Guide to the works of J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937). Scholar. Preacher. Founder of Westminster Theological Seminary. Leader in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Bill Dennison discusses Machen and Bultmann at Marburg
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Speaker 1: Welcome to a special edition of Presbycast on January 1st, 2020. This is the anniversary of the death of J. Gresham Machen, January 1st, 1937. We’d like to commemorate that with a couple of readings and just a short time of looking at some facts and writings concerning this event, the death of J. Gresham Machen.
As we read through, a little background. The account of the Reverend Samuel Allen will refer to Auburn Affirmationists, those who held to the Auburn Affirmation. This was shorthand for liberals in the PCUSA, those who were obviously and consciously, and you might even say aggressively, liberal. They issued—1,274 ministers, I believe it was—signed the Auburn Affirmation in 1924. Let’s just go through a little background of what the Auburn Affirmation contended.
It said the Bible is not inerrant; that the supreme guide of interpretation is the Spirit of God to the individual believer, not ecclesiastical authority. This had to do with liberty of conscience, they said. Point two: The General Assembly has no power to dictate doctrine to the Presbyteries. Point three: The General Assembly’s condemnation of those asserting “doctrines contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian Church” circumvented the due process set forth in the Book of Discipline. So, they resisted those who would use General Assembly action to condemn the doctrinal statements of any given person.
Point number four says none of the five essential doctrines should be used as a test of ordination, and that alternate theories of these doctrines are permissible. You may ask, what were these five essentials that the General Assembly in 1910, 1916, and 1923 of the Northern Church had distilled as essential doctrines? We might say that they had already departed from a strict confessionalism and any sort of reductionism is a bad sign, but the five essentials were good things. Let me tell you the five essentials that the Auburn Affirmation wanted to allow people to deny:
So, these are not small matters, but the Auburn Affirmationists held some or all of these positions against those things. So, number four: None of the five essential doctrines should be used as a test of ordination, and the alternate theories were permissible. That’s where the problem lay primarily, in those alternate theories.
Number five: Liberty of thought and teaching within the bounds of evangelical Christianity is necessary. So, the liberals considered themselves evangelical, but they wanted to have lots of latitude to present evangelical Christianity as they preferred and desired. Number six: Division is deplored; unity and freedom are commended. This may sound familiar to some of you. Division is deplored, unity and freedom are continued.
So, those are the main points of the Auburn Affirmation. When, as we read the account of Reverend Sam Allen, you will hear reference to the Auburn Affirmationists, that’s just shorthand for liberals in the Northern Church.
So, we’re talking about the death of Machen and we’re talking about the sort of expedition that he was on at the time that he died. Some things have been written saying Machen didn’t take care of himself, Machen should have taken more time off. I’m sure those things are true to some degree, but as a backdrop for these health questions, let me read a little section from Ned Stonehouse’s epic biography of Machen. This is page 449 in the Stonehouse book under the heading “Faithful Unto Death.” And I read:
“If Machen had not been given a sturdy physical constitution to accompany his magnificent mind, he would not have been able to undertake the half of what he lived to do. He was not a giant, only five feet eight inches, and in later years he had become perhaps slightly overweight, about 180 pounds as compared with 150 ten or so years before his death. But there was nothing flabby about him, as anyone who tried to keep pace with him when he walked up the street soon realized. During the last summer of his life, he had managed to get away to the Canadian Rockies for a little climbing.”
I’ll note here that he had previously climbed many of the great peaks of the Alps, including the Matterhorn. But in the summer of 1936, he had climbed in the Canadian Rockies. I continue:
“He seemed to his associates to look somewhat drawn when they saw him first in the fall—that is, after he had climbed in the Rockies in the summer of ‘36. Had he perhaps engaged in somewhat too strenuous exercise considering his 55 years? Perhaps not, although his too infrequent opportunities of recreation did not form the ideal background for such vigorous activity. As the year 1936 drew to its close, however, it seemed at times that he was deadly tired, and no doubt, with all of his anxieties with regard to the course and future of the movement with which he was associated as the acknowledged leader gave him many sleepless nights. But he was not one to pamper himself, and there was no one of sufficient influence to constrain him to curtail his program to any significant degree.
And so, during the brief recess from academic teaching at the Christmas vacation, he fulfilled an engagement to speak in a number of churches in North Dakota at the invitation of their pastor, the Reverend Samuel J. Allen. Taking account of his cold and his evident need of rest, members of his immediate family in Baltimore urged him to cancel the engagement, but Machen was unwilling to disappoint Allen and the churches to which he ministered. Leaving the moderate climate of Philadelphia, he arrived in the frigid, 20 below zero temperature of Bismarck, North Dakota.”
