Middle East News: April 15, 1957

Cutting Home Ties

The Synod of the Nile, one of 13 U. S. and overseas synods of the United Presbyterian Church of North America, has voted to ask the General Assembly for permission to sever its official link with the body in the interests of full Egyptianization.

Organizational links with foreign bodies are looked upon with disfavor by the Egyptian government.

Independence from the General Assembly, approved by the United Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and almost certain to be approved by the Assembly, is not expected to affect the close cooperation which has existed between the Egyptian Church and the American Mission.

The move is designed to eliminate a technical tie which may conceivably become a source of embarrassment to the Protestants of Egypt in a day of surging nationalism.

Egyptian Christianity is thought of there in terms of the Coptic Orthodox Church, which makes up perhaps 2,000,000 out of a population in excess of 22,000,000.

Protestantism, however, is looked upon as a Western importation. And Protestants are often charged (usually by irresponsible speakers and writers) with having at best a weakened form of national loyality by reason of their close religious affiliation with the West.

The synod vote was an attempt to prove the validity of the assertion, made openly for years, that Egyptian Protestantism stands on its own feet, directs its own affairs and that it is in no sense less loyal than any other body made up of the sons and daughters of Egypt.

The first U. P. presbytery was organized in 1860, six years after the start of American missionary activity in Egypt. It included eight local members, in addition to the foreign missionary personnel.

Within 40 years, the Protestant movement had grown so rapidly that on February 22, 1899, the 50 organized congregations and 165 stations, embracing over 6,000 members, were divided into four presbyteries: Thebes, Assiut, Middle Gypt and the Delta. Organization of the Synod of the Nile was completed in May, 1899.

The growth has continued to the present eight presbyteries, including more than 26,000 communicant members (the largest Protestant body in the country).

—W. A. M.

Change Of Policy

The Iranian government has approved the opening of a missionary school—the first time since 1940, when all foreign mission schools were closed by order of the government.

Properties were bought and the schools were reopened under supervision of the government.

A Teheran newspaper announced that the High Educational Council of the Ministry of Education now had authorized the founding of a vocational school by the Seventh Day Adventists. A three-year course in arts and crafts will be given.

Africa News: April 15, 1957

Mau Mau Mission

The Navigators, with several cooperating groups, have completed an evangelistic mission in Kenya camps among the Mau Mau, the terrorists responsible for the death of over 2,000 African Christians.

Mau Mau prison camps are graded into a series called “the pipeline.” At first, men are put into camps with no liberty. Those who prove themselves are graduated to work camps, surrounded only by barbed wire. The final step before release is the open camp, under the watchful eye of the village chieftain.

Thousands heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ before their return to village life and many became Christians in the face of threats and bitter antagonism from their countrymen.

(Lorne C. Sanny, president of the Navigators, will be guest speaker each Friday from April through June on Theodore H. Epp’s world-wide Back to the Bible Broadcast. The series will deal with “Individual Witnessing.” Since 1951, Sanny had trained personal counselors and directed follow-up for every major Billy Graham Crusade).

Far East News: April 15, 1957

Unity In Asia

In 1834, at Indonesia’s Lake Toba, two American missionaries—Henry Lyman and Samuel Munson—were slain for daring to venture near what the savage Batak tribes regarded as a holy lake.

In 1957, officials of the Batak Church acted as hosts to 124 delegates from 24 countries at the Eastern Asia Christian Conference, reportedly the largest ever held by Protestants in that part of the world.

The conference was ushered in with a monster open-air rally attended by 100,000 persons. President Sukarno, a Moslem, flew 900 miles from Jakarta to address the meeting. He said Christianity has a vital role to play in helping to bring peace and justice to people everywhere.

He hailed the conference, sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the International Missionary Council and the Indonesian Council of Churches, as “a living reality of the Asian churches. The churches, he said, “following the teachings of Jesus, would contribute to freedom, justice and peace among men.”

Other conference highlights:

► Interim committee, under chairmanship of Bishop E. C. Sobrepena, United Church of Christ, Philippines, named to make plans for similar gatherings in three years.

► A call for “less reliance on techniques and gadgets” in evangelism and more on demonstrations of Christian living sounded by Dr. Chandu Ray of Karachi, Pakistan.

► Unity among churches of Asia termed vital factor in successful evangelism by Dr. D. T. Niles of Ceylon.

► Delegates asked, by Professor II Seung Kay of Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Seoul, to adopt “system” of the Apostle Paul in their evangelistic work—preaching, fellowship, service.

Challenge In India

Two missionary couples soon will be sent to Thailand by the Church of South India.

The Thailand Church is said to be anxious to have fraternal workers from other Asian countries. Church leaders in India feel that Buddhists in Thailand, who emphasize the Indian origin of their religion, might listen with special interest to Christian missionaries from India.

The Church of South India was formed in 1947 through the merger of Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational and Reformed bodies.

Something Happened

Le-van Thai of Vietnam threw stones at the missionaries. He urged people to attend preaching services and start arguments.

When a missionary closed his eyes in prayer, Thai would lead people out of the meeting.

Then something happened. He took a stand for Christ.

Next month the Rev. Le-van Thai, President of the Evangelical Churches of Vietnam, will make his first visit to America as a delegate to the International General Council of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Churches, scheduled to meet in Charlotte, N. C., May 15–21.

CHRISTIANITY TODAYis a subscriber to Religious News Service, Evangelical Press Service and Washington Religious Report Newsletter.

Books

Book Briefs: April 15, 1957

Toynbee’s Approach

An Historian’s Approach to Religion, by Arnold Toynbee. Oxford. 1956. $5.00.

Arnold Toynbee’s fame as a historical prophet has already spread far beyond the limits of the academic world. Although perhaps relatively few people have read all ten volumes of his Study of History, a great many have enough acquaintance with some of his ideas through works of popularization and criticism, to appreciate something of his wide knowledge and brilliant generalizations concerning man’s history.

For this reason, the present work under review should be of no little interest to many, particularly Christians, for in his Gifford Lectures of 1952 and 1953 Professor Toynbee has attempted to apply to the history of religion the same techniques he has already used on history in general. He is here endeavouring as he, himself says, to give “The glimpse of the Universe that his fellow-historians and he are able to catch from the point of view at which they arrive through following the historian’s professional path.” (p. 3). And, one might add, this glimpse is both interesting and stimulating, even if one is obliged to disagree.

Toynbee has divided his book into two distinct parts. The first of these divisions deals with “The Dawn of the Higher Religions,” attempting to outline the evolution of man’s religious consciousness from the time that he began his spiritual quest by worshipping nature. He states that man proceeded from that point to the worship of himself, first in “the idolization of parochial communities,” then in the “idolization of an oecumenical community,” and finally in the “idolization of a self-sufficient philosopher.”

Out of these efforts the higher religions eventually arose, reaching their apogee in Mahayana Buddhism and Christianity, both of which “accept Suffering as an opportunity for acting on the promptings of Love and Pity.” Moreover they believe this to be possible because it has already been done “by a Supreme Being Who has demonstrated his own devotion to the ideal, by subjecting himself to the Suffering that is the necessary price of acting on it” (p. 89). These two Beings are the Buddha and the Christ (chap. 6).

Both these religions, it is true have been diverted frequently from their spiritual missions by mundane tasks and have been perverted by the idolization of their institutions, but they still remain the only two ways of approach to Absolute Reality.

This brings us to the second part of the book. Here Toynbee deals with the breakdown of Christian tradition in western civilization. He seems to feel that the present religious situation is the result primarily of the religious conflicts engendered by the Reformation. These he holds, caused a revulsion from Christianity and men found their escape in the study of science which has in turn produced a new false religion: “The Idolization of the Invincible Technician” (chap. 17).

It is this new idolatry which is extremely dangerous, for as the world is becoming more and more bound together, Toynbee feels a world-government must eventually evolve and this will have to be dictatorial. Consequently, the one realm of freedom left for man must be the spiritual. In that situation, man (despite Nazi and Communist examples to the contrary) will be able to express himself fully only in religion. The question is, what will the mans’ ultimate religion be.

The answer to this problem, Toynbee maintains is, to use Bultmann’s phrase a little out of context, to demythologize the higher religions, by clearing away the religious underbrush from around them in order that once again man’s religious heritage may be purified and true religion shown to be the over-coming of self-centeredness through the suffering necessitated by our love for others. In this way man will once again enter fellowship with the Absolute Reality. This is Toynbee’s approach to religion.

As one reads this work, a recurring impression makes itself felt. In a good many ways, Toynbee is very much the eighteenth century “philosopher.” This becomes clear from his continual quoting of Pierre Bayle and Bishop Sprat in his ‘annexes’ to various chapters. But it is also characteristic of his way of thinking. His assumptions, his method and his conclusions are all those basically of the enlightened rationalist—of course in twentieth century dress.

In this connection, the first thing which a Christian notices is that there is no concept of supernatural revelation (p. 265). From the opening pages of the book, he assumes that any possibility of absolute reality speaking to man directly is not worth consideration. This is implied in a number of attacks upon the idea of a chosen people. Even natural revelation seems to have no place in the picture. The absolute reality, as far as one can see, is really the projection of man’s own mind contemplating himself or the world.

For this reason, although Toynbee may speak of sin and redemption, they are rather different from the Christian concepts. Sin is primarily self-centeredness, not rebellion against a God who has called man to “glorify and enjoy” Him. Redemption is to be found, as is natural on Toynbee’s definition of sin, through loving self-sacrifice, which in turn brings man by such good works to fellowship with absolute reality. Redemption by divine grace has no part nor lot in this matter.

And what is this absolute reality? It is very definitely not the Christian God. Since It (to use Toynbee’s word) has not revealed Itself man knows relatively little about It. Toynbee, however, is very insistent the historian knows that it is partly personal and partly impersonal. This would seem to posit within absolute reality an eternally unresolvable surd which can and does produce even for its personal aspect the absolutely new, or at least the unexpected. This is hardly the picture which one receives of the biblical sovereign God unto whom belongs all knowledge and wisdom.

A fundamental question which arises as one considers Toynbee’s thesis is: how does he know all this? How can he make absolute statements about an absolute reality which itself is not completely self-conscious? (pp. 18, 276). One receives the impression that not only is Toynbee’s religion not Christian, it is based upon a contradiction and so is self-destructive.

That this is necessarily so, would seem to arise from his method. He claims that what he is saying is the result of his study of history. But can one, without a prior interpretation of history which is revealed to man, use history which he declares to be apparently chaotic (pp. 9 f.) as a vehicle to go beyond itself to absolute reality? This would seem to be another contradiction in his position. The historian must indeed assume that history has a pattern, but without revelation he must also admit that it is a pattern of his own creation.

Thus, although Professor Toynbee’s book is both very interesting and stimulating, it hardly seems to be the answer which will help twentieth century man to solve his spiritual problems.

W. STANFORD REID

The Future Life

Immortality, by Loraine Boettner. Wm. B. Eerdmans. $2.50.

