New York State voters in November approved a constitutional amendment legalizing bingo when sponsored by churches, charities and other non-profit organizations. This is sufficient commentary on the entrenched position gambling has come to occupy in mid-century America. Yet the Church of Christ has yet to raise its voice unitedly and effectively against this critical threat.

From whatever viewpoint we assess it, the practice of gambling condemns itself as a revelation of man’s folly and wickedness. A remark of the prophet Haggai is pertinent, spoken in another context but with all the pungent sarcasm of God’s messenger: “He who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes.” Once it is realized that gambling is indeed “a bag with holes,” the individual Christian can formulate his personal course of action intelligently and in obedience to the command of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. And Christians together can make the voice of the Church heard.

Gambling has been defined as “participation in any game of chance in which a prize is offered to the winner at the loser’s loss.” Thus, three factors are essential to gambling: a prize, a decisive element of chance, and a consideration, or a price. Gambling is, therefore, one of the means by which human beings consciously seek to satisfy certain desires to which their corrupted nature is bound to a greater or lesser degree. What then are those desires?

The strongest and most destructive is coveteousness, the passion for a better temporal state. The gambler, professional and amateur alike, is gripped by an oppressive discontent with Providence and the lot thereby assigned to him. He will take almost any risk for monetary gain. His philosophy of happiness is crudely materialistic and is spelled out in dollar signs. Conversely, from his vantage point misery and financial mediocrity are synonymous. The Bible singes covetousness with an unmistakable curse. It is singled out for special prohibition in the tenth commandment of the Decalogue. St. Paul castigates the love of money as the polluted fountain which spouts forth streams of iniquity. Elsewhere covetousness is equated with idolatry, which makes it a violation of the first of Sinai’s awesome laws, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”

Gambling is rooted in indolence. The gambler does not propose to climb the ladder of material success rung by rung through hard but honest toil; he hopes to leap to the heights in one jump. He wants something for nothing. There are only two honorable ways to the acquisition of things: by labor, which includes legitimate investment, and by gift, which includes inheritance. Apart from the latter, no one has title to personal gain except in exchange for time, effort, or money. This is the decree of Providence, the economic law of the universe, but the gambler boldly defies it.

Gambling stems from hatred of monotony, the desire for excitement. In itself this is not necessarily evil, for man was created to enjoy adventures. This natural bent explains the hero worship which is no respecter of either age or intelligence. But here the moral question is one of fulfillment. To deliberately make oneself a pawn of Lady Luck is to contradict the mind and will of God. To crave excitement to the point of taking uncontrollable risks recklessly is to reveal an inner spiritual void. It is to admit that one has no stabilizing purpose in life, no reliable creed, and no workable scale of values.

What Gambling Does

As for the effect of gambling upon the individual, it invariably shrivels the character and strips a man of any shred of respectability. Since gambling is born of indolence, it is not surprising that surrender to it confirms the gambler in idleness. Increasingly he despises all honest employment; and if he must work, he works at less than maximum efficiency, squandering both time and interest on his gambling. His vicious habit saps his integrity, and he tries to cheat in order to make his wins more probable. He further forfeits his sense of human values and becomes immunized to the needs and suffering of others. His gain is another’s loss, yet the fact never sends so much as a ripple of sympathy across the chords of his heart.

When President McKinley lay on his death bed, bets of $1,000 were made as to whether or not he would still be alive at a given hour. There is no more ghastly scene in history than that of the Roman soldiers carelessly tossing dice at the foot of the Cross for the possession of Christ’s homespun robe. These Romans never heard the seven words of redeeming love which fell from his lips. They were bewitched by a pair of dice.

The gambler’s covetousness entices him to take risks he cannot afford. He is convinced that with the next turn of the wheel he will win. But the games more often than not are fraudulently fixed—even capricious chance cannot smile on whom it will—and the man loses again. Still he plays on, for as the saying goes, “a quitter never wins,” and members of the trade mark him for a “sucker.”

The gambling habit ends in outrageous debts. These in turn drag a once upright citizen down into the gutters of crime and violence. Some years ago a Postmaster General stated that there were more dismissals from his department for dishonesty traceable to gambling than for drunkenness. In 1947, $400 million were embezzled; and from 30 to 75 per cent of this amount was seized by the holders of gambling debts. The game of chance is the first toll gate on the road to crime. Nor is it unusual for the gambler to end among alcoholics and suicides. Within a twelve-year period in Great Britain there were 156 successful or attempted suicides, 719 cases of theft and embezzlement, and 442 bankruptcies, all the products of gambling.

Not everyone who gambles reaps such a sordid fate, just as the moderate drinker does not inevitably become a hardened alcoholic. But these are the potential ends which face every gambler. Infinitely worse, the vice always sears and deadens the soul. The testimony of Jerry McAuley, who after his reclamation from the depths of sin by the sovereign grace of God, supervised New York City’s famous Bowery Mission, is pertinent. McAuley said that he saw scores of drunkards saved, debauchees cleansed, and common thieves redeemed, but he could count on his fingers the gamblers who responded to the invitation of Christ in the Bowery mission.

Social Effects Of Gambling

Although its greatest temptations are introduced through society, gambling is, oddly enough, undeniably anti-social. This, of course, follows naturally upon its corruption of individuals, for society is but the sum of individual human beings. What affects the individual must make its impact for good or ill upon society. Because Jesus Christ intensifies the social obligations of his followers, we must be concerned with the effects of gambling on this level also.

The first and primary institution that gambling attacks is the home. When a man takes to gambling, his home is eased out of the vital center of his life and is rivalled by this deadly outside interest. Often in the wake of extravagant gambling expenses come the collapse of the home, the decay of a marriage, and the tearing of family ties. If the home and marriage survive at all, the gambler’s wife and children are often forced to exist in material discomfort and economic insecurity. This is true not only of the professional gambler but of the amateur as well. Indeed, many a gambler leaves his family at his death under a cloud of disgrace born of debts they did not incur and cannot hope to pay.

Beyond the deprivation of the gambler’s family, there is an insidious connection between the gambler’s table and syndicated crime. The vast majority of percentage men are nothing but cheap swindlers who defraud the public. Gambling most abounds in districts already infamous for lawlessness, gang warfare, and prostitution. Senate investigations have shown that gambling has been adopted as the basic source of income by the organized criminals of this country who were driven out of the bootlegging racket with the repeal of prohibition.

The history of gambling in our nation is replete with frightening records of powerful alliances between gamblers and disreputable politicians. Without casting suspicion on the rank and file of honest office holders, let us face the lurid fact that not a few politicians occupy posts purchased for them by gambling profits and not a few others have sold their honor at the gambler’s bid for protection and exemption from legal prosecution. It has been conservatively estimated by reliable authorities that the racketeers spend more than $4 billion annually in the seduction of political officials and nominees.

All of us know what gambling occasionally does to wholesome athletics, both amateur and professional. In general, attempts to undermine the sportsmanship of rival teams in commercialized sports are unsuccessful. But the pressure is there, and now and then we read of a contest that has purposely been “thrown” because one or more players could not resist the glitter of gold.

Economic Effects Of Gambling

If gambling wrecks the individual and demoralizes society, it also disrupts and impairs the economy.

It is responsible for a perilous distribution of capital. The winners in all public games collect only a small percentage of the loser’s loss, the larger portion being seized by the crooked operators. Thus exorbitant sums of money which otherwise might be channeled into the promotion of the public welfare are not only taken out of circulation but are diverted into the soiled hands and bulging pockets of an irresponsible clique. This is no minor consideration; as early as 1832 the money spent by Americans on lottery tickets alone amounted to $66 million, five times the total budget of the Federal government for the same year. Recently it was estimated that the proceeds from organized gambling are in excess of $20 billion annually.