Speaker 1: And that’s where we pick up the account of the Reverend Samuel J. Allen. This appeared in the second edition of the newspaper, Conservative Presbyterian publication, The Presbyterian Guardian, the second edition of 1936, which was the issue that commemorated Machen’s death. There had been another one published, but it had gone to press—even though I think it came out on January the 6th—his death did not appear in that issue. But I believe this one was of January 23rd, 1937.
So what we’ll hear are the reminiscences of the Reverend Samuel J. Allen. I’ll note that on September the 30th of 1936, he and five ministers and eight elders met in Bismarck, North Dakota, to establish the Presbytery of the Dakotas. So he had already left the PCUSA and he was trying to rally more churches and people to the cause of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church—then called the Presbyterian Church of America, as we’ll hear in a moment. He was trying to, of course, rally more to the cause and strengthen the hand of those who were on the side of those leaving the PCUSA. There was apparently a lot of negativity about Machen and this movement, tiny though it was, and you’ll hear reference to that.
So I read from an article entitled “The Last Battle of Dr. Machen.” We’ll link to a PDF of just these two pages and maybe to the whole issue of The Presbyterian Guardian in the show notes. So, the Reverend Samuel J. Allen. Let me make one note: Machen’s nickname was “Das” or “Dassie”—D-A-S or D-A-S-S-I-E as it’s found in print. This was a nickname that had been given to him, I think by students at Princeton Theological Seminary. It was a play on his last name, Machen, which is very much like the German word for young lady, Mädchen. And of course, I think the German article “the” is das. So they called him Das Machen or Das Mädchen. He was a bachelor, and I don’t know if this was… I think it was meant lovingly. I think he had the gift of self-deprecation because he adopted this and even referred to himself in the third person, as we’ll hear, as “Old Dassie.” So, whatever you think about that, it does at least admit that his skin was not too thin.
The Reverend Samuel J. Allen, “The Last Battle of Dr. Machen”:
“Dr. Machen answered my call to help in presenting the cause of the Presbyterian Church of America in Bismarck, North Dakota. The Presbytery of Bismarck of the Presbyterian Church in the USA had painted Dr. Machen as a very unsavory and troublesome person. That, as usual, was their answer to all the charges of unbelief made against them. From the time he assented to the call, nothing could dissuade him from answering it. Neither the smallness of the seceding group, the coldness of North Dakota’s weather, nor pleas of dear friends and relatives who feared for his health. He was determined to go out to North Dakota and help in the conflict for the faith as it was being waged in that locality.
Accordingly, he undertook the arduous trip from Philadelphia and arrived in Bismarck 11:00 AM Tuesday [that would have been by train]. I met him emerging from an elevator in the Patterson Hotel. After a warm greeting, ‘Dassie’ immediately wanted to know the plans. In an offhand way, he told me that he had been sick the night before on the train, but that he was feeling better and ready to do anything that I thought would help the cause. I then told him that, if he were up to it, I would like him to go to Leith, 75 miles away, so that my people could see for themselves ’this terrible man Machen.’
On that trip to Leith, he kept saying, ‘You are not seeing Dassie at his best. I’m not like this very often.’ One could see that he was not feeling well. During this trip, his whole conversation showed his devotion to the Reformed Faith. His whole heart and soul were particularly centered on Westminster Seminary and The Presbyterian Guardian. His ambition for the latter was to see it a real organ of the new denomination, propagating truly Reformed doctrine, maintaining its glorious tradition.
When we arrived at Carson, where I live, my four little girls clambered about him as if they had known him always. Our dog was vying with the children for a place on his lap. At dinner, Dassie could hardly touch a bite, yet he never complained. He commended Mrs. Allen on her biscuits and said if he were himself he would pack away at least five.
Later he went to Leith. There was only a small crowd, but it didn’t dampen his ardor for one minute. During this speech, he was hampered by a cough that made it appear as though he were troubled with asthma. The room was hot and stuffy and made it even more difficult for him. Nevertheless, he went straight through without one single complaint or excuse. Almost immediately after his talk, he was stricken with pleurisy. He could not walk up the steps by himself. The pain was intense. He was in agony.