Dr. Loraine Boettner has earned recognition for himself as a careful and competent theologian with the publication of his earlier writings, especially “The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination”, a classic exposition of a difficult but important truth. In the present volume he again comes to grips with a perplexing, and often misunderstood, subject; death. Much contemporary thought in this area is muddled under the pressure of anxiety, sentimentality, and despair. This book, however, is a refreshing demonstration of rational argumentation growing out of fidelity to, and honest exegesis of, the Scriptures. Here is irresistible logic combined with the exercise of mature faith and spiritual insight. In addition, unlike many modern theologians, Boettner is willing to sacrifice recognition for personal genius, profundity and massive scholarship (to all of which he may lay legitimate claim) in order to be understood by his readers, whatever their theological orientation and acuteness. Even the untrained layman can read these pages without being driven to distraction.

The book is arranged in three sections: Physical Death, Immortality and The Intermediate State. Throughout the subject is treated, not in isolation and abstraction, but in relation to the whole fabric of Christian truth with which it is closely intertwined.

In the first section Boettner makes a sharp distinction between three different kinds of death: spiritual, physical and eternal. He points out that for believers physical death is in no sense penal, in which case it would be superfluous to Christ’s satisfaction on the cross. On the contrary, it is disciplinary in nature. It also serves as a constant warning to unbelievers for whom all three kinds of death are penal.

The second section includes a historical study of the universal belief in immortality and a marshalling of the arguments and evidences which establish the probability and necessity of a future life. Here Boettner indicates that the nature of the matter demands supernatural revelation, and insists that the doctrine is both assumed and taught in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament and from the very beginning. He then examines and interprets the peculiar Christian teaching about the future life, particularly the resurrection of the body.

The concluding section on the intermediate state is a valuable study of biblical terms such as Paradise, Hades, Sheol and Hell. Here too, are carefully-documented refutations of the erroneous and perverse doctrines of purgatory (Roman Catholicism), soul sleep (Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism) and communication with the dead (Spiritualism).

We have no doubt that this book will take its place among the important works on an all-important issue.

RICHARD ALLEN BODEY

The Neo-Calvin

The Theology of Calvin, by Wilhelm Niesel. Translated by Harold Knight. Westminster Press.

Wilhelm Niesel, whose work, here, first appeared in the original German in 1938, wrote this book as a contribution to the lively debate (still going on) devoted to finding a “key” to the understanding of the theology of Calvin. He took pen in hand (like the others) in order to settle once for all the problem for which Kampschulte, for instance, nearly a century ago thought he found the answer in a single doctrine such as that of Election; H. Bauke, more recently, in the form of his theology as opposed to a single doctrine; and H. Weber, in the structural psychology of his system, taking into account both form and doctrinal content. Niesel, decrying all efforts to understand Calvin’s theology from the point of view of its content, declares that the Reformer must be understood in terms of a single, dominant interest, namely the Incarnation. He reflects, in his thesis, the “crisis” theology of the Barthian school, of which he evidently is a member.

Niesel’s thesis is that in order to understand Calvin and resolve the obscurities and contradictions which otherwise inevitably appear, we must set aside any preoccupation with the form or the substance or even the sequence of thought which may seem evident, and look for something more “ultimate.” This “something” is provided by Karl Barth’s theology, whose idea of “theology being determined by its object” has “produced a revolution in Calvin studies as elsewhere.”

In order to develop his thesis, Niesel selects, for consideration, fundamental doctrines taken from the whole body of Calvin’s thought, such as the Knowledge of God, the Trinity, the Law of God, the Mediator, Prayer, the Church, the Sacraments, etc. His materials are selected at random from the whole body of Calvin’s writings. And there certainly are few men living who can equal his knowledge of the sources.

Calvin’s theology, explains Niesel, although centering in Christ, begins with Scripture. Scripture is the source of the divine wisdom which we must acquire and which consists in knowing Christ. But Scripture remains for us, in our unsaved condition, a dead and ineffectual thing. For Niesel’s Calvin, God’s self-revelation is in Christ, not Scripture. And the inclinations of our hearts must be changed if our study of the Bible is not to be so much lost time. This change takes place when we turn to God and is effected by the Holy Spirit. Then it is that we see in Scripture its great subject, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Throughout the entire Bible we are confronted by nothing else but the living Word of God and it is to find him that we study Scripture.

This epistemology, which underlies Niesel’s thesis, is clearly dependent upon a primary doctrine: that of the work of the Holy Spirit. Without this prior work, human intelligence remains unenlightened, the Bible meaningless and Christ unfound. Thus, though the heart of Christianity is Christ, the starting point in soteriology (and the foundation of Niesel’s theology) is the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit.

In most respects Niesel is essentially traditional in his treatment of Calvin, except for the obvious Barthian twist given the Reformer’s view of the Scriptures. But it is precisely the Reformer’s view of the Scriptures which modifies the epistemology Niesel seeks to delineate. Calvin did not believe the Bible a dead collection of words until the Holy Spirit made it the Word of God. He believed it to be the Word of God to begin with, the self-revelation of God which bore within itself the peculiar property of awakening faith as the Holy Spirit granted illumination.

There is a difference between saying that the Bible is a dead book to which a living Spirit must bear witness before it becomes meaningful; and saying that the Bible is the living Word which, when read, stirs and strangely warms the reader’s heart as the Holy Spirit applies the benefits of Christ received through the primary channel of Grace, the Word itself. In my own research, I seemed to hear the Reformer saying the latter. He certainly did not say that we must decide between doctrine and Christ, as Niesel does. He rather affirmed that sound doctrine is the way to find Christ!

The first contact of an unbeliever with the Ultimate Word is not at the point of the inward illumination of the Spirit, but in the preaching of the proximate Word. Then it is precisely because the Bible is intrinsically the dynamic Word of God that it serves as a channel through which the Holy Spirit speaks to human hearts about Christ. True, Calvin did not believe that the divine inspiration of the Scriptures could be demonstrated to all and sundry, as Niesel points out. But this was because this primary channel did not pour the saving Grace of God by the Holy Spirit into every heart: according to the Reformer’s doctrine of Election. (To some the preaching of the Word remains foolishness.) The difference is fine, but significant.

But this is an important book, without a consideration of which any serious Calvin research would be incomplete. Despite his attempt to make Calvin a Barthian, very few modern scholars know the Reformer as well as the author of this profound study. And if this had not come from his pen he would still be in the front rank of Calvin scholars by reason of the five-volume critical edition of primary sources which he co-edited with Peter Barth, the I. Calvini Opera Selecta, the last of which appeared only in 1952.

G. AIKEN TAYLOR

Though Dead, Still Lives

Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah, by Joseph Addison Alexander. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1953. $8.95.

The Psalms, Translated and Explained. Zondervan, Grand Rapids. $6.95.

Though dead, Joseph Addison Alexander still lives. A century ago, he spoke to the hearts and minds of the people of God; today, as his words have once more found their way into print, he speaks again. Some men live and die, and their memory perishes with them. In other instances, following the sunset there is a glorious afterglow but gradually the light fails and darkness reigns. It is therefore no mean tribute to the worth of a man’s work when succeeding generations find it of such worthy nature that his writings are again given wide distribution and become anew the means of our understanding that which God has spoken.

With the reprinting of Alexander’s Commentaries upon Isaiah and the Psalms, treasures which had long lain more or less buried and forgotten have once more come to light and are making it possible for us to live again in the days of the prophet-statesman of Hezekiah’s court and the sweet singer of Israel.

The author, a distinguished linguist and student of Oriental literature, an apologist of no mean ability, an historian and an exegete, for many years taught with unusual success in Princeton Theological Seminary. In the course of his studies, he amassed a body of information upon the Book of Isaiah which was characterized both by its extensiveness and by its penetrating analysis of the teaching of the Book.

The one who reads Alexander has before him three types of material, all three of which serve to aid him in understanding the text. The first of these is the author’s translation of the Hebrew, verse by verse as the discussion proceeds, a feature most helpful both to the reader who wishes to check the translation against the original language and to the one who merely wishes to have the text immediately before him so that he can appreciate fully the comments upon its various parts.

The second feature of the author’s approach is his careful analysis of the content. He endeavors to show to his reader the thought of each great segment of the book as well as that of each subdivision, each verse, each phrase, each word. He does this upon the basis of the original language, but in such fashion that the student who is not conversant with Hebrew can still follow the essential development of ideas—this in contrast to some parts of the excellent commentaries by Keil and Delitzsch.

There is a certain freshness to a commentary which makes no attempt to inform readers as to the reasoning of other exegetes, ancient and modern, regarding the interpretation of a point in question, but if one is to be a serious student of Scripture he cannot do other than to compare and contrast, to reckon with each suggested interpretation, to test each possibility against the biblical phrasing. The third aspect of Alexander’s treatment makes such checking possible, for he outlines the interpretations of others in great detail. Not only does he do so, but he analyzes these interpretations and sifts and weighs the evidence for each, leaving the reader no excuse for jumping hastily to unjustified conclusions. If the approach chosen makes for a more ponderous volume and is annoying to some, let it be remembered that Alexander’s Commentaries are designed more for study than for inspiration, but who shall deny that from devoted study comes often the deepest, most abiding inspiration!

Dispensationalist and non-dispensationalist alike will do well to evaluate Alexander’s treatment of prophecy. For him, the national pre-eminence of the Jews was “representative, not original; symbolical, not real; provisional, not perpetual …” (p. 52). He sees with Isaiah a carnal Israel which has not perceived this truth, but at the same time he sees a spiritual Israel, the true Church.

He sees a personal Messiah, who will come as a deliverer and bring his people into glorious liberty. He sees a Church of the future, not in its chronological outlines, but as one blaze of glory, the perspectives and details of which must wait for the fuller revelation of the New Testament.

His treatment of the Psalms is similar to that found in the volume on Isaiah except that he does not state or discuss the interpretations of others. Originally, his intention was to produce a translation only, but as he gave himself to the task he felt constrained to record exegetical comments in order that the translation might become more meaningful.

He sees the Psalms not as unrelated individual compositions but as pairs, as trilogies, as topical groups, as an organized body of liturgical material for the use of the Church.

He disavows a devotional intent in making his notes, but the commentary is markedly that of one who is consciously standing upon holy ground, and the reader whose extra-biblical knowledge of the Psalter does not include the musings of Spurgeon and others cannot fail, upon reading Alexander only, to take his shoes from off his feet, as it were, and to cry, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.”

The volumes under review are worthy of a place in the pastor’s library, and the well-read layman will consult them with profit.

BURTON L. GODDARD

Clearer Insights

The Gospel of Mark, by Ralph Earle, Th.D. Zondervan, $3.95.

This is the work of a thorough-going scholar. The bibliography reveals the author’s broad acquaintance with commentators and theologians of many periods. The Introduction provides a brief but valuable summary of textual criticism, a subject most ministers tend to neglect after leaving the seminary. Yet with such scholarly emphasis the author writes in a clear, concise style that makes the volume useful and instructive to both ministers and laymen.

