion of compromise but only of fellowship in faith and love. Whoever seeks this unity let him consider the being of the Church, her foundation, her hope and expectation, her calling in the world, her single-voiced witness, wherein the world may not for one instant be in doubt concerning the content of the witness of the Church. The unity of the Church means not that there is only one Church, but that this Church is one, this Church of Jesus Christ.

There are many unities in the world, but the unity of the Church is completely unique, absolutely perfect through her tie to the Head of the Church, and only out of this uniqueness can the Church fulfill her great calling in the world. The whole struggle for ecumenicity is centered around the connection between the unity and uniqueness of the Church. This uniqueness is not a fabricated uniqueness, but it is reality out of the center, out of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Church knows nothing else than Jesus Christ and him crucified. The “togetherness” of fellowship is determined entirely by the gathering together of the love of Christ. That is also the great task in the Church of our times, that she is not called to unity in general, but that she is called to this unity, this responsibility; that the world may believe.…

An introverted church—even though it be unified—is fruitless in the world. It is in its unity not directed toward the world, but only toward itself. In the New Testament we see plainly that the Church that is conscious of its unity and of its uniqueness directs itself naturally toward the world. She who has been called out of darkness to the marvellous light, witnesses of this light to the world. She herself knows of the grace which has had to conquer many dark depths and therefore she testifies out of her mysteries to the overwhelming power of the gospel of grace in the world. If the Church loses this uniqueness, she is also no more an offense to the world, no more as a flock of sheep in the middle of the wolves, according to the Word of Christ. The Church will never be attacked by the world because of her “unity” but above all and ever again because of her unique witness that is not according to men and that will always be a sign which shall be spoken against (Luke 2:34).

In this “uniqueness” there is no concern for special qualities of people or of believers who wish to be “different” from others! But it concerns that uniqueness of the Church that belongs to her being and wherein the old man—in the world and also in the Church!—is denied for his preservation. And there is nothing that the world needs more than the signs of the unity and the uniqueness of the Church. The uniqueness shall then be strengthened out of a single-voiced witness and so there shall come the fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah (8:23): “in those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, we will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.”

So then is the unity in the uniqueness a powerful witness in the world. That the world may believe in the mystery of the coming of Jesus Christ and in the unique witness concerning him, the light will then break, also over a broken world. In her word and in her works then shall the Church of Jesus Christ be a living example to the world as to what the unity of the Father and the Son means over against the lack of unity which is diabolical and is from him who confuses all things and sets forth the works of darkness—until the coming of the peace that shall redeem the world, which Isaiah saw coming in the future and wherein unity shall have come to full reality, “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). Out of the knowledge of the Lord shall the demon of division find his end in destruction, and of this the Church in her unity and in her unique message is the great sign for the world.

“the empire-changing force

that rocked the world”

A remarkable compound of circumstances offers the Church its supreme opportunity. Man’s need for redemption is no greater, but it is more apparent. In an era of cosmic frustration accentuated by the monotonous failure and futility of man’s schemes, thoughtful men reluctantly admit the bankruptcy of human ingenuity. Quiet desperation holds the world in shock while its very survival is threatened by the consummate progress of man’s genius and the only peace is a “truce of terror,” an “immoral deadlock.” Men do not need Christ more, but they are probably more aware (and less articulate) of their need than ever before.

Meanwhile two contradictions beg to be resolved. One, unprecedented church membership and religious interest accompanied by a phenomenal increase in secularism and crime; two, elaborate discussion of ecumenicity accompanied by increased institutionalism. What will bridge the gap between authentic Christianity and mere religious interest and between ecumenicity and institutionalism? The answer is an infusion of the vigorous, empire-changing force that rocked the world to its foundations in the first century.

Thoughtful reading in Acts engenders nostalgia for the flourishing faith of the New Testament Church. Is it possible to recapture the climate of Acts 2:46–47? “And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”

Dr. Luke reported that the Apostolic Church “continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). It is neither accidental nor incidental that this is a matter of sacred record. One feels intuitively that this brief statement preserved by the Spirit is the clue to New Testament faith. This simple program generated the spontaneity, love and holiness—the power that turned the world upside down. This was the distilled essence of discipleship.

The deepest, highest, broadest expression of authentic Christianity is implicit in “fellowship.” It was the heart and core of unity in the first century—the key to a dynamic witness (“Lo how they love one another”). Fellowship is the inescapable sign of the Spirit’s rule in hearts and conversely, its absence may be taken as evidence that the Spirit is “grieved” or “quenched.” Whatever traditions have been added in the accumulative process of centuries, no subsequent program could be a worthy substitute. Fellowship is the hall-mark of authenticity!

Picture the unreserved excitement of a first-century Christian community as they breathlessly gathered to hear the latest word from Peter or Paul. Think of the questions, the prodding of the messenger, the earnest discussion, the joy, the prayer that would ensue. Imagine how they would reminisce, how the “eye-witnesses” would be urged to recount their experiences with Jesus. They never tired hearing these unspeakably precious accounts. And as persecution bore in, driving them underground, how hungrily they would grasp every opportunity to be together to share priceless memories or the latest apostolic word.

Here lay the secret of the unity, the power, the witness of the Church. No difficulty, suffering or threat would be allowed to deprive them of fellowship. It was paramount, not because a council decided it should be done, but because this was the way the Spirit of God moved them. It was not the result of formal deliberation by “officials” but the spontaneous effect of the Spirit magnetizing them with a love that transcended everything and bound them, with all their differences, in unbroken togetherness.

“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). This makes fellowship unique—infinitely more than merely getting together for its own sake. It is vertical as well as horizontal, divine as well as human. The one condition is togetherness in his name. His presence is not limtied to holy places or practices or particular organizations. Wherever two or three gather in his name he is there. It is the tendency to regiment his presence to “properly ordained” institutions that is partially responsible for the rift in his Church—one reason we hear more about ecumenicity and see less of it than perhaps in any former generation.

Mere institutionalism is the foe of fellowship, of ecumenicity, of the Christian witness. God is a God of order and his work should be conducted “decently and in order.” This will involve organization, but the Holy Spirit is the Administrator of the divine order and he will not sanction organization that divides brethren. Institutionalism is competitive and defensive, provoking the feeling that what prospers one work does so at the expense of others, making it impossible for Christians to rejoice in any and all work that is done effectively for Christ. Unless a work is under “acceptable auspices” (what is the criterion for this?) no matter how fruitful it may be, it is suspect, coming under the censure of traditional institutions. And this is as true of the so-called independents as of the denominations today. Until ecumenicity includes “all who in every place call on the name of the Lord” it remains a caricature.

There is justification for optimism however. The Billy Graham Crusades draw together clergy and laity without reference to institutional lines. Not all groups are included by any means, but those not included bear the responsibility for their exclusion. Even more encouraging is the spontaneous birth of fellowship groups all over America. It is not an organized movement. The groups are independent of each other, in fact not particularly aware of each other, but they bear striking likeness to the New Testament fellowship. They cannot be labeled and are not the so-called “come-outer” or splinter type. They are not pre-occupied with criticism of the denominations. Actually the members are usually loyal to their own churches and represent almost every denomination. Counting on the presence of Christ, they meet to study the Bible, share Christian experience and pray. The more familiar one becomes with these groups the more he feels their affinity with the spontaneous, dynamic faith recorded in Acts.

Furthermore, one of the brightest hopes that the revival of religious interest may explode into genuine spiritual awakening, is their earnest concern with the “Apostles’ doctrine.” Abysmal ignorance of the Bible is probably the greatest single reason why the current religious revival has not been truly Christian. An awakened interest in religion cannot be kindled into true spiritual revival except it be nourished on the Word of God!

The Church has come a long way in two millenniums, but she has not outgrown her need of fellowship. Details may be added, but fellowship ought to be at the heart of the program. Neglect it, and it will break out spontaneously wherever the Spirit finds receptive, hungry hearts. If not allowed to happen within rigid framework of institutionalized order, it will spawn without in homes, offices, plants and schools. If the organized church is wise, she will not disregard this movement or criticize it. She will learn from it, encourage it, embrace it, promote it.

Without repudiating any of the great traditions that bind us to the Church in every age, let us not lose the greatest tradition uniting us with those of the first century whose blood became the seed of the Church in all subsequent generations. “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).

“voluntary and not regimented,

spiritual and not mechanical”

W. BOYD HUNT

Of the figures of speech Paul uses for the Church, none has so captivated the twentieth-century mind as the metaphor of the body. Doubtless this is due in part to the widespread influence of philosophies of organism, associated with such names as Bergson and Whitehead. But whatever the reason, others of Paul’s metaphors, such as building and bride, have received but scant attention. Even Paul’s basic concept of the Church as a fellowship in the Holy Spirit has had by comparison a negligible influence.

