Truth Magazine

By Weldon E. Warnock

“Hopelessness, however, is a condition a .man cannot for long endure. Man will have his objects of hope or he will invent them anew.”(1) Modernism, therefore, rejecting and repudiating the hope of immortality, invented its own hope of a better world, here. Modernism strives toward an improved social order that will bring earthly happiness. It seeks an earthly utopia and panacea through humanistic philosophy. This is the hope of Modernism.

Humanism is “a philosophy of Joyous service for the greater good of all ‘humanity in this natural world and according to the methods of reason and democracy.”(2) Hence, we can readily see that the aim of humanism is for man’s greater good in this world, reached by human reasoning. Attitudes that reflect the humanistic hope, which is the hope of the Modernist, are seen in the following quotations:

An Earthly Hope

Corliss Lamont, who taught at Columbia University; said, “The Humanist philosophy persistently strives to remind men that their only home is in the mundane world. There is no use in our searching elsewhere for happiness and fulfillment, for there is no place else to go …. If this life is our sole opportunity to make our actions count on behalf of the social good, to contribute significantly to the more lasting human values, and to leave a name behind us that will be honored and beloved by the community . . . as for the future, it is up to the human race to work out its own destiny upon this globe.”(3)

Walter Rauschenbush, a professor of church history at Rochester Theological Seminary at the turn of the 20th century, stated, “The purpose of all that Jesus said and did and hoped to do was always the social redemption of the entire life of the human race on earth …. Christianity set out with a great social ideal. The live substance of the Christian religion was the hope of seeing a divine social order established on earth.”(4)

William Hamilton, a radical, “God is dead,” Modernist, taught, “. . . the dominant mood of modern culture is optimistic and hopeful about its possibilities. The future is open and malleable to positive hopes. The hope that all things can be changed for the better is becoming contagious again, symbolized by Kennedy’s `New Frontier’ and Johnson’s `Great Society.’ Pessimism is now out of date, culturally and theologically.”(5)

Friedrich Nietzsche, (1844-1900), a German philosopher, said, “The task confronting enlightened men today is therefore the complete ‘transvaluation of all values.’ Instead of hiding his head in celestial sands, man must learn to hold up his head, his `terrestrial head,’ and to affirm rather than deny himself. Instead of listening for the voice of an imaginary God, he should listen to the pure and upright voice of the `healthy body, perfect and square built,’ and affirm the powers and potentialities of man himself.”(6)

These men, not believing in or looking at things eternal, sought to make the most of this earthly, mundane existence. As a Virginia preacher said, “We’re interested in human life and destiny on earth” (The Social Gospel, a tract by Harris J. Dark, p. 7). What else can the Modernists be interested in when they do not believe in heaven, hell or the second coming of Christ?

Pessimism of Modernism

Though the Modernist pursues happiness and contentment through the hope of Humanism, his dream is shattered when he awakes to face reality. Looking at world conditions, such as population explosion, famine, oppression, inflation, wars, etc., where is all the optimism about the envisioned world utopia? They have been chasing the rainbow, looking for the proverbial pot of gold. Left shipwrecked and marooned by the futile hope of human wisdom, the Modernist echoes the pessimism of those of yesteryear who put their trust in man instead of God. Listen to the statements of renowned men who had lost hope of tomorrow and immortality.

Voltaire, brilliantly gifted and highly acclaimed by the world, said at the end of his life, “Strike out a few sages, and the crowd of human beings is nothing but a horrible assemblage of unfortunate criminals, and the globe contains nothing but corpses. I tremble to have to complain once more of the Being of beings, in casting an attentive eye over this terrible picture. I wish I had never been born . . . . The box of Pandora is the most beautiful fable of antiquity. Hope was at the bottom.”(7)

David Strauss, a radical German theologian of the 19th century, stated, “In the enormous machine of the universe amid wheel and hiss of its jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening clash of its stamps and hammers, in the midst of this whole terrific commotion, man finds himself placed with no security for a moment, that a wheel might not seize and render him, or a hammer crash him to pieces.”(8)