Those who loiter around the gambling dens constitute a severe loss of manpower in our economy. And the personnel occupied with the operation of the gambling machine are beyond count. To this manpower loss we must add the diminished productivity of the amateur gamblers who approach their daily tasks unenthusiastically and with a double mind. This much is certain: A nation of gamblers will not long be able to hold a place of influence in the world today, nor will it be able to cope with the menace of a spreading totalitarian philosophy of the magnitude of Soviet Communism.

Because gambling breeds lawlessness, it causes the crime bill to soar. The demand for larger police forces can be met only by a sizable increase in taxation. It is an arresting fact that the city of Reno, Nevada, where gambling is legalized, with a population of only 35,000, maintains a police force of 80. Relief agencies likewise complain that legalized gambling adds to their burden. On the one hand, it slashes their receipts by drying up both the financial resources and the charitable inclinations of the participants. On the other hand, by impoverishing a noticeable percentage of the gambling public it commits more people to their care.

A bag with holes! Who can find a better description of gambling?

Gambling Within The Church

The most vital problem, however, concerns gambling within the Christian Church. Those who sanction the practice usually commend it on the ground that it is an easy and lucrative method of raising funds for the Church and its inadequately supported projects. The financial condition of the Church in general is indeed a cause for grave concern. But it is an affront to the Church to insinuate that apart from the aid of gambling it either cannot or will not uphold the program assigned it by the Lord.

Is gambling, then, the solution to the financial problems of the Church? Indeed not. The fact is that the larger part of the proceeds from church gambling go to cover expenses, salaries, taxes, and commissions. On the average, only 14 cents on the dollar is profit. Church-sponsored gambling is, in fact, a severe deterrent to the spirit of voluntary giving and of true stewardship among church members. In some instances the drop in such income after the introduction of gambling has been, by official records, close to 50 percent. Once people, even Christians, are encouraged to anticipate something in return for their contributions, their willingness to give without thought of gain is stifled. Because profits from gambling do not offset loss in gifts the latter end is worse than the former.

But the worst fallacy in this theory is moral. The Church exists to promote universal acceptance of and compliance with the highest moral principles of society. More fundamental still, it exists to inculcate within the hearts of all men the ethical and spiritual ideals of its Founder and Head, Jesus Christ. Its basic doctrine is that by his atoning blood Christ cleanses the sinful nature of man and by his Holy Spirit invests man with the nature and dynamic of godliness. Every appeal of the Church to the Christian conscience must therefore conform entirely to the new and divine nature which is in harmony with the mind of God. And the only method of money raising consistent with the mind of God and human nature renewed in his image is the voluntary gift of gratitude, the spontaneous outflow of the redeemed heart to its Saviour, and the fulfillment of the Master’s principles of stewardship. Gambling, within or without the Church is a vice of sinful flesh.

In addition, when the Church approves any form of gambling, it gives to all gamblers alike an aura of respectability and an entering wedge into the community. It curtails effective enforcement of gambling laws already in existence. It trains its members, especially its youth, in the habit of gambling and feeds them to the racketeers, for most people can perceive no valid distinction between playing a game of chance in the Church or somewhere else.

God stir our consciences to act in accordance with his will and the facts of the case.

Richard Allen Bodey is minister of Third Presbyterian Church of North Tonawanda, New York. He holds the A.B. degree from Lafayette College and B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. Books are his special interest; his 2200 volumes include autographed works by giants of the past, among them Spurgeon’s copy of J. A. Alexander’s Commentary on Acts.

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ—(Titus 2:13).

To the early Christians belief in the second coming of Christ was not a matter of speculation and controversy. Rather it was a gospel to be proclaimed as making meaningful the entire scope of the Christian message. The preaching and writings of the Old Testament prophets focused always upon the promised incarnation of God in Jesus Christ as the event in history which would give purpose to their utterances. So also the proclamations of the New Testament preachers and writers point ever to the second coming of Jesus Christ at the culmination of history as that “one far-off divine event, to which the whole creation moves.” There is no book or message in the New Testament which does not expressly declare or imply the return of our Lord as that “blessed hope” of those whose trust is fixed in him.

If this event was of such vital importance to the original heralds of salvation, not in the field of dialectics but as a message of assurance and hope, should not modern evangels rescue it from the realm of division to make of it the factor of unity that gives completeness to our gospel? To that end, therefore, let us consider “The Gospel of the Blessed Hope.”

The Second Coming And History

Preceding our text the Apostle Paul declared, “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared [marginal reading], teaching us that … we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope.…” In this passage the apostle runs the entire gamut of history from eternity to eternity—past, present, and future.

“For the grace of God … hath appeared.” Here is the past, both immediate and remote. Stated in these words is the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), who “was made flesh, and dwelt among us … full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

“Teaching us that … we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” These words point to the continuing present both for the writer and his readers in succeeding generations. While the gospel has a past in retrospect and a future in anticipation, it is ever present in its application. We are in error if we think of those people who were contemporary with Jesus and the apostles as living in a vacuum apart from the everyday pressures of life. They were men of like passions as we are, beset with the same temptations. They strived and failed, attempted and accomplished, even as we do. “Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts” as they sought to live “soberly, righteously, and godly” was to them a struggle no less than it is to us.

“Looking for that blessed hope”—before them beckoned the unfolding future, with its promise of victory and vindication. The dawn of a better tomorrow kept first-century men on their feet just as certainly as it does twentieth-century men. Is not this the part played by the “blessed hope” in the lives of Christian people of every age? Without it, how quickly the early Christians would have been overwhelmed in the maelstrom of persecution, hardships and tribulation! How would we go another step if suddenly that hope should dim?

That this is true may be seen even by a hurried examination of the teachings of Jesus. When John the Baptist came preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, the entire land was awakened from centuries of lethargic sleep. The One for whom they and their fathers had been looking was soon to appear! Intermittently throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry this enthusiasm arose, but finally their hopes entered his grave with him. But when Jesus appeared alive, a foretaste of a more “glorious appearing,” their hope was resurrected also.

It was because Jesus knew what was in man that he constantly held up before them the promise of his return. To the dual fact of Jesus’ resurrection and promised reappearing at the end of the age, more than to any other, may we attribute this patient endurance. That they regarded his second coming as imminent is evidence of their faithfulness to his exhortation to watch and be ready (Matt. 24:44–51).

If we apply this same principle to every Christian generation even until now, and project it into the uncertain future, we shall see the tremendous place that the “blessed hope” occupies in the meaning of history. Apart from it life on this earth is truly what Shakespeare in Macbeth said that it is:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

But in the light of the “blessed hope” every segment of history, even of our lives, takes on infinite meaning. By it we can read the history of nations and civilizations with fresh understanding. In it we learn “the meaning of our tears.” The youth cut down in the early morning hours of life before he has had opportunity to try his wings of aspiration and desire! The aged, having run the gamut of life, yet with seemingly infinite potential unrealized! The defeat of truth amid the triumph of wrong! The yawning grave as it opens to receive all the earthly remains of those whom we have loved, and lost—for a while!

But at the very moment when our eyes are dimmed by the darkness of frustration, we hear the voice of Jesus, “Look up!” and see the “glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” And in that light we no longer see through a glass darkly or blurred, but face to face.

It is no wonder then that Paul on Mars Hill climaxed his philosophy of history with these words, “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.…” (Acts 17:31). Those who knew the teachings of Jesus would readily recognize the implication of the “blessed hope.” It is as though the apostle had bound up the ingredients of history in one neat package. Beginning with the creation (Acts 17:24b–30), coming finally to that great day of the Lord when all wrongs would be righted, all sin punished, all righteousness rewarded, when there would be a “new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13).

