An Interview With F F Bruce (Part 2)

Part 2 of this interview (together with Part 1 which was posted previously) were first published in Ward & Laurel Gasque, “An Interview with F.F. Bruce,” St Mark’s Review 139 (Spring 1989): 4-10.

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GASQUES: Your work over the years might he described as a love affair with the writings of the Apostle Paul, in that you have written commentaries on every one of his epistles as well as on the Acts of the Apostles, which sets them in their historical setting. What do you think are Paul’s major legacies to the church?

BRUCE: That’s a big question. [Long pause.] My hesitation to answer quickly lies in my unwillingness to say anything that might seem to do Paul less than justice. But, of course, anything I say about him would do him less than justice! I believe his main legacy is his law-free gospel, his affirmation that the grace of God, which he declares is available on equal terms and manifested in an equal degree among human beings of every kind. When he says that ‘in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free person, neither male nor female’ [Galatians 3:28],he is saying that distinctions of those kinds are simply irrelevant where the gospel is concerned, and where Christian witness, life and fellowship are concerned.

Your major work on Paul was published as “Paul: the Apostle of the Free Spirit” in England. In America it was entitled “Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free”. How did these too different titles come about?

The first was my own choice. I had in mind the words of Psalm 51[:12] where the psalmist prays. ‘Uphold me with thy free spirit!’ When my American publisher undertook to market it in the USA, it was thought that the expression ‘free spirit’ had associations which might obscure the main thrust of the book from the intended reading public. ‘Free spirit’ was said to be either a particular brand of gas for automobiles or a class of hippy. I thought at the time that Paul may have been regarded as a sort of hippy in his day! When the book was reviewed very graciously sometime later by Professor Paul Minear of Yale, he pointed out that ‘heart’ in the title was used in a non-Pauline sense. I could not agree more, but I comforted myself with the contemplation that this expression was not my own choice.

How have you been able to resolve the apparent conflict between Paul’s theology of freedom and the social manifestations of people who adhere to Paul but who obviously are not free in either their personal lives or in their manner of relating to people in the world?

If they are obviously not free, they don’t adhere to Paul! They may think they do, but they haven’t begun to learn what Paul means by ‘the liberty with which Christ has set his people free’ [Galatians 5:1].

Why do you suppose there is this fearfulness among Christians who profess to follow
Paul?

Many people, including many Christians, are afraid of liberty. They are afraid of having too much liberty themselves: and they’re certainly afraid of letting other people, especially younger people, have too much liberty. Think of the dangers that liberty might lead them into! It seems much better to move in predestinate grooves.

What is your source of confidence? Does it come directly from your theology?

Yes. Certainly. From Christ as mediated through Paul, who had an exceptional insight into the mind of Christ and realized that in Christ and nowhere else is true freedom to be found. Among all the followers of Christ. I suppose there has never been a more emancipated soul than the soul of Paul.

What has been Paul’s influence on Western thought?

Paul’s influence on western thought has been very profound, indeed. Perhaps it has been chiefly as mediated through Augustine. For Augustine has probably had greater influence on western thought over the centuries than any other single thinker.

Has Paul’s thought been mediated accurately by Augustine?

Not altogether. Augustine did not have quite the same appreciation of Christian liberty that Paul had. Even though Augustine was one of the greatest interpreters of Paul – as [the theologian Adolf] Harnack said of Marcion [whom he considered the greatest interpreter of Paul] – even he misunderstood him’!

Who do you think have been the most accurate interpreters of Paul?

Certainly the great reformers, Luther, for example. Or John and Charles Wesley in the eighteenth century. Paul played such a dominant part in their conversion experience that they could not help assimilating the very heart of Pauline teaching and communicating it to others.

Do you think the current theologies of liberation – for example, Latin American and feminist Theologies – are correct in applying Paul’s theology of freedom to social and political issues?

Basically, yes. The liberation that is at the very heart of the Pauline gospel can’t be restricted in any way. It must have its social implications and applications. I do not know too much about liberation theology, but it does sometimes seem to he linked to a Marxist interpretation of history, and of human life, which is quite different from the Pauline approach.

You seem to interpret Paul as a liberator, if not a revolutionary. But many others see him as a conservative – one who wanted to keep people in their places, who tells slaves to he satisfied with their position in society and women to be silent and forbids them from having positions of leadership in the church. Their interpretation of Paul is of one who is anything but a liberator of people!

Paul’s attitude to slavery must be seen in the context of the social condition of the time. There was no point in telling slaves to rebel against their condition of bondage. They were in no position to do anything about it. What he did was to show, as the Stoics of his day also did, in a way, that a slave can be a free person, just as truly, as a sociologically free person is very often a slave. Slavery and freedom are matters of the inner life, primarily, and a person’s economic or societal position is not of the first importance.

How would you apply this to the role of women?

Paul’s teaching is that so far as religious status and function are concerned, there is no difference between men and women.

What about in practice? Does he not limit women’s role in leadership and in teaching in the church, and in leadership in society?

No. If we have regard to the place that women have in Paul’s circle, he seems to make no distinction at all between men and women among his fellow workers. Men receive praise, and women receive praise for their collaboration with him in the gospel ministry, without any suggestion that there is a subtle distinction between the one and the other in respect of status or function. Anything in Paul’s writings that might seem to run contrary to this must be viewed in the light of the main thrust of his teaching and should be looked at with quite critical scrutiny.

Your church tradition does not have formal ordination for men or women. However, if you were in a church that did make a distinction between clergy and laity, would you support the idea that women, as well as men, should he ordained as pastors, even bishops?

The point is that I could not countenance a position which makes a distinction of principle in church service between men and women. My own understanding of Christian priesthood is quite different from the understanding that dominates so much of the current discussion of the subject. If, as evangelical Christians generally believe, Christian priesthood is a privilege in which all believers share, there can he no reason that a Christian woman should not exercise her priesthood on the same terms as a Christian man.

How do you interpret 1 Timothy 2:9-15, which suggests that women are not to teach?

I’m not quite sure about whether 1 Timothy 2 was written by Paul. But even if it is taken as a statement by Paul himself, it is merely a statement of practice at a particular time.

So you would not regard it as a canon law for the Christian church for all time.

No. I think when you look at Christian history, you observe a tendency to pick and choose the church regulations from the Pastoral Epistles between those precepts which have been taken over as permanent canon law and those which have been set aside as being only for that particular age.

How do you answer people who say that you are doing the same thing, picking and choosing among the various doctrines of the New Testament, using one strand of Paul’s teaching to set aside another strand of the Pauline tradition?

If there is any substance in that criticism, then the strand that I am choosing is the strand that contains the foundation principles of Paul’s teaching in the light of which those other passages must be understood.

What about 1 Corinthians where Paul suggests that women should he quiet in church?

In the same chapter, he indicates certain occasions when men should be quiet or silent in church also! My own view about 1 Corinthians 14 is very similar to the view expressed by Gordon Fee in his recent commentary [in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1987)], namely, that the textual evidence throws doubt on the authenticity of the word ‘let your women keep silence in the churches.’ But even if they are part of the original text of Paul’s letter, they have relevance only to the uttering of prophecies in church, where women are advised not to question publicly and vocally the interpretation of prophetic utterances. In most of our churches today, we don’t have prophetic utterances of the kind envisaged in 1 Corinthians 14. Therefore, the application of that negative injunction does not apply. In general, where there are divided opinions about the interpretation of a Pauline passage, that interpretation which runs along the line of liberty is much more likely to be true to Paul’s intention than one which smacks of bondage or legalism.

What about Paul’s use of the term kephale (head) in 1 Corinthians 11:3, where man is said to he the head of the woman, and in Ephesians 5:23, where the husband is described as the head of his wife? Does not this imply women’s subordination to men?

No. It implies that the head is the source of the being of the other party in question. Paul is referring to the Genesis story of Eve’s being formed out of Adam’s side. In that sense, the husband was the source of the wife’s being. This suggests priority in terms of existence but not otherwise.

You have described yourself as a ‘layman.’ And yet you are looked to as one of the leading biblical scholars of our day. Is there not an inherent contradiction in this?

I do not think so. One uses the term layman in two senses. When I apply the term to myself. I use the term in an ecclesiastical sense: I am not an ordained minister. This is a negative status that I rather insist on! One talks of laymen in another sense, as between doctors or other professionals on the one hand and non-specialists on the other hand. This is a different matter. However, as a lay interpreter of scripture. I am in quite a respectable tradition. Even our Lord was a layman, as the writer to the Hebrews emphasizes.

Does your status as a layman give your work a special slant as a biblical scholar?

Sometimes it gives me a special privilege in that it cannot be said that I hold the things I hold or say the things I say because my church directs me to do so.

What books have influenced you most in your life, other than the Bible?

Some of the great Christian biographies have influenced my life, especially among them the memoir of Anthony Norris Groves, the early Brethren missionary: the life of William Robertson Smith, J. S. Chrystal; and John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua.

Have you changed your mind in any fundamental way in regard to our basic understanding of the Christian faith over the years?

As far as the main outlines of my position are concerned, there have been no appreciable changes. But there have been lots of changes in appreciable matters. For example, in matters of biblical criticism: I may have a vague idea about the purpose, date, authorship, and structure of a particular book of the Bible but if I have to teach a course on that book, or write a commentary on it, and get down to the detailed work necessary, I may find myself changing my views on a number of points related to its study. But that is because I was relatively uninformed previously, whereas closer study has shown me that this rather than that is the way to understand a matter. A rather technical example would be this: for many years I was disposed to believe that the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians belonged to the letter that Paul wrote between 1 and 2 Corinthians, sometimes called the ‘tearful letter’ [2 Cor 2:3-11]. But when I got down to studying 2 Corinthians with a view to writing a commentary on it. I found myself compelled to change my mind and regard the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians as part of a later letter by Paul written subsequently to that contained in the first nine chapters.

What do you think are some of the greatest problems facing Christians today?

