you Hello, this is Pastor Patrick Hines. I'm going to press on now with Machen's great book, Christianity and Liberalism, the Chapter of God and Man, Chapter 2. If you recall, it's been a little while since I've been in this book, but I'd like to complete the book. I want to get all the way through the whole book as a video series commenting on it, because what he calls modern liberalism, way back in 1923 or so, almost exactly 100 years ago, passes for so-called conservative Bible-believing evangelical Christianity, and in some sectors, Reformed and Presbyterian Christianity that supposedly holds to the Westminster standards. So, the ghosts are back. The same old stuff is being said today that Machen addressed long ago, so let's hear this exceptional keen intellect and mind that God gave to his church way back then, and let's see what we can learn from him. Yes, here talking about God and man, the section I highlighted here. Why should we be indignant about slanders directed against a human friend while at the same time we are patient about the basest slanders directed against our God? Certainly, it does make the greatest possible difference what we think about God. The knowledge of God is the very basis of religion. And here, Machen is pointing out, why would we not be somewhat indignant about hearing God lied about? Hearing Christ lied about? Having things said about the gospel and about His grace, about the cross, about what He accomplished, that are just plain wrong. To listen to people slandering God and saying that he's no longer able to deliver people from slavery to certain kinds of sin today, as many are saying. Why should we be indignant about slander directed against someone, a human being that we love dearly, but not be upset if people slander God? You would think that if our loyalty to God is the highest, that that would get us the most, that that would make us the most passionate, but unfortunately it doesn't because I think that there are very few today who care much of anything for God. And that shows up in the fact that very, very, very few will rise up to defend and speak in behalf of the truth that we're taught in Holy Scripture. Okay, Machen continues on here. How then shall God be known? How shall we become so acquainted with him that personal fellowship may be possible? Some liberal preachers would say that we become acquainted with God only through Jesus. That assertion has an appearance of loyalty to our Lord, but in reality, it is highly derogatory to him. For Jesus himself plainly recognized the validity of other ways of knowing God. And to reject those other ways is to reject the things that lay at the very center of Jesus's life. Jesus plainly found God's hand in nature. The lilies of the field revealed to him the weaving of God. He found God also in the moral law. The law written in the hearts of men was God's law, which revealed his righteousness. Finally, Jesus plainly found God revealed in the scriptures. How profound was our Lord's use of the words of prophets and psalmists to say that such revelation of God was invalid or is useless to us today is to do despite I'm sorry, is to to spite the things that lay closest to Jesus's mind and heart. But as a matter of fact, when men say that we know God only as He is revealed in Jesus, they are denying all real knowledge of God whatever. For unless there be some idea of God independent of Jesus, the ascription of deity to Jesus has no meaning. To say Jesus is God is meaningless unless the word God has an antecedent meaning attached to it. And the attaching of a meaning to the word God is accomplished by the means which we have just been mentioned, have just mentioned here. We are not forgetting the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. But these words do not mean that if a man had ever known what the word God means, he could come to attach an idea to that word merely by his knowledge of Jesus' character. On the contrary, the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking had already a very definite conception of God, a knowledge of the one supreme person who was presupposed in all that Jesus said. But the disciples desired not only a knowledge of God, but also intimate personal contact. And that came through their intercourse with Jesus. Jesus revealed, in a wonderfully intimate way, the character of God. But such revelation obtained its true significance only on the basis both of the Old Testament heritage and of Jesus' own teaching. Rational theism, the knowledge of the one supreme person, maker and active ruler of the world, is at the very root of Christianity. But, the modern preacher will say, it is incongruous to attribute to Jesus an acceptance of rational theism. Jesus had a practical, not a theoretical, knowledge of God. There is a sense in which these words are true. Certainly no part of Jesus' knowledge of God was merely theoretical. Everything that Jesus knew about God touched his heart and determined his actions. In that sense, Jesus' knowledge of God was practical. But unfortunately, that is not the sense in which the assertion of modern liberalism is meant. What is frequently meant by a practical knowledge of God in modern parlance is not a theoretical knowledge of God that is also practical, but a practical knowledge which is not theoretical. In other words, a knowledge which gives no information about objective reality, a knowledge which is no knowledge at all. And nothing could possibly be more unlike the religion of Jesus than that. The relation of Jesus to his Heavenly Father was not a relation to a vague and impersonal goodness. It was not a relation which merely clothed itself in symbolic personal form. On the contrary, it was a relation to a real person whose existence was just as definite and just as much a subject of theoretical knowledge as the existence of the lilies of the field that God had clothed. The very basis of the religion of Jesus was a triumphant belief in the real existence of a personal God. And without that belief, no type of religion can rightly appeal to Jesus today. Jesus was a theist, and rational theism is at the basis of Christianity. Jesus did not indeed support his theism by argument. He did not provide in advance answers to the Kantian attack upon the theistic proofs. But that means not that he was indifferent to the belief, which is the logical result of those proofs, but that the belief stood so firm, both to him and to his hearers, that in his teaching it is always presupposed. So today, it is not necessary for all Christians to analyze the logical basis of their belief in God. The human mind has a wonderful faculty for the condensation of perfectly valid arguments, and what seems like an instinctive belief may turn out to be the result of many logical steps. Or rather, it may be that the belief in a personal God is the result of a primitive revelation, and that the theistic proofs are only the logical confirmation of what was originally arrived at by a different means. At any rate, the logical confirmation of the belief in God is a vital concern to the Christian. At this point, as at many others, religion and philosophy are connected in the most intimate way possible. True religion can make no peace with a false philosophy any more than with a science that is falsely so-called. A thing cannot possibly be true in religion and false in philosophy or in science." Okay, now, just, I apologize, if you're getting a little bit bogged down here, I'm wondering, what in the world is he really, is he talking about here? He's very eloquently describing. Liberalism's disdain for doctrine. It's disdain for propositions. It's disdain for the idea of rationality, being able to think about logical revealed truths in the form of propositions from which we make deductions about who God is. They wanted to move away from that. The liberals pushed theology aside and talked more in terms of just the experience of God, the sense of dependence and things like that upon God. And that's just not, you can't divorce the two things. You've got to balance experience with truth. The one gives rise to the other. It is fact, it is truth that gives rise to our experiences. And experience has always got to be held in check by the word of God. Okay? You can't allow experience or intuitions and feelings be what is the basis of truth in religion. You just can't. Because everyone's going to have something different then. There's got to be objectivity in it. There's got to be divine revelation in the form of propositions that we can analyze and know in our minds. And knowing those things about the character of God is the very basis upon which we have fellowship with God. And in Scripture, that's really what the problem with man is, is that we've suppressed the knowledge of God that we have through creation and now it's distorted. And what man thinks he knows about God is twisted and perverted and wrong. Man now holds to things to be true in the realm of his relationship with God, about what's real, about how we know things, about what our obligations are. Man holds things to be true about all those things that are just plain false. And there's nothing more dangerous than that. There's really nothing that could possibly be more dangerous than to believe things to be true about religion, about the afterlife, about yourself, your relationship with God who created all this. If you're wrong about those things, if you believe things are true when they're actually not true, that's extraordinarily dangerous. Now listen to what Mason goes on to say here. All methods of arriving at truth, if they be valid methods, will arrive at a harmonious result. Certainly, the atheistic or agnostic Christianity, which sometimes goes under the name of a practical religion, is no Christianity at all. And he's exactly, Machen is exactly right. The idea of agnostic Christianity, you might be wondering, what do they mean by that? Agnostic Christianity, I've seen some of that. I saw some of that when I was in seminary. I saw some of that when I was in college. And it tended to be more among those that were really, really intellectual, really, really smart. It's almost like, they would be agnostic about what was true about the gospel, what was really true about the Trinity, what was really true about the, well, we just can't really know for sure, you know. You just have to suspend dogmatic positions because, you know, we just can't really know. But those are the very things that God has revealed to us. Not only can we know them, we must know them. We have to know them if we would have a relationship with God, if we would be reconciled to God. We have to know that stuff. Strangely enough, at the very time when modern liberalism is decrying the theistic proofs and taking refuge in a quote-unquote practical knowledge, which shall somehow be independent of scientifically or philosophically ascertained facts, the liberal preacher loves to use one designation of God, which is nothing if not theistic. He loves to speak of God as Father. The term certainly has the merit of ascribing personality to God. By some of those who use it, indeed, it is not seriously meant. By some, it is employed because it is useful, not because it is true. But not all liberals are able to make the subtle distinction between theoretic judgments and judgments of value. Some liberals, though perhaps a decreasing number, are true believers in a personal God, and such men are able to think of God truly as a Father. The term presents a very lofty conception of God. It is not indeed exclusively Christian. The term Father has been applied to God outside of Christianity. It appears, for example, in the