The Second Coming And Redemption

It is in the light of the “blessed hope” and its attendant event, the judgment, that we can best understand a further word of our text: “looking for … the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity.…”

The Scriptures picture the “blessed hope” as one of terror for some (Rev. 6:15–17) and great joy for others (2 Tim. 4:8). The difference is to be found in the word redemption. Knowing this, “our great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ … gave himself for us, that he might redeem us.…”

But redemption itself has little or no meaning apart from the second coming of Christ. Certainly the death of Jesus would have been empty apart from his resurrection. To this truth the Scriptures testify abundantly. But if we remove the “blessed hope” we are still without God and without hope in this world. If we are redeemed for this life only, then we are of all men most miserable. Herein is the full meaning of our Lord’s words, “I go to prepare a place for you … I will come again, and receive you unto myself.…” (John 14:3). The Old Testament saints were saved by grace through faith, looking forward in the assurance that Christ would come. Likewise, New Testament saints are saved by grace through faith, looking not only backward to the fact that he came, but looking forward to the “blessed hope” when he will come again.

In the New Testament we find a word more comprehensive than redemption—salvation. Actually it is threefold in meaning: instantaneous, or redemption from the power of sin; continuing, or growth in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ; ultimate, or our final glorification in heaven. It was to this last that the author of Hebrews referred when he said, “So Christ was once [once for all] offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without [apart from] sin unto salvation” (9:28).

The first coming of our Lord was to the end that whosoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Innately man was immortal, but in his lost condition immortality held for him only dread and despair. Immortality separated from God is spiritual death (Rom. 6:23; John 5:29f.). In his death, therefore, Jesus in our stead suffered the penalty for sin; in his resurrection he triumphed over sin and death to the end that he might redeem us from sin and become the earnest of our resurrection from the dead. But to what end?

Had the story ended there the disciples might well have looked longingly and despairingly into the clouds hovering over Olivet’s brow, knowing that they were left as orphans (John 14:18, literal translation) in the world. To be sure, Jesus’ promise, “I will come to you,” involved the coming of the Holy Spirit, but it included far more. This the disciples would remember as the angels said, “This same Jesus … shall come in like manner.…” (Acts 1:11). Down the road over which they must travel were persecution and death, but always beyond was the “blessed hope” of his glorious return, that where he was there would they be also. Their corruptible and mortal bodies would die, but awaiting them were those that are immortal and incorruptible. Soon in their ears would be heard the angry shouts of mobs that opposed their labors of love, but always in their hearts they heard from heaven the “shout” of the Lord, “with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God!” (1 Thess. 4:16). They might see their fellow-Christians fall by the sword, but with assurance that “the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16–17). And in these words they found comfort, strength, and a “blessed hope.”

The Old Testament prophet avidly but futilely sought to grasp this truth. “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him” (Isa. 64:4; cf. 1 Cor. 2:9). “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.…” (1 Cor. 2:10). With the inspired seer on Patmos, therefore, we have an even more “blessed hope” as in anticipation we stand before the great white throne to see our names written in the Lamb’s book of life. Beyond that we behold a new heaven and a new earth wherein the tabernacle of God is with men, where there will be no more tears, pain, sorrow, or death. Where “there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 22:3–5).

The Second Coming And Evangelism

Returning to our text we find that the apostle points out the historical purpose of our redemption in Christ, that he might “purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good words.” Here we have the suggestion of evangelism, which also finds its ultimate meaning in the “blessed hope.”

As Jesus and his apostles climbed the Mount of Olives they inquired if at that time he would restore the kingdom to Israel. To which Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost [Spirit] is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:6–8). Immediately thereafter he ascended into heaven. As the disciples gazed heavenward two men in white apparel told them of his return, asking why they stood gazing after him. Implied in their words is insistence that they be about the Lord’s business which he had a moment before committed to their care, the task of evangelism.

Thus we discover a twofold relation between evangelism and the “blessed hope.” In the first place, they had a message to declare, for the gospel of the kingdom must “be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14). In this there is a twofold urgency: all nations must hear the gospel before he comes; and he cannot come until they do. In the meanwhile he waits “expecting till his enemies be made his footstool” (Heb. 10:13).

Still again, as stewards of the gospel the followers of Christ must give an account of their stewardship at his coming. It is no simple thing to have this treasure in earthen vessels! The knowledge of what awaits lost men in the judgment should weigh heavily upon our hearts. Paul realized this when he said, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.…” (2 Cor. 5:11). The Bible tells us that if we fail to do so, and they perish, then their blood is on our hands.

Harking back to our text we find a dual emphasis in evangelism, both of which are related to the “blessed hope.” In the first place, Christ is purifying unto himself a peculiar people. This end is accomplished not only in redemption but in progressive sanctification of his followers that they might become fit instruments in his service. The incentive for this is not only our changed natures, love for Christ and passion for lost souls. It is further found in the knowledge of our Lord’s return. To this end Peter, after declaring the fact of the Lord’s certain return, exhorts, “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation [manner of life] and goodness” (2 Pet. 3:11). He concludes with the practical advice, “Wherefore [in view of the Lord’s return], beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless” (Verse 14).

As belief in the imminent return of our Lord is conducive to holy living, the loss of that conviction produces the opposite effect. This may be seen today as it was in the first century. In this light we understand Peter’s warning: “I stir up your minds by way of remembrance … knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Pet. 3:1, 3–4). Quite naturally such conduct negates one’s Christian influence, making it impossible for one to fulfill his stewardship of the gospel.

In the second place, a purified people must be “zealous of good works.” Many good people are good for nothing. Thus in the Christian’s life there must be not only a negative attitude by which he abstains from evil practices. In addition there must be the positive element of zeal with regard to good works. That this latter attitude involves a proper regard to the “blessed hope” may be seen in the many warnings of Jesus. This is the sense of his warning regarding constant readiness (Matt. 24:44). He is the “faithful and wise servant” who uses his peculiar position “go give them meat in due season,” or to share with other the life which has been placed in his charge. On the other hand, he is an “evil servant” who says in his heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and “shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken,” or to use his peculiar privilege for personal pleasures.

In the same vein do we understand the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30). To “his own servants” the Lord has entrusted “his goods” during his absence. Two servants proved to be good stewards, while a third, honest but indolent, became a “wicked and slothful servant.” “After a long time (author’s italics) the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them” (Verse 19). The details of this reckoning are too well known to require delineation. Had there been a daily expectancy on the part of the one servant certainly his attitude with respect to his stewardship would have been different.

Do we need to apply this evident truth? Daily conduct in personal righteousness and faithful stewardship of the gospel will be in direct proportion to one’s attitude toward the personal return of the Lord. What we are and what we do today will be determined largely by the degree of expectancy we have as to the imminence of the “blessed hope.” If properly regarded the day-to-day matters of our lives will take on a different degree of importance. Proper perspective will give precedence to personal righteousness and positive witnessing over the social and economic pursuits which absorb our energies and passions.

Of surpassing importance, therefore, are the words of Jesus, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” (Matt. 25:13, author’s italics).

We see, therefore, the vital place that the gospel of the “blessed hope” occupies in every phase of life. It gives meaning to the broad scope of history, to our personal redemption, and to the practical element of evangelism. To this end let us exalt it not as a subject of debate and speculation, but as the incentive and end of holy and effective living.

Herschel H. Hobbs is a native of Alabama. Howard College, where he received the A.B. degree in 1932, conferred on him an honorary D.D. degree in 1941. He also holds the Th.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Pastor of First Baptist Church, Oklahoma City, he is an active leader in the Southern Baptist Convention.

In a short article it is difficult to present more than basic thoughts on so vast a problem as “prophetic time.” This subject has been our major study at the National Center of Scientific Research for several years.

One’s concept of “time” in turn determines his concept of the world, of existence, of destiny. Like revelation, it has a natural meaning (the Greek rational and humanist) or the supernatural, gained from divine inspiration.

The Hellenistic Concept

Greek humanism is historically responsible for the man-centered thinking that governs all civilization. Most authoritatively represented by Plato and Aristotle, it is devoid of revelation in the supernatural biblical sense, and is basically speculative. By metaphysical research the realities of “time” and of “eternity” are resolved as problems of being. Since in this speculative system God is the object and man the central subject, the knowledge of God, the relation of time to eternity, the nature of time, everything, in fact, becomes an ontological problem.

In Platonic thought time is simply a mirror of eternity. It reflects the eternal, though itself not eternal. It is only an abstraction that breaks into the operation of the non-eternal cosmos, to call to mind periodically the eternal of which the temporal is the moving image. The circle is another Greek picture of time. Unrelated to a non-temporal eternity, and inserted into the cycle of ceaseless cosmic repetitions, the soul is a slave not only to its body and to the cosmos, but to time.

Greek thought, therefore, associates the time cycle with spatial limitation, as well as with corruption and destruction. The soul’s longing for eternity is simply an unreflective intuition; since the soul is situated beyond time, any insertion into time is ontologically contradictory. The Greek notion thus invalidates all thought of divine appearance and incarnation in time. It spoils any Christian possibility of salvation and of eternal life.

Professor Oscar Cullmann has convincingly shown the essential conflict between the Greek and biblical time concepts (Christ et le temps, Delachaux et Niestle, 1947). Other writers such as Holscher, G. Schrenk, Jean Guitton, M. Doerne, G. Delling, likewise indicate that biblical time can be translated diagramatically only as a line (and not as a closed circle) which begins at creation and whose end is in God. The center of this line is Christ. The end points, whether historically determined or not, are moments chosen by God (kairoi), and fixed in the history of revelation (e.g., creation and parousia), as major landmarks in the time expanse called aeon in the New Testament. These prescribed points relate to infinity in two ways: from the point of view of the other world they are located in terms of creation; from that of this world, they are located in terms of the parousia. Without this no idea of time would be possible.

The straight and ascending characteristic of time (whose crucial point is Jesus Christ) is significant, Cullmann asserts, for both prophetic time and New Testament time specifically. But we must reject his assertion that Christianity and Judaism locate the imaginary center of the time-line in two radically different positions (p. 58). If we consider the situation not from the view of mere history but from the customary view of revelation (that is to say, prophetically), it is impossible to speak of different positions. We must speak rather of different perspectives.

For the prophet whose message is essentially “Christo-centric,” the imaginary center of the time line was future. For the Christian, the center is in the past. One is the perspective of anticipation, the other, the perspective of fulfillment. But Christ yet remains for both the center point of time.

The harmony of biblical revelation demands the same time center for both Old and New Testament economies. It must be located in the future (prophetic perspective) and in the past (Christian perspective).

Thereby we show that the great moments set forth by prophetic history are none other than the “times” that Jesus was to fulfill (Gal. 4:4). What are these times? They are the incidents, the acts, the circumstances sprung from a divine decree, generally associated with men chosen by God, whose purpose (either plainly or typologically expressed) is always the fulfillment of the plan of salvation of the world.

The prophetic time line—in the past, in the future, as in the present—is always the line of Christ. He who was predestined before the foundation of the world for his role of mediator, as the divine Logos ushered in at creation the line that he carried forward through the prophetic mystery of the old covenant, and through his incarnation and glorification. This line will terminate at the end of the present world with the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth, where God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).

Unity of revelation is assured in Jesus Christ, “the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). It is in this train of thought that Calvin wrote: “The covenant made with the ancient fathers in its substance and truth, is so like ours that one can say it is one with it. It differs only in the mode of administration.… So that nothing will hinder the promise made in the Old and in the New Testaments from remaining always the same, and Jesus Christ from being the unique foundation of one and of the other” (Institutes II, ch. 10, 2, and 11, 1). We can, indeed, speak of Christ as the crucial Center and the sovereign norm for the history of revelation.

Prophecy And Time

Contrary to the Greek cycle theory, the linear concept of time would say in relation to prophetic thought:

Time is not an abstraction. It is not a question of a spatially conceived here-below and next world ontologically irreconcilable. It is rather the past, the present and the future at whose center revelation is accomplished without breaking continuity.

Time is not opposed to God. It has its source in God. God is the originator of time. He is the beginning of it (Gen. 1:1). He is master of it (cf. Ps. 75:3; 102:14; Hab. 2:3; Deut. 2:21; Exod. 13:10; 18:26, etc.). He is the end of it (Rev. 22:13).

Time is not opposed to eternity. Revelation summons the insertion of eternity into time. The message of salvation implies the mystery of the incarnation. Between eternity and time there is no absolutely qualitative difference.

The expression eternity (olam) traverses all prophetic literature; it reveals the relationship of unbroken time (God’s unlimited time) to portions of time brought about by this very unbroken, unlimited time. (Concerning this concept of olam, see H. Sasse, Theologischen Worterbuch, Zum N.T., T.I-).

Prophecy does not know a God outside of time. Because it inserts God into time, it calls man to participate in the eternity which is the prerogative of God’s time.

Whatever may be the aspects common to our time and to eternity, God alone can comprehend the full extent and know the measure of time. For he alone reigns over time. In his infinite and eternal being he does not permit man to reign over time. Ability to live only moment by moment with no power to embrace the totality of times that comprise the stages of sanctification, the stages toward completeness, toward perfect access to God, this is the trial and enigma of time.

Although God enters our time (for he is Spirit and he is God), man (for he is carnal) cannot yet enter into the time of God. While God has placed eternity (olam) into the heart of man (the original Hebrew says expressly: “God has placed eternity [olam] in their heart” [Eccl. 3:11]), the problem is that of its realization by faith. Notwithstanding certain joys of eternity already experienced, man is for the present withheld from fullest realization of promised blessings (salvation, justice, happiness).

Certainly this ordeal is of an entirely different nature from that which may haunt Platonic minds. For the Bible believer, the trial is of a purely spiritual and moral nature. It is a thirst to possess, a longing of the soul created in God’s image and regenerated, destined to live in his presence and to partake of his glory (cf. Deut. 14:2; 1 Pet. 2:9–10). The believer knows that after death he will attain to his glorious calling. He can already live it mysteriously by faith. But the impossibility of living it presently in its absolute meaning is distressing to him. The circumstances of time, the moments imposed by limitations of space and corporeality account for man’s longing after God.

“Oh, if you would rend the skies and descend!” (Isa. 64:1). This is the cry of the prophet who knows that God surmounts the limitations of our time, that he consents “to descend” from above into our hereness, and that the “rending” of the heavens will be actually consummated in Christ (cf. Isa. 53).

“My soul within me languishes in waiting” (Job 19:27). This is Job’s confession, who seemingly unjustly tested physically and materially knows, nevertheless, that his God is accessible to him, that he will see him with his eyes when liberated from the flesh, that this “redemptor” God (Goel) will be gracious to him (cf. Job 19:25–28).

Between the sighing of Job or of Isaiah, who interpret the believer’s longing for the destiny to which God invites him, and the Greek philosophers’ unanswered plea for liberation from an eternal time cycle empty of God, looms the gulf separating followers of the biblical God offered in Jesus Christ from the followers of human reason which expires in its impossible quest of a God in its image. Here below, under restrictions of the flesh and of temporality, the believer may suffer and weep. But he does not grieve as those without hope (1 Thess. 4:13). He knows that eternity will transcend the limitations of time.

Dr. Andre Lamorte served for 15 years as Dean of the Faculty and as Professor of Theology at Aix-en-Provence in France. He holds the Th.D. degree from Montpellier and in 1954 was named attache to the National Center of Scientific Research.

Man’s misuse of the best that technology and science have produced is nowhere more appalling than in the field of motion pictures. Misuse of atomic power may destroy man’s body, but misuse of the motion picture destroys man’s soul. As the “pen is mightier than the sword,” the camera is mightier than the H-bomb.

