T h e K i n g ’ s B u s i n e s s
May 1928
281
Every teaching o f the disciples o f the conditions that should surround our prayer, and every instruction to pray comes to us in a new light if we realize that when they spoke they were not considering any formal, casual “ say ing o f prayers,” but referred to the expression of souls that yearned forward, away from the old forms, away from the old failure, away from the old powerlessness, forward to Him Who hath called, us to His eternal glory. Our need is for vital contact with God. It is not so much for method, not So much for the forms or words of
either faith or service, but for the attitude which finds no regard for iniquity in the seat of our affections and de sires, but wishes, yearns forward from all the past, from all the present, from all o f earth, and seeks Him because He is seeking u s ; which runs to Him as He comes to meet us on the way; which receives from Him full forgiveness, full cleansing and the New Robe He commands to be put upon us, and in that transformed life, abides in Him (2 Cor. 4:1-4 W ey.).
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Knowing Christ in Regeneration By P rof . H oward W . K ellogg (An Anniversary Conference Message)
OWHERE is the contrast between man-made religion and revealed Christianity more striking than in the truth o f regeneration. No one had ever conceived the idea that human goodness fell far short of divine requirement until God revealed the fact. That this was among the earliest of God’s revelations is attested by every sacrifice upon Old Testament altars. Sacrifices have been made upon pagan altars in all places and all times, but always with the thought of the making o f personal merit, or with the purpose o f placating powers that were conceived to be hostile to men. It is only Christ that can say to the best religionist, “ You must be born again.” The statement has remained a puzzle to the natural man even to this day. And when by the Spirit o f God the need for Regeneration is made clear,, there is nothing from which our human nature shrinks more than from this. It is a most awful shock to discover one’s utter bankruptcy in the presence o f God. To surrender all thought o f’¿personal merit is to reverse every instinct and every course of reasoning as to the way of salvation. And it is only in the revelation o f Christ’s righteousness that the need for our own regeneration will be admitted. Against the dazzling purity o f His right eousness, our own polluted righteousness is black. It has been well said that “ The sense of sin in the soul is the apprehension o f Almighty God.” True it is that the act of God in bringing a soul into harmony, with Himself, is described in the terms of many doctrines or figures, and some of these recognize that the human will has a part in consenting to the act o f God, but always it is He that brings about the great transaction. If it is a captive that must be released, it is Christ that pays the ransom. If it is a sinner that must be forgiven, the forgiveness is from Him. If it is the lost that must be found, He is the Shepherd that searches till He finds. If it is the lawbreaker who must be justified, it is He who declares him righteous. A M iraculous W ork In the doctrine o f regeneration, the act of main almost completely disappears, for a child is not consulted before hand as to his birth; but even here, the candidate for re generation has an existence. That which is born of the flesh is present and active and apparently has power to condition the birth o f that which is to be born o f the Spirit. “ A s many as received Him, to them gave he power to be come the sons o f God.” The Saviour says to Nicodemus
that he must be twice-born. There is the birth by nature, by water, by flesh, there must also be the birth by the Spirit. Peter represents this birth as by the Word. The Saviour says that the words He speaks are spirit and are life. The new birth is a divine transaction. And so it is true that only as we know the righteous ness o f .Christ, do we in the first place admit the need for regeneration, and in the second place, it is only by the miracle of regeneration that we come to know Him in that personal, intimate relationship that claims its full rights of sonship in the family o f God. It is^only a son that can say Abba, Father. And here we are, not forgetting that this wondrous wit ness o f the Spirit with our spirits is represented by Paul both in Romans' 8 and Galatians 4, as tfie result o f Adop tion. This is merely another picture of the fathomless grace of God who takes a slave from the slavemarket by the act o f Purchase or Redemption, and then, instead o f holding him as a slave, adopts him into His very family and replaces the cringing spirit of bondage by the spirit o f God’s own Son, who cries out within him, Abba, Father! And the miracle of grace which places us in the family of-God continues to act, not merely on our spiritual birth day when the glow o f the new life is so heavenly and so transporting, but in the later and more somber days when we are walking by faith, unsupported by ecstasy. Moun tain peaks of experience there are, as there are mountains upon the map, but plains and prairies cover greater areas than mountain ranges. Faith grows until even in the extreme o f testing it can say with Job, “ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” And Christ is known in regeneration preeminently by the fruits of righteousness, which are the results o f the newly implanted life. The child o f God does Christlike things. He is even at home among the virtues o f the thirteenth of First Corinthians. He loves his enemies and does other impossible things named in the appalling re quirements of the Sermon on the Mount. Surprises come to him as he finds his lips praising instead o f cursing God in personal injury or business calamity. He is amazed to find himself calm while others fear, to find himself gener ous when he has always known himself to be penurious. The regenerate man is a miracle to himself and to his friends: They may not understand him and may even doubt his sanity, but to them as well as to himself he is a new man. The test o f Christianity in the twentieth cen tury as in the first, is this, “ They took knowledge o f them that they had been with Jesus.”
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