To be sure, the detailed investigation of the rich variations and subtle nuances in Paul’s references to the Church as a body is a rewarding study. Entire volumes have been devoted to the subject, such as Ernest Best’s remarkable contribution, One Body in Christ. For the present, however, technical distinctions must be laid aside, and it must suffice to take body as simply synonymous with Church. The theme of this symposium, “The Body Christ Heads,” is then understood to raise the question of the nature of the Church in current thought in the light of the biblical revelation.

In general, contemporary opinions as to the nature of the Church fall into two types. Some writers stress the Church as the inclusive agency of salvation. Others stress the fellowship of responsible believers as an exclusive community of saints.

According to the one type the Church is visible and universal and stands in organic relation to Christ. At times the Church is even identified with the actual ressurrection body of Christ. More often, however, interpreters are less mystical and prefer instead to speak of the Church as the continuing incarnation (an atonement?) of Christ. Invariably this type of thinking is sacramental: the life of the head of the body is mediated to the members in some special way through the clergy; infants are baptized into membership in the body; life in the body is sustained by participation in the Lord’s Supper.

According to the other type the Church in the present order is a local and voluntary fellowship of baptized believers, banded together in the Holy Spirit to find and to do the will of Christ their head. While in the earlier view a centralized organization of the universal, visible body of believers is not only conceivable but is the actual end sought, in this view each local church is independent and democratic, looking immediately to Christ for direction. Any general organization is for promotional and cooperative purposes only. Larger bodies are in no sense ecclesiastical in nature or function. Though sometimes called the sect type, this is really the least sectarian. Its adherents have been the last to persecute nonconformists.

Once these two types become clearly defined, the means each adopts to further its conception of the Church in the present order is self-evident. One tries to accomplish this end by organizational and sacramental means, the other by spiritual and ethical. In the latter view, the oneness of believers in Christ is actual in God’s sight, but this actuality finds visible expression only as Christ, as the Saviour and Lord of the body, brings believers together voluntarily and spontaneously in the Holy Spirit. Organizational manipulations are rejected as attempted shortcuts for the long arduous road to a unity morally conditioned.

When we ask which of these two types is the true one, the answer is obvious if the New Testament is held to be the final authority. But strangely enough this is seldom the case. J. Robert Nelson in The Realm of Redemption, an invaluable study of contemporary ecclesiological thought, reminds us that few of today’s church leaders look to the New Testament for the model of church form and order. Nelson himself wonders why anyone would think a first-century pattern could be relevant to the changed conditions of the twentieth century.

But is all we find in the New Testament simply a product of the first century? Or is this a unique inspiration raising the New Testament to a dimension of contemporaneousness and constituting it in principle an enduring authority, even in matters of form and order?

It is possible, of course, to appeal to the New Testament in such a way as to beg the real question. This is done when the authority of Scripture is invoked as though its message lent itself to infallible interpretation, which it never quite does. The New Testament is always more than its interpretations. The message abides, but creeds, confessions and theologies are subject to continuous revision. The essential quality of biblical revelation is that of the one who inspired it—Spirit.

But if the New Testament as illumined by the Holy Spirit in experience is taken as the final authority, then whatever contradicts this norm must be rejected. Thus we are confronted by such questions as: Where in the New Testament is a visible, universal, organized Church? Where in the New Testament is anything but a functional distinction between the clergy and laity? Where in the New Testament is infant baptism? Where in the New Testament is salvation a sacramental matter involving an organic relation to the Church instead of a personal commitment to Jesus Christ?

If the Church in the New Testament is primarily a spiritual fellowship of baptized believers, if organization is functional and not essential to salvation, if the cohesiveness of believers is voluntary, cooperative, democratic and ultimately local, if believers are answerable directly to the Lord Jesus Christ both as individuals and as the fellowship of the local church—then should not this be the pattern for today? How can we justify, other than by the appeal to the superiority of tradition over Scripture, departures from this norm?

No one, it is hoped, would deny that believers everywhere have an obligation to oneness. In God’s sight they are already one in Christ, in whom there is neither bond nor free, male nor female, white nor black. Such distinctions have been made forever irrelevant in the fellowship of the Spirit. But in experience this oneness is a spiritual cohesiveness deeply moral in quality. It is the expression of maturity of life in the Spirit. It cannot be realized on any other basis.

The New Testament materials are instructive here. Often the early Christians voluntarily disagreed, much the same as different denominations disagree today, nor did this disagreement destroy their obligation to oneness. To the extent that the particular believers involved were spiritually mature, to that extent we may assume they disagreed in love, preferring rather to agree. But each was convinced that he must be true to his own understanding of the mind of Christ. Actually this was the only way the body of Christ could be genuinely built up in experience, since in this present order no man’s understanding is infallible and therefore each needs the check and balance of the other. Apart from the unique quality of inspiration entering into the production of the New Testament itself, no Christian or group of Christians, even in the apostolic age, had a guaranteed corner on God. Even Peter had to be corrected by Paul.

Take for instance the new church at Antioch (Acts, chaps. 11 and 13). Antioch was impelled directly by the Spirit to launch the first missionary journey under Barnabas and Saul. Later, when the original church at Jerusalem objected, messengers from Antioch were sent to seek to justify its departure from Jerusalem’s pattern. Acts (chap. 15) shows that a measure of accord between the two churches was reached, but there is little evidence that Jerusalem ever shared with Antioch in the Gentile mission movement. Yet notice that in the providence of God Antioch did not wait on Jerusalem. Obedience to the Spirit was more priceless than unity at the awful cost of compromise.

Of course this trust in the local congregation under the Holy Spirit is a radical thing, just as the believer’s liberty in the Holy Spirit is a radical thing—requiring that each is competent to interpret the Bible for himself. But it is glorious in its potentiality. Surely it is self-evident that the higher organizational unity is voluntary and not regimented, spiritual and not mechanical, cooperative (from the bottom up) and not ecclesiastically imposed (from the top down). What greater challenge could there be than the realization of the cohesiveness issuing spontaneously and freely from spiritual maturity? A unitedness achieved by any lesser means must surely be less than the best.

So then ye are no more strangers and sojourners, but ye are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:19–22 ASV).

“the apostolic emphasis

… is unity of doctrine”

J. THEODORE MUELLER

Perhaps no more perplexing problem faces Christendom today than that of church union. Not all denominations pursue this objective from the same point of view or for the same reason. As Prof. Martin Franzmann points out in Religion in Life (Spring, 1957), some approach the problem of unity from the viewpoint of “a club, loosely organized and broadly inclusive,” while others seek unity as a “standard about which men may rally” (p. 213). Thus the matter of unity, though one of “basic simplicity,” becomes one of “practical complexity and difficulty” (p. 207). Nevertheless, all concerned Christians desire to see the Church united in both its Christian profession and its practical application of that profession to life.

The question suggests the consideration of New Testament emphases that are vital for Christian union. We find some of these summed up in a practical, hortatory way in the second and third chapters of Revelation, where the Holy Spirit speaks to the churches in clear and soul-searching words. Christians may do well to consider these emphases in their study of the unity question.

There is in these two dynamic chapters no stress whatever on outward church organization as it is being urged in many areas of Christendom today. The seven representative churches of Asia, humanly speaking, were greatly in need of such organization, for they were troubled by spiritual foes in many ways. But nowhere does the Holy Spirit suggest any group organization of these churches as a means of offense or defense. Every congregation is addressed as an independent unit and is exhorted both to preserve the doctrine delivered to it by the apostolic proclamation and to reject all errors opposing that doctrine. That, too, is the method of St. Paul, who consistently admonishes the local churches to preserve the apostolic doctrine and practice together with their sister churches. “We have no such custom, neither the churches of God” (1 Cor. 11:16). “As in all churches of the saints, let your women keep silence in the churches” (1 Cor. 14:34). The apostolic emphasis is always on unity of doctrine and practice, but never on external church organization. Church organizations, of course, are not forbidden, but they presuppose unity in faith and life.

Again and again there resounds in the letters addressed to the seven churches in Asia the meaningful refrain: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” The Church is to hear and to obey the divine Word. It is not to argue or to deny it. Much less is it to surrender the divine truth to errorists or to change the Gospel of Christ into a human philosophy by which the cross of Christ is emptied of its saving content (1 Cor. 1:18). Today the Spirit speaks to the churches only in the Holy Scriptures, for “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). The churches are to teach till the end of time all things that Christ has commanded them (Matt. 28:20). Unless Christians are ready to abide by God’s inspired Word as set forth in the Holy Scriptures, listening to it as authoritatively binding upon conscience, church unity in its New Testament sense cannot be accomplished.

To the troubled church in Smyrna the divine Spirit says: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (2:11). The church in Smyrna faced persecution, tribulation and poverty; it was, therefore, admonished to be faithful to the Lord, “the first and the last, which was dead and is alive” (v. 8). To the loyal church at Philadelphia the Spirit says: “Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown” (3:11). It is only if the churches are faithful to him that is “holy and true and has the key of David,” who “openeth and no man shutteth; who shutteth and no man openeth,” that they can be truly united in Christ, the divine-human Redeemer of the world. Outside the Christ of the Bible and his Word there is no unity that is pleasing to God. “Hear ye him” (Matt. 17:5).