Although effective use is made of the findings of numerous other authors, this book is far more than a compilation. The writer presents old truths with freshness and imagination, showing that his academic preparation has been matched by a devout search for spiritual illumination. While even a casual sampling of the content reveals Dr. Earle’s consistently high standard of scriptural exposition, the portion dealing with chapter 9:42–50 seems especially excellent. In an age when reproach has been cast upon the Word of God by faith-destroying humanism as well as by fanatical interpretations and actions of misguided literalists, the explanations found in this part of the book are greatly needed. It is significant to note that, while our Lord authorized and qualified his disciples to amplify and complement his own teaching, the subjects of hell and eternal punishment were first expressed clearly and completely by Christ before being committed to them. This commentary should prove a great boon to pastors, Sunday school teachers and all others who wish to gain clearer insights into Mark’s account of the life and teachings of Christ.

ERIC EDWIN PAULSON

Journey To Christianity

Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis. Geoffrey Bles, London. 15/-.

The autobiography of a layman who has had a profound influence in British theological and religious circles in recent years is an event of considerable interest. He tells the story of the journey which led him from a school-boy’s religion into atheism, and later back to Christianity. It is in the true Lewis tradition—with that strain of independence and puckish humour which characterise his writings.

Lewis was born in Belfast in an Episcopalian (Church of Ireland) home where there was little evangelical influence. He spent most of his youth in boarding schools and in the course of his life such religious life as he had was destroyed by an insidious subjectivism. In the progress to atheism, the author could never feel quite sure that he was right and that Deity could be altogether excluded from the universe.

His confidence in scepticism was rudely shaken by meeting a friend in a classroom in Oxford whom he describes as “a Christian and a thorough-going super-naturalist.” Finally in the Trinity Term of 1929 Lewis gave in and admitted that God was God; and knelt and prayed … the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.

I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet.”

The conversion of Lewis was at first to Theism rather than to Christianity, but he was moving to a more personal faith. The quality of the faith he received is clear from the books which he published during the war years and since.

Incisive is the analysis of the author concerning the twilight of religion during the years of early manhood. He makes a telling reference to a “Gabbling, a tragic Irish parson who long since lost his faith but retained his living” and who devoted himself to searching for evidence of human survival. Surely this is not an inapt description of a twentieth century Christendom, which Lewis has analysed so skilfully on various occasions.

S. W. MURRAY

Of Practical Value

Health Shall Spring Forth, by Paul E. Adolph, M.D. Moody Press. $2.50.

Dr. Adolph, student and graduate of Philadelphia Bible Institute and Wheaton College, obtained honors upon his graduation from the School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. After internship and residency he served as missionary under the China Inland Mission until 1949, with time out for study and research in surgery and four years in the U. S. Army Medical Corps. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and is at present instructor in first aid and minor surgery in Moody Bible Institute.

Dr. Adolph’s aim “has been to stress the importance of the emotional tension diseases, and to point out the limitless resources at the disposal of the Christian to eliminate them through maintaining a healthy outlook” (p. 124). In no sense has he attempted to present the care for all mental diseases but has limited his treatment to some outstanding causes of emotional tensions and how to treat them from the standpoint of Christian supernaturalism when the layman has insight to apply Christian therapeutic principles.

In psycho-somatic ills he sees three “common tension patterns” which are focused in the organism and explains the emotional basis for those bodily ills which may be mitigated by spiritual therapy. He calls these: (1) the stiff-neck tension pattern, often issuing in compulsive behaviour not amenable to diagnosis by counsel, resistant to any change of ways; (2) the chest tension pattern, suggesting heart malfunction through a feeling of chest constriction, and depression; and (3) the stomach tension pattern, often described as nervous indigestion, with oft-accompanying abdominal tension, vague nausea; related to a general feeling of being “fed up,” often complicated by real peptic ulcer.

He thinks that no properly instructed Christian in a condition of full surrender to his Lord’s will need be a victim of emotions. He thinks that the emotionally disturbed Christian may always find a cure for all psycho-somatic symptoms and disturbances.

Employing the nomenclature of Scripture Dr. Adolph shows how a disturbed Christian may arrive at a healthy spiritual state by a proper resolution of his psycho-somatic ills. He discusses these problems as basically spiritual and gives several chapters to these in the areas of perfectionism, fears, the unforgiving spirit, doubts, indecisiveness, lack of orderliness, failure to appreciate the spiritual heritage and lack of Christian love.

There is a sound chapter on faith healing as well as one on spiritual maturity.

This non-technical, sympathetic, understanding summary of the Christian’s psycho-somatic ills may prove of greatest value to any Christian who would rightly live for his Saviour, for here are sound techniques of spiritual therapy. Dr. Adolph notes, however, that some Christians may have come to such a state as to be genuinely psychotic and in need of psychiatric care.

Every Christian will profit by reading and circulating this volume. It will prove of value to the minister in dealing with emotionally disturbed Christians.

WALTER VAIL WATSON

Highly Competent

Christian Theology and Natural Science. The Bampton Lectures, 1956, by E. L. Mascal. Longmans, Green and Company, 1956. $4.50.

This treatise is not about specific passages of Scripture and findings of empirical sciences, but about particular theological teachings of the Scriptures and contemporary scientific theory. The author, an accomplished mathematician, is an orthodox Anglican who has accepted Thomism, as his theological and philosophical framework. The entire work is characterized by an unusual high order of competence—theological, philosophical and scientific.

Having written a treatise of my own on the subject (The Christian View of Science and Scripture), I found it an interesting experience to read this work. It was startling to find similar sectional headings, and at times exact correspondence in theses defended. I will not challenge the patience of the reader by making comparisons save to state that my position is closer to Mascal’s than American orthodox literature on the subject.

Mascal’s thesis is: “What I have tried to do is to show, by discussing a certain number of matters in which both theology and science have an interest, that it is possible to be an orthodox Christian without either ignoring or repudiating the discoveries of present day science” (p. 291).

Two basic assumptions of the book are: (i) The value of the Bible is its theological meaning, and any attempt to find empirical scientific data in Scripture is wrong (cf. p. 99) (ii). A metaphysical and theological explanation and a scientific explanation are on two different levels. The former does not derive its validity from the latter, and the former may or may not be in harmony with the status of science at any given time. Thus the doctrine of creation does not depend upon cosmological speculations, but upon theological and metaphysical principles.

His general attitude is that twentieth century science is more favorably disposed to Christian faith than nineteenth century science, but that the Christian is not to boldly proclaim that modern science has verified many Christian dogmas. In the previous century scientific laws were taken as absolutes; in the current century as statistical approximations subject to constant revision. In the previous century scientific theories were considered as literal interpretations of reality; today theories are considered as models, not true or false, but useful or not useful.

Other items of interest are: (i) he does not believe modern astrophysics proves creation but follows the position of Aquinas which is too involved to explain here; (ii) he defends the virginal conception of Christ and New Testament demonology; (iii) he believes there was a fall of angels prior to man’s fall and this accounts for pre-human evil in the universe (p. 36); (iv) he censures modernism, logical positivism and ‘narrow biblicism’; (v) he believes in the possible polygenetic origin of man for the unity of the race is not biological but spiritual or metaphysical [he mentions the Russian biologist-priest who thinks having located the gene bearing human depravity he could knock it out with radiation!]; (vi) he asserts that only ‘obstinate fundamentalists’ oppose evolution and that the method of man’s creation is completely secondary to the that of his divine origin; and (vii) the older theologians of the church would not be disturbed one bit by modern attempts to create life from organic compounds.

BERNARD RAMM

Theology

Review of Current Religious Thought: April 15, 1957

William A. Mueller

How deeply do we Westerners understand the souls of men in other cultures? Do most missionaries really come to grips with the hopes, aspirations and fears of people in Asia and Africa? T. A. Beethan probes into this question in an article “The Church in Africa Faces 1957” (International Review of Missions, Jan. 1957). The Gold Coast has just achieved independent statehood. The state of Ghana has been born. Our author points out that during the last 25 years the Church has carried the major burden of developing educational programs but often has given people a sense of false security. Many Africans, he avers, have not yet accepted the Christian view of marriage. Rightly he holds that the answer to and affirmation of monogamy must come from within the African Church itself. Likewise it is highly imperative that the theologians and church historians of Africa emerge from the theological schools of Africa. In too many cases the Christian churches in West Africa are far more European than indigenously African.

Hans A. De Boer of Germany has written a fascinating book under the title Noted en Route (J. G. Oncken Verlag, Kassel). It is a travel book by a young business man and full of intriguing vistas. He tells of walking unarmed into the camp of the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya. His white Christian friends threw up their hands in horror at his very suggestion to visit these people.

But De Boer’s faith was vindicated. The Mau Mau rebels received him, at first somewhat suspiciously, then with increasing confidence. A two hour conversation ensued. De Boer frankly told them that their path of violence and murder was dead wrong. “Why don’t you negotiate?” was his query. “Indeed we would if all white men would come to us like you have, without arms, in order to speak with us and not to dictate. Then blood would not have to flow. But nobody wants to negotiate with us!”

One cannot read this account without sensing the vast tragedy of the white man’s situation in countries like Africa.

De Boer also met Nehru in India. They talked about Christian missions. Nehru expressed his appreciation of many missionaries and their endeavor. The German traveler, however, sensed that Nehru was not impressed by all of them. “Do you want me to give you an appraisal in the order of rank?” asked Nehru. Reluctantly and with a smile he mentioned the following representatives of Christian missions: Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Evangelical-Lutheran, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists. De Boer was considerably perturbed about this graded scale of appreciation. All the major denominations had been mentioned. Then he asked: “And which Churches do you esteem most highly?” Nehru instantly answered: “The Mennonites, the Quakers and the Church of the Brethren!”

And why this high esteem of these smaller Christian bodies? “First, because they are free from racial bias. They live modestly and as much like the natives as possible. Nor do they build sumptuous mission stations outside our Indian dwellings, nor do they ride in luxurious cars or meddle in politics. They have but one desire: to preach Christ and walk according to his teachings.”

When American Ambassador Bowles used a bicycle instead of a Cadillac while stationed in New Delhi he made a terrific impression upon the people of India. This writer vividly remembers a statement by the late Dr. Theron Rankin of the Foreign Mission Board of Southern Baptists when he said: “While a missionary in China I thought of myself for a long time more as an American than as an ambassador of Jesus Christ!” It is good to realize how others see us.

“Crossroads in Mass Evangelism” (The Christian Century, Mar. 20, 1957) by Malcolm Boyd contains much food for serious thought. The writer is concerned about our modern means of communication such as radio, TV and other mass-media of publicity. “And obviously such techniques are to be claimed for Christ; he is their Lord as he is ours. But does ‘claiming’ certain techniques for Christ necessarily mean employing them for him? Perhaps we must be as concerned with motivation as we are with new (or old) techniques.” Let us beware by all means of exploiting men for Jesus Christ! Well has our author written:

God never exploits man; he has created us with free will. Jesus, far from exploiting the situation in which he found himself, refused all the temptations of worldly power—refused a crown, refused to press an “advantage,” subdued the crowd’s passions and went off by himself, died alone, defeated, on the cross. This is not only the antithesis but the refutation of exploitation. Indeed, love is always the antithesis and refutation of exploitation.

Hendrik Kramer, the missionary statesman, recently warned students at the Southern Baptist Seminary against the allurements of our all too clever ways of advertising. Boyd warns that publicity, bigness and modern techniques themselves may create a non-Christian climate. Are we “using modern tools and techniques to escape from reality?”

