The doctrine with which we are concerned is both the divine heart of the Gospel and the Gospel for the human heart. To seek an answer to the question, How can a man be just before God? is to be launched out into the profundities of our faith and to be occupied with the deep things of the Spirit. Virtually every great truth of the Gospel is grounded upon and linked up with this. Justification by faith—the answer of God to the needs of man—is the one unchanging message and method by which God receives sinful men.

But men readily forget, as William Temple has said, that “The only thing of my very own which I can contribute to my redemption is the sin from which I need to be redeemed” (Nature, Man and God, p. 401).

Justification is that judicial act of God’s free mercy whereby he pronounces guiltless those sinners condemned under the law, and constitutes them as actually righteous, once and for all, in the imputed righteousness of Christ—on the grounds of his atoning work, by grace, through faith alone apart from works—and assures them of a full pardon, acceptance in his sight, adoption as sons, and heirs of eternal life, and the present gift of the Holy Spirit; and such as are brought into this new relation and standing are by the power of this same Spirit, enabled to perform good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk therein; yet such works performed, as well as the faith out of which they spring, make no contribution to the soul’s justification, but they are to be regarded as declarative evidences of a man’s acceptance in the sight of God.

A number of very important points present themselves in this comprehensive definition.

The Nature of Justification. The Hebrew term tsadek and its Greek equivalent dikaioō must be understood, in the context of our discussion, in a legal as distinguished from a moral sense. It is of course true that in every instance the forensic connotation cannot be insisted upon; there are passages in which it could with as much assurance be read “to make righteous” as “to declare righteous.” It is on the strength of this that Roman Catholic and some “Protestant” writers seek to establish their view that man is justified by his own righteousness as infused and inherent rather than by a divine righteousness vicarious and imputed.

To remain good Protestants and “Paulinists,” however, it is not necessary to prove that the term in every instance means “to declare righteous” and nothing else. The fact is that “all parties must be held to admit that, when a sinner is justified, he is, in some sense, both made and accounted righteous; and the real difference between them becomes apparent only when they proceed to explain in what way he is made righteous, and adjudged so to be” (J. Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification, p. 228).

Yet it is important to observe that in those passages of Scripture which deal specifically with the question of man’s acceptance before God the forensic sense of the term is clearly in mind, and for a correct exegesis must be so understood. When, for example, an antithetical expression, such as the word “condemnation,” is used, the forensic meaning is certainly present (see, e.g., Deut. 25:1; Prov. 17:15; Isa. 5:23; Matt. 12:37; and especially in reference to God, Rom. 5:16; 8:33, 34). A forensic idea is essential in those passages where correlative expressions appear (see, e.g., Gen. 18:25; Ps. 32:1; 143:2, Rom. 2:2, 15; 8:33; 14:10; Col. 2:14; 1 John 2:1). There are also passages in which a synonym for justification is used which make it evident that the justified man is brought into a changed judicial relation to God and that the word does not relate to a change in his moral and spiritual character (see, e.g., Rom. 4:3, 6–8; 2 Cor. 5:19, 20).

The doctrine of justification has often been stated in such a way as to leave the impression that it is a “legal fiction.” This idea of a fictio juris arises when it is taught that God merely declares a man righteous when he is not. The truth is that God sees the believing man as constituted righteous in Christ, and accepting him “in the Beloved” he pronounces him to be what he is—in Christ. Here is the paradox of the Gospel—a man is a sinner yet perfect. Yet it is only a “righteous” man who can be declared righteous. The vital question then is: Whose is the righteousness on account of which God gives his verdict, “Not Guilty” and “Acceptable”?

The Grounds of Justification. Two issues may be distinguished here, referred to as the ultimate and immediate grounds of God’s act of justifying the sinner. The ultimate ground lies in the will and the mercy of God (cf. John 1:13; James 1:18; Titus 3:5–7; Rom. 9, especially v. 16, “So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on the mercy of God” [Goodspeed]). Upon these great facts our justification is ultimately based. Here might be considered, in the light of the Scriptures, the disclosures of the eternal covenant between the Persons in the Triune Godhead by whom and through whom the plan and purpose of salvation for sinful men were forever made sure (cf. Eph. 1:3 f.; 3:2; etc.). In that eternal covenant of grace salvation was rendered certain.

More particularly, however, it need only be stated here that our justification is based solely and squarely upon the objective mediatorial work of Christ for us. It is with our Lord’s deed on the Cross that it is connected. This means that our justification is something external to ourselves. It is not something done either by us or in us. It is what was done—once and for all—for us. We are justified, it is declared, “by the blood of Christ” (Rom. 5:9), by his “righteousness” (5:18), by his “obedience” (5:19), “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 6:11).

The more immediate grounds, however, of the sinner’s justification is the imputed righteousness of Christ. Some have erroneously made the sinner’s justification to be a consequence of a grace infused and a righteousness inherent. It is the fundamental error of the Roman church to substitute the inherent righteousness of the regenerate (in baptism, of course) for the imputed Righteousness of the Redeemer. The result is that the forensic nature of justification is lost and it becomes equated with sanctification.

But there are those, not of Rome, who evade the full implications of the doctrine of justification by making room for the righteousness of man.

Against every attempt to give man a part in his justification, the Epistle to the Romans utters an emphatic denial. It is the righteousness of Christ which is imputed to the believer: the whole righteousness of the whole Christ. Christ is not divided nor can his righteousness be finally distributed. Romans 5:17 speaks of the “gift of righteousness”—the righteousness of “the obedience of one” (5:19). “It is, therefore, the righteousness of Christ, His perfect obedience in doing and suffering the will of God, which is imputed to the believer, and on the ground of which the believer, although in himself ungodly, is pronounced righteous, and therefore free from the curse of the law, and entitled to eternal life” (C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III, p. 151).

This doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness cannot be rejected as being either impossible or artificial. With regard to the first, the passage 2 Corinthians 5:21 is of decisive significance. Most surely Christ was not made sin in any moral sense. Nor in our justification are we made righteous in a moral sense. He was made sin by bearing our sins, so we are made righteous by bearing his righteousness. Our sins are imputed to him and thus become the judicial grounds of his humiliation and suffering, and his righteousness is imputed to us and thus becomes the judicial ground of our justification.

On the other hand, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness can only give the appearance of artificiality if divorced from the complementary doctrine of union with Christ. “Justification is not an arbitrary transfer to us of legal fictions in the divine government” (cf. A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p. 479).

The Channel of Justification. Roman Catholicism virtually makes the Church’s sacraments, working ex opero operato, produce and maintain the status by which a man is being made acceptable with God. But the Scriptures declare justification to be “by faith” (see, e.g., Rom. 3:22, 27 f.; 4:16; 5:1; etc.). This faith is “fiduciary.” It is a living and personal trust in a perfect redemption and a present Redeemer.

“Faith is not a human notion or a dream as some take it to be. Faith is a divine work in us, which changes us and causes us to be born anew from God” (John 1:13; M. Luther, Preface to Epistle to the Romans). James Arminius boldly says that the “author of faith is the Holy Spirit” (The Works of James Arminius, trans. by J. Nichols and W. Bagnall, 1853, Vol. II, p. 110). It is “a gracious and gratuitous gift of God” (p. 500).

In this connection two facts must be stressed. First, faith is only the channel of our justification. It is, as Arminius says, the “instrumental” not the “formal” cause. Some have taken the position that our pardon is based sure enough on Christ’s atoning work, but justification rests upon faith which God accepts in place of that perfect obedience due from us to the absolute demands of the law (cf. Rom. 4:3; cf. Gen. 15:6). It would be fatal to the full truth of the Gospel thus to turn faith itself into a “work.” Abraham’s faith was by no means a substitute for obedience (cf. Heb. 11:8). It was, in fact, a faith to (eis) righteousness, not instead of (anti) righteousness. The position is not made any more acceptable by talking of “evangelical obedience.” Faith has no place for any kind of help.

To make faith, then, the only channel of justification means quite literally that all works are excluded (cf. Rom. 3:28; Rom. 4; Gal. 2:16; Gal. 3; Eph. 2:8; etc.). It will stand without emphasizing that the works done by the ungenerate man have no place in his justification. But it should be underlined that if our salvation is to remain a matter of grace alone, by faith alone, this prohibition extends no less to what are called post-regeneration works. The discussion by James about the necessity of works turns not upon their meritorious value, but their evidential value. James is condemning a faith merely intellectual, while Paul is rejecting works as having saving merit. James says an inactive faith cannot justify; Paul says meritorious works do not justify. Paul requires a saving faith, therefore apart from works, and James a living faith, therefore a faith which works. And neither contradicts the other.

From the beginning of its rediscovery at the Reformation the biblical principle of sola fides has been compromised. Some have maintained that repentance and love and the new obedience are all to be included in the faith by which a man is justified. Here again effort is made to share the work between the benefits of Christ and the acts of men, and in this way to give some of the glory to man. Such an idea makes grace no longer grace.

The faith by which a sinner is justified is not, then, itself a work of obedience. “That faith and works concur together in justification, is a thing impossible” (J. Arminius, op. cit., p. 119). But neither is faith an equivalent for obedience; it is rather the germ out of which obedience springs. Faith is the medium or the instrument by which Christ is received and by which we are united to him. In Scripture we are never said to be justified dia pistin—on account of faith, but only dia pisteōs—through faith, or ek pisteōs—by faith.

Today some tend to associate ecumenical love, moral rearmament, and even prayer therapy, with faith as the means of justification. Indeed in some statements one or other of these seems to be made a substitute for that faith by which the sinner is justified in the sight of God.

