"But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light that his works may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God." (John 3:21)
H. C. Mabie: Nothing is more certain than that for practical dealing with men, the soul-winner needs to have a clear conception of what constitutes saving faith. Doubtless in the general mind there is a supposition that faith is primarily the belief of a theological proposition; a particular intellectual concept respecting Christ and certain aspects of His work. The fact that the Scriptures place such emphasis on the matter of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the further fact that in the apostolic writings there is a sharp antithesis drawn between what are called "works of law," considered as meritorious, and faith in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of men and the fulfiller of the law, partly explains this. But there is in the New Testament at least a third principle with a characteristic phrasing, which certainly is not the equivalent of doing the deeds of the law, nor is it discovered, in common thought, we fear, to be what it really is; the synonym of real faith in God.
The principle we refer to is expressed by Jesus on this wise: "He that doeth the truth, cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest that they have been wrought in God."' Note the three activities expressed in this text; doing the truth; increase of light and a divine operation in the soul. The text implies that the right relation to Christ, such as is embraced by a personal faith in Him - a faith which commits itself to Him and makes a personal test of His reality and faithfulness - involves action upon some present measure of truth possessed: - enough truth to act on. As it does so, it comes to fuller illumination because the Spirit is cooperating until at length a divine operation, although quite below one's consciousness, is wrought in the soul. This is the miracle of faith in action, plus the correlative work of the Divine Spirit in the soul.
The entire Epistle of James, often in the past, even by Martin Luther, supposed to be a contradiction of the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, is really a confirmation of Paul's doctrine and only another way of stating it. The works which James commends, for example, the act of Abraham in yielding up Isaac, are really works of faith, and not works of law, at all, and the work of faith is simply faith in action, faith proving itself real (James 2:21- 24). Even Paul himself, in the Epistle to the Romans, emphasizes the importance of obeying the truth, and points out the fearful evil of "obeying unrighteousness" (Romans 2:8), of "holding down the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). Indeed, at one point Paul seems to afford promise even of eternal life, "to them that by patience in well-doing, seek for glory and honour and incorruption " (Romans 2:6-7); but if so, it is altogether on the principle of faith on the ground of Christ's atoning work of which they may as yet be in ignorance, while yet cherishing certain spiritual ideals. Paul certainly says that "glory and honour and peace are to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first and also to the Greek" (Romans 2:10). We should however miss the whole spirit of Paul's teaching if we failed to see that all these terms are intended by him, to be mere [pure] expressions of faith; that is, of a collective, executive act of the entire soul in the direction of the ideals which it cherishes and on the basis of the measure of light enjoyed, whether it be in the case of the Jew or the Greek.
Doubtless the failure to recognize this third form of Scripture teaching which we are now emphasizing, has led to deplorable misunderstandings between evangelicals and non-evangelicals, as it has also rendered narrow the interpretations of some evangelicals in considering the moral and spiritual status before God of many whose theological views are erroneous, or of those who have never known the historic Christ.
And so some workers in foreign missions have put much further away from them than they need to the so-called "heathen." The missionary erroneously supposes that before a soul reared in Paganism can even be started in the way of salvation, he must necessarily first be indoctrinated into a body of theological truth, and this matter seems so difficult in the face of ignorance, prejudice and superstition, that some workers are discouraged from the start, and accomplish little or nothing of value. Some justify their failure by thinking they are "seed-sowing," which may be true enough; but it is much more likely they are pursuing a mistaken pedagogic method.
Now in our effort to reach the heathen, we do well to ponder, for their pedagogic values, any and every aspect of religion however false or imperfect. Every form of religion, even the crudest fetishism, gives utterance to some deep hunger of the soul, and so hints a thought of God.