The problem is what it has always been. I think: conformity to the world, to the current climate of opinion. The climate of opinion of today may be very different from what it was fifty years ago, but that is the essence of what the New Testament calls “worldliness”. Getting one’s mind into the mind-set of the age, and thinking in those terms instead of in distinctively Christian terms.

How do we avoid worldliness?

We are all influenced by the current climate of opinion, inevitably so. We can’t watch television, or listen to radio, or that sort of thing, without being influenced in this way. But so long as we are aware of the fact that we are being influenced, we may be on our guard against it, instead of simply imbibing it without thinking about it.

What do you think is the greatest opportunity for a Christian young person living today?

There is one great opportunity in the fact that Christian presuppositions, even in a diluted sense, are becoming less and less the presuppositions of our contemporaries. So a Christian who bears witness to the principles of Christian faith and life is not so liable nowadays to hear the response. ‘Yes that is what I’ve always believed!’

Do you have a strategy to suggest to the church today?

No.

Do you think we are living in the last days?

I have no idea.

How can we convince people today of the necessity for sacrificial love?

The best way to convince people is not to talk about it but to practice it. There is no sense in telling people about sacrificial love if one does not show something of it!

What do you think Christians can do to further the cause of peace in the world!

They could start by living peaceably one with another, showing themselves to be, in reality, as they are in the divine purpose, a fellowship of reconciliation, a community of those who, having experienced the reconciling power of God in their own lives, proclaim his message of reconciliation to others, in the widest conceivable sense.

Do you think Christians should he actively involved in opposing nuclear weapons?

I do not see a difference in principle between nuclear weapons and other weapons. We have seen quite a lot of indiscriminate destruction wrought by non-nuclear weapons of a kind that Christians could not contemplate with anything like approval. And the use of nuclear weapons simply multiplies this to the nth power.

Do you think that the Christian perspective demands a pacifist stance!

I should find this a difficult position to maintain. I realize that the pacifist probably has the better of the logical argument, but there are other considerations that may lead to a different conclusion. For example, many people in Britain who were pacifists on principle in World War I were not pacifists in principle when World War II broke out, because they believed that the evil to be opposed in World War was a really positive evil that could not be opposed in any other way. Of course, if it had not been allowed to get to the point to which it had reached in 1939. This evil could have been checked at an earlier stage. From our point of view, however, the moral conclusions that persuaded people in 1939 have been replaced by a quite different series of issues in our day.

I have only observed you to be nervous on only one occasion in all the years I have known you. My impression is that you have a great sense of confidence and certainly an independence of spirit. Is this a valid observation! And, if so, why do you think this is so?

Independence of spirit may largely be the result of my having always been in a position where my personal comfort, income, and the like were not affected by what I affirmed. A person who always has to be looking over his shoulder lest someone who is in a position to harm him may be breathing down his neck has to mind his step in the way such as a university teacher, which I’ve always been, is quite a stranger to.

I’ve known a lot of insecure and nervous university teachers!

That may be so, but that is probably largely a matter of personal temperament.

Has your father’s influence on your life been an influence in this?

In teaching me to think for myself, not to believe a thing just because some preacher says it is so, unless I see it clearly for myself – that was excellent advice. There are some people who will swallow what the most eloquent preacher says.

An Interview With F F Bruce (Part 1)

I have a copy of In Retrospect, an autobiography of F F Bruce. I have read other material on him, but I have never before read an interview conducted with Bruce. Recently, I "chanced" upon this interview with him conducted way back in 1987. I thought this might interest some who have appreciated Bruce's extensive work, not least, his treatments on the intertestamental period and the different books of the New Testament. I am certain you will find many interesting and surprising comments by him here. I should add you will probably also find much to agree or disagree with! Whatever your reaction, I hope this proves an interesting read and gives you an insight into his positions on various issues which you might not find elsewhere. As the interview was quite lengthy, I shall be posting it in two parts. The summary given below of Bruce was provided by the interviewers, and it and the interview were first published as Ward & Laurel Gasque, “An Interview with F.F. Bruce,” St Mark’s Review 139 (Spring 1989): 4-10.

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The figure of Frederick Fyvie Bruce (born 1910) towers like a giant over the field of contemporary biblical scholarship. His commentary on the Greek Text of the Acts of the Apostles (1951) is generally recognized as the first important work in what has since become a contemporary renaissance of evangelical theological research. In recognition of its excellence his alma mater, the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, awarded him an honorary doctorate. Generations of college students have been first introduced to Bruce by reading his little book The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable (IVP and Eerdmans) which has been regularly reprinted and revised for nearly a half century. His New Testament History (Doubleday) has been a standard textbook in seminaries and colleges for two decades. Educated lay men and women have appreciated his ability to translate the results of specialized studies into non-technical books that you do not need a theological degree to be able to understand and enjoy – such as History of the Bible In English (Oxford University Press) and Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Eerdmans), while pastors and teachers look forward eagerly to each new commentary or biblical study from his pen. The latest of these, on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians for the New International Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans), will doubtless remain a standard work well into the next century.

A simple listing of Bruce’s publications runs to fifty-six pages of small print! He is the author of more than forty books and nearly two thousand articles and reviews. In recognition for his work he is one of the few scholars who has been elected president of both the Society for Old Testament Study and the Society for New Testament Studies.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1978 he occupied the prestigious John Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at Manchester University in England, where he supervised more PhD students in biblical studies than any other professor in British history.

The following interview was conducted by W. Ward Gasque and Laurel Gasque, who recently visited Professor and Mrs Bruce in their home in England.

THE INTERVIEW

GASQUES: Has your church tradition [the Plymouth Brethren] shaped your study and teaching of the Bible?

BRUCE: I suppose in some ways it has. As far as my experience goes, it has been part of the tradition of the ‘Open Brethren’ to encourage independent Bible study and independent thinking, without following one school of thought rigidly as sometimes happens in other ecclesiastical groups.

When you began your academic career, there were very few people in British universities, especially in England, who were committed to combining an evangelical faith commitment with academic biblical studies. Things are quite different today, I believe.

Oh, completely different now. And I think it is due, in some measure at least, to the influence of the Tyndale Fellowship which is an association of evangelical men and women who wish to engage in serious biblical research without unnecessary strings but linked with a faith commitment.

It has been forty-five years since you defended the essential trustworthiness of the New Testament in your little book "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable"? Do you still stand by what you wrote then?

I still stand by the general thesis of the book. I may differ in details from some of the critical points I dealt with incidentally, but I still maintain the same outlook that I argued for in that book.

How do you as a Christian and as a scholar, approach the study of the Bible?

I think I should have to distinguish between academic study and more general study. At one level – and perhaps this is the most important level – I approach the Bible with a readiness, and an expectation, to hear the voice of God there. But there is no conflict between that more devotional use of the Bible and its academic study. Over the years I have played a pretty full part in Bible ministry in churches – preeminently, of course, in the local church that I happened to be associated with at any particular time – and what I have tried to do in this ministry has been to combine the two approaches. I have sought to make available to my hearers, in a form that they can assimilate, the results of my academic study, while at the same time trying to enable them, like myself, to recognize and apply the voice of God in holy scripture.

The term ‘biblical criticism’ normally has a positive connotation in your writings, in spite of the negative connotation it has in some circles. Why is this?

Because biblical criticism is the study of the biblical text. It involves the establishing of a reliable text on the basis of manuscripts and other early witnesses: this is the work of ‘textual criticism.’ And when that is done it involves the interpretation of the text, what is technically called ‘exegesis.’ And this requires the study of such matters as the structure of individual books, a consideration of the dates at which they were written, how they fit into their contemporary setting, and then the question of authorship. It is in these three areas – structure, date and authorship – that we have the group of studies that used to he summarized in the single term ‘higher criticism.’ Thus biblical criticism is a very positive study. Its aim is to help people to understand the Bible better. One of my eminent Manchester predecessors in the Rylands Chair, Arthur Samuel Peake, who was no mean practitioner in biblical criticism, has put it on record that ‘criticism for its own sake has never interested me. The important thing is to pierce to the core of the meaning.’ And any technique that enables us to penetrate to the central meaning of scripture is helpful.

Is there is a uniquely ‘evangelical’ view of biblical criticism that differs from other types of biblical criticism?

Not so far as I’m concerned. Some evangelical scholars probably do have unique views of biblical criticism which they would distinguish from certain other approaches. But when I was appointed to teach biblical criticism in the University of Manchester, I was appointed to teach the same subject as my predecessors had taught – Peake, whom I have mentioned. C. H.
Dodd, and T. W. Manson – and I have been conscious of no difference between the criticism that I have taught and the criticism that they taught. They may, in certain respects, have reached different conclusions from those that I reached. But that is a different matter.

In North America there has been a lot of debate concerning the ‘inerrancy’ of the Bible, and ‘inerrancy’ has often been viewed as a touchstone of evangelical orthodoxy. What do you think about this concept?

Happily, from my point of view, that is a North American phenomenon which one does not find very much in Britain. The term that has been traditionally used to describe a high view of the authority of scripture in this country is ‘infallibility.’

What is the difference between the two terms?

When one looks at the words themselves, there is no difference! ‘Inerrancy’ means ‘not going wrong’ and ‘infallibility’ means ‘incapable of going wrong’ or ‘incapable of leading astray.’ But the infallibility of scripture as traditionally defined relates to its function as ‘the rule of faith and practice.’ Inerrancy seems to imply more than this.

What term would you prefer to use in describing the Bible?

Truth. What’s wrong with that word? The truth of scripture is what we’re talking about. Or, if one says that the scripture is the Word of God, why bother about terms like ‘infallibility’ or ‘inerrancy’?

Some years ago you objected to being labelled a ‘conservative evangelical.’ You said you preferred to he known as an ‘unhyphenated evangelical.’ What did you mean by that?