widespread belief in an All-Father, which prevails among many races, even in company with polytheism. It appears here and there in the Old Testament and in pre-Christian Jewish writings subsequent to the Old Testament period. Such occurrences of the term were by no means devoid of significance. The Old Testament usage in particular is a worthy precursor of our Lord's teaching. For although in the Old Testament the word father ordinarily designates God in relation not to the individual but to the nation or to the king, yet the individual Israelite, because of his part in the chosen people, felt himself to be in a peculiarly intimate relation to the covenant God. But despite this anticipation of the teaching of our Lord, Jesus brought such an incomparable enrichment of the usage of the term that it is a correct instinct which regards the thought of God as Father as something characteristically Christian. Modern men have been so much impressed with this element in Jesus' teaching that they have sometimes been inclined to regard it as the very sum and substance of our religion. And this is where we get, and I'm just breaking information here for a minute, where we get the idea, the liberal notion of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. And both of those statements are perfectly false. God is not universally the father in terms of adoption of the entire human race, nor is every human being on earth a brother or sister in the sense of being adopted by the work of Christ into the family of God. God is not everyone's father in that sense. He is their father in the sense that he is the creator of the whole human race, so in that narrow sense he is. But as far as being the adoptive father of the entire human race, God simply is not. You have to repent and believe the gospel to be adopted into the family of God. Now listen to what he goes on to say here. We are not interested, they say, in many things for which men formerly gave their lives. We are not interested in the theology of the creeds. We are not interested in the doctrines of sin and salvation. We are not interested in atonement through the blood of Christ. Enough for us is the simple truth of the fatherhood of God and its corollary, the brotherhood of man. We may not be very orthodox in the theological sense, they continue, but of course you will recognize us as Christians because we accept Jesus' teaching as to the Father God. It is very strange how intelligent persons can speak in this way. Machen is right. How can intelligent persons who actually read the New Testament think like this and think that that's, that's, it could in any way, shape or form be a correct way of thinking about that. It is very strange how those who accept only the universal fatherhood of God as the sum and substance of religion can regard themselves as Christians, or can appeal to Jesus of Nazareth, for the plain fact is that this modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God formed no part whatever of Jesus' teaching. Where is it that Jesus may be supposed to have taught the universal fatherhood of God? Certainly it is not in the parable of the prodigal son. For in the first place, the publicans and sinners whose acceptance by Jesus formed the occasion both of the Pharisees' objection and of Jesus' answer to them by means of the parable were not any men anywhere, but were members of the chosen people and as such might be designated as sons of God. In the second place, a parable is certainly not to be pressed in its details. That's something I've had to say a lot over the years, as parables are often the private playground of false teachers, says Machin. So here, because the joy of the father in the parable is like the joy of God when a sinner receives salvation at Jesus' hand, it does not follow that the relation which God sustains to still unrepentant sinners is that of a father to his children. Where else then can the universal fatherhood of God be found? Surely not in the Sermon on the Mount, for throughout the Sermon on the Mount, those who can call God Father are distinguished in the most emphatic way from the great world of the Gentiles outside. One passage in the discourse has indeed been urged in support of the modern doctrine. Says Jesus in Matthew 544, but I say unto you, love your enemies and pray for them that persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he maketh his son to rise on evil and good, and sendeth rain on just and unjust. But the passage certainly will not bear the weight which is hung upon it. God is indeed represented here as caring for all men, whether evil or good, but he is certainly not called the father of all. Indeed, it might almost be said that the point of the passage depends on the fact that he is not the father of all. He cares even for those who are not his children, but his enemies. So his children, Jesus' disciples, ought to imitate him by loving even those who are not their brethren, but their persecutors. The modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God is not to be found in the teaching of Jesus, and it is not to be found in the New Testament. The whole New Testament and Jesus himself do indeed represent God as standing in a relation to all men, whether Christians or not, which is analogous to that in which a father stands to his children. He is the author of the being of all, and as such might well be called the father of all in that sense. He cares for all, and for that reason also might be called the father of all. Here and there, the figure of fatherhood seems to be used to designate this broader relationship which God sustains to all men or even to all creative beings. So, in an isolated passage in Hebrews, God is spoken of as the father of spirits, Hebrews 12 verse 9. Here, perhaps, it is the relation of God as creator to the personal beings whom