at home, as well as in the lands far away. "How shall they preach,
except they be sent?" The sending of missionaries is dependent upon the
zeal and liberality of the churches in our land. But how can one who is
not sure that Jesus ever uttered the words of the Great Commission urge
the churches to fulfil that command of Christ? How can one who has never
felt his own need of an atonement adjure his brethren, by Christ's death
for their sins, not to let the heathen perish? How can one who has had
no experience of Christ as a present and divine Saviour, have power to
stand against the rationalism and apathy of the church? This method of
Scripture interpretation makes evangelism an enterprise of fanatics not
sufficiently educated to know that Buddha and Confucius were teachers of
truth long before the time of Christ. Can we more surely dry up the
sources of missionary contributions, than by yielding to the pernicious
influence of this way of treating Scripture? We have gone far already in
the wrong direction. Our churches are honeycombed with doubt and with
indifference. The preaching of the old gospel of sin and salvation seems
almost a thing of the past. People have itching ears that will not
endure sound doctrine. The dynamic of missions is love for Christ, who
died to save us from the guilt and power of sin. Modern criticism has
to a large extent nullified this dynamic, and if the authority of
Scripture is yet further weakened, we may look for complete collapse in
our supplies both of men and of money. In fact, the faith and the gifts
of many converts from among the heathen already so far exceed the
average faith and gifts of our churches at home, that the time may come
when Burma and the Congo may have to send missionaries to us, as we are
now sending missionaries to the land where the seven churches of Asia
once flourished.
Whence has come this so-called "historical method" of interpreting
Scripture? I answer: It was "made in Germany." German scholarship for a
century past has been working almost exclusively on the horizontal
plane, and has been ignoring the light that comes from above. The
theology of Great Britain and of America has been profoundly affected by
the application of its evolutionary and skeptical principles. In Germany
itself the honesty of every Scripture writer has been questioned, and
every sacred document has been torn into bits. When the all-pervading
presence and influence of Christ in the Bible is lost sight of, and its
separate fragments are examined to discover their meaning, there is no
guide but the theory of evolution; and evolution, instead of being the
ordinary method of a personal God, is itself personified and made the
only power in the universe. The regularities of nature, it is thought,
leave no room for miracle. There is no divine Will that can work down
upon nature in unique acts, such as incarnation and resurrection. A
pantheistic Force is the only ruler, and whatever is, is right. Goethe
led the way in this pagan philosophy, and German universities have been
full of it ever since. It is painful to see how German theologians and
ministers have been won over to the ethics of brute force and the
practical, deification of mere might in human affairs. The New Testament
has been interpreted as justifying implicit obedience to "the powers
that be," even when they turn the Kaiser into a military despot and his
people into unresisting and deluded slaves. An exaggerated nationalism
has taken the place of human solidarity, and a selfish domination of the
world has become the goal of national ambition. All the atrocities of
this war might have been spared us, if the nations of which Germany is
the most conspicuous offender had derived their ethics and their
practice from the divine love which rules above, rather than from the
seeming necessity of competing with the nations around them. A new
interpretation of Scripture is needed to set the world right. But as
Germany will never be convinced that the worship of Force is vain,
until she sees herself plunged in defeat and ruin, so the advocates of
this so-called historical method will never make deduction a primary
part of their procedure, and will never take the eternal Christ as their
key to Scripture interpretation, until Christ himself shall by a second
spiritual advent enter into their hearts and dissipate their doubts, as
he did when he showed himself to Paul on the way to Damascus.
I have tried to point out the inherent error of the method to which I
have been objecting, and to show its ill effects upon systematic
theology, upon our theological seminaries, upon our Baptist churches,
and upon our missionary work abroad and at home. I have intimated that
the influence of this perverse treatment of Holy Writ may be seen even
in the present internecine conflict in which the professedly Christian
nations are engaged. I shall very naturally be asked what remedy I
propose for so deep-seated and widespread an evil. I can only answer
that I see no permanent cure but the second coming of Christ. But do not
misunderstand me. I am no premillennarian of the ordinary sort. Indeed,
I am as much a post-millennialist, as I am a premillennialist. I believe
that both interpretations of prophecy have their rights, and, believing
also as I do that Scripture is a unity and that its seeming
contradictions can be harmonized, I hold that Christ's spiritual coming
precedes the millennium, but that his visible and literal coming follows
the millennium. I therefore look for such a spiritual coming into the
hearts of his people, as shall renew their faith, fulfil their joy, and
answer to the prediction of "the rapture of the saints." In other
words, I look for a mighty revival of religion, which will set the
churches on their old foundation, and endow them with power to subdue
the world. This war seems to me God's second great demonstration of
man's inability to save himself, and his need of divine power to save
him. As the ancient world and its history were God's demonstration of
human sin, and of man's need of Christ's first advent, so this war is
God's proof that science and philosophy, literature and commerce, are
not sufficient for man's needs, and that Christ must again come, if our
modern world is ever to be saved. "In the fulness of time" Christ's
first advent occurred. "In the fulness of time" Christ's second advent
will occur. But not until humanity, weary of its load, cries out for its
redemption. "How long, O Lord, how long?" "It is not for us to know the
times which the Father has set within his own authority." But it is ours
to believe in Christ's promise, and to pray for its speedy fulfilment.
