Written by John R. Muether |
Sunday, February 19, 2023
The abiding value of Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism will be lost on those who fail to give his last chapter a careful study. A church that locates its calling in the flourishing of an individual’s personal religious experience is one that has succumbed to worldliness. Machen directs us instead to see the church’s calling as stewarding the doctrine found in the Word of God and summarized in its confessional standards.

Contrary to the claim of modernists, the historic Christianity that J. Gresham Machen defended was not individualistic. Christianity “fully provides for the social needs of man,” he wrote in chapter 5 of Christianity and Liberalism, and he ended that chapter with reflections on the social consequences of salvation: the gospel transforms human institutions, including families, communities, the workplace, and even government.

But Machen was not finished. What remains is the highest and the most impor­tant institution of all—the church of Christ. Indeed, the entire thesis of Christianity and Liberalism comes to bear on the final chapter as Machen urges the recovery of a high view of the church. Judging from the current state of the church even among those who claim to love this book, however, we may wonder how many have carefully read this final chapter.
Machen begins by challenging a thin form of community that is premised on the “universal brotherhood of man.” Clear doctrinal boundaries are required to sustain a genuine fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ, simply because, as he clearly demonstrated in the preceding pages, liberalism is a complete departure from Christianity. “The greatest menace to the Christian Church today,” he wrote, “comes not from the enemies outside, but from the enemies within; it comes from the presence within the church of a type of faith and practice that is anti-Christian to the core.” Consequently, “a separation between the two parties in the church is the crying need of the hour.” Machen’s “straightforward” and “above board” appeal earned him the respect of “friendly neutrals” (as the secular journalist H.L. Mencken described himself as he followed the debate closely).
How would this separation take place? At the time the book was published, what seemed the most likely prospect—from both sides of the divide—was that a small number of liberals would leave the church. And Machen invited them to take this step of honesty. But he also anticipated another scenario, wherein conservatives would be forced to leave the church. A decade later, this is how the struggle would play out, as he himself was defrocked for the high crime of “disloyalty” to the boards of the church that were beset with modernism. Faithfulness to their ministerial calling compelled him and his allies to bear this cross.

Countervailing appeals to preserve the unity of the church obscured the issues that Machen laid out, and such ecclesiastical pacifism provided neither lasting peace nor unity: “Nothing engenders strife so much as a forced unity, within the same organization, of those who disagree fundamentally in aim.” Tolerance of doctrinal deviation is “simple dishonesty.”

Machen anticipated another option: some ministers might gravitate toward a functional independence, finding contentment in the orthodoxy of their own congregations or the soundness of their presbyteries.

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As you view the complicated situations caused by sinful hearts in this fallen world, remember that God keeps his covenant with his people, and he will bring you home to the promised land. No sin can thwart his purposes, and he will be faithful to his children.

Sometimes, our lives can get so messy that we wonder if God can redeem them. Reading through Genesis 30 and 31, we see how God’s plan proceeds even through jealousies, envy, and the strivings of our human nature. Sinfulness cannot thwart God’s plan. Though the sinner is guilty, the Lord continues in his grace to honor his covenant people.
Chapter 30 reads like a soap opera and spans many years. Jacob’s wives, Rachel and Leah, are jealous of each other and compete by trying to give Jacob more children than the other. They do this either through their wombs or the wombs of their handmaidens. The amount of sin and misguided ambition the Lord overlooked in all three of them at this time is astonishing. Despite their sins, God blesses them with children, and the twelve tribes of Israel are born. God’s plan for the nation of Israel continues.
Later, Jacob grows tired of his father-in-law Laban never keeping his word in their agreements and works a scheme to strengthen his flock and weaken Laben’s. He agrees with Laben that any sheep born with stripes or speckles would be his, and any without them would be Laben’s. In an unimaginable turn, Jacob’s strategy to get the striped sheep to be born was likely a folk custom of the time. Despite this, the Lord favors Jacob and grows his flock by giving him striped and speckled sheep.
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Knowledge of the facts beforehand would lessen the need, which in turn would lessen the meeting of that need. Gone would be that wonderous experience of God’s power in the extremity of your need. Gone would be the marvel of watching provision come in ways unforeseen, the thrill of receiving the delivery of the promise. The script takes that away, and you would be left with less reason to glorify Him as you do walking for years by faith and finally experiencing deliverance.

Do you ever wish God would tell you beforehand all you are supposed to do?
I remember having this desire 10 years ago as a senior about to graduate college. The road ahead looked like a tree branching into a thousand offshoots. Where was I to go? What was I to do? Who was I to marry?
I wished then that God would send me a book from heaven: Daniel’s book. It would describe in every detail my life from that moment to my death. It would tell all I would do and achieve and become. The confusion of the immediate would be erased. The frustrations of the murky present would be gone. All I would have to do would be to follow the book: move back home, take this particular job position, fall in love with this girl…etc.
Easy as.
But God does not work this way and you don’t have to be an expert in theology to deduce this. All throughout the Bible we see God intentionally withhold key information from individuals, leaving them to walk in the dark. The greater context, the purpose, the details, the whys and the hows are all hidden from the human agents; information that would have done much to alleviate anguish and pain in the moment is purposefully obscured.
Abraham and Isaac is a key example of this intentional withholding. God could have told Abraham from the outset, “What we are going to do is a performative rehearsal; an acting out of something to come. Take your son, your only son to Mount Moriah and sacrifice him there, but don’t worry! In the nick of time I will provide a substitute. And you and your son will be fine.” But no, Abraham is entirely left in the dark and given as little information as possible. Go and sacrifice your son.
God did not need to learn anything about Abraham through this ordeal. It is not that He was unsure of the Abraham’s faith beforehand and needed to test him to discover the quality. God knows all things. Why then the unnecessary anxiety? Why hide key information from this special friend of God?
Joseph could have used some information from the start as well: “Your brothers are going to sell you into slavery, you will be falsely accused as a servant, and sent to prison. But stay with me. At the right time I will raise you up to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and thereby save multitudes from famine. You will also be the second in command.” But no, Joseph has very little to go on throughout his drawn out trial.
Or consider Job. Little did he know he was part of a heavenly contest. His mind and suffering could have been greatly eased if only he knew a little more about what God was doing and why He was doing it.
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