A Tour of the Missions: Observations and Conclusions

by Augustus Hopkins Strong

XV
MISSIONS AND SCRIPTURE

The world of scholars has recently been startled by the pretended discovery that the "Great Commission," "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations," is not an utterance of Jesus himself, but only one attributed to him by some enthusiastic follower of his in a later time. This pretended discovery is on a par with the earlier one that there never was such a person as Jesus at all, but that his personality is simply a myth that gradually grew up in the minds of some Jewish fanatics who sought a fulfilment of Messianic prophecy. We might treat these perverse and subversive conclusions as only curious instances of a wrong method of criticism. But they filter down from the scholars to the masses of Christian believers and weaken their faith. It becomes a duty to deal with the method which leads to such results, and threatens to destroy all our missionary zeal. Hence I proceed to test the value of the method itself, even though it is commonly called "the historical method" by those who adopt it. If we can bear a somewhat roundabout way of treating the subject, we shall gain a new and valuable light upon our missionary theory and practice.

To prevent misunderstanding, however, I must premise that it is the historical method as frequently employed, and not the historical method as it ought to be, to which I offer my objections. My criticism is directed against the historical method, only when it assumes to be the exclusive means of attaining truth, follows the methods of physical science, and ignores the far more important material for religious use which is furnished by intuition and revelation. The phrase "historical method" has come to imply much that does not properly belong to it. I criticize only its frequent exclusiveness and exaggeration. And I do this, as I think, in the interest of true science.

There are two methods of reasoning possible, in this case or in any other case, and there are only two—I mean the deductive, and the inductive. I make no mention of argument from analogy, for that proceeds upon a deductive basis, presuming that there is a designed order in the world which makes analogy possible. The deductive method argues from the universal to the particular, from the higher to the lower, from God to man. The inductive method, on the other hand, argues from the particular to the universal, from the lower to the higher, from man to God. Both of these methods are correct when each is taken in connection with the other. Much depends, however, upon the question which is taken first. Shall we begin with the particular, leaving out for the time all thought of the universal? There is danger that induction will come to be regarded as itself sufficient to lead us into the truth. This is a serious error, for correct induction presupposes deduction, and therefore deduction should be the guiding principle and safeguard of induction. If this is forgotten, induction may go fearfully astray.

To make my meaning still more plain, let me say that in our investigations we need a comprehensive method, a method that will look at facts from more than one point of view. A truly historical method will look at facts from above, as well as from each side, and so the deductive process may be popularly described as vertical. The historical method falsely so called errs in confining its view to what can be seen immediately around it, and so its process is exclusively horizontal. Deduction begins vertically, and makes that which comes from above to be its guide and standard in all inductive work. Induction begins horizontally, and tends to become self-sufficient, until all light from above seems untrustworthy and useless. For example, take the study of nature. If one begins, inductively and horizontally, with mere physical and material order, instead of beginning, deductively and vertically, with man's higher powers of conscience and will, he will end by finding only impersonal force in the universe, and by practically deifying it, as the Hindus deified Brahma. Begin rightly, and, with due care in the application of the deductive principle, he will come to right conclusions. There are certain truths which cannot be reached by induction. They are known by intuition, long before induction begins. The most fundamental of these truths is the truth of God's existence. A Power above us, which has moral perfection, and which claims our obedience, is revealed to every man by conscience. Begin with this knowledge, and to the obedient spirit the physical world seems ablaze with evidences of wisdom and love; the regularities of nature are recognized as God's methods of ordinary operation; evolution is only his usual plan of growth and progress; in other words, God's transcendence is manifest as well as his immanence, his personality as well as his revelation in the forces of the universe.

Man is a theist, before he becomes a Christian. Theism is a universal intuition, ready to assert itself in practice wherever it is not prevented by an evil will from its normal manifestation. But, because man is in an abnormal condition, this normal action of his powers can be restored only by the Holy Spirit. "When he is come," says our Lord, "he will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me," and "of righteousness, because I go unto the Father." Only when the prodigal repented, did he "come to himself," and begin to act normally. Under the influence of the Spirit, God's holiness reveals to man his sin, and God's love leads him to the feet of Jesus. This is the first step in Christian experience. To put my doctrine unmistakably and in a nutshell, deduction from the existence of God normally precedes and insures the acceptance of Christ. The sinner comes to have personal knowledge of One who has atoned, and therefore can forgive. But to him who has accepted Christ, his Lord is more than a historical Redeemer, he is a present Saviour from both the penalty and the power of sin. Without this personal knowledge of Christ, we might think of him as only one of many human examples or teachers, like Confucius or Buddha. Now, he is nothing less than God manifest in the flesh, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, whom having seen we have seen the Father.

But there is a second step in Christian experience, which I wish also to describe in a nutshell and to define as unmistakably as I described and defined the first. I claim that deduction from the existence of Christ normally precedes and insures the acceptance of Scripture. Our Lord himself has said, "My sheep hear my voice." The Christian recognizes in Scripture the voice of Christ. No change in his experience is more marked and wonderful than the change in his estimate of the Bible. A little time ago, Scripture was commonplace and unmeaning. Now it speaks to him with a living voice such words of instruction and comfort, of warning and promise, that his soul is filled alternately with sorrow and with joy. He wonders that he never saw these things before. He perceives for the first time that he has been in an abnormal condition of mind, and that condition has been due to his own perversity of will. But now the prodigal has "come to himself." Only the Holy Spirit could have made possible this new and normal exercise of his powers. The change is not in the Scripture, it is in himself. He has come in contact with a word of God that "liveth and abideth." He sees in it the divine workmanship. He can no longer regard Scripture as merely the work of man; it is also the work of the same Spirit who has transformed him, namely, the eternal Christ. Christ is the author and inspirer of Scripture, even though imperfect human agents have been employed to communicate his revelation. In spite of the rudeness and diversity of the instruments, there breathes through them all a certain divine melody and harmony. While the inductive and horizontal method would give us only finite and earthly truth, the deductive and vertical can give us truth that is infinite and eternal. The indispensable condition of success in the interpretation of Scripture is therefore a hearty belief that the Bible is Christ's revelation of God, and not merely a series of gropings after truth on the part of men. Deduction will give us truth from above, whereas induction will give us only scattered facts on the horizontal plane.

I am convinced that the so-called "historical method" of Scripture interpretation, as it is usually employed, fails to secure correct results, because it proceeds wholly by induction, leaving out of its account the knowledge of Christ which comes to the Christian in his personal experience. I do not regard such a "historical method" as really historical; I deny that it discovers the original meaning of the documents; I claim that, when made the sole avenue of approach to truth, it leads to false views of doctrine. It assumes at the outset that what rules in the realm of physics rules also in the moral and religious realm. But the Christian has learned that Christ is the supreme source of truth. By a process of either conscious or unconscious deduction he recognizes in Scripture the utterance of Christ. He must begin his investigations with one of two assumptions: Is the Bible only man's word? or, Is it also Christ's word? Is it a mere product of human intelligence? or, Is it also the product of a divine intelligence, who indeed uses human and imperfect means of communication, but who nevertheless at sundry times and in divers manners has brought to the world the knowledge of salvation?

I claim that we should begin by assuming that the Bible is a revelation of Christ. This assertion is justified, as I have already intimated, by our Christian experience. That experience has given us a knowledge of the heart, more valuable in religious things than any mere knowledge of the intellect. Doctor Tholuck, in an address to his students at his fiftieth anniversary, said that God's greatest gift to him had been the knowledge of sin. Without that conviction of sin which the Spirit of Christ can work in the human heart, there can be no proper understanding of Scripture, for Scripture is a revelation to sinners. The opening of the heart to receive Christ, and the new sense of his pardoning grace and power, give to the converted man the key to the interpretation of Scripture, for "the mystery of the gospel," the central secret of Christianity, is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He whom the Holy Spirit has first led to the knowledge of sin, and has then led to the acceptance of Christ, is prepared to enter into the meaning of Scripture, and no other man can understand it.

This was the way in which Paul came to understand Scripture. It was not by criticism of the documents, but by receiving Christ, that "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" entered into his soul. He knew himself to be the chief of sinners. He knew Christ as his manifested God and Saviour. He applied to Christ all that the Old Testament had revealed with regard to the dealings of God with his chosen people. The light that shone upon him on the way to Damascus was the Shekinah that led Israel in the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, that dwelt over the mercy-seat in the tabernacle and in the temple, and that thundered and lightened from Sinai in the giving of the Law. "The Rock that followed them" in the wilderness, and gave water to the thirsty, "that Rock was Christ." And so Paul came to know Jesus Christ as preexistent and omnipresent, as Redeemer of the whole world, Gentile as well as Jew; and Christ's Cross became the embodiment and symbol of God's amazing sorrow for human sin, and of his sacrifice for its cure. All Paul's later conclusions were developments and expressions of his initial knowledge of Christ. It was a deductive and not an inductive process, by which he arrived at his theology.