Bible Book of the Month: The Psalms

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

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

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

Piety Of The Psalms

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

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

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

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

Origin Of The Psalter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Structure Of The Psalms

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

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

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

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

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

Useful Psalm Studies

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

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

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

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

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

J. KENNETH GRIDER

- More from J. Kenneth Grider

Theology

Lost River of Paradise

J. Marcellus Kik

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

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

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

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

Another River

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

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

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

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

A Healing Stream

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

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

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

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

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

A River Of Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Each One A Branch

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

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

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

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

END

- More from J. Marcellus Kik

Cover Story

Ecumenism and the Lord’s Table

R. J. Rushdoony

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

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

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

Truth And Unity

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

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

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

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

Evangelical Contributions

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

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

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

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

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

Alternatives

Not with mere stuttering repetition

Or useless aspirations dumbly spun

From wheels forever whirled on fitful winds

Over bleak gullies washed by turbid streams;

Nor egocentric flailing of dull flesh

Practised in the cloistered cell by night,

With wielded scourge and trickling blood and grief,

For extrication of essential guilt;

Nor bruised knees upward groping on the steep

Cross-studded sacramental stairs nor tear-

Groined cheeks to squatting idols bowed, with hope

From bloodless stone to gather certitude:

Neither these nor other agonies of heart

Preclude the grace that caused the veil to part.

JOHN JAMIESON

- More from R. J. Rushdoony

Cover Story

The Drive for IMC-WCC Merger

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

35,000 Protestant Missionaries

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

Strength Of Imc Effort

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

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

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

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

Other Mission Agencies

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

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

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

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

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

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

The Big Merger Looms

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

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

Denominational Questions

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

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

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

Fear Growth Of Power

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

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

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

Evangelical Concern

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

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

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

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

Peace Of The Churches

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

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

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

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

Is Merger Assured?

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

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

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

END

Cover Story

Revelation, History, and the Bible

George Eldon Ladd

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

Role Of The Bible

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

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

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

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

Revelation Or Witness?

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

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

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

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

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

History And Relativity

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

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

Normative Interpretation

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

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

The Meaning Of Calvary

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

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

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

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

Revelation And Inspiration

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

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

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

Preacher In The Red

SPEECHLESS

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

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

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

- More from George Eldon Ladd

Cover Story

Right and Wrong Uses of the Apocrypha

Bruce M. Metzger

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

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

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

Apocrypha In English Bibles

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

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

Doctrinal Statements

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

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

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

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

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

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

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

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

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

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

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

Proper Attitude

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

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

END

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

- More from Bruce M. Metzger

Review of Current Religious Thought: September 16, 1957

John H. Gerstner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- More from John H. Gerstner

Books

Book Briefs: September 16, 1975

Edward J. Young

Christological Themes

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

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

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

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

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

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

Concept Of Messiah

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

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

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

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

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

EDWARD J. YOUNG

Scope Of Lutheranism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RICHARD L. JAMES

Christian Moralism

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

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

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

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

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

GEORGE STOB

Religious Poetry

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

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

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

Attack me, Father, now,

As when the sea

Rushes the rising rocks

Relentlessly;

Then, with the easing done,

Gather increase,

Circle my stubborn soul,

Lap it in peace.

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

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

CLYDE S. KILBY

Impact Impaired

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NORMA R. ELLIS

Pragmatism Applied

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

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

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

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

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

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

FINDLEY B. EDGE

- More from Edward J. Young

World News: September 16, 1957

G. B.

People usually write growling letters to the editor about policemen.

Conrad S. Jensen, captain of one of New York’s roughest police precincts, the 23rd, switched the procedure. He wrote one to the editor of Life magazine on the unlikely subject of Billy Graham and his critics.