For example, animism, - spirit-worship - even at its lowest, holds a belief in the existence of a human spirit, in the antagonism of spirits good and bad, in the possibility of some sort of communion of spirits, and in the future life of spirits. The savage idolater often does not really worship the symbol before which he bows; he simply tries thus to realize and localize the spirit which he fears. The rude African who would not complete a bargain with the European trader until he had time to go and bring his fetish which he had forgotten, is far nearer to God than the modern, nominal Christian who essays to conduct his business apart from his religion; nay, the African in loyalty to his crude conscience reads a needed lesson to all such as have forgotten that God has the most intimate relation to all business, even to corporate acts. Brahminisin with all its grossness is at bottom a non-materialistic religion. It seeks to fit the spirit, by endless transmigrations, for a future life. Buddhism represents a half truth, viz.: that the soul to find its true blessedness must lose itself. Its fundamental defect is that unlike Christianity, it does not show how through losing its lower life, the soul may find itself in the higher life, a life which Christ makes possible. The remnant of truth found in any of these religions should be used to put men on the clue to the realization of Christ, and of all that follows.
The essential principle at the root of all saving faith is loyalty to present spiritual light, a loyalty that is ready to act on its light. This being so, any soul may make an instant beginning anywhere, and with whatever measure of truth it has, in the school of Christ. I freely grant that this idea has not always prevailed, and is even now far from general acceptance among evangelicals. Many sincerely suppose that in order to salvation in any degree, there must first exist in the mind a certain concept, or set of concepts, which in themselves must be dogmatically believed, before the soul can come into vital relation to Christ. This assumes that faith is primarily and essentially an intellectual belief; belief in a doctrine about God, or Christ, or the Bible. But this is not the truth concerning Christian faith, and never was. There is a place for intellectual beliefs, but this in the matter of method is at a later stage. Of course we do not forget that a certain modicum of objective truth must precede any subjective action of the soul. But some amount of such truth is always present to every mind.
Saving faith at its heart is a moral attitude of personality (Romans 2:15-16); as such, therefore, any soul, anywhere, whatever its degree of illumination, is capable of exercising such faith in principle, the moment it is appealed to. Christianity, alone, of all religions, takes note of so elemental a thing as this. Christ in His school requires of no soul more than one step at a time, and that step a relative one, in view of all the conditions it faces. That step however may hold in itself the potentiality of all possible Christian living. Doubtless at this point many Christians have sadly misunderstood their own religion, and so they still place the cart before the horse, in their initiative appeals to men. This really embarrasses Christianity and makes it needlessly slow of acceptance.
It is always a tactical mistake also to put religion as a philosophy over against any other form of religion as a philosophy, in a competitive way. Those who proceed as if Christianity were a competitive religion, always do so to the damage of Christianity; they misrepresent its spirit and distort its method. Christianity is not in the field to gain a partisan victory. Such victories as Christianity wins, it wins from intrinsic desert, because it complements the limited, or vitalizes the expiring hope in other systems. Christianity never seeks victory for its own selfish sake, but because of its genuine and exhaustless love for those whom it would win from error and shortsightedness; it came "not to destroy but to fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). It comes as sunrise comes, not to obliterate the starlight, but to suffuse it with a more original glow.
The following account of a method employed in dealing with a Roman Catholic will illustrate the principle.
Last summer I was observing the work of some labourers who were laying water pipes at Northfield, Mass. For several days I had noticed among the force a broad shouldered, big brained Irishman who was the principal man on the job, named Jim, a Roman Catholic. I came upon him one day at work down in a trench six feet below the surface, lying flat on his stomach, tamping in the jute around the joints of a water main. He did not observe me as I sat down on the bank to watch him at his work. Shortly Jim called to an Italian attendant to bring him lead. The Italian promptly responded, bringing a ladle full of the molten metal, but slopping it rather carelessly as he approached.
I cried out, "Careful, man, you'll burn the fellow down there."
Jim looked up surprised and taking in who I was, although we had barely learned each other's names, he said, "Well, doctor, if that lead is hot, what d'ye think about the hot place?"
I replied, "It's a good place to keep out of."
Jim answered, "But d'ye think there is such a place, anyway?"
