T H E K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S
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Some Logical Conclusions and Confusions Dr. Charles Roads, Pastor, Second M. E. Church, Easton, Pa.
tures, even by men of the world, and by their historical influence and power today, and by their marvelous content of moral and spiritual value, are put into a class alone. No one today can write anything that gets into that class; nothing written in the past is in it. It is unique and, un approachable. If the Scripture writers had only the same sort of inspiration that great poets had, it is clear that, in measure, the inspiration of Scripture writers is infinitely above all other. Third,— But, more, the claim of Scripture writers . to unique inspiration by God’s Spirit is either true or false. If they are, after all, only the greatest of human thinkers, as Modernists allow, they are also the most astounding of all liars and hypocrites. And this is more amazing for they inculcate the loftiest truth-telling, and sincerity, thus damning themselves, to the lowest hell. It is fact, unde niable, that the Scriptures as they stand must be accepted as God’s own revealed Word or as of all the devil’s fabrica tions the most wonderful! And the devil himself is then transformed into an angel of light and teacher of righteous ness, holiness, regeneration, love, and faith so thoroughly that men have always thought it is the holy God so teach ing! So absurd and horrible are the logical conclusions easily run out of any doctrine of Modernism, and so inex tricable the confusion of thought in it all. Of w*hat sense or use are the hot disclaimers that they do not mean this and that, that they are not understood, which Modernists continually make; that they do not be lieve what their destructive theories, which they fondle as “constructive,” surely lead to? What ridiculous non sense to claim they are followers of Christ and say He is the supreme revelation of God! On their theory, there is no revelation of God, no Gospels,— all swept away, all myth! They try to be consistent with denying the Virgin Birth by going on to repudiate miracles and the bodily resurre- tiori of Christ. This is consistent for Voltaire and Inger- soll who never claimed to be Christians. But for Modern ists in Methodist and Presbyterian pulpits claiming spirit ual experience of Christ, and calling Him Lord, where is the sane reasoning? Are Voltaire and Ingersoll illogical on the sam e. premises the preachers begin with? Or are the preachers fools and madmen in mind and soul? And these preachers, mind you, all the while talk of being saved by reasoning and science and superior in tellectual insight. But for their safety they stop at prem ises, unreasoned-out assertions, and a wild riot of hy potheses bubbling into space. By the sure conclusions of their reasoning they would be clubbed into confusion and into the utter destruction of all faith and vision of God. If they are rationalists, why abandon logic and conclusions?
JIBER.ALISTS and Modernists are horrified when men of the historic faith with faultless, logic show the unavoidable conclusions of Modernist prem ises and reasoning. For these Modernists never run their discussions straight to logical ends. They utter destructive theories recklessly with confused underlying conceptions in easy going acceptance, and then demand that we permit their disclaimers of the conclusions, surely following. Take any notion of Modernism and you have an illustra tion of logical resultants which the Methodist, or Presby terian, or Baptist Modernist indignantly and stoutly denies. For instance, the repudiation of the virgin birth of Christ. If Jesus was only the son of Joseph and •Mary, and His Divine birth a myth, what follows inevitably? Many start ling things certainly, if that is true. First,-—Then the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke are false; they give the testimony of Joseph that Jesus is not h is son, and of .Mary that an angel announced to her that He is the direct Son of God. And cutting out these chapters we have absolutely no account whatever of the paternity of Christ. And the very many other passages in the four Gospels and in the Epistles, which either assume or distinctly state that Jesus is the Son of God, are also false. And since the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke are in all the manuscripts and their textual accuracy is unimpeacheable, if these are false, then nothing in either Gospel or in any part of the New Testament has textually or historically any better proof, and all may be false. Penknifing the account of the virgin birth of Christ we are logically left with nothing trustworthy about Christ. All is just as much myth as these chapters are! Logically then we do not know there was any Joseph or Mary, or any Jesus of Nazareth: at all. Second,— and logically, the unparalleled works of God, which Christ did, can not be explained except as works of God by a bold imposter, a discredited and illegitimately born man; and much more of the same blasphemous and horrible sort that any sound logician can carry out. As Dr. James Orr so fully shows in his great book, “The Vir gin Birth of our Lord,” all the foundations of our faith go when that falls. Take the Modernist notion that the Scriptures are in spired no more than Shakespeare and Milton are inspired. What foll'ows? Shakespeare and Milton make no claim whatsoever that the Holy Spirit of -God moved them , to write, and through them directly revealed truth from God; the writers of the Scriptures everywhere, by hundreds of clearest assertions, do so claim. Then either Shakespeare was mistaken and he too was moved by God’s Spirit, or the Scripture writers unqualifiedly* falsify. But the Scrip
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