THE GLORY OF CHRIST’S HUMBLING HIMSELF.
—John Owen, edited by R.J.K. Law (BoT 2020), p. 40-41.

            In order to behold the glory of Christ as mediator better, let us consider the special nature of this willingness of His to humble Himself. In doing this we must first consider what He did not do when He humbled Himself to be our mediator.

            (i.) Christ did not lay aside His divine nature. He did not cease to be God when He became man. The real glory of His willingness to humble Himself lies in this great truth, that ‘being in the form of God, He did not consider it robbery to be equal with God’ (Phil. 2:6). That is, being really and essentially God in His divine nature, He declared Himself to be equal with God, or with the person of the Father. He was ‘in the form’ of God, that is, He was God. He was partaker of the divine nature, for God has no form or shape. So He was equal with God, in authority, dignity and power. Because He was in the form of God, He must be equal with God, for though there is order in the divine persons, there is no inequality in the Divine Being. So the Jews clearly understood His meaning when He said God was His Father. They knew He meant that He was equal with God. For when He said this, He also claimed equal power with the Father in all His divine works. He said, ‘My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.’ (John 5:17).
            Being in the form of God, He took the form of a servant and was found in fashion as a man (Phil. 2:7). This is His infinite humility. Paul does not say that He stopped being God, ,but though continuing to be God, He took ‘the form of a servant.’ That is, He took our nature upon Him. He became what He was not, but He did not cease to be what He always was (see John 3:13). Although He was then on earth as Son of man, yet He was still God, for in His divine nature He was still also in heaven.
            He who is God, can never not be God, just as he who is not God can never be God. The difference between us and the Socinians is this, that we believe that Christ, being God, was made man for our sakes, whereas they teach that Christ, being only a man, was made a god for his own sake.                 This, then, is the glory of Christ’s willingness to humble Himself. This is the life and soul of all heavenly truth and all heavenly mysteries, namely, that the Son of God, becoming in time what He was not, that is, Son of man, did not cease thereby to be what He was, even the eternal Son of God.

Excerpted from THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER, Vol. XXXI, No. 13 (27 March 1852): 49, column 3.

Dr. Archibald Alexander was, in addition to his service as the first professor at Princeton Seminary, quite dedicated in the work of writing evangelistic tracts, many of which were later gathered and published in the volume, Practical Truths. The following short quote is taken from one such tract:

THE GOSPEL PRECIOUS.

Oh, precious gospel! Will any merciless hand endeavor to tear away from our hearts this best, this last, and sweetest consolation? Would you darken the only avenue through which one ray of hope can enter? Would you tear from the aged and infirm poor, the only prop on which their souls can repose in peace? Would you deprive the dying of their only source of consolation? Would you rob the world of its richest treasure? Would you let loose the flood-gates of every vice, and bring back upon the earth the horrors of superstition or the atrocities of atheism? Then endeavor to subvert the gospel; throw around you the fire-brands of infidelity; laugh at religion; and make a mock of futurity; but be assured, that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. I will persuade myself that a regard for the welfare of their country, if no higher motive, will induce men to respect the Christian religion. And every pious heart will say, rather let the light of the sun be extinguished than the precious light of the gospel.—[Dr. Archibald Alexander.

Among the confessional, orthodox responses to the Auburn Affirmation, we’ve been searching out some of the earliest responses and have located the following editorial from The Presbyterian appeared in the 5 March 1925 issue (vol. 95, no. 10).  Another reply, by Dr. J. Gresham Machen, may post shortly.

“Liberty Within Evangelical Bounds,”
by David S. Kennedy, editor of The Presbyterian

Under the title, “For Peace and Liberty,” a committee of thirty-one ministers—all or most of whom signed the Affirmation of 1924 — have addressed an appeal to the ministers and people of the Presbyterian Church to “stand firmly for the maintenance of our historic liberties, to discourage un-brotherly judgments, to cherish the ideal of an inclusive Christian church, and to unite the whole strength of our communion in forwarding the work to which our Master has called us.”

The appeal for peace contained in this statement is incidental to its appeal for liberty. The question whether its appeal for peace is warranted, or whether it is merely a case of crying, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace,” is inextricably bound up with the question whether its appeal for liberty is an appeal for such liberty as is guaranteed by the Standards of the Presbyterian Church.  These thirty-one ministers unite in telling us that “the affirmation issued in, 1924, signed by over thirteen hundred of our ministers, asserted the historic freedom of teaching, within evangelical bounds, guaranteed to ministers of our communion.” Ostensibly, therefore, this is an appeal for the liberty of a Presbyterian minister to teach within the bounds of evangelical Christianity.

It would be quite in order to remind these ministers that it is scarcely correct to affirm that a Presbyterian minister is free to teach within the limits of evangelical Christianity. Those who take on themselves the vows of a Presbyterian minister do more than obligate themselves to teach evangelical Christianity; they obligate themselves to teach the system of doctrine taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith — what is known as Calvinism or the Reformed Faith. Otherwise Lutherans and Methodists, for instance, would have no scruples about subscribing to the Westminster Standards. All who sincerely accept our Confession of Faith are indeed evangelicals, but it is by no means true that all evangelicals accept our Confession of Faith. If these thirty-one ministers speak with knowledge when they affirm the right of a Presbyterian minister to teach “within evangelical bounds,” then a Presbyterian minister is as free to teach Lutheranism or Methodism as he is to teach Calvinism.  We do not stress this consideration, however, as it seems to us that these ministers are pleading for a liberty to teach what goes beyond the teachings of evangelical Christianity. It would be bad enough, it seems to us, if they merely urged the right to confine their teachings to what all evangelical Christians hold in common. It is only too clear, however, it seems to us, that what they urge is the right to teach what all evangelicals deny, that apart from which there is no such thing as evangelical Christianity.

[text obscured] . . .  doctrinal statement, but it does refer us back to the Affirmation of 1924; and assures us that the Affirmation of 1924 “asserted the historic freedom of teaching, within evangelical bounds, guaranteed to ministers of our communion.” It seems perfectly clear that these thirty-one ministers are appealing for the right of a Presbyterian minister to teach in harmony with the creedal statement of the Affirmation. No doubt many of the thirteen hundred ministers who signed that Affirmation signed it under the impression that its creed was evangelical — though it seems more or less incredible that any Presbyterian minister should be so lacking in theological insight.  It is true, indeed, that on the surface the brief creed of the Affirmation reads like an evangelical creed.  It is expressed in Scriptural language and, taken by itself, could be subscribed to by every evangelical.. That creed, however, cannot be taken by itself.  It must be interpreted in the light of the fact that those who wrote it expressly denied the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the virgin birth of our Lord, his death as a sacrifice to/satisfy divine justice, his bodily resurrection, and working of miracles as essential doctrines of the Word of God and our Standards.

When the creed of the Affirmation is interpreted in the light of the\ Affirmation as a whole, it is perfectly evident that it was a plea for a liberty that went beyond the limits of evangelical Christianity. It is true it asserted that the “writers of the Bible were inspired of God,” but it was expressly affirmed that they were not so inspired of God as to preserve them from error in their statement of facts or to render them authoritative in their statement of doctrines. It is true also that it spoke of the Incarnation and affirmed that “Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh,” and that “God was in Christ.” All readers of current religious literature know, however, that while these phrases are Scriptural, yet that, as used, in liberal circles, they mean not that Jesus was the God-man, and as such an object of worship, but that in a remarkable degree he was a God-filled man.  Moreover, while it spoke of the Incarnation, yet it was an incarnation that could be held apart from faith in the virgin birth or bodily resurrection of Jesus, and that did not necessarily carry with it the notion that during his early life he wrought mighty miracles.”. It is true also that it spoke of the Atonement.  It affirmed that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, that through Christ we have our redemption, that his death was vicarious, that he is our ever-living Saviour, who is able to save to the uttermost.   And yet the atonement it affirmed was an atonement that did not necessitate the belief that “Christ offered up himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine judgment……[obscured] . … though apart from the truth this statement enshrines there is no atonement in the sense of the Scriptures and our Standards.  What is more apart from this truth, there is no Christianity as Christianity has been understood by the church of all ages, for, in the words of B. B. Warfield, “precisely was Christianity in the beginning, has ever been through all its history, and must continue to be, so long as it keeps its specific character by virtue of which it is what it is, is a redemptive religion; or rather that particular redemptive religion which brings to man salvation from sin, conceived of as guilt as well as pollution, through the expiatory death of Jesus Christ.”

Lack of space forbids a full re-examination of this creed to which these thirty-one ministers have again referred us.  But surely a creed that looks upon the writers of the Bible as untrustworthy both as recorders of historical facts and as doctrinal guides, that is ambiguous and unsatisfactory in its assertion of the true deity and true humanity of our Lord, that asserts that the death of Jesus as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice is unnecessary to a valid theory of the atonement, that declines to affirm that Jesus was virgin-born, or that he worked miracles, or that he rose from the dead with the same body with which he suffered, is not a creed that can justify its claim to be an evangelical creed.

Nothing is more certain than that these thirty-one ministers are urging a liberty of teaching for Presbyterian ministers that does not confine itself within evangelical bounds.  How many of them are, in defiance of their ordination vows, already exercising such a liberty, we do not presume to say.  It is clear, however, that they all desire a liberty that their ordination vows do not grant.

What these thirty-one ministers and their sympathizers want is not liberty within evangelical bounds, still less within the bounds guaranteed by the Standards of the Presbyterian Church.  What they want is “an inclusive Christian church” which, being interpreted, means a church in which “conservatives” and “liberals,” “evangelicals” and “modernists” will have equal rights as ministers and teachers. It is in such a church, and such a church alone, that the liberty for which they appeal could be had. Such a church would be a monstrosity, because evangelicalism and modernism are not different manifestations of the same religion, but rather manifestations of opposing religions.  Such a church would be inclusive of non-Christian elements as well as Christian elements.  We have good authority for affirming that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

[excerpted from The Presbyterian 95.10 (5 March 1925): 3-4.]

One of many conservative Presbyterian responses to the Auburn Affirmation, the following editorial is from the 18 March 1926 issue of The Presbyterian.  The editorial comes from the pen of either Rev. David S. Kennedy or Rev. Samuel G. Craig, both men serving as co-editors at that time and the editorial is unsigned.  What is noteworthy in this particular editorial is the estimation by the author, in obvious but well-meaning error, that the incursion of modernism into the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. was not severe.

Are There Two Religions in the Presbyterian Church?

It has long been recognized by leaders of Christian thought that the triumph of Modernism would spell defeat for Christianity.  That Modernism and Christianity are diametrically opposed, all along the line, has been set forth most fully and convincingly by Dr. Machen in his well-known book, Christianity and Liberalism.  It is not to be supposed, however, that Dr. Machen was the discoverer of this fact : it had found clear and cogent expression long before Dr. Machen had been heard of in the theological world.  For instance, as long ago as 1891, Dr. F.L. Patton is on record as saying :

“It seems to me that American Christianity is about to pass through a severe ordeal.  It may be a ten years’ conflict, it may be a thirty years’ war ; but it is a conflict in which all Christian churches are concerned.  The war will come . . . It is not amendment, it is not revision, it is not re-statement, it is revolution that we shall have to face.  The issue will be joined by and by on the essential truth of a miraculous and God-given revelation ; and then we must be ready to fight, and, if need be, to die, in defense of the bloog-bought truths of the common salvation.”

To cite one more instance, it was in 1898 that Dr. Abraham Kuyper said in his Stone Lectures at Princeton :

There is no doubt that Christianity is imperiled by great and serious dangers.  Two life systems are wrestling with one another in mortal combat.  Modernism is bound to build a world on its own from the data of nature ; while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the Living God, and God Himself, are bent on saving the Christian heritage.  This is the struggle in Europe, this is the struggle in America . . . in which I myself have been spending all my energy for nearly forty years.”

