Does It Make a Difference? by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 23, 1910

Does It Make a Difference?

By F. M. W.

Does it make a difference what one believes? Does one’s faith make him acceptable to God? This is the question which the editor of the Independent considers in his issue of June 2. The occasion for his remarks is found in the question of discipline before the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. An appeal was taken against three young men who had been recommended by the New York Synod for ordination, on the ground that they did not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, in the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the bodily resurrection of Lazarus and Christ. Speaking of the attitude of the Assembly toward these questions, the Independent says:—

They generally believe in the virgin birth, but they do not care so much about it. And why should they? What is its importance? Let us come down to the radical, essential, basic essence of religion. What is it? Is it anything whatever that a man believes which will make him acceptable to God? Is it anything that a man believes about God, or about Jesus Christ, or about the atonement, or about heaven or hell?

If the Word of God be taken as the divine moral standard, it surely makes all the difference in the world what one believes, or whether he believes at all. We are abundantly assured of this in the Scriptures of truth. Faith in the death, resurrection, and mediation of Jesus Christ is set forth as absolutely necessary to salvation. “Without faith,” says the apostle Paul, “it is impossible to please him [God].” “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” There is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all.” “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

But this record the Independent does not accept as final authority. It claims that “the sixty-six books of the Bible must be tested just as much as any other good book, and by that test they must stand or fall.”

What is to be the standard of test? Shall we submit the Bible to the test of the ages? In the world’s literature it stands unique. Says the apostle Peter, “The word of the Lord endureth forever.” For long centuries it has stood the fiercest assaults of fanatical zealot, of carping critic, of ranting infidel. It still stands as an impregnable fortress, a monument of its Author’s infinite power.

Shall we submit it to the test of historical research and archeological discovery? The ruins of ancient Babylon and Egypt, of Tyre and Sidon, give silent witness to its authenticity. The tablets of clay and the monuments of stone confirm its historical setting. All the delvings of men in the chronicles of the past declare the Word of the Lord to be true in every detail.

Shall we submit it to the test of practical Christian experience, of simple, childlike trust and faith? Here its potency is manifest in a marked degree. It has ever wrought effectually in him that believeth. Its benign influence has softened savage natures, transformed ferocious cannibals into humble children of peace, thrown down strongholds of ignorance and superstition, broken the shackles from the enslaved, and in a greater or less degree raised the whole human family to higher ideals of thought and living. Thousands in every age have demonstrated its power and shared its consolation. Beyond the ken of human reasoning, or the logic of cold philosophy, the Bible has proved its truthfulness and demonstrated its living power.

Shall we submit it to the test of human judgment? Here it must fail. The carnal heart is at enmity with the pure principles of the Word of truth. The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God. This is the test to which the Independent would invite us, the same as we test the current literature of the day.

As to the necessity of the acceptance of the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus, if one believes in the Scriptures of truth, in the record which God has left of the earthly experiences of his Son, there can be absolutely no question. Says Isaiah, in speaking of Christ’s birth: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Of Christ’s birth by Mary it is declared, “Now all this was done,

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet.”

Regarding this Scriptural truth, the Independent inquires:—

Now what will happen to him as a religious man, or a Christian man, if he lacks assurance as to the virgin birth? Certainly it need not make him love the less the character of Jesus Christ or the less follow his teachings. To us, as bearing on our character and life, it is perfectly indifferent whether Jesus had or had not a human father.

It makes all the difference in the world as to whether Jesus Christ was the divine Son of God or only the son of Joseph. As the first, he is the divine Saviour of men; as the second, he would be but a man. As man alone he would be to the human family only a great moral teacher. While presenting a higher code of moral ethics than Buddha or Socrates, like them, he would be utterly powerless to enable his followers to reach the standard placed before them. Cheerless indeed the outlook for the human family with such a Saviour as this. Awakening to higher ideals would be but sad mockery without the power to attain to a realization of the hope created. His view destroys the whole mediatorial scheme of the gospel, and makes of none effect all the statements of Holy Writ concerning the worth of the atonement. It makes of the faith of apostle and prophet and of the church of God in all ages but idle dreams and vain imaginings. It makes of Christian believers blinded dupes, and of Christian teachers base deceivers.

But in what a different character is the Lord Jesus Christ presented in the Word of truth! Man by disobedience had separated himself from God. Christ in infinite love comes to pay the penalty of man’s rebellion. His death bridges the gulf between the finite and the infinite. His Holy Spirit awakens desires after a new life of righteousness. He knocks at the heart’s door, and pleads for admission. Simple faith in his atoning sacrifice opens the door and bids him enter. His imputed righteousness covers the dark record of the past, and the impartation of his own divine grace and life enables the believer to meet the standard of righteousness for the future.

This is the Christ of the Scriptures of truth. Not a great moral teacher, by the example of whose life only we are saved, but the God-man, combining in himself both humanity and divinity, the one arm encircling the throne of the Highest, the other reaching down to the depths to raise man up to sit in heavenly places. “Christ in you the hope of glory,”—this is the very essence of the gospel he came to proclaim. “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” And this is the Saviour of which higher critics of the Scriptures of truth would rob us to-day. What have they to offer in his place? What would they erect to take the place of the pillars of truth which they seek to tear down?—Nothing but a savior of their own vain imagination, a man like unto themselves; nothing but a Bible mutilated by the caprice of human reasoning, a vain hope without foundation.

Until these self-constituted judges of the Infinite can present something better than we now possess, we do well to remain steadfast in the simple faith of our fathers. Their simple, childlike trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as a divine Saviour gave them strength for Christian living and grace for the dying hour. That Word accepted by us in the same spirit will do for us what it did for them, and what it has done for the saints and martyrs of every age. The vaporings of the higher critics can not afford us this sweet assurance and blessed experience. F. M. W.