Our Abiding Heritage
W. Carl Ketcherside
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Jezebel descended upon the northern area of Palestine with an insatiable passion to banish the worship of Jehovah and install the pagan fertility cults with their orgies and excesses. She inaugurated a blood purge of the prophets of God and vowed to exterminate them. The hero of the age was Elijah. Upon the brow of Mount Carmel he confronted four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal in a public test of sacrificial fire, and when he was proven victorious, he ordered the seizure of the pagan priests and slew them all on the banks of the brook Kishon, at the foot of the mountain.
Jezebel was enraged beyond measure. She sent a servant to Elijah with the message, "So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Elijah fled for his life, stopping in the wilderness of Beer-sheba only to gain strength to press on. Forty days later he reached his destination at Horeb, the mount of God, where he abode in a cave. This was the mount where the law had been given years before. Upon that occasion the precipice was wreathed in thick smoke. The thunder reverberated through the crags, the forked tongues of lightning illuminated the eerie scene, and an earthquake caused the mountain to shake as the whole earth trembled.
Perhaps the lonely prophet, who thought the last altar had been toppled by ruthless heathen, and every other witness for Jehovah except himself had been murdered, returned to the source or point of origin of the national religion, for assurance of the power and permanency of the promises of God. He may have been like many in our day who are disturbed by the clamor of dissident voices, and distressed by the chorus of discordant partisans, until they long to return to Pentecost and experience anew the thrilling inauguration of the new covenant. But covenants are like persons who enter into them, they have but one birthday. The rest are anniversaries. You experience birthdays but you celebrate anniversaries.
Surely the prophet thought he would
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A great wind--an earthquake--a fire! These are the most powerful forces in nature. All three were present when the covenant was given and God was in them. Now he was not in them, but after they swept on there was "a still small voice." But it was the voice of God and it commissioned Elijah to return to active service and to pursue a course which would shake Israel and Syria to their very political foundations. The voice of God may not always be heard above the raucous ravings of the prophets of Baal. But it is there and it speaks with as much authority in a still small voice at the mouth of a cave as it does with the sound of a trumpet from the summit of a mountain.
The question of the authority of the Bible can never be divorced from that of the authorship of the Bible. Before one resolves to respect, or agrees to avoid, the authority of the Book, he must confront three questions in proper sequence. Is there a God? If so, has he communicated his thoughts to men? If he has done so, is that communication contained in the volume called "The Bible"?
This is not an assembly of atheists, an association of agnostics, or a society of skeptics. It would presume upon your patience and tamper with your time to present proof of the existence of Deity. The very title of the convention affirms it to be Christian, and assumes, if it does not assure, that those who come to it, as those who come to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
The longer I live and the more I meditate upon things divine, the more absurd it seems that there could be a personal God who did not communicate his wishes to the rational beings whom he designed and created to fulfill those wishes for their own happiness and his glorification. For if he did not communicate his will it would seem reasonable to deduce that either he would do so but could not, or, that he could do so and would not. But if he purposed to do what he had no power to perform he could not be God, and if he possessed the potential but preferred to preserve us in ignorance of the essentials to our wellbeing he would not be God. A God of consolation must be a God of communication!
If it be agreed that God, as the absolute good, would reveal to man those things which are for his ultimate good, it would appear further logical that this revelation would be preserved for the good of all mankind, until the ultimate is achieved or the destiny attained. Otherwise, God would exhibit partiality toward, and prejudice in behalf of, certain peoples and certain ages. The preservation would demand no greater demonstration of power than the revelation.
The highest form of communication known to man is by words which are adopted as symbols of ideas and vehicles of thought. Words may be either spoken or written, but when the original ideas are to be made accessible to future generations, in their primitive purpose and pristine purity, they must be consigned to documents which are subject to constant research as source materials. Traditions which are continually filtered through fallible memory processes soon forfeit any claim to authority based upon origin.
To one who accepts the premise that there is a body of writings properly designated the holy scriptures, or sacred writings, and that the constituent elements have won their place in the canon because of recognized authenticity and genuineness, the question of whether God has communicated with man presents no
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That there may be no uncertainty as to my own attitude, let me state unequivocally that for me the Bible contains the word of God. It is authoritative in my life. Its stories of faith and courage thrilled my heart when I was a lisping babe at my mother's knee. Its gentle rebukes rescued me from reckless rebellion in the days of my youth, and when I refused to hearken, its stern reproof rendered my nights sleepless with the agonizing torment of a burning conscience. Its demand upon my soul tugged me from the old handmade pew in a simple rural meetinghouse to tearfully confess my faith in him "whom having not seen I love." And its command led me into the clear waters of a flowing creek to be buried with him in that act of surrender in which I pledged allegiance forever to his sovereignity over my life.
