Page 6434 – Christianity Today (2024)

When Einstein propounded his theory of relativity, the average mind was confused and baffled by the formulae developed and by their implications. But there were physicists, and others, who stepped out on these hypotheses, proved them to be true and came up with practical discoveries which not only opened up the atomic age but an era of yet other amazing discoveries—discoveries of things God created, of laws he established and most important of all, the interrelation and relativity to be found in all the universe.

Are there not vistas of supernatural truths available for the Christian, truths which have tremendous bearing on our concept of God and his infinite power? And is not even the theological world blind to many of these revelations?

To begin with we need to appropriate the implications of God in relationship to time. For him time, as we understand its meaning, does not exist. Let us illustrate: God in his infinite wisdom and power (something which man cannot comprehend) sees all of eternity at once. Speaking in terms we humans can understand, God sees all of the past, all of the present and all of the future at exactly the same time. Once grasp this and many of our intellectual problems and difficulties cease to exist.

In the second place, let us grasp the fact that the power and act, or acts, of Creation were in the hands of Christ, the eternal Son of God. We are told that “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). How this was executed we do not know, but Genesis 1:1 and this statement must fit together for Paul writes to the Ephesian Christians, “… which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:9). Writing to the Colossian Christians Paul says, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”

There is probably deep significance in the words “visible and invisible” and we will be wise to consider how very little we know about His creation. Wonderful are the works of God.

The writer to the Hebrews corroborates these affirmations having to do with Christ as Creator in these words (1:1, 2): “God, … hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom he also made the worlds”; while the aged apostle, John, saw in his vision the four and twenty elders falling down before Him “which is and which was and which is to come,” and saying, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Rev 4:11).

Once grasp the fact that Christ was pre-existent with the Father, that it was he who created the world, that it was he who came back to redeem the world; and that it is he who will come again; then we have immediately taken the intellectual step, also a step of faith, which can dissolve our human problems relative to time ad eternity and Christ’s place in it.

Only by faith can we grasp the fact that with God a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day. In the same way we come to accept the paradoxes of Christianity; for instance, that a man may save his life and yet lose it or lose his life (by the standards of the world) only to find it.

For too long men have tried to rationalize the supernatural and in so doing have become ridiculous. When time merges into the eternity of which it is a part; when space as we know it merges into the new heaven and the new earth, how easy it is to believe that we shall see “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and to believe that, “the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (Rev. 21:2, 3).

No longer do we laugh at the Buck Rogers-type concept of outer space. No longer do we look with amusement on the scientific prognostications of tomorrow. We have now seen enough to know that all of these things and many more will eventuate before our eyes.

Why then do we attempt to rationalize or explain away the miraculous and supernatural in Christianity? Not only should we accept the manifestations of a supernatural God in his dealings with men, but we should cry out for forgiveness for ever having doubted him.

The passage of the body of our risen Lord through closed doors is a phenomenon to be accepted without question. His miraculous acts were perfectly natural and easy reflections of his eternally majestic personality.

Einstein propounded theoretical formulae which were demonstrated to be correct and in some cases scientists have looked back and marveled that they themselves had not thought of them, because, after confirmation they seemed so normal and right.

How much more should the Christian, by faith, grasp the eternal and unchanging verities which are given by divine revelation! The tragic fact is that some day, as we look back from the vantage point of eternity, many of us will realize what fools we have been. Accepting that which man can accomplish, and glorying in his achievements, many who now ignore the eternal Son of God will gnash their teeth that His truth was placed in their hands—AND THEY REJECTED IT.

Liberal theology, so aware of and subservient to modern scientific achievement, will have much to answer for wherever and however it has rejected the supernatural and the miraculous in the Christian faith. The apostle Peter, speaking of his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, and blending it with the glories of the future says: “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty … We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Pet. 1:16, 19).

Einstein jolted science and led it into new fields of discovery. We will be more than wise if we take the Holy Bible and study it to see what God has to say about the relativity of man to his God. We all need a jolt—a realization of the bewildering and awe-inspiring fact that the God with whom we have to do is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.

The three disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration were bewildered and frightened by that which they saw and heard—supernatural manifestations of men long since dead, and they were moved to accord to them some form of equality with the transfigured Christ.

At that instant there came a voice from heaven saying: “This is my beloved Son … hear ye HIM.”

Nineteen centuries ago the apostle Peter, a rough, unlearned fisherman with a gloriously transforming experience with the living Christ, wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:10–12).

Einstein advanced a revolutionary hypothesis which science tested and acted upon with amazing results. Has not God opened up to us vistas of the lost dimension of man and God and eternity? Omitting the spiritual implications of Peter’s prophecy, it could well have been made in Los Alamos, or Oak Ridge—certainly the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced its devastating reality on a limited scale.

In all of the bewildering achievements of science and the discoveries of laws and factors hitherto unsuspected, we must keep our perspectives straight. Some day we will see with our eyes, hear with our ears and experience in reality things but dimly revealed at the present time. Our constant attitude should be: WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE, and—we have many glimpses of this at hand in Holy Writ. Einstein was a scientific genius. The humblest Christian can become a Spirit-directed power if he will but accept the wisdom which cometh down from above.

L. NELSON BELL

The New England Revival, 1734

During the last quarter of the 17th century, the church in New England was characterized by a laxity of doctrine and conduct that belied its earlier profession. Whereas only a few years earlier, in 1648, the Congregational Platform had insisted upon a public profession and evidence of conversion as conditions essential for participation in the Lord’s Supper, this requirement no longer prevailed. By 1662, the adoption of what was called a “Half-Way Covenant” repudiated this reasonable requirement and wrought havoc among New England Congregational churches. That covenant permitted children of unregenerate parents to be admitted to baptism and church membership without admission to the Lord’s Supper and without participation in church elections. They were therefore members not in “full communion” but under a Half-Way Covenant (Newman, A Manual of Church History, II, pp. 668–678; Sweet, Religion in Colonial America, p. 106; and Walker, The Congregationalists, p. 172).

As that Covenant gained acceptance, the number of church members not in full communion, making no profession of faith nor satisfactory evidence of conversion, increased. In general, churches became more and more lax until baptism was extended to children of notoriously irreligious and immoral persons. Some churches went so far as to admit to full membership and the Lord’s Supper all parents who were willing to have their children baptised.

From this position, the distance to heresy was short. About 1700, Solomon Stoddard, pastor at Northampton, Massachusetts, expressed the view that “the Lord’s Supper was instituted to be a means of regeneration” and therefore urged all, without discrimination, to partake of it. In time, any distinction between saint and sinner, the church and the world, almost disappeared (Newman, op. cit., p. 670).

Long before the end of the 17th century, however, the secularization of most Congregational churches was nearly complete. By the 18th century, immorality and irreligion was prevalent, so much so that Increase Mather asserted gloomily, “Prayer is necessary on this account that conversions have come to a stand … clear, sound conversions are not frequent in our congregation.… Many are profane, drunkards, lascivious, scoffers at the power of godliness, and disobedient.” Later he exclaimed, “Ah, degenerate New England! What art thou come to at this day? How are those sins become common that were once not even heard of?” Deep, personal religious experiences were not only scarce, but regarded as evidences of fanaticism. Preaching had become dull and lifeless, and church members lived in a state of “carnal security.” By 1733 Socinianized Arminianism and deistic thought, imported from England, had invaded the colonies (Belcher, George Whitefield, pp. 148–149, and Newman, op. cit., p. 643).

While Freylinghuysen and his Presbyterian associates were busy promoting the revival in central New Jersey, stirrings were beginning elsewhere. In 1727, a year after Gilbert Tennent became pastor at New Brunswick, 24-year-old Jonathan Edwards was ordained and installed as assistant to his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, at Northampton. For 60 years Stoddard had preached there, and during that time, the little community of 200 families was blest with five awakenings.

“The time,” said Morgan Edwards, “was one of extraordinary dullness in religion. Licentiousness prevailed among the young people, who were addicted to night-walking, the frequenting of taverns, lewd practices, and frolics which continued almost all night.” Such a state of affairs was an opportunity to any young theologian, and Edwards seized it. He instructed the young people of his church to meet in various parts of the town on the evenings of lecture days and spend time in prayer and other duties of social religion. His success in guiding them proved so remarkable that the adults were soon following their examples (Sweet, op. cit., p. 283).

Stirring Of Spirit

Taking advantage of the awakened religious interest among the people of his town, Jonathan Edwards, in December of 1734, inaugurated a series of sermons on justification by faith. He denied the efficacy of good works on the part of the unconverted for any claim upon God’s grace or hope of salvation. Before many weeks had passed, “the minds of the people,” he wrote, “were wonderfully taken off from the world; the noise among the dry bones waxed louder and louder; and all other talk but about spiritual and eternal things was soon thrown by.” By the summer of 1735, “the town seemed to be full of the presence of God; it was never so full of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress as it was then” (Newman, op. cit., p. 674, and Sweet, The Story of Religion in America, p. 130).

Sinners Flee God’S Wrath

The preaching of Jonathan Edwards to the unconverted was without parallel. In his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” one of the most celebrated sermons ever preached in America, he said, “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as anyone holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath toward you burns like fire.” From Northampton the rivival spread to other communities with Edwards frequently doing the preaching. Other ministers, some previously unconverted, joined in the work of evangelism.

As Frelinghuysen and the Log College Presbyterians prepared the way for George Whitefield in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, so Jonathan Edwards and the Northampton revival also opened up his way in New England. In September of 1740, Whitefield arrived at Newport, Rhode Island and went on to Boston, preaching at various places on the way. Churches were crowded, and on the Boston Common he preached to crowds of as many as 15,000. Thereafter, preaching sometimes twice a day, he traveled on to Salem, Ipswich, Newbury, Portsmouth, and York, Maine. Returning to Boston he preached his farewell sermon, delivered on the Common and was heard by a throng estimated at 20,000 to 30,000.

Whitefield next visited Northampton and after meeting Jonathan Edwards there, pronounced him to be “a solid, excellent Christian.… I think I may say I have not seen his fellow in all New England” (Belcher, op. cit., pp. 180–181).

Evidences Of Revival

From Northampton he toured through Connecticut. Throughout New England he preached the doctrines of salvation by grace through faith and the inner, personal experience of a man’s heart with Christ. His audiences, deeply stirred by his impassioned eloquence, were often moved to tears, many crying aloud for God’s mercy, hundreds being converted, and multitudes of church members being revived.

Whitefield’s preaching stimulated revivalist ministers to vigorous activity. Jonathan Edwards, Eleazor Wheelock, Joseph Bellamy, and others became itinerant evangelists and made tours similar to those of Whitefield. Under all of their preaching, falling exercises, fainting, hysteria, and weeping were common. In July, 1741, at Enfield, Connecticut, Edwards chose as his text, “Their Foot Shall Slide in Due Time” (Deut. 32:35). When he reached the climax of his sermon, “there was such a breathing of distress, and weeping, that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence that he might be heard.” Some unconsciously seized the sides of the pews and pillars as though they felt themselves slipping into hell.

Regenerate Church Additions

From 1740 to 1742 the people that were added to the churches of New England numbered between 25,000 and 50,000 out of a total population of 300,000. Concerning the effect of the revival, Jonathan Edwards said in 1743, “I suppose the town (Northampton) has never been in no measure so free from vice—for any long time together—for these 60 years, as it has this nine years past.” It must be recorded, however, that within four years interest in the revival, even in Northampton, had waned, and Edwards could not but admit that the church, with no new members in that length of time, was dead (Sweet, op. cit., p. 135).

