Review of “Voices of Concern” . . . No.9
HORIZONS UNLIMITED
JAMES D. BALES
Under the title of “Wider Horizons” Cecil
L. Franklin tells us some of the reasons why he left us, and why he
finally went into the Episcopal Church. We should enlarge our
horizons to the extent authorized by Christ in His word, but in the
Episcopal Church the horizons are unlimited by the Word of God. In
speaking of conditions in the Church of England Jenkin Lloyd Jones
said: “My own fellow Unitarians. . . have by their insistence
on ‘absolute freedom’ become an amorphous mass of
Christians, agnostics, pantheists, atheists, communists, humanists,
etc., ‘without form, and void,’ as Genesis puts it. There
is a point at which belief in everything becomes indistinguishable
from belief in nothing.” Franklin seems to stand against such
(Voices, p. 180).
Franklin rightly emphasized that we should be concerned
about the needs of people; such as those who are treated unjustly,
those who are involved in marital problems, those who have been left
alone. We agree, although this does not mean that one must endorse
all that others may think on the subject of how it should be done.
Unity
Franklin grants that professing Christians should not
be unconcerned about the Lord’s prayer for unity. We must not
be comfortable in “sectarian security, untroubled by the
divisions which separate us.” We must “fervently”
pray “that the Spirit of God will further enlighten us all, and
draw us closer together, and in His time reunite us.” (Voices
of Concern, P. 183)
First, all who profess love for and loyalty to Jesus,
and who have read that He prayed for the unity of believers (John
17:20-21), cannot love Him as they ought if they are not concerned to
answer, in so far as their own lives are concerned, the Lord’s
prayer for unity. Division is contrary to His will, and it is a
stumbling block in the path of some who might otherwise believe.
Second, we need to pray but prayer is not a substitute
for study of God’s word. Teaching not based on the Bible is not
the teaching of the Spirit. The “all truth” has been
delivered in the faith once for all delivered to the saints (John
16:12-13; Jude 3). What further word from God would be necessary to
lead us to answer the Lord’s prayer for unity. Those who do not
heed what the Spirit has revealed on this matter in the Bible would
not heed if a thousand more pages were revealed on the subject
(Compare Lk. 16:29-31).
Third, it is now God’s time, and has always been,
for us to answer Christ’s prayer for unity. Since today is the
day of the evangelization of the world, and has been since the
establishment of the church, today has always been the day that the
Lord wants us united so that the world may believe that God sent Him.
To pray that God reunite us “in His time” shifts,
consciously or unconsciously, the responsibility for and the ending
of religious division to the shoulders of the Lord, instead of to
man. If one does not let the Bible have the final word with him, he
can always justify his denominationalism by asserting that it is not
yet the Lord’s time to unite us, and why should we try to do
prematurely what it is not yet the Lord’s time to do? We cannot
escape in this manner our responsibility for doing what we can now to
answer the Lord’s prayer for unity. And certainly each one of
us can be members simply of the Lord’s church; nothing more and
nothing less. We have no right to remain in denominationalism and
imply that we are waiting for further enlightenment for the Spirit,
and that we are waiting until the Lord decides that it is time to do
the job.
Fourth, Franklin did not make a contribution to
answering the Lord’s prayer for unity by going into a
denominational church. Why should he think that any sectarianism
amongst some professed Christians justifies him in joining a
sectarian Church? Look in the New Testament as he may, he cannot find
the Episcopal Church and certain of its doctrines. One does not
answer the Lord’s prayer for unity by taking his stand in
denominationalism. Some people may be unaware of the face that they
are sectarian, but the solution is not achieved by joining a
sectarian organization.
Fifth, Franklin wrote as if church history was simply a
great procession of which the early Christians and we are a part, and
that it is all “Christian history” (pp. 183-185). He
wrote as if there had been no apostasy, no falling away, from the
faith. The Bible predicted apostasies (1 Tim. 4; 2 Thess. 2; etc.),
and we must make a distinction between the history of the church, and
the history of departures from New Testament Christianity. Franklin
said: “To cut ourselves off from any of this heritage is to
impoverish ourselves.” (Voices, 184) . We must separate from
much of church history for there is much in it in creed and conduct,
in doctrine and deed, which are contrary to the teaching of our Lord.
We do not minimize a study of “church history.” It has
such values as: (a) We may learn from the arguments and insights of
others. (b) We can see in some cases in church history what the
ultimate end of certain trends among us today will be if these trends
are persisted in. In other words, church history can help us to
realize that we may be making a new trial of old errors. (c) We can
learn that our generation is not the first generation to be faced
with great difficulties, trials, and tribulations. These and other
things can be very helpful to us, but we can know what is scriptural
not by a general study of church history but by what the Bible
teaches. We judge church history in the light of the Bible, and not
the Bible in the light of church history.
