AT EASE IN ZION

No small stir developed in Pilgrim Church when a recent news magazine article appeared on the bulletin board of the Martyr Memorial lounge. It included an attack on recent church architecture, and seemed to describe the new Pilgrim sanctuary, even to the blonde cross motif and the woodsy patio decor of the chancel. Feeling ran high when the clipping was traced to Effie Winters, the dissident minority of the building committee.

Several members of the committee attempted a showdown interview with Miss Winters, but they only provided a target for her barbed tongue. She suggested that never in history had there been so luxurious a rest stop for this earthly pilgrimage. The golden streets, she feared, might prove hard underfoot after the carpeting of this earthly Zion. Pilgrim Church people might come to prefer the celestial city in eternity, but they could hardly be expected to long for the change!

She pounced on another report in her clipping. Here was news of an architect after her heart. Imagine, he had told a congregation that they needed to be prodded and disturbed. That would be an innovation for the Pilgrim congregation, relaxing in the built-in complacency of their cushioned pews!

At this point, the committee chainnan unwisely retaliated by inviting Miss Winters to pilgrimage to India, where she might secure a bed of nails abandoned by a converted fakir, and be prodded to her heart’s content.

Personal relations had deteriorated abysmally, and the discussion ended with an embarrassing rejoinder in which Miss Winters proposed carrying one of the many crosses in the sanctuary instead of importing a bed of nails. She later apologized for this remark, and the minister has mended the rent in the fabric of fellowship. However, his conciliatory sermons on “The Beauty of Holiness” and “Contemporary Cross-Bearing” seemed a little vague after the sharpness of Miss Winters’ irony. His message on “Comfort Ye My People” was in another context, although there were a few puzzling allusions to architecture.

Miss Winters has her followers, but we do not anticipate a movement toward more disturbing church buildings in Deepwell Heights. Unless, of course, you are disturbed by blond crosses and patio chancels.

FURTHER TENSIONS

In … your editorial, “Race Tensions and Social Change” (Jan. 19 issue), you have handled a difficult subject with masterful clarity. Such thinking is essential to a solution which will command and deserve the respect of all men of good will.…

My admiration was also stirred by the excellent book review by E. Earle Ellis. He evaluates the service Dr. King has done without closing his eyes to the pitfalls that appear here and there in his reasoning.

The Franklin Lakes Gospel Church

Franklin Lakes, N. J.

Your editorial … is a very polite and perfectly harmless treatise saying next to nothing at all.

Ogden, Utah

What is “love?” A pantheistic sentiment that submerges individual differences in the social nirvana of a mulatto nation?

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Portland, Ore.

I guess I will have to class myself with those radicals of my own denomination who “have even supported the use of tanks and guns, if necessary,” that our Negro citizens’ civil rights may be protected against Southern governors and legislators. After all, these people have had 100 years since the Civil War to treat their former slaves as American citizens.

Mt. Sterling Presbyterian Church

Mt. Sterling, Ill.

After an adequate presentation of Stride Toward Freedom’s contents, Dr. Ellis suggests that the philosophy underlying racial integration is racial socialism. He believes that Dr. King is attempting to form a raceless and classless society through legal action in which the state is the “major instrument”.… Dr. King specifically rejects the Communist emphasis on a classless society and takes his stand on the words of Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor …” (pp. 93–4).…

The basic motivation of the Montgomery movement was Christian love. The method was nonviolence. To Dr. Ellis, nonviolence is an “irritant.” To Dr. King, it is a way of life based on agape love (pp. 90–107). A Reformed theologian may be as skeptical of love in action as the newspaper reporter who thought it peculiar for a Negro congregation in Montgomery to applaud a reading of 1 Corinthians 13.… Dr. Ellis criticizes the use of agape love by Negroes who seek to enter white schools.… [Separate but] “equal” opportunity is an illusion. Not only does it deny real “equality;” it is built upon spiritual pride.…

The Court has not forced integration, as Dr. Ellis indirectly alleges. It has outlawed compulsory segregation in certain public facilities, such as schools. The reviewer and others can be as socially segregated as their consciences will allow them, but they can no longer use the law to force compulsory segregation.…

Although the Negro is supposed to be “inferior,” the Montgomery story demonstrates his … scrupulous adherence to the law. In glaring contrast, the “superior” whites stooped to threatening phone calls, malicious character assassination and bombing of homes and churches.…

Why are segregationists so concerned about intermarriage? Do they fear that equal status would give a Negro woman legal redress against the sexual attentions of a white man? If white men are as superior to Negro men as some assume, why this sudden panic about Negro men marrying white women? Why does Dr. Ellis ignore the concrete application of New Testament ethics in public schools, courts, transportant and personal relations? What is his “moral right of each race to separate social institutions”? From what portion of the Gospel does it come?

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Louisville, Ky.

Dr. Ellis believes that in race relations when there is opposition and resistance on the part of the whites to a demand of the Negro for what he considers justice—that in the spirit of love he would not use any force at all to bring about this justice, whether it be through the courts or passive resistance.… Parents don’t understand love if they interpret it to mean that firm and loving discipline with their children involving coercion is a violation of the spirit of love.

Hope Presbyterian Church

Portland, Ore.

The book review … is one of the most trenchant and illuminating analyses of the subject of segregation that has appeared lately. That … plus your … “Race Tensions and Social Change” make that … issue a monumental one.

Roanoke, Va.

The attempt to support segregation from Scripture (by reader Carey Daniel, Mar. 2 issue) is always a hazardous one, and Daniel cites some wholly indefensible texts for his case. Old Testament proof texts in support of segregation rest upon several assumptions which just cannot be maintained. For example, to assume that the groups mentioned in Genesis 9 are progenitors of distinct racial groups involves biological, linguistic, historical, and literary considerations of an extremely dubious nature. Everett Tilson’s fine book, Segregation and the Bible (esp. pp. 20–26), utterly destroys any Biblical case for segregation. More relevant passages on race relations would be Matt. 5:44 f.; Luke 10:27–37; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:11–16, and Acts 10.

Daniel also follows most segregationists in stressing personal matters like intermarriage and evading the real issues of rights in the economy, education, housing, hospital care, recreational facilities, civil liberties, etc.

I felt your article “Race Tensions and Social Change” was helpful. Incidentally, I am a native of Birmingham, Ala.

Oregon, Ill.

FOR THANKLESS DISCHARGE

There was no need for you to retract anything you said about the Report of the Joint Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church on alcoholism and social drinking (Feb. 2 issue). I am a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church, Diocese of Pennsylvania. Like every clergyman of that Church I received a copy of the report before the Convention, as also did every Bishop and lay deputy. This was an official commission and this was its official report. I confine myself to the one question, namely, did the Convention approve the report, though in the light of modern ethics and St. Paul’s position on eating meat offered to idols, the Commission’s claim that social drinking has God’s approval is shocking. Did the Convention approve the report? No, but it [accepted] the report and if there is any difference between approving and accepting that difference can be discerned only by a hairsplitting lawyer.

Mr. Mainwaring said in his letter that the report was only the first step in a series promised by the Joint Commission. I suggest the Convention should have discharged the Commission without thanks before they further affronted the consciences of Christians.

Brattleboro, Vt.

A CASE OF IDENTITY

Mr. Merrill C. Tenney … has listed The New Testament: Its Making and Meaning (Abingdon Press) as written by C. K. Barrett (Feb. 16 issue). Actually this volume is written by Albert Edward Barnett.

First Presbyterian Church

Nunn, Colo.

UNITARIANISM

Lloyd Dean (Jan. 19 issue) has put his finger on what are unquestionably Unitarianism’s most disconcerting anomalies in an otherwise consistant philosophical relativism: (1) the continuation of the “church” and (2) the endorsement of a rather absolute ethical code. It is difficult to understand not only the metaphysical basis but also the emotional incentive behind the perpetuation of these logically obsolete phenomena. If religious values and philosophical realities are only illusory or relative, toward what end does the “church” function and from what source does the ethic derive?

I would, on the other hand, strongly question Professor Dean’s somewhat oversimplified solution to the threat of Unitarian ideology among Protestants today. Can Protestantism solve this problem “only” and simply “by establishing itself on God’s infallibly revealed Word” (ibid., p. 8)? Dr. Dean himself has pointed out that the earliest Unitarians in this country did not consider their views contrary to the teaching of Scripture (ibid., p. 7). And Congregationalism, out of which Unitarianism sprang, did not to any great degree surrender the doctrine of the absolute authority of Scripture until fully 50 years following the emergence of Channing. Can we today trust the same kind of orthodox view of the Bible itself to do for us what it failed to do in the last century?

Marion, Ala.

Judson College

• Regardless of the view of Scripture, there have always been heresies. But when the authority of Scripture is forfeited, the problem is compounded. When one departs from the Bible’s view of itself, and loses this authoritative criterion, it is easy to depart from the Bible’s view of other things. Sometimes this order is reversed and often the transition steps are delayed. But the logic of the matter ultimately prevails.—ED.

The Unitarian takes it as elementary that he may be wrong and probably is in some aspects of his thinking. That is why he is not compelled to convert all others to his way of thought as are fundamentalists and Roman Catholics.

Unitarians are the happiest church people I have ever met. And if all this is inconceivable to you who labor under the curse upon Adam, … my only wish for you is that you may gain some happiness from your prison.…

The Unitarian Church of All Souls

New York, N. Y.

Many of us put the accent of our religion on humanism, but go along with Jesus’ teachings of God as a universal father—and feel that that fits in with humanism-naturalism much better than an orthodox interpretation relying on such a flimsy thing as supernatural revelation.

North St. Paul, Minn.

The author failed to explain why this church, more than any other, has been filtrated by actual and near communists. The Stockholm Peace Petition which was notoriously exposed as propaganda by local newspapers was actively circulated by two different Unitarian Youth clubs and in no other church.

Los Angeles, Calif.

Unitarianism and Universalism have never been large in membership, because both denominations stress the importance of thinking for oneself.… In our culture there are not many … who think for themselves.…

Universalist Church

Swampscott, Mass.

Dr. Gerstner takes liberals apart, or attempts to, on the basis that they dare to declare some statements of the Bible to be myths (Dec. 22 issue).… To a Unitarian-Universalist it is no more humane for God to demand the smell and sight of Jesus’ blood in order that he might be appeased than it is for God to use some bears to devour pesky children. In fact it would seem that the two go hand in hand as making up the character of any monster.

New York State Convention of Dir.

Universalists Auburn, N. Y.

I read with mounting ire Mr. Dean’s article “Withering Unitarianism”.… In 1935 the legal membership of the Unitarian Church was 66,431. Today our legal membership stands at 106,751.… We are not withering.… Mr. Dean accepts … the view that the Unitarian Church came into being because of a controversy over the trinitarian nature of God. My own opinion is that the essential nature of the controversy was about the nature of man.… Most of us are convinced that man is not depraved, fallen, or sinful.… Unitarianism is perhaps the last stronghold of natural religion. We do tend to equate the concept of God with the process that is Nature. We worship Life and Nature but most many of us consider Life and Nature to be the breath and substance of God. Most of us consider the Christ to be absurd. For us Jesus was a man no more, no less.…

Faith for me began with an experience. Looking back on the experience it is possible to talk about it in terms such as rebirth, transformation and so on. From this experience came the trust that the Universe is not hostile to man. From this experience came the conviction that man’s potential far outstrips his performance to date. From this experience came the resolve to become a minister.… Our churches are communities of truth seekers and truth sharers. We have not found The Truth nor do we expect to.…

Canton, Mass.

