by Steve | May 1, 1975 | Archive - 1975
World Evangelism…Our Sacred Task
An exclusive interview with Dr. Robert E. Coleman, the only United Methodist serving on the Continuing Committee of the Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization.
Q What is the purpose of the Lausanne Continuation Committee for World Evangelization?
A The International Congress on World Evangelization last summer in Switzerland expressed a strong desire that a group be selected to implement the goals and wishes declared at Lausanne. To this end, a committee of 48 persons, representing 25 nations, was elected by the Planning Committee from names submitted by the Congress. Care was given, in the final selection, to geographical and denominational balance around the world.
Within the guidelines of the Lausanne Covenant (see highlights in box), the aims of the Committee is to further the total Biblical mission of the Church, recognizing that in this mandate, evangelism is primary. Our particular concern must be the evangelization of the 2,700 million unreached people on the earth, as well as the other millions of nominal churchmen who have not yet heard or responded to the true Gospel.
The Committee envisions its role to be that of a catalyst – to communicate what God is doing and what we believe He wants do to in the world, and to stir the people of God to more effective action. That is, we do not see ourselves setting up big programs and budgets on a global scale. Rather, our purpose is to provide a clearing house and implementation center for evangelicals of the world to take initiative.
Q How do you propose to do this?
A The members of the Continuation Committee in each major region of the world have been asked to form a broad network at the grass-roots level to foster and coordinate national strategies. This seems, to me, a realistic way to proceed. All of us recognize that the wide diversity of situations in the world call for a variety of approaches. Therefore, persons from different regions and cultures should work out their own programs.
Several times during the Mexico City meetings in January 1975, we broke up into continental groups to consider what goals should be set for the next few years, and what resources and structures would be needed to attain them. I think that everyone was anxious to see some fresh cooperative ventures in evangelism. We discussed such matters as improved training for clergy and debate begun at Lausanne in such areas as evangelism and social action, Christian ethics, and church renewal.
How these and other concerns will come forth in concrete proposals has yet to be decided. But whatever is agreed on, it will represent a broadly-based process by the people involved, carried out with sensitivity and openness.
Q What will be the relationship of the new organization to the W.C.C. (World Council of Churches)? To what extent will it differ in organization, theology, and function?
A The Committee has no desire to become another W.C.C. In fact, we are opposed to any bureaucratic model that would presume global laity, better evangelistic methods, intensified cross-cultural ministries, and utilizing more effectively the mass media. The African and Asian groups were especially concerned with strengthening theological education. In the Arab world there was a cry for more full-time evangelists. The European continent reiterated the importance of continuing the authority. Hence the focus on regionalization. In keeping with this emphasis, the Lausanne World Committee has resolved to maintain a low profile for itself and to operate with a modest budget and staff. This stands in remarkable contrast to the W.C.C., as you know. However, our most significant difference is in the realm of faith. The Lausanne Continuation Committee unanimously affirms an unequivocal commitment to Biblical doctrine and duty, especially as expressed in the Lausanne Covenant. Moreover, we are united in our Lord’s commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20). The W.C.C., with its syncretistic and universalistic understanding of the Gospel, cannot even agree on a definition of evangelism. I am afraid that theological liberalism has so taken over the W.C.C., especially since the Uppsala and Bangkok Conferences, that W.C.C. seems more concerned with the breakdown of political structures in society than with evangelizing a lost world. While the W.C.C. embraces millions of Bible-believing Christians, the official leadership of the Conciliar movement, with few notable exceptions, has tragically departed from its original missionary origins.
What this means for true evangelicals caught in this monolithic W.C.C. vice becomes painfully obvious. The World Council of Churches, by its departure from vital Biblical Christianity, does not and cannot provide a fellowship for the evangelical community of the world. In all candor, we must look elsewhere for any meaningful spiritual home. If we think otherwise, we are only fooling ourselves.
Q Can you assume that the Lausanne Committee speaks for the vast evangelical world community? What about other existing organizations that are seeking much the same ends?
A Your point is well taken. The Continuation Committee is only carrying out the wishes of those representatives from 150 nations gathered at Lausanne. We do not pretend to be the only body concerned with uniting evangelical Christians. Nevertheless, I think that it is fair to say that at the present time evangelicals of the world are not being pulled together by any existing organization. The World Evangelical Fellowship, probably the nearest thing to it, does not reach the vast majority of people. Something on a much broader scale is needed.
Certainly we must approach this task with deep sensitivity. Where there are already existing associations which share similar aims and spirit, we will need to seek the largest measure of cooperation, and use whatever flexibility is necessary to achieve our goals.
Take our situation in the United States, as an example. The National Association of Evangelicals, while appealing to the smaller conservative groups, does not represent the largest conservative denomination in America, the Southern Baptist Convention. Nor does it include the large Missouri-Lutheran Synod, among others. Yet the Southern Baptists and Missouri Lutherans have no part in the National Council of Churches.
On the other hand, within the N.C.C. denominations, like the United Methodists, there are multitudes left out. Some may actually feel more identity with some of the para-church groups, like Campus Crusade for Christ or Inter-Varsity, which provide spiritual ministry to many people across denominational lines. The charismatic movement is yet another dimension of this vast throng of basically Bible-believing people. Put these all together and you have a potential force staggering to contemplate!
Some framework is needed for a fellowship which appreciates distinctive church doctrines and the government of each group, yet unites around a common evangelical commitment to world evangelization. I believe that the Lausanne Covenant and purpose offers the best hope for this in our generation.
Q What is your personal expectation for Lausanne, and why are you willing to serve on its Steering Committee?
A Apart from the joy of association with this body of evangelical leaders, I count it a privilege to have a part in this daring dream. If, by God’s grace, we can approximate our goal, it will be the greatest ecumenical breakthrough in modern times. Admittedly, our aspirations at this point are projected largely on faith. But I would rather give myself to something great, even though exceedingly difficult, than to spend effort on a comfortable cause of little consequence.
And what greater task can we set before us than the fulfillment of our Lord’s Great Commission? In this supreme mission of Christ, I see every person involved who takes the Bible seriously. Our particular roles will vary according to gifts and calling, but all of us share the same objective.
Q Is it true that Billy Graham runs Lausanne? If not, what will make it an authentically open group?
A In answer to your first question, I can say unequivocally that Billy Graham does not run Lausanne. Those who may have this notion simply do not understand what it is all about. The spirit of Lausanne is too big for any one person to manipulate.
It is true that Billy Graham has given inspiration to evangelicals of our time as no other single individual, but he has never tried to dominate the movement. The only reason that he took initiative and gave so largely of his resources in getting the Berlin and Lausanne Congresses together, is because there was no one else who had the facility to do it. For this we owe him an immeasurable debt, though he would be the first to deny it. Billy Graham, wherever possible for years, has sought to push others to the fore. This magnanimous concern was clearly evident when we met in Mexico City. He insisted that he have no responsibility on the Continuing Committee, though he did accept our unanimous invitation to become Honorary Chairman of the Consultative Council.
Q What things about the Lausanne Covenant make it the possible ideological-theological point of polarity for evangelicals around the world? What about those who can’t buy its strong position on the inerrancy of Scripture? To what extent will leadership of Lausanne be protected against the termite influence of those with other views?
A Your concern is appreciated. Doubtless there will come attempts to subvert the doctrinal content of the Covenant. The particular statement which you alluded to has already caused considerable foment. To say that the Scripture is “without error in all that it affirms” is indeed a strong witness. But it clearly aligns Lausanne with the convictions of the great Reformers, and to take a less definitive position in our day would open a “pandora’s box” of possible serious theological deviations.
There are many other aspects of the Lausanne Covenant which might raise objections, such as the strong emphasis upon social action or the simple life. And some may have semantic problems with the document. Where one cannot subscribe to every detail of the document, hopefully there will be some kind of an affiliate arrangement for those who may desire identity with its spirit. This is a matter which still needs clarification.
Q Will the historic Methodism of the Wesleys be entirely submerged in Lausanne? Or could Lausanne provide a means of vivifying our tradition?
A I am confident that there is no desire by anyone that the Wesleyan message be lost in Lausanne. They sincerely want our witness to be heard! Unfortunately, in the past generation, the historic Bible based message of Wesley has been obscured in most of the official agencies and schools of Methodism. This has had the effect of so watering down our heritage that the United Methodist Church has lost much of its original evangelical identity. What, today, so often goes under the name of Methodism is not Wesleyan at all, but rather a form of semi-pelagian humanism.
Doubtless, this accounts for a smaller Methodist presence at Lausanne than, say, the Reformed tradition. But as far as John Wesley is concerned, I do not recall hearing anyone mentioned more often at the Lausanne Congress. His clarion faith in an infallible Bible and his blazing heart for evangelism puts him at the very center of the Lausanne movement. So in regard to your last question, I think that Lausanne, emphasizing those basic motivations which gave birth to the great worldwide Methodist revival, dramatically calls attention to our spiritual roots. Let me say something, too, about the balance of the Continuation Committee. Though I am the only United Methodist serving on it, Wesleyan theology is represented by some men from other communions of the world. I feel that in terms of our evangelical strength today, worldwide, the teaching of Wesley has been given a very fair THE NATURE OF EVANGELISM voice in Lausanne. If we would like more, then let us take to heart more earnestly what Wesley believed and enlarge our numbers through Biblical evangelism.
Q In the light of what you have said, could you sum up the implication of Lausanne for the Good News Movement?
A The Good News fellowship within The United Methodist Church reflects the same yearning which brought Lausanne into being. What is seen in our small sphere of the church is happening in com-world. Evangelicals are on the march.
In this sense, Lausanne gives visibility to our cause on a global scale. It will help us know a strength and solidarity which we could not have alone. We can see ourselves now as part of a vast and growing army of committed disciples from every nation. Our evangelical fellowship literally embraces hundreds of millions of like-minded people. Never before have we been so united. Before us are many struggles and disappointments. I am sure that there will be some agonizing trials as we seek to find ways to work side by side. But we must not let any secondary conflict divert us from our all-consuming mission of world evangelization. In this dedication we have come to our finest hour.
Q As individual United Methodists, what can we do to relate ourselves and our churches to this worldwide evangelical movement?
A For the moment, we can align ourselves with the Lausanne Covenant. Here is the best articulation in modern times of an evangelical consensus on basic issues. Congregations might find it stimulating to study in depth this document. A commentary on the Covenant has been prepared for just this purpose. It is: The Lausanne Covenant, by John Stott, price, 95¢, and is available from Good News.
In addition, the major addresses and papers delivered at the Congress can be read with great profit. They are now available in book form and on cassettes. A series of six studies entitled “Reaching All,” developed from the Congress messages, also offers an exciting opportunity to become better informed about evangelizing the world for Christ.
The most significant thing, of course, is that we take to heart the practical implications of our evangelical faith. This should find expression in a vital church evangelistic and missionary outreach on the local scene.
As cooperative programs are developed across the country, I would hope that United Methodists will assume a prominent role in the action. This should come naturally to us! We have always looked upon ourselves essentially as a company of Bible Christians united to pursue holiness of life and to herald the Gospel of redeeming grace across the earth.
Those who share this spirit, by whatever name they are called, certainly should be in the forefront of evangelism in our day. Here, without hesitation, we can work together as loyal sons and daughters of Wesley, and in so doing we will most clearly show the world that we are a Good News Movement.
by Steve | Mar 2, 1975 | Archive - 1975
Getting to Know the Old Testament
Part Two
Answering Some Old Testament Problems
by John N. Oswalt, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary
Elder, Kentucky Annual Conference, United Methodist Church
If the previous article has made a case for the Church’s need for the Old Testament, it has left unanswered the serious problems which were posed at the beginning of this series. It now becomes our task to suggest some ways to deal with these “problems.” It would not be possible, in one short article, to present detailed solutions to all the Old Testament difficulties. Nor would the author be capable of doing this, even if space permitted. What is intended is to suggest four or five principles which should be helpful in working through the most commonly expressed Old Testament “problems.” In the course of discussing these principles, certain representative issues will be treated as examples.
The attempt to demonstrate the necessity of the Old Testament for the Church was consciously put before this treatment of the “problems,” because the manner in which one approaches difficulties in the Old Testament is largely determined by one’s attitude toward the Old Testament. If one is convinced that it is basically a non-Christian book, and thus of little value to the Church, the “problems” will be allowed to stand without serious attempts to find any solution. They will be merely treated as evidence by which to confirm one’s prejudice.
On the other hand, if one is convinced that the Church cannot survive without the Old Testament, one is much more likely to make a strenuous effort to solve the “problems.” When this happens, one makes the pleasant discovery that, in most cases, satisfying solutions can be found. Those who downgrade the Old Testament often accuse its defenders of manipulating the evidence to save the Old Testament. Unfortunately, this has sometimes been true. This tendency must be carefully guarded against. On the other hand, it is fair to say that failure to seriously explore and accept the evidence because one has prejudged the case is equally dishonest.
When one begins to seek solutions to the Old Testament difficulties, one of the usual first discoveries is that the “problem” has been isolated and overstated. When the background and the situation are fully understood, oftentimes the “problem” is much less massive.
A case in point would be the slaughter of the Canaanites. This one instance, perhaps more than any other, is used to show that the Old Testament is sub-Christian. One hears such statements as, “If God had commanded such a thing (assuming that He did not), He would have been violating His own commandment, ‘Thou shalt not kill.'”
Such a statement fails to understand that the Commandment, as worded in the original, had to do with murder and was not directly related to either capital punishment or warfare.
However, it still may be asked, “How could a loving God simply order a people wiped out so that His own people could have that land?”
This question is based upon two false assumptions: one that killing and love are never consistent; two, the slaughter of the Canaanites was merely to enable the Hebrews to take possession of the land. Thorough study of the Scriptures makes it plain that the Hebrews’ action was God’s judgment upon the Canaanites. In Genesis 15:16, God tells Abraham that he and his descendants cannot yet possess the land because the sin of the Amorites (Canaanites) is not yet complete. In other words, it would have been unjust for Abraham to have destroyed the Canaanites then. They did not yet deserve it. Bur 400 years later, after the tendencies already evident in Abraham’s day had run their course, the actions of the Hebrews in destroying the deeply perverted and decadent Canaanite society was an act of Divine justice. If there is one thing with which love is surely inconsistent it is injustice. To allow flagrant sin to go unpunished is no act of love. On the part of man it is irresponsible; on the part of God it would be demonic.
This action of God’s love, expressed in terms of righteous justice, not only related to the Canaanites’ past sins – it also related to the future. Joshua makes it plain that a further reason for the annihilation of the Canaanite people was so that the Canaanite culture would be wiped out. Why? So that it would not become a trap for the Hebrews. The Hebrews were a people chosen by God to convey His redemptive self-disclosure to the earth. The culmination of that redemption, Jesus Christ, was to be a part of them.
The Canaanites were a near-perfect example of world religions which, by deifying human and natural functions, seek to gain control over the universe for the sake of human security. If the Canaanite religion could somehow contaminate the Hebrew faith, God’s whole future expression of love to the world could be jeopardized.
As a matter of fact, this is precisely what did happen. The Hebrews did not carry out God’s command carefully. (Did they, like we, think it too harsh?) As a result the Hebrew faith was saved only by the narrowest of escapes. Had the Israelites obeyed God’s commands, who knows what agonies they might have been spared or how much sooner God’s redemptive love might have been manifested in its fullness to the world?
Another principle to be kept in mind when dealing with Old Testament “problems” is that of progressive revelation. Not all of God’s truth is revealed at once. Only what can be assimilated at a given moment is opened up; more is added later when God knows the time is right. The process is much the same as that used by wise parents who teach their children only what they are able to comprehend.
A case in point might be the afterlife. Some wonder why the Old Testament is so “this-worldly” when the New Testament depicts salvation in “other-worldly” terms. This is one of those overblown distinctions. The New Testament says much more about this present life than many people realize. Nonetheless, the Old Testament is largely silent on the afterlife. Why? Very possibly because the Israelites had come out of Egypt, where efforts to ensure a happy afterlife through magical rites and a complex polytheism[1] dominated the lives of many.
Before God could reveal the true afterlife to His people, some preliminary points had to be made: there was only one God in all the universe, and He was not pleased by magical rites, but instead required utter trust demonstrated in ethical behavior. Until these important points were fixed in the Israelite mind, any teaching concerning the afterlife could only confuse God’s people.
Similarly with retribution and blessing, the fundamental point had to be made that obedience from the heart results in bliss, and that any other kind of response to God was disaster. (To the Hebrews, in a fairly adolescent stage of development, the blessings and disasters were described in very materialistic terms. After this basic point had been made, then mankind would be ready to learn that in the final analysis, material things do not determine either bliss or disaster for us).
The laws relating to sacrifice, foods, purity, etc., must be understood in this same light. They functioned as concrete object lessons to make a spiritual point. On a spiritual plane, there is that which defiles and that which makes clean. On a spiritual plane, sin is a matter of life and death and therefore may not be treated lightly. How better to learn these and other important truths than through the daily experiences of sacrifice, eating, etc.?
But, it may be asked, since we have progressed beyond the adolescent, object-lesson stage, can we not dispense with those rather boring sections of the Old Testament? The sobering question must be asked, “Have we?” When the Old Testament object lessons do not illuminate and reinforce the reality they symbolize, then we have either perceived truth in its full intensity – or perhaps we have not perceived truth at all.
A third principle is that the Old Testament never idealizes. This is surely one of the marks of its Divine authority. Nowhere else in the literature of the ancient world are human beings depicted so really, both in their glories and in their horrors. Thus, although a David or an Abraham is a hero of God, when he sins it is reported with a kind of clinical exactness. The great man’s weaknesses are neither celebrated nor minimized. The inspired writer seems to be telling us that God is indeed at work in human lives, not in some never-never land of unreal sainthood (unless it is in the kinds of imperfect saints found in Paul’s Corinth). Moreover, the Old Testament writer is saying that we are to worship God, not our human “fathers.” Some of their failings were barbaric and their ends desperate. Yet, praise be to God, He could and did accomplish His purposes through even them! If a Samson was the best that could be had, God could use him. But the Bible does not idealize these heroes, and neither need we. Let us only be sure that we are at least as open to God’s working with us as they were long ago.
Finally, it is important to understand that Old Testament culture was different from that of either Greek and Roman times – or our own. We have said before that the Holy Spirit did not dictate certain timeless truths to men apart from and regardless of their situation in life. (Whenever the Bible is so treated, endless difficulties result). Rather, God began to manifest Himself in certain historical situations. At the same time (or even previously) He began to move in the lives of certain individuals so that they might authoritatively interpret what He was doing and saying in His actions. Necessarily, then, the Old Testament revelation had to be expressed in terms and styles which communicated with the people of that day. Thus, had God somehow contrived to set down an Ezra in the Judges period, he would probably have been much less successful in achieving God’s purposes for that time than were Ehud or Jephthah.
Along these same lines, when certain strange or even apparently immoral acts performed by Biblical figures are examined in the light of the customs of the day, they will often be found to be quite consistent. A case in point would be Abraham’s begetting Ismael by Hagar. In our sub-culture this is a gross and un-understandable act on the part of God’s chosen. However, in that day and time, this was an acceptable way of getting children if one’s wife were barren.
Before leaving this point it must be remarked that despite this different cultural conditioning of the Old Testament, human nature has remained remarkably the same across 5,000 years. Once one gets behind the strange ancient customs and, to us sometimes bizarre behavior, we find the same humanity as exists today. Whether peasant or technocrat one’s hopes, his aspirations, his sins, his failures, his crying needs remain the same. The marvel of the Bible is that it has so well diagnosed the essential human situation as it appeared in persons 3,000 to 4,000 years ago in the Near East … that this diagnosis remains so true today. With these several principles of interpretation in mind, no “problems” need be so severe as to prevent us from seeing in the Old Testament God’s description of ourselves and His provision for becoming our true selves.
Coming in the next issue of Good News Part III: “How You Can Study The Old Testament.”
[1] Polytheism: belief in, or worship of, many different gods.
by Steve | Mar 1, 1975 | Archive - 1975
God will answer prayer always, IF…
A thoughtful look at a beautiful and mysterious part of our faith.
By Robert D. Wood
Department of Home Ministries, OMS International
Elder, Kansas West Annual Conference
Good News Board of Directors
It is God’s intention to answer prayer-always. And I do not mean what most persons seem to mean when they make such an assertion. We often hear people say that God intends to answer with a “yes.” “All the promises of God are ‘yes’ and ‘it shall be so,”‘ writes the Apostle Paul (11 Corinthians 1:19). It seems to me, in the light of clear statements from the Scriptures, that to say that God sometimes says, “no,” is to misunderstand the Scriptures or is a cop-out on our part – or both.
God intends always to say, ‘yes,’ though I will concede that experience and the Scriptures seem to lead to the conclusion that ‘yes’ sometimes follows on ‘not yet.’ But ‘no’ never appears in what God intends to happen when the Christian prays. Let us look at the evidence. The place ·to begin is with the Bible promises we have regarding prayer.
“Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16).
“Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, he will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:23).
“Ask, and it will be given you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8 and parallel passage in Luke 11:9-13).
”… if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven” (Matthew 18:19).
“… Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21 : 22).
“… We receive from [God] whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him” (I John 3:22).
“… this is the confidence which we have in [God], that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him” (I John 5:14).
Here is enough material to keep us busy for a long time! Notice how many of these come from the lips of Jesus himself. Notice also (and this is extremely important), the inclusiveness of these statements on prayer. We find the words “whatever” and “anything” repeated time after time. “Ask whatever you will”; “whatever you ask”; “ask anything“; “agree … about anything.” Any sincere Christian, any believer wanting to follow the Lord and grow up into Christ, is going to have to deal with such blanket assertions as these. While we add, to cover up our failures, our “buts” and “howevers” and “we must be sensible and reasonable” and “it can’t mean,” etc., the voice of Jesus is still speaking: “ask whatever you will, and it shall be done.”
I have suggested above that we throw the dust of disbelief into the air for self-defense. It allows us to hide in a cloud of verbiage and so-called rationalism our utter fruitlessness in prayer. If what I am saying is true, then we stand under a frightening indictment. We cannot stand that kind of guilt and failure so we begin to say, “Let’s be reasonable people; Jesus surely didn’t mean ‘ask anything’; let’s not get carried away.”
I protest but He said, “ask anything.”
However, experience gets to its feet and makes a very damning confession: “I have prayed and prayed and nothing has happened.” A woman once said to me, ” I don’t believe in Jesus anymore.” I asked why. “Because,” she explained, “I asked Him to help me once, and He wouldn’t do it.”
The disciples could not help the young man who had seizures and whose father took him to them for healing. He later explained to Jesus, “I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they failed” (Matthew 8:18, NEB). Phillips makes it even more pointed: “I did speak to your disciples to get them to drive it out, but they hadn’t got the power to do it.”
Damning.
Here, then, is the reason why we may not lie back on our “flow’ry beds of ease,” and say that it really is not such an important failure after all when we are ineffective in our praying. It is important! And serious Christians must discover the keys to the problem of “whatever” and the “anything” of Jesus’ promises.
These promises are given in the context of the Will of God. That is key number one. Key number two is that they are given in the context of ministry. That is to say that the only restrictions or constrictions which we may attach to these singular promises are: a) that one must pray in the will of God and that b) the promises often are related to fruit-bearing.
“Aha!” you say; “there’s the rub.” Yes, there’s the rub. Praying effectively is dependent upon ascertaining the will of God before we pray. And that is not always easy, though it would seem to be always possible (John 7:17; Romans 12:2).
The second thing to keep in mind is that effective prayer is directly related to discipleship. Jesus was not speaking to the clergy (rather to the laity) when he called them, chose them, and ordained them, and gave them the challenge and promise of John 15:16. Every one of us who names the Name of Christ is under divine appointment. This means discipleship. My authority for this is John 15:16 to which I have already referred. Notice here, however, something more than that Jesus says, ” … whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” That very phrasing suggests that there is more to it; Jesus relates it to fruit-bearing, to ministry. If it were only “ask whatever you will” without the condition, it would make God a Super Santa. It was this notion that the crowd of 5,000 had in mind when they tried to make Jesus King Santa (John 6:15). Jesus proceeded to disabuse them of this idea with a mindboggling explication of the meaning of discipleship (John 6:53). Such an explication of prayer as ministry ought to disabuse us of the tendency to make prayer self-serving. Prayer is the Christian’s secret weapon for carrying on God’s warfare in the world of men and evil forces.
To put the two keys together, the all-encompassing prayer promises are related to working out the will of God in the warfare of Christian discipleship. Jesus calls the latter “bearing fruit.”
A demonstration of this occurred during the last supper; in fact, it followed hard upon the first service of Holy Communion. This was a great spiritual experience, a mountain top. Love among Jesus and the Eleven was at a high point.
Judging by what follows, one wonders whether perhaps Jesus unexpectedly shivered as if a frigid northern blast of wind suddenly shook Him at the disciple’s partial understanding. For the Last Supper was much more than a “mountain top” experience; in fact it was a battlefield and the war cry had been sounded.
When lightning strikes the earth, the ground acts as a conductor. If one is outdoors and his body begins to tingle and his hair stand on it, it may mean that lightning is about to strike. At the Last Supper Jesus sensed that Satan was about to strike, and his target would be Simon Peter. Jesus had been speaking about their faithfulness to Himself during His trials. He spoke of their appointed place in the Kingdom; it would be a position of honor, yes, but of great responsibility. Then Jesus sent a shock wave through the gathering: “Simon, Simon, behold Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31-32).
Several lessons can be learned from this, but at least two are pertinent to our theme. Jesus’ ministry was to call out a people for God, bearing fruit unto the Father. Peter was a part of that; so are we. We have entered into Jesus’ labors, and it is ours now to bear fruit, to reproduce believers. That is the first lesson. The second is related to Jesus’ estimate of the power of prayer. This estimate gave rise to the promises He has given us to answer all our prayers with a yes. He expected His prayer for Peter to be answered. He said, “I have prayed for you.” Then He says, “when you have turned again.” Our Lord meant “Peter, Satan wants you, but I have prayed for you. You will fall, but you will return. When you do return, strengthen the others.”
Jesus has prayed. He knows His prayer will be answered because He believes that whatever He asks the Father, He will receive. The prayer will be answered because God sent Him to bear fruit. Peter is part of that fruit. Therefore, it was the will of God to answer that prayer. God would respond to that prayer and cooperate in the accomplishment of it.
Remember Wesley’s belief that God does nothing but in answer to prayer? This is a matter of divine-human cooperation.
But what about discerning the will of God? God will say, “yes,” to all our requests which are within His will – the promises say as much. The reason we say that God sometimes says, “no,” is because we have prayed for something that is outside His will. In such instances, He does not say, “no”; he ignores it.
In the midst of this writing, I took a break and went off to hear a well-known speaker who said, “Despite what we hear a great deal these days, all of our prayers are NOT answered.” I pricked up my ears. He continued, “We can be praying for the healing of 10 people in a row; nine of them will be healed, and then suddenly the tenth one isn’t.
I will concede that. But does this mean “No,” or is it because we did not pray first for guidance on how to pray in that particular instance?
The most important thing to remember in seeking God’s will is that surrender is the secret, a complete selling out to the will of God. “I come to do thy will, 0 God” (Hebrews 10:7) was spoken of Jesus. It must be the mind-set of the disciple as well. When your will and God’s will are at cross purposes, how can you expect to receive answers to your prayers? Therefore, be very sure that you want only His will.
One of my favorite hymns expresses the idea of surrender to the will of God. Jane Borthwick translated the words of Benjamin Schmolck:
My Jesus, as Thou wilt!
0 may Thy will be mine!
Into Thy hand of love
I would my all resign.
Through sorrow or through joy,
Conduct me as Thine own,
And help me still to say,
“My Lord, Thy will be done.”
…………………………………………..
My Jesus, as Thou wilt!
All shall be well for me;
Each changing future scene
I gladly trust with Thee.
A number of years ago I was struck by the significance of the bond-servant idea in the Scripture. In the lsraelitesh economy, every 50th year was to be a year of jubilee during which all lands that had been sold or forfeited were returned to their original owners. All slaves were set free (Leviticus 25:13,14; 27:16-24; 25:39-54). If a slave chose to remain with the family to which he had been indentured, he was taken to a doorpost where an awl was used to pierce his earlobe. The resulting wound showed to all the world that here was a man or a woman who was a slave by choice, a love slave.
This concept appears frequently in the New Testament letters of Paul, where he refers to himself as a bond-servant of Jesus Christ (Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Titus 1:1). James 1:1 and Peter 1:1 also make use of the concept of voluntary servanthood to the Savior.
What right have I to say where should serve?
I may not choose my Galilee.
To clutch the Cross is my sole right.
Am I not Thine to send and Thine to nerve?
Thou art my Shield ‘mid Lystra’s flying rocks;
Thou art my Freedom in Philippi’s stocks.
I am Thy Levite; Thou art my Portion
‘Tis Prize enough. What matters else,
If I am Thine and Thou art mine? “Hands off” is my foremost obligation.
Here, Lord, is the lobe; quickly fetch Thine awl.
The disciple’s badge is the chain and ball.
The point of all this is that surrender to the will of God as an attitude, as an on-going stance, as a way of Iife, is the very first and fundamental requirement for effective praying. We have been promised the mind of Christ (Matthew 11:29; John 13:15; Ephesians 4:20; Philippians 2:5; I Peter 2:21; I John 2:6,20,27). Yet we know from experience, and from common sense, that Christ’s thoughts cannot come into our minds when we have already decided any given matter for ourselves … when we have concluded what truth is and what is right and good.
Suppose Jesus, like the Ford Motor Co., “has a better idea.” Openness to the mind of Christ (another term for the will of God), precedes effective praying. Paul says, ” … we do not know how we ought to pray …” (Romans 8:26, Good News for Modern Man). Yet he says to the Corinthians that while “the natural [or unspiritual] man receiveth not the things of the Spirit,” “we have the mind of Christ” I Corinthians 2: 14, 16). Paul is not contradicting himself. Rather, he is saying that the Holy Spirit takes over where human understanding, even enlightened (inSpirited, if you please) human understanding, falls short. On the other hand, he says, “we have the mind of Christ,” which Moffatt translates as “our thoughts are Christ’s thoughts.”
In order to have “Christ’s thoughts,” we need to be certain that we have no thoughts of our own. This is not a plea for empty-headedness; heaven knows there are enough kooks running around in the name of Jesus Christ! It is a plea, however, for such absolute sold-outness to the will of God that we are open to the quiet suggestions of the Holy Spirit, remembering that God seldom comes to us as a clap of thunder, as Elijah found out. As intercessors before our Father on behalf of a sinning world or needy brothers and sisters in the faith, we often have our own notions of what God needs to do. We tend not only to diagnose but also to prescribe. That is not our function. It is ours to listen carefully to the voice of the Spirit, and to join our wills with His on behalf of others. These are the kind of prayers to which Jesus does not expect God to say, “no.” It is to this kind of praying that Jesus calls us. It is to this which He hopes to challenge us when He says, “ask anything you will, and it shall be done.”
The fact is, of course, that God does have a means by which He accomplishes His purposes. It is directly related to our ascertaining the will of God. The Holy Spirit, who is controlling the surrendered Christian, has an entrance into the thinking processes of that person. When Paul writes to the Galatians, ” … let the Spirit direct your lives, and you will not satisfy the desires of the human nature” (5:16, TEV), he is implying that following the Holy Spirit means that we are satisfying the “desires” of our higher nature, so to speak, and that “higher nature” is harmonious with the desires that God desires for us. For example, what do you think God had in mind for Solomon when He spoke to him in a dream at Gibeon and said, “Ask what I shall give thee” (I Kings 3:5)? He would have deplored the king’s asking for long life or riches or vengeance upon his enemies (vs. 12), but he was pleased that Solomon asked for “an understanding heart” (vs. 9).
Why was God pleased? Because it was exactly what God wanted Solomon to want. The text does not say so, but the context bears it out. Besides, Solomon who loved God (vs. 3), had by that love and obedience become what Peter was later to call a sharer in the divine nature (II Peter 1 :4). This made him privy to the mind of God. There is nothing particularly mysterious about the way God leads us. Nor wondrously dramatic most of the time. I suspect the two most common ways that God reveals His will to us is by the circum- stances and by our own sanctified desires. Check it out in the lives of Jesus and Paul. Certainly Elijah learned pretty effectively that God did not come to him so much in the dramatic as in the natural events (I Kings 19:11). Anyone except the hopelessly obtuse would be able to discern God in a burning bush that spoke as in Moses’ experience (though he might question his sanity after such a singular I not to say bizarre, experience). But it takes effort and will and time to discover and comprehend “the still small voice.”
I have suggested that God Himself moved Soloman to desire and therefore to ask for “an understanding heart.” Psalm 37:4 conveys the idea that God gives us His implanted desires of our hearts. Psalm 145: 19 declares, “He will fulfill the desire of them that fear him.” Join that with the astounding promise to those who ask, seek, and knock (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11 :9f), and we have then come back full circle.
Thus I will say again that God intends to say, “yes,” to our prayers; that “no” is not an answer but rather a non-answer to a non-prayer. In Him, everything is yes. ” … Jesus is God’s ‘yes'” (II Corinthians 1:19, TEV). We are truly praying, as God regards prayer, only when He can say “yes” to it. If you get what appears to be a “no,” something is wrong with your prayer, not with God.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves,” Shakespeare has one say in another context.
The seriousness of praying outside the will of God is far more profound than simply a failure to receive what we want from God. We may be even at cross-purposes with what God wants to do.
The Jerusalem of Jeremiah’s day was a city sated with wickedness and rebellion against God who had determined to punish its people by its destruction and their slavery in exile. Would you not suppose that a good spiritual man like Jeremiah, famed for his tears of lamentation, would be beside himself with anguish and storm the gates of heaven on behalf of his countrymen? Abraham had done as much for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23). But Jeremiah discerned the wilI of God: “therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me; for I will not hear thee” (Jeremiah 7:16). Suppose he had prayed for their protection …
Paul intended that his converts would arrive at the place in their spiritual development where they would be filled “with the knowledge of his will, with all the wisdom and understanding that his Spirit gives” (Colossians 1:9, TEV, italics mine). Could it be clearer? Could God’s intention for us be put in plainer language? The apostle’s admonition to the Ephesian Christians, while a call to sober behavior, could as well speak to their prayer habits when he writes, ” … try to find out what the Lord wants you to do” (5:17, TEV), or, in this instance, how the Lord wants you to pray. Thus, Paul, understanding that God’s ultimate purpose for the Jews is their salvation, as contrasted with God’s immediate purpose for a particular generation of Jews in Jeremiah’s day, prays for their salvation (Romans 10:1).
But it was not always so with him. There can be no doubt that Paul, before his conversion, probably demanded in his prayers that God destroy the Christians. He understood later that this was to pray outside the will of God and thus unanswerable. For his pains, he had a nonanswer. Later he was to explain to the Christians at Rome that ascertaining the will of God in all of life, which surely included prayer, is possible only to those whose lives have been transformed inwardly “by a complete change of mind” (might he have had his own conversion experience in mind?), a change so profound and so far-reaching in its effect that one could therefore “be able to know the will of God …. ” (12:2, TEV, italics mine).
But how can you know? It is simple yet difficult. The secret, as I have been saying, is surrender. You know whether you want to do God’s will. You know whether there are unrelinquished areas in your life. That does not mean that as you continue walking in obedience, God will not indicate to you unsurrendered areas which you will then quickly surrender. A daily and hourly surrender is consequent upon, and complementary to, an act of surrender which you have already made as a Iifetime intention. Such surrender opens the mind to the gentle persuasions of the Holy Spirit. Ask Him to show you His will. Ask Him to shut out all other voices, the suggestions of the Evil One as well as “the murmur of self-will ,” as Whittier has it. This can be discerned by testing the suggestions with the Word of God, which is never self-contradictory. God is consistent.
Then there is the inner witness. This is subjective and therefore potentially open to error, but it is nonetheless one of the checks. I find that when I am asked, for example, to pray for one’s healing that I must first check it out with the Holy Spirit. I ask Him whether I should pray for healing in this instance.
I believe that healing is God’s will, that He always desires good health and wholeness for us. But under certain circumstances, His hands are tied and it cannot be done. It may be that the person does not really desire to be well; Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda, “do you want to get well?” (John 5:6, TEV). Everyone does not want to be well, you know. Sickness can be a sure means of getting attention and one’s own way. Or perhaps the community of faith is a community of little faith, such as were the disciples to whom a distraught father took his son (Mark 9:18). Again, it may be that believers are not yet up to the task; Agnes Sanford somewhere suggests that it is useless to pray for world-wide peace when we cannot even pray with effect for the common cold!
Be that as it may, I discover as best I can what God desires to do. I have learned that here comes a sense of joy, of lightness of spirit, when I am to pray. Conversely, I sense a spirit of heaviness when I am not to pray. There is then no joy in praying. Let me give an example. I learned from Agnes Sanford the principle of envisioning, of seeing with the eye of my spirit what I am asking God to do. That is, I create a picture in my mind of the sick one well, and my prayers, being creative forces that cooperate with God who is Himself the Creator (do not forget), move God to give me the desire of my heart (Psalm 37:4).
Once I had a friend with cancer. He had only two months to live when he suddenly desired to go on a trip to see some people who were very important to him. By th is time we had known for about six months that he had cancer, yet I could never really pray for his healing. Whenever I would attempt to do so, I felt a heaviness of spirit. Perhaps it was too much for me to take on; I do not know. However, I do know that I could never, not one time, make a picture of him in my mind. But when he decided that he wanted to go off on an arduous journey to say goodbye to some dear friends, suddenly a picture came with ease to me. It was ridiculous in its way; I saw him with pink cheeks on a tractor. He suddenly improved enough to make the trip. But as soon as he was home, my picture left me, he worsened, and died within six weeks.
What, then, are we to conclude? We have the promise that God desires to answer our prayers. We have evidence that God’s will can be known by us. We have the responsibility of ascertaining the latter in order to use the leverage of the former. It is then that we are never to let go till God has blessed us with the answer. This is the sense of Jesus’ stories of the friend at midnight and the vexatious widow (Luke 11:5; 18:1). God will, Jesus believed, “give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking” (11:8, TEV). Persistence is important, not to overcome God’s reluctance, but to purify our desires. Besides, the power of the Enemy is profound beyond telling. But greater is He who inspires our prayers than he who attempts to scramble the signals. So “pray on every occasion, as the Spirit leads” (Ephesians 6:18.TEV).
If there is one characteristic that is demanded of those who would discover God’s will, it is patience. He does not move with the speed of light, even though we would like to have Him do so. Once I knew a man who never hurried, regardless of the gravity of the situation. I soon discovered that he had no need to hurry because he always left on time. It is so with God. Knowing the end from the beginning, He has no cause for rush. But “He never comes too late,” and He will reveal His will to you in time enough for you to do what you must. It becomes a matter of your setting your watch by His and not the reverse. How else can he train you in the life of faith? He wants you to learn that He is utterly reliable and that He intends and hopes to say, “yes,” to all your requests.
by Steve | Sep 3, 1974 | Archive - 1974
Archive: The Apostles Creed Says it Best
by Bishop Nolan B. Harmon, Retired
Condensed from Christian Advocate August 22, 1968
Copyright ©1968 by The Methodist Publishing House
Within comparatively recent years there have been placed in our Methodist orders of worship (in The Discipline, The Book of Worship and the Hymnal) along with the Apostles’ Creed, two other “Affirmations of faith.” These were the official formularies of the Methodist Episcopal Church previous to union, and went into The Discipline of the united church in 1939 and then into The Book of Worship when it was first issued in 1944 “for those who might wish to use them.”
One of these statements is called “A Modern Affirmation.” The other is “The Korean Creed. ” Many ministers today seem to prefer one or the other of these statements to the august symbol of the Faith itself, if indeed they have their people repeat any creed at all.
Each of the affirmations is introduced by the impressive statement: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is the one true Church, apostolic and universal, whose holy faith let us now declare. Then follow in place of the tremendous item by item declarations of the apostolic witness, a few carefully worded sentences, some of which are open to varied interpretations as they express certain Christian viewpoints, but all a long way removed from the comprehensive, unmistakable directness of the Apostles’ Creed itself.
Now no one can object to these modern affirmations being used occasionally as explanations of certain truths of the creed, provided-and this is an important proviso-that the one who uses them, and the people who are led to repeat them, know exactly how far they go and do not go. I for one can say these affirmations with a right goodwill, since I know what they mean, and that they are ex parte only. What I do object to is to give the impression by the sonorous introduction and the constant use of these affirmations in churchwide worship that they embody anything like the comprehensive faith of the Christian Church.
Let it be granted that the Apostoles’ Creed itself does need amplification and explanation, and should have it in all sorts of sermonic and doctrinal teachings. The creed was not written to explain but to list in bare, terse, iron-ribbed language, the factual, actual fundamentals of the Christian faith. Each one of these fundamentals does need explaining, but at much greater length and in sermons and doctrinal teaching which every minister and Christian leader should be prepared to give, and that continuously.
Indeed the Korean Creed, which is much better than the Modern Affirmation, was written as Bishop Herbert Welch explained in The Christian Advocate [August1, 1946, p. 973] to be “intended primarily as a teaching instrument.” It went into The Discipline of the Korean Methodist Church where it is published today as a “Statement of Belief.” It was the goal of those who drew up this statement to make if “brief, including only the few essentials of a practical Christian faith … simple, couched in non-technical language.” This was certainly an understandable move as Bishop Welch and Dr. J. S. Ryang, later bishop himself, worked out this short confession for the nascent church whose people could not then have taken in more.
As to the Modern Affirmation, Bishop Welch tells us in the same issue of The Christian Advocate that this was drawn up by Professor Edwin Lewis of Drew Theological Seminary at the request of Bishop W. P. Thirkield, then chairman of the Commission on Worship and Music of The Methodist Episcopal Church. It was to be “a brief statement of Christian faith which, in addition to the Apostles’ Creed (italics mine), might be recommended to the Church.” So Dr. Lewis wrote, “And the judgment of the commission … was so favorable that his (Dr. Lewis’) statement was adopted without change.”
As one who knew Dr. Lewis well and greatly admired him, and indeed acted as his editor for his later books (I was book editor of the church then), it can be said frankly that Dr. Lewis wrote this statement some years before he came to that epochal point in his life when he admitted publicly that he had changed greatly in his fundamental theological viewpoint. The Edwin Lewis who wrote the Christian Manifesto of 1934 was not the Edwin Lewis who put out (and the General (Conference adopted) the ambiguities of the Modern Affirmation. Even had he been the same man, let it be noted that the Modern Affirmation was to be in addition to—not a substitute for—the Apostles’ Creed. If it and the Korean Creed also can be seen as formularies to supplement and not supplant the Apostles’ Creed, well and good. But full-bodied faith for the church today these affirmations certainly are not, and it will be a bad day for any congregation which is led to believe that they are.
Look at the differences: The Apostles’ Creed affirms belief in God the Father Almighty … and in Jesus Christ His Only Son our Lord; it affirms His Incarnation through the Virgin Mary, his appearance in time before Pontius Pilate, His Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, Session on the right hand of God, and declares that He will come to judge the quick and the dead. The whole Christology of the Christian faith is summed up in that one mighty paragraph.
But what says the Modern Affirmation: “We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of man.” That statement is, of course, correct, but it is exactly the one used by many Unitarians who explain that we are all “sons of God” as well as sons of men, and of course Jesus was also. No unique Sonship, no “only begotten” is herein affirmed.
The “gift of the Father’s unfailing love” goes on the Modern Affirmation. Yes, but how given? No birth, no date in time, no crucifixion, no death, no resurrection, and especially no second coming and no final judgment. What a truncated, lopped-off “holy faith ” we are thus led to declare!
The Korean Creed does it much better, calling Jesus “God manifest in the flesh, our teacher, example, and Redeemer, and the Savior of the world.” All that yes, but how one would like to hear breaking in the long roll of the war-drum of the Nicene Creed with a Jesus Christ who is God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made . . . Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. In contrast with that mighty sentence these modern affirmations sound like the tinkling of ice cubes in a glass of water over against the roar of a heavy surf on the edge of the illimitable sea.
And what of Resurrection, what of Ascension, what of a final Judgment, what of life in the world to come? They just aren’t there. To be sure, the “life everlasting ” is in the Korean Creed, but not much of the rest of the vast divine program which the Apostle’s Creed sets forth, and upon which the church rests the sureness of its hope.
As to the Holy Spirit, the Modern Affirmation declares belief in Him as “the divine presence in our lives.” The Korean has “God present with us for guidance, for comfort, and for strength.” Both these statements are true, but here comes in the troublesome ambiguity of the word “spirit.” I have known many a man refer to the “spirit of God,” or pray for “the spirit of Jesus to be upon us” whom I knew had not the slightest idea of affirming belief in the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. The Apostles’ Creed said flatly: I believe in the Holy Ghost.
Incidentally, it was a bad day for Trinitarian belief in Methodism when Holy Spirit was substituted for Holy Ghost in our copies of the creed. I am one who said so at the table when this was done, as I was on the Commission on Worship when the change was made. One distinguished leader argued that the word ghost had connotations that made it frightening to children; another stated that the word spirit out of the Latin Sanctus Spiritus had always been in the church. Old Dr. Forlines of the Methodist Protestant, group, who combined vast erudition with practical sagacity, moved that we print two editions of the Creed, with Holy Spirit in one and Holy Ghost in the other. So we voted, but when the edition of the Creed came out in Ritual and Discipline of the early 1940’s it was Holy Spirit and that only. (I am glad to see that in our new Hymnal in the Creed we have got an asterisk which allows Holy Ghost as an alternative.)
The difficulty is that the word Spirit lends itself to all sorts of interpretations, as there may be 57 varieties of a holy spirit. The name Holy Ghost cannot possibly be mistaken for any emanation or effulgence, but denominates unmistakably the Ineffable Person who with the Father and the Son is to be worshiped forever.
And what of the church? Well, there is no church at all in the Modern Affirmation. In the Korean Creed it becomes a “fellowship for worship and for service.” It is that of course, but the church, holy and catholic, far transcends earthly patterns of work and worship. It has an entity all its own apart from the fellowship of its earthly members, which fellowship of course is a precious matter. But the church is something vastly more. It is the “pillar and ground of the truth”; “purchased by the blood of Christ”; It is the “company of the first born in heaven”; it exemplifies and embodies the communion of the saints, those on earth and those in glory; it is the body of which Christ is the head, and against which the gates of hell shall not prevail; and this church, holy and catholic, is not even mentioned in the modern substitute creed.
One would not know there is a communion of saints and a forgiveness of sins. Neither are mentioned in the Modern Affirmation. Neither is there a resurrection of the body and a life everlasting in the Modern Affirmation. The goal of it all is “to the end that the kingdom of God may come upon the earth.” The Korean does do it better with a belief in the “final triumph of righteousness”—doesn’t say when or where—and while it affirms life everlasting, it leaves out the resurrection of the body.
The fact is, this Modern Affirmation (leave the Korean Creed aside a moment) was written and adopted in the heyday of that curious, optimistic, irresponsible liberalism that came to full flower in the first three or four decades of this century. Anyone could then see that the world was getting better and better. To stop war, you simply promised not to fight. (Hitler and Mussolini were waiting in the wings.) To bring in the kingdom, you got laws passed in Washington, and the idea that the spirit of man could be evil—well, this was our Father’s world, and “pie in the sky by and by ” was the contemptuous way in which the whole concept of eternity was banished.
Then came on one world war and then came another and all that unthoughted, this-worldly optimism was swept away by genocide and torture on a cosmic scale worthy of the Dark Ages, and the emergence as world powers of proudly atheistic nations. It was realized anew what the church of the ages has always known-that there is a vast malevolent spirit of evil loose in the world (Edwin Lewis wrote God and the Adversary to express this powerfully), that it is a kingdom not of this world which the Lord came to bring and which remains always the true inheritance of the people of Christ. But 1910-1939 couldn’t see it.
Another thing that should be said is that when any item of the Apostles’ Creed is omitted, the whole corpus of belief is mutilated and denatured. Many people do not believe in the Virgin Birth and so do not repeat the creed in order to avoid affirming that. But see what happens when no mention is made of the Lord’s birth. There will be belief in “God, the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son our Lord, who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,” etc. No true Incarnation-God just picked out a good man, a normally born Jesus, and made him to be both Christ and Lord, redeemed the world by Him, and has “put all things under His feet!” No real Advent; no tidings of great joy; God to be father just used the body of a human male (proxy fatherhood!) to bring into the world His co-eternal Son! It simply does not add up, certainly not against Matthew and Luke. Admittedly the Virgin Birth is a matter of faith, as it is something which no man, living or dead, ever could or ever can prove or disprove, and which the Virgin Mary herself said she could not understand. But I do not think modern theologians see what they give up when they glibly say they cannot accept it.
Or try ending the Creed at: He ascended into heaven. Period. Period. No Session, no Return, no final Judgment “where the works of earth are tried by a juster judge than here.” Where does that leave us? Right with those modern novelists who clearly depict all the injustices of this world, and cry out against all its evils and wrongs, but not believing in any God, or any world where things will be righted, they take their shotgun and their life. And why not? If there be no God to “judge the living and the dead” why not a pistol or a bottle of sleeping tablets? No wonder the world lacks hope and purpose if it lacks the whole Gospel.
To be sure, we Methodists do leave out the “descent into hell,” but even those who affirm it never claim that it is of the esse of the Faith. John Wesley did keep the descent into hell in the text of the Creed he sent to American Methodism (in Adult Baptism), but he struck out the Article of Religion (Number Ill of the XXXIX) affirming it, when he picked out 24 of the articles for us here. But on this side, Coke and Asbury got the descent into hell out of the text of the creed in short order. Research shows it is not in the early copies of the creed; there is no sure Scripture for it; and whether it happened or did not happen, it is not relevant to the vast truths of Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Judgment to come, basic to the Gospel itself.
Analyzing these “modern” affirmations is not done to argue with brother ministers and leaders of worship over what they personally believe or do not believe. What is objected to is the public palming off as “the Holy Faith of the Church,” these 20th-century affirmations which sound so lofty and leave out so much. If they supplement, yes; if they supplant, no. Let the Apostles’ Creed be used and let its verities be explained and preached- the whole Gospel for the whole world.
by Steve | Sep 1, 1974 | Archive - 1974
Archive: Getting to Know the Old Testament
Part One
Why Christians need the Old Testament
by John N. Oswalt, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary Elder, Kentucky Annual Conference, United Methodist Church
When a new pastor learned that children in the local Sunday school were encouraged to memorize the Ten Commandments, his response was, “why learn the Ten Commandments? We are Christians.” It is perhaps too easy to be righteously shocked by such a report, for, in truth, many of us tacitly believe this whether we say it or not. Most Protestants who read the Bible at all, read almost exclusively from the New Testament. Most Protestant preaching is from the New Testament—according to one recent study, a ratio of 10 New Testament texts to one from the Old Testament. And if those sermons based on the Book of Psalms were excluded, there would be almost no Old Testament preaching in Protestant pulpits, evangelical or otherwise. Thus it seems many of us echo the above-quoted pastor in life, if not in word.
Why does this condition exist? How is it that so many of us can virtually ignore the first two-thirds of the book we call the Word of God?
One answer is, of course, that the Old Testament is not of the same stuff as the New Testament and is thus not deserving of equal attention. From this point of view, it is ancient Oriental literature which exists as helpful background to the understanding of the Incarnation. Here and there, say these Old Testament minimizers, are flashes of the Divine Nature. But by and large the Old Testament is merely a collection of Hebrew literature which testifies to that people’s developing consciousness of God. As such, we are often told, the Old Testament is fraught with all the difficulties of ancient folk literature. The New Testament, on the other hand, partakes of the peculiar authority of the Incarnation. What was formerly perceived only in a fragmented and often perverted way is now seen with clarity. This new clarity gives rise to the Church. Thus the Church ought not to look for its roots in the Old Testament. They are not there.
However, this answer does not satisfy many. For many have been taught to believe that the Old and New Testaments together comprise the Word of God. They were reared from childhood on the stories of the Old Testament. Many others have been converted through a clear Biblical witness; one which treated both Testaments together as being authoritative for the life and faith of the believer. These people cannot believe that the Church ought to treat the Old Testament as a senile grandparent who, although he or she cannot be done away with, can at least be largely ignored until time takes its toll.
Yet, when such sincere believers begin to read the Old Testament, determinedly, they are confronted with seemingly overwhelming problems. To begin with, they are faced with a lifestyle largely different from that of the West in the Twentieth Century. They meet customs which are strange and meaningless. The impact of these differences is to suggest, however subtly, that the problems of nomads and peasants of 4,000 years ago are utterly unrelated to needs, attitudes, and problems of modern, technological man.
But more disturbing to some is the tone of the writing of the Old Testament. It seems to be essentially legalistic and judgmental: if you are good you will be rewarded; if you are not good, you will be punished. And somehow, it seems as if those people were being punished most of the time. This idea points to the heart of the issue: a gnawing feeling that, apart from some exceptions, the Old Testament is sub-Christian in its conception of God and in its projection of morality. For example, where is the morality in the Israelites’ slaughtering men, women and children in the cities which they had conquered? What Christian has not felt a twinge of embarrassment over the savage sentiments expressed in some of the Psalms? How can the antics of Samson, God’s chosen, be reconciled with Jesus’ and Paul’s calls to sober Christian character? Where is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the raging Tyrant who has to be restrained by a man from obliterating His people?
But even if the sincere reader can push these troublesome problems into the background, there are other, more concrete problems which also make it difficult to appreciate the Old Testament. Much of it is simply obscure. Fortunately many of the newer translations and paraphrases help immensely. Nevertheless, allusions to places and persons familiar to an ancient Near Easterner are lost on most modern readers. This is especially so with the prophets. There being no story line to hold a modern reader’s attention, and since he has often little or no awareness of the historical situation to which the prophet was addressing himself, modern readers frequently become bored and depressed by the prophets (incurring not a little self-guilt thereby).
One factor which relates to the entire Old Testament is what seems to be the excessively dry and repetitious style employed. The first 10 chapters of I Chronicles, the last 10 of Exodus and the whole of Leviticus and Numbers are special cases in point. No matter how these chapters are translated, if the translation is at all faithful to the original, these materials are never going to be gripping reading for Americans of the latter Twentieth Century.
This raises another, and for purposes of treatment, a final problem. Most of us have been taught to read the Bible devotionally. That is, we expect to find some devotional or didactic (teaching) material that applies to our own immediate situation. Much of the New Testament can be read this way with profit (whether this is the best, or only, way is another question). But major portions of Old Testament cannot profitably be read this way. This being so, many potential Old Testament readers become discouraged and say that the Old Testament is “too deep” for them.
The truth is not that the Old Testament is “too deep,” but the reader, being essentially “message”-oriented, is using an inappropriate method to mine the treasures that are to be found in the Old Testament.
For all of these reasons, then, people who devoutly believe in the equal authority and inspiration of the Old and New Testaments are, commonly, almost totally ignorant of the Old Testament. They know the most dramatic stories vaguely and are familiar with a few Psalms, but that is almost the entire extent of their Old Testament knowledge. The present series of articles is intended to be a modest step toward dealing with this problem. First, the attempt will be made to show why the Church, despite the reality and the seriousness of the aforementioned problems, dare not lose contact with the Old Testament. Second, some suggestions will be made as to ways to meet and deal with the various problems. Third, some techniques for studying the Old Testament will be offered. Finally, as an aid to this study, a thumbnail sketch of the Old Testament history and message will be given.
Before embarking upon these tasks, however, it would be well to have in mind the nature and history of the Old Testament. Perhaps the best definition is that it is an anthology—that is, a collection of diverse kinds of literature united by having a common author, or if different authors, by a common theme. Depending upon one’s point of view, either of these last two qualifications could apply. One could claim that there is but one author: the Holy Spirit. However, it is clear that the Spirit did not use the writers as merely secretaries to whom He dictated the material. Rather, He has allowed their own concerns, personalities and styles to shape what they were writing. For this reason, then, it seems more appropriate to say that while the Old Testament has one ultimate source, it has come to us through many different authors. It is this unity of source which accounts for such diverse materials having been collected into one book. What unity could there be between cultic[1] regulations such as those of Leviticus 1 to 11 and love poetry such as that of Song of Solomon? Only this: the mature opinion of Jewish saints and scholars was that both proceeded from the living God who had revealed His will and nature to Israel alone.
How the various Old Testament books were admitted to this sacred anthology is still somewhat of a mystery. It is known that a council met at Jamnia in Galilee in 90 A.O. The chief result of this council was a declaration that the collection (or canon) was now closed. The Apocrypha (un-official books added to the Old Testament when the Greek translation of the Old Testament [the Septuagint] was made about 250-100 B.C.), was finally excluded from the canon.[2] Whether there were similar councils prior to 90 A.D., where some books were pronounced sacred and others not, is unknown. Certainly the three basic divisions of the Jewish Old Testament predated Jamnia, but no one knows by how much.
The three divisions are: (1) The Torah, or Law (Genesis-Deuteronomy) (2) the Nebiim, or Prophets (Joshua-Malachi), excluding the following which appear in the third division (3) the Ketubim, or Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, I and II Chronicles). Some have argued that the Jews utilized these three divisions to indicate greater or lesser inspiration and/or earlier or later date, the Torah being the oldest and most inspired, and the Writings being the latest and least inspired. However, there is no external evidence to support this idea. It is at least equally likely that the Writings includes simply miscellaneous literature which would not fit the other two categories.
At any rate, the Old Testament anthology includes at least 10 different types of literature coming from the hand of (from our conservative point of view) at least 30 different authors spanning at least 1,000 years in dates of writing (and many more years if oral tradition[3] is included). On the other hand, the New Testament includes but four types of literature coming from the pens of seven or eight men within, at most, 50 or 60 years. It ought not to be strange, then that the Old Testament poses many more problems to the understanding than does the New Testament. These greater problems, however, are not ample reason to remove the Old Testament from the Christian’s Bible, either directly or indirectly.
What is the value of the Old Testament?
If it is admitted that the problems mentioned above are genuine, so genuine that many would-be readers and students are “turned-off” before they get well started, could it be that the so-called “values” of the Old Testament are trumped up to support the ecclesiastical status quo? In an effort to answer this question we need to look at the attitude of the New Testament and the early Church toward the Old Testament. Are there indications that they considered the Old Testament alien and sub-Christian?
Any investigation of the New Testament attitude toward the Old must begin with Jesus. It is evident that He treated it with the highest respect. The “Scriptures” which Jesus often quoted and obviously revered were none other than the Old Testament (Matthew 4:1-11 and elsewhere). His judgment of the Pharisees was that they had elevated their own traditions on a par with the written Word (Mark 7:13). He contrasted His own teaching with that of the Pharisees by saying that they made the Law ineffectual while He had come to give that inspired interpretation which would bring it to true fulfillment. He reiterated that He had not come to destroy the Law, but to complete it (Matthew 5:17, 18).
Furthermore, it is evident that Jesus consciously patterned His ministry around the Old Testament. A case in point would be His use of Isaiah 61:1,2 in His announcement of His ministry (Luke 4:18,19). Another would be His (and the evangelists’) concern to demonstrate how His ministry fulfilled Old Testament prophecy (John 19:36,37). The discourse on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35) is one more indication that Jesus, far from seeing His ministry as being of a different quality from (or indeed, in contradiction to, the Old Testament), saw it as the natural, and in fact, necessary outgrowth of the Old Testament.
The same can be said of Paul. At least since Martin Luther rediscovered Romans and Galatians and the principle of salvation by grace alone, Paul has been depicted as teaching a contradiction between Old Testament Law and New Testament Grace.[4] That Paul the Apostle teaches a distinction between salvation through the works of the Law and salvation through grace by faith is very clear. But whether this constitutes a contradiction between the Old and New Testaments is not at all clear. It may be argued that the Old Testament never teaches salvation through works of the Law. It is significant that the Hebrews were delivered from Egypt prior to the giving of the Law. Thus it can be seen that the Law was not intended to be the way to God, but rather the guide to the walk with God.
In a real sense, Paul says the same thing in Romans and Galatians. Having pointed out that one is saved only through a trusting response to God’s gracious offer, he goes on to point out in specific detail the kinds of character. which are (yes) demanded of Christians. To be sure, these are not spelled out in the absolute detail which is characteristic of the Law in the Old Covenant, but this is not an essential difference, as will be shown below. The fundamental principle is the same: those who are being saved must manifest the character of God in their life responses. If they will not, or do not, they cannot be saved.
The idea that rigid Law-keeping, in and of itself, could produce a right relationship with God is excoriated by the prophets. They declared that the only Law-keeping pleasing to God is that which flows from an attitude of the heart. The only Biblical parallel to the prophets stinging language is found in Jesus’ attacks upon the Pharisees (Matthew 23), men who were guilty of the same sins as their Old Testament counterparts.
Thus, Paul was not attacking the Old Testament correctly understood. Rather, he was attacking that false conception of the Law which made it a ladder by which man, in his own strength, could climb up to heaven. Furthermore, Paul was denouncing the idea that the Old Testament Law was primary and that Jesus was merely an appendage. He was crying, quite rightly, that Jesus is the perfect revelation of God and that all else in Scripture must find its meaning in relation to Him. Thus it may be said that Paul, like Jesus, was not arguing against the Old Testament, but was arguing for it—arguing against wrong understandings which had perverted it through the years, and against those who at that time refused to see the Old Testament in the new light of God’s perfect self-disclosure. In this respect, it is important to point out that Paul’s strong statement concerning the inspiration of Scripture as found in II Timothy 3:16 referred primarily to the Old Testament. Far from being an anachronism which the Church could now slough off because she was under Grace and not under Law, the Old Testament Scriptures were held up by Paul as a fundamental tool for attaining Christian maturity.
The early Church took the same position as its Lord and its greatest apostle: the Old Testament was the Scriptures of the Church. In its pages the Church found itself, its life, its meaning. To be sure, the difficulties were felt, sometimes sharply. But when, in the Second Century A.D., Marcion proposed that the Old Testament (and significant parts of the then-accepted New Testament) be dropped from the Christian canon {largely because he felt the Old Testament God to be incompatible with the God of the remaining New Testament) the Church lost little time in declaring this proposal heretical. For the Church knew then—as the true Church does now—that to live without the Old Testament was to be impoverished and, finally, more impotent.