Die Gemeinde, the weekly journal of the Evangelical Free Churches (Baptists) of Germany, under a February 24, 1957 dateline, reports a warning from the Central Bureau of the Evangelischen Hilfswerk with regard to the emigration of older people to the Americas:

At first the joy of parents and grandparents who follow their children abroad may be rather great, but soon the even greater disillusionment sets in: the old folk can no longer accommodate themselves to a new and strange way of living; often the climate does not agree with them; they are in many instances unable to learn the language of the country, and after a few years they cannot even converse with their grandchildren. In that moment these aged people long to return to their native land and often cannot.

This writer has had many dealings with immigrants and refugees in recent years. He can only underscore this word of warning from abroad. One old lady, a kin of ours, felt utterly forlorn in our midst, even though she had escaped the terror of the Russian zone of Germany in 1947. Her deepest sorrow was that she could not hear God’s Word in her mother tongue on Sunday. She would attend our church but simply was unable to derive any benefit from the English sermon of the preacher. Meanwhile she has returned to Germany and is happily located in an Old Folks Home in the Rhineland.

The same journal announces that in the future candidates for the ministry from Spain may receive their training in the Rhineland, since the Evangelical Seminary in Madrid has been closed since January, 1956, at the behest of the Franco regime. Love always finds a way. The bond of Christian fellowship is always stronger than the threats of dictators.

- More from William A. Mueller

Cover Story

The Holy Spirit in the Gospels

W. Boyd Hunt

Oddly enough, a study of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels introduces us to both the first and the last word of the New Testament concerning this doctrine. In the first three Gospels (called the Synoptic Gospels since their contents for the most part are held in common and can therefore be arranged in parallel columns on a page and “viewed together,” i.e., synoptically) the emphasis is primarily on the pre-pentecostal aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in Jesus’ own life and mission. In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, the teaching, though drawn against the background of the earthly ministry, is anticipatory of the future pentecostal work of the Holy Spirit in believers. In the Synoptics the Old Testament idea of the Spirit is in process of fuller definition in the life of Jesus himself. In the Gospel of John the function of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost receives its definitive treatment in the New Testament.

The Synoptics And The Fourth Gospel

No serious study of the Holy Spirit in the Gospels can overlook this basic difference between the Synoptics and John. In the Synoptics it is the earthly Jesus who lives and fulfills his ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit; little is said of either the present or the future relation of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. In John the situation is just the reverse; little is said of the Holy Spirit’s relation to the incarnate Jesus, while much is made of what the Holy Spirit’s coming will mean in the experience of Jesus’ disciples and the church.

This is not to say that these emphases are in any sense contradictory. Yet the witness of the Synoptics and that of the Fourth Gospel have often been set over against one another in contrast. Interpreters have spoken of the silence of the Synoptics regarding the Holy Spirit and then have questioned whether the ample references of John have any basis in historical fact. E. F. Scott, for example, bluntly concluded that since the Synoptics have little to say of the pentecostal work of the Holy Spirit in believers, Jesus could not have said what John attributes to him. E. K. Barrett’s scholarly work, The Holy Spirit in the Gospel Tradition, is written with this same general assumption.

This raises the problem of the relation of the Synoptics to John. The history of this problem in modern criticism reflects a wide variety of opinion and a great deal of inconclusiveness. Even evangelical thinking on the issue has been unstable. F. L. Godet, the nineteenth-century evangelical, convinced of the superior historical worth of John, spoke of the Fourth Gospel as supplementing and correcting the history of the Synoptics. The more common idea in the past, however, has been that the Synoptics are more historical, while John is more interpretative.

Current studies recognize that the interpretative element is not peculiar to John. Stress falls on the fact that none of the Gospels are mere biographies, but that the Synoptics as well as John were written as witnesses intending to elicit faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

Current study also stresses that the Fourth Gospel is of more historical value than once was supposed. Writers of no less prominence than Vincent Taylor, E. C. Hoskyns and W. F. Howard argue for the historicity of the Johannine teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. They show that the Synoptics leave room for and even prepare the way for the Johannine emphasis (e.g., Matt. 10:20; Mark 13:11; Luke 12:12; 24:49). Thus the essential unity of the different emphases of these two sections of the New Testament writings increasingly is being recognized.)

The Teaching Of The Synoptics

The Earthly Jesus as the Bearer of the Holy Spirit. Critical scholarship, preoccupied with the problem of the alleged silence of the Synoptics regarding the Holy Spirit, tends to obscure the real contribution they make to the doctrine. The burden of the Synoptic teaching is that Jesus fulfills his earthly ministry in the possession and power of the Holy Spirit.

In making this emphasis the Synoptics draw heavily on the Old Testament, where a central place is given to the Spirit in Israel’s eschatological hope. Israel longs for the day when the Spirit will be permanently and universally outpoured. In contrast to Old Testament leaders, who experienced the Spirit only provisionally, there is the promise of the shoot of the stem of Jesse on whom the Spirit will remain (Isa. 11:2). This permanent endowment of the Messiah with the Spirit is particularly prominent in the Servant prophecies: “Behold my servant whom I uphold; … I have put my Spirit upon him; … He shall not fail nor be discouraged” (Isa. 42:1–4; cf. 62:1, 2). The Synoptics interpret this hope as fulfilled in Jesus (Luke 4:18; Matt. 12:18).

Conservatives have neglected the Synoptic emphasis, possibly because it appears to detract from Christ’s essential deity. If his power is mediated by the Spirit, then is he really the Son of God? That this is not a real problem is evident from the fact that the earliest of the Synoptics, Mark, makes a special point at the outset of his Gospel of the close connection between Jesus’ unique Sonship and his special anointing with the Holy Spirit.

Mark commences, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). First he takes up the ministry of the Baptist, stressing particularly that he fulfills the Old Testament prophecy of a way preparer. Once introduced, the Baptist predicts concerning the coming Messiah, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (1:8). Thus the Son of God as Messiah is linked with the age of the Spirit which he inaugurates.

In the account of Jesus’ baptism (1:10, 11), this connection between Sonship and the Spirit is even more explicit. Here, as G. S. Hendry suggests in The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, the stress is not on the descent of the Holy Spirit, but on the manifestation of Jesus both as anointed by the Spirit and as Son. It is not that Jesus had previously been without the Spirit, nor that he was not the Son until the baptism. But now, as he inaugurates his public ministry, these facts are revealed.

Mark says that after the baptism the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan (1:11; in Luke 4:1, 14, the Spirit’s role is more fully described). There is nothing here of a docetic Christ who had no real moral victories to win. Instead, the ethical reality of Jesus’ special sonship is seen precisely at this point: Jesus is the unique possessor of the Holy Spirit.

Mark 3:7–30, one of the central passages of the Gospel, stresses this still further. Here Jesus’ power over the unclean spirits wrings from them the confession that he is the Son of God. Then Jesus withdraws from the multitudes for the ordaining of the twelve, that he might send them out to preach and to cast out devils. Later, scribes from Jerusalem charge that Jesus casts out demons because he is demon-possessed. Jesus responds by asking, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” and asserts that he has already bound Satan (in the wilderness temptation experience?) and is now spoiling his house. But, most significant, verses 29, 30 teach that to attribute to Satan Jesus’ power over demons is unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Why is this so? Obviously because Jesus casts out demons in the power of the Spirit (Matt. 12:28; cf. also Luke 4:18; Matt. 12:18). Jesus reveals not only the hidden depths of the more-than-human struggle in which he is engaged, but also the fact that his power as the Messiah is the power of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew and Luke trace the relation between the Spirit and Jesus’ special sonship back further than Mark, by recounting Jesus’ miraculous conception by the Holy Spirit and his virgin birth. It is not necessary to set Mark over against Matthew and Luke in a contradictory manner, as criticism does when it suggests that the story of the miraculous conception is suspect since Mark does not mention it. The argument from silence must always be the weakest sort of argument. Suffice it to say that one whose public life is as unique as is the life of the Son of God portrayed by Mark must have been miraculously conceived, as recorded by Matthew and Luke. Conception by the Holy Spirit fits a life uniquely endued with the Holy Spirit.

These references do not exhaust the Synoptic teaching, but they do mark out its main emphasis, which is also supported by the rest of the New Testament (Acts 10:38; Rom. 8:11; Heb. 9:14). Jesus, the anointed of God, is the unique possessor of the Holy Spirit. Before the Holy Spirit is poured out at Pentecost, he is first defined by the life and mission of the incarnate Jesus. Hereafter the Holy Spirit is known as the Spirit of Christ. For believers Christ-likeness and the power of the Spirit have now become synonymous.

The Teaching Of The Fourth Gospel

The Glorified Christ as the Bestower of the Holy Spirit. In the Fourth Gospel, although there are suggestive references to the earthly Jesus as the bearer of the Holy Spirit (1:32, 33; 3:34; 6:63), the emphasis falls on the glorified Christ as the one who bestows the Holy Spirit on his followers. Two passages are of special importance.

In John 7:37–39 Jesus stands on the last day of the Feast of the Tabernacles to offer living water to those who believe. John then explains editorially that Jesus is referring to the Holy Spirit whom believers were yet to receive as the gift of the glorified Christ. The association of ideas here is important; the living water, the Holy Spirit and Pentecost are explicitly connected. This throws light on Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus in John 3, where Jesus speaks of being born of the Spirit and of water; on the interview with the Samaritan woman in John 4, where he speaks of the living water and of worship in spirit and in truth; and on the discourse on Jesus as the living bread in John 6. In each of these instances Jesus’ teaching is projected forward to experiences that were realized by believers only after Pentecost.

John’s climactic teaching is in the great Farewell Discourse, chapters 14–16. In this discourse, delivered in the upper room on the eve of the crucifixion, and recorded only by John, there are five sayings relating to the work of the Holy Spirit: 14:16, 17; 14:25, 26; 15:26, 27; 16:5–11; and 16:12–15. Two distinctively Johannine terms for the Holy Spirit are used in these passages: the Paraclete (or Helper) and the Spirit of truth. These terms, taken in context, constitute the clearest teaching in the New Testament of the personality of the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity.

In these Paraclete sayings, it is the glorified Christ who sends the Spirit, and the mission of the Holy Spirit when he comes is to guide believers into the truth as it is in Christ. Jesus speaks of the “yet many things” that he would say to the disciples, but explains that he cannot say them at the time because they are not yet able to receive them (16:13). He promises that the Holy Spirit will speak these things when he comes.

G. S. Hendry describes the work of the Paraclete in declaring the things of Christ as “unoriginal” and as “reproductive” only. But the best commentary on what Jesus did mean is the New Testament itself, for the New Testament is the record of the Paraclete’s work in leading the disciples into the truth of Christ. Even a cursory comparison of the parabolic and incomplete teaching of Jesus before his death with the clear, ample and discursive witness of the New Testament writings indicates that the work of the Spirit of truth is inadequately described as a reproduction, which is too suggestive of a mere remembrance of a departed Christ.

Jesus’ promise of the Paraclete has a further application which pertains to all believers. It suggests that the truth as it is in Christ, and as witnessed in the New Testament, has the dimension of the Spirit, i.e., that it remains ever new and that we never exhaust it by our interpretations. The living Christ continues to speak to believers and to his churches through the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit.

