Your Weekly Machen Fix: The Need of Regeneration

This article was originally published in “The Presbyterian Guardian,” June 1, 1936.

This article will appear at just about the time when very momentous events will be taking place in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  Anything that it may say about the situation in that church may, therefore, at the time when THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN comes into the hands of its readers, seem to be out of date.

Yet at least one thing is already clear.  It is that the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is profoundly corrupt.  That fact would not be obscured in the slightest, in the eyes of any really well-informed observer, even by a decision of the General Assembly, in the pending judicial and administrative cases, against the 1934 General Assembly’s Mandate and in favor of the members of the Independent Board and the Rev. John J. DeWaard and the Rev. Arthur F. Perkins.

It must be remembered that the 1934 Mandate is not only contrary to the Constitution of the church.  It is also contrary to the contentions of the Modernists themselves, so far as the powers of the General Assembly are concerned.  If the Modernists were in the slightest degree consistent, they would declare the 1934 Mandate unconstitutional and would put an abrupt quietus upon the subjection of candidates for the ministry to utterly unconstitutional question as to their willingness to support the boards and agencies of the church.

But, yousee, if the Modernists did come to such a decision, they would do so on quite different grounds from those which operate in the minds of people who are really true to the Bible and to our Standards.  The Modernists would be insisting on liberty in the interests of a freedom to undermine the authority of the Bible; people who are true to the Bible and to the Standards are insisting on that liberty in the interests of the Lordship of Jesus Christ as His commands are made known to us in God’s holy Word.

The two positions would be poles apart, and the fact that liberty would be granted to the members of The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions on the Modernists’ ground would not in the slighest exhibit the soundness of the church; on the contrary, it wuold be only one more indication of the church’s unsoundness.

As a matter of fact, it is extremely unlikely that the Modernists will attain to any such degree of consistency.  Take as an example the Auburn Affirmationists in the Presbytery of Philadelphia.  In the Auburn Affirmation these gentleman protested loudly against what they regarded as a misuse of the power of the General Assembly.  Yet now they are breathing out threatening and slaughter against those who appeal against the General Assembly to the Bible and the Constitution of the church.  They are going to really extreme lengths to keep out of the ministry and oust from the General Assembly those who will not promise a blanket allegiance to the General Assembly’s shifting programs!  Could anything be more utterly – I almost said more absurdly – inconsistent?  So there is liberty in the church for those who undermine the Bible but none for those who believe it and live by it?  Consistency is not one of the virtues of those who are now dominating the ecclesiastical machine.

My point is, however, that even if the Modernists now dominating the Permanent Judicial Commission – there are actually four Auburn Affirmationists among the seven ministerial members of that Commission – did muster up enough consistency to give liberty in the church to those who honestly uphold the church’s constitution as well as to those who undermine it, that would not in the slightest indicate that the church would be returning to orthodoxy.

It would still remain true that the machinery of the church is in control of the Modernists and their friends.  It would still remain true that the church is exceedingly corrupt.

My own opinion is not only that the church is exceedingly corrupt but that it is hopelessly corrupt.

When I say that, I want to make perfectly clear what I mean.  I do not mean that the reform of the church is beyond the power of the Spirit of God.  On the contrary, the Spirit of God is all-powerful.  He could, if He pleased, regenerate a million people in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. in a year or in a month or in a single day.  If that many people were regenerated in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the church could no doubt be reformed.

But what I mean by saying that the church is hopelessly corrupt is that the church cannot be reformed with the Christian resources now in the church.

We ought, it is true, to be very slow about trying to look into the heart of the individual man.  We ought to be very slow to say: “This man or that man is certainly not a Christian, has certainly not been born again.”

But when the state of the church is taken as a whole, it certainly can be said rather decidedly that great hosts of church-members give little credible evidence of having been born again.  There must be regeneration as well as education if the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is to be reformed.

Beers With Turretin

This excerpt is from Institutes I.viii.vi.