Conservatism is not of the essence of my position. If many of my critical conclusions, for example, are described as being conservative, they are so not because they are conservative, nor because I am conservative, but because I believe them to be the conclusions to which the evidence points. If they are conservative, then none the worse for that.

And what do you mean by ‘evangelical’?

An evangelical is someone who believes in the God who justifies the ungodly [Romans 4:5]. To believe in Him, and nothing more nor less, is to be evangelical. That is evangelicalism in what might be called the Lutheran tradition.

How do you draw the line between those who are evangelical and those who are not?

Those who have a defective view of the work of salvation and of the sovereignty of divine grace in the saving process. Anything that begins to allow for an element of merit or human achievement in the work of salvation is, to that extent, non-evangelical.

So ‘evangelical’ to you signifies more a theological orientation than a movement or a group within the church.

Primarily, it is, I think it’s disastrous when evangelicalism becomes the designation of one party within the church.

Still, recognizing that there is a group of people who might he identified as evangelicals sociologically, what are some of the changes you have observed as having taken place among them over the years?

In my experience in Britain almost the only Christian grouping in which there has been a distinctively evangelical party has been the Church of England. Now I cannot speak from first-hand experience of Anglican evangelicals, but I think that they themselves would be the first to admit that there has been a very considerable change of outlook among them over the past generation. They have become a much more outward-looking, instead of inward-looking body. They realize their responsibility is to play an active and positive part within the witness of the Church of England as a whole. But here I speak merely as an observer. In my own church tradition I think it would be right to say that we’re all evangelicals. We (in the Brethren) would have no possible existence apart from the faith of the gospel as I have tried to indicate it.

In terms of the world-wide evangelical community, have you observed any similar trends?

I think there is a much greater sense of responsibility to contribute to the well being of the church as a whole, and, of course, of the human race as a whole. The Lausanne Covenant is one very interesting manifestation of this change in outlook.

What do you think of the so-called charismatic renewal movement?

I have had very little experience of the charismatic renewal. Certainly, no active involvement with it. So I cannot say anything that is very well informed. But from what I know of it, it does seem to be a movement of the Spirit of God which is playing a part in the maintenance and the revival of Christian witness in many parts of the world in these present days.

The Prayer of Faith (James O Fraser)

Over the years my wife and I have seen the grace of our Lord extended to various members of our families in answer to earnest prayer for their salvation. In a recent discussion with a friend on the need to pray for our immediate and extended families, an enquiry from him prompted a recall button in my memory of the impact of J O Fraser’s article, “The Prayer of Faith” (October 9, 1915) on my on prayer life. While I may not have consciously remembered it, it has been indelibly imprinted upon my consciousness and informed my conviction that without our faithful prayer, souls will not be saved. I have reproduced Fraser’s article here, and I hope that it will prompt some of you to read his biography, Mountain Rain (by Eileen Crossman) or Behind The Ranges (by Mrs Howard Taylor, in 1944). As a young Christian, I was especially inspired by Fraser’s readiness to sacrifice what could have been a very promising future (for he was both a mathematician and an accomplished pianist) for the northern highlands of Burma to answer God’s call to serve among the Lisus. This excerpt has been taken from Mountain Rain (Singapore: OMF books, 1982), pp 85-97.

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The Scriptures speak of several kinds of prayer. There is intercession and there is supplication, there is labour in prayer and there is the prayer of faith; all perhaps the same fundamentally, but they present various aspects of this great and wonderful theme. It would not be unprofitable to study the differences between these various scriptural terms.

There is a distinction between general prayer and definite prayer. By definite prayer I mean prayer after the pattern of Matthew 21:21, 22 and John 15:7, where a definite petition is offered up and definite faith exercised for its fulfilment. Now faith must be in exercise in the other kinds of prayer also, when we pray for many and varied things without knowing the will of God in every case.

In general prayer I am limited by my ignorance. But this kind of prayer is the duty of us all (1 Tim. 2:1, 2), however vague it has to be. I may know very little, in detail, about the object of my prayer, but I can at any rate commend it to God and leave it with Him. It is good and right to pray, vaguely, for all people, all lands, all things, at all times.

But definite prayer is a very different matter. It is in a special sense “the prayer of faith.” A definite request is made in definite faith for a definite answer.

Take the case of a Canadian immigrant as an illustration of the prayer of faith. Allured by the prospect of “golden grain” he leaves home for the Canadian West. He has a definite object in view. He knows very well what he is going for, and that is wheat. He thinks of the good crops he will reap and of the money they will bring him-much like the child of God who sets out to pray the prayer of faith and who has his definite object too. It may be the conversion of a son or daughter; it may be power in Christian service; it may be guidance in a perplexing situation, or a hundred and one other things-but it is definite.

Consider the points of resemblance between the cases of the prospective Canadian farmer and the believing Christian.

The Breadth of the Territory

Think of the unlimited scope for the farmer in Canada. There are literally millions of acres waiting to be cultivated. No need, there, to tread on other people’s toes! Room for all-vast tracts of unoccupied land just going to waste, and good land too. And so it is with us, surely. There is a vast, vast field for us to go up and claim in faith. There is enough sin, enough sorrow, enough of the blighting influence of Satan in the world to absorb all our prayer of faith, and a hundred times as many more. “There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.”

Government Encourages Immigration

Think also of the efforts the Canadian Government is making to encourage immigration. All the unoccupied land belongs to it, but settlers are so badly needed that they are offered every inducement - immigration offices established, sea passages and railway fares reduced, and grants of land made free! God is no less urgently inviting His people to pray the prayer of faith: “Ask-ask-ask,” He is continually saying to us. He offers His inducement too: “Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” All the unoccupied territory of faith belongs to Him. And He bids us to come and occupy freely. “How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land?”

Fixed Limits

Yet this aspect of the truth must not be over-emphasised. Blessed fact though it be that the land is so broad, it can easily be magnified out of due proportion. The important thing is, not the vastness of the territory, but how much of it is actually assigned to us. The Canadian Government will make a grant of 160 acres to the farmer-immigrant, and no more. Why no more? Because they know very well he cannot work any more. If they were to give him 160 square miles instead of 160 acres he would not know what to do with it all. So they wisely limit him to an amount of land equal to his resources.

And it is much the same with us when praying the prayer of definite faith. The very word “definite” means “with fixed limits.” We are often exhorted, and with reason, to ask great things of God. Yet there is a balance in all things, and we may go too far in this direction. It is possible “to bite off,” even in prayer, “more than we can chew.” There is a principle underlying 2 Corinthians 10:13* which may apply to this very matter. Faith is like muscle which grows stronger and stronger with use, rather than rubber, which weakens when it is stretched. Overstrained faith is not pure faith; there is a mixture of the carnal element in it. There is no strain in the “rest of faith.” It asks for definite blessings as God may lead. It does not hold back through carnal timidity, nor press ahead too far through carnal eagerness.

I have definitely asked the Lord for several hundred families of Lisu believers. There are upwards of two thousand Lisu families in the Tantsah district. It might be said, “Why do you not ask for a thousand?” I answer quite frankly, “Because I have not faith for a thousand.” I believe the Lord has given me faith for more than one hundred families, but not for a thousand. So I accept the limits the Lord has, I believe, given me. Perhaps God will give me a thousand; perhaps He will lead me to commit myself to this definite prayer of faith later on.

This is in accordance with Ephesians 3:20, “above all we ask or think.” But we must not overload faith; we must be sane and practical. Let us not claim too little in faith, but let us not claim too much either. Remember the Canadian immigrant’s 160 acres. Consider, too, how the Dominion Government exercises authority in the matter of location. The Government has a say as to the where as well as the how much of the immigrant’s claim. He may not wander all over the prairie at his own sweet will, and elect to settle down in any place he chooses. Even in regard to the position of his farm he must consult the Government. Do we always do this in our prayers and claims? Do we consult the Heavenly Government at the outset, or do we pray the first thing that comes to mind? Do we spend time waiting upon God to know His will before attempting to embark on His promises? That this is a principle upon which God works He has informed us very plainly in 1 John 5:14, 15. (“And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.”)

I cannot but feel that this is one cause for many unanswered prayers. James 4:3 (“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”) has a broad application, and we need to search our hearts in its light. Unanswered prayers have taught me to seek the Lord’s will instead of my own. I suppose we have most of us had such experiences. We have prayed and prayed and prayed, and no answer has come. The heavens above us have been as brass. Yea, blessed brass, if it has taught us to sink a little more of this ever-present self of ours into the Cross of Christ. Sometimes our petition has been such a good one, to all appearances, but that does not ensure its being of God. Many “good desires” proceed from our uncrucified selves. Scripture and experience certainly agree that those who live nearest to God are the most likely to know His will. We are called to be “filled with the knowledge of His will” (Col. 1:9). We need to know more of the fellowship of Christ’s death. We need to feed on the Word of God more than we do. We need more holiness, more prayer. We shall not, then, be in such danger of mistaking His will. It does not follow that because a thing is the will of God, He will necessarily lead you to pray for it. He may have other burdens for you. We must get our prayers from God, and pray to know His will. It may take time. God was dealing with Hudson Taylor for fifteen years before He laid upon him the burden of definite prayer for the foundation of the China Inland Mission. God is not in a hurry. He cannot do things with us until we are trained and ready for them. We may be certain He has further service, further burdens of faith and prayer to give us when we are ready for them.

The Claim Endorsed

Turn to the immigrant again. He has come to an agreement with the Canadian Government. He falls in with their terms, he accepts their conditions, he agrees to take over the land allotted to him. So he presents his claim at the proper quarter, and it is at once endorsed. Could anything be simpler? Nor need our claim in the presence of God be any less simple. When we once have the deep, calm assurance of His will in the matter, we put in our claim, just as a child before his father. A simple request and nothing more. No cringing, no beseeching, no tears, no wrestling. No second asking either. In my case I prayed continually for the Tengyueh Lisu for over four years, asking many times that several hundreds of families might be turned to God. This was only general prayer, however. God was dealing with me in the meantime. You know how a child is sometimes rebuked by his parents for asking something in a wrong way-perhaps in the case of a child, for asking rudely. The parent will say, “Ask me properly.”

That is just what God seemed to be saying to me then: “Ask Me properly. You have been asking Me to do this for the last four years without ever really believing that I would do it-now ask in faith." I felt the burden clearly. I went to my room alone one afternoon and knelt in prayer. I knew that the time had come for the prayer of faith. And then, fully knowing what I was doing and what it might cost me, I definitely committed myself to this petition in faith. I cast my burden upon the Lord and rose from my knees with the deep, restful conviction that I had already received the answer. The transaction was done. And since then (nearly a year ago now) I have never had anything but peace and joy (when in touch with God) in holding to the ground already claimed and taken. I have never repeated the request and never will: there is no need. The asking, the taking, and the receiving occupy but a few moments (Mark 11:24). It is a solemn thing to enter into a faith covenant with God. It is binding on both parties. You lift up your hand to God, you definitely ask for and receive His proffered gift-then do not go back on your faith, even if you live to be a hundred.

Get to Work

To return once more to the Canadian farmer. He has put in his claim, the land has been granted, the deed made out and sealed with the official seal. Is that the end then? No! only the beginning! He has not attained his object yet. His object is a harvest of wheat, not a patch of waste land; and there is a vast difference between the two. The Government never promised him sacks of flour all ready for export-only the land which could be made to yield them. Now is the time for him to roll up his sleeves and get to work. He must build his homestead, get his livestock, call in labourers, clear the ground, plough it and sow his seed. The Government says to him in effect, “We have granted your claim-now go and work it.”

And this distinction is no less clear in the spiritual realm. God gives us the ground in answer to the prayer of faith, but not the harvest. That must be worked for in cooperation with Him. Faith must be followed up by works, prayer-works. Salvation is of grace, but it must be worked out (Phil. 2:12) if it is to become ours. And the prayer of faith is just the same. It is given to us by free grace, but it will never be ours till we follow it up, work it out. Faith and works must never be divorced, for indolence will reap no harvest in the spiritual world. I think the principle will be found to hold in any case where the prayer of faith is offered, but there is no doubt that it always holds good in cases where the strongholds of Satan are attacked, where the prey is to be wrested from the strong.

Think of the children of Israel under Joshua. God had given them the land of Canaan—given it to them, notice, by free grace—but see how they had to fight when once they commenced actually to take possession!

Satan’s tactics seem to be as follows. He will first of all oppose our breaking through to the place of real, living faith, by all means in his power. He detests the prayer of faith, for it is an authoritative “notice to quit.” He does not so much mind rambling, carnal prayers, for they do not hurt him much. This is why it is so difficult to attain to a definite faith in God for a definite object. We often have to strive and wrestle in prayer (Eph. 6:10-12) before we attain this quiet, restful faith. And until we break right through and join hands with God we have not attained to real faith at all. Faith is a gift of God—if we stop short of it we are using mere fleshly energy or willpower, weapons of no value in this warfare. Once we attain to a real faith, however, all the forces of hell are impotent to annul it. What then? They retire and muster their forces on this plot of ground which God has pledged Himself to give us, and contest every inch of it. The real battle begins when the prayer of faith has been offered. But, praise the Lord! we are on the winning side. Let us read and re-read the tenth chapter of Joshua, and never talk about defeat again. Defeat, indeed! No. Victory! Victory! Victory!

Please read 2 Samuel 23:8-23. All I have been saying is found in a nutshell in verses 11 and 12. Let Shammah represent the Christian warrior. Let David represent the crucified and risen Christ—and note that Shammah was one of the “mighty men whom David had.” Let the “plot of ground” represent the prayer of faith. Let the lentils, if you will, represent the poor lost souls of men. Let the Philistines represent the hosts of wickedness. Let “the people” represent Christians afflicted with spiritual anemia.

I can imagine what these people were saying as they saw the Philistines approaching and ran away! “Perhaps it was not the Lord’s will to grant us that plot of ground. We must submit to the will of God."

Yes, we must indeed submit ourselves to God, but we must also “resist the devil” (Jas. 4:7). The fact that the enemy comes upon us in force is no proof that we are out of the line of God’s will. The constant prefixing of “if it be Thy will” to our prayers is often a mere subterfuge of unbelief. True submission to God is not inconsistent with virility and boldness. Notice what Shammah did—simply held his ground. He was not seeking more worlds to conquer at that moment! He just stood where he was and hit out, right and left. Notice also the result of his action and to whom the glory is ascribed!

Praying Through to Victory

I repeat that this does not necessarily apply to every kind of prayer. A young Lisu Christian here is fond of telling an experience of his a few months ago. He was walking through the fields in the evening when his insides began unaccountably to pain him. He dropped on his knees and, bowing his head down to the ground, asked Jesus to cure him. At once the stomach ache left him. Praise the Lord! And there are, no doubt, multitudes of such cases—simple faith and simple answers.

But we must not rest content with such prayer. We must get beyond stomach ache or any other ache, and enter into the deeper fellowship of God’s purposes. “That ye be no longer children” (Eph. 4:14). We must press on to maturity. We must attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” and not remain in God’s kindergarten indefinitely. If we grow into manhood in the spiritual life we shall not escape conflict. As long as Ephesians 6:10-18 remains in the Bible, we must be prepared for serious warfare—”and having done all, to stand.” We must fight through, and then stand victorious on the battlefield.

Is not this another secret of many unanswered prayers—that they are not fought through? If the result is not seen as soon as expected, Christians are apt to lose heart, and if it is still longer delayed to abandon it altogether.

We must count the cost before praying the prayer of faith. We must be willing to pay the price. We must mean business. We must set ourselves to “see things through” (Eph. 6:18, “with all perseverance”). Our natural strength will fail: and herein lies the necessity for a divinely given faith. We can then rest back in the Everlasting Arms and renew our strength continually. We can then rest as well as wrestle. In this conflict-prayer, after the definite exercise of faith, there is no need to ask the same thing again and again. It seems to me inconsistent to do so. Under these circumstances, I would say let prayer take the following forms:

(a) A firm standing on God-given ground, and a constant assertion of faith and claiming of victory. It is helpful, I find, to repeat passages of Scripture applicable to the subject. Let faith be continually strengthened and fed from its proper source—the Word of God.

(b) A definite fighting and resisting of Satan’s host in the Name of Christ. I like to read passages of Scripture such as 1 John 3:8* or Rev. 12:11** in prayer, as direct weapons against Satan. I often find it a means of much added strength and liberty in prayer to fight in this way. Nothing cuts like the Word of the living God (Heb. 4:12).

(c) Praying through every aspect of the matter in detail. In the case of my Lisu work here I continually pray to God to give me fresh knowledge of His will, more wisdom in dealing with the people, knowledge of how to pray, how to maintain victory, how to instruct the people in the gospel, or in singing or in prayer, help in studying the language, help in ordinary conversation, help in preaching, guidance as to settling down somewhere as a center, guidance about building a house (if necessary), guidance in my personal affairs (money, food, clothes, etc.), help and blessing in my correspondence, openings for the Word and blessing in other villages, for leaders and helpers to be raised up for me, for each of the Christians by name, also for every one of my prayer helpers by name. Such detailed prayer is exhausting, but I believe effectual in regard to ascertaining the will of God and obtaining His highest blessing.

Copyright©OMF Books

Liberty of Conscience (Donald MacLeod)

Donald MacLeod is currently Principal of Free Church College in Edinburgh, Scotland. He has taught and continues to teach Systematic Theology in the college. He has written The Person of Christ in the “Contours of Christian Theology” series. In the 1990s, controversy over some of his remarks in an interview led some to question if he has loosened his grip on “evangelical” Christianity. I understand he has clarified his position on some of the issues surrounding the controversy though not to everyone’s satisfaction. I have done no in-depth study of the said controversy so am unable to comment on it. I have chosen to post this article not because I agree with his doctrinal position on every count; I have done so because I believe this is a worthwhile article on the subject. This article first appeared in The Banner of Truth magazine, issues 94-95, July-August 1971.

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“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship.” These words of the Westminster Confession [Chapter XX, 2] enshrine one of the most fundamental emphases of Puritan theology. Unfortunately, in subsequent Evangelical thinking this aspect of truth has been at a discount and the lives of many Christians today are set in a framework of legalism which has nothing to commend it but the consensus of denominational opinion. The loss is immense, both for the individual Christian and for the Church.

This question was already in dispute in our Lord's controversy with the Pharisees. They made the Word of God of none effect by their tradition, taught for doctrines the commandments of men and applied even to questions of far-reaching importance the principle, “It was said by them of old time.” The subject is explicitly raised again in the Pauline epistles. In Romans 14.3-4, for example, the Apostle addresses the believer who condemns the eating of certain meats and says, “Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?” The same problem was at Colosse, in a more serious form, and Paul expresses his astonishment that believers, once emancipated, should ever subject themselves again to vexatious prohibitions which were no more than human impositions [Col. 2.20-23]. But it was the situation in Galatia which disturbed the Apostle most of all and perhaps first alerted him to the perilous tendencies of the remnant legalism of the Christian heart. “But now”, he writes, “after that ye have known God or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days and months and times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain . . . We are not children of the bond-woman but of the free. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” [Gal. 4.9-11, 4.31-5.1].

The theological basis of this liberty is three-fold. It arises, first of all, out of the sonship of believers. God has sent forth His Son; and that Advent has issued in two great results — it has redeemed us from the curse of the law and it has secured for us adoption as sons [Gal. 4.5]. That is our status. We are not slaves, accountable to the steward. We are sons, accountable to God alone. The Father’s will is normative for us. But only the Father’s. For any outside party — be it an individual or an institution — to attempt to dictate to us would be an intolerable meddling with the domestic economy of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is this understanding that lies behind Paul’s challenge, “God bath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he ‘standeth or falleth’” [Rom. 14.4-5]. And when we realise the price with which this adoption and its implied liberty were secured — that Christ was made under the law and was made a curse to this very end — that Christ died to make us free — then we see how magnificent is our privilege. “For freedom Christ has made us free” [Gal. 5.1], and to deprive others of this liberty or allow our own to be infringed is to frustrate the very purpose of redemption.