It was in relation to the views in Life of a theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, and a practicing pastor, Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

Since the letter isn’t likely to see the light of print, unless it appears here, portions of it are quoted, as follows:

“I am aware that my scholastic background, as compared to Mr. Niebuhr and Mr. Bonnell, leaves me only a rung or two off the ground … because I am a policeman I encounter the danger of being put into the category of a ‘dumb cop.’ Notwithstanding, I have no ulterior motives and God knows my heart.

“Nineteen hundred years ago a centurion (a police captain like myself, if you will allow this parallel) stood by the foot of the cross of Christ and made this statement: ‘Truly this was the Son of God.’

“He had just witnessed the crime of all crimes. No doubt he was reluctant to carry out the order to crucify ‘this just person.’ Whether or not the centurion had time to reflect on the worth of this sacrifice and recognized it as a ‘bargain,’ as Mr. Niebuhr puts it in his closing statement, I don’t know … Perhaps the centurion saw the peace of God in the face of the penitent thief and then looked at the other malefactor who refused a ‘bargain.’ However, both men came to a decision without the benefit of ‘Christian historical scholarship.’

“It has been my experience to witness the ‘gospel’ of some of those taught by Mr. Niebuhr. The message is mostly ‘birth control’ and ‘rent control …’

“When Mr. Niebuhr calls the gospel preached by Billy Graham a bargain, he must realize there will come a time when he will have to justify this remark. Jesus also had his critics—his greatest being the intellectual, religious, self-righteous pharisee, who, no doubt, had a lot of ‘historical scholarship.’

“Throughout Mr. Niebuhr’s views, he refers to the fact that Billy Graham’s approach is ‘too simple,’ ‘less complicated,’ ‘over-simplified’ and ‘uncomplex.’

“If America ever needed something simple and uncomplex, it is now … The vitals of America are being chewed out by plain ordinary sin and lawlessness.

“It is easy to understand how Mr. Niebuhr has difficulty with the simplicity of Christ. Nicodemus, a religious ruler of his time, asked Jesus, ‘How can these things be?’ He tripped over his historical scholarship and fell flat on his face when Jesus said, in simple words, ‘Ye must be born again.’

“God establishes his Word by picturing for us the attitude of some people when they hear the gospel. ‘For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.’ When Mr. Niebuhr puts the gospel of Christ, faithfully proclaimed by Billy Graham, into the basement with other bargains, close-outs and items reduced for clearance, I believe he verifies the verse above.

“Apparently, man will ever labor to put God into a pattern that fits his miserable, finite, inadequate intellect.

“I thank God that Jesus was not ‘marked down’ for my benefit, but was ‘sent down’ to pay the price of my sinfulness. Also, I thank God that I am just foolish enough to believe that salvation comes by faith in the sinless Son of God. As long as Billy Graham preaches the ‘unsearchable riches of Christ’ I shall pray for him and those that labor with him.”

Lots of folks probably will disagree with Captain Jensen. They can tell him so most any day at the 23rd precinct headquarters. It will be easy to spot him. He is the big, tough-looking fellow in charge.

Romance Over

Meeting in Oberlin, Ohio, on the threshold of the World Council’s Faith and Order Conference, an estimated 40 professors of ecumenical theology grappled with the problem of vitalizing ecumenical Christianity on the level of the local church and laity.

“We are in a post-Evanston period,” lamented one spokesman. “The romance of the ecumenical impact is now over.”

The dilemma facing the theologians, chosen from 120 teachers of ecumenical theology (there are none in Canadian seminaries as yet), was confessedly that of making “abstract institutionalism” intelligible to the laity. No effective transition from “ecumenics in general” to “ecumenics in particular” has been achieved; ecumenical concerns seem remote from the normal church program.

Ministerial enthusiasm is lacking also. Ecumenical journals have attracted unimpressive subscription lists. While many of the 945 Councils of Churches in the United States breed ecumenical enthusiasm, a large number of member ministers and congregations remain unenthusiastic. Ecumenical institutes this year met failure as often as success.

Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft of Geneva, WCC General Secretary, expressed fear, however, that the ecumenical movement may be growing too fast. He noted that the term was not introduced in the U. S. until 1937. He warned that its result might be “the opposite of what we want” unless there is “a deep change in the content of preaching, an orientation to the authority of the Bible and to Christocentric teaching (as Karl Barth would tell us) as the climate in which ecumenical education becomes meaningful.

President John A. Mackay of Princeton Seminary declared: “Despite my commitment to the ecumenical movement, I say it is becoming too impersonal through its concern for group relations and is apt to lose sight of the individual.” He urged “a mission in which people can work together, such as evangelism, that grips the soul-hunger of the people.”

One professor noted that “ecumenical conversion” from an “unconverted ecclesiology” is no easy achievement. Another lamented that although half the seminaries give some scope to ecumenical theology, the remaining half have no particular theological interest.”

Presided over by Dr. Charles L. Taylor, executive director of the American Association of Theological Schools, the theologians outlined plans to ecumenize both the church community and theological curriculum. Seminarians will be discouraged from a final theology before study of a wide range of theologians and ecumenical attitudes. The inner seminary movement is expected to yield a theological preparation for ecumenical leadership.

Ecumenical institutions henceforth will utilize existing schools instead of creating new study situations. More denominational programs of ecumenical study will be sought.

Evangelical observers noted the dominating assumption that ecumenical concern is validly expressed only through participation in the WCC inclusive effort; evangelical interdenominational movements were unmentioned as a valid ecumenical expression. While an occasional voice was lifted for the primacy of Christ and the Bible, there was no emphasis that ecumenicity is genuine only when it is evangelical and evangelistic.

The Day It Began

Evangelical churches of America are being urged by the Spiritual Life Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals to plan special prayer observances on September 23, the centennial anniversary date of the beginning of the great spiritual awakening of 1857.

September 23 was the day the famous Fulton Street noonday prayer meeting began in New York City. Soon prayer meetings had sprung up throughout the country, bringing one of the most powerful revivals of the nation’s history. Within two years, 500,000 people were converted to Christ.

“Revival for America” has been suggested as the general prayer theme. The commission is under the direction of the Rev. Armin Gesswein of Pasadena, Calif.

Evangelical churches also will be asked to observe October 20–27 as “NAE Week.” The theme will be “The Strength of Spiritual Unity,” with emphases on the many services provided evangelicals for the last 15 years by the NAE.

Worth Quoting

“Strength and effective Christian witness do not come from organic union.… Too close organic union, especially under compulsion, may well defeat the good relations and effective cooperation necessary to achieve the common goal.”—Congressman Walter H. Judd, Minnesota.

“Berlin is like an island completely surrounded by the communists. The only answer for these people is to look up.”—Darlene Janzen, Youth for Christ.

“God is using Billy Graham to shake towns, cities and whole countries out of their indifference. Wherever he goes, he preaches Christ! God has changed thousands of lives through this man. He has also changed mine … May I ask a pertinent question? What is your job during this time of awakening? Are you supposed to stand by with your hands in your pockets and complain because Billy Graham has not done all the work single-handed? The situation would be comical if it were not so extremely tragic.”—John Bolten, director of General Tire Co.

Celebrations

Plans for marking the 400th anniversary of the founding of Calvin’s Academy in Geneva and the 400th anniversary of the first synod of the Reformed Church are being made by the executive committee of the World Presbyterian Alliance.

Dr. Ralph Waldo Lloyd, president of Maryville College (Tenn.), who is the alliance’s North American secretary, announced the plans. The Calvin Academy anniversary, he said, would be observed during the first week of June, 1959 and the anniversary of the Reformed Church’s first synod in May of that year.

Dr. Lloyd said the committee was issuing a call to all churches affiliated with the alliance to observe Sunday, May 31, 1959, as a day of special remembrance for the Reformed faith.

The preceding day, May 30, he said, will mark the 450th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin at Noyon, France. An International Day will be observed under the auspices of the Reformed Church of France in Noyon on that day.