The Results of Justification. It certainly includes pardon. Justification relates to the sinner’s established and unchanging position coram Deo; once established it remains. But pardon may be renewed. The justified man is certainly accepted “in the Beloved”; not only is he a “child of God” by birth, but he is also a son by adoption. He is huiothesia, brought into the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the family (cf. Gal. 5:5; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:5). “Adoption is a term involving the dignity of the relationship of the believers as ‘sons’: it is not a putting into the family by spiritual birth, but a putting into the position of sons.” Such believers possess eternal life as a present possession (cf. John 3:15–18; 1 John 5:10–12; etc.). Such, too, have the Holy Spirit, not only as an earnest of our purchased possession (Eph. 1:14), but as the one by whom our sanctification is effected and assured (1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 3:16).

The Evidences of Justification. Good works have a declarative value with regard to a man’s justification. Since a man has been taken into union with Christ, righteous though still a sinner, he must work out his own salvation as Gods works in him (Phil. 2:12, 13). Luther puts the matter in a nutshell: “Oh, it is a living, creative, active, mighty thing, this faith! So it is impossible for it to fail to produce good works steadily. It does not ask whether there is good to do, but before the question is raised, it has already done it, and goes on doing it. Whoever does not do such works is a faithless man” (op. cit.).

Bibliography: J. Arminius, Works, Vol. II; A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology; J. Buchanan, The Doctrine of Justification; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology; J. S. Stewart, A Man in Christ.

Vice-Principal

London Bible College

London, England

Smiles of assent swept across the Upperville, Va., Baptist Church on an August morning in 1846. The visiting speaker was rapidly winning the full sympathy of his audience. No preacher had ever before so fully justified the toil and sacrifices by which these farmers were growing rich. It was right, he declared, for the Christian to gather property and provide well for his family.

Just as he had his audience in his hand, Dr. A. M. Poindexter suddenly and dramatically appealed for them to “consecrate their wealth to the highest ends of existence, to the good of mankind, and the glory of Christ.” It was a torrent, a tornado that swept everything before it. Then with no lesser power, he urged his hearers to dedicate their mental gifts and possible attainments to the work of the ministry.

One young man was so powerfully moved by the Spirit of God that immediately after the service he sought his pastor and choked out, “Brother Grimsley, the question is decided; I must try to be a preacher.”

Dr. Poindexter’s sermon, and a preceding one, had just changed the life course of John A. Broadus. In the providence of God, Broadus’ preaching, teaching, and writing were in turn destined to influence and change countless lives, far beyond his own lifetime. It has been said of his text Preparation and Delivery of Sermons that “No other work in the field of homiletics has had so wide and extended use in the history of theological education.”

None of this could have been foreseen that morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains. No one could have imagined that Broadus was destined to be chosen someday to deliver the Lyman Beecher lectures on preaching at Yale University. At Broadus’ death, Dr. William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, declared, “No man ever heard him preach but understood every sentence; no one heard him preach who did not feel the truth of God sink deep into his heart. As a teacher of the New Testament as well as of homiletics, it is perhaps not too much to say that he had no superior in this country.”

John Albert Broadus was born January 24, 1827, in Culpepper County, Va., in the country where, he observed, “everybody ought to be born.” Following his conversion during a protracted (evangelistic) meeting, he was baptized “in Mountain Run just above where the bridge crosses the stream.”

After teaching school about two years, he quit in 1846 to enter the University of Virginia, planning to become a doctor. But he had not been able to dismiss the haunting appeal of the ministry. Finally, Dr. Poindexter’s powerful messages settled the issue for him; he enrolled in the university, but with a ministerial career in view. There he became active in Sunday school work, students’ prayer meetings, and a debating society, meanwhile drinking in learning,

After graduation, Broadus accepted the pastorate of the Charlottesville Baptist Church, where he preached to congregations ranging from slaves to university professors. At the same time, Broadus served as assistant professor of classics, at the University of Virginia, and for a time as university chaplain. He was gaining stature in Latin and Greek, the latter particularly, a most invaluable asset for his life work.

Outbreak of the Civil War

In 1859, Broadus and three others joined the original faculty of the newly established Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Greenville, S. C. Before he was fairly launched on his new career, the Civil War broke out, forcing the infant school to close for the duration.

But if one door closed, others swung open, with unprecedented opportunities. Broadus ministered in small country churches, and preached in many military bases, meanwhile working on his commentary on Matthew and keeping up a steady stream of correspondence with friends and relatives.

Dr. J. William Jones, who carried on a remarkable ministry himself, had appointments for Dr. Broadus “three times every day, and occasionally four times. He drew large crowds, and as he looked into the eyes of those bronzed heroes of many a battle, and realized that they might be summoned at any hour into another battle, and into eternity, his very soul was stirred within him, and I never heard him preach with such beautiful simplicity and thrilling power the old gospel which he loved so well.” Once General Gordon sent special couriers with notice that Dr. Broadus would preach, and an immense crowd of probably 5,000 attended, Generals Lee, Hill, Ewell, Early, and a number of others among them. “The wreaths and stars and bars of rank mingled with the rude garb of the private … as the men sat on the bare ground. After a stirring song service, Broadus led in fervent, melting prayer, then announced his text: “Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace” (Prov. 3:17). Hundreds came forward to ask for prayer, or profess a new-found faith.

The pulpit was not Dr. Broadus’ only ministry. At Winchester, Va., he helped hand out slices of buttered bread, coffee, and buttermilk to wounded soldiers retreating after Gettysburg. Seeking opportunities for witness, he also would distribute tracts in hospitals.

Amid the overwhelming difficuties of a prostrate economy, the seminary bravely reopened November 1, 1865—with seven students. Dr. Broadus had just one in homiletics—and he was blind! Added to the other burdens was that of health, which finally forced Broadus to spend a year abroad. He returned refreshed and enriched.

It was uphill work, seeking to enlist support and raise funds for the struggling seminary during the difficult days of reconstruction. There was no Marshall plan, no government grant. Once he wrote an associate that students were constantly inquiring whether seminary classes would be suspended or continue another session. “I don’t know how we are going to manage—but I hope and pray,” he added, “that God will put it into the hearts of the brethren to help manfully and immediately.”

During this time, renowned institutions actively sought Broadus as president, and many influential churches, both north and south, would have welcomed him as pastor. But he never wavered in his devotion to the seminary.

Although South Carolinian Baptists loved the seminary wholeheartedly, it was simply not possible to obtain necessary support for it there. After much prayer, thought, and work, it was decided to move in 1877 to Louisville, Kentucky. Immediately the student enrollment increased. And demands for Broadus to speak in churches of all evangelical denominations multiplied. In 1889, he was named seminary president.

Preaching with a Purpose

Dr. Broadus, who had a high conception of the preacher’s office, preached with a purpose. He always sought to lead his hearers to some spiritual decision: conversion, commitment, decisive Christian living. A. T. Robertson, who had heard Beecher, Spurgeon, D. L. Moody, and David Lloyd George, said, “Broadus was the equal of any man I have ever heard.”

Broadus believed that the Word of God is true, “but it does not follow that our interpretations are infallible.” He believed in progressive orthodoxy, pointing out that while the truth does not change, we progress in our understanding of that truth. Findings of archaeology, for example, have “prepared us to interpret the Bible more wisely.”

In the classroom, he was exacting, compelling, fascinating. His successor as seminary president paid tribute to him as possessing “a sort of faculty of divination; an extraordinary scientific and historical imagination. Of all the teachers I have encountered on this side of the water, Broadus laid the most distinguished emphasis upon the duty of original research.”

One of Dr. Broadus’ daughters recalled, “When we heard him preach, what he said never seemed in different character from his home self, but only something more from the same source.” Coming home from school one day, one of his children asked whether it was right to try to get ahead of others so as to be best in a class. He answered, “It is right to try to do better than they, but it would be wrong to keep them from doing well, or to begrudge their success.”

While Dr. Broadus wrote many books and tracts, perhaps his crowning achievement was his textbook Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, which stemmed from careful preparation of full lectures for his blind student. In it he wanted to help both “young ministers who have no course of instruction in homiletics and give some useful hints to older ministers.” Thousands of students and ministers over the years can testify to the extent of his success. First published in 1870, the book has since been completely revised, and has reached a circulation of nearly 60,000. John Albert Broadus was indeed a teacher of preachers.

BERNARD R. DEREMER

Chicago, Illinois

There are Christian truths which are a vital part of our faith, truths which are revealed, affirmed and confirmed and there is neither profit nor blessing in trying to explain them away.

During the past year the wife of one of America’s most prominent men died and he found himself in deep distress, not only because of his bereavement but also because he had no sustaining Christian faith and no assurance or understanding about the future.

In his desperation this individual (and this incident is confirmed by his own testimony) went to one of America’s leading clergymen, a man who has preached and written on Christianity from the extreme liberal position for many decades.

What did he get? For an hour he heard a dissertation on why Christ’s resurrection was not a physical one, only “spiritual.” Needless to say he received neither comfort nor hope.

Through God’s overruling providence this man had a chance (?) contact with another minister, strong in faith, possessing a personality warm with love and the ability to explain Christian truth with deep conviction.

The upshot has been that this bereaved man has turned to the Bible and to the hope to be found there through faith in the risen Christ.

The Resurrection is a cardinal doctrine having to do with the person and work of Christ. It, along with the doctrine of the Cross, is an essential of the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul says in the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, that great chapter on the Resurrection: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (15:3–4).

In Romans 10:9 Paul gives the basis of salvation in these words: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

To “spiritualize” the Resurrection is—and we speak bluntly—to say that it did not occur.

To “spiritualize” the Resurrection is to do violence to all rules of evidence, not only biblically but also historically.

To “spiritualize” the Resurrection is to deny statements of the Bible which are so clear that they cannot possibly lend themselves to any other than a literal interpretation.