As to … errors of fact, there are three specific ones over and above the falsity of the implication in the title. The article states that the movement centers in New England. While this was once true, the fact is the center of the Unitarian movement shifted out of New England nearly a generation ago.

The author further states that the movement has made no significant gains except those that can be accounted for by the population growth. The fact of the matter is that the number of Unitarians has all but doubled in the last twenty years. Here in the Washington area, it has doubled and redoubled in the last fifteen years, and in the same time the number of children in our church schools has doubled, redoubled, and doubled yet again.

In the third place the author says that the Unitarians and Universalists are now considering merger for the purpose of self-preservation. The fact of the matter is that as far as the Unitarians are concerned merger would have been effected long ago, but for the widespread belief that tampering with denominational machinery might slow down the accelerating rate of progress we now enjoy.

All Souls Church Unitarian

Washington, D. C.

I used the term ‘withering’ for the reason stated at the outset: “It cannot be denied that Unitarianism has failed to reproduce itself; and, except for participation in the general growth in the population of the country, it has been able to count no significant increase in its constituency.” I believe that this is a fair statement in the light of the facts, even though I was careful to admit that “since the Second World War, there has been somewhat of a ‘revival’ in Unitarian circles.” The statistics are as follows (my original research was done in the Unitarian Library of the American Unitarian Association in Boston):

In 1895 there were in the United States and Canada 455 Unitarian societies with 519 ministers and an approximate membership of 68,500 (Ency. Brit., XXIX, p. 356, ed. of 1901). By 1957 there were in the United States 373 societies, 333 ordained clergy with charges, and a total membership of 101,549. This is to be compared with the growth in church membership of all religious bodies in the United States in relation to total population as follows: 16 per cent of the total population were church members in 1850, 36 per cent in 1900, and 62 per cent of the population were church members by 1956. These percentages are to be correlated with the following population figures for the United States: 23,200,000 in 1850; 75,995,000 in 1900; and 170,000,000 in 1956. This means that in order simply to maintain its relation to the population on the level of growth maintained by all religious bodies together, Unitarianism would now have to have at least 269,500 members. It has been said that from 1945 to 1958 the Unitarian membership has jumped from 67,000 to 100,000. As can be seen, this short-term minor increase (especially in view of the U. S. population upsurge in the same period) does not demonstrate that this is other than “a temporary ebb in the relentless flow of the logic of Unitarianism to a thoroughgoing humanism” and the reduction of adherents attendant thereupon. Note that the percentage rise is somewhat impressive because of the smaller total numbers involved.

Congregationalists, who were early threatened with inundation and dispossession by the Unitarians and who were much blighted with liberalism themselves—in the earlier as well as the later years—counted a membership of 534,159 in 1890. This had grown to a total of 1,379,394 by 1957 (See Ency. Brit., op. cit.; Yearbook of American Churches, Ed. Benson Y. Landis [National Council of Churches] 41, 110, 286).

I stated that the movement centered in New England on the basis of my own impressions from observation and reading of Unitarian literature. If this is no longer strictly true, one must note that as recently as about 15 years ago it could he said that the denomination was “concentrated rather heavily in New England” (The Mind and Faith of A. Powell Davies, p. 19). This is from Justice William O. Douglas’ foreword to the book by the distinguished predecessor to Mr. Howlett.

When I said that the Unitarians and Universalists were considering merger for the purpose of self-preservation, I was of course offering an opinion. But I think there is ground for believing this is at least one reason for their interest in this direction. Flourishing denominations do not usually seek the union that has been sought here for some time. I don’t believe that this is a fruit of the present ecumenical thrust. Not only are the statistics on Unitarianism suggestive of this, but the data on the Universalists also support the conclusion. In 1895, Universalists numbered 47,986 members. By 1933, they had grown only to 55,000. I would not consider their present 70,519 a significant attainment in the light of population growth.

It is suggested that recent Unitarian growth is because of their theology. I conceded this: “A belief in God is returning to certain Unitarian pulpits.… Since the Second World War, there has been somewhat of a ‘revival’ in Unitarian circles.” I think the conclusion is clear: the farther they depart from humanism and the closer they get to orthodoxy the more they will grow.

Gordon College

Beverly Farms, Mass.

The doctrine of the Church is one of great importance and one which is often ignored or neglected.

According to the Bible there is one great Church universal, the fellowship of believers—that group of men and women around the world who have named the name of Christ, trust in him as the Son of God, as Saviour from sin, and make him the Lord of life.

The church which man sees is composed of true believers and false, of the redeemed and the unredeemed.

The Church which God alone can designate is that group within the visible church who are his own—who, in sincerity of heart, have heard his call, accepted his grace, and have been born again. The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews speaks of these as “the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven.”

In its true sense, the Church is composed of all who have repented and believed in Christ’s redeeming work. They may be Roman Catholics or Protestants (Baptists, Pentecostalists, Seventh-Day Adventists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Church of God, Episcopalians, Brethren, or Anglicans)—provided they truly believe in Jesus Christ as God and Saviour.

Within Protestantism there are innumerable divisions. Some of these are childish for they are based on distorted concepts and teachings of Scripture taken out of context and exhibiting characteristics of human weakness.

Other divisions, however, are the result of strong convictions on what are believed to be essential matters of Christian doctrine. Differences here usually stem from cultural, educational, and emotional backgrounds.

But back of these divisions in the visible Church is a deep and abiding fellowship through a common faith which centers in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where he is accepted as the eternal Son of God, and his atoning and redemptive work are received, there exists a fellowship in him which extends across all national, racial, or ecclesiastical boundaries.

Some people speak of the various denominations within Protestantism as the “scandal of Christendom.” Where there is unwarranted competition, the discounting of other Christians or the claiming of exclusive rights to Christian truth and divine favor, such a judgment is certainly true.

But there is a greater “scandal” in Christendom than denominationalism, and that is to be found in the rejection of revealed truth, and the precedence given to human speculation instead of divine revelation. It is truly a “scandal” to have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof.

Within Protestantism today, there is to be found a new alignment predicated on a common faith in the biblical records having to do with the person and work of Christ. This alignment crosses all denominational lines because it is centered in a like faith.

In the context of human differences it is inevitable that there should be variations in modes of worship. One man is strongly drawn to God through a ritualistic approach; another finds him more easily in a simpler type of service. But because God looks on the heart of the worshiper, those who come truly in the name of his Son are accepted of him.

All through the Old Testament, we find implications about the Church—a called out and a separated people, those who are called out from an unbelieving world, and separated unto the Lord.

One of the serious problems in the visible church today is that so much of the world has gotten into it. There is a tragic failure to keep clear the distinctions which separate the world from the spirit. Too few church members reflect either their calling or their separation to the Lord through their daily lives. The early Church was Jewish-centered. Later it became Gentile-centered. But all the way through, it was intended to be Christ-centered. Today, in the measure that Christ is given the pre-eminence in worship, preaching, and in daily living, the Church is fulfilling his holy will.

Oneness of faith was basic in the early Church. It was only as time progressed that ecclesiastical organizations were set up. Such organizations, though needful in a practical sense, were never intended to become primary in importance. When the Church took to herself prerogatives belonging to the Head of the Church alone, revolt was inevitable and the Reformation resulted. At this juncture in church history, the primacy of Christ and of man’s personal relationship to him was re-established.

It has remained for our own time to see a strange reversal of the Protestant ideal. Today we see increasing emphasis on both ecclesiastical organization and power. The ecumenical movement, conceived to show to the world the unity of believers in Christ, is in grave danger of assuming prerogatives never envisioned for the Church.

Furthermore, within denominational leaderships there are those who claim for the Church, powers which belong to Christ alone. Some have even asserted that when a church court speaks, God has spoken and the consciences of men are thereby bound to submit.

The Church is the bride of Christ, but Christ is the Head of the Church. Furthermore, God alone is the Lord of the conscience of believers. Present trends within the church if allowed to come to full flower, could well lead to the tyrannies from which the Reformation was to have freed all true believers.

The mission of the Church is to make disciples of all nations, baptizing those who believe in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Further, it is the mission of the Church to teach these believers to observe all that Christ has commanded.

One of the gravest problems in the church today is a misconception of the mission of the Church. The Church is in the world as a witnessing, not a conquering, organization. It is Christ who will be ultimate conquerer. And it is to him, not the Church, that every knee will ultimately bow. Once we conceive of the Church as designed to conquer the world, we immediately find ourselves involved in all kinds of worldly endeavor.

How very far our ideas are from our Lord’s view! Jesus told his followers that they were to be his “witnesses.” He said the Gospel would be preached for a “witness to all nations.” Loyalty to him would entail the enmity of the world. The citizenship of believers would be a heavenly one; we would not be of this world even as he was not of this world.

Christ gave two great commands to the Church: “go” and preach the Gospel as a witness, and, “love one another.”

As we witness to the saving work and power of the risen Christ, we are fulfilling his first command. As we evidence love for the brethren, we are living in obedience to his second. Reassert the primacy of Christian witness and Christian love, and the mission and influence of the Church will be more evident in the world.

This letter may without hesitation be accepted as being what it claims to be, a genuine letter of the apostle Peter to Christians in Asia Minor. There is plentiful and strong early evidence in its support. Such evidence demonstrates that certainly by 200 A.D., if not considerably earlier, this epistle had secured wide circulation and established authority in the Christian churches.

Authorship

In the epistle itself the writer directly claims and indirectly implies that he was an eyewitness, particularly of the sufferings of Christ (cf. 1:8; 2:23, 24; 5:1). There are many traceable echoes and reminiscences of our Lord’s teaching (cf. 1 Pet. 2:12 and Matt. 5:16; 1 Pet. 2:21 and Matt. 10:38; 1 Pet. 3:14; 4:13, 14 and Matt. 5:10–12). Similarly it is possible to find similarities in thought and phraseology with Peter’s speeches recorded in Acts (cf., 1 Pet. 1:17 and Acts 10:34; 1 Pet. 1:21; 3:21, 22 and Acts 2:24, 32, 33, 36). More generally the unaffected tone and authority of the epistle as a whole commend it as truly apostolic. And none but Peter could have written it.

At the same time it seems very unlikely that the good Greek style of the epistle could have been the unaided production of Peter himself. Peter explicitly says that he writes ‘by Silvanus’ (5:12). It is appropriate, therefore, to suppose not merely that Silvanus wrote down the letter at Peter’s dictation, but rather that it was he who also expressed in good Greek the ideas which throughout were wholly Peter’s in origin.

While some prefer to think that Peter wrote from Babylon in Mesopotamia, or from a settlement in Egypt, it seems best to regard ‘in Babylon’ (5:12) as a reference to Rome. A probable date for the writing of the letter is 63 A.D.

First Readers

This letter is addressed to dwellers in Asia Minor. The order in which the districts are mentioned (1:1) may indicate the route along which the letter was to be carried. Because the intended readers are addressed as ‘sojourners of the Dispersion,’ and the Old Testament is freely quoted or referred to, some have held the view that they were Jews. This seems improbable, for in the epistle the preconversion state of the readers is described as ‘darkness’ (2:9) or ‘the time of your ignorance’ (1:14; cf. 1 Thess. 4:5) when they were involved in ‘your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers’ (1:18, cf. Acts 14:15 [‘vanities’ signify idolatry]), and they were ‘not a people’ (2:10). Such phraseology is both inapplicable to Jews and descriptive of Gentiles.

