XVII THE THEOLOGY OF MISSIONS

"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." Yes, a candle, but a candle not yet lighted, a candle which will never be light nor give light, till it is touched by a divine flame. So said Doctor Parkhurst. Was his interpretation of Scripture correct? He drew from the proverb the conclusion that man has a religious nature, not in the sense that he is actually religious, but only in the sense that he has a capacity for religion. Doctor Parkhurst would say that man is actually religious only when he knows the true God and worships him in spirit and in truth. To that God he is by nature and by sinful habit blind. He can be light and give light, only after God has enlightened him by special revelation. His nature is a candle unlighted, until God touches it with his divine flame.

What is the truth in this matter? The months I have spent in these heathen lands have made deep impression upon me, and the problem of heathenism has loomed up before me as never before. When one sees thousands prostrating themselves in a Mohammedan mosque and chanting in unison their ascription of greatness to God, or when one sees a Hindu devotee so absorbed in his prayer to a senseless idol that he is unconscious of the kicks and shouts of the passers-by, one comes to realize that man must have a god. The religious instinct is a part of his nature. It is more than a mere capacity for religion. It is active as well as passive. In some sort the candle is already burning. It burns at certain times and places with a fierce and demonic glow. When I saw in Calcutta, so recently the capital of India, a priestess of the temple of Kali, cutting into bits the flesh and entrails of sheep in order that the poorest worshiper might have for his farthing some bloody fragment to offer at the shrine of that hideous and lustful and cruel goddess, I felt sure that, though the candle is burning, it is not always because it has been touched by a divine flame. There are other powers than God's at work in this universe. Doctor Parkhurst's explanation of the Scripture text is not sufficient. He acknowledges only a part of the truth. The candle is giving already a dim and lurid light. Man is blindly worshiping, groping in the dark, bowing to imaginary deities, the products of his own imagination, the work of his own hands.

We must go even farther than this, and concede that here and there among these crowds of worshipers there may be one who is a sincere seeker after God and, according to the light that he has, is trying honestly to serve him. I do not mean a selfish service of ignorant and earthly passion, but a service prompted by some elementary knowledge of the true God, gained by contemplation of his works in nature or from the needs of his own soul revealed in conscience. Surely there was truth and sincerity in the worship of Socrates, of Epictetus, of Marcus Aurelius. The patriarchs had knowledge of God and walked with God, long before Christ came. And Scripture itself declares that in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted by him. David Brainerd found among the American Indians a man who for years had separated himself from the wickedness of his people, and had devoted himself to doing them good. Now and then our missionaries find a heathen whose strivings after God have been prompted by a sense of sin, and whose worship must have been accepted by the God of love. Though there is "none other name given among men whereby we may be saved," we cannot doubt that every man who feels himself to be a sinner, and casts himself upon God's mercy for salvation, does really though unconsciously cast himself upon Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and so joins himself to Christ by the teaching and power of Christ's Spirit, as to be saved in some measure from the dominion of sin here and from the penalty of sin hereafter.

I am a believer in the unity, the sufficiency, and the authority of Scripture—in its unity, when the parts are put together in their historical connections and with the key to their meaning furnished us in Christ; in its sufficiency, as a rule of religious faith and practice; and in its authority, when rightly interpreted with the aid of the Holy Spirit. So I am prepared to find in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans the true philosophy of heathenism, and the reconciliation of the otherwise seemingly conflicting utterances of Scripture with regard to the religious nature of man. I learn that God made man upright, and endowed him with at least a childlike knowledge of himself. But early humanity sought out many inventions, did not wish to retain God in its knowledge, and substituted for the true God creatures of its own imagination. In other words, the scriptural explanation of heathenism is found in an original ancestral sin, in which the human race departed from the true God and gave itself up to the worship, first, of impersonal nature-powers, and then, of the polytheistic personifications of these powers which naturally followed.

Modern heathenism is the result of an abnormal and downward evolution. Many students of comparative religion have forgotten that evolution is oftener to lower forms than to higher. Many a species in the history of life has first become degenerate, and then has become extinct. The shores of time are strewn with wrecks, and one of these wrecks is human nature. Paul gives us only the logical and moral interpretation of a biological fact, when he declares that in consequence of man's departure from God, God gave man over to the dominion of his own passions, in order that the shame and guilt of his vile affections might awaken his conscience and lead him to cry for mercy and redemption. Modern heathenism, still surviving in this age of enlightenment, shows how sin can blind the intellect and harden the heart. When men worship demons of cruelty and lust instead of God, they reveal the depravity as well as the ignorance of human nature in its downward evolution. The candle has been lighted indeed, but it has been touched with the flames of hell.

