LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund. BV 2073 .C3 1921 Carver, William Owen, 1868 1954. The Bible a missionary rtie^^;^aA The Bible a Missionary Message A Study of Activities and Methods By WILLIAM OWEN CARVER, LL.D. Professor of Comparative Religion and Missions, and Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Author of "Missions and Modem Thought,'' "Mis- sions in the Plan of the Ages,'' ''All the World in All the IVord,'^ "Acts," etc. New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1 921, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London : 2 1 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street Foreword The author accepted the invitation of his friend, Professor Chas. T. Ball, General Secretary of the Baptist Student Missionary Movement [later desig- nated American Baptist Student Union], to prepare this book on the missionary message of the Bible for use in schools, colleges, universities, theological seminaries, and for general reading. Two other studies of the teaching of the Bible concerning Mis- sions have been prepared by the same author. Mis- sions in the Plan of the Ages is an extended study for use in classes of seminaries and training schools and by others who wish to make a full study of the subject. It has been in growing use for twelve years. Four years ago All the World in All the Word was prepared at the special request of the Women's Missionary Union Auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention for use in their numerous study classes. Although extensively used by those for whom they were prepared, neither of these seemed wholly adapted to the uses of the Missionary Movement. There has been no effort to avoid use of the same material in the different volumes. There has been diligent effort to adapt the use in each case to the constituency for whom It was prepared. It Is hoped that the outcome may justify the effort, and that the multitudes of young men and women in our schools of learning, and in our churches, who are taking 3 4 Foreword ever-growing interest in God's plans and work for the world, will find in these studies a sure foundation and a permanent inspiration for missionary interest and effort. While seeking always to keep in mind the needs of the students, the autljior has not made these studies too simple and easy. [^They deal with God's redeem- ing idea in the history of revelation,) a subject inevi- tably calling for careful and sustained thought. But the effort should be amply repaid if one comes to feel that the lines of divine thought and action have been grasped in some measure. The supreme need of the Missionary Enterprise at this time is consecrated personality in which to invest the ever- increasing sums of money which the churches are ready to give. The saving gospel can be proclaimed only through men and women. They must be en- listed by the thousands. It is with the prayer that such a result may come to many a faithful servant of our Lord that the work is sent forth. It is with pleasure also that I make mention of the valuable pecuniary aid extended by Mrs. H. Z. Duke, of Dallas, Texas, in the publication of this volume. Mrs. Duke did this upon suggestion of Prof. Chas. T. Ball. She cherishes the hope that the reading and study of this book may lead to a larger appreciation of the Bible as a missionary message. w. o. c Louisville, Ky, Contents I. The Fact of the Bible Marks It as a Missionary Message ... 7 II. Biblical History Marks the Bible as a Missionary Message ... 24 III. Hebrew Worship Reveals the Mission- ary Message of the Bible . . 42 IV. Prophecy Proves the Bible God's Missionary Message ... 60 V. The Christ God's Missionary Message 83 VI. Jesus, God's Son, Founds the Mission- ary Enterprise 103 VII. Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 122 VIII. Paul the Interpreter of the Mission- ary Message 141 IX. The Missionary Message in the Visions OF Patmos M 5 X. The Message in the Tongues of Men . 172 Bibliography . . . < .192 THE FACT OF THE BIBLE MARKS IT AS A MISSIONARY MESSAGE I. Definitions. Let us first of all ask what we mean by Missions. Is it not the .sending of messages to those who need to hear them? There is then the sender, the mes- sage, the messenger, the receivers of the message. In Christian Missions, who sends the message? When did He begin sending the message? To whom does He send the message? Who are the messengers? Are there several classes and groups of messengers, as well as numerous individual messengers ? Are all these messengers intended to share, and together to complete, one enterprise, or are there many distinct, unrelated enterprises? Do not all the messengers come from the one, the same, God ? What is the message? Where shall we find it? Does the Bible contain not only the message but the plan of its sending? Are angels and missionaries all messengers? What is the difference between an an- gel and a missionary? What other messengers has God besides angels and missionaries? II. For What Reasons Must We Call the Bible a Missionary Message? How Shall We Describe Our Bible ? I. // it is from God, through messengers, to men, 7 8 The Bible a Missionary Message does it not fulfill all the features of a missionary message? If we examine fully the nature of the Bible and the facts of the history of the missionary enterprise we find that (the Bible is designed to pro- duce, is fitted to produce, and has in large measure produced the missionary enterprise. This, again, marks it as a missionary message. 1 If we go further and look into the message which the missionaries deliver when they go to non-Chris- tian and unevangelized peoples we find them draw- ing this message from the Scriptures, which are thus to them the missionary message of God whose mes- sengers they are. 2. The bond of union between the literature of Hebrews and of Christians. The Bible is made up of the literature of the He- brews and the writings of the early Christians. Why did these two groups of writings come to be united and to be regarded as one ? Are they fundamentally and essentially one, in origin, in spirit, in purpose and in influence ? Were the early Christians right in thinking of their writings as being the counterpart and the complement of the Hebrew Scriptures? They would be right only on the ground that the same God was found to be the source of inspiration, the object of worship and the controlling influence in both. The Old Testament was the literature of the Hebrews, " a people with a genius for religion," the people through whom developed to clearness and emphatic assertion the monotheistic conception. The oneness of God, His holiness. His personality were ideas which came to the world through the Hebrews The Fact of the Bible Marks It 9 and especially through the Jews. Did the one, true, holy and good God use the Hebrews and their Bible for making Himself known to mankind? If so, this ( Bible is a message to mankind through the Hebrew people. The early Church was a new organization among men. It interpreted itself as embodying and extend- ing the spirit of the Hebrew people. It interpreted Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the religious ideals and purposes of the Old Testament, as the human expression and revelation of the God who was pro- gressively declaring Himself to the Hebrews and through them declaring Himself to the world. This understanding of Jesus Christ as the full interpreta- tion, expression and embodiment of the Hebrew his- tory and of the God who was the cause of Hebrew history made Jesus at once the supreme inspiration and the final authority for Christians. By this in- spiration and uncjer this authority they inaugurated the enterprise of 'Christianity as a force for chang- ing the world. This enterprise extends itself by means of missions. It was in carrying out what they regarded as the commission of their Master, in giving expression to His spirit, in obeying the im- pulse which faith in Him produced in them that these early Christians went far and wide, and in go- ing produced the New Testament. The New Testa- ment is at once the interpretation of these men and women, who produced this new enterprise in the life of humanity, and a means through which they pro- duced their influence on mankind. The Bible is a series of religious messages to men. lo The Bible a Missionary Message purporting to come from God. They come through men and are directed to mankind. Wherever they reach men they change the disposition of men, their ideals, their standards, their institutions. That is, they approve themselves as messages from God, they are missionary. III. The Missionary Character of the Old Testament. 1. The Missionary use Jesus made of the Old Testament. We shall later have studies of Jesus especially, but we may now ask how He gained His ideas of the nature and extent of His Messiahship. A careful study will confirm the view that in very great meas- ure He constructed His ideas and His programme by study of His Bible, our Old Testament. In the proper place we shall see howl each of His great ut- terances, which reveal His programme and plan, is founded on definite Old Testament teaching. ' 2. He appointed His Missionaries on the basis of the Old Testament Ideals. At the end of His ministry, when He had arisen from the grave and had met, in an upper room in Jerusalem, a group of His disciples, including ten of His apostles, " He opened their minds that they might understand the Scriptures." ( He interpreted to them " the things which are written in the Law of Moses, and the Prophets, and the Psalms concerning himself." ' Then He summed up for them the fea- tures which for Him stood out in each and all these three main divisions of their Bible, saying: "Thus it The Fact of the Bible Marks It 11 is written, (i) that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; (2) and that re- pentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name; (3) unto all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem; (4) Ye are witnesses of these things; (5) and behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high" (see Luke 24: 36-48). It is to be noted that all these items Jesus found in their Bible, the Old Testament, and that in this inspiring and momentous night He gave these teachings as a summary of what the Old Testament taught concerning Himself. It was a significant meeting, this first meeting with His followers after His resurrection. They must have spent much of the night together going through these Scriptures. Did Jesus understand the Old Testament? Was its teaching about the Messiah its most important and its most determinative feature ? Was the idea of the Messiah and of His mission which Jesus found therein the idea which God desired men to get from its study? If Jesus understood God and His purpose, then the very existence of the Old Testament is a testimony to God's love of all men and of His purpose to offer salvation to all men; it is God's message of salvation to all men. It is the foundation of the mis- sionary commission and enterprise. This which Jesus inaugurated and organized had Its origin in the heart of God. No part of the Old Testament is ever rightly understood until it is interpreted in Its rela- tion to the universal Gospel. This evangelical ele- 12 The Bible a Missionary Message ment is the key to the meaning, the bond of unity, the standard for evaluating all the teaching of this won- derful literature. In speaking to Hebrews God was declaring Himself to mankind. 3. The History of the Old Testament marks it as missionary. The Old Testament history recounts three great oc- casions when its revelations were collected and copied down. Each time all of previous messages that God wished preserved was combined with what God was understood to be giving at that time, and so the Old Testament grew into that form in which we know it as the completed Bible of the Jews and the Old Testa- ment of the religion of the eternal God. Moses pre- pared the first edition, (see Ex. 19, and following chapters). Again in the times of Hezekiah and of Jo- siah, when there was a new impetus given to the study of the Mosaic writings (see 2 Chron. 30-31, 34-35), it is probable that new editions were copied and that much of the revelations and records, of the time from Moses on, were now included. Many great prophets had spoken. David and Solomon had uttered their messages from God, and men of less note had written and spoken for God. Once again, when the Jews had returned from Babylon and Ezra was organizing their worship and setting them again on their way in the worship and service of God he gave them the Scriptures (see Neh. 8-10). Since Joslah's time Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had spoken, and many psalms had been written. Daniel's wonderful mission had been fulfilled. This later edition of the Scriptures, possibly not even yet the The Fact of the Bible Marks It 13 latest, would be far larger than that of Moses, or even than that of Hilkiah. Yet this notable fact meets any careful student: in every edition of the Old Testament as it grew, as well as in each of its 'classified divisions— Law, Prophets, Psalms— this ele- ment of God's concern and purpose and love for all men is to be found, and found holding a prominent place. The stamp of the missionary purpose is on its every part. Jesus saw this and pointed it out with emphasis. In His Bible His God and Father spoke to Him of all men. IV. The Missionary Character of the New Testament. If we look at the New Testament its missionary quality is even more obvious. In most versions we have not the books of the New Testament arranged in the order in which they were written. It is not possible to determine in just what order they were prepared. It is certain, though, that several epistles were written and circulated earlier than any of our Gospels. I. The general facts. Jesus Himself wrote nothing, so far as we know, nor is there any record that He commanded or sug- gested the writing of anything. No writing of our New Testament makes any claim to having been written to be a part of the sa- cred Scriptures, nor does any one of them except Revelation reveal any clear consciousness of the writer that he was composing a work that would be- come part and parcel of an abiding, an eternal Word 14 The Bible a Missionary Message of God to men. One may easily enough suppose that the writers were thus conscious of their impor- tance and of their inspiration, and abundant evidence can be found to support this hypothesis. The fact remains that they did not, usually at least, write as for all time but for their own times. It is, of course, well known that at first their writ- ings were not parts of a recognized whole, but were all separate and each one had its own place and use. It was not until after the middle of the second cen- tury that they were all brought together in one grouping and begun to be copied as one whole, to be looked upon as God's revelation of a New Testa- ment, i. e.y New Covenant, with mankind. Their in- spiration had by this time approved them to the con- sciences of Christian men as God's word. They knew the human authorship and accepted it as a pledge of honesty and genuineness of revelation and so " the canon of Holy Scripture " came to be com- pleted. 2. Circumstances of the writing of the hooks. Now let us go back of all this and see these New Testament books in the making. Let us inquire what human situations called for them and what hu- man motives inspired them. For the Holy Spirit used human situations, and wrought with and upon human motives, to produce them. What, then, do we find? We find that Jesus imparted to His faithful fol- lowers a fine spiritual imperialism, a dauntless spirit of conquest, a holy ambition to master the world in His name. And He left them with a commission. The Fact of the Bible Marks It 15 oft-repeated, to go into all the world as witnesses to Him. And He sent upon them His Holy Spirit to give them boldness and power and persistent energy in spreading the knowledge of God's salvation among men. I When on Pentecost (Acts 2) the Holy Spirit came upon them it was with two physical symbols: ** a noise as of the rushing of a mighty wind," sug- gestive of a new, driving and cleansing force in the world; and an appearance "like as of fire," a sheet of flame, breaking up into tongues one of which rested upon each of the one hundred and twenty per- sons in the room, suggesting that they should all be- gin telling the story of Jesus, the crucified, risen, living Lord, the Saviour of the world. At once they began speaking, in all the tongues represented in the crowds in Jerusalem, " mighty works of God." And they continued this testimony wherever they went, and on whatever errand. Whether on business or pleasure they travelled, or if " scattered abroad " by persecution, " they went through the land telling the glad tidings of the word" (see Acts 8:4). God took part with them (see Acts 4:29-31, 15:4, 12, etc.), and so caused wonderful spread of the Gospel and rapid multiplication of believers. Soon church groups were springing up in various city centers, not only in Palestine, but quite beyond its borders, even in Egypt, Syria, Rome and elsewhere. To these groups, many among whom had no personal knowl- edge of Jesus of Nazareth, and few of whom had any sufficient understanding of the nature and mean- ing of the spiritual life so remarkably begun in them, or of the great enterprise of which they had now be- l6 The Bible a Missionary Message come a part, to these new disciples the men who knew most and understood best the Hfe and reUgion of Jesus began to write letters and discourses ex- plaining the nature of the Christian life. Especially after the Holy Spirit had led the workers to begin a definite programme of extending the preaching of the Gospel among Gentiles (see Acts 13), did Paul, the great organizing leader in this movement, begin writing letters to the churches which were produced by the missionary labours. In this way there came into existence the earliest of our New Testament books, James, i and 2 Thessalonians, and a little later Galatians. Again, " in these days when the number of the disciples was multiplying" (Acts 6:1), there would be demand for information concerning the life and teachings of Jesus. This information would be re- quired by new converts for their instruction and training, and also for use in the work of witnessing, in which all were expected to take part and to which their experience impelled them. They must know the main facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Thus it came about quite naturally and inevitably that * many took in hand to draw up a narrative concern- ing those matters which had been fulfilled among the Christians.' These narratives would be based on what was delivered unto the incoming believers by "them who from the first were eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word'* (see Luke i : 1-4). The two uses of these narratives were both strictly missionary ; (i) for instructing and confirming converts gained by the missionary labours of the numerous witnesses ; The Fact of the Bible Marks It 17 v(2) for use in these missionary labours for winning converts, just as gospel tracts, including extracts from the Gospels, single Gospels and Epistles, are employed in missionary work to-day. Of the " many " gospels thus brought into being, three won the final and permanent approval of all Christians, as being apostolic and authoritative narratives of the words and works of our Saviour. They were all, in the double sense indicated, missionary tracts. One of them, Luke, was composed by Paul's companion and physician, and was, no doubt, intended to be used for promoting just such work as Paul was doing. Jesus left no full and detailed instructions con- cerning the organization, discipline and social func- tioning of His churches, so far as any report of His teachings informs us. These were to be wrought out and stated in the experiences of the churches under the direction of the missionary apostles. All these early churches were necessarily missionary churches. They were in the midst of environments that presented to them all sorts of problems. To meet these problems the missionaries not only gave oral guidance when present with them, but also found it needful to write frequently and at length, to direct the growing churches in matters of faith and duty, in worship and in work. Such were the Epistles to the Corinthians, and others. To the second generation of leaders of the churches, such as Timothy and Titus, the older mis- sionary apostles would write instructions and exhor- tations looking toward the extension and perpetua- l8 The Bible a Missionary Message tion of the great enterprise. Thus we have the Pas- toral Epistles. In the progress of the work occasion would arise for personal correspondence. One of Paul's good friends was Philemon of Colossse, no doubt won to the Lord during Paul's three years in the province of Asia (see Acts 19:26). One of the slaves of this man, who had run away, was soundly converted to the Christian faith and life while Paul was in prison at Rome. To these facts in Paul's labours we owe the wonderful little letter to Philemon, which reveals Paul's personality in remarkable degree. To the heroic action of one Gaius in supporting missionaries to the heathen in the face of bitter op- position of his church under a false leadership we owe the Third Epistle of John, which carries the finest statement we have of the principles of financial support of missions. In the same way Jesus left the theology of Chris- tianity to be developed by His apostles. Paul was the chief of these. It was in reflection on the nature and meaning of his Lord in relation to a gospel for all mankind that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write out the great doctrines of the Christian Sal- vation, the Christian Righteousness, the Christian World-significance, and the Person and Function of the Christ. These he stated in the letters which he wrote to the churches of the growing missionary en- terprise, Galatians, Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. This new enterprise in the world was certain to meet the ridicule and the antagonistic argument of The Fact of the Bible Marks It 19 existmg religions and philosophies. The first con- flict was with Judaism. Then came the opposition, and in some quarters the more dangerous patronage, of Greek philosophies. Two of these philosophies, the Jewish Alexandrian which originated and flourished in Egypt, and the Gnostic which began in various quarters in the first century and flourished in the second, became serious menaces to the right understanding of Jesus Christ. By way of meeting these attacks and dangers, besides sec- tions of other writings, we have several writings es- pecially designed for this purpose. Hebrews shows the superiority of Christianity to Judaism and its ideal excellence, answering the arguments Jews were using against the new, aggressive, spreading religion. John's Gospel and first two Epistles meet the Alexan- drian philosophy and some of the claims of the Gnos- tic teachers. Paul also deals with this last, in Colos- sians especially. Finally, the success of Christian missions brought on persecutions in the efforts of the Roman govern- ment to check and suppress it. Within the first cen- tury two general, or widely extended, efforts of this kind brought the Christians under terrible sufferings. This experience was the occasion for apostolic mes- sages to the persecuted saints to steady and encour- age them to remain faithful under the trials and to use the trials as opportunities for advertising their Saviour and for further influencing the world. The