Foundations of our Faith: General Discussion

I am going to give you a little talk this afternoon on the articles of faith—what a church believes. First, a creed is what we believe, and a confession of faith is a declaration of what we believe. That declaration may be verbal or it may be in writing. There is very great necessity for both creed and confession.

Every man in the world has some religious belief; even if it is of a negative kind, he has a belief. It is as lawful to state it as it is to have it. When stated, whether in words or in writing, it is a confession. The New Testament is the authority both for having a creed and the expression of it. In one of my recent lectures, the one on the great unities in Ephesians, delivered before this class, I cited a number of passages showing how the creed of the New Testament churches was formulated into a confession.

The next important question is the use of the creed. What is it good for? Why should a church have a creed? And why should it set it forth formally in a confession? There are quite a number of so-called churches, all claiming to be churches of Jesus Christ: Baptists, Methodists, Campbellites,
Episcopalians, Christian Science, and many others.

An outsider, receiving religious impressions, wishes to connect himself with one of these churches, and if he wants to do so intelligently the first thing that occurs to him is, “What does this church believe? What does the Methodist church believe? What does the Baptist church believe?” He wants some method of satisfying himself of just what he is joining, what the church stands for, what its creed is. So we see at once the necessity of some formal statement of what these various organizations hold to be the truth, coming up on the very entrance into the church. 

When I was converted, that was a question I had to settle. I was converted in a Methodist meeting and was very much attached to them. They thought I ought to join them, but I thought I ought to know what they stood for and what others stood for—that I ought to make an examination. I might agree with them in many things, and particularly in their method of saving souls, but there might be many other things in their belief to which I could not subscribe. 

I asked for a copy of the standards for their church. One of them made me a present of a Discipline; another gave me Watson’s Institutes and Gaston’s Collections; another made me a present of a hymnbook. I have them yet. I studied them to see if I could be a Methodist, and the more I studied them the more I knew that I could not join them. 

Then a Presbyterian gave me their confessions of faith and Calvin’s Institutes. I have them yet. I found in them more to approve than in the Methodist standards, with some things which I could not accept. I then read Alexander Campbell’s Christian System and much of his Millennial Harbinger, comparing all with the New Testament. 

Very carefully also I went over the Baptist faith and polity. My father was a Baptist preacher, but I distrusted the influences of early impressions and desired to reach an intelligent, individual conviction on so grave a matter as joining the church. This investigation accounts for the length of time between my conversion and my baptism. 

In the case of very young people there is seldom a comparison of the claims of different denominations. But I was a grown man of considerable life experience in joy and sorrow, and had a wide range of general information. My relation to my new found Savior was held above all others. I wanted to be loyal to Him. I had no criticism to offer on the course of others, but for myself, I must know just what I was doing in uniting with the church. A church without a creed could not have gained my respect, even. They ought to stand for something definite or go out of business. I am not making my exceptional case a standard, but it is one of a class, and this class finds a church creed useful in determining what church to join. 

The second use is this: The church is made the judge of the preacher’s soundness of faith, and is required to reject him if he is a heretic. What constitutes heresy? There must be some standard to determine what is or- thodoxy in the view of the church or else the members cannot be the judge as to whether a preacher is going astray. If you say we have no creed at all, how can you correct him? If a preacher teaches that Jesus is not God, or that he believes sprinkling is baptism, how are you to call him to account? He would say, “When I joined you, you had no creed and I took it for granted that you had no particular views on this subject. How can you call me to account?”

Christ set in the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, pas- tor-teachers, for the purpose of leading men unto full development of the Bible truth, and to bring them to maturity in Christian knowledge, and to save them from being a victim of every foolish doctrine of every evangelical tramp that came along (Eph 4:11–16). Suppose you have no declaration of what you believe to be the truth, how are you going to examine a man in ordaining him to the ministry? If you say the Bible is your creed, all others say the same thing. That is not the point. What does your church understand the Bible to teach? So in ordination to the ministry it is essential that in some way there be a settled, uniform view of the teachings of the Bible, otherwise you can have no examination of a candidate in any proper sense. 

Alexander Campbell started out with an opposition to creeds and confessions of faith. In his debate with N.L. Rice this was one of the propositions debated, as worded by Campbell himself: “Creeds and Confes- sions of faith, as bonds, of union and communion, are necessarily schismatical and heretical.” Mr. Rice smote him hip and thigh somewhat after this fashion. “Mr. Campbell, do your people believe anything in particular about the Bible? We notice you dig us a good deal, and all other denominations. Have you any views at all, for instance, on baptism, the ministry, or what a church is? Is there anything at all that you insist upon?” Campbell said, “We take the New Testament.” Mr. Rice showed the changes to this concession of Mr. Campbell from his published lamentation of existing disorder among his followers: “We have all sorts of men preaching all sorts of doctrines.”That is what a fisherman would call a cork-sinker. He pressed the matter home by asking Mr. Campbell why he wrote his Christian System.¹ 

Mark the bearing of this matter on the election of pastors. Your church wants to elect a pastor, and one says, “I recommend Brother A, as he seems to be able to get along handsomely with the young people.” “What does Brother A preach?”“Oh, he does not preach much of anything, but he plays golf splendidly and is welcomed socially wherever he goes.”“But does the Bible have some requirements about what a preacher must teach? For instance, what does A teach about Christ, the Holy Spirit, the church?” “I don’t know.” “Well, we must know before we call Mr. A.” 

I am giving you these introductory remarks to show you not only the necessity for a creed, but the uses of a creed. What I said in the Ephesians lecture on the unities is certainly true: “The longest creed ever written is more valuable and less hurtful than the shortest.” Suppose you reduce your creed to this: “I believe in God,” and compare that with a creed that had thirty-nine articles. Which is the more efficient? There is something lack- ing in the vast vacancy of the first. Tom Payne said, “I believe in God.” He died believing in God, but he did not believe in Jesus Christ, nor in the Bible. Every Jew believes in God, but not in Jesus Christ, nor in Christianity. 

I am seeking to get before you this afternoon what, in various lessons, I have presented to you—the deposit of the faith (2 Tim 1:13–14), “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” ( Jude 1:3). Paul received something definite from Jesus Christ, and he delivered something definite to the church, and he charged the church to keep that something definite just as he gave it, and to pass it on down as it was received (2 Tim 2:2; 1 Cor 11:23, 15:3). A man is either a fool in knowledge or a knave who denies that he has a creed.

It is not the object of the creed to put it above the Bible, nor in the place of it. A sufficiently good creed can be made by putting fundamental points together; you can put in enough to define. When referring to the Trinity, define what is meant by the Trinity: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19b). That is the Scripture. Another one: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14). You may draw up a creed in that way to cover all the vital and fundamental points of the gospel. 

When you try a man before the church for heresy, you try him by the teachings of the Bible, not by the creed. But you use the creed this way: He has substituted his interpretation of the Bible for the interpretations of the church. While he has a right as an individual to his own interpretation, he has not the right to claim a place among you holding a different view. For instance, if a man wants to preach that there ought to be no church, no ordinances, like a Quaker, he is at liberty to do so, but should not do so occupying a Baptist pulpit and claiming to be a Baptist preacher. Common honesty demands that he shall not take the pulpit of a denomination to undermine the faith of that denomination. 

Another point in the use of creeds is where property is involved. Here are a number of people associated together in the belief of what Christ has taught, and covenanting to do what he has commanded. Their creed sets forth what they believe to be the truth. They buy a church and a parsonage. A majority of the church may depart from the expressed creed of the church when it was organized. The minority can appeal to law and hold possession of the property on the ground that the organization sets forth the objects of its existence, and that the majority has departed from the compact and wants to divert the property to other purposes. They cannot do it under law.

Suppose, for an extreme assumption, that three-fourths of the members of the First Baptist Church of Waco should become persuaded that the Methodists are right. Can they take that church property over to the Methodists? They cannot. The question of creed will determine. 

In preparing a creed, the first thing usually set forth is what we regard as the standard. Everything must have a standard. If you go to a grocer and buy five pounds of anything he has to sell, there must be a standard to tell what a pound is, otherwise he might give you only a third of what you think you ought to have. You can hold him to what the standard of a pound is—16 ounces. 

Nearly all creeds commence with the declaration that their standard is the Bible. The first article is generally what you hold as the standard of faith. Protestants will all say the Bible. Catholics say the Bible and traditions. That was correct before the New Testament was written, for what Paul said orally was standard just as much as when it was written. It was tradition until God’s revelation was completed and reduced to writing. Then you could not bring in tradition. You cannot put up today what somebody says that Peter said a great many years ago. You go to what Peter has written, or what some other inspired man has written about Peter. So that every Protestant church, and particularly the Baptists, will say that the Bible is the standard—the Word of God.

That brings out the question, “What is the Bible? How much is there of it?” Here we differ from the Romanists again. They will agree with you on what is the New Testament, but not on what is the Old Testament. Over and over again I have taught this class the variations of our Old Testament from the Romanist Old Testament, and told you just where they come in. 

Now, let me repeat some things I have said and show some items of a Bible creed. What then is a creed? Your creed is what you believe. What is a confession of faith? It is the declaration of what you believe, and every man has a creed and they confess it is just to set it forth. Suppose a stranger should move into a community. The locality suits him and he is pleased with the location of the church and the manner of the preacher and he wants to join the church. He says, “What do you believe?” You say, “Well, we believe the Bible.” “Well, whose understanding of the Bible? Are there not some things that are settled with you?” If not, he will know whether to join or not. 

Note very clearly the Bible sets forth the matter of creed and over and over again the creed is given. Paul says, “I delivered unto you that which I also received; how Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). Now that is a very fine showing for a creed. A man that does not believe in the vicarious expiation of Jesus Christ, what does he want to join the church for? Then he adds: “And that he was buried and rose again the third day,” and that being risen he was seen, recognized (1 Cor 15: 4-8). Paul puts those four points in the creed.

Well, take another statement by Paul (1 Tim 3:15-16). He says, ” The church is the pillar and ground of the truth.” Then he goes on and mentions six items: “God was manifested in the flesh; so manifested that He was recognized by the angels.” Notwithstanding His humanity the angels could see through that and saw that He was God whom they worshipped in heaven before His incarnation. “He was vindicated by the Spirit,” at His baptism; on the cross; in the coming of the Spirit, in response to the direction, to abide on earth until He comes again. Then He was not only manifest in the flesh, recognized by the angels, vindicated by the Spirit, but He was “preached to the nations.” And I would not want a man to come into the church I belong to if he believed that Christ was to be preached only to the Jews. He is to be preached among all nations. That is the crowning element of the creed. Then he says that He was “believed on” when so preached. Preach Him to the Jews and somebody will believe on Him; preach Him to the Gentiles and somebody will believe on Him; preach Him to whom you will and there will always be somebody to believe on Him. The next item of the creed: “He was received up into glory.” Who wants to leave that out? There, He is King, the Lord of the Universe, the Priest to make intercession for us forever, and commands us to watch, for He shall come again to the world. 

Then take the eighth chapter of Romans and see Paul’s words on two lines of salvation where he says, “whom He foreknew them He also predestined; whom He predestined He also called; whom He called He also justified; whom He justified He also glorified.” Who dares to leave that out of the creed—the calling, justification, and glorification of His people? Then in the latter part of the chapter he takes what is called the four pillars of salvation: “First, it is Christ that died, and has risen again, and has been exalted to the right hand of God on high, and Who also maketh intercession for us.” 

Then take the commission (Matt 28:18–20). There is a creed. First, they are to go, tell the nations, to every creature—that shows the scope of their work. And then they are to make disciples, as He made them, by repentance of faith. Then they are to baptize them, and then they are to teach them to observe everything else that He commanded. Now, what a mighty creed that is! 

Suppose a man should say, “I do not believe in the Trinity.” I say, look at your Bible creed: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Matt 28:19b). Look at your Bible benediction: “And now may the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all forever” (2 Cor 13:14). Most people, who do not want to believe anything, say, “If you have a creed let it be little; do not say much.” Now, the bigger your creed, the better; and the less creed you have, the less account you are. 

Article I—The Scriptures 

Our first article of faith reads as follows: 

We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions shall be tried. 

This is the first article of faith of a great many Baptist churches in our Southland. The first statement is, “We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired.” This brings us at once to the subject of the inspiration of the Scriptures. The word “inspiration” is derived from the Latin word inspiro, which means to “breathe on” or to “breathe into.” That is the literal meaning of the word. The theological meaning is to breathe on or to breathe into for the purpose of conveying the Holy Spirit, in order that those inspired may speak or write what God would have spoken or written. That is inspiration. 

A scriptural example of this is found in John 20:22: “And when He said this He breathed on them and saith unto them, ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit.’” That gives us the true conception of inspiration. Following that, the 23rd verse gives the result: “Whose soever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” That is, an inspired man can declare exactly the terms of remission of sins, and the terms upon which sins cannot be remitted, because he is speaking for God. 

The book that a man, so breathed on, writes is called theopneustos, a Greek word meaning “God inspired.” Example: “From a babe thou hast known the sacred writings, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. Every Scripture is inspired of God” (2 Tim 3:15-16). After God breathed into man the Holy Spirit in order that he should accurately write the things which God wanted written, then the book that he wrote was called theopneustos. So that this second passage is a very important one in discussing inspiration, probably the most important in the whole Bible. If the book is God-inspired, then it is God’s book and not man’s book. 

Another illustration is found in the second chapter of Genesis: “And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The body was present, but it was dead. It had no vitality. The distinction between a body that is in-breathed and a body that is not in-breathed is the distinction between death and life. Therefore, a man’s book is a dead book. I do not care how lofty the thought, how fine its argument, or how perfect its rhetoric, the book will pass away. It has not the principle of eternal life. But books that are God-breathed are called “living oracles,” Acts 7:38. It is impossible for a God-book to die. The oldest book that was ever God-inspired is as much living as the latest one, and it will be unto the end of time a living oracle. 

But what is an oracle? In Greece there were certain shrines, certain deities, as the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. There was a priestess that ministered at that shrine. Men would stand before her and ask a question and the priestess would fall into an ecstasy, and while in that ecstasy her answers were called oracles. Heathen oracles are all dumb, but these God- inspired oracles are living. They are not only called “living oracles,” but they are called the “oracles of God,” as we see from Romans 3:2 “What advantage hath the Jew? Much every way, for first of all they were entrusted with the oracles of God.” The advantage is that these Old Testament books were entrusted to them, not as man’s books, but as containing the speeches of God, as well as the works of God. 

Now, I will briefly set forth the inspiration of both the Old Testament and teh New Testament. Second Timothy 3:15-16 covers all the Old Testament. Paul says to Timothy, “From a boy thou hast known the sacred writings.” Any other writing is what is called profane writing, not in our modern sense of profanity, but rather “not divine,” “human,” or “secular.” “Thou hast known the sacred writings which are able to make thee wise unto salvation. Every Scripture is inspired of God,” etc. Every one of these writings is theopneustos. He first speaks of the books of the Old Testament in groups, tahiera grammata, “the sacred writings.” Then he speaks of them distributively, pasa graphe. Every one of these sacred writings is God-in- spired. We may stand on that one declaration to affirm the inspiration of every one of the Old Testament books. 

Another passage bearing on Old Testament inspiration is 2 Peter 1:20: “No prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” Here again is the idea of inspiration. An inspired man, when he speaks, does not speak his will; when he writes, he does not write his will, but speaks and writes for God, being moved by the Holy Spirit. 

Now let us take up the New Testament. In John 14:26 we find that a promise was made, before inspiration was given, that they should be inspired: “But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your re- membrance all that I said unto you.” Again in 16:12–13: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak; and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.” That is, Christ in His lifetime did not complete the revealed truth. They were not prepared to receive all. But He made provision for the reveal- ing of the truth by promising the Holy Spirit who would teach them all that it was necessary for them to know. What Christ said in His lifetime, which they had forgotten, the Holy Spirit enabled them to remember and guided them into the completion of the truth. So, after His resurrection Christ breathed on them and said unto them, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit” ( John 20:22). This is inspiration and fulfills His promise to them. This same thought is emphasized in 1 John 2:27: “The anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.”

One other passage, a very important one, is 1 Corinthians 2:6–13: 

We speak wisdom, however, among them that are full grown: yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to naught: but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory: which none of the rulers of the world hath known: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory: but as it is written, 

Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God prepared for them that love Him. 

But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searchest all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words. 

Here is the promise again clearly stated; that what is to be communicated through this inspiration is something that eye could not see, ear could not hear, nor the heart of man conceive. It is a revelation and it comes through the Spirit that knoweth the things of God. As your spirit alone can know you (your neighbor does not know you as well as you know yourself ) so the Holy Spirit alone knows the will of God and that Spirit has communicated it to inspired men in man’s words. Mark this verbal inspiration: “combining spiritual things with spiritual words.” 

It has always been a matter of profound surprise to me that anybody should ever question the verbal inspiration of the Bible. The whole thing had to be written in words. Words are signs of ideas, and if the words are not inspired, then there is no way of getting at anything in connection with inspiration. If I am free to pick up the Bible and read something and say, “That is inspired,” then read something else and say, “That is not inspired,” and some one else does not agree with me as to which is and which is not inspired, it leaves the whole thing unsettled as to whether any of it is inspired. 

What is the object of inspiration? It is to put accurately, in human words, ideas from God. If the words are not inspired, how am I to know how much to reject, and how to find out whether anything is from God? When you hear the silly talk that the Bible “contains” the Word of God and “is not the Word” of God, you hear fools talk. I don’t care if he is a D.D., a President of a University covered with medals from universities of Europe and the United States, it is fool-talk. There can be no inspiration of the book without the inspiration of the words of the book. 

Very briefly I have summed up proof of the inspiration of the Old Testament and of the inspiration of the New Testament, and now I will give you some Scriptures on both testaments together:

Hebrews 1:1–2: “God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by diverse portions and in diverse manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son.” In old times there were inspired men; but the culmination or completion is in the Son. That covers both. 

Hebrews 5:12 also covers both: “When by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God.” Here the New Testament is called “oracles” as well as the Old Testament. Those were Christian people who had learned the first principles of the oracles of God and stopped.

Another passage is 1 Peter 4:11, “If any man speaketh, speaking as it were oracles of God.” Peter is here talking about the Old and New Testaments. If a man gets up to speak, let him remember that there is a standard, and that that standard is fixed. He must speak according to the oracles of God. These Scriptures cover both. 

Now let us consider some observations: First, the books of the Bible are not by the will of man. Not one of the books of either the Old or the New Testaments would ever have come into being except by the inspiration of God. I want to give you a searching proof on that, found in 1 Peter 1:10–11: “Concerning which salvation the prophets sought and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glories which should follow them.” Here are men moved by the Spirit of God to record certain things about the future, and they themselves did not understand it. They studied their own prophesies just as we study them. They knew that God had inspired them to say these things but they did not understand, e.g. God instructed a prophet to say that the Messiah should come forth out of Bethlehem of Judea. God inspired each and every item concerning the Messiah. To show that these things did not come from the will of man, the man himself could not explain them. It was a matter of study and investigation to find out what these signified. They found out that their prophecies were meant for the future, that is, for us.

The second observation is that the propelling power in the speaking or writing was an impulse from the Holy Spirit. They, the inspired men, became instruments by which the Holy Spirit spoke or wrote. Take, for instance, that declaration in 2 Samuel 23:2, where David said, “The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and His word was upon my tongue.” In Acts 1:16 we find that the utterances of David were being studied. We have a declaration that the Holy Spirit spake by the mouth of David concerning Judas; and in the third chapter of Acts we have another declaration of the same kind. Always the speaker or writer was an instrument of the Holy Spirit. 

The third observation is, that this influence of the Holy Spirit guided the men in the selection of material, even where that material came from some other book, even an uninspired book, the Spirit guiding in selecting and omitting material. From such declarations as John 20:30–31 and 21:25, we learn that Christ did many things, that if it were written it would make a book as big as the world, that what has been written was written for a certain purpose. The Holy Spirit inspired Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to select from the deeds and words of Jesus that which God wanted written; not to take everything He said, but only that which was necessary to accomplish the purpose.

The fourth observation is that inspiration is absolutely necessary in order to awaken the power of remembrance. John 2:22 says that after His resurrection they remembered what He had said, that is, the Spirit called it to remembrance. To illustrate, take the speeches of Christ, viz: that address delivered at Capernaum on the Bread of Life, the Sermon on the Mount and, particularly, the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters of JOhn. There were. no shorthand reporters in those days, and there is not a man on earth who could, after a lapse of fifty years, recall verbatim et literatim what Christ said, and yet John, without a shadow of hesitancy, goes on and gives page after page of what Christ said just after the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Inspiration in that case was exercised in awakening the memory so that John could reproduce these great orations of Christ. Of the orations of Paul take that speech recorded in Acts 13, an exceedingly remarkable speech, or the one recorded in the 26th chapter of Acts, or the one on Mar’s Hill in the 17th chapter, one of the most finished productions that the world has ever seen. Inspiration enabled Luke to report exactly what Paul said. Luke never could have done that unassisted. Paul, as a man, might have given the substance, but that is not the substance, it is an elaborate report, the sense depending upon the words used. 

The fifth observation is that inspiration was to make additions to the Scriptures until they were completed. In order that the standard may be a perfect treasure, incapable of being added to, unsusceptible of diminution; we want what is there, all that is there and no more than is there; therefore, when we come to the last book of the Bible, this is said which, in a sense, applies to the whole Bible: 

I testify that every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add unto him the plagues which are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life, and out of the Holy City, which are written in this book (Rev 22:18–19).

It was the design of inspiration to give us a perfect system of revealed truth, whose “words” are inspired. As an example of verbal inspiration, take Paul’s argument, based on the “seed” in the singular number (Gal 3:16). Everything in the interpretation depends upon the number of that noun. Apart from verbal inspiration, how on earth would Paul hinge an argument on whether a word is singular or plural? 

The next observation is that inspiration was to give different views of the same person or thing by different writers, each perfect according to its viewpoint, but incomplete so far as the whole is concerned, all views being necessary in order to complete the view. There is a gospel by Mark, written for the Romans, beginning with the public ministry of Christ. Then there are the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, and a gospel by Paul. Each of them is perfect according to the plan which the Spirit put in the mind of the writer. They are perfect so far as the viewpoint of each is concerned, but incomplete so far as the whole thing is concerned. We have to put them side by side in order to get a complete view of the life of our Lord. That is what we mean by harmonical study. Each is infallibly correct, but it takes the blended view of all to make the whole thing. 

Apart from inspiration no man on earth can account for Genesis. Just see in what small space there is given the history of the world up to the 11th chapter—how much is left out. We see the same plan all through the book. It first takes up the wicked descendants, gives their genealogy a little way, then sidetracks them and takes up the true line. Then of their descendants it follows the wicked first a short way and eliminates them and goes back and takes up the true line and elaborates that. That principle goes all through the Bible. For instance, the first missionary period of Paul’s life covered a greater period of time than any other and there is no record of it, just a single reference to it in Acts. So with his fifth missionary journey: there are only a few references to it in Timothy and Titus. But the intervening three are elaborately given. 

Now we come to an important point. When these inspired declara- tions were written, they were absolutely infallible. Take these Scriptures: John 10:35, “The Scripture cannot be broken”‘ Matthew 5:!8, “Till heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished”; Acts 1:16, “It was needful that the Scripture should be fulfilled.” That is one of the most important points in connection with inspiration, viz: that the inspired Word is irrefrangible, infallible; that all the powers of the world cannot break one “thus saith the Lord.” 

Another observation is the power that comes upon the inspired Word. Hebrews 4:12: 

For the Word of God is living, and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and laid open before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. 

Yet another observation is the object of the Word. There are two objects. John sets forth the first one when he says that they are written that we might believe, and believing have life, or as Paul says to Timothy, “which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” They are both expressed in the 19th Psalm: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple.”

The last observation is on the sufficiency of the Word; that the inspired record is complete; that it is all-sufficient. That is presented in two Scriptures: First, in Luke 16:29, where Abraham said to the rich man in hell who wanted a special messenger sent to his brothers, “They have Moses and the prophets, and if they cannot he moved by Moses and the prophets, neither could they be moved even though one from the dead went to them.” The other is 2 Timothy 3:17: “That the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” 

In closing let me say further that only the original text of the books of the Bible is inspired, not the copy or the translation. Second, the inspiration of the Bible does not mean that God said and did all that is said and done in the Bible; some of it the devil did and said. Much of it wicked men did and said. The inspiration means that the record of what is said and done is correct. It does not mean that everything that God did and said is recorded. It does not mean that everything recorded is of equal importance, but every part of it is necessary to the purpose of the record, and no part is unimportant. One part is no more inspired than any other part. It is perfectly foolish to talk about degrees of inspiration. What Jesus said in the flesh, as we find it in the four Gospels, is no more His Word than what the inspired prophet or apostle said. That is the folly of the Jefferson Bible. He proposes to take out of the four Gospels everything that Jesus said and put it together as a Bible. What Jesus said after He ascended to heaven, through Paul or any other apostle, is just as much Jesus’ word as anything He said in the flesh.

Here are some objections: First, only the originals are inspired, and we have only copies. The answer to that is that God would not inspire a book and take no care of the book. His providence has preserved the Bible in a way that no other book has been preserved. The second objection is, we are dependent upon scholars to determine what is the real text of the Bible. The answer is that only an infinitesimal part of it is dependent upon scholars for the ascertainment of the true text, and if every bit of that were blotted out it would not destroy the holy Scriptures. 

Article II—The True God 

Our second article of faith is on “The True God.” I want it under- stood that it is not contemplated that this lecture shall go into an extensive discussion, like Systematic Theology. What we want is something much simpler than that. This article reads as follows: 

We believe that there is one, and only one living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth; inexpressibly glorious in holiness, and worthy of all possible honor, confidence and love; that in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; equal in every divine perfection, and executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption. 

The first reference here is a very fine one, John 4:24, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth,” and the first thing that we note is that God is a spiritual and not a material Being. Man is partly spirit and partly material. The angels are spirit. When we go to define the God of the Bible, the first thing we say about Him is that He is a spirit.

I do not care to follow exactly the order in which this article of faith is stated, but pass to this part: “That in the unity of the Godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” Now, I do not expect to present anything that will make so mystical a subject as the Trinity, the Three in One, the Triune God, entirely clear. There are some things in it incomprehensible. I want to get before you first the fact of the Trinity, then whether you understand it or not, you must accept it by faith.

The first fact to which I call your attention is that when Jesus was baptized it is easy to understand that there was one person, Jesus, who was baptized. And then there was One that spoke from heaven and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). Now, evidently there is a distinction between the Jesus who was baptized, and whoever that was in heaven that said, “This is My beloved Son.” Then at that same baptism it is stated that the Holy Spirit came down in visible form and rested upon Him. There is the fact of the three distinct personalities, or subsistencies, or hypostases, present at the baptism. The Father said, “This is my beloved Son,” the Son was baptized, and the Holy Spirit came down and rested upon the Son.

Now take the passage in the 28th chapter of Matthew, where Jesus gave His great commission. He commands baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So the Trinity is there, whether you and I understand about these Three being One or not. It is certain that we are commanded to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Another passage of Scripture is the last verse of the second letter to the Corinthians, and reads thus: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:14). That is a benediction. Take also a passage from the book of Revelation (1:4). Here we come to a salutation: “Grace to you, and peace, from Him who was, and who is to come (that is the Father); and from the seven spirits that are before His throne (that is the Holy Spirit); and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first-born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” 

Now we have found in fact, at the baptism of Christ, the three per- sons; we have found the Three in the command to baptize; we have found in a benediction the names of the Three and the Three are found in a salutation. I will quote one other passage from Ephesians: “Through Jesus both Jews and Gentiles have access in one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph 2:18). There again we have all the Trinity, and the three prepositions—“in” the Spirit, “through” Jesus, “unto” the Father. I could give many more passages, but it is not necessary. 