VI.  A ministerial and organic relation is quite different from a principal and despotic.  Reason holds the former relation to theology, not the latter.  It is the Hagar (the bondmaid which should be in subjection to Scripture); not the Sarah (the mistress which presides over Scripture).  It ought to compare the things proposed to be believed with the sacred Scriptures, the inflexible rule of truth.  As when we refer the things we wish to measure to the public standard with the hand and eye.  But reason itself neither can nor ought to be constituted the rule of belief.

VII.  We must observe the distinction between an instrument of faith and the foundation of faith.  It is one thing to introduce something to be believed and another to educe what may be understood and explained from the words; not by forcing a sense on a passage, but by unfolding that which seems involved.  Reason is the instrument which the believer uses, but it is not the foundation and principle upon which faith rests.  If in various passages of Scripture the use of reaosn is mentioned, this is not to make it the foundation of faith (as if I ought to act according to reason as a rule), but its office only is designated that believers may work conformably with and by it, as an instrument.

Throw Away your Jesus Art and Read this Book!

Rev. Daniel R. Hyde, pastor of Oceanside URC, has just published a new book entitled, In Living Color: Images of Christ and the Means of Grace.  Why violate the second commandment with images of Christ in kitschy art, when we can truly see our Savior in the means of grace?

Here are some endorsements:

“Danny Hyde has written an excellent piece on a very misunderstood subject. Through effective combination of biblical, theological, and confessional discussions, he has presented the Reformed view of the second commandment winsomely and attractively. He helpfully emphasizes not the negative prohibition of making images of God but the positive facts that God has revealed himself now so generously in Word and Sacrament and will one day reveal himself visibly in the most perfect and authentic way.”
—David VanDrunen, Robert B. Strimple Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics, Westminster Seminary California

“In these pages, Danny Hyde argues with great clarity against all images of Jesus as man-made media. He shows that all such images are abominated in Scripture and roundly rejected by the Reformed confessional heritage without exception. Hyde goes on to argue, however, that God does provide us with His “media”—the preaching of His Word and the administration of His sacraments.”
—Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary

Here is a link to the Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Color-Images-Christ-Means/dp/0979367735/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240578164&sr=1-7

Your Weely Machen Fix: Will Christianity Survive?

From “The Presbyterian Guardian,” 1936.

Some weeks ago I was asked by the religious editor of the Boston Evening Transcript to contribute to a symposium on the question whether Christianity is facing extinction in the Western world.

I said that that question can be answered only if we first answer the more fundamental question whether the preservation of Christianity depends upon man or upon God.

If its preservation depends upon man or upon any natural resources, the chances are overwhelmingly against its being preserved.

The whole current of the age is against it.  In Russia, in Germany, in Mexico, and in other countries, it is facing definite persecution; and the weapons by which it is being attacked are far more effective than those that used to be employed.  Monopolistic control of education by the state and a totalitarian censorhsip of radio and of the press are far more effective ways of stamping out Christianity than were the old-fashioned ways of fire and sword.  Tyranny today is at bottom what tyranny always was, but its techinique has been enormously improved. 

In our country persecution has not definitely been begun, but every indication is that it is coming very soon.  Teacher-oath bills, anti-propanganda bills forbidding criticism of racial and social groups, flag-waving bills, the abominable proposed Control-of-Youth Amendment, falsely called the Child Labor Amendment – these things tell a story that is only too plain.  They are wrong in principle, and principle is the mother of practice.  They are symptoms of a deadly underlying disease, and every indication is that that disease is going to work itself out in the destruction of all liberty in this coutnry just as liberty has been destroyed in so many of the coutnries of the world.  Communists on the one hand and, on the other hand, those who insult the American flag by seeking to induce a love of it by force are alike in attacking the institutions for which this coutnry formerly stood, and certainly the attack is a very serious attack indeed. 

