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ergo what he says about God and Christ must be true, is specious to the last de gree, and is an attempt to test principles by personalities. Human works and conduct are never a primary test of truth, and God is not the least interested in them except as they are the results of saving faith to ward Him. Works of human virtue are relatively common and can be found easily among the heathen who make no profession of the name of Christ, but faith is distinc tive and cannot be found except where it is inwrought through the Spirit of the living God. Works, then, are frequently found without faith, but never true faith without works. Works are never cited as tests of truth itself, but only of the genuineness of faith. How M a y G od ’ s P eople E scape th e S n ar e ? “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” We can carry the thing a little further and de clare that •all the feverish activity and busying around, mundane in purpose and carnal in method, done aside from saving faith in God and His revelation of Him self in the written and incarnate Word, is not only spiritually valueless but ac tually sinful as well, as the text at the head of this paragraph plainly teaches. W e fre quently have found people with humani tarian fervor and a passion for world re form, who nevertheless possess hearts of Luciferian pride and deep-dyed rebellion against God and His truth. They will not accept God’s indictment of human na ture (cf. Rom. 1 and 3) and His declara tion concerning, the complete bankruptcy and hopelessness of man in his natural condition. Consequently, of course they will not humble themselves and look to the cross where forgiveness may be obtained and a new, divine life inwroght by faith in the Crucified One. Beloved, as Satan practices his wiles and lays down a smoke barrage over God’s revealed truth, arrays himself as an angel of light, and preaches another gospel even through those who claim to be speaking in Christ’s name, let us betake ourselves prayerfully and assiduously to the Word of God. Let us saturate ourselves with it, grasp its principles by the enlightenment of the Spirit, its Author, and ruthlessly sub ject to its unerring standards every speak er and every writer purporting to speak in His name. Satan’s counterfeit for God’s truth battens upon ignorance of God’s Word, and he deceives the unwary by re sorting to human sentimentalism. Let us take a leaf out of the book of the ancient Bereans. who searched the Scriptures to see “whether those things were so.” Young People’ s Camp in the Middle West - At the annual conference of the Iowa Christian Fundamentals Association, held in Waterloo, Iowa, in April, young people desiring to attend a fundamentalist camp were invited to enroll for the camp and conference held annually by the Regular Baptist Fellowship at Storm Lake, Iowa. This year’s camp is scheduled for June 28 to July 2. The cost will be extremely low. For further information and reserva tions write Rev. A. D. Mohr, 1428 E. 32nd St., Des Moines, Iowa.
Chinese bishop. The Commissioner replied that he did not because in his presence the bishop had made flagrant statements about the Scriptures and their inspiration and about the Person of Christ. The questioner then told the Commissioner that he “lacked love.” The Commissioner calmly replied, “ If that is the way you think, then you lack Christ.” Indeed, how can one who possesses by faith the precious Son of God have spir itual fellowship with those who deny Him? D ivine P rinciples and the P erson of C hrist The most clearly enunciated and immu table of divine principles is that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Godhead, is the center of thé divine counsels—that He is the Cause and the Effect, the Means as well as the End, the Object as well as the Instrument of all the divine purposes. This fact can be apprehended only as we are spiritually discerning, and immediately it is apprehended, we see that the puny, earth-bound, hum an istic, man-centered schemes of these teachers and of the thou sands of lesser clerical voices who are their echoes, are as far removed from the re vealed thoughts and plans of God as the east is from the west, and as far below them as the earth as below the heavens. Their idea is the reform of a corrupt, Sa tan-dominated world-system by the “ prin ciples of Jesus” and by a diffusion of the “ spirit of Jesus” (note the small “ s” in “ spirit,” while God’s purpose in this age is the calling out of a people from this world- system in virtue of the completed work of. Christ on the cross and in His resurrection and through the Holy Spirit of God (note the capital “ S” in “ Spirit” ), followed by a complete destruction of this world-system and by the personal presence and reign of Christ. E xaltation of H u m a n P ersonalities The time-worn expedient of false teach ers and their defenders is to turn the at tention aside from the divergence of their teachings from the clear revelations of God’s Word, to a concentration upon the virtues (real or alleged) of the teachers themselves. They will discourage empha sis upon “ doctrine” and “ dogma,” and will proceed to enlarge upon the fact that so- and-so is a very good man, that he is very self-denying, or that in his life he mani fests the “spirit of Jesus.” Just what this “ spirit of Jesus” is, has never been clearly defined, but it would seem to represent a state of mind that gathers up the gentle ness, love, and compassion of Christ toward human frailty and suffering, but which takes care to omit the dominant character istic of His nature, the doing of the Father’s will, and the ruggedness whereby He scathingly denounced sin and false pro fessors, and forgets the magnificent violence He displayed on two occasions against the profaners of His Father’s house and holiness. The first phase except in combina tion with the second presents a mythical Christ that never lived. The attempt to shift the basis whereby the spirits are proved, transferring it from faith to works, is entirely wrong and unscriptural. T o say, then, that because a man is kind, self-sacrificing, earnest, and sincere,
THE MESSIANIC PSALMS [ Continued from page 210]
did not descend “into hell,” the so-called Apostles’ Creed to the contrary notwith standing. He descended into Sheol, which is the Hebrew way of saying Hades—the place of departed spirits, which we find described in Luke 16:19-31, where the word in verse 23 is not “hell” but “ Hades.” The saved are no longer in Hades, for at His ascension our Lord delivered them all and escorted them into the Father’s presence, moving the Paradise section of Hades into “ the third heaven” (cf. Lk. 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:2-4). While our Lord’s soul was in Hades, His body slept in Joseph’s tomb, resting in hope (A .V .), dwelling in safe ty (R. V .), dwelling confidently (R. V. margin), awaiting the moment when life should re-enter it and raise it in incorrupt ibility and glory. When that moment ar rived, Christ did indeed rise from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15:20); and our own resurrection is assured because of His; because He lives, we shall live also. He said so (John 14:29; cf. Rom. 8:11; 1 Thess. 4:14). “ Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for ever more” (Psa. 16:11). There is an interest ing alliteration suggested by five words of this Psalm all beginning with the same letter. They are (1) “ portion,” in verse 5; (2) “ pleasant,” in verse 6, and (3) “ path,” (4) “presence,” and (5) “ plea sures,” in verse 11. These words outlined our Lord’s life program, and they might well be adopted as our own program. Jehovah was His portion; let Jehovah be our portion. Since Jehovah was His portion, the lines fell unto Him in pleasant places; there is no place so pleasant as in Jehovah’s will. If we be in Jehovah’s will, He will surely show us the path of life; we shall not be left wondering where to go or what to do. As we walk in the path He points out for us, we shall find we are not alone, for He is with us, and in His presence there is fullness of joy. And at the end of the road we shall find our place beside Him in glory, and both at His right hand (A . V.) and in His right hand (R. V.) we shall find there are pleasures that endure, even “ pleasures for evermore.” personal presence must be excluded from the kingdom. A brilliant young Chinese asked him point-blank whether he believed in the personal return of Christ. The reply was, “He may come, but I do not quite see how it is going to occur.” It would seem that an event to which the New Testament refers three hundred and twenty times had very little place in his scheme of things. Still another leader asked a prominent Chinese Christian, a provincial Commis sioner of Finance, whether he had fellow ship in the things of God with a certain PERSONALITIES VERSUS PRINCIPLES [ Continued, from page 207]
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