In the light of the peaceful potential of the atom, it is ironical to contemplate the horrible threat of thermonuclear warfare. But the incalculable moral and spiritual devastation wrought by the modern film is infinitely more ironical in view of the evangelistic possibility latent in the art and science of pictures. (One of Hollywood’s leading producers, at the suggestion of his clergyman father, dedicated his life to the camera as his “pulpit” and his films have been seen by many millions of the world’s population.)

Surrender By Default

It is sad that the most effective instrument of modern mass communication has contributed so much to the disintegration of the moral and spiritual foundations of our culture. But what makes it tragic is that Christians allow it to happen, having surrendered this immeasurably powerful weapon by default to forces so materialistic that profit became their god regardless of the degenerative effect on society.

Historically it would appear that evangelical Christians had decided the technology which produced the motion picture industry was diabolical and the science of motion pictures and the art of drama inherently evil. Whatever the cause, the effect has been that an entire industry has been largely “scuttled” rather than made to serve Christ.

In recent years this fabulously effective tool has been “discovered” by the church, but there persists a characteristic disinclination toward the industry, one evidence of which is the stubborn “nothing-good-can-come-from-Hollywood” attitude. By renouncing the industry per se, right of guidance was repudiated. Taking the position everything Hollywood does is wrong has been at the sacrifice of any appreciable Christian influence. This does not justify the production of whatever makes money regardless of its effect on society, nor excuse the industry’s failure to take the leadership incumbent upon it to use its powerful influence constructively. But it does mean that the criticism that indicts Hollywood in toto fails to have any force whatever. Obviously Hollywood will not heed the voice that would abolish Hollywood!

When occasionally Hollywood produces a picture with moral or spiritual thrust, those who should applaud refuse patronage and the result is box office failure. Hollywood may choose to produce what the public will buy or stop producing. They have little encouragement from a Christian public that should be in a position to demand the highest and best. (Even Christian producers struggle to survive, and too often collapse under economic pressure.)

A vivid illustration of this (in a related field) is the fact that one Elvis Presley record sold more copies in 1956 than all sacred records made by all sacred artists combined. Evidently those who purchase “Houn’ Dog” are more committed to their “music.” Incidentally, where does this put the sacred artist? He cannot depend on music for a livelihood. Must he forfeit his gift in order to make a living following his dedication to Christ? In a group of a thousand disc jockeys, only three indicated that they had had any requests for a sacred program.

Must We Be Jonahs?

One might think God loves the world—except Hollywood; as though some strange inflexible destiny precludes redemption to this industry. Assuming that Hollywood is all darkness—totally evil as some are prone to think—is it to be forsaken? Need we to learn with Jonah that pagan cities are candidates for salvation? Or is Hollywood with its strategic propaganda weapon to be abandoned to sub-Christian if not altogether Godless, degenerate forces?

There are those within the industry whose answer is a resounding NO! Despite seemingly insurmountable odds, they will not surrender so easily. They do not blindly disregard the “evils of Hollywood”; nevertheless, aware of its overwhelming potential influence for good, they see it as their mission field. At the risk of censure by those without, they labor and pray for a spiritual awakening that will capture its talents, in part at least, to evangelize the world. Not only do they bear the antagonism of some they are trying to reach, as well as the indescribable secular pressures within the industry, but they feel the opposition of Christians on the outside whose prayers and encouragement they desperately need. Let me introduce some of them:

Three men sat with bowed heads at a table in the restaurant of one of the largest studios. The one who led in prayer was a top executive. As they lunched, the conversation centered in Jesus Christ. Declared the studio executive, “To me Christianity is absolutely relevant. In this business Jesus Christ is my daily strength. I do not see how men get along without him.…”

More than two hundred fifty, among them some leading stars, gathered in the grand ballroom of a Beverly Hills hotel to preview a Christian film. One was a star who had resigned at the peak of her career to teach Sunday school. Consistently she has declined tempting offers, including several from Las Vegas night clubs involving a weekly salary running into five figures. “Because,” she insists, “I do not want the children in my Sunday School class to have a teacher who dances in a night club.”

Also present were two other stars who told of their conversion to Christ and the satisfaction of life committed to him. One has entered full time Christian service, the other remains in pictures. A third sang her testimony. Won to Christ during a Hollywood Christian Group meeting, she will soon begin the role of a pastor’s wife as her husband, also in pictures until won to Christ in the Hollywood Group, graduates from seminary and enters the ministry.…

Hollywood Christian Group

Visit another Hollywood Group meeting. Except for an occasional reference to entertainment business, it could be testimony time with any group of evangelical Christians. Actually it is the service concluding the annual Bible conference of the Hollywood Christian Group at Forest Home in the mountains of Southern California. One who spoke was an attractive woman who had attended her first meeting of the group during an engagement in a Los Angeles night club. Yielding to the persistence of a friend, she rushed over to the meeting between shows at the club. Though she had had a Christian background, she had grown indifferent. Her promising vocal career seemed destined for stardom. The new Christian fellowship awakened in her an interest in Christ and made her aware of a loneliness and frustration she had not dared to admit even to herself. She accepted Christ and subsequently dedicated her life for his service. Now she uses her talented voice in sacred concert and evangelism.

An older man, a veteran of the industry holding a high position in the technical end testified, “I think the greatest thrill of my life came when I was nominated for an Academy Award Oscar … That is, it was the greatest thrill until I began to take Christ seriously and committed my life to him. Nothing compares with that!”

Among the more than seventy-five who spoke was a young man. Obviously nervous, he stood on one foot and the other waiting his opportunity. It was not difficult to recognize him as the popular lead in a TV feature film series. So at home before a camera and under hot lights, the young star seemed anything but a professional as he waited impatiently, thumbs hooked in the hind pockets of his levis.

Finally his turn came. With an awkward gesture he beckoned a lovely young woman sitting at the edge of the crowd. A wave of polite laughter swept through the group as she took her place self-consciously beside her husband. Putting his arm around her he began, “We wouldn’t be together if it were not for Jesus Christ! A year ago our marriage was on the rocks. Nothing seemed to work for us—until somebody on the set invited me to the Monday night meeting. That was the beginning of a new life for us.”

He went on to describe their first group meeting, the misgiving with which they went, the unusual warmth of the friendships, the message. They raised their hands for prayer at the close. During coffee time a member took them aside, explained how one began the Christian life, and prayed with them. “This last year has been the greatest of our lives!” he exclaimed.

Something else he said is important, though some will misunderstand, because it affords an insight into a phase of the problem. “Jesus Christ must want me in this business because I couldn’t do it otherwise. Every time I go before a camera I pray my life will be a witness to the others working on the picture.” This raises the inevitable question: “Should these people quit Hollywood when they make a stand for Christ?” It would be unrealistic to pretend there are not those who, lured by prospects of popularity and riches, remain in pictures at the expense of their witness, but it is unjust to assume that all in the business are thus motivated.

As a matter of fact, at least a dozen members of the Hollywood Group have discontinued their careers to obey what they considered a call to Christian service. There are some (as in other professions) who have publicly identified themselves with the Church whose lives have been a reproach. But there are a large number of genuine Christians who have prayerfully considered their responsibility in light of the criticism they know to be forthcoming and their decision has been to remain in the profession believing it to be God’s leading, hoping to win their colleagues, many of whom do not have the slightest idea what authentic Christianity is.

Most of those won to Christ in Hollywood have been reached by the witness of local personalities. Whether they might have been reached otherwise is highly speculative. Christians in Hollywood represent a beachhead through which the Church has an opportunity to infiltrate the entire industry. This frontline witness demands hardy warriors and they desperately need sustained contact and a constant flow of prayer support. This problem in spiritual logistics ought to be borne largely by the Church outside.

