SOME ESSENTIALS
of
RELIGION
VOL. I
LAYMAN'S LIBRARY OF
PRACTICAL RELIGION
Editorial Council:
THE RT. REV. J. C. ROPER, LL.D., D.D.
Bishop of Ottawa, (Chairman)
THE RT. REV. E. J. BIDWELL, D.D., D.C.L.
Bishop of Ontario
THE RT. REV. J. A. RICHARDSON, D.D., D.C.L.
Bishop of Fredericton
THE RT. REV. A. J. DOULL, D.D.
Bishop of Kootenay
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY LIMITED
Copyright, Canada, 1922
By THE EDITORIAL COUNCIL
FOREWORD
These chapters have not been written for hurried reading; they are studies of Central and Vital Truths, for those who wish to think them out again under the guidance of the Church.
JOHN CHARLES, OTTAWA.
Note:—In placing these books before Church people through the churches no financial gain is contemplated for anyone concerned. Those who are initiating the Library, and all the writers, are content if the Church they serve is benefited thereby.
CONTENTS
I. God, our Father. By the Rt. Rev. J. C. Roper, LL.D., D.D., Bishop of Ottawa II. Fundamental Thoughts about Jesus Christ. By the Rt. Rev. E. J. Bidwell, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Ontario III. The Bible. By the Ven. Archdeacon Paterson-Smyth, D.D., D.Litt., Montreal IV. What Is Faith. By Rev. H. M. Little, L.S.T., Montreal V. Prayer. By the Very Rev. D. T. Owen, Dean of Niagara VI. Holy Communion. By the Rt. Rev. A. J. Doull, D.D., Bishop of Kootenay VII. Immortality. By Rev. Canon Cody, D.D., LL.D., Toronto
GOD OUR FATHER
By The Rt. Rev. J. C. Roper, LL.D., D.D. Bishop of Ottawa.
VITAL IMPORTANCE OF THE TOPIC
The first word of the Layman's Library may properly be a message from Laymen. These are the terms of it.
"The hope of a brotherhood of a humanity reposes on the deeper spiritual truth of the Fatherhood of God. In the recognition of the fact of that Fatherhood and of the divine purpose of the world, which are central to the message of Christianity, we shall discover the ultimate foundation for the reconstruction of an ordered and harmonious life for all men."
These words have a theological ring about them. They are however the words not of theologians, but of representative and responsible statesmen in conference on urgent questions of public welfare. The message was issued by the premiers of Great Britain and of all British Dominions to all citizens of the British Empire. It forms a remarkable confession of faith in the spiritual basis of human life. The peace of the world depends on goodwill among men, and goodwill among men rests on spiritual forces, and of these forces the source of all and the greatest of all is the fact of God our Father and of His gracious purpose for the world.
WHERE CAN WE LEARN OF GOD?
All who wish to know God truly must put themselves to school under Christ the Master. A wonderful school it is. Little children are at home in it and the greatest minds among men find in it always something new to learn. The wonder of the school and the power of it lie not only in the personality of the Teacher but in the fact also that He Himself is what He teaches. What Jesus Christ was God is. The revelation of God we possess in Christ is a revelation that is personal and complete. "This is life eternal to know Thee the only true God and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent."
This does not mean that the knowledge of God—or even of God as Father—is the exclusive possession of Christians. A long line of Hebrew prophets, called and inspired by the spirit of God, revealed God's Name and will and attributes in different ways and in different portions to generation after generation of His chosen people. It was the special privilege of Israel to receive the oracles of God. Christ Jesus, Whose coming the prophets foretold, took over the revelation of God that each had given, corrected it where it had been misapprehended, endorsed it, set it in order, and completed it. In the fulness of the knowledge of God that had been given them Israel stood unique among the nations. Nevertheless other races had some knowledge of Him also. God has not anywhere or at any time left Himself without witnesses. In our classical studies we heard of Jupiter or Zeus "Father of men and of gods". Greeks of old in their philosophic search for unity, Hindoos in their longing for absorption into the divine, Chinese in the moral precepts of Confucius, Mohammedans in the constant call to prayer which they obey, all bring before us religions that are sincere in their adhesion to one or other of the great truths about God which they have discovered.
I stood one night on the deck of a ship on the ocean. The moon was at the full and was shining in a cloudless sky. The light penetrated everywhere. No part of the wide expanse of water was beyond its reach, and yet straight before me was a broad pathway of light reaching as far as I could see. So bright was this pathway, that compared with it on this side and on that all else seemed to be in darkness.
Some rays of the knowledge of God are recognized in all the great world religions. Along the line of the prophets of Israel the light of God's self-revelation shone with special brightness, sometimes waxing it is true and sometimes waning, until the day dawned and Christ the Sun of righteousness arose.
This is what St. Paul means when he tells the Christians at Corinth that God Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in their hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
WHAT DO WE KNOW OF GOD?
But what is the knowledge of God that has been revealed? We find it in the Old Testament gradually unfolded, in the New Testament perfected. What truths does it contain?
GOD IS PERSONAL
"The Lord God is the true God, the Living God and an Everlasting King." He is also our Father. God then is Personal. He is One on Whom we can lean, to Whom we can pray, whose works we can study in the Universe He has made and in the history of men and of nations which He controls. This is the first truth of God our Father that comes home to us when we learn the Lord's Prayer. It is also the last and most profound that we shall rejoice in when we meet Him face to face, and know Him as we are known.
It is a truth of vital and practical importance, affecting our whole outlook on life. Because God is Personal with mind and heart and will we believe that this great world has a plan on which it is being fashioned and a purpose towards which it is tending. Within this plan and purpose we too have a place, and no mean place. We too are persons with minds and hearts and wills. We are not then mere straws on the stream of destiny, or victims of blind fate. We are children of our Father Who is working in and through all mightily in wisdom and in love.
