The Fundamentals
A Testimony to the Truth
" 2 b the Law and to the Testimony ** Isaiah 8:20
VOLUME III
Published by THE BIBLE INSTITUTE OF LOS ANGELES 536-558 SOUTH HOPE STREET LOS ANGELES, CAL.
C O N T E N T S VOLUME III (.The Fundamental set contains four volumes)
Chapter
Page
THEOLOGY I. T he B iblical C onception of S in
9 ............;_____
By Rev Thomas Whitelaw, M. A., D. D., Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. II. P aul ' s T estimony to the D octrine of S in __ 25 By Professor Charles B. Williams, B. D., Ph.D., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. III. S in and J udgment to C ome 40 .________________ By Sir Robert Anderson, K. C. B., LL. D., London, England. IV. W hat C hrist T eaches C oncerning F uture R etribution 53 ........................................................ By Rev. William C. Proctor, F. Ph., Croydon, England. V. T he A tonemen 64 t _______________________ .__ By Professor Franklin Johnson, D. D., LL. D. Author of “Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament,” etc., Chicago, 111. ,VI. A t -O ne -M ent , B y P ropitiation 78 _____ ________
By Dyson Hague, M. A., Vicar of The Church of the Epiphany, Toronto, Canada. Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, Ontario (1908-1912).
VII. T he G race of G o
d .: .......... ......................................
98
By C. I. Scofield, D. D., Editor “Scofield Reference Bible.”
.VIII. S alvation B y G race
...........................
....
110
By Rev. Thomas Spurgeon, London, England. IX. T he N ature of R egeneration By Thomas Boston, (1676-1732). X. R egeneration , C onversion , R eformation By Rev. George W. Lasher, D. D., LL. D., Author of “Theology for Plain People,” Cincinnati, Ohio. _______ XI. J ustification B y F aith
..„
128
133 .........
141 .........................................
By H. C. G. Moule, Bishop of Durham, Durham, England. XII. T he D octrines that M ust B e E mphasized in S uccessful E vangelism ...................... By Evangelist L. W. Munhall, M. A., D. D., Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
155
XIII. P reach the W ord
......................
168
By the Late Howard Crosby, Chancellor of the University of the City of New York.
CONTENTS
Chapter
Page
XIV. P astoral and P ersonal E vangelism , or W inning M en to C hrist O ne by O ne _178 By Rev. John Timothy Stone, D. D., Chicago, 111., Ex-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. XV. T he S unday S chool ' s T rue E vangelis 199 m ........ By Charles Gallaudet Trumbull, Editor “Sunday School Times,” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. XVI. T he P lace of P rayer in E vangelism 218 ................ By Rev. R. A. Torrey, D. D., Dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. XVII. F oreign M issions , or W orld -W ide E van gelism 229 ............. .................................................... By Robert E. Speer, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A. XVIII. A M essage from M issions 250 ..................................... By Rev. Charles A. Bowen, A. M., Ph. D., Olympia, Washington. XIX. W hat M issionary M otives S hould P revail .266 P. By Rev. Henry W. Frost,
Director for North America of the China Inland Mission, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By Rev. Henry W. Frost, Director for North America of the China Inland Mission, Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
XX. C onsecration
278 .........................................................
XXI. Is R omanism C hristianity ? By T. W. Medhurst, Glasgow, Scotland. XXII. R ome , the A ntagonist of the N ation By Rev. J. M. Foster, Boston, Massachusetts. ....................... By the late Bishop Ryle. XXIV. T he T estimony of F oreign M issions to the S uperintending P rovidence of G od XXIII. T he T rue C hurch ....................
288
301 ... ...........
315
320 ............
By the late Arthur T. Pierson. T he P urposes of the I ncarnatio
XXV.
337
n ..................
By the Rev. G. Campbell Morgan, D. D., Pastor of Westminster Chapel, London, England. XXVI. T ributes to C hrist and the B ible by B rainy M en N ot K nown as A ctive C hristians _363 ^“Their rock is not as our Rock, even our ene mies themselves being judges,” Deut. 32:31.
P R E F A C E In 1909 God moved two Christian laymen to set aside a large sum of money for issuing twelve volumes that would set forth the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and which were to be sent free to ministers of the gospel, missionaries, Sunday School superintendents, and others engaged in aggressive Christian work throughout the English speaking world. A committee of men who were known to be sound in the faith was chosen to have the oversight of the publication of these volumes. Rev. Dr. A. C. Dixon was the first Executive Secre tary of the Committee, and upon his departure for England Rev. Dr. Louis Meyer was appointed to take his place. Upon the death of Dr. Meyer the work of the Executive Secretary devolved upon me. We were able to bring out these twelve volumes according to the original plan. Some of the volumes were sent to 300,000 ministers and missionaries and other workers in different parts of the world. On the completion of the twelve volumes as originally planned the work was con tinued through The King’s Business, published at 536 South Hope St., Los Angeles, California. Although a larger number of volumes were issued than there were names on our mailing list, at last the stock became exhausted, but appeals for them kept coming in from different parts of the world. As the fund was no longer available for this purpose, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, to whom the plates were turned over when the Committee closed its work, have decided to bring out the vari ous articles that appeared in The Fundamentals in four volumes at the cheapest price possible. All the articles that appeared in The Fundamentals, with the exception of a very few that did not seem to be in exact keeping with the original purpose of The Fundamentals, will be published in this series. R. A. TORREY, Former Executive Secretary of the Testimony Publishing Company.