The Holy Spirit in Revelation 2 and 3 praises and rebukes. He praises the churches that hate the deeds of the Nicolaitanes (2:6) and do not deny Christ’s name (3:8), but faithfully keep the Word of his patience (3:10). He rebukes the congregations that hold the doctrine of Balaam (2:14) and suffer the woman Jezebel and her fornication (2:20, 21). Wherever anti-Christian spirits and errors are tolerated there can be no church unity in the sense of the Spirit of God. The Church must say an absolute yes to every Word of Christ as taught in the Holy Scriptures. In the same breath it must say a decisive and final no to everything that is anti-Christian in doctrine and practice. That is the prerequisite of true church union. There may be lawful cooperation among differing denominations in externals, though also here a caution is in place. But unless the churches fully agree in matters of doctrine and practice they are not truly united in the sense of that unity which the Lord demands. It is true, there is the spiritual unity of the “communion of saints,” that is, of all true believers in Christ. But this Christ-centered unity of the Una Sancta should lead all Christians to an ever greater agreement in doctrine and life. They should always strive for it in obedience to the divine Word. It is God’s will that “ye all speak the same thing, and there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). Where that unity cannot be achieved, true believers, bound by their honest convictions, will follow the course of denominational separation, though never failing to speak the truth in love that all may grow up into him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ (Eph. 4:25).

The church to which the Holy Spirit in Revelation administered the severest reproof was that of Laodicea. It was a church that was neither hot nor cold and so egregiously indifferent to truth and error. It neither insisted upon adherence to the divine truth, nor did it rebuke those who taught error. Since it was lukewarm, it was so offensive to the Lord that he threatened to spew it out of his mouth. Has this condemnation perhaps befallen large areas of the Church today? Is not perhaps the lukewarmness, the spiritual indifference to truth and error in large parts of present-day Christendom, the impelling cause of the high pressure methods exerted upon all denominations to bring them within church organizations where truth and error are being taught side by side? That, we believe, should be a matter of conscientious consideration to all who love the Word of God. Let them carefully study God’s inspired letters to the seven churches and heed the emphases of his Holy Spirit for the Church’s salvation.

We Quote:

FRED P. CORSON

Bishop, The Methodist Church

Let the Church know the world it is to serve, but let the Church go forth to serve in the consciousness of its own nature, its authority, its mission and its power.… Wesley found his doctrine of the Church in the Bible. Cutting through human traditions he saw the Church of the first century as “a congregation of faithful men in which the pure word is preached and the sacraments duly administered according to Christ’s ordinances.” … The Church misjudges its constituency when it assumes that standards of truth are no longer looked for nor responded to. The Church defeats itself when it exchanges its divine revelation for a materialistic relativism and seeks to be heard by its facility in spiritualizing current opinion. Where there have been recent notable stirrings of religious interest they have been produced by proclamation of truth and not by a forum on its alternatives and relative merits.… We must revive the language of revealed truth. Granting man the power to decide, the Church must open for him the Book which Protestantism holds as the rule and guide to man’s faith and practice.—In “The Episcopal Address” of the Bishops of the Methodist Church to the General Conference, 1956.

ARTHUR J. MOORE

Bishop, The Methodist Church

It is evident that for preachers and people alike the urgency of soul which characterized our fathers must be recovered. We must speak again of the ghastly reality of sin, the atonement of Christ, of justification by faith, of the eternal profit of goodness, and of the everlasting loss to those who will not have Christ. Our gospel must be suited to the anguish of these times. But we will not help the seeking man to find God by underestimating his need for redemption or by declaring that the cross is only an example of how a good man could bear pain. Here is our chance to renew the springs of religious life and thereby to lift the level of moral and spiritual life perceptibly higher than it has been.—In Together, May, 1957.

“the Bible … is authoritative

for the evangelical”

HAROLD JOHN OCKENGA

I am a Congregationalism a pastor of a Congregational church and a member of the Suffolk West Association of Congregational and Christian Churches. I believe in the Congregational form of church government, which grants autonomy to the local congregations but unites these congregations in fellowship in associations of churches, local, national and international. Congregationalism has demonstrated its genius for unity with diversity of conviction and practice. Now, in the name of unity all this is being destroyed.

On June 25, 1957, the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church formed the United Church of Christ. The constitution for the new church, a statement of faith, and the coordination of boards and agencies of the two churches will be worked out in detail by committees appointed by the Uniting General Synod. The result will be an authoritarian church with new government, creed, central control of boards, agencies, institutions and congregations, but no doctrinal harmony. In an association where the vast preponderance of ministers are liberal, such centralized control will be unendurable for an evangelical minister and for an evangelical church. In the name of unity another division must eventuate. At least Park Street Church and its pastors will remain Congregational and evangelical.

Does this mean that I have no passion for the unity of the body of Christ, no desire for fellowship with the saints, no concern for obedience to the headship of Christ? Exactly the opposite is true! But I refuse to sell my integrity and liberty for a man-made unity. This underscores the challenge to Christians to restudy the New Testament, to discover and adopt the biblical basis or principles of unity.

At the outset an evangelical Christian will derive his source of instruction on unity from propositional revelation which presents the minimal prerequisites for the fellowship of believers. This biblical revelation is creedal concerning God, man, sin, redemption, judgment and life. An evangelical is committed to this body of biblical propositions as the irreducible minimum of doctrinal requirements for fellowship. The Bible, not some exigency, is authoritative for the evangelical. What then does the Bible teach?

The Bible teaches that the Church is one: one body in which there are many members (1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:16); one bride betrothed to Jesus Christ in mystical union (Eph. 5:24–27); one house which is the temple of God (Eph. 2:21, 22; 1 Peter 2:4–8); one communion in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 10:16, 17; 12:13). Into this organism enters every repentant, believing soul who is “born of God,” “born of the Spirit,” “born of the Word,” “born again.” Immediately there begins a sharing of life, of status, of destiny by all such. The relationship is primarily to Christ the head, the bridegroom, the cornerstone, the elder brother, the baptizer with the Spirit, but also it is to every person holding like relationship and position. Inescapably correlative to the former is the latter. Hence, all Christians are united in Christ.

Christ is the only redeemer of God’s elect. “He loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:25, 26). There is a unity of the saved of all ages, whether Adam, Abraham, David, Paul or you. The only way to God is through Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). To whatsoever form of the Gospel (Gal. 3:8) men may respond they are brought to God through Christ and a relationship to him (Rom. 3:25, 26). Hence, they are united to one another by the covenant of redemption and are called “the children of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7, 29).

Christ prayed for the oneness of these redeemed (John 17:21). The prayer itself states the nature of the unity as spiritual: “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee.” Such unity had not yet occurred in the history of redemption. Christ had promised to build his Church (Matt. 16:18). At Pentecost he founded his Church by baptizing the living believers into his spiritual body, the Church (1 Cor. 12:13; Acts 2:1–4). The redeemed of pre-Pentecostal eras were united in this body as a result of Calvary, thus becoming one. The high-priestly prayer of Christ for unity was answered at Pentecost—and at Calvary.

For Calvary alone was the ground or basis of Christian unity. By that sufficient and efficacious sacrifice the sins which were covered by Old Testament sacrifices were taken away (Rom. 3:26; Heb. 9:12–14). From this evangelicals demand faith in the death of Christ for our sins and the resurrection of Christ for our justification (1 Cor. 15:1–3) as the prerequisite of spiritual unity in the body of Christ. That Christ died is an historical fact. That Christ “died for our sins” is doctrine, and is also a fact. The acceptance of such doctrine is essential to salvation (1 Cor. 15:2) and to participation in the body of Christ. The evangelical declares that this spiritual unity already exists and that the manifestation of that unity depends upon the right exegesis of the Bible and obedience to its authority. Let Christians restudy the Word on questions that divide, with a predisposition to obedience regardless of how that obedience may cut across vested interests, personal affiliations or organizational lines. A realignment of Christian forces must be made today. Old lines of warfare and conflict are infiltrated and vacillating. The new unity will be of those committed to the biblical Christ as Lord and head of the Church. This will mean expression by division from those who preach “another gospel which is not another” and who worship “another Christ.”

If Christ is the head of the Church, we Christians must seek to think about the Church as he thought, to feel about the Church as he felt and to act concerning the Church as he acted. Christ loved the Church. Does deep, passionate, moving love of the one Church impel us? Christ gave himself for the Church. Will we deny ourselves, sacrifice for and serve the Church, even until death? Christ cleansed and purified the Church. Are we actively engaged in promoting the purity of the Church?

Let us translate this into the figure of a symphony. For too long we have resembled the pre-concert individualistic tuning of our instruments in discordant confusion. Too long each has been singing his own little song, forgetting about the other fellow. The world audience is tiring of this confusion and has no pleasure in it. Is it not time for the Great Conductor to tap his baton, for silence to ensue, and then for all emotion, life and action to be directed in glorious harmony under his leadership? In the proportion that we acknowledge his mystical presence and headship, we Christians will have unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.

