by Steve | Jan 1, 1970 | Archive - 1970
Archive: On Resurrection of the Dead
“How can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life?”
In preparation for Easter, “Good News” offers hilites para phrased from John Wesley’s sermon, “On Resurrection of the Dead.” Because this message deals with the un-changing truths of Eternity, Wesley’s words speak to believers of every generation. —Editor
“Now if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?” (I Corinthians 15: 12). It cannot any longer seem impossible to you that God should raise the dead; since you have so plain an example of it in our Lord, who was dead and is alive. And the same power which raised Christ, must also be able to raise our immortal bodies from death.
“But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” (I Corinthians 15:35) How is it possible that these bodies should be raised again, which have mouldered into fine dust—that dust scattered over the face of the earth, dispersed far as the heavens are wide?
How are the dead raised up?
The plain notion of a resurrection requires that the self-same body that dies should rise again. Nothing can be said to be raised again but the very body that died. There are many places of Scripture that plainly declare it. In I Corinthians 15:53, Paul says, “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.” “This mortal” and “this corruptible” can only mean that body which we now carry with us, and shall one day lay down in the dust.
We read in Daniel 12:2 “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” “Sleep” and “awake” imply that when we arise from the dead, our bodies will be as much the same as they are when we awake from sleep.
In John 5:28, 29, our Lord affirms: “The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear His [Christ’s] voice, and come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Now if the same body does not rise again, what need is there of opening the graves at the end of the world? The graves can give up no bodies but those which were laid in them.
To this we need only add the words of St. Paul: “The Lord Jesus Christ … shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.” (Philippians 3:21a) This “vile body” can be no other than that with which we are now clothed, which must be restored to life again.
In all this there is nothing incredible or impossible. God can distinguish and keep unmixed from all other bodies the particular dust into which our several bodies are dissolved. He can gather it together and join it again. For God is infinite both in knowledge and power. He knows the number of stars and calls them all by their names (Psalm 147:4). He can tell the number of sands on the sea shore.
May not the same Power collect the ruins of our corrupted bodies and restore them to their former condition? God can form this dust, so gathered together, into the same body it was before. It is no more wonderful than forming a human body in the womb, which we have daily experience of, and is doubtless as strange an instance of divine power as the resurrection can possibly be.
When God has raised this body He can enliven it with the same soul that inhabited it before. Our Savior Himself was dead, rose again, and appeared alive to His disciples and others. They who had lived with Him for many years were then fully convinced that He was the same Person they had seen die on the cross.
The resurrection of the same body is by no means impossible to God. That which He has promised He is also able to perform, by that mighty power by which “He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself” (Philippians 3:21b). Though we cannot exactly tell the manner how it shall be done, yet this ought not to in the least weaken our belief in this important article of our faith. It is enough that He to whom all things are possible, has passed His word that He will raise us again.
The change which shall be made in our bodies at the resurrection, according to the Scriptural account, will consist chiefly in these four things (1) our bodies shall be raised immortal and incorruptible (2) they shall be raised in glory (3) they shall be raised in power (4) they shall be raised spiritual bodies.
What frail things these bodies are! How soon are they disordered! To what a troop of diseases, pains and other infirmities are they constantly subject! But our hope and our comfort are that we shall shortly be delivered from this burden of flesh. When “God shall wipe away all tears from [our] eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” (Revelation 21:4). When we shall have once passed from death unto life, we shall be eased of all the troublesome cares of our bodies, which now take up so much of our time and thoughts. We shall be set free from all those mean and tiresome labors which we must now undergo to support our lives. A mind free from all trouble and guilt, in a body free from all pains and diseases. Thus our mortal bodies will be raised immortal. They shall not only always be always preserved from death, but the nature of them shall be wholly changed, so they cannot die any more.
The excellency of our heavenly bodies will probably arise from the happiness of our souls. The unspeakable joy we shall feel will break through our bodies and shine forth from our faces.
In the present state, our bodies are no better than cogs and fetters which confine and restrain the freedom of the soul. The corruptible body presses down upon the soul. Our dull, sluggish, inactive bodies are unable, or backward, to obey the commands of the soul. But in the other life, “they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31). Our heavenly bodies shall be as active and nimble as our thoughts are. For our bodies shall be raised in power!
They shall also be raised as “spiritual bodies.” After resurrection, our bodies shall wholly serve our spirits, minister to them, depend on them. By a “natural body” we understand one fitted for this lower, sensible world, for this earthly state. A “spiritual body” is one that is suited to a spiritual state, to an invisible world, to the life of angels. We shall not be weary of singing praises to God through infinite ages.
