_Christian Theology
		by Milton Valentine, D.D., LL.D
		Copyright 1906,
		Lutheran Publication Society
		Printed Philadelphia, PA.
		by The United Lutheran Publication House_
			Pages 42-59
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		CHAPTER III.

	THE NATURE AND MODES OF REVELATION

Seeing Revelation to be the principal and supreme
source of Christian theology and what this means in re-
lation to other authority, we must seek a definite under-
standing of its nature and modes.

1. What is revelation, in the sense in which the
term is applied to the Bible as that source? The essen-
tial conception of it is that of a supernatural and histor-
ical disclosure by God of Himself and of truth needful
for the moral and spiritual well-being and destiny of
men. It covers the act or process of disclosing as well
as the disclosure given by the act. The New Testament
word for it is apokalupsis, a laying open of what was
covered (Rev. i.1), and its import is found in such pas-
sages as Matt. xvi. 17; I Cor. ii. 10; Gal. i. 12. In its
basal significance it expresses the historical movement
of God's eternal purpose to provide and make known
the way of salvation from the state of sin into which
humanity has fallen, and thereby again to enable it to
realize the true life and goal to which its creation
looked. In its central reality it is God's self-manifesta-
tion in the person and work of Christ, including all the
special preparations leading up to that, and the succeed-
ing apostolic teachings which have unfolded its redemp-
tive and saving import. It consists, therefore, in that
whole providential administration and multiform instruc-
tion in which God has made known Himself, His will
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and grace, and human duty, opportunity, and destiny,
through which Christianity has been established in the
world, and of which the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments are the permanent records.

That we may see this revelation in its right light we
must recall some of its distinct characteristics and rela-
tions.

_First_, it is a _special_ revelation. It is such by the very
relation in which it appears. Both by its initial state-
ment of a lapse of human life into a condition of sin,
and by its whole declared redemptive or soteriological
aim, it necessarily appears as a movement or stage of di-
vine manifestation beyond that _generic_ revelation which
God's creational work at once gave, and evermore gives, of
His being, thought, power, and will. It has its own dis-
tinct and definitive place. There is, unquestionably, a
primary, fundamental, perpetual self-revelation of God in
the cosmos itself, in the soul of man, in the intelligence of
the race. God has not left Himself without declaration
or clear witness. The universe reveals Him, everywhere
from atoms to world, forever speaking into reason's ear.
A general law of divine revelation is thus to be recog-
nized through creation and history. This is to be neither
denied nor ignored. It is rather to be emphasized and
built upon in forming our conception of the Christian
revelation. For the special revelation rests in and upon
the general revelatory principle, and exhibits its advance
to meet the conditions presented in the lapsed humanity
for whose welfare the cosmic existence and order are
meant. Thus, though not separated from generic the-
istic revelation through nature, it is yet _distinguished_
from it by relations and features peculiar to itself. God,
indeed, was not taken by surprise by humanity's guilty
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abuse of the high endowment of freedom and its self-
enslavement to sin. He forknew, and always truly
knows, both the world and humanity according to their
historical progression and conditions; and the revelatory
progress, which belongs to providential administration,
attends and keeps pace with their developing conditions
and needs. The divine revealing of creation passes on
into the divine revealing of administrational love and
activity--both connected with and looking to the same
moral purpose, and the second conserving it and holding
open the possibility of its attainment. And this special
revelation, reflecting and explaining distinctively God's
providential goodness and redemptive provision, must
necessarily exhibit peculiar characteristics and adapta-
tions. What revelation would have been, had there
been only a sinless development of mankind, we cannot
tell. Possibly it would have been simply the creation
itself, in its ever freshly illuminated pages, disclosing
the thought, the wisdom, the power, and the will of God.
Possibly it might have embraced progressively instituted
relations of life and fellowship with God, opening ever-
more clearer and more beatific vision of His character
and love--affording richer and richer views of truth.
But lapsed into an alienated state and sinful develop-
ment, the abnormal condition and the need of recov-
ery called for something more and different. As to
humanity itself, its self-made rupture from the divine fel-
lowship and consequent darkening of spiritual intuition
left the creational revelation less effective, while the en-
snarement in evil made more light absolutely necessary.
As to God, only further self-disclosure, beyond creative
manifestations, could exhibit Him in the fullness of
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those attributes by whose vision the alienation might be
overcome and recovery secured. Though creation itself
was a work of love, it was more distinctively a disclosure
of wisdom and power than of goodness or mercy. It in-
vited no return by assurance of _forgiveness_. It showed
no provision for the _regeneration_ of humanity. God
must be seen in other than creative attributes. He must
add a revelation of His _grace_, in soteriological econo-
omy and teachings, which shall maintain the order of
the world's progress according to His "eternal purpose"
of goodness to the race. The Christian revelation,
therefore, though grounded in generic revelation, is spe-
cial. It has an aim continuous with that of the divine
creational thought and goodness, but becomes specialized
as the advancing providence of care and love which
holds the historic advancement of humanity to its right-
ful opportunity and goal.