Bertrand Russell, an outstanding mathematician of the 20th century, said, “That man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noon-day brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the sotac system. . .”(9)

Will Durant, philosopher, historian and professor for many years at Columbia University, declared, “God, who was once the consolation of our brief life, and our refuge in bereavement and suffering, has apparently vanished from the scene; no telescope, no microscope discovers him. Life has become in that total perspective which is philosophy, a fitful pullulation of human insects on the earth, a planetary eczema that may soon be cured; nothing is certain in it except defeat and death-a sleep from which, it seems, there is no awakening …. Faith and hope disappear; doubt and despair are the order of the day . . . . “(10)

What a bleak and gloomy future the skeptic offers with nothing but a momentary existence between “the cold and barren peaks of two eternities” (Ingersoll). As Ingersoll viewed it, every life, regardless of how rich with love and how filled with joy, would, at its close, become a tragedy, “as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.”(11)

The Christian’s Hope

Thank God that in the midst of pessimism and despair, hope shines forth-a hope that is both steadfast and sure (Heb. 6:19). This hope that we have in Christ (Col. 1:27) enables us to sing with exuberance, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine,” or “There’s a land that is fairer than day, And by faith we can see it afar, For the Father waits over the way, To prepare us a dwelling place there.”

The Christian’s hope looks with great expectation to the following things:

(1) The appearing of the Lord. Listen to Paul: “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13). A cardinal doctrine of the New Testament is the second coming of Christ for the consummation of God’s scheme of redemption. Jesus’ coming for us points our minds upward, beyond this world and life. We are not alone in the universe. God is there and all is well.

(2) The resurrection of the dead. Though the Christian at death moves out of his earthly tabernacle (2 Pet. 1:14), he knows that he will move into a new house, a house not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1-4).

The resurrected body will be a spiritual and immortal body (1 Cor. 15:42-54) that will neither be afflicted with disease, nor grow old by the passing of the ages or be subject to the enemy of death. These earthly sorrows will be gone forever.

Our hope is vividly stated by Paul in 1 Thess. 4:13-18 when he declares that God will bring with him at His second advent those who sleep in Jesus and the dead bodies will arise victorious over the grave and meet the Lord in the air, along with those who are alive at his coming. This was the hope that Paul preached, and for which he was called in question by the Jewish council (Acts 23:6).

(3) Eternal life. The reality of eternal life will be fully experienced when all of God’s people are received into that eternal home, clothed in their glorified bodies. This new life, eternal life, has to do particularly with the quality of life and not the duration of life, although life will be forever.

We are introduced in Rom. 2:7 to the kind of life that eternal life entails. Paul said, “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life.” For every saved person, heaven will be a place where he will have glory, honor and immortality. This is the quality of eternal life.

Paul, a man who had laid hold on hope in Christ (Heb. 6:18), wrote, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Tit. 1:2). “That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Tit. 3:7). Being justified by God’s grace, and assured by God’s promise, we live with full expectation of life everlasting. What a contrast with the Modernist who sees nothing ahead but gloom and darkness.

(4) To be like Christ. When Jesus comes, we shall be like him. John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:2-3).

Paul writes that when Jesus returns, he shall “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). The “vile body” is the body of the present state, subject to diseases, infirmities and death. This body will be changed into a body that will be perfectly adapted to the glorious world where Jesus now resides. This is our hope.

(5) For salvation. “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thess. 5:8). The Wycliffe Bible Commentary states that the hope of salvation is “the eager expectation of being rescued from God’s final wrath (1:10) and destined for endless glory and fellowship with God.” This is the salvation that is “nearer than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11). No wonder the Bible speaks of hope as “that blessed hope” (Tit. 2:13).

In conclusion, the Christian’s hope is laid up for him in heaven (Col. 1:5). In other words, the things hoped for are reserved in heaven. As Peter expressed it, “To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4).

The Christian’s eternal welfare is just as secure as the integrity of the Lord. God says there is a place reserved for us and we believe it. On this our hope is based. We are preserved by “the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:5).

Truth Magazine XXII: 42, pp. 682-684
October 26, 1978

1. Carl E. Braaten & Robert W. Jenson, The Futurist Option, p. 48.

2. Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism, p. 9.

3. Ibid., pp. 12, 91.

4. Walter Rauschenbush, Christianizing the Social Order, pp. 67, 69.

5. The Futurist Option, op. cit.

6. Paul Schilling, God in an age of Atheism, p. 35.

7. James D. Bales, Atheism’s Faith and Fruits, p. 77.

8. Ibid., p. 78.

9. Ibid., pp. 79-80.

10. Wilbur M. Smith, Therefore Stand, p. 198.

11. Atheism’s Faith and Fruits, op. cit., p. 76.

By C. G. “Golly” Caldwell, III

“Modernism” has been variously defined or described depending upon the context of the discussion in which the word is used. Classical “modernism” is the radical, theological liberalism of the past two centuries centering in what is called “higher Biblical criticism.” IL is basically philosophical and results in moving the adherent away from belief in the existence of a personal God, acceptance of the Bible as a direct revelation of the mind of that personal God to mankind, the concept of religion’s resulting from revealed truth, faith in the supernatural character of Biblical events (such as the virgin birth, miracles, and bodily resurrection of Jesus), etc.

Modernism exalts humanism, seeking answers in the mind of man rather than in the revelation and power of Almighty God. It finds the source of religion in man’s social fears and needs. It looks upon the Bible as the product of man’s reasoning and literary effort. It denies all aspects of faith which cannot be understood through natural science and philosophy.

The Central Figure: Immanuel Kant

The so-called “watershed” of classical modernism is the influence of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). There were two primary philosophical streams flowing in Kant’s day. The first was “Idealism.” It came out of the rationalistic thinking of men like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, etc., and resulted in a revival of the Platonic romanticism and in mysticism. The second was “Empiricism.” It was the thinking of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and the Deists. This kind of scepticism resulted in a kind of Aristotelian realism. David Hume (1711-1776) is probably the most important of all these men to our study. Hume was a Scottish skeptic who reacted against the idealistic rationalism of the day. His significance in relation to the development of modernism is seen both in his denial that the design of the universe necessarily implies a personal Designer and in his attack upon miracles on the ground that the evidence rests upon human testimony. Hume said that it is always more reasonable to reject testimony concerning the extraordinary than to believe it. Hume espoused his views in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) and in an essay entitled “Miracles” (1748).

Immanuel Kant faced the problem of harmonizing the rationalism in the idealistic stream and the empiricism of the Enlightenment. The formulation of his synthesis is found in his Critique of Pure Reason. “Reason” is the principle function in the acquisition of knowledge, Kant said. Moral action is determined by the sense of duty in man and nothing is moral in and of itself apart from this necessity. The logical conclusion is that all knowledge arises from sense experience and, therefore, God cannot be known from any rational proof. Kant argued that God may only be known through practical reason of moral law which forces us to accept the highest good in life. Religion, therefore, results not from revelation of the mind of God either through direct confrontation or inspired writings. God is unknowable and, therefore, religion results from man. The life of Christ upon the earth was also virtually meaningless to Kant because religion is attained through man’s reason, not through revelation of God’s nature in the incarnate Word (Son). These views were also expressed in Kant’s Religion Within The Limits of Mere Reason (1793).

Kant, of course, did not resolve forever the great philosophical questions of the centuries, but he did leave his mark on the three major directions of religious study usually identified with classical modernism. These three streams flowing out of the “watershed” were Idealism, Subjectivism, and Materialism.

Idealism

Idealism did not die with Kant. Especially influenced by the Romantic movement, it appeared again in Fichte and Hegel. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) turned away from both subjectivism (that truth is produced in the individual’s mind) and realistic materialism (that truth exists independent of the mind). Hegel was a German idealist who saw religion as a way in which man pictures truth. Truth to Hegel is knowledge of ultimate reality and God is simply the process of world history unfolding itself. Hegel considered the state to be a spiritual organism which he identified as the “World Spirit.” Each particular generation produces a people, he said, who reflect a more advanced stage of reason and thus more clearly reflect the “World Spirit.” Although Hegel was not strictly a nationalist, his ideas produced a type of thinking (the dialectical process of reasoning) which was later adapted to Marxist philosophy. His emphasis upon “pure reason” reflects the influence of Kant.

A prime example of the influence of Gegel on the destructive Biblical criticism of the New Testament is found in the person of David Friedrich Strauss (18081874). In Life of Jesus, Critically Examined, this German theologian applied the concept that there truly was a historical Jesus but that the gospel writers had so interspersed the record with myths about Christ that the miracles and fulfilled prophetic statements were not dependable. Actually Strauss went further saying that these portions were merely what the people had believed on the basis of preconceived ideas and preconditioning rather than the result of actual fact. Christianity, he said, in its most pure form is the true “World Spirit” or absolute spirit about which Hegel had written. Strauss wrote another book entitled Christliche Glaubenslehre in which he affirmed that Biblical teaching cannot be harmonized with modern scientific and philosophic knowledge. He later produced a second volume on the life of Jesus which again denied the miracles and supernatural nature of the Lord. He proposed a religion of man based on the study of the philosophies of Plato and Hegel rather than a basically Biblical religion.

Another New Testament critic was Albrecht Benjamin Ritschl (1822-1889). Ritschl claimed that the deity of Christ was not substantiated by fact but by the faith of the early Christians. Ritschl made a great distinction between judgments of fact based on verifiable history and judgments of value based on “Christian experience.” He denied that mysteries included in the religion of God can be resolved by metaphysical, philosophical, or scientific means. The mysteries were unknowable and that was that. The existence of Christ, he believed, was a historical fact and it is known that Christ was the founder of the community of believers. Christ came to establish the kingdom of God. Man is to live morally and to serve the kingdom of God. Ritschl saw Christ’s death not as an effort to be a propitiation for man’s sins but as a moral effort to do his job which was to establish the kingdom. Religion, therefore, is social and Christ’s work was social. Our salvation is in being connected with the kingdom of God on earth in the community of believers. Roots of the social gospel concepts are always apparent in the study of modernism.

Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) wrote a history of the search for the true Jesus by men like Strauss and Ritschl. In his The Quest For The Historical Jesus (1906), Schweitzer drew his own conclusion that the historical Jesus was so different from the one revealed in the New Testament by the men who loved him that it is most difficult to really know him. He said that Jesus tried to force the coming of the kingdom of God by his radical activities in Jerusalem and ultimately by giving his own life as the result of the fact that he had been rejected. Schweitzer saw Jesus’ radical ethical demands in terms of the fact that there was to be only a short time to live before the coming of the glorious earthly kingdom. Paul’s teachings on morals are also to be explained that way. Schweitzer believed in a system of ethics as a necessary aspect of life but not the radical “interim ethic” of Jesus’ personal teachings. That type of thinking is seen in such books as Joseph Fletcher’s damnable Situation Ethics (1966).

The influence of Hegelian philosophy may also be seen in the emregence of the “literary-historical school” of critical study of the Old Testament. Although Julius Wellhausen (JEDP theory of Old Testament Pentateuch interpretation), the earlier writings of Abraham Kuenen(1828-1891) stated all the themes later developed by K. H. Graf and Wellhausen. Kuenen wrote The Hexateuch (1886) and The Religion of Israel (1873).

Subjectivism

To return to Kant again, the emphasis upon man’s “sense of ought” or moral duty led to the religious philosophy which centers in subjective feeling. The flow we will examine is from Kant’s “ought” . . . to Schliermacher’s “feeling” . . . to Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” . . . to Tillich and Bultmann’s existentialism . . . to Bruner and Barth’s “neo-orthodoxy.”

Friedrich Schleiermaeher (1768-1834) sought to find another alternative to what he considered to be the fallacy of revealed truth and the.fallacy of natural theology. He claimed in The Christian Faith (1821) that religion is based on true religious experience. Religion is not founded upon knowledge nor upon activity. It is based on one’s awareness of God or his feeling of dependency upon God. Sin is the effort of man to become independent of God. The problem to Schleiermacher was that man must be conscious of his need. My problem with Schleiermacher is that man’s dependence upon God is neither based on rational evidence nor written revelation informing him of the will of God. Religion is totally subjective in Schleiermacher’s view; the spiritual life is dependent upon one’s own inner consciousness.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a Danish philosopher whose early writings were centered around explanations of life from a very melancholy point of view [cf. Fear and Trembling (1843) and The Concept of Dread(1844)]. After 1845, he wrote attacking formalized “Christianity” in the following works: Works of Love (1847), Christian Discourses (1848), and Training in Christianity (1850). To Kierkegaard, man and his world are altogether other than the realm of God and his operation. He also separated historical knowledge of Christ from faith and suggested that man cannot really know eternal things apart from a separate act of faith without evidences. His work served as a basic philosophy for existentialism but he was more concerned with the transcendence of God than with the existence of man. He attacked Hegel’s claims concerning the role of God in man’s affairs because they depersonalized God and because they involved God in this sphere. Kierkegaard rejected all the traditional arguments for the existence of God affirming instead the existence of God solely from the believer’s need and his subjective faith. The “leap of faith” concept is associated with these affirmations.

In existentialism man is asked to search for the origins and purposes of his existence. He makes his own existence by creating his own values. There is no personal, external, authoritative guide. Rudolph Bultmann (born in 1884) represents this movement in Die Geschichte Der Synoptischen Tradition with his appeal for the demythologizing of the New Testament. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) was a German forced by circumstances to come to America. He taught at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, Harvard, and the University of Chicago. He tied Eastern thought to Kant arguing for the relationship between philosophy and theology. God, he said, is the “Ground of Being” and man is the “ultimate concern.” Tillich’s philosophy synthesized with some of the materialism we will discuss is the basis of the “God is dead” movement enunciated by Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton (although Nietzsche apparently coined the phrase before the turn of the century).

At this point we must examine the misnamed “neoorthodoxy,” which I am going to call with others the “new liberalism.” Its two leading lights are Emil Brunner (18891966) who stressed the priority of revelation over human experience or natural reason in The Mediator (1927), theDivine Imperative (1932), and Revelation and Reason(1941), and Karl Barth (1886-1968). Barth proclaimed in Church Dogmatics a religion centered around Christ as the Word of God, Scripture as the revelation of that Word and evangelism as the effort to promote a Biblical statement of belief.

Be careful, however, before having read all that ungodly liberalism you fall into the trap of this supposed return to Scripture. Some of our young “scholars” have done just that. Barth was a Swiss theologian who studied under the great liberals of his day. He broke with “liberalism,” however, and became the leader of the Dialectical Theology (a system which sought to recover the reformation teachings). The “Dialectic” is that the religion of Christ contains a “No” (man cannot by human effort attain righteousness) and a “Yes” (God will provide a way of righteousness) and that the “No” is overcome by the “Yes” (God’s grace). Barth stressed the hiddenness of God, however, as Calvin and the reformers had not. He pressed the idea that God revealed Himself only in the person of Christ.

Barth reacted violently to the forms of natural theology which attempted to find God by means other than through the revelation of God through the person of Christ. To Barth, man was brought into partnership with God and sin is the attempt to break free from the grace God has given to him. Sin is not the violation of abstract law. To Barth, Christ was both the sinner and the redeemer for all men and, therefore, Barth almost took the universalist position. Barth expresses his positions in his commentary on Romans (1919).

Neo-orthodoxy is probably more dangerous to our brethren than any of the other systems we have discussed because of its supposed scripturalness. It is riddled with many of the liberal presuppositions, however, concerning the nature of God and the nature of man, and it is totally saturated with the reformation presuppositions of Calvin and others. It is filled with Biblical terminology but the Biblical words have been redefined.

Materialism

Philosophical thought swings back and forth from idealism to realism. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) reacting to Hegel’s idealism brought modernism into a materialistic stance for many leading theologians. Feuerbach published his Essence of Christianity in 1831. He argued that when we speak of religious truth, we are speaking of qualities possessed by man when he is measuring up to his ideals. Rationalism says that idealistic man is the originator of spiritual concepts including the concept of God’s existence itself. Whereas Hegel had his geist (World Spirit) which served as the ideal toward which man is reaching, Feuerbach inverted the process asserting that man simply projects God as he would have his god to be. In reality man does not need God. Once robbed of the necessity of God, reality suggests that we acknowledge that he does not exist.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857), author of Positive Philosophy (1830) and Subjective Synthesis (1856), working from Feuerbach’s lead established his scientific religion (positivism). Comte sought to deify humanity by asserting that the perfect society results from the exaltation of the human intellect. The higher power within us is self-love and exalted emotion. God does not exist, he said, apart from our ability to sense him and that is purely emotional.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) formed a psychological religion (psychologism). Freud was an Austrian Jew who thought of religion as a social phenomenon which proceeded from the psychological needs of the people. Fears and guilts led to the need for God, Freud said in Totem and Taboo. Karl Marx (1818-1883) who collaborated with Friedrich Engels to produce the Communist Manifesto brought these concepts to a kind of economic religion (socialism).

In theology proper, the brazen voice of Feuerbach’s influence was Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Nietzsche viewed man as possessing a kind of “super-nature” which resides within man but which must be achieved through self mastery. Man’s superiority does not come about as the result of his being made in the image of God but in his survival arid achievement. Nietzsche’s Antichrist was published in 1895. With Nietzsche, as with Comte, Freud, and Marx, “God is dead” because he never really existed except in the mind of man and because man now understands that, he does not need the “idea” of God any longer.

Obviously, a survey such as this leaves much which needs to be said. It is understood that what is said is obviously subjectively selected. The reader is directed to the works cited in the article or to critical studies on the men and their ideas if he is particularly interested in pursuing this history. We are not, however, recommending that you get all that interested except as you are confronted by specific problems which need concentrated attack. Philosophy has been a dead-end street through the ages because it seeks answers in the mind of men that only God can answer in his revealed word if they are to be answered at all. The general reader would better spend his time with his Bible.

Truth Magazine XXII: 40, pp. 643-646
October 12, 1978

By Doug Seaton

Barnabas was a faithful, enthusiastic, dedicated, Christian. He was a “good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith” (Acts 11:24). Shortly after Barnabas became a Christian he sold some land he owned and gave the money to the apostles for the aid of those in need (Acts 4:37). Barnabas had an active religion. There are many good things about Barnabas that we could emulate. We could emulate his giving, his courage to suffer, his faith, or even his dedication to friends. The trait of Barnabas that seems to stand out above all others was his ability to encourage others.

Barnabas encouraged many people. H-a encouraged Paul when the disciples in Jerusalem were afraid of him (Acts 9:27). Barnabas stood by and encouraged Mark when Paul did not want him to go on the second journey (Acts 15:37-38). Barnabas was sent by the church in Jerusalem to encourage the brethren at Antioch. When Barnabas arrived in Antioch he “was glad, and exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord” (Acts 11:23b).

The church needs men and women today that will encourage others. The church needs men that will encourage others by teaching sound doctrine, by living pure moral lives, and by their enthusiasm in doing the will of God. The church needs women who enjoy helping others, and women that enjoy teaching their children about God. The church also needs older Christians to teach the younger by word and example how important and gratifying it is to be a child of God. The church needs younger Christians that are unafraid to stand against immorality and ungodliness in the world today. Paul told Titus many of these same things 2,000 years ago. See Titus 2.

There are too many Christians walking around looking like they just lost their best friend. We need Christians to build us up and encourage us on the journey from earth to heaven. Are you an encouragement to others? If not, why not?

Truth Magazine XXII: 39, p. 636
October 5, 1978

By Mike Willis

Each of us owns a copy of a book which is known as the “Holy Bible.” Some of us have spent a considerable chunk of money in order to purchase a copy of the Bible. But, what for? Have we merely purchased a decorative book to lay on a coffee table? Have we purchased a color-coordinated piece to take to worship services with us? Or, have we a copy of the Bible for the express purpose of learning God’s revelation to man?

One wonders just which is the reason that people have a Bible when he- sees manifestations of the ignorance of the Bible among those purporting to be Christians. Large numbers of us could not name the books of the Old Testament. Others could not pick out the non-biblical book from the following list: Zechariah, Hezekiah, Zephaniah, Haggai and Malachi. Because of the vast amount of spiritual ignorance among us, the number of ashdodic phrases which we hear at worship services continues to grow. Someone says, “I am a Church of Christer” or “He is a Church of Christ preacher.” Such expressions manifest the influence of denominational expressions upon our own thought patterns.

The Privilege of Having A Bible

We need to consider the blessed privilege we have in being able to own and use a Bible. Many ages in the past were such that the average man could not afford to own a Bible; other ages made it a capital offense to own such a book. But we live in such an age that owning a Bible is something available to all of us. Yet, man takes this privilege for granted.

God has given us a revelation, not to benefit God, but to benefit man. God is not made better by giving to man a revelation. The entire purpose of God revealing Himself to man was to direct man in this life and to make it possible for him to live forever in heaven after death. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path” (Psa. 119:105). We need to meditate on the fact that our Bibles are given to us by God to meet our needs. Consequently, we need to treat the Bible with respect due to the fact that it is from God. We need to crave any knowledge which we can gain thereby. Like David, we should say, “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day” (Psa. 119:97). We need to personally learn God’s word and to labor to impart knowledge of God to others.

Our Moral Responsibility to Know God’s Word

Inasmuch as God has given a special revelation to man, He expects man not only to treat that revelation with respect but to know it. Man has made a moral decision when he decides not to study God’s word. The book of Hosea shows God’s attitude toward us when we allow ourselves to reject or neglect God’s law. The fourth chapter opens with God bringing a legal charge against Israel: “Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy (RIB: case at law; lawsuit) with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land” (4:1). There was no reason for Israel to lack knowledge of God; God had given a revelation to them. Yet, they had no appreciation for God’s law: “I have written to him the great things of my law, but they were counted as a strange thing” (8:12).

Instead of being disciples of the word of the Lord, the Israelites chased after the idols and committed spiritual adultery against the Lord. “They will not frame their doings to turn unto their God: for the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord” (5:4). Chasing after the idols and pursuing immorality, Israel had no use for God’s revealed word. Hence, the knowledge of the Lord passed out of the land. Consequently, the judgment of the Lord came upon Israel: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children” (4:6).

Seeing the attitude of God toward Israel for their allowing the revelation of God to be neglected and rejected, we should have no trouble understanding our need to constantly study God’s revealed word. God’s inspired revelation which was once given only to the Jews has now been directed to all men; we are possessors of divine revelation designed to give us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Tim. 3:16, 17; 2 Pet. 1:3-4). We stand in exactly the same position in this respect as Israel of old stood.

Lessons Taken From This Text

Understanding the fact that we possess a revelation just as Israel did and have a moral responsibility for learning and obeying that revelation just as Israel did, let us draw some lessons from this text:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou has forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children (4:6).

Consider the following thoughts based on these facts and this text:

1. True religion is based on knowledge of God’s word. Idolatry, superstition and modern denominationalism all thrive when people do not know the revealed word of God. Divine religion is based on the knowledge of God’s word; it cannot exist where men are ignorant of God’s word. Man must know the truth to be free from sin (Jn. 8:32). Saving faith comes through the hearing of the word of God (Rom. 10:17). Hence, the Christian religion is a taught religion (Jn. 6:44-45) and cannot exist where men are ignorant of God’s word.

Furthermore, a religion which is based on emotionalism is not divine religion. I have witnessed people shouting “Ilove you, Jesus” at the top of their voices who could not find John 3:16 in their Bibles to save their lives. Emotionalism which is void of the knowledge of the word of God is not the Christian religion. Divine religion exists and thrives in direct proportion to man’s knowledge of the word of God.

2. The rejection of God’s revelation is a moral decision. If a man does not know the word of God today, he does not know it because he does not want to know it. The word of God is known to man and easily assessible; a man can purchase a Bible for a little over a dollar at many local markets. The man who does not know the word of God does not want to know the word of God. Notice the text: “because thou hast rejected knowledge:” Man does not know the word of God today because he has rejected and neglected God’s divine word. He has chosen to worship materialism, entertainment, society, etc. and has rejected the word of God (cf. 2 Thess. 2:10).

3. Spiritual ignorance is God-offending. One cannot read Hosea 4:6 without noticing how offended God was that Israel had allowed themselves to become ignorant of God’s holy revelation. The same principle is true today. Jesus said, “He that is of God heareth God’s word: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God” (Jn. 8:47). Again, He said, “He that receiveth you received me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me” (Mt. 10:40). Hence, the man who does not have enough interest to receive the evangelist and the gospel has rejected God. He has offended God!

4. Spiritual ignorance is destructive. Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (4:6). Spiritual ignorance destroys the souls of men. Those who do not have the love of truth in their hearts will perish (2 Thess. 2:10). When men do not know the proper way to worship God, the conditions which they must meet to obtain God’s grace in salvation, and the nature, work, and organization of the New Testament church, New Testament Christianity cannot exist. In a similar fashion, a group which has historically known these truths can depart from these truths and cease to be God’s people when spiritual ignorance exists. Inevitably, in such cases, an apostasy will come which destroys the church. Consider the lesson from history drawn from the Christian Church. The Christian Church formerly stood identified with New Testament Christianity. After the departure from the revelation of God in introducing instrumental music into the worship of the church, the way to digression was quickly traversed. Today the Christian Church people have no concept of New Testament Christianity, the New Testament church (its nature, mission, worship, organization, etc.), and other aspects of the Lord’s church. Some among them no longer respect the Scriptures as God’s inspired and infallible revelation. Spiritual ignorance has destroyed this people and will destroy any other group of people who neglect or reject the study of God’s word.

5. Spiritual ignorance affects others. This same text in Hosea says, “seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children” (4:6). Sometimes men seem to think that spiritual ignorance only affects the man who is willingly refusing to obey God’s word. That is not so. Consider how it affects the children. I have seen cases where some Christian fell away from grace. I knew that they knew enough about God’s word that should they ever decide to straighten up their lives that they would return to Bible worship. In the meantime, however, their children grew up without the knowledge of the Lord being planted in their minds. These children cannot recognize the difference in the worship of God as revealed in the New Testament and that which is devised by men. Consequently, they likely never will study God’s word and learn the truth.

Jesus said it like this: “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Mt. 15:13-14). Yes, spiritual ignorance does affect others. It affects our children, friends, and whoever else might follow us down the road to spiritual damnation.

There are some among us who apparently do not believe that spiritual ignorance affects others. For example, when I talk to some brethren, they think that these preachers in the Christian Church and liberal churches are going to be lost because of their participation in instrumental music, church sponsored recreation, the sponsoring church arrangement, etc. However, they do not believe the members of those congregations will be doomed because they are ignorant of this being sinful. Somehow, the grace of God is imagined to extend to cover those who are ignorant of the sins which they are committing. Yet, the word of God teaches otherwise. The Bible teaches that spiritual ignorance affects those around us as they are led into following our wrong example into spiritual damnation.

Conclusion

Seeing the grievous problems which come upon us when we ignore and neglect God’s revelation, let us resolve to work to learn the word of God and to teach others what God expects of us. Let us “buy the truth and sell it not” (Prov. 23:23). Let us go into all the world with the message of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us do our part to spread the word of God that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14).

Truth Magazine XXII: 39, pp. 627-629
October 5, 1978