SQLite format 3@  ii!%%atableTopicsTopicsCREATE TABLE Topics (Title NVARCHAR(100), Notes TEXT)}Q900 Jesus and Paul{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 Jesus & Paul\par by J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)\par \par The Apostle Paul is the greatest teacher of the Christian Church. True, he has not always been fully understood. The legalism that he combatted during his lifetime soon established itself among his converts, and finally celebrated a triumph in the formation of the Catholic Church. The keen edge of his dialectic was soon blunted. But however his ideas may have been injured in transmission, they were never altogether destroyed. Much was forgotten; but what remained was the life of the Church. And the great revivals were revivals of Paulinism. Protestantism\emdash in its practical piety as well as in its theology\emdash was simply a rediscovery of Paul.\par \par Yet Paul has never been accepted for his own sake. Men have never come to him for an independent solution of the riddle of the universe. Simply as a religious philosopher, he is unsatisfactory; for his philosophy is rooted in one definite fact. He has been listened to not as a philosopher, but as a witness\emdash a witness to Jesus Christ. His teaching has been accepted only on one condition\emdash that he speak as a faithful disciple of Jesus of Nazareth.\par \par The question of the relation between Jesus and Paul is therefore absolutely fundamental. Paul has always been regarded as the greatest disciple of Jesus. If so, well and good. The Christian Church may then go forward as it has done before.\par \par But in recent years there is a tendency to dissociate Paul from Jesus. A recent historian has entitled Paul "the second founder of Christianity." If that be correct, then Christianity is facing the greatest crisis in its history. For\emdash let us not deceive ourselves\emdash if Paul is independent of Jesus, he can no longer be a teacher of the Church. Christianity is founded upon Christ and only Christ. Paulinism has never been accepted upon any other supposition than that it reproduces the mind of Christ. If that supposition is incorrect\emdash if Paulinism is derived not from Jesus Christ, but from other sources\emdash then it must be uprooted from the life of the Church. But that is more than reform\emdash it is revolution. Compared with that upheaval, the reformation of the sixteenth century is as nothing.\par \par At first sight, the danger appears to be trifling. The voices that would separate Paul from Jesus have been drowned by a chorus of protest. In making Paul and not Jesus the true founder of Christianity, Wrede is as little representative of the main trend of modern investigation as he is when he eliminates the Messianic element from the consciousness of Jesus. Measured by the direc t assent which he has received, Wrede is a negligeable quantity. But that is but a poor measure of his importance. The true significance of Wrede's "Paul" is that it has merely made explicit what was implicit before. The entire modern reconstruction of primitive Christianity leads logically to Wrede's startling pronouncement. Modern liberalism has produced a Jesus who has really but little in common with Paul. Wrede has but drawn the conclusion. Paul was no disciple of the liberal Jesus. Wrede has merely had the courage to say so.\par \par This essential harmony between Wrede and his opponents appears even in some of the criticisms to which he has been subjected. No doubt these criticisms are salutary. They fill out omissions, and correct exaggerations. But they obscure the issue. In general, their refutation of Wrede amounts to little more than this\emdash Paul's theology is abandoned, in order to save his religion. His theology, it is admitted, was derived from extra-Christian sources; but in his pra ctical piety he was a true disciple of Jesus. Such a distinction is thoroughly vicious; it is contradicted in no uncertain tones by the Pauline Epistles. Where is it that the current of Paul's religious experience becomes overpowering, so that even after the lapse of centuries, even through the dull medium of the printed page, it sweeps the heart of the sympathetic reader on\par \par with it in a mighty flood? It is not in the ethical admonitions. It is not in the discussions of the practical problems o f the Christian life. It is not even in the inspired encomium of Christian love. But it is in the great theological passages of the epistles\emdash the second chapter of Galatians, the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians, the fifth to the eighth chapters of Romans. In these passages, the religious experience and the theology of Paul are blended in a union which no critical analysis can dissolve. Furthermore., if it is impossible to separate Pauline piety and Pauline theology in the life of Paul himself, i t is just as impossible to separate them in the life of the Church of today. Thus far, at least, all attempts at accomplishing it have resulted in failure. Liberal Christianity has sometimes tried to reproduce Paul's religion apart from his theology. But thus far it has produced nothing which in the remotest degree resembles the model.\par \par In determining whether Paul was a disciple of Jesus, the whole Paul must be kept in view\emdash not the theology apart from the warm religious life that pulses through it, and not the religious emotion apart from its basis in theology. Theology apart from religion, or religion apart from theology\emdash either is an empty abstraction. The religion and the theology of Paul stand or fall together. If one is derived from Jesus, probably the other is also.\par \par In discussing the relation between Jesus and Paul, it is better to begin with Paul. For, in the first place, Paul is more easily known than Jesus. That will be admitted on all sides. Jesus wrote nothing; all the extant records of his words are the reports of others. The trustworthiness of the records of his life is at present a matter of dispute. Yet even if the most favorable estimate of the Gospel narratives be adopted, Jesus remains far more incomprehensible than Paul. Indeed it is just when the Gospel picture is accepted in its entirety that the sense of mystery in the presence of Jesus becomes most overpowering.\par \par For the life of Paul, on the other hand, the historian is in possession of sources which are not only trustworthy, but universally admitted to be trustworthy. At least seven of the Pauline Epistles\emdash 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Romans, Philippians, and Philemon\emdash are now assigned by all except a few extremists to Paul himself; and the critical doubts with regard to three of the others are gradually being dispelled. In general, the disputed epistles are not of fundamental importance for determining the relation of Paul to Jesus. Colossians, perhaps, forms the only exception, and it is just Colossians that is most commonly accepted as Pauline. All the characteristic features of Paul's thinking appear within the homologoumena; and it is the characteristic features alone which can determine the general question whether Paul was a disciple of Jesus.\par \par With regard to the book of Acts as a source for the study of Paul, there is more difference of opinion; and the difference is of more importance for the question now in hand. But three remarks can be made. In the first place, those sections of Acts where the first person plural is used are universally regarded as the work of an eye-witness. In the second place, the framework\emdash the account of external events in the life of Paul\emdash is for the most part accepted. In the third place, the tendency of recent criticism is decidedly towards a higher estimate of the general representation of Paul. The conciliatory attitude toward the Jews, which the book of Acts attributes to Paul, is no longer regarded as due altogether to an "irenic" purpose on the part of the historian.\par \par The sources for the life of Paul are insufficient, indeed, for a complete biography. For the period up to the conversion, the extant information is of the most general kind, and after the conversion some fifteen years elapse before anything like a connected narrative can be constructed. Even from the years of the so-called missionary journeys, only a bare summary has been preserved, with vivid, detailed narratives only here and there. Finally, the close of Paul's life is shrouded in obscurity. But what the sources lack in quantity they make up in quality. Paul was gifted with a remarkable power of self-revelation, which has been exercised in his epistles to the fullest extent. Free from self-centred vanity, without the slightest indelicacy, without a touch of morbid introspection, he has yet revealed the very secrets of his heart. Not only the exquisite delicacy of feeling, the fine play of affection, the consecrated anger, the keen practical judgment are open before us, but also the deepest springs of the tremendous religious experience. The Pauline Epistles make Paul one of the best-known men of history. We might be able to account, in an external way, for every day and hour of his life, and yet not know him half so well.\par \par As thus revealed, Paul is comprehensible. With all his greatness, almost immeasurably exalted as he is above the generality of mankind, he yet possesses nothing which any man might not conceivably possess. Starting from the common misery of sin, he attained to a peace with God, which, again, has been shared by humble Christians of all ages. His commission as apostle exceeds in dignity and importance that of other disciples of Christ, but does not free him from human limitations. It was Christ's strength which was made perfect in weakness. In all essential features, the religious experience of Paul may be imitated by every Christian. Jesus, on the other hand, is full of mystery. Of course the mystery may be ignored. It is ignored by Wrede, when he denies to Jesus the consciousness of his Messiahship. But even by the most thorough-going modern naturalism, that is felt to be a desperate measure. The Messianic consciousness is rooted too deep in the sources ever to be removed by historical criticism. That Jesus lived at all is hardly more certain than that he thought himself to be the Messiah. But the Messianic consciousness of Jesus is a profound mystery. It would be no mystery if Jesus were an ordinary fanatic or unbalanced visionary. Among the many false Messiahs who championed their claims in the first century, there may well have been some who deceived themselves as well as others. But Jesus was no ordinary fanatic\emdash no megalomaniac. On the contrary, he is the moral ideal of the race. His calmness, unselfishness, and strength have produced an impression which the lapse of time has done nothing to obliterate. It was such a man who supposed himself to be the Son of Man who was to come with the clouds of heaven! Considered in the light of the character of Jesus, the Messianic consciousness of Jesus is the profoundest of problems. It is true, the problem can be solved. It can be solved by supposing that Jesus' own estimate of his person was true\emdash by recognizing in Jesus a supernatural person. But the acceptance of the supernatural is not easy. For the modern mind it involves nothing short of a Copernican revolution. And until that step is taken, the person of Jesus cannot be understood. Paul, on the other hand, is more easily comprehended. To a certain extent, his religious experience can be understood, at least in an external way, even by one who supposes it to be founded not on truth but on error. Paul, therefore, may perhaps be a stepping-stone on the way to a comprehension of Jesus.\par \par In the first place, then, the investigation of the relation between Jesus and Paul should begin with Paul rather than with Jesus, because Paul is, if not better known than Jesus, at least more easily known. In the second place, Paul should be studied before Jesus just because he lived after Jesus. If the object of the investigation were Jesus and Paul, taken separately, then it would be better to begin with the earlier rather than with the later of the two; but since it is the relation between Jesus and Paul that is to be studied, it is better method to begin with Paul. For the investigator need not rely merely on a comparison of Jesus and Paul. If Paul was dependent upon Jesus, the fact may be expected to appear in direct statements of Paul himself, and in the attitude of his contemporaries toward him. Did Paul feel himself to be an innovator with respect to Jesus; and was he regarded as an innovator by the earlier disciples of Jesus?\par \par The latter question, at any rate, cannot be answered offhand. There were undoubtedly some men in the primitive church who combatted Paul in the name of conservatism. These were the Judaizers, who regarded Paul's doctrine of Christian freedom as a dangerous innovation. The Jewish law, they said, must be maintained even among Gentile Christians. Faith in Christ is supplementary to it, not subversive of it. Were the Judaizers justified in their conservatism? Were they right in regarding Paul as an innovator? What was the relation between these Judaizers and the original apostles, who had been disciples of Jesus in Galilee? These are among the most important questions in apostolic history. They have divided students of the New Testament into hostile camps. F. C. Baur supposed that the relation between Judaizers and original apostles was in the main friendly. The original apostles, though they could not quite close their eyes to the hand of God as manifested in the successes of Paul, belong nevertheless inwardly with the Judaizers rather than with Paul. The fundamental fact of apostolic history is a conflict between Paul and the original apostles, between Gentile Christianity and Jewish Christianity. The history of early Christianity is the history of the development and final adjustment of that conflict. The Catholic Church of the close of the second century is the result of a compromise between Pauline Christianity and the Christianity of the original apostles. This reconstruction of early Christian history was opposed by Albrecht Ritschl. According to Ritschl, the conflict in the apostolic age was not between Paul and the original apostles, but between apostolic Christianity\emdash including both Paul and the original apostles\emdash on the one sid e, and Judaistic Christianity\emdash the Christianity of the Judaistic opponents of Paul\emdash on the other. Specifically Jewish Christianity exerted no considerable influence upon the development of the Church. The Old Catholic Church of the close of the second century was the result not of a compromise between Jewish Christianity and Gentile Christianity, but of a natural process of degeneration from Pauline Christianity on purely Gentile Christian ground. The Gentile Christian world was unable to unde!rstand the Pauline doctrine of grace. Christianity came to be regarded as a new law\emdash but that was due, not to the rehabilitation of the Mosaic law as a concession to Jewish Christianity, but to the tendency of the average man toward legalism in religion. As against Baur, Harnack belongs with Ritschl. Like Ritschl, he denies to Jewish Christianity any considerable influence upon the development of the Catholic Church. The Church Of 200, A.D. owes its difference from Paul, not to a compromise with Jew"ish Christianity, but to the intrusion of Greek habits of thought.