Christianity in Its Highest Aspect Is a Divine Revelation to Mankind, and It Has a Gospel for the Individual

I insist on this, because until it is recognised and accepted, the question “What is Christianity?” cannot even be understood, much less discussed and answered. The Rationalists’ “Christianity” is like a theory of the solar

*1 Peter i.20; Revelation xii. 6. +Nov xpiows éori 70d Kdcmov TovTov, John xii, 31.

8) which ignores the sun. Just as those

who built the tombs of the prophets declared thereby their kinship with those who slew them, so if men choose to treat Christ and His cross as commonplaces of their religion, they only prove their participation in the guilt of Calvary. What the after world shall bring to those who never heard of Christ it is not given to us to know. But to Christendom that Cross is the supreme revelation of divine wrath against sin, and of divine love to a world of sinners. And this is Christianity in its first and highest aspect; not a religion, still less a philosophy, but a divine revelation of which the person and work of Christ are the sum and substance.

And in this aspect of it Christianity has not merely a message for mankind, it has a gospel for the individual. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In these words the guiltiest of men can hear the voice of Him who died for us, and who is yet to be our Judge; who knows all our sins and the depths of our sinfulness, and who, knowing all, bids us welcome in the full blessedness of forgiveness and peace and joy. In this sphere the ignorance and folly of “the wise and prudent” are amazing. They scout the idea of present forgiveness and salvation for the believer in Christ, while they are still more indignant at the suggestion that the future will not bring salvation and forgiveness to all without distinction. But how can we know anything of God and His ways unless it be either from revelation or from nature? If then the Bible be our guide, it is plain as words can make it that the sinner who accepts Christ is forgiven and saved, and that the sinner who does not accept Him is eternally doomed.

But if men refuse the plain testimony of Holy Scripture let them turn to “Nature”; and as an infidel has phased it, “Nature knows nothing of such foolery as forgiveness.” Nature is stern and pitiless in punishing. Therefore, as Dr. Westcott has well said, “To reason, the he great mystery of the future is not punishment but forgiveness.” In view of alfthis the Ruttomrtists gospel seeks merely to lure us into a fool’s paradise. In view of all this no free thinker, no real sceptic, no man of common sense will be misled by fine words

FP 81 about “the summits of our inner life,” or “the upward development of mankind’s history.” If we reject the Bible, “Nature” will give us good cause to “faint in weariness and despair.” If we accept the gospel, grace will teach us to rejoice “with joy unspeakable and full of glory.”