Some have argued that this epistle implies that imperial persecution of Christians had already begun (cf. 3:15; 4:14–16). This, however, seems unlikely, particularly as civil loyalty and obedience to the powers that be are positively enjoined without qualification (2:13–17). Also, the sufferings to which Peter’s readers were exposed were rather sufferings of a more personal and general character at the hands of resentful neighbours who strongly disapproved of their withdrawal from pagan practices and their apparently self-righteous claims to be following a better way (1:18; 4:3, 4). In addition, these neighbours doubtless suspected the character and motives of their regular Christian meetings, and so tended to regard their intentions and their deeds as evil, and to accuse and treat them accordingly (2:12, 15, 16; 3:9, 16; cf. Acts 28:22).

Typical Character

This epistle of Peter’s was not a special unique document containing unusual teaching for the people of a particular area. Rather it was a sharing with Christians of truth and teaching commonly given to all.

The general apostolic propaganda and instruction consists of two main parts: first, the preaching, which contains the essence of the Gospel, and second, the teaching, which embodies instruction to converts to the faith. Just as the Gospel according to Mark was probably a writing of the typical content of Peter’s preaching, so I Peter may provide a summary of Peter’s customary teaching and exhortation. Such instruction was doubtless regularly given to converts at the time of, or in connection with, their baptism. For this reason some believe they find in I Peter material which was actually used in sermons to candidates for baptism; but this possibility can be exaggerated. In this instruction there are similarities also to the teaching in the Pauline epistles. While this may mean literary connection and interdepedence it is probable that both writers were reproducing widely used catechetical forms of oral instruction in their writing.

Contents

It is important in this study to let the epistle speak for itself. We can do this by a survey of its contents.

The Opening Salutation (1:1, 2). This is enriched with a Christian awareness. The writer is Christ’s apostle. The readers are God’s elect, called to a destiny planned and consummated by the work of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit.

Our Wonderful Salvation (1:3–12). By the mercy and saving action of God in Christ we are given a sure hope of a heavenly inheritance. The prophets of old and present preachers of the Gospel have been inspired of God’s spirit to make this salvation known.

Consequent Challenge to Live Differently (1:13–2:3). The holy purpose of God for his people is that they should become holy even as he is holy. This is why we have been redeemed at the cost of Christ’s blood—in order that we may become his and be made new creatures. So there is need for active response of mind and proper discipline of behavior.

The Privilege of Belonging to God’s Elect People (2:4–10). All who come to Christ to believe in him become, in relation to him as the chief cornerstone, living stones in God’s temple and members of the priesthood whose calling it is to offer to God acceptable spiritual sacrifices.

Christian Behavior (2:11–3:12). Guidance is now given concerning Christian living in relation to our fellowmen. The section opens (2:11, 12) and ends (3:8–12) with exhortation of universal application to all. Throughout the passage the apostle deals with the duties of Christians as citizens, servants, wives and husbands. Christians should submissively and dutifully discharge the various responsibilities which the common relations of life put upon them.

Suffering for Righteousness’ Sake (3:13–22). This may be God’s will for us. It was God’s will for Christ. It should, therefore, be regarded as an added privilege. Christ’s supreme example shows how much suffering leads to glory and issues in triumph.

Demands of True Discipleship (4:1–11). Because of Christ’s death for them Christians cannot live the rest of their earthly lives as they did before their conversion. Rather they should now live in the light of the impending consummation, seeking in everything to glorify God.

Suffering for Christ’s sake (4:12–19). Trial and suffering endured because of our Christian faith should be regarded not with surprise or shame, but with rejoicing, as a means of glorifying God, and as holding promise of fuller participation in Christ’s glory, yet to be manifested.

Elders Exhorted (5:1–4). Elders are given instruction as to the proper discharge of pastoral care in local churches. They are to lead by example, not by dominance.

Need for Humility and Endurance (5:5–9). Christians must learn before God and men to exhibit a submissive spirit, and to be steadfast and unflinching in devotion.

Final Prayer and Greeting (5:10–14). God can be counted upon to establish, preserve, and strengthen his own. Such is the true character of his grace. Let his people express brotherly love and enjoy the peace that God gives.

Teaching

Much profound and practical theology is here inculcated. Notice some aspects of the important truths that are treated.

God’s Sovereignty, Character, and Ways. An awareness of God as the Judge of all men should give to our present living a reverence and confidence, restraint and hope. For he resists the proud and opposes evildoers. He gives grace to the humble, and in the end, vindicates and rewards all who submit to his ways. Since he raised Christ, who died for us, from the dead, we have solid ground for making God himself our confidence and hope. Indeed, since he cares for us, we can cast all our anxiety upon him. We are to find happiness in him and to spend our lives doing his will.

Christ’s Person and Work. Jesus, the Son of God, fulfilled in the flesh of man a purpose divinely foreordained to redeem God’s people by his sacrificial death on the Cross. His death was penal, substitutionary, and reconciling—“the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” His heavenly glories follow in consequence of his earthly suffering. He is now enthroned at God’s right hand as Lord over all. His glory is yet to be manifested. Meanwhile communion with him is enjoyed by his people through the response of personal love, faith, and committal; and the way in which he lived his earthly life is the example we are to follow. On the other hand, to those who in rebellion are disobedient to his commands, the same Christ will bring inevitable judgment.

The People of God. Peter addresses his readers as people who have been given a new status, experience, and hope by the eternal determination and earthly intervention of the living God. He speaks of their divine election, redemption, and sanctification. He contrasts their heavenly calling and destiny with their present earthly sojourning. Their full salvation has yet to be made manifest in the fulness of God’s time. But their present earthly lives should be lived with this consummation in view. They are but strangers and pilgrims here.

Christian Behavior. Those who have thus become God’s people in Christ must disclose their new relationship and status by radical changes of conduct. They must cease from the practice of sin and become holy. They must persistently do good, even when they have to suffer for doing it; and thus they are to witness in every human relationship by well-doing. Following Christ’s example, they must be patient in enduring unjust suffering.

Commentaries

The following books are helpful in the study of I Peter: Robert Leighton, A Practical Commentary upon I Peter (many editions); John Brown, Expository Discourses on I Peter (Edinburgh, Oliphants, three vols. 1886); F. J. A. Hort, The First Epistle of St. Peter (London, Macmillan, 1898); C. Bigg, The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude in The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark, 1901); G. W. Blenkin, The First Epistle General of Peter (Cambridge University Press, 1914); E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter (London, Macmillan, 1946), C. E. B. Cranfield, The First Epistle of Peter (London, S. C. M. Press, 1950).

ALAN M. STIBBS

Vice Principal

Oak Hill Theological College, London

• For a detailed discussion of points raised in the above article, readers are referred to an excellent study of the epistle in the Tyndale commentary series, I Peter, by Alan M. Stibbs, published in the United States by Eerdmans—ED.

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.

The Sunday after Easter is often called “Low Sunday” for obvious reasons. The crowd is not here that was here last Sunday. Even we ourselves feel a little let down. We have come through the long season of Lent, we have lived through the critical days of Jerusalem with our Lord, we have seen the crowds welcome him and then the leaders crucify him with the mob calling for his blood. And then comes the great climax of Easter. It is always for us a day of supreme power and joy. But there is something about all that build-up and climax that takes it out of you just a little.

What do we do after such a great elation? When there has come into our lives a great emotional or spiritual climax, what happens next?

I think there are two different things which we may do. One is that increasingly we begin to distrust the elation and call it pure emotion. We turn back to life’s less colorful but familiar routines, and say to ourselves that these responsibilities constitute the only real living. Some of us pride ourselves upon our unemotional natures, look with disdain upon those who allow themselves to thrill very much, and feel more at home among those concerns of life which do not take so much emotion but rather the dogged pursuit of the customary. After all, the pitch of emotion is hard to hold; while the daily drive of duty is within every man’s grasp. We often cheat ourselves out of great new heights of living, out of great fresh insights into the meaning of our existence, by saying things like this to ourselves.

And the other course is to recognize the reality of what has taken place, and to envision life afresh in the light of it. To be sure, we must return to life’s routines and responsibilities; but they ought to shine with a new meaning. We ought to see in the daily chores new possibilities, new vistas of accomplishment and reward. The elation and emotion of the great moment that lies behind us ought to trickle down into the dryness and customariness of our routine and moisten it as rain does dry ground. There should be new energy in the moment of insight and elation that will transform what we have to do in the daily grind and make it infinitely more than it used to be.

The Old Lure Of Worn Paths

Simon Peter is always a help to us, and he is a help here. He was of a profoundly emotional nature. He responded to human needs and to divine calls. He gave himself with abandon and enthusiasm. We may be sure that as the iron of Good Friday entered into his soul, with the memory of his denial and disloyalty, so the Resurrection was for him an immensely emotional experience. To make up your mind for almost 48 hours that your beloved Master was dead, and know you had failed him in the crisis, and then suddenly to discover that he was alive again—so you could go and tell him how sorry you were, and begin with him again—this was a profoundly shaking experience. Some time after the Resurrection Peter was back again in Galilee. I wonder why he went. Our Lord promised to meet him in Galilee—possibly that is why he went. But there may have been another reason. Did Simon Peter want to go back among the familiar scenes where he had lived and worked formerly, and test himself out on all this Christian discipleship? Did he want to see how he really felt about this overwhelming contrast between Good Friday and Easter, and what was his considered judgment about the Resurrection when you put it all up against the simple life of catching fish? I do not know. But it is possible. When we meet him in the last chapter of St. John, he is with some of his friends by the old familiar lakeside in Galilee, saying to them, “I go a fishing.”

What did that mean to him? Was it the first step in a possible reversion to the old life—the old safe life of the fishing business? It may have been only temporary enjoyment of his well-loved art and trade; but I am inclined to think there was just a little temptation for him in this. I think it stood for the old pre-Christian days when life had asked relatively little of him, when he had been just a decent, honest, self-respecting, wifesupporting fisherman up there by the lake of Galilee. It had all been very different from following a Man whose very name caused controversy, a Man who made stupendous claims and then backed them up, who asked tremendous sacrifices and expected them, who stirred things up and was uncontent to let well enough alone. His had been a very stormy career. It ended with a violent death. And then—there was that great mystery of the Resurrection. They had seen Him to be sure, but the point was which life should Simon Peter choose once and for all—the life he knew and understood, the life where he was sure he was headed for a decent income and a happy old age in the village—or the life he only partially understood, the life where he was headed for he did not know what, probably martyrdom like his Master’s? After all, he must have said to himself, you can’t always live on the mountain-top excitement of these days since the Resurrection. Wouldn’t it be better to write the thing off as too emotional, as too impossible ever really to reach, and just go back to this which I know and can do? I strongly suspect that as he saw a fish darting through the water and flung his net over it with its little weights at the corners to pin the fish down on the bottom, some very long thoughts were going through his mind. Which life, which loyalties, which values? Was it to be everything that net stood for—or was he verily to catch men as Jesus long ago told him he would do?

That struggle is not confined to Simon Peter on the shore of Galilee long ago: that struggle meets everyone of us again and again through our lives.

