Eutychus and His Kin: October 14, 1957

CONGRATULATIONS!

Parish activity is booming this fall—the Cooperative Community Canvass (COCOCAN), the Rally Day bonfire at the Cloverleaf Chapel, Dr. Ivy’s new allegorical play to be produced by the All Souls’ Players of Deepwell Heights. I was about to describe this seasonal color for your readers when I remembered that your magazine has now been appearing for a full year.

Congratulations are therefore in order. Naturally I went to my all-occasion box of greeting cards. (The girl across the street sells them.) Unfortunately, only two cards of congratulation were left. One featured a stork, the other showed two blissful fish captioned: “You are the ideal couple …” Inside the card this sentiment was concluded: “because there are two of you.”

Neither of these seemed appropriate, and I fell to musing about greeting cards in general. They are symptoms of the mass mind and the advertising era. A few thoughtful sentences of greeting can have the personal warmth of a smile and a handclasp. But isn’t it frightening to have our most personal wishes mass produced? Rather like wearing a plastic false face with the smile of a Hollywood star built in. Of course the cards are more clever than the greeting we could devise, but who can bear the wit who only quotes jokes?

Once greeting cards were all lace, frills, flowers and sentiment. Now, matching a more sourish mood, they are turning to zany wisecracks. Laughs … but no joy, greetings as thin and insincere as the smile of a hostess calling everybody “darling.”

There is another world of greeting in the Bible. Our Lord greeted not with a wish, but with a blessing. “Be of good cheer; it is I,” was his salutation in the roar of the tempest. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” So he said goodbye.

We who are Christ’s must remember to greet each other in the joy and blessing of his name. That is how I would salute you. (P.S.—When I remember some of your editorials, I would even like to add a holy kiss.)

EUTYCHUS

THE GRAHAM IMPACT

Your article is the most fair and the most comprehensive I have seen.… Thanks for your advancement of sanity in Christianity.

The Presbyterian Church

Seneca Castle, N. Y.

Thank you for your fine article on Billy Graham’s impact.…

Greensburg, Pa.

Was it Billy Graham’s impact … or the impact of the Holy Spirit …? After all, isn’t Billy just another of God’s servants?…

Dover, Ohio

Certainly many of the “liberal” persuasion have shown their willingness to accept the witness of Graham and others. But I am sure that they as well as myself would not accept the “success” of the Graham Crusade as the basis for authoritative efforts to exclude from Christian fellowship all who did not accept Graham’s theology in toto.…

Pentwater Methodist Church

Pentwater, Mich.

What is “biblical theology”? “biblical evangelism?”

Is Graham’s doctrinal emphasis the only brand that belongs to the historic Christian churches? Is it wholly true that “semi-unitarianism … is not expressive of genuine Christianity at all”?… If you are so certain that Graham’s “five points” are fundamental, and that we who … put a different interpretation on these points are lost … you are divisive.… “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” is still the fundamental requirement.… Paul said nothing about the virgin birth, and his interpretation of the resurrection is not literal.…

First Congregational Church

Chesterfield, Mass.

In connection with the Evanston meeting of the World Council of Churches I attended the Festival of Faith, the largest religious gathering in U. S. history. I won’t say how many. In fact, as a Christian, it makes me feel uneasy even to be comparative, to say nothing of superlative.

Come to think of it, the Roman Church soon thereafter, and in the same place (Soldiers Field, Chicago), held the largest religious gathering in U. S. history.

Come to read of it, the Graham Crusade in Yankee Stadium was (according to your newsman in “The Stadium Story,” Aug. 19) the largest religious gathering in U. S. history. But as a matter of record it was smaller than the World Council meeting. Which was smaller than Cardinal Stritch’s meeting.

Who started all this comparative and superlative business? The devil (whether you spell him or it with “D” or “d”). “When they … compare themselves …, they are without understanding.” (2 Cor. 10:12) Let the world have the statistics, by its own guesses. But God withhold the Church and its agencies from “giving out” the often inaccurate and always deceptive numbers!

The Community Church

Morton, Ill.

• Yankee Stadium (with many thousands outside as well) was probably the largest evangelistic meeting in U. S. history. We agree that the Church’s proper business is something superior to “this comparative and superlative business.” But we doubt that the Devil (large “D” except when he lulls theologians to sleep) was happy about the Stadium rally.—ED.

GOD AND THE ATOM

It was a “Christian” nation which actually used the bombs. It is we who have exploded the most test bombs. So we take the lead in frightfulness, in fear of the possible aiding of communism. We betray the Prince of Peace by putting our reliance on frightfulness …

St. Paul’s Evangelical and Reformed Church

Evansville, Ind.

It is possible for our scientists to detect within a few hours, or days at the most, when atomic weapons have been tested anywhere in the world.… Dr. Walter Selove, chairman of the Radiation Hazards Committee of the Federation of American Scientists, has predicted 50,000 cases of bone cancer or leukemia because of tests conducted so far. When you condemn the World Council of Churches for suggesting that tests be foregone for a trial period, your careful avoidance of reference to the above is obvious. Here is no unrealistic pacificism, such as most first century Christians were probably “guilty” of. The obvious implication is that we would forego tests only if other nations do the same. If we discover that they are not cooperating—and probably some sort of pledge would be made beforehand—we can simply resume the tests.…

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Bridgewater, Conn.

Perhaps … yours is the Judeo-Christian rather than the Christian view, and has not therefore arrived at the knowledge that you cannot win for Christ those you have slaughtered.…

Quaker Cove

Anacortes, Wash.

We must protest these tests—or find that hell has room for us all.…

Sutherland, Neb.

Your editorial on “Christ and the Atom Bomb” … has cured me from fear and the tendency to seek physical escape.…

Pasadena, Calif.

ANGLICANS AND ORDERS

There are a couple of misapprehensions in Mr. Hughes’ article on the English Anglican-Presbyterian negotiations (July 22) which ought to be set straight:

The fact that the “39 Articles of Religion” do not so much as mention …” episcopacy, is no test of the importance of this doctrine in the Anglican pattern. The 39 Articles are a series of pronouncements upon certain religious questions; they are not, and never have been intended to be, a comprehensive statement of Anglican faith. The “Preface to the Ordinal,” which does make clear the Anglican doctrine of episcopacy, is fully as binding on Episcopalians as the 39 Articles.

It is unfair to represent open communion as the traditional Anglican practice and closed communion as a new thing. The subject has always been a controversial one in the Anglican Church, and both sides can cite a long list of precedents from the past.

The Lord’s Table in the Anglican churches is fenced against unbelievers and notorious evil livers. The Prayer Book gives authority for this, and it is not a dead letter; I have had to use this Rubric now and then, though I don’t much enjoy doing it, naturally.

It seems to me that Protestants are usually unfair when they discuss union matters with Anglicans. I don’t think the unfairness is conscious on their part. But Mr. Hughes seems perfectly willing to say, “Let the episcopate give up its claims, and then we can have mutual recognition.” In other words, “Let the Anglicans espouse the Protestant position.” Yes, if we did that, unity would be easy enough to attain—but what concessions is Mr. Hughes prepared to make? I’m an Anglo-Catholic of at least four generations—perhaps more—and while I’m interested in church unity, I’m not willing to become a Presbyterian to get it.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Milwaukee, Wis.

The bias Mr. Hughes holds towards Anglo-Catholics is unjustified. By and large I have found Anglo-Catholics on this side of the Atlantic more sympathetic with the approach of CHRISTIANITY TODAY than are “liberal-evangelicals” in the American Church. The statement (July 22 issue, page 39), “considerable numbers of ministers with no more than Presbyterian orders were admitted to full ministry in the Church of England without being required to submit to episcopal re-ordination” cannot be unchallenged.

Cathedral of All Saints

Albany, New York

The … statement … is just what, I believe, Winston Churchill called, a terminological inexactitude. Would Mr. Hughes be able to give further details as to when and where this extraordinary event took place?

Holy Trinity Rectory

Yarmouth, Nova Scotia

Mr. Hughes has marred what started out to be a good article by his slurs at Anglo-Catholicism.… Lest the writer think I am an Anglo-Catholic, let me remind him that I am not but I do believe in fairness and his accusation deserved to be rebuked.

St. James Episcopal Church

Independence, Iowa

Mr. Hughes has done the report rather a disservice by his failure to grasp its essential message and spirit beyond his first paragraph. It is easy to use such a document as a springboard to air one’s own views, but that was not the stated purpose of his article.… For Mr. Hughes to label everything Anglican that may be unappealing to American Protestant ears as “Anglo-Catholic” is surely a shot fired very wide of the mark.

St. John’s Rectory

Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y.

As some American Episcopalian brethren have questioned the correctness of what I wrote, I very willingly now offer a brief substantiation:

In the first place, that episcopal ordination is not to be regarded as essential is shown by no less an Anglican authority than Richard Hooker, who acknowledged that “there may be sometimes very just and sufficient reason to allow ordination without a bishop (Ecclesiastical Polity, VII, xiv, 11). Referring to this in his Preface to Hooker, John Keble admits that “nearly up to the time when he (Hooker) wrote numbers had been admitted to the Church in England with no better than Presbyterian ordination.”

But this practice continued also after Hooker’s time. Thus in 1650 Bishop Cosin wrote concerning ministers who had received Presbyterian orders in the French Reformed churches: “If at any time a minister so ordained in these French churches came to incorporate himself in ours, and to receive a public charge and cure of souls among us in the Church of England (as I have known some of them to have done so of late, and can instance many other before my time), our bishops did not re-ordain him before they admitted him to his charge, as they must have done if his former ordination in France had been void. Nor did our laws require more of him than to declare his public consent to the religion received amongst us, and to subscribe the Articles established” (Letter to Mr. Cordel). This is a particularly clear statement of the situation as it existed in England up to the middle of the seventeenth century by one who was himself a bishop of the Church of England. It will be noted that he speaks of many with Presbyterian orders only having been admitted, without episcopal re-ordination, to a public charge and cure of souls in the Church of England.

In Hooker’s own day there was the noteworthy case of Whittingham, who was Dean of Durham for sixteen years, and who was offered the choice of either an archbishopric or a bishopric when the sees of York and Durham were both vacant at the same time—and yet the only orders of this man who was regarded as fit to hold such high office in the Church were Presbyterian orders received in Geneva.

Another case was that of Morison, a Scottish Presbyterian, whom Archbishop Grindal, declaring him to have been ordained according to “the laudable form and rite of the Reformed Church of Scotland,” licensed in 1582 “to celebrate the divine offices and minister the Sacraments throughout the whole Province of Canterbury (Strype: Life of Grindal).

These citations are sufficient to demonstrate that the fathers of the Church of England, though themselves strongly convinced of the value of episcopacy, did not interpret the formularies of their church along narrow and exclusive lines; nor did they regard the Presbyterian orders of other Reformed churches as invalid, realizing as they did that in their origins episcopacy and presbyterianism are not different, as St. Jerome pointed out long since.

Personally, I certainly have no fundamental objection to the proposal of the report in question for the institution of presiding “Bishops-in-presbytery”; but I cannot view with approval the declaration that apart from episcopacy full communion will be impossible, “even if otherwise agreement had been reached as to doctrine and to practice.” It seems, however, that at this point I and some of my fellow-Episcopalians must agree to differ.