This general decay of civil and religious liberty will almost inevitably in the long run result in persecution of the Christian religion.  Christianity will always stand in conflict with any form of the totalitarian state.

Of course it can escape persecution if it sinks back into a neo-pagan syncretism like that which finds expression, for example, in the book Re-Thinking Missions - that is, if it relinquishes its offensive claim to be not merely one way of salvation but the only way.  But in that case it will simply cease to be Christianity.  If it continues to be Christianity it is facing deadly opposition in the modern world.

It is facing opposition not only in the state but also in the visible Church.

The present tyranny in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. – to take that merely as an example of what is taking place in many churches – is as like as two peas to the tyranny in the state.  The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. has a constitution guaranteeing liberty under the Word of God.  That constitution is being overridden by the ecclesiastical machine with exactly the same cynical disregard for solemn promises as that which has established dictatorships in country after country today and has so seriously menaced free institutions in a coutnry such as ours.

Both the state, then, and a denatured Chruch are arrayed against the Christian religion.  What will be the result of the conflict?  Will Christianty survive?

Not if it is a natural phenomenon, not if it depends for its preservation upon human resources.  The forces arrayed against it are in that case entirely too strong.  But then, you see, it is not a natural phenomenon, and it does not depend for its preservation upon human resources.  It is a supernatural phenomenon, and it depends for its preservation upon the living God.

So it is the case of that particular phase of the world-wide conflict which is seen just now in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  An ecclesiastical bureaucracy , in utter disregard of the Constitution, is engaged in crushing real Christianity out of the church.  It is ever more systematically closing the doors of the ministry to those who will not dethrone Jesus Christ by promising a blanket allegiance to human agencies and programs. 

A little group of people is resisting this tyranny and is resolved to stand true to the Bible even if, in order to do that, it is obliged to form a  separate church organization.

How can we who form that group have the temerity to stand against the whole current of the world and of the visible Church?  How can we stand against so many men who are so much abler and stronger than we?  Our answer is plain.  It is because of the Bible.  Those persons who are against us in this contention are also against the Word of God, and the Word of God stands sure.

The separate church organization, continuing, as we believe, the true spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., will no doubt at the beginning be small.  We believe that it will grow rapidly, by the blessing of God.  But at the beginning it will be only a very little group.  What is more, it will be a very weak little group, and a very sinful little group, utterly without any merit or any strength of its own.

How, then, can it survive?  For one reason only.  Because it is in the care and keeping of God, becasue it is founded upon His unchanging Word.  Even the smallest and weakest goup is strong if it can hear Jesus say: “Fear not, little flock.”

Beers with Turretin

The following is an excerpt from Institutes of Elenctic Theology I.vii.v, published in 1690.

Reason is not the principle of faith

V.  The reasons are: (1) The reason of an unregenerate man is blinded with respect to the law (Eph. 4:17, 18; Rom. 1:27, 28; 8:7).  With respect to the gospel, it is evidently blind and mere darkness (Eph. 5:8; 1 Cor. 2:14).  Therefore, it must be taken captive that it may be subjected to faith, not exalted that it may rule it (2 Cor. 10:3-5). (2)  The mysteries of faith are beyond the sphere of reason to which the unregenerate man cannot rise; and, as the senses do not attempt to judge of those things which are out of their sphere, so neither does reason in those things which are above it and supernatural.  (3)  Faith is not referred ultimately to reason, so that I ought to believe because I so understand and comprehend; but to the word because God so speaks in the Scriptures.  (4)  The Holy Spirit directs us to the word alone (Dt. 4:1; Is. 8:20; Jn 5:39; 2 Tim. 3:15, 16; 2 Pet. 1:19).  (5)  If reason is the principle of faith, then first it would follow that all religion is natural and demonstrable by natural reason and natural light.  Thus nature and grace, natural and supernatural revelation would be confounded.  Second, it would follow that reason is nowhere to be made captive to be denied, against the express passages of Scripture; and that those possessed of a more ready mind and a more cultiveated genius can better perceive and judge the mysteries of faith against universal experience (1 Cor. 1:19, 20; Mt. 11:25).  (6)  Reason cannot be the rule of religion; neither as corrupted because it is not only below faith, but also opposed to it (Rom. 8:7; 1 Cor. 2:14; Mt. 16:17); not as sound because this is not found in corrupt man, nor in an uncontaminated man could it be the rule of supernatural mysteries.  Nor now when it is corrected by the Spirit must it be judged according to itself, but according to the first principle which illuminated reason now admits (viz., the Scriptures).

Your Weekly Machen Fix: An Apostate Church?

The following article was originally published in “The Presbyterian Guardian” in 1936.

The covenant in the Constitution of the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union plainly contemplates for the near future the possibility – to say the least – of separation from the present organization of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

Such separation is denounced by the opponents of the Covenant Union as involving the sin that is called the sin of schism – a sin that is plainly condemned in the Word of God. 

But, as was pointed out on this page in the last number of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN, not every separation from an existing church is schism.  It was not schism when the early Protestants broke away from the Church of Rome.

Still less wil it be schism if the members of the Covenant Union break way from the organization now known as the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. and if they continue the true spiritual succession of that church in the manner contemplated in the covenant.

The Meaning of the 1934 Mandate

It is not schism to break way from an apostate church.  Indeed it is schism to remain in an apostate church, since to remain in an apostate church is to separate from the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Will, then, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. be shown to be an apostate church if the Mandate of the 1934 and 1935 General Assemblies is declared to be constitutional by the Permanent Judicial Commission and the judgment of the Commission is confirmed by the General Assembly convening in Syracuse on Thursday, May 28th?

Very deliberately, and with full consciousness of the seriousness of what I am saying, I say “Yes.”  The Presbyterian church in the U.S.A. will plainly be shown to be an apostate church if that Mandate is declared constitutional by the General Assembly sitting as a court. 

The Mandate, by making the support of whatever program of boards and agencies is set up by shifting majority votes in the General Assembly a condition of ordination and of membership in the church, is placing the word of man above the Word of God and is dethroning Jesus Christ.  A church that places the word of man above the Word of God and that dethrones Jesus Christ is an apostate church.  It is the duty of all true Christians to separate from such a church.

The Meaning of a Judical Decision

At present that Mandate, with its attack upon the lordship of Christ over His church is merely an administrative pronouncement.  As such it is not an act of the church.  Appeal is possible from such administrative actions to the courts of the church.

But if such an appeal has been taken and has gone up through the lower coursts to the highest court – namely, the General Assembly sitting not as administrative body but as a court – and if the appeal against the Mandate has been lost, then the church itself will have acted in accordance with the Mandate.  Such action is no longer just an action o fthe General Assembly of the church; it is an action of the church.

Can Christian people remain in a church which, acting not just by its General Assembly, but by its full judicial machinery, has engaged in such an apostate act?

The Editor of THE PRESBYTERIAN GUARDIAN, in his editorial of April 6th, says “No.”  I certainly hope that the words of the Editor may be – to say the least -earnestly pondered.

The Meaning of This Particular Decision

Even, however, if a man is not convinced that true Christians ought to withdraw from a church which has by any judicial decision dethroned Jesus Christ, they plainly ought to withdraw from a chruch which has done so by this particular judicial decision.

This particular judicial decision is not an ordinary judicial decision.  It is not an isolated matter about which the Permanent Judicial Commission might conceivably have slipped up without really exhibiting the mind and heart of the whole church.  But it will mean the final endorsement of a fixed policy which is being applied with every increasing rigor.

What is that policy?  It is the policy of exclusion from the ministry of all who will not support the propaganda of the Modernist boards and agencies now functioning in the church and will not promise, for the future, a blanket allegiance to human programs as shifting majorities in future General Assemblies may set them up. 

That policy has been favored by enormous majorities in two sucessive General Assemblies.  It is being ruthlessly applied in presbytery after presbytery. 

We ought to be under no delusions about this matter.  If the 1936 General Assembly, sitting as a court, declares the 1934 and 1935 Mandate to be constitutional, then it will be practically impossible for any man upon whom Christ has laid HIs hands for His ministry to be ordained anywhere in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  Only those who dethrone their Lord will be received.  Those who bravely confess Christ will be rejected. 

What are we going to do about these young men whom Christ has called and whom the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. rejects?

I will tell you what we ought to do about it if we are really in earnest about our allegiance to Jesus Christ.  We ought to separate at once from an apostate church organization that systematically refuses to lay the hands of presbytery upon those men upon whom Christ has laid His hands, and ought to take steps to be members of a chuuch that will lay hands upon them and that will thank God for having called them into the ministry of His Son.

Beers with Turretin

The following is an excerpt from Institutes of Elenctic Theology, I.viii.

III.  The question is not whether reason has any use in theology.  For we confess that its use is manifold both for illustration (by making clear divine mysteries from human and earthly things); for comparison (by comparing old things with new, versions with their sources, opinions of doctors and decrees of councils with the rule of the divine word); for inference (by drawing conslusions); and for argumentation (by drawing forth reasons to support orthodoxy and overthrow heterdoxy.  But the question is simply whether it bears the relation of a principle and rule in whose scale the greatest mysteries of religion should be weighed, so that nothing should be held which is not agreeable to it, which is not founded upon and cannot be elicited from reason.  This we deny against the Socinians who, the more easily to reject the mysteries of the Trinity, incarnation and the satisfaction of Christ ( and others of the same kind clearly revealed in Scripture), contend that reason is the rule of religion of things to be believed, and that those things are not to be believed which seeem to the mind to be impossible. . .

IV.  The question is not whether reason is the instrument by which or the medium through which we can be drawn to faith.  For we acknowledge that reason can be both: the former indeed always and everywhere; the latter with regard to presupposed articles.  Rather the question is whether it is the first principle from which the doctrines of faith are proved; or the foundation upon which they are built, so that we must hold to be false in things of faith what the natural light or human reason cannot comprehend.  This we deny.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Are We Schismatics?

This article was originally published in, “The Presbyterian Guardian,“ in 1936.

When ought Christian people to withdraw from a church with which they have been connected and seek to lead other people to withdraw with them?

That is certainly a timely question just now.  A good many people are earnestly considering it in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.  The question of separation has ceased to lie in the dim and indefinite future and must be seetled in a very few weeks.  The General Assembly meets at the end of next month.  At the General Assembly the church’s decision on the great issue of the day will probably be made.

If the Permanent Judicial Commission declares the mandate of the 1934 and 1935 Assemblies to be constitutional or on any of the other grounds alleged confirms the condemnation of any one of the members of The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions or of the Rev. Arthur F. Perkins or of the Rev. John J. DeWaard, and if the General Assembly, sitting as a court, confirms this decision, then the Presbyterian church in the U.S.A. will have dethroned Jesus Christ and placed the word of men above the Word of God.

That is true no matter what is thought of the particular persons involved.  If they were the most insignificant or the most unworthy person in the whole church, the principle would remain exactly the same. 

What shall be done by other Christian people in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. after their brethren have thus been ejected?  Shall they remain in that church or shall they depart?

Is Every Separation Schismatic?

That question is a very serious question indeed.  It ought not to be lightly answered.

Unquestionably there are times when separation from a church organization with which one has been connected is a sin.  That sin is called the sin of schism.  It is a very heinous sin.  In saying that, I agree with those who denounce the Covenant Union, and who denounce the pledge, looking to separation in the event that efforts of reform fail, which the “covenant” of the Covenant Union contains.

But if I agree with the opponents of the Covenant Union in holding that there is such a sin as the sin of schism, I think they in turn ought to agree with me when I maintain, on the other hand, that by no means every separation from an existing church organization is the sin of schism.

Can it be seriously held by anyone that every separation is sinful schism?

Well, that could be held by a Roman Catholic, but I do not for the life of me see how it can be held by any Protestant.  All Protestans have made themselves party to a separation from an existing church organization.  Are we going to abandon the Protestant principle and go back to the Roman Catholic position?  That is just exactly what we do ife we hold, as many persons seem to hold today, that “splitting the church” is necessarily sinful.

If we are not going to take that step, if we are not going to abandon Protestantism and unite ourselves with the Roman Catholic Church, then we must inevitably admit that there are times when separation from an existing church organization is not the sin of schism but an inescapable and very solemn Christian duty.

The Example of the Reformation

When does such a time for separation come?  I think the example of the Reformation again will give us the answer.  The time for separation comes at a time when the existing church organization ceases to heed the Word of Gopd and follows some other authority instead.

The early Protestants did not just appeal from authority in general to some general human right of liberty.  They appealed from false authority to true authority.  They appealed from the usurped authority of ecclesiastical machinery to the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures.

It was to the Bible as the Word of God that they owed allegiance.  That is the reason why they were not schismatics when they left the Church of Rome.  That is the reason, indeed, why they would have been schismatics if they had remained.

Here, then, is the principle of the thing – it is schism to leave a church if that church is true to the Bible, but it is not true schism if that church is not true to the Bible.  In the latter case, far from its being schism to separate from the church in question, it is schism to remain in it, since to remain in it means to disobey the Word of God and to separate oneself from the true Chruch of Jesus Christ.

What Is Our Present Duty?

It is the latter case which will prevail in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. if the Permanent Judicial Commission takes the action which it is expected to take.  If that action is taken by the Permanent Judicial Commisision at the end of next month and is then confirmed by the General Assembly sitting as a court, some earnest people, at very great sacrifice of wordly goods and with bleeding hearts, will leave church buildings hallowed for them by many precious memories and will sever their connection with a great church organization.

Why will they take that step?  I will tell you.  They will take that step because they are convinced that if they did not take it, if they did not depart from the existing church organization, they would be guilty of the sin of schism.  By their continuance in a plainly apostate church, they would be separating themselves from the true Church of Jesus Christ and would be unfaithful to Christ the Head.

Beers With Turretin

This is a new feature at Geneva Redux.  Francis Turretin (1623-1687) was professor of theology at the Academy of Geneva.  The following comes from Institutes of Elenctic Theology, I.viii.8.

EIGHTH QUESTION

Is human reason the principle and rule by which the doctrines of the Christian religion and theology (which are the objects of faith) ought to be measured?  We deny against the Socinians.

I.  That the state of the question may be perceived more clearly, before all things, the terms must be explained, and some previous principles laid down.  (1) Human reason is taken either subjectively for that faculty of the rational soul by which man understands and judges between intelligible things presented to him (natural and supernatural, divine and human); or objectively for the natural light both externally presented and internally impressed upon the mind by which reason is disposed to the forming of certain conceptions and the eliciting of conclusions concerning God and divine things.  Agains, reason can be viewed in two aspects: either as sound and whole before the fall or as corrupt and blind after it.  The principle which here comes into question should be the first and self-evident from which all the truths and articles of faith are primarily drawn, and into which they are at last resolved.  As in all the arts, those are the principles by which they are erected and demonstrated, and upon which it is not lawful for them to rise.  The object of faith (meant here) is formal, not presupposed (i.e., the articles of saving faith, peculiar, properly and strictly so called); not the presupposed which are common to natural theology and sound reason such as these: that God exists; that he is just, wise, good; that the soul is immortal; etc.

II.  In this controversy, there is an error on both extremes.  They err in excess who attribute to reason in matters of faith more than its due (as the Socinians).  They err in defect who underrate it (as the Anabaptists, Lutherans and papists).

More to come next week.