And it is also _supernatural_. It must be this too, by
its very relation. There is not the faintest reason to
think of the divine activity as exhausted and ceasing
with the creative form alone. God is Sustainer and
Ruler as well as Creator. The deistic notion of His
absolute transcendence, in which, after creation, He takes
no further concern for creaturely welfare, is as irrational
in philosophy as it is contrary to the Scriptures and to
the whole moral and religious interest of the world. The
self-disclosure through the cosmos, both physical and
moral, reveals Him only in His creatorship. This creator-
ship issues in a given constitution of _nature_. This nat-
ural constitution furnishes only _natural revelation_--of
God as the author of nature, and of His way in nature.
But it has no revelatory voice of redemptive goodness and
help, no word of information as to the spirit and order of
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the divine administration over the humanity with which
God has crowned this world system, now sinning, guilty,
wretched, and needing pity and direction. The generic
naturalistic revelation is not withdrawn, but it is inade-
quate. The mere energies and uniformities of natural law
furnish neither the information nor the spiritual forces for
the _soteriological_ need. Beyond the creational, natural
provision and directions, a supernatural order of grace
and training necessarily comes in, if God's aim of love
for the race, made in His image, is not wholly to fail.
The redemptive administration, the redemptive teaching,
and the redemptive powers are necessarily in excess of
the simple movement and revelation of the natural con-
stitution, and they come in with, as they belong to, the
providential governmental goodness and grace of God.