Lest there should be any misunderstanding concerning the scope of my comments, perhaps I should emphasize that, since they related to a report which was the outcome of conversations between representatives of churches in the British Isles, my field of reference did not extend to churches in other parts of the world.

London, England

PRESERVING THE BALANCES

I am certainly not interested in your new magazine. It was not needed in the Christian world—there are enough compromises already.

Sharon, Pa.

It is so prosaically orthodox as to be dull reading. It is one of the dullest papers I have ever tried to read.…

Linden Heights Methodist

Columbus, Ohio

You are far too conservative and narrow for me … and do not bring any fresh helpful insights to one’s thinking.…

Holt, Mich.

Some of your articles have been helpful. But I do not like your slant on the Bible.… The tendency today is for commitment to some form of external authority.… A liberal is a person with a mind open to receive truth from any source.…

Baltimore, Md.

Anti-intellectualism, anti-internationalism, bibilical literalism, rugged individualism, all smell the same to me.…

Fairview Baptist Church

Cleveland, O.

… Splendid reading and a real tonic in days when the emphasis on things that really matter seems to have gone.

Duan Minor

Helston, Cornwall, England

The articles are readable; editorials challenging, news timely, book reviews enlightening and the “Review of Current Religious Thought” especially true.…

Monmouth, Ill.

Your magazine is excellent. I enjoy, and profit from, every issue.

First Methodist Church

Monroe, Ga.

Leaves little to be desired as far as scholarship, evangelical fervor and a Christ-centered approach to contemporary problems is concerned.…

Stanley Presbyterian Church

Stanley, N. C.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is excellent; it is of great value to a busy pastor … The publication exalts our Risen Lord …

Central Baptist Church

Palmyra, N. J.

I have found each number most informative and inspiring in content …

United Church of Canada

Woodville, Ontario

We need such a magazine as yours to keep us aware of our problems and of our sure hope.

First Congregational Church

St. Petersburg, Fla.

This magazine is great. May it be used of God to help to turn the tide today. Greenville, S. C.

It was the Easter issue that finally persuaded me. Thank you for waiting so long.…

First Presbyterian Church

New Vernon, N. J.

- More from Marshall E. Bartholomew

Ideas

Declaration of Principles

The Editors

I. We believe in God, self sufficient and sovereign, versus all atheism, whether expressed in materialism, naturalism, or positivism.

II. We believe the Bible is the authoritative disclosure of God’s word and purpose and thus is the rule of faith and life, versus all relative authority of variant religious and ethical systems.

III. We believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the only mediator between God and man, our Saviour and Lord, versus all views of Jesus as only an ethical example, a martyr, a teacher, or a demiurge.

IV. We believe man created in God’s image is moral, intelligent and free, of unique dignity and potentiality for good or evil, versus all views of man as a product of materialistic evolution.

V. We believe in the Church as essentially spiritual, providing worship of God, proclaiming the Gospel of salvation for men’s souls, giving ethical guidance in life, versus all conceptions and uses of the Church as merely a social organization, an agency of political propaganda, or of lobbying, or of Class interests.

VI. We believe that society is most Christian in which free, moral men rule themselves according to the laws of God inscribed in nature, conscience and Scripture, versus all human propensity to resort to legislative direction of worship, work, speech, ballot and property.

VII. We believe that Christian Faith (theology) and the freedoms of man are interdependent, versus all divorce of modern culture from Christian theology resulting in the substitution of legislative control and direction of individuals for use of moral and spiritual impulsions.

VIII. We believe that these concepts must be re-established in the minds and convictions of the masses by a movement of grassroots education if a free and Christian America is to be attained. The key to this educational task is the Protestant minister and the purpose of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is to assist him in the achievement of these ideals.

Christianity Today Marks First Anniversary

Perhaps no religious magazine has addressed itself to American theology at so crucial a time as CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Secular alternatives to Christianity are in increasing collapse; religious alternatives to the gospel are threadbare; opportunity for vigorous evangelical affirmation, application and advance is unique.

To its readers, CHRISTIANITY TODAY voices deep appreciation. The first year’s distribution to 160,000 readers has garnered a magnificent charter subscription list. This reflects confidence in this magazine’s competence to represent evangelical convictions with spiritual insight and challenge. Nothing would so hearten the Editors at this renewal period as prompt response by our family of readers.

During its initial year CHRISTIANITY TODAY shows growth in advertising space, as well as in subscriberships. Alongside large denominational magazines CHRISTIANITY TODAY has attracted an impressive amount of advertising from firms that recognize its unprecedented access to virtually the entire Protestant ministry of all denominations as well as many lay leaders in the United States and Canada. Advertising policy seeks new clients beyond the usual circle of religious advertisers but is always committed to the goal of “culturally constructive advertising” only.

In its first year, CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S most dramatic gains are not quantitative, however. Rather, they represent qualitative progress for the evangelical Protestant witness. Evangelical Christianity now may claim a supra-denominational magazine that unites conservative Christian scholars in all denominations everywhere into a shared attestation of the great biblical verities. While this undergirding of biblical evangelism and biblical theology has burrowed into churches around the world, it has also gained significant interest among seminary students grappling with contemporary theological perspectives. Inclusion of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the annual index of significant religious periodicals prepared by the American Theological Library Association will provide ready and permanent reference to an unusual accumulation of authoritative writing in many areas.

From the outset the magazine has featured world religious news coverage from an evangelical perspective. CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S news editor supplied weekly reports of the spectacular evangelistic achievements in Madison Square Garden not only to readers of this magazine but also to hundreds of city editors across the land. During the year ahead, as events may warrant, an additional feature of the news section will be photographic coverage. More interpretative reporting of the major denominational and interdenominational conventions and assemblies is also expected.

The month of October has come to be known as Church Press Month. President Eisenhower comments that “guided by the truth which sets men free, the various periodicals of the Church have a splendid opportunity to emphasize their story of faith and good work across the land.” The foremost purpose of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is encouraging Protestantism’s fullest evangelization of a lost world. The magazine, therefore, occupies a strategic position. Committed to the presentation of the Christian gospel as relevant for both individual and social needs, CHRISTIANITY TODAY may well be the fulcrum in the seesaw of contemporary Christian enterprise.

Decade Of Promise For The Laity

The fresh concern to define the responsibility of both ministers and laymen in biblical terms is one of the hopeful signs of the times. The ministry is being challenged anew to evangelistic effort, and to preaching of the whole counsel of God; the laity are being called anew to a profounder grasp of the meaning of discipleship.

In addition to his ministerial office, the minister shares with the layman in the wider office of believer. Many ministers are realizing anew that they belong primarily to the succession of Peter and Andrew as fishers of men. Yet the minister’s very gift for preaching, and the peculiar work of his divine calling, often cuts him off from effective personal access to his neighbors.

Today there is a happy recovery of the many New Testament passages stressing the faith and effort of lay workers in the Early Church. The Roman Catholic church by its Christopher movement seeks to overcome the gulf between priest and layman created by its repudiation of the biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and it is placing new emphasis on lay visitation. In Protestant circles, the role of lay activity in the Reformation is being reconsidered. The aggressive work of the Lutheran Laymen’s League is widely known. The Christian Reformed Church, marking its centennial in America, looks hopefully to increased lay activity as its key to expansion in its second century. This very day thousands of Presbyterian laymen are gathered in Miami to hear Evangelist Billy Graham and others call the Council of Presbyterian Men to fuller dedication to Christian priorities.

The pressures of Communism, secularism and materialism make this decade an opportune time for lay activity. If ever the Christian movement stood in need of monuments to lay vision and enterprise, it is in this decade. This is indeed a kairos, an opportune time, for an increase of lay concern, interest and devotion to the cause of Christ. The profound Protestant emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers must not only narrow the gap between clergy and laity, but it must also, if soundly interpreted, call every layman to justify his daily vocation as a sacred ministry.

There are heartening signs that lay activity is increasing in scope and intensifying in zeal. Prayer groups and counsellors rallied by the Graham evangelistic campaigns represent mainly a lay effort. Some churches have introduced courses in lay evangelism. Others are realizing anew that the Church, in its Sunday School and youth societies, possesses a framework for the confrontation of unbelievers. The meetings of the Church are not simply an engagement with God; they are also an engagement with the world, an opportunity of calling the unchurched into theological conversation and of sharing Christian realities with one’s neighbor.

Mobilization of the laity holds certain perils. Christian workers can be mobilized for inexpedient and even for wrong ends in the very course of lay activity.

One danger is the organization of laymen whose personal experience of faith in Christ remains in doubt. In his book The Face of My Parish, the Scottish churchman, Tom Allan, one of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S correspondents, reminds us that “Christian action which does not emerge out of a personal faith is a contradiction in terms.”

Another peril is an exaggerated stress on techniques. A rash of religious books is appearing with chapters on lay evangelism, and some of these are good. Techniques are valuable, but love of neighbor is the one indispensable factor in the Christian lay outreach. The motive is less dispensable than the method. One who is burdened for a neighbor can bungle, but one skilled in techniques yet lacking in love can repel.

Still another peril is a neglect of the task and message deserving in lay activity, leading the unsaved to Christ. The Great Commission is the supreme mandate for lay effort. The churches follow a sure instinct when they first mobilize their laymen for evangelism. Multitudes in the churches today were led to Christ through the efforts of believing friends and relatives. To lead another soul to Christ is the heart, even if not the height, of lay responsibility. If the churches are to gain new vigor in our decade, the layman must become skilled in the art of seizing opportunities for effective evangelism in his own local community.

There is a further danger, however. Like the others, it stresses the responsible role of the pulpit in interpreting Christian duty to laity. The danger of neglecting the larger obligations of lay witness in the social order—in the realms of marriage and the home, of labor and economics, of politics and the state, of culture and the arts—must be met. The evangelical pulpit must keep the traffic of lay duty moving in larger dimensions than lay witness by proper stress on Christian vocation. The problems of Christian conscience in politics, business and culture must be confronted if the Christian message is to make inroads in the centers of contemporary secularism and materialism.

If we are to have a strategic renewal of Christian conviction this decade must become the decade of the laity. But the pulpit bears an awesome responsibility in proclaiming the indispensability of personal experience of Christ, the priority of evangelism, and the duty of Christian citizenship.

- More from The Editors

Theology

The Dreadful Reality of Satan

L. Nelson Bell

Recently Professor Emile Cailliet of Princeton Theological Seminary wrote: “Experienced students of Christianity have pointed out that among Satan’s accomplishments the neatest of them all is that of persuading so many people that he does not exist.”

Truly the Devil has put over a fast one when he makes man either ignore or deny that he is the unceasingly active enemy of souls; the one who would constantly accuse us before God, telling him of our sins; the one who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; the one who in Job is pictured walking up and down in the earth plotting man’s downfall; the one who wields great power in the earth and whose works are on every hand for all to see and whose activities are recounted in every morning and evening newspaper.

The Apostle Paul wrote a sharp letter to the Christians in Corinth because of flagrant sin which they had permitted to go unrebuked in their midst. Subsequently he wrote a second letter, taking note of their corrective action and then strongly admonished them to show Christian love toward the one who had repented lest Satan should use this to get advantage of them. Then Paul wrote: “For we are not ignorant of his devices.”

Both battles and wars have been lost because the enemy was underestimated or because faulty intelligence led to the wrong evaluation of his strategy.

Christians are in grave danger of waging losing battles because they are ignorant of Satan and his devices and in some circles today it is even popular to discount him entirely and deny his existence as a personality and relegate him to the realm of an evil influence only.

