The question of biblical interpretation has returned to the centre of theological discussion today. Hermeneutics is no longer relegated to a backroom. It is one of the most prominent preoccupations of the present hour. And in this renascence the name of Martin Luther is much mentioned, for it is being recognized afresh that in a very real sense he is the father of Protestant interpretation. His influence has been widespread and profound. As Professor Kurt Aland has reminded us in a lecture delivered recently at the St. Andrews School of Theology in Scotland, Luther’s interpretation of Scripture has not only left its mark on the theologians and churches of the Lutheran confession for more than four centuries, but is of no less decisive importance for all Protestant communions. In considering Luther’s principles of biblical hermeneutics we are handling one of the vital issues of the hour.

The Bible, of course, was central in the reforming policy of Luther. “As a theologian,” wrote Professor Henry E. Jacobs, “Luther’s chief effort, on the negative side, was to free theology from its bondage to philosophy, and to return to the simplicity of Scripture. He was dissatisfied with technical theological terms because of their inadequacy, even when the elements of truth they contained restrained him from abandoning them. He was not without a historical sense and a reverence for antiquity, provided that it was subjected to the tests of Holy Scripture. Scripture was not to be interpreted by the Fathers, but the Fathers were to be judged by their agreement or disagreement with Scripture” (Article ‘Luther’ in E.R.E. Vol. VIII, p. 201).

Luther’S Experience

We need not traverse yet again the familiar ground of Luther’s rediscovery of the Bible in his personal experience. Suffice it to say that the Reformation really started not on the steps of the Scala Sancta in Rome (where pious legend may have overlaid the tale) nor even at the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg (where the Ninety-Five Theses were pinned in order to inaugurate a discussion rather than to touch off a revolt), but in the Black Tower of the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where Luther sat before an open Bible and allowed God to address him face to face. This Turmerlebnis (Tower Discovery) is dated by Schwiebert as “sometime in the fall of 1514” (Luther and His Times, p. 288). Luther himself tells us how he dwelt upon the First Chapter of Romans. “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justified us through faith. Whereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning and whereas before ‘the justice of God’ had filled me with hate, now it became to me inexpressibly sweet in greater love. The passage of Paul became to me a gate of heaven” (Luther, Werke, Weimar Auflage (W.A.) Vol. LIV, p. 185).

This experience marked the birth of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith, which was the touchstone by which he tested every theological opinion. But it was cradled in Scripture and, even though Karl Barth takes exception to the expression, we may still rightly affirm that whilst sola fide constitutes the material principle of the Reformation, sola Scriptura is its formal principle. Luther’s “illumination” as he calls it in his Table Talk, or his “inspiration” as Schwarz prefers to denominate it (The Problems of Biblical Translation, p. 169)—that is, his God-given insight into the meaning of Romans 1:17—transformed the whole Bible for him and supplied his overall interpretative clue. His ratiocinative process is evident. As Schwarz has put it: “The meaning of one passage had been revealed to him. He therefore had received the true understanding of this one verse. Holy Writ, being God’s revelation, must of necessity be a unity and its contents be in agreement. It is therefore permissible, or even necessary, to interpret the Bible in accordance with Romans 1:17, if the true meaning of this verse has been revealed” (ibid.). Luther’s entire exegetical output stems from this comprehension, which he recognizes as a gift from God. “I have not dared nor am I able to boast of anything but the Word of truth which the Lord has given me” (Lenker Ed., Vol. II, p. 429).

Scripture Its Own Interpreter

Let us now seek to elaborate some of Luther’s hermeneutical principles arising from his watchwords of sola Scriptura and sola fide. The first is crystallized in the now celebrated phrase Scriptura sui ipsius interpres (W.A. Vol. VII, p. 97). “That is the true method of interpretation,” he says, “which puts Scripture alongside of Scripture in a right and proper way” (Philadelphia Edition (P.E.), Vol. III, p. 334). He seeks to apply the comparative method by setting one portion of the Word beside another and allowing the plainer texts to illuminate the more obscure, as Origen and Augustine had suggested. Luther was convinced of the basic clarity of Scripture. He refused to regard it as a closed book to all but experts. He was persuaded that the humblest believer might read it with spiritual understanding. It was this conviction that led Luther to undertake the translation of the Bible into German—perhaps his greatest monument still. In his Letter on Translating he tells us that his aim was to render the divine message in the language of “the mother in the home, the children on the street, the common man in the market place” (P.E. Vol. V, p. 15). “There is not on earth a book more lucidly written than the Holy Scripture,” he declared. “Compared with all other books, it is as the sun compared with all other lights” (Comm.Ps. 37).

The Word Itself Is Clear

Luther does not deny that some passages of Scripture are hard to understand. But they are so, he argues, “not because they are too high for us, but because of our ignorance of words and grammar” hence his insistence upon a knowledge of the original tongues. But Luther further distinguishes between the intelligibility of the contents of Scripture (evidentia rerum) and the clarity of words (claritas verborum) through which the revealed content is communicated. Mysteries there will always be, for frail reason can never climb up into the divine majesty. The things of God (res Dei) will always be in part incomprehensible to the human mind, but the things of Scripture (res Scripturae) are always clear. Nevertheless, all essential doctrines and precepts are plain to every believer.

Luther does not approve the indiscriminate concatenation of Bible texts without due respect to their meaning and context. He was aware that heretics were fond of such proof, as Irenaeus had complained. “Heretofore I have held that where something was to be proved by the Scriptures,” says Luther, “the Scriptures quoted must really refer to the point at issue. I learn now that it is enough to throw many passages together helter skelter whether they are fit or not. If this is to be the way, then I can easily prove from the Scriptures that beer is better than wine” (W.A. Vol. VI, p. 301). The exegete must keep in view the total teaching of Scripture. “It behoves the theologian, if he would avoid error, to have regard to the whole of Scripture, and compare contraries with contraries” (Opera Latina, Vol. III).

Luther strongly insists upon the primacy of the literal sense. He resolutely sets aside all the verbal jugglery involved in multiple interpretation and firmly takes his stand upon the plain and obvious significance of the Word. “The literal sense of Scripture alone,” he asserts, “is the whole essence of faith and Christian theology” (quoted in F. W. Farrar History of Interpretation, p. 327). And again, “If we wish to handle Scripture aright, our sole effort will be to obtain the one simple, seminal and certain literal sense” (ibid.).

Principles Of Exegesis

Luther believes that every portion of Scripture can be interpreted “in a simple, direct and indisputable way” (P.E. Vol. I, p. 320). He prefers to speak of the grammatical and historical rather than of the literal sense, and fearlessly advances it in the face of his opponents. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his controversy with Jerome Emser, secretary to Duke George of Saxony and Court Chaplain, whom he addressed as the Leipzig Goat. As Steimle has noted, “Luther goes straight to the fundamental difference between them, the sole authority of Holy Scripture in matters of faith and the right exposition of Scripture according to its grammatical sense. Over against Emser’s position, that he would fight with the sword (i.e. the word of Scripture), but that he would not permit it to remain in the scabbard of the word sense, but use the naked blade of the spiritual secret sense, Luther, in the most important section of his answer, under the subtitle ‘The Letter and the Spirit,’ utters the foundation principles of Protestant exegesis” (P.E. Vol. III, pp. 279–280).

But with Luther this is clearly a preference and not an exclusion. Although he urges the primacy of the literal sense, it cannot be said that to sola Scriptura he adds the further principle sola historica sententia, as B. A. Gerrish claims in a recent article (Scottish Journal of Theology, December 1957, p. 346). Indeed the latter goes on to admit that Luther allowed the use of allegory, not as proof, but as ornament and in accordance with the analogia fidei which would accommodate it to Christ, the Church, faith and the ministry of the Word (W.A. Vol. XLII, p. 377). In effect, as Professor Aland brings out, Luther does concede a double meaning of Scripture, just as there is a double obscurity—an outward meaning obtained by the help of the Word and another that lies in the knowledge of the heart. That is why Luther lays so much stress upon the understanding of Scripture by faith. We must feel the words of Scripture in the heart, he says. “Experience is necessary for the understanding of the Word. It is not merely to be repeated or known, but to be lived and felt” (W.A. Vol. XLII, p. 195). Thus, although he is staunchly opposed to all the ‘monkey tricks’ (Affenspielen) of unbridled allegorization, he nevertheless admits a significance in Scripture beyond the strictly literal. The Lutheran dogmaticians elaborated this unsystematized insight into a distinction between the external and internal forma of Scripture. Quenstedt defined it thus: “We must distinguish between the grammatical and outer meaning of the Divine Word and the spiritual, inner and Divine meaning of the Divine Word. The first is the forma of the Word of God insofar as it is a word, the latter is its forma insofar as it is a Divine Word. The first can be grasped even by any unregenerate man, the latter, however, cannot be received except by a mind which has been enlightened” (Theologia, Vol. I, p. 56).