The whole question of supernaturalism in Christianity,
agitated these late years with so much hostile endeavor,
can be rightly understood and determined only by re-
membering these fundamental facts and principles, The
distinction between the divine activity disclosing itself
in the cosmic creation, including the human constitu-
tion, and the divine activity in the moral administration
over the world of humanity must be kept clear. The dis-
tinction itself is real and indubitable. The first, the origi-
nation of the world with its established uniformities
under physical law, is prior and conditional for the
second. The second follows, and concerns the govern-
ment of the intelligent, free and responsible beings for
whose life the physical world has been created. The
forces and movement established by creation are _natural_
--even in respect to spiritual endowments. The princi-
ples and order of the government are _moral_, and there-
fore require, as is self-evident, that the administration be
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in the undiminished divine freedom that answers to the
contingent needs which arise in humanity's use or abuse
of its given freedom. The moral disorder, sin, coming
by the abuse of this freedom, and crossing the divine
aim for man's welfare and destiny, called for light and
relief which were not in nature itself, but possible of
supply through redemptive or soteriological goodness.
God is as free for soteriological as for creational activ-
ity--for adding a supernatural administration with its
spiritual forces and laws as for creating the natural sys-
tem with its uniformities. The moral administration is
by essential conception, forever _free_--God's freedom act-
ing in relation to man's abuse of freedom. Beyond all
question, Christianity _presents_ itself as belonging to, as
well as expressing, the grand aim and central principle
of this providential _moral administration_ of the world's
movement. Without doubt, too, is it constituted to a
_soteriological_ design, a design beyond that disclosed in
natural revelation or provided for already in natural,
physical order or mere human knowledge and strength.
Equally beyond doubt is it, moreover, that the _records_ of
Christianity present God as, in His providential activity,
after the world's creation and human sin, giving a gra-
cious promise of pardoning mercy and redemptive help,
establishing a dispensation of arrested judgment with re-
spect to sinful humanity; or perhaps we should rather say,
a dispensation of stay and check on the forces of evil in life,
instituting actual relations of reconciliation, acceptance,
and fellowship between Himself and men, accompanied
with clear and wonderful proclamation of the laws of
human duty and holy life and no less wonderful pro-
phetic teaching of spiritual truth and fore-announce-
ments of the kingdom of God on earth--altogether a
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unique dispensation moving continuously on through
centuries to the "fullness of time" when, in the incarna-
tion and work of the divine Son, the redemptory and
saving provision was completed for all the ages. Unless
the entire Scripture record is utterly false, this aggregate
movement, in its characteristic trend and multiform par-
ticulars, reveals God as ruling over human affairs in
attributes of character and methods of goodness, and
with transcendent aims for human destiny, of which
simply cosmic processes and nature's revealings have no
voice. The movement, though based on nature, is in
excess of mere nature's provision. It forms a _super-
natural_ self-manifestation of God, a manifestation whose
aim is not creational, except in the moral relation of a
palingenesia, "regeneration."

The supposed _strife_ between nature and the super-
natural comes from misconception of one or the other or
of both, and of their relations to each other. When cor-
rectly viewed, the strife disappears. The natural con-
sitution of things is divinely and permanently adjusted
in its existence and evolution, under the uniformities of
cause and effect, as the theatre on which humanity is to
live its high life of freedom and responsibility. No
supernatural or special divine power need ever be in-
voked for the sake of mere physical nature. But the
very creation and establishment of the nature-consitu-
tion, under uniform law, leads to and introduces the free
providential administration of care and direction for the
moral order and spiritual interests of the human race,
made in the image of God, for whose welfare the world
has been built. These interests must be cared for and
guided according to the principles of intelligence and
personal freedom. If God in His free creational ac-
-----------------End of Page 48---------------------------
tivity has originated and ordained the constitution of
_nature_, with its uniformities, what hinders the concep-
tion of His further activity, when the time of moral ad-
ministration is reached, establishing a soteriological
order of self-revelation and gracious help for the race
ensnared in the labyrinths of sin? It is truly _super_-
natural because, without annulling the cosmic nature-
constitution, it introduces, in its own time, according to
unchangeable purpose, the soteriological principle for
preserving to humanity its opportunity of reaching its
true goal in eternal life. The idea, therefore, that super-
naturalism is inconsistent with nature is utterly gratui-
tous and false--as plainly so as would be a claim that
the education of a child's mind is contradictory to its
original endowment with mental faculties. Much rather
does it imply the true use and preservation of nature, in
carrying into effect the moral and spiritual purposes and
adaptations for which it obtained its existence. It pre-
vents the defeat of the very end of nature.