This is not a theory only; it is true to the experience of religious men. In it is found the secret of confidence, strength and joy. It is the infinite and varied record of this experience which the Psalms contain that gives to them their special value for our use today.
"Thy hands have made me and fashioned me, O give me understanding that I may live. Be Thou my stronghold whereunto I may always resort, for Thou art my house of defence and my castle. The Lord is my shepherd therefore can I lack nothing. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is the strength of my life. Who so dwelleth under the defence of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
In a faith like this we can face our duty manfully. In life's responsibilities and perplexities we can trust our Father.
IT IS A TRUTH OF PERMANENT VALUE.
Personality in God and in man are closely related one to another. That men are persons and must be so regarded is a matter of intense practical concern to us all and to the social life of this and every age. We cannot ignore personality in man. To do so is to awaken resentment, unrest and strife. The statesmen already quoted are clearly right. Peace and progress in the world depend on the recognition of this truth growing more and more adequate until we realize fully the brotherhood of men which is implied in God's Fatherhood. We cannot ignore Personality in God, or pass it by as a truth that belongs to childhood only. It is a vigorous intelligent faith which commands the allegiance of men. Ultimately the dignity of our own manhood will be found to depend upon it. To lose sight of it is to lose our way in religious life and thinking. To hold it fast is not an attempt to make God in our image, but to acknowledge that we are made in His.
GOD IS HOLY
In the Old Testament God is the Holy One in Israel. In the New Testament also we remember Christ's own words in prayer, "Holy Father keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are one". God's Holiness is closely connected with His glory; we must associate with it all passages in Holy Scripture which attribute to Him majesty and radiance, beauty and light. The religious value of this truth is very great.
In the vision of the Holiness of God men have found their chief impulse to worship Him, and have felt the claim on their own lives exercised by the moral splendour of God's own character. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." Further, in proportion as they have realised God's holiness and moral claim, men have felt the need in His presence of acknowledging their own infirmity and sin. This was the experience of Isaiah and of St. John. It has been the experience of an innumerable company since. We all have our share in it in the services of the Church. It finds expression in one of the greatest of our hymns,
"Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art Holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in Love and Purity."
This is undoubtedly the first great impression that the Holiness of God should make upon us. There is, however, another truth within it which must not be forgotten. There are in both the Bible languages Hebrew and Greek two words which in English are represented by the one word "holy". One of them stands for moral righteousness, the other has the meaning of set apart or consecrated. This latter word when used of God means that God is set apart from the world He has made. Not in the sense that He is separated from it, for He is very near; but in the sense that He is not himself a part of it or identified with it or confused with it.
This truth was needed in Old Testament times to save God's chosen people from falling back into dark immoral forms of nature worship which possessed the kindred people from whom they had been called out. It is needed no less to-day to save us from falling back into non-Christian ways of thinking. God is distinct from His world; He is never separated from it. Is this difficult? An illustration may help if it is not pressed too far. An eagle is perched on the topmost bough of a tall dead tree. A motor boat hurries by at some distance across the water. The great bird takes flight. It is in the air. It breathes the air and is upheld by it. The air is in the bird, in every quill, I believe, of every feather. Yet the bird is not the air, and the air is not the bird. They are distinct; separated they cannot be. Without the air the bird could not exist. "In God we live and move and have our being." We cannot for a moment imagine Him away. Without Him we could not exist. Yet man is not God. We are close akin, He is very near. But God is not man, nor man a part of God. We hear sometimes that God is all and all is God. Christian truth cannot be expressed in this way. Our faith in the Holiness of God declares that He is within the world but distinct from it, above it, around it, controlling it, making it the servant of His will, that He is the source of all, the upholder of all, the Master of all.
GOD IS ALMIGHTY
God our Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, is Almighty. "The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." Here also are two words and two thoughts, not one alone. God is Almighty in the sense that His power is supreme and irresistible. This is wholly true but it is not the thought that stands in the forefront either in Holy Scripture or in the creed. It is there in the background, where sheer force must be and ought to be.
The prominent thought, however, when we profess our faith in God the Father Almighty is the thought of His wise, holy sovereignty. He is the Ruler of all, the Master of all, of Himself and of all persons and things. Not by might but by persuasion He is content to exercise His Dominion over men. So God governs the world and in His government we find the model for the true government of men. Force has its use only where freedom has failed. It is not God's power but His patience that excites our wonder and at times our perplexity. We are puzzled because He does not intervene more directly with His outstretched arm, but waits on man's agency and allows such latitude to man's self-will and blindness and cruelty. It is the price of
We know therefore in the story of the Cross and of the Resurrection that while sorrow and suffering and disaster are not removed from human life, God does not stand apart from them and unconcerned. All who pass along the way of sorrows and into the valley of death may find in Christ, that is in God Himself, the sympathy of One Who has passed that way before, and the strength of One who has conquered death and all its powers.
GOD IS EVERYWHERE PRESENT AND KNOWS ALL THINGS.
The attributes of God pass inevitably and naturally one into another. It cannot be otherwise because they are all ways in which the Living Eternal Being reveals Himself. In thinking of His Holiness and of His power we are led to think of His presence and in thinking of His presence we are led to think of His knowledge.
"The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good." It will not be possible to speak here in any fulness of the knowledge of God. Two facts, however, should always be kept in mind. Nothing can be hid from Him Whose eyes are in every place. Nothing is obscure to Him Who is everywhere. Yet it is not God's knowledge of them that causes men to be what they are or to act as they do. There is a big problem here. In theory it is too big for solution, but in practice the problem is not so great. God's knowledge does not compel us more than does His will. Within the limits that we are well aware of, that come to us from inheritance and from environment, we are free and because we are free we are responsible.
A second consideration is this. The Holy One Who is ever present, Who makes His moral claim upon us and expects the best of us, is no other than our Father. He knows us through and through. Yet as a Father he has compassion on His children. He knoweth whereof we are made; He remembereth that we are but dust. The presence of God may best be studied in close connection with His Personality. It is as a person that He is present. The 139th Psalm will help us best to realize how universal His Presence is. We can then follow out the teaching given there and elsewhere in Holy Scripture, in the witness of the Church, and in the experience of men. He Who is everywhere present, just because He is our Father, can be present with us by His own appointment in special ways and places and for special purposes. He is present in nature in its vastness and in its minuteness, and in both we can read His thoughts after Him. He is present in the affairs of men and of nations in all ages. He speaks to men in the voice of conscience and we hear Him in its strange authority to command and to forbid. In Christ He is present revealing Himself in human experiences and in human deeds and words and service. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name He is in their midst. In the Sacraments He is present to give His sacred gifts.
GOD IS OUR FATHER.
We have considered now some of the great truths of God which have been revealed to us, but the Fatherhood of God in itself, what is it that we know of this?
In the teaching of Christ our Master,—the Fatherhood of God is the central truth of all. It gathers into itself all other attributes and gives to all a special quality. It is our special Christian heritage. The heart that believes God to be "Our Father" has room for the conviction that "God is Love". We shall perhaps gain fullest insight into the greatness of this truth if we concentrate our thoughts on certain facts which stand out with special clearness in Holy Scripture.
First of all it is His presentation of the Fatherhood of God which gives to our Saviour's teaching its wonderful tenderness and power. Not power alone, nor tenderness alone, but both. He tells us that our Heavenly Father knows our every need; that He Who feeds the birds of the air and clothes the lilies of the field will not be unmindful of the children of men; that our Father's heart is full of that eager, forgiving, redeeming love which wins our heart in the parable of the Prodigal Son. On the other hand, He would have us ever mindful that our Father, when we approach in faith and penitence, is One Whose Name is to be hallowed, Who is the Lord of heaven and earth to Whom all things are possible, Who governs all things and knows all things, even the inmost thoughts of men.
Again, the Fatherhood of God is unchanging and universal. It must be so for He is the Eternal Father, and "He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." Nevertheless, man's power to respond to God's Fatherhood is not everywhere the same. We shall understand this best if we study the Bible teaching on sonship and brotherhood in the light of the revelation which God has given of His Fatherhood. There are in the Bible different kinds of sonship, or sonships on different levels. The fact that we are created and created in the image of our Maker constitutes sonship. He is our Father Who gives us life. "Have we not all one Father, hath not God created us?" There is, therefore, a sonship which is natural and universal, but it is not in itself complete. Its value consists in the fact that it is the ground of a higher relationship. It is the capacity for sonship, which, however hidden or dormant, we believe to be in every man.
Nevertheless so long as men are ignorant of God and indifferent to Him, they are not in any full sense His sons. We find, therefore, in the Bible another kind of sonship. God is our Father because He gives us more abundant life, a life of redemption from ignorance and sin. This is illustrated in the Old Testament by the choice of Israel and the great covenant promises involved in it, "I will be their God and they shall be My people," "I will be his Father and he shall be My son." In the New Testament we find the same principle in the choice by Christ of His Apostles and disciples for special privilege of knowledge and grace. This choice is perpetuated by Christ in His Church. Our Christian sonship is a special sonship. It is ours by Baptism wherein we are made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of the kingdom of Heaven. Two practical considerations follow. First, if there are different levels of sonship there are different degrees of brotherhood. The message of the premiers is right. The hope of a brotherhood of humanity does repose on the deeper spiritual truth of the Fatherhood of God. This brotherhood, however, is not a relationship which comes to us simply by nature; it is a relationship which in social, individual, national and international life must be morally won.
Again, those who have Christian knowledge and grace have not received this privilege for themselves alone. They are God's sons who have special gifts in trust on behalf of all mankind who have them not. The call to Missionary work is based on this responsibility, and will remain so until "the earth is filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea."
Finally, there is the unique sonship of Christ Himself. His sonship is perfect and complete. It is also the channel through which our sonship, whether of creation or redemption, comes to us. "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father, and no man knoweth the son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father, save the son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." It is this Eternal sonship which constitutes the special significance to our confession of faith in God the Father in the Apostles' Creed. Christ is One Who comes to us from the Eternal life of God. That life which though inseparable from man and from the world is yet forever holy and distinct. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity helps us here. It arose out of simple loyalty to New Testament teaching. From the first it has been a living practical faith. Christians learnt to recite their belief in God the Father, God the Son and
II.
FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRIST
By The Rt. Rev. E. J. Bidwell, D.D., D.C.L., Bishop of Ontario.
TWELVE FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRIST BRIEFLY SUMMARIZED.
(I) Christ's Religion is a "Revealed" Religion.
(II) Jesus Christ the Son of God eternally existing in the Godhead became Man for our salvation. This is called the Incarnation.
(III) He was born of a Virgin.
(IV) The Gospels ascribe to Christ not Divinity only, but Deity.
(V) He is also true Man, and Sinless.
(VI) When He spoke God spoke.
(VII) He is the Saviour of the world.
VIII) He rose from the dead.
(IX) He founded a Church.
(X) He is the Mediator between man and God.
(XI) He is with His Church and her members to the end of the world.
(XII) He is the Light of the world and the Lord of Life.