\par \par If Baur was correct, then Paul was probably no true disciple of Jesus. For Baur brought Paul into fundamental conflict with the men who had stood nearest to Jesus. But Baur was not correct. His reconstruction of apostolic history was arrived at by neglecting all sources except the epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians and then misinterpreting these. He failed to do justice to the "right hand of fellowship" (Gal. 2:9) which t#he pillars of the Jerusalem Church gave to Paul. And the account of Paul's rebuke of Peter in Antioch, apparently the strongest evidence of a conflict between Paul and the original apostles, is rather to be regarded as evidence to the contrary. For Paul rebukes Peter for hypocrisy- -not for false opinions, but for concealing his correct opinions for fear of men. In condemning his practice, Paul approves his principles. Peter had therefore been in fundamental agreement with Paul.\par \par As for the Juda$izers in Corinth, their opinions are as uncertain as their relation to the original apostles. It is not certain that they combatted Paul's doctrine of justification by faith, and it is not certain that they had any kind of endorsement from the original apostles. Surely the apostles were not the only ones who could have given them "letters of recommendation" (2 Cor. 3:1).\par \par Baur's thesis, then, was insufficiently grounded. One fact, however, still requires explanation\emdash the appeal of the Juda%izers to the original apostles against Paul. It is not enough to say simply that the appeal of the Judaizers was a false appeal. For if the original apostles were as Pauline as Paul himself, it is difficult to see why they should have been preferred to Paul by the anti-Pauline party. Surely the original apostles must have given the Judaizers at least some color of support; otherwise the Judaizers could never have appealed to them. Until this appeal is explained, Baur remains unrefuted. But the explanation& is not difficult to find. It was the life, not the teaching, of the original apostles which appeared to support the contentions of the Judaizers. The early Christians in Jerusalem continued to observe the Jewish law. They continued in diligent attendance upon the Temple services. They observed the feasts, they obeyed the regulations about food. To a superficial observer, they were simply pious Jews. Now, as a matter of fact, they were not simply pious Jews. They were relying for salvation not really upon' their observance of the law, but solely upon their faith in the crucified and risen Christ. Inwardly, Christianity was from the very beginning no mere continuation of Judaism, but a new religion. Outwardly, however, the early church was nothing more than a Jewish sect. And the Judaizers failed to penetrate beneath the outward appearance. Because the original apostles continued to observe the Jewish law, the Judaizers supposed that legalism was of the essence of their religion. The Judaizers appealed to t(he outward practice of the apostles; Paul, to the deepest springs of their religious life. So long as Christianity was preached only among Jews, there was no acute conflict. True Christians and mere Jewish believers in the Messiahship of Jesus were united by a common observance of the Mosaic law. But when Christianity began to transcend the bounds of Judaism, the division became apparent. The apostles, true disciples of Jesus, attested their own inward freedom by accepting the outward freedom of the Genti)les; the Judaizers, false brethren privily brought in, insisted upon the observance of the law as necessary to salvation.\par \par Paul, then, was not the founder of universalistic Christianity. In principle, Christianity was universalistic from the very beginning. In principle, the first Christians in Jerusalem were entirely free from the Judaism with which they were united outwardly by observance of the Temple ritual. If Paul was not the founder of universalistic Christianity, what was he? What was hi*s peculiar service to the Church? It was not the mere geographical extension of the frontiers of the Kingdom. That achievement he shares with others. Paul was perhaps not even the first to preach the Gospel systematically to Gentiles. That honor belongs apparently to certain unnamed Jews of Cyprus and Cyrene. The true achievement of Paul lies in another sphere\emdash in the hidden realm of thought. When Christianity began to be offered directly to Gentiles in Antioch, the principles of the Gentile mission+ had to be established once for all. Conceivably, of course, the Gentile mission might have got along without principles. The leaders of the church at Antioch might have pointed simply to the practical necessities of the case. Obviously, the Gentile world, as a matter of fact, would never accept circumcision, and would never submit to the Mosaic law. Consequently, if Christianity was ever to be anything more than a Jewish sect, the requirements of the law must quietly be held in abeyance. Conceivably, the, leaders of the church at Antioch might have reasoned thus; conceivably they might have been "practical Christian workers" in the modern sense. But as a matter of fact, the leader of the church at Antioch was the Apostle Paul. Paul was not a man to sacrifice principle to practical necessity.\par \par What was standing in the way of the Gentile mission was no mere Jewish racial prejudice, but a genuine religious principle. Jewish particularism was part of the very essence of the Jews' religion. The idea -of the covenant between God and his chosen people was fundamental in all periods of Judaism. To have offered the Gospel to uncircumcised Gentiles simply because that was demanded by the practical necessities of the case, would have meant to a Jew nothing less than disobedience to the revealed will of God. It would have been an irreparable injury to the religious conscience. Particularism was not a prejudice, but a religious principle. Therefore it could be overcome only by a higher principle. Its abrogati.on needed to be demonstrated, not merely assumed. And that was the work of Paul.\par \par The original apostles, through their intercourse with Jesus upon earth, and their experience of the risen Lord, had in principle transcended Jewish particularism. Inwardly they were free from the law. But they did not know that they were free. Certainly they did not know why they were free. Stich freedom could not be permanent. It sufficed for the Jewish Church, so long as the issue was not clearly drawn. But it wa/s open to argumentative attack. It could never have conquered the world. Christian freedom was held by but a precarious tenure, until its underlying principles were established. Christianity could not exist without theology. And the first great Christian theologian was Paul.\par \par In championing Gentile freedom, then, in emphasizing the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, Paul was not an innovator. He was merely making explicit what had been implicit before. He was in fundamental harmony with the o0riginal apostles. And if he was in harmony with the most intimate disciples of Jesus, the presumption is that he was in harmony with Jesus himself.\par \par If the harmony between Paul and the original apostles was preserved by Paul's conception of Christian freedom, it was preserved even more clearly by his view of the person of Christ. just where modern radicalism is most confident that Paul was an innovator, Paul's contemporaries were most confident of his faithfulness to tradition. Even the Judaizer1s had no quarrel with Paul's conception of Christ as a heavenly being. In the Epistle to the Galatians, where Paul insists that he received his apostleship. not from men but directly from Christ, he does so in sharp opposition to the Judaizers. Paul says, "not by man, but by Christ"; the Judaizers said, "not by Christ but by man." But if so, then the Judaizers, no less than Paul, distinguished Christ sharply from men, and placed him clearly on the side of God. If Paul can prove that he received his apostl2eship directly from Christ, then he has already proved that he received it directly from God. Apparently, it never occurred to him that his opponents might accept the former proposition and deny the latter. For the Judaizers as well as for Paul, God and Christ belong together. In 2 Cor. 11:4, it is true, Paul hints that his opponents are preaching another Jesus. If that passage stood alone, it might mean that the Judaizers differed from Paul in their conception of the person of Christ. But if there had be3en such a difference, it would surely have appeared more clearly in the rest of the Corinthian epistles. If the Judaizers had taught that Jesus was a mere man, son of David and nothing else, surely Paul would have taken occasion to contradict them. So dangerous an error\emdash an error so completely subversive of Paul's deepest convictions\emdash could not possibly have been left unrefuted. The meaning of the passage is quite different. It was the Judaizers themselves, and not Paul, who said that their Je4sus was another Jesus. "Paul", they said to the Corinthians, "has not revealed the Gospel to you in its fulness (2 Cor. 4:3, 11:5). Paul has had no close contact either with Jesus himself, or with the immediate disciples of Jesus. Paul has preached but an imperfect gospel. We, on the other hand, can offer you the true Jesus, the true Spirit, and the true gospel. Do not listen to Paul. We alone can give you fully authentic information. "In reality, however, the Judaizers had nothing new to offer. Paul had 5been no whit behind "the pre-eminent apostles." He had made the full gospel plain and open before them (2 Cor. 11:5-6). If Paul's gospel was hidden, it was hidden only from those who had been blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4). The "other Jesus" of the Judaizers existed only in their own inordinate claims. They preached the same Jesus as did Paul\emdash only their preaching was marred by quarrelsomeness and pride. They preached the same Jesus; but they had not themselves come into vital communi6on with him. In that they differed from Paul.\par \par It is not until the Epistle to the Colossians that Paul is compelled to defend his conception of the person of Christ. And there he defends it not against a conservative, naturalistic view of Jesus as a merely human Messiah, but against Gnostic speculation. With regard to the person of Christ, Paul appears everywhere in perfect harmony with all Palestinian Christians. In the whole New Testament there is not a trace of a conflict. That is a fact of t7remendous significance. For Paul's conception of the supernatural Christ was formed not later than five years after the crucifixion of Jesus. There is every reason to believe that it was formed at the conversion. With regard to this matter, there is no evidence of a development in Paul's thinking. One passage, 2 Cor. 5:16, has occasionally been regarded as such evidence. But only by palpable disregard of the context. When Paul says, "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him8 so no longer," he cannot possibly mean that for a time after his conversion he regarded Christ simply as a human, Jewish Messiah. For the point of the whole passage is the revolutionary change wrought in every Christian's life by the death of Christ. It is clearly the appropriation of that death\emdash that is, conversion\emdash and not some subsequent development of the Christian life which brings the transition from the knowledge of Christ after the flesh (whatever that may be) to the higher knowledge 9of which Paul is now in possession. The revelation of God's Son (Gal. 1:16) on the road to Damascus clearly gave to Paul the essential elements of his Christology. What is more, that Christology must have formed from the very beginning the essence of his preaching. The "Jesus" whom he preached in the Damascan synagogues was also Christ\emdash his Christ. That he preached in Damascus is directly attested only by the book of Acts, but, as has been observed by some who entertain rather a low estimate of Acts:, it is implied in 2 Cor. 11:32-33. What could have caused the persecution of Paul except Christian activity on his part? If the book of Acts is correct, Paul preached also in Jerusalem only three years after his conversion. Yet the churches of Judea glorified God in him. If there was opposition to his heavenly Christ, such opposition has left no trace. Yet Paul had been in direct consultation with Peter. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that from the very beginning, the exalted Christology of; Paul was accepted by the Jerusalem Church. The heavenly Christ of Paul was also the Christ of those who had walked and talked with Jesus of Nazareth.