Standing by God or by ourselves?

How Dogmatic Can You Get?

For Holiday magazine Clifton Fadiman once gathered up a delightful collection of puns. The one I liked best was, “Any stigma will do to beat a dogma.” Of course, if you don’t know the original, you won’t really appreciate this brilliant turn.

Nothing seems to scare people more today than for someone to accuse them of being dogmatic. The accusers forget, of course, that to say, “You are too dogmatic” is to make a very dogmatic statement.

These and like thoughts came to mind as I was reading Leslie Weatherhead’s The Christian Agnostic. Some of the claims on the dust jacket are interesting. “He does not pull any punches.… He sincerely believes that the theological demands of Christianity are a barrier to an honest participation by many [that word “honest” right there is interesting—whose honesty?].… He insists that many of the dogmas which modern adults observe are not valid in themselves [and I take it that such insistence is dogmatic].… He believes that many agnostics are much closer to belief in the true God [shall we examine the term “true” God?] than many conventional churchgoers.” On the whole, I get the impression that this is pretty dogmatic—and, interestingly, pretty loose—reasoning.

To quote Weatherhead himself, “The certainties of the Christian faith are very precious to me. They are what I call the essentials, and they are very few. To add to them and then demand belief in what has been added as well as in the fundamentals seems to me a criminal activity” [italics mine].

The word “criminal” is a pretty clear one, but just what does Weatherhead mean by “certainties” and “essentials” and “fundamentals”? And who is he to say we have no right to “add to” what he believes are the essentials? In the name of tolerance, he sounds—if you will pardon the expression—pretty dogmatic. Most critics of the fundamentalist position do.

EUTYCHUS II

A Good Critique

Re “Your Theology Is Too Small,” by Harold O. J. Brown (Apr. 15 issue): The article reminds me of a parable Jesus told in Luke 18:9–14.… Mr. Brown appears to be standing and praying thus “with himself”: “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, such as Robinson, Bonhoeffer, and Tillich, but that I am among those of us who hold the Word of God, who are the legitimate heirs of the prophets, apostles, and martyrs.” …

JIM RUDD

Assoc. Minister

First Christian Church

Abilene, Tex.

The article is one of the very finest things that I ever read.…

C. STANLEY LOWELL

Assoc. Dir.

Protestants and Other

Americans United

Washington. D. C.

The author has … come up with an original and intellectually respectable critique of the “death of God” people. Bethlehem Lutheran

DAVID R. YOUNG

Lakewood, Colo.

I admire very greatly the article.…

D. ELTON TRUEBLOOD

Earlham College

Richmond, Ind.

Splendid Unmasking

Thank you for the splendid article, “Let’s Unmask John Barleycorn,” by Horace E. Chandler (Apr. 15 issue). Intoxicating drink is a sin against God and a crime against humanity. What a tragedy that some churches serve liquor at church functions, and even some “ministers of God” feel justified to encourage the drinking of alcohol by their own example.… I would like to see those men who feel a great concern for the social ills of society … alert the public to the devilish results of alcohol.…

RICHARD H. WATSON

Presbyterian Church of our Saviour

Chicago Heights, Ill.

Reprints should be made available to all pastors throughout the country to remind them of their responsibility to preach against social drinking and the evils that are the result of the free liquor traffic. I am sure that almost every family of our nation has been affected directly or indirectly by this degrading alcoholic problem.…

AL MALACHUK

Vienna, Va.

Unclouding Cloudy Judgment

How much more proof is needed that “God is dead” than a full-page editorial (“Clouded Judgment,” Apr. 15 issue), which tries to prove that James J. Reeb was not a martyr of the Church of Jesus Christ? How unchristian can you get?… Is a man to be judged by what he says he believes or by the way he lives his life?…

The James Reebs, the Pope Johns, and the Bishop Pikes are (and/or were) the only leaders of organized religion who seem to be in contact with reality today. At least, they appear to have some contact with the reality that I know.

What does it matter whether there was or was not a virgin birth? If Jesus Christ was or was not the Son of God? If the Bible was divinely inspired? If these beliefs are important to some people, if it helps them lead a better and more meaningful life, fine. I certainly would not want to destroy these or any other beliefs which somehow bring some order and purpose to their lives. But neither would I judge them to be good or evil, Christian or unchristian by the beliefs they subscribe to.

What is important, at least to me, is the fact that Christ did live. He was not a phony or a hypocrite.…

RICHARD GAIKOWSKI

The Knickerbocker News

Albany, N. Y.

• And he claimed to be the divine Son of God and conditioned eternal salvation upon belief in him as the divine Redeemer.—ED.

Refurbish And Return!

Re “Pentecostals Refurbish the Upper Room” (Apr. 1 issue): It is with deep sorrow that I agree with most that was said, and this “refurbishing” is a shame on the Pentecostal movement rather than a credit … a backsliding rather than an evolution.

Having been born and raised in an Assembly of God pastor’s home, and having been ordained myself for the past sixteen years, my heart’s desire is that Pentecostal people “return” to the upper room rather than try to “refurbish” it.

FRED O. RICE

Hulman Street Assembly of God

Terre Haute, Ind.

He Dared To Pray

As an alumnus of Bob Jones University, I want to commend you for the forthright article about Bob Jones University (“Graham in Greenville,” Apr. 1 issue).

When the Billy Graham crusade was going on in New York City, Dr. Jones Sr. forbade the student body to pray for it. A student did dare to pray for the crusade and was reported … and expelled in a matter of hours.

What kind of conscience is it that would motivate a fundamentalist to speak (blasphemously) as Dr. Jones Jr. did and pray the mock prayer?

I used to call myself a “fundamentalist”; I prefer the term “evangelical.” Some fundamentalists have “too much fun,” and “too much damn,” and “too little mentality.”

DONALD E. MCCLINTOCK

Oglesby Union Church

Oglesby, Ill.

You did an excellent job of reporting the situation as it really is, which is a difficult job, to say the least. In addition to the issue at hand, I was glad to see that you also mentioned some things about the university itself. I found the catalogue misleading, and I am sure many others have, too. I hope that prospective students … will consider carefully before entering a college in which they are quite likely to be disappointed.…

LINDA WITTHUN

Nashua, N. H.

It gave a very good explanation of the case and an evaluation of both sides that the Christian world ought to know.…

M. HORN

Brethren Church Schools

Paramount, Calif.

I believe that your reporting was slanted and a smear.…

RONALD C. PURKEY, SR.

Assoc. Pastor

Temple Baptist

Albuquerque, N. M.

Thank the Lord there is still a school such as this that dares to stand for what is right and refuses to play footsie with apostasy.…

MARION E. FAST

Bible Baptist Church

New Buffalo, Mich.

I take strong issue with your news report. You lament the antagonistic attack of Bob Jones University against the Billy Graham ministry. Then you manifest your “Christian brotherhood” by taking the edge off Bob Jones University and the South Carolina Baptist Fellowship by inferring with the use of an asterisk reference that Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Seventh-day Adventists, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are of the same opinion because they are not actively sponsoring the Graham crusade. As a minister of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I know that the aggressive attack of and boycott by the Bob Jones University against the Graham crusade is not the attitude of our church. Nor do I appreciate being aligned with this “regrettable spectacle.” …

I too, rejoice with the decisions for Christ made in Greenville!

DUANE RICHARD PETERSON

Seventh-day Adventist Church

Hinsdale, Ill.

Big, Fat High Horse

Please take me off of your mailing list!…

Don’t you think it’s high time you got off your big, fat high horse and gave some attention to sincere men that are trying to make Christianity more meaningful today? They aren’t poor, miserable sinners like you are. They believe that as a man thinketh, so is he.…

I’ll tell you something. God’s ways and thoughts are not our ways and thoughts, and there is plenty of evidence today that the Church has been fulfilled and must change in form. The power structure must disappear, and each man must face himself and come to the cross himself. Each man must stand alone and be a Christ, which means to mature and stop being a child.

ROBERT A. CRAIN

Denver, Colo.

Win A Prize

The annual competition for anthems for average church choirs is announced by Chapel Choir Conductors’ Guild of Capital University, Columbus, Ohio 43209. A prize of $100.00 is offered. Contest ends September 1, 1966. Rules may be obtained on request.

EVERETT W. MEHRLEY

Chapel Choir Conductors’ Guild

Capital University

Columbus, Ohio

A Pleasant Surprise

I want to commend the article by Dr. John W. Duddington entitled “The Crisis of Impending Judgment” (Apr. 15 issue). I am pleasantly surprised that a minister of the Episcopal Church should take a stand on the question of the judgment and the return of the Lord. I am in full agreement with Dr. Duddington’s article and enjoyed it very much.