Secondly, this liberty is grounded in the fact that God alone is Lord of the conscience. This means at once that conscience is not autonomous. No man has an absolute and unlimited right to believe and act simply as his conscience dictates. The liberty of conscience is limited by the authority of God, and this is true whether or not the individual is a Christian. The divine sovereignty is not affected by our recognition or non-recognition of it. But conscience has no other Lord; God can bind it by precept and prohibition. But none other can. No institution, state or tradition may declare lawful what He forbids; or require compliance with laws or prejudices which conflict with privileges which He has conferred; or prevent or hinder obedience to obligations which He has imposed.

Thirdly, and above all, Christian liberty is based upon the supremacy and sufficiency of Scripture as the only rule of faith and life. It is here that the heavenly Father reveals His will and that the Lord of conscience expresses His authority. All that is revealed in Scripture is mandatory. We must believe and obey. Our consciences are bound. But nothing that is contrary to Scripture can bind us; and where Church or State violate this principle the Christian believer has no choice but to state emphatically, “I must obey God rather than men.” But we must go even further. The Christian is free not only from precepts contrary to Scripture but also from precepts which are beside it in matters of faith and worship. This is the so-called Puritan principle. Certainly it was the kernel of Puritanism, which was primarily not a theological or doctrinal tendency but a very definite ecclesiological stand-point. The Church must have positive Biblical warrant for all that it prescribes in the realm of faith and worship. It cannot bind the consciences of its members by saying, “You must do this because it is not forbidden by Scripture.” It must be able to say, “You have to do this because it is commanded in Scripture.” We may not feel as strongly on this matter as did John Owen, who once wrote, “That principle, that the Church hath power to institute or appoint any thing or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as to matter or to manner, lies at the bottom of all the horrible superstition and idolatry, of all the confusion, blood, persecution and wars, that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian world” [Works, Vol. 1 p. xxvii]. We may not feel quite so strongly as this. But the principle is the very essence of Puritanism and of first-rate importance. The Church must not lay down as a principle of Christian conduct or as a condition of Church membership anything that is not revealed as such in the Word of God.

There is no need to linger over the practical outworking of this principle. It applies, first of all, in the realm of doctrine. The Church cannot impose as an article of faith anything contrary to the Word of God or anything not revealed in the Word of God. We might instance the Roman dogmas of the infallibility of the Papacy, the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary. It applies, again, in the realm of Church order, where it means that the Christian conscience cannot be bound by such non-biblical forms of government as Diocesan Episcopacy. It applies, yet again, in the realm of worship. The power of the Church is abused when it insists on the use of such things as vestments, instrumental music, incense, forms of prayer and kneeling at Communion. The Word of God has not bound His children to such observances. And above all the principle applies in the realm of conduct. There are many rules and prohibitions which have no Biblical authority but are so firmly embedded in the evangelical tradition that many Christians are emotionally unable to distinguish them from the will of God. They forbid — to mention a few examples — the use of alcoholic liquor, participation in many forms of recreation, certain modes of dress and even membership of political parties. Stern, negative attitudes on these and associated questions are too often almost constitutive of evangelicalism.

We must, therefore, continually remind ourselves that we are not servants but sons; and school ourselves in the habit of asking: These doctrines, these offices, these forms of worship, these rules and prohibitions — are they from Scripture? are they from our Father? are they from the Lord of conscience? And if not, by what authority do men impose them upon those whom Christ has redeemed by His blood? Why do they make sad the hearts of those whom the Lord has not made sad? This is not something peripheral. It is, from one side, interference with an inalienable and fundamental right of the Christian believer; and from the other an irreverent intermeddling with the household of God and an affront to His sovereignty. Moreover, once the principle is abandoned the process of erosion will go on unchecked. “When once the conscience is entangled in the net,” wrote Calvin, “it enters a long and inextricable labyrinth, from which it is afterwards most difficult to escape. When a man begins to doubt whether it is lawful to use linen for sheets, shirts, napkins and handkerchiefs, he will not long be secure as to hemp, and will at last have doubts as to tow. In fine, he will come to this, that he will deem it criminal to trample on a straw lying in his way” [Institutes III, 19, 7].

It is clear, however, that we exercise this liberty under certain restrictions. It is a privilege that can be abused. Paul reminds us of this in “Use not this liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” We can wrest this doctrine, apply to it the logic of the pit and turn it into a licence for self- indulgence and an instrument of self-destruction. It is a dangerous principle and some may be disposed to reject it for that reason, fearing that it may unsettle the inexperienced and remove the sanctions necessary to the inculcation of holiness. But this anxiety, however well-intentioned, is misplaced. The logic is wrong. The premise certainly is correct. The doctrine is dangerous. But the conclusion is false. The doctrine is not wrong. It is almost a hallmark of the great evangelical doctrines that in the wrong hands they are lethal. The doctrine of justification by faith alone is easily perverted by the inference, “Let us sin that grace may abound.” The sovereignty of God in salvation, working through election and calling, leads easily to the irreverent question, “Why doth he yet find fault?” Peter indicates very clearly that some men were wresting Paul’s teaching to their own destruction [2 Pet. 3.16]. But he does not suggest that Paul should modify his teaching in the light of that. I think we must face frankly the possibility that the principle of Christian liberty may destroy certain people. But it is not for that reason to be abandoned.

The danger is unnecessarily heightened, however, when it is allied to a misunderstanding of another of Paul’s great emphases, “Ye are not under the law but under grace” [Rom. 6.14]. This is sometimes interpreted as if it meant that the law had no place in the life of a Christian man. But this is a complete misunderstanding. The Christian is free from the ceremonial law and in a certain sense he is free also from the moral law. But only in a certain sense. He is free from its curse and he is free from it as covenant of works insisting on perfect obedience as the condition of God's approbation. Christ is the end of the law for justification to every believing man [Rom. 10.4]. We may even go further and say that in a certain sense we are not under the law for sanctification. We are not dependent upon it. In order to sanctification we have resources other than the illumination of the law or the constraint of its sanctions. We have the operations of grace, the power of God, perfected in our weakness, supernaturally, irresistibly and invincibly sanctifying. Yet the law is indispensable. It is the rule of Christian conduct, the expression of the Lordship of Christ and of the Fatherhood of God and compliance with its mandates is the very essence of holiness. The liberty that we have, even as sons, is the liberty of the servants of the Lord, to whom the law of the Creator-Redeemer is not an irksome restraint but a delight [Ps. 40.8].

The New Testament is not content, however, to leave us with the general consideration that our liberty is limited by the authority of divine law. It affords us more detailed guidance.

In the first place, our liberty is qualified by civil and ecclesiastical authority, lawfully exercised. The Westminster Confession is very explicit about this. “And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who upon pretence of Christian liberty shall oppose any lawful power or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God” [Chapter XX, 4]. This is little more than a transcription of Paul’s injunction in Romans 13.1-2, “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God.” Valuable as these statements are they leave unanswered some questions on which we urgency need guidance. How, for example, are we to recognise the civil or ecclesiastical power which is lawful? And when is that power not lawfully exercised? But the general meaning is clear: In ordinary circumstances the Christian is bound to obey the enactments of the de facto authority both in Church and State and proscribed from subverting the peace or order of either. On the other hand, however, the authority of the powers that be is also limited. Their enactments are of no validity when they violate divine law or when they trespass beyond their province. The State must not interfere in the internal affairs of the Church nor the Church with the legitimate operations of Civil government; and neither may invade the privacy of the family or intrude into matters which are between a man and his Maker.

Our liberty is qualified, secondly, by the principle enunciated in Hebrews 12.1 “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” There are many things not sinful in themselves and not condemned by Scripture which are wrong for the individual Christian in his individual circumstances. “We must always remember to distinguish what God allows us,” writes Calvin. “There are some things lawful in themselves but whose use by us is forbidden because of the circumstances of time or place or other things. In enjoying all the blessings of this present life we must always have regard to the fact that they should be aids to our following God and not hindrances” [Comm. on Heb. 11.26]. One of the great premises of our personal spiritual strategy must be what Paul speaks of in Romans 8.26 as “our infirmities”. In the believer, that is, in his flesh, there dwells no good thing. He is easily tempted. The edge of his devotion is soon blunted. He must therefore avoid places and practices which, although not intrinsically sinful are yet hindrances to his personal spiritual effectiveness. But in this area no believer can prescribe for another. Liberty of conscience prevents that. Each must work out for himself what are those things which are lawful in themselves but inexpedient for him. What are the lawful pursuits which in our case weaken faith, dampen zeal and set aflame the remaining depravity of our hearts?

The third restriction upon our liberty is the claim of the weaker brother. This personage figures prominently in Romans 14 and I Corinthians 8, “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye”; “We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak”; “Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak”; “Through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died?” [Rom. 14.1, 15.1; I Cor. 8.9, 11]. The basic difficulty here is that of identification. Who is the weak brother? He is not the sensitive person whose feelings are easily hurt. Probably he is usually sensitive but that is not the weakness which Paul has in mind here. He is thinking in terms of spiritual weakness. This person is easily destroyed. He is easily tempted and falls. In this weakness there are three elements — he is weak in faith [Rom. 14.1], weak in knowledge [1 Cor. 8.7], and weak in conscience [1 Cor. 8.12]. The weakness in faith which Paul refers to is probably related to the principle laid down in Romans 14.14, “Nothing is unclean in itself.” The weak brother is unable to grasp the positive idea which underlies this, namely, that “every creature of God is good.” He is unable to believe, with Calvin, that we are to “use the gifts of God without any scruple of conscience, without any perturbation of mind, for the purpose for which he gave them.” Weakness in knowledge, in the concrete instance of Paul’s context, is the inability to understand that an idol is a nonentity. In eating meat offered to idols some men cannot disabuse their minds of the idea that this god actually exists, has been affected by the consecration of the meat to him and will be affected by their eating it. The weak conscience is one which, almost afraid of the responsibilities of emancipation, continues to submit to regulations from which Christ has made us free. Since the individual believes that they are still in force any departure from them involves for him violation of belief and conscience.