Yet despite this decline, much good came of the movement. It reached into the middle colonies where conversions equaled in number those in New England About 150 new Congregational churches were formed, along with scores of Presbyterian churches in Delaware and New Jersey, and a redoubling of the number of Presbyterian ministers. Baptist churches multiplied, and their work was revitalized. Conversions once again became a requirement for church membership, and vital personal godliness was emphasized as never before. In its final results, ministerial education moved forward, as well as missionary work among the Indians, and the “Half-Way Covenant” was finally and thoroughly discredited.

WE QUOTE:

NATHAN M. PUSEY

President, Harvard University

Your college hopes that among all the untrammelled study you have done here, from your activity outside the classroom, in association with your friends, perhaps in part from experience in this or some other church—that in one way or another Harvard has helped you to find a meaning and a center for your life. If you have found this outside religion, so long as you have found it for yourself, there can be no fault in that. Agnosticism can be an honest and, at least in the face of false gods, an entirely healthy state of mind. But the experience of many seems to indicate that it is not one in which one can long dwell, for trust we must in someone or something, surely, for our spiritual and mental health, not merely in ourselves. The final answer must, we hope, be God.

At the end of your four years in college we come together in a service of thanksgiving as graduating classes have been doing at Harvard for more than three centuries. Secularization, like cultural variety, has had the effect of making worship increasingly difficult for us. But it has not in my judgment made it irrelevant. Indeed, it would seem to me to be a very superficial intellectual credo which would imply that the questions of religion can be ignored in or out of college. For this reason it is my very sincere wish, and my prayer, that with all the other goods which it is to be hoped Harvard has given you she will not have failed you at this most crucial point.—In an address to the senior class of Harvard University, June 8, 1958.

Donald M. C. Englert

Professor of Old Testament, Lancaster Theological Seminary

Barth is now 72, and would have retired at the usual age except for the fact that his name draws foreign theological students to Basel.… When a difference of opinion arises, the student is invited to his home for tea, where the class time will not be taken by the arguments back and forth.… There … we got on the question of a Christian’s relationship to those who differed from him: to Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and Jews. I told him that in Lancaster we have an active chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, that a rabbi has spoken in our classrooms and Chapel on several occasions, that several ministers in town (myself included) preached in the Conservative synagogue, that several Seminary professors have preached in the Unitarian Church and that on each Thanksgiving Day a union service is held, shared by the congregations of St. Peter’s (United Church of Christ), the Unitarian Church, and the Reform synagogue. The great theologian was horrified by all this; he was extremely upset and called us “religious indifferentists”; he felt that because of our “outgoing” lines of communication to other faiths and cultures we must be especially careful not to dilute thereby the full flavor of the Christian witness.”—In an article, “Theologians I Met in Switzerland,” in Theology and Life, Vol. I, No. 2 (May, 1958), pp. 103 f.

Preacher In The Red

A WHALE OF A SLIP

Last year I preached on Old Testament texts. One Sunday I took for my subject the story of Jonah. My sermon topic read: “The Lord’s Call To Service.” In the first part of the sermon I pointed out how Jonah defied God’s call to go to Nineveh, and in the second part I showed how Jonah obeyed the call.

Going back to the first part of the sermon, I tried to become somewhat dramatic. I was heard to say: “There was Jonah in the welly of the bale.” I just felt that I had said something wrong so in the split second one has at his disposal in such situations, I quickly decided to correct myself. Only this time I made it worse. I said: “There was Jonah in a whale of a belly.”—REV. WALTER LUEBKEMAN, Hayward, Calif.

This is the second of two articles on Colonial awakenings in America by Raymond W. Settle, a student of frontier religion.

The Church of Jesus Christ demands the highest qualified leadership a man can give. Any minister of the Gospel will surely bear this in mind. The weaknesses and errors that have been displayed in the careless service of men of God occur only too frequently, and are rightfully exposed.

On the other hand, 30 years of observation and experience as a pastor, newspaperman, and educator have led me to view with some alarm the mounting demands which our church members make today on religious leaders. I speak here of the unjustified, ill-spirited criticism which people often thrust at their ministers. Where errors, wrongs, and failings are in evidence, of course, no leader has a right to expect to be immune from proper rebuke. But at the same time, there seems to be no activity doing more to hamper the work of the Church as a whole than this unquestionably intemperate, unloving attitude prevailing in churches and in their circles of acquaintanceship.

One reason for this, I believe, is the high-pressured pace of our times: we are all rushing around in a complex social situation. We tend to demand quicker and better execution of plans and to grow impatient with one who is slow and inefficient.

Another reason, I feel, lies in the fact that the activities of the church have grown so rapidly and cover so wide an area that a heavier than reasonable load is likely to be imposed upon all workers.

Realism Is Needed

This very growth of interests in our modern communities is a phenomenon which many a church has not as yet recognized in terms of adequate pastoral leadership. The average layman, it may well be said, has a seriously inadequate understanding of the demands made upon a parish minister’s time or that of an educational worker or youth leader. He is likely to be thinking of what pastors did in churches years ago. It is for this reason that the layman should revise his expectations of his pastor and be more realistic in what he believes the pastor ought to do. To begin with, church organizations would do well to keep members up-to-date on what their pastor has to do and how he does it. They ought to provide ways by which parishioners may be informed on all matters where misunderstandings are most likely to occur. Some churches publish a week in advance the pastor’s engagements and major calling schedule. Others make frequent verbal announcements of these activities.

One of the most important things a layman must realize is that the amount of work one man can do in one day is limited. He must adopt a fairer view of the pastor’s calling, and recognize that it is simply impossible for him to make the rounds of general calling as frequently as he did a few years ago. Calling ought to be purposive and linked with a definite spiritual objective. To keep a pastor harnessed to an unrelenting round of perfunctory visits, just because some demanding people insist on seeing him often, is manifestly unjust. This is most likely to take time which a pastor should devote to emergencies, sickness, and trouble.

Regardless of the merits of any of these proposals, what does the greatest damage is the unloving spirit with which many of these criticisms are made. People start rumors about neglect of calling, failure to do this or that, or some statement is made before any ascertaining of the actual facts. People will so often pass along gossipy information which hurts and which is entirely unjustified. If some word is said or hasty action taken, they quickly put the worst possible construction upon it. And they further allow groups, factions and subsurface loyalties to form which may cause mischief.

Our church people should soberly rethink their church conduct before they embark upon a policy of divisiveness, prejudice, dislike, and hostility. They should speak the truth in love, and they should learn to love their brother.

In my own experience there have been literally scores of people turned from the organized churches—even while loving their Lord and believing deeply in the Christian faith—because of the hypocrisy, the barrage of criticism, and the attitude of contention and strife on the part of members. Many have grown disgusted with the suspicion, prejudices, rivalries, and narrow policies in many of these churches, and have felt that there is nothing which they can gain by staying with them.

We must reckon with such actions. We may not believe them wise or justified. But this is the way many people are reacting today.

At one time it was the exclusiveness and class consciousness of churches that drove out many of the laborers and those of economically lower status. Now some of the actions in many churches are driving away the thinking people, those who are interested in progressive living and an educated response to life.

Sharing The Burdens

In addition, it must be recognized that the hopeless amount of work and burdens being placed upon pastors are driving many of them away from the parish ministry. Many of these are truly twice-born and consecrated men. We cannot attribute all this to loss of faith or poor witness or lack of consecration. A pastor reasonably gets tired of being harried and pressured to do what he cannot possibly do—and then be criticized unthinkingly by those who have no regard for the truth, for personal feelings or for the cause of the Church. He also may well tire of being expected, for a very modest salary, to be an expert in unrelated fields and be on call for many unreasonable, unnecessary services. Yet even all this he would bear more cheerfully if these burdens and duties were imposed upon him with loving consideration and a sharing of Christian concern.

Our beautiful buildings, our trained staffs, our broad programs, our consecrated witnessing—all of these will not avail if we destroy them with a spirit of criticism and contention.

All my life I have wondered why the churches I knew or served had people who seemed to live by criticism, and who seemed to be never so morally alert as when they felt obliged to speak against someone, regardless of whether the issue in question was sufficiently investigated.

My answer to the demands of the layman would be to ask him to make his requests in terms of love and sharing and understanding. He will be surprised how much more evident the Holy Spirit and his works are, and how much better a servant of Jesus Christ his pastor may prove to be.

Richard K. Morton is Dean of the Evening College and Chaplain of Jacksonville University, Florida. His plea for Christian understanding by the laity stems from “lifelong concern for the Church—as pastor’s son, pastor, religious worker and educator.” The Church’s witness, he writes, is impaired by criticism.

The objective of this limited discussion is to provide a brief definitive study of dispensationalism, to analyze its interpretative principles and schools of thought, and relate it as such to premillennialism. Obviously a defense of the doctrine cannot be undertaken here.

In the last decade, dispensationalism has attracted increasing attention as a major factor in theological interpretation. Though the distinctives of its system are not new, the contemporary theological scene seems to call for discussion of them. Most of the comment has been critical. Liberals have opposed dispensationalism because it is fundamentalist in approach. Amillenarians attack it because it is premillennial. Some premillenarians, under criticism anyway, have sought to escape opposition by disavowing dispensationalism.

Dispensationalists themselves, embarrassed by extremists in their ranks, have had difficulty clarifying the situation. Unfortunately, the critical literature produced has sought in too many cases to win an argument rather than present an objective study. The result is one of the most confusing spectacles found in contemporary theology.

Definitions

Premillennialism is generally recognized as the proper name for that system of biblical interpretation which places the second advent of Christ as preceding and introducing his future reign on earth for one thousand years. The relation of dispensationalism to premillennialism, however, is an area of some disagreement. A normative definition generally accepted by dispensationalists is that furnished by C. I. Scofield in the Scofield Reference edition of the Bible: “A dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect of obedience to some specific revelation of the will of God” (p. 5).

As used in Scripture, the word dispensation is a translation of the noun oikonomia and is found in the following passages: Luke 16:2–4; 1 Corinthians 9:17; Ephesians 1:10; 3:2, 9; Colossians 1:2, 25; and 1 Timothy 1:4. It is variously translated dispensation or stewardship. The verb form oikonomeo is found in Luke 16:2 and the noun form referring to a person, oikonomos, is found in Luke 12:42; 16:1, 3, 8; Romans 16:23; 1 Corinthians 4:1, 2; Galatians 4:2; Titus 1:7; and 1 Peter 4:10. In most of these instances it is translated steward. In its biblical usage, the concept is not explicitly a time period and for this reason the Scofield definition has been questioned.

Objections to the definition of a dispensation as a time period are based on partial truth. The time element is a consequence rather than an explicit meaning of the word. Webster’s New International Dictionary defines dispensation as “a system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; schemes; economy; as the patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.” As the definition indicates, a dispensation is not a time period, but is in the nature of a stewardship, the responsibility involved has a beginning in time and an ending in time and the period between is the period of stewardship. The Winston Dictionary defines dispensation in its theological meaning as “a system of principles and rules ascribed to divine inspiration in operation during a specific period.”

