From Myth to Myth

A friend in Philadelphia sent me a clipping from The Evening Bulletin of July 2. The clip announced a new book by seven prominent British Protestant theologians, The Myth of God Incarnate, edited by John Hick, professor of theology at Birmingham University. The review said that “the book discusses the related Christian tradition that Christ was also the son of God and concludes these early references were ‘essentially poetic language’.… There is nothing new about the central themes of this book. The history of Christianity includes various theological developments. The development is continuing. That the historical Jesus did not present himself as God incarnate is accepted by all.… Christian laymen today are not fully aware of it.” Hick said the book aimed “to enable [Christians] to maintain their faith in the light of modern scientific and philosophical developments.”

We could quote many such statements about Genesis. The myth story of creation is often referred to. Many people who have gone to Sunday School and church all their lives have never known that an intelligent person could believe that the early chapters of the Bible were history. I remember well the shocked outcry of a girl who heard that we believed Genesis to be fact. She had never been told that the Bible was God’s revealed truth to man rather than man’s search for God.

As a matter of fact, this is just where Fran and I met—in the midst of a similar conversation in 1932 at a Christian endeavor meeting in a Presbyterian church. The leader for the evening had joined the Unitarian Church but had come back to be on the program. His topic was “How I know the Bible is not the Word of God, and How I know Jesus is Not the Son of God.” Fran had just come back from his first year at college; I had just recently come to Germantown from Canada. We did not know each other. At opposite ends of the room two people jumped to their feet after the leader finished. Both started to speak at once. I was so astonished that there was anyone who believed anything, and who cared enough to speak about it, that I sat down and whispered to the girl next to me, “Who is that? I didn’t know there was anyone in this church who believed in the Bible.” The same thing happened when Fran heard my attempt to defend the Bible. His whispered request to find out who “that girl” was ended in an introduction. That night, as he drove me home for the first time in his model A Ford, we talked about the truth of Scripture.

So it is an old discussion. Why the shock now? Because of the unsuspecting layman. He does not know that he is being robbed. The Myth of God Incarnate denies that Jesus is truly God, the Second Person of the Trinity.

In Ephesians Paul writes, “How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words: Whereby, when ye read ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ) … Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:3–9). Put this with John 1:1–5: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” In verse 10 John said, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” And Hebrews 1:1, 2, says, “God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and by whom also he made the worlds.” The Creator and the Incarnate God are the same person.

The path from myth to myth is a natural one, since the creation is central in Genesis, John, and Hebrews. It tells us who God is and who the Son of God is. He was there in the beginning, before all else, and he made all that was made. Simple. Complete. He answers the tiny child’s first question about all that is around him, and the agonizing questions of the adult. The Creator. The first and the last. The beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. The doctrines of creation and of the Trinity are inseparable. Paul warns believers of “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel for Satan himself transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed into the ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13–15). Paul started the chapter by reminding the Christians that there is danger of Satan corrupting their minds even as he beguiled Eve through his subtility. The clipping from Philadelphia arrived on our forty-second wedding anniversary. It seemed appropriate to look back over the myths of the myths and say, “This is where we came in.” We stand up once more to say that the Bible is true.

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