In other words, to “spiritualize” the Resurrection is to rob Christ, and his written Word, of truthfulness and meaning.

To his troubled and doubting disciples our Lord said: “See my hands and my feet” (in which there were wounds), “that it is I myself, handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see that I have,” and to give yet further convincing proof that his was a physical body which had arisen he asked for food. Then we are told: “He took it and ate it before them.”

From a historical standpoint the Resurrection is one of the best attested of all events. The course of history was changed, the Gospel was now complete. Belief in the Resurrection, because of “many infallible proofs,” became the cornerstone of the disciples’ preaching. Again and again they bore testimony to the Resurrection in these words, “of which we are witnesses.”

Indirect proof of the actual Resurrection of Christ is found in the changed attitude of the apostles. Once fearful and scattered, these ordinary men, unlearned and lacking in all personal influence, went out to face the Jewish and Roman leaders without fear, bearing testimony to the one they knew to be alive because they had seen, talked with and listened to him. And this knowledge made of these simple fishermen, and their likewise unremarkable associates, flaming evangels who went out to preach Christ crucified, dead and risen, regardless of the cost.

Were these disciples deluded and misguided? Were they preaching about a dream, an apparition, a “spiritual” experience divorced from physical fact or actual observation? The evidence is so overwhelmingly against any spiritualization of their observations and subsequent actions that we must conclude that Christ rose from the dead with an actual body which could speak, walk, talk, eat and be touched.

Some have sought support for rejection of a physical Resurrection by taking Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15:37 where he says: “And what you sow is not the body which is to be.” However, the entire thrust of this chapter is to show the actual Resurrection of our Lord and our hope of eventual resurrection to be with him.

That the body of our Lord seems to have possessed qualities not noted during his earthly ministry appears evident. After the Resurrection he passed through locked doors and appeared and vanished at will. Furthermore, his disciples did not at first recognize him. These aspects of his resurrection body, rather than confuse us should make us realize how little we understand of that which God has in store for us. But of this one thing we can be assured, Christ showed himself to his disciples—up to 500 of them at once—with a body which had physical characteristics of identification, and of action, which were incontrovertible.

It is not necessary to argue that the body in which our Lord appeared to his disciples is the glorified body in which he will again appear, but the witness borne at his Ascension is that “that same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

The Apostle Paul saw the risen Lord on the Damascus road. It was an overwhelming experience and he claims it as a seal of his apostleship: “Have I not seen the Lord?” he says to the Corinthian Christians. Later he speaks of the fact of the Resurrection and adds, “Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

The Cross is the determinative point of man’s redemption from sin while the Resurrection is the crowning and visible evidence of the efficacy of that redemption. One cannot “spiritualize” Christ’s death at Calvary in terms merely of a loving example, nor can one “spiritualize” his Resurrection in terms of an ethereal apparition by which credulous and frightened men were led to believe that they had seen the Lord.

Not only is the physical Resurrection of the Lord a glorious fact but in it lies our own hope of glorified bodies with which we shall appear in his presence. “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.… And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:14–17).

How shall we react to this? “Therefore comfort one another with these words” (4:18).

Thomas

Seeing is believing

Was his motto. Better,

Feeling is believing.

The scientific mind requires

Substantial evidence,

Controlled experiments,

With photographs and measurements.

And Thomas was no poet,

Nor would he credit women—

Or even ten apostles.

He required the touch

Of his ten fingers.

Like that other twin

Who saw the face of God

At break of day, he must

Prevail with his two hands

And not let go.

“I am a twin—there is another like me,

Perhaps another bears His image—

No, I must feel His wounds.”

Seeing is believing—

Can sight bring faith?

Will God appear

For cross-examination,

Show wonders on demand,

And give the Prince’s hand

For critical inspection?

If Thomas will not hear

Moses and the prophets,

Peter, James, and John,

Mary Magdalene,

Will he believe

One risen from the dead?

Seeing is believing—

Thomas saw him

And believed.

Before those wounded feet

Ten fingers clasped themselves

In adoration.

Through blinding tears

The twin saw God.

Seeing is believing,

And before His witness Thomas

Christ stood visibly

That he should see, and we

Be blessed in believing.

Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

EUTYCHUS

Disunity Anent Unity

Professor Leitch (“Painting Oneself Into a Corner,” Mar. 2 issue) quite rightly quotes me (The Minister and the Care of Souls, p. 131) as supporting the view that the Holy Spirit may create divisions even within Christendom. But I am concerned lest this use of my statement should suggest that I would support Mr. Leitch’s argument that theological discussion must always lead to disunity.…

The intent of my brief discussion of the Holy Spirit in the book quoted Was to envisage the churches as engaged in creating conflict, taking theology seriously and ever seeking that deeper unity which will illumine and transform all theological outlooks. Not all ecumenical discussion fulfills that purpose, but I believe that the World Council of Churches is the visible manifestation of Christian unity, and therefore, I give it my wholehearted support.

DANIEL D. WILLIAMS

Union Theological Seminary

New York, N.Y.

If it has not yet occurred to Dr. Leitch, there are some Protestants in the Reformed tradition who welcome: (1) the attempt of Christians to transcend Western culture and to maintain the witness of Christ’s Church under the influence of an unsympathetic state.… Perhaps this is the cross the American Church is unable to bear because it disturbs our easy cultural Christianity that is more often American than Christian; (2) the influence of a Church that has been Christ’s witness for centuries in many parts of the world where the Western Church has never been, and perhaps, in its present captivity to its way of life, could never be, a relevant witness; and (3) the “different total character” that may be the result of “this new heavily liturgical thrust.”

Finally, and even more seriously, is the kind of rationalism in the author’s thesis, namely: “Either unity without theology, or serious theology and disunity.” Apart from some kind of logic that is based on an “interrelatedness” of truth which would have difficulty with almost every major Christian doctrine, where is the theological foundation … that even suggests such a premise? Is it in Christ’s prayer “that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may be one in us” (John 17:21)? Is it in St. Paul’s treatise on the Church … (Eph. 4:5, 6)? Is it in the creed set forth at the Council of Nicea? Is it even in Luther who said, “I believe in one holy, common, Christian Church” and, “They are not members of the Church of Christ who, instead of preserving unity of doctrine and oneness of Christian faith, cause divisions and offences” (Luther’s Works, Vol. II, pp. 372–374)? Perhaps this is the author’s problem: In all his talk of theology, he says nothing of the doctrine of the Church, which if Christian must be expressed in essential unity—and which was surely the concern of many at New Delhi.

CHARLES E. TAYLOR

First Presbyterian Church

Waddington, N.Y.

Bravo! Leitch was willing to face up to theology and history, and able to set forth the facts lucidly and irenically. Philadelphia, Pa.

JAMES HAMILTON

A Choice Of Glasses

“Protestantism’s Amazing Vitality” (Mar. 2 issue) by Kenneth S. Latourette … is too comforting.… “United Nations … clearly of Protestant parentage” is a gross example of one’s peering through rose (?)—colored glasses. U. N. statements of purpose, etc., disclose that man and state are the two gods served.… Protestantism is … in a sad state if it can do no better than father a white horse on which we’re all (as good universalists) “to ride off in the sunset” towards a manmade milllennium with its classless, atheistic society.

WESLEY L. BAUM

Fairfield, Conn.

It is refreshing to hear the note of positive optimism from one so notable, among the “gloom and doom” prophets of negative pessimism.

WILLIAM H. OAKLEY

Trinity Baptist

Oak Grove, La.

Perils, Past And Present

“Into the Free World” (Mar. 2 issue) … has a positive and a negative side. The positive significance is the pointing to the fact that the power of God’s mercy is active and can be experienced in the lives of individuals and nations as well.

The negative side … is that it seems to be under the influence of the “After-World War II Spirit” practiced by many … who try to gain attention … by combining everything they say or write with references back to Nazism and stressing how they fought it.… At least we ministers should try not to become victims and disciples of that fashion. We rather should concentrate on the big tasks of the present time.

Another part of the positive significance … is that it reminds of communism, which with its philosophy of atheism is a living danger.…

RUDOLPH FLACHBARTH

Nativity Lutheran Church

Windsor, Ont.

Thank you so much for the soul-stirring message.… I bowed my head and thanked God for my freedom.

AUBREY F. WHITE

Asbury Methodist

Midland, Tex.

Charge Of Eisegesis?

In Mr. Mantey’s article (“Repentance and Conversion,” Mar. 2 issue) he states that eis “is used to denote cause at times in Greek of the first century and in the New Testament.” He makes reference to the discussion in the Journal of Biblical Literature (Vols. LXX, LXXI, 1951–52). However, … Ralph Marcus did not defend the causative use of eis, but instead re-examined the so-called examples put forth by Mr. Mantey and showed that none of the so-called causatives were causative at all. Mr. Marcus did not deal with the … New Testament examples but concluded his study by saying: “If, therefore, Prof. Mantey is right in his interpretation of various NT passages on baptism and repentance and remission of sins, he is right for reasons that are non-linguistic” (JBL, LXXI, p. 44).…

JAMES D. CLAYTON

Northwest Church of Christ

Chicago, Ill.

But A Single Purpose

The American Bible Society has received several letters regarding the paragraph from a letter by Dr. Henry Smith Leiper … published in CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Jan. 19 issue). The statement by Dr. Leiper, our representative for promotion of the Bible cause among members of the United Church of Christ, was not intended to represent—nor in fact does it—the official position of the American Bible Society.