How then are the strong to treat this believer with his weak knowledge, weak faith and weak conscience? First, he must not despise him [Rom. 14.3]. Secondly, he must not destroy him [1 Cor. 8.11]. It is clear at once that this is quite a different idea from not giving offence. Paul is not saying that we must not hurt the feelings of other Christians. Nine times out of ten that is true. “It must be admitted”, writes Professor Murray, “that weak believers do often experience acute pain of heart when they observe others exercise liberties that in their esteem are improper, and a strong believer actuated by love will seek to spare his fellow-believer this pain” [The Epistle to the Romans, ad 14.15]. But situations are bound to arise in which for conscience’s sake we must hurt the feelings of our brother believers. Sometimes we must do it for no other reason than the maintenance of Christian liberty against the encroachments of legalism. Offence taken by Pharisees, says Calvin, is not to be regarded. Moreover, we must not overlook the fact that the weak is under obligation so far as regards his attitude to the strong just as surely as the strong is under obligation as regards his attitude to the weak. “Let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth.” The tendency of the weak to pass censorious judgement on the strong is as reprehensible as the tendency of the strong to treat the weak with contempt.

The injunction, “Destroy not”, implies, I think, two things. First, the strong must not put a stumbling-block in the way of the weak [Rom. 14.13]. Some believers are able, through grace, to live to the glory of God while engaged in activities in which temptations abound. But our own ability to survive is not the only criterion. What of the weaker brother who follows our example? Will he fall and be destroyed? Secondly — and this is what Paul is immediately concerned with — the strong must not embolden the weak to violate his conscience. To enlighten and liberate conscience is one thing. To constrain to its violation is another. “To him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean to him it is unclean,” [Rom. 14.14], and consideration for the religious interests of the weak demands that we must never induce him to do what his conscience denounces as wrong.

In the fourth place our freedom is limited by the demands of edification. “All things are lawful for me,” writes Paul, “but all things edify not” [1 Cor. 10.23]. We are not only free men. We are also members of the body of Christ and of the Christian household and bound therefore by love to serve one another. Each must seek not his own but another’s wealth. This means that with regard to our liberty we must ask not, “How may we indulge it?” but “How can we consecrate it?” It must be used for the upbuilding of the body of Christ. Any exercise of Christian liberty which is harmful to the Church is wrong. We must be motivated all the time by a loving concern for the strength, peace, effectiveness and purity of the Christian community. This is especially important in relation to the Church’s commission, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations.” This is something about which Paul is very emphatic. He speaks of pleasing “all men in all things; not seeking mine own profit but the profit of many, that they may be saved” [1 Cor. 10.33]. “We have not used this power,” he writes elsewhere, “but suffer all things lest we should hinder the Gospel of Christ” [1 Cor. 9.12]. Or again: “Though I be free from all men, yet I have made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more” [1 Cor. 9.19]. Christians are free. That is their inalienable right. But they must not use their liberty in such a way that evangelism is hindered. They must be prepared to forego its exercise if that is going to contribute to the effectiveness of their testimony. This was the way that Paul behaved at Corinth. He believed that the Lord had decreed that those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel and should be supported by those who benefit from their spiritual ministrations. But at Corinth he deliberately renounced this privilege, so that “when I preach the Gospel I may make the Gospel of Christ without charge” [1 Cor. 9.18]. He speaks to the same effect in the oft-quoted statement, “I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some” [1 Cor. 9.22]. The Christian is not bound by the purely cultural and ideological manners of local communities, but he may choose, in the interests of evangelistic effectiveness, to observe them carefully lest he diminish the value of his testimony by giving unnecessary offence.

But over-riding all these factors is the great positive consideration of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 10.31, “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Our freedom is in order to this. We must hallow the Name. We are identified with it, and in us it is exposed to compromise and disgrace. We must, in the exercise of our liberty, so bear ourselves that men glorify our Father who is in heaven. It is not enough, then, that a thing is not forbidden. It must glorify God. It must admit of being consecrated to Him. This rules out the pursuit of the trivial and the frivolous as well as the pursuit of the unlawful. We must lay on others no burdens. But for ourselves we must conscientiously pursue what is to the praise of the glory of His grace.

The Bible and the Cross (J Gresham Machen)

This is the third of three radio addresses given by John Gresham Machen on three consecutive Sundays just before his death on January 1, 1937. The first two, posted just before this here, are entitled, The Doctrine of the Atonement and The Active Obedience of Christ.

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Having observed last week what are the leading views that have been held regarding the cross of Christ, we turn now to the Bible in order to discover which of these views is right.

Did Jesus on the cross really take our place, paying the penalty of God’s law which justly rested upon us? That is the orthodox or substitutionary view of the atonement.

Or did He merely exert a good moral influence upon us by His death, either by giving us an exhibition of the love of God or by inspiring us to sacrifice our lives for the welfare of others as He sacrificed Himself? That is the so-called moral-influence theory of the atonement.

Or did He by His death merely conserve the good discipline of the world by showing that, in the interests of the welfare of the greatest number, God cannot simply allow His law to be transgressed with complete impunity? That is the so-called governmental theory of the atonement.

We shall try to test these three views of the cross of Christ by comparing them with what the Bible actually says. But before we do so, there are two preliminary remarks that we ought to make.

Our first remark is that the three views of the atonement really reduce themselves to two. Both the moral-influence and the governmental view of the atonement really make the work of Christ terminate upon man, rather than upon God. They both proceed on the assumption that, in order that man shall be forgiven, nothing but man’s repentance is required. They both of them deny, at least by implication, that there is such a thing as an eternal principle of justice, not based merely upon the interests of the creature but rooted in the nature of God — an eternal principle of justice demanding that sin shall be punished. They both of them favour the notion that the ethical attributes of God may be summed up in the one attribute — benevolence. They both of them tend to distort the great Scriptural assertion that ‘God is love’ into the very different assertion that God is nothing but love. They both of them tend to find the supreme end of the creation in the happiness or well-being of the creature. They both of them fail utterly to attain to any high notion of the awful holiness of God.

No doubt the governmental theory disguises these tendencies more than the moral-influence theory does. It does show some recognition of the moral chaos which would result if men got the notion that the law of God could be transgressed with complete impunity.

But, after all, even the governmental theory denies that there is any real underlying necessity for the punishment of sin. Punishment, it holds, is merely remedial and deterrent. It is intended merely to prevent future sin, not to expiate past sin. So the tragedy on Calvary, according to the advocates of the governmental view, was intended by God merely to shock sinners out of their complacency; it was intended merely to show what terrible effects sin has so that sinners by observing those terrible effects might be led to stop sinning. The governmental view, therefore, like the moral-influence view, has at its centre the notion that a moral effect exerted upon man was the sole purpose of the cross of Christ.

Very different is the substitutionary view. According to that view, not a mere moral effect upon man but the satisfaction of the eternal justice of God was the primary end for which Christ died. Hence the substitutionary view of the atonement stands sharply over against the other two. The other two belong in one category; the substitutionary view belongs in an entirely different category. That is the first remark that we desire to make before we begin to consider the Biblical teaching in detail.

That remark, however, would be decidedly misleading unless we went on to make a second remark. Our second remark is that the substitutionary view of the atonement, though it makes the work of Christ in dying upon the cross terminate primarily upon God, yet does at the same time most emphatically make it terminate also upon man. What a distortion of the substitutionary view it would be to say that Christ, when He died, did not die to produce a moral effect upon man!

Of course He died to produce a moral effect upon man! If He had not died, man would have continued to lead a life of sin; but as it is, those for whom He died cease to lead a life of sin and begin to lead a life of holiness. They do not lead that life of holiness perfectly in this world, but they will most certainly lead it in the world to come, and it was in order that they might lead that life of holiness that Christ died for them. No man for whom Christ died continues to live in sin as he lived before. All who receive the benefits of the cross of Christ turn from sin unto righteousness. In holding that that is the case, the substitutionary view of the atonement is quite in accord with the moral-influence theory and with the governmental theory.

Well, then, is it correct to say that the moral-influence theory and the governmental theory are correct as far as they go and merely differ from the substitutionary view in being inadequate or incomplete?

No, I do not think that that is correct at all. You see, the heart and core of the moral-influence theory and the governmental theory is found in the denial that Christ on the cross took our place and paid the just penalty of our sins that we might be right with God. Denying that, the moral-influence theory and the exhibit the necessity of some deterrent against sin in the interests of an orderly world, or did He die on the cross in order to pay the penalty of our sin and make us right with the holy God?

Which of these three views is right? That is the question which we shall seek to answer by an examination of the Word of God.

At the beginning of the examination there is one fact which stares us in the face. It has sometimes been strangely neglected. It is the fact of the enormous emphasis which the Bible lays upon the death of Christ.

Have you ever stopped to consider how strange that emphasis is? In the case of other great men, it is the birth that is celebrated and not the death. Washington’s birthday is celebrated by a grateful American people on the twenty-second day of February, but who remembers on what day of the year it was that Washington died? Who ever thought of making the day of his death into a national holiday?

Well, there are some men whose death might indeed be celebrated by a national holiday, but they are not good men like George Washington; they are, on the contrary, men whose taking off was a blessing to their people. It would be a small compliment to the father of his country if we celebrated with national rejoicing the day when he was taken from us. Instead of that, we celebrate his birth. Yet in the case of Jesus it is the death and not the birth that we chiefly commemorate in the Christian church.

