Book Briefs: August 1, 1969

A Theological Feast

The Creative Theology of P. T. Forsyth, edited by Samuel J. Mikolaski (Eerdmans, 1969, 264 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by William Childs Robinson, emeritus professor of ecclesiastical history, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

This is a selection from the writings of P. T. Forsyth, a vigorous British evangelical around the turn of the century. In an autobiographical account Forsyth tells how he turned from “a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace,” from a savant to a pastor and a preacher as he was corrected and humiliated by the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, he presents the Gospel of the Holy God in relation to sinners and God’s judgment-grace in the Cross.

The book is penetrating and stimulating in its profundity, and epigrammatic in its forceful phraseology. Occasionally, there are fine distinctions that seem to this reviewer to be dictated by the logic of the theologian more than by the language of the Word. Yet every evangelical will find the book refreshing and helpful.

In many of the issues Forsyth gets to the heart of the matter and lets peripheral concerns drop. For example he finds the evolutionary idea compatible with Christianity but only so long as it does not claim to be the supreme idea. A believer may be able to subsume evolution under Christ, but never Christ under evolution. Christ may not be relativized, nor reduced from his absolute value and final place in God’s revelation. “There is no such foe to Christianity in thought today as this idea is; and we can make no terms with it as long as it claims the throne.”

The Cross was an act of God. He came as the Son, for God does not suffer by deputy, or sacrifice by substitute. “He redeems in the Son with whom He is one.” “Atonement is substitutionary, else it is none.” “Sin is punished by suffering. And it was because of the world’s sin that Christ suffered.” “You cannot dwell too much on the blood of Christ so long as you are sure it was Christ’s blood, the Lamb of God carrying the sin of the world.” “By the atonement, therefore, is meant that action of Christ’s death which has prime regard to God’s holiness, has it for its first charge, and finds man’s reconciliation impossible except as that holiness is divinely satisfied once for all on the Cross.” “The Cross effects the reconciliation of man and God; it does not simply announce it, or simply prepare it.” “The propitiation is the redemption. The only satisfaction to a holy God is the absolute establishment of holiness, as Christ did it in all but the empirical way.” “The forgiving grace of God is the deepest, mightiest, most permanent and persistent power in the moral world.” “In the Lord’s Supper God’s forgiveness is not simply remembered by us, but offered us, carried home to us anew.” “The true supernatural forgiveness is a revolution not an evolution.” Moreover, “the great justification does not dispense with the daily forgiveness.”

Or, turning to devotions, “religion is above all things prayer.… The battle for religion is the battle for prayer.” “It is the Christ at prayer who lives in us, and we are conduits of the eternal Intercession.” If I am to choose between the Christ who bids me pray and a savant who tells me certain answers are physically or rationally impossible, I choose Christ. For while the savant knows much about nature and its action, Christ knew everything about the God of nature and his reality. Here we are to be regulated not by science but by God’s self-revelation.

By Forsyth’s pithy paragraphs the pastor’s mind will be stimulated and his worshiping people fed.

Portrait Of A Reformer

John Hus: A Biography, by Matthew Spinka (Princeton, 1968, 344 pp., $10), is reviewed by Robert T. Handy, professor of church history, Union Theological Seminary, New York.

Matthew Spinka, Waldo Professor of Church History, emeritus, of the Hartford Seminary Foundation, has devoted much of his long and fruitful career in church historical scholarship to the study of John Hus (1372?–1415) and the Czech reform movement of which he was so important a part. Spinka has an enviable mastery of the primary sources and secondary authorities relating to the life and thought of the martyred reformer, many of whose ideas are today widely accepted in the Christian Churches, including the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church. Although the author of this fine biography knows his subject in exceedingly rich detail and writes a tight-knit account, he also is able to combine historical precision with dramatic power. Hence his interpretation of Hus’s life has many informative and engaging passages, climaxing in a completely absorbing account of the trial and execution.

Today the rhetoric of reform is heard everywhere; this chapter in the history of reform in the Church reveals how difficult genuine renewal is, and how misunderstood those who try to bring it can be as those who are threatened (or who think they are) respond in anger and hatred. Spinka describes briefly the broad reform movement that preceded Hus, that continued after him, and that contributed to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. The details of Hus’s student life and early ministry and preaching at Bethlehem Chapel in Prague are told in a discerning way. For example, Spinka writes, “It is astonishing how aptly he cites Scriptural passages in elucidating and confirming his comments. He explains Scripture by Scripture, utilizing the whole Bible for the explication of the text he is dealing with.”

This is the story of a man’s life rather than an analysis of his thought—Spinka has previously written on John Hus’ Concept of the Church (Princeton, 1966). One chapter does deal with his principal Czech writings, and here the reader finds a good overview of Hus’s teachings.

He combats the external, mechanical piety of the time by opposing to it the piety of the heart and the spirit.… His reformatory endeavors remind one of similar attempts elsewhere to revive real piety, such as that of the Brethren of the Common Life and the regular canons of the Congregation of Windesheim in the Netherlands [p. 217].

