(Jbe University o

KUbraries
WHAT IS FAITH?
By J. GRESHAM MACHEN, D.D.

WHAT is FAITH?

THE ORIGIN OF PAUL'S RELIGION

CHRISTIANITY AND LIBERALISM

NEW TESTAMENT GREEK FOR BEGINNERS

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J. GRESHAM MACHEN,
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D.D.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND EXEGESIS

IN PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1925
All Rights Reserved
 'I I I

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Copyright, 1925,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped.

Published November, 1925.

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FEINTED IN THB UNITED STATES OT AMEEIOA

BY THB COBNWALL PKESS
 735484

TO
FRANCIS LANDBY PATTON
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
AS AN INADEQUATE BUT HEARTFELT EXPRESSION
OF
GRATITUDE AND RESPECT
 PREFACE

This book contains the material of a course of lec-

tureswhich was delivered at the Grove City Bible
School in the summer of 1925. More or less extensive
use has been made of articles contributed by the author
to The Princeton Theological Review, The New York
Times, The Real Issue (published by the Philadelphian
Society of Princeton University) and Christian Educa-
,

tion (an articlepublished also in The Sunday School

Times'). A paper entitled "Faith and Knowledge,"
which was published in the Bulletin of the Fourth
Biennial Meeting (held in June, 1924) of the Confer-
ence of Theological Seminaries and Colleges in the
United States and Canada, has been incorporated in
greater part in the course of Chapters I, III, and VIII.
By kind permission of the Editor of The Woman's
Home Companion, use has been made, in Chapter II, of
several paragraphs of an article on "My Idea of God"
that appeared in that journal for December, 1925.
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 13

II. FAITH IN GOD 46

III. FAITH IN CHRIST 84

IV. FAITH BORN OF NEED 118

V. FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 143

VI. FAITH AND SALVATION ,

161

VII. FAITH AND WORKS 183

VIII. FAITH AND HOPE 219

INDEX 253
WHAT IS FAITH?
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The question, "What is Faith?", which forms the

subject of the following discussion may seem to some

persons impertinent and unnecessary. Faith, it may

be said, cannot be known except by experience, and
when it is known by
experience logical analysis of it,
and logical separation of it from other experiences, will

only serve to destroy its power and its charm. The

man who knows by experience what it is to trust
Christ, for example, to rest upon Him for salvation,
will never need, it may be held, to engage in psychologi-
cal investigations of that experience which is the basis
of his life; and indeed such investigations may even
serve to destroy the thing that is to be investigated.
Such objections are only one manifestation of a tend-

ency that very widespread at the present day, the

is

tendency to .disparage the intellectual aspect of the re-

ligious life. Religion, it is held, is an ineffable experi-
ence; the intellectual expression of it can be symbolical
merely; most various opinions in the religious
the
sphere are compatible with a fundamental unity of life ;

theology may vary and yet religion may remain the

same.

Obviously this temper of mind is hostile to precise

definitions.Indeed nothing makes a man more unpop-
ular in the controversies of the present day than an

13
14 WHAT IS FAITH?
insistence upon definition of terms. Anything, it

seems, may be forgiven more readily than that. Men

discourse very eloquently today upon such subjects as
God, religion, Christianity, atonement, redemption,
faith; but are greatly incensed when they are asked to
tell in simple language what they mean by these terms.
They do not to have the flow of their eloquence
like
checked by so vulgar a thing as a definition. And so
they will probably be incensed by the question which
forms the title of these lectures; in the midst of elo-
quent celebrations of faith usually faith contrasted
with knowledge it seems disconcerting to be asked
what faith is.

This anti-intellectual tendency in the modern world

is no
trifling thing; it has
roots deep in the entire
its

philosophical development of modern times. Modern

philosophy since the days of Kant, with the theology
that has been influenced by it, has had as its dominant
note, certainly as its present-day result, a depreciation
of the reason and a skeptical answer to Pilate's ques-
tion, "What is truth?" This. attack upon the intellect
has been conducted by men of marked intellectual
power; but an attack upon the intellect it has been all

the same. And at last the logical results of it, even in

the sphere of practice, are beginning to appear. A
marked characteristic of the present day is a lamentable
intellectual decline, which has appeared in all fields of
human endeavor except those that deal with purely
material things. The intellect has been browbeaten so

long in theory that one cannot be surprised if it is now

ceasing to function in practice. Schleiermacher and
 INTRODUCTION 15

Ritschl, despite their own intellectual gifts, have, it may

fairly be maintained, contributed largely
to produce that
indolent impressionism which, for example in the field
of New Testament studies, has largely taken the place
of the patient researches of a generation or so ago.
The intellectual decadence of the day is not limited
to the Church, or to the subject of religion, but appears
in secular education as well. Sometimes it is assisted

by absurd pedagogic theories, which, whatever their va-

riety in detail, are alike in their depreciation of the labor
of learning facts. Facts, in the sphere of education, are
having a hard time. The old-fashioned notion of read-
ing a book or hearing a lecture and simply storing up
in the mind what the book or the lecture contains
this is regarded as entirelyout of date. year or soA
ago heard a noted educator give some advice to a com-
I

pany of college professors advice which was typical of

the present tendency in education. It is a great mis-

take, he said in effect, to suppose that a college profes-

sor ought to teach; on the contrary he ought simply to
give the students an opportunity to learn.
This pedagogic theory of following the line of least
resistance in education and avoiding all drudgery and
all hard work has been having its natural result; it has
joined forces with the natural indolence of youth to
produce in present-day education a very lamentable
decline.
The decline has not, indeed, been universal; in the
sphere of the physical sciences, for example, the acqui-
sition of facts isnot regarded as altogether out of date.
Indeed, the anti-intellectualistic tendency in religion and
16 WHAT IS FAITH?
in those subjects that deal specifically with the things
of the spirit has been due, partly at least, to a monopo-
listic possession of the intellect on the part of the phy-
sical sciences and of their utilitarian applications. But
in the long run to be questioned whether even
it is

those branches of endeavor will profit by their monopo-

listicclaims; in the long run the intellect will hardly
profit by being excluded from the higher interests of the
human spirit, and its decadence may then appear even
in the material sphere.
But however that may be, whether or not intellectual
decadence has already extended or will soon extend to
the physical sciences, its prevalence in other spheres
in literature and history, for example, and still more

clearly in the study of language is perfectly plain.

An outstanding feature of contemporary education in

these spheres is the
growth of ignorance; pedagogic
theory and the growth of ignorance have gone hand in
hand.
The undergraduate student of the present day is
being told that he need not take notes on what he hears
in class, that the exercise of the memory is a rather
and mechanical thing, and that what he is really
childish
do is to think for himself and to unify his
in college to
world. He usually makes a poor business of unifying
his world. And the reason is clear. He does not suc-
ceed in unifying his world for the simple reason that
he has ho world to unify. He has not acquired a
knowledge or a sufficient number of facts in order even

to learn the method of putting facts together. He is

being told to practise the business of mental digestion;
 INTRODUCTION 17

but the trouble is that he has no food to digest. The

modern student, contrary to what is often said, is really

being starved for want of facts.

Certainly we are not discouraging originality. On
the contrary we desire to encourage it in every possible

way, and we believe that the encouragement of it will

be of immense benefit to the spread of the Christian re-

ligion. The
trouble with the university students of
the present day, from the point of view of evangelical

Christianity, is not that they are too original, but that

they are not half original enough. They go on in the
same routine way, following their leaders like a flock
of sheep, repeating the same stock phrases with little

knowledge of what they mean, swallowing whole

whatever professors choose to give them and all the
time imagining that they are bold, bad, independent .

young men, merely because they abuse what everybody

else is abusing, namely, the religion that is founded
upon Christ. popular today to abuse that un-
It is

popular thing that is known as supernatural Christi-

anity, but original it certainly is not. A
true originality

might bring some resistance to the current of the age,

some willingness to be unpopular, and some independ-
ent scrutiny, at least, if not acceptance, of the claims
of Christ. If there is one thing more than another
which we believers in historic Christianity ought to
encourage in the youth of our day it is independence
of mind. ;
*

It is a great mistake, then, to suppose that we who

are called "conservatives" hold desperately to certain
beliefs merely because they are old, and are opposed to
18 WHAT IS FAITH?
the discovery of new facts. On the contrary, we wel-
come new discoveries with all our hearts, and we believe
that our cause will come to its rights again only when
youth throws off its present intellectual lethargy, re-

fuses to go thoughtlessly with the anti-intellectual cur-

rent of the age, and recovers some genuine independence
of mind. In one sense, indeed, we are traditionalists;
we do maintain that any institution that is really great
has its roots in the past; we do not therefore desire to
substitute modern sects for the historic Christian
Church. But on the whole, in view of the conditions
that now exist, it would perhaps be more correct to call
us "radicals" than to call us "conservatives." We look
not for a mere continuation of spiritual conditions that
now exist, but for an outburst of new power; we are
seeking in particular to arouse youth from its present
uncritical repetition of current phrases into some genuine
examination of the basis of life; and we believe that
Christianity flourishes not in the darkness, but in the
light, A
revival of the Christian religion, we believe,
will deliver mankind from
present bondage, and like
its

the great revival of the sixteenth century will bring

liberty to mankind. Such a revival will be not the

work of man, but the work of the Spirit of God. But
one of the means which the Spirit will use, we believe,
is an awakening of the intellect. The retrograde, anti-
intellectual movement calledModernism, a movement
which really degrades the intellect by excluding it from
the sphere of religion, will be overcome, and thinking
will again come to its rights. The new Reformation,
in other words, will be accompained by a new Renais-
 INTRODUCTION 19

sance; and the last thing in the world that we desire

to do is to discourage originality or independence of

mind.
But what we do insist upon is that the. right to

originality has to be earned, and that it cannot he earned

by ignorance or by indolence. A
man cannot be original
in his treatment of a subject unless he knows what the

subject is; true originality preceded by patient atten-

is

tion to the facts. It is that patient attention to the

factswhich, in application of modern pedagogic theory,

isbeing neglected by the youth of the present day.
In our insistence upon mastery of facts in education,
we are sometimes charged with the desire of forcing our
opinions ready-made upon our students. We profes-
sors get up behind our professorial desks, it is said, and
proceed to lecture. The helpless students are expected
not only to listen but to take notes; then they are
expected to memorize what we have said, with all our
firstly's and secondly's and thirdly's; and finally they
are expected to give it all back to us in the examination.
Such a system so the charge runs stifles all orig-

inality and all life. Instead, the modern pedagogical

e'xpert comes with a message of hope; instead of mem-

orizing facts, he says, true education consists in learn-

ing to think; drudgery is a thing of the past, and self-

expression is to take its place.

In such a charge, there may be an element of truth;
possibly there was a time in education when memory
was over-estimated and thinking was deprived of its
rights. But if the education of the past was one-sided
in its emphasis upon acquaintance with facts, surely the
 20 WHAT IS FAITH?

pendulum has now swung to an opposite extreme which

is more disastrous still. It is a. travesty upon our peda-

gogic method when we are represented as regarding a

mere storing up of lectures in the mind of the student
asan end in itself. In point of fact, we regard it as a
means to end, but a very necessary means; we regard it
not as a substitute for independent thinking, but as a
necessary prerequisite for it. The student who accepts
what we say without criticism and without thinking
of his own is no doubt very unsatisfactory; but equally
.
unsatisfactory is the student who undertakes to criti-

cizewhat he knows nothing whatever about. Think-

ing cannot be carried on without the materials of
thought; and the materials of thought are facts, or else
assertions that are presented as facts. A mass of de-
tails stored up in the mind does not in itself make a
thinker; but on the other hand thinking
absolutely is

impossible without that mass of details. And it is just

this latter impossible operation of thinking without the
materials of thought which is being advocated by mod-
ern pedagogy and is being put into practice only too
well by modern students. In the presence of this tend-
ency, we believe that facts and hard work ought again
to be allowed to come to their rights: it is impossible
to think with an empty mind.
If the growth of ignorance is lamentable in secular
education, tenfold worse in the sphere of the Chris-
it is

tian religion and in the sphere of the Bible. Bible

classes today often avoid a study of the actual contents
of the Bible as they would avoid pestilence or disease;
to many persons in the Church the notion of getting
 INTRODUCTION 21

the simple historical contents of the Bible straight in

the mind is an entirely new idea.

When one
asked to preach at a church, the pastor
is

sometimes asks the visiting preacher to conduct his

Bible class, and sometimes he gives a hint as to how
the class is ordinarily conducted. He makes it very
practical, he says; he gives the class hints as to how
to live during the following week. But when I for
my part actually conduct such a class, I most emphati-
cally do not give the members hints as to how to live
during the following week. That is not because such
hints are not useful, but because they are not all that is

useful. It would be very sad if a Bible class did not

get practical directions; but a class that gets nothing
but practical directions is very poorly prepared for life.
And so when I conduct the class I try to give them what
they do not get on other occasions; I try to help them
get straight in their minds the doctrinal and historical
contents of the Christian religion.
The absence of doctrinal teaching and preaching is

certainly one of the causes for the present lamentable

ignorance in the Church. But a still more influential
cause is found in the failure of the most important of
all Christian educational institutions. The most im-
portant Christian educational institution is not the pul-
pit or the school, important as these institutions are;
but it is the Christian family. And that institution
has to a very large extent ceased to do its work. Where
did those of us who have reached middle life really
get our knowledge of the Bible? I suppose my experi-
ence is the same as that of a
good many of us. I did
22 WHAT IS FAITH?
not get my knowledge of the Bible from Sunday School
or from any other school, but I got it on Sunday after-
noons with my mother at home. And I will venture
to say that although mental ability was certainly
my
of no extraordinary kind I had a better knowledge of
the Bible at fourteen years of age than is possessed by
many students in the theological Seminaries of the pres-
ent day. Theological students come for the most part
from Christian homes; indeed in very considerable pro-
portion they are children of the manse. Yet when they,
have finished college and enter the theological Seminary
many of them are quite ignorant of the simple contents
of. the English Bible.
The sad thing
is that it is not chiefly the students'

fault. These students, many of them, are sons of

ministers,* and by their deficiencies they reveal the fact
that the ministers of the present day are not only sub-
stituting exhortation for instruction, ethics for the-,
ology, in their preaching; but are even neglecting the
education of their own children. The lamentable fact
is that the Christian home, as an educational institution,
has largely ceased to function.
Certainly that fact serves to explain to a considerable
extent tEe growth of ignorance in the Church. But
the explanation itself requires an explanation; so far
we have only succeeded in pushing the problem farther
back. The
ignorance of the Church is explained by the
failure of the Christian family as an educational insti-

tution; but what in turn explains that failure? Why

is itthat Christian parents have neglected the instruc-
tion of their children; why is it that preaching has
 INTRODUCTION 23

ceased to be educational and doctrinal; why is it that

even Sunday Schools and Bible classes have come to
consider solely applications of Christianity without
1
studying the Christianity that is to be applied? These
questions take us into the very heart of the situation;
the growth of ignorance in the Church, the growth of
indifference with regard to the simple facts recorded in
the Bible, all goes back to a great spiritualmovement,
really skeptical in its tendency, which has been going
forward during the last one hundred years a move-
ment which appears not only in philosophers and theo-
logians such as Kant and Schleiermacher and Ritschl,
but also in a widespread attitude of plain men and
women throughout the world. The depreciation of
the intellect, with the exaltation in the place of it of
the feelings or of the will, is, we think, a basic fact in
modern life, which is rapidly leading to a condition in
which men neither know anything nor care anything
about the doctrinal content of the Christian religion,
and in which there is in general a lamentable intellectual
decline.
This intellectual decline is certainly not appearing
exclusively among persons who are trying to be evan-

gelical in their views about the Bible; but it is at least

equally manifest among those who hold the opposing

view. A
striking feature of recent religious literature
is the abandonment of scientific historical method even
1 For a salutary upon the fact that if we are to have
insistence

applied Christianity, we must also have "a Christianity to ap-

ply," see Francis Shunk Downs, "Christianity and Today," in
Princeton Theological Review, xx, 1922, pp. 287-304.
24 WHAT IS FAITH?

among those who regard themselves as in the van of

scientific progress.

Scientific historical, method in the interpretation of

the Bible requires that the Biblical writers should be
allowed to speak for themselves. A
generation or so
ago that feature of scientific method was exalted to the
dignity of a principle, and was honored by a long
name. It was called "grammatico-historical exegesis/'
The fundamental notion of it was that the modern
student should distinguish sharply between what he
would have said or what he would have liked to have
the Biblical writer say, and what the writer actually
did say. The question only was regarded as
latter

forming the subject-matter of exegesis.

This principle, in America at least, is rapidly being
.abandoned. It is hot, indeed, being abandoned in

theory; lip-service is still being paid to it. But it is

being abandoned in fact. It is being abandoned by the
most eminent scholars.
It is abandoned by Professor Goodspeed, for example,
when in his translation of the New Testament he trans-
lates the Greek word meaning "justify," in important
2
passages, by "make upright." I confess that it is not
without regret that I should see the doctrine of justifi-
cation by faith, which is the foundation of evangelical

liberty, thus removed from the New Testament; it is

not without regret that I should abandon the whole of
the Reformation and return with Professor Goodspeed
to the merit-religion of the Middle Ages. But the
2
Goodspeed, The New Testament: An American Transla-
tion, 1923.
 INTRODUCTION _25

point that I am now making is not that Professor

Goodspeed's translation is unfortunate because it in-
volvesas certainly does
it religious retrogression, but
because it involves an abandonment of historical method
in exegesis. It may well be that this question how a

sinful man may become right with God does not inter-
est the modern translator; but every true historian must
certainly admit that
did interest the Apostle Paul.
it

And the translator of Paul must, if he be true to His

trust, place theemphasis where PauF placed it, and not
where the translator could have wished it placed.
What is true in the case of Paul is also true in the
case of Jesus. Modern writers have abandoned the his-
toricalmethod of approach. They persist in confusing
the question what they could have wished that Jesus
had been with the question what Jesus actually was.
In reading one of the most popular recent books on the
subject of ,religion, I came upon the following amaz-
ng assertion. "Jesus/* the author says, "concerned
himself but little with the question of existence after
death." 3 In the presence of such assertions any student
of history may well stand aghast. It may be that we
do not make much of the doctrine of a future life, but
the question whether Jesus did so is not a matter of
taste but an historical question, which can be answered

only on the basis of an examination of the sources of

information that we call the Gospels.
historical
Andthe result of such examination is perfectly plain.
As a matter of fact, not only the thought of heaven but
also the thought of hell runs all through the teaching
3
Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, 1922, p. 141.
26 WHAT IS FAITH?
'of Jesus. It appears in all four of the Gospels; it ap-
pears in the sources, supposed to underly the Gospels,
which have been reconstructed, rightly or wrongly, by
modern criticism. It imparts to the ethical teaching
its peculiar earnestness. It is not an element which can

be removed by any critical process, but simply suffuses

the whole of Jesus' teaching and Jesus* life. "And
fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to
kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to
4
destroy both soul and body in hell." "It is better for
thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having
two eyes to be cast into hell fire" 5 these words are
not an excrescence in Jesus' teaching but are quite at
the centre of the whole.
At any rate, if you are going to remove the thought
of a future life from the teaching of Jesus, if at this
point you are going to reject the prima facie evidence,
surely you should do so only by a critical grounding of
your procedure. And my point is that that critical

grounding is now thought to be quite

unnecessary.
Modern American writers simply attribute their own

predilections to Jesus without, apparently, the slightest

scrutiny of the facts.
As over against this anti-intellectual tendency in the
modern world, it will be one chief purpose of the pres-
ent little book to defend the primacy of the intellect,
and in particular to try to break down the false and
disastrous opposition which has been set up between

knowledge and faith.

* Matt.' x: 28.
5 Matt, xviii: 9.
 INTRODUCTION
No doubt it is unfortunate, if our theme be the in-
that the writer has so very limited an experi-
tellect,

mental acquaintance with the subject that he is under-

taking to discuss. But in these days the intellect can-
not afford to be too critical of her defenders, since her
defenders are few enough. Time was when reason sat
in regal state upon her throne, and crowds of obse-
quious courtiers did her reverence. But now the queen
has been deposed, and pragmatism the usurper occupies
the throne. Some humble retainers still follow the exile
of the fallen queen; some men still hope for the day of
restoration when the useful will be relegated to its

proper place and truth will again rule the world. But
such retainers are few few that even the very
so
humblest of them perhaps out of chafcity be
may
granted a hearing which in reason's better days he
could not have claimed.
The attack upon the intellect has assumed many
forms, and has received an elaborate philosophical
grounding. With that philosophical grounding I am
,*

not so presumptuous as to attempt to deal. I am not

altogether unaware of the difficulties that beset what

may be called the common-sense view of truth; epis-
temology presents manyinteresting problems and some
puzzling antinomies. But the antinomies of epistem-
ology are like other antinomies which puzzle .the human
mind; they indicate the limitations of our intellect,
but they do not prove that the intellect is not reliable
so far as it goes. I for my part at least am not ready
to give up the struggle; I am not ready to rest in a prag-
28 WHAT IS FAITH?
matist skepticism; I am not ready to say that truth can
never be attained.
But what are some of the ways in which the intellect,
in the modern religious world, has been dethroned, or
at least has been debarred from the sphere of ultimate

reality?
In the first place, and most obviously, there is the
distinction between religion and theology.
Theology,
merely the necessarily changing expression
it is said, is

of a unitary experience; doctrine can never be perma-

nent, but is simply the clothing of religious experience
in the forms of thought suitable to any particular gen-
eration. Those who speak in this way protest, indeed,
that they are not seeking to do without theology, but
are merely endeavoring to keep theology in its proper

place. Theology, it is admitted, is necessary to re-

ligion; there can never be religion without some the-

ology; but what particular theology it shall be, they

hold, depends upon the habits of thought that prevail
in the age in which the theology is produced.
In accordance with this principle, various creeds have
recently been produced to take the place of the great
historic confessions of faith various creeds intended
to "interpret" Christianity in the "thought-forms" of
the twentieth century and to provide -a basis for Chris-
tian unity. It is perfectly obvious that these modern

formulations differ from those that they are intended

to supplant in many important ways. But the most
important difference of all has sometimes escaped
notice. The most important difference is not that these
modern creeds differ from the historic creeds in this
 INTRODUCTION 29

point or that; but it is that the historic creeds, unlike

the modern creeds, were intended hy their authors or
compilers to he true. And I for my part believe that
that is the most necessary qualification of a creed. I

cannot, therefore, accept the protestations of those prag-

xnatistswho maintain that they are not hostile to the-
ology. For if theology is not even intended to be per-
manently and objectively true, if it is merely a con-
venient symbol in which in this generation a mystic
experience is clothed, then theologizing, it seems to me,
is the most useless form of trifling in which a man
could possibly engage.
Certainly this theologizing of the pragmatist is as
far as possible removed from the kind of progress that
is found in the advance of science. The scientist does
indeed modify his opinions; one hypothesis often gives
place to another which is intended to be a better expla-
nation of the facts. But the point is that the new hy-
pothesis, like the old, is intended at least to be perma-
nently correct: it may have to give way to a better
understanding of the facts, but there is nothing in the
very nature of the case to show that it must give way.
Science, in other words, though it may not in any
generation attain truth, is at any rate aiming at truth.
Very different is ,the activity of the pragmatist theo-

logian. The pragmatist theologian, unlike the scien-

tist, does not even intend his own formulations to be
permanent, but regards them as merely symbolic ex-
pressions, in the thought-forms of one particular gen-
eration, of an ineffable experience. According to the
pragmatist it is not merely inevitable that the theology
30 WHAT IS FAITH?
of one generation should differ from the theology of
another, but it is desirable that it should do so. That
theology, according to the pragmatist, the best
is which
most perfectly expresses the experience of religion in the
"thought-forms" of any particular age. Thus the
Nicene Creed, it was admirable in the fourth
is said,

century of our era, and the Westminster Confession

was admirable in the seventeenth century, but these for-
mulations must of course now give place to twentieth-
century statements which so far as the literal or intel-
lectual meaning is concerned are contradictory to them.

Theology in other words is not to be judged in accord-

ance with the degree of approximation which it attains
to an eternally persisting norm of truth, but it is to be

regarded as good or bad according as it serves the pur-

poses of mankind and promotes an abundance of life.
Indeed this pragmatist attitude toward difference in
theology is applied not only to successive generations,
but also to simultaneously existing nations and races.
It is unreasonable,some advocates of missions are accus-
tomed to say, for missionaries to ask Eastern races to ac-
cept Western creeds; the Eastern mind cannot be forced
into a Western mould; on the contrary, the East must
be allowed to give its own expression to the Christian
faith. And so sometimes we read more or less formal
expositions of belief that have come from the native
churches of the East. What an interesting thing the
formation of such expositions is, to be sure! fresh, A
new expression of the Christian religion independent
of the conventions of the West! Unfortunately such
all

expectations are often sadly disappointed when one

 INTRODUCTION
reads the new formulations for himself; the vaunted
freshness and. originality is often not to be seen, and
what we a most unoriginal repetition
actually have is

of the vague naturalism of the contemporary Western

world. The Eastern mind has turned out to he as like
as two peas to the mind of the South Side of Chicago;
all the stock phrases of modern agnosticism seem to be
thoroughly acceptable to the Oriental students to whom
they have been taught.
But if the results of these little experiments of the
Eastern mind hardly seem to bear out the contention
of the pragmatist hardly seem to bear out the con-
tention that the Eastern mind and the Western mind
are so distinct that the thought-forms that suit one
will not suit the other the contention itself is thor-
oughly typical of our age; it is only one manifestation
of a pragmatism that is all-pervasive. And that prag-
matism involves the most bottomless skepticism which
could possibly be conceived. According to the logic
of the pragmatist position two contradictory doctrines
may be equally good; for doctrine, in the opinion of the
pragmatists, is merely the symbolic expression of an
experience really inexpressible, and must necessarily
change as the generations pass. There is, in other words,

according to that view, no possibility that anything in

the sphere of doctrine can be permanently and uni-

versally true. .

Such a view of doctrinal changes is sometimes com-

pared, as we have already hinted, to the progress of
science; it is unreasonable, the pragmatist theologian
says, to reject the physics and chemistry of the first
32 WHAT IS FAITH?
century or the seventeenth century and yet maintain
unchanged the theology of those past ages; why should
theology be exempt from the universal law of progress?
But this comparison, as indeed should be plain from
what has already been said, really involves a very
strange misconception; far from advocating progress in
theology, the current pragmatism really destroys the
very possibility of progress. For progress involves
something to progress to as well something to progress
from. And in the intellectual sphere the current prag-
matism can find no goal of progress in an objective
norm of truth; one doctrine, according to the prag-
matist view, may be just as good as an exactly contra-
dictory doctrine, provided it suits a particular genera-
tion or a particular group of persons. The changes in
scientific hypotheses represent true progress because they

are increasingly close approximations to an objectively

and externally existentbody of facts; while the changes
advocated by pragmatist theologians are not progress
?.t allbut the meaningless changes of a kaleidoscope.
As over against this pragmatist attitude, we believers
in historic Christianity maintain the objectivity of
truth; and in doing so wte and not the Modernists be-
come advocates of progress. Theology, we hold, is
not an attempt to express in merely symbolic terms an
inner experience which must be expressed in different
terms in subsequent generations; but It is a setting forth
of those facts upon which experience is based. It is

not indeed a complete setting forth of those facts, and

therefore progress in theology become possible; but it

may be true so far as it goes; and only because there

 INTRODUCTION 33

is that pbssibility of attaining truth and of setting it

forth ever more completely can there be progress. The-
ology, in other words, is just as much a science as is
chemistry; and like the science of chemistry it is-capa-ble
of advance. The two sciences, it is true, differ widely
in their subject matter; they differ widely in the char-
acter of the evidence upon which their conclusions are

based; in particular they differ widely in the qualifica-

tions required of the investigator: but they are both
sciences, because they are both concerned with the ac-

quisition and orderly arrangement of a body of truth.

At this point, then, we find the really important
divergence of opinion in the religious world at the
present day; the difference of attitude toward theology
or toward doctrine goes far deeper than any mere di-.

vergence in detail. The modern depreciation of the-

ology results logically in the most complete skepticism.
It is not merely that the ancient creeds, and the Bible

upon which they are based, are criticized indeed we

ourselves certainly think that they ought constantly to
be criticized in order that it may be seen that they will
stand the but the really serious trouble is that the
test

modern pragmatist, on account of the very nature of

his philosophy, has nothing to put in their place. The-
ology, according to him, may be useful; but it can never
by any possibility be true. As Dr. Fosdick observes,
must necessarily produce an in-
the liberalism of today
formulation which will become the orthodoxy
tellectual
of tomorrow, and which will then in turn have to

give place to a new liberalism; and so on (we sup-

34 WHAT IS FAITH?
pose) ad infinitum,* This is what the plain man in
the Church has difficulty in understanding; he does not
yet appreciate the real gravity of the issue. He does
not see that it makes very little difference how much
or how little of the creeds of the Church the Modernist
preacher affirms, or how much or how little of the
Biblical teaching from which the creeds are derived.
He might affirm every jot and tittle of the Westminster
Confession, for example, and yet be separated by a
great gulf from the Ref prmed Faith. It is not that part
is denied and the rest affirmed; but all is denied, because

all is affirmed merely as useful or symbolic and not as

true.
Thus it comes about that to the believer in historic

Christianity the Modernist preacher is often most dis-

tressing just when he desires to be most concessive. He
has no desire, he says, to combat the faith of simple

people in the Church; indeed the older "interpreta-

tions,** he says, may be best for some people even now.
Such assertions are perhaps intended to be concessive;
but in reality they are to the believer in historic Chris-
tianity the most radically destructive assertions that
could possibly be made. It would from our point of
view be better if the preacher, convinced of the falsity
of supernatural religion in the sense of the New Testa-
ment and of the creeds, became an apostle with the
courage of his convictions, and sought to root out of
every one's' mind convictions that he holds to be false.
In that case we should indeed differ from him radically,

oposdick, The Modern Use of the Bible, 1924, p. 190. Com-

pare Princeton Theological Review, xxiii, 1925, p. 73.
 INTRODUCTION 35

but there would be at least a common ground for dis-

cussion. But the assertion that the historic creeds may
still be best for some people and the modern interpre-
tations better for others, or the provision in plans of
Church union that the constituent churches should
recognize each the other's creed as valid for the other
1

church's members this , we think, involves a sin

against the light of reason itself; and if the light that

is in us be darkness, how great is that darkness! A
thing that is useful may be useful for some and not for
others, but a thing that is true remains true for all
people and beyond the end of time.
But if theology be thus abandoned, or rather if (to
ease the transition) it be made merely the symbolic
expression of religious experience, what is to be put in
its place? Two answers, to this question may perhaps
be distinguished in the religious life of the present day.
In the first place, there is mysticism; and in the second
place, there is a kind of neo-positivism.
Mysticism unquestionably is the natural result of the
anti-intellectual tendency which now prevails; for
mysticism the consistent exaltation of experience at
is

the expense of thought. But in actual practice mysti-

cism is seldom consistent; indeed it cannot possibly be
consistent if it seeks to explain itself to the world.
The experience upon which it is based, or in which it

be ineffable; yet mystics love to talk

consists, is said to
about that experience all the same. Dr. E. S. Water-
house 7 quotes an epigram of Mr. Bradley "to the effect
that Herbert Spencer told us more about the Unknow-
7
Philosophy qf Religious Experience, 1923, pp. 201 f.
36 WHAT IS FAITH?
(

able than the rashest of theologians has told us about

God." So it may perhaps be said that mystics are
accustomed to express the inexpressible more fully than
the ineffable character which they attribute to their

experience may seem to warrant.

who discard theology in the in-
In particular, those
terestsof experience are inclined to make use of a per-
sonal way of talking and thinking about God to which

they have no right. A

noted preacher, for example,
relates an incident of his youth in which he overheard

his father praying when he thought that he was alone

with God. His father, says the preacher, was thor-
oughly orthodox, and devoted to the Westminster
Shorter Catechism. Yet in that prayer, to the amaze-
ment of the boy, there was none of the elaborate the-

ology of the Westminster Standards, but only a simple

outpouring of the soul in the presence of God. "It

was a prayer/' says the preacher, "in which he threw
himself into the arms of his heavenly Father. There
was in it no theology, no hell, no moral or substitu-
tionary theory of the atonement."
But what was it after all that caused that simple
outpouring of the soul? Was that prayer so inde-
pendent of theology as the preacher seems to think?
For our part we doubt it very much. All personal
communion seems to be a simple thing; yet it is in
reality very complex. My
friendship for a human
friend, for example, depends upon years of observation
of my friend's actions. So it is exactly in the case of
the communion of the Christian with his God. The
Christian says: "Lord, thou knowest that we are on
 INTRODUCTION
the same old terms." It seems very simple and very

untheological. 'But in reality it depends upon the

whole rich content of God's revelation of Himself in

the salvation which He has provided through His Son.

At any rate, pure feeling, if it ever exists, is non-moral;
what makes our relation to another person, whether a
human friend or the eternal God, such an ennobling

thing is the knowledge which we have of the char-

acter of that person. The experience of the real mystic,
then, as distinguished from that experience of direct
contact with God in the depths of the soul which is
popularly called mysticism the latter being of course
a part of all vital religion is not Christian experience;
for Christian experience is a thoroughly personal thing;
the Christian holds fellowship with a Person whom he
knows. ,

Another substitute for a religion based upon the

knowledge of God is positivism. The name itself is due
to a phenomenon that appeared long ago, but the thing
that the name represents has in all essentials been revived.
It has been revived in rather definite fashion, for ex-
ample, by Professor Ell wood in his popular book, The
Reconstruction of Religion. Professor Ellwood himself
detects his affinity for the older positivism, though he
supplement the positivist religion of humanity
seeks to
with a pantheizing reverence for the world-process.
But positivism has also been revived, though often un-
consciously, by those popular preachers of the day who
use the phrase, the "Christlike God," which is so dis-

tressing tomen who have thought at all deeply upon

the things at the basis of Christian faith by those
38 WHAT IS FAITH?

popular preachers who tell us that God is known

only through Jesus. If they meant that God is known

only through the Second Person of the Trinity, the

eternal Logos, I might perhaps agree; and for my agree-
ment I might perhaps find warrant in the eleventh chap-
ter of Matthew. But of course as a matter of fact that is

not at what they mean. What they mean is that all

all

metaphysics having been abandoned or relegated to the

realm of unessential speculation all questions as to

whether there is a God who made the world hy the fiat

of His will, or whether there is a life after death, or
whether Jesus in very person is living today all such
questions having been abandoned, the soul of man may
be transformed by the mere contemplation and emula*
tion of the moral life of Jesus. Essentially, such a re-
ligion is positivism; it regards as non-essential all extra-
mundane factors and sets up a religion of humanity a
religion of humanity symbolized by the name of Jesus.

Certainly the Jesus to whom such a religion can appeal

is not the Jesus of history neither the Jesus set forth
in the New Testament nor the Jesus who has been re-

produced, or ever conceivably can be reproduced, by any

critical process. For the real Jesus certainly was a theist,

certainly did believe in a really existent God, Maker of

the world and final Judge, certainly did accept the reve-
lation ofGod in the Old Testament Scriptures, certainly
did place the doctrine of heaven and hell at the very
foundation of His ethical teaching, certainly did look
for a catastrophic coming of the Kingdom of God.
These things in much modern preaching are ignored.
The preacher quotes some word of Jesus quite out of its
 INTRODUCTION 39

context perhaps even from the Gospel of John, which

the preacher's own critical principles have discarded
and then proceeds to derive from that misunderstood
word of Jesus a non-doctrinal religion of this world.
Some of us, as we listen, may desire to ask questions.
Some of us may desire to ask whether Jesus of Nazareth
really made the more abundant life of man the ultimate
end of existence; some of us may desire to ask whether
Jesus really left His own person out of His gospel and
whether we can really reject, on any critical principles,
those words of His in which He claimed to be the Judge
of the whole earth. But such questions receive short
shrift from the Modernist preacher; they involve, he

says, merely evasions, on our part, of the moral demands

of Jesus. At no point does the passionate anti-intel-
lectualism of the Modernist Church appear more clearly
than here.
But can the human reason, especially as manifested
in the historical sense, really be thus browbeaten into
silence? For our part, we do not believe that it can.
And when the .reason awakes, though the modern re-

ligion of humanity may conceivably remain, its appeal

to Jesus of Nazareth at, least will have to go. We shall
have to cease investing our pride in human goodness
with the borrowed trappings of Christianity's emo-
tional appeal; and the choice will have to be made be-
tween abandonment of Jesus as the moral guide of the
race and acceptance of His stupendous claims.
Thus the relinquishment of theology in the interests
of non-doctrinal
""-ir
^^HH^^mailI _J. religion
J
ill -
really involves the relinquish-
. ,1
n-lrn
- *-" *"* ~T>|"-^,
jag t
*

ment of Christianity in the interests of a skepticism than

40 WHAT IS FAITH?
which a more complete could scarcely be conceived. But
another contrast has an equally baleful effect upon the
life of the present day. It is the contrast between

knowledge and faith; and the consideration of that con-

trast takes us into the heart of our present subject. That
contrast, as we shall see, ignores an essential element in
faith; and what is called faith after the substraction of
that element is not faith at all. As a matter of fact all
true faith involves an intellectual element; all faith in-
volves knowledge and issues in knowledge.
The exhibition of that fact will form a considerable
part of the discussion that follows. It will not, indeed,
form all of it; since the discussion will not be merely
polemic; but after all the only way to get a clear idea
of what a thing is, is to place it in contrast with what
it is not; all definition involves exclusion. ^-WejjhajU.

endeavor, therefore,.. by comparison of opposing views,

as well as by exhibition of our own, to arrive at an
answer to the question, "What is Faith?" If that

question were rightly answered, the Church, we believe,

would soon emerge from its present perplexities and
would go forth with a new joy to the conquest of the
world.
There are those who shrink from a consideration of
these great questions of principle; there are those who

decry controversy, and believe that the Church should

return toits former policy of politely ignoring or taking

for granted the central things of the Christian faith.

But with such persons I, for my part, cannot possibly
bring myself to agree. The period of apparent har-
mony in which the Church in America found itself
 INTRODUCTION 41

a few years ago was, I believe, a period of the deadliest

to Church organizations was being substi-
peril; loyalty
tuted for loyalty to Christ; Church leaders who never
even mentioned the centre of the gospel in their preach-
ing were in undisputed charge of the resources of the
Church; at Jboard meetings or in the councils of the
Church, it was considered bad form even to mention,
at least in any definite and intelligible way, the Cross of

Christ. A polite paganism, in other words, with reli-

ance upon human resources, was being quietly and peace-
fully substituted for the heroism of devotion to the
gospel.
In the face of such a condition, there were some men
whose hearts were touched; the Lord Jesus had died for
them upon the cross, and the least they could do, they
thought, was to be faithful to Him; they could not
continue to support, by their gifts and by their efforts,
anything that was hostile to His gospel; and they were
compelled, therefore, in the face of all opposition, to
raise the question what it is that the Church is in the

world to do.
God grant that question may never be silenced until
it is answered aright 1
Let us not fear the opposition
of men; every great movement in the Church from Paul
down to modern times has been criticized on the ground
that promoted censoriousness and intolerance and dis-
it

puting. Of course the gospel of Christ, in a world of

sin and doubt, will cause disputing; and if it does not
cause disputing and arouse bitter opposition, that is a

fairly sure sign that it is not being faithfully pro-

claimed. As for me, I believe that a great opportunity
42 WHAT IS FAITH?
has been opened to Christian people by the "contro-

versy" that is so much decried. Conventions have been

broken down; men are trying to penetrate beneath pious
words to the thing that these words designate; it is
becoming increasingly necessary for a man to choose
whether he will stand with Christ or against Him. Such
a condition, I for my part believe, has been brought
about by the Spirit of God; already there has been gen-
uine spiritual advance. It has been signally manifested

at the institution which I have the honor to serve. The

morale of our theological student body during the past
years had been becoming rather low; there was marked
indifference to the central things of the faith; and re-

ligious experience was of the most superficial kind. But

during the academic year, 1924-1925, there has been
something like an awakening. Youth has begun to think
for itself; the evil of compromising associations has
been discovered; Christian heroism in the face of opposi-
tion has come again to its rights; a new interest has been
aroused in the historical and philosophical questions that
underly the Christian religion; true and independent
convictions have been formed. Controversy, in other
words, has resulted in a striking intellectual and spiritual
advance. Some of us discern in all this the work of the
Spirit of God. And God grant that His fire be not
quenched! God save us from any smoothing over of
these questions in the interests of a hollow pleasantness;
God grant that great questions of principle may never
rest untilthey are settled right! It is out of such times
of questioning that great revivals come. God grant that
it may be so today! Controversy of the right sort is
 INTRODUCTION 43

of such controversy, as Church history

good; for out
and Scripture alike teach, there comes the salvation of
souls.
It is with such an ultimate aim that we consider the
question, "What is Faith?" A more "practical" ques-
tion could hardly be conceived. The preacher says:
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be
saved." But how can a man possibly act on that
suggestion, unless he knows what it is to believe. It

was at that point that the "doctrinal" preaching of a

former generation was far more practical than the "prac-
tical" preaching of the present day. I shall never forget

the pastor of the church in which I grew up. He was

a good preacher in many ways, but his most marked
was the plainness and definiteness with
characteristic
which he told the people what a man should do to be
saved. The
preachers of the present time allude to the
importance of becoming a Christian, but they seldom
seem to make the matter the subject of express exposi-
tion ; they leave the people with a vague impression to
the effect that being a Christian is a good thing, but this

impression is difficult to translate into action because def-

inite directions are absent. These preachers speak about
faith, but they do not tell what tfaith is.

