WE ARE PRESBYTERIAN

By NED B. STONEHOUSE, TH.D.

Dr. Stonehouse was Assistant Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary. 

The issue of liberty has been in the foreground of the struggle within the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. which has centered about the Independent Board, and consequently the defenders of that Board have been forced to emphasize the fact and the right of its independence of ecclesiastical control.

But this insistence upon independence seems to some to involve a sacrifice of true Presbyterianism.  Have the founders of the Independent Board lost their Presbyterian convictions and become advocates of Independentism in the sphere of church government? Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Their stand for independence is like that of the founders of Westminster Seminary.  Westminster was organized independently of the General Assembly because of the conviction that a truly Presbyterian ministry could no longer be expected from Princeton after its educational policy had come under the control of the modernist-indifferentist coalition in the church.  Similarly, those who had been working for the reform of the Board of Foreign Missions because they could take no part in the furtherance of modernism without compromising their Presbyterian convictions, were confronted with a stone wall of indifference and unbelief at the General Assembly. Independence was resorted to, therefore, only in order to bring about a reform that was truly Presbyterian in character and to perpetuate true Presbyterianism at all costs, abroad as at home.

In the most careful manner this commitment to Presbyterianism has been guarded by the Charter of the Independent Board.  Its Board, like that of Westminster Seminary, is called upon to pledge its adoption of the Confession of Faith as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. And its missionaries, like the Faculty of West­minster, are tolerated only if they heartily accept, teach and defend historic Presbyterianism. In one respect, indeed, the Independent Board goes even beyond Westminster Seminary in its emphasis upon this point.  For even its name strikingly reminds every inquirer, whether friend or foe, of its distinctive purpose: it is the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

The Independent Board is concerned, therefore, to preserve and advance that conception of Christianity which historically has been known as the Reformed Faith. True, its protest has been directed largely against modernism.  And no wonder.  For the Christian churches are in a life and death struggle with modernism, which is not Christianity at all.

In this great struggle we rejoice in the opportunity to take our stand with other evangelicals against this great enemy as, for example, in a movement like the League of Evangelical Students. Presbyterians are on common ground with historic Christianity in all of its branches in its supernaturalism, and with all of Protestantism in so far as it has continued to accept the Bible as the Word of God and to proclaim the gospel of the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, in the midst of the great battle against modernism, we continue to cherish our distinctiveness as Presbyterians. The Independent Board is committed not to a mere common-denominator Christianity but to Presbyterianism.

What then is Presbyterianism? Presbyterianism may be defined as the Reformed Faith, or Calvinism, as it comes to expression in the life of a church. Its ecclesiastical distinctiveness has its roots in its theo­logical distinctiveness. And its concern for distinctiveness, both theological and ecclesiastical, is not a naive resting in arbitrary and fanciful beliefs which is quite detached from the movement of Christi­anity in history. It makes its final appeal to the Bible alone, and claims the support of true Biblical scholarship; it is simply consistent Christianity, Christianity as it has been confessed in its purest and clearest form in the doctrinal standards of the Reformed churches, and notably in the Westminster Confession of Faith; it is religion and evangelicalism at their zenith because at its heart is the conviction that man is completely dependent upon God for all things—for salvation as for life itself.

Presbyterianism and the Bible

The great principle of the Reformation that only the Word of God has absolute authority in the church came to consistent expression and application in Presbyterianism. The history of Presbyterianism may be epitomized as a struggle for the liberty which is guaranteed in the truth that Christ is the only Head of the church, and that His will, as known only through the Scriptures, is its only law. The Westminster Confession is a great manifesto of the liberty which belongs to God’s children through their recognition of the supreme authority of the Word—it protests against every attempt to bind men’s consciences to “the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to His Word, or beside it, in matters of faith or worship” (XX: 2), and insists that “the Supreme Judge, by whom all contro­versies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture” (I: 10).

These statements concerning the authority of the Word of God were undoubtedly formulated in view of the Roman Catholic con­ception of the authority of the church, but they stand in even more direct antithesis to modernism. For modernism represents a far more radical attack upon this great principle of the Reformation than any which has arisen within the Roman Catholic Church itself. An interesting expression of the position of modernism concerning the relation of the Bible to the church is found in the initial number (Autumn, 1935) of the new quarterly, Christendom, from the pen of Dr. Morrison, its editor, and editor of The Christian Century. To set the Bible above the church is characterized as “the common Protestant fallacy,” and the New Testa ment is said to be “one remove farther away from the mind of Christ than is this living church” (pp. 53, 56).

This leaven has been at work in the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. The Auburn Affirmation asserts that the doctrine of an inerrant Bible is harmful to the witness of the church, an assertion that is made in spite of the fact that inerrancy is simply a corollary of the doctrine of the supreme authority of the Scriptures as the Word of God, as formulated in the Confession of Faith. And now apparently the church as a whole stands committed to the position, as enunciated by the mandate of the Assembly 0f 1934, that loyal Presbyterianism is synonymous with unquestioned obedience to decrees of General Assemblies.