I do not mean that it is wrong for us to commemorate the birth of Jesus. We have just celebrated Christmas, and it is right for us so to do. Happy at this Christmas season through which we have just passed have been those to whom it has not been just a time of worldly festivity but a time of commemoration of the coming of our blessed Saviour into this world. Happy have been those men and women and little children who have heard, underlying all their Christmas joys, and have heard in simple and childlike faith, the sweet story that is told us in Matthew and Luke. Happy have been those celebrants of Christmas to whom the angels have brought again, in the reading of the Word of God, their good tidings of great joy.

Yes, I say, thank God for the Christmas season; thank God for the softening that it brings to stony hearts; thank God for the recognition that it brings for the little children whom Jesus took into His arms; thank God even for the strange, sweet sadness that it brings to us together with its joys, as we think of the loved ones who are gone. Yes, it is well that we should celebrate the Christmas season; and may God ever give us a childlike heart that we may celebrate it aright.

But after all, my friends, it is not Christmas that is the greatest anniversary in the Christian church. It is not the birth of Jesus that the church chiefly celebrates, but the death.

Did you know that long centuries went by in the history of the church before there is any record of the celebration of Christmas? Jesus was born in the days of Herod the King — that is, at some time before 4 B.C., when Herod died. Not till centuries later do we find evidence that the church celebrated any anniversary regarded as the anniversary of His birth.

Well, then, if that is so with regard to the commemoration of Jesus’ birth, how is it with regard to the commemoration of His death? Was the commemoration of that also so long postponed? Well, listen to what is said on that subject by the Apostle Paul. ‘For as often as ye eat this bread,’ he says, ‘and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.’ That was written only about twenty-five years after the death of Christ and after the founding of the church in Jerusalem. Even in those early days the death of Christ was commemorated by the church in the most solemn service in which it engaged — namely, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Indeed that commemoration of the death of Christ was definitely provided for by Jesus Himself. ‘This cup is the New Testament in my blood,’ said Jesus: ‘this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.’ In those words of institution of the Lord’s Supper, Jesus carefully provided that His church should commemorate His death.

Thus the Bible makes no definite provision for the commemoration of the birth of Jesus, but provides in the most definite and solemn way for the commemoration of His death.

What is the reason for that contrast, which at first sight might seem to be very strange? I think the answer is fairly clear. The birth of Jesus was important not in itself but because it made possible His death. Jesus came into this world to die, and it is to His death that the sinner turns when He seeks salvation for his soul. Truly the familiar hymn is right when it says about the cross of Christ:

All the light of sacred story

Gathers round its head sublime.

The whole Bible centres in the story of the death of Christ. The Old Testament looks forward to it; the New Testament looks back upon it; and the truly Biblical preacher of the gospel says always with Paul: ‘I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.’

I ask you, then, which of the theories of the atonement suits this supreme emphasis which the Bible puts upon the cross.

Does the moral-influence theory suit it? I think not, my friends. If Jesus died on the cross merely to give us a good example of self-sacrifice or merely to exhibit, without underlying necessity, the love of God, then the Bible does seem strangely overwrought in the way in which it speaks of the death of Christ. Then indeed all the talk in the Bible about the blood of Christ and the blood of the sacrificial victims that were prophecies of Him becomes just about as distasteful as so many modern men hold it to be. Some very much greater significance must be attributed to the death of Christ than a mere hallowing of some universal law of self-sacrifice or a mere pedagogic exhibition of God’s love, if we are to explain the way in which the Bible makes everything to centre in the event that took place on Calvary.

The case is not essentially different when we consider the governmental theory. It is true, the governmental theory does seek, as over against the moral-influence theory, to do justice to the emphasis which the Bible places just on the death of Christ. It regards the tragic horror of the cross not as merely incidental to the meaning of what Christ did but as essential to it. It regards that tragic horror as being the thing that shocks sinners out of their complacency and makes them recognise the seriousness of sin. Hence it seeks to show why just the death of Christ and not some other exhibition of self-sacrificing love was necessary.

But, after all, what a short way such considerations go towards explaining the Biblical emphasis on the cross of Christ! The truth is that there is just one real explanation of such emphasis. It is found in the fact that Christ on the cross did something absolutely necessary if we sinners are to be forgiven by a righteous God. Once recognise the enormous barrier which sin sets up between the offender and his God, once recognise the fact that that barrier is rooted not merely in the sinner’s mind but in the eternal justice of God, and then once recognise that the cross, as the full payment of the penalty of sin, has broken down the barrier and made the sinner right with God — once recognise these things and then only will you understand the strange pre-eminence which the Bible attributes to the cross of Christ.

Thus even the mere prominence of the death of Christ in the Bible, to say nothing of what the Bible says about the death of Christ in detail, is a mighty argument against all minimising theories of the significance of the death of Christ and a mighty argument in favour of the view that Christ on the cross really died in our stead, paying the dread penalty of our sin, that He might present us, saved by grace, before the throne.

In presenting what the Bible says in detail about the death of Christ, I want to speak first of all of those passages where Christ’s death upon the cross is represented as a ransom, then about those passages where it is spoken of as a sacrifice, then about those passages where, without the use of either of these representations, its substitutionary or representative character is plainly brought out.

The first passage that we shall speak of, next Sunday afternoon, is that great passage in the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark where our Lord says that the Son of Man came to give His life a ransom for many.

On this last Sunday of the old year, I just want to say to you who have been listening in on these Sunday afternoons how much encouraged I have been by your interest and by your Christian fellowship. I trust that you have had a very joyous Christmas and I trust that the new year which is so soon to begin may be to you a very blessed year under the mercy of God.

The Active Obedience Of Christ (J Gresham Machen)

This is the second of three radio addresses given by John Gresham Machen on three consecutive Sundays just before his death on January 1, 1937. The first, posted just before this here, is entitled, The Doctrine of the Atonement. This second address has a poignancy of its own. On the very day he died, Machen mustered the strength to send a telegram to John Murray, his friend and colleague at Westminster Theological Seminary. It was his last recorded words: “I’m so thankful for [the] active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.”

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Last Sunday afternoon, in outlining the Biblical teaching about the work of Christ in satisfying for us the claims of God’s law, I said nothing about one very important part of that work. I pointed out that Christ by His death in our stead on the cross paid the just penalty of our sin, but I said nothing of another thing that He did for us. I said nothing about what Christ did for us by His active obedience to God’s law. It is very important that we should fill out that part of the outline before we go one step further.

Suppose Christ had done for us merely what we said last Sunday afternoon that He did. Suppose He had merely paid the just penalty of the law that was resting upon us for our sin, and had done nothing more than that; where would we then be? Well, I think we can say — if indeed it is legitimate to separate one part of the work of Christ even in thought from the rest — that if Christ had merely paid the penalty of sin for us and had done nothing more we should be at best back in the situation in which Adam found himself when God placed him under the covenant of works.

That covenant of works was a probation. If Adam kept the law of God for a certain period, he was to have eternal life. If he disobeyed he was to have death. Well, he disobeyed, and the penalty of death was inflicted upon him and his posterity. Then Christ by His death on the cross paid that penalty for those whom God had chosen.

Well and good. But if that were all that Christ did for us, do you not see that we should be back in just the situation in which Adam was before he sinned? The penalty of his sinning would have been removed from us because it had all been paid by Christ. But for the future the attainment of eternal life would have been dependent upon our perfect obedience to the law of God. We should simply have been back in the probation again.

Moreover, we should have been back in that probation in a very much less hopeful way than that in which Adam was originally placed in it. Everything was in Adam’s favour when he was placed in the probation. He had been created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness. He had been created positively good. Yet despite all that, he fell. How much more likely would we be to fall — nay, how certain to fall — if all that Christ had done for us were merely to remove from us the guilt of past sin, leaving it then to our own efforts to win the reward which God has pronounced upon perfect obedience!

But I really must decline to speculate any further about what might have been if Christ had done something less for us than that which He has actually done. As a matter of fact, He has not merely paid the penalty of Adam’s first sin, and the penalty of the sins which we individually have committed, but also He has positively merited for us eternal life. He was, in other words, our representative both in penalty paying and in probation keeping. He paid the penalty of sin for us, and He stood the probation for us.

That is the reason why those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ are in a far more blessed condition than was Adam before he fell. Adam before he fell was righteous in the sight of God, but he was still under the possibility of becoming unrighteous. Those who have been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ not only are righteous in the sight of God but they are beyond the possibility of becoming unrighteous. In their case, the probation is over. It is not over because they have stood it successfully. It is not over because they have themselves earned the reward of assured blessedness which God promised on condition of perfect obedience. But it is over because Christ has stood it for them; it is over because Christ has merited for them the reward by His perfect obedience to God’s law.

I think I can make the matter plain if I imagine a dialogue between the law of God and a sinful man saved by grace.

‘Man,’ says the law of God, ‘have you obeyed my commands?’

‘No,’ says the sinner saved by grace. ‘I have disobeyed them, not only in the person of my representative Adam in his first sin, but also in that I myself have sinned in thought, word and deed.’

‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘have you paid the penalty which I pronounced upon disobedience?’

‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not paid the penalty myself; but Christ has paid it for me. He was my representative when He died there on the cross. Hence, so far as the penalty is concerned, I am clear.’

‘Well, then, sinner,’ says the law of God, ‘how about the conditions which God has pronounced for the attainment of assured blessedness? Have you stood the test? Have you merited eternal life by perfect obedience during the period of probation?’

‘No,’ says the sinner, ‘I have not merited eternal life by my own perfect obedience. God knows and my own conscience knows that even after I became a Christian I have sinned in thought, word and deed. But although I have not merited eternal life by any obedience of my own, Christ has merited it for me by His perfect obedience. He was not for Himself subject to the law. No obedience was required of Him for Himself, since He was Lord of all. That obedience, then, which He rendered to the law when He was on earth was rendered by Him as my representative. I have no righteousness of my own, but clad in Christ’s perfect righteousness, imputed to me and received by faith alone, I can glory in the fact that so far as I am concerned the probation has been kept and as God is true there awaits me the glorious reward which Christ thus earned for me.’