“outward conformity common

… in a totalitarian age”

W. STANFORD REID

Probably that which is most characteristic of midcentury Protestantism is its stress upon the importance of ecclesiastical unity. Denominational divisions are frequently referred to as “the shame of the Church,” and every effort is made to bring about a “New Testament unity.” There is, however, also another emphasis in the New Testament, and that is on the “pluriformity” of the Church, a concept which arises out of its doctrine of unity. The trouble today is often that because one’s interpretation of the Church’s unity is in error, one forgets also its pluriformity.

To the New Testament the basic principle of Christian unity is Christ himself. The stress is at all times and everywhere upon the centrality of his divine-human person and his fulfillment of the office of Prophet, Priest and King. The Lord Jesus repeatedly stated that he was the heart of his own teaching, so that faith in and love towards him meant unity with him. This doctrine was likewise stressed by the Apostles in their teaching. The fundamental requirement for anyone to be a Christian was that he should believe in and serve Christ (Acts 8:37; 16:37; Rom. 4:24, 25; Gal. 2:16).

Such faith and love towards Christ meant that the Christian was effectually bound to him as part of his mystical body, the Church (1 Cor. 12). He is so bound by the inworking power and activity of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love who joins together all the people of God (1 Cor. 12:13, 14). Thus all Christians have the unity of one fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:3). This is summed up in Paul’s words to the Ephesians: “one hope and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all who is over all, and through all, and in you all” (4:4 f).

Such would appear to be the unity for which Christ prayed his great high-priestly prayer recorded in John 17. He did not assume that the Son would be absorbed into the Father, nor did he ask that all Christians would be absorbed into one undifferentiated mass. Rather he prayed that the unity of Christians might be similar to that of the Father and the Son. Thus the oneness desired both by the Lord and his Apostles was that which comes from an agreement of heart and mind, and which manifests itself in true fellowship. That is why John could declare, “hereby we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). Christian unity then, according to the New Testament, is not a matter primarily of organization but of the “communion of the saints.”

Such a concept of unity prevented any attempt to establish a rigid uniformity. The New Testament continually reiterates that men are both different, possessing various gifts and capacities (1 Cor. 12), and that they are also sinners. Both uniformity and perfection, therefore, are impossible of attainment in this world. Consequently there does not seem to have been a striving for that outward conformity which is so common in our own totalitarian age.

The “modern” monolithic attitude appeared once during Christ’s ministry when his disciples complained of the man who was casting out demons in the Lord’s name, but was not following with them. Christ’s reply was that they were not to forbid him for, since he spoke in Christ’s name he must be a follower, although he was not of the apostolic group. In this connection Dean Alford’s comment is very much to the point:

“… all those who, notwithstanding outward differences of communion and government, believe in and preach Jesus Christ without bitterly and uncharitably opposing each other, are hereby declared to be helpers forward of each other’s work” (The Greek Testament, 6th ed., 1868, on Mk. 9:38 f).

Such liberal point of view seems to have been carried on by the Apostles who had apparently learned their lesson from their earlier experience. This comes out clearly in their dealings with the differences between the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church. The Jewish Christians apparently demanded that the Gentiles must conform to all the law of Moses. But to this the Apostles, as can be seen in Acts 15 and Galatians 1 and 2, opposed the freedom of the Gospel. They insisted that the primary criterion of an individual’s Christianity was unity with Christ by faith and obedience. When that had been established, the members of the Church were to treat each other with charity, allowing each other to follow the dictates of conscience enlightened by the Spirit speaking through the Scriptures. Thus they did not require the Jews to give up all their ceremonies, nor did they require the Gentiles to conform to Jewish ritual.

From this it would appear that the Apostolic approach was much more liberal than that of many Christians since their day, because more truly dependent upon the Spirit of God. It was the Spirit who was to give unity, not the legislation or compulsion of man. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17). It is only in this liberty that ecclesiastical pluriformity, and therefore, true Christian unity, may advance.

“… organic rather than organizational”

SAMUEL M. SHOEMAKER

There seems to me no better way to approach this all-important question than to consult J. B. Phillips’ preface to his translation of the Acts called The Young Church in Action. He appears to understand in a remarkable way the flavor and power of the early Church. Consider these two sentences: “… these early Christians were led by the Spirit to the main task of bringing people to God through Christ and were not permitted to enjoy fascinating sidetracks,” and, “… members of the fellowship of the early Church appear to have been the necessary agents between men seeking God and God himself.”

This evangelistic passion must have been their second enthusiasm. Their first enthusiasm surely was the great fact and event of the Person in whom they lived, Jesus Christ crucified and risen. This was the all-embracing reality which overshadowed everything else. Even our deepest experiences of him today seem pale by comparison, too much modified by our present outlook, our own temperaments, or the brands of Christianity to which we have been exposed. We seem unable to recapture the pristine glory of that early age.

When we look for reasons for this, we can only come up with the thought that the difference between them and us lies in their self-forgetful and intense awareness that they had been redeemed by Jesus, and that he was alive in their midst. This represents for us, not a “neglected emphasis,” for evangelical Christianity is always proclaiming him and his divineness and his resurrection and his continued presence; but we seem to see here rather something given and supernatural which no human “emphasis” can possibly recall. Perhaps we have too much faith in the “truth” proclaimed, and too little faith in him and his energizing Holy Spirit. The “experience” of Christ and the Holy Spirit was what made them different, yet we cannot pursue this “experience” for itself. We can only receive and proclaim the truth and pray for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our innermost hearts to be the motive force of all our living, changing us and our procedures all the time.

Yet it soon became their “main task” to “bring people to God through Christ.” I suspect they needed no evangelistic urging to do this, and that they could no more keep from doing it than a spring can keep from pouring forth water. I wonder whether any suggestion of techniques for doing this was ever given them, though I have always suspected that such a story as our Lord’s dealing with the woman at the well may have been recalled to them by him precisely for teaching purposes. (Whence came that story anyway, if not directly from him? It seems dubious that the woman would have rehearsed it all in detail.) Their witness must have been really a witness of the whole Christian community, “forced through the channels of a single heart,” as Myers says. Their oneness in Christ was a given and organic thing.

What did they say when they witnessed? Did it all concern him and his risen-ness, or did they recount also the wonderful things that had happened, e.g to St. Paul, or mix their direct witness to their risen Lord with some of the story of what had happened to themselves through him? If so, they gave us, I think, a lead on the way we need to witness today. It has always been necessary to witness more about events than about ideas—the great event of Christ, and the lesser but to each of us tremendous event of Christ’s coming to us.

Dr. Phillips speaks also of the “days before (the Church) ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle-bound by over-organization.” The Church was then a group of close-knit friends in Christ, meeting in somebody’s house for their prayers and holy communion, having to make their living in the same world as pagans, but actually centered in Christ and in “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.” What must it have been like for one of them to meet another for the first time and realize the amazing bond that already bound them? There can have been no “church work” as we understand it, only much carrying of one another’s burdens and much concern for incoming new believers. Worship, fellowship, and direct spiritual service—nothing else—what wonder they had such power! And can we expect to recapture anything of what they knew unless we realize that the real core of the Church is not a set of interlocking organizations, but a great many interpersonal relationships, people bound together in what they do because they are first bound together in him in whom they believe? The early Church was organic rather than organizational. Someone calls our contemporary religion “committeeized Christianity.” Of course we have to have some organization and we hope the organic will permeate the organizational. But it will not, I fear, unless we do more to put it first. People are terribly rifted and lonely in our churches. We must find better ways to create personal and small-group relationships and spend more of our time “bringing people to God through Christ.”

Much is said today of worship and much experimentation of a liturgical kind is going on. This may serve good ends if it is matched by personal dedication and group interpersonal exchange. There must have been an intentness and simplicity about the worship of the early Church that contrasts sharply with our stately, pompous, often sentimental and unreal efforts at worship. One imagines them “lost in wonder, love and praise” for their Lord. Unless a deeper experience of our Lord, a costlier dedication of ourselves to him, and a truer insight into the nature of Christian fellowship and some beginnings of experience of it go into our worship—and unless we come away from it more really burdened for the total need of mankind with specific responsibility accepted by ourselves—it is difficult to see how our worship can ever approach what worship must have been in that early company, so reverent (as we must imagine) in its Holy Communion, so free in its congregational expression of joyous faith!