CHRISTIANITY A REVEALED RELIGION
Christianity, of which Jesus Christ is the Founder and Divine Head, is essentially a "revealed" religion. It is not, that is to say, the result and culmination of the progress of evolution in man's beliefs about God. Nor was it the outcome of an impact made upon Judaism by Hellenistic thought. It is, and has always from the first claimed to be, a direct revelation by God of Himself to man through Jesus Christ.
To say this does not mean however that the world was not in any way prepared for the coming of Christ. On the contrary, the traces of that preparation are clear throughout the Old Testament, from beginning to end. If the Old Testament is read in the light of a progressive revelation of God's Nature and Being, and His relations with mankind, its difficulties disappear, and it is seen to point clearly to the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. But the method is that of God pointing out the way to man, not of man's discovery of it for himself. When almost the whole of the then known world had been brought under the sway of the great Roman Empire, the time was ripe for a World Religion. So "when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son" to bring the message of salvation to the whole of mankind.
THE PRE-EXISTENCE AND INCARNATION OF CHRIST.
The Christian Creeds make it clear that the coming of Christ was the fulfilment of God's plan when they state, as does the Nicene Creed, that our belief is in "One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of His Father before all worlds, ... Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man". The Church plainly teaches the belief in the pre-existence of the divine person from the beginning, as alone meeting all the facts, and has steadily rejected every other belief, in spite of all difficulties. That Jesus was man was perfectly clear: His Godhead was much more open to attack. So the belief that in Jesus Christ God became man is put in the very forefront of our confession of faith.
THE VIRGIN BIRTH.
The belief that Jesus Christ was born of a pure Virgin is entirely in keeping with the belief in His pre-existence as God. There is no space to set forth here the weighty reasons for the importance of this belief. It is sufficient to say that it is inseparably interwoven with the whole Christian conception of His Incarnation, namely, that in Jesus Christ we have perfect God and perfect Man. The Virgin-Birth keeps the balance even between His Deity and His humanity. This article of the Creed, which is based on the direct statement of two of the four Gospels, is therefore most helpful in enabling us to understand that in Jesus Christ we behold Divine and human nature joined in perfect unison, He being "God of the substance (essential nature) of the Father, begotten before the worlds, and Man of the substance (essential nature) of His Mother, born in the world".
GOSPEL PROOFS OF THE GODHEAD OF CHRIST.
The Credal statement that "Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and Man; yet He is not two but One Christ" is not an arbitrary dogma, but is based upon the facts as set forth in the Gospels. There are our Lord's own direct statements as reported in St. John's Gospel; ("I and My Father are One". St John X. 30. "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" St. John XIV. 9.) There is also His reply to the question of the High Priest at His trial, reported by St. Matthew (XXVI. 63, 64.), St. Mark (XIV. 61, 62.), St. Luke (XXII. 70.), in which our Lord distinctly claimed Divine Sonship, and that in the sense stated in the Creeds, as is shown by the fact that He was at once adjudged to be guilty of death for blasphemy, which would not have been the case had not His claim amounted in the mind of His judges to that of equality with God. Passing for the moment Peter's confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi (St. Matt. XVI. 16) there are certain inevitable inferences establishing the belief that in Christ God became Man which are drawn from His life and teaching while on earth. Some of the most salient of these are;—
1. He invariably speaks to men about God not as one whose thoughts are the outcome of even the deepest and most perfect spiritual insight a man could possess, but as one who had absolute knowledge. We feel instinctively that it is God who is speaking to us about God.
2. Next, he makes a claim upon men that no man, however perfect, ought to, or would dare, to make; a claim which men would strongly resent another man making on them. For He claims men body, soul, and spirit, and not only for time, but for eternity, and tells them that the acceptance or rejection of that claim will make all the difference to their eternal destiny (e.g. St. Matt. X. 32). And He could only make this claim as One who speaks as God.
3. His teaching is delivered with an absolute authority that no man could possibly arrogate to himself. What he says is final; "I say unto you". Nor does he offer salvation through acceptance of a system or philosophy of life, but through Himself; "Come unto me"; "Follow me"; "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me"; and many similar statements abundantly illustrate this fact.
CHRIST'S MANHOOD. HIS SINLESSNESS.
We need no proof of the Manhood of Christ, as we can read about it for ourselves in the Gospels. We can see from the records therein contained that Christ was man like as we are. But there was one most important difference between us and Him. He is the only man who was ever free from the taint of sin. He alone could fearlessly ask the question:—"Which of you convicteth me of sin"?
But the fact that He was sinless does not imply that He was never tempted. Had He been entirely free from temptation, His manhood would have been so utterly different from ours that it would mean little or nothing to us. But He was not so free. This we have on His own authority, as the account of His temptation in the wilderness can only have come from Himself. And there can
But the sinlessness of Christ does not if rightly understood repel us, or prove any barrier between us and Him. It is not an abstract belief about Him, but is exhibited in His life as a man, thereby showing of what manhood is capable if the human will be brought into perfect harmony with the divine will. We know ourselves that the closer we bring our will into agreement with the Divine will, the less liable we are to fall before temptation, and we also know that the nearer we draw to Christ, the easier it becomes to will for ourselves what God wills for us. The sinlessness of the Son, Whose will was always in perfect agreement with that of His Father, has always been the inspiration of the saint, and at the same time the great attraction of His personality to the sinner.
THE MISSION AND THE TEACHING OF CHRIST.