How can we define such passages of Scripture? One of the most famous lecturers of modern times is Joseph Cook. In his Boston Monday Lectures he said that a Boston audience demanded clear ideas and intelligible statements, and so he would put the Trinity before them. He put it thus: “(1) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God. (2) Each has a peculiarity incommunicable to the others. (3) Neither is God without the others. (4) Each, with the others, is God.” Dr. Strong, in his Systematic Theology, quotes with approval that statement from Cook, and goes on and argues this way: “The Father, as such alone, is not God. The Son, as such alone, is not God. The Holy Spirit, as such alone, is not God.”² Whatever may be said of definitions, this fact we can accept, that in the Scriptures God is revealed to us in three subsistencies—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the Three are One. That much is certain. 

In their nature or essence, these three persons are the same. “The Logos was God” ( John 1:1c). The Holy Spirit in His nature is God. The Father in His nature is God. There is no distinction whatever in the nature. The distinction is in the personality and office. I once tried to present it this way: I called attention to the shamrock leaf. It is a threefold leaf. Another illustration was this: Suppose a man is a school teacher, and at the same time a father, and at the same time Justice of the Peace; his child at school commits an offense which violates a school law, a parental law, and a state law. The man deals with that child in school as teacher, at home as father, and in the courtroom as Justice of the Peace. The only fault with that il- lustration, and the only fault with any other illustration devised by man, is that there are not three distinct personalities. Here there was just one person who had three offices. At the baptism of Christ there were three distinct persons. 

It will not do to say that God manifests Himself as Father, as Son, and as Holy Spirit, and make the distinction one of manifestation merely. It is deeper than that. It will not do to say that the distinction is merely economic, adopted for time-purposes, because the distinction existed be- fore time, and will exist after time. It is what the theologians call “immanence.” The distinction is not economic, but eternal. That is the testimony of the Scriptures. Just how to explain it we do not know, but it is the key to every doctrine in the Bible. If Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father were distinct in essence, we would not have a Triune God, but three Gods. There is one and only one true and living God, revealed to us in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Whether we understand it or not, that is the Bible teaching, and our Christian experience takes hold of three persons. I am conscious of the distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I pray to the Father, through the Son, in the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

Now here are some points that are clear and easy to understand. There is in the person and office (not in the nature) the idea of subordination. The Son is subordinate to the Father, and the Spirit is subordinate to the Son. The order is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son reveals the Father and the Holy Spirit reveals the Son. The Son speaks not of Himself, but of the Father, and the Holy Spirit speaks not of Himself, but of the Son. Jesus could say, “The Father is greater than I” and “I and the Father are one.” And of Jesus it could be said that He counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be retained. 

The old theologians put it this way: (1) In the Scriptures are Three recognized as God. (2) These Three are distinct persons. (3) This tri-personality is immanent and eternal, not economic or transitory. (4) This tri-personality is not tri-theism; there is only one God in the three persons. (5) The three persons are equal.

Now we come to the next thought. Speaking of subordination as to personality and as to office, the Son is subordinate to the Father in personality and office, and the Spirit is subordinate to the Son in personality and office, but not in nature. For a long time there was a great controversy between what is called the Eastern and the Western Churches over the compound word Filioque. The Eastern Church held, always did hold, and still holds, that the Spirit proceeded from the Father, while the Western Church, not only the Roman Church, but Protestants, hold that the Spirit proceeded from the Father and Son. The Eastern Church has this advantage: it can quote a positive Scripture showing that the Spirit in His procession down here to earth came from the Father. Jesus sent Him, but He came from the Father. So we make a pretty good argument to prove Filioque. 

Now we have the idea: “We believe that there is one, and only one living and true God, an infinite, intelligent Spirit, whose name is Jehovah, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth, inexpressibly glorious in holiness.” Holiness is an attribute, but is only one of the attributes of God. God by his very nature is infinitely holy, “and worthy of all possible honor, confidence, and love.” 

The idea is that obligation proceeds from relation. Where there is no relation there is no obligation. If we can find a being in the world to whom we have no relation, then toward that being we have no obligation. Relation measures obligation. To explain what I mean: There is a relation between father and child, and that relation measures the obligation of the father to the child and of the child to the father; there is a relation between husband and wife, and that relation measures reciprocal obligation. There is a relation between the Creator and the created, between the Redeemer and the redeemed. When it says that the Son of God is worthy of all possible honor, confidence, and love, there is a reference to the nature of God, and being of such a nature, infinitely glorious in His holiness, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, such a God made us, and was worthy of our reverence and adoration before the obligation had ever been expressed in a commandment. Through Moses God gave the Ten Commandments which covered the whole moral law, but they were just as true before written on tablets of stone. The law as there given expressed the relations between God and man and between man and man. 

Now we will take the next declaration: “Equal in every divine perfection.” In His divine perfection Christ is equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit is equal to Christ. “Executing distinct but harmonious offices in the great work of redemption.” The distinction in offices is never to be confounded; the Father did not die for man, nor did the Holy Spirit. It is the Son that died. The Holy Spirit did not give a Son to the world; the Father gave His only begotten Son. The Son does not directly regenerate people; the Holy Spirit does that. The Son is the Prophet, Sacrifice, Priest, King, and these four offices are not performed by the Father or by the Holy Spirit. Through His expiation made for sin Christ offered that expiatory blood in the Holy of Holies, but the Holy Spirit applies it. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, and it is through the Spirit that we are renewed. 

I now come to the last observation that I need to make on this article of faith. Usually, where the deity is questioned, it is the deity of Christ that is questioned. The Jew denies the deity of Christ. The Mohometan denies the deity of Christ. The Arian denies the deity of Christ. Unitarians (in the United States a small but very intelligent denomination) say that Christ is Savior, but not divine, not God. It is of incalculable importance to us as preachers never to present Christ as the object of faith and the instrument of salvation by making Him just a man. I would refuse to aid in the ordination of any man who denies the deity of Jesus Christ. I would not recognize him as a good minister of Jesus Christ at all. 

The history of doctrines is a very interesting study. It is customary for modern people to speak slightingly of the early fathers, but those fathers were profound thinkers. Whenever they met together in council to consider a question of doctrine, they really deliberated, as when they con- demned the Arian heresy. 

Athanasius stood for the Trinity as we hold it, and as every man must hold it, if he takes what the Bible says. Dr. J.R. Graces used to say, “I never will accept as my Savior anybody lower than God.” I heard him speak once for about an hour on the divinity of Christ, and I never heard anything like it in my life. It was a torrent of fire, and it made a profound impression upon the people. 

The Bible distinctly calls Jesus God. When Thomas fell at His feet and said, “My Lord, and my God,” it was not simply an exclamation. Jesus Christ accepted that tribute to His divinity. Pliny, in writing to the Emperor of Rome and discussing the way Christians worshipped, called attention to the fact that they worshipped Christ as God. John, who wrote the last of all inspired men, places great emphasis, essential emphasis, upon the deity of Christ. The commandment which says, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve,” would make it blasphemy for anybody to worship one who is not God, and we do worship Jesus, and we do worship the Holy Spirit. The Scriptures call the Holy Spirit God. The Scriptures attribute to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit the work of creation. The Scriptures attribute to each one of these three the great attributes of divinity, and we accept it that way.

Article III—The Fall of Man

This article of faith reads as follows: 

We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse.

That is the article. It is not exactly as I would have worded it, how- ever. One of the great test questions that I put to every preacher that I examine when he is about to be ordained, is this: Please give your views, in your own way about the fall of man. Whoever starts wrong on that is wrong on every other Bible doctrine. A fall implies a previous upright state, and so this article of faith commences with man before the fall; we want to know what he was, and right here in this article we meet squarely the old heathen and modern doctrine of evolution. The evolutionists say that man is not fallen; that he commenced down at the bottom and has gradually been coming up. This article teaches the exact opposite: that man commenced at the top and went down, and that the object of the gospel is to put him back where he was before the fall.

The first chapter of Genesis tells us in a general proposition, without going into details, that the last and crowning act of creation was man. The heavens and their hosts were created and then the earth was fashioned up to the point set forth in the successive days of creation, and on the last day man was created. That first chapter of Genesis also states that man was made in the image of God, and vested with dominion.

The significance of being made in the image of God and the extent of the dominion appear more clearly in subsequent Scriptures. For instance the eighth Psalm tells us that man was made a little lower than the angels, that he was crowned with glory and honor and all things put under his feet. “All things” here seems to mean material things, but from the letter to the Hebrews we see that “all things” includes everything on earth or in heaven except God the Father (Heb 2:5-8). Notice, then, how he starts: “In the image of God.” In the eighth chapter of the letter to the Romans we learn what “in the image of God” signified, and the extent of the fall as respects the image of God. It is stated that whom God foreknew He also foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son. In the let- ter to the Colossians it is said that the work of regeneration renews man unto a knowledge after the image of Him that created him (Col 3:10). So that knowledge was one of the things that he possessed—an intuitive knowledge. Adam without any instruction knew the distinction between the animals, and named them as they passed before him, so that he was not a barbarian when he first started.

In Ephesians 4:24 the work of regeneration is again referred to. It says, “put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” As the book of Ecclesiastes puts it, “God made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions” (Eccl 7:29). That means that there was nothing in man out of harmony with God—knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and then this dominion that I have referred to. 

We next learn how he was created. That is, his body was fashioned out of material substance, the dust of the earth, but his soul was of divine communication. God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul. We learn from the second chapter of Genesis that there was a provision by which the mortality of man’s body could be eliminated, that is, by continuously eating of the tree of life. But after sin came, God said, “lest he put forth his hand and eat and live forever I will put him out of the garden.” There could be no greater calamity than man’s living forever in a sinful body. That would indeed be a fearful thing. So that is the way he started. This article of faith says, “We believe that man was created in holiness.” 

The next thing is that he was created under the law of his Maker. Now, obligation arises from relation, and the measure of obligation is that relation, and whether expressed in a statute or not, it inheres there. But there was a law of labor given to man, and that law was that he should dress the garden and keep it, showing that God intended for man to work in his unfallen state. It was through sin that labor became burdensome. There is not a curse upon labor itself, but there is a curse to sinners attending labor.

The law that he was under was a moral law, arising out of his relation to God, being made in the image of God. That law was expressed in a single prohibition. In the garden were placed two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, Adam was permitted to eat of the tree of life. That would have eliminated the mortality of his body, but he was not permitted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that is, he could not have an experimental knowledge of the difference between good and evil without bringing death upon himself. If he made the distinction upon the authority of God, accepting it by faith, he did not violate the law, but he should not say, “I want to find out myself, experimentally.” That was the law under which man was placed. 

The next thought is that that law was given to the man as head of the race; that the whole race, including his wife yet to be made, was potentially in Adam. The giving of the law preceded the making of the woman, and this man stood there under this law not for himself, as an angel stood under his law. The fallen angel did not represent anybody except himself. Adam represented all of his posterity, so that when he fell the whole race fell with him. Now, it is said further that after this man, as head of the human race, was put in the garden, every other human being ever to be brought into existence, including his wife, is derived from him. It is said that God took part of the man and out of that part fashioned woman, hence her name “woman,” which means “derived from man” (Gen 2:22). Not as we are, was she a descendent of Adam, but nevertheless she was a descendent from Adam. In other words, she derived her being from Adam, soul and body. There was a time when the responsibility of the race rested upon but two persons—the first Adam and the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ.

This article says that man fell by voluntary transgression, but it states nothing about how man came to fall. There was sin in heaven before there was sin on earth. God had decreed that His new race of beings, made a little lower than the angels, should be put above the angels and should have sovereignty over the universe. At that Satan rebelled, through pride. He determined that man should not be put over him. He determined to put man under him. So, as soon as this new race was created, we can see why Satan hated man, and determined to bring about the fall of man, and make man subject to him. 

In the temptation he approaches his object not by a direct assault upon man, but by another way. There is among the French this proverb: Whenever a man falls they ask, “Who was the woman?” Satan determines to get at the man through the woman. She was deceived. There was no willfulness in her sin; it was what is called a “sin of ignorance.” She had not heard the law that God gave. She got her information about it from her husband. Now, here comes to her one claiming to be an angel of light, through the medium of a flying serpent, accredited with a miracle—the power of speech—and says to her, “It is a mistake that God said you shall not eat this fruit” (Gen 3:1–7). And the woman was deceived. Sin is sin whether we know or not, but a sin in ignorance is not so heinous as a willful sin against knowledge. Adam was standing by her, and he knew what God had said, for God had said it to him. If he had not partaken of that forbidden fruit, though the woman would have been lost, for sin is deadly even though unwittingly committed, that would not have affected the human race. God could have made another woman out of a part of Adam and they would have gone right on. But Adam voluntarily and willfully sinned. He was standing by her and did not say a word. He desired to know experimentally the difference between good and evil. He sinned against light and knowledge, and he committed that sin deliberately. 

When we talk about the fall of man and the significance of that fall we have to settle this question first, What was the offense that caused the fall of man and the resultant evil to the race? Did it come through the man or the woman? The Bible answers that question with the greatest possible clearness. “Through one offense, of one man (not one woman) sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Rom 5:12). That is crucial. No man is prepared to understand the plan of salvation until he understands the fall which necessitated salvation. It is a principle of biology that the seed of life is in the male, not the female. If the woman, as innocent as Eve was before she sinned, should become the mother of a child whose father was a sinner, that child would be a sinner. But if a woman who is a descendent of Adam, and is herself fallen, shall become a mother through a sire that is not a fallen man, that progeny will be innocent. Get that thought clear in your mind. 

The statement is that the transmission of the evil nature or the good- ness of the nature comes from the sire. There when Mary had it announced to her that she was to be the mother of our Lord, the explanation was this: “The power of the Highest shall overshadow thee and therefore that Holy One which is born unto thee shall be called the Son of GOd” (Luke 1:35). God being the sire, there was no transmission of evil to that child on account of its mother. Old Dr. W.C. Buck, one of the venerable men that lived and died in Waco, a famous man in his day, and who has children and grandchildren living there now, wrote a book on biology which has more thought in it than any other textbook on biology that I ever read. I want the reader to get this fact, that if the woman alone had sinned, she would have perished, but not the race, but when the man sinned everybody descended from that man became fallen. It is stated that all died in Adam. When he died we died. It is stated that on account of one trespass of the head of the race, condemnation is now upon the entire race. 

We now take up the question of depravity. Condemnation is a legal term. For the sin of Adam, he being the head of the race, and the race being potentially in him, condemnation came upon all for that one offense. This article says, “Being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil.” Every child of Adam after his sin will come into the world in the likeness of the fallen Adam. “Adam begat a child in his own likeness.” As it is expressed in the letter to the Ephesians: “We are by nature the children of wrath” (Eph 2:3). And as it is expressed in the Psalms, “I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps 51:5). SO in order to the salvation of man, any descendent of Adam, there must be brought to bear the omnific power of the Holy Spirit in regeneration. By generation we are fallen, by regeneration a holy disposition is given to the mind. The carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject to His law, neither indeed can be. But when God takes away the stony heart in regeneration and gives a heart of flesh, there is put within us a holy disposition which accords with the law, as the letter to the Hebrews says, “I will write My law on your hearts and in your minds instead of on tables of stone” (Heb 8:10, 10:16). When that holy disposition is put within one, there is the first principle of the new life. 

The next result is that every child of Adam is condemned in Adam. This is the legal phase of it. And deriving a fallen nature from Adam, from choice he does evil, that is, practical evil. That is what is meant by this part of the article of faith, which says, “not by constraint, but choice.” As Paul puts it in the first chapter of Romans, “When they knew God they glorified HIm not as God” (Rom 1:21). Not wishing to keep the thought of God in their minds, they turned away and worshipped the creature more than the Creator. Then he shows that this inclination which arises from depravity, leads one to choose evil, and choosing the evil path, he may go on waxing worse and worse in practicing wickedness. We cannot wax any worse in nature, but we can wax worse and worse in deeds. That is from the depravity of the heart one may commit the sin of murder to prevent a witness from testifying to the theft, and so go on waxing worse and worse. 

The doctrine of depravity does not mean that everyone that is de- praved is just as wicked in act as he can be; not that people are equally wicked in deeds, but that they are equally wicked in nature, and that that nature under environment will work out the results. To illustrate this still more: We see society as now constituted under the restraint of law, and everybody practicing a certain degree of respectability. But take away the hedge of the law and leave inclinations to flow like water, down the plane of least resistance, and you have loosed the tiger and have everything evidenced in the French Revolution. Tkae the best people in the world who are unregenerated and take away from them the restraint that generations of the law have brought about, and just leave the mind as free to outflow in practice as water is to run down hill and anyone may become as bad as anybody has ever been. 

This is the doctrine of the fall of man. The fall consists in losing not the spiritual nature, for man remains a deathless spirit, but in losing the moral image of God. It consists of condemnation coming upon the race through that one fall. It consists in inheriting a nature that is evil, whose inclination and choice is to do evil, and no amount of knowledge has the slightest effect on it. Look at ancient Athens, the city of universities, paint- ing, sculpture, and architecture, the city of poets and orators, the city of physical development, for there the physical training was ahead of any of the athletics of our time, and intellectual Greece—whether at Athens, Corinth, or Ephesus, for they were all Greek cities—was rotten morally in spite of intellectuality, in spite of physical development. The picture drawn by Paul in the first chapeter of Romans is a fair portrait of human nature. Man is man, whether black, yellow, red, or white. 

Article IV—The Way of Salvation

This discussion is on our fourth article of faith, “The Way of Salvation.” The article reads: 

We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace; through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God; Who by the appointment of the Father, freely took upon Him our nature, yet without sin; honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and by His death made a full atonement for our sins; that having risen from the dead, He is now enthroned in heaven; and uniting in His wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with divine perfections, He is in every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate and an all-sufficient Savior. 

The first word in this article that needs definition is the word “salvation.” The main topic is the way of salvation, and we need to know what salvation means. Salvation is the complete and eternal deliverance of the lost sinner from the power, defilement, and dominion of sin, the deliverance from the power of death and Satan, into an eternal inheritance of glory. Or we may say that salvation means everything set forth, by the legal words redemption, justification, and adoption, and by the spiritual words regeneration and sanctification, and by the words referring to the body, resurrection, and glorification. So salvation comprehends not only deliverance from the wrath and penalty of the law, as expressed by the legal terms, redemption, justification, and adoption, but deliverance from Satan and from death, which Satan holds power over, and it delivers from the defilement and dominion of sin. We need to get clearly in our minds what salvation means. 

The first proposition is, “We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace.” J.R. Graves used to put it this way: Slavation is either altogether of grace, or it is of grace and works combined, or it is of works altogether. Then he would cut out the last two and leave the first standing. When we say salvation is wholly of grace, what does that mean? To bring that out I will cite four Greek words and translate them. 

1. Charis, the word that is usually translated “grace.” 
2. Eleos, translated “mercy.” 
3. Dorea, translated “gift.” 
4. Charisma, also translated “gift.” 

Now let us do a little reading in order to make clear the meaning of grace. I will take up the first word, charis, From Romans 4:4: “Now to him that worketh the reward is not reckoned as of grace, but as of debt.” There the word “grace” stands opposed to debt. If you owe a man anything you are not doing him a favor when you pay it. It is an obligation. If you do me a kindness that is in no way merited or has been earned, that is grace. So that the first idea of grace is that it stands opposed to the idea of debt. 

Romans 5:21: “As sin hath reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There we have grace used in opposition to sin. Sin reigns unto death, grace unto eternal life. They stand with their backs to each other; they never do come together. Their outcome is entirely different. Sin reigns unto death and grace unto life. 

Romans 6:14-15: “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” Here we have grace as opposed to law. Law defines obligation and punishes failure to pay an obligation, but we are not under law. If we are saved we are under grace. 

Romans 6:11: “If it is by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace.” Grace here stands opposed to works. The way of salvation is wholly by grace, says our text, that is, the way is not of works. It cannot possibly be of grace and of works, too. If it is of works it is not of grace; if it is of grace it is not of works. Otherwise grace would be no more grace and works would be no more works. 

Romans 11:5: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” We know that election means choice. We know that election is God’s. God did the choosing before the world was made, and grace is according to election. Therefore, to be saved by grace, according to election, utterly opposes the idea of any part of salvation being by works. Now, I have presented these five points under the first word, charis. My object was to lead up to what grace is. It is opposed to debt, law, works. It generates in exactly the opposite direction from sin, and is by election. 

Now let us take up eleos—mercy.

James 2:13: “Judgment is without mercy to him that showeth no mercy; mercy glorieth against judgment.” Mercy stands opposed to justice. A man who has done wrong comes before the court and the court renders judgment and under that judgment he must pay the penalty, whatever it is. Mercy glorieth against judgment. If I show mercy to a man, I do not show justice to him. If a man owes me $100.00 and I insist upon his paying it to the last cent, with interest, that is judgment. If a man owes me $100.00 and he is unable to pay it and I freely forgive it, that is mercy. 

Let us see how mercy stands opposed to works. Titus 3:4: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love toward man appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” To be saved by mercy is contrasted with being saved by works, and they stand poles apart. They are opposites. It expressly declares that we are not saved by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but that we are saved by mercy. 

Matthew 9:13: “Go ye and learn what this meaneth. I desire mercy and not sacrifice: for I come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” There the Pharisees were objecting to Christ eating with publicans and sinners at the feast, and He said, “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” “Go ye and learn what this Scripture meaneth, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’” That is repeated in 12:7: “If ye had known what this meaneth, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” 

The last thought about mercy is presented in Romans 9:15, 18: “For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.”That Scripture shows that mercy is according to the sovereign will of God. There is no explanation to be made to us. If it was a salvation by works, it would be a different thing, but God has the right to exercise His mercy according to His will and not ours. Now what have we found about that second word? It stands opposed to judgment, justice, works, sacrifice and is sovereign. 

Now let us take up the next word, dorea, which means gift. We will read on that two Scriptures. Romans 5:15: “For through the sin of one, many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ, abound unto the many” Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

In order to bring out this idea of a gift more clearly I will take the adverb from the noun, doreant. Romans 3:24: “Being justified freely.” That is the word, doreant, and it means gratuitously, without charge, without any service being rendered. Revelation 21:6: I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” Now take 22:17: “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.” Isaiah 55:1: “Ho! Everyone that thirsteth: Come ye to the waters, and ye that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” 

These four words, “grace,” “mercy,” “gift,” and “gift,” all help us to understand what grace is; that it is unearned and unmerited favor. It has not been paid for at all. It is giving life freely without charge. It stands opposed to every idea in the world of works, law, sin and simply means that our salvation is wholly of grace.

Now I want to show that this grace accompanies the thought all the way through. First, let us take the Father’s part: “God so loved the world.” Now that is a lost world, that is a sinful world. Or take it as it is presented by John: “This is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us” (1 John 4:10), showing the prevenient grace of God which means to go beforehand. Now take it with reference to the Son of God: “While we were enemies Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6, 8). Now take it with reference to the Spirit: “Who were born not of the will of man but of the will of God” ( John 1:13). Of His will: “He begat us of His own will” ( Jas 1:18). Now that brings us up to the time that we are in a saved relation toward God. 

I want to show now that even works, after we are saved, has nothing to do with our salvation. Everything that we do after we are saved is according to the new nature that is planted within us by the Holy Spirit. “He that having commenced a good work in us will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). Or take it as expressed by Paul, “By the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor 15:10). Or take it as described by Paul with reference to what he does: “What is Paul but the minister by whom ye believed even as God gave to every man? It is true I planted but that planting was a gift; God gave it to me. It is true that Apollos watered but that gift of watering he received from God. He did not earn it, and all the increase that flowed from my planting and the watering of Apollos was the increase of God” (1 Cor 3:6). Now in this way we can fix in our minds how it is that salvation is wholly of grace. 

Now let us advance to the second thought: “We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God.” There are two words here that need to be defined, the word “mediatorial” and the word “offices.” 

What is a mediator? Mediation implies that two parties were at variance and in such a way that they could not come together. God could not relax His justice. The sinner could not pay his debts. Now in order for a reconciliation between those two it is necessary that a Mediator, a go-between, step in. And it is the doctrine of the Bible that there is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus; there is no other. One of the greatest sins of the Romish Church is to make Mary a mediator, and the saints mediators. When Christ brings God and man together they do not need the mediation of anybody else, and the mediation of nobody else can bring them together; so our salvation being of grace is accomplished through a Mediator or through a mediation.

The next thought is that it is through the offices of the Mediator. Now what are the offices? “Through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God.” The Son of God has four offices, all of them mediatorial: 

First, Prophet or Teacher.
Second, Sacrifice. 
Third, Priest. 
Fourth, King. 

Now in those four offices, Christ mediates between God and man: As the Teacher He reveals to us what we would not otherwise know, God’s love toward us and His willingness to be reconciled to us. As a Prophet He teaches us just exactly what we are to do and to know concerning religious matters. He gives us the gospel as the plan of salvation: All that comes through Jesus Christ.

Now His second office is that of Sacrifice. “A body hast thou prepared me” (Heb 10:5). Not a sacrafice of bullocks and goats, but a sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God. 

The third office is the office of Priesthood. It is the business of the priest to make atonement for sinners and intercede for those who are alienated from God. He made intercession for the transgressors. But the richest part of the priesthood is its use in the intercession for Christians who have sinned. “If any of us sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, Who ever liveth to make intercession for us” (1 John 2:1).

The last mediatorial office of Christ is that of King. On account of His humiliation here on earth and the atonement that He made in Heaven He was raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of the Father on high and invested with the sovereignty of the Universe, crowned King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and in the exaltation of that kingship His scepter sways the entire universe, material and spiritual, and makes all things and all beings “work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). We are saved by grace and we are saved through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God. 

Now the next thought: “Who by the appointment of the Father.” As God was the One injured, as God Who was the One Who had the rights in the premises; a mediator that was not acceptable to Him could not possibly bring about reconciliation. This says that God appointed Christ for that service and that appointment consists in such terms as these: “The Father hath sent Me into the world” ( John 20:21). “The Father hath sent Me into the World to do the will of Him that sent Me” ( John 8:42). He is appointed of God to be the Mediator through which salvation flows. 

Now the next thought: “He freely took upon Himself our nature.” “Freely” means that He was not coerced, that it was voluntary. Jesus Himself elected to come, being sent, and that in order to accomplish our salvation. He took upon Himself our nature. That shows that He put Himself on the plane of a man in order to work out our salvation. He must work in or through a human, thus He must take our nature. An angel could not have possibly saved men, because he could not touch men, but the Son of God could take upon Himself the nature of a man. 

Having thus taken upon Himself the nature of a man, He magnified and made holy the law of God which man had broken. There is not a requirement of the divine law that Jesus did not meet. For instance, the law requires that one should start holy. He started holy. The law requires that He shall keep to the utmost that double commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, and strength, and thy neigh- bor as thyself ” (Luke 10:27). He did that. That was His way of qualifying Himself to do other things, for if Jesus had failed to keep any minute part of God’s law, then He could not have taken my place. He would have been amenable Himself. After He assumed human nature, that is, if in that human nature He had sinned, then He would have been liable Himself. Now before He can do me any good He must show that when He was under the law that He met every requirement of the law as to His own case and met it as a man. Now, having met it as a man He can say, “I will take the sinner’s place; you have nothing against Me; you may examine My whole life. What can you find in it that is wrong? A thought, an imagination or an emotion in deed or in word? Is there one scintilla of deviation from the straight line of the law of God? I have magnified the law and made it honorable.” 

The next point: “By His death He made full atonement for our sins.” That qualified Him to take our place. It is the teaching of the Scriptures, that I need not enumerate here, that the pivot of salvation, the hinge upon which the door of salvation turns, the keystone of the arch of salvation, the center and circumference and the solidity of salvation, is in the cross of Christ. There is where He made expiation for sin; that is, He not only obeyed the law precetively, but penally. He paid the penal sanctions of the law in His death under its sentence.

“That having risen from the dead.” Now if there had been a fault either in His perfect life or if there had been a fault in meeting the penal sanctions of the law, He never could have risen. That was the test; that was the sign He himself published. “You ask Me for a sign. I will give you no other sign but this: That as Jonah was three days and nights in the body of the whale, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth. Now if I rise again after you put Me to death, if I rise on the third day and I pro- nounce that fact after having claimed to be the Son of God, after having assumed to take the place of the sinner and met the penalty of the law in his case, now if I am a fraud or an imposter, God will not raise Me from the dead. So, if He does, He establishes all My claims.” Now, having been raised from the dead He is now enthroned in Heaven. “The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Ps 110:1). He is enthroned, Jesus is alive, alive as King, as Priest, to be our Advocate, to make intercession for us. 