I answered, "There is such a thing as a hot conscience, and that's the worst sort of a hell."
"Well," said Jim, "I observe that the clergy differ about these things. And then," he added throwing up his hands despairingly, "what's a man to do in my circumstances about religion, anyhow? Look at me amongst these Italians, and I only a poor plumber."
Observing that the man had appreciated my almost unconscious sympathy with him, and that he was reaching out after more, I warmed to him and said:
"My dear fellow, your work down there in that trench is just as acceptable to God, if you do it in the right spirit, as mine is preaching in the pulpit."
He looked up surprised, and continued: "Do you believe that?"
"Believe it! I know it! It's the one truth I'm trying to get everybody to believe."
"Well," replied Jim, "I think I must come up and have a talk with you."
I answered, "All right, Jim, I'm looking for the man that's looking for me. When will you come?"
He looked up with a quizzical twinkle in his eye: "I'll come - next Sunday afternoon - at four o'clock - if it doesn't rain."
" Well," I said, "come on, I'll be looking for you. If it rains I'll see you in the house."
"Oh," he said, "I don't want to come into your house; I want to see you alone."
"All right," said I, "I'll be out under the trees;" and I earnestly hoped it would not rain.
Four o'clock Sunday afternoon came, and true to his word Jim came sauntering up the walk, with what deep thoughts the sequel will tell. I was waiting to receive him, and we sat down under the trees together.
He opened by saying: "I've been working here in Northfield for six weeks. I'd like to live here always. I wish I could get a job to keep me the year round."
I answered,"Why, where do you live?"
He replied, "I live in hell - in S---"
"How so?" I answered.
"Well," said he, "you see I married unfortunately; my wife is a terror. She has fits of unaccountable madness; she will sometimes rouse me in the night and threaten to strangle me, and with no reason; the froth will stand out on her lips; she's like one possessed of the devil. She won't eat anything I buy; she thinks I mean to poison her. And yet for more than twenty years I have taken home all my wages week by week, and laid them down on the table, and said, 'Wife, there it is, spend it as you like'; and she has done it; I've not even bought a shirt for myself; and yet I'm only tormented by her. Some of my friends, one a judge, have said to me, 'Get quit of her, get a divorce,' but I've always said, 'I won't do it, she's my wife; "what God has joined together, let not man put asunder."' I won't leave her. I'll bear it."
His great chin quivered and the tears were on his lashes.
I said, "You bear that for principle's sake, do you?"
He said, "Yes, that's my cross."
I replied, "The Lord bless you, my dear fellow, that is Christianity, - bearing the painful thing for Christ's sake, for duty's sake."
I then added, "You must have prayed a good deal about this, not merely said prayers."
"Prayed," said he, "of course I have. I could never have borne it but for that."
I added, "God appreciates all that."
"And then," said he: "doctor, what do you think of purgatory?"
I said, " Jim, if you want to know what I think, there is no purgatory in the Bible, it's salvation Jesus brings. Do you know what the name 'Jesus' means?"
"No," he asked, "is that a Greek word?"
"Yes," I said, "that's Greek. The Hebrew word is 'Joshua' or 'Jehoshua'; it means 'deliverer,' from purgatory and all. The angel in the Bible said, 'Thou shalt call His name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins.' (Matt. 1:21) When Jesus undertakes to save a man He makes a clean job of it; He makes thorough work; He does not leave us in any purgatory."
Jim replied, "I half believe it. Then," he added, "tell me, doctor, why the priests say we are not to read the Bible."
I replied, "Jim, have you got a Bible?"
"Yes," said he, "a big, fine one; but I don't read it much; the priests tell me I mustn't."
"Well," I added, " I'm not going to quarrel with your priests, I'm your priest just now, and I tell you, read your Bible."
"But," said he, "I wouldn't understand it."
"No," I said, "not all of it. Neither do your priests; no more do I; but I understand the simple things in it, and so may you. You understand your morning paper. Read your Bible in plain English, and follow that."