From Leith to Bismarck, 75 miles, he groaned with pain and had a terrible thirst. Sometimes he thought he was going to die. More than once he cried out about his thirst. I offered to stop, but he said, ‘We can’t do it. Wait until we get to Bismarck.’ At one time he cried, ‘I can’t make it. I can’t make it.’ Then he would say, ‘I can’t die now. I have so much work to do.’ This was the saddest and most grievous trip I ever made. My heart grieved as I heard his groaning and wondered if we would reach Bismarck.
At last, after what seemed an age, we arrived in Bismarck about 7:15 PM. He had to be helped from my car to his room. At first, he wouldn’t consent to the calling of a doctor, but the pain was so intense that he finally yielded on this point. After calling the doctor at 7:30 PM, I had to go to the hall where the meeting was to take place and arrange things. At 8:05 PM, I called him by phone and asked him how he felt. To my surprise and delight, he told me that the doctor had bandaged him up and eased the pain, and that he was fit as a fiddle and ready to meet any Auburn Affirmationist that might wish to meet him.
About ten minutes later, he walked into the auditorium, apparently as spry as ever, with a big broad smile on his face. After he was introduced, he gave a fine address which made a strong impression on the people present and destroyed, in their minds at least, all the slander and calumny about his ‘bitter character.’ After the address, he answered questions for 15 minutes, but the signers of the Auburn Affirmation at Bismarck did not attend.
After the meeting, he almost collapsed. I brought him to his hotel. He was in agony, but over and over he would say, ‘Sam, it went across. They didn’t know I was sick.’ And it was true. Only a few whom I had told knew that anything was wrong. He made a wonderful impression on the 150 present.
The next morning he was dressed and ready to get his train for the East, but the pain was so intense that the doctor absolutely refused to permit him to do so. He diagnosed his case as pleurisy at first. Dassie told me that through that sleepless night of pain he experienced much joy in the fact that God had permitted him to perform his duty. After arriving at the hospital, he sent telegrams to his brother and sister-in-law and to the Reverend Edwin H. Rian saying that there was no cause for alarm.
In the afternoon I left for Carson as I had a Bible class at Leith in the evening. I felt little alarm as I knew he was in good hands. I asked the Reverend William Lemke of Bismarck, an evangelical minister, to call and minister to his wants, and told Dassie that I had done this. Mr. Lemke throughout his illness rendered every service that he could. The Auburn Affirmationist in Bismarck called and told him that if he could do anything, he would be glad to do so. This visit disturbed Dr. Machen considerably. He said when I went back the next day, ‘Sam, you understand. It is not that I have an unforgiving spirit. I would gladly forgive him if he asked forgiveness. And I do pray that he will see the Christ. But he has another Christ. He cannot help me. He should not come to me in this condition. He should wait until I can discuss things with him. He just doesn’t speak the language. Mr. Lemke speaks the language,’ meaning the language of a truly born-again person.
That morning, Thursday, I was informed that he had pneumonia. His breath was coming hard. I talked to the doctors and they told me that there must be found some way of getting Das to rest. He was sending telegram after telegram and was greatly disturbed by the visit of the Auburn Affirmationist minister. I determined to stay in Bismarck and do what I could to help him get rest. He needed all his breath and I spent very little time in his room those two days, Thursday and Friday.
Thursday evening I had a precious visit with him. I prayed with him. After prayer, he told me of a vision he had. He said that he thought he had already died. ‘Sam,’ he said, ‘it was glorious.’ One could see that he had had a vision of heaven. He had already seen his Lord. He ended by saying, ‘Sam, isn’t the Reformed faith grand?’ This conversation was enough in itself to cause me to dedicate myself anew to propagate the Reformed faith as God gave grace, wisdom, and strength.
The nurse told me that he was resigned and had repeatedly told her, ‘Let God’s will be done.’ New Year’s Eve at 11:30 PM, I called on the nurse who told me that he was doing poorly. In the morning he was very low, but still had a chance. I stayed in the hospital, sometimes outside of his room and sometimes in the room. At rare intervals he would awake. He was fighting for breath. His lungs were fast closing up. One time he was telling Charlie Woodbridge something and then Paul Woolley. Then the nurse told him that Sam Allen had called. He said, ‘Fine fellow, Sam. Give him my regards.’ Then his eyes saw me and he said, ‘I’m just about conscious, Sam, just about conscious.’ This was the only time I know that his mind wandered even for a minute. This was about 2:00 PM Friday.