Now we come to the closing point: “Uniting in His wonderful person (both man and God—His name shall be called Wonderful!) the tenderest sympathies with divine perfections.” In other words, as God He has all the attributes of divinity. As man, having walked through man’s pathway, He knows our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. He knew what it was to be cold, hungry, and poor, what it was to be ill-treated. Every temptation that can assail a human being assailed Him. “He was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). That brings us then to the closing statement: “He is in every way qualified to be a suitable Savior.” He is suitable because of His relation to God. He is suitable on account of His relation to man. He is a compassionate Savior. As the letter to the Hebrews says, “It is necessary that a high priest should know how to have compassion on the ignorant” (Heb 2:17). Then He is an all-sufficient Savior. That means He is able to save us now, and tomorrow and next week and through life, and in death and at the judgment and forever. There is not anything that we need that He cannot supply, and He does not need anybody to say, “I will help you to save those people.” He does not need Mary and the saints to help Him out. He is sufficient in Himself. 

Article V—Justification

Our fifth article of faith is on justification. It reads as follows: 

We believe that the great gospel blessing which Christ secures to such as believe in Him is justification; that justification includes the pardon of sin, and the promise of eternal life on principles of righteousness; that it is bestowed, not in consideration of any works of righteousness which we have done, but solely through faith in the Redeemer’s blood; by virtue of which faith His perfect righteousness is freely imputed to us of God; that it brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God, and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity. 

The principal objection I have to this article is not that it is in any way incorrect, but three things are omitted: First, it does not define justification; second, it does not show the distinction between justification and the pardon of sin or remission of sin; and third, that it does not explain how the same man can be both justified and pardoned. 

Justification and condemnation are legal terms and are opposed to each other. I give three Scriptures to prove that proposition: Deuteronomy 25:1, “If there be a controversy between men and they come into judgment and the judge judges them, then shall they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked.” We see how justification stands opposed to condemnation, and how justification is based on righteousness, and condemnation is based on wickedness, or unrighteousness. 

Second Scripture, Proverbs 17:15: “He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Jehovah.” That brings out the two points again, that justification and condemnation are opposed to each other. Justification is based on righteousness and condemnation on wickedness, and when a judge violates those principles he is hateful to God. Third Scripture, Romans 7:33-34: “It is God that justifieth; Who is he that condemneth?” Here the two words stand over against each other. I consider that those three Scriptures establish the first proposition, that justification and condemnation are legal terms and are opposed to each other. 

The next idea is the meaning of these two words “justification” and “condemnation.” Justification is a judicial declaration of a court declaring that one tried before it is acquitted. In like manner, condemnation is a judicial declaration of a court declaring that one tried before it is guilty. In other words, to justify does not mean to make righteous, but to pronounce righteous. So the sentence of the court condemning a man does not thereby make him guilty, but pronounces him guilty. He was already guilty and the court merely pronounces judicially what the law and the evidence show him to be. 

The next thing is, what the terms “justify” and “condemn” imply. They imply the following things: 

First, that there is a law defining what is right and what is wrong, and prescribing the one and proscribing the other. There cannot be any such thing as either justification or condemnation where there is no law. 

Second, that law, to be law, must have penal sanctions, otherwise it is no more than mere advice. Any human statute that neglects to prescribe the penalty for its violation is thereby null and void. If the Legislature was to meet in Texas and pass a hundred laws and forget to specify the penalty for each violation, the law would stand dead on the statute book. 

Third, that where there is law there must be a competent law-giver, or law-maker. A law made without proper authority is not law. 

Fourth, these terms imply that where there is law, there must be a competent judiciary to pronounce upon its infractions or conformity therewith. All the laws ever passed in the world do no good unless there is a court to try the cases that come under them.

Fifth, that where there is a judiciary there must be set times for holding its courts. 

Sixth, that where there is a law, lawgiver, and judiciary, there must be a competent executive to enforce judicial sentences, or decisions. That government is at a deadlock, even though its laws are perfect, and its judiciary competent, if when a sentence is pronounced, there is nobody to execute it.

Seventh, it implies that there must be competent subjects of law, fairly amenable to all of its provisions and responsible thereto. For instance, I cannot read the Ten Commandments to a tree. It is not a competent subject of moral law. Moral law must have moral subjects. 

Eighth, a law, to become binding, must in some way be proclaimed or written that due notice may be given. Moral law may be written in our hearts with the conscience to accuse or excuse. It may be published in the order of the material universe. Where it is not otherwise written or proclaimed, this must be the only standard of judgment. That is what Paul declares in his letter to the Romans.

Ninth, the existence of moral law, so written and proclaimed and man’s competency as a subject thereof, appears from the universal fact that man, as man, everywhere distinguishes in some way between right and wrong—a right and wrong determined by some external authority—and holds himself and others responsible thereto. And as all men feel them- selves to be wronged in some things by other men—which wrongs are never righted in this world—they in some way appeal to a final supreme court in the world to come. In other words, every man believes in a hell for his enemies. Every man that I have questioned on this point testified that back in his life somewhere he had received some wrong that had not been righted in time and he takes those cases to a higher court in some way.

Tenth, moral law may be vocally proclaimed by revelation of the law-giver and written in human language, as God both voiced and wrote the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, or as the Law of the Gospel was proclaimed by our Lord with His apostles and afterwards written. Now these are the implications. When we distinguish between justification and condemnation, these ten things are implied.

Now we come to the distinctions between justification and sancti- fication: (1) Justification means to judicially declare one to be just, while sanctification means to make one actually just. (2) The justified man is personally guilty while the sanctified man is personally righteous. (3) God the Father justifies while God the Holy Spirit sanctifies. (4) Justification is declared in heaven and certified on earth, while sanctification is wrought on earth and certified in heaven. (5) Justification is one definite, instataneous act, never repeated and received through one act of faith, while sanctification is progressive through many acts of faith. (6) Justification takes place and is completed when we accept Christ as our Savior, while sanctification commences in regeneration and is completed, so far as the soul is concerned, at the death of the body, or at that marvelous transfiguration of the body without death, experienced by Enoch and Elijah, and to be experienced by living Christians at our Lord’s final advent, i.e. sanctification is completed as to the body by its glorification, either as just described or by the resurrection. (7) Justification is external while sanctification is internal. 

Now these are seven clean cut, sharp distinctions between justification and sanctification, and yet a Romanist makes them the same, that justification means to make just and that sanctification is only another term for the same thing.

The next point is the question of Job: “How can man be just with God?” This question arises from the fact that man is a sinner and it is equivalent to, “How can a man, guilty before God and under condemnation because guilty, be justified before God or pronounced righteous?” 

This problem is solved by the gospel. Its antecedent facts are these: 

1. God created the race in its head, the first man. All his posterity were potentially in him, and he stood for the race under the law.
2. By one trespass of one man, the head of the race, judgment came unto all men to condemnation (Rom 5:18), i.e. through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for all have sinned (Rom 5:12), or through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners (Rom 5:19), and by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one (Rom 5:17).
3. The next antecedent fact is that all of this one man’s descendants, through heredity, became depraved in mind and heart, alienated from God and inclined to evil.
4. Following the propulsions of this inherited depravity all men became personal sinners, by actual transgression.

These are the four antecedent facts that must be considered before we are prepared to answer the question, “How can man be just with God?” From these antecedent facts it is evident that any plan of salvation that would leave God just in saving men must provide satisfaction to the violated law, so making propitiation toward God, and must provide for a change of mans’ alienated mind, heart and will toward God, and must provide for the personal, complete, ultimate holiness of the saved. All three of these provisions are covered by the gospel. It is with justification alone that we have to do in this discussion.

It is evident from the conditions of the problem that justification cannot come through the law because it is the law that condemns. It cannot come through man’s own works of righteousness, for he is unrighteous both in nature and deed. Therefore if it come at all, it must come through a substitute’s vicarious expiation of sin.

Here arises another question: “Where is the propriety or moral fit- ness in one dying for another, bearing the other’s sin, that is, suffering its penalty?” The answer is: As sin, condemnation, death, and depravity came through one head of all his posterity, so there is a propriety in justification, regeneration, sanctification, and life coming through another head of all his posterity. THe propriety is expressed in Romans 5:18: “So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation, even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life,” that is, each Adam was head of all his posterity. The first Adam having a posterity by generation or procreation, the second Adam having a posterity by regeneration or recreation. As Adam’s one act of disobedience was eating the forbidden fruit, so Christ’s one act of obe- dience was His obedience unto the death of the cross. 

But how is justification attained, that is, how do we lay hold of it or get it? In other words, what is the gospel method of induction or means of access into the grace of God? Or, to adopt the trembling jailor’s words, “What shall I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30). We answer the question in the words of Paul: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (16:31). The answer comes again in Romans 3:24-25: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood.” Again, Romans 5:1: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access into this grace wherein we stand.” 

In John 3:14–16 it says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Acts 15:39: “Whosoever believeth in Him shall be justified from all things from which the law of Moses could not justify him.” This justification is once for all and perpetual. John 5:24: “He that believeth shall not come into condemnation.” If a man is justified you can never try him again, you can never put him in jeopardy. You cannot break that justification. It is perpetual.

But as justification must be based on righteousness, as we have proved in the first proposition, and as the sinner himself is not righteous, whose is the righteousness on account of which he is justified? It is the righteousness of Christ the substitute. First Corinthians 5:21: “God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” Philippians 3:9: “And be found in Him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” Now that is why we do not work unto righteousness. Titus 3:5 says, “Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves.” That is why we must believe unto righteousness. In the tenth chapter of Romans Paul says about his people, “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteous- ness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to everyone that believeth. For Moses writeth that the man that doeth the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby, but the righteousness which is of faith saith thus, ‘The Word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thine heart;’ that is, the Word of faith, which we preach; because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved: for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

The next question is, “How does this righteousness become ours?” It becomes ours by imputation; our sins are imputed or reckoned to the substitute and the substitute’s righteousness is imputed or reckoned to us. Genesis 15:8 says, “Abraham believed on Jehovah and it was imputed to him for righteousness.” The Apostle Paul quotes that in Romans, fourth chapter,

For if Abraham was justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not toward God. For what saith the Scripture? “And Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righ- teousness.” Now to him that worketh, the reward is not reck- oned of grace, but as of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. Even as David also pronounceth blessing upon the man, unto whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works, saying, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whome the Lord will not reckon sin” (Rom 4:2-8). 

Now we come to the distinction between justification and pardon. Justification comes from God’s justice; pardon comes from his mercy. God cannot justify a man except the man is in some way like Him. If he is not righteous himself he must be righteous in a substitute. But pardon comes from mercy. Here arises a question, “How can God both justify and pardon the same man?” Well, it is this way: Christ paid our debt to the law and through that payment we are free from the law and justified, but while it is paid by our substitute, we owe to the substitute what He paid for it, and He having settled with the law and secured our justification, He then turns around and pardons our owing it to Him, on such terms as He may prescribe. There is a vast difference between pardon and justification. Suppose I become security for a man and he cannot pay, and I come in and pay it. Now he is free from obligation to the owner of that debt, but he owes me in equity what I paid for him. Now I have a perfect right on the ground of love and friendship to turn to him and say, “The law couldn’t forgive you of that debt, but the law’s claims being settled, I can remit it to you free.” 

Here comes an important question: “What are the terms upon which God pardons a man that is free from the law by justification?” These terms are repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The connection between repentance and remission, not repentance and justifica- tion, but between repentance and remission, or pardon, is thus explained: “Repentance and remission of sin shall be preached in His name” (Luke 24:47). Acts 3:19 says, “Repent ye that your sins may be blotted out,” showing the relation between repentance and remission, or pardon. And in the tenth chapter of Acts, 43rd verse, Peter says, “To Him [ Jesus] gave all the prophets witness that through His name whosoever believeth on Him shall receive remission of sins.” 

A Campbellite student would say, “Please explain Acts 2:38, ‘And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins,’ and Acts 22:16, ‘Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins.’” And I would explain it this way. I would commence with that passage in Mark where it says, “Baptized unto repentance” (Mark 1:4). Does that mean be baptized in order that you may repent? No, because you are required to repent before you are baptized. Then I would say, Let us study in the same way the other passages. Does the word eis mean “in order to remission of sins” and not in order to repentance? We must tell the meaning by the usage. Sometimes it means “in order to,” but does it mean “in order to” when it is used with baptizo? I would take every passage in the New Testament where baptize and eis are used together, and I could not find any passage in the New Testament where it means “in order to.” That is a fair induction of all the facts in the case. But I would show him that eis means “unto the remission of sins,” but not “in order to the remission of sins.”

Faith is unto salvation but baptism is not unto salvation, except symbolically. Then on Acts 22:16 I would say, “It is God that blots out sin.” But Ananias said to Paul, “Arise and wash away your sins.” That is something that Paul must do, but he does symbolically what God does as a high court.

Now the last thought expressed in our article of faith is that justification brings us into a state of most blessed peace and favor with God and secures every other blessing needful for time and eternity. That is exactly what it does: “Whom He justified them He also glorified” (Rom 8:30). “Having commenced a good work in you He will finish it unto the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). If we are justified, that opens to us an assurance of every other blessing in the world, but not all at once. We do not get sanctified at once, but we will get it; we do not get glorified at once, but we will get it; we do not get to heaven at once, but we will get there. That is God’s plan. 

Article VI—The Freeness of Salvation

Our sixth article of faith reads as follows: 

We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by cordial, penitent, and obedient faith; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel; which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation. 

This article of faith is a little better stated than any of the former ones except the first one. The one on the Holy Spirit is very fine and well stated.

These four propositions now are up to every man for acceptance or rejection. I endorse every one of them, clean cut, straight out. I once put this question to some preachers: “Do your views of election, predestination, and kindred doctrines hamper you in preaching a free gospel to every- body? Are you embarrassed by them?” One man said, “Yes, I am,” and for about ten years he stalled right there. He used to be a member of the Waco Association; then he took across the stile into the Hardshell by-way, and stated that he had no gospel except for the sheep. But after he got very lean spiritually and found that the gnawing on dry bones did not furnish much nourishment in the way of growth, and when he found that he was always following the Hardshells in the too frequent imbibing of that other spirit, he came back and he is now one of our prominent ministers and a very useful man. He never had much education but is possessed of great natural ability. When I come to election, predestination, and foreknowledge I preach it just as God’s Word puts it. So we must not fly the track when we come to this article of faith. Let us take up the propositions.

First, “We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel.” In my first volume of sermons is a sermon on “God and the Sinner” that discusses this question. In order to get at this first thought that the blessings of salvation are offered free, that is, without money, without price, to everybody by the gospel, we should first get at the attitude of the divine mind toward fallen men.

The 33rd chapter of Ezekiel says, “As I live [that is an oath] saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they should turn and live.” Then he goes on to ask the question, “Why will ye die?” The sum of that passage shows that when God had pronounced woe upon those people their interpretation of His pronunciation of woe was that they were helpless under it and they put God in the wrong and charged their damnation and the hopelessness of their case to Him. Now it is in meeting that charge in their minds that He makes this statement: That He Himself for His part had no pleasure in the death of the wicked. On the other hand He preferred that they would turn and live.

Now that is a very important starting point. What is God’s pleasure? In the letter to Timothy, there is an exhortation to pray for all men, and the exhortation is based upon this statement, that God wishes the salvation of all. That is His wish, and they are exhorted to pray on the ground of that attitude of the divine mind toward the sinner. In the 17th chapter of Acts, Paul standing on Mars Hill makes this broad statement, that God made of one blood all the nations of men that inhabit the face of the whole earth, and that he fixed the boundaries and appointed the times and the seasons that they should seek after Him if haply they might find Him. Now that is an exceedingly broad statement of the attitude of God toward all nations. In the 10th chapter of Acts, Peter, whose Jewish exclusiveness had taught him to believe that very extraordinary privileges were conferred upon his own people and denied to other people, God gave a lesson and he sums up that lesson in this sentence: “Wherefore I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.” That is a broad proposition. It was mighty hard for Peter to see that a Gentile stood on exactly the same footing before God as a Jew with reference to salvation. Now from that general attitude of the divine mind we look at God’s manifestation of Himself in nature and the heaven’s declare the glory of God to one man as well as to another. The firmament showeth the handiwork of God to the infidel as well as to the Christian. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge, and God has not left Himself without a witness to all men as to His attitude in the recurrent seasons and the sending of rain and sunshine to fall upon the evil and the just. Now when He came to discrimination, for instance, when He selected the Jews, one nation, He was very careful to state first that it was not because their origin was any better than the origin of other people, and they must not think that Jerusalem was more excellent than any other place. In other words He went on to show that the purpose of selecting the Jews was to make them the means of reaching all other people.

Now let us take the first manifestation of God’s love toward men in order to see whether the gospel would be free to everyone, and we commence with the third chapter of John, “God so loved the world.” Now there is the word “world.” “He so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life.” Now Christ is the expression of God’s love and the measure of God’s love, and He came from God to call sinners to repentance and to save sinners from their sins. That was His mission and when He came He mingled with publicans and sinners, He received them, He ate with them, He preached to them and was just as tender in dealing with a most outrageous sinner as He was in dealing with the most formal ritualist of the Jewish nation. Christ stands before us then as an expression and manifestation of the Father’s will, and it is said of Him that He tasted death for every man. While He is especially the Savior of His own people, He is the Savior, in some sense, of all men, and He is the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Now, in Christ’s atonement we get at the answer to the question, “Shall the blessings of the gospel be made free to all?”

Then look at the commissions He gave. Those recorded in the 28th chapter of Matthew, 16th of Mark, 24th of Luke, 20th of John, and 26th of Acts are the five commissions given by our Lord. Now, let us look at every one of those commissions in answering these questions. In the 28th chapter of Matthew, He says this: “All authority in heaven and on earth is given unto Me. Go, ye, therefore.”The “go” is predicated upon the authority and the authority is comprehensive. “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations baptizing them into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” The 16th chapter of Mark puts it this way, but given on a different occasion: “Go ye into all the world”—do not leave out any part of it. “Preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.” When we take the commission as given by Luke on yet a different occasion, this is the way it reads: “That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations.” The commission as given by John and on a still different occasion is this: “He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit; whosoever sins ye retain they are retained, and whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted.’” Of like purport is Paul’s commission in Acts 26:16–18. 

Now the broadness of the language in the five commissions makes it such that God intended that the blessings of salvation should be free to all of us, and there is no getting around it. We advance in the thought by asking, “What provision did God make for keeping these proclamations of mercy before the world? What provisions did He make?” He says, “Upon this rock,” meaning Himself, “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18), and this church as said in another Scripture, shall be “the pillar and ground of the turth” (1 Tim 3:!5). Now if He creates an institution and gives eternal years to that institution, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and if it is as is set forth in the letter to the Ephesians, “That there shall be glory to God in the church through- out all generations” (Eph 3:8–10), and if it is said in another place in the same manner, that the manifold wisdom of God shall be made known unto the angels by the church, then He has provided an institution that is undying, to keep the proclamation before everybody, and that church is made the pillar and buttress to hold up this truth to the world. Now if He had simply given the commission and left nobody to execute it, made no provision for carrying it out, it would have been like a law that does not provide an executor and is dead on the statute book; but He gives the law to go and preach to all nations and He establishes an institution which He says shall not die and shall be in existence when He comes again, and the business of that church is to carry out that proclamation.

We notice next the invitations that are extended to people by the gospel both in prophecy and in fact. Let us take Isaiah’s prophecy: The 53rd chapter tells about Christ dying for men. In 55th chapter it goes on to give invitations that are extended to men on account of that salvation: “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, he that hath no money, come without money and without price;” and he goes on to say, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near,” and that invitation closes with the words that if it is accepted that the “trees of the field will clap their hands for gladness.” Your new soul shall be tuned with the happiness of the universe.

Now we come to the New Testament and look at the invitations. They are as broad as they are in Isaiah, because our New Testament practically closes this way, “The Spirit [the Holy Spirit] and the bride [the church] say, ‘Come,’ and whosoever is athirst, let him come, and whosoever will [whether he is athirst or not], let him take of the water of life freely” (Rrev 22:17). It not only shows that he Holy Spirit invites everybody and the church invites everybody, but it gives permission to any individual to extend that invitation: “Let him that heareth say, ‘Come.’” That individual does not have to be an official; the Spirit-filled Christian may invite. Suppose there is no church near that is publishing these terms of mercy, then anybody, white or black, male or female, young or old, has the authority under the commission of God to get up before any audience and say, “Here is the water of life bubbling up like an unsealed fountain and outflowing as a fountain that never stops to enquire whether it is a wolf or a lamb that would slake thirst in its cooling waters, whether it be a hawk or a dove, whether it be a parrot or an innocent little girl, this water of life overflowing; whosoever will, let him come.” 

Now it is impossible for any man to study the invitations that are given in the Bible and deny the blessings of salvation are made free to all. But the argument is much stronger than that. It is not the question solely of the invitation, but look at the reception that is given to anybody that accepts the invitation. There is, first, a broad declaration: “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out:” And there is the pictorial representation of the nature of the reception when the prodigal son comes to himself, and says, “I will arise and go to my father and I will tell him that I am no longer worthy to be called his son; I have lived a shameful life” (Luke 15:18). No question of his unworthiness, but now look at the picture: The father sees him far off, watching for him, waiting for him, runs to meet him, throws his arms around him, kisses him, commands the bells to ring, causes a merry feast to be spread, puts a robe on him and a ring on his finger. Look at that reception which tells the genuineness of the invitation and Paul says after discussing liars, thieves, adulterers, murderers, and every other kind of a man, “such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified” (1 Cor 6:11). They were regenerated; they were not turned away.

But the argument intensifies as we come to the next point: The long suffering of God impresses the invitation, after it has been despised a thousand times. We take a boy ill bred, lying, swearing, thieving, cruel, growing up in vice before his God, bound hand and foot with vicious habits going on to middle age, soaking himself to the lips in iniquity, his sins like scarlet and crimson as blood itself; he goes on trampling under foot every sacred and holy thing until everybody that knows him says, “I wonder if there is a God. If there be a God why does He not strike that man down?” He is now 80 years old; we take the case to God and say, “Why has not the lightning struck that man?” God says, “You must know that the long suffering of God means salvation; that He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to a knowledge of the truth.” Now that longsuffering intensifies everything heretofore. This is the climax: That man tramples underfoot the Son of God, he counts the blood of the everlasting covenant an unholy thing, he does despite to the Spirit of grace, he has gone, he has committed the unpardonable sin, no hope now, he is just disappearing into the portals of the pit and the shadow of perdition is already on his face and in his heart, the pangs of hell have already taken hold of him. Now, what does Jesus do? He looks at him and weeps. “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets and killest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her brood under her wing, but ye would not, and now the day of visitation is gone, the enemy shall encompass you; you are gone” (Matt 23:37). Jesus weeps.

It is impossible, it seems to me, to follow the line of thought as I have presented it and deny the sincerity of God’s offer of eternal life to all people, but if anything else is needed God makes an oath: “As I live saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek 33:11).

The last thought that I present in this connection is to show the sincerity of the offer that it should be made free to all. This is seen from the penalty that follows the rejection of the offer: “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). Now, unless to believe, as this article of faith says, is the immediate duty, how could there be such a penalty attached to it? Nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel. It is not because God has arbitrarily decreed that he shall be cast into hell; it isn’t that, and even when we come to the question of depravity, we see on that point how grace is offered that shall be stronger than depravity. If from the first Adam we inherited depravity, from the second Adam we inherit a holy disposition which comes through regeneration when we are begotten of God.

“Which rejection involves him in an aggravated condemnation,” says this article. I once made this statement and it shocked people: “At the judgment seat of Christ only one thing is taken into account, whether you are an angel or a man, and that is, what treatment did you accord Jesus Christ in His call to you and in His offer of salvation to you? You are already condemned, you are in the state of condemnation when the gospel reaches you. Now all that is put aside if you accept Jesus Christ the Holy One and judgment will come upon your attitude of mind and heart toward Jesus Christ as presented to you in the gospel. ‘This is condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light’” ( John 3:19).

A very distinguished man, a great scholar, was stating the mental difficulties in his way to the acceptance of Christ. I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye and said: “It is not a mental difficulty in the way, no intellectual difficulty, not at all. It is not a case to be settled by philosophy and argument. The only difficulty in the way is the difficulty of the heart.” “Men love darkness rather than light.” It is not that their intellect stumbles; that is not it. On the inside they are wrong. They will assign ten thousand reasons for rejecting Christ. One man will say, “I just cannot do it. I have looked over the argument about the inspiration of the Bible and am not convinced that it is inspired, and am not convinced that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and if you want me to believe, get these difficulties out of the way.” Well, they are not in the way. A man likes very much for you to sidetrack him to read Christian evidence for a year, because anybody can put up an argument if he wants to. He can make a very plausible reply to an argument, a very special plea. That is not what the gospel says; it does not come that way. It comes and just takes hold of the man and calls for a moral and spiritual decision in a minute. When did  reference to the dealing of God and the government of God? When did He ever send anybody off that way? Our article of faith says, “It is the immediate duty of every man to accept Him.” Now if it is his immediate duty, then the settlement of the question is something that can be put within a very small space of time, and not a laborious process of argumentation.

Two men visited Spurgeon one day. He was very busy; he had already preached three times and had to preach again and had made a number of visits to some very sick people; his head was aching, and a great crowd was gathering to hear his last sermon. The two men came in to talk to him. “Mr. Spurgeon, we see from your looks that you are jaded and as this is a very extensive matter—we want to go into the evidences of Christianity— you just refer us to the books and we will go away and investigate.” But Spurgeon said to them, “God wants to know if you will settle the question right now. You ought to be saved before we go to church. I stand over you and say to you that right now is the day of salvation; there is no excuse to put the thing off; it is for immediate acceptance of Jesus Christ and everything hinges right on that; now will you take it or will you reject it? He does not give you any permission to put it off.” They knelt right there and prayed. The men rose up converted, and he took them over to the church and baptized them.

Article VII—Grace in Regeneration

This discussion is on the seventh article of faith, “Grace in Regenration,” which reads as follows:

First, “We believe that in order to be saved, sinners must be regenerated, or born again.” Second, “That regeneration consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind.” Third, “That it is effected in a manner above our comprehension by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Fourth, “In connection with divine truth.” Fifth, “So as to secure our voluntary obedience to the gospel.” Sixth, “That its proper evidence appears in the holy fruits of repentance and faith and newness of life.”

In discussing this article the first thought is what regeneration pre-supposes. It supposes the depravity of the sinner, such depravity that his mind is enmity against God and not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be; such depravity as the deprivation of all holiness whatever, a depravity that extends to the will and extends to all the emotions. That is the antecedent basis of regeneration. In other words, it supposes that by nature we are the children of wrath. It does not refer to practice, but, by nature we are the children of wrath, that, without some prevenient grace of God, the natural man loves darkness rather than light, and will not, of himself, ever turn to God.

Those who deny the depravity of man as the result of the original sin of the first man have no place in their scheme of salvation for regeneration. If there is no antecedent depravity, then we could take a little child and, by giving him favorable surroundings, educate him into a Christian. But the Bible is totally opposed to that view of the present condition of the human race, and to show you that our article of faith contemplates such a presupposition, we have the word “regenerate,” that is, “to beget again,” and we have the words “new birth,” that is, “born again.” That makes distinction between the spiritual birth and the natural birth. We come into the world by the natural birth, but the natural man discerneth not the things of God, and hence a change must take place in his very nature that will touch his will, touch his heart, and touch his emotion. All the New Testament terms expressive of this change indicate its radical nature. The verbs used in the Greek and the nouns derived from them are always coupled with some descriptive phrase, for instance, the “new birth,” “another birth.” 

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit” ( John 3:6), so that the first term that we notice is the term “birth” coupled always with a descriptive, like “born from above” or “born of the spirit.” We see from the very nature of that term how far back regeneration must commence.