As stated in its Constitution, the single purpose of the … Society is “to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment.” The Society takes no doctrinal position, but seeks only to serve all churches and denominations through the translation, publication and distribution of Bibles, Testaments and Scripture portions. In this task it has the endorsement of over 55 denominations in the U.S.A.… Its record of impartial service to all churches, without regard to dogma or creed, is well known. As it has for more than 145 years, the … Society today stands ready to co-operate with all those who love the Lord and desire to carry His Word to the ends of the earth.

ROBERT T. TAYLOR

Secretary

American Bible Society

New York, N. Y.

• Dr. Leiper’s letter objected to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S critique of the National Council and the World Council of Churches. He deplored what he called an “obsession with the supposed dangers of the ecumenical movement.” CHRISTIANITY TODAY will continue to evaluate ecumenical trends, in the future as in the past, on principle rather than bias; it will commend what is good and criticize what is bad, and will alert to its possibilities and perils.—ED.

For Fulfillment, Federation

The press has focused much attention on Dr. Blake’s proposal for a four-church merger [which] … has its good points. But many proponents of church amalgamation are building their case on a half-truth: the organic expression of unity. They would neglect the other half: the obvious need for an organic expression of difference.

The open way: federal union. The U.S. is an example.… The need for an organic expression of national unity is fulfilled: the federal government. The need for an organic expression of difference is fulfilled: local self-government—states’ rights.

Federal union of churches was first proposed years ago … by the eminent missionary E. Stanley Jones in The Christ of the American Road (pp. 190–198).…

ROBERT E. CRENSHAW

Laurens, S.C.

For Famine, Food

Re “Famine on University Campuses” (Feb. 16 issue): Five months ago we started here a new church program for students and townspeople … to meet the contemporary student needs with a biblically-centered presentation. We were told that existing churches were ministering to these needs; also, that our program could not expect much growth because of facilities (we have been meeting in the local “Y,” some blocks from the campus).

Within five months our total attendance at both services … has reached well over 200, with an interdenominational appeal.

A National Council of Churches report on student work stated that the “institutional student-center” approach was no longer effective. Could this be because either the message is not contemporary, or it does not present the Living Word revealed in the Bible?

CALVIN S. MALEFYT

University Reformed Church

Ann Arbor, Mich.

For Federalism, Fecundity

I was glad to read your position as stated in the editorial “Be Wary of Federal Loans and Grants to Church Colleges” (Feb. 16 issue).…

The attempt of the federal government to regulate education in the states, like every other piece of social legislation, … is a usurpation of power, not granted in the Constitution.

It is not only unconstitutional, it is immoral and a direct and intentional violation of the purpose for which the Constitution was adopted.

The purpose … in the minds of its authors and the people of the states which adopted it, was to secure the country against foreign invasion, insure the domestic tranquility … and maintain individual freedom for each citizen. The gargantuan role our federal government is playing is contrary to the purpose of God in government and the purpose of our Constitution.…

P. H. JOHNSON

Dayton, Ohio

For Flu, Felicity

I appreciate CHRISTIANITY TODAY, but not your twice using the word “Asiatic” (Editorials, pp. 25, 27, Mar. 2 issue). It is a word that should be thrown out … as obsolete.… “Asian” or “Asians” is accepted in the U. N. and all through Asia and by many papers and magazines. The word “Asiatic” is almost considered an insult by people in Asia. They don’t want to be tics, but ans as American, European, African, and many other ans. The RSV, Acts 20:4, uses “Asians.”

I had 42 years in Burma in missionary service and found a dislike by the Asians for being called “Asiatic.”

E. CARROLL CONDICT

Ely, Vt.

Through Gunkel’s influence, many scholars came to view the narratives of the Old Testament as folklore, myths, fairy tales, and legends. While they mostly assumed that some historical reality and truth underlay these tales, they generally accepted the premise that these are poetic and imaginative narratives incorporating vague speculation and deliberate fiction. The critical view has as yet not been discarded. This viewpoint still governs a large segment of Old Testament research. Moses, Elijah, and Daniel are considered mythological or legendary. The account of the patriarchal age, of Joshua’s and Samuel’s times, is believed to be full of aetiological tales and cultic legends. Above all, the contents of Genesis 1 to 11, the so-called Urgeschichte, are not assigned any historical value. On the basis of the creation myths and flood sagas of other peoples, most German Old Testament scholars judge the biblical stories to be sagas as well. At the same time, however, they stress that, compared with these foreign myths and legends, the biblical accounts have a distinct peculiarity.

Actually, there are good reasons for giving the biblical texts and tales more credence and for acknowledging their historical dependability also. The Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran have made it apparent that the holy texts were preserved and transmitted with special care and diligence. This indeed is generally recognized. But the conclusion is not drawn, as it ought to be, that much greater caution is required by those who swiftly assume that any Old Testament book arose as a composite from various sources and secondary interpolations. The Isaiah Scrolls, for example, have never been found as two separate books.

The excavations in Egypt, Palestine, Assyria, and Babylonia have continually brought to light new cultural products and written documents that corroborate a high standard of living and learning in the ancient Near East. Whether Moses could have learned the art of writing is no longer in debate. Many items of biblical tradition are attested by documents of secular history. The deciphering of Hittite documents threw new light on the business transaction in Genesis 23; it fits remarkably well the Hittite setting in which the Bible locates it. In the light of such facts we may well become more conservative in our attitude toward Mosaic tradition and proclaim its dependability also for historical purposes.

Three Theories

The distinction of different sources or documents in the Pentateuch is still a fundamental supposition, as if there were no alternative. Which of three hypotheses is right, however, is a matter of indecision: the Urkundenhypothese (that is, the different sources are traced back to written documents); the Ergänzungshypothese (the original document was augmented later with complementary material); or the Fragmentenhypothese (scattered accounts of heterogeneous content were combined in an edited collection). One very keen representative of the Urkundenhypothese, who plucks out even parts of verses by such criteria as the name for God, style, repetitions, continuity of narrative, and assigns them to their respective sources, is O. Eiszfeldt (Hexateuch-Synopse, 1922). The Ergänzungshypothese has been taken up by P. Volz and W. Rudolph (Der Elohist als Erzähler. Ein Irrweg der Pentateuchkritik, 1933), who think that Pentateuchal criticism is mistaken in calling the elohist an author. G. von Rad, whose interest is mainly in the origin and transmission of oral and also written tradition, has renewed and revised Fragmentenhypothese. Like so many rivulets uniting into one large stream, the individual small units of local tradition supposedly combine to make up a large quantity of literary material. According to von Rad, the outcome of this transmission process is the “Hexateuch,” which includes the Book of Joshua. But G. Noth (Kommentar, 1938, 2nd ed., 1953) and W. Hertzberg (1953) separate the Book of Joshua from the Pentateuchal documents and so lead the way back to the Masoretic tradition. Actually, the argument of divergency of style and of the names for God is no longer convincing. The old labels J, E, D, and P are still used. Their distinctive characteristics, however, are no longer found in peculiarities of style and diction, but rather in their theological and ideological perspectives. Actually, these lines of demarcation are drawn rather carelessly and with no regard for detail. Further, the documents J, E, D, P are in themselves not considered homogeneous works, but conglomerates of disparate origin.

In the prophetic books, the discrimination between the first person and third person accounts often leads to the conclusion that the “I-passages” are authentic words of the prophet, while the “he-sections” belong to some anonymous writer, even though there are many instances even in secular literature where authors speak of themselves in the third person (Caesar, Napoleon). The introductory headings of the prophetic books are usually considered later additions, not to be ranged on the same level with the genuine prophetic words. Sometimes a psalm assigned to a certain author in the superscription may be dated in a later period together with the superscription. So little importance is attached to the superscriptions of the Psalms that A. Weiser (Kommentar, 1955, 3rd ed.) does not even translate them. Such disregard jeopardizes the interpretation of some psalms. In Psalm 51:1 the prayer for a clean heart and for deliverance from bloodguiltiness agrees with the situation of 2 Samuel 12. Without this context, the commentators face the problem of identifying an unclean heart with bloodguiltiness. In many psalms assigned to David, complaint of being harassed by enemies can be understood from a setting appears along with a collection of Messianic predictions, where words of Daniel are strung together with other passages of the Old Testament.

A new theological perspective is necessary. Formerly Old Testament research consisted for the most part of philological or literary criticism. After 1920, Karl Barth inaugurated a new interest in the theological relevance of the texts, which then expanded to include the exegetic disciplines. In his book Theologie des Alten Testaments (1933; 5th and 4th eds., 1957–60), W. Eichrodt chose the idea of the Covenant for a central topic. A christological perspective was vigorously recommended by W. Vischer. After 1945, the conviction gradually grew that true interpretation of the Old Testament required respect for its own claim as the Word of God. Das Alte Testament Deutsch (ATD), a modern series of commentaries, conscientiously strives to set forth and to appreciate the theological meaning of the books of the Old Testament. The same can be said for the Biblischer Kommentar, a series newly forthcoming.

Certainly it is a hopeful sign when scholars begin to realize that the Old Testament is more than merely a religious document or a book of history, and when they treat it more reverently as part of the Holy Bible. But this new tendency must still establish itself. H. J. Kraus, in his book Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments (1956), proposes of David’s flight before Saul and before Absalom. If we deny David’s authorship, we do not know how to ascribe these complaints to certain times and persons.

To date and interpret prophetic passages like Isaiah 40 ff. or Daniel’s prophecy concerning Antiochus Epiphanes is difficult because of the prejudice which holds that prophecy of the future, and certainly detailed prediction, is impossible. Yet we have examples of specific predictions, even of far-distant events as, for example, the announcement of the fate of Pashur and of Chananja (Jer. 20:6; 28:16 f.), or the prophecy of the 70 years of exile (Jer. 29:10). To call such prophecies declarations after the event, or to explain them as clever contrivances concocted when the coming events were already taking shape, is not quite honest. Some say, for instance, that dating the Book of Daniel earlier than the time of the Maccabees is warranted because among the Qumran manuscripts it turning away from a mere history of religion approach and pursuing a theological approach to the Old Testament. But Kraus himself does not see that this objective fails of realization because of a refusal to surrender the critical approach. Such scholars want to get “beyond” criticism without returning to a “pre-critical” position.