Jesus did not begin His public Mission till He was about thirty years of age. It opened with His baptism by John the Baptist, when by the descent of the Spirit of God upon Him and the voice from heaven He was marked out as the "Beloved Son", or as the Fourth Gospel represents John the Baptist saying, "The Son of God". Then followed a retirement of forty days into the wilderness, at the close of which He faced and overcame the severe temptations, which were all intended to debase and destroy the ideal embodied in His Mission as the Saviour not of His nation only but of the whole world, and the Founder of a spiritual Kingdom in the hearts of men. He soon gathered together disciples, of whom He selected twelve, whom He named Apostles, to be His constant and intimate companions. They did not fully realise either the mystery of His Person, or the object of His Mission, till after He rose from the dead. The conviction that a flash of spiritual insight brought to Peter at Caesarea Philippi (St. Matt. XVI. 16) was not sufficiently strong to prevent Him from publicly denying His Master at His trial.
It is difficult to summarise our Lord's teaching, for it cannot be reduced to any system. His Ministry was one of Reconciliation of man to God. As He said, He came to "seek and to save that which was lost". His Gospel is the "Gospel of the Kingdom of God", or "The Kingdom of heaven". This Kingdom was not relegated to the dim and distant future but was to be inaugurated here and now. In all those who should become members, a change of heart, a turning towards God instead of away from Him, and a complete readjustment of values were required.[1] He was Himself as it were the Door to this Kingdom, which could only be entered through Him. He asked men to make Him the centre of Life, instead of self. 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself.'
It should always be remembered, in studying the teaching of Christ, that it is based upon the fact that men have a spiritual as well as an intellectual and physical life; in other words, that they have a soul as well as a mind and body, and of these the life of the soul is the most important. He does not set forth an elaborate system of conduct, but rather enunciates certain great general principles on which the Christian life is to be based. These principles are to be applied to every human relationship. The teaching of Christ does not deal with particular circumstances, which vary from age to age, and differ in different countries in different races of men, but with human nature which is the same everywhere in its fundamental characteristics. Consequently His teaching is never out of date, but each generation can obtain the light it needs therefrom. It is not any flaw in the teaching of Christ, but the very imperfect application of it by men to the circumstances of life, which has from time to time caused the charge of failure to be brought against Christianity.
CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR—THE ATONEMENT.
The purpose of the Incarnation was not only to reveal to men through the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ the true Nature and Being of God. It was also to effect the reconciliation of men to God. To accomplish this purpose the great obstructing barrier of sin had to be broken down. The means chosen, in the infinite wisdom of God, was the Death of Jesus Christ upon the Cross. By this supreme act of self-sacrifice He opened to men the way of reconciliation to God, and became their Saviour from the dreadful power of sin, which by themselves they could not and cannot overcome. It should also be remembered that in speaking of this sublime subject we are dealing with a mystery, which it is beyond human power fully to explain, and that for that reason no really adequate theory of the Atonement can be set forth. But of the fact there is no doubt. The experience of countless men and women has proven conclusively the saving power of the Cross. When they have accepted that sacrifice made for the sins of men, and have taken Christ into their lives, the predominant feeling is that their sins have been forgiven. And the fact that it is through Christ's sacrifice, and not by anything they themselves have done or could do, that they have won pardon, so far from lowering their moral sense as might be expected, in that they are simply benefiting by the action of another, invariably on the contrary makes a profound impression on both life and character, enabling them through the resulting loyalty and devotion to Christ to reach a standard of life and conduct much beyond that which had previously satisfied them.
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST
That Christ rose from the dead on the third day has been from the very beginning the unquestioned belief of the Christian Church. It is the main theme of the first Christian sermon ever produced, that by Peter on the day of Pentecost. The Gospel records are perfectly plain as to the nature of Christ's Resurrection. He rose from the grave in His complete Personality, spiritual and bodily, though His risen body was free from certain limitations of pre-resurrection life. It was the same body as His disciples had known before His death. Of this He bade them assure themselves by actual contact. That He rose from the dead in His human as well as in His divine nature is the guarantee that we men can share in His resurrection. "Even so in Christ shall all be made alive".
As to the exact nature of our own Resurrection body, naturally it is not possible to speak with exact certainty. Yet it is certain that the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the dead means much more than the survival of the spirit. It teaches plainly and clearly a bodily resurrection. In the inspired statement of St. Paul, found in the familiar Lesson of our Burial Service, (1 Cor. xv. 20-end), we have four great facts set forth regarding the body which is laid in the grave, and what it will become at the Resurrection:
First: It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.
Secondly: It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.
Thirdly: It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
Fourthly: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
From this it is clear that our resurrection body will be such, as under the different conditions prevailing in the future life, will have every element of personality which we possess now, but in a glorified and spiritual form. "I" shall be "I" in the resurrection body, and recognisable as such to those who know and love me now. Beyond this we need not go. For it is God Who will raise us from the dead, and to Him nothing is impossible.
CHRIST AND His CHURCH.
Though the actual word
Christ is the Head of His Church, which is therefore a Divine Institution, though it works in the world by human instruments. Into this Body we are admitted at Baptism, and by virtue of Christ's Headship become by our admission "Members of Christ, Children of God, and Inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven".
CHRIST AS MEDIATOR
As Christ is God and also shares our humanity, and in virtue of His great Act of Reconciliation shown on the Cross, we rightly approach God the Father through Him. That is why we end our prayers with the words—"through Jesus Christ our Lord", and plead the Sacrifice of the Cross before the throne of God in the Blessed Sacrament. St. Paul (Romans VIII. 34.) speaks of Christ as making intercession for us at the right hand of God.
HIS CHURCH AND HER MEMBERS
Christ told His disciples that He would be with them always, even to the end of the Age. This promise He, as Head of His Church, fulfills, both to that Body at large, and to the individual members thereof by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit through which He works both in the heart of the individual and in the whole Body, to which He has given the charge of the Means of Grace. We also rightly believe that He is specially present in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood, which He Himself instituted and ordained for His followers.
CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD AND THE LORD OF LIFE
In closing this brief and therefore necessarily very imperfect summary of a vast subject, our final thought may well be that in union with Christ lies our supreme hope both in this world and in the world to come. For He is the "True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world"; the only Guide Who will never lead us astray. And the closer we draw to Him in prayer and sacrament, worship and service, the more abundantly shall we recognize the truth of His own inspiring word; "He that believeth on the Son hath ever-lasting Life", for Christ is the Lord of all life, now and for ever.
[1] Note.—In Infant Baptism this requisition is made of the Sureties, or God-Parents; "which promise, they (i.e. the Infants) when they come to age themselves are bound to perform." (Catechism).
III.
THE BIBLE
By The Ven. Archdeacon Paterson-Smyth, D.D., Litt.D., D.C.L.
This is a vast subject. What is one to do with it in an essay limited to twenty pages? Keeping in mind the purpose of the editors I have decided to confine myself to one main thought: Reassurance as to the unshakeable position of the Bible amid present-day doubts and disquiet.
With all his reverence for the Bible there sometimes come to a thoughtful layman perplexities and tacit questionings. This is partly because we are thinking a little more than our grandfathers did, but still more because God has given in our day fuller knowledge of the truths of history and science, and also of the making of the Bible itself through the keen investigations of what is called Higher Criticism.
There is no space to discuss such questions here. But if it be not presumptions after many years of study of these questions I should like to assure the reader that not only is there no peril to the Bible in any of this new knowledge, but that when he has got over any disquiet caused by some shifting of his point of view it should make the Bible for him a more living, appealing presentation of God. At present I can only help him to examine his foundations.
I.—FOUNDATIONS
1.—If the fear should ever come upon you, my reader, of the possibility of the Scriptures being discredited by present-day controversies after having been accepted as God-given for three thousand years, first pause for a moment, and let the full weight of these thoughts press upon you of all that is implied in the fact (1) that any set of old documents, always open to scrutiny and question, should for thousands of years have been accepted as of Divine origin; (2) that they should have been yielded to by men as an authority to guide their conduct by commands often disagreeable to themselves; (3) that this acceptance and obedience has been chiefly amongst the most thoughtful and highly-cultured nations of the world; (4) that it has gone on age after age, steadily increasing, and never in any age has made more progress than in this cultured, enlightened, all-questioning century in which we live.
2.—What has given these Scriptures such authority? Remember they were only separate documents, often with hundreds of years intervening between them, written by different writers of different characters to different people, and under different circumstances. Remember that in many cases we do not know their origin, or how they assumed their present form. And yet somehow we never can reach back in their history to a time when they were not treasured and
And remember especially this, that they were selected out by no miracle, that they rest on no formal decision or sentence of Church or Council, or pope or saint, nay, not even of the Blessed Lord Himself; for long before He came, for centuries and centuries there they stood, testifying of Him, cherished and reverenced as a message that had come from above "at sundry times and in divers manners". All study of their history shows that their acceptance rested on no decision of any external authority. They were accepted as of Divine origin for many generations before they were gathered into any fixed collection. "The Church", said Luther, "cannot give more force or authority to a book than it has in itself. A Council cannot make that to be Scripture which in its own nature is not Scripture".
It is true that the great Synagogue, or their official descendants, collected the Old Testament Canon of Scripture. Yes, but when? Somewhere about the time of our Lord, when the books had been for ages recognised as of God. It is true that the Christian Church collected the New Testament writings into a Bible, and arrived at a decision concerning certain books the authority of which had been in debate. Yes, but when? After they had been for 300 years accepted as the God-given guide of the Church. Evidently it was not their being collected into a Bible that made them of authority, but rather the fact of their possessing authority made them be collected into a Bible.
3.—Again, I repeat the question, what gave them that authority? And there seems no possible answer but this, that they possessed it of themselves. They commanded the position they held by their own power. Men's moral sense and reason combined to establish them. They appealed by their own instrinsic worth to the God-given moral faculty, and the response to that appeal through all the ages since is in reality the main foundation of the Bible's position.
Look at the Old Testament. If we at the present day are asked why we receive it as inspired, we usually reply that we receive it on the authority of our Lord and His apostles. They accepted it as the Word of God, and handed it on to us with their official approval of it. Well, but why was it accepted before their day without any such formal sanction? How did men come to believe and obey as Divinely inspired the words of Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and the rest? Except in the case of Moses, there were no miracles or portents; no external voice from heaven to command men's allegiance. They were not established on their Divine supremacy by any single authority. Why then were their utterances accepted?
It seems evident there can be but one answer. They asserted that supremacy by their own intrinsic power. Men were compelled to acknowledge that their declaration that "the word of the Lord had come to them" was true. There was that in the messages of the prophets and in the evidence by which they were accompanied, which compelled this belief.
The books of the New Testament became recognised among Christians just as the books of the Old Testament had been recognised among the Jews, by virtue of their own inherent evidence. Certain witnesses came forward and recorded in writing the teaching of our Lord, or announced certain messages for which they had His authority, or the guidance of His Spirit in communicating them to their fellows. Men had to decide for themselves whether they believed those claims. The Apostles were supported, indeed, in many cases by miracles, but not always; and though those miracles afforded momentous evidence, they were not recognisable in themselves, when standing alone, as decisive of the whole question. No apparent miracle, it was felt, could of itself authenticate a message from God which did not bear internal evidence also of having proceeded from Him. The appeal in the early Church was directed, as in the time of our Lord Himself, to the hearts and consciences of men. He Himself could but appeal to those hearts and consciences, and men accepted and rejected Him, not by reference to any external authority, but in proportion to their capacity for recognising His Divine character.