It is to help in some small way to supply this lack

.that the present little book has been Written. If the

way of salvation is faith, it does seem to be highly im-

portant to tell people who want to be saved just what

faith means. If a preacher cannot do that, he can

hardly be a true evangelist.

How, then, shall we obtain "the answer to pur ques-
44 WHAT IS FAITH?
tionj how shall we discover what faith is? At first

sight it might seem to be a purely philosophical or per-

haps psychological question; there is faith other than
faith in Jesus Christ; and such faith no doubt is to be
included with Christian faith in the same general cate-
gory. It looks, therefore, as though I were engaging

upon a psychological discussion, and as though I ought

to be thoroughly familiar with the epistemological and
psychological discussions that are involved.
Undoubtedly such a treatment of the subject would
be highly useful and instructive; but unfortunately I am
not competent to undertake it. I propose therefore a
somewhat different method of approach. How would
it be if we should study the subject of faith, not so
much by generalizations from various instances of faith
in human (though such generalizations will not be
life

altogether absent) but rather by a consideration of faith

,

as it appears in its highest and plainest manifestation?

Such concentration upon a classic example is often the
best possible way, or at any rate one very fruitful way,
in which a subject can be treated.
But the classic example of faith is to be found in the
faith that is enjoined in the New
Testament. I think
that there will be widespread agreement with that asser-
tion among students of psychology whether Christian or
not; the insistence upon faith is characteristic of New
Testament Christianity; there is some justification, sure-
ly, for the way in which Paul speaks of the pre-Chris-
tian period as the time "before faith came." No doubt
that assertion is intended
by the Apostle as relative
merely; he himself insists that faith had a place in the
 INTRODUCTION 45

old dispensation; but such anticipations were swallowed

up, by the coming of Christ, in a glorious fulfilment.
At any rate, the Bible as a whole, taking prophecy and
fulfilment together, is the supreme textbook on the sub-

ject of faith. The study of that textbook may lead to

as clearan undersanding of our subject as could be at-
tained by any more general investigation; we can learn
what faith is best of all by studying it in its highest
manifestation. We shall ask, then, in the following

chapters what the Bible, and in particular the New

Testament, tells us about faith.
 CHAPTER II

FAITH IN GOD

In the first place, the Bible certainly tells us that

faith involves a person as its object. We can indeed
speak about having faith in an impersonal object, such
as a machine, but when we do so I think we are indulg-

ing in a sort of personification of that object, or else we

are really thinking about the men who made the ma-
chine. At any rate, without discussing the correctness
or incorrectness of this usage, we can at least say that
such a use of the word stops short of the highest signifi-
cance. In the highest significance of the word the sig-
nificance in which alone we are now interested faith
is regarded as being always reposed in persons.
The Persons in whom according to the Bible faith
isparticularly to be reposed are God the Father and the
Lord Jesus Christ.
But and here we come to the point which we think
ought to be emphasized above all others just at the
present day it is impossible to have faith in a person

without having knowledge of the person; far from

being contrasted with knowledge, faith is founded upon
knowledge. That assertion runs counter to the whole
trend of contemporary religious teaching; but a little
reflection, I think, will show that it is indubitably cor-
rect, and that it must be applied specifically to the objects
of Christian faith. Let us consider from this point of
46
 FAITH IN GOD 47

view first faith in God and second faith in Jesus Christ.

In the classic treatment of faith in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, there is a verse that goes to the very root of

the matter. "He

that cometh to God," the author

says, "must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder

1
of them that diligently seek him." Here we find a
rejection in advance of all the pragmatist, nonrdoctrinal

Christianity of modern times.

In the first place, religion is here made to depend abso-
lutely upon doctrine; the one who
comes to God must
not only believe in a person, but he must also believe
that something is true; faith is here declared to involve

acceptance of a proposition. There could be no plainer

insistence upon the doctrinal or intellectual basis of
faith. It is impossible, according to the Epistle to the
Hebrews, to have faith in a person without accepting
with the mind the facts about the person.
Entirely different is the prevailing attitude in the
modern Church; far from recognizing, as the author of
Hebrews does, the intellectual basis of faith, many mod-
ern preachers set faith in sharp opposition to knowledge.
Christian faith, they say, is not assent to a creed, but it
is confidence in a person. The Epistle to the Hebrews
on the other hand declares that it is impossible to have
confidence in a person without assenting to a creed,
"He that cometh to God must believe that he is." The
words, "God is," or "God exists," constitute a creed;
they constitute a proposition; and yet they are here
placed as necessary to that supposedly non-intellectual
thing that is called faith. It would be impossible to
1 Heb. xi: 6.
48 WHAT IS FAITH?
find a more complete opposition than that which here
appears between the New Testament and the anti-intel-
lectualistk tendency of modern preaching.
But here as elsewhere the Bible is found to be true to
the plainest facts of the soul; whereas the modern sepa-
ration between faith in a person and acceptance of a
creed is found to be psychologically false. It is per-

fectly true, of course, that faith in a person is more than

acceptance of a creed, but the Bible is quite right in
holding that it always involves acceptance of a creed.
Confidence in a person is more than intellectual assent
to a series of propositions about the person, but it
always involves those propositions, and becomes im-
possible the moment they are denied. It is quite
impossible to trust a person about whom one assents
to propositions that make the person untrustworthy,
or fails to assent to propositions that make him trust-
worthy. Assent to certain propositions is not the
whole of faith, but it is an absolutely necessary element
in faith. So assent to certain propositions about God
is not all of faith in God, but it is necessary to faith in
God; and Christian faith, in particular, though it is

more than assent to a creed, is absolutely impossible

without assent to a creed. One cannot trust a God
whom one holds with the mind to be either non-exist-
ent or untrustworthy.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, therefore, is quite right
in maintaining that "he that cometh to God must be-
lieve that he is." In order to trust God or to have
communion with Him we must at least believe that

He exists.
 FAITH IN GOD 49

first sight that might seem to be a mere truism;

At
itmight seem to be something that every sane person
would be obliged to accept. As a matter of fact, how-
ever, even this apparently self-evident proposition is re-
jected by
a great mass of persons in the modern world;
and it has been rejected by many persons in the course
,

of religious history. What the Epistle to the Hebrews

accomplishes by enunciating the
simple proposition,
"He that cometh to God must believe that he is," is the
repudiation of that important phenomenon in the his-
tory of religion that is known as mysticism.
The true mystic holds that communion with God is
an ineffable experience, which is independent of any in-
tellectual propositions whatever. Religion, the mystic
holds, in its pureform is independent of the intellect ;

when expressed in an intellectual mold it is cabined

it is

and confined; such expression can be nothing more than

symbolic ';
religious experience itself does not depend up-
on assent to any kind of creed. In opposition to this
mystical attitude the author of the Epistle to the He-
brews insists upon the primacy of the intellect; he bases
religion squarely upon truth. He does not, of course,
reject that immediate and mysterious contact of the soul
with God which is dear to the mystic's heart; for that
immediate contact of the soul with God is a vital part
of all
worthy
religion But he does break
of the name.
down the mystical separation between that experience on
the one hand and the knowledge of God on the other;
and in doing so he is uttering not a truism but an im-
portant truth; he is delivering a salutary blow against
anti-intellectual mysticism ancient and modern. There
 50 W HAT IS FAITH?
could be, under present conditions, no more timely text in ;

the presence of this stupendous utterance, so far-reaching

yet so simple, the non-doctrinal religion of the present

day seems to be but a shallow and ephemeral thing.
It is not true, then, according to the New Testa-
ment, that religion is independent of doctrine or that
faith is independent of knowledge; on the contrary,
communion with God or faith in God is dependent
upon the doctrine of His existence. depen- But it is

dent upon other doctrines in addition to that. "He

that cometh to God," says the Epistle to the Hebrews,
"must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of
,

them that him." In this latter part of

diligently seek
the sentence, we
have, expressed in a concrete way,
the great truth of the personality of God. God, ac-
cording to the Epistle to the Hebrews, is One who
can act- act in view of a judgment upon those who
corne to Him. What we have here, in the second
part of this sentence, is a presentation of what the Bible
elsewhere calls the "living" God. God not only exists,
but is a free Person who can act.

The same truth appears with even

greater
clearness
in the third verse of the same great chapter. "Through
faithwe understand," says the author, "that the worlds
were framed by the word of God, so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do appear."
Here we have, expressed with a clearness that leaves
nothing to be desired, the doctrine of creation out of
.
nothing, and that doctrine is said to be received by faith.
It is the same doctrine that appears in the first verse of
the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and
 FAITH IN GOD 51

the earth," and that really is presupposed in the Bible

from beginning to the end. Yet the prevalent religious
tendency in the Church of the present day relegates that
doctrine to the realm of the non-essential. "What has
religion to do," we are asked, "with the obsolete notion
of fiat creation?"
The truth is that in the Epistle to the Hebrews as
well as in the rest of the Bible we are living in a world,
of thought that is diametrically opposed to the anti-
intellectualism of the present day. Certain things,
according to the Bible, are known about God, and with-
out, these things there can be no faith. the prag- To
matist skepticism of the modern religious World, there-
fore, the Bible is sharply opposed; against the passionate
anti-intellectualism of a large part of the modern
Church it maintains the primacy of the intellect; it
teaches plainly that God has given to man a faculty
of reason which is capable of apprehending truth, even
truth about God.
That does not mean that we finite creatures can find
out God, by our own searching; but it does mean that
God has made us capable of receiving the information
which He chooses to give/ I cannot evolve an account
of China out of my own inner consciousness, but Tarn

perfectly capable of understanding the account which

comes to me from travellers who have been there them-
selves. So our reason is certainly insufficient to tell us
about God unless He reveals Himself; but it is capable
(or would be capable were not clouded by sin) of
if it

receiving revelation when once it is given.

God's revelation of Himself to man embraces, indeed,

52 WHAT IS FAITH?

only a small part of His being; the area of what we

know is infinitesimal compared with the area of what
we do not know. But partial knowledge is not nec-
essarily falseknowledge; and our knowledge of God
on the basis of His revelation of Himself is, we hold,
true as far as it goes.
That knowledge of God is regarded by the Bible as

involved in faith and as the necessary prerequisite of

faith. We can trust God, according to the Bible, be-
cause He
has revealed Himself as trustworthy. The
knowledge that God has graciously given us of Himself
is the basis of our confidence in Him; the God of the
Bible is One whom it is reasonable to trust.
But that certainly cannot be said of the God who is

presented by much of modern speculation; there are

ways of thinking about God, widely prevalent today,
which will inevitably destroy our confidence in Him.
In the first place there is the widespread pantheism
of the day, which brings God into some sort of neces-
sary connection with the world. According to the pan-
theistic view, not only does the world not exist apart
from God, but God does not exist apart from the world;
God is either to be identified with the totality of the
world-process or else He is to be regarded as connected
with the world-process as the soul of man is connected
with his body. *#That way of thinking -**- is very, wide-
fX3f.-SS,^.~-*
l
*-+' I--****--'--* -'.-I ...-.=--. .-,'.. -,,...V.--
'- "' '"" '
* "" .

spread and very popular; it is called, by a perversion of

a great truth, the "immanence" of God; it runs through
a large part of contemporary preaching. Whether ex-

plicit or not, whether thoroughgoing or present only in

tendency, pantheism colors very largely the religious life

 FAITH IN GOD 53

of our time. Yet as a matter of fact it will ultimately

make impossible; certainly it will make im-

religious life

possible anything that

can be called faith. It is really im-

possible to trust
a being that is conceived of merely as
the whole of which we are parts; in order to trust God .

one must think of God as a transcendent, living Person.

It true that pantheists represent their view as
is

bringing God near to man. "We will have nothing to

do," they say in effect, "with the far-off God of the
Church; the problem of the union between
creeds of the
God and man, with which the older theologians
wrestled and as a solution of which they constructed
their elaborate doctrine of redemption, is no problem
at all for us; tq us God is closer than breathing and

nearer than hands, and feet; jHis life pulses through the
life of all the world and through the lives of every one
of us." Thus pantheism is substituted for theism on
the ground that it brings God nearer to men.
Inreality, however, it has exactly the opposite
effect.

Far from bringing God nearer to man, the pantheism

of our day really pushes Him very far off; it brings
Him physically; near, but at the same time makes Him
spiritually remote; it conceives of Him as a sort of
blind vital force, but ceases to regard Him as a Person
whom a man can love and whom a man can trust.
Destroy the free personality of God, and the possibility
of fellowship with Him is gone; we cannot love or
trust aGod of whom we are parts.
Thus if we are going to retain faith we must cling
with our hearts to what are called the metaphysical
all

attributes of God His infinity and omnipotence and

54 WHAT IS FAITH?
creatorhood. The finite God of Mr. H. G. Wells and
of some other modern men, for example, seems to us
to be almost as destructive of faith as
is the impersonal

God of the pantheists; He seems to us to be but a

curious product of a modern mythology; He is not God
but. a god; and in the presence of all such imaginings
we for our part are obliged to turn very humbly but
very resolutely toward the dread, stupendous wonder of
and say with Augustine: "Thou hast^made
the infinite
us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds
its rest in Thee."
This devotion to the so-called metaphysical attributes
of God is unpopular at the present day. There are
many who tell us that we ought to cease to be inter-
ested in the question how the world was made, or what
will be our fate when we pass beyond the grave; but
that we can hold to the goodness of God though His
creatorhood and His might are gone.
A
notable presentation of such a view is found in
Dr. McGiffert's book, The God
of the Early Chris-
2
tians. That book is very provocative and to our mind
very erroneous. But it possesses at least one merit that
is rare among contemporary religious literature it is

interesting. It is the work of one of the foremost

American scholars, who is possessed of a radical, incisive
mind, which, does not succeed in solving the prob-
if it

lem of Christian origins, at least, unlike most contem-

2 Arthur Cushman McGiffert, The Cod of the Early Chris-
tians, 1924. Compare for what follows the more extended treat-
ment of the book in The Princeton Theological Review, xxii,
1924, pp. 544-588.
 FAITH IN GO'b 55

porary minds, detects what the problem is. Such a

book, with its learning and its originality, whatever
may be its faults, repays careful examination far more
than many a five-foot shelf of the ostensibly startling
and progressive but really thoroughly conventional re-

ligious books which are so popular just now.

Dr. McGiffert himself is an advocate of an "ethical .

theism/* which is very far removed indeed from what

the word "theism" can properly be held to mean. The

question as to how the world came into being is, he

holds, a matter of indifference to religion, as is the
whole question of the power of God in the physical
realm. But we moderns, he says in effect, though we
are no longer interested in the power of God, can hold
at least to our faith in goodness; and in doing so we can
be religious men.
The author is far too good a scholar to suppose that
this non-theistic "ethical theism" is taught in the New
Testament; certainly, he admits, it was not taught by
Jesus. Jesus' doctrine of God, on the contrary, he says,
was nothing new; it was simply the Jewish doctrine
which He found ready to hand; it laid great stress on
the sovereignty of God, the absolute power of the
Creator over His creatures, and it laid great stress upon
the awful severity of God rather than upon His love.
In other words, Dr. McGiffert admits though his
terminology is somewhat different that Jesus was a
"theist" in the usual meaning of that word; the whole
sentimental picture of the "liberal Jesus," with His
"practical" view of God that was not also theoretical,
and With His one-sided emphasis upon the Fatherhood
56 WHAT IS FAITH?
of God as over against His justice, is here brushed reso-

lutely aside. Dr. McGiffert has read the Gospels for

himself, and knows full well how unhistorical that pic-
ture of Jesus is.

Paul, also, according to Dr. McGiffert, was a theist;

he maintained the Jewish view of God which Jesus
had taught, though he added to that view the worship
of Jesus as a Saviour God. But and here we come
to the really distinctive thesis of the book the primi-
tive simple-minded Gentile Christians in the early days,
unlike Jesus and unlike Paul, were, according to Dr.
McGiffert, not monotheists; they took Jesus as their
Saviour without being interested in denying the exist-
ence of other saviours; in particular they were not inter-
ested in the connection between Jesus and a Maker and
Ruler of the world.
The interesting thing about this remarkable theory
is not found in any likelihood of its truth, for it is not
really difficult to refute; but it is found in the connec-
tion between the theory and the whole anti-intellec-
tualistic trend of the modern religious world. Dr.
McGiffert, as most Modernists have done, has given up
any clear belief in theism; he has ceased to base his
religion upon a supreme Maker and Ruler of the
world: yet he desires to maintain some sort of conti-

nuity with the primitive Christian Church. And he does

so by the discovery of a primitive non-theistic Gentile
3 It is
hoped that our readers will pardon our use of this hy-
brid word. obviously would not do at all.
"Atheistic" And
even "antitheistic" would perhaps be too strong; since Dr. Mc-
Giffert does not maintain that these Christians expressly denied
theism, but only that they were not interested in it.
 FAITH IN GOD 57

Christianity whose religion in important respects was

similar to his own. The interesting thing about the
book is not the thesis itself so much as the way in which
in the propounding of the thesis the author's assump-
tions are allowed to appear.
The incorrectness of those assumptions becomes evi-
dent at many points. Particularly faulty is the separa-
tion of "salvation" from theism a separation which
recurs again and again in the book. "That there were

philosophical thinkers," the author says, "who were

attracted by the monotheism of the Jews and became
Christians because ofit is undoubtedly true, but they

were vastly in the minority, and the Roman world

was not won to Christianity by any such theological
interest. On the contrary, faith in Christ and in his
salvation converted the masses then, as it has converted
multitudes in every age since." 4 It was therefore! ac-

cording to the author, a decline such is the clear im-

plication of the book- when "Christianity ceased to be
a mere religion of salvation a mere saving cult and
Christ ceased to be a mere saviour;" when He became,
and judge of all the earth."
instead, the "creator, ruler,
This separation between theism and salvation ig-
nores the simple fact that there can be no salvation
without something from which a man is saved. If
Christ saves the Christians, from what does He save
them? Dr. McGiffert never seems to raise that ques-
tion. But the answer to it is abundantly plain, and
it
destroys the entire reconstruction which this book so
brilliantly attempts. Is it not abundantly plain that
4
Op. tit., pp. 44 f.
58 WHAT IS FAITH?
Christ saves Christians from sin, and from the con-
sequences brings at the judgment-seat of God?
which it

And is it not plain also that this was just the thing
that appealed most strongly to simple people of the
century, as it appeals most strongly to many per-
first

sons today? The truth is, it is quite impossible to

think of Christ as Saviour without thinking of the
thing from which He saves; the justice of God is every-
where the presupposition of the Saviourhood of Christ.
No doubt modern men, especially in the circles in which
Dr. McGiffert moves, have lost the sense of sin and
guilt and the fear of God's awful judgment-seat. But
with this loss there goes the general abandonment even
of the word "salvation," to say nothing of the idea.
Without the sense of sin and the fear of hell, there may
be the desire for improvement, "uplift," betterment;
but desire for "salvation," properly speaking, there can-
not be. Modernism does not really "read Christianity
in terms of salvation," but reads salvation out of Chris-

tianity. It usually gives even the word "salvation"

up. salvation presupposes something from which
JFor
a man saved; it presupposes the awful wrath of a
is

righteous God; in other words it presupposes just the

thing which the non-theistic Modernism of Dr. Mc-
Giffert and others is most eager to reject. Very dif-
ferent was the situation in the early days of the Chris-
tian Church. Modern men have lost the sense of guilt
and the fear of hell, but the early Christians, whether
Jews or Gentiles, had not. They accepted Christ as 8

Saviour only because He could rescue them from the

abyss and bring them into right relation to the Ruler
 FAITH IN GOD 59

and Judge of all the earth. The Saviourhood of Christ

involved, then as always, the majesty and justice of
God.
Even more radically at fault is another distinction
which is at the very root of Dr. McGiffert's thinking
throughout the distinction, already alluded to, "be^
5
tween a god of moral and a god of physical power."
According to this distinction, Dr. McGiffert holds, as
we have already seen, that it is or should be matter of
indifference to Christians how the world came into

being; trje doctrine of creation belongs, he thinks, to a

region of metaphysics with which religion need have
nothing to do. Similar is really the case with respect
to the doctrine of providence; the whole thought of
the power, as distinguished from the goodness, of God
is, our author evidently thinks, quite separable from
religion; we
can, he thinks, revere God's goodness with-
,out fearing His power or relying upon His protection
from physical ills.
Such skepticism may be justified or may not be justi-
fiedwith that great question we shall not now under-
take to deal but indifferent to religion it certainly is

not. Give up the thought of a Maker and Ruler of

the world; say, as you must logically say if you accept
Dr. McGiffert's view, that "the Great Companion is
dead," and you may still maintain something like re-

ligious fervor among a few philosophical souls. But

the suffering mass of humanity, at any rate, will be lost
and hopeless in a hostile -And to represent
w^orld.
these things as matters of indifference to religion is to
5
Op. tit., p. 154.
60 WHAT IS FAITH?
close one's eyes to the deepest things of tHe human
heart. Is the doctrine of creation really a matter of
no religious moment; may the religious man really re-
vere God without asking the question how the world
came into being and what it is that upholds it on its
way? Is the modern scientist wrong, who, pursuing
his researches into nature's laws, comes at length before
a curtain that is never lifted and stands in humble awe
before a mystery that rebukes all pride? Was Isaiah
wrong when he turned his eyes to the starry heavens
and said: "Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who
hath created these things, that bringeth out their host
by number: he calleth them all by names by the great-
ness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not
one faileth"? Was Jesus wrong when He bade His
disciples trust in Him who Clothed the lilies of the field
and said: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom?"
To these questions philosophers may return this
'

answer or that, but the answer of the Christian heart

at any rate is clear. "Away with all pale abstractions,"

it cries, "away with all dualism between the God of

power and the God of goodness, away with Marcion

and his many modern followers, away with those who
speak of the goodness of God but deprive Him of His
power. As for us Christians, we say still, as we con-

template that green field gleaming in the sun and those

dark forests touched with autumn brilliance and that
blue vault of heaven above we say still, despite all,

that it is God's world, which He created by the fiat

 FAITH IN GOD 61

of His will, and that through Christ's grace we are safe

forever in the arms of our heavenly Father."

But what have we left when, according to Dr. Mc-

Giffert, our heavenly Father is gone? The answer that

he gives is plain. "We have goodness left," we are told
in effect; "we do not know how the world came to
exist, we do not know what will be our fate when we
pass through the dark portals of death. But we can
find a higher, disinterested worship far higher, it

would seem, than that of Jesus in the reverence for

goodness divested of the vulgar trappings of power."

It sounds noble at first. But consider it for a mo-
ment, and its glory turns into ashes and leaves us in
despair. What is meant by a goodness that has no

physical power? not "goodness" in itself the merest

Is
abstraction? .Is not altogether without meaning ex-
it

cept as belonging to a person? And does not the very

notion of a person involve the power to act? Good-
ness altogether divorced from power is therefore no
goodness at all. And if it were goodness, it would still

mean nothing to us included as we are in this physical

universe, which is capable apparently of destroying us
in its relentless march. The overmuch
truth is that
abstraction has here destroyed even that which is in-
tended to be conserved. Make God good only and not
powerful, and both God and goodness have really been
destroyed. ,

Feeling, even if not fully understanding, this objec-

tion, feeling that goodness is a mere empty abstraction
unless it inheres in good persons, many modern men
have, tried to give their reverence for goodness some
62 WHAT IS FAITH?
sort of subsistence by symbolizing this "ethical"
(and
most clearly antitheistic) "theism" in the person of
Jesus of Nazareth. They "read Christianity only in
terms of salvation" and take the man Jesus as their

only God. But who is this Jesus whom they make

the embodiment of the goodness that they revere? He
is certainly not the Jesus of the New Testament; for
that Jesus insisted upon everything that these modern
men reject. But he is not even the Jesus of modern
reconstruction; for even that Jesus, as Dr. McGiffert
has shown with devastating clearness, maintained the
theism which these modern men are rejecting with such
contempt. The truth is that it is impossible for such
men to hold to Jesus even as the supreme man, even
as thesupreme embodiment of that abstract goodness
which Modernism is endeavoring to revere. For the
real Jesus placed at thevery centre, not merely of His
thinking but of His life, the heavenly Father, Maker
and Ruler of the world.
Is, then, the antitheistic Modernism of our day, read-
ing Christianity solely in terms of salvation and tak-
ing the man Jesus as its only God, to relinquish all
thought of continuity with the early glories of the
Christian Church? Here Dr. McGiffert comes with a
suggestion of hope. He abandons, indeed, the former
answers to the question; he destroys without pity the
complacency of those who have supposed that the early
history of Christianity on naturalistic principles is all
perfectly settled and plain; he throws the historical
problem again into a state of flux. Hence we welcome
his brilliant and thought-provoking book. Such books,
 FAITHINGOD 63

we believe, by their very radicalism, by their endeavor

after ever new hypotheses, by the exhibition which
they afford of the failure of all naturalistic reconstruc-
tions especially their own may ultimately lead to an
abandonment of the whole weary effort, and a return
to the simple grounding of Christian history upon a

supernatural act of God. Meanwhile, however, Dr.

McGiffert comes to the Modernist Church with a word
of cheer. The continuity with primitive Christianity,
he says in effect, does not need to be given up even by

an antitheistic, non-theological Christianity which at

first sight seems very non-primitive indeed.

It would be a great mistake, we think, to ignore this

practical reference of the book. It is no doubt largely
unconscious; Dr. McGiffert writes no doubt with the
most earnest effort after scientific objectivity. But no
historian can be altogether without presuppositions;
and the presupposition of the present author is that an
most natural thing in the
antitheistic Christianity is the
world. Accordingly, as many notable historians have
done, he finds what he expects to find. Baur, on the
basis of his Hegelian philosophy, with its "thesis, anti-

thesis, synthesis," expected to find a conflict in the

apostolic age with a gradual compromise and settlement.
And so he found that phenomenon surely enough in
defiance of the facts, but in agreement with his phil-
osophy. Similarly Dr. McGiffert, on the basis of his
,

pragmatist skepticism, expects to find somewhere in the

early Church a type of. religious life similar to his own.

Why is it that despite our author's own admission

of the precariousness of many of his arguments he yet
64 WHAT IS FAITH?
"cannot resist the conclusion that there was such a primi-
tive Christianity" as that which he has just described? 8
The answer is plain. It is because he is seeking a pre-

cursor in early Christianity for the non-theistic Mod-

ernism which he himself supports. Others have found
precursors for it in the New Testament even in Paul.
But Dr. McGiffert is far too good a scholar to be satis-

fiedwith any such solution as that. Still others have

found it in Jesus, and so have raised the cry, "Back to
Christ." But Dr. McGiffert has read the Gospels for
himself, and knows full well how false is that appeal
of the popular Modernist preachers to the words of the
one whom they call "Master." Rejecting these obvi-
ously false appeals, the author is obliged to find what
he seeks in the non-literary, inarticulate, and indeed
unattested, piety of the early Gentile Christians.
"There," he says in effect to his fellow-Modernists, "is
our religion at last; there is to be found the spiritual
ancestry of a religion that reads Christianity exclusively
in terms of salvation and will have nothing to do with
'fiat creation' or the divine justice or heaven or hell or
the living and holy God." And so for the cry of the
older Liberalism: "Back to Christ" upon which Dr.
McGiffert has put, we trust, a final quietus there is
now apparently to be substituted the cry: "Back to
the non-theistic Gentile Christians who read Chris-
tianity only in terms of salvation and were not inter-
ested in theology or in God." But if that really is to
be the cry, the outlook is very dark. It is a sad thing
if the continuity of Christianity can be saved only by

Op. cir., p. 87.

 FAITH IN GOD 65

an appeal to the non-theistic Gentile Christians. For

those non-theistic Gentile Christians never really existed
at all.
The truth is that the antitheistic or non-theistic re-

ligion of the
present day popularized hy many
preachers and undergirded by scholars such as the author
of the brilliant book of which we have just been speak-

ing the truth is that this non-theistic religion, which,

at least in one of itsmost characteristic forms, takes the
man Jesus of naturalistic reconstruction as its.only God,
will have to stand at last upon its own feet. With the
historic Christian Church, at any rate, it plainly has
little to do. For the Christian Church can never re-
linquish belief in the heavenly Father whom Jesus

taught His disciples to love.

At the root, then, of faith in God, as taught in the
Bible, is simply theism: the belief, namely, that the
universe was created and is nowupheld by a personal
Being upon whom it is dependent but who is not de-
pendent upon it. God is, indeed, according to this
Christian view, immanent in the world, but He is also

personally distinct from the world, and from the finite

creatures that He has made. The transcendence of God
what the Bible calls the "holiness" of God is at the
foundation of Christian faith. The Christian trusts
God because God has been pleased to reveal Himself
as one whom it is reasonable to trust; faith in God is

based on knowledge.
Certainly that knowledge does not remove our feel-
,ing of wonder in the presence of God; but should rather
deepen it till it leads to a boundless awe. Some things
66 WHAT IS FAITH?
have been revealed to us about God, and they are by far
the greatest things that have ever entered the mind of
man; but how limited they are compared to the bound-
lessmystery of the unknown! If a man's knowledge
of God removes His sense of wonder in the presence of
the Infinite One, heshows thereby that He has hardly
begun to have any true knowledge at all.
Yet partial knowledge is not necessarily false; and
the partial knowledge that we have of God, though it
leaves vast mysteries unexplored, is yet sufficient as a
basis for> faith. If such a God be for us, the Christian
can say, who can be against us? Such a God is One
whom a man can trust.

At this point it may be well to pause for a few mo-

ments at the text from the eighth chapter of Romans,
which we have just quoted. "If God be for us," says
Paul, can be against us?" 7
"who
These words constitute a veritable battle cry of
faith; they might have served as the motto for countless
heroic deeds. Trusting in the God of Israel, men
fought mighty battles and won glorious victories; the
Lord of hosts is a powerful ally,

Jonathan thought so, when he and his armour-

bearer made that foolhardy attempt upon a garrison of
the Philistines. "There is no restraint to the Lord,"
he said, "to save by many or David thought
by few."
so, with his five smooth stones from the brook and his
great boasting adversary. "Thou comest to me,"
he said, "with a sword, and with a spear, and with a
shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of
7 Rom. viii: 31. >
 FAITH IN GOD .
67

hosts, the God of the armies of Israel." Elisha thought

so, when he and his servant were shut up in Dothan.

The Syrians had sought to take his life; he had revealed

theirplans to the king of Israel; and at last they had
caught him fair. When the servant of the prophet
arose in the morning, the city was all surrounded hy the
Syrian hosts. "Alas, my master," he said, "how shall
we do?" Butthe prophet was not dismayed. "Open
his eyes," he said, "that he may see." And the Lord
opened his eyes, and behold the hills were covered not

only by the Syrian armies, but also by the fiery horses

and chariots of God's protecting care. The apostles
thought that God wasa powerful ally, when they testi-

fied in the council of the Jews: "We must obey God

rather than men." Luther thought so on that memor-
able day when he stood before kings and princes, and
said -in substance even if not in word "Here I stand,
I cannot do otherwise, God help me! Amen."
In these great moments of history the hand of God
was revealed. But, alas, the thing is not always so

plain. Many prophets as true as Elisha have been sur-

rounded by the armies of the aliens, and no fiery horses
and chariots have put in an appearance; five smooth
stonesfrom the brook, even when slung bravely in the
name of the Lord of hosts, are not always able to cope
with modern artillery; many men of God as bold as
Peter, as sturdy as good Luther, have testified faithfully
to the truth, and, being unprotected by the favor of the
people or by wise Gamaliels or by friendly Electors of
Saxony, have gone to the stake for their pains. Nor
does it always seem to be true that the blood of the
68 WHAT IS FAITH?

martyrs is the seed of the Church. Persecution some-

times seems to be crowned with a tragic success. As
when pure religion by the use of physical weapons was
largely stamped out of Italy and Spain and France, so
often the blood of the martyrs seems to be shed in vain.
What is true, moreover, in the large arena of history

is also true in our workaday lives. Sometimes, in times

of great spiritual crisis, the hand of God is revealed;
there has been a signal answer to prayer; deliverance
has come in wondrous ways when expected least. But
at other times prayer just as earnest seems to go un-
answered, and faith seems set at naught.
In our perplexity we. are sometimes tempted to think
of our God very much as He was thought of on one
occasion by the enemies of Israel. "Their gods/' they
said with reference to Israel, "are gods of the hills ....
but let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we
8
shall be stronger than they:" So our God, we are some-
times tempted to say, can help us in some of the circum-
stances of life; but at other times, whether by the lack
of the power or by the lack of the will it makes little

practical difference at other times He fails. Religion,

we say, will help sometimes; but there are troubles in
which some far more definite assistance is required; our

God is a God of the hills, but beware, O Christian, of

the plain.
Such doubts, in the text to which we have referred,

are all brushed grandly aside. God be for us," says

"If
Paul, "who can be against us?" The challenge, in the
Apostle's mind, can receive no answer; if God be for
I Kings, xx: 23.
 FAITH IN GOD 69

us, none can be against us none in hill or dale, in

cloud or sunshine, in life or death, among things present
or things to come.
Such a faith is magnificent; it is heroic; it fires the

imagination and stirs the will. What a glorious thing

it is, to be sure, when a strong man stands with God
against the world! But mere magnificence is not
enough, and a lurking doubt remains. The belief of

Paul is magnificent, but is it founded upon sober truth?

Is God, as we know Him, really sufficient not merely
for some, but for all, of our needs?
The answer to that question obviously depends upon
what you think of God. If God be merely the tribal
divinity of a people of the hills, as He was thought to
be by those enemies mentioned in the twentieth chapter
of the FirstBook of Kings, then certainly we cannot
expect Him
to fight for us in the plain. Of course the
polytheism of those Syrians is gone for good; it may
almost evoke a smile. But other errors, though more
refined, are equally fatal to the comfort of the text.
There are ways of thinking about God, widely preva-
lent today, which make Him of even less value than a

local divinity of the Israelitish hills.

Some of these
ways of thinking have already been
mentioned. There is, for example, the common view
which identifies God with the totality of the world.
That view goes by different names, and most commonly
by no name at all. It may best be called pantheism.
But we ought not to be confused by a technical term;
whatever may be thought of the name, the thing itself
is. not confined to the philosophers. It is sometimes
70 WHAT IS FAITH?
called the "new theology;" it is sometimes called (quite
falsely) the doctrine of divine "immanence." But it-

is, at any rate, a mistake to think that it affects only

the classroom; on the contrary, it affects the plain man
as well as the scholar, and not only the pulpit but the
pew. In the religious life of our day it is almost domi-

nant; few of us can altogether escape its influence.

Certainly it is nothing new; far from being the "new

revelation" which it is sometimes represented as being,
it is really as old as the hills; for millenniums it has

been in the world dulling the moral sense and blighting

the religious life of man. But it has never been more

powerful than it is today.

We world in the midst of a
find ourselves in this

mighty process. wonders of

It manifests itself in the

the starry heavens, and in the equal wonders that the

microscope has revealed. It is seen in the revolving

seasons, and in the achievements of the human mind.

In the presence of it, we stand in awe; we are impressed

by our own littleness; we are but infinitesimal parts of

a mighty whole. And to that whole, to that mighty,
all-embracing world-process, which we moderns have
learned with a new clearness to regard as one, the pan-
theist applies the dread name of God. God is thus no
longer thought of as an artificer apart from his machine;
He is thought of as naught but the universe itself, con-
ceived of not in its individual manifestations, but as a
mighty whole.
Who does not appreciate the appeal of such a view?
It has stimulated some of the profoundest thinking and
inspired some of the grandest poetry of the race.
 FAITH IN GOD 71

But it contains.no comfort whatever for oppressed

and burdened souls. If God be but another name for

the totality of things, then when we possess Him we

possess nothing
that we did not have before. There
is then no appeal from the world to Him; when the
world treats us ill, there is no help for us, for we have
already had our "God." "If God be for us, who can
be against us?": these words were spoken by no
pantheist,but by one who could appeal from nature to
nature's God.
That appeal is possible only if God is a free and holy
Person, eternally sovereign over all that He has made.
True, He is immanent dn the world; He is no far-off
deity separate from His works. There is an important
truth in pantheism; the Christian too can say, "In Him
we live, and move, and have our being," and "Closer

is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet."