I never dreamed that he would ever regain consciousness again. To my surprise, when I went to his room at 4:00 PM with the Reverend E.E. Matteson and the Reverend C.A. Balcom, he was conscious and his mind was clear as crystal and he said, ‘Sam, old boy, everything is all right.’ I was quite excited at this turn for the better and left the room, not wishing to hurt his chances any. I knew that there was only a very small part of the left lung remaining to breathe through, but I hoped against hope and prayed for a miracle.
He was very desirous of seeing his beloved brother Arthur and his sister-in-law. He had thought they were coming on the noon train, and it was tragic to see his disappointment when they failed to appear. I do not know why he had the idea that they were coming on the noon train, but he surely thought they were. When his brother and his brother’s wife were pulling into Bismarck at 7:45 PM, this great soul, this marvelous, cultured, childlike, noble, courageous Christian leader breathed his last, and his soul went to be with the Lord.
His last words were put down in a very precise way in a message to John Murray. ‘I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.’ His nurse took this message.
When I could finally think, after seeing one go whom I loved as much as I loved any human, three Scripture passages came to my mind. Philippians 1:23 and 24. It was indeed better for him to be with Christ, and it did seem to me that it was absolutely necessary for him to abide in the flock to continue to lift up our hands. Second Samuel 3:38, ‘A prince and a great man had fallen in Israel.’ And Second Timothy 4:7, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’
Das kept telling me that I wasn’t seeing him at his best, but I believe that the Lord gave me the privilege of seeing him at his very, very best. I know that his last few days will always inspire me, for they gave me a picture of a truly humble, courteous Christian gentleman and of an indomitable spirit controlled by a passionate desire to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.”
And that concludes the reminiscences of the Reverend Samuel J. Allen, the minister who spent the most time with Machen in his final days.
Now, a few words of context again from the Stonehouse biography. Context for Machen’s famous statement sent in the telegram, “So thankful for the active obedience of Christ, no hope without it,” sent to John Murray. In this paragraph in the Stonehouse biography, we see why that was. And I read on page 451:
“The reference to the active obedience of Christ finds its background in a sermon on that theme he had preached over the radio on December 20th. Previously he had been discussing the doctrine with Murray as he occasionally did other topics with which he dealt. And now that he realized that he was about to pass over the river into the eternal city, he bore testimony to the confidence that he reposed in the substitutionary atonement of Christ. And so he gave expression to the conviction that he had assurance not only of remission of sin and its penalty, but also of being accepted as perfectly obedient and righteous and so an heir of eternal life because of the perfect obedience of Christ to the divine will. And it was most characteristic of Machen that even in his agony he wanted to express his exultant faith to one who shared it with him in rich measure. His eyes were upon Christ as his living hope, but he was also virtually thanking his colleague for his contribution to the appreciation of that doctrine as they had discussed it together on the basis of the word of God.”
So Machen on his deathbed was comforted by biblical doctrine, so should we all be. And Machen had his faults. We do not worship him. We consider him a saint in the way that all believers are saints. But a better example for those convinced of the Reformed faith, of Presbyterian doctrine and church order, a better example probably cannot be found. So thanks for listening on this special edition recorded on January the 1st, 2020, the 83rd anniversary of the death of J. Gresham Machen.
Speaker 1: “…and a foundation of doctrinal correctness which perhaps at the same time unwittingly groomed him for the kind of upheaval which he experienced in Germany and for which Herrmann was the catalyst.”
The state of the PCUSA, the mainline northern Presbyterian church, was itself, not in particularly good shape at the time of Machen’s birth in 1881. As Dennison suggests, and as a liberal like Lefferts Loetscher of Princeton in his work The Broadening Church celebrates… Princeton Seminary was engaged in a full-court press in the defense of the faith. That’s true, but many of the other seminaries were beginning to embrace or had already embraced biblical higher criticism. Several heresy trials revolving around such critical claims had resulted in ecclesiastical convictions: Swing in Chicago in 1874, McCune at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati in 1877, Charles Briggs at Union Seminary in 1893, or Henry Preserved Smith at Lane Seminary in 1894.
But ever since the reunion of the Old and the New School in 1869—a reunion which was opposed by Charles Hodge—the church had become more and more infected with doctrinal error. What happened was there was a split from 1837 to 1869 between what’s called the Old School and the New School. The Old School and the New School came back together in 1869. You might say, “Oh, well why did the Old School and the New School come back together in the North in 1869? That means the New School had worked out all of its doctrinal problems?” The New School denied the substitutionary penal atonement, held a governmental view of the atonement, denied the imputation of Adam’s sin; there were a number of doctrinal problems here.