Said Jim, "I believe I will."
Finally I asked, "How long have you had so serious views of these religious matters?"
"Oh," said he, "more or less always."
"More or less," I said; "there has been some crisis in your life when apart from priests and ceremonies of every kind, you turned to God in some earnest way for yourself, with no priest but Christ. Tell me now honestly."
"Well," said he, "if you must know, it was when I was sick in Chicago, in a hospital, and thought I would die."
"Then you gave up your heart and all to Christ, and He received you."
"That's it," he said.
And so, observe I had found one of Christ's sheep, not of our ecclesiastical fold at all, but really a sincere follower of the true Shepherd starving for sympathy, for some one to confide in, whom he could trust. He had come to a real confessional, of which the formal thing is often a farce and a travesty. In my conviction, all the priests in the world could not have broken the bond formed between him and me that day in our fellowship beneath those trees. After prayer which we had together, as Jim rose to go, he inquired, "When shall I see you again, I would like to talk some more."
"Well," I said, "I go to-morrow. You must read your Bible for yourself, and talk to Christ."
I have never seen him since, but I am sure a soul was put on the clue to a larger and deeper realization of divine things, than it had previously known. We had got clean off partisan, sectarian ground. As I have thought the thing over again and again since, I cannot resist the persuasion that that which made all those confidences possible was the simple evidence of sympathy Jim found that day when a stranger concerned himself lest he should suffer injury as he lay in the trench, and helped him to believe that his hard and unrecognized toil was after all appreciated by Christ. I long since found it was a tactical mistake to antagonize men on the side of their religious prepossessions.
It is not the first business of the Christian teacher to furnish men with a creedal religion ready-made, - but rather to put and keep men on the clue, as we have called it, wherein under the tuition of the Spirit they themselves will discover the truth they need.
The wise teacher will point out the next step, and then the successive steps towards the experimental knowledge of Christ Himself, leaving the philosophy about Christ to come in later. There is a place for this philosophy, for theology, but this place is secondary. Christ is always within personal touch of every soul, because God's love is so all-embracing, even though the soul does not realize it. By pressing our theological opinions inopportunely, we may create or widen a breach between the soul and Christ when we should abolish it. The real touch with Christ is realized through the adoption of the right personal attitude to the ideal one really has. The Bible calls this ideal "The Word," or that "light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world," (John 1:9) "the essential Christ," the omnipresent Redeemer.
To assume a willing attitude to one's ideal is faith, a faith always morally, rather than intellectually, conditioned. Our will has no power of itself to realize the essential Christ to the soul. The will, however, can annul the practical living lie which controls the life in its self-will, and the moment this is done, the Spirit of Christ rushes unsolicited to the soul's confessed helplessness and effects faith in Him. As nature abhors a vacuum, so the moment in the light one has, the self-will endeavors to vacate the heart's throne, that moment the Spirit of Christ with infinite pressure rushes in to fill the vacuum. God's interest in conferring grace is infinitely greater than man's in seeking it.
Says Dr. Cremer: "The wondrous counter-effect of God against man's sin is indeed a supernatural thing, - the absolutely inconceivable to human philosophy; it is different from anything which elsewhere or otherwise ever takes place, or can take place." This is the interior, profound reality in the Christian religion.
Now, assuming that this initiative of Christian experience which we have called the entrance on the clew to the experimental realization of the Christ, has taken place, Christianity depends for its deeper intellectual apprehension of what has occurred, upon the after-effect of such an experience, as the mind, like a waking dreamer, is prepared to cast its eye backward, and reviews in the light of the Bible the track over which the soul has come. At this point, the Holy Scriptures enter with measureless value, to bring out into consciousness, to explain to the understanding, the profound realization which has occurred, as well as to afford a basis on which further subjective experiences may be wrought. Here is the true, the indispensable place for objective truth.
Then this loyalty to light which Christianity so values, receives from its divine author various forms and degrees of attestation. This attestation will come to him who responds to the light of nature, although in a different degree, and with less assurance, as really as to him who follows the light of revelation, because the God of nature and of revelation are one and the same being. Christ speaks as really in the voice of natural conscience as in His written word, (Romans 2:14-16) because the conscience with all other created things is constructed "through" Christ, (John 1:3) according to Christ, with reference to Christ, the true norm of creation. The conscience indeed, as well as other powers of the natural man, is fallen, and needs to be renewed by the influence of the written word. The voice of Christ, however, yet speaks in the conscience, however obscurely; and to obey that conscience, is of the spirit of faith, albeit it needs continual enlightenment from the Bible.
It is the embarrassment of current Christianity that by so many it is still supposed that, the realities of Christian faith and experience in themselves are coterminous with the limited diffusion of the Scriptures - that in themselves faith and experience cannot exist except where the knowledge of the Bible exists. To this extent Christianity has narrowly and mistakenly alienated from itself much territory which really belongs to it - a domain which is its birthright. Christian revelation brings to light what is, (Eph. 3:9) in the spiritual realm; for example, life and immortality, the love of God in Christ, the suspended judgment for sin, etc., etc., but the existence of all these was before revelation, and independent of their explanation in the Bible. It is of the realities, and not of the explanation of them, we now speak. "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." (John 1:1)
Says Paul in his letter to the Romans, "But the righteousness which is of faith saith thus; say not in thy heart, who shall ascend into heaven (that is, to bring Christ down) or who shall descend into the abyss (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead) but what saith it? The word is nigh thee (that is, the ideal is nigh thee) - in thy mouth and in thy heart; that is the word of faith which we preach" (Romans 10:6-8). The word, or ideal, of faith which is, is such a thing as in itself may exist unexplained - perhaps fantastically or ignorantly held; - the word of faith which we preach is the same reality receiving a rational Biblical explanation. Because the Holy Spirit has gone before him, this essential faith is to be sought for by the missionary, in however slight degree, immediately, everywhere and in all men, and where found, always encouraged, and fed with revealed truth. This is the missionary's true place of beginning with the pagan mind, everywhere. He is to find the handle of the soul, take hold of it and direct it to God. Such is the practical, already existent basis which as co-workers with God we have everywhere in God's world.
It will be remembered that in the account of David Brainerd's work among the Delaware Indians, he speaks of a remarkable priest or reformer who had been "strangely moved to devote his life to an endeavor to restore the ancient religion of the Indians." He was grotesquely dressed in Indian fashion, but he was evidently devout. He lamented freely the degenerate condition of the Indians, and said that "their ignorance and wickedness had so troubled him sometimes that he had felt driven to the woods" in the solitariness of his distress for them. At length, he said, "God comforted his heart," and showed him that he should not so withdraw himself, but should return to his associates and love and labor for them as never before. While Brainerd was discoursing with him at times he would say, "Now that I like, so God taught me." Brainerd testifies that this man was sincere, honest and conscientious, according to his own religious opinions, as no other pagan he had seen. He laboured earnestly to banish the drinking habit from the Indians; but by his followers for the most part, he was regarded as "a precise zealot," and his efforts were unwelcome. It would thus appear that in the heart of this nature-taught savage, was the spirit of faith existing with most limited light. It needed further instruction to give it such form and power as would enable it to grasp the large concept of "salvation" - assured salvation for himself and others; but the germ in "the righteousness of faith' evidently was there, before the missionary with his message came.
(Rom. 10:10. Note the distinction implied between "unto righteousness," and "unto salvation"; the latter term seems to have the force of assured, conscious salvation, in order to which the preached word is necessary.)