A New Vision Of Life

An alteration in circumstances can be the occasion of going forwards, or of continuing with our customary way which is often almost the same thing as going backwards. A new position carries us to another city. The loss of someone in the family alters the home situation and asks different responsibilities of us. We make a new departure in our lives, and it calls on new muscles of the mind, new effort, new imagination. Shall all this be a step up, or a step down? I don’t mean in the eyes of the world, nor in any worldly way, but in character and in faith and in the quality of human relations? It all depends, I think, upon whether we have prayed about this change and made it in the belief that God wants us to make it. It depends on whether we take God with us more fully than ever before into the new circumstances. It depends upon whether we let him control the flow of new emotions which the altered circumstances arouse in us. A departure in life seems to me more than a change in outward circumstance. I wonder if God does not mean it to be a whole new vision of life itself, and what God wants life to be, and what he expects us to make of it? A change may be a demotion in the eyes of the world but a promotion from God’s angle if it makes us face the real things more honestly. I have seen ministers take smaller parishes than they had to the infinite benefit of their own soul, and therefore of their peoples. But the point is, these changes are a kind of plowing of the spirit: shall the next crop be richer, or shall it be more full of weeds? Is it to be forwards, or backwards?

Again, every now and then a better emotion sweeps across our minds. I don’t know what starts those more tender, more gentle emotions in your experience. Very often music will do it for me, or sometimes sitting at a play or a moving picture. You catch the inner connection of things, and realize how short life is, and how many people there are whose lives need love and compassion and care. Sometimes you realize that you are not giving half enough to the people nearest to you. A church service, or a great address may set these higher emotions in action. They are often very light and fleeting little things. They will blow away a moment later if you do not let them get down into your will instead of just resting lightly on the top of your mind. The suggestion may be to write a letter of restitution or apology to someone from whom you are estranged. It may be to take a more generous attitude towards somebody who is a trial to you. There is just the momentary uprush of a better feeling, or the realization of the possibility of a better relationship. What shall we do afterwards? Shall we go forwards, or backwards? When we become impervious to these fleeting urges, and the familiar people and scenes and situations remain unaltered by them, and we are content to resume the old levels, the old rudeness, the old self-centeredness, we have reached that rather desperate state that St. Paul describes as “past feelings.” Living out such a better emotion with the people round about us keeps our relationships fluid and growing; it keeps us from being self-conscious with those closest to us; it keeps us humble, for there is in living out such an emotion a kind of reflection on our own past. If we cannot be perfect—and none of us can—let us at least be honest about our imperfection, and loving towards those whom it has hurt.

But it is especially in connection with some exalted spiritual experience that I want to consider this truth. We all know that if we see, we find. My friend Rufus Moseley once said to me, “If you seek Jesus as you think he is, he will reveal himself to you as he really is.” Now somewhere in our spiritual pilgrimage, God will reach in with a luminous thought, or a lifting sense that we are not pursuing a chimera but the veriest reality in the universe. On our knees, or as we walk in prayer, or as we talk with another who is spiritually illuminated, something will ‘come’ to us that turns on the light. We ought to put down such things in a spiritual notebook, for they are easy to forget, and may be meant for milestones in our spiritual journey. I saw a fine booklet that was just the compilation of one man’s discoveries of this nature. Shall these things be just “ideas,” or shall the “word be made flesh” so that they become part of our living? Fewer words more richly appropriated would mean a richer spiritual existence for most of us.

Or we come to a service like we had last Sunday morning. Through the music and flowers and the glorious sense of our Lord’s victory there is given us a vision of what our life ought to be. This glory of His was not easily attained. As the beautiful collect says, he “entered not into glory before he was crucified.” We know that if we pursued this vision steadily, it would cut out of our life not all pleasure but all frivolity and wrong and dividedness of mind between Christ and the world. Which way do we go—backwards, or forwards?—backwards towards the familiar our version of “I go a fishing,” or forwards toward the unknown with Christ which was the way Simon Peter finally went? Many said positive words to me after the service last Sunday. Are they here today? Are they going to be here right along? Was this emotion, or was it reality? It all depends on what they do with the experience. It rests between themselves and God.

Daily Rendezvous With Christ

And sometimes God reaches right into the life of a man or a woman. I saw him do it not long ago. At a stroke, he lifted someone to a whole new level of living. What is that man going to do—is he going to make all the old habits subservient to this new gift of life that God has given him, or is he going to try to mix them and compromise, or is he frankly going back to the old level to look back one day on this as a chimerical, transient, emotional experience? Is he going to make all his professional practice conform to this new experience, let it pervade every relationship, cut compromise and halfway measures, or drag this new experience down into the old ways? For Simon Peter, this old fishing business was just a temporary return to the familiar, unless he was going back on Christ altogether. But there is business in the world to be done. Some men have got to stay by. They must both catch fish and catch men. Most people in the church behave entirely too much like everybody round about them when it comes to everyday living. Instead of lifting home life and business life to the level of Christian conversion, they compromise Christian conversion with the world. You know when you hear them say, “I go a fishing” that the higher level is a thing of the past. Is it with you? Did Easter show you something about yourself and your daily occupation that you had not seen before? Have you already forgotten it, let it grow dim—or did you let God take hold of you and begin a new life within you?

Let us pray that in the moment when we say “I go a fishing,” and turn backwards to the old familiar things, Christ may come to us as he came to Simon Peter that morning on the beach of Galilee and remind us that with him we can never go backwards, but only forwards.

END

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and devotion to the heritage of American freedoms.

Whoever reads the New Testament seriously, or gives thought to the impact which the apostles made upon their generation, must acknowledge that one outstanding historic event alone spurred that small band of 11 ordinary men to an amazing task of evangelization in their generation. Defying every obstacle—loss of home, persecution, even death itself—they evidenced the supreme relevance in their ministry of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

There is no historic record that any of the apostles or any of the early Christians made an annual pilgrimage to the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea, to that empty tomb which once held the body of the Christ.

That first Easter Sunday, however, the tomb indeed was visited, beginning at the early morning hours when two women were first to arrive there. Matthew tells us that those women came “to see the sepulchre”; Mark adds that these two ladies “had bought sweet spices, that they might … anoint him.” But as Luke, the writer of the third Gospel, so succinctly puts it, “they found not the body of the Lord Jesus.” On the contrary, these women found that the great stone placed against the entrance to the sepulchre to seal it had been rolled away. Entering in, they saw an angel who said to them:

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him (Matt. 28:5–7).

Later that morning Mary Magdalene revisited the tomb, and her unusual devotion was rewarded by the Lord Jesus himself. Her eyes dimmed by tears, she at first assumed him to be the gardener. She begged “the gardener” to tell her where he had placed the body, and heard him speak her name as Jesus alone had often spoken it.

Earlier the women had hurried back into the city to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard, whereupon two of them, Peter and John, ran back to the garden. They saw the empty tomb. They went in. John observed something which caught his eye. Then and there he knew and believed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. The shape of the graveclothes and their position in the tomb were evidence that he had risen as he said he would. But the apostles as a group were far from convinced.

Some time during that Resurrection day the Lord appeared to Peter in Judea, who in turn returned to tell the other ten that he had seen the Lord. Toward the evening of that same day, two disciples were returning from Jerusalem to their home village of Emmaus. The striking happenings of the day were being discussed in animated conversation when a third man joined them in the walk. The Creator had not yet adjusted the focus of their eyes to him, and they did not immediately recognize him. He appeared as a man, a stranger walking along the roadside.

When the Lord asked why they were sad of countenance and what they were talking about, they looked at him in utter astonishment and said, “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days?” (Luke 24:18). When he asked, “What things?” they told about “Jesus of Nazareth which was a prophet mighty in deed and work before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” That all took place three days ago. But the most astounding thing of all, they told him, was the word of several women who had visited the tomb and had come back with the report that they had seen a vision of an angel who said he was alive! Some of the male members of the group went out to see the sepulchre where he had been buried; they found it empty, but him they saw not!

Our Lord then hid himself in the Scriptures in order that their faith in his resurrection and what had taken place upon the Cross could be better understood. He said to them, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to have entered into his glory?” Right there, walking those dusty roads, our Lord gave those two disciples a postgraduate course in Bible. Their hearts burned within them as he opened up the Scriptures. When they arrived home, they invited the stranger in to dine with them. They sat down to break bread and gave this interesting person the privilege of returning thanks. At once the scales dropped from their eyes. They saw him, the man Christ whom they had known and loved, and who had hung upon a tree a few days previously. He then vanished out of their sight.

They immediately returned to Jerusalem. They knew where the disciples were to be found. When they gained entrance into that house, they were met with a chorus of voices from inside: “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon” (Luke 24:34). The fact that the Saviour had appeared to Peter, who had denied him thrice, clinched everything! As those disciples began to tell of their own experience, the risen Lord himself entered that room.

Can anyone forget the rapture of that night, or the understanding those disciples received, as our Lord disentangled their minds and illuminated the Scriptures? Fifty days later that company of men began the effort which turned the tide of civilization. They never preached without telling of his resurrection. It was the keynote in every address recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.

No man, examining the New Testament or searching history, can completely understand the impact made upon the apostolic world by this little band of devoted men, but he must surely acknowledge that the resurrection of Jesus Christ became the most relevant thing in their lives.

We live in a different world today from that era when the apostles became evangelizers. Actually no generation of men has had to face what we in 1959 must live with 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and with little hope of alleviation. If ever there was a time when the individual Christian and the Christian Church needed to re-examine their position in the world it is now.

When the Apostle Paul was escorted to Mars Hill to explain the arresting things he propagated in the market place at Athens, he struck a note too little heard in our pulpits on Easter. And yet it is the same note that our Lord sounded in his last recorded words spoken to John, the disciple who outlived all the other members of the group. It was the keynote in all apostolic preaching. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and all that this implied in that historic event, is still the great keynote of historic Christianity. As he orated on religion, on the infinite yet benevolent God, on the world, life, breath and all things, and as he quoted from their own poets, Paul was at least given a courteous hearing. But when Paul touched on the subject of repentance, made necessary by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the men of Athens abruptly dismissed him and refused to listen any further. Paul declared:

Because he [God] hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he raised him from the dead (Acts 17:31).

When John the Apostle received that majestic, awesome revelation of Jesus Christ while he was on the Isle of Patmos, he gave us a word portrait of the glory of the risen Christ. That dazzling glory made him fall as dead at our Lord’s feet. John wrote:

And laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death (Rev. 1:17, 18).

Could any message be more relevant for 1959 than this which energized the apostles and disciples? “Jesus and the resurrection” were the twin messages which the Apostle Paul proclaimed.

Judas is dead; Caiaphas is dead; Pilate is dead; Herod is dead; Nero is dead; Stalin is dead; Khrushchev will die! But Jesus Christ the Lord is the living One who became dead, and behold he is alive forever, and has the keys of hell and of death. At a time when a large segment of Christendom looks upon the Resurrection merely as an historical event in the remote past, it is imperative that the Christian Church and the individual Christian make crystal clear the relevancy of Christ’s resurrection to the bewildered world of 1959.

This can be accomplished in two ways. First, there is the realm of personal experience. The Apostle Paul expressed his own aspirations concerning the development of his Christian life when he wrote “that I might know him.” That involves a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. He promptly followed this with a further statement: that I might know “the power of his resurrection.” It was evident to the Apostle that in the life of an individual believer the power of Christ’s resurrection may become a living reality. How important is that power in a day when so much Christian profession is hardly more than lip service, and when some men even hold tongue in cheek while reciting the Apostles’ Creed.

One other great fact comes out of the fact of the empty tomb which needs to be emphasized. Modern man travels faster on the earth, in the sea, and in the air than many persons ever thought possible. Indeed, our generation has come to possess extraordinary knowledge enabling man to harness vast powers for good or evil purposes. Even some eminent minds of our own day thought this impossible. As late as 1939 Albert Einstein was reported as saying he did not believe in the release of atomic power.

Has the resurrection of Jesus Christ anything to say in a day like ours? Indeed it has. First, it substantiates every line in Holy Scripture concerning the impending apocalyptic judgments of God once that hour has struck to which Paul alluded on Mars Hill, “when God will judge the world in righteousness.”