If the neglect of the Synoptic emphasis on the earthly Jesus as the unique possessor of the Spirit has been costly in inadequate Christological formulations, and in the failure, as in Pentecostal sects, to define the Holy Spirit in terms of his relation to Jesus Christ, how tragic has been the neglect of the Johannine stress on the Spirit of truth as the gift of the glorified Christ. Our present ignorance and impotence are no proof that Jesus has not sent the Holy Spirit as he promised, but they are proof of our neglect of the Spirit. How much there is yet that the living Christ would speak through the Word by the Paraclete!

W. Boyd Hunt has been Professor of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, since 1953. After teaching on the Seminary faculty from 1944–46, he became pastor of the large First Baptist Church of Houston from 1946–53, and then he returned to the campus. He holds the A.B. degree from Wheaton College and the Th.D. degree from Southwestern. He is author of Sixteen to One, a missions study book.

- More from W. Boyd Hunt

Cover Story

Substitution

G. W. Bromiley

One of the tragedies of modern theology is that the concept of substitution has become suspect and has been so largely abandoned. This has been primarily due to the revolt against biblical and confessional teaching which has been increasingly predominant since the later seventeenth century and especially in more recent times. On the other hand, unfortunate and inadequate presentations of the doctrine have given an appearance of justification to the attack. It may well be asked whether many of those who verbally make much of substitution have really considered its true content, meaning and scope.

A Biblical Motif

There can be no doubt, of course, that substitution is taught in the Bible itself. Prefigured in the vicarious suffering of the servant in Isaiah 53, it is demanded by a strict reading of the New Testament prepositions. In addition, we think of the great passage in Romans 5 where Jesus Christ is portrayed as the representative and head of a new race. Reference may also be made to the “reconciliation” of 2 Corinthians 5, which carries the distinct thought of an exchange, especially in the light of verses 14 and 21. Indeed, it can be asserted with confidence that the Gospel loses its intelligibility and power if we do not accept the truth that Jesus Christ took our place, that in that place he did something for our salvation which we could not do for ourselves, and that the only place which now remains for us is in him.

Life And Death In View

The content of substitution, however, must not be restricted narrowly to the death of Jesus Christ; for the whole purpose of his coming into the world was to effect a substitution. Substitution begins in fact with the incarnation of the divine son—unless we are not to trace it back to the will and purpose of God in eternity. When the Son of God became man, he became man in our place; the true man to whom the whole of the Old Testament had pointed and upon whom all the dealings of God with man were now concentrated. As this man he lived the brief but full life of obedient humility which Adam and all others rejected in their sinful arrogance. He did not need to do this for himself, nor was there any point merely in giving an example which even if we had the will we do not have the capacity to follow. He was the obedient and suffering servant in our stead, living this life as the One for the many. It was a life which necessarily led him to the cross as the fulfillment of identification with sinners—indeed of his replacement of sinners. The way was direct from the baptism of Jordan to the baptism of Golgotha.

But the crucifixion especially cannot be construed just as a death for himself. He was not a sinner that he deserved to die. He was not defeated. He was not concerned only to offer a gruesome demonstration or rather intimidating example. It was a death died in our place and on our behalf. But although in a sense the substitution culminated in the death of Jesus Christ, it did not end there. Otherwise it would merely have been a substitution for death and not for life, carrying a message of despair and judgment and not of hope and salvation. The one who died for the many was raised also for the many and ascended into heaven. This, too, must be regarded as part of his substitution. For in Jesus Christ risen there was introduced the new man who has his place with God and is heir to his eternal kingdom. As the one who has taken our place, Jesus Christ not only tasted death but entered into life, and where he now is there is a prepared place for those who are content to be found in him.

Meaning Of Substitution

But what is the meaning of substitution? Obviously, we must begin by considering its literal sense. It involves an exchange. One person (or sometimes “thing”) takes the place of, or replaces, another. In the case of a person, the one who replaces does something which the other perhaps ought to do but for some reason cannot. Traditionally, this has been seen almost exclusively in a penal context. Jesus Christ has taken the place on the cross which ought to have been occupied by the sinner. And this is a true and central part of the substitutionary work of the incarnate son, although, as we have seen, we must not isolate it from the complementary truths that he lived the life of righteousness which the sinner could not or would not live, and that he was raised to the new life to which the sinner as such could not be raised. The substitution of Jesus Christ did indeed involve his offering “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.”

Scope Of Substitution

It is not always asked, however, what is really involved in this substitution. It is one thing to conclude, as from one angle we may, that the taking up of the penalty of sin by Christ means its removal from us. But it has also to be realized that there can be no question here of “cheap grace,” since in its fuller and deeper sense a replacement means a displacement. The whole action is now undertaken by the substitute, and the one whom he replaces does not come into consideration at all except in the person of the one who acts in his name and stead. In relation to the substitution of Jesus Christ, this means that God’s dealings are now wholly and exclusively with the One who acts for the many. It is by him that the life of righteousness is lived, on him that the weight of judgment falls, and in him that the new man is introduced. Sinners themselves are, as it were, crowded out. Their place has been taken. They can have a part in the saving action of God only as they attach themselves to the one, identifying themselves in repentance, obedience and faith with his life and death and resurrection and entering into himself and his work in the place which he occupies for us. In this deep and serious sense substitution has no relationship whatever to the caricature of an artistic and rather dubious transaction.

On the contrary, it belongs to the very core of the Gospel in incarnation, reconciliation and redemption. And at the same time it confronts sinners with the whole comfort and challenge of the Gospel: the comfort, because we can be assured that if Christ has taken our place what is done in that place is well done; and the challenge, because unless and until we are in Christ we are “displaced persons” self-excluded from the gracious work of God.

Once we grasp the meaning of substitution, it is only a step to a realization of its scope. Nothing can be more disastrous than to reduce the vast sweep of the replacement which took place on Good Friday and Easter Day in his death and resurrection for sinners. Yet even in face of this great act of substitution the reaction of the sinner is to cling to a place for himself, or at any rate, to keep as much of a place for himself as possible. The Christian, for example, may acknowledge gratefully that Christ bore sin’s penalty, but as far as reason, personality, conduct, gifts, nature or calling are concerned, there is no real difference. He is still, as he thinks, in his place. He lives, speaks, acts and thinks as though Jesus Christ were not his substitute. Business is as usual.

But if Jesus Christ really lived, died and rose again, the one for the many, the old life of the many is rejected, judged, executed and removed in the one, being replaced by a new life. The natural and sinful reason is dead, and they now have the mind of the Lord their wisdom. The old nature of sin is dead, and they are raised up a new man with a new outlook, interests and capacities. Their old personality, gifts and conduct are nailed to the cross, and all things are made new.

This is not just an ideal. It is not just a pious hope. It is not just a theme of exhortation. It is the new fact, the true reality, of the situation; the divinely created fact and therefore the only one which really counts; the fact which we can know in this world only by faith; but the one real fact all the same, because it was accomplished by Jesus Christ and by him on our behalf and in our stead. The calling of Christians is simply to recognize, believe and live out this fact as that which in spite of all appearances to the contrary is their true and present reality in the one who took their place.

The Wider Sweep

There is also, of course, a wider sweep for the nature and life and activity and fellowship of the church, of which we cannot now speak in particular. For example, it gives the church its message, as the proclamation of accomplished new facts rather than religious theory or subjective experience. It gives the church its organization, as the body of those who are transformed according to the pattern of the servant. It gives the church its methods and resources, not as a worldly enterprise with human skills and personalities and plans but as a body of new men equipped with the gifts and graces of the Spirit. It gives the church its unity, not just a spiritual unity and certainly not a mere ideal unity or least of all a man-made and artificial unity, but the unity of those who are the one body of the one who took their place in death and resurrection, the unity of substitution which they are to accept and express as the real fact of its existence.

Seriously to reckon with substitution is indeed a daunting but a necessary and salutary business. We have only to survey Christians and Christian churches to see how little it is really believed and worked out even by those who protest it most loudly, let alone by those who have not even begun to try to understand it. In this deep and comprehensive sense, it demands the true repentance which is self-denial. It can be satisfied with no less than that we really are righteous because God counts us righteous in Jesus Christ. It really believes that the new life is the true life. It recognizes that every sin, every act of the old man, every acquiescence in being the old man, is a contradiction of its true essence. It has to take seriously that both individually and in company life has to be lived as that of the many who are crucified with Christ, so that the life which they now live they live by the faith of the Son of God who loved them and gave himself for them.

To what extent do we really believe and accept substitution? Do we really believe and accept it in any serious sense at all? The answer to these questions is not given in verbal protestations. It is given by the discipleship and renewal in which we genuinely acknowledge that there is no more place for us, that Jesus Christ has taken our place, and that our only place—but a true and eternal place—is now in him.

Preacher In Red

ON THE SAME TEAM

I was absent from my pastorate in Iowa when I received a long distance phone call from the funeral director that a lady in the community had died. Would I return in time to conduct the services? I agreed that I would.

Everything conspired against me at the last moment. I had a blowout. The spare I put on to replace it went flat on a nearly deserted road I had taken to save time. Finally the machine quit altogether. A farmer, whose wife was in town with their car, worked desperately to repair mine. At the very moment the service was to begin I was hurrying up the church steps past a harried undertaker. I went directly to the pulpit and had no opportunity to speak to anyone.

Several times during the brief sermon, I referred to the lady who had departed. Each time I mentioned her, I noticed a remarkable restlessness in the audience, accompanied by a good deal of whispering. After I had spoken several minutes, the mortician stepped quietly up behind me and whispered in my ear.

“Begging your pardon,” he spoke almost breathlessly, “But I think there is some mistake. Her husband is the one who died.”

That was the nearest I ever came to having a double funeral.—The Rev. ROBERT W. SHIELDS, 222 E. Delaware Place, Chicago, Illinois.

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

The Rev. G. W. Bromiley, rector of St. Thomas’ English Episcopal Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, holds the Ph.D. and D.Litt. degrees from University of Edinburgh. From 1946 to 1951 he was lecturer and vice-principal at Tyndale Hall, Bristol.

- More from G. W. Bromiley

Cover Story

On the Day of the Crucifixion

Leonid N. Andreev

On that terrible day, when the universal injustice was committed and Jesus Christ was crucified in Golgotha among robbers—on that day, from early morning, Ben-Tovit, a tradesman of Jerusalem, suffered from an unendurable toothache. His toothache had commenced on the day before, toward evening; at first his right jaw started to pain him, and one tooth, the one right next the wisdom tooth, seemed to have risen somewhat, and when his tongue touched the tooth, he felt a slightly painful sensation. After supper, however, his toothache had passed, and Ben-Tovit had forgotten all about it. He had made a profitable deal on that day, had bartered an old donkey for a young, strong one, so he was very cheerful and paid no heed to any ominous signs.

And he slept very soundly. But just before daybreak something began to disturb him, as if some one were calling him on a very important matter, and when Ben-Tovit awoke angrily, his teeth were aching, aching openly and maliciously, causing him an acute, drilling pain. And he could no longer understand whether it was only the same tooth that had ached on the previous day, or whether others had joined that tooth; Ben-Tovit’s entire mouth and his head were filled with terrible sensations of pain, as though he had been forced to chew thousands of sharp, red-hot nails. He took some water into his mouth from an earthen jug—for a minute the acuteness of the pain subsided, his teeth twitched and swayed like a wave, and this sensation was even pleasant as compared with the other.

