Note: the following is published in both The Southern Presbyterian Journal and the Reformed Presbyterian Advocate. The only difference is that the former source contains the last paragraph, whereas the latter omits it.
1958. Moses and The Ecumenical Movement. The Southern Presbyterian Journal. (October), 7–9. [Also published in Reformed Presbyterian Advocate, April 1959, Vol 93, Number 4]Moses And The Ecumenical Movement
By Gordon H. Clark, Ph.D.
The book of Deuteronomy portrays the last few days of Moses'
life and records his farewell speeches. Moses had defied Pharaoh, freed his people
from slavery, organized them into a nation, and had governed them for forty years.
But now he had come to the end of his road. From now on a new leader was to guide
them through new experiences. Instead of wandering through the sparsely populated
wilderness, the Israelites were to invade the land of Canaan. At such a juncture
it was highly appropriate for Moses to give farewell instructions and to prepare
the people for the momentous changes they were about to face.
One dominant idea, repeated in various phrases throughout Moses'
several speeches, comes to a very clear expression in the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy.
It is the idea of revelation. And of all the marvelous events that had occurred
in the history of the Israelites, the greatest thing that ever happened was the
fact that God revealed himself to them.
If an opinion poll were to be taken today as to what was the
greatest event that ever happened, some people would mention the atomic bomb or
another recent invention. On the other extreme of history, some people would mention
the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire. A good Christian would probably
say the coming of Christ. And this is an excellent answer; but it is an answer which,
obviously, Moses could not give. Furthermore Christ himself falls under the general
category of revelation, for he came to show God to us, to do God's work of redemption
for us, and to leave God's message with us.
So, even today, we can hold to Moses' reminder that "Since
the day God created man upon the earth... hath there been any such thing as this
great thing is?"
If there was one thing that Moses wished to impress on the new
generation of Israelites before he died and before they entered Canaan, it was that
God (particularly at Mt. Sinai) had spoken to them. God had revealed himself. He
had made himself known.
The reason why revelation is the greatest thing that ever happened
is chiefly that without revelation no knowledge of God is possible.
The heathen philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, and the Christian
philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, attempted to discover God in nature, apart from direct
revelation. Their method, however, is a failure. In the first place, their arguments,
which are extremely complicated, are logical fallacies. They do not prove that there
is any kind of God at all. And if someone doubts this last statement, at least it
is clear that these arguments do not prove the existence of an Almighty Personal
Creator. In the second place, it is still more obvious that these arguments do not
give us any knowledge of God's grace and mercy, his providence, or even his justice.
Thomas Aquinas himself, though he thought he could prove the
existence of some sort of God, admitted that natural theology could not prove the
doctrine of providence. For if it could, he said, Aristotle would have done so!
A queer reason to be sure, but a correct conclusion. Natural theology therefore
is useless. Any alleged knowledge of God that has no place for justice, goodness,
mercy and grace is futile.
There is a second theological method. I shall call it the hunch
method. Mary Baker Eddy in one place tells us that anyone who believes in vicarious
atonement does not understand the nature of God. But how did she or how does anyone
learn what the nature of God is? Such pronouncements remind one of the little boy
who was scribbling on a piece of paper.
Father: What are you doing,
sonny?
Boy: Drawing.
Father: What are you drawing?
Boy: God.
Father: But no one knows what God looks like.
Boy: They will when I'm finished!
In discussions as to God's nature, commands, and dealings with
men, a most important question is: How do we know? What is the source of religious
knowledge?
The Protestant answer to this question is clear. Both Lutherans
and Calvinists explicitly made the Scriptures the infallible rule of faith. The
Lutheran Formula of Concord says, "We believe, confess, and teach that the
only rule and norm, according to which all dogmas and all doctors ought to be esteemed
and judged, is none other whatever than the prophetic and apostolic writings both
of the Old and of the
New Testament." The Westminster Confession says, "The
authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth...
wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof; and therefore it is to
be received because it is the word of God."
This matter of revelation is more than ever important today.
Today, what is called the ecumenical movement is trying to unite all denominations
into one big organization. The aim of some of the leaders of the ecumenical movement
is to abolish all denominational churches and merge them into one big Super-Church.
Now, this movement faces several difficulties. The most important
of these difficulties is, in my opinion, the doctrinal and governmental differences
now existing. For example, the Baptists and the Congregationalists hold that each
local church is complete in itself; but Presbyterians believe in graded courts.
The Presbyterians believe in the parity of the ministry, but the Episcopalians have
a superior order of bishops who alone can perform certain functions.
Now, a Super-Church would have to have some form of government.
But which? It can- not have all three because they are mutually incompatible.
How can one decide which form of government the Super-Church
should have? On what can a decision be based. Shall it be based on hunch? Shall
we have a little boy draw a diagram? Or, shall it be decided by the force of majority
vote, a force that has in the past used economic pressure? Or shall the Scripture
alone be the basis?
More important than government is the question of the doctrines
concerning salvation.
Personally I know vigorous advocates of the ecumenical movement
who not only deny and attack the vicarious atonement, but who openly repudiate the
Deity of Christ as well. These men I would not even consider as Christians. But
they are ministers and advocates of the ecumenical movement.
There are other men, no doubt personally Christians, who differ
among themselves on other matters. Arminian evangelists preach that a sinner by
his own will power must first repent and exercise faith in Christ and then afterward
be regenerated by the Holy Ghost. But I preach that a man is dead in sin and needs
to be born again before he is able to repent and exercise faith in Christ.
Now, how are all these differences to be taken care of in a Super-Church?
Most of the ecumaniacs want to forget these doctrines. They are not interested in
vicarious atonement, justification by faith, let alone regeneration and repentance.