Racial Freedoms

Rep. Brooks Hays, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, urged that ministers “be freed from economic, political and social pressures” in dealing with the race issue.

The Arkansas Democrat spoke to 2500 Baptist laymen and women in Atlanta, Ga. He outlined a three-point program that he feels could help churchmen in facing racial problems:

The sentiment of the churches, even those completely dedicated to segregation, must be pointed towards a nonviolent settlement.
The rights of ministers to raise their voice on all current issues must be protected.
Efforts must be made to seek justice for all people in all specific situations growing out of racial tensions.

Twin Sessions

The 12th annual National Sunday School convention of the National Sunday School Association will be held October 9–11 in Los Angeles and October 30-November 1 in Grand Rapids.

Each city is expected to register an estimated 5,000 people for the assemblies. There will be 134 different sessions in the two places.

The eight major sessions in each city will feature Dr. Edward Simpson, president of NSSA; Dr. Bob Cook; the Rev. Burt Webb, vice president of NSGA; Dr. W. A. Criswell of Dallas, Texas; the Rev. Norman Townsend of Providence, R. I.; Dr. Henrietta C. Mears of Los Angeles and the Rev. Arthur Gaglardi of Kamloops, B. C.

Youths Unite

Seven hundred delegates from Young Calvinist Societies of the Christian Reformed Churches of the United States and Canada met for their first combined convention in Chicago recently.

The convention completed the merger of the Federation of Young Women’s Societies and the Federation of Young Men’s Societies which until this year had been separate organizations holding separate conventions.

The newly organized group, called The Young Calvinist Federation of North America, includes 432 societies, according to its director, Richard Postma.

New Science Film

Moody Institute of Science has announced four premiere showings of “Red River of Life,” a movie more than four years in the making and reportedly the first attempt to depict on film the spiritual significance of the blood.

The premieres will be the first week of October in Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and Philadelphia.

Africa

Appeal In Ghana

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah has called on the Christian Council of Ghana “to support the Government in all moves they may make to preserve the independence of the judiciary.”

The Prime Minister was replying to an appeal sent to him by the Christian Council asking him to withdraw the special Deportation Bill under which two Moslem leaders were recently deported from Ghana. The bill violated the principle of justice, “whereby every citizen possesses the right to defend himself against any charge preferred against him,” the council claimed.

In his reply, addressed to Dr. Richard Roseveare, Anglican Bishop of Accra, Dr. Nkrumah explained that the special bill, which gives power to deport “without appeal to or review in any court,” was needed to protect the judiciary from attack. “The reason why the bill was necessary was, first, that those supporting the case of the two men were engaged in a systematic campaign to provoke with the object of coercing the government and bringing pressure to bear on the court,” he added.

Christian leaders have been concerned since the two Moslems and a leading nationalist editor were deported because of criticism of the government. They see in it a dangerous precedent that would be used as a weapon against missionary activity in the future.

W.H.F.

Journal Folds

New Nation, monthly journal supported by missions in Ghana (Gold Coast), will go into voluntary liquidation this month, Director David C. B. Smithers announced.

London journalist Smithers left his job on Reuter’s Africa desk two years ago to start New Nation in an effort to encourage indigenous Christian writing. The Christian Council of Ghana officially backed the publication, but chief support came from the Methodists.

With a staff of three missionaries and three Africans, the 20-page paper reached a monthly circulation of 17,000, selling at 6d. Because of lack of adequate commercial printing facilities in Ghana, editorial copy was sent to England to be printed. Rising costs, dropping sales, (down to 7,000) and lack of financial support forced Editor Smithers and his colleagues to decide to stop publication.

New Nation has turned its unexpired subscriptions over to the Sudan Interior Mission’s African Challenge, which has a current monthly sales of 28,000 within Ghana (160,000 throughout Africa.)

Training Center

Plans to set up an industrial training center for young Africans were announced in Nairobi, Kenya, by the Church Missionary Society. The proposed project was hailed by Kenya civic and government leaders as a “true example of practical Christianity.”

