He Taught “as One Having Authority” by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 19, 1911

He Taught “as One Having Authority”

By William Ambrose Spicer

One of the ancient sages of China, Mencius, said: “Instruction gives ideas, but not the power to carry them out.”

There is a vast difference between a merely true word and a living word. A man may speak true words. Only God can speak living words.

It is because God speaks the words of the Scripture that there is life in the Word. When Christ came, the people who heard him said that he taught “as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” There was divine power in his teaching; that made all the infinite difference between his teaching and the teaching of tradition and human philosophy. One means saved men’s souls, the other left them in bondage and death.

In an address at the opening of a Y. M. C. A. building in Japan, a little time ago, Count Okuma, head of a Tokio university, said:—

The springs of modern progress are to be found in the teachings of the Sage of Judea, in which alone is to be found the moral dynamic which can raise man above his sin and wretchedness.

It is a true word, because in Him is “the fountain of life.” The teaching of Jesus is no mere philosophy of life, as the students of comparative religions use the term. The teaching is life itself; and he who believes it receives a power divine that does not come from himself, but from God,—a power that works in the believer.

Another Japanese, Dr. Kato, said to be “one of the foremost of the thinkers of the Land of the Rising Sun,” declares that the evil fruits of Buddhism are becoming more and more apparent. He states:—

It is not the Buddhist religion that is bad, but its professors. As a religion, Buddhism is superior to Christianity, but Christian pastors are greatly superior to Buddhist priests.

He calls for a reform in the Buddhist ranks. But “by their fruits ye shall know them.” There is no life, no power, in Buddhism, because it is but a human religion. Men quote pretty sayings from the teachings of Buddha. So also students find good sentiments in the writings of the rabbis of the days just before the advent of the Messiah. Beautiful things were said in the Talmud of loving one’s neighbor, and of the blessedness of being peacemakers.

But these sayings did not bring love and peace and power into the lives of men. Nor has any saying of Buddha’s ever lifted the burden of sin from a sinner, or given one heart the joy of salvation. It is because there is none other name under heaven than that of Jesus that brings salvation. His words have life and power, for he is the living God and Saviour.

In the gospel teaching, by the living Word of God we come in touch with a living ministry for sinners in the heavenly sanctuary, with a living God who is actually working in the world, and with a living Spirit that brings righteousness and peace and power into the life, to cleanse from sin and to shed abroad the love and joy and hope of heaven.

The Jewish scribes had the Scriptures; but the trouble was that they had lost the living faith from their hearts, and taught the Scripture—when not teaching tradition—merely as a form of doctrine and as a philosophy of religion.

God forbid that we should teach his Word merely as a true philosophy. It is the precious, living Word that we handle that has power in it to work effectually unto salvation in those that believe it. W. A. S.