Christ The Key To Scripture

Luther’s interpretation of Scripture is at once Christocentric and Christological. It is Christocentric in that he regards Christ as the heart of the Bible. “Take Christ out of the Scripture and what more is there to find in it?” he asks Erasmus. “Scripture must be interpreted to mean nothing else but that man is nothing, Christ is all” (cf. E. C. Blackman, Biblical Interpretation, p. 117). Christ is “the sun and the truth in Scripture” (W.A. Vol. III, p. 643). Scripture contains “nothing but Christ and the Christian faith” (W.A. Vol. VIII, p. 236). And that assertion obtains for the Old Testament as well as for the New. “Here you will find the swaddling clothes and the manger in which Christ lies. Simple and small are the swaddling clothes, but dear is the treasure Christ that lies in them” (P.E. Vol. VI, p. 368). It might be said, as Blackman suggests, that for Luther Christ is both the literal and the spiritual sense of Scripture and that these two are one in Him (Op. cit., p. 120).

That leads us on to examine the Christological approach of Luther to Scripture, which is determinative for his whole hermeneutical programme. Luther’s recognition of the dual nature of Scripture is one of his most relevant insights. But its precise definition must be carefully observed. He realizes that Scripture is both human and divine, but he does not thereby open the door to the suggestion of fallibility. For he draws a deliberate analogy between Scripture and the person of Christ, between the Word written and the Word incarnate. Orthodox theology enjoins us to hold in tension the humanity and divinity of our Lord. We have to confess that He was both fully man and fully God. It is a heresy to deny either. Docetism erred in overlooking His humanity; Psilanthropism erred in denying His divinity. The same sort of problem confronts us in the Bible: namely, the reconciliation of the divine and human elements of the Word. Luther would insist that just as the accepted doctrine of Christ’s person, as expressed in the Chalcedonian formula, requires us to believe in the two natures of our Lord “without confusion, without mutation, without division, without separation,” so also we should recognize the twofold nature of Scripture and hold both to its full humanity and its full divinity. “The Church must devlop its doctrine of the Scriptures,” says Emil Brunner, “on the same lines as the doctrine of the two natures. The Bible shares in the glory of the Divinity of Christ and in the lowliness of His humanity” (Revelation and Reason, p. 276). Luther would concur. But he would not therefore draw the unconvincing conclusion that Brunner does from his assertion, when he writes elsewhere: “Naturally, the Scripture is an historical document written by men and, to that extent, also participating in the frailty of all that is human, in the relativity of all that is historical. Men must first have forgotten what to come in the flesh, to become historical, meant, to be able to set up a doctrine of an infallible Bible book” (Der Protestantismus der Gegenwart, p. 254: cited in Inspiration and Interpretation, ed. J. W. Walvoord, p. 230). As Dr. Paul K. Jewett, who has recently submitted Brunner’s conception of revelation and inspiration to critically penetrating analysis, points out with compelling pertinence, “what Brunner nowhere makes clear is why this dualism, which renders impossible an infallibly written revelation, is no barrier to an infallible personal revelation in Christ” (Emil Brunner’s Conception of Revelation, p. 165). Luther, on the other hand, presses the analogy between the Incarnation and the nature of Scripture to its logical limit in what we have called his Christological approach. The human element of Scripture is no more liable to error than was the human nature of Christ. It is within the sanctions imposed by such a principle that the whole of Luther’s hermeneutics moved.

This short survey of a great body of sound hermeneutrical material may at least serve to underline the pivotal significance of Luther’s biblical interpretation and its relevance to current discussions. Well does Dr. Robert M. Grant in The Bible and the Church claim that Luther’s contribution in this sphere has “permanent value for the interpretation of Scripture.… Today the reviving theological interpretation of the Bible must look back to him” (p. 117), And we are witnessing this return in strength.

END

A. Skevington Wood has served many Methodist pastorates in Scotland and England, last among these the superintendency of Paisley Central Hall from 1951–57. He holds the B.A. degree from University of London and the Ph.D. from University of Edinburgh where he majored in Church History.

According to the Report of this year’s Lambeth Conference, “the vast majority of people in the Anglican Communion, while rejecting the crudities of the medieval conceptions of purgatory, are quite sure that the fact of death does not remove the need for and the appropriateness of praying for the departed that God will fulfill his perfect will in them; and that such prayer is both natural and right.” If this is really so, then we certainly would not feel disposed to dispute the Report’s further assertion that “there is evidently need for a fresh study from the Bible of the whole question.”

Last year saw the publication in London of the Report of a select committee of the Church of India, Pakistan, Burma, and Ceylon entitled Principles of Prayer Book Revision. The compilers of this Report (which is not without its virtues) seek to justify the inclusion in their Church’s proposed new Prayer Book of prayers for the departed on the grounds of sentiment: in particular, “the instinct of natural piety—or Christian charity—which rebels against the idea that those whom we have loved enough during their earthly pilgrimage to have them regularly in our prayers must be excluded from them because they have died.” This, we are assured, “amounts to a recognition that the ruthless surgery of the Reformers in excising all prayer for the departed from the Prayer Book, however much it may have been justified in the sixteenth century, is no longer tolerable, now that the more flagrant abuses connected with the Romish doctrine of Purgatory have ceased to be a threat to true religion.”

It is misleading, however, to speak of the Reformers as having practised “ruthless surgery” in this matter. In point of fact, the decision to exclude all prayers for the departed was reached only gradually, as is shown by the fact that such prayer was still to be found in the first (1549) Prayer Book of Edward VI, and was finally excluded only in the second (1552) book. The reason for this exclusion was not merely the abuses of Rome, but primarily the conviction, reached through a close study of Holy Scripture, that prayer for the dead is altogether without sanction in God’s Word. This being so, in the interests of truth, the fathers of the Reformation could not permit themselves to be governed by sentiment.

It is, moreover, unwise, not to say dangerous, to allow sentiment, however pious, to dictate what is and what is not legitimate in Christian worship. On this basis, all teaching concerning God’s wrath and judgment should be expunged and universalism embraced, and the cross of Christ evacuated of its holy moral force. Natural piety is then elevated to a saving virtue.

To imagine that doctrine can be divorced from practice is also thoroughly unrealistic. The Report, however, in acknowledging that the inclusion of such prayers “involves a change of Anglican practice,” adds that “it does not necessarily follow from this admission that it involves a change of doctrine.” In view of the fact that it was on doctrinal grounds that prayers for the dead were originally excluded, it is difficult to see how their introduction can fail to involve a change of doctrine.

The doctrine of the New Testament is plain enough, namely, (1) that those who have died in unbelief are past praying for, since they are on the farther side of that great gulf which none may cross over (Lk. 16:26; cf. Heb. 9:27); and (2) that those who have fallen asleep in the Lord are now with Christ (Phil. 1:23), at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:7), and therefore not in need of our prayers. In Holy Scripture, which contains so many exhortations to prayer, the silence concerning prayer for the dead is not merely significant, it is conclusive. Had Christ and his Apostles approved the practice, it is certainly strange that it should not have been commended in a passage such as 1 Thess. 4:13 ff. where Paul is writing expressly “concerning them that fall asleep.” Here, as elsewhere, however, the teaching of calm and confident assurance regarding the well-being and security of those who fall asleep in Christ only serves to show how incongruous prayer for the dead is in the scriptural view of things.

The complete silence of the Apostolic Fathers regarding this practice must also be taken into account. To say that “from the middle of the second century onwards there is irrefutable, nay overwhelming, testimony from the catacombs and other Christian epitaphs of the Christian belief that the prayers of the living avail for the dead” does not demonstrate the correctness of the practice, for it is well-known that from the second century onwards many false beliefs and practices gained currency, and even in some cases official sanction, within the Church. Shades of Tract XC rise before us when we read that Article XXII of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the English Church, while condemning the Romish doctrine of purgatory, “leaves it open to Anglicans to believe that some other form of purification may await redeemed but imperfect souls after death”! The New Testament knows no other means of purification from sin than the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7). By his one offering Christ has perfected forever those who are sanctified (Heb. 10:14).

“The only purgatory wherein we must trust to be saved,” says the Anglican Homily concerning Prayer, “is the death and blood of Christ; which if we apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, it purgeth and cleanseth us from all our sins, even as well as if He were now hanging upon the cross.… This then is that purgatory wherein all Christian men must put their whole trust and confidence, nothing doubting but, if they truly repent them of their sins, and die in perfect faith, that then they shall forthwith pass from death to life. If this kind of purgation will not serve them, let them never hope to be released by other men’s prayers, though they should continue therein unto the world’s end.… Let us not therefore dream either of purgatory, or of prayer for the souls of them that be dead; but let us earnestly and diligently pray for kings and rulers, for ministers of God’s holy word and sacraments, for the saints of this world, otherwise called the faithful, to be short, for all men living.”

The true Christian attitude regarding the faithful departed is thus one of joy and complete confidence, knowing that for them to die is gain (Phil. 1:21), and that those who have died in the Lord are indeed blessed (Rev. 14:13). So far, then, from being a gain to the Church, prayer for the dead brings in a note of doubt and uncertainty concerning the bliss and well-being of those who have fallen asleep in Christ, and thus tends to rob the believer of one of the most precious emphases of Holy Scripture. It is a practice which dishonours Christ and the fulness, perfection, and sufficiency of his work of redemption for us sinners.