Upon those occasions when I shivered and trembled in the cold wind blowing across the cemetery, as I gazed for the last time upon the coffin containing all that was mortal of him who begot me, or of her who bore me, it was the blessed promises they had taught me in our rude, poverty-stricken home, where the mantle of love was thrown over the harsh facts of life, which dried away my tears and gave me the courage to continue the battle. And now that I have personally reached the point in my earthly pilgrimage where the sun has passed its meridian, and I face the soft afterglow while the shadows lengthen behind me, I have, like Jacob of old, returned to my Bethel to renew my faith in "the God who answered in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." I have resolved that I will not cast away his rod and staff as I approach the dark valley. I want his word to lean upon when I
"...feel the fog in my throat,
The mists in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place."
I am fully aware of the charges
which will be leveled against such artless and unreserved
faith by our sophisticated society. One who thus trusts in
the Father of life and the life of the Father, will be labeled
as naive, simple and childish. To this indictment before
the bar of human wisdom I cheerfully plead guilty,
although I would prefer to substitute the term "childlike"
for childish. It is precisely this attitude which must be
adopted if one is to grasp the divine revelation. This is
the wisdom of ignorance as opposed to the ignorance of
wisdom! Before we may be filled of God we must be
empty of self. God sends none away empty except those
who are full of themselves!
When Jesus upbraided, for their
unrepentant arrogance, the great urban centers where
most of his mighty works were performed, he said, "I
thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou
hast hidden these things from the wise and
understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father,
for such was thy gracious will." When the disciples asked
him to referee their verbal contest over who would be
greatest in the kingdom, he set a child in the midst of
them and said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and
become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is
the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
Those who confess their inability
to "understand all mysteries and all knowledge," and, as
a consequence, must resort to the age-old formula,
"Speak Lord, thy servant heareth" must enter at "The
Childrens' Gate" if they enter at all. And those who stoop
low enough to find access
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Jesus is Lord! This is not a mere shibboleth or vacuous cliche to be bandied about in theological dialogue or ecclesiastical discussion. It is not a mere passkey to unlock the multitude of doors and gain access to the variegated cells of a complex schismatic structure called "modern Christianity."
Jesus is Lord! This is not a verbalization of the least common denominator discoverable as a loose tie to hold together feuding factions. It is not an island jutting out of the turbulent waters of sectarianism to afford the only solid place to which those who have made shipwreck of all other aspects of faith may repair for consultation and conference. It is the only ground of our trust and confidence, the very universe of our hope.
Jesus is Lord! This is a fact, demonstrable as all facts must be by credible testimony. The divine witness was the Holy Spirit shed abroad upon the chosen envoys of the King on Pentecost. The human witnesses were those ambassadors sent forth into an alien world. Their testimony was to reach the uttermost parts of the earth, and His abiding care was to be with them to the end of the age.
There is a difference in confessing that Jesus is the Savior and acknowledging him as the Lord. The first may be an intellectual assent growing out of an emotional need; the second is an act of commitment in recognition of sovereignty. One may be by consecrated lips; the other must be by dedicated life. To accept Jesus merely as a Savior may be purely selfish; to admit his Lordship is an act of surrender. One places man on the receiving end, the other on the sacrificial end, of the Christian concept. We accept Jesus as Savior when he hears what we say from a sincere heart; we acknowledge him as Lord when he sees what we do as an expression of faith.
Lordship creates a master-servant relationship. Lipservice can never be a test of it. His own words are adequate proof of this. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). "Blessed is that servant who when his Lord comes, he shall find so doing" (Luke 12:43). When Peter asserted that Jesus had been raised up and made both Lord and Christ, the natural question was, "Men and brethren, what must we do?" (Acts 2:37).
This is the reason that in response to the Good News both belief and baptism are involved. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Since the gospel is intended to produce a community of believers bound together in a body, under a head, who is over all, these two factors are essential and valid. The belief of one fact commits us to recognition of his divine Sonship. The obedience of one act in implementation of our faith commits us to the acceptance of his lordship over our lives. It is a proof of divine wisdom that these two guard the portals of a community whose citizens must depend for their survival upon their trust in and obedience to an absent King.