The center is intended to train youths who complete school at 13 but must wait until they are 16 before they can work. Such boys often join street corner groups of “loafers” and drift into undesirable company, Anglican officials said. They said the training center will seek to meet this problem.

Far East

Riot In India

A mob of 5,000 Hindus burned down a four-story American Protestant missions community center in Raipur, India, after its superintendent, an Indian clergyman, protested against the use of a Hindu idol during a meeting in the center’s hall.

Eyewitnesses said the mob sought to kill the superintendent, the Rev.Gurbachan Singh, who went into hiding. Missionaries and many Indian Christians also fled this central Indian rail junction and district seat.

Police fired on the demonstrators in an effort to restore order, killing a 14-year-old Hindu youth. They later arrested nearly 50 persons for arson, attempted murder or looting.

Damage to the center was estimated at $200,000. It was operated by the Evangelical and Reformed Mission Board in Philadelphia working through the United Church of Northern India. The building included about 50 hostel rooms, a dining room, auditorium, clubrooms, library and bookshop.

The center’s auditorium had been rented by a committee of Hindus for a program commemorating the centenary of the first Indian uprising against British colonial rule. When an idol was set up on the stage for a dramatic number Mr. Singh objected. He said organizers of the program had not informed him that such a dramatic performance would be staged.

Hindu elements resented the clergyman’s stand. This resentment was fanned by inflammatory articles in the local paper and the activities of what a Madhya Pradesh government communique called “anti-social trouble-seeking elements.”

The stone-throwing, shouting demonstrators, including many students, marched on the building and thwarted the efforts of 170 policemen and scores of firemen to protect the mission property.

Demonstrators stoned Mr. Singh’s house and burned effigies of him.

The demonstrations spread to other areas. At Jabalpur, 70 miles away, students abandoned classes and 5,000 of them held a rally at which they condemned American missionary activities.

They also demanded that the Madhya Pradesh government implement a report by a state committee in July, 1956, recommending that all foreign missionaries engaged primarily in proselytizing be withdrawn from the country. The government has not yet acted upon the report which was denounced by Christian leaders.

Protest In India

Meetings are being held by Christians of South India against the Education Bill sponsored by the communist government of Kerala State.

The proposed law would put all schools in the state under government control.

Protest rallies were launched after 26 archbishops and bishops of various Christian communions issued a joint statement condemning the measure. Signers included prelates of the Roman Catholic, Mar Thoma and Jacobite churches, the Church of South India and the Church Mission Society.

They charged that the bill is “clearly aimed at the liquidation of private agencies” and seeks to “regiment the educational system on a communistic pattern.”

The China Visit

It is obvious from a number of sources that some of the Japanese Christians who recently visited China saw only that which it was planned they should see.

As a result, they came away with glowing reports of the church in China, reports often at considerable variance with authentic stories coming out of China from uninspired sources.

Commenting on this trip, the Asahi Evening News, Japan’s largest newspaper, carried the following:

“A Japanese Christian church leader has urged that Japan oust foreign missionaries to gain the same kind of freedom of religion now prevailing in Communist China.

“Kaneyo Oda, a Free Methodist who returned from a recent visit to Red China as a member of a 15-man Christian mission, made his statement during a ‘welcome home’ rally … at the Tokyo YMCA.

“Mr. Oda, who was a pastor in Peking 12 years ago, said before he made the trip to Communist China, ‘I received many letters and warnings from missionaries and others telling me not to go … for they said I would become brainwashed, Communist and pink: but I had to go in spite of their protests.’

“He said he found no more robbers or prostitutes; no tipping was demanded and no more discounts were asked.

“Mr. Oda added that the Red Chinese offer people freedom of faith.

“Mr. Oda added that if it had not been for the concerted efforts of the Chinese Christian church, the nation would not have been able to win its independence from foreign missionaries.”