\par \par By his contemporaries, then, Paul was regarded not as the founder of a new religion, but as a disciple of Jesus. That testimony may be overthrown by contrary evidence. But there is a strong presumption that it is correct. For among those who passed judgment upon Paul were included the most intimate friends and disciples of Jesus. Their estimate ople of Jesus can be denied by no one. The difference of opinion appears when the question is formulated in somewhat broader terms. Do the Pauline Epistles themselves, even apart from a comparison with the words of Jesus, furnish evidence that Paul was not, as he supposed, a disciple of Jesus, but the founder of a new religion?\par \par In favor of the affirmative, two considerations have been adduced.\par \par In the first place, in the Epistle to the Galatians Paul himself insists upon his independen?ce of tradition. He received his gospel directly from Christ, not through any human agency. Even after he had received his gospel, he avoided all contact with those who had been apostles before him. He conferred not with flesh and blood. Paul received his gospel, then, by revelation from the risen Christ, not by tradition from the earthly Jesus. But the earthly Jesus was the historical Jesus. In exalting his direct commission from the heavenly Christ, Paul has himself betrayed the slenderness of his conne@ction with Jesus of Nazareth.\par \par In the second place, the same low estimate of historical tradition appears throughout the epistles, in the paucity of references to the words and deeds of Jesus. Apparently Paul is interested almost exclusively in the birth and death and resurrection. He is interested in the birth as the incarnation of a heavenly being, come for the salvation of men; and in the death and resurrection as the great cosmic events by which salvation was obtained. But for the details ofA the life of Jesus he displays but little interest. His mind and fancy are dominated by a vague, mysterious, cosmic personification, not by a definite historical person\emdash by the heavenly Christ, not by Jesus of Nazareth.\par \par The latter of these two arguments can be established only by exaggeration and by misinterpretation\emdash by exaggeration of the paucity of references in Paul to the life of Jesus, and by misinterpretation of the paucity that really exists. In the first place, Paul displayBs far greater knowledge than is sometimes supposed, and in the second place, he possesses far greater knowledge than he displays. The testimony of Paul to Jesus has been examined many times\emdash it will not be necessary to traverse the ground again. The assertion that the details of the life of Jesus were of little value for Paul is contradicted in no uncertain terms by such passages as 2 Cor. 10:1 and Rom. 15:3. When Paul urges as an example to his readers the meekness and gentleness of Christ, or his Cfaithfulness in bearing reproaches in the service of God, he is evidently thinking not primarily of the gracious acts of the incarnation and passion, as in Phil. 2:5ff., and 2 Cor. 8:9, but of the character of Jesus as it was exhibited in his daily. life on earth. Such expressions as these attest not merely knowledge of Jesus but also warm appreciation of his character. The imitation of Jesus (1 Cor. 11:1) had its due place in the ethical life of Paul. Direct commands of Jesus are occasionally quoted, andD Paul is fully conscious of the significance of such commands (1 Cor. 7:10, 12, 25). In 1 Cor 11: 23ff., he quotes in full the words of Jesus instituting the Lord's Supper, and incidentally shows that he is acquainted with the exact circumstances under which the words were spoken ("the night in which he was betrayed").\par \par The incidental character of Paul's references to the life of Jesus itself suggests that he knew far more than he chooses to tell. The account of the institution of the Lord's SupEper, for example, would never have found a place in the epistles except for certain abuses which had sprung up in Corinth. Yet Paul says that he had already "delivered over" that account to the Corinthians. It had formed part of his elementary preaching. And it displays intimate knowledge of detail. That one example is sufficient to prove not only that Paul knew more than he tells in the epistles, but also that what is omitted from the epistles formed part of the essential elements of his preaching. It isF omitted not because it is unimportant, but on the contrary because it is fundamental. Instruction about it had to be given at the very beginning, and did not often have to be repeated. The hint supplied by such passages as the account of the Lord's Supper in 1 Cor. 11:23ff. is only supplementary to weighty a priori considerations. A missionary preaching that included no concrete account of the life of Jesus would have been preposterous. The claim that a crucified Jew was to be obeyed as Lord and trusted Gas Saviour must surely have provoked the question as to what manner of man this was. It is true that the gods of other religions needed to be described only in general terms. But Christianity had dispensed with the advantages of such vagueness. It had identified its God with a Jew who had lived but a few years before. Surely the tremendous prejudice against accepting a crucified criminal as Lord and Master could be overcome only by an account of the wonderful character of Jesus. The only other resource isH an extreme supernaturalism. If the concrete figure of the crucified one had no part in winning the hearts of men, then the work must have been accomplished by a magical exercise of divine power\emdash working out of all connection with the mind and heart. That is not the supernaturalism of Paul. When Paul writes to the Galatians that Jesus Christ crucified was placarded before their eyes, he refers to something more than a dogmatic exposition of the atonement. The picture of the crucified one owed part oIf its compelling power to the conviction that the death there portrayed was the supreme act of a life of love.\par \par It is already pretty clear that the first chapter of Galatians cannot mean that Paul had a contempt for Christian tradition. When Paul says that he received his gospel by direct revelation from Jesus Christ, he cannot mean that he excluded from his preaching what he had received by ordinary word of mouth from the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus. He cannot mean even that his proof ofJ the resurrection of Jesus was based solely upon his own testimony. That inference, at least, would be very natural if Gal. 1 stood alone. But it is refuted in no uncertain terms by 1 Cor. 15:3-7. In this passage the appearances of the risen Christ to persons other than Paul are reviewed in an extended list, and Paul distinctly says that this formed a part of his first preaching in Corinth. So not even the fact of the resurrection itself was supported solely by the testimony of Paul. On the contrary, PaulK was diligent in investigating the testimony of others.\par \par The first chapter of Galatians, therefore, bears a very different aspect when it is interpreted in the light of the other Pauline epistles. Paul does not mean that all his information about Jesus came from the risen Christ. In all probability, Paul knew the essential facts in the life of Jesus even before he became a Christian. Since he was a persecutor of the Church, he must have had at least general information about its founder. The stoLry of the life and death of the Galilean prophet must have been matter of common knowledge in Palestine. And after the conversion, Paul added to his knowledge. It is inconceivable that during the brief intercourse with Peter, for example, the subject of the words and deeds of Jesus was studiously avoided. Such an unnatural supposition is by no means required by the actual phenomena of the epistles. That has been demonstrated above. The true reason why Paul does not mention his knowledge of the life of JesMus as part of the basis of his faith, is that for him such factual knowledge was a matter of course. For us it is not a matter of course, because many centuries stand between us and the events. For us, painful investigation of sources is necessary in order that we may arrive even at the bare facts. Indeed, it is just the facts that need to be established in the face of the sharpest criticism. But for Paul, the facts were matter of common knowledge; it was the interpretation of the *facts which was in dispNute. Paul was living in Jerusalem only a very few years at the latest after the crucifixion of Jesus. The prophet of Nazareth had certainly created considerable stir in Jerusalem as well as in Galilee. These things were not done in a corner. The general outlines of the life of Jesus were known to friend and foe alike. Even indifference could hardly have brought forgetfulness. But Paul was not indifferent. Before his conversion, as well as after it, he was interested in Jesus. That was what made him the moOst relentless of the persecutors.\par \par The bare facts of the earthly life of Jesus did not, therefore, constitute in Paul's mind a "gospel." Everyone knew the facts\emdash the Pharisees as well as the disciples. The facts could be obtained through a thousand channels. Paul did not reflect as to where he got them. Before the conversion, he heard the reports of the opponents of Jesus, and the common gossip of the crowds. After the conversion, there were many eye-witnesses who could be questioned\emdasPh perhaps in Damascus and even in Arabia as well as in Jerusalem. It never occurred to Paul to regard himself as a disciple of the men who merely reported the facts, any more than the modem man feels a deep gratitude to the newspaper in which he reads useful information. If that particular paper had not printed the news, others would have done so. The sources of information are so numerous that no one of them can be regarded as of supreme importance. For us, the sources of information about the life of JeQsus are limited. Hence our veneration for the Gospels. But Paul was a contemporary of Jesus; the sources of his information about Jesus were so numerous that they could not be counted.\par \par Thus, when Paul says that he received his gospel from the risen Christ, he does not mean that the risen Christ revealed to him the facts of the life of Jesus. He had known the facts before\emdash only they had filled him with hatred. What he received at his conversion was a new interpretation of the facts. InsteaRd of continuing to persecute the disciples of Jesus, he accepted Jesus as living Lord and Master. Conceivably, the change might have been wrought through the preaching of the disciples; Paul might have received his gospel through the ministrations of Peter. But such was not the Lord's will. Suddenly, on the road to Damascus, Jesus called him. Paul had heard, perhaps, of the call of the first disciples; he had heard of those who left home and kindred to follow the new teacher. He had heard only to condemn.S But now it was his turn. Jesus called, and he obeyed. Jesus, whom he knew only too well\emdash destroyer of the Temple, accursed by the law, crucified, dead and buried\emdash was living Lord. Jesus called him\emdash called him not merely to revering imitation of the holy martyr, not merely to a new estimate of events that were past, but to present, living communion with himself. Jesus himself, in very presence, called him into communion, and into glorious service. That, and that only, is what Paul means Twhen he says that he received his gospel not from man but by revelation of Jesus Christ.\par \par Neither by Paul himself, therefore, nor by the original apostles was Paul regarded as an innovator with reference to Jesus. On the contrary he regarded himself and was regarded by others as a true disciple. The presumption is that that opinion was correct. For both Paul himself, and the early Christians with whom he came into contact were contemporaries of Jesus, and had every opportunity to know him. If PaUul had detected any fundamental divergence between his own teaching and that of Jesus of Nazareth, then he could not have remained Jesus' disciple. Unless, indeed, the conversion was supernatural. But the conversion was not supernatural if it left Paul in disharmony with Jesus. For it purported to be wrought by Jesus himself. If supernatural, the conversion could not have left Paul in disharmony with the historical Jesus, because it was wrought by an appearance of Jesus; if not supernatural, it would haveV been insufficient to make Paul regard himself as a disciple of one with whom he didnot agree. That the original apostles had every opportunity for knowing the historical Jesus requires no proof. Yet undoubtedly they accepted Paul as a disciple.\par \par The presumption thus established in favor of regarding Paul as a true disciple of Jesus could be overthrown only by positive divergence, established by an actual comparison of Jesus with Paul. At the very outset of such comparison, a serious difficulty Wis encountered. How is Jesus to be investigated? Paul we know, but what is the truth about Jesus? It will not do, it is said, to accept the Gospel picture in its entirety: For the Gospels were written after Paul, and have been affected by Pauline thinking. To a certain extent, therefore, it is no longer the historical Jesus which the Gospels describe, but the Pauline Christ. To compare Paul with the Gospels, therefore, is to compare not Paul with Jesus, but Paul with Paul. Naturally the comparison establiXshes coincidence, not divergence; but the result is altogether without value.\par \par This objection was applied first of all to the Fourth Gospel. The Fourth Gospel was written undoubtedly many years after the Pauline Epistles. And undoubtedly it exhibits a remarkable harmony with Pauline thinking. The Pauline Christ is here made to appear even in the earthly life of Jesus. In this respect, it is said, the Gospel is more Pauline than Paul himself. Paul had done justice to the human life of Jesus by diYstinguishing sharply between the humiliation and the exaltation of Christ. Jesus had become Son of God in power only at the resurrection. In the Fourth Gospel, on the other hand, the heavenly Christ appears in all his glory even on earth. Furthermore, the new birth of John 3 is identical with the Pauline conception of the new life which the Christian has by sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ. Even the Pauline doctrine of the sacrificial death of Christ, though not prominent in the Fourth GospZel, appears in such passages as John 1:29 and 3:14-15.