Ben-Tovit lay down again, recalled his new donkey, and thought how happy he would have been if not for his toothache, and he wanted to fall asleep. But the water was warm, and five minutes later his toothache began to rage more severely than ever; Ben-Tovit sat up in his bed and swayed back and forth like a pendulum. His face became wrinkled and seemed to have shrunk, and a drop of cold perspiration was hanging on his nose, which had turned pale from his sufferings. Thus, swaying back and forth and groaning for pain, he met the first rays of the sun, which was destined to see Golgotha and the three crosses and grow dim from horror and sorrow.

Ben-Tovit was a good and kind man, who hated any injustice, but when his wife awoke he said many unpleasant things to her, opening his mouth with difficulty, and he complained that he was left alone, like a jackal, to groan and writhe for pain. His wife met the undeserved reproaches patiently, for she knew that they came not from an angry heart—and she brought him numerous good remedies: rats’ litter to be applied to his cheek, some strong liquid in which a scorpion was preserved and a real chip of the tablets that Moses had broken. He began to feel a little better from the rats’ litter, but not for long, also from the liquid and the stone, but the pain returned each time with renewed intensity.

During the moments of rest Ben-Tovit consoled himself with the thought of the little donkey, and he dreamed of him, and when he felt worse he moaned, scolded his wife, and threatened to dash his head against a rock if the pain should not subside. He kept pacing back and forth on the flat roof of his house from one comer to the other, feeling ashamed to come close to the side facing the street, for his head was tied around with a kerchief, like that of a woman. Several times children came running to him and told him hastily about Jesus of Nazareth. Ben-Tovit paused, listened to them for a while, his face wrinkled, but then he stamped his foot angrily and chased them away. He was a kind man and he loved children, but now he was angry at them for bothering him with trifles.

It was disagreeable to him that a large crowd had gathered in the street and on the neighbouring roofs, doing nothing and looking curiously at Ben-Tovit, who had his head tied around with a kerchief like a woman. He was about to go down, when his wife said to him:

“Look, they are leading robbers there. Perhaps that will divert you.”

“Let me alone. Don’t you see how I am suffering?” Ben-Tovit answered angrily.

But there was a vague promise in his wife’s words that there might be a relief for his toothache, so he walked over to the parapet unwillingly. Bending his head on one side, closing one eye, and supporting his cheek with his hand, his face assumed a squeamish, weeping expression, and he looked down to the street.

On the narrow street, going uphill, an enormous crowd was moving forward in disorder, covered with dust and shouting uninterruptedly. In the middle of the crowd walked the criminals, bending down under the weight of their crosses, and over them the scourges of the Roman soldiers were wriggling about like black snakes. One of the men, he of the long light hair, in a torn blood-stained cloak, stumbled over a stone which was thrown under his feet, and he fell. The shouting grew louder, and the crowd, like colored sea water, closed in about the man on the ground. Ben-Tovit suddenly shuddered for pain; he felt as though some one had pierced a red-hot needle into his tooth and turned it there; he groaned and walked away from the parapet, angry and squeamishly indifferent.

“How they are shouting!” he said enviously, picturing to himself their wide-open mouths with strong, healthy teeth, and how he himself would have shouted if he had been well. This intensified his toothache, and he shook his muffled head frequently, and roared: “Moo-Moo.…”

“They say that He restored sight to the blind,” said his wife, who remained standing at the parapet, and she threw down a little cobblestone near the place where Jesus, lifted by the whips, was moving slowly.

“Of course, of course! He should have cured my toothache,” replied Ben-Tovit ironically, and he added bitterly with irritation: “What dust they have kicked up! Like a heard of cattle! They should all be driven away with a stick! Take me down, Sarah!”

The wife proved to be right. The spectacle had diverted Ben-Tovit slightly—perhaps it was the rats’ litter that had helped after all—and he succeeded in falling asleep. When he awoke, his toothache had passed almost entirely, and only a little inflammation had formed over his right jaw. His wife told him that it was not noticeable at all, but Ben-Tovit smiled cunningly—he knew how kind-hearted his wife was and how fond she was of telling him pleasant things.

Samuel, the tanner, a neighbour of Ben-Tovit’s, came in, and Ben-Tovit led him to see the new little donkey and listened proudly to the warm praises for himself and his animal.

Then, at the request of the curious Sarah, the three went to Golgotha to see the people who had been crucified. On the way Ben-Tovit told Samuel in detail how he had felt a pain in his right jaw on the day before, and how he awoke at night with a terrible toothache. To illustrate it he made a martyr’s face, closing his eyes, shook his head, and groaned while the grey-bearded Samuel nodded his head compassionately and said:

“Oh, how painful it must have been!”

Ben-Tovit was pleased with Samuel’s attitude, and he repeated the story to him, then went back to the past, when his first tooth was spoiled on the left side.

Thus, absorbed in a lively conversation, they reached Golgotha. The sun, which was destined to shine upon the world on that terrible day, had already set beyond the distant hills, and in the west a narrow, purple-red strip was burning, like a stain of blood. The crosses stood out darkly but vaguely against this background, and at the foot of the middle cross white kneeling figures were seen indistinctly.

The crowd had long dispersed; it was growing chilly, and after a glance at the crucified men, Ben-Tovit took Samuel by the arm and carefully turned him in the direction toward his house. He felt that he was particularly eloquent just then, and he was eager to finish the story of his toothache. Thus they walked, and Ben-Tovit made a martyr’s face, shook his head and groaned skillfully, while Samuel nodded compassionately and uttered exclamations from time to time, and from the deep, narrow defiles, out of the distant, burning plains, rose the black night. It seemed as though it wished to hide from the view of heaven the great crime of the earth.

We Quote:

HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK

Former Minister of The Riverside Church, New York

In one staff meeting after another we reiterated the admonition: keep your eyes on individuals; nothing in the long run matters in this church except what happens to them.

This cardinal principle affects everything a church does.… So far as I was concerned, the most intense application of this personality-centered policy came in individual counseling.… My preaching at its best has itself been personal counseling on a group scale.… Indeed, I distrust a preacher to whom sermons seem the crux of his functioning.

The temptations of a popular preacher—if he is only that—are devastating.… Only the grace of God can deliver him—that and a genuine care for persons, so that to him, as to Jesus, all that matters in a crowd is the opportunity to get vitally in touch with some individual.—From the autobiography The Living of These Days, pp. 211 ff.

MASSEY MOTT HELTZEL

Ginter Park Presbyterian Church, Richmond, Va.

This is what the world needs. It needs terribly the solid glories of our faith: creation, incarnation, atonement, … resurrection, ascension. We can almost hear stricken humanity sighing for good news. And the church has it!—In The Invincible Christ, p. 118.

Reprinted by permission from The Crushed Flower and Other Stories (copyright 1916 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., with renewal copyright 1944 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.), is this unusual short story by the Russian writer Leonid N. Andreev. Its moral is pointed: preoccupation with selfish concerns can close one’s mind to the sufferings and significance of the Savior’s death. During the revolution in 1917, Andreev bitterly opposed the Bolshevists, and was forced to leave Russia after losing all his possessions. He died in poverty in Finland.

- More from Leonid N. Andreev

Cover Story

Luther’s Doctrine of the Atonement

J. Theodore Mueller

In 1930 Professor Gustaf Aulen published his condensed Olaus Petri Lectures, first delivered at the University of Uppsala and then in Germany, on “The Three Chief Types of the Christian Atonement Concept” (Die drei Haupttypen des christlichen Versoehnungsgedanken, in Zeitschrift fur systematische Theologie, pp. 501–538). Ever since, the question has been asked whether the learned Swedish theologian has accurately and correctly presented the “three chief types of the Atonement,” and Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement in particular.

In many respects the modern Christian world owes Aulen, and the whole Lundensian, or Swedish, school of theology as well, a vote of thanks for reviving interest in the study of Christian doctrine, especially that of the Protestant Reformation. Through the investigations and publications of the Swedish school, the sola gratia of Wittenberg and Geneva has once more been made the object of careful study both in Europe and in America, so that this articulus fundamentalissimus of Christendom has had a new chance to assert itself over against the Pelagianism of modern Liberalism.

In English-speaking countries Aulen’s monograph on the three types of the Atonement has become favorably known through A. G. Herbert’s excellent translation, published under the title Christus Victor, which first appeared in England in 1931 and then again in an “American edition” in 1951.

Aulen’s Three Types

The three types of the Atonement that Aulen delineates not only in Christus Victor, but also in many of his other works, in particular in his Christian Dogmatics—known among English-speaking students as The Faith of the Christian Church (Muhlenberg Press, 1945)—are: the patristic, or “classical”; the Latin, or objective (Anselmic); the subjective, or humanistic (Abelardian).

According to Aulen, Martin Luther, following the New Testament and the Church Fathers, espoused the patristic, or “classical,” view. The central thought of this view is that the satisfaction, or Atonement, was made by God and not merely to God, and that it consisted primarily in Christ’s conquest of man’s spiritual enemies: Satan, sin, death and hell. In Christ Jesus, God has proved himself the triumphant Victor over these powerful enemies, from which sinful man was freed through the death of his incarnate Son.

Aulen admits that Luther uses certain typical phrases of the Latin, or Anselmic type, especially merit and satisfaction, though in a quite new and different sense. But the use of these terms, he contends, has led to confusion, in particular to the complete misapprehension that Luther’s teaching of the Atonement belongs to the Latin type (Christus Victor, American ed., pp. 101–122).

Aulen states, in criticizing the view of Anselm of Canterbury, pre-eminent champion of the Latin type of the Atonement, that Anselm, in presenting Christ’s Atonement in his work Cur Deus Homo, starts from the idea of penance, and not from that of agape, or divine love. He concedes that Anselm presents the Atonement, in a sense, as God’s work, since he is the sovereign Author of the plan of redemption. However, according to Aulen, Anselm holds that the actual offering of the satisfaction was made by Christ as man, or from man’s side. In Anselm’s view, therefore, the connection between the Incarnation and the Atonement is not nearly so plain as in the Church Fathers. On the other hand, the order of divine justice is rigidly maintained so that the doctrine becomes juridical (op. cit., pp. 81–100).

Aulen, moreover, asserts that although Luther consistently taught the patristic, or classical, view of the Atonement, his contemporaries and successors, from Melanchthon down to the Lutheran Confessions and the Lutheran dogmaticians of the seventeenth century, went back to the Latin, or Anselmic, type of the Atonement. Misunderstanding his great teacher and friend, Master Philip, in the controversy with Andrew Osiander on the question whether justification is a forensic or a medical act, i.e., whether God for Christ’s sake declares the believer righteous or makes him righteous by the infusion of his essential righteousness through the indwelling Christ, fixed the lines of the accepted Lutheran doctrine and returned to a thoroughly legalistic outlook.