Though its biblical use embodies principally the idea of stewardship, theologians for generations have been using the word dispensation as a time period even though it is not a dispensation in the modern sense. The definition of dispensation as a time period in which a specific stewardship obtains is by no means a recent development (Cf. John Edwards, A Compleat Survey of all the Dispensations, 790 pp., published 1699). All theologians have some sort of a dispensational division if no more than to divide the Old and New Testaments. The principles involved in such divisions and their significance have caused the rise of modern dispensationalism in the post-Reformation period.

The principles involved in dispensationalism are as old as the history of biblical interpretation. Of these the most important is literal interpretation of prophecy which is, rightly considered, the guiding principle of dispensational premillennialism. Unlike Augustine who advocated a separate hermeneutics for prophetic interpretation, namely, the spiritual or figurative method, dispensationalists follow the more literal interpretation. The charge that dispensationalism demands that all Scripture be interpreted literally is false, however. All schools of interpretation necessarily regard some Scripture as not subject to literal interpretation. Premillennial dispensationalism, however, follows the principle that prophecy is not a special case and is to be treated like other forms of Scripture revelation, that is, that the literal interpretation should be followed unless the context indicates otherwise.

The second major principle is derived from the definition of dispensationalism itself. A dispensation is considered a divinely-given stewardship based on a particular rule of life revealed in the progressive unfolding of divine truth in Scripture. Each new major deposit of truth had its own demand for faith and obedience. Generally speaking, a dispensation is created by the revelation of a major system of truth sufficient to constitute a new rule of life and is often marked off from the preceding period by some spiritual crisis in the history of God’s people. Dispensationalism does not deny that revealed truth is cumulative and that new revelation is obviously built upon the old even though to some extent it replaces a former situation.

The third principle in dispensationalism is the time element. As indicated in the definition, a dispensation is, strictly speaking, a divine deposit of truth, not an age in itself. A stewardship by its nature, however, has a beginning and ending with the idea of a dispensation as an age coming into view. Hence, most theologians refer to a dispensation as a time period, even if they do not accept some dispensational distinctions.

The fourth principle is that a dispensation is specifically a rule of life, rather than a way of salvation. The frequent charge that dispensationalists teach more than one way of salvation is not sustained by their literature and is actually foreign to the true system. Though dispensationalists find faith manifested in obedience to a particular divine revelation in every dispensation, the way of salvation is always faith, the principle of salvation is always grace, and the ground of salvation is always the death of Christ, even if imperfectly understood prior to the full revelation in the New Testament.

A wide divergence of belief is found within the general designation of dispensationalism. This has frequently tended to confuse the issue as opponents of dispensationalism have resorted to citation of the most extreme statements they could find instead of trying to discover the normative position. In general, four attitudes exist in relation to dispensationalism:

Nondispensational view. This includes all points of view which oppose dispensationalism by emphasizing a central divine plan and purpose for human history as excluding any division into dispensations. This unity of purpose is usually supplied by making the salvation of the elect the central purpose of God, and if dispensations are included at all, they are regarded as successive phases of this one plan. Nondispensationalists usually regard Israel and the Church essentially as one, and kingdom truth is considered to be soteriological, or related to salvation, rather than culminating in an earthly political kingdom such as is normal in premillennialism.

Normative dispensationalism. Within this classification, the great majority of dispensationalists are properly placed. Characteristic of this school of thought is the view as illustrated in Scofield that there are seven dispensations revealed in Scripture: innocence, conscience, human government, promise, law, grace, and millennial kingdom. Each of these dispensations constituted a test of faith and obedience according to the rule of life provided, and under each dispensation man fails and is saved only by divine grace. This school of thought does not dispense with grace.

Major Dispensations

Some variations exists in the statement of these seven dispensations, but it is generally agreed that three major dispensations are the subject of extensive revelation in the Bible, namely, the dispensation of the law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the millennial kingdom. The law began with Moses and was the rule of life for Israel from Moses to the Church. The dispensation of grace, or the church period, was introduced by Christ, began at Pentecost, and will close with the translation of the Church. The millennium will begin with the second advent of Christ and the judgment of the world and will conclude with the creation of the eternal state. While dispensationalists regard the major dispensations as bound together by many common doctrines, such as the way of salvation, doctrine of God, and inspiration of Scripture, dispensationalism necessarily insists that as rules of life the three major dispensations differ extensively with each other and that each replaces the former dispensation.

Bullingerism. Numerically small but quiet vocal are those who go beyond the Scofield system. Most extreme is the position of E. W. Bullinger who found two dispensations within the church period, the first being the period of the Jewish church extending through Acts 28 and the second being the dispensation of the Gentile church as the body of Christ beginning after Acts. He rejected both water baptism and the Lord’s Supper. True followers of Bullinger, however, are almost extinct and practically all dispensationalists today deny that they are followers of his position.

Church as exclusively Pauline. Less extreme than the view of Bullinger, but considered ultradispensational by followers of Scofield, is the view of dispensationalism expressed by the Grace Gospel Fellowship and defined in the volume by Cornelius R. Stam, The Fundamentals of Dispensationalism. The key to their system is the belief that the truth of the Church as the body of Christ is exclusively taught in the epistles of Paul and that therefore the Church could not begin until Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 or later. In contrast to Bullinger who rejected both the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper and water baptism, the more moderate position excludes only water baptism which they regard as a Jewish rite not intended for the church today. The great majority of dispensationalists, however, consider this as an extreme view and insist that the Church as both the body and bride of Christ began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost when 3000 souls were saved.

Relation To Premillennialism

Contrast between Israel and the Church. As related to premillennial interpretation, normative dispensationalism tends to emphasize certain important distinctives. One of the most significant is the contrast provided between God’s program for Israel and God’s present program for the church. The church composed of Jew and Gentile is considered a separate program of God which does not advance nor fulfill any of the promises given to Israel. The present age is regarded as a period in which Israel is temporarily set aside as to its national program. When the Church is translated however, Israel’s program will then proceed to its consummation. Though dispensationaists have tended to contrast Israel and the church, it is false that they alone make this distinction, as is frequently alleged. Postmillenarians like Charles Hodge and amillenarians like William Hendriksen, though not dispensationalists, also believe that Israel has special promises that belong only to those who are in the racial seed of Jacob, and do not equate Israel and the Church.

The offer of the kingdom at the first advent. Dispensationalists usually consider that Christ at his first coming offered himself to Israel as their Messiah and King. His subsequent crucifixion was the occasion of their rejection of him. The hypothetical question as to what would have eventuated if Israel had accepted Christ as their king has led to the charge, which is entirely unjustified, that dispensational teaching tends to minimize the cross or declare it unnecessary.

Pretribulation rapture. The tendency to contrast Israel and the Church and to interpret prophecy literally has led most dispensationalists to accept a pretribulational rapture of the Church. Their point of view is that predictions of a future time of tribulation in both the Old and New Testaments are related to the divine program for Israel and for Gentiles, but that the Church is never explicitly in view. Though this relationship of dispensationalism to pretribulationism is indirect, it is significant that posttribulationists are seldom dispensationalists.

Reign On Earth

Literal earthly millennium. Dispensational premillennialism tends to emphasize the governmental and political character of the millennium itself. Christ will reign on the throne of David on earth over restored Israel as well as the Gentile world. Spiritual qualities such as righteousness and peace, spiritual power, and the visible glory of God will be evident. It will fulfill literally the glowing expectation of Old Testament prophets for a kingdom of God on earth embracing all nations. Satan will be bound and inactive. The curse upon the earth will be lifted and the desert will blossom. All will know the Lord from the least to the greatest. This final dispensation before the creation of the new heavens and new earth will in many respects be climactic in blessing and a demonstration of divine sovereignty and glory. Christ’s reign on earth will gloriously fulfill Old Testament prophecy.

Agree With Other Conservatives

On all major doctrines of Scripture, dispensationalists are in hearty agreement with other conservatives. Their distinctive doctrines result from the attempt to interpret prophecy with the same literal method as is used for other Scripture. This leads to sharper contrasts between the dispensation of law, the present dispensation of grace, and the future dispensation of the millennial kingdom following the second advent. Separate prophetic programs are traced in Scripture for Israel, for the Church, and for the Gentiles. These distinctives, however, are balanced by agreement that many unifying factors bind all dispensations together. The unity of Scripture is strongly maintained by those who hold the dispensational viewpoint.

Dispensationalists do not deny the unity of the divine plan of salvation as progressively revealed in Scripture and do not teach two ways of salvation. Every dispensation as a rule of life reveals failure on the part of man, but at the same time Scripture reaffirms unfailing faithfulness and grace on the part of God. Dispensationalism is a matter of degree. Lewis Sperry Chafer was wont to say: “Anyone is a dispensationalist who no longer offers lambs on brazen altars or who does not observe Saturday as the day of rest.” Modern usage indicates a more restricted meaning, but dispensationalism deserves more objective treatment, more normative definition than has characterized most contemporary discussion.

John F. Walvoord is President of Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He holds the A.B. degree from Wheaton College, A.M. from Texas Christian University, Th.B., Th.M. and Th.D. from the Seminary he now serves. His published works include The Return of the Lord and The Rapture Question. In this series of articles on “The Christian Hope and the Millennium,” he represents the premillennial dispensational viewpoint. Articles from other points of view are as follow.

On an outdoor bulletin board there appeared this sermon title: “Christ’s Chief Competitor.” Immediately below that title was the name of the minister. It appeared that inadvertently and unconsciously he was telling the community he was the competitor.

It is a serious problem today that too many of our sermons are Christless. They actually make competitors for Christ, leaving the man in the pew looking to the pulpit saying, “Sir, we would see Jesus.”

In the town in which I live, we have a weekly TV panel of ministers called “Pastors Face Your Questions.” Recently the panel received the following intelligent and disturbed letter:

As a member of one of Charlotte’s finest, largest, and richest churches, I am perfectly willing to uphold the dignity of so fine an edifice and an institution by going along with all of the preliminaries of the service on Sunday if, when we get down to the purpose of my being there, my minister would give me something to, shall I say, feed my soul, encourage that which is good in me and send me away with the assurance that God still cares and will look after me during the next week. Instead of this, he philosophizes, expresses himself in such lofty terms and grandiose manner that for the life of me, I cannot grasp his point nor appreciate his efforts. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it wouldn’t be dignified or proper to just read God’s word from the Bible and tell me in good plain English what is going to become of me in the end if I don’t live by that word. Maybe I’m wrong in my thinking that one should be able to take home the meat of the sermon, mull over it, discuss it with one’s family over the dinner table. Maybe things have changed and no one has told me.

And so my question to you pastors is: Should Jesus Christ stand in your pulpit next Sunday and preach to your congregation, do you think he would preach your type of sermon?

This is no isolated case. This is not an instance of only one man in one city crying out for Christ-centered preaching. It is not a problem only in our day; it has been a problem throughout centuries. Preachers have always yielded to the temptation of preaching their own gospel instead of Christ’s. It is said that one Sunday Louis XVI heard a sermon full of politics and government. As he left the church, he said to the abbé: “It is a pity that you did not touch on religion. Then you would have told us something about everything.”

Not long ago, the churches of a certain denomination held daily Lenten noon services, and we ministers were urged to come and hear the leading preachers of that denomination. Desiring some good preaching and feeling the need for spiritual food, I went to hear three: two were bishops and one was a seminary professor.