Bultmann’s way of proposing and facing the problem (cf. Walter Künneth, “Dare We Follow Bultmann?” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1961, pp. 25 ff.) has been adopted in Old Testament research as well. Things reported in the Old Testament are considered not as facts but as a mere witness to God’s activity past or present. The significance of events is stressed, but their historicity is denied or neglected, whereas interpretation should rest on facts and the significance of events should be stated accordingly. Baumgärtel replaces the facts of redemption with a history of faith and of piety. Noth and von Rad do, in fact, emphasize the divine deeds of redemption and the blessings of Israel; but the outlines of the history of Israel and of the gradual growth of the Pentateuch (or Hexateuch) they delineate in a rather arbitrary manner. The oldest set of traditions von Rad finds in accounts of the conquest of the Promised Land, to which a group of Sinai traditions was added, followed by the account of the patriarchs. Last of all, the Urgeschichte was supposedly constructed, like a porch, to introduce the whole book. There are divergent emphases according to theories of “Kerygma,” “Tradition,” and “Credo.” At the same time, the expressions “fairy tale,” “saga,” “myth” continue in use; to see their spiritual meaning one must “demythologize” them! This mixing of criticism and theology can only turn out rather badly. The critical view will rise up against the theological interpretation; and the theological view in crucial passages will either ignore the critical view or, if hampered by criticism, fail to realize its own intention.

The christological interpretation that has begun to reassert itself accords with one of Christ’s statements in John 5:39 and with a sentence from Luther, namely, that every part of the Holy Scriptures speaks of Christ. V. Herntrich, in his commentary on Isaiah 1:12 (1950), has distinctly marked the Messianic line. But there are many other prophetic passages that allow or even demand Messianic interpretation that as yet wait to be treated as such. The Messianic hope announced in the Psalms has not yet been recognized in its full extent, strength, and meaning.

In the present discussion, the question whether or not a typological interpretation is justified is important. (Essays in various periodicals and publications on this problem have been collected in a book Probleme alttestamentlicher Hermeneutik, 1960.) F. Baumgärtel passionately disapproves of typology; G. von Rad, H. W. Wolff, and W. Eichrodt support it. Typology has its roots and its model in certain ideas of the Old Testament (the tabernacle was made after a pattern proposed to Moses by God) and, more clearly, in the typological quotations of Old Testament passages in the New. Most scholars, it is true, refuse to adopt this method on the ground that its results assertedly come through retrospection only, no systematic relation being affirmed between type and antitype. W. Eichrodt, W. Hertzberg (ZAW 1936, and Kommentar Die Samuelbücher, 1956), and Cramer (Genesis 1–11: Urgeschichte?, 1961) say that the Old Testament has realized a Nachgeschichte, an after-history, in the New; on the other hand, some of the relationships claimed as typological actually belong to the category of outright Messianic predictions.

F. Baumgärtel (Verheiszung, 1952) refuses to state any relationship between the Old and the New Testaments in the way of prophecy and fulfillment. Like him, many scholars believe that the method of the New Testament writers of quoting prophetic passages in order to demonstrate their fulfillment in Jesus Christ is invalid today. But here, too, we should learn from the New Testament. The more carefully we explore how the Old Testament is quoted in the New and taken as a prophecy concerning Christ, the more clearly we see that this approach agrees with the very core of the Old Testament.

Neither are modern notions of how the prophets received their revelations nor modern evaluations of the sacrificial cult of Israel fully satisfactory. The prophetic phrase “Thus saith the Lord” is still too much regarded as a mere stylistic flourish, and the contents of the prophetic message interpreted as derived from their everyday experience. In presenting the accounts of the patriarchs, great importance is attributed to sanctuaries as the place of origin and of transmission. The Psalms are unanimously considered as stemming from the sacrificial ritual. The giving of the Mosaic priestly Torah is still depreciated. Too many German Old Testament scholars still do not adequately emphasize that the sacrificial ritual was a means of reconciliation instituted by God himself (Lev. 17:11).

Judas, One of the Twelve

Judas came,

He that betrayed the Christ,

And with a kiss exposed Him to the throng.

“Hail, Rabbi.”

Jesus stood,

Knowing his purpose well,

And said, “Do that for which thou art come,

Friend.”

Then Judas thought

To right the sinful wrong;

Brought back the bribe of thirty silver coins.

“I have sinned!”

The elders turned

Declining any part.

The chief priests spoke for all: “What is it to us?

See thou to that.”

And Judas went,

Casting the silver from him.

With noose in hand, he found a lonely place

And spoke no more.

DOROTHY D. MEYERINK

When mighty Pharaoh sat on the throne, the whole world bowed before him. He held in his hands the power of life and death over his subjects. Rich and poor paid him homage. But he grew older. And he died. People no longer honored him. People no longer feared him.

Never again will the mighty Pharaoh lead an army in victory. He will never command again. Of his vast kingdom, only the crumbling columns remain and the choking dust. Pharaoh is a mummy. While his facial features are identifiable, he can neither speak nor move. He is dead.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!

A man entered a theater just as the play was reaching its climax. The sound from the stage increased in volume and then came the unmistakable report of a revolver. The bullet sped into the body of the man and he fell to the floor. He was carried quickly to a nearby home where those closely associated with him maintained a long vigil. Every medical skill was used in his behalf. But he died. Abraham Lincoln had become a figure of the ages.

The mind that created, the lips that spoke the immortal words, “Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers …” will never speak again.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!

Ships had been bombarding the little island in the Pacific. Planes dropped their payloads of destruction and it was zero hour. Men scrambled down the nets onto the LCVPs and LCMs. Wave after wave of the larger landing craft filled with tanks, and supplies headed for the beach. The enemy fought back. Shells exploded. Boats were upended. Steel decks twisted grotesquely. Supplies crashed crazily into the water. Bodies were broken. Men died. They fell on the wet sand in the shallow surf. There was the monotonous slap, slap, slap of the waves.

These men will never fight again. They will never serve their country again. Throughout the world American flags fly from flagpoles set on the flower-bedecked, carefully clipped acres of grass. Dotting the lawns are hundreds of white crosses.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!

The news told of a skating champion, a vivacious teen-ager. In many years no girl has so captivated the audiences with her winsomeness and flashing skates. She would be a champion of champions. One day she boarded a jet plane in New York City. Flying with her to an international meet were other members of the United States skating team. In Europe the plane was about to land. Suddenly it pitched into a steep dive. It crashed with a sickening exploding sound. Dust filled the air. Then all was silent. Time magazine noted that as it hung from a piece of wreckage glittering in the sun a partly melted twisted skate swayed slowly back and forth in the breeze. The young vivacious champion was dead. No more applause. No more flashing skates this winsome girl would weave. No more intricate figures on the ice. She was dead. The whole team was dead.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

Death On A Cross

Christ was born of a woman. He suffered the human lot of pain, thirst, hunger, discouragement. Then on a Friday afternoon about 3 o’clock from his position nailed to a Cross, he slumped forward. His head drooped to his chest. He was dead. There was no doubt about it. He was dead, dead, dead!

Those hands so white would never bless again. Those eyes now closed would never again see fainting multitudes. “Blessed are they that mourn,” those pale lips had said, “for they shall be comforted. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. I am the living water.” But now those lips would never speak again!

Soon he would take his place with the dead in the tombs. Time had ended for him.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!

But something wonderful, something amazing, happened—something that had never happened before. It occurred the following Sunday morning. The lifeless body moved and cast off its wrappings. Jesus Christ was visibly alive! The silenced lips now spoke again. Those torn hands were lifted anew in blessing. He taught. He blessed. He comforted. He reassured. He was filled with glory.

The hordes of darkness had done their worst. Not only had they humiliated him and caused him great physical pain. They killed him. Indeed they thought they had destroyed him. But he arose. Christ arose. He would never die again! He would live forever!

The disciples had been distressed and discouraged. Now they were energized. So glorious was the fact of Christ’s resurrection they went radiantly into the whole world to tell the amazing news.

The Destiny Of Man

How morbid is death! Man is dust and he is destined to die. Indeed life means nothing alongside this grim fact. The sands of Iwo Jima, a smashed airliner, a broken body punctuate the sad reality of death for all men. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But somehow the Resurrection of Jesus Christ changes all this.

Emerson could truly call man “Enchanted Dust” because one Person did not return to dust. Man is enchanted dust because of the Resurrection. Christ lived on and he lives now. All men can do likewise through him. A strange unique power is available to men through Christ the Lord.

Richard Halliburton, the famed traveler of a generation ago, wrote a charming book called “The Royal Road to Romance.” Properly understood romance is nothing weepy and sentimental. As Halford Luccock suggested, romance is what heightens and colors the commonplace quality of life.

We are in a sense commonplace creations of dust to dust. But the Resurrection heightens and colors this commonplace nature and touches life with eternity. Indeed, life becomes a Royal Road to Romance. Through Christ and the Easter message men may truly become “Enchanted Dust.”

While this is true, death yet remains. Tragedies and frustrations beset men. John Masefield in the “Widow In Bye Street” tells of a brokenhearted mother in prayer for a son about to be executed.

And God who gave his mercies, takes his mercies

And God who gives beginnings, gives the end,

A rest for broken things too broke to mend.

Yes, men have twisted backs, missing legs, blinded eyes—broken things “too broke to mend.”