The doctrine of the Atonement in Lutheran orthodoxy was thus dominated, according to Aulen, by the satisfaction of God’s justice. The Lutherans differed from Anselm in emphasizing also Christ’s active obedience, since as our Substitute he put himself under the Law and fulfilled all righteousness for us. Anselm, on the other hand, had centered Christ’s atoning work in his passive obedience, or in his vicarious, sacrificial death (ibid., pp. 123–142).

Humanist View Not Relevant

In this study we are not interested in the so-called subjective, or humanistic (Abelardian), view of the Atonement, of which Aulen states correctly that it was prepared by the Pietists and developed by the Enlightenment. From the latter, it was taken, by way of Schleiermacher, Ritschl and others, into the modern liberal view of the Atonement, though with more or less modification (ibid., pp. 133 ff.). Much more, of course, might be said of Aulen’s presentation of the so-called three chief types of the Atonement, but what has been said may serve as a brief overview of his theory.

Narrow Appraisal Of Luther

Our chief concern here is with Aulen’s description of Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement. As an informed student scrutinizes Aulen’s learned discussion of the subject, he will find himself confronted with a number of important questions. Aulen’s treatise will appear rather one-sided and biased. He evidently has selected certain emphases from which he elaborates his system of evaluating the various types of the Atonement. That is true, in the first place, with regard to Holy Scripture, in particular to the New Testament, which in its many statements on Christ’s redemptive work certainly teaches far more on the Atonement than what Aulen says it does. That is true also of Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement. The Wittenberg Reformer most assuredly speaks of Christ’s atoning work in terms of the Latin, or Anselmic, type; and he uses these terms in exactly the same sense as did the erudite scholar of Canterbury.

Then, too, Aulen scarcely envisions Anselm’s doctrine of the Atonement in its whole scope and purport. Here also he selects certain criteria which he depicts too narrowly, without taking into consideration the Anselmic viewpoints in their entirety.

Luther And The Biblical View

Again, Aulen has failed to observe that Luther never attempted to do what he himself does, namely, elaborate a scientific statement of the doctrine of the Atonement with nice distinctions and subtle analyses. Rather, Luther taught the doctrine as it is set forth in Scripture in plain expressions, which the people could well understand and which his opponents could not misunderstand. Indeed, at times Luther used rather crude illustrations with only one thought in mind, namely, to show that Christ is our true Sacrifice and Savior, in whom alone we have redemption and salvation. This method Luther pursued in his lectures, sermons, hymns, biblical expositions and learned treatises. He applied the divine truth as it best suited his special purpose, always trying to show his hearers and readers what Scripture, as the inspired Word of God, reveals to us.

From Anselm To Luther

Nevertheless, Luther does not contradict himself. He states triumphantly in his entire teaching that Christ, the God-man, as our Substitute overcame Satan, sin, death and hell; but that he did this by laying down his life as a ransom for our sins. Essentially, therefore, Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement does not differ from that of Anselm, though he treats it primarily from God’s love in Christ Jesus, so that his viewpoint is decidedly evangelical.

Benjamin B. Warfield certainly states the matter correctly when he says that “no one before Luther had spoken with the clarity, depth, or breadth which characterized his references to Christ as our deliverer from the guilt of sin, and then, because from the guilt of sin, also from all that is evil, since all that is evil springs from sin” (“Atonement,” in New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, Vol. I, p. 350, Funk and Wagnalls, New York, 1908).

Very apt also is the judgment of J. L. Neve on this point: “In criticism [of Aulen’s three types] it must be said that Aulen’s view tends to underrate the religious significance of the Anselmic doctrine of Christ’s work as an expiation for human guilt. He likewise seems to miss Luther’s true view. The Reformer did not one-sidedly follow the Greek fathers. His own teaching is a wholesome synthesis of the best that is contained in both the teachings of the patristic age and the Middle Ages (A History of Christian Thought, Vol. II, p. 186, Muhlenburg Press, Philadelphia, 1946).

In his articles on Anselm of Canterbury and the Atonement, referred to above, Dr. Warfield remarks incidentally that Anselm, by his presentation of the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ, has furnished essentially the church doctrine for all Christendom.

Up to the time of Anselm the doctrine of the Atonement had never been developed in any organized, or systematic, form. From Anselm, Luther later took the doctrine to fill it with a truly evangelical content. On this point Professor C. E. Luthardt writes truly: “Thus the chief thoughts of the Anselmic theory ever more and more, though with biblical modifications, became the general view of the Church … especially the concurrence of divine justice and grace, the satisfaction, and the vicarious bearing of punishment [Strafteiden].These form the substratum also of the [teaching of the] Church of the Reformation” (Kompendium der Dogmatik, 13. Auflage, p. 289 f., Verlag von Doerffling & Franke, Leipzig, 1933).

What has been said of the one-sidedness of Aulen’s treatment of the three chief types does not mean that he willfully tried to misrepresent the three views or that he failed to study the matter carefully. His is rather a scholar’s attempt at classifying teachings, in a scientific way, from a viewpoint that frequently proved too narrow.

Seeberg On Luther’S View

In his immortal work Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (A. Deichentsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig, 1933), Professor Reinhold Seeberg devotes the entire volume IV1 to the discussion of Luther’s doctrine (Die Lehre Luthers), and here he treats with great thoroughness Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement. The student of his Dogmengeschichte may, of course, not agree with Dr. Seeberg on every detail; but, on the whole, the learned author has conscientiously tried to present to his readers what the Wittenberg Reformer actually taught with regard to Christ’s atoning work. Seeberg’s presentation contains no attempt at Systembildung, since Luther himself, being an expositor of Scripture rather than a systematician in the modern sense, attempted no systematization of this or any other doctrine of the Christian faith.

Professor Seeberg treats the doctrine of the Atonement as presented by Luther, in the main, from the two aspects of satisfaction and reconciliation. That is to say, in summary, that Christ, as our divine-human Substitute, willingly rendered to God full satisfaction for our sins and that he made amends for our transgression of the divine Law by keeping it for us. By this work of satisfaction he secured an objective and universal reconciliation between the holy and righteous God and sinful and condemned man. God freely grants this perfect righteousness of Christ, the Savior of the world, to man through the means of grace, the Word and the sacraments, so that all who, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, believe and accept the divine consoling word of reconciliation (the Gospel) are reconciled to God, for they have received and are in possession of forgiveness of sins and life everlasting, not indeed by human merit but by God’s grace through faith in Christ.

This comforting Gospel teaching of Luther, as Seeberg shows, already appears from his explanation of the Second Article in his Small Catechism, where he says: “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, even as He is risen from the dead, lives, and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true” (Weimar ed., 30. 1, 296; Dogmengeschichte IV1, p. 237).

According to Luther, therefore, as Seeberg points out, Christ has become by his sacrificial satisfaction our Redeemer and Lord, our Priest and Mediator (W 33,101), our Atoner and Intercessor (W 46,94). Luther teaches not only that Christ reconciled the world to God (W 27,105; 29,578), but also that through Christ’s satisfaction God became reconciled to the sinful world (30. 1,9; 20,399). Christ’s redeeming work ended with his triumphant resurrection, which is the beginning of his gracious rule as the risen Lord among men (W 10.1. 1,135 ff.). His vicarious suffering and death were the sacrifice that was rendered to God for our reconciliation and remission of sins. By his resurrection he was exalted to the Session on the right hand of the Father and so through the Gospel to his victorious rule over his elect saints, for whom he makes constant intercession. The purpose of Christ’s redemptive work was to gather sinners into his kingdom of salvation and to renew and bless them through his Holy Spirit. But this purpose he could not have accomplished unless he had first appeased God’s wrath over sin and made satisfaction to God for our condemning transgressions.

In support of this summary statement of Luther’s doctrine of the Atonement, Seeberg quotes from Luther, among others, this following clear and comforting declaration of his faith:

But now God found for this evil [man’s sin] a counsel and he determined that He would send into the world Christ, His own Son, in order that He might shed His blood and die so that He might make satisfaction for [man’s] sin and remove it; and that then the Holy Spirit should enter the hearts [of men] to make those who unwillingly and under coercion did the works of the Law, such as are ready to keep the divine Law without any coercion out of a joyous heart.… Thus God has put away the sins of all men who believe in Christ so that henceforth it is impossible that those can continue in sin that have [accepted] this Savior, who has taken all sins upon Himself and wiped them out [W 12,544].

Satisfaction Necessary

Luther was an ardent defender of the sola gratia, and he continually inculcated in his hearers faith in God’s free and universal grace. Nevertheless, according to Luther, God’s free and forgiving grace presupposes that satisfaction had to be made (by Christ) for man’s sin. Remission of sin could not be granted free of charge, that is, without any satisfaction of God’s justice, or righteousness; for there is no room for divine mercy and grace to work over and in us … but first his righteousness had to be satisfied most perfectly (Matt. 5:18) (W 10.1. 1,121).

It was Luther’s conviction, anchored in Scripture, that God could not justify, or declare righteous, guilty man by any arbitrary imputation (of forgiveness); otherwise Christ’s vicarious suffering and death would have been unnecessary (W 10.1. 1,468 f.). He writes, for example: “If God’s wrath is to be removed from me, and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, it must be earned by payment [abverdienen] from Him, for God cannot be merciful and gracious over against sin nor can He remove [His] wrath and punishment, unless that has been paid for, or compensation has been made” (W 2,137; 12,544).

This payment, or satisfaction, Christ, in obedience to his Father and in loving service of lost mankind, has rendered to God by his suffering and death (W 1,270; 2,146,691). In willingly doing this, Christ purposed to redeem sinners for his kingdom and to exercise over them as their Lord his redeeming dominion of grace (W 2,97). Christ’s dominion embraces redemption, remission of sins, peace and righteousness (W 37,49; 30.1.1,90; 33,500; 46,44). He rules by the power of his Holy Spirit through the Gospel of the remission of sins (W 19,163).

Shield From God’S Wrath

Luther thus writes: “We should look upon Christ’s kingdom as a beautiful, large cloud, or as a cover which is drawn over us everywhere and veils and guards us against God’s wrath; indeed, as a large and wide heaven in which there shines nothing but grace and forgiveness, and so fills all things that, compared with it, all sins are but as a little drop compared with the large and wide ocean” (W 18,206; 36,367). This is a brief overview of Luther’s doctrine of Christ’s atoning work.

The Wittenberg Reformer never tired of stressing the thought that God’s grace and pardon had to be purchased, and that this was accomplished by what Christ did and suffered for us. He admits that God indeed could have helped lost and condemned mankind in another way had he so willed. But the fact is that God did not will another way (W 52,379). Luther, therefore, criticizes Ockham severely for speculating on the possibility of divine pardon without redemption, or atonement, for then Christ would have done His work “foolishly” and “unnecessarily” (W 10.1.1,468).