letters of Peter and Jude and the Revelation were produced out of this situation. It is obvious that Acts is, in Luke's purpose, the 20 The Bible a Missionary Message story of how the ascended Lord, by means of the Holy Spirit working in the Church, continued the work He had begun in His early life/* until the day in which he was delivered up, after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen" (see Acts i:i-ii). As Luke's first writing is the Gospel of Jesus, the Founder of the Missionary Enterprise, so his second is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, the Di- rector and Power in the Missionary Enterprise. [Acts is the first chapter of the story of the missionary conquest of the world,! a story that would have grown far more rapidly if ' its true nature had all along been understood and faithfully accepted by the professed followers of Jesus. We may sum up the contents of the New Testa- ment and the facts concerning its production by call- ing it the literature, (i) Of an Expanding Gospel; (2) Of a Developing Church; (3) Of a Growing Theology; (4) Of a Controverted Faith; (5) Of a Persecuted People. V. Consequent Missionary Emphasis of the Whole. It should be very clear to us that God's plan for giving us our New Testament was to give it in con- nection with the missionary activity of the early Christians. Every book of the New Testament was produced first of all to meet a need of missions and CO promote the work of missions. Is it possible to think of any way in which God could more emphatic- The Fact of the Bible Marks It 21 ally have made known His wish that all who know Him should be missionaries ? Jesus gave the missionary interpretation to the Old Testament, as we have seen. He then gave to His disciples His commission to go into all the world with His Gospel. Then the Holy Spirit gave to the disciples their Bible as they worked under their com- mission and made their Saviour known in the world. Could the whole plan of the Bible and its making have put greater honour and emphasis on missions ? Is not the whole Bible just various forms of say- ing : " God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life"? (John 3:16). Is not the fact of the Bible's existence an age-long proclamation that " God our Saviour * * * would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, himself (a) man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be borne in its own times " ? (i Tim. 2:s-6). Does not God speak in the whole Bible saying: " Behold, my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen in whom my soul delighteth : I have put my Spirit upon him: he will bring forth justice to the nations. * * * He will not fail nor be discouraged till he have set justice in the earth; and (even) the isles (with only small groups of men) shall wait for his law (so that none shall be left out) ? " (Isa. 42 : i, 4). Is not God everywhere bidding men to hope and 22 The Bible a Missionary Message labour because " according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness"? (2 Pet. 3:13). Has not God through all the centuries been calling to men, so soon as they knew Him, to be the messengers of His love and grace to all men in order that they might be saved? "Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; and besides me there is no God. And who, as I (my representative, my spokes- man) shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me (give a true interpretation of history), since I established the ancient people ? and the things that are coming, and that shall come to pass let them declare. Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have I not declared tmto thee of old, and showed it (f. e., dem- onstrated it) ? And ye are my witnesses " (Isa. 44: 6-8). In all stages of His revelation as it was making and in every book of it when recorded God has been asserting His claim upon the whole human race; proclaiming His love to all mankind; urging His worshippers to "declare his glory among the na- tions " (Ps. 96: 3) ; asking ever, "whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" and waiting until men would answer, " Here am I, send me " (Isa. 6:8). In its facts and in its formation is not the Bible marked through and through as God's missionary message ? The Fact of the Bible Marks It 23 Questions for Review and Reflection Did Jesus Christ really understand the heart of the Old Testament? How far did Jesus draw from the Old Testament His ideas of His Messiahship and His kingdom? What use did Jesus make of the Old Testament in His meeting with the disciples on the evening of the resurrection ? What was God's method of making the New Tes- tament ? Show the connection of each class of New Testa- ment writings with the missionary enterprise. Does the Bible seem any less divinely inspired when thought of as produced in the progress of God's plan with men and to help on that plan ? Can any one really understand the Bible except by interpreting it from the missionary standpoint ? Can one interpret the Bible without himself being dominated by the missionary spirit ? II BIBLICAL HISTORY MARKS THE BIBLE AS A MISSIONARY MESSAGE No other history was ever composed like that con- tained in the Bible. Why is this ? It is not a history of the world. Yet the world's history is epitomized there. And has it not come about that all histories of the world are in a way tested by this ? I. Characteristics of Biblical History. I. The History of an idea. The Bible is not, in the ordinary sense, a history of the Hebrews. It is not their deeds that are re- corded but their reaction to the will and the covenant of Jehovah. It was His land on which they lived and wrought their destiny. They were His people. Their national plan was the unfolding of His pur- pose. Their prosperity and their adversity were ex- plained in relation to their righteousness or their dis- obedience, and iniquity as measured by the commands and desires of Jehovah, their God. It is the history of an idea and a programme, not of a nation, nor of an organization, that we have in the Bible. So far as the people play a part at all in the history it is as a people rather than as a nation, God's people through whom His idea and programme are pushing their way in the life of the world. And when the people fail 24 Biblical History Marks It 25 in carrying forward the programme their history ceases and the idea and programme embody them- selves in another people, a people made up of men and women gathered from various peoples, from " every tribe and tongue and people and nation," in the oft-recurring phrase of the Revelation. While gathered from all sources yet the people who embody and carry forward the idea and ideals which are the burden of the Bible story are not, after the coming of Christ, physically separated from the tribes, tongues, peoples and nations from whom they are chosen. The idea is making itself at home in all lands and climes, among all races and peoples. That is its destiny, that its objective. " The kingdom of the world is become our Lord's and that of his Christ ; and he shall reign unto the age of the ages." Such is the message of the " great voices in heaven " which John heard in Patmos (see Rev. 11:15)- 2. The Introduction to the History of the idea. The first ten chapters tell all the Bible has to tell of the history of the race or of religion up to the time of Abraham, less than two thousand years be- fore Christ. According to the traditional chronol- ogy this Is more than half the time from Adam to Jesus. According to modem anthropological studies it is, of course, far more than that. These ten chap- ters constitute a sort of prologue, or introductory preface, to the Bible, which enters upon its definite purpose at chapter 12, chapter 11 constituting a sort of special, transitional introduction to the story of the Hebrew founders. Now a good preface in- troduces us to the constructive idea of a book. 26 The Bible a Missionary Message What do we find in these ten chapters ? Do we not discover such ideas as these? (i) God, the Author of all being, made man as the crown of His creative work to be a companion of God Himself. (2) When man, at the first issue of ethical test, the eating of " the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," took the way of sin and disobedience he became incapable of that high fellowship with God which was his birthright. Man, therefore, entered upon a career of hardship in sin. (3) At once (3:15) God an- nounces a warfare between the seed of the serpent of evil and the seed of the woman in which, though bruised, the seed of the woman shall win. (4) Men in the course of their history developed deepening in- tensity in sin, but God did not lose interest in them. " It grieved him at his heart," " It repented God that he had made man," for it became necessary in the interest of holiness to destroy man from the face of the ground. (5) Yet did God not give up His plan and purpose. He saved the family of Noah and with them made a new beginning under a special covenant. This covenant embraced all the children and all the descendants of Noah (see chapter 9). It is important to keep this in mind as also the fact that during all the time up to the flood God has dealt with the race as a whole. All have been alike before Him. The narrative is careful to declare the unity and solidarity of all men under this covenant and afterward (10:32-11:1). (6) This renewed race by pride, self-sufficiency and lack of confidence in God, became confused, broke up into fragments and were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth. Biblical History Marks It 27 Now what was God to do, who made all men, who loved them all, who has never surrendered His con- trol of them nor His ideal for them? At this point the prologue ends and the story begins. The back- ground is given, the motif appears and the drama proceeds. It is the drama of a loving God redeem- ing a disobedient and willful race. The material is before Him, the Great Workman begins. It is a work of centuries, of ages. II. Embodying the Idea in a People. 1. The purpose of an elect race. It is thus at Genesis 12 that Hebrew history be- gins, and the Bible begins as a revelation of God and His work of spiritual creation. For is not the spir- itual nature of humanity just such a chaotic mass, a formless void, as was the matter of Genesis i out of which God wrought the worlds, including our earth and all its products? And as the Spirit of God brooded over the face of that first, material deep, was He not equally and in a higher sense, brooding over this spiritual chaos to shape it into beauty and glory through succeeding stages of spiritual re-crea- tion ? We have thenceforward the story of an elect people, chosen for the sake of the human race. 2. Abraham and the ideal of God. God made quite clear to Abraham the universal reach of the love that singled out this one man and his seed to be the chosen of the God of all. " Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy coun- try, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee : and I will 28 The Bible a Missionary Message make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing." It was tJiis last that was God's objective, and it must be Abram's objective to be a blessing if he is to claim the promises. God goes over the ground again with Abram, in terms more concrete: "And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (see Gen. 12: 1-3). Later God assigns as the reason for making known to Abraham what He was about to do in destroying Sodom, that "Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him," and He goes on to explain that this great end is the reason for the call of Abram and for all the providences that are to follow him and his descendants (see Gen. 18: 16-19). Again when God had prevented Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, the son of the promises, God praises the loyalty of His servant in even this mistaken idea of sacrifice, prom- ises the greatest blessing, and says, as a climax of honour : "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice'* (see Gen. 22:9-19). Through four centuries this great man was able to project something of this sublime idea through his descendants so that they maintained their distinct- ness and their sense of divine destiny until, called and delivered out of Egypt, they stood before God and Moses at Mount Sinai. Here they were, the raw material out of which a nation was to be con- structed and a religion established that should be. Biblical History Marks It 29 both the nation and the religion, unique in the world and in influence on the world. 3. The Ideal in the founding of the national life under Moses. Ask almost any student of the Bible what was the beginning of the revelations and of the teaching at Mount Sinai and the answer will be: "The Ten Commandments." There has been no end of re- search, study, and controversy over the social, ethical and liturgical laws of the Hebrews, recorded in Exo- dus and Leviticus. Very few have paid attention to the most important of all the laws there given. The few who have noticed this revelation at all have given very little attention to it. Which is more im- portant, the ideals of a people or their detailed laws? Is not the soul of any people to be found in its ideal rather than in its regulations? A national purpose is even more vital, and more elemental than the fun- damental laws, like the Ten Commandments. The detailed legislation is largely influenced by the domi- nant ideal, the conscious end of the life of the people. In one brief, primary message through Moses God sought to set before the Israelites a supreme motive, to inspire them with a supreme ideal. This was His very first revelation. It came before any legislation, before the Commandments. If the people had ac- cepted this ideal and had constructed and maintained their national life in accordance with it the history of humanity would have been very different from its actual course. "Moses went up unto God, and Jehovah called unto him out of the mountain, saying. Thus shalt 30 The Bible a Missionary Message thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the chil- dren of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself. Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peo- ples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel" (Ex. 19:3-6). Is it not evident here that Jehovah lays stress on the spiritual deliverance of His people rather than upon physical escape? Does He not make the place of Israel in His affec- tion dependent upon their loyalty to His words and plans? Is it not made very clear that Jehovah claims, and will still claim, all the nations of the earth, and that He may choose from among them all a people to be His special people for a special serv- ice? Now, what is the special service for which Jeho- vah God is choosing and forming a people? He will make of them a kingdom of priests. It is the func- tion of a priest to lead a congregation in worship. If all the Hebrews are to be priests in this special spiritual sense, to be In fact a priest-nation, who are thought of as making up the congregation to be led in the worship of Jehovah ? Can we escape the con- clusion that God is forming Israel to be His servant to lead all the nations to Him and to His worship? What an ideal God is setting before this people ! 4. From Moses onward the Hebrew history is the history of the struggle for the idea of one, holy. Biblical History Marks It 31 righteous God and for the ideal of leading all nations to the knowledge and worship of this only God. (i) Apart from this idea and this ideal Hebrew history would lose its meaning for humanity as a whole, and would possess only curious interest for scientific historians and idle antiquaries. (2) In the disastrous days of Isaiah, when the people had lost the spiritual ideal and were scattered and oppressed, Jehovah comes to them through that great prophet with a promise of sympathetic tender- ness and assurance. Those whom He had formed and made for Himself, Jehovah will protect, deliver and restore, " every one that is called by his name." But it is all for a great, splendid, wide-reaching pur- pose: "Bring forth the (spiritually) blind people that have eyes, and the (religiously) deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled." All the world is called Into a religious conference. Their religions are to be compared. " Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? let them bring their witnesses that they may be justified" in their heathen religions, their idolatries and their su- perstitions. Or else, if they cannot approve their religions by history and achievement, " let them hear, and say. It is truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Je- hovah, and my servant whom I have chosen ; that ye may know and believe me, and imderstand that I am he: before me was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Jehovah; and be- sides me there is no Saviour. I have declared, and I have saved, and (thus) I have showed (demon- 32 The Bible a Missionary Message strated my Saviourhood) ; and it was no strange thing (mere unproved theory) among you : therefore ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah, and I am God. Yea, since the day was I 'am he; and there is none that can deUver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it?" (see Isa. 43: 1-13). Is it not here emphatically clear that God is think- ing first of all of Himself as the only Saviour for mankind, and of the nations of men in their defective religions as needing to be taught of Him; and then of a people specially chosen and trained to be His witnesses to these other peoples? He gives assur- ance of success if they will undertake this function and fearlessly give their witness. (3) How shall we interpret Jesus' parable of the Wicked Husbandmen except on the principle of elec- tion which we are now studying? (see Matt. 21: 33-45). It was because of the failure of the Jews to fulfill the divinely appointed purpose that Jesus declares : " Therefore I say unto you, the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." The word here translated " nation " would better be rendered *' people," since it refers not to a national group but to an ethnic group. And Jesus really had to create a new type of man. Paul calls it " a new humanity" in Ephesians 2: 15. (4) Peter interprets the ideal for us and definitely applies it to Christians (see i Pet. 2:9-12). "But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of him who called you out of , Biblical History Marks It 33 darkness into his marvellous light; who in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. Beloved, I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul ; having your behaviour seemly among the Gentiles (here meaning non-Christians) ; that wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation." It is not possible to escape the obvious fact that the apostle is here de- liberately parallelling the situation in Exodus 19 and applying to the Christian body the ideas, ideals and functions formerly connected with the Hebrews. Is it not easy to see that in all the epochal passages here quoted the same thought dominates and persists ? From the call of Abraham to the founding of the Christian Church God has maintained one ideal for His people and placed before them one great duty. He will reach all the world through the medium of a chosen people who make Him known to the other peoples. The churches of Jesus Christ are the chosen people of God, His witnesses, created and preserved for that end. III. Crises in Preserving the Idea. We can further trace this missionary idea in the Bible history by considering how the idea was ex- pressed and preserved at important epochs and periods of the history. I. The period of greatest glory for Israel was 34 The Bible a Missionary Message the reign of Solomon. The kingdom then came into its greatest territorial extent, its population was most numerous, its commerce most extensive, its renown at the highest. With all Solomon's sins and defects he was not an ignoble man in the eyes of that ancient world, and he was a glorious sovereign. It is of no light significance to find that his power and magnifi- cence, as well as his wisdom and ability, were defi- nitely associated with the religion of his God, in his own profession and in the minds of men, within his own kingdom and in other lands. His most notable work was the building of the magnificent temple and the establishment of its elaborate and impressive sacrifices and ritual. In this way his piety, superficial as it may have been, made its impression on the wide range of foreign rulers with whom he had established connections, and the religion of Jehovah came to be very widely known by the peoples with whom the Hebrews had friendly dealings, more extensive now than at any other time in the fifteen hundred years of their national life. In the building of the temple it is recorded that Solomon enlisted the friendly support of Huram, King of Tyre, and engaged in the work of getting materials in place a hundred and fifty-three thousand six hundred of Huram's subjects. In the negotia- tions between the two kings it was mutually agreed that Solomon's God was above all gods and the maker of heaven and earth (see 2 Chron. 2). When the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon it was because she had " heard of the fame of Solo- Biblical History Marks It 35 mon concerning the name of Jehovah." And she crowned her address to Solomon with the declara- tion : " Blessed be Jehovah thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel : because Jehovah loved Israel forever, therefore made he thee king to do justice and righteousness" (see i Kings 10:1-10). After all allowance has been made for honorific courtesies between Oriental royalties is it not still of definite significance that this Queen recognizes that Jehovah's aim is " justice and right- eousness " ? Solomon was also a writer and a promoter of letters. What influence may we suppose his literary labours and patronage to have exerted for his relig- ion among Gentiles? 2. The Captivity of Israel was used by Jehovah in the interest of His plan for promoting true religion among men. In a national religion the fate of the nation and the power of the god are wrapped up together. If the people and the nation flourish the god is supposed to be pleased with his people and able to prosper them. If they suffer and decline their god is supposed to be overmatched by the superior power of the god of the people who prosper against the failing nation. Now, from the first, Jehovah had not consented to be a national god. He was Lord of all. All the earth was His. He was the covenant God of Israel, having entered upon a special covenant with them, with a view to His being known as God by other peoples. A persistent tend- | ency, often dominant In Israel, was to regard Je- ' hovah as the national God, and to expect of Him ; 36 The Bible a Missionary Message protection, preservation and patronage against the enemies of His people. In the decadent days of the two Hebrew kingdoms Jehovah was under the neces- sity of maintaining His character as the universal God and the God of righteousness against the persistent nationalizing tendency of a people increas- ingly unethical, immoral and unspiritual. How could Jehovah be true to His holiness and at the same time faithful to His covenant with His chosen people and with their great founders and leaders ? It was a very serious problem in religion. No similar triumph in religion is to be found in all his- tory. Through the great prophets God succeeded in so interpreting the decadence and captivity of the Hebrew peoples as not only to maintain His char- acter for holiness but greatly to extend the prin- ciples of righteousness as the essence of religion. It was made clear to many in Israel and Judah, as well as to many in other lands, that the downfall of His people was the exaltation of Jehovah's character and that this downfall was made necessary by that very truth and faithfulness which lay at the foundation of the religion of Abraham and Moses and David. In this failure of the Hebrew kingdoms God made a great forward movement in the very mission to which He had called the Hebrews and which they had so grievously failed to fulfill. So far from the nations reproaching the God of Israel, as never before they came under the influence of His ideals. It is as impossible to escape the fact that the cap- Biblical History Marks It 37 live Hebrews, the vast majority of whom never re- turned to Palestine, carried a modifying influence into the reHgions of Asia as it is impossible to trace that influence in detail. Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, preeminently, grasped and preached the universalism and the right- eous rule of Jehovah over the other nations as well as over the Hebrews. If Ezekiel was a prophet of hope and restoration to his own people, he nevertheless made central in his preaching individualism, righteousness, repentance and spirituality, qualities in religion that are inevi- tably independent of the limitations of race and place. So he promoted the ends of the religion of the one ^ God. ^ i'.T Was not Daniel a great foreign missionary in the J most distinct sense? Was not his entire work as a '^ prophet, so far as our accounts of him go, to the courts of the great Gentile world rulers? He did not preach to his own people but to their masters. And what wonderful results he achieved! He pro- cured from three of these world rulers proclamations declaring the God of Daniel to be the Most High God, whose kingdom is endless and whose rulership extends over all. To the courts of these king-em- perors he preached the power, the holiness and the universal control of Jehovah. And it was partly, at least, by his influence that Cyrus promoted the Res- toration. Has any missionary in all history more truly grasped the purpose of God, or more success- fully declared the message of God ? 3. The Restoration and the period of Judaism r 38 The Bible a Missionary Message was again made to promote the ends of God in sev- eral ways. The ethical standards of this period were the highest in the history, in the general life, of the people, and they were in marked contrast with the conduct of the heathen peoples of the same period. Idolatry, in the literal sense, was wholly done away with, and polytheism, always before this a recurrent vice, was the horror and the abomination of the Jews. Moreover, their subordinate position, for most of the time subject to other powers, turned the minds of the truly religious to Messianic thought and hope. While their speculations developed along erroneous lines, they did become the harbingers of a great hope, and they did proclaim constantly the uni- versal power and rulership of their God. That they associated God's rule over men with their own na- tional pride and ambition, looking to see Jerusalem become the political capital of the world, no doubt greatly hindered their spiritual influence. It did not obscure wholly the central idea of God's purpose to rule the world in righteousness by means of a King whom He would bring into the world by His special will and purpose. But the Restoration brought more Jews to other parts of what was, or came to be, the Roman em- pire than it restored to Palestine. Every important center from Rome eastward had its Ghetto and synagogues. Some centers had multitudes of Jews. In Alexandria two-fifths of the city was Jewish. With their purified faith, their exalted hopes, their spiritual worship, these Jewish colonies became sources of unmeasured influence. They did but a \ Biblical History Marks It 39 small part of what was possible to them. They did* prepare the way for the missionaries of the Christ when they should come later. Incident to this colonizing dispersion of Jews came the translation of the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek, making them available for seekers after God wherever that language was known. By all these ^ means through this last four hundred years of He- brew history before Christ, the missionary purpose of God was getting expression, in limited measure, to be sure, and yet in a way very far from being in- effective. 4. The rejection of Israel, the creation of a new Israel Then came the day of " the fullness of the times." " God having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, at the end of the days spoke unto men in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he constructed the ages " (see Heb. i: 1-4). He who through all generations had been the life and the light of men, the true light which lighteth every man coming into the world, at length became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. He had all along been in the world, which He had made, and to such men as received Him He had been all along giving authority to become the sons of God (see John i : 1-18). Now He came to bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel. He came to inaugurate a permanent campaign of ag- gressive spiritual conquest that should make the will of His Father in heaven the law of human life 4o The Bible a Missionary Message " from sea to sea " and " from the river unto the ends of the earth." Again, as at the time of the Captivity, the Jews failed God. They sought then to take God and use Him to effect their desires for a worldly kingdom and material greatness. Now, when their Christ came, they again rejected the great function of spir- itual leadership. They sought to take the Messiah and make of Him a political ruler. They desired a Messiah who would enable them to dominate the world. He desired a people through whom He could save and bless the world. He began the creation of such a people. That creative work He has con- tinued through all the centuries since. It has been a slow, difficult work, requiring the overcoming, the remaking of human nature. In the course of it the history of the Church has often presented parallels to Israel in blindness and unfaithfulness. But He has continued the work. He continues it in that spiritual movement through which He breaks down all walls that separate men into fragments of the one human race and that form barriers to the expanding grace of God. Paul declares that " if any single man is in Christ Jesus " we have therein the proof that there is " a new creation " ; that God, who was in Christ Jesus reconciling the world unto Himself, is through His ambassadors proclaiming the reconciliation, and so producing a new humanity, a new type of human being through whom God will come to indwell the race of men (see 2 Cor. 5:17-20, and Eph. 2:13-15)- Biblical History Marks It 41 Questions for Review and Reflection State the peculiar nature of Biblical history. What is the idea whose history makes up the Bible story ? Why has God through the ages had a " chosen peo- ple"? How did God emphasize the purpose of the call of Abraham ? What was the first message to the Hebrews at Sinai ? What was its significance? How did God emphasize this idea in the times of Isaiah ? How does the New Testament deal with this idea ? How did the prosperity of Israel promote God's ideal ? How did God save and extend His ideal in the downfall of the Hebrew kingdoms ? How did the Jews promote God's plan in the pe- riod of the Restoration? What was the fundamental failure of the Jews with reference to Jesus as their Messiah? By what method did God continue His idea when the Jews rejected the Saviour? Ill HEBREW WORSHIP REVEALS THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE I. General Facts Concerning Worship that Imply Missions. The Bible is a book of worship. Not only has it repeated calls to worship, it is, indeed, a continuous call to worship. It gives endless examples, extensive directions and countless reasons for worship. I. Its purpose may he stated as to bring all men to worship the true God and Saviour of men. \ The God of the Bible is such that men cannot worship Him with true understanding and apprecia- tion without longing and labouring to have all men worship Him. In every part of the Bible God is pre- sented as the only God, hence the God of all men, deserving and desiring the worship of all men, and never to be satisfied until all shall know Him from the least to the greatest; until the earth shall be filled with His glory as the waters cover the sea: " His resting place," at which alone He will cease His work with sinful men, " will be glorious " (Isa. ii:io). Only then, when His full glory shall fill the earth, can He pause and be satisfied. 42 Hebrew Worship Reveals It 43 2. God's desire for the worship of all. All that introductory section of Genesis, the first eleven chapters, which leads up to the opening of the story of Hebrew beginnings represents God as the one, only God, from whom all men go away in sin until God is "grieved at his heart" (6:6). He desires the worship of all men. " I am Jehovah, that is my name ; and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise unto graven images " (Isa. 42: 8). The first two commandments to Israel express God's desire and His call to all men : " Thou shalt have no other gods besides me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, nor any likeness " (Ex. 20:3-4). 3. Provision for common worship of Hebrew and stranger. (i) For the Tabernacle in the wilderness it was al- ready provided that others than Hebrews should be welcome. There was to be " one law to him that is home-born and to the stranger that sojourneth among you" (Ex. 12:29. See also Deut. 10 :i9). One of the curses that was ordained to be proclaimed by the Levites on Mount Ebal, while the blessings were proclaimed from Gerizim, was : " Cursed be he that wresteth the justice due to the sojourner, fa- therless and widow" (Deut. 27:19), (2) When Solomon had completed his magnifies -- temple for the worship of Jehovah and came to dedicate it in his remarkable prayer he devoted a paragraph to the stranger : " Moreover concerning the foreigner, that is not of thy people Israel when he is come out of a far country for thy name's sake (for they shall 44 The Bible a Missionary Message hear of thy great name, and of thy mighty hand, and of thine outstretched arm) ; when he shall come and pray toward this house: hear thou in heaven, thy dwelling place, and do according to all that the for- eigner calleth to thee for ; that all the peoples of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and that they may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name" (i Kings 8: 41-43. See 2 Chron. 7: 32b). Can Solo- mon have expected that this temple would become a worshipping center for monotheists the world over? Can God have had any thought short of the whole world's worshipping Him in the spirit of the wor- ship of this temple? How extensive would be the influence of such a temple in advertising the nature and the religion of the God for whose worship it was built? H the life and the religion of the people of Israel had corresponded to the ideals of the worship here planned and to the ethical standards here taught what influence would have been exerted on the re- ligious and ethical life of mankind? 4. Prediction of common worship of God by all. ( I ) Isaiah 56 : 6-8. Was the Prophet right when he interpreted the wish and plan of God in these words? " Also the foreigners that join themselves to Jeho- vah, to minister unto him, and to love the name of Jehovah, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and holdeth fast my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy moun- tain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be ac- cepted upon mine altar; for my house shall be a Hebrew Worship Reveals It 45 house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord Jehovah, who gathereth the outcasts of Israel, saith, Yet will I gather others to him besides his own that are gathered." Was not Jesus exactly in line with this in His words when He cleansed the temple and quoted this passage from the prophet? Was not the temple destroyed in the end because by its perversion and exclusiveness it had come to stand in the way of universalizing the worship of God? (2) In Isaiah 66: 18-24, Jehovah is represented as speaking in a day of deep apostasy, yet with assurance fore- telling the coming time when " I will gather all na- tions and tongues : and they shall come, and shall see my glory." This will be accomplished by setting a sign among them. Such as see and heed the sign and escape from their ignorance, sin and degrada- tion Jehovah will send to all nations, even " to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations." Their success shall be such that from all nations they will come to be ** brethren " in the worship of Jehovah, who will take of these from all nations " to be priests and Levites." This is the Hebrew way of saying that race distinction and class distinction will be borne \ away in a common worship of mankind. The glori- ' ous outcome will be that from " one new moon to another (i. e. continuously), and from one sabbatL to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah." Jehovah keeps before Him always this "new heaven and new earth which he will make," and He preserves the seed and the name of 46 The Bible a Missionary Message His worshippers while this great consummation is being wrought out (see verse 22), God's heart will not be satisfied until all shall worship Him. 5. Paul's Interpretation. It was in line with this message of God and with His plan thus revealed that Paul thought of his call- ing and mission as " the grace that was given me of / God, that I should be a minister of Christ Jesus untoV the nations, ministering-as-a-priest God's glad tid- ings, so that the offerings of the nations might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit'* (see Rom. 15: 15-16). Does not Paul here think of God witnessing the religious sacrifices and ceremo- nies of the heathen, offered in so ignorant a way as to be unacceptable to Him, but still so desiring their worship that He sends such as Paul to carry the good news of God's love and interest and to instruct these blind worshippers so that they may offer true worship to God, while God's Holy Spirit Himself so works in this enterprise as to make it successful? 6. Worship can he perfect only by being uni- versal The whole idea of worship as taught in the Bible is such as to make it a missionary message to man- kind. Can any worship God with highest apprecia- tion and acceptability until all worship Him? Must not those who recognize the glory of God, who love Him and come to Him in worship and in prayer, feel that He can never be rightly honoured nor fully worshipped until all peoples bow before Him in in- telligent and adoring praises and prayer? When men understand the God whom we worship and His Hebrew Worship Reveals It 47 relation to the world we shall instinctively and in- evitably make our Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9!?.) the petition of our souls. This we will do for two rea- sons: we shall feel that our God should be, and of right must be, reverenced and worshipped by all men; and we shall recognize that the Father of all misses the presence at His footstool of all His peo- ples who have not learned to call Him " Abba, Fa- ther." We shall, when the Spirit of our God fills our hearts, miss in our worship any of the children of men who have not come with us into the presence of the Father. II. Missions in the Psalms in Which Men Worshipped. That this idea entered vitally into the worship of the Hebrews we can see so soon as we study the Psalms. These were in part the hymns and songs used in the worship of the temples — Solomon's Tem- ple and the rebuilt temple of Zerubbabel. It is not now possible to determine in some cases whether a given psalm belonged to the earlier or to the later time. Many we can locate with confidence. The missionary element is strong in both groups. Again some psalms that were no part of the ritual but were poems of family worship and of personal devotion and petition manifest the same desire for the universal worship of Jehovah and call upon all men to share His goodness and His praise, and pre- dict the recognition of His glorification in all the world. I. Psalm LXVII is one of the best known of 48 The Bible a Missionary Message these psalms of temple service. It is arranged for antiphonal singing, possibly with tenor, bass and uni- son parts. Study it carefully under the arrange- ment here given. First voice, or group of voices — tenor : God be merciful unto us, and bless us, And cause his face to shine upon us; Second voice, or group of voices — bass : That thy way may be known upon the earth, \ ; Thy salvation among all nations. All together : Let the peoples praise thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise thee. Tenor : O, let the nations be glad And sing for joy; Bass: For thou wilt judge the peoples with equity, And lead (Hebrew, see margin) the na- tions upon earth. All: Let the peoples praise thee, O God ; Let all the peoples praise thee. Tenor and bass : The earth hath yielded its increase : God, ever our own God, will bless us. All: God will bless us ; And all the ends of the earth shall fear him. Consider thoughtfully what impression must have Hebrew Worship Reveals It 49 been made on those who sang these words and those who heard them. Notice especially the plurals: " peoples/' " nations " ; the collective, comprehensive terms, " upon earth," " ends of the earth " ; the re- current use of the emphatic " all," " among all na- tions," " all the peoples," " all the ends of the earth." Especially significant is the main idea of the whole psalm, namely, that God's mercy and blessing upon His worshipping people have for their objective and result that " all the ends of the earth shall fear him." 2. In the same vein is Psalm XCVI, but express- ing even more completely the missionary message. It begins with a call to worship, with " a new song " : Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song : Sing unto Jehovah, all the earth. Sing unto Jehovah, bless his name. Show forth his salvation from day to day. Next we have a summons to those who worship, to proclaim the glory of their God among all peoples, because He alone is God and all their gods are mere vanities. His right and the world's need inspire God's worshippers to lead all men to acknowledge Him in grateful praise: Declare his glory among the nations, His marvellous works among all the peoples. For great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised : He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are nothings, (see margin) But Jehovah made the heavens. Honour and majesty are before him : Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 50 The Bible a Missionary Message Because of the " majesty," " strength " and " beauty " of Jehovah " all the earth " is called upon to glorify Him. Ascribe unto Jehovah, ye kindreds of the peoples, Ascribe unto Jehovah glory and strength ; Ascribe unto Jehovah the glory due unto his name : Bring an offering, and come into his courts. Oh worship Jehovah in holy array ; Tremble before him, all the earth. Now again those who know the universal sover- eignty of God are called upon to proclaim Him as the judge of all men : Say among the nations, Jehovah reigneth: The world also is established that it cannot be moved : He will judge the peoples with equity. By breaking the form of the poetical structure at that point the psalmist calls particular attention to the fact that Jehovah is ruler, sustainer and judge of the whole earth. He then proceeds to summon the entire world to joyful acceptance of God's righteous judgment and faithful rule: Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice ; Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof ; Let the field exult, and all that is therein ; Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy Before Jehovah ; for he cometh. For he cometh to judge the earth : He will judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples in his faithfulness (margin). Hebrew Worship Reveals It 51 Is it possible to suppose that this psalm could be used in worship without stirring the expectation that God would receive universal praise among men? Would not the more spiritual and thoughtful wor- shippers have an impulse actually to lead other peo- ples to worship their glorious God ? Would they not feel that God could never be satisfied, or rightly honoured until " all the ends of the earth " should " magnify his holy name" ? Whatever the thoughts of Jewish worshippers, must not God have been using the psalmist in this hymn of praise to give a mission- ary message to mankind? 3. The Second Psalm has a structure more familiar to those accustomed to English poetry. While preserving the Hebrew "parallelism," stating an idea in two forms, or two closely related ideas in similar form, it also falls logically into four stanzas of about equal length. And here, also, our English arrangement corresponds to the thought develop- ment, three " verses " of the psalm constituting each stanza. In each stanza there is as definite idea and the viewpoint changes from one stanza to another. With these suggestions let us proceed to the read- ing, stanza by stanza. The psalmist first speaks, pre- senting a graphic picture of insolent rebellion against Jehovah and especially against "his anointed," the one whom He desires for king, and who would es- tablish His ideals among men : Why do the nations gather in raging tumult, And the peoples meditate a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves. And the rulers take counsel together, 52 The Bible a Missionary Message Against Jehovah, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bonds asunder, And cast away their cords from us. Looking upon such a scene — the rulers and leaders of men in insolent revolt against the holy God, the Creator and Master of the universe — the psalmist feels a great sense of indignation and of contempt as he thinks of the futility and folly of such rebellion. He proceeds to express this feeling, saying how he thinks Jehovah may feel about it: He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh : The Lord will have them in derision. Then will he speak unto them in his wrath, And vex them in his sore displeasure : But in the midst of this expression by the poet of what seems to him God's attitude, God Himself checks the poet. While God might easily take this attitude, if He were thinking only of His own majesty and power as affronted by the puny oppo- sition of ignorant men, when His holiness and love are taken account of He cannot be indifferent to these men. Their world, however insignificant, is His world, too. Their history is in part His history. He has a holy purpose and plan to fulfill in men, even in these rebellious men. So, the poet is not permitted to finish the stanza in the strain in which he set it, but God takes it from him and in the last two lines expresses His deep, true feeling and pur- pose: Yet have I set my king Upon my holy hill of Zion. Hebrew Worship Reveals It 53 God intends to establish a holy order in the world, among men. It is His King whom men shall recog- nize and serve. Here then, in the third stanza, Je- hovah's King becomes the speaker, and outlines the divine attitude and purpose : I will tell of the decree : Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my son ; This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a pot- ter's vessel. In view of God's unfailing purpose to establish His anointed King upon the hill of holiness, and of God's determination to use necessary force to des- troy obstinate opposition to His Son and His rule, the psalmist now speaks again in the final stanza. His whole attitude has changed with the new view- point and he proclaims an invitation to all : Now therefore be wise, O ye kings : Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with fear, And rejoice with trembling. , Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye | perish in the way, ^ For his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all they that take refuge in him. Thus does God provide in His Son a refuge for His 54 The Bible a Missionary Message raging enemies of the heathen nations and invite them to come with reverent joy into His holy kingdom. 