Evangelical observers wonder if Mr. Oda understands the “kind of freedom of religion now prevailing in Communist China.” Freedom bought at the price of collaboration with an anti-Christian regime is a high price for “religious liberty.” China is not the only place where a communist government has endeavored to make the church an agent for its own ends.

People: Words And Events

Defends ‘Do-Gooders’—Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, president of the National Council of Churches, calls upon Christian “do-gooders” to be unconcerned with derisive cynical criticism. He said: “Too often for complacency the sober man is called a killjoy, the moral man a prude, the honest man a Milquetoast, and the idealist a simpleton. A wastrel is now often called a good fellow. A loose woman is ‘emancipated.’ A cheat is ‘clever’ and ‘smart.’ ”

Christian Athletes—Clarence (Biggie) Munn, athletic director at Michigan State University, elected president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Succeeds Dr. Louis H. Evans, minister-at-large for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Others elected: Don McClannan, executive secretary; O. C. Glenn, treasurer; directors, Branch Rickey, George Kell, G. Herbert McCracken and Tad Wieman.

Modernistic Chapel—The House of Representatives has approved a $3,000,000 appropriation for construction of an ultra-modern chapel at the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs. Previously the lawmakers voted tentatively to withhold funds after critics had called it a “monstrosity” and “garish monument.” One legislator said the 19-spired design looked like “a rectangular accordion stretched out on the floor.”

Children’s Mite—The Southern Baptist Convention received a $2 check recently for use in the Cooperative Program. The money came from children who attended a Vacation Bible School in Korea. They wanted to help other people.

Clergy Fares—Northeast Airlines, effective September 15, will grant a 50 per cent discount on passenger fares to clergymen traveling in the U. S. Other companies now offering lower rates to clergymen include Central Airlines of Washington, Bonanza Air Lines of Las Vegas, Nev., and Cordova Air Lines of Anchorage, Alaska.

Another View—Citing incidents in which at least 23 airliners in the last two years were seriously endangered by drunken passengers, pilots and stewardesses asked a Congressional ban on liquor service aboard aircraft.

They described instances of drunken passengers forcing their way into the cockpit, creating disturbances in the cabins and creating fire hazards in flight.

Spiritual Values—Sir Edward Appleton, Nobel prize-winning scientist and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, urges fellow scientists not to forget “the sustaining values of the spirit” in research. He said: “At the opposite pole from our scientific endeavor there are many ways of thought which don’t change, whose concern is with what is not now, with things not to be superseded.”

Christian Statesman—Dr. Austin Crouch, executive secretary emeritus of the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee, was hit and killed by a car in Nashville August 28 as he crossed a busy thoroughfare about a half block from his home. On the day before his death Dr. Crouch had returned from a visit to McKinney, Texas, where he was ordained to the Baptist Ministry 64 years ago.

Upper Room Award—Warner Sallman, Chicago artist who is internationally known for his paintings of religious subjects, will be presented the 1957 Upper Room Award for World Christian Fellowship at a dinner in the National Press Club, Washington, D. C., on October 3. Millions of copies of Sallman’s “Head of Christ” have been purchased by people of many countries. Toastmaster at the award dinner will be Maj. Gen. Charles I. Carpenter, chief of the Air Force Chaplains.

Digest—Christian Life Commission of Southern Baptist Convention elects A. J. Moncrief, pastor of First Baptist Church, St. Joseph, Mo., as its new chairman. Succeeds Rep. Brooks Hays (D.-Ark.) who was serving second term as chairman when elected president of Southern Baptist Convention … Dr. Frank Woods, Bishop of Middleton, England and chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, elected Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne. Succeeds Archbishop Joseph John Booth, who retired last year.… Gordon W. Ward Jr., 21, student at Philadelphia Theological Seminary, elected president of the Lutheran Student Association of America.

- More from G. B.

Theology

Bible Text of the Month: John 7:37

Rudolph Besser

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink (John 7:37).