One bishop preached on the subject, “What Do You Want?” He began by saying that people have many desires. The first point was, what we desire may not be what is good for us. Second, what we desire may not be what we need. There was no text. And Christ was barely mentioned. It was not a sermon; it was a moral discourse. I went away disillusioned for having received a stone when I had come for bread.

The professor preached on the text, “Whom do ye say that I am?” My hopes rose. Now, I would hear a Christ-centered sermon. His introduction dealt with the fact that people have various conceptions of Christ. Point one: Christ was at all times a gentleman; two: Christ was a man of courage. Nothing was said about Christ as the Son of God or Redeemer. He was just a courageous gentleman. I suppose a Jew, Unitarian, or a Mohammedan would be willing to say as much.

The third prominent clergyman spoke on the conscience. His first question was, whether conscience was the voice of God or one’s environment. His answer: it was both. The second part of his sermon was answering the question, what should we do about our conscience? His answer: recognize its voice, educate it, and obey it. For the third time Christ was left out. I had had enough; I did not go back to hear the remaining men publicized as among the best preachers of that denomination.

Instead of answering the letter on the program, the TV panelists decided that each would answer next Sunday with a sermon on “What Would Jesus Say if He Were Preaching Here Today?”

According to a news report, the Episcopalian said that if Jesus was standing in his pulpit that morning, he would give the Beatitudes. The Baptist said that Jesus would speak clearly, but uncomfortably, about the vices of the day. The Methodist declared that Jesus would urge members of the congregation to forgive each other. The Presbyterian minister would have Jesus preach three points: judgment, love, and joy.

We sadly note here that these ministers would have Jesus Christ giving “Christless preaching.” The ethics of Jesus was one-sidedly applied to personal and social needs and problems. But what is most subtle is the impression that Jesus would only speak from the pulpit the one Sunday that he was allowed. Is not Jesus to speak every Sunday? Should not each Sunday’s sermons be centered in and saturated with his truth? What does it mean to preach Christ Sunday after Sunday? First, it means that Christ should be lifted up that the congregation may see him. People would hear his words, see his deeds once again, and sense his spirit.

To preach Christ means to keep the cross in the center of our preaching. Jesus is much more than a man or a martyr; he is not a mere teacher of principles or a moral guide. It is his atoning death that is significant: he died for our sins; by and in him we have redemption; and through him God and man were made one. In each sermon there ought to be enough of the cross that a stranger in church for the first time would find the answer to the question: “What must I do to be saved?” Paul said, “We preach Christ crucified.”

In preaching Christ Sunday after Sunday there is a danger that we give the impression Jesus was merely an historical figure among many. He once lived and died on a cross. We neglect the resurrection except for Easter, and even then we use the occasion for assuring people of pagan ideas of immortality. But why is not the resurrection kept in every sermon throughout the year? It is assurance to our people that Christ is a contemporary Saviour, a present, living reality.

Fortifying Our Own Ideas

Why do we preachers remove Christ from our sermons? To be sure, we do not drop him completely; he is used as an illustration, and often we quote him to fortify our own ideas. We have Christless, crossless sermons because we fail to realize the true meaning of Christ. Christ above all is Redeemer and Saviour. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. His death and resurrection have opened up the gates of eternal life for all who accept him in faith. This is tragically left out of many sermons. Why?

Probably because we misunderstand and under-evaluate the importance of the sermon. To be popular with people and fill the pews every Sunday, we feel it necessary to entertain with humorous anecdotes and illustrations. On the other hand, we also have a sincere desire to make Christianity applicable to the needs and problems of the day. Consequently, we discuss from a Christian viewpoint politics and economics.

What is the place and significance of the sermon? This takes us to the heart of our Protestant faith. It lies in the doctrine of the Word. The means of grace are the Word and the Sacraments. The Sacraments are the Word with a visible sign. The Word comes to us every Sunday as it is preached from the pulpits of our land. The sermon is a sacramental aspect of worship, a means of grace. It is God making his appeal through the preacher. Through the sermon, God sends his grace upon his people by which they are saved and brought into a right relationship with Christ.

Where does Christ come in? A sermon is the declaration of the Word of God. What is the Word? According to John’s gospel, “the Word was God” and “the Word was flesh and dwelt among us.” Christ is the Word. To preach Christ is to preach the Word. But Christ is not preached fully except he is preached as the crucified and risen Saviour.

There is a painting of Luther preaching to a congregation. The people are not looking at Luther but at another spot in the church. A second look at the canvas shows the ethereal figure of Christ in a corner of the cathedral. The congregation is looking at Christ. The ideal situation for every preacher and congregation should be to preach Christ so fully and faithfully that the congregation will not see a master orator in the pulpit, but Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer.

As pastors go into their pulpits every Sunday, they should hear a plea from the pews: “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Are preachers today competitors or confessors of Christ?

On Friendship

What shall we say of friendship,

That timeless span of life

When mind meets mind

In selfless communion of the soul.

It is but a symbol, ’tis true

Of unsaid words, of songs

As yet unheard amid the noise

And tremor of earth-bound places.

It is not seen, nor is it found

In frenzied mind. It is only

In a quiet hour, when need

Rears its ugly head, that we

Turn, wordless, to find a hand

Within our own, warm and unafraid.

LOLA J. PEPLER

J. R. Brokhoff holds the A.B. degree from Muhlenberg College, the B.D. from Mt. Airy Lutheran Seminary, and the M.A. degree from University of Pennsylvania. From 1950–54 he was guest Professor of Homiletics at Emory University. In 1951 he became the youngest recipient of a D.D. from Muhlenberg. Since 1955 he has been pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, where he now is serving as President of the Charlotte Lutheran Pastors’ Association.

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, which we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:7, 8).

The comparison that is here made between the love of man one to another and the dying love of God is a short digression from the main argument. The Apostle is treating of the good ground of the Christian’s hope of the glory of God. In the beginning of the chapter he describes the hope of a Christian by the greatness of the good that is the object of it and the joyfulness of it and the effectualness of it to enable the Christian to glory in tribulation. (The first three verses.) And shows how the tribulation of a true Christian is a means of increasing and establishing hope that, that a patient bearing of affliction gives that experience that greatly confirms hope. And that for the reason that the Apostle gives because in that way of enduring tribulation the love of God was shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost which was given to them. And then the Apostle proceeds to show what reason Christians have to be assured that their hope of future glory shall not be disappointed from this argument: that Christ died for them even while ungodly.

To show how unparalleled the love of Christ is the Apostle in the first place declares the utmost extent of the love of man. “Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.” By a righteous man must be understood a man of moral justice, one that is willing not to wrong any man but to give every one his due, and by a good man may be understood either a man with a qualification beyond righteousness, a bountiful man of a kind spirit. If we understand it in this sense the meaning of the Apostle is this that man will scarcely die for another though that other is a righteous man has always done fairly by him and never injured him. Yet possibly some would even die for one that has been good to them having received a great deal of kindness and being under special obligation. And this is the utmost that men’s love extends agreeable to what Christ says in John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Or else we may understand a righteous man and good in the text as synonymous terms and signifying the same thing and both in opposition to ungodly and sinners that it is here said that Christ died for. And so the word is changed from righteous to good only for the sake of elegance of speech. And then the sense of the Apostle is this that men’s love scarcely ever goes so far as to lay down their lives for good and righteous men let ’em be persons of never so good and excellent a disposition. Sometimes the love of men has gone so far. But Christ died for those that were the reverse of righteous and good. He died for the ungodly and sinners. The Apostle herein takes notice of an instance wherein the love of Christ transcends all the love of men one to another.

Doctrine: That there never was any love that could be paralleled with the dying love of Christ or the dying love of our Lord Jesus Christ is that to which no love is to be compared.

Never was any love of any other being or any creature to be compared with this love—the love of God in giving his Son to die. However great and wonderful the love of one creature to another has been in some instances yet there has been no instance that has been any way to be compared with this. There is often a very strong affection in parents towards their children. There was a great love in Jacob to Joseph. When he thought his son Joseph was dead he rent his clothes, and put sackcoth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And when all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him he refused to be comforted, and said, “For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”

So very wonderful was the love of David to his son Absalom though Absalom had been so wicked and rebellious. Yet when David heard the news of his death how was he affected by it? 2 Samuel 18:33: “And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

This love of Christ is unparalleled by any instance of any other love in these following respects:

I

Never was there love that fixed upon an object so much below the lover. Love is more remarkable and wonderful when there is a very great distance between the lover and the beloved—when the lover is greatly above the beloved than when there is an equality. Amongst men generally those that are in condition greatly below them are neglected by them. They ben’t looked upon as worthy of their esteem or regard. Those that are little in comparison of them are little in their eyes and little in their thoughts. Men set their love upon this or that other object and seek their friendship because they conceive that they shall be added to by their friendship and therefore neglect those that are greatly below them as thinking that they are so little in comparison of them that they with them shall not be added to.

Those men that are great in the world in high estate ordinarily neglect the mean and low. If they take notice of them it is far from being in any such way as taking them into their friendship or setting their love upon them. Men may sometimes set their hearts upon an object that is much below them but then ’tis because they think they see something in them that is not so much below. There is some qualification in them they have respect to that they conceive would in their enjoyment of it be an addition to them. There is but one thing in any being that can influence him to set his love upon an object greatly below him and that is conceived of as such in all respects by the lover and that is goodness—a mere good disposition. If a great prince should love a poor man’s child under some calamity and should pity it and lay himself out greatly for its relief and there be all signs of its being only from mere goodness and compassion would not this be looked upon as wonderful?

But if it should be so that a noble prince should from goodness and benevolence exceedingly love and pity one so inferior what is the superiority of one man above another to the superiority of the Son of God to us? The difference that may be between men and men may be great as to outward circumstances. There may be many accidental differences but their nature is the same. A poor child has the same human nature as a prince. In many things there is an equality between a poor child and a prince. Yea, the child may be superior. But Jesus Christ is infinitely above us in nature he being of a divine nature. There is no distance of nature between man and man but between God and man there is an infinite distance of nature a greater distance than there is between the nature of man and the nature of worms. There is a greater distance between the Son of God and us than there is between the earth and the highest star in the heavens.

The Son of God was every way infinitely above us. Consider him with respect to his nature with respect to his duration. Consider him with respect to all the properties of his nature, natural or moral excellencies. Consider him with respect to honor and the respect of his Father. Consider him with respect to his dominion and sovereignty over the creature. Consider him with respect to his works. He it is that has made the world that has made sun, moon and stars; that made man and that made the highest heavens and made the angels of heaven. Consider him in his importance in the universality of things. He is the last end of all things. All things are made by him and for him and by him all things consist. Consider him with respect to the honor and respect of the creature. He is worshiped and adored by the angels of heaven and will be to all eternity. Therefore if we consider the dying love of Jesus Christ in this respect there never was any love like unto it. Never was there any instance of such a stoop made by any lover. What are we that one in such a height of glory and dignity should set his love upon us?

II

Secondly, never was there any instance of such love to those that were so far from being capable of benefiting the lover. There is amongst men but little disinterested love. In those instances of great friendship, self-interest has some influence in the matter. The lover looks upon the beloved as one capable and fitted to contribute to his benefit.