4. Psalm XLVII is more from the Jewish stand- point, and perhaps the writer thought of all other peoples as subject to the Jews as God's people chosen to represent Him in ruling the world. But even so, the psalmist was looking beyond Israel to the ends of the earth as the range of Jehovah's blessing upon mankind. And as God's spokesman he was deliver- ing a message of grace to all peoples : O clap your hands, all ye peoples ; Shout unto God with the voice of triumph, For Jehovah Most High is terrible: He is a great king over all the earth. He subdueth peoples under us, And nations under our feet. He chooseth our inheritance for us, The glory of Jacob whom he loved. God is gone up with a shout, Jehovah with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises : Sing praises unto our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth : Sing ye praises with understanding. God reigneth over the nations : God sitteth upon his holy throne. The princes of the peoples are gathered together To be the people of the God of Abraham ; For the shields of the earth belong unto God: He is greatly exalted. 5. Psalm XXII is more quoted in the New Testa- ment than any other. It gives the most graphic and detailed account of sacrificial suffering by the Serv- Hebrew Worship Reveals It 55 ant of Jehovah of any passage in the Old Testament. While not more dramatic in description it is more detailed than even the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. It was from this psalm that Jesus was quoting in His great cry of anguish on the cross. Twenty-one verses portray the sufferings and insults which are endured while the sufferer cries to God. Then four verses contain the testimony of this Servant to the faithfulness of His God. Finally six verses give Je- hovah's assurance to the Servant of the value of His suffering and service; His work shall succeed: The meek shall eat and be satisfied ; They shall praise Jehovah that seek after him: Let your heart live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember And turn unto Jehovah ; And all the kindreds of the nations Shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is Jehovah's ; And he is the ruler over the nations. All the fat ones of the earth shall eat and worship : All they that go down into the dust shall bow before him, Even he that cannot keep his soul alive. A seed shall serve him ; It shall be counted unto the Lord as his race. (Cf. margin.) They shall come and shall declare his righteousness Unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it. 56 The Bible a Missionary Message 6. Other Psalms; a common principle. The psalms selected are those which most fully and clearly express God's will and purpose that all men shall know and worship and serve Him. They most distinctly invite all peoples to this worship and service ; and most directly call upon such as do wor- ship Him to declare His glory and His saving power to all others. But very many others have the same ideas, less prominently set forth but entering as a distinct feature. It is not to be wondered at that the Hebrews did not more often and more clearly grasp the equality of all peoples in the love and favour and plan of God. When we take account of the narrow nationalism of the ancient times, the race hatreds and antagonisms; the wonder is that these elements of universalism played so large a part in the ritual and the common worship of the people. So far from wondering that Israel and the Jews so often dwelt upon the hope of their own exaltation and the subordination of other peoples to them, we must the rather see the revelation and inspiration of God in causing them so often to overleap these limit- ing barriers and catch the vision of one holy God ruling all and receiving the praises of all on terms of a common relation to God. 7. Solomon's Psalm. To close our studies in the Psalms let us look at certain parts of Psalm LXXII. It is entitled "The Reign of the Righteous King," and an ancient inscription designates it "A Psalm of Solomon." There are those who take it to be a prayer by Solomon^ and a description of his reign. Others attribute it rather to David and account it a Hebrew Worship Reveals It 57 prayer for, and prediction concerning, Solomon. Others treat it less seriously still. But when all al- lowance has been made for the hyperbole and hon- orific in which Orientals of all ages indulge so freely, it still seems impossible solely to seek to limit its application to any one human king, or to any one human kingdom. Besides, its concern for righteous- ness, mercy and truth takes us quite out of the at- mosphere of mere temporal glory or mere human greatness. It is because of this King^s "righteousness," "justice," and "peace," because of His considera- tion for the " poor of the people " and " the children of the needy," because. In his days shall the righteous flourish, And abundance of peace, till the moon be no more. that He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the river unto the ends of the earth. His reign is marked by deliverance for the needy, pity for the poor, redemption for the oppressed and concern for the blood of the slain. And men shall pray for him continually ; They shall bless him all the day long. ******* His name shall endure forever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun: And men shall be blessed in him ; All nations shall call him happy. The psalmist, therefore, closes with this universal call: 58 The Bible a Missionary Message Blessed be Jehovah God, the God of Israel, Who only doeth wondrous things: And blessed be his glorious name forever ; And let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen. III. The Same Element in Other Literature OF Worship. Nor is it in the Psalms alone that the expressions of Hebrew worship show God's missionary message. It would be possible for us to study an indefinite number of illustrations of this message from wor- shipful sections of the Prophets. These must be omitted from the present study. In their visions the interpretation of their God was such as that which came to Isaiah when in the temple he " saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. Above him stood the sera- phim: each one had six wings; with twain he cov- ered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto an- other, and said. Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts, the fullness of the whole earth is his glory" (6:1-3). Questions for Review and Reflection What in the Bible shows God's interest in all men prior to the founding of the Hebrew nation ? What indications are there in the worship of the Tabernacle and in the dedication of the Temple of a spirit of universalism in the worship of Jehovah? What use is made in the Scriptures of the idea- Hebrew Worship Reveals It 59 that God's house shall be a house of prayer for all nations ? How do the Scriptures suggest that all are to be brought to the acceptable worship of Jehovah ? Why can there be no perfect worship until all men worship? What psalms especially teach the universal wor- ship of the one, true God ? How were these psalms used in worship ? What is the significance of this spirit of univer- salism in Hebrew poetry of worship? What aspects of missions are clearly seen in these psalms ? IV PROPHECY PROVES THE BIBLE GOD'S MISSIONARY MESSAGE What is prophecy ? It is prediction ? This is one of the most persistent errors in common thought. It seems almost impossible to correct the common no- tion that to prophesy is to foretell future events. A prophet does sometimes predict events in the future. Usually he does not. A prophet is one who speaks by direct inspiration and interprets the presence and thev/ill of God in the course of events. Usually he is a preacher of righteousness, usually also a re- former. In defining the v^ays of God and the will of God the prophet shows the course of history in its deeper principles and forces. Thus he has occasion to tell what will be the outcome of courses now being pursued by men or directed by God. If men give heed to him they avert evils predicted and help to accomplish the good that is promised. In interpret- ing the ways of God it may be given to the prophet to announce beforehand, even long beforehand, some person or event to be used of God in promoting His work and ordering His kingdom. Such being the function of the prophet it is to prophecy that we turn expecting to find God's fullest message and the 60 Prophecy Proves It 6l clearest indication of His nature, His will and His plans concerning men and the kingdom of God. I. Missions in the Call of the Prophets. If we study some examples of the call of prophets to their work we shall find them suggesting the mis- sionary attitude of God toward the human race. Be- sides the specific record of their call we may take account also of the scope of their actual ministry. We ask, then : To whom does the prophet understand his message to be sent? What is God's interest in the peoples to whom He sends the message ? I. Jonah's Mission to Nineveh has in it elements that mark it as especially fit to teach God's attitude. Consider the situation when Israel was under " af- fliction that was very bitter " (2 Kings 14: 26), when Assyria was in the ascendant as the great world '^ power and already threatening to sweep westward and absorb the smaller kingdoms. Fear and bitter- ness would be natural feelings of an Israelite. Jonah is sent at such a time to strengthen the heart and encourage the plans of the king whereby new power and prosperity came under the reign of Jeroboam. Thus was the border of Israel restored " from the entrance of Hamath unto the sea of the Arabah, ac- cording to the word of Jehovah, the God of Israel, which he spake by his servant, Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was of Gath-hepher." Would this success tend to promote pride along with the fear and the bitterness toward Nineveh? What would narrow national pride and prejudice suggest to Hebrews as the attitude of their God toward their 62 The Bible a Missionary Message most dangerous enemy, especially in that age of the world when there was such a powerful tendency to think of gods as national and as localized in their people? What, then, is the teaching concerning God that is involved in His commanding Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach against the sins of " that great city"? Jehovah assumes the responsibility of these heathen, of a race alien to the prophet. He is in- terested in them. He will warn them, and when j they repent He will save them. The rebuke to the / narrowness and exclusiveness of the Hebrews, the •= revelation of God's universalism and of His concern for moral conduct. His determination to send His message to sinning men, all these lessons stand out in this remarkable episode. Are these lessons at all involved in the questions of the date and literary character of the book ? 2. We have already studied the remarkable mis- sionary career of Daniel. Can there be any question of God's thus revealing Himself as seekin at the time of the ascension the Lord again lays His world enterprise on His followers. This time there are a hundred and twenty of them. They have returned to Jerusalem, because He has told them that there their work must begin. We get the story of this final commission only in Acts 1:6-11 (and see v. 15). When He met them on this occassion they sought to know from Him whether the kingdom was to be restored to Israel at this time. They had learned to put that in second place, at least when talking with Him. Now He tells them to leave that question wholly alone, for the Father to attend to. They have now one, single great responsibility : " But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." Jesus Founds the Missionary Enterprise 121 His work was done. His enterprise was begun, and was in the hands, and in the hearts, of these one hundred and twenty men and women ; to pass from them to the hands and hearts of all who should come to know the power of this Saviour, and who in their turn must become His missionaries. **And when he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight." ''And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, blessing God" (Luke 24: 52). Questions for Review and Reflection What was the greatest work of Jesus? Was it what He did or what He began? In what sense do believers in Jesus do greater works than He? By what means can believers do this greater work ? What is the nature of the kingdom Jesus preached and founded? How does Jesus' teaching concerning worship in- volve a universal gospel? Why does Jesus die, according to His teaching? What were the two controlling motives of Jesus in His work? How did the crowds affect Jesus? What In the method of Jesus teaches missions ? Trace the three steps in missionary progress in the self-revealing speeches of Jesus, under V. How many commissions did Jesus give after His resurrection ? Give the circumstances and content of each. VII ACTS THE GOSPEL OF THE MISSIONARY POWER I. The Holy Spirit in the Life and Plan of Jesus. I. His dependence on the Spirit for the success of His mission. "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses" (Acts i:8). "Ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send forth the promise of my Father upon you : but tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:48^). We have, in Chapter VI, studied Jesus inaugurating the missionary enterprise. He accounted Himself as only making a beginning, a very secure and powerful beginning, but still only a beginning. For the con- tinuance and perfecting of His work He depended upon two forces — two that were to cooperate as if one force. He would depend upon renewed men, impelled to the work of redeeming men by the prin- ciple of the life that had arisen in them; and upon the Holy Spirit, coming upon these renewed and consecrated men with a wisdom, an energy, and a convincing might that would be resistless. In His own person men had " both seen and hated both Jesus and his Father." This had been foreseen and predicted in two psalms (25:19, 69:41). 122 Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 123 " They hated me without a cause." " But," Jesus proceeds to indicate that He does not give up and that there is an even more effective method of appeal than that of His own person, " But when the Paraclete is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me ; and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning" (John 15 : 24-27), Does not Jesus mean to say that the united testimony of the Holy Spirit and of men who had knowledge of Him through personal ex- perience would be more successful in convincing and saving men than the personal presence of Jesus had proved ? 2. His great dependence on His followers insepa- rably connected with the Holy Spirit. We have seen at length how much, and how fully, Jesus counted on His believing followers to make His incarnation a success in human life. The intimacy and the extent of this dependence He expressed in the illustration of the vine and the branches (John 14: 10-16) : " I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman ; " "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit : for apart from me ye can do nothing ; " " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, and ye shall be disciples of me," i. e., learning from me how to bear fruit ; " These things have I spoken unto you that my Joy may be in you, and your joy may be made full," their fruit-bearing rejoicing both the Lord and His servants ; " I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from 124 The Bible a Missionary Message my Father I have made known unto you, ... I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide : that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you." In these expressions Jesus de- clares as strongly as possible that He is seeking to build up in His followers such faithful and true rep- resentatives of Himself as will enable God to take them as His very self, extended in them, and to work through them as completely as, and more extensively than, through Jesus Himself. 3. His eagerness to commit the work to the Spirit and His followers. With something akin to eagerness Jesus seems to look forward to this consummation of His own la- bours and to this new form of working through others. Within the latter months of His ministry He one day exclaimed, and it was just after His parable of faithful and unfaithful stewardship : " I came to cast a fire upon the earth; and how I would that it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to be baptized with : and how I am straitened till it be ac- complished!" (Luke 12:49-50, of margin). So in His Upper Room talk with the Twelve, in which Je- sus most fully sets forth "the promise of his Fa- ther " to send the Holy Spirit, He says : " Ye heard how I said to you, I go away, and I come unto you. If you loved me ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father : for the Father is greater than I " '(John 14:28). A little later In the talk He says: " Now I go unto him that sent me ; and none of you asketh me, whither goest thou ? But because I have Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 125 spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your hearts/' He seems to chide them for not giving Him an opportunity to explain, for not trusting His wis- dom and care but assuming that His going was a mis- fortune. Even though they have not invited an ex- planation He goes on^ " Nevertheless I tell you the truth : It is expedient for you that I go away : for if I go not away the Paraclete will not come unto you ; but if I go I will send him imto you. And he, when he is come, will convict the world" (16: 5-8). The Holy Spirit with and in these, and similar, believers would so extend the power and so carry out the pur- pose of Jesus that it was better for His followers to be without the physical presence of the Christ and to be empowered by His spiritual presence and by the energy of His Holy Spirit, working with them. 4. What the work of the Holy Spirit would he Jesus announced also. He had already told them twice before this night that they would be arraigned before courts, councils, rulers, kings for His sake. They were not to be " anxious how or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what ye ought to say'* (Luke 12: 11-12), The reason for this procedure is that when thus ar- raigned the Lord's witnesses are not to be concerned for personal safety or acquittal but are to use such occasions " for a testimony unto them," unto men who would not otherwise hear the Gospel. And " this gospel must first be preached unto all the na- tions." Hence, " when they shall lead you to judg- ment, and deliver you up, be not anxious beforehand 1 26 The Bible a Missionary Message what ye shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye ; for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit" (Mark 13:9-11). Now Jesus explains further : " Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth: for he will not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, shall he speak; and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me : for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you " (John 16: 13-14). In such terms Jesus links up His fol- lowers and the Holy Spirit as joint continuators of the work He is beginning in His ministry, founding in His death and glorifying in His resurrection. 5. " The promise of my Father " meant to Jesus not alone the promise that the Holy Spirit would take up His work and carry it on to completion. The promise had first of all been a promise to Himself and had a faithful fulfillment in His experience. He had read in His Isaiah that the Shoot out of the stock of Jesse that would become a fruitful Branch for the glory of Jehovah, should have rest- ing upon Him the Spirit of Jehovah, giving wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, rever- ence, keen spiritual insight, faithfulness, righteous- ness, and authority in judgment. Because of these gifts of the Spirit He should become the rallying point of the nations which would turn to Him and the completion of His work would be glorious (see again Isa. ii : i-io). Again Jehovah had pointed to His special " Servant, whom I uphold my chosen In whom my soul dellghteth ; I will put my Spirit upon Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 1 27 him; and he will bring forth justice to the nations" (Isa. 42: i). In Isaiah 48: 16 the Servant of Jeho- vah, in forecasting His work, is represented as saying, " Now Jehovah hath sent me, and his Spirit," and the fuller statement of the way His work is to be accomplished is forecast in 59: 20-21, where a cove- nant is made with the Redeemer who comes to Zion ; " My Spirit which is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith Jehovah, from henceforth and forever." Do we not find Jesus drawing on just this assurance when He uses such expressions as the following : " He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me : and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Fa- ther, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him" (John 14: 21) ; " If a man love me he will keep my word ; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him . . . and the word which ye hear is not mine but the Father's which sent me. . . . The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remem- brance all that I said unto you" (John 14:23-26) ; *' The words which thou gavest me I have given unto them; and they received them** (John 17:8; cf. verses 14, 26). 6. How intimate and constant a part the Holy Spirit had played in Jesus* own life is not generally appreciated. His origin is attributed to the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). At His baptism 128 The Bible a Missionary Message the Holy Spirit came to abide upon Him (Matt. 3:i6f., Luke 3:3if.), by reason of which John recognized Him as Messiah. In His principle-fixing experience with Satan in the beginning of His min- istry He was led into it by the Holy Spirit and from it returned in the power of the Spirit to His work in Galilee (Luke 4:1, 14). At His home town, Nazareth, He early preached from the text of Isaiah 61 : i, " The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach, etc." John, or more probably Jesus Himself as reported by John, explains the power and influence of Jesus on the ground that " God giveth not his Spirit by measure" (3:34). It was "in the Spirit of God that he cast out demons" (Matt. 12:28). Peter tells us that it was part of the common tradition con- cerning Jesus that the explanation of His going about " doing good, and healing all that were op- pressed by the devil " was that " God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with Power." In this way "God was with him" (Acts 10:38). Paul says ;that it was by " the Spirit of Holiness " that Jesus was " declared to be the Son of God in power, by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. 