But I think we must say two things about our natural tendency to look back to the early Church for inspiration: First, I doubt whether it was always and in all things as unified, sanctified and powerful as we think it to have been; and second, the Holy Spirit is alive today. He has never been withdrawn from his Church. He might even have far greater and better things for us than he had for them at the first, if only we would wait on him, pray to him, try to keep in step with him in his present revelation to us. Whitsunday as one day, with appropriate theological and liturgical reminders, is no substitute for a Church that lives in the Holy Spirit as a fish lives in water, or as we live in air. I do not believe any of us knows the real need of the world or of the Church, nor how it is to be met; but Christ knows both. It is my own belief that if we all imbibed the truth and sought with all our hearts the experience that is set forth in Chapter 4 of Bishop Newbegin’s The Household of God, the chapter called “The Community of the Holy Spirit,” we might put ourselves in the way of the fresh “opening” and awakening that he may will for us, if only he can get us quiet and obedient and loving and forgiving enough to receive it.

END

We Quote:

JAMES S. STEWART

Professor of New Testament, University of Edinburgh

“The fact is, belief in missions and belief in Christ stand and fall together. To say ‘I believe that God so loved the world that in Christ He gave everything He had, gave His very self’, to use such words not lightly or conventionally but in spirit and in truth, means that the one who uses them binds himself irrevocably to make self-giving the controlling principle of life: and this is the very essence of mission. To put it otherwise, the concern for world evangelisation is not something tacked on to a man’s personal Christianity, which he may take or leave as he chooses: it is rooted indefeasibly in the character of the God who has come to us in Jesus … To accept Christ is to enlist under a missionary banner.”—In Thine is the Kingdom, p. 14 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1957).

The Man Who Loved His Critics

A. Dallimore

There are many features of one of the greatest lives of Christian history—that of George Whitefield (1714–1770)—which posterity has largely overlooked. That he was a matchless orator and soul-winner is known to all, but such matters as his leadership of the vast international revival movement, his twelve years in evangelism in America, the degree of his learning, the lasting effect of his work on all the great denominations, and most especially, the consideration that the American Revolution and Constitution were mainly moulded in the fires of “The Great Awakening”—these significant achievements have received but scant attention. But important as are these aspects of a colossal career, still more valuable to us will be to make acquaintance with him as a man of God and see him afresh as, in an age of cruelty and religious bitterness, he maintained unflinchingly his own strong convictions, yet lived among men always in gracious kindness. He was ever the peacemaker among the controversialists and the Mr. Great Heart with tender care for all; a reacquaintance with this Whitefield, the Apostle of Love, will serve us well.

Humble Amid Popularity

If ever a man triumphed over temptations that attend popularity, it was Whitefield. When a youth of only twenty-two he preached every day, and often twice a day, in the largest churches of London to crowds no church could hold. When a year later he launched out into the open air he could draw thousands any hour of the day, any day in the week, anywhere in England! In the London parks he needed but to take his stand on a table or a stone wall, and people flocked around—ten thousand, twenty thousand, and sometimes even forty, sixty or eighty thousand. There were times when he lost all attempt at estimating their number and simply noticed how many acres they covered. Possessed with what was probably the greatest voice any human ever had, he moved these vast audiences at will and, impossible as it seems, made them all hear, except when the sound of their weeping drowned out his voice. The poor and ignorant were there and they understood him as he talked in simple, tender tones about the sinner’s Saviour. The mob was there and he beat down their cries and made them listen. The rich and learned were there and many a titled personage laid a coronet at the Master’s feet.

Whitefield was idolized above all measure. People pressed upon him as he walked the streets, or ran simply to touch his garment. They thronged his lodgings as he ate and came seeking him through the hours of the night. People everywhere talked of him, newspapers were full of him and on two continents they called him, “Ye Wonder of Ye Age.”

The Siren Call Of Fame

Deep, dark danger lurks in popularity and many a lesser man has been ruined by but a fraction of the adulation Whitefield received. He too heard the subtle siren call of fame as it offered him everything but the one thing he wanted most—the approval of his God. With characteristic greatness of soul he turned a deaf ear to all proffered gain and good will of earth. His own words tell it well:

Had it not been for my compassionate High Priest, popularity might have destroyed me. I used to plead with him to take me by the hand and lead me through this fiery furnace. He heard my request and gave me to see the vanity of all commendations but his own!

“The vanity of all commendations but his own!” In these youthful words of triumph over all concern for earthly acclaim, we see the real George Whitefield. Here is a man at twenty-three, dead to the opinions of humankind—their praise or blame, their applause or censure—and alive, gloriously alive to a higher approbation. He sought then, already early in his career, as he continued unswervingly throughout life’s hurried day, to show himself approved only unto God.

Meek Beneath Opposition

Yet along with admiration of his multitude of friends he was faced with hatred of an equal multitude of foes. As soon as Whitefield burst forth in his mighty evangelism evil men and the principalities and powers of darkness seemed suddenly to turn all their forces upon him. Hating the revival, its message, its methods and its results, they looked for a focal point on which to concentrate their rage. They found it, not so much in the astute and professorial Wesley, but in the colorful, irrepressible, magnetic Whitefield. In ways that we can hardly credit today every lying scheme that malice could devise to blacken his character and weaken his testimony was employed against him. Isaac Taylor sums it up saying,

Among those who by their flagitious crimes have most deeply sinned against society, it would be difficult to find a wretch upon whose guilty pate has been showered so much rancorous abuse as, year by year, was heaped upon the head of the love-fraught, self-denying and gentle-natured Whitefield.

It was very early in his ministry that he first saw himself villified in print. He was doubtless wounded by the cruel attack, but essayed no retaliation and made no reply. Instead he simply stood with bowed head and uttered the words, “Thou wilt answer for me, Lord!” This became his fixed practice and times without number, as the storm of malice beat unrelentingly upon him throughout his life, he uttered the same phrase, often aloud, “Thou wilt answer for me, Lord!” How beautifully his friend Cowper wrote of him:

He loved the world that hated him; the tear

That fell upon his Bible was sincere;

Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,

His only answer was—a blameless life.

And he who forged, and he who threw the dart,

Had each a brother’s interest in his heart.

(Leuconomos)

In the course of his wide travels Whitefield became associated with hundreds of other ministers. In all his dealings with these brethren there was no thought or hint of his own importance, but rather of that of the other man. Utterly careless as to what denomination anyone belonged, or whether he was a big city preacher or little country pastor, as long as he was born-again, Whitefield saw in him a challenge. With gracious words of encouragement, and sometimes a deserved rebuke, he sought to inspire and move him to become as earnest for souls as he was himself. Scores of preachers all over Britain and America lighted their torch at the Whitefield flame and herein lay the basic secret of the continuation and spread of the revival. In turn, it goes without saying that the evangelist who, so powerful and so famous, walked thus in simplicity and humility among his brethren was the object of their boundless affection and undying love.

Ill Treated By Good Men

But alas! it was not invariably so, and some of the crudest blows he bore were from ministers—good, earnest Bible-believing ministers. Many examples might be cited but one especially will illustrate the point:

He was only twenty-six when he went to Scotland, burdened with cares, terribly in debt for his orphanage and broken in health. In face of the great campaign in Edinburgh he needed and merited united assistance of all God’s people there. Instead he was confronted with a church rent by bitter quarrels. A group known as the Seceeders had long protested against the growing laxity in doctrine and practice within the Kirk. They had finally withdrawn and formed the Associate Presbytery, a rival organization from which they maintained a continuous warfare with their former brethren. Within the church were two other groups: the Moderates (much akin to the Modernists of today), and the Evangelicals who could not go along with the Seceeders because of their bitterness of spirit and so remained in the church to live and pray and work for revival.

Target Of Misguided Wrath

Both Seceeders and Evangelicals saw in the flaming young evangelist the answer to their problems and both entreated him to come to Scotland. His intention was to work among both groups, but the Seceeders, while they welcomed him as an angel of light as long as they thought he would remain with them, demanded that he have no fellowship with any of the men in the Kirk, “their enemies.” He sat down with the nine venerable gentlemen of the Associate Presbytery at their headquarters, as they attempted to shackle him with their particular brand of “contending for the faith” in blind, selfish partisanship and as they laid down the law that he must preach for them and them only. But he shocked the dour Scotsmen as he sternly replied that he would not now or at any time be limited by anyone as to where and with whom he preached. He told them plainly, “If a Jew, or a Mohammedan, or the Pope himself would lend me his pulpit, I would gladly proclaim the righteousness of Jesus Christ therein!”

Thereafter he preached among the Evangelicals, and with what vast results! Teeming congregations heard him twice a day in Edinburgh’s largest park. Prayer meetings sprung up spontaneously throughout the city and in many places throughout Scotland. Untold numbers were brought to a saving knowledge of Christ; the tides of unbelief that had sorely threatened the Kirk rolled back. It was the commencement of a whole new age of evangelicalism that ushered Scotland into the greatest century of spiritual power she has ever known, with boundless results that only the eternal morning will make known—all this stemmed from the Whitefield campaign in Scotland!

But what of the Seceeders, while this manifest blessing of God was upon his labors among the people of the Kirk? Stung with bitter realization that God had owned his ministry among their foes, they turned in wrath upon the man they had so lately extolled. They vented their rage in a 75-page booklet with the enormous title,

A Warning Against Countenancing the Ministrations of Mr. George Whitefield, Wherein is shown that he is no Minister of Jesus Christ; that his call and coining to Scotland are Scandalous; that his practice is disorderly; that his whole doctrine is and his success must be diabolical, so that people ought to avoid him from duty to God, to the church, to themselves, to Posterity and to him!