Exposition And Doctrine

Luther’s Works, Vol. 1, Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5, translated by George V. Schick (Concordia, 1958, 387 pp., $5), is reviewed by F. R. Webber, author of A History of Preaching.

Here is the first of a set of 55 good sized volumes that may well be one of the most significant publication projects of our generation. Several volumes have appeared recently, and others will be released at the rate of four a year.

There have been many editions of Luther’s collected writings, such as Weimar, 80 vols.; Wittenberg, 19 vols., Jena, 15 vols.; Altenberg, 11 vols.; Leipzig, 23 vols.; Walch, 24 vols.; Erlangen-Frankfurt, 102 vols.; Lenker, 13 vols.; St. Louis, 23 vols.; Holman, 6 vols. and Calwer, 6 vols. Of these, Weimar is by far the most scholarly. Most of these are in Latin and German. Single volumes are so numerous that the listing fills 105 double column pages, set in the smallest of type, in the British Museum’s 1946 catalogue.

The new 55-volume edition of Luther’s collected writings is an effort to make Luther speak in idiomatic English. They are based upon the Weimar edition of 1883 ff., whose 80 volumes, each the size of a pulpit Bible, fill eight shelves of standard public library size.

Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5, will prove a revelation to readers who think of Luther as a defiant man, who shook his fist at popes and councils, and challenged them to prove their arguments by means of clear Scripture verses. In this series of expository lectures we meet with a genial Luther in his peaceful lecture room at Wittenberg University, with a Hebrew Bible before him, explaining the text in simple, winsome language.

Luther’s expositions of Genesis began on June 3, 1535 and ended January 18, 1544. They were delivered in Latin. Having reached Genesis 50:26, Luther laid aside his Latin notes and said: “Das ist nu der liebe Genesis. Unser Herr Gott geb, dases andere nach mir besser machen.” He died February 18, 1546, at the age of 63.

Luther expounded Genesis in Latin, verse by verse and word by word. Points of grammar are mentioned only when necessary to make the meaning clear, and there is no effort at display of his knowledge of Hebrew. The first dozen pages of Genesis 1–5 may prove unfamiliar ground to the reader, for Luther presents a summary of the curious notions of the universe, as taught by the philosophers of his day. Except for these opening pages, the style is delightfully simple and clear.

Luther wasted no time with speculation. He was convinced that the heavens and the earth were created just as the inspired words of Moses state, and that the entire work of creation, in which Father, Son and Holy Ghost all participated, was finished in six days. He admits again and again that there are details which he cannot understand, but he says, “I, therefore, take my reason captive and subscribe to the Word, even though I do not understand it” (p. 26).

The expositions of Genesis are more than a verse-by-verse commentary. Luther includes much doctrinal teaching: the Holy Trinity, the origin of all created things, the sin of Adam and its transmission to the entire human race, the deterioration of mankind and of all other created things because of sin, and the gracious plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. He mentions the redeeming work of the Saviour again and again. As a commentary the book is exegetical, doctrinal, devotional, homiletical and practical, and always in simple language that reads easily. A sample of Luther’s style may prove of interest:

“Now here, too, a sea of questions arises. Inquisitive people ask why God permitted Satan to tempt Eve. Furthermore, why Satan waylaid Eve through the serpent rather than through a different animal. But who can supply the reason for the things that he sees the Divine Majesty has permitted to happen? Why do we not rather learn with Job that God cannot be called to account and cannot be compelled to give us the reason for everything He does or permits to happen? Why do we not likewise register a complaint with God because the earth does not produce plants and because the trees are not green throughout the year? I am fully convinced that in Paradise there would have been perpetual spring without any winter, without snow or frosts, such as we have today after sin. But these are all things under the divine power and will. To know this is enough. Besides, it is wicked curiosity to investigate these problems in greater detail. Therefore let us, who are clay in His hands, cease to discuss such questions. Let us not sit in judgment on our God; let us rather be judged by Him” (p. 144).

The translator of the first volume of Luther’s Works is the Rev. Dr. George V. Schick, professor of Hebrew and Old Testament interpretation at Concordia Theological Seminary, St. Louis. Born in Chicago, Dr. Schick has studied at Johns Hopkins, Leipzig and Berlin. He taught Oriental history at Johns Hopkins, and later he taught Hebrew at Concordia College, Ft. Wayne, before taking up his present work at Concordia Seminary 20 years ago. He is author of two text books on biblical Hebrew, and served on the editorial board of the Lutheran Witness for 46 years.

Occasionally, in the other volumes of this series now in print (by other translators), the effort at idiomatic English is marred by clichés which seem strange in a serious theological or exegetical work. Fortunately these blemishes are rare, and they include such expressions as “he came up with,” “in this area,” and “on this level.” In a work of this scope, meaning, of course, the entire set of 55 volumes, which may become to the reader of English almost a Weimar edition, it might have proved more agreeable had the Authorized Version of 1611 been used uniformly throughout. The 1611 translation has survived about 500 revised Bibles and portions of Bibles, and it is difficult to believe that a version that translates logos as “expressed Himself” will prove more than a passing fad. Most of us can quote the 1611 version, and without the annoyance of having to explain our explanations. Our shelves of commentaries, concordances and numerous textual helps are based upon this version, and with its matchless beauty of language, it seems more in character with a 55-volume undertaking of Luther’s Works in English.

F. R. WEBBER

Women Of Scripture

She Shall be Called Woman by Frances Vander Velde (Grand Rapids International Publications, 258 pp., $2.95); and All of the Women of the Bible by Edith Deen (Harper, 410 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Norma Ellis, wife and mother in a Presbyterian Manse.

It may seem that there are enough books based upon the women of the Bible that another would have nothing new or fresh to offer. But Mrs. Vander Velde, in gathering together these materials, which have been used in many study groups, has now offered for wider use a “gallery of character sketches” that deserve commendation.

Mrs. Vander Velde discloses in her Preface that she has had the “pleasure to become intimately acquainted with these women” and she succeeds in sharing this intimacy. In her book, 31 women-saints and sinners become flesh and blood. She presents enough background to disclose the problems they faced and the emotions they experienced. Then, by awaking an interest and by posing a number of pointed questions after each woman’s life, she presents the challenge to search the Scriptures further.

These “Suggestions for Discussion” contain, in addition to questions bearing directly on the Scripture, questions calculated to cause the reader to evaluate the behavior or motive of these Bible characters and sometimes of contemporary Christendom. This practical application, appropriate particularly to women, is what chiefly makes this book excellent for study and discussion groups.

Mrs. Vander Velde’s own unquestioning belief in the Bible as the inspired Word of God gives the book the ring of certainty. At one point, however, one wishes she were less dogmatic with reference to a question upon which conservative scholars do not take a united stand: namely, her identity of Salome, wife of Zebedee, as the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

A second study book on women of the Bible is All of the Women of the Bible by Edith Deen. Anyone desiring to do serious study on the women of the Bible would of necessity consult this book. It is unique in its field because of its completeness.

Mrs. Deen groups all of the women of the Bible in various sections and then has a helpful index. Her book contains “316 concise biographies, including 25 searching studies of women in the foreground, more than 125 shorter sketches of named women and more than 125 sketches of nameless women in the background.” The sketches vary in length from 12 pages to one sentence. Among the short ones are found such women as the nurse who let Mephibosheth fall and a silly woman mentioned in 2 Timothy 3:6, 7.

Unlike Mrs. Vander Velde’s book, this one presents arguments from several points of view, by no means all conservative. In her discussion concerning Salome, for instance, she speaks of her son John in this wise: “He may have written the Fourth Gospel, though some scholars question this.”

Edith Deen is well known as a writer and commentator on women’s affairs. Several years ago she ran a series of articles in her newspaper column on “Great Women of the Bible.” It was the tremendous response to this series that led into further research, in which her Mayor husband joined, resulting in this book.

Although it lacks the ring of personal conviction that attracts the Christian reader to Mrs. Vander Velde’s book, its fine presentation and the extensive research that went into it cause it to be very valuable for the church or pastor’s library.

NORMA R. ELLIS

Episcopal Conclusions At Miami Beach

In a lush tropical setting which Cranmer and Ridley would have associated with privateers and Spanish gold, the 59th triennial General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, meeting October 5–17, concluded an eventful second week which saw debate upon upon many a lively issue.

In Miami Beach’s opulent, new Deauville Hotel, which would surely have raised the eyebrows of St. Francis, the sight of Episcopal monks and nuns, vowed to poverty, had to seem incongruous. But lifting eyes beyond the million-dollar strand, the House of Deputies, composed of clerical and lay delegates, and the House of Bishops moved to dig ecumenical gold in India.

The issue was whether to follow the lead of five other churches of the Anglican Communion in allowing limited intercommunion with the Church of South India (formed in 1947 through merger of Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational groups), as recommended by the Convention’s ecumenical commission. This involved recognition of the bishops, presbyters, and deacons consecrated or ordained in the CSI (this is done episcopally) “at or after the inauguration of that Church as true bishops, priests and deacons in the Church of God.” Included were conditions under which these officers may officiate in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The resolutions passed the House of Bishops with only mild debate, but certain of the deputies, mostly of Anglo-Catholic persuasion, gave them a rough ride for more than three hours. The CSI had been referred to in some quarters as a heretical sect, and a waiting period of some 20 years for observation was urged. Debaters argued the withholding of Episcopal gifts of “holy orders” and the “ancient Catholic faith” on grounds of avoiding both schism in their own church and further impediments to “reunion with Rome.”

Supporters of the resolutions countered that the proposed action would strengthen both the Catholic (non-Roman) cause in strategic India, as well as serve toward reuniting the “fragmented body of Christ.” The resolutions passed with much greater ease than had been expected, with but minor modifications.

In this country conversations were to continue between Episcopalians and the Methodist Church toward possible intercommunion, though some said the talks had proven pointless. One priest observed privately that talks with Presbyterians had failed because of lack of doctrinal discipline by Presbyterians in ordaining ministers. “How much more the Methodists?” he exclaimed. (Certain Methodists and other churchmen voiced displeasure at an Episcopal commission report which cited biblical support in giving approval to social drinking “in moderation.”)

Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill predicted a coming church unity which would embrace even the Roman Catholic church. In regard to Episcopal interest in Latin America as a mission field, the Right Rev. Horace W. B. Donegan, Bishop of New York, stated, “Our church has no desire to win converts from Roman Catholicism, nor has it any plan to do so.” But he also said that Episcopalianism has a strong appeal to Latin Americans who wish to hold to apostolic order but also desire a church which “stands for evangelical truth.”

It had already been pointed out that the Anglican policy of not proselytizing from the ancient eastern churches in the Middle East was in contrast to the practice of American Presbyterianism. (The Protestant Episcopal Church gives financial aid to Eastern Orthodox churches.)

A petition suggesting that the National Council of Churches may become a “Protestant Vatican” or “super-church” was repudiated by the bishops. Another petition objected to expressions of disbelief in the Virgin Birth and Resurrection found in certain independent Episcopal publications such as W. Norman Pittenger’s The Episcopal Way of Life. A committee expressed the opinion that the “constant … use of the historic creeds” throughout the church “should reassure and hearten the petitioners.” California’s Bishop James A. Pike had said earlier that the movement toward biblical fundamentalism in some quarters of the Anglican Communion was not a problem here.

The bishops thwarted a move by the deputies to set up a special commission for revision of the Book of Common Prayer which would involve “considering the faith and doctrine of the church.”

The deputies voted confidence in the church’s Sunday School literature—the Seabury Series—but only after hearing a minority call for more reliance upon historic doctrines than upon “group dynamics and existential philosophy.” Speaking of the minister’s ordination vows to teach what is in the Book of Common Prayer, Maryland’s respected Dr. Don Frank Fenn said, “The church hasn’t aided loyal clergy for a long time.”

In other action, a resolution was passed recording strong opposition to capital punishment; a perennial proposal to allow women to serve in the House of Deputies was defeated; and a move to tighten rules for marriage annulments and thus restrict remarriage of divorced persons was defeated.

Exhilaration over the adoption of a record budget was dulled when churchmen found that in relation to the cost of living they had only now climbed back to their 1929 level. Known as comprising one of the wealthiest memberships in American Protestantism, they heard their church compared unfavorably with other denominations as to its stewardship. With more than three times the membership of the Southern Presbyterian church, their missionary giving is less. “We have been caring for ourselves first,” they were told. Thus delegates were presumably surprised to hear Australian Lord Bishop Ian Shevill thank them for giving to Australia their “gift of stewardship teaching,” tithing being “a revolutionary conception” in the Anglican world outside America. (The Protestant Episcopal Church has been taking over support for certain missionary work from the Church of England.)

Other missionary items: Episcopal women distinguished themselves with a thank offering of $3,869,985 (for missions), collected over the past three years; a unique missionary project was voted in the form of a gift of a nuclear reactor to the Episcopal Church in Japan, to be used for educational and medical purposes by St. Paul’s University in Tokyo; and the “missionary districts” of Arizona and North Texas were voted the status of self-supporting dioceses.

Bishop Donegan brought the sobering report that some parishes had produced no candidate for the priesthood in fifty years and that surveys had shown the majority of students in some Episcopal seminaries to have been converted on college campuses rather than having been brought up in the church.

One resolution noted that large sums of money had been spent for the “luxuries” of the last two convention sites (1955 site: Honolulu). Detroit was selected for 1961.

The Episcopal Convention is more leisurely-paced than many other ecclesiastical conventions, one explanation being that the governing done through the church’s National Council and dioceses keep the General Convention from being as integral to the life of the church as conventions of certain other churches.

The Miami Beach gathering formed the valediction for the able Bishop Sherrill—he of the ready wit and constant facility for the right word—retiring at the mandatory age of 68 after 12 years as presiding bishop. He was presented with a gift of $45,000 and had the pleasure of seeing his son the Rev. Edmund Knox Sherrill elected missionary bishop of Central Brazil.

A $15,000 annual salary was voted to provide an executive assistant for Presiding Bishop-elect Arthur C. Lichtenberger (for election, see October 27 issue).

Florida Governor LeRoy Collins, addressing his fellow Episcopalians, called upon non-extremists of the nation to produce a constructive plan for solution of racial conflicts. The bishops voted for an antisegregation resolution which was blocked by the deputies, who passed the substitute “Virginia Resolution,” dropping the call for an end to racial separation in favor of a plea for elimination of all spirit of racial discrimination. But both houses condemned “civil disobedience” in connection with public school desegregation. Afterward, a priest said, “Ours was the only major denomination which did not divide in Civil War days. It’s easy for northern denominations to pass high-flown race resolutions, for they don’t have to grapple with the issues in the same way.”

The close of the convention saw the reading of the “Pastoral Letter of the House of Bishops,” written against the background of the recent Lambeth Conference which had been attended by ninety-one members of the House.

Seeing in the race problem yet another harmful division of mankind, the bishops asserted the supremacy of reason over emotion for solution. Their concluding exhortation: “Care for your souls, brethren, amid the passions and prejudices of our day, and remember that truth alone is strong.”

F. F.

Christian Medicos

The Christian Medical Society is planning an “International Medical Missionary Convention” for the end of 1959.

At their last meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, society directors voted to proceed with plans for the convention as a “forum for expression of purpose and needs for medical missions.”

The society embraces 2,000 physicians, dentists, medical and dental students and medical school faculty members as well as more than 350 medical missionaries overseas.

Disciples And Ecumenism

“Ecumenicity” was the major concern of some 10,000 Disciples of Christ at the 1958 International Assembly of the Convention of Christian Churches in St. Louis, October 17–22.

This emphasis on Christian unity was nothing new for Disciples. Since Thomas Campbell wrote his prophetic Declaration and Address in 1809, his followers have ardently propagated the idea that the church is “essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one” and consists of all those in every place who are obedient to Christ according to the Scriptures and manifest the same by their tempers and conduct.

They have differed as to the visible and the invisible church, spiritual and organic unity, and methods of achieving unity; but they have with one accord insisted that a divided church is a sin and that their chief mission is to help answer Christ’s prayer in John 17.

At St. Louis the ecumenical thrust was in the now well-known pattern of the National and World Councils of Churches. The International Convention is a member of both bodies and has contributed largely to their personnel and their policy-making groups.

The United Christian Missionary Society, largest agency reporting to the convention, made it clear that it is abandoning denominational evangelistic policy in the foreign mission field and will participate enthusiastically in the new ecumenical policy of “world mission” promoted by World Council leaders. The UCMS reported 244 missionaries and 2,183 national workers in full-time service in 11 mission fields. A new all-time total of $5,537,784 was expended in its program. Nearly 10,000 baptisms were reported.

A year ago at their Cleveland convention Disciples passed a resolution looking toward the possibility of a merger with the newly-formed United Church of Christ (Congregational-Evangelical and Reformed). Dr. Fred Hoskins of the UCC was a guest of the St. Louis assembly. He was warmly received and Disciples passed a strong resolution urging continued explorations in this project.

No new churches will be established by Disciples without the consent of their ecumenical friends. The program of the UCMS Division of Home Missions and Christian Education is completely integrated with that of the councils of churches. The Board of Church Extension with its huge financial resources (approaching $25,000,000) is cooperating in this ecumenical evangelistic plan.

Higher education within the framework of the Convention is moving toward close cooperation with the Council of Protestant Colleges, an NCC-motivated agency, although a few colleges are lukewarm. Campus youth activities are also being consolidated under the Campus Christian Life program of the NCC. Despite the prosperity of Disciples colleges in other areas (they expended more than 16 million dollars last year) there is an alarming dearth of youth in training for full-time Christian service. Dr. Harlie L. Smith, secretary of the national education board, said that “at present fewer than one-fourth of our college-age young people are in college, and about one in fifteen of these is preparing for a vocation in the church.”

The “social gospel” has ardent supporters in the UCMS Department of Social Welfare and the “extra-curricular” Disciples Peace Fellowship. Their left-wing doctrines were vigorously advocated at St. Louis and were reflected in resolutions passed by the Convention. The assembly advocated income tax deductions for contributions to the United Nations Investment for Peace and opposed further U. S. military conscription.

