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A Sunday Bonus: Communion Bread

7 December, 2014 in Uncategorized by archivist | No comments

As a bonus, and as our church this morning observed the Lord’s Supper, here is an interesting quote, accompanied by two recipes.

Communion Bread

“In some parts of Scotland, short bread was till quite recently chosen as the most appropriate bread for the Christian passover. [i.e., communion]. During the first year of my own ministry in Galloway, I was one day accosted by the beadle [i.e., sexton], and told that he and his friends were hoping I would give them short bread at the sacrament. ‘We used to have it till three years ago’, he said, ‘and we thought it very shabby in the minister to change the old custom and give us plain bread.’ . . . I cannot make out whether shortbread was ever used or not at the communion in Maunchline. I have heard old people say that in their fathers’ or grandfathers’ days it was used in some Parishes in Ayrshire, and the expression in our records two hundred years ago, ‘bringing home the bread,’ rather indicates that it was not ordinary bread that was used, but bread that had to be brought from a distance. At the present day, as may be seen from the last published volume of the Queen’s Journal, the communion bread in some parts of Aberdeenshire is cut into small cubes like dice. These are put on large plates, and on the top of them are two or three longer peces of bread for the ministers to break before distribution . . . ”

Source: Old Church Life in Scotland: Lectures on Kirk-Session and Presbytery Records, by Andrew Edgar (London: Alexander Gardner, 1885), pp. 148-149. As cited in Communion Tokens: Their Origin, History and Use, by Mary McWhorter Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1936), p. 52, where she adds in footnote 121 that “Shortbread is a peculiarly Scottish cake. There is not taint of leaven in its composition. This is the reason they assigned for using it.” Elsewhere, I have seen another statement, which I like, that shortbread was used, “because we bring the Lord the best we have.”

Two Recipes for Communion Bread, courtesy of Roberta Collison:

Grandcote Reformed Presbyterian Church (PCA), Coulterville, Illinois recipe:

2-3 cups of flour

1 tsp of baking powder

A pinch of salt

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of shortening

1 egg

1/2 cup of milk

Cut the shortening into the first four ingredients. Blend in beaten egg and milk. Roll out on cookie sheet and score into 1/2 inch squares, before baking at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

The Covenant Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Missouri recipe:

3 cups of flour

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of Crisco shortening

2 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp of salt

3/4 cup of milk

Cut in shortening to dry ingredients. Add milk. Blend. roll on floured surface. Finish pressing into approximately 12″ x 18″ jelly roll pan. Cut before baking at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cut again before cooling. Serves 550-600.

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December 7: Dr. J. Barton Payne

7 December, 2014 in December 2014 by archivist | No comments

 

payne01Dr. J. Barton Payne joined the faculty of Covenant Theological Seminary in 1972, having taught previously at Bob Jones University, the Wheaton Graduate School of Theology, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He was an active member of the Evangelical Theological Society, and an ardent student of Reformed Presbyterian history. A member of Illiana Presbytery (RPCES) at the time of his death in 1979, he died in Japan while on sabbatical, in a climbing accident on Mount Fuji.

The following sermon is drawn from among Dr. Payne’s papers preserved at the PCA Historical Center.

 

“THE BIBLE SAYS . . .”

A Chapel Message at Wheaton College, December 7, 1964

By Dr. J. Barton Payne

Standing in first place in Wheaton’s statement of faith is the affirmation, “We believe in the Scriptures. . . as verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writings.” The importance of this commitment is clear: it places Wheaton squarely in the position of historic evangelicalism, or, to put it negatively, in opposition to the majority of organized Protestantism. Further, it gives to Wheaton a voice of authority in today’s relativistic world, an assured knowledge of specific truths that constitute distinctive criteria in the various academic disciplines, for example, in anthropology, of man’s special creation; in literature, of the prohibition of blasphemy; or in ethics, of absolute moral purity. The question, then, to be considered is the desirability of such a distinctive position. Why should we hold to the Bible, when the belief means accepting a minority status in Christendom and the stigma of “fundamentalist mentality” in the world as a whole. Put bluntly, Why do we do this? Is it worth it?

Essentially, I feel there are two different ways of approaching Scripture, or for that matter of approaching life in general: either trust in oneself, the internal approach, or trust in someone else, the external. Both are matters of trust, but it is a question as to which approach provides the more plausible basis. Frankly, I believe the second to be correct: the first can be dismissed as patently inadequate. For if a man has no higher standard than himself, this results in the hopelessness that characterizes so much of modern western thought. Life is beyond us; we are here just a short time and tomorrow we die and are gone. Further, from what we can deduce from our own natural observation, there is no hope beyond the grave. Corliss Lamont’s realistic study, “The Illusion of Immortality,” has been sobering to me, as it demonstrates that there can be no permanence, no transcendent meaningfulness to my life that is, if all we have is our own, internal judgment. Correspondingly, subjective criticisms, based on internal judgments, of the Bible do not really bother me, even though this is the basis on which most thinkers, and even Protestant thinkers, have rejected Biblical infallibility. For example, Millar Burrows, in his Outline of Biblical Theology (pp. 44, 47), begins by saying,

Much ink has been wasted . . . in the effort to prove the detailed accuracy of the biblical narratives. Actually they abound in errors . . . In the field of the physical sciences we find at once that many mistaken and outmoded conceptions appear in the Bible . . .

Archaeological research has not, as is often boldly asserted, resolved difficulties or confirmed the narrative step by step . . . Even in matters of religious concern the Bible is by no means of uniform value.”

[Please note that the above quotation is not Dr. Payne’s view; he is merely citing the view of Millar Burrows as typical of a view of Scripture with which he, Dr. Payne, disagrees. Please don’t misread this, as I did earlier today. Dr. Payne had a high view of Scripture.]

But the whole approach of this “I must pick and choose” position has been well answered by Louis Berkhof in his Introductory Volume to Systematic Theology (p.158)

The reasoning of those who take this position often sounds very plausible. They do not want a  theory of inspiration that is imposed on Scripture from without, but one that is based on an inductive study of the facts. But . . . it does not fit the case. According to it man faces the phenomena of Scripture just as he faces the phenomena of nature . . . which he must interpret and set forth in their true significance . . . He places himself above Scripture as judge, and opposes to  . . . testimony . . . his own insight.

But to whose testimony then can we go? Who is the “someone else” to trust? The response for the Christian is clear, namely Peter’s in John 6:68, “Lord; to whom shall we go: Thou hast the words of eternal life.” Christ, who has been declared to be the Son of God with power by His resurrection from the dead, is my answer to this world’s relativism. But it is here, from the viewpoint of the external authority of Jesus Christ, that Wheaton’s statement of faith in Scripture has, in recent days, received its more serious challenge, from neo-orthodoxy; and I am here using the term broadly for those who claim to be followers of Christ as king but who repudiate the Bible as a divine, binding document. One of my former seminary professors has called “the idea of inerrancy a ‘sub-Christian doctrine’ ” (Aaron Ungersma, Handbook for Christian Believers, p. 8l); and James D. Smart, in his recent volume, The Interpretation of Scripture, has well expressed both neo-orthodoxy’s belief and its disbelief: (pp. l6l, 199; 205):

When Jesus Christ preaches and teaches, His words are the very words of God, and in his actions  God acts . . . The word of Scripture had authority for him, but not in any slavish way … He refused to be bound to every word . . . Once he is bound to an infallible Scripture, his freedom is gone and with it his authority. Roman Catholicism imprisons Jesus Christ within an infallible church; literal infallibilism imprisons him within an infallible Scripture.

This is not to deny, nor does Smart deny, that the Bible contains teachings on its own inerrancy. But this alternative is proposed: forget these teachings; believe in the revelation of God through Jesus Christ, but dispense with the objective inspiration of the Bible.

Let us not, moreover, underestimate the reality of this appeal: why not escape the restraints of traditional orthodoxy, and yet retain the peace and integration of one who, say, has come forward at a Billy Graham meeting and found eternal meaningfulness in that “someone else” who is Christ? In particular I faced this appeal this last spring while in archaeological work with Dr. Free in Palestine. In my classes, students were enrolled from a number of different colleges and seminaries; and hardly a session would pass without somebody’s saying, “Why do I as a Christian have to believe XXXX, just because the Bible says it?” These questions, moreover, were not without basis: much of the Old Testament data is never mentioned by Christ. So finally, when time was available, I got away under a tree on the mound of Dothan, and prayed, “Alright, Lord, I am putting this matter up to Thee. I am willing to forget that I was ever a biblical evangelical, but show me what Christ would have me do.” Then I went through the complete records and words of Jesus asking myself, Does this really require me to hold to the Bible? Let me share with you four conclusions that I formulated.

  1. In Christ’s teachings it appears that the Bible is accepted as a guide and determiner of belief and conduct. For example, in Matthew 12:7, Christ’s statement, “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless,” assumes the authority of Hosea 6:6 on mercy and sacrifice; or, in Luke 16:29, He says, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” This acceptance of Scripture particularly concerns its statements concerning Himself, as He says in Mark l4:21, “The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of Him.” But none of these situations require an inspired Old Testament, simply that what men wrote down did, in these cases, correspond to God’s will and to true revelation (not inspiration).
  1. His often-quoted general statements about the Bible can, if one tries, be limited to these same restricted evaluations, that the Bible possesses authority in certain areas but not necessarily inerrancy. For example, Matthew 5:18, “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” may mean merely that one ought to obey the law. Or John 10:35, “And the Scripture cannot be broken,’’ may mean that the Bible’s statements, in this instance on possible usage of the word “gods,” are examples of good doctrine. Or Luke 24:25, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,” may mean, all that is about Himself, as verse 44, “All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me.”
  1. But in statements of Christ involving specific aspects of the Old Testament, I found situations in which I could not “weasel out.” Let us note two areas: first, literary criticism. Christ’s phrase the “Law of Moses,” as just cited, might signify, not Mosiac authorship, but simply a book about Moses, like the Books of Samuel. But this is not true in other cases. Psalm 110, for example, is consistently written off by modern criticism as one of the later compositions in the Psalter. But in Mark 12:35-36, “Jesus answered and said . . . How say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, Jehovah said to my Lord, sit Thou on My right hand . . .” He believed, not simply that Psalm 110:1 was inspired, composed under guidance by the Holy Spirit, but also that David himself wrote it. Even granting, for the argument, a certain inaccuracy in Mark’s records, the Lord’s whole argument still depends on the Davidic composition of this psalm. Again, in Matthew 24:15 He stated, “When ye . . . shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place . . .” But I do not know of a single neo-orthodox critic who believes that the man Daniel really said these words, or that they referred to matters that were still future when Christ spoke, in about A.D. 30. Second, historical criticism. In Luke 4:24-27 Jesus said:

No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows  were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elijah sent, save unto Zarephath, a city of Sidon, into a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian.

Is He just quoting the well known Old Testament “stories”? On the contrary, He confirms the historical validity of even details in the record of Matthew 11:41 and Luke 11:50-51. Similarly, Christ accepted as fact so-called mythical or legendary events that Scripture associated with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s flood, the destruction of Sodom, Jonah in the fish and Nineveh’s repenting, as well as others.

We must face it: no negative critic can maintain today’s usually accepted conclusions and still find correspondence with the mind of Christ on these points.

  1. The affirmations of Christ, as noted above, then develop necessarily into conclusions of total Biblical inerrancy. That is, if the Bible be accepted to contain valid doctrine, then one very clear doctrine is its teaching about its own full inspiration. Or, let us note the implications of one of the above cited specific teachings, on Adam and Eve. In Matthew 19:4-5, He stated:

Have ye not read, that He with made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife…

quoting Genesis 2:24. But while in Genesis this verse is simply part of the Mosaic narrative, Christ introduces it as a statement by the Creator:  that is, for Him, the words of Genesis are equivalent to the very words of God. The only alternative to such a conclusion is to assume that the Gospel writers have misrepresented Him and do not depict the actual mind of Christ. The previously quoted neo-orthodox writer, James Smart, for example, is forced to a number of such reservations, and says,

Already in the Gospels there are perceptible indications of the tendency to attribute to Jesus in his earthly life both omniscience and omnipotence (e.g., his power over waves and storms and his ability to tell the Samaritan woman the story of her marriages. (Interpretation of Scripture, p. l62)

In other words, when neo-orthodoxy claims that “in Christ’s actions God acts,” it may do so while avoiding the evidence, shifting on internal, subjective grounds, away from the supernaturalistic beliefs of those who were closest to the events. Smart would then cover his procedure by introducing an over-emphasis in the other direction which his evangelical opponents do not claim, namely the idea of omniscience for the incarnate Jesus. There is the one known case, Mark 13:32, in which our Lord disclaimed omniscience, about the time of His second coming. But His own words made this limitation clear; and when He does commit Himself in speaking He possesses truthfulness (John 3:34). To take issue with Christ involves more than His lack of omniscience; it involves His falsehood. Hence Sigmund Mowinckel, a leading advocate of modern Scandinavian Biblical criticism, in his study The Old Testament as Word of God (p.74), seems to have faced the implications of Christ’s Biblical views more squarely, when he concludes,

If it is true that .Jesus as a man was one of us except that he had no sin (Heb. 4:15), then he also shared our imperfect insight into all matters pertaining to the world of sense . . . He knew neither more nor less than most people of his class in Galilee or Jerusalem concerning history . . . geography, or the history of biblical literature.

Here the issue is clear cut. Biblical criticism inevitably entails criticism of Christ. When I got up from under that tree at Dothan, it was with renewed conviction that the consistent follower of Jesus must be a humble follower of the inscripturated word, just as his Master was. Billy Graham’s message of peace, assurance, and power is inseparably associated with his confidence in what “the Bible says.” And if Wheaton ever exchanges its Biblical commitment for status in Protestantism or for a mentality acceptable in the world as a whole, it will have done so in opposition to Christ and His kingdom.

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November 27: Mountains and Why We Love Them.

27 November, 2014 in November 2014 by archivist | No comments

[The following paper by Dr. J. Gresham Machen was read before a group of ministers in Philadelphia on November 27, 1933. It was subsequently published in Christianity Today (original series, August 1934) and later reprinted in a collection of Machen’s essays edited by Ned B. Stonehouse, published under the title What Is Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951). The address was again separately reprinted in 2002 by the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and can also be found online at the OPC website : http://www.opc.org/machen/mountains.html. For an interesting exploration of the background of this work, as found among the Papers of Dr. Allan A. MacRae, click here.]

 

machen_climbingMountains and Why We Love Them

by J. Gresham Machen

What right have I to speak about mountain-climbing? The answer is very simple. I have none whatever. I have, indeed, been in the Alps four times. The first time I got up Monte Rosa, the second highest of the Alps, and one or two others of the easier Zermatt peaks. On my second visit I had some glorious days in the Grossglockner group and on a few summits in the Zillerthal Alps and also made my first visit to that beautiful liberty-loving land of South Tirol, where, as a result of a war fought to “make the world safe for democracy,” Mussolini is now engaged in the systematic destruction of a language and civilization that has set its mark upon the very face of the landscape for many centuries. On my third visit, in 1913, I did my most ambitious climbing, all in the Eastern Alps, getting up the Kleine Zinne by the north face, certain of the sporty Cortina courses, and also the Campanile di Val Montanaia, which is not considered altogether easy. In 1932 I was on three of the first-class Zermatt peaks.

Why, then, have I no right to talk about mountain-climbing? For the simple reason that I did all of these climbs with good guides, safeguarded by perfectly good Alpine ropes. An Alpine guide is said to be able to get a sack of meal up the Matterhorn about as well as he can get some tourists up, and then those tourists go home and boast what great mountaineers they are. Well, I differed from the proverbial sack of meal in two particulars: (1) I am a little superior to the sack of meal in climbing ability; (2) the sack of meal is unaware of the fact that it is not a mountaineer, and I am fully aware of the fact that I am not. The man who leads on the rope is the man who has to be a real mountaineer, and I never did that. I am less than the least of the thousands of real climbers who go to the Alps every summer and climb without guides.

But although I am not a mountaineer, I do love the mountains and I have loved them ever since I can remember anything at all. It is about the love of the mountains, rather than about the mountains, that I am venturing to read this little paper today.

Can the love of the mountains be conveyed to those who have it not? I am not sure. Perhaps if a man is not born with that love it is almost as hopeless to try to bring it to him as it would be to explain what color is to a blind man or to try to make President Roosevelt understand the Constitution of the United States. But on the whole I do believe that the love of the mountains can at least be cultivated, and if I can do anything whatever toward getting you to cultivate it, the purpose of this little paper will be amply attained.

Le Sommet du Cervin. Croix du sommet italien arete faitiere.One thing is clear—if you are to learn to love the mountains you must go up them by your own power. There is more thrill in the smallest hill in Fairmount Park if you walk up it than there is in the grandest mountain on earth if you go up it in an automobile. There is one curious thing about means of locomotion—the slower and simpler and the closer to nature they are, the more real thrill they give. I have got far more enjoyment out of my two feet than I did out of my bicycle; and I got more enjoyment out of my bicycle than I ever have got out of my motor car; and as for airplanes—well, all I can say is that I wouldn’t lower myself by going up in one of the stupid, noisy things! The only way to have the slightest inkling of what a mountain is is to walk or climb up it.

Now I want you to feel something of what I feel when I am with the mountains that I love. To that end I am not going to ask you to go with me to any out-of-the-way place, but I am just going to take you to one of the most familiar tourist’s objectives, one of the places to which one goes on every ordinary European tour—namely, to Zermatt—and in Zermatt I am not going to take you on any really difficult climbs but merely up one or two of the peaks by the ordinary routes which modern mountaineers despise. I want you to look at Zermatt for a few minutes not with the eyes of a tourist, and not with the eyes of a devotee of mountaineering in its ultra-modern aspects, but with the eyes of a man who, whatever his limitations, does truly love the mountains.

In Zermatt, after I arrived on July 15, 1932, I secured Alois Graven as my guide; and on a number of the more ambitious expeditions I had also Gottfried Perren, who also is a guide of the first class. What Ty Cobb was on a baseball diamond and Bill Tilden is on the courts, that such men are on a steep snow or ice slope, or negotiating a difficult rock, Ueberhang. It is a joy as I have done in Switzerland and in the Eastern Alps, to see really good climbers at work.

At this point I just want to say a word for Swiss and Austrian guides. Justice is not done to them, in my judgment, in many of the books on climbing. You see, it is not they who write the books. They rank as professionals, and the tourists who hire them as “gentleman”; but in many cases I am inclined to think that the truer gentleman is the guide. I am quite sure that that was the case when I went with Alois Graven.

In addition to climbing practice on the wrong side of the cocky little Riffelhorn and on the ridge of the Untergabelhorn—which climbing practice prevented me from buttoning my back collar button without agony for a week—and in addition to an interesting glacier expedition around the back side of the Breithorn and up Pollux (13,430 feet) and Caster (13,850) and down by the Fellikjoch through the ice fall of the Zwillingsgletscher, on which expedition I made my first acquaintance with really bad weather in the high Alps and the curious optical illusions which it causes—it was perfectly amazing to see the way in which near the summit of Caster the leading guide would feel with his ice-axe for the edge of the ridge in what I could have sworn to be a perfectly innocent expanse of easy snowfield right there in plain view before our feet, and it was also perfectly amazing to see the way in which little pieces of ice on the glacier were rolled by way of experimentation down what looked like perfectly innocent slopes, to see whether they would simply disappear in crevasses which I could have sworn not to be there (if they disappeared we didn’t because we took the hint and chose some other way through the labyrinth)—after these various preliminary expeditions and despite the agony of a deep sore on my right foot in view of which the Swiss doctor whom I consulted told me that as a physician he would tell me to quit but that as a man he knew I would not do so and that therefore he would patch me up as well as possible, and despite the even greater agony of a strained stomach muscle which I got when I extricated myself and was extricated one day from a miniature crevasse and which made me, the following night in the Theodul hut, feel as helpless as a turtle laid on its back, so that getting out of my bunk became a difficult mountaineering feat—after these preliminary expeditions and despite these and other agonies due to a man’s giving a fifty-year-old body twenty-year-old treatment, I got up three first-class Zermatt peaks; the Zinalrothorn, the Matterhorn, and the Dent Blanche. Of these three, I have not time—or rather you have not time (for I for my part should just love to go on talking about the mountains for hours and Niagara would have nothing on me for running on)—I say, of these you have not time for me to tell about more than one. It is very hard for me to choose among the three. The Zinalrothorn, I think, is the most varied and interesting as a climb; the Dent Blanche has always had the reputation of being the most difficult of all the Zermatt peaks, and it is a glorious mountain indeed, a mountain that does not intrude its splendors upon the mob but keeps them for those who will penetrate into the vastnesses or will mount to the heights whence true nobility appears in its real proportions. I should love to tell you of that crowning day of my month at Zermatt, when after leaving the Schönbühl Hut at about 2.30 A.M. (after a disappointment the previous night when my guides had assisted in a rescue expedition that took one injured climber and the body of one who was killed in an accident on the Zmutt Ridge of the Matterhorn, opposite the hut where we were staying, down to Zermatt so that we all arrived there about 2 A.M., about the time when it had been planned that we should leave the hut for our climb) we made our way by lantern light up into the strange upper recesses of the Schönbühl Glacier, then by the dawning light of the day across the glacier, across the bottom of a couloir safe in the morning but not a place where one lingers when the warmth of afternoon has affected the hanging glacier two thousand feet above, then to the top of the Wandfluh, the great south ridge, at first broad and easy but contracting above to its serrated knife-edge form, then around the “great gendarme” and around or over the others of the rock towers on the ridge, until at last that glorious and unbelievable moment came when the last few feet of the sharp snow ridge could be seen with nothing above but a vacancy of blue, and when I became conscious of the fact that I was actually standing on the summit of the Dent Blanche.

But the Matterhorn is a symbol as well as a mountain, and so I am going to spend the few minutes that remain in telling you about that.

4164 Blick v. d. Wellenkuppe g. Matterhorn 4505 m. und Dent d'HeThere is a curious thing when you first see the Matterhorn on a fresh arrival at Zermatt. You think your memory has preserved for you an adequate picture of what it is like. But you see that you were wrong. The reality is far more unbelievable than any memory of it can be. A man who sees the Matterhorn standing at that amazing angle above the Zermatt street can believe that such a thing exists only when he keeps his eyes actually fastened upon it.

When I arrived on July 15, 1932, the great mountain had not yet been ascended that summer. The masses of fresh snow were too great; the weather had not been right. That is one way in which this mountain retains its dignity even in the evil days upon which it has fallen when duffers such as I can stand upon its summit. In storm, it can be almost as perilous as ever even to those who follow the despised easiest route.

It was that despised easiest route, of course, which I followed—though my guide led me to have hopes of doing the Zmutt Ridge before I got through. On Monday, August 1st, we went up to the “Belvedere,” the tiny little hotel (if you can call it such) that stands right next to the old Matterhorn Hut at 10,700 feet. We went up there intending to ascend the Matterhorn the next day. But alas for human hopes. Nobody ascended the Matterhorn the next day, nor the day after that, nor that whole week. On Wednesday we with several other parties went a little way, but high wind and cold and snow soon drove us back. The Matterhorn may be sadly tamed, but you cannot play with it when the weather is not right. That applies to experts as well as to novices like me. I waited at the Belvedere all that week until Friday. It is not the most comfortable of summer resorts, and I really think that the stay that I made in it was one of the longest that any guest had ever made. Its little cubby-holes of rooms are admirable as Frigidaires, but as living quarters they are “not so hot.” People came and people went; very polyglot was the conversation: but I remained. I told them that I was the hermit or the Einsiedler of the Belvedere. At last, however, even I gave it up. On Friday I returned to Zermatt, in plenty of time for the Saturday night bath!