1:4)? thus attributing the resurrection of Jesus to the Holy Spirit. Luke affirms that even after His resurrection Jesus gave commandments to His chosen apostles through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:2). II. Luke's Two Gospfxs. I. The Gospel of the Spirit completes the Gospel of the Son. Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 1 29 Luke conceived the Gospel in two parts and gave us two treatises, one to set forth each part of the Gospel. God's enterprise with the human race calls for divine sacrifice and divine energy. How, '* when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, and that we might receive the adoption, of sons" (Gal. 4:4b), this Luke recounts in his Gospel. How " God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal. 4' S)y this Luke tells in Acts, which is as truly his Gospel of the Holy Spirit as is " the former treatise " his Gospel of the Son of God. In order to make the Gospel and to begin His work of reconciliation God came in His Son Jesus Christ. In order to proclaim the Gos- pel and to carry through the reconciliation to the ends of the earth God came in the Holy Spirit. For the enterprise of the Gospel both these comings of God into the life of humanity are equally necessary. The saving of the world, or the saving of any one man In the world, Is a divine work. It proceeds- only when God works In and through men. Luke thus presents his Gospel In two parts. What Jesus " began " In His own person He continues In the person of His Holy Spirit working through His Church and His churches, on through the course of redemption. 2. The urgent need of the Spirit. The birth of Jesus (Luke 2) and the advent of the Spirit (Acts 2) are the two events coordinate in importance for the plan and work of redeeming the 130 The Bible a Missionary Message world. The first chapter of Acts tells of the promise of the Holy Spirit by Jesus and of the emphasis which He placed upon the Spirit's coming and His work; then of the preparation which the disciples of Jesus made for the coming of the Spirit. He urged the disciples not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promised Spirit, promised of old by the Father, promised more recently by the Lord Himself, and now promised by Him again. He contrasts the water baptism of John with the Spirit baptism which He now emphasizes (v. 5). The disciple who will be a worker together with the Lord must be more than a repentant, believing, baptized man. He must have also that divine wisdom and power in service which can come only when the Holy Spirit *' clothes him- self with" the disciple's personality and works and witnesses through this empowered personality. Be- fore the ascension, and just before, Jesus sharply turns the attention of His faithful followers away from all secondary questions about even the king- dom itself and commands them to be concerned only about the power which they are to receive by the coming upon them of the Holy Spirit and about the witness which they are to bear to their Lord, with the Holy Spirit upon them, unto the uttermost part of the earth (vs. 6-8). In obedience to this command the group of " about a hundred and twenty" remained in Jerusalem and for ten days, until the promise was fulfilled, gave themselves to preparation for Him and for their iwork of witnessing when He should come. This ipreparation consisted in united prayer and in the Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 131 selection of Matthias to supply the place of Judas in the apostolic group of authoritative witnesses to the words and works of the Master. 3. Chapter II tells how the Spirit came. That His coming was for the purpose of giving the Gospel of Jesus to all men was emphasized by the time of His coming, at Pentecost, when pious Jews and God-fearing Gentiles were in Jerusalem from the ends of the earth. No fewer than fourteen racial or territorial sections of the race are named as being represented in the throngs then present. Again the method of the Spirit is indicated by the symbol of His presence as fire, a sheet of flame coming into the room and dividing up into a hundred and twenty tongues of flame, one resting on the head of each disciple there waiting and now made a powerful wit- ness to the Saviour. The " sound as of a rushing, mighty wind" suggests also the renovating shaking of the world which is to be effected by the messen- gers of Jesus in the world. •4. All believers should receive the Spirit. When the wonderful events had attracted the great crowds and when the preaching had brought thousands to inquire what they should do, Peter tells them how they may be saved and also what they must do as saved men (vs. 38-40). Besides repent- ing and confessing Jesus Christ in baptism they were all to receive the Holy Spirit and thus all become witnesses to Jesus, missionaries of the Gospel even as the hundred and twenty were. This is God's plan and wish for all, " as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him." 132 The Bible a Missionary Message III. The Work of the Spirit in Acts. I. General facts in the story. Jesus had said, in His parting commission (1:8- 10), that the Holy Spirit and the followers of Jesus should bear witness to Him, first, in Jerusalem ; sec- ond, in all Judea and Samaria, i c, in Palestine, their homeland ; third, unto the uttermost part of the earth. Luke tells the story of this witness of the Spirit through Christian men and women in three sections, corresponding exactly to these three divi- sions in the programme of Jesus. From chapter 2 to 8 : 1 the witness is all in the City of Jerusalem. Chapters 8 to 12 tell how the witness was borne in Judea and Samaria and gradually and progressively got out into Syria even beyond Palestine. Then at chapter 13 there was the definite undertaking, under the command of the Holy Spirit, to go out into the world beyond the homeland of the first Christians. What we call foreign missions were definitely under- taken, and all the remaining chapters of Acts tell how the messengers, the missionaries, of the Christ, were guided, sustained, empowered while they went into all the world with the Gospel, and planted great churches in the great city centers. It is important to notice how Luke all the way through sticks to his viewpoint, that it is the Holy Spirit whose work he is recording. Men are His instruments and work with Him. But always it is primarily His work. Men are subordinate to Him. Every new stage of expansion, each new feature of organization, every new racial group included in the blessings of the Gospel, all are by the Spirit's con- Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 133 trol and in some way His presence and power are expressly shown in the event and testified to in the record. 2. The witness in Jerusalem. (i) When Peter and John, in the name of Jesus, had healed the man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, they used the occasion to witness to Jesus in such a way that " many of them that heard the word believed." Then they were haled before the grand Jewish Court. " Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit" (4:8) bore his testimony to Jesus to these rulers. When dismissed under severe threats they went to their own company and reported the matter. Then recognizing the plan of the Holy Spirit (4:25) they all fell to praying for courage and faithfulness. The answer of God was that " the place was shaken wherein they were gathered to- gether: and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness" (4:31). (2) When a serious need arose by reason of the poverty of so many of the Christians It was met by adoptmg the principle of stewardship of material goods. Thus many sold their possessions and de- voted the proceeds to an apostolic treasury. That the Holy Spirit was In all this Luke shows by telling how Peter declared to Ananias and to Sapphira that they were lying to God In the Holy Spirit (see 4: 32, 5:16). Again there followed remarkable numbers of conversions. (3) Persecution of the apostles was renewed (5:17-42). This gave another occasion for bold. 134 The Bible a Missionary Message forceful preaching to the Sanhedrin concerning Jesus as God's " prince and Saviour, to give repent- ance to Israel and remission of sins." Then Peter declares : " We are witnesses of these things ; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that obey him" {v, 32). (4) To meet the disturbance which arose over the distribution of food for the poor (chap, 6), "seven men of good report, and full of the Spirit and of wisdom " were designated to attend to this business in the church. The outcome was fresh conquests so that the number of the disciples multiplied exceed- ingly and came to include even a great company of Jewish priests (v. 7). (5) One of these seven was " Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit " (v. 5). He met the Jewish rabbis in their own synagogues and " They were not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke." To him came the first crown of martyrdom. To him it was given to see the Lord Jesus standing to receive him into glory. Thus he " fell asleep " bearing his witness in a way that Saul could never forget (see 7: 58, 8: i). 3. Witness in Judea and Samaria. In the second division of Acts, chapters 8-12 as above, we have examples of how " those that were scattered abroad " by the persecution that began with the stoning of Stephen, "went about preaching the word." (i) Chapter 8 tells of the exploits of Philip. The Holy Spirit enabled him to perform miracles in Samaria and caused "the multitudes to give heed Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 135^ with one accord " to his Gospel. Then came Peter and John under whose hands the Holy Spirit set His seal of approval on this reception of Samaritans into the Lord's church (v. 15). The angel of the Lord now sent Philip toward Gaza and the Spirit told him to go and join himself to the chariot of the Ethiopian treasurer. When he had led the Eunuch to accept Jesus and had baptized him " the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip " and sent him on to " preach the gospel to all the cities, till he came to Csesarea '' (see vs. 26, 29, 39-40). (2) Both the Lord Jesus, in the visions to Saul and to Ananias, and the Holy Spirit took part in converting, calling and equipping Saul, and in send- ing him back at length to his Tarsus home where he began a blessed ministry in his native province (chap. 9). The outcome of Saul's conversion was peace to the church which, still walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, con- tinued also to be multiplied (v. 31). (3) Next this Gospel of the Holy Spirit tells how Peter was used to " open the door of faith to the Gentiles" of the house of Cornelius, and to con- vince even the rigidly Jewish Christians that " to Gentiles also God hath granted repentance unto life " (9:32, 11:18). The divine presence pervades the entire story. The specific statements which show the Spirit's part in it may be seen In 9:40, 10:3-6, 9, 19, 28, 38, 44-46, 11: 12, 13-16. This admission for the first time of Romans to the salvation of the Gospel was marked by the miracle- 136 The Bible a Missionary Message working powers of the Holy Spirit (10:44), just as had the first Samaritan beUevers been thus approved (8:15-18). (4) The boldest step of all in this giving the Gos- pel to heathen was taken by certain private disciples at Antioch (11 : 19-25). These preached the simple gospel of the Lord Jesus to Greeks, with no Jewish requirements. " And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number that believed turned unto the Lord." When Barnabas came to see about this new departure he heartily approved it, being able to ** see the grace of God," " for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord." The Holy Spirit used the prophet Agabus to lead the believers at An- tioch to bind their Jerusalem brethren to them by means of a contribution of money to relieve distress in the Jewish church in a time of famine (11: 27- 30). (5) Chapter 12 records one more striking ex- perience of the Lord's use of an " angel " in a crisis to save Peter for his work in the Gospel. Thus we complete the second stage of the expansion of the Gospel under the joint witness of disciples and the Spirit. 4. Inaugurating the campaign for all the world. The time has come now in a definite, systematic way to universalize the Gospel. The Holy Spirit has thus far followed a very definite plan but the plan has not been revealed to the men whom He has used. They have merely been able to see how in discon- nected events they must work with the Spirit. Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 137 (i) Now the plan is to be unfolded. The world must be included in the programme of the mission- aries. It is a very brief, very simple story of the epochal movement we have in Acts 13: 1-4: " Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers. . . . And as they min- istered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work where- unto I have called them. Then when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia (the port of Antioch) ; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus." The Holy Spirit has now definitely begun a work He will never end until He reaches the last man in the world. He does not leave these men. In all the sixteen chapters that trace the work all the way from Antioch through Asia Minor, and Macedonia and Greece, even to Rome, and with eager longing for the far- thest west in Spain, at every new development, at every critical stage the Holy Spirit is present and is in control. (2) Many evidences of this meet us on the first missionary journey (chaps. 13-14), for at each new city as they preached God wrought signs and won- ders through the missionaries, both to win, and to set His seal upon, the converts (cf. 15: 12). (3) Then arose the question whether the Gospel for mankind was to be interpreted simply and freely in the atonement of Jesus Christ, or must be cast in the forms of Jewish ceremonial. To settle this question once for all a notable conference was held 138 The Bible a Missionary Message in Jerusalem, To this Paul went up by revelation and unflinchingly contended against any limitations^ " that the truth of the gospel might continue " for all men (Gal. 2:2,5). The record of this epochal meeting is in Acts 15, where we read that the con- clusion is declared to be that of " the apostles and the elders with the whole church " and of "the Holy Spirit" (verses 22, 28). Thus again in this crisis we have the Holy Spirit and the believers united in giving Jesus Christ to the world as the Saviour of all men. (4) In the subsequent story of the second jour- ^^y (15:36-18:22); the third journey (18:23- 21 : 17) ; the arrest and imprisonment experiences of Paul, the chief missionary (21:18-28:31), we see the Spirit of Jesus always controlling, directing, restraining, empowering, warning, encouraging, in all ways, introducing " the glorious gospel of the blessed God " into the life of men to redeem and to reorganize the life of mankind. In all this section, as in the earlier sections of the book, every chapter is marked by some evidence of the Holy Spirit, whose presence and power pervade the whole story. Sometimes He is opening the hearts of hearers to give heed to the words of the missionaries (16: 14) ; or He gives visions to direct the missionaries in their work (16:91, 18:9, 23: II, 27:23) ; restrains them from going to regions not yet in His plan (16: 6-y) ; confirms the faith of new groups of converts (19 : 6) ; heals and casts out evil spirits through the mission- aries (16:18, I9:iif.); designates elders in the churches to be " overseers and to feed the churches Acts the Gospel of the Missionary Power 139 of the Lord " (20; 28) ; prepares the missionaries for their persecutions (20:23, 21: 11, 14). In it all He is with the missionaries in winning converts, organizing and developing the churches, introducing a new force into the world and interpret- ing it through the Epistles which were written by His inspiration. 5. The Holy Spirit came on Pentecost to he the permanent source of direction and power in the mis- sionary enterprise. And always when He has been recognized and received by the churches of Christ He has made the followers of Christ active and successful in extend- ing and establishing the work of Christ in the world. His work remains the same through all the centuries. The modern missionary enterprise is made up of a new series of "Acts of the Holy Spirit." As in the first century so in the twentieth He calls out the missionaries, inspires the churches with enthusiasm and purpose, gives wisdom in plans and methods, and power in the witness in all the ends of the earth. Questions for Review and Reflection On what two forces was Jesus depending for the continuance and large success of His work? Why does Jesus seem eager to complete His own work? What did Jesus mean by the phrase " The promise of my Father" in referring to the Holy Spirit? What part had the Holy Spirit played in the life and ministry of Jesus? 140 The Bible a Missionary Message What is the relation between Luke's Gospel and Acts? What other names might we apply to this book besides Acts of the Apostles? What name would best describe it ? What are the three divisions of Acts? Recall as many instances in Acts as you can where the Holy Spirit is named as taking leading part. What different activities are ascribed to the Holy Spirit in Acts? Does the Holy Spirit still take part in the work of Missions as in the first century? What relation do you find between prayer and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit ? VIII PAUL THE INTERPRETER OF THE MIS- SIONARY MESSAGE I. Paul Peculiarly the Interpreter of the Christ. Luke and Paul were used to write fifteen of the twenty-seven books of our New Testament. As Luke is preeminently the historian of the Gospel of the Saviour of the world, so Paul is more than any ether the divinely inspired interpreter of the Christ as the world's Saviour. He wrote always as the missionary statesman. 1. He teaches the nature of the Christian life and hope. His earliest writings, to the Thessalonians, were to interpret to these Macedonian Christians, so recently out of heathenism, the nature of the Christian life and the character of the Christian hope, to show mis- sionary converts what manner of life they had come into. This element is part of every writing of his. 2. He states the principles of the religion of Jesus Christ and shows how to apply them. The Corinthian letters are to a church in the great- est center of heathen vices and abominations in the Roman world. The converts were very numerous. No end of questions arose as to organization, dis- cipline, doctrine, relations to unconverted heathen, 141 142 The Bible a Missionary Message apostolic authority. To guide such a great group of converts, in such delicate and complicated circum- stances, called for at least three visits by Paul and several by some of Paul's associates and helpers, as also for written messages. In dealing with these problems as they presented themselves in this large and typical church in a heathen community the great missionary stated the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and showed how to apply them. He showed in his own spirit the true character of an ideal missionary. 3. The great doctrines of Christianity took form in the great missionary's mind as he grew in experi- ence of the Christ and as he saw the meaning of his Saviour for the whole human race. (i) Against the background of the world empire of Rome he was led of the Holy Spirit to see the widest world meaning of the Redeemer. In the face of the moral bankruptcy of the Grasco-Roman world and the impotency of Jewish legalism he was led to a clear and definite understanding of the di- vine plan of righteousness by faith in the Son of God. In conflict with the ceremonial legalism which Jewish Christians carried over into the Church Paul wrought out the clear statement of the Christian way of salvation. And these fundamental doctrines of the new, conquering faith he wrote out for the mis- sionary churches in Galatia, and in Rome. (2) As the heresy known as Gnosticism began to find its way Into the mission churches of Colossse and Laodlcea, raising doubts concerning the reality of the human life of Christ Jesus, or else questioning Paul, Interpreter of Message 1 43 the divinity of Jesus as the Christ, Paul wrote the Colossian letter to meet these errors; and he then went on to a more general letter to all the churches in the Roman province of Asia (Ephesians), in which he gave to Christianity its profoundest and most comprehensive statement. In this book he sets forth " the Glory of God in Christ Jesus " : he gives to us the most exalted conception of the Church as the spiritual body of the Christ, that in which He gathers together and carries to completeness all that God His Father purposed in Him ; and thus outlines the full significance of the Christian calling. This last phrase is Paul's own phrase for stating his pur- pose in the book. In the first verse of chapter 4, having in the previous chapters given the great doc- trinal teaching, he begins an exhortation. In doing so he adopts the device of a play on words, for em- phasis. The English translations only partially pre- serve this figure of speech. The Greek word used is, in its base syllable, the same as in our English call (Greek, kaX). We can use it in English three times just as Paul did in the Greek. Thus : " I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, call-you-on to conduct your life worthily of the calling in the sharing of which ye were called." This " high calling of God In Christ Jesus " was nothing short of perfecting the work of the Christ by which He gains His full expression in the life of humanity. We shall return to this thought below. 4. He deals with special problems of missions. (l) Philemon was called forth by the need for reconciling a runaway slave, Onesimus, won to 144 The Bible a Missionary Message Christ by Paul in Rome, to his master, Philemon of Colossse, who spiritually also " owed to Paul even his own self" (v. 19). (2) Philippians had for its primary purpose thank- ing the Christians of Philippi for money sent to Paul to meet his needs. By this gift they became the great missionary's " partners in extending, defend- ing, and establishing the gospel " (i : 5-7). John had also to deal with a question of finance in missionary work, from which we get his truly re- markable Third Epistle. Some missionaries had vis- ited the church, possibly Corinth, bearing John's commendation. Diotrephes, " who loveth to have the preeminence among them," had led the church to refuse any hearing or support to the missionaries. Gains had received them, entertained them and con- tributed to their work. He and such as joined with him in this worthy cause were excommunicated by the party of Diotrephes. John learned of all this and wrote to Gains. It is noteworthy that he agrees perfectly with Paul in the principles he sets forth in approving and urging financial support of missions. He even goes beyond Paul in the emphasis he places upon this. Notice these items: (a) He prays that material prosperity shall be fully matched by soul growth. (&) He especially commends the supporter of missions and urges that he support them yet further, (c) The standard of such support he states in the exalted ideal, "worthily of God." (d) As reasons for such support he reminds us that the mis- sionaries have gone out " for the sake of the Name," the supreme Name for Christians; that they cannot Paul, Interpreter of Message 145 expect support from the heathen ; that such as sup- port the missionaries thereby become ** fellow- helpers " to the truth for which the missionaries are toiling. Dignity and glory are given in these teach- ings to all who share in this supreme work. (3) The Epistles to Timothy and Titus are all three for the purpose of directing and inspiring these two men who so largely helped Paul and on whom he was depending for continuing the missionary work he had so splendidly begun. II. This Interpretation Paul's Greatest Work. Paul makes it very clear that he regarded it his greatest work to interpret God's inner, large pur- pose in the Christ, to get the Gospel understood as God's call to salvation to all in the whole world. I. The stewardship of God's plan in Christ. In the third chapter of Ephesians he undertakes to have his readers understand "the stewardship of that grace of God which was given me on its way to you" (v. 2). By revelation God had made known to Paul His own deep, eternal purpose, so that Paul had been given an understanding of the divine inten- tion in the Saviour. Such is the meaning of the phrase "mystery of Christ" (see vs. 3, 4). This plan of God is now a great open secret, made known by the Spirit to God's selected missionary prophets. This hitherto secret, but now open and proclaimed secret, of God is (v. 6) that the heathen nations are equally with those who had already known Him an inheritance of God; that they are, in God's plans. 