DEDICATION To the two laymen whose generosity made it possible to send several millions of volumes of “The Fundamentals” to ministers and missionaries in all parts of the world, for their confirmation and upbuilding in the faith, these volumes are dedicated.
THE FUNDAMENTALS VOLUME III CHAPTER I THE BIBLICAL CONCEPTION OF SIN BY REV. THOMAS WHITELAW, M. A., D. D., KILMARNOCK, AYRSHIRE, SCOTLAND
Holy Scripture undertakes no demonstration of the reality of sin. In all its statements concerning sin, sin is presupposed as a fact which can neither be controverted nor denied, neither challenged nor obscured. It is true that some reasoners, through false philosophy and materialistic science, refuse to admit the existence of sin, but their endeavors to explain it away by their respective theories is sufficient proof that sin is no figment of the imagination but a solid reality. Others who are not thinkers may sink so far beneath the power of sin as to lose all sense of its actuality, their moral and spiritual natures becoming so hardened and fossilized as to be “past feeling,” in which case conviction o f sin is no more possible, or at least so deteriorated and unimpressible that only a tre mendous upheaval within their souls, occasioned perhaps by severe affliction, but brought about by the inward operation of the Spirit of God, will break up the hard crust of moral numbness and religious torpor in which their spirits are en cased. A third class of persons, by simply declining to think about sin, may come in course of time to conclude that whether sin be a reality or not, it does not stand in any relation to them and does not concern them—in which case once more they are merely deceiving themselves. The truth is that it 9
10
The Fundamentals is extremely doubtful whether any intelligent person whose moral intuitions have not been completely destroyed and whose mental perceptions have not been largely blunted by indulg ence in wickedness, can successfully persuade himself, at least permanently, that sin is a myth, an illusion o f the mind, a creature of the imagination, and not a grim reality. Most men know that sin is in themselves a fact of consciousness they cannot deny, and in others a fact of observation they cannot overlook. As Chesterton expresses it, the fact of sin any one may see in the street: the Bible assumes that any man will discover it who looks into his own heart. Accordingly the Bible devotes its efforts to imparting to mankind reliable knowledge about the nature and universality, the origin and culpability, but also and especially about the removableness of sin; and to set forth these in succession will be the object of the present paper. I. THE NATURE OF SIN It scarcely requires stating that modern ideas about sin receive no countenance from Scripture, which never speaks about sin as “good in the making,” as “the shadow cast by man’s immaturity,” as “a necessity determined by heredity and environment,” as “a stage in the upward development of a finite being,” as a “taint adhering to man’s corporeal frame,” as a “physical disease,” “a mental infirmity,” “a constitutional weakness,” and least of all “as a figment of the imperfectly enlightened, or theologically perverted, imagination,” but always as the free act o f an intelligent, moral and responsible being asserting himself against the will of his Maker, the supreme Ruler of the universe. That will the Bible takes for granted every person may learn, either from the law written on his own heart (Rom. 1:15 ) ; or from the revelation furnished by God to mankind, first to the Hebrew Church in the Old Testament Scriptures, and afterwards to the Christian Church and through it to the whole world in the New Testament
11
The Biblical Conception of Sin
Gospels and Epistles. Hence, sin is usually described in the Sacred Volume by terms that indicate with perfect clearness its relation to the Divine will or law, and leaves no uncertainty as to its essential character. In the Old Testament (Ex. 34:5 , 6 ; Psa. 32:1 , 2) three words are used to supply a full definition of sin. (1) “Trans gression” (pesha’h) or a falling away from God and therefore a violation of His commandments; with which exposition John agrees when he says that “sin is a transgression of the law” (1 John 3 :4 ) , and Paul when he writes (Rom. 4 :1 5 ) , “Where no law is, there is no transgression.” (2) “Sin” (chataah) or a missing of the mark, a coming short of one’s duty, a failure to do what one ought, for which reason the term is fittingly applied to sins of omission; with which again John agrees when he states (1 John 5 :17 ) that “all unrighteousness [or defect in righteousness] is sin,” or Paul when he affirms (Rom. 3 :2 3 ) , that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and Christ when He charges the Scribes and Pharisees with “leaving undone the things they ought to have done” (Matt. 23 :23 ; Luke 11:42). (3) “Iniquity” (’avon) or a turn ing aside from the straight path, curving like an arrow, hence perversity, depravity and inequality—a conception which finds an echo in the words of a later psalmist (78 :5 ) who com plained that Israel had “turned aside from Jehovah like a deceitful bow,” and in those of the prophet Isaiah (53: 6 ) who confessed that “all we like: sheep have gone astray, and have turned every one unto his own way,” and in those of his countryman Hosea (7:16) who lamented that Israel “like a deceitful bow had returned, but not to the Most High.” The words employed in the New Testament to designate sin are not much, if at all, different in meaning— hamartia, a failure, fall7a false step, a blunder; and anomia, or lawlessness. Hence the Biblical conception of sin may be fairly summed up in the words of the Westminster Confession: “Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God;” or in
12
The Fundamentals those of Melancthon: “Pecatum recte definitur ’avo/xla, seu discrepantia a lege Dei, h. e. defectus naturae et actionum pug- nans cum lege Dei.” II. THE UNIVERSALITY OF SIN According to the Bible, sin is not a quality or condition of soul that has revealed itself only in exceptional individuals like notorious offenders—prodigals, profligates, criminals, and vicious persons generally; or in exceptional circumstances, as for instance in the early ages of man’s existence on the earth, or among half developed races, or in lands where the arts and sciences are unknown, or in civilized communities where the local environment is prejudicial to morality; but different from this sin is a quality or condition of soul which exists in every child of woman born, and not merely at isolated times but at all times, and at every stage of his career, though not always manifesting itself in the same forms of thought, feeling, word and action in every individual or even in the same individual. It has affected extensively the whole race of man in every age from the beginning of the world downward, in every land beneath the sun, in every race into which mankind has been divided, in every situation in which the individual has found himself placed; and intensively in every individual in every department and faculty of his nature, from the circumference to the center, or from the center to the circumference of his being. Scripture utters no uncertain sound on the world-embrac ing character of moral corruption, saying in the pre-diluvian age of the world that “all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth” (Gen. 6 :12) ; in David’s generation, that all man kind had “gone aside and become filthy,” so that “there was none that did good, no, not one” (Psa. 14: 3) ; in Isaiah’s time, that “all we like sheep had gone astray and turned every one to his own way” (53 :6 ) ; in the opening of the Christian era, that “all had sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom.
