SUNDAY CIRCLE

Southland Times, Issue 17553, 17 January 1914, Page 11

SUNDAY CIRCLE

WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?

(By Sir Robert Anderson, K.C.8.)

THE CROSS THE GREAT CRISIS OF THIS WORLD'S HISTORY. The Son of God has died by the hands of men. Every claim which man had upon God has thus been forfeited. Promises there were, and covenants, but Christ was to be the fulfiller of them an. He laid aside His glory, and came down to earth. At His own‘door He stood and knocked, but it was shut In Hia face (John 1—11). Turning thence He wandered into the world the world that He himself had made —but wandered there an outcast. “His own received Him not"; “the world knew Him not.” In return for pity He earned tout scorn and hate. Sowing kindnesses with a lavish hand. He reaped hut cruelty and outrage. Come to give life to men. He was seized by men and “crucified and slain.’ With the Rationalist that death was no more than the martyrdom of the greatest of religious teachers. And with half Christendom it was but a step In God’s progressive revelation to mankind, and in man’s upward progress toward the goal of his high destiny. But ■with God it is the most stupendous of all the events of time, an event of which the echoes reach back to a past eternity. <1 Refer. I—2o. Revelation, 13—S). and the results shall endure throughout an eternity to come. In truth it was the supreme crisis of this world’s history < John 12 —31).

•—Christian! Tv in its Highest Aspect is a Divine Revelation to Mankind: and It has a Gospel for the Individual. — 1 insist on this, because until it is recognised and accepted, the question. “What is Christianity?” cannot even be understood much less discussed and answered. The Rationalists “Christianity Is like a theory of the solar system which Ignores the sun. Just as those who built the tombs of the prophets declared thereby their kinship with those who slew them, so if men choose to ■treat Christ and His cross as commonplaces of their religion, they only prove their participation in the guilt of Calvary. What the after world shall bring to those who never heard of Christ it is not given to us to know. But to Christendom that Cross is the supreme revelation of divine wrath against sin. and of a divine love to a world of sinners. And this is Christianity in its first and highest aspect; not a religion, still less & philosophy, but a divine revelation of which the person and the work of Christ are the sum and substance.

And in this aspect of it Christianity has not merely a message for mankind, it has a gospel for the individual. "Come unto Me. all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. In these words the guiltiest of men can hear the voice of Him who died for us. and who is yet to be our judge; who knows all our sins and the depths of our sinfulness, and who. knowing all. bids us welcome in the full blessedness of forgiveness and peace and joy. In this sphere the ignorance and folly of “the wise and prudent" are amazing. They scout the idea of a present forgiveness and salvation for the believer in Christ, while they are still more indignant at the suggestion that the future will not bring salvation and forgiveness to all without distinction. But how can we know anything of God and His ways unless it" be either from revelation or from nature? If. then, the Bible be our guide, it is plain as words can make it. that the sinner who accepts Christ is forgiven and saved, and that the sinner who does not accept Him is eternallv doomed. But if men refuse the plain testimony of Holy Scripture, let them turn to "Nature”: and. as an infidel has phrased it. "Nature knows nothing of such foolery as forgiveness." Mature is stern and pitiless in punishing. Therefore, as Hr IVestcott has well said. “To reason the great mystery of the future is not punishment, but forgiveness.” In view of all this the Rationalists’ gospel seeks merely to lure us into a fool’s paradise. In view of all this no. free thinker, no real sceptic, no man of commonsense will be misled by fine words about "the summits of our Inner life." or "the upward development »f mankind’s history.’ If we reject the Bible. "Nature - will give us good cause to “faint in weariness and despair." If wc accept the gospel, grace will teach us to rejoice "with joy unspeakable. and full of glory." ‘—From "Christianised Rationalism and The Higher Criticism: A Reply to Profes =nr Harnack’s ‘XVhat is Christianity?' "