ROBERT A. GORSLINE

Librarian

Dawson County Public Library

Lamesa, Tex.

Thrust Of Cod

“Ghosts in the Pulpit” (Apr. 15 issue) is indeed a thrust of God into the heart of each preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Every minister should read and reread these paragraphs each week as he prays for, receives, and prepares the message to be delivered from God to the people.

ERNEST S. OWENS, JR.

Cherokee Baptist Church

Memphis, Tenn.

Poetry Plaudit

I was really challenged by what the poem “Remorse,” by Sue Fife (Apr. 1 issue), has to say. The challenge and inspiration of that poem was certainly worthy of your high-quality magazine.

PAUL BENSON

Greenville, Ill.

A Reader’S Rebuttal

Surely you know you can’t print a letter like that from George L. Tappan (Eutychus, Apr. 1 issue) without receiving at least one letter like this from a (Roman) Catholic asking for the chance to rebut. For the benefit of Mr. Tappan and anyone else who cares to read this, I would like to point out that:

1. The government of Spain is not the “Roman Catholic system of government.” It is the Spanish system of government.

2. Children who attend a Catholic parochial school are taught exactly the same “principles of government” that their public school contemporaries learn.

3. We do not want your tax money; we only want part of our tax money. Or is reader Tappan under the impression that Catholics pay no taxes?

JAMES K. GALLAGHER

Exeter, N. H.

Readers Say …

To charge you with “keeping Christianity out of the twentieth century” (Eutychus, “Readers Say …,” Apr. 15 issue) is an obituary to the truth of the Bible. Here is a Methodist that stands behind you (but not too far behind!) in the blessing you bring to the ministry.

NICKY BLACKFORD

Ochelata Methodist Church

Ochelata, Okla.

After reading in the current issue (April 15), I said to myself as I have so often, “Thank God for CHRISTIANITY TODAY!” Your faithfulness to the Word of God is most appreciated and heartwarming.

DONALD E. DEMARAY

Dean

School of Religion

Seattle Pacific College

Seattle, Wash.

Your magazine … was truly appreciated during my years in seminary. Your articles always dealt with so many of the problems with which I found myself struggling.…

MURRAY GRAHAM

St. Luke’s Presbyterian

Bathurst, New Brunswick

I read each issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in detail and I am most impressed with the wonderful piece of work that God is enabling you to do.…

DAVE BREESE

President

Christian Destiny, Inc.

Wheaton, Ill.

I want to tell you that I personally look forward eagerly to each issue. There has been such a need for a work of your caliber and theological stance. I think you are giving “heart” to many who might have begun to think that to earnestly contend for the faith was a rather futile and intellectually suicidal operation. If the God of the Bible is true, and if our beloved Lord Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead, and if in him are indeed hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and if our God has set at nought all the humanistic, rationalistic speculations of “natural” men—then CHRISTIANITY TODAY had to come into being by sheer demand of truth. Again, thank you.…

CHARLES E. LENKER

Lancaster Brethren in Christ Church

Lancaster, Pa.

“A great gulf separates the scriptural picture of the Church’s spiritual mission and the social, economic and political aims proposed by the ‘Confession of 1967’ ”

Abraham Lincoln, that master story-teller, once told of a farmer who was trying to teach his son how to plow a straight furrow. After the horse had been hitched up and everything was ready, he directed the boy to keep his eye upon some object at the other end of the field and plow straight toward it. “Over there is an ox,” he said. “That will do.” The boy started plowing and the father went about his chores. When he returned a little later to see what progress had been made, he was shocked to find, instead of a straight line, something that looked more like a question mark. The boy had obeyed his instructions; the trouble was that the ox had moved!

We can make this kind of mistake in writing creeds and confessions. Instead of keeping our eyes centered upon the unchanging and incorruptible Word of God, which, as the Apostle Peter says, “liveth and abideth forever,” we can set our eyes on the word of psychologists, philosophers, and theologians, all of whom are but fallible, changing, sinful human beings. Unwittingly we may end up following a moving ox.

What, after all, is our criterion of truth? The Shorter Catechism tells us plainly: “The Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him” (Q. 2). The Bible alone is timeless and changeless, a foundation that cannot be shaken, the inspired and infallible Word of God.

Just how far the proposed “Confession of 1967” of the United Presbyterian Church departs from this divine standard becomes evident when we examine what it says about the Church of Jesus Christ. Let us first see what the confession has to say about the mission of the Church, and then see what the Scriptures say.

The confession finds the pattern for the Church’s mission in the “life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ”:

“His life as man involves the church in the common life of men. His service to men commits the church to work for every form of human welfare. His suffering makes the church sensitive to all the sufferings of mankind so that it sees the face of Christ in the faces of the poor, sick, and oppressed. His crucifixion discloses to the church God’s judgment on man’s inhumanity to man and the awful consequences of its own complicity in injustice. In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming the church sees the promise of God’s forgiveness for all wrong and the renewal of society in all aspects of its life” (11. 214–24).

This theme of social renewal is dominant in the confession’s description of the mission of the Church. “So to live and serve,” the section concludes after the paragraph quoted above, “is to confess Christ as Lord.”

The confession calls attention to three “particular problems and crises which call the church to act” at the present time. The first is discrimination: “God’s reconciliation of the human race creates one universal family and breaks down every form of discrimination based on alleged racial or ethnic difference” (11. 298–300, italics added). This means that we ought “to bring all men to accept one another as persons and to share life on every level, in work and play, in courtship, marriage, and family, in church and state” (11. 301–3).

Secondly, there is the problem of “conflict among nations”: “The church is called to practice the forgiveness of enemies in its own life and to commend to the nation as practical politics the search for cooperation and peace” (11. 310–13).

The third problem presently calling the Church to action is “enslaving poverty” (1. 320), whether caused by “unjust social structures, exploitation of the defenseless, lack of national resources, absence of technological understanding, or rapid expansion of population” (11. 324–27). Poverty “in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God’s good creation” (11. 320, 321).

This, then, is what the “Confession of 1967” has to say about the mission of the Church. The ministry of reconciliation of Christ and the Church lies wholly within the social, economic, and political spheres. Let us now turn to the Word of God to see how it describes the mission of the Lord’s redeemed.

The Greek word for “Church” is ekklesia, from ek and kaleo, meaning literally “to call out from.” We are a chosen generation whom God “called … out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9). But we were not called into this royal priesthood because of any personal merit. We were “called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (1 Tim. 1:9). This puts great honor and dignity upon being a follower of Jesus Christ. The question now before us is this: What purpose does God have for those who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ?

In order to answer this question according to the Scriptures, I made a careful study of the Greek verb meaning “to call,” kaleo, together with its gerund, klesis, and the participle, kletos. These Greek words occur 167 times in the New Testament. I examined each occurrence in order to find out why it was that God called us into his Church. This was a most enriching study, and I am able here only to touch on its salient features. In the great majority of instances, the verb kaleo is used in the Gospels as a simple declarative, such as, “and he called his name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25b). But in those places—mostly in the Epistles—where kaleo is used to denote God’s calling out his Church, the majority of its usages fall into two general categories. God calls men into his Church (1) to bring souls to Christ and (2) to build believers up in Christ.

The first of these purposes, then, is evangelism, or the spreading of the Gospel. Paul, for example, was “called to be an apostle” (Rom. 1:1), and he designates himself in this way seventeen times in his epistles. An apostle, Greek apostolos, is literally “one sent from” one person to another with a specific message. Paul considered himself “the apostle of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:13). What this gospel message was he tells us in the letter to the Galatians. God, he said, “separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen …” (Gal. 1:15, 16). This is why he was called, to bring Christ to the unsaved.

This is our first and foremost mission as members of the body of Christ. Our Lord defines this as his own mission to earth: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. 9:13b). It is now our duty to extend that call to all the unsaved. In Second Thessalonians 2:13, 14 Paul declares this to be the eternal purpose of God in Jesus Christ: “… God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It was through the preaching of the Apostle Paul that God extended this call that was in his mind before the world was.

This has always been the essential mission of the Church, to spread the Gospel to all nations, in order to call out a people for His name’s sake. We are not asked to bring the world to Christ: we are asked to bring Christ to the world. The early disciples were not sent out to organize freedom marches or to form picket lines protesting the power of Rome. “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins …” was their message (Acts 2:38). This is the Church’s foremost mission: to preach Christ’s redeeming love and saving power.

The second mission of the Church is to build up believers in Christ, preparing them to be fit members of his body at his coming. This purpose of Christ’s ekklesia is also made clear from the use of kaleo. In Romans 8:30 we read that “whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” God’s holy purpose for members of the Church is not only their salvation: it is their spiritual growth and development until final glorification. It was for this reason that Christ “loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church … that it should be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:25–27).