With the actuality of Satan himself there is also involved the mystery of evil itself. We all know that sin exists, we see its effects on every hand and we feel its urge in our own hearts and lives. The full implications of sin may be summed up in the statement that it is either a failure to conform to God’s law or a transgression of that law. And the Bible teaches that we all are sinners—by inheritance, by choice and by practice.

The Bible tells of Satan’s first intrusion into human history. He raised a question as to the truthfulness of God’s Word and then instigated a three-fold temptation involving the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, and man capitulated.

When Christ, the Second Adam, came he too was confronted by Satan with the same basic temptations, the eternally significant difference being that our Lord overcame the Devil by use of the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

But Satan has never ceased in his work of luring men into the paths of sin. He attacks where we are weakest and his cunning is beyond human understanding.

The Apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in Ephesus, gives us a clear picture of what we are up against. He tells us that Satan is neither flesh nor blood, that our warfare is “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places”. He then tells us that our one hope is to accept and use the armor God provides, taking also the shield of faith (movable against attacks from any quarter) and in our hand the one offensive weapon against which Satan cannot stand—the Holy Scriptures.

In the book of Zechariah Satan is pictured standing at the right hand of Joshuah the high priest to resist him and of his being rebuked by the Lord. (Zech. 3:1, 2). Again and again the Scriptures tell of his pernicious activities.… And he has never stopped.

What folly to ignore him! What a victory for him when his name is used in jest and in cursing and when “hell” and “damn” identify one’s conversation with Hell itself!

Not only does the Old Testament make recurring references to Satan but the same is true in the New. While his origin is clothed in mystery his ultimate end is told in the Revelation and this was made certain on the Cross of Calvary.

Cunning as he is Satan is not omniscient. He inspired Judas to betray his Lord and used men to denounce him, betray justice and crucify him and in so doing he insured his own ultimate destruction.

Today he tempts you and me to think and say and do things contrary to the will of God. Wherever the Gospel is preached he is there to snatch the seed from unwary hearts. Within the Church he scatters the tares of unbelief and sows the seeds of error where they grow side by side with the wheat. The wheat of true faith, and the tares of Satan’s planting will be separated by God’s holy angels at the end of time.

This enemy with whom we have to deal is not a repulsive character with horns and forked tail but often affects the guise of an angel of light. When clothed in the attractive habiliments of culture, wisdom and ethical righteousness, he can well deceive the most wary. He knows our own personal weaknesses and attacks at the most vulnerable spot and at the time our resistance may be at its lowest. Little wonder that man, in his own wisdom and by his own strength, is no match for this arch enemy of righteousness.

Only through spiritual blindness does man ignore the enemy with whom he has daily contact. His characterizations in the Scripture should alert us for he is spoken of as “accuser”, “adversary”, “enemy”, “father of lies”, “murderer”, “the power of darkness”, “the prince of this world”, “the power of the air”, “ruler of the darkness of this world”, “the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience”, “tempter”, “god of this world”, “unclean spirit”, and “wicked one”.

Little wonder that our Lord when he revealed himself to Paul on the Damascus Road explained to the astonished man that his mission to his generation was to “open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18). Unregenerate man is held captive by the Devil and his works are on every hand for us to see. John bluntly tells us: “… the whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19).

This is a frightening picture and the complacency of men can only be explained in terms used by Paul: “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world [Satan] hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them” (2 Cor. 4:3, 4).

Faced with such facts what can man do? It is here that the glory of the Gospel is manifested; for in Christ we have deliverance from the power of Satan and victory over him.

When we recognize the Enemy for who and what he is, and the One who gives us victory over him, we have left the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of light, the realm of death for the realm of eternal life.

L. NELSON BELL

- More from L. Nelson Bell

Cover Story

Christ’s Kingship over History

James S. Stewart

The whole future of the missionary enterprise is linked with, and depends on a right understanding of, the question of the relation of Jesus Christ to the historical process. Our missionary attitude will be largely conditioned by the answers we give to such questions as these: What did Jesus mean by the Kingdom of God, and what is its place in the context of secular history? Is Jesus King only of the Church, or is he King of the world as well? Is his Kingship real now, or potential in the future? Is there a new missionary urgency in the dangers of our contemporary situation? What is the ultimate goal of missions? Is it victory for Christ within the historical process, or is it victory beyond the consummation when history has ceased to be? Is it the gradual spread of the Gospel until the nations are at the feet of Jesus and the whole earth is Christianized? Or is it an apocalyptic act of God shattering time, abolishing history and bringing in eternity?

Lordship Of Christ

I suggest that the one satisfactory approach to these immensely important questions is along the line of the New Testament proclamation of the Lordship of Christ. All cramped and narrow notions of missionary motivation—all the planning and the strategy which are aimed simply at the rescuing of individual souls out of the clutches of the historical process and the corruption of the world—are far behind the insight of the New Testament Church when it fashioned its first creed in two words, like two sudden thrilling notes of a trumpet: Kyrios Jesus, Jesus is Lord.

It is upon God’s mighty acts at the Cross and the Resurrection that Christ’s Kingship stands for ever. When Pilate wrote upon the Cross “This is the King,” he had unconsciously expressed the divine determinate decree. “He reigns from the tree.” This is the Gospel. It is not that we are sent out into the world to “make Christ King.” How could it be that, when God has made him King already and given him the Name which is above every name? It is not that our missionary task is to cooperate with Jesus in seeking to establish the Kingdom, as though we were to prepare the way for its coming or work for its inauguration at some future day. How could it be that, when from every page of the Gospels the words and works of Jesus cry aloud that in him the Kingdom has broken through and is now in the midst? It may indeed be a hidden Kingdom, with a King incognito, a mystery veiled from the eyes of sinful men and therefore unacknowledged.

Concealed as yet this honour lies,

By this dark world unknown,—

A world that knew not when He came,

Even God’s eternal Son.

Nevertheless, he has taken hold upon history, and he is history’s Lord.

Whenever we speak of an historical incarnation and of an objective atonement, we are asserting that God’s mighty act in Christ has changed the human scene decisively and for ever even for those who do not believe on him and who refuse to recognize his claim. The very earth which God has given to the sons of men has been different since the days when it was trodden by the feet of the one true Son of Man; and every human life, whether Christian or not, is affected by the cosmic battle fought out to a finish at Calvary between Jesus and the powers of darkness. In this sense he is King, not only of the Church, but of the universe itself.

Command And Motive

Now there is all the difference in the world between going out on mission with the motive of helping Christ to become King, and going out because the King has sent you. If the dominical command were a summons to the Church to conduct a world-wide propaganda for Christ’s enthronement, to dedicate its maximum resources to a herculean effort to bring his Kingdom in upon earth, it would indeed be a paralyzing hopeless task. Sometimes the Church has in fact thought of its mission in those terms—and then the exhilaration has vanished from its spirit and the light has gone out of its face. Even today it is a not unfamiliar presentation of the missionary challenge. But basically it is quite alien to the New Testament. This was not the theology of missions on which the apostles launched out in that great age which saw the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. This would have been a frail makeshift raft, unfit for such a precarious voyage. What carried them through was the sure Word of God that the kingly rule of heaven had broken right into history in Christ; that this Jesus was the royal dominion of God incarnate; and that the Lordship of Christ extended not merely to a group of disciples but to the nations of the earth, not to a few religious people but to all mankind, not to the Church alone but to the universe. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”

If the missionaries proclaimed this truth with passionate conviction, it was because not flesh and blood but God himself had revealed it to them in the death and resurrection of his Son. And today it is no rhetorical wishful thinking but hard concrete fact we are expressing when we say:

His Kingdom cannot fail;

He rules o’er earth and heaven;

The keys of death and hell

Are to our Jesus given.

Now here we encounter one of the fundamental principles of a missionary theology. It is this—that behind the imperative lies an indicative. The Church must act, because God has acted already. The missionary cries, “Necessity is laid upon me: woe is me if I preach not the Gospel,” because of certain historic unique unrepeatable events which have given him a Gospel to preach. The love of Christ constrains its ambassadors to suffer in history, because by that love history is already redeemed. The command “Go ye into all the world” has behind it the urge and drive of that stupendous affirmation, “All power has been given to me in heaven and earth.” The dynamic of the Church’s unaccomplished task is the accomplished deed of God. Underneath the urgent imperative there rests, firm as a rock, the eternal indicative.

James S. Stewart is Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology in the University of Edinburgh, and is one of Scotland’s most distinguished preachers. This article is an abridgment of the chapter “Christ the King” from his recent book, Thine Is the Kingdom, used by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

- More from James S. Stewart

Cover Story

God’s Gauge for Giving

Harry R. Smith

Natural man’s most elemental and most driving force is the instinct for self-preservation. That force drives man to hunt or fish or cultivate or gather, to satisfy his own hunger and that of his family.

That force makes him save some of today’s provender against the possibility that tomorrow’s hunt might be less fortunate. It makes him hide and protect himself, his family and his possessions, and if necessary, fight to defend them. Although we may have come out of the cave and laid down our stone axe for a slide rule, a machine tool or a business document, the old drive is still there. The natural human tendency is to get as much as possible and to hang on to it.

Only the introduction of another, higher force can induce man to share voluntarily any part of what he has acquired so that another might benefit or an idea might be made known. In some men this higher force is that of genuine love for the object of his giving. In others, particularly where a person has accumulated tremendous wealth in a business affecting many people, it is a sense of social responsibility which prompts the creation of foundations with lofty-sounding purposes, but often, alas, filled with pride and schemes to beat the tax collector.

It is a small wonder that the Christian, finding himself in a world, or coming out of a world, with this attitude toward money and giving, all too often retains much of this worldly viewpoint toward the money or other wealth in his hands.

God And A Man’s Money

The first question a Christian should ask himself about himself and his money is, What is my relationship to God? The Christian is not an ordinary man. He is one who, through the work of the Holy Spirit, has come to a realization of his responsibility to God, of his sinful condition, of his inability to help himself. He has realized that his only remedy is to turn his back on his old life and turn toward the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Saviour. His only tenable future course is to yield to Christ as Lord and Master. Such a man has a new relationship to God, to the world, and to himself. At conversion the believer may not fully realize it; nevertheless we are told in the Word of God, “Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price …” (1 Cor. 6:19).

In sight of God the believer is a trustee or steward of his money. He no longer, then, has the right to ask himself, “How much of my time or my talents, or my money shall I give to the Lord?” The fact of the matter is that we have no time, talents or money of our own. God has every right to demand that we deliver that which He has purchased.

But our God is a gracious God. Just as he will not force upon an unbeliever the gift of salvation he provided at so great cost, so he will not wrest from the believer that to which he is justly entitled. Instead of demanding, he entreats the believer thus, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1). Why does God choose this course? It seems certain that he does so in order to make available to his children still another joy: the joy that comes from giving out of a heart of love. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, God, speaking through Paul, points to the way in which the Macedonian churches first gave themselves to God, and then having done so, gave generously out of their deep poverty to relieve the distress of the saints at Jerusalem. When Paul evidently protested that they would impoverish themselves by such generosity, the Macedonians entreated him to take the gifts so that they might have the joy of practical fellowship.