The Biblical Conception of Sin 13 3: 23 ) ; and generally Solomon’s verdict holds goods of every day, “There is no man that sinneth not” (1 Kings 8:46) , not even the best of men who have been born again by the Spirit and the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, renewed in their minds and created anew in Christ Jesus. Even of these one writer says: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive our selves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1 : 8 ) ; while another counsels Christians to mortify the deeds of the body, and to put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceit ful lusts of the flesh (Rom. 7 : 13; Col. 3: 5-10) ; and a third asserts that “in many things we all offend” (James 3 :2 ) . How true this is may be learned from the fact that Scripture mentions only one person in whom there was no sin, viz., Jesus of Nazareth, who not only challenged His contempo raries (in particular His enemies) to convict Him of sin, but of whom those who knew Him most intimately (His disciples) testified that He “did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3 :5 ) . Of this exception of course the explanation was and is that He was “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16) . But besides Him not a single person figures on the page of Holy Writ of whom it is said or indeed could have been said that he was sinless. Neither Enoch nor Noah in the ante-diluvian age; neither Abraham nor Isaac in patriarchal times; neither Moses nor Aaron in the years of the Israelitish wanderings; neither David nor Jonathan in the days of the undivided monarchy; neither Peter nor John, neither Barnabas nor Paul, in the Apostolic age, could have claimed such a distinction, and these were some of the best men that have ever appeared on this planet. Nor is it merely extensively that the reign of sin over the human family is universal, but intensively as well. It is not a malady which has affected only one part of man’s complex constitution: every part thereof has felt its baleful influence. It has darkened his understanding and made him unable, with out supernatural illumination, to apprehend and appreciate
14
The Fundamentals
spiritual things. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2 : 14 ) ; and again, “The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their minds, having the under standing darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts” (Eph. 4:17, 18). It defiles the heart, so that if left to itself, it becomes deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9) , so “full of evil” (Eccl. 9 : 3 ) and “only evil continually” (Gen. 6 : 5 ) , that out of it proceed “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications and such like” (Matt. 15:19), thus proving it to be a veritable cage of un clean birds. It paralyzes the will, if not wholly, at least par tially, in every case, so that even regenerated souls have often to complain like Paul that when they would do good evil is present with them, that they are carnal sold under sin, that what they would they do not, and what they hate they do, that in their flesh, i. e., their sin-polluted natures, dwelleth no good thing, and that while to will is present with them, how to perform that which is good they know not (Rom. 7:14-25). It dulls the conscience, that vicegerent of God in the soul, renders it less quick to detect the approach of evil, less prompt to sound a warning against it and sometimes so dead as to be past feeling about it (Eph. 4:19) . In short there is not a faculty of the soul that is not injured by it. “Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death” (James 1:5) . III. THE ORIGIN OF SIN How a pure being, possessed of those intellectual capacities and moral intuitions which were needful to make him justly responsible to Divine law, could and did lapse from his primi tive innocence and fall into sin is one of those dark problems which philosophers and theologians have vainly endeavored to solve. No more reliable explanation of sin’s entrance into the universe in general and into this world in particular has
The Biblical Conception of Sin
15
ever been given than that which is furnished by Scripture. According to Scripture sin first made its appearance in the angelic race, though nothing more is recorded than the simple fact that the angels sinned (2 Pet. 2 : 4 ) and kept not their first estate (or principality) but left their own (or proper) habitation (Jude 6 ), their motive or reason for doing so being passed over in silence. The obvious deduction is that the sin of these fallen spirits was a free act on their part, dictated by dissatisfaction with the place which had been as signed to them in the hierarchy of heaven and by ambition to secure for themselves a loftier station than that in which they had been placed. Yet this does not answer the question how such dissatisfaction and ambition could arise in beings that must be presumed to have been created sinless. And inas much as external influence in the shape of temptation from without, by intelligences other than themselves, is by the suppo sition excluded, it does not appear that other answer is possible than that in the creation of a finite personality endowed with freedom of will, there is necessarily involved the possibility of making a wrong, in the sense of a sinful, choice. In the case of man, however, sin’s entrance into the world receives a somewhat different explanation from the sacred writers. With one accord they ascribe the sinful actions, words, feelings and thoughts of each individual to his own deliberate free choice, so that he is thereby with perfect justice held responsible for his deviation from the path of moral rectitude; but some of the inspired penmen make it clear that the entrance of sin into this world was effected through the disobedience of the first man who stood and acted as the representative and surety of his whole natural posterity (Rom. 5:12) , and that the first man’s fall was brought about by temptation from without, by the seductive influence of Satan, the lord of the fallen spirits already mentioned, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Gen. 2:1-6; John 8 :44; 2 Cor.