And it is for this reason that the Church exists. Just as it is the highest function of parents to bring up their children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4), so it is the divine purpose of our heavenly Father, “who hath called us unto his eternal glory,” to “make [us] perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle [us]” (1 Pet. 5:10). Under every condition of trial or suffering or persecution, we are to remember that God is using these means to perfect our growth in grace and in Christ-likeness, “for even hereunto were [we] called” (1 Pet. 2:21a). After sinners have been converted, a lifetime challenge confronts them of growing “up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15). As imitators of Christ, we are called “to peace” (1 Cor. 7:15), “unto liberty” in Christ (Gal. 5:13), to “let the peace of God rule” in our hearts (Col. 3:15), “unto holiness” (1 Thess. 4:7), to be “holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Pet. 1:15). All these are but fragments of the divine image which we are to develop as part of the Bride of Christ. This, then, is the twofold function of the Church according to divine revelation: to bring the unsaved to find Christ as their Saviour, and then to help believers to grow spiritually in Christ, their Lord and Master.

… AND I AM HIS

Today I found a critter on my range

As fat and sleek as any calf I own.

But this fat calf was slick, unbranded, strange;

The burning iron this calf has never known.

O lucky calf, you’ve never known the fright

Of lariat that snatches you in flight.

You’ve never known that hopeless, helpless plight

When strong, unyielding hands have held you tight

And that fierce iron has burned upon your hip

An everlasting mark of ownership.

I pass you by, to ride among my own;

To see with joy how much my calves have grown;

To care for any sickness, any need;

To put my cattle on the finest feed.

My cows, it seems, quite gladly wear my brand.

It seems somehow they almost understand

That they are mine and I will give them care;

And what they are is but the brand they wear.

I wonder, is that calf, unbranded still,

That feeds alone upon that lonely hill

As lucky as I thought he was at first?

No rancher cares if he should die of thirst.

And if at roundup time that calf is lost

No one will search and never count the cost

Of making sure he’s safely back at home

Before the howling wolves of winter come.

It seems I read once in a sacred book,

That sheep is blest that knows the shepherd’s crook.

And someday surely I will understand

How blest is one who wears his Master’s brand.

DON IAN SMITH

By this time it must have become quite evident that a great gulf separates this scriptural picture of the Church’s spiritual mission and the social, economic, and political aims proposed by the “Confession of 1967.” It is to be noted first that this twofold purpose of the Church of Christ is not even recognized in the confession. But that is not all: it is also apparent that nowhere in the scriptural calling out of the Church is there a command to build the world into a place of greater social or political or economic security!

Does this mean, then, that to be “sensitive to all the sufferings of mankind,” to be concerned about “man’s inhumanity to man,” to work for “the renewal of society in all aspects of its life,” as the confession puts it, has no sanction in the Word of God? By no means. These are worthy motives, all of them, and encouraged by Scripture; and they surely have a place in the life of the Church. And yet, having said this, we must make an important distinction.

Such acts of love and mercy, important as they are, are not God’s primary reason for calling the Church into being. They are not the root of the Church’s strength. They are rather the fruits of the indwelling Spirit (Gal. 5:22). The real root of the Church’s mission and strength is the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in a redeemed and sanctified heart. This must remain the primary function of the Church—to keep nourishing these roots; for if the roots wither, the fruit will soon disappear. And if the roots are kept healthy, the fruits will follow as naturally as harvest follows the planting.

Desirable as are these works of social and economic uplift, they can never replace God’s program of salvation and edification of lost souls as the primary function of the Church. As soon as the Church of Jesus Christ substitutes outward political or social or economic activity for inner spiritual life, it loses its force as a spiritual power. At that moment both the Church and the society it is trying to save suffer an irreparable loss.

Nor does this mean that the Church is a body of people interested only in their own salvation. By no means. In my long experience in the ministry I have discovered, as every minister of the Gospel discovers, that it is just those people who have given themselves completely to Jesus Christ and are dominated by the Spirit of God who do most to relieve the poor and needy, visit the sick, and give themselves in unselfish community service. But they do it for a particular purpose. That purpose is not to renew society but to renew the individual in society in his personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This makes all the difference in the world. It is the difference between healing a diseased body or merely giving a sedative for the temporary relief of pain.

But there is more to this issue: the person and work of the Holy Spirit are involved. In the scriptural passages that define the purpose of the Spirit’s coming and his work in the world, I challenge anyone to find a passage that promises his power for the social renewal of pagan society or promises to guide the world to a better secular future. Like the mission of the Church, the Spirit’s present work is related to two general areas, regeneration and sanctification of the believer. Our Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q.35) defines sanctification as “the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man alter the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness.”

That this is the present mission of the Holy Spirit is made abundantly dear in Scripture (see such verses as 2 Thess. 2:13, Rom. 15:16, and 1 Pet. 1:2). There is not a word here about the renewal of society or even the adjustment of social or political wrongs. How can the Church expect to go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit unless it stays within those spheres in which the Spirit’s power is specifically promised? And if the Church does not expect to go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit or to carry out his divine mission in this world, then it has no right to call itself the Church of Jesus Christ.

Nor is even this all there is of the matter. To claim that the mission of the Church is the social and economic and political renewal of mankind is to betray a tragic misunderstanding of the nature of the world itself. Mr. World is a very sick old man. Long ago, the Scriptures tell us, he rebelled against God Almighty. Even the thought of God became obnoxious to him. But that was not the end of the story, for God is not through with man when man is through with him. The result was that God gave him “over to a reprobate mind” (Rom. 1:28), that is, a mind “abandoned to sin.” God as much as said, “All right, Mr. World, you think you know better how to run your affairs. Follow your course and let us see what you can make of it.”

Mr. World accepted the challenge. By now he was a thorough hater of God, and he was determined to prove that through cultural and scientific measures he could improve himself independently of God. In spite of his best efforts, however, the symptoms of a strange disease slowly began to break out all over his body. There were wars, racial hatreds, lawlessness, crime, sex perversions, delinquency.

Mr. World became concerned about this disease and sent for his best doctors, who began treating the symptoms. What was needed, they said, was more social justice, a more equitable distribution of society’s wealth, more equality of opportunity among races. Mr. World tried all these; but instead of getting better, he slowly got worse. Today his condition is so serious that it alarms every thoughtful person.

And now, amid mounting crime, spreading wars, increasing drug addiction, racial hatred, and moral delinquency, Dr. New Confession has come forth with his remedy. It is the same old aspirin of social and economic and political uplift prescribed by the other doctors. The only difference is that this time it has an ecclesiastical coating.

Blind leaders of the blind! Can we not see by this time that there is something drastically wrong with this poor, wretched old man that cannot be cured with pain-relievers? These “remedies” at best are temporary. They may provide a psychological lift, but that is all.

Is there then no cure? Yes, there is. But Mr. World will have to come to the Great Physician, who alone can heal. His disease is sin, and for that there is only one cure. He must come in true sorrow and repentance to the Lord Jesus Christ, accept his atoning work on Calvary’s cross to cover his sin, and then by the mighty regenerating work of the Holy Spirit be born again to a new life in Christ. Long ago God revealed this secret to Solomon. “If my people,” he said, “which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Citron. 7:14). First in the divine order for renewal is removal of sin. Then, and only then, comes healing of the land.

It begins to look as though the scriptural mission of the Church has more sound common sense in it than we may have given it credit for. The ills of society will he solved only as one by one men repent and believe the Gospel. When the sin problem is solved, society’s problem will also be solved. All other proposed remedies touch only the symptoms.

This is not the first time the Church has been troubled with those who would corrupt her doctrinal purity. In the days of Jude, the brother of James, “certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). How did Jude meet the problem? He told the believers that they should “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (v. 3). He urged them to build themselves up in the “most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,” and to keep themselves “in the love of God” (vv. 20, 21).

Nor was this experience of the early Church the last of its kind. The Apostle Paul was deeply concerned about this in his epistles to Timothy. He expressly warns that the Lord’s personal, victorious return will be preceded by days of great peril and ungodliness (2 Tim. 3:1), and that the best preparation for such days is to be thoroughly grounded in the Scriptures, God’s inspired and infallible Word (2 Tim. 3:14–17). Among perils of the last days is apostasy: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” (2 Tim. 4:3).

Never was the need greater than now, not only for the United Presbyterian Church but for every church of Jesus Christ, to face the issue squarely, to build ourselves up in the most holy faith, to pray much, to keep ourselves holy before the Lord. Paul expresses it for us in his charge to Timothy. Let us change one word, so that it reads, “O Church, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20, 21).