When few paid heed to their bitter fulminations, they found it necessary to call a nationwide public fast in which “they solemnly engaged to strengthen one another’s hands to entirpate Popery, Arminianism, Tritheism, Sabeianism, and George Whitefieldism,” and when this ponderous attempt extirpated nothing, they again resorted to the press and produced another fiery booklet:

The Declaration, Protestantion and Testimony of the Suffering Remnant of the anti-Popish, anti-Lutheran, anti-Prelatic, anti-Whitefieldian, anti-Erastian, anti-Sectarian true Church of Scotland.

A lesser man than Whitefield would have ignored these wrathful men in haughty silence and let the evident blessing of God on his labors serve as sufficient rebuke. But let it be remembered that the Seceeders were not a band of ignorant fanatics; they were men of ability and learning, and some of their number were among the ablest pulpiteers of the land. Above all, they were earnest for their God in their mistaken way. Whitefield felt a kinship with them in their defense of the faith and longed to see them joined in cooperation with the Evangelicals within the church. Thus he arranged two or three interviews with them, in which he bluntly told them they were but building a Babel which soon would fall about their ears. He begged them to cease their strife with all such of their brethren who were true to God’s Book and to work together in the positive prosecution of the great work. But all his entreaties went unheeded and, choosing to continue in their bitterness, they soon turned from fighting Whitefield and the Kirk to fighting one another.

A Peacemaker Among Controversialists

Posterity has remembered much of the controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians of early Methodism, but it has failed to notice Whitefield’s passionate and unselfish attempts as peacemaker in the long dispute. John Wesley began the controversy with his sermon on free grace. It was a scathing denunciation of what he supposed was Calvinism and he called into use every talent of his brilliant mind—sarcasm, ridicule, exaggeration and plain abuse are there in high style. It was an explosive utterance that could not fail to inflame men’s passions and divide God’s work. To make matters worse, Wesley intended to carry the controversy far and wide by putting the sermon in print.

Ever since his conversion Whitefield had held strongly to Calvinistic views and found these confirmed in his wide reading of the Reformers and Puritans. He could not and would not compromise his deep convictions one iota. Yet he dreaded the results of Wesley’s sermon if it should be published, and wrote him:

Dear Honoured Sir: If you have any regard for the peace of the church, keep in your sermon on predestination. Oh! my heart in the midst of my body is melted like wax! The Lord direct us all! Honoured Sir, indeed I desire you all the success you could wish for! May you increase, though I decrease! Oh! wresde, wrestle in prayer that not the least alienation of affection may be between you and me.

This gracious attempt kept the wild dogs of controversy in check for but a short while, and as soon as Whitefield left for America, John Wesley published the sermon. He sought moreover to dispute the matter with Whitefield and wrote him a number of letters, to which Whitefield replied over and over again by entreating his friend to be at peace. The following is an excerpt from one of his replies, a beautiful example of his loving and humble spirit that may well serve as a model in many present-day discords:

My honoured friend and brother; for once hearken to a child who is willing to wash your feet. I beseech you, by the mercies of God, if you would have my love confirmed toward you, write no more to me about the misrepresentations wherein we differ.

The doctrine of election and final perseverance of those who are truly in Christ, I am ten thousand times more convinced of, if possible, than when I saw you last. You think otherwise—then why should we dispute? Will it not in the end destroy brotherly love, and take from us that cordial union and sweetness of soul which I pray God may always subsist between us? How glad would the enemies of the Lord be to see us divided! How many would rejoice should I join and make a party against you! And in one word, how would the cause of our common Master suffer every way by our railing disputes!… provoke me to it as much as you wish, I hope never to enter the lists of controversy with you.

Even these earnest endeavors at maintaining peace were fruitless. Controversy soon separated Arminian from Calvinist throughout England as cruel charges and countercharges were hurled by many men, all to the hindrance and disgrace of the revival. Whitefield exerted all his influence to keep the strife in check and largely succeeded throughout the remaining thirty years of his life. But immediately following his death it burst forth in renewed and shameful fury as men on both sides forgot his gracious example and brought the revival to a close by their godless strife.

And so lived the apostle of love, in sickness and poverty almost all his days, but in burning zeal for his God and quenchless love for men. He wept for souls as he prayed in private and wept for them again as he preached in public. It mattered not to him that Wesley should receive the earthly glory with regard to the great revival while he was discredited and forgotten. Nor would he have cared that his tomb on American soil should be overlooked and neglected by a people who ought to have cherished his memory. (Whitefield is buried beneath the pulpit of the Presbyterian church of Newburyport, Mass.) He lived above all such temporal concerns and only for his Master’s glory and his own accounting on the judgment morning. Well did Sir James Stephens, the renowned Cambridge professor, say:

If ever philanthropy burned in the human heart with pure and intense flame, it was in the heart of George Whitefield.… He had no preferences but in favor of the ignorant, the miserable and the poor. In their cause he shrank from no privation and declined neither insult nor hostility. To such wrongs he opposed the weapons of an all-enduring meekness and a love that would not be repulsed. The springs of his benevolence were inexhaustible and could not choose but flow.

END

The Rev. A. Dallimore, B.Th., is pastor of the Cottam Baptist Church, Cottam, Ontario, Canada. He was for some years editor of The Union Baptist and writes a monthly column for its successor, The Fellowship Baptist. He is a graduate of Central Baptist Seminary of Toronto, and for some years has been doing research on the life of Whitefield in preparation for a new biography to be called, George Whitefield and the Eighteenth Century Revival.

Bible Text of the Month: Genesis 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1).

In the first page of this sacred book a child may learn more in an hour than all the philosophers in the world learned without it in a thousand years.—ANDREW FULLER.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.—HEBREWS 11:3.

The fact of the creation is regarded in the Bible as a fact revealed; and as such it is commended to our faith. Thus the scriptural method on this subject is exactly the reverse of what is called the natural. It is not to ascend from nature up to nature’s God, but to descend, if we may so speak, from God to God’s nature, or his works of nature; not to hear the creation speaking of the Creator, but to hear the Creator speaking of the creation.—R. S. CANDLISH.

As the Old Testament begins with a historical narrative, so also the New, and indeed the two volumes with a Biblos geneseos (Matt. 1:1); and further, the account of the creation of “the heavens and the earth” in the first page of Genesis has its counterpart in the notice of “the new heavens and the new earth” with which the Apocalypse and the canon of Scripture concludes—the first creation having for its object the first Adam, the new creation taking its rise from the second Adam. This is the great principle which gives coherence not only to Genesis but to the whole biblical history.—DONALD MACDONALD.

God The Creator

He that did the creative work is said to be God, Elohim. This Hebrew name is to be derived from a root found in the Arabic meaning “to fear” or “to reverence.” It, therefore, conceives of God as the one who by His nature and His works rouses man’s fear and reverence. It is used 2,570 times.—H. C. LEUPOLD.

The foundation of this vast fabric is laid in an adequate cause—Elohim, the Almighty. Nothing else would bear it. Man, if he attempt to find an adequate cause for what is, to the overlooking of God, shall but weary himself with very vanity.—ANDREW FULLER.

So great a revelation had never been made to man, for it disclosed the existence of the One eternal, holy, just and good God—a God of wisdom and order, as well as purity and truth, and implied his right to our absolute obedience and love, as the work of his hands. There remained only another self-disclosure, of still greater condescension, when he declared himself to mankind in the person of his incarnate Son.—GEIKIE.

At the very first verse and word of Genesis, it clearly steps over that impure sink of dualism beyond which the entire heathen and philosophical view of the world could never go. It does this by contrasting God in his eternal self-perfection to the creation which arose with time. The doctrine of the creation is the first act of revelation and of faith in the history of the kingdom of God.—J. P. LANGE.

There is something peculiarly striking in the manner in which the Holy Ghost opens this sublime book. He introduces us at once to God, in the essential fullness of his Being, and the solitariness of his acting. All prefatory matter is omitted. It is to God we are brought. We hear him, as it were, breaking earth’s silence, and shining in upon earth’s darkness, for the purpose of developing a sphere in which he might display his eternal power and Godhead.—C. H. MACKINTOSH.

Act Of Creation

The verb describing God’s initial work is “created” (bara). This verb is correctly defined as expressing the origination of something great, new and “epoch-making,” as only God can do it, whether it be in the realm of the physical or of the spiritual.… Consequently, this passage teaches creatio ex nihilo, “creation out of nothing,” a doctrine otherwise also clearly taught by the Scriptures (Rom. 4:17; Heb. 11:3, cf. also Ps. 33:6, 9; Amos 4:13). The verb is never used of other than divine activity.—H. C. LEUPOLD.