The Fundamentals
16
11:3; Eph. 2 : 2 ) . Whatever view may be taken of the origin and authorship, literary form and documentary source of the Genesis story of the fall (on these points this paper does not enter) its teaching unmistakably is, to this effect: That the first m an ’s lapse from a state of innocence entailed disastrous con sequences upon himself and his descendants. Upon himself it wrought immediate disturbance of his whole nature (as already explained), implanting in it the seeds of degeneration, bodily, mental, moral and spiritual, filling him with fear of his Maker, laying upon his conscience a burden of guilt, dark ening his perceptions of right and wrong, (as was seen in his unmanly attempt to excuse himself by blaming his wife,) and interrupting the hitherto peaceful relations which had sub sisted between himself and the Author of his being. Upon his descendants it opened the floodgates of corruption by which their natures even from birth fell beneath the power of evil, as was soon witnessed in the dark tragedy of fratricide with which the tale of human history began, and in the rapid spread of violence through the pre-diluvian world. This is what theologians call the doctrine of “Original Sin,” by which they mean that the results of Adam’s sin, both legal and moral, have been transmitted to Adam’s posterity, so that now each individual comes into the world, not like his first father, in a state of moral equilibrium—“born good,” as Lord Palmerston of England used to say, or in the words of Pelagius—“born without virtue' and without vice, but capable of both” (capaces utriusque rei, non pleni nascimur, et sine virtute ita et sine vitio procreamur), but as the inheritor of a nature that has been disempowered by sin. That this doctrine, though frequently opposed, has a basis in science and philosophy, as well as in Scripture, is becoming every day more apparent. The scientific law of heredity by which not only physical but mental and moral characteristics are transmitted from parent to child seems to justify the Scripture statement, that “by one man’s disobedience sin en-
The Biblical Conception of Sin 17 tered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, because that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12) . The following words of the late Principal Fairbaim in his monu mental work, “The Philosophy of Religion” (p. 165), go to support the Scriptural position: “Man is to God a whole, a colossal individual, whose days are centuries, whose organs are races, whose being as corporate endures immortal amid the immortality (mortality ?) of its constituent units. Hence there must be a Divine judgment of the race as a race, as well as of the individual as an individual.” But in any case, whether confirmed or contradicted by modern thought, the doctrine of Scripture shines like a sunbeam, that man is “conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity” (Psa. 51:5) , that children are “estranged from the womb and go astray” (Psa. 58:3) , that all are by nature “children of wrath” (Eph. 2 : 3 ) , that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21) , and that everyone requires to have “a new heart” created in him (Psa. 51:10) , since “that which is bom of the flesh is flesh” (John 3 : 6 ) , and “no man can bring a clean thing out of an unclean” (Job 15:14). If these passages do not show that the Bible teaches the doctrine of original, or transmitted and inherited, sin, it is difficult to see in what clearer or more emphatic language the doctrine could have been taught. The truth of the doctrine may be challenged by those who repudiate the authority of Scripture; that it is a doctrine of Scripture can hardly be denied. IV. THE CULPABILITY OF SIN By this is meant not merely the blameworthiness of sin as an act, inexcusable on the part of its perpetrator, who, being such a personality as he is, endowed with such faculties as are his, placed under a law so good and holy, just and spiritual, simple and easy as that prescribed by God, and having such motives and inducements to keep it as were offered to him—to the first man and also to his posterity,—ought never
18
The Fundamentals
to have committed i t ; nor only the heinousness of it, as an act done against light and love bestowed upon the doer of it, and in flagrant opposition to the holiness and majesty o f the Lawgiver so that He, the Lawgiver, cannot but regard it with abhorrence as an act abominable in His sight, and repel from His presence as well as extrude from His favor the individual who has become chargeable with i t ; but over and above these representations of sin which are all Scriptural, by the culpa bility of sin is intended its exposure to the penalty affixed by Divine justice to transgression. That a penalty was affixed by God in the first instance when man was created, the Eden narrative in Genesis declares: “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge o f good and evil thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:16) ; and that this penalty still overhangs the impenitent is not only distinctly implied in our Saviour’s language, that apart from His redeeming work the world, i. e., every individual therein, was in danger of perishing and was indeed already condemned (John 3:16-18) ; but it is expressly declared by John who says, that “the wrath of God abideth” on the unbe liever (3:16) , and by Paul who asserts that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23) . Without entering on the vexed question as to how far Adam’s posterity are legally responsible for Adam’s sin, in the sense that apart from their own transgressions they would be adjudged to spiritual and eternal death, it is manifest that Scripture includes in the just punishment of sin more than the death of the body. That this does form part of sin’s penalty can hardly be disputed by a careful reader of the Bible; but equally that that penalty includes what theologians call spiritual and eternal death, Scripture unmistakably im plies. When it affirms that men are naturally “dead in trespasses and in sins,” it obviously purposes to convey the
The Biblical Conception of Sin 19 idea that until the soul is quickened by Divine grace it is incapable, not of thinking upon the subject of religion, or reading the Word of God, or of praying, or of exercising faith, but of doing anything spiritually good or religiously saving, of securing their legal justification before a Holy God, or of bringing about their spiritual regeneration. When Scrip ture further asserts that the unbeliever shall not see life (John 3:36) , and that the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment (Matt. 25:46) , it assuredly does not suggest that on entering the other world the unsaved on earth will have another opportunity of accepting salvation (Second Probation), or that extinction of being will be their lot (Annihilation), or that all mankind will eventually attain salvation (Universal- ism). (On these three modern substitutes for the doctrine of future punishment see next section.) Meanwhile it suffices to observe that the words just quoted seem to teach that the penalty of sin continues beyond the grave. Granting that the words of Christ about the worm that never dies and the fire that shall not be quenched are figurative, they unquestion ably signify that the figures stand for some terrible calamity,— on the one hand, loss of happiness, separation from the source of life, exclusion from blessedness, and, on the other, access of misery, suffering, wretchedness, woe, which will be realized by the wicked as the due reward of their impenitent and dis obedient lives, and which no revolving years will relieve. The pendulum of the great clock of eternity, as it swings through the ages, will seem to be ever saying: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still, and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; he that is righteous, let him be righteous still, and he that is holy, let him be holy still.”
