The Plight of Man and the Power of God

by

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

(This book was derived from lectures given in the Assembly Hall of the Free Church College, Edinburgh during the second week in March, 1941.)

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION

This second edition is printed as the result of numerous requests during the past two and a half years. Nothing but the acute paper shortage has delayed its appearance.

After reading the book again, I came to the conclusion that the best plan was to reprint it exactly in its original form. Though the lectures were delivered in Edinburgh during the course of the recent war, and though there are many references to the war and to conditions obtaining at the time, the subject matter is not topical in the restricted sense of that term.

The problems dealt with are the permanent problems confronting mankind, and their consideration is as relevant now, as we face the post-war period, as it was during the

war.

It has been a source of deep satisfaction and great joy to me to know that these lectures have helped many to an understanding of the Christian faith, and has strengthened and buttressed the faith of others.

I can wish nothing better for this further edition than that it should continue that work on a still wider scale to the glory of God.

D. M. LLOYD-JONES

September, 1945

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION

The first four chapters of this book were delivered as lectures in the Assembly Hall of the Free Church College, Edinburgh, at the invitation of the Senatus of that College, during the second week in March, 1941. I indicated at the close of the last lecture that nothing but circumstances prevented my adding a further lecture, which I deemed to be vital, along the lines now developed in Chapter V. The substance of each was also delivered in a more purely sermonic form at Westminster Chapel.

The whole purpose of the book is explained clearly in the introduction to the first lecture. Stated in other terms it is the thesis advanced by Cassius in the well-known words:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Much as we dislike doing so, and however painful it may be to our pride, without the realisation and confession of that truth, there is no hope of true awakening in the Church. Still less can we look forward with confidence to the coming of the much-heralded "new world order."

Professor Donald MacLean, at the close of the last lecture, was kind enough to describe the series as "an exposition of biblical theology with the avoidance of technical terms." I am content with the description, and I can but hope that my attempt to expound the great and terrible passage of Scripture on which the lectures are based, will serve in some small measure to give a further impetus to the revival of that sadly-neglected discipline.

The preparation of the material for publication has brought back to me happy memories of the week of rich fellowship I was privileged to enjoy in the great city of John Knox.

D. M. LL.-J.

CONTENTS.

THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF MANKIND

RELIGION AND MORALITY

THE NATURE OF SIN

THE WRATH OF GOD

THE ONLY SOLUTION

THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF MANKIND

ROMANS 1. 2 1

"Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened."

We are all familiar with the saying which reminds us that there are times when we have "to be cruel to be kind." And we know how that truth has to be applied in the realm of training children or in dealing with someone who is ill. The conditions may be such that the best interest of the child or the patient is served by causing temporary pain. It is a difficult task for the parent or the doctor, a task from which he shrinks and which he tries to avoid to the uttermost. But if he has the real interest of the other at heart he just has to do it.

Now that, it seems to me, is the principle which the Church is called upon to put into practice at the present time, if she is to function truly as the Church of God in this hour of crisis and calamity. That she shrinks from doing so (and let us remember that there is no such thing as the Church apart from ourselves who compose and constitute the Church) is as evident as it is in the case of individuals. It is always more pleasant to soothe and to comfort than to cause pain and to arouse unpleasant reactions.

But surely the time has arrived when the situation of the world today must be dealt with and considered in a radical manner.

Nothing could be more fatal than for the impression to get abroad that the one business of the Church is to soothe and to give comfort to men and women who have been rendered unhappy by the present circumstances. I say the "one business," for, of course, We all must thank God for the marvellous and wondrous consolation which the Gospel alone can give. But if we give the impression that that is the only function of the Church, then we partly justify the criticism levelled at her that her main function is to supply a kind of "dope" to the people. At first, under the immediate shock of war, it was essential that we should be steadied and comforted; but if the Church continues to do nothing but this, then surely we give the impression that our Christianity is something which is very weak and lifeless. The ministry of comfort and consolation is a part of the work of the Church, but if she devotes the whole of her energy to that task alone as she did in general during the last war, she will probably emerge from this present trouble with her ranks still more depleted and counting for still less in the life of the people.

In the same way, if she contents herself with nothing beyond vague general statements designed to help and to encourage the national effort--if she but tries to add a spiritual gloss to the statements and speeches of the secular leaders of the country--while she may well gain a certain amount of temporary applause and popularity and find herself being employed by the powers that be, in the end she will stand discredited in the eyes of the discerning.

Apart from anything else, for the Church to be content with either of these two attitudes or with a combination of both, is for her to place herself in a Purely negative position. She is merely palliating symptoms instead of dealing positively and actively with the disease. She is simply trying to tide over the difficulties, or, to change the metaphor, she is a mere accompanist instead of being the soloist. She is replying to a statement instead of issuing the challenge, and thereby appears as if she is somewhat frightened and bewildered. In the same way, and here I speak more especially to those of us who are Evangelicals, we must not continue with our religious life and methods precisely as if nothing were 'happening round and about us, and as if we were still living in the spacious days of peace. We have loved certain methods. And how delightful they were! What could be more enjoyable than to have and to enjoy our religion in the form in which we have for so long been familiar with it? How enjoyable just to sit and listen. What an intellectual and perhaps also emotional and artistic treat. But alas! how entirely unrelated to the world in which we live it has often been! How little has it had to offer to men and women who have never known our background and our kind of life, who are entirely ignorant of our very idiom and even our presuppositions. But in any case how detached and self-contained, how remote from a world that is seething in trouble with the foundations of everything that has been most highly-prized rocking and shaking.

We must rouse ourselves and realise afresh that though our Gospel is timeless and changeless, it nevertheless is always contemporary. We must meet the present situation and we must speak a word to the world that none else can speak.

