July 1931
T H E K: e N g ’ s B u s i n e s s
300
up her voice and said unto Jesus, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” Here is Dr. Fosdick’s comment: “Jesus came back at her like thunder, saying, ‘Yea’ rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.’ It is as though you could hear Him saying to Himself, ‘See, they are beginning to worship Me; they are evading what I am driving at by adoring emotions , about Me; they will get rid of Me yet, as they have gotten rid of the prophets, by idolizing Me.’ ” What trifling! to use no harsher word. To think of Jesus thundering, and at a woman! What He said was, “Yea, that woman is blessed.” And in saying so, He con firmed the angelic announcement, and the words of Eliza beth to Mary, as recorded in Luke 1:28, 41 and 42.
“Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Mas ter, even Christ. “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased ; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted” (Matt. 23:8-12). Did this young ruler recognize Him as one with the Father ? Did he perceive Him to be the Christ ? And was he (not “bowing,” as Dr. Fosdick says) but actually kneeling to Him in adoration for that reason? Or was he simply offering Him that human worship which Jesus had condemned ? As Dr. Philip S. Schaff puts it, a prede cessor of Dr. Fosdick on the faculty of the Union Theo logical Seminary in the former days of its orthodoxy, “Did this young man have a merely humanitarian view of
But then He added, not gainsay ing her utterance, but rectifying it, “There is a greater blessing for that woman and for any other woman. It is found in hearing the Word of God and keeping it.” No ingenuity can cause His words to bear any other meaning. And it is doubt less true, as others have 'indi cated, that He thus spake pro phetically against the unscrip- tural worship of the Virgin Mary which has prevailed in so large a part of Christendom. “It was a greater honor to Mary to have Christ in her heart by faith, than to have been the mother of Jesus and to have nursed Him at her bosom.” A second curio of interpreta tion is that of Matthew 19:16, 17, on which Dr. Fosdick com ments thus: “Or how else will you ex plain his swift retort to the man who came bowing to him, saying, ‘Good Teacher’?
Christ, or the true theanthropic view?” It was necessary for the young man to be brought to his senses on this point, hence the inquiry, “Why callest thou me good ?” The foregoing f r o m Dr. Schaff is a footnote in Langé’s Commentary on Matthew, but Langé himself in commenting on the parallel in Mark, adds this:
We Worship Thee O bringer of salvation, Thyself the revelation Of love beyond our thought; We worship Thee, we bless Thee, To Thee alone we sing! We praise Thee and confess Thee Our Saviour and our King! Who wondrously hast wrought In Thee all fulness dwelleth, All grace and power divine; The glory that excelleth, 0 Son of God, is Thine. We worship Thee, we bless Thee, To Thee alone we sing, And evermore confess Thee Our Saviour and our King.
“Jesus does not decline the appellation ‘good’; He repels it only in the superficial sense of the questioner. The young man deals with ‘good’ in its relative meaning. It is in this sense he says ‘good,’ that is, ‘excellent’ Master. But Jesus teaches him to ap prehend good in its absolute ness. And to that end he must understand the being good which he ascribes to Christ as being founded in God. Thus the answer is not to be explained deistically but Christologically, ‘If t h o u wouldst call Me good, thou must apprehend My unity with God and My divine nature.’ ” How absurd to regard this as proving that Jesus feared to be worshiped ! T h e P o int at I ssue Dr. Fosdick used no text at the beginning of his ser mon, but his frequent allusions to Matthew 7 :21 indicate that his thoughts were revolving around the words of Jesus where He said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” He makes much of the latter half of this text, telling us again and again that Jesus feared being worshiped. “He does not want His ego idolized. He wants His cause supported”—-“the divine will done in personal lives and social relationships.” The churches of this country, he tells us, “are full of people who worship Christ, who bave no more idea what Christ really means about waT, race re lationships, the color line, the money standard of the day, the profit motive in industry, than Constantine had about Christ’s attitude toward his bloody imperialism.” All of this may be true and much of it doubtless is true. And so far as it is true we are deserving of the
— F rances R idley H avergal .
said Jesus, ‘Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God.’ One can fairly read His thoughts as He said to the man, Beware of worshipful deference to Me—I fear it. Come, stop this bowing and this ‘Good Master’; what about your attitude to the kind of living I am standing for, whose springs are in God ?” The Holy Spirit caused the incident of this young ruler, for he was a ruler of the synagogue who thus came to Jesus, to be recorded in each of the Synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke, thus showing the consideration He wished given to it. But Dr. Fosdick, from the point of view of Bible learning, gives it no consideration whatever. He has a theory to maintain, and like a bird picking up a bright string on the lawn to weave into its nest, he seizes upon it as supporting his contention. But it does nothing of the kind. Jesus did not “retort” on this young man, He instructed him. Mark says that “beholding, he loved him,” and even Dr. Fosdick under similar circumstances, would not “retort” on a young man he loved. Much less Jesus. On another occasion Jesus had warned His disciples against the scribes and Pharisees who loved to be called of men, “Rabbi.” And He said: “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Mas ter, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
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