Open Letter from Greece E fy Antaki is a Greek girl in the Sani tarium of Soteria in Athens, Greece. She wants to write you a personal letter, but not knowing your address she requested us to deliver it to you through this magazine. Read it prayerfully: "I am sure that your kind hearts will not misunderstand this letter which I have de cided to write to you. ” 1 am a very poor girl and I am a total orphan. Ever since I was eleven years old I have been suffering. At the age of eleven I lost the support of our home, my beloved father, and thus at that tender age I tasted the bitter cup of bereavement. "Then my beloved mother, and what sweetness there is in the mention of the word 'mother’, took over .the support of our home and struggling with all her strength she tried to raise us. She was a mother who loved us very dearly. But the love which only a mother can give to her children we could not enjoy for very long. She died of tuberculosis in the very room in which I am found today. My poor heart losts its very prop. "But with the help of God I never lost my courage. I have always had great faith in the goodness of God who is the father of the orphans and who never forsakes anyone. After this, tuberculosis hit me, too, and I have been in the sanitarium, in the very room where my mother died, for a year now. "This is why, my beloved benefactors, I come to you with tears in my eyes to ask you to help me in whatever way God may inspire you to do it. I need medicine that is so essential for my treatment. So many times 1 long for an egg or a glass of milk or some fruit, but who is to bring it to me? I am an orphan destined to die unless some one shows compassion toward me. Please hear the voice of a little girl who is going through such a fiery furnace of trials. Give me a little joy and a little comfort in this very critical moment of my life. D o not let me die in the same room where my mother died. “ Be sure that God will reward you fully for your kindness toward me, and my par ents from up there where they are will rejoice when they see that you are doing something for their orphan child. I am waiting with joy and with great agony, for your letter. "I greet you with great love and respect. — EFY ANTAK I.” To provide this girl with the antibiotic drugs she needs will cost $25. Furthermore, it would be wonderful if we sent her some money to buy a little nourishing food— with $5 she can buy 40 lbs. of food locally in Greece. Last but not least, this despairing orphan girl must be led to the saving knowl edge of Jesus Christ. Let us provide her with a Bible in modern Greek ($ 2 ). You may help this girl and many others like her through the American Mission to Greeks, Inc., Box 42 3| New York 36, N.Y. (Rev. Spiros Zodhiates, General Secretary), which maintains the only Evangelical Orph anage in Greece. To care for a child costs $15 a month and to provide Evangelical training costs $10 a month. About 400 such scholarships are needed. If you undertake to provide for one of these children you will receive the picture of the child and his or her name and history, and you will have the opportunity of corresponding with the child. Nothing will give you greater joy than this project of praying and caring for a child in Greece where there are approximately 400,- 000 orphans out of seven million people. Introduce this project to your Sunday School class. They will be blessed by it. — Adv. 22
Doctrinal pointers by Gerald B. Stanton, Th.D. Prof, of Systematic Theology, Talbot Theological Seminary Imputation
W hen the term imputation first meets the eye or falls upon the ear, the impression is received that here is a matter both difficult and theological. But, like other impor tant terms which speak of aspects of our Christian heritage, imputation is a Biblical expression put into the Sacred Text by the Holy Spirit Him self and obviously, therefore, meant to be understood. One will not need to progress far with his study to con clude that this particular “ great word of the gospel” plunges deeply into the doctrine of salvation and the very heart of our Christian faith. Imputation speaks of that which is legally transferred from one to another. It means to reckon to one individual that which rightfully be longs to another. The Apostle Paul, in his dealing with the runaway slave, Onesimus, used an expression which so perfectly illustrates this concept it could almost be used as an inspired definition of imputation. In gracious and affectionate terms, Paul exhorted his brother in Christ, Philemon, not only to restore his slave unpunished, but to “ receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account” (Philemon 1:17, 18). This reckoning to another, this transfer, or putting to the other’s ac count, is an act of imputation. The Sin of Adam to the Race There are three major imputations recorded in the Word of God, the earliest and most foundational of which is the imputation of the orig inal sin of Adam to his entire pos terity. In his position at the head of the race, Adam was God’s great representative man, and the disobedi ence which was his is rightfully ours as those who are “ in Adam.” As in our governmental economies, one man— an ambassador—may in a rep resentative sense speak in behalf of the people of an entire nation, so Adam was tested and acted in be half of the entire human race, of which he was the representative and natural head. In fact, the imputation of the Adamic sin is twofold. It is immediate, for the dread result of
his sin falls directly upon each in dividual of the race as one who is immediately linked with Adam, the consequence of which is a fallen na ture. It is also mediate, that is, trans ferred indirectly through human par entage from generation to generation, until ultimately each individual is linked with the first man, Adam. The consequence of this “mediate impu tation” lies in the fact that each, through parentage, is a member of a fallen race (Psalm 51:5). Lest any may suggest that a representative testing of the human family in Adam such as the Bible teaches is not just, iet it be remembered that Adam fell from God without any sin nature and (except for the example of Lu cifer), without any precedent to sin. Any one of us, had we been where Adam stood, would have done the same as he, if not worse, for we are weaker than he and unlike Adam possess a nature which ever tends to depart from the way of God. The central passage which deals with this is found in Romans 5:12-21. Here is the theme, that “ as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” The Sin of the Race to Christ Central to the message of a cruci fied Saviour is the good news that the penalty for the awful sin of the race has been borne by Him. “ Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). For this He came to earth, “ not to be min istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Vicarious death— substitutionary death—the death of a sinless One to whom has been imputed the total sin of a race: this is the gospel message. “ For he [the Father] hath made him [the Son] to be sin for us, [Christ] who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). No wonder it is no longer the sin question but the Son question (John 16:8, 9), for “ He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life” (1 John 5:12). (T o be continued) END.
TH E K IN G 'S BU SINESS
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