The best way of preparing ourselves to live in those heavenly bodies is by cleansing ourselves more and more from all earthly affections, and by weaning ourselves from this body and all the pleasures that are peculiar to it. We should begin, in this life, to loosen the knot between our souls and this mortal flesh; to refine our affections, and raise them from things below to things above. A soul wholly taken up with this earthly body is not fit for the glorious mansions above. A sensual mind is so wedded to bodily pleasures that it cannot enjoy itself without them. Those who are such would find it the greatest unhappiness to be clothed in spiritual bodies. It would be like a beggar in the clothes of a king. Such glorious bodies would be uneasy on them. They would not know what to do in them; they would be glad to retire and put on their old rags again.
But when we are washed from the guilt of our sins, and cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then we shall long to be dissolved, and to be with our exalted Savior. We shall always be ready to take wing for the other world, where we shall at last have a body suited to our spiritual appetites.
Thus we may see how to account for the different degrees of glory in the heavenly world. For although all the children of God shall have glorious [resurrection] bodies, yet the glory of them all shall not be equal. “As one star differeth from another star in glory, so also is the resurrection of the dead. (I Corinthians 15:41b, 42a). They shall all shine as stars. But those who, by a constant diligence in well doing have attainted to a higher measure of purity than others, shall shine more bright than others. They shall appear as more glorious stars. It is certain that the most heavenly bodies will be given to the most heavenly souls. And this is no little encouragement to us to make the greatest progress we possibly can in the knowledge and love of God. Since the more we are weaned from things of the earth now, the more glorious will our bodies be at the resurrection.
Let this fortify us against the fear of death. It is now disarmed and can do us no hurt. It divides us, indeed, from this body awhile—but it is only that we may receive it again more glorious. So be “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (I Corinthians 15:58).” Then let death prevail over (and pull down) this house of clay! God has promised to raise it up again, infinitely more beautiful, strong and useful.
by Steve | Oct 2, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: A Witness to all Nations
By Lon Woodrum, Contributing Editor
From his book, “Sign From Outer Space” © 1967
Suddenly, against Jesus’ presagement of the future, breaks a far-reaching light of promise: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations” (Matthew 24: 14).
Clearly we can understand now that Christ is looking far beyond anything that would happen in Palestine 2,000 years ago.
As He speaks of the Gospel’s out-going, it fairly seems we can hear the Word vibrating across the Mediterranean, through Pamphilia, Phrygia, Achaia, Macedonia, Athens, Rome, Spain, Saxony, America, the islands of the sea.
By one prophetic thrust Jesus extends the witness of the Gospel to “all the world.” Long after those first embattled believers are but a misty memory in history their Gospel will go on and on, crossing custom lines, racial borders, and cultural boundaries. Jesus was far too mighty a Prophet not to have understood His evangel would not be contained in the narrow land where He was born.
Recently we heard a missionary who had returned from circling the globe say, “The sun never sets on the Christian flag!” The Word of the long-ago Man from Nazareth has been kept. The Gospel He gave to men has been announced to all the world.
It has not saved the world. Nor did Jesus ever promise that it would!
At this point looms strong error; we imagine because Christ announced His message would sound in all the world that it would redeem the world.
The Gospel has never redeemed but a small fraction of the world. When we were informed by one man that 500 persons daily were being converted to Christ in India—including Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants—we asked how many persons were born daily in India! Another man informed us that 2,500 persons were converted to Christ daily in Africa; but we had read earlier that 25,000 Africans were converted to the Moslem faith every day! And who knows how many Africans embrace Communism every 24 hours?
It is true that nearly all problems today are world problems. Earth is a community now. Most anything we eat, wear, or use may have something of several nations in it. Yet the fact remains that Jesus did not promise that the world would ever become a Christian community.
Christ cannot save the world!
The fault, of course, is not His. It is ours. A doctor’s medicine cannot cure us if we pour it down the drain. The world will not allow Christ to save it; therefore, it cannot be saved by Him.
Jesus knew it would be this way. He knew man’s stubborn urge toward the darkness. He referred to it again and again. Many, He said, would be called, but few chosen. He maintained that the way to life was straight, and few would find it. He saw the seed fall on the ground, and three-fourths of it was lost; so it would be with those who heard the Word. The greater percentage of men will not accept Christ and continue with Him.
Christ is the world’s only Saviour. But all the world will not be saved by Him. No nation, as a whole, has ever accepted Him. Will any nation ever do it? Still, we have His Word for it that the nations must hear of Him. But His Word is a witness to all nations—not a pledge of redemption for all nations. He has kept His Word magnificently. Already the witness has reached the far lands of the planet. “The sun never sets on the Christian flag!” That flag, fluttering over countless countries, shouts that Jesus is not only the Saviour, but the greatest Prophet of all.