Love in men ordinarily is from want from the indigence of nature. It seeks that in others which it hath not in itself. The beloved is looked upon as fitted to supply the wants and satisfy the cravings of its nature. But Jesus Christ is and always was above want. ’Tis impossible he should stand in need of anything. He had a fullness incapable of any addition. He possessed a treasure that could not be enlarged. He was from eternity perfectly happy in the enjoyment of the Father. Nothing that the creature can do can in the least add to his happiness. His blessedness is infinite and invariable.

What need can one that infinitely enjoys God the Father and his love stand in need of us men? Or what good can we do him? Christ is not dependent for anything for any good upon us or any creature for he gives unto all life and breath and all things.

Men’s love generally is from want and because they ben’t sufficiently happy in themselves. But on the contrary Christ’s love is from fullness. Men’s love seeks an addition to fill up their emptiness but Christ’s love is from his fullness and because he is so full that he overflows. Man’s love seeks the reception of something to him but Christ’s love seeks communication.

III

Never was there any that set his love upon those in whom he saw so much filthiness and deformity. Never any that loved those in whom they saw so little to attract their love and so much to repel it and to procure hatred. Parents oftentimes have natural affection to those children that are very unworthy and may love those that they are sensible are undeserving from the natural propensity there is in men to love their own though ordinarily where there is a strong affection men imagine they see that which is lovely though indeed there be not anything.

There is such a fullness of love in the heart of Jesus Christ that it flows out toward those objects that have nothing to draw. The motive is within him. It seems it needs nothing to attract it. There is a sufficient spring in Christ’s own heart to set it going. There is an overflowing benevolence that it extends to those who have no beauty nor excellency.

Jesus Christ when he passed by us saw us naked and loathsome. He might justly have turned away from us with abhorrence have left us in our filth and stood at a distance from us as abominating to have anything to do with them that were so filthy. But it was otherwise. The time was a time of love. Instead of the lovely image of God there was the foul image of Satan that appeared upon us. That corruption was in our nature that was more odious in the eyes of Christ than the nature of a toad or serpent is to us. Natural men are like vipers. Their poison is the poison of a serpent and as the venom of asps. Man by sin became like a swine that delights to wallow in the mire, is like a filthy worm.

And Christ saw all this deformity that was in their hearts. Men may set their love upon those that are very hateful because they are ignorant of them. They don’t know what is in them. But Christ perfectly knew all our filthiness. The corruption of the heart of man was all naked and open to his view.

IV

Never was there any one that set his love upon those that were so far from loving him. Men in their fallen state are the enemies of God and Jesus Christ. Nothing is more the nature or natural disposition of man as he is in a natural condition than it is to hate God. He hates Christ and can do no other than hate him. Rom. 8:7: “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Every natural man has a mortal enmity against Christ as well as the Jews that crucified him. And this Christ knew when he was pleased to set his love upon them.

This enmity is the more provoking because it was so infinitely unreasonable. We had no reason to have a spirit of enmity against Christ. He never had done us any wrong. On the contrary all the blessings and benefits we receive are from him. Sinners have a spirit of enmity against him though he be infinitely excellent and amiable. Though he be the infinitely beloved of God yet he is hated of men. Sinners had no delight in the excellency of Christ that God the Father so delights in. Yea that very excellency is what he is hated for. He is hated for his holiness. Yea such is the enmity that was in them so rooted and fixed and strong that Christ’s dying love won’t change them. This Christ knew when he set his love upon them and undertook to die for them.

And he knew that they had a spirit of contempt towards him that they would slight and despise him. He knew that they had all such a spirit as the Jews and soldiers that spit upon him and mocked and derided him. He knew that they had such a spirit that when he was offered to them with all his benefits he should be slighted till their hearts were changed. But Christ loved sinners nothwithstanding this also.

V

There never was any love that appeared in so great and wonderful expressions. Expressions of love are of three kinds: declarations, doings and sufferings. The declarations of Christ’s love to his church in Scriptures are wonderful but deeds and sufferings are the principal expressions of love. And there is nothing in the declarations which Christ has made of his love in his Word but the same is evident in what he has done and suffered for his people and that more abundantly.

1. What Christ has done for his people and the love which he has shown them that way is very wonderful. Never was any that showed his love to another by doing so much for them as Christ has done. His love was such to his elect that he came down from heaven, he left the bosom of the Father, he laid aside his glory and came down to dwell on earth. He became incarnate. He took upon him another nature. It was a great thing for God to do to take upon him the nature of man. It was a great thing that Christ should come to dwell amongst men that he should so love us as to take up an abode amongst us for above 30 years as he did.

2. There was never in any other lover so great an expression of love as the sufferings of Christ. Expense and suffering for anyone is the greatest testimony of love. If one person bestows a great deal on another and does much for him, yet if it be without any kind of expense or suffering to himself, it is not so great an expression of love nor doth it show so great love.

To be at any great expense of money or goods for another especially so as considerably to suffer in estate by it is looked upon as a remarkable kindness. To go through many hardships and endure great fatigues of body for another, to redeem one out of captivity and from any great calamity would also be looked upon as a kindness that laid a great obligation on the beloved and ’tis a yet far greater expression of love if any should freely lose his life and be at the expense of his blood for them. Thus far also perhaps some earthly lovers have gone.

But there never was any that suffered so much for any earthly friend as Christ did, whether we consider what he suffered outwardly or in his soul.

His death besides the painfulness of it was attended with those circumstances that greatly aggravated the suffering. Christ suffered much outwardly just before his death. He was scourged and wounded with thorns and buffeted in the face by soldiers treated most ignominiously. He was spit upon and mocked and most contemptuously treated and his death was most disgraceful yea accursed.

And besides what he suffered in his body he suffered more in his soul. Sufferings of soul and body were united together. If he had suffered only in his body his spirit might have helped him to support his outward pains but he had darkness in his mind as well as pain in his body. He was smitten of God. God laid upon him the iniquities of us all. How great his inward sufferings were we may conclude by the greatness of them before his crucifixion in his agony in the garden. We are none of us acquainted with such a degree of sorrow and anguish of spirit as shall cause such an effect. The trouble and sorrows of his soul were as much of the nature of the torments of hell as an innocent holy person was capable of.

The sufferings of Christ were a greater expression and evidence of love for his being so great a person. If Christ had suffered no more than some other lovers have suffered for their friends yet his suffering would have been a more wonderful expression of love because ’tis a greater thing for a person of such glory and dignity to suffer than for a lesser. ’Tis a greater thing for a person that is God to die than for a mere worm of the dust to die and a more marvelous expression of love. For a divine person to lay down his life and spill his blood is a greater expense than for a man. A mere man has not so great a price to expend.

Who could have imagined that ever such a testimony should be given of God’s love to a creature? Without doubt it was surprising to the angels when it was first revealed to them. It was a thing unknown and never would have been conceived of had not God revealed it—that God, that a divine person should testify his love by suffering much less by such suffering.

VI

And lastly never was there any love that was so beneficial to the beloved. True love is fruitful. It always seeks the benefit and advantage of the beloved and will procure it if there be opportunity. But there is no other instance of love that in this respect is to be equaled as compared with this. The love of men one to another in many instances may have been greatly to the advantage. Parents’ love to their children may be very beneficial to them. Princes’ love to their favorites may be an occasion of their advancement to honor and wealth. Men through their love to others may have brought them out of low and miserable and distressed circumstances, redeemed them out of captivity, saved them from cruel bondage and tormenting death to honor wealth and pleasure. But no such instance can be compared with the benefits and advantages that the dying love of Christ is of to those who are the objects of his love.

For by means of his dying love they are rescued from eternal destruction. They are saved out of the furnace of fire. The deliverance of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego out of Nebuchadnezzar’s burning fiery furnace by the love of Christ who himself came into that furnace to deliver them is a type of his dying love whereby he delivers sinners from the furnace of hell fire. Sinners by means of the dying love of Christ are rescued out of the paw of the devil that roaring lion that seeks to devour souls. And by the dying love of Christ those that are beloved by him are advanced to the greatest blessedness to the possession of a glorious kingdom to the wearing of a crown of glory to the seeing of God and fully enjoying of him to all eternity. By the dying love of Christ they are delivered from the foulest deformity and are now made and fashioned according to the image of God having the brightness of God’s holiness reflected from them.

And those whom he has purchased by his death the value of them is proportionable to the value of that price that was paid for them. The blood of Christ purchased things that can’t be purchased for gold. Neither shall silver be weighed for the price of them. And what makes the worth of them infinite is that they never will have an end. There will be no danger or possibility of losing them.

This is an abridged message from Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons on Romans, a forthcoming volume in the Works of Edwards currently being published by Yale University Press under the editorial direction of a committee headed by Perry Miller of Harvard University. This particular volume and sermon is edited by John H. Gerstner of Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary. Permission for the prior use of this hitherto unpublished sermon, in conjunction with the bi-centennial of Edwards’ death, has been granted toChristianity Todayby the Sterling Library of Yale and the Yale University Press.

Ever since Pentecost, there have been revivals, and there have been other Peters who have won multitudes to Christ. Occasionally and tragically, there have been revivalists who were interested first in the living they could make. As for laymen, too often the Christian experience became a matter of periodicity; in between the annual excitement of being “revived,” they lapsed into a corpse-like coma. Of the meaning of true revival, few seem to have an understanding.

This year, which marks the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Jonathan Edwards, evangelicals would do well to turn back to the writings of that remarkable man of God who was so notably used as an instrument of revival in New England. They would find of particular interest Edwards’ Faithful Narrative of Surprising Conversions, his Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England, and his Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. Add to these the penetrating Treatise on Religious Affections, and you have a study of the subject of revival, its various aspects and operations, which for depth of perception and scriptural insight has never been surpassed, and is as relevant to our day as it was to his.

In approaching the discussion of this subject, Edwards has one overruling principle, namely, that “we are to take the Scriptures as our guide” and to resort to them as “an infallible and sufficient rule.” Doing this, we shall recognize that “the Holy Spirit is sovereign in his operation.” When the Holy Spirit is working powerfully in the hearts of men, it should not be thought offensive that there are strange and unusual outward manifestations—“such as tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or the failing of bodily strength”—even though in some cases these may appear excessive and exaggerated. No more should an admixture of errors in judgment or the lapse of some into scandalous practices be regarded as sufficient to condemn a work as not being in general of the Spirit of God. Otherwise the presence of Judas among the Twelve must be accounted a condemnation of the work of Christ himself. A good whole must not be condemned because of an unworthy part.

Again, the fact that the effects produced are associated with solemn warnings against the terrors of hell and judgment affords no argument against the work being of the Spirit of God. “If there really be a hell,” says Edwards, “… then why is it not proper for those who have the care of souls to take great pains to make men sensible of it?… If I am in danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possibly I can of the dreadfulness of it. If I am very prone to neglect due care to avoid it, he does me the best kindness, who does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.”

In the twentieth century, however, it is out of fashion to preach about hell; the subject has been relegated to the level of a music hall joke. In those who profess to be loyal to the teaching of the New Testament, this argues not only an avoidance of biblical realism, but also a lack of candor, which surely is not unrelated to the impotence of so much Christian proclamation today. Warnings against hell are entirely scriptural—indeed, none uttered them with greater solemnity than our Lord himself. And so long as the Christian minister remembers that, as Edwards counsels, “the gospel is to be preached as well as the law, and the law is to be preached only to make way for the gospel, and in order that it may be preached more effectively,” grace will be grasped and preached as it should be—only against the background of judgment.