The next Monday we toiled again up that five thousand feet to the Belvedere, and this time all went well. On Tuesday, August 9th, I stood on what I suppose is, next to Mt. Everest, the most famous mountain in the world.

From the Belvedere to the summit is about four thousand feet. The Matterhorn differs from every other great Alpine peak that I know anything about in that when you ascend it by the usual route you do not once set foot on a glacier. You climb near the northeast ridge—for the most part not on the actual ridge itself but on the east face near the ridge. In some places in the lower part there is some danger from falling stones, especially if other parties are climbing above. There is scarcely anything that the blasé modern mountaineer calls rock climbing of even respectable difficulty; but it is practically all rock climbing or clambering of a sort, and it seems quite interesting enough to the novice. The most precipitous part is above what is called “the shoulder,” and it was from near this part that the four members of Whymper’s party fell 4,000 feet to their death when they were descending after the first ascent in 1865. There are now fixed ropes at places in this part. You grasp the hanging rope with one hand and find the holds in the rock with the other. It took me five hours and forty minutes to make the ascent from the Belvedere. It would certainly have been no great achievement for an athlete; but I am not an athlete and never was one, and I was then fifty-one years of age and have an elevator in the building where I live. The rarefied air affected me more than it used to do in my earlier years, and the mountain is about 14,700 feet high. I shall never forget those last few breathless steps when I realized that only a few feet of easy snow separated me from the summit of the Matterhorn. When I stood there at last—the place where more than any other place on earth I had hoped all my life that I might stand—I was afraid I was going to break down and weep for joy.

The summit looks the part. It is not indeed a peak, as you would think it was from looking at the pictures which are taken from Zermatt, but a ridge—a ridge with the so-called Italian summit at one end and the so-called Swiss summit three feet higher at the other. Yes, it is a ridge. But what a ridge! On the south you look directly over the stupendous precipice of the south face to the green fields of Valtournanche. On the north you look down an immensely steep snow slope—with a vacancy beyond that is even more impressive than an actual view over the great north precipice would be. As for the distant prospect, I shall not try to describe it, for the simple reason that it is indescribable. Southward you look out over the mysterious infinity of the Italian plain with the snows of Monte Viso one hundred miles away. To the west, the great snow dome of Mont Blanc stands over a jumble of snow peaks; and it looks the monarch that it is. To the north the near peaks of the Weisshorn and the Dent Blanche, and on the horizon beyond the Rhone Valley a marvelous glittering galaxy of the Jungfrau and the Finsteraarhorn and the other mountains of the Benese Oberland. To the east, between the Strahlhorn and Monte Rosa, the snows of the Weissthorn are like a great sheet let down from heaven, exceeding white and glistering, so as no fuller on earth can white them; and beyond, fold on fold, soft in the dim distance, the ranges of the Eastern Alps.

Then there is something else about that view from the Matterhorn. I felt it partly at least as I stood there, and I wonder whether you can feel it with me. It is this. You are standing there not in any ordinary country, but in the very midst of Europe, looking out from its very centre. Germany just beyond where you can see to the northeast, Italy to the south, France beyond those snows of Mont Blanc. There, in that glorious round spread out before you, that land of Europe, humanity has put forth its best. There it has struggled; there it has fallen; there it has looked upward to God. The history of the race seems to pass before you in an instant of time, concentrated in that fairest of all the lands of the earth. You think of the great men whose memories you love, the men who have struggled there in those countries below you, who have struggled for light and freedom, struggled for beauty, struggled above all for God’s Word. And then you think of the present and its decadence and its slavery, and you desire to weep. It is a pathetic thing to contemplate the history of mankind.

4192 Mettelhorn. Weisshorn 4512 m. vom Gornergrat ausWhat will be the end of that European civilization, of which I had a survey from my mountain vantage ground—of that European civilization and its daughter in America? What does the future hold in store? Will Luther prove to have lived in vain? Will all the dreams of liberty issue into some vast industrial machine? Will even nature be reduced to standard, as in our country the sweetness of the woods and hills is being destroyed, as I have seen them destroyed in Maine, by the uniformities and artificialities and officialdom of our national parks? Will the so-called “Child Labor Amendment” and other similar measures be adopted, to the destruction of all the decencies and privacies of the home? Will some dreadful second law of thermodynamics apply in the spiritual as in the material realm? Will all things in church and state be reduced to one dead level, coming at last to an equilibrium in which all liberty and all high aspirations will be gone? Will that be the end of all humanity’s hopes? I can see no escape from that conclusion in the signs of the times; too inexorable seems to me to be the march of events. No, I can see only one alternative. The alternative is that there is a God—a God who in His own good time will bring forward great men again to do His will, great men to resist the tyranny of experts and lead humanity out again into the realms of light and freedom, great men, above all, who will be messengers of His grace. There is, far above any earthly mountain peak of vision, a God high and lifted up who, though He is infinitely exalted, yet cares for His children among men.I know that there are people who tell us contemptuously that always there are croakers who look always to the past, croakers who think that the good old times are the best. But I for my part refuse to acquiesce in this relativism which refuses to take stock of the times in which we are living. It does seem to me that there can never be any true advance, and above all there can never be any true prayer, unless a man does pause occasionally, as on some mountain vantage ground, to try, at least, to evaluate the age in which he is living. And when I do that, I cannot for the life of me see how any man with even the slightest knowledge of history can help recognizing the fact that we are living in a time of sad decadence—a decadence only thinly disguised by the material achievements of our age, which already are beginning to pall on us like a new toy. When Mussolini makes war deliberately and openly upon democracy and freedom, and is much admired for doing so even in countries like ours; when an ignorant ruffian is dictator of Germany, until recently the most highly educated country in the world—when we contemplate these things I do not see how we can possibly help seeing that something is radically wrong. Just read the latest utterances of our own General Johnson, his cheap and vulgar abuse of a recent appointee of our President, the cheap tirades in which he develops his view that economics are bunk—and then compare that kind of thing with the state papers of a Jefferson or a Washington—and you will inevitably come to the conclusion that we are living in a time when decadence has set in on a gigantic scale.