We have a noble heritage to maintain. Let us be strong and of good courage, remembering that when the Church of Jesus Christ departs from its true spiritual and ecclesiastical mission and enters into power politics, then America is on the road to ruin.

From time to time sensational claims that the Teacher of Righteousness of the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran anticipated the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus have received much notice in the press. Some of the men who make these claims are not only competent but distinguished scholars in their field. Yet most of their colleagues, equally competent and distinguished, would take issue with the forced interpretations necessary to buttress such claims. Their more sober views do not, of course, receive publicity. It might therefore be profitable to consider critically the evidence for the allegation that “the Galilean Master, as He is presented to us in the writings of the New Testament, appears in many respects as an astonishing reincarnation of the Teacher of Righteousness” (A. Dupont-Sommer, The Dead Sea Scrolls [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952], p. 99).

The Allegations

The first scrolls were discovered in 1947 in the area known as Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Subsequent discoveries have yielded thousands of fragments, which include manuscripts of all the Old Testament books except Esther. The monastic community at Qumran is identified by most scholars with the Essenes, a strict, Jewish sect known from the writings of Josephus and of Philo. Some of the sectarian writings—the Damascus Document, the Habakkuk Commentary, and the Commentary on Psalm 37—refer to an anonymous Teacher of Righteousness.

On May 26, 1950, Professor André Dupont-Sommer of the Sorbonne provoked a controversy in Europe by a lecture in which he claimed that the Teacher of Righteousness had probably been crucified, had been raised from the dead, and had appeared in judgment against the city of Jerusalem at the time of the Roman general Pompey’s entrance in 63 B.C. Since the initial lecture, Dupont-Sommer has repeated this claim—albeit with modifications—in various articles and books. Because of the language barrier, the controversy did not receive the same attention in the United States.

Then in the May 14, 1955, issue of the New Yorker, the journalist Edmund Wilson described the exciting story of the scrolls. By his best-seller, The Scrolls from the Dead Sea (New York: Oxford, 1955), Wilson helped to attract national attention to the scrolls. Unfortunately, he also distorted some of the implications of these documents. He suggested that Jesus may have spent some of his childhood years with the Essenes and alleged that New Testament scholars were avoiding the study of the scrolls.

Soon thereafter views similar to Dupont-Sommer’s were aired in broadcasts in Britain by Professor John Marco Allegro of the University of Manchester. These views were published in his book, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Baltimore: Penguin, 1956; reprinted with revisions in 1958, 1959; second edition, 1964. It should be noted that Allegro modified the expression of his views considerably in the second edition). The allegations of Allegro and of Dupont-Sommer have often been disseminated by popularizing writers in articles and books without a careful presentation of their evidence.

The Evidence

What texts are used by these scholars? Three passages in particular are worthy of note. They will be cited here from A. Dupont-Sommer’s translation, The Essene Writings from Qumran (Cleveland: World, 1962).

1. The Nahum Commentary II.13b: “The explanation of this concerns the furious Young Lion [who … took ven]geance on those who seek smooth things—he who hanged living men [on wood … which was not] formerly [done] in Israel; but he who hanged alive upon [the] wood.…” (Note: the parts in brackets are restorations of gaps.)

Allegro interprets the “Young Lion” as the Wicked High Priest, Alexander Jannaeus. The references to “hanging” probably refer to crucifixion. We know from Josephus that Jannaeus crucified eight hundred rebels. Although the Teacher of Righteousness is not explicitly mentioned, as the enemy of the Wicked High Priest, he was one of those who were crucified. The text, as may be seen, is in a very fragmentary state. In any case, Allegro’s interpretation seems to be highly unlikely, inasmuch as in the text those who were persecuted are “those who seek smooth things,” i.e. the Pharisees, who were considered corrupt by the Essenes, and not the Essenes themselves.

2. The Habakkuk Commentary XI.4–8: “The explanation of this concerns the Wicked Priest who persecuted the Teacher of Righteousness, swallowing him up in the anger of his fury in his place of exile. But at the time of the feast of rest of the Day of Atonement he appeared before them to swallow them up to cause them to stumble on the Day of Fasting, their Sabbath of rest” (italics ours).

This is the celebrated passage that formed the basis of Dupont-Sommer’s initial formulation. Originally he took the word rendered “exile,” glwtw, to mean “to strip” and associated this with crucifixion. Other scholars such as Burrows, Kuhn, and Allegro favored the meaning “exile,” which he adopted in his 1962 translation cited here. The crux of the passage is in the word hwpyc, rendered “he appeared.” Dupont-Sommer believes that this refers to the Teacher of Righteousness. Many other scholars believe that this refers to the Wicked Priest, with the second sentence as parallel to the first.

The verb ypc means “to shine; to reveal oneself; and to appear.” At first Dupont-Sommer maintained that the word bore supernatural connotations, “thus the Teacher of Righteousness, shining with a divine light.” In other words, he believed that this referred to the resurrection of the Teacher of Righteousness, appearing in judgment upon Jerusalem at the time of Pompey’s entrance in 63 B.C. He now concedes that “the Hebrew verb used here may also be translated ‘He revealed himself to them,’ with no supernatural implication” (Dupont-Sommer, op. cit., p. 266, n. 4).

An alternative view is set forth by Lou H. Silberman in “Unriddling the Riddle: A Study in the Structure and Language of the Habakkuk Pesher” (Revue de Qumran, III (1961), 358, 359). Recognizing that eight of the fourteen occurrences of the verb in question in the Qumran documents have God as the subject, Silberman proposes that the phrase “he appeared” refers here to God.

3. The Damascus Document VI.7–11: “And the rod (the Lawgiver) is the Seeker of the Law; … and the nobles of the people are they that come to dig the well with the help of the Lawgiver’s precepts, that they may walk in them during all the time of wickedness and without which they shall not succeed until the coming of the Teacher of Righteousness at the end of days.”

Both Allegro and Dupont-Sommer believe that this passage refers to the resurrection of the Teacher of Righteousness. This depends upon the identification of the rod with the Teacher of Righteousness. Frank Moore Cross, in The Ancient Library of Qumran (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961, pp. 227 ff.), would identify the rod with a forerunner of the Teacher of Righteousness. In this case the phrase “the end of days” would simply refer to the period after the forerunner and not to the resurrection of the Teacher (cf. Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963], pp. 184, 185).

In review we may note the following: (1) It is certain that the Teacher of Righteousness was persecuted by the High Priest. (2) It is possible that he may have been crucified, although the texts do not indicate this. Crucifixion was, after all, a common form of execution. (3) The allusions to a resurrection and return of the Teacher of Righteousness are quite doubtful. F. F. Bruce, in The Teacher of Righteousness (London: Tyndale, 1956, pp. 34, 35), concedes their possibility.

On the whole, however, the reactions of most scholars have been negative, as may be seen by the following citations:

“The passages in the Habakkuk Commentary which Dupont-Sommer interprets as referring to the return of the Teacher must certainly be interpreted in some other way and they do not allude at all to any returning messiah” (Ringgren, op. cit., p. 185).

“There are no references to his [the Teacher’s] crucifixion, to his resurrection, or to any atoning efficacy in his death” (William H. Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible [New York: Oxford, 1964], p. 128).

“There are no references to a resurrection of the Righteous Teacher in the Qumran literature …” (Cross, op. cit., p. 223, n. 54).

“There is nowhere any suggestion of the miraculous in the death of the Teacher of Righteousness” (Menahem Mansoor, The Dead Sea Scrolls [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964], p. 156).

Conclusion

In actuality, the differences between the Teacher from Qumran and the Teacher from Nazareth are far more striking than any superficial similarities. Professor Brownlee (op. cit., pp. 143–51) lists ten such differences:

1. “Unlike Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness was a confessed sinner who gratefully acknowledged his dependence upon the forgiveness of God.” This point and the following ones are based on the ascription of certain of the Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran to the Teacher of Righteousness.

2. “Unlike Jesus, he must suffer in order to be purified from sin.”

3. Unlike Jesus, the Essene Master founded a community vowing hatred toward its enemies.” The injunction “to hate all the sons of darkness” has led scholars to believe that Jesus may have had the Essenes in mind when he said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’ ” (Matt. 5:43). This was true of the Essenes, but not of the Pharisees.

4. “Both teachers founded a church—but only Jesus built a church which the powers of death could not overcome.” After the destruction of their community by the Romans in A.D. 68, we hear no more about the members of the Qumran community.

5. “Unlike Jesus, the Teacher called his followers out of the world, but Christ on the contrary sent His followers into the world.” The sectarians were admonished to keep separate from nonbelievers and to conceal their doctrines from them. “And let him not rebuke the man of the Pit nor dispute with them; let him conceal the maxims of the Law from the midst of the men of perversity …” (Manual of Discipline, IX. 16 f.).