Franklin’s Pilgrimage
Franklin traced his departure to adolescent rebellion
(Voices, 178). Albert
Clarke Wyckoff, in Acute and Chronic Unbelief
(Revell), has a good analysis of this type of
thing. Franklin “felt almost a glee in emancipation” (Voices, 178). When
one is in rebellion against authority—whether of the home
and/or of God—he usually feels emancipated, for a time, when he
throws off the authority. Franklin became Unitarian in belief, but
finally viewed this as inadequate and went into the priesthood of the
Episcopal Church (pp. 178-179) . Although he does not think that the
Church should permit any and every opinion (p. 180), he is identified
with a Church which does. For decades, for example the pro-Communist
Hewlett Johnson was “The Dean of Canterbury,” and Pike
was an Episcopal Bishop.
Franklin himself accepts modernism which undermines in
varying degrees the inspiration of the Bible (pp. 177, 185-186). He
stated that: “It is hard to suppose that we can be genuine
disciples of Him who is the Truth at the same time that we
defensively protect ourselves from what are claimed to be new
discoveries of fact.” (p. 185) Christians should be receptive
to facts, although some people confuse the facts and the
interpretation that someone may have given them in order to make them
fit his particular biases. Modernism, however, sooner or later tries
to convict Jesus of dishonesty or of ignorance concerning the nature
of the Old Testament and the nature of the word, the New Testament,
into which the apostles and prophets of Christ were guided. We can
give some examples, although we do not know some of the specific
things which Franklin himself believes in these particular cases. (a)
Some deny that Moses wrote of Christ, but Jesus said that “he
wrote of me” (John 5:46-47). (b) Jesus quoted the Old Testament
and said that it was God’s voice to them (Matt. 22:31-32). (c)
Moses wrote the word of God (Matt. 15:4-6; Mk. 7:8, 10). (d) Jonah
was hosted by a great sea monster (Matt. 12:39-40). (e) Scripture
holds good, Jesus said. It cannot be broken (John 10:33-36).
If Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, how can we
believe that he had a false position concerning the Old Testament?
Can one believe that He is the Truth, and yet say that He was wrong
concerning the nature of the Old Testament? If He was wrong
concerning God’s work in the past, how do we know that he is
right concerning God’s work in the Present?
We are not disciples of Christ, but have tried to make
Him our disciple, if we claim that we know better than He the nature
of the Old Testament. There are some, however, who imply that he was
dishonest for they say that he knew better, but just conformed to
their prejudices; and He did this in this fundamental matter of what
is the word of God. What shall we say to this?
1. It is just as consistent to say that all of His word
today is but His conformity to the prejudices of His day, as to say
that His word concerning the Old Testament is such a conformity. How
does Franklin know that Jesus’ teachings about God’s love
and grace are not accommodations of Jesus to the false ideas of His
day?
2. There is no proof that Jesus thus accommodated
himself to the false ideas of His times. This theory of accommodation
is one that some people got up to try to justify their failure to
accept Jesus’ word even after they have claimed that He is the
Truth, and that they are His disciples.
3. Jesus condemned the traditions of the Pharisees, and
there is no indication that He avoided unpleasant truths in order to
please them or to reach them. Shall we say that in such a vital
matter as the inspiration of the Old Testament, that He stooped so
low as to leave the impression that they were right in accepting its
inspiration when He did not believe it? Christ condemned the Jews of
His generations for many things; but never once did He hint that they
had too high a regard for the inspiration of the Old Testament. He
often condemned their traditions, but He never suggested that faith
in the inspiration of the Old Testament was a tradition of men.
4. As S. S. Schmucker pointed out, and we draw on him
for the rest of the points, the language Jesus used with reference to
the Old Testament when speaking to people as a whole, is “precisely
the same language” which “is used by Jesus respecting the
Old Testament when conversing with His apostles (Matt. 26:24, 31;
Luke 22:37, 24:44-47), and even in His prayers to His heavenly Father
(e.g. John 17:22).”
5. “The moral character of Jesus and His
apostles, renders such a supposition inadmissible.”
6. “The supposition, that Jesus and His apostles
propagated falsehoods under the garb of truth, is overturned by the
fact that miracles evinced their authority as teachers.”
7. “No sure criterion can be given which shall
enable us to distinguish between those of their declarations which
they believed themselves, and those in which they accommodated
themselves to the erroneous notions of the Jews. . . The theory of
accommodation involves the whole of revelation in uncertainty.”
8. Wherein Jewish opinion was right, Jesus agreed with
it. He accepted truth even when held by hypocrites (Matt. 23:1-4).
9. “The necessity for such accommodation on the
part of Jesus and His apostles cannot be proved.” (Biblical
Theology, 1826, pp. 228-230).
Can one be a disciple of the Lord and presume to teach Jesus? Can one hold Jesus as the Truth, and yet convict Him of teaching falsehood? Christ has stood the test of centuries. Thus when there seems to be a conflict between Christ and some “fact” someone has brought forth today, we have either misunderstood what Christ taught, or we have misunderstood the “fact.” But if Christ actually teaches something, we must hold to it regardless of how many people say that the facts prove otherwise. It is possible to reject Him, and to refuse to be His disciple; but how can we be His disciple and still think that we can instruct Him more perfectly in matters?—Harding College, Searcy, Ark.