"Thus from the first to the last, the authority of the Scriptures has been equivalent to the authority with which they themselves convinced men that they had come from God."
I have been anxious to show you that the position of the Bible rests not on any miracle, or any external authority of the Church or Council, but on its appeal to the minds and consciences of men. You may doubt a miracle, you may doubt your individual instincts, you may doubt the competency of any one body of men; you cannot doubt so easily the conviction of a hundred generations. They found in it a power to make them good and they were convinced that it had come from God.[1]
Now consider that this Bible has held its authoritative position in the face of the most violent attacks all through the centuries; that infidels have dreamed that they had overthrown it and exploded it times without number, with the result only that its power has steadily increased, so that to-day it would be almost as easy to root the sun out of the heavens as to root this Bible out of human life.
Take this single fact as an illustration. A hundred years ago Voltaire refuted it quite satisfactorily, as it seemed to himself. "In a century," he said, "the Bible and Christianity will be things of the past." Well, how has his prophecy been fulfilled? Before his day the whole world from the beginning of it had not produced six millions of Bibles. In a single century since, and that too, the enlightened, critical nineteenth century, two hundred millions of Bibles and portions of Scripture have issued from the press, in five hundred and forty-three languages. And I have read somewhere that the house in which Voltaire lived is now one of the depots of the Bible Society.
II.—THE WITNESS IN OURSELVES.
1.—I have pointed out that the authority of the Scriptures has been equivalent to the authority with which they themselves convinced men that they came from God. Now let us try to bring this conviction home to ourselves—to test on ourselves the power of these Scripture utterances which persuaded men of old that they came from above. For it is as they compel in us the same convictions that we can readily understand the making of the Bible.
Get outside all thoughts of an authoritative Bible. Forget the fuller light of Christ in which you stand, which reveals comparative imperfection in those ancient writers. Put yourself in their place. Picture the nations of the earth in their ignorance and depravity, with their blind gropings after God, reaching no higher than fetishes and idols, and the tales of classical mythology. Then listen wonderingly to those prophetic voices in Israel amid the surroundings of that dark old world before Romulus and Remus were suckled by the wolf:
"Jehovah, Jehovah. A God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.
"Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil.
"Thus saith the high and holy One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the
"What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?"
And mingled with these noble thoughts, like a golden thread woven through the web of prophecy, see that strangely persistent groping after some great Being, some great purpose of God in the future—from the Genesis prediction of "The Seed of the Woman" to the vision of the Coming One by the great prophet of the exile "Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ... the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."
Try to realise the impressiveness of it. All down the Jewish history in the midst of a dark world came these mysterious voices telling of a holy God,—teaching, threatening, pleading, encouraging, pointing to a gradually brightening ideal and to the hope of some Great One who yet was to come. And to deepen its impressiveness notice that these prophets asserted passionately their conviction: "These are not our words. These are not our thoughts, God has put them into us." "The word of the Lord came unto me. Hear ye therefore the word of the Lord." How could the people doubt it? They were not good people. They were stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, "who did always resist the Holy Ghost". They hated the high teaching. They killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent unto them. But conscience insisted that these prophets were right and, by and by, in deep remorse they built them sepulchres and treasured up what fragments they could find of their sacred words. How could they help it? Put yourself in their place. Do you not feel that you must have done the same if you had been there?
2.—The same is evidently true of the Psalms, the hymns of the Jewish Church. They, too, owe their position to the appeal which they made to the highest in men. They were the utterances of noble souls who with all their imperfections knew and loved God, and all kindred souls then and since have felt their power in inspiring the spiritual life. The author's name did not matter. In most cases it was not known.
The position of the Psalter, then, is not due to any author's name, to any Council's sanction, but to its compelling appeal to the highest side of men in that old Jewish Community. That was how the Holy Spirit wrought in making the Bible. Judged by the higher standard of Jesus Christ we can see imperfections and faults due to the poor imperfect men who wrote the Psalter. Strange if it were otherwise in that dark age in which it grew. But when all allowance has been made for these, who can doubt that that Psalter, which has been so powerful in inspiring human life through the ages since, caught on to men's souls in those early days and convinced them that it came from God.
Again let us test its compelling power on ourselves. Keep back still in that dim old world with its self-seeking, and idolatries, and human sacrifices, and lustful abominations, with no real sense of sin, no longings after holiness, and listen to the Jewish shepherd reciting in the field, and the Jewish choir boy singing in the church:
"Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, praise His Holy Name, Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thy diseases. Who redeemeth thy life from destruction, Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies.... Like as a father pitieth his own children, so is the Lord merciful to them that fear Him, for He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are but dust.
"Lord, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness and speaketh the truth in his heart.
"The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
"Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.... The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise."
Are not such songs in such an age one of the miracles of history? How could men help loving and reverencing and preserving such songs? How could they help feeling that a divine Spirit was behind them?
3.—The rest of the Old Testament is the history of God's dealing with the nation, a story gathered under the guidance of God's providence in many generations, from many sources since the far back childhood of the race. The historians were evidently men with the prophetic instinct. But I make no appeal on the score of their being prophets. The appeal is made by the history itself. Was ever national history so extraordinarily written? It is the history of an evil and rebellious people, yet everything is looked at in relation to the God of Righteousness. Records of other ancient nations tell what this or that great king accomplished, how the people conquered or were conquered by their enemies. In these Jewish records everything is of God—a righteous, holy God. It is God who conquered, God who delivered, God who punished, God who fought. There is no boasting of the national glory, no flattering of the national vanity; their greatest sins and disgraces and punishments are recorded just as fully as their triumphs and their joys. In the records of other nations the chief stress is laid on power and prosperity and comfort and wealth. In these strange records goodness seems to be the only thing of importance. To do the right, to please the holy God is of infinitely more value than to be powerful or rich or successful in Life. "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." "He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord," are the epitaphs of their most famous kings.
