p. 3 | Blasting at the Gospel by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 20, 1910

Blasting at the Gospel

By C. M. S.

WITH the greatest schools of the nation maintaining expensive professorships that inculcate the principles of infidelity in the minds of the undergraduates, and with great magazines that call themselves religious employing talented writers or editors who teach principles subversive of the gospel, the conviction is forced upon the one who believes God’s Word that the enemy of souls is more than ordinarily busy and has certainly come to realize that he has but a short time. While we most deeply regret the fact that such agencies of doubt and ruin are so prevalent and so active, nevertheless there is a sense in which we draw courage and comfort from their prevalence and activity. They speak to us of the time when we “shall see Him as he is,” with no dimming veil between.

What should be the very citadel of the church militant has become so honeycombed with doubt that it no longer becomes a place of refuge, a rock of defense. Pulpits that should be proclaiming the everlasting gospel are now ringing with doubt, and shepherds who draw magnificent salaries for feeding the flock are sowing broadcast the seeds of unbelief that are bound to bring forth a reaping of ruined hopes, a harvest of death.

A great portion of the modern church has grasped, with great avidity, at two temptations which have in them as much of the ingenious deceit of the adversary as had the temptation that came to Adam and Eve in Eden. Those two temptations are evolution and the Higher Criticism. The clergyman who to-day is bold enough to assert his refusal to accept either is quite generally looked upon with a degree of pity by college-bred theologians. He is by them considered out of date, and lacking either in education or mental acumen. It has come to be an established fact that no statement of the great Book of God which these self-elected censors of Inspiration are not able to explain on the basis of known facts is to be permitted to stand as the word of God, or even as the truth. Taking them altogether, they have attacked the Bible all along the line. This attack upon the Bible from within the organized church body is bringing the sifting time to many millions of souls to-day. The attack of open infidelity upon the Word never made such rapid strides in the ruin of effectual faith in God as is now being made by this more insidious attack by clergymen schooled in doubt under the tutelage of accomplished skeptics in the divinity schools and universities.

When these attacks are supported by influential “religious” journals, it can readily be seen that the destructive influence is greatly augmented.

In the January 8 issue of The Outlook, Dr. Lyman Abbott, the editor, has an article entitled “Religion and Miracle.” It is important as an indicator of the lengths to which the movement he is fostering can go and still profess to be Christian and to be doing the work of God in the world. If ever a single act of man fulfilled that scripture, “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof,” that article has done so. We shall quote from his article simply to show how completely the teachings of modern theologians contradict the Word of God and the purpose of God and nullify the most fundamental principles of the gospel. It is a warfare that has been long predicted; it has come; and we need to be well grounded in the purpose of God and the plan of redemption if we are to stand successfully before its persistent and tremendous onslaughts. Said Dr. Abbott:—

“If it could be proved that Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, the proof would take no intelligent disciples from the Christian church.This means that the resurrection of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with man’s future; that man’s future life is independent of anything accomplished by Christ’s death and resurrection. But if such a statement were true, the whole groundwork of the gospel would be gone. In such a case, the life of our Saviour on earth was needless; his sacrifice was not a sacrifice, but a mere illegal execution; there is no such thing as redemption in the gospel; and Jesus himself is made a deceiver instead of a Saviour. Either the entire Word of God is false, or the statement above quoted is false. We have no hesitancy in deciding which it is. The Bible contradicts such a teaching from its beginning to its close, and the most positive teachings of Jesus by word of mouth contradict it.”

Says the prophet Isaiah, “The Holy One of Israel is thy Redeemer.” The Higher Critic denies the fall of man, and therefore the necessity for a Redeemer; but the Bible still proclaims the necessity. More than that, it proclaims the fact that such a Redeemer would be provided. We read:—

“Who hath believed our message? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . . Who among them considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. . . . By the knowledge of himself shall my righteous servant justify many; and he shall bear their iniquities. . . . He poured out his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors: yet he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53.