Such, put in bald, simple form, is the dialogue between every Christian and the law of God. How gloriously complete is the salvation wrought for us by Christ! Christ paid the penalty, and He merited the reward. Those are the two great things that He has done for us.

Theologians are accustomed to distinguish those two parts of the saving work of Christ by calling one of them His passive obedience and the other of them His active obedience. By His passive obedience — that is, by suffering in our stead — He paid the penalty for us; by His active obedience — that is, by doing what the law of God required — He has merited for us the reward.

I like that terminology well enough. I think it does set forth as well as can be done in human language the two aspects of Christ’s work. And yet a danger lurks in it if it leads us to think that one of the two parts of Christ’s work can be separated from the other.

How shall we distinguish Christ’s active obedience from His passive obedience? Shall we say that He accomplished His active obedience by His life and accomplished His passive obedience by His death? No, that will not do at all. During every moment of His life upon earth Christ was engaged in His passive obedience. It was all for Him humiliation, was it not? It was all suffering. It was all part of His payment of the penalty of sin. On the other hand, we cannot say that His death was passive obedience and not active obedience. On the contrary, His death was the crown of His active obedience. It was the crown of that obedience to the law of God by which He merited eternal life for those whom He came to save.

Do you not see, then, what the true state of the case is? Christ’s active obedience and His passive obedience are not two divisions of His work, some of the events of His earthly life being His active obedience and other events of His life being His passive obedience; but every event of His life was both active obedience and passive obedience. Every event of His life was a part of His payment of the penalty of sin, and every event of His life was a part of that glorious keeping of the law of God by which He earned for His people the reward of eternal life. The two aspects of His work, in other words, are inextricably intertwined. Neither was performed apart from the other. Together they constitute the wonderful, full salvation which was wrought for us by Christ our Redeemer.

We can put it briefly by saying that Christ took our place with respect to the law of God. He paid for us the law’s penalty, and He obeyed for us the law’s commands. He saved us from hell, and He earned for us our entrance into heaven. All that we have, then, we owe unto Him. There is no blessing that we have in this world or the next for which we should not give Christ thanks.

As I say that, I am fully conscious of the inadequacy of my words. I have tried to summarise the teaching of the Bible about the saving work of Christ; yet how cold and dry seems any mere human summary — even if it were far better than mine — in comparison with the marvellous richness and warmth of the Bible itself. It is to the Bible itself that I am going to ask you to turn with me next Sunday afternoon. Having tried to summarise the Bible’s teaching in order that we may take each part of the Bible in proper relation to other parts, I am going to ask you next Sunday to turn with me to the great texts themselves, in order that we may test our summary, and every human summary, by what God Himself has told us in His Word. Ah, when we do that, what refreshment it is to our souls! How infinitely superior is God’s Word to all human attempts to summarise its teaching! Those attempts are necessary; we could not do without them; everyone who is really true to the Bible will engage in them. But it is the very words of the Bible that touch the heart, and everything that we — or for the matter of that even the great theologians — say in summary of the Bible must be compared ever anew with the Bible itself.

This afternoon, however, just in order that next Sunday we may begin our searching of the Scriptures in the most intelligent possible way, I am going to ask you to glance with me at one or two of the different views that men have held regarding the cross of Christ.

I have already summarised for you the orthodox view. According to that view, Christ took our place on the cross, paying the penalty of am that we deserved to pay. That view can be put in very simple language. We deserved eternal death because of sin; Jesus, because He loved us, took our place and died in our stead on the cross. Call that view repulsive if you will. It is indeed repulsive to the natural man. But do not call it difficult to understand. A little child can understand it, and can receive it to the salvation of his soul.

Rejecting that substitutionary view, many men have advanced other views. Many are the theories of the atonement. Yet I do think that their bewildering variety may be reduced to something like order if we observe that they fall into a very few general divisions.

Most common among them is the theory that Christ’s death upon the cross had merely a moral effect upon man. Man is by nature a child of God, say the advocates of that view. But unfortunately he is not making full use of his high privilege. He has fallen into terrible degradation, and having fallen into terrible degradation he has become estranged from God. He no longer lives in that intimate relationship of sonship with God in which he ought to live.

How shall this estrangement between man and God be removed; how shall man be brought back into fellowship with God? Why, say the advocates of the view of which we are now speaking, simply by inducing man to turn from his evil ways and make full use of his high privilege as a child of God. There is certainly no barrier on God’s side; the only barrier lies in man’s foolish and wicked heart. Once overcome that barrier and all will be well. Once touch man’s stony heart so that he will come to see again that God is his Father, once lead him also to overcome any fear of God as though God were not always more ready to forgive than man is to be forgiven; and at once the true relationship between God and man can be restored and man can go forward joyously to the use, in holy living, of his high privilege as a child of the loving heavenly Father.

But how can man’s heart be touched, that he may be led to return to his Father’s house and live as befits a son of God? By the contemplation of the cross of Christ, say the advocates of the view that we are now presenting. Jesus Christ was truly a son of God. Indeed, He was a son of God in such a unique way that He may be called in some sort the Son of God. When therefore God gave Him to die upon the cross and when He willingly gave Himself to die, that was a wonderful manifestation of God’s love for sinning, erring humanity. In the presence of that love all opposition in man’s heart should be broken down. He should recognise at last the fact that God is indeed his Father, and recognising that, he should make use of his high privilege of living the life that befits a child of God.

Such is the so-called ‘moral-influence theory’ of the atonement. It is held in a thousand different forms, and it is held by thousands of people who have not the slightest notion that they are holding it.

Some of those who have held it have tried to maintain with it something like a real belief in the deity of Christ. If Christ was really the eternal Son of God, then the gift of Him on the cross becomes all the greater evidence of the love of God. But the overwhelming majority of those who hold the moral-influence view of the atonement have given up all real belief in the deity of Christ. These persons hold simply that Jesus on the cross gave us a supreme example of self-sacrifice. By that example we are inspired to do likewise. We are inspired to sacrifice our lives, either in actual martyrdom in some holy cause or in sacrificial service. Sacrificing thus our lives, we discover that we have thereby attained a higher life than ever before. Thus the cross of Christ has been the pathway that leads us to moral heights.

Read most of the popular books on religion of the present day, and then tell me whether you do not think that that is at bottom what they mean. Some of them speak about the cross of Christ. Some of them say that Christ’s sufferings were redemptive. But the trouble is they hold that the cross of Christ is not merely Christ’s cross but our cross; and that while Christ’s sufferings were redemptive our sufferings are redemptive too. All they really mean is that Christ on Calvary pointed out a way that we follow. He hallowed the pathway of self-sacrifice. We follow in that path and thus we obtain a higher life for our souls.

That is the great central and all-pervading vice of most modern books that deal with the cross. They make the cross of Christ merely an example of a general principle of self-sacrifice. And if they talk still of salvation, they tell us that we are saved by walking in the way of the cross. It is thus, according to this view, not Christ’s cross but our cross that saves us. The way of the cross leads us to God. Christ may have a great influence in leading us to walk in that way of the cross, that way of self-sacrifice; but it is our walking in it and not Christ’s walking in it which really saves us. Thus we are saved by our own efforts, not by Christ’s blood after all. It is the same old notion that sinful man can save himself. It is that notion just decked out in new garments and making use of Christian terminology.

Such is the moral-influence theory of the atonement. In addition to it, we find what is sometimes called the governmental theory. What a strange, compromising, tortuous thing that governmental theory is, to be sure!

According to the governmental view, the death of Christ was not necessary in order that any eternal justice of God, rooted in the divine nature, might be satisfied. So far the governmental view goes with the advocates of the moral-influence theory. But, it holds, the death of Christ was necessary in order that good discipline might be maintained in the world. If sinners were allowed to get the notion that sin could go altogether unpunished, there would be no adequate deterrent from sin. Being thus undeterred from sin, men would go on sinning and the world would be thrown into confusion. But if the world were thus thrown into moral confusion that would not be for the best interests of the greatest number. Therefore God held up the death of Christ on the cross as an indication of how serious a thing sin is, so that men may be deterred from sinning and so order in the world may be preserved.

Having thus indicated — so the governmental theory runs — how serious a thing sin is, God proceeded to offer salvation to men on easier terms than those on which He had originally offered it. He had originally offered it on the basis of perfect obedience. Now He offered it on the basis of faith. He could safely offer it on those easier terms, and He could safely remit the penalty originally pronounced upon sin, because in the awful spectacle of the cross of Christ He had sufficiently indicated to men that sin is a serious offence and that if it is committed something or other has to be done about the matter in order that the good order of the universe may be conserved.

Such is the governmental theory. But do you not see that really at bottom it is just a form of the moral-influence theory? Like the moral-influence theory, it holds that the only obstacle to fellowship between man and God is found in man’s will. Like the moral-influence theory it denies that there is any eternal justice of God, rooted in His being, and it denies that the eternal justice of God demands the punishment of sin. Like the moral-influence theory it plays fast and loose with God’s holiness, and like the moral-influence theory, we may add, it loses sight of the real depths of God’s love. No man who holds the light view of sin that is involved in these man-made theories has the slightest notion of what it cost when the eternal Son of God took our place upon the accursed tree.

People sometimes say, indeed, that it makes little difference what theory of the atonement we may hold. Ah, my friends, it makes all the difference in the world. When you contemplate the cross of Christ, do you say merely, with modern theorists, ‘What a noble example of self-sacrifice; I am going to attain favour with God by sacrificing myself as well as He.’ Or do you say with the Bible, ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me; He took my place; He bore my curse; He bought me with His own most precious blood.’ That is the most momentous question that can come to any human soul. I want you all to turn with me next Sunday afternoon to the Word of God in order that we may answer that question aright.