A Five-Fold Test

Edwards gives five marks whereby a work of the Spirit of God may be distinguished. 1. It should convince men of Christ and lead them to him in the assurance that he is the Son of God, sent to save sinners. 2. It should operate against the interests of Satan’s kingdom, causing men to forsake sin and to set their affections on the things that are above. 3. It should lead men to a greater regard for the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. 4. It should awaken the ability to discern spiritually between truth and error, light and darkness. 5. It should manifest a spirit of love, both to God and to one’s fellow men. Although there had been some excesses in the course of the revival in New England, these five distinguishing marks of the work of the Spirit of God were clearly present, so that Edwards was able to conclude that what had taken place was “undoubtedly, in general, from the Spirit of God.”

Some, however, had complained that the gatherings at this time were marked by confusion and irregularity. But Edwards, while fully admitting the necessity for orderliness in the conduct of public worship under normal conditions, replied to this objection in the following way:

If God is pleased to convince the consciences of persons, so that they cannot avoid great outward manifestations, even to interrupting and breaking off those public means they were attending, I do not think this is confusion, or an unhappy interruption, any more than if a company should meet on the field to pray for rain, and should be broken off from their exercise by a plentiful shower. Would to God that all the public assemblies in the land were broken off from their public exercises with such confusion as this the next sabbath day! We need not be sorry for breaking the order of means, by obtaining the end to which that order is directed.

Necessity For Humility

He therefore warns us, where a work bears the marks of the activity of the Spirit of God, “by no means to oppose, or do anything in the least to clog or hinder, the work; but, on the contrary, do our utmost to promote it.” And those who are participating in the blessings and uplifting experience of such a work are warned against the great danger of spiritual pride, which is “the worst viper in the heart.” “The greatest privilege of the prophets and apostles,” says Edwards, “was not their being inspired and working miracles, but their eminent holiness. The grace that was in their hearts was a thousand times more their dignity and honour than their miraculous gifts.”

The necessity for humility is indicated by the fact that “God in this work has begun at the lower end, and he has made use of the weak and foolish things of the world to carry it on.” Some of the ministers chiefly employed were “mere babes in age and standing” and of little repute among their fellow ministers. Their weakness served to magnify the power and grace of God. Cold criticism of the human instruments used in this work and of the undesirable excesses which may be shown by those whose frail frames are visited by overwhelming and transforming experiences at such a time of revival springs from injured pride and from a failure to take the Holy Scriptures as the “sufficient and whole rule whereby to judge of this work.” Edwards observes significantly that “censuring others is the worst disease with which this affair has been attended.”

But the effects of a season of revival are not only to be seen in individual lives. They are apparent in the community as a whole. Thus Edwards describes how there was at the time of which he is speaking “a very uncommon influence upon the minds of a very great part of the inhabitants of New England, attended with the best effects.” Problems of juvenile delinquency and unruliness (so pressing in our day!) were largely solved: “In vain did ministers preach against those things before, in vain were laws made to restrain them, and in vain was all the vigilance of magistrates and civil officers; but now they have almost everywhere dropt them, as it were of themselves.”

Fruits Of Revival

It was also noticeable that in the greatest part of New England, the Bible was “in much greater esteem and use than before”; that the Lord’s day was “more religiously and strictly observed”; and that in a couple of years more was done in “making up differences, confessing faults one to another, and making restitution … than was done in thirty years before.” Large numbers were brought to “a deep sense of their own sinfulness and vileness,” and to a realization of “how unworthy in God’s regard were their prayers, praises, and all that they did in religion.” Many poor Indians and Negroes were converted and morally transformed, and very many little children led to love the Saviour. Multitudes, indeed, of all ages and classes of society, were brought to “a new and great conviction of the truth and certainty of the things of the Gospel.” Nor were these blessings confined to the new converts; they abounded also in the spiritual enrichment of the lives of great numbers of those who had been practicing Christians for years.

“And this,” writes Edwards, “has been attended with an abhorrence of sin, and self-loathing for it, and earnest longings of soul after more holiness and conformity to God, with a sense of the great need of God’s help in order to holiness of life; together they have had a most dear love to all that are supposed to be the children of God, and a love to mankind in general, and a most sensible and tender compassion for the souls of sinners, and earnest desires of the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in the world.”

Dignity And Depth

Here, we cannot but conclude, is the real thing. So much of the “revivalism” of our day seems to belong to a totally different category. We look in vain for the dignity, the depth, the solemnity, the self-abnegation, and the scripturalness that we find in Jonathan Edwards. Let us pray earnestly that Almighty God will turn us again, and bless us as in the days of old, and in his grace grant us to see the real thing once again in our day—a mighty, transforming work of the Sovereign Spirit!

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes is Lecturer of Mortlake Parish, London, and former Vice Principal of Tyndale Hall, Bristol. He holds the B.D. degree from London University, and the M.A. and Litt.D. degrees from Cape Town University, South Africa.

In 1859 appeared Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. It has been called the most significant book of the nineteenth century. If so, it was not because it set forth the theory of organic evolution—this had been done before. Its importance was in Darwin’s explanation of the “how” of organic evolution—natural selection. As we shall note in the next article, evolution has well survived into the middle of the twentieth century, but Darwin’s explanation of it has been largely rejected by modern evolutionists. In other words, the feature of the Origin of Species most significant in 1859 (natural selection) seems to be least significant in 1959; while the feature least significant in 1859 (organic evolution) seems to be most significant in 1959.

The elements of Darwin’s system are the following. He posited God as the Creator of matter and of the original germs or “gemmules” from which other forms have evolved. The actual evolutionary process includes the following steps: overproduction, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, inheritance and propagation. The entire process is under the direction of the principle of natural selection.

What was the reaction of the church to this new doctrine? A. D. White (A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, p. 70) wrote: “Darwin’s Origin of the Species has come into the theological world like a plough into an anthill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened from their old comfort and repose had swarmed forth angry and confused. Reviews, sermons, books, light and heavy, came flying at the new thinker from all sides.” But there was another part to the picture and it is brought out in the words of W. M. Agar (Catholicism and the Progress of Science, pp. 59, 60): “There were scientists who never did capitulate, just as there were theologians who were wise enough to see at once that Theism … was perfectly compatible with evolution.”

We propose in this brief article to confine our attention to the views of two of the most influential nineteenth century conservative theologians on this hotly debated subject. One was intransigently opposed to Darwinism; the other was an ardent advocate, if not of Darwinism, at least of evolution or as he called it, “development.” The two men were distinguished Princetonians: one, Charles Hodge, the great systematic theologian; the other, James McCosh, noted Scottish Realistic philosopher, educator, and president of the University (1868–1888).

In 1873 Hodge published his What is Darwinism? The book begins with the presentation of some of the different theories of the origin of the universe, after which Hodge turns his attention to Darwin’s theory. After a survey of this theory, he states its essentials thus: “Darwinism includes three distinct elements. First, evolution, or the assumption that all organic forms, vegetable and animal, have been evolved or developed from one, or a few, primordial germs; second, that this evolution has been affected by natural selection, or the survival of the fittest; and third, and by far the most important and distinctive element of his theory, that this natural selection is without design, being conducted by unintelligent physical causes” (p. 48).

“The Exclusion of Design in Nature, the Formative Idea of Darwin’s Theory” is the caption of the next section, the proof of which is Hodge’s most distinctive effort and occupies most of the remaining portion of the 178-page book. Proofs of the anti-teleological character of Darwinism are three in number: those drawn from Darwin’s own writings; those drawn from the expositions of Darwinism by its advocates; those drawn from the exposition by its opponents. “The whole book,” concludes Hodge, “is an argument against teleology.” “Darwinism is atheism.” (Hodge did not deny that Darwin professed a belief in God as the original creator, but he felt God was so remote from Darwin’s universe as to have no real significance and was, for all practical purposes, nonexistent.)

With James McCosh began what White calls “the inevitable compromise.” “Not one,” he continues, “can deny his [McCosh’s] great service in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and colleagues.” The reference is especially to Drs. Hodge and Duffield. But “compromise” is a misleading word if it gives the impression that McCosh was deliberately shading truth in the interest of reconciliation. McCosh was as convinced of the biblicality and rationality of his position as Hodge was of his.

To give a sample of McCosh’s appeal to the Bible, we cite this argument for the evolution of the human body: “There are two accounts of the creation of man. One is in Genesis, chapter 1:26. There is council and decision: ‘Let us make man in our image.’ This applies to his soul or higher nature. The other account is in chapter 2:7: ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ This is man’s organic body” (Realistic Philosophy, Vol. I, pp. 186, 187). In this statement we have the manifesto of biblical evolutionists: God, by special fiat, created the immaterial, unevolvable soul, but by a natural, organic process, presumably the evolutionary process, the human body was formed. The soul is saved, the body cast to evolutionists.

The evolution of the body is also found by McCosh to be intimated in the sublimely mysterious words of Psalm 139:15, 16: “My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.” Concerning these words, McCosh remarks, “There is a curious process hinted at; a process and a progression going on I know not how long, and all is the work of God, and written in God’s book.”

But what of natural selection and teleology? Hodge thought the two were mutually exclusive in Darwin’s system; McCosh did not see it that way. “We see some of the means by which God effects his infinitely grander ends. We see that one of these is the beneficent law of Natural Selection, whereby the weak, after enjoying their brief existence, expire without leaving seed, whereas the strong survive and leave a strong progeny” (Christianity and Positivism, p. 394). At this crucial point in the discussion on the nature of Darwin’s natural selection, we think that Hodge was right and McCosh was wrong. What McCosh did was give us his, rather than Darwin’s view of natural selection. He gave us a theistic, Christianized conception of this principle. Hodge gave us Darwin’s for what it was—not a mode of theistic teleology, but a substitute for it.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

That in Hebrews it is the general idea of faith, or, to be more exact, the subjective nature of faith, that is dwelt upon, rather than its specific object, is not due to a peculiar conception of what faith lays hold upon, but to the particular task which fell to its writer in the work of planting Christianity in the world. With him, too, the person and work of Christ are the specific object of faith (13:7, 8; 3:14; 10:22). But the danger against which, in the providence of God, he was called upon to guard the infant flock, was not that it should fall away from faith to works, but that it should fall away from faith into despair.

Faith

What is faith?—It is that feeling or faculty within us by which the future becomes to our minds greater than the present; and what we do not see more powerful to influence us than what we do see.

THOMAS ARNOLD

Faith, in the N.T., is applied solely to the exercise of the mind on the divine testimony. It denotes a reliance on the veracity and faithfulness of God,—his veracity respecting the truth of what he has affirmed, his faithfulness in the accomplishment of what he has promised.

ROBERT HALL

Faith substantiates and realizes, evidences and demonstrates those glorious objects, so far above the reach and sphere of sense. It is constantly sent out to forage in the invisible regions for the maintenance of this life, and thence fetches in the provisions upon which hope feeds, to the strengthening of the heart, the renewing of life and spirits.

JOHN HOWE

It is faith alone that takes believers out of this world whilst they are in it, that exalts them above it whilst they are under its rage; that enables them to live upon things future and invisible, given such a real subsistence unto their power in them, and victorious evidence of their reality and truth in themselves, as secures them from fainting under all opposition, temptation, and persecution whatever.

