1047
THE KING’S BUSINESS
true that the written Word of the New Testament came after the Church, but the spoken Word came before thè Church. A SPOKEN GOSPEL By way of illustration let us- remember that there was a Church in Uganda before Mackay and Pilkington put the Gospel into writing. The missionaries preached the Word ; it was“ accepted by some; and a Church existed before anything could be put into writing. And so there was a Church on the day of Pentecost from the Word spoken by the Apostles, long before there was a written Word. This is where the fallacy comes in. The Church, there fore, is “a witness and a keeper,” but not a maker of Holy Scripture. One of the hymns we sing is: “The church from her dear Master, received the-gift divine.” Did the Church at Rome write the Epistle to the Romans? Was the Church at Rome the maker of that Epistle? Did the Church of the Ephesians make the Epistle to the Ephesians? No; it was the Apostle who wrote that Epistle to the Church of Rome, and it was Scripture to that Church froth the moment they ac cepted it from his hand. John the Apostle - says: “I wrote unto the Church, but Dio- trephes, who loveth to have the pre-emi nence, receiveth us not.” It was not the Church, but the Apostles representing Christ, who gave first the spoken and then the written Word of God. And so those familiar words in the Article of the Church' of England, “The Church is a witness and a~keeper,” are literally true. The Church is a witness of what is Scripture. The Church has kept the Scripture. But though the Church is a “witness and keeper," it is not thè autho^ or maker of Scripture, and the reasoning employed in support of the latter contention is falla cious. It seems to be as follows: “The Apostles were the authors of Holy Scripture.” “But all Apostles are members - of the Church of Christ.” “Therefore, the Church of Christ is the author of Scripture.”
this be? Surely it is impossible; the Church was in existence at least twenty years before the New Testament was writ ten.” The Church was certainly before the New Testament, but does it follow that the Church is above it? That is where a fallacy may creep in. But first, was the Church without a Bible? For those twenty years had the Church no Bible? One of our greatest scholars, C. H. Turner, in th e Journal of Theological Studies, has pointed out that while there is a truth in the statement that the Church is before the Bible, yet that if we had said it to àny early Christian he would have stared at us with amazement. He would have said: “We have got a Bible, the Old Testament, and it speaks to us of Christ.” The Apostle Paul says con cerning-the Old Testament that, with the simple addition of faith in Christ Jesus, it “is able to make wise unto salvation.” This is what St. Paul thought of the Old Testament. It is, however, perfectly true that the Church had no part of the New Testament for-at least twenty years. If we would like to add another twenty years we may do so. There was no complete New Testa ment for a long time after they had the truth; but we ought to notice this: while they had not the written Word they had the spoken Word from the day of Pente cost onwards. The Church came into ex istence by believing thé spoken Word ; and as long as the Apostles were at hand, the spoken Word was sufficient. But by and by, when they went from place to place, and afterwards died, it was essential to embody in another form the spoken revela tion; and thus came the written form. We see at once that it does not very much mat ter whether it is spoken or written, so long as we can be sure it is a revelation from God. I am perfectly certain that if the Apostle Paul were here, we should listen to him just as carefully as we should read one of his writings. The precise way in which the revelation comes does not mat ter so l o ^ as we can be certain that it comes from God. So that it is perfectly
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker