Machen on the Necessity of Christian Doctrine: An Application of Christianity and Liberalism Chapter 2 (Part 2)
Written by Fred G. Zaspel |
Monday, June 19, 2023
Because of the sinfulness of the human heart the old covenant could not bring about the righteousness it commanded, so God promised a new covenant that would provide both obedience from the heart and forgiveness for sin. What the law could not accomplish, God has accomplished in us through Christ. Led by his Spirit we have a new freedom from sin and a new enablement in overcoming it (Rom. 8:1–15).
Having examined J. Gresham Machen’s arguments in chapter two of Christianity and Liberalism, we now turn to reflect on the implications this seminal work has for our own time. While the old modernism is considered dead today, its effects remain. This matter of doctrinal indifferentism in particular has come to characterize much of professed Christianity, even evangelical Christianity. Popular contemporary Christian songs as well as preaching passionately plead that “just Jesus,” or perhaps “the cross,” is all that is important, not doctrines and not our interpretations.[1] The rhetoric has a certain attraction, and it conveys the happy sentiment that our fellowship is, after all, in the Lord Jesus Christ. But the plea is muddle-headed, for as soon as we ask, “Who is Jesus?” or “Why does he matter?” or “Why is the cross important?” we are into Christian doctrine—the very thing said to be unnecessary. Apart from doctrine and clear biblical interpretation, both Jesus and his cross have lost meaning.
Often this indifference to doctrine is just laziness, an aversion to thinking. But the problem goes deeper than ignorance and muddled thinking. The consequences of doctrinal indifference are severe, and much is lost.
Christian Essentials
The fundamental claim of Christianity is that it is a revelation from God. God has revealed himself and his saving purpose, and this revelation is written for us in Scripture. This revelation—this message—is true, and it is every Christian’s responsibility to propagate this truth to others. This “gospel” is to make its way throughout the entire world not by the sword but by word and witness, both spoken and written. Christianity has, first and foremost, a message to be proclaimed, and God’s kingdom makes its saving advance to the nations by this message.
Machen sums up his argument in chapter two in these terms exactly. He cites the words of the risen Jesus, who said just before his ascension, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This commission of Jesus to his followers shapes the character of Christianity as founded on a message. “Christianity is based, then, upon an account of something that happened, and the Christian worker is primarily a witness.” From the beginning Christianity has been “a campaign of witnessing,”[2] and the first Christians understood themselves as entrusted with a message. The book of Acts records for us the first stages of this witnessing campaign, and the New Testament epistles are given to the same purpose—the proclamation and exposition of this message.
The Christian obligation to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3) reflects this conviction perhaps more pointedly, even polemically. The Lord Jesus is God’s supreme self-revelation (John 1:1; Heb. 1:1–3; cf. Matt. 17:5; John 7:16; 14:24), and he entrusted this revelation to his apostles (John 14:24–26; 16:12–15; 17:4–8) who by his Spirit received “all truth” (John 16:13; cf. 15:26–27). The word of the apostles is the message from Christ that the world must receive and believe (John 17:8, 18, 20). The apostles, in turn, claim that their message from the Lord Jesus (e.g., 1 Cor. 14:37; 2 Thess. 2:15; 3:6; 1 Pet. 1:12; cf. Eph. 2:20) has been entrusted to the church “once for all” to be proclaimed, preserved, and defended at all costs (cf. 1 Tim. 3:15; 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:2; Jude 3). In short, Christianity is characterized as essentially a doctrinal religion. And its ministers are therefore commanded to devote themselves “to teaching” (1 Tim. 4:13), to “keep a close watch on . . . the teaching” (1 Tim. 4:16), and to give diligence to “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).
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What Does “Salvation” Mean?
Scripture speaks of the salvation of believers in three tenses. Christians have been saved, they are being saved, and they will be saved. In redemption accomplished, Christ truly and really saved His people when He died and rose again. In the application of redemption, believers are being saved as Christ intercedes for them, sustaining them through their pilgrimage and enabling them to persevere in the faith. At the consummation, believers will experience the full application of the salvation wrought by Christ in the resurrection.
Almost no word so well captures the heart of the message of Scripture as does the word salvation. It appears more than 170 times in our English translations of the Old and New Testament. The related word, saved, appears approximately one hundred times throughout the pages of Scripture. But what is salvation? What does it mean for someone to be saved? The Scriptures provide us with several distinct answers to this question. The Bible reveals that God saves believers from their sin, the power of Satan, death, and the judgment to come. Taken together, these four aspects of the work of redemption help us understand the full-orbed biblical teaching about the salvation that God provides through the person and work of Christ.
In his birth announcement concerning the coming Christ, the angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that the Redeemer would be called “Jesus” because He would “save his people from their sin” (Matt. 1:21). Since sin is man’s great problem, we needed One who would save us from its guilt and power. Jesus is such a Savior. Since He is God (John 1:1–4; Rom. 9:5), He can conquer our greatest enemies: sin, death, and Satan. Since He is man (John 1:14; Rom. 1:1–4), He can represent all those for whom He died. On the cross, Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for the sin of His people. All the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus died to deliver men and women from the guilt of their sin. Additionally, Christ died to break the power of sin in the lives of His people (Rom. 6:1–11). Because of the death of Christ, God has forgiven His people all their trespasses (Col. 2:13; Eph. 1:7).
God’s Word also reveals that Jesus died to save His people from the evil one. Since Satan was the one who led our first parents in rebellion against God, he needed to be conquered by the Redeemer. There is a close connection to our sinful bondage and the power of the evil one. The Apostle John explained that Christ came to destroy the works of Satan. He wrote: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
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Romans 8: No Condemnation
In Christ we have absolute certainty that our salvation is secure, no matter what condemnation thunders forth from God’s law. And as we move verse by verse through this chapter we will climb higher and higher into the heavenly air of our union with Christ, seeing all the ways in which that union will blossom forth in our daily walk here and now.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” – Romans 8:1
Few lines of Holy Scripture have been used more by God to encourage assurance and comfort in my own heart. In my own Bible, the page on which Romans 8 appears is a page well worn, smudged from the constant wear of my hands turning to it and my finger running along verse 1 as I have read it over and over and over again. This verse stands out as one of the Apostle Paul’s great indicatives, those statements of fact on which a believer is supposed to rest. It isn’t calling us to do anything, there’s no command to follow, it just is. It’s a declaration of good news given to believers. But what is it saying?
It comes right at the end of Paul’s description, in Romans 7, of what is characteristic of the Christian life, namely, our constant struggle against sin. The Christian believer, born again by God and given a new heart with new desires, now delights in the law of God, even in his inner being, says Paul. And yet Paul can also say, “I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” His answer? Jesus Christ!
And so, he declares with exultant, doxological joy that even though his own thoughts at times condemns him because of the still virulent sin which rages within, he can rest assured, that God does not condemn him. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it, “a Christian is a person who has been taken entirely outside the realm of any possible or conceivable condemnation. The Christian has finished with the realm of condemnation; he has been taken right out of it; he has nothing more to do with it… Had you realized that?”[1]
The word condemnation is itself a legal term. It’s what a judge declares when the court finds a defendant guilty of some crime. And so, the act of condemning is the final verdict, it is the law’s fiat giving official status to the guilty party: “Condemned!” Any criminal brought before a judge fears this verdict; infinitely so before the Infinite Judge of all creation! As Octavius Winslow writes, “To that court every individual is cited. Before that bar each one must be arraigned. Conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity (Ps. 51:5 KJV), man enters the world under arrest – an indicted criminal, a rebel manacled, and doomed to die.”[2]
What our world today does not realize, and many in the church have seem to have forgotten, is that all unbelievers right now stand condemned under God’s righteous wrath. Twice in John chapter 3 do we see this stirring truth where John tells us that “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (vs. 18) and “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (vs. 36).
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The Agony of Church Discipline Carried Out
Pray for the person’s repentance, for that is what we all want. We want him to come home, or at least reconcile even if that means attending a different church in good standing. Pray for the person to be humbled, for one cannot have godly sorrow without humility. There is no such thing as prideful repentance. Hearts grow harder, and so God needs to break it.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matthew 18:17)
As my wife and I walked into the sanctuary, we were met with the same fellowship we always get. But on this occasion, there was a sense of angst as everybody waited for the elders to speak. You see, this wasn’t Sunday service. It was a members-only meeting.
And just about everybody in the room—including my wife and me—knew what this meeting was about.
With brevity and soberness, our pastor stepped behind the stand and led the members in prayer. He had notes on the podium, which meant he’d be reading off a statement. As he read the statement, you could hear a pin drop—even though most knew what was coming.
Was one of the pastors leaving? Did one of the pastors disqualify himself from ministry? Is the church having difficulty with finances? No.
A member of the church—one that had been my closest friend—was being removed from membership due to willful unrepentance. Biblically, this is known as excommunication, and as you might can tell, it’s a sensitive subject. It’s even more sensitive when it comes to your church, to your closest friends.
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