Valiant for Truth

Couple of weeks ago, we noted the anniversary of John Calvin's birth. Today, it's J. Gresham Machen's. He may not have the impact of Calvin--but his work is as important for the survival of Biblical Presbyterianism in this nation, as Calvin's was in helping to restore biblical truth.

On July 28, 1881 (that's 125 years ago for you who haven't had enough coffee to do the math), John Gresham Machen was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Machen was a brilliant Christian Scholar, Apologist, Political Figure and Writer from the early twentieth century. In 1923, he wrote his most popular and important book Christianity and Liberalism--Machen argued that there were two rival religions warring for control in the Protestant churches: Christianity and Liberalism were rival religions, not two sides of the same religion (you can read it online here). Sadly, the Church as a whole has yet to learn his lesson. His struggles in the Presbyterian Church to preserve orthodoxy and to battle the growing Liberalism eventually led to his expulsion. Machen and several other ministers formed what would become the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Henry Coray, one of Machen's students, and a minister in the OPC wrote:

What is it in Dr. Machen that stands out above everything else? . . . To me the answer does not lie in his scholarship, or in his teaching ability, or in his literary skill, great as these are. In my opinion the one feature about him that overshadows everything else is this: his burning passion to see the Lordship of Christ exercised in His church.

Some wise words from Machen (these are all random quotations, do not try to follow it as a sustained argument):

It is a great mistake to say that Christianity, as over against the old dispensation, was a "new religion"; indeed, it is a mistake to say that Christianity is a religion at all, among other religions. On the contrary, there is just one revealed religion, and the revelation that is at the basis of it is recorded in both the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament saints were saved in just the same way as that in which the New Testament saints are saved--namely, by the death of Christ--and the mans by which the Spirit of God applied to them the benefits of Christ's death was exactly the same as the means by which the same Spirit applies those benefits to Christians today--namely, faith. The Old Testament saints, like Christians today, received the gospel of the grace of God; and, like the New Testament saints, they received it by faith. The only difference is that the gospel was proclaimed to the Old Testament saints by way of promise, while to us it is proclaimed by way of narrative of what has already been done. Immediately after the Fall of man, the plan of God for salvation began to be executed--with the promise contained in Gen 3:15--and the men who are saved in accordance with that plan are not adherents of "a religion" among other religions; they are not men who have built upon a common human fund of "religion" certain special religions known as "Judaism" and "Christianity," but they are men to whom God has supernaturally revealed and supernaturally applied His saving work. That one revealed "religion" does not differ from the religions of mankind merely in degree; its supremacy does not consist even in being the one perfect religion as over against the imperfect ones; but it is different from the religions of mankind because, while they represent man's efforts to find God, this "religion" is built upon the sovereign and gracious and entirely unique act by which God found man and saved him from the guilt and power of sin.

But only the shallowest reading of the Epistles can possibly lead a man to think that the Apostle's appeal to the Old Testament was merely an argumentative device--useful in defeating the Judaizers but not valuable in the Apostle's own mind. Nothing could be further from the fact. As a matter of fact, to Paul as well as to our Lord Jesus Himself, the written Word of God was decisive in all controversy. People who make "the teachings of Christ" instead of the whole Bible the seat of authority in religion are doing despite to the teachings of Christ themselves; and people who make what they wrongly call "the living Spirit," in opposition to the written Word, an independent source of our knowledge of God are dong despite to that blessed Holy Spirit by whose gracious ministration the written Word has been given unto men. Let it never be forgotten that the real source of life for the Church is the holy Book; when the Church seeks life apart from the Book, as it is doing today, then it always faces, as it faces today, a terrible loss of power. If the Bible were rediscovered, as it was rediscovered at the time of the Reformation, we should have in the church today the same new life as that which then set the world aflame.

...the field of Christianity is the world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christainty. Christianly must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the kingdom of God. The kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man.

Instead of destroying the arts and science or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these pleasures as gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make the world subject to God.

He wasn't afraid to speak out on social/political issues, for example:

Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have been crushed by an all-powerful state.

and

I find there exactly the same evils that are rampant in the world--centralized education programs, the subservience of the church to the state, contempt for the rights of minorities, standardization of everything, suppression of intellectual adventure....I see more clearly than ever before that unless the gospel is true and there is another world, our souls are in prison. The gospel of Christ is a blessed relief from that sinful state of affairs commonly known as hundred per-cent Americanism.

While politics and culture were important, but, not as important as Christ.

To the sinner saved by grace how sweet a thing it is to contemplate the cross of Christ.

Even very imperfect and very weak faith is sufficient for salvation; salvation does not depend upon the strength of our faith, but it depends on Christ. When you want assurance of salvation, think not about your faith, but about the Person who is the object of your faith. . . . He will not desert those who are committed to Him, but will keep them safe both in this world and in that which is to come.

[Christ] "loved me and gave himself for me." There lies all the basis of the religion of Paul; there lies the basis of Christianity. . . . The religion of Paul was not found in a complex of ideas derived from Judaism or from paganism. It was founded upon the historical Jesus. But the historical Jesus upon whom it was founded was not the Jesus of modern reconstruction, but the Jesus of the whole New Testament and of the Christian faith; not a teacher who survived in the memory of His disciples, but the Saviour who after His redeeming work was done still lived and could still be loved.

I'd really recommend the following books about Machen:

• J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Work by Stephen J. Nichols
• J. Gresham Machen: A Silhouette by Henry Coray
• J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir by Ned B. Stonehouse
• Defending The Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America by D. G. Hart

But better than that is reading the man himself:

• Notes on Galatians
• J. Gresham Machen's The Gospel and the Modern World
• The Christian View Of Man
• Christianity and Liberalism (if you want something to hold in your hands)
• God Transcendent
• New Testament: An Introduction To Its Literature And History
• Select Shorter Writings
• What Is Faith?--a personal fave

Lord, thank you for your gift of this man, the work you gave him to do, and the work that his words continue to do by your grace. Soli Deo Gloria.

(picture taken from Reformation Art--great products, btw!)