There are many reasons why we should do so. The need of the world, its agony, its pain, its disease, call upon us to do so. But apart from that, it is our duty to do so. It is a part of the original commission given to the Church. She is a debtor in the sense in which St. Paul so describes himself in the fourteenth verse of this chapter. There are indeed some who would say that if the Church fails in this present crisis, that if she does not realise that her very existence is at stake, the main result of the present troubled state of the world will be the end of the Church. That is a proposition from which I thoroughly dissent. The Church will continue because she is the Church of God and because He will sustain her until her work is completed. But if we fail we may well find the Church weakened in numbers and in power to a degree that has not been true Of her for many a long century. And, above all, we shall have been traitors to the cause.

We must deal with the present position as it is. But the way in which we do so is of vital importance. And that is why I say that we must be prepared to "be cruel to be kind." If we are anxious to help and to speak the redeeming word, we must first of all probe the wound and reveal the trouble. That cannot be done without giving rise to pain and perhaps also to offence. And that, in turn, will lead to our being unpopular and disliked in a sense that can never be true of us if we are merely soothing the world, or else more or less ignoring it entirely, whilst we enjoy our own religion. I would say again that her failure in general to deal vitally and realistically with the situation during the last war is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Christian Church.

That must not be repeated, whatever it may cost. The last war was regarded as a kind of interlude in the drama of life, and men, failing to realise that it was an essential and inevitable part of the drama itself, just waited for it to end that they might resume at the point at which they suddenly left off in August, I914. The real problem was not faced. But surely the history of the past twenty years and the present scene must force us to face the problem. Our attitude must not just be one of waiting for the war to end in order that we may resume our normal activities. We must be more active than we have ever been before and especially in our thinking.

The great central question is this. Why is the world in its present condition? But this must be considered very particularly in the light of the teaching concerning life that has been most popular during the past hundred years. That things are as they are is bad enough. But when we contrast them with the bright and optimistic pictures of life which have been held before us so constantly, the problem becomes heightened. The War of 1914-18, as has been said, was regarded as but a strange and inexplicable pause in the forward march of human progress. The progress was to be continued after the war. And here we are in our present circumstances! How can all this be explained? What is the cause of the trouble

Surely it must be obvious by now that that whole view of life was entirely wrong and false? But is it? Is it obvious to all of us who claim to be Christians? Have not many of us rejoiced for years in what we fondly regarded as the inevitable progress of the world? Have we not felt within ourselves that, in spite of dwindling Church membership and Church attendance, and in spite of the obvious deterioration in the general tone of life, the world was nevertheless a better place? While the world has been gradually but certainly drifting to its present position, the voice of the majority, far from issuing warnings of alarm, has rather been rejoicing in the wonderful achievements of man and the dawning of a wondrous new era in human history.

There can be but one explanation of that: such a view of life must be tragically and fundamentally wrong.

It is in order to expose that fallacy, and to reveal the truth, that I call your attention to this second half of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. I know of no passage in Scripture which describes so accurately the world of today and the cause of the trouble. Indeed, there is nothing in contemporary writing which so perfectly describes the present scene. It is a terrible passage. Melancthon described the eighteenth verse as "an exordium terrible as lightning." And it has not only the terrifying quality of lightning, but also its illuminating power. I am anxious to consider it with you, as it reveals some of the common underlying fallacies that have been responsible for the false view of life that has deluded mankind for so long.

The first matter that must engage our attention is the view of man himself, and especially in his relationship to God.

There is no need to indicate how this matter is quite fundamental. For our whole approach to man and his problems will depend upon our view of man. And nowhere, perhaps, is the complete antithesis between the Biblical view and the popular view of the last years more evident than here. The second half of the last century will always be remembered as a period of immense intellectual activity and of scientific research. Even yet we are not perhaps fully aware of all the changes which were wrought as the result of that effort. But surely nothing was more remarkable as a direct result of all this than the entire change which took place in the view held of man. We are not concerned at the moment, and have not the time to deal with the general question of the new view that came into vogue of man's origin and development. We are interested rather in the new view that came into being with respect to man's relationship to God. At the same time, we would indicate that the same general controlling principle held sway here as in the other matter the principle of growth and development. That principle indeed can be found running through all the views of life and of man that gained currency during that period. In the realm of religion this whole tendency gave rise to a new science, or what was termed a science--namely, the study of comparative religion. This arose partly as the result of the colonizing movements of the previous century and partly also as a result of the facts that came to light in connection with the work of the various missionary societies. Wherever men went they discovered that the natives and the savages all had some form or other of religion. Gradually they began to note these religions and to take special interest in noting the type of religion found in relation to the type of people amongst whom it was found. Eventually, on the basis of all this, a theory was propounded, to the effect that a definite and certain evolution and development was to be found in the history of man in a religious sense. The steps and the stages were clearly marked out as one passed from the most primitive to the most highly developed form. We cannot enter into the details, but by those who belonged to this school we were told that man in his most primitive form believed in a vague spirit that was resident in trees and stones and other objects--animism. Then came a kind of magic, then ancestor worship and totemism, ghost worship, fetishism, etc., until a stage was reached which could be described as polytheism--the state of affairs found in Greece and Rome in the time of our Lord and eventually from that to the belief in one God monotheism. All this was meant to show how there is innate in man a law which causes him to seek for God and to reach out for Him. In the most primitive and unintelligent type, we are told, it is present, and as man grows and develops and progresses the idea becomes more and more purified and noble, until we eventually arrive at the belief of the Jews in a holy and just God. Indeed, those who held this view argued that what they were thus able to elaborate as a theory on the basis of their observed data was also confirmed by what was to be found in the Old Testament itself. There, they said, could be seen clearly a gradual development in the idea of God held by the Children of Israel. The important point is that this theory presupposes that man by nature is a creature who is ever seeking and thirsting for a knowledge of God and for communion with Him, and that Christ is the Man who has penetrated furthest and reached highest in that endeavour. To some, of course, this theory just proved that God was really non-existent, and that the development which is to be observed is nothing but a gradual refining and improving, and an attempt to give intellectual respectability to what was originally a myth arising on the basis of the fear of life.