There are comparatively few in Presbyterian circles, we suppose, who would deny that the left wing of Modernism, as represented in this country by men like Kirsopp Lake, A.C. McGiffert, and Shailer Matthews, obviously involves the rejection of historic Christianity ; and none at all, we suppose, who would maintain that such representatives of Modernism should be welcomed into the Presbyterian Church.  As far as this left wing of Modernism is concerned, the dictum of the Christian Century is acceptable, we suppose, to practically all Presbyterians :

“Two world-views, two moral ideals, two sets of personal attitudes, have clashed, and it is a cast of ostrich-like intelligence blindly to deny and evade the searching and serious character of the issue.  Christianity, according to fundamentalism, is one religion.  Christianity, according to modernism, is another religion . . . There is a clash here as profound and as grim as that between Christianity and Confuscianism.  Amiable words cannot hide the differences.  ‘Blest be the tie’ may be sung until doom’s day, but it cannot bind these two worlds together.  The God of the fundamentalist is one God ; the God of the modernist is another.  The Christ of the fundamentalist is one Christ ; the Christ of modernism is another.  The Bible of fundamentalism is one Bible ; the Bible of modernism is another.  The church, the kingdom, the salvation, the consummation of all things — these are one thing to fundamentalists and another thing to modernists.”

But while there are few, if any, in Presbyterian circles who hold that the Presbyterian Church should be “inclusive” enough to include the left wing of Modernism, there are many who confidently maintain that such modernists as are to be found in the Presbyterian Church — practically all of whom belong to the right wing of Modernism — constitute a desirable element that should be retained and, if possible, increased.  Dr. Machen’s book, referred to above, has been sharply criticised by a number of Presbyterians. These critics, however, have made little or no effort to disprove his contention that “modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity, but belongs in a totally different class of religions.”  They have contented themselves rather with endeavoring to show that the “teachings therein described as characteristic of liberalism are unknown in the Presbyterian Church.”  This holds good even of Dr. Merrill.  His recent book, Liberal Christianity, is not a defense of Liberalism in general, but rather of the right wing of Liberalism.  It is not a defense of the right of modernists in general to call themselves Christians and to remain in the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, but merely the right of modernists like himself to call themselves Christians and to take part in this ministry.  No one maintains, as far as we know, that Modernism in its extreme manifestations is prevalent within the Presbyterian Church.  When, therefore, the question is asked, “Are There Two Religions in the Presbyterian Church?” what is meant is whether even such Modernism as prevails in the Presbyterian Church has departed so far from Christianity as to be no longer entitled to call itself Christian.

We have already given our reasons for holding that Modernism, even of this less extreme type, is an essentially different type of religion than historic Christianity.  We did this with special fulness in our review of Dr. Merrill’s book in our issue of December 3, 1925.  They have been given in an abler and more relentless manner by Floyd E. Hamilton, in the current issue of The Princeton Theological Review, as we pointed out in our issue of March 4.  Now, if Dr. Merrill’s utterances had met with little or no approval in Presbyterian circles, like, for instance, the utterances of his more radical collegue in Union Theological Seminary, Professor Fagnani, they would afford slight evidence that Modernism has any real foot-hold in the Presbyterian Church.  As a matter of fact, however, Dr. Merrill is recognized as a leader by a considerable number of Presbyterian ministers.  His book has been praised and commended not only by men like President Stewart, of Auburn Seminary, and Professor Zenos, of McCormick Seminary, but by papers like The Continent and The Presbyterian Advance.  The reception his book has received offers obvious proof that Dr. Merrill was not mistaken in thinking that it expresses the faith preached in liberal pulpits ; and, hence, that in many Presbyterian pulpits “another gospel” is being preached.  No doubt, all the so-called Modernists in the Presbyterian Church have not departed as far from historic Christianity in their teachings as has Dr. Merrill.  Doubtless, some of them have departed further.  But be this as it may, it should be obvious to all that even within the Presbyterian Church there is an element that must be extruded if it is to maintain its historic and corporate witness as a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In its issue of March 4, The Continent points to the “Affirmation” of 1923 as proof that “what we have within our Church is not two religions, but two approaches to the great realities of our common faith.”  It should not be overlooked, however, that The Continentquotes only one passage of the Affirmation, and that without regard to its context — a deed that does not seem to us altogether ingenuous.  The passage cited is the so-called brief creed of the Affirmation :