The man was not "living up to" his light, as no man does; but he was walking in his light; that is, he may have been in the spirit of a penitent and believer; he probably was. It was the function of the missionary to develop that germinal faith, that it might grow to intelligence and power. How far even Brainerd did this we are not told. Doubtless multitudes of instances, among so-called heathen peoples similar to this exist, and they are coming to be better known than formerly. This is evidence of the at-homeness of Christianity, among all men, everywhere. Christianity in fact is a religion which cannot be apprehended by the intellect alone, but requires for its realization the right use of other faculties of the soul as well, such as the conscience, the feelings, the imagination - and above all, the will. And all these acts pagans can exercise, with the very dimmest intellectual light. There is need that the entire composite soul be open. Even the living God cannot authenticate Himself as He desires to the mere fragment of personality, albeit that fragment were the majestic reason. In the mere action of the understanding, the executive soul puts itself outside the truth, and simply speculates upon it. One needs to move by an act of will inside the truth with all the love of the heart, and with all the moral sense of the conscience. He who does this touches reality. The agnosticism of the world is only the outcome of a mistaken intellectual self-sufficiency, a species of intellect worship.
It will be recalled that George J. Romanes, long a devoted disciple of Charles Darwin, when he returned to Christian faith after a long period of agnostic doubt, reproached himself for what he called "sins of the intellect, mental errors and undue regard for intellectual supremacy." Romanes thus clearly saw the principle which we have above enunciated, that faith in the Christian sense is essentially a right attitude of personality to the light one has, whatever its degree. It could not be otherwise than that one who previously closed so many avenues of the soul in the interests of intellectual supremacy should have, for a time, blindly missed the way to God. It is precisely such blindness of heart that our Lord had in mind when He said: "I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes" (Matt. 11:25). The essential difference in habit of mind between a child and a mere creature of intellectual prudence is this, that the child allows its whole composite being to act and the philosopher does not.
Now Christianity risks everything as to its acceptance or rejection, with him who will put its proposals to the experimental test. Said Jesus to Thomas: "Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side, and be not faithless, but believing" (John 20:27). So, in principle, He ever says: "Try Me and see if I am not what I claim to be."
The method of Christianity corresponds to the laboratory method of modern science. When it can have its way, it puts the inquirer into the laboratory and it says: "There are the chemicals, the test tubes, crucibles, dynamos, etc.; now by personal executive acts enter into relations with the Lord of nature, put Him to the test with these implements, and get your experienced results." When one passes through such a scientific school he becomes an expert; that is one experienced in what is called "inductive science," and so also Christianity through experience reaches assured conclusions which shine in a peculiar divine light. As between God and man there are two correlative movements: the man movement Godward and the God movement manward. The point at which these meet and coalesce is faith. It is here that salvation is wrought, a matter quite above the realm of mere ethics, a concept peculiar to the Bible, and often quite missed by non-evangelicals. The distinctive element in evangelicalism, viz., the effectual working of the divine grace upon the penitent but believing human soul is left out. Without this divine operation, there is nothing left for the soul but its helpless human fluttering against the bars of its own cage; there is no salvation possible worthy of the name. This down- coming of the grace of God always hidden from view, upon the soul following the proper clue at some moment of crisis, is the vital thing. The soul finds a Saviour; but what is far greater, the Saviour finds a soul; and this latter is the profounder element in the transaction, the divine part in it; that which makes it saving and transforming. The sooner the soul can be brought to perceive by faith this outreach of the divine embrace after it, the better; and the more strongly the soul-winner can realize the divine aspect of the new possibility in Christ, the greater will be his power to start the lost homeward.
To Next Chapter
Henry C. Mabie, 1906
This is an instruction manual on how to win people for Christ.
He emphasizes that successful evangelizing builds on the little piece
of truth that everyone has. Following that truth will lead the person
to Christ. We must focus on the fundamentals of salvation, avoiding
doctrinal niceties and sectarian competition.
| Contents and Preface |
| I. Presuppositions in the Soul-Winner |
| II. The Evangelizing Message |
| III. The Immediate Practical Aim |
| IV. The Nature of Saving Faith |
| V. Tact in Personal Approach |
| VI. Christ's Method of Self-Disclosure |
| VII. The Fields White unto Harvest |
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