146 The Bible a Missionary Message equally members of the spiritual body which He is constructing in the world; that they are sharers, equally, in the promise of redemption in Christ Jesus by means of the Gospel. Of this universal Gospel of the impartial love and purpose of God Paul was made a minister and his chiefest ambition and highest glory were in " making all men see God's method of giving out this secret which for ages had been hid in the God who created all things " and who through this Gospel is showing His great purpose in creation (see vs. 7-9). 2. Paul's philosophy of history. Before he wrote this wonderful outline of God's plan Paul had already given the key to his philosophy of history in his address at Athens (Acts i7:22ff.). That key was to be found in the gospel of " repent- ance inasmuch as God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead/* It was a serious problem in Paul's mind to account for the God and Father of Jesus Christ, the God of love and grace, maintaining and so being responsible for a human race most of whom were religiously ignorant, superstitious, idolatrous and immoral. How could God tolerate them? How could He per- mit them to live in a world which He had made, and continue as so large a part of a race of which He was the Creator and Preserver ? The answer to this deep and terrible question could be found only in a great purpose of universal love. There at Athens Paul, Interpreter of Message 147 Paul outlined this great gospel explanation of the mystery of human history. " The God that made the world and all things therein, he being Lord of heaven and earth, . . . seeing he himself giv- eth to all life, and breath, and all things; he also made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation ; that they might seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being. . . ." Thus God is ordering the life of every people with a view to their coming to know and worship Him. This glorious end is brought about by means of the Gospel. And so, missions be- came the key to the understanding of history. Every nation's meaning in the world must be found in its relation to God's plan for winning to Himself the whole world. And He wins them through His Son, Jesus Christ. The late Dr. A. T. Pierson was fond of saying: "All history is just His-story." 3. That God Himself can he interpreted only from this missionary standpoint is a distinct doctrine of Paul. He implies it in all his teaching. In Ro- mans, chapters 9 to 11, he works it out in a very striking way in dealing with the question of the sal- vation of Jews and Gentiles. But he states his teaching quite clearly and briefly in i Timothy 2: 3-7. He has exhorted that prayer shall be made for all men. Then he adds : " This is good and accept- able in the sight of God our Saviour; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge 148 The Bible a Missionary Message of the truth. For there is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all; the tes- timony to he home in its own times; whereunto I was appointed a herald, and an apostle (I speak the truth, I lie not), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." Note how comprehensive and how de- tailed is this brief summary statement of God's atti- tude and method. (i) It is significant that Paul thinks of God as " our Saviour." That God's feeling toward men is that of saviourhood is a consistent and emphatic ar- ticle in Paul's faith. In this same Epistle he so designates God in the first sentence of the introduc- tory greetings. He is " an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Saviour." In 4: 10 he explains that " we labour and strive, be- cause we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe." It is God's desire for " all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." The entire scheme and process of redemption of the world are of God who is reconciling the world unto Himself (see 2 Cor. 5: i8f.). (2) The one God argues a common goal for the one human race. There is one avenue of approach to Him, one Mediator, provided by the one God. The one God, one race, one Mediator, imply that this Mediator must be in the interest of all men alike, must be available for all, ought therefore to be made accessible to all at the earliest moment. John also announces that "Jesus Christ, the righteous one Paul, Interpreter of Message 149 ... is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only (who have been led to know Him), but also for the whole world" (i John 2: if.). (3) It is needful, and is in the plan of God, that all men, in order to be saved and in being saved, shall come to know the truth. How shall men believe un- less they hear? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (see Rom. 10: I4f.). AH the Gentiles must have teachers in faith and truth. (4) Emphasis is laid on the conscious purpose of the Redeemer, that He " gave himself a ransom for all." (5) The testimony, by which all shall know of their ransom and so be able to receive its benefits, is to be borne at the proper time. Now is that time. In Isaiah 49 : 8, Jehovah had promised the Redeemer " at an acceptable time " to give heed to Him, and " in a day of salvation " to give power to make ef- fective His suffering in behalf of man. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 6 : 2, quotes this and declares that " now is the acceptable time : behold, now is the day of salvation." Any delay on the part of Christians is failure to respond to the opportune day of God. (6) Paul's solemn conviction of his own appoint- ment to this missionary function is a challenge to us all to hear God's call to us to share in the work and if God wills personally to go, as Paul went, to be heralds, missionaries, teachers. 4. Paul again interprets the function of the Church in terms of its relation to this universal Gospel. Referring again to Ephesians 3, we are told in 150 The Bible a Missionary Message verses ten to twelve that this great open secret of the inclusion of all races in the love and grace of God is " to the intent that now unto the principahties and powers in the heavenly places {or relations) might be made known through the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to a plan of the ages v^hich he purposed (or projected) in Christ Jesus; in whom we have boldness and access in confidence through our faith in him." The Church thus be- comes the vindicator of God in the eyes of the heavenly orders of personal being, God's interpreter to the organized universe. God's wisdom, in dealing with a world so full of sin and discord and loss and death as ours, is illimiinated and glorified as the Church wins the world, redeems sinners, restores order, founds and builds and progressively realizes the reign of God — the kingdom of heaven — on earth. We may not comprehend all that is meant by this. We can know that in fulfilling the work of mak- ing the Gospel the possession of all men we are add- ing to the understanding of God by the intelligent spirits in other parts of the universe than our own. Thereby we know that the Church is increasing the glorious appreciation of God. Thus we can get at the heart of God's idea for a church. Each church is to be an agency for promoting this universal Gos- pel, a fulfiller of God's "plan of the ages which he projected in Christ Jesus." The spiritual Church is thus coming to be the full realization of the full redemption of God through the Christ (see Eph. i : 23). When all this great pur- pose is fully realized, then " unto him who is able to Paul, Interpreter of Message 1 5 1 fld exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him shall be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations of the age of the ages" (Eph. 3:20). " Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood Shall never lose its power Till all the ransomed Church of God Be saved to sin no more." 5. The Christ comes to maturity in the growing Church. Paul's interpretation of the missionary message takes one other very striking form in Ephesians 4: 11-16. (i) Under the figure of a growing human body the apostle represents the Christ Himself as growing to full maturity in the developing Church. He seems to be thinking of the general idea of incarnation, not specifically of personal incarnation, but the incarna- tion of an ideal and of a form of life. This is a process, then, by which the Christ gets Himself ideally and practically wrought into the life of the human race through the Church. As the Church grows, appropriates its environment and incorporates it into itself, assimilates and adjusts and unifies the human race Into its own organism, the Christ so fully, so gloriously sees of the travail of His soul that we may be even so bold as figuratively, at least, to say the Christ Is Himself growing Into complete- ness. And this Is more than a mere figure of speech. It is, of course, not to be taken literally, certainly not 152 The Bible a Missionary Message physically, corporeally. As a person, the Christ is perfect; as our Hfe, the Hfe of the world, He is a spiritual process which is completed only where all the elements are in and all perfectly adjusted to one another and all perfectly responsive to the central control of Him, the Head of the Body, Christ. (2) Under this very original and striking figure Paul, in the passage now before us, reaches his most persuasive argument, for such as appreciate it, in behalf of the most faithful and earnest efforts to make Christ Jesus really and fully the Saviour of all men. It is a profoundly true idea that Christ is not Himself full-grown until all His redeeming work is done; for so long as His purpose is unfulfilled, so long as His heart's deep desire is not realized, so long as His death is unavailing for needy sinners, so long as men whom He would rule in loving right- eousness are left in the power of darkness and death, He cannot be satisfied. His joy is made full in His followers. His friends. He prayed most passion- ately that the world should believe that the Father bad sent Him. (3) So Paul represents in our passage that the reason for all the functional leaders in the Church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, is that the saints may be perfected for ministering, so that the body of Christ may be built up. As we all, corporately and in communal relation- ship, come into unity of believing experience and ac- curate understanding of God's Son we shall together, as His body, reach the measure of the stature of the full-grown Christ. Paul, Interpreter of Message 1 53 Dealing thus truly as members of this growing body of the Christ we shall in all parts of the body and in all respects grow up to our perfect Head, the Christ. From this Christ, complete in Himself as the Head, there comes the inspiration, the directing, the constructing energy by which " all the body, properly joined and closely knit together by the proper relation and functioning of every factor, causes itself to grow, building itself up in love." By this biological analogy the great missionary makes his appeal to every saved soul to function most fully to complete the salvation body, the saving work, of the Christ. The Christ Himself as the formative factor in history cannot be complete until all His saving work is complete. By all these varied arguments and analogies Paul seeks to make " all men see what is the stewardship of the true meaning of the Christ." The Redeemer has set Himself in the world " to save the world." He reaches the world for saving it through saved men eagerly yielding themselves to transmit in their persons and testimony the saving grace, love and power to others. We do this to glorify God who sent the Saviour ; to satisfy the passionate desire and purpose of the Saviour who is ever reaching out through us to fulfill His saviourhood ; to complete the Church which is the growing expression of the Christ, and so is His glorious counterpart; and we do it for the sake of the men who are lost until they feel the thrill of the divine energy of the Redeemer in their souls and are quickened into active response to the love of God in Christ Jesus. 154 The Bible a Missionary Message Questions for Review and Reflection Why should it be needful to interpret so exten- sively the nature and end of Christianity ? What does this need imply as to the spiritual and social condition of mankind? Point out the reasons for Paul's writing his vari- ous epistles. What was his purpose, especially, in Ephesians? What do Paul and John teach about the financial support of missions ? What importance does Paul attach to his work of interpreting God's " secret " as to his Christ ? What is Paul's key to the philosophy of history? How does Paul make the right understanding of God dependent on missions ? What is Paul's theory of the functions of the Church ? How does this bear on the duty of every church? Outline Paul's biological figure of the growing Christ. Is it possible to understand Christianity apart from the missionary principle and practice? IX THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE IN THE VISIONS OF PATMOS The Revelation, the final New Testament book, is dominated by the missionary idea. It is at once the most obscure and the easiest of the New Testa- ment writings to understand. If one desires to know what historical events and persons were repre- sented to John by the various visions and by their symbolical figures, there is unlimited field for specu- lation and endless confusion. If one desires to work out a scheme of details of events marking the end of this world order and introducing another world or- der the field for ingenuity is limitless and one can construct millennial programmes indefinitely. I. Principles for Interpreting Revelation. If one is content to read the revelation to find the great eternal principles on which God is controlling the world, and the general facts as to the course of God's guidance of the world to its fulfillment, this Book will be full of wisdom and instruction. The pictures will be clear and most striking in showing God's way in human history. These principles stand out clearly all through the dramatic visions by which God brought assurance, hope, and courage to His persecuted people. 155 156 The Bible a Missionary Message 1. The conflict between good and evil, between God and Satan, is fundamental, radical and persist- ent in this age of our world. 2. The risen, living Christ is present, cognizant and intensely interested in His churches and calls upon them to be pure, loyal and faithful to His truth and His work. 3. The sovereignty of God, even in the midst of all the evil of the world, is prominent in each vision. And God is always exercising His sovereign will and power in the interest of believers in Him and in His Son. No matter how powerful the evil, how violent and temporarily dominant the forces of sin and un- righteousness, God always sits in the background holding the determining lines of ultimate control. It is at the sound of His angels' trumpets that even the worst manifestations of destroying power are seen; and it is when the Lamb of God breaks the seals of the scroll of God's providence that war and famine and pestilence ride forth to their deadly work. When all is done God still sits on His throne. Thus is most effectively proclaimed the rule of God in the life of the world. 4. The slain Lamb, sacrificed for the sin of hu- manity, is the one, and sufficient, clue to the mys- teries of our strange world and of God's dealing in the long course of His providence with men. In Christ alone can we understand human history. In Him and in His ever-growing work is the explana- tion of all that puzzles and distresses now. 5. The certain triumph of God in righteousness, peace and glory is proclaimed. The outcome of all The Message in the Visions of Patmos 157 the conflict is to be a new heaven and a new earth from which shall be wholly and forever excluded " the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers and idol- aters and all liars" (21:8). "He that sitteth on the throne saith, Behold I make all things new" (21:5)- 6. The people of Christ are eternally blessed. They are blessed now in their ideals, in their rela- tions, in their expectations, in their sufferings which are part of the means by which the world is being wrought into the Kingdom of God. 7. The continuous urgency of witnessing to Jesus stands out as the duty of all believers. In their faithfulness He wins His triumphs. In loyalty to Him they receive their deliverance and their tri- umph. All the time they are a part of the conquer- ing forces. All the time their Lord is thinking and acting in relation to the whole enterprise of a re- deemed and holy humanity. On this work they must wait ; in this work they do share. II. The Visions of the Revelation. These may be variously analyzed, according to the way in which various scenes are combined. There seem to be seven major visions, some of them break- ing up into several scenes. In view of the obvious use of this sacred, symbolical number so extensively in the Book this arrangement of the visions Into seven most probably corresponds to the way it was originally conceived by John. This arrangement leaves us with a striking missionary element in each of the 1 58 The Bible a Missionary Message visions. This element is not lost if we adopt some other arrangement of the material, for it belongs to the thought of the whole and is interwoven into the structure of the writing which records the visions. I. Clearly the first division of the Book is thai which gives the messages to the seven churches in Asia, (the Roman province in Western Asia Minor) (1:4-3:22). (i) In introducing the message and the vision of the Christ sending the message, John invokes upon the readers " grace and peace " from the God of past, present and future ; " from the seven spirits that are before his throne " and by whom His rule of all things is marked as conscious and intelligent; " and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness " to God's will and purpose, " the first born of the dead " and so the pledge of eternal life to all who are in Him, " and the ruler of the kings of the earth," God's divinely appointed Ruler of all men, before whom every knee shall bow and every tongue con- fess that He is Lord to the glory of God His Father (cf. Phil. 2: 9-1 1). It is this Christ, " who loves us and loosed us from our sins in his blood," who made us who accept Him " to be a kingdom, priests unto his God and Father." To Him we are expected to ascribe " the glory and the dominion unto the ages of the ages" (i :a~7), (2) In all this paragraph there breathes the puls- ing challenge to make the Christ the Master of man- kind, for He IS depending on us to be and to build His kingdom. John saw Him as " the Living One, who was dead The Message in the Visions of Patmos 159 and now is alive forevermore and holds the keys of death and of Hades." He was in the midst of seven golden lampstands, which are His churches, from which shines the light of His love and grace into the darkness of the world. It was a parable of which He was fond in the days of His flesh. In His living presence He is still calling on His churches : " Let your light shine before men ; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5: 16). 2. The Book of God's providence. The second vision is contained in chapters 4 : l- 8:1. It might be named " Solving the Problem of God's Providence in Human History." It is a dra- matic picture in three parts. (i) 4: 5-5: 4 shows God on the throne of the uni- verse. He is surrounded by twenty- four elders on thrones, representing all periods and nations of peo- ple as governed thus from before God. Seven lamps before the throne, interpreted as the Seven Spirits of God, signify that all that goes on in the world is known perfectly by God. Four " living beings " close in by the throne signify the cosmic forces by means of which the order of the world is sustained and carried forward. These " living beings " had wings and were " full of eyes, round about and within," which means that it is not "blind" and " fixed " forces that carry on the natural and social order of the world. The world is sustained and de- veloped intelligently and under control. These " living beings," as John saw them, never l6o The Bible a Missionary Message cease day and night to praise, saying: " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come." Then the representative " elders " all fall before the throne, casting their crowns at its feet, while they praise " our Lord and our God " who is " worthy to receive the glory and the honour and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they were, and were created." All this recognizes the rule and the right of God in all things. But it leaves open still the question of why God made all this world, and why He continues it with so much of evil and sin and loss. John saw " in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book (or scroll) written within and on the back." No doubt it contained the plan of God in His rule of the world. But it was " close sealed with seven seals," " and no one in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the book, or to look thereon." John " wept much because no one was found worthy to open the book, or to look thereon." Thus ends the first scene of the picture. God is on His throne ; all things are ruled by Him ; He is praised by the high, ultimate forces as the creator of all things; but He cannot be understood. The facts of human life and government do not correspond to our ideas of what such a God would produce and support. Every good man has wept, like John, at sight of Grod and the sealed book of His providence. (2) A second scene opens. (a) We have the same setting as before, tin- The Message in the Visions of Patmos l6l changed in the main. John is looking down and away, in tears. One of the representative " elders " calls to him : " Weep not ; behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath overcome to open the book, and the seven seals thereof." He looks up through his tears and there nearest of all to the throne, inside the circle of the " elders " and the *' living beings," " a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain." It had seven horns, signifying perfect, infinite strength. And its seven eyes take the place of the seven lamps of the first scene. These seven eyes of the slain Lamb are really " the seven Spirits of God, sent forth into all the earth." It is through His eyes of sympathy, love, sacrifice, redemption that God looks out upon all the earth. He, the slain Lamb, comes forward to take the Book of God's providence and to open it up for John, and for all who share John's concern. This tangled, puzzling world is, then, after all, the arena of divine redemption. We can know God only in His Christ and in the cross of His sacrifice. We can solve the problem of the world's sin only in the light of " the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world " (John i : 29). The " living beings and the elders " — nature and history — fell down before the Lamb, and each one of the elders held in his hands a harp of praise and " golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints." This suggests that God can endure and carry on human history only by reason of the saints, i. e,, believing men and women, and by their fellowship with Him through their prayers; which 1 62 The Bible a Missionary Message recalls the word of Jesus to His followers. " Ye are the salt of the earth"; **Ye are the light of the world." These forces of nature and history now " sing a new song," with a meaning quite beyond that they sang in the first scene. This is a song to the Lamb : " Worthy art thou to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and didst pur- chase unto God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them to be unto our God a kingdom and priests ; and they reign upon the earth." (b) We must not fail here to see the method of God's Christ. By His blood He purchases unto God some, a nucleus, a beginning, out of every section of the human race. These purchased ones He consti- tutes into a priestly kingdom and they are the true rulers of the earth. It is through these consecrated, understanding ones that God actually controls the world and carries on its history. Those who belong to the crucified, risen Christ and who serve Him truly have the whole world in their keeping and they determine its destiny. " They reign upon the earth." John now sees myriads upon myriads of angels sur- rounding the whole scene and singing to the Lamb: " Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches and honour and glory, and blessing. " Then every created thing which is In the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, even all things that are in them, heard I saying, " * Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto The Message in the Visions of Patmos 163 the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the dominion unto the ages of the ages. The plan is glorious, the completion of it will be glory. The Gospel of the cross of Christ is the means through which His saints rule the earth and bring it to its high destiny. The song of the tmi- verse in praise of God and of the Lamb waits on the making of this Gospel the possession of all men. When this work is done the glorious consummation will come. (3) In the third scene of this wonderful picture the seven seals are broken. Judgments, disasters, afflictions are revealed. Toward the end, just be- fore the opening of the seventh seal of the book, John sees a hundred and forty-four thousand from the twelve tribes of Israel sealed as " the servants of our God," and " a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and' palms in their hands, saying: " * Salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb.' " Then again all the angels and " elders " and " liv- ing beings " give eternal praise unto our God. Then the seventh seal was opened and silence in heaven signified that with this consummation of salvation the order of the world was done. It is in this won- derful process that missions occupies a central place. 3. Four chapters next give the vision of seven angels that blow great blasts from seven trumpets. 164 The 'Bible a Missionary Message after each of which some devastating judgment falls on the sinful world. (i) By way of introducing these angels another angel came and took his stand by the altar with a gold censer in his hand. There was given to him a great quantity of incense to mingle with the prayers of the people of Christ upon the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense with the prayers of these Christian saints ascended before God. Thus again we have the importance of Christ's praying people in the course of God with the history of the world (8: 2f.). (2) When the seventh angel is shortly to sound his trumpet " another mighty angel " came and took his stand " on the sea and on the land " and with upraised hand swore by the eternal Creator that there should be no more delay. " Moreover at the time when the seventh angel shall speak, when he is ready to blow his blast, then are at once fulfilled the secret purposes of God of which he told the glad tidings to his servants, the prophets." Thus, again, the gospel of redemption for men of all lands and peoples is determinative in God*s control of human affairs (10:5-7). (3) "Then the seventh angel blew; and loud voices were heard in heaven saying: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of the Christ, and he will reign unto the age of the ages." Thus are fulfilled the promises of Jeho- vah to the Christ. The age of the Gospel is com- pleted. The " four and twenty elders " fall upon their faces and worship God because history is com- The Message in the Visions of Patmos 165 pleted. God had taken up His reign in great power ; all those who destroy the earth are destroyed (ii:i5ff)- 4. In the fourth vision, chapters 12-14, seven symbolical figures appear representing the forces of righteousness and redemption and divine pui-pose in conflict with the forces of imperiaUsm, autocracy and iniquity. This vision is dominated by the appearance of " the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, attended by a hundred and forty-four thousand who have been redeemed as the first-fruits of mankind for God and for the Lamb." They " follow the Lamb wherever he goes." They are singing to an accompaniment of harps, " like the sound of many waters," " what seems to be a new song," and which none other could learn. We may not know what the song was. But from the prominence of the Christ here as the Lamb, from the statement that this great group are the first- fruits, merely the first-fruits, of God's harvest of mankind, we must suppose that the song was closely connected with the statement immediately following: " Then I saw another angel, flying in mid-heaven. He had the good news (the eternal gospel) of eter- nal blessings to proclaim to them that dwell on the earth, to men of every nation, tribe, language and people " (14:6). This glorious Gospel for all men is thus the climax of this vision, which now pushes on speedily to its termination in the overthrow of all who reject the Son of Man. 5. The next vision, that of seven angels with seven final plagues with which the political enemies l66 The Bible a Missionary Message of the work of Christ are cursed and tormented, is occupied almost wholly with the severity and the tragedy of awful judgment, chapters 15-16. Even this vision of the righteous wrath of God, of the very completion of that wrath (see 15 : i), opens with a scene of " them that come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name." They stand with their harps by the sea of glass and " sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying. Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God, the Al- mighty ; righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the ages. Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glo- rify thy name? for thou only art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy righteous acts have been made manifest" (i5:3f.). Even in the midst of judgment the mercy of the Gospel and its success must have its song of praise. 6. *'The Doom of Christ's Enemies" is the title given in " The Twentieth Century New Testament " to the series of pictures that make up the vision of judgment in chapters 17 to 20. " Babylon " is destroyed, the mystic name for Rome and the anti-Christian power, imperial and commercial, cen- tered there. Vengeance is finally taken upon the violent and implacable enemies of the Saviour. Then, last of all, the devil with his cohorts and allies, Death and Hades, are all consigned to the bot- tomless pit. There has been a judgment of all men. What Is known as the Millennium has Intervened. Only those are left whose names are written In the book of life. All else were " hurled into the lake of The Message in the Visions of Patmos 167 fire." The Lamb is taking His Bride and there is a great marriage supper. The Saving Christ and the saved and saving Church are to be united forever (19:6-8). A voice commanded John to write a new beatitude : *' Blessed are those who have been in- vited to the wedding feast of the Lamb." John fell at the feet of the angel to worship, but was sharply warned: " See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren who bear their testi- mony to Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." In this remarkably interesting passage all who bear their testimony to Jesus are put in the class of prophets. We learn that the essential feature of prophecy is found in gospel witnessing. Prophecy is speaking for God. The heart of the message which God desires spoken for Him is the word that tells of Jesus the Saviour of men, the Saviour of the world. Every missionary, every evangelist, is de- clared to belong to the company of the prophets of God. 7. The new order produced by the Christ through His Gospel and by means of the judgment against hindering enemies is the subject of the closing vision (21:1-22:5). (i) John says: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth." This goal has ever been before God. To effect this He has worked through the course of the centuries. It was for the joy of this set before Him that Jesus endured the cross, despising its shame. " The former heaven and the former earth have passed away." "Behold, the tabernacle of l68 The Bible a Missionary Message God is with men, and he will dwell with them and they shall be his peoples, and God himself will be among them, their God." The old order has passed away. " Then he who sitteth on the throne said : Behold, I make all things new." Of this completed work of renewal a view is given in a special scene (21 : 9-22 : 5). From " a mountain great and high " one of the angels, " in the spirit," showed John " the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God." The record describes its glorious light; its appearance as a whole; its foundations and its gates, in detail; its lack of temple and of sun and moon, these being rendered useless by the direct glory of God and the Lamb; its inhabitants; its provision for the eternal blessedness of all who are there. (2) That to which we need here to attend spe- cially is that this perfection and glory are the con- summation which God effects for the process and work of redemption through the sacrifice of the Christ. Through all the description the Lamb is made most prominent. That gospel name is used for Him all through the account, keeping the idea of atonement and redemption before the mind. This perfect city Is God's fulfillment of the redeeming enterprise. When John is invited to the scene it is that he may be shown " the Bride, the wife of the Lamb ** (21:9), that which is to Him most dear and most precious. Jesus had, in one of His parables, pre- sented the gospel invitation, and its urgency upon the neglected and outcast of men, under the figure of The Message in the Visions of Patmos 169 a marriage feast which a certain king made for his son. His servants continued to go out, at his com- mand, and bring together such as could be con- strained to come until " the wedding was filled with guests " (see Matt. 22 : 1-14). Paul (Eph. 5 : 22-33) takes the union of Christ and His Church as the standard for urging proper ideals and conduct in the human marriage relation. Christ " is the Saviour of his Body " and " loved his Church and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it . . . that he might present the Church to himself, glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." By this legitimate connecting of the use of this figure by Jesus, Paul and John, we get fresh emphasis on the New Jerusalem as the completion of the missionary undertaking. Returning to the description, we read (v. 14) that " the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb," the men who had been trained by Jesus Christ, had received His world commission, and had been the secondary authors and founders of the enterprise of world-wide evangelization. Again we remind ourselves of Paul's teaching (Eph. 2:2off.) that Gentiles and Jews, by means of the Gospel, are being built Into a holy temple In the Lord, "being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone." In his glorious city John remarked that he " saw no temple, for the Lord God the Almighty, and the 170 The Bible a Missionary Message Lamb, are its temple" (v. 22). The redeemed in the Lamb are immediately within God's presence and worship directly. For illumination "the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine upon it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and its lamp is the Lamb" (v. 23). The inhabitants of this city are " only they that are written in the Lamb's book of life" (v. 27). " The river of the water of life " in the city " issues from the throne of God and of the Lamb " (22 : i) ; while again we are told that " the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants (the Lamb's) shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more ; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun ; for the Lord God shall give them light; and they shall reign unto the ages of the ages " (22: 3-5). Into that city " they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations," just the aim and the work of missions. "And the nations shall walk by its light; and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it " (21:24). Then Indeed shall the Redeemer be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In the epilogue (22:6-21) several Items emphasize the importance and urgency of the main ideas of the whole Book. Jesus Himself appears (v. 16) to say: " I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things before the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star." Let all the churches give heed ; or, " Let him that The Message in the Visions of Patmos 171 hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith to the churches." "And the Spirit and the Bride say. Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come; he that will let him take the water of life freely." Here is a final charge to give the gospel invitation to all; here a sounding of the universal call. " He who testifieth these things saith, Yea : I come quickly." It is for all who love Him to respond in deed and word: "Amen: come, Lord Jesus." Questions for Review and Reflection Under what circumstances and with what purpose was the Revelation written? What principles underlie its teachings ? What is its form? Name the seven visions of the Book. Point out the missionary element in each vision. What impression do you get from the fact that the Lamb of God is so prominent in all the Book? How alone can the problem of sin be solved ? Is there any order and goal to history apart from redemption ? What significance is involved in such extensive use of the term Lamb for Christ in the Book? What attitude ought every serious man to take toward the Gospel of Jesus Christ? THE MESSAGE IN THE TONGUES OF MEN " How hear we every man in our own language wherein we were born?" (Acts 2:8). I. The Need of the Bible in All Languages. If the Bible is God's message to mankind is it not evident that it must be put into the languages of all men ? The ideas and the ideals of the Bible are such as all men need and such as appeal to all men. This is one great evidence that it is God's message. It has never been outgrown. No place has even been found where it is not welcome, or where it cannot be understood. One of the marvels of the Bible is that its great truths are capable of expression in the speech of all men, of all ages, of all cultures. I. Required by all men. What other ancient writing is demanded by man- kind in this twentieth century in translations that make it possible for every man to read it in his mother tongue? In all the long history of humanity no other book can even be compared to the Bible In Its fitness for translation and In the demand for Its translation into the tongues of men. In six hundred languages its messages are now read by men, In whole or in part. Next to the Bible, yet a long way behind it. Pilgrim's 172 The Message in the Tongues of Men 1 73 Progress has been printed in one hundred languages. But even its popularity is due to its graphic story of Christian experience and that story is told largely in the language of the Bible. Shakespeare has been produced in forty-seven tongues. None other ap- proaches these. 2. A necessary element in expanding Christianity. This work of translating the Bible message be- longs to the periods when Christian men have been reading and studying its words, and have been stirred by the missionary impulse, an impulse which an un- derstanding reading of the Bible always arouses. Up to the beginning of the modern missionary pe- 'riod it had been put into twenty-eight languages. Thus Bible translation and missionary activity go ; together. Bible translation is a method of Missions, j It is one of the most important and successful of all methods; and is absolutely necessary to the perma- nent establishment of a vigorous, conquering Chris- tianity in any part of the world. Jesus and His apostles used the common speech of their day; and they spoke also In the Greek language, which had been brought into Palestine, as it had gone into all the ancient world and had become the common inter- national speech of mankind in that day. Not only did they speak in the languages common to the peo- ple of their day; as a rule they quoted their scrip- tures, our Old Testament, not in its original but now antiquated Hebrew form, but in its Greek transla- tion. This translation could be read by most intelli- gent Jews in Palestine, was read by most Jews out- side Palestine, and was the only form in which non- : 174 The Bible a Missionary Message ^ Jews read it. Thus in spirit and in practice Jesus and the apostles are squarely against any notion of a " sacred language " in which God's message is hid- den from men. If we follow their example we shall seek to have all men hearing and reading " in their own tongues the mighty works of God" (see Acts 2: 11). Does not the gift of tongues on the day of Pente- cost mean that the Holy Spirit intends for us to give God's message to all men in their own languages? All the people in Jerusalem at that time could under- stand either Aramaic or Greek; but the Spirit of Jesus caused the people from all the fourteen sec- tions to hear in the tongue native to each one. Mohammedans have bitterly opposed all transla- tion of their Koran and until quite recently have prohibited it and done all possible to prevent it. They have no message in it that will bear translation. In any but the Arabic language at once its poverty of spiritual power and appeal are made evident. Roman Catholics have regarded Latin as the holy language of our Scriptures and have not encouraged their being put into the languages of the people. They have discouraged private reading of the Book even where the people knew its language. Moral stagnation and arrested religious development have been the results. It is at this point more seriously than at any other that their missions have failed. They do not give their converts the Word of God, and they never plant a pure Christianity that can set their converts on the way to become a vigorous, progressive, ethical force in the life of the people. The Message in the Tongues of Men 175 Even the missionaries themselves have no full knowl- edge nor any adequate appreciation of the Bible. The Jesuit missions to the Indians of the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi and of the Middle West constitute one of the finest chapters of heroic devotion and personal sacrifice for the sake of the heathen. Yet they left no abiding influence be- cause they failed to deliver God's message in the | languages of the Indians. [ John Elliot, in Massachusetts, succeeded in build- ing Christian Indian towns and changing the whole idea and habits of life of the Mohicans ; and a great factor in his success was his translation of the Bible into their language, the first translation (1661, 1663) into any Indian tongue. That the white men de- stroyed these Christian villages is a tragic illustra- tion of how we need the religion of Christ trans- lated also into terms of political and social relations and conduct. II. Sketch of the History of Translation. I. In the spread of Christianity in the early cen- turies, for a thousand years in fact, it was the custom to carry the Bible into the lands where Christianity went. This was especially true of the first five cen- turies. (i) Before this the Old Testament in its Greek translation had played no small part In preparation for the coming of Christ and for the mission of His Gospel in the world. It was in the third century B. c, and in Alexandria, that this translation was produced. It is called the Septuagint, because of the 176 The Bible a Missionary Message tradition that seventy Jewish scholars worked at the task of producing it. That enlightened King, the great library builder of Alexandria, Ptolemy Phila- delphus, is said to have desired it for his growing collections there. But its Hebrew form would have met that need unless it was to be read. The ever growing multitudes of Jews in that city and in all other cities of the Greek-speaking world were less and less able to read their Bible in its Hebrew form and found it far easier to get the words of their God in the newer form. And the beauty and power of the message it carried made this Greek Old Testa- ment a book sought by eager Gentile souls in all the Graeco-Roman world. And so it had a great mis- sionary career even before the Christ had come. In nearly every city " God-fearing " heathen men and women read this Septuagint and worshipped, as they might, the God whose messages it brought them. When the missionaries of the Christ went out with this story they found these Bible readers ready to accept the Lord's Christ and they became charter members of many a Christian church in the first century. They were an element of great strength in the growing churches. (2) Before the end of the first century transla- tions for missionary purposes had begun. By the third century besides its original Greek, the New Testament, and in part also the Old Testament, was^ read in the Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopic and Latin. The evidence is more than abundant that Bible reading in the native tongues was the common practice of Christians in the various lands. Special The Message in the Tongues of Men 177 provision was made for such reading by the new converts and by those seeking admission into the churches. Cyprian taught that it was of the highest importance thus to read God's word, because : " In prayer we speak to God, but in reading the Scrip- tures He speaks to us." Hamack has produced the evidence that from their infancy children were taught the Bible, even by means of their " ivory letter-blocks." " The children daily hear the Scriptures read and learn passages of them by heart; a Bible was not only in the home; the Bible was the principal text-book of education; the chief aim in the whole training of a child was that he should be taught to understand the Bible." Such use of the Bible not only made missions suc- cessful but stimulated the missionary activity of those early Christians until they still surprise and shame our modern Christians. Their Bible sent them out with the glorious message to the ends of the earth. (3) In the fourth century there were two notable versions. Jerome made a new version in Latin that became the sacred, standard Bible of the Roman Church. It is known as " the Vulgate," a name that ought forever to shame the Church that seeks to re- tain the Word of God in a form long since outgrown. Vulgus means " the crowd," " the masses." The Vulgate was the Bible for the people, the common man. When language changed with the development of the people the language of the Bible should have been changed so as to keep it In the mouths and minds of commen men. Yet we have still thousands 178 The Bible a Missionary Message upon thousands of Protestants and Baptists who think a translation into the English of three hundred years ago is somehow more truly the Word of God than a translation into the terms of our EngUsh of the twentieth century. Ulfilas was the great missionary to the Goths, for whose sakes he left Constantinople and crossed the Danube to give these wild barbarians the Gospel of the grace of God. He invented an alphabet in order that he might put the Word of God in the language of this people. Thus he laid the foundation not only for their Christianization but for Germanic culture as well. It is of interest that he omitted from his version of the Old Testament the war histories of Israel because he felt that already these Goths were too warlike and he thought they would misunder- stand and think God's approval sanctioned their bloody career. This Bible became the chief treasure of these migratory hordes, its manuscript copies be- ing carried with them into Spain and Africa and to Rome. And the influence of this Bible translation modified the impact and influence of these heathen on the civilization and religion of the Roman world. 