Injustices and slavery to wrong causes are also too broke to mend. Christian people upset over the decline of morals, over the apparent success of communism often are inclined to say, “Brothers, let us weep.” Too broke to mend.

“Broken things too broke to mend?” Christ comes into life and proclaims that all things are still in the hands of the Mender of broken earthenware. Eternal life brings powers beyond those of earthly resources.

Several men stand before a window in a far eastern city. Suddenly one of them exclaimed, “Shiftuh, I have seen Him!” In the window was a picture made of ink spots. When seen aright the face of Christ would be visible. Above the picture a sign read, “For you to see the face of Christ is our hope.”

The world is a place of dark spots but the hope of the world is Christ. The Hope comes when men can say, “Shiftuh, we have seen Him. We have seen Him!” Christ could not have risen unless first crucified; the Crucifixion made possible the Resurrection. Only once in history was death truly overcome, but only because of the Cross which preceded it.

For every individual then, eternal life becomes a reality only as the Cross is appropriated through faith. No one becomes enchanted dust nor knows the romance of the Resurrection until he first receives Christ and his Crucifixion (Rom. 6).

Otherwise all the grim facts of death are still realities. Life is just ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

A pastor tells this true experience. The parents would not permit their children to attend Sunday School. He visited them one day and a boy answered the door.

“Hi, Mister,” he said with a big smile.

“Hi, Jimmy,” said the pastor. “I came to invite you to attend our Sunday School. I’m the preacher.”

The little boy called toward another room in the house, “Mom, what’s a preacher?”

The parents never came to the church but the boy came every Sunday. One Sunday he was absent. Two days before Christmas the minister received a phone call at 5 in the morning. “I’m Jimmy’s mother. Come quickly to the hospital. He has pneumonia.” The pastor hurried to meet the mother. But when he arrived it was too late. The disease had done its worst. Jimmy was dead. Said the pastor later, “I buried him on a hillside as the snow was falling softly. I went to the home and saw the toys wrapped in a box behind the stove. The calendar said, ‘December 25th.’ Would Christmas ever come again for this family?”

“It was the month of April when the mother and father came before the church to receive Jesus Christ and give themselves to him as the Risen Lord. And I could see outside the new leaves on the trees and blooming flowers. We went to kneel before a small grave now turning green in the spring time. And thanked God for the Resurrection!”

Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;

Death is strong, but life is stronger;

Stronger than the dark, the light;

Stronger than the wrong, the right

Faith and hope triumphant say—

Christ will rise on Easter Day!!

For I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him as crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

The ancients built the tower of Babel to scale the parapets of heaven. Athens erected her altars to gods known and unknown. Modern man acclaims six great religions as roads up the mountain to God. Today as yesterday, men are pinning their hopes on intellectual principles, survival values and ethical ideals.

On the other hand, the Christian faith is founded not on an idea but on a person. Paul presented that Person, Jesus Christ, and proclaimed him to us as crucified for our sins and as risen from the dead.

God came down for us and for our salvation in his only Son. In utter self-abnegation, he came all the way to the Cross of Calvary. He who was in the form of God took the form of a slave. The Most High became the most humble. Yet in that love and lowliness, God is still the Lord. For that man dying athwart the sky beyond the walls of Jerusalem is the Lord of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8). God revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ whose face can be seen only with the eyes of faith. Thus the apostolic procedure is to portray Christ as crucified for our sins, and to pray the Holy Spirit to bring men to faith by this testimony of God. It pleases God by the preaching of the Cross to save those who believe. As this Gospel is preached God puts us into Christ Jesus and makes him to be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and redemption.

Accordingly, this section of I Corinthians teaches us: first, how God does not reveal himself; secondly, how the Father of mercies opens the fellowship of his family to sinners; and thirdly, the applications thereof.

Not By Worldly Wisdom

First, God does not reveal himself to us sinners for our salvation by the wisdom of our philosophers, by the height of our worldly places, by the eloquence of our orators, nor even by his own majestic work of creation.

The Jew looked for a Messiah who would receive divine blessings without measure. But “he that is hanged is cursed of God.” Stumbling over the fact that Jesus did not present the portentous sign of a messianic warrior delivering Israel from her enemies, the Jews rejected the revelation that God made in him.

As the law was given to convict the Jew of sin, so was philosophy given as a tutor to the Greeks. Only let us be sure that we carry the analogy through.

Was reason given to make us wise? Just as little as the Law was given to the Jews to make them just. Rather, it was given to convince us of the opposite; to show us how irrational our reason is, that our errors may be increased through reason as sin was through the law (J. G. Hamann). Plato has some glimmering of the situation when he urges us to

… lay hold of the best human opinion in order by it to sail the dangerous sea of life as on a raft unless we can find a stronger boat, or some word of God, which will more surely and safely carry us (Phaedo, 85 Jowett, 1.434).

Luther understood that the world owes the Gospel a grudge because the Gospel condemns the wisdom of the world. Even when speaking of Genesis, Calvin begs us not to begin with the elements of this world, but with the Gospel which sets Christ alone before us with his Cross and holds us to this one point.

It is vain for any to reason as philosophers on the workmanship of the world, except those, who having been first humbled by the preaching of the Gospel, have learned to submit the whole of their intellectual wisdom to the foolishness of the Cross.

When the apostle looked at the Christians in Corinth, he found that God had not called into his fellowship many that were wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. Likewise Jeremiah (9:23), warns the wise man not to glory in his wisdom, nor the mighty in his power, nor the rich in his wealth; and the Psalmist (49:6–8) testifies that no man can give to God a rich enough ransom to redeem the soul of his brother. According to the Magnificat, God lifts the lowly to confound the mighty. Believers are born not of the nobility of bloods, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God (John 1:13). In Corinth, God chose the foolish things of the world to answer the wise, the weak things to shame the strong, the base-born, the things that are of no account, those that are not in order to put to nought the things that are. Yes, it pleased God that the world by its wisdom should not know God.

Accordingly, the apostle did not set forth to meet the wisdom of the world with a torrent of his own oratory. To have fought the world with its own weapons, would have been to betray the cause committed to him. The Gospel is like a trumpet “more powerful and penetrating when it does not follow the range of the scale but keeps to one penetrating note.” It is not a philosophy proved by the persuasive words of man’s wisdom, but a message from God to be attested and accepted. The good news of God’s great acts for our redemption needs and admits only of plain, straightforward telling, anything else is to empty the Cross of Christ of its power. Luther is sure that one does not need to shout or cry aloud in his preaching; for the power of the Gospel is not in the lungs of a man but in the might of the Spirit. Though the world counts the Gospel folly and weakness, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God to those whom he calls. This foolishness of God is wiser than men, this weakness of God is stronger than men. Though it be Paul, the apostle, who plants, and Apollos, the orator, who waters, it is only God who gives the increase. As the success of the Gospel is wholly of God, we may expect only his message to be honored:

Christ! I am Christ’s and let the name suffice you;

Aye, for me too, he greatly hath sufficed

Lo! with no winning words I would entice you;

Paul has no honor and no friend but Christ.

F. W. H. Myers, St. Paul

The vast diamond-studded milky way is but as dust from the Almighty’s moving chariot wheel. But he who measures the heavens with a span and comprehends the dust of the earth in a balance, the Most High, has revealed himself for our salvation not in his majestic might but in the weakness of the dying Saviour, who is the Mediator between God and men, the One by whom we come to the Father.

The Preaching Of The Cross

It pleases God to honor the preaching of Jesus Christ and him as crucified with the power of the Holy Spirit who brings men into the Father’s fellowship.

According to I Corinthians, preaching Jesus Christ means confessing as Lord this Jesus who has been raised from the dead (12:3; 15:5 f.). It means calling upon him for the grace and the peace which the Church needs (1:2–3). It means looking forward to his revelation in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:7).

In the first and second chapters of this epistle, however, preaching Jesus Christ means preeminently preaching him as crucified. The Church has never found the symbol of her faith anywhere but in his Cross. Since the Cross met Luther everywhere in the Scriptures, the Reformer declared: “When I listen to Christ, there is sketched in my heart a picture of a man hanging on a Cross, just as my countenance is naturally sketched upon the water when I look therein” (W. A. 3.63.1; W. A. 18.83.9). Calvin is certain that only by the preaching of the Cross will any man ever find his way back to God as his Father (Institutes II. vi.l.). In their chorus, we unite:

“Our glory, only in the Cross,

Our only hope, the crucified.”

Paul preached Jesus Christ as crucified because there at the Cross, he consummated his work as the one Mediator between God and men. In his holy majesty God is justly offended with our rebellious race. And “whoever thinks he can smile at God’s wrath, will never praise him eternally for his grace” (H. Vogel, The Iron Ration of a Christian, p. 102). Without Christ, God and man are further apart than heaven and earth. But in Christ, true God and true man, God and man are much more intimate than two brothers. In him, sun and moon do not come so near us as he does, for Emmanuel has come in our flesh and blood. God the Creator of heaven and earth became true natural man, the eternal Father’s Son became the temporal Virgin’s Son (Luther on Is. 9:1). He became our flesh and blood Brother, one of us, standing where we stand, representing us before God, offering for us his perfect obedience. As our fellow, he became our substitute, the Lamb of God who took on himself the sins of the world. He who knew no sin was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. On that Cross, he was made a curse that we might receive the blessing of God. Thus he satisfied for us the demands of the law, averted from us the wrath of the holy God, delivered all those who trust in him from the thralldom of the devil and from the fear of eternal death.