Who are the loyal Presbyterians? Those who talk of loyalty to Presbyterianism while they meekly submit to unscriptural decrees of councils, and even declare that the authority of a General Assembly may not be challenged, are striking at the very heart of Presbyterianism. It is rather the supporters of the Independent Board, together with other forces that are striving to uphold the supreme place of the Word of God against modernism and its allies, who are showing concern for the perpetuation of true Presbyterianism.

Presbyterianism and the Creeds

The hostility of modernism to creedal Christianity is grounded ultimately in its antipathy to the doctrinal character of Christianity.

This anti-doctrinal point of view frequently comes to expression in an indiscriminate zeal to wipe out denominational lines. In the article in Christendom which was referred to above, this modernist philosophy of church unionism, consistent with its demand that the Bible shall be subordinated to the church, insists that “doctrine is not prior to unity but unity takes precedence over doctrine” (p, 51). The modernist regards disunity in the organization of the Christian church as sin, but his radical indifference to the truth and to the sins of unbelief and denial causes him to overlook the deeper unity of all of the true children of God who rest in the truth of God’s Word and witness a good confession.

Here again the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. and its defenders have shown themselves to stand on the side of modernism rather than on the side of historic Presbyterianism. In its actual work it shows a lack of concern for Presbyterianism that has gone so far as to fail to maintain even a distinctly evangelical witness. It co-operates, for example, with mod ernist organizations like the Church of Christ in China. The Board apparently is not ashamed of its doctrinal indifference, for one of its leading spokesmen, in an address delivered in Philadelphia some time ago, declared openly that it was not trying to perpetuate Presbyteri anism on the mission fields.

On the other hand, the Independent Board does not apologize for Presbyterianism. It seeks to organize Presbyterian churches in foreign lands, not only because, through its legal incorporation, it stands committed to Presbyterianism, but also because its members and missionaries glory in historic Presbyterianism as the synonym for consistent Christianity.

Presbyterianism and the Gospel

A satisfactory summary of the essence of Presbyterianism may not stop with an expression of its loyalty to the Bible and to the system of doctrine taught therein and formulated in its creeds, but must also include an expression of its distinctive preaching of the gospel. In its evangelicalism Presbyterianism joins with all true Protestants in pro claiming the central message of justification as grounded in the finished work of Christ and received by faith alone, a message which magnifies the grace of God and glories in the redemptive character of the work of Christ.

But Presbyterians go further to insist that this message be presented in its full Biblical consistency. Because God is the One upon whom man is completely dependent for salvation as for life itself,  “evangelical religion reaches stability only when the sinful soul rests in humble, self-emptying trust purely on the God of grace as the immediate and sole source of all the efficiency which enters into its salvation” (Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism, p. 355). The mark of Calvin ism is in its recognition of the truth that God “in His saving operations deals not generally with mankind at large, but particularly with the individuals who are saved” (Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, p. 111). The classic summary of the particularism of God’s operations of grace is found in the five points of Calvinism—total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints. No one who denies or minimizes or passes over in his preaching this great truth, that man is saved only as God through the gift of His Son and of His Spirit saves him, can claim rightly the historic name of Presbyterianism.

The Reformed Faith, accordingly, cannot be reconciled with Arminianism; but the Presbyterian conception of the plan of salvation, like its doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, finds its greatest antithesis in modernism which goes far beyond Arminianism in its optimistic con ception of man’s ability to supply the determining factor in his salvation. Modernism ultimately makes man his own saviour. In keeping with its denial of man’s complete dependence upon God to effect his salvation, modernism usually centers its attack upon the Biblical doctrine of the Atonement, which sets forth so clearly the fact that men are saved only because Christ died in their place upon the cross.

Is this doctrine of the Atonement important? The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. hardly thinks so. The hundreds of ministers who signed the Auburn Affirmation are completely indifferent to the importance of the truth that “Christ offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and to reconcile us to God.” Meanwhile the church as a whole is tolerant of their heresy, and even honors many of them with positions of special influence. Truly, the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. has drifted far from the historic witness of Presbyterianism to the gospel.

The Board of Foreign Missions of that denomination, although it has been commissioned to speed the message of saving health to heathen lands, makes common cause with the attack of modernism upon the gospel. The evidence of its unfaithfulness has accumulated, but there have been no signs of repentance or of reform from within. Even the repudiation, on the part of one of its missionaries, of the Biblical doctrine of the substitutionary Atonement, and his denial that the cross was a sacrifice offered to God, have resulted only in an enthusiastic defense of his fine character by the Senior Secretary of the Board.

The Independent Board takes Presbyterianism seriously. It acknowledges the supreme authority of the Word of God. It joyfully witnesses a good confession through the great Presbyterian creeds. And it exists and labors because its members, supporters, and missionaries, are zealous that the gospel of Christ and of Him crucified shall sound forth to the ends of the earth.

Copyright 2000 - Calvary OPCA, Ringoes, NJ   -  Page Updated on 04/23/07