God's plan for world redemption; an outline study of the Bible and missions by Charles R. Watson

Preface

THE need for a handbook whose aim would be to present the missionary message of the Bible, has led to the preparation of this book. Its central theme is the unfolding of God's Plan for World Redemption. The unfolding of this redemptive Plan is traced throughout that portion of human history whose record and whose interpretation are alike given in the Sacred Narrative. The progressive revelation of a body of truth, and the advancing development of a human agent or agency by providential dealings, are parallel movements in the unfolding of the divine Plan. The effort has been made to recognize the place and influence of these two correlated movements.

To those who have in mind the many and extended works on Messianic Prophecy the present treatment of that subject will seem meagre and superficial. The value of this book must be found, therefore, in the clearness of its survey and in the greater vividness with which, by the vn very absence of detail, it is able to portray the movement of the divine Plan as it sweeps through the centuries.

It is only in its method, however, that the book is historical. In its aim, it is missionary. If God has a Plan, the least man may do is to link his life to that Plan. If God has a Plan, the most man may do is to let his life move parallel with that Plan. The last two chapters in the book are, therefore, practical. V/hile the bock presents a continuous narrative, it is intended that the student will examine carefully the Scripture records upon which the surveys of this book are based. The book has therefore been prepared to serve as a text book for mission study along the lines of the mission study class movement of our day. The immediate use of this text book in United Presbyterian circles has led to the insertion, in the last half of Chapter Eight, of a brief section referring to the missionary responsibilities of this Church. Apart from this section, the treatment of the entire theme is quite general in character. The American Revised Version has been used wherever Bible quotations occur.

The author wishes to express his indebtedness to Prof. Gerhardus Vos, D. D., whose class-room

VIII lectures first suggested this theme to the writer; also to Prof. D. A. McClenahan, D. D., and Prof. John E. Wishart, D. D., who rendered helpful service in reading and criticizing certain sections of the manuscript. In the seventh chapter, some slight use was made of material previously presented in a booklet, "Life Plans."

In the earnest hope that these chapters may serve to interpret to the individual Christian and to the Church, the missionary purposes of our God, and help to raise up a generation which will fulfil these purposes, this book is sent forth.

IX

Contents

Chapteb. Page.

I. The Unfolding of God's Plan 15

II. The Period of Preparation 37

CHAPTER I The Unfolding of God's Plan

"Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen Thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove;

"Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death ; and lo, Thy foot Is on the skull which Thou hast made.

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou hast made him : Thou art just.

"Our little systems have their day,

They have their day and cease to be :

They are but broken lights of Thee,

And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.

"We have but faith : we cannot know ; For knowledge is of things we see ; And yet we trust it comes from Thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.

"Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dwell ; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before,

"But vaster."

— Alfred Tennyson.

I

THE UNFOLDING OF GOD'S MISSION- ARY PLAN

HISTORY! What an interesting study it An interesting is, this long narrative of human events ! Take the last century and a half. All of our national life is to be found within the limits of that brief period. How much these fifteen decades mean to the United States alone ! If we go back four hundred years, we find America just being discovered, the Reformation has not been ushered in in Germany and Europe, and Spain is the dominant nation of Europe. But let us go back one thousand years. It may help us to realize how much history even the last thousand years record, if we will remember that one thousand years ago the Norman Conquest of England had not yet been accomplished, the Crusades had not yet been called, Moorish civilization was flourishing in Spain and the Caliph's fleets were dominant in the Mediterranean. What a world of events since that time !

The measure of our retrospect may be length- How 7 Far ened. We go back two thousand years. All that we call "The Christian Era" lies within this period of history, and what pages and volumes are required to narrate the events of simply these two millenniums! But why limit thought to the Christian era ? The life of a man may be threescore years and ten, but in the life of the race two thousand years do not reach back to Humanity's middle life. Go back a thousand years before Christ. In distant China, the Chow Dynasty is guiding affairs of state. In India, the Aryan invader has already been in India a thousand years. In Egypt, the New Empire has been established; it is called New, because the term Old must be reserved for an Empire that began eleven hundred years before. In Palestine, David is King of Israel, while Assyria is the most formidable nation of Western Asia. Of course, Greek history has not yet begun.

Nor need we fear that we are yet in any danger of running into the beginning of things, for, if we wish to go still further back, Chinese historic legends and existing monuments in Egypt will volunteer their services as guides through the labyrinths of still earlier millenniums, while Sargon I. of Babylonia is said to have ruled , , v about 4000 B. C.

Thejeginning Here are at least some five or six (millenniums

of Things.

of authentic history. What a world of events! What a study! this history of the human race, this succession of generations which spell out national histories and whole civilizations! And what does it all mean? Is history just a record of a long series of accidents? Are all these events just happenings subject to mere Chance, or resultings subject to certain Law? Or is there some great Guiding Hand, some Ruling Power, restraining, guiding, shaping history, so that we can say,

"Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs" ?

Or is the movement of Humanity just

"Forward, backward, backward, forward, in the immeasurable sea, Swayed by vaster ebbs and flows than can be known to you or me"?

Many books of history have been written. Books of His Some are satisfied with recording events, without tory * explaining their meaning. Some look at the great tangle of human events and say they have no meaning, or only some accidental meaning. Some have endeavored— and this is a popular effort in our day— to explain all movements from the point of view of economics. Among other books, we find one, different from the rest in many ways. It is written by a number of different persons, but all seem to have the same viewpoint. It is a good sized book, and deals with a good bit of human history. It begins with this original sentiment or explanation, "In the beginning God." Farther on in the book we find this statement, "All things have been created through Him and unto Him ; and He is before all things and in Him all things consist (i. e., hold together)." The answer which this book gives to the age-long problem of the interpretation of history, is to be studied and unfolded in this volume.

Tracing God's But it is one thing to say that through the millenniums of history God has been "at the helm of nations," and it is quite another to be able to trace His guidance. Does the Book do that for us, for all of human history? No, it does not. Indeed it is a question whether if it did undertake this great task, there would be any who would be able to follow its explanations. Some day, doubtless, the mysteries of God's methods and purposes as moral Ruler of the Universe will be revealed. Then we shall understand the far stretching millenniums of Chinese history, the civilizations of Assyria and Egypt, the rise and fall of kingdoms in Asia and Europe, the unknown millenniums of Africa's waiting. These all, together with all else that now baffles human explanation, will be spread like an open scroll before the wondering gaze of immortal man, and he may then read "the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will"

and it will be "to the praise of His glory." For that full explanation of the mystery of human history we must wait until the day of the consummation of the ages, when

. . . "The sun grows cold

And the stars are old

And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold."

What then does the Book do for us ? Does it simply assert that God is the God of history and let it go at that? That would be suggestive but it would be poor anchorage for faith and hope. The Book does more than that.

Not long ago, the civilized world was filled Haiiey's with curiosity and interest over the announcement of the expected appearance of that heavenly visitor which is seen but once in seventy-five years, Haiiey's Comet. The date of its appearance was fixed for a certain time, and at the time announced or close upon it the comet appeared. Had the astronomer followed it by sight in all its wanderings into space that he should have been able to announce so definitely its return? Not at all. He simply had the few observations of the former appearance of the comet. Knowing its course within a given period, he knew that according to the faithfulness of the laws established by a faithful God, this wanderer in the heavens would fulfil an appointed course and return at

GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION.

What the Book Does.

Sin Creates Need.

an appointed time. It was not necessary to actually see the comet throughout its whole course; it was only necessary to see it during part of its course.

So with the Book. It lifts the veil, it reveals God in the history of the world at a few limited points in the course of human history. It reveals God continuously in the life of a single nation throughout several centuries. Then come a few generalizations concerning God and His plan, some prophecies, and the Book closes. We may read other histories, the records of other nations and try for ourselves to see God in these histories. We may partially succeed ; we may think we see Him ; we may imagine we understand His workings. But whether we succeed or fail, whether we understand or cannot comprehend it at all, the fact remains: God is there. The Book tells us so. And furthermore, the Book reveals God and His Plan within the limits already described. This revelation of God's Plan which we find in the Book is to be the object of our study.

But back of God's Plan is God's Purpose. And back of God's Purpose is God. And God is Love. What will Love purpose and plan and do? Whatever is necessary. And what is necessary? Here we face the great fact with which, after Creation, the Book begins. It is the fact of Sin.

The story of how Sin entered is told in the third chapter of Genesis. The fact of Sin is central to human history. We must lay hold of that fact firmly. If man had not sinned, God might have manifested His love in other ways, but there would surely have been no need for the Old Testament sacrifices nor for the New Testament Sacrifice. The need of man determined the form that love must take. Man's need was for deliverance from sin. So Love took up the task of delivering man from sin. The Purpose of God became a Redemptive Purpose, a Missionary Purpose. And the Plan became a Redemptive Plan, a Missionary Plan. That Purpose and that Plan run through the ages. We must trace them as far as we may.

Practical Value of Knowing God's Plan

It is well to ask here, What is the practical TJ} e Use of u value of knowing God's Plan ? It is not going to be altogether easy to study the character, the methods, the underlying principles and the outworkings of God's Plan as it sweeps through the centuries. We experience difficulty in following the thought of men as they unfold to us their plans ; how then can we expect to follow and apprehend the thought of God without application and the fullest concentration of the powers of

GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION.

Knowing Better.

God

Understanding History.

both mind and spirit? If such effort is required, what is to be the practical value of this study? i. First of all, there will come a clearness of vision in our apprehension of truth.

(a) To understand what God is doing, to study the methods which He uses and the principles which He follows, is to come to know God better. God's character is best revealed in the great redemptive work in which He is engaged. Imagine the son of some great statesman, like Gladstone, only knowing his father in the fellowships of the home and unaware of the fact that his father had broader interests than in ministering to that son within that home. The son would not be truly acquainted with his father. Only by going out into the great world of his father's public and national and world-wide interests, would the son know his father and discover his greatness of purpose, his nobility of character, his gifts and powers. To know God we must have fellowship with Him in His great Work.

(b) To study God's Plan is to understand better human history. It is to find "the key, the master-key to history." He who has caught a clear vision of God's Plan, does not "regard history as following the course of the sun, going from East to West. Nor, like Herder, does he count history to be the manifestation of the powers of nature in moral progress. Nor is he like Cotmte, who finds the law of history in the evolution of the intellect." To him a nobler and more satisfying explanation is at hand. When others utter their despairing cry,

"Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the

throne,"

he can say with quiet confidence,

"Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."

(c) To study God's Plan is to get a better un- Sf e de ^e dins derstanding of the Bible itself. It is impossible

to understand the Word of God without apprehending the Plan of God. We study the Book to discover the Plan, but having discovered the Plan we may go back and read the Book once again and new meaning and new glory will flash from its pages.

(d) To know God's Plan is to better understand the Church of Christ. The Church has an important place in that Plan. Apart from it, the Church has no significance or meaning, no raison d'etre.

2. In the second place, the great value of JJ*£ t0 0ur studying God's Redemptive Plan will be to our own lives. Every willing life may have a place in that plan. Is there any more inspiring thought than this, that God should link a human life to His majestic power and purposes? Is there any more promising investment of life than in the work which God Himself is forwarding? Is there any safer principle to follow in a life decision, than to lay the life parallel with the will and plan of God ? Here is a study of most practical value and its issues are guidance, peace, power and glory.

Helping God. 3. Finally, to study God's Redemptive Plan is to make it possible for us to help God in hastening the consummation of His Plan. What a wonderful honor this, to be men on whom God can rely, to stand steady and true to His purposes and plans when others draw back in ignorance or in fear ! By the faithfulness of men and women who know His plans, God has again and again either brought about great forward movements or saved the world from worse evils than did occur. So Moses 1 in Egypt and again at the Red Sea; a so Caleb at Kadesh-Barnea 8 and Gideon with his hundred men ; * so Deborah, the prophetess, 8 and David, the shepherd boy. 8

UNFOLDING OF GOD S MISSIONARY PLAN. 2J

"The ages are but baubles hung upon The thread of some strong lives — and one slight wrist May lift a century above the dust."

Important Observations

In endeavoring to discover and understand God's Plan, several important points need to be observed :

i. A clear distinction must be drawn between An important God's Plan and man's apprehension of that Plan. Distinction - To confuse these two things would be to measure God by man's conception of Him. Indeed, Paul frankly recognizes that the wonderful Plan of God was a mystery to the Old Testament saints. The Plan existed, the purpose was there, but men could not apprehend it. So Paul describes it as a part of his glorious commission "to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God." T Of his own advantage of knowledge, he writes very emphatically: "Ye can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ ; which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit." 8 A further distinction follows from that just stated.

2. It is necessary to distinguish between Another dis-

, ° tinction.

God s Plan and man s obedience to that Plan.

God's Plan for World Redemption is perfect. But it has no more been realized and fulfilled by man than has God's law of holiness. The Ten Commandments were broken, are being broken. So, too, the Plan for World Redemption has been held back from execution, postponed in its fulfilment, by man's refusals to its call and disobedience to its commissions. The distinction then is an important one. There are many pages of human history which some men have tried to justify as good, when they ought to be condemned as evil. There are periods, — years, decades and even centuries, — in which men disobeyed God, refused to do His will and contravened His gracious purposes. Where there is such disobedience, it is to be condemned, as in the Scripture, 9 and not justified. Because of this distinction between God's own Plan and man's disobedience or disloyalty to it, there follows another consideration.

The Plan in ? The Plan must be sought for in the reve-

the Book. ° . & #

lation of Scripture and not in human history. The Plan is to be found in the Book. God's Will is revealed in His Word. We learn there what God wishes to accomplish and what He wishes to have accomplished. To go to human history trying to discover from human events alone what is God's Plan, is as foolish as to go to a human life trying to discover from it God's perfect law of holiness. In history, as in the individual human life, there are disobedience and failure and woful shortcomings. Not from the wanderings of the Prodigal Son in "the far country" do we get the clearest revelation of what were the wish and will of the father for his boy, but in the revelation which the father himself gives of his character and will. Not from the base failure of Israel's faith at Kadesh-Barnea, do we discover the highest thought of Jehovah for His people, but in the courageous words of Caleb who lived near to God. When we take up a copy of some Universal History, we do not hold in our hand an illustrated edition of the highest thought of God for the human race. In all human history there is a marring of the beauty of God's highest thought and plan through human disobedience. God is there still, restraining, pleading, striving, over-ruling, but the vision of the perfect Plan is to be found, not in the record of human events, but in the Inspired Word, revealing in a direct and unsullied fashion the character, the will and the plan of God. To the Book, then, must we go to discover the Plan.

4. In the unfolding of God's great Plan for |£ a er ® s ara world redemption, there will be stages. This is to be expected. It is so in every great work. In building a house, the ground must be cleared away, then the trenches are dug for the foundations, then the foundations are laid, then the walls are built, finally the roof is added. Methods of work will differ according to the stage with which we are dealing, but the purpose is one and the plan is one.

Three Great In God's great Plan for the redemption of hu-

Perioda. °

manity, three distinct stages or periods have been pointed out : 10

The Period of Preparation The Period of Realisation The Period of Application

preparation. The Period of Preparation extends from the

Fall of Man to the Birth of Christ. This is the period in which the world was being prepared for the coming of Him Who should, by His own person and work, lay the foundation for the salvation of man. The entire Old Testament story deals with this period. As has been explained already, the manner of God's dealings with all races is not set forth in detail in the Old Testament, but only His dealings with Israel. We may well believe, however, that the whole world was being prepared for the coming of the World Saviour.

Realization. T he p er i d of Realization extends from the

Birth of Christ to the Day of Pentecost. This

10 Rev. Gerhardus Vos, D. D.

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CO is the period in which the salvation was realized, the life lived, the sacrifice consummated and the Spirit given, upon which rests the whole scheme of redemption. To this period relate the Gospel narratives and the first chapters of Acts.

The Period of Application extends from the Application. Day of Pentecost to the present time. We know not how much longer this period will extend. The obedience of the Church will be a determining factor here. This is the period in which the Salvation, prepared for in the first period, realized in the second, is carried to all the world and applied to human life and its needs. This is the period in which we live, and it possesses, therefore, a peculiar interest to us. The New Testament, from the early chapters of the Acts through the Epistle of Jude, relates chiefly to the activities of this period.

The question forces itself upon us, Are there not other periods and stages in the unfolding of God's great Plan ? Undoubtedly there are, there must be. We may include them all under the general heading, God's Great Next. What that period will involve, whether it breaks up into subordinate periods, what its character and glory will be, are matters hinted at chiefly in the Book of Revelation, and also in many other isolated prophecies.

por e tant der Im " 5* ^ is important to observe that in the unfolding of God's great Plan, not only are the several stages of great importance, but the order of these stages is extremely important too. This is so in all spheres of life and work. The farmer must not only plough and sow and reap, but he must do these things in the right order. The house builder cannot build his walls until the foundations are laid. In individual salvation, sanctification is not possible until after justification and regeneration. So with God's great Plan of world redemption, the order of the several periods is important, for one period cannot be ushered in and will not be ushered in until the preceding period has been completed. In thinking of these periods and of their completion, we must not think of them so much in terms of Time as in terms of certain conditions to be fulfilled. The Scriptures frequently intimate that with God Time has no existence. "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." 1X Philosophy teaches the same truth. God's decrees and plans are to be thought of, then, not so much as resting on blocks of Time, — so many centuries which we must wait to have elapse, — as on the fulfilment of certain conditions. When these conditions are fulfilled, He Who waiteth to "see of the travail of His soul" will delay not one moment in ushering in His next dispensation. Until these conditions are fulfilled, He will wait ; not without continuing to work for the desired end, but yet He will wait. It is this truth that gives a place to human faithfulness and earnestness and obedience in the unfolding of God's great Plan. 1 '

6. To understand God's Plan of human redemption and to appreciate the unfolding of the Plan, it is necessary to recognize certain elements in the problem which God undertook to solve.

(a) First of all, there was Sin. That was a The Problem supreme element in the problem. Its nature,

its character, its extent, the damage it wrought, — all these facts determined the need for a certain kind of redemption. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the character of sin, for its real nature will be revealed as God's Plan for overcoming sin is unfolded in these studies. Two needs, growing out of Sin, became such important elements in the problem of human redemption that they call for special mention.

(b) There was the need for a Revelation of Truth. Man, even in his original state, undoubtedly needed to advance in his knowledge of God. But with the Fall, so perverted did his nature become that the need for a divine revelation became

GOD S PLAN FOR WORLD REDEMPTION.

The Problem of Free Will.

Each Life Alone.

doubly great, and the problem of imparting to him knowledge became tenfold more difficult. Yet a revelation of God and of Truth was indispensable, if man was to be saved.

(c) There was also the need for a work of Atonement for Sin. Something needed to be done to set right all that had gone wrong through man's sin. How much that is, the human mind cannot fully apprehend. But its full measure is found in Christ's work and sacrifice. What needed to be done, was done by Him.

(d) Another element in the problem of saving man was man's free will. At no point does God's Plan do violence to man's free will. And this element of the problem is always found to be one of supreme difficulty. Where God's Plan works alone through a perfect agency or agent, how quickly that Plan moves. The Period of Realization is one in which Christ works alone, and how short this period is — one brief life-time of thirty-three years ! In the Period of Preparation God works with man for the forwarding of the Plan. How slow seem the movements of that period. In the Period of Application, God again works with man. How slow is His Agency, the Church, to do His will.

(e) Another element in the problem was to deal, through all the ages, with each life so that each life may have a fair chance. Just how this is accomplished we do not always understand, but the Scriptures teach that in His dealings with whole races and nations and in His far-off unfolding movements, God deals justly, fairly and graciously also with every individual soul. 13 It cannot then be said of God, as it has been said of Nature,