Chapter XVI

Hese sceptical critics always remind me

of the amateur detective. The amateur detective is strong on details. But he generally enters upon an inquiry with a fixed preconception as to what he is going to find, and he exhausts his power of attention upon trifles that seem to point in the direction on which his mind is set. The trained expert, on the other hand, coming in with an open mind and a wider knowledge, will seize on clews that the amateur has missed.

The microscope serves to make the wonders of nature seem all the more wonderful, and no criticism of Scripture can be too searching and minute, if only it be intelligent and spiritual. Such criticism, moreover, is an antidote to the criticism of the sceptics. For if “knowledge is power,” ignorance is weakness. And in no sphere is this more true than in the spiritual.

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But the knowledge that is wanting is the knowledge of Holy Scripture. For ati Scripture is profitable, that the man of God may be “ready at every point.”! And we cannot with impunity neglect large sections of Scripture which are inextricably interwoven with the rest.

The doctrine of the “Second Advent,” as theologians call it, will serve as a notable illustration of this. The New Testament speaks of the coming of the Son of Man to earth, to bless His people upon earth. It speaks of the descent of the Lord from heaven, and of His people being caught up from earth to meet Him. It speaks of His coming as a bridegroom to claim a bride. It speaks of His coming as a king to receive a kingdom. It speaks of His feet standing on the Mount of Olives, ‘‘in like manner” as He stood there with His disciples on the day of His ascension. It speaks of His being revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance. It speaks of the dead, small and great, being arraigned before the great white throne above. It speaks of the living nations upon earth being gathered before His judgment throne of glory.

* 2 Tim. iii. 17. Thus it is that Alford renders it.

Now what are we to make of all these conflicting statements? A dull Evangelicalism in the past was content to read them at different times, and to believe them all without attempting to understand them. But to maintain such an attitude in the face of modern criticism is to court disaster as certainly as if we were to face modern artillery with the ordnance used at Waterloo. Scripture itself must teach us how all these apparently irreconcilable statements can be reconciled.

But first let us hear what the critics have to say about them. We turn for enlightenment to the standard work already quoted, Dr. Hastings’s Dictionary of the Bible, of which Professor Driver of Oxford is one of the principal editors. The article entitled ‘‘Parousia”! deals with this subject. Its effort to harmonise the passages fails. They represent, we are told, “two distinct types of thought.” In the one “the Parousia is conceived after the analogy of the contemporary Jewish Apocalypses”: in the other “the Parousia is rather the completion of an order of things already existing.” ‘‘The question naturally presents itself as to which of these two types most

* A Greek word meaning “the coming,” or Qs, ¢é.g,,in 2 Cor. x, 10 and Phil. ii. 12) “the presence.” fairly represents the teaching of our Lord.” If to this question a clear answer can be given, all will be well. But the general result is that the confusion is due to “‘an imperfect apprehension by the disciples of the Master’s meaning.”!

The only certain thing, therefore, is the utter uncertainty that exists as to the truth upon this subject. Not a single statement in the New Testament relating to the future Coming is worthy of confidence. And as the New Testament writers may not be trusted on this most vital issue, no clear-headed, sensible person will give implicit belief to their words respecting any of the transcendental doctrines of Christianity. Faith is impossible. Agnosticism becomes the only rational attitude of mind.

But this does not solve the difficulty. How, then, are all these conflicting statements to be explained? Now what would be the thought of one who tried to reconcile the prescriptions of some eminent physician, and then denounced him because the effort failed? Such a genius

t The alternative, we are told, would be “to believe that He, who in all other respects possessed an insight so much clearer than His contemporaries, should, in the matter of eschatology alone, have had nothing new to contribute.” The italics are mine, and they are designed to call attention to the manner in which some men dare to speak of their Divine Lord.

would not be more unintelligent than are these exponents of “the best and latest scholarship.” Prescriptions differ because the cases to which they apply are different. And the predictions of the Parousza differ for a like reason.

The Bible teems with prophecies and promises relating to earth, which still await fulfilment. And not one of these shall fail. God has not ‘“‘cast away His people whom He foreknew.” Israel’s rejected Messiah is to return; and “they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and mourn.” Meanwhile this Gentile dispensation has intervened; for Israel’s temporary loss is our eternal gain. And God has purposes for earth that reach beyond a gathered Church and a restored nation. ‘The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord”: this is not a rhetorical shriek, but a Divine prophecy. ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven” is not a day-dream of pious fools, but an inspired prayer for the realisation of a Divine purpose plainly revealed in Scripture. This very earth, so cursed and blighted by human sin, shall yet be the scene of a display of Divine power and goodness, bringing glory to God and blessing to mankind.

Mingling with these manifold displays of grace there will be sessions of judgment. And all are included in “the doctrine of the Parousia.” For every purpose of God, whether of judgment or of grace, is headed up in Christ; and therefore in the unfolding of these purposes there will be many manifestations of Christ. And while the Higher Criticism, in keeping with its persistent ignorance of Divine truth, takes all these many Scriptures, and throwing them into “hotch-pot” (as the lawyers would say), parades the resulting mass of confusion and error and folly as the outcome of superior enlightenment, the spiritual Christian will seek humbly and reverently to “sort” each of these Divine prophecies (as Lord Bacon puts it) “with the event fulfilling the same,” assigning to each its right place in the grand scheme of revelation.!

And that phase of Evangelicalism which shares the ignorance of the critics leaves the Bible an easy prey to their attacks. If the Christian neglects the Bible he cannot be “ready at every

* There is nothing exceptional about this “Parousia” article. On the contrary, it is a fair specimen of the pompous pedantry of book-scholarship, combined with a special type of ignorance characteristic of writers of this school. I use the word “ignorance” deliberately, for while they pose as the apostles of a new enlightenment in the exposition of the New Testament, their writings give proof that, as already urged, they are ignorant of “the word of the beginning of Christ” — the very language in which the book is written. point.” The “doctrine of the types,” for instance, is not an abstruse branch of study which, like a “special subject” in a school curriculum, may safely be ignored. It bears upon the most elementary truths.

Many years ago I was present at a conference convened to consider what people call “the simple Gospel.” Among the clergymen who took part in the discussion there were two of considerable note as teachers. Before half an hour elapsed one of them had practically unfurled the banner of Calvinism, and the other that of Arminianism. According to the one, Christ has borne the sins of His people; and though the Gospel is to be preached to all, salvation is only for the elect. According to the other, Christ has borne the sins of the whole world, and the doom of the impenitent will be due to their rejection of the Gospel.

Now both these positions cannot be right, and yet both can appeal to numerous passages of the New Testament which seem to support them. Where then are we to find the key to the enigma? The typology of the Pentateuch is the Divine picture alphabet which God has given to enable us to spell out these truths; and if, whether from carelessness or arrogance, we neglect it, we

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are sure to fall into,error. Calvinism assumes that the sin-offering exhausts the doctrine of the Gospel. But the sin-offering is only one of many kindred types, and all are needed to unfold in its fulness the sacrifice of Christ. True it is that the sin-offering was only for the redeemed people; but it was not by the sin-offering that they obtained redemption. When we speak of Christ’s bearing our sins, we use a figurative expression; but the figure is not rhetorical but typical, and the sin-offering is the type which explains it. Therefore it is that Scripture never speaks of Christ’s “bearing the sins of the world.” He is ‘‘the propitzatzon for the sins of the whole world;” and forgiveness of sins is to be preached to all, for ‘“He gave Himself a ransom for all;”! He came to be “the Saviour of the world.” 2

But what of the Baptist’s testimony, ‘‘ Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world”?3 I do not forget it. But in the accuracy of Scripture language there is a definite difference between “bearing the sins of the world,” and “taking away the sin of the world.”

“What hair-splitting!” some one will here exclaim. Yes; in attacking or perverting Scrip-

= Tim. il. 6.? 1 John iv. 14. 3 John i. 29.

0 ee Seture, attention to the minutest and most trivial points is “Higher Criticism”; but in the defence of Scripture it is hyper-criticism! The special truth of the sin-offering is the identification of the offerer with the victim. Substitution is but a half-truth. But there can be no identification with Christ until we receive the Gospel. Then it is, and not till then, that we become one with Him. And if one with Him, His death is our death, and we can adopt the words, “His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree.”

This is the language of the sin-offering. But in the Passover, by which redemption was obtained, there was no laying on of hands, no previous identification of the sinner with the victim. The victim died for the sinner’s sins, but it was by thesprinkling of its blood that the sinner obtained the benefit of the sacrifice. The Gospel by which we are saved is that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” and faith is the counterpart of the sprinkling of the blood.!

The sin-offering typified Christ’s bearing the

t Dean Alford explains John i. 29 by reference directly to Isa. liii. 7, and presumably to the sin-offering. But the bracketing of the slaughtered lamb with the shorn sheep in the prophecy clearly proves that the words do not refer to the offerings, but present the Messiah as the innocent and uncomplaining victim of the violence of men. Moreover the word there rendered

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sins of His people. But redemption involves a larger question than this. For man is not merely a committer-of-sins, but a sinner in a deeper sense. He belongs to a sinful race. I am not discussing the philosophy of sceptical expositors, but the plain teaching of Scripture. ‘ Through one trespass the judgment is unto all men to condemnation.”! Not that all men shall be in fact condemned, for the believer ‘‘ shall not come into condemnation” ;? but this is the scope and tendency of the judgment. And ‘Even so, through one righteous act,3 the free gift is unto all men to justification of life.” Not that all are justified, but that this is the scope and tendency of the grace. Words could not teach more plainly that the death of Christ is as far-reaching as the sin of Adam. By that death He has taken away the sin of the world, and God has reconciled the world to Himself.4

With the critics the types of the Pentateuch are but a part of ‘the priestly code,” which was

“slaughter” is not a sacrificial term. It is never used of killing for sacrifice; never at all in the Pentateuch, save in Gen. -xliii. 16. And the word translated “laid on” in verse 6 is never once used in connection with the offerings or sacrifices.

* Rom. v. 18.? John v. 24.

3 Accaitwua — “an amendment of a wrong; hence, judgment, punishment” (Liddell and Scott). 4 2 Cor. v. 19.

based on the success or failure (I know not which) of the ministry of the prophets. They have no Divine significance whatever. But with the intelligent Christian these types are “the word of the beginning of Christ.” He turns to the New Testament to find the doctrine relating to each one of them, and he turns back to the Pentateuch, as to a key-picture, to make sure that he has overlooked nothing in the doctrinal teaching of Christianity. If, for example, as we have seen, he reads of Christ as a Sin-bearer, he studies the Sin-offering; if he reads of the “lamb” of our redemption, the Passover; if of the blood of the New Covenant by which we are sanctified, and of which the cup of the Lord’s Supper is the sign and emblem, then the twenty-fourth chapter of Exodus unfolds its depth of meaning.!

These paragraphs are humbly offered as instances of true criticism in contrast with the criticisms of the critics. Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. And in such proofs of the absolute accuracy and hidden unity of Scripture, the Christian finds overwhelming cumulative evidence of its Divine origin and authority.

* See The Buddha of Christendom, ch. xii.