God is present in the world; not a single thing that
happens is independent of Him. But that does not
mean that He is identical with the world or limited by
it; because the world isdependent upon Him, it does
not follow that He is dependent upon the world. He
is present in the world not because He is identical with
it, but because He is Master of it; the universe is per-
vaded and enveloped by the mystery of His will.
These things have been hidden from the wise and pru-
dent and revealed urito -babes. It is simplicity that is
here profound; the stupendous wonder of God's works,
the boundless complexity of His universe, should never
be allowed to conceal the simple fact that He is a Per-
son; that simple fact, the child's possession of every
72 WHAT- IS FAITH?

trusting soul, is the greatest mystery of all. Jesus

taught, indeed, the immanence of God; He saw God's
hand in the sprouting of the seed; not a sparrow, He
said, could to the ground without God.
fall That
might have been said hy the philosophers. But Jesus
did not put it merely in that form; what He said was,
"One of them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father." And when He said that, the long searchings
of philosophy were over, and He whom men had dimly
felt for, the personal, living God, was revealed.
If, then, there is to be an appeal from nature to na-
ture's God, if there is to be real faith, God must be
thought of as a God who
can work wonders; not as
.another name for the totality of existing things, but as
a freeand living Person. Think of Him otherwise,
and you remain forever bound in the prison-house of
the world.
But another form of error is equally fatal. It is a

homelier, less pretentious form of error, but it is equally

destructive of a faith like the faith of Paul. We have
insisted that God is free, that He
can govern the course
of nature in accordance with His will; and it is an im-
portant, truth indeed. But many men make of it the

only truth, and in doing so they make shipwreck of

their faith. They think of God only as one who can
direct the course of nature for their benefit; they value
Him only for the things that He can give.
We are subject to many pressing needs, and we are
too much inclined to value God, not for His own sake,
but only because He can satisfy those needs. There is
the need of food and clothing, for ourselves and for our
 FAITH IN GOD 73

loved ones, and we value God because He can answer

the petition,"Give us this day our daily bread." There
is the need of companionship; we shrink from loneli-

ness; we would be surrounded by those who love us

and those whom we can love. And we value God as

one who can satisfy that need by giving us family and
friends. There is the need of inspiring labor; we would
be delivered from an aimless life; we desire oppor-
tunities for noble and unselfish service of our fellow-
men. And we value God as one who by His ordering
of our lives can set before us an open door.
These are lofty desires. But there is one desire that
is loftier still. It is the desire for God That
Himself.
desire, too often, we forget. We value God solely for
the things that He can do; we make of Him a mere
means to an ulterior end. And God refuses to be
treated so; such a religion always fails in the hour of
need. If we have regarded religion merely as a means
of getting things even lofty and unselfish things
then when the things that have been gotten are de-

stroyed, our faith will fail. When loved ones are taken
away, when disappointment comes and failure, when
noble ambitions are set at naught, then we turri away
from God; we have tried religion, we say, we have
tried prayer, and it has failed. Of course it has failed!
God is not content to be an instrument in our hand or
a servant at our beck and call. He is not content to
minister to the worldly nee.ds of those who care not
a bit for Him. The text in the eighth chapter of
Romans does not mean that religion provides a certain
formula for obtaining worldly benefits even the high-
74 WHAT IS FAITH?
est and most ennobling and most unselfish of worldly
benefits. "If God be for us, who can be against us?",
that does not mean that faith in God will bring us

everything that we desire. What it does mean is that

if we possess God, then we can meet with equanimity
the loss of all besides. Has it never dawned upon us
that God is valuable for His own
sake, that just as per-
sonal communion is the highest thing that we know
on earth, so personal communion with God is the sub-
limest height of all? If we value God for His own

sake, then the loss of other things will draw us all the
closer to Him; we shall then have recourse to Him in
time of trouble as to the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land. I do not mean that the Christian need
expect always to be poor and sick and lonely and to
seek his comfort only in a mystic experience with His
God. This universe is God's 'world; its blessings are
showered upon His creatures even now; and in His own
good time, when the period of its groaning and travail-
ing is over, He will fashion it as a habitation of glory/
But what I do mean is that if here and now we have
the one inestimable gift of God's presence and favor,
then all the rest can wait till God's good time.
If, communion with God is the one great pos-
then,
session,worth more than all the rest besides, how shall
we attain unto it how shall we come to know God?
Many men, as has already been observed, are telling
us that we should not seek to know Him at all; the-
ology, we are told, is the death of religion. We do not
know God, then such seems to be the logical implica-
tion of this view :
but simply feel Him. In its con-
 FAITH IN GOD 75

sistent form such a view is mysticism; religion is re-

duced to a state of the soul in which the mind and the
will are in abeyance. Whatever may be thought of such
a religion, I cannot see that it possesses any moral qual-
ity at all; pure feeling is non-moral, and so is religion
that is not founded upon theology. What makes our
love for a true friend, for example, such an ennobling

thing is the recognition by our mind of the character

of our friend. Human affection, so beautiful in its

apparent simplicity, really depends upon a treasured host

of observations of the actions of our friend. So it is
also in the case of our relation to God. It is because
we know certain things about Him, it is because we
know that He is mighty and holy and loving, that our
communion with Him obtains its peculiar quality. The
devout man
cannot be indifferent to doctrine, in the
sense in which many modern preachers would have us
be indifferent, any more than he can listen with equa-
nimity to misrepresentations of an earthly friend. Our
faith in God, despite all that is said, is indissolubly con-
nected withwhat we think of Him. The devout man
may indeed well do without a complete systematization
of his knowledge though if he be really devout he
will desire just as complete a systematization as he can
possibly obtain but some knowledge he certainly must
have.
How then may we knowledge of God
attain to this
that is so necessary to faith; how may we become ac-
quainted with Him? We may do so, I think, in the
old, old ways; I have no entirely new ways to suggest.
First of all, we may do so by a contemplation of His
76 WHAT IS FAITH?
works in "The invisible things of him from
nature.
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being under-
stood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead." "The heavens declare the glory
of God; and the firmament showeth his handy work."
By some men, indeed, the glory is unperceived. There
are some men who look upon a mountain as a mere
mass of rock and stone, a thunderstorm as a mere phe-
nomenon of the atmosphere, and a fair flower as a mere
combination of leaves and petals. God pity them the
poor blind souls! But when the eyes of our souls are
opened, then as we stand before a great mountain range
we shall say: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills:
from whence shall my help come?"; in the fury of the
storm we shall think of Him who did fly upon the

wings of the wind; and the flowers of the field will

reveal to us the weaving of God and even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

In the second place, God is known by His voice

within us. The contemplation of the universe, of
which we have just spoken, brings us to the very brink
of infinity; the world is too vast for us, and all around
it is enveloped by an impenetrable mystery. But there
is also an infinity within. It is revealed in the voice

of conscience. In the sense of guilt there is something

that removed from all relativity; we stand there face
is

to face with the absolute. True, in the humdrum of

life we often forget; but the strange experience comes

ever again. It may be in the reading or witnessing of

a great drama; the great tragedies, in the world's liter-
ature, are those that pull aside the curtain of the com-
 FAITH IN GOD 77

monplace and makes us feel anew the stark irrevocable-

ness of guilt. It may also be, alas, in the contempla-
tion of our own lives. But however conscience speaks,
it is the voice of God. The law reveals a Lawgiver;
and the character of this law reveals the Lawgiver's
awful righteousness.
In the third place, God is known through the Bible.
And He is known through the Bible in an entirely fresh
and peculiar way. True, the Bible does repeat and en-
force what ought to have been learned elsewhere; it
does reinforce the voices of nature and of conscience; it
tells us anew that the heavens declare the glory of God ;

itpresents the law of conscience with a new and terrible

earnestness as the law of God. But it does far more
than all that; it also presents God in loving action, in
the course of history, for the salvation of sinful men.
From Genesis to Revelation, from Eden to Calvary, as
the covenant God of Jsrael and as the God and Father
of ouf Lord Jesus Christ,
through th? varied course
all

of Bible story, God appears in the fulfilment of one lov-

ing plan. The marvel is that it is so plainly the same""'

God throughout. The manner of His action varies ;

we see various aspects of His person; He

appears in anger
as well as in love. But it is plainly the same Person
throughout: we rise from the Bible I think we can
say it without irreverence with a knowledge of the
character of God. There is a real analogy here to our
relation with an earthly friend. How do we come to
know one another? Not all at once, but by years of
observation of one another's actions. We have seen a
friend in time of danger, and he has been brave; we
78 WHAT IS FAITH?
have gone to him in perplexity, and he has been wise;
we have had recourse to him in time of trouble, and he
has given us his sympathy. So gradually, with the
years, on the basis of many, many such experiences,
we have come to love him and revere him. And now
just a look or a word
or a tone of his voice will bring
the whole personality before us like a flash; the varied

experiences of the years have been merged by some

strange chemistry of the soul into a unity of affection.
So it is, somewhat, with the knowledge of God that we
obtain from the Bible. In the Bible we see God in
action ; we see Him in fiery indignation wiping out the
foulness of Sodom; we see Him leading Israel like a
flock; we see Him giving His only begotten Son for the
sins of the world. And by what we see we learn to
know Him. In all His varied dealings with His people
He has never now we know Him and adore
failed; so
Him. Such knowledge seems to be a simple, an in-
stinctive, thing; the varied dealings of God with His

people have come together in the unity of our adora-

tion. And now He is revealed as by a flash by every
smallest dispensation of His providence, whether it be
in joy or whether it be in sorrow.
As thus made known, surely God is sufficient for all

our needs. There is no limit to His power; if He be

our champion, we need not fear what principalities and
powers and the whole universe can do. He alone is
righteous; His presence will make us spotless as the
light. He is loving, and His love will cast out fear.
Truly we can say with Paul: "If such a God be for
us, who can be against us?"
 FAITH IN GOD 79

But that text begins with "if," and it is a stupen-

dous "if." "If God be for us" but is God for us?

Many persons, true, trip along very lightly over

it is

that "if"; they have no doubt about the matter; they

are quite sure that God is for them. But the curious
thing is that those who have no doubt about the mat-
ter are often just the ones who are most sadly wrong.
The people of Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah had
no doubt; they were quite sure that God was for them;
but they went into exile all the same; God was not
for them at all. The Jews in the days of John the
Baptist had no doubt; were they not God's chosen
people? Even in the darkest days of Roman rule they
were quite sure that God would give them the victory.
But as a matter of fact the axe was even then laid at
the root of the tree. The Pharisee in the parable was
quite sure that God was for him when he went up into
the Temple to pray "God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are .... or even as this publican."
But the publican, it will be remembered, went down
into his house justified rather than he.
These men were all quite sure that God was for
them, but they were all entirely wrong. How then
may we be sure; and if we become sure, is not our
assurance a delusion and a snare? How can we remove
the "if" of this text; how can we be sure that God is
for us?
There are only two possible ways.
One way do what is right. God always stands
is to
we are right, then no matter what men
for the right; if
and demons may do God is on our side. But are we
80 WHAT IS FAITH?

right? The Pharisee was quite sure that he was right,

hut as a matter of fact he was most terribly wrong.
May we not be equally mistaken?
No doubt we think we ,can avoid the Pharisee's
error. God was not for him, we
say, because he was
sinfully contemptuous toward that publican; we will
be tender to the publican, as Jesus has tafight us to be,
and then God will be for us. It is no -doubt a good
idea; it is well that we are tender toward the publican.
But what is our attitude toward the Pharisee? Alas,
we despise him in a truly Pharisaical manner. We go
up into the temple to pray; we stand and pray thus
with ourselves: "God I thank thee that I am not as
other men proud of my own righteousness, un-
are,
charitable toward publicans, or even as this Pharisee."
Can we really venture thus, as the Pharisee did, to stand
upon our obedience of God's law, as being better than
that of other men, whether publicans or Pharisees, in
order to assure ourselves of God's favor?
Paul atleast said, "No!"; and surely Paul has some

right to be heard, since it is he who gave us the heroic

text to which we have turned. Paul had tried that
method, and it had failed; and the seventh chapter of
Romans is a mighty monument
of its failure. The
power of the flesh iswe are living over an
too strong;
abyss of sin and guilt. Of course we may forget what
lies beneath; we may forget if we are willing to live

on the surface of life and be morally blind like the

Jews before the exile or the Pharisee who went up into
the Temple to pray. But when the eyes of our souls
are opened, when we catch a terrifying glimpse of the
 FAITH IN GOD 81

righteousness of God, then we are in despair. try We

to escape; we try to balance the good in our lives against
the evil; we give tithes of all we possess; we point
frantically to our efforts as social workers; and thus we
try to forget the terrible guilt
of the heart. Such is the

bondage of the law.

But why should we x not give up the struggle? It

is so hopeless, and at the same time so unnecessary. Is

God for us, despite our sin? Joyfully the Christian

answers, "Yes." But why is He for us? Simple
indeed is the Christian answer to that question: He
is for us simply because He has chosen to be. He surely
has a right to receive whom He will into His fellow-

ship: and as a matter of fact He has chosen to receive

us poor sinners who trust in Christ; He chose to receive
us when He gave Christ to die. It was His act, not
ours. The "if" of the text is a stupendous "if"; but
such a word is not allowed to stand very long in the
eighth chapter of Romans. "If God be for us, who can
be against us?" it is a large "if," but it melts away
very soon in the warmth of God's grace. "If God
be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not
his own Son, but delivered him
up for us all, how shall
he not With himalso freely give us all things? Who
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is
God that justifieth. Who
he that condemneth?"
is

Appeal to God's act alone can enable us to face every

adversary. It can of course enable us to face the unjust
condemnation of men. What care we what men may
say, if we have the approval of God? But it can do
vastly more than that; it can enable us to face not only
82 WHAT IS FAITH?
the unjust condemnation of men, but the condemna-
tion of men that is perfectly just. And nothing else on
earth or in heaven can enable us to do that. There
are some things that the world never forgives; Peter
could never, suppose, have been received again into
I

the society of gentlemen after he had played the traitor

under fire. But God chose to receive him, and upon
the rock of his faith the Church was built. There may
be some foul spot in our lives; the kind of thing that
the world never forgives, the kind of thing, at any
rate, for which we who know all can never forgive
ourselves. But what care we whether the world for-
gives, or even whether we can forgive ourselves, if God
forgives, if God has received us by the death of His
Son? That is what Paul means by "boasting" in the
Cross of Christ. If we
could appeal to God's approval
as ours by right, how
bravely we should boast boast
in the presence of a world of enemies! If God knows
that we are right, what care we for the blame of men?
Such boasting, indeed, can never be ours. But we can
boast in what God has done. Little care we whether
our sin be thought unpardonable or no, little interested
are we in the exact calculation of our guilt. Heap it up
mountain high, yet God has removed it all. We can-
not explain God's act; it is done on His responsibility,
not ours. "I know not," the Christian says, "what
my guilt be; one thing I know;
may Christ loved me
and gave Himself for me. Come on now ye moralists
of the world, come on ye hosts of demons, with your
whisperings of hell! We fear you not; we take our
stand beneath the shadow of the Cross, and standing
 FAITH IN GOD 83

there, in God's favor, we are safe. No fear of chal-

lenge now! If God be for us, who can be against us?

None, in heaven or in earth or in hell. 'Neither death,
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor
depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
 CHAPTER III

FAITH IN CHRIST

It appears from what has just been said that although

theism is necessary to the Christian's faith in God, it is

not all that is necessary. It is impossible to trust God

in the Christian sense without holding that He is a
free and living Person, Creator and Ruler of the world;
but it is also impossible to trust Him without convic-
tions that go far beyond that. Indeed the Christian
doctrine of God
itself, far from leading to faith,
in
would lead only to despair; for the clearer be our view
of God's righteousness, the deeper becomes our con-
sciousness of guilt. God has done allthings well; we
are His creatures upon whom He has showered His
bounty; but a mighty barrier has been placed between
us and Him by the fact of sin.
That fact is recognized in the Bible from beginning
to end; and it is recognized with particular clearness
in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus does indeed speak much
of the Fatherhood of God, and His words are full of
comfort for those who are God's children. But never
does He God as being the Father of all men;
speak of
in the Sermon on the Mount those who can say, "Our
Father which art in heaven," are distinguished in the
sharpest possible way from the world outside. Our
Lord came not to teach men that they were already sons
of God, but to make them sons of God by His redeem-
84
 FAITH IN CHRIST 85

ing work. The Fatherhood of God as it is taught in

the New Testament designates not a relationship in
which God stands to all men, hut a relationship in
which He stands to those who have been redeemed.
That assertion may be surprising to men who have
never turned from what is said ahout the New Testa-
ment to what the New Testament says itself; but it is
unquestionably true. It needs, however, to be guarded
against two misunderstandings.
In the first place, it does not mean that the New
Testament ignores those features in the relationship of
God to all men which are analogous to the relationship
in which an earthly father stands to his children. God
is the Author of the being of all men, whether Chris-
tians or not; He cares for all; He showers His bounty
upon all: 'and apparently the New Testament does here

and there even use the term Father to designate this

broader relationship. But what we are insisting upon
is that such a use of the term is to
say the least highly
exceptional, and that it does not enter into the heart
of what the New Testament means by the Fatherhood
of God. It is not that the doctrine of the universal
fatherly relationship in which God stands to His crea-
tures isunimportant; indeed a large part of our pre-
vious discussion has been taken up with showing how

very important it is; but our point is that the New Tes-
tament ordinarily reserves the tender words, "Father"
and "Son," to describe a far more intimate relationship.
Everything in the* Bible is concerned with the fact of
sin; the relationship in which man as man stood to God
has been broken by transgression, and only when that
 86 WHAT IS FAITH?
barrier is removed is there sonship worthy of the name.
Thus we are not saying that the doctrine of the uni-
versal Fatherhood of God is untrue: but what we are

saying is that far from being the essence of Christianity,

it isonly the presupposition of Christianity; it is only
the starting-point which the New Testament finds in
"natural religion" for the proclamation of the gospel
of divine grace.
The second misunderstanding which needs to be
guarded against is the common impression that there
is something narrow about what we have designated
as the New Testament doctrine of the Fatherhood of
God. How narrow a thing it is, the modern man ex-
claims, to hold that God is the Father of some and not
of all! This objection ignores the central thing in the
New Testament teaching, and the central thing in
Christianity; it ignores the Cross of Christ. It is true

that men are separated from God by the awful fact of

sin; it is true that sonship worthy of the name is pos-

sessed only by those who are within the household of

\ faith: but what men do not seem to understand is that

*
,>
'\ the door of the household of faith open wide for all
is

ir ,,>.
men to <come in. Christ died to open that door, and
\ ^ the pity is that we try to close it by our failure to spread

^^ f)
the invitation throughout all the world. As Christians

-'* \f we OTJ S^ t certainly to love all our fellow-men every-

^ k -/ where, including those who have not

Christ; but if we we shall show our
really love them,
yet come to

love not by trying to make them content with a cold

natural religion, but by bringing them in, through the
^ . .

\(
 FAITH IN CHRIST 87

proclamation of the gospel, into the warmth and joy

of the household of faith.
In the Bible, then, it is not merely God as Creator

who the object of faith, but 'also, and primarily, God

is

as Redeemer from sin. We

fear God because of our

guilt; buf"we trust Him because of His grace. trust We ,

Him because He has brought us by the Cross of Christ,

despite all our sin, into His holy presence. Faith in
God depends altogether upon His redeeming work.
That fact explains an important feature of the New
Testament teaching about faith the feature, namely,
that the New Testament ordinarily designates as the

object of faith not God the Father but the Lord Jesus
Christ. The New Testament does indeed speak of faith
in God, but it speaks more frequently of faith in
Christ.
The importance of this observation must indeed not
be exaggerated; no man can have faith in Christ with-
out also having faith in God the Father and in the
Holy Spirit. All three persons of the blessed Trinity -v
are according to the New Testament active in redemp- 1

tion; and all three therefore may be the object of faith

when redemption is accepted by sinful men.
Redemption was accomplished, however, 'according
to the New Testament, by an event in the external

world, at a definite time in the world's history, when

the Lord Jesus died upon the cross and rose again. In
Christ the redeeming work of God became visible; it

is Christ, therefore, very naturally, who is ordinarily

represented as the object of faith.
But as in the case of God the Father, so in the case
 WHAT IS FAITH?
of Christ,it is impossible to have faith in a person

without having knowledge of the person; faith is al-

ways based upon knowledge.
That important principle is denied by many persons
in the modern world in the case of Christ, just as we
have seen that it is denied in the case of God the Father.
was denied in typical fashion, for example, in a ser-
It

mon which I remember hearing some years ago. The

subject of the sermon was the incident of the healing
1
of the centurion's servant. That centurion, the dis-
tinguished preacher said in effect, knew nothing about
theology; he knew nothing about the Nicene or Chal-
cedonian doctrine of the Person of Christ; he knew
nothing about the creeds: but he simply trusted Jesus,
and Jesus praised his faith in the highest terms. So we
also, it was said may be quite indifferent to
in effect,
the theological controversy now raging in the Church,
and like the centurion may simply take Jesus at His
word and do what Jesus says.
From the point of view of common-sense reading of
the Bible that sermon was surely quite incorrect; it was
rather an extreme instance of that anti-historical forc-

ing of the plain words of the Bible which is so marked

a feature of the intellectual decadence of the present
day. Where is it said in the Gospel narrative that the
centurion obyed Jesus' commands; where is it said that
he did anything at all? The point of the narrative is
not that he did anything, but rather that he did noth-
ing; he simply believed that Jesus could do something,
and accepted that thing at Jesus* hands; he simply be-
ulce, vii : 2- 1 ; Matt; viii : 5-1 3 .
 FAITH IN CHRIST 89

lieved that Jesus could work the stupendous miracle of

healing at a distance. In other words, the centurion is

presented as one who had faith; and faith, as distin-

guished from the effects of faith, consists not in doing
something but in receiving something. Faith may re-

sult in action, and certainly true faith in Jesus always

will result in action; but faith itself is not doing but
receiving.
But the sermon in question was not merely faulty
from the point of view of common-sense reading of the
Bible; it was also faulty from the point of view of
psychology. The centurion, it was said in effect, knew
nothing about the Christology of the creeds; he knew
nothing about the doctrine of the two natures in the
one person of our Lord; yet he believed in Jesus all the
same. Clearly the inference intended to be drawn was
that opinions about Jesus are matter of indifference to
faith in. Jesus; no matter what a man thinks about the
person of Christ, it was maintained in effect, he may

still trust Christ.

That principle is maintained with the greatest con-
fidence by. present-day writers and speakers on the sub-
ject of religion. But surely it is quite absurd. Let
us see how it would work out in ordinary life. Can
it
really be held that I can trust a person irrespective of
the opinions that I hold about the person? A simple
example may make the matter clear.
Suppose have a sum of money to invest.
I It may
be father a wild supposition but just let us suppose.
I have a sum of money to invest, and not knowing
al&iut-tlie stock Market I g til an
90 WHAT IS FAITH?
of mine and ask him to invest my savings for me. But
another acquaintance of mine hears of it and injects a
word of caution.
"You are certainly taking a great risk," he says to
me. "What do you know about the man to whom
you are entrusting your hard-earned savings? Are you
sure that he is the kind of man that you ought to trust?"
In reply I say that I do know certain things about
the man. "Some time ago he came to this town and
succeeded in selling the unwary inhabitants of it some
utterly worthless oil-stock; and if he is not in jail, he
certainly ought to be there. But," I continue, "opin-
ions about a person may differ that is merely an intel-
lectual matter and yet one may have faith in the per-
son; faith is quite distinct from knowledge. Conse-
quently can
I avoid the unpleasant duty of raking up
the past of the speculative gentleman in question; I can
avoid unseemly controversy as to whether he is a rascal
or not, and can simply trust him all the same."
Of course if I talked in that way about so serious a
thing as dollars and cents, I should probably be regarded
as needing a guardian; and I might soon find my prop-
erty being better managed for me than I could manage
it for myself: yet it is just exactly in that way that
men talk with regard to the subject of religion; it is
just in that way that they talk with regard to Jesus.
But is it not quite absurd? Surely it is impossible to
trust a person whom one holds in one*s mind to be
untrustworthy. Yet if so,we cannot possibly be in-
different towhat is called the "theological" controversy
of the present day; for that controversy concerns just
 FAITH IN CHRIST 91

exactly the question whether Jesus is trustworthy or

not. By one party in the Church Jesus is presented as
One in whom men can have confidence in this world
and the world to come; by the other party He is so

presented as that trust in Him would be ignoble if

not absurd.
Yet there may be an objection. "Faith," it may be
said, "seems to be such a wonderfully simple thing.
What-has the simple trust which that centurion reposed
in Jes'us to do with the subtleties of the Chalcedonian
creed? What has it" to do even with a question of fact
like the question of the virgin birth? And may we not
return from our theology, or from our discussion of
details of the New Testament presentation, to the sim-
plicity of the centurion's faith?"
To this objection there is of course one very easy
answer. The we are by no means in
plain fact is that
the same situation as the cenjturion was with reference
to Jesus; we of the twentieth century need to know
very much more about Jesus in order to trust Him than
the centurion needed to know. If we had Jesus with
us in bodily presence now, it is quite possible that we

might be able to trust Him with very little knowledge

indeed; the majesty of His bearing might conceivably
inspire unbounded confidence almost at first sight. But
as a matter of fact we are separated from Him by nine-
teen centuries; and if we are to commit ourselves unre-
servedly to a Jew Wjho lived nineteen hundred years ago,
as to a living person, there are obviously many things
about Him that we need to know. For one thing, we
need to know that He is alive; we need to know, there-
92 WHAT IS FAITH?
fore, about the resurrection. And then we need to
know how it is that He can touch our lives; and that

involves a knowledge of the atonement and of the way

in which He saves us from our sin. But it is useless
to enter into further detail. Obviously it is a very
strange thing that persons of the twentieth century
should come into a relation of living trust with a man
of the first century; and if they are to do so, they must
know much more about Him than His contemporaries
needed to know. Even if the centurion, therefore,
could get along with very little knowledge of the person
of Christ, it does not follow that we can do so.
There is, however, another answer to the objection.
Men say that faith for example the faith of the cen-
turion is a simple thing and has nothing to do with
theology. But is faith really so simple a thing? The
answer is not so obvious as many persons suppose.

Many things which seem to be simple are really highly

complex. And such is the case with respect to trust in
a person. Why is it that I trust one man and do not
trust another? Sometimes it may seem to be a simple
thing; sometimes I trust a man at first sight; trust in
these cases seems to be instinctive. But surely "in-
stinct" in human beings is not so simple as it seems.
It really depends upon a host of observations about the
personal bearing of men who are trustworthy and those
who are not trustworthy. And usually trust is not
even apparently instinctive; usually it is built up by
long years of observation of the person who is trusted.
Why do I trust this man or that? Surely it is because
I kntfw t$m; I have seen him trieH a'gain arid again, and
 FAITH IN CHRIST 93

he has rung true. The result seems to be very simple;

fit the end a look or a tone of the voice is sufficient to

give me as in a flash an impression of the whole person.

But that impression is really the result of many things
that I know. And I can never be indifferent to what
is said about the one whom I trust; I am indignant
.about slanders directed against him, and I seek to defend
my high opinion of him by an appeal to the facts.
So it is in the case of our relation to Jesus. We are
committing to Him the most precious thing that we
possess our own immortal souls, and the destinies of

society. It is a stupendous act of trust. And it can

be justified only by an appeal to facts.
But what becomes, then, it may be asked, of the
childlike faith which seems to be commended by our
Lord Himself? If faith is so elaborate an intellectual
affair, how could Jesus ever have said: "Whosoever shall

not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he

shall not enter therein." 2 Surely a little child does not
wait untilall probabilities have been weighed, and until

the trustworthiness of its parents has been established

at the bar of reason, before it reaches out its little hands
in simple trust.
In answer, three things need to be said.
In the first place, in holding that knowledge is log-
ically the basis of faith we are not holding that it nec-
essarily precedes faith in the order of time. Sometimes
faith in a person and knowledge of the person come in
the same instant. Certainly we are not maintaining
that faith in Jesus has to wait until a man has learned
2
Mark, x: 15.
94 WHAT IS FAITH?
all that the theologians or even all that the Bible can
tell him about Jesus; on the contrary, faith may come
first, on the basis of very elementary knowledge, and
then fuller knowledge may come later. Indeed that is
no doubt quite the normal order of Christian experi-
ence. But what we do maintain is that at no point
is faith independent of the knowledge upon which it is

logically based; even at the very beginning faith con-

tains an and if the subsequent in-
intellectual element;
crease of knowledge should show the person in whom
trust is reposed to be untrustworthy, the faith would be
destroyed.
In the second place, the question may well be asked
whether the faith of a child, after all, is independent
of knowledge. We for our part think that it is not,
provided the child has come to the age of conscious
personal life. The child possesses, stored up in its

memory, experiences of the mother's goodness, knows

how to distinguish her from other persons, and hence
smiles at her approach.- Very different is the non-
theological "faith" of the modern pragmatist, that can
subsist independently of the opinions which may be
held as to the object of faith. Whatever may be said for
that pragmatist attitude, it is certainly as unchildlike as

anything that could possibly be imagined. child A

never trusts a person whom
it holds with its mind to be

untrustworthy. The faith of the modern pragmatist

is a very subtle, sophisticated, unchildlike thing; jwhat
is really childlike is the faith that is founded upon
knowledge of the one in whom trust is reposed.
There is, indeed, perhaps one stage of childhood
 FAITH IN CHRIST 95

where the intellect is in abeyance; but it is the stage

where conscious personal life has not yet been begun.

Is it that stage to which Christian faith ought to re-
turn? There are many who answer this question, im-

plicitly
if not explicitly, in the affirmative; these are the
mystics, who hold that religion is an ineffable experi-
ence in which the ordinary faculties of the soul are
quiescent, and who must hold, if they be consistent,
that the goal of religion is a sheer loss of individual
consciousness through the merging of the soul in the

abyss of the divine. It is toward such mysticism that

the modern depreciation 6f the intellect in religion
really tends. No
doubt the anti-intellectualism of our
day does not often consciously go so far; but that is
not because the starting-point is right, but because the
way has not yet been followed to the end. The ulti-
mate goal of the modern view of faith is a nirvana in
which personality is lost.
In the third place, we have so far really not gotten
at what Jesus meant at all. When our Lord bade His
disciples receive thekingdom of heaven as little children,
was it really the ignorance of the little children to which
He appealed? We think not. No, it was not the
ignorance or children to which our Lord appealed, but
their conscious helplessness, their willingness to receive
a gift. What
mars the of the childlike faith
simplicity
which Jesus commends is not an admixture of knowl-
edge, but an admixture of self-trust. To receive the

kingdom as a little chil d

v
is to receive it as a free gift
without seeking in slightest measure to earn it for one's
self. There is a rebuke here for any attempt to earn
96 WHAT IS FAITH?
salvation by one's character, by one's own obedience to
God's commands, by one's own establishment in one's
life of "the principles of Jesus"; but there is no rebuke
whatever for an intelligent faith that is founded upon
the facts. The childlike simplicity of faith is marred
sometimes by ignorance, but never by knowledge; it
will never be marred and never has been marred in the
livesof the great theologians by the blessed knowl-
edge of God and of the Saviour Jesus Christ which is
contained in the Word of God. Without that knowl-
edge we might be tempted to trust partly in ourselves;
but -with it we trust wholly to God. The more we
know of God, the more unreservedly we trust Him;
the greater be our progress in theology, the simpler and
more childlike will be our faith.
There is no reason, then, for us to modify the con-
clusion to which we were led by an examination of
the centurion's faith; faith in Christ, we hold, can be
justified only by an appeal to facts.
The facts which justify our appeal to Jesus concern
not only His goodness but also His power. We might
be convinced of His goodness, and yet not trust Him
with these eternal concerns of the soul. He might
have the will to help and not the power. We might
be in the position of the ship-captain's child in the
touching story, who, when all on shipboard were in
terror because of an awful storm, learned that his father
was on the bridge and went peacefully to sleep. The
confidence of the child very probably was misplaced;
but it was misplaced not because the captain was not
faithful and good, but because the best of men has no
 FAITH IN CHRIST 97

power to
command the wind and the sea that they
should obey him. Is our confidence in Jesus equally
misplaced? It is misplaced if Jesus was the poor, weak
enthusiast that He is represented as being by naturalistic

historians. But very diff erent is the case if He was the

mighty Person presented in the Word of God. The
question as to which was the real Jesus may be decided
in one way or it may be decided in the other; but at

any rate it cannot be ignored. We cannot trust Jesus

if Jesus is unworthy of our trust.
Why then do those who reduce Jesus to the level of

humanity, who regard Him (if traditional language be

stripped off) simply as a Jewish teacher of long ago,

the initiator of the "Christ-life" why do such per-
sons speak of having "faith in Jesus"? They do so,
I because they are slipping insensibly into a
think,
wrong use of terms; when they say "faith in Jesus,"
they mean really not faith in Jesus but merely faith in
the teaching and example of Jesus. And that is a very
different thing. It is one thing to hold that the ethical
principles which Jesus enunciated will solve the prob-
lems of society, and quite another thing to come into
that intimate, present relation to Him which we call

faith; it is one thing to follow the example of Jesus and

quite a different thing to trust Him. A man can ad-

mire General Washington, for example, and accept the

principles of his life; yet one cannot be said to trust

him, for the simple reason that he died over a hundred
years ago. His soldiers could trust him; for in their
day he was alive ; but we cannot trust him, because now
he is dead. And when persons who believe that
98 WHAT IS FAITH?
Jesus was simply a great teacher of long ago, and are
not particularly interested in any personal identity be-
tween that mystic experience which they call "Christ"
in the soul and the historic person Jesus of Nazareth
when such persons speak of "faith in Jesus," the ex-
pression is merely a survival, now meaningless, of a
usage which had meaning only when Jesus was re-
garded as what He is said in the New Testament to
be. Real faith in Jesus can exist only when the
lofty claims of Jesus are taken as sober fact, and
when He is regarded as the eternal Son of God, come
voluntarily to earth for our redemption, manifesting
His glory even in the days of His flesh, and now
risen from the dead and holding communion with
those who commit their lives to Him.
The that in great sections of the modern
truth is

Church Jesus is no longer the object of faith, but has

become merely an example for faith; religion is based
no longer upon faith in Jesus but upon a faith in
God that is, or is conceived to be, like the faith that
Jesus had in God.
This mighty transition is often unconscious; by
a loose use of traditional language men have concealed
from themselves as well as from others the decisive
step that has really been taken. By no means all,

it is true, of those who have taken the step have

been thus self -deceived; there are among them some
real students of history who detect clearly the mo-
mentous between a faith in Jesus and a
difference
faith in God that is like Jesus' faith. For such schol-
ars the origin of "faith in Jesus" becomes the most
 FAITH IN CHRIST 99

important problem in the entire history of religion.

How was it that a Jewish teacher, who (in accord-
ance with modern naturalism) did not exceed the
limits of humanity, came to be taken as the object of

religious faith; how aiid when did men add to a faith

in God thatwas like Jesus' faith a faith in Jesus
Himself? However and whenever this event took
place, it was certainly a momentous event. Of
course to anyone who accepts the testimony of the
Bible the problem is quickly solved; the New Testa-
ment throughout the Gospels as well as the Epistles
depicts Jesus of Nazareth as one who from the be-
ginning presented Himself, and with full justification,
as the object of faith to sinful men. But to modern
naturalistic problem remains; and by
historians the
the more thoughtful of them it is placed in the very
forefront of interest. How was there added to faith
in God, encouraged and inspired by Jesus, a faith in

Jesus Himself?

Many solutions of this problem have been pro-

posed in the course of modern criticism, but none of
them has won universal acceptance. According to
the older Liberalism, represented, for example, by Har-
nack, faith in Jesus as Redeemer, in the Pauline sense,
was merely the temporary form in which the religious
experience brought about by contact with the real Jesus
had to be expressed in the forms of thought proper to
that day. According to a radical likeBousset t on the
other hand, faith in Jesus arose in Damascus or Anti-
och,when, in a meeting of the disciples full of ecstatic
phenomena, someone uttered the momentous words,
100 WHAT IS FAITH?
"Jesus is Lord," and thus the One who in Jerusalem
had heen regarded as absent in heaven came to be re-
garded as present in the Church and hence as being the
object of faith. Many other solutions, or varieties of
the few generically differing solutions, have been pro-
posed. But it cannot be said that any one of them has

been successful. Modern naturalism so far has expended

all its learning and all its ingenuity in vain upon the
question how it was that a Jew of the first century came

to be taken as the object of religious faith, despite the

strictness of Jewish monotheism, by contemporaries be-

longing to His own race.

Yet although we do not think that scholars like Bous-

sethave been successful in solving the problem, they
have at least seen clearly what the problem is; and that
is great gain. They have seen clearly that faith in
Christ is quite different from a faith merely like Christ's
faith: and they have seen clearly that not the latter but
the former is characteristic of the historic Christian
Church, If the choice of the Church is now to be re-

versed, the radicalness of the decision should not be

ignored.
Such clearness, however, is, unfortunately, in many

quarters conspicuous by its absence; there are many who

by a sort of spiritual indolence or at least timorqusness
seek to conceal the issue both
x
from themselves and from
others. It is evident that they have a sentimental at-
tachment to Jesus; it is evident that they love Him;
why then should they try to decide whether such
attachment is or is not what is designated by the
New Testament and by the historic Church as "faith"?
 FAITH IN CHRIST 101

"Surely," men say, "it is better to let sleeping

dogs
He; surely it not to mar the peace of the
is better

Church by too careful an effort at definition of terms.

If those who are called 'Liberals' in the Church will
only consent to employ traditional language, if they
will only avoid offending friend as well as foe by the

unpardonable ecclesiastical sin of plainness of speech,

all will be well, and the work of the Church can go

satisfactorily on as though there were no division of

opinion at all."
Many are the ways in which such a policy is com-
mended to our favor; plausible indeed are the methods
by which Satan seeks to commend an untruth; often the
Tempter speaks through the lips of sincere and good
men. "Let us alone," some devout pastors say, "we
are preaching the gospel; we are bringing men and wo-

men into the. Church; we have no time for doctrinal

controversy; let us above all have peace." Or else it is
the greatness and beneficence of the work of the organ-
ized Churcfi which catches the imagination and inspires
the cry of "peace and work." "Let us sink our doc-
trinal differences," it is urged, "and go on with our

work; let us quit defending Christianity and proceed to

propagate whatever be our theological differences
it; let

us conquer the world for Christ."

Plausible words and uttered sometimes
these are,
no doubt, by truly Christian men. For such men we
have full sympathy; their eyes are closed; they have no
inkling of the facts; they have no notion how serious is
the issue that faces the Church. But for us, and for all
who are aware of what is really going on, the policy of
102 WHAT IS FAITH?

"peace and work," the policy of concealment and pallia-

tion, would be the deadliest of sins. IJJ'he Church is

placed before a serious choice it must decide whether it

;

will merely try to trust God as Jesus trusted Him, or

whether it will continue to put its trust in Jesus Him-
self. Upon that choice depends the question which of
two mutually exclusive religions is to be maintained.
One of the two is the redemptive religion known as
Christianity; the other is a religion of optimistic confi-
dence in human nature, which at almost every conceiv-
able point is the reverse of Christian belief. We must
decide which of the two we shall choose. \ But above
all things let us choose with our eyes open; and when

we have chosen let us put our whole souls into the

propagation of what we believe. If Christ is the object
of faith, as He is held by the New Testament to be, then
let us proclaim Him not only in our pulpits but by all

our activity in the Church. There is nothing more un-

reasonable than to preach the gospel with our lips and
then combat the gospel through the funds that we con-
tribute to agencies and boards or through the votes that
we cast in Church councils and courts.
It is the encouragement of such inconsistency that
places the most serious ethical stain upon Modernism
in evangelical churches today. It is not a stain which

appears merely in weaknesses and inconsistencies of in-

dividual men for such failings we have the greatest
possible sympathy, being keenly conscious of worse
moral failures in ourselves than can be found in other
men but it is a stain that is inherent in the settled

policy of a great party in the Church. Concealment of

 FAITH IN CHRIST 103

the issue, the attempt to slur over a mighty change as

though full continuity were being preserved, the double
use of traditional language, the acceptance on false pre-

tences of thesupport of old-fashioned evangelical men

and women who have no inkling of what is really being
done with their contributions or with their votes these
are things that would convince us, even prior to his-
torical or theological investigation^ that there is some-
thing radically wrong with the Modernist movement
of the present day. "By their fruits ye shall know
3
them," said our Lord, and judged by that ethical stan-
dard the present movement will not stand the test.
There are,indeed, exceptions to the particular fault
upon which we are now insisting for example the ex-
ception formed by the honesty of the Unitarian
Churches, for which we have
the very highest possible

respect but the chief outward successes of Modernism

have been won by wrong methods of which we
the
speak. A true Reformation would be characterized by
justwhat is missing in the Modernism of the present
day; it would be characterized above all by an heroic

honesty which for the sake of principle would push all

consideration of consequences aside.
Such a Reformation we on our part believe to be
needed today; only, we believe that it would be brought
about, not by a new which consists in imitation
religion
of the reduced Jesus of modern naturalism, but by the

rediscovery of the gospel of Christ. This is not the

first time in the history of the world when the gospel

has been obscured. It was obscured in the Middle Ages,

3
Matt, vii: 20.
104 WHAT IS FAITH?
for example; and how long and how dark, in some re-

spects, was that time But the gospel burst forth with
!

new power the same gospel that Paul

and Augustine
had proclaimed. So it may be in our own day; the
gospel may come forth again to bring light and liberty
to mankind. But this new Reformation for which we
long will not be brought about by human persuasions,
or by consideration of consequences, or by those who
seek to save souls through a skfllful use of ecclesiastical
influences, or by those who refrain from speaking the
truth through a fear of "splitting the Church" or of
making a poor showing in columns of Church statistics.
How petty, in the greatday when the Spirit of God
again moves in the Church, all such considerations will
seem! No, when the true Reformation comes, it will
come through the instrumentality of those upon whom
God has laid His hand, to whom the gospel has become
a burning fire within them, who speak because they are
compelled to speak, who, caring nothing for human in-
fluencesand conciliation and external Church combina-
tions and the praise or blame of men, speak the word
that God has given them and trust for the results to
Him alone. In other words, it will be brought about

by men of faith.
We
do not know when such an event will come; and
when comes it will not be the work of men but the
it

work of the Spirit of God. But its coming will be

prepared for, at any not by the concealment of
rate,

issues, but by clear presentation of them; not by peace

in the_ Church between Christian and anti-Christian
forces, but by earnest discussion; not by darkness, but
 FAITH IN CHRIST 105

by the light. Certainly it will not be hindered by an

earnest endeavor to understand what faith in Christ
really is, and how it differs from a faith that is merely
an attempt at imitating Christ's faith.
Such an endeavor may perhaps be furthered by a con-
sideration of one or two of the shibboleths which appear
in the religious literature of the day. Nothing like com-
pleteness will be necessary; we may begin at almost any
point in the literature of the Modernist movement, in
order to discover the rootfrom which it all comes.
There is, for example, the alternative between a gos-
pel about Jesus, and the gospel of Jesus. The Church,
it is said, has been so much concerned with a gospel

about Jesus that the gospel of Jesus has been neglected;

we ought to reverse the process and proclaim the gospel
that Jesus Himself proclaimed.
With regard to this proposal, it should be noticed
that even in its relation to the question of the seat of

authority in religion, it is not so innocent as it might

seem. ^ It proposes that the seat of authority shall be
"the teachings of Christ." But the seat of authority
for the historicChurch has been not merely the teach-
ings of Christ, but the whole Bible. For, the Bible,
therefore, which was formerly regarded as the Word of
God, is to be substituted the very small part of the Bible
which consists in the words which Jesus spoke when
He was on earth. Certainly there are difficulties con-
nected with such a change, due, for example, to the
fact that Jesus, who is to be held as the supreme and sole

authority, placed at the very basis of His own life and

teaching that view of the authority of the whole Bible
106 WHAT IS FAITH?
which is here so lightly being abandoned. The view
which regards the "teachings of Christ" as the sole

authority seems therefore to be self -contradictory; for

the authority of Christ establishes the authority of the
Bible. The truth is that "the teachings of Christ'* can
be truly honored only when they are taken as an organic
part of the divine revelation found in the Scriptures
from Genesis to Revelation; to isolate Christ from the
Bible is to dishonor Christ and reject His teaching.
But the point now is not that the substitution of
the teachings of Jesus for the whole Bible as the seat
of authority in religion is unjustifiable, but rather that
it is at any rate momentous. If it must be accom-
plished, let it at least be accomplished full under- with
standing of the importance of the step.
The true seriousness of the substitution of the gospel
of Jesus for a gospel about Jesus is not, however, limited
to the bearing of this step upon the question of the seat
of authority in religion; even more serious is the differ-

ent attitude toward Jesus which the step involves. The

advocates of a "gospel of Jesus" in the modern sense
seem to imagine that the acceptance of such a gospel
brings Jesus closer to us than is done by the acceptance
of a gospel about Jesus. In reality, the exact opposite
is the case. Of course if the "gospel about Jesus" is
not true, if it sets forth not the facts that inhere in
Jesus Himself, but merely the false opinions of other

persons about Him, or "interpretations" of Him which

have merely temporary validity, then the gospel about
Jesus does place a veil of falsehood between Jesus and
us and should be rejected in order that we may find
 FAITH IN CHRIST 107

contact with Him as He actually was. But entirely

different is the case if the gospel about Jesus sets forth
the facts. In that case that gospel hrings us into a kind
of contact with Him compared with which the mere
acceptance of a gospel which He Himself proclaimed
isa very cold and distant thing.

Acceptance of what Jesus Himself proclaimed does

not in itself mean any more than that He is taken as a
teacherand leader; it is only what might conceivably
be done in the case of many- other men. A man can,
for example, accept the gospel of Paul; that means

merely that he holds the teaching of Paul to be true:

but he cannot accept a gospel about Paul; for that would
give to the apostle a prerogative that belongs only to
hisLord. Paul himself expressed what we mean when
he wrote to the Corinthians: "Was Paul crucified for
4
you"? The great apostle to the Gentiles, in other
words, proclaimed a gospel; but he was not himself the
substance of the gospel, the latter prerogative being re-
served for Jesus Himself. A gospel about Jesus exalts
Jesus, therefore, and brings Him into far closer contact
with us than could ever be done by a gospel of Jesus.
But what was which Jesus proclaimed,
this gospel
this gospel that is to replace the gospel about Him
now
which has been proclaimed by the Apostle Paul and by
Church? Our only knowledge of ft is ob-
the historic
tained from the words of Jesus that are recorded in the
New Testament. But those words as they stand make
it
abundantly plain that the gospel which Jesus pro-
claimed was also, at its very centre, a gospel about Him;
4 I Cor. 13.
i:
108 WHAT IS FAITH?
itdid far more than set forth a way of approach to God
which Jesus Himself followed, but it presented Jesus
as Himself the way which could be followed by sinful
men. According to the New Testament our Lord even
in the days of His flesh presented Himself not merely
as Teacher and Example and Leader but also, and pri-
marily, as Saviour; He offered Himself to sinful men
as One who alone could give them entrance into the
Kingdom of God; everything in His teaching pointed
forward to His redeeming work in His death and resur-
rection; the culmination of Jesus' gospel was the Cross.
The significance of redemption could not, indeed, be
fully pointed out until redemption had actually been
accomplished; and our Lord therefore pointed forward
to the fuller revelation which was to be given through
His apostles: but, although only by way of prophecy,
yet clearly enough, He did, even when He was on earth,
men what He had come into the world
tell to do.
"The Son of Man," He said, "came not to be minis-
tered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom
5
formany/'
So much will perhaps be generally admitted; if the
words of Jesus as they are recorded in the Gospels are

accepted as authentic, then the separation of the gospel

about Jesus from a gospel of Jesus is radically false; for
the gospel about Jesus (which is the gospel that all
through the centuries has brought peace to burdened
souls) was also the gospel which Jesus Himself, even
in the days of His flesh, proclaimed.
If, then, we are to obtain a Jesus who kept His own
5 Mark x: 45.
 FAITH IN CHRIST 109

Person out of His gospel, and offered to men merely the

way of approach to God which He had followed for
Himself, we cannot do so by an acceptance of the New
Testament account of Jesus' words as it stands, but can
do so, if at all, only by a critical process within that
account. The true words of Jesus must be separated
from words falsely attributed to Him before we can
obtain the modern gospel which omits redemption and
the Cross.
But that critical process, upon investigation, is found
to be impossible. Even in the earliest sources supposed,
rightly or wrongly, by modern criticism to underly our
Gospels, Jesus presented Himself not merely as an ex-
6
ample for faith but as the object of faith. He invited
men not merely to have faith in God like the faith which
He had in God, but He invited them to have faith in
Him. He clearly regarded Himself as Messiah, not in
some lower meaning of the word, but as the heavenly
Son of Man who was to come with the clouds of heaven
and be the instrument in judging the world; He clearly
pointed forward to some catastrophic event in which
He was to have a central place, some catastrophic event

by which the Kingdom of Heaven was to be ushered in.

The truth is that the Jesus who preached a gospel of
universal divine fatherhood and a sonship which was
man's right as man never existed until modern times;
Himself not merely as Teacher
the real Jesus presented

but also as Lord and as Redeemer. If, therefore, we

are to hold to the real "gospel of Jesus," we must also

6
See James Denney, Jesus and the Gospel, 1909.
110 WHAT IS FAITH?
hold to "the gospel about Jesus/' and the separation
between the two must be given up.
Another way in which the opposition between a
religion that makes Jesus merely the example for faith
and a religion that makes Him primarily the object of
faith appears in the modern world, is to be found in
the varying answers to the question whether Jesus was
or was not a "Christian." According to a very wide-
spread way of thinking Jesus was the Founder of the
Christian religion because He was the first to live the
Christian life, in other words because He was Himself
the first Christian. According to our view, on the
other hand, Jesus stands in a far more fundamental and
intimate relation to Christianity than that; He was, we
hold, the Founder of our religion not because He was
the first Christian, but because He made Christianity
by His redeeming work.
possible
At no point does the issue in the modern religious
world appear in more characteristic fashion than just
here. Many persons hold up their hands in amazement
at our assertion that Jesus was not a Christian, while
we it as the very height of blasphemy to
in turn regard

say that He was a Christian. "Christianity," to us, is

a way of getting rid of sin; and therefore to say that
Jesus was a Christian would be to deny His holiness.
"But," it is said, "do you mean to tell us that if a

man lives a life like the life of Jesus but rejects the
doctrine of the redeeming work of Christ in His death
and resurrection, he is not a Christian?" The question,
in one form or another, is often asked; but the answer
is very simple. Of course if a man really lives a life
 FAITH IN GOD 111

like the life of Jesus, all is well; such a man is indeed

not a Christian, but he is something better than a Chris-
tian- he is a being who has never lost his high estate of
sonship with God. But our trouble is that our lives,
to say nothing of the lives of these who so confidently
appeal to their own similarity to Jesus, do not seem to
be like the life Unlike Jesus, we are sinners,
of Jesus.
and hence, unlike Him, we become Christians; we are
sinners, and hence we accept with thankfulness the re-
deeming love of the Lord Jesus Christ, who had pity on
us and made us right with God, through no merit of
our own, by His atoning death.
That certainly does not mean that the example of
Jesus is not important to the Christian; on the contrary,
it is the daily guide of His life, without which he would
be like a ship without a rudder on an .uncharted sea.
But the example of Jesus is useful to the Christian not
prior to redemption, but subsequent to it.

In one sense indeed it is useful prior to redemption:

it isuseful in order to bring a sinful man into despair
of ever pleasing God by his own efforts; for if thejife
of Jesus be the life that God requires, who can stand in
His holy presence? Thus to the unredeemed the ex-
ample of Jesus has an important part in the proclama-
tion of that terrible law of God which is the school-
master to bring men unto Christ; it serves by its lofty
purity to produce the consciousness of sin and thus to
lead men to the Cross.
But so far as any comfort or positive help is con-
cerned, the example of Christ is useful only to those
who have already been redeemed. We disagree very
112 WHAT IS FAITH?

strongly therefore with those teachers and preachers who

think that Jesus should first be presented as a leader and
example in order that afterwards, perhaps, He may be
presented as Saviour; we deprecate the popular books
for young people which appeal to the sense of loyalty
as the firstway of approach to Jesus; it seems to us
very patronizing and indeed blasphemous when, for ex-
ample, Jesus' choice of a life-work is presented as a
guide toward the choice of a life-work on the part of

boys and young men. The whole method, we think,

is wrong. The example of Jesus is, indeed, important,
but it is not primary; the first impression to give to a
child is not that of the ways in which Jesus is like us
but that of the ways in which He differs from us; He
should be presented first as Saviour and only afterwards
as Example; appeal should be made not to latent forces

capable of following Jesus' example but to the sense of

sin and need.
Let it not be said that this method of approach is

ill suited to the young, and founded on a false psy-

chology; on the contrary, its effectiveness has been

proved through the long centuries of the Church's life.

Now that it has largely been abandoned boys and girls

drift away from the Church, whereas when it was fol-

lowed they grew up into stalwart Christian men and

women. It is very natural for a child of the covenant
to learn first to trust Christ as Saviour almost as soon
as conscious life begins, and then, having become God's
child through Him, to follow His blessed example.
There is a child's hymn a child's hymn that I think
 FAITH IN CHRIST 113

the Christian can never outgrow which puts the mat-

ter right:
O dearly, dearly has He loved,
And we must love Him too,
And trust in His redeeming blood,
And try His works to do.
That is the true order of Christian pedagogy "trust
in His redeeming blood" first, and then "try His works
to do." Disaster will always follow when that order
is reversed.
The Lord Jesus, then, came into this world not
primarily to say something, not even to be something,
but to do something; He came not merely to lead men
through His example out into a "larger life," but to
give life, through His death and resurrection, to those
who were dead in trespasses and sins; we are Christians
not because we have faith in God like the faith in God
which Jesus Himself had, but because we have faith in
Him.
But can we really have faith in Him? We cannot
do so if He be the mere initiator of the "Christ life"
who is presented in much modern preaching; but we

can do so if He be the living Saviour presented in the

Word of God.
One fearful doubt, however, still assails us. It comes
from what may be called the cosmic aspects of human
life, from the dread thought of the infinite abyss which

is all about us as we walk

upon this earth.
Reflections on the nothingness of human life, it must
be admitted, are often rather dull; they clothe them-
selves readily in cant. But if a thing is true, it cannot
become false by being hackneyed. And as a matter of
114 WHAT IS FAITH?
fact, it cannot be denied that man is imprisoned on one
of the smaller of the planets, that he is enveloped by in-
finity on all sides, and that He lives but for a day in
what seems to be a pitiless procession. The things in
which he is interested, the whole of his world, form but
an imperceptible oasis in the desert of immensity,

Strange that
it ishe can be absorbed in things which
from the vantage ground of infinity must seem smaller
than the smallest playthings.
It cannot be denied: man is a finite creature; he is

a denizen of the earth. From one point of view

he is very much them
like the beasts that perish; like
he lives inworld of phenomena; he is subject to
a
a succession of experiences, and he does not under-
stand any one of them. Science can observe; it can-
not explain: if it tries to explain, it ceases to be sci-
ence and sometimes becomes almost laughable. Man
is certainly finite.
But that is not the whole truth. Man is not only
finite; for he knows that he is finite, and that knowl-
edge brings him into connection with infinity. He
lives in a finite world, but he knows, at least, that

it not the totality of things. He lives in a pro-

is

cession of phenomena, but to save his life he cannot

help searching for a first cause. In the midst of his

trivial life, there rises in his mind one strange and

overpowering thought the thought of God. It may

come by reflection, by subtle argument from effect to

cause, from the design to the designer. Or it may come
by a "sunset touch." Back of the red, mysterious, ter-
rible, silent depths, beyond the silent meeting place of
 FAITH IN CHRIST 115

sea and sky, there is an inscrutable power. In the pres-

ence of it man is helpless as a stick or stone. He is as

helpless,
but more unhappy unhappy because of fear.
With what assurance can we meet the infinite power?
Its works in nature, despite all nature's beauty, are hor-

rible in the infliction of suffering. And what if phys-

ical suffering should not be all; what of the sense of

guilt; what if the condemnation of conscience should

be but the foretaste of judgment; what if contact with
the infinite should be contact with a dreadful infinity
of holiness;what if the inscrutable cause of all things
should turn out to be, after all, a righteous God?
This great beyond of mystery can Jesus help us
there? Make Him as great as you will, and still He
may seem to be insufficient. Extend the domains of
His power beyond our ken, and still there may seem
far
to be a shelving brink with the infinite beyond. And
still we are subject to fear. The mysterious power that
explains the world still, we say, will sweep in and
overwhelm us and our Saviour alike. We are of all ;

men most miserable; we had trusted in Christ; He car-

ried us a little on our way, and then left us, helpless
as before, on the brink of eternity. There is for us no
hope ; we stand defenseless at length in the presence of
unfathomed mystery, unless a wild, fantastic thought
unless our Saviour, this Jesus in whom we had
trusted, were Himself in mysterious union with the
eternal God. Then comes the full, rich consolation
of God's Word- the mysterious sentence in Philippians:
"who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God"; the strange cosmology of Col-
116 WHAT IS FAITH?
ossians: "who is the image of the invisible God, the first-
born of every creature:for by him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible
and whether they be thrones, or dominions,
invisible,
or principalities, or powers: all things were created by
him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by
him things consist"; the majestic prologue of the
all

Fourth Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word, and

the Word was with God, and the Word was God"; the

mysterious consciousness of Jesus: "All things are de-

livered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth
the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the
Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
will reveal him."
These things have been despised as idle speculation,
but in reality they are the very breath of our Christian
lives. are, indeed, the battle ground of theolog-
They
ians; the Church hurled anathemas at those who held
that Christ, though great, was less than God. But
those anathemas were beneficent and right. That dif-
ference of opinion was no trifle; there is no such thing
as "almost God." The thought is blasphemy; the next
thing less than the infinite is infinitely less. If Christ
be the greatest of finite creatures, then still our hearts
are restless, still we are mere seekers after God. But now
is Christ, our Saviour, the One who says, "Thy sins

are forgiven thee," revealed as very God. And we be-

lieve. It is the supreme venture of faith; faith can go
no higher. Such a faith is a mystery to us who possess
it; it is ridiculed by those who have it not. But if

possessed it
pvercomes the world. In Christ all things
 FAITH IN CHRIST 117

are ours. There is now for us no awful Beyond of

mystery and fear. We cannot, indeed, explain the
world, but we rejoice now that we- cannot explain it;
to us it is all unknown, but it contains no mysteries for
our Saviour; He is on the throne; He is at the centre;
He ground and explanation of all things; He pervades
is

the remotest bounds; by Him all things consist. The

world is full of dread, mysterious powers; they touch
us already in a thousand woes. But from all of them
we are safe. "Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is
written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we
are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through Him
that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death,
-

nor nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor

life,

things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor

depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord."
 CHAPTER IV
FAITH BORN OF NEED

It has been shown in the last chapter that the Jesus

who ispresented in the New Testament is one whom a
man no limits to His goodness and
can trust; there are
no limits to His power. But that presentation in it-
self does not afford a sufficient basis for faith; no mat-

ter how great and good be the Saviour, we cannot trust

Him unless there be some contact specifically between

ourselves and Him. Faith in a person involves not
merely the conviction that the person trusted is able to
save,but also the conviction that he is able and willing
to save us; that there should be faith, there must be
some definite relation between the person trusted and a
specific need of the person who trusts. The men and
women to whom Jesus said in the Gospels (in substance
or in word) :
"Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,"
all had very definite needs that they trusted Jesus to
relieve. One was sick, one was deaf, one was blind;
and when they came to Jesus they were not merely con-
vinced that He was in general a powerful healer, but
each of them was convinced, more or less firmly^ that
He could heal his peculiar infirmity, and each of them
sought healing in his own specific case. So it is with
us today. It is not enough for us to know that Jesus

is great and good; it is not enough for us to know that

He was instrumental in the creation of the world and

118
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 119

that He is now seated on the throne of all being. These

things are indeed necessary to faith, but they are not
all that is necessary; if we are to trust Jesus, we must

come to Him personally and individually with some

need of the soul which He alone can relieve.
That need of the soul from which Jesus alone can
save is sin. But when I say "sin," I do not mean
merely the sins of the world or the sins of other people,
but I mean your sin your sin and mine. Considera-
tion of the sins of other people is the deadliest of moral
anodynes; it relieves the pain of conscience, but it also

destroys moral life. Very different is that conviction

of sin which leads a man to have faith in Christ.
That true conviction of sin appears as the prerequisite
of faith in a great verse in the Epistle to the Galatians,
which compass the true Christian
describes in briefest

way of approach to Christ. "Wherefore," says Paul,

"the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
Christ." 1 No doubt Paul is referring specifically to the
law of Moses as the schoolmaster to bring the Jews to
Christ; but we are fully justified in giving the verse a
far wider application. The particular way in which
the Old Testament law, according to Paul, led the Jews
to Christ was that it brought them to despair because
of their sin, and so made them willing to accept the
Saviour when He came. The "schoolmaster" of the
Pauline figure of speech was not, in ancient life, a
teacher; but he was a slave appointed in well-to-do fam-
ilies of the time to go with the children to school and

in general prevent them from having any liberty. The

-1
Gal. iii: 24.
120 WHAT IS FAITH?
figure of speech in that verse is only slightly varied,
therefore, from that which appears just before, where
the law is represented as a jailer. But for the law,
Paul means, the Jews might have thought that their
own righteousness was sufficient; hut every time that
they were tempted to seek escape from condemnation,
the high standard of the law showed to them how very
far short they had come of the will of God, and so they
were prevented from false hopes.

Of course, this is only one aspect of the old dispensa-

tion;even under the old dispensation, according to
Paul, therewas faith as well as law; the grace of God
was revealed as well as His awful righteousness; the
religion of the Old Testament is by no means repre-
sented by Paul one of unrelieved gloom. But so far
as
as man's own efforts were concerned, the gloom, ac-

cording to Paul, was complete; hope was to be found,

not in man, but in God's gracious promise of a salva-
tion that was to come,
Thus the law of Moses, according to Paul, was a
schoolmaster to bring the Jews to Christ because it pro-
duced the consciousness of sin. But if so, it is natural
to suppose that any revelation of the law of God which,
like the law of Moses, produces the consciousness of sin

may similarly serve as a schoolmaster unto Christ. In-

deed we have direct warrant for this wide extension of
the application of the verse. "When the Gentiles,"
Paul says in another passage, "which have not the law,
do by nature the things contained in the law, these,
2
having not the law, are a law unto themselves." Here
2 Rom. ii: 14.
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 121

the law of Moses is plainly brought into relation to a

law under which all men stand; the Old Testament
Scriptures make the law of God plainer than it is to
other men, but all men have received, in their con-
sciences, some manifestation of God's will, and are with-

out excuse when they disobey. However the law is

manifested, then, whether in the Old Testament, or
(still more clearly) in the teaching and example of
Jesus, or in the voice of conscience, it may be a school-
master to bring men to Christ if it produces the con-
sciousness of sin.
Thatis the old way of coming to Christ first peni-

tence at the dread voice of the law, then joy at the gra-
cious invitation of the Saviour. But that way, in rec-
ent years,is being sadly neglected; nothing is 'more char-

of present religious conditions than the loss of

acteristic

the consciousness of sin; confidence in human resources

has now been substituted for the thankful acceptance
of the grace of God.
This confidence in human resources is expressed in
many ways; it is expressed even in prayer. I remember
a service which I attended a year or so ago in an attrac-
tive village church. The preacher, who was a well-edu-
cated, earnest man, had at least the courage of his con-
victions,and gave expression to his optimistic religion
of humanity not only in his sermon but also in his
prayers. After quoting the verse in Jeremiah which
reads, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and des-
3
perately wicked," he said, in effect (though I cannot
remember his exact words) ; "O Lord, thou knowest
8
Jer. xvii: 9.
122 WHAT IS FAITH?
that we cannot accept this interpretation; for we believe
that man does not will to do evil but fails only from
lack of knowledge." That was at least frank and con-
sistent, andmust confess that I had much more respect
I

for it than for the pious phrases in which the modern

religion of humanity is usually veiled. It was pagan-
ism pure and simple, but it was at least a respectable
paganism not afraid of plainness of speech. And in-
deed it ought not to be forgotten that paganism can be
a very respectable thing; the modern confidence in man
is not unlike that of the ancient Stoics ; and Stoicism,
with its doctrine of a universal human brotherhood and
its anticipations of modern humanitarian effort, has
some high ethical achievements to its account.
But the gospel of paganism, ancient and modern, the

gospel that a preacher, whom

heard preach recently,
I

commended as "the simple gospel of human worth,"

has its limitations; its optimism remains, after all, upon
the surface of life, and underneath there are depths that
it can never touch. It is at any rate quite different
from Christian belief; for at the root of Christianity is

a profound consciousness of sin. Superficially, indeed,

there is some similarity; the Modernist preacher speaks
with apparent humility of the sad defects of human
life, and of the need of divine assistance. But such
humility does not touch the heart of the matter at all;
indeed it really implies a similarity in kind, though not
in degree, between what now is and what ought to be.

Very different is the Christian attitude. To the Chris-

tian, sin does not differ from goodness merely in the

degree which achievement has attained but ; it is regarded

 FAITH BORN OF NEED 123

as transgression of a law that is absolutely fixed; the

pagan sense of imperfection is widely different from

the Christian sense of sin.
At the root of the, Christian attitude is a profound
consciousness of the majesty of the moral law. But the
majesty of the moral law is obscured in many ways at
the present time, and most seriously of
in the sphere all

of education. Indeed, strangely enough, it is obscured

in the sphere of education just by those who are be-

coming most keenly conscious of the moral bankruptcy

of modern life. There is something radically wrong
with our public education, it is said; an education that
trains the mind without training the moral sense is a

menace to civilization rather than a help; and something

must quickly be done to check the impending moral
collapse. Tomeet this need, various provisions are
being made
for moral training in our American public
schools; various ethical codes are being formed for the
who
'

instruction of children are under the care of the

State. But the sad thing that these efforts are only
is

making the situation tenfold worse; far from checking

the ravages of immorality, they are for the most part

themselves non-moral at the root. Sometimes they are

also faulty in details, as when a recent moral code in-
dulges in a veiled anti-Christian polemic by a reference
to differences of "creed" that will no doubt be taken
and adopts the pagan notion of a human
as belittling,

brotherhood already established, in opposition to the

Christian notion of a brotherhood to be established by

bringing men into a common union with Christ. But

the real objection to some, if not all, 6f these efforts
124 WHAT IS FAITH?
does not depend upon details; it depends rather upon
the fact that the basis of the effort is radically wrong.
The radical error appears with particular clearness in
a "Children's Morality Code" recently proposed by
"The Character Education Institution" in Washington.
That code contains eleven divisions, the sub-headings
of which are as follows: I, "Good Americans Control

Themselves"; II, "Good Americans Try to Gain and

Keep Good Health"; III, "Good Americans are Kind";

IV, "Good Americans Play Fair"; V, "Good Amer-
icans are Self -Reliant"; VI, "Good Americans Do Their

Duty"; VII, "Good Americans are Reliable"; VIII,

"Good Americans are True"; IX, "Good Americans
Try to do the Right Thing in the Right Way"; X,
"Good Americans Work in Friendly Cooperation with
Fellow-Workers"; XI, "Good Americans are Loyal."
Here we have morality regarded as a consequence of
patriotism; the experience of the nation is regarded as

the norm by which a morality code is to be formulated.

This (thoroughly non-moral) principle .appears in
particularly crass form in "Point Two" of the Insti-
tution's Five-Point Plan for Character Education in

Elementary School Classrooms: "The teacher," says the

pamphlet, "presents the Children's Morality Code as a

reliable statement of the conduct which is considered

right among boys and girls who are loyal to Uncle

Sam, and which is justified by the experience of multi-
tudes of worthy citizens 'who have been Uncle Sam's
boys and girls since the foundation of the nation. The
teacher advises the children to study this Morality Code
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 125

in order to find out what Uncle Sam thinks is

right, ..."
But what of those not infrequent cases where what

"Uncle Sam" thinks is right is what God thinks is

wrong? To say to a child, "Do not tell a lie because

you are an American," is at bottom an immoral thing.

The right thing to say is, "Do not tell a lie because it

is wrong to tell a lie." And I do not think that it is

an unconstitutional intrusion of religion into the pub-

lic schools for a teacher to say that.

In general, the holier-than-thou attitude toward other

peoples, which seems to be implied in the program of
the Character Education Institution almost from begin-
ning to end, is surely, at the present crisis in the history
of the world, nothing short of appalling. The child

ought indeed to be taught to love America, and to feel

that whether it is good or bad it is our country. But
the love of country is a very tender thing, and the
best way to kill it is to attempt to inculcate it by
force. And to teach, in defiance of the facts, that

honesty and kindness and purity are peculiarly Amer-

ican virtues this is surely harmful in the extreme.
We blamed Germany, rightly or wrongly, for this kind
of thing; yet now patriotism we advo-
in the name of
cate as truculent an inculcation of the same spirit as

Prussia could ever have been accused of at its worst.

Surely the only truly patriotic thing to teach the child
is that there is one
majestic moral law to which our own
country and all the countries of the world are subject.
But the most serious fault of this program for "char-
acter building" is that it makes morality a product of
126 WHAT IS FAITH?

experience, that it finds the norm of right conduct in

the determination of that "which
justified hy theis

worthy citizens who have

experience of multitudes of
been Uncle Sam's boys and girls since the founda-
tion of the nation." That is wrong, as we have al-
ready observed, because it bases morality upon the ex-
perience of the nation; but it would also be wrong if it
based it upon the experience of the whole human race.
A code which is the mere result of human experimenta-
tion is not morality at all (despite the lowly etymolog-
ical origin of our English word) but it is the negation
,

of morality. And certainly it will not work. Moral

standards were powerful only when they "were invested
with an unearthly glory and were treated as quite dif-

ferent in kind from all rules of expediency. The truth

is that decency cannot be produced without principle.
It is useless to try to keep back the raging sea of passion
with the flimsy mud-embankments of an appeal to ex-
perience. Instead, there will have to be recourse again,

despite the props afforded by the materialistic paternal-

ism of the modern State, to the stern, solid masonry of
the law of God. An authority which is man-made can
never secure the reverence of man; society can endure
only if it is founded upon the rock of God's commands.
It will now be possible to propose in full our
not
own solution of the difficult educational problem of
which we have just been speaking. We have indeed
such a solution. Most important of all, we think, is

the encouragement of -private schools and Church

schools; a secularized public education, though perhaps
necessary, is a necessary evil; the true hope of any
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 127

people lies in a kind of education in which learning and

piety go hand and hand. Christianity, we believe, is
founded upon a body of facts; it is, therefore, a thing
that must be taught; and it should be taught in Chris-
tian schools.
But taking the public school as an established insti-
tution, and as being, under present conditions, neces-
sary, there are certain ways in which the danger of that
institution may be diminished.
1. The function of the public school should be
limited rather than increased. The present tendency to
usurp parental authority should be checked.
2. The public school should pay attention to the
limited,but highly important, function which it is now
neglecting namely, the impartation of knowledge.
3. The moral influence of the public-school teacher
should be exerted in practical rather than in theoretical
ways. Certainly the (thoroughly destructive and im-
moral) grounding of morality in experience should be
avoided. Unfortunately, the true grounding of moral-
ity in the will of God may, in our public schools, also
have to be avoided. But if the teacher himself knows
the absolute distinction between right and wrong, his
personal influence, without theoretical grounding and
without "morality codes," will appeal to the distinction
between right and wrong which is implanted in the soul
of the child, and the moral tone of the school will be
maintained. We do not for a moment mean that that
sort of training is sufficient; for the only true grounding
of morality is found in the revealed will of God: but at
least it will avoid doing harm.
128 WHAT IS FAITH?
4.The public-school system should be kept healthy
by the absolutely free possibility of the competition of
private schools and Church schools, and the State should
refrain from such regulation of these schools as to make
their freedom illusory.
5. Uniformity in education the tendency which
ismanifested in the proposal of a Federal department
of education in the United States should be avoided
as one of the very greatest calamities into which any
nation can fall.

6. The
reading of selected passages from the Bible,
in which Jews and Catholics and Protestants and others
can presumably agree, should not be encouraged, and
still less should be required by law. The real centre
of the Bibleis redemption and to create the impression
;

that other things in the Bible contain any hope for

humanity apart from that is to contradict the Bible at

its root.Even the best of books, if it is presented in
garbled form, may be made to say the exact opposite
of what it means.
7. Public-school children should be released at cer-

tain convenient hours during the week, so that the

parents, if they choose, may provide for their religious

instruction; but the State should entirely refrain both
from granting school credit for work done in these
hours and from exercising any control whatever either

?upon attendance or upon the character of the instruc-

tion.
Such are in general the alternative proposals that we
might make if we were dealing with the problem
which has led to the efforts at "character building" of
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 129

which we have .spoken. We recognize to the full the

good motives of those who are making such efforts;
but the efforts are vitiated by the false principle that
morality is based upon experience; and so they will
only serve, yet further, we fear, to undermine in the

hearts of the people a sense of the majesty of the law

of God.
Certainly if there be no absolute law of God, there
can be no consciousness of sin; and if there be no con-
sciousness of sin, there can be no faith in the Saviour
Jesus Christ. It is no wonder that many persons re-
gard Jesus merely as the initiator of a "Christ life" into
which they are perfectly able, without more ado, to
enter; it is no wonder
that they regard their lives as

differing only in degree from His. They will never

catch a real glimpse of the majesty of His Person and

they will never understand His redeeming work, until

they come again into contact with the majesty of the
law. Then -and then only will they recognize their
sin and need, and so come to that renunciation of all
confidence in themselves which is the basis of faith.
It must be admitted that this way of approach to

Christ is often rough and thorny. That does not mean,

indeed, that faith in Christ must always be preceded
by agony of soul. Almost unlimited is the variety of
Christian experience; and often faith seems to come
at the same moment as contrition. The children of
Christian parents, in particular, often come to trust
Christ as their Saviour almost as soon as consciousness
begins; these children of the covenant know the grace
of God almost as soon as they know sin. But what-
130 WHAT IS FAITH?
ever be the particular form of Christian experience, the

way of approach to Christ through the law of God al-

ways involves a rebuke to human pride.
It is not surprising, therefore, that other ways of
approach are often proposed. This way being rough
and thorny, other ways are being sought. It seems
hard to many men to enter into the Christian life
through the little wicket gate; and many therefore are
clambering up, over the wall.
In the first place, there is the purely intellectual way.
The claims of Christianity, it is said, must be investi-
gated on their merits, the use of a rigidly scientific
by
method; and only if they are established as true may
they be allowed to control the emotional and volitional
life.

For this method of approach, as will be clear from

allthat has been said in the preceding exposition, we
have the warmest sympathy; indeed, we believe, there
is nothing wrong with the method itself, so far as it
goes, but the trouble lies in the application of the
method. If a man were truly scientific, we think, he
would be convinced of the truth of Christianity
whether he were a saint or a demon; since the truth
of Christianity does not at all depend upon the state of
the soul of the investigator, but is objectively fixed.
But the question is whether a method which ignores the
consciousness of sin is really scientific or not; and the
answer must be, we think, that it is not. If you take
account of all the facts, you will be convinced of the
truth of Christianity; but you cannot take account of
all the facts if you ignore the fact of sin. You cannot
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 131,

take account of all the facts if, while searching the

heavens above and the earth beneath, you neglect the
of your
facts own soul.
Let us see how the ostensibly scientific approach to

Christianity works out. In pursuance of it we begin

in a systematic way; we bring forward, first, our ar-
guments for the existence of a personal God. And I
for my part believe that they are rather good argu-
ments; they have not altogether been demolished, I
think, by the criticism of Kant. If, then, we have

established the existence of God, the question arises

whether He has revealed Himself in such fashion as
that personalcommunion with Him becomes possible
for mankind. Probably it will be admitted that if
He has done so at all, He has done so in the Christian
religion ; Christianity will probably be admitted to offer
the most plausible claim, at least,, among all the re-
ligions of the world to be based upon a real revelation
of God. But has even the Christian claim accredited
itself? It has done so to put the matter in briefest
compass and deal with it at the really crucial point
if Jesus rose from the dead; it has not done so if He

did not rise. Now there is certainly some evidence for

the resurrection of Jesus. Admittedly His intimate
friends believed that He had risen,and upon that be-
lief the Church was founded. But what in turn caused
that belief? answers have been proposed to this
Many
question; but none of them is thoroughly satisfactory,
except the simple answer that the belief of the disciples
was founded upon fact. So much will be rather widely
admitted; the origin of the Christian Church is
132 WHAT IS FAITH?

admittedly a very puzzling fact; only ignorance can

deny the difficulty of the historical problem that it in-
yolves for all naturalistic historians.
But a difficulty, it will be said, is also found in the
traditional solution, as well as in the naturalistic solu-
tions. The difficulty appears in the supernatural char-
acter of the alleged event. If the resurrection were an
ordinary event, the evidence for it would admittedly be
sufficient; but then as a matter of fact it is not an ordi-

nary event but a miracle, and against the acceptance of

any such thing there is an enormous weight of pre-
sumption.
This objection I for my part am not at all inclined
to take lightly. Indeed, if the evidence for the resur-
rection, as we have outlined it, stood alone, it might,
I think, b'e Even if a dozen men for whose
insufficient.

character and attainments I had the highest respect were

to come into the room and tell me, quite independently,
that they had seen a man rise from the dead, I am not
sure whether I should believe them for a moment. Why,
then, do I accord to witnesses of so long ago witnesses
too, who lived in a comparatively unscientific age
(though its unscientific character is often enormously

exaggerated) a degree of credence which I might re-

fuse to trained observers of the present day? do Why
I believe in the resurrection of Jesus when I might not
. believe, even on the basis of overwhelming testimony,
in the resurrection of one of my contemporaries?
The question seems at first sight hard to answer, but
the answer is really not so difficult as it seems. The
answer is that I believe in the miracle which is at" the
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 133

foundation of the Christian Church because in that case

the question does not concern merely the resurrection
of aperson about whom I know nothing, a mere x or y,
but concerns specifically the resurrection of Jesus; and
it

Jesus was like no person who has ever lived. It is un-

believable, I say, that any ordinary man should be

raised from the dead, but then Jesus was no ordinary
man; in His case the enormous presumption against
miracle is reversed; in His case, far from its being in-
conceivable that He should have been raised, it is incon-
ceivable that He should not have been raised; such an
one as He could not possibly have been holden of
death. Thus the direct evidence for the resurrection
is supplemented by an impression of the moral unique-
ness of Jesus' person. That does not mean that if
we are impressed by the moral uniqueness of Jesus' per-
son, the direct evidence for the resurrection is unneces-

sary, or that the Christian can be indifferent to it; but

it does mean
that that impression must be added to the
direct evidence in order to produce conviction.

But how do we know that Jesus' moral character is

absolutely unique? We
do so only because of our con-
viction of sin. Convinced of our own impurity, as re-
vealed by the majesty of the divine law, we become con-
vinced of His dissimilarity in kind from us, and thus
we say that He alone was pure. Thus even in order to
establish the fact of the resurrection, the lesson of the
law must be learned. .

In another way also the conviction of sin is neces-

sary in order that we may believe in the resurrection of

Christ and thus accept the claims of Christianity. The
134 WHAT IS FAITH?
resurrection, as we have seen, if it really took place, was
a miracle; involved an intrusion of the creative power
it

of God into the course of the world. So stupendous

an event is difficult to accept unless we can detect for
it an adequate purpose; and the adequate purpose is
detected only by the man who is under conviction of
sin. Such a man alone can understand the need of re?
demption; he alone knows that sin has introduced a
great rent into the very structure of the universe, which
only a creative act ofGod can close. The truly peni-
tent man
rejoices in the supernatural; for he knows
that nothing natural can possibly meet his need. He
rejoices even in the new consciousness of the uniformity
and unity of nature which has been so widely dissemi-
nated by modern science; for that uniformity of nature
only reveals with new clearness the sheer uniqueness of
the redemption offered by Christ.
Thus even in order to exhibit the truth of Christi-
anity at the bar of reason, necessary to learn the les-
it is

son of the law. It is impossible to prove first that Chris-

tianity is true, and then proceed on the basis of its truth
to become conscious of one's sin ; for the fact of sin is

itself one of the chief foundations upon which the proof

is based.
When that fact of sin is recognized, and when to
the recognition of it is added a fair scrutiny of the his-
torical evidence, then it seems thoroughly reasonable

to believe that Christianity is true. Anyone whose

mind is clear, no matter what his personal attitude may
be, will, we think, accept the truth of Christianity;
but no one's mind is clear who denies the facts of his
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 135

own soul: in order to come to the Christian view of

Christ it is necessary only to be scientific; but no one
can be truly scientific who ignores the fact of sin.
We are not ignoring the emotional and volitional
aspects of faith; we are not denying that as a matter
of fact, in, humanity as it is actually constituted, an in-
tellectual conviction of the truth of Christianity is al-
ways accompanied by a change of heart and a new
direction for the will. That does not mean that Chris-

tianity is true only for those who thus will to accept

it, and that it isnot true for others; on the contrary
it is true, we think, even for the demons in hell as well'
as for the saints in heaven, though its truth does the
demons no good. But for a thing to be true is one
thing and for it to be recognized as true is another;
and in order that Christianity may be recognized as true
by men upon this earth the blinding effects of sin must
be removed. The blinding effects of sin are removed
by the Spirit of God; and the Spirit chooses to do that
only for those whom He brings by the new birth into
theKingdom of God. Regeneration, or the new birth,
therefore, does not stand in opposition to a truly scien-
tific attitude toward the evidence, but on the contrary
it is necessary in order that that truly scientific attitude
may be attained; it is not a substitute for the intellect,
but on the contrary by it the intellect -is made to be a
trustworthy instrument for apprehending truth. The
true state of the case appears in the comprehensive an-
swer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism to the ques-
tion, "What is effectual calling?" "Effectual calling,"
says the Catechism, "is the work of God's Spirit, where-
136 WHAT IS FAITH?
by, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening
our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing
our wills, He doth persuade and enable us to embrace
Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel." That
does justice to all aspects of the matter; conviction of
ism and misery as the prerequisite of faith, the enlight-
ening of a mind blinded by sin, the renewing of the
will; and all these things produced by the Spirit of God.
In the second place, instead of following the purely
intellectual way that has just been discussed, men some-
times try to come to Christ through the sense of beauty.
And indeed it is a beautiful thing this life of Christ

rising like a fair flower amid the foulness of the Roman

Empire, this strange teaching so simple and yet so pro-
found. But there is at least one objection to the sense

of beauty as the way of approach to Christ it cannot

be forced upon those who desire it not. There is no dis-

puting about tastes: one man may admire Jesus, an-
other may prefer the pagan glories of ancient Greece or
of the Italian Renaissance; and if it is a merely~sthetic

question, no universally valid decision can be attained.

If the way of approach is merely through the sense of

beauty, then the universality of the Christian religion,

at any rate, must be given up.
Is the life and teaching of Jesus, moreover, so beau-
tiful after all? Jesus said some things that offend the
sensibilities of many people, as when He spoke of the
outer darkness and the everlasting fire, and of the sin
that shall not be forgiven either in this world or in that
which is These things cannot be called exactly
to come.

"pretty"; and by many men they are simply ignored.

 FAITH BORN OF NEED 137

Some years ago I heard a preacher who, after the cus-

tomary abuse of Calvin and others, obtained a smile

from his congregation by quoting something that Cot-
ton Mather had said about hell. The question that
might have occurred to me as I listened was why the
preacher had to go so far afield. Why
should he have
had recourse to Cotton Mather, when Jesus would have
done just as well? There words of Jesus about hell,
are

just as terrible asany found in the writings

that can be
of the theologians; and those words might have obtained
as good a smile from that congregation as the words
of Jonathan Edwards or Cotton Mather or the rest.
There is, however, one class of persons from whom
those words would have obtained no such smile, and
to whom they would have seemed not to mar one whit
the beauty of the teaching of our Lord. These are the

persons who have passed through the strange experience

of the conviction of sin, the persons who hold the same
view of sin and retribution that Jesus held. To such
persons, and to such persons alone, the beauty of Jesus
is without a flaw. That beauty cannot be appreciated
without a knowledge of the holiness upon which it is

based; and the holiness is unknown except to those who

have been convicted of their own sin through learning
the lesson of the law.
In the third place, men try to come to Christ through
the desire for companionship; they seek in' Him a friend
who will be faithful when other friends depart. But
companionship with Jesus is not always the comfort-
able thing that it is sometimes thought to be; Jesus
did not always make it easy to be a disciple of Him.
138 WHAT IS FAITH?
"Let the dead bury their dead," He told the enthusiast
who came eagerly to Him but was not willing at once
to forsake all. "One thing thou lackest," He said to
the richyoung ruler, and the young man went sorrow-
ing away. "He that is not with me," He said to men
who wanted to enjoy His companionship without defi-
nitely taking sides, "is against me," "If any man
come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and
wife, and children .... he cannot be my disciple."
It was a very serious thing, in those Galilean days, to
be a disciple of Christ.
And it was a serious thing not only in the sphere of
conduct but also in the sphere of thought. There could
be no greater mistake than to suppose that a man in
those days could think as he liked and still be a follower
of Jesus. On the contrary the offence lay just as much
in the sphere of doctrine as in the sphere of life; the
exclusive claims of Jesus that a man should if neces-

sary forsake all to follow Him were grounded in the

stupendous view which He held of His own Person and
mission; no man could really enjoy the companionship
of Jesus who did not admit His absolute sway. .