The Gospel is a witness. But to what? It is a witness to all His promises, for it is the Gospel of the Kingdom. It proclaims that the world’s Redeemer shall be the world’s Ruler. Was He not suggesting this when He taught His disciples to pray, “Thy Kingdom come”? How can the Kingdom come until the King comes?
With prophetic force He foretold how it would be when He was answering the question, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” He said, “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, he shall sit on the throne of his glory” (Matthew 25:31).
What manner of men are we to reject this prophecy of His, and still claim His promise of redemption? One modern writer in the church has said that this pledge of Jesus’ enthronement is magnificent Hebrew poetry, that nothing finer can be found in the New Testament; but it is poetry. Nothing will come of it in any literal sense. Jesus will never actually sit on such a throne.
Jesus was so right about so many things! He predicted the fall of Jerusalem, the spread of wickedness, the thrust of the Gospel to the world’s ends—but He stumbled and lost His way when He spoke of returning in power and taking His glorious throne!
How odd that we can make Him right or wrong, as we choose!
We are forced to admit that many of the things He prophesied came true—because they happened! Yet men look into the future, wax bold, and cry, “He missed it there!” But how do they know He missed it? Well, science says so. Philosophers say so. Theologians say so. Preachers say so!
Yet, standing over against their claims is the fact that He has been so magnificently right about many things in the past, and the present!
The truth is, one may stand in the midst of the Olivet Discourse[1] and see some things that have already happened; some that are now happening; and some that are yet to happen. Right about some, how can Jesus be wrong about the others?
The Kingdom will come, and the King also.
Again and again the New Testament bears witness to Christ’s Word about the coming realm. Few things, if any, are more emphasized than this. Paul spells it out sharply. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 15:50). Who then shall possess it (the word “inherit” means “possess”)? Subjects of the Kingdom we may well be who are believers, but how shall we possess it? In our present conditions? But are we not yet “flesh and blood”?
Paul tells us how we shall possess it. Living men shall be changed; dead men shall be transformed into an immortal state. And how does this come about? By educational processes, organizational effort, political and social action? We know better!
It will come, says Paul, when Christ comes, at the sound of the trumpet, to claim His own. It is so simple—from Paul’s viewpoint! But so difficult from the standpoint of modern unbelieving minds.
How fine it is to be so committed to Christ that all He said not only seems possible, but certain, as well as highly desirable!
We talk of “bringing in the Kingdom.” We have tried for centuries to bring it in—and now it almost seems to be going “out”!
Christ will bring in the kingdom. His kingdom it is, bought with the price of his own blood. King was He born, and King shall He be, however long the coronation be delayed.
The Kingdom will come. It will come when the “witness to all nations” is finished. We have His Word on that—”then shall the end come.” The end of this age; the end of the world we have known; the end of man’s rule, the establishment of God’s reign; the end of evil tyranny over human life; the rule of righteousness; the end of wars; the enthronement of the Prince of Peace.
[1] OLIVET DISCOURSE: Jesus’ teachings about “last things”‘ delivered on Mount Olivet and recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
by Steve | Oct 1, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: Campus Chaos: God’s Opportunity
A great opening for the Gospel has been created by the turmoil which seems to be tearing U.S. colleges apart these days. Are we awake or sleeping?
By Dr. James Engel
Professor of Marketing at Ohio State University, Campus Crusade Leader
“Radicals Take Over at Harvard.” “National Guard Gasses Unruly Berkeley Mob.” “Prexy Resigns at Cornell Under Fire.” “Blacks Riot at Kent State.”
This is just a sample of 1969 headlines that reflect campus chaos. Large members of students are rioting against the “establishment” and are searching for meaning by open experimentation with sex and drugs. Moreover, this is not just a campus problem. The issues being raised cut all across society. Also, this is not just a communist-led minority of trouble makers; the headlines reflect deep-seated campus sentiment.
The radicals, however, have accomplished one positive thing that most people overlook—they have established a type of academic freedom which permits expression of virtually any point of view, including Christianity. As a leading communist student at Berkeley told one Christian group visiting the campus, “Welcome to Berkeley; we made it possible for you to be here.” In short, campus chaos is God’s opportunity.
If you doubt that such an opportunity exists, just listen to the questions these kids are asking: “What am I?” “What is life all about?” “How can I find meaning?” These are the very questions that the Gospel alone can answer. Moreover, experience has shown that students listen when Christians, by their life and words, demonstrate the life-changing power of the Biblical message.
In today’s wide open atmosphere of freedom of expression, there is no excuse for “secret-service Christianity.” The radicals win a hearing because they stand for something. In short, these are not times for “business as usual,” and there are many ways that Christians, individually and collectively, can become a vital part of the solution.
What makes these kids tick?
Let’s face it, this is a concerned generation:
- They have grown up under the constant threat of nuclear holocaust and cannot comprehend the continuation of a war-torn world.
- They have, by and large, not known economic need and hence cannot grasp the materialistic motivation of the majority when so many issues remain unsolved.
- They are in revolt at institutions, including the university, which render the individual as a number without face or name and expect him to behave in a prescribed way.
- They are uneasy at a way of life that prizes neutrality—doing your own thing—in lieu of conquering the world’s problems head on.
It is true that most do not share the sentiment of a minority who intend to tear this country apart. But our way of life is seen as wanting, and a large proportion are not content to sit back without action. It boils down to this: these are your kids challenging your values.
I do not agree with a strategy of revolt, but I share their concerns. Today’s youth sense social ills more keenly than many of their elders. And, most of all, they reject hypocrisy. Their message to the older generation is simply this: “You have not found the answers; why should we listen to you?”
Must this chaos continue?
I believe there is an answer to the issues which are being raised, because these kids are reacting to legitimate weaknesses of a society that has turned its back on God. They know that education alone is not solving the problems they see. Nor is education providing meaning for life. Furthermore, they are keenly aware that materialism is a false god, because they see the emptiness of material achievement without other goals. Many, in turn, will no longer turn to the church. They reject “Sunday morning Christianity” that does not make a difference during the week.
Students may be quite uneasy about the church, but they show a deep-seated interest in Christ. They sense that He was more than a mere man and that He taught a way of life based on genuine love. Large numbers are eager to commit their life to following Him once they see His message cut loose from the institutional trappings they resent.
Let me make one thing clear, however: it just does not work to divorce Christ from His Biblical claims as so many on campus have attempted to do in the vain attempt to make Christianity relevant. Once the Biblical message is tampered with, Christianity loses its powers, and the church loses its students. I could name one church-related campus after another that has closed chapel service for lack of interest. On the other hand, I have spoken on some of these same campuses and on many others to crowds of 300 or more meeting in fraternity houses and in other secular locations to hear about the uniqueness of Jesus.
The conclusion is clear: present Christ and the full Biblical message or do not waste time on campus. A watered-down version of the Gospel comes nowhere near to answering the tough questions this generation is asking. Moreover, they sense in a hurry when the message is “not for real.”
Tell it like it is
If space permitted I could tell you stories of students whose lives changed dramatically because a fellow student or faculty member cared and communicated how they can know Christ in a personal way. In just one of my classes this last year, three marriages were changed as both husband and wife turned their lives over to Christ. Today, these men and women are part of a “spiritual revolution.” Students are eager to know Christ when we “tell it like it is.”
Christianity, however, requires individuals who are willing to enter into battle and reject the comforts of non-involvement. It requires a keen awareness that a way of life is being threatened at its foundations and that Christ must use us, a distinct minority, as His vehicles to present the answer.
Fortunately, on campus after campus, a dynamic witness is emerging as students and faculty members meet in “action groups” for Bible study, prayer, sharing, and joint concern in presenting the Gospel. It is through such groups, much like the First Century Church, that a vital witness is beginning to flourish and make a real impact.
Laymen from all walks of life also can play a vital role, however:
(1.) Build a foundation of Christianity in your family that is reflected in genuine love and deep-rooted values. Children from such a family are not likely to be tomorrow’s irresponsible radicals.
(2.) Live your life in such a way that Christ is glorified and others know the basis of your hope. Show the youth of today the answer to the question I so often am asked: “How can you be a Christian and be in the business world?” Dare to be different and stand up for your faith.
(3.) Open your homes to students. International students in particular are hungering to participate in Christian family life. I have met many students whose lives changed because laymen cared.
(4.) Invite students to attend your church and make them a part of your fellowship. Old ways of worship may need some modification, but this is easily done by being sensitive to the needs of those to whom you are ministering.
(5.) Support campus groups that proclaim Christ. If a group is presenting a non-Biblical message, voice your concern and demand hard answers as to why. A non-authentic Christian program does more harm than good.
(6.) Pray that God, in His sovereignty, will bring about a real campus revival. The workers are too few, and God alone can meet the crisis of today. I am convinced, however, that concentrated prayer will bring results we have not even dreamed of.
My plea is a simple one: Let’s provide hard-hitting spiritual solutions for what basically is a spiritual problem·. The opportunity is there; it’s up to us as Christians to meet the challenge before it is too late.
by Steve | Jul 7, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: What is Evangelicalism?
PART TWO
By Bruce R. Shelley
Condensed by permission from “Evangelicalism in America,” published by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“One major theme runs through that type of Christianity called evangelicalism: the necessity of personal salvation.” -1st installment.
Look, evangelicals cry, at our whirling world! Notice the frustration, the self-centeredness, the barbarity, and the carnality. How can we account for man’s own misery and his inhumanity to other men? By one overwhelming fact! he is a sinner, a rebel against God and against society.
This pessimistic view of man’s powers explains the popularity of premillennialism among American evangelicals. Beyond man’s innate curiosity about the future, the doctrine of premillennialism accents history’s frustration apart from divine aid. What every man finds personally-emptiness, futility, and purposelessness-history without God also discloses: life has no meaning. It begins at no beginning; it ends with no end.
But, evangelicals insist, add God and all is changed. If man transgresses, he must be under Law. If he sins, he must have a norm. If he rebels, he must have a Lord. Man cannot now be understood apart from what he once was. Man is made in the image of his Creator. His unique freedom granted by God is the presupposition of his misery. Do, know no guilt; ants dread no death. Only man can sin because only man is made for God.
Conversion, then, is the interior turning to God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is the clue to the mystery of man. No greater humanitarian labor can be spent than the energy expended in bringing straying sinners to a glorious God.
If the presupposition of the evangelical experience is the sinfulness of man, the means to its achievement is a revelatory Bibie. Evangelicalism was brought into being by the Bible; it has sustained itself by the Bible. Unlike scholastic Protestantism, however, evangelicalism, when it has lived up to its own best principles, has not considered the Scriptures as a mere code for conduct or as a series of divine decrees. On the contrary, the Scriptures are life-giving because they are life endowed.
One immediate consequence of Whitefield’s conversion was the priority he gave to the Word of God. The Bible leaped to life for Whereas before it seemed obscure and hard to understand, now it was as clear as the sun at noon. “When God was pleased to shine with power on my soul,” he said, “I could no longer be contented to feed on husks or what the swine did eat; the Bible then was my food; there, and there only I took delight.” He read the Scripture as it should be read—upon his knees. He endeavored to pray over every line and word. “I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month,” he claimed, “than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men!”
Wesley reflected a similar reverence for the Scriptures when He wrote: “I want to know one thing—the way to heaven; how to land safe on the happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (a man of one book).”
This instrumental use of the Bible never led the eighteenth-century evangelicals to mere subjectivity. We might suppose that their emphasis upon the Spirit’s revealing divine truth, as well as imparting moral power, would have resulted in the surrender of external authority in religion. But this never happened. Their distrust of man was so great, and their hostility to the rationalism of the age so pervasive, that they took exactly the opposite course. They made more of the authority of the Bible than their predecessors had for a long time before. In opposition to the idea of the sufficiency of human reason, they delighted to belittle it, and to denounce its claims as presumptuous. In resisting it, they appealed, not to the Spirit in the hearts of all believers, as the Quakers did, but to the written and infallible Word. Evangelical influence, and not scholasticism or the Protestantism of the Reformation period, carried the authority of the Scriptures to modern English and American Christians.
It is in this light that fundamentalism can best be understood. Any informed evangelical realizes how often Protestant orthodoxy has degenerated into a rabid sectarianism. Individual fundamentalists have not always avoided this danger. “But if America is not adequately represented by the conduct of some irresponsible tourists,” writes Vernon Grounds, president of the Conservative Baptist Seminary, “neither is evangelicalism adequately represented by every snake handler, every holy roller, every bigoted fanatic.”
Aside from its excess—which every doctrinally-oriented movement has difficulty suppressing—fundamentalism sought a genuinely Biblical witness, a witness for the Bible’s unique message of God’s redemptive love in Jesus Christ and a witness against the humanized and secularized gospel of liberalism. In this sense, though perhaps only in this sense, fundamentalism was a genuine expression of evangelicalism.
Two predominant consequences have issued from evangelicalism’s commitment to a redemptive Gospel: first, a controlling and continuing passion to preach the Gospel where it has not been heard. And second, a remarkable stimulus to personal and social betterment. Evangelicalism, in short, has greatly furthered missionary activity and Christian ethics.
The story of modern missions is almost exclusively an evangelical saga. From the landing of Pietists, Ziengenbalg and Plutschau, on the beach at Tranquebar in 1706, to William Carey and his colleagues at Serampore, to the host of voluntary societies circling the globe in the nineteenth century, to the Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission in 1966, evangelicals have shouldered a major share of the heavy burden for a non-Christian world. The achievement of evangelical missionaries between the French Revolution and War I is nothing less than a phenomenal. Kenneth Scott Latourette, the foremost American authority on the expansion of Christianity, has written, “Never had any other set of ideas, religious or secular, been propagated over so wide an area by so many prof agents maintained by the unconstrained donations of so many millions of individuals … For sheer magnitude it has been without parallel in human history.”
The motivation behind this surge of foreign mission interest was varied. Unquestionably Biblical imperatives were not always separated from a sense of Western superiority. But, genuine Scriptural motives more often than not impelled these ambassadors of Christ. Perhaps the dominant impulse was found in the authority of the Bible itself. Had not Jesus commanded His apostles, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel every creature” (Mark 16:15)?