Therefore the national history of Israel also holds its position by its appeal to the religious instinct. No author's name, no theory of its composition affects its position. Whatever its imperfection, it has impressed itself upon us as the simple story of God's dealing with men.
III.—THE WITNESS OF CHRIST.
I now point you to the chief ground for every Christian man of his belief in the Divine origin of the Bible. It is this. That it all centres in Jesus Christ Himself. It cannot be dissociated from Him. It is closely, inseparately bound up with His life.
The Old Testament tells of the preparation for Christ. The New Testament tells that when that preparation was complete "in the fulness of time God sent forth His Son." Jesus Christ, as it were, stands between the Old Testament and the New and lays His hand upon them both. The Old Testament contains the Scriptures which He told men were of God and which bare witness of Him. The New Testament is the story of His words and works, and the teaching of apostles and early disciples sent forth by Him as teachers with the power of the Holy Ghost. It is this fact that Christ is its centre which accounts for the striking unity of this collection of separate documents. The parts belong all to each other. And surely for us Christians our conviction as to the authority of the Bible is increased a thousandfold by the attitude of Christ Himself towards the only Bible that He had, the Old Testament.
It was the Bible of His education. It was the Bible of His ministry. He took for granted its fundamental doctrines about creation, man, righteousness, God's providence and purpose. He accepted it as the preparation for Himself and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He used it to justify His mission and to illuminate the mystery of the cross. Above all He fed His own soul with its contents and in the great crisis of His life sustained Himself upon
IV.—THE WITNESS OF ITS POWER.
1.—Need I remind you of that practical conviction of every earnest Bible student, the conviction which Coleridge expresses when he speaks of the way in which it "finds me". Men feel by their own spiritual experience that the Book witnesses to itself. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with their spirit" that the Book is the Book of God. It "finds them" as no other book ever does. Its words have moved them deeply; it has helped them to be good; it has mastered their wills and gladdened their hearts till the overpowering conviction has forced itself upon them, "Never book spake like this Book."
Need I point you to the world around, to the miraculous power which is exercised by that Bible, to the evil lives reformed by it, to the noble, beautiful lives daily nourished by it? Did you ever hear of any other book of history, and poetry, and memoirs, and letters that had this power to turn men towards nobleness and righteousness of life? Did you ever hear a man say, "I was an outcast, and a reprobate, and a disgrace to all that loved me till I began to read Scott's poems and Macaulay's History of England?" Did you ever hear a man tell of the peace and hope and power to conquer evil which he had won by an earnest study of the Latin classics?
You can get a great many to say it of the study of the Bible, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. You can see the amount of happiness and good that has come to the world even from the miserably imperfect following of it. You can see that the world would be a very paradise of God if it were thoroughly followed. Misery and vice would vanish forever, purity and love and unselfish work for others would hold their universal sway on earth. The millenium would have begun.
Need we be disquieted about a Book that comes to us thus accredited in so many powerful ways? Can we not see with restful hearts that all for which we value it is safe from assault; that we never can doubt that it has come to us from God.
With this confidence in our foundations we shall study peacefully and with interest all new knowledge on the Bible. Instead of fearing a conflict of Science and Scripture we shall learn to read our Bible more wisely. For example, we shall read the Creation story not as a scientific treatise but as a simple religious primer for an ancient child race three or four thousand years ago to teach them first lessons about God. And if Higher Criticism teaches us that some of the old books have been edited and re-edited before reaching their present form, that David did not write all the psalms, that Moses did not write the whole of the Pentateuch as it stands to-day, we shall learn to regard it as a matter of mere literary interest.
Such questions may be discussed with a quiet mind. For if the authority of the Bible rests not on any external miracle, nor on any author's name, nor on any theory of its composition, nor on any pronouncement of any one body of men, but on its own compelling power to convince men that it came from God, then its foundations are safe enough, and the question how the Books grew or by whom they were written or edited or brought together into a Bible is a matter of literary interest in no way vital to the authority of Scripture.
We shall therefore need in our Bible reading more thoughtfulness, more study, more prayer. But the outlay of these will be repaid a hundredfold. The Bible will shine forth for us more real, more natural, more divine. Our beliefs will rest on a firm foundation. And, though there may be still things that puzzle and perplex us, we shall learn that our Christian life does not depend on the understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, but on the humble obedience to the will of God, which for all practical purposes is clearly revealed.
Blessed Lord, who has caused all Holy Scriptures to be
written for our learning; grant that we may in such
wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly
digest them, that by patience, and comfort
of Thy Holy Word, we may embrace
and ever hold fast the blessed
hope of everlasting life, which
Thou hast given us in
our Saviour Jesus
Christ. Amen.
[1] I am quite conscious that I may be pointed to the acceptance of the Koran and the Sacred Books of India as a fact that weakens this argument. I have no hesitation in admitting that, in part, the reason of their acceptance, too, lies in their appeal to the consciences of men through their containing broken rays of "The light that lighteth every man coming into the world." I should be sorry to think that Christianity required my belief that the God and Father of all men left the whole non-Christian world without any light from Himself. But surely there is a vast difference between the position of these books and that of the Bible. All that is good in the Koran existed already in Christianity and Judaism, and is mainly derived from them. The Sacred Books of India, with their pearls of spiritual truth gleaming here and there amongst a mass of rubbish, can surely not be compared with the Bible in reference to the above argument.