Transplanted truths

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Class i

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

Contents

Chapter Page

Introduction ix

I. The Gospel of God i

Introduction

One of the essential things in the study of any book is to know something of the times and the purpose of the author. Another important element is the style of the author. In the study of this chapter we will try to get in touch with the situation and then examine for a little the style of the author.

We are told at the outset that it is written by Paul, "a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle — set apart to the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets."

This man who thus tells us his official standing was a great-souled man. We read that when he was a young man he was a very zealous Jew. His family was one of more than common rank, for his father, a full-blooded Jew, had obtained citizenship in the Roman nation, and that cost much money and was allowed only to such as gave promise of being worth something to the Roman Government.

His early boyhood was spent in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, and there he had opportunity to see the idolatrous world, and to test his own faith. He wrote of himself that as touching the ceremonial law he was blameless ; which means that, as a boy, living in a city where to be a Jew was like being

ix

Introduction a Protestant American in a Spanish or Austrian Roman Catholic city, when other boys were at play he kept the Sabbath ; when other boys were profane he took not the name of God in vain ; when others went to Roman shows, where men fought unto death, he went to the synagogue. He was not one of those Sunday School book boys who are " too proud to fight/' and so good that they die early.

If the boy is father to the man we may be sure that Paul stood up like a man when others abused him.

Later he was sent away to Jerusalem to school. He went to Gamaliel, one of the great theologians of his time. It was like sending a boy now to some noted school where only the best can go; and there, as he says (Phil. 3 : 4-7), he was among the best scholars in Hebrew learning, and during all his course of study he did not slacken his zeal in religion.

Then when he was a man he came into prominence and was made a member of the Sanhedrim That was the great Theological Court of the Jewish Church, and here he was a man full of zeal and determination, so that when Stephen was tried he voted to have him stoned to death, and when this was being done Paul was an official witness, and held the coats of those who pelted Stephen with stones until he died. And later still he went and begged the privilege of being made an ecclesiastical sheriff to hunt out women and children and drag

Introduction xi them to prison and to death that he might stamp out entirely the whole force of what he verily thought was sinful heresy.

But something happened to him. He was converted on his way to Damascus. All his views of Jesus changed, and from that time instead of being a persecutor he was a preacher of Christ, a servant of the Lord Jesus, as he calls himself.

But he did not become a mere non-persecutor. His conversion did not take out his manhood. That same devotion to principle and that same faith in God which made him the dangerous enemy to the church, were now simply transferred to a new cause, and he gave to that cause the same loyalty he had formerly given to the Jewish idea.

But since he was an apostle, a man sent out to tell the Gentile world about Christ, he took the people into his affections. After he had preached and established churches, he carried them in his heart. Daily he prayed for them, and gave thanks for them. He wrote them letters of instruction and comfort as occasions required.

The churches of Thessalonica and Galatia, Ephesus and Corinth, Philippi and Colosse had a place in his thought and care. This letter to Romans has a special quality different from the others in that it was written to a church he did not start, and with which he had no acquaintance. The tone of the letter shows us something of the recognition he already had among the churches. If he had been xii Introduction just an ordinary disciple he would not have begun by saying, I am an apostle.

Again he says, I am coming to see you and I hope to have some fruit among you, and then to move on into Spain where no one has been before me, for I do not want to build on another man's foundation.

But the striking feature of the letter is that it is a doctrinal discussion of the central ideas of theology. It is a formal argument all the way through. There is no allusion to any prominent special errors at Rome ; no case that needs discipline as at Corinth ; no heretical teachers as among Galatian churches; no false teaching or undue anxiety about the return of Christ as at Thessalonica.

But he is setting forth in a systematic way the fundamental teachings of the Christian soteriology. It is impersonal and uncontroversial.

For this reason it has been the fountain of instructions in every century. Paul's writings were such that since his day no man has written or can write on the subject of theology with any degree of fulness without taking account of him. 1 One must either agree with him or refute his arguments. Paul was the founder of systematic theology. But he was not a dry theologian. His letters are alive, and warm with affection. It is said that the goldenmouthed preacher of Constantinople glowed with

1 " The distinguishing doctrines of Christianity can be traced to the apostle Paul." — E. H. Johnson.