To be true to Christianity, theology can never surren-
der the supernatural character of the Biblical revelation.
Its claim is sustained, not only by the clearly evident
_place_ for the supernatural in the teleological ordering of
history, but by the equally manifest fact that without it
the world-existence, history, and end remain, or rather
revert into, an unexplained and insoluble enigma. For,
outside of this revelation, the thought of mankind, striv-
ing through all the ages to solve the problem of life and
destiny from nature's revelation alone, has neither lifted
the darkness nor ceased to plead for some satisfying
light. The state of the pagan world to-day, as in all
the past, is absolute disproof of the ability of naturalism,
or the mere human reading of nature's pages, to supply
-----------------End of Page 49-----------------------------
humanity's mighty spiritual and soteriological needs, or
to furnish the race with the matchless and saving truth
and grace which are given in Christianity. This fact
clearly implies that it is just by this supernatural char-
acter that the Christian revelation stands as God's true
self-disclosure to man, making known the unique re-
demptive order which it reveals, which He alone could
institute, and which fully supplies the religious needs
of the race, establishing right relation to God, and re-
generating heart and life. Christian theology can never
consent to obliterate the valid distinction between the
natural and the supernatural self-manifestation of God,
without giving up the special soteriological character of
the latter and permitting Christianity to drop down to
the rank of a mere human product as one among the
simple nature-religions of the world. This would be
utterly false to its whole position and claim. [1]
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] It is strange that Christian men, like the Duke of Argyll and Sir
William Dawson, eminent in science and philosophy, should be misled
into gratuitously and inconsistently favoring the appeal for dropping
this distinction. In his last able work, "The Philosophy of Belief,
or Law in Christian Theology," the Duke of Argyll starts with an
assertion of the illegitimacy of the distinction, declaring it to be
"purely a question of definition." And as a corrective he adopts
from Cicero, John Stuart Mill, and Mr. Huxley a definition of Nature
which allows no other existence than Nature, viz: "Nature is the sum
of all existence, visible and invisible, including not only the mind of
man and his works but also whatever other and higher Mind there
may be, of which his is but an emanation or a fragment"--"Nature
is the collective name for every thing that is." But the definition
confounds Nature and God, destroys the distinction between created
existence and the uncreated Author of nature, between what is God
and what is not God. It adopts absolute monism. It is a definition
that is consistent only with the Pantheism which resolves all being
into God (_to pan_ of the Greek paganism) or with the Atheism which
resolves all into Nature and denies the existence of God. Of course
the Duke is right when he says that "this definition reduces the word
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This brief view of the place and significance of the
Christian revelation is sufficient to show the great error
of those who, under the influence of scientific and philo-
--------------------------------------------------------------------
`supernatural' to nonsense." There is no place left for the superna-
tural if the whole theistic conception of the world is swept away and
the Christian truth of God as the personal Creator of the world is re-
pudiated. But it throws a fatal discredit on anti-supernaturalism, if
it has to resort to a definition whose acceptance logically involves the
creed of Atheism or Pantheism instead of Christian theism.

With Sir William Dawson, according to an article and an interview in
"The Christian Commonwealth," a few years ago, the objection to
the distinction seems to be that it offends against the scientific sense
of the uniformity of law in nature. He therefore explains it as a
"distinction between those things that we can refer in some degree to
secondary or proximate causes, or to natural laws, and those that we
cannot so understand," a distinction "purely subjective or human,
and in no way expressive of the Divine action." It is, in short, an
idea dependent on our imperfect knowledge; and hence, "if we make
such a distinction, we shall find that as knowledge increases the do-
main of the so-called supernatural appears to diminish as about to
vanish away." And he strangely adds: "The true distinction which
the Bible adheres to throughout is that between the natural as em-
bodied in matter and energy, and the spiritual as denoting the domain
of intelligence and will."... "Let us, then, not present to our scien-
tific friends the partial and inaccurate distinction of the natural and
supernatural, but the real and Scriptural one of the natural and spir-
itual." But it is clearly evident, (1) That the difference between
what is _material_, "embodied in matter and energy," and what belongs
to "intelligence and will," is not at all the distinction referred to by
supernaturalism; (2) That the term "natural" is as applicable to the
"domain of intelligence and will" as to material phenomena; (3)
That when we recognize a certain Biblical distinction under the terms
"natural" and "spiritual," the distinction still abides, sharp and
clear, between the whole system of physical, mental, and moral exist-
ence established by God's _creative_ activity and the after _providen-
tial administration_ answering to the necessities of the moral world
in soteriological relation and provision. Upon this profound and
immovable basis the distinction rests. This transcending of the realm
of nature, as constituted by  creation, gives the sphere or place of the
supernatural. (4) To follow Prof. Dawson's suggestion is simply to
ignore, not to satisfy, the demands of this fundamental distinction.
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sophic theories, especially the theories which credit the
world and humanity to evolution and natural law, seek
to make this free moral and redemptive revelation also
a mere growth or progress of human thought and dis-
covery, in which men find out the things of God and the
principles of right living more clearly than before, im-
ply by a better reading of the cosmic laws and the con-
sitution of man. The error refuses the idea of any
Divine self-disclosure beyond the one in nature. But
the Biblical revelation is a movement of God toward us,
not our working toward Him. It is no mere human
discovery of God, but a further gift _from_ Him. It is not
humanity's progress into the light by its own ascent upon