That, then, is the theory and view that has held sway. What have we to say to it?

I am directing your attention to this passage in Rom. 1 in order that we may see how false this view is. We can arrange our matter under the following headings:

(i) It is a view which is false to biblical history. St. Paul here reminds the Romans, and therefore us, that the actual facts entirely disprove this theory. He is out to show that the whole world is guilty before God. He does so by showing that all are without excuse. The way in which he demonstrates this is to show that at the commencement God having made man revealed Himself to him. He not only revealed His eternal power and Godhead in nature and in creation, from which all men ought to reason to the fact of God, but He further has placed within man, in his very nature, a knowledge and an intimation and a sense of God which should lead man to God. Man, says St. Paul, started with the knowledge of God, and if he lacks it now it is because he has deliberately suppressed and lost it. The story of man with respect to God, according to the Apostle, is not one of a gradual progress and development and rising, but rather one of decline and fall--retrogression.

And, surely, any fair reading of the Old Testament shows this to be the case. Man starts in communion with God and in a state of happiness. It is as a result of his own action, his own sin, that that communion is broken and man's problems begin. For a while this knowledge and recognition of God continued and persisted, but as we read the story we can see it becoming more and more dim. And as the knowledge of God becomes less, so the life deteriorates. I would remind you that even Abraham was brought up in a state of idolatry. Even the special line of Shem had deteriorated and had wandered away from this true knowledge of God. But then God takes hold of Abraham and gives him the special revelation of Himself. This is transmitted to Isaac and to Jacob and then to the Children of Israel. But what happens to them? You have but to read their story to see that there is ever in them precisely the same tendency as is manifest in the other branches of the human race. Far from a desire to profit by their unique position and knowledge, or a desire to delve still further into the mystery, we find rather a tendency to return to idol worship and polytheism and even forms which are still lower. Indeed, the whole story of the Old Testament may well be summarised as the story of God through His servants fighting to preserve the knowledge of Himself among a recalcitrant people who were ever tending to lapse to me lower forms of religion. Not development, but definite retrogression. My point is that if this is true of these special people to whom God was constantly giving afresh definite and unique revelations and manifestations of Himself, it is obviously ridiculous to argue that the remainder of mankind was constantly seeking and striving for a fuller and yet fuller knowledge of God. Israel did not attain unto their belief in one God as the result of their own striving and efforts. God revealed Himself to them in a unique manner. They did not seek God--they for ever wandered away from Him--He sought them and continued to guide them in spite of their waywardness. Biblical history, then, shows very clearly that the whole of mankind, which began with a knowledge of God and a life that corresponded, has fallen away from that knowledge, and that its tendency has been to sink lower and lower and further away from it. Man has not advanced from animism and fetishism, etc., to monotheism; he has degenerated in the opposite direction.

(ii) But this theory about man is also false to the history of man subsequent to biblical history. There is nothing which is more characteristic of the history of the Church than the strange periodicity which is to be found in her story. The history of the Church is in a sense a constant series of alternating periods of progress and decline, of spiritual revival and spiritual apathy. Without going any further, we can see this very clearly in the history of the' Church in our own country. Were the doctrine of progress and development true, we would expect that each revival would lead to still further inevitable progress, that men having felt the stimulus and the impetus of a great time of blessing, would redouble their efforts and continue to grow and to develop with an ever-increasing intensity. But such has not been the case. The fervour of the Protestant Reformation soon began to pass and to wane. Then came the Puritan period, when the people of this country can be truly described as godly and god-fearing--one of the noblest periods in our history. But it soon gave way to the era of the Restoration with all its sin and shame. Who could believe that the England of the early part of the eighteenth century, as described for instance in the book, England Before and After Wesley, is the same country as the England of the Puritans? And so it has continued ever since. It is not only true of the country at large, but also of particular districts, of particular places of worship, and indeed of particular families and even of particular persons. Compare this country as she is today, and as she has become during the past twenty years, with the England of the mid-Victorian period.

(iii) "But what of the evidence of comparative religion to which you have referred?" asks someone. We are very happy indeed to answer the question, for here, as in so many other realms, it is being discovered that the more thorough the research the more it confirms the biblical teaching. Nothing was more characteristic of the end of the Victorian era than the way in which theories were exalted into facts, and sweeping generalisations were made on the basis of very inadequate evidence without further confirmation and support. The tragedy is, of course, that once such ideas gain circulation, it takes a long time to undo their nefarious influence and effects. "The man in the street"--yea, and at times in the colleges also--is often many years behind the latest discoveries. For the fact is that in the field of comparative religion the latest evidence definitely supports the Bible, and it is being acknowledged more and more by scholars of repute. Take, for instance, the following two passages from an article on the subject of Comparative Religion in the Expository Times, November, 1936: "The first point brought out by the study of the most primitive cultures is the clear, vivid and direct belief in a Supreme Being which is found in them. This belief is to be found in a dominant position among all the primitive peoples. It must have been deeply rooted in this most ancient of human cultures at the very dawn of time, before the individual groups separated one from the other." Again, "The results of our study of the most primitive peoples, brief as it has been, seem to justify us in the conviction that religion began with the belief in a High God." Likewise, Professor C. H. Dodd, in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, says: "It is disputed among authorities on the comparative study of religion whether or not, in point of fact, idolatrous polytheism is a degeneration from an original monotheism of some kind; but at least there is a surprising amount of evidence that among very many peoples, not only in the higher civilizations of India and China, but in the barbarians of Central Africa and Australia, a belief in some kind of Creator-Spirit subsists along with the superstitious cults of gods or demons, and often with a more or less obscure sense that this belief belongs to a superior, or a more ancient order" (p. 26, with reference to evidence given in Soderblom, Das Werden des Gottesglaubens). Then there is the truly monumental work of Father W. Schmidt (one of whose books is translated into English and bears the title of The Origin of Religion) which produces the most striking evidence to the same effect. In other words, careful scientific investigation among the most primitive and backward races and tribes in the world produces evidence in that direction. Such a belief in the High God among such peoples is quite inexplicable, apart from what we are told in the Bible. However far away they have wandered, and however low they may have sunk, there remains this memory and tradition of what was at the beginning the common knowledge of mankind.