JOHN OWEN

We are all apt to be led by sense and to plead natural improbabilities; and when any difficulty ariseth that checketh our hopes, we question the promises of God and say with Mary “How can these things be?”—This is a great dishonour to God, to trust him no further than we see him. You trust the ground with your corn, and can expect a crop out of the dry clods, though you do not see how it grows, nor which way it thrives in order to harvest … There is a reason why we believe, though we cannot always see a reason of what we do believe. Though there can be no reason given of many things that are to be believed; yet faith sees reason enough why they should be believed and that is the authority and veracity of God speaking in the Scriptures.

THOMAS MANTON

This, then, is the Apostle’s account of faith: “It is a confidence respecting things hoped for; it is a conviction respecting things not seen.” A promise is made respecting future good. I am satisfied that He who promises is both able and willing to perform his promise. I believe it; and in believing it, I have a confidence respecting the things which I hope for. A revelation is made respecting what is not evident either to my sense or my reason. I am satisfied that this revelation comes from one who cannot be deceived, and who cannot deceive. I believe it; and in believing it, I have a conviction in reference to things which are not seen. Faith in reference to events which are past, is belief of testimony with regard to them: faith in reference to events which are future, is belief of promises with regard to them.

JOHN BROWN

Future And Invisible

By “things not seen” the apostle intends all those things which are not proposed to our outward senses, which may and ought to have an influence into our constancy and perseverance in profession. Now, these are God himself, the holy properties of his nature, the person of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, all spiritual, heavenly, and eternal things that are promised, and not yet actually enjoyed.

JOHN OWEN

Faith hath eyes of her own; and what kind of eyes? To see things afar off; to see things invisible; to see things within the veil; to see things that are upward, things than our sense and reason can never reach unto. Reason sees more than sense; but faith sees the glory in heaven that all the eyes in the world cannot see. Faith corrects the error of reason; reason corrects the error of sense. Faith sees things in heaven; it sees Christ there; it sees our place provided for us there; it sees God reconciled there.

JOHN OWEN

All that the devil can plead, who works by sense, is the enjoyment of a little present profit and pleasure; he cannot promise heaven and glory, or anything hereafter; now therein he thinks he hath the start of God—heaven is to come, but the delights and advantages of sin are at hand. Faith, to baffle the temptation, strongly fixeth the heart of a believer upon things to come, that in some sort it doth preunite their souls and their happiness together, and by giving them heaven upon earth confirms the soul in a belief of better things than the devil or the world can propose.

THOMAS MANTON

In considering things “future” and “unseen” it will be felt that hope has a wider range than sight. Hope includes that which is internal as well as that which is external. Hence “things hoped for” is left indefinite as extending to the whole field of mental and spiritual activity, while “things not seen” suggest a definite order of objects and events outside the believer, which are conceived of as realities which may fall under man’s sense. Under another aspect “things hoped for” are more limited than “objects not seen,” for the latter embrace all that belongs to the requital and purification of the guilty, and the present government of God.

B. F. WESTCOTT

Polybius, speaking of Horatius’ keeping the field against the enemy’s forces, saith, that the enemies more feared his hupostasis (substance), his confident binding upon the victory, than his strength. Faith is the vital artery of the soul, and by the eye of it, through the perspective glass of the promises, a Christian may see into heaven. Faith doth antedate glory; it doth substantiate things not seen. Faith altereth the tenses, and putteth the future into the present tense.

JOHN TRAPP

It is in virtue of faith that things hoped for are now, so that faith is their essence in regard to the actual experience of the believer. Things which in the succession of time are still “hoped for” as future have a true existence in the eternal order; and this existence faith brings home to the believer as a real fact. So also things unseen are not mere arbitrary fancies: faith tries them, tests them, brings conviction as to their being.

B. F. WESTCOTT

Creation And Evolution

Creation and Evolution, by Jan Lever, translated from the Dutch by Peter G. Berkhout, (Grand Rapids International Publications, 1958, 244 pp., $3.95) is reviewed by Carl F. H. Henry, editor of the symposium, “Contemporary Evangelical Thought.”

The professor of zoology at Free University, Amsterdam, has given us one of the best surveys in our time of the sweep of scientific opinion on issues at the heart of the Creation-Evolution controversy. In an editorial elsewhere in this issue, the reviewer commends the positive sides of Dr. Lever’s work. Professor Lever is no mere observer of this modern debate. With an eye on the controlling importance of philosophy of science, he devotes to speculation much that is relayed as scientific fact. The theistic-naturalistic antithesis that once divided Christians and evolutionists, he notes, now has driven a cleavage within the ranks of scientists.

Dr. Lever is critical of Protestant fundamentalism for its handling of the central issues. He deplores the orthodox hostility, professedly on biblical ground (“after its kind”), to the inconstancy of species as biologically defined. Lever pleads, properly enough, for an approach, in genuinely biblical terms, to nature as a created order sustained by divine providence at every point and moment.

Evangelical scholars will join his lament because debatable and fallacious positions have been espoused in the name of biblical revelation (whereas actually drawn—as the dogma of the fixity of species—from the retiring science of the age). The primary question raised by Lever’s work is the relationship he postulates between revelation and science. How far, he asks, is the Bible of importance in thinking about origins? “Does Scripture give us only some general directions for our world-view, or does it give us standards whereby we should judge theories and hypotheses; or is it even possible that the Bible gives us data to which we should adhere in our scientific work?”

Lever’s reply eliminates any possibility of conflict between the Bible and science by his location of the boundary between revelation and the investigation of nature.

He emphasizes that the Bible is no textbook of science, presenting a systematic and technical formulation about the structure and behavior of nature (“The Bible is not a magic lantern which communicates to us exact scientific data in the form of tables, graphs and concepts,” pp. 20 f.; “The method and the conceptual apparatus which the Bible uses is not scientific,” p. 22).

More significantly, he rejects the orthodox Protestant reliance on Genesis, in any respect whatever, for concrete data by which the scientist may be expected to measure his conclusions (p. 15). Not only must the biblical text not be carried into scientific territory concerning “detail-questions” but the fundamentalist method, it is said, reads Scripture wrongly and fetters science unjustly (p. 18). The truth conveyed by Scripture moves on a different level, giving data about reality (e.g., the existence of a personal Creator) which no science can discover (p. 20). But the revealed realities are “irrevocably linked with those that can be investigated through natural science” (p. 21). In summary, “Genesis deals with that reality which we can investigate scientifically and mentions data which we cannot discover scientifically … The Bible usually tells us that something has happened, but not how it happened. The how sometimes lies in the terrain of science.… We can never derive from Scripture exact physical, astronomical and biological knowledge, and thus also not exact historical knowledge …” (p. 21). No affirmation of a strictly scientific nature is therefore to be made on the basis of revelation.

In the opinion of the reviewer, this exposition understates the relevance of revelation to the investigation of nature and the answerability of the scientist to revelation. It would seem rather that science (not scriptural revelation) is precluded by its character from giving us “exact” knowledge of nature—a point conceded by the current emphasis on statistical averages; and that, in some respects at least (our Lord’s resurrection on the third day), the Scripture purposes to give us precise information of which any comprehensive exposition of physics and history must take account. To remove the content of revelation wholly from the plane of nature and history would be destructive at once of general revelation, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork” (Ps. 1:1–2—cf. Rom. 1:20), and also destructive of historical revelation.

When Lever reduces the truths of Genesis to the fact of God’s origination of the world, the meaningfulness of the creation and its immanent purposiveness (pp. 22 f.), he surrenders Genesis as an empirico-historical account of origins. The whole question of how and when is left barren of scriptural illumination. The Christian is unobliged, on the basis of his faith, “to pay homage to a definitely sharply circumscribed concrete opinion regarding the origin of groups of organisms” (p. 95). The texts, Lever insists, are not to be taken literally and translated into scientific language (p. 95). (Even with respect to “after their kind”?, we ask.) At times Lever seems to compromise his own approach. “The texts … teach us that it was God at whose command … and according to whose will the entity of life has been created and organisms have come into existence. He determined that they should exist and how (after their kind) they should come into existence.… We are not told at all how the organisms came into concrete existence, indeed not even which way.… In short, it says nothing about what we could call scientific data” (pp. 56 f.).

This abandonment of the biblical affirmation of literal grades of being has far-reaching implications. While Lever argues that “the mutability of species should have been accepted in order to combat with all the more justice unproved assertions of the evolutionists” (p. 139), the concession would seem to argue as well for the mutability of all creaturely life, including the human.

Moving the line of revelation too far behind the spheres of nature and history (where neither scientific nor historical criticism can jeopardize the essence of revelation) is a characteristic of recent theologies that substitute personal encounter for scriptural communication. That is not Lever’s intention. But his position has the characteristics of a bridge between orthodoxy and contemporary science, and reacts to the latter in its own subtle way. Indeed, when he informs us that “Genesis concerns itself only with the divine message of creation, fall and salvation, cast in a mold which has no factually real significance” (p. 170), we wonder—carrying through this standpoint—whether the factually real significance of the Gospels may also be denied and yet the reality of redemption preserved?

CARL F. H. HENRY

Soul And Body

The Case For Spiritual Healing, by Don H. Gross (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1958, 263 pp., $3.95) is reviewed by Robert W. Young, minister of North Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh.

The recent 170th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., received a progress report from its committee on “The Relation of the Christian Faith to Health” which states, “We believe that however many the dangers in the practice of a ministry of healing, there is the greater danger of our limiting the power of God by our fear and timidity.…”

One can rejoice then in this new book by the Rev. Don Gross because it answers quite well the questions posed by Professor Wade H. Boggs, Jr., in his book “Faith Healing and the Christian Faith.”

A graduate physicist, Don Gross approaches the healing ministry from the viewpoint of science and theology, thus joining his talents in both fields. Bishop Austin Pardue of Pittsburgh, himself a leader in the field of spiritual healing, states, “Gross is aware of the dangers that accompany an overemphasis on the healing side of Christianity, but he is likewise aware of the equal dangers that have resulted from neglect of this all-important side of our ministry.” But who can imagine a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian “overemphasizing” this side of the truth we possess in Christ?

It was Luke the physician who wrote in his Gospel most fully of spiritual healing with cures of physical, mental and spiritual disease. As early as Psalm 103 we have the promise “Bless the Lord, O my soul; … who healeth all thy diseases; …” And Jesus told the 70 as he sent them forth, “… heal the sick … [in every town you enter] and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10). After the Ascension and Pentecost the believers were empowered by the Spirit to preach, teach and heal (Acts 3, 4). We have preached and taught, but where is the healing?

So Dr. James Means as chief of staff, Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of clinical medicine at Harvard Medical School said, “I believe a patient should send for his minister when he gets sick just as he sends for his doctor.” Patients turn to the minister who in his preaching gives them hope for the whole personality which is body, mind and soul. Can we give this hope that resides in the living Christ? Dare we give less?

Don Gross says, “This book is written with a sense of the ground swell of popular interest in healing through spiritual means … Magazine articles and books are beginning to flow forth in profusion.… New advances are being made in relating the Church’s work to medical and psychological care. Our seminaries are increasingly offering clinical training and preparation for pastoral counselling.”

Dr. Percy Payne of England taught a course, “Spiritual Healing,” in the summer Institute of Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. All this is an increasing challenge to the leaders of our churches. Whether we are ministers or laymen, the times demand that we come to grips with the ministry of healing.