		"The great world's altar-stairs
		That slope through darkness up to God,"

but His gracious descent to us. Without doubt much
truth is gained from nature, but it is only truth of a
scientific or philosophic finding. When correctly found
it is, indeed, genuine truth of God and in living harmony
with all other truth. But the truth of the Christian
revelation is the peculiar gift of God's redemptive pro-
vision and grace.

2. This view of the essential nature of revelation
makes clear the fact that while it is a self-manifestation of
God, there are, nevertheless, _two factors in it--the divine
and also the human_. The first is the real source, the
second the instrumental channel of recipiency and record.
The human factor is not the ruling one, but still one that
appears in the form in which revelation is finally moulded.
It means that God has revealed Himself, as was neces-
sary, in ways adapted to the capacities of the human
mind and in the forms of human though and speech.
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He has used men's natural faculties for the apprehension
of His plan and will and spiritual realities, and their
language for the expression of the divine truths. These
are, indeed, made the very media and instruments of the
divine communication to the world. That God has
thus, as seems to have been needful, allowed the human
side to determine the _forms_ of the divine self-manifesta-
tion, explains the human element so plainly and strongly
brought into the Scriptures. They have become a type
or reflection of the supreme reality of the saving move-
ment--the divine-human Christ. There is an "Im-
manuel," God-with-us, for the Bible as well as for the
Saviour. This adapts the revelation to the human
understanding without diminution of its authority.

3. The _specific modes_ of revelation must be conceived
of in accordance with these fundamental views of its
nature and factors. The activity of God in disclosing
Himself in love and grace, unfolding the way of salva-
tion and life for mankind, had necessarily to take forms
that would distinctly certify the divine presence and
communication. Whatever modes it might assume, it
has to bring men, in some real, intelligible sense, face to
face with that Presence, and identify the communication
with God's authority and will. God must open Himself
_as_ God to the human apprehension. And as the occa-
sion and sphere of the self-revelation lay in the super-
natural or miraculous, the _modes_ of it, necessarily tak-
ing on these characteristics, bring us into the presence of
mysteries of occurrences not explicable under the laws
and terms explanatory of simply natural events. The
Biblical accounts employ statements which look rather
to certifying the fact of the divine manifestations than
explaining the problem of the mode. The manner of
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the revealing, grounded in the principles and order
of God's plan of gracious providential government for
the race, appears varied and modified almost infinitely
according to the historical conditions and unfoldings,
but always marked by the characteristic of adequacy for
the revelatory effect. All the variations, however, may
be grouped under a few specific modes characterized by
distinguishing features: (a) _Theophanies_--putting Him-
self in communication with men through phenomenal
appearances, sometimes anthropomorphic, sometimes
angelic. These must include all the Old Testament
cases in which He opened the reality of His presence
through an appeal to sight in making known His will
and plan and promises, whether in burning bush or pil-
lar of fire or the Shekinah symbol or in personal
theophany. According to John xii. 41; I Cor. x. 9;
Heb. xi. 26, these Old Testament theophanies were
Christophanies, manifestations of the Son before the
incarnation. (b) _Speech_. This is found concurrent
with the divine phenomenal appearing, though some-
times it seems to have occured alone. From Eden
onward God condescended to use human speech in
addressing his message to men. This is signally illus-
trated in the theophanies and in the giving of the law.
(c) _Miracles_, more distinctively so called, as certificates
of the divine presence, and seals to the authority of
prophets and teachers empowered to deliver truth in
God's name. They were a mode of manifestation sig-
nificant of divine power and potent for impressing the
divine will. (d) _Inspiration_--the Holy Spirit's super-
natural teaching and communication of the things of
God and the duties of men, as in the prophets of the
Old Testament and the evangelists and apostles of the
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New. "The Spirit of Jehovah spake by me" (2 Sam.
xxiii. 2); "And Jehovah said: I have put my words in
thy mouth" (Jer. i. 9); "Holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 21).
Inspiration as a mode of revelation, at this point, is con-
sidered apart from the related truth of its guidance in
the Scripture record.[1]  This truth will come before us
hereafter. (e) The teaching and redemptive work of
the incarnate Son of God, the central and all-compre-
hending reality in the self-revelation of God, about
which all others cohere, either as antecedent needful
providential preparations or as subsequent developmental
explanations. This determined the relations of all
parts of this soteriological manifestation and aggre-
gates them into unity. In Jesus Christ, as God manifest
in the flesh, making known both God and man, estab-
lishing through propitiation and the Holy Spirit, actual
relations for forgiveness and cleansing from sin and a
kingdom of eternal life, the full divine revelation,
according to human need, is all centralized and summed
up. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father"
(John xiv. 9).

