By Rev. Thomas Whitelaw, M. A., D.D., Kilmarnock, Ayreshire, Scotland.
I. THE FIRST MARK OF THE TRUTHFULNESS OF CHRISTIANITY IS TO BE FOUND IN
ITS SUPREME EXCELLENCE AS A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM.
The unapproachable beauty and resistless charm of its conception, and the unique character of the means by which it seeks to carry out its aims, are not reconcilable with the notion of Fable.
If, however, notwithstanding, Christianity is a Fable, then it is the Divinest Fable ever clothed in human speech. Nothing like it can be found in the literature of the world. Paul only spoke the unvarnished truth when he declared that eye had not seen nor ear heard, neither had the mind of man conceived the things which God had revealed to men in the Gospel.
NOT OF HUMAN ORIGIN
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The very conception of the Gospel as a scheme for rescuing a lost world from the guilt and power of Sin, for transforming men into servants of righteousness, followers of Christ, and children of God, each one resembling Himself and partaking of His nature, and for eventually lifting them up into a state of holy and blessed immortality like that in which He Himself dwells - that conception never took its rise in the brains of a human fable monger, and least of all in that of a crafty priest or political deceiver - no, not even in that of the best and most brilliantly endowed thinker, poet, prophet or philosopher that ever lived. Men do not write novels and compose fictions in order to redeem their fellows from guilt and sin, to comfort and support them in death, and to prepare them for immortality. Even those who regard Christianity as being based on delusions and deceptions do not assert that the object of its instructors was anything so lofty and spiritual, but rather that its fabricators sought thereby to enrich themselves by imposing on their credulous fellows, blinding them to the truth by setting before them fictions as if they were facts, frightening them with ghostly terrors and so securing a hold upon their services or their means. The latest sensation provided by German speulation as to the origin of Christianity is that it was manufactured in Rome in the time of Trajan, i.e., about the beginning of the second century, in order to help on a great liberation movement amongst the Jewish slave proletariat against their tyrannical masters, and that in fact it was an imaginary compound of Roman Socialism, Greek Philosophy and Jewish Messiahism. Neither of these, however, is the account furnished by Christianity itself in its accredited documents, of its aim, which, as already stated, is to deliver men from sin and death. The very grandeur of this aim proves that Christianity has not emanated from the mind of man, but must have proceeded from the heart of God. And it may be safely contended that Infinite Wisdom and Love makes no use of fables and deceptions, legends and fictions to further its purposes and realize its aims.
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If, in addition, the details of the Christian Scheme be considered, that is to say, the particular means by which it proposes to effect its aim, it will further appear that the idea of fiction and fable must be laid aside and that of reality and truth set in its place. It will not be seriously questioned that the details of the Christian Scheme are substantially and briefly these: (1) that God in infinite love and out of pure grace, from eternity purposed to provide salvation for the fallen race of man; (2) that in order to carry out that purpose He sent His own Son, only begotten and well-beloved, the brightness of His Glory and the express image of His Person, into this world in the likeness of sinful flesh, to die for men’s sins, thereby rendering satisfaction for the same, and to rise again from the dead, thereby showing that God had accepted the Sacrifice and could on the ground of it be just and the justifier of the ungodly, as well as bringing life and immortality to light; and (3) that on the ground of this atoning work Salvation is offered to all on the sole condition of faith. This being so, can anyone for a moment believe that forgers and fable-mongers would or could have invented so divine a tale? All experience certifies the contrary.
Whensoever men have attempted to construct schemes of Salvation, they have not sought the origin of these schemes in God but in themselves. Human schemes have always been plans by which men might be able to save themselves, with such salvation as they have supposed themselves to need - not always a Salvation from sin and death; more frequently a salvation from material poverty, bodily discomfort, mental ignorance and generally temporal needs. Nor have they ever dreamt of a salvation that should come to them through the mediation of another, and certainly not of God Himself in the Person of His Son; but always of a salvation through their own efforts. Never of a Salvation by grace through faith and therefore free; but always of a Salvation by works and through merit and therefore as a debt - a Salvation by outward forms and magical rites, or by education and culture.