he has created, which is in view. One of the clearest instances of the broader use of the figure of fatherhood is found in the speech of Paul at Athens in Acts 17, 28. For we are also his offspring, he says. I've had Mormon missionaries quote that one to me. See, we're literally the offspring of God from his harem of wives out by Starbase Kolob. Anyway, Machen says, Here it is plainly the relation in which God stands to all men, whether Christians or not, which is in mind. But the words form part of a hexameter line and are taken from a pagan poet. They are not represented as part of the gospel, but merely as belonging to the common meeting ground which Paul discovered in speaking to his pagan hearers. This passage is only typical of what happens with respect to a universal fatherhood of God in the New Testament as a whole. Something analogous to a universal fatherhood of God is taught in the New Testament. Here and there, the terminology of fatherhood and sonship is even used to describe this general relationship, but such instances are extremely rare. Ordinarily, the lofty term father is used to describe a relationship of a far more intimate kind, the relationship in which God stands to the company of the redeemed. The modern doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God then, which is being celebrated as the essence of Christianity, really belongs at best only to that vague natural religion which forms the presupposition which the Christian preacher can use when the gospel is to be proclaimed, and when it is regarded as a reassuring, all-sufficient thing, it comes into direct opposition to the New Testament. The gospel itself refers to something entirely different. The really distinctive New Testament teaching about the fatherhood of God concerns only those who have been brought into the household of faith. There is nothing narrow about such teaching, for the door of the household of faith is open wide to all. That door is the new and living way which Jesus opened by his blood. And if we really love our fellow man, we shall not go about the world with a liberal preacher trying to make men satisfied with the coldness of a vague natural religion. but by the preaching of the gospel, we shall invite them into the warmth and joy of the house of God. Christianity offers men all that is offered by the modern liberal teaching about the universal fatherhood of God, but it is Christianity only because it offers also infinitely more. But the liberal conception of God differs even more fundamentally from the Christian view than in the different circle of ideas connected with the terminology of fatherhood. The truth is that liberalism has lost sight of the very center and core of the Christian teaching. In the Christian view of God as set forth in the Bible, there are many elements, but one attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible. One attribute is absolutely necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end, the Bible is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the creature from the Creator. It is true indeed that according to the Bible, God is immanent in the world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him, but He is immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator, a great gulf is fixed. In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name God is applied to the mighty world process itself. We find ourselves in the midst of a mighty process which manifests itself in the indefinitely small, and in the indefinitely great, in the infinitesimal life which is revealed through the microscope, and in the vast movements of the heavenly spheres, to this world process of which we ourselves form a part, we apply the dread name of God. God, therefore, it is said, in effect, is not a person distinct from ourselves. On the contrary, our life is part of his. Thus, the gospel story of the incarnation, according to modern liberalism, is sometimes thought of as a symbol of the general truth that man at his best is one with God. And that's drivel, isn't it? It is strange how such a representation can be regarded as anything new. For as a matter of fact, pantheism is a very ancient phenomenon. Now, what is pantheism? It's the belief that everything is God. Everything is divine. Man is divine. We all have a spark of divinity within us. It has always been with us to blight the religious life of man. And modern liberalism, even when it is not consistently pantheistic, is at any rate pantheizing. It tends everywhere to break down the separateness between God and the world, and the sharp personal distinction between God and man. Even the sin of man, on this view, ought logically to be regarded as part of the life of God. Very different is the living and holy God of the Bible and of Christian faith. Christianity differs from liberalism, then, in the first place, in its conception of God. But it also differs in its conception of man. Modern liberalism has lost all sense of the gulf that separates the creature from the creator. Its doctrine of man follows naturally from its doctrine of God. But it is not only the creature limitations of mankind which are denied. Even more important is another difference. According to the Bible, man is a sinner under the just condemnation of God. According to modern liberalism, there really is no such thing as sin. The very root of the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of sin. The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting point of all preaching. But today, it is gone. Yeah, and just breaking from the quotation here, that's profoundly important stuff. At the root of modern liberalism is the loss of the consciousness of sin. And I would say that at the root of the progressive stuff going on is the same thing. The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting point of all preaching, but today it is gone. Think of the lyrics to George Michael's song, Praying for Time. Remember that song, Praying for Time? He says, the rich declare themselves poor, and most of us are not sure if we have too much, but we'll take our chances, because God stopped keeping score. I guess somewhere along the way, he must have let us all out to play, turned his back, and all God's children crept out the back door. And it's hard to love, There's so much to hate, hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of. And the wounded skies above say it's much, much too late. Well, maybe we should all be praying for time. The law is gone. It's gone. Preachers today, reformed preachers today, are so terrified they're gonna upset someone if they tell them that The stuff that they love and are into is a sin against God for which they will pay in hell for eternity if they don't repent that they don't talk about this stuff anymore. Shame on us if we don't warn people. You know, it says in the second chapter of the book of Acts, Acts chapter two, after the great Pentecost sermon that Peter preaches, it says with many other words, he warned them. I want to ask my fellow ministers and fellow elders, do we warn people? With many other words, Peter warned them, be saved from this perverse generation. Do we say stuff like that? We need to. People need to know. Your life, apart from the grace of God, is perverse. And you need to repent of that stuff. You need to turn away from it. If we're not willing to tell the truth about things like that, I would just ask, what good are we then? Let me finish this paragraph and we'll stop here. Let me just read the whole thing again. I'm going to highlight this stuff because this is really important. The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting point of all preaching, but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness. The religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society. The world's evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world's good. No help is needed from outside the world. What has produced this satisfaction with human goodness? What has become of the consciousness of sin? The consciousness of sin has certainly been lost, but what has removed it from the heart of men? In the first place, the war has perhaps had something to do with the change. In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of other people that we are sometimes inclined to forget our own sins. Attention to the sins of other people is indeed sometimes necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace, has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern state to obscure the individual personal character of guilt. If John Smith beats his wife nowadays, no one is so old-fashioned as to blame John Smith for it. On the contrary, it is said John Smith is evidently the victim of some more of that Bolshevistic propaganda. Congress ought to be called in extra session in order to take up the case of John Smith in an alien and sedition law. Wow, 100 years ago, the guy that beat his wife was already being seen as the victim. We have more compassion on the guy that beat his wife than the wife that was beaten? Really? In 1923 they're already thinking like that? Man, what would Machen think today? Shame on us as Christians, as ministers of the gospel, if we do not point out what Jesus Christ taught us about the heart of man. Listen to the word of God. Listen to what Jesus Christ said about this. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. Okay out of the heart of man proceed all these things Okay, the things that proceed out of the mouth matthew 15 18 Come from the heart and they defile a man. Remember the pharisees the religious establishment of the time thought it's everything outside. It's society It's food. It's what we eat. It's this is that that that causes our corruption. Jesus said no, it's not It's not no, it's nothing from the outside. It's what's already there It's what's already in you What's the real problem? You and I are not victims, we're criminals. We're not victims, we're bad people. Jesus says, for out of the heart. Okay, not from society, not from your parents, not from coaches that were mean to you, not because you had a piano teacher that wrapped you on the knuckles with a ruler or something, not because mommy and daddy didn't do right by you. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. It's what's in our hearts that defiles us. And we're born with all that already there. The problem is us, not society, not the world around us. And we're not good by nature, we are bad by nature, we are evil by nature, we are rebellious by nature. And that's why we need to repent and that's why we need Jesus Christ. And it is vital, it is essential to a person being a Christian to recognize we were not born the children of God. We were born, as Paul said in Ephesians 2 verse 3, children of wrath until God makes us alive in Jesus Christ. Until the grand, triumphant, redemptive work of Christ is brought to bear upon us. Okay, I'm gonna bookmark, put a little highlight there and bookmark this page and we'll pick it up there next time. Thank you for watching or for listening. This is Pastor Patrick Hines of Birdwell Heights Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee. You can visit us on the web at BirdwellHeightsChurch.com where all the sermons and podcasts are put into our sermon audio feed, which is accessible in iTunes as well as the podcast app. You are welcome to join us any Sunday morning for Sunday school for all ages at 10 a.m. and then worship for everyone at 11 a.m. If you ever have any questions about the Christian faith or the Bible, you can email me at pastor at riddleheightschurch.org. May the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.