“People hate the truth for the sake of whatever it is that they love more than the truth. They love the truth when it shines warmly on them, and hate it when it rebukes them.” – Saint Augustine of Hippo
J. Gresham Machen engaged the modern liberalism of the Presbyterian Church in a battle for objective, propositional and biblical truth. The so-called indifferentists increasingly dominated Princeton Seminary. These were not liberals or even modernists, but rather moderates who wanted everyone to just get along. They championed unity instead of truth. They held a compromising attitude by allowing the modernist, liberal presence to seize leadership; not only at Princeton but also in the Presbyterian Church USA.
“The moderates were driven by an almost desperate sense of maintaining unity, cultivating an environment of tolerance – except, or course, of the hard-liner fundamentalists,” explains Dr. Stephen J. Nichols.
Ultimately the issue at this time was about authority and not tolerance. Who has ultimate authority in the church, and para-church organizations, remains the question throughout generations? It is a dispute over the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Do the Scriptures alone possess the ultimate and divine standard for the faith and practice of believers in Christ? Or can the organized church, or para-church organizations such as a seminary, supersede the Scriptures with an authority of their own?
The battle that increasingly and theologically burned in the Presbyterian Church and Princeton Seminary in the 1920’s, continues to spread a century later in the Christian Reformed Church, the United Methodist Church and the churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The battle for the Bible rages on.
“As Machen famously observed, theological liberalism was no upgraded form of Christianity but an altogether different religion seated in the naturalist/humanist doctrines of the day,” states Dr. David B. Garner, professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia.
“Machen ably exposed the new religion, its new dogma, and its self-appointed authority. It differs from Christianity in its view of God, of man, of the seat of authority and of the way of salvation.”
Machen contended, as should we, that Scripture alone is the final seat of authority. God inspired it (2 Timothy 3:16-17), God reveals Himself in and through it (2 Peter 1:19-21), and the believer in Christ is sanctified by it (Psalm 1; 19; 119; John 17:17; Hebrews 4:11-13).
“Armed with the divine Word, Machen spoke with keen insight, sincere compassion, and disarming clarity. He challenged liberalism’s dogmas: its repudiation of the supernatural, its sinful decimation of sin, its arrogant bluster over the ultimate goodness of mankind, its perverse eclipse of historic theology behind a mirage of heartwarming tolerance, and its crafty turning of Jesus into a guru rather than God. Rather than Rome’s magisterial authority, the reigning voice of the day was theological liberalism, founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men,” explains Dr. Garner.
Sentiment replaced Scripture. Therefore, the Bible could mean whatever anyone wanted it to mean. Biblical definitions and doctrines were no longer important or necessary. The church strove for religious exploration and experience, but not dogma. Machen exposed this cunning and pernicious deception.
“Let us not deceive ourselves. A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls. Clothe Him with all the art of modern research, throw upon Him the warm, deceptive calcium-light of modern sentimentality; and despite it all common sense will come to its rights again, and for our brief hour of self-deception—as though we had been with Jesus—will wreak havoc upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment,” wrote Machen.
While the fallen world, and the apostate church, cries freedom, they willingly submit to a cruel and evil master. The deceived fall prey to the same deception that befell the man and the woman in Eden (Gen. 3:1-21).
“Emancipation from the blessed will of God always involves bondage to some worse taskmaster. Let it not be said that dependence upon a book is a dead or artificial thing. The Reformation of the sixteenth century was founded upon the authority of the Bible, yet it set the world aflame. Dependence upon a word of man would be slavish, but dependence upon God’s word is life. Dark and gloomy would be the world, if we were left to our own devices, and had no blessed Word of God. The Bible, to the Christian is not a burdensome law, but the very Magna Charta of Christian liberty,” explained Machen.
Feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving;
My warrant is the Word of God–
Naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned
For want of some sweet token,
There is One greater than my heart
Whose Word cannot be broken.
I’ll trust in God’s unchanging Word
Till soul and body sever,
For, though all things shall pass away,
HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!” ― Martin Luther
Soli deo Gloria!
His Word Today 