Revising Christianity by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 21, 1904

Revising Christianity

By L. A. S.

WE are in the days when faith is departing from the earth. This characteristic of the times becomes more and more prominent. Bolder and bolder grow the attacks upon the Word of God, made under the very cloak of Christianity. The latest development of this character has just taken place in England. A London press dispatch dated April 9 says:—

Canon Henson of Westminster Abbey in the Contemporary Review attacks the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, declaring “its incredible, puerile, or demoralizing narratives” are “a pack of lies, too gross for toleration.” The Anglican world is amazed at the question with which Canon Henson concludes. He asks:—

“Is the faith of the church in the divine Christ, living, present, and active, really built on an empty tomb?” The canon’s onslaught on the Scriptures has amazed England, Anglican as well as non-conformist.

Simultaneously with Canon Henson’s attack comes a demand from Sir Oliver Lodge, principal of the University of Birmingham, and one of England’s noted scientists, for a “reinterpretation of Christian doctrine,” or in other words, a revised Christianity. Sir Oliver Lodge shocks the believing people of England by declaring that “the doctrine of the atonement in its concrete form is a survival from barbarous times.”

Canon Henson declares that inspiration is now not allowed to certify to the truth of any statement in the Bible “which can not now be substantiated at the bar of reason and evidence.” Everything of this kind in the New Testament, he says, “will have to go the way of the Old Testament prodigies.”

He recommends supplementing the reading of the Bible in church with “Christian compositions which have secured the approval of general acceptance,” declaring that “indiscriminate reading of the Bible in public is an extremely perilous proceeding.”

Mr. Lodge says:—

“I would not be dogmatic in such a matter, but surely it generally is recognized that although the sufferings and violent death of Christ were the natural consequences of his birth and life so far in advance of his age, and although the pity and horror of such a ghastly tragedy has a purifying and sacramental influence, yet we now are unable to detect in it anything of the nature of punishment, nor do we imagine for a moment that an angry God was appeased by it, and is consequently disposed to treat more lightly the sins of men here now or any otherwise than they have been

treated by a constant, steadfast, and persevering universe.

“We are now beginning to realize a further stage in the process of the atonement. We are rising to the conviction that we are a part of nature, and so a part of God—that the whole creation is travailing together toward some great end. We are no aliens in a strange universe governed by an outside God. This strengthening vision, this sense of union with divinity,—this is what science will some day tell is the inner meaning of the redemption of man.”

Thus does the world, by wisdom—its own wisdom—still seek to find out God; and still it is true, as it was when Paul wrote to the Corinthians, that the world by wisdom knows not God. For the wisdom of this world—the science of this world—when applied to the understanding of the things of God, is foolishness. It becomes “science falsely so called.”

The wisdom of this world can not comprehend the mystery of the atonement. It sees in it only a sacrifice made to appease an angry God. This is the heathen idea of sacrifice, and arises from a conception of God which invests him with a nature like unto that of fallen humanity, wherein passion holds sway, and anger can be satisfied only by the sight of suffering. Rightly is Satan called the “god” of this world. The wisdom of this world would make of God a being after that sort.

The Christian knows that the atonement made on the cross was not to appease an angry God seeking to make some one a victim for man’s offense. The atonement was not to appease, or reconcile, God to man, but to reconcile man to God,—to bring man back to God. In the way of that reconciliation, after the fall, stood the law of God, holy and immutable as God himself, demanding the death of the transgressor. And because of Adam’s sin every man must die; there is no escape from that. But Jesus Christ hung on the cross to provide for mankind a way whereby he might die to sin, and still live. Without that sacrifice man would have died eternally. But now, the Christian is crucified with Christ, buried with him, and is raised with him to walk in newness of life. Through his identification with Christ, who has identified himself with humanity, he pays the penalty of his sin, and yet lives. Jesus died in order that there might be a fountain for human sin and uncleanness,—a fountain which only his blood could supply. He died in order that the claims of the law might not forever stand between man and God. His death attested not God’s anger at the sinner, but his love for him. Jesus was God’s gift to a sinful world. This is the Christian conception of the atonement, and is the direct opposite of the heathen conception which was evolved from the wisdom of this world.

The scheme of salvation which the wisdom of this world evolves is one that fails to save. These words of Sir Oliver Lodge show how the “scientific” conception of God is spreading in England, as it is elsewhere throughout civilization. As Christians, we will go to the Word of God for our conceptions of things pertaining to God. We will derive our knowledge through the channel of faith. We take the Bible as our text-book on the science of salvation. L. A. S.