“It is our hope that this book will help them to do so,” writes Rev. Mr. Gross. “The book is intended as more than a review of what is happening in spiritual healing. Its purpose is to put those events in a fuller theological background, so that both principles and the meaning of that healing will be more clearly seen. Its purpose is to help our churches to practice Christian healing” (p. vii).

“The way to avoid interference with medical healing is to encourage all who come for spiritual healing to continue medical care strictly in accordance with the doctor’s orders. Where possible, medical and spiritual care should be coordinated. But at the very least they should not interfere with one another. God is the God of order and harmony. His gifts always supplement one another” (p. 57).

ROBERT W. YOUNG

Same Starting Point

Four Existentialist Theologians, by Will Herberg (Doubleday & Co., 1958, 346 pp., $4.00) is reviewed by Cornelius Van Til, professor of Apologetics, Westminster Theological Seminary.

There is something very interesting about this book. Here a Roman Catholic, a Greek Orthodox, a Jewish and a Protestant theologian are brought together under one roof. And there is no argument that one can hear.

Well, you say, Will Herberg has pressed them into one cover without their knowledge. They would argue, even fight, if they were only given a chance.

I doubt it. Oh yes, they would disagree on some points. But they would all agree on the most basic point. They would agree that the orthodox Protestant idea of the Bible is quite wrong. That is, they hold it to be a capital mistake to think that man should look at all the facts of life in the light of Scripture.

But, you say, that is only negative. They might still be at odds with one another as to where to start from when they seek for the meaning of life.

No, I do not think so. For there is only one other point from which one can start. Oh, but, you say, here is Maritain. He is an essentialist. What else can he be since he is a Roman Catholic. And surely as a Roman Catholic his church must have something to say about his philosophy. And here are Buber and Tillich, both of them existentialists. Surely the Old Testament must have an influence on Buber’s philosophy and the New Testament on Tillich. And then there is Berdaev. He is also an existentialist. But surely his membership in the Greek Orthodox church must color his philosophy.

Well, I do not deny that the religious affiliations of these men have some bearing on their total point of view. But we were speaking of the question of starting point. And there is only one basic starting point as an alternative to starting with Scripture. That alternative is to start with man himself.

Now there is a sense in which everybody must start with man. We cannot jump out of our skin. But there is an all-important difference as to how we start with man. It is quite proper, and in full accord with the orthodox Protestant view of Scripture, to start with man as being from the beginning of history confronted with God. Buber is quite right in saying that all of man’s relations are in the form of a dialogue.

God spoke with man from the beginning. Man’s proper attitude was a response of love and obedience. Thus man is the proximate or immediate while God is the ultimate or basic starting point.

But this is not the kind of starting point any one of these four men want. They assume that man can start with himself as though he were not a creature made in the image of God. They start with man as ultimate, as though he has light in himself apart from God.

The religious affiliations of these men therefore are really an afterthought. Of course, it may also be said that the very religion of the churches these men represent is what it is because, in large measure, if not entirely, they have built up their theology on the false starting point of human autonomy.

How does Buber on such a basis really expect to be able to think of all of human life as having the form of a dialogue? And how do the others on this basis expect to find true essence, true being and true freedom? Once man forsakes the only one who spoke to himself first, the triune God, and then spoke man into existence, he is reduced to speaking in a monologue. If he only could be so reduced. So far as his own efforts are concerned, his voice finds no response. But man, forsaking God, cannot escape God. When he tries to, when he seeks in essentialist or in existentialist form to construct a partner-in-speech other than God, he is still speaking with God. That is, he is then speaking against God. He is suppressing the truth. His search for the true essence, the true being, true freedom and true dialogue are all means by which the truth about himself, which he does not want to see, is suppressed.

It is certainly a time for great humility when we must see brilliant representatives of four great religious bodies assuming the correctness of that starting point on the basis of which profound insights may be discovered but on which ultimately the truth is repressed. Evangelical Protestants will do well to start their thinking from the Bible alone.

CORNELIUS VAN TIL

Operational Knowledge

Preface To Pastoral Theology, by Seward Hiltner (Abingdon Press, 1958, 240 pp., $4.00) is reviewed by Orville S. Walters, medical doctor in Danville, Illinois.

Theological understanding has not kept pace with the psychological and sociological insights that recent decades have made available to the minister. Pastoral theology is an operation-centered branch, in contrast to the logic-centered branches of theology. This operational knowledge must be placed in a theological context. These premises underlie Seward Hiltner’s Preface, a product of broad experience in the field of clinical pastoral training.

Such a theology must grow out of the basic study of human experience, where not only psychological and psychiatric, but also theological questions are asked, in the approach pioneered by Anton Boisen. Such a theology, Hiltner affirms, must be “grounded … in Jesus Christ as historical event and continuing saving reality in the lives of men.”

The operations of the pastor are largely included in three categories: shepherding, which is the concern of pastoral theology; communicating and organizing, for each of which the author proposes its own individual branch of theology.

Shepherding is subdivided into healing, sustaining, and guiding. This division rejects an older function of the pastor, that of discipline, on the ground that this duty is concerned more with the preservation of the church than with the healing of the individual.

For the analysis and illustration of these pastoral functions, Hiltner turns to the published cases of a mid-nineteenth century pastor, Ichabod Spencer. This pioneer in pastoral counseling was a Brooklyn Presbyterian minister who had a sense of urgency “to get a sincere and inward verdict for Jesus Christ.” In the three chapters on healing, sustaining, and guiding, the interviews of this evangelistically-minded pastor provide extensive, rich case material. Spencer’s procedures are criticized freely in the light of present-day ideas about counseling. The author takes exception to Spencer’s emphasis upon healing of the soul to the neglect of body and culture. If one holds consistently to the concept of total personality, Hiltner reasons, there can be no categorical division between secular and religious healing. But he does recognize the danger of winding up with “a humanism that has forgotten the awe and majesty and transcendence of God and the overwhelming and ultimate significance of Jesus Christ.”

Although the soul-saving efforts of Ichabod Spencer are here subjected to analysis and criticism as early examples of clinical pastoral counseling, his records still glow with zeal, earnestness and confidence in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, elements lamentably absent in most latter-day case reports. While Hiltner elaborates a theological context for pastoral theology, Ichabod Spencer exemplifies a warm-hearted evangelistic concern that is needed no less urgently by today’s students of pastoral counseling. This book does the movement a wholesome service by combining the two.

ORVILLE S. WALTERS

Genius At Work

Albert Schweitzer, by Jacques Feschotte (Beacon Press, 130 pp., $2.50) is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, chairman of Department of Philosophy at Butler University.

This book consists of a short and intimate account of Schweitzer’s life plus two articles by Schweitzer himself; first, “Childhood Recollections,” and, second, “Ethics in the Evolution of Human Thought.”

Feschotte’s material gives a clear impression of a genius at hard work in music, theology, and medicine. Some of its pages are in the finest style of French literary portraiture. It is, however, somewhat marred by constant adulation, for Feschotte does not hesitate to identify Schweitzer as “the most famous of living men” (p. 12).

Schweitzer’s own recollections refer, among other childhood experiences, to a statue in Colmar of a Negro, which early fixed Africa in his mind. His article on ethics makes veneration of life the basic principle of conduct. Killing is the one thing most to be avoided. One wonders whether Schweitzer uses disinfectants and insect spray in his hospital, for Feschotte says that he “steers an inoffensive insect out of harm’s way” (p. 97).

While we can agree with his condemnation of bull fighting, even he realizes that some killing is unavoidable. A farmer cannot preserve all the animals in his flocks. To nurse a wounded bird back to health, one must kill insects or fish. Thus, says Schweitzer, we are forced into guilt. And if veneration of life applies to all living things, as he says it does, one would have to conclude that even a vegetarian is forced into guilt.

This absurd conclusion raises doubts as to the wisdom of Schweitzer’s ethics. Remarkable man that he is, his principles are not beyond question.

GORDON H. CLARK

Classical Homilies

Luther’s Works. Vol. 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 1–4, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and translated by Martin H. Bertram (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1957, xi, 558 pp.) is reviewed by Harold J. Grimm, Department of History, Ohio State University.

Volume 22 of Luther’s Works is the fourth one published in the 55-volume American edition of the writings of the Reformer. Edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, this edition consists of two main parts. The one, being published by the Concordia Publishing House and comprising 30 volumes, contains Luther’s exegetical writings, sermons, and lectures. The other, being published by the Muhlenberg Press and comprising 24 volumes, contains writings connected with and illustrating Luther’s career as a reformer. It is the intention of the publishers to complete this monumental task by 1970.

The volume under consideration marks the beginning of the publication of Luther’s exposition of the gospel of St. John, which he valued almost as highly as the epistles of St. Paul. He had an opportunity to preach on the gospel of St. John when, in May, 1537, his friend Johannes Bugenhagen, the parish pastor in Wittenberg, was called to Denmark to aid in organizing the Reformation in that country at the invitation of King Christian III. As was usually the case, Luther substituted as preacher during Bugenhagen’s absence from Wittenberg. Although Bugenhagen was expected back by October of the same year, he did not return until July, 1539.

Luther preached for Bugenhagen during his entire absence, despite the fact that he was almost overwhelmed with other responsibilities and was frequently very ill. In July, 1537, he began the series of sermons preached on Saturdays. He continued to preach two months after Bugenhagen’s return, probably because he wished to complete the sermons on the third chapter. In 1540 he preached four sermons on the fourth chapter. Thus the sermons on the first four chapters, contained in this volume, were delivered over a period of more than three years.

The 53 sermons here translated into English were originally transcribed by Georg Rohrer and two other friends of Luther. The Reformer’s well-known assistant, Johannes Aurifaber, later collated these three sets of notes. Although the notes on the first two chapters were published in the Eisleben edition of Luther’s works, those on chapters three and four were not published until the middle of the nineteenth century. The translation in this volume is based primarily on the text in the Weimar edition.

Luther’s sermons, or discourses, reflect his thorough acquaintance with the Bible and biblical literature and also his ability to present theological doctrines in such a simple and forthright manner that all his hearers could understand him. His greatest concern always was to make clear the Word of God and to apply it to the spiritual needs of his parishioners. For this reason he gave little attention to homiletics. Speaking from the heart, he preached the Gospel in terms of love and affection and the law with paternal firmness.

Martin H. Bertram, the translator, has succeeded in capturing the spirit as well as the thought of Luther’s sermons in a lively, idiomatic English. The volume contains useful biblical and subject indexes.

HAROLD J. GRIMM

Warm Devotion

The Lord’s Prayer, by Henry Bast (The Church Press, Grand Rapids, 1957, $1.50) is reviewed by Paul R. Pulliam, minister of First United Presbyterian Church, Indiana, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Bast is minister of Temple Time, a radio broadcast of the Reformed Church in America, and professor at Western Seminary, Holland, Michigan. This small volume of 71 pages was first prepared as a series of messages for Temple Time. This series proved to be very popular and many requested that it be published. Dr. Bast considers why we should pray, to whom we should pray, and then addresses himself to each of the six petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Thorough, careful exposition, a simple readability of style, and warm devotion make this one of the most rewarding books I have read recently. It will be equally useful to pastor and layman.

PAUL R. PULLIAM