2. In the rise and growth of Protestantism, Protestantism founded itself on the Bible. In Germany and in England, the Bible in the language of the people became the greatest factor in enlight- enment and progress. In both lands it became the greatest classic of their literature and the most per- suasive, the most sanctifying, the most inspiring in- fluence in literature, in political progress, in religious reformation and growth. Literally hundreds of The Message in the Tongues of Men 1 79 voltimes in Europe and America have drawn their titles from the Bible, have built their characters of Biblical material, have shaped their plots and plans from Biblical teaching. And our literatures in all Christian lands are filled with the language and the ideas of which the Bible is an inexhaustible source. Laws and reforms have been inspired by, and de- termined by, the Bible. So far as we are progress- ive we are Christian; and we are Christian because ' the people have had the Word of God in their hands, in their homes, in their minds and hearts. That which promotes and purifies Christianity in the most Christian lands is equally vital for the growth of Christianity in countries just turning to Christ. 3. In the modern missionary career. In many modern instances the Bible has been the beginning of literature and of culture, even as it was in the case of Ulfilas' Bible for the Goths. McAfee says " The Bible is a book-making Book. It is liter- ature which provokes literature." His fine volume, " The Greatest English Classic," illustrates his thesis with numerous examples. Even where litera- ture was known before the coming of the Bible, the Bible has produced a literary renaissance and has effected a change in the type of culture. Japan, China, and India all illustrate this influence of the supreme Book. Not only does the Bible soon begin to produce a Christian literature in any land, books, periodicals, hymns, tracts ; it stimulates life in all its phases and enters as a vital force into all phases of a growing culture that is stimulated by its presence l8o The Bible a Missionary Message and use. Truly the Bible is proving itself, in every forward moving land, a " tree of life whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." III. The Bible as an Influence in Heathen Lands. I. Societies for the production and distribution of Christian Literature. These have arisen in country after country in the wake of the Bible to meet the demand it creates. And they have interpreted their calling in a large, generous way, producing often great quantities of modern school books and many works of a general character but a necessary part of Christian culture. In China, for example, The Christian Literature Society has a catalogue of hundreds of voltimes: and The China Baptist Publication Society is rapidly widening the scope of its efforts to meet the in- satiable demands for the printed page. The Literature Society in the last thirty years has greatly enlarged the scope of its operations; has gained the most remarkable recognition; has ac- quired property to the value of a quarter of a mil- lion dollars: is supported by Chinese and foreigners liberally; and its Secretary, Dr. Timothy Richard, a notable Baptist missionary, was honoured by the Chinese Emperor by being made a Mandarin of the highest grade and the Mandarin honour was ex- tended to include three generations of his ancestors. In the various missionary lands mission presses to the number of more than a hundred and fifty pro- duce Bibles, Testaments, Gospels and other "por- The Message in the Tongues of Men i8l tions *' of the Scriptures ; tracts, Sunday school liter- ature, and other periodicals. In very great measure these pubUshing interests are able to meet their expenses from the sales and from gifts from natives who appreciate the great service they render, when once they have become es- tablished in their work of blessing and had time to produce a reading public. 2. Among primitive peoples. If in the great, populous and more progressive lands the Bible is the foundation of a new type of civilization and culture, among primitive peoples it is the absolute creator of literacy and literature. Millions in Africa received their first idea of writing and of printing from the pages of the Bible for which devoted missionaries invented alphabets and taught the first rudiments of learning. In the same way the primitive inhabitants of nearly all the islands of the Pacific stood in amazement before the printed page when first they saw the missionary " make the paper talk " to them in their own familiar speech. Mrs. Montgomery in " The Bible and Missions " tells, from John G. Paton, " of the joy which the first book gave to the Chief Namekei " into whose Ani- wan tongue Paton had put the New Testament : " * Is it done? Can it speak?* asked Namekei excitedly. ' Make it speak to me ! Let me hear it speak.* When part of the book was read to him, he shouted in an ecstasy of Joy, *It does speak! It speaks in my own language, too! Oh, give it to me!* He grasped It hurriedly, opened and then closed it with a look of disappointment, and said, * I cannot make l82 The Bible a Missionary Message it speak ! It will never speak to me/ But it did, for the old chief with painful persistence learned to read, and as children and strangers gathered around him he would produce his prized book and say, * Come, I will let you hear how the book speaks our own Aniwan words/ " What new worlds are thus opened up to primitive, unenlightened minds ! What expansion of soul comes with hearing and reading God's word and all that follows in consequence of this wonderful beginning! More of the world's languages have been reduced to writing first of all in order to put the Bible into them than for all other reasons combined. And this initial work has made possible the scientific studies of anthropologists, philologists, linguists, historians and others whose work requires a knowledge of mankind. How great is the debt of science and culture to the Bible and to the missionary devotion and ability that are carrying that Bible into all the ends of the earth! 3. In closed lands. When the missionaries could not go into closed lands and labour in person they have used the printed Bible to carry God's message and to prepare a way for the spoken word to follow later. The pioneer of missions in China, Robert Morrison, after twenty- seven years of ardent toil died six years before his successors were permitted to take up residence in the five Chinese cities first opened to foreign resi- dence. He and his co-labourers, Milne, Medhurst and others had to labour outside among emigrants. Meantime with wonderful gifts and grace he put the Bible message into Chinese and his first native The Message in the Tongues of Men 1 83 helper, Liang Afah, could carry it in and get it into ' the hands of some of his people. The noble and original Dr. Gutzlaff not only did splendid work of translation but boldly distributed his tracts and Gos- pels from a houseboat in which he invaded the coast- land waterways. Morrison stood at the gates and produced a dictionary and a grammar to go along with his Bible and so provided the materials for carrying the Gospel to China's heathen when once it should unlock the doors. In similar ways the Word of God on printed page foreran the missionaries, in person, in Japan and Korea, and for many years told its story in " the Forbidden Land " of Thibet before any herald was permitted to proclaim salvation there. Mohammedans have been most inaccessible to di- rect missionary approach. Wherever the political control has been in Moslem hands definite efforts to win converts from " the Faith " were absolutely pro- hibited. The first missionaries to Turkish territory, a hundred years ago now, took with them a printing press, at first operating it on British territory beyond the reach of Turkish hands. Besides this source of silent, subtle invasion the missionaries found that Christian education could not be barred even from Turkey, as long as active propaganda among Mo- hammedan students was omitted. With divinely im- parted patience and wisdom these men and women sowed the good seed of the Word and now the fruits are justifying their faith with the hope of rich har- vests soon to follow. Taking advantage of the Mo- hammedan reverence for the " holy " Arabic of the original Koran, which educated Mohammedans read 184 The Bible a Missionary Message the world over, our Testament and Bible in various attractive editions have been put into the hands of very many, while also they have been translated into Turkish and other languages spoken by sections of the two hundred millions of followers of the Prophet. An illustration of what this sort of evan- gelism may be accomplishing is found in the story of a Mohammedan found reading the New Testament. On being asked why he was reading that book, he replied: "Ah, there is nothing that scours the sin out of my heart like this." It is no wonder the Bible is the world's book in ever increasing measure. It is not easy to grasp the vast demand for it. No other book is at all to be compared with it. Dickens is the most popular writer in all secular literature. From the first until now it is estimated that twenty-five million copies of all his works combined have been sold. In a single year, of the whole and of parts, thirty-five million copies of God's Word were distributed among the sons of men. IV. The Great Bible Societies. Back of this modem marvel of putting the Bible into the languages of men and circulating it are the Bible Societies and their colporters. In the period of Modern Missions there have been a number of such societies In the Christian lands, providing the Book for the people of these lands and of heathen lands as well. They have encouraged the mission- ary translators ; met the sometimes enormous ex- pense of producing important versions; aided the The Message in the Tongues of Men 1 85 Mission Boards in procuring and in distributing quantities of the Scriptures; cooperated with the or- ganizations on mission fields for producing Christian literature; and they have sent their own colporters into many a land and section of country not yet definitely occupied by missionaries, to sell and give the Word to the people. In most of the countries of South America these emissaries of the Bible so- cieties went with their holy wares when as yet the missionaries were not permitted to locate and labour. Fifty Bible societies were listed in the statistics of the Edinburgh conference, 1910. Among such societies three stand out with such preeminence that all should know about them. The record of their labours and the achievements of the Bible under their labours constitute an evidence for the truth of Christianity and for the divine origin of the Bible message that cannot be refuted or gainsaid by all the skeptics and destructive critics. It is the best and the sufficient apologetic for our religion and for its right and its duty to make itself the religion of mankind. I. The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded in London in 1804. An agent of the Re- ligious Tract Society at a meeting of the directors in 1802 told the now famous story of Mary Jones. She could read the Bible only by walking two miles to see a copy owned by a relative. After years of saving at the age of sixteen she had money enough to purchase a Bible in her native Welsh. On foot she trudged the twenty-eight miles to Bala only to find that not a copy was left for sale. Mr. Charles 1 86 The Bible a Missionary Message could not endure her tears of grief, and gave her the one copy he had, promised already to a friend. The story was bound to stir the men who heard it and Joseph Hughes, Baptist pastor at Battersea, ex- claimed, " Surely a society might be formed for the purpose (of a new edition in Welsh, proposed by Charles). But if for Wales, why not for the king- dom? Why not for the world?" Beginning with the languages of Great Britain and of America the Society extended its labours until its library em- braces the divine message in thousands of editions in five himdred languages. One of its most prized volumes is, of course, Mary Jones' Bible with the autograph on the fly leaf. 2. The National Bible Society of Scotland is the most important of numerous organizations auxiliary to the British and Foreign which for different rea- sons separated from the parent society and became independent. 3. The American Bible Society. Several local societies for circulating the Scrip- tures In the United States were inadequate. After "the Great Awakening" of the first years of the nineteenth century the need for the Scriptures was keenly felt and the aroused leaders became aware of the terrible destitution. Surveys were made, the most extensive that by Samuel John Mills, Jr. It was estimated that there were not fewer than 78,000 homes with no Bible. In 1816 the American Bible Society was organized, primarily to meet this need. The range of its ministries extended until It Is sec- ond only to the British and Foreign Society in its The Message in the Tongues of Men 187 achievements. Its centennial history is recorded in two stout volumes all whose pages give proof that the Bible is veritably God's message to men. V. Heroism and Romance. Heroism and romance, sometimes tragedy, mark the way of the Bible in its missionary career. Volumes of fascinating stories could be written of the trials and triumphs of those who have in the last century and a quarter made it possible for God to speak in His inspired Word to hundreds of millions of the human race who could not read it before. William Carey, " Father of the Modem Missionary Enterprise," himself translated the Scriptures into a score of languages and edited others until in whole or in part he set the Bible free in thirty-six languages in India. And he early set up a printing plant for their circulation. One of the stories of mingled romance and heroism is that of Judson's Burmese Bible, the manuscript of which was first preserved by his faithful wife, concealed in his pillow during part of his terrible prison sufferings, thrown out in a rubbish heap by his ignorant tormentors, rescued by a native follower, and finally given to the people where it has become a classic. Hotchkiss of Africa illustrates the serious difficul- ties that must be overcome in giving the Word to ignorant, savage peoples. Sometimes they have no name that can be used for God, no words for virtue, home, duty. For two long years Hotchkiss lived among his Africans, eagerly seeking some word for Saviour and for the idea. At last he found his l88 The Bible a Missionary Message word when around the camp-fire his " boys " were recounting the exciting rescue of one of their num- ber from drowning in the river during the events of the day. Hotchkiss declares that he would gladly spend the rest of his life for the privilege of bring- ing to another benighted group of human beings their first knowledge that Jesus Christ died to save us. John Williams, the Master Missionary of the South Seas, tells how the Raratongans received him when after four years of toil he was able to return from England with the Bible in their tongue: " Every one was eager to buy a copy. One man, as he secured his, hugged the book in ecstasy; another and another kissed it; others held them up and waved them in the air. Some sprang away like a dart, and did not stop until they entered their own dwellings, and exhibited their treasures to their wives and children, while others jumped and capered about like persons half frantic with joy." One of the tragedies in the Bible story has its scene in our own country. In 1831 four Nez-Perces Indians arrived in St. Louis from far-away Idaho asking, " Where is the white man's Book of Heaven?" of which they had somehow learned. They did not know whom to seek for information and help and fell in with some of the reckless, drink- ing, gambling adventurers then so plentiful in border towns. After pathetic ridicule they at length found friends and sympathy but no " Book of Heaven " that they could understand ; and it was exactly forty years before the Bible was published in the dialect of the Nez-Perces. Two of the four men took sick The Message in the Tongues of Men 189 and died in St. Louis. The other two received courtesies and promises and with mingled grief and hope turned homeward. Their visit did hasten the splendid missionary labours of the Methodists and Congregationalists in "the Northwest Country." Space allows but one more characteristic incident. While Japan was still closed to the outside world and Christianity contraband, in the very dawn of the new era, 1855, Murata Wasaka was official guardian of the Nagasaki coast region against foreign en- trance or Japanese exit. One day on tour of inspec- tion he found a Dutch New Testament floating in the water. He rescued it out of curiosity, only to be more puzzled to know what it might be. An interpreter told him and also informed him that the book ex- isted in Chinese. Wasaka sent a man all the way to Shanghai to procure a copy. For years he studied it in secret. When the first educational mission- aries went to Japan, no religious efforts yet being authorized, Wasaka and a brother sent from time to time lists of questions about the teachings of their Testament to Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, sending a trusted servant on a two days' journey each time. The upshot of it was that in 1866 the brothers and the servant were "baptized" by Dr. Verbeck and then professed their new faith to their daimio. This was five years before there was any free acknowl- edgment of Christ in modern Japan. These sample stories suggest the fascination and the power of the Scriptures and their fitness to meet the religious need of the human heart the world over. They help to understand how the Bible outsells every igo The Bible a Missionary Message other book in Japan, China and India as well as in America, England and Canada. In 19 16 Chinese bought more than two and a quarter million copies of God's good message. The Bible is, at least in some part, now accessible to all who can read their own languages among seven-eighths of the human race. In order to reach the remaining peoples a thousand dialects must be conquered and used to carry the " beautiful words, wonderful words of life " which " Christ the blessed one gives to all." It remains yet to give God's word its complete translation into the terms of human ex- perience and conduct. For after all the Living Word, the Christ of God, can be translated only in " living epistles, known and read of all men." In this dual translation, into language and life, will come the fulfillment of that day predicted by the prophet when " no man shall say to his neighbour or his brother, Know thou the Lord, for they shall all know him, from the least of them to the greatest of them" (Jer. 31:34). Questions for Review and Reflection How many of the world's population now have the Bible in their own language? Why do you think so many people desire this book? What features of the Bible make it a book for all men? What difficulties can you think of in translating it ? In the translator ? In the languages ? The Message in the Tongues of Men 191 What influence has the Bible had on Hterature and on culture ? What is the oldest translation of Scripture ? What is the bearing of Scripture translation on the spread of Christianity ? How often ought the Scripture translations to be revised ? What caused the founding of each of the two most extensive Bible Societies*? How much remains to be done before all men can know the Word of God ? BIBLIOGRAPHY Beach—" New Testament Studies in Missions " (S. V. M.). Carver — "Missions in the Plan of the Ages" (Revell). Carver— "All the World in All the Word " (Sou. Baptist S. S. Bd.). Carver — "Missions and Modern Thought" (McMillan). Church — "Christianity and Civilization" (McMillan). Davis—" Christ the Desire of the Nations " (Morgan & Scott). Dobschutz— " The Influence of the Bible on Civilization " (Scribner's). Dennis— "The Modern Call of Missions" (Revell). Dwight — "History of American Bible Society" (2 vols.) Hall — "Christ and the Human Race" (Scribner's). Harris — " The Bible in Many Lands " (Carey Press, London) . Harris—" The Book and Its Travels " (Carey Press, London). Horton— " The Bible a Missionary Book" (Pilgrim Press). Lilley— " The Victory of the Gospel " (Morgan & Scott) . McAfee—" The Greatest English Classic " (Harper). McLean — "Epoch Makers of Modern Missions" (Revell). Montgomery — " The Bible and Missions " (United Study of Foreign Missions). Moulton— " The Word and the World " (Int. Rev. of Missions, Jan., 1913). Muir— " The Call of the Modern World " (Morgan & Scott). Ritson — " Christian Literature in the Mission Field " (Edinburgh). Robson — "The Resurrection Gospel" (London). Stubbs— " How Europe was Won for Christianity" (Revell). Tait— " Christ and the Nations " (London) . TuU— " Missionary Progress and Incidents " (Second Series) (Missionary Education Movement). Printed in the United States of America 192 Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries 1 1012 01234 7946 Date Due Mr 2:^ i-U:(JLTY A© 7 - ' ^. - m uo «" : ?iri»?^p^^i8l|***' «^ 1 WWBMWJ8 Jtt^ij*^ i r^****"!!" «te 29 '^ I^S-p- 1 „. ^ ' r I -i. • ,Ci5'52 JE^ ■?)! f)