January, 1934
T H E K I N G ’
S B U S I N E S S
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they do, to dare to ask raison d’etre more than they do. We confess that we tremble when we think of the harm that destructive higher criticism is doing to Christian faith; but we tremble more when we think of the harm that is being done to it and the Bible by Christians who do not know either well enough to criticize. This is not a thinking or a teaching age. It is an age of short stories, of amusements. To “muse” means to ponder, to think. An “amusement” is a clever device to keep people from thinking—and perhaps that is why most of the amusements of the world are in the hands of the devil -—because he knows perfectly well that if he can keep people from thinking, he will keep them from God: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testi monies” (Psa. 119:59). “And when he came to himself, he said, I will arise and go to my father” (Lk. 15:17-20). It is the sinner that is eccentric ( off the center): the Christian is concentric (he is on the center). Then there is what is called the modern mind. One finds difficulty in defining just what is meant by “the modern mind.” Perhaps an illustration will suffice. A certain pro fessor of Christian theology (note that word “Christian!” ), in a leading university, wrote a book entitled, A Guide- Book to the Study of the Christian Religion, in which he says: In the light of the new historical criticism, the Bible is a natural, and not a supernatural, book. A religion for the Twentieth Century must be made by Twentieth Cen tury people. It was the Bible writers who adopted the myth of the God-man. Our belief in the Godhead of Christ is a myth. There is now more appreciation of Christ as man and less emphasis on His Virgin Birth, and , His supernatural nature. The statement in the Scriptures that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins, is both foolish and futile. That is a fair expression of the so-called “modern mind.” ; Everything that is supernatural and miraculous, according to the modern view of natural law, must be ruled out of the Bible. If, however, you begin by denying the virgin birth, and close by denying the physical resurrec tion of Christ, it will not be very long before you will be denying all that lies between these two supernatural events, for a sinless human being in the midst of a sinning race is as much a miracle in the moral realm, as a virgin birth or a physical resurrection is in the physical realm, and you then have no Christ worthy of trust. C hrist and E volution There is another competitor to the mastership of Christ in the realm of Christian thinking, and that is evolution. Say what we will, evolution (in some form) is king in the realm of education today. I presume it is fair to say that there is scarcely a book on biology written that is not evo lutionary in its teaching. There are so many conflicting definitions of the theory of evolution that it is difficult to define what it is. We do know, however, what the effect of the teaching of evolu tion is upon Christian faith and Christian thinking. Here is an illustration. A professor in a well-known college is reported to have sent out 5,500 questionnaires t© leading scientists, teachers in biology, psychology, geology, and history. After tabulating the results, he found that more than half of the prominent scientists (answering the questionnaire) had abandoned belief in a personal God and in immortality, as the result of their study of evolution. The professor, as reported, goes further, and says that he sent out questionnaires to students in nine leading uni versities, asking them what effect the study of evolution had upon their faith, and with this result: that 15 per cent of the freshmen, 30 per cent of the juniors, and 40 to 45 per cent of the men graduates in the universities and col leges had discarded their Christian faith. Furthermore,
beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of Jlje/' Pharisees and of the Sadducees” (Matt. 16:11, 12)TjThe Sadducees never went to the synagogue, but only to the temple, . We can readily understand that when Christ’s teaching came into conflict with theirs, and the people recognized it, the Sadducees also determined to put Christ out of the way—which, ultimately, they did. C hrist and P aul This claim of the mastership of Jesus Christ was chal lenged on through the days of Paul, for when he stood on Mars Hill and preached to the great scholars the simplicity of the gospel, they said, “This man is a babbler” (Acts 17:18, 19). By the word “babbler” they referred to the birds that swooped down on the Areopagus and picked up seeds here and there. They said, in effect, “This man has a mere smattering of knowledge. He has picked up a seed of knowledge here and there.” This sarcasm they cast into the apostle’s face—a sarcasm before which many a modern preacher has found himself unable to stand. But you cannot always listen to such critics. Such men said of Jesus that He did not know letters, that He did not have enough learning! “How knoweth this man let ters, having never learned?” (John 7:15). They said of Paul, in this instance," that he was without learning; but when he stood before Agrippa, the king said that he had too much learning, and that it had made him mad (Acts 26:24). And yet Paul was a scholar. You may remember that after the officers had arrested Paul, and he was allowed to speak to the people, he addressed them in Hebrew, On another occasion, when he desired to address another group of people near to the tower of Antonia, the officer asked him, “Canst thou speak Greek?” “Speak Greek!” said Pau l; “I was born in Tarsus, no mean city of Cicilia.” You may remember also that when they were about to’scourge b Paul, he asked the officer, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a Roman?” (Acts 21 :37; 22:2, 27). It was a great day for Christ and His gospel when Saul the Pharisee—the Hebrew with a passion for religion; the Greek, with a passion for scholarship and the classics; the Roman, with his world outlook and power for world- evangelization—bowed his neck and took upon it the yoke of the Christ and the simplicity of the cross, and became Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles! The supremacy of Christ in the realm of the mind has always been challenged, down through the centuries, and there come times when a man must recognize the fafct, as Paul did. C hrist and R ationalism When we come to our own day, we are face to face with the challenge of the supremacy of Christ in the realm of thought. [There are the rationalists. They say, “Whatever appeals to the reason wewill accept. Whatever does not appeal to the reason we will throw overboard, The miracles are not reasonable. The virgin birth is not reasonable. The physical resurrection of Christ is not reasonable.” What ever does not appeal to reason, is thus cast aside. Reason challenges the place of ChristJ/^/y- /V / / P* We are not against true reason. God deals with men on the basis of reason, as He deals with beasts on the basis of instinct. Reason and philosophy, illuminated by the Spirit of God, may be able to approve, approximate, and apply the information presented in the Word of God; but it cannot anticipate it. The true Christian is the true rationalist. It is the sinner that is irrational. Sin is not only moral obliquity; it is mental aberration. The sinner is not merely a rebel; he is a lunatic. He is beside himself. Would to God that we could get Christian people to do more thinking than
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