What have I from my visits to the mountains, not only from those in the Alps, but also, for example, from that delightful twenty-four-mile walk which I took one day last summer in the White Mountains over the whole Twin Mountain range? The answer is that I have memories. Memory, in some respects, is a very terrible thing. Who has not experienced how, after we have forgotten some recent hurt in the hours of sleep, the memory of it comes back to us on our awaking as though it were some dreadful physical blow. Happy is the man who can in such moments repeat the words of the Psalmist and who in doing so regards them not merely as the words of the Psalmist but as the Word of God. But memory is also given us for our comfort; and so in hours of darkness and discouragement I love to think of that sharp summit ridge of the Matterhorn piercing the blue or the majesty and the beauty of that world spread out at my feet when I stood on the summit of the Dent Blanche.

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November 23: Of Method, and Of Error

23 November, 2014 in November 2014 by archivist | No comments

Having written earlier this week of The League of Evangelical Students, we present today two articles which appeared in the second issue of the League’s magazine, The Evangelical Student. The first article is by the Rev. Dr. O.T. Allis, who was then in 1926 a professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary.  Following that, a brief article by Johannes G. Vos, the son of Dr. Gerhardus Vos. This second article is titled “The Spirit of Error.” We trust you will find both articles profitable.


allis01THE SCRIPTURAL METHOD OF BIBLE STUDY
by PROFESSOR O. T. ALLIS, PH.D.

There are certain things essential to the truly scriptural study of the Bible which need to be emphasized today in view of the insistent claims which are so often made by the advocates of the so-called “modern” or “critical” method of Bible study.

The first of these is the unity and harmony of the Bible. This charac­teristic has impressed believing scholars in all ages as a signal proof of its divine origin. The fact that so many different writers, so widely separated in time, wrote a collection of many books which are in the truest sense one book, the Bible, is a strong evidence of its unique inspiration. Yet one of the outstanding characteristics of the “modern” method is the way in which it exhibits, and the importance which it attaches to, the alleged dis­harmonies of the Bible. We cannot read beyond the first chapter of Genesis without being confronted with this cardinal doctrine of the critics; for the “second” account of creation (Gen. ii) contradicts, we are told, the “first.” And this is but a sample. We have, they tell us, two ac­counts of the Creation and the Flood; three accounts of the Plagues and of the Crossing of the Red Sea; four of the Crossing of the Jordan. Further­more, these accounts disagree and contradict one another. The theoretical Jehovist differs from the hypothetical Elohist; and the alleged Priestly writer contradicts them both. Judges discredits the account of the Con­quest given in Joshua; Chronicles is proved unreliable by Samuel-Kings. The “great” prophets are represented as the opponents of the priests and as the more or less uncompromising foes of the ritual sacrifice. Micah and Zechariah are divided between at least two authors, Isaiah is given to three; and many of these documents are declared to be composite and to have been edited, or revised, by a later compiler or “redactor.” All this partitioning and analyzing is made necessary, it is argued, by differences in language, style, ideas and manner of presentation, differences which not seldom amount to contradictions. The result is that for the “modern” student the Bible, especially the O.T., is characterized not by harmony and unity, but by discord and contradiction. How disastrous this is should be apparent to everyone, for nothing is more certain to discredit a book and destroy its influence with thinking people than to find that it does not contain a consistent and harmonious presentation of the matters which it aims to set forth.HERE are certain things essential to the truly scriptural study of the Bible which need to be emphasized today in view of the insistent claims which are so often made by the advocates of the so-called “modern” or “critical” method of Bible study.

Consequently the reverent Bible student will be very slow to accept these alleged contradictions. He will scrutinize them with the utmost care. If he does so, he will find that many of them are purely imaginary. There is nothing inconsistent about the statement in Num. xvi. that (i) a Levite and (2) three Reubenites were leaders in a rebellion against Moses, nothing to indicate that we have here two conflicting accounts of the same event The mention of two parties simply shows that the revolt was wide­spread and serious enough to require drastic measures. There is nothing contradictory about the statement that (1) the Lord told Moses to lift up his rod and (2) to stretch forth his hand and that then (3) the Lord caused a strong east wind to blow, in order that the Red Sea might be divid­ed before Israel (Ex. xiv. 16, 21). Such statements are different only in the sense that they record distinct features of the story, all of which are needed to complete the record. They become contradictory only when each state­ment is treated as complete in itself and placed in opposition to others which are designated to supplement it. Most events, especially if they be great ones, are complex; there are many factors which enter into them. Were the modern method of source analysis applied to almost any his­torical narrative which dealt at all adequately with an intricate situation it could easily be reduced to a mass of contradictions.

There are other alleged contradictions which are due either to a failure to recognize, or to ignorance of, all necessary facts. Thus, Hosea in pronouncing vengeance on the House of Jehu (i. 4), is not denouncing Jehu for obeying the command of Elijah as conveyed by Elisha. The ex­planation is given in 2 Kgs. x. 30 f. where the wilfulness of Jehu is exposed. And it is made still clearer by the prophetic denunciation of Baasha who provoked the Lord “in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he slew him.” By following in the sins of the House of Omri, Jehu’s House merited the same punishment. Yet Hosea is cited as an instance of a later prophet denouncing what an earlier prophet had expressly commanded!

The second essential of which we would speak, is that the Bible student should understand and accept the viewpoint of the Bible. Many of the diffi­culties which the “modern” student finds with the Bible are the direct result of failure to do this, or, to put it more strongly, of the determination to judge and interpret the Bible by standards which are contrary to its whole teaching.