Had they solved all of those doctrinal problems? Charles Hodge recognized that they hadn’t solved the doctrinal problems; they just ignored them. Why did they come back together? Because we have all fought this Civil War together, and our sons and daughters have died. What really separated us, some said from the New School side, was slavery. Now that’s gone, and we can come together. Hodge said, “I want to come together, but on the right basis.” Hodge said, “Why don’t we come together with the Old School Southern Church?” And everybody was like, “No way.” They didn’t want to hear that at that point. We don’t want to come together with those people. So the New School and the Old School in the North came together, and there were these problems.
So we say it was not a vigorous, healthy, vibrant church in which Machen was reared, but one more interested with maintaining the favor of this world than uncompromisingly standing for the truths of the gospel. Such compromise in that church manifested itself in a host of ways, not only with those heresy trials. In 1903, the Westminster Confession was revised in an Arminian direction. In 1906, the Arminian Cumberland Presbyterians joined together and they all formed the mainline Presbyterian Church. A lot of other churches—Methodist and Episcopalian and so forth—formed the Federal Council of Churches in 1908.
It is hardly surprising that Machen, brought up in this kind of attenuated, weak Presbyterianism, had his faith shaken when he encountered liberalism. Machen emerged from the encounter with Herrmann and the like with a rock-solid confidence in the certainty of God’s Word. Going on to write masterworks on The Origin of Paul’s Religion (1921) and The Virgin Birth (1930). Those are two of his real masterworks.
His work on The Origin of Paul’s Religion is very relevant to the Federal Vision controversy. That’s a work in which he addresses the question asserted in his day that Paul had made up Christianity out of Greek and Roman sources. He says, “No. What Jesus taught and what Paul taught is the same thing.” One of the great quotes from that book that could apply to FV was that either Paul and Jesus were wrong about the Jews of their day, or the Jews of their day were wrong about the Old Testament. Because Federal Vision and New Perspective on Paul says that the Jews of Jesus and Paul’s day understood grace and had a religion of grace. I’m not saying the Old Testament doesn’t teach a religion of grace, but it wasn’t understood by those of the day. Jesus makes that very clear in the way He interacts. Machen is saying either Jesus and Paul were wrong, or they were wrong about the Old Testament. The answer is they were wrong about the Old Testament; they didn’t rightly understand it.
He publishes these marvelous works as well as staunchly defending the five fundamentals that were set forth at the General Assemblies of 1910, 1916, and 1923. The five fundamentals in the teens and the twenties: the inerrancy of the Bible, the virgin birth of Christ, the vicarious substitutionary atonement of Christ to satisfy divine justice, the physical resurrection of Christ, and the miracles of our Lord. All of these were proclaimed to be essential doctrines of the Word of God, and they were under attack by the modernists.
Speaker 1: None of this came about without a monumental struggle that lasted far after Machen’s return from Germany until perhaps 1912. After 1912, with Machen, we tend to see a clear resolution of what had begun in Germany: the conviction that liberalism, attractive and appealing as it may be, was something altogether different from Christianity. I don’t mean by liberalism anything that has to do with politics. That’s not what we’re talking about here. It has nothing to do with politics. Liberalism in this case means a denial of what the Bible teaches. A humanistic religion, not a divine, supernatural, revealed religion, but a religion that man has made up. It’s about doing good works and being kind. That’s what Machen is talking about.
He says that liberalism, attractive and appealing as it may be, was something altogether different from Christianity. After hearing one particularly powerful liberal lecture in Göttingen, Machen wrote his brother Arthur that while Bousset’s teaching was tantalizing, “whether it, such liberalism, is the Christian faith that has been found to overcome the world is very doubtful.”
Here in seed form is the great argument that Machen will put forth in his 1923 masterwork, Christianity and Liberalism. If you want to read a book that is a classic and sounds like it was written yesterday in terms of what it’s addressing, read Christianity and Liberalism. That’s not his greatest work of scholarship—I would say The Origin of Paul’s Religion and The Virgin Birth are greater works of scholarship—but Christianity and Liberalism is the best book he wrote just in terms of getting it out there. You have to realize this was published by Harper & Row, a mainstream publisher. Very significant. Machen’s trial was on the front page of the New York Times. The New York Times opined that his trial was unfair and unjust. There were a lot of liberals that actually said, “We don’t like Machen or agree with Machen, but he’s not getting a fair trial.”