The declaration is plain. The transgression of man merited the stroke, but it fell upon Christ, who offered himself in our place. Wonderful love! We transgressed — he was wounded for it; we did iniquity — he was bruised for it; his were the stripes that we might

be healed; the world was lost in its sin, but through the chastisement of our Substitute we are at home again and at peace again with our God — not that God took pleasure in Christ’s bruising, but that in that bruising God saw the love of man again turning toward him because of what Jesus would bear in man’s behalf. Wonderful love of Jesus! wonderful Gift of God! It was necessary to man’s restoration to peace and harmony with heaven, or God would never have permitted it, and Jesus would never have done it. It is a glorious accomplished fact, and because it is, eternal life is assured to all who accept it for what it is. That makes it possible for us to understand this: “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4. The Saviour’s declaration to the Jews is explicit upon this point:—

“I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: yea and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” John 6:51.

Again he said:—

“I am the resurrection, and the life! he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” John 11:25.

Jesus couples the resurrection and the life together. Because of his sinlessness death could not hold him, and because it could not hold him, it can not hold those who are his. Says Paul:—

“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” 1 Thess. 4:14.

There is nothing of such tremendous importance to the Christian as the fact that Jesus Christ triumphed over death. The resurrection is the kernel of the gospel. Without that there is no hope, no reason why there should be people calling themselves Christians, and Christianity is no more divine than Confucianism, Shintoism, or Buddhism. There is no use for a shell when the kernel is gone.

In order to carry out the proposition of the lack of deific manifestation in the life and labors of Jesus, Dr. Abbott attacks the miracles. He believes in none of the Biblical records of miracles except those whose processes can be explained in harmony with natural laws. He can conceive of the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea because the conditions make such a thing possible. Jehovah could sweep back the waters with a great wind because the waters are not too deep, and strong winds frequently blow there in the direction one would have to blow to accomplish such an act. The inference from such teaching is that Jehovah could not have taken the Israelites across the Red Sea if the conditions had been different. Such a conception of the power of Almighty God, the Maker

of the universe, is an extremely belittling one. We are not thinking of God as the Creator when we declare him circumscribed by the things which he created. The first declaration in the third angel’s message is: “Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment is come; and worship him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters.” Rev. 14:7. The burden of such teaching as that of the Higher Critics is to belittle God, make him a creature of circumstances, and take away his glory both as Creator and as Redeemer.

Jesus declared concerning himself and the miracles which he performed: “If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin.” John 15:24. That takes the works wrought by Jesus entirely out of the category of works done by men; and he himself teaches that those works testify to his deity, and leave those who reject him without excuse for doing so. Yet Dr. Abbott thinks and teaches that “modern psychotherapy” would account for the works which Jesus performed. He says:—

“That Jesus Christ may have possessed in a supereminent degree the spiritual power of which modern psychotherapy gives us only as yet a hint is entirely possible. That many of the so-called miracles of healing attributed to him may have been wrought by this psychic power is certainly conceivable.”

We do not remember ever having seen a statement so disrespectful to heaven, to the power of God, to the mission and work of Jesus, as this just quoted. Such a teacher is certainly leaving no stone unturned in order to get rid of the deity of Jesus. Is it using too strong a term to characterize it as blasphemy, when one teaches that the power manifested in the mighty works of Jesus was the same power that is manifested to-day in mesmerism, hypnotism, and Spiritualism? We know what the power is that is operating in psychic demonstrations, because of the kind of work it does. It is the same power that has been working mischief in the world since Adam fell. It may even effect some cures when by doing so it can more effectually deceive. The Higher Critic is not able to explain the works of Jesus on any other basis, nor to accept the explanation of Jesus. He said:—

“The Father abiding in me doeth his works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.” John 14:10, 11.

Through the power of God Most High the works of Jesus were wrought, that through those works men might come to believe on him as the Saviour smitten for man, that man, to whom the smiting was due, might be again at one with

God through the mediation of the Son of God and Son of man. Let not the philosophy of human wisdom rob us of our Redeemer and our salvation.

C. M. S.