There were some indeed to whom His yoke was easy

and His burden was light; there were some who re-
joiced in His lofty demands as the very hope of their
lives. These were the men who had come under the
conviction of sin the sinners, who without a plea
except in His mercy heard the gracious words, "Thy
sins are forgiven thee."
As it was then, so also it will be, today: the com-

panionship of Jesus is indeed a gracious thing for bur-

 FAITH BORN OF NEED 139

dened souls; but it is who

a terrible thing for those
have any trust in a righteousness of their own. No
man can call Jesus friend who does not also call Him
Lord; and no man can call Him Lord who could not
say first; "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man,
Lord." At with
the root of all true companionship
Jesus, therefore, is the consciousness of sin and with it
the reliance upon His mercy; to have fellowship with
Him it is necessary to learn the terrible lesson of God's
law.
Finally, men seek to come to Christ through the
a worthy ideal; indeed that
desire for way is just now
the most commonly followed of all. "I may not be
very orthodox," says many a modern man, "but I am
a Christian because I believe that the principles of Jesus
will solve all the problems of my life and also all the

problems of society."
The most obvious objection to this way of approach
to Jesus is that it will not work; an ideal is quite

powerless to a man who is under the thraldom of sin;

and the real glory of Jesus is that He breaks that thral-
dom, and instead of giving merely guidance, as an ideal
would do, gives also power.
There is, however, also another objection. Jesus,
it is said, can be taken as the supreme and
perfect ideal
for humanity. But is He really a perfect ideal? There
is one
difficulty which modern men find about taking
Him as such due to His stupendous
the difficulty
claims. There can be no real doubt, in the mind of a
historian who examines the facts, but that Jesus of
Nazareth regarded Himself as the Messiah; and there
140 WHAT IS FAITH?
can also be no real doubt but thatHe regarded Himself
as the Messiah not merely in some lower meaning of
the term, but in the lofty meaning by which it desig-
nated the heavenly Son of Man, the glorious figure who
appears in the seventh chapter of Daniel in the presence
of the Ancient of Days. This Jesus of Nazareth, in
other words, who is to be taken as the supreme moral
ideal of the race, actually believed, as He looked out
upon His contemporaries, that He was one day to sit
upon the throne of God and be their Judge and the
Judge of all the earth! Would not such a person have
been, if not actually insane, at least unbalanced and
unworthy of the full confidence of men?
There is only one
of overcoming this difficulty
way
it is to accept the lofty claims of Jesus as sober truth.

If the claims are denied, then argue as men will the

Galilean prophet ceases to be a supreme and perfect
ideal. But the claims can be accepted as true only when
one takes the same view of Jesus' mission as that which
Jesus took, only when one regards Him as the divine
Redeemer who came voluntarily into the world to save
mankind from the guilt and power of sin. If Jesus
is only an ideal, He is not a perfect ideal; for He claimed
to be far more: but if He is the Saviour from sin, then
He is the perfect Example that can never be surpassed.
But He can be accepted as the Saviour from sin only
by those who hold the same view of sin as that which
He held; and that view can be held only by those who
have learned the lesson of the law.
The fact is, then, that there is no other way of
coming to Christ except the old, old way that is found
 FAITH BORN OF NEED 141

in the conviction of sin. The truth of Christianity

cannot he established hy the intellect unless an impor-
tant part of the argument based upon the fact of sin
is

which is revealed by the law of God; the beauty of

Jesus, which attracts the gaze of men, cannot be appre-
ciated without a knowledge of the holiness upon which
~it is based; the companionship of Jesus is possible only
to those who say first, in deep contrition; "Depart
from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord"; the example
of Jesus is powerless to those who are in the bondage
of evil habit, and not even a perfect example unless
it is

He be the divine Redeemer that He claimed to be. The

true schoolmaster to bring men to Christ is. found,
therefore, now and always in the law of God- the law
of God that gives to men the consciousness of sin.
A new and more powerful proclamation of that law
is perhaps the most pressing need of the hour; men
would have little difficulty with the gospel if they had
only learned the lesson of the law. As it is, they are
turning aside from the Christian pathway; they are
turning to the village of Morality, and to the house of
Mr. Legality, who reported to be very skillful in re-
is

lieving men of their burdens. Mr. Legality has indeed

in ourday disguised himself somewhat, but he is the
same deceiver as the one of whom Bunyan wrote.
"Making Christ Master" in the life, putting into prac-
tice "the principles of Christ" by one's own efforts
these are merely new ways of earning salvation by one's
own obedience to God's commands. And they are
undertaken because of a lax view of what those com-
mands are. So it always is: a low view of law always
 142 WHAT IS FAITH?

brings legalism in religion; a high view of law makes

.V a man a seeker after grace. Pray God that the high
view mayagain prevail; that Mount Sinai may again
overhang the path and shoot forth flames, in order that
then the men of our time may, like Christian in the
allegory, meet some true Evangelist, who shall point
them out the old, old way, through the little wicket

gate, to the place somewhat ascending where they shall

really see the Cross and the figure of Him that did hang
thereon, that at that sight the hurden of the guilt of
sin, which no human hand could remove, may fall
from their back into a sepulchre beside the way, and
that then, with wondrous lightness and freedom and

joy, they may walk the Christian path, through the

Valley of Humiliation and the Valley of the Shadow
of Death, and up over the Delectable Mountains, until
at last they pass triumphant across the river into the
City of God.
 CHAPTER Vj

FAITH AND THE GOSPEL

If what we have said so far be correct, there is now

living a Saviour who is worthy of our trust, even
Christ Jesus the Lord, and a deadly need of our souls
for: which we come to Him, namely, the curse of God's

law, the terrible guilt of sin. But these things are not
all that is needed in order that we may have faith. It
is also necessary that there should be contact between
the Saviour and our need. Christ is a sufficient Saviour;
but what has He done, and what will He do, not
merely for the men who were with Him in the days
of His flesh, but for us? How is it that Christ touches
our lives?
The answer which the Word of God gives to that
question is
perfectly specific and
perfectly plain. Christ
touches our lives, according to the New Testament,
through the Cross. We deserved eternal death, in ac-
cordance with the curse of God's law; but the Lord
Jesus, because He loved us, took
upon Himself the guilt
of our sins and died instead of us on Calvary. And
faith consists simply in our acceptance of that wond-
rous gift. When we accept the gift, we are clothed,
entirelywithout merit of our own, by the righteousness
of Christ; when God looks
upon us, He sees not our
impurity but the spotless purity of Christ, and accepts
us "as righteous in His sight, only for the
,
righteousness
1
143
144 WHAT IS FAITH?
of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone."
That view of the Cross, it cannot be denied, runs
counter to the mind of the natural man. It is not,

indeed, complicated or obscure; on the contrary it is

so simple that a child can understand, and what is really
obscure is the manifold modern effort to explain the
Cross away in such fashion as to make
it more agreeable

to human pride. But certainly it is mysterious, and

certainly it demands for its acceptance a tremendous
sense of sin and guilt. That sense of sin and guilt, that
moral awakening of a soul dead in sin, is the work of
the Spirit of God; without the Spirit of God no human
persuasion will ever bring men to faith. -But that does
not mean that we should be careless about the way in
which we proclaim the gospel: because the proclama-
tion of the message is insufficient to induce faith, it does
not follow that it is unnecessary; on the contrary it

is the means which the Spirit Himself graciously uses

in bringing men to Christ. Every effort, therefore,
should be made, with the help of God, to remove ob-
jections to this "word of the Cross" and to present it
in. all its gracious power.
No systematic effort can indeed here be made to deal
with the objections. 1 All that can be done is to men-
tion one or two of them, in order that our present
point, that the Cross of Christ is the special basis of
Christian faith, may become plain.
In the placerthen, tEe view of the Cross which
first

has just been outlined is often belittled as being merely

* Some of them have heen with and
dealt briefly in Christianity
Liberalism, 1923, pp. 120-136,
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 145

a "theory of the atonement." We can have the fact

of the atonement, no matter what particular
it is said,

theory of it we hold, and indeed even without holding

any particular theory of it at all. So this substitution-

ary view, it is said, is after all only one theory among

many.
s
This objection is based upon a mistaken view of the
'distinction between fact and theory, and upon a some-

what ambiguous use of the word "theory." What is

meant by a "theory"? Undoubtedly the word often
has rather an unfavorable sound; and the use of it in
the present connection might seem to imply that the
view of the atonement which is designated as a "theory"

is a mere effort of man to explain in his own way what

God has given. But might not God have revealed the
"theory" of a thing just as truly as the thing itself;
might He not Himself have given the explanation when
He gave the thing? In that case the explanation just
as, much as the thing itself comes to us with a divine

authority, and it is impossible to accept one without

accepting the other.
We have not yet, however, quite gotten to the heart
of the matter. Men say .that they accept the fact of
the atonement without accepting the substitutionary
theory of it, and indeed without being sure of any
theory of it at all. The trouble with this attitude is
that the moment we say "atonement" we have already

overstepped the line that separates fact from theory; an

,

, "atonement" even in the most general and most indefi-

nite sense thatcould conceivably be given to the word,
cannot possibly be a mere fact, but is a fact as explained
146 WHAT IS FAITH?
V
by its purpose and results. If we say that an event was
an "atonement" for sin or an "atonement" in the sense
of an establishment of harmony between God and man,
we have done more than designate the mere external
event. What we have really done is to designate the
'eventwith an explanation of its meaning. So the
atonement wrought by Christ can never be a bare fact,
in the sense with which we are now dealing. The
bare fact is simply the death of a Jew upon a cross in
the century of pur era, and that bare fact is entirely
first

without value to anyone; what gives it its value is the

explanation of it as a means by which sinful man was
brought into the presence of God. It is impossible for
us to obtain the slightest benefit from a mere contem-
plation of the death of Christ; all the benefit comes
from our knowledge of the meaning of that death, or
in other words (if the term be used in a high sense)
from our "theory" of it. If, therefore, we speak of the
bare "fact" of the atonement, as distinguished from the

"theory" of it, we are indulging in a misleading use of

words; the bare fact is the death, and the moment we
say "atonement" we have committed ourselves to a

theory. The important thing, then, is, since we must

have some theory, that the particular theory that we
hold shall be correct.
But, it may be said, might not God really have ac-
complished some wonderful thing by the death of
Christ without revealing to us, except in the most gen-
eral terms, what it was? ,

Might He not have told us

simply that our salvation depends upon the death of

Christ without at all telling us why that is so? We
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 147,

answer that He certainly might have done so; but the

question is whether He has actually done so. There

are many things which He might conceivably have done
and yet has not actually "done. Conceivably, for ex-
ample, He might have saved us by placing us in a coa-
dition of unconsciousness and then awakening us to a
new life in whid? sin should have no place. But it is
perfectly plain that as a matter of fact He has not done
so; and even we, with our poor finite intelligence, may
perhaps see that His way is better than that. So it is

perfectly conceivable that He might have saved us by

the death of Christ without revealing to us how He
did so; in that case we should have tp prostrate our-
selves before a crucifix with an understanding far lower
than that which is found in the lowest forms of Roman

Catholic piety.He might conceivably have treated us

thus. But, thank God, He has not done so; thank
God He has been pleased, in His infinite grace, to deal
with us not as with sticks and stones, but as with per-
sons; thank God He has been pleased to reveal to us
in the Cross of Christ a meaning that stills the despair^
ing voice of conscience and puts in our hearts a song of
joy that shall resound to His praise so long as eternity
endures.
That richness of found only in the blessed
meaning is

doctrine that upon the Cross the Lord took our place,
that He offered Himself "a sacrifice , to satisfy divine
justice, and reconcile us to God."
There a're indeed
other ways of contemplating the Cross, and they should

certainly not be neglected by the Christian man. But

it is a sad and fatal mistake to treat those other
ways
,148 WHAT IS FAITH?
as though they lay on the same plane with this one
fundamental way; in reality the other "theories" of
the atonement lose all their meaning unless they are
taken in connection with this one blessed "theory."
When taken with this way of looking upon the Cross,
the other
ways are full of helpfulness to the Christian

man; but without it they lead only to confusion and

despair. Thus the Cross of Christ is certainly a noble

example of self-sacrifice; but if it be only a noble ex-

ample of self-sacrifice, it has no comfort for burdened

souls; it certainly shows how God hates sin; but if it

does nothing but show how God hates sin, it only

deepens our despair; it certainly exhibits the love of
God, but if it does nothing but exhibit the love of God

it a mere meaningless exhibition which seems un-

is

worthy of God. Many things are taught us by the

Cross; but the other things are taught us only if the
really central meaning is preserved, the central meaning

upon which all the rest depends. On the cross the

penalty of our sins was paid; it is as though we our-
selves had died in fulfillment of the just curse of the
law; the handwriting of ordinances that was against
us was wiped out; and henceforth we have an entirely
new life in the full favor of God.
Thereis, however, another objection to this "word

of the Cross." The objection comes from those who

place faith in a person in opposition to acceptance of a
doctrine, especially a doctrine that is based upon what
happened long ago. Can we not, it is said, trust Christ
as a present Saviour without accepting a doctrine that
explains the death that He died in the first century of
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 149,

our era? This question, in one form or another, is

often asked, and it is often answered in the affirmative.
Indeed, the doctrinal message about Christ of ten rep-
is

resented as a barrier that needs to be done away in order

that we may have Christ Himself; faith in a doctrine
should be removed, it is said, in order that faith in a
Person may remain.
Whatever estimate may finally be made of this way
of thinking, it must at any rate be admitted at the start

that it involves a complete break with the primitive

Chrisian Church. If any one thing must be clear to the
historian, it is that Christianity at the beginning was
founded squarely upon an account of things that had
happened, upon a piece of news, or in other words,
upon a "gospel." The matter is particularly clear in
the summary which Paul in I Cor. xv. 3-7 gives of the

primitive Jerusalem tradition: "How that Christ died

for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he
was buried, and that he rose again the third day accord-
ing to the Scriptures." The earliest Christian Church
was founded not merely upon what
in Jerusalem clearly

always was true but upon things that had happened,

not merely upon eternal truths of religion but upon
historical facts. The historical facts upon which it was
founded were, moreover, not bare facts but facts that
had a meaning; it was not only said that "Christ died"
that would be word "Christ" were
(at least if the
taken as a mere propername and not in the full, lofty
signification of "Messiah") a bare fact- but it was
said "Christ died for our sins," and that was a fact
150 WHAT IS FAITH?
with the meaning of the fact in other words it was
a doctrine.
This passage is of course not isolated in the New
Testament teaching, but is merely a summary of what
is really the presupposition of the whole.Certainly the
grounding of Christianity upon historical facts, upon

events as distinguished from mere eternal principles, can-

not be regarded as a point in which the apostolic Church
was in contradiction to the teaching which Jesus Him-
self gave in the days of His flesh, but finds it justifica-

tion in the words which Jesus uttered. Of course if

Jesus really, as the New Testament books all represent,
came to use the language of a certain distinguished

preacher not primarily to say something but to do

something, and if that something was done by His death
and resurrection, then it is natural that the full ex-

planation of what was done could not be given until

the death and resurrection had occurred. It is a great

mistake, therefore, to regard the Sermon on the Mount

as somehow more sacred or more necessary to the nur-
ture of the Christian life than, for example, the eighth

chapter of Romans. But although the full explanation

of redemption could not be given until the redeeming
event had taken place, yet our Lord did, by way of
prophecy, even in the days of His flesh, point forward
to what was to come. He did point forward to catas-

trophic events by which salvation was to be given to

men; all efforts to eliminate this element in His teaching
about the Kingdom of God have failed. During Jesus'

earthly ministry the redeeming work which the Old

Testament prophets had predicted was still in the
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 151

future; to the apostolic Church it was in the past: but

both Jesus and the apostolic Church did proclaim, the
one by way of prophecy, the other by way of historical
testimony, an event upon which the hopes of believers
we.re based.
Thus the notion that insistence upon the message of
redemption through the death and resurrection of our
Lord places a barrier between ourselves and Him was
not shared by the earliest Christian Church; on the
contrary, in the apostolic age that message was regarded
as the source of all light and joy. And in the present
instance, as in so many other instances, it can be shown
that the apostles (and our Lord Himself) were right.
The truth is that the whole opposition between faith in
a personand acceptance of a message about the person
must be given up. we have already seen,
It is based, as

upon a false
psychology; a person cannot be trusted
without acceptance of the facts about the person. But
in the case of Jesus thenotion is particularly false; for
it isjust the message about Jesus, the message that sets
forth his Cross and resurrection, that brings us into
contact with Him. Without that message He would be
forever remote a great Person, but one with whom we
could have no communion but through that mes-
.

sage He comes to be our Saviour. True communion

with Christ comes not when a man merely says, in
contemplating the Cross, "This was a righteous man,"
or "This was a son of God," but when he says with
tears of gratitude and joy, "He loved me and gave Him-
self for me."
There is a wonderful clause in the Westminster
152 WHAT IS FAITH?
Shorter Catechism which puts the true state of the -case-
in classic form. "Faith in Jesus Christ," says the Cate-
chism, "is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest
upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in
the gospel" In that last clause, "as He is offered to
us in the gospel," we have -the, centre and core of the
whole matter. The Lord Jesus Christ does us no
good, no matter how great He may he, unless He is
offered to us; and as a matter of fact He is offered to
us in the good news of His redeeming work. There are
other conceivable ways in which He might have been
offered to us ; but this has the advantage of being God's
way. And I rather think that in the long run we may
come to see that God's way is best.
At the beginning, it is true, there may be much that
we cannot understand; there are things about the way
of salvation that we may at first have to take in the
fullest sense "on faith." The greatest offence of all,
perhaps, is the wondrous simplicity of the gospel, which
is so different from the plans which we on our part
had made. Like Naaman the Syrian we are surprised
when our rich fees and our letters of introduction are
spurned, when all our efforts to save ourselves by our
own character or our own good works are counted as
not of the slightest avail. "Are not Abana and Phar-
par, rivers ofDamascus," we say, "better than all the
waters of Israel?" Are not our own efforts to put into
operation the "principles of Jesus," or to "make Christ
Master" by our own efforts in our lives, better than this
strange message of the Cross? But like Naaman we
may find, if we put away our pride* if we are/willing to
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 153

take God at His. word, if we confess that His way is

best, that our flesh, may come again
so foul with sin,
like the flesh of a and we may be clean.
little child
And then will be revealed to us the fuller wonders
of salvation; then, as the years go by, we shall come to
understand ever more and more the glory of the Cross.
It may seem strange at first that Christ should be
offered to us not in some other way, but so specifically
in this way; but as we grow in knowledge and in grace
we shall come to see with increasing fullness that no
way could possibly be better than this. Christ is offered
to us not in general, but "in the gospel"; but in the gos-

pel there is included all that the heart of man can wish.
We ought never, therefore, to set present communion
with Christ, as so many are doing, in opposition to the

gospel; we ought never to say that we are interested

in what Christ does for us now, but are not so much
interested inwhat He did long ago. Do you know
what soon happens when men talk in that way? Tht
answer is only too plain. They soon lose all contact
with the real Christ: what they call "Christ" in the
soul soon comes to have little to do with the actual
person, Jesus of Nazareth; their religion would really
remain essentially the same if scientific history should
prove that such a person as Jesus never lived. In other
words, they soon came to substitute the imaginings of
their own hearts for what God has revealed; they sub-
stitute mysticism for Christianity as the religion of their
souls.

That danger should be avoided by the Christian man

with all his might and main. God has given us an
154 WHAT IS FAITH?
anchor for our souls; He has anchored us to Himself
by the message of the Cross. Let us never cast that
anchor off; let us never weaken our connection with
the events upon which our faith is hased. Such de-
pendence upon the past will never prevent us from hav-
ing present communion with Christ; our communion
with Him will be as inward, as intimate, as untram-
melled by any barriers of sense, as the communion of
which the mystics boast; but unlike the communion of
the mystics it will be communion not with the imagin-
ings of our own hearts, but with the real Saviour Jesus
Christ. The gospel of redemption through the Cross
and resurrection of Christ is not a barrier between us

and Christ, but it is tie, by which, with the

the blessed
cords of His love, He has bound us forever to Him.
Acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He is offered
to us in the gospel of His redeeming work, is saving
faith. Despairing of any salvation to be obtained by
our own we simply trust in Him to save us;
efforts,
we say no longer, as we contemplate the Cross, merely
"He saved others" or "He saved the world" or "He
saved the Church"; but we say, every one of us, by the
strange individualizing power of faith, "He loved we
and gave Himself for me." When a man once says
and not merely with his lips, then no
that, in his heart
matter what his guilt may be, no matter how far he
is beyond any human pale, no matter how little oppor-

tunity he has for making good the evil that he has

done, he is a ransomed soul, a child of God forever.
At this point, a question may perhaps be asked. We
have said that saving faith is acceptance of Christ, not
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 155

merely in general, but as He is offered to us in the gos-

pel.
How much, then, of the gospel, it may be asked,
does a man need to accept in order that he may be saved;
what, to put it baldly, are the minimum doctrinal re-
quirements in order that a man may be a Christian?
That is a question which, in one form or another, I

am often asked; but it is also a question which I have

never answered, and which I have not the slightest in-
tention of answering now. Indeed it is a question
which I think no human being can answer. Who can
presume to say for certain what is the condition of
another man's soul; who can presume to say whether
the other man's attitude toward Christ, which he can

express but badly in words, is an attitude of saving

faith or not? This is one of the things which must
surely be left to God.
There is indeed a certain reason why it is natural to
ask the question to which we have just referred; it is
natural because of the existence of a visible Church.
The visible Church should strive to receive, into a com-
munion for prayer and fellowship and labor, as many as
possible of those who are united to Christ in saving

faith, and it should strive to exclude as many as pos-

sible of those who are not so united to Him.
it doesIf
not practise exclusion as well as inclusion, it will soon
come to stand for nothing at all, but will be merged in
the life of the world; it will soon become like salt that
has lost its only to be cast out and to be
savour; fit

trodden under foot of men.

In order, therefore, that the purity of the Church
may be preserved, a confession of faith in Christ must
156 WHAT IS FAITH?
be required of all those who would become Church

members. But what kind of confession must it be? I

for mypart think that it ought to be not merely a ver-
bal confession, but a credible .confession. One of the
very greatest evils of present-day religious life, it seems
to me, is the reception into the Church of persons who
merely repeat a form of words such as "I accept Christ
as my personal Saviour," without giving the slightest
evidence to show that they know what such words
mean. As a consequence of this practice, hosts of per-
sons are being received into the Church on the basisras
has been well said, of nothing more than a vague ad-
miration for the moral character of Jesus, or else on
the basis of a vague purpose of engaging in humani-
tarian work. One such person within the Church does
more harm to the cause of Christ, I for my part believe,
than ten such persons outside; and the whole practice
ought to be radically changed. The truth is that the
currency in our day has been sadly debased;
ecclesiastical

Church membership, as well as Church office, no longer

means what it ought to mean. In view of such a sit-
uation, we ought, have reality at least; in-
I think, to

stead of comforting ourselves with columns of church

statistics, we ought to face the facts; we ought to re-
call this paper currency and get back to a standard of
gold.
To that end, it should, I think, be made much
harder than it now is to enter the Church: the confes-
sion of faith that is required should be a credible con-
fession; and becomes evident upon examination
if it

that a candidate has no notion of what he is doing, he

 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 157

should be advised to enter upon a course of instruction

before he becomes a member of the Church. Such a
course of instruction, moreover, should be conducted
not by comparatively untrained laymen, but ordinarily
by the ministers; the excellent institution of the cate-

chetical class should be

generally revived. Those
churches, like the Lutheran bodies in America, which
have maintained that institution, have profited enor-
mously by its employment; and their example deserves
to be generally followed.
After all, however, such inquiries into the state of
the souls of men and women and children who desire
to enter into the Church must be regarded as at the
best very rough and altogether provisional. Certainly
requirements for Church membership should be dis-
tinguished in the sharpest possible way from require-
ments for the ministry. The confusion of these two
things in the ecclesiastical discussions of the past few %
years has resulted in great injustice to us who are called
conservatives in the Church. We have been represented
constantly as though we were requiring an acceptance of
the infallibility of Scripture or of the confession of faith
of our Church from those who desire to become Church
members, whereas in point of fact we have been re-
quiring these things only from candidates for ordina-
tion. Surely there is a very important distinction here.
Many persons to take a secular example can be ad-
mitted to an educational institution as students who yet
are not qualified for a position in the faculty.. Similarly

many persons can be admitted to Church membership

who yet ought not to be admitted to the ministry; they
158 WHAT IS FAITH?
are qualified to learn, but not qualified to teach; they
should not be allowed to stand forth as accredited
teachers with the official endorsement of the Church.
This analogy, it is true, does not by any means al-
together hold: the Church is not, we think, merely an
educational institution, but the visible representative in
the world of the body of Christ; and its members are
not merely seekers after God, but those who have al-
ready found; they are not merely interested in Christ,
but are united to Christ by the regenerating act of the
Spirit ofGod. Nevertheless, although the analogy does
not fully hold, it does hold far enough to illustrate
what we mean. There is a wide margin of difference be-
tween qualifications for Church membership and qual-
ifications for office especially the teaching office that
we call the ministry. Many a man, with feeble, strug-
gling belief, torn by many doubts, may be admitted
into the fellowship of the Church and of the sacra-
ments; would be heartless to deprive him of the com-
it

fort which such fellowship affords; to such persons

the Church freely extends its nurture to the end that

they may be led into ever fuller knowledge and ever

firmer faith. But to admit such persons to the ministry
would be a crime against Christ's little ones, who look
to the ministry for an assured word as to the way by
which they shall be saved. It is not, however, even
such persons to whom chiefly we have reference when
we advocate today a greater care in admitting men to
the ministry. It is not men who are struggling with

doubts and difficulties about the gospel to whose admis-

sion we chiefly object, but men who are perfectly satis-
 FAITH AND THE GOSPEL 159

fied with another gospel; it is not men of ill-assured

faith, but men of assured unbelief.
Even with regard to Church membership, as dis-
tinguished from the ministry, there is, as we have seen,
a limit beyond which exclusion must certainly be prac-
tised; not only a desire to enter the Church should be

required but also some knowledge of what entering the

Church means, not only a confession of faith but a
reasonably credible confession. But the point that we
are now making is that such requirements ought clearly
to be recognized as provisional; they do not determine
a man's standing before God, but they only determine,
with the best judgment that God has given to feeble
and ignorant men, a man's standing in the visible
Church. That is one reason why we must refuse to
answer, in any definite and formal way, the question
as to the minimum doctrinal requirements that are

necessary in order that a man may be a Christian.

There is, however, also another reason. The other
reason that the very asking of the question often be-
is

tokens an unfortunate attitude with regard to Christian

truth.For our part We have not much sympathy with
some greatest
the present widespread desire of finding
common denominator which shall unite men of dif-
ferent Christian bodies; for such a greatest common
denominator often found to be very small indeed.
is

Some men seem to devote most of their energies to the

task of seeing just how little of Christian truth they
can get along with. For our part, we regard it as a
perilous business; we prefer, instead of seeing how little
of Christian truth we can get along with, to see just
160 WHAT IS FAITH?
how much of Christian truth we can obtain. We
ought to search the Scriptures reverently and thought-
fully and pray God that he may lead us into an ever
fuller understanding of the truth that can malce us wise
unto salvation. There is no virtue whatever in ignor-

ance, but much virtue in a knowledge of what God has

revealed.
 CHAPTER VI
FAITH AND SALVATION

We have been engaging, in the latter part of the

last chapter, in something like a digression, and it is

time to return to the point at which we left off. When

a man, we observed, accepts Christ, not in general but
specifically "as He is offered to us in the gospel," such

acceptance of Christ is saving faith. It may involve a

smaller or a greater amount of knowledge. The
greater the amount of knowledge which it involves, the
better for the soul; but even a smaller amount of
knowledge may bring a true union with Christ. When
Christ, as he is offered to us in the gospel of His re-

deeming work, is thus accepted in faith, the soul of

the man who believes is saved.
That salvation of the Christian, in one of its aspects,

is called "justification by faith;" and the doctrine of

justification by faith must be considered specifically,

though briefly, at the present point in our discussion.

There will perhaps, however, be an objection to the
terminology that we are venturing to employ. "Justi-
fication," it will be said, a distressingly long word;
is

and as for the word "doctrine," that has a forbidding

sound. Instead of such terminology surely we ought
to find
simpler words which will bring the matter home
to modern men in
language sucE as they are accustomed
to use.

161
162 WHAT IS FAITH?"

This suggestion is typical of what is often being said

at the present time. Many persons are horrified by the
use of a theological term; they seem to have a notion
that modern Christians must be addressed always in
words of one syllable, and that in religion we must
abandon the scientific precision of language which is
found to be so useful in other spheres. In pursuance
of this tendency we have had presented to us recently
various translations of the Bible which reduce the Word
of God more or less thoroughly to the language of the
modern street, or which, as the matter was put recently
in my hearing by an layman, "take all the
intelligent
religion out of the New Testament." But the whole
tendency, we for our part think, ought to be resisted,
Back of it all seems to lie the strange assumption that
modern men, particularly modern university men, can
never by any chance learn anything; they do not under-
stand the theological terminology which appears in
such richness in the Bible, and that is regarded as the
end of the matter; apparently it does not occur to any-
one that possibly they might with profit acquire the
knowledge of Biblical terminology which now they
lack. But I for my part am by no means ready to
acquiesce. I am perfectly ready, indeed, to agree that
the Bible and the modern man ought to be brought
together. But what is not always observed is that

there are two ways of attaining that end. One way is

to bring the Bible down to the level of the modern
man; but the other way is to bring the modern man up
to the level of the Bible. For my part, I am inclined to
advocate the latter way. And I am by no means ready
 FAITH AND SALVATION 163

to relinquish the advantages of a precise terminology in

summarizing Bible truth. In religion as well as in
other spheres a precise terminology is mentally eco-
nomical in the end; it repays amply the slight effort
required for the mastery of it. Thus I am not at all
ashamed to speak, even in this day and generation, of
"the doctrine of justification by faith."
It should not be supposed, however, that that doc-
trine is an abstruse or intricate thing. On the contrary
it is a very simple thing, and it is instinct with life.

It is an answer to the greatest personal question ever

asked by a human soul the question: "How shall I
be right with God; how do I stand in God's sight;
with what favor does He look upon me?" There are
those, itmust be admitted, who never raise that ques-
tion; there are those who 'are concerned with the ques-
tion of their standing before men, but never with the

question of their standing before God; there are those

who are interested in what "people say," but not in the
question what God says. Such men, however, are not
those who move the world; they are apt to go with
the current; they are apt to do as others do; they are
not the heroes who change the destinies of the race.
The beginning of true nobility comes when a man
ceases tobe interested in the judgment of men, and
becomes interested in the judgment of God.
But if we can gain that much insight, if we have
become interested in the judgment of God, how shall
we stand in that judgment? How
we become shall

right with God? The most obvious answer is: "By

obeying the law of God, by being what God wants us
164 WHAT IS FAITH?
to be.*' There is absolutely nothing wrong in theory
about that answer; the only trouble is that for us it does
not work. If we had obeyed the law of God, if we
were what God wants us to be, all would no doubt be
well; we could approach the judgment seat of God and
rely simply upon His just recognition of the facts.
But, alas, we have not obeyed God's law, but have
transgressed it in thought, word anddeed; and far
from being what God wants us to be, we, are stained
and soiled with sin. The stain is not merely on the
surface; it is not a thing that can easily be wiped off; but
itpermeates the recesses of our souls. And the clearer
be our understanding of God's law, the deeper becomes
our despair. Some men seek a refuge from condemna-
tion in a low view of the law of God; they limit the
law to external commands, and by obeying those com-
mands they hope to buy God's favor. But the moment
a man gains a vision of the law as it is especially as it.
is revealed in the words and example of Jesus at that
moment he knows that he is undone. If our being right
with God depends upon anything that is in us, we are
without hope.
Another way, however, has been opened into God's
presence; and the opening of that way is set forth in
the gospel. We
deserved eternal death; we deserved
exclusion from the household of God; but the Lord
Jesus took upon Himself all the guilt of our sins and
died instead of us on the cross. Henceforth the law's
demands have been satisfied for us by Christ, its terror
for us is gone, and clothed no longer in our righteous-
ness but in the righteousness of Christ we stand without
 FAITH AND SALVATION 165

fear, as Christ would stand without fear, before the

judgment seat of God. Men say that that is an intri-

cate theory; but surely the adjective is misplaced. It is

mysterious, but it is not intricate; it is wonderful, but

it is so simple that a child can understand.
Two objections to the doctrine of justification, how-
ever, need to be considered even in a brief presentation
such as that in which we are now engaged.
In the first place, it is said, "justification" is a
"forensic" term; it is from the law-
borrowed, that is,

courts; it smells of musty volumes bound in legal calf;

and we moderns prefer other sources for our figures of
speech; we prefer to conceive of salvation in a vital,
rather than in a legal, way.
In answer it be said, of course, that justification
may
by faith is by no means all of the Christian doctrine of
salvation; it has as its other side the doctrine of regen-
(eration or the new birth. What the Christian has from
God is not merely a new and right relation to Him in

which the guilt of sin is wiped out, but also a new life
in which the power of sin is broken; the Christian
view of salvation isj^ljas. well as forensic. This
modern way of thinking, on the other hand, errs in
being one-sided; it errs, not indeed in insisting upon the
"vital" aspect of salvation, but in maintaining that
salvation is only vital. When the vital aspect of salva-
tion is thus separated from the forensic aspect, the con-

sequences are serious indeed; what really happens is that

'-thewhole ethical character of Christianity endangered is

or destroyed. It is important to understand that the

Christian has a new life in addition to a new standing
166 WHAT IS FAITH?
before the judgment seat of God; but to be interested
in the new life to the exclusion of the new standing
before God is to deprive the new life of its moral sig-
nificance. For it is only as judged in accordance with
some absolute norm of righteousness that that new life
differs from the life of plants or beasts, ,

Theultimate question, however, that is involved in

the objection concerns the validity of retributive justice.
The objection regards as derogatory to the doctrine of
justification the fact that it uses the language of the
law-courts. But
is that fact really derogatory to the

doctrine? We
for our part think that it is not, for the
simple reason that we hold a totally different view of .

the law-courts from the view that the objector holds.

At this point, as at so many other points, there is re-

vealed the far-reaching character of the disagreement

in the modern religious world. The disagreement con-
cerns not merely what is ordinarily called religion, but
itconcerns almost every department of human life. In

particular it concerns the underlying theory of human

justice.
The objector regards as derogatory the fact that our
doctrine of justification uses the language of the law-
courts. But he does so only because of the limited func-
tion with which according to his view the law-courts
must be content. According to his view our courts of
law are concerned only with the reform of the criminal
or the protection of society; in connection with our
courts he thinks that the whole notion of retributive

justice must be given up. Very different is our view;

and because it is different, the fact that the doctrine of
 FAITH AND SALVATION 167

language appears to us to be not

justification uses legal
a reproach but a high commendation. Courts, we
think, even human courts, far from exercising a merely
utilitarian function, are founded upon a principle that is
rooted in the very being of God. They do, indeed,
also exercise the utilitarian functions of which we have

just spoken; they do seek the reform of the criminal and

the protection of society: and they must never allow
these considerations to be forgotten. But back of all

that the irreducible fact of retributive justice.

lies We
do not mean that human judges can ever speak in any
infallibleway with the voice of God; human limita-
tions must constantly be borne in mind; a truly just
and final settlement must often be left to a higher As-
size. But still, when all that and more is admitted,
there remains a basis of eternal significance in every true
court of law. That significance is, indeed, today often
obscured; the low utilitarian theory of which we have
just spoken has invaded only too frequently our court-
rooms, and put trivial consideration of consequences in
place of the majesty of the law. Men are complaining
of the result, but are not willing to deal with the cause.

They are complaining loudly of the growth of crimi-

nality; they are feverishly filling statute books with all
sorts of prohibitions; they are trying their best to pre-

vent the disintegration of society. But the whole ef-

fort is really quite vain. The real trouble does not lie

in the details of our laws, but in the underlying con-

ception of what law is. .

Even in the field of detail, it is true, there is room for

improvement improvement in a very different direc-
168 WHAT IS FAITH?
tion,however, from that in which contemporary law-
makers are accustomed to turn, improvement in the di-
rection not of increased multiplication of statutes, but
of a return to simplicity. Instead of the mass of trivial
and often irksome prohibitions which now clog our
statute books, legislatures ought to content themselves
with what is demanded by the overwhelming moral

judgment of the people; one way to encourage respect

for law, we think, would be to make law more respect-
able. The real trouble, however, is more fundamental
than all that; it lies, not in matters of detail, but in the
underlying principle. Respect for human laws cannot,
in the long run, be maintained unless there is such a

thing, in the ultimate constitution of things, as justice;

mere utilitarianism will never check the rebellion of the
flesh; human judges will be respected only when again
with a majesty which
they are clothed issues ultimately

from the law of God.

It is not, therefore, at all derogatory to the doctrine
of justification that it uses the language of a court of

law; for a court of law represents in obscure fashion,

it is true a fact in the being of God. Men say indeed
that they prefer to conceive of God as a Father rather
than as a Judge; but why must the choice be made?
The true way to conceive of Him is to conceive of Him
both as a Father and as a Judge. Fatherhood, as we
know it upon this earth, represents one aspect of God;
but to isolate that aspect is to degrade it and deprive it of
its ethical Important indeed is the doctrine of
quality.
the Fatherhood of God; but it would not be important
 \
FAITH AND SALVATION 169

if it were not supplemented by the doctrine of God as

the final Judge.

The other objection to the Christian doctrine of jus-
tification can be dealt with just as briefly; since the ob-

jection, upon examination, soon disappears. Justifica-

tion, we are told, involves a mere legal trick which is

derogatory to the character of God; according to this

doctrine, it is said, God is represented as waiting until

Christ has paid the price of sin as a substitute for the

sinner before He will forgive; He is represented as being

bought off by the death of Christ so that He pronounces

as righteous in His sight those who are not really right-
eous at all, "How degrading all that is," the modern
man "how much better it would be simply
exclaims;
to say that God is more willing to forgive than man is

willing to be forgiven!" Thus the doctrine of justifi-

cation is represented as doing despite to the love of God.