This work of regeneration must come from outside of the man ( John 1:13). Let us notice this passage particularly, for it conveys one of the most critical thoughts in connection with the doctrine of regeneration. It reads, “Who were born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” That is to say that no matter how great our ancestors may be—if they have ranked in the histories of the world among the blue blooded aristocracy, the nobility, the royal family—yet not of blood is any one born into the kingdom of God. There never was a case of regeneration in the world that originated in the flesh, and flesh means not the clothing of the body; “sarx”, flesh, applies to the whole nature of man and applies much more to the inner natural man than it does to the external man, and we are born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So John three says, “born from above,” “born of the spirit,” and James says, “born of the will of God” (cf. Jas 1:18). 

The next term is ktisis, which means “creation” or “creature.” We find it in 2 Corinthians 5:17. To create is to bring into original existence, that is, to cause a thing to come to be, not of pre-existing material. In this passage, we have this declaration: “Wherefore if any man is in Christ he is a new creature,” literally, “a new creation.” Now we know what creation means naturally; as I have just said, it is to cause a thing to commence to be and not out of any pre-existing material. So the spiritual life is declared to be a new creation and to further illustrate it and to show how closely it connects back with the preceding thought, we will consider two passages of Scripture bearing upon it.

The first one is Ephesians 4:20–24: “That ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man that waxeth corrupt after the lust of deceit and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.” We see that distinction between the old man and the new man. We derive from the old man, that is from the first Adam, a depraved nature. But before we can be reckoned as belonging to the new man, there is as much a creation as there was when the first Adam was created; it is a genuine creation.

The other passage which I want to cite in this connection is Colossians 3:8–10: “But now do ye also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth, lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” We see how near that reference is back to the creation of the first man when God created him in His own image and after His likeness. But that image was lost by sin, so far as it refers to his moral nature; it does not refer to his immortal nature. The new birth is a creation after the image of Him that created man. There can be no mistake as to the radical nature of regeneration when inspiration employs such words as ktisis to represent it.

The Greek of the next term is a verb meaning “to quicken” or “to make alive,” i.e., to make alive one that is dead. In John 5:21, 25-26 our Lord says: “For as the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. . . .Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in Him- self, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself.” The dead who are made to live in verse 25 are the spiritually dead as contrasted with the physically dead in verse 28. But in Ephesians 2:5 we have the verb compounded with a preposition prefixed, meaning “to make alive with.” Three phrases are used: “To make alive with” Christ, “to be raised with Christ,” and “to be made to sit in heavenly places with Christ.” The force of the illustration is this: In regenerating us the power is such as that which God wrought when He quickened Christ in the grave, raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to heavenly places. Ephesians says, “You hath He made alive with Christ,” referring altogether to the spiritual working. He is not discussing the resurrection of the body but he is using the resurrec- tion of Christ’s body to illustrate the spiritual resurrection that takes place in the Christian.

Now we pass to the next term which we find in Romans 2:28 and 29, also in other places. There we have the word, “circumcision.” Circumcision, he says, is not the circumcision of the outward man; it is not a circumcision made with hands, but is a circumcision of the heart, a circumcision of the spirit, not according to the letter but a spiritual circumcision. It is immaterial whether we say “new birth” or “new creation” or “quickening” or “circumcision” of the heart. All the terms express the radical supernatural change in regeneration. 

Now having disposed of these terms we will take up this declaration of the article of faith, that regeneration “consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind.” That is certainly true as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. I will show you wherein it does not go far enough. In the type presented to us in the 36th chapter of Ezekiel, God refers to his Jewish people as lost, as dead, as dispersed, and says, “It shall come to pass in the last days, but not for your sake, you do not deserve it, but for My own name’s sake, I will gather you from all the nations among which ye have been scattered and will do the following things: (1) I will sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from your idols and from all your filthiness will I cleanse you. (2) I will take away your stony heart and give you a heart of flesh, which is the new heart. (3) I will put My Spirit within you and then you will keep My commandments”. We notice that he makes what God intends to do the basis of obedience, which accords with this part of the article: “so as to secure our voluntary obedience,” and we cannot have voluntary obedience without starting right. An impure fountain cannot send forth a clean stream; we must first make the tree good before the fruit can be good. But the Ezekiel passage makes regeneration to consist of “cleansing” as well as the new heart.

The two elements of regeneration—cleansing and renewing—appear in Psalm 51:2, 7, 10 and in john 3:5, “born of water and Spirit,” and in Ephesians 5:26, “having cleansed it that he might sanctify it,” and in Titus 3:5 “washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” So that regeneration is first a cleansing from the defilement of sin by the Spirit’s application of Christ’s blood, and a renewing by the Holy Spirit.The type of the cleansing was the sprinkling of the ashes of the red heifer mingled with water, hence, called “water of purification.” The anti-type is the sprinkling of Christ’s blood applied by the Spirit as we find in Hebrews 9:13. 

The idea of water baptism is not in Ezekiel 36:25-27; nor in Psalm 51:2, 7, 10; nor in John 3:5; nor in Ephesians 5:26; nor in Titus 3:5. In all these the cleansing is spiritual. But baptism does symbolize that cleansing as in Acts 22:16. 

In order for us to start right, it is necessary that we should be cleansed by the application of the blood of Christ. That the Holy Spirit does, but to cleanse us and to leave our nature unchanged would be like washing a sow who could return to her wallowing in the mire, so that renewal must also come. So the second proposition of the article is established, that regen- eration consists in giving a holy disposition to the mind. This is certainly true, but it also consists of cleansing from the defilement of sin by the application of the blood of Christ. Those are the two constituent elements of regeneration.

Now we advance: “That it is effected in a manner above our compre- hension.” We know the imparting of life is above our comprehension. A botanist may select a flower and analyze it from the tap root of the stem upon which it grows to a separation to all of the component parts of the flower, and he may classify it, but when he tries to explain the life that was in that seed which started up and took the form of that stem and then of that bloom, and account for the origin of that life and be able to say that he comprehends it, he knows he cannot do it. He is just as much baffled by the life that is in a flower as he is by the life that is in the soul. Hence, our Lord said to Nicodemus, “The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit” ( John 3:8). Human science has never been able to explain the origin of life. So our article rightly says of the imparting of the spiritual life: “in a manner above our comprehension”. There need be no confusion of mind in distinguishing the parts of salvation performed by the several persons in the Godhead. The Father’s love is the source of all spiritual life, and He gives the Son and the Son atones for sin, but it is the Spirit that applies the atonement and qualifies us for its enjoyment. It is by the Holy Spirit. He is the author of regeneration. 

The Means: Our article says, “in connection with divine truth.” A number of passages support the declaration. James says, “Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth” ( James 1:18). Peter says, “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God” (1 Pet 1:23). The fourth chapter of Hebrews says that the Word of God is living and powerful, that it disconcerneth the thoughts and intents of the heart, that it divideth even to the joints and reacheth to the very marrow, and that nothing can be hidden from its penetration (Heb 4:12–13). The Word of God is the means of bringing about regeneration in the case of any subject of gospel address.

While I am upon this, however, I wish particularly that we might notice the limitation that the Word of God is not the power but the means. I may place upon the table a splendid Comanche Indian bow and a quiver of arrows; those are means, but those arrows of themselves will not leap out of the quiver and adjust themselves to the strings of that bow and shoot themselves into the heart of a buffalo. There must be always somebody to use those means. Or I will illustrate by the axe. The axe is a very small piece of iron with a well tempered steel edge, but the best made axe that ever came from a workshop cannot go and cut down a tree by itself. There must be somebody to wield the axe. Hence the Word of God is called the sword of the Spirit. It might be a sword as heavy as the long two-handled sword of Richard the Lion-hearted with which he could strike upon a heavy bar of iron and cut it asunder; but there must be somebody’s skill and somebody’s power to give the stroke. 

I press this matter because of the position of our Campbellite friends on this question. Mr. Lard in his review of Dr. Jeter’s book on Campbellism teaches that when the Word of God was given by the Spirit, that ended the Spirit’s connection with regeneration, that all of the power of the Spirit resided in the Word. If this were so, when the priests that accompanied Pizzaro met Atahualpa, the Inca of Peru, a heathen, and handed him a Bible, why did it not convert him? Now if all the power is residing in the Word itself, we may quit preaching and go to printing and distributing Bibles, and they will do the work. The power of the Spirit is not, in that way, resident in the Word. I want to give an illustration: “The Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she attended to the things spoken by Paul.” Now there was Paul preaching the Word and here was one woman who became the subject of a divine work. The Lord opened her heart that she should attend to the things spoken by Paul.

I now proceed with another thought. In the fifth chapter of 1 John we have this expression: “Whosoever believeth is born of God,” and “whosoever loveth is born of God.” And in the first chapter of John’s Gospel it says, “To as many as received Him to them gave He the power to become the Sons of God, even to as many as believed on His name.” So we see while the Word of God is the means, faith is the apprehending hand. Dr. McLaren, who is said to be the prince of modern exegesis, in expounding the third chapter of John, says that Nicodemus put a good question in saying to the Lord, “You say that I must be born again, even though I am old, and you say that there is a mystery about this that I cannot comprehend any more than I can the wind blowing, and yet I want to get it somehow. What is the process? I will admit the mystery about it, but now what is the method of getting it ?” Jesus answered him, “It is this way: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” That is how. That part we can take hold of. 

Or as it is presented in the Book of Zechariah: “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord, that I will pour out upon the house of Da- vid and the city of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication” (Zech 12:10). That is the antecedent work of grace. “And they shall mourn and they shall look upon Him Whom they have pierced.” Then follows, “and it shall come to pass that a fountain shall be opened for sin and for unclean- ness” (Zech 13:1). Now how do we get to that fountain? By looking upon Him Who has been pierced. That is why, in discussing regeneration, I put the long word, “regeneration,” above a line to express the divine side, and put all the words under the line that express the human response to the divine work. The Spirit from above convicts and we put below contrition; the Spirit gives change of mind toward God on account of sin and we exercise a change of mind toward God on account of sin; the Spirit turns us and we turn in response to the impulse or propulsion. The Spirit gives faith and we exercise faith, and the whole of that equals regeneration, the upper side and the lower side, or the human and the divine. So whenever we get to the point of “he is a believer” then, says John, he is born of God. He is a lover of God then, says John, he is born of God.

In debating once with a Campbellite editor on the subject of baptism being an essential part of regeneration, without which it could not be accomplished, I went to the blackboard and drew a perpendicular line and on the left of that line I wrote, “haters of God,” “unbelievers in Christ.” And on the right hand side of the line I wrote “lovers of God,” “believers in Christ.” Then I asked, “Which of those people would you take to baptize; on which side are you going to get your subjects for baptizing? Will you baptize men who hate God or love God? Men who believe or who believe not the Lord Jesus Christ?” He answered, “I baptize those that love God and believe in Jesus Christ.” Then I said to him in the words of John, “‘he that believeth is born of God,’ and ‘he that loveth is born of God,’ and why do you want to bring in your baptism to bring about the new birth?” The new birth has already come; as David Culberson says, “We have done expanded.” The thing has already been accomplished.

Now this is a capital point we are on. In the whole Romanist community, the largest professing Christian community in the world and in the greater part of Protestantism including Lutherans, the Church of England, including in some sense the Presbyterians and Methodists, they still maintain a connection between baptism and regeneration. We Baptists are the only people on the earth that stand upon the plank that salvation is essential to baptism and not baptism essential to salvation. That one must baptize men and thereby bury them because they are dead. We do not baptize them to kill them but we baptize them because they are dead. We being dead to sin, then we are buried with Christ in baptism. It is right to bury a dead man. So that baptism symbolically represents what the Holy Spirit actually accomplishes. It is a magnificent memorial. It is not the thing itself. 

I will repeat in this connection, an incident that occurred in that same debate. He said, “You Baptists are pretty good people but you have no way of induction into Christ.” I asked him what he meant by induction. He said, “Induction into Christ: We baptize a man into Christ.” I replied, “Do you by baptism get a man into Christ really or pictorially?” I admitted that whosoever has been baptized into Christ has put on Christ as a uniform in external actions, but this is our method of induction into Christ: “By faith we enter into this grace wherein we stand.” That puts us into Christ and the Holy Spirit puts Christ into us: “Christ in you the hope of glory.” We believe into Christ. “I in you and you in me,” said Christ. Now unless you adopt our position on that, you cannot meet the Romanist, saying, “You are right; you put man into Christ by baptism, but that is only half of it. You must put Christ into him. Hence we teach transubstantiation. The consecrated bread and wine become the real body and the real blood of Christ and when you partake of it, that puts Christ into you.” One may consistently hold both the Romanist and Campbellite views, but a man who holds one and rejects the other is like Lincoln’s ox, which went to jump over the fence and lodged, and so could neither hook the dogs barking at his head, nor kick those biting his heels. A consistent man must accept the ROmanist method of getting Christ into us, or reject the Campbellite method of getting us into Christ.

Article VIII—Repentance and Faith

This article of faith reads as follows:

We believe that repentance and faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenerating spirit of God; whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger and helplessness, and of the way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and supplication for mercy; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and relying on Him alone as the only and all-sufficient Savior. 

This article sets forth several things that need to be emphasized. 

First, repentance and faith are graces. Second, repentance and faith are duties. Third, repentance and faith are wrought by the regenerating Spirit of God. Fourth, a two-fold conviction, that is, a conviction of guilt and helplessness, and then a conviction of the way of salvation in Christ. Fifth, contrition. Sixth, repentance. Seventh, confession of sin. Eighth, supplication for mercy. Ninth, turning or conversion. Tenth, faith.

When we say that repentance or faith is a grace we mean by the term, “grace,” original, unmerited favor of God, or gift, as opposed to debt. For example: “By grace are ye saved through faith” (Eph 2:8). “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 6:23). “Then hath God granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). Or that other passage in the first chapter of First Peter and first verse, “Who have obtained a like precious faith with us.” These quotations indicate the graces involved in repentance and faith. It means that of ourselves we would never have repented, never have believed. It means that every step and every process of salvation originates in the prevenient grace of God. 

I think I might safely appeal to the reader’s own religious experience in confirmation. However much a man’s mind and his intellect may be heretical, when it comes to his religious experience he is pretty generally sound and he knows that the first step toward God was a prompted, impelled step, a power from the outside and above him brought him to it. For instance, “The Lord opened the heart of Lydia that she should attend unto the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14). How many times we attended church but no sort of inclination upon our part to repent or to believe came to us at all. At another time we were moved to obey God. That is what this article of faith means by saying that they are graces.

It appears that they are graces in the next place, by the statement that they are wrought by the holy, regenerating Spirit. There is an upper divine work that always precedes the human exercise on our part. This thought may be illustrated by a line drawn horizontally and above it written long, stretched out, the word “REGENERATION,” and below it is written in the human exercises which are contrition, repentance, confession of sin, prayer, conversion or turning, and faith: 

Above the line we have the “graces” in which the subject is passive. Below the line we have the “duties” in which the subject is active. So it is true that repentance and faith are both graces and duties. We get at the idea of duty by commands. Jesus says, “Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17). Peter says on th eday of Pentecost, “Repent,” and again he says, “Repent and turn that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 2:37–40). So we see how the idea of duty comes in. In other words, nei- ther in the natural nor in the spiritual world does God ever give privilege, opportunity, or power without a corresponding obligation, so that graces become duties. 

And this idea of “graces” goes all the way through the ten words noted above. There is a grace which convicts and there is the exercise of that grace in contrition. There is a difference between conviction of sin and contrition for sin. Conviction is what God does and contrition is what we exercise, and so we come to conversion. I speak of it in an etymological sense and not in its ordinary modern sense. In its etymological sense it means simply “to turn right about face.” In it also the grace precedes the human response. In the Old Testament we have the prayer, “Turn thou me and I shall be turned,” and God responds, “Turn ye, why will ye die?” (Ezek 33:11). So when it comes to prayer: “It shall come to pass,” says the prophet Zechariah, “in the last days that I will pour out the Spirit of grace and of supplication” (Zech 12:10). That shows the grace side of prayer. He pours out the Spirit of supplication and this is followed by the exercise of prayer.

I will add two thoughts on “duties.” First, this duty is universal. “God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30).“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus did come to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15), showing that upon the whole human race rests the double obligation of repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 

I knew a Baptist preacher who put hobbles on himself and goggles over his eyes and steeled his heart when he said he had no word except for the sheep. His antinomian views of doctrine hindered him from going to everybody and saying to all men, “The duty is on you now; repent toward God and accept the Lord Jesus Christ.” I was sorry for him while in that state, and finally was somewhat instrumental in his recovery and in making him a real missionary. The Lord help the preacher who has not a clear cut knowledge of the great doctrines, but the Lord also pity the preacher who has such a cast-iron view of the doctrine that he will not preach repentance to all sinners and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. 

This duty is further evident from the penalty attached to disobedience: “Except ye repent ye perish” (Luke 13:3). Here is an awful penalty, eternal death, banishment from God forever. Penalty proves obligations slighted. Again: “He that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16). How strong those duties are appears from the fact that the performance of them is absolutely essential to salvation. We may make a mistake about baptism and be saved, but we cannot make a mistake about repentance and faith and be saved.

Consider the next phrase, “wrought in our souls by the regenerating Spirit of God.” That connects this article of faith with the preceding discussion on regeneration. When the preacher goes out to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, he must unhesitatingly hold up Christ crucified to all men as a means of regeneration, and all its consequent human exercises as its manifestation, for so our Lord explained to Nicodemus ( John 3). Nicodemus states his trouble: “You say I must be born again, born from above, born when I am old; you tell me that there is a mystery about it, that it is incomprehensible, that as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is everyone that is born of the Spirit. How can these things be? If I am not to understand the mystery, at least, give me an intelligent view of the method.” Jesus answers it in this way: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:14-15). So the whole work of regeneration, repentance, faith, redemption, adoption, and everything of that kind comes by holding up Christ and Him crucified; as we hold Him up by preaching the Word, the Word is instrumental, faith lays hold of the Word preached, the Spirit applies, and redemption, regeneration, justification, and adoption come.

We come to the next phrse: “whereby being deeply convinced of guilt,” or better, “convicted.” “When the Holy Spirit is come He will convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment” ( John 16:8). “Whereby we are convicted” of what? Guilt, danger, helplessness—that is the Spirit’s work. There never has been a case of repentance in the world without antecedent conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit of God. Except a man feels that he is a sinner, how shall he be contrite on account of sin? How shall he repent toward God on account of sin? How shall he feel the need of a Savior from sin? So we start in with that work of the Spirit, conviction, in which we are passive. But under conviction we become active in contrition. 

Let us take the case cited by the prophet Zechariah. The prophecy describes the banished house of Israel, for ages without conviction of sin, Zechariah 12:10: “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication: and they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him as one that is in bitterness for his first born.” So was it on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached, “‘Now therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, Whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.’ And when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:36–37). “They were pricked in their heart” is conviction. The difference between the Old and the New Cov- enant is that the law in the Old Covenant was written on tables of stone, and in the New Covenant it is written on fleshy tables of the heart. “Ye,” says Paul, “are Christ’s letters ministered by me, written not with pen and ink but by the Spirit of God” (2 Cor 3:2–3).

Now the conviction that one is guilty and being guilty he is in dan- ger, and though in danger, helpless, leads him to the next word, “contrition.” What is contrition? In the seventh chapter of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians the apostle uses the synonymous phrase, “Godly sorrow” and contradistinguishes it from “worldly sorrow” or remorse, which worketh death, but godly sorrow is unto life. In other words, it is what old-fashioned Baptists and Methodists meant by “mourning.” They used to have a mourner’s bench. It made no difference if one left out the bench, but he made an awful mistake if he left out the mourning. It pains me and incites concern that so much modern preaching results in such slight conviction of sin, such little contrition. In other words when we minimize in one direction we are bound to minimize in another. If it is little sin, it is little Savior; if it is little sick, it is little physician. I do not say that the Bible prescribes just how much one should mourn nor how long, but the fact that contrition is a duty, and antecedent to repentance, is ascertained as the world stands. “Godly sorrow worketh repentance.” Worldly sorrow worketh death. The outcome reveals the difference.

The preaching of our fathers was followed by deep conviction and contrition. When I was a boy nearly all the preachers dwelt much on sin, the heinousness of sin, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and such preaching with its fearful penalty for sin, with its eternal hell as a penalty, did bring about both conviction and contrition. Men were convicted. The heart was broken. God is not near to the mighty, not near to the crowned king, not near to the great commander of armies, but is near to him that is of a bro- ken spirit and a contrite heart. The contrite man is close to the kingdom.

We take up another word, “repentance.” What is it? This is the definition and there is but this one: Repentance is a change of mind toward God on account of sin. We were first convicted of sin; our spirit was broken; we were contrite, and so godly sorrow led us to a change of mind toward God on account of sin. That is repentance. Now when convicted and penitent, what does a man say? “I am a sinner.” That is confession of sin. Spurgeon has a sermon from seven texts. The text is just the same in each instance. Every time it is “I have sinned,” but it comes from the lips of seven different persons under different conditions.³ John the Baptist baptized the people in the Jordan confessing their sins. Now if salvation is a grace abso- lutely unmerited, a gift, then we, under the prompting Spirit of God, move toward God, move as sinners toward God for salvation.

The just man needs no repentance. Christ came to call sinners to repentance, and this confession is not merely a formal enunciation of the lips. “I am a sinner,” is the confession of a profound feeling of the heart that except by God’s grace he is forever lost. One of my old time questions, after an applicant for membership got through relating his Christian experience in which I never prompted him at all, was this: “How did you come to feel that you were a sinner? Tell us about that. Surely you have not so felt all your life. Tell us when and how that impression got hold on your heart unusually strong.” And then I would say, “Tell me why you now think you are a Christian.”

We advance to the next word: “supplication.” Now if one is convicted that he is a sinner and he confesses his sins and he is at the same time, according to this article of faith, convicted of the way of salvation by Christ, he will not be silent. He will cry out for mercy. The Holy Spirit does not convict a man of sin and leave him in the depths of despair. Our Lord emphasized the thought in a parable: Two men went up into the Temple and prayed and one of them stood and prayed thus with himself: “God I thank thee,” etc. But the other would not come near but stood afar off and would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven; he felt so unworthy, that he smote upon his heart and said, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:9–14). A penitent man is a praying man as well as a mourner. It is the instinctive outburst of the heart to pray, “Lord, help, or I perish.”

Our next word is “turn.” This article of faith says, “whereby we turn.” Now that word, “turn,” in the Bible never has the meaning that we attach to it in the modern use of the word. We now say to a man, “Are you con- verted?” meaning, “Are you regenerated?” “Are you a Christian?” But in the Bible the word,“conversion,” is used in its etymological sense, which simply means, “right about face.” A sinner goes unconcerned on the way to death, thinking it to be right, but when convinced of his error he turns about. He faces the opposite way. That is what is meant in that great passage in Isaiah, “Let the wicked man forsake his way and let him turn unto our God” (Isa 55:7). There is a change of course, a walking in new direction.

We come to our last word, “faith.” I give some easy definitions of faith: With regard to evidence, faith is belief. God has given certain tes- timony concerning Christ. I believe that evidence. With regard to a gift, faith is receiving, taking what is offered. With regard to a promise, faith is trust. So, this article presents it admirably when it says, “heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ . . . and relying on Him.” Receiving and relying on Him. The theologians all tell us that any definition of saving faith is faulty that leaves out “receiving Christ and relying upon Him.” “As many as received Him to them He gave the power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believe on His name” ( John1:12). We must take Him as offered and rely upon Him. I venture to add an additional thought: Faith is the committing to Him of the soul, the life. “I am persuaded,” says Paul, “that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him” (2 Tim 1:12). Now when I believe God’s testimony, when I receive God’s gift, when I rely on the Lord Jesus Christ, when I commit, without reservation, my soul to the keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have faith.

Now when one receives Jesus Christ according to this article of faith, he receives Him as a Prophet, Priest, and King, and I always add “Sacrifice.” We should receive Him as our Sacrifice, Prophet, Priest, and King. To receive Him as He is offered is faith. He is offered as our Sacrifice for sin, as our Prophet or Teacher, as our Eternal Priest, and as our Eternal King. I take Him for all. That is faith.

Now having thus discussed this article of faith I want to take up two other words: The first word is “inseparable.” “Inseparable graces,” that is to say, whenever the Holy Spirit commences a good work in a person it never stops. I venture to say that a contrite soul was never lost. A convicted man may be lost. But when conviction becomes contrition salvation follows. He who begins that good work in us continues it even until the day of Jesus Christ: “Whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justified them He also glorified” (Rom 8:30). Now in this way repentance adn faith are inseparable. “This man began to build and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:30) was never written of God. He finishes His buildings. 

The other word, or phrase rather, is “at the same time.” This affirms in a general way that we “believe at the same time we repent.” Sometimes the question, “Is there any time-difference between repentance and faith?” is answered, “No.”

This answer is not absolutely and always correct. The whole matter of salvation may indeed be compressed into a moment of time so that the human mind is not able to recognize any appreciable time element between the several exercises of contrition, repentance, supplication, and faith. But in many cases very appreciable time elapses before the contrite, praying penitent is led to lay hold on Christ by faith. I doubt not everyone of us has known a penitent soul to go for days before he caught on to what faith was.

We tried to show him all the time and when he saw it at last he wondered why he had not seen it at first. I have known genuine cases of repentance with a distinct interval between it and faith, and likewise I have known clear cut cases of faith before the justified soul realizingly laid hold on the assurance that he was entitled to right at the time.

So what is meant by the “same time” in this article of faith here does not mean the same exact moment, but the same experience. God’s Spirit may be dealing a year with a man before he is saved. Analysis of experience is not necessary to salvation. A vast number of people are never able to distinguish these elements of experience. A little child can love and trust and believe in its mother and not be able to give a logical analysis at all, and so people come to Christ and are saved by Christ who cannot give a chronological statement showing order and relation of parts to each other, but it is better if they understand it.

Article IX—God’s Purpose of Grace

Our subject for this discussion is the ninth article of faith, “God’s Purpose of Grace.” It reads as follows: 

We believe that election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which He graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners. That being perfectly consistent with the free agency of man, it comprehends all the means in connection with the end; that it is a most glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, being infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable; that it utterly excludes boasting, and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, and active imitation of His free mercy; that it encourages the use of means in the highest degree; that it may be ascertained by its effects in all who truly believe the gospel; that it is the foundation of Christian assurance; and, that to ascertain it with regard to ourselves demands and de- serves the utmost diligence. 

This is a remarkable article. The most prominent word in it is “election.” Etymologically the word, election, means choice. It implies more than one object from which to choose. Patrick Henry, in his great speech before the House of Burgesses in Virginia, uses this expression: “And besides, Sir, we have no election,” that is, there is no room for choice as to the Declaration of Independence; there is no alternative, no two things to choose from. Now, that is the use of the word, election, in its common ordinary signification.

In certain instances the Bible usage of election is unto other things than salvation; for example, the choice of Israel out of the nations to be the recipient and custodian of the oracles of God. Of all the nations of the world before God, He chose Israel to be the keeper of his oracles. We have the example of the choice of Isaac instead of Ishmael, as the one through whom Christ should come. And the choice of Jacob instead of Esau. There are in the Bible many instances of choice to offices as of king, priest, prophet, or apostle. In all of these instances election has its ordinary significance. All of these elections may be used to illustrate the election unto salvation, and Paul does so use God’s choice of Jacob in preference to Esau, and applies that election to the matter of election unto salvation; he uses it as an illustration of the principle employed in electing unto salvation. 