(iv) But I would show you that this theory, quite apart from the evidence which I have adduced, is obviously false, were it merely from the standpoint of our knowledge of the nature of man. How utterly monstrous it is to postulate this idea of man as by nature imbued with this thirst and longing to know God when you look at modern man! According to the theory, we, living as we do today and with all our advantages of learning and understanding, and the great advantage of having at our disposal the result of the evidence of all who have gone before us, should be at the very top of the ladder. Our knowledge of God should be greater, and our desire for further knowledge should be still greater. Were it not tragic, it would be laughable to make such a suggestion. How easy it is to sit in a study and to evolve a theory arranging the evidence piece by piece on paper. Everything seems to fit in perfectly, and if it does not, with the complete freedom of the theorist, it is quite easy to manipulate and to rearrange. Thus men in their academic detachment have theorised about primitive tribes and savages. If they had but walked into the street or into the night clubs of the West End, or into the hovels of the East End, they would soon have found how false was their central hypothesis. It still remains true that "the proper study of mankind is man." What is true of the individual is true of all. What is true of each one of us is true of all. And the fact is that within ourselves is the final evidence which proves that what St. Paul says is true: there is in man this antagonism to God, "the natural mind is enmity against God." Man by nature always wants to break away and to get away from God, and St. Paul tells us precisely and exactly why that is so and how that tendency shows itself.

It is due first to the inherent rebelliousness in man's nature, "When they knew God they glorified Him not as God." Men resent the very idea of God and feel that it means and implies that their liberty is somehow curtailed. They believe that they are fit to be "masters of their fate and captains of their souls," and believing that, they

demand the right to manage themselves in their own way and to live their own lives. They refuse to worship and to glorify God. They disown Him and turn their backs upon Him and say that they do not need Him. They renounce His way of life and shake off what they regard as the bondage and serfdom of religion and a life controlled by God. That is why man has always turned from God. He confuses lawlessness and licence with freedom; he is, a rebel against God and refuses to glorify God.

But it is also due to a churlish element in man's nature. What else is an adequate description of what St. Paul states in the words, "Neither were thankful." Were God merely a lawgiver we could in a sense understand man's rebellion against Him. But He is the "giver of every good and perfect gift." He is "the source and fount of every blessing." Yet man spurns Him. At the very beginning, and in spite of the fact that God had placed him in perfect conditions in Paradise, with everything that could be desired, man was ready to believe the base insinuation of Satan against God's character. He forgot all His goodness and kindness. And so it has continued. Observe it in the story of the Children of Israel. In spite of all God's patience with them, and His kindness to them, they constantly turned their backs upon Him. Nothing is so terrible in their record as their base ingratitude. But the crowning demonstration of this in the history of Israel, as in the history of mankind in general, is to be found in the rejection of Jesus Christ the Son of God. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Yea, gave Him to the cruel death on Calvary's hill that man might be pardoned and forgiven. But does mankind in general thank Him for so doing? Does it show and express its gratitude by surrendering itself to Him and trying to live to honour and glorify His name? Indeed, there is nothing that mankind so resents and hates as that crowning gift of God's love and mercy. "The offence of the Cross" is still the greatest offence in the Christian Gospel. "Neither were thankful." If man objects to God's law, he objects still more to the truth that his salvation is entirely and solely dependent upon the grace and mercy of God.

And that is so, of course, for the reason expressed in St. Paul's third step in this story of the decline and fall of mankind from the knowledge of God. It is man's pride. "They became vain in their imaginations (reasonings) and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." In other words, the final step is to reject God's revelation altogether and to substitute their own ideas and reasonings instead. They refuse the knowledge of God which is offered and given, they reject the wondrous works of God, but, feeling still the need and the necessity of a religion, they proceed to make their own god or gods and then worship them and serve them. Man believes in his own mind and his own understanding, and the greatest insult that can ever be offered to him is to tell him, as Christ tells him, that he must become as a little child and be born again.

There, then, are the steps. We shall consider them again in greater detail in subsequent lectures. But there is the general picture. Man rebels against God as He is and as He reveals Himself. He even hates Him for His goodness. And then he proceeds to make his own gods. That was not only the story of mankind at the beginning, it is a precise and exact description of the past hundred years and especially of the past forty years. Whatever we may propose to do about our world, whatever plans and ideas we may have with regard to the future, if we ignore this basic fact all will be in vain. To be kind and to indulge in vague generalisations about man and his development, etc., and to invite him just as he is to follow Christ is not enough. Man must be convinced and convicted of his sin. He must face the naked, terrible truth about himself and his attitude towards God. It is only when he realises that truth that he will be ready truly to believe the Gospel and return to God.

That is the task of the Church; that is our task. Shall we commence upon it by examining ourselves? Do we accept the revelation of God as given in the Bible or do we base our views upon some human philosophy? Are we afraid of being called old-fashioned or out of date because we believe the Bible? Further, is God central and supreme in our lives, do we really glorify Him and show others that we are striving constantly to be well-pleasing in His sight? And, finally, are we doing all this gladly and willingly, not as people who are obeying a law but as men and women who, looking at the Son of God dying on the Cross on Calvary's hill for our sins, are so full of thankfulness and gratitude that we can gladly say:

"Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all."