Second, with the threat of overhanging catastrophe, light streams from that empty tomb proclaiming Jesus Christ as the resurrection and the life. It is he who has “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Third, and last, the resurrection of Jesus Christ assures redeemed man of ultimate triumph. The statements of David made 3000 years ago in the eighth Psalm will become a reality. Redeemed man will be crowned with glory and honor, thus enabling him to have dominion over the works of God’s hands which include the habitable earth, the moon and the stars—the work of God’s fingers.

In that postdiluvian age when man shook his fist to defy God by building the ill-fated tower of Babel, God confounded their tongues. When the devil and unregenerate man nailed Christ to the cross, God answered by raising him from the dead. When man once more defies God and shakes his atomic fist at the God of heaven and earth, “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.” And they shall hear him say, “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee” (Psalm 2:4–7).

END

Erling C. Olsen is President of Fitch Investors Service, nationally known investment advisory and statistical service. For 25 years he has conducted a Sunday morning broadcast on New York stations. A Bible conference speaker, he addressed the 1959 Rose Bowl Sunrise Service in Pasadena, California.

The resurrection of Christ involves four basic factors which the people of the world—Christian and non-Christian, Jew and Gentile—must consider. These factors are: 1. There was a person on this earth during the first century of our era named Jesus of Nazareth. 2. This person died on a cross. The Koran denies this, but without justification; Jesus said he would die, the Roman soldiers declared he was dead, the book of Acts employs eight different Greek words to embrace all the aspects of his being put to death, the theology of all the apostles rests upon the fact that Christ’s blood was shed for us, and the hosts in glory ascribe honor and praise to the enthroned Christ because he was slain (Rev. 5:9, 12; 13:8). 3. Our Lord’s body, when taken from the cross, was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea on Friday afternoon. (A few deny this, and we shall comment on that later.) 4. On Sunday the tomb was empty.

Testimony And The Tomb

The testimony to the fact of the empty tomb is irrefutable however one may account for the fact itself. All four Gospels witness to the phenomenon and employ various phrases, which are evidence of the fact that the writers did not slavishly copy from one another. Recording the visit of the women to the tomb, Matthew gives us the words of the angel, “He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay” (28:6). The fact that he does not say the women looked into the tomb and found it empty in no way weakens the meaning of the angel’s words. Mark writes in more vivid detail. The women entering into the tomb “saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment … And he saith unto them … he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him.” (16:5, 6). Luke asserts, “And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus” (24:3). Peter “seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself” (John 20:6, 7; cf. Luke 24:12). Thus we have in four different records, written within 65 years of our Lord’s death, testimonies to the empty tomb in the announcement of the angels, from the women who saw the tomb empty, and from Peter and John, the two chief apostles, who also beheld the empty grave. It should be remembered that the women did not go to the sepulchre to see an empty tomb, but to anoint the body of Jesus, and that they, along with the apostles, could not believe that a resurrection had taken place.

A fourth testimony to the empty tomb is peculiar to Matthew (28:11–15). Soldiers, appointed by the Sanhedrin to guard the tomb, returned to report that the tomb was empty. The text does not actually say that they reported the tomb empty. But the decision of the Sanhedrin to concoct a story, without foundation, in order to explain this phenomenon is sufficient evidence that the soldiers did say that the tomb was empty and that the Sanhedrin accepted their statement. It is significant that none of these Jewish authorities went out to see if the grave was empty. They knew it was unnecessary, for the soldiers were not coming with fables.

Unbelief And The Tomb

We are here faced with an historical problem: How did the tomb become empty? A strong statement by Canon Liddon some years ago well introduces our investigation of this question. He said that the empty tomb “is the central sanctuary of the Christian faith. No other spot on earth says so much to Christian faith as does the tomb of our Lord.”

Those who have attempted to repudiate the evidence for the empty tomb may be placed in one of three groups: those who insist that the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea was empty on Easter morning simply because the body of Jesus was never placed there; those who believe that though the body was placed there on Friday afternoon, someone removed the body; or those who are convinced that Jesus did not actually die on the cross but only swooned and came forth from the tomb by his own power.

Let us examine first the swoon theory, or the claim that Christ was in a state of swoon when placed in the tomb, and later, having recovered, he came out in his own strength. First of all, this would not be physically possible, for, even if he had recovered from such a swoon, Jesus could not by natural means have extricated himself from the graveclothes that bound him in accordance with burial customs of that day. Furthermore, no man could roll back, from the inside, the huge stone door which had been sealed to make it doubly secure. Even Strauss, who vigorously opposed the teaching of Christ’s resurrection, admits that this is inconceivable. “It is impossible that one who had just come forth from the grave half dead, who crept about weak and ill, who stood in need of medical treatment, of bandaging, strengthening and tender care, and who at last succumbed to suffering could ever have given to the disciples that impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave—that he was the prince of life” (David Strauss, The Life of Jesus for the People, Eng. trans., London, 1879, Vol. I, p. 412).

The view that the tomb was empty because the body of Jesus was not placed there was held by the French rationalist C. H. Guignebert, for many years professor of Christianity at the University of Paris. Guignebert contends that the body of Jesus, along with those of the two criminals who had been crucified with him, was thrown into a ditch. But Guignebert does not supply any evidence for his theory. We must remember that there are four accounts of the burial of Jesus, all of them written within two generations of his death, and two of the four by eyewitnesses of his crucifixion, death, and burial—namely Matthew and John. More authentic detail is available on the burial of Jesus than on the burial of any other great man of the ancient world, and there is not the slightest hint in these historical records that the body of Jesus was cast into a ditch.

Another proposal which attempts to discount the empty tomb is that adopted by Dr. Kirsopp Lake, for years a professor at Harvard University. He claims that the women who came to anoint Jesus in the early dawn of Sunday went to the wrong tomb because, it has been suggested, their eyes were blinded with tears! This theory, like that of Guignebert, has met with almost unanimous rejection, even on the part of those who deny that Christ rose from the dead. In the first place, it is hardly possible that these women, who had carefully observed the burial on Friday afternoon, should have missed the tomb on Sunday morning. Moreover, when they reported the empty tomb to Peter and John, these apostles returned and also found the tomb empty, which would imply that they likewise went to “the wrong tomb.” An angel sitting at this tomb said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” How is it conceivable that the angel was so mistaken? Furthermore, so far as we know, this was a private burial ground in the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea, not a public cemetery where one tomb could have been mistaken for another. As somebody has said, this whole theory “is a rationalization which is utterly foreign to the spirit of the narrative.”

A third theory that has been offered acknowledges that the body of Jesus was placed in this tomb on Friday afternoon and that the tomb was empty on Easter morning, but the disappearance of the body is to be accounted for in its removal by some man or group of men. This explanation is supposed to be found in our own New Testament, and it represents the first attempt to explain away the empty tomb. Soldiers had been assigned to watch the tomb lest, so the Jews said, the disciples should come and steal the body. When, according to Matthew (28:11–15) these men reported the tomb empty, the Jews could do nothing else but “gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept. And if this come to the governor’s ears, we will persuade him, and secure you [rid you of care]. So they took the money, and did as they were taught: and this saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day.” Note that the Sanhedrin did not deny that the tomb was empty. This explanation was repeated in the centuries immediately following the apostolic age (cf. Justin Martyr, Dialogue Against Trypho, p. 108; Tertullian, Apology, p. 212), and was put forth in the eighteenth century by Reimarus, brought out by Lessing in Concerning the Resurrection, and expounded by Holtzmann and others.

Truly, there was no reason why the disciples should take the body from the tomb (it would have been physically impossible for them to do this anyway); it is historically inconceivable that all the soldiers were asleep and so deep in slumber that they could not hear the great stone being rolled aside or the footsteps of the disciples as they carried away the body of a grown man; and it is equally inconceivable that these disciples should have suffered hardship for years (for most of them violent death) as a result of devoting the remainder of their lives to preaching a Resurrection when they knew no such event had taken place.

Closely related to this theory is the suggestion that the body was removed by the owner of the tomb, Joseph of Arimathaea. (This is the view of Klausner.) But there is no evidence that he did this; there is no reason why Joseph should have removed the body of his Lord, for this burial was the greatest honor that could have come to him; nevertheless had he desired to remove the body, there would have been no possibility of his succeeding so long as the soldiers were guarding the tomb, for they would not have permitted Joseph to take the body any more than they would have allowed the disciples to do so. Joseph is referred to as “an honourable counsellor” and “a good man and a just” (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50), and such a man, when hearing the apostles preach that Christ had risen from the dead, would have told them frankly that he had removed the body, and their preaching of the Resurrection would have ceased. The history of the early Church clearly testifies to the fact that no such report was ever circulated among the apostles.

A well-known scholar of a former generation, W. K. Lowther Clarke, in his volume, New Testament Problems, abandons hope of identifying the person or persons who removed the body of Jesus by this statement: “We are therefore thrown back on what seems the logical alternative to the tradition of the Church. The body must have been removed during the night of the first day of the week (Saturday–Sunday)—the night of the Sabbath may be excluded—by a person or persons unknown, neither friend nor enemy, actuated by motives so obscure that we cannot even hazard a guess at them. And when we have got so far, perhaps we are as near the mystery as we can ever get” (p. 107).

Apostolic Preaching And The Tomb

It has been suggested by many critics that all the statements of the evangelists regarding the empty tomb are part of the development of a late apologetic in the Christian Church drawn up to prove the Resurrection to a later generation. Of this assumption, the late Dr. W. J. Sparrow Simpson, author of two works on the subject of the Resurrection, has said:

The Synoptic tradition and the Book of Acts are opposed to that assertion. The earliest Gospel narrative not only declares that the grave was empty, but, in the form which we possess, actually terminates with that declaration. The Synoptic tradition does not record the Appearances first, and then proceed to investigations at the grave. It first records the discovery of the Empty Grave, and then approaches the Appearances. There is not the smallest question that this was deeply noted in the Evangelists’ convictions. The sermon attributed to St. Peter in the Acts, at the first Whitsuntide, endorses this conviction in a very significant way. For the central argument of that sermon, the basis of it, is that the flesh of Christ saw no corruption. This deliberate challenge was, according to the Acts, publicly made, within a few weeks of the event, and in the same city close to the spot where the Body had been buried. It is obvious, as Rawlinson says, that “the character of their preaching would have been different if they had believed the Lord’s Body to be still in the tomb, and it is hardly credible that they should have left the tomb unvisited.” … Unless the historian of the Acts has committed a gross anachronism, and has not only invented a speech which St. Peter did not deliver, but attributed to him beliefs which he did not at that time entertain, the Empty Grave must have formed an integral part of the earliest apostolic preaching. To eliminate all early reference to the Empty Tomb is to do violence to the evidence.

Looking over the theories that have been proposed by those who refuse to believe that Christ truly rose bodily from the grave on Easter morning, we might make an additional observation. Of the five basic claims set forth at different times by different writers, not one of them is generally accepted today by men who deny the Resurrection. Not one of the theories has ever won general and lasting approval. In all the volumes that have been written in attempt to break down the testimony of the historical fact of Christ’s bodily resurrection, no theory has ever been proposed around which rationalistic scholars and those embracing liberal views of the Christian faith have all agreed.