But when in Romans 8:33 and in Colossians 3:12 we have the words, “God’s elect,” they mean those chosen unto salvation. The passage in Romans says, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” The passage in Colossians, “As God’s elect put on” the various Christian graces that are enumerated there and pertaining to the new man. Dr. Strong in his Systematic Theology gives this definition of election: “Election is that eternal act of God by which in His sovereign pleasure and on account of no force or merit in them He chose certain out of sinful men to be the recipients of the special grace of His Spirit and so to be made voluntary partakers of Christ’s salvation.”⁴ That is a remarkable definition and it means just about the same thing as it does in this article, which commences with the definition, “Election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which He graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners.” We see in these two definitions that election is with reference to the application of redemption; that in logical order the redemption-idea comes first and then election relates to the application of that, and always refers to the Spirit and the Spirit’s leading of the soul into salvation. If we keep our mind on that continually it will save us from many hurtful difficulties upon the subject of election.

Now I will give four statements from Dr. Hovey’s Systematic Theology. First, “The Scriptures forbid us to find the reasons for election in the moral character or action of man before the new birth and refer us merely to the sovereign will and mercy of God. That they teach the doctrine of personal election.” Second, “God has a right to bestow more grace upon one subject than upon another, grace being unmerited favor to sinners.” Third, “God has been pleased to exercise this right in dealing with men.” Now if anybody denies that, I would like for him to explain this Scripture: “It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon [those Phoenician cities] in the day of judgment than for Chorazin and Bethsaida for they, under this light that those other cities had, would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Luke 10:14). Here the statement is made that Tyre and Sidon would have repented, if a certain amount of the special grace of God had been bestowed. Fourth, “God has some other reason than that of saving as many men as possible for the way in which He distributes His grace.” For example, Paul says, “What if God, willing to show His wrath has endured for a long time the sinfulness of certain vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and what if God uses these vessels of mercy unto salvation?” There may be a reason in the divine mind; that may not occur to you for His doing that way. There may be some lesson to be taught by it in the far off ages to come, in the future government of the universe.

I give some passages of Scripture bearing upon this definition. We have in Acts 13:48 this statement: “As many [so many] as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Please note the relation of the ordination, or fore-ordination, to the believer. Who believed in that meeting that Paul was holding? So many as were ordained to eternal life. When I was a young preacher I used to want to make that read, “As many as believed were ordained to eternal life.” The natural man wants to change that Scripture.

In Romans 9:11 we have this statement: “The children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him that calleth.” There was an election putting Jacob over Esau, and that election took place before the children were born. God knew that they would be born and before they were born He declared that the elder should serve the younger. Now that exercise of God’s election of one of two persons is used to illustrate God’s election of men to eternal life. “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid, for He saith to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’” So then it is not of him that willeth, as Isaac did, who willed that Esau should receive the blessing. “Not of him that runneth,” as Esau did, who went running to get the venison in order to obtain the blessing, “but of God that hath mercy” (Rom 9:14-16).

We have a remarkable passage in the first chapter of Ephesians: “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love” (Eph 1:4). How much a man would like that to read: “He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, because He foresaw that we would be holy and without blemish before Him.” That puts the cart before the horse. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, making the holiness result from the election, and not the cause of the election. “Having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto Himself according to the good pleasure of His will to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us, in the Beloved” (Eph 1:5-6).

We have these words in John 6:37, 44, and 10:26–28, and 17:2: “All that which the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me; and him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out.” “No man can come to Me, except the Father that sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” “But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.” “Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that to all thou hast given Him, He should give eternal life.” The question is answered there as to why certain people did not believe and others did. Jesus says, “Ye are not of my sheep.” That is the reason. “My sheep believe.”

Then take this passage in the first chapter of John, 12th and 13th verses: “But as many as received Him to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” A corresponding passage in the first chapter of James and 18th verse: “Of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth.” Born not of the will of man, but of the will of God.

I will put the gist of the whole matter in the form of a catechism. What is election? Choice. Who elects? God. When did God elect? Before the foundation of the world. Whom does God elect? Sinners. Unto what does God elect? Unto salvation. In whom does God elect? Jesus Christ. Through what does God elect? Through the Spirit and the Word—belief of the Word. Does God elect on account of foreseen repentance and faith in the subject? No, but according to His sovereign will and pleasure.

It is impossible for repentance and faith foreseen to be the ground of election because both repentance and faith are themselves graces flowing from election. “Jesus was exalted a Prince and a Savior to give repentance” (Acts 5:31). “Then hath God granted to the Gentiles repentance unto life” (Acts 11:18). “You have obtained a like precious faith with us” (2 Pet 1:1). Now, the article says, “Election is the eternal purpose of God, according to which He graciously regenerates.” He does not elect the regenerate, but according to election they are regenerated and sanctified.

The next item of this article declares that it is perfectly consistent with the free agency of man. Every man is conscious that if he does not repent, and does not believe, that he is acting for himself in the matter. “Ye would not ocme unto me that ye might have eternal life” (John 5:40). The gospel is addressed to men as free agents. Repent or perish. Believe or be lost. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve, God or mammon. It comprehends all the means in connection with the end. In other words, the means by which election is carried out come from the Holy Spirit. As I said, election refers to the application of redemption, through the regeneration and sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

The next point is that it is a most glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, being infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable. Now, it would not be free if God had to do it. If there was something in me that constituted an obligation on God requiring Him to elect me, so that I could plead an injustice if He did not do it, then God’s election of me would not be free. I would have a claim on Him and present my claim. Then my salvation would not be of grace.

It is also unchangeable. That follows from the Scripture. “Whom He foreknew them He predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son; whom He predestinated them He called; whom He called them He justified; whom He justified them He also glorified” (Rom 8:29-30). “He who commences a good work in you will continue it unto the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6). We may conceive of what the old time preacher used to call a covenant between the Father and the Son, and according to whose terms the Son agreed to die for sinners. The Father agrees to give Him the elect and make sure of their salvation. Men are not saved by accident. They are not saved by some subsequent thought of God, but they are saved according to His eternal purpose and there is a plan by which that salvation is to be brought about.

“It utterly excludes boasting and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God, etc.” Now if I have nothing that I did not receive, if my salvation is of grace, if I never took a step until I was prompted by the Spirit of God, who am I that I should boast? What have I that I did not receive? I am a sinner saved by grace, unmerited favor. We see how that promotes humility and love. It encourages the use of the means in the highest degree.

Now, I give some passages of Scripture bearing upon this. In 2 Tim- othy 2:10 Paul says, “Therefore I endured all things for the elect’s sake, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.” “I endure all things for the elect’s sake that they may obtain that whereunto they were ordained.” Now that endurance of Paul was one of the means used. Then he says, “I am become all things to all men, if by any means I may save some” (1 Cor 9:22). Then the election comes through the Word. The Word has to be preached. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom 10:17). It not only comprehends all the means but it encourages to a high degree the use of the means.

Paul was in the city of Corinth and got whipped in his own mind, whipped inside. It was not often that he was whipped but when he was he did not stay whipped long. However, he did get whipped here and was about to quit; the opposition was so bitter. In the night Jesus stood by him and said, “Paul, fear not. Speak out for I have much people in this city” (Acts 18:9–10). Therefore, use the means. One’s election may be ascertained by its effects. I can not go up to heaven and look in the Book of Life to see if my name is written there now. I will know that at the judgment. But there is a way by which I may know that God chose me unto eternal life, and that is by the fruits manifested in me. For instance Paul says to the Thessalonians, “Now brethren, beloved, we know your election of God” (1 Thess 1:4). How do you know that, Paul? “For our gospel came unto you, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance” (1 Thess 1:5). It is ascertainable. It is the foundation of Christian assurance. When we get down to bed rock, a perfectly safe foundation, we can find it in such Scriptures as Paul gives us in the eighth chapter of Romans. He reaches assurance in the end of the argument based upon the prevenient grace of God, in foreknowledge, election, and calling. He then adds: “Who can lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? I am persuaded that neither life nor death, height nor depth, things present nor things to come, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-29). That is the foundation of our assurance.

Now the last point in the article is that to ascertain it with regard to ourselves, demands and deserves utmost diligence. A man ought not to spend his whole life asking, “Am I His, or am I not?” He ought not to go all through life saying, “’Tis a point I long to know.” He cannot do good service with that matter in grave doubt. One who can do the best service is one who can read his title clear to mansions in the skies. “Wherefore, the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet 1:10). Sure to whom? Not to God, but to you. And then he goes on to say that if you do certain things you will never fall. If you do not do those things you are dim eyed and cannot see things afar off, and hence cannot be assured of your election.

Article X—Sanctification

This article on sanctification reads as follows:

We believe that sanctification is the process by which, according to the will of God, we are made partakers of His holiness; that it is a progressive work; that it is begun in regeneration; and that it is carried on in the hearts of believers by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer and Comforter, in the continual use of the appointed means—especially, the Word of God, self-examination, self-denial, watchfulness, and prayer. 

It is not necessary for me to state to Christian students that this subject is one of importance, because that to which it refers is the crown of all Christian attainment and is the very highest fruitage of every Christian life.

The first thing that we need to do in this, as in everything else that we study, is to know as far as we may, just exactly the meaning of our subject. First, just what is meant by sanctification in itself? In itself it does not mean to set apart. That is not what it is in itself. Nor does it mean making progress. We can make progress in sin. Neither is it consecration. A man may consecrate himself to a bad life. That is only what is effected by it. Sanctification is what one might call moral purity. It is to have the soul white instead of spotted. That does not help us so very much, but we understand what is meant by it. It is the antipathy of sin.Take 1 Thessalonians 4:7 where it is said that we are not called to uncleanness but to sanctification. There, sanctification is given as the opposite of uncleanness, of course, meaning moral uncleanness. After a while we will try to get a conception of what moral purity is. We need an object lesson in order for us to know it. We can know it as far as we have experienced it. We may know it so far as we can observe it in others, but what is the perfect standard of sanctification, or moral purity, or holiness? This is found in God: “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” or “as I am holy” (Lev 11:44). The manifestation of this holiness—its object lesson through which we get the most perfect knowledge of it—is found in the life of Him who was God made manifest in the flesh.

Another question that we need to consider is the usage of this word “sanctification” in the Bible. In the Old Testament a thing was said to be sanctified, or to be holy, when it was set apart to the service or use of God. But if a free moral being is to be set apart to the service of God, there must be something within him that will lead him to devote himself to God freely and of his own motion. Therefore comes this deepest idea of sanctification which we have spoken of, which leads a man to set himself apart for divine use. Any being that governs his own action must have something in his nature which is like the use for which he is set apart or sets himself apart, and if it is a holy use, devotion to a holy God, there must be this moral purity or sanctification within. 

When we come to the New Testament, we find perhaps three uses of this word sanctification. First, the active use of it, which means sanctifying or the process by which we are sanctified. We have instances of this use in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and 7: “This is the will of God—your sanctification, your being made holy”—a process. Then, there is the use of this word which means the state which is accomplished by this process or the condition of being sanctified, the passive use of the word. You will find an instance of that in Romans 6:22: “Ye have your fruit unto sanctification”. Finally, we have a third use of this term sanctification, where it has, I think, reference to what we might call our standing before God rather than our state in ourselves. An instance is found in 1 Corinthians 1:30 where it says: “Christ is made unto us of God wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” That is, this sanctification that we have in this sense comes to us altogether by our acceptance of the work of Christ by which we have his holy standing as our substitute. Of course, it is the first and second of these senses that we are chiefly concerned with in this study.

First of all, what is the starting point of sanctification? There are some who believe that sanctification starts from something that is innate in the nature which only requires cultivation and growth to result in sanctification. The tendency today, the swing of the new theological thought, as it is called, is all in this direction. There is good in every man and if we only appeal to that good and cultivate that good, he will rise to what is highest and noblest. The Scripture representation is just the opposite. There is an inclination in every man to evil; instead of his being on the upgrade toward that which is highest, he is on the downgrade toward that which is lowest. There is something down in the nature of a man which gives him an inclination and a taste for evil, rather than an inclination and a taste for moral purity, and this being in the nature and constitution and dominant, it can only be overcome by someone who has power over the nature to put into it something new and to make therein a new creation which will give this nature an inclination to what is holy.

The starting point in sanctification is regeneration—the putting into a man a new, holy life which changes the disposition or inclination towards what is sinful, towards what is holy, from what is bad to what is good. This, when it dominates a man, gives a new direction to the will and changes the activity of a man from what is downward to what is upward. Once we had a lady stopping at our house and she was taken sick. Just as I was going out to a Sunday evening service, Mrs. Goodspeed called me and told me she had seen a change in her for the worse. I went for a skillful doctor and brought him back with me. He took his syringe and injected into her arm what I supposed was a most powerful stimulant, and waited for a moment with his finger on her pulse, and then he shook his head, and said to us, “If you have anything to say to her say it quick.” That meant that she was on the downgrade to death and there was nothing which he could do that would rouse her physical nature to throw off that deathly disease that had come upon her. She died in twenty minutes.

Now mankind is in that state. There is no electrifying of an unregen- erate nature so as to put a man on the upgrade to spiritual health, what holiness means. The starting point of sanctification must be the incoming of the new life which God alone can give. We do not need to dwell upon this further, but we need, however, to fortify ourselves against the new theological thought, which is drifting this way from other directions. If we hold to the Word of God, this new thought will not affect us much, because I think it has its source outside of the Bible and not in it.

The next thing that we need to consider is how fully to attain sancti- fication, how to advance this new life within us until this holy inclination shall overcome all other tendencies and the whole nature attain purity in its fullness and in its strength. There are some who say that this is done instantaneously just as regeneration takes place, that it happens through the work of the Spirit that lifts a man up from the lowest condition as a regenerate man into the heights of the sanctified life and the sanctified state. Those are called the instantaneous and entire sanctificationists.

There is another view which is in some respects the antithesis of this. It is what is called the antinomian theory, which holds that a converted man is no longer under the law in the sense of being under obligation to obey it. They take a passage like 1 Corinthians 1:30, where it says, “Christ is made unto us of God sanctification as well as wisdom, righteousness, and redemption,” and they say that Christ having been made to us sanctification through His being our substitute and we having a standing in His holiness, there is no need of becoming sanctified in the sense of becoming morally pure. There is another view which is somewhat allied to this but not very much, that man is sanctified altogether by faith. At regeneration he has appropriated by faith something of the life of God. As he goes on in life and his faith strengthens he appropriates more and more of the life of God and when his faith becomes strong enough he appropriates all his nature can contain, then he is sanctified. That makes sanctification altogether by faith, and not dependent at all upon other human activity.

In opposition to the instantaneous and entire sanctification teaching, most of our people and most of the Christian world hold that it is a progressive work, not realized instantaneously. In opposition to the last view referred to—that sanctification is by faith alone—it is held that it is realized likewise partly by struggle and effort and the holding of all spiritual forces to their work. We cannot determine whether sanctification is a progressive or instantaneous work by experience. If we say that in our experience it has been progressive, others may reply, “But by ours we know it has been instantaneous.” We have to go to the Word of God for sure and safe conclusions.

Now I find in the Word of God two forms of teaching as to believers. I find that in every case where people in a church are referred to as sancti- fied, it is the entire church. The reference is never to a class. Therefore we have to conclude that if any of the members were completely sanctified, all of them were. Take the case of the Corinthian church. They are said to be sanctified, but sanctified in Christ Jesus. Paul paints a picture of their character and we would not like to claim entire sanctification if it were to be as he said they were. Some of them claimed to be of Paul, some of them of Apollos, some of Cephas, and some of Christ. They were all torn to pieces with internal dissensions. They were carnal. They were in need of milk because they were not able to partake of strong meat. On the other hand, Paul refers to all the members of churches, whom he elsewhere declared sanctified, as still sinners. This shows that there is a use of the terms “sanctified” and “sanctification” which does not mean possessed in perfect inner purity. Believers are sanctified in the sense of having a holy standing in Christ although sin still exists within them. The Scriptures assert that all believers are sanctified in the same sense in which any are sanctified, and that all are sinners in the same sense in which any are sinners. It follows from this that there is no class that can claim to be a sanctified aristocracy. It follows, also, that none are completely sanctified in this life, and that sanctification must be a progressive work. The direct teaching of Scripture in support of this last position is found in passages like Ephesians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 2 Peter 3:18; Phillipians 1:6; Acts 2:47; 1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Corinthians 2:15.

The next question is, “What are the means by which sanctification is attained?” Now this is a very familiar ground and perhaps we might be helped the most by getting down to some principles which underlie and give power to the means for sanctification. Here is one great principle. We tend always to grow like that which is kept perpetually before the mind or in the attention. I repeat, we tend to grow like that which is perpetually before the mind or upon which the attention is fixed. It is said that if in a family there is a beautiful work of art and the children have their attention fixed upon it, as they grow up, the artistic faculty within them will grow. In the family where there is always fine music, the children will grow up with an ear for harmony. It is said even that if there is a beautiful painting, say of a young lady, the girl who grows up with it before her will come to resemble it in expression. The confining of the attention on any one thing, tends to conform our nature to its likeness. Whatever the object upon which we fix our attention, there must be something like it in the nature that responds to it. In proportion as this responds to the object, it develops and grows. And so it is that, like the object which holds our attention, it gradually develops until it becomes the chief characteristic of nature and life. The greatest of all methods to obtain sanctification is to keep a holy ideal or a holy model before our attention. Think about God. Think about Christ. Next to that think about truth, think about holy things. Associate with those who are good. In all these ways, according to this law, the incli- nation, which was implanted in us by regeneration, will be helped to grow strong until it gains complete control of heart and life.

Even if this holy disposition is in us and we do not fix our attention upon that which is holy there being nothing to make its appeal to this holy principle within us, there is nothing to lure it forth and we shall be in danger of coming to a standstill in the advance toward sanctification, if we do not go backwards and become less pure in heart and life. That is one of the principles and we see how it covers one great portion of what are called the means of grace.

The other is a very familiar one which we refer to very often, that exercise develops. If we want this purity within the nature, this principle of holiness within to grow and become strong, we must exercise it. We will not only have to hold something out before this disposition to allure it forward, but we will have to do something that exercises it. This brings in all forms of what we might call holy activity, all forms of service to a holy God, all kinds of holy motives in whatever we do. In all of these ways we will be exercising holy principles within and they will therefore grow finally into fullness of strength.

Then of course the last principle is that God has this for us, and we, by going to Him Who implants His Holy Spirit within us and by praying to Him, can get His help in the advancement of the process of sanctification within us.

Now I want, in closing, to refer to some things which sanctification conditions. It is necessary for the closest fellowship with God. “How do we have fellowship with one another? How do we have communion with one another?” There must be something common between those who have fellowship and communion with each other. If there is nothing common between them, there can be no fellowship. Two strangers meet. If they enter into conversation, there must be something common between them, common knowledge, or common friends, before they can enjoy it. And so it is with reference to God and so it is in reference to God’s work. We want to know how it is we can have fellowship with God in His purpose, in His work, in other words, how we can go into the work of God and help to accomplish His purpose with joyous devotion. It is only as this work of sanctification goes on, and we are thus brought into harmony and likeness with God and just as far as we are brought into likeness with God, that we will love God’s work and take interest in it. If we like Him we shall like what He likes. This is the only way in which we can have joy in God Himself. A bad man cannot have joy in a good man, and a good man cannot have joy in a bad man. Only a holy being can have the highest joy in a holy God. Only a holy man can have joy in a holy heaven.

I would like to say just one word more and it is this: It seems to me if there is anything in the world or in the universe or in heaven that ought to call forth within a man an ambition which would arouse every faculty and every power into intensest exercise, it is the great thought that we can become more and more like God Himself. May we all make as rapid progress as possible in this sanctified life, the highest fruitage of the Christian life on earth, and its crown and glory even in heaven.

Article XI—The Perseverance of the Saints

We continue the discussions on Pendleton’s Manual⁵ and have for this discussion the article on the perseverance of the saints, which reads as follows:

We believe that such only are real believers as endure to the end; that their persevering attainment to Christ is the grand mark which distinguishes them from superficial professors; that a special providence watches over their welfare; and, they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. 

I shall, however, deal with this question somewhat in my own way and shall not follow the outline that is given in this article. I suppose that if we should enquire as to what is meant by the perseverance of the saints in a general way we would say that it means the persistence of the new life received at regeneration until it is completed and perfected in sanctification. We shall not be helped very much by personal experience in this matter. If we are unfortunate enough to be in a condition that makes us feel that now at least we have not the throbbing of this new life within, we can never be sure that we ever had it because we might have been deceived in what we thought was this life, when we hoped we first received it.

So the only source of absolute proof of this proposition, if it can be proven, is to be found in the Word of God. I wish first of all today to refer to what might be called the divine side of perseverance and then in the next place refer to what might be called its human side. Now when we come to the divine side of perseverance we believe that the Scriptures justify us in saying that this perseverance in the case of all who are really regenerated, is assured to us by the promise and by the purpose of God. Now we want a Scripture or two to back up that statement. Let us take John 10:27–29: “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.” Notice first of all from that statement that “eternal life” there is the same as “they shall never perish,” or in other words, that the first, because of its nature, assures the last. There are those who claim that this expression, “eternal life,” refers only to the quality and not to the duration of the life. This passage of Scripture evidently makes it refer to duration of life as well as quality of life. “They shall never perish,” because this eternal life is a life which shall never end. Then you take a passage like John 5:24: “He that heareth My Word and believeth on Him that sent Me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed [has passed] out of death into life.”That “has passed” there has emphasis and it virtually means has passed once and for all out of death into life. Take also John 6:39–40: “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent Me that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” “And this is the will of Him that sent Me that everyone that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” These passages give us the assurance of God’s promise and purpose. 

Then take the descriptions of the relationship believers have to God and to Christ. There is blessed assurance in this relationship of its abiding character and of the security of this new life. Take John 17:23: “I in them and Thou in Me.” Notice the wonderfulness of that expression. Christ is in the believer, God is in Christ, so that the representation is that God the Father and God the Son both are in the believer. Such a relationship as that means something as to the permanency of this life. Then take Galatians 3:3: “For ye are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God.” That is the other side of the relationship. One representation is that God and Christ dwell in us and the other side of the representation is that our life is in Christ as He is in God. Think of that. Is it any wonder that our Lord says, “They shall never perish!” “None shall pluck them out of my hand. The Father that gave them Me is greater than all and no man shall pluck them out of my Father’s hand” ( John 10:28). They are in the hand of God’s power, they are in the hand of Christ’s power. This means that all the power of God is pledged to the safety of the believer.

Then take another representation, that of the permanence of the love which gives the life and assures the life. We need only refer to that one grand passage in Romans 8:29-30: “Who shall separate us from the love of God, etc? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels, nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth,” and then sweeping everything that may be outside of all these, “or any other creature shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That seems to put the security of the believer, as far as it is dependent upon the permanence of the divine love, beyond doubt, making it absolute.

Then you have likewise the same assurance in the immutability of God. Take a passage like Romans 11:29: “The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.” This passage is very much misunderstood by a great many. Take the antinomian and he makes it mean that it signifies that God will never repent his doing and take his gifts back. If He gives us salvation He gives it to stay and not to take it back again. If He gives us new life He gives it to stay. If He calls us, He does not repent of it; it is a calling for all time and all eternity. In harmony with this is that passage in Philippians 1:6: “Being confident of this very thing, that He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Some have a little difficulty in understanding what is meant by the beginning of this good work. They say, “Does not the Spirit strive with unregenerate people, with some who are never saved, and is not that a good work that is not continued until the day of Jesus Christ?” All that I need to say is, if there is a work of the Spirit which is not continued until the day of Jesus Christ, it cannot be the work referred to here. The good work referred to here, I believe, is begun in the regeneration of the soul and He will continue that work until the day of Jesus Christ, when body as well as soul shall be made complete at the resurrection. 

Think of God beginning something and not carrying it through to completion! We can scarcely bear that conception. When we see where a man has broken up a little farm and began a house and after starting the foundation he has given it all up, we can scarcely help despising him for not planning things better. To think of a great God beginning something and then leaving it half complete to go to destruction! We cannot bear that thought. These and other forms of statements made by our Lord, by Paul, by Peter, by John, and by Luke, give the strongest assurance of the abiding character of the new life, and the blessed assurance of its security.

Now let us look at what might be called the human side of perseverance. Perhaps, in the strictest sense, this word refers rather to it than to the divine side. Here we have a number of statements which some have supposed are inconsistent and with this idea of the perseverance of this life, assured by divine power. Take Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 9:26–27, where he says that he buffets or bruises his body and keeps it under control, lest after he has preached or become a heralder of the gospel to others, he himself should be rejected. Well now, allowing that this means that he should be rejected in the sense of not reaching the goal and the prize at the end of the Christian life and not merely that he would be rejected from his office of a herald of the gospel, it seems to imply that there was a possibility of his losing his salvation. Take John 6:66. That was just at the turning point, as we might say, in our Lord’s life. The people had been flocking to Him hitherto and He was popular everywhere He went, and He had plenty of followers. But now while the Pharisees were striving to entrap Him and prudence might have counseled to speak smooth things, He threw teachings fitted to stir up prejudice in the face of the multitude, and the people forsook Him as readily as they had sought Him. Then He turned to his disciples and said, “Will ye also go away?” seeming to imply that they might also forsake Him. Then take John 15:6, the parable of the vine and the brancehs in which He says, “If a man abide not in Me” that is, as a branch abides in the vine, “he is cast forth as a branch.” There will something take place like what a vine dresser does with the fruitless branches: They are cut off. There seems to be an implication here of the possibility of losing this life, does there not? Take Matthew 10:22, referring to the tribulation that is to come upon the disciples. There He says, “He that endureth to the end shall be saved,” implying that he that does not endure unto the end will not be saved. First Corinthians 10:12, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” We see there that it seems to imply the possibility and the danger of falling, unless they take heed. 

But the passages that perhaps are the strongest in the way of warning are those two passages in Hebrews, one in 6:4–6 and the other in 10:26–29. Let us take the 6th chapter. “For as touching those that were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.” That passage seems to favor the idea that there might be actual cases, if there had not been actual cases, of falling away from salvation. Now take Hebrews 10:26–29, “For if ye sin willfully after that ye have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fierceness of fire which shall destroy the adversaries.” That is a very solemn warning.

Now what shall we do? Shall we say that we must reject the one class of statements as implying what the other class of statements deny? It is very hard for a great many to see how there can be any assurance or security while the uncertain human element is present as well as the divine. This is illustrated in regard to inspiration. Some people say there is a human element in the Bible and therefore there must be error. Others say there is no error and therefore there cannot be any human element, but the Bible must have been dictated by God to men and men were only pen- men. There could not have been any cooperation between the two. In other words God cannot make a thing sure when there is a human element with its uncertainty involved.

Now I believe that the reconciliation of two classes of passages referred to is in recognizing in this matter of perseverance not only a divine but a human element. All these representations are to the possibility under certain circumstances of a saved man finally falling, although it may be morally impossible because of the relationship in which it stands to the divine.

We have a passage where the human and the divine elements are united together, 1 Peter 1:5, and other passages of similar nature. Peter says that believers, those to whom he is writing, “are guarded by the power of God through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Through faith: That is a human act. There is a human element with the divine element involved, and we know that by the progress of the new life within until it ends in perfection, there is human activity all the time and human struggle. The truth is that God intends to realize His purposes by making the most of human activity, because human activity is what develops. If we were to be carried to the skies “on flowery beds of ease,” as the old hymn has it, we would be a weak lot of folks spiritually, as people who are taken about that way commonly are physically.

God assures our final salvation as assuring the activity in us upon which He has seen fit to make it depend. In the passage before us salvation is assured, but it is through faith. God deals with men as free moral agents, and not as though they were stocks and stones. He secures our action by implanting a new nature and then offering inducements or motives to all action which is needful for its preservation and progress. Warnings and exhortations appeal to the renewed man, and are means by which he is kept from falling. Warnings against possible loss are consistent with security. Let a man who has $10,000.00 in a bank be told that he will lose it unless he calls at the office and if he calls for the money it is morally certain that he will not lose it, it is morally certain that he will make the call. So it is in the case of these warnings and exhortations as to the loss of salvation. They do not necessarily imply that we shall fail to give heed to them and meet with this terrible loss.

Indeed, in connection with the sternest of the warnings—that of Hebrews 6: 4–8—the writer proceeds to say, “But we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation, though we thus speak,” implying that all who had salvation would heed the warnings against falling. Our heavenly Father is wise enough and great enough to assure our safety by the use of motives, even though something is left to our action. It is along this line that the two classes of passages we have been considering are to be reconciled. We cannot take time to examine them individually.