In his masterwork, Christianity and Liberalism, he says: “Christianity and liberalism are distinct and competing claims, both of which cannot be true. Liberalism is not just an approach to or a variant of true Christianity. It is rather something else altogether.” Christianity is a supernatural faith that calls us to trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of mankind. Liberalism is a naturalistic program that teaches us that we too ought to aspire to the religious insights and developments of Jesus, who grasped God and His love like none other. Adolf von Harnack summarized liberalism as teaching the kingdom of God, which is the present inner spiritual experience of God’s rule and power, the fatherhood of God, and the infinite worth of the human soul. Both applied to all humans without any distinction.
In other words, liberalism reduced Christianity to ethics. That’s what all false versions of Christianity reduce it to. Christianity at its heart is not in any sense about what you do for God, but what God has done for you in Christ. Our response is gratitude because God has made us alive in Christ.
Richard Sibbes said, “Never do we come before God on the basis of our sanctification to be accepted by Him. We always and ever come before God on the basis of our justification to be accepted by Him.” Pastor De Young doesn’t say, “I’ve been a pastor all these years.” You say, “The greatest Christian can only say, ‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. Naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me, Savior, or I die.’”
We think, “Oh well, that’s a sinner coming to Christ.” That’s anybody ever coming to Christ at any point. That’s the way you come to Christ always, every time. Machen is getting that. Christ was seen in liberalism as the highest ethical ideal, and salvation lay in imitating Christ. Liberalism always puts first and foremost and central imitating Jesus.
I thought we were supposed to imitate Jesus. That’s not how we’re saved. We trust in Jesus who has done for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves, and then we walk after His ways. But we do that as a response of gratitude, not so that we might be saved, but because we are saved. If you don’t see the difference in that, come talk to me afterwards because that’s the difference between heaven and hell. That’s the difference between life and death. That’s the difference between Christianity and liberalism. “What would Jesus do?” That was the social gospel. The question should be, “What would Jesus have me do?” That’s a right question. But you can only even rightly answer that question properly if you’re trusting in Jesus alone for your salvation. That’s the first thing He would have you do: believe on Him. Unless until you do that, you’re not even in the game.
You have to trust in Him. That’s the thing about Christianity and Liberalism; this isn’t some side thing. This is the center of the matter. He’s talking about what’s really important. Machen looked at this humanism that has a great appeal to sinful human flesh. He looked it full in the face and he came to reject it entirely, recognizing man’s plight and the sole remedy for such. Not in one who was merely our great example, but in one who by His life and death did what we could no longer do and undid the consequences and effects of Adam’s sin and our sin.
J. Gresham Machen noted in Christianity and Liberalism that the Jesus of liberal reconstruction is not the supernatural redeemer set forth in the Bible as the object of faith. Jesus is the object of faith. But rather, He is to be understood and accepted as the pattern of faith for us. That men ought to exercise the same quality of faith in God that Jesus exercised. Machen dedicated every ounce of his energy to striking a fatal blow to such a notion.
There are those among us in these days whose teaching might tend to commend to us the faith of Jesus as much as faith in Jesus. Who would commend to us the faith of Jesus? I have a whole section here where I talk about Federal Vision and how they can tend to point, and I give you some quotes. You can look at the Federal Vision report. We have addressed these things, and it’s important to address these things.
The Machen that we all know and love, who opposed the moderating efforts of J. Ross Stevenson at Princeton Seminary, who opposed the Plan of Union of 1920 of all Protestant churches. There was a Plan of Union in 1920 of all Protestant churches. When J. Ross Stevenson came to Princeton Seminary in 1914, that was the beginning of the end for Princeton. They were now going to go the way of all the other seminaries. The head of Princeton and Charles Erdman, the great moderate, the professor of practical theology at Princeton, were supporting this Plan of Union. What it was going to be was Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Presbyterian—all the liberal variants of that—were going to come together including the PCUSA into one big mass.
Which is really what happened up in Canada with the United Church. It was the same kind of thing. To say that Machen was unhappy is an understatement. He had come back from Germany, he had been overseas in France in the war—he worked with the YMCA giving relief and aid to troops—and he came back to the States and he found these kinds of things being pushed from Princeton. He was sick. That’s when he went to see Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. Warfield died in 1921, so Warfield is not long for this world. He has the great conversation with Warfield where he says, “J. Ross Stevenson, the president, is supporting this plan. What do we do? Do you think the church is going to split?” And that’s where Warfield said, “You can’t split rotten wood.” Warfield was very negative about it. Warfield said he died saying, “I see no hope for this. This is a terrible situation. Liberalism is just running rampant in our denomination.” He was heartbroken about it.