Great Day of the Feast—A few days after the ceremonies of the great day of the Atonement, in which solemn expiation was made for the sins of the people, the Feast of Tabernacles was celebrated. This feast commemorated the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was celebrated with such joy that both Josephus and Philo call it “the holiest and greatest feast.” It was kept for seven consecutive days, from the 15th to the 21st of Tisri, and the 8th day was celebrated by a holy convocation. Each morning a vast procession formed around the little fountain of Siloam down in the valley of the Kedron. Out of the flowing waters the priests filled a large golden pitcher. They proceeded to the temple and one of the priests poured the water upon the altar. As the water was poured the people joined in the song of praise, “God is my song, He also is become my salvation! Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.”

In the midst of this magnificent festal rejoicing, Jesus cried aloud, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. It is the cry which resounds throughout the whole of Scripture and which had already been laid upon the kindly lips of prophets. Jehovah’s invitation, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters,” Jesus here distinctly appropriates to himself. In this cry the Lord Jesus delights to reveal his readiness to save all souls needing salvation, from the time of his pronouncing those blessed who thirst, in Matthew 5:6, on to the word in Revelation 22:17, “Let him that is athirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely!”

Quenching Of Thirst

He stands there on the great day of the feast, and around him are men who for seven successive mornings have witnessed acts and uttered words telling, though they know it not, of the true satisfaction of spiritual thirst, and thinking of the descent of showers on the thirsty ground, and in some vague way of the Holy Spirit’s presence. They are as the woman of Samaria was by the side of the true well. For every one who really knew his need, the source of living water was at hand.

C. J. ELLICOTT

Christ calls on the thirsty soul to come and take of that water freely. How pleasant to find that all this is in harmony with the grand invitation of the Evangelical Prophet, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price,”—showing the same spirit pervading as well the Old Testament Scriptures as the New, illustrating the unity and harmony of the whole Book, and pointing to the fact that from the very beginning the same salvation has been preached as the pure and free gift of God.

P. W. GRANT

Thirst, like hunger, is something of which we are acutely conscious. It is a craving for that which is not in our actual possession. There is a soul thirst as well as a bodily. The pathetic thing is that so many thirst for that which cannot slake them. Their thirst is for the things of the world: pleasure, money, fame, ease, self-indulgence; and over all these Christ has written in imperishable letters, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.” But in our text Christ is referring to a thirst for something infinitely nobler and grander, even for Himself. He speaks of that intense longing for Himself which only the Spirit of God can create in the soul.

ARTHUR W. PINK

The expression thirst is to be here referred to that strong and quenchless desire which springs up in the soul, ill at ease through the upbraidings of a wounded conscience and a sense of the hollow and deceitful nature of earthly good, for something better, more substantial, and congenial with the cravings of the immortal spirit within. Under the imagery of one thirsting for water, which everywhere, and especially in countries like Palestine where the want of water is so frequently experienced, would be well understood, our Lord proffers to all such persons that which will forever satisfy the longings of the soul and give it permanent rest.

JOHN J. OWEN

He who thirsts is just the man who is conscious that he needs something to make him happy, and who is desirous of obtaining it. It does not matter whether he be right or wrong in the estimate he has formed of that, the want of which, he thinks, is the cause of the uneasiness he feels, and the attainment of which, he thinks, would remove that uneasiness. He may be thirsting for that which, instead of quenching, would inflame his thirst. He may be desiring and seeking that which, were he to obtain it, would make him still more miserable. To bring him within the range of our Lord’s invitation, it is enough that he thirst—that he is destitute, and desirous, of happiness.

