The gospel is at stake.
The gospel is at stake.
J. Gresham Machen on faith alone.
One of the early 20th-century disputes whose ripple effects are still being felt today is the brouhaha between conservative and liberal theologians in the 1920s. With liberal Protestantism gaining traction within evangelical circles, tensions began to rise over how to handle the Word of God, especially since higher textual criticism was swollen in its scholarly approval. As a result of the academic aspersions cast against Scripture, though, was a newfound articulation of the gospel that was less about reconciliation from sin and more about moral transformation. This was articulated quite explicitly by the likes of Harry Emerson Fosdick and Walter Rauschenbush, whose “social gospel” served to reinterpret the work of Jesus on the cross as a monolithic source of inspiration for moral action. While not negating the moral imperative that stems from the gospel of Jesus Christ, Princeton theologian J. Gresham Machen indefatigably resisted Fosdick’s misguided reinterpretation and promoted the true Christian gospel of reconciliation and resurrection by faith alone in his classic work, Christianity and Liberalism. Here’s a fitting snippet:
Faith is often based upon error, but there would be no faith at all unless it were sometimes based upon truth. But if Christian faith is based upon truth, then it is not the faith which saves the Christian but the object of the faith. And the object of the faith is Christ. Faith, then, according to the Christian view, means simply receiving a gift. To have faith in Christ means to cease trying to win God’s favor by one’s own character; the man who believes in Christ simply accepts the sacrifice which Christ offered on Calvary. The result of such faith is a new life and all good works; but the salvation itself is an absolutely free gift of God.
Very different is the conception of faith which prevails in the liberal Church. According to modern liberalism, faith is essentially the same as “making Christ Master” in one’s life; at least it is by making Christ Master in the life that the welfare of men is sought. But that simply means that salvation is thought to be obtained by our own obedience to the commands of Christ. Such teaching is just a sublimated form of legalism. Not the sacrifice of Christ, on this view, but our own obedience to God’s law, is the ground of hope . . .
Thus it may be said of the modern liberal Church, as of the Jerusalem in Paul’s day, that “she is in bondage with her children.” God grant that she may turn again to the liberty of the gospel of Christ!
The liberty of the gospel depends upon the gift of God by which the Christian life is begun — a gift which involves justification, or the removal of the guilt of sin and the establishment of a right relation between the believer and God, and regeneration or the new birth, which makes of the Christian man a new creature. (120–22)
The shards that resulted from the rift between liberal and fundamentalist theologians in the first few decades of the 20th century are, in many ways, still influencing the modern ecclesiological landscape. Indeed, the church of today is seemingly more not less divided than ever, with theological rifts only being exacerbated by political schisms and more doctrinal fallout. Yet, even still, the need of the hour is no different than in the days of Machen, Luther, or Paul. The decision to preach nothing “except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) is just as critical as when the apostle first wrote those words. Accordingly, the point is neither capitulation nor compromise, but the certain conviction that the Christian gospel is nothing less than the announcement of Christ’s passion and resurrection on behalf of sinners everywhere.
Grace and peace.
Works cited:
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923; repr. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009).