More classic Machen

The stirring conclusion to the chapter simply titled "Christ" from Christianity and Liberalism:

The liberal Jesus, despite all the efforts of modern psychological reconstruction to galvanize Him into life, remains a manufactured figure of the stage. Very different is the Jesus of the New Testament and of the great Scriptural creeds. That Jesus is indeed mysterious. Who can fathom the mystery of His Person? But the mystery is a mystery in which a man can rest. The Jesus of the New Testament has at least one advantage over the Jesus of modern reconstruction—He is real. He is not a manufactured figure suitable as a point of support for ethical maxims, but a genuine Person whom a man can love. Men have loved Him through all the Christian centuries. And the strange thing is that despite all the efforts to remove Him from the pages of history, there are those who love Him still. (p. 116)

In defense of doctrine (Machen)

I'm re-reading Christianity and Liberalism and finding it astonishingly relevant to the church today -- especially the Presbyterian branch. Some of the secondary issues and nuances have changed, but the fundamental conflict continues to revolve around differing views of Christ, the authority of Scripture, and the nature of salvation. The sickness of theological liberalism that Machen saw as diametrically opposed to Christianity results in a variety of symptoms.

Part of what Machen was responding to was an attempt to "rescue" Christianity from so much emphasis on doctrine, and to rehabilitate Jesus as the founder of a non-doctrinal religion that was later hijacked by the apostles and church fathers with their creeds and councils. The battle cry of the modernists was "Christianity is a life not a doctrine." Read Machen for yourself, but I think he succeeded in demonstrating that any such effort doesn't fly, and that the pitting of deeds against creeds results in something other than the New Testament gospel. In a sad irony it removes the fuel for changed lives.

Even if you get rid of John, that most doctrinal of the Gospels, and limit yourself to only those statements of Jesus that even the most critical scholars accept as authentic, one is forced to conclude that Jesus was more than a teacher of timeless moral truths. His Messianic consciousness is everywhere apparent. He proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God and began to explain to his disciples what that meant. It was left to the Apostles, guided by the Holy Spirit, to explain the full meaning of Christ's life, death and resurrection.

Here's Machen in his own words from Chapter 2 of Christianity and Liberalism:

From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name "gospel" or "good news" implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. "Christ died"—that is history; "Christ died for our sins"—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity. (p. 27)

"Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried"—that is history. "He loved me and gave Himself for me"—that is doctrine. Such was the Christianity of the primitive Church. (p. 29)

Jesus was certainly not a mere enunciator of permanent truths, like the modern liberal preacher; on the contrary He was conscious of standing at the turning-point of the ages, when what had never been was now to come to be. (pp. 31-2)

The Christ who is (already and forever) there

These stirring words from J. Gresham Machen are all the more powerful in light of recent world events.

We have trusted in Jesus. But how far can we trust Him? Just in this transitory life? Just in this little speck that we call the earth? If we can trust Him only thus far we are of all men most miserable. We are surrounded by stupendous forces; we are surrounded by the immensity of the unknown. After our little span of life there is a shelving brink with the infinite beyond. And still we are subject to fear—not only fear of destruction but a more dreadful fear of meeting with the infinite and holy God.

So we should be if we had but a human Christ. But now is Christ our Saviour, the one who says, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," revealed as very God. And we believe. Such a faith is a mystery to us who possess it; it seems folly to those who have it not. But if possessed it delivers us forever from fear. The world to us is all unknown; it is engulfed in an ocean of infinity. But it contains no mysteries to our Saviour. He is on the throne. He pervades the remotest bounds. He inhabits infinity. With such a Saviour we are safe.

Beautiful.


Quote from "What Is the Deity of Christ" in The Christian Faith in the Modern World (1936)

The Bible's view of God vs. deism and pantheism (Machen)

J. Gresham Machen:

The God of the Bible is not just another name for the universe itself, nor is He a name for a spiritual purpose supposed to run through the universe, or for any impersonal principle of goodness. No, He is a person. That much is clear at the start. We shall speak in a subsequent talk of the deeper mystery of the three persons in one God. But at least it is clear that God is personal. He is not a force or a principle or a collective somewhat of which we are parts. He is a person, to whom we can say "Thou," a person who can, if He will, speak to us as a man speaketh to His friend, and who can, if He will, become to us a heavenly Father.