RELIGION AND MORALITY

ROMANS 1. 18

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men … "

I propose to call your attention to but two words in the text--namely, the words, "ungodliness" and "unrighteousness." And, in particular, we shall be interested in the order in which the two words appear and the relationship between them. To use more modem terms, we are invited by these two words in our text, and the order in which they appear, to consider the relationship between religion and morality. Here again we are face to face with a matter that has occupied much attention during the past hundred years. Here also we are considering what can be termed another of the fundamental fallacies with respect to life which are largely responsible for the present state of affairs in the world. And, precisely as we found to be the case in connection with the matter of comparative religion and man's approach to God, here again we find that during the past century there has been that same reversal of the condition which prevailed prior to that.

It is truly amazing and astonishing to note how this second half of the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans sums up so perfectly the modem situation. Had it been written specially and specifically for our clay it could not have been more perfect or more complete. Each of the main trends in the thought and reasoning of the majority of people is considered carefully, and traced to its ultimate consequences.

The key to the understanding of the whole situation is in the realisation of the fact that man by nature is inimical to God, and does his utmost to get rid of God and what he regards as the incubus of revealed religion. Man, rebelling against God as He has revealed Himself and from the kind of life that God dictates, proceeds to make for himself new gods, and new religions, and to elaborate a new way of life and of salvation.

Here, in this special matter that we propose to consider together, we have a perfect example and illustration of that tendency.

Until about a hundred years ago it was true to say of the vast majority of the people of this country that religion came first and that morality and ethics followed. In other words, all their thinking about the good life, the kind of life that should be lived, was based upon their religion and their understanding of the teaching of the Bible. "The fear of God" was the controlling motive; it was, to use the language of the Old Testament, the beginning of their wisdom. This was so, of course, because it was as the result of the various religious revivals and movements that the people had been awakened to a realisation of the utter sinfulness and depravity of their lives. As the result of becoming religious they had seen the importance of right living. That was the position.

But then came the great change. At first it was not an open denial of God, but a change and a reversal in the emphasis which was placed on these two matters. More and more, interest became fixed upon ethics, and the emphasis was placed increasingly on morality at the expense of religion. God was not denied, but was relegated increasingly to the position of a mere background to life. All this was done on the plea and the pretext that formerly too much emphasis had been Placed upon the personal and experiential aspect of religion, and that the ethical and social aspects had not been emphasised sufficiently. But increasingly the position developed into one in which it was stated, quite openly and unashamedly, that really nothing mattered but morality and conduct. Religion was seriously discounted, and it was even stated blatantly that nothing mattered save that one should live the good life and do one's best. Everything that stressed the miraculous intervention of God in life, and for man's salvation, was queried and then denied; everything that emphasised the vital link between God and man was minimised until it became almost non-existent. Creeds and confessions of faith, the sacraments, and even attendance at all in a place of worship, were all regarded as expedients which had served a useful purpose in the past, while men were ignorant, and had to be more or less frightened into living the good life. They were now no longer necessary. Jesus of Nazareth, far from being the unique Son of God who had come on earth in order to prepare a miraculous way of salvation for men, was but the greatest moral teacher and exemplar of all time--simply greater than all others, not essentially different. The religious motive and the religious background to the good life practically disappeared altogether, and their place was taken by education and a belief in the inevitably good effects of acts of social amelioration. With an air of great patronage and condescension we were told that the magic and the rites and taboos of religion had been more or less necessary in the past, but that now man, in his intelligent and intellectual modern condition, had no need of such things. Indeed they had become insulting. Nothing was necessary save that man should he shown what was good and given instruction concerning it.

Has not that been the popular teaching? The supreme thing has been to live the good life, to be moral. The majority have ceased to attend a place of worship at all, and (alas!) many who do attend, do so, not because they believe it to be essential and vital, but rather out of habit or because they believe vaguely that it is somehow the right thing to do. Religion far from being the mainspring and source of all ideas concerning life and how it should be lived, has become a mere appendage even in the case of many who still adhere to it. Righteousness, or morality, has been exalted to the supreme position, and little is heard of godliness. Like the Pharisees of old, there have been many amongst us who were shocked and scandalised by certain acts of unrighteousness, but who failed to realise that their own self-righteousness denoted an ungodliness which was infinitely more reprehensible in the eyes of God. The order has been reversed: morality has taken precedence over religion, unrighteousness is regarded as a more heinous crime than ungodliness.

But now we must come to the vital question. What has been the result of all this? To what consequences has it led? The answer is to be found in the present state of the world. We were told that man could be trained not to sin. He could be educated into seeing the folly of war. And here we are in the midst of a war. But apart from the war, and prior to it, this teaching had led to the terrible moral muddle that characterised the life of the people of this country and most other countries. The very term "moral" has been evacuated almost entirely of any meaning, and the sins of the past have become "the thing to do" of the present. No one, surely, can deny the statement that, morally and intellectually, the masses of the people have sunk to a lower level than at any time during the past two hundred years, in fact since the evangelical revival of the eighteenth century.