On this point Luther writes: “Now, however, He [Christ] took our place and for our sakes He permitted the Law, sin, and death to fall upon Himself” (W 36, 693). Again: “As a Priest He placed Himself between God the the sinners and offered Himself up to God as a sacrifice” (W 40.1, 298 f.). Or: “He has paid for our guilt and made amends for it so that we are rid of it” (W 47,113; 33,310). “In His tender, innocent heart He had to feel God’s wrath and judgment against sin. He had to taste for us eternal death and damnation; in short, He had to suffer what a condemned sinner deserves and has to suffer eternally” (W 45,240). “Let no man think of reconciling God … for God over against man is always the Justifier and Giver” (W 43,607). “God is reconciled through only one and a very unique offering, namely, Christ’s self-sacrifice in death in order that the wrath of God might be appeased and sin might be forgiven, after His wrath has been removed so that we may have grace and remission of sins” (W 8,442; 44,468). “Thus Christ has reconciled the Father for us and earned for us grace. To this we must hold, for He is our constant Mediator and Intercessor, who pledges His perfect holiness and His good conscience for us” (W 36,366).

Christ Our Substitute

In short, according to Luther, Christ is our Substitute. “He is a true sinner, who never committed any sin and yet became guilty of all of them” (W 27,109; 2,692). “But as Christ has freed us from God’s wrath, so also He has redeemed us from the power of the devil, sin, and death. The devil wrongly seized Christ, whose deity was concealed by His humanity, just as the fishhook is concealed by the worm. But the fishhook tore open Satan’s belly so that he had to throw up what he had swallowed” (W 46,556.560; 47,80; 40.1,417). To understand this somewhat crude illustration we must bear in mind Luther’s eager desire to render clear to the common man of his day, against the errors of the Roman Mass, Christ’s perfect redemption from sin, death and the devil. Luther himself stemmed from common stock, and it was in the main for Hans and Grete, representatives of the common people, that he expounded the Holy Scriptures.

Luther went beyond Anselm in teaching that Christ’s fulfillment of the divene Law was vicarious, or substitutionary. He often uses the expression that Christ has put himself under the Law for us, for which as proof he quotes Galatians 4:4,5 (“made under the law”). He found great comfort in the divine truth that Christ kept the Law for him, which he himself had transgressed. He writes, for example: “There stands the Man who has accomplished it! To Him I cleave, for He has fulfilled the Law for me and He graciously grants me His fulfillment” (Erlangen ed., 15,58). Despite his mercy, so Luther teaches, God nevertheless demands that satisfaction must be made for sin and his honor and justice be compensated. In his mercy he sent Christ who in our place procured that satisfaction for us (ibid., 15,385).

Such excerpts from Luther’s writings might be quoted endlessly, for Christ’s merit and satisfaction are central in his evangelical theology. Essentially, therefore, there is no difference between Luther and Anselm in their teaching of Christ’s atoning work. Both use the same terms emphasizing the propitiatory and objective character of the Atonement. Practically, the only real difference between Luther and Anselm is that the Wittenberg Reformer stressed also the active obedience of Christ, or his vicarious fulfillment of the divine Law, whereas Anselm centered his atoning work in his death on the cross. In this also Luther often centers his doctrine of the Atonement, for the vicarious propitiatory death of our Lord was the culmination of his willing obedience to his Father’s will. After all, according to Luther, there is only one atoning obedience of Christ, though it has two aspects, which after all are one: for us transgressors he kept the divine Law, which we had broken; for us transgressors he suffered and died to make satisfaction for our sins.

Such is Luther’s classic view of the Atonement. It is classic because it is scriptural. It may be summed up in the words: He died for us. That is what the Church Fathers believed; that is what Anselm believed; that is what Luther believed; that is what all true Christians believe. And that is what Aulen believes, if indeed he, as a Lutheran, accepts Luther’s Small Catechism; for that, and that only, is the faith of the Christian Church.

The Rev. J. Marcellus Kik, Associate Editor of Christianity Today, served as minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Reformed Church in America. He is author of Matthew Twenty-four, Revelation Twenty, and Voices from Heaven and Hell.

- More from J. Theodore Mueller

Cover Story

Offense of the Blood

J. Marcellus Kik

A preacher of prominence attended worship at a church known for its evangelical fervor. With evident distress and displeasure, he listened to a message on the atoning power of the blood of Christ. At the conclusion of the service the visitor said to the pastor, “My God is not the bloodthirsty God that you have pictured. My God is one of love and needs not to be appeased with blood. I have no respect for the God whom you worship.”

This remark, stated with deep feeling and sincerity, not only evidenced complete misunderstanding of the sense in which the evangelical preacher employed the term “blood” but also manifested an ignorance of the God revealed in Scripture. Knowledge of the Scriptures should have shown him that mere blood does not effect appeasement. The term was correctly used as defined by Christ, the apostles and the liturgies of the Church.

A similar misunderstanding was shown by some who followed Christ during his earthly ministry. Jesus startled listeners with the statement, “Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you” (John 6:53). Certain disciples understood this in a literal, carnal sense. They were offended even as the visiting preacher was offended at the preaching of the blood. They called it a hard saying and left Christ.

Jesus explained that literal drinking of his blood would not issue into eternal life. There must be a partaking of it in a spiritual way. He called attention to the fact that the Spirit quickeneth and that the words which he spoke are spirit and life (John 6:63). The flesh and blood represented the suffering and death of Jesus. To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to appropriate by faith the expiation wrought by the sufferings and death of Christ. That blood signified atonement Christ himself clearly indicates in the institution of the Lord’s Supper. He said, “Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28).

The eating of flesh and drinking of blood are employed in the sixth chapter of John interchangeably with believing. In verse 35, Christ declared that he was the bread of life, and those who came to him and believed on him would never hunger nor thirst. He concludes his teaching on that theme in verse 64 by saying, “But there are some of you that believe not.” Such belief involves, of course, the realization that Christ’s violent death on Calvary’s cross was as a substitute for the guilty sinner. The sinner partakes of that death by eating his flesh and drinking his blood in faith. When a man believes on Christ he partakes of the flesh and blood of Christ. It is not a gross, carnal eating and drinking but a spiritual partaking by faith that effects eternal life.

Apostolic Witness

Apostolic preaching and teaching place particular stress on the blood of Christ as significant for salvation. Paul writes, “And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself” (Col. 1:20). The blood of the cross effects reconciliation. Paul goes on to say that those who were alienated from God and enemies were reconciled in the body of Christ’s flesh through death and were thus presented to God holy, without blemish and unreprovable (Col. 1:21, 22). Thus the blood, which is a vivid symbol of Christ’s violent death on the cross, restores harmony between sinful man and the holy God. No one can doubt Paul’s clear statement that for him the blood accomplishes salvation for the believer.

The classic apostolic passage is 1 Peter 1:18, 19, “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold.… but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Peter calls attention to the paschal lamb that was slain for atonement of the sins of the Israelites. What the sacrificial lamb indicated to worshippers of the ancient Temple, the death of Christ indicated to believers within the Christian Church. To the Apostle the blood of Jesus Christ was exceedingly precious for it assured him of redemption.

The author of Hebrews, in the ninth chapter, portrays Christ as offering his blood in the presence of God in the heavenly tabernacle. Under the law the High Priest made such an offering with the blood of animals to make atonement for sinning Israelites. This analogy between the blood of Christ and the blood of animals does not oblige us to suppose that Christ, upon his ascension into heaven, literally sprinkled his own blood in the presence of God; but it gives us most assuredly to understand that his entrance into the heavenly Holy of Holies is attended with true effect corresponding to the earthly ministry of the High Priest. Blood sprinkled on the mercy seat of the Temple typified the blood of Christ presented to God in the heavenly Temple. Both signified atonement.

John uses blood in a metaphorical sense when he declares in the first chapter of his first Epistle that the blood of Jesus cleanseth us from all sin. Blood in a natural way would stain and defile. John also uses blood in a figurative way in the seventh chapter of Revelation where he points to the great multitude of those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. No one would suppose a literal washing in the blood of the Lamb. The important significance is that the death of Jesus, of which blood is the symbol, effectively removes the guilt of sin.

Blood stands for more than just the physical suffering and death of Christ. Isaiah in his classic fifty-third chapter indicates that the Servant’s soul was made an offering for sin and that his soul would be in travail for the justification of many (Isa. 53:10, 11). Gethsemane reveals that his soul was exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death (Matt. 26:38). In agony of soul his sweat became as it were great drops of blood (Luke 22:44). Those who limit the significance of the blood to physical suffering and death little realize the agony Christ endured nor the price paid for redemption.

The New Testament abounds with passages on the blood of Christ: “blood of the new covenant for remission of sin” (Matt. 26:28); “this cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20); “the church purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28); “propitiation through faith in his blood” (Rom. 3:25; “justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:9); “communion of the blood of Christ” (1 Cor. 10:16); “redemption through his blood” (Eph. 1:7); “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13); “washed us from our sins in his own blood” (Rev. 1:5); “redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Rev. 4:9); “overcame him by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 12:11).

Blood, the New Testament reveals, vividly symbolizes remission of sin, ransom, propitiation, justification, redemption, cleansing and victory. Blood brings to mind the expiatory sacrifices of the ancient Temple that were types of the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary’s cross. Blood witnesses to the violent death experienced by the Lord. Blood speaks of suffering of body and soul of the Redeemer. Blood testifies of life poured out in behalf of sinners, for life is in the blood (Lev. 17:14). The whole Bible witnesses that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb. 9:22).

Liturgies Of The Church

Central in the liturgy of every Christian church is the order for the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Scattered through such orders are scriptural statements: “Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us; unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood”; “for as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till he come”; “the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work”; “the cup of blessing which we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ.” These are but a few passages familiar to all who read the liturgy.

The very heart, however, of the Lord’s Supper is found in the words used as the elements are consecrated and distributed. Take, eat: this is my body which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. This speaks of death and the purpose of it. The central thought is the remembrance of the body broken for the believer. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. This speaks of the design of blood: the remission of sins.

An amazing contradiction is the preacher who abhors the preaching of the blood in the pulpit yet proclaims it in the Lord’s Supper. Though some try to make the primary purpose of the sacrament to be that of a display of Christian unity, yet the very heart of the communion order manifests the union of man with God in and through the broken body and shed blood of the Lord. The very action of eating the bread and drinking the wine declares the partaking (communion) of the broken body and shed blood. The true believer suffers death in Christ.

Beautifully phrased and rich in scriptural meaning is the prayer after communion in the liturgy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, “Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.” Also scripturally expressed is the prayer in the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Church, “most humbly beseeching Thee to grant, that, by the merits and death of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in His blood, we and thy whole Church may obtain forgiveness of our sins and all other benefits of His Passion.”

Gross misrepresentation of Scripture appears in the accusation that the blood of Christ is the means of inclining God to be conciliatory and merciful. Scripture does not teach this. Blood is not the cause but results from God’s love and mercy. Love provides the means by which the just and holy God can forgive the guilty sinner. “Herein is love,” states the apostle, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Paul echoes this truth when he writes that “God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Love precedes the shed blood. Love provided the sacrificial lamb.

Those who refuse to preach the blood of Christ deny the symbol which truly represents atonement, propitiation and redemption. They deny that which so vividly reveals the sufferings of the Lord. They remove the heart from the Lord’s Supper. They rob the church of eloquent witness of the love of God. Without blood what is the Gospel?

For a generation, since 1921, J. Theodore Mueller has served Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, as Professor of Systematic Theology and Exegesis. Although he nears his 72nd birthday, his teaching career is not yet over, and he continues on modified faculty service.

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