Universal disarmament, suspension of nuclear weapons tests and other resolutions of the usual “ecumenical line” were approved. There was a rumbling in the lobbies against some of these actions of the Convention but opposition on the floor was deemed useless. One pastor said, “I wouldn’t dare tell my people what we did.”

The assembly authorized the Board of Directors of the Convention to set up a committee for the restudy of the organizational life of the whole brotherhood of Disciples looking toward revolutionary changes for the future. Evidently this involves the whole problem of the place Disciples will occupy in the new ecumenical era.

The address of Dr. Edwin T. Dahlberg, president of the National Council of Churches, marked the ecumenical climax of the assembly. Under the spell of the occasion he suggested that the ecumenical movement should go “even beyond the boundaries of the Christian religion. He proposed an International Spiritual Year in which a congress of religions might be held. Dr. Dahlberg expressed a wish to see “the coming together of Jewish, Protestant and Catholic leaders, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu and other leaders to work for that peace and understanding among men which somehow our political leaders have failed to achieve.” He congratulated Disciples on taking advanced ground at St. Louis.

Absent from St. Louis were two other wings of the movement that had its inspiration in the Declaration and Address of Thomas Campbell—the locally autonomous Churches of Christ and Christian Churches that believe unity can only be achieved by “the restoration of the New Testament Church in doctrine, ordinances and life.” Their combined numerical strength exceeds two and a half million. Refusing to cooperate with councils of churches and maintaining an almost isolationist position in American Protestantism they constitute two of the most rapidly growing religious fellowships in America.

Spokesmen in an evidently well planned propaganda thrust for the “new ecumenical day” among Disciples were Dr. Alfred T. DeGroot of Texas Christian University and Dr. Ronald Osborn of the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis (formerly the College of Religion of Butler University). They paid high tribute to the fathers of the “restoration movement” but made it clear that the time had arrived for abandonment of “old paths.” They pointed out that changing patterns of the new ecumenical age and growth and maturity of the Disciples demanded a new interpretation of the old principles and a more adequate witness to the church and the world. They branded as virtual “subversion” a refusal to enter into serious ecumenical planning for “the joint concerns of the entire Body of Christ.” Along with the leaders of the UCMS, the Council of Agencies and the ICCC they called for “a more effective structure of coordination and cooperation” in the denomination’s life to accomplish new objectives “beyond 1960.” The specific nature of this revolutionary change was not spelled out at St. Louis, but it was sufficiently envisioned to cause rejoicing among liberals and engender grave doubts among conservatives.

The mass Communion service on the Lord’s Day when over 8,000 participated was a spiritual highlight of the assembly. Tables in the form of a huge cross occuped the main floor of Kiel Auditorium. Hundreds of deacons waited on the audience after elders had conducted an elaborate liturgical service.

Dr. John Paul Pack, pastor of University Christian Church, Seattle, was elected president of the Convention for the ensuing year. Dr. Gaines M. Cook was reelected as executive secretary.

Denver will be the scene of the next national gathering.

J. D. M.

Charlotte Epilogue

As one sits in the capacious, modern Charlotte Coliseum and watches Billy Graham preach to great throngs of inhabitants of the “Queen City of the Carolinas,” Graham’s home town, he may find himself musing upon the restrictive words found in all four Gospels—“A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.…”

This principle had been thrown up to Graham by local newsmen upon his arrival, and the evangelist had confessed he was entering the crusade with “fear and trembling” at the thought of preaching to his friends and acquaintances. But though there are many of these, they constitute a very small percentage of Charlotte’s present population. A small city by present standards, Charlotte would have seemed a teeming metropolis in first-century Palestine. And Graham’s Charlotte citizenship is one more of memory and loyalty than of fact. Dairy farmer Frank Graham declared that his famous son had left home some twenty years ago and had never since returned for a stay of any duration.

But if most of the populace does not know Graham personally, they know about him and seem grateful for the fame he has brought to their city. Their crusade support appears to indicate this.

The name of Charlotte does not have the ring of a Hong Kong or a San Francisco nor does it conjure up visions of greatness invoked by New York and London. Indeed, the Harringay habitué would probably ask the location. But though Charlotte is the smallest city to host a Graham crusade since the evangelist’s European and world tours, which found him meeting with crowned heads and prime ministers, the Graham team looks on the Carolina crusade as being in many ways the most fruitful of them all. Church cooperation was unprecedented. And as the campaign was breaking Coliseum attendance marks, the percentage of decisions for Christ was setting a record as the highest ever seen in a Graham crusade—this in the paradoxical setting of a perhaps unparalleled civic ratio of church membership (96%) coupled with a high rate of crime.

Response to the crusade surpassed Graham’s expectations, but not his only. Said the Rev. W. Kenneth Goodson, minister of the 4300-member First Methodist Church, “The crusade has made a tremendous impact. It has not been spiritual theatrics at all. It has been big business for Christ. I think that many ministers will testify that the results have been far beyond anything we ever imagined when we invited Billy Graham.” If Charlotte liked Billy Graham, the affection was reciprocated. Though he is more of a world citizen today, the evangelist spoke of his love for Charlotte and the long preparation for this crusade. “This is my home—where I was born and reared.” Perhaps he sensed responsibility toward it as “his Jerusalem” (Acts 1:8). “I’d give my life for this city,” he said.

In speaking of the exclusiveness of Christ’s claims, he said he “would not betray” his “friends and neighbors” in holding forth any hope for salvation apart from the Cross. And he emphasized, “It is hard to be a Christian. It costs something. The road is often lonely.”

But still they came, across what could be termed holy ground. Entering the inquiry room solemnly, they often emerged bright-eyed. Friends and relatives waited for them much as at a station. But these were not returning from Atlanta or Chicago. They had been to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Explaining, Graham speaks of the Holy Spirit and 3000 local prayer meetings.

There is another portion of Scripture which comes to mind as one sits in the Coliseum—“And he gave some … evangelists.…” Yes, he did.

F. F.

Crusade Windup

The climax of Billy Graham’s Carolinas evangelistic meetings came Sunday, October 26, when more than 60,000 persons assembled at Fort Jackson in suburban Columbia, South Carolina. The local steering committee shifted the rally site after Governor George Bell Timmerman twice protested plans to hold the meeting on State House grounds. Timmerman said Graham’s appearance on state property (1) “would violate the separation of church and state,” and (2) might be misinterpreted as an endorsement by South Carolina of nonsegregated meetings.

Among dignitaries at the Fort Jackson rally was James F. Byrnes, former South Carolina governor and one-time U. S. Secretary of State. Twelve hundred persons, including a number of Negroes, signed decision cards after the rally, one of the biggest ever held in the South.

The aggregate attendance for the five weeks of meetings at Charlotte Coliseum topped the 439,000 mark. There were more than 17,600 recorded decisions.

Hardiest Of Plants

“Too many people,” said Democratic Governor George M. Leader of Pennsylvania, feel that Christianity “is something of a hothouse plant incapable of surviving outside the hothouse.” “It seems wrong to me,” he added, to believe that Christianity cannot withstand “the temperature changes, the winds and hail and storms and frosts of the outside world … I think Christianity is the hardiest of plants and that it can be made to flourish just as well in the arena as in the conservatory.”

Thus did Leader address the opening session of the 39th quadrennial General Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church in Harrisburg, capital of Pennsylvania, the state he hoped to represent in the U. S. Senate next year.

The imaginary botanical challenge behind them, some 450 EUB delegates and 1,000 visitors went on to discuss more realistic issues like ecumenism, integration, and disarmament. Theological debate was inconsiderable.

The church’s Federation and Union Commission was authorized to enter discussions with the Methodist Commission on Church Union for “exploration of possible advantages and disadvantages” of merger. The commission was also directed to continue merger talks with the Church of the Brethren and “other denominations of kindred spirit.” The EUB Church was formed in 1946 by a merger of the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren. Its membership in the United States and Canada totals about 800,000.

A resolution strongly denounced the testing of nuclear weapons by any nation and urged world leaders to intensify efforts “to achieve a bold program for total universal disarmament.”

With only a few dissenting votes, delegates adopted another resolution which prohibits use of denominational facilities as public or private class rooms to avoid school integration. The resolution declared opposition to “all practices of racial segregation.” Also approved was a plan which provides for the appointment of EUB ministers from “other races as well as white” and which calls on the church’s constituents to welcome Negro residents in white communities. Of 4,277 EUB congregations, 120 are in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida.

Three new bishops were elected. Bishop W. Maynard Sparks was assigned to the Pacific area, Bishop Herman W. Kaebnick to the Eastern area, and Bishop Paul Herrick to the Central area. The church’s four other bishops remain.

People: Words And Events

Deaths: The Rev. George Bennard, 85, composer of “The Old Rugged Cross” and many other Gospel hymns, in Reed City, Michigan … Dr. Walter A. Baepler, 65, president of Concordia Theological Seminary, in Springfield, Illinois … the Rev. Clifford Harris Nash, 91, founder of the Melbourne, Australia, Bible Institute … Dr. T. O. F. Herzer, treasurer of Canadian Lutheran World Relief, in Winnipeg, Manitoba … Dr. George N. Anderson, 75, veteran missionary to East Africa, in Minneapolis.