4. Revelation was _progressive_--in two ways. (a)
As to its _substance_. Being a redemptive movement for
the spiritual regeneration of the race, it necessarily
entered into history as an advancing process of adapted
instruction and instituted relations of right life and fel-
lowship with God. It was an order of moral training
through a divinely adopted way of forgiveness of sin
and recovery to righteousness, in methods in harmony
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] As a mode of _revelation_, inspiration remains true to its _super-
natural_ character of revelation. See McPherson's "Christian Dog-
matics," p.22.
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with the rational and free nature of humanity. So one
truth after another was made known, as it was needed
and could find reception. The light was given accord-
ing to recipiency--God's free grace pressing measures
of it to the full of humanity's consent to use it. The
light was always made to shine upon the darkness
faster than the darkness comprehended it. This prog-
ress was not in addition to the redemptory reality
itself, but only in _revealing_ it. The _proto-evangelium_
(Gen. iii. 15), at once setting forth a victorious redemption
and salvation over against sin, assures us, from our
view-point of it under the Gospel, that the truth of
redemption was all complete in the divine mind and
gift from the beginning. But there was revelatory
advance, through appointed significant offerings of pro-
pitiation and thanksgiving; through many divine mani-
festations in which God showed His mercy and declared
His will; through a distinct covenant with Abraham and
his seed, chosen to be a special medium for the conser-
vation and expansion of the divine truth and grace--a
covenant vouched to faith in sacramental sign and seal,
pledging blessings to all the families of the earth; in
the call and endowment of Moses, and his divine legation
in that unique and wonderful transfer of the chosen
race from Egypt to Palestine; in the great Moral Law of
Sinai and an instituted Tabernacle Worship, with pre-
scribed sacrifices of atonement to be continued for the
long centuries of Jewish history as impressive types and
assurances of God's provided propitiation for the sins of
the world--on and on through manifold distinct Mes-
sianic _prophecies_, throwing into ever clearer light the
coming of the divine Saviour who should unite in Him-
self the accomplishment of all priestly, prophetic, and
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kingly offices, and establish God's dominion of life and
righteousness in the earth. (b) As to _form_. At first
God revealed Himself in _sensible_ manifestations, as a
necessary accommodation to the earlier pupilage of
men. With Moses He speaks "face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend" (Ex. xxxiii. 11; Num. xii. 8).
Miracles early appear, as special displays of the divine
power through human instrumentality, arresting atten-
tion and accrediting the divine authority. In these
miracles themselves a progress may be traced, evidently
educational, from the physical to the spiritual, the
spiritual miracles of inspiration and prophecy becoming
the more prevailing form. Then came the revealing
Presence in the Person of the Christ, disclosing the
deepest and most transcendent spiritual truths, realities,
and mysteries of redemption. Finally, through the gift
of the Holy Spirit, to take the things of Christ and
show them to men, and the completion of the inspired
record of these things, revelation became an abiding
presentation of the supernatural truth appealing to our
higher faculties, superseding visible theophanies and
sensible miracles.[1]