The oft-repeated reference in the first chapter of Genesis to God and to His sovereign acts is tremendously impressive: He spake and it was done. The Bible is a record of God’s wonderful works for the children of men. No one can understand it who does not accept its great major premise— God—or who seeks to set limits to His power. The O.T. purports to be primarily the record of God’s special dealings with a peculiar people to the end that through that people all the nations might be blessed. The uniqueness of the religion of Israel, of the Covenant with Abraham, of the Law given through Moses, is affirmed again and again: “God hath not dealt so with any nation.” To study the religion of Israel in the light of comparative religion as though it were similar in kind to the ethnic faiths, is to reject its most insistent claim—“All the gods of the nations are idols (worthless things), but the Lord made the heavens.”

The religion of Israel is represented as the religion of revelation. God has revealed Himself in word and in deed. He has made known what man could not discover; He has wrought wonders beyond the power of man. Miracle and prophecy are, according to the Bible, signal proofs that God has manifested Himself. The supernatural is of its very essence. A student who rejects the supernaturalism of the Bible, treats its miracles as legend, and post-dates its prophecies or reduces them to shrewd conjecture, is taking offence at what the Bible declares to be, and what the Church in all ages has regarded as, a unique and convincing proof that God has indeed revealed Himself.

Finally the Bible is the story of redemption, of salvation from sin. John the Baptist sums up the Gospel and also shows it to be the fulfilment of O.T. religion with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” The Old Testament plainly teaches that the priestly sacrifices of the Law were divinely ordained; and the New Testa­ment as plainly interprets them as prophetic of and fulfilled in the Cross of Calvary. To treat the priestly ritual as a survival of paganism and to affirm that it was repudiated by the “great” prophets of Israel leads logically to the rejection of the Cross which is the central fact of Chris­tianity, God’s sovereign remedy for sin.

In one of our great historic creeds the statement is made: “The infal­lible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself.” We need to remember this. “God is His own interpreter.” If the Bible is the Word of God, it must be our final authority; it cannot be correctly interpreted by any standards but its own. If its human authors were inspired of God, God’s Spirit will enable us to understand it aright, if we seek His guidance. To the wise of this world the Bible is a book of riddles, sealed with seven seals. It tells of a divine revelation, miraculously conveyed; they would have it speak of man’s eager quest of truth and of his wonderful discoveries. It tells of God’s great salvation for lost sinners; they would have it describe the development of man’s religious nature and its limitless possibilities. In short the “modern” student is trying to restate in terms of a more or less frankly naturalistic evolution what the Bible states in terms of superna­tural redemption. No wonder the “modern” student finds contradictions in the Bible and has to tear it chapter from chapter, verse from verse, and line from line, since he would so completely change its message. But those who study it reverently as the Word of God and seek the guidance of His Spirit will be more and more impressed with the harmony and the heavenliness of its glorious message of redeeming love in Jesus Christ our Lord.

vosJG
THE SPIRIT OF ERROR
J.G. VOS

Error is always with us. It assumes many forms and makes various appeals. The systems of falsehood are almost without number. There are errors as old as the ages, and there are errors of recent origin. Errors appear, disappear, and reappear, while the truth of God abides continually. So sporadic, indeed, have been the errors, and so constant is the truth, that some have concluded that all error, because it is error, is about to die; and that all truth, because it is truth, is sure to survive.

This conclusion is certainly fallacious. It is true that error often dies, and that the truth usually survives; but the error does not die because it is error, nor the truth survive because it is truth. If error dies, it is because the Holy Spirit has used means to cut it off. If the truth survives, it is because the Holy Spirit has used means to ensure its survival.RROR is always with us. It assumes many forms and makes various appeals. The systems of falsehood are almost without number. There are errors as old as the ages, and there are errors of recent origin. Errors appear, disappear, and reappear, while the truth of God abides continually. So sporadic, indeed, have been the errors, and so constant is the truth, that some have concluded that all error, because it is error, is about to die; and that all truth, because it is truth, is sure to survive.

Error will not die of itself, because the natural heart of man clings to it and loves it better than the truth. Idolatry, the worship of that which is not God, is almost as old as the race, and a large part of humanity still ad­heres to it, for the worship of the things that are seen appeals to the na­tural man. Christian Science, with its denial of the reality of sin, flatters the sinful heart of man. The idea of salvation by works, by character, by ideals, etc., appeals to the pride of man and conveniently removes the stumbling block of the cross of Jesus Christ. While the heart of man is what it is, these errors will never die of themselves.

Error will not die of itself, because Satan is actively engaged in its propagation. He is the father of lies, and there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own. Error traces its origin back to him, for he is a liar, and the father of it (John viii. 44). Errors and heresies are not indifferent things which come from nowhere; they are devised and propagated by the arch-enemy of the human race.

If error is to be overcome, it must be by active opposition on the part of those who acknowledge the truth. Christians must witness for the whole of revealed truth and oppose all contrary error. If we merely state the truth and neglect to point out and oppose the contrary error, we are not faithful witnesses. It is only as the truth is distinguished from error that its real character can be shown. The notion that we can forget about the error and merely preach the truth, that we can ignore “modernism” and meantime engage in “constructive” Christian work, is tragically mistaken. No doubt God could accomplish his purposes without using men as his instruments; no doubt he could bring about the victory of the truth without using our testimony, but He has called us to be his witnesses, and it is our duty to testify.

The visible Christian Church is divinely appointed to bear a corporate witness to revealed truth, and therefore also to discountenance error. Chris­tian students by their membership in the body of God’s witnessing people support the truth and oppose error. In our day, however, great sections of the Christian Church have abandoned their testimony to the truth and their opposition to error, and other great sections seem about to do so. Doc­trinal indifference is the first step; open toleration of error is the conse­quence. On this account Christian students should consider earnestly and carefully the question of their relation to a particular branch of the Chris­tian Church, for membership in a witnessing church is itself a witnessing act, and membership in a church which tolerates error involves, to some extent at least, a tacit approbation of such toleration.