What an awesome thought that the Creator of the cosmos wants to be a friend and father to us!


Quote from "God, the Creator" in The Christian Faith in the Modern World (1936)

Machen on the radio

In 1935 J. Gresham Machen gave a series of talks on Philadelphia radio station WIP. They were published under the title The Christian Faith in the Modern World. Best I can tell it's out of print, but I scored a copy at a used book sale at our church. This is vintage Machen -- clear, concise and unflinching in defense of truth.

The world was a scary place in 1935. Machen remarks in the first talk called "The Present Emergency" that humanity is standing over an abyss. The "war to end all wars" was still fresh in the public mind, America was in the grip of the Great Depression, and another world war loomed on the horizon. Yet with all that Machen had the audacity to go on the radio and affirm that the most pressing emergency facing mankind had to do with God and the unseen world. More specifically, the most urgent question facing humanity is how can one be right with God. The world is still a scary place, and that question still presses in on sinners who wake up to their perilous position under the wrath of a holy and just God.

Machen began by sketching a rudimentary doctrine of the knowability of God and then proceeded to explain and defend basic Christian doctrines in confessional Protestant terms. As a leading New Testament scholar it's not surprising that Machen spent a good chunk of these talks on the doctrine of Scripture. How can we say that the Bible is God's word? How can we believe every word in the Bible is inspired? What does that mean exactly?

After answering those questions and explaining what it means to say we believe in the full "plenary" verbal inspiration of the Bible -- and just as importantly what it doesn't mean (e.g. the human authors weren't mere stenographers for the Holy Spirit, nor were their natural abilities and literary styles obliterated by the receipt of divine revelation) -- Machen ends by affirming that for the Bible to be good news it must be more than a record of inspiring religion. It must be more than a manual for living. For the Bible to be good news for sinful men and women it must be a record of facts.

The Bible does tell me the facts. It tells me Jesus died on the cross to save me; it tells me He rose from the dead to complete His saving work and be my living Lord. What do I say when it tells me that? Do I say: "That is history and not religion: I am not interested in it; it may be true or it may not be true for all I care; the Bible is a book of religion and not a book of science or a book of history"? No, my friends, I do not say that. I say rather: "Praise be to God for that blessed story of the resurrection and the cross; upon the truth of it all my hope depends for time and for eternity; how I rejoice that God Himself has told me in His holy Book that it is true!"

Here is a rule for you, my friends: no facts, no good news; no good news, no hope. The Bible is quite useless unless it is a record of facts.

Quote from "Do We Believe in Verbal Inspiration?"

The all-important thing (Machen)

J. Gresham Machen:

If you regard religion merely as a means to attain worldly ends, even the highest and noblest of worldly ends—if you regard religion for example, merely as a means of meeting the present emergency in this world, then you have never even begun to have even the slightest inkling of what the Christian religion means. God, as He is known to the Christian, is never content to be thus a mere instrument in the hands of those who care nothing about Him. The relation to God is the all-important thing. It is not a mere means to an end. Everything else is secondary to it.

Quote from "The Present Emergency and How to Meet It" (1935)

Summing up Machen and Defending the Faith

Here's the concluding paragraph of Daryl G. Hart's fascinating biography/intellectual history of the life and times of J. Gresham Machen.

