34 The Fundamentals these statements by reference to authors and books, but space forbids the quotations here. So patent are they that we can hardly doubt the acceptance of the assertion by the intelligent reader, without citations in proof.) PAUL AS AN INTERPRETER OF JESUS The best interpreter of Jesus who ever undertook to rep resent Him was the man who was made a “chosen vessel,” to bear the Gospel of the kingdom to the pagan nations of his own time, and to transmit his interpretations to us of the twentieth century. He could say: “The Gospel which was preached of me is not after man, neither was I taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.” And Paul speaks of this work wrought in the human soul as a “new creation”—something that was not there before. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (creation). “Neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature” (creation). Never once, in all his discussions of the way of salvation, does Paul intimate that the new creation is effected by a ritual observance. I t is always and everywhere regarded and treated as a spiritual experience wrought by the Spirit of God, the subject of it knowing only, as the healed man said of himself, “Whereas I was blind now I see.” THE TESTIMONY OF EXPERIENCE The prayers of the Bible, especially those of the New Testa ment, do not indicate that the suppliant asks for a regenera tion—a new heart. He may have been taught the need of it, and may be brought face to face with the great and decisive fact; but his thought is not so much of a new heart as it is of his sins and his condemnation. What he wants is deliver ance from the fact and the consequences of sin. He finds him self a condemned sinner, under the frown of a God of justice, and he despairs. But he is told of Jesus and the forgiving grace of God, and he asks that the gracious provision be ap-
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