V. THE REMOVAL OF SIN
Heinous and culpable as sin is, it is not left in Scripture for the contemplation of readers in all the nakedness of its
20
The Fundamentals loathsome character in God’s sight, and in all the heaviness of its guilt before the law, without hope of remedy for either; but in a cheering and comforting light it is set forth as an offence that may be forgiven and a defilement that will or may be ultimately cleansed. As for the pardonableness of sin, that indeed constitutes the pith and marrow of the “Good News” for the publication of which the Bible was written. From the first page in Genesis to the last in Revelation an undertone, swelling out as the end approaches into clear and joyous accents of love and mercy, proclaiming that the God of heaven, while Himself holy and just, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and unable to clear the guilty, is nevertheless merciful and gracious, long-suffering and slow to wrath, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, trans gression and sin (Ex. 34:6) ; announcing that He has made full provision for harmonizing the claims of mercy and justice in His own character by laying help upon One that is mighty, (Psa. 89:19) , even His only begotten and well-beloved Son, upon whom He had laid the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6) , that He might once for all, as the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world (John 1:29) , intimating that the whole work necessary for enabling sinful men to be forgiven has been accomplished by Christ’s death and resurrection, and that now God is in Him “reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses” (2 Cor. 5:19) , invit ing men everywhere to repent and be converted, that their sins may be blotted out (Acts 3 :19 ) ; telling men that nothing more is required of them in order to be freely and fully justified from all their transgressions than faith in the propitiation of the cross (Rom. 3:25) ; and declaring that nothing will shut a sinner out from forgiveness except refusal to believe in the great redemption and accept the freely offered forgiveness— though that will, since it is written that he who believeth not on the Son of God “shall not see life” (John 3:36) .
21
The Biblical Conception of Sin
The ultimate removal of sin from the souls of the believing and pardoned is left by Scripture in no uncertainty. It was foretold in the name given to the Saviour at His birth: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, because He shall save His people from [“out of,” not “in”] their sins.” It was implied in the object contemplated by His incarnation: “He was manifested to take away our sins.” It is declared to have been the purpose of His death upon the cross: “He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people zealous of good works.” It is held up before the Christian as his final destiny “to be conformed to the image of His [God’s] Son,” to be presented “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,” and to be a dweller in the heavenly city “into which there can enter nothing that defileth.” Whether sin will be ultimately extirpated if not from the universe, then from the family of man, is a different ques tion, upon which the pronouncement of Scripture is thought by some to be less explicit. Its complete and permanent re moval from the race is considered by certain interpreters to be taught in Scripture. That texts can be cited which seem to lend support to the theories of Annihilation, Second Pro bation, and Universal Salvation need not be denied; but a close examination of the passages in question will show that the support derived from them is exceedingly precarious. That those who depart this life in impenitence and unbelief will be annihilated either at death or after the resurrection is deemed a legitimate deduction from the use of the word death as the punishment of sin. But as “applied to man death does not necessarily mean extinction of being.” Bishop Butler long ago drew attention to the fact that various organs of the body might be removed without extinguishing the indwelling spirit, and argued that it was at least probable that the immaterial part of man would not be destroyed though the entire material frame were reduced to dust; and only recently Sir Oliver
22
The Fundamentals
Lodge from the presidential chair told the British Association that the best science warranted belief in the continuity of existence after death. Solely on the assumption that mind is merely a function o f matter can the dissolution of the body be regarded as the extinction of being. Such an assumption is foreign to Scripture. In the Old Testament David ex pected to “dwell in the house of the Lord forever;” Asaph at the end of life hoped to be “received into glory;” and Solomon wrote: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it.” In the New Testament Christ took for granted that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, though long dead were still living, and in His parable assumed that Dives and Lazarus still existed in the unseen world, although their bodies were in the grave. He also assured the dying robber that when the anguish of the cross was over they would pass together into Paradise, and counselled men generally to be afraid of “him who could destroy both soul and body in hell.” Paul, too, had no hesita tion in writing that to be “absent from the body” meant to be present with the Lord,” nor had Stephen any doubt in praying as he closed his eyes in death: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” None of these citations suggest that the soul is simply a func tion of the body, or that it ceases to be when the body dies. But now, conceding that the souls of the impenitent are not annihilated at or after death, may it not be that another opportunity of accepting the Gospel will be afforded them, and that in this way sin may be removed even from them. This theory of a Second Probation , is commonly thought to derive countenance from two passages of Scripture of doubtful inter pretation—1 Pet. 3:19; 4:6. Were the best scholars agreed as to the exact import of the two statements that Christ “by the Spirit went and preached to the spirits in prison” and that “the Gospel was preached also to them that are dead,” it might be possible to make these texts the basis of a theological doctrine. But scholars are not agreed; and well informed
The Biblical Conception of Sin 23 students of the Bible are aware that both statements can be explained in such a way as to render them useless as a basis for the doctrine of a second probation. In judging concern ing this, therefore, dependence must be placed on texts which admit of no dubiety as to their meaning. Such texts are Matt. 12:32: “Whosoever speaketh a word against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come”—no second chance in this case. Matt. 25:48: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.” Not much hope here of the ultimate destruction of sin through a second probation. Every attempt to find room for the idea shatters itself on the unchallengeable fact that the words “everlasting” and “eternal” are the same in Greek ( aionion ) and indicate that the pun ishment of the wicked and the blessedness of the righteous are of equal duration. 2 Cor. 6 : 2: “Behold, now is the day of salvation”—not hereafter in a future state of existence, but here in this world. Nor is it merely that the doctrine of a second probation is devoid of support from Scripture, but, contrary to all experience, it takes for granted that every unsaved soul would accept the second offer of salvation, which is more than any one can certainly affirm; and, if all did not, sin would still remain. It may be argued that all would accept because of the fuller light they would then have as to the paramount importance of salvation, or because of the stronger influences that will then be brought to bear upon them; but on this hypothesis a reflection would almost seem to be cast on God for not having done all He might have done to save men while they lived, a reflection good men will be slow to make. The third theory for banishing sin from the human family if not from the universe is that of Universalisnt, by which is signified that through reformatory discipline hereafter the souls of all will be brought into subjection to Jesus Christ. That the universal headship of Christ is taught in Scripture is true: Paul declares that all things will yet be subdued unto Christ
24
The Fundamentals (1 Cor. 15:28) and that it was God’s purpose in the fulness of the times “to gather all things into one in Christ” (Eph. 1:10) . But these statements do not necessarily demand the inference that all will surrender in willing subjection to Christ. Subject to Him must every power and authority be, human and angelic, hostile and friendly, believing and unbelieving. “He must reign till all His enemies have been placed beneath His feet”—not taken to His heart, received into His love and employed in His service. This does not look like universal salvation and the complete extinction of moral evil or sin in the universe. Solemn and sad as the thought is that sin should remain, if not in many, yet in some of God’s creatures, it is the teaching of Scripture. In the resurrection at the last day, it is written, {¿‘All who are in their graves shall come forth, they that havedone good unto the resurrection of lifej and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damna tion,” or “judgment” (R. V.) (John 5:29) . A dark and insoluble mystery was the coming of sin into God’s universe at the first : as dark a mystery is its remaining in a race that was from eternity the object of God’s love and in time was redeemed by the blood of God’s Son, and graciously acted on by God’s Spirit. Happily we are not required to understand all mysteries: we can leave this one confidently in ■the Divine Father’s hand.
CHAPTER I I PAUL’S TESTIMONY TO THE DOCTRINE OF SIN BY PROFESSOR CHAS. B. WILLIAMS, B. D., PH . D., SOUTHWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, FORT WORTH, TEXAS Theodore Parker once said: “I seldom use the word sin. The Christian doctrine of sin is the devil’s own. I hate it utterly”. His view of sin shaped his views as to the person of Christ, atonement, and salvation. In fact, the sin question is back of one’s theology, soteriology, sociology, evangelism, and ethics. One cannot hold a Scriptural view of God and the plan of salvation without having a Scriptural idea of sin. One cannot proclaim a true theory of society unless he sees the heinousness of sin and its relation to all social ills and disorders. No man can be a successful New Testament evangelist publishing the Gospel as “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”, unless he has an adequate conception of the enormity of sin. Nor can a man hold a consistent theory of ethics or live up to the highest standard of morality, unless he is gripped with a keen sense of sin’s seductive nature. SIN A FACT IN HUMAN HISTORY Paul has an extensive vocabulary of terms denoting sin or sins. In the Epistle to the Romans, where he elaborates his doctrine of sin, he uses ten general terms for sin: 1. 'A/xapria (hamartia), 58 times in all, 43 in Romans, missing of the mark, sin as a principle. 2 . 'ApapTijpa (hamarteema), twice, sin as an act. 3. Ilapa/Jao-is (para- basis), five times, transgression, literally walking along by the line but not exactly according to it. 4 . HapanTta/M 25
26
The Fundamentals (paraptoma), 15 times, literally a falling, lapse, deviation from truth and uprightness (Thayer), translated “trespass” in R.V. 5. ’ASoaa (adikia), 12 times, unrighteousness. 6 . 'Ao-e/Jeta, (asebeia), four times, ungodliness, lack of reverence for God. 7. ’A vo/ua (anomia), lawlessness, six times. 8 . ‘AicaOapaia (akatharsia), nine times, uncleanness, lack of purity. 9. HapaKorj (parakoee), twice, disobedience. 