It is obvious that we cannot show that Jesus is Lord unto us unless we do what he says. It is just as obvious that we cannot do what the Lord has said, unless he has spoken, and unless we know what he said. If we reject the new covenant scriptures as containing the word of the Lord, we have no other source to which we may repair to know his will. If we receive these scriptures as an expression of
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We are aware that this simple childlike thesis is questioned by contemporary scholastics. Many of these have adopted the conclusion that the new covenant scriptures represent only a collection and compilation of the traditions of the church. They contend that the work of the church did not result from the scriptures, but that the scriptures resulted from the work of the church. It is argued, and correctly so, that the church existed prior to the new covenant scriptures. But the church did not exist prior to the word of God, for it was not the church which produced the gospel but the gospel which produced the church. Jesus said, "The seed of the kingdom is the word of God."
Did the apostolic doctrine flow from the same fountain as the apostolic gospel? Did the bread upon which the saints were to feed come from the same source as the life it was to sustain? Were the children of God turned loose at birth to forage for themselves, or were they provided with "the sincere milk of the word?" Were the new covenant scriptures written by the church or to the church? If they were produced by the church, why did not the church also preserve as holy all of the other letters and documents then extant? If they were written to the church, by whom were they written and upon what authority? Was that authority accepted as legitimate at the time by the body of Christ? If so, upon what ground can that same body reject that authority in our day?
It will make a great deal of difference whether we regard the new covenant scriptures as the voice of the Shepherd or the bleating of the sheep; the providential provision of a loving Father or the accidental discovery of curious children. What a cruel irony of fate would result if the Bible were shown to be mere tradition and those martyrs whose bodies were burned at the stake because they resisted tradition as equal with God's revelation, would prove to be not "fools for Christ's sake" but simply backward idiots in their own right. It seems to me that I can envision a mighty host of spectral forms rising out of the gray mists of the ages of ignorance, pointing skeletal fingers of accusation--and condemnation--at those of us who use the rays of our own enlightenment to burn and destroy our greatest source of strength and hope.
I do not plead for rigid "patternism" nor for conformity that is either blind or bland. I do not regard the new covenant scriptures as providing a meticulous method or regimented routine for recognize our continued need for a compass as we sail the untried ocean on our way back home. We will not demonstrate a superior wisdom by ceasing to make the written word a means to an end, nor by considering it as an end to all means. There is a difference in the compass and the pole star to which it points. The Christian concept is not one of Jesus pointing us to a book but of a book pointing us to Jesus.
In our spiritual odyssey it is not enough to fill our ears with wax or lash ourselves to the mast so we may stedfastly resist the siren song luring us to the islands of mediocrity where the sands are strewn with the bleaching bones of those who began with high hopes and ardent ambition. We must also steer safely between the Scylla of liberalism on the one side and the Charybdis of legalism on the other. In mythology one of these monsters lifted men up and destroyed them, the other sucked them under to their fate. But if safety depends upon remaining in the vessel it little matters whether we are doomed by elevation or by gravitation.
When I received from the Program Committee the gracious invitation to ad-
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Our enduring heritage! Kingdoms rise and fall. Civilizations flourish and fail. The sound of tramping armies shakes the earth and then fades into oblivion. Philosophers have their day and vanish from the arena. Books become best sellers and then collect dust on forgotten shelves in darkened corners. Leaders are brought into the spotlight with a fanfare and disappear into the curtained wings of life's theater almost before the echo of the trumpet dies. But the word of God lives on according to his unswerving promise, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."
Sustained by the spade of the archeologist and supported by the searches of the archivist, the word of God lives on in spite of changing cultures and flagging faith. He speaks from the summit of Palomar through the lens of a telescope as he did from the brow of Sinai through the lips of Moses, and his message is the same, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." The still small voice heard by Elijah in an ancient cave echoes from the musty scroll of a Dead Sea cavern in our own day, and summons us anew to the unfinished task of the centuries. A stumbling illiterate goatherd can bring discoveries to light which awaken the profoundest scholars to frenzied zeal.
Our enduring heritage! My entertainment in infancy, my instruction in youth, my inspiration in manhood, my invigoration in approaching age, my illumination on the journey through the valley of shadows! Oh, may I never forget it, but love it, revere it, and through it be faithful unto Him whose word it is. And amidst the clamor of disputed claims, the shouts of sharply separated scientific scholars, and the propositions of antagonistic professors and pundits, may I never forget that it is better to know the Rock of Ages than to know the ages of the rocks.