When God made man in his own image, it was only wheat that he sowed in his field. The evil decision of man has furnished the tares, and their history has been a history of downward evolution. But side by side with this downward evolution there has been an upward evolution of divine grace. The tares have been suffered to grow, but only that there might be demonstrated the power of the wheat to root them out. And from the very beginning Christ has been the author and principle of the true evolution. He who created the race has been its Preserver, Instructor, and Saviour. Humanity, in its warring and its lust, would long since have become extinct, if it had not been for the presence in it of a divine Life and Light. That life and light were the life and light of the preincarnate Christ. He is "the light that lighteth every man," and "his life was the light of men." Jonathan Edwards did not go too far, when he recognized in all natural beauty and goodness the work of Christ. The sunset clouds were painted by the hand of Christ, and it is he whose glory is celebrated by the cannonading of the autumn storm over the grave of summer. All the light of conscience is his light; all the progress of science is his revelation. It was he who led the children of Israel by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, and who thundered and lightened from Sinai at the giving of the Law. "The Rock that followed" the chosen people through the wilderness and gave them drink "was Christ." Every reform within the bounds of heathenism has been due to him. Confucius and Buddha, so far as they uttered truth, were his messengers. He has never left humanity without a witness to the power and goodness of God. While men have been seeking an unknown God, he has been that very God whom they were seeking, and it is he who has incited them to feel after him and find him. His light has shined in the darkness, and the darkness has comprehended it not, though in him we live and move and have our being.

So there is evolution of good, side by side with the evolution of evil. We may recognize truth in heathen systems, while we deplore their errors, for Christ himself is the Truth. It is the single grain of truth in these systems that has given them all their power. They never could have maintained their hold upon the world, if they had not appealed to some good instincts of the human heart. A coin made wholly of lead will never pass for a dollar. It must have a little washing of silver to give it any sort of currency. But it is a counterfeit, for all its silver washing. So these heathen systems have their grain of truth, but they are false and soul-destroying all the same. Let us recognize candidly the grains of truth which they contain, for these are witnesses to the indwelling Christ who has not left humanity wholly to itself. And let us make these grains of truth our gateways of access to the heathen heart, while we show the heathen the larger and fuller truth as it is in Jesus.

Christ alone can solve the problems of the world and reconcile the warring elements of humanity. He is our peace, who hath made Jew and Gentile one, having broken down the middle wall of partition, and having made of the twain one new man, reconciling both to God through the blood of his Cross. He can make all sects, all parties, all castes, all nations one; because in him are all the elements of truth which each possesses, without any mixture of their errors. In him there will be no longer barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, male nor female, for he will bind all together by virtue of their union with himself. The Hindu, for example, has the truth of God's immanence, but he turns it into falsehood by denying the correlative and equally important truth of God's transcendence, making God to be a mere nature-force without personality, while Scripture recognizes in God both immanence and transcendence, sees God in all things and through all things, yet above all things. The Hindu has also the truth of God's incarnation, but he turns it into error, by denying the permanence of that incarnation, the divine incarnation in Krishna or Buddha being only a temporary assumption of humanity which he leaves behind him when he reascends to his heaven, while Christ takes our human nature into perpetual union with himself and makes it sit down with him upon his throne. The Moslem, on the other hand, believes in God's unity and transcendence, but denies his immanence. His God is far away, not only physically but also morally, for he is without justice or love. The Moslem holds stoutly to the truth of God's personality; but he denies the manifestation of that personality in Christ, and also Christ's personal presence with all believers. Only Christ can break down the middle wall of partition between Hindu and Moslem, for he alone has the all-inclusive truth that will unite them both. And so of all divisions of caste, of color, of party, of denomination, and of nationality, for he alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, supremely and absolutely fitted to be the Bringer of Peace to the world.

There is yet another reason why Christ alone can save. Let us remember always that error is the result of sin, and that before the power of sin can be broken, the penalty of sin must be removed. In the heart of man is an inextinguishable sense of guilt, and an equally inextinguishable thirst for reparation. It is the forebodings of conscience that make death terrible. Blind the eyes and harden the heart, if you will. The accusations of conscience will be like writings in invisible ink, that come out clear and threatening in times of introspection and of sober judgment. As Shakespeare says,

The greatest chasm is between their souls and God, and they must have peace with God, before they can have peace with men. Christ is our peace, therefore, first of all, because he makes atonement for our sins, pays our debts to justice, and sets our conscience free from guilt. Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the whole world, making peace by the blood of his Cross. Having made our peace with God, he makes peace in our warring powers of conscience and will, and then brings about peace in our relations with others. As he made man at the first of one blood, so he will at last bring all the nations back into one brotherhood of holiness and love.