God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. As his ambassadors preach the revealing, reconciling, crucified Christ, the risen Lord Jesus puts forth the hand of the Holy Spirit and draws us unto himself. The Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. He works faith in us and thereby unites us to Christ in our effectual calling. In the covenant of grace, the Father gave unto the Son a great host that no man can number out of every nation and kindred and tribe. The Son became man and in his atoning death suffered and endured enough to avert the wrath of God from this world of sinners. Now God the Holy Spirit comes as the Inward Teacher to open our hearts to the preaching of the Cross, to Christ as our Saviour and our Lord. We halt and hold back, too weakened by sin even to decide … and indecision is the first evidence of frustration. Then the Spirit places our hands in the riven side of the Saviour and calls us into the obedience of faith.

The objective revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed in the Gospel, the subjective work of the Holy Spirit by which we receive Christ in faith, these are the two hands of God by which the gracious Father brings back the prodigal to his own forgiving bosom. Here God acts in his love, his righteousness, his wisdom and his power to save sinners. The Gospel is not the mere proclamation of man’s ideas. It is God’s mighty work by which he snatches the victim of sin and death from the thralldom of Satan and transports him into the Kingdom of the Son of his love. Preaching Jesus Christ and him as Crucified is the Gospel, the power of God unto salvation.

Life In Christ Jesus

Thirdly, the apostle calls upon us to realize the implications of this gracious action of God in our own faith and in our outward activities. By this preaching of the Cross, God has put us into Christ. “I have begotten you in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15). The Creator, who said, Let there be light, has shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). It is not our wealth, our wisdom or our might that has made us Christians. It is something greater and more wonderful than all these. It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30). Our faith stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (1 Cor. 2:5).

If we would know that we belong to God, let us find ourselves where God has graciously placed us in Christ Jesus. He is made unto us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The Christ of God is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. He won all this for us by his human life of perfect obedience, by his death in our stead. He revealed it to us by his Word. He gives it to us, makes us partake of it by his Spirit. To lay hold of him by faith is to appropriate the wisdom, the righteousness, the sanctification and the redemption that comes from God. To find ourselves by faith in him is to see ourselves filled with wisdom, clothed with his righteousness, liberated from the thralldom of Satan, and transplanted into the Kingdom of Grace. To have him is to have forgiveness, peace, victory, the hope of glory! However manifold our sins, we were washed, sanctified, justified in the name of Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Cor. 6:11).

As we find our salvation in Christ Jesus so the apostle calls us to begin our thinking and acting in him. Begin intellectually where God has graciously placed you. Begin where the light is brightest, that is, the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that shines in the face of Jesus Christ. In the bequest that established our oldest university, John Harvard directed:

Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main ends of his life and studies: to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the only foundation of all knowledge and learning and see the Lord only giveth wisdom. Let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek Christ as Lord and Master.

For, as the apostle adds, other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:10).

For when Christ is presented in his full-orbed grace and glory, the living God touches hearts and lives and saves them from drunkenness, fightings, selfishness, and race hatred. The Christian Church has no commission to reverse the process. Take God’s way and his Spirit blesses it. Try to reverse God’s way and the Church becomes no longer the ambassador of God, her preaching becomes merely the chaff of man and no longer the wheat which brings the bread of God to hungry hearts of men. The ambassador of the living God preaches the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Crucified.

Preaching has a unique place in the world. Other forms of speech entertain, educate, direct. Preaching takes the message of God and Christ to men and in turn brings Christians to greater devotion and sinful men to God. By preaching over the last twenty centuries the Church has grown and spread through the Western world. Peter and Paul, Jerome, Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Ambrose, Paulinus, Ignatius of Loyola and other great Christian preachers first made the Gospel known around the eastern and middle Mediterranean.

Since their time Luther, Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, Melanchthon, John Donne, John and Charles Wesley and other great preachers have continued to build upon the foundation laid by Christ and his early disciples in the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles and in the wonderful book of Revelation. No century has been without its pulpit masters.

In our own time the ministry is largely divided into two groups as far as preaching is concerned. One large sector bypasses preaching to concentrate upon teaching and other functions of the Church. The other group consists of those who do the preaching. In other words, out of 231,000 clergy in the United States, about one-half carry all the preaching responsibilities of all of the different denominations. A few churches have no preaching at all; others, by contrast, place their emphasis on the sermon and only incidental stress on music and/or ritual.

In connection with my volumes of Best Sermons, I have sent invitations during the last 20 years to more than 120,000 clergymen who do preach. From the 15,000 to 22,500 sermon invitations issued for each volume, the average number of sermon manuscripts received for reading and consideration has increased from 5,000 for the first volume to 6,000, 7,000, 7,500, and now nearly 8,000 per volume. Ministers of 198 different denominations have been invited to submit sermons; men of 165 different denominations have responded with a total to date of more than 55,755 sermons. Sermons have been received in 15 different languages from ministers in 55 foreign countries.

These sermons have revealed several prominent patterns of preaching. First of all, the ministry is vitally concerned with the problems of everyday life. Thousands of messages dealt with matters of personal goodness, of love and marriage, of parents, children and the home, of community and national problems in education, race relations, war and peace. Ministers both discussed the problems and then indicated the relevance of the Gospel for the issues involved.

Some types of sermons have been hard to find—really good sermons on religious education, for example, and even evangelistic sermons that excel both in content and in homiletic quality. Too often evangelistic preaching becomes noisy rather than persuasive. I doubt that God wants us simply to try to frighten men with fiery descriptions of hell. Rather, we are to present the Christ who calls to decision and to discipleship. The best evangelistic preaching today is in churches where the dynamic and dramatic presentation of Christ draws men of intellect and will, as well as of heart, to follow him. Evangelistic preaching can be spiritually and theologically sound, and need not appeal one-sidedly to emotion and fear. Jesus condemned evil and evil doing. But he did not merely threaten those he wished to convert. He reasoned and led men on to belief. When he changed men, they became new men with new lives, new faith, a new outlook and zeal for the kingdom of God and the best things of life.

There are increasing numbers of philosophical sermons; also some biographical studies and book-review sermons. Every conceivable subject has been covered in the sermons of these last 20 years. The amazing thing is that so many men can find truth—for them—in so many different and divergent ideas! Thousands of sermons show a real effort to make the Gospel clear to the listener. Poetry is still used for illustrations in thousands of sermons. The greater the sermon, however, the shorter the quotation from poetry; the poorer the sermon, the longer the quotation. About one minister in each thousand preaches in blank verse; one younger man preaches in blank verse every Sunday of the year!

Today, the better the sermon, the shorter it tends to be—18 to 20, 22, or 25 minutes. Generally speaking, the leading ministers and best preachers use more short illustrations—rather than a few long stories. The best preaching is done in the great city churches of New York, Washington, Boston, Dallas, New Orleans, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago. A distinct difference marks most northern from southern preaching. In the South long illustrations—perhaps three or four—are customary in a sermon, while northern sermons may have 30 to 40 short, pithy allusions. Strong preachers are not limited to any specific locale, however, but may be found anywhere.

The highest tribute I can pay to contemporary preaching—and this I say after reading thousands of sermons—is that almost every sermon shows careful preparation. Increasing numbers of men write out their sermons in full; most try to deliver them without reading from the manuscript. Sermons today indicate also that the better preachers are well read. I know men who keep 12 to 50 books on hand for ready reading in order to keep up with current ideas on religious and secular matters. Ministers today show a real desire to preach a spiritual message that is relevant to daily living. They try, too, to preach in an oral style that employs excellent form and word choice. Preaching today is a mature art and our great preachers are artists in the pulpit—the pulpit where God is proclaimed.

The Glorious Themes

What glorious themes the Christian Church has to proclaim! What all the other world religions desired and sought for 5,000 years Christ gave to his followers: salvation from sin, life eternal, resurrection to a life with God the Father. If we cannot preach sermons that lift our congregations we need to return to the New Testament and again read its immortal story, be it in the King James, Moffatt, the Revised Version, or the fine new J. B. Phillips’ translation. Preaching is something to be experienced. It is an experience of man with God, an opportunity to bring other men face to face with an eternal God who waits for them. If all our ministers took hold of this great fact they would never again lose time in getting at their desks to prepare their weekly sermons! Thousands of sermons every week, all in this spirit of purpose and responsibility, would bring a revival greater than all the annual revivals ever envisioned.

My search for sermons in conjunction with the Best Sermons volumes is, I believe, the widest that has ever been conducted. It is a great privilege to read the best sermons of thousands of ministers all over our country and all over the free world. In these sermons the men reveal their preparation, their reading, their attempt to bring the Gospel to the people. Several times I have had the thrilling experience of being the first to discover young ministers of ability in the pulpit and to give them their initial sermonic recognition in print. Hundreds of men write me that preparing a sermon for submission to Best Sermons puts them at their best, makes them write with particular care. Many appreciate the discipline involved and others then make a habit of such careful preparation and find they become better preachers thereby.

I am sometimes asked: “How can you tell about a man’s delivery from the written manuscript?” One can’t, completely, of course. Yet it is amazing how much of a man’s style and delivery are revealed in his word choice, sentence structure, his underlining or italics, and even in his punctuation! By his wording and statements you can sense, too, what a minister feels. In a manuscript you can’t see a man’s gestures, of course, nor the flash of his eyes, but you can almost imagine how he would react as you read and absorb what he says. Herein lies the importance of style, of oral style. Men need to practice this oral style, to hunt for words that are primarily for spoken expression rather than for written productions. The ideal, of course, so combines the elements of oral and literary excellence that the sermon both reads and delivers well.

Some Worthwhile Disciplines

Young ministers should work hard at sermonizing. In seminary they ought to read other men’s sermons, perhaps even copy and adapt the style of older ministers. As soon as possible, however, each man should faithfully develop his own style, form, and delivery. To write 1,800 to 2,500 words for his sermon every week of his life is a responsibility worthy of a man’s very best efforts. Some men are overwhelmed and give up. But those who go on, who in time sense the incomparable joy that their weekly sermons are taking hold, who see a response in the congregation, are uniquely rewarded for long hours spent alone in the study. Each man must develop his own study habits, even as he does his own style. He dare not neglect either if he wishes to be what he was called to be, a man of God speaking in the place and house of God.