The issue is easily over-simplified. One who knows and loves Hollywood is tempted to whitewash it. Those uninformed or misinformed are apt to consign it entirely to the devil. Be that as it may, Hollywood is here to stay, part of the world for whom Christ died and to which he commissioned the Church to take the Gospel of divine love and judgment. Take an average run-of-the-mill cross section of humanity anywhere in America and you will find its counterpart in Hollywood. Excluding the minority who make headlines, the people are disarmingly normal. Picture making is serious business and there is as little (or much) commercialism and secularism among them as in any other industry. Generally they are misinformed about Christianity like the average secular American. They are not familiar with the Gospel, or if they are, do not associate it with personal need. For the most part Christianity is thought to be an ethic, nothing more, and comparing themselves with the world outside, Hollywood people are inclined to feel their average is rather high. They are aware of the reputation Hollywood has and are ashamed of the incidents that justify it. But they feel, and rightly so, that most Hollywood folk are respectable and undeserving of the disparagement so readily directed at everyone in the colony.

Stars That Twinkle

In the matter of virtue, Hollywood is outstanding in one respect. Show people as a whole are unusually charitable with a concern for the down-and-outer, a willingness to go the second mile that is peculiar to their kind. Unfortunately this charity is equated with genuine Christianity and inclines them to think they are as “religious” as most, and more so than many. This common caricature challenges Christians in the industry to bear faithful witness to the Gospel. No group in the writer’s experience is more insistent for the Gospel or less willing to compromise. Believing no one can reach people in Hollywood like people in Hollywood, they accept as a divine mandate the responsibility to begin where they are to make disciples.

It would be naive to assume that Hollywood will ever be wholly, or even mostly, Christian, any more than any other category of society. But in the darkness that is Hollywood there are stars that twinkle. In the motion picture capital there abides a dynamic fellowship of Christians demonstrating that Christ is contemporary and relevant, that the purpose of his incarnation was redemption. God has not left himself without a witness … not even in Hollywood!

Richard C. Halverson was born and raised in North Dakota. From the age of 10 he was on the stage, and at 19 he went to Hollywood for a career in motion pictures. There he was converted to Christ, and answered God’s call to the ministry. He received the B.A. from Wheaton College and B.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He served nine years as Minister of Leadership and Education in Hollywood Presbyterian Church. Since 1957 he has been Associate Executive Director of International Christian Leadership in Washington, D. C.

Preacher In The Red

THE GLORIOUS PROFESSION

Last year I needed new insurance on my car. In an insurance office a friendly lady pulled out a long application form and started asking questions.

“What is your occupation?” I answered, “Pastor.” Shy as I am sometimes, I may have said this just not loud enough. Anyway, she wrote down what she understood me to say. The following interview was the result.

“Do you use your car for your work or just for pleasure?” The question puzzled me somewhat but, after some soul-searching, I answered, “For both.” “Well, I mean,” she explained, “do you carry your tools in your car?” That made me wonder whether you can call a pocket Bible a tool. But she went on to the next question. “Who is your employer?” “The Christian Reformed Church of Brooks.” She looked at me, as if that was an unheard of precedent and finally brought out, “Are you employed full time by that church?” to which I could with conviction answer, “Yes.” This clear answer only seemed to add to the confusion. Now she tried to come down to my level of understanding and asked, “Well, you probably have a contract with that church, but eh—let me say—when you are through with that job, who will be your employer then?” Answer, “I won’t get through with this job.” That proved almost too much for her. Although still smiling, there was that now-let’s-get-this-straight resolution in her voice as she said with emphasis on the last word, “Do you really mean to say that the Christian Reformed church provides steady employment for a plasterer!”—The Rev. WILLIAM L. VANDER BEEK, Brooks, Alberta, 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.

It is half-a-century since Peter Taylor Forsyth gave the Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale in 1907 and three dozen years since his death in 1921 at the age of seventy-three. Of the forty-five years of his ministerial life twenty-five were spent as pastor of Congregational churches in Bradford, London, Manchester, Leicester, and Cambridge respectively and twenty as principal of Hackney College, Hampstead. Like many another man of genius, his influence has been greater since his death than it was during his lifetime. Indeed, if he was a prophet to his own generation, he may be said to be even more so to us in our mid-century situation. His mind and his message are preserved for us in his numerous writings, and it is impossible not to be stimulated and challenged by a personality of such intellectual energy and vision who gloried so wholeheartedly in the Cross of Christ.

His literary style is, as his daughter has remarked, a vexed question (Memoir prefixed to The Work of Christ, London, 1938, p. xxvi). His contemporary, James Denney, for instance, felt that the peculiarity of his style was such “that only people who agree with him strongly are likely to read him through” (Letters of Principal James Denney to W. Robertson Nicoll, London, n.d., p. 97), though he also expressed the judgment (in 1908) that Forsyth “has more true and important things to say … than any one at present writing on theology” [op. cit., p. 118]. It is not that his style is clumsy or slipshod; indeed, there is no theologian more quotable than P. T. Forsyth. Words, however, fascinated and enthralled his mind to such an extent that it seems to have become almost second nature for him when taking up his pen to express himself in epigrams. Of course, a good epigram in itself is an excellent thing: it adds distinction to a theme and may serve to clarify a whole argument; and at the same time it cries out for quotation. But when arguments and even complete books are composed very largely of epigrams piled one on top of another it is hardly surprising if the reader, however willing, finds the fare offered him excessively rich and sweet, with the result that after a while his zest for the feast diminishes. Let him persevere, however, and he will be edified and enriched; for he would be much mistaken to conclude that Forsyth’s style had the effect, like a rich sauce, of covering over an impoverishment or superficiality of thought.

Not Always Evangelical

Forsyth did not hold the evangelical faith from the beginning. “With a great price have I procured its freedom,” he wrote [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London, 1909), p. 255]. And in his Lyman Beecher Lectures he spoke as follows: “There was a time when I was interested in the first degree with purely scientific criticism.… It also pleased God by the revelation of His holiness and grace, which the great theologians taught me to find in the Bible, to bring home to me my sin in a way that submerged all the school questions in weight, urgency, and poignancy. I was turned from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace. And so, whereas I first thought that what the Churches needed was enlightened instruction and liberal theology, I came to be sure that what they needed was evangelization” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, London, 1907, pp. 282f.]. While Forsyth’s theory of Scripture continued to be somewhat liberal, his use of it was strongly evangelical. He realized that criticism “is a good servant but a deadly master” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 49].

The Gospel of grace he emphasized as “God’s act of redemption before it is man’s message of it.… Only as a Gospel done by God is it a Gospel spoken by man. It is a revelation only because it was first of all a reconciliation.… It is an objective power, a historic act and perennial energy of the holy love of God in Christ; decisive for humanity in time and eternity; and altering for ever the whole relation of the soul to God, as it may be rejected or believed” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 6]. He discerned that “every great revival in the Church has gone with a new sense of Christ’s vicarious redemption” and that the Reformation was “the greatest of evangelical revivals” [Ibid., pp. 195, 37]. “I am afraid we must part with the idea that there is no narrowness in Christianity,” he declared on another occasion. “… The Gospel is as narrow as Christ, and Christ is as narrow as the Cross” [Missions in State and Church, London, 1908, pp. 201f.].