Now, my whole case is that, according to the Bible, that is something which is quite inevitable, something which follows as the night the day. Once the relative positions of religion and morality are reversed from that which we find in our text, the inevitable result is what we find stated in such clear and terrible terms in the remainder of this chapter. Religion must precede morality if morality itself is to survive. Godliness is essential to ethics. Nothing but a belief in God and a desire to glorify Him, based upon our realisation of our utter dependence upon Him and our acceptance of His way of life and salvation in Jesus Christ His Son, can ever lead to a good society. This is not merely a dogmatic statement. It can be proved and demonstrated repeatedly in the history of mankind. As St. Paul reminds us here, it is the essential story of mankind. Observe it in the story of the Children of Israel in the Old Testament. See it again in the history of Greece and Rome. They had exalted moral ideas and fine ethical systems and conceptions of law and justice, but the ultimate downfall of both is to be traced finally to moral degeneracy. And then consider it in the history of this country. Religion and spiritual revival have always led to moral and intellectual awakening and a desire to produce a better society. And conversely, ungodliness has always led to unrighteousness. A slackening in spiritual zeal and fervour, even though the zeal and fervour be transferred to a desire to improve the state of society, has always eventuated ultimately in both moral and intellectual decline. The great periods in the history of this country in every sphere are the Elizabethan, the Puritan and the Victorian. Each followed a striking religious revival. But as religion was allowed to sink into the background, and even into oblivion, and men thought that they could live by morality alone, degeneration set in rapidly. Emil Brunner has said that this is so definite as to be capable of statement as a law of life in which there are distinct steps and stages. He puts it thus: "The feeling for the personal and the human which is the fruit of faith may outlive for a time the death of the roots from which it has grown, but this cannot last very long. As a rule the decay of religion works out in the second generation as moral rigidity, and in the third generation as the breakdown of all morality. Humanity without religion has never been a historical force capable of resistance. Even today, severance from the Christian faith, whenever it has been of some duration, works out in the dehumanization of all human conditions. 'The wine of life has been poured out'; the dregs alone remain."

Here, then, is a fundamental principle which we must grasp firmly before we begin to organise a new state of society and a new world. Religion, a true belief in God in Jesus Christ, is fundamental, vital, essential. Any attempt to organise society without that basis is doomed to failure even as it always has been in the past. The pragmatic test, as we have just seen, demonstrates that abundantly. But we are not left merely in the world of pragmatism. A study of the Bible, indeed a study of man himself in the light of the Bible, furnishes us with many reasons which explain why it must inevitably be the case that to trust to morality alone without religion, or to place morality before religion, leads only to eventual disaster. We must consider some of these reasons.

(i) First of all we note that to do so is an insult to God. We must start with this because here we have the real explanation of all that follows. But even apart from that we must start with this because it is absolute. And we must be very careful always to draw that distinction. Before we begin to think about ourselves and the result in ourselves, before we begin to consider the good of society or anything else, we must start with God and we must start by worshipping God. If we advocate godliness simply because it leads to the true morality, if we commend religion because it leads to the best state of society, then we are again reversing the order actually and insulting God. God must never be regarded as a means to an end; and religion is not to be commended primarily because of certain benefits which follow its practice. And yet one hears statements not at all infrequently which give the impression that religion and the Bible are to be valued solely in terms of England's greatness. That is why the charge of national hypocrisy is so frequently levelled against us by other nations. We tend to believe, and perhaps rightly, that we have been blessed in the past because we have been religious. But when we make use of that fact and advocate religion in order that we may be blessed we are insulting God. The more religious the nation, the more moral and the more dependable and solid is the nation. Hence the temptation to statesmen and leaders to pay lip service to religion, and to believe in its maintenance in a general form. But that is the very opposite of what I would stress, and what is emphasised everywhere in the Bible. God is to be worshipped because He is God, because He is the Creator, because He is the Almighty, because He is the "high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity," because His Name is Holy. And in His presence it is impossible to think of anything else. All thoughts of self and of benefits that may accrue, all ideas concerning the possible results and advantages to ourselves, or to our class or country, are banished. He is supreme and He is alone. To place anything before God is to deny Him, however noble and exalted that thing may be. The results and blessings of salvation, the moral life and the improved state of society--all these things are the consequents of true belief and they must never be allowed to usurp the supreme position. Indeed, as I have said, if we truly worship God and realise His presence, they cannot do so.

This is one of the most subtle dangers that faces us as we try to think out and plan a new state of society for the future. It is a danger which can be seen in the writings of a number of writers to-clay who are concerned about the state of this country. I think in particular of men like Mr. T. S. Eliot and Mr. Middleton Murry. They advocate a religious society and a Christian education--or what the, call such--simply because they have found all else to fail, and because they think that this is more likely to be successful. But they fail to realise that before you can have a Christian society and Christian education you must first of all have Christians. No education or culture, no mode of training, will ever produce Christians and the corresponding morality. To do that we must come face to face with God and see our sin and helpless plight; we must know something about the wrath of God, and repent before Him and then receive His gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ His Son. But that is not mentioned. Men ever desire the benefits of Christianity without paying the price. They need to be reminded again that "God is not mocked," and that even in the name of Christian civilisation He is often grievously insulted. Whatever may follow, God must be worshipped for His own sake because He is God. He demands it and will have it.

(ii) But, secondly, I would show you that to place morality before religion is also to insult man. It is remarkable to note how it invariably happens that when man sets out to exalt himself, he always ends by lowering himself and insulting himself. This is something which we hope to consider again in greater detail. I am anxious to emphasise the principle now. Verse 22 sums it up very perfectly by telling us that "professing themselves to be wise they became fools." Man always feels that God fetters him and refuses to allow him to give free scope to his wonderful powers and capacities. He rebels against God in order to exert himself and to express himself he rebels in the name of freedom, proposing to produce a larger and nobler type of personality. That, as we have seen, has been the real meaning of the revolt against revealed religion during the past hundred years. Ah! how much we have heard about the emancipation of man! Moral man was conceived to be so much higher than religious man. That was why morality was placed before religion. But what are the actual facts? Let me but cite them in order that I may demonstrate that the old rule is still in force, and that man in attempting to elevate himself has simply succeeded in insulting himself.

