Church Doctrine, Bible Truth – Chapter 1 (Part 2): The Scripture Gospel (cont’d)

We now come to the Epistles. The first of these in order in our Bibles, and the most important of all from the nature of its contents, is the Epistle to the Romans.

This Epistle begins with an enunciation of the Gospel exactly similar to those which we have found in the historical part of the New Testament: “The Gospel of God, concerning His Son Jesus Christ, which was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” (Rom. i. 1.)

But in this Epistle we have the Apostle practically applying his “Gospel” to the consolation and assurance of his converts, and so we have the Gospel as applied by God’s Holy Spirit to the assurance and comfort of the individual; and we find that it is still represented as consisting in the record of the same outward facts, and not as so much inward experience, or abstract declarations of the love of God, or of the all-sufficiency of the work of Christ. For instance, in applying the fact that Abraham was justified by faith to the present assurance of the Roman Christians, St. Paul writes, “It was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.” (Rom. iv. 23‒25.)

Let the reader mark these words. The Apostle hero asserts that righteousness is imputed to a man, not when he believes that his sins are forgiven—not when he believes that he is personally justified and accepted—not when he realises that Christ died for him in particular,—but when he believes that God the Father raised up God the Son from the dead. So at least asserts the Apostle. Whether circumstances require that the strict meaning of his words should be modified I do not stop to inquire.

Again, we find similar words in the tenth chapter of this Epistle: “The word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Rom x. 9.)

Similarly St. Peter says, “You, who by Him do believe in God that raised Him from the dead, and gave Him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God.” (1 Peter i. 21.)

Again, when St. John would fill his converts with fulness of joy, he writes, not of God’s secret election, not of individual assurance, but of his own personal witness to the truth of the fact of the Incarnation. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life … that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, and these things write we unto you that your joy may be full.” (1 John i. 1‒4.)

In accordance with all this, St. Paul, in declaring to the Corinthians the Gospel which he preached, and in which his converts stood, sets forth to them first of all that which he had also received, how that “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Cor. xv. 1‒4.)

Such is the aspect under which the Gospel is presented to us in the Scriptures.

Provisions which the church makes for insuring the setting forth of the Gospel under this Scripture aspect of it

What provision does the Church make that this “Gospel of the kingdom” should be set before her children under the form in which it always appears in Scripture? What means does she employ in order that it should have the same prominent place in her system which it undoubtedly occupies in the Bible?

Very remarkable indeed is the provision which the Church makes for this, for it is by far the most prominent and noticeable thing in her service book. She provides for the setting forth of the Gospel under this its one Scripture aspect by embodying it in her yearly round of Fast and Festival. She commemorates the great facts of Redemption on her great days of religious observance.

On these days she sets forth the great features of the Gospel rather as events or facts than as doctrines. She makes these days great days, and she does her best to invest them with a sanctity above that of other days, and this according to their relative importance.

Unquestionably, the Resurrection of Jesus as the seal of His Messiahship and God’s own assurance of the full efficacy of His Son’s Death is the first event in the New Testament, and so Easter Day is the Queen of Days in the Church’s year.

Next to it are Christmas Day, Good Friday, Ascension Day, and Whit Sunday, as setting forth the Incarnation and Birth, the Atoning Death, and Exaltation of Jesus, and the Fulfilment of the Promise of the Father. Then come Advent, Epiphany, and certain Saints’ Days.

And on various other Sundays, from Christmas to Trinity, we have certain great facts or leading events in the Saviour’s life. On the festival of the Epiphany we have His adoration by the Magi as the firstfruits of the Gentile world; on the first Sunday after the Epiphany we have the one incident recorded in Scripture of the early youth of the Saviour; on the first Sunday in Lent His Temptation by the devil; and on the first Sunday after Easter the most remarkable of His appearances after His Resurrection.

A week of sacred service is given to the events immediately preceding His Crucifixion, and to the circumstances of the Crucifixion itself, such as His entrance into Jerusalem, His anointing for His Burial, Institution of the Eucharist, Betrayal, Agony, Condemnation, Scourging, Crowning with thorns, Death and Burial.

Now I do not merely say that it is Scriptural to fasten these events on these days, and to associate as far as possible the day with the deed; I go much further, and say that no form of public prayer or liturgy, or any directory of public worship, or any mode of conducting public worship without form or liturgy, can be accounted Scriptural unless it similarly recognises these days and seasons, for no other way is now possible of setting forth in the public services of the Church that historical aspect of the Gospel which, as we have seen, is the only one contained in Scripture. No other way, I say, is now possible except the one which the Catholic Church has adopted from the very first, and which by its universal adoption or recognition, has forestalled every other means of accomplishing this end.

It is not as if either Christendom, or any Churches or sects in Christendom, could now meet together and strike out some new mode. The mode has been struck out and determined on long ago, so that the earliest Christian histories exhibit it in full operation; the very earliest fact in ecclesiastical history being a dispute respecting the time of observing Easter.

Of course, other plans of setting forth in public worship the historical form in which God has embodied the Gospel are conceivable, but, owing to the course which events have taken since the Reformation, they arc not possible.

The sects who at the time of the Reformation flung to the winds the observance of Easter and Christmas, equally flung to the winds the great outward facts of Redemption as the evidences of God’s goodwill to the sinner, and substituted for them the evidence of inward personal experiences. I do not, of course, for a moment mean to say that they denied the facts, but they substituted other considerations for the evangelical application of these facts. They would seek to inspire Christian joy, for instance, not, as St. John did, by the direct application of such a fact as the Incarnation (1 John i. 1‒4), but by such doctrines as effectual calling, sensible conversion, imputed righteousness, and final perseverance.

For ever blessed be God’s Holy Name, when He brought about the Reformation of the Church of England, He so ordered it that this recognition of the historical form of the Gospel which pervaded the unreformed service books was not cast aside, but preserved in its fulness, and we enjoy it now in our yearly round of sacred Fast and Festival.

By the teaching of Collect, Epistle, Gospel, proper preface in Holy Communion, and proper Lessons on various days of the Church’s year, we soberly and reverently connect the very passage of time with the great facts of Redemption. The year in its silent course preaches the very Gospel of Scripture. Unless we had this yearly teaching of Gospel facts, our service books would not be Scriptural, if by “Scriptural” we mean in accordance with the teaching of Scripture, for Scripture never brings before us the Gospel of Christ, except as the record of certain facts respecting Him.

Scripture reveals to us the mind of God towards us, not in abstract doctrine, or treatise, or essay, but in the record of facts, and these facts the Incarnation, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Saviour. So that it is as strictly in accordance with Scripture to keep Christmas, Epiphany, and Good Friday, though there is not one word in Scripture respecting the keeping of these days, as it is Scriptural to teach in a Sunday School, though there is not one word in Scripture about such an institution as a Sunday School. The keeping of these days with special Lessons and Gospels and Psalms is our mode of assigning to certain facts, which manifest God’s love to the world that exceeding prominence which we find assigned to them in God’s word, just as they who teach in a Sunday School do it as the most feasible mode of fulfilling the plain Scripture duty of instructing in religion the children of those who, from want of inclination or ability, do not instruct them themselves. So that when other bodies of Christians turn round upon the Church, and ask her reasons for keeping certain days of observance which are not mentioned in Scripture, she must, if she is faithful, say to them, “It is true I have special prayers and special instruction for these days. It is my mode—a mode handed down to me from the time of the Apostles—of falling in with the mind of the Spirit as to the form in which the Gospel is to be presented to man. The Spirit who inspired the Scriptures has in these Scriptures wrapped up Salvation in certain facts, and made the Gospel of Salvation to be the preaching of these facts. Do you who question me make any attempt to guarantee to those who put themselves under your guidance that they should have the Gospel presented to them in that particular form in which it appears in Holy Writ? Have you any plan whatsoever for effecting this? I, by celebrating the great facts of Redemption on certain days, do my best to insure that the order which I find in Scripture is adhered to. I have a plan to insure as far as possible adherence to the teaching of the Spirit on this momentous matter. What plan have you?”

I shall now make one or two observations on the foregoing matter.

In the first place, it is quite evident that no setting forth of certain abstract doctrines, no matter how true or needful, can, if we submit to be guided by Scripture, be substituted for the facts which are set forth in Scripture as the Gospel. Take the Passion of Christ, that is, His Betrayal, Agony, Desertion, Denial by Peter, Crucifixion, and Death. The doctrine dependent upon these facts is that of the Atonement. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.”

Now it may be said that the outward circumstances of the Passion of Christ, precious though they are, are only the shell or husk of a hidden reality, which reality is the Atonement; so we must pass over them, and fix our attention on the Atonement alone.

But to do so, however plausible, would be to the last degree unscriptural, if “Scriptural” means to be in accordance with that which is contained in Scripture; for the Spirit has caused the inspired writers to dwell much on the Sufferings of the Saviour. He has also given to us the blessed result of these Sufferings in the reconciliation of God to man. But the comparative space in the sacred volume occupied by these two things is the reverse of what many would have expected. Instead of little being said about the Atoning Sufferings, and much about the doctrine of Atonement, little (comparatively speaking) is said about Atonement, and much about the Sufferings which purchased it.

Scripture teaches very distinctly the doctrine of vicarious Atonement; but if it be the one great intention of God in the inspiration of Holy Scripture to lead us to trust in His dear Son, and if He Who made our souls knows best how to lead them to exercise the truest trust in Christ, then, so far as we can gather from the contents of Holy Scripture, that purpose of God is most effectually accomplished, not by our ignoring the Sufferings in order to dwell upon the abstract doctrine of Atonement, but by our assigning to the actual Sufferings of the God-man tho exceeding prominence which God has assigned to them in His word.

For anything that we know, the exclusive contemplation of the doctrines apart from the facts of Redemption may nourish a Christian character very different from that which God desires to see in His children. The Christian character which has been formed by the exclusive contemplation of the doctrines usually (and rightly) called Evangelical, is certainly not humble, not forbearing, not forgiving, not peaceable, not childlike, not unobtrusive.

There is very deep instruction to be gathered from the fact that the most decided doctrinal statements respecting the vicarious nature of Christ’s Death are thrown in by an inspired Apostle, almost incidentally, in a passage in which the writer is exhorting slaves to be “subject to their masters with all fear,” and to “take it patiently,” if they “suffer wrongfully,” because in this they are called to follow Him Who, whilst He was “bearing our sins in His own body on the tree,” left us an example of not reviling again when we are reviled. (1 Pet. ii. 18‒25.)

If in the preceding pages I have given a fair representation of what is in the Bible and in the Prayer-book, then the Prayer-book is incomparably more Scriptural than such documents as the “Westminster Confession,” or Calvin’s “Institutes;” and this quite apart from the truth or falsehood of any particular doctrinal statements contained in these books, for in these books Christianity is cast into a different form altogether from what we find it in the Bible.

In Scripture, what is now called “doctrine” almost invariably comes in incidentally.^[1] It is almost inextricably mixed up with narrative, history, and practical teaching. It is almost always suggested by circumstances which must be understood and taken into full account if we would ascertain the exact view which the writer himself took of the doctrine.

Thus, to take an example, the abstract doctrine of Election is never discussed in Scripture. It always appears either in connexion with the choosing of the Apostles, or with the casting away of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles.

Of course certain Scripture texts can be adduced for each doctrinal statement in the books which I have alluded to; but these texts multiplied tenfold would not make such books Scriptural, for they would still fail to present Christianity to us under the form in which God has presented it. Scripture is not a collection of texts arranged in order after the manner of Bishop Gastrell’s “Institutes,” or Chalmers’s “Scripture References.” Its order is of an immeasurably higher character, and betokens some far deeper design on God’s part than to furnish us with a magazine of texts wherewith to support some systematic view of His truth.

Notes

1. With one notable exception: the doctrine of the Incarnation and Deity of our Lord; which is stated dogmatically in John i.; 1 John i.; Hebrews i. ↑