The intellectual leaders of our generation, the majority of whom are unbelievers, ought at least to examine without prejudice these narratives in which the resurrection of Christ is set forth as an historical fact as well as an object of faith. And they ought to read them with as much open-mindedness as they would read the histories of Pliny or a contemporary account of the American revolution. I believe that if I were a young man studying in an American or European university, and had no Christian faith, I would be compelled to come to terms with the apostolic testimony to the resurrection of Christ. I should either have to find some theory that would satisfy me in my escape from apostolic evidence, or begin asking myself, “Who then is this?”

END

Wilbur M. Smith is Editor of Peloubet’s Select Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons, and serves as Professor of the English Bible at Fuller Theological Seminary.

The term myth (Greek mythos) occurs five times in the New Testament—four times in the pastoral epistles (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4, and Titus 1:14) and once in 2 Peter 1:16. In each instance it signifies the fiction of a fable as distinct from the genuineness of the truth. This is in complete harmony with the classical connotation of myth which, from the time of Pindar onward, has borne the sense of what is fictitious, as opposed to logos which indicated what was true and historical. (This consideration sheds an interesting ray on John’s use of the term Logos as a title for Christ, John 1:1,14, and Paul’s frequent use of it as a synonym for the Gospel which he proclaimed.) Thus Socrates described a particular story as “no fictitious myth but a true logos” (Plato Timaeus 26E). It was also the connotation of the term during the period of the New Testament. Philo spoke of those “who follow after unfeigned truth instead of fictitious myths” (Exsecr. 162) and Pseudo-Aristeas, using an adverbial form, affirmed that “nothing has been set down in Scripture to no purpose or in a mythical sense” (mythodos, Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates, 168). In contemporary English, too, the mythical is synonymous with the fabulous, the fantastic, and the historically unauthentic.

In contemporary theological discussion the term myth has achieved a special prominence. This is to a considerable degree the result of Rudolf Bultmann’s demand for the “demythologization” of the New Testament, that is, for the excision or expurgation from the biblical presentation of the Christian message of every element of “myth.” In Bultmann’s judgment, this divestiture requires the rejection of the biblical view of the world as belonging to “the cosmology of a pre-scientific age” and as therefore quite unacceptable to modern man (see Kerygma and Myth, S.P.C.K., London, 1953). In effect, it amounts to the elimination of the miraculous or supernatural constituents of the scriptural record since these are incompatible with Bultmann’s own view of the world as a firmly closed system, governed by fixed natural laws, in which there can be no place for intervention “from outside.” John Macquarrie, however, justly criticizes Bultmann for being “still obsessed with the pseudoscientific view of a closed universe that was popular half a century ago” (An Existentialist Theology, S.C.M. Press, London, 1955, p. 168), and Emil Brunner complains that in claiming “that our faith must eliminate everything that suspends the ‘interrelatedness of Nature’ and is consequently mythical” Bultmann “is using, as a criterion, a concept which has become wholly untenable” (The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, Dogmatics, Vol. II, Lutterworth, London, 1952, p. 190).

It is Bultmann’s contention that the central message of kerygma of Christianity is incredible to modern man so long as it is presented in the mythical setting of the biblical world view, and that the latter constitutes an offense which is not at all identical with the true and ineradicable offense or skandalon of the Christian proclamation. He accordingly finds it necessary to discard such obviously (on his premises) mythical elements as Christ’s pre-existence and virgin birth, his deity and sinlessness, the substitutionary nature of his death as meeting the demands of a righteous God, his resurrection and ascension, and his future return in glory, also the final judgment of the world, the existence of spirit beings, the personality and power of the Holy Spirit, the doctrines of the trinity, of original sin, and of death as a consequence of sin, and every explanation of events as miraculous. It is self-evident that this process of demythologization, when carried through with the thoroughness that Bultmann displays, mutilates the Christianity of the New Testament in so radical a manner as to leave it unrecognizable. The stature of Jesus is reduced to that of a mere man (cf. Theology of the New Testament, Vol. II, S.C.M. Press, London, 1955, pp. 46,75), and the Christ-event is transformed from an objective divine intervention into “a relative historical phenomenon” (Kerygma and Myth, p. 19). And it is in this, according to Bultmann, that the real offense of Christianity lies: the linking of our redemption with God’s choice of an ordinary mortal individual, no different from every other man, and of an event, in no way miraculous or supernatural (Kerygma and Myth, p. 43), which in its essential relativity belongs to the order of all mundane events.

Bultmann’s relativism goes hand in hand with subjectivism. The relevance of the Christ event assumes a merely subjective significance. The incarnation and resurrection of Christ, for example, are not to be understood as datable events in the past, but as “eschatological” events which are to be subjectively experienced through faith in the word of preaching (cf. Kerygma and Myth, pp. 41, 209; Theology of the New Testament, Vol. I, S.C.M. Press, London, 1952, p. 305). It is, in fact, only my experience, here and now, that can have any authenticity for me—not anything that has happened in the past or that will happen in the future. In short, the Christian message is compressed with an existentialist mold. History and eschatology are to be understood in terms of pure subjectivism. Pronouncements about the deity of Jesus are not to be interpreted as dogmatic pronouncements concerning his nature but as existential value-judgments, not as statements about Christ but as pronouncements about me. Thus, for example, the objective affirmation that Christ helps me because he is God’s Son must give place to the subjective value-judgment of the “moment” that he is God’s Son because he helps me (“The Christological Confession of the World Council of Churches,” in Essays, S.C.M. Press, London, 1955, p. 280). Truth, in a word, is identified with subjectivity.

While the message of Christianity is, beyond doubt, in the truest sense existential and contemporaneous and demands the subjective response of faith, yet the faith it requires is faith in an objective reality. When robbed of its objectivity, the ground of which is God’s free and supernatural intervention through Christ in the affairs of our world, Christianity becomes a drifting idea, an abstraction, a rootless idealism, an ungraspable balloon loosed from its moorings. Bultmann’s “confusion of the question of the world-view with that of Myth,” criticizes Brunner, “and the effort to adapt the Christian Faith to ‘modern’ views of life, and to the concepts of existential philosophy, comes out continually in the fact that he ‘cleanses’ the message of the New Testament from ideas which necessarily belong to it, and do not conflict with the modern view of the world at all, but only with the ‘self-understanding,’ and in particular with the prejudices, of an Idealistic philosophy”; while in his conception of history Bultmann “is lacking in insight into the significance of the New Testament eph’ hapax, of the ‘once-for-all-ness’ (or uniqueness) of the Fact of Christ as an Event in the continuum of history” (Dogmatics, Vol. II, pp. 267, 268).

Yet, while realizing that in Bultmann’s program of demythologization “what is at stake is nothing less than the central theological question of revelation, of ‘Saving History,’ and the knowledge of God as a ‘Living God,’ who is the Lord of nature and of history” (Dogmatics, Vol. II, p. 186), Brunner refuses to “give up the right to criticize this or that recorded miracle, this or that marvel as due rather to the ‘myth-forming imagination’ than to the historical fact” (ibid., p. 192). In other words he is prepared to concur with the judgment that in the New Testament there are mythical elements which require to be eliminated; but as a demythologizer he is unwilling to proceed to such radical lengths as does Bultmann. When, however, we find him repudiating doctrines like the virgin birth of Christ, his bodily resurrection (whence the unbiblical “liberal” distinction between “the historic Jesus” and “the risen Christ”), his bodily ascension, and the general resurrection at the last day, we perceive that he is definitely moving in the same direction as Bultmann, even though, unlike Bultmann, he seeks to defend his procedure by arguing that these doctrines formed no part of the original kerygma (ibid., pp. 352 ff.). But none the less, despite his criticisms of Bultmann, “modern science” plays a determinative role in Brunner’s thinking. Thus Brunner emphasizes that he “cannot say too strongly that the biblical view of the world is absolutely irreconcilable with modern science” (ibid., p. 39); and he assures us that “the position of modern knowledge forces us to abandon” the definite picture of space, of time, and of the origins of life given in the biblical story of creation (ibid., p. 31). And so he rejects as myths the Genesis accounts of creation and Paradise (cf. ibid., p. 74). Likewise he affirms the need for the demythologization of statements concerning the form in which the event of Christ’s parousia will take place on the ground that they are “pronouncements of the New Testament which are clearly mythical, in the sense that they are in fact unacceptable to us who have no longer the world picture of the ancients and the apostles” (Eternal Hope, Lutterworth Press, London, 1954). Again, and inversely (!), new discoveries may reinstate as respectable certain aspects of the biblical world picture which “modern science” was thought to have exposed as mythical. For example, the doctrine of the sudden end of human history in atomic ruin.

Karl Barth, whose approach to the question of the authority of Scripture is governed by premises akin to those accepted by Bultmann and Brunner, wishes to establish a distinction between myth on the one hand and saga or legend on the other. By “legend,” however, he means what the other two understand by “myth,” as Brunner in fact acknowledges (Dogmatics, Vol. II, p. 74, note). Legend, according to Barth, does not necessarily attack the substance of the biblical witness, even though there is uncertainty about what he calls its “general” historicity (i.e., its historical truth as generally conceived). Myth he views as belonging to a different category which “necessarily attacks the substance of the biblical witness” inasmuch as it pretends to be history when it is not, and thereby throws doubt on, indeed denies, what he calls the “special” historicity of the biblical narratives (i.e., their special significance as history between God and man), thus relegating them to the realm of a “timeless truth, in other words, a human creation” (The Doctrine of the Word of God, Church Dogmatics, Vol. I, part I, T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1936, pp. 375 ff.). This matter, however, is principally one of definition: where Bultmann and Brunner use the term “myth” Barth prefers to use “legend.”

There is one further definition of myth to which attention must be drawn, namely, that which in effect equates it with symbolism and relates it to the inherent inability of human language to express adequately the things of God. Thus Brunner maintains that “the Christian kerygma cannot be separated from Myth” since “the Christian statement is necessarily and consciously ‘anthropomorphic’ in the sense that it does, and must do, what Bultmann conceives to be characteristic of the mythical—‘it speaks of God in a human way’ ” (Dogmatics, Vol. II, p. 268). And in the same connection Bultmann explains that “mythology is the use of imagery to express the otherworldly in terms of this world and the divine in terms of human life, the other side in terms of this side” (Kerygma and Myth, p. 10). To eliminate myth in this sense would mean that it would become impossible for man to say anything about God or for God to say anything intelligible to man, for we have no other medium of expression than the terms of this world. But it certainly does not follow that the terms of this side must always be given a symbolical (that is, mythological) meaning, or that they are always inadequate for the purpose intended. While there is indeed much symbolism in the New Testament, it is evident also that many things there are intended to be understood in a literal sense, and that events, such as Christ’s ascension, have been described phenomenally (i.e., from the quite legitimate point of view of the observer). Finally, it must be stressed that the concept of myth which we have been discussing in this article is incompatible with the Reformed doctrine of Holy Scripture. The Christ of the Bible is the Logos, not a mythos; he needs no demythologization at the hands of human scholars.

END

Philip E. Hughes is former Secretary of the Church Society of the Church of England. His essay is one of the 900 entries in the forthcoming Dictionary of Theology (Everett Harrison, editor-in-chief, G. W. Bromiley, associate editor) to appear in September as Baker Book House’s 20th anniversary project.

Many observers are speaking, often with reluctance, of the “resurgence of evangelical Christianity.” The modern mind had hardly expected the twentieth century to lift conservative Christianity once again into such significant orbit. Not only philosophers and sociologists, but even theologians awaited the secure triumph of classical liberalism and the decline of biblical theology. Now, however, it is clear that the religious experiment dating from Schleiermacher to Fosdick detoured Protestantism into the wilderness of modernity, and that the Great Tradition—the heritage of Moses and the prophets, and of Jesus and his apostles—was not really to be found there.