6. “Unlike Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness does not appear to have been ‘a friend of publicans and sinners.’ ”

7. “Unlike Jesus, the Essene Master performed no works of healing, nor in other ways did he engage in acts of compassion among the needy.” Indeed, in contrast to the ministry of Jesus who welcomed the sick and deformed, the community excluded anyone with a physical defect: “… every (person) smitten in his flesh, paralyzed in his feet or hands, lame or blind or deaf, or dumb or smitten in his flesh with a blemish visible to the eye, or any aged person that totters and is unable to stand firm in the midst of the Congregation: let these persons not en[ter] …” (Manual of Discipline, the Rule Annexe II.5–8).

8. “Unlike Jesus, he was at most a prophet, not a redeemer.”

9. “Unlike Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness was simply preparing the way for one far greater than himself.” The sectarians awaited the coming of two Messiahs, a kingly one and a priestly one. The Teacher was not himself considered to be the Messiah.

10. “Unlike Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness founded a community enmeshed in legalism.” The Essenes were so fanatical in their observance of ritual law that they considered the Pharisees lax. Since this was so, Ethelbert Stauffer says, “I contend: had Jesus fallen into the hands of the Wilderness sectarians, they would have murdered him as ruthlessly as did the Pharisees” (Jesus and the Wilderness Community at Qumran [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964], p. 21). Stauffer gives eight differences between Jesus and Qumran, somewhat similar to those listed by Brownlee. (See also Bruce, op. cit., pp. 28 ff.; and Jean Carmignac, Christ and the Teacher of Righteousness [Baltimore: Helicon, 1962].)

Oscar Cullmann, in an essay entitled “The Significance of the Qumran Scrolls for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity” (The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. by Krister Stendahl [New York: Harper, 1957], pp. 31, 32), asks: “Is it not significant that Josephus and Philo can both describe the Essenes in detail without once mentioning the Teacher of Righteousness? Without the Damascus Manuscript and the Qumran texts, we would know nothing at all of such an Essene Teacher. Would it be possible to describe primitive Christianity without naming Christ? To ask the question is to have answered it.”

‘Abba, Father’ is in the first sentence from the fresh lips of the twelve-year-old, even as ‘Abba, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit’ are the last words from the parched voice of the Crucified.…

Popular writers are referring to our generation as one that has “come of age.” What will today’s sophisticated highbrows do with Jesus’ word that the Father-Lord was pleased to reveal himself to the babes rather than to the learned intellectuals of his day? Indeed, the Gospels invite us to take a further step. They indicate that at an early age the child Jesus began to speak of God as Abba, “Father.” This thesis is an endeavor to carry somewhat further than he has yet done the conclusions of Joachim Jeremias on Jesus’ use of Abba, “Father.” From the first lectures of Professor Jeremias’s The Central Message of the New Testament, we derive four points.

First, Jesus was unique in speaking of and praying to God as “my Father,” the Father of the individual. The Gospels record a score of prayers of Jesus, all but one of which are addressed to God as “Father,” and they record the word “Father” on his lips 170 times. Incidentally, this indicates the God-centered nature of Jesus’ life. The Sermon on the Mount is the most theistic message ever proclaimed. It focuses the eye of the heavenly Father upon every aspect of life.

Secondly, Jesus used for God his Father the familiar Aramaic word that the little child used for his earthly parent, abba, “daddy.” According to the Talmud, when a child experiences the taste of wheat—that is, when he is weaned—he learns to say “abba,” “dada,” and “imma,” “mama” (Babylonian Talmud, cited by Jeremias in The Central Message of the New Testament p. 20). When Mark 14:36 is placed beside Matthew 26:39, 42, it is seen that Abba underlies the Greek rendering pater mou here and presumably elsewhere. That Jesus used the same word abba in his other prayers is shown by the different forms of address “father” takes in Greek. In addition to the correct vocative forms pater mou and pater, there is the nominative ho pater used as a vocative that is not correct Greek usage; and this oscillation sometimes occurs in the same saying (Matt. 11:25–27; Luke 10:21, 22). The only explanation is that abba underlies each form and that it was used in first-century Palestinian Aramaic both as a form of address and as “the father.” Again, the cry of the primitive Christian communities, “Abba, ho pater” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), echoes Jesus’ own praying and indicates the word he used.

Thirdly, according to Matthew 11:25 ff. and Luke 10:21, 22, Jesus received this knowledge of God as his Abba in a unique revelation and proclaimed it on his own unique authority. Here Jesus speaks five times of God as Father and united the intimacy of Abba with the majesty of the Lord of Hosts in typically Hebrew phraseology: “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”

Fourthly, Jesus gave his disciples the Lord’s Prayer, beginning “Abba, our Father, who art in heaven,” to be used by them as a sign that they were his disciples (Luke 11:1–4). “Abba when spoken by the disciples,” says Professor Jeremias, “is a sharing in the revelation, it is actualized eschatology.” And as the Spirit of his Son bears witness with our spirits so that we cry, Abba, “Father,” we are really praying in the Name of Christ. He has been pleased to bind us up in the covenant of grace and the bundle of life with himself.

Now we maintain that these conclusions and a further consideration of the gospel data support the thesis that this revelation came to Jesus, at least in part, at an early age.

On the face of it, abba is the child’s word. There is a first-century B.C. story from the Talmud to the effect that school children came to a noted rabbi in a time of drought and, grasping the hem of his coat, implored him, “Abba, Abba, Daddy, Daddy, give us rain.” The rabbi prayed, “Master of the world, grant the rain for the sake of those who are not yet able to distinguish between an abba who has the power to give rain and an abba who has not.” Here the children do and the rabbi does not address God in prayer as Abba (cited by Jeremias, op. cit., p. 19).

Matthew 18 and 19 record several cases in which Jesus holds up the faith and the attitudes of little children for emulation. Putting a little one in the midst of the disciples he averred, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3; cf. John 3:3, 5). Again there is the warning not to cast a stumbling block before one of the least of the little ones, for “their angels do always behold the face of my Abba which is in heaven” (Matt. 18:10). As he takes them into his arms to bless them, Jesus says, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:14). Later, after the elders had rejected Jesus, the little children in the Temple were still crying, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. 21:15 f.), which Jesus defended as God’s perfecting praise from children and infants. Moreover, the Aramaic term abba breaks through in the Markan Gethsemane account; it is in a moment of extreme tension that one is most likely to lapse into the language of his earliest childhood.

Two cases bear more specifically on our thesis. One is the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41 ff.). Here he corrected Mary’s reference to Joseph as his abba by describing God as his Abba. Thus Abba, “Father,” occurs among the first recorded words on his lips.

The other incident is the Jubilation Passage recorded in Luke 10:21, 22 and in Matthew 11:25–27. In these two verses in Luke, God is spoken of as Abba five times, the intimacy of the term being balanced by the description of the Father as Lord of heaven and earth and by the uniqueness of the Son as both recipient and giver of this revelation. That Luke and Matthew reproduce the same passage assures this unit a place in Q, and that it is a rejoicing in the Holy Spirit and a thanksgiving (Hodayoth) vindicates its Israelitish historicity (see James M. Robinson in Bernhard W. Anderson, ed., The Old Testament and Christian Faith, pp. 143, 144). The father-son comparison is familiar in Palestinian apocalyptic (Jeremias, op. cit., p. 25). Now the declaration that the heavenly Abba hides these things from the wise and prudent and reveals them unto babes, together with the unique function of the Son in receiving and giving the revelation of the Father, seem to carry an autobiographical overtone. It is as if the rejection of Jesus’ message by the learned and intelligent in the great cities and its reception by the little ones there brought to Jesus’ mind earlier experiences of his own. Could there not have been some sad and humiliating experience in childhood into which came the revelation that the LORD of Israel was Jesus’ own Abba—a revelation in which the joy of the Holy Spirit filled the Child’s soul with thankfulness? Could it also reflect a lad’s conviction that God was his Abba, even when that testimony was frowned upon by the sagacious and sophisticated rabbis in Jerusalem? At least that is the direction toward which these passages point.

Furthermore, Jesus draws his most effective illustrations for the encouragement of prayer from little children in family situations that seem to have come from his own childhood home. When brother James asked for bread, Mary did not give him a stone, nor when brother Simon asked for a fish did Joseph give him a serpent. If earthly parents being evil know how to give good gifts to their bairns, how much more shall the heavenly Abba give good things to those who ask in prayer (Matt. 7:7–11)? Or consider the man whose unexpected guests knocked at midnight (Luke 11:5–9). May we not hear the gruff voice of Joseph the Carpenter first refusing: “My children are now with me in bed; I cannot upset the household in this cold darkness and give you food.” But to hush the visitor’s shameless begging, even sleepy Joseph gets up and gives him as many loaves as he needs. And the widow who cries to the magistrate for justice until he finally gives it to hush her (Luke 18:1–5) could well have been a neighbor in Nazareth—or somewhat later, even Mary after the death of Joseph.