\par \par The objection could be overcome only by an examination of the Fourth Gospel, which would far transcend the limits of the present discussion. The Fourth Gospel will therefore here be left out of account. It should be remarked, however, in passing, that dependence of the Fourth Gospel upon Paul has by no means been proved. A far-reaching similarity in ideas may freely be admitted. But in order to prove dependence, it is necessary to establish[ similarity not only of ideas, but also of expression. And that is conspicuously absent. Even where the underlying ideas are most clearly identical, the terminology is strikingly different\emdash and not only the bare terminology but also the point of view. The entire atmosphere and spirit of the Fourth Gospel is quite distinct from that of the Pauline Epistles. That is sufficient to disprove the hypothesis of dependence of the Gospel upon Paul. The underlying similarity of thought, when taken in connecti\on with the total dissimilarity of expression, can be explained only by dependence upon a common source. And that source can hardly be anything but Jesus Christ.\par \par Provisionally, however, the Fourth Gospel will be left out of account. That can be done with the greater safety, because it is now universally agreed that the contrast between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics is not an absolute one. The day is past when the divine Christ of the Gospel of John could be confronted with a human Christ ]of Mark. Historical students of all shades of opinion have now come to see that Mark as well as John (though, it is believed, in a lesser degree) presents an exalted Christology. The charge of Pauline influence, therefore, has been brought not only against John, but also against the earlier Gospels. Hence, it is maintained that if Paul be compared even with the Jesus of the Synoptics, he is being compared not with the historical Jesus, but with a Paulinized Jesus. Obviously such comparison can prove nothi^ng\par \par If the Synoptic Gospels were influenced by Paul, then there is extant not a single document which preserves a pre-Pauline conception of Christ. That is a very remarkable state of affairs. The original disciples of Jesus, those who had been, intimate with him on earth, those from whom the most authentic information might have been expected, have allowed their account of the life of Jesus to be altered through the influence of one who could speak only from hearsay. Such alteration would certai_nly fall within the lifetime of many of the eyewitnesses. For the Gospel of Mark is generally admitted to have been written before 70, A.D. It is conceivable that the Pauline conception might thus have gained the ascendancy over the primitive conception. But it is hardly conceivable that it could have done so without a struggle, and of struggle there is not a trace. In the supposed Pauline passages in the Synoptic Gospels, the writers are quite unaware that one conception is being replaced by another. And` the Pauline Epistles themselves, as has already been observed, presuppose a substantial agreement between Paul and the Jerusalem Church with regard to the person of Christ. This remarkable absence of struggle between the Pauline conception and the primitive conception can be explained only if the two were essentially the same. Only so could the Pauline conception have been accepted by the Jerusalem Church, and permitted to dominate subsequent Christianity. This conclusion is supported by the positive eviadence, which has recently been urged, for example by Harnack, for a pre- Pauline dating of the Synoptic Gospels\emdash that is, for dating them at a time when the Pauline! Epistles, even if some of them had already been written, could not have been collected, and could not have begun to dominate the thinking of the Church at large. The affinity between the Christology of Paul and the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels does not prove the dependence of the Gospels upon Paul. For the Christology of Paul was also,b in essentials, the Christology of the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem.\par \par The transition from the human Jesus to the divine Christ must be placed therefore not between the primitive church and Paul, but between Jesus and the primitive church. A man, Jesus, came to be regarded as a divine being, not by later generations, who could have been deceived by the nimbus of distance and mystery, but almost immediately after his death, by his intimate friends, by men who had seen him subject to call the petty limitations of daily life. Even if Paul were the first witness to the deification of Jesus, the process would still be preternaturally rapid. Jesus would still be regarded as a divine being by a contemporary of his intimate friends-and each deification would be no mere official form of flattery, like the apotheosis of the Roman emperors, but would be the expression of serious conviction. The process by which the man Jesus was raised to divine dignity within a few years of his death would be dabsolutely unique. That has been recognized even by men of the most thorough-going naturalistic principles. The late H. J. Holtzmann, who may be regarded as the typical exponent of modern New Testament criticism, admitted that for the rapid apotheosis of Jesus, as it appears in the thinking of Paul, he was unable to cite any parallel in the religious history of the race. In order to explain the origin of the Pauline Christology, Bruckner and Wrede have recourse to the Jewish Apocalypses. The Christology oef Paul was formed, it is said, before his conversion. He needed only to identify the heavenly, pre-existent Christ of his Jewish belief with Jesus of Nazareth, and his Christology was complete. But that explanation does not help matters. Even if it be accepted to the fullest extent, it explains only details. It explains why, if Jesus was to be regarded as a divine being, he was regarded as just this particular kind of divine being. But it does not explain how he came to be regarded as a divine being at alfl. And that is what really requires explanation. One might almost as well say that the deification of a man is explained if only it be shown that those who accomplished such deification already had a conception of God. The apotheosis of Jesus, then, is remarkable, even if it was due to Paul. But it becomes yet a thousand fold more remarkable when it is seen to have been due not to Paul, but to the intimate friends of Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, the process is so remarkable that the question arises whether gthere is not something wrong with the starting-point. The end of the process is fixed. It is the super-human\par Christ of Paul and of the primitive church. If, therefore, the process is inconceivable in its rapidity, it is the starting-point which becomes open to suspicion. The starting-point is the purely human Jesus. A suspicion arises that he\par never existed. If indeed any early Christian extant document gave a clear, consistent account of a Jesus who was nothing more than a man, then the historiahn might be forced to regard such a Jesus as the starting-point for an astonishingly rapid apotheosis. But as a matter of fact, no such document is in existence. Even those writers who represent Jesus most clearly as a man, represent him as something more than a man, and are quite unconscious of a conflict between the two representations. Indeed the two representations appear as two ways of regarding one and the same person. If, therefore, the purely human Jesus is to be reconstructed, he can be reconstrucited only by a critical process. That critical process, in view of the indissolubly close connection in which divine and human appear in the Synoptic representation of Jesus, becomes, to say the least, exceedingly difficult. And after criticism has done its work, after the purely human Jesus has been in some sort disentangled from the ornamentation which had almost hopelessly defaced his portrait, the critic faces another problem yet more baffling than the first. How did this human Jesus come to be regardejd as a super-human Jesus even by his most intimate friends? There is absolutely nothing to explain the transition except the supposed appearances of the risen Lord. The disciples had been familiar with a Jesus who placed himself on the side of man, not of God, who offered himself as an example of faith, not as the object of faith. And yet, after his shameful death, this estimate of his person suddenly gave place to a vastly higher estimate. That is bare supernaturalism. It is supernaturalism stripped of tkhat harmony with the laws of the human mind which has been preserved even by the supernaturalism of the Church. In its effort to remove the supernatural from the life of Jesus, modern criticism has been obliged to heap up a double portion of the supernatural upon the Easter experience of the disciples. If the disciples had been familiar with a supernatural Jesusa Jesus who forgave sin as only God can, a Jesus who offered himself not as an example of faith but as the object of faith, a Jesus who substantialted these his lofty claims by wonderful command over the powers of nature-then conceivably, though not probably, the impression of such a Jesus might have been sufficient to produce in the disciples, in a purely natural way, the experiences which they interpreted as appearances of the risen Lord. But by eliminating the supernatural in the life of the Jesus whom the disciples had known, modern criticism has closed the way to this its only possible psychological ex-planation of the Easter experience. In ordmer to explain the facts of primitive Christianity, the supernatural must be retained at least either in the life of Jesus of Nazareth or else in the appearances of the risen Lord. But of course no one 'will stop with that alternative. If the supernatural be accepted in either place, then of course it will be accepted in both places. If Jesus was really a supernatural person, then his resurrection and appearance to his disciples was only what was to be expected; if the experience of the disciples was reallny an appearance of Jesus, then of course even in his earthly life he was a supernatural person. The supernaturalism of the Church is a reasonable supernaturalism; the supernaturalism into which modern criticism is forced in its effort to avoid supernaturalism, is a supernaturalism unworthy of a reasonable God. In ,order to explain the exalted Christology of the primitive church, either the appearance of the risen Christ or the Easter experience of the disciples must be regarded as supernatural. But if eitoher was supernatural then there is no objection against supposing that both were.\par \par The similarity of the exalted Christology of the Synoptic Gospels to the Christology of Paul is therefore no indication of dependence upon Paul. For the Christology of Paul was in essence the Christology of the primitive church; and the Christology of the primitive church must have found its justification in the life of Jesus. Furthermore, comparison of Pauline thinking with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gpospels will demonstrate that the harmony between Jesus and Paul extends even to those elements in the teaching of Jesus which are regarded by modern criticism as most characteristic of him. For example, the fatherhood of God, and love as the fulfilling of the law. The conception of God as father was known, it is true, in pre-Christian Judaism. But Jesus brought an incalculable enrichment of it. And that same -enrichment appears in Paul in all its fullness. In the earliest extant epistle (1 Thess. 1:1) andq throughout all the epistles, the fatherhood of God appears as a matter of course. It requires no defence or elaboration. It is one of the commonplaces of Christianity. Yet it is not for Paul a mere matter of tradition, but a vital element in his religious life. It has not, through familiarity, lost one whit of its freshness. The cry, "Abba, Father", comes from the very depths of the heart. Hardly less prominent in Paul is the conception of love as the fulfilling of the law. "The whole law is fulfilled inr one word, even in this, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" "And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing." In the epistles, it is true, Paul is speaking usually of love for Christian brethren. But simply because of the needs of the churches. The closeness of the relationship with fellow-Christians had sometimes increased rather than diminished the tendency towards strife and selfishness. The epistles are addressed nsot to missionaries, but to Christians of very imperfect mold, who needed to be admonished to exhibit love even where love might have seemed most natural and easy. On account of the peculiar circumstances, therefore, Paul speaks especially of love for fellow-Christians. But not to the exclusion of love for all men. Never was greater injustice done than when Paul is accused of narrowness in his affections. His whole life is the refutation of such a charge\emdash his life of tactful adaptation to varying contditions, of restless energy, of untold peril and hardship. What was the secret of such a life? Love of Christ, no doubt. But also love of those for whom Christ died\emdash whether Jew or Greek, circumcision or uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free.