There is a moral theology, as well as a doctrinal theology. The moral follows the doctrinal, and shows in practice that the doctrine is truth and not error. Paul includes this moral teaching in his Epistle to the Romans. At the beginning of his twelfth chapter he passes from his discussion of justification by faith to speak of the proper effects of faith in the Christian life: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." Then comes the noblest summary of duty to be found in all literature. All manner of social service is enjoined, while the presupposition of that service is ever held to be the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf and the regenerating grace of God in the Christian heart. How much the heathen world needs this part of the gospel, only some knowledge of the shameful vices of the Orient can reveal to us. The first chapter of that same Epistle is a correct picture of the heathen world of to-day. A pure life, which is also a life lived for others, is something which surpasses the power of Confucius or Buddha to produce or to maintain. Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence, farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. It lifts up the whole family, the whole class, the whole caste, making its members intelligent, efficient, trustworthy, as many British officials in India gladly bear witness. Christianity seems likely to give the Sudras precedence of the Brahmans in civil and political affairs, so that in one case at least the meek shall inherit the earth.

The kingdom of God, however, can never win its triumphs solely by external reforms. In order to obtain the fruits of education, morality, and self-government, you must first have Christian faith rooted in the soil. Applications of Christianity are necessary, and they are to be earnestly sought, but it will be vain to seek them, if we have no Christianity to apply. The tendency in our missions to put the main stress upon physical and social agencies, to the detriment of simple gospel preaching, is sure to be disappointing in its results. It is like trying to light a coal-fire by putting your kindlings on top. It is like beginning at the roof, and building down to the foundation; or like first purifying the stream, and afterwards the fountain. Society is made up of individuals, and regeneration of the individual must precede all social renovation. The old gospel, with regard to sin and salvation, is the only gospel that will save the heathen world; and the living, personal Christ, with his atoning blood and his renewing Spirit, is the only power that can bring about permanent reformation of social evils and the establishment of the kingdom of God in the individual, in the nation, and in the world.

That this is the true theology of missions, the history of missions is the best of all proofs. We need not only to touch the intellect, but also to touch the heart. We need to furnish a motive that will win to action the sluggish and selfish devotees of systems century-old that have enslaved them. One message, and one only, has accomplished this result, and that is the message of the Cross. Not the presentation of God's greatness and power, but the story of the personal Jesus and his giving up of his life for sinners, has moved men to give themselves to him. The love of Christ has called forth answering love. Greenlanders and Bushmen, Tibetans and Telugus, Australians and Chinese, have gone to their deaths for Christ, simply because they had learned that Christ died for them. Of this sort have been the first-fruits of all our missions. Christ crucified has been the power of God unto salvation. When he who was rich became poor that we might become rich, he instituted not only an example, but a motive, sufficient to subdue men's hearts and to conquer the world. "To win for the Lamb that was slain the reward of his sufferings" has turned illiterate men in India into indomitable propagandists of Christianity; but it has also made missionaries in Oxford and Edinburgh, in Leicester and Andover—missionaries like Reginald Heber and John G. Paton, like William Carey and Adoniram Judson. The "offense of the Cross" is great, but the power of the Cross is greater still, and the theology of missions must never permit mere philosophy, or education, or physical betterment, or social service, to take the place of Christ crucified in its preaching.

I grieve over the minimizing of Christ's nature and claims that is current in our day, because I believe that it cuts the sinew of our Christian faith and destroys the chief dynamic in our missions. I deplore the denial of our Lord's deity and atonement, the refusal to address him in prayer, the ignoring of his promise to be with his people even to the end of the world. To meet our needs in the conflict with towering systems of idolatry and superstition, we need a supernatural Christ; not simply the man of Nazareth, but the Lord of glory; not the Christ of the Synoptics alone, but also the Christ of John's Gospel; not a merely human example and leader, but one who "was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead"; not simply Jesus according to the flesh, but "the Word who was with God and who was God" in eternity past; not simply God manifest in human life nineteen centuries ago, but the God who is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever"; not simply the humbled, but also the glorified Saviour, who sits now upon the throne of the universe, all power in heaven and earth being given into his hand. When we believe in an ascended Lord at God's right hand, the God of Creation, of Providence, and of Redemption, we have a faith that can conquer the world. Without such a faith in the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent Christ, we are weak as water in the conflict with heathenism. We may set up Christ on a pedestal, in a pantheon like that of Mrs. Besant, with a statue of Krishna by his side, and the Hindu will laugh at the claims of the gospel. Only faith in Christ as very God can meet the demands of the hour. "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." In every age Christ has lit that candle, so that it has given some light. But all who have come before him, pretending to be the Light of the world, have been thieves and robbers, stealing from Christ his glory and from man his blessing. Christ alone can so enlighten us that we can be light and can give light. Let us arise and shine, because our Light has come, and the glory of the Lord has arisen upon us!