This objection ignores a fundamental feature of the

doctrine which is being criticized; it ignores the fact
that according to the Christan view it is God Himself
and not someone else who in the atoning death of Christ
pays the price of sin- God Himself in the person of the
Son who loved us and gave Himself for us, and God
Himself in the person of the Father who so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son. For us,
the Christian holds, salvation is as free as the air we
breathe; God's alone the cost, and ours the wondrous
gain. Such a view exalts the love of God far more
than is ever done by modern theories as to the forgive-
ness of sin: for those theories are alike in denying, in
the last analysis, the dreadful reality and irrevocableness
170 WHAT IS FAITH?
of guilt; they seek to save the love of God by denying
the moral constitution of His universe, and in doing so
they finally destroy even that which they started out
to conserve; the divine love which they seek to save at
the expense of His justice turns out to he hut an easy
complacency which is no love at all. It is misleading to
apply the term "love" to a sentiment that costs noth-
ing. Very different is the love of which the Bible
speaks; for that love brought the Lord Jesus to the
cross. The Bible does not hold out hopes to the sinner
by palliating the fact of sin; on the contrary it proclaims
that fact with a terrible earnestness which otherwise has
not been known. But then, on the basis of this ruthless
illumination of the moral facts of life, it provides a full
and complete and absolutely free way of escape through
the sacrifice of Christ.
No doubt that way is not of our own choosing; and
no doubt it may seem strange. It may seem to be a

strange thing that One should bear the guilt of others'

sins. And indeed for anyone save Christ that would
have been far beyond even the power of love. It is per-
fectly true that one man cannot bear the guilt of another
man's sins; the instances of "vicarious" suffering in
human life, which have been brought to our attention
as 'being in the same category with the sufferings of
Christ, serve only to show how far the men who adduce
them are from comprehending what is meant by the
Cross. But because a weak and sinful man cannot bear
the guilt of others' sins, it does not follow that Christ
cannot do so. And as a matter of fact, thank God, He
has done so; at the Cross the burden of men's sins has
 FAITH AND SALVATION 171

rolledaway, and there has come a peace with God that

the world can never know. We are certainly not in-
tending to exalt emotion at the expense of objective

proof; we are opposed with all our might to the substi-

tution of "experience" as the seat of authority in reli-

gion for the Word of God: but the Holy Spirit in the
individual soul does bear witness, we think, to the
truthfulness of the Word, and does bear witness to the

saving efficacy of the Cross, when He cries "Abba,

Father" in our hearts. That cry, we think, is a true
echo of the blessed sentence of acquittal, the blessed
"justification," which a sinner receives when Christ is
His advocate at the judgment seat of God.
We have been speaking of "justification." It de-

pends, we have seen, altogether upon the redeeming

work of Christ, But another very important question
remains. If justification depends"upon the redeeming
work of Christ, how is the benefit of that redeeming
work applied to the individual soul?
The most natural answer might seem to be that the
soul applies the benefit of Christ's work to itself by its

own appropriation of that work; it might seem natural

to regard the merits of Christ as a sort of fund or store
which can be drawn upon at will by individual men.
But if one thing is clear, it is that such is not the teach-
ing of the Word of God; if one thing is plain, it is that
the New Testament presents salvation, or the entrance
into God's Kingdom, as the work not of man, but of
God and only of God. The redeeming work of Christ
is
applied to the individual soul, according to the New
Testament, by the Holy Spirit and by Him alone.
172 WHAT IS FAITH?
Whatthen do we mean when we speak of "justifica-
tion by faith"? Faith, after all, is something in man;
and therefore if justification depends upon our faith it
depends apparently upon us as well as upon God.
The apparent contradiction is welcome; since it leads
on to a true conception of faith. The faith of man,
rightly conceived, can never stand in opposition to the
completeness with which salvation depends upon God;
itcan never mean that man does part, while merely God
does the rest; for the simple reason that faith consists
not in. doing something but in receiving something. To
say that we are justified hy faith is just another way of
saying that we are justified not in slightest measure by
ourselves, but simply and solely by the One in whom
our faith is reposed.
At profound reason for what
this point appears the
at first sightmight seem to be a surprising fact. Why
is it that with regard to the attainment of salvation the

New Testament assigns such an absolutely exclusive

why does it not also speak, for example,
place to faith;
of our being justified by love? If it did so, it would
certainly be more in accord with modern tendencies;
indeed, one popular preacher actually asserts that Paul's
fundamental doctrine was salvation by love rather than
1
justification by faith. But of course that only means
making the wish the father to the thought; as a'matter
of fact, whether we like it or not, it is perfectly clear
that Paul did not speak of salvation by love, but
that he spoke instead of justification by faith. Surely
the thing requires an explanation; and certainly itdoes
1 Charles E. Jefferson, The Character of Paul, 1923, p, 323.
 FAITH AND SALVATION 173

not mean that the apostle was inclined to depreciate love.

On the contrary in one passage he expressly places love
ahead of faith. "And now abideth faith, hope, love,"
3
he says, "these three; but the greatest of these is love."
Why then, if he places love higher, does he attribute, so
far as the attainment of salvation is concerned, such an
absolutely exclusive place to faith? And why did not
Jesus say: "Thy love hath saved thee, go in peace," but
rather: "Thy faith hath saved three"? Why did He
say only that to the men and women who came to Him
in the days of His flesh; and why does He say only that,
in accordance with the whole New Testament, to bur-
dened souls- today?
The answer to this question is really abundantly
plain. The true reason why faith is given such an ex-
clusive place by the New Testament, so far as the attain-
ment of salvation is concerned, over against love and
over against everything else in man except things that
can be regarded as mere aspects of faith, is that faith
means receiving something, not doing something or even
being something. To say, therefore, that our faith
saves us means that we do not save ourselves even in

slightest measure, but that God saves us. Very different

would be the case if our salvation were said to be
through love; for then salvation would depend. upon a
high quality of our own. And that is what the New
Testament, above all else, is concerned to deny. The
very centre and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine
of the grace of God the 'grace of God which depends
not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is abso-
2 1
Cor. xiii: 13.
174 WHAT IS FAITH?

lutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. The theo-

logians of the Church can be placed in an ascending scale
according as they have grasped with less or greater clear-
ness that one great central doctrine, that doctrine that
gives consistency to all the rest; and Christian experi-
ence also depends for its depth and for its power upon
the way in which that blessed doctrine is cherished in
the depths of the heart. The centre of the Bible, and
the centre of Christianity, is found in the grace of God;
and the necessary corollary of the grace of God is salva-
tion through faith alone.
We are brought at this point to a profound fact
about faith, a fact without which everything else that
we have tried to say would be valueless. The fact to
which we refer is this: that it is not as a quality of the
soul that faith saves a man, but only as the establishment
of contact with a real object of the faith.
This fact, in present-day thinking, is generally de-
nied; and from the denial of it proceed many of the
evils, intellectual and otherwise, which beset the religious
world. Faith is, indeed, nowadays being exalted to the
skies; but the sad fact is that this very exaltation of faith
is leading logically and inevitably to a bottomless skep-
ticism which is the precursor of despair.
The whole trouble is that faith is being considered
merely as a beneficent quality of the soul without re-
spect to the reality or unreality of its object; and the
moment faith comes to be considered in that way, in
that moment it is destroyed.
Yet at first sight the modern attitude seems to be full
of promise; it avoids, for example, the immense diffi-
 FAITH AND SALVATION 175

culty involved in differences of creed. Let a man, it is

urged, hold to be true whatever helps him, and let him

not interfere with whatever helps his neighbor. What
difference does it make, we are asked, what does the
work just so the work is done; what difference does it
make whether the disease is cured by Christian Science
or by simple faith in Christ Jesus? Some people scent
to find even bare materialism a helpful doctrine con-
ducive to a calm and healthy life, preventing morbid
fears and nervous strains. If so, why should we unset-
tle their "faith" by talking about guilt and retribution?
There is unfortunately one great obstacle in the way
of such a broad eclecticism. It is a very real obstacle,
though at times it seems to be not a bit practical. It
is the old obstacle truth. That was a great scheme of

Lessing's Nathan der Weise, to let Judaism, Moham-

medanism, and Christianity live peacefully side by side,
each contributing its quota to the common good of

humanity; and the plan has attained enormous popu-

larity since Lessing'sday by the admission, to the pro-
posed league of religions, of all the faiths of mankind.
But the great trouble is, a creed can be efficient only so
long as it is held to be true; if I. make my creed effective
in my life I can do so only because regard it as true.
I
But in so doing I am obliged by an inexorable necessity
to regard the creed of my
neighbor, if it is contradictory
to mine, as false. That weakens his faith in his creed,
provided he is at all affected by my opinions; he is no

longer so sure of the truth of it; and so soon as he is

no longer sure of the truth of it, it loses its efficiency.
Or if, in ^deference to my neighbor and the usefulness
176 WHAT IS FAITH?
of his creed, I keep my creed in the background, that
tends to weaken my faith in my creed; I come to have
the feeling that what must be kept in the dark will not
bear the light of day; my
creed ceases to be effective in

my life. The fact is that all creeds are laying claim to

the same thing, namely truth. Consequently, despite
all that is said, the creeds, if they are to be held with

any fervor, if they are really to have any power, must

be opposed to one another; they simply cannot allow
one another to work on in peace. Ift therefore, we want
the work to proceed, we must face and settle this conflict
of the means; we cannot call on men's beliefs to help
us unless we determine what it is that is to be believed.
A faith that can consent to avoid proselytizing among
other faiths is not really faith at all.

An objection, however, may remain. What we have

said may perhaps sound very yet it seems
logical, and
to be contradicted by the actual experience of the race.
Physicians, for example, are very practical persons; and
yet they tell us that faith in very absurd things some-
times brings beneficent and far-reaching results. If,

therefore, faith in such diverse and contradictory things

brings results, if it relieves the distresses of suffering

humanity, how can we have the heart to insist on log-

ical consistency in the things that are believed? On the
contrary, it is urged, let us be satisfied with any kind
of faith just so it does the work; it makes no difference
what is believed just so the healthgiving attitude of
faith is there; the lessdogmatic faith is, the purer it is,
because it is the less weakened by the dangerous alloy
of knowledge.
 FAITH AND SALVATION 177

It is perfectly clear that such an employment of faith

is bringing results. But the curious thing is that if

faith be employed in this particular way it is always

employment of the faith of other people that brings the
results, and never employment of one's own faith. For
the man who can speak in this way is himself always
not a believer but a skeptic. The basal fact about f aitli
is that all faith has an object; all faith is not only pos-

sessed by someone, but it consists in confidence in some-

one. An outsider may not think that it is really the
object that does the work; from his scientific vantage

ground, he may see clearly that it is just the faith itself,

considered merely as a psychological phenomenon, that

is the important thing, and that any other object would

have answered as well. But the one who does the be-
lieving is always convinced just exactly that it is not
the faith but the object which is helping him; the mo-
ment he becomes convinced that the object was not
really important and that it was really just his own
faith that was helping him, at that moment his faith
disappears. It was that previous false belief, then the
belief that it was the object and not the faith that was
cbing the work it was that false belief that helped him.
Now things that are false will apparently do some
rather useful things. If we may be permitted to use
-

again, and to apply a little further, an illustration that

we have 3
already used in a different connection, it may
be remarked that a counterfeit note will buy many use-
ful commodities until it is found out. It will, for

example, buy a dinner; and a dinner will keep a man

3 1

See Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, pp. 142 f.

178 WHAT IS FAITH?
alive no matter how it is obtained. But just when I am
buying the dinner for some poor man who needs it very
badly indeed, an expert tells me that that useful result
is being accomplished by a counterfeit note. "The
miserable theorized," I be
may tempted to exclaim, "the
miserable traditionalist, the miserable demolisher of
everything that pragmatism holds most dear! While he
is discussing the question of the origin of that note

though every up-to-date man knows that the origin of

a thing is unimportant, and that what is really impor-
tant is the goal to which it tends while he is going into
learned details about the primitive history of that note,
a poor man is suffering for lack of food." So it is, if
the current view be correct, with faith; faith, we are

told, is so very useful that we must not ask the question

whether the things that it leads us to accept are true or
false.

Plausible are the ways in which men are seeking to

justify this circulation of counterfeit currency in the

spiritual sphere; it is perfectly right, we are told, so

long as it is not found out. That principle has even

been ingeniously applied to the ordinary currency of the
realm; if a counterfeit note were absolutely perfect, it

has been said, so that by no possibility could it ever be

detected, what harm should we be doing to a man if we

passed it out to him with his change? Probably it will

not be necessary to point out at least to the readers of
the present book the fallacy in this moral tour de
force; and that fallacy would really apply to the spirit-
ual currency as well as to five-dollar notes. By circu-

lating bad money we should be diminishing the value of

 FAITH AND SALVATION 179

good money, and so should be robbing the generality of

our fellow-men. But after all, that question is purely
.

academic; as a matter of fact counterfeit notes are never

sure not to be found out. And neither is bad currency
in the spiritual sphere. It is adangerous thing to en-
courage faith in what is not true, for the sake of the
immediate benefits which such faith brings; because the
greater be the building that is erected on such a founda-
tion, the greater will be the inevitable crash when the
crash finally comes.
Such counterfeits should be removed, not in the in-
terestsof destruction, but in order to leave room for
the pure gold the existence of which is implied by the

presence of the counterfeits. There is counterfeit money

in the world, but that does not mean that all money is

counterfeit. Indeed it means the exact opposite. There

could be no counterfeit money unless there were genuine

money for it to imitate. And the principle applies to

the spiritual realm. There is in the world much faith
in what is false; but there could hardly be faith in what
is false unless there were also somewhere faith in what
is true. Now we Christians think that we have found
faith in what is true when we have faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ as He is offered to us in the gospel. We
are well aware of what has been said against that gos-
pel; we are well aware of the unpopularity that besets
a man the moment he holds any one thing to be true
and rejects as false whatever is contradictory to it;we
are fully conscious of the risk that we are taking when
we abandon a merely eclectic attitude and put all our
confidence in one thing and one thing only. But we
180 WHAT IS FAITH?,

are ready to take the risk. This world is a dark place

without Christ; we have found no other salvation either
in ourselves or in others; and for our part, therefore,

despite doubts and fears, we are prepared to take Christ

at His word and launch forth into the deep at His
command. It is a great venture, this venture of faith;
there are difficulties in the way of it; we have not solved
all mysteries or resolved all douhts. But though our
minds are still darkened, though we have attained no

rigidly mathematical proof, we have attained at least

certitude enough to cause us to risk our lives. Will
Christ desert us when we have thus committed ourselves
to Him? There are men about us who tell us that He

will; there are voices within us that whisper to us

doubts; but we must with the best
act in accordance

light that is given us, and doing so we have decided for

our part to distrust our doubts and base our lives, des-
pite all, upon Christ.
The efficacy of faith, then, depends not upon the
faith itself, considered as a psychological phenomenon,
but upon the object of the faith, namely Christ. Faith
is not regarded in the New Testament as itself a meri-
torious work or a meritorious condition of the soul;
but it is regarded as a means which is used by the grace

of God: the New Testament never says that a man is

saved on account of his faith, but always that he is saved
through his faith or by means of his faith; faith is
merely the means which the Holy Spirit uses to apply
to the individual soul the benefits of Christ's death.
And faith in one sense is a very simple thing. We
have been engaged, indeed, in a sort of analysis of it;
 FAITH AND SALVATION ,181

but we have been doing so, not in the interests of com-

plexity, but, on.
the contrary, in order to combat the
false notions by which simplicity is destroyed. We
have not for amoment meant to imply that all the log-
ical which we have found in faith are al-
implications
ways consciously or separately in the mind of the man
who believes; mysterious indeed is the chemistry of the
soul, and whole new world of thought as well as life
a
is often conveyed to a man in an experience of faith that

seems to be as simple as the falling of a leaf from the

bough and as inevitable as 'the flow. of a mighty river
to the sea. Certainly,^ at bottom, faith is in one sense
a very simple thing; it simply means that abandoning
the vain effort of earning one's way into God's presence
we accept the gift of salvation which Christ offers so
full and free. Such is the "doctrine" let us not be
afraid of the word such is the "doctrine" of justifica-
tion through faith alone.
That has been a liberating doctrine in the history of
the world; to it was due the breaking of mediaeval
bondage at the Reformation; to it is due ultimately the
civil liberty that we possess today. And now that it

is being abandoned, civil liberty is slowly but steadily

being destroyed in the interests of a soul-killing collec-
tivism that is worse in some respects than the tyrannies
of the past. Let us hope that the process may be arrested
in time. If we are interested in what God thinks of
us, we shall not be deterred by what men think; the
very desire for justification in the sight of God makes us
independent of the judgment of men. And if the very
desire for justification is liberating, how much more the
182 WHAT IS FAITH?
attainment of it! The man who has been justified by
God, the man who has accepted as a free gift the condi-
tion of tightness with God which Christ offers, is not
a man who hopes that possibly, with due effort, if he
does not fail, he may finally win through to become a
child of God. But he is a man who has already be-
come a child of God. If our being children of God de-
pended in slightest measure upon us, we could never be
sure that we had attained the high estate. But as a
matter of fact it does not depend upon us; it depends
only upon God. It is not a reward that we have earned
but a gift that we have received.
 CHAPTER VII

FAITH AND WORKS

Because of the fundamental nature of faith, as it has

been set forth, on the basis of the New Testament
teaching, in the last chapter, it is natural to find that in
the New Testament faith, as the reception of a free gift,
is placed in sharpest contrast with any intrusion of
human merit; it is natural to find that faith is sharply
contrasted with works; The contrast is really implied
by the New
Testament throughout, and in one book,
the Epistle to the Galatians, it forms the express subject
of the argument. That book from the beginning to
the end is a mighty polemic in defence of the doctrine of

justification by faith alone; and as such it has rightly

been called the Magna Charta of Christian liberty. At
the beginning of the sixteenth century the world was
lying in darkness; but God then raised up a man who
read this Epistle with his own eyes, and the Reforma-
tion was born. So it may be in our own day. Again
the world is sinking into bondage; the liberty of the
sons of God isagain giving place to the bondage of a
religion of merit: but God still lives, and His Spirit
again may bring the charter of our liberty to light.
Meanwhile a strange darkness covers the eyes of men;
the message of the great Epistle, so startlingly clear to the
man whose eyes have been opened, is hidden by a mass
of misinterpretation as absurd in its way as the mediae-

183
184 WHAT IS FAITH?
val rubbish of the fourfold sense of Scripture which the
Reformation brushed aside, Grammatico-historical in-
terpretation is still being favored in theory, but despite

is being done to it (by preachers if not by scholars) in

practice; and the Apostle is being made to say anything

that men wish him to have said. A new Reformation,
we think, like the Reformation of the sixteenth cen-
tury, would be marked, among other things, by a re-
turn to plain common sense; and the Apostle would be
allowed, despite our likes and dislikes, to say what he
really meant to say.
But what did the Apostle, in the Epistle to the Gala-
tians, really mean to say; against what was he writing
in that great polemic; and what was he setting up in

place of that which he was endeavoring to destroy?

The answer which many modern writers are giving
to this question is that the Apostle is arguing merely
against an external ceremonial religion in the interests of
a religion based on great principles; that he is arguing
against a piecemeal conception of morality which makes
morality consist in a series of disconnected rules, in the
interests of a conception that draws out human conduct
naturally from a central root in love; that he
is arguing,

in other words, against the "letter of the law" in the

interests of its "spirit."
This interpretation, we think, involves an error
which cuts away the very vitals of the Christian reli-
gion. Like other fatal errors, indeed, it does contain
an element of truth; in one passage, at least, in the
Epistle to the Galatians Paul does seem to point to the
external character of the ceremonial law. as being inferior
 FAITH AND WORKS 185

to the higher (or to use modern terminology, more

"spiritual") stage to which religion, under the new dis-
pensation, had come.
But that passage is isolated mere-
ly, certainly does not in itself give the key to the
and
meaning of the Epistle. On
the contrary, even in that

passage, when it is taken in

its context, the inferiority

of the old dispensation as involving ceremonial require-

ments is really put merely as a sign of an inferiority
that is deeper still; and it is that deeper inferiority which

the Epistle as a whole is concerned to set forth. The

ceremonial character of the Old Testament law, so in-
ferior to the inwardness of the new dispensation, was
intended hy God to mark the inferiority of any dispen-
sation of law as distinguished from a dispensation of
grace.
Of .course a word of caution should again at thii.
point be injected. Paul never means to say that the
old dispensation was merely a dispensation of law; he
always admits, and indeed insists upon, the element of
grace which ran through it from "beginning to end, the
element of grace which appeared in the Promise. But
his opponents in Galatia had rejected that element of

grace; and their use of the Old Testament law, as dis-

tinguished from its right use as a schoolmaster unto
Christ, really made of the old dispensation a dispensa-
tion of law and nothing more.
What then, according to Paul, was the real, under-
lying inferiority of that dispensation of law; how was
it to he contrasted with the new
dispensation which
^Christ had ushered in? It is hard to see how the an-
swer to this question .can really he regarded as obscure;
186 WHAT IS FAITH?
the Apostle has poured forth his very soul to make the
matter plain. Most emphatically the contrast was not
between a lower law and a higher law; it was not be-
tween an external, piecemeal conception of the law and
a conception which reduces it to great underlying prin-
ciples; but it was a contrast between any kind of law,
no matter how sublimated, provided only it be con-
ceived of as a way of obtaining merit, and the absolutely
free grace of God.
This contrast is entirely missed by the interpreta-
tion that prevails popularly in the Modernist Church:
the advocates of "salvation by character'* have sup-
posed that the polemic of the Apostle was turned
merely against certain forgotten ceremonialists of long
ago, while in reality it is turned quite as much against
them. It is against any man who
turned, indeed,
seeks to stand in God's sight on the basis of his own
merit instead of on the basis of the sacrifice which
Christ offered to satisfy divine justice upon the cross.
The truth is that the prevailing Modernist interpreta-
tion of Galatians, which is in some respects apparently

just the interpretation favored by the Roman Church,

makes the Apostle say almost the exact opposite of what
he means.
The Modernist return to mediaevalism in the inter-

pretation of Galatians is no isolated thing, but is only

one aspect of a misinterpretation of the whole Bible;
in particular it is closely akin to a misinterpretation of
a great sentence in one of the other Epistles of Paul.
The sentence to which we refer is found in II Corinth-
 FAITH AND WORKS 187

ians iii, 6: "The letter, killeth, but the Spirit giveth

life."..:

That sentence is perhaps the most frequently misused

utterance in the whole Bible. It has indeed in this re-

spect much competition: many phrases in the New

Testament are being used today to mean almost their
exact opposite, as for example, when the words, "God
in Christ" and the like, are made to be an expression
of the vague pantheism so popular just now, or as
when the entire gospel of redemption is regarded as a
mere symbol of an optimistic view of man against which
that doctrine was in reality a stupendous protest, or as
when the doctrine of the incarnation is represented, as
indicating the essential oneness of God and man! One
is reminded constantly at the present time of the way
in which the Gnostics of the second century used Bib-
lical texts to support their thoroughly un-Biblical sys-
tems. The historical methocf 'of study, in America at
very generally being abandoned; and the New
least, is

Testament writers are being made to say almost any-

thing that twentieth-century readers could have wished
them to say.
This abandonment of scientific historical method in
exegesis, which is merely one manifestation of the intel-
lectual decadence of our day, appears at countless points
in contemporary religious literature; but at no point
does it appear with greater clearness than in connection
with the great utterance in II Corinthians to which we
have referred. The words: "The letter killeth, but the
Spirit 'giveth life/* are constantly interpreted to mean
that we are perfectly justified in taking the law of God
 188 WHAT IS FAITH?
with a grain of salt; they arc held to indicate that Paul
was no "literalist," but a "Liberal," who believed that
the Old Testament was not true in detail and the Old
Testament" law was not valid' in detail, but that all
God requires is that we should extract the few great
principles which the Bible teaches and not insist upon
the rest. In short, the words are held to involve a con-
trast between the letter of the law and "the spirit of
the law"; they are held to mean that literalism is deadly,
while attention to great principles keeps a man intellect-

ually and spiritually alive.

Thus has one of the greatest utterances in the New
Testament been reduced to comparative triviality a
triviality with a kernel of truth in it, to be sure, but
triviality all the same. The triviality, indeed, is merely
relative; no doubt important to observe that atten-
it is

tion to the general sense of a book or a law is far better

than such a reading of details as, that the context in
which the details are found is ignored. But all that is

quite foreign to the meaning of the Apostle in this

passage, and though quite true and quite important in
is,

its place, trivial in comparison with the tremendous

thing that Paul here endeavoring to say.

is

/ What Paul really doing here is not contrasting

is

the letter of the law with the spirit of the law, but
contrasting the law of God with the Spirit of God.
When he says, "The letter killeth," he is making no
contemptuous reference to a pedantic literalism which
shrivels the soul; but he is setting forth the terrible maj-
esty of God's law. The letter, the "thing written,"
in the law of God, says Paul, pronounces a dread sen-
 FAITH AND WORKS 189

tence of death upon the transgressor; but the Holy

as distinguished from the law, gives life.
Spirit of God,
The law of God, Paul means, is, as law, external.
It is God's holy will to which we must conform ; hut
it contains in itself no promise of its fulfilment; it is

one thing to have the law written, and quite another

thing to have it obeyed. In fact, because of the sinful;
ness of our hearts, because of the power of the flesh, the

recognition of God's law only makes sin take on the

definite form of transgression; it only makes sin more

exceeding sinful. The law of God was written on

tables of stone or on tjie rolls of the Old Testament
books, but was quite a different thing to get it written
it

in the. hearts and lives of the people. So it is today.

The text is of very wide application. The law of God,
however it comes to us, is "letter"; it is a "thing writ-
ten," external to the hearts and lives of men. It is

written in the Old Testament; it is written in the Ser-

,
mon on the Mount; it is written 'in Jesus' stupendous
command of love for God and one's neighbor; it is
written in whatever way we become conscious of the
commands of God. Let no one say that such an exten-
sion of the text involves that very anti-historical mod-
ernizing which we have just denounced; on the contrary
it is
amply justified by Paul himself. "When the Gen-
tiles," Paul says, "which have not the law, do by nature
the things contained in the law, these, having not the
law, are a law unto themselves." 1 The Old Testament
law is just a clear, authentic presentation of a law of
God under which all men stand.
1
Rom. ii: 14.
190 WHAT IS FAITH?
And that law, according to Paul, issues a dreadful
sentence of eternal death. "The soul that sinneth, it
shall die"; not the hearer of the law is justified hut the
doer of it. And, alas, none are doers; all have sinned.
The law of God is holy and just and good; it is inexor-
and we have fallen under its just condemnation,
able;
That is at bottom what Paul means by the words,
"The letter killeth." He does not mean that attention
to pedantic details shrivels and deadens the soul. No
doubt that is true, at least within certain limits; it is

a useful thought. But it is trivial indeed compared with

what Paul means. Something far more majestic, far
more terrible, is meant by the Pauline phrase. The "let-
ter" that the Apostle means is the same as the curse of
God's law that he speaks of in Galatians; it is the
dreadful handwriting of ordinances that was against us;
and the death with which it kills is the eternal death of
those who are forever separated from God.
But that is not all of the text. "The letter killeth,"

Paul says, "but the Spirit giveth life." There is no

doubt about what he means by "the Spirit." He does
not mean the "spirit of the law" as contrasted with the
letter; he certainly does not mean the lax interpretation

of God's commands which is dictated' by human lust or

pride; he certainly does not mean the spirit of man. No

real student of Paul, whatever be his own religious

views, can doubt, I think, but that the Apostle means

the Spirit of God. God's law brings death because of
sin; but God's Spirit, applying to the soul the redemp-
tion offered by Christ, brings life. The thing that is
 FAITH AND WORKS 191

written killcth; but the Holy Spirit, in the new birth,

or, as Paul says, the new creation, giveth life.
The contrast runs all through the New Testament.
Hopelessness under the law is described, for example,
in the seventh chapter of Romans. "Oh wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
2
death?" But this hopelessness is transcended by the
gospel, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
hath made me free from the law of sin and death." 3
The law's just sentence of condemnation was borne for
us by Christ who suffered in our stead; the handwriting
of ordinances which was against us the dreadful "let-
ter" was nailed to the cross, and we have a fresh start
in the full favor of God. And in addition to this new
and right relation to God, the Spirit of God also gives
the sinner a new birth and makes him a new creature.
The New Testament from beginning to end deals glori-
ously with this work of grace. The giving of life of
which Paul speaks in this text is the new birth, the
new creation; it is Christ who liveth in us. Here is the
fulfillment of the great prophecy of Jeremiah: "But this
shall be the covenant that I will make with the house
of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put

my law in their inward parts, and write it in their

hearts." 4
The law is no longer for the Christian a com-
mand which it is for him by his own strength to obey,
but its requirements are fulfilled through the mighty
power of the Holy Spirit. There is the glorious free-
2
Rom. viii: 24.
8
Rom. vih 25; viii: 2.

*Jer. xxxi:33.
192 WHAT IS FAITH?
dom of the gospel. The gospel does not abrogate
God's law, but it makes men love it with all their
hearts.
How is it with us? The law of God stands over us;
we have offended against it in thought, word and deed;
its.majestic "letter" pronounces a sentence of death
against our sin. Shall we obtain a specious security by

ignoring God's law, and by taking refuge in an easier

law of our own devising? Or shall the Lord Jesus, as
He is offered to us in the gospel, wipe out the sentence
of condemnation that was against us, and shall the
Holy Spirit write God's law in our heart, and make us
doers of the law and not hearers only? So and only so
will the great text be applied to us: "The letter killeth,

but the Spirit giveth life."

The alternative that underlies this verse, then, and
that becomes explicit in Galatians also, is not an alter-
native between an external or ceremonial religion and
what men would now call (by a misuse of the New

Testament word) a "spiritual" religion, important

though that alternative no doubt is; but it is an alterna-
tive between a religion of merit and a religion of grace.
The Epistle to the Galatians is directed just as much
against the modern notion of "salvation by character"
or salvation by "making Christ Master" in the life or
salvation by a mere attempt to put into practice "the

principles of Jesus," as it is directed against the Jewish

ceremonialists of long ago: for what the Apostle is con-
cerned to deny any intrusion of human merit into- the
is

work by which salvation

is obtained. That work, ac-
cording to the Epistle to the Galatians and according to
 FAITH AND WORKS 193

the whole New Testament, is the work of God and of

God alone.
At this point appears the full poignancy of the great
Epistle with which we have been dealing. Paul is not
merely arguing that a man is justified by faith so much
no doubt his opponents, the Judaizers, admitted but
he is arguing that a man is justified by faith alone.
What the Judaizers said was not that a man is justified

by works; but that he is justified by faith and works

exactly the thing that is being taught by the Roman
Catholic Church today. No doubt they admitted that
it was necessary for a man to have faith in. Christ in
order, to be saved: but they held that it was also neces-

sary for him to keep the law the best he could; salva-
tion, according to them, was not by faith alone and not

by works alone but by faith and works together. A

man's obedience to the law of God, they held, was not,
indeed, sufficient for salvation; but it was necessary; and
it became sufficient when it was supplemented by Christ.

Against this compromising solution of the problem,

the Apostle insists a sharp alternative: a man may
upon
be saved by works
(if he keeps the law perfectly) or ,

he may be saved by faith; but he cannot possibly be

f'saved by faith and works together. Christ, according
to Paul, will do everything or nothing; if righteousness
/
is in slightest measure obtained by our obedience to the
/ law, then Christ died in vain; if we trust in slightest
measure in our own good works, then we have turned
away from grace and Christ profiteth us nothing.
.
To the world, that seem to be a hard saying;
may
it is not a hard saying to the man who has ever
194 WHAT IS FAITH?
been at the foot of the Cross; it is not a hard saying to
the man who has first known the bondage of the law,
the weary effort at establishment of his own righteous-
ness in the presence of God, and .then has come to under-
stand, as in a wondrous flash of light, that Christ has
done all, and that the weary bondage was vain. What a
great theologian is the Christian heart the Christian
heart that has been touched by redeeming grace! The
man who has felt the burden of sin roll away at the

sight of the Cross, who has said of the Lord Jesus, "He
loved gave Himself for me," who has sung with
me and
Toplady: "Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to

Thy cross I cling" that man knows in his heart of

hearts that the Apostle is right, that to trust Christ only
for part is not to trust Him at all, that our own right-

eousness is insufficient even to bridge the .smallest gap

which might be left open between us and God, that
there is no hope unless we can safely say to the Lord
Jesus, without shadow of reservation, without shadow
of self- trust: "Thou must -save, and Thou alone."
That is the centre of the Christian religion the ab-
solutely undeserved and sovereign grace of God, saving
sinful men by the gift of Christ upon the cross. Con-
demnation comes by merit; salvation comes only by
grace: condemnation is earned by man; salvation is
given by God. The fact of the grace of God runs
through the New Testament like a golden thread; in-
deed for it the New Testament exists. It is found in
the words which Jesus spoke in the days of His flesh,
as in the parables of the servant coming in from the
field and of the laborers in the vineyard; it Is found
 FAITH AND WORKS ,195

more fully set for th after the redeeming work was done,
after the Lord had uttered his triumphant "It is fin-
ished'* upon the cross. Everywhere the basis of the

New Testament the same

the mysterious, incalcu-
is

lable, wondrous, grace of God. "The wages of sin is

death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
5
Jesus Christ our Lord."
The reception of that gift is faith: faith means not
doing something but receiving something; it means not
the earning of a reward but the acceptance of a gift. A
man can never be said to obtain a thing for himself if

he obtains it by faith; indeed to say that he obtains it

by faith is only another way of saying that he does not

obtain it for himself but permits another to obtain it
for him. Faith, in other words, is not active but pas-
sive; and to say that we are saved by faith is to say that
we do not save ourselves but are saved only by the one
in whom our faith is reposed; the faith of man pre-
supposes the sovereign grace of God.
Even yet, however, we have not sounded the full

depths of the New Testament teaching; we have not

yet fully set forth the place in salvation which the Bible
assigns to the grace of God. A sort of refuge, in what
we have said so far, may seem to have been left for the
pride of man. Man does not save himself, we have
said; God saves him. But man accepts that salvation
by faith; arid faith n though a negative act, seems to be
a kind of act; salvation is freely offered by God; the
offer of it does not depend at all upon man; yet a man
6
Rom. vi: 23.
196 WHAT IS FAITH?
might seem to obtain a sort of merit by not resisting
that offer when once it is
given him by God.
But even this last irefuge of human pride is searched
out and destroyed by She teaching of God's Word; for
the Bible represents even faith itself -little merit as it
could in any case involve as the work of the Spirit of

God. The Spirit, according to a true summary of the

New Testament, works faith in us and thereby unites
us to Christ in our effectual calling; sovereign and resist-
less is God's grace; and our faith is merely the means
which the Spirit uses to apply to us the benefits of
Christ's redeeming work.
The means was of God's choosing, not ours; and it

isnot for us to say, "What doest Thou?" Yet even

we, weak and ignorant though we are, can see, I think,
why means was chosen to unite us to
this particular
Christ; why was
faith chosen instead of love, for ex-
ample, as the channel by which salvation could enter
into our lives. Love is active; faith is passive; hence
faith not love was chosen. If the Bible had said that
we are saved by love, then even though our love was
altogether the gift of the Spirit, we might have thought
that it was our own, and so we might have claimed
salvation as our right. But not only were we
as it is,

saved by grace, but because of the peculiar means which

God used to save us, we knew that we were saved by
grace; it was of the very nature of faith to make us
know that we were not saving ourselves. Even before
we could love as we ought to love, even before we could
do anything or feel anything aright, we were saved by
faith; we were saved by abandoning all confidence in
 FAITH AND WORKS 197,

our own thoughts or feelings or actions and by simply

allowing ourselves to be saved by God.
In one sense, indeed, we were saved by love; that in-
deed an even prof ounder fact than that we were saved
is

by faith.Yes, we were saved by love, but it was by a

greater love than the love in our cold and sinful hearts;
we were saved by love, but it was not our love for God
but God's love for us, God's love for us by which he
gave the Lord Jesus to die for us upon the cross. "Here-
in is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us,
6
and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
That love alone is the love that saves. And the means
by which it saves is faith.
Thus the beginning of the Christian life is not an
achievement but an experience the soul of the
; man who
is saved is not, at the moment of salvation, active, but
passive; salvation is the work of God and God alone.
That does not mean that the Christian is unconscious
when salvation enters his life; it does not mean that he
isplaced in a trance, or that his ordinary faculties are
in abeyance; on the contrary the great transition often
seems to be a very simple thing; overpowering emotional
stress is by no means always present; and faith is always
a conscious condition of the soul. There is, moreover,
a volitional aspect of faith, in which it appears to the
man who believes to be induced by a conscious effort of
his will, a conscious effort 'of his will by which he re-
solves to cease trying to save himself and resolves to

accept, instead, the salvation offered by Christ. The

preacher of the gospel ought to appeal, we think, in
61 John iv:10.
198 \yHAT IS FAITH?

every in his power, to the conscious life of the man

way
whom he is trying to win; he ought to remove intellec-
tual objections against the truth of Christianity, and
adduce positive arguments; he ought to appeal to the
emotions; he ought to seek, by exhortation, to move the
will. All these means may be used, and have been used
countless times, by the Spirit of God; and certainly we
have not intended to disparage them by anything that
we Kave just said. But what we do maintain is that
though necessary they are not sufficient; they will never
bring a man to faith in Christ unless there is with them
the mysterious, regenerating power of the Spirit of God,
We are not presuming to treat here the psychology of
faith; and certainly we do not think that such a psy-
chology of faith is at all necessary to the man who be-
lieves; indeed the less he thinks about his own states of
consciousness and the more he thinks about Christ the
better it But this much at
will often be for his soul.
least can be said: even conscious states can be induced
in supernatural fashion by the Spirit of God, and such
a conscious state is the faith by which a man first ac-
cepts Christ as his Saviour from sin.
But if the beginning of the Christian life is thus not
an achievement but an experience, if a man is not really
active, but passive; when he is saved, if faith is to be

placed in sharp contrast with works, what becomes of

the ethical character of the Christian religion, what be-
comes of the stimulus which it has always given to

human individuality and to the sense of human worth,

what becomes of the vigorous activity which, in marked
contrast with some of the other great religions of the
 FAITH AND WORKS 199

world, it has always encouraged in its adherents? Such

questions are perfectly legitimate; and they show that
we are very far from having given, up to the present
point, any adequate account of the relation, in the
Christian religion, between faith and works, or between
doctrine and life.
That relation must therefore now he examined,
though still briefly, a little more in detail.
The examination may best be begun by a considera-
tion of what has been regarded by some devout readers
of the Bible as a serious difficulty, namely the apparent
contradiction between the second chapter of Galatians
and the second chapter of the Epistle of James. '"A
man is not justified by the works of the law, but only
7
through faith in Christ Jesus/' says Paul; "Ye see then
how that by works a man is justified and not by faith
,

8
only," says James. These two verses in their juxta-
position constitute an ancient Biblical difficulty. In the
verse from Galatians a man is said to become right with
God by faith alone apart from works; in the verse from
James he is said to become right with God not by faith
alone but by faith and works. If the verses are taken
out of their wider context and placed side by side, a
contradiction could scarcely seem to be more complete.
The Pauline doctrine of justification by faith alone,
which we have just treated at considerable length, is,

as we have seen, the very 'foundation of Christian lib-

erty. It makes our standing with God dependent not

7 Gal.
ii: 16. It is evident from the immediate context that
this is the correct translation.
8 ~
James ii: 24,
200 WHAT IS FAITH?
upon what we have done, but altogether upon
at all
what God has done. If our salvation depended upon
what we had done, then, according to Paul, we should
still be bondslaves; we should still be endeavoring fever-
ishly to keep God's law so well that at the end we
might possibly win His favor. It would be a hopeless
endeavor because of the deadly guilt of sin; we should
be like debtors endeavoring to pay, but in the very effort
getting deeper and deeper into debt. But as it is, in ,

accordance with the gospel, God has granted us His

favor as an absolutely free gift; He has brought us into
right relation to Himself not on the basis of any merit
of ours, but altogether on the basis of the merit of
Christ. Great is the guilt of our sins; but Christ took
it all upon Himself when He died for us on Calvary.
We do not need, then, to make ourselves good before
we become God's children but we can come to God just
;

as we are, all laden with our sins, and be quite certain

that the guilt of sin will be removed and that we shall
be received. When God looks upon us, to receive us or
to cast us off, it is not we that He regards but our great
Advocate, Christ Jesus the Lord.
Such is the glorious certainty of the gospel. The sal-
vation of the Christian is certain because it depends
altogether upon God; if it depended in slightest measure
upon us, the certainty of it would be gone. Hence ap-
pears the vital importance of the great Reformation
doctrine of justification by faith alone; that doctrine is

at the very centre of Christianity. It means that ac-

ceptance with God is not something that we earn; it

is not something that issubject to the wretched uncer-
 FAITH AND WORKS 201

of human endeavor; but it is a free gift of God.

tainties

Itmay seem strange that we should be received by the

holy God as His children; but God has chosen to re-
ceive us; it has been done on His responsibility not ours;
He whom He will into His pres-
has a right to receive
ence; and in the mystery of His grace He has chosen
to receive us.
That central doctrine of the Christian faith is really

presupposed in the whole New Testament; but it is

made particularly plain in the Epistles of Paul. It is

such passages as the eighth chapter of Romans, the sec-

ond and third chapters of Galatians, and the fifth chap-
ter of II Corinthians, which set forth in plainest fashion

the very centre of the gospel.

But in the Epistle of James there seems at first sight
to be a discordant note in this great TestamentNew
chorus. "Ye see then," says James, "how that by works
a man is justified, and not by faith only." If that
means that a man is pronounced righteous before God
partly because of the merit of his own works and only
partly because of the sacrifice of Christ accepted by faith,
then James holds exactly the position of the bitter op-
ponents of Paul who are combated in the Epistle to
the Galatians. Those opponents, the "Judaizers" as
they are called, held, as we have seen, that faith in
Christ is necessary to salvation (in that they agreed with
Paul) but they held that the merit of one's own observ-
,

ance of the law of God is also necessary. A man is

saved, not by faith aloneand not by works alone, but

by faith and works together that was apparently the
formula of the Judaizing opponents of Paul, The
202 WHAT IS FAITH?