The Key To The Saviour

The Cross of Christ, as the focal and finishing point of redemption, was very rightly his major theme. Thus he wrote: “Only the redeemed Church, the Church that knows the forgiveness, has the key to the Saviour. His blessings are the key to His nature; they do not wait till the nature is first defined. No philosopher, as such, has the key, no theologian, no scholar, no critic; only the believer, only the true Church. And we have it where the evangelical experience has always found its forgiveness—in the Cross. Our faith begins with the historic Christ.… We begin, in principle if not in method, with Christ the crucified.… The prime doer in Christ’s Cross was God. Christ was God reconciling. He was God doing the very best for man, not man doing his very best before God. The former is evangelical Christianity, the latter is humanist Christianity” [The Cruciality of the Cross, London, 1948, p. 17]. Again: “You do not understand Christ till you understand His Cross.… It is only by understanding it that we escape from religion with no mind, and from religion which is all mind, from pietism with its lack of critical judgment, and from rationalism with its lack of everything else” (Ibid., p. 26). “Most of the failure to recognize the divine greatness of Christ,” he declared, “arises in the end from a moral failure to appreciate Him as personal Saviour; and that failure rises from a defect in the estimate of the sin from which He saves. A lofty ideal is not mighty to save.… The theology of such a Gospel opens only to a Church of broken and converted men. Only the saved have the real secret of the Saviour” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 73, 219].

Grace And Judgment

Forsyth had a clear recognition of the truth that the grace of God has full significance only in association with the judgment of God. “Do preach a Gospel where salvation is in real rapport with deep guilt and redemption with holy judgment,” he urged [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 154]. Indeed, he boldly proclaimed the Cross to be the seat of final judgment: “It does not avert the great last judgment, it is the action of that judgment.… The justified have the last judgment behind them” [Ibid., p. 347]. This dynamic evangelical perspective could do much to revitalize our prosecution of the Gospel task today. Let him expound the subject further: “The judgment at the end of history is only the corollary of the judgment at the centre of history.… The mainspring of missions is not the judgment that will fall, but the judgment that has fallen in the Cross.… The absolute ultimate judgment of the world took place in Christ’s death. There God spoke His last word—His last endless word. The last moral reality is there, the last standard, the last judgment. The last judgment is behind us. The true judgment-seat of Christ, where we must all appear, is the Cross.… There, too, the judgment of our sins fell once for all on the Holy One and the Just. The judgment Christ exercises stands on the judgment He endured. He assumes judgment because He absorbed it. Salvation and judgment are intertwined; they are not consecutive” [Missions in State and Church, pp. 16, 61f., 73].

Forsyth was an outspoken, though charitable, antagonist of the theology of liberalism, which he himself had once espoused. To it he opposed what he termed “positive” theology. Thus he affirmed: “The first feature of a positive Gospel is that it is a Gospel of pure, free grace to human sin. (And you will find that liberalism either begins or ends with ignoring sin or minimizing it.) The initiative rests entirely with God, and with a holy and injured God. On this article of grace the whole of Christianity turns.… A liberal theology has most to say of God’s love, a positive of God’s mercy. The one views God’s love chiefly in relation to human love, the other chiefly in relation to human sin. In relation to sin chiefly—because a positive Gospel is a revelation of holy love.… The liberal theology, as I am describing it, is fatal to the old faith.… It reduces mercy to a form of pity by abolishing the claim of holiness, the gravity of sin, and the action of an Atonement.… It makes the Cross not necessary but valuable; not central but supplemental; not creative but exhibitive; a demonstration but not a revelation; a reconciliation but not a redemption” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, pp. 211ff.]. Again: “The final tendency of ‘advanced theology’ is backwards. Like Moliere’s ghost, it has improved very much for the worse.… We cannot take the resurrection Gospel and leave the resurrection fact. So also with the Cross; and so with the Person of Christ.… We reduce the New Testament to a piece of tradition; and in so doing we surrender the protestant position to the catholic” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, pp. 133, 182, 103f.].

And in these days when it is theologically fashionable, not to say respectable (though meaningless in terms of scriptural reality), to distinguish between “the historic Jesus” and “the risen Christ,” designers of religious thought may with advantage be reminded of Forsyth’s pungent comment that “to divide up the personality, and detach the heavenly Christ from the earthly Jesus, is not a feat of criticism so much as a failure of religion, or an intellectual freak and a confession of unfaith” [ibid., p. 177].

A Plea For Theology

How relevant to our present theological climate also are his remarks on the prevalent depreciation of so-called “propositional” or “dogmatic” religion. “The prime need of religion today,” retaliated Forsyth, “is a theology. No religion can survive which does not know where it is. And current religion does not know where it is, and it hates to be made to ask. It hates theology.… When preachers denounce theology, or a Church despises it for literary or social charm, that is to sell the Cross to be a pendant at the neck of the handsome world. It is spiritual poverty and baldness, it is not the simplicity in Christ, to be sick of grace, judgment, atonement, and redemption” [The Cruciality of the Cross, pp. 27f.]. He referred incisively to “mere theological liberalism, which, in the effort to discard dogma, only substitutes philosophic dogma for theological” [Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 248], and to “laborious scholars living at a date so remote as our own, working often with more psychological acumen than personal faith, and working under a bias against apostolic interpretation” [The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, p. 127].

The Church And Missions

Finally, Forsyth has important things to say about the missionary activity of the Christian Church. The quotations that follow are from his neglected but notable volume entitled Missions in State and Church: “What goes deepest to the conscience goes widest to the world. The more completely we feel sin to be condemned in the Cross the more power and commandment we have to carry the absolution to the ends of the earth.… You may always measure the value to yourselves of Christ’s Cross by your interest in missions. And it is a safe test of the Spirit’s presence in a Church.… One reason why the Church is too little missionary abroad is that it is not a missionary Church at home. It is established on good terms with its world instead of being a foreign mission from another.… The missionless Church betrays that it is a crossless Church; and it becomes a faithless Church, an unblest Church, a mere religious society, and finally, perhaps a mere cultured clique.… Missions are a debt on every Christian individual.… It is not optional to pay our debts.… The man who repudiates his debts is bankrupt; the Church that disavows missionary sympathy is bankrupt in evangelical grace and universal faith. The decay of evangelical faith is fatal to missions” [pp. 18, 19, 251, 254f.]. And I cannot forbear to quote from a delightfully satirical passage in the same book on “globe-trotter” creeds. “Have you not met that class of people called ‘globe-trotters?’ he asks. They have time and means, health, curiosity, and interest, easily excited. They travel much, some incessantly. Their world is a plexus of hotels connected by rails.… They have seen the outside of many lands, and cities, and men. Their creed has a certain breadth which they parade. It is as easy as it is broad.… As it is with these grievous people, so I say it is with the creeds that sacrifice everything to breadth, and are interested in all faiths alike. They do not send missions, they do not help missions. They are globe-trotter creeds, cosmopolitan but not universal. They are, in the world of mind and belief, what these rich tramps, these returned empties, are in the world of movement …” [pp. 209ff.].

Some Other Works

Of other works from Forsyth’s pen not referred to above mention may be made of The Church and the Sacraments, The Soul of Prayer, The Justification of God, Theology in Church and State, Faith, Freedom, and the Future, Socialism, the Church, and the Poor, and Rome, Reform, and Reaction. Had space permitted, much more might have been said about various aspects of his thought and activity. But sufficient has, I hope, been said and quoted to demonstrate something of the power, the penetration, and the originality of Forsyth’s mind, the depth of his faith, firmly anchored to the Cross of Christ, and the profit and stimulation which may be expected from the reading of his works. Through their writings it is always possible for us to sit at the feet of the great ones of the past, and that is a privilege to be highly prized.

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes is former secretary of the Church Society of the Church of England and former vice-president of Tyndale Hall in Bristol. He holds the B.D., M.A. and D.Litt. degrees. He is a frequent contributor to religious periodicals.

The Church of Christ has survived and even flourished under all kinds of governments. It was born in a totalitarian Roman world and survived the persecution of Nero, Diocletian, and other dictators. All the powers of the underworld, the agnostics, the atheists, principalities, powers in high places, have not been able to destroy this fellowship of the redeemed. Civilizations rise and fall, kingdoms crumble, ideologies have their day and cease to be, but the Church endures. The gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

The invincible nature of the Church is dramatically demonstrated in Communist Russia today. The powers in the Kremlin have not succeeded in stamping out Christian faith. Not only is the Church surviving in Communist dominated countries, it is growing in strength. In the summer of 1957, for example, I discovered that the Church in Russia is surrounded by anti-God forces, Christians are persecuted, and Soviet officials inveigh against God. Even under these circumstances the Church endures. Here are reasons why.