As we think of the younger brothers—James, Joses, Juda, and Simon—and sisters (Mark 6:3), we can imagine Jesus as the baby-sitter, even before he became the apprentice and later the successor to Joseph the Carpenter. And one wonders whether at least one of the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer may not have been present in embryonic form in the Nazareth home as Jesus led the children to pray, “Abba, give us our daily bread.”

Now, of course there are various occasions on which this revelation may have come to Jesus. It is our duty, however, to consider what God has been pleased to give us in his Word and to offer solutions that cling as closely to that Word as possible. In this Word there is a revelation concerning Jesus’ Abba given to Mary and recorded in Luke 1 and 2 and one given to Joseph and recorded in Matthew 1. Moreover, scholars are now recognizing that the paternity of Joseph was challenged in Jesus’ lifetime by his critics (see E. Stauffer, Jesus and His Story, pp. 15–18, 213). According to Mark 6:3, Jesus was described as “the carpenter, the son of Mary.” The accusation of being “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34), probably carries the same evil connotation as does the charge in John 8:48 of being a Samaritan and having a demon. In the same context, there seems to be an insinuation in John 8:41. But if Joseph’s paternity were questioned, may not the questioning have sifted down to the children and some playmate have objected when Jesus spoke of Joseph as his abba, as did the younger children in the Carpenter’s home? Then did a weeping child receive from Mary in the nursery the story which we have in Luke, and from Joseph the account we have in Matthew? And with these revealing words did the Abba confront and comfort this Child with his Holy Spirit from heaven (Luke 11:13), banishing his sadness with joy over his heavenly origin and his earthly mission? As he was later to witness with the spirits of Jesus’ disciples (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), so the Holy Spirit bore witness with Jesus’ heart that God was his own Abba (see my article, “A Re-Study of the Virgin Birth of Christ,” in The Evangelical Quarterly, December, 1965). Accordingly, Jesus said “Abba” no longer to Joseph but to God (Luke 2:48, 49; Matt. 23:9).

In the temple episode recorded in Luke 2:41–52, both the fact that it is Mary rather than Joseph who admonishes Jesus even though he is “a son of the law,” and the interplay in which her “your father” (meaning Joseph) is revised by Jesus to “my Father” (meaning God), indicate that the mystery of his birth had been revealed to Jesus and was shared by him with Mary and Joseph. At her first appearance in the Fourth Gospel (John 2), Mary’s acts and words indicate that she knows the secret of her Son and accordingly calls on Jesus’ power to work miracles, signs of his glory and vindications of her honor. And indeed, the signs he did convinced at least one ruler of the Jews that Jesus was a teacher come from God (John 3).

Jesus’ best-known parable is the story of the gracious father who loved both his sons. Here the Prodigal represents the lost sheep of the house of Israel, who apart from Christ would have to flee from God. Jesus justifies his conduct in receiving sinners and celebrating with them the eschatological meal by proclaiming the joy of heaven over everyone who repents. That is, Jesus dares to act in God’s stead, revealing the Father as the God of the poor and needy, of the despairing and those who have no merit (Luke 15). Thus, also over the Synoptic Jesus one may write his Johannine word, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” For in the ministry of Jesus Christ, God has graciously given the only Son of his bosom to stand as the representative even of the Prodigal and so to do and to bear for sinful man that the whole relationship between the Holy One of Israel and his guilty creature is altered. The Lord, who apart from Christ is the Judge, has become Abba, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and of all who are in him.

“Abba, Father” is in the first sentence from the fresh lips of the twelve-year-old, even as “Abba, Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” are the last words from the parched voice of the Crucified. The Risen One ascends to make his Abba to be our Abba, his God to be our God (John 20:17). Thus, according to our reading of the New Testament, from the conception by the Spirit and the birth to the virgin, from Jesus’ childhood home and his teachings about children and about prayer, from his baptism and his transfiguration, from Gethsemane and Calvary, as well as from the revelation of the Risen Lord to Mary Magdalene and later to Paul, comes the Christian Name for God, which is: “The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“What kind of man are we training for the ministry? How can men supposedly called by God be indifferent to the Bible?”

This article began, though I did not realize it at the time, in a random conversation with some colleagues. We were a committee of five, and we virtually ran our intercollegiate and interdenominational post-graduate school. Rather grandly we were called “directors of graduate studies.” On this particular afternoon we had finished our formal meeting. Reports had been received, new applications “screened,” subjects for theses approved, and examiners appointed. Our business was over, and it was time to go home. But we lingered, enjoying the informal talk.

The subject of our teaching came up. Students were complaining that they could not see the relevance of their biblical studies. They were given a mass of material to be mastered, and they generally did master it; but they could not see what it had to do with their subsequent work in church and parish. For years I had held—and still hold—that the best theological colleges do not give their students a copious supply of sermons to take with them into the ministry. The task is rather to give the men the tools of their trade. If they have these, they can produce the sermons and Sunday school lessons. They will know the message with which they have been entrusted and will be able to deliver it in all its wide variety, provided that they walk with God and do not spurn the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Now the students were unable to see how the tools were fitted to the job. In other words, they could not use the tools they had been given. It was all rather disquieting.

This was still fresh in my mind when we were invited to a “consultation” on the teaching of biblical subjects. A consultation on systematic theology had been held a short time earlier. Now it was our turn. We listened with respect to an eminent professor who had been invited to speak first. No names need be mentioned; it is enough to say that he has an international reputation.

He told us—and it was new to me—that in his experience he had to “sell the Bible” to his students. “Why do we have to learn all this biblical stuff?” they complained. “Show us its relevance to our later ministry.”

I pricked up my ears. What he said brought back our discussion in the directors’ meeting. Apparently we were not alone in our troubles. But this was worse. Our men did not see how to use their tools in the parish. This professor’s students, however, did not see the need for the tools at all. The implication was that the Bible would have a very small place in their ministry.

The professor went on to say that in the written work required from his students he would not allow anything in the nature of “relevance” (though he added, a little facetiously, that he had relented to the extent of allowing an appendix on “Thoughts of Relevance”). In the main he insisted on a strict scientific exegesis. This corresponds to the method of the Interpreter’s Bible, where we are given both exegesis and exposition. The exegesis is academic and scientific; the exposition presumably aims at the elusive relevance.

The discussion became general. Nobody disagreed violently; we shared the professor’s academic ideals. But we still had this problem of relevance on our hands. My disquiet continued to grow, and in time I could stand it no longer. “Mr. Chairman,” I began, “whatever kind of man are we training for the ministry? How can men supposedly called by God be indifferent to the Bible?”

There was a dead silence. The matter could not be left there; some further contribution to the discussion had to be made. I thought rapidly and then blundered on. “In our teaching could we not do something like this? Take the parable of the Prodigal Son. [I pulled out my Greek Testament.] ‘Bring out quickly the best robe and dress him in it. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.’ Could we not link the best robe with the robe of Christ? ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.’ In the background there is the doctrine of imputed righteousness. As slaves went barefoot, the shoes suggest that the believer is no longer a slave but a son. The ring confirms it. The ‘family ring’ or signet ring points to the doctrine of adoption. Grace, justification, adoption—it is all there if we have the eyes to see it.”

The professor protested that I was leaving nothing for the professor of homiletics to do. And a friend of mine with whom I had worked for years summed up his opposition in a forthright statement: “I don’t agree with your exegesis, and there is no theology of the Cross in Luke’s Gospel!”

So that was that. I have long pondered these problems—the one concerned with the professor of homiletics and the other with Synoptic interpretation. There was not the time or opportunity to debate the matter further during the “consultation,” but further reflection has yielded certain conclusions.

We must not leave too much, as I see it, to the professor of homiletics. His business is to help men preach. He may be a master of speech and may have read hundreds of sermons and most of the books about preaching. But he may not be an expert in biblical studies. In a Christian seminary, it is surely the business of the department of New Testament to show how the text of the New Testament can be treated by the preacher. Listeners to sermons used to say (and may do so still, for all I know) that the preacher had such and such a text and “took it another way.” Some “other ways” are legitimate and some are not. Some are spiritually true and some are merely ingenious, and it is the New Testament expert who ought to be able to make the distinction.

The other objection is more serious. Even if the professor of homiletics has the necessary biblical skill, he cannot deal with all the passages that the professor of New Testament covers. This is a matter of organization and a matter of degree. My friend’s comment, however, touches on the interpretation of a text.