For one thing, morality is interested in a man's actions rather than in the man himself. At the very outset it hurls that insult at us. I do not pause to emphasise the point that its interest in our very actions is always much more negative than positive, which makes the insult still greater. But regarding it at its very best and highest and at its most positive, nothing is so insulting to personality than to say that its actions alone matter. There is no need to demonstrate this point. We have but to recollect what we think of the kind of person who shows clearly that he is not really interested in us at all, but simply in what we do or what we are--our office or status, or position, or the possibility of our being of some help or value to him. How insulting! But that is precisely the position with respect to morality. It is interested only in our conduct and behaviour. It may argue that as our conduct improves, so we improve. But that does not lessen the insult, for it leaves me, the essential 'I', who I am, still subservient to my conduct. And that is ultimately destructive of personality. How evident that has become in these last few years. We have all become standardised in almost every respect, and there is a monotonous drab sameness about the whole of life. As we have concentrated more and more on conduct and behaviour, on the mere acquisition of knowledge and how we appear before others, not only has variety vanished, but genius and "character" have become rarer and rarer, and true individuality has been lost.

But again, morality is always more interested in man's associations than in man himself. Its interest is in society, or the state, or the group, and its main concern about the individual is simply that he should be brought or made to conform to a common pattern. Its very terms prove that, "state," "society, "social"; those are its words. The individual personality has been ignored and forgotten. Everything is done for the good of the state or of society. Here again the argument is, that as the mass is improved, so will the individual be improved. But that is to insult personality by suggesting that it is merely a speck in a huge mass of humanity. Religion believes in improving society by improving the individuals that compose it. Morality believes in improving the individual by improving the general state. I leave you to decide which really places value on the human personality, on man as such. And the methods employed show this still more clearly. Morality uses compulsion. It legislates and forces men to conform to the general standard. Whether we will or not, we have to do certain things. That this is essential in order to govern a state, I grant freely, but still I argue that it is essentially insulting to personality. Moreover, it is the very antithesis of Christianity, which brings a man to see the rightness of the thing advocated, and creates within him a deep longing and desire to exemplify it in his life. Morality dictates and commands, but as St. Paul tells the Galatians "faith worketh by love."

But above all else, morality insults man by taking no account whatsoever of that which is highest in man, of that which ultimately differentiates man from the animal. I refer to his relationship to God. It deals with him only on the lower planes and forgets that he was made for God. At its best and highest it sets limits to his achievements, and to the possibilities of his nature. It may help to make man a noble and a thinking animal, but it knows nothing of the glorious possibility of man becoming a son of God. It is earthbound and temporal, and entirely ignorant of the delectable mountains and the vision of eternity. And it ultimately fails for that reason. A simple and familiar illustration may help here. A little child is away from home, perhaps even staying with relatives. It becomes homesick and cries for its mother. The friends do their best. They produce toys, they suggest games, they offer sweets and chocolates and everything that they know the child enjoys. But it all avails nothing. Dolls and toys and the rarest delicacies cannot satisfy when a child wants its mother. They are flung contemptuously aside by the young philosopher who realises that, at that point, they are a veritable insult. He needs his mother and nothing else will do. Man in his state of sin does not know what he really needs. But he shows very clearly that the best and highest offers of men cannot satisfy him. Deep within him there is that profound dissatisfaction which can be satisfied by nothing less than God Himself. Failure to realise this is not only inadequate, it is insulting. Man was made for God, and in the image of God, and though he has sinned and fallen and wandered far away, there is still within him that nostalgia which can never be satisfied until he returns home and to his Father.

(iii) But, thirdly, this attempt to give morality priority over religion also fails because it provides no ultimate authority or sanction for man's life. Here we are coming to the realm of the practical application of all we have said hitherto. We are urged to live the good life. But immediately the question arises, "Why should we live the good life?" And, here, face to face with this question of "Why?" this isolation of morality from religion leads again to failure. We can show this along two main lines.

The view which regards morality as an end in itself and which advocates it for its own sake only, bases its answer to this question "Why?" upon the intellect alone. It appeals to our reason and to our understanding. What was formerly regarded as sin it regards as clue to nothing but ignorance or lack of true education. It sets out, therefore, to show and to picture a higher and a better type of life. It outlines its Utopia, in which all people, being taught and educated, will restrain themselves and do their utmost to contribute to the common good. It shows the evil results and consequences of certain actions both to the individual himself, and also to the community at large. But, further, it will have him see that such actions are quite unworthy of him, and that in committing them he is lowering his own standard and being unworthy of his own essential self. That is its method. It teaches man about his own wonderful nature and of how he has developed from the animal. It pleads with him to see that he must now leave the animal behind and rise to the heights of his own development. It then tries to charm him into an acceptance of these views by holding before him pictures of the ideal society. It is essentially an appeal to the intellect, to the reason, to the rational side of man's nature.

But this means that ultimately it is a matter of opinion. It claims that its view is the highest, the best, and also leads to the greatest happiness. But when it meets with those who say that they disagree and that in their view it fails to cater for man's real nature, it has nothing to say by way of reply. And that has been the position increasingly, especially since the last war, with the cult of self-expression becoming stronger and stronger, and ever more popular. Those who belong to this cult have denied that the picture drawn by the moralists is the best and highest. They have regarded it rather as something which fetters and restrains, something therefore which is inimical to the highest interest of the self. Placing happiness and pleasure as the supreme desiderata they have drawn up a scheme for life and for conduct which is the exact opposite. We have no time to consider that now. All I am concerned to show is, that face to face with that challenge any moral system which is not based upon religion has no answer. One opinion is as good as another, and therefore any man can do as he likes. There is no ultimate authority.