Why? Because the remaining Scriptures, the New Testament, would be impoverished without the Old. Virtually all the theological concepts of the New Testament are based upon the Old. Such ideas as salvation, justification, sanctification, atonement, redemption, mercy, grace, peace, etc., etc., assume their fundamental New Testament meaning from their Old Testament formulations. Again and again we find that important New Testament words will have a different connotation from that found in other Greek literature. Why? Because the way in which the idea was formulated in the Old Testament produces this new connotation. Thus it is no accident that the articles in the massive Theological Dictionary of the New Testament by Kittel and Friedrich always begin with the Old Testament usage.
It is no wonder, then, that so much preaching today is vapid, vague and nebulous. It is cut off from its roots. For instance, how can one understand the new covenant properly until one understands the whole idea of covenant in the Old Testament? The New Testament writers assumed that their readers knew all about the covenant idea from their familiarity with the Old Testament, and so New Testament writers did not usually repeat these fundamentals.
This truth becomes even more evident in some more crucial areas where the New Testament simply builds upon the Old Testament without repeating. To take the New Testament as a complete whole at these points is as disastrous as attempting to build the second story of a house without first building the foundation and the first story!
The first of these crucial Old Testament concepts which the New Testament assumes is the concept of God. Both the Old and New Testaments, when correctly understood, rightly depict God, both in His total otherness and in His love. But each stresses one aspect and it is largely through the help of the other Testament that we are made aware of the less-stressed element.
Whence have come some of the sugary, sentimentally blasphemous conceptions of God in the Church and elsewhere? Are they not the result of a humanly perverted idea of love coupled with the teaching that God is love? What must be coupled with the truth of God’s love is the truth that God is utterly, totally other than man. He is other in character, for He is utterly holy and we are at heart unholy; He is truth and we are untruth; He is straight and we are bent. He is other in glory, for His glory is primary and real, ours is secondary and reflected. Most important, He is other in essence, for He is totally transcendant.[5] He is not contained within the universe, rather He contains it; He is totally unconditioned, we are totally conditioned.
The sin of paganism (in both its ancient and its modern humanistic forms) is that it reduces God to the level of man. That sin confronts us at every turn, evangelical or not, and we will succumb to it unless we are constantly reminded, through the Old Testament, of the tremendous gulf between ourselves and God—both by virtue of our created natures and our fallen natures. The miracle of salvation is not that we bring Him to our level, but that He, transcendant God, has voluntarily come to us and lifted us up to Him. A Holy, Glorious, Transcendant God who loves is sublimity beyond words. A sentimental grandfather-God who loves is inanity unworthy of words.
Another Old Testament conception which is fundamental to New Testament understanding, but which the New Testament merely assumes, is the inseparability of verifiable facts, history, from revelation.[6] True, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are taught as undeniable historic fact by the New Testament. But a great portion of the New Testament can be (and often is!) treated as basically non-historical if it is separated from the Old Testament.
The result of such thinking is seen in the work of the German New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann. He has argued that since much of the New Testament is merely teaching which is not rooted in historical event, the gospels are as well. In fact, Bultmann teaches that the Gospels are largely “myth,” that is, timeless religious truth conveyed in story form. Whether or not the story really happened is immaterial, according to Bultmann and his many followers. In fact, Christians will be better off if they will strip the story away from the religious truth it conceals. It comes as no surprise to learn that Bultmann does not consider the Old Testament to be the Word of God. The Old Testament, for the most part, consists of message and story inseparably intertwined. The Hebrews only know anything about God as they experience Him in their life as a people or a nation. Take away those historical experiences and the message falls to the ground. This point will be explored.
If one examines the New Testament in the light of this understanding, it becomes plain that it takes the same position as the Old. Such passages as I Corinthians 15 and I John 1 are cases in point. In the light of the Old Testament teaching that historical event is the basis of revelation it becomes obvious that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are the culminating revelation of God in history. Far from being a “mythical husk” which can be shucked off to leave the essential truths about life more manifest, these accounts so faithfully repeat the acts of God in time and space that by reading them today you and I meet God face to face. If God did not act in the Man Jesus Christ, as reported in the Gospels, the Epistles are not great religious truth, but empty platitudes, based upon one of mankind’s more remarkable delusions! The Gospels must be understood in the light of the Old Testament, and the Epistles must be understood in the light of the Gospels, rather than in the reverse order.
A further Old Testament contribution which the Church cannot afford to lose is an outworking of this theme that God reveals Himself in history. While mystical, devotional experience of God is important in the religious life, it is not primary. God is concerned about history, the events where human lives meet, the marketplace where hard ethical and moral decisions are made. In the Old Testament to “remember” God is to keep His commandments. These have largely to do with social and political righteousness, as well as private morality.
People often ask why the New Testament seems to have so little a vision of this kind of righteousness. There are probably many reasons, but surely the chief one is that presumably the point has been made so profoundly in the Old Testament that it does not need to be repeated. The problem comes when Christians read the New Testament as if the Old Testament did not exist. When this happens, the result is an aberration-people with impeccable piety and personal morality who are nonetheless blind and deaf to the ways in which their social and political responses are primarily selfish.
After the communists had completed their takeover in China, missionary Arthur Glasser was asked if he would have, in the light of events, done anything differently in his leadership of the Chinese Christians. He replied that he would have greatly increased his preaching from the Old Testament. When asked why, he pointed out that it is in the Old Testament that the divine perspective upon political and social systems is given. He feared that because Chinese Christians were not very familiar with this perspective they were both blind to the great social ills which Communism purported to cure and they were also unprepared to withstand the political hammer blows which were to come to them after the Communist takeover.
One further contribution of the Old Testament is its emphasis upon the importance of community in the outworking of redemption. Once again it is plain that the New Testament also makes the same point (Ephesians 4; I Corinthians 12, etc.). However, it is easy to miss it unless one is steeped in the Old Testament. Then it becomes obvious that while every man, woman and child may have a personal, saving relationship with Jesus Christ, no one is saved in isolation from others. Persons were meant to live in a community relationship. Thus, God is just as much interested in the character of the community as He is in my personal character. No one who reads the New Testament in the light of the Old could ever believe that God only cares about how many individuals get to heaven. He wants to redeem groups through redeeming individuals, and He wants to redeem individuals through redeeming groups.
The preceding remarks should not be construed to mean that the author wishes to replace one error with another. It would be even more disastrous to hold the Old Testament without the New than it is to hold the New without the Old. For the Old Testament is not complete in itself. Salvation is viewed almost entirely from the side of political liberation of groups. Righteousness is almost exclusively seen in social and political terms. A personal faith response on the part of an individual is limited to a few key figures, such as the Patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, David, etc. Such a one-sided view accounts for much of the unbiblical ” missionary” strategy of the day. It has been formulated on the basis of the Old Testament as if the New did not exist. This is tragic, for the Old Testament knows itself to be incomplete. In order for the social and political righteousness for which it call s, to be achieved, something must take place within the hearts of individuals (Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, etc.). That “something” is never realized in a more than prototypical way in the Old Testament. It awaits the culmination in the New.
Moreover, the Old Testament in itself is a tale of unfulfilled hopes. Humanity cannot bring in God’s kingdom; it awaits the Messiah from heaven. When that Messiah comes, all the former categories by which God ‘s kingdom was understood were subject to reinterpretation in more spiritual terms. This reinterpretation did not negate the Old Testament understandings, but embraced them and went beyond them. The tragedy of Judaism is that it would not submit to the reinterpretation. How ironic that so much of the modern missionary enterprise now wishes to duplicate the Jewish response to the Gospel!
No, what is being called for here is not the submersion of the New Testament into the Old, but rather the full acceptance of the Old alongside the New as Word of God together. No one who really appreciated Tolstoy’s War and Peace would recommend that one simply read the last couple of chapters and thereby get the essentials of the book. How much more this is true of God’s Word! In order to understand, appreciate, “get” the final chapters of His masterpiece, one must understand the previous chapters, and seeing how the coming of Jesus and what He means is the grand unfolding of what all of life means.
Coming in the next issue of Good News PART II: “Answering Some Old Testament Problems. “
[1] Cultic – having to do with a cult, In this case, Israel’s worship and dally religious practices.
[2] This action gave rise to the present-day exclusion of the Apocrypha by Protestant churches. The early Church, largely composed of Greek-speakers, naturally used the Septuagint as their Old Testament. This meant that the Apocrypha was Incorporated Into the official Latin versions which were later produced from it. However, when the Protestant reformers, in their newfound zeal for the Word, began to work with the original languages they were influenced by the Jewish decision of 90 A.O. Thus Protestants have excluded the Apocrypha from the inspired Old Testament.
[3] Oral Tradition – the Idea that Scripture’s message was passed along verbally from generation to generation before It was written down as God’s revelation In more permanent form.
[4] Grace – The unmerited favor, love which God, through Christ, extends to sinners.
[5] Transcendant – high above, unconditioned by and superior to that which He created. However, this does not mean that He does not intervene In His world.
[6] Revelation – God’s revealing of Himself and His truth In the written Word of Scripture and In Christ, the Word made flesh.