In this century after Marx and Darwin, when theological destinies revolve around such modern names as Dewey and Tillich and Niebuhr, it would be absurd to contend that evangelical Christianity is the only option on the horizon of contemporary decision. Many false gods peopled the ancient world; the modern world too has more than its quota. Swift and sundry have been the regroupings of theological positions in our shaky generation—liberalism, humanism, realism, neo-orthodoxy—and their adjustments and readjustments are not over.

Over against them I speak nonetheless of evangelical advance, of a recovery in the religious realm of new relevance and vitality by the forces of biblical theology and evangelism. The day is gone when religious couriers bear tidings only of loss after loss for the evangelical movement; of conservative scholars dwindling until at last Machen and Warfield seem almost to stand alone; of revealed religion demeaned as fundamentalist cultism and fundamentalism disparaged in turn as sheer anti-intellectualism. That day is gone. One fact stands sure: evangelical claims are being reasserted today with a vigor and wideness surprising to most interpreters of contemporary religious life.

To describe this phenomenon, the term “resurgence” is perhaps well chosen. It means much the same, of course, as revival or renaissance. But it is less familiar, less speech worn, and therefore avoids the full connotation of those words. We are witnessing no spiritual breakthrough of Reformation proportions, at least not yet. Spontaneous unleashings of spiritual dynamisms there are, however, and with these a dramatic vitality manifest at grass roots, and a clarion call to total dedication ringing with the fervor of martyrs and calling even communism to repentance.

In this surging spiritual crescendo discords are also to be heard, and it is only fair to make note of them. These flaws may not be failures of the kind depressing other spiritual movements of the day, but they are distressing weaknesses nonetheless.

Signs Of Weakness

For one thing, the cause of Christian unity today is publicly identified with theologically inclusive ecumenism more than with doctrinally exclusive evangelicalism. The ecumenical movement may have many deficiencies—it may elevate the concern for unity above passion for the truth, and it may represent Protestantism less universally and less objectively than its spokesmen imply—but nonetheless it appears to be a denominational consolidation linking widely scattered churches into one vast world community. Criticize this effort as they will, stress the fact that the unity of believers is essentially spiritual as they do, the fragmented evangelical churches in their judgment of ecumenically organized Protestantism nevertheless fail at two levels. They lag in stating a compelling theology of the visible unity of the evangelical churches, and they fail to exhibit to the modern world that outward cohesion which submerges the spirit of competition to one common witness. Free enterprise is a good thing even in religion, but Christian rivalry is out of bounds. Evangelical Protestantism lives too fully on the fissuring front of denominational divisions, and teems even along its far-flung evangelistic lines with the clan spirit of party labels. The New Testament family of faith radiates a central concern for the unity of believers in the world. In our generation the evangelical movement has lost too much of the passion for Christian unity.

Then too, the lack of cultural vision and social concern has plagued twentieth century evangelicals. Of course, social action may stray far from the light of the Cross and thus become short-lived and self-defeating. The social gospel a generation ago forfeited, even betrayed, the most propitious opportunity for world impact that Protestantism may ever again see. And the negative social outlook in evangelical circles must be understood in part as a protest against this evangelsuppressing social activism, even as a reaction against a social vision lacking in redemptive depth. The neglected message of the foregiveness of sins and supernatural regeneration, faithfully proclaimed by evangelicals, now became virtually the whole of the Gospel, and its social significance was largely confined to divine deliverance from personal vices. Unchallenged by the Lordship of Christ were many great areas of culture, literature, and the arts. Where Christian education survived as a commendable ideal, the river of pietism often ran deeper than the currents of world-and-life concern, applying the Christian revelation comprehensively to the social crisis, with the result that the evangelical challenge to the secular universities scored low. The heartbeat of evangelical worship and witness was set to tawdry music in which the world could hear the beat of the times more than the cadences of eternity. But after the romantic dream of the social gospel faded, it was almost inevitable that a new sense of urgency about the social order and the culture crisis should devolve upon the evangelical commitment.

While conditioning the hope of a new life for man and society upon individual response to the evangel and the birth of a new race of men, evangelical Christians in principle related Christ’s supernatural incarnation, atonement, and resurrection to the redemption of humanity and history. The force of evangelical social impact, however, still lags in its first phases in the world of labor, the world of learning and the arts, and in other centers of modern culture. Whatever may be said of the current resurgence of evangelicalism, it has not yet borne the undeniable social fruits of the Evangelical Revival of the age of Wesley and Whitfield, whose fervent piety quickened all England from 1750 to 1830, nor of the 1859 Revival which carried new life to English-speaking Christianity both in the United States and Great Britain and ushered in a half century of church influence and expansion.

Signs Of Vitality

In view of these weaknesses, some may ask, why speak of evangelical resurgence? Lack of direct political and cultural influence, lack of organizational cohesion in the evangelical movement, lack of worldly greatness—are not these disqualifying factors? I think not. The evangelical movement does not rely on ecclesiastical structuring, nor does it promote the direct Christianization of the sociopolitical order as its first task. Modern Christians are prone to appeal to the early Church while reconstructing and romanticizing it by modern norms. Even the infant churches were tense with turmoil when the first apostles carried the Gospel to the pagan West, although their disunity was not so often due to ecclesiastical politics and politicians as in our day. From the outset, even in ancient Greece with its heritage of classical culture, the Christian movement had to confess the virtual absence from its ranks of the wise, the noble, the mighty. And a characteristic of ancient intellectuals, no less than of modern minds, has been the tendency to discount the Christian impact as a cultural force. Seldom is a pagan society aware of vital spiritual energies in its midst. “The greatest religious change in the history of mankind,” wrote Lecky in his History of European Morals, took place “under the eyes of a brilliant galaxy of philosophers and historians” who disregarded “as simply contemptible an agency which all men must now admit to have been … the most powerful moral lever that has ever been applied to the affairs of men” (Vol. I, p. 338). The surest index to the spiritual dynamisms quickening the popular masses is never simply a count of professional noses. Whatever its weaknesses, the evangelical movement flames today with new fire, and we must measure its power in modern life.

Apostolic Evangelism

1. The spirit of apostolic evangelism hovers over this movement. A hallmark of its witness is the appeal for “personal decision for Christ”—in evangelistic services, in house to house visitation, in mass meetings, on radio and television and screen. It was Charles E. Fuller who first made the radio a national and even international instrument for confronting men with their sins and the offer of God’s forgiveness; others followed in his train. It was an evangelistic passion to reach lost men that made the screen—the silent film and then the sound film—not simply a medium of entertainment or of religious education, but a vehicle of spiritual decision and commitment. It was Billy Graham who so made television the mirror of personal destinies that mail inquiries to New York had to be transported literally by the carload. Criticize Mr. Graham as men may for halting short of a complete agenda for civilization, his message rings with the only priorities discoverable in the Acts of the Apostles: the death of Jesus Christ for sinners, his resurrection and exaltation as Lord and Saviour, and the indispensability of man’s total commitment to the living God. In an age wherein social gospelism had come to disparage if not to disdain evangelism, Graham’s plea for decision drew phenomenal response in New York, San Francisco, London, Glasgow, Berlin, Madras, and Melbourne that perplexed earnest churchmen who sought to improve Christianity’s position mainly by unifying its organizational structures. The spirit of apostolic evangelism still hovers over the evangelical movement.

Missionary Martyrdom

2. The spirit of missionary martyrdom is another evangelical hallmark. In the past generation it was John and Betty Stam facing Communists in South China and preferring death to denial of Jesus Christ; in our times, the missionary martyrs of Ecuador, willing to give their lives to reach the Auca Indians for Christ. Such martyrdoms are a needless waste to all who measure spiritual worth by the yardstick of religious synthesis and syncretism. Place a premium on religions-in-general and Christianity becomes a necessary offense through its once-for-all and one-and-only claim of redemption in Christ. The martyr spirit wanes whenever men “rethinking missions” lay stress on “the truth in all” faiths. But it stirs and throbs wherever missionaries are convinced “there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” To those five widows of Ecuador their husbands’ contact with the Aucas (even by maryrdom) was half the answer to a prayer to reach these benighted pagans for Christ. Since then, the women missioners have moved in with the Aucas, instructing them in the promises of redemption. Is it any wonder that New York publishers, seeking a modern missionary epic, reached for Elisabeth Elliot’s Through Gates of Splendor, and that more than 100,000 readers have purchased copies? The spirit of missionary martyrdom throbs blood-fresh in the evangelical witness.

The Inspired Scriptures

3. The strength of evangelical Christianity lies also in its reliance on the inspired Scriptures as a sword and shield. Other theological movements always invoke the Scriptures somewhat apologetically. Before they say “Thus saith the Lord” they draw up a twentieth century preamble for saying it with modern overtones: “The Bible is this, but not that,” and the not that dissolves much of the this. Where but among evangelical Protestants is Scripture named as the Word of God with the trusting confidence of the prophets and apostles, and of Jesus of Nazareth in the midst of them?

About a dozen years ago in New England I was lunching with a distinguished personalist scholar, Dr. Albert C. Knudson, late dean of the School of Theology at Boston University. These occasional luncheons with men of liberal views were always times of theological exchange that I treasured. Mrs. Knudson had but recently died, and I recall that as we drove to Dr. Knudson’s home he mentioned that his recent thoughts had been much about the subject of immortality—of how there must be immortality if the most treasured values of this life are to be preserved. “There must be immortality,” he said, “if this life is to make sense.” With a feeling for the moment, I added: “Of course there is immortality.… Remember (our Lord’s words in John 14) ‘if it were not so, I would have told you.’ ” I shall not forget Dean Knudson’s reply. “You know,” he said, with a long pause, “I have never thought of those words in that way before.” That way is the evangelical way. “Did not our hearts burn within us,” the disciples commented, “while he (the risen Lord) opened to us the Scriptures” (Luke 24:32).

To the disciples of Jesus Christ, Scripture was life’s lamp and light; “ye do err,” he reminded his contemporaries, “not knowing the Scriptures.” But for most modern theologians, the Bible gains its reliability from its concurrence with criticism: “ye do err, not knowing the critics.” I would not deny biblical criticism has a legitimate task. But dare we ignore the vast diversity among the critics themselves and the extensive disagreement of their dogmatisms? Many first-rate scholars—international and interdenominational—see no need to deprive Scripture of its power and authority in modern life, as witness the symposium on Revelation and the Bible just issued by two dozen world scholars.

Last year I was invited to speak at Union Theological Seminary, New York, on the authority of Scripture, and was given as courteous a hearing as one could wish. Yet the very first question raised by a student panel was this: ‘Would you say that higher criticism has made a positive contribution to faith, or that its influence has been wholly negative?” Though the theme be the ancient Scriptures, the center of divinity school interest is modern criticism. And my answer, now as then, is that modern criticism has shown itself far more efficient in creating faith in the existence of manuscripts for which there is no overt evidence (J, E, P, D, Q, first century non-supermaturalistic gospels, and second century redactions, and so on) than in sustaining the confidence of young intellectuals within the churches in the only writings that the Christian movement historically has received as a sacred trust. Modern criticism too often bestows prestige upon the critics by defaming the sacred writers.

“The Bible says” is not mere Graham platitude nor a fundamentalist cliché; it is the note of authority in Protestant preaching, lost by the meandering modernism of the past generation, held fast by the evangelical movement. Evangelical Christianity retains its reliance on the Bible as sword and shield.