Love And The Weekly Budget

The Christian’s giving should spring from a heart of love—love that would give everything to the object of its love. And the Christian’s giving should be governed by the will of God. Our question concerning money (and it applies to all that we have and are) should not be, “How much shall I give the Lord?” but rather, “Lord, how shall I use this money which you have put in my trust?” In the family budget meeting, the Christian family should recognize that God has the deciding vote.

But some will point out that they do not hear God as an audible voice; they feel the need for some mathematical formula and ask if the tithe or 10 per cent is the right amount. Others point out that since we are now under grace and not under law, the tithe is no longer required. In a sense that is true, if we recognize that God is entitled not to 10 but to 100 per cent. The tithe may not now be the fixed rule, but it certainly makes a good place to start. God has promised a blessing to all who would bring the tithes into the storehouse, and he has never rescinded that promise. But he has promised much more to those who recognize his complete sovereignty. Jesus himself told us, “Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over” (Luke 6:38).

There is no danger of our “outgiving” God. One of America’s great industrialists, a Christian who has given practically all of his capital and income to the Lord’s work, once said, speaking about the truth of the promise that the Lord would bless those who give: “As I shovel out, the Lord keeps on shoveling in, and the Lord has a bigger shovel!” The promised increase in return was not, I am sure, the motive for this man’s increased giving; nor should it be, for giving from such a base motive would not bring the promised increase. Let our giving be out of a heart of love.

Humility And Sacrifice

Many people who today live in what we would call humble circumstances are living full rich lives because they have not allowed themselves to become enamored of the luxuries that are a snare to so many others. As the treasurer of a mission, I can report from first-hand observation that many of those Christians in humble circumstances, some on small pensions, are the ones who give faithfully, sacrificially, regularly, and evidence real joy in doing so.

This is a land where there are so many opportunities for advancement that most laborers, farmers, business and professional men have all seen their incomes increase. The temptation is to increase the standard of living as rapidly as the income increases, while limiting the Lord’s portion to the same 10 per cent, or less, as is all too often the case. The appeals of advertising, the ease of credit, the pride of possessions, the desire to keep up with or ahead of the Joneses, all conspire to absorb the increased income and to entangle us in commitments that may or may not be in the will of the Lord. How shall we react when our income starts to increase? Must we adopt a Spartan regime? Look, for example, at the young man who starts in the business world as a shipping clerk, lives in small and humble quarters, and rides back and forth to work on a bicycle, carrying his lunch in a paper sack. If he works his way up to become a salesman, sales manager, vice president and finally president of the concern, must he still live in the same cottage, ride his bicycle, and carry his lunch? Surely not. The Lord would consider it perfectly proper, in fact, almost required of him, that he move up a step at a time into a little more commodious and comfortable house, and that he provide himself and his family with an automobile, a more complete wardrobe, and so on. But at each step of the way, let such a man take counsel with God so that he does not needlessly put the Lord’s money into a larger house, a larger car, a swimming pool, a yacht, and so on. During the war we were asked to curb our desire to travel on the overtaxed transportation system by asking ourselves, “Is this trip necessary?” With each major expenditure, and certainly with each plan to advance the scale of living, we should ask the Lord, “Lord, is this step your will for my life? Is it necessary? Does it have the seal of your approval?”

Spending And Saving And Giving

Besides spending versus giving, there is also the matter of saving. When the children of Israel gathered the manna in the wilderness, they were told to gather just enough for the day, except on the day before the Sabbath when they were to gather enough for two days. There was no need to store up a little against the day when the manna might fail, for it never failed. Does this same principle hold today? Some contend that it does, and that a Christian displays a lack of faith in God if he tries to save for a rainy day, or invests in life insurance, or makes some other form of investment. True, in the time of the manna, God miraculously provided food for his people on a day-to-day basis. But throughout history most of God’s created nature has revolved around seedtime and harvest, which require that, after the offerings of first fruits, etc., the harvest be stored up for use during the remainder of the year. In Joseph’s day God directed him to store up during the seven fat years to provide for the seven lean years. And in Paul’s day the word of the Lord came to him, “For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children” (2 Cor. 12:14). There is sound scriptural ground for believing that in our budget session with the Lord, He would have us make proper provision for future contingencies and for the support of our dependents.

Duty And The Day Of Death

Of course the Lord may call us home before we have need of those funds or assets which we have laid up against the lean and declining years. Every Christian has a duty, therefore, to take advantage of the provisions of law which permit him to bequeath his estate. Not long ago a fine Christian layman passed away. Because of his failure to have a will drawn, a substantial portion of his estate was dissipated in taxes and attorneys’ fees and thus was lost to the causes nearest his heart. The Christian with an estate to bequeath has a responsibility to have a will drawn properly by a competent attorney.

In giving of his substance to the Lord, the Christian should consider carefully the persons or agencies who are to receive the gifts. If giving is motivated by that grace of love which characterizes God’s love for us, then there will be no discrimination in selecting the recipients of our giving.

Who can justify withholding aid from a person merely because of his color, race, or religion? If a destitute widow came to our door asking for a bowl of soup that she might feed herself and her starving children, we would not turn her away on the grounds that she was an unbeliever. Rather, we would give to her as an expression of the love placed in our hearts by the Lord Jesus Christ, who also loves her and her children. But it is quite another matter to give indiscriminately to churches, schools, seminaries, mission boards, etc. Such gifts are designed not to eliminate suffering and want but to permit the recipients to spread a doctrine or a system of ideas.

Sometimes the young convert, even though mature in years and of some financial means, will assume in the ecstasy of his new Christian life that all churches, all mission boards, are diligently spreading the pure gospel and that all of the appeals which pour in through the mails and over the radio are equally worthy of support. The sad fact is that many organizations which outwardly appear to be proponents of the true Gospel have long since departed from the faith and are giving out false doctrines. The Christian has a duty to investigate carefully the claims of these various organizations. God’s Word admonishes the believer, as a steward of God, to be “holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers” (Titus 1:9).

This is on the positive side. On the negative side, we are told, “If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed, for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 10–11). Let not the Christian think that once he has investigated the doctrinal purity and the spiritual effectiveness of the enterprise, he can forget about it. One of the heartbreaks of modern Christendom is the way many organizations, originally sound and true to the faith, have slipped away little by little over the years, until now some of them openly deny the inspiration of the Word, the Diety of Christ, his Virgin Birth, his atoning work, his bodily Resurrection, and his visible physical return. Many devout Christians of earlier days who gave or willed money to such an organization would be grieved beyond measure if they could see the way that money is being used to deny the very faith they sought by their gifts to defend and to extend.

Investment And Doctrinal Stability

How do such organizations drift away from sound foundations until they are almost beyond salvaging for the cause of Christ? It is the work of Satan. He makes his breach in the wall when the men on the governing boards begin to drift away from moment-by-moment fellowship with God, get their eyes off the Saviour, and begin to feel that they are important cogs in the ecclesiastical machinery; when they begin to emphasize what man can do instead of what God has already done; when they begin to feel that the idea of the substitutionary atonement is perhaps a little uncultured, perhaps unnecessary, and that perhaps the primary mission of Christ on earth was to set an example, which with a little more effort, man can equal or at least approximate; when they feel that perhaps Calvary was just an unfortunate mistake and that his disciples just imagined the Resurrection. Such falling away points up the urgent necessity for the Christian, before he gives the Lord’s money, to watch carefully the trends in the thinking and the living of the men into whose hands the guidance of these organizations has been entrusted. At the first sign of departure from the high standards of Christian doctrine or Christian living, the Christian should ask a question or two in kindness, but if necessary with increasing firmness, to the end that our Christian organizations, both large and small may be kept squarely in the center. Truly, the Christian’s responsibility follows after his money, to see that it is used properly and effectively in line with God’s eternal purposes.

Harry R. Smith is Vice President of the Bank of America. Born in Philadelphia at the turn of the century, he now lives in Menlo Park, California, and is well-known in business circles for his vibrant Christian witness. He has written the volume Apart with Him.

Preacher In The Red

ECUMENICAL MATRIMONY

MY 11-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER was listening to her mother and a friend talk about churches.

“I once belonged to the Episcopal Church,” said the friend.

“Aren’t you an Episcopalian?” my daughter asked.

“No, I’m a Congregationalist now,” was the reply.

“And I used to be a Methodist before I married your daddy,” said my wife.

“Hmmmm,” muttered my daughter. “Cross-pollination!”—ROBERT O. REDDISH, JR., Medina, Ohio.

- More from Harry R. Smith

Cover Story

The Marks of a Christian

Billy Graham

In the First Epistle of John, fifth chapter, thirteenth verse, we read: “These things have I written to you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.” That is the reason this epistle is written to the people. “These things I write unto you,” said John, “that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”

Now I ask you, do you know whether you have eternal life? What do I mean by eternal life? I mean life, here and now, a full-orbed life, life’s complete fulfillment, as well as heaven to come when you die. Do you know that you have that? The Bible says you can know it. You can be sure of it. John says, “These things I write unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” A Christian who has received Christ can say with assurance, “I know that I have eternal life. I’m sure. I have received Christ. There are certain evidences in my life that indicate that I’ve passed from death unto life. Whether I was conscious of the moment or unconscious of it, I’ve passed from death unto life and I know that I’m ready to meet God. I know in whom I have believed.”

All through the epistles, the apostles say, “I know.” You can know, you can be sure. Paul said, “I am persuaded.… I know these things.” How can you know, how can you be sure?

Personal Examination

Well, I want to give you an examination. I want to ask you some very pointed questions about your own life. The Bible says that God’s law is a mirror. And when I look into the Law, the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, the Bible says that I see my true self. I see how I appear in the sight of God. The Bible says that God does not judge the outward appearance. I’m not asking about your financial status, about the latest fashion in which you are dressed, about your social position, about the color of your skin, nor about your cultural background. I’m asking, How do you stand in relationship to God? Are you sure that you have eternal life?

The rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, “What must I do to have eternal life?” What did he mean? He meant that he wanted the best out of life here, that he wanted full-orbed living. Now, he had religion. He had culture. He had education. He had everything that would normally make a person happy. But there was an empty spot in his life. He knew that there was something else in life that he didn’t have, and so he came to Jesus. But, he asked something else. He wanted to know about life after death. He wanted to know whether he was going to live with God forever. He wanted to know about this life that Jesus was talking about when he said, “I have come to bring life, more abundant life.”

Source Of Life

The Bible teaches that God is from everlasting to everlasting. God is life. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Life: Life with a capital L. That is, spiritual life. Now, there is physical life. Physically you are alive. Spiritually, the Bible says, all of us are dead and separated from God. Take the illustration of a lovely plant. I cut off a stem and the plant lies on the floor. It looks just as well as it ever did from the outside, but the sap can no longer come into it, and eventually it will die because it is separated from life. Now that is exactly what sin does. Sin has cut the lifeline between you and God, and God speaks of us as spiritually dead. Separated from God. Cut off from God’s fellowship. Separated from life.

Now, God is life. The moment you come to Jesus Christ and receive him, the Bible says you are grafted back into the vine. Jesus said, “I am the vine, the true vine. Ye are the branches.” You are grafted in as a branch. The Bible says you become a partaker of eternal life, spiritual life, and immediately something happens. The Bible says the sap, the spiritual life of God, begins to flow through you, and evidences appear that you have spiritual life. You don’t go on as a dead plant, as a dead branch. The leaves begin to sprout. Certain things begin to take place in your life. This life of God is yours, and the Bible says you will live as long as God lives. When the stars have fallen, when the moon has fallen out of its socket, we’ll still be living because God is from everlasting to everlasting, and those of us who have spiritual life in Christ Jesus shall live forever. Oh, it’s wonderful to be a Christian! And that’s the thing that the world cannot understand. That’s the thing that a person who has never received Christ cannot understand. He doesn’t understand that flowing through you now is the life of God, giving you power, strength, and the dynamic to live the Christian life.