Apostle rightly saw that that formula meant a return to

bondage. If Christ saves us only part way, and leaves
a gap to be filled up by our own good works, then we
can never be certain that we are saved. The awakened
conscience sees clearly that our own obedience to God's
law is not the kind of obedience that is really required;
it isnot that purity of the heart which is demanded by
the teaching and example of our Lord. Our obedience
to the law is insufficient to bridge even the smallest gap;
we are unprofitable servants, and if we ever enter into
an account with our Judge we are undone. Christ has
done nothing for us or He has done everything; to de- ;

pend even in smallest measure upon our own merit is

the very essence of unbelief; we must trust Christ for
nothing or we must trust Him for .all. Such is the
teaching of the Epistle to the Galatians.
But in the Epistle of James' we seem at first sight to
be in a different circle of ideas. "Justified by faith

jllone," says Paul; "Justified not by faith alone," says

James. It has been a difficulty to. many readers of the
Bible. But apparent contradictions in the
like other

Bible it proves to be a contradiction merely of form and

not of content; arid it serves only to lead the devout
reader into a deeper and fuller understanding of the
truth.
The solution of the difficulty appears in the definition
of the word "faith." The apparent contradiction is
due simply to the fact that when James in this chapter
says that "faith" alone is insufficient, he means a dif-
ferent thing by 'the word "faith" from that which Paul
means by it when he says that faith is all-sufficient.
 FAITH AND WORKS 203

The kind of faith which James is pronouncing insuffi-

cient is made clear in the nineteenth verse of the same

chapter: "Thou believest that there is one God; thou

doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." The
kind of faith which James pronounces insufficient is
the faith which the devils also have; it is a mere intel-
lectual apprehension of the facts about God or Christ,
and it involves no acceptance of those facts as a gift
of God to one's own soul. But it is not that kind of
faith which Paul means when he says that a man is

saved by faith alone. Faith is" indeed intellectual; it

involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and

vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowl-
edge. But although
faith is intellectual, it is not only
intellectual. You
cannot have faith without having
knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have
only knowledge. Faith is the acceptance of a gift at
the hands of Christ. We cannot accept the gift without
knowing certain things about\ the gift and about the
giver. But we might know those things and still
all

not accept the gift. We might know what the gift is

and still not accept it. Knowledge is thus absolutely
necessary to faith, but it is not all that is necessary.
Christ comes offering us that right relation to God
which He wrought for us on the cross. Shall we ac-
cept the gift or shall we hold it in disdain? The ac-

ceptance of the gift is called faith. It is a very wonder-

ful thing; it involves a change of the whole nature of

man; it involves a new hatred of sin and a new hunger

and thirst after righteousness. Such a wonderful change
is not the work of man; faith itself is
given us by the
204 WHAT IS FAITH?

Spirit of God. Christians never make themselves Chris-

tians; but they are made Christians by God.
All that is clear from what has already been said.

But it is quite inconceivable that a man should be given

this faith in Christ, that he should accept this gift
which Christ offers, and still go on contentedly in sin.
For the very thing which Christ offers us is salvation
from sin not only salvation from the guilt of sin,
but also salvation from the power of sin. The very
first thing that the Christian does, therefore, is to keep
the law of God: he keeps it no longer as a way of earn-
ing his salvation for salvation has been given him
freely by God but he keeps it joyously as a central
part of salvation itself. The faith of which Paul speaks
is, as Paul himself says, a faith that works through
love; and love is the fulfilling of the whole law. Paul
would have agreed fully with James that the faith of
which James speaks in our passage is quite insufficient
for salvation. The faith that Paul means when he
speaks of justification by faith alone is a faith that
works.
But if the faith regarded insufficient by James is dif-

ferent from the faith commended by Paul, so also the

works commended by James are different from the works
fegarded inefficacious by Paul. Paul is speaking of
works of the law, he is speaking of works that are in-
tended to acquire merit in order that God's favor may
be earned; James on the other hand is speaking of works
like Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac that are the result of
faith and show that faith is real faith.
 FAITH AND WORKS 205

The difference, then, between Paul and James is a

difference of terminology, not of meaning. That dif-

ference of terminology shows that the Epistle of James

was written at a very early time, before the controversy

with the Judaizers had arisen and before the termi-

nology had become fixed. If James had been writing
after theterminology had become fixed, what he would
have said is that although a man is justified by faith
alone and not at all by works, yet one must be sure
that the faith is and not a mere intellectual
real faith

assent like that of the demons who believe and tremble.

What he actually does is to say just that in different
words. Jamesnot correcting Paul, then; he is not
is

even correcting a misinterpretation of Paul; but he is

unconsciously preparing for Paul; he is preparing well
for the clearer and more glorious teaching of the great
Epistles.
The Epistle of James ought to be given its due place
in the nurture of the Christian life. It has sometimes
been regarded as the Epistle of works. But that does
not mean that this Epistle ignores the deeper and more
meditative elements in the Christian life. James is no
advocate of a mere "gospel of street-cleaning"; he is no
advocate of what is falsely called today a "practical,"
as distinguished from a doctrinal, Christianity; he is not
a man who seeks to drown an inward disquiet by a

bustling philanthropy. On the contrary he is a great

believer in the power of prayer; he exalts faith and de-
nounces doubt; he humbles man and glorifies God:
"Go tonow, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will
go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy
206 WHAT IS FAITH?
and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall
be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even
a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then
vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord
9
will, we shall live, and do this, or that." The man
who wrote these words was no mere advocate of a
"practical" religion of this world; he was no mere ad-
vocate of what is called today "the social gospel"; but
he was a man who viewed this world, as the whole
New Testament views it, in the light of eternity.
So the lesson of James may be learned without vio-
lence being done to the deepest things of the Christian
faith certainly without violence being done to the gos-
pel which Paul proclaims. It was as clear to Paul as it
was to James that men who had been saved by faith
could not continue to live unholy lives. "Be not de-
ceived," says Paul: "neither fornicators, nor idolaters,
nor adulterers .... nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit
the kingdom of God."
10
It is difficult to see how
any-
thing could be much plainer than that. Paul just as
earnestly as James insists upon the ethical or practical

character of Christianity; Paul as well as James insists

upon purity and unselfishness in conduct as an abso-

lutely necessary mark of the Christian life. A Chris-

tian, according to Paul (as also really according to

James), is saved not by himself but by God; but he is

saved by God not in order that he may continue in sin,
8 James iv: 13 f.

1 I Cor. vi: 9 f.
 FAITH AND WORKS 207

but in order that he may conquer sin and attain unto

holiness.
Indeed so earnest is Paul about this matter that at
times looks almost as though he believed Christians
it

even in this life to be altogether sinless, as though he

believed that if they were not sinless they were not
Christians at all. Such an interpretation of the Epistles
would indeed be incorrect; it is contradicted, in par-
ticular, by which the Apostle ex-
the loving care with
horted and encouraged those members of his congrega-
tions who had been overtaken in a fault. As a pastor
of souls Paul recognized the presence of sin even in those
who were within the household of faith; and dealt with
it not only with severity but also with patience and
love. Nevertheless the fact is profoundly significant
that in the great doctrinal passages of the Epistles Paul
makes very little reference (though such reference is
not altogether absent) to the presence of sin in Christian
men. How is that fact to be explained? I think it is
to be explained by the profound conviction of the
Apostle that although sin is actually found in Chris-
tians it does not belong there; it is never to be ac-

quiesced in for one single moment, but is to be treated

as a terrible anomaly that simply ought not to be.
Thus according to Paul the beginning of the new
life is followed
by a battle a battle against sin. In
that battle, as is not the case with the beginning of it,
the Christian does co-operate with God; he is helped
by God's Spirit, but he himself, and not only God's
Spirit in him, is active in the fight.
At the beginning of the Christian life there is an act
208 WHAT IS FAITH?
of God and of God alone. It is called in the New
Testament the new birth or
(as Paul calls it) the new
creation. In that act no part whatever is contributed
bythe man who is born again. And no wonder! A
man who is dead -either dead in physical death or
"dead in trespasses can do nothing what-
and sins'*

which he is dead. If he
ever, at least in the sphere in
could do anything in that sphere, he would not be
dead. Such a man who is dead in trespasses and sins
is raised to new life in the new birth or the new crea-
tion. To that new birth he himself cannot contribute
at all, any more than he contributed to his physical
birth. But birth is followed by life; and though a man
is not active in his birth he is active in the life that fol-
lows. So it is also in the spiritual realm. We did not
contribute at new birth; that was an act of
all to our
God alone. But that new birth is followed by a new
life, and in the new life we have been given by Him

who begat us anew the power of action; it is that power

of action that is involved in birth. Thus the Chris-
tian life is begun by an act of God alone; but it is con-
tinued by co-operation between God and man. The
possibility of such co-operation is due indeed only to
God; it has not been achieved in slightest measure by
us; it is the supreme wonder of God's grace. But once

given by God it is not withdrawn.

Thus the Christian life in this world is not passive
but active; it consists in a mighty battle against sin.
That battle isa winning battle, because the man that
engages in it has been made alive in the first place by
God, and because he has a great Companion to help him
 FAITH AND. WORKS 209

in every turn of the fight But,though a winning hattle,

it is a battle all the same; and
not only God's battle
it is

but ours. The faith of which we have been speaking

consists not in doing something but in receiving some-

thing; but it is followed every time by a life in which

great things are done.
This aspect of faith is put in classic fashion by the
Apostle Paul in a wonderful phrase in the Epistle to
the Galatians. "Neither circumcision availeth any
thing," says Paul, "nor uncircumcision; but faith which
worketh by love." 11 In that phrase, "faith which
worketh by love," or, more literally, "faith working
through love," a whole world of experience is com-
pressed within the compass of four words.
Surely that is a text for a practical age; the world
may perhaps again become interested in faith if it sees
that faith is a thing that works. And certainly our
practical age cannot afford to reject assistance wherever
it can be found; for the truth is that this practical age
seems just now to be signally failing to accomplish re-
, suits even on its own ground; it seems to be signally

failing to "make things go."

Strangely enough the present failure of the world
to make things go is due just to that emphasis upon
efficiencywhich might seem to make failure impossible;
it isthe paradox of efficiency that it can be attained only
by those who do not make it the express object of their
desires* The modern one-sided emphasis upon the
practical has hindered the progress of humanity, we
think, in at least two ways.
"Gal. v:6. ,'
210 WHAT IS FAITH?
The first way has already been treated in what pre-
cedes. Men are so eager about the work, we observed,
that they have neglected a proper choice of means to
accomplish it; they think that they can make use of
religion, as a means to an end, without settling the
question of the truth of any particular religion; they
think that they can make use of faith as a beneficent psy-
chological phenomenon without determining whether
the thing that is believed is true or false. The whole
effort, as we vain; such a pragmatist use
observed, is

of faith really destroys the thing that is being used.

If therefore the work is to proceed, we cannot in this

pragmatist fashion avoid, but must first face and settle,

the question of the means.

In the secondplace, men are so eager today about the
work that they are sometimes indifferent to the ques-
tion what particular kind of work it shall be. The
efficient, energetic man is often being admired by the
world at large, and
particularly by himself, quite ir-
respective of the character of his achievements. It often
seems to make little difference whether a man engages
in the accumulation of material wealth or in the quest
of political power or in the management of schools and
hospitals and charities. Whether he engages in rob-
bery or in missions, he is sure of recognition, provided
only he succeeds, provided only he is "a man who does
things." But however stimulating such a prizing of
work for its own sake may be to the individual, it is

obviously not conducive to any great advance for hu-

manity as a whole. If my labor is going to be opposed
to the work of my neighbor, we might both of us
 FAITH AND WORKS 211

enjoy a good, old-fashioned, comfortable rest, so far

as any general progress is concerned. Our efforts simply
cancel each other. Consequently, although a great deal
of energy being displayed in the world today, one
is

cannot help having the feeling that a vast deal of it

is being wasted. The truth is that if we are to be
truly practical men, we must first be theorizers. We
must first settle upon some one great task and some one

great force for its accomplishment.

The Pauline text makes proposals in both directions.
It proposes both a task and a force to accomplish it.
"Faith working itself out through love" love is the
work, faith the means.
It should be noticed in the first place that this work
and this means are open to everyone. In Christ Jesus
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircum-
cisionj there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
bond nor free, there is no male and female; nothing is

required except what is common to all men. If we

like the work We cannot say that it is beyond our reach.

The work is love, and what that is Paul explains in

the last; same Epistle. It is not a mere
division of the
emotion, it is not even a mere benevolent desire; it is
a practical thing. We sometimes say of a rather un-
principled and dissipated man: "He is weak, but he has
a good heart," Such mere good-heartedness is not
Christian love. Christian love includes not merely the
wish for the welfare of one's fellow-men, not merely
even the willingness to help, but also the power. In
order to love in the Christian sense, a man must be not
only benevolent, but also strong and good; he must
212 WHAT IS FAITH?
love his fellow-men enough to build up his own
strength in order to use it for their benefit.
Such a task very different from much of the work
is

that isactually being done in the world. In the first

place, it is a spiritual not a material work. It is really

astonishing how many men are almost wholly absorbed

in purely material things. Very many men seem to
have no higher conception of work than that of mak-
ing the dirt fly: the greatest nation is thought to be
the nation that has the largest income and the biggest
battleships; the greatest university, even, to be the one
that has the finest laboratories. Such practical material-
ism need not be altogether selfish; the production of ma-
terial goods may be desired for others as well as for

one's self. Socialism may be taken as an example. It

is not altogether selfish. But at least in its most

consistent forms it errs in supposing that the proper
distribution of material wealth will be a panacea. In-
deed, such a habit of thought has not been altogether
absent from the Church itself. Wherever the notion
is cherished that the relief of physical suffering is some-
how more important more practical than the wel-
fare of thehuman spirit, there material things are being
made the chief .object of pursuit. And that is not
Christian love. Christian love does not, indeed, neglect
men's physical welfare; it does not give a man a ser-
mon when he needs bread. It relieves distress; it de-
lights in affording even the simplest pleasure to a child.
But it always does these things with the consciousness

of the one inestimable gift that it has in reserve.

In the second place, Christian love is not merely
 "- "
FAITH AND WORKS
"~" "' "~
-^ - -"
"" ~ :-~
" -- -~:~^r~.^r.--..-r
L
_
213
J ~~
'.
_
_ Jfr-_
:

,1 -. ^1I-.. -i;
>-^ .

intellectual or emotional, but also moral. It involves

nothing lessthan the keeping of the whole moral law.

"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;
12
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Chris-
tianity may provide a satisfactory world-view, it may
give men comfort and happiness, it may deprive death
of its terrors, it may produce the exaltation of religious
emotion; but it is not Christianity unless it makes men

better. Furthermore, love is a peculiar kind of observ-

ance of the moral law. not a mere performance of
It is

a set of external acts. That may be hypocrisy or ex-

pediency. Nor
is it a mere devotion to duty for duty's

sake. admirable and praiseworthy, but it is

That is

the childhood stage of morality. The Christian is no

longer under the schoolmaster; his performance of the
law springs not from obedience to a stern voice of duty
but from an overpowering impulse; he loves the law
of the Lord; he does right because he cannot help it.
In the third place, love involves, I think, a peculiar
conception of the content of the law. It regards moral-
ity primarily as unselfishness. And what a vast deal
of the culture of the world, with all its pomp and
glitter, is selfish Genius exploits the plain
to the core!
men; Christ died for them: and His disciples must
follow in the footsteps of their Lord.
In the fourth place, Christian love is not merely love
for man; it is also, and even primarily, love for God.
We have observed that love for God is not the means

by which we are saved: the New Testament does not

love hath saved thee," but "Thy faith hath
sayJThy
"GaL v: 14.
214 WHAT IS FAITH?
saved thee"; does not say, "Love the Lord Jesus
it

Christ, and thou shalt be saved," but "Believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But that
does not mean that the New Testament depreciates
love; does not mean that if a man did love, and al-
it

ways had loved, God the Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ and his fellow-men, as he ought to love them, he
would not be a saved man; it only means that because
of sin no unregenerate man who has ever lived has
actually done that. Love, according to the New Testa-
ment, is not the means of salvation, but it is the finest
fruit of it; a man is saved by faith, not by love; but he
:
is saved by faith in order that he may love.
Such, then, is the work. How may it be accom-
plished? "Simply by accomplishing 'says the it,"

"practical" man; "no appeal need be made except to the

sovereign will; any time a man desires to stop his evil
ways and begin to serve God and his fellow-men, the
way is perfectly open for him to do it," Yet here is
the remarkable thing: the way is always perfectly open,
and yet the man never enters upon it; he always can,

but never does. Some of us feel the logical necessity

of seeking a common cause for such a uniform effect.

And the common cause that we find is sin.

Of course if there is no, such thing as sin, then noth-
ing is needed to overcome it, and nothing stands in the

way of Christian love. The existence of sin, as we

observed, quite generally denied in the
is modern world.
It is denied in at least two ways. In the first place, men
sometimes say in effect that there, is no sin, but only
imperfection; what we call "sin" is just one form of
 FAITH AND WORKS 215,

imperfection. If so, it may perhaps well be argued that

the human will is sufficient for human tasks. have We
obviously made at least
progress, said; we
some it is

have advanced beyond the "stone age"; a continuation

,of thesame efforts will no doubt bring us still further
on pur way; and as for perfection that is as impossible
for us in the very nature of things as infinity. In the
second place, it is said, there is no sin but only sins.
It is , admitted that moral evil is different in kind from
imperfection, but thought to possess no unity;
it is

every individual choice is thought to be independent of

every other; a man is thought to be free every time to
choose either good or evil no one else can help him, it
;

is said, and no one need help him.

Paul's view of sin is opposed to both of these. In
the first place, sin, according to Paul, is deadly guilt, and
in the second place it is not inherent merely in the indi-
vidual acts. mighty power, in the presence of
It is a
which man is
helpless. "It. is no more I that do it, but

sin that dwelleth in me/' 13 "But," it may be objected,

"what a dangerous form of expression that is! If it is
no more I that do it, my responsibility is gone; how can
I still feel guilt? If I am to be guilty, then sin' must be
a property simply and solely of my conscious acts."
Yet experience curiously reverses such a priori reasoning;
history teaches that the men who have actually felt most
deeply the guilt of sin have been just the men who re-
garded it as a great force lying far beneath the individual
acts. And a closer examination reveals the reason. If
each act stands by itself, then a wrong choice at any par-
13 -
Rom. vii: 17'.
216 WHAT IS FAITH?
ticular time comparatively speaking, a trifling thing;
is,

it may easily be rectified next time. Such a philosophy

can hardly produce any great horror and dread of sin.
But if is regarded as a unitary power, irreconcilably
sin

opposed to what is good, then acts of sin, apparently

trifling in themselves, show that we are under the domin-
ion of such a power; the single wrong action can no
longer be regarded by itself, but involves assent to a
Satanic power, which then leads logically, irresistibly to
the destruction of every right feeling, of every move-
ment of love, of pity, of sympathy. When we come
to see that what Paul calls the flesh is a mighty power,
which dragging us resistlessly
is down into an abyss of
evil that has no bottom, then we feel our guilt and
misery, then we look about for something stronger to
help us than our own weak will.
Such a power is found by the Apostle Paul in faith;

it is faith, he says, that produces, or works itself out in,

the life of love. But what does Paul mean when he
says that "faith works"? Certainly he does not mean
what the modern pragmatist skeptic means when he uses
the same words; certainly he does not mean that it is
merely faith, considered as a psychological phenomenon,
and independent of the truth or falsehood of its object,
that does the work. What he does mean 1 * is made
abundantly clear in the last section of this same Epistle
to the Galatians, where the life of love is presented in
some detail. In that section nothing whatever is said
about faith; it is not faith that is there represented as

producing the life of love but the Spirit of God; the

14
Compare Christianity and Libttetistn, 1923, pp. 146 ff.
 FAITH AND WORKS 217,

Spirit is
there represented as doing exactly what, in the
phrase "faith working through love," is ascribed to

faith. The
apparent contradiction leads us on to the
right conception of faith. True faith, strictly speaking,
does not do anything; it does not give, but receives.
So when one says that we do something by faith that is
just another way of saying that we do nothing at

least that we do nothing of ourselves. It is of the very

nature of faith, strictly speaking, to do nothing. So
when it is said that faith works through love, that
means that through 'faith, instead of doing something
we allow some one else to help us. That
for ourselves
force which enters our life at the beginning through
faith, before we
could do anything at all to please God,
and which then strengthens and supports us in the
battle that it has enabled us to begin, is the power of the

Spirit of God.
So
in the midst of a practical world, the Christian
exhibits a practical life of love a busy life of helpful-
ness, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty,
receiving the strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the
sick and the prisoners. And all that accomplished not
by his own unaided efforts, riot even merely by his own
faith,but by the great object of his faith, the all-power-
ful God.
The Christian preacher, then, comes before tKe world
with a great alternative. Shall we continue to depend
upon our own efforts, or shall we receive by faith the
power of God? Shall we content ourselves with the
materials which this world affords, seeking by endlessly
new combinations to produce a building that shall en-
218 WHAT IS FAITH?
dure; or shallwe build with the materials that have no
flaw? Shallwe give men new motives, or ask God to
give them a new power? Shall we improve the world,
or pray God to create a new world? The former alter-
natives have been tried and found wanting: the best of
architects can produce no enduring building when all
the materials are faulty; good motives are powerless
when the heart is evil. Struggle as we may, we re-
main just a part of this evil world until, by faith, we
cry: "ISfot by might, nor by power, but by Thy Spirit,
O Lord of Hosts/*
 CHAPTER VIII

FAITH AND HOPE

It has been shown in the last chapter that the Ghris-

tion life is a life of love^ and that
produced by the it is

power of the Spirit of God received through faith in

Christ. Such is the Christian work, and such is the
power that accomplishes it. But. what is the goal, what
is the end for which the work is done?

That there is some goal beyond is suggested even by

the very character of the means by which we accom-

plish even this present task. Just as the power of sin

was not exhausted by the evil actions committed here
and now, so the power of the Spirit is not exhausted
by His present fruits. Just as sin was felt to contain
infinite possibilities of evil, to be leading toward dread-
ful unf athomed depths, to contain a certain fearful

looking for of judgment, so the Spirit is felt to be far

greater than anything that He is now accomplishing.
The Christian has within him a mysterious power of
goodness, which is leading him by paths he knows not
to an unknown and The "practical"
Blessed country.
man of the world sees but little of the true life of the
Christian. He sees but the bare outward manifestation
of the infinite power within. It is no proof of the
absolute truth of Christianity that ithas made the
world better; for that achievement it shares perhaps
with other religions, though no doubt they have it

219
220 WHAT IS FAITH?
in far less degree. Other religions make men better:
but Christianity alone makes them good; for Chris-
tianity alone can exhibit one absolutely good human
and with it the promise that other lives will one
life,

day be conformed to that. The Christian alone has

really close and vital contact with absolute goodness
a goodness that contains in its very nature and presence
the promise that every last vestige of evil will finally
be removed.
So the Christian's love for his fellow men, which is

so much admired by the world, seems to the Christian

himself to be in one sense but a by-product; it is but
an effect of the greater love for God and but one step
in its unfolding. The relation of the Christian to that
force that sustains and guides him is not that of a dead
instrument in the hand of the workman, but that of a
free man to his loving father. The work is felt to be
all the more our work because it is also God's work.
That personal relation of love between the Christian
and his God is not seen by the world, but to the Chris-
tian it, and it alone, contains the promise of final good-
ness.
The Christian, then, produces the practical life of
love on the way to something greater; the Christian
lives by hope. That is sometimes made a reproach.
The Christian does what is right, it is said, because of
the rewards of heaven. How much nobler is the man
who does what isright simply because it is right, or
because it will lead to the happiness of generations yet
unborn, even though he believes that for himself the
grave ends all! The reproach would perhaps be justi-
 FAITH A-ND HOPE 221

fied if heaven involves mere selfish enjoyment. But as

a matter of fact heaven involves not merely enjoyment,
not merely happiness, but also goodness, and goodness
communion with the One who alone is good.
realized in
To regard that communion as broken off forever in
death does not in actual practice lead, as at first sight
it might seem as would naturally lead, to
though it

a height of unselfish service in which without thought

of individual survival a man would live for the sake
of the race. For the race is worthy of a man's service,

not if it is composed of mere creatures of a day, whose

life is essentially like the life of the beasts, but only
if it is composed of men with immortal souls, A de-

graded view of human life by which it deprived of is

its eternal significance does not in the long run lead to

unselfish service, but it leads to decadence and despair.

At the very heart of the Christian religion, at any rate,

despite what is being said today, is the hope of heaven.

That hope is but it is the highest and noblest
not selfish,

thought, perhaps, that has ever been placed in the mind

of man; it is the highest and noblest thought because
it involves not mere selfish enjoyment but the glory of
God. For the glory of God, realized through the
creatures that He has made, eternity will not be too
long. Man's chief end is not merely to glorify God and
enjoy Him, but it is "to glorify God and to enjoy Him
for evet."
This thought of heaven runs all through the New
Testament; and it is particularly prominent in the
teaching of Jesus. Not only is it important in itself,
moreover, but it has a very important bearing upon the
222 WHAT IS FAITH?

subject of the present little book. Faith is closely con-

nected in the New Testament with hope; and it is con-
trasted in .notable passages with sight. In contrast
with sight it is represented as a way by which we can
learn of things that are to be ours in the future world.
If, therefore, we are to understand in any adequate

manner what the New Testament says about faith, we

must attend very carefully to what the New Testament
says about heaven.
But we cannot understand at all what the New Tes-
tament says about heaven, unless we attend also to what
the New Testament says about hell; in the New Testa-
ment heaven and hell appear in contrast. That contrast
is found most clearly of all, strange though it may seem

to some persons, in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus speaks

not only about heaven but also, with very great plain-
ness,about hell. "Fear not them which kill the body,"
said our Lord (to quote a typical utterance) , "but are
not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is

able to destroyboth soul and body in hell." 1

These words were not spoken by Jonathan Edwards;
they were not spoken by Cotton Mather; they were not
spoken by Calvin, or by Augustine, or by Paul. But
they were spoken by Jesus.
And when they are put together with many other
words like them in the Gospels, they demonstrate the
utter falsity of the picture of Jesus which is being con-
structed in recent years. According to that picture,
Jesus preached what was essentially a religion of this
world; he advocated a filial attitude toward God and
1 Matt, x: 28.
 FAITH AND HOPE 223

promoted a more abundant life of man, without being

interested in vulgar details as towhat happens beyond
the grave; in thewords of Professor Ell wood, he "con-
cerned himself but little with the question of existence
2
after death."
In order to destroy this picture, it is necessary only
to go through a Gospel harmony and note the passages
where Jesus speaks of blessedness and woe in a future
life. If you do that, you may be surprised at the re-

sult; certainly you will be surprised at the result if

you have previously been affected in slightest degree by

the misrepresentation of Jesus which dominates the

religious literature of our time. You will discover that

the thought not only of heaven but also the thought of
hell runs all through the teaching of Jesus.
It runs through the most characteristic parables of
Jesus- the solemn parables of the rich man and Laz-
arus, the unrighteous steward, the pounds, the talents,
the wheat and the tares, the evil servant, the marriage
of the king's son, the ten virgins. It is equally promi-
nent in -the rest of Jesus' teaching. The judgment
scene of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew is only
the culmination of what is found everywhere in the
Gospels: "These shall go away into everlasting punish-
ment: but the righteous into life eternal." 3 There is
absolutely nothing peculiar about this passage amid the
sayings of Jesus. If there ever was a religious teacher
who could not be appealed to in support of a religion
2
Ellwood, The Reconstruction of Religion, 1922, p. 141.
3 Matt, xxv: 46.
224 WHAT IS FAITH?.

of this world, if there ever was a teacher who viewed

the world under the aspect of eternity, it is Jesus of
Nazareth.
These passages and a great mass of other passages like
them are imbedded everywhere in the Gospel tradition.
So far as I know even the most radical criticism has
hardly tried to remove this element in Jesus' teaching.
But it is not merely the amount of Jesus taching about
the future life which is impressive; what is even more
impressive is the character of it. It does not appear as
an excrescence in the Gospels, as something which might
be removed and yet leave the rest of the teaching intact.
If this elementwere removed, what would be left? Cer-
tainly not the gospel itself, certainly not the good news
of Jesus' saving work; for that is concerned with these
high issues of eternal life and death. But not even the
ethical teaching of Jesus would be left. There can be
no greater mistake than to suppose that Jesus ever sep-
arated theology from ethics, or that if you remove His

theology His beliefs about God and judgment, about

future woe for the wicked and future blessedness for
the good you can have His ethical teaching intact.
On the contrary, the stupendous earnestness of Jesus'
ethics is rooted in the constant thought of the judg-
ment seat of God. "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck
it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter
into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to
4
be cast into hell fire." These words are characteristic
of all of Jesus' teaching; the stupendous earnestness of
4 Matt, xviii: 9.
 FAITH AND HOPE -
225

His commands is intimately connected with the alter-

native of eternal weal or woe.
That alternative is used by Jesus to arouse men to
fear. "And fear not them which kill the body, but
are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which
5
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Luke
records a similar saying of Jesus: "And
say unto you
I

my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body,

and have no more than they can do. But I
after that
will forewarn you whom ye^hall fear: Fear him, which
after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea,
I say unto you, Fear him."
6
There are those who tell

us that fear ought to be banished from religion; we

ought, it is said, no longer to hold before men's eyes
the fear of hell; fear, it is said, is an ignoble thing.

Those who
speak in this way certainly have no right
to appeal to Jesus; for Jesus certainly did employ, and

insistently, the motive of fear. If you eschew alto-

gether that motive in religion, you are in striking cpn-

tradiction to Jesus. Here, as at many other points,

a choice must be made between the real Jesus and much
that bears His name today. But who is right? Is
Jesus right, pr are those right who put out of their
minds the fear of hell? Is fear altogether an ignoble
thing; is a man necessarily degraded by being afraid?
I think that it depends altogether upon that of which
one is afraid. The words of the text that we have
been considering, with the solemn inculcation of fear,
8
Matt, x: 28."
6
Luke xii: 4 f.
226 WHAT IS FAITH?
are also a ringing denunciation of fear; the "Fear Him/'
isbalanced by "Fear not/' The fear of God is here
made way
a of overcoming the fear of man. And the
heroic centuries of Christian history have provided
abundant testimony to the efficaciousness of that way.
With the fear of God
before their eyes, the heroes of
the faith have stood boldly before kings and governors
and said: "Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise, God
help me, Amen." It is certainly an ignoble thing to

be afraid of bonds and death at the hands of men; it

is certainly an ignoble thing to fear those who use
power to suppress the right. Such fear has always
been overcome by true men of faith.
Even the fear of God, indeed, might be degrading.
It all depends upon what manner of being you hold

God to be. If you think that God is altogether such

an one as yourself, your fear of Him will be a degrad-

ing thing. If you think of Him as a capricious tyrant,

envious of the creatures that He has made, you will

never rise above the grovelling fears of Caliban. But
it is very different when you stand in the presence of
all the moral order in the universe; it is very different
when God comes walking in the garden and you are

without excuse; it is very different when you think of

that dread day when your puny deceptions will fall off
and you will stand defenceless before the righteous

judgment throne. It is very different when not the

sins of the other people but your own sins are being

judged. Can we really come before the judgment seat

of God and stand fearlessly upon our rights? Or can
 FAITH AND HOPE 227

we really repeat
with Henley the well-known words:

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul,

or this:
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

Is this the way to overcome fear? Surely it is not.

We can repeat such words only by the disguised coward-
ice of ignoring facts.
As a matter of fact, our soul is not unconquerable;
we are not masters of our fate or captains of our soul.
Many a man
has contemplated some foul deed at first
with horror, and said, "Am I a dog that I should do
this thing?" And then has come the easy descent
into the pit, the gradual weakening of the moral fibre,
so that what seemed horrible yesterday seems excusable

today; until at last, at some sad hour, with the memory

of the horror of sin still in the mind, a man awakes
to the realization that he is already wallowing in the

mire. Such the dreadful hardening that comes from

is

sin. Even in this life we are not masters of our fate;

we are of ourselves certainly not captains of our bodies,
and we are of ourselves, I fear, not even captains of our
v
souls.
It is pitiable cowardice to try to overcome fear by
ignoring facts. We do not become masters of our fate
by saying that we are. And such blatancy of pride,
228 WHAT IS FAITH?
futile as it is, is not even noble in its futility. It

would be noble to rebel against a capricious tyrant; but

it is not noble to rebel against the moral law of God.
Are we, then, forever subject to fear? Is there

naught, for us sinners, but a certain fearful looking

for of judgment and fiery indignation? Jesus came to
tell us, No! He came to deliver us from fear. He did
not do so, indeed, 'by concealing facts; He painted no
false picture of the future life as a life of undifferen-
tiated futility such as, that which the "mediums" re-

veal; He encouraged no false notion of a complacent

God who could make a compact with sin. But he
delivered men from fear by leading them to trust in
Him. Terrible is the issue of eternal life and eternal

death; woe to the man who

approaches that issue in
his own righteousness; but Christ can enable us to
face even that.
Even the Christian, it is true, must fear God. But
it is a new kind of fear. It is a fear, at the most, of
chastisement and rebuke, not of final ruin; it is a fear,
indeed, rather of what might have been than of what
is; it is a fear of what would have come were we not
in Christ. Without such fear there can be, for us sin-
ners, no true love; for love of a saviour is proportioned
to one's horror of that from which one has been saved.
And how strong are the lives that are filled with such
a love! They are lives brave not because the facts have
been ignored, but because they have been faced; they
are lives founded upon the solid foundation of the

grace of God. If that is, the foundation of our lives,

we shall not fear when we come to the hour that other-
 FAITH AND HOPE 229

wise we should dread. It is a beautiful thing when

a Christian who has received Jesus as His Saviour comes

to the moment of death; it is a beautiful thing to fall
asleep in Jesus, and, as one enters that dark country of
which none other can tell, to trust the dear Lord and
Saviour and believe that we shall there see His face.

Thus faith not merely founded upon knowledge;

is

but also it leads to knowledge. It provides informa-

tion about a future world that otherwise would be

unknown. Our would be incomplete if we
discussion
did not examine a more fully this aspect of faith.
little

The examination may be based upon one great verse

in the Epistle to theHebrews, in the chapter that deals
expressly with faith. "Now faith/' says the author
of Hebrews at the beginning of that chapter, "is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen." 7
These words are not a definition or a complete ac-
count of faith: they tell what faith is, but they do not

tell all that and they do not separate it from all

it is,

that it is not. There are other utterances also in the

New Testament, which are sometimes treated as defini-
tions and yet are not definitions at all. Thus when
James says that "pure religion and undefiled before God
and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from
the world/' 8 he is not giving a definition or a complete
description of religion; he is telling what religion is,

but he is not telling all that it is: pure religion is to

7
Heb. xi: 1.
8
James i: 27.
230 WHAT IS FAITH?
visit and widows and to keep himself
the fatherless

unspotted from the world, but it is far more than that.

9
Or when it is said that "God is love," that does not
mean at all that God is only love. It is a very great
logical error to single out such an affirmation and treat

it as though it were a definition; many such affirma-

tions would be necessary in order to obtain anything
like a complete account of God; God is love, but He is

many other things as well.

So when it is said that faith is "the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," that
does not mean that the substance of things hoped for
or the evidence of things not seen is always faith, or
that faith is only what it is here said to be. What we
have in this verse is not all of faith, but one particular

aspect of it. But since this particular aspect is an as-

pect which is usually being neglected today, this text
may perhaps be considered just now with special profit.
The aspect of faith which is here placed in the fore-
ground is one special part of the intellectual aspect of
it; faith is here regarded as contributing to the sum of
human knowledge.
At the present time it is the fashion to ignore this
aspect of faith: indeed faith and knowledge, as we have
already observed, are often divorced; they are treated
as though they belonged to two entirely different

spheres, and could therefore never by any chance come

either into relation or into contradiction. This sepa-
ration between faith and knowledge has already been
considered so far as the basis of faith is concerned;
9 I John iv: 8.
 FAITH AND HOPE 231

true faith, we have observed, isalways based upon

knowledge. But true faith is not only based upon
knowledge, but also it leads to more knowledge; and it
is this aspect of faith that is presented in classic form
in the great verse at the beginning of the eleventh chap*
ter of Hebrews.
"Faith," the author of Hebrews says, "is the sub-
stance of things hoped for." The word here translated
"substance" is translated in the American Revised Ver-
sion "assurance." But the difference is not important.
The point in either case is that by faith future events
are made to be certain; the old translation merely puts
the thing a little more strongly: future events, it means,
become through faith so certain that is as though they
had already taken place; the things that are promised
to us become, by our faith in the promise, so certain
that it is as though we had the very substance of them
in our hands here and now. In either case, whether
the correct translation be "substance" or "assurance,"
faith is here regarded as providing information about

future events; it is presented as a way of predicting

the future.
There are various ways of predicting the future;
faith is one way, but it is not the only way. An-
other way provided, for example, by astronomy.
is

On the twenty-fourth day of January, 1925, there

was visible; in the eastern part of the United States a
total eclipse of the sun. Elaborate preparations were
made in order to take observations; the experts were
so firmly convinced that the eclipse would take place
that large sums of money were invested on the basis
232 WHAT IS FAITH?
of the conviction. In connection with another eclipse
that took place a few years before, even more expen-
sive preparations were made. On that occasion the
eclipse was visible in a much less accessible region, and
various expeditions had to be sent many thousands
of miles in order that the observations might be made;
the astronomers seemed very firmly convinced indeed
that the eclipse would take place.
It is true that in some cases the labor was all

wasted. In the places to which some of the expedi-

tions went it rained or was cloudy; bad weather

spoiled those elaborate scientific expeditions just as

effectually as if they had been any ordinary Sunday

School picnics. It may be, of course, that scientific
men will learn to eliminate even this source of error;
it may be that they will learn to predict with certainty,

or even control, the weather. We

hope that
certainly
it will not come in our day. For
comes in our
if it

day, no doubt the farmers' bloc will want one kind of

weather and the industrial workers another, so that
what is now almost the only really safe topic of casual
conversation will become a cause of civil war. But al-

though the weather could not be predicted long enough

ahead, and although it obscured the eclipse, yet no
doubt the eclipse did take place on schedule time. On
the last occasion, I believe, the eclipse was four seconds
late: but those four seconds did not trouble me nearly

so much as they troubled the astronomers; from my

layman's point of view I am bound to say that I think
the astronomers had succeeded fairly well in their way
of predicting the future.
 FAITH AND HOPE 233

But although astronomy is one way of predicting

the future, and a very good way too, it is not the only

way. Another way is faith. And what ought to be

observed with special care is that faith is just as scientific
as astronomy. The future is predicted by means of
faith when one depends for one's knowledge of the
future on the word of a personal being. And in ordi-
nary life that method of prediction Is constantly em-

ployed. Upon it depends, for example, the entire or-

derly conduct of economic, political and social life.
Business is carried on by rfleans of credit, and it is per-
fectly scientific to carry it on so; it is perfectly scientific
to hold that reputable men of business, especially when
they eliminate -personal idiosyncrasies by acting collec-
tively, will meet their obligations. Political life is pos-
sible only by faith reposed in the government, and

where such faith is destroyed one has hopeless anarchy.

Social life is possible only because of faith social life
in its larger aspects and also in the humblest and most
individual details. It is really just as scientific to pre-
dict that a mother will give the medicine at the proper
time to her sick baby as it is to predict an eclipse of the
sun. No doubt there are more disturbing factors in
the former case than in the latter, and no doubt those

disturbing factors must be duly taken into account but ;

that does not affect the essentially sound scientific char-

acter of the prediction. In any ideally complete scien-
mapping
tific out of the future course of the world the

probability that the mother would give the medicine

to the baby would have to be taken into account just
as truly as the
probability of the eclipse of the sun.
234 WHAT IS FAITH?
Sometimes a prediction as to the future conduct of a
person can be established with a certain degree of mathe-
matical precision: it is discovered that a certain person
has met his obligations in ninety-nine out of a hundred
past cases; the probabilities, therefore, it will be said,
are strongly in favor of his meeting his obligations in a
similar case in the future. Certain forms of liability
insurance, I imagine (though I know very little about
it), are based upon some such calculation. But very
often one's predictions as to the future conduct of a
person, though attaining a very high degree of proba-
bility indeed, are not based upon any such merely
mathematical reasoning: a- person sometimes inspires

confidenceby his entire bearing; soul speaks to soul;

and even apart from long experience of that person's
trustworthiness one knows that he is to be trusted.
That kind of trust has a larger place, by the way, in

producing Christian conviction than is sometimes sup-

posed. Even that kind of trust is thoroughly reason-

able; it adds to the sum-total of knowledge, and is in
a true sense of the word "scientific." Common experi-
ence bears out the words of the text that faith is "the
substance of things hoped for."
The text also says that faith is the "evidence of

things not seen." That assertion includes the other.