So the Plan of Union of 1920, the Auburn Affirmation of 1924. The Auburn Affirmation is when about 1,200 ministers, which is about a quarter of the ministers in the church, signed this document that says the five fundamentals—the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, the miracles of our Lord, the inspiration of Scripture—those are mere theories. There are other theories that can also account for the facts. They were very slippery. They didn’t say, “We deny these things.” They said, “These are okay, but there are other theories that may be employed to account for the facts.”
There is evidence that they drafted it very carefully to try to avoid charges being brought on the basis of it. If you actually look at the way the thing is drafted, it’s so political and Satanic and liberal-like. Stand up and say what you believe.
Speaker 1: Stand up and say what you believe. My wife always says when you talk about these things—you just have to know my wife, she’s so plain and forward—she says, “I don’t get it. What are these people who deny the Bible, what are they ministers for?”
And I say, well, in many liberal churches, it’s not a bad salary. It’s a pretty easy life. If you don’t really believe the Bible, you don’t have to labor hard in the scripture. Really, just read the newspaper, get a little something, get up there. It’s not such a strenuous life if you’re not a faithful minister.
I don’t know if you know the story of Steve Brown. He’s an interesting fellow. He’s a PCA minister. Steve was converted; he was a mainline minister, a PCUSA minister. He was down in Florida. Steve is a very able, very gifted fellow. So he’s in a big PCUSA church. Lots of executives in the church, and he said he was out on the links two or three times a week. He’s out playing golf. He’s having a great time playing golf. He just goes into the study and gets a little something. He reads the paper, reads a couple of poetry books, reads some other things. You come into the pulpit and everybody’s laughing and thinks it’s a great time. Throw a little scripture in there so people think, “Oh yeah, we’re in church, I forgot.” Throw a little scripture in there.
Then he got saved. He got converted. One of the things that hit him was, “I’m going to have to work.” He’s a pastor. It’s hitting him, “I have to preach the Bible. I’ve got to really preach the word.” Of course, he ends up getting the boot because when he starts preaching the Bible, they don’t really want to hear that. But he said, “Wow, it just hit me.” One of the things the executives, all these big cats in the church, didn’t like is they say, “Pastor, you’re not out on the links with us.” And he’s like, “I have work to do.” They’re like, “What are you talking about? Take it easy. Don’t get so fired up about all this Bible stuff. We liked you the way you were.” And he’s like, “Yeah, no, that’s the problem. Everybody’s going to hell in the church.” They don’t want to hear that. But he’s saying, “I got to work. I have work to do.”
And all this other stuff as evidence of liberalizing: the Commission of 1925, the reorganization of Princeton of 1927 to ‘29, the Rethinking Missions of 1931. The Rethinking Missions report, the so-called Hocking Report, really got Machen going because the report basically says going into a culture and preaching that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and preaching that there’s no way you can be saved but through Jesus—that’s not what we should be doing to cultures. We should go in and help them with agriculture and help them with their lives, live better lives. If they’re Buddhist or Hindu or whatever, help them to be the best that.
Machen is like, “This is a denial of the gospel. This is a flat-out denial of the gospel.” He was thus involved in the formation—this is why he formed with others the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions in 1933. He formed that because there were plenty of faithful Presbyterian missionaries who didn’t go along with that kind of thing, but there were some who did. Machen said, “We send the money to the mission board. Yes, there are godly missionaries out there, no question about that, but there are also those who believe—it’s a mixed bag. We’ve got to have something where we know all the money is being rightly used.” So they formed the Independent Board, and Presbyterians started coming over from the faithful and started coming over from the old church.
That got the General Assembly all in an uproar. They didn’t like that. The General Assembly of 1934 said, “You can’t do this. You cannot give to any outside agency.” You have to support the church; you can’t support anything else. They say it’s just not that you can’t give outside; if you don’t support the church, that is like not taking communion in the church. That is equivalent to not taking communion.
All of this is news to Machen. He basically said to the General Assembly, “Can you support this with scripture? I believe that you have authority, but your authority is ministerial and declarative. This isn’t Rome. You can’t simply promulgate canon law. You can’t simply on your own authority say these things. It has to be a basis for this.” They tell him to be quiet, stop talking like that, you’re disrespectful. And he’s saying, “No, I’m not trying to be disrespectful. We’re Protestants, aren’t we?” Of course, Machen is right. The church can’t just give commands; it has to be based biblically. It has to be lawful. But he gets charged with disobeying the command of the General Assembly and tossed out. A number of other guys get tossed out as well, and that’s the formation of the OPC.