Make Sure

Do you have the life of God flowing through you? Have you received spiritual life through Christ? You should check to see whether you have life. The Bible speaks in Hebrews 10:22 about the full assurance of faith. The blind man said, “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.” Make sure! Can you say, “I was blind to spiritual things, but now I see. I was once dead to spiritual things, but now I have life. I was once in spiritual darkness, but now I’m walking in the light.” Can you say that? If not, I beg of you to come to Christ and make sure. Has there been a moment when you received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour? Paul said to the Philippian jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” “No, Paul,” you say, “that’s an oversimplification. You’re too simple, Paul. You should have given him something complicated to do. Paul, you should have told him all that’s involved.” But Paul didn’t. Paul said, “Believe.” Why? Because believing, if you understand the word properly, is the entrance, the beginning of new life in Christ.

Meaning Of Faith

Now, what does it mean to believe? The word believe involves your intellect. We must know Christ, and accept his claims. Christ claimed that he was the Son of God, that his death on the Cross was the only way to heaven, that he was God incarnate. You must accept Christ in all that he claims, or put him down as one of the biggest liars, hypocrites and charlatans in history. I had to decide in my own heart and in my own mind that Jesus Christ was what he claimed to be. I made my decision a few years ago. I stood at the crossroads and intellectually made this choice. I said, “Oh God, by faith with my mind I accept the fact that Jesus Christ is what he claimed to be and that when he died on the Cross it was not the ordinary death of an ordinary man, but it was God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. It was Christ shedding his blood for our sins.”

Intellect And Emotion

First is the intellect. Second is emotion. Emotion is involved in everything we do. You cannot separate emotion from the mind and the will. Love is emotion. Hate is emotion. When I come to Jesus Christ, I love Christ because he gave himself for me on the Cross, and I hate sin. Hate and love are emotions. I have very little time for a person who can sit in front of a television set and weep and laugh over “I Love Lucy,” or go to a ball game and shout, “Kill the umpire,” and yet condemns emotionalism in religion.

The third factor is the will. Thousands of people are in the churches today who accept Christ with the intellect. The Bible says that the devils believe and tremble. We haven’t done much trembling. Some of you have had emotional experiences in religion as a child, as a young person. But you still do not have spiritual life until a third thing takes place. Here is the important thing: you must by an act of your will receive Christ.

When I stood before the minister to get married, he said, “Wilt thou take this woman to be thy wedded wife?” I said, “I will.” Publicly, before everybody in that church, as scared as I was, by an act of my will. I didn’t answer him and say, ‘I believe in her and I love her.’ That was not it. I had to say, “I will.” Leading up to that moment there had been weeks and months of courtship. I used every tactic that I’d ever heard about or read about to win her. However, we were not committed to each other until we said in front of the minister, “I will.” Then the transaction was recognized in the courts of heaven and earth.

When you come to Jesus Christ it is also an act of your will. That is involved in that little word faith. I believe. I receive Christ by faith. It is an act of your will when you commit your life to him. Have you done that?

Forsaking Sin

After receiving Christ, did you forsake sin, the known sin in your life? Lying, cheating, immorality, pride, all of these things? Now that doesn’t mean you had total and complete victory over them every moment. But it does mean that you began to turn from sin. Sam Jones, the great evangelist, said that his church used to say, “Quit your meanness.” That’s what it means to follow and serve Christ. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him.”

Suppose I have a pig. I give him a bath in suds. Then I take his hoofs and polish them and put nail polish on them. Then I take a little Chanel No. 5 and put that on his back. I put a beautiful ribbon around him. bring him into the living room and put him on my sofa. He sits there and he smells and looks sweet. A beautiful house pet! Everybody says, “Isn’t it wonderful. What a lovely pig you have. Isn’t he a nice, sweet pig. I’ve never seen such a lovely pig.” I open the door and let the pig out. Where does he go? He goes back to the mudhole, because his nature has never been changed. He’s still a pig.

You can take a man, dress him all up on Sunday morning. He puts his little halo on his head, sprouts his wings and he goes in and sits down in the church. He smiles and beams all over. Twelve o’clock comes. He walks out, shakes hands with the minister, smiles and says, “It was wonderful this morning, Reverend.” Then, about mid-afternoon, halo comes off, wings are moved aside, the horns begin to grow and he picks up his pitchfork again for another week. He goes back and practices the same old sins. His nature has never been changed. That is the reason Jesus said, “Ye must be born again.” You must have a new heart, a new soul, a new direction in your life.

Obeying Christ

Another way to check yourself is to determine whether you obey Christ. Do you have a real desire to obey? He said, “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me”; “And hereby we do know that we love him if we keep his commandments”; “If a man love me, he will keep my word”; “He that loveth me not, keepth not my sayings.” Do you obey Christ? Do you obey him by reading his Word? Do you obey him by spending time daily in prayer? Do you obey him by being faithful and loyal to the Church? Do you obey him by giving your tithes and offerings for the support of the work of the Lord? I’ve had hundreds of people say, “Billy, I have no spiritual blessing. I have no spiritual power.” Always I start asking, “Do you read the Word?” Nine times out of ten they answer, “No.” “Do you spend time in prayer?” “Oh, yes, I pray every day.” “Well, do you tithe your income?” “Well, no. I haven’t done that very well.” “Do you mean that you expect God to bless you when you’re robbing God?” Every denomination teaches tithing. Why? Because it is based on the Old and New Testament rules of giving. We are to give to the Lord, and we rob him when we don’t.

Fruit Of The Spirit

Another way to check yourself is to determine whether you have the fruit of the Spirit. The Bible says the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Jesus said, “By their fruit ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? Herein is the Father glorified that ye bear much fruit.” Jesus said, “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” I want to ask whether you possess the fruit of the Spirit? The moment you receive Jesus Christ as Saviour, the Holy Spirit comes into your heart. Your body becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. The moment you receive Christ, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes to live in you and produces fruit. Spiritual life begins to flow. The leaves begin to come out. The fruit begins to bear in its season. You have love. “By this shall all men know that you are my followers, if ye have love one to another.” “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other.” The whole Scripture is filled with one glorious triumphant word that is to characterize every child of God—love.

Blessing Of Joy

Another fruit of the Spirit is joy. When I see a fellow going around with a long face and his shoulders all stooped over with the burdens of the world, I know that man knows nothing of the filling of the Spirit of God. The Bible says believers are filled with joy. Listen, a Christian is to have a smile on his face, a spring in his step, and joy in his soul. That is the Christian life. Paul and Silas were in jail and had been beaten on the back until they were bleeding, and at midnight they were singing! Regardless of circumstance, if Christ is in your heart, you can smile, you can sing. There is joy and there is peace through the Holy Spirit.

Peace Of Soul

Peace is also a blessed fruit. There is an inner serenity. The greatest picture of peace I’ve ever seen was on the North Carolina coast. A storm was raging. The wind was blowing, the sea was lashing, and the thunder was roaring. Under the crevice of a rock was a little bird. It had its head under its wing, asleep. That’s peace—the peace that God can give. Let the storm rage. I have peace because I know the Prince of Peace.

Are you bearing the fruit of the Spirit? If you are not fruitbearing, it may be that you have never been grafted into the nature of God and become a partaker of God’s nature. You had better check to be sure. Are you sure tonight? The Scriptures say, “I write these things unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life?” Do you know it? Are you sure? Are you certain? You can be sure by presenting yourself to Christ and receiving him as your Lord and Saviour.

No phenomenon of Christian evangelism is more remarkable than the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon the simple preaching of the truths of Scripture. Nowhere in contemporary American life has this been more dramatically verified than by Evangelist Billy Graham’s ministry in Madison Square Garden. “The Marks of a Christian” is an abridgement of one of the sermons by Mr. Graham, distinguished evangelist and one of Christianity Today’s contributing editors. The Graham team has just concluded a series of suburban community follow-up meetings in the greater New York area of Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. Closing rally of the New York Crusade will he at the Polo Grounds on Reformation Sunday, October 27.

Cover Story

The Place of the Layman

Tom Allan

It is generally accepted that the effective propagation of the Faith in the secular world depends ultimately on the witness of the layman. The idea of the apostolate of the laity is being eagerly examined by the Church in every country and in all denominations, and its far-reaching implications for the work of evangelism are beginning to be recognized even in those churches where the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers has not been central.

This concern for the apostolate of the laity has resulted in the emergence of a multitude of movements ranging from breakfast clubs for senators and congressmen in Washington, D. C., to the significant work of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, Switzerland. The Protestant Professional Associations in France, the Evangelical Academies in Germany, the Zoe-Aktines movement in Greece, the Church and World Institute in Holland—all of these movements have a common object, the development of effective lay witness in the secular world.

Difficulties In The Way

For the parish minister, engaged in the hard and often unrewarding tasks of congregational and parochial work, it is at once stimulating and disheartening to read of these movements. He accepts implicitly the idea of the lay apostolate: but all too often he finds it impossible to translate the idea into practice in his own parish. The difficulties in the way are enormous, and in most writings on the subject these difficulties are either by-passed or disregarded.

At the outset, he is faced with the simple problem of finding laymen in his own congregation who have any real grasp of their responsibility for witness in the secular world. The laity have been called “the unemployed of the Church,” and there are several factors contributing to their state of unemployment. But the most important one is the “clericalism” of the Church. Even in the Church of Scotland which, with its Presbyterian order, theoretically recognizes the place of the layman in the conduct of its affairs, the voice of the layman is seldom heard, and very little opportunity is afforded him to exercise any kind of “non-pastoral” ministry. And the layman has not only come to accept this kind of clericalism as part of the natural ordering of the Church’s life; he is also most reluctant to welcome a change. In his mind the minister’s duties have become clear-cut and well defined, and the ordinary layman is content to leave it at that.

There is another difficulty which the parish minister finds at the local level. He may have about him a small group of people who realize their responsibility as Christians for active service in the work of the Church and positive witness in their daily vocations, but who feel that they do not possess the equipment to undertake it. Particularly in Scotland, where we are traditionally reticent in speaking about our own personal faith, and where such personal confession is regarded as exhibitionism, does this difficulty make itself felt.

These things have been brought home to me in the last few years in visiting scores of churches in different parts of the country seeking to enlist volunteers for local missions of visitation. Time and again I have found myself speaking to people who had literally never thought of such work as a possible field of service. Visitation is the minister’s job, or, in certain circumstances, the elders’. And if, at the end of an evening of question and discussion and appeal, a handful of people might be prepared to admit that it was their responsibility, they hesitated at the thought of speaking to another person about the Faith.

In my own congregation these initial difficulties had been overcome. A group of lay people had emerged, representative of the whole congregation, and honestly committed to the work of evangelism within their own parish and to the business of “witnessing to their faith in their daily vocations.” But it was precisely at this point that the real issues of the lay apostolate made themselves felt, both within the church, and more particularly within the experience of the layman himself. It is hard enough to find laymen prepared to work out their salvation in terms of daily life. It is much harder to face the real implications of Christian witness, and offer the sincere layman guidance and direction and support in his attempt to take his religion out of the ghetto of the Church into the squalor and hostility of the market place. Perhaps the professional Christians, the ministers and theologians, would be less glib in their advocacy of the lay apostolate if they had more practical experience of trying to live the Christian life in a single room in a slum tenement, or as a riveter’s mate in a Clyde shipyard.