“We all hold most earnestly to these great facts and doctrines ; we all believe from our hearts that the writers of the Bible were inspired of God ; that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh ; that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, and that through him we have our redemption ; that, having died for our sins, he rose from the dead and is our everlasting Saviour ; and that in his earthly ministry he wrought many mighty works, and by his vicarious death and unfailing presence his is able to save to the uttermost.”

Now, it must no doubt seem to the ordinary reader that the fact than an Affirmation containing such a creed was signed by men ranked as the most liberal in the Church is conclusive proof that there is essential unity of belief among Presbyterians.  That, however, is only because their attention has not been directed to another fact — to wit, that this same Affirmation expressly denies that the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the virgin birth of our Lord, his death as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, his bodily resurrection, and his working miracles are “essential doctrines of the Word of God and our Standards” ; and that in the Affirmation itself the brief creed is immediately followed by the statement that “all who hold to these fact and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship.”  In a word, this brief creed, apart from its context, might be subscribed to by every evangelical ; and yet when interpreted in the light of its context, it can be subscribed by no intelligent evangelical.  We would not be understood as implying that all the signers of the Affirmation are preachers of “another gospel” — some of them we know signed it under a misapprehension of its meaning — but certainly it offers no disproof of the idea that “we have two religions among us.”

We have no means of knowing the extent to which a religion other than historic Christianity has its representatives in the Presbyterian Church.  Not to any great extent, we are disposed to think.  It seems obvious, however, not only that there are such, but that their presence is the deepest cause of unrest in the Church.

A Manual for Members
by Rev. David T. Myers

What should we expect ourselves and our fellow members to be doing for the Lord through our respective congregations?  Various answers might be forthcoming, but it is interesting what a famous congregation in the Bible Presbyterian Church specified were its members responsibilities to the Lord.

In a leaflet written on March 3, 1946, a pamphlet was published of the Collingswood, New Jersey, Bible Presbyterian Church.  After listing its pastoral staff, including the Rev. Carl McIntire, and recording  the names of the Session of Elders, Trustees, and Deacons, as well as specifying all the ministry opportunities of the church in home and abroad,  there was a section stating the purposes of its members.  It read:

 “Every member a worker” is the idea for our church.  The church is falling short of its goal unless every member attends its services regularly and engages in at least one specific service or ministry.  Here is our program for every individual member:

1. Read the Bible daily
2. Pray every day
3. Give thanks at every meal
4. Have regular family worship
5. By example and speech moment by moment, honor the Lord Jesus Christ
6. Attend church services on the Lord’s Day regularly
7. Attend the mid-week service
8. Contribute your tithe regularly and proportionately to the work of the church
9. Take an active part in at least one of the organizations or projects mentioned in this pamphlet, and
10.  Invite at least one person a month to attend the services of the Church — someone who is unsaved or unchurched.

Now, in conclusion, some of our readers, and even some of the ministers, might have objections to this list, but as you read them again, there are very few items which are not taught or inferred in the Bible as necessary traits of the disciples of the Lord Jesus.  Nevertheless, however we might think of it,  this is one congregation’s attempts over eighty years ago which sought to help its members by being faithful members of the local congregation to which they were committed.

Words to Live By: Let us seek to fulfill our promise as members of the local church to which we are committed, to  live as becomes the followers of Christ Jesus.