Future things the things hoped for are always also
"things not seen." The Christian, for example, in
thinking of his communion in heaven with Christ,
walks by faith not by sight; because he does not now
see heaven. He has not the evidence of his eyes, but
needs confidence in Christ to make heaven real to him.
 FAITH AND HOPE 235

But this second affirmation of the text, though it in-

cludes the goes also beyond it; faith is sometimes
first,

needed not only to predict the future hut also to give

information about hidden things that already exist.

Whether the information concerns the future or the

present, it is based upon faith if it depends upon the
word of a personal being.
Faith, then, though it has other aspects, is always, if

it be true faith, a way of obtaining knowledge; it

should never be contrasted with science. Indeed, in any

true universal science a science that would obliterate
the artificial 'departmental boundaries which we have
erected for purposes of convenience and as a concession
to human limitations any in true universal science,
confidence in personal beings would have a recognized
place as a means of obtaining knowledge just as truly
as chemical balances or telescopes.
It is therefore only with great caution that we can
accept the distinction set up by Tennyson at the begin-

ning of In Memoriam: ,

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove.

"Believing where we cannot prove" it all depends

upon what you mean by "prove." If you mean by

"prove" "obtain knowledge by your own observation
without depending upon information received from
other persons," then of course the distinction between
belief (or faith) and proof is valid, and it may readily
be admitted that in that sense the Christian religion
236 WHAT IS FAITH?

'depends upon faith rather than upon proof. But what

ought to be insisted upon above all things is that "be-
lief" or faith, in the Tennysonian sense, may afford

just high a degree of scientific certitude as "proof"

,as

in the narrower sense of the word. Indeed in count-

less cases it affords a much higher degree of certitude.
Perhaps the reader may pardon an illustration from or-
dinary life. I have an account at one of the Princeton
banks. It is not so large an account as I should like,
but it is there. Every month the bank sends me a
report as to my
balance. I also obtain information as

to the same thing by the calculation which I make on

the stubs of check book. The information which
my
I obtain by my own calculation is obtained by "proof"
in the Tennysonian sense (or the sense which rightly
or wrongly we have attributed to Tennyson). The
information which I obtain from the bank, on the
other hand, is obtained by faith it depends upon my
confidence in the accuracy and integrity of the employees
of the bank. I have not the slightest notion how the
banks attain such a marvellous degree of accuracy.
One of the first teachers of mathematics that I ever had
told me, I think, something to the effect that the offi-
cials of a bank sometimes spend the entire night search-

ing the books for one cent that is unaccounted for.

Recently I think I read in the Saturday Evening Post or
some such journal, to my great disappointment, that if
they are only one cent off, they go to bed. It was a
youthful idol shattered! At any rate I do not know
how they do it; I have not at all followed the steps of
their calculation of my balance: yet I take the result
 FAITH AND HOPE 237

with perfect confidence. It is a, pure matter of faith.

Now not infrequently at the end of a month differences
of opinion emerge, I am sorry to say, between the bank
and myself as to the amount of my
balance; "faith"
in the bank's report pitted against "proof" as based
is

on my own calculations. And the curious thing is

that faith is much stronger, much more scientific, than
proof. I used to think that my calculation might be
right and the bank's report wrong, but now I trust the
bank every time. It is true, I have the desire to make
the two means of obtaining knowledge converge; I
have the intellectual desire of financially unifying my
world. But I do so not by correcting the bank's report
but by correcting my own calculation. I correct "proof"
because I have obtained better information by "faith."
That case, simple as it is, illustrates, I think, a great
principle which goes to the vitals of religion. It is not
true that convictions based on the word of others must
necessarily be less firm and less scientific than convictions
based on one's own calculation and observation. One's
own calculation and observation may turn out to be
wrong as well as one's confidence in the word of another
person.
So it is in the case of the Christian religion. The
central convictions of the Christian religion, at least
so far as the gospel of salvation is concerned, are based
not upon our own observation, but upon testimony;
they are based, in the first place, upon the testimony of
the Biblical writers as to things said and done in the
first century of our era in Palestine. That testimony
may conceivably be true and it may conceivably be
238 WHAT IS FAITH?
false; but to say beforehand that it cannot be true is to
fall into a very serious intellectual fault. If the testi-
mony is true, then the rejection of it is just as unscien-
tific and the acceptance of it just as scientific as the re-
jection or acceptance of assured results in the field of
the laboratory sciences.
As a matter of fact, we Christians think that the

testimony is true. Why do we think so? No doubt

there are various reasons; we test the assertions of the
Biblical writers in many different ways before we accept
them finally as true. But one reason has sometimes
not been given quite the degree of prominence that it
deserves. One very important reason for accepting the
testimony of the New Testament about Christ is that
we become personally acquainted with the writers who
give us the testimony and on the basis of that acquaint-
ance come to have an overpowering impression that
they are telling us the truth. If you are troubled with
doubts about the truth of the New Testament, if these
marvellous things seem to you too strange ever really
to have happened upon this earth, I should like to com-
mend to you an exercise that has been helpful to me;
I should like to suggest to you the plan of reading
rapidly great sections of the Gospel narrative as though
for the first time. The Gospel of Mark, for example,
lends itself readily to this purpose; perhaps that is the
reason why God has given us one Gospel that is so
short. Read the Gospel of Mark all through, then, in
one sitting; do not study it this time (important though
detailed study at other times will be found to be) but ,

simply tead it; simply let the total impression of it be

 *
FAITH.-..AND HOPE
---M-- _---... ..I. -.
239
.....,. ...,....-...........
.
^.-.M.....
'

__._.._
.

____. .

made upon your mind. If you do that you will feel

that you have become well acquainted with the author;
and you will have an overpowering impression that he
is telling the truth. It is inconceivable, you will say,

that this stupendous picture of Jesus could ever have

been the product of invention or of the myth-making
fancy of the Church; the author of the Gospel of Mark,
if he could be placed upon the witness-stand, would
make an overpoweringly good witness, and would bring
conviction to the mind of any jury that was open to
the facts.
The same thing may be done also in the case of a book
that is so much attacked as is the Fourth Gospel. In
the course of my life, if a personal allusion may be par-
doned, I have read a great deal that has been written
against the historical trustworthiness of that book.
Some of it at times has seemed to me to be plausible;
I have been troubled at times by serious doubts. But
at such times I have turned away from what has been
written about the book to the book itself; I have tried
to read it as though for the first time. And when I

have done that, the impression has sometimes been quite

overpowering. Clearly the author is claiming to be an
eyewitness, and
he lays special stress upon the
clearly
plain testimony of the senses. If he was not really an
eyewitness of the life of Jesus, he is engaging in a re-
fined piece of deception, vastly more heinous than if
he had merely put a false name at the beginning of his
book. That he engaging in such a piece of deception
is

may seem plausible when one merely reads what has

been written about the author by others; but it seems
240 WHAT IS FAITH?
to be a truly monstrous hypothesis when one gets per-
sonally acquainted with the author by reading his book
for one's self. When one does that, the conviction
becomes overpowering that this author was actually, as
he claims to be, an eyewitness of the wondrous things
that he narrates, that he actually beheld the glory
of the incarnate Word, and that the stupendous Person
of whom he writes actually walked upon this earth.
To neglect this kind of evidence the kind of evi-
dence that is based upon personal testimony is, we
maintain, a thoroughly unscientific thing. There is a
breadth and open-mindedness about true science of
which many persons seem not to have the slightest con-
ception. They become immersed in one kind of evi-
dence; within one limited sphere, their observations are
good: but with regard to other kinds of evidence they
are totally blind. Such blindness needs to be overcome
if we are to have real scientific advance; the true scien-
tist has his mind open not merely to some, but to all,

of the facts. And if he has his eye open to all of the

facts,he will not neglect what is told him by credible
witnesses with regard to Jesus Christ.
Still less can we neglect, if we be truly scientific men,
what is told us by Jesus Himself. The New Testa-
ment writers tell us about Jesus; on the basis of their
testimony we are convinced that the Jesus of the New
Testament really lived in this world, that He really
died for our sins, that He really rose from the dead,
and is now living so that He can be our Saviour. If
we have accepted that testimony about Jesus, then we
have Jesus Himself; and if we have Jesus Himself, it is
 FAITH AND HOPE 241

reasonable to trust Him not only; for this world but

also for the world to come.
It is highly misleading, therefore, to say that religion
and science are separate, and that the Bible is not in-
tended to teach science. No doubt that assertion that
the Bible is not intended to teach science does contain
an element of truth: it is certainly true that there are
many departments of science into which the Bible does
not enter; and very possibly it is advantageous to isolate
certain departments provisionally and pursue investiga-
tions in those departments without for the moment
thinking of others. But such isolation is at the best
provisional merely; and ultimately there ought to be a
real synthesis of truth. On
principle, it cannot be de-
nied that the Bible does teach certain things about which
science has a right to speak. The matter is particularly
clear in the sphere of history. At the very centre of
the Bible are assertions about events in the external
world in Palestine in the first century of our era events
the narrating of which constitutes the "gospel," the
piece of good news upon which our Christian faith is
based. But events in Palestine in the first century of
our era are just as much a proper subject for scientific

history as are events in Greece or Rome. And in an

ideally complete scientific account of the physical uni-
verse the emergence or non-emergence of the body of
Jesus from the tomb upon which the very
a question
existence of Christianity depends would have to be
recorded just as truly as the observations that are made
in the laboratory.

We shall have to reject, therefore, the easy apologetic

242 WHAT IS FAITH?
for Christianity which simply declares that religion and
science belong in independent spheres and that science
can never conceivably contradict religion. Of course
real science can never actually contradict any religion
that is true; but to say, before the question is deter-

mined whether the religion is true or false, thajt science

cannot possibly contradict it, isto do despite both to
religion and to science. It is a poor religion that can
abandon to science the whole realm of objective truth,
in order to reserve for itself merely a realm of ideals.
Such a religion, at any rate, whatever estimate may be
given of it, is certainly not Christianity; for Christianity
is founded squarely, not merely upon ideals, but upon
facts. But if Christianity is founded upon facts, then
it is not entirely independent of science; for all facts

must be brought into some sort of relation. When any

new fact enters the human mind it must proceed to
make itself at home; it must proceed to introduce itself
to the previous denizens of the house. That process of
introduction of new facts is called thinking. And, con-
trary to what seems to be quite generally supposed,
thinking cannot be avoided by the Christian man. The
Christian religion is not an innocent but useless epi-
phenomenon, without interrelation with other -spheres
of knowledge, but must seek to justify its place, despite
all the intellectual labor that that costs, in the realm of

facts.

Let us, however, have no fear. Our religion is really

founded upon words of soberness and truth; it suffers
just now not from an excess of thinking, but from a
woeful deficiency of it, and a true broadening of knowl-
 FAITH AND HOPE 243

edge would lead again into faith. It is, of course, a

mistake to apply to one science the methods of another;
perhaps that is the reason why men who are experts in
the sphere of the laboratory sciences are often so very
unscientific when they come to deal, for example, with

history. Moreover the evidence for the truth of Chris-

tianity is very varied, and it is not all of a kind that
can easily be reduced to measurement. The Gospel wit-
ness to Jesus, for example, is wonderfully convincing
when one attends to it in the way that such evidence
requires; it is wonderfully convincing when one brings
it into connection with the facts of the soul. The evi-
dence in favor of that Gospel witness, moreover, is
cumulative; it will not lightly be rejected by anyone
who really has an open mind. And when, by accepting
that witness about Jesus, we have Jesus Himself, still
more clearly can we trust Him for time and for eternity.
(The witness is confirmed here and now by present expec-
rience; the Christian knows the One in whom He has
'believed. Faith need not be too humble or too apolo-
getic before the bar of reason; Christian faith is a
thoroughly reasonable thing; it is, as the Epistle to the
Hebrews puts it, "the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen/*
Our nearly at an end. But one
treatment of faith is

very practical question remains. Faith, we have seen, is

the appointed means of salvation; without it there is
at leastfor those who have come to years of discretion
no saving contact with Christ. But faith is some-
times strong and sometimes weak: how strong, then,
does it have to be in order that a soul may be saved?
244 WHAT IS FAITH?
In answer to this question, it must certainly be ad-
mitted that the New
Testament does recognize vary-
ing degrees of faith; and it does seek with great earnest-
ness to make faith strong instead of weak. According
to the New Testament a strong, firm faith unmixed
by doubts something that is used by God to accom-
is

plish great things. The matter is particularly plain in

the case of prayer; the efficacy of prayer, according to
the New Testament, does depend to some extent upon
the degree of faith that is given to the man who prays;
a weak, trembling faith is not ordinarily the instrument
that removes mountains and casts them into the sea.
But there is another aspect of the New Testament
teaching; and it should not be neglected if we are to

have comfort in the Christian life. Though God can

use a firm, strong faith exercised in prayer; he also
often uses a faith that is very weak. It is a great mistake
to think that prayer works in any mechanical way; so
that while a good prayer brings a good result a poor

prayer necessarily brings a poor result. On the con-

trary, the efficacy of prayer depends after all not upon

the excellence of the prayer but upon the grace of God,

and often God is pleased to honor prayers that are very

faulty indeed. Thank God that it is so; thank God

that though we know not what we should pray for as
we ought His Spirit "maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered"; thank God that
He does for us not in proportion as we ask, but "ex-
ceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think."
Thus it is, then, with prayer: there must be some
faith if prayer is to be prayer at all and not a meaning-
 FAITH AND HOPE 245

less form of words; but even weak faith is sometimes,

in God's infinitemercy, used to accomplish great things.
But if it is thus with the details of the Christian life,
if it is thus with prayer, how is it with salvation? Faith
is necessary to salvation, hut how much faith is neces-
sary? How does God treat the man of little faith?
In answer to this question we have in the Gospels a
wonderful incident with which the present little attempt
at exposition of the New Testament teaching about

faith may fitly close.

The incident is the healing of the demoniac boy in
the ninth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark. 10
It is also contained in Matthew and Luke as well as in

Mark, but in very much briefer form. It is Mark alone

who paints the picture in 'detail; it is Mark far more
than the other two who enables us to see with the eyes
of those who were present at the scene. If early Chris-
tian tradition be right, as no doubt it is right, in holding
that the Second Gospel embodies the missionary preach-
ing of Peter, then the vivid character of the narrative
is explained. The evangelist enables us to see with
Peter's eyes. Peter with two other disciples had been
upon the Mount of Transfiguration; he had seen the
Lord in glory with Moses and Elias; and now on the
descent from the mountain he tells us, through the
words of the second Gospel, exactly what he saw below.
Mark has preserved the details; he has made no attempt
at stylistic smoothness; his narrative is rough and vigor-

ous and natural. Nowhere is Mark more characteris-

tically Marcan than here.
10 Mark ix: 14-29.
246 WHAT IS FAITH?
As thus depicted the scene is a scene of human misery
and need. A man was in distress; his son was in the
grip of an evil spirit, he foamed at the mouth and
gnashed his teeth and now lay wallowing on the
ground. In the presence of this distress, men were
powerless to help; even the disciples of Jesus, despite all
the power of their Master, could do nothing. It is a

picture of human
need and the powerlessness of man.
And the scene has not heen made antiquated today.
The cause of the ill then, I helieve, was different from
that which observed at the present time; hut the re-
is

sulting misery was in important respects the same. Med-

ical science has not yet gotten rid of human misery; and

it is quite inconceivable that it ever will succeed in doing

so. No doubt the form of misery may be changed; it
is perfectly conceivable, though perhaps highly improb-
able, that disease may be conquered. But death, at
least, in the present order, will remain; and with death
and bereavement there will be the distressed cry of the
human soul.
The man in the Marcan scene was at the very extrem-

ity of distress. All resources had failed, and misery

was at its
height. And then Jesus came down from
the mountain. In Him was a new and the very last
resource. Jesus did not help at once. The means
But
of his helping was faith, and did the man believe? "If
thou canst do anything," said the man; and it was a
despairing rather than a believing "if." But Jesus did
not despair. Faith was not apparent, but Jesus knew
how to bring it forth; he brought to light the faith
which the man possessed. "How long is it ago,** he
 FAITH AND HOPE 247

said, "since this came into him?" And then he said, to

call faith forth: "All things are possible to him that

believeth."
The answer of theman is one of the unforgettable
utterances of the human spirit; it will remain classic so
long as the race endures. It is not merely the voice of
one man, but it voices the cry of the race. Thus, I
suppose, out of wild distress, do many great utterances
come. Ordinary speech covers the thought in conven-
tional trappings; but in times of overpowering emotion
the form of expression is forgotten and a cry comes un-
bidden and unshaped from the depths of the soul.
So it was with the man of this incident. Conceal-
ment was forgotten; there was no pretence of a confi-
dence which was not possessed; there was no attempt at

logical harmony between the faith and the unbelief

that struggled unreconciled in the soul. "Lord I be-
lieve," said the man; "help thou mine unbelief." That
was the faith, weak faith it is true, that was born of
need. .,

So must all faith, I suppose, be born. I do not mean

that faith in Christ cannot come without previous an-
guish of soul. Some children of Christian homes be-
lieve in their Saviour almost as soon as full conscious-
ness begins;and that simple faith of childhood remains
sometimes grandly unshaken through all the storms of
life. But hosts of men today do not believe in Christ
at all. How shall they be led to faith in Him? We
have already seen what the answer is; 11 they can be led
only through the sense of need.
11 See Chapter IV.
248 WHAT IS FAITH?
Theneed of the man in the Gospel of Mark was
plain. His son was gnashing with the teeth and .wal-
lowing on the ground. But the need of all men, if they
could only discern the facts, is equally clear. The great
need of the human soul which leads to faith in Christ
is found, aswe have seen, in the fact of sin. A man
never accepts Christ as Saviour unless he knows him-
self to be in the grip of the demon of sin and desires

to be set free. One may argue with a man on the sub-

ject of religion as long as life endures; one may bring
forward arguments for the existence of a personal God;
one may attempt to prove on the basis of the documen-
tary evidence that only the Christian view of Christ
and only His resurrection from the tomb can explain
the origin of the Christian religion. Men will listen,
ifthey be broad-minded (as, however, they seldom are
today) ; but repelled by the stupendous nature of the
thing that we ask them to believe, they will reject all
our arguments and conviction will not be formed. But
then, as we despair of bringing them ever to faith, we
receive sometimes an unexpected ally. In some unex-
pected way the hollo wness and hopelessness of their lives
comes home to them; they recognize the awful guilt
of sin. And when
that recognition comes, the proofs
of the Christian religion suddenly obtain for them a new

cogency; everything in the Christian system falls for

them into proper place; and they believe. Belief in
its

Christ, today as always, can be attained only when there

is a sense of need.

That does not mean that we despise the external

proofs of the Christian religion. They are absolutely
 FAITH AND HOPE 249

necessary; without them the sense of need would lead

only to despair. It is one^of the root errors of the pres-
ent day to suppose that because the philosophical and
historical foundations of our religion are insufficient to

produce faith, they are therefore unnecessary. The truth

is that their insufficiency is due not at all to any weak-

ness of their own but only to a weakness in our minds.

Pragmatism should be avoided by the Christian with all

the energy of his soul, as indeed it should be avoided

by everyone who will not acquiesce in the present lam-

entable intellectual decline which pragmatism has
brought about. The facts of the Christian religion re-
main facts no matter whether we cherish them or not:
they are facts for God; they are factsboth for angels
and for demons; they are facts now, and they will
remain facts beyond the end of time.
But/ as we have observed in an earlier part of our
discussion, the facts are one thing, and the recognition
of the facts is And it is the recognition of the
another.
facts that depends for us upon the sense of need. The
man who has come to discern the sin of his own soul,
who has stripped aside the miserable conventional ex-
cuses for sin and seen himself as God sees him, is a man
who like adrowning person will snatch at a plank that
may save him from the abyss. Without the sense of
dire need the stupendous, miraculous events of Jesus'
coming and Jesus' resurrection are unbelievable because

they are out of the 'usual order; but to the man who
knows the terrible need caused by sin these things are
valuable just because they are out of the usual order.
The man who is under the conviction of sin can accept
250 WHAT IS FAITH?
the supernatural; for He knows that there is an ade-

quate occasion for its entrance into the course of this

world.
Bring even modern men to a real sense of sin, and
despite all the prejudice against the gospel story, they
will be led to cry at least: "Lord, I believe; help thou
mine unbelief/' That cry of the distressed man in
Mark was not the cry of perfect faith. But through
it the man was saved. So it will be today. Even very
imperfect and very weak faith is sufficient for salvation;
salvation does not depend upon the strength of our
faith, but it depends upon Christ. When you want
assurance of salvation, think not about your faith, but
about the Person who is the object of your faith. Faith
is not a force that does something, but it is a channel

by which something is received. Once let that channel

be opened, and salvation comes in never to depart. It
is a great mistake to suppose that Christians win

through to salvation because they maintain themselves

by their own efforts in an attitude of faith. On the
contrary, saving faith means putting one's trust once
for all in Christ. He will never desert those who are
committed to Him, but will keep them safe both in
this world and in that which is to come.
In the second part of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
there is one of those unforgettable portraits which have

caused the book of the tinker of Bedford that tender-

est and most theological of English books to be one
of the true masterpieces of the world's literature. It is
the portrait of "Mr. Fearing." Mr. Fearing had "the
root of the matter" in him; he was a true Christian, But
 FAITH AND HOPE 251

he got comfort out of his religion. When he came

little

to the Interpreter's house, he was afraid to go in; he

lay trembling outside till he was almost starved. But

then, when at last he was brought . in, he received a
warm welcome. my Lord," said
"I will say that for
Great-heart, "he carriedwonderful lovingly to him."
it

And so Mr. Fearing went meaningly on his way; and

when he was come to the entrance of the Valley of the
Shadow of Death, "I thought," said the guide, "I
should have lost my man." At last he came to the
River which all must cross, and there he was in a heavy
case. "Now, now, he said, he should be drowned
for ever, and so never see that face with comfort that
he had come so many But never, we
miles to behold."
are told, had the water of that River been seen so low
as it was on the day that Mr. Fearing went across. "So
he went over at last, not much above wet-shod. When
he was going up to the Gate, Mr. Great-heart began to
take his leave of him, and to wish him a good reception
above. So he said, / shall, I shall."
Such is the blessed end of the man even of little faith.
Weak faith will not remove mountains, but there is one
thing at least that it will do; will bring a sinner into
it

peace with God. Our salvation does not depend upon

the strength of our faith; saving faith is a channel not
a force. If you are once really committed to Christ,
then despite your subsequent doubts and fears you are
His for ever.

THE END.
INDEX
 INDEX

L NAMES AND SUBJECTS

Abraham, 204. Bradley, 35f.
Admiration, to be distinguished Bunyan, John, 14 If., 250: see
from 97 f.
faith, also under Pilgrim's Progress,
America: abandonment of scien- Business, is carried on by means
tific method in, 24-26; the of frith, 233.
Church in, 40-43; education
in, 123-129. Caliban, 226.
American Revised Version, 231. Calvin, John, 137, 222.
Anti-intellectualism, 13-45,47- Chalcedonian Creed, 88, 91.
51, 95. Character education, 123-129.
Astronomy, 231-233. Character Education Institution,
Atonement, the, 82, 86f., 143- the, 124-126.
154, 164f., 169-171, 194, Chemistry; compared with the-
199f. ology, 33.
Augustine, 54, 222. Children, the faith of, 93-96.
Christian Science, 175.
Christianity: applied, 23; doc-
Banks, illustration derived from, trinal content of, neglect of,
23 6f. 24; abandoned by those
is

Baur, 63. who abandon theology, 39f. ;

Beauty, the sense of, as a way is founded upon facts, 15 Of.

of approach to Christ, 136f. Christianity and Liberalism,
Bible, the: ignorance of, 20-23; 144, 177, 216.
is the supreme textbook on Christology, 89; see also un-
faith, 45; gives knowledge of der "Jesus Christ," etc.
God, 77f., is the seat of au- Church, the: in America, 40-
thority in religion, 105f.; 43; condition of, 100-105;
reading of, in public schools, doctrinal requirements for ad-
128; how bring the modern mission to the visible, 155-
man into connection with, 159.
162; teaches things with Church union, 159f.
which science is concerned, Collectivism, 181.
241. Communion with Christ, not
Bible classes, 21, 23. hindered by dependence upon
Bousset, 99f, the gospel, 153f,

255
256 INDEX
Companionship, desire for, as a Downs, Francis Shunk, 23.
way of approach to Christ, Eastern mind, the, 3 Of.
137-139.
Eclipse of the sun, the, 231-
Confession of faith, a credible,
233.
should be required for ad-
mission to the Church, 155- Education, relations of, to the
moral law, 123-129; see
157, 159.
also under "Pedagogy."
Conscience, gives knowledge of
Edwards, Jonathan, 137, 222.
God, 76f.
Effectual calling, 135f., 196.
Controversy: benefits of, 40-
43 importance of the pres- Efficiency, true and false, 209ff.
;

ent, 89-97;
Elisha, 67, 245.
opposition to,
100-102. Ellwood, 25f., 37, 223.
and Emotional aspect of faith, the,
Counterfeits, monetary
135f.
spiritual, 177-180.
Courts of law, the function of, Epistemology, 27.
Ethics of Jesus, the, 26, ~224f.
166-159.
Creation, the doctrine of, 54- Example of Jesus, the Christian
use of the, 111-113.
55, 57, 59-61, 65.
Creeds: ancient and modern, Exegesis, 23-26, 183f., 186ff.
28-39; pragmatist treatment Experience, regarded by Mod-
33ff.; faith involves ernism as the basis of theol-
of,
assent to, 47f. ; difficulty in- ogy, 28-39.
volved in differences among,
Fact of the atonement, the, re-
174-180. lation to the
of, theory,
Cross, the, see under "Atone-
144-148.
ment." Facts: the place of, in educa-
tion, 15ff., 19ff.; Christian-
David, 66. ity founded upon, 15 Of.
Death, the, of the Christian, Family, the Christian, decline
229. of, as an educational institu-
Decadence, intellectual, 15ff. tion, 22.
Definitions, 13f. Fatherhood of God, the 168f.,
Denney, James, 109. 171: teaching of Jesus
Doctrine: neglect of, 21-23; about, 55, 60, 62, 84-87.
pragmatist attitude toward, Fear, the motive of, in religion,
28-39; is the foundation of
225-229.
the Christian religion, 47f. ;
Flesh, Paul's doctrine of, 216.
acceptance of, falsely con- Fosdick, Harry Emerson, 33f.
trasted with faith in a per- Future life, Jesus' teaching
son, 148-154; how much about the, 25f. ; see also
need be accepted to make a under "Heaven" and "Hell."
man a Christian, 154-160;
how much required for ad- Galatians, the Epistle to the,
mission to the visible Church, 183-186, 192-194, 199-
155-159; how much re- 207; see also Index of Bib-
quired for ordination, 157- lical Passages.
159. Gamaliel, 67.
 INDEX 257
.Gentile Christianity, early, ac- Goodspeed, Edgar Johnson,
cording to Dr. McGiffert, 24f.
56ff. Gospel, the: relation of, to
Germany, 125. faith, 143-160; offers Christ
Gift, faith is acceptance of a, to us, 151-154; the preach-
180-182, 195ff. ing of, as a means to the
God: the personality of, 36f., salvation of men, 197f
5 Of., 53, 7 If.; communion Gospel of Jesus, the, falsely
with, is based upon knowl- distinguished from a gospel
edge, 36f. ; in what sense about Jesus, 105-110.
known only through Jesus, Gospels, the testimony of the,
37f.; Jesus' teaching about, 237-240, 243.
38f., 72; faith in, 46-83; Grace of God, the, 81-83,
belief in the existence of, is 173f., 192-196.
necessary to faith in, 47-50; Grammatico-historical exegesis,
direct contact with, 49; re- abandonment of, 23-26,
vealed as trustworthy, 52; 183f., 186ff.
false notion of immanence of, Greece, 136.
52f., 70; transcendence of, Guilt, assumed by Jesus on the
53, 65; infinity of, 53f.; cross, 164ff.
.
metaphysical attributes of,
53f.; Jesus' doctrine of, ac- Harnack, 99.
cording to Dr. McGiffert, Heaven, 25f., 220-222, 234f.
55f., 64; Paul's teaching Hegelian philosophy, the, 63.
about, according to Dr. Mc- Hell, Jesus' teachings about,
Giffert, 56, 64; the justice 25f., 136f., 222-225.
of, is necessary to the idea of Henley, 227.
salvation, 57-59; the good- Honesty, is a necessary basis of
ness of, falsely separated from a true Reformation, 103.
His power, 59-61; the im- Hope, relations of, to faith,
manence, of, 72; is to be 219-243.
valued for His own sake, 72- Holy Spirit, the, 104, 158, 171,
74; communion with, 74, 190-192, 196, 207-209.
79-83; knowledge of, at- 207f.. 216f.
tained through nature, 75 f.,
through conscience, 76f., Ideal, approach to Jesus
through the Bible, 77f.j the through the desire for an,
grace of, 81-85, 173f., 192- 139f.
196; the justice of, 163- Ignorance: the growth of, in
169, 18 If.; the Fatherhood the Church, 21-26; may mar
of, 55, 60, 62, 84-87, the simplicity of faith, 96.
168f., 171; the love of, is Immanence of God, the, 72;
not contradicted by the doc- false notion of, 52f., 70.
trine of justification by faith, Infinity, relations of man to,
169-171. 113-115.
Goodness of God, the, falsely Infinity of God, 53f.
separated from His power, Intellect, the: depreciation of,
59-62. 13-45; primacy of, 26ff..
258 INDEX
47ff., 51; is separated from to, 130-141; the resurrection
religion by the mystics, 49f.; of, 131-134, 151, 241,
exclusive use of, in approach 248; teaching of, .about
to Christ, 130-136. heaven and hell, 136f., 221-
Intellectual decadence, 15 S. 225; claims of, 138-140;
teaching of, about His re-
James, Epistle of, 199-207. deeming work, 15 Of.; is of-
Jefferson, Charles E., 172. fered to us in the gospel,
Jeremiah, 79. 151-154; communion with,
Jesus Christ: misrepresentation not hindered by dependence
of, 25f.; ethics of, cannot be upon the gospel, 153; para-
separated from His theology, bles of, 223; use of motive
26, 224f.; did not leave His of fear by, 225.
own person and work out of John the Baptist, 79.
His gospel, 39, 107-110; His John, the Gospel according to,
teaching about God, accord- 239f.
ing to Dr. McGiffert, 55f., Jonathan, 66.
64; early Gentile Christian Justice, human, the basis of,
view of, according to Dr. 166-169.
McGiffert, 56ff.; teaching of, Justice of God, the, 57-59,
about God, 38f., 60, 62, 64, 163-169.
84-87, 172; is taken by Justification by faith, 161-182,
Modernists as the embodiment 199ff.
of abstract goodness, 6 If.; Kant, 14, 23, 131.
faith in, 84-117, 179f.; is
Kingdom of God, the, Jesus'
the object of faith according
teaching about, 38f.
to the New Testament, 187ff;
Knowledge: is basis of com-
the power of, necessary as munion with God, 36f. ; re-
basis of faith in Him, 86f. ;
lations of, to faith, 40, 46ff.,
from faith
faith in, different
50, 87ff., 176-180, 203;
in His teachbg and example,
partial, is not necessarily false,
97f.; acceptance of the claims 5 If., 166; more of it needed
of, necessary to faith, 98; is as basis of faith in Jesus now
He the object of faith or than when Jesus was on
merely an example for faith, earth, 9 If.; does not destroy
98-102; the gospel of, the simplicity of faith, 91-
falsely distinguished from the 96; does not necessarily pre-
gospel about, 105-110: the cede faith in order of time,
teachings of, are not the sole 93f.: is involved in the faith
seat of authority in religion,
of a child, 94f. how much :

105f.; presented Himself as of it is required for salvation

the object of faith, 107-110; and for admission to the vis-
regarded Himself as Messiah, ibleChurch and to the min-
109, 139: was not a Chris- 154-160; is obtained
istry,
tian, 11 Of.; the example of,
by faith, 229-243.
111-113; cosmic aspects of,
113-117; the deity of, 113- Law, human, need For sim-
117; ways of approach plicity in, 167f.
 INDEX 259
Law of God, the: function of, Modernism, 32-ff., 34ff., 62-64,
in producing the consciousness 122, 165f., 186f., 214-216:
of sin, 1 1 9 - 14 2 ; Paul's doc- is a retrograde movement, 1 8 ;

trine of, 184ff. the anti-intellectualism of,

Lessing, 175. 39; a religion distinct from
is

Liberalism, 33f., 99: see

64, Christianity, 102; the ethical
also under "Modernism." . fault of, in the evangelical
Liberty, 181. churches, 102f.
Lord, origin of the title as ap- Monotheism, indifference to, in
plied to Jesus, according to early Gentile Church, ac-
Bousset, 99f. cording to Dr. McGiffert,
Love: relations of, to faith, 100, 56ff.
196f.; the New
Testament "Morality Codes," 123-129.
does not speak of justification Moses, 245; the law of, 119-
by, 172-174; as the summa- 121.
tion of the Christian life, Mysticism, 33-37, 49f., 95.
211-214.
Love of God, the: not contra- Naaman, 152f.
dicted by the doctrine of jus- Naturalism, 100.
tification by faith, 169-171: Nature, 'affords knowledge of
brings salvation through the God, 75f.
gift of Christ, 197. Need, the sense of, is necessary
Luther, Martin, 67, 83. to faith, 118-142, 246-250.
Lutheran Church, the, 157. Nicene Creed, 30, 88.

McGiffert, Arthur Cushman, Object of faith, importance of

54-66. an, 174-180.
Marcion, 60. Originality, true and false, 17-
Mark, the Gospel according to, 20.
23 8f., 245.
Materialism practical, 212.
, Paganism, 41, 122f.
Mather, Cotton, 1 3 7f., 222. Pantheism. 52f., 69-72.
Messiah, the, Jesus regarded Parables of Jesus, 194f., 223.
Himself as, 109, 139. Patriotism, 125.
Metaphysical .attributes of God, Patton, Francis Landey, 10.
the, 53f. Paul, 68ff., 72, 119ff., 149,
Metaphysics: abandoned by pos- 172, 183-195, 199-21.8;
itivists, 38; . indifference to, misinterpretation of, 24f . ;
advocated by Dr. McGiffert, the teaching of, about faith,
59ff. 44f.; the teaching of, ac-
Ministers, are neglecting educa- cording to Dr. McGiffert, 5 6,
tion, 22. 64; proclaimed a gospel but
Ministry, the, docttinal require- was not the substance of a
ments for admission to, 157- gospel, 107.
159. "Peace and work," policy of, in
Miracles, 8 8f., 249f.: presump- the Church, lOlf.
tion against, overcome in the Pedagogy: the modern theory of,
ease of Jesus, 131-136. 15ff.; our theory of, 18ff.
260 INDEX
Persecution, apparent success of, Regeneration, 207f., 135f., 158,
67f. 165f.. 190-192, 197f.
Person, falitb in a, 46: falsely Religion: falsely distinguished
contrasted with assent to from theology, 28-39; ap-
creeds, 47f., with acceptance parent failures of, 68, 73;
of a doctrine, 148-154. relation of, to science, 24 If.
Personality of God, the, 5 Of., Renaissance: the new, 18f.; the
53, 7 If. Italian, 136.
Peter, 67, 245. Resurrection of Jesus, 131-134.
Pharisee and publican, parable 151, 241. 248.
of the, 79f. Revelation, 5 If.
Philosophy, anti-intellectualistic Revival, the hoped for, 18f.
tendency in, 14, 23, 27. Ritschl, 15, 23.
Physicians, attitude of, toward Ruler, the rich young, 138.
faith, 176.
Pilgrim's Progress, 14 If.. 2 5 Of.: Salvation: falsely separated
see also under "Bunyan." from theism by Dr. Mc-
Political life, possible because of Giffert, 57-59; faith as the
faith, 233. means of, 161-182; how
Positivism, 37-39. strong faith is required for,
Power: of God, falsely separated 243-251.
from His goodness, 59-61 of ;
Saturday Evening Post, The,
Jesus, necessary if there is to 236.
be faith in Him, 96f. Saxony. Elector of, 67.
Pragmatism. 27-45, 94, 174- Schleiermacher, 14f., 23.
180, 210, 216, 249. Science: progress in. 29, 3 If.;
Prayer, 68, 73, 205f., 244f.: relations of, to faith, 235-
modern, 121f. 243: relation of. to religion,
Princeton Theological Seminary, 241f.
42. method, abandonment
Scientific
Princeton Theological Review, of, in exegesis,
23-26.
6, 34, 54. Schools, moral education in,
Progress, true and false concep- 123-129.
tions of, 29-34. Seminaries, theological, 22.
Proof, relation of, to belief, Sermon on the Mount, the, 84.
235-237. 150, 189.
Providence, the doctrine of,
Shorter Catechism, Westminster,
59ff. 36, 135f., 147, 151f., 221.
Self-trust, destroys the simplicity
Reason: depreciation of, 13- of faith, 95f.
45: function of, 5 If. Sight, contrasted with faith,
222.
Redemption, 150ff. : see also
under "Atonement," etc. Simpicity of faith, is not de-
stroyed by knowledge, 93-
Reformation, the. 181, 183f., 96.
200. Sin: is the thing from wrrch
Reformation, the new. 18f., Christians are saved, 57f.;
1Q3-10.5, 184. loss of the consciousness of.
 INDEX 261
58; Christianity is a way of science, 33; is regarded by
getting rid of, 110; the con- Modernists as the
symbolic
sciousness of, necessary to expression of experience, 28-,
faith, 118-142, 248-250; 39; abandonment of, in-
the fact of, must not be ig- volves abandonment of Chris-
nored in the intellectual tianity, 39f.; intrusion of,
approach to Christ, 132- into Christianity, according
136; the consciousness of, is to Dr. McGiffert, 57.
necessary to the esthetic ap- Theory of th; atonement, the,
proach to Christ, 136f., is realtion of, to the fact, 144-
necessary to the approach to 148.
Christ through the desire for Thinking, facts are necessary to,
companionship, 137-139, is 19f.
necessary to the approach to Toplady, 194.
Christ through the desire for Transcendence of God, 53, 65.
an ideal, 34f., is necessary to Translations, modern, of the
the understanding of the New Testament, 162.
atonement, 144; salvation Trinity, the, all three Persons
from the power of, 204 the; of, are objects of faith, 87.
teaching of Paul about pres- Truth: objectivity of, 32ff.;
ence of, in Christians, 207; relation of, to faith, 174-
the existence of, is denied in 180.
the modern world, 214-216.
Social life, is possible only be- Undergraduates, modern, 16f.
cause of faith, 233.
Virgin birth, the, 91.
Socialism, 212.
Volitional aspect of faith, the,
Son of Man. the, 109.
135f.
Spencer, Herbert, 35f.
Stoicism, 122.
Waterhouse. E. S., 35f.
Students, theological, 22, 42.
Weather, possible control of the.
Sunday Schools, 23. 232
Supernatural, the: see under
Wells. H. G., 54.
"Miracles."
Westminster Confession, SO, 34.
Westminster Standards. 36.
Tennyson, 71, 25 5f. Westminster Shorter Catechism,
Terminology, theoogical, 161- 36. 135f., 147, 151f.,221.
163. Wonder, is not destroyed by the
Testimony, is at the basis of the knowledge of God, 65f.
Christian religion, 237-240. Works, the relation
" of, to faith.
Theism, 47-66, 84, 131. 183-218.
Theology: falsely distinguished Woman's .Home Companion,
from religion, 28-39; is a The. 6.
II. BIBLICAL PASSAGES

OLD TESTAMENT
Genesis
i: 1
 INDEX 263
Romans Galatians
vii: 17 215 iii: 23 44
vii: 25 191 iii: 24 119-142
viii 150, 201 v: 6 209-218
viii: 2 191 v: 14 213
viii: 24 ......... 191
viii: 31 66-83 Philippians
viii: 35-39 117 ii: 6 115
viii: 38f 83
Colossians
I Corinthians i: 15-17 115f.
i: 13 107
vi: 9f 206 Hebrews
xiii: 13 . . . . 173 xi: 1 229-235
xv: 3-7j . . . 149 xi: 3 50
xi: 6 47-51

II Corinthians James
iii: 6 .... .186-192 i: 27 229f.
v . .201 ii: 19 203
ii: 24 199-206
v: 13f 205f.
Galatians
*
u 201
ii: 16 . 199 I John
ii: 20 . 154 iv; 8 .230
iii 201 iv: 10 197,
BT
771 Machen
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What is faith?

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