Now, I am prepared to admit at once that my exegesis was not primary exegesis and was thus not “scientific.” But I submit that the primary exegesis was implicit and the secondary exegesis justified. When a sensitive Christian reads the story of the Prodigal Son, and in particular the words already quoted, does he not rub his eyes and say in wonder; “Why, that is exactly how God has treated me. He gave me new clothes and dressed me in the righteousness of his beloved Son. He raised me from the level of servant or slave and made me a son. I have the Spirit of adoption in my heart, and I cry ‘Abba, Father.’ ”

It may be argued that this opens the door to all sorts of odd interpretations. Of course it does, and the uninstructed preacher will bring his odd interpretations into the pulpit. Only the enlightened common sense and spiritual insight of a competent department of New Testament can determine where to draw the line.

Our academic ideals and our ambitions for New Testament scholarship, especially in a university setting, may restrain some teachers from going on to secondary exegesis. But it can be done and ought to be done, and it need not involve a lowering of academic standards.

There is still the question whether there is a theology of the Cross in Luke’s Gospel. Luke has obviously not given us an Epistle to the Romans, but he does suggest a theology of mediation. “I say to you my friends, do not fear those who kill the body … fear him who has authority to cast into hell.…” God the Destroyer and Christ the Friend: this is an implicit mediation. An analogous interpretation is possible with the lament over Jerusalem and the passage about confessing before men.

But suppose some insist there is no theology of the Cross in Luke? Then it is still legitimate to interpret in the light of our experience. God has dressed us in the robe of Christ and has given us the Spirit of adoption. Support for this line of argument comes from an unexpected quarter.

Lord Eccles has just published a book, Half-way to Faith (Geoffrey Bles, 1966), in which he declares that the Gospels are great works of art. They stand, he says, on an equal footing with the great masterpieces of literature. We ought therefore to look at them from this standpoint, and Lord Eccles hopes we shall.

His point of view is not totally new. In 1952, Dr. E. V. Rieu spoke of the Gospels as “the four masterpieces which conquered the world.” They constitute a miracle “unique in the history of literature,” he said. Their literary and spiritual values are interdependent.

The views of Lord Eccles are thus supported. The Gospels are works of art and should be studied as such. James Denney’s dictum that the New Testament Scriptures are not to be regarded as an Act of Parliament to be interpreted by lawyers has become a commonplace with many. But has our “scientific exegesis” taken on something of the spirit that Denney was speaking against? Let us take another look at the Gospels. Dr. Rieu speaks of “the feelings they evoke” and “their over-all effect.” Such considerations should always be in our minds when we are dealing with great literature. If we are believing men, can we fail to recognize in the Jesus of the Gospels the same Lord Christ of the epistles who has laid his hand in mercy upon us? Are we not moved as we read and see the Synoptic Jesus doing at the Cross what the epistles said he did? Such feelings, such an effect, are appropriate to works of art.

Those of us who are engaged professionally in teaching the New Testament, especially to theological students and future ministers, ought indeed to begin with scientific exegesis; but we should not stop there. Let us not put our own faith into cold storage when we teach. It would be sad indeed if we were to be described in words used of F. C. Baur after his death: “His was a completely objective nature. No trace of personal needs or struggles is discoverable in connection with his investigations of Christianity.…” Sir William Robertson Nicoll even said that Baur was a stranger to the requirements of his own soul and his own need of a Saviour.

If faith were given its place in scholarship, who can calculate what relevance might be discovered? Who knows what spiritual exegesis might be produced? In the long run we might have an upsurge of love of the New Testament and a burning desire to preach it—and this on the part of those students to whom the Bible had once to be “sold.”

A former leader of the United Nations discusses some ultimate convictions that shape his life

I am a Christian. I believe in God, the Creator from nothing of heaven and earth and of everything visible and invisible. This Creator-God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who is also identically the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. There was a man, born in Bethlehem of Judea, born of a virgin whose name was Mary, a virgin who did not know man. This man’s name was Jesus. He lived for about thirty years in a little town in Galilee called Nazareth, with his mother and a man called Joseph who was espoused to his mother and who remained faithful to both of them, though Mary remained ever-virgin. He was a carpenter.

Then, at about the age of thirty, this Jesus of Nazareth began to gather around him disciples. He taught them many things about themselves, about God, and above all about himself. He also moved about with his disciples in those idyllic Galilean villages only about a hundred miles south of where I was born, villages not much different from the villages that I know perfectly in my own region. He moved about teaching, preaching, provoking, challenging and doing many miracles. By miracles I mean such things as causing a man who was born blind to see exactly as you and I do, and raising the dead—yes, the dead!

He said wonderful things—things pure, powerful, deeply moving, and immediately convincing. And the strange fact about many of the things he said is that they convince you only because he said them. But the totality of what he said is such that there is nothing, nothing like it in any literature. There may be approximations to it, distant rumblings of it, as in some places of the Old Testament, or in some of the teachings of Zoroaster or the Buddha, or in some of the sayings of the Muslim Sufis who came a thousand years after him, or even in some things that Socrates and Plato and the Stoics said; but when you come to what he said, you find here’s the thing, here’s the original, here’s what everybody else before him and after him was straining after and did not quite attain, so that all these others were imitations of him, intimations of him, reflections, more or less impure, of him, fallings away from him, yearnings for him. So what he said was uniquely wonderful. But what he did was also uniquely wonderful.

He chose simple fishermen, very simple, as his disciples, and he loved them to the end. He performed the miracles to which I have referred. But above all, he willingly and knowingly accepted death on the cross outside the wall of Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. And nobody crucified him, nobody crucified him there except my fears and compromises and calculations and bigotries and sins—fears and compromises and sins that existed identically and in abundance in the hearts of those who cried “Crucify him, crucify him,” so that I am in no wise better than they, so that if I chanced then to be among them I would almost certainly have joined their chorus.

It was inveterate human sin, then, sin which abounds in my heart, including my lust and my forgetfulness of God, that killed Jesus of Nazareth on the cross outside the wall of Jerusalem under Pontius Pilate. And if my heart is slightly better, and to the extent that it is better, it is so because he washed away my sin on his cross through his blood, and because he rose from the dead on the third day. Lo, I meant to kill him, but I did not succeed; lo, he triumphed over my evil design; lo, he liveth now and sitteth gloriously on the right hand of God. I am cleansed from my sin, then, because he did not die, although I meant him to; or rather, because he actually and completely died exactly as I meant him to, but through the power of God he actually and completely rose from the dead on the third day; and because before this absolutely humiliating defeat of my intention—although for three days I thought I had triumphed—I am shattered, I bow my head in shame, I beg his forgiveness, and—and this is what overpowers me—he forgives me. I say to him after his resurrection: “Thou hast triumphed; I will not do it again; I will not hate thee again; I trill not scheme against thee again; I trill not love my pleasures and my self-will over thy trill; I know better.” Do I really know better? Ah, that is the question! And if I do not know better, if I deny him again, he is faithful; he cannot deny himself. He keeps on forgiving me despite my sins, because that is his nature, and because he needs me no more now after his triumph. And that is why, with Peter, I weep bitterly, and that is why I love him all the more.

I beg you not to be offended by the language I am using, language that is quite honorable and has been in use for centuries. I am sure that you are above making fun of me when I speak of Jesus Christ as sitting now at the right hand of God the Father. I am not speaking of this three-dimensional space where you speak of right and left, and above and below, and in front and behind. Ah, “sitteth at the right hand of God” is a wonderful phrase that has meaning only in the order of love and suffering and death. He who has loved much, and has suffered much, and daily faces his death, and has known Jesus Christ, understands perfectly what is meant by Jesus Christ rising from the dead on the third day and sitting now at the right hand of God the Father. Whatever is the “ontological place” of God the Creator, Jesus Christ is exactly there; Jesus Christ has exactly the same mode of being as God the Creator. That is why we also use the phrase “God the Father.” Never was this wonderful phrase, “sitteth at the right hand of God,” meant except in this ontological sense, which arises wholly in the order of suffering, love, and death. I know this is how you take it, and this is how you will take everything else I shall say that might otherwise appear scandalous. In the perfect transparency of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, everything is perfectly clear; and when we are together attuned to him, there can be no possibility of misunderstanding.

His words were wonderful; his acts, including his resurrection, were wonderful; but he himself is far more wonderful. He makes astounding claims about himself, claims that no German higher criticism can possibly completely void or explain away, claims that I believe to be wholly true.

“You have heard that it was said by them of old time … but I say unto you.…”

“The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”

“… my Father, which is in heaven.”