To Be Or To Act?

One of the most penetrating studies of the laymen’s part that has recently appeared is in Jacques Ellul’s book, The Presence of the Kingdom. M. Ellul is Professor of Law at Bordeaux University, and the manner of his own conversation to the Faith qualifies him to speak with authority on his theme—the communication of the gospel in a secular world, and the duties and demands which this world lays upon the Christian. He writes: “In reality, today the theologian has nothing to say to the world, because there are no laymen in our churches; because, on the one hand there is the minister, who does not know the situation in the world, and on the other hand, there are ‘laymen,’ who are very careful to keep their faith and their life in different compartments, or who try to escape from this dilemma by concentrating on ethics. Theological truth has no point of contact with the world … (and) God uses material means—in other words, he acts by his spirit through human instruments. Now it is this human instrument that our churches lack: that is why, when the gospel is preached, its message no longer reaches the world.”

M. Ellul goes on to examine the character of the situation which is to be addressed. He entertains no illusions about the modern world, regards it as “the domain of Satan,” and sees man dominated and controlled by facts—technics, the State, production. He then asks his question: What does it mean to be a Christian in this situation? And his answer to that question is of supreme importance for anyone who is concerned with the lay apostolate.

In a sentence he sums up his attitude: “For Christians … what actually matters, in practice, is ‘to be’ and not ‘to act.’ ” With tremendous insight he deals with the modern obsession for action, particularly as it manifests itself in the Church, and exposes its inadequacy. Christian living is the first responsibility; and this “being” takes the form of a threefold awareness: the true meaning of our neighbor, “the brother for whom Christ died”; of the event, “the intervention of one fact in the course of life, of history, of development … which includes within itself the meaning of all the development of the past, and significance for the future”; and of the frontier which exists between the profane and the sacred, the limit set to human pretensions by God. Given this awareness, a new style of life will emerge for the Christian, lived in tension between the secular world and theology, and creating a genuine point of contact for the communication of the gospel.

It is idle to speak of the lay apostolate to men and women who have no first-hand knowledge of the meaning of the Christian experience. So much of the Church’s well-intentioned effort to enlist its laymen goes for nothing because it is concerned with action and organization, and not with what Ellul calls “being.” In Scotland the most widespread attempts to work out the meaning of the lay apostolate have been undertaken at the level of Youth Fellowships, and in the past few years we have seen the development of a number of Christian “action groups” among young people. Theoretically these action groups are necessary and inevitable if the idea of the lay apostolate is to be taken seriously. But so often—at least in my own experience—they have broken down after a year or two mainly because the demands of Christian action were being superimposed on young people who neither understood nor accepted the presuppositions on which Christian conduct is based. A vague and inarticulate identification with Christianity is not a sure enough foundation for building a Christian life. Something more is needed before we have any right to launch the layman into the tension of bearing a Christian witness in a hostile world. The pre-condition of Christian action is that “being” of which Ellul has written, the conscious and personal appropriation of Christ which leads to a new “style of life,” and which in turn makes Christian action not only meaningful but possible.

Personal Involvement

In other words, before there is any hope of seeing the emergence of a genuine lay apostolate within our Church we have to begin at the true point of departure. Christianity is an intensely personal religion, and a man cannot be a Christian by proxy. We have arrived at the paradoxical situation of eagerly seeking a lay apostolate within our churches and finding it hard to produce anything but a tiny handful of laymen who see any point in the apostolate. It is easy enough to find well-meaning people in our churches who will provide tea or organize a concert for the lodging-houses. But if anyone is needed to give a ten-minute address or lead in prayer we have to go to the mission halls or the Christian Brethren.

Of course we can rationalize our failure in this regard by pointing to the subjectivism of evangelical religion, or by pointing to the dichotomy between its profession and its practice. But most of us know that we are rationalizing, and that the lay apostolate will never be anything but a pious hope unless we are prepared to recognize that Christian action which does not emerge out of a personal faith is a contradiction in terms.

Concern For The World

I have tried to point out that there is a fundamental truth in evangelical religion which it is necessary to preserve. Equally I am convinced that its inevitable “personalism” has to be guarded against. Too often the concern for individual salvation meant a complete indifference to the Church, and a retreat from the actual world in which men earn their bread. Henri Perrin, in his book, Priest-Workmen in Germany, tells how he met thirty young Seminarians, eager, enthusiastic, dreaming of conquering the world. But he writes of them: “Often, spiritually meant simply holding on to certain pious practices—‘my’ prayers, ‘my’ interior life—and led to a tendency to cut themselves off, to be always on the defensive against their environment, to remain in their shell. You would have thought that they had nothing to offer the world dying beside them—as if they were beaten and flattened out by the life seething round them.” The evangelical Christian so often lives in this kind of vacuum, and fails to recognize the relevance of the Faith for his daily life.

Explosive And Revolutionary

The whole idea of the apostolate of the laity is explosive and revolutionary, and confronts us with a threefold challenge.

First of all, it compels us to wrestle with the supremely difficult task of leading men and women to a point of decision in which the Faith becomes a personal possession. This is by no means to say that the only valid conversion is the sudden, emotional, “time-and-place” conversion associated with revival meetings, although that may be the path along which many of our best laymen will come. It is not important that a man can say that in such a place and at such a time he became a Christian. It is supremely important that any man who is expected to bear a Christian witness should know beyond any shadow of a peradventure where he stands now. He should be a man for whom penitence and faith are not merely theological terms, but an expression of his own experience of God. No distinctive Christian witness is possible without it.

The idea of the lay apostolate presents us with an inescapable challenge, in the second place, because if it is taken seriously it will mean upheaval and revolution within the conventional framework of the Church’s life. The group which emerges to seek a true Christian solidarity, to be an oasis within our parched Church, will find itself in inevitable conflict with those who are content with things as they are, and who set their face against any change in the ordered and traditional pattern. Such a group will not find an outlet for its energies, a sphere in which to express itself, in the routine of mothers’ meetings, men’s clubs and dramatic clubs which go to make up the weekday activities of any normal congregation. “Only a revolution within the churches,” writes Canon Collins, “a revolution of thought and outlook and of the whole setup can make them effective instruments in God’s hands for the evangelizing of this country: and only Christians who are revolutionary in thought and outlook and their way of life can hope to be effective evangelists today.” Wherever a cell or group for lay witness comes into being within a church it will involve tension and conflict. And that is the price we have to pay for taking the lay apostolate seriously.

New Methods Needed

The third challenge of the lay apostolate is perhaps the most difficult of all. When this group of people comes forward, drawn from different backgrounds and types, to explore the demands of Christian discipleship, it becomes immediately evident that new methods of instruction and training and new levels of Christian fellowship have to be explored if we are to keep faith with the layman. What happens, for example, when a business man with a family discovers that his business methods can no longer be squared with his new standards of judgment? What happens when a girl feels compelled to give up her job because she cannot obey the instructions of her employer and remain true to her faith? What are the determining factors for a man employed in a shipyard or a woman struggling to bring up a family in a one-room tenement house?

The lay apostolate may possess tremendous possibilities for the propagation of the Faith in a secular world. Let us also be assured that, if we allow it to become anything more than an idea in the mind of the professional theologians, it will lead us into unsuspected conflict. But for the Church, as for the individual, the point of conflict is the point of growth.

Tom Allan served the Church of Scotland as field organizer of the “Tell Scotland” Movement. Since September, 1955, he has been minister of St. George’s-Tron, Glasgow. He was executive chairman of the Billy Graham All-Scotland Crusade, and assisted with the Graham campaign in New York City. The material on “The Place of the Layman” is an abridgment of a chapter in his book The Face of My Parish, used by permission of Harper & Brothers, publishers of a new American edition.

Soul Searching

A soldier with no zest for fighting,

A poet with no zeal for writing,

An architect without a plan:

The prototype of modern man.

JOHN COOPER

- More from Tom Allan

Cover Story

The Temptation of Relativism

G. C. Berkouwer

Every one at some time in his life encounters the problem of relativism. It is said that our own time is characteristically relativistic, that we do not dare to speak of absolutes. This has its good side. We recall the absolutism of certain totalitarian states, which also reminds us that not everything is relativized in our century. We live in a time when some things are illegitimately absolutized. But still the relativizing of life is a profound matter, playing a role in the reflections and the viewpoints of the Christian faith.

The Leveling Of Christianity

Not everyone is sensitive enough to be greatly bothered by it, but some are almost overwhelmed when they first meet the suggestive and intoxicating idea that the Christian faith is a subjective conviction which is on the same plane with other no less earnest convictions. This is not merely a contemporary phenomenon. It elbowed its way into the environment of the Christian Church centuries ago. It was the syncretism of an early age; later it was the problem of “the absoluteness of Christianity” raised by the History of Religion school in the nineteenth century. In the latter instance, the problem arose through extensive research into other religions, which uncovered a depth and wealth of thought and conceptions of deity in pagan religions. The sharp line between Christianity and other religions was erased, even though there was still talk of the superiority of Christianity. The religions—including Christianity—were compared on the same basis. The conclusion was drawn that Christianity was not the one true religion, but an example of the many religious currents, a special form of the general essence of universal religion.

This so-called essence of religion had, through innumerable circumstances, taken various forms, including Christianity. It may have been acknowledged that Christianity was a very special form, but still only one of the many forms which arose out of the essentially religious structure of the human heart. A religious a priori was conceived, to be added to the theoretical, ethical, and aesthetic a prioris of the human mind. In the varying circumstances of life this religious a priori was actualized and specialized into this or that particular form of religion. There was no cleavage between Christianity and the other religions. Scholars pointed to the strong convictions that existed in every religion, to common forms of religious practices, such as a defined way of religious communal life, prayers, sacrifices, worship, notions of immortality, and so on. It was said that we could not conclude that a religion is unique and special because of the existence of a specially strong conviction, since strong convictions prevailed in many religions, notably in Islam. Thus, a general relativism began to prevail through the comparison of religions.

The Loss Of Absoluteness

A clear example of this is seen in the so-called parliament of religions which was held in Chicago in 1893. There representatives of all religions joined together in the Lord’s Prayer. All religions were joined; none was absolute. From this resulted a sharp criticism of any religion which pretended to possess a unique character. Such a pretension was considered impossible in the light of research into both the various religions and the human spirit. Religion had been discovered to be a disposition so close to the essence of the human spirit that we needed no longer to be surprised at the universality of religion.

It is evident that in this conclusion we encounter what may well be the most profound question that has faced Christian faith. It could hardly be otherwise than that many would be deeply impressed once the results of the study of comparative religions were popularized. People would say: Yes, there is a Bible, but there is also a Koran and many other holy books. There is a Redeemer, but other religions also concentrate their ideas of redemption around a specific redeemer. Does not all this come forth from a single law of the human spirit? And, hence, is the Christian faith, is the Bible, actually unique? Such questions collided head-on with the confession of the Church. The Church was consequently criticized for trying to hold to her pretensions of absoluteness, a lost cause. The Church was not challenged to give up her religion, but to sacrifice her pretensions of the absoluteness of her religion.