10. HA dvr) (planee), four times, wandering, error. . Besides these general terms for sin Paul uses many specific terms for various sins, 21 of these being found in the category of Rom. 1 :29-31. Twenty-one equals three times seven and seems to express the idea of completeness in sin reached by the Gentiles. It is literally true that Paul uses scores of terms denoting and describing various personal sins, sensual, social, ethical, and religious. Is this not an unmistakable lex ical evidence that the Apostle to the Gentiles believed in sin as a fact in human history? Again, in all Paul’s leading epistles he deals with sin in the abstract or with sins in the concrete. In Romans 1 :18- 3:20, he discusses the failure of both Jews and Gentiles to attain righteousness. These chapters constitute the most graphic and comprehensive description of sin found in Bib lical, Greek, Roman, or any, literature. It is so true to the facts in heathen life today that modern heathen often ac cuse Christian missionaries of writing it after they have had personal knowledge of their life and conduct. In 1 Corinthians, gross sins are dealt with—envy, strife, divisions, incest, litigation, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, covetousness, idolatry, etc. In 2 Corinthians, some of the same sins are condemned. In Galatians, he implies the failure of man to attain righteousness in maintaining the thesis that no man is justified by the deeds of the law, but any man may be justified by simple faith in Christ Jesus (2:14ff), and mentions the works of the flesh, “fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry,” etc. (5:19). In Ephesians, he
Paul’s Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin 27 recognizes that his readers were “once dead in trespasses and sins” ( 2 : 1 ) , and exhorts them to lay aside certain sins (4:25ff). In Colossians, he does the same. In Philippians, he says less about sin, or sins, but in 3:3-9 he tells his ex perience of failure to attain righteousness with all his ad vantages of birth, training, culture, and circumstances. In the pastoral epistles, he rebukes certain sins with no uncertain voice. P a u l ' s e x p e r ie n c e t h e p sy ch o lo g ica l proo f to h im o f HIS DOCTRINE OF SIN Paul was a Pharisee. Righteousness, or right relation with God, was his religious goal. As a Pharisee he felt that he could and must, in himself, achieve righteousness by keep ing the whole written and oral law. This kind of (sup- posable) righteousness he afterwards describes and re pudiates. “For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no con fidence in the flesh: though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. Howbeit, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea, verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I suffered the loss of all things and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Phil. 3:3-9, Am. Rev.). His experience as a Pharisee in trying to work out a righteousness of his own showed him to be a moral and religious failure. This experience he reflected in Rom. 7 :7-25 (So Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Theodoret, and most
The Fundamentals modern New Testament scholars, though Augustine and a few modem New Testament scholars think the passage refers to the experience of a Christian). “Sin, finding occasion through the commandment, beguiled me and through it slew me . . . that through the commandment sin might be come” (be shown to be) “exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I know not; for not what I would, that do I practise; but what I hate, that I do . . , . Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”. So we see that Paul by his experience with the law was led to see that “in him, that is, in his flesh, dwelt no good thing;” that in his members is the sin principle enslaving him so that he “is sold under sin”, that is, under the sway of this sin principle. He thought the law could help him to be righteous. All it could do was to show him his helplessness as a sinner and drive him in his despair to Christ as his only Rescuer “out of the body of this death”. All the righteousness he could achieve was insufficient. Only God’s own righteousness, given through faith in Christ Jesus, could satisfy the conscience of the awakened sinner or be acceptable to God. THE ORIGIN OF SIN The apostle does not discuss the larger problem, the origin of sin in God’s moral universe. Whence and how did sin originally enter the moral universe? Paul does not under take to solve this problem. Only the relative and temporal origin of sin, its entrance into the human race on earth, not its absolute and ultimate source, engages the thought of Paul. But what is his testimony as to how and when sin entered the human race? The classic passage on the source of human sin is Rom. 5:12-21. Let us consider it. Paul testifies that sin entered our race in and through the disobedience of ¡Adam. “As through one man sin [a/ lapria , hamartia, the
28
29
Paul’s Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin
sin principle] entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned . . . as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation . . . for as through the one man’s dis obedience many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:12, 18, 19). In this parallelism between Adam and Christ, Paul is seek ing to show, by contrast, the excellence of grace and the transcendent blessedness of the justified man in Christ. He is not primarily discussing the origin of human sin. But that does not depreciate his testimony. The fact that it is an incidental and not a studied testimony makes it all the more trustworthy and convincing. Nor is Paul here simply voicing the thought of his unin spired fellow-countrymen as to the entrance of sin into our race. Dr. Edersheim says: “So far as their opinions can be gathered from their writings, the great doctrines of orig inal sin and the sinfulness of our whole nature were not held by the ancient Rabbis”.* Weber thus summarized the Jewish view as expressed in the Talmud: “By the Fall man came under a curse, is guilty of death, and his right relation to God is rendered difficult. More than this cannot be said. Sin, to which the bent and leaning had already been planted by creation, had become a fact, ‘the evil im pulse’ (cor malignum, 4 Es. 3:21) gained the mastery over mankind, who can only resist it by the greatest efforts; be fore the Fall it had power over him; but no such ascendency”,f The reader is referred to Wisd. 2:23ff, Ecclus. 25:24 (33), 4 Es. 3:7, 21ff, Apoc. Baruch 17:3, 54:15, 19, as expressions of the Jewish view of the entrance of sin into the world and the relation of Adam to the race in the transmission of guilt. One of these passages, Ecclus. 25:24 (33) the sin of the race is traced back to Eve: “from a woman was the beginning of sin”. * “Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” I. 165. t Altsyn. Theol., p. 216.