And so, I beg you to join with me in the one prayer with which our book
of Scripture closes, namely, "Lord Jesus, come quickly!"
XVII
THE THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS
"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." Yes, a candle, but a
candle not yet lighted, a candle which will never be light nor give
light, till it is touched by a divine flame. So said Doctor Parkhurst.
Was his interpretation of Scripture correct? He drew from the proverb
the conclusion that man has a religious nature, not in the sense that
he is actually religious, but only in the sense that he has a capacity
for religion. Doctor Parkhurst would say that man is actually religious
only when he knows the true God and worships him in spirit and in
truth. To that God he is by nature and by sinful habit blind. He can be
light and give light, only after God has enlightened him by special
revelation. His nature is a candle unlighted, until God touches it with
his divine flame.
What is the truth in this matter? The months I have spent in these
heathen lands have made deep impression upon me, and the problem of
heathenism has loomed up before me as never before. When one sees
thousands prostrating themselves in a Mohammedan mosque and chanting in
unison their ascription of greatness to God, or when one sees a Hindu
devotee so absorbed in his prayer to a senseless idol that he is
unconscious of the kicks and shouts of the passers-by, one comes to
realize that man must have a god. The religious instinct is a part of
his nature. It is more than a mere capacity for religion. It is active
as well as passive. In some sort the candle is already burning. It burns
at certain times and places with a fierce and demonic glow. When I saw
in Calcutta, so recently the capital of India, a priestess of the temple
of Kali, cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of sheep in order that
the poorest worshiper might have for his farthing some bloody fragment
to offer at the shrine of that hideous and lustful and cruel goddess, I
felt sure that, though the candle is burning, it is not always because
it has been touched by a divine flame. There are other powers than God's
at work in this universe. Doctor Parkhurst's explanation of the
Scripture text is not sufficient. He acknowledges only a part of the
truth. The candle is giving already a dim and lurid light. Man is
blindly worshiping, groping in the dark, bowing to imaginary deities,
the products of his own imagination, the work of his own hands.
We must go even farther than this, and concede that here and there among
these crowds of worshipers there may be one who is a sincere seeker
after God and, according to the light that he has, is trying honestly to
serve him. I do not mean a selfish service of ignorant and earthly
passion, but a service prompted by some elementary knowledge of the true
God, gained by contemplation of his works in nature or from the needs of
his own soul revealed in conscience. Surely there was truth and
sincerity in the worship of Socrates, of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius.
The patriarchs had knowledge of God and walked with God, long before
Christ came. And Scripture itself declares that in every nation he that
fears God and works righteousness is accepted by him. David Brainerd
found among the American Indians a man who for years had separated
himself from the wickedness of his people, and had devoted himself to
doing them good. Now and then our missionaries find a heathen whose
strivings after God have been prompted by a sense of sin, and whose
worship must have been accepted by the God of love. Though there is
"none other name given among men whereby we may be saved," we cannot
doubt that every man who feels himself to be a sinner, and casts himself
upon God's mercy for salvation, does really though unconsciously cast
himself upon Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world, and so joins himself to Christ by the teaching and power of
Christ's Spirit, as to be saved in some measure from the dominion of sin
here and from the penalty of sin hereafter.
I am a believer in the unity, the sufficiency, and the authority of
Scripture--in its unity, when the parts are put together in their
historical connections and with the key to their meaning furnished us in
Christ; in its sufficiency, as a rule of religious faith and practice;
and in its authority, when rightly interpreted with the aid of the Holy
Spirit. So I am prepared to find in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle
to the Romans the true philosophy of heathenism, and the reconciliation
of the otherwise seemingly conflicting utterances of Scripture with
regard to the religious nature of man. I learn that God made man
upright, and endowed him with at least a childlike knowledge of himself.
But early humanity sought out many inventions, did not wish to retain
God in its knowledge, and substituted for the true God creatures of its
own imagination. In other words, the scriptural explanation of
heathenism is found in an original ancestral sin, in which the human
race departed from the true God and gave itself up to the worship,
first, of impersonal nature-powers, and then, of the polytheistic
personifications of these powers which naturally followed.
Modern heathenism is the result of an abnormal and downward evolution.
Many students of comparative religion have forgotten that evolution is
oftener to lower forms than to higher. Many a species in the history of
life has first become degenerate, and then has become extinct. The
shores of time are strewn with wrecks, and one of these wrecks is human
nature. Paul gives us only the logical and moral interpretation of a
biological fact, when he declares that in consequence of man's departure
from God, God gave man over to the dominion of his own passions, in
order that the shame and guilt of his vile affections might awaken his
conscience and lead him to cry for mercy and redemption. Modern
heathenism, still surviving in this age of enlightenment, shows how sin
can blind the intellect and harden the heart. When men worship demons of
cruelty and lust instead of God, they reveal the depravity as well as
the ignorance of human nature in its downward evolution. The candle has
been lighted indeed, but it has been touched with the flames of hell.
When God made man in his own image, it was only wheat that he sowed in
his field. The evil decision of man has furnished the tares, and their
history has been a history of downward evolution. But side by side with
this downward evolution there has been an upward evolution of divine
grace. The tares have been suffered to grow, but only that there might
be demonstrated the power of the wheat to root them out. And from the
very beginning Christ has been the author and principle of the true
evolution. He who created the race has been its Preserver, Instructor,
and Saviour. Humanity, in its warring and its lust, would long since
have become extinct, if it had not been for the presence in it of a
divine Life and Light. That life and light were the life and light of
the preincarnate Christ. He is "the light that lighteth every man," and
"his life was the light of men." Jonathan Edwards did not go too far,
when he recognized in all natural beauty and goodness the work of
Christ. The sunset clouds were painted by the hand of Christ, and it is
he whose glory is celebrated by the cannonading of the autumn storm over
the grave of summer. All the light of conscience is his light; all the
progress of science is his revelation. It was he who led the children of
Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and who
thundered and lightened from Sinai at the giving of the Law. "The Rock
that followed" the chosen people through the wilderness and gave them
drink "was Christ." Every reform within the bounds of heathenism has
been due to him. Confucius and Buddha, so far as they uttered truth,
were his messengers. He has never left humanity without a witness to the
power and goodness of God. While men have been seeking an unknown God,
he has been that very God whom they were seeking, and it is he who has
incited them to feel after him and find him. His light has shined in
the darkness, and the darkness has comprehended it not, though in him we
live and move and have our being.
So there is evolution of good, side by side with the evolution of evil.
We may recognize truth in heathen systems, while we deplore their
errors, for Christ himself is the Truth. It is the single grain of truth
in these systems that has given them all their power. They never could
have maintained their hold upon the world, if they had not appealed to
some good instincts of the human heart. A coin made wholly of lead will
never pass for a dollar. It must have a little washing of silver to give
it any sort of currency. But it is a counterfeit, for all its silver
washing. So these heathen systems have their grain of truth, but they
are false and soul-destroying all the same. Let us recognize candidly
the grains of truth which they contain, for these are witnesses to the
indwelling Christ who has not left humanity wholly to itself. And let us
make these grains of truth our gateways of access to the heathen heart,
while we show the heathen the larger and fuller truth as it is in Jesus.
Christ alone can solve the problems of the world and reconcile the
warring elements of humanity. He is our peace, who hath made Jew and
Gentile one, having broken down the middle wall of partition, and having
made of the twain one new man, reconciling both to God through the blood
of his Cross. He can make all sects, all parties, all castes, all
nations one; because in him are all the elements of truth which each
possesses, without any mixture of their errors. In him there will be no
longer barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female, for he will
bind all together by virtue of their union with himself. The Hindu, for
example, has the truth of God's immanence, but he turns it into
falsehood by denying the correlative and equally important truth of
God's transcendence, making God to be a mere nature-force without
personality, while Scripture recognizes in God both immanence and
transcendence, sees God in all things and through all things, yet above
all things. The Hindu has also the truth of God's incarnation, but he
turns it into error, by denying the permanence of that incarnation, the
divine incarnation in Krishna or Buddha being only a temporary
assumption of humanity which he leaves behind him when he reascends to
his heaven, while Christ takes our human nature into perpetual union
with himself and makes it sit down with him upon his throne. The Moslem,
on the other hand, believes in God's unity and transcendence, but denies
his immanence. His God is far away, not only physically but also
morally, for he is without justice or love. The Moslem holds stoutly to
the truth of God's personality; but he denies the manifestation of that
personality in Christ, and also Christ's personal presence with all
believers. Only Christ can break down the middle wall of partition
between Hindu and Moslem, for he alone has the all-inclusive truth that
will unite them both. And so of all divisions of caste, of color, of
party, of denomination, and of nationality, for he alone is the Way, the
Truth, and the Life, supremely and absolutely fitted to be the Bringer
of Peace to the world.
There is yet another reason why Christ alone can save. Let us remember
always that error is the result of sin, and that before the power of sin
can be broken, the penalty of sin must be removed. In the heart of man
is an inextinguishable sense of guilt, and an equally inextinguishable
thirst for reparation. It is the forebodings of conscience that make
death terrible. Blind the eyes and harden the heart, if you will. The
accusations of conscience will be like writings in invisible ink, that
come out clear and threatening in times of introspection and of sober
judgment. As Shakespeare says,
Their great guilt
Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now 'gins to bite the spirits.
The greatest chasm is between their souls and God, and they must have
peace with God, before they can have peace with men. Christ is our
peace, therefore, first of all, because he makes atonement for our sins,
pays our debts to justice, and sets our conscience free from guilt.
Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world,
making peace by the blood of his Cross. Having made our peace with God,
he makes peace in our warring powers of conscience and will, and then
brings about peace in our relations with others. As he made man at the
first of one blood, so he will at last bring all the nations back into
one brotherhood of holiness and love.
There is a moral theology, as well as a doctrinal theology. The moral
follows the doctrinal, and shows in practice that the doctrine is truth
and not error. Paul includes this moral teaching in his Epistle to the
Romans. At the beginning of his twelfth chapter he passes from his
discussion of justification by faith to speak of the proper effects of
faith in the Christian life: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Then
comes the noblest summary of duty to be found in all literature. All
manner of social service is enjoined, while the presupposition of that
service is ever held to be the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf and the
regenerating grace of God in the Christian heart. How much the heathen
world needs this part of the gospel, only some knowledge of the shameful
vices of the Orient can reveal to us. The first chapter of that same
Epistle is a correct picture of the heathen world of to-day. A pure
life, which is also a life lived for others, is something which
surpasses the power of Confucius or Buddha to produce or to maintain.
Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments
for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence,
farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. It
lifts up the whole family, the whole class, the whole caste, making its
members intelligent, efficient, trustworthy, as many British officials
in India gladly bear witness. Christianity seems likely to give the
Sudras precedence of the Brahmans in civil and political affairs, so
that in one case at least the meek shall inherit the earth.
The kingdom of God, however, can never win its triumphs solely by
external reforms. In order to obtain the fruits of education, morality,
and self-government, you must first have Christian faith rooted in the
soil. Applications of Christianity are necessary, and they are to be
earnestly sought, but it will be vain to seek them, if we have no
Christianity to apply. The tendency in our missions to put the main
stress upon physical and social agencies, to the detriment of simple
gospel preaching, is sure to be disappointing in its results. It is like
trying to light a coal-fire by putting your kindlings on top. It is like
beginning at the roof, and building down to the foundation; or like
first purifying the stream, and afterwards the fountain. Society is made
up of individuals, and regeneration of the individual must precede all
social renovation. The old gospel, with regard to sin and salvation, is
the only gospel that will save the heathen world; and the living,
personal Christ, with his atoning blood and his renewing Spirit, is the
only power that can bring about permanent reformation of social evils
and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the individual, in the
nation, and in the world.
That this is the true theology of missions, the history of missions is
the best of all proofs. We need not only to touch the intellect, but
also to touch the heart. We need to furnish a motive that will win to
action the sluggish and selfish devotees of systems century-old that
have enslaved them. One message, and one only, has accomplished this
result, and that is the message of the Cross. Not the presentation of
God's greatness and power, but the story of the personal Jesus and his
giving up of his life for sinners, has moved men to give themselves to
him. The love of Christ has called forth answering love. Greenlanders
and Bushmen, Tibetans and Telugus, Australians and Chinese, have gone
to their deaths for Christ, simply because they had learned that
Christ died for them. Of this sort have been the first-fruits of all
our missions. Christ crucified has been the power of God unto
salvation. When he who was rich became poor that we might become rich,
he instituted not only an example, but a motive, sufficient to subdue
men's hearts and to conquer the world. "To win for the Lamb that was
slain the reward of his sufferings" has turned illiterate men in
India into indomitable propagandists of Christianity; but it has also
made missionaries in Oxford and Edinburgh, in Leicester and
Andover--missionaries like Reginald Heber and John G. Paton, like
William Carey and Adoniram Judson. The "offense of the Cross" is
great, but the power of the Cross is greater still, and the theology
of missions must never permit mere philosophy, or education, or
physical betterment, or social service, to take the place of Christ
crucified in its preaching.