The League of Evangelical Students is essentially a witnessing body. We declare that we “bear united witness to the faith of students in the whole Bible as the inspired Word of God,” (Constitution, Article II, Sec­tion i). Those only are eligible for membership in the League who have “faith in the Bible as the infallible Word of God” and who accept “the fundamental truths of the Christian religion,” (Constitution, Article III, Section i). Let us not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord. Let us not fear the charge of intolerance. God has commanded his people to wit­ness for the truth, but he has never commanded them to tolerate error. If we who have banded ourselves together into a League to witness for the truth and against error, are on that account called narrow-minded, bigoted, intolerant, or even unchristian, let us call to mind the words of the Lord Jesus which are recorded in Matthew v. x I: “Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

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November 22: Dr. John Gerstner

22 November, 2014 in November 2014 by archivist | No comments

We are pleased and honored to have a guest post today from Dr. Carl W. Bogue, who served as pastor of the Faith Presbyterian Church (PCA), Akron, Ohio, 1975-2007. Dr. Bogue received his M.Div. from the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (1965), where he was mentored by Dr. John Gerstner, and he maintained a close friendship with Dr. Gerstner until the latter’s death in 1996. He has graciously allowed us to post here his recollections of the life and ministry of a dear saint greatly used by the Lord in the building of His kingdom.

Gerstner02This day, November 22, 2014, is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dr. John H. Gerstner – pastor, professor, author, and friend of thousands to whom he ministered in so many ways throughout his life. I heard him preach at our church and at a youth conference as a teenager; in seminary he was an intellectual anchor as well as an inspiration; in grad school his love of Jonathan Edwards motivated me to do my doctoral dissertation on a central but much neglected theme in Edwards’s writing and preaching, and when I was ordained and installed at the beginning of my pastoral ministry, he graciously honored me by preaching the sermon for the occasion, challenging me “not to be ashamed of the Gospel.” Now that I am “officially retired,” one of my great encouragements is that a new generation is beginning to discover “the good doctor.” I hope it would not seem inappropriate for me to include here, an obituary I wrote in 1996 for my congregation, but which also appeared in a couple publications.

John H. Gerstner: Defender of the Faith

On Sabbath afternoon, March 24, 1996, Dr. John H. Gerstner went to be with the Lord. For most readers little more needs to be said. You know the man, and you know the respect and affection so many of us had for him. Nothing I can say here will adequately express what this man of God meant to me personally. But I also know that my loss is his gain, for all the glory of God and the beauty of the Savior which he so comprehensively taught to his students is now his to behold and enjoy without any of the limitations brought about by sin.

Dr. Gerstner’s life began in Tampa, Florida. His childhood years were spent in Philadelphia where he graduated from high school in 1932. It was that summer while visiting Philadelphia College of the Bible that he was wonderfully converted to the Gospel. That fall he began his studies at Westminster College. Gerstner next attended Westminster Theological Seminary at the time when many of its early giants were present. It was during the time at seminary that he met Edna Suckau, who was to become Mrs. Gerstner. They have three children.

After receiving a masters degree from Westminster Seminary, he pursued his doctoral studies at Harvard University where in 1945 he was awarded a Ph.D. Dr. Gerstner received further education at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Temple, Pennsylvania, Boston, Zurich, Barcelona, and Oxford. He served in the pastorate for a brief period prior to accepting a position as a professor at Pittsburgh-Xenia Theological Seminary, later to become Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Gerstner01It would be difficult to begin to sum up the academic activity of Dr. Gerstner, and even more difficult to express the thousands of lives he has touched through his preaching and teaching ministry. In a Festschrift published in 1976 to honor Dr. Gerstner, a bibliography compiling his writings takes up a full 16 pages. In the 20 years since many additions could be made, including the whole new medium of audio and video tapes. His three volume work on Jonathan Edwards is more than the culmination of a life-long project; it is a labor of love.

The volume written to honor Dr. Gerstner was appropriately entitled, Soli Deo Gloria. One of my happy privileges was to have been invited to be a contributor to that volume. The opening sentence of my article was: “The student of John H. Gerstner is never adequately designated as a ‘former student.’” I never stopped learning from this “teacher of Israel,” and he surely never ceased to be the consummate teacher. Only those who know this first hand can adequately comprehend the loss many of us feel with his passing.

On various occasions I have heard Dr. Gerstner express his indebtedness to his beloved mentor from college, Dr. John Orr. Perhaps more than any other human being, Dr. Orr shaped the thinking of my beloved professor. Early in my ministry, Dr. Gerstner invited me to attend a special celebration at Westminster College to honor Dr. John Orr. Apart from being honored that Dr. Gerstner would invite me to anything, I was also working with a very forceful self-imposed guide in such matters. When Gerstner requested or even suggested something, it had, for all practical purposes, the force of a command with me. But on this occasion it was more that just an invitation. His words were approximately these: “Carl, if I have been a significant influence in your life and vocation (and he knew this was the case), if you are indebted to me at all, then you need to be there to honor Dr. Orr.” I had never met Dr. Orr, but typical of Gerstner’s humility, he would pass along my praise of him to the one who helped shape him for his teaching ministry.

In announcing Gerstner’s death to my congregation, I made this comparison: “Many of you are often very kind in your praise of me. I feel very unworthy of such praise, and I thank God for our many years together. I am not trying to put myself in the similar position or stature as that of Dr. Gerstner. But I would humbly draw this parallel. If I have been, by God’s grace, permitted any usefulness in your life, if you see an approximation of faithfulness to the Word of God, a zeal for the purity of the Church, a desire to proclaim the whole counsel of God – if I have been of any value to you, it would not be inappropriate for you to be thanking God for the ministry of Dr. Gerstner which happens to be through me. Humanly speaking, my claim on you is for you to join with me in praise to God for giving us such a soldier of the cross.”

I never had a better teacher; I never heard a better preacher, and to the extent that we may tentatively judge such things, I never witnessed greater piety. And it is at this point that the good doctor would gently remind us, that all the praise is to be given for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to us, by which we are permitted to enter into glory.

Rev. 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”

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