Wesley, for example, was a man of far horizons. He looked beyond the confines of his little group to the conversion of his native land. He looked beyond the confines of his native land to the winning of a world for Christ. The Gospel that was for all must be taken to all, irrespective of color or clime. Early in his ministry He uttered his now celebrated Manifesto: “I look upon all the World as my parish; thus far I Mean, that in whatever part of It I am, I judge it meet, right and My bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation.”
Another belief that appears time and again in the missionary movement is the conviction that the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world is linked to the return of Christ. Many of the early pietists held the idea that a great conversion of Jews and non-Christians was to be among the signs preceding the coming again of the Lord in glory. Similarly, Similarly, A. T. Pierson and A. J. Gordon were among the nineteenth- century premillennialists who believed that global evangelization was a prerequisite to the second coming of Christ. They pointed to Jesus Himself who said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).
This link between preaching the Gospel and the return of Christ was evident in one of the popular hymns of the nineteenth century:
Waft, waft, ye winds, his story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till, like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole:
Till o’er our ransomed nature,
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.
Joined with this missionary fervor has been the evangelical view of Christian living and morality. Doubtlessly, in evangelicalism the Christian life leans toward the otherworldly. Whether in German pietism, English evangelicalism, or American fundamentalism one can detect an ascetic tendency. The evangelical ideal calls for a Christian life set constantly upon the future. Natural human interest in the present world is often condemned as irreligious. Friendship with the world,” Wesley said, is spiritual adultery.” (James 4:4)
This is not to suggest that evangelicals have consistently followed medieval monasticism. They have not, for example, advocated retirement from the world and seclusion in a monastery. But they have denounced many of the ordinary pursuits and pleasures of society, commonly looked upon as indifferent matters. Card-playing, dancing, smoking, horse-racing. Theater-going elaborate dressing, and frivolity of all kinds have come in for vigorous condemnation. To be a Christian has frequently meant to turn one’s back upon “the world.”
But this ethic of self-denial was not the result of any delicious morbidity. It was due, rather, to the conviction that conversion was but the beginning of the Christian life, and salvation to be complete must include the power to overcome sin. That is to say that justification must be followed by sanctification. This, evangelicals believe, is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer.
Many of the more vigorous evangelicals felt that genuine faith must be active in love. “A true faith in Christ Jesus will not suffer us to be idle,” Whitefield once said. And then in a passage reminiscent of Luther’s classic definition of faith, he added, “No: it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ.”
When this mood merged with the American frontiersman’s innate optimism and vigor a whole nation … was energized to repent and reform.
New life in Christ, then, was never intended as a deterrent to social action. The leadership of evangelicals in freeing England of the stigma of slavery and in the scores upon scores of reform movements in nineteenth-century America is abundant evidence that evangelicalism need not be socially sterile.
One of the features of the great missionary movement was the wide variety of humanitarian activities. Evangelical missionaries established schools, built hospitals, trained nurses, reduced complex languages to writing, introduced health measures, taught agricultural techniques, and translated literature into the dialects of the people.
While fundamentalism’s reaction to “the social gospel” may be advanced as evidence to the contrary, even there, social awareness was not entirely lost. For example, the confession of the Fundamentalist Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention affirmed firmed that “human betterment and social improvement” are “inevitable by-products” of the Gospel.
No, the testimony from history contradicts the common charge that evangelicalism’s morality is solely individualistic. It is true that its ethic begins with a personal redemptive experience of God’s grace. But evangelicals have often argued that morality—even social morality—necessarily flows out of a heart touched by divine grace. They knew their Bible well enough to recall that Jesus twice over said of those who profess His name, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7: 16, 20).
by Steve | Jul 5, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: A Methodist Layman Reacts to Rudolf Bultmann
By Paul H. Wright, Assistant Lay Leader, Zion United Methodist Church, Grand Forks, North Dakota
The name of Rudolf Bultmann, the “demythologizer,” means little to most Methodists. Nevertheless, his influence is extremely great in Methodist pulpits and in our official literature. We can see the influence of Bultmann in the shift from the terminology of evangelical, Biblical Christianity to the terminology of existential philosophy and psychology.
We used to hear about sin, grace, atonement, salvation, eternity and the Holy Spirit. Now we hear about the “whole man,” the “authentic person,” the “becoming individual,” “encounter,” “dialogue” and the “existential crisis.” We can see the influence of Bultmann in the widespread tendency to regard the New Testament as myth, allegory, parable and metaphor rather than actual event. We can see his influence in an over-emphasis upon modern literature and drama … at the expense of Biblical references and exposition. Overall, we see an approach to Christian experience that somehow misses the boat—it overlooks what is really vital in the Gospel and appears to have “a form of Godliness while denying the power thereof.”
Bultmann’s influence in the United Methodist Church is startlingly explicit. The High School quarterly, New Creation for Winter, 1968-69, devotes much space to Biblical criticism and existential theology. New Creation for Spring, 1969, presents several detailed lessons on Biblical criticism and Bultmann’s views. These lessons are attractively packaged, extremely well written and convincingly presented. The materials are not designed to stimulate thought. Nor are they designed to educate young Christians about possible challenges to their faith. The Bultmann-Methodist curriculum is designed to convince.
As a concerned layman and church school teacher, I decided to learn as much as I could about “demythologizing.” I saw the need for a well-founded response from the evangelical point of view. Although untrained in theology, I have two advantages: training in another academic discipline and a tremendously stimulating and supportive Christian wife. Our project has hardly begun and we are theological babes in the woods. But we have pieced together enough of a picture so that we may be able to give some support to other evangelical laymen who, like ourselves, have found themselves confused, exasperated, a little threatened—and not quite knowing how to respond.
A good way to weaken a vaguely-understood threat is to clarify it. So let’s look first at some of Bultmann’s more important views. Then we can consider some answers from the evangelical point of view. Pinning The Great Demythologizer down On specific points is like trying to nail whipped cream to a barn door. But let’s try it anyhow!
Why Demythologize?
Bultmann sets an admirable goal for himself. He emphasizes that “modern man” has a scientific view of the world; he is constantly exposed to the attitudes, as well as the products, of science and technology. Therefore, Bultmann says, we cannot expect people today to take the New Testament seriously as literal truth. Instead, Bultmann teaches, the New Testament actually is eternal truth cloaked in mythological or symbolic language. He claims that modern man rejects mythological language. So the Church must strip away the “mythical elements” of the New Testament and get at the core of essential truth about God.
In other words, Bultmann thinks that if we expect modern men to accept the God of Christianity, we have to translate the “mythological” New Testament language into “non-mythological” language which people today are more likely to accept.
The Demythologizer’s Method
Demythologizing relies mostly on a method of Biblical research called “form criticism.” The form critics claim that there was a long period in the early Church when the stories of Jesus were passed down by word-of-mouth. Eventually, these stories became doctrinal statements. They were written down in the form of gospels, history and/ or letters.
Actually, they say we know almost nothing about “the Jesus of history”—that is the Jesus who actually existed. One form critic says we know “just a whisper.”
These critics make a careful distinction between “the Jesus of History” and “the Christ of Faith” (the object of belief and devotion).
They develop their thinking as follows: the doctrines of Christianity did not originate in the life of Jesus—they say. Instead, the doctrines we find in the New Testament started taking shape after the Church was formed. The Biblical accounts given of the life and ministry of Jesus were those that supported the developing doctrines … those that met the needs of the Church because of need to promote Christianity … and also the Church “life setting” (the technical German term is Sitz im Leben). Thus, say the form critics, our New Testament writings are not about the actual “Jesus of History”—a real man—but the “eternal” in the experiences of those who formed the early Church. The New Testament writings are mythological, say these critics, because words like “Messiah” and “Holy Spirit” were the only way the early Christians could communicate their religious experience. The Biblical writers knew this, and were not bothered by it because such “mythology” was an accepted form of serious communication in those days.
The actual work of “demythologizing” consists of examining the New Testament texts determine 1) when they were written, 2) who wrote them, 3) the purpose they served and 4) what they meant at the time they were written. Critics believe this gives us a more correct picture of the experience of Christ in the lives of the early Christians. Also, the critics think, “demythologizing” reveals to us the nugget of eternal truth to be found in the “Christ event” (since the New Testament as we have it, is not truth but a propaganda document!) Having this core of truth, we are better able to have a “personally meaningful encounter” with “the Christ event” in our own lives today … so the theory goes.
What is the effect on this “encounter” with “the Christ of Faith?”
It is difficult to summarize Bultmann’s stand without making it appear simple-minded. But it boils down to this: Man is in a sinful, fallen condition as long as he seeks his security in the temporary and unreliable aspects of the material world. He is a slave to his fallen condition as long as he refuses to see in himself the possibility of being a free, individual who can rise above his attachment to the security of the material world. Because the material world does not, in reality, provide a secure existence, fallen man is burdened with care and anxiety. A genuine encounter with the “Christ of Faith” literally forces a person to see himself in a different light. Also, Bultmann thinks, this forces him to choose between continuing in his enslavement, or starting on a new path of freedom by means of a completely changed conception of himself. If he chooses the path of freedom after the pattern of Christ, then he is no longer burdened by the anxieties of the material world. He has found salvation … that is true self-hood, purged of such ideas as cleansing of sin through the blood of Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Evangelical’s Response
Let’s start with an affirmation. We who are evangelical Christians regard the New Testament as an accurate report of things Jesus did and said—things that really happened to Him during His earthly ministry. Scripture is also an accurate record of the activities of the early Christians in establishing the Church and spreading the Gospel. Further, the New Testament is an account of the way in which the early Christians, guided by the Holy Spirit, explained and expounded God’s eternal truth, revealed supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Christ as accurately reported in the New Testament. It was all written within a fairly short time after the earthly ministry of Jesus. And most (if not all) was written while eyewitnesses to His life and work were still alive. It is impossible to separate the “Jesus of History” from the “Christ of Faith.” They are one and the same! Through our knowledge of actual events connected with the life of Jesus and His followers, we can understand who Jesus is, what God is like and how we can enter into a new and right relationship with Him through a faith decision for Christ. We have this distinct focus and solid foundation for our faith. None of the evidence from Biblical scholarship seems conclusive enough to call this faith-conviction into serious question. Biblical criticism, like any other research, has room for various methods, approaches and differences of opinion. There are many highly trained Biblical scholars who criticize Bultmann’s approach. They believe in the factual reliability of the New Testament.
Now let’s look at some important questions.
- Other than the support of certain Biblical scholars, what reasons can we give for viewing the New Testament as nonmythological?
Read the New Testament for yourself. Does it read like mythology? Or does it have, as J. B. Phillips argues, the “ring of truth?” Capable individuals from different walks of life—literature professors, lawyers and newspaper reporters as well as ministers and theologians—declare their conviction that the New Testament reads like reporting, not mythology.
Did the New Testament writers feel that they were writing mythology? Read Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-3. Read I John 1:1-4, I Corinthians 15:3-7 and 15:17- 22. Especially noteworthy is II Peter 1: 16 (RSV): “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
On the testimony of the writers themselves, we have to conclude that they were either reporting actual events, or they thought they were reporting actual events, or they were trying to mislead their readers into thinking they were reporting actual events. I believe they were “telling it like it was.”
- Would calling the New Testament “mythology” offer any real advantages to Christianity today? Would it, as Bultmann feels, make Christianity more acceptable to modern man?
Bultmann has a somewhat mistaken picture of the “scientific world view” of modem man. But that problem need not concern us here. Even if this judgment were valid, calling the New Testament “mythology” would not make it more acceptable. What “scientific man” rejects is not the language of the New Testament, but the idea of a supernatural God. When he rejects the language of the New Testament, he does so because it talks about the activity of a transcendant God; he is not likely to accept the idea of God just because we change language!
- Can we really expect the unconverted to take Christianity seriously if we tell them our faith is based on mythology?
Almost certainly not. In the first place, if we accept the New Testament as myth rather than fact, what makes New Testament mythology better than any other kind of mythology? Why should the mythological truth of the New Testament bring us any closer to God than the mythological truth of the ancient Egyptians or the American Indians or the African snake cults or anyone else?
In the second place, the New Testament writers expressed themselves as if they were reporting events. If we cannot trust them to describe actual events and get the facts straight, we certainly have no reason to trust their judgment about the weightier matters of God and eternity.
In the third place, can we expect the effects of reading mythology to be powerful enough to bring about the dramatic changes in a person’s conception of himself that Bultmann sees as the key to salvation? No. When a person is affected that profoundly, he is affected by something that he feels is real and concrete, not mythological.
- Is it enough to say that Christian conversion brings about a changed conception of one’s self?
While the work of Christ does bring about a change in the individual’s conception of himself, this is not nearly an adequate description of conversion. The results of Christian conversion are much more profound. We see people who are able, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to do things and overcome forces in a way that would be impossible to them “on their own.” We see people who are relieved of the burden of guilt and anxiety—not because they see themselves in a better light, but because they know themselves to be forgiven by God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We see people who are free from the cares and insecurity of this world—not because they see themselves as having a wider range of choices, but because they have the hope of eternal life through Christ’s promise of deliverance.
It is tempting to blame and belittle Rudolf Bultmann for troubling us evangelicals with such an unsatisfying approach to Christianity. This would be a mistake. Bultmann is a highly intelligent, well trained and ingenious scholar. As such, he has to go where his mind takes him (although it is unfortunate for him that he could not find his way to a sounder Biblical Christianity).
What we need to blame and belittle is the widespread and uncritical acceptance of his theories by a Church that should be committed to preaching sound Biblical Christianity to a world that is starving for the Gospel of Christ. Let us be committed to “earnestly contending for the faith.” And let us always be willing to say along with the Apostle Paul, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith.” (Romans 1:16a.)