I believe that this statement in the New Hampshire Confession is one of the most judicious statements of the way to preach this doctrine that can be put into language. We are to tell people that unless they persevere, they will not be saved, but that does not imply that if they are once saved they will not be saved finally, because all those that really receive this life do persevere. The doctrine of perseverance, as of a life guarded by the power of God but still guarded in the face of human activity and through operation of human motives, is higher than any other conception. The health and strength which sinks down into illness and weakness every other day is not of much worth, and that which would correspond to this in the realm of the spiritual is too weak a thing to be thought the gift of God.

It is objected that assurance of the perseverance of the new life tends to induce carelessness. Does it? Two considerations meet that objection. First, that from our viewpoint, if the time ever comes when we feel that we do not have spiritual life, it means that we never had it and therefore we must seek something that we never had before, and those who believe they may lose this life and get it, when they are convinced that they do not now have this life, will seek only to renew the old experience. In the one case, if we are deceived as to our first experience, we shall seek something better; in the other, a man is apt merely to deceive himself again and again until probation ends. The second consideration is that we believe from Hebrews 6:4–6 that if an experience of salvation is lost, it can never be restored. This should lead to a greater care than the belief that it may be lost and renewed indefinitely.

In conversation with an American friend I asked him what it was that leads to the loss of the regenerate life according to his view. He said, “Sin.” “But how much sin?” I asked. “If it be sin, must it not be the very smallest sin, and how can we ever have any sense of safety?” He acknowledged that there was a difficulty, and there is that difficulty. If I did not believe that this life was imperishable, that great longings of the soul to have our feet placed on something that will not be taken from under us, something that is stable, something that is sure, I could never be satisfied. There would be no ground for the assurance of a Paul or a John or any of the saints of God, all of whom have humbly acknowledged sin.

The ground of the objection that this doctrine leads to presumption and carelessness is due to not seeing clearly enough that the new life brings with it a longing after holiness, and that a renewed man will not, therefore, rush into sin as soon as he is sure it will not damn him. Those who are ready to do this prove that the new life is not in them, and proves them to be unsaved sinners before God.

The doctrine of perseverance furnishes the grandest motive power by exalting the free grace of God, and by leaving us to be ruled by love and not by fear. By relieving us from perpetual fear about our own salvation it preserves us from what tends to paralyze our energies and leaves us free to direct all our concern and our energies to the service of God and the salvation of men. May we all get into the full liberty of the gospel and be ruled by love and not by dread.

Article XII—The Harmony of the Law and the Gospel

The article for this discussion reads as follows:

We believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of His moral government; that it is holy, just, and good; and that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe to fallen men to fulfill its precepts, arises entirely from their love of sin: to deliver them from which, and to restore them through a Mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy law, is one great end of the gospel and of the means of grace connected with the establishment of the visible church.

I do not intend to follow the explanation here given, or treat it altogether according to its outline.

The first question, perhaps, for us is, “What is meant by the law?” Meaning “by the law” here, of course, the law as contained in the Old Testament. The Pentateuch is referred to as the law sometimes. The Pentateuch and the preceptive portions of the Old Testament are also sometimes regarded as the law. The Apostle Paul, however, in one passage at least, if not in others, uses the word “law” to cover the whole Old Testament system. If you read Romans 3:10-19 inclusive you will find that in the quotation which he there makes from the Old Testament he takes portions of five Psalms and likewise a portion of Isaiah, and he terms these all as what the law “saith,” showing that in this usage of this term here he refers to the whole Old Testament system.

We need likewise to have an understanding of what is meant by the gospel. We sometimes limit the gospel to what is called the truths that are necessary to the salvation of man, meaning by “necessary to salvation,” necessary to his becoming a saved man in the sense that if he died he would not go to perdition. The gospel, however, in its truer meaning has a broader sense than this, just as salvation in its widest meaning has a broader sense than that to which I have referred. Salvation from the penalty of sin is one thing. That is assured by our first experience of what is called salvation. But deliverance from the power of sin is another thing. This is what is included in salvation in the New Testament when it is said men “were being saved.” That means that they were in the process by which they were finally to become altogether sanctified or free from sin. Therefore the gospel in this wide sense includes all of the New Testament teachings, its whole system, because this is all necessary to the salvation of the soul, first from the penalty of sin and then its power. So if we took these two words, law and gospel, in their broadest sense, we would have to compare the whole Old Testament and the whole New Testament systems and show from this comparison that they were not only not in conflict, but were in the closest and most blessed harmony.

The article, however, does not take, at least, law in this broadest sense. It evidently confines itself to what we call the moral law. Taking these two words in their broadest sense, if we show that the law in this broad sense and the gospel in this broad sense are both from God, they must be in harmony. That necessarily follows. It does not follow, however, that they must necessarily be very much alike. Because, things that differ very greatly are nevertheless in harmony. You take water and the stone. They are not very much alike. They are in harmony, however, in the great system of the world. You take things that are in apparent conflict even, and they are nevertheless in harmony in their relation to some great system. The poles of the earth are supposed to be as wide apart as possible, nevertheless they are harmonized in the system of the world. And you take the remotest star and the earth, and they are in harmony because of the great system of the universe.

Coming now to the narrower meaning of the word “law” and speaking only of moral law, we know that all moral law must be changeless; it must be abiding, it must be eternal. Because moral law is but the transcript and expression of the moral perfection of God Himself, it must remain unchanged. It must abide as long as God’s nature abides the same, continues to exist, and this is eternal and unchangeable. When we come to the ceremonial law, its rules and regulations are but adaptations to chang- ing phases of human nature in its progress. There are, in connection with what is called the ceremonial law of the Old Testament, underlying moral principles which are changeless and abiding. But the mere adaptation and application of these principles to the Jews may have been and were very largely but adaptations to that which was changing, and therefore these adaptations were capable of being done away with when something better came in. Now we know there must be harmony, I say, between the law and the gospel, because, if the Word of God is true, and we believe it is blessedly and altogether true, they both have their source from God. At the same time it might be well at first to notice some of the differences and contrasts between the two.

Now the first contrast, if you may so say, between the two, is to be seen in the relation of each to salvation. The law could not be a means of salvation according to the teaching of the New Testament. The gospel came in to be the way of salvation. Paul argues that the law was not a way of salvation, first of all historically. As a matter of fact the law had not saved anybody. The Mosaic law had not saved the Jews. The law of conscience, under which the Gentiles are, had not saved the Gentiles. They are all sinners. We find this argument of his along the historical lines in the first three chapters of Romans. He comes to his conclusion at the 20th verse of the third chapter: “By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” This same declaration is made in Galatians 2:16. The Apostle Paul argues to this same conclusion in Galatians 2:21, from the fact that Christ should need to die. He says that if salvation were of the law, then Christ has died in vain, in the sense of dying without any need of His dying. The very fact that there is a gospel, in other words, proves that the law could not save, because the gospel had to be provided in order that there might be salvation. Then there are direct statements of this truth all through the writings of Paul, especially, and of the letter to the Hebrews, whether written by Paul or somebody else.

Not only do they differ in this respect, but the law and the gospel are really mutually exclusive according to the teaching of the New Testament. You take Galatians 5:4, where Paul says, “Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law, ye are fallen away from grace.” Paul also says in Romans 11:6 about the election of grace, “If it were of works, it would be no longer of grace.” It might be well to dwell just a moment on that: “Ye who would be justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace” (Gal 5:4). Now the use that is made of that passage of Scripture in support of the idea that a man who is once saved may be lost is altogether wrong. That passage has no reference at all to that question. It merely means that the sphere of grace is outside of the sphere of law, and if a man comes to depend upon the law for salvation, he has fallen out of the sphere of grace, so grace cannot help him at all. That is all. It has no reference to a man, who is once saved, losing the grace he once had.

The next point of difference between the law and the gospel is the law can only lead to outward obedience or to the obedience of the letter, as Paul says, and not to the obedience of the Spirit. The gospel, on the other hand, leads to heart-scriptural-obedience. That statement is justified, I believe, by 2 Corinthians 3:6 and Hebrews 9:9, 14. This is due largely to another difference between the law and the gospel as to motives. The motive of the law is fear. Do this or suffer penalty. The motive of grace is love. We are delivered from fear, because we love God and trust Him. So far as one is morally under domination of the fear-motive, it will only lead him to give a formal outward obedience, and that mere outward formal obedience does not meet the demands of God’s law, and therefore cannot fulfill its claims. The gospel coming with the highest motive of love is able, so far as motive is concerned, to provide for an obedience which will meet the claims of the law.

Then what is the real function of the law? According to the teaching, especially of the Apostle Paul, I believe one function of it is to stir up sin and to make it more active. I base that belief on Romans 5:20 and Romans 7:8. Here, let us read Romans 5:20: “Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” “That the offence might abound.” What does that mean? The law entered that there might be more violations of law. That is it, is it not? Romans 7:8: “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead.” It is not active. Law stirs up sin into life. Now we might ask, “Is not that ac- cording to experience? Does not a command to keep from any sin stir in a bad man the desire to indulge in it, however much fear of a penalty may restrain him from outwardly committing it?” Where we find the plainest preaching of the Word of God as to the law, if it does not lead men to the Lord Jesus Christ to get cleared from the condemnation of the law, it will harden them in sin. 

Finally, through the law we are made conscious of sin and guilt and given a sense of condemnation. Let us read in connection with this, Romans 3:20: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be jus- tified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Through the law comes the knowledge of sin. If there were no law recognized, either of conscience or of the Word of God, we would have no knowledge of sin. Sin is transgression of some recognized law. The consciousness of sin therefore is the consciousness of transgression of a law, and we must recognize a law to be transgressed before we can have this consciousness. To the same effect are Romans 7:7 and 4:15. The law thus brings sin to our consciousness, sin is made a guilty thing and condemnable, because we feel thus made responsible for it. Romans 5:13 justifies this statement: “For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law.” Where there is no law there is no transgression. Also Romans 7:9 and 2 Corinthians 3:6–7 bear upon this thought. It was for this reason that the Jews were under a greater condemnation than the Gentiles. The Gentiles only have the vaguer law of their own natures as manifested in their consciences, whereas the Jews had the revelation from God as His will in what we call an objective form. And so Paul recognizes the fact that the Jews were more guilty and under a greater condemnation than the Gentiles, because of their having this fuller and clearer law, which roused in them the sense of guilt and made them more consciously guilty and responsible for their transgressions.

So we see that the law and the gospel differ. They are almost dia- metrically opposite in a great many respects. One was not able to give salvation, the other was able to lead to salvation. They were so different that we must give up salvation by the law altogether before we could get salva- tion by the gospel. One can only lead to outward conformity, while the other one, in leading to outward conformity, leads to inward conformity as well. One goes no further than the motive of fear; the other goes down into the deeper motives of love. The one stirs up the power of sin within us; the other is the medium of power that subdues sin. One leads to a consciousness of condemnation; the other leads to a consciousness of justification.

Here the questions arise: “If they are so opposite, how can they be reconciled?” We have one expression, which implies at least that they are reconcilable where Paul says that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. Christ perfectly reconciled the aim of the law in the giving of it. That is a wonderful statement. The end of the law then is perfectly realized in every believer through Christ. That is the meaning, is it not? “What does that mean?” It means as I have said, that the two are reconciled, in the sense of one realizing the aim of the other. That which realizes the aim of something else is in harmony with it, in very close harmony with it.

“But how? Are we to believe that the claims of the law, which, be- cause it is moral law and the transcript of God’s nature and unchangeable and eternal, are met in the believer through Christ? Are we to conclude that we have a wrong conception of this law in making that statement, and that really this law, this moral law, is not changeless in its demands upon men, but that it may waive its demand upon men because they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?” Now there are some who try to get over any sup- posed difficulty there may be here by reducing the gospel to ethics, and saying that the only way in which the gospel and the law are to be reconciled is by the gospel enabling us in our own lives to meet all the demands of the law. “Would the gospel, even if it were able to do this, meet all the demands of the law?” The law makes demands not only for obedience, but it makes demands for the penalty of disobedience. Its mere obedience to the law, even though the gospel enables us to obey the law, would not meet the demands for penalty; that end would have to be given up and so the law would be changeable law. “What is the explanation?” So far as penalty is concerned, we believe that Christ, as the end of the law, realized the full aim of the law, because He endured the penalty that was due to us and in our stead which is the simple doctrine of substitution. 

But we are imperfect. During our life here on earth we are sinning all the time. We are not meeting the demand of the law for obedience. “How can we be free from its curse, when we are still disobeying? Can we be in any other way except that which Paul refers to in Romans 3:24-26, for instance, and in 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘He became sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him’?” I cannot dwell upon the gospel leading finally to complete conformity to the law in sanctification. The law serves another purpose, and that purpose is to shut us in to Christ as the only Savior. Paul makes a statement of this in Galatians 3:22–24: “But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was the school- master to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For we are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” In other words, the law shuts us in on every side so that the only avenue to safety is through our Lord Jesus Christ. It shuts us up unto our sin, convicts us of our sinfulness, of our helplessness, our inability to save ourselves, and leads us to look away to the only way of salvation, to Him who has borne our sins in His own body on the tree.

The representation of the condition of man is such that he is helpless before the law until the gospel comes. I am not adding very much to what I have said. I have just gone a little off my line, but it is like this: It is said that the law was weak through the flesh, i.e. through the sinful nature. In other words, the law could not get such a grip on us because of the sin within us as to lead us to obedience. It is like a man who is sick and has become very, very weak. He has become so weak that his system will not respond to medicine, and unless there is a stimulant or something given to rally the powers of the nature, the medicine will have no effect. So some times the very first thing the physician will do is to give a stimulant in order that the system may be rallied to take hold of the medicine that it may have its effect upon the patient. The trouble with human nature is that it has gone down below that; it has gone where no stimulant will do any good. “The mind of the flesh is enmity against God, is not subject to His law, neither indeed can be” (Rom 8:7). So the law cannot avail as a means of health, and we are shut in to our Lord Jesus Christ and His great salvation. The law, then, in all its functions, is bringing us to despair of all other ways of salvation, and through the sense of need it brings us to seek Him.

I wish to say a word or two as to the relation of the law now to the believer. Paul says in the 8th of Romans, 14th verse, “Ye are not under the law, but under grace.” In other words, you are not under the law but you are under the gospel. What does that mean? Does it mean that we are free now from the law as a rule of life? No, it means that we are free from the law as a condemning power. It means that we are not under the law as in bondage to its legal spirit. It does not mean that we are not under the law as a rule of life, as some of the Plymouth brethren are disposed to believe. May I say that this doctrine of the harmony of the law and the gospel along this line which I have sketched is what fires my soul with adoring wonder and gratitude? To think that we can get salvation that we could never have worked out for ourselves. We can be made secure by that salvation, so that every motive of fear is removed from us and we, in the power of this new life which desires to please God, can go forward in the fullest confidence of salvation, thus to do our best for God just merely because we love Him and we please Him. I do not think any of us will get into the full liberty of which the relation of the law and the gospel teaches us is ours, until we get hold of that truth.

In conclusion, does not the true relation of the law to the gospel condemn the idea that we are to preach only the love of God as revealed in the gospel? The preaching of the righteousness of God as revealed in His law is needful in order to bring men to feel their need of the salvation the gospel makes known. How can there be deep conviction of sin without this kind of preaching? If we are deeply convinced of the function of the law in reference to the gospel, we shall never be satisfied unless our preaching has in it the tough fire of righteousness as well as the tenderness of love.

Article XIII—The Church

The next article of our faith is:

We believe that a visible church of Christ is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the ordinances of Christ; governed by His laws; and exercising the gifts, rights, and priveleges invested in them by His Word; that its only scriptural officers are bishops or pastors and deacons, whose qualifications, claims, and duties are defined in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus.

(Editor’s Note: Carroll lectured extensively upon the doctrine of the church in his biblical presentations, in polemical contexts, and in the required course in ecclesiology. Crowder chose not to transcribe this lecture as Carroll had already published widely on the doctrine. We have, for sake of space, chosen to follow Crowder’s lead. Carroll’s class lectures on ecclesiology are found at the beginning of Crowder’s manuscript and it is hoped they will be republished in the future. Also, the longer and shorter versions of Carroll’s exposition of Matthew 16:18–19 may be found in various places, including in the “Baptist Resources” section of www.BaptistTheology.org.⁶ In lieu of the lecture notes on article 13, Carroll’s revision of the church covenant of the First Baptist Church of Waco is herein printed). 

Church Covenant

Having been brought, as we trust by divine grace, to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ, and to give up ourselves wholly to Him, we do now solemnly and joyfully covenant with each other to walk together in Him with brotherly love to His glory as our common Lord. We do, therefore, in His strength engage:

That we will exercise a mutual care, as members one of another, to promote the growth of the whole body in Christian knowledge, holiness, and comfort in all the will of God;

That we will cheerfully contribute of our property to the support of the poor of the church, and for the maintenance of faithful ministry of the gospel among us, and for the spread of the gospel throughout the world;

That we will not omit closet and family religion at home, nor allow ourselves to permit the too common neglect of the great duty of religiously training our children and those under our care, with a view to the service of Christ and the enjoyment of heaven;

That we will walk circumspectly in the world, that we may win souls, remembering that God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind;

That we will frequently exhort, and if occasion require, admonish one another (according to Matthew 18) in the spirit of meekness, considering ourselves lest we also be tempted; that we engage to abstain from the use or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage;

That, as we have been buried with Christ in baptism and raised again, there is henceforth on us a special obligation to walk in newness of life.

And the God of Peace, Who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great Shepherd of the flock, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make us perfect in every good work, working in us that which is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Article XIV: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper

The fourteenth article of our faith reads as follows: 

We believe that Christian baptism is the immersion in water of the believer, into the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost; to show forth in a solemn and beautiful emblem, our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, with its effect, in our death to sin and resurrection to a new life; that it is prerequisite to the privileges of a church relation and to the Lord’s Supper, in which the members of the church by the sacred use of bread and wine, are to commemorate together the dying love of Christ, preceded always by solemn self-examination. 

Upon this article of faith we will observe that it makes clear the following points:

1. That the act of baptism is immersion in water. 
2. That the subject of baptism is a believer. 
3. That baptism is a prerequisite to church membership and participation in the Lord’s Supper. 
4. That the design of baptism is to declare generally our faith in the Trinity into Whose name the subject is baptized, and particularly to show forth emblematically our faith in the crucified, buried, and risen Savior, and second, to declare our death to sin, and resurrection to a new life. 
5. That the Lord’s Supper is a church ordinance binding only on church members. In order to its observance the church must come together in one place. 
6. That the material elements in the Lord’s Supper are bread and wine. 
7. That in its observance church members commemorate together, not separately, the dying love of Christ. 
8. That self-examination should precede a church member’s participation in the Lord’s Supper. 

Let us note that this article is silent on the subject of the administrator and by implication only it cites Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for authority.

The following elements constitute the validity of baptism:

1. There must be the proper act, immersion in water. Nothing is baptism in the sense of this article (we are not discussing baptism in the Spirit) except immersion in water. That is the proper act. 
2. The proper subject is a penitent believer. Any immersion in water of one who is not a penitent believer is invalid. It is not baptism because it is administered to an improper subject. 
3. The design of baptism enters into its validity. For example, a Campbellite preacher will baptize a man, immerse him in water, and one professing to be a believer too, but he will immerse him in order to the remission of sins. Such a baptism is invalid and should never be recognized by Baptists. The design of the ordinance is a part of the ordinance and a valid part of it. 
4. Baptism, to be valid, must be administered by the proper authority. I use that term instead of administrator. I do it for this reason, that a baptism may be valid where properly authorized though it has not been performed by an ordained minister. I will cite a case. 

A number of years ago when I was quite a young man, a man came to a Tennessee church showing his ordination papers, and he was invited to hold a meeting at a church that had no pastor. During that meeting quite a number of people were converted and the church by special conference- action authorized this visiting brother to officiate at the baptizing and they were baptized by the special authority of the church. It was afterward found out that this man was an imposter; his credentials were a forgery. Then the question came up, “Are these people baptized by him validly baptized or ought they to be rebaptized?” The question was referred to such old landmarkers as J.R. Graves and J.M. Pendleton. They decided that these candidates were properly baptized because they had been baptized by the special authority and appointment of the church. The church supposed this man to be an ordained preacher. From that verdict rendered by J.R. Graves and J.M. Pendleton so far as I know very few Baptists in the United States have dissented. There may be some that would not accept it but they are too few to take into account.

Then we might conceive of a situation like this: When a number of people are converted and baptized and come together and organize a church scripturally, and not one of their number feels called to preach, but their services are so spiritual that people are converted at the meetings of the church, say the prayer meetings, and these converted ones wish to join the church, the question is proposed, “May that church appoint one of its members, say one of its deacons, to baptize, and would that baptism be valid?” The answer to it so far as I know is that while it would be undesirable and irregular, yet the baptism would be valid because it was performed by the authority of the church. The order under Christ’s gospel supposes that an ordained minister shall do the baptizing, and as a rule all over the world that is observed. So then we say that the following things constitute the validity of baptism: 

1. The proper act, immersion in water. 
2. The proper subject, one repenting toward God and believing in our Lord Jesus Christ. 
3. The proper design (that design is explained in this article in part only). 
4. It must be by proper authority. 

Consider next the best available books to be studied on these ordinances. Happily I can cite some books that will satisfy all real need in most cases. On baptism, I mention first the little book, Baptizein, by Dr. Conant. This book was out of print, but it has been republished by the American Baptist Publication Society and every preacher in the land ought to get it. The second book that I mention on the act of baptism is Dr. J.T. Christian’s book, Immersion. It advances somewhat beyond Dr. Conant’s book in several important particulars. I mention two other books: First, Alexander Carson on Baptism, and second, Kirkley on the design of baptism.

On communion, Dr. E.B.C. Howell’s book has stood the test of time. Particularly the preacher should have Dr. Frost’s two books on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Dr. Frost was Secretary of the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and the spiritual power of his books surpasses all the literature I know on these subjects. They are remarkable. Because they are cheap and available it will be a very easy matter for every preacher to buy all these books that I have mentioned.

I next call attention to the relation between baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This article of faith says that baptism is prerequisite to church membership and to participation in the Lord’s Supper. That proposition will not be denied by any denomination of Christians in the world, Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and the best authorities among the Campbellites the world over. If anything has ever been settled in religious controversy, it has been settled that no man should be received to church membership nor to the communion unless he has been baptized. There are some exceptions to this general statement, for instance, certain English Baptists and some Freewill Baptists in the United States receive unbaptized people to membership and communion. Dr. Robert Hall and John Bunyan, English Baptists, contended that the lack of baptism was no barrier to communion, and very recently the moderator of an association in Boston has taken the position that just as soon as one believes in Jesus Christ he automatically becomes a member of the church. It is a monstrous position. A few cranky Baptists only dissent from the general proposition that in the order of the gospel God requires baptism antecedent to church membership and to communion. 

Without disparaging scholarly research we may make an argument upon the subject of baptism perfectly satisfactory and conclusive and never go outside the New Testament. I mean to say that we need not quote a Greek Lexicon, nor the admissions of Pedobaptists; we need not refer to any other denomination at all, but we may group all the passages of the New Testament that refer to the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper and from those passages of Scripture, standing on the Word of God alone, we may demonstrate every part of the Baptist position, and that is my own favorite method. I do not object to an appeal to the Lexicons nor to usage nor to gathering together the admissions of other denominations. That is all well enough when those matters are controverted, but if we make every one of our points from the New Testament in any version—Greek, Latin, English, Syriac, Ethiopic, no matter what—the people who speak in the language of that version will be impressed by the simplicity and power of our discussion. 

Suppose, for example, we start to prove how Jesus was baptized: That is all we need to prove, take Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Paul in the sixth chapter of Romans and in the letter to the Colossians, and show from all these passages, not why Jesus was baptized nor who baptized Him, but what was done when He was baptized. From Mark’s Gospel it can be shown that He was baptized into the river Jordan; the preposition eis is used, and, from the same Gospel, that having been baptized He came up out of the water, the preposition ek being used (Mark 1:9–10). There we score these points: The baptizing into the river, and having been baptized, He came up out of the river. Then we may prove what was done when He got into the river by the sixth of Romans, which tells us that He was buried and raised in baptism. That is what it says. He goes into the river and there is buried and raised again, and then He comes up out of the water.

Having made these points perfectly clear we may suppose, for argument’s sake, the word, “baptism,” has a thousand meanings. In as much as Christ settled the meaning by His own act, the act to which He submitted, when He commands baptism to be performed He commands that act to be performed to which He submitted and there is no answer to an argument of that kind. We need not waste any time over whether baptism has one meaning or many. We just say for argument’s sake, not for a fact, suppose the word has a variety of meanings. What we want to get at is, “Which one of these meanings was carried out when Christ was baptized?” Now Christ, having been baptized, through His disciples baptized others and then gave His commission to make disciples of all nations and baptize them. Christ’s act settles forever what baptism is. It does with me. I would myself, if Christ was immersed and Peter had water sprinkled on him and John had water poured on him, prefer to follow Christ. I would say I want to do what Jesus did.

Then we may pass on to the question, “How did His disciples under- stand Him?” Here the baptism of the Eunuch serves for an example. The record says they both went down into the water; they both came up out of the water. While in the water Philip baptized the Eunuch. Dr. Carson here says, “The fool that followed a wagon all the way from Glasgow to Edinburgh to see if the hind wheel would catch up with the front wheel, had an errand though it was only a fool’s errand, but a man who takes another down into the river in order to sprinkle water on him, has not even a fool’s errand.” Christ was buried by baptism into the river Jordan. Christ was raised from baptism, and we were buried with Christ in baptism. We were raised with Christ in baptism. We were planted into the likeness of Christ’s death and so we shall be raised in the likeness of His resurrection.

In the same way the New Testament passages show the order of the two ordinances. Baptism is first. John baptizes, Christ baptizes, and later on at the close of Christ’s ministry He instituted the Lord’s Supper. Those present at the administration of the Lord’s Supper had all been baptized, and so when we observe the Lord’s Supper we follow safely the Lord’s example. Was Jesus baptized? Yes. Then to follow Christ in carry- ing out His command we must do as He did. The commission says: “Go make disciples.” That is the first thing. How did John the Baptist make disciples? By leading them to repentance and faith. How did Jesus make disciples? “Repent ye and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). What did Paul say? “Testifying both to Jew and Greek repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). That gives us our subject. What then? “Baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” What then? “Teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:18–19). There the Lord’s Supper comes in. He has commanded that to be taught, but they do not observe it until they have been baptized. 

Let us consider next another New Testament example. Immediately after the great sermon on the day of Pentecost in which Peter had said, “Repent,” and following which it said that they that gladly received his word were baptized, following right after that, now what did that first church at Jerusalem do? The record says that they were constant in their attendance, first, upon the instructions of the apostles, second, in the contribution meetings, third, in the prayer services, and fourth, in the breaking of bread (Acts 2:41–42). Now there we have an example of the Lord’s Supper as was administrated by the first church at Jerusalem, when the men who conducted the administration were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit having not only been breathed upon by Christ himself but the Holy Spirit had come down upon them on that day.

The case at Troas is mentioned in the twentieth chapter of Acts. The disciples came together to break bread. Who came together? Those who were disciples and had been baptized: They came together to break bread. Take the case in Corinth as set forth in Paul’s letter. He says, “You cannot observe the Lord’s Supper by each one bringing something to eat in a basket and when he gets there eat by himself. You must come together in one place” (1 Cor 11:33). That is essential. The one loaf represents the whole church. 