Elections: As Bishop of the Southern District of the Hungarian Lutheran Church, the Rev. Zoltan Kaldy, (succeeding Bishop Lajos Ordass) … as full-time executive secretary of the Commission on Presbyterian Cooperation in Latin America, Dr. Rafael Cepeda … as youth department director of the Methodist General Board of Education, the Rev. Joseph W. Bell … as president of the United Student Christian Council, Allan J. Burry … as chairman of the Southern Baptist Brotherhood Commission, R. L. Sherrick … as board chairman of the Rural Bible Crusade National, the Rev. Hamilton Sinclair … as president of the Christian Writers Association of Canada, G. M. Bowman.

Appointments: As minister of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, Washington, D. C., the Rev. Richard C. Halverson, associate executive secretary of International Christian Leadership … as head of a staff to “develop a comprehensive strategy for public interpretation of the ecumenical movement and the National Council of Churches,” James W. Wine, vice president of Park College and a former lawyer and judge … as European secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, Erik Ruden, general secretary of the Baptist Union of Sweden.

Retirement: As Evangelical Lutheran Bishop of Iceland, Dr. Asmundur Gudmundsson.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY NEWS

When Mrs. Elisabeth Elliot and Miss Rachel Saint went to live with killer Auca Indians last month, they took along into the dense Ecuadorian jungle a six-pound transceiver. Upon arrival near the Aucas’ “Terminal City,” the missionary women radioed back, “Friendly welcome.”

The following story includes first impressions of life in a community of savages. With the missionaries was Mrs. Elliot’s four-year-old daughter, Valerie, and the 10 Aucas who had emerged from the jungles with a tribal invitation for the two white women. (For events leading up to this daring exploit, seeCHRISTIANITY TODAY, October 27, 1958.)

“I’m sitting in a tiny leaf shack by candlelight,” said Mrs. Elliot. “Millions of insects swarm. Valerie sings ‘Jesus Loves Me’ to a group of Aucas in a hut a few feet away, and my heart sings praise to God Almighty who only doeth wondrous things. Keep praising and praying.”

An initial report from Miss Saint on October 9 said:

“It was a sweet picture to round the bend in the river last Wednesday and see the roofs of the little thatched houses and the lovely bronzed Auca bodies gleaming in the sun.

“To be able to communicate was wonderful. I am well aware that potential danger exists, but whatever, the welcome could not have been more friendly.

“It seems the most natural thing in all the world to be here, a thing I have felt the Lord was leading me to over five years ago. Do pray that it will be workable and accomplish the Lord’s purpose.”

Both Mrs. Elliot and Miss Saint have a working knowledge of the Auca language. Miss Saint, trained as a linguist by Wycliffe Bible Translators, has been studying the native tongue with the aid of Dayuma, young Auca woman who fled her tribe 12 years ago and has since become the tribe’s first convert to Christianity.

The women’s radio reports were relayed to the outside world by Mrs. Marjorie Saint from Quito. Both Mrs. Elliot and Mrs. Saint are widows of the “Palm Beach” massacre in which five young missionary men died at the hands of lance-bearing Aucas. Miss Saint is a sister of one of the martyrs.

Missionary Aviation Fellowship set up regular flights to drop supplies to the missionary women. “Terminal City” is about 15 minutes flying time from Arajuno, closest missionary outpost. Shell Mera, linked to Quito by road, is another 20 minutes away by air.

Another report from Miss Saint:

“Dayuma’s mother has arrived, dressed in the dress Dayuma had made for her. A dear, characterful face, older than I thought she would be, trembling with sheer happiness. I guess she ran most of the way. Before evening was over she said, ‘You are star, you came down from the sky. You are my daughter, call me mother.’ She hasn’t stopped smiling for almost a whole day.

“Love to all of you who share our present joy and our increased potential of telling of Him whose we are and whom we serve.

“Little by little I try to sow seeds of God’s Word, but mostly I’m tuning in, trusting the Lord to give me wisdom beyond my own.”

Missionaries in Ecuador attached considerable significance to the fact that the 10 Aucas came out of the jungles with an invitation for Mrs. Elliot and Miss Saint. In talking to the 10 Aucas, the missionaries felt they were able to establish something of the motive behind the “Palm Beach” slayings.

It was learned that the Auca whom the five missionary men had dubbed “George” was actually the chief of the settlement. According to reports, “George,” after he had made seemingly friendly gestures to the missionaries, went back to his tribe and told them that the white men wanted to eat the Aucas. Apparently provoked, the tribesmen joined “George” in killing the five men. Subsequently “George” himself became too overbearing and was killed by his own people.

Up until the latest contacts, the Aucas reportedly have felt that the white people were “people eaters.”

THANKSGIVING FARCE

Pastor Peterson is down again with a severe reaction. He is allergic to American holidays. This time Thanksgiving has him in trouble. He was asked to prepare the pageant for the Harvest Home Festival, and all went well until Mrs. Patience Alden Strauss, chairwoman of the Festival Committee, saw the dress rehearsal.

The curtain parted on three Thanksgiving tableaux arranged across the stage: Pilgrims on the way to church; a picture window view of an American family at dinner; and the home team float in the parade of Mohawk Bowl for the Big Game.

The band played a medley of Come, Ye Thankful People, Come; Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here; and On, Wisconsin. Mrs. Strauss thought that this completed the pageant and was applauding delightedly when the action started. The Pilgrims came alive, walked out of the woods, and gaped at the picture window.

A wonderfully confusing scene followed in which the Pilgrims gradually concluded that help should be found to seize this family of irreligious, bewitched heathen and commit them to stocks. The modern Americans had meanwhile decided that these Pilgrim actors were overdoing it, and directed them to the Mohawk Bowl parade, under threat of calling the police.

When the Pilgrims encountered the yelling Indians on the float, they bravely grouped for self-defense, and held their fire until the Mohawks made a hilarious charge with lifted tomahawks.

How the pageant was to have ended I don’t know. One of the Pilgrims had put too much powder in Judge Ronson’s old muzzle loader, and when it went off everything seemed to go up in smoke. After Judy Trout had stopped screaming and someone brought aromatic spirits for Mrs. Strauss, Pastor Peterson tried to defend his satirical fantasy. Mrs. Strauss admitted that the awkwardness of having Pilgrim visitors on Thanksgiving had been cleverly suggested. She thought the dialogue witty in the dining room scene, and she especially approved Uncle George’s speech explaining to the Pilgrims why an American Thanksgiving is above creeds and church-going. But she was offended by the implications of the “slapstick farce” that Thanksgiving has lost contact with the Pilgrim tradition. Her ancestors came on the Mayflower. Peterson cancelled the pageant but wished that every “Thanksgiving” farce could be called off—or transformed!

CALL TO ACTION

Let us take a look at the cold facts concerning the achievements and success of the Eighteenth Amendment during the Prohibition Era of 1920–1932: The breweries, distilleries and 177,000 saloons (all of them) were closed; according to Dr. Irving Fisher, author of book and highest authority on liquor problems, the consumption of liquor was reduced between 70 and 80%; the nation’s wealth was increased by more than $40,000,000,000.00; the number of savings depositors increased from 10,000,000 to 50,000,000; the number of automobile owners leaped from 7,000,000 to 26,000,000; Keeley Institutes for cure of alcoholics were closed; many jails and prisons were completely emptied; enrollment in high schools increased 65%, in colleges 75%; Christian churches made a gain in membership of 10,000,000. This constituted the most prosperous decade, economically and morally, in our national history. Informed industrialists, economists, sociologists, and political and religious authorities recognized this as the greatest reform ever accomplished in history in a similar length of time. Yet these gigantic strides were made while enforcement of the law was in the hands of its enemies, a leading distiller and a national administration which used all their powers to nullify rather than enforce the law!

That prohibition was a failure is one of the most colossal and unscrupulous falsehoods ever propagated by the forces of evil, yet their slogan has been repeated so long and so often that many uniformed people believe it.… The Eighteenth Amendment placed in the Constitution after a century of costly effort by 46 of our states, has been torn from the heart of the Constitution by the most unscrupulous forces and ruthless methods ever known to history, and 40 million of our citizens in about one-third of our states have been disfranchised by taking away their natural constitutional right to vote on the liquor problem by Local Option. No! It is not necessary to go through the long, difficult and costly work of adopting another Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Prohibition is already there in the second section of the Twenty-first Amendment, from which we quote: “The transportation and importation into any state, territory or possession of the United States for the delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.”

All that is necessary is that patriotic Americans become indignant enough to fight to a finish the battle to win back their natural right to vote on the subject and that Congress change the laws of enforcement so that they would conform to the intention of the Constitution. The law is there—all we have to do is to elect candidates who will not perjure themselves by the violation of their oath to “Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution,” but who will enforce its provisions. The Supreme Court long ago declared that the manufacture and sale of liquor is permitted only by suffrance and not as a right inherent of citizenship. The Constitution and the Supreme Court have declared themselves—when will the conscience of the people respond? Twenty-five per cent of the professed Christians of the United States have a political balance of power. If they would use it they could close up every liquor outlet in a very short time. The next move is up to the Christian Church!