The reason of the closing of the process of super-
natural revelation is that the full provision of redemp-
tion and the truths for spiritual salvation have been
given and adequately certified to the world. The idea
that revelation is a still continuous, endless process,
forgets its special aim and character. It forgets its
redemptory purpose, as providing conditions for the
forgiveness of sin and recovery of men to true and
holy life. It forgets that it consists essentially, not in
ethical truths or principles, but in a series of divine
------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Christlieb, "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief," p. 97.
-----------------End of Page 57-----------------------------
acts, moving historically at length into the incarnate
manifestation of God Himself, in the Person of Jesus
Christ, His self-offering as the propitiation for the sins of
the world, His resurrection for justification, His ascen-
sion and mediatorial dominion, the establishment of
the Church and its endowment with the presence of the
Holy Spirit, and with the means of grace in the Gospel
word and sacraments. It forgets the objective character
of this revelation and the completeness of its soterio-
logical provision and truths. All that it was needful
that God should do to reconcile the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to men, drawing them
back to faith and obedience by the cross of His love,
and renewing their hearts by His Spirit, has been done.
All the teaching needful for a saving understanding of
these redemptory provisions has been given. All the
means necessary to enlighten the mind and work an
appropriating faith have been furnished. All the
requisite truths and precepts for the order and regula-
tion of the Christian life, have been supplied. And the
same God who has thus entered into human history in
this course of redemptive activity or work has provi-
dentially mated the work and its essential truths with a
true and adequate _record_, in an organism of Holy
Scripture, preserving the given revelation for the world.
Christianity stands in historical mould. Its power
rests upon its historical realities and becomes void for
faith if these be resolved into fictions. It cannot be
severed from its historical bases and remain itself. It
cannot be made a mere subjectivism. The effort of some
theologians [1] to detach it from necessary relation to these
---------------------------------------------------------
[1] Ritschl, Sabatier, _et al_. See, for example, Auguste Sabatier's
"Religion of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit, pp. 145-375.
---------------End of Page 58--------------------------------
realities, so as to make it stand practically independent
of its historical evidences, an _absolute_ religion complete
simply in the moral intuitions, religious aspirations,
spiritual sentiments, and satisfactions in which each
man may find it accredited by his own nature--a mere
naturalistic idealism--is in destructive contradiction of
the very foundations of Christianity. Unquestionably
its verities _have_ such self-attesting power to the human
soul, to a wonderful degree. It arises from their divine
adaptations to the religious need. But remove or resolve
into myths the supernatural facts of the Old Testament
providence and the New Testament redemption, which
constitute the fundamental material of Christianity,
and the very verities whose adaptations witness so assur-
ingly are discredited and discarded. The very content
of the faith is lost. The tree severed from its roots
cannot live or bear its fruits. The all-embracing differ-
ential characteristic of Christianity is that it forever
stands for a divine historical achievement in the past as
supplying the provision and guarantee of grace and
salvation in the present and the future. The continuity
of Christianity is the apprehension and appropriation of
the finished redemption and its redemptory truth, in the
Biblical deposit, mediating, under the Holy Spirit's
presence, supernatural saving forces. This apprehension
is progressive, marked by increasing insight into and
understanding of the Christian truths and doctrines.
It involves, through the ongoing centuries, ever new
applications to altered and advancing conditions of
human life, giving fresh and richer view of the meaning
and power of the Gospel. Every age more light is
breaking forth from it--not, however, because of addi-
tions to it, but because more is found to be there.
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