Created—It occurs in this chapter only on three occasions, the first creation of matter in the first verse, the first introduction of life in the fifth day, and the creation of man in the sixth day. Bara is thus reserved for marking the first introduction of each of the three great spheres of existence—the world of matter, the world of life, and the world spiritual, represented by man in this visible economy—all three of which, though profoundly distinct in essence, are intimately associated, and together constitute all the universe known to us.—GUYOT.

To imagine so small a thing as a bee, or fly, a grain of corn, or an atom of dust, to be made of nothing, would stupify any creature in the consideration of it; much more to behold the heavens with all the troop of stars, the earth with all its embroidery, and the sea with all her inhabitants of fish, and man, the noblest creature of all, to arise out of the womb of mere emptiness.—STEPHEN CHARNOCK.

The account given by Moses relates not to the whole creation, but merely to what it immediately concerns us to know. God made the angels; but nothing is said of them. The moon is called one of the greater lights, not as to what it is in itself, but what it is to us. The Scriptures are written, not to gratify curiosity, but to nourish faith. They do not stop to tell you how, nor to answer a number of questions which might be asked; but to tell you so much as is necessary, and no more.—ANDREW FULLER.

In the visible world it is easy to observe, (1) great variety; several sorts of beings vastly differing in their nature and constitution from each other. “Lord, how manifold are thy works,” and all good! (2) Great beauty; the azure sky and verdant earth are charming to the eye of the curious spectator, much more the ornaments of both. How transcendent then must the beauty of the Creator be! (3) Great exactness and accuracy; to those that with the help of microscopes narrowly look into the works of nature, they appear far more fine than any works of art. (4) Great power; it is not a lump of dead and inactive matter, but there is virtue more or less in every creature; the earth itself has a magnetic power. (5) Great order; a mutual dependence of being, and exact harmony of motions, and an admirable chain and connection of causes.

—MATTHEW HENRY.

Comfort And Praise

All must have remarked, in reading the devotional parts of the Bible, such as the book of Psalms, how constantly the psalmist comforts and strengthens himself, and animates himself in the face of his enemies by this consideration, that his help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth.—R. S. CANDLISH.

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.—REVELATION 4:11.

Theology

The Christ of the Bible

L. Nelson Bell

Christ of the Bible and Christ of personal experience must be the same. There are those who immediately will challenge this statement and will seek to refute it.

Sometime ago we heard a man ask a radio audience, “Is your Christ God?” The first reaction was one of surprise and curiosity but the more we thought of it the more relevant the question appeared.

The Christ portrayed in Scriptures has ascribed to him certain attributes both as to his person and his work. Here we find historical record and divine revelation combined. Here we are told who he was and what he did. The Bible also reveals truths about him that could come only through a revelation from God.

The affirmation has been made that we may reject the scriptural record about Christ and at the same time accept Christ. But the question immediately arises, What Christ?

If we reject the Christ of the Bible then we accept someone who is the product of human rationalization, deduction and imagination. Nothing basically wrong results from using all of our God-given faculties in thinking of Christ. However, if we use these while rejecting revealed truth about him the person we conjure may not be the real Christ at all.

But someone will argue: We accept the Christ of our own personal experience as led by the Holy Spirit. Good enough, but if the Christ of experience differs from the Christ of the Scriptures the question is whether we have been led by the Holy Spirit or by the imagination of our own hearts.

Unregenerate man notoriously goes off at tangents. The non-Christian religions of the world and the cults surrounding us are products of man-directed rather than Spirit-directed thinking.

The importance of obtaining the true view of Christ cannot be overestimated. A false Christ of the imagination, one different from the real Christ, can do inestimable harm. The pilot, whether on the sea or in the air, makes certain that the compass he follows is one worthy of confidence. How much more important when eternal destinies are at stake!

But someone asks, Is not the Christ of all men essentially the same? The answer is an emphatic NO.

The Christ of the Bible is the eternal Son of God, entering into this world of a virgin, manifesting himself as and declaring himself to be the Son of God, and showing himself both sinless and sovereign over all creation.

The Christ of the Bible deliberately and by design gave himself as a ransom for sinners; died on the cross and shed his blood that those who believe in him might be delivered from the guilt and penalty of sin.

This same Christ arose from the dead with a physical body that was seen and touched. His body bore the evidences of the crucifixion. He talked to and ate with his disciples and showed himself alive on a number of occasions. He then ascended into heaven while they watched him go.

The Christ of the Bible will come again someday in great glory and power. His coming will bring to an end this age in which we live.

The Christ of the Bible was the Son of God. He was also the Son of man. He is portrayed to us in terms of supernatural pre-existence, supernatural advent into the world, supernatural characteristics and power while in this world, dying a death with a supernatural effect on those who believe. His resurrection was a supernatural event bringing with it supernatural power and hope for Christians; his ascension into heaven was supernatural as to manner and his promised coming will be with supernatural manifestations.

On the other hand—and how vital the difference—the Christ of human reason coupled with unbelief is a man divested of his divine attributes, a man from whom the supernatural is stripped, a man who attained the highest ever achieved by any in the human race and one to whom we look only as an example to follow and a pattern to live by.

But there are those who give him some degree of deity, vigorously affirming their faith in the divine Christ but rejecting what they assume to be the man-made records in the Scripture by claiming they are the writings of ignorant and enthusiastic disciples. What Christ do they then worship? Is he not also a Christ who is the product of a discipleship even more ignorant? For the Christ they affirm is also a Christ of man’s own imagination and not the Christ of the Bible.

Why this vigorous attempt to present another Christ? It is basically a rejection of the authority and integrity of the Scriptures, a denial of the supernatural. We are told that advanced scholarship can no longer agree to the biblical record, but this is untrue for there are others of equal scholarship and deep piety who bow their hearts and minds and wills to the Christ of the Bible and accept him in all of his supernatural manifestations, attributing to him the glory and honor and power accorded him in the record.

Some attributes of the Christ of the Bible:

He is the Creator of the universe, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 3:3).

He was pre-existent, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

He was the Son of God, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

He was virgin born, “Fear not, Mary, … and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, … the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31–35).

He performed many miracles to prove his deity, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know” (Acts 2:22).

He died on the Cross as an atonement for our sins, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).

He arose from the dead, “Jesus said: Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39).

He ascended up to heaven and is coming again, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11).

Finally, the Christ of the Bible is the only Saviour, our sure hope of eternal life, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

God in his infinite love and mercy has provided for us through his Son cleansing and forgiveness for sin and power to live for him through his indwelling Holy Spirit.

The Christ of the Bible is our one hope. It would be folly to trust in some other Christ.

Ideas

The Sacred Life of the Church

The Editors

What is the sacred life of the Church? One word answers the question: Christ—the risen Lord Jesus Christ—is himself the Church’s life. St. Paul’s phrase in Colossians, “Christ who is our life” (Col. 3:4), applies to believers corporately as well as personally. For all of us in the Church, Christ is no less our life than he is our life as individuals. This is axiomatic for any discussion of the Church’s continuing vitality.

The affirmation that the sacred life of the Church is Christ opens up spacious vistas of truth. It transcends all lesser ecclesiastical dimensions. In respect to its life, the Church is not the body of Peter or Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Wesley, or any other human leader. It is the body of Jesus Christ the Lord who “loved the church and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25–27).

This being the case, anything, no matter how worthy in itself, that diverts the Church from Christ impairs its sacred life. So long as the Lord himself is central in the worship, witness, and service of the Church, its life is strong and healthy. To the extent that the Church is in living, spiritual union with the risen Lord—and only to that extent—does it bear fruit (John 15:5).

Whether the Church should maintain a lofty Christology in harmony with the Bible is not simply a subject of theological debate. On the contrary, it is a matter of life and death. If the history of doctrine teaches any lesson, it demonstrates that the very survival of the Church is dependent upon its Christology. From Arianism and Nestorianism down to contemporary Unitarianism, the major heresies relating to the Person and Work of Christ have proved spiritually sterile and deadening in comparison with the continuing life of the Church when it has remained loyal to the risen Saviour.

So today any trend in theology, no matter how high the prestige of its proponents, that diminishes the Christology of the New Testament is a threat to the Church’s on-going life. It may be a process of demythologizing the historical Jesus as with a Bultmann, or it may be a denial of the empty tomb on the ground of non-historical, existential truth as with a Tillich. The fact remains that any theology that tampers with the historicity of the Lord Jesus whom believers in all communions and in all ages have loved and served smothers the life-breath of Christ’s body. To this danger we in America need to be as alert and courageous as was Karl Heim in Germany who, on being accorded public honors at Tuebingen on his eightieth birthday, spoke out before the whole nation in warning against Bultmannism.

This does not mean, however, that the Church is forever bound to any man-made statement for its final, infallible formulation of Christology. The ultimate truth regarding Christ lies in Scripture, not even in the loftiest human deductions from Scripture. As John Robinson of Leyden said, God has yet more light to break forth from his Word. But as illumination comes, it must be light, clarifying the divine Person and the eternally efficacious work of our Lord while at the same time holding fast his true humanity; it cannot be the darkness of cutting down the man Christ Jesus to merely natural dimensions.