Introduction xiii the great climaxes of Paul's argument. Augustine laid aside his dialectics to take up the profound philosophy of redemption found in this letter. Luther's electric batteries were charged with Paul's teaching about justification. Calvin was saturated with the great logical arguments of Paul.

Wherever the opinions of the church have been in formation, or wherever they have been brought into question, there Paul's arguments have been the standard of correctness.

One writer has gone so far as to say that Paul has eclipsed Jesus in the realm of theology ; and others, as if they feared Paul's leadership, have said we must " get back to Christ."

THE ROMAN CHURCH

No historical record remains to tell us when or how the Church at Rome was started. It comes into history all at once. Paul says " to the church at Rome." Roman Catholics have claimed that Peter founded it. But there is no evidence except "Catholic say-so, and that is worthless in such matters.

But it was there. It was evidently composed in part of Jewish converts, and in part of Gentile membership.

The letter does not attempt to separate them. But the argument deals with questions that the thoughtful would ask, whether they were Jew or xiv Introduction

Gentile. It deals with the five fundamental religious facts of life — such things as all men must deal with:

First, The sense of God ; secondly, The sense of deficiency in our life; thirdly, The divine way of relief; fourthly, Inward satisfaction; fifthly, Resultant duties.

Those five things must be considered by every man who thinks about life with any seriousness, and each one of these Paul discussed carefully. He had very definite views about each one, and he systematically dealt with them all.

One might study Romans around those five points, and one would find an almost complete body of doctrine.

Paul seems to have thought out the whole subject. He states his view; then he proves it; then points out its value; then replies to misconceptions or false inference; then states the duties growing out of it all.

HIS STYLE

In one of his letters he said, " I am all things to all men, only always under law to Christ." He met Gentiles on Gentile ground. He met the Jew on his ground. He did not sneer at others, but tried to lead them to better ground.

The modern doctrine of pedagogy that we must find a point of contact — mental and moral contact — and from that point lead minds out to better posi-

Introduction xv tions, he knew how to use, whether he formulated it or not.

He reasoned with the argumentative. He stirred the emotional by his outbursts of confidence. He upset the extremist by his " God forbids." He gratified the Jew by his habitual use of Old Testament writings.

But there is one very striking feature of his style that needs attention lest he be made into a mere peddler of logic, and that is his use of metaphors and similes.

In this connection we need to notice the law of metaphors. A metaphor is a term borrowed from one realm of things to convey an idea in another realm. Thus we say, " Ye are the salt of the earth." We mean that Christians have a function in the realm of the mind or of the spirit similar to the function of salt in the material world.

We say a man is a " pillar in the church." We mean that he does in a spiritual way what the pillar does in the material building.

We say Jesus is the Shepherd. We mean that the relation between the shepherd of sheep and his flock is like that which Jesus has to his people.

There is always a point of similarity between realms. A little girl said, " a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning." That is, there is a kind of parallelism carried on in the mind between the " earthly story " and the " heavenly meaning."

xvi Introduction

In order to catch the meaning of a metaphor one must be familiar with the thing that is used as a metaphor, or he cannot get the meaning it is intended to convey.

For example, in one of my classes I asked what is the point of likeness in the metaphor, " Ye are the salt of the earth." Most of the men said, " Salt keeps meat from spoiling, and we must keep society from moral corruption." But another one said: " No. Salt makes things taste good, and we must make the world livable." When asked for his reason he said : " Jesus said, If the salt have lost its savor. That belongs to the realm of taste." And then he strengthened his argument by saying that they did not salt meat in that place, they dried it in the sun.

Now without settling that question we can all see that unless we understand the use of salt there we shall miss the Saviour's thought.

At another time we were discussing the meaning of leaven. I found several men who had no idea of leaven, or of bread-making. They were brought up in the city, and their mothers never baked a loaf of bread — they bought it at the baker's. So all they knew about leaven was that some one had told them it was a form of corruption, and a symbol of evil, and of course when Jesus said the kingdom of heaven was like leaven in a measure of meal they jumped to the conclusion that the church is going to evil. If they had found the basis of that metaphor they would have recalled how with a

Introduction xvii little yeast stirred into a pan of flour and left to stand in a warm place overnight, the whole pan of meal will become — not a pan of yeast or of rotten flour, but a mass of light, promising dough ready to be baked into wholesome and delicious bread. Since the point of comparison is the transforming power of the Christian gospel, they would have seen the truth Jesus sought to convey. So we must always look for the basis of a metaphor.

Another fact about metaphors is that speakers pick up their metaphors from the mental atmosphere about them. Just now how full our speech is of expressions that come from the war : " Over the top," " over there/' " service flags and stars/' " keep your alignment," " keep step," " firing-line," "in the trenches," "at the front," "neutrals," " Allies," and many more words that are picked up and drafted into service, and made to do duty at the front of the battle-lines of the conflict of ideas.

Mr. Sunday is a most remarkable example of a man who picks his metaphors to suit his audience. In a parlor of some rich woman he speaks with beauty and elegance. He goes into the railroad shops and his tongue changes to the tongue of an expert railroad man. To the baseball men he talks about " bases," and " putting one over," and " foul balls/' and " home runs," and " putting men out."

The only class of words he finds difficulty in being familiar with are theological terms — those he

B xviii Introduction has not mastered very well. But when you want to hear or read the only really accurate and satisfactory description of the saloon-keepers get Mr. Sunday's sermon on " Booze."

This choice of metaphors accounts for the great difference in the books of the New Testament. They are written with the words that the people were familiar with, and with the metaphors that were common among their readers. The writers had certain great ideas they wished to convey and they did just as we do. They picked out the metaphors and phrases that were familiar, and that carried the biggest load of meaning right to the mind and heart of the people.

This accounts for the fact that certain classes of metaphors are found in one book, and not found in others. Take the letter to the Philippians, for example. This has no reference to temple or sacrifice, to judge or king, to prophet or church or Scriptures. But it talks about fellowships and gospel and bonds and sufferings. It is full of expressions of his love for them. It exhorts to patience, but it argues nothing.

Peter writes to Jewish converts scattered abroad, away from their holy city and temple. They were believers in Christ, but they were in great perplexity because the glory they had expected to have had not come. Instead of having a country and a temple and a priesthood they were of the " dispersion " — the " scattered about " — so he says to them,

Introduction xix in metaphor big with meaning, " We are begotten unto a living hope " — not like your old one that has died out — " to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that does not fade away " — as your earthly one has faded — " reserved in heaven " — not in Judea — " for those who are faithful." " Gird up your loins and wait for the grace that will come to you at the revelation of the Lord Jesus." You are to be " living stones," built into a " temple of the Lord." You are a " kingly race, a royal priesthood," " the very people of God." You see how all those metaphors would touch sympathetic chords, and convey understandable things to those Jewish people.

If we turn to Hebrews we come into the fragrance of the incense of the temple. Here we find "sin" and "sin offering," "altars," and "approaches," " great high priest," and days of " atonement," " veil of the temple," and " priesthood like that of Melchizedek." All the way through we are listening to religious talk in the religious dialect of Jewish Christians who were being taught that the temple and the ceremonies were shadows of things whose reality was now at hand.

If we go back to the Gospels we find Jesus says almost nothing about temple or sacrifices. God is not spoken of much as King, or Judge, or Avenger, but " Our Father in heaven." In the view of Jesus men are not subjects, nor soldiers, nor rulers, neither great ones nor small ones, but brethren.

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The metaphors come from the family life, and the spirit is the family spirit.

I have dwelt upon this because I want to help you to see that Paul's metaphors are not to be taken as literal descriptions, or as doctrinal formulas. They are forms of expression suitable to those to whom he talked, and were chosen by the same principle that Mr. Sunday follows when he takes the words of the ballgame to tell the gospel to the ball-players. One must get into the heart of them or he will miss the teaching entirely.

ROME

Paul was writing to Romans at Rome. It was the great legal center for the wide-reaching dominions of the Empire. Roman minds had studied the problems of ruling over various races and classes, and had evolved a set of laws and a form of government that in many respects have been the model for the nations since then. English and American law is largely indebted to Rome. Courts and lawyers, criminals and crimes, law and pardon, guilt and innocence were all familiar words, and to Paul punishments and prisons were all too well known by experience. And so in writing to them he naturally uses the words and illustrations that are legal in character. When he spoke about sins and transgressions, about justifications and redemptions, about guilt and innocence, he was expressing the

Introduction xxi thoughts common to all men in words common to Romans.

We may not expect, therefore, to find him dealing with exact theological formulas, which we are bound to accept and use, but he was putting his thought into forms understandable by them.

I would press this truth further. If we are bound to take metaphors in Romans as the formal exact expressions of the relations of men to God, why must we not take the metaphors in Hebrews in the same literal way ? And, if we do, then we must say that there is a temple, and a priest, and a holy city, and tithes, and circumcision, and Gentiles outside the court. And when we come back to the Gospels we must drop these and think of ourselves as neither in Rome before the Judge, nor in Jerusalem at the gate of the temple, but in our Father's family, perhaps like " prodigal sons " returned for bread only, but finding forgiveness and a feast.

There are great spiritual values in these expressions, and as Doctor Bushnell said : " We cannot afiford to lose them. They fill an office which nothing else can fill, and serve a use which cannot be served without them. . . We can do without them, it may be, for a little while, but after a time we seem to be in a gospel that has no atmosphere, and our breathing is in a gasping state. . . Our very prayers get introverted and muddled. . . We begin to sigh for some altar whither we may go and just see the fire burning and the smoke going xxii Introduction up on its own account, and circle about it with our believing hymns."

Making these allowances for the metaphorical uses we may find in Romans what becomes a framework for our thinking. But we may not assume that no other form of expression is good. What we want is to know the way of life, marked out in the way most understandable by us. But we shall try to study his letter as if we were in Rome, for in no other way can it do us any good. We shall try, through his words, to see the common idea, and to identify his thoughts with things in our own experience, and if possible transplant them into our thinking.

Chapter I

" Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which he promised afore through his prophets in the holy Scriptures." — Romans i : i, 2.

The first impressions of people are often regulative of the later ones. Especially is this true of some very sensitive individuals. They cannot tell why, but they " feel/' as if by a sort of extra sense, drawn or repelled by people on first acquaintance. Some salesmen say that much of their success in " selling " a new customer depends on the first impressions made in the first few minutes of their acquaintance. Military men say that in a large measure the victory of an onset is determined by the success of the first contact with the enemy. It is also true of books. The impression made by the introductory chapters determines whether one will read the rest or not.

This is true in part of the book of Romans. But it is not true that its favorable impressions are dependent wholly on the first impressions. A study of the arguments, and the defenses against error, and the rich expressions of truth have, in many cases, overcome the impressions that men had when they first began to read this great letter.

But this first sentence grips the attention at once. Its grip tightens as we think about it. " Set apart to the gospel of God!' This great-hearted, largeminded man consecrated to the " gospel of God " ! This letter, written with great care and closely reasoned argument, thought out in great detail to meet the spiritual needs of the disciples of Christ Jesus in Rome — to tell them about the "-gospel of God " ! Surely the topic of it is attractive.

"Gospel"; let us examine this word a little. It has been called the equivalent of " good news," but that is not an accurate translation of it. The message of Paul was not " news." He says it is a message about things which God promised afore through his prophets in the holy Scriptures. And as he goes along with his letter he often quotes the Old Testament as proof of his conclusions, and declares that what he is now preaching is but the fulfilment of the Old Testament promises. It was not news in the sense of being fundamentally new to his readers. All its ethical principles had been known for centuries. The " man of God " as described in Genesis does not differ in essentials from the one drawn in Matthew. Abraham, transplanted to America, would command our respect. The Greek word is better represented by " good message " than by " good news." The angel that announced the birth of the child in the khan at Bethlehem said, " I bring you good tidings " — not " new " ones. The only element of newness was the fact that the long-looked-for had now arrived.

TRUTHS TO TRANSPLANT

The gospel of God is a "good message." Once in my early ministry we had been holding some special services hoping to lead men to accept the Saviour. At the close of one session I approached a man who had been there, saying I should be glad to help him to know the Christian faith. He replied, " Oh, I am going to take my medicine with the others." I said, " I do not quite catch your thought/' " Oh," he answered, " I shall go to hell no doubt, but I am not going to whine about it." " But," I said, " I have not been trying to send you to hell. I want to help you to heaven.'' On further conversation I found that his idea of a minister's duty was to tell men they were on the way to hell; that the preacher's message is one of condemnation rather than one of reconciliation. They are not, in his view, set apart unto the glad message of God but unto a sad one.

There is a sad side to life, and sometimes the true friend must tell men that death and the judgment await those who persist in disobedience to God: that the judgment will at some time strip away all masks, and all deceptions from sin, and the souls will stand naked and alone before the

Judge who will sadly say, " I never knew you." Jesus had to say that, and he wept when he said it. But the main business of the minister is, like Paul's, to declare to men the glad message, not a sad one.

The gospel of God is a message of justification. No message can be of greater import and value than the one that tells us how to be right with God. The old statements of doctrine say, " The great gospel blessing is justification." Once have that, and the way is open for God to pour out upon us the riches of his gracious designs. Until we are set right with him, he cannot do for us what his love would prompt him to do. Note some of the joyful things growing out of the message of justification, good in any age:

" There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus " (Rom. 8 : i).

" Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy " (Luke 2 : io).

" Whosoever believeth on him shall not perish " (John 3 : 16).

" Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6 : 37).

" He hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He hath sent me to proclaim release to captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4 : 18, 19).

" Every one that asketh receiveth ; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened" (Matt. 7 : 8).

" Like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4).

" He will fashion anew the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory " (Phil. 3 : 21).

" He who began a good work in you will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ " (Phil. 1:6).

" I will come again and receive you unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also " (John

14 : 3)-

" God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes ; and death shall be no more ; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more " (Rev. 21 : 4).

" Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess? that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father " (Phil. 2 : 9-11).

These are the notes of the melody that runs through the Song of Redemption of which Paul's letter was one solo with his own variations. Paul, like the Psalmist before him, was no pessimist. He sang no song in the minor key. His word was " O taste and see that the Lord is good : blessed is the man that trusteth in him." (Ps. 34 : 8).

This is one great special feature of the gospel of God. Those who have it commend it to others.

Dr. Howard Furness, writing after a lengthy examination of spiritual mediums, said he found their claims a species of fraud imposed on an uncritical public; and that he wrote over the whole subject the sentence that Dante said was inscribed over Hades, " Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

Hume, the English philosopher, said to a friend, " You have no idea to what lonesomeness my philosophy has reduced me." The great scientist Charles Darwin said : " I sometimes feel that there may be in the universe a great being analogous to man back of all things ; but then the feeling goes away, and I shall die an agnostic." Such are the consolations of the men who propound the solutions of life outside the gospel of God. But Paul rose above all such and lived in the sunlight of the upper air, above the mountains and above the clouds.

The gospel of God is an ancient message. Paul says it was preached afore through the prophets. In Galatians he wrote that it was preached beforehand unto Abraham. (Gal. 3:8.) In the earliest records it was stated that the promise was, In the " seed of Abraham " all nations shall be blessed. And Paul says that the " seed " to which reference was made was Christ Jesus.

And still earlier it was said, " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." Vague as that statement was, it contained the seed of hope for the final victory of good over evil. The great Messianic oratorio of prophecy began, not, like

Handel's, with Isaiah's " Comfort ye my people," but with that far-off hint in Genesis of coming deliverance. Then the angel of Jehovah took up the message, " Thy seed shall be as the stars for multitude/' Moses came in to say : " God will raise up unto you from among your brethren a prophet like unto me. Unto him shall ye harken." David spoke of him as one who should have " dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." Isaiah said : " He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," " by his stripes we are healed."