Townville, Pa.

BEST SERMONS

In order to find the last few “best” sermons for inclusion in Volume VII of Best Sermons, I am sending this final call for sermon manuscripts.

If you have a sermon which you think represents you at your “best” in the pulpit, may I read it? I am still seeking the last few top sermons for inclusion.

Sermons can be on any topic, although I prefer them on strong, distinctly Christian themes—God, Christ, Salvation, Faith, the Gospel; fine evangelistic sermons, sermons on the Christian home, education, national life are very welcome.

The rules are simple: Sermons can be any length. Manuscripts cannot be returned because of clerical shortage. All sermons should be original. Please secure permissions for copyrighted quotations. Kindly enclose a 1-page biographical sketch.

Little Silver Point Road

Little Silver, N. J.

JEWISH CONVERTS

As a Hebrew Christian and missionary to my people, I was grateful for the article by Dr. Jacob Gartenhouse (Apr. 14 issue) and for your report on Jewish missions (Sept. 15 issue). It would be more than wonderful if it were so … that “Jewish missions are three and a half times more productive of converts than Christian missions as a whole.” In fairness to our brethren who work among the heathen, and in fairness to the Apostle Paul himself, it should be pointed out that the large majority of these converts are not directly the result of Jewish missions, but have joined Christian churches by assimilation, by intermarriage, and by the witness of church people, Christians who are not directly connected with any Jewish mission. Fair comparisons can be made either by comparing Jewish missions abroad with Christian missions abroad, or Jewish missions at home with Christian missions at home; the latter will have to include the witness of the church as a whole. [I hope] that this will rather encourage than discourage Christian laymen to witness to the brethren of the Lord after the flesh.

New York Messianic Witness Exec. Dir.

New York City

I do not see why Christians should concern themselves with evangelizing the Jews when there are millions of so-called Christians who should be converted to Christianity. If one is to reflect on the antics in the South with regard to school integration, one would arrive at the conclusion that there is a broad field for evangelization among millions of Christians. Why should one think that the Jew is not capable of looking after his own moral and spiritual health.

Danville, Va.

EDITORIAL EXPLANATION

Some readers have commented on the form of the text of the Edwards sermon which appeared for the first time in CHRISTIANITY TODAY (Sept. 15 issue). This does differ from editions of other sermons of the same preacher which have been published. This explanation of editorial policy, which is given in far greater detail in the forthcoming volume, Jonathan Edwards’ Sermons on Romans, is here submitted. This sermon was transcribed from manuscript as accurately as possible. There was very little punctuation, except that of Edwards himself. The sermon was apparently hastily written and not revised by its author, who never intended it for publication. The editor has refrained almost entirely from smoothing out the text, in order to give the reader as authentic a reading as possible. Furthermore, as indicated, the form presented in CHRISTIANITY TODAY was somewhat abbreviated.

Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary

Pittsburgh, Pa.

ONLY TEMPORARY

Two matters in Man’s “Glorious Destiny” (Sept. 15 issue) … caused a personal reaction.… You say that Socrates is a follower of Plato. If this is not a typographical inaccuracy, I am sure that it is only a temporary mental one.…

I agree wholeheartedly that the church is not called to debate over fossil remnants.… I do object to the possible intimation that the debate over fossil remnants should not be carried on at all. Although the church is not called to do this, certainly science is.…

First Church of the Nazarene

Summerside, Prince Edward Island

HELPING THE CAUSE

I feel sure that the periodical will do much to help the cause of Protestant religion, and make a valuable contribution to the extension of the kingdom of God. Kirkintilloch, Scotland

The problems which abound in a study of the book of Ezekiel are apparent to scholar and layman alike. For the latter, questions arise mainly in the interpretation of the book, owing to its highly visionary character. For the former, other difficulties appear in the contents of the book, such as the dating, the literary style and locale. Such matters seldom bother the reader who is not initiated into the mysteries of literary criticism. In ancient times the rabbis recognized the possibility of misunderstanding the symbolism of Ezekiel and did not allow the first chapter of Ezekiel to be read in the synagogue services. Jerome reports that in his day, about 425 A.D., there was a regulation among the jews forbidding anyone under 30 years of age to read either the beginning or the end of the book. The opposite extreme to such caution has often been displayed by more modern students of prophecy, who have built quite detailed schemes of eschatology on certain chapters of Ezekiel.

The prophecy is a fairly closely-knit composition, so much so that many literary critics have said that Ezekiel’s own work has been radically revised and edited. Some sections of the book bear a poetic or near-poetic form while others are in very staid prose. This has given rise to the speculation that Ezekiel was a poet and that only the poetic sections and those which may, by changing the text, be forced into a poetic mold are the writings of Ezekiel. Thus, Gustav Holscher assigns about 170 verses out of 1,273 verses in the book to Ezekiel, while H. G. May in The Interpreter’s Bible more generously gives about sixty percent of the book to the prophet. The methods of analysis used in this type of criticism are so subjective that other scholars have reacted against them. Such men as G. A. Cooke, in the International Critical Commentary, R. H. Pfeiffer in his Introduction to the Old Testament and C. F. Howie in a thesis, The Date and Composition of Ezekiel maintain that the book comes substantially from Ezekiel himself. It is this writer’s opinion that although the text of the prophecy has suffered in the course of transmission more than most other biblical books, yet Ezekiel is the author of the book and he himself is very likely the person who arranged the contents in their present order and thus gave the book its unity.

Ezekiel lived and wrote among the Jewish exiles in Babylon, according to several references in the book itself, cf. 1:1; 11:22–25; 40:1, 2. He was of a priestly family and no doubt spent considerable time as a youth in or near Jerusalem. He was one of those who were exiled by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 B.C. and he seems to have begun his public ministry about five years later. The Jews enjoyed a good deal of freedom in Babylon, since they were allowed to build their own homes, operate their own businesses and exercise, within limits, their own religion. From the prophecy of Jeremiah we learn that there was communication with Jerusalem and that some of the exiles did not expect to have to remain in Babylon very long. In the earlier period of his ministry it was Ezekiel’s task to disillusion these folk and to warn of Jerusalem’s downfall. Later Ezekiel became a comforter to his people, preaching the promise of restoration.

Outline Of The Prophecy

The book seems to fall rather easily into two main divisions which correspond to the two periods of the prophet’s ministry and to the twofold nature of his work.

I. The Declaration of Judgment

A. Dedication of Ezekiel to his prophetic office, chap. 1–3:21.

B. Denunciations of Judah and Jerusalem, 3:22–24:27.

1. The prophet as a sign to the people, chaps. 4; 5; 12.

2. Prophecies against Israel, chaps. 6; 7; 13.

3. Visions of the casting off of Israel, chaps. 8–11.

4. A warning that intercession is useless, chap. 14.

5. Parables about apostate Israel, chaps. 15–19.

6. The final doom of Jerusalem in picture and parable, chaps. 20–24.

C. Prophecies against the nations, chaps. 25–32.

II. The Declaration of Salvation

A. The prophet as God’s watchman, chap. 33.

B. The false shepherds and the Good Shepherd to come, chap. 34.

C. The historic enemy, Edom, to be destroyed, chap. 35.

D. Promise of a restored and regenerate Israel, chap. 36.

E. Vision of Israel raised to new life, united under David and confirmed in an everlasting covenant, chap. 37.

F. The conflict of the ages, Gog versus God, chaps. 38–39.

G. Vision of the new kingdom, chaps. 40–48.

The student will discover that the first division is not devoid of promise for Israel, and the second does not consist entirely of promises of safety. It is evident that there has been a general grouping of subject matter and the whole prophecy is well-organized as a composition.

Themes Of Ezekiel

A comparison of the prophecy of Ezekiel with that of Jeremiah shows that the two men discussed several of the same themes, although Ezekiel almost invariably presents the topic at greater length than does Jeremiah. Common to them both are the figures of a seething cauldron, of adulterous sisters, of evil shepherds to be replaced by the Davidic king, the good shepherd. They share also the concepts of individual responsibility and of a new and final covenant to replace the Mosaic covenant. Both prophets inveigh against Edom, Ammon, Moab, Philistia and Egypt. It is altogether likely that Ezekiel heard many of Jeremiah’s messages before the exile from Jerusalem.

The opinion has been commonly held that prior to the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel the Flebrews had no clear-cut idea of individual responsibility. They were, supposedly, controlled by the idea of a corporate or community personality. Our two prophets both quote a proverb which had become common among their people, “The fathers ate sour grapes, but the children’s teeth are set on edge” (cf. Jer. 31:29, 30 and Ezek. 18:2–31). The people apparently were arguing that their oppression and exile were the punishment for their fathers’ sins, not their own. The answer of the prophets was that they were being punished for their own sins. The idea of community involvement is certainly found in the Old Testament and, indeed, it is a valid principle which is operative today. Neither Jeremiah nor Ezekiel is making any attempt to deny this, however.