The Gospel Is Preached

On the stained glass window of the Kharkov Baptist Church in the Ukraine are the following words, “We preach Christ crucified.” This is the message of the Russian Baptists to the Communist world. They preach “Christ crucified” as the revelation of the sinfulness of man, the manifestation of the Grace of God, and the disclosure of the meaning of discipleship. When asked what the preachers did to combat Communism, the pastor of the Kharkov Church pointed to the scripture verse in the glass stained window and quoted, “We preach Christ crucified.”

From 1917 to 1935, the number of Russian Orthodox Churches fell from 46,000 to 5,000, the number of priests from 50,000 to 5,000. Today there are more than 35,000 Orthodox priests and 20,000 churches with approximately 40 million members.

Lutherans are growing in both Latvia and Estonia. In Latvia Lutherans are organized into 15 districts and 300 parishes with more than 300 churches. There are 110 Lutheran pastors who are, in most instances, required to serve more than one parish. In Estonia, the population is overwhelmingly Lutheran. Parishes are large with an average of from 6,000 to 10,000 people in each parish. Churches destroyed during World War II are being restored, courses are offered for such church vocations as the priesthood and ministers of music. All told there are approximately 150 Lutheran pastors in Estonia and 100 churches with a total adult membership of 350,000.

This year Russian Baptists are celebrating their ninetieth anniversary. In 1867 Nikita Voronin was the first Russian to be baptized into the Baptist faith. Today there are more than 550,000 Russian Baptist church members. There are approximately four million people over whom the Baptist Churches have an influence. Today these churches are baptizing annually from 12,000 to 15,000 converts. When I bragged to a pastor in Kharkov that I represented eight and one-half million Southern Baptists, he chided me by saying that Russian Baptists would soon catch up with us! Russian people are deeply religious and, if they could throw off the Communists who dominate them, there would be one of the greatest revivals of religion in the history of the Church.

In addition to Greek Orthodox, Evangelical Baptists and Lutherans, there are in Russia small groups of Roman Catholics, Methodists, Reformed, Mennonites, Friends, and Adventists.

Article 124 in the Constitution of the USSR declares that Church and State are separated and the school from the Church. There is “freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda.” Christians can gather in State owned churches or small private buildings licensed by the government for worship purposes. No form of religious education is permitted. There are no Sunday Schools, Training Unions, libraries, handcraft clubs, or organized groups. The churches sponsor no hospitals, orphan’s homes, or any sort of welfare program. Such would be an offense to the government which claims to care for everyone’s social needs from the cradle to the grave. Preachers are not allowed to criticize the government. Those who have challenged the Communists have suffered persecution. Some have been shot, others sent to Siberia and to slave labor camps.

But in spite of a limited religious freedom, the churches are growing. Recently, the Communist press printed 15,000 hymn books for Baptists along with a few Bibles. This is the same Communist press which has turned out tons of anti-God literature. Today it is turning out Bibles for domestic use and for export. The Ambassador of Sweden to Russia told a group of us that the Russian government has been more considerate of the Church due to the fact that during World War II it needed the aid of the Church. Hence, the Communists became less hostile to religion in Russia purely for political purposes. Another reason for the so-called “soft policy” toward the churches is due to the fact that so many of the letters came from Russian soldiers on the battlefields and in the hospitals begging their Christian parents to pray for them. Indeed so many of these letters were written that the government officials began to discourage any serious attacks upon the churches and Christian people.

Young People And Faith

With the exception of the Baptist Church in Russia, the churches are filled with adults. About twenty percent of those who attend Baptist Churches are young people. A number of these youths are preparing themselves for leadership in churches in the offices of pastors, choir directors, deacons, deaconesses and lay preachers. Another evidence of the strong appeal of the Christian faith to the youth of Russia is seen in the fact that during the summer of 1957, 400,000 young people were expelled from the Komsomols (Young Communist League). They were guilty of “immorality” and attendance at religious services. This is happening in spite of the fact that all their lives these young people have been taught by their public school teachers that God is a myth and that religion is a superstition. Recently the Kremlin has become alarmed at this rising interest of youth in religion. School teachers are given slogans to pass along to the children. They read, “Religion is poison.” “Food comes from collective farms, not Christ.” “When God is forgotten life is better.” Teachers are urged to use every means available to combat the Christian faith.

In July, 1957, two communist guides accompanied a group of Americans, of which I was a member, to the Baptist Church in Moscow. It was the guides’ first time to be in a church service. The Holy Spirit worked so mightily upon their hearts that one of them went out of the church in the middle of the worship service. During the singing of the closing hymn I turned to see tears upon the other one’s cheeks. God’s spirit had moved upon their hearts. Thereafter they became more tolerant and concerned about the Christian way of life. Perhaps someday these young people will make a clean break with the godless Communists.

God’S “Rod Of Anger”

Communism could be God’s judgment upon the Church of Russia. The Greek Orthodox Church had become political and worldly. Today the magnificent church buildings of Russia have been made into museums. A church can become a museum, passing on embalmed traditions, if it loses a concern for the needs of the people. I talked with Metropolitan Nicolai of Moscow who also holds the position of Vice-Patriarch of all the Greek Orthodox Churches of Russia. He admitted that the Communist revolution made at least one positive contribution to the Greek Orthodox Church. He explained by saying that prior to the revolution the church forced everyone, atheists and believers, to belong to the church and to attend the services, and to support the churches financially. Now, he observed, that the church and State are separate and that only those who really want to attend church are present at the services.

Another reason the Church in Russia can take heart is the presence of the living Christ. Professor Emil Brunner, attending a conference of Christian workers from all countries, met a young Russian who as an officer of the Russian army was taken prisoner for five years and had been doing Christian work among fellow prisoners. His father, who was once a diplomat and later turned to the priesthood, was so persecuted by the Communist party that his wife, the mother of the young man, collapsed and died in terror. One night his father was taken away and disappeared in the mines of Siberia. The young man told how he had been present at an Easter service in the region of Odessa back in 1940. Forty thousand Christians came to this Eastertide celebration in order to worship. The Communists organized a counterblast assembly to disturb the Christian worship in every way possible. Later they compelled the 40,000 people to listen to their godless Communist propaganda for hours. Then one of the Christians got up and announced his desire to speak. He was at first refused, but when he promised to say only four words they allowed him to come to the platform. These were his words: “Brothers and sisters, Christ is risen.” The whole 40,000 responded with the Easter greeting: “Yes, he has risen indeed.” After 40 years of suffering at the hands of the Communists the people held fast to their convictions that they were serving a living Christ. Today more than 50 million Russians profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Soviet dominated Poland the Church is manifesting new life and strength. Recently I visited Warsaw of which seventy per cent was destroyed during the last war. On the facade of a rebuilt church were these challenging words: Sursum Corda. In the midst of rubble, ruin, and a Communist State, here is a church with a message of hope—Lift up your heart!

The Church will triumph. During the racial movements in the fifth century the Roman Empire fell but the Church endured. The renaissance of the fifteenth century uprooted the medieval way of life, but the Church survived. The Church was divided in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but all branches became stronger. The Church suffers under the Red regime in contemporary Russia. She will never be at peace while the Communists rule, but the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. Sursum Corda!

Henlee H. Barnette is Acting Dean of the School of Theology and Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, from which he holds the Th.M. and Th.D. degrees. He was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama, from 1946–47, and Professor of Religion and Sociology at the John B. Stetson University in Florida from 1947–51.