There is, then, an indissoluble connection between Scripture and the sacred life of the Church, a connection as close as the relationship between the incarnate Word and the written Word. Thus the Church is obligated at peril of its life to maintain not only a high Christology but also a high view of the Bible. And if it be asked what that view is, the answer can only be that the Church that finds its life in Christ dare not espouse any attitude toward Scripture lower than that held by its Lord. What the Head believed and taught about the written Word is normative for the body (Matt. 4:4, 7, 10; Matt. 5:17, 18; John 10:35, 36; Luke 24:44). A Church that stands with the Lord in his estimate of Scripture as the irrefragable Word of the living God will find that Word a continuing source of spiritual nourishment (1 Peter 2:2).

But the Bible is not the only means of nourishing the body of Christ. There are the sacraments as well. Just as the Church that neglects the written Word cannot be strong, so the Church that neglects “the visible Word” of the sacraments cannot remain vigorous. Especially is this true of the Lord’s Supper. To say that the Church cannot remain vigorous apart from faithful and devoted remembrance of him who said, “This do in remembrance of me,” is not a plea for ritualism or sacerdotalism but a statement of plain fact. The risen Christ is with the two or three as well as with the multitudes who gather in his name; he speaks to his Church in prayer and in the reading and preaching of his Word. And he also speaks through the visible eloquence of the sacraments with a direct reality the Church greatly needs for its soul’s health. If this point is stressed, it is stressed simply because of the comparatively low estate of the Holy Communion in evangelical worship today.

But “communion” means “fellowship,” and the fellowship of believers in the Church is not confined to the Lord’s Supper. In actuality, fellowship is nothing less than an essential manifestation of the sacred life of Christ’s Church. Solitariness, atomization, insulation—these debilitate the body of Christ. Even as no child of God who lives and worships in an attitude of unconcern for his fellow-believers can keep spiritually well, so no branch of the Church that erects and dwells within walls of separation from others who confess and serve the risen Christ and who honor and obey God’s Word, can flourish and bear fruit.

In order to have life and to have it more abundantly, the Church must love its Lord. For it is love that deepens belief into life-giving, life-sustaining trust. Such love for the Lord must issue in obedience to him. “If ye love me,” said the Saviour, “keep my commandments … This is my commandment, That ye love one another as I have loved you” (John 14:15; 15:12). Once the principle of obedience to Christ through love is recognized, then the Church is obligated to the whole range of godly social concern through witness in all areas of life and through service in stewardship of time, talent, and resources.

“But,” someone asks, “what of the Father and the Holy Spirit? What relationship do they have to the sacred life of the Church?” The answer is that both the Father and the Spirit sustain a direct and organic relationship to the body of Christ. If in behalf of the Church we have spoken in primary emphasis of Christ as “our life,” we have done so in harmony with the New Testament, which calls the Church the body and bride, not of the Father and of the Spirit, but of Christ. The great spiritual equation that Jesus is God has unfathomable Trinitarian depths. The fact that the Church is Christ’s body makes it no less the Church of the living God. Throughout its history the Church has consistently confessed that the Jesus of Nazareth who was born of the virgin, who lived with and taught the disciples, who died upon the cross, is the risen Lord, “this same Jesus,” who ascended into heaven and who is coming again to take the power and reign. And it is “this same Jesus” who said of himself: “I and my Father are one … No man cometh unto the Father but by me … He that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 10:30; 14:6, 9).

As for the relation of the Holy Spirit to the life of the Church, this too is implicit in a scriptural Christology. Indeed, the sounder and loftier the view of Christ, the more of the Spirit in the Church. For the function of the Holy Spirit is not to “speak of himself” but to “glorify” Christ (John 16:13). As it is the Spirit who regenerates the sinner (John 3:5), who makes sinful humanity into sons of God (Rom. 8:14), and who is life for the righteous (Rom. 8:10b), so it is the Spirit who, working corporately as well as individually through those whom he indwells, quickens the community of believers into the Church of the living God.

Finally, the Church must examine the state of its heart in relation to Christ who is its life. And if it finds, as it ought to find, that it loves the Lord, this avowal of love must never imply any relaxation of the Church’s devotion to truth. To set truth in opposition to love is a great error that, if persisted in, blights spiritual life. Deep piety is not incompatible with intellectual integrity. From Paul down through the Fathers and the Reformers to our own day there has been a noble succession of great minds who loved the Lord and who sought the truth. There is moving significance in the symbol that John Calvin chose for his personal seal—a flaming heart on the palm of an extended open hand. For the Church and for all who serve within its fellowship, it is never truth for truth’s sake, in the sense of truth as an abstraction, that is the goal. It is rather truth for the sake of him who is the truth and he is also the way and the life. All truth is of God and thus of Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Everything that contributes to the greater understanding of Christ—through the Scriptures, through the sacraments, through fellowship, and through obedient service—confirms and strengthens the sacred life of the Church; while everything that diverts and distorts the Church’s view of the Lord enfeebles and stultifies its life. For the life of the Church, just as for the life of the individual believer

Christ is the end, as Christ was the beginning;

Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.

Shorten Ecumenicalism To Ecumenism

Concern has been expressed by editors of religious journals at the lengthy form of ecumenicalism and ecumenicalist. Increasing use of these words has given justification to writers in the field of religion to shorten the long and awkward forms. The opinion generally held by language scholars is that active participants in any specialized field of study and research have the right to determine their own technical vocabulary. For example, botanists now commonly use “monocot” for “monocotyledon,” geneticists use “allele” for “allelomorph,” and economists are increasingly using “camerist” instead of “cameralist.”

Several shortened forms of ecumenicalist are already in use—ecumenicist and ecumenist. The first is more in agreement with the classical Greek root and preferred by the language purist; the second finds more frequent use and is becoming increasingly popular. Objection has been voiced against the use of the shortened forms because they have been used by critics of ecumenicalists as terms of disparagement. However, the context rather than the form will determine the meaning. As the shortened form becomes more popular it will be used by both friend and foe.

If the term ecumenist finds general acceptance, no reason exists why ecumenicalism cannot be shortened to ecumenism. Language purists would prefer ecumenicism to conform to the classical Greek root. The shortest form, ecumenism, would find ready acceptance especially among laymen who find the pronunciation of ecumenicalism rather difficult.

Since the terms are used with greater frequency, CHRISTIANITY TODAY suggests the usage of the shortened forms, ecumenism and ecumenist. No semantic or logical reason prevents the employment of such abbreviations and many would welcome the change suggested.

END

Saturday Night

Paul S. James

Saturday night in the Baptist parsonage home of our childhood is well remembered for its familiar sights and sounds and smells.

I can still see the lamp with the green shade on father’s desk in the study, by the light of which he spent several hours each Saturday night going over the notes of his Sunday morning sermon. He wrote his sermons in full, following the advice of Dr. Augustus H. Strong who told the men in Rochester Seminary to write their sermons for the first twenty years and then do whatever they pleased about it. After writing his sermons, father made brief notes on them, which he underlined carefully in preparation for taking them into the pulpit.

Mother had her Saturday night duties too—special duties in preparation for the Lord’s Day. She sewed buttons on Sunday clothes and put a pot roast on the stove to get it ready for the morrow. There would be no coming home early Sunday noon to fix the Sunday dinner; the preacher’s wife must have it as nearly ready as possible before she left for the house of God. I can smell the fragrance of that roast now, mingled with the sharper odor of the freshly blacked shoes for all of us.

Yes, Saturday night in our home was dedicated to Bible, bath and bed. Everything pointed to the special day that would soon be here—the Lord’s Day. We didn’t go out on Saturday night. Like the Jews, our Sabbath began at sundown.

The result was achieved. We never thought of Saturday night as the high point of the week; the high-water mark was Sunday. Saturday night was a night of preparation to make ready for God’s holy day.

Sunday morning did not find us rousing reluctantly, to go to church wearily and sit through the sermon sleepily. Sunday morning found us refreshed and ready. This was it—“day of all the week the best.” Our enthusiasms had not been dissipated the night before. There was a zeal in our souls because we had made the right sort of spiritual, mental and physical preparation.

We were brought up not to spend Saturday night for the Devil, giving the Lord whatever tag end of our interest might be left over to the next day. It dishonors God to be handed leftovers.

Has the old fashioned, Christian sort of Saturday night gone with the wind? In many places, yes. Across America it is the night when folks paint the town red. The country is on one wild spree and the rising sun of a beautiful Lord’s Day morning finds people in bed, with big heads, sleeping off hangovers of one kind or another. They enter the day in sin—how can it be a day of blessing for them?

But your home and my home may still be houses of God where the holy hush is upon the souls of the members of the family as the shadows of Saturday evening lengthen, bringing fresh assurance of the presence of him whom we serve.

END

Dr. Paul S. James is Pastor of The Baptist Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia.

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