The Fundamentals
fe
30
Observe that Paul goes beyond the statement of any un inspired Jewish writers — 1. In asserting that Adam and not Eve is the one through whom sin entered into the race. 2 . That, in some sense, when Adam sinned, "all sinned”, and in his sinning “all were made” ((careorá^o-av, stood down or constituted) “sinners” (Rom. 5:19). The apostle here means, doubtless, that all the race was seminally in Adam as its progenitor, and that Adam by the process of heredity handed down to his descendants a depraved nature. He can scarcely mean that each individual was actually in person in Adam. If Adam had not sinned and thus depraved and corrupted the fountain head of the race, the race itself would not have been the heir of sin and the reaper of its fruits, sorrow, pain, and death. 5 . That in the introduction of sin into the race by its progenitor the race itself was rendered helpless to extricate itself from sin and death. This the apostle asserts over and over again and has already demonstrated before he reaches the parallelism between Adam and Christ. “That every mouth may be stopped and all the world brought under the judgment of God” ; “because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight” (3:19, 20). THE ESSENCE AND NATURE OF SIN This brings us to ask, What constituted the essence or core of sin, as Paul saw it? Modern evolutionists emphasize the upward tendency of all things, and so sin is regarded by them as merely a step in the upward progress of the race; that is, sin is “good in the making”. Christian Scientists go still farther and regard all pain and evil as merely imaginary creations of abnormal minds.* There is no actual evil, no real pain, say they. Does either of these views find endorse ment in Paul? It must be noted that Paul nowhere gives ♦See “Science and Health.'
Paul’s Testimony to the Doctrine of Sin 31 a formal definition of sin. But by studying the terms mostly on his pen we can determine his idea of sin. He uses mostly the noun apaprla (hamartia), 58 times, from the verb apapravoi (hamartano), to miss the mark, to sin. To miss what mark? In classical Greek it means “to miss an aim”, “to err in judgment or opinion”. With Paul to sin is to miss the mark e t h ic a l l y and r e l ig io u s ly . T wo other words used by Paul show us what the mark missed is: dSuela (adikia), unrighteousness, lack of conformity to the will of God; avopta (anomia), lawlessness, failure to act or live according to the standard of God’s law. So the mark missed is the Divine law. Jiapd/3aiTi's (parabasis), transgression, emphasizes the same idea, failure to measure up to the line of righteousness laid down in the law. On the other hand, sin is not merely a negation. I t is a positive quality. I t is a ‘‘fall” (Hapdirraipa, 15 times). This is graphically illustrated by Paul in his description of the Gentile world’s idolatry, sensuality, and immorality (Rom. 1:18-32). First, they knew God, for He taught them about Himself in nature and in conscience (1:19, 20). Secondly, they refused to worship Him as God, or to give thanks to Him as the Giver of all good things (1:21). Thirdly, they began to worship the creature rather than the Creator, then gave themselves up to idolatry in a descending scale, wor shipping first human images, then those of birds, then those of beasts and reptiles (1:22-25). Fourthly, this wrong idea o f God and false relation to Him degraded them into the grossest sensuality and blackest immorality (1:26-32). Is this progress of the race? If so, it is progress in the un folding of sin’s cumulative power, and that where human philosophy and culture were doing their utmost to stem the tide of vice and contribute to the advancement of human government, thought, art, and ethics—in the Roman Empire where flourished Hellenistic culture. But Paul was convinced from his own experience and his observation of society,
^ I
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 84 Page 85 Page 86 Page 87 Page 88 Page 89 Page 90 Page 91 Page 92 Page 93 Page 94 Page 95 Page 96 Page 97 Page 98 Page 99 Page 100 Page 101 Page 102 Page 103 Page 104 Page 105 Page 106 Page 107 Page 108 Page 109 Page 110 Page 111 Page 112 Page 113 Page 114 Page 115 Page 116 Page 117 Page 118 Page 119 Page 120 Page 121 Page 122 Page 123 Page 124 Page 125 Page 126 Page 127 Page 128 Page 129 Page 130 Page 131 Page 132 Page 133 Page 134 Page 135 Page 136 Page 137 Page 138 Page 139 Page 140 Page 141 Page 142 Page 143 Page 144 Page 145 Page 146 Page 147 Page 148 Page 149 Page 150 Page 151 Page 152 Page 153 Page 154 Page 155 Page 156 Page 157 Page 158 Page 159 Page 160 Page 161 Page 162 Page 163 Page 164 Page 165 Page 166 Page 167 Page 168 Page 169 Page 170 Page 171 Page 172 Page 173 Page 174 Page 175 Page 176 Page 177 Page 178 Page 179 Page 180 Page 181 Page 182 Page 183 Page 184 Page 185 Page 186 Page 187 Page 188 Page 189 Page 190 Page 191 Page 192 Page 193 Page 194 Page 195 Page 196 Page 197 Page 198 Page 199 Page 200Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker