Darkness and Light in New York
The New York Presbytery is in trouble again. Its trouble now, as formerly, is through the work of that heretical institution-The Union Theological Seminary. It turns out for the so-called Christian ministry young men who are sufficiently imbued with hypocrisy to declare that they "accept both the Old and New Testaments as the rule of faith and practice, and believe that God is able to work miracles," and yet who cannot accept "the virgin birth of Christ as related in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, or the raising of Lazarus from the dead as related in the Gospel of John."
And when such men have the effrontery to present themselves as Christian ministers, or as Christians at all (for Christians are men, the very foundation of whose faith is the virgin birth of Christ), and faithful men protest, some Judas steps up and makes complaint that "just at a time when Christian unity is making a little progress, and missionary zeal is beginning to bear fruit, the theology hair-splitters get in their work."
What is " Christian unity " apart from the eternal deity of our Saviour? What is "missionary zeal" if it bring not men as worshipers at the feet of Him who, if not born of the Virgin, is but a^man as we are, and incapable therefore of being our Saviour ? Think of calling men hair-splitters who object to the removal of the foundations!
Such institutions as "Union Theological Seminary" are fast hastening the hour when Christendom, having cast off the Christ of God, will open its arms wide to the other Christ-the Antichrist. While noting the hypocrisy with professed superior knowledge of these deniers of the Saviour, sent out under cover of the Christian name, how refreshing is the voice of a man in the ordinary affairs of life, whose grasp of mind was surely nothing behind theirs, setting at the head of his Will the following humble confession:" I, John Pierpont Morgan, of the City, County and State of New York, do hereby make, publish and declare this my last will and testament in the manner and form following, that is to say:-
Article I. I commit my soul into the hands of my Saviour, in full confidence that having redeemed it and washed it in His most precious blood, He will present it faultless before the throne of my heavenly Father; and I entreat my children to maintain and defend, at all hazard, and at any cost of personal sacrifice, the blessed doctrine of the complete atonement for sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, once offered, and through that alone."
And even though many be too proud to join heartily with that confession, yet will the secret conscience of man from one end of the earth to the other, honor the man who made it far above all the divinity doctors who labor to destroy it; for, deep down in his soul, man knows he is a sinner, and that a sinner needs a Saviour, and that none but Jesus is that Saviour.
Contrast Capt.
Ross who in 1829 sailed in the steamship Victory, with the purpose of finding a north-west passage to the Pacific Ocean, describes their rescue and welcome by the Isabella, as follows:"Though we had not been supported by our names and characters, we should not the less have received from charity the attentions we received, for never was seen a more miserable set of wretches:no beggar that wanders in Ireland could have outdone us. Unshaven since I know not when, dirty, dressed in the rags of wild beasts, and starved to the very bones, our gaunt and grim looks, when contrasted with those of the well dressed and well-fed men around us, made us all feel, I believe for the first time, what we really were, as well as what we seemed to others."
How welcome to men in such a state is the cleansing bath, and the hair-clipping, and the new clothing, and the richly-spread table. How easily the mind enters into the scene of joy, not only of the rescued party taken out of death and misery, but of the rescuers who ministered such good things to fellows in such dire necessities.
Such is the work of the gospel. As the ship Isabella was to these perishing men, so is Christ as presented by the gospel. As the contrast between these dirty, ragged, starving men and the crew of the ship, so is the contrast between the righteousness of man and the righteousness required for admittance before God. As all that the rescued needed was ministered to them by their rescuers, so the gospel of the grace of God declares that everything we need for the presence of God, in all the glory of His person and of His surroundings, we have in Christ, every believer alike, the least appreciative as well as the most. Is it a wonder if, from the great and beloved apostle Paul down to the present, the supreme passion of many a soul who has passed through the rescue the gospel brings, has been to proclaim it wherever there is an ear to hear it?
The vilest of sinners met with no such denunciations from the lips of our Lord as the sanctimonious scribes and Pharisees who resisted and stood in the way of the grace of that gospel. None of these caused joy in heaven; but even a poor thief, repenting at the eleventh hour and putting his trust in Jesus, stirs the Father's house above as he is welcomed in its courts. Far, far from making light of a past wicked life, those there must celebrate the virtues of the Cross, which glorifies their Lord in bringing wretched sinners there.
"The Gates of Hell" (Matt. 16:18)
The Lord had asked His disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" and Peter had answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." The subject of this confession the Lord declares to be the rock on which He would build His Church. "The Son of the living God " has gone down under our sins and for sin, has come up again without them and blotted them out forever, has ascended into heaven, has communicated His life to every member of His body, sent us the Holy Spirit to unite us to Himself; and in all the power which is His both in heaven and earth He nourishes and keeps and preserves every one of His members. "The gates of hell " can never prevail against that body. His Church cannot possibly be obliterated from the face of the earth, or overthrown, whatever be the wrath of the devil and of the world combined. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." For every one cut down, He, the Head, would raise up two in the face of the enemy.
It is the Greek word Hades, not Gehenna, which is used here. Gehenna has to do with the individual, at the end of time, when the final judgment takes place and the subjects of that judgment have been raised from the dead (Rev. 20:12-15). It 's "soul and body" when Gehenna is spoken of. Not so with Hades. A man is never there in his body. He can be there only out of the body-in the unseen state- for Hades expresses not torment necessarily, but the unseen, disembodied state. Our Lord said, "Thou shalt not leave My soul in Hades," that is, in the unseen, disembodied state. Whole communities, because of the sins of the community, might go down to Hades. "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to hell" (Hades). Accordingly the city has gone into oblivion, though there may have been in it persons who are now in heaven.
If is a great pity that the two original Greek words, Hades and Gehenna, have not been preserved in their Greek form in every translation of the Holy Scriptures. The confusing them in the translation has hindered the true understanding of the word of God in some parts, and given great advantage to the deceivers who trade upon public ignorance.
"The gates of hades" then cannot prevail against the Church of God. The Jewish persecutions at her very beginning, the fierce and mighty powers of the Roman empire following, the devilish cruelties of the counterfeit Church during the " dark ages" and for a long time after the Reformation, all the cunning and craft of Satan in the assaults of " Higher Criticism," of "science falsely so called," of "antichrists," of "false teachers," of "Cains" and "Balaams" and "Korahs; " none of them, nor all of them put together, can obliterate the Assembly of God from the earth, or check her march onward to the glory. She cannot be hid while it pleases God to leave her upon the earth.
What holy courage it gives to all who, for love of Christ, serve His Church on her way. Their service of love, no matter how dismal or discouraging the circumstances may be, abides as surely and eternally as the Church herself, and when her foes are all fallen and she is enthroned in glory with Christ, then will the smallest and most hidden "labor of love" appear in all the value that God has set upon it.