But this can be shown also in another way. The basing of the appeal solely upon the intellect and the rational part of man's nature is also doomed to failure because it ignores what is most vital in man. That has been the real fallacy behind most thinking during the past century. Man was regarded as intellect and reason alone. He had but to be told what was right and he would do it. It is extraordinary to note how this view has prevailed in spite of the glaring facts to .the contrary. The possession of intellect does not guarantee a moral life, as the newspapers and the biographies and memoirs constantly testify. An educated and cultured man does not always and inevitably lead a good life. Those who know most about the consequences of certain sins against the body, are often those who fall most frequently into those sins. Why is this? Here the new psychology has certainly given valuable aid, and it is astonishing that its evidence has not finally exploded that view of life which regards man as intellect alone. Within man there are deep primal instincts. He is a creature of desire and lust. His brain is not an independent isolated machine, his will does not exist in a state of complete detachment. These other forces are constantly exerting themselves, and constantly influencing the higher powers. A man therefore may know that a certain course of action is wrong, but that does not matter. He desires that thing, and his desire can be so strong that he can even rationalise it and produce arguments in its favour. But you remember how St. Paul, in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, has put it all so perfectly: "For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but that I hate, that do I.' A view which fails to realise that that is fundamental to human nature is of necessity doomed to failure. Man being what he is needs a higher sanction. Appeals to reason and to the will are not enough. The whole man must be included, and especially the element of desire.

(iv) But, lastly, we must say just a word on the other vital practical aspect of this matter. Having asked the question why one should lead the good life, the further question arises, "How am I to lead the good life?" And here once more we find that morality without religion entirely fails because it provides no power. "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do," says St. Paul. That is the problem. The lack of power, the failure to do what we know we ought to do or what we would like to do, and the corresponding failure not to do what we know to be wrong. Mankind needs not only knowledge of the truth but, still more, power. Here morality fails, for it leaves the problem in our hands. We have to do everything. But, as we have just seen, that, in a sense, is the whole of our problem. We cannot. We fail. Ultimately moral systems only appeal to and help a certain type of person, If We are what is called "naturally good" and naturally interested in such things, they may help us much and encourage us. And when I say "naturally good" I mean good in the sight of man, not of God, good in the sense of not being guilty of certain sins, not good in the sense of the biblical terms righteous and holy. Such people are helped by moral systems. But what of those who are not constituted in that way? What of those who are natural rebels, those who are more dynamic and full of life? Those to whom wrong and evil come more easily and naturally than good? Clearly morality cannot help, for it leaves us precisely and exactly what and where we were. It provides us with no power to restrain ourselves from sin, for its arguments can be easily brushed aside. It provides no power to restore us when we have fallen into sin. It leaves us as condemned failures and, indeed, makes us feel hopeless. It reminds us that we have failed, that we have been defeated, that we have not maintained the standard. And even if it appeals to us to try again it really condemns us while so doing and dooms us to failure. For it still leaves the problem to us. It cannot help us. It has no power to give us. And having failed once, we argue, we are likely to fail again. Why try, therefore? Let us give in and give up and abandon ourselves to our fate. And alas! how many have done so and for that very reason?

And in the same way it has no enabling power to give us. It provides a standard, but it does not help us to attain unto it. It is really nothing but good advice. It gives no power.

We have seen, therefore, that it fails in every respect, theoretical and practical. How tragic it is that mankind should so long have been guilty of this foolish error of reversing the true order of religion and morality! For once they are placed in their right positions the situation is entirely changed. In precisely the same way as morality alone fails, the Gospel of Christ succeeds. It starts with God and exists to glorify His holy Name. It restores man into the right relationship to Him, reconciling him to God through the blood of Christ. It tells man that he is more important than his own actions or his environment, and that when he is put right, he must then proceed to put them right. It caters for the whole man, body, soul, and spirit, intellect, desire and will, by giving him the most exalted view of all, and filling him with a passion and a desire to live the good life in order to express his gratitude to God for His amazing love. And it provides him with power. In the depth of his shame and misery as the result of his sin and failure, it restores him by assuring him that Christ has died for him and his sins, and that God has forgiven him. It calls him to a new life and a new start, promising him power that will overcome sin and temptation, and will at the same time enable him to live the life he believes and knows he ought to live.

There, and there alone, lies the only hope for men and for the world. Everything else has been tried and has failed. Ungodliness is the greatest and the central sin. It is the cause of all our other troubles. Men must return to God and start with Him. And, God be praised, the way for them to do so is still wide open in "Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

THE NATURE OF SIN

ROMANS 1. 18, 28 and 32

18. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

28. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

32. "Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

I select these three particular verses from this section in order that we may consider the whole question of sin, at least as to its essential nature. We are driven to this in our study of this section by a kind of logical necessity. We have seen that man by nature is opposed to God and not a being who desires God. And we have seen that mere proposals and schemes for moral reform are not sufficient to deal with the problem of mankind. Why is this? What is it in human nature that accounts for this? These questions cannot be raised without our finding ourselves at once face to face with the doctrine of sin.

Of this doctrine we can safely say that it is one of the most hotly contested of all the doctrines. This is not at all surprising, for it is in many ways the very crux of the whole problem of man. There is certainly no subject which calls, and has called, forth so much scorn and sarcasm and derision. There has been no doctrine which has been so ridiculed. There is none which calls forth such passion and hatred. That, I say, is not at all surprising, for at any rate two very definite reasons.. One is that if the Christian doctrine of sin is right and true, then the very basis of the modern doctrine of man is entirely destroyed. And in the same way this doctrine of sin is the essential postulate which leads to and demands the whole scheme of miraculous and supernatural salvation which is outlined in the Bible. It is not surprising, therefore, that the battle has been severest and hottest just at this point.

Here again, as we consider this matter, we find exactly, and precisely as we have done on former occasions, that the movement of thought has followed certain definite steps. And again as before, the main thing we notice is that the idea concerning sin which has been most popular during the past hundred years has been the exact opposite of that which obtained previously. Whatever else we may say about these modern ideas, we have to grant that they are consistent with each other. They all belong to a definite Pattern and are parts of a general scheme.

The central idea is the profound change in the View of man as a being, his nature, his origin, his development, etc. A modern writer put all this perfectly in one phrase when he said that the future historians of the past hundred years would probably not fail to observe that the decline, and the disappearance, of the doctrine of sin followed a parallel course to the doctrine of