It is in the area of the new covenant that Ezekiel has most to say. While Jeremiah mentions this covenant briefly in chapter 31 of his prophecy, Ezekiel mentions an everlasting covenant of peace in chapters 16; 36 and 37 and, by inference, in chapters 11 and 39. The era of the new covenant, as Ezekiel is given to foresee it, is one in which there is to be given to the people a new heart, 11:19; 36:26, 27. They will be a chastened, converted people, one household of faith with Samaria and Sodom, 16:60–63. At that time David, the good shepherd, will be their prince and God will have his tabernacle in their midst, 37:24–28.

Ezekiel And The Revelation

It is interesting to list the figures and symbols which occur first in Ezekiel and then in the Revelation. It is only a natural procedure in interpretation to let the two shed light upon each other. We see: The four living creatures

—Ezek. 1; Rev. 4

Command to eat a scroll and to prophesy

—Ezek. 2; Rev. 10

God’s people have a mark in their foreheads

—Ezek. 9; Rev. 7

God’s tabernacle will be with men

—Ezek. 37; Rev. 21

Battle led by Gog

—Ezek. 38; Rev. 20

Vision of the New Holy City

—Ezek. 40 ff.; Rev. 21

The river of water of life

—Ezek. 47; Rev. 22

Trees with leaves for the healing of nations

—Ezek. 47; Rev. 22

The city four-square

—Ezek. 48; Rev. 21

Gates of the city, three on each side

—Ezek. 48; Rev. 21

Each of the two books is, of course, apocalyptic and it is just for this reason that sharply varying systems of interpretation have been applied to both.

Interpretation Of Ezekiel

No attempt will be made here to offer a final answer to the different interpretations of the prophecy. Difficulties arise chiefly in the later section, where promises of a golden future are held forth to Israel.

The older liberal view, which is widely held in many quarters, is that Ezekiel envisioned a restored Israel in which the cult would be the centre of national life. He therefore drew a blueprint of what he hoped might be the situation in Judah. Although his plan was too idealistic at many points, it did provide a basis for some later legislation, so that R. H. Pfeiffer has called Ezekiel the father of modern Judaism. In other words, Ezekiel’s “visions” are to be understood quite literally even though they never could be fulfilled quite literally.

Another view which applies literalism is that of modern dispensationalism. To put the matter very tersely, it is held that Ezekiel’s prophecies apply to Israel, the nation, and Palestine, the land, literally. Since the visions have not been fulfilled literally in the past, and since the Scripture is the word of God which cannot be broken, they will be fulfilled in the future. Most dispensational brethren expect the fulfilment to take place in the period just prior to and during the millennium.

A third view tends to take matters more figuratively or symbolically, since the prophecy is so largely visionary, so full of figures of speech and symbols. The Israel which is to be restored is the spiritual Israel, not only chastened and converted Jews but Gentiles as well. The temple is symbolic, it is said, since such figures as the river of water of life and the trees of life are surely not a literal stream or literal shrubs, yet the river issues from the temple. The crux of this kind of interpretation is that Ezekiel spoke during the Mosaic economy under the figures of speech of that economy, but he pointed to the new era in Christ. The strongest argument for this position is that our Lord Jesus did inaugurate the era of the new covenant in his own blood and he is the Davidic king, the good shepherd as he himself said. Since volumes have been written on this subject, it will not be pursued further here.

There is a wealth of books and articles dealing with both the prophet and his prophecy.

Bibliography

The student will find that the available books are in general of the three schools of interpretation which are mentioned above. In the study of historical background the Interpreter’s Bible has some excellent material, though the commentary itself is given over to the analytical approach and denies much of the book to Ezekiel. The clearest presentation of the dispensational point of view is given by Arno C. Gaebelein in his commentary, which may be obtained as a separate volume or in the Annotated Bible series. Among the older commentaries which are valuable are those by C. F. Keil in the Keil and Delitzsch series, and one by Patrick Fairbairn. The latter is a thoroughgoing application of the principle of “spiritualizing.” There has recently been published a very readable but penetrating volume by H. L. Ellison, entitled Ezekiel, the Man and His Message. It is well worth much more than its moderate cost.

If one were starting a study of biblical prophecy in general it would be well for him to read Patrick Fairbairn’s Prophecy. The literalist would be infuriated at a number of points but it is wholesome for all of us to gain another point of view. E. J. Young’s My Servants the Prophets is of great help in understanding the phenomenon of Old Testament prophecy. It is recommended that anyone who wishes to approach Ezekiel seriously should use such background materials in order to employ the commentaries and a good reference Bible profitably. In this way he may come to his own conclusions in the area of interpretation and not be a mere sounding board for the ideas of others.

DAVID W. KERR

Professor of Old Testament

Gordon Divinity School

No GENERATION IN HISTORY has seen the completion and use of more bridges of every size and type than has our own. Not only are arches longer and higher but modern engineering has successfully spanned greater bodies of water and bridged over wider valleys and chasms than ever before.

But the greatest Bridge of all was completed more than 1900 years ago—the Bridge between God and man; between the finite and the infinite; between time and eternity; between earth and heaven; between Paradise Lost and the Paradise which may be regained.

It is this Bridge which is the heart of the gospel message. It is about this “missing link” between God and man that men are to preach. And it is of this Bridge’s perfection and uniqueness that men need to know.

The foundation of this Bridge is the Incarnation—that God actually assumed human nature, and came into the world that men might be transformed for now and for eternity.

No one has ever fully explained the mystery of the Incarnation. It is one of those facts of divine and human history which must be accepted by faith, the effects of which can be experienced in the heart and demonstrated in the life of the believer.

The uniqueness of this Bridge is attested to by our Lord himself when he said: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me”; by John the Baptist in the words: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him”; by Peter, filled by the Holy Spirit, as he affirmed to the rulers in Jerusalem: “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”; and by Paul when he wrote: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

We all love to assume an attitude of sophistication but this has no place in such matters of life and death. The import of these statements should make us accept them with childlike faith and proclaim them with the conviction they deserve.

In the Cross of Calvary, with all of its implications, we see this Bridge. For in the Christ of that Cross and in this great central fact of all history God, disclosing his holiness and justice and his infinite love and mercy, provided the Way whereby sinful man may be reconciled to a holy God.

Just as the Bridge from God to man is found in the redeeming work of Christ, so too he is the Bridge to the enigma of Truth itself. Affirming himself to be the Way and the Truth and the Life, he is the only answer to man’s quest for answers of eternal import—“Who am I?” “From whence did I come?” “Who is God and what is he like?” “How explain the enigmas of life and death?” Only in Jesus Christ do we come to positive answers which are the embodiment of Truth itself.

Christ is also the Bridge of communication between man and God for it is only in his name that we can come with boldness to the throne of grace and hold communion with the infinite and eternal God. In fact, to pray on the basis of personal worth, without coming in his Name, is both presumption and blasphemy.

One of the ironies of our scientific age has been man’s unending search for a missing link between himself and the lower animals. This has led to some ludicrous and often utterly unscientific assumptions and conclusions. At the same time the missing link between God and man remains available for all who will recognize and receive Him. This bridge of the gap between man and his Maker is the only connection which leads to a certain future. Strange that in these modern times we are so often more concerned about a hypothetical link with an unrecallable past.

The necessity for this Bridge is expressed by our Lord in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Prior to death they stood on a common ground, but by inference we know that Lazarus knew and made use of God’s provision of salvation.

When these two had experienced the irrevocable step of death the means of transferring from one realm to the other was no longer available. In torment the rich man lifted up his eyes and sought relief. In this story, so full of awe-inspiring implications, Lazarus is heard to speak: “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”

Where now there is a Bridge available to all, there will some day be a chasm across which no Bridge is cast. So clear are the teachings of Holy Scripture on this subject that to hold out hope of a future opportunity for repentance and salvation does violence to revealed truth and creates a mirage to lure the unwary to eternal loss.

In all this a warning is also to be found against the erection of false bridges, bridges which are structurally unsound and which can never take the traveler into the presence of God. Such bridges are to be found on every hand—attempts to reach over into eternity in some way other than God’s way and by some person or method not ordained of him. False Christs, who bear no resemblance to the Christ of the Bible, religious leaders incapable of saving themselves or of saving others.

Certain conclusions are inescapable: Between unregenerate man and God there is a great chasm, a chasm produced by sin, because of which sinful man is separated from the holy God. But God was not content to have it thus and himself provided the Bridge in the person of his Son.

That which now confronts man is a fact—a chasm. But he is also faced with an alternative, the Bridge. God’s offer is a “whosoever will” which makes this Bridge available to all. The divine factor is God’s unlimited provision. The human factor is man’s will, bent to receive the goodness and mercy of God, or hardened to reject his gift and walk on in blindness to ultimate destruction. It is precisely at this point that man is confronted with his dilemma and also with his hope.

There is always danger in over-simplification. There is also danger in “ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.” There is no need for man to walk in the darkness of uncertainty when there is open to him the privilege of walking in the sunshine of revealed truth. In such a revelation is to be seen the chasm of eternal separation from God and the Bridge without which no man can cross over into the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.