Machen's death in North Dakota [on January 1, 1937] was filled with irony. A Presbyterian scholar who enjoyed the East Coast's urban culture and spent his life addressing the well educated, Machen died in the Catholic hospital of a small and remote town on the Northern Plains trying to rally a few Presbyterians of modest means. Yet Bismarck was also an appropriate place for Machen's death; the town's cultural isolation fit well with his religious convictions and social views. For Machen, Christianity was not to be a national presence that shaped culture. The quest for a Christian civilization, he believed, had severely weakened the church's witness and had greatly abetted the centralization of political power and the homogenization of cultural life in America. The church should only be one voice in the cacophony of American creeds and its influence should be limited to Christian homes and schools, local communities, and voluntary organizations. Machen's cultural stance first took root in his decision to leave Princeton for Westminster, grew stronger during the missions controversy of the 1930s, and finally bore fruit in the new denomination he helped to found. By establishing rival institutions and building alternative networks, Machen hoped to preserve a Christian witness that was cautious about the church's cultural involvement and fully attuned to the reality of religious freedom. That hope made Machen too Christian for most intellectuals and too marginal for most Protestants. But it did approach the problem of the relationship between church and society in a way that grasped well the possibilities and perils of modern America.

Those familiar with Hart will probably recognize in that themes he develops in subsequent books, as well as his advocacy for a pure version of Old School Presbyterianism and a sharp divide between the sacred and secular. I enjoy Hart's polemics even when I don't agree. He's a first-rate historian and a lively writer. Defending the Faith is essential reading for anyone interested in Machen, the fundamentalist/modernist controversies, or American Protestantism in general.

One of the things that surprised me was the scope of Machen's influence during the 1920s. His public career intersected with some of the most prominent figures of pre-war American history, and his articles were regularly published in the organs of elite opinion. Yet as the paragraph above hints at, his final years were one's of diminishing influence and increasing marginalization. Was that as inevitable as the author makes it sound? I'm not sure. It's interesting to speculate what trajectory Machen's career might have taken had he lived to a ripe old age.

What's clear is that this formidable and flawed man stood almost alone among his peers for the truth of the New Testament gospel at a pivotal time in American church life. He fulfilled the purpose of God in his generation, and his influence lives on through his books and the institutions he founded.


Quote from Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1994) pp. 158-9

Mencken and Machen

Today I started reading Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America. Not the most pithy title in the world, but this is a book that's been on my "to read" list for a while. It's going to be a good read and I'll probably be blogging about it more. Author D.G. Hart introduces his subject by setting out some of the anomalies that make Machen such a fascinating and worthwhile figure to study, and that set him apart from the other fundamentalists whose cause he led in the fundamentalist/modernist controversies of the 1920s and 30s.

For instance -- Machen was an articulate defender of the historical reliability of the New Testament while not afraid to use the methods of modern biblical scholarship. He opposed the secularization of life in America yet didn't oppose the teaching of evolution. He was an advocate for private Christian schools, but he didn't join his fellow fundamentalists in pushing for Bible reading and prayer in the public schools. He also didn't share their liking for Prohibition.

In some respects, Hart argues, Machen shared much in common with ardent secularists of the 1920s such as Walter Lippmann and H.L. Mencken. Both Machen and the secularists shared a deep antipathy to the vapid Protestant liberalism that had begun to characterize the mainline churches, and I might add, continues to reach higher and higher heights of vapidity in those same churches today. Mencken and Lippmann were impressed by the intellectual rigor and cogency of Machen's Christianity and Liberalism, published in 1923. Hart writes about their reactions to that great book:

There he [Machen] argued that by denying the supernatural character of Christianity liberal Protestants had actually created an entirely new religion. It was precisely this argument that Lippmann praised in A Preface to Morals for its "acumen," "saliency," and "wit." For Lippmann, Machen had provided a "cool and stringent" defense of traditional Protestantism, "the best popular argument" produced by either fundamentalists or liberals in a decade of religious turmoil. Mencken was no less impressed. To readers of the American Mercury he introduced the person he would later dub "Doctor Fundamentalis" as "a man of great learning and dignity—a former student at European universities, the author of various valuable books, . . . and a member of several societies of savants." (p. 3)

What's surprising is that Mencken wasn't here being sarcastic or ironic. Though Mencken made a career of mocking proponents of traditional religion, in Machen he saw a formidable advocate of orthodox Christianity. Mencken judged Machen's arguments "completely impregnable."

"If he is wrong," Mencken wrote, "then the science of logic is a hollow vanity, signifying nothing." (p. 4)

When Machen died at the relatively young age of 55 Mencken penned an admiring obituary about his fellow Baltimorean (both men are buried in the city). We can only hope that the Sage of Baltimore put his trust in the crucified and risen Savior who that other son of Baltimore so faithfully and articulately defended.

A Baptist and a Presbyterian walk into a recording studio . . .

Mark Dever interviews D.G. Hart

Redemption

Here's the third and final in a series of posts from J. Gresham Machen's 1929 address The Gospel and the Modern World. It will be helpful to first read part one and part two.

In the third place, in the Christian religion we find redemption. Into this vast universe, into this human world of sin, there came from the outside, in God's good time, a divine Redeemer. No mere teacher is he to us, no mere example, no mere leader into a larger life, no mere symbol or embodiment of an all-pervading divinity. Oh no; we stand to him, if we are really his, in a relationship far dearer, far closer than all that. For us he gave his precious life upon the cross to make all well between us sinners and the righteous God, by whose love he came.

At that point I despair of finding words to tell modern men fully what I mean. Perhaps we may tell them what we think about the cross of Christ, but it is harder to tell them what we feel. They may dismiss it all as a "theory of the atonement" and fall back upon the customary commonplaces about a principle of self-sacrifice, or the culmination of a universal law, or a revelation of the love of God, or the similarity between Christ's death and the death of soldiers who gave themselves for others in the world war. And then, by God's grace, there may come a flash of light into their souls; they may be born again, and all will become as clear as day. Then they will say with Paul, as they contemplate the Savior upon the cross: "He loved me and gave himself for me." Then will the ancient burden fall from their back; then will they be true moderns at last. "Old things are passed away; behold they are become new." Then and then only will they have true freedom. It will be a freedom from mechanism, but the freedom from mechanism will be rooted in a freedom from sin. (J. Gresham Machen, The Gospel and the Modern World)

Man

This will make more sense if you read part one first.

In the Christian religion, in the second place, we find man; we regain that birthright of freedom which had been taken from us by the modern mind. It is a dreadful birthright indeed. For with freedom goes responsibility, and with responsibility, for us, there goes the awful guilt of sin. That conscience awakens which makes cowards of us all. Gone, for us Christians, is the complacency of the modern mind; gone is the lax, comforting notion that crime is only a disease; gone is the notion that strips the ermine from the judge and makes him but the agent of a utilitarian society; gone is the blindness that refuses to face the moral facts.

The Christian world, unlike the modern world, is a world of nameless terrors; the Christian views man as standing over a bottomless abyss. Such a view will find little sympathy from the experts of the present day; they will doubtless apply to it their usual method of dealing with a thing which they do not understand; they will attach a long name to it and let it go. But is their judgment really to be trusted? There are some of us who think not. There are some of us who think that the moral judgments of us sinners are not always to be trusted, and that the real pathway of advance for humanity lies through a rediscovery of the law of God. (J. Gresham Machen, The Gospel and the Modern World)

Liberty

Over the next several days I'm going to post a series of excerpts from J. Gresham Machen's baccalaureate address at Hampden-Sydney College on June 9, 1929 as published in The Gospel In The Modern World: And Other Short Writings edited by Stephen J. Nichols.

The following quote comes after a fairly lengthy introduction where Machen condemns what he saw as the modernist attempt to abolish liberty for the sake of utilitarianism—which has resulted in "a mechanistic world...in which all zest, all glory, and all that makes life worth living, has been destroyed." Here the staunch Presbyterian Machen sounds positively Chestertonian.

From such a slavery, which is already stalking through the earth today, in the particular form of the materialistic paternalism of the modern state, from such a world of unrelieved drabness, we seek escape in the high adventure of the Christian religion. There and there only, we think, is liberty to be found. There is to be found a liberty which is far deeper than the civil and political liberty of which we have spoken, a liberty that is indestructible in the depths of the soul.

In the Christian religion we find, in the first place, God. Back of the stupendous mechanism of the world, there stands, as the Master of it and not as its slave, no machine but a living Person. He is enveloped, indeed, in awful mystery; a dreadful curtain veils his being from the gaze of men. But unlike the world, he is free; and he has chosen in his freedom to lift the veil and grant us just a look beyond. In that look we have freedom from the mechanism of the world. God is free, and where he is there is liberty and life. (J. Gresham Machen, The Gospel and the Modern World)

Machen's consistent Christianity

One more quote from J. Gresham Machen's autobiographical essay Christianity in Conflict:

When I was a student at Princeton I admired Warfield [Princeton theologian B.B. Warfield], as we all did; but I was far from understanding fully his greatness both as a scholar and as a thinker. I was still playing with the notion that a minimizing apologetic may serve the needs of the Church, and that we may perhaps fall back upon a Biblical Christianity which relinquishes the real or supposed rigidities of the Reformed system. Subsequent investigation and meditation have shown me, as over against such youthful folly, that Warfield was entirely right; I have come to see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend, and that consistent Christianity -- the only thoroughly Biblical Christianity -- is found in the Reformed Faith.

I couldn't resist sharing this one even though I know some of my readers will disagree with it. That's ok. To use C.S. Lewis's probably overused metaphor of Christianity as a house with many rooms -- this is the room I've chosen to live in, but I love having fellowship in the Main Hall with Christians from the other rooms. Of course, my Roman Catholic friends believe they own the whole house! More typical today, though, are those who would demolish the house thinking what we need is a Christian faith without any definite boundaries. A village green approach. Machen addresses that impulse in this lecture.

The Creeds and Doctrinal Advance

Monday is for Machen

We saw in a previous post the central role played by Machen's mother in building a foundation of faith as a child. Later, she helped him withstand the doubts of his university years, including this wonderful bit of gospel comfort.

Another thing used to be said to me by my mother in those dark hours when the lamp burned dim, when I thought that faith had gone and shipwreck had been made of my soul. "Christ," she used to say, "keeps firmer hold on us than we keep on Him."

That means, at least, when translated into wordly terms, that we ought to distrust our moods. Many a man has fallen into despair because, losing the heavenly vision for the moment, passing through the dull lowlands of life, he takes such experience as though it were permanent, and deserts a well-grounded conviction which was the real foundation of his life. Faith is often diversified by doubt, but a man should not desert the conviction of his better moments because the dark moments come.

But my mother's word meant something far deeper than all that. It meant rather that salvation by faith does not mean that we are saved because we keep ourselves at every moment in an ideally perfect attitude of confidence in Christ. No, we are saved because, having once been united to Christ by faith, we are His forever. Calvinism is a very comforting doctrine indeed. Without its comfort, I think I would have perished long ago in the castle of Giant Despair.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity in Conflict

Machen's early education

Like many heroes of the faith J. Gresham Machen owed much to the godly training of a Christian mother. Machen's mother Mary (pictured at left) saw the value of catechesis and memorization at an early age. Shannon and I have been reading together through Starr Meade's excellent book Training Hearts Teaching Minds: Family Devotions based on the Shorter Catechism. We're doing this first to train ourselves, and second to prepare for using it with Samuel when he gets older. We might even try this.

In Baltimore I attended a good private school. It was purely secular; and in it I learned nothing about the Bible or the great things of our Christian faith. But I did not need to learn about those things in any school; for I learned them from my mother at home. That was the best school of all; and in it, without any merit of my own, I will venture to say that I had acquired a better knowledge of the contents of the Bible at twelve years of age than is possessed by many theological students of the present day. The Shorter Catechism was not omitted. I repeated it perfectly, questions and answers, at a very tender age; and the divine revelation of which it is so glorious a summary was stored up in my mind and heart. When a man has once come into sympathetic contact with that noble tradition of the Reformed Faith, he will never readily be satisfied with a mere "Fundamentalism" that seeks in some hasty modern statement a greatest common measure between men of different creeds. Rather will he strive always to stand in the great central current of the Church's life that has come down to us through Augustine and Calvin to the standards of the Reformed Faith.

My mother did more for me than impart a knowledge of the Bible and of the Faith of our Church. She also helped me in my doubts.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity in Conflict

To be continued...

Machen looks back

It's been a while since I've posted anything on my hero J. Gresham Machen. So this week I'll be sharing some of my favorite excerpts from his autobiographical essay Christianity in Conflict published in 1932. It's an illuminating essay full of vintage Machen. He wrote it, in part, to answer the question "how it has come about that contrary to the majority of the men of our day I am a believer in the truth of the Bible and an adherent of the redemptive religion which the Bible presents." A large part of the answer to that question was the foundation laid by Machen's parents. Here he pays tribute to his father: a lawyer, lover of books, and faithful elder.

He was a profoundly Christian man, who had read widely and meditated earnestly upon the really great things of our holy Faith. His Christian experience was not of the emotional or pietistical type, but was a quiet stream whose waters ran deep. He did not adopt that "Touch not, taste not, handle not" attitude toward the good things or the wonders of God's world which too often today causes earnest Christian people to consecrate to God only an impoverished man, but in his case true learning and true piety went hand in hand. Every Sunday morning and Sunday night, and on Wednesday night, he was in his place in Church, and a similar faithfulness characterized all his service as an elder in the Presbyterian Church. At that time the Protestant churches had not yet become political lobbies, and Presbyterian elders were chosen not because they were "outstanding men in the community," but because they were men of God. I love to think of that old Presbyterian session in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. It is a refreshing memory in these days of ruthless and heartless machinery in the Church. God grant that the memory may some day become actuality again and that the old Christian virtues may be revived!

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity in Conflict

Machen on the Cross of Christ

I did want to share one more post from Christianity and Liberalism. You can find previous posts in the series here, here, here, here, here and here. These two excerpts are plucked somewhat out of context, nevertheless, I think they tell us what it was (and who it was) that animated J. Gresham Machen.

The Christian doctrine of the atonement, therefore, is altogether rooted in the Christian doctrine of the deity of Christ. The reality of an atonement for sin depends altogether upon the New Testament presentation of the Person of Christ. And even the hymns dealing with the Cross which we sing in Church can be placed in an ascending scale according as they are based upon a lower or a higher view of Jesus' Person. At the very bottom of the scale is that familiar hymn:

Nearer, my God, to thee,
Nearer to thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me.

That is a perfectly good hymn. It means that our trials may be a discipline to bring us nearer to God. The thought is not opposed to Christianity; it is found in the New Testament. But many persons have the impression, because the word "cross" is found in the hymn, that there is something specifically Christian about it, and that it has something to do with the gospel. This impression is entirely false. In reality, the cross that is spoken of is not the Cross of Christ, but our own cross; the verse simply means that our own crosses or trials may be a means to bring us nearer to God. It is a perfectly good thought, but certainly it is not the gospel. One can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to use in the last solemn hour of their lives. But there is another hymn in the hymn-book:

In the cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

That is certainly better. It is here not our own crosses but the Cross of Christ, the actual event that took place on Calvary, that is spoken of, and that event is celebrated as the centre of all history. Certainly the Christian man can sing that hymn. But one misses even there the full Christian sense of the meaning of the Cross; the Cross is celebrated, but it is not understood.

It is well, therefore, that there is another hymn in our hymn-book:

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

There at length are heard the accents of true Christian feeling--"the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died." When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered on Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our own salvation and for the hope of society, than all the rivers of blood that have flowed upon the battlefields of history.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 126-128

Such and such a man, it is said, is a brilliant preacher. But what is the content of his preaching? Is his preaching full of the gospel of Christ? The answer is often evasive. The preacher in question, it is said, is of good standing in the Church, and he has never denied the doctrines of grace. Therefore, it is urged, he should be called to the pastorate. But shall we be satisfied with such negative assurances? Shall we be satisfied with preachers who merely "do not deny" the Cross of Christ? God grant that such satisfaction may be broken down! The people are perishing under the ministrations of those who "do not deny" the Cross of Christ. Surely something more than that is needed. God send us ministers who, instead of merely avoiding denial of the Cross shall be on fire with the Cross, whose whole life shall be one burning sacrifice of gratitude to the blessed Saviour who loved them and gave Himself for them!

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 175-176

I believe that last sentence is an apt description of this great contender for the faith "once for all delivered to the saints."

Here is an excellent biographical portrait of J. Gresham Machen.

Machen on the Bible, part 2

Yesterday I excerpted Machen on the uniqueness of the Bible. It's "a revelation which sets forth the meaning of an act of God." He goes on to address some objections to that view, and also discusses how personal experience can/does validate the effectiveness of something that happened long ago, namely, the death and resurrection of Jesus. In other words, take Jesus up on his claims and see if he doesn't become to you more than a mere historical figure, but the living Saviour of today. However, he's quick to point out that divorcing experience from the historical nature of the gospel leads to all kinds of errors.

But not only do Christians believe that the Bible is unique, we believe it is true, even inspired. What does it mean to say the Bible is inspired? Machen sets out the classical Protestant view of the Bible as the "infallible rule of faith and practice" and offers a defense of the doctrine of plenary inspiration. On the latter point he's not as dogmatic as elsewhere in the book, since there have been many Christians throughout history who've had differing views on the nature of Biblical inspiration. If you want to read more about this subject, here is a good place to start. Once again, from Christianity and Liberalism, J. Gresham Machen on the inspiration of the Bible:

The contents of the Bible, then, are unique. But another fact about the Bible is also important. The Bible might contain an account of a true revelation from God, and yet the account be full of error. Before the full authority of the Bible can be established, therefore, it is necessary to add to the Christian doctrine of revelation the Christian doctrine of inspiration. The latter doctrine means that the Bible not only is an account of important things, but that the account itself is true, the writers having been so preserved from error, despite a full maintenance of their habits of thought and expression, that the resulting Book is the "infallible rule of faith and practice."

This doctrine of "plenary inspiration" has been made the subject of persistent misrepresentation. Its opponents speak of it as though it involved a mechanical theory of the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, it is said, is represented in this doctrine as dictating the Bible to writers who were really little more than stenographers. But of course all such caricatures are without basis in fact, and it is rather surprising that intelligent men should be so blinded by prejudice about this matter as not even to examine for themselves the perfectly accessible treatises in which the doctrine of plenary inspiration is set forth. It is usually considered good practice to examine a thing for one's self before echoing the vulgar ridicule of it. But in connection with the Bible, such scholarly restraints are somehow regarded as out of place. It is so much easier to content one's self with a few opprobrious adjectives such as "mechanical," or the like. Why engage in serious criticism when the people prefer ridicule? Why attack a real opponent when it is easier to knock down a man of straw?

As a matter of fact, the doctrine of plenary inspiration does not deny the individuality of the Biblical writers, it does not ignore their use of ordinary means for acquiring information; it does not involve any lack of interest in the historical situations which gave rise to the Biblical books. What it does deny is the presence of error in the Bible. It supposes that the Holy Spirit so informed the minds of the Biblical writers that they were kept from falling into errors that mar all other books. The Bible might contain an account of a genuine revelation of God, and yet not contain a true account. But according to the doctrine of inspiration, the account is as a matter of fact a true account; the Bible is an "infallible rule of faith and practice."

Certainly that is a stupendous claim, and it is no wonder that it has been attacked.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 72-74

Machen on the Bible, part 1

The Bible is a massively multi-faceted book that simply defies description. It's the greatest of books -- and the "bookiest of books" -- but it's so much more than that. It's staggering to think that before the universe began the Bible was in the mind of God. Words were God's idea and the primary means he uses to communicate his truth to us. Makes the teaching of reading and writing something of a holy vocation doesn't it? The Bible is also an integral part of our civilization's historical memory, one we're in danger of irretrievably losing. How are future generations going to make sense of Shakespeare or Milton without a rudimentary knowledge of what's contained in Holy Scripture? But that's a subject for another day...

J. Gresham Machen devoted an entire chapter of his book Christianity and Liberalism to defending the Bible against those within his denomination who were trying to marginalize and undermine it. Often these folks would admit that the Bible was a divine book, but that it was full of errors. Or, that they were more concerned with "the authority of Christ" than "the authority of the Bible", ignoring the fact that Jesus had a higher view of the authority of scripture than any man that ever lived. There are still many today, both inside and outside the church, playing the same games and doing their best to debunk the Bible.

I think it's also true that the contemporary church hasn't done a good job of communicating to the world at large what the message of the Bible really is. Talk to the average man on the street, or listen to how the Bible is portrayed in popular culture, and this quickly becomes evident. When it comes to the Bible, we American evangelicals have a bad habit of "majoring in the minors", by (for example) seeing it as primarily a list of practical principals and rules for successful living -- God as the ultimate self-help guru. And instead of seeing Jesus on every page, we see ourselves. The Bible does have a lot to say about how we should live -- and it's a mirror to be held up to our lives (James 1:22-25) -- but if this is all it is then we're missing the main point.

In this excerpt Machen explains the uniqueness of the Bible:

According to the Christian view, the Bible contains an account of a revelation from God to man, which is found nowhere else. It is true, the Bible also contains a confirmation and wonderful enrichment of the revelations which are given also by the things God has made and by the conscience of man. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork"--these words are a confirmation of the revelation of God in nature; "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"--these words are a confirmation of what is attested by the conscience. But in addition to such reaffirmations of what might conceivably be learned elsewhere--as a matter of fact, because of men's blindness, even so much is learned elsewhere only in comparatively obscure fashion--the Bible also contains an account of a revelation which is absolutely new. That new revelation concerns the way by which sinful man can come into communion with the living God.

The way was opened, according to the Bible, by an act of God, when, almost nineteen hundred years ago, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the eternal Son was offered as a sacrifice for the sins of men. To that one great event the whole Old Testament looks forward, and in that one event the whole of the New Testament finds its centre and core. Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened. Hence appears the uniqueness of the Bible. All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the Christian view, is altogether dark, and humanity is lost under the guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin. But a new face has been put upon life by the blessed thing that God did when He offered up His only begotten Son.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 69-70

More tomorrow...

Machen on the beginning of the Christian life

I used to know a guy who had an amazing testimony of how God saved him. Everywhere he went he looked for opportunities to start conversations so he could share his testimony. That was great! The problem was that when he met fellow believers he would always ask them to share their testimony, and if (like me) they didn't have a spectacular conversion experience, or perhaps didn't remember exactly when it happened, this fellow would sometimes wonder aloud if they were really saved. Salvation happens in many ways and there are many ways to describe it. But no matter the circumstances or timing, salvation is always due to a supernatural act of God: nothing less than passing from death to life. The theological words for it are justification and regeneration. Jesus called it being born again.

At the beginning of every Christian life there stands, not a process, but a definite act of God.

That doesn not mean that every Christian can tell exactly at what moment he was justified and born again. Some Christians, indeed, are really able to give day and hour of their conversion. It is a grievous sin to ridicule the experience of such men. Sometimes, indeed, they are inclined to ignore the steps in the providence of God which prepared for the great change. But they are right on the main point. They know that when on such and such a day they kneeled in prayer they were still in their sins, and when they rose from their knees they were children of God never to be separated from Him. Such experience is a very holy thing. But on the other hand it is a mistake to demand that it should be universal. There are Christians who can give day and hour of their conversion, but the great majority do not know exactly at what moment they were saved. The effects of the act are plain, but the act itself was done in the quietness of God. Such, very often, is the experience of children brought up by Christian parents. It is not necessary that all should pass through agonies of soul before being saved; there are those to whom faith comes peacefully and easily through the nurture of Christian homes.

But however it be manifested, the beginning of the Christian life is an act of God. It is an act of God and not an act of man.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, pp. 140-141

May your heart overflow with thanksgiving on this Lord's Day!