The Lowering Of Missions

The proclamation of the Church was directly involved. The message with which she had gone into the world was not an appeal to the special value of the thoughts of church men, but a trumpet sound, an invitation, a calling to the one way of salvation. Now, the witness of the Church in her missions to the heathen was up for question. This facet of the problem came quickly to the attention of the advocates of comparative religion. Troeltsch wrote, in 1906, that the common conception of missions had to undergo a radical change. It would, he claimed, be thereafter impossible to understand missions as a deed of sympathetic Chrisianity going into a dark world where salvation was unknown, to free the people from corruption and doom by conversion to the living God. Troeltsch supported the idea of missions, but suspected that much missionary effort stemmed from an overestimate of the worth of Western culture, a culture which other peoples could well claim to be unnecessary for them; they could find their own ways to salvation without the unwelcome assistance of the Christian message and culture.

One may ask, then, why a Christian, church should be established in the East. Why not just as well a mosque in Paris?

The acceptance of the relativity of the Christian faith naturally produced a crisis in the missionary consciousness of the Church. Perhaps more accurately said, it brought a crippling of such consciousness. It may be possible to maintain missions on a cultural basis for a while, but in time the elan will die. This is the more evident as the cultural development of the non-Christian peoples proceeds, making it less and less possible to establish missions on the basis of one’s own cultural aristocracy.

The Lessening Of Man

This process of relativizing does not involve only the theology of the philosophy of religion. It involves man, who sees no way to avoid the vacuum of relativity. He begins to make comparisons of his own. An attitude like that of Pharaoh’s magicians begins to prevail in his heart. We recall how Jehovah said to Moses and Aaron: “When Pharaoh asks for a sign, take your staff and throw it on the ground before Pharaoh. It shall become a snake.” But when the sign was given, Pharaoh was not convinced. He called his wise men and magicians, but “the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents.” And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. He did not see in the signs a unique evidence of Israel’s God. They were relativized by what Egypt’s prophets could also do. The special character of a sign was removed from what Moses and Aaron did. The sign was not absolute, but relative. The same relativizing occurs later when Moses and Aaron threw a staff over the Nile and the Egyptians did the same. But finally the imitation of the Egyptians failed to work. Then Pharaoh’s magicians said to Pharoah: “This is the finger of God.”

This throws light on the process of relativizing. The absoluteness of God’s revelatory action for Israel in Egypt became irrefutably clear. Subsequently God led Israel out of the house of bondage by His mighty acts. Israel was under the impression of this; they were not long under the impression of the temporary parallel between Moses and Aaron and the magicians. But this is explained by the fact that the parallel was suddenly and demonstrably broken. Perhaps there are those who say that it would be convincing if, in the midst of the relativizing of Christianity, there were suddenly a special revelation that the Christian faith is after all something unique and absolute. But as long as this absoluteness is not clearly demonstrated, they will remain impressed with the certainties, convictions, intimations of immortality, and reverence within other religions, which make them parallel with Christianity. Thus they are tempted to go along with the current of relativity, a current which erases all exclamation marks and replaces them with question marks. This is hard; for it is frightful to live while questioning the ultimate.

The question marks are not taken away with a new voluntary decision to attribute absoluteness to Christianity. It would be a stout-hearted decision to regain a sure foundation in this world. But it does not work this way with the Christian faith; Christ will not thus be served. We do not find our way out by desperately writing exclamation marks over the question marks. The New Testament is clear that faith in the absoluteness of Christianity is not a decision of flesh and blood, not even when it is a stout-hearted decision. It also tells us that the apostles went forth into a syncretistic world possessed of many gods, without question marks after their witness to the one Redeemer. But their exclamation marks were pure gifts. They knew that they did not have them because they could prove precisely and convincingly for themselves the absoluteness of their faith. Neither were they the results of raw courage, but of human decision. Nor did they go with a kind of conviction that Jesus Christ was a superior Redeemer, but one among the many redeemers who were preached in the world. It did not work that way. It cannot work that way today.

The Light Of Light

It is, as it was for Paul, a struggle against flesh and blood, a struggle that only Jesus Christ can win for us through the Holy Spirit. There will be temptations to object to the idea that our faith in Christ does not arise from flesh and blood. It is not self-evident that we should seek our certainty in him alone, in the most exclusive way. Yet, it is in that way alone that we can overcome the temptation to relativize our faith. It is profoundly remarkable that a man may know and maintain this as a treasure, that Jesus Christ is not preached by us as one way, but as the way, and that we can find in him everything needful. Yet, this is the way that he walked among his own people. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” He said this after Thomas complained that he did not know the way. Thomas looked for a humanly possible way. But Jesus turned his eyes suddenly in another direction: I am the Way.

The disciples had enough difficulty along that Way, and they soon had no more reserves within themselves to draw from. They left it all to him. But when the Spirit of Christ was poured out, everything was changed. “Now must everything, everything change.” And it was changed. There was a trumpet sounded over the world. And the hearing of the sound was saturated with blessing. From our human sentiments, we would rather first be convinced with rational certainty. We would rather first make certain that the sound of the trumpet is clear, and whether there may not also be other compelling trumpet sounds in the world. We would rather be certain of ourselves. But the amazing thing is that the further we go along this way, the further away the mystery of Christ fades from sight.

No one ever came to faith this way. The closer he may seem to have come in his search for proof, the further away he actually walked. He may hear the message of Christ, but he wishes first to examine it. He hears that Christ first asks his question, but he demands that his own questions be answered first. But as he puts his questions to the fore, Christ’s question is tabled. Christ’s Word and Christ’s question are not enough. He hesitates uncertainly, as did Phillip, who heard Jesus and was impressed, but still reserved a feeling of unrest and uncertainty: “Show us the Father and it is enough.” Christ answered: “Have I been so long with you and have you not known me? He who hath seen me hath seen the Father.”

Only presumption would lead us to say that we understand fully what Christ meant. There are many thick volumes about it; the Church has stuttered when it has spoken about the Son and the Father. It has spoken of “Light of Light.” And he who can comprehend it, let him comprehend it. But if we cannot comprehend it with our rational understanding, the absolute answer of Christ to Phillip still stands. “You have seen the Father,” Jesus said. The answer sets everything in a wonderful light. When John the Baptist, imprisoned, had doubts, he did not ask questions of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He sent his disciples to Jesus. And he received his answer: “Blessed is the man who is not offended in me.” A new benediction! Who seeks more than this, seeks something less. It is on this way alone that the problem of the way on which men need never wander is solved.

G. C. Berkouwer is Professor of Systematic Theology at Free University of Amsterdam. He is author of many books, most notably, Studies in Dogmatics, five volumes of which have been translated into English, with thirteen in preparation. His most recent work is The Triumph of Grace in The Theology of Karl Barth.

The Iron Gate

God—

From whose peaceful heaven We have wandered

Into our own creation of disquietude

Let us see again that gate of iron

Through which by purging

We may yet regain the nobleness of peace. Contain us

That our tears may flow for others

And the flowing not release our pain

Until we love them unto God again.

LOREN K. DAVIDSON

- More from G. C. Berkouwer

Cover Story

I Believe: The Deity of Christ

Andrew W. Blackwood

For sixty years I have believed in the Deity of Christ. I was reared in an extremely conservative Covenanter-seceder home, where mother read her growing boys long sermons by Ralph Erskine, John Owen and other men of might. After college, with no liberal contacts, I went to Harvard. There I saw Unitarianism at its best, in Francis G. Peabody and other followers of William E. Channing (d. 1842). Out of meager resources I bought the Works of Channing. I wondered at his well-known sermon, “The Character of Christ,” but I did not accept his theory of our Lord’s person.

At Princeton Seminary the next year I learned the other side. By special permission I took Benjamin B. Warfield’s elective course on the Deity of Christ, and Geerhardus Vos, on the Epistle to the Hebrews. I look on them as intellectually the equals of my ablest professors of English at Harvard, and as two of the few real scholars whom I have come to know intimately. To them, and to Francis L. Patton, I owe much of my basic thinking about the Deity of Christ.

At Xenia Seminary I sat under a saint, William G. Moorehead. Later I came to know Theron H. Rice of Union Seminary, Richmond. From these two I learned that a seminary professor can do untold good without being a scholar. With them I approached the Deity of Christ through “the theology of the heart.” Not every scholar can be a saint, such as Charles Hodge, but I wish that every seminary had at least one professor who would show by radiance of life the practical meaning of Christ’s Deity.

As a parish minister I held to the “faith of my fathers,” but not without wavering about the resurrection of the body. In those days not every believer in Christ’s Deity held to certain other doctrines. One of the ablest pulpit masters in America, Charles E. Jefferson, put out a volume of doctrinal sermons, Things Fundamental (1903). In two able discourses he pleaded for belief in “The Deity of Jesus.” In two other chapters he presented “the new conception of the Scriptures.” In a generation when liberal ideas seemed likely to prevail, I gradually came out on the sunny side of faith in all the truths that accord with acceptance of Christ’s Deity.

A Test Of Beliefs

In 1929 my beliefs met a searching test. At the Grove City Bible Conference I spoke daily with two brilliant New Testament scholars, Archibald T. Robertson and J. Gresham Machen, each of whom held firmly to the Deity of Christ, and treated me kindly as a believer. One day while there I received a visit from two trustees of Princeton Seminary. The President, Dr. William McEwan, acted as spokesman. The other is still living, and no doubt can verify my recollections of the interview. To my amazement and delight it went much as follows:

“The Board of Trustees wishes you to become the professor of homiletics. Before you say anything, let me state the one condition. The board wishes your assurance that you adhere to the historic position of the seminary, doctrinally.” I answered that I did so adhere. I also explained that I thought the seminary ought to change its ways, practically, so as to train graduates for service as pastors and missionaries. On this basis I was elected, and from this position I have never consciously swerved. I refer especially to acceptance of Christ’s Deity.

At Princeton I met a good deal of suspicion on the part of nearby observers. So did my friends, Samuel M. Zwemer and John E. Kuizenga, who came about the same time, and on the same terms, doctrinally. Gradually those suspicions faded away, except for an occasional reminder that I was neither inspired nor infallible. Looking back, I wish that all of us who held to the Deity of Christ could have loved and trusted each other.

Let me now turn directly to my subject. Since “no man can bear witness to Christ and himself at the same time” (James Denney), I shall resort to plural pronouns. We evangelicals hold to the Deity of Christ for three reasons. First, and most important, we accept the teachings of Holy Scripture. Our Presbyterian Confession of Faith (VIII.2) witnesses to Christ as “the Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity being very and eternal God, of one substance, and equal with the Father.” Despite the phraseology, abstract and mysterious, we believe this to be the testimony of Holy Scripture, in every part that deals with the person of our Lord. We also believe in his humanity.

Denying The Lord

Not every minister in high place now accepts this teaching. At Yale in 1955 a distinguished bishop of a major evangelical denomination delivered the Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching. In the midst of much sound material about God’s Good News came a paragraph that seems to have escaped public attention. The brilliant lecturer voiced dissent from a recent statement by the World Council about “Jesus as God.” That statement may have originated on the Continent, where the majority of leading theologians believe in Christ’s Deity. Not so the bishop.

The statement does not please me, and it seems far from satisfactory. I would much prefer to have it say that God was in Christ, for I believe that the testimony of the New Testament taken as a whole is against the doctrine of the deity of Christ, although I think it bears overwhelming witness to the divinity of Jesus (p. 125).