4. Another mark of evangelical vitality, I think, is the theological approach to education and the social order. There remain long distances for evangelicals to travel in these spheres, and today’s culture crisis runs so deep that no Christian agency has time for self-congratulation. But we may speak of evangelical gains as well as of pitfalls.

In education, evangelicals in the main sounded the Protestant criticism of John Dewey’s experimental philosophy, which lost supernatural realities and fixed truth and morality in the smog of evolutionary naturalism. It was the evangelicals who defended the unique contribution of Christian education when other Protestant forces crowned the cause of religion-in-general and blunted the priorities of revealed religion, and even diverted evangelical institutions and endowments to nonevangelical causes. Meanwhile, evangelicals championed the distinctively Christian school—the Christian seminary, the Christian college, the Christian day school—though limited resources often lowered their standards, and their exclusive witness sometimes raised barriers to recognition of which they were worthy.

It is well to remind ourselves that at the root of this evangelical interest in education lies a recognition of the role of the intellect in the service of God. During the past generation fundamentalism often was caricatured as anti-intellectual—and it would be difficult to defend the movement in toto against some of the complaints. But critics of fundamentalism today take a different line, acknowledging unwittingly the one-sidedness of earlier appraisals. Now they criticize fundamentalism for rationalism rather than irrationalism. In the present climate of theology, I think, evangelicals have less to fear from this type of criticism than their critics from the modern revolt against reason. They respect the Christian warning against the pride of reason—against making man’s mind an absolute and denying its dignity in the image of God, against refusal to bring man’s fallen reason into devout conformity to the mind of God. Yet they are confident that faith and reason are made for each other. They seek the rational integration of all life’s experiences under God. Here the great battle of contemporary theology is being fought. The newer forms of theology are skeptical about reason, even reason under God—where it belongs. They tend to rob revelation of rational status; they contrast theological truth with scientific and historical truth in a manner costly to Christian beliefs; they surrender Christianity’s significance as a world-and-life view because they no longer expect the rational unity of life and culture. Evangelical Christianity’s vision for education and culture honors divine revelation in the service of man, and it honors human reason in the service of God. It would be the greatest of irony were modern Christianity to give to Communists (who really do not understand the nature and glory of reason) the opportunity of systematically interpreting the whole of life and culture on alien naturalistic principles, while the disciples of Jesus Christ are stripped of the right to bring the whole of life and its experiences into the reasonable service of God.

The theological approach to the social order bears also in a decisive way upon the whole question of human freedom and duty. Political earthquakes the world over are shaking the foundations of freedom and destroying the sense of responsibility. The delinquent democracies, no longer aware of a mission “under God,” and seeking only the majority vote of the masses, are steadily declining toward chaos and anarchy, while totalitarian and collective powers are dissolving human liberties and destroying the opportunity for voluntarism. But evangelical Christianity relies on God’s revelation for the timeless moral principles of personal and social ethics and holds promise and potency for slowing, and even stopping and reversing, the modern travesty on human dignity. And evangelical concern is rising today for all life’s freedoms—spiritual, economic, political—with new awareness that man’s liberties depend in a determinative way upon the fate of revealed religion in our generation. The evangelical challenge to the social order reinforces man’s sense of obligation to God and neighbor, his sense of divinely given liberties and duties, and pledges new meaning and worth to the social order in our chaotic times.

There are other signs of awakening of which only briefest mention is possible. One could speak of World Vision conferences spurring thousands of native pastors throughout the Orient to deeper Christian commitment in the face of advancing Communist totalitarianism; of the witness of Inter-Varsity Fellowship on university campuses, and its remarkable influence especially upon the younger clergy of the Church of England, and the recruiting of many college converts by Campus Crusade for Christ; of the steady progress of evangelical institutions with accrediting agencies; of the emergence of an evangelical literature of Bible commentaries, reference works, and texts in the spheres of doctrine and ethics; of the emergence—if propriety will permit the mention—of an international, interdenominational journal of evangelical conviction in the fortnightly form of CHRISTIANITY TODAY; of the rising evangelical concern for all life’s freedoms—spiritual, economic, political—and the new awareness that man’s liberties depend in a crucial way upon the fate of revealed religion in our generation. Upon the rising tide of evangelical commitment in our times may well depend the Christian dedication of multitudes for whose allegiance the forces of atheism are today making history’s supreme bid. Either we shall soon see evangelical revival flaming like a prairie fire at grass roots, or a mighty wave of persecution will deluge the Christian movement, and in the once-Christian West the faithful remnant will go underground.

END

The above is an address by Editor Carl F. H. Henry given March 23 at the Providence, Rhode Island, Ministers’ Seminar, and March 19 to the Baptist ministers of Washington, D. C.

On Sunday, February 3, 1788, the first Christian service was held in Australia, when the Reverend Richard Johnson, chaplain to the First Fleet, preached a sermon on the text: “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me?” (Ps. 116:12). Richard Johnson had been nominated to William Pitt, prime minister, by William Wilberforce, emancipator of the slaves, as a suitable candidate for the post of chaplain. Wilberforce was deeply concerned that an evangelical should be appointed as chaplain to the infant colony, and the name of Johnson was suggested to him by the Eclectic Society. This society, an association of devout evangelicals, numbered among its members Charles Simeon, John Newton, and William Cooper. It was this same group that was responsible for the foundation of the Church Missionary Society in 1799.

The early beginnings were inauspicious and unpromising. The new arrivals numbered 1030, of whom 736 were convicts. “It is a shameful and unblessed thing,” wrote Bacon, “to take the scum of people, and withal condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant.” It is not surprising that the First Fleet was provided not only with Bibles and Prayer Books, but also with 200 copies of Exercises Against Lying, 50 copies of Caution to Swearers, 100 Exhortations to Chastity, and 100 Dissuasions from Stealing. Nevertheless from these humble beginnings the Commonwealth has grown.

Australians have been described as “a people singularly independent in thought, restless in action, and impatient of restraint.” This is due to two historical circumstances: first, that Australia began as a prison for convicts; and secondly, that the gold fields were opened in 1851. The subject of transportation is never mentioned in polite conversation; nevertheless, the fact remains that in all, over 130,000 convicts were transported to Australia. It is not surprising that these men and women nursed a sense of deep resentment against the “old country.”

The population of Australia trebled within a decade after the opening of the gold fields. People from every part of the world poured into Australia fired with the ambition to get rich quickly. Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe of Victoria feared that the colony might “parallel California in vice and disorder.” His fears were not groundless. In the State of Victoria the population expanded from 80,000 to over half a million in a matter of a few years. The results were political unrest and violent social upheavals.

These factors have contributed in part to the growth of what is known as the Australian legend, a legend which revolves around the concept of “mateship.” The essence of the tradition is loyalty to one’s fellows. Henry Lawson, in While the Billy Boils, quotes Macquarie the Shearer: “That there dog is a better dog than I’m a man … and a better Christian. He’s been a better mate to me than I ever was to any man—or any man to me.” What is significant in this quotation is not simply the concept of mateship; it is also the understanding of what constitutes a Christian. This concept of mateship has its commendable aspects as well as its less desirable aspects. It stresses the worth of an individual apart from status (“a man’s a man for a’that”); it minimizes the qualities of the exceptional man (“I’m as good as him”). Says H. M. Green: “Australian conditions encourage fellowship rather than leadership.”

Another aspect of this legend is the tradition of individualism. Early exploration and enforced isolation encouraged this spirit of individualism and independence. C. W. Bean, in his history of the Australian Imperial Forces, says that “the Australian soldiers … never became reconciled to continuous obedience to orders, existence by rule, and lack of privacy. From early childhood the average Australian had regarded himself and everyone around him as masters of their own lives. He was accustomed to take decisions.”

The history of Christianity in Australia has been bedeviled by bitter sectarianism. The exclusive privileges of the Church of England were soon demolished by radicalism allied to militant dissent. In 1825 Earl Bathurst ordered one seventh of the land of the colony to be set aside to provide for the support of the Anglican clergy and Anglican education. This aroused the presbyterian indignation of the Reverend John Dunmore Lang and the papist ire of Father J. J. Therry: in 1829 this provision was suspended and in 1833 abolished. As a result education has become free, compulsory, and secular.

The evil spirit of sectarianism has been frequently inflamed by nationalistic passions. During the days following the opening of the gold fields, the number of Irish immigrants rapidly increased. Early in this century they found a mouthpiece in the fiery Daniel Mannix (now archbishop of Melbourne) who came from Maynooth in Ireland in 1913. Throughout the First World War he vigorously denounced, with unwearied passion, the evil of conscription and the sins of Great Britain. Today his natural vigour is not abated and his eye is not dimmed. Within recent years, he has succeeded in disastrously splitting and destroying the Labour Party by reducing it to two warring segments: the Australian Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party. The latter owes its creation to Mr. Santamaria (supported by Dr. Mannix) and the activities of “The Movement” (a Roman Catholic “front” organization within the trade union movement). Roman Catholics now number 22 per cent of the population and their political power is growing.

All this provides the historical and religious background to the present Billy Graham crusade. Australia has never known a religious revival. Most people have only tenuous links with the institutional church, and the typical young Australian possesses a superb physique—but he lacks a soul. The cult of physical fitness is widely cultivated and assiduously pursued (Australia has bred an astonishing number of athletes and sportsmen). But spiritually there is a great void: and today Australia is a pagan nation.

The Billy Graham crusade has brought the Protestant churches into a closer fellowship than they have ever known before. The Australian Council for the World Council of Churches, on the occasion of its annual meeting, sent a warm message of goodwill to mark the opening of the crusade. At the local level, the spirit of harmony and good will, engendered by this corporate enterprise, has led to increased personal confidence and mutual trust between the ministers.

Evangelistically, Australia is virgin ground. It desperately needs the Spirit of God to regenerate and revivify its society. Christians are united in earnest prayer that Billy Graham, under the good hand of God, may be enabled to do this.

This is the answer to your prayers …

THE VERY REV. S. BARTON BABBAGE

Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Melbourne

The Melbourne Crusade opened with an eager and expectant audience numbering 15,000. It was a moving and impressive commencement for the Crusade. Dr. Graham, speaking for the first time since his recent illness, spoke with dynamic energy and deep sincerity. It was compelling and arresting preaching. The vast audience listened with rapt and reverent attention and some 600 decisions were recorded for Jesus Christ. It was a memorable and mighty gathering attended by the heads of all the churches, bespeaking the widespread support which the Christian folk of our land are according the Crusade.

LT. GENERAL SIR EDMUND HERRING

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria

The visit of such a great evangelist as Dr. Billy Graham is an exciting and thrilling event for the city of Melbourne and its citizens. Widespread interest has been aroused during the preparatory stages and on all sides one meets a keen sense of anticipation. The opening service was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. One can only hope and pray that Dr. Graham’s Melbourne Crusade will continue to receive the blessings of Almighty God and lead to a great outpouring of His Holy Spirit.

THE REV. DR. A. H. WOOD

President General of the Methodist Church of Australia

The opening of Dr. Graham’s Melbourne Crusade was a scene unprecedented in the Church life of Melbourne, in this generation at least. Both the attendance and the number of decisions were greater than anticipated. There can be no doubt that the opening service with its astounding success has set the pattern for the whole Crusade in Australia and New Zealand. Prayers have indeed been answered and the preparations of many months have been amply rewarded.

There can be no doubt that God will continue to use His servant, Dr. Graham; the Churches will be revived in a remarkable manner, and thousands will be brought to Christ in this Crusade. Already we can devoutly say: To God Be The Glory.

Continue To Pray!