We pass next to the thought: “You cannot take the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils” (1 Cor 10:21). You cannot eat at the table of the Lord and the table of the devils. There the cup is called the Lord’s cup, and the table is called the Lord’s table. Now if it be called the Lord’s table then the Lord alone prescribes the terms of admission. If it were my table I could invite anybody I please. I do invite Methodists, Episcopalians, Campbel- lites, and sinners to my table. I may put my table in the dining room if I want to, or out in the yard if I want to. I can give a friend his dinner by himself and take my dinner by myself, and let the rest of the family take their dinner by themselves, because it is my table, but I have no authority to prescribe how another’s table should be managed. I would not think of giving a rule to some other man as to where he should put his table and if I would not think of giving such a rule to a man, certainly I have not the hardihood to tell the Lord Jesus Christ where He must put His table. If it is the Lord’s table the Lord must determine the terms of admission. I am showing how to discuss this subject and use nothing but our New Testa- ment. Any one can do it whether he is a preacher or not. Let him take the New Testament and whether he understands a word of Greek or not, he can follow any translation and let the common sense interpretation be put upon it, and from that New Testament text alone he may demonstrate the Baptist position upon the subject of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The question is agitated as to whether immersion by pedobaptist churches and Campbellites should be received as valid baptism by Baptist churches. The question may be asked as to our position upon that subject. Our position is that these immersions should not be received. Though we have the proper act, which is immersion, there must be a proper subject, a proper design, and proper authority. In the Campbellite immersion the subject is unsaved and is baptized in order to be saved. If one’s sins were not remitted before he was baptized he was not a proper subject and for me to recognize that is to discard the design of God in the ordinance, so that a doctrine of great importance is involved in receiving immersion ad- ministered by outsiders.

A Methodist, rather than lose a member, will immerse people. But they immerse people often who are not disciples: They are not penitent believers. The saying used to be that the classes received into the Methodist church were two: First, those who were the subjects of grace, and second, those who were groaning so to be, but were not yet Christians. I heard the great Methodist evangelist, Sam Jones, at a meeting in Waco, (Dr. King. the Presbyterian minister and myself were sitting together), say, “I exhort you to join the church in order to get religion.” Then he cited the case of a man who joined the church and was baptized when he had no more religion than a horse.

Now another point. The pedobaptists who immerse never do so willingly. They never like to do it. I heard a Methodist preacher deliver a sermon against immersion. He declared it to be indecent and ridiculed the idea of immersion. When he came down from the platform after that sermon and invited people forward to join the church, among the number that came were some that demanded immersion, and this preacher, who had just denounced immersion as indecent, went and immersed them. I do not think that our Lord Jesus Christ intended to put the administration of his ordinances into the hands of those who publicly deride them. More than that, can any organization on the earth be perpetuated which allows outsiders to determine the terms of admission into the organization?

Now I cite a case. A German comes over to this country; he wants to become a citizen of the United States, and he asks what is necessary; a blank form is shown him that he has to sign and swear to, and an Irish friend of his says, “Why, I will fill out this for you; I will swear you in.” After awhile that German comes to vote. He is asked, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” “Yes.” “When did you become a citizen?” Then he recites the story, and they say to him, “Why that Irishman had no more right to administer that oath than a horse. The law which makes that oath prescribes who shall administer it. It must be a proper official of the United States.” So baptism must be administered by the proper authority.

Article XV: The Christian Sabbath

This article reads as follows:

We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord’s day, or Christian Sabbath; and is to be kept sacred to religious purposes, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recreations; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public; and, by preparation for that rest that remaineth for the people of God.

The Sabbath comes to us invested with a manifold interest. It is a memorial of God’s grandest works of creation and grace. It had its beginning in the remotest antiquity. It has ever been a most important factor in what has been most beneficent and uplifting to our race. It has been associated with the most hallowed experiences of the best of men in all the ages. It continues today to be the necessary condition of the best institutions and the best life of mankind and the chief avenues through which divine truth and power are communicated to the world.

Though many have questions which are at present associated with the Sabbath, and its observance gives it additional interest to many, there are some who would cast aside its obligations as a fetter upon their freedom as forged by superstition and priestcraft in the name of religion. There are others who would relegate it to the realm of an effete and vanished Judaism. There are not a few who would observe the Christian Sabbath not as an institution of God but merely on the ground of apostolic sanction and the established practice of believers.

Some also refuse to acknowledge obligation to observe it on the antinomian ground that believers are free from all the law and because they are a law unto themselves through having the law written on their hearts. Also, at the present time a very aggressive body is pushing the view that we are still under obligation to observe the seventh day, and that in hallowing the first day of the week we are breaking the law of the Sabbath. Questions which gather around the relation of civil law to Sabbath observance also perplex many. It is not proposed to discuss all these questions, but to pursue a line of investigation which shall touch the heart of some of them.

The first reference to the Sabbath is in Genesis 2:2–3:

On the seventh day God finished his work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all his work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

To bless and hallow the seventh day cannot mean less than to distinguish it from the other six as the medium and special blessing through its consecration to a peculiar and sacred purpose. Can it be doubted that God blessed and hallowed it for men from the beginning?

Paley’s idea that these words were used prophetically of the giving of the Sabbath law to the Jews 2,500 years after cannot be entertained. Was not the Sabbath fitted and therefore needed to serve its purpose for the race from the first as well as for the Jews? Those who assume that the Sabbath was not from the beginning should at least show, either that the Sabbath could not serve its purpose for men before Moses, or, being adapted to serve its purpose in the ante-Mosaic age, why it was not given to men then.

There are also incidental hints which are strongly confirmatory of our interpretation of this passage. From the beginning the number seven is especially prominent in the Scripture narrative. Sevenfold vengeance is threatened against the slayer of Cain. The clean animals were to enter the ark by sevens. It was seven days after Noah entered the ark that the flood came. It was seven days after the dove was sent the first time before it was sent the second time and seven days were elapsed before it departed for the last time. Job’s friends sat down with him seven days and seven nights. Joseph made a mourning for his father seven days. It would also appear from Genesis 29:27 that the division of time into weeks was already estab- lished. No other number or period of time is thus frequently and variously referred to.

If it be said that seven, in some of the references, is used to denote completeness, the question still remains, “How came the idea of completeness and perfection to be associated with the number seven?” If the seventh day, by being distinguished from the other six, marked off seven days as a definite and complete period, we have a natural and sufficient explanation of the various uses of the number seven. If the seventh day was not thus distinguished from the other six, no satisfactory explanation of the use of this number can be found.

It may also be added that the wide prevalence of the hebdomadal division of time among the tribes and nations of the world is also strong confirmation of this view. This division of time has been observed where it could not have been borrowed from the Jews. The theory that it arose through the division of the lunar month is not satisfactory, for the lunar month is not 28 but 29½ days. If the hebdomadal division was the first we may well suppose its observance would have continued among many peoples. This, therefore, affords the most rational explanation, and supports the view that Genesis 2:2–3 was the institution of a Sabbath for the race. While there is thus pretty conclusive evidence that the seventh day was observed in some peculiar way prior to the giving of the Mosaic law, the manner of its observance remains to be considered.

If Genesis 2:2–3 really does refer to the institution of the Sabbath, there is every reason to believe, then it can scarcely be doubted, that it was kept religiously. We cannot imagine how it could be distinguished from the other days by divine appointment, unless it was set apart in some way for God. The reason for the Sabbath, because of God’s rest from creation, must mean that this day was for rest from the ordinary toil of life. God’s blessing and hallowing it can mean nothing less than it was to be made a blessing to men by being set apart for them to hallow by devoting it to a sacred purpose. The fact that the embodiment of the Sabbath institution in the Decalogue is the identical words of Genesis 2:2–3, and that in Exodus 20 these words mean the hallowing of it as a day of rest and worship, fixes the same meaning upon it here.

But we have other evidence that the Sabbath was kept religiously before Moses. The first mention of religious observances is the offerings of Cain and Abel. These were made at the end of the days. This expression can scarcely bear any other meaning than the end of the only recognized period of time of which there is a scrap of evidence. The days upon which the patriarchal sacrifices were offered are not mentioned, but the presumption would be all in favor of the Sabbath, as this was a peculiar employment and therefore out of harmony with the ordinary labor days.

But the strongest proof remains. In Exodus 16:22, 30 the Sabbath is referred to as known and established, before the formal embodiment of it in the Mosaic law, on the sixth day the Israelites, although forbidden to gather on any day more than enough for its needs and, although, when this restriction was transgressed in the previous days of the week the manna had bred worms, of their own accord, gathered twice the usual amount, evidently because it was their custom to do no work on the seventh day. When the rulers came and told Moses, he commends the people and calls the seventh day the Sabbath and holy unto the Lord, on which they are to rest.

This view is confirmed by the account of the giving of the law. The words are, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exod 20:8). In the whole connection there is nothing to indicate that it was a new institution. It is spoken of as well known and observed. The terms of reference to it are similar to those employed at the giving of the manna, and the reason for, and the general manner of, its observance are the same as in Genesis 2:2–3. It is true that a different reason is given for the Mosaic Sabbath in Deuteronomy 5:12, where it is to be observed because of the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, while, as we have seen, in Exodus the same reason is assigned as for the original Sabbath. The reason given in Deuteronomy, however, may be but one superseded to the other, and having special reference to the Jews. It seems better, however, to consider the captivity in Egypt as the reason why the Israelites were to give their slaves the Sabbath rest rather than for their own observance of it. 

So far as we can learn, also, none of the other commands of the Decalogue with which the Sabbath is associated were first promulgated at Sinai. It had already been made known that idolatry, profanity, disrespect of parents, theft, and murder were opposed to the will of God. The presumption is all against the law of the Sabbath being exceptional in this respect to the other nine. They are all laws pertaining to what is unchanging both in their own nature and in their relation to men.

There seems, therefore, sufficient evidence that the Sabbath, like marriage, was instituted at the beginning, that it was even observed religiously as a day of rest devoted to God, and that therefore Moses but reaffirmed it and embodied it in his legislation. At the same time we are not, therefore, required to suppose that there was nothing in the Mosaic legislation in reference to the Sabbath specially for the Jews. In this brief treatment we cannot pause to consider what these special features were, or what new and stronger sanctions were given to its observance. Our conclusion is that whatever these are and however they were abrogated by the coming of the higher economy through Christ, the essence of the Sabbath institution, which was for the race at the beginning, remains for the race today. But even if we deny that there was any Sabbath before Moses, are we therefore compelled to conclude that the Sabbath is not binding? 

It is a well recognized principle, agreeing alike with Scripture and with reason that moral institutions and precepts, which have to do with man’s relation to God, are unchangeable in their essential features and are of perpetual and universal obligation. The essentials of human nature do not change. God is immutable. Therefore the essentials of moral precepts and institutions, springing from the changeless in human nature, must ever remain the same and never cease to be binding. In what may be called the accidents of commands there may be changes corresponding to what is variable in human nature, but in their essentials, adapted to what is steadfast, this cannot be. If, therefore, the Sabbath is a moral institution, it must be binding in its essential features.

It has been generally held that its place in the Decalogue proves it to be moral, since all the other nine commands are obviously of this high and changeless character. It is also argued that its moral character is indicated in the penalty of death being attached to its violation, since this extreme penalty is imposed upon transgressions of none but moral precepts, unless this be an exception.

Neither is it difficult to observe the moral element in the Sabbath which justifies its place in the Decalogue. Its rest was a necessary condi- tion of moral as well as of physical and mental well being. Its hallowing in religious service and worship was directly for the highest moral purpose. Can we doubt, therefore, that it was intended for all men in all ages, so far as it possessed this changeless moral element? We see no reason why the Sabbath should banish away with the Jewish economy. Our Lord also confirmed this view when He declared that the Sabbath was made for mankind in general (Mark 2:27). On the ground, then, that the Sabbath was originally for the race, that it is a moral as well as a positive enactment, and that our Lord expressly declares it to have been made for mankind, we hold that it is still binding in its essential features.

But objection, on various grounds, is taken to this conclusion. Some hold that the Sabbath of the old economy was typical of the spiritual rest of believers on earth and in heaven and now that the antitype has been realized the type no longer has place. But did not Old Testament saints as well as those of the New have this rest? The Sabbath was for them, nevertheless, why not then for us also? But the spiritual rest does not relieve from the need of rest for the body, while the Sabbath helps to the fuller realization of this spiritual rest. Besides, the rest is but one element of the Sabbath. Was the general religious worship of the Sabbath also typical and fulfilled and set aside by an antitype?

Some think that there can be no consecration of the Sabbath because Christians are to give every day to the Lord. But this does not follow. Were not saints before Christ to devote all their time to God as well as we? Yet, the Sabbath was for them. The Sabbath is a necessary condition of public and general worship; even though we are to devote all our time to God, is it, therefore, unnecessary to give one day in seven to this particular service? All our time does belong to God, but this does not make us capable of the strain of ceaseless work. May not our loving Father, just because our hearts gladly acknowledge His right to ceaseless service, guard us from overstrain by the continuance of the Sabbath rest? Besides, if we are to devote all our time to Him, our inner lives must be nurtured, and all the more need there is, therefore, that we have one day in seven in which to gird up our spiritual energies for this continuous and hallowed service in connection with the ordinary callings and employments of life. The truth is that the greatest saints have felt their need and craved the Sabbath rest the most, a pretty sure indication that the need of it is in the constitution of the soul itself, and that it is not outgrown by any progress in grace and consecration.

Still others claim that we are absolved from the observance of the Sabbath on the antinomian ground that believers are free from the whole law of which the Sabbath forms a part. This is a large question and it can but be touched upon in this connection. Of course all men are free from that part of the Jewish law which is typical. This has all been fulfilled in its antitype, Christ, and has been taken out of the way. For men now to cling to these would be to reject Christ. Of this nature are all the sacrifices and the laws pertaining thereto. Christ was the great sacrifice and substance, of which these were the shadows, has realized them all, and they exist no more. There is also what may be called the symbolical in the old law, of which circumcision is an example. This is not of perpetual obligation. So far as it represented the spiritual, it symbolized holiness. As a positive enactment, and containing nothing of a necessary moral character in itself, it might be abrogated or another take its place.

The same, however, cannot be said of moral requirements. “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt love God,” etc., can never cease to be binding. They are not one of many possible expressions of a deeper fact, which may not misrepresent it. These commands cannot be fulfilled by anything but exact obedience. The Sabbath, also, while it contains a ceremonial and positive element has also moral features, as we have seen, and was, therefore, placed side by side with these laws of unchanging import. The question then is, “What is the believer’s relation to these moral requirements of the Decalogue, or to moral law generally?”

They are freed from its condemnation and consequent penalty. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1), in Whom all believers have thir standing by faith and become sharers in His vicarious work. We are also freed from the legal motives of fear. This follows from deliverance, once for all from the penalty, and because we are ruled by the higher motives of love to God and love for what the law enjoins, through having the law written on our hearts, our inner natures conformed to the law. It is in these senses that we are not under the law, or dead to the law. But this does not absolve us from the law as a rule of life. The law remains good. The law is still to be fulfilled in a deeper than the outward and legal sense. Love is to be its fulfillment, not because love releases us from it, but because it prompts us to obey it. The law is not abrogated, for its curse is against sinners as much now as it ever was.

If anyone says that penalty is necessary to law and that believers in being freed from the penalty are delivered from the law, it may be answered that this statement contains a precious truth, but not all the truth. The law is still needed as a guide of life. If saints were perfect they might not need the law for this purpose. Their moral instincts would perhaps be infallible. But as long as any of the old nature remains, it is so blind and blinding that direction from God is needful. This is shown in the fact that New Testament writers give ethical instruction and the preachers today need to insist on moral principles for the members of their churches as well as for others. How then can we suppose that moral laws do not serve a purpose still, in case of believers as well as of others?

If it be said that Christ fulfilled the law as well as bore the penalty for His people, it may well be said that His vicarious obedience, instead of releasing us from the duty to obey the law for ourselves, imposes grander obligations. The misapprehension here is in confounding penal with pecuniary satisfaction. If our Lord’s obedience made ours unnecessary, it would out the ground from under all morality and open the door to unbounded license.

Finally, both our Lord and the apostles referred to the law as still in force. Our Lord comprehended the two tables of the Decalogue in love to God and love to men, because love in these two relations would assure obedience to all the Ten Commandments and thus lead to the fulfilling of the law. Not that love could or would be accepted as a substitute for obedience to them at all. He also declared that He “came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill,” and that “till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all things be accomplished” (Matt 5:17-18). Its full inner meaning should be realized and fulfilled in Christ and through Him in others. It should be stripped of all its mere externalism and stand forth in the full light of its inner and truest meaning, but it was not to be abrogated. Therefore, we hold that the gospel does not release men from obligation to observe the essential, the moral Sabbath laws, on the general ground that believers are free from the law.

Appeal is made, however, to three passages in the New Testament in support of the position that the essential Sabbath law is not now in force. The first is Romans 14:5: “One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.” It is thought by some that this passage discountenances all obligation to observe any special day of rest and worship. But this does not follow. Paul is combating the Judaising teaching which attaches a special legal sanctity to the Sabbath and certain other days. Christians might esteem every day equally adored. But even though the Sabbath day of rest was regarded as no more sacred than any other day, it does not follow that it was not to be observed. God may desire us to devote a certain day to rest and worship, although the rest and worship is no more sacred than the consecrated labor of the other six. We may regard all days as equally sacred, although each day be devoted to its own special purpose, according to divine arrangement.

The same may be said of Galatians 4:10, where Paul chides the Ga- latians for observing “days and seasons, months and years.” They observed them, attended to them with scrupulous care, in the Jewish sense, as necessary to salvation. If at this time the first day of the week was observed by Christians, as there is abundant reason to believe, this careful and scrupulous observance of the seventh day—with the associated days and seasons of the ceremonial law, with all the added traditional usages with which they had become encumbered—would be proof positive that they were putting themselves under the yoke of the law, even though the Sabbath rest as enjoined in the fourth commandment was still binding and recognized in the proper observance of the first day. In this way Paul’s fear for them was justified, even though the first day of the week has been set apart for its present purpose. The whole connection as well as the Jewish terms proves that Paul has no thought of anything Christian, but was protecting against the retention of anything distinctively Judaistic.

The chief passage remains, Colossians 2:16–17: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is Christ’s.” It is admitted that the expression, “Let no man judge you,” does not forbid the observances mentioned but leaves them optional. Now, while Paul did leave many of the Jewish observances optional, he resisted with all his grand might the attempts of Judaizing teachers to make them compulsory. The earliest authentic church history assures us that in the age immediately succeeding the apostolic many of the Jewish Christians kept the seventh as well as the first day of the week. Have we not in this fact the true explanation of this passage? All Christians observed the first day as a sacred day of rest. None, however, were to judge Jewish Christians for observing the seventh as well as the first day, nor the Gentile Christians for refusing to observe the seventh and observing only the first. In any case, the reference is exclusively to the Jewish Sabbath, and leaves the question of the observance of another day untrammeled by traditional usages undermined one way or the other.

We, therefore, conclude that these passages do not affect the positive evidence adduced to show that the Sabbath institution was for the race and that it involves moral elements which gave it its place among the unchanging moral requirements of the Decalogue.

We come now to our last question: “If the original institution of the Sabbath still holds, are we required, as the Seven Day Adventists contend, to observe the seventh day as well as to observe a day?” It is anything but clear that either the original institution of the Sabbath in Genesis 2:2–3 or its reenactment in Exodus 20:8–9 ever enjoined the seventh day of the week. Exodus 20:8–9 says: “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Lord thy God.” This means that the seventh day, after six days of work, is to be observed as the day of rest. Nothing is said about the day which is to be the starting point of the reckoning. It evidently means that a seventh part of the time is to be devoted in this special way to God. The day of the week observed is not of the essence of the institution and involves nothing of the moral permanent. 

If the day of the week were essential to the institution, as no one can be sure that we are observing the seventh day in direct succession from the first, there is no certainty that the Sabbath is being observed by anybody. There is, therefore, nothing to stand in the way of a change of day if moral purposes can be served by the observance of another than the seventh day. The mere day of the week celebrated must be subordinate to these higher ends. In the progress of redemption, therefore, if moral reasons arise for the change, it is only in harmony with God’s nature and action for the change to be made.

This leads us to inquire whether there were reasons, after our Lord’s resurrection, why another than the seventh day might serve the highest moral and religious purpose. The change of day would help to break Christians loose from the peculiarly Jewish, with which the seventh day Sabbath had become associated. We have only to read Paul’s letters to the Romans and Galatians and Colossians to be convinced that Judaizing tendencies were the chief danger of the early church. For this same reason, probably among others, the imitative and commemorative rites were changed. In order that the distinction between Jew and Christian might be as clearly marked as possible, the fact which the Christian day of rest and worship was to commemorate needed also to be changed.

But in a change from the seventh day, observed in commemoration of creation, to the first day of the week, to commemorate our Lord’s resurrection, is there not another instance of the progress of doctrine in the Bible, or rather, does not the progress of doctrine explain, if it does not require this change? Under the old dispensation, the fixing of the idea of the one true God in the face of idolatrous tendencies was the one great central aim. The seventh day Sabbath, commemorating, as it did, God’s work in creation, served perpetually to remind men of His existence, power, and rule. But when the new dispensation came, the idea of the one true God had become established among those who were under the influence of the revelation from Him, and this commemorative purpose of the Sabbath was no longer needed. Men were prepared for a great step in advance, and this aspect of the Sabbath could serve a higher purpose if another even was commemorated. This step was from belief in God as Creator, to trust in Him as revealed in Christ as loving Savior. As the belief in God Who manifested His power in creation was the central thought of the old, so the belief in a Redeemer Who revealed His grace in His work of salvation is the central thought of the new. As the Sabbath under the old was fitted to keep this central truth of the old in memory, it is but congruous that the Sabbath under the new should remind us of the fact which involves the central doctrine of the new.

No one can read the New Testament, especially the fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, without being convinced that the resurrection of the Lord is that central fact. Does it need proof that the Jewish Sabbath was to commemorate creation? In all the worship and instruction of the Lord’s day, the death of Christ as implied in the resurrection, and His victory over death as made manifest in His resurrection are the central and all impor- tant truths. Can anyone fail to see the wisdom of the day which is to be devoted to the enforcement of truths, which are involved in or grow out of the resurrection of Christ, being also observed in commemoration of this same great fact?

All the evidence we have from the New Testament supports the con- clusion that this change from the seventh day in commemoration of creation to the first day of the week in commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord was made under divine direction. Our Lord especially honored the first day of the week. On that day He rose from the dead. On the first Sunday after His resurrection He appeared five times to individuals or to groups of believers (Matt 28:9, Luke 24:36; Mark 16:9, 12, 14). It was not until the next Sunday, eight days after, that any mention is made of His appearing again ( John 20:24, 27). Whether His other appearings to His disciples when the day is not specified were on this day we cannot tell, but all presumption there is favors this view. However this may be, we find all assembled when, on the Pentecostal Sunday, the grand outpouring of the Spirit still further distinguished this day. Finally, our Lord’s last appearing, to John on Patmos, was on the Lord’s day. As no other day than Sunday was ever called “the Lord’s day,” from the times immediately succeeding the apostles, and as the Lord’s day was technically used of the first day of the week from Ignatius down, there can be no doubt that the Lord’s day in Revelation 1:10 was the first day of the week, or Sunday.⁷

The indications are not numerous, but they are all one way, in support of the conclusion that our Lord purposely distinguished this day from all others. This is made more evident by the fact that, did He appear on any other day, the day on which He appeared is not mentioned. We cannot suppose this was by chance. Had our Lord appeared upon the Jewish Sabbath, or had He designed to make this day prominent, surely He would have chosen that day for the gracious manifestation of Himself, and the fact of His appearing upon that day would have been chronicled.  

All the evidence the New Testament affords also confirms the belief that the apostles understood our Lord, through the peculiar prominence He gave to the first day, if not by special instruction, to have set apart this day as the Christian’s day for rest and worship. In John 20:26, we find the apostles gathered together on the second Sunday after His death. In Acts 20:7, 11, it is told how Paul came to Troas and remained seven days, and on the first day of the week preached and administered the Lord’s Supper. Why is this first day of the week here mentioned unless it had become set apart for worship? Why is mention made of Paul’s meeting with the brethren on that day only, if it were a chance service and not the stated day of worship? If it were on this stated day, all is clear: Paul stopped over the Sunday to meet the assembled church, just as ministers do today. If the first day of the week were not this stated day, the record is inexplicable. The mere fact that it was the last day of Paul’s visit would not account for the mention of the day of the week on which it occurred. No other day of the week than the first is ever thus mentioned.

To the same effect is 1 Corinthians 16:1, where the brethren are exhorted to lay by them in store on the first day of the week that there may be no need to gather up their scattered contributions when Paul should come. Why does Paul specify the first day of the week, or any special day, indeed, for this solemn dedication of means to God, unless it was the day for Christians to assemble together for worship? If the first day was devoted to God in worship, this specification of this day for this devotion of means to Him is sufficiently explained. There was correspondence between the day and the act. If this first day was not distinguished from the others, as the advocates of the seventh day Sabbath assume, there can be no imaginable reason why this particular day should be specified.

As already noticed above, the fact that the first day of the week is the only day of the week mentioned in reference to the events of the New Testament history, apart from the Jewish Sabbath, seems to show that it had a peculiar prominence which can be explained only as it was then observed as the day of rest and worship as it has been ever since. Sabbatarians, however, make much of the fact that the apostles are often mentioned as attending upon the Sabbath synagogue services, and assume that this furnishes convincing proof that the seventh day was observed by them and Christians generally for worship. But this is an entire misconception. Believers are never mentioned as gathering in the synagogues for worship. The apostles went to the synagogues to avail themselves of the opportunity there afforded to preach Christ to the assembled people, just as missionaries do today as they attend heathen festivals for the same purpose. There is no instance mentioned of apostles going into a synagogue on the Sabbath, except where it is expressly stated that they preached to the assembled congregations. See Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14, 42; 17:10, 17; 18:4, 19, 26; 19:8. All evidence from the New Testament as to the Christian’s day for worship points to the first day of the week. There is no evidence in favor of another day.

Confirmation of our conclusion is found in the writings of the post apostolic and later church fathers. Ignatius, in one of his epistles, says, “Those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung again by him and by his death.”⁸ The teaching of the twelve apostles is sup- posed to be one of the earliest, if not the earliest, post apostolic Christian documents, dating somewhere in the first half of the second century. Its instructions as to the day of worship are, “And on the Lord’s Day come together and break bread and give thanks, having before confessed your transgressions.”⁹ There is not the remotest reference to the observance of the seventh day Sabbath.

The Epistle of Barnabas, until the discovery of the teaching of the twelve apostles, supposed to be the earliest post apostolic writing, declares the universal practice of Christians thus: “We keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus also rose again from the dead.”¹⁰ Justin Martyr, who wrote about AD 140, declares that “on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read,” etc.¹¹ The testimony of Dionysius of Corinth, AD 170; Irenaeus, 177; Clement of Alexandria, 192; Tertullian, 200; and all subsequent early Christian writers is the same effect.

If the apostles and the apostolic churches observed the Jewish Sabbath and not the first day of the week as our Seventh Day Adventist friends hold, how comes it that from a score of years after the death of John the seventh day is never referred to as the authoritative Christian day of rest and worship, and that the first day is spoken of as universally recognized and observed in that capacity? It is utterly inconceivable that such a complete revolution could have taken place in so short a time after the apostles, and have taken place without leaving any trace of struggle of conflicting opinions and so complete. It is all the more incredible because of the reverence for apostolic precedent and authority which everywhere prevailed from the first. The only ground we can have for the early and universal observance of the first day of the week as the recognized Christian sacred day is that the change from the seventh to the first day had the sanction of apostolic practice and authority.

The necessary assumption, if the Sabbatarian view is accepted, that the change was universally made by the next generation after the apostles, in the teeth of recognized apostolic practice, which was regarded as authoritative from the first, involves too glaring a contradiction to be accepted by reasonable people who are acquainted with the facts. It is true that some of the Jewish Christians celebrated the seventh day, in a way, as well as the first day; but there is no evidence that Jewish Christians refused to observe the first day or that any other than Jews observed the seventh day at all. The keeping of the seventh day was soon associated with the Judaizing spirit and abandoned. The only view consistent with the intimations of the New Testament and the earliest information of the post apostolic age, is that the apostles and apostolic churches observed the first day, and that it thus became universally and unquestionably recognized as the Christians’ sacred day of rest and worship.

A few words of further reference to Seventh Day Adventist objections: They say that early writers never call the first day of the week “the Christian Sabbath.” This is true, and the reason is obvious. To have called the first day by this name would have confounded it with the Jewish Sabbath, if not with the Sabbath as observed by the Jews. It is doubtful whether the Lord’s day is not still the better name for this day.

It is said that Constantine really made Sunday binding by law, and chose the first day of the week because of his partiality for the sun-god, in whose honor the heathen kept this day. We have the testimony of Christian writers for about two hundred years before Constantine that the first day had been kept all this time. At least three of these, Justin Martyr, 140; Irenaeus, 177; and Tertullian, 200, call the first day Sunday, showing that this had already become its recognized name. It is also a recognized fact among church historians that Constantine was actuated by policy at this time. He saw that Christianity was on the way to supremacy and his action was to conciliate and gain the favor of the Christians.

How could this have been done by the compulsory change of the sacred day of the Christians? Nay, rather, we must suppose that action of this kind, involving not only the transfer of worship from a sacred day of their own, but also a transfer to a day held sacred to the worship of a heathen deity, and superadding the requirement of rest from labor, would have aroused the Christians to resistance and would have fanned to a flame the old martyr spirit. The edict of Constantine was really only the enacting by law what had been the practice of Christians from the beginning, for the most part, in pursuance of Constantine’s civil policy of uniting church and state.

The contention of the Seventh Day Baptists, that the argument for the seventh day of the week against the first is similar to that for adult baptism and immersion against infant baptism and sprinkling, is little short of absurd, for they are really in the most direct antithesis. All the scriptural evidence is against the observance of the seventh day, while it is all for adult baptism and immersion. The earliest as well as all the rest of the evidence from the first apostolic writings is against the observance of the seventh day, while for centuries it was in favor of the Baptist practice, and was always against the scriptural authority of sprinkling. On the other hand, Seventh Day Baptists are attempting to force Old Testament observances upon Christianity, just as pedobaptists seek to foist infant baptism upon the church through the Old Testament teaching about circumcision.

Article XVI: Civil Government

Our article of faith for discussion reads as follows:

We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of human society; and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed; except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.

The first proposition in that article of faith is that civil government is of divine appointment, and the first scriptural proof cited is the passage in the thirteenth chapter of Romans: “The powers that be are ordained of God.” The first argument in favor of a divine ordinance of civil government arises from the very nature of man, that is, the whole human race coming from one family, one pair, and the necessary relation between the descendants of this one pair make what is called society. Now whenever and wherever human beings thus related come together in such numbers and with such interests as to constitute a community it is essential that provision be made to safeguard the life, the property, and the happiness of these members of the community against each other, that no one member of that community shall in his selfishness infringe upon the rights of any other member of the community.

That is the origin of the divine authority of human government. It is in the constitution of our nature. The first formal expression of it is set forth in the covenant of God with Noah, just after the flood. There, God declares that whosoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed. That is a divine law that holds a murderer responsible to his fellowman and if you may hold him responsible for taking human life, you may hold him responsible for injuring human life, and if you may hold him responsible for greater things, you may certainly hold him responsible for interfering with the property of the individual.

Another very remarkable expression of the divine ordinance of civil government appears in the covenant that was entered into between God and the people on Mount Sinai. The first element of that covenant related to God and is expressed in the Ten Commandments. The second element is the element of civil government; certain statutes were then and there ordained governing their conduct toward each other, and all through the Pentateuch what is there expressed in the covenant is set forth elaborately in many details of statutory legislation.

One of the passages here cited, the one in Deuteronomy, 16th chap- ter, enjoins by positive commandment that they shall appoint rulers and that these rulers, or judges, shall execute just judgment in all matters of complaint arising between man and man, and that they shall not be swayed in their judgment by anything except the law and the evidence. In many other passages, some of them cited here, a great tribute is paid to the ruler who rules righteously.

Here, however, comes up the question, whether or not this ordinance applies to all kinds of human government. Suppose, without any reference to God at all, a Caesar succeeds to the throne by the murder of his predecessor. Now, is that Caesar in any sense ordained of God? The answer is that while he is not by right a ruler of the people, he is in fact a ruler of the people, and the people have consented to his rule and he must be honored in the performance of his ruling office. Our Lord said, when asked, by the Jews endeavoring to entrap Him, “Is it lawful for us to pay tribute to this usurping Roman power which is exercised over Judea?” (Mark 12:13-17). They understood that the obligation was on them to pay tribute to their own government, but the question came up as to whether they should pay it to the Roman government. Christ answered it by asking for a coin, and when they handed him a small coin, he says, “Whose image is this on this coin, and whose superscription?” And they said, “Caesar’s.” The fact that that coin was issued in his name and accepted in his name showed that he was in fact the ruler of that people; whether rightfully so or not did not enter into the question. He is in fact a ruler of that people and the tribute money shows that their government had engaged in a treaty with the Roman government to pay that tribute.

Still another question may come up on the divine appointment of civil rulers. Does God anywhere prescribe the particular form of government? That is, according to the Scriptures, is God in favor of an autocracy, a monarchy, an aristocracy, or a democracy? The best answer to that question is what God did with His own people. He made their government both a democracy and an autocracy. An autocracy is where one governs; a democracy is where the people govern. In all religious or sacred matters it was an autocracy. God was the ruler. In all matters that related to themselves it was a democracy. The people selected their rulers. Each tribe had its own rulers.

We may find it again in the constitution of Christ’s church. This is a government, though not a civil government. The church is an autocracy and a democracy. It is an autocracy in the sense that Christ is the head and the Spirit, Christ’s vicar, is the guide and His Word is the law. That makes it an autocracy but it is a democracy in that every member of the church has rights equal to every other member, and in that the power to elect to office is in the people. Still it is not the business of the gospel to go around trying to change the forms of government. That is left as a matter of citi- zenship. It is the business of the church to preach salvation and to submit to the powers that be in all things except matters of conscience.

We now look at the purpose of appointing a civil government. Our article of faith says that it is for the interest and good order of human society. It is impossible for a great many people to live together without some rule. There must be something that will restrain the wicked and that will protect the innocent. The interests of the community demand that and not merely the interests but the good order. When there is no rule then you have anarchy and that brings about the worst possible form of confusion. So that if it be both to the interest and to the good order of society that there shall be a civil government and if God Himself has ordained that there shall be civil government, then we come to the next point.

What should be the attitude of Christians toward this civil govern- ment? And here our article of faith says that they are to be prayed for. Paul brings this out very clearly in one of these prooftexts cited where they are commanded to pray for all men and people, for those that are in authority. They are to pray for those that are in authority in order that they may have peace, happiness, and protection. Not only must they be prayed for, they must be honored. No man has a right to hold in irreverence any regular constituted authority. It is a violation of the commandment of God upon Christian people, which says, “Honor those that are in authority” (Rom 13:7), when he speaks lightly of the rulers of any people or when he rails at any dignity. Then he is to obey. As good order requires that somebody must be the representative of the government in keeping the good order, then the Christian above all men should be obedient to the magistrate. The examples of this obedience are abundant in the New Testament. Take the case of our Lord himself. By right under God He was not required to pay the Temple tax, as that Temple tax was assessed not upon the children but upon the outsiders, and yet rather than that there should be any complaint against Him He commanded Peter to go and catch a fish out of the sea, in which He would find the tribute money to pay their tax. So you see Christ’s answer on two very important things, whether it is lawful to pay tribute money to Rome and, second, whether it was lawful to pay the tribute money for the Temple worship.

The next thought presented here is that while God appointed civil authorities, and while He did it in the interest of the good order of society, the magistrates, or rulers, or whatever name, are to be prayed for and conscience honored and obeyed. There is this limitation, that the appointment for civil government is subordinate to divine government. In other words, all laws with reference to human society have a limited sphere beyond which they cannot extend rightfully. I will illustrate it: Children are required to honor their parents and obey them, but they are required to obey them in the Lord. They are not required to obey them contrary to the higher divine commandment.

If a man shall command his child to work, he should obey. If a man shall command his child to steal, he should not obey. You see how that second law would be against God. Therefore, when Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s,” he showed that while certain things belonged to Caesar, certain other things do not belong to Caesar. Caesar has no right to come into the domain of my parlor and command me to worship him as God. I may obey him as a magistrate, a ruler, but he has no jurisdiction over my religion.

On that account Christian people all through the ages have stood like a rock against the jurisdiction of the state over the conscience. Not all Christian people but all the best instructed Christian people did. When you read the great histories that tell you about the state of society in the time of the Reformation you will find that not only Roman Catholics but Protestants held that the matter of religion was in the hands of the civil magistrates and they expressed it in a proverb, “Whose is the government, his is the religion.” If the ruler was a Protestant he had a right to command all Roman Catholics to accept the Protestant religion, and if a Romanist, he had a right to command all Protestants to accept the Romish religion.

That indeed prevailed so widely and so generally that it absolutely startled the world when the Baptists took the position that the state had no jurisdiction at all on that subject. Bacchus, a great Baptist in the early days, about the time of the formation of our government and while they were debating the kind of government in the great Constitutional Con- vention, went before John Adams, a very prominent man in the struggle and one who became the second President of the United States, and tried to get John Adams’ influence to incorporate into the Constitution of the United States freedom as to religion. John Adams replied to him that one might as well tell the sun to go from west to east, turn back in its course, as to expect Massachusetts to give freedom of religion to its citizens. He never did take any steps in that direction, and the Constitution, as it was formulated, said nothing in behalf of the rights of the people on worship of God. Mr. Jefferson, who was in France at the time, when a copy of the Constitution as it was first drafted was set to him, stated that unless they did incorporate, in amendments to be immediately adopted, a bill of rights clearly protecting the consciences of men from the power of the state, that the government was doomed to failure, and the first ten amendments to the Constitution were all adopted at one time and thus it responded to that demand. 

In Virginia the Baptists held meetings and petitioned the burgesses and interested the great statesmen, like Madison and Jefferson, and never stopped until they saw to it that it was put into the Constitution of the United States by amendments, that Congress should make no law establishing a state religion, or interfering with the consciences of men in the matter of religion. It is a very interesting part of the history of our people. It is so much so, that when, on a certain occasion, a distinguished Baptist was in England and was asked at a dining by a celebrated statesman, John Bright, who was present, “What has your Baptist people contributed to society?” he answered, “Civil and religious liberty.” Mr. Bright said, “It is a great contribution.”

And there stood over against each other Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Rhode Island, with a constitution absolutely prohibiting the intrusion of the state into conscience and Massachusetts insisting that the magistrates must inquire into the doctrine and religious life of the people. Not far from the battlefield of Lexington and within a short time after that battle a large Baptist community in Connecticut were assessed by legal officers for money with which to build a Congregational church and pay for a Congregational minister, though there were very few of them in the community. They refused to do it, whereupon the sheriff came down and attached the choicest parts of their fields and of their gardens and sold them under the hammer for a song and the Congregational minister present said nothing. The object of it was to build that Congregational minister a church house and to pay his salary.

The big fight came off in Virginia when the Episcopalian church as the state church, and a tax, called the tobacco tax, was assessed requiring each citizen to furnish so many pounds of tobacco for the support of the clergy, and nobody could be a clergyman except he was ordained by the bishop of the Episcopal Church; so they had some lively fighting over the tobacco tax, and it has been said for a long time that the apparent stinginess of Baptist people in contributing to the support of their pastors and the building of church houses arose from the fact that they had been so long required by law to build church houses for other denominations and other preachers that their stomach turned against anybody requiring them to pay a preacher or help build a meeting house.

I have no doubt but that it had its influence; that it influenced them. In that time they had to preach without pay and they got in the habit of calling any preacher that received pay a hireling, and for a good while the churches were opposed to fixing any salary whatever. As a humorous illustration of the application of it, on one occasion a church called a man to preach for his support, if he should serve them as a pastor, they told him there could be no definite steps taken upon that, that the members of the church were at liberty to do as their hearts prompted them, at any time to give him whatever they wanted to give, as the Spirit moved them. In accepting the church they asked him when his appointments would commence and how many Sundays there would be. “Well,” he says, “Brethren, I cannot tell. Just as the Spirit moves me, once a month, twice a month, or I may not come at all. You must not have any cast-iron rules on that subject; let that be like the pay.” Well, it opened their eyes to the working of such a principle and so after a while they recovered from the extremes into which the Episcopalian rule had driven them.

Now, I think that the Baptists are the most liberal people on earth, but you have got to possess their confidence before you can get their money, and you must be able to show them that this money is for God’s cause. When you do that the Baptist people respond, and it is right for them not to give money blindly. Money rightfully used is a great power and no man should ever throw away a dollar. He should be open-handed and open-hearted in contribution to what is clearly set before him, and in the judgment of his conscience is right. 

This matter of civil government involves the great struggles through the ages to sever the two ideas of obedience to magistrates and obedience to God. Pagan Rome, in which the state dominated the church, and Papal iniquitous results, results that are evil and evil only, continually.

Article XVII and XVIII: The Righteous and the Wicked: The World to Come

Article XVII reads as follows:

We believe that there is a radical and essential difference between the righteous and the wicked; that such only as through faith are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and sanctified by the Spirit of our God, are truly righteous in His esteem; while all such as continue in impenitence and unbelief are in His sight wicked, and under the curse; and this distinction holds among men both in and after death.  

Article XVIII:

We believe that the end of this world is approaching; that at the last day, Christ will descend from heaven, and raise the dead from the grace to final retribution; that a solemn separation will then take place; that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment, and the righteous to endless joy; and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men, in heaven or hell, on principles of righteousness. 

We discuss today these two articles under one subject, that of the judgment, which is a great and solemn one. In times past men seemed to realize this more, I think, than they do at present. I sometimes fear that this is due to the neglect of preaching about the judgment and that which is associated with it. However this may be with the people of today, one thing is sure, that there seems to be nothing that more impressed the minds of the Scripture writers than the scenes associated with that great day. Paul refers to it in the second chapter of Romans, and likewise in the first chapter of Second Thessalonians in thoughts that breathe and words that burn. Peter speaks of it in his second epistle with all the fervidness of his earnest soul. John saw great and rapt and awful visions of that day, and there is no one that refers to it more frequently and with greater emphasis and in more vivid representations than does our Lord himself. Is it not important, therefore, that this great subject should receive very devout and reverent attention from all, but especially from those who are to preach the gospel, that they may be able to exalt it to something of the same position that the Scripture writers do? 

I know, and probably you know, that that man of beautiful spirit, Dr. Clarke,¹² representing others than himself, would explain away or deny the scriptural doctrine of the judgment, as we understand it at least, and would say that every man has a judgment immediately after death. The representation in the Bible is only the gathering up of that age-long process into one description in the terms of a judgment seat and a court room. But the teaching of the Scripture is so emphatic about “that day,” “the day of judgment,” repeated over and over again, a day that “God has appointed” in which He will judge the world in righteousness, distinguishing it from all other days because of its grandeur and importance, that we cannot, doing any justice to the Scriptures, explain all that is said about it in the Bible as mere drapery of Scripture, descriptions of the judgment rather than as belonging to its essence. We therefore admire the frankness of this frank brother when he admits that he supposes the Scripture writers and even our Lord thought that there was to be such a day, but he thinks they, including our Lord Himself, were mistaken. He gives us the clear opportunity, therefore, to decide whether we will take him or our Lord and the Scripture writers as the greater authority. I do not think there will be much hesitation in our choice.

But is not the picture that we have of the judgment day and that which is associated with it fitted to make a profound impression upon a sensitive mind and heart? Take the description of both the judgment and of that which precedes it, in Revelation 6:12ff, Matthew 24:26ff, Matthew 25:31ff, 2 Thessalonians 1:6ff, and conclude by reading Revelation 20:11ff. If we have any inner sensitiveness and imagination at all, our hearts are stirred. Earthquakes shaking the world, and the mountains flaming, the skies darkened so that the sun becomes as sackcloth and the moon as blood, the terror of the wicked as they see in these the signs of the coming of the Son of Man and the Son of God, and flee to the dens and caves of the mountains and pray that even the rocks and the mountains might fall upon them rather than that they should have the awful fate of standing naked before the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb.

Then take the description of the great central event associated with the judgment. The brightness of our Lord’s coming flashes across the sky. He descends in His glory accompanied by hosts of angels and takes His seat upon the throne of His glory. The trumpet of God sounds long and loud. Its summons enters not only into the ears of the living but into the realm of the dead. Soon the countless multitudes of those who have slept in the dust as well as the myriads of those who are alive are gathered before Him Who is the appointed Judge of the quick and the dead, and await what is to follow. We can do no better than to keep this picture of the judgment before us: The great white throne, Him that sits upon it, now in such glory that before His face heaven and earth are ready to flee away, and the countless multitudes of the risen dead and the changed living gathered before Him, as we proceed.

The first thing that impresses us is that this judgment is a general one. It is general in the sense of being for both the great classes of men, for the good and for the bad. In that great picture which our Lord gives in Matthew 25:31 to the close, He says that all the nations shall be gathered there before Him, and that He will say to all of those that belong to one class, “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” He will say to the other class which includes all the rest, “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Then it is not only general in being for both kinds of men, but also in being for all men in all the ages, not only for those who are alive when He comes, but likewise for all who have ever lived. Take Revelation 20:11 where he speaks of the dead before this great judgment begins. From graves are to give up their dead before this great judgment begins. From mountain and from valley and from plain and from sea, the infinite multitude of those who have died and have been buried will be called forth and will be constrained to come into the great gathering.

Notice likewise it is said that after death this judgment comes. For all those who are to die this judgment comes after this event. It says also that this is to be a judgment for deeds done in the body, implying that when this judgment takes place men will not be in the body, that is, in the body that they had upon earth at least. Ought not these considerations to make the judgment tremendously impressive?

Take men today when they are thinking about what will be the outcome of their crimes. They know the law and the government are seeking to bring them into court, but they hope to be able to escape. They will go into the forests, they will take a voyage across the sea, or they will conceal themselves in the slums of the great cities and the eye of the government will not find them. But in that great judgment day there will be no hiding place. Everybody is to be there right before our Lord Jesus Christ. They are to be there in immediate connection with God’s righteous laws and judgments. They will not be able to put God and Christ out of their thoughts and minds in that day, as they do here. There will be no one on that day that will be able to mock at sin. There will be no one in that day that will be able to say that God is too loving as revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ to condemn anybody. Before that great white throne all subterfuges which men rely on here to quiet their consciences and their fears will vanish like the foam upon the sea. In the next place, and that is most important of all in this connection, they will not only be all there in the presence of that Christ whom many of them have ignored, and whose offers of mercy and whose importunities they have allowed to go unheeded and have rejected. Then, in the next place, we have to inquire in the light of the judgment pictures themselves and also in the light of the most positive declarations of Scripture as to what are the principles which govern this great judgment, on this great judgment day. Now you know that in earthly courts men are judged according to a standard; the law of the land is the standard, and if they have violated the standard which is given them in this law the judge will condemn them. If they have not violated it they will be justified, as far as the law of the land is concerned. The judgment in earthly courts is not what we call absolute; it is a relative thing, relative to the standard, relative to the law under which men are.

Is there something like this in connection with this great judgment day? Turn to Romans 1:20 and you will find there that the heathen, so far as knowledge of God is concerned, are judges by what they conclude as to God’s existence and character through the works of nature. In other words, they have not any positive revelation; their standard of judgment therefore is according to the knowledge that they have. That is one side. Then the other side of this is found in the second chapter of Romans, 12th to 16th verses. It is said that the heathen not having a law are a law unto themselves because they have a conscience which, when they do wrong, condemns them, and when they do what they feel to be right, excuses them, and that is to be their moral standard by which they are to be judged. Then we come to the Jews and according to the same chapter, 12th verse, we have the statement there made that the Jews shall be judged by the Jewish law. He says that whoever has the law shall be judged by the law. Those that have no law, i.e., this Jewish law, because they have a law of conscience which still condemns; so they are without excuse. That is Paul’s argument. When we come to Christian people, we have the statement made in John 12:48 that men shall be judged by Christ’s words, a higher revelation. In other words, every man will be judged in that day according as his life and being stand related to the law under which he has lived.

Now another principle, of course, follows from this, if it is not included in it. It is that the condemnation is in proportion to knowledge and opportunity, and then still further to ability. Take the last first. In the parable of the talents the man who has committed to him only one talent has not as much responsibility as the man who has two or five. If he improves upon what he has he will have the same proportion of reward as the man who had the greater number of talents although the latter will have the greater sum total of rewards. On the other hand, it is also taught that with the greater ability misused a man will have upon him the greater condemnation.

You that are here before me today, by virtue of your hope to be preachers of the gospel, are supposed to have some special ability. If you have that special ability, as we believe you have, this principle of judg- ment will bring you greater condemnation unless you do your best. You will have more condemnation, likewise, in proportion to knowledge and opportunity. Luke 12:48 says substantially that if a man who does not know disobeys, he will be beaten with few stripes, and it goes on to lay down the principle that to whom much is given much shall be required. Then you take another passage, such as John 15:22, and another such as John 3:19, and you will find that these principles are declared. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for the people of Capernaum where our Lord lived and taught because He has given them greater knowledge than the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomor- rah. Nobody had any greater opportunity than did they. Certainly it is that according to the Scriptures the Jews are under greater condemnation than the Gentiles. And from this likewise it follows that Christians, if they do not improve and use the knowledge and opportunity that they have, as Christians, will be under greater condemnation than the Jews. We have that stated in Hebrews 10:28–29: 

He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

That lays down this principle of judgment with all emphasis. These, then, are some of the principles upon which the judgment on that great day will be decided. 

Notice also the nature of this judgment. “Nature” may not be the most exact general term for what I mean, but under it I will show you my thought. How universal is this judgment in connection with what pertains to every man’s life? It is not only universal, as said before, as including all men, but it is universal as including everything that pertains to every man’s life. It has in view all that is bad and all that is good, “Who will render to every man according to this deeds” (Rom 2:6). “Then take Matthew 12: “For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and then He shall re- ward every man according to His works” (Matt 16:27). Then take Matthew 12:36: “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” You see the statement made again in 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” In the last verse of Ecclesiastes you will find the same statement: “The Lord shall bring every work and every secret thing into judgment whether it be good or whether it be evil.” Then it is universal not only in the sense of extending to all forms of action but it is universal in extending to every word and every deed, etc. Matthew 12:36 shows one side of that: “But I say unto you that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment.” I suppose that means that at the judgment everything will be noticed, even to the idle or empty or thoughtless word. The thing that we think less about will not escape the scrutiny of that great day. 

And then observe likewise how searching it is. Take the connection in which Matthew 12:36 stands and you will find that previous to that, our Lord is saying that what comes forth from the man is what counts rather than what goes into him, and He says even your idle words are an index of that which is deepest within you. The thought is that you cannot do the smallest thing that will not be an index to something deeper than itself away down in the depths of the soul where moral quality has its real seat. This searching character of the judgment is further seen in Ecclesiastes 12:14: “For God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil,” in Romans 2:16 In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel,” and in Luke 12:2: “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, and neither hid, that shall not be known.” 

While this last passage is not in immediate connection with the judgment it looks forward to that great day. “Well now, what is it within us which is beyond the scrutiny of other men?” I suppose, in a word, it would be thoughts and motives. So you see the universality of this judgment, both classes of moral acts, every individual word or deed which is good or bad and then down beneath all the very depths of a man’s soul his bad moral character, and all the secret well springs of motive and thought, whether good or bad, God sees all this. This great day is going to open all that up. Just stand face to face with that thought now. Let a lost man stand face to face with that thought. He has in his secret soul motives, and he has had thoughts that he would not, for his life, have even the greatest sinner in the world know. And yet, in that great day it will all be laid open before the face of our Lord and the angels and men, according to this representation. It is a solemn thought for us even who believe we shall then be sheltered in Christ.

In my concluding words I wish to refer to what I call its quality, purpose, and righteousness. Have you ever noticed how frequently that is insisted on, the righteousness of the judgments of God? Christ is the righ- teous judge: “He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath appointed” (Acts 17:31). Then it is not only to be according to righteousness as to its quality but the purpose of it is likewise to manifest righteousness. “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgement of God” (Rom 2:5).

Now there are a good many people today that question the divine righteousness. We all sometimes have our troubles along God’s providential dealings and some have these troubles in view of this which we call the terrible doctrine of future and eternal punishment. Right on th ethreshold of it all this judgment which consigns finally to that awful fate there is emphasis laid upon its righteousness. Then just think a little further. It is Christ that is to be the Judge. He is the very embodiment of love and Who has manifested love as no one else has. Is not there an assurance in the fact that Christ is to be the Judge that there will not be anything harsh and unrighteous in what He decides? Is there not a hint in that twelfth chapter of Luke where it speaks of the secrets of all hearts being revealed, that just as in this we feel that conscience that judges us within is but the representative of One that judges us without, that at the judgment there will be a resurrection within the wicked of conscience, which has been hardened and seared, that will compel them to see the justness of their own condemnation? It only requires a perfect conscience, as I believe, in order to be perfectly satisfied with the divine judgment.

The purpose is not to determine destiny. Now there is one passage (more correctly given in the Revised Version) that, I think, makes this perfectly clear, “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temp- tations, and to reserve the unjust under punishment unto the day of judgment” (2 Pet 2:9). Under punishment unto the day of judgment! It is not to determine destiny. The wicked are punished and they are held under this punishment until the judgment, or unto this great final judgment. It is to make manifest the righteousness of the righteous judgments of God. 

Here His providential dealings with us sometimes seem a great injustice, but this judgment day is to be a day when all the warp and woof of men’s lives that have seemed but a tangle of different colored threads will show the great and perfect pattern. It is somewhat like a painter who is painting a picture. He paints a little here and there and yonder. It is little better than a daub, but finally he fills it all in, and we see in it a thing of harmonious beauty. Our Lord, in the judgment day, will put the finishing touches upon the grand landscape of the world’s long life and will reveal the harmony of His government.

I want to notice one fact in connection with that passage in 2 Corinthians 3:10, where it is said that they shall be judged for deeds done in the body. That means there is nothing between the bodily life and the judgment day that comes into the judgment. There is no probation between. From the judgment they go away into their everlasting condition. There is no probation afterwards. Eternal destiny is determined when a man dies.

1. Editor’s Note: Nathan L. Rice was a Presbyterian minister who debated Campbell on baptism, the Holy Spirit in conversion, and the use of creeds. Edward H. Sawyer, “Campbell-Rice Debate,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement, ed. Douglas Allen Foster (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 145-147.
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2. Editor’s Note: Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology: A Compendium and
   Common-Place Book Designed for the Use of Theological Students (Rochester: E.R. Andrews, 1886), 144. ↩︎
3. Editor’s Note: Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, vol. 3 (London, 1857), 49-56. ↩︎
4. Editor’s Note: Augustus Hopkins Strong here is quoting directly from Alvah
   Hovey. A.H. Strong, Outlines of Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: Griffith & Rowland, 1905), 208; A. Hovey, Manual of Systematic Theology, and Christian Ethics (Boston: Henry A. Young, 1877(, 258-59. ↩︎
5. Editor’s Note: The New Hampshire Confession was made widely available in J.M.
   Pendleton, Baptist Church Manual (reprint, Nashville: Broadman, 1966), 43–62. ↩︎
6. B.H. Carroll, Ecclesia—The Church (Louisville: Baptist Book Concern, 1903); idem,
   Baptists and Their Doctrines: Sermons on Distinctive Baptist Principles (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1913). ↩︎
7. See Smith’s Bible Dictionary, Article, “Lord’s Day.” ↩︎
8. Editor’s Note: Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 9. ↩︎
9. Editor’s Note: Didache 14.2. ↩︎
10. Editor’s Note: Epistle of Barnabas 15.8-9. ↩︎
11. Editor’s Note: Justin Martyr, Apology 14. ↩︎
12. Editor’s Note: Goodspeed is likely referring here to the great Liberal theologian, William Newton Clarke, who taught that judgment came to each soul immediately after death, and that post-mortem salvation was possible. James Leo Garrett Jr., Baptist Theology: A Four Century Study (Macon, GA: Mercer Universtiy Press, 2009), 309; William Newton Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899), 463–66, 474–76. ↩︎