If this were the teaching of many New Testament scholars today, and if I had to follow them, I should exclaim: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him!” Fortunately, we still have from other days such volumes as The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour (1903), by H. P. Liddon; The Lord of Glory (1907, 1950) and The Person and Work of Christ (1950), both by B. B. Warfield; The Self-Disclosure of Jesus (1926, 1954), by Geerhardus Vos; The Divinity of Christ in the Gospel of John (1916), by A. T. Robertson; and The Person and Work of Christ (1908), by Nathan R. Wood.

More recent authors include Loraine Boettner, The Person of Christ (1943); Samuel G. Craig, Jesus of Yesterday and Today (1956); Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (1955); and William C. Robinson, Our Lord (1937, 1949). The list might also include well-known works by men not so strongly conservative. One of them, John M. Shaw, has a work on Christine Doctrine (1953). Among many other good things, a paragraph stresses Christ’s claims for himself:

In this claim of Jesus … we are confronted with nothing less than a moral problem of the gravest kind, a problem whose issue we can not evade with intellectual sincerity.… “Either Jesus was God, or He was not even a good man” (aut deus aut non bonus homo.) So the old Fathers formulated the alternative. And there is no escape from this inexorable dilemma.… “Either Jesus was a Deceiver, and was Himself deceived,” or “He was divine, God the Son incarnate” (p. 161).

Ground Of Belief

First of all, then, we believe in Christ’s Deity because we accept the teachings of Holy Scripture. Again, we believe because we find many confirmations in church history. Anyone familiar with the facts can make an experiment at home. Using as a guide Larourette, Schaff, or any other capable historian, make a chronological list of church leaders who have strongly believed in the Deity of Christ. Then compile another list of other leaders who have not bowed down to him as “very God of very God.” The first list we may call evangelical. The second we need not label, lest we seem to be casting stones.

A glance over the two lists will show that a vast array of saints and heroes have held to the Deity of Christ. Much the same conclusion will follow if one makes a list of first-class hymns that sound forth the glories of Christ as One whom we worship, as we worship no one save God. In another list put songs full of beauty, such as fill the pages of a typical hymnal among Unitarians. Neither of these experiments can prove the fact of Christ’s Deity. Belief in that high doctrine must rest on the revelation in Holy Scripture, and on the witness of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s soul. Still it is good to know that we who engage in the worship of Christ as God stand in the succession of the mightiest leaders of the Church and the noblest authors of hymns that the Church will never let die.

A third reason for accepting Christ’s Deity has to do with Christian experience. Fortunately, the doctrine does not depend on our acceptance. On the other hand, the value of the truth to any person or group does depend on the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, and on daily fellowship with the Christ of God. So if anyone ever begins to waver, let him come close to Christ in the written Word and hold fellowship with him in prayer. In his own time and way the Lord of Glory will make himself known as he did to doubting Thomas of old, so that the young Hebrew disciple exclaimed: “My Lord and my God!”

A Word To The Ministry

Now for a word to the young minister. At least once a year preach a sermon directly about the Deity of Christ. Do not argue, defend, or attack. Simply, clearly, and kindly set forth what some part of Holy Writ teaches about the person of our Lord. Make clear also what difference the truth ought to make in the life of the hearer. Because he believes in Christ’s Deity, the layman ought to trust the Redeemer for salvation from sin; follow him as Lord and Master; learn from him as Teacher and Guide; look to him as Divine Friend and Helper, and make ready to stand before him as Final Judge.

All this the layman will see clearly if he learns about Christ as One whom believers worship. As intelligent beings, created in the Father’s image, we worship no one but God. Why then do we adore Jesus Christ? To him we pray, as Stephen did when dying, because he believed in Christ’s Deity. With his last breath he uttered two prayers which he addressed to the Lord Jesus (Acts 7:59, 60). To Christ we now can pray, and worship him in holy song.

We know why Pliny the Younger (died c. 113 A.D.), not a believer, wrote about early Christians as gathering before daybreak to “sing in turn a hymn of praise to God.” In many of our noblest songs we too exult in the glories of our Redeemer. At Christmas with Charles Wesley we sing about the “new-born King”; “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity!” In May we adore “Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature.” At the Lord’s Supper we “behold the wondrous Cross, on which the Prince of Glory died”.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast

Save in the death of Christ my God;

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood.

Andrew W. Blackwood has a well-earned reputation as preacher, teacher, and author of books for preachers. He pastored Presbyterian churches for 17 years. In 1925 he began teaching. After five years as Professor of English Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, he became Professor of Homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1930 to 1950. Since 1950 he has been Professor of Preaching at Temple University School of Theology. This article is the first of a series by Protestant leaders on the theme, “I Believe.”

- More from Andrew W. Blackwood

Books

Book Briefs: September 30, 1957

G. Aiken Taylor

Tragic Return

The Pulpit Rediscovers Theology, by Theodore O. Wedel, Westminster, Philadelphia. $3.50.

This is an exceedingly important book: important for its thesis that the Church must return to a vital theology if it is to be a true fellowship of reconciliation offering salvation to truly lost men; and important for the way it manages to evade classical Christianity when it paints its picture of a return to “true Biblical Theology.” The author believes passionately that the quest for the historical Jesus was a mistake—the pulpit, to be effective, must preach a dogmatic gospel about a divine Christ. But he does not mean the Christ of orthodoxy. Yet he sounds the most refreshing, stimulating, evangelical note that I have yet heard rung out by the new theology of our day. For this contrast, the book is a must for every person concerned about modern trends in theology.

The closer neo-orthodoxy comes to historic Christianity and the more nearly it discovers how it can comfortably speak the historic language of the Church, the more potentially dangerous it is. Niebuhr, in a sense, sowed the wind with his new anthropology, appropriating such historic terms as original sin, guilt, creation, the fall, but assigning symbolic meanings to them which robbed the human predicament of its reality. Niebuhr, acknowledging his own limitations, indicated that another must take up the crusade and add a soteriology to his new anthropology.

The present book reaps the whirlwind of Niebuhr’s sowing, with a soteriology which all but diehard liberals will view with reverent awe and many evangelicals will embrace with delight because of its apparent apostolic fervor.

Dr. Wedel’s theme is mouth-watering. In the Incarnation, faith does not see just a great example or master teacher, but Deity itself coming to enter into a new relationship with sinful man. The pulpit which truly preaches the Good News cannot limit itself to an ideal or a code of ethics, but must proclaim a vital theology which has power to save from sin and then sanctify unto eternal life.

Remarkable quotations appear within the book: “(Our people) look to us not for inexpert advice as to how to vote in an election, but for light from another world on this world.” “We have sentimentalized the law and called it an ideal. We have reduced Christ from God to human prophet and moral hero. We have preached discipleship and the imitation of Jesus, not realizing that this, too, when isolated from the Good News of the Cross and the Resurrection, is burden, and not Good News.” And, “Christ must be met as living Lord, as the power of the Holy Spirit, or there can be no death of the sinner and no resurrection.”

Good? Indeed it sounds thrilling. What then can be wrong with it? Here we face the one great question of our day: Are the great affirmations of biblical theology references to literal reality or are they mere symbols of truth essentially philosophical and existential—and what difference does it make? No one denies that the Bible contains symbols in profusion. But are the historic doctrines of the Christian faith merely symbolic of “truth” or do they truly affirm reality? And if they represent literal truth, can the denial of their literalness truly save?

The author frankly confesses that his theology is “new” but he declares that it follows no single modern school. He is rather sympathetic toward the entire “diverse movement” in theology. He “cannot go back to the fundamentalist biblical literalism.” He “cannot possibly” take literally the miraculous in the Bible. Critical historians, he declares, have freed us from the slavery of a literalist Bible.

Original sin is a state of self-centeredness which separates man from God and which includes guilt only as a “feeling.” Grace is the word used to describe the various biblical references which have reunion as their theme. Grace means reunion and its perfect opposite is disgrace (wearing the wrong dress at a party). There is no hint that grace may denote a supernatural power or initiative on the part of a personal Being. Christ is exalted and the Holy Spirit frequently mentioned, but the Christ of God was incognito in the historical Jesus and today being “in Christ” is a matter of being in the organized fellowship of the redeemed, to which Christ has “returned” as its Holy Spirit.

Perhaps the place where Dr. Weber makes his position most clear is at the point of his eschatology. For him, the Church’s theology respecting last things is frankly symbolic. Following C. H. Dodd, he declares that the doctrine of last things confronts the Church with the fact of death and with the fact that the decision we make for or against God is fateful for eternity as well as time. Contemporary theology, he affirms, can no longer accept the orthodox structure of doctrine concerning life after death. With Aulen he affirms that juridical categories can no longer be applied to eschatology. And then he says, “We cannot conceive that God will limit the offer of His love to that fraction of the human race which has had the good fortune to hear the story of the Cross.”

To me there is tragedy in the enthusiastic “return” of modern theology to the “gospel.” It is not without significance that little evidence of guilt, or anguish of spirit, appears in the glib confessions of those who report that for years they followed a blind alley but now know more perfectly the Way. Where is the heartache for the multitudes who followed them up their blind alley and perished in the dead end?

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Devotional Values

Indebted to Christ’s Resurrection, by C. W. Gault, Pageant, New York. 1956. $3.00

The author’s interest in studies of the Life of Christ, developed in seminary days, has increased in years that followed, and a sample of the fruit from his study in one area, the resurrection of our Lord, is incorporated in this volume. In its conception, the book follows the plan of an anthology. Each chapter begins with a verse or more of Scripture text, then the comments of various authors follow. Occasionally Mr. Gault adds something of his own, principally to provide smooth connections.

Although the author has kept abreast of modern writings on the resurrection, he has a distinct preference for the old masters, quoting most largely from H. Latham, H. M. Paynter, W. G. Schauffler, H. B. Swete and T. V. Moore. For the most part, the emphasis falls on the devotional values of the resurrection accounts, but the critical is not ignored. The reader comes away with a sense of firmer grounding in this cardinal truth of our faith and feels his soul refreshed in the multifarious values of the resurrection for Christian life.

Many are the volumes which touch the resurrection in some fashion. This one is steeped in it. Every verse of the gospels dealing with the subject comes in for consideration, and the material is woven into a pattern which moves from the empty tomb right on to the ascension.

EVERETT F. HARRISON

- More from G. Aiken Taylor

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Christianity Today Marks First Anniversary

Decade Of Promise For The Laity

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Lordship Of Christ

Command And Motive

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God And A Man’s Money

Love And The Weekly Budget

Humility And Sacrifice

Spending And Saving And Giving

Duty And The Day Of Death

Investment And Doctrinal Stability

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Personal Examination

Source Of Life

Make Sure

Meaning Of Faith

Intellect And Emotion

Forsaking Sin

Obeying Christ

Fruit Of The Spirit

Blessing Of Joy

Peace Of Soul

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Difficulties In The Way

To Be Or To Act?

Personal Involvement

Concern For The World

Explosive And Revolutionary

New Methods Needed

Soul Searching

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The Leveling Of Christianity

The Loss Of Absoluteness

The Lowering Of Missions

The Lessening Of Man

The Light Of Light

The Iron Gate

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A Test Of Beliefs

Denying The Lord

Ground Of Belief

A Word To The Ministry

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Tragic Return

Devotional Values

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