\par \par The fatherhood of God, it is true, does not mean for Paul that God is pleased with all men, or that all men will receive the children's blessing. And Christian love does not mean obliteration of the dividing line between the Kingdom and tuhe world. But these limitations appear at least as clearly in Jesus as in Paul. The dark background of eternal destruction, and the sharp division between the disciples and the world are described by Jesus in far harsher terms than Paul ever ventured to employ. It was Jesus who spoke of the outer darkness and the everlasting fire, of the sin that shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come; it was Jesus who said, "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and motvher, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."\par \par These examples might be multiplied; and they should be supplemented by what has been said above with regard to Paul's appreciation of the character of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, as he is depicted for us in the Gospels, was for Paul the supreme moral ideal. But that does not make Paul a disciple of Jesus. Be it spoken with all plainness. Imitation of Jesus, important as it was in the lifew of Paul, was overshadowed by something else. All that has been said about Paul's interest in the earthly life of Jesus, about his obedience to Jesus' commands, about his reverence for Jesus' character, cannot disguise the fact that these things for Paul are not supreme. Knowledge of the life of Jesus is not for Paul an end in itself but a means to an end. The essence of Paul's religious life is not imitation of a dead prophet. It is communion with a living Lord. In making the risen Christ, not the earthlxy Jesus, the supreme object of Paul's thinking, modern radicalism is perfectly correct. Paul cannot be vindicated as a disciple of Jesus simply by correcting exaggeration\emdash simply by showing that the influence upon him of the teaching and example of Jesus was somewhat greater than has been supposed. The true relationships of a man are to be determined not by the periphery of his life, but by what is central\emdash central both in his own estimation and in his influence upon history. But the centre anyd core of Paulinism is not imitation of the earthly Jesus, but communion with the risen Christ. It was that which Paul himself regarded as the very foundation of his own life. "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature." "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." It was that which planted the Pauline gospel in the great cities of the Roman Empire; it was that which dominated Christianity, and through Christianity has changed the face of the world.\par \par The tremendous differencez between this communion with the risen Christ and mere imitation of the earthly Jesus has sometimes been overlooked. In the eagerness to vindicate Paul as a disciple of Jesus, the essential feature of Paulinism has been thrust into the background. It is admitted, of course, that in Paul's own estimation the thought of Christ as a divine being, now living in glory, was fundamental. But the really important thing, it is said, is the ethical character that is attributed to this heavenly being. Paul's heavenl{y Christ is the personification of self-denying love. But whence was this attribute derived? Certainly not from the Messiah of the Jewish Apocalypses. For he is conceived of as enveloped in mystery, as hidden from the world until the great day of his revealing. The gracious character of Paul's heavenly Christ could only have been derived from the historical Jesus. Perhaps directly. The character of the historical Jesus, as it was known through tradition, was simply attributed by Paul to the heavenly being| with whom Jesus was identified. Or perhaps indirectly. The heavenly Christ was for Paul the personification of love, because Paul conceived of the death of Christ as a supreme act of loving self-denial. But how could Paul conceive thus of the death of Christ? Only because of the loving spirit of Jesus which appeared in the disciples whom Paul persecuted. It was therefore ultimately the character of the historical Jesus which enabled Paul to conceive of the crucifixion as a loving act of sacrifice; and it} was this conception of the crucifixion which enabled Paul to conceive of his heavenly Christ as the supreme ideal of love. Of course, for Paul, owing to his intellectual environment, it was impossible to submit himself to this ideal of love, so long as it was embodied merely in a dead teacher. The conception of the risen Christ was therefore necessary historically in order to preserve the precious ideal which had been introduced into the world by Jesus. But we of the present day can and must sacrifice th~e form to the content. The glorious Christ of Paul derives the real secret of his power over the hearts of men not from his glory, but from his love.\par \par Such reasoning ignores the essence of Paulinism. It represents Paulinism as devotion to an ideal. If that were granted, then perhaps all the rest might follow. If Paulinism is simply imitation of Christ, then perhaps it makes little difference whether Christ be conceived of as on earth or in heaven, as a dead prophet or a living Lord. Past or present, the ideal, as an ideal, remains the same. But Paulinism is not imitation of Christ, but communion with Christ. That fact requires no proof. The epistles are on fire with it. The communion is, on the one hand, intensely personal\emdash it is a relation of love. With Christ Paul can hold colloquies of the most intimate kind. But, on the other hand, the communion with Christ transcends human analogies. The Lord can operate on the heart and life of Paul in a way that is impossible for any human friend. Paul is in Christ and Christ is in Paul. The relation to the risen Christ is not only personal, but also religious. But if Paulinism is communion with Christ, then quite the fundamental thing about Christ is that he is alive. It is sheer folly to say that this Pauline Christ-religion can be reproduced by one who supposes that Christ is dead. Such a one can envy the poor sinners in the Gospels who received from Jesus healing for body and mind. He can admire the great prophet. When, alas, shall we find another like him? He can envy the faith of others. But he cannot himself believe. He cannot hear Jesus say, "Thy faith hath made thee whole."\par \par When Paulinism is understood as fellowship with the risen Christ, then the disproportionate emphasis which Paul places upon the death and resurrection of Christ becomes intelligible. For these are the acts by which fellowship has been established. To the modern man, they seem unnecessary. By the modern man fellowship with God is taken as a matter of course. But only because of an imperfect conception of God. If God is all love and kindness, then of course nothing is required in order to bring us into his presence. But Paul would never have been satisfied with such a God. His was the awful, holy God of the Old Testament prophets\emdash and of Jesus. But for Paul the holiness of God was also the holiness of Christ. Communion of sinful man with the holy Christ is a tremendous paradox, a supreme mystery. But the mystery has been illumined. It has been illumined by the cross. Christ forgives sin not because he is complacent towards sin, but because of his own free grace he has paid the dreadful penalty of it. And he has not stopped with that. After the cross came the resurrection. Christ rose from the dead into a life of glory and power. Into that glory and into that. power he invites the believer. In Christ we receive not only pardon, but new and glorious life.\par \par \pard Paul's interpretation of the death and resurrection is not to be found in the words of Jesus. But hints of it appear, even in the Synoptic discourses. "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mk. 10:45). Modern criticism is inclined to question the authenticity of that verse. But if any saying of Jesus is commended by its form, it is this one. The exquisite gnomic form vindicates the saying to the great master of inspired paradox. Even far stronger, however, is the attestation of the words which were spoken at the last supper. Indeed these are the most strongly attested of all the words of Jesus; for the Synoptic tradition is here supplemented by the testimony of Paul; and the testimony of Paul is also the testimony of the tradition to which he refers. That tradition must be absolutely primitive. But the words which Jesus spoke at the last supper designate the death of Jesus as a sacrifice. And why should the idea of vicarious suffering be denied to Jesus? It is freely accepted for his disciples and for Paul.\cf1\fs23\par } ual Convention of the Ruling Elders' Association of Chester Presbytery, on the subject, "The Present Attack against the Fundamentals of our Christian Faith, from the Point of View of Colleges and Seminaries." Originally published in The Princeton Theological Review, Vol. 20, 1922, Machen later turned this short essay into a manuscript which was published in 1923 under the title: Christianity & Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923). This article, however, is now in the public domain (original pagination has been kept intact for purposes of reference). This electronic edition was scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal for Reformation Ink.\par \par The attack upon the fundamentals of the Christian faith is not a matter merely of theological seminaries and universities. It is being carried on vigorously by Sunday School "lesson-helps," by the pulpit, and by the religious press. The remedy, therefore, is not to be found in the abolition of theological seminaries, or the abandonment of scientific theology, but rather in a more earnest search after truth and a more loyal devotion to it when once it is found.\par \par At the seminaries and universities, the roots of the great issue are more clearly seen than in the world at large; among students the reassuring employment of traditional phrases is often abandoned, and the advocates of a new religion are not at pains, as they are in the Church at large, to maintain a pretence of conformity with the past. In discussing the attack against the fundamentals of Christianity "from the point of view of colleges and seminaries," therefore, we are simply discussing the root of the matter instead of its mere superficial manifestations. What, at bottom, when the traditional phrases have all been stripped away, is the real meaning of the present revolt against historic Christianity?\par \par That revolt, manifold as are its manifestations, is a fairly unitary phenomenon. It may all be subsumed under the general head of "naturalism"\emdash that is, the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (in distinction from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity. The word "naturalism" is here used in a sense somewhat different from its philosophical meaning. In this non-philosophical sense it describes with fair accuracy the real root of what is called, by a common degradation of an originally noble word, "liberal" religion. What then, in brief, are the teachings of modern liberalism, as over against the teachings of Christianity?\par \par At the outset, we are met with an objection. "Teachings," it is said, are unimportant; the exposition of the teachings of liberalism and the teachings of Christianity, therefore, can arouse no interest at the present day; creeds are merely the changing expression of a unitary Christian experience, and provided only they express that experience they are all equally good.\par \par Whether this objection be well-founded or not, the real meaning of it should at least be faced. And that meaning is perfectly plain. The objection involves an out-and-out skepticism. If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain. We are indulging therefore in a mere juggling with words. To say that all creeds are equally true, and that they are based upon experience, is merely to fall back upon that agnosticism which fifty years ago was regarded as the deadliest enemy of the Church. The enemy has not really been changed into a friend merely because he has been received within the camp. Very different is the Christian conception of a creed. According to the Christian conception, a creed is not based upon Christian experience, but on the contrary it is a setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based.\par \par But, it will be said, Christianity is a life, not a doctrine. The assertion is often made, and it has an appearance of godliness. But it is radically false, and to detect its falsity one does not need to be a Christian. For to say that "Christianity is a life" is to make an assertion in the sphere of history. The assertion does not lie in the sphere of ideals; it is far different from saying that Christianity ought to be a life, or that the ideal religion is a life. The assertion that Christianity is a life is subject to historical investigation exactly as is the assertion that the Roman Empire under Nero was a free democracy. Possibly the Roman Empire under Nero would have been better if it had been a free democracy, but the historical question is simply whether as a matter of fact it was a free democracy or no. Christianity is an historical phenomenon, like the Roman Empire, or the Kingdom of Prussia, or the United States of America. And as an historical phenomenon it must be investigated on the basis of historical evidence.\par \par Is it true, then, that Christianity is not a doctrine but a life? The question can be settled only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity. Recognition of that fact does not involve any acceptance of Christian belief; it is merely a matter of common sense and common honesty. At the foundation of the life of every corporation is the incorporation paper, in which the objects of the corporation are set forth. Other objects may be vastly more desirable than those objects, but if the directors use the name and the resources of the corporation to pursue the other objects they are acting "ultra vires" of the corporation. So it is with Christianity. It is perfectly conceivable that the originators of the Christian movement had no right to legislate for subsequent generations; but at any rate they did have an inalienable right to legislate for all generations that should choose to bear the name of "Christian." It is conceivable that Christianity may now have to be abandoned, and another religion substituted for it; but at any rate the question what Christianity is can be determined only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity.\par \par The beginnings of Christianity constitute a fairly definite historical phenomenon. The Christian movement originated a few days after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It is doubtful whether anything that preceded the death of Jesus can be called Christianity. At any rate, if Christianity existed before that event, it was Christianity only in a preliminary stage. The name originated after the death of Jesus, and the thing itself was also something new. Evidently there was an important new beginning among the disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem after the crucifixion. At that time is to be placed the beginning of the remarkable movement which spread out from Jerusalem into the Gentile world\emdash the movement which is called Christianity.\par \par About the early stages of this movement definite historical information has been preserved in the Epistles of Paul, which are regarded by all serious historians as genuine products of the first Christian generation. The writer of the Epistles had been in direct communication with those intimate friends of Jesus who had begun the Christian movement in Jerusalem, and in the Epistles he makes it abundantly plain what the fundamental character of the movement was.\par \par But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It is perfectly clear that the first Christian missionaries did not simply come forward with exhortation; they did not say: "Jesus of Nazareth lived a wonderful life of filial piety, and we call upon you our hearers to yield yourselves as we have done to the spell of that life." Certainly that is what modern historians would have expected the first Christian missionaries to say, but it must be recognized at least that as a matter of fact they said nothing of the kind. They came forward, not merely with an exhortation or with a program, but with a message,\emdash with an account of something that had happened a short time before. "Christ died for our sins," they said, "according to the Scriptures; he was buried; he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."\par \par This message, even the small excerpt from it quoted by Paul in 1Cor. 15:3ff., contains two elements\emdash it contains (1) the facts and (2) the meaning of the facts ("for our sins"). The narration of the facts is history; the setting forth of the meaning of the facts is doctrine. These two elements are always contained in the Christian message. "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried"-that is history. "He loved me and gave himself for me"\emdash that is doctrine. Without these two elements, inextricably intertwined, there is no Christianity.\par \par The character of primitive Christianity, as founded upon a message, is summed up in the words of the eighth verse of the first chapter of Acts\emdash "Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." It is entirely unnecessary, for the present purpose, to argue about the historical value of the Book of Acts or to discuss the question whether Jesus really spoke the words just quoted. In any case the verse must be recognized as an adequate summary of what is known about primitive Christianity. From the beginning Christianity was a campaign of witnessing. And the witnessing did not concern merely what Jesus was doing within the recesses of the individual life. To take the words of Acts in that way is to do violence to the context and to all the evidence. On the contrary, the Epistles of Paul and all the sources make it abundantly plain that the testimony was primarily not to inner spiritual facts but to what Jesus had done once for all in His death and resurrection.\par \par Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness. But if so, it is rather important that the Christian worker should tell the truth. When a man takes his seat upon the witness stand, it makes little difference what the cut of his coat is, or whether his sentences are nicely turned. The important thing is that he tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If we are to be truly Christians, then, it does make a vast difference what our teachings are, and it is by no means aside from the point to set forth the teachings of Christianity in contrast with the teachings of the chief modern rival of Christianity.\par \par The chief modern rival of Christianity is "liberalism." An examination of the teachings of liberalism will show that at every point the liberal movement is in opposition to the Christian message. That examination will now be undertaken, though necessarily in a summary and cursory way. 1\par \par Christianity, it has already been observed, is based upon an account of something that happened in the first century of our era. But before that account can be received, certain presuppositions must be accepted. These presuppositions consist in what is believed first about God, and second about man. With regard to the presuppositions, as with regard to the message itself, modern liberalism is diametrically opposed to Christianity.\par \par It is opposed to Christianity, in the first place, in its conception of God. But at this point we are met with a particularly insistent form of that objection to doctrinal matters which has already been considered. It is unnecessary, we are told, to have a "conception" of God; theology, or the knowledge of God, is the death of religion; we should not seek to know God, but should merely feel His presence.\par \par With regard to this objection, it ought to be observed that if religion consists merely in feeling the presence of God, it is devoid of any moral quality whatever. Pure feeling, if there be such a thing, is non-moral. What makes affection for a human friend, for example, such an ennobling thing is the knowledge which we possess of the character of our friend. Human affection, apparently so simple, is really just bristling with dogma. It depends upon a host of observations treasured up in the mind with regard to the character of our friend. But if human affection is thus really dependent upon knowledge, why should it be otherwise with that supreme personal relationship which is at the basis of religion? Why should we be indignant against slanders directed against a human friend, while at the same time we are patient about the basest slanders directed against our God? Certainly it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God.\par \par In the Christian view of God as set forth in the Bible, there are many elements. But one attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible; one attribute is absolutely necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end the Bible is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the creature from the Creator. It is true, indeed, that according to the Bible God is immanent in the world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. But he is immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and Upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator a great gulf is fixed.\par \par In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name "God" is applied to the mighty world process itself. We find ourselves in the midst of a mighty process, which manifests itself in the indefinitely small and in the indefinitely great\emdash in the infinitesimal life which is revealed through the microscope and in the vast movements of the heavenly spheres. To this world-process, of which we ourselves form a part, we apply the dread name of "God." God, therefore, it is said in effect, is not a person distinct from ourselves; on the contrary our life is a part of His. Thus the Gospel story of the Incarnation, according to modern liberalism, is sometimes thought of as a symbol of the general truth that man at his best is one with God.\par \par It is strange how such a representation can be regarded as anything new, for as a matter of fact, pantheism is a very ancient phenomenon. And modern liberalism, even when it is not consistently pantheistic, is at any rate pantheizing. It tends everywhere to break down the separateness between God and the world, and the sharp personal distinction between God and man. Even the sin of man on this view ought logically to be regarded as part of the life of God. Very different is the living and holy God of the Bible and of Christian faith.\par \par Christianity differs from liberalism, then, in the first place, in its conception of God. But it also differs in its conception of man. Modern liberalism has lost all sense of the gulf that separates the creature from the Creator; its doctrine of man follows naturally from its doctrine of God. But it is not only the creature limitations of mankind which are denied. Far more important is another difference. According to the Bible, man is a sinner under the just condemnation of God; according to modern liberalism, there is really no such thing as sin. At the very root of the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of sin. 2\par \par The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting-point of all preaching; but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness; the religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the world's evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world's good; no help is needed from outside the world.\par \par What has produced this satisfaction with human goodness? What has become of the consciousness of sin? The consciousness of sin has certainly been lost. But what has removed it from the hearts of men?\par \par In the first place, the war has perhaps had something to do with the change. In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are some-times inclined to forget our own sins. Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt. If John Smith beats his wife nowadays, no one is so old-fashioned as to blame John Smith for it. On the contrary, it is said, John Smith is evidently the victim of some more of that Bolshevistic propaganda; Congress ought to be called in extra session in order to take up the case of John Smith in an alien and sedition law.\par \par But the loss of the consciousness of sin is far deeper than the war; it has its roots in a mighty spiritual process which has been active during the past seventy-five years. Like other great movements, that process has come silently, so silently that its results have been achieved before the plain man was even aware of what was taking place. Nevertheless, despite all superficial Continuity, a remarkable change has come about within the last seventy-five years. The change is nothing less than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant view of life. Seventy-five years ago, Western civilization, despite inconsistencies, was still predominantly Christian; today it is predominantly pagan.\par \par In speaking of "paganism," we are not using a term of reproach. Ancient Greece was pagan, but it was glorious, and the modern world has not even begun to equal its achievements. What, then, is paganism? The answer is not really difficult. Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous development of existing human faculties. Very different is the Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.\par \par In saying that Christianity is the religion of the broken heart, we do not mean that Christianity ends with the broken heart; we do not mean that the characteristic Christian attitude is a continual beating on the breast or a continual crying of "Woe is me." Nothing could be further from the fact. On the contrary, Christianity means that sin is faced once for all, and then is cast, by the grace of God, forever into the depths of the sea. The trouble with the paganism of ancient Greece, as with the paganism of modern times, was not in the superstructure, which was glorious, but in the foundation which was rotten. There was always something to be covered up; the enthusiasm of the architect was maintained only by ignoring the disturbing fact of sin. In Christianity, on the other hand, nothing needs to be covered up. The fact of sin is faced resolutely once for all, and is removed by the grace of God. But then, after sin has been removed by the grace of God, the Christian can proceed to develop joyously every faculty that God has given him. Such is the higher Christian humanism\emdash a humanism founded not upon human pride but upon divine grace.\par \par But although Christianity does not end with the broken heart, it does begin with the broken heart; it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without the consciousness of sin, the whole of the gospel will seem to be an idle tale. But how can the consciousness of sin be revived? Something no doubt can be accomplished by the proclamation of the law of God, for the law reveals transgressions. The whole of the law, morever, should be proclaimed. It will hardly be wise to adopt the suggestion (recently offered among many suggestions as to the ways in which we shall have to modify our message in order to retain the allegiance of the returning soldiers) that we must stop treating the little sins as though they were big sins. That suggestion means apparently that we must not worry too much about the little sins, but must let them remain unmolested. With regard to such an expedient, it may perhaps be suggested that in the moral battle we are fighting against a very resourceful enemy, who does not reveal the position of his guns by desultory artillery action when he plans a great attack. In the moral battle, as in the Great European War, the quiet sectors are usually the most dangerous. It is through the "little sins" that Satan gains an entrance into our lives. Probably, therefore, it will be prudent to watch all sectors of the front and lose no time about introducing the unity of command.\par \par But if the consciousness of sin is to be produced, the law of God must be proclaimed in the lives of Christian people as well as in word. It is quite useless for the preacher to breathe out fire and brimstone from the pulpit, if at the same time the occupants of the pews go on taking sin very lightly and being content with the moral standards of the world. The rank and file of the Church must do their part in so proclaiming the law of God by their lives that the secrets of men's hearts shall be revealed.\par \par All these things, however, are in themselves quite insufficient to produce the consciousness of sin. The more one observes the condition of the Church, the more one feels obliged to confess that the conviction of sin is a great mystery, which can be produced only by the Spirit of God. Proclamation of the law, in word and in deed, can prepare for the experience, but the experience itself comes from God. When a man has that experience, when a man comes under the conviction of sin, his whole attitude toward life is transformed; he wonders at his former blindness, and the message of the gospel, which formerly seemed to be an idle tale, becomes now instinct with light. But it is God alone who can produce the change.\par \par Only, let us not try to do without the Spirit of God. The fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged in an impossible task\emdash she is busily engaged in calling the righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: "You people are very good," he says; "you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible\emdash especially in the life of Jesus\emdash something so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people." Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and probably we shall be no more successful than He.\par \par Modern liberalism, then, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of the Christian message\emdash the living God, and the fact of sin. The liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the message itself.\par \par 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 a wonderful enrichment of the revelations which are given also by the things that God has made and by the conscience of man. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handywork"\emdash these words are a confirmation of the revelation of God in nature; "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"\emdash 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\emdash as a matter of fact, because of men's blindness, even so much is learned elsewhere only in comparatively obscure fashion\emdash 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.\par \par 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.\par \par 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 wheu he offered up his only begotten Son.\par \par Thus the revelation of which an account is contained in the Bible embraces not only a reaffirmation of eternal truths\emdash itself necessary because the truths have been obscured by the blinding effect of sin\emdash but also a revelation which sets forth the meaning of an act of God.\par \par 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." The Christian, then, if he make full use of his Christian privileges, finds the seat of authority in the whole Bible, which he regards as the very Word of God.\par \par Very different is the view of modern liberalism. The modern liberal rejects the unique authority of the Bible. But what is substituted for the Christian doctrine? What is the liberal view as to the seat of authority in religion?\par \par The impression is sometimes produced that the modern liberal substitutes for the authority of the Bible the authority of Christ. He cannot accept, he says, what he regards as the perverse moral teaching of the Old Testament or the sophistical arguments of Paul. But he regards himself as being the true Christian because, rejecting the rest of the Bible, he depends upon Jesus alone.\par \par This impression, however, is utterly false. The modern liberal does not really hold to the authority of Jesus. Even if he did so, he would be impoverishing very greatly his knowledge of God and of the way of salvation. The words of Jesus, spoken during His earthly ministry, could hardly contain all that we need to know about God and about the way of salvation; for the meaning of Jesus' redeeming work could hardly be fully set forth before that work was done. It could be set forth indeed by way of prophecy, and as a matter of fact it was so set forth by Jesus even in the days of His flesh. But the full explanation could naturally be given only after the work was done. And such was actually the divine method. It is doing despite, not only to the Spirit of God, but also to Jesus Himself, to regard the teaching of the Holy Spirit, given through the apostles, as at all inferior in authority to the teaching of Jesus.\par \par As a matter of fact, however, the modern liberal does not hold fast even to the authority of Jesus. Certainly he does not accept the words of Jesus as they are recorded in the Gospels. For among the recorded words of Jesus are to be found just those things which are most abhorrent to the modern liberal Church, and in His recorded words Jesus also points forward to the fuller revelation which was afterwards to be given through His apostles. Evidently, therefore, those words of Jesus which are to be regarded as authoritative by modern liberalism must first be selected from the mass of the recorded words by a critical process. The critical process is certainly very difficult, and the suspicion often arises that the critic is retaining as genuine words of the historical Jesus only those words which conform to his own preconceived ideas. But even after the sifting process has been completed, the liberal scholar is still unable to accept as authoritative all the sayings of Jesus; he must finally admit that even the historical Jesus said some things that are untrue.\par \par So much is usually admitted. But, it is maintained, although not everything that Jesus said is true, His central "life-purpose" is still to be regarded as regulative for the Church. 3 But what then was the life-purpose of Jesus? According to the shortest, and if modern criticism be accepted, the earliest of the gospels, the Son of Man "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Here the vicarious death is put as the "life-purpose" of Jesus. Such an utterance must of course be pushed aside by the modern liberal Church. The truth is that the life-purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life-purpose of the real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesus\emdash isolated and misinterpreted\emdash which happen to agree with the modern program. It is not Jesus, then, who is the real authority, but the modern principle by which the selection within Jesus' recorded teaching has been made. Certain isolated ethical principles of the Sermon on the Mount are accepted, not at all because they are teachings of Jesus, but because they agree with modern ideas.\par \par It is not true at all, then, that modern liberalism is based upon the authority of Jesus. It is obliged to reject a vast deal that is absolutely essential in Jesus' example and teaching\emdash notably His consciousness of being the heavenly Messiah. The real authority, for liberalism, can only be "the Christian consciousness" or "Christian experience." But how shall the findings of the Christian consciousness be established? Surely not by a majority vote of the organized Church. Such a method would obviously do away with all liberty of conscience. The only authority, then, can be individual experience; truth can only be that which "helps" the individual man. Such an authority is obviously no authority at all; for individual experience is endlessly diverse, and when once truth is regarded only as that which works at any particular time, it ceases to be truth. The result is an abysmal skepticism.\par \par The Christian man, on the other hand, finds in the Bible the very Word of God. Let it not be said that dependence upon a book is a dead or an artificial thing. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was founded upon the authority of the Bible, yet it set the world aflame. Dependence upon a word of man would be slavish, but dependence upon God's word is life. Dark and gloomy would be the world, if we were left to our own devices, and had no blessed Word of God.\par \par It is no wonder, then, that liberalism is totally different from Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and its life. Liberalism on the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men.\par \par Three points of difference between liberalism and Christianity have now been noticed. The two are different (1) in their view of God, (2) in their view of man, and (3) in their choice of the seat of authority in religion. A fourth difference concerns the view of Christ. What does modern liberalism believe about the person of our Lord?\par \par At this point a puzzling fact appears\emdash the liberal preacher is often perfectly ready to say that "Jesus is God." The plain man is much impressed. The preacher, he says, believes in the deity of our Lord; obviously then his unorthodoxy must concern only details; and those who object to his presence in the Church are narrow and uncharitable heresy-hunters. But unfortunately language is valuable only as the expression of thought. The English word "god" has no particular virtue in itself; it is not more beautiful than other words. Its importance depends altogether upon the meaning which is attached to it. When, therefore, the liberal preacher says that "Jesus is God," the significance of the utterance depends altogether upon what is meant by "God."\par \par But it has already been observed that when the liberal preacher uses the word "God," he means something entirely different from that which the Christian means by the same word. "God," at least according to the logical trend of modern liberalism, is not a person separate from the world, but merely the unity that pervades the world. To say, therefore, that Jesus is God means merely that the life of God, which appears in all men, appears with special clearness or richness in Jesus. Such an assertion is diametrically opposed to the Christian belief in the deity of Christ.\par \par Equally opposed to Christian belief is another meaning that is sometimes attached to the assertion that Jesus is God. The word "God" is sometimes used to denote simply the supreme object of men's desires, the highest thing that men know. We have given up the notion, it is said, that there is a Maker and Ruler of the universe. Such notions belong to "metaphysics," and are rejected by the modern man. But the word "God," though it can no longer denote the Maker of the universe, is convenient as denoting the object of men's emotions and desires. Of some men, it can be said that their God is mammon\emdash mammon is that for which they labor, and to which their hearts are attached. In a somewhat similar way, the liberal preacher says that Jesus is God. He does not mean at all to say that Jesus is identical in nature with a Maker and Ruler of the universe, of whom an idea could be obtained apart from Jesus. In such a Being he no longer believes. All that he means is that the man Jesus\emdash a man here in the midst of us, and of the same nature as ours\emdash is the highest thing we know. It is obvious that such a way of thinking is far more widely removed from Christian belief than is Unitarianism, at least the earlier forms of Unitarianism. For the early Unitarianism no doubt at least believed in God. The modern liberals, on the other hand, say that Jesus is God not because they think high of Jesus, but because they think desperately low of God.\par \par In another way also, liberalism within the "evangelical" Churches is inferior to Unitarianism. It is inferior to Unitarianism in the matter of honesty. In order to maintain themselves in the evangelical churches and quiet the fears of their conservative associates, the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language. A young man, for example, has received disquieting reports of the unorthodoxy of a prominent preacher. Interrogating the preacher as to his belief, he receives a reassuring reply. "You may tell everyone," says the liberal preacher in effect, "that I believe that Jesus is God." The inquirer goes away much impressed.\par \par It may well be doubted, however, whether the assertion, "I believe that Jesus is God," or the like, on the lips of liberal preachers, is strictly truthful. The liberal preacher attaches indeed a real meaning to the words, and that meaning is very dear to his heart. He really does believe that "Jesus is God." But the trouble is that he attaches to the words a different meaning from that which is attached to them by the simple-minded person to whom he is speaking. He offends, therefore, against the fundamental principle of truthfulness in language. According to that fundamental principle, language is truthful, not when the meaning attached to the words by the speaker, but when the meaning intended to be produced in the mind of the particular person addressed, is in accordance with the facts. Thus the truthfulness of the assertion, "I believe that Jesus is God," depends upon the audience that is addressed. If the audience is composed of theologically trained persons, who will attach the same meaning to the word "God" as that which the speaker attaches to it, then the language is truthful. But if the audience is composed of old-fashioned Christians, who have never attached anything but the old meaning to the word God (the meaning which appears in the first verse of Genesis), then the language is untruthful. And in the latter case, not all the pious motives in the world will make the utterance right. Christian ethics do not abrogate common honesty; no possible desire of edifying the Church and of avoiding offence can excuse a lie.\par \par At any rate, the deity of our Lord, in any real sense of the word "deity," is of course denied by modern liberalism. To the modern preacher Jesus is an example for faith, and Christianity consists in having the same faith in God that Jesus had. To the Christian, on the other hand, Jesus is the object of faith, and upon Him alone depends the eternal welfare of the individual soul and of humanity. \par \par Finally, liberalism differs from Christianity in the account which is given of the way of salvation. The two give exactly opposite answers to the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Liberalism finds salvation in man; Christianity finds it only in an act of God.\par \par The difference with regard to the way of salvation concerns, in the first place, the basis of salvation in the redeeming work of Christ. According to Christian belief, Jesus is our Saviour, not by virtue of what He said, not even by virtue of what He was, but by what He did. He is our Saviour not because He has inspired us to live the same kind of life that He lived, but because He took upon Himself the dreadful guilt of our sins and bore it instead of us on the Cross. Such is the Christian conception of the Cross of Christ. It is ridiculed as being a subtle "theory of the atonement." In reality, though it involves mysteries, it is itself so simple that a child can understand it. "We deserved eternal death, but the Lord Jesus because He loved us died instead of us on the cross"\emdash surely there is nothing So very intricate about that. It is not the Bible doctrine of the atonement which is difficult to understand\emdash what are really incomprehensible are the elaborate modern efforts to get rid of the Bible doctrine in the interests of human pride.\par \par To modern liberalism the Cross of Christ is an inspiring example of self-sacrifice. But since there have been many acts of self-sacrifice in the history of the world, why should we pay such exclusive attention to this one Palestinian example? We are perfectly ready, men say in effect, to admit Jesus into the noble fellowship of those who have sacrificed themselves in a noble cause. But further we will not go. Men used to say with reference to Jesus, "There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin." They say so no longer. On the contrary, every man is now regarded as plenty good enough to pay the price of sin if he will only go bravely over the top in a noble cause.\par \par It is no wonder that men adopt this patronizing attitude toward the Cross; for the liberal conception of the Cross follows naturally from the liberal conception of man and the liberal conception of Christ. If there be no such thing as sin, no such thing as the just condemnation of God's law, then of course we can get along perfectly well without a sacrifice for sin. And if Jesus be a man like the rest of men, then of course His death cannot possibly be a sacrifice for the sins of others. One mere man cannot possibly pay the penalty of another man's sin. But it does not follow that the Son of God cannot pay the penalty of the sins of men. When we come to see that it was no mere man, but the Lord of glory who suffered on Calvary, then we shall be willing to say, as men used to say, that the precious blood of Jesus alone\emdash and not all the rivers of blood that have flowed on the battle-fields of history\emdash is of value as a ground for our own salvation and for the hope of the world.\par \par With the liberal view of the basis of salvation goes the liberal view of the application of salvation to the individual man, and that also is entirely different from the teaching of the Bible. According to the Bible, salvation is applied to the individual man by the Spirit of God. The work of the Spirit is mysterious. But the human accompaniment of the Spirit's action is a very simple thing\emdash it is faith. Faith means simply receiving a gift. To have faith in Christ means to cease trying to win God's favor by one's own character; the man who believes in Christ simply accepts the sacrifice which Christ offered on Calvary. The result of such faith is a new life and all good works; but the salvation itself is an absolutely free gift of God.\par \par Liberalism, on the other hand, seeks the welfare of men by urging them to "make Christ Master in their lives." In other words, salvation is to be obtained by our own obedience to the Commands of Christ. Such teaching is just a sublimated form of legalism. Not the sacrifice of Christ, on this view, but our own obedience to God's law is the ground of hope.\par \par In this way the whole achievement of the Reformation has been given up, and there has been a return to the religion of the Middle Ages. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, God raised up a man who began to read the Epistle to the Galatians with his own eyes. The result was the rediscovery of the doctrine of justification by faith. Upon that rediscovery has been based the whole of our evangelical freedom. As expounded by Luther and Calvin the Epistle to the Galatians became the "Magna Carta of Christian liberty." But modern liberalism has returned to the old interpretation of Galatians which was urged against the Reformers. Thus Professor Burton's elaborate commentary on the Epistle, with all its valuable modern scholarship, is at bottom a thorough mediaeval book; it has returned to an anti-Reformation exegesis, by which Paul is thought to be attacking in the Epistle only the piecemeal morality of the Pharisees. In reality, of course, the object of Paul's attack is the thought that in any way man can earn his acceptance with God. What Paul is primarily interested in is not spiritual religion over against ceremonialism, but the free grace of God over against human merit.\par \par The grace of God is rejected by modern liberalism. And the result is slavery\emdash the slavery of the law, the wretched bondage by which man undertakes the impossible task of establishing his own righteousness as a ground of acceptance with God. It may seem strange at first sight that "liberalism," of which the very name means freedom, should in reality be wretched slavery. But the phenomenon is not really so strange. Emanicipation from the blessed will of God always involves bondage to some worse task-master.\par \par Thus it may be said of the modern liberal Church, as of the Jerusalem of Paul's day, that "she is in bondage with her children." God grant that she may turn again to the liberty of the gospel of Christ!\par \par Such is the present situation. It is a great mistake to suppose that liberalism is merely a heresy\emdash merely a divergence at isolated points from true Christian teaching. On the contrary it proceeds from a totally different root. It differs from Christianity in its view of God, of man, of the seat of authority, of Christ, and of the way of salvation. Christianity is being attacked from within by a movement which is anti-Christian to the core.\par \par What is the duty of laymen at such a time? What is the duty of the ruling elders in the Presbyterian Church?\par \par In the first place, they should encourage those who are engaging in the intellectual and spiritual struggle. They should not say, in the sense in which some laymen say it, that more time should be devoted to the propagation of Christianity, and less to the defence of Christianity. Certainly there should be propagation of Christianity. Believers should certainly not content themselves with warding off attacks, but should also unfold in an orderly and positive way the full riches of the gospel. But far more is usually meant by those who call for less defence and more propagation. What they really intend is the discouragement of the whole intellectual defence of the faith. And their words come as a blow in the face of those who are fighting the great battle. As a matter of fact, not less time, but more time, should be devoted to the defence of the gospel. Indeed, truth cannot be stated clearly at all, without being set over against error. Thus a large part of the New Testament is polemic; the enunciation of evangelical truth was occasioned by the errors which had arisen in the churches. So it will always be, on account of the fundamental laws of the human mind. Moreover, the present crisis must be taken into account. There may have been a day when there could be propagation of Christianity without defence. But such a day at any rate is past. At the present time, when the opponents of the gospel are almost in control of our church, the slightest avoidance of the defence of the gospel is just sheer unfaithfulness to the Lord. There have been previous great crises in the history of the Church, crises almost comparable to this. One appeared in the second century, when the very life of Christendom was threatened by the Gnostics. Another came in the Middle Ages when the gospel of God's grace seemed forgotten. In such times of crisis, God has always saved the Church. But He has always saved it not by pacifists, but by sturdy contenders for the truth.\par \par In the second place, ruling elders should perform their duty as members of presbyteries. The question, "For Christ or against him?," constantly arises in the examination of candidates for licensure or ordination. Attempts are often made to obscure the issue. It is often said: "The candidate will no doubt move in the direction of the truth; let him now be sent out to learn as well as to preach." And so another opponent of the gospel enters the councils of the Church, and another false prophet goes forth to encourage sinners to come before the judgment seat of God clad in the miserable rags of their own righteousness. Such action is not really "kind" to the candidate himself. It is never kind to encourage a man to enter into a life of dishonesty. The fact often seems to be forgotten that the Presbyterian Church is a purely voluntary organization; no one is required to enter into its service. If a man cannot accept the belief of the Church, there are other ecclesiastical bodies in which he can find a place. The belief of the Presbyterian Church is plainly set forth in the Confession of Faith, and the Church will never afford any warmth of communion or engage with any real vigor in her work until her ministers are in whole-hearted agreement with that belief. It is strange how in the interests of an utterly false kindness to men, Christians are sometimes willing to relinquish their loyalty to the crucified Lord.\par \par In the third place, the ruling elders of the Presbyterian Church should show their loyalty to Christ in their capacity as members of the individual congregations. The issue often arises in connection with the choice of a pastor. 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!\par \par A terrible crisis has arisen in the Church. In the ministry of evangelical churches are to be found hosts of those who reject the gospel of Christ. By the equivocal use of traditional phrases, by the representation of differences of opinion as though they were only differences about the interpretation of the Bible, entrance into the Church was secured for those who are hostile to the very foundations of the faith. And now there are some indications that the fiction of conformity to the past is to be thrown off, and the real meaning of what has been taking place is to be allowed to appear. The Church, it is now apparently supposed, has almost been educated up to the point where the shackles of the Bible can openly be cast away and the doctrine of the Cross of Christ can be relegated to the limbo of discarded subtleties.\par \par Yet there is in the Christian life no room for despair. Only, our hopefulness should not be founded on the sand. It should be founded, not upon a blind ignorance of the danger, but solely upon the precious promises of God. Laymen, as well as ministers, should return, in these trying days, with new earnestness, to the study of the Word of God.\par \par If the Word of God be heeded, the Christian battle will be fought both with love and with faithfulness. Party passions and personal animosities will be put away, but on the other hand, even angels from heaven will be rejected if they preach a gospel different from the blessed gospel of the Cross. Every man must decide upon which side he will stand. God grant that we may decide aright! God grant that instead of directing men, as modern liberalism does, to the village of Morality, where dwells a gentleman whose name is Legality, said to have skill in easing men of their burdens, we may direct them on the old, old way, through the little wicket gate, to a place somewhat ascending, where they shall really see the Cross, that when at that sight the burden of their sin has fallen away, they may press on past the Hill Difficulty, past the Valley of Humiliation and the Valley of the Shadow of Death, past the allurements of Vanity Fair, up over the Delectable Mountains, and so, at length, across the last river, into the City of God.\par \par Princeton.\par \par J. Gresham Machen\par \par \par Notes\par 1. The principal divisions of what follows were suggested by the Rev. Paul Martin, of Princeton.\par 2. For what follows, compare "The Church in the War," in _The Presbyterian_, for May 29, 1919, pp. 10 f.\par 3. Compare "For Christ or Against Him," in _The Presbyterian_ for January 20, 1921, p. 9.\par 4. For the distinction between Jesus as an example for faith and Jesus as the object of faith, see Denney, _Jesus and the Gospel_, 1909.\par 5. See "The Church in the War," in _The Presbyterias_, for May 29, 1919, p. 10.\par \par \par \pard\cf1\fs23\par } ss}Q900 Jesus and Paul{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 Jesus & Paul\par by J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)\par \par The Apostle Paul is the greatest teacher of the Christian Chu >00 Liberalism or Christianity?{\rtf1\ansi\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0 Georgia;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue0;} {\*\generator Riched20 5.40.11.2210;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\sl240\slmult1\lang2058\f0\fs24 Liberalism or Christianity?\par by J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)\par \par An address delivered, in substance, in the Wayne Presbyterian Church, Wayne, Pennsylvania, November 3, 1921, before the Twenty- Eighth Ann