Where did Machen get the strength to resist? His study of scripture, growing in faith by the power of the Spirit after he returned to teach at Princeton in 1906, convinced him more and more that the Bible was the very word of God and that the historicism of his day was wrong. That was really the issue: that this is the word of God, and this sets the plate, and that historicism is wrong. Here’s how you can attain certainty: believe the testimony that God has given us in His word to the salvation that we have in Him who is the living Word. This is the legacy of J. Gresham Machen. Thank you.
Machen came more and more to recognize that historicists had presuppositions—that is, pre-commitments, just beliefs that they held—that were anti-supernatural. They just ruled out the supernatural as part of their naturalism. And that their rejection of God’s superintendence of the inspiration of his word was of a piece with their rejection that God actively governed and sustained the world.
In other words, Machen said, “Wait a minute. They’re saying, ‘How could God, through all of these men, through all the course of these 1600 years, so speak through these men so as to not—their personalities are expressed here, their styles of writing are expressed in the Bible, they weren’t taking mechanical dictation when they wrote the Bible—but it’s the words of man in one sense, but it’s the very word of God. It’s the very word God intended.’ How could that be? Wait a minute. God governs the whole world. God governs everything. What’s the problem with that? How would that not be?”
And then he recognized, “Oh, these men who are denying that don’t believe God governs the world.” Well, that’s total paganism. That’s total atheism. They don’t believe God governs the world, so it’s no wonder they don’t believe in the governance of scripture, that the scripture is inspired. But if you think God governs the world, well, what’s the problem?
In other words, Machen rejected historicism because he came to understand and fully embrace providence. We see this especially by what he wrote in 1912 in Christianity and Culture and in 1915 in History and Faith. These are in that shorter volume of works by Machen. By the way, I should say this, if you want to get one thing on Machen—there are a lot of good things out there—you really should start with the Ned Stonehouse biography of Machen. It’s magnificent. It’s not a critical biography in the sense that Stonehouse is a New Testament scholar, he’s not a historian. Machen was his friend and mentor. It’s a very good biography. One of my colleagues at seminary testifies that it was reading this as a high schooler—Professor Vanderhart—that as much as anything moved him to say God’s calling me to the ministry. A marvelous book. This is the 50th anniversary; I have earlier printings published in 1954, and in 2004 the OPC published this edition, the 50th-anniversary edition of this J. Gresham Machen Stonehouse.
But you can read these articles, Christianity and Culture and History and Faith, in the Machen collected writings volume edited by Darryl Hart. But in these articles, Machen makes it clear that he had thoroughly imbibed a view that a sovereign God governed all of history and that such a God could indeed give us his word without error. It is by believing the infallible word that Machen attained certainty. The certainty that allowed him to stand Luther-like against the errors of the PCUSA and modernism more broadly in his day, and to encourage us to like faithfulness in our own day.
Machen’s faithfulness, clarity, and certainty were never more evident than in his justly famous last words sent to John Murray. You may know that as he lay dying—he died January 1st, 1937, out in the plains of North Dakota. He had gone out there to keep an engagement. He contracted pneumonia; he had a bad time out there. He died. But he sent a telegram to John Murray and he said, “So thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.”
Now this man, as he lay dying—this man who was, more than any single human, responsible for the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church; this man who had served Christ unceasingly and untiringly for so many years, who was a stalwart defender of the faith—as he lay dying, what he was thinking about wasn’t, “Wow, what a life I’ve had. What a career I’ve had.” Rather, he thought, “No. No, it’s not about me or my doing or anything of the sort. It’s only because Jesus Christ not only died for me but kept the law for me. I’m not the law keeper; He’s the law keeper. I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ.”
He knew that all that he had done was in no way sufficient and didn’t even enter into the view. His hope was in Christ and what Christ had done for him. What comforted and gave a certain assurance to the dying Machen was not reflection on his life, but faith in the one who had not only died for his sins but who had perfectly kept the whole law in his place. Here’s the only basis for certainty for us all: that we are accepted in the beloved. That we cannot please God by our own efforts. In fact, we could never, even by His grace, please Him more than He is already pleased with us in Christ.
If He’s not pleased with us in Christ, what do you think you can do to make Him pleased with you? If He’s not pleased with you in Christ, what can you possibly do? No, we need to glory in Him. Here’s how you can attain certainty: believe the testimony that God has given us in His word to the salvation that we have in Him who is the living Word. This is the legacy of J. Gresham Machen. Thank you.