Any man who knows preaching at all readily admits that the greatest sermons come through divine unction. Hundreds of men during the nearly 2,000 years of the Christian Church, Augustine at Canterbury, the Wesleys, George Whitefield, Dwight L. Moody and Billy Sunday—and men in every generation—have made the pulpit respected by their powerful preaching ministry. Thousands of sermons every week, however, by the patient, hard-working pastor-preachers of churches all over our country, in every city and village, in town and rural community, are the result of sheer hard work, study, meditation, prayer, careful outlining and/or writing. All ministers at times become discouraged. To these I would like to say: preach on, prepare even more diligently. Wait upon God! Men will hear your message if you bring it with fire in your soul and intelligence in your words and never lose touch with your people.

Inspiration is the gift of God, of the Holy Spirit, but “inspiration” in the popular sense, is a fantasy. Hunt and nurture your ideas in quiet study and meditation, in pastoral visiting and counseling, in steady, hard work with your pen or typewriter. This discipline will yield worthy sermons. Develop your distinct style, vocabulary, and pulpit delivery. You can make your own place in the pulpit. When a fine sermon electrifies a congregation with its message and conviction, we are wont to call it “inspired”; actually, it may mainly be the result of full and devoted preparation. What we term “inspiration” may combine many factors whether the sermon be by a Peter the Hermit, a Jonathan Edwards or a man of our own day. By this I do not mean to imply that I do not believe in divine stimulation. Rather, I believe we should do what we can and leave its empowerment to God.

After reading thousands of sermons during the last 20 years, I believe more than ever that effective preaching is the most vital function of our contemporary Protestant churches.

Elevate the pulpit in the church once more, in its zeal and its assault against hell. Station a Bible on that pulpit, an open Bible, and assert that whatever is heard elsewhere, in God’s house hearing shall be accorded the preached Word. Let this preaching be a curiosity and a persistent exposition of the Word: make it voluable, vociferous and violent.

The Church Aggressive

Inform the world that heralds are in it with clear words to call a people back from the abyss’ edge. Forget the sales pitch, abandon the soft sell, discard the grey flannels, pigeon-hole the pushed programs and incinerate the sure-fire charts. Let the minister confess it: soft talk is ridiculous in a hard world, meek answers do not fit ominous questions, dilettante dialogue does not guide bewildered souls, and entertaining wit generates no conviction. Ground the ecclesiastical ad men, the promotional experts, the organizational conformists and the itinerary executives: ground them to pulpits and pews. Pull the firing pad from under their mecurial feet before they have us all in orbit, dizzily wheeling in circles, reaching for goals no one wants and landing on moons nobody needs. Challenge men with the Word’s either/or, enthrone eternity’s message on the consciousness of all, raise the call to repent across the luxury-laden land, and lay comfort on the line where the knees bend, the fears coalesce and the tears fall.

Let preaching command the life of the Church, rock persons free from sin, uproot them from false securities and drive them to pursue conformity to Christ. Make the articulated impact of pin-pointed preaching block fallacy’s roads, blow the bridges on pride’s highway, close all self-saving bypasses, and leave no avenue traversable except the way to Him who is the Way.

Electrify peoples and pastors into dialectical societies reasoning around the Word: the weather can wait, the Word won’t. Companion with the men of courage who come with the Word, and wise thought, strong comfort and counsel deep. Force the world to know that liberty’s voices are rising and faith’s thoughts are flowing from the gushing up of the Gospel interpreted, heard, exchanged and applied. Command the pulpit voice to preach on, to sustain the weary with words, to provide reason’s medicine for the mind, and to give hope’s balm for the heart. And, let the peoples’ Amen punctuate the words from the Word.

When the voice from the sacred desk ceases and the Amens from the pews fade, remember: they have returned to Him who sent them, never void, but with long lines of the redeemed leagued in love to Lord Jesus Christ. Come Back, O Church, Come Back to the Preached Word!

The Church In Unity

Recall the Church to knowledge of itself as the body of Christ: summon persons to join Christ’s body. Tell it abroad that no one who belongs to Christ is alone but is member of all who are his; and, illustrate the fact through fellowship’s acts. Admit that he has imposed unity but we are reluctant to receive it. Declare that our one Head prays still for the cooperative efforts of his body, its oneness of heart and singleness of love.

Let response to the Word gain momentum. Stay it not for fear or favor. Dare the proponents of aloneness before God to repeat the Lord’s prayer in the first person singular. Provide people their one, last opportunity to quit majoring in minor distinctions and become the one mind and heart of Christ before a macerated world. While we are a spiritual unity before God, striving to serve him however varied the means, the world will note well that God’s encounter with man redeems from self-concern and builds the community of his will where none has been before.

Fire the technicians of togetherness and throw open the roof to the floods of grace requiring everything said to be WE, and everything done US. Outlaw all audiences and actors before God. Put a people of God before him and affirm that he is the only auditor of our worship, ever mindful of our response to his Word and our brother’s need. Make Christ’s Church, now, earth’s grandest joy and this life’s nearest touch on the things of eternity: a window on truth, an aperture to love and a bit of heaven on earth: Thy kingdom come!

The Church Aflame

This is the Church militant, allied to the cross and companioned to the resurrected Christ. Command it to march on, thrusting united praise to the ramparts of heaven, thrilling all with a rhapsody of trust, and hoisting a harmonic paean to Christ above the din of this world’s jarring noises. Oh for a singing Church, a knee-bent Church, a hallelujah Church, a Church orchestrated to the unity of the Holy Spirit!

Trumpet the call to regroup to Christ, and acknowledge that his is the glory that binds us in the circle of unrelenting effort and love unalloyed. Pray for a chill to set on us from Calvary, a blaze from the Upper Room and a thrill from Easter Morn. Magnify the worship of Christ’s Church: assemble the Church around the Lord’s Board and proclaim: This is the family of God, nourished by Christ, sustained by grace and vitalized by the Spirit. Come back, O Church, Come back to the worship of God, through the Saviour and by aid of the Holy Spirit!

The Church Alert

Give nerve and muscle to the decisions and convictions of a worshipping people. Let new knowledge grip us. Cease trivializing the loyalties of the redeemed by merely adding their names to committees, putting them to odd jobs and extracting portions of time and pieces of money from them. Can religious hobbies absorb the energies of a people in communion with the Lord and in communication with the Word? Society can protect itself against stacked committees and professional stances; but evil has no defence against Christians exercising 24-hour-a-day commitment to Jesus Christ. Let the results of preaching-worship materialize wherever the people go. Charge Christians to think and act Christianly in their cars, their homes, their jobs, their politics and their play. Have at home a little church, guided by forgiveness, correction and love. Make affairs of office, factory and field opportunities to unravel the meaning of the Gospel, and make the long hours of leisure targets for minds that have heard from the Word and hearts that worship the Lord. Let all life become live footnotes to preaching-worship. Deny the plea to do “something special” for Christ, deny it with the declaration that everything must be done for Christ. Say aloud that there is no protected niche for those who have preached, heard and worshipped; tell these favored ones that every facet of life must be brought captive to Christ, every act impelled by his will, and every attitude squared with his Lordship.

Are we so soon done with his mission? Eager ones, returning with report of having done the Christian task, stand at the foot of the Cross and see that ten lifetimes will not take you beyond its shadow! Bow before the empty tomb and understand that a hundred life-spans will not open all life’s crevices to its brilliant rays!

Remind those startled by this day’s leaping advances in science, and horrified by the same day’s plunge to new lows of immorality, that Christ reigns beyond the rocket’s final sputter, and that he still calls for the repentance of those who befoul themselves and all they touch. Say to those beguiled by the pretensions and idolatries of Left and Right that Jesus Christ is King. Assert that those purcased by his blood and pardoned by his life must be patriots to his purpose. Show that earthly loyalties are valid only when derived from homage to Heaven. Say to all that the day of all knees’ bowing to his personal and cosmic Lordship will come. Meantime, following him, it is ours, through evil days, to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.

This is mission: to proclaim Christ’s redeeming grace to people where they are. There is little glamor here, but grace, not glamor, is our glory. There is small public favor here, but fidelity, not acclaim, is our goal. There may be meagre success here, but success is God’s to give or withhold: our job is to try where the trying is hardest. Our mission’s crown of success may be made of thorns: He whom we serve found it so. From dark nights, in due time, God splits the sky for the bursting forth of Easter Morn. Come Back, O Church, Come Back to the mission of Christ!

The Spring Of Our Hope

Soldiers of the cross! You may crumple under the crossfire of this world’s hell, but for you the security of an impinging eternity is infinitely greater than the calamities of earthly deviltry. While earth’s battles rage, the veteran Captain of our salvation trains all for destiny’s decision and eternity’s call through total loyalty to his Word, worship and work.

The last day comes when the bruised and broken body of Christ, target of satanic fury, becomes the Church victorious. Its stigmata shall be its glory, the scandal of its cross shall be its crown, and its shredded garment shall become its seamless robe clothing the redeemed of all ages. It shall keep only what it has given away in Christ’s name, and it shall enter Paradise, at God’s call, supported by those to whom it is the messenger of grace.

The Christ of God, long since returned from Calvary’s bloody victory, shall meet it and greet it and claim it as his own for ever.

Come Back, O Church, Come Back: the Master calls you to His preaching, His worship and His mission. Come back, bearing your shield of faith, or be carried on it, but come back!