Will then these doctrines be banned in the Super-Church. In the merged churches
of South India discussion of certain differences has actually been banned. But when
doctrines are banned, what will take their place? What will the Super-Church stand
for? This is the question that the ecumenical leaders do not answer very clearly.
They do not want a creed. They do not want definite beliefs. They want merely a
big organization.
But true evangelicals are very much interested in justification
by faith. And good Baptists are strongly attached to the immersion of adults. And
I have the definite belief that the children of believers should be sprinkled.
How, then, can these differences be settled? The proponents of
the ecumenical movement do not want to face this question. They want to bury and
forget these problems. And the reason why they want to forget them is that they
are not able to give an answer. They have no method for discussing these problems.
They have no norm by which to judge them. They have no norm because they have rejected
the Scriptures as the word of God. They do not believe that God has spoken; they
do not believe that God has revealed himself, at least in any definite intelligible
way.
Now, we who maintain Protestant principles have a norm. We appeal
to what God has said. True, we do not all agree. We have the differences previously
mentioned. We do not all have the same understanding of the Bible. But we do all
have the same basis on which to conduct our discussions. This common basis gives
us the promise or the possibility of making progress. But when disputants have no
common basis on which to discuss their differences, they can settle things only
by a majority vote to suppress the views they do not like.
Organizational unity, this external governmental unity, is much
easier to achieve than theological unity. But it is a unity that comes from rejecting
the word of God and results in the suppression of sincere convictions.
True spiritual unity, a unity in the mind of Christ, will be
much harder to achieve. It will require prolonged study of the Scripture. Presbyterians,
Baptists, Lutherans will have to meet and discuss their interpretations of the Scripture.
Reliance will have to be placed on persuasion and study, not on votes in an organization.
We must be ready to teach and to be taught. But though this process is much longer
and much more tedious, it is also much more honest. We may differ among ourselves,
but we openly acknowledge the differences. We do not hide our aims. Nor do we insult
those with whom we differ by claiming that theology is of no importance and need
not be considered. Not at all. In this process of open discussion no one will be
trampled on; convictions will be respected; economic and ecclesiastical force will
not be applied to secure unwilling acquiescence.
Let us now proceed a little further. First, Moses said that revelation
was the greatest event that ever happened. Second, there is no knowledge of God
apart from revelation, and therefore no knowledge of how a church and its activities
should be conducted except in the Scriptures. Now, third, and a point that needs
emphasis God's revelation is clear, objective, and intelligible. And it is authoritative,
whether or not we accept it.
It is necessary in this age to emphasize the objectivity of revelation
because many prominent preachers consider it entirely subjective. One might think
from what has already been said that the proponents of the ecumenical movement have
nothing to say about revelation. This is not true. They talk a great deal about
revelation, but they do not mean by the word what we mean. We mean that God so con-
trolled the writers of Scripture and so governed their thoughts that they expressed
in the Bible the exact truth as God wished it to be. Now, some ecumenicists have
virtually no respect for the Bible at all; but others profess to find the word of
God in it. The word of God is in the Bible, they say; it is in the Bible wherever
you find it. But of course if you do not find the word of God in some chapter, that
chapter is not the word of God for you.
This is not the historical Protestant position. Both Lutherans
and Calvinists, as previously stated, hold that the Bible is the word of God. The
Bible doesn't merely contain the word of God, it is the word of God. And whether
or not we accept this or that chapter, it all remains authoritative for every one
of us.
The men whom I have in mind select certain verses and claim that
God has spoken to them in these verses. But they quite reject other verses. Most
of the Bible is like the hull or the husk of corn: it is to be stripped off and
thrown away, and only the nut or the ear of corn is to be eaten.
Now this raises an interesting question. It is this: How does
one know which verses to select and which verses to throw away. Consider by way
of illustration the way we eat certain things. We eat the outside of a peach and
throw the center away; but we eat the inside of a peanut and throw away the shell.
Oysters are like peanuts, but a turkey is like a peach. Now, if some verses in the
Bible are bones and shells, while other verses are good meat and fruit, how can
we tell which is which? The only answer these men can give to this question is that
it depends on one's taste. They choose the verses they like and discard what they
do not like. However, this method reduces to what I previously called the hunch
method. No longer is the Bible a real objective revelation. It is just a source
book for convenient quotations to support some preconceived idea.
It is instructive, too, to see just what verses some of these
ecumenical leaders choose. Emil Brunner is a good example of many who emphasize
the verse: The Word became flesh. For some reason they are particularly attracted
by the idea of incarnation, and accordingly they repeat. The Word became flesh.
But they utterly reject all the verses that explain how the Word became flesh. The
Virgin Birth is some- thing they don't believe. In the first chapters of Matthew
and Luke God has not spoken. In John 1:14 God has spoken, just because they happen
to like that one verse.
Similarly, and with more definite relevance to the ecumenical
movement, these men often quote John 17:21. In this verse Jesus prays that all Christians
may be one: "that they may all be one." And with this verse, no matter
how much else in John they repudiate, they try to justify their preconceived notion
of one big organization. The choice of this verse, however, ought to be embarrassing
to them, for the immediately subsequent clause has nothing to do with organizational
unity, but with a far different spiritual unity. Christ prayed that his followers
might "all be one, even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us."
This verse obviously has little to do with organizational and
ecclesiastical machinery, but on the contrary it has to do with a unity of mind
and purpose. Immediately preceding, Christ had prayed, "Sanctify them through
thy truth; thy word is truth." But this is one of the verses that the ecumenical
movement discards as a husk or a hull.
If now we have respect for what Christ says, if we seek sanctification
through the truth of God's word, we shall be more willing to engage in serious discussion
of theological differences than to pull wires and manipulate ecclesiastical
machinery to impose a union of organization without a unity of mind and belief.
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