“He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

“In this place is one greater than the temple.”

“For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.”

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.”

“Take, eat; this is my body.”

[“I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God.”] “Thou hast said.”

“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.”

“All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.”

“Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.”

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”

“I am the bread of life.”

“I am the light of the world.”

“I am the door.”

“I am the good shepherd.”

“I am the true vine.”

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”

“The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

“I am from above. I am not of this world.”

“I proceeded forth and came from God.”

“I and my Father are one.”

“Ye believe in God, believe also in me.”

“All things that the Father hath are mine.”

And when the woman of Samaria would again and again change the subject, he would again and again bring her back to it, until he finally told her bluntly that it was he who was speaking unto her who was the Christ who should come into the world.

And when Martha would change the subject by wandering off into some general cosmological expectation of the resurrection, he would bring her back to it by telling her, “I am the resurrection, and the life.”

And when Thomas would change the subject by declaring that he did not know the way, he would bring him back to it by telling him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

And when Philip would change the subject by asking him to show them the Father, he would bring him back to it by telling him, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.”

I should like to know what German higher criticism would make of these things. In fact, I think I know, but I also know that, far from this criticism’s being able to judge these things, they in truth judge it.

His words were wonderful, his acts were wonderful, but these claims that he made about himself are infinitely more wonderful. And what is even more wonderful than these claims is that there have been innumerable people throughout history—normal people, sane people, useful people, responsible people, in full possession of their minds—who actually believed them. Wonder of wonders—countless decent people, some of them great scientists and great philosophers, have actually believed these unbelievable claims! And these people who understood him and believed him and came to love him know that he said what he said, and did what he did, only because he was who he said he was!

Theology is exactly that discipline which tries, in all humility and in all seriousness, and without any spirit of cleverness, to make sense of all these astounding claims, to make sense of them, not by explaining them away, nor by reducing them to nonsense—as so many so-called theologies do—but first by believing them, and then by trying to relate them among themselves and to the other propositions of Holy Writ, as well as to the deliveries of sound reason and healthy human experience. Genuine theology cannot subordinate God and how he chose to reveal himself to what it calls reason and human experience, because, if God exists, it is he who first created both reason and human experience. Genuine theology must take equally seriously all three—God, reason, and experience; keeping always in mind, however, that, if God exists, he must in the nature of the case always come first. And it is a very strange discipline indeed that entertains even the slightest doubt about the existence of its object.

Religion is the realm of the authentically personal, and I have been telling you what I believe. For there is nothing more authentic and more personal than what we ultimately believe. You may not be a Christian, but you are a man and therefore you certainly believe something; and your rock-bottom beliefs, even if you do not know them, or even if you know them but cannot express them, or are shy or ashamed of expressing them, constitute precisely your religion. Nay, you are identically your ultimate beliefs. All these silly conversations and affected smiles that we daily and hourly carry on with one another, no doubt very innocently and well-meaningly, are so many ways of “changing the subject” from our fundamental beliefs, either because we are not sure of our beliefs, or because we are ashamed of them, suspecting in our heart that they may be hollow, or because we are never quite thrown together into that peace and grace of the Spirit which alone enables us to be personal and authentic without being and appearing at the same time sentimental and silly. Common worship is precisely the means of inducing this peace, this grace of the Holy Spirit, whereby we can be authentically transparent with each other. This is the wonderful significance of the great liturgies, such as that of St. John Chrysostom with which I am best acquainted. It was only when “they were all with one accord in one place” that the disciples were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues. And I am sure you agree with me that we in our hearts crave nothing more than such an experience of absolute power and illumination and certainty from above whereby we would perfectly understand each other even if we spoke “with other tongues,” or even if we did not speak at all. The “other tongue” with which I am speaking is the tongue of simple, personal conviction, which is faith in Jesus Christ. Believe me, all else is trash and dung by comparison, as Paul would say.

And so, moving on now a bit faster, I further believe—hoping and trusting that I will shock none of you, and that if I do shock you, you will forgive me—I further believe that “all things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made”—a tremendous statement, certainly to be most carefully explained. I believe that this same Jesus of Nazareth who now sitteth at the right hand of God is going to come again—to come again! When? I haven’t the slightest idea. How? I do not know. But, most assuredly, he is going to come again, to judge all mankind, the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and giver of life, whom Christ sent to our hearts, so that we will not be without him, and who inspires the faithful, and comforts them, and revives them, and reminds them of Christ, and God, and all truth, and empowers them to do wonders, a mighty token of God in our midst. I believe in one Church, holy, catholic or universal or all-embracing, and, most especially, apostolic. Finally, I believe in the resurrection of the body and in the life everlasting.

I beg you, once again, not to misunderstand me. I do not believe these things in the order of physical science or cosmology, that is to say, not because physical science and cosmological speculation can prove them to me. I studied under the greatest cosmologist of this century, Alfred North Whitehead; it is not in his sense that I believe these things. I cannot demonstrate them to you mathematically, or scientifically, or through sense perception, or as I might argue from the truth of some political or historical proposition. Oh, I most emphatically and assuredly believe in the actual, historical, physical, certain death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This wonderful deposit of faith, which I have received, and of which I must prove worthy, and to which I must remain faithful, belongs to the order of suffering, anxiety, love, and death. He who suffers understands what I mean. He who daily wrestles with the devil understands what I mean. He who is anxious understands what I mean. He who loves intensely understands what I mean. And he who faces his death and all that this death actually and concretely means in his own life understands what I mean. Faith is grounded in the order of suffering and love, an order more original than any other order, an order from which every other order, including science, philosophy, history, and politics, flows and emanates.

What now, I ask, are the reasons for my faith? After asking us to “sanctify the Lord God in our hearts”—people often forget this preamble—St. Peter adds: “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” Obviously I cannot go into my reasons in great detail, but the kind of reasons I would argue from are the following:

First: The teaching of these things from my earliest life by people, both religious and lay, who loved me most purely and who had absolutely no axe to grind save to witness to the deepest they knew. Therefore I trust them.

Second: The authority of the Church in its teachings, its traditions, its doctrines, its liturgy, for 2,000 years. Here again I believe the motive is absolutely pure; therefore I believe the Church.

Third: The authority of the Bible which I love most dearly, and which, the more I read it, increasingly means everything to me.

Fourth: The witness of the saints, and I can name twenty of them, in whose intellectual and spiritual company I crave to live more than in the company of any other crowd of men, including the greatest nonreligious philosophers, whom I also love.

Fifth: The testimony of what I have called the order of suffering, loneliness, love, and death, in its daily, hourly, minutely, cumulative impact upon the whole of my life.

Sixth: In a sense, this is the most important reason: the Holy Spirit in my heart, when it is there and to the extent that it is there.

To the question, what is the reason of the hope that is in me, I answer—I trust in meekness and fear and after sanctifying the Lord God in my heart—these are my reasons, than which I cannot imagine anything more solid or more dependable.

Why have I plagued you so far with my personal faith? Why have I bored you with this queer recital of the Nicene Creed, which all of you know by heart? Because religion is the realm of the authentically personal; and because the current crisis, at its deepest, has to do precisely with these priceless articles of faith which were first formulated more than sixteen centuries ago and which have been faithfully confessed by the Church ever since. Today God is denied, or watered down, or changed beyond recognition. Creation is denied, or at least the world is conceived as self-creative. Jesus of Nazareth has become a “gallant young man,” as Mr. Hammarskjöld called him in his book that all of you must have read. His claims about himself are either denied outright or passed by in magnificent silence. His passion is denied, the cross is denied, his resurrection is a myth, and who would dare speak today of his second coming, or of the Holy Ghost, or of the apostolicity of the Church, or, in this age of science, of the resurrection of the body, without being ridiculed?

Washington’s lovely cherry blossoms faded even before the annual festival began, and summer almost routed spring. To confirm that the calendar’s out of joint, I might mention that I’ve already given a commencement (trimester) address at Gordon College. Just weeks ago, while the Indiana winter caught its last wind, a lively panel discussion with Anglican Bishop John Robinson took me to Wabash College. Then I had the honor, at Ohio State University, of addressing 300 members of the academic community at a prayer breakfast, and of delivering a university-sponsored lecture on current theological trends.

I recently addressed two audiences on the theme of “Christianity in politics.” In a three-way discussion at the American committee of the World Council of Churches, I urged a halt of continuing ecumenical involvement in political expediencies. Next day, stressing the difference between the corporate church and the individual churchman, I spurred young scholars at Eastern Nazarene College to get politically involved to the limit of their knowledge, competence, and opportunity.

Jet travel is a marvelous gift endowing us, almost, with ubiquity. Too bad the drug industry hasn’t yet produced a pill that promises omniscience.