The concluding chapters tell the story of Hus’s imprisonment, trial, and martyrdom, and something of his lasting impact on Czech history. The story of man’s search for a scapegoat has a terrible fascination about it; these arresting pages set one to thinking about other victims of man’s cruelty, before and since. This sensitive portrayal of a significant life and death provides one with the occasion to think again about the real nature of the Gospel in a time of crisis.

Everyone’S For Love

The Christian New Morality, by O. Sydney Barr (Oxford, 1969, 118 pp., $4), is reviewed by David H. Wallace, professor of biblical theology, American Baptist Seminary of the West, Covina, California.

Professor Barr’s book has two objectives, one obvious, the other tacit. First, he seeks to provide a biblical foundation for the new morality (read also “situation ethics”). Second, he endeavors to rescue this structure of morals from its more enthusiastic and glib apostles.

In five chapters Barr surveys the general New Testament support for the new morality. He readily equates love (agape) with the new morality and defines it to include its proper element of judgment and servant vocation. Its counterfeit is self-indulgence, which is contrary to the New Testament sense of agape. Jesus Christ is seen as the true author of situation ethics, for agape stands at the vital center of his words and deeds of obedience to the Father. Next, Paul is appealed to as an apostolic spokesman for the new morality, for First Corinthians 13 is his highest expression of its guiding principle. Relevant parts of the Fourth Gospel are reviewed, for here is the noblest statement in all Scripture of the character of agape. The closing chapter takes up a few typical examples of application of the love ethic to today’s problem situations.

I find much to commend in this book. But then, who wants to oppose love? I must register a few reservations just for the record. First, this chatty little tome sounds like one side of a dialogue of the deaf between the legalists and the new-morality champions. It is standard operating procedure to set up a phony example of what one contends against, and then demolish it with a few deft strokes. Among thoughtful ethical theorists today there are probably very few straight-line, flat-out “legalists.” Second, on page 19 the author falls into a hoary trap when he asks, “What would Jesus have said about this?” At the outset this asks the wrong question, if only because our space-time context is sharply different from that of Jesus. Moreover, the question sounds suspiciously loaded so that Jesus would answer in words much like those of Joseph Fletcher. The proper question, of course, is a good bit more sophisticated than this leads the casual reader to believe. Third, the book, perhaps unconsciously, appears to have staked out an exclusive claim on agape as though this idea had lain fallow for centuries waiting to be unearthed by the situationists, in whose party Jesus held a charter membership. (For example, see the italics on page 25.) Fourth, nothing is said about the presence of language in the New Testament, even on Jesus’ lips, which has the ring of rules, commands, and Haustafeln. To these words Professor Barr may have given less than adequate attention.

Although this is an easily read statement of New Testament data offered in support of the new morality, it cannot be appealed to for final settlement of the heavy, technical questions of exegesis and moral theology. A handy bibliography is appended that fairly invites the reader to further study. The list includes two volumes by Paul Ramsey.

Book Briefs

The Early Church, by Henry Chadwick (Eerdmans, 1969, 304 pp., $6.95). The U. S. edition of a volume first published in England in the “Pelican History of the Church” series.

Wanderers, Slaves and Kings, by Manford George Gutzke (Regal, 1969, 168 pp., paperback, $.95). Studies in the Old Testament from Adam to Solomon applying to modern life the practical lessons of living by faith.

Interpreting Luther’s Legacy, edited by Fred W. Meuser and Stanley Schneider (Augsburg, 1969, 189 pp., $3.50). Thirteen essays on Luther’s thought, written by faculty members of the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary.

The Promise of Kierkegaard, by Kenneth Hamilton (Lippincott, 1969, 116 pp., paperback, $1.50). This volume and The Promise of Bultmann by Norman Perrin are two recent additions to the “Promise of Theology” series, which seeks to introduce the reader to the life and work of various contemporary theologians.

Help! I’m in College!, by Roy Gesch (Concordia, 1969, 136 pp., paperback, $1.95). Thirty prayers that college students might offer in the midst of the variety of problems they face.

The Gospel According to Mark, by Richard Wolff (Tyndale, 1969, 137 pp., paperback, $1.95). Helpful popular commentary on the second Gospel.

A Scientist and His Faith, by Gordon L. Glegg (Zondervan, 1969, 59 pp., paperback, $1.50). A scientist tells why he has found no conflict between science and his Christian faith.

War and Moral Discourse, by Ralph B. Potter (John Knox, 1969, 123 pp., paperback, $2.45). Examines the problem of assessing the rightness and wrongness of war and conducting war. Discusses pacifism, the just war, and the holy crusade.

Behold He Cometh, by Herman Hoeksema (Kregel, 1969, 725 pp., $9.95). A thorough exposition of the Book of Revelation from an amillennial point of view.

Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, by William L. Lane (Eerdmans, 1969, 91 pp., paperback, $1.25). A Scripture Union Bible Study book.

The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies, by Marshall D. Johnson (Cambridge, 1969, 310 pp., $12.50). This scholarly work seeks to show that the genealogies are not merely appendices to the biblical narrative but are closely related to their context in language, structure, and theology. Sees the genealogies in the Gospels as illustrations of the conviction that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hope of Israel.

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