JOHN BROWN

When our Lord represents himself as the fountain which can quench the thirst for happiness of all mankind, he intimates that he is capable of making men, however miserable, truly happy,—that he can supply all the wants, satisfy all the desires, of the human soul. Man has a mind, and, as an intellectual being, he is naturally destitute of the knowledge of the truth about God, which is necessary to the true happiness of a being constituted as he is. Jesus is the great revealer of God; he is the truth. Man has a conscience; and as an accountable, guilty being, he needs pardon and acceptance with God. “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” Man has a heart; and he needs a suitable object on which to place the affections of supreme veneration, and love and confidence; and God in Christ is the suitable and satisfying portion of the heart, the appropriate object of the supreme esteem and entire confidence. Man is weak, and he needs strength; and Christ can “strengthen, with all might in the inner man.” Man is mortal, and needs deliverance from death, and the grave; and Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.”

JOHN BROWN

Gracious Invitation

Jesus is no longer visible upon earth; but he has promised his spiritual presence to abide with his word, ordinances, and people, to the end of time. Weary and heavy laden souls have now no need to take a long journey to seek him: for he is always near them, and in a spiritual manner, where his gospel is preached.

JOHN NEWTON

It does not appear that those to whom our Lord spoke in person were so much perplexed as many are now, to know, what coming or believing should mean; he seems to have been understood, John 6:30; 19:36, both by friends and enemies. Many questioned his authority and right to exact a dependence on himself; but they seemed to be at no difficulty about his meaning. Coming to him implies a persuasion of his power, and of their own need of him help. They knew that they wanted relief, and conceived of him as an extraordinary person empowered and able to succour them. They depended on him for salvation, received him as their Lord and Master, professed an obedience to his precepts, accepted a share of his reproach, and renounced everything that was inconsistent with his will, Luke 9:23–61.

JOHN NEWTON

Come signifies our approach to an object or person. It expresses action, and implies that the will is operative. To come to Christ means, that you do with your heart and will what you would do with your feet were He standing in bodily form before you and saying, “Come unto me.” It is an act of faith.… Make sure that nothing whatever is substituted for Christ. It is not come to the Lord’s table, or come to the waters of baptism, or come to the priest or minister, or come and join the church; but come to Christ Himself, and to none other.

ARTHUR W. PINK

And drink—It is here that so many seem to fail. There are numbers who give heart-exercise, or a conscious need of evidence of an awakened conscience, of Christ; and there are numbers who appear to be seeking Him, and yet stop short at that. But Christ not only said, “Come unto me,” but he added, “and drink.” A river flowing through a country where people were dying of thirst, would avail them nothing unless they drank of it. The blood of the slain lamb availed the Israelite household nothing, unless the head of that household applied it to the door. So Christ saves none who do not receive him by faith.

ARTHUR W. PINK

Whosoever drinketh of the water I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

JOHN 4:14

- More from Rudolph Besser

The kingdom of God is near.

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Piety Of The Psalms

Origin Of The Psalter

Structure Of The Psalms

Useful Psalm Studies

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Another River

A Healing Stream

A River Of Life

Each One A Branch

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Truth And Unity

Unity Does Not Stand Alone

Evangelical Contributions

Meaning Of Lord’s Table

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35,000 Protestant Missionaries

Strength Of Imc Effort

Other Mission Agencies

The Shift In Imc Emphasis

The Big Merger Looms

Denominational Questions

Fear Growth Of Power

Evangelical Concern

Peace Of The Churches

Is Merger Assured?

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Role Of The Bible

Revelation Or Witness?

History And Relativity

Normative Interpretation

The Meaning Of Calvary

Revelation And Inspiration

Preacher In The Red

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Apocrypha In English Bibles

Doctrinal Statements

Usefulness Of Apocrypha

Proper Attitude

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Christological Themes

Concept Of Messiah

Scope Of Lutheranism

Christian Moralism

Religious Poetry

Impact Impaired

Pragmatism Applied

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Romance Over

The Day It Began

Worth Quoting

Celebrations

Racial Freedoms

Twin Sessions

Youths Unite

New Science Film

Africa

Appeal In Ghana

Journal Folds

Training Center

